#assume this is happening on a different day/time from other ongoing RPs

[mas-o-kissed]

Buddy Jett supposed it should be grateful for how its final audit had gone. The old Buddy had never had much ambition when it came to things like promotions. He never would've climbed the corporate ladder on his own. Instead, he'd been shoved into an elevator that only seemed to go up. The heights were dizzying.

The old Buddy also wouldn't have applied for this kind of position in the first place. He would've hated the idea of being a corporate stooge. Not that government stooge had been much better, but at least he'd been comforted knowing that those companies had to cough up a few more pennies towards the public good because of him.

The new Buddy wondered sometimes why it had been allowed to recall its past so freely. There was no shortage of imployees and impterns that seemed to have no memory of who they were before they joined the company. Was it simply because its old work experience was still useful here? It did feel good to be useful. Its eyelids fluttered dreamily at that thought.

Still, remembering its old attitudes and beliefs felt... Risky somehow. Like it was getting away with something it shouldn't. It didn't want those unapproved ideas to gain a foothold again. If they did, there was every chance it would have all of its thoughts washed out of its brain, not just the troublesome ones. If that happened, it wouldn't be as useful to the company.

But that was only part of it, if it was being honest. As thorough as Buddy's imployee onboarding had been, it was learning even more on the job. Creating a believable paper trail to satisfy its former supervisor had been an interesting process. Despite the frankly abysmal state of the company's actual bookkeeping, the list of social contacts was much better kept. It didn't take long to find people who were tangentially involved in the company's various projects and then bend their ear (and their will) until they'd vouch that, yes, the inordinate amounts of money spent on genetic engineering equipment was definitely a business expense. They couldn't say what it was for, of course. Legally and mentally binding NDAs and all that. As helpless as Buddy had felt in the Boss's office chair, there was something satisfying about bringing someone else's mind to heel. Power corrupts, but Buddy was learning that corruption also empowers. Impowers?

It knew that authority was only borrowed, that it didn't even control its own mind anymore. But that didn't mean that it was keen on losing more of itself than it strictly had to. It just needed to keep those pesky old morals in check somehow.

But first, to business. It knocked on the door to the Boss's office. "Report's ready for you, Boss. Do you have a minute to go over it?"

(Big Boss Imp is laying across his desk, his head facing the door from an upside-down perspective. It looks as though he had been doing absolutely nothing, just staring into blank space with a placid expression on his face. Still, when he hears the knock on the door, he gives a start, blinks, and grins.)

My Little Buddy!

(He rolls over, now facing his new employee right-side-up, so he can rest his head on his hands. He kicks his feet in the air playfully.)

I’m so glad you came to visit me. I was just coming up with some new augmentations that I think you’d really enjoy. Tell me, have you ever had clockwork insides? Oh, I suppose that wouldn’t have been an option in your former life… well, it’s a lot of fun. You wouldn’t need to eat, or sleep, so you could work, work, work, work, work! You’d need some help winding the clockwork mechanism to keep you moving. (One time an unfortunate Imptern unwound completely in an unused section of the office and we didn’t find him for months! By the time we realized he was there he was alllll covered in dust. He’s fine. He works in operations now.) And anyway, you would look so so so so so so SO cute with a key in your back! Like a little wind-up toy. Wouldn’t that be delightful? Did you get taller? What are those papers? Is it fanmail? For me?

(He snatches one of the records from your hands.)

Oh. This has numbers on it. Is this what you came here to talk about?

[starsmuserainbow]

Hmm, okay uh, I have no idea what I’m doing here but I feel like everyone needs positivity and so here’s a post where I’ll try to give just that.

First off, happy holidays and a good end of the year to everyone who reads this, I am glad that you’re here watching my blog and perhaps even interacting with me! Thank you for everything, whether that is a simple follow or an occasional (perhaps anon) ask, or actual interactions!

Next, I want to say that everyone that I’m seeing on my dash is absolutely amazing and I admire so many of you and am happy whenever I see you around! I am most likely very happy to have you around, especially if we’re mutuals and interacting with one another. I would probably love to talk with each of you more, but I’m just really bad at smalltalk or anything like that so with most people, I simply default to only messaging them (= you) when there’s something as a reason to do so. Sorry for that!

This goes out to everyone reading this: You’re awesome, I’m honored to have you here and interested in my blog, and I hope that your days or weeks or months will be great because you surely deserve it!

And then, I’ll now follow with a kind-of list mentioning a few people that I want to say more to. Which might sound repetitive because I suck at words in these regards, but yeah. Under a cut for length.

If you see this post and weren’t tagged, please don’t be sad or think I don’t value you being around! I can’t tag everyone, and I don’t have the best mind for things like coming up with someone that I forgot in the moments of writing this.

To not start off with the same names all the time, I wrote down the URLs I wanted to include and randomized the order. So don’t think anything by if you’re first or 5th or last on this list! And once more, I’m bad at words, so I’m sorry if this isn’t sounding too great or like it’s similar for each one.

I told myself to not include anyone that isn’t active-ish at the moment, but I made some exceptions to that because I felt that said person needed to be on my list.

@rogueprinceconsort ~ (I read the post you did recently more or less saying you’re leaving, but I wrote this before that post and it would have felt wrong to erase it from here only because of you leaving!) I enjoy our interactions a lot! They feel like they actually develop a story, which I can’t say for ALL my interactions but definitely for each one that we have going! Which is really cool! You’re one of the only few people where I have the chance to play around with different verses too (well, or at least one different verse, since our other two ongoing interactions are in the mainverses of my muses, but still), and you’re one of the few giving one of my OC-sideblogs a chance as well, and, just, I really am so thankful for it and happy to have you as a mutual!

@untouchable-lightning ~ You aren’t here at the moment, so let me just start this by saying that I hope that things will get better for you again soon! It’s a lot of fun to interact with you and I think you’re a good writer and I’m very happy for our interactions! They are always fun! I did not often yet get the chance to do this other RP-style that I do (the ‘choose-your-option’ one) and you are one of those that allowed me to play through it, and you also interact/ed with my sideblogs too, so a big thank you for that! Our threads also often last nicely long, which is absolutely amazing since it’s a big rarity these days, too. You’re great, and I’m happy that we’re mutuals and interaction-partners!

@miasmarp ~ We’re more or less only starting out interacting and talking and anything basically, but I felt like I just absolutely had to include you because I HAVE A CHANCE TO PLAY ONE OF MY OTHER (non-blog-having, not even an info page or anything outside of one or two ooc posts about them) OCS with you and that’s just like the first time at all (not counting if I do include them as minor appearances in other things, though even there it has only happened one single time so far iirc), and that is just so much fun and just thank you! You’re really cool and I’m happy that we’re mutuals!

@karaoftomorrow (or @yourfavoritesidekick if you’d prefer I tag your main) ~ It’s so wonderful to write with you! It feels like we’re developing stuff in our things really well, and I really like to read what appears from you on my dash! Talking with you is very nice too, and I’m always really happy whenever I see you in my notifications or IMs or wherever! I’m very glad to have you as mutual and am really happy about any and all of our interactions!

