#anyways behold my two month long project

[normal-cactus1221]

hahaha look guys! it’s a bead-le!!!! ahahahahhahaahahahaha

[madstronaut]

it is currently madstro'clock and it is FaFiCoWriYear in this house

the original FaFiCoWriMo post feels too long to keep reblogging but I'm choking laughing right now because I decided to link it and this image above is what I see - FUCK IT WE BALL 😂😂😂😂😂😂 (truly my whole tumblr vibe)

me: gonna plug away at commenting on all the fics I’ve read lately that I love hmm should take a break 

also me: *takes break by looking for other fics to read*

I was completely taken off-guard by stumbling on this fic while mindlessly scrolling on tumblr and having it show up in my recs, so yes i live-blogged by reading even though I HAVE SO MANY OTHER DRAFTS OPEN BUT IT'S COS I END UP RE-READING CERTAIN FICS OVER AND OVER AND I KEEP FINDING NEW COMMENTS TO WRITE IM STILL THINKNIG OF COMMENTS I MISSED ON FICS I ALREADY COMMENTED ON BUT ANYWAY AHEM- 

without further ado, pls stay for the rambly thoughts, then flee in fright because of the increasing levels of unhinged commentar-

Reading: Touch-starved Nikto fic series by @keysorsomething

- "his current running theory was that you must have some form of brain damage. Perhaps you were dropped as a baby."

hehehehehehehe i swear nikto writers capture what i think would be his sense of humor with bullseye accuracy imho

- “His bright blue eyes broke through the dim lighting as if they were backlit by two LED bulbs in his skull.”

“You crack your eye open, meeting his piercing blue stare, like hot water down the back of your shirt.”

OMG TRULY THIS ENCAPSULATES THE EXPERIENCES OF BEHOLDING HIS EYES/WHAT I IMAGINE EYE CONTACT WITH NIKTO IS LIKE???

- “Maybe you could weird him out enough for him to leave you be..?”

literally held my breath reading the next few paragraphs til I read “He’s very gentle”

I don’t know what exactly it is about gentle touch but it can cut through people’s armor & walls like butter IRL and in fic and I JUST *am exploding, cannot type further*

- “His eyes looked like he was blinking on occasion, which was actually mildly upsetting because there goes your Christmas present for him.”

honestly what a thoughtful gift for the reader to get him eyedrops lmao *tell me u have a crush without telling me u have a crush, oh nothing just got you an extremely specific gift cos I noticed small details about you*

- “Did this count at fraternization?”

LMAO READER THIS MADE ME CRY LAUGHING “Im SORRy i woNT TOUCH HIM WITH TWO FINGERS AGAIN, IM SORRY I MISSED IT IN MY CONTRACT COS I WAS TOO BUSY STARING AT ALL THE $$$$-

- “I wanna know what’s up-” you pause “-man,” you tack it on, but quickly feel like you shouldn’t have. Who the fuck calls a guy like this man?

omg I am alr in love i fucking looooove awkward!readers

- trope alert trope alert trope alert STORAGE CLOSET READER? REALLY? (yes please god yes im so happy rn)

i would like to kneel before this all-powerful goofy ass awkward adorable reader who has nikto scared in a closet looking for ways out 

- “Not like that,” You correct, and he just eyes you more confusedly. “I mean, not yet..? Look,” You sigh,”

the “i mean, not yet” - like omg nikto if i was in ur shoes hearing this i would have to suppress the strong urge to immediately make out and probably fail to stopper the hearts exploding from my body (and ofc hide the involuntary boner popping maybe hello?)

- ““See you tonight,” Klaus mocks.”

i pity these fools, reader has just tamed nikto, i would beat all their asses immediately singlehandedly from the sheer high and power trip i would be on

- if someone referred to me as ‘one of the three snoopiest bitches on base’ i would get it tattooed on my collarbones probably

- ‘being called into König’s office and being scolded about fraternizing’ - thisisaniktoficstopthirstingforkonigthisisaniktoficstopthirstingforkonigthisisaniktoficstopthirstingforkonigthisisaniktoficstopthirstingforkonigthisisaniktoficstopthirstingforkonigthisisaniktoficstopthirstingforkonigthisisaniktoficstopthirstingforkonig

- ‘His guns are neatly lined up against the wall, biggest to smallest.’

CUTECUTECUTECUTECUTECUTE omg i just know he prob has nicknames for them too

- ““Нет,” He replies firmly. He’s in more comfortable clothes, something you’ve never seen before.”

i am probably dating myself here but at the tight t-shirt and sweats description all i hear is BOWCHICKAWOWOWOWWWWW

- “Your eyes stay on him intensely as he lays down in the bed, sliding under the covers. “You are here to help us sleep,”

ok all my horniness left me (ok almost all not all of it of course not i would die) and i just felt so tender and awwwwwwww of it all, esp. the reader comparing his grip to a child with their lovie :( 

- “You see the faint, deep-brown shaping of his brows, his long eyelashes, the scar that covers the right side, but most importantly, the pale gleam of his skin in the little light.

He had washed the eyeblack off. And he had done it just for you.”

I am left speechless here; the buildup to this scene is storytelling and climactic perfection in my opinion

then i clicked on next part and it is titled “caught” and i screamed out loud lol

- “You dare to even think you want the world to melt away, for time to be this moment and this moment alone, always and forever, but should you really let him boss you around like that?”

looooooooove, totally captures that feeling when u have one of those 'time stands still/you wished time stood still' moments IRL

also YES READER WITH A SPINE/BRAIN IS ALSO MY OTHER KINK

- also as much as ive somehow developed a bizarrely unquenchable thirst for graves (do not @ me, i know, i have problems and I love it) canon graves is exactly how id imagine he’d be like in this fic esp with the constant mansplaining

- "How do you deny a masked man who’s speaking in his mother tongue?"

YOU CANT. YOU JUST CAN’T! IT’S A LAW OF NATURE. IT IS SCIENTIFIC FACT. IT IS IRREFUTABLE. IT IS ABSOLUTE TRUTH. IT IS DIVINE DOGMA. IN THIS ESSAY I WILL-

- “When you look into his eyes, you feel like he wants nothing more than to touch you, and you feel he agrees that this moment is ever so precious. But he doesn’t want to touch you. Perhaps he’s afraid, or perhaps he doesn’t like his face being touched, so he won’t touch yours. The Golden Rule and all that.”

“It’s all the best thing to ever happen in this place, and you have a feeling it’s the best thing to have ever happened to him.”

““Nikto?” You ask, voice soft and wavering, like if you speak too loud you’ll create a rip in space-time and it will have never happened.”

again i feel like someone has snipershot me to the heart with tenderness, everything about this fic and the premise just speaks to a core desire i have to create moments like this, to bypass someone’s armor and touch their heart, and be a source of healing for hurt just by the gift of our mere presence and vice versa - and have this moment and memory become an indescribable source of light and strength in dark and dreary times to be taken out and relived over and over again as needed (or is it just me that does this lol idk)  

fanfic writers never change and keep creating pls <3 ur words create worlds that inspire and brighten our IRL world <3

- i am deeply moved by the indescribable tenderness of nikto waking reader up by softly patting their cheek - this man known and infamous for his harshness and aggression - UNF

-  “As always, they are an icy blue that doesn’t match the feeling of having them on you at all. But by now they feel so much cooler than before, like a warm hug or a heated blanket instead of a hot iron.”

if you’ve known any blue-eyed folx up close i have most def seen their eye color change with emotions, sooo fascinating and hot

- ummmmm my jaw fucking dropped when i realized he leaned in…TO KISS HER? I THOUGHT HE WAS ALSO GONNA REST HIS EYES AND JUST SLEEP FOR A BIT NEXT TO HER? OMG the emotional rOLLERCOASTER THIS STORY HAS TAKEN ME ON *running to download it as we speak*

- BUT aHHHH HTHE ACTUAL SCREAM WHEN READER RUNS INTO KONIG

- omg when reader starting sniffling i just want to hug her and also go back in the room and yell at konig OMG YOU MADE OUR HIGHLY TRAINED PMC-LEVEL KILLER READER CINNAMON ROLL CRY I WILL HURT YOU SIR IDK HOW COS IM LIKE 5’2 BUT IF I HAVE TO CLIMB U LIKE A TREE TO DO SO I WILL TO GET IN YOUR FACE-

- “Who the hell can you trust? Both not to talk, but also with Nikto.” - ends up being Velikan meanwhile me busy shredding the post-it behind my back hoping/suggesting it’s dmitry bale and trying not to cry- (ignore me dmitry is my current hyper fixation)

- i wont lie i am both so heart warmed by how tender and sweet reader is for being so good at reading body language and also laughing my ass off at her having this kinda complicated conversation with velikan who does not talk, mostly growls also while typing this his name autocorrected to pelican and i cannot stop fucking laughing

- omg DMITRY REFERENCE I SCREAMED OUT LOUD (it’s like 1130pm where i am, sorry to my apt neighbors)

- also omg i am crying at this allegiance letter with sputnik, i love both how thoughtful and it is and how it highlights each member and their personality - and that the return of sputnik returned some good memories back to nikto <3, shoutout to any PTSD folx who also deal with blankouts, flashbacks, and having good memory recall be a total struggle street - i think i would openly sob if someone did for me the emotional equivalent of what velikan (and allegiance and by extension reader) did for nikto here with sputnik <3 (and now im remembering IRL times people have done this for me and now im crying omg THE POWER OF FANFIC Y’ALL)

-AH YEGOR CAMEO? MY FAVORITE UKRAINIAN OPERATOR IN ALL OF COD? (madstro, there’s only one ukrainian operat-SHUT UP I SAID MY FAVORITE UKRAINIAN OPERATOR SHOWED UP)

- also i love how Velikan is written here - “This motherfucker was going to get him put on Fatal Attractions.” i would chill and fuck with him and also probably kill for him hahaha jk or am i-

- very into this irresponsible driver yet simultaneously responsible dog dad rodion rn

- also love the small touch of velikan removing his mask to look yegor in the eye asking if krueger is dead or not

the absolute ride this fic took me on???? incredible incredible incredible this is going in my list of top favorite COD fics @keysorsomething and if i could boost this in the nikto fics tag i would but i'll mostly just be salivating here in the corner over this fic in the meantime, tyvm <3

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond!: The Game!

Hey, all! As part of an effort to further potential with my Tumblr project, I have a huge announcement to make for you all. Introducing...

An official game adaptation of Sonic: Into, Across and Beyond!, and boy, will it be a treat to behold, huh?

The game has started development today, and you'll be able to look forward to:

Each of the stories in gameplay form

Over 20 playable characters

Plenty of cutscenes to enjoy

Interactive environments to explore

Epic boss encounters with many rogues from the Sonic multiverse

And so much more!

I really hope you're all looking forward to-!

OMT!Tails: Woah woah woah! Hang on a moment.

Huh?

OMT!Tails walks into frame.

OMT!Tails: The story's barely 6 months old yet, and you're seriously pitching a game for it?

Ah, right. I forgot.

CR!Sonic and CR!Sally show up.

CR!Sonic: You okay, Tails?

OMT!Tails: You guys might want to look at this.

CR!Sally: A video game of all our endeavours? Seriously?

CR!Sonic: Looks like it. How would it even work out, though?

OMT!Tails: I doubt it'd ever see completion, though. I mean, over 6 quests to fill out into gameplay form? That'd take AGES, and it's likely going to risk cancellation partway through the process.

CR!Sonic: Yeah, you got a good point there, kid. I mean, can't people just enjoy the stories as they are? They're not meant to be "played".

OMT!Tails: Yeah, exactly. Especially after what I've been through...

CR!Sally: I get you, Tails...

CR!Sonic: Into, Across and Beyond! is meant to be a story project for free and for fun! Pico doesn't have the time or energy to dedicate part of his life to making a game. I bet those children and hate band-wagoners on Twitter would just jump at any opportunity to hate on it for petty reasons. And that's why they have so much-!

D-Sides Mighty enters.

D-Sides Mighty: What's going on here?

OMT!Tails: Oh! Hey, Mighty.

D-Sides Mighty: A game, huh? Don't people have enough Sonic fan-games to play?

CR!Sonic: That's what I've been trying to get at, bud. I mean, the story here on Tumblr's satisfactory enough.

OMT!Tails: Wait, "Tumblr"?

CR!Sonic: Hmm?

OMT!Tails: I thought it was called "Tumblelogs".

CR!Sonic: It was! Well, used to, anyway. I'm guessing it's still called that in your dimension?

OMT!Tails: Mhm.

D-Sides Mighty: Yeah, we don't need to go for a game of this, considering the Spider-Verse IP is copyrighted.

OMT!Tails: Hmm... Give me just a moment!

OMT!Tails spins around the lower text, tweaking it a bit.

OMT!Tails: There! Better?

CR!Sally: Much better! Well done, Tails!

D-Sides Mighty: Well, that's one situation we can finally close the book on, wouldn't you say?

CR!Sonic: Yep. Come on, Sal. Let's head back now.

CR!Sally: Good idea, Sonic.

The couple headed off.

D-Sides Mighty: Wanna go grab a bite at Burger Monarchy, Tails?

OMT!Tails: Sure thing!

They left too.

Well, that's that, then. You're NOT getting that game. In the end, it was a cleverly-veiled April Fools' gag!

Happy April Fools' Day, folks! You've got all there is so far of the story to enjoy here from the comfort of Tumblr. Plus, I've been generous enough with each post to compile links to every post for this project on a Master Post that you're more than welcome to view on my profile. Well, see you around in the next post!

...

...

...

...

???: It's all the same for your heroic delusions. That is, until you finally meet ME. I already won because I was two steps ahead and found a way to tap into what I desire most. You think a hero of Mobius, let alone a type of Sonic, always has a chance against Dr. Eggman? HA! Don't make me laugh. I ripped that hope to pieces for my Sonic long ago. And soon, with the power of MY Chaos Emeralds, all other universes will follow... Now, you'll all see how big a man I can be. It's time to say goodbye to humanity, heroes...

???: And hello... to the NEW NORM! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The reveal of the final main antagonist... coming soon.

[fourseasonsfigs]

Building Block Figs - Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake (Part One)

Figthusiast friends, it's time for a little something different! Today we have the first of a series of building block Word of Honor fig sets.

I first saw these sets earlier this year when I was browsing for figs on Xianyu, my favorite secondary market app. I stopped my scrolling in total surprise when I first saw a picture, and was like wait...are these actually Lego-type Word of Honor figs??? I zoomed in, and lo and behold, they sure were.

I absolutely loved Legos when I was a kid. My family didn't have enough money to be able to buy much in the way of expensive toys, but I did save up my babysitting money so I could buy a few of them myself. It took a long time at $1.50 an hour!

So, of course when I saw these, the nostalgia factor combined with my fandom fig obsession made these a must buy.

Today's fig is that the first set I found. It's called (via MTL) "Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake", which I must congratulate for being extremely descriptive and 100% accurate.

As soon as I saw this, I did an immediate search on Taobao and Weidian to see if I could just buy the set vs. pick it up off Xianyu. For two reasons. One, I can buy directly off Taobao (vs using a third party purchase agent for Xianyu), and two, I was hoping there was more in the series than this one figure. However, they were no longer being sold on either platform, so Xianyu it was.

I browsed around and was lucky enough to find a seller on Xianyu that did, in fact, have other sets in the series, and who was clearing them all out, brand new and unopened. She noted that she was still a fan, she just had never had the time to put these together and realized now with her workload she probably never would. I bought all three of her sets, including this one, for about $37 total, which is about half off the retail of 179 yuan per set they originally went for (about $25 each). I thought this was a great deal considering the actual costs of specialized Lego sets these days, even non-branded building block sets.

As far as I can tell, there are four big sets that are famous scenes from the show, and three small sets that are just our two favorite leads only. I was able to buy the three big scenes off that one person, and one of the set of figs-only, but I'm still missing some (too many!). I keep checking Xianyu. I was actually surprised to see the other day there was another set I didn't know existed - but sadly it ended up being sold out. I'll keep looking.

Anyway!

The Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake is a 1,236 piece set, measures 8.4 x 16.8 x 12.4 cm, and it's rated about 8 hours to complete. It's the fastest of the big sets (the remainder of which are rated 10, 10, and 11 hours respectively). In retrospect, should I have started with the smaller figs-only set (rated 2 hours)? Probably. But I was just so charmed by this set, and I only have one lake fig set to date, so this seemed like something very fun. Plus, as you will hear about later, I did not fully understand the specs until well after I was almost done assembling the very last set.

I had a surgical procedure that was scheduled this month (and is why I've been out of commission for a while), and I had specially saved up these sets as fun projects to make while I was recovering. I figured it would be nice to have something to look forward to.

So, post surgery, once I felt up to sitting up, I made myself a comfy little nest and settled in with my little boxes of treasures.

This is the pic from the seller - you would never know these were Word of Honor sets. They're just generic boxes from the manufacturer, with a small sticker on the top to indicate what set it is, along with a QR code.

I excitedly opened up the box, to find a bag o'bricks, a small black plastic piece and another sticker with QR code.

It turns out the little black plastic piece is a super handy little tool to quickly and easily break assembled bricks apart. Which is great if you accidentally assemble any steps incorrectly, as I would soon find out.

The QR code was for the directions, which were, in a quantum technological leap forward from my admittedly decades ago Lego experiences, online and fully 3-dimensional.

Pretty cute! I decided to go in order, and indeed start with the simple looking raft.

As a side note, I will tell you that I started this completely sure I was going to be able to assemble this set in an afternoon. I had somehow completely missed the MTL for the estimated assembly time until literally just now, as I was translating pics for this blog post. The set seemed fairly small in the picture, and while it has indeed been decades since I put together a Lego set, I'm (literally) an old hand at it. I felt extremely confident. Overconfident, you might say, given that my exact mental words to myself as I clicked on the raft image was, I'm gonna knock this thing out in no time.

Doesn't look like much, does it?

I figured that before I did anything else, I would sort by colors and shapes, so when I was ready to get started, I could move really fast. So I sorted. And sorted. And sorted some more. The bag doesn't look like a lot of bricks, but let me tell you, there were a LOT (1,236, which once again, I only realized until I was researching for this very blog post). Unlike Legos, these were all thin single-brick height, so there were no 4x4x4 type bricks, for example. It made it easier to sort, but as I was sorting (and sorting some more), I realized that it might take a lot of building to get significant height going.