@skymade / @siriseen or maybe I should tag one of your other blogs instead but those are the first two I usually think of and I don’t wanna tag more than two blogs for one person xD ~ Sooooooooo awesome! You have so many characters, which all are wonderful as far as I can tell, and I love our interactions so much! I’m always really looking forward to the next reply I get from one of our things, and talking to you is always a delight and I’m so so happy that we somehow found each other! Or well, I guess you found me because if I remember right you followed me first, but yes! Thank you for writing with pretty much all of my characters, you’re very cool, I absolutely love the connections our muses get (especially those where they know one another at a younger time and then ‘now’ meet again too - how cool is that?) and it’s always a joy to see you on my dash!

@azarathian ~ We haven’t really done or spoken that much together yet (or at least I assume we didn’t? There was your old blog but I don’t think we really spoke there, much less did threads or the likes? Sorry if I’m wrong though xD), but I’m so very glad we started! I admire your writing and the thoughts you put into Raven and I think you’re great! Our threads are incredibly entertaining and it’s so awesome to put more story into the situations of or between the episodes of the cartoon, and yes, I’m just very very thankful that we got together somehow and I’m excited for how our threads - and potential future ones - will develop!

@nvertoolate or if I should tag your currently more active sideblog @bloomingtalent ~ It is so absolutely amazing that one of my first mutuals, friends, or however I should call it, still is active on here as well! With most people on here, it’s sadly the case that they’re gone again sooner than later, so it’s especially great that we are still both here! I think I’ve said multiple times before that I don’t think I would even have stayed on tumblr if you hadn’t been around and interacting with me so I won’t go into detail about that yet again, but, yes, I absolutely love our interactions when we do them, and while I don’t know much about Naruto so we don’t really interact that much on your sideblog, I’m still so very happy to have you around and as my mutual! I’m so thankful for you and that we got to interact - and still do! Thank you!

@sewn-cutie ~ Our interactions are always so wonderfully adorable and cute! I love the connection between Starfire and Clementine, and it’s a lot of fun to write any of our things! I’m very happy when I hear from you in an OOC-y way too, like when you reply to one of my posts or in the IMs or whereever! I’m absolutely convinced that you are a great person, and I am delighted that we are mutuals and can interact so nicely!

@legaxies ~ I wasn’t sure if maybe I shouldn’t include you since from how much I can tell it seems you are at the moment more focused onto that theme-sideblog you have and I told myself to not include those that aren’t really active at the moment - but I felt like I had to! I wanted to say that I’m really happy for the things we started, and that I have a lot of fun talking to you when we do! I’m very much enjoying the potential relationships we have started on, and I look forward to hopefully continuing them in some way eventually! (This of course is not meant as pushing you to work on replies or whatever, please don’t understand me wrong here; I just mean this in a way of, if we do get to continue it - if not that’s totally fine too!) You’re doing great with any of your characters (as much as I can judge with not that much knowledge), and I’m happy that we’re mutuals! It’s a joy to interact with you, so, thank you!

@featherchan ~ You’re interacting with me, or did in the past, on pretty much all my muses (I think not on Starlight? But outside of that on all I think), and that means a lot to me! We have some really cool plots going, and you joined in on that event-au-thing I did all that time back too, so that’s very great, and I wanted to say thanks! Our interactions are always fun and I’m happy to write with and talk to you!

@thedoctornumber11 ~ Throughout my time being here, you’re pretty much the only one of the world of Doctor Who that I got interactions going with (I think there was someone on Wildfire once too, but not for very long iirc), and I really enjoy that! I wanted to include you here too because I wanted to say that I’m very very grateful for the nice words or explanations you sometimes throw onto my posts, and for the things you send in to me, and yes just for all of it! Thank you!

@flashgotthis ~ I love our things so much! All the interactions that we did so far were really really really cool, still are, and they often last really long too, and it’s just absolutely wonderful! You’re also one of those that aren’t only talented writers, but also really great artists, and I admire that skill so much! I’m delighted that we are mutuals and interaction-partners, and I look forward to what’s still to come! You’re amazing!

@graceful-cure-swan / @rosecoloredmuses (mostly tagging your sideblog as well to give it, like, some sort of indirect promoing here) ~ You are great! I feel so bad for all the many things you sent me whereas I barely ever send you (or anyone else, for that matter) anything at all, but, I’m also really grateful that you do it, so - thank you! I’m enjoying our interactions very much, I think that both Tsubasa and your other characters are done really well (even if I don’t know that much about each of them or can compare them to their canon versions much), and you’re a lot of fun to interact with! You also give my sideblogs and OCs a chance too, which means very much to me too, so yeah, I’m very grateful to have you as my mutual!

@eterniita ~ We’ve been interacting throughout a few of your blogs already, and I enjoy our interactions! I think you put a lot of love and thought into your characters, and they are great, and our threads are a lot of fun! I haven’t yet checked out your remade blog of your canons again, but I intend to and most likely follow you there again, too! I hope we will still get to more wonderful interactions!

@merveiilles​ ~ I’m so happy that we’re interacting! I love our threads a lot and I’m enjoying every reply that I get or write! You have a lot of characters and it’s really impressive that you do them (as far as I can tell/know them) so well! Your art, that you occasionally post, is also really really amazing and it’s very wonderful that you are so talented! I am very thankful for the nice words that you put onto my posts every now and then, and I am delighted by the threads and connections we are having between our muses!

@symbioteburnout​ ~ I don’t feel like I can say very much here (yet), but I wanted to include you too! I enjoy the things that we got going so far, and going from what I see from you about her I think Andi is a interesting character! It’s always wonderful to me, when people put the effort into characters who might not get as much time to shine in canon as others. Thanks for replying to my opens every now and then, and just in general for being my mutual and interacting with me!

@titansandothersrp​ / @robynrpmain (Now I’m getting frustrated at tumblr again for not letting me tag your main) ~ You are really cool! You’re a great artist, I love to see your work, and our threads are very entertaining! I feel like you’re doing very well in giving the characters you play as more story, more... I don’t know the right word here. Just, that you make them ‘more’, and that’s a really awesome thing. And yeah, like said, you also do art which I think looks really good, and I just absolutely admire people who can do art so well. Thanks for being mutuals and interacting with me!

---

So, and as a nice little bit of words at the end, I guess~ I’m very honored by anyone of you who’s actually interested in me and my writing, I’m thankful and glad to have you around, and I’m looking forward to more amazing things to come in the future with all of you!

[multiwarblerrps]

love aint (blainofsky) chapter 2

summary: A few weeks after their meeting in the hospital, Blaine and Dave run into each other at Scandals, the gay bar in West Lima. word count: 3,257 rating: pg warnings: underaged drinking notes: (semi-S3 canon 1x1 RP written with @multiberryrps) established klaine, eventual blainofsky. 250k+ words and ongoing. Also on: AO3

“Man, they’re getting their asses kicked today.”