Eventually, after about an hour, I got them all sorted, and felt very accomplished, if a bit tired. I took a little nap, and then settled back into my crafting nest, and then got ready to, and I quote myself once again, bang this sucker out.

The directions started with an image of the final product, which was helpful.

I will say the online direction interface was pretty amazing. I could zoom in, spin around, go upside down, view it any which way I wanted to by pinching and pulling at my phone's screen. It was fantastic, and certainly made it much easier. That little circle on the right side is the "next direction" button, and helpfully the number in the circle tells you how many steps you have left. There were 34 steps in this raft, and you can tell by the number here I'm not too far along.

Here's a little further as I gamely plug along. I got momentarily confused early on by the colors - there's a dark blue, a medium blue, and a light blue, and I had started assembling the raft with medium blue instead of dark blue. I got to figure out how useful that brick de-assembler was real fast, let me tell you. I also started screenshotting and translating the colors until I felt I had a good handle on what exact colors I should be picking.

You can see here how I can zoom in to figure out exactly where to place the bricks. You can't tell by the screenshot, but the bricks you are laying in each particular step blink, and are outlined in dark black like you see in the shot above. It's very handy.

I got into a groove pretty quick. For each step, I'd count and select the bricks shown in the little legend at the bottom, and put them in a little pile next to me. I did this to make sure I used up all the bricks each layer, as early on I was just following the directions and not realizing that some steps you had to put the brick underneath other ones, which would not be visible on the blinking screen unless I pinched and pulled the model to flip it around on the screen. If I got to the end of the step and still had bricks left, I knew one (or more) were hiding, and I could rotate the image around until I found where they should go. Yes, I did learn this the hard way, naturally.

After a good long time, I finally finished the raft! I will say, I was a bit puzzled that the raft is green and blue, as we well know the raft in the show is just bamboo.

Did I re-watch the scene just to make triple sure? I sure did!

So there's actually two rafts, this simple one here in the foreground, and then the bigger, sturdier raft there behind the boat. It's this first raft that this set is capturing, and more or less this moment, if not at such an acute angle.

I may actually rearrange the figures to be in this particular configuration later. Stay tuned!

It turns out that the raft is these colors because (now that I've put a lot of them together) the company doesn't appear to make many brick colors. The blues are unusual in the sense there are actually three different shades. The red bricks I have have only ever been one fire engine red color, and the brown bricks only one medium brown. So, rather than make the raft uniformly all brown, they made it colorful with the blue and green, perhaps to simulate the water. I admire the colorful nature of it, but I have to say, I'm contemplating re-doing the raft when I finish all the kits. Each kit has leftover bricks, and I seem to have a lot of brown bricks left over. I think I'm going to try remaking this with a brown raft base and black for the lines instead, with some blue and more of the transparent bricks to simulate water. Stay tuned for that, too!

So, by the time I finished the raft, I was beat. Super tired, and surprised it took as long as it did. BUT, I reasoned it only made sense since it was the very first piece I did, so naturally it would take longer than most. It was time to sleep.

The next day, I woke up bright and early, on a mission. On to Wen Kexing!

I started confident (confidence is never my problem, unfortunately, but it is sometimes A problem) that now that I had experience, I could in fact, bust this bad boy out.

I was merrily assembling away, and I happened to take a closer look at the directions - specifically, the little number in the bottom circle.

I don't know if you can see this number, but it is two of Gong Jun's favorite number 88. That's right, EIGHTY-EIGHT. I was like, what?!? How many was there in this figure? I've been going for a while (answer, as I scrolled back through the directions, is 111).

Remember how I said that these are all single-ply building bricks? Yep. Takes a bunch to turn them into a tall, yet humble philanthropist. Well, the only way out is through, right?

The directions kept having me assembling parts, and then having me set them aside for later. It looked nothing like a mild and gentle scholar, but I've found that, similar to life and perhaps also Ikea assembly instructions, sometimes you just have forge ahead and take it on faith that things are gonna work out.

Ah ha! Suddenly it IS starting to make a little sense. I recognize that costume!

(Sidebar to say, we all recognize this costume! And we know this gorgeous pale green outer robe is not, in fact, blue. I was slightly taken aback by this until I realized later the thing about the factory's lack of colors. The bright, intense grass green of the only green option (other than neon green, ahahaha) would have been even less suitable for our peacock's fine feathers, so actually this is a very good choice).

MAY I also note that number in the bottom right hand circle is 55. FIFTY-FIVE.

I'm gonna fast forward through the naps and the breaks, and just take one quick other picture break:

I just about cheered when I got to this point! I was like, oh there he is! You can also tell by the quality of light and the shadows that it was late at night at this point. On a different day.

Anyway, we arrive at the glorious conclusion:

Hooray! I was so happy and tickled at this point. I was just so charmed by him. His little rosy cheeks, his side wispies on his hair, the motion of him standing on one foot. The back of his hair is fantastic too, although you can't see it here yet.

On to our beloved A-Xu...

May I just say how DELIGHTED I am that this is indeed hobo-Xu? His little beard and goatee combo in brick form just made me giggle.

First thing, I checked to see how many steps our reclusive hobo had. 115, which I appreciated for Zhang Zhehan's birthday kadian, if nothing else.

You can tell by the colors and shadows that once again this is a different evening, here on step 77 and about to graduate to step 76:

Once again it looked pretty unrecognizable, except that now I had done one fig, I was starting to understand kind of where they were going.

Plus, Lao Wen got to watch this time. In the daytime, as you can tell by the nice bright light.

Annnd it's night time again. Ahahahaha, I love this fig! I really like how they did his bangs. You can see here too some of his glorious black hair streaming out behind him.

By the way, at this point the tips of my fingers were quite sore in a stingy kind of oversensitive way. Sadly, typing away at a keyboard all the time (also for decades!) at my desk job has in no way toughened up my fingers. I did not think snapping bricks into place and pushing down on them to squeeze them tightly together would tax them so much. Sitting here typing this, actually, my fingers are still sore (I am admittedly working my way though the last set, the 11 hour one).

It's yet another (different) evening, and at last, A-Xu is here! I was so happy to get to this point!

Annnnd I'm out of picture slots to do the full beauty 360 degree spin of these two. Sorry to make you wait (although you may be tired of such a massive post already!), but come back tomorrow for Part Two!

Material: Plastic building bricks

Fig Count: 500 (I'm gonna wait to count these until tomorrow)

Scene Count: 32 (same)

Rating: Lots of fun, actually. I'll give the in-depth low-down tomorrow!

[link to the Master Post Index]

[rootvegetableboy]

cm dev log #11 - september 2024

hi everyone! i hope you all had a fabulous september. i’m posting this two days earlier than normal because i’m getting top surgery tomorrow (yahoo!!!) and i expect to not have much energy on the 1st. i’ve had a pretty busy month with personal life/surgery prep things so this dev log is going to be fairly light on actual game content; instead, i’ve prepared some concept art i thought you all might be interested in!

CHARACTER SKETCHES!

a lot of what i worked on this month was stuff that i can’t show you: namely the script, the story’s outline, this world’s timeline, figuring out emotional beats & thematic through lines, etc. but i also did some character sketches: behold, These Guys!

alda is the player character, which you may have already gleaned if you’re a Project CM Certified Lorehound. also depicted here are thea and lyle; thea is a fat lesbian with a huge sword that can & will kick your ass. lyle is thea’s best friend/resident pretty boy and is the #1 women’s wrongs supporter. he’s extremely emotional, chaotic, and he always wants to see the best in people; thea is a lot more restrained, logical, and direct.

i love them all a lot. i wanted to have digitally drawn portraits of all three of them ready for this dev log, but my arm started cramping up, so i only have thea’s… anyway, i’m really excited for you to meet them :)

ENEMY SKETCHES!

i only have two enemies in the game right now, but i’ve been cooking up a lot of other guys to fight! here are some regular-tier (not mini/bosses) enemy concepts that i’ve been playing around with.

i’ve also been sketching out a particular boss idea… not much to say here lest i say a little too much, or lest i end up deciding to change something down the line. but i am very excited for you all to meet her, as well >:)

UI… SKETCH…ES?

this is probably only exciting to me, because no casual player should be paying much attention to the layout of the user interface. long-time followers of my development logs may recall that i have a pretty unique save/load system in place for this game; i’ve been sketching out different ideas for how i want it to look on paper, because it’s much less time consuming to do a little drawing as opposed to spending two hours coding something only to realize it doesn’t even look that good.

actually, this sketch harkens back to a drawing i did over a year ago, when i was first starting to conceptualize how i wanted the game to look:

things have turned out pretty different from the initial concept i had in mind while drawing this, but it’s still really beautiful, so i’m glad i’ll still be able to use the basic layout in some way!

that’s all i have for this log. i’ll see you all in november for my one year anniversary of development <3 i'm so excited for this little project's birthday!

see you then!

[thunderblessedhero]

HOW ARE YOU ALL ALIVE???

N: Hoooo boy. You all… are probably in severe need of a recap. A lot has happened in the last… what, two hours? And even before that…

August: okay but I get to do the recap cause I was in the middle of it all!

Blake: hey, hey, hold on- I was missing for well over a month and presumed DEAD! I probably have like, a billion questions to answer, let me do it-

Hugh: Oh my god, we can ALL do the recap together, you idiots. We all kinda have our own piece of the story to tell, anyways.

N: Right, right, so where do I start… Well, a few days ago, I managed to find Zekrom again. After seeing what happened in Opelucid, we both decided it was time to end Team Plasma once and for all.

August: and while N was busy tracking them down, Hugh and I were following their trail! basically, after a LONG week of traveling, we made it to Humilau City and found their frigate hidden close by. Cheren, Hugh and I raided it, hoping to dismantle whatever super weapon they’d used to freeze Opelucid… but at one point we got chased off. except for me! I stowed away to find out where they were going. I told Hugh to rendezvous with Cheren and these ex-Team Plasma guys who were also there hoping to destroy the weapon at the giant chasm. also, their super weapon was Kyurem btw- from what Drayden told me, its the third piece of the original dragon. yknow, the thing Reshiram and Zekrom used to be a part of. basically its the husk that was left over after they split… and the DNA splicers- the artifact that Team Plasma stole and modified- could be used to fuse them all back together.

Hugh: The frigate landed, and while August went after Ghetsis and Kyurem, I raided the ship in search of my little sister’s stolen Purrloin. I… found it, but it’s a Liepard now and doesn’t recognize me. But… I’ll worry about all that later.

August: while I was fighting Ghetsis, N and Zekrom came flying in seconds before it tried to kill me.

N: Zekrom had picked up on Kyurem’s pain and tracked it- that’s how we managed to get there, in the nick of time no less. But… I wasn’t prepared for what Ghetsis- my… father, had planned. He used the DNA splicers to fuse Zekrom and Kyurem…

August: I tried to defeat it, but the thing was too strong. we were seconds away from losing when- lo and behold- RESHIRAM decided to show up to the party

Blake: uh huh, so basically, I didn’t die, which is good! Plasma just faked it to make an example out of me- originally I think they… were going to genuinely kill me, but Colress convinced Ghetsis I could still be useful in helping them find Reshiram.

Blake: they, uh… I’m not sure what they used to make that video look legit, but I have my suspicions. as far as I’m aware, they still have Nox, whose illusions are close to perfect, so- that’s my guess, at least. I just… really hope he survived that hit.

N: ….

Blake: …anyways, while I was being held captive that Colress freak ran some experiments on me. I lied and told them I couldn’t call Reshiram to my side on a whim, so he just opted to experiment on my chosen abilities to try and make me summon it.

Blake: it was… pretty messed up, not gonna lie. I’m not gonna go into detail about it. but it did help me tap into some of my powers. I can summon fire in my hand now, but more importantly, I learned to communicate with Reshiram across long distances via telepathy- not that I told any of this to Colress, of course. so then began me and Reshi’s silent planning- I told him to keep his distance until the time was right. eventually, I learned about the Kyurem project, and what they were planning to do once they got their hands on Reshi.

Blake: when the frigate landed in the giant chasm, I had NO idea August was even on board or planning to take on Ghetsis. my plan was to let Kyurem start its little region-freezing spree, wait until it needed a moment to recharge and catch its breath, then swoop in on Reshi while it was weakened and take Ghetsis out.

Blake: but as you can probably tell, that… didn’t end up being what happened. I heard the guards shout something about seeing Zekrom fly in after them, so Reshi and I jumped into action. It… it was rash and stupid, I know, but ever since I learned about N being back in Unova I’ve been worrying myself sick thinking about what might happen if Ghetsis caught word. of what he might do to him.

Blake: I managed to stun Black Kyurem, but not for long. it… well, the moment I arrived Ghetsis was quick to finish what he started.

August: Kyurem absorbed Reshiram, too, and now…

N: The original dragon is off on a violent rampage around Unova.

Hugh: Yeah, I got there just in time to see that monstrosity blow a hole in the chasm and trap Ghetsis under a pile of boulders. It’s not following his command anymore, by the looks of it, but it’s definitely not on our side either.

Blake: it was like the dragons were all struggling for control in one body…

N: And now its off in the far north of the region, flattening mountain ranges- thankfully there’s not a lot of civilization out there, but its only a matter of time before it reaches a city or town.

August: after everything ended, Keldeo found me again and said he knows someone who might be able to help. and like, we need all the help we can get obviously, so now we’re following him to wherever this backup of his is.

August: aaand now you’re all caught up! here’s to hoping whatever Keldeo wants to show us can help us split the dragons again. the DNA splicers were destroyed with Ghetsis, so… this could be our only hope…

[rexc0re]

Gen Loss: The Unofficial Files

File Two: Locating the Hivemind

- UF!Ranboo

A/N: HELLO AND WELCOME TO FILE TWO! first of all id like to say sorry this has been so delayed cuase things going on in my life and writing was not my main focus and this has been on the back burner of being finished for the longest time. Blah blah blah moving on let’s get onto the story no more ranting smile

Summary: College student Ranboo has found some old tapes in the floorboard of his apartment. Over the course of a year we follow along with his discoveries of a organization that isn’t all that it seems…

Warnings: None

< A CLICK, FOLLOWED BY THE ROLLING OF A TAPE>

[RANBOO CLEARS HIS THROAT, THE DISTANT SHUFFLING OF LEAVES IS HEARD]

Ranboo: March 16, 1990. 12:35 pm, finding out the truth File two side a.

Ranboo: Welcome back! lovely..listener?……i don’t even know if anyone’s going to listen to these what am I doing..

[RANBOO SIGHS]

Ranboo: Anyways, hello. It’s been about, almost, three months since my last recording. In that time I have investigated more into the mysterious Symphony Industries and their project, Generation Loss.

Ranboo: Now this company has been pretty good at covering their tracks. All public records either say they don’t exist, or they’re just some mom and pop tile company. Which I doubt.

[A PAUSE, THE LEAVES STOP RUSTLING. A PAPER IS HEARD PRESUMABLY BEING PULLED OUT.]

Ranboo: Is this…..aha! It is, great!

[A THUMP IS HEARD FOLLOWED BY THE SOUND OF AN ZIPPER BEING UNZIPPED. A BEAT, THE SOUND OF A SCREW BEING UNSCREWED IS HEARD]

Ranboo: As I was saying, this company is very good at hiding themselves. All the recent public records have no trace of them, all of the locals look at me like I’m crazy when I ask them about it, and even town hall had no record of any building under the name of Symphony Industries.

Ranboo: But who they aren’t good at hiding from is Old man Jim who runs a newspaper,magazine,comic, and whatever other random paper material there is shop.

[RANBOO PAUSES AND THE *PRESUMBLY* SCREWDRIVER IS PUT BACK INTO THE BAG. THE BAG IS ZIPPED UP AND HOISTED BACK ONTO HIS SHOULDER. A GRUNT AND THE BANGING OF METAL CAN BE HEARD AS RANBOO CLIMBS INTO A VENT]

Ranboo: Now, Old man Jim is weird. Like weirder than me weird. That dude keeps all kinds of old records. According to him he collects these paper records from town hall as soon as they were made public. Theoretically, he should have a copy of the record for Symphony Industries.

Ranboo: So about a week ago I went to his shop, and low and behold…he had it. Normally he has multiple copies but he told me that a few years ago-

[A BANG IS HEARD FOLLOWED BY A STRING OF CURSES FROM RANBOO]

Ranboo: what the hell….anyways. A few years ago Jim was visited by these dudes in suits who asked for all his copies of this record. They didn’t say why, but Jim found them suspicious so he kept one for himself. Long story short, I had to pay an arm and a leg for this paper.

Ranboo: But I got it, and here we are now. In a vent. Crawling through it. To get inside this building that is supposedly abandoned. I’ve got my friend [REDACTED] outside whose timing me for an hour. So if I don’t get out of here within an hour the police will be here hopefully coming to fish me out. Woo!

[HE GOES SILENT AND CONTINUES MOVING UNTIL A BUMP IS HEARD AS THEY JUMP OUT OF THE VENT]

Ranboo: Mission accomplished listeners. We’re in! Now, all that’s left is to find definitive proof that Symphony Industries exists and Generation Loss and it’s weird potatoes are real!

< HALLWAY 3, 1:20 PM. MARCH 16, 1990 >

The camera flickers on, Ranboo is heard talking presumably to a tape.

He turns suddenly, looking at the camera.

He stares.

He whips around as the [REDACTED] team approaches.

Ranboo turns back towards the camera.

As the [REDACTED] team approaches they hold up a paper.

“I KNOW YOURE THERE. GENERATION LOSS HAS BEEN FOUND.”

< A CLICK. THE CAMERA SHUTS OFF >

A/N: hi smile. anyways hope you enjoyed i had fun with this one even if I had to rewrite half of it!! Told you it’s get more interesting smile. Anyways see you next week hopefully, praying to god, on time on saturday!!! bye bye yippie

[samuraiko]

My CRITICAL ROLE-inspired NaNoWriMo novel’s playlist

Screw it, I’m going to share this. It doesn’t matter I’m terrified to do this because I think the Critter community will hate it (or me, or both). I’m doing it anyway.

Behold, the entirety of the playlist for my NaNoWriMo 2022 project, the Critical Role-inspired novel THE WIZARD AND THE WEAVER. 