Dave gave a little laugh as he sipped his beer, finishing it off and setting the empty bottle back down on the bartop. He was watching a football game on a small 14-inch TV stashed behind the bar. Only he and the bartender were watching; everyone else in the bar much rather preferred watching the music video clips play along with the booming music.

It wasn’t often that Dave ventured out to Scandals and when he did before, he was still in the closet. He had to sneak away and almost assume a completely different identity back when he was hiding who he really was. But things were different now. He was out and somewhat proud-- he was still adjusting-- and being at Scandals was the most comfortable place he felt like he could be himself.

“Hey, can I get another?” Dave asked, watching as the bartender gladly went to fetch him his drink. It was the first time in a while he’d pried his eyes away from the TV for more than a minute or two and he took the time to survey the place. There was the obvious share of regulars but there was one guy at the complete opposite side of the bar that he didn’t see quite as often-- one Blaine Anderson.

Blaine had just settled at the end of the semi-crowded bar and exchanged pleasantries with his favorite bartender-- it had been a while since he’d visited. He tried not to make a habit out of going since he’d been with Kurt. After ordering his usual drink he just happened to glance down at the other end of the bar where he saw a familiar face.

They locked eyes and when the look of recognition passed over them, Dave smiled and lifted his hand for a meek wave hello. It had been a little while since they’d last seen each other and Dave felt a little bad that he hadn’t reached out to Blaine like he had promised that evening in his hospital room.

With his drink in his hand, Blaine took the initiative to get closer to Dave. “Fancy seeing you here,” he smiled as he took the barstool next to him. He felt a bit relieved to know someone in the crowd-- especially someone that wasn’t from his group of friends at school. “I thought you might’ve lost my number,” Blaine teased him, giving him a little nudge as he sipped his drink.

“H-hey,” Dave greeted a little awkwardly, though he was genuinely happy to see him. “Yeah, sorry about that. Things have been a little crazy lately; I really meant to call you.” When he knew the lack of explanation probably wouldn’t fly as a good excuse, he elaborated. “I, uh, have to repeat my senior year.”

“What? Why?” Blaine asked, wrinkling his forehead as he placed his drink on the bar. “At Thurston or at McKinley?”

“At McKinley,” Dave answered. “Uh, I guess when my dad tried to see if I could transfer, it turned out that it was too late in the year and they basically said it wasn’t doable unless I took extra classes and summer school. Starting the year over just felt like the best thing since I don’t want to go back to Thurston. My dad and I actually just finalized everything so I’m set to go to McKinley next fall. I’m sort of-- I don’t know-- celebrating, I guess.” He gestured just as the bartender returned with his beer and he motioned for a toast before taking a swig.

Blaine tapped his glass against Dave’s bottle before taking a drink himself. “Wow.” He shook his head as he processed his friend’s news. “Well, I mean, I suppose that’s a good thing-- you should take some time to gather yourself and relax before jumping back in.” Then the realization hit him and his face lit up a little bit. “Hey!” He turned to Dave a little bit. “We’ll get to spend our senior year together then-- that’s exciting!”

Dave broke out into a smile and nodded. “Yeah, I’m trying my best to look forward to it. I mean, I’m out but I also kind of want to keep my head down because I don’t really want to deal with anyone giving me a hard time.” He shrugged then as he tried to remain optimistic. Attempting to shift the attention from himself, he asked Blaine a question. “So how about you? Where’s your boyfriend?”

An audible sigh fell from Blaine’s lips as his smile faded. “Kurt’s, uh,” he took another drink. “He’s with my brother and the rest of the glee club. They’re at my house fawning all over him and how great he is.” There was a bitter tone to Blaine’s voice as he rolled his eyes.

“Your brother?” Dave gave Blaine a confused look.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother, I really do,” he shook his head. “He’s just…” Blaine really hesitated to say anything about Kurt that he wouldn’t say directly to his face; he didn’t feel right complaining about his boyfriend ever but between his brother, senior ditch day, and Kurt getting ready to leave for New York, he was feeling a bit selfish. “Cooper’s really pushy and not to sound like a child but he hurts my feelings a lot and Kurt doesn’t really care to listen. I mean, I’ve never really talked about Cooper before but it’s for good reason-- then he showed up unexpectedly and I didn’t have a chance because ‘Oh wow, Blaine, your brother is Cooper Anderson? He’s the most handsome and talented guy in the world!’” He mocked his friends’ voices as he rambled a little.

Dave furrowed his brow. He didn’t peg Kurt to be the kind of guy to just cast his friends-- let alone his boyfriend-- aside like that; that didn’t sound like the Kurt he knew. “Sorry about your brother being a jerk. At least here you don’t have to be around that,” he said, trying to look on the bright side. He didn’t feel like he was in any place to offer up real advice but he still wanted to at least attempt making Blaine feel better. “We can drink a couple of beers and talk about something that isn’t Kurt or your brother if you need a distraction,” he pointed to the TV behind the bar. “Celtics are down by thirteen.”

Blaine finished off his first drink and waved down the bartender for another as he let out another sigh. “It’s fine,” he said, glancing up to the screen that Dave had pointed to. “Figures,” he mumbled, chuckling. “Not surprising with the week I’m having-- my team can’t even win.”

Dave really wanted to console Blaine somehow but he wasn’t quite sure what to say. He didn’t know Blaine well enough to comment on his brother and he wasn’t looking to meddle in his and Kurt’s relationship. He just wanted Blaine to know he was there for him, for whatever he needed. “Hey,” he spoke up, hoping to keep Blaine’s mind off of what was getting him down. “I know I just said the thing about staying under the radar even though I’m out, but do you think I could, like, hang out with you guys at Glee from time to time? Last year when Coach had us do the halftime show, it was actually a lot of fun.”

“Yeah?” Blaine’s face lit up a little, never for a minute thinking he would even begin to entertain the idea of setting foot inside the choir room. “Absolutely, of course! Between you and me,” He leaned in just an inch. “I’m sort of lined up to be the ‘New Rachel’ next year so, you’re definitely in if I say so,” he chuckled, his nose crinkling as he looked at Dave, his smile growing. “That would be wonderful, that makes me really happy.” He sat up a little straighter in his seat, the news clearly brightening his day.

Seeing that talking about that silly glee club made Blaine so happy, Dave thought to keep the conversation going even though he only sort of understood. “‘New Rachel’-- what’s that?” he asked, sipping his beer. He thought about the girl and what she represented in the club. “You’re going to be bossy and annoying?” He laughed at his own joke. “Shouldn’t it be that you’ll be the ‘New Finn’? ‘Cause you’re the lead guy, right?”

Blaine chuckled softly, shaking his head. “C’mon, Rachel’s not that bad. She’s just… misunderstood,” he defended, shrugging. He felt like he and Rachel were cut from the same cloth sometimes. “I mean, technically the new lead guy, but we all know I’m more capable of taking control and leading us to win than Finn. I mean, he’s great and all and he’s a good leader; Rachel’s just better at getting down to business and knowing what’s important in the competition world.” He noticed he was beginning to ramble again and it made him laugh. “Sorry, I know you’re just barely interested-- not trying to scare you away.” He smiled fondly. “I just love the glee club a lot.”