(For those not in the know, NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month (aka November), where you have to write a 50,000+ word novel in 30 days. By no means does this mean your novel is *DONE*, it just means you’ve banged out 50k+ words for it. This year, I hit 65k+ in 30 days!)

The prologue is set in 819 PD, the first third-ish of the novel taking place about six months after the end of C2 (not long after TM9:Reunited) in 837 PD, and the last two-thirds taking place five years after that in 842 PD. And as you can guess by the title, it’s a Caleb-centric novel.

Force of habit, I love writing ‘back cover blurbs.’

And I had art done for it, too, courtesy of the awesomesauce @cvleart​!

As well as this gorgeousness by @cynicalstith​...

Anyway, I promised myself that once I was done, I would post the full track list and a bit about each song (a la the official playlists).

(Full disclosure: as I get into editing this book in 2023, I will likely be adding to the playlist, moving tracks around, etc.)

---

Vault of Glass - Ursine Vulpine, Will Post One of what I call my ‘trailer’ songs, where my mind spins a trailer about one of my books, if I could actually animate it and have voiceover and all that. The clockwork beat and constant repeat of "Again... again... again..." emphasizes the nature of Caleb and Malastra’s journey.

Dust and Light - Twelve Titans Music Another of my "trailer" pieces... I used this for a RIFT trailer I made ages ago for the Nightmare Tide expansion, and Raelskye’s traumatic quest (and Cyril’s role in it) reminds me a bit of Malastra’s here.

Welcome to Wildemount - Critical Role, Colm R. McGuinness My primary researching music.

The Labyrinth - Poets of the Fall The song that was very much the inspiration for Malastra. And I absolutely love, love, LOVE Poets of the Fall.

Firedancer - Poets of the Fall This is Caleb’s theme song and NOTHING anyone says will ever convince me otherwise. THIS IS MY HILL AND I WILL DIE ON IT.

It's the Fear - Within Temptation Malastra has spent so much of her young life running from her fears, but it’s hard to escape them when she carries them within her, and what she fears most is herself.

Arsonist's Lullabye - Hozier Caleb. Full stop. A nod to dear Liam and the original playlists for Caleb.

Let Me Out - Hidden Citizens, Ranya Another of my absolutely favorite groups. In this case, this song has SO many layers of meaning for Malastra.

A New Machine, Pt. 1 - Pink Floyd Eleven lost years... and Caleb's own worst nightmare.

Damascus - Conjure One, Rhys Fulber The thirteenth of Cuersaar, the Night of Ascension, 819 PD - there is blood on the moon as flames leap into the sky in Blumenthal, and the doom of Sevnochiner is born.

I See Fire - Zyrah Kasian's vision, and the fate of Sevnochiner.

Lady of Worlds - Miracle of Sound “We all have a destiny. Whether we want one or not.”

Born In Flames - In This Moment Caleb's not the only one whose life was transformed and traumatized by fire...

Don't Let Me Go (Acoustic) - RAIGN This is Kasian's song.

Gone Away - Noctura Kasian is gone, but Malastra still remembers.

Throw Away - Blue Stahli Eleven years in an asylum for him. Thirteen years on the run for her. The song that sums up those lost, torturous years for both of them.

Unbroken - Really Slow Motion Another song that describes those painful years of self-searching for both Caleb and Malastra.

Once In My Life - The Decemberists Another nod to dearest Liam here, since it wouldn’t be a Caleb playlist without the Decemberists on it. And this is for both Caleb and Malastra.

Wait for Sleep - Dream Theater Exhausted, starving, alone, and afraid, Malastra dreads every sundown...

Whisper - Evanescence ... because when the sun goes down, the nightmares come out to play.

The Mystic's Dream - Loreena McKennitt From Issylra to Tal'Dorei to Wildemount, a glowing thread of destiny leads a girl onward to the flame that will light her future.

Love Theme from The Dark Crystal - Trevor Jones A half-mad, half-dead girl arrives on a wizard's doorstep... and their lives are forever changed.

Deliver Me - Sarah Brightman The very first meeting between Malastra and Caleb. Another scene I want to commission art for.

I Love the Way You Say My Name - Scarlet Dorn, Chris Harms "'Freundin'... Zemnian. It means 'friend.'"

Someone Like You - Jekyll & Hyde This is 100% Malastra’s feelings toward Caleb. Unfortunately, her feelings are a naïve tangled mess and not nearly as simple as she’d like to think they are. Never mind his feelings for her...

Jesus to a Child - George Michael Caleb’s feelings toward Malastra... sort of. I had also considered using "Father Figure" (also by George Michael), but that song takes their relationship a little TOO close to a line neither they nor I think they should cross. For Caleb, the problem is that he feels several different conflicting things.

Haunting Me - Stabbing Westward The dysfunctional side of Malastra and Caleb’s relationship. And it also works for how their pasts won’t leave them alone.

Lune - Notre-Dame de Paris This version’s in French, and I’m still not even sure I’ll keep this one, but this is the Essek song on the list. Here we have Essek singing about Caleb, but unlike in the original show where Gringoire is a neutral observer, I imagine Essek is painfully aware of what Caleb is going through because he cares for Caleb.

Towers Of The Void - Brian Reitzell The story behind a name.

When All is Lost - Timothy Robert Shortell The music behind several touching conversations between the Empire kids. The dynamic between Beauregard and Caleb was just pure pleasure to write, and seeing how their friendship has just deepened over the years.

Until It Sleeps - Metallica Considering that Malastra’s nightmares can KILL people, "It" in this song is Malastra herself.

A Sacrifice to Save You - Effsio Cross If I could set the montage of Caleb's research and study about Malastra and her magic to music, it'd be this. Day after day, night after night, chasing down the truth of what haunts this strange girl.

I Bleed for You - Peter Gundry The Wizard at work in the chamber of endless possibility atop the Tower.

Walking in the Air - Nightwish Caleb showing off his magic to Malastra, showing her just how beautiful the world can be when you let it.

As the World Falls Down - David Bowie The ballroom scene in LABYRINTH very much informed a certain aspect of Malastra and Caleb's perceptions of each other at one point...

Malleus Maleficarum - Hans Zimmer The crafting of the Pendant of Dreamless Rest.

Carry Me - Eurielle If the pendant that Caleb crafts for Malastra has a theme song, this is it.

Lullaby (Goodnight, My Angel) - Billy Joel Caleb to Malastra as she sleeps, safe and truly at peace for the first time in her life. And yes, I want art for this too. I want art for a LOT of the scenes I imagine in this book, okay?

Of These Chains - Red Malastra as she's preparing to leave Caleb for the first time and go in search of her destiny.

Prayer - The Scarlet Pimpernel Caleb after Malastra leaves. He knows that her leaving is the right thing for her to do... but the human heart is a complicated thing.

Recover - Globus, Anneke Van Giersbergen Malastra’s journey during the five-year time skip.

Spell of the Heart - Isabella LeVan "Gute nacht, Caleb. I miss you." "Gute nacht, freundin. Ich vermisse dich auch." This song was a deliciously unexpected discovery (thanks to a friend of mine for pointing me at Isabella’s work), and was SUCH a perfect representation of the five-year time skip between Act 1 and Act 2 as far as Caleb and Malastra’s relationship was concerned.

Sleep Well, My Angel - We Are The Fallen Malastra and Caleb talking about each other, not realizing that they are both making the exact same mistake.

Hurt - Christina Aguilera Caleb and Malastra about their respective parents, and in a melancholic fashion, about each other during the time skip.

Witch Hunt - Abney Park Don't stop running, Malastra...

Only Us - Miracle of Sound Once lovers, then enemies, now uneasy allies - Astrid leads Caleb ever closer to temptation... all he has to do is hand over Malastra.

Back to the Blooming Grove - Critical Role, Steven Grove Reunited after five years, and in serious need of divinely-inspired insight, Caleb takes Malastra to the Savalirwood to consult with Caduceus.

The Rite of Destiny - Chance Thomas Malastra's musical offering at the Blooming Grove, and a blessing woven upon the temple.

Journey to the Abyss - Daniel Health Caleb, Beau, and Malastra journey to Vasselheim in search of answers.

Coda - Matt Uelmen "Once there was, and was not, in ancient Issylra..."

Raven - Melissa VanFleet Within the blood pool of communion of Raven's Crest, Malastra and Caleb each have their own soul-rending encounter with the Matron of Ravens, but not surprisingly, they are left with more questions than answers.

Helix - Soul Extract The darker, dysfunctional side of Malastra’s relationship with Caleb, while the latter half’s instrumental is very much Caleb, Malastra, et al bringing the fire.

Behind the mind - Zero-Project Searching for answers and guidance at the behest of the Raven Queen, Malastra's soul reaches beyond the veil and encounters the Champion of the Matron of Ravens... Vax'ildan.

Until Eternity (Orchestral Version) - Blackbriar Malastra sees through Vax'ildan's eyes, and learns of the doomed love that saved Tal'Dorei...

Taken by Storm - Christian Reindl Malastra's first experience with the Tapestry.

Eternal Flame - Randall Jermain, Alexa Ray, Atom Music Audio The anthem of the Mighty Nein.

The Volstruckers - Critical Role, Colm R. McGuinness The Empire will do anything to protect its secrets, and it trusts only a very, very few to safeguard those secrets at any cost.

Burn - I Will Never Be The Same When the Volstrucker get their hands on Caleb, hoping to lure in Malastra. Fick ihr alle.

Crimson Blaze - 2WEI I love 2WEI's music so much - and this was an immediate choice for the Volstrucker vs Caleb fight.

I Remember - Les Friction, Emily Valentine I love this band so much. This one is Caleb, and the bitter, broken, warped role that love has played in his life, courtesy of Trent, Astrid, and Eadwulf. Here is Caleb reaching out to Malastra and the Nein, his heart screaming for their help.

Destiny of Mankind (Choir) - Two Steps From Hell Malastra and the Nein arrive to take back their friend, and the gods help whoever stands in their way.

Magic Fortuna (New Version) - Highland Caleb being a badass.

Torsion - Mark Petrie “We’re not going to run, freundin... we’re going to fly.” It's Caleb and Malastra vs the Volstrucker in a desperate airborne battle over the towers of Rexxentrum.

Nightfall - J2, Elvor After fleeing Rexxentrum, Caleb and Malastra escape and hide in the Tower, but separated from the Nein, injured, and hunted, Caleb wonders how long they can evade the Volstrucker.

Requiem of the Night - Audiomachine The nine chambers of memory.

In Your Arms - Ryan Louder, Ashley Serena A theme that keeps showing up over and over is Caleb holding Malastra. For a girl who has never known kindness, it's small wonder that this is the safest place for her.

Kill Or Be Killed (No Vocals) - Epic Score Someone wants Malastra dead, but the Nein aren't going to just stand by and let that happen.

Freedom Fighters - Two Steps From Hell Another one of my 'trailer' pieces, this would absolutely be the montage of the Mighty Nein encouraging, training, and helping Malastra discover her true power, as well as her true self.

Wargirl - Sybrid, Tatiana Shishkova The paladin, the clerics, the wizard, the rogue, the monk, the blood hunter, and the barbarian team up to train the weaver.

Boat On The River - Styx Kingsley and Malastra sharing a moment as the tiefling takes her under his wing.

Peace Like a River - Dean Evenson A shared love of music leads to a tender moment of friendship and understanding between Yasha and Malastra.

The Grey Havens - Chance Thomas A bittersweet moment between Malastra and Marion, the Ruby of the Sea.

Tairitsu - Yuki Hayashi "By the light of the Luxon..." Malastra’s first glimpse of just how much damage was done to the Tapestry thanks to Essek’s actions, and a very hard, very painful conversation between Essek and Malastra.

Prime Directive - Mark Petrie First the Volstrucker, then the Lens - and it's dunamancy vs Weaving.

No One But You - Erutan While the song itself is so perfect for Malastra’s simplest, heartfelt feelings for Caleb, the music behind this one became the basis for the song "Oror, Oror" that Malastra sings while soul-weaving. It was heartbreaking to write a lullaby for Malastra, and I tear up every time I listen to it. (It’s also canon that Malastra cries every time she sings the last chorus.)

Influence - Elephant Music Until now, all of Malastra's nightmares have been reliving her past... but when that changes.,,

Darkness Falls - UNSECRET, Cece and the Dark Hearts The Nein are trapped in Malastra's nightmarish vision of the destruction of Exandria. GODS, I want so badly to commission art of this scene, but it’d cost me a FORTUNE. (And this song, by the way, was the one that absolutely crystallized the plot of THE WIZARD AND THE WEAVER.)

End of an Empire - Celldweller The Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty. 'Nuff said.

Oblivion Awaits - Neal Acree With some help from Caduceus, the Nein and Malastra learn the dark secret about Sevnochiner.

Fade to Black - Les Friction The fate of the Weavers.

I'm Not Okay (I Promise) (cover) - Chase Holfelder, Tom Evans Malastra and Caleb - broken, stumbling, praying for deliverance. I hear this song and I imagine them dancing quietly together in the salon of Widogast’s Nascent Nein-Sided Tower, almost afraid to even look at each other but still clinging to each other, and then at various times through the book, sobbing in the other’s arms.

Neo-Somnovem Incarnate - Critical Role, Colm R. McGuinness No plan survives contact with the enemy, but if anyone is at their best when everything goes wrong and the chips are down, it's the Mighty Nein.

Sanctity of Sorrow - Damned Anthem The Mighty Nein vs the Empire and the Dynasty.

Bound by Purpose - Twelve Titans Music Sometimes you have to take a stand, even knowing you're doomed to fail.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Epic Trailer Version) - Hidden Citizens If I could animate a video of Caleb pulling out ALL the stops with his magic, it'd be to this song.

Sonera - Thomas Bergersen The Weaver coming into her own at last, with the Wizard by her side.

Survivor - 2WEI, Edda Hayes A cover of the Destiny's Child song, this is absolutely the anthem for both Caleb and Malastra at the climax of the book. For all that their pasts have broken them, still they rise up from the ashes to emerge "bloodied, bold, and resolute." And for the second half, we have the Wizard and the Weaver REALLY bringing their powers to bear, fully in control and absolutely ready to WRECK someone’s shit.

Unusual Way - Linda Eder For all the heartache and confusion and pain they put each other through...

Let It Be Me (Epic Trailer Version) - J2, Miranda Dianne When you finally find someone worth fighting for... and living for.

Vengeance Is Mine 2.0 - Epica A new Hall of Destinies to build, a new Dzayny to serve it, and a new Weaver to guard it.

The Stars Are Out - Dexter Britain "Wilkommen zuhause, liebchen."

[pumpkin-spike18]

✨Weekly Progress #51-52✨ +Happy New Year 2024✨

I've been thinking about the past year for the last few days and struggled with how to talk about it.

But, let's start with the weekly progress reports, before I miss the ability to do it for 2023.

Weekly Progress #51

Linearted 4 SYVNH BGs

Answered more BWOBK edit comments

Yes, it's the same image as last time since... the 4 linearts were done by the time I posted the last update.

Weekly Progress #52

Scripted BWOBK S1-S3

Submitted the demo for The Beauty Which Only Beast Knows to Winter VN Jam and Once Upon a Time VN Jam

The demo is now available for download here!

...Oh my god, I forgot I start my weeks on Mondays. My brain got really confused for the twitter version of this update 😅

I'll be making a separate post for it tomorrow (or Akua would), but BWOBK is finally out! ...Well, the demo for it anyways. The last week has been a blur of editing, scripting, and final playtesting. I was working quite frantically so I didn't record all of my tasks for the past week.

...Which, to be fair, didn't amount to much other than working on BWOBK. Our team wanted to accomplish a lot for this jam, but as the final week approached, we knew we had to cut back a bit if we wanted to submit anything to the two jams so we discussed and agreed to submit a demo.

Please look forward to a full release in January 2024!

Looking Back at 2023 ⏳

Visual Novel Development

Last year I made this tweet to celebrate what I accomplished in 2022.

A total of 5 VNs was an amazing feat I didn't think I'd accomplish. I was prepared to never beat this record again. Yet, lo and behold...

This year, I submitted nine projects.

1 Updated Demo:

I counted this as a submission since my update was about 50k new words, all new BGs, and like 14 CGs (I forgot the exact number). Sadly, I couldn't make it to the finish line of a full game. That'll be 2024!

4 Solo Projects:

These are four short visual novels I did for a variety of jams (three of them were for about week long game jams). They're all playable in browser and shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes each to play.

one last time. is a standalone entry.

kill your feelings., spirit killing curse, and Exorcist Killing Lie are separate stories set in the same world of ghosts, unreliable gods, and exorcists. I've been calling it the Kill Series and I hope to work on it more in 2024.

4 Team Projects:

I participated in another four visual novel projects this year! Two of which were demos, and one even won second place in the Spooktober Visual Novel Game Jam!! That was a real surprise! Although everyone in the team worked super hard, I don't think any of us expected it. So it was really a great and amazing surprise that had all of us shocked with happiness!

The Beauty Which Only Beast Knows is a demo I'm the main writer for. I also wrote one of the routes for The Final Prize is Soup, which is the second place Spooktober 2023 winner!

I provided the art for For the First Time.

And I did the programming for Saintess Alasdair is Dead.

All of these visual novels (plus more from previous years!) can be found free to play on my itch profile!

I think, next year, I won't be able to beat this record 😂 In fact, I hope I don't... As happy as I am to have performed such a feat, it was very exhausting and took a lot of energy out of me. I just hope to finish my ongoing projects in 2024.

Other Creative Goals

Here is another tweet from early 2023:

I wasn't able to spend a lot more time animating, and it's hard to gauge improvement on my own, but...

I did it! I completed 24 illustrations!

This has been a mix of OC art, fanart, a couple gifts, and a couple commissions. Hopefully, next year I'll be able to not "cheat" by adding commissions to the mix... 😂 I'm very proud of my commission works, but I did say it was supposed to be personal art.

I actually spend the last three months drawing 10 of the illustrations. To be exact, I drew 14/24 drawings in the second half of 2023... This was alongside working on a variety of CGs and BGs for games, a couple fancomics, and some design work that didn't feel quite "illustration" worthy.

Other

As a number of you might have noticed, or if you're one of my closer friends in devtalk... I quit my job!! Which, may sound like a bad thing, but I'm actually quite relieved. I finally freed myself from something that felt like it had been chaining me down for years.