Dave laughed along, not because he really understood but because Blaine just made him laugh. It was fun to see him so happy about his little club-- it was a lot like how Dave got excited about football so he could sort of relate. “Hey, you don’t have to apologize-- I get it. Do you guys have your championship game soon? Or, uh, whatever you guys call it?” he asked.

“Nationals,” Blaine nodded, smiling fondly at Dave. “We won the last competition while you were still in the hospital-- us and the Warblers dedicated our performances to you, I dunno if you heard. But, yeah, our next competition is in a few weeks, we’re going to Chicago which is exciting.”

“Uh, yeah, I think that Sebastian guy told me about that. I think he felt bad about being an asshole the last time we spoke so he said he did some charity or fundraiser thing in my honor, or something-- I don’t know,” Dave recalled, though the conversation he and Sebastian had had about that was already so brief. “Chicago, huh? That sounds like fun… Man, it’d be cool to eat a real Chicago-style pizza in Chicago.” Having lived his entire life in Ohio, the only time he ever got to travel out of state was to watch a football game or two in Indianapolis. “But yeah; that’s super exciting… Are you guys nervous about the big game?”

Blaine thought it was extremely cute that Dave was sticking to sports terminology when talking about show choir; it made his smile stick. “I’m personally not nervous, I know everyone else is-- probably not Rachel. I have confidence that we’ll win.” He nodded, trying not to sound too arrogant. Biting on his lip, he shrugged. “Maybe you should see if your dad would let you come cheer us on. I’m sure you could bunk with us-- Mr. Schuester is supportive of you joining at any point so I’m sure if he thought it would turn you on to the idea he would definitely let you.”

Dave nodded along with Blaine, finding his confidence a great trait. He wondered to himself silently if it came with the territory of being out and proud. Since Dave wasn’t especially invested in the glee club, he wasn’t sure what to think or make of coming along with the New Directions to Chicago. “Is that allowed? I don’t even go to McKinley again-- or, yet,” he voiced his concerns though he made no personal qualms with actually going with them. “I mean, I have all the time in the world right now until next school year so that sounds fun, but, I thought you had to be part of the team to ride on the team bus. Or, I guess, ‘team plane’ is more accurate.”

“We actually are taking a bus, so you were right the first time,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Anyway, I’ll talk to Schuester, I’m sure he’d love to have you.” Blaine promised, knowing that Will was very sensitive to Dave and his experience and certain that hearing his story of repeating his senior year and possibly wanting to join the glee club would be enough to let him join. “You could hang out with us and get to know us a little better so when you come to school next year you don’t have to worry about making friends; you’ll already have them.”

The prospect of having friends from the get-go sounded appealing. He wasn't sure how the guys on the football team would treat him when he returned and even though everyone thought the glee club was a bunch of losers, they at least had each others' backs. "I'll ask my dad; I guess it'd be cool to see how it all works behind the scenes, too." Dave thought he should warn Blaine before he got a little too ahead of himself-- "But no promises on actually joining; it's fun but even I can see how dumb Finn looks on stage. I can barely dance better than he can," he laughed.

Blaine let out a melodic laugh, shaking his head as he recalled the last time Dave danced with the glee club. “Eh, I seem to recall you being extremely talented out there on that football field-- better than Finn, even. You were very sharp, very good,” he encouraged, knowing that Dave had a lot of hidden talent beneath all of his insecurities. “No pressure on joining,” he added, “You could just come sit in sometimes or participate every once in a while.”

"Yeah? You were watching me?" Dave asked, surprised that anyone actually had an opinion about his dance moves. He was one guy in a sea of zombies; he figured the only person actually watching him amongst all the dancers and singers was his dad. "Yeah, well, I don't know-- I'll have to think about it. But I'll keep the offer in mind." Dave knew it was possible to juggle football and glee club but he wasn't sure if he wanted to be that guy; he was already going to be in the spotlight now that he was out. But maybe once the school year started, he'd feel a bit more comfortable.

“Yeah, I was,” Blaine smiled at his friend, shrugging. “I noticed when you ran out to join them and honestly, even in a sea of dancing football players, you still stood out because you were so much better than the others,” He said honestly as he finished off his second drink.

Dave chuckled at the compliment as he waved the bartender over to refresh their drinks. "I, uh, don't know about that," he replied meekly. "I mean, I guess since I play football I'm already good on my feet." Dave wasn't really the type to take compliments well-- especially if it didn't have anything to do with football or academics.

"You should see him on Country Bear Night," the bartender chimed in, having heard the tail-end of their conversation. "He gets the whole crowd going when he's havin' a ball."

Dave blushed and couldn't bring himself to look at Blaine. "Oh, n-no, I just--" he chuckled nervously. "Again, I'm just joshing around and having fun…"

“I believe it, though! He did amazing with our glee club last year.” Blaine shook his head, grinning at Dave, nudging him. “So you like coming to Country Bear Night?” He asked, making a mental note of that.

"Yeah, I guess I do… sometimes," he replied, still a bit bashful with the continued compliments. "There's not a whole lot of dancing I know how to do but I know my way around a line dance-- I have fun with it." Dave's whole thing since getting out of the hospital was really just trying to find all the ways he could be himself and enjoy who he was. Scandals always made him feel at home in his skin and that fact was made even more so on Country Bear Night.

Blaine was glad that Dave was doing so much work to find himself and find where he was comfortable; the fact that it was at Country Bear Night was incredibly endearing. “I’ve never been to Country Bear Night, surprisingly enough. I’ll have to come sometime, you can teach me how to line dance.” He didn’t intend for it to sound flirtatious.

Dave was a little caught off-guard; he’d never been asked to teach anyone anything before. “U-uh, yeah, I can teach you but you’re already so good at dancing… I bet you won’t even need my help,” he replied, though the prospect of running into Blaine again at Scandals sounded like a great time. All they were really doing here was just talking and already Dave was having a great time; he imagined dancing and letting loose would really be a lot of fun. This was turning out to be a promising friendship and Dave didn’t want to do anything to wreck it.

“I will definitely need your help,” Blaine corrected. “You can teach me and I’ll take a new skill back to the New Directions,” he laughed. “They’ll wonder who the heck I am.” Blaine took a sip of his final drink that the bartender had sat in front of him, knowing that he should be cut off around his third or fourth. He let out a content sigh, feeling a lot less heavy than he had when he came into the bar that night. Smiling over at Dave, he reached over to pat him on the arm. “This has been really nice, David. I feel a lot better than I did earlier.”

"Happy to help," Dave replied as he returned the gesture by patting Blaine on the shoulder. "You can always text me when you need to vent or just wanna shoot the shit; I'm usually here at night just to unwind, too, so I'm a decent drinking buddy." He pulled out his mobile phone and composed a quick text message, with Blaine’s phone chiming just a moment later. "There-- now you have my number too. I promise I won’t ghost you again."

Blaine smiled as he looked at his phone, immediately saving Dave’s number. “Thanks,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I promise that I’m not always a downer. Things have just been a bit rough with Kurt because of the whole graduating thing. I’m not really dealing with it well,” he shared, pulling out his wallet to pay for his and Dave’s tab. “But I will definitely take you up on that.” Blaine offered a kind smile to his new friend. He liked how comfortable he felt around Dave, it was easy and he didn’t feel like he needed to be anyone but himself.

Seeing Blaine smile made Dave smile. Although Dave didn't feel like he did much to make Blaine feel better about his problems, he was glad to help in some aspect. "I don't think you're a downer, so don't worry about it. Next time we meet, it'll be to celebrate or have fun-- not to mope or vent." Dave was adamant on making good on that statement. Dave thanked Blaine for the drinks and waved goodbye to him, watching him until the shorter man was completely out of view. One thing he knew for certain: he wasn't going to wait for happenstance to bring them together again.

[sally-mun]

How long have you and your partner been together? I knwo you've said it's been years but how long exactly?

It depends a little on how you look at it, because there was a big gap in there for a while. Our current stint is around a decade, but if you count when we FIRST started RPing, it’s actually closer to two decades.

Here, let me just do it like this:

1997-2005(ish): Yeah, my RPing dates back this far (probably farther back than some of you have been alive, oof). Back then the internet was still SUPER new, so there weren’t a lot of ways to hang out online beyond message boards and chatrooms – and you were NEVER supposed to go in chatrooms, because that’s where all the stalkers were! However I’d come across this Sonic webpage that I thought was super cool, and in contact info of the gal that ran it was linked a chat where she was known to hang out. It was back during the days of GeoCities (before Yahoo even owned it), and there were only a handful of chatrooms on the site in total. Among them was a room simply called “Games Chat.” I decided to take the chance and went in hoping to find the girl that ran the website. I never did, but this was my first introduction to RPing!

So for those who’ve never done this format, it’s kind of a free-for-all. Whatever screen name you log in with is your character, and everything happens in real time. Your turn is basically one line, and it can be dialogue, *actions*, or both if you could fit them. Yes, the turns are small, but the chatroom format meant that turns were taken rapidly, and it actually covered a LOT of ground in a short amount of time. You could do a single session and call that a day, or you could keep meeting up with the same people over and over to do a continuous game/story. There were basically no hard rules, just ones you established yourselves either before you started or mid-game ((via talking OOC)). Regulars came to know each other while other faces slipped in and out in a flash. Canon characters and OCs basically shared equal footing. It was exciting and fast-paced and I loved it.

Over time things changed a bit; GeoCities was bought up by Yahoo, and at that time “Games Chat” was changed to “Anime Capsule,” since I guess someone on the back end noticed that we were talking/RPing way more about anime than about video games. After a couple years of that, though, Yahoo decided to shut the chatroom down all together – but fear not, one of our users set up our own Anime Capsule on his own sever! We continued there for a few more years, and the chatroom itself gained more and more features that made it an even cooler place, but I eventually drifted away from here as other regulars gradually dropped off. At this point, I lost most contact with my current partner.

Sadly, so far as I’m aware this chatroom no longer exists.

2006-2011(ish): With the Anime Capsule behind me, I was invited by @fini-mun to a forum RP with a bunch of my friends (many of whom are even here on Tumblr now – hi guys!). This was my first time using a message board for gaming purposes, but I really liked it. The downside is it’s much, much slower than chatroom RP, but it was fun to get to use actual prose and narration. This RP is what made me realize just how much I enjoy writing, and it’s more or less when I transitioned to seeing myself as a writer instead of an artist (which is funny in a way, because looking back on my old threads there I was SO TERRIBLE, but hey that’s growth I guess).

For those who’ve never done forum RP, it’s MUCH more structured. There’s an area specifically for character profiles, another area specifically for OOC discussion, and then an area for the actual RPs themselves. Each thread is a specific area and time, and the board maintains a single, continuous continuity. If a character enters one thread, they can’t simultaneously be in another, because all threads are part of the same canon. When all characters leave a thread, that particular thread is archived, and then a new one is started whenever a character comes back to the area. This particular forum also had an “off-canon” area, which was specifically for silly OOC threads, “what if” scenarios, or ongoing jokes.

This was a SUPER tight community for me. We were a fairly small group and kept the forum private, and only got new users if one of us specifically invited someone. It operated pretty well for a few years, despite being a group of only about 15-20 people. I eventually left this group after an incident went down which changed things in a way that could never really be undone. The forum was different, the group was different, and most importantly, I was different. I did my best to linger for a while but it just wasn’t working for me anymore.

This forum has undergone a few changes, but still exists! You can find it here, or message @jammerlee if you have questions!

2008-2010(ish): In the midst of the forum RP, I’d reconnected with several of my Anime Capsule friends on AIM, and we intermittently continued some of our games via AIM itself. This was nice for me, because it was like a throwback to my chatroom RP days, but on a much smaller scale. At this time I reconnected with my current partner and invited him to the forum RP, but he declined, as forum RPing just isn’t his jam.

For the most part, this didn’t result in anything particularly noteworthy, as it was largely one-off instances and a lot of OOC talk. I liked the focused one-on-one aspect of it all, and I definitely appreciated the rapid progress you can make in IMRP, since that was one of my favorite things about chatroom RPing. So, even though I was still at the forum at the time, this also became a regular RP method for me on the side. Over the years I intermittently attempted to get a couple of friends from the forum RP to IMRP with me too ( @fini-mun and @jammerlee being my biggest targets), but in most cases these attempts fizzled. I had a really fun Knuckles & Rouge story going for a while with Deebs, but that eventually died out because of…

2010-2013(ish): …the arrival of Tumblr! I ended up here due to another invitation from @fini-mun, I’m assuming because we’d both left the forum RP and our IMRPing was inconsistent. It’s probably needless to say, but Deebs made a Finitevus character blog and I made a Sally character blog.

The thing is, I actually had a really tough time with Tumblr RP format. I just really didn’t like the serialized nature of the posts because it made it too difficult (in my opinion) to read through things in order, and nevermind the fact that there’s relevant info spread across multiple blogs! It just really wasn’t my cup of tea, but I still wanted to play here with the friends I’d made, so I decided to make my own version of Tumblr RP: I wrote my character blog as though Sally herself was blogging and getting used to using the internet for play instead of work. This turned out to be WILDLY successful, to the point that I even got a lot of fanmail from former Sally-haters telling me I’d softened or even completely changed their view of the character!

Although I don’t update it anymore, the blog itself still exists, and can be found here!

2010-present: This is the current RP with my current partner. Since I was no longer at the forum RP and Deebs had moved away from IMRP, I reached out to my ye olde partner and asked if he would have any interest in RPing a crackship that Deebs and I had been talking about (aka Knuckles x Finitevus). He was intrigued by the idea and we decided to give it a go, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s turned out to be the most stable game of our LIVES. We’ve been IMRPing consistently for the last decade or so, originally on AIM and then eventually moving to Discord when AIM bit the dust. We don’t RP every day like we used to when we were kids, and we take breaks from the main story to do AUs now and then, but for the most part we’re still chugging along and have no intentions of stopping anytime soon!