I did it with no plans, just enough savings for a short while. Hopefully, this will be the wake up call I need to improve my life and find a job I enjoy. I took a few months off so I'm ready and back for the job hunt in 2024! (...So in about an hour from me writing this, haha)

Speaking of the job hunt... I also started accepting commissions on vgen! I don't know if I want to pursue a creative career, but it isn't out of the question.

If you're interested, I'll be opening for a week or so in 2024 before I close to work on projects again until June or something. (wink wonk 😉😉)

Finally, I'm really happy to have joined the Ace Attorney fandom this year. I started replaying the games around September and searched for a fandom discord on a whim. I've met some really great writers and artists since! Everyday getting to talk about gay lawyers have been great and reminded me of an almost lost fun from my childhood.

So if any of you from there see this post, hello! Thank you for giving me such a warm welcome! I really enjoy spending time with you all!

And someday, I WILL kidnap you guys into making a visual novel with me.

I participated in my first online fan event thanks to everyone there and it was a lot of fun. I hope to do more with everyone soon!

Well, that's all! If you made it all the way down here, thank you for reading! 2023 has been an interesting ride and I look forward to 2024.

It's currently 11:12PM for me here (I made it, I finished writing before midnight!) but, this is probably as close as I can get before getting distracted by a video or other work so...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[theotheroccassionalfanficwriter]

gonna be a weird request but--octopus boi childe fucking the reader with his tentacles and making them suck from another tentacle please

Anon there is no such thing as a weird request, just one no one has ever thought of yet. Anyways! just like the previous request, please apply the adage "If there's a hole, there's a way!" three tentacles in one hole might be too much but with the power of love and lust nothing is impossible!

Wrapped in Love

Summary: In the aftermath of Liyue, in the cold and merciless everwinter of the Tsaritsa, Tartaglia learns how to fuck you with his new appendages.

--

There were few things in life that you regretted, most of it involving Tartaglia in one way or another, your infatuation of him was an open secret among the Fatui. Not even the Tsaritsa was above using it to tease you on occasions where a meeting just ran far too long for her liking. Right now on top of your list of regrets, directly above the time you had loudly mentioned that Tartaglia was the most desired bachelor within the social circle of Snezhnaya’s noble ladies due to his family man side, was the consequence of you showing your tentacle kink to Tartaglia that one time he had specifically requested your skills to unseal Osial.

The consequence being subjected to help him test out Dottore's insane projects. A rare moment of cooperation between the two considering the immense dislike that was present among the rest of the Harbingers and Tartaglia, with the exception of you. It had taken you less than a month to accept the fact that compared to the other Harbingers, your talents didn’t include scheming or fighting.

If anything your talent was your dogshit luck at getting along well with the other harbingers, a glorified messenger that knew how to fight well enough when necessary but had no innate skill for it in the same way as Tartaglia. You were better off giving them ideas, a human rubber duck to bounce off thoughts for the Tsaritsa.

Which led to your current situation, in Tartaglia’s bathtub, massaging his new appendages. Of all the situations you dreamt of why you’d end up sharing a bath with him, this wasn’t one of them. Sure his thick tentacles were soft and squishy but when he curled them up, you could feel the core muscles, his new appendages were strong and you had no doubt Tartaglia would have no problem strangling 8 people at the same time.

Which then led to your current horny thoughts praying to your Archon to have mercy and not let Tartaglia comment on your thoughts that was entertaining the idea of tentacle sex.

‘I bet this would feel good inside me’ You thought as you gently observed the suckers on Tartaglia’s tentacle, the one you knew was his detachable dick.

Tartaglia’s tentacle wriggled gently on your hand, alternating between feeling out the gaps of your fingers with its thick tip that barely fitted through, and leaving marks on your hand with its suckers. The tentacle was darkish blue in hue, turning violet when the light hits it at a certain angle, if asked you would not be able to identify what sort of octopus he was beyond a specie that was most likely a bottom dweller.

While you were busy sitting on the rest of Tartaglia’s wriggling tentacles in your swimsuit, Tartaglia lounged about on the other end of the tub, facing your back with a displeased look on his face. His face rested on the knuckle of his hand, turbulent thoughts apparent on his face.

Tartaglia worried about your obliviousness once you became absorbed in your task. He wondered how you could still observe his tentacle when another one was wriggling directly below your crotch. He was quite aware that if it went on for another minute, he could definitely slip it in. His stare on your ass, whose crack was slightly visible from the way you crouched, burned through you but you ignored it. Countless missions spent with Tartaglia had made you immune, slowly but surely, to his bouts of displeasure on some of your work ethic.

Being younger than him had the equally fortunate and unfortunate effect of him being almost caring towards you. You bore with it because 1. You liked him, and 2. Letting him do as he pleased was more energy efficient. Such actions of course led to him liking you a whole lot more compared to the other harbingers, which meant that more often than not you were sent along with him to distant lands, which meant you dealt with whatever fall out occurred from his penchant of following trouble.

Not that you mind, sure you weren’t the best fighter among your colleagues, nor were you the best schemer among them but you were certainly the best negotiator they had when it came to compensation. So it stood to reason that it was best that you were paired with Tartaglia most of the time, which was fortunate considering the events in Liyue. Economic relations had only taken a slight dive after the whole Osial fiasco, with Tartaglia almost duking it out with Signora once they were away from prying eyes.

Your assurance that you had evacuated the entirety of Liyue Harbor with the spare Fatui soldiers you had and the rest of the Millelith, was the only reason Tartaglia easily backed down.

The result was that Tartaglia had warmed up to you considerably, and was without a doubt considered you as his “friend” if it meant sparring sessions every day that went from fighting each other all out to him teaching you how to use every weapon he knew. And Tartaglia as a catalyst user was just a sight to behold as much as he was a dual blade wielder.

“How long are you planning to ignore me?” He asked as he pulled you close to his chest, tentacles wrapping around your waist and legs, slyly splitting your legs wide apart.

“I’m not?” You answered, confusion lacing your tone.

You reached for the tentacle that you were studying, “Can you pass the recorder to me? Dottore was demanding an oral report.”

“Didn’t he hate those?”

“Yes. But for some reason he wanted one...ugh I’m getting back at him for this” You complained as you made yourself comfortable on his chest, slouching slightly as Tartaglia cuddled you in the tub.

He hummed at the sight of you being completely relaxed around him despite his temporary state as a weird octopus thing. His tentacles were exploring your skin, the small scars that you got from moments of carelessness in exploration made some parts of your skin different. His arms played with your hair, absentmindedly kissing you every now and then on the back of your head as two of his tentacles stealthily slithered up your chest resting below the area of your chest.

He watched you for a moment as you fiddled with the recorder, figuring out how to use it.

“There we go~!” You muttered, pleased at your actions that you remained unaware of imminent realization of your lewd thoughts.

Tartaglia smiled fondly before it turned into a lascivious smirk as he simultaneously gripped your waist as his tentacles slipped into your hole and sucked.

“Hnn~!” You moaned in surprise, back-arching at the intrusion only to end up pushing it further inside, the tentacles near your chest immediately latched on your nipples, sucking it until you let out another moan, “Ah~!”

“Wha-” The thick tentacle inside your hole sucked on your wall, gelatinous hydro coating its thick tip until it felt like your hole was filled to the brim, “No! Ahn! Don’t twist inside-”

Your words were interrupted by the intrusion of a particularly thick tentacle in your mouth. “Mmmpff!!!”

Drool dripped down on the sides of your mouth as you felt the appendage roaming inside, thick and slick as it fucked your mouth. You wriggled your body, doing your best to break free from the tight hold of Tartaglia’s tentacles but only made it tighten its hold on your limbs and drove it deeper inside you.

“You feel really good,” Tartaglia praised, making you pleased for a moment which was enough for his appendage that was stimulating your insides to go further, “How many of my tentacles do you think you can take?”

His words sent you to a bout of panic, the lone appendage that was sucking on the walls of your hole, wriggling about and hitting your spot was already too much for you. You signaled to him that any more would break you but all it did was make his grin wider just as you felt the two tentacles on your nipples grope your chest and then twist your over-stimulated nipples.

You cummed just as you felt the hard thrust inside your wall, sending you to another orgasm that had your body bending from the pleasure only to turn limp once the high was done. Even as you laid on his chest with your tired body and hazy mind, Tartaglia’s tentacles didn’t stop moving, you felt and saw your legs spread wide, two tentacles holding you up until your ass was lifted. The soft prod of another tentacle on your asshole made you sit up in alarm but it was useless as you felt your asscheek being spread and then the cold intrusion of the tip.

“Mpff!” Your alarm turned into a moan, mouth opening wide for one of his slightly thinner tentacles to slip in.

“Look at you, wriggling in pleasure” Tartaglia said as he licked your neck, “Did you think I wouldn’t notice how you would rub your slutty crotch on my tentacle? Did you like the feeling of my suckers rubbing your slutty hole?”

You were helpless as his tentacles lifted your legs up, the soft prod to your hole was all the warning you got before another tentacle roughly pushed its way in. You cried out in pleasure, hole clamping down in reflex but it was all for naught as you saw your legs being spread wide in the air and then felt your hole being fucked again and again until you came once more.

“Nnn!” You moaned as you laid on Tartaglia’s chest, your hands reached the nearest tentacle and began sucking it with your mouth.

Tartaglia laughed in delight, “What a cute slut you are!”

His laughter rang in your ears as you felt your mouth being forced open, his tentacle slipped out, your saliva coating it and stretching until a thin strand was left connecting the tip of his tentacle to your tongue. And then he kissed you, passionately as he twisted your body to sit facing towards him.

His tentacles harshly slipped out of your abused hole, making you moan and cum once more. The water on the tub sloshed and spilled from the harsh and vigorous movements of Tartaglia. His hands held you by the waist, treating your hole like a fleshlight as he repeatedly slammed you to his tentacles, occasionally rubbing your crotch against his suckers until you found yourself doing it personally.

You held onto his shoulders as you repeatedly used his tentacles to seek out your own orgasm. Dottore’s recorder was already long forgotten as it continued recording on the wet tiles of the bathroom floor.

“Tartaglia!” You cried out his name, when you felt another tentacle thrust inside you as his teeth clamped on your nipples. You came loudly, your hole twitching as it clamped on the tentacles.

“Fuck!” He cursed before pushing you down the tub, the waters drastically reduced, and moved to cover your entire lower half. You felt his beak and then the familiar push of the head of his cock on your entrance.

His hands played with your chest as he easily plunged his cock inside you. Your moans was silenced with his kiss, and then he began moving. He fucked you ardently, like a starved man, it was an odd sensation for your lower half, his suckers leaving bruises while his cock repeatedly and easily fucked your hole.

The water turned murky with each orgasm the two of you had, Tartaglia’s back was filled with your scratches and the crescent marks of your nails from digging deep in his skin. Your neck was littered with bruises and bite marks from his mouth. The two of you fucked as if both of you had been doused with aphrodisiac, as if neither of you had sex in a long while.

And though it was farthest from the truth, Tartaglia wouldn’t deny that he had missed you terribly. The entire time on Liyue had been spent either preparing for taking the gnosis or fixing up trade relations, there wasn’t a single time he was able to spend a day with you without it being work related.

Not even his weekly challenges with the traveler were able to stave off his longing for you. So for him, this was the closest he had been to you for a long time. When both of your lust had been satiated, you laid on the now almost empty tub, simply basking in the afterglow as you gave him absentminded kisses on his chest.

“Oh shit!” You cursed as you frantically left his loving embrace and searched for the lost recorder.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, tentacles pulling you back to his side.

“Dottore’s fucking recorder! I’d like it if our sex life wouldn’t be part of the official record of Dottore’s whatever!” You answered, as you swatted a particularly lecherous tentacle that was rubbing your still sensitive hole.

Tartaglia helped you look for it, arms hugging you as his eyes searched about before he spotted it near the claw foot of the tub. His tentacle reached for it, bringing it to you like a prize, ignoring the blinking red light that was still recording.

“What prize do I get?” He asked as he kissed your cheek, squeezing you tighter in his arms.

You hummed as you fiddled with the recorder, stopping it and hoping in vain as you replayed it’s contents.

“AHN~! NO!--IT WON’T FIT AT ALL!”

As soon as you heard your dirty talk, you immediately stopped the playback. Imaginary tears falling down your eyes as you cursed your past self for always being swept up on Tartaglia’s charm and antics.

“Ah~ as expected of my beloved comrade~ even though you said it wouldn’t fit, in the end you had three tentacles inside you in one hole right?”

You blushed at his teasing, “With how big your cock is, it would be a wonder if three didn’t fit.”

“Ahahaha!” He laughed, pure and genuine, “Comrade! That isn’t a winning argument for you at all~”

“Who cares! Anyways, what kind of pet name is comrade!?!” You tried to steer the conversation away from your loss, “Change it! Or are you dating the Traveler on top of me?!”

Tartaglia’s eyes softened at your kitten-like jealousy. He smiled at you, soft and loving that had you melting from the inside. It was in moments like this that made you wonder what life would be like for the two of you outside the Fatui, a normal life free from politik and schemes and the ever-looming threat of Celestia’s wrath.

“Then what about супруг(spouse)?”

An unsaid question, for a future that may never come. You paused, heart beating fast as you thought hard and deeply, not weighing the pros and cons but thinking of the possibility that this might not end in happiness. That this promise might end up the first one he’d break.

“Are you sure?” You asked him, meeting his eyes head on, willing him to understand what he was asking.

Out of all the Harbingers he was the closest to death. The one most likely to die first. He was their Vanguard, a sacrifice, when push comes to shove he would have to lay down his life for the rest of you. It was a thought both of you knew, a reason why he wanted to become stronger and stronger because no matter how many times he claims that world domination was his goal, you knew that protecting the ones he held dear was also the reason why.

Tartaglia may long for a glorious death from a battle, but you knew that he also longed for a life outside the Fatui.

“Yes” He answered as he drew close to you, forehead touching with yours.

You kissed him, gently and lovingly, and for the first time filled with hope instead of resignation at the harsh future that would come. An unsaid answer for a future that both of you would fight for.

‘I will be with you always, from this day until not even death may part us.’

[lebrookestore]

tape 5: play

Pairing: Zhong Chenle x reader

Themes: angst, ex! au, college-ish au, small town au. It goes back and forth a lot

Warnings: heavy angst, bittersweet ending, swearing, its very sad, chenle is a jerk

Wc: 6k

Playlist: 2 kids by Taemin, Gone by Rosé, Instagram by Dean, I still do by Why Don’t We, Believed by Lauv

Taglist: @danishmiilk @channoticedmeuwu @chicksung @1-800-seo @blueprint-han @jenosslut @cupidluvstarrz @kkakkdugi @sweetlyjaem @vera-liscious @leetaeyonglover @kunrengui @unknown5tar @kisshim @intokook @mrkcore @coco-riki

Summary: A year after your boyfriend moved away, you find yourself sitting in your room with five tapes, earphones, a cassette player and what you hoped, and feared, was closure.

Authors Note: hello! this fic was supposed to be a small blurb but then i got inspired and lo and behold its a full fledged fic! I can’t believe I wrote this in two days sdfjfjkfjk. Feedback would be very much appreciated for this, since I’ve never written anything like this before ;-;

Midtown, almost got a place out of midtown, Instead I took a plane out of this town, And missed out on us 

~

It was a sunny Saturday morning, as you pulled into your driveway, coming back from the store. 

Parking the car and getting the bags, you walked up to the door, knocking it and waiting. You were met with your mother’s smiling face as she took one of the bags of groceries from you.

You lived in a small sleepy town, and attended the college there as well, which meant you still stayed with your parents. You were fine with that, you liked living there, and you could forgo the stress and anxiety of having to re adjust to a new place.

This was your home. It always had been.

Of course, you had been on holidays to other places, you had visited the other town, but when it came to it, you had always found yourself back where you started. There was no other place for you, there never would be.

It was the truth, but it held something bitter.

Then again, you had enough going on already, with being in your freshman year, straight out of high school, college life was very different. You had been to a total of two parties so far, courtesy of your best friend— Lia— dragging you with her. 

You had enjoyed them, but it wasn’t something you would voluntarily participate in again.

The workload was something that had definitely changed, bogged down with mandatory lectures and assignments, tests popping up like a bad smell, you had more than enough to occupy you.

“Something has arrived for you!” Your mother said, almost excitedly, “It’s on the table.”

You helped her put away the groceries, walking to your living room, eyes falling on the package sitting on the table. It was somewhat shabbily wrapped, with tape haphazardly stuck on it to keep it together, and a tag pasted on the top.

Picking it up, you pass it from your right hand to your left, feeling its weight, reading the little tag. It held your address, your name and another name you hadn’t seen in almost a year.

Your mind ran at a hundred miles per minute, wondering why it was here, why his name was on it. It made no sense to you.

“Darling? Are you okay?”

Your mothers voice snapped out of your reverie, nodding slowly, “I’ll be in my room, finishing off a project”, you said carefully, trying not to show any sort of emotion as you climbed up the stairs of your house, two at a time, making sure not to drop the package.

Closing the door, you place it on your bed, reading over the tag again, a bitter taste filling your mouth. A name you hadn’t thought of in a year coming back now. It was so random, so absolutely unnecessary.

You curled your fingers around the messy brown paper, tearing it open as your mind reeled. The crackling sound filled the silence as the contents of it make itself known to you.

A shoebox.

It’s dusty, a dark blue colour with a line of red running at its side. There were two holes on either end, lined with metal piping and you could just about make out the nike symbol on the top. You brushed your hand over it, the dust coming off easily and sticking to your fingers.

Why would he send you this?

His name sticks out on the tag like a sore thumb, reminding you of what you lost, mocking you. Always content with where you are, hmm? His voice comes back, as clear as day. It’s as if he’s standing there, giving you his chesire cat grin as he spoke the words.

Zhong Chenle.

Lifting the lid off the box, you’re thrown into confusion. A cassette player, a pair of earphones, and five tapes. Picking up the player, you smile briefly at the dramatic set up. He could’ve called you, or sent a message, so why did he take the pains of sending you something as old and unnecessary as this?

Then again, it had been a year since he stopped picking up your calls, since you stopped trying to call him.  A year since all contact had been cut off, as if he had never existed in the first place.

Sometimes you wondered if Chenle had been a hallucination. An imaginary friend.

Friend.