And even though these RPs are not public performance, apparently I’m writing summary TV shows of them now, so you can view those here at my blog as I intermittently work on them – and while you’re at it, you can support me on Patreon or Ko-Fi because these things take a lot of time and effort and it would really help me pay my bills!

[overwatchspeaks]

Rules & Guidelines update

Please take a moment of your time to read through the updated Rules & Guidelines page on our blog or under the cut here!

ABOUT OUR GROUP

OverwatchSpeaks is a semi-exclusive lightweight roleplay/ask blog hybrid group. We’re welcoming to roleplayers of all kinds, from veterans to first-timers, and our primary goal is to have fun together! Our members portray muses from the Overwatch franchise, aiming to create something new while following the base set for us by the original canon lore.

The group was established 07/21/2017 and has been active since with a lively, friendly community that we’re working hard to support to this day. Whether you’re already a member of our group or interested in joining us, please read the following rules carefully!

FOR OUR FOLLOWERS

Can I follow the Speaks blogs? Everyone is welcome to follow us! Whether you’re an indie roleplaying blog, a member of another group, or a blog from another fandom and brand altogether, our blogs are made for your enjoyment and we thrive on our interactions from you, so please don’t hesitate to click that follow-button!

Can I send asks to your members? Yes! Please do so! Our inboxes are always open for questions, prompts and proddings. You can send your own or join in on any ask meme shared by our members. Don’t be shy!

Can I reblog your threads? Yes - usually. When our characters are interacting in first person, bantering or sharing thoughts, you are welcome to reblog these and interact with us! However, if it’s a third-person paragraph style RP post, please don’t reblog it, as this can disrupt the ongoing interaction!

I’m a roleplaying blog for another character, can I still interact? Yes, but remember that only our group’s members are considered “canonical”. Therefore, if you are roleplaying Pharah on your own blog, remember that whatever happens between your character and our members won’t affect their storyline or relationships within our group and is automatically considered AU or non-canon.

Can I join your Discord server? Our Discord server is only for our group’s members. Sorry!

BEFORE JOINING

How do I apply to become a member? Please visit our Application page for the application outline and examples!

I’m on mobile and can’t access the page. Please use your browser to open our blog’s HTML version, or send us an ask off-anon so we can help you. (How did you open this page??)

Can I claim a Speaks URL for my character before applying? No! This makes it more difficult for our members to claim their urls if you are not selected to play your character. :(

How are applications processed? Our group will review your application, and once enough votes are gathered, we will let you know whether you are accepted into our group or not.

How/when will I know if my application has been reviewed? Our admins will contact you about the results of your application process once the group has voted on it. If you are accepted into our group, you will be able to claim your url and start building your blog as well as join our Discord server. Your url should be something along the lines of “characterspeaks” or “character-speaks”, but alternatives are sometimes used when the desired url is already taken. Your blog can be a main- or a sideblog depending on which you prefer.

How will I know if I’m a good fit for the group? Our group is welcoming to all kinds of roleplayers. You don’t have to have prior experience with roleplay to join us, but we are still selective and your application will do much better when you show us how dedicated, knowledgeable and passionate you are about portraying your chosen character. Make a good first impression!

We don’t tolerate any kind of hostility in our group, as this is supposed to be a fun, safe place for our members to interact and we want everyone to feel accepted and welcome here. While we expect a firm grasp of and a degree of loyalty to the Overwatch canon and lore from our members, we are welcoming to the variety of portrayals and ships our members bring with them and expect that no one should be discriminated against based on their preferences in our spaces. This goes doubly for the real life identities, orientations and other personal characteristics of our members. This is a discrimination and hate free zone for all races, beliefs, gender expressions, and sexual orientations. Discussion of difficult and triggering subjects such as politics and real life religions should be avoided completely.

ROLEPLAY IN OUR GROUP

What kind of content can I post on my Speaks blog? Anything relevant to your character! Think and blog as if you are your muse; reblog the kind of content they’d reblog on their blog, write out their thoughts, and interact with our other members in first person as your character would. You may also participate in paragraph style 3rd person roleplay as you please.

Do I have to stick to Overwatch lore? While we will always welcome headcanons and different perspectives, your character should begin as if they just stepped out of the game’s original story. Your character’s relationships and experiences should be approximately as stated in your character’s story prior to your involvement. However, from this point on, anything can happen! Just remember to make it believable and build up your relationships and character arc appropriately so that through everything, your character will still be recognizable as themselves. If you’re playing Mercy and want her to join Talon, we want to see her reasons and transformation first - not just her application!

Exceptions to this rule are different events and happenings in our group such as Halloween, when your character can go through temporary transformations and other changes.

Should I keep my blog family friendly? Yes. Our blogs aim to be safe for minor readers. Before posting your content, please consider whether you’d show it to your hypothetical 13-years-old sister first.

Can I roleplay with blogs outside of Speaks? Yes. If a follower interacts with you through asks or reblogs, you may interact with them the same as you would with our group’s members. However, if you are interacting with an in-character blog outside of our group, please remember that only developments within our group should affect your character - so, if in a thread with an outside blog your character married another character, in reality your character remains single in their story. You should preferably use an AU tag for these threads to keep them separate from your other threads.

How often should I be active on my blog? We have relaxed rules on activity, but you should always aim to be as active on your blog as you can! Even one-liners and in-character thought posts count for your activity. If there is very little or no activity on your blog over the period of three weeks, you’ll have to confirm with us that you’re still interested in your role and will be more active in the future.

GROUP ETIQUETTE

Post format guideline Write your posts in a manner that feels natural to your character, but please try to use proper grammar and don’t over-format your posts. They should be easy to read and easy to comprehend for all readers! It is also recommended that you trim longer threads; if you are unsure how, ask for help!

Ask meme guideline Always try to send an ask to the member of our group you’re reblogging an ask meme from! This will help to ensure that no one is left without asks and interactions. We’ve all been there; everyone reblogs your meme but nobody sends you an ask. It’s not a good feeling.

Behavior in group Our group aims to be a safe, fun environment for all our members and followers. Respect your fellow roleplayers and keep our spaces free of negativity and conflict. If a problem arises, don’t hesitate to involve the admins or moderators, and if at all possible, keep any confrontation and callouts out of our shared spaces like Discord and especially your character’s Speaks blog.

SPEAKS AND NSFW

Can I post NSFW content on my blog or in our Discord server? No. We try to keep our content loosely within the PG-13 rating, and no explicit sexual content or nudity should be posted anywhere in our spaces. If your character is in a relationship and the RP turns steamy, make use of fade to black!

I received a NSFW ask. What should I do with it? Delete it or, if you are of age of majority and have explicitly consented to NSFW asks, answer it in private. No NSFW asks should ever be published on our blogs.