The questions filter in. Why? It had been a year, so why had he sent you this now? You had finally told yourself you were over it, that you didn’t need an answer, but somehow as soon as you did that, you found yourself sitting in your room on your bed with what could be it.

The tapes were numbered in permanent marker in his messy handwriting, from one to five, indicating the order in which they were to be listened to in. You picked up the first, slotting it in the player and waiting.

You didn’t know what you were waiting for.

You pressed play. There was crackling, but only for a moment, until  it went silent. Maybe this was all a mistake, maybe this wasn’t even happening. Maybe-

i] tape 1: you deserve to hate me

Hey

His voice cut through your spiraling thoughts as you froze in place. He sounded the same as you last heard him, a little muffled due to the recording but the same. At the same time he sounded like a stranger. There was silence for a moment again, before he spoke up.

This is stupid isn’t it?

You felt the urge to answer, but your mouth went dry. It had been so, so long, and even though you had adequate time to get over him, it suddenly felt as if you were treading unfamiliar territory once again. 

I-I don’t know why I’m doing this. I think it’s because I feel so horrible, I need an outlet. I guess speaking it into existence and recording it makes is my outlet. Making it all real.

But that’s fucking terrifying.

You don’t think you’re following, confused once again. 

Y/n

You hear him take a deep breath right after your name, and it sends a chill down your spine, hearing him say your name once again. You had almost forgotten how it sounded.

I don’t know if you’ll ever hear this, or listen to it. If you don’t I’ll actually be glad. You don’t deserve to, I’ve been a jerk to you. I’m sorry. I hope you hate me, I definitely deserve it.

I’m moving in two months.

The realization hits you, this had been recorded a year ago as well, two months before he left without a word or warning. It was old, he was here when he recorded it.

You didn’t quiet know how you felt, not yet anyways.

And you won’t know until I’m gone.

I’m moving to Korea, and I refuse to tell you, even if it makes me the bad guy, even if it feels worse, because that’s my dream. 

I got signed by a record label after sending them that demo I did —remember it? We both went to the studio together, you listening outside as I sang. You were right by my side, all the time.

Except now when I record this, except when I leave. 

I refuse to tell you, because the moment I do I know it’ll be real, realer than it is now as I say it. I don’t want to see the look on your face when I say I’m going, I know it’ll make me want to stay, but I don’t want to stay.

You knew exactly what he was talking about, you could recollect that day clearly. There was a small studio a little outside the town. That day, he had booked it for two hours to record a demo, his singing mentor with him and you tagging along.

It had always been like that, the two of you against the world, until, of course he left.

I physically can’t stay, I hate it here Y/n. It’s not for me, I want to get out, that had always been the plan. I want to get out and be free, I want to achieve my dreams. Maybe it’s selfish, maybe I don’t deserve a minute more of your time, but I want it all.

That’s why I’m not going to tell you —so I can have it all, at least until I don’t have you.

But you, you don’t deserve this, do you? Of course you don’t, but I suppose you’re the one with the shitty luck, you’re the one who ended up with me and now I’m going to hurt you. 

He laughs a dry, breathy laugh. It was half hearted, as if he was trying to get himself to believe the situation was funny. 

It’s not your fault I-fuck I’m sorry.

You heard a click and the tape died off, he had stopped recording there. The first tape was finished, and honestly, you didn’t know how to react. One part of you wanted to feel nothing, you wanted to put the player and the five tapes back into the box and send them away, or lock them in your closet to never find them again.

But the other part of you wanted to know more. You wanted to know how he felt, what went through his mind during that time. You wanted to know just how you lost Chenle, the first boy you ever loved.

Suddenly you felt overwhelmed, vulnerable almost. It was as if someone had opened up an old wound and left it open.

You got to your feet abruptly, pulling the earphones from your ears and dropping them on your bed, taking a step away and blinking rapidly. You couldn’t get caught up in the past, you couldn’t put yourself through that again.

But it was hard when the past was in your present.

Wasted, and all of my regret, I can taste it, If I had a time-machine, I would take it, And make it back to us

~

That night you couldn’t sleep.

The box sat on your desk, right next to your laptop, staring at you. You turned around on your bed, looking the other way, only to be met with the white of the walls.

You never liked the colour white.

It was too plain, too open for interpretation. It never had a solid answer. You liked stability, you wanted something permanent. You were the type of person that needed that reassurance.

Perhaps that’s why you were happy where you were, you didn’t find the appeal in starting over, because that meant nothing was certain. You stayed where you were because everything was already laid out for you.

It was like a colouring book in your little town, the lines all set out, everything drawn for you. Change meant you had to sketch everything from scratch. What if you messed up?

Needless to say, it was a good thing you weren’t an art major.

“This is ridiculous”, you whispered to yourself, sighing at the fact that you were now talking to yourself. You rolled over so that you were lying on your back, staring at the ceiling. The glow in the dark stars shone with their dull green light. You remember the day you had put them up, with Chenle.

You shared a lot of memories with him.

“Fucking hell”, you hissed, sitting up, swinging your legs off the edge of your bed and walking to your desk, sitting on the chair. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you picked up the second tape, inserting it in the player and putting the earphones on, waiting for it to begin.

ii] tape 2: milk before cereal

I know I’m making some terrible decisions, I really do, but if there’s one thing I stand by, its the fact that milk definitely goes before the cereal.

Why am I talking about this?

Well, because today you came over, Y/n, you came over and the two of us were watching a movie, and in the middle of it, you decided you wanted to have cereal, specifically frosted flakes.

So what do we do? We have cereal because I can’t say no to you. You’re welcome by the way, honestly, I deserve the boyfriend of the year award.

A moment of silence.

No I don’t. I really don’t.

You bit your lower lip, shutting your eyes. It was the way he switched, the way his demeanor changes so suddenly that made you want to scream. Sometimes it felt like he was telling a story, one you knew and loved.

Only for the next moment to bring you down to reality, reminding you that all stories don't have happy endings.

Anyways, we got the cereal and you objected when I put the milk first, saying that it was wrong, but how? In what way? Here me out Y/n, I shall tell you why I’m right, even If I’m not actually talking to you.

You couldn’t help but scoff at this, shaking your head at Chenle. He had always had a flair for being dramatic in the littlest ways possible. It was endearing.

Putting the cereal first means it sits in the milk for longer! If you put the cereal last, you can have it crunchy! Isn’t that ten times better? Unless you’re one of the devils spawn and like soggy cereal. If so I’m hypothetically breaking up with you right here right now.

Ah...bad wording. I keep forgetting I have to break up with you. I don’t want to, is that selfish?

You deserve the truth, if only I was strong enough to give it to you. Staying silent is so much easier.

It’s not lying, not completely anyways. I’m not lying if I don’t tell you at all. I suppose it’s a half truth then, with the truth hidden in plain sight. 

*click*

Lying. That’s what he did, even though he spent the last few minutes of the tape trying to justify it, he lied. He trampled all over your heart without a single warning.

You had trusted Chenle, having known him since you were thirteen. He had completely destroyed that trust. Something like that couldn’t be fixed so easily, not even if he had sent you these tapes.

Then again, you didn’t know why he sent them.

You retreated to your bed, turning away from the tapes, the words and memories they held, facing white once again.

You had met Chenle when the two of you were thirteen, in eight grade math. The boy was failing the class, and one day you found him sitting early morning in class, with his head in his hands as he groaned over some sort of equation.

You had offered to help, and the smile he gave was the brightest one you had ever seen, he was practically grinning from ear to ear. That was the beginning of your friendship, and the two of you were inseperable.

Ninth grade it was confirmed that the two of you were best friends, sitting together, complaining about teachers together, going places together so your parents didn’t need to tag along.

In your last year of high school the two of you started dating, and when you had told your parents, they were ecstatic, confessing they had always thought the two of you would end up together.

He was always there for you, every time you needed him. You could give him a call and he would be outside your door. If you were feeling insecure or scared, he was always there to hype you up.

You had been best friends before, you were lovers then, and it was amazing. You loved everything about being with Chenle. You loved everything about him, from his toothy grin to his obnoxiously loud laugh.

You loved the way his eyes sparkled when he had an idea (which, for the most part, were absolutely terrible. Needless to say the two of you got in trouble a lot), when he sang for you when you stayed over, the way he would always make sure you were never cold.

You loved him.

It was written in the stars, you were meant to be, it was the perfect combination. Chenle was the right person for you- the perfect person.

A year later you woke up with him gone, no texts, no warnings. He had just gone, leaving you alone.

Right person, wrong time.

Monday came around sooner than you thought it would, the weekend passing in a blur as you walked out of your first class, spotting Lia leaning against the wall outside your class, scrolling through something on her phone.

She was an exchange student, not originally from your town, but had fit right in. Sometimes you wished you could be like that.

“Oh! You’re out! Listen, there’s a party on Friday and you’re coming with me”, she stated. It wasn’t a request, it was a fact, you were to go with her. In her own words, ‘if I didn’t exist you’d probably have no social life.’

To be fair, she wasn’t wrong.

You nodded defeatedly, walking with her down the hallway, “I assume you want to go because of the cute new guy?”

She glared, but didn’t refute your accusation, “His name is Mark”, she said, “And that is none of your business.”

You snickered, “Oh it so is, you like him don’t you? Is this going to be another one of your crushes?”

Lia was notorious for having a new crush almost every week, being a very flighty person, her mind changed before you could even say her name. This was a bit of a problem, considering you went to her for advice a lot.

Her indecisive nature was not the best for that.

She rolled her eyes at this, “He’s cute, why not? Wonder if I can get him to dance with me at the party. You’re going to be my hype woman-”

“And the sober buddy?”

Lia ignored that.

“Also there’s this new singer”, she said, handing you one of her earbuds, “apparently he came from here!”

Taking one of the earbuds, you were hit with a familiar voice. It sounded amazing honestly, catchy, everything a song needed, but it was the voice that hit you. You didn’t even need to ask Lia for the singer, swallowing the lump in your throat and glancing at her phone, which confirmed your suspicions.

Filling with some sort of dread, your hands immediately went to hold your hand, specifically the bottom where the cassette player and the tapes were. You had been carrying them around with you, as if scared they would disappear if you left them alone.

“Isn’t he good?”

You nodded, not daring to answer as you bit your lower lip, “Hey Lili, I need to use the washroom so see ya later”, you said, handing her the earbud and taking off in the other direction, pushing open the doors to the washroom and getting into one of the stalls.

You had stalled listening to the next tape all Sunday, you didn’t even know why, but hearing him sing, that fact that he had actually made it, it struck something in you. You wanted to feel proud of him, but all you felt was bitter.

Was it a coincidence that this new singer had come out- Chenle himself- right when you received the tapes?

Pushing the top of the toilet down, you took a seat, taking the player out and plugging in, you pressed play for the third tape, waiting for it to begin playing.

tape iii] ill miss our dates

Remember when we went for that field trip? Ninth grade? We sat in the back of the bus together avoiding the stares of our teachers when they told us to sit down?

Then they pulled us apart? Yeah, mean fuckers.

Anyways, that’s not what I wanted to talk about, I just felt like reminiscing for a sec there, but today we went of a date! Well, I mean we got ice cream and then went to the park, but hey, it was fun.

You smiled. He had always jumped from one topic to another without any meaning to either. Sometimes it was a frustrating habit, (you had been on the receiving end of these useless conversations several times, which ended with you glaring at him exasperatedly), but for the most part, extremely comical.

I’m going to miss that. I’m going to miss you. Your little smile — have I ever told you just how pretty your smile is? Your eyes light up and crinkle at the sides and its something I don’t think I’ll ever forget, even when I’m gone. 

You clutched the cassette player, marveling at the irony. He was talking about your smile, but why did you want to cry?

It’s a month left now, and I want to make the most of it. Tomorrow I’m taking you to the amusement part and then next week I’m surprising you with dinner. I guess doing things for you —for us — makes me feel better, like I’m compensating.

You deserve the world Y/n, and I want to see that world while you’re happy where you are.

You don’t deserve having to deal with me.

*click*

Your eyes burned, because you remembered each of those events. You had been so happy, so overjoyed at them. They burned with tears because there it was again, that reminder that you were destined to be stuck right where you were, because you were that idiot who was content.

But if someone, anyone, asked you at that very moment if you were happy, the answer would’ve been an outright no.

1 YEAR AGO

~

“Hey Chenle?”

“Hmm?”

“Why do you want to leave?”

The boy thought about this for a second, before smiling wistfully, “Don’t you want to know how it is outside home?”

“But everything I need is here.”

Your eyes held a question, you were genuinely baffled by his reasoning, the way he was so stuck of getting out. You studied your bewildered expression, shaking his head. “You’re lucky”, he said finally, “You know exactly what you want.”

“Of course I don’t, but I know what I need Chenle, and that’s all around me.”

He shook away his other thoughts, “Hey maybe we’ll go exploring the world together some day. 

You blinked, “You want me there with you?”

He nodded, grinning widely, “I want to take you along, Imagine, it’ll be fucking awesome, and hey this time there will be no teachers to separate us. We can even stand in the bus-if we’re taking a bus, that it.”

You laughed, “Maybe”, you mused, looking back down at your phone, “While I don’t exactly see the appeal, it would be fun to be with you.”

Chenle’s smile faltered, but he didn’t let it fall completely, wrapping his arms around you and sighing, closing his eyes and whispering something just loud enough for you to hear.

“Maybe.”

Why did it feel this way?

Chenle was right- you didn’t deserve this, you didn’t deserve to feel this way at all. It had been a year, so why did it affect you?

Why was it all happening at once?

You clicked your tongue, eyeing the player with contempt. You felt pathetic for being curious, for still feeling so attached to old news. It wasn’t as if it was going to change anything, so why?

Why did you still want to know?

Curiosity killed the cat. You wondered if knowing would somehow kill you.

No one was at home currently, so you sat in the living room on your couch. The items you were trying so hard to ignore were sitting on the small table in front of the couch, as if waiting for you to pick them up once again.

You wondered if you should tell Lia and ask her opinion about the situation. She may not be that helpful, but hell, she could help you burn the tapes if worse came to worse.

Sometimes you wished you had never met Chenle, that your history with him could be erased from your memories. You wished it never existed because fuck, it still hurt.

Taking a deep breath, you steeled yourself and pressed play.

tape iv] firsts with you

Do you remember our first kiss?

We were eighteen, in my room, playing Jenga. That was a year ago, oh god, I can’t even imagine, how has it been a year? You were wearing one of my shirts and jeans, your hair was in a ponytail. The two of us were sitting on the carpet on my floor.

You had successfully gotten one of the wooden pieces out of a risky area of the tower, but then it was my turn, it feel to the ground, destroyed.

I blamed you, and you laughed, and our banter continued. We argued and at one point I started tickling you to get you to shut up, because honestly-Jesus Christ Y/n you’re fucking stubborn.

Anyways I ended up on top of you and the two of us were laughing. You looked so pretty, hair messily scattered around your face as you attempted to get out of my hold. 

I leaned down and kissed you.

Your throat closed up as he spoke. Your eyes stung and you raked your hand through your hair, biting down on your lower lip. The way he was speaking about it, as if he would do anything to go back, it struck something in you.

Because if you had the chance, you would go back as well.

You tasted like that strawberry chapstick you liked to wear. I could tell you were surprised, because you didn’t kiss me back for a good two seconds  —which, by the way sent me into a panic for a moment there.

But then you kissed me, and fuck, it was like everything had stopped. I couldn’t think for a second, it was like the world had started spinning around me, and the only thing that was keeping me grounded, was you.

Was it supposed to hurt like this?

You sucked in a sharp breath, fingers fisted the material of your shirt as you tried keeping your composure. You didn’t want to cry, but he was making it so, so hard for you. 

You remembered how it felt when he kissed you, you were legitimately so confused, was he really kissing you? Your best friend, the boy you had loved quietly for so long, kissing you?

Chenle was your first kiss, and it was the most perfect first kiss you could have ever asked for, even if you were on the floor, with random Jenga blocks scattered around the two of you.

The smile you gave me after I pulled away, I wish I could remember it forever. It was goofy as you burst into giggles, and asked me, “What was that for?”

I blinked in surprise, wondering how you seemed so normal, when for me everything had changed. I had kissed my best friend, the one girl I care the most about.

I must have looked like a tomato oh god.

Instead of waiting for my to answer, you sat up, pulling me into another kiss. This time it was me who was unprepared. The kiss was messy, it had no structure or plan, but I realized in that moment, that I really liked kissing you, and I wanted to do it more often.

You became my girlfriend.

The wistful tone he was using was starting to affect you. You had loved Chenle, almost too much. You could almost feel that nostalgic happiness you felt that day when he kissed you for the first time, the disbelief and joy that wrapped around the two of you. 

A wave of sadness followed that nostalgia.

Our first date was so fucking awkward. We were at that little cafe you loved, you ordered a cheesecake and I got a smoothie, and then we sat in silence for a good five minutes.

It really shouldn’t have been that painful, considering we knew everything about each other already, then again that might be why it was awkward, I had nothing to ask you about.

So naturally I brought up school and that started it, the two of us complaining about the amount of assignments we had, and Mrs. Choi’s annoying squeaky voice- I swear to god that woman took a second for each word.

But I digress.

Slowly our conversation felt normal again, it was just us, eating cheesecake and drinking smoothies, together.

That wave of sadness crashed down upon you like a tsunami, trying to snuff you out. It felt like you couldn’t breathe, you were struggling to keep yourself together. You were struggling to stay afloat, you had lost any leverage you had that was holding you up.

You couldn’t fight the waves.

My flight is in two hours. It’s four in the morning and we’re about to walk through the door and get to the airport, but I wanted to talk to you once again, even if we’re not really talking.

I’m pathetic.

You’re sleeping, in your bed at your home, you don’t know I’m going because I’m the coward that refused to tell you the truth. I’ll be gone by the time you wake up and then you’ll know.

You’ll know how much of a waste of time I was.

And then you were angry.

You were angry because he had no right to just come back into your life like this, no fucking right to make you cry. He wasn’t even here, but somehow he had managed to make you fall apart just with his words, with his voice.

He had no right to tear your world apart, the little composure you had standing. You had finally accepted the fact that he was gone, you had moved on, and even tried to forget.

But here he was, making sure you could never forget.

You hated how selfish he was, how absolutely fucking oblivious. He had no clue, not even one as to how you felt when he just disappeared from your life, as if he never existed. He had broken you and here he was, breaking you again.