I want to send a NSFW ask. Can I? Assume the answer is no, unless you’ve specifically asked for permission OR the inbox of the member you’re sending the ask to states that they accept NSFW asks. Never send NSFW asks to minors. Remember to turn off your anonymous. No NSFW asks will be published on the blogs.

RULEBREAKING AND CONSEQUENCES

I’ve broken a rule. What happens now? Our group has a strike system. When you break a rule either on your blog or in our Discord server, you will receive a strike. On your third strike, you will be removed from the group and banned from reapplying. If your behavior improves and you don’t break the rules again, your strike will wear off in three months. If you’ve received two strikes, you’ll be back to no strikes in six months. Try not to receive your third one.

For serious incidents, instant ban from the group is possible.

A follower is making me uncomfortable. What can I do? Firstly, block them. You can block anons, which will also prevent blogs from that IP address from contacting you regardless of if you’ve specifically blocked their urls. If you’re being harassed, you should warn other members of the specific blog in question so that they know to be wary. 

Last resorts are turning off your anonymous asks or closing your inbox temporarily and sending a report to Tumblr staff about harassment.

[finalfantasyxivwritings]

One Night in Thanalan (1/?)

AO3 Version | Chapter Tag Here 

Relationship: Samilen Jawantal (OC)/X’rhun Tia

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Samilen Jawantal, the Warrior of Light, has recently taken on the duty of learning the dying art of red magic. Between the wonderful teaching of X'rhun Tia and the passing on of his Soul Stone, Samilen has learned a lot even in a short period of time, but there's something wrong. The Soul Stone is passing on more than mere techniques and knowledge--emotions, memories, all of them intertwined as one, bringing Samilen closer and closer to the man who had entrusted him with it.

Samilen finally seeks out X'rhun for help in combating these feelings, but what will happen to the Warrior of Light when he is caught in a balancing act of not red magic, but love and lust?

Note: This is an ongoing adaptation/formatted version of an RP I have been writing with my fiance (@blood--hunter​) putting together my Keeper Miqo'te WOL (@samilenjawantal​) and X'rhun Tia, the red mage teacher. Let me know if you spot any formatting errors!

The Coffin and Coffer could be described as many things. Decerped came to mind first. But what mattered most to X'rhun was that it was usually quiet, and offered a relatively peaceful place to have a drink.

Just earlier he had given Samilen a soul stone. A supplementary-like item to facilitate someone's quick joining of the Red Mage's ranks, which were already thinned down to but two members--X’rhun himself was but one of those members, the other being someone only recently trained. Nevertheless, he trusted Samilen. He was already a strong, determined individual. That much X'rhun knew.

But he didn't know what was to come, and that was an adventure in and of itself.

The doors to the tavern open and X'rhun almost thinks that it's another person come to seek shelter from the blistering heat of Thanlan's sun. Instead it is the white-haired miqo'te that he has come to know. The smile on his lips is easy and easier still are the words that leave his mouth.

"Ah! Samilen! Come, join me for a drink." He says with his usual flourish.

At least it isn't hard to find the man.

Samilen feels a smile form on his face at the sight of X'rhun, if only for the familiarity that has already begun to bloom whenever he so much as hears the older miqo'te's voice ring out over the bustle of the Coffin and Coffer. It's not a common thing for adventurers to find familiarity in things when they are so busy in moving around, especially as a Scion, but the few people fall into such places in Samilen's heart are hard to be forgotten or dismissed.

It's been a few weeks since Samilen had last seen X'rhun, though he already had a multitude of questions to ask--red magic was so much different than what he'd already experienced and, more subtly, he hoped to impress the man with what he's already managed to grasp.

The young adventurer is quick to shuffle around the people in the tavern, making his way over to the table at which the red mage sits.

"I'm glad to see you," Samilen says, his voice just a touch louder than normal to catch over the boisterous energy of the tavern around them. "Do you have time for a couple questions between teacher and student?" His eyes catch as a barmaid makes her way closer to the table. "Though perhaps they are best after a few drinks--it has been a little while."

"Of course," X’rhun extends his arm, opening himself for questioning, as it was, "I would expect quite a few. Red Mages are few and far between and Alisaie mentioned you were quite the curious one."

He winks, because of course he has to, under that wide brimmed hat of his. The tavern is loud in the way that most are but X'rhun doesn't make an effort to raise his voice. Some things needed to stay between friends and Samilen was definitely his friend now. He wouldn't give his soul stone to just anyone. He had only known the younger Miqo'te for such a short amount of time but ... it was nice to have a comrade again, no matter how new. He just hoped he didn't turn out like his last ones.

A bitter but happy thought.

Samilen isn't sure how to feel with the gesture and the words--or especially the combination of the two--so he tries desperately to keep a straight face as a mild heat creeps across his cheeks. It's hard, but at least he's able to keep a hold over his words, the questions had been gnawing at the back of Samilen's mind ever since he touched the ruby-red soul crystal.

Ever since the memories of red mages old all but stuffed themselves inside of his mind.

He doesn't want to seem desperate or, worse, naïve. Samilen had been good at things for so long that it feels awkward to know so little about a skill--it's not an uncomfortable feeling as it simply is unfamiliar, though it's hilarious yet that he's not used to feeling out of place for the things that he often does. If anything, Samilen waits for the first set of drinks to find their way to the table; he nurses the ale gently, knowing little for how strong the local brew is and very keenly aware of his lack of fortitude in all things alcoholic.

"I...am curious about some things," he finally finds the voice to say. "About how red magic affects...someone. I have briefly touched on white magic and felt much the effects of black, but this...is wholly different. Is it common to feel....side effects?"

X'rhun allows himself to lean forwards. He regards Samilen with much the same curiosity one had at a particularly interesting work of art. "Side effects? Well, there are some, I'm sure." He leans back again, resting one hand on the stem of his beer. He tries to think, hard, back two decades to when he'd first picked up his craft. "You would have to describe them too me. I'm afraid I don't quite know of what you speak." Or, at least, his old brain had let him forget his early days. He had been gallivanting around Ala Mhigo during that time, and many things had gone unnoticed their doomed plan to free the city, for example.

Ah, that's what Samilen had been dreading. For all that he had given thought to wording his concerns, all of those words leave him when called to bare themselves for an answer.

The keeper stares down at his drink for a few seconds as if willing it to the be the most wonderful and glorious thing in the room--he could not hold the older man's gaze for fear that he'd catch something from the glint of Samlien's eyes, as the old rumor goes for one in any school of magic could very well peer into another's soul if given enough experience.

"Well, there have been...dreams. Visions." Samilen swallows down a rock that's formed in his throat. "When in the heat of battle I've caught glimpses of conflicts I've never been apart of. People I've never met. I could have sworn even that I once cast verfire and could have sworn I heard it in another's voice." He pauses for a breath, another, and then a third. "....your voice, to be specific."

X'rhun's ears flicker beneath his hat, perching at the front of his head like two dogs ready to strike. Ah. That had sounded more familiar that he would like. In his younger days, when he was just barely twenty, he had known much the same feeling. As he had gotten more and more used to his magic he had experienced intense visions of Red Mages past.