With trembling hands, you stopped the tape from playing any further, angry tears making their way down your face as you flung the player across the room. You had no intention of listening any further, you didn’t want to, you didn’t care.

Closure hurt more than him leaving.

You buried your head in your hands, letting yourself fall apart, but just this once.

tape iv] continued [unheard]

I’m sorry Y/n. I’m so fucking sorry. 

You don’t have to believe me, because I’m leaving anyways, so I suppose that cancels out my apologies huh? I’m the worst person you ever met. I’m not stopping, I’m not going to leave you a text.

Because I don’t want to hurt you anymore.

I’ll be gone before we could ever be.

Should’ve believed in us, while we existed, cuz now the whole things fucked, and just a figment of my imagination

~

Time heals all hurt, and reminders bring them back, cutting through your skin like a knife, making you bleed.

A week later, you found yourself sitting in your favorite cafe, the same cafe Chenle talked about in the last tape. You ordered a cheesecake and a smoothie, inserting the fifth and final tape into the player.

The last time you did this, you were left hurt and distraught, promising yourself you would never go back to listen to him again. You had put the shoebox in your closet, hiding it behind your clothes that hung from the rack.

Yet here you were.

You didn’t bother finishing the fourth tape, you didn’t see the need to. 

This tape, you observed, was newer looking, with less scratches on the plastic, even the marker on the side looked more recent, a little rushed if you went into detail. 

The cheesecake and drink arrived, and you took a bite, pressing play.

tape v] play

Hey.

He sounded a little different too, older perhaps. His voice was smoother, but he sounded unsure of himself. It sounded as if he was trying to figure out how to approach the topic. He was being cautious.

It’s been a while. I...I don’t know why I’m doing this. There’s no point- you’re not even here. I found these stupid tapes yesterday in my dorm when I was cleaning out and gave them a listen.

Silence.

I envy you, Y/n. I wish I was like you, happy wherever I was. But I’m not, and I probably caused you great unhappiness while trying to search for my own- but I was happy with you, so happy it was ridiculous.

I sabotaged that.

You sighed, realizing you felt nothing. You were tired of crying over Chenle, you were done doing that. Instead you felt empty, like you had been tired out, like it didn’t matter anymore. At this point you were to get it over with, to finish it off on  clean ending note.

My song comes out next week, and it’ll be done. I’ve made it Y/n, I’ve gotten to where I wanted to be, the place I had worked so hard to get to. I’ve sacrificed so much for this and it’s all been worth it- except one thing.

I don’t expect you to listen to my song, I just wanted to tell you. I..I hope you’re proud of me. Even if I was a jerk, I hope you can be proud, at least a little bit, because then I’ll have finally made it.

I miss you.

The same words are at the tip of your tongue, I miss you, I miss you so fucking much, but they never came out. They didn’t have to, it would be useless. He would never hear them.

Instead, you swallowed them back down.

And even though I made fun of you for staying home, I hope you’re happy like I am, I hope we’ll meet again one day. If we do I challenge you to a game of Jenga, loser buys the winner ice cream.

I-fuck this is the hardest part- but I hope you’ve moved on. One of us has to.

*click*

You don’t take the tape out of the player, you don’t touch it at all. You feel oddly calm as you take another bite of your cheesecake, savoring the strawberry reserve that it came with it. You could almost imagine yourself at eighteen again sitting opposite your new boyfriend.

You missed it, the memories that came along with it. That was it, you missed the feelings you had.

But you were okay. You would be okay right where you were, because that’s where you belonged. It hurt, yeah, but it had hurt back then as well. Now it was just a dull ache, all that was left was regret.

Regret that it didn’t work out, regret over unspoken words and unnecessary pain.

A familiar song filled the cafe as you smiled somewhat sadly, leaning back in your seat and closing your eyes.

“I’m proud of you Chenle”, you whispered, “Because you did what I couldn’t”

You left the cafe a little later, with the cassettes in your bag, an empty plate and the smoothie sitting on the table, untouched. After all, that smoothie wasn’t for you.

There was nothing to wait for anymore. You had loved and you had lost, Chenle was a stranger with your secrets and a familiar voice and that was it. 

You had forgiven him a long time ago, even without him being deserving of it. Now with all the loose ends being tied up, it felt like you could finally let go of him, you could finally move on.

And forget.

[tfatwsiguess]

Prologue

"Alex!"

You look over your shoulder as a vaguely familiar voice calls your name out on the street. After a moment of searching, your eyes land on the black SUV pulling up beside you. You stop walking as it brakes to a halt, and lo and behold who sits just several feet away from you.

Uncle Nick.

You hadn't seen him in almost a year. Not since the last time he came by to see you at your new apartment he had helped you get. Seeing him was the last thing you were expecting on your way to the bookstore. But you'd recognize the voice anywhere. It was hard to forget. Raspy. Serious. Just like he was.

Plus he sounded like the funny guy from The Incredibles. But he was almost as illusive as the Sasquatch of legend.

"Hey, Uncle Nick." You walk over to the passenger window as he lets it all the way down.

"You on your way home?"

"I'm actually on my way to the bookstore. I'm headed that way."

"Hop in. I'll give you a ride."

"Are you sure?" You couldn't keep the surprise from your voice. You learned years ago questioning his work life was pointless, but you knew how occupied it kept him. "It's not that long a walk if you have somewhere to be." You observed his dramatic spy like clothes, but didn't say anything else.

"I'm passing that way. Won't be a problem."

"Thanks." Like usual, you just rolled with his erratic reappearances, and got in the car. You were used to Uncle Nick popping up out of nowhere after months of never hearing from him and acting like it was normal.

He watched you fasten your seatbelt before driving off. "Try not to look so surprised. I'd give a ride to any of my nieces, if I had any others. I'm nice like that."

You just give him a humorous smile and let him play off his most recent months-long absence. Even if he wasn't around, he was still there for you when you needed him.

"Where to?"

"You can drop me off at the bookstore near my place, that's where I'm meeting them."

"How are things at the apartment?"

"Good. Rent's always paid. Landlord doesn't bother me." You explain, referring to whatever mysterious yet extremely helpful agreement he set up for you when he got you emancipated.

He only nodded. "Meeting your friends at the bookstore, huh? Your generation still read these days?"

"Some of us..." You smile at the casual old-man question. "It's for a group project, that's why we're meeting there. There's a cafe, free WiFi and all that."

"Is that what sixteen year olds are doing on their Saturdays now," he remarked rhetorically.

"I'm seventeen, Uncle Nick."

Fury looked directly to you, as if believing you were trying to trick him. "Since when?"

"Since two months ago. Like always," you answer, grinning in lighthearted amusement.

"... I don't appreciate you reminding me of my age." He looked serious, but the humor was there. He shook his head and looked back ahead to the road. "Years keep getting shorter and shorter."

His lack of remorse and birthday knowledge didn't bother you. The two of you didn't see each other enough, and weren't close enough that you expected to give or get presents for each other for things like this. Heck, the man only called maybe twice a year to check in on you since living on your own. You weren't even sure how old he was. You knew his work, whatever it was, kept him busy. Well beyond the confines of your typical busy, anyway.

He was the only blood relation you had left, but knowing he was there was good enough for you.

His black car pulled up briefly at a light, stopping alongside a police car on an otherwise empty street. You pulled your phone out to send a message to your friends, tapping at the characters on the screen.

"Wanna see my lease?"

You look up at Nick when he speaks, then follow his gaze past you. Two officers sat in the squad car, nosily staring into the SUV you two sat in, as if driving down the street were cause for suspicion.

One then muttered something into their radio, and the other one sounded a whooping siren from the speaker in response, before pulling off.

You just look away and roll your eyes.

Assholes.

Nick pulled off after them once the light turned green, passing through the intersection as you continued to type on your phone.

Neither of you had been prepared for the second cop car that came hurtling into the side of your car at full speed. Or the third one that rammed into the back of your vehicle, boxing you in against the sidewalk.

You had felt the car lift from the ground as the cop car forced you up against a row of sidewalk pillars, making you slam into your side door and hit the side of your head on the window, phone falling to the floor.

When the second and third blow hit, you were sure there must've been a pile up in the road. Cars that couldn't brake in time before crashing into you.

You suddenly heard a distinct ringing in your head, a pain in your shoulder growing quickly. It started to waver in and out of your ears as you finally sat still for a moment. And when the car started talking, you knew you must have been imagining things.

"Multiple impact injuries detected. Anesthetic injection recommended."

A fourth undercover police car appeared while the two of you sat there like sitting ducks. Nick reached over to the glove compartment in front of you and grabbed two cylindrical injectors.

"Police dispatch shows no units in this area."

He ripped the cap off of one before methodically stabbing it into your arm. You hissed at the sharp sting, and he did the same with himself.

"What is that?" You watched him at first, noticing the blood on his head and arm, but then slowly looked up when you noticed the commotion he was warily observing outside. The police cars were empty now, their passengers on the street and surrounding you with guns drawn, making your eyes widen.

Giant black vans drove up, letting out around a dozen men with the word SWAT on their vests and what looked to be AR-15 rifles, same as what the policemen were already aiming plenty of towards you.

Something told you the two of you were in a lot of trouble.

"Uncle Nick, what's going on?!"

His partially bloodied face showed no sign of surprise, but maybe a dash of concern towards your situation.

"Who did you piss off?!"

Two questions that he never answered. He eyed each faux cop and SWAT agent, sizing up your odds in his brain. "Get us out of here."

A diagram of the vehicle appeared on the windshield, red flashing warningly. Red was never good. "Propulsion systems offline."

"Are you talking to the car?" All at once, every rifle in the vicinity starts firing on the car, making you jump and press your back into your seat as the glass stops each bullet from hitting you, in hopes that it would magically absorb you into a state of safety. "Why are they shooting at us?!"

"Hurry up and reboot, damn it!" Nick snapped, glancing at the windshield before looking back to the firing squad.

At some point you became aware of how badly you were shaking. Your hands clamped protectively over your head, paranoid of all the bullets rushing towards you despite the bulletproof windshield. You were being shot at by at least two dozen assault rifles right now all at once. Oh how your Saturday had taken a turn...

"Stay calm and do everything I say, got it?"

You only nod vigorously, taking bracing breaths in attempt to ease yourself.

There was so much noise. Sounds of guns firing over each other, orders being shouted, and glass cracking and threatening to forfeit what was your only form of cover right now. You didn't know how long it lasted until the glass became almost completely littered with cracks.

But suddenly it stopped. The street became silent once again, but you saw every eye and automatic still trained on you. A group of the SWAT team came into view of your uncle's window. They were setting up a battering ram.

"Warning: window integrity compromised."

"Ya think?!" Fury unlatched his seat belt and pulled himself over next to you, putting some distance between him and the window, and bracing you between himself and the car door. "Hold on."

You were already gripping onto the door handle and armrest console for dear life. But even that hadn't been enough to steady you for the sheer amount of impact the battering ram made as it slammed against the driver window, rocking the car and shaking everything inside.

"Window integrity: thirty-one percent. Deploying countermeasures."

"Hold that order."

"What?! Countermeasures sound very important right now!" You commented in terrified confusion.

"How long until propulsion is up?"

"Calculating..."

Another smash to the window makes your head hit your side window again, and you try desperately to ground yourself better, because you knew this wasn't stopping.

"Window integrity: nineteen percent. Defensive measures advised."

"Wait!"

Another merciless hit left a widening circular crack to the window, spiking your fear up to a thousand percent. "Uncle Nick!"

"Window integrity: one percent."

"Now!"

You yanked your hand back when the armrest moved beneath your hand and a giant gun emerged from the inside. In horror you watched as Nick grabbed it and returned endless rounds of fire onto your assailants, taking down nearly everyone in view. Bodies dropped, and suddenly a grenade fired from the bottom slot, exploding one of the police cars in a fiery eruption. Black smoke and orange fire boomed as one car was sent flying into another.

"Propulsion systems back online."

"Full acceleration, now!"

He continued firing at every threat in sight, as several of the fake policemen were still standing and firing their guns toward him.

Fury's car rumbled below you, tires screeching against the asphalt as they unsuccessfully tried to move full force past the car smashed into its front, then intuitively switched into reverse.

You finally drove off of the scene, leaving behind a fraction of the enemy agents this had started with. The wheel twisted and turned as you sped down the street.

"Initiate vertical takeoff!"

"Flight systems damaged."

"Then activate guidance cameras!" Nick moves back over into the driver's seat, taking over steering. "Gimme the wheel! And get me Agent Hill."

Your head whipped over to him at his use of the word 'agent'. Not because any of this happening to him totally surprised you, no. Maybe more so at the fact that he finally said something so job revealing in front of you.

"Communications array damaged."

"Well what's not damaged?!"

"Air conditioning is fully operational."

"Full blast! It's hot as hell up in here."

You look back as police cars continue to chase after Fury, and he expertly weaves through the cars on the road. You were going so fast that your whole body tensed in fear that you would crash. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod…”

"Traffic ahead."

"Get me an alternate route!"

"All vehicles stopped on Roosevelt Bridge. 17th Avenue clear in three blocks; directly ahead."

"We're gonna have to take it." You heard him mutter, switching gears. The car lurched as he pushed the accelerator harder, speeding and passing a pick up truck on your right side. But the opening wasn't wide enough and his car caught the back left of the truck, causing it to spin around and land on part of the sidewalk.

"No! What are you doing?!" You look back frantically at the discarded truck that was left blocking part of the street and sidewalk, with an injured and confused driver inside.

He only drove on and sped in between two cars, scraping the sides as he propelled forward. But the assassins' cars were relentless, and simply pulled up and weaved around other cars to take more shots at the S.H.I.E.L.D. director.

"Get down!" He ordered and reached over you to pull the lever of your seat, making you fall back with the recliner just as more shots fired into the car, splintering your already bullet-riddled window on the inside.

Your hands flew to your head when one agent hung out of their car and fired at Fury as a city bus passed between them, with no remorse for shooting through the bus full of civilians in attempt to get to him. The bus driver slammed on the brakes at the sound of passengers screaming and glass shattering under gunfire, which allowed the assassins a clear shot after passing by.

But Nick Fury wasn't having it. He yanked his steering wheel to the side and full on collided his car up against the other, putting him right up against his attempted murderer. He wrestled him for the gun, punching and dodging unsuccessfully.

While he was distracted, the other car pulled up alongside your side of the vehicle, their gun dead set on your uncle. And at this point, you were just about tired of getting shot at. You shot up and lifted your hands, fingers clamping in towards your palms as you attempted to take hold of the weapon before they could use it. It wasn't so difficult from ten feet away, so when you could feel the metal energy rushing through your fingers, you clutched onto it and pulled the firearm out of their car, letting it take the driver with it and fall behind into the street.

The passenger stared at you in what must’ve been inconvenienced shock, but quickly recovered, and jumped up and into the driver's seat to steer before he could crash. He grabbed his own firearm, so you gripped the bottom of his car with your magnekinesis, and yanked your arm back as hard as you could. The squad car flipped from underneath itself, and it was left it in the dust.

Nick had finally managed to grab the gun from his opponent and hit him over the head with it, then shot him in the shoulder. He turned back to you, having missed your measures of defense. "Stay down!"

"Warning: approaching intersection."

His head snapped back to the road, and just before you could drive out into traffic he slammed on the brake. However, the fake cops were too busy going for the kill to take notice, and they drove ahead into the intersection just as a huge truck was passing through. It made hard impact, t-boning your attackers and not stopping until the smaller car wrapped around it, landing in the center of the intersection. There was no question of whether they survived. Despite their malintentions getting them there, you couldn't help but grimace at the sight of them being completely obliterated by the truck.

Fury didn't wait a second to swerve left and hightail it out of there. Now that you shook the last cop car in sight it was time to disappear. For a moment, it seemed you were in the clear. But you hardly got a block or two away until you saw a car driving down the wrong side of the road and right toward you. This time another fake SWAT van, with an agent hanging out of the side window and pointing an AR towards you.

"Windshield integrity at forty-three percent."

"Damn it." Nick stopped the car and put it in reverse, backing up to turn onto the side road before your attackers could get in range, but you stopped him. Adrenaline pushed you to act, so your hand reached out towards the brake, making a fist to hold it down.

"What the hell?!" Your uncle exclaimed at his car's sudden disobedience. "What's the problem?!"

"Brake engaged."

The SWAT van was racing toward you at dangerous speed, but you knew even if you escaped down the side road you weren't going to lose them. So you decided you would stop them right now. Call it an adrenaline high, or powerful intuition. You'd never practiced with your abilities in a real situation like this before... So you didn't even truly understand your confidence in what you were doing as you reached your other hand out, and stopped the array of bullets between you and the other car. Tens of bullets flew through the air only to get caught in your magnetic field. You only waited until the mercenaries stopped firing to let them drop to the ground. But they were still speeding towards you, less than a building's length away.

You could feel the energy pulsing through your hands, feeding you intuition and protection. So you used it again, to reach out and manipulate their steering wheel. Their van jolts a hard left much too quickly, so it trips over itself and spins a couple times in the air before dropping and skidding to a stop in the middle of the intersection, only yards away from your car now. No one else was hurt. It was a clean countermove.

Panting, you watched the crash scene, and lowered your hand. All was suddenly quiet around you, and you turned your head to a very confused Nicholas.

"What... the hell!"

You grimaced. Even his surprised face didn't look all that surprised. It was more like... accusatory and displeased.

"... Surprise?"

"Escape route recommended."

"Keep your eyes open, and hold on." He ordered as he put his car back in drive, but you could tell by the look and way he said it that the two of you would be having a conversation later.

"Disengage brake," the car helpfully advised as he tried to accelerate.

He looked at you, and you shook your head. "Oh–" you finally relaxed your left hand, and the brake released. He veered a hard right and took off down the next road, hoping to get to safety before another damn police car or SWAT van showed up.

"Get us off the grid!"

"Calculating route to secure location."

"How did you just do that," he demanded.

"It's a long story."

"Well ya better start talking, ‘cause last I knew my niece couldn't do that!" He glanced at you, staring for a moment in suspicion. "Are you really Alex?"

"What? Yes it's me!"

"Then you've got some explaining to do–"

"So do you!" You fired back as he sped down the road, wind whipping past through shattered window openings. "You just killed like twenty guys back there!"

"They’re trying to kill us."

"You mean you."

"Us. You're a witness now." He swerves left as directed, making you fall back on your reclined seat again. Other drivers frantically scrambled to avoid the madman. You groaned and had to pull yourself back upright, as well as the back of your seat before you got whiplash or something of that unpleasant effect from his wild maneuvering.

"Get back in your seatbelt, we're not secure."

Obediently you pulled the strap back across your chest. "Ya know, I knew it! I knew you were in the CIA or something!"

"You don't know shit!" He countered, denying the possibility of you, his teenage niece, catching on to him that easily.

"You wear an eye patch, you only dress in menacing black or leather, and you contact me like once a year! It's a little obvious!"

"We can discuss my work life when we're certain we're not dead. Now stop asking me so many damn questions and stay vigilant!"

Quickly you looked behind to see if any mercenaries were still following you, still gripping tightly onto the car as he wildly steered.

Fury kept a lead foot on the accelerator, determined to get to security. That was, until a figure appears just up the road. He squinted through the bullet punctures at the darkly cloaked man.

"Ah hell no..."

You look to him in concern, then ahead to whatever he was gawking at. And it was impossible to miss. A man, out in broad daylight standing in the middle of the road. No costume, no imposter government car. Just him, with his grown out brown hair, black protective gearing covering him head to toe, and aiming his weapon right at you.

A gasp filled your lungs, and before you could lift a finger, a disc shot from the launcher. But it didn't fly directly towards the two of you like all other weaponry sent before. The disc flew underneath his SUV, and you could hear it latch onto the undercarriage.

Maybe a nano second later, the device detonated, and you couldn’t process any of what happened next.

The sheer amount of explosive pressure sent the back of the car into the air, and it flipped you two over with a harsh crash, landing with the roof of the vehicle down to the street. The teched out car that had done such a good job of keeping the two of you alive, now slid uncontrollably down the asphalt at deadly speed, making a horrible scraping noise as it went.

The dark figure calmly side stepped the two ton car hurtling towards him, and watched as it slid to a grinding stop, meters ahead.

Civilians gawked, and recorded, and fled about as the bullet ridden car lay upside down on the ground, a cloud of black foreboding smoke leaving a trail through the street.

The black clad figure began to walk towards the scene with an unbothered, unparalleled swagger.

Slowly, you blinked once, then twice. Blur filled your vision, and you could feel your body had already gone into shock. You were so stiff that you couldn't even tell if you were breathing until you let in a forced inhale. Your hair hung towards the ground, bits of glass falling in the same direction.

Your seatbelt was keeping you hanging from your seat, but Nick was laying on the ceiling below you, trying to recover himself.

With careful and cautious movement, you went to dislodge your seatbelt, but discovered your arm was pinned against the car door. You could barely move.

Your neck twisted slightly to look around, and your eye caught movement out of the driver window. Black boots were strutting calmly towards you, taunting to your demise.

"He's coming." You only managed a whisper.

Nick finally looked up at you, having not heard. "You okay?!"

Blood was rushing to your head. Your senses were overwhelmed with the smell of smoke and blood. You could feel dull pain in the side of your head, and your body forced another sharp intake to your lungs. You knew there was no time to get free as those combat boots neared menacingly.

"He's coming!" It come out louder; choked, more afraid. You frantically tried to brace yourself with your free hand on the ceiling to get free; to at least regain some sense of control.

Nick looked over to where your panic stricken eyes had settled, and saw the calm gait already halfway to his car. A second later he pulled a device out of his jacket, then turned back to you. "I need you to hold still."

Outside of the car, the deadly assassin finally reached his destination. He grabbed the car door, and with an easy yank, sends it flying across the street to crash onto the sidewalk. He knelt down to look in, and discovered an empty car. All there was, was a burning hole left in the ground.

[sjw-publishings]

Counselling through the Snow

“Ugh, Caleb Benedict where are you?”

Leonard brisk walked impatiently, side by side on the pavement looking for his boyfriend who sent a message saying he would be an hour late due to some last minute coding assignment his teacher asked him to submit.

Its been way over an hour.

He had been patient for a year now, ever since his boyfriend got into that university, they exchanged fewer and fewer messages each month, with most of them being about his school.

And from the most recent messages they shared, it seemed like the university is having a deficit of staff as of late and there are rumours that the new Principal is in favour of shaping more... conservative staff starting next semester after the break.

Whatever that means, who knows. Because truthfully all Leonard cares about is being with his boyfriend who he has barely seen in person all year, despite living in the same town.

If anything, he hoped for a miracle for them to never be separated again. But he figured the thought of it would barely be able to counsel him unless it had happened.

“Ah! Leonard Morgan is that you?”

At the mention of his name, he turned around, expecting his boyfriend, but the baritone rumble that allured him sure spoke otherwise.

And lo and behold was a sight to feast on.

A tall man, clearly over 6ft, strode down towards him. Dressed in a completely dapper blue suit, which framed his broad...yet conservative sized shoulders excellently, like he was sculpted with delicate procedures.

Of course, the unbuttoned top row of buttons from the dress shirt tucked behind his vest definitely drew the eyes of Leonard, who could see the neatly brushed hair follicles over his tanned pecs.

And with the way they are displayed, its almost inviting him to wanna grab them if the man allows it. Not even his lean boyfriend could compare to how handsome this man was.

Yet the man remained plastered with a faint, yet confident smile. Like a confident man whose reassured of himself and his life,

Holding a medium sized turquoise laptop to the side, with a clearly distinguishable high-end watch brand watch which showed he is well-off. A far cry from the casual attire his boyfriend and himself would wear.

Coming nearer, he got a closer look at his facial features.

Squared jaw which framed his well-kempt beard over those luscious lips. Gelled dark brown locks over at the top, stylishly parting to the side with the rest of his hair being short and manageable, unlike Caleb’s messy long mop.

Finally, framing his lenses were dark blue square medium sized spectacles, the Metrosexual look only enhancing those manly brows and entrancing eyes which made Leonard just want to...stare at them forever. At this handsome hunk in his late forties .

“Professor Francis Beaumont, a pleasure to meet you.”

The Professor extended out his left hand from his pocket, snapping Leonard out of his trance as he quickly shook his hand, flushing at his earlier thoughts.

He had a boyfriend, and while he found other guys attractive, he was never this flustered with anyone until this guy, whose faint Parisian roots and aristocratic scent just kept sending rumbles to his core...and his attraction meter to the roof.

Leonard had to check at least.

Glancing down, still in the firm, warm grip of the handshake,a silver glint stuck out from the man’s thick digit, the kind of hands that were warm and fatherly.

Which made sense, as a silver ring was encased over on his left.

It was...almost disappointing to the young college student, but he-had a boyfriend anyway...he shouldn’t be looking at another man like that.

Even if he is incredibly hot.

“My sincere apologies, my wife and I had... important duties to attend to back in campus.”

Although despite the stoic expression he tried to keep on his face, a sheepish grin rose to the professor as well as the rosy tints on his cheeks.

But before Leonard could notice that, the professor released his grip, opting to place his right arm over the young man’s shoulder as he guided him down the path into the park.

“I know I know, the open public isn’t the best place for counselling, but I assure you we won’t be bothered here.”

As they walked down the path, all Leonard heard was that of his voice. Smooth like honey, an American citizen...but with the unique flair of the french.

A warm and caring father, guiding him to a place just the two of them. He never knew how much...how much he wanted this, almost like his frustrations from earlier were nothing compared to being next to this man.

“Who...Who exactly are you?”

“Well you specifically requested me for counselling, so how could I refuse?”

Obviously, he knew it was Professor Francis. He had just told the young man his name...right? No, not just that, he heard of the

Computer science professor for quite a while.

A charismatic hunk that charmed his students from all across the modules he taught, and others from across campus. He was not a part of the University, but from the rumours of this man, he wanted to be a part of it because of this professor.

Was his boyfriend the one who told him about the Professor? It made sense if he was, they always crushed on other guys despite sticking by the others side.

“Yes...I really require counselling...”

The man was always open to help others due to his fatherly instincts. Having young adults at home, he somehow knew exactly what to say to help the students as a counsellor on the side.

That being said, there are rumours that he was a major conservative. Maybe Leonard could have recognised it with the slight and subtle glances he kept giving on the blushing youth, but most students completely brushed over that part anyway with how kind and understanding he was to their problems.

“Indeed...our session will certainly be life changing.”

They eventually came to a stop at an open bench, with no one else in sight other than the two of them. Sitting down, side by side, the fatherly grip held tight onto Leonard’s shoulder.

“Tell me about...your relationship with your boyfriend.”

Cutting to the chase, it kinda startled Leonard that the Professor could tell about his attraction to him, asking him to talk about it as their first session above all things-?

...No, that did not make sense right?

There were numerous text messages exchanged back and forth if he could remember. Talking about his problems freely as the professor guided him understandingly without charge. It had just been over a month too...yet it felt like forever.

Staring at the male, and his warm smile was enough for Leonard to fess up.

“He keeps...refusing to see me.”

Sighing to himself, yet again...his university boyfriend ditched him in favour of his ‘coding projects’ which he suspected to be seeing other men, not outright but from the way they chatted...it gave the impression.

GRIP!

Yet the fatherly assurance from the professor reassured him that everything will be alright. Not necessarily with his intimate relationship with his boyfriend, but to be fair, he had been pretty busy lately. Even if they lived close by, they were busy, but they made the effort to communicate with one another.

“He’s a part of your university and I’m not.”

Leonard spoke, mainly because he wished he had the grades to make it with his boyfriend to the Uni, maybe even campus mates, but growingly...he wished to have an easier way to meet with the Professor, it was difficult for outsiders to get a session with-

GRIP!

Of course sometimes Leonard did not feel like a part of the University, but his counsellor reassured him otherwise. His University boyfriend barely spent time with him due to being of different majors, but he liked what he studied.

“What are you studying again?”

The professor spoke, directing his attention to him once again.

What was he studying? The freshmen definitely preferred something artsy...but as he stared at the warm, fatherly gaze of the other male, he felt it sort of unpractical to pursuit that kind of path.

Like it was not him.

GRIP!

“Computer Science of course!”

“Indeed, you are one of my best students.”

Smirking to himself, sitting up straighter as he gained a few centimetres in height. Puffing out his chest as his ideals shifted almost instantly due to his professor’s praise.

He was a teacher’s Pet after all.

Which is why the professor even spent the time during the holidays to meet him. Exchanging texts to see if everything was alright, like a true father figure indeed.

Not to mention, his professor is quite the looker. Blushing to himself as the soft brushes from hand to hand, yet the confidence from the professor stuck by him as he sat up straighter. He was not a conservative, but it was a lie to say the professor did not influence his outlook in life for quite a bit.

“May I know more about the crush towards your friend?”

Friend? Did he meant...uh, Rancale? His buddy? Yeah he was cute, nothing compared to the professor but cute.

“He always talks about others like he’s so interested in them?”

They only get together for the past few months, and yet, his boy...friend kept talking about others over and over, and not in a ‘I want to be friends’ kind of way. The kind of thing you see from guys who are not together with another-

GRIP!

“Well I mean you aren’t together and it makes sense with your hormones on the loose.”

It made sense, with the way his best friend kept talking about other guys...and girls across campus, he clearly was not interested in him...

Though strangely enough, he felt content.

Honestly, the more he thought about his best friend like that, he felt genuinely uncomfortable despite being...gay, sort of? But when they chatted about potential mates...damn, where those hot.

“May I know more about what you think would impress another guy?”

Aleonar thought briefly, thinking about what his friend would like...before his eyes focused on the Professor once again.

If anything, he was far closer to the professor than that other guy, and he knew what the Professor liked.

“Well certainly a stronger physique...the kind of man who could jog for ages.”

As he spoke, he felt his thighs solidified beneath the skinny jeans he wore. Toning heavily as they struggled to show off their muscular depth below.

Next up were his feet, as they expanded beyond those soles at a powerful stomping size 12s. He definitely aced the tracks since when he was a youth, a star athlete with brains, a fitting combination as anyone would agree.

“Who also kept his upper body in shape...you know, like a real man!”

With that exclamation, his pectorals strained against the tee he wore, jutting out nicely as a lean yet obscure six pack could be seen below if someone took a closer look. He looked good, but felt like the goods were only reserved for bed.

And the rest up to imagination. With his biceps doubling in size, yet straining against his long sleeved shirt, guys and gals could only dream of seeing this teacher’s Pet unclothed, but too bad! Alongside those wide shoulder blades that rivalled his Teacher’s.

If anything, he could’ve sworn they were-

“Matured, around their late forties, but still looking good!”

Of course! His fellow colleague and him hung out a lot. Professor Bene..., Professor Beaumont and him were like two peas in a pod, ever since they were roommates back in college.

With that realisation, Professor Morganez felt proud of towering his over 6ft worth of experience, swinging his stronger arms over to his colleague as best friends through thick and thin.

As such, thick strains of fur layered over his chest, arms, and down below. Testosterone groomed in the older male, the way it ought to as a real man.

And both him and Beaumont were real men for all he knew.

“Mix-race, just like your good ol pal!”

With that remark, his skin darkened two shades into a healthy dark brown. Stretching all over as Professor Martinez smirked at his hispanic heritage, and even though he-like his buddy Beaumont, knew only traces of it as they were raised in American households, their mixed ethnicity definitely helped them stand out!

Especially towards their potential spouses!

“The kind of man who would wingmen the other any day!”

Yes his buddy Beaumont was dashing...but it felt better if they stayed as friends you know. The kind of men that would stay by the others side.

Professor’s a charmer, but it was laughable to think they were an item when they were such good ‘brothers’ after all, not in a literal sense...but very similar in terms of personality.

Though Professor Beaumont must be the most clueless dad next door boomer to think he was 100% straight by only setting him up with only women throughout the years, or he’s doing it intentionally.

But how could Galeonar Martinez refuse offers from his bud?

“That and he ought to dress well always, in and out of work.”

With that remark, Professor Martinez stretched his arms widely, as the fabric went along with his movements.

First off was his top, as it simplified to a plain, but a somewhat high quality navy blue dress shirt. Nothing too fancy like his metrosexual bud, but it hugged his frame quite well. It kept his students’ attention during lessons, but not too much that it became a distraction.

Next up where the remaining traces of fabric over on his chest, as they slid down over to wrists, the left forming a similar branded watch to his bud, and a couple of beads and bands on the right to show his generally relaxed and chill outlook in life.

Down below, his skinny jeans loosened up to large beige dress pants, as they tightened up with cinching on a patterned belt, one that is not made of leather post transformation.

Holding his feet below are neat and polished brown dress shoes with winged tips. As his larger feet settled in typical white socks, ones that rested his aged feet in the ‘casual professionalism’ look he liked to maintain.

“So how are the kids?”

Kids? The Professor stared back at his colleague bud and best friend, who remained silent earlier as he discussed about...something?

It was not about children though...hence the conversation. Did Beaumont still insist he was straight after all this time?

Though for some reason...he kinda wanted to play along.

“They were...great?”

As soon as he said those words, a large goofy grin stretched across his lips as he clutched his head, feeling a massive shift in algorithm as euphoria surged within the computer science professor’s head.

His buttocks clenched hard, as his body jolted up STRAIGHT. Debugging the errors as the exit door narrowed to that of a ‘natural passage’, tightening his shoulders as they became designed to take care of offspring...rather than being dependent on a fellow father.

“How is your fatherhood?”

Lips licking below, his natural hair follicles brushed around his chin and upper lip, forming a tasty chestnut beard for the older male. The kind that was fertilised by a bunch of...juices from the opposite sex.

“Great as a payday raise!”

Dad jokes here, as his hair shortened and styled to a professional quiff. It felt...so good thinking about being a father, wait-he was a father! With offspring as a matter of fact.

He remembered when he used to...find guys hot? But damn, were women hotter. His conservative background certainly supported so, and certainly he was-

“How is...your wife?”

His pouch expanded in size, a powerful size 12 inches as thick wads of testosterone swirled in his powerful sacks. They were experienced in the art of pounding, not liberal arts, but rather ‘the art of masculinity’.

Pumping! Of course, his wife! His chasing days were over years ago, and now fully dedicated to ‘dear ol wifey’. Just thinking about her..., and the steamy sessions in bed, it made him wanna-

GRIP!

“She’s great as always!”

Professor Gale Martinez creamed in his briefs, letting loose any notion of being with another male as his cream trailed upwards, and around his ring finger. Solidifying the married professor that he always was.

Eyes blinking into a dark brown, neat strips of brows wiggling in a satisfied afterglow, as he continued with his casual conversation with his ex college roommate.

“From counsellor to counsellor, the students have been really gay lately.”

“Huh, shame they can’t be gay with their wives.”

“Haha!”

The two of them laughed, still having their boomer sense of humour even after all these years.

Professor Martinez had to be reassigned to a different university after moving into a new town with his wife years ago, it wasn’t easy leaving behind the campus that he taught for over 10 years, even if it became more liberal than to his liking.

But after he stepped foot on the campus grounds, to his surprise, guess who greeted him?

His old colleague Francis!

They haven’t seen each other for years since they parted ways since graduation. They kept in touch, but family time and being across different states made it difficult to spend time with one another as pals.

But now that they’re back together, they’re sure to stick to the other like glue. And hey! Maybe if they did a counselling session together, they could probably set the campus youths straight!

“Remember the O’slogan we used to say when we were younger Gale?”

The married man stepped up, and placed both hands in his pockets.

Of course he remembered, and proudly exclaimed it in the middle of the park.

“Nothing beats making out with your wife!”

[joonsrack]

Good boy | KNJ drabble

+Pairing: Namjoon x Reader(gender neutral)

+Rating: 18+

+WC: 1.5k

+Warning: NSFW, Sub!Joon, Dom!reader, Gender neutral reader, unresolved sexual tension, sex toys, unfinished, like it cuts off pretty abruptly.

+A/N: I found this in my google docs and i knew that if i didn’t post it right now i never would. So here it is. I might reuse it in a fic someday. Sorry for the abrupt cut :P unbetaed so don’t look too hard pls thank you.

also this is the title past me gave the doc which made present me lol

+

You’re both laughing and giggling as you go up to Namjoon’s dorm room, trying not to trip on your feet as you run up the stairs, taking them two by two. The A/C is quickly becoming a problem, your skin breaking out in goosebumps as the wet clothes you’re both wearing go from being wet, to uncomfortably wet and cold.

The car wash had been a success, raising enough funds for your team project in a single afternoon, and then it’d seemed like a good idea to celebrate by drenching everyone with the water hose. The lack of towel had quickly made itself noticeable, forcing everyone to disperse and find a way to dry themselves off. For you and Namjoon, it was pretty clear your destination would be his dorm room. It was closer than yours, and Namjoon has a nice collection of plush and soft towels, courtesy of his mom.

You’re almost sad when you make it to the door, disappointed that you’ll lose the sight of Namjoon’s clothes completely plastered to his body, leaving not one inch to the imagination. He has an impressive body, one that’s been making heads turn for the last few months, ever since he started working out with Jungkook. You’d love his body whatever shape it may be, but the definition he has gained in his chest, and arms, and especially his thighs, is definitely a sight to behold. The way the muscles work as he walks, runs, squats, or kneels… You’ve found yourself staring at them more and more these days. And the short shorts he has on right now, stopping at his mid-thighs, letting just a hint of his thigh tattoo peek out, it’s definitely not leaving you indifferent.  

The moment you step into the dorm, you hang back behind to watch him undress, a familiar sensation tickling up your spin at the sight of your lover taking off his shirt, leaving him clad in his godforsaken shorts and glistening sun-kissed skin. Just as he digs his thumbs in his waistband, you snap out of the trance you were falling into.

“Stop.” You say simply, catching his attention and halting his undressing process. 

You have nowhere to be in the immediate moment, no one waiting for you, nothing pressing to finish or study for. You’ve spent all afternoon being teased by the sight of your sub parading around with his amazing body basically on display, looking worthy of being in a pin-up magazine with his wet white t-shirt and his terrible, terribly short red shorts.

He recognizes the look in your eyes, wetting his lips with a quick drag his tongue as the air in the room turns heavier, warming up.

He shifts his body towards you, be it consciously or unconsciously, and you take yet another moment to admire his amazing physic, wondering who you saved in your past life to have a boyfriend like Namjoon, who likes to let you tie him up and wreck him just right.

“How do you want me?” He asks, voice going slightly lower than usual as arousal probably grows in the pit of his stomach. 

He’s so beautiful, so responsive to your will, so perfect in every way. You want to kiss every inch of his gorgeous face, bite every bit of his lips, and leave traces all over his body. You want to mark up his chest and strong hips and thighs and calves and ankles. You want to hear him whine and moan, you want to make him whine and moan. 

“Get on the bed.” You answer simply, taking your sweet time to walk to his dresser, eyes never leaving him as he complies with your demand. You enjoy the sight of his muscles bulging as he positions himself in the middle of the bed, sitting on his heels with his hands on his thighs, waiting for more orders like the good boy he is.  His shorts are still soaked, but he doesn’t seem to mind that they’ll dampen his sheets; they probably won’t be dry after you’re done with him anyway, wet shorts or not. Your playtimes tend to get messy.

You get what you need from the second drawer, hidden in the back behind his graphic tee, where he keeps his stash of goodies. There’s everything you need for improvised scenes in there, but for the more complicated stuff, scenes that demand a level of preparation, you usually go to yours. Living out of campus has its perks, like decently thick walls that won’t expose your activity to the whole building. 

“Are you going to need help to keep quiet?” You ask as an afterthought, eyeing the little gold satin bag containing his favorite ballgag. “You have to keep quiet or else your neighbor will glare at me, again.”

This seems to confuse Namjoon for a second, head tilting as if trying to answer a math problem. “Jimin? I don’t know why he would do that, it’s not like we’re the only one fucking here.”

You decide against it, a part of you loving how mad it drives your boyfriend’s neighbor to hear you pleasure Namjoon. In some twisted way, it’s like you’re letting him know how good you’re taking care of him, and how nonexistent his chances are at seducing your boyfriend. 

“Oh baby, he’s not bothered by the noise, he’s jealous he’s not the one pulling them out of you.” You purr, closing the drawer with an elbow.

You feel a rebuttal coming, and you quickly drop the content of your hands on the mattress to push a finger against Namjoon’s plush lips, silencing his doubts. 

“You might not have noticed, but I see the way he looks at you, and it’s definitely not in a friendly manner.” You shush him, possessiveness bubbling in your stomach.

There’s a fine blush appearing on Namjoon’s cheeks, which makes you want to coo. But you can’t wait to extend this flush all over his body, so you don’t waste any more time.

“Lay on your back, hands by your head, leg spread.” You order, moving away to leave him the space he needs to assume his new position. He executes quickly, his eagerness making you bite back a smile, and you take a moment to admire his long body laid out in front of you, twitching and begging to be touched. Namjoon trusts you to take care of him, and you always make sure to leave him satisfied.  

“What’s your safe word, baby boy?” You inquire, voice soft but commanding in the rising tension of the room. 

“Crab.” He states, his beautiful eyes meeting yours, twinkling with anticipation. You can see the rise and fall of his chest has gotten quicker, a tent in his shorts already noticeable. He’s probably the most responsive sub you’ve ever met (in your admittedly very short career, but still), always ready to go at a moment’s notice. Once he told you it was because of you, that he had never had this kind of response to anyone else before. You remember making him come many times that night, as a treat. 

You start by leaning over him, sealing your lips to his in a tender kiss to which he responds with a low whine, frustrated by the torturous pace you set. You take your fill of his lips, sucking and biting, earning yourself all sort of cute noises.

“Your hands stay exactly where they are, understood?” You say as you break the kiss, grinning at the way he chases after you. You press him back down with one hand to his chest, a chastising look in your eyes.

“Yes.” He nods eagerly, relaxing his body to lay perfectly still. 

You reward him by pressing a kiss to his jaw, then following the line of his neck to his gorgeous collarbone. You gently dig in your teeth in the taut skin, not hard enough to leave a mark yet, just enough for Namjoon to feel it. You hear a sharp intake of air, and you soothe the skin with your tongue, enjoying the slightly salty tang from a day spent working in the sun.  

You carry on with your ministration, trailing down his torso until you get to a nipple, the peak hardened and looking biteable. You waste no second diving in, kissing and teasing with your teeth the darker skin, swirling your tongue around the peak, pulling from Namjoon some delicious moans. He loves having his nipple played with, always gets whiny from the attention. 

You reach for the first toy; a set of fancy nipple clamps. 

You secure the first clamp on the one you just spent a good minute abusing, then you pinch the second one, getting it nice and puffy. You can see how tense Namjoon is, straining to stay still, how his back wants to arch off the bed; 

But he doesn’t, because he’s a good boy.

[nonbinaryeye]

Forsaken Scholar and Beholding Sailor

Written for @lonelyeyesweek

Day 6 - Entity Swap

One of them spends most of the year travelling all around the world seeing all its wonders. The other one stays locked in the Institute. It is not that hard to guess which one of them serves to the Eye and which one serves the Lonely…

Read on AO3

…

Peter Lukas loves traveling around the world with his ship. What could be better and more fitting for a servant of the Eye than to sail through the seas as he pleases,  discovering all the hidden secrets of the most forgotten places on the Earth, gaining forgotten Knowledge and Seeing all the wonders the world has to offer with his own Eyes. And the most importantly of course – also feeding his patron with different flavours of the worries, fears and traumas people are experiencing in the different countries.

As amazing as it is to cross over the ocean all the way there and back, one of his favourite places is still the city of London. It is not because the sight of the city would be that amazing or wonderful – far from it. However it is one of the most monitored cities in the world and how could the soul of a Beholder not appreciate that? Knowledge that he cannot even cross a street without dozens of cameras – from ATM, from nearby stores, the traffic ones– turning its Eye on him, it's truly delightful!

It is strange though how he chose from all the places to build his Institute here as well. True, in two hundred years London certainly changed a lot but it was hardly quiet, peaceful or abandoned back then. As always Peter is curious about his intention and as always he sees it as one more reason to not to tell him anything.

Whistling he approaches the Magnus Institute – quite a big building in the middle of the city – which you could somehow still easily miss if you did not know exactly where to look for it. He opens the door with an elbow as both his hands are preoccupied carrying a big box containing few things he picked up on his travels.

Peter never felt the particular need to hoard the artefacts. He is the servant of the Eye. The point is therefore to See to witness everything with his own Eyes. There is no need for that. Though lately he always makes sure to grab a few interesting or possibly cursed objects. It would be rude to show up after such a long time without appropriate gifts.

“Hello, I am here to see my husband!” he announces loudly to the receptionist. She winces and looks around in fear that someone will blame her for such a loud visitor. As always there is still no one around.

“I… uhm… who?” she hesitantly turns back at Peter who is cheerfully smiling.

“You know, James-… no, I think it is Elias now… Elias Butcher? Boucher? Budget? I don’t know why he always has to pick the worst names.”

“Uh… do you mean… Elias Bouchard?”

“Yes! That sounds about right… even though… are you sure it is not Butcher?” Peter grins while the woman on the reception desk continues staring at him in disbelief.

“I didn’t know Mr Bouchard is married.”

“Oh, you didn’t? That is very unfortunate for you then. He hates when people know too much about him.”

“What you mean by it… uh… I- I will announce to you…”

“It is alright! I will find my way. See you around.”

Peter winks at her since his hands are still full and whistling again he turns around leaving a mildly confused, mildly terrified woman behind.

The Institute is a maze. Full of corridors leading in the same direction and full of others leading to dead ends. Full of offices which seemed way too big for just one person but too small to fit there two. Full of empty rooms or doors with no room behind them. One could easily get lost there. Even a basic task might take hours considering how far away all seems all the basic utilities form each other.

What luck that Peter Knows the way very well and in a couple of minutes through a few shortcuts he stands in front of the door leading to the office of the Head of the institute. Or at least he thinks these are the doors… They all look exactly the same and of course that there is no sign, no plate with name trying to give any guest any sense of space.

He kicks in the door a few times and when he hears nothing he tries to open it again with his elbows. To his surprise the door is not even locked!

“Hello Jonah!” Peter cheerfully greets the man who is frowning at some documents on his desk. On the first look he seemed to be the least remarkable person that ever lived – he is of rather small posture, dressed in a boring grey suit matching the colour of his eyes and hair that lost the bright ginger colour quite some time ago. But one cannot always trust the first impression as he also appears to be in his forties and claims to be named Elias Bouchard.

From all the people Peter ever met, Jonah Magnus is the most fascinating and charming one. It has taken Peter a while to get through his dull and cold demeanour but once he has he could no longer unsee his sharp wits and occasionally even a bit nicer and sweeter side.

“You are here already? Haven’t you left like yesterday?” Jonah does not even look up and Peter cannot help himself but smile over the familiarity of his act.

“It has been three whole months! Have you not missed me, oh fog around my lighthouse, cliffs around my port, barnacle-”

“No for a fact I was very happy without you and your ridiculous names of endorsement,” he sighs dramatically but corners of his mouth twitch a bit upwards.

“I did miss you. I was writing you that on the postcards.”

“Yes I know. I could not miss the overflowing mailbox. Once again I beg you not to send me anymore of them. I don’t even know where to put them…”

“Have you not say the last time you are throwing them all away?” It is always cute to see Jonah’s pale skin to colour with blush.

“Yes! Yes I am. That is what I meant. My bin is overflowing with them.”

“Feel free to throw them away, I will send you new ones!”

“That is exactly what I beg you not to do!”

Peter decides not to tease Jonah any longer; he is starting to look a bit exasperated and he knows better than to push his buttons too much. One time when Peter crossed the limit of Jonah’s tolerance, the servant of the Lonely filled the office with fog. It took the servant of the Eye a few minutes to get out and when he did he found himself in front of the Institute with doors locked. He would rather not repeat that. And so to offer peace Peter finally puts the box down on the desk. By the sound it makes it is clear that it is much heavier that one might guess by the ease with which the sailor has carried it.

“I am bringing you gifts!”

Jonah looks unimpressed. “I am not interested. Please could you find some other place to throw all your useless crap in than my institute?”

“I thought your institute is supposed to research the supernatural? I am bringing you cursed and priceless artefacts to study and all I ask in return is your love. Should you not be more grateful?”

“First of all your price is too high. Plus I have plenty of things to study for decades since you must bring me something every time…”

Saying that the institute’s approach to supernatural research is specific or interesting would be an understatement. As far as Peter knows Jonah Magnus started the Institute way back in 1818 shortly after learning about the Fears. Jonah pretended he was only interested in studying the supernatural even though he already had a scheme in mind regarding how to serve his chosen patron. He decided to lure in scholars with the promise of achieving great discoveries. Then he made sure to make their life just a lonely misery with them sacrificing their life in pointless study isolated from society.

Peter also knows Jonah was somehow acquainted with his ancestor Mordechai Lukas, who decided to sponsor his project in exchange of sharing all the knowledge and discoveries the institute will create as a byproduct of making scholars lonely. The deal lasts till now and that is how he and Jonah met at first… But that is all Peter knows about his past as Jonah is not usually very talkative concerning his past.

Forsaken has granted him a long and lonely life to serve its cause. Though lately Peter is doing his best to sometimes interrupt the lonely part of it… He changes name from time to time for legal reasons. Not that it is even necessary as no one ever looks into the institute and its matters way too closely. And if someone really even notices its existence and starts asking way too many questions it usually only leads to their mysterious disappearance.

“You can always hire more people to sort it out? I sometimes doubt you really have any employees at all. I rarely run into anyone…”

“That is exactly the point. I do not really want to risk they could meet. Now regarding your gift…”

“Ah well as much as it pains me if you do not truly want it…” Peter put on a theatrical look of tragedy and grabs the box again. Jonah raises his hand to stop him. Their fingers brush and he is as cold as ever.

“It is fine… since you have already brought it here. Just put it in the artefact storage on your way out. Someone will get to it eventually.”

Peter lets go of the box again rather grabbing Jonah’s hands into his leaning closer over the desk. Jonah is still doing his best to look unbothered but when Peter kisses his hands he cannot help himself but smile over the silly behaviour of his partner.

“We can always get a divorce if you despise my affection so much, my beloved husband.” Peter gently strokes the golden ring on Jonah’s finger.

“No need. Time spent together with you is so short when you live as long as I do that it hardly matters anyway.”

“It hardly matters to you. It still matters to me, my dear Jonah.”

“I could not care less, Peter,” Jonah grabs his collar and finally pulls him into a kiss.

[fandom-obessesive]

Shifting pt 1

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A/n: Hey guys, sorry for my absence, i just got a new job and trying to wrap my head around the fact the I’m apparently bipolar lol which explains a lot but anyways, I hope you enjoy part one, and have a wonder day. Also Once again I’m sorry for how long this took.

Paul lahote x reader

Word count: 659

Warning: swearing

Request: Can I make a request? A Paul X female reader where he was kinda mean to her and picked on her before he shifted but now that he has he imprinted on her and he has to convince her to give him a chance? I’m just a sucker for an enemies to lovers story and I really like your writing and just binge read your posts lol

(I appreciate your support and I’m sorry I didn’t answer but I hope you enjoy part 1❤️ @amandak27 )

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Alright let's get one thing clear, you were nowhere close to being a teacher's pet or a star student, definitely not an annoying know it all that got hundreds on every assignment and project, colleges wouldnt be breaking down your door asking you to go there when the time came to choose, but your grades were alright and if you knew an answer to a question, you didn't really have a problem saying it. Simple as that right? Nope. Apparently knowing anything at all in class gave a certain hot headed jerk named Paul Lahote the grounds to label you as a nerd.

Honestly you didn't know what his problem with you was, ever since the start of freshman year he's felt the need to taunt and tease you anyway he could. Stepping on the back of your shoes, snide comments during class or in the halls, knocking into you whenever possible, and dont even get me started on gym class. Any class you didn't have with him was a safe haven. At some point you started carrying extra clothes with you because of cafeteria “accidents”.

You even tried learning his schedule so you could try to avoid him, ofcouse word got around though and the next thing you know, he was bullying you for ‘liking’ and ‘stalking’ him. You could admit that he was attractive, but because his personality mimics that of a pile of horse shit that's been set on fire, it would have been over your dead body.

Now having said that, lately he's been acting really strange, not only has he been harassing you less but he's stuck to just blowing up on anyone that got in his way or looked at him wrong. Not that you werent elated that your days at school are a bit easier to get through, but considering he's kept this act up for almost three years, the fact that it's been toned down by almost 75% had you a bit more than suspicious.

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“Pleeeeaaasseeee (Y/N) come eat lunch with me in the cafe with Ash, Paul’s quit his bullshit, he's not gonna do anything, and besides youve had the same spare clothes with you for a week! Just test it out, see how it goes!” Your friend Melody begged trying to pull you to the cafe.

“No, I dont trust it,” you pulled her to you and pointed at her “this is a trap, he's planning something, I can feel it.” rolling her eyes she pushed your finger out of her face and smiled.

“Welp I guess we'll see cause here he comes.” She said looking behind you. Panic flooded your body, so you took Melodys arm and raced through the crowd of kids in the way and ran over to where your mutual friend Ash was sitting and ducked behind their chair.

“Hey weirdo, hey melody” they said, not looking up from their phone while pulling up a chair for you. Melody chuckled and sat beside your empty chair as you watched Paul walk in, not talking your eyes off of him from your hiding spot behind Ash until he had gotten his launch and sat down.

“Dude, pop a squat, you're fine.” Ash said, turning around to look at you, amusement gleaming in their green eyes.

Hesitantly you sat down between the two of them still watching him ignoring his lunch and playing on his phone instead.

For the first time in a very long time, you had a nice lunch break with your friends, talking about classes, that days gossip, and your after school extra credit tutoring for a someone in your history teachers class.

Before you knew it the bell rang and you happily made you way down to the library to meet the student youd be tutoring for a few months and sat by the table near the door where Mr. Sohn said they would meet you.

Getting all your notes out, you grabbed “Doctor Sleep” By Stephen King and read while you waited for them to show up.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me”

Your head snapped up at the voice, and low and behold, Paul Fucking Lahote stood at the door by the library looking right at you.

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A/n: I think we all saw that ending of part one but i hope you enjoyed regardless, and again, im really sorry about my absence. I hope you have a wonderful day

Taglist: @amandak27 @fangirlanotherjust @kettnerjanea @dillybuggg @its-la-push @britty443 @stylesluxx @ri-wantstorunaway @cncogirl18 @ineedmorefanfics