He had even had more intense ... personal visions.

Though he had never had the gall to ask his compatriots, it seemed much the same for those around him. Those who had received a Soul Stone at least, which was a rare occurrence--rarer still when a scant few still exist. How could he forget such a thing? No wonder Eorzea required a permit to their exchange, as rare of items as they were.

He had wholly forgotten the negative side-effects and now Samilen was paying the price.

"Ah," He says, pressing a thumb to his own chin, "That sounds about right. I believe it is your the work of your Soul Stone. It's not uncommon to experience such things from mages past. Don't worry, the more you slip into your magic the weaker they will become. They may be ... intense ... from time to time but it is normal. I promise.” X’rhun tries to offer a teasing smile. “You're like a teenager just coming into themselves right now."

Samilen could almost feel the stone burning in the pouch against his hip, secured and rarely forgotten, though he isn't sure whether it's the stone or his face that burns hotter under the other miqo'te's heavy, nay, suggestive words.

Though it gives Samilen a great sense of relief to know he's not gone insane, he's hardly to mention that the visions are not wholly unwelcome . Comfortable, at times, if a little overwhelming. It feels very much the same as when Hydaelyn herself had enveloped the man in her warm embrace, a protection beyond what the physical realm can truly describe.

"Well," the man finally says, hoping to stall the moment with a long drink of the bitter, cold ale. "That...would explain a lot of things, I suppose. It is like...reliving the memories in the crystal? Only playing what has already been placed within it?"

X'rhun nods, "Exactly so." He confirms. Though putting memories into the Soul Stone was not an exact science. It was, in fact, mostly just the strongest memories the previous owner had while wielding it. Some of those were more ... sexual than others. His most powerful Vercure could exist right beside that time he'd rutted off to the sound of the pleasure house next door. Memories were much the same way, tied in strings in ways one could not decipher readily. "Do not fret. It is nothing to be truly embarrassed about."

Still, X'rhun did not look forward to having to explain some of the things Samilen would come to experience...assuming he hadn’t already.

Samilen could only stare at X'rhun in a mixture of blankness and exasperation, debating within himself if it was worth bringing his truer issues up with the man or not. Would the outcome be worth the risk of forever marking himself oddly to the red mage master? To tell him of the things Samilen has seen, experienced and even felt ? It is through the ignorance of ever touching a soulstone, ever understanding the workings of such a piece of magic that fuels his fear to speak.

He doesn't know what X'rhun already suspects is happening to him.

"I'd wager to disagree on that," is all that Samilen can bring himself to say, heat growing ever stronger in his cheeks that he hopes it can be hidden and lied about by the thrum of alcohol instead, of which the younger miqo'te finishes with a long drink. It burns something horrible in his belly, but at least it loosens up his anxiety--just a little bit.

X’rhun fixes him with a look and lets himself move forwards, tapping the wood of the table in front of Samilen. He could take a guess as to what the other man had ... experienced.

"Tell me..." He hums, tilting his head some. He had worked decades to be an honorable man. Had kept his Oath when all others had fallen around him. At one point he had thought of taking up drinking to soothe the ache, but alcohol costs much for a poor man. The sword had been a better addiction but roads tend to take you to interesting places. "... Have you felt the soft hands of a woman on your cock while you were near sleep?"

Whatever shame X'rhun had used to feel left him years ago. There is only so much you can experience on the road before it doesn't bother you anymore. Explain to Samilen the echos of sexual encounters he would feel was just a drop in the bucket.

A new stone has found its way into Samilen's throat, thick and sharp and greedy for all of what lingers of the young man's fortitude and focus. He can't consider anything but the question that lingers low and hard in the air between he and X'rhun, can't think of anything but how he'd spent the last several nights in a feverish haze of dreams and visions leaving him so near completion that it could have been labeled torture.

Samilen grips his glass tight, tight enough that he's faintly worried that it may crack against his grip.

"....it....wasn't a woman," is all the young keeper can bring himself to whisper, gaze fallen to the wooden surface of the table as shame begins to well up in his chest, a readiness to bolt out of the tavern already in the back of his mind.

X'ruhn's brows lift in understanding. Was that embarrassing to the younger man? Eorzea had not suffered from such bigotry in over a century.

"Ah," He says, trying to keep his voice soothing but he can see the shame mounting in Samilen's eyes. A feeling a not un-similar to guilt builds in his chest. He reaches out, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Look, Samilen we ... Lets go outside."

He stands, lets his chair scrape loudly so that the attention is on him and not his companion, so that he doesn't have to worry about people staring at him.

Samilen is a man often told at how stoic he looks; as a Scion, as the Warrior of Light, as many things--he's been told how controlled he keeps his emotions or, on occasion, he's questioned if he feels them at all.  What's a hero if not one who looks fearless, after all?

But this is not one of those times, this is not one of those things--so easily can Samilen stuff the trauma of battle into the back of his memories, but hardly muffle the intensity of embarrassment and worry and a million other things that twist his stomach like a spring. All he can do is nod at the other man's suggestion, trying desperately to keep a cold, blank expression on his face as the two of them make their way outside of the tavern. The sky is darkening, the wind feels cool--it's a peaceful evening in Thanalan and one that Samilen treasures more with every passing day.

He follows X'rhun and tries desperately not to wring his hands together.

X'rhun leads them out and onto what could be called a patio. He stands, leaning his forearms against the wooden railing as he watches the dust swirl over the landscape.

"This reminds me of Ala Mihgo." He admits, tilting his head slight. "I used to be quite the catch in those days. I had men and women both fawning over me. What a surprise it must have been for my father when I chose to become a revolutionary and not a Nuhn."

He smiles, one small and rueful, "I suppose I should be sad at the path I chose but I do not regret it. Not in the slightest." He turns to Samilen. "I do not what you to be embarrassed around me, Samilen. It is alright to feel what you feel and I give you permission to act on it how you choose, but do not hide it from me."

Samilen's mind flickers between several emotions, though he does his best to focus on the soft words that fall from X'rhun's mouth, to think back on a time when the red mage master was young and when life was far short of worries and stress. And, truth be told, it wasn't all that hard to see him as the center of attention to others--even with the years gone by the older seeker still is quite admirable in more ways than one, though it was not until the effects of the Soul Stone that Samilen allowed himself but a passing fancy about those bright eyes, snow-white hair and almost haughty grin of his.

The keeper swallows thickly. "I imagine that it's much easier for you to say that, being on your side of the situation, though it's not particularly.....easy for me to bring up."

He's not quite sure if this is the outcome he wanted--would it have been easier for X'rhun to explain the meaning and simply tell Samilen to never speak of it again? To pretend as if it never happened? Samilen is not sure.

"Wouldn't you rather me hide it though? You offered these skills and knowledge as a teacher and this--these--these feelings are hardly appropriate."

The seeker laughs lightly, moving to lean his hip against the wooden railing that scarcely separated bar from ground.

"They aren't appropriate, no. But they are natural and they do come with the business of soul stones. If feel the need to discuss them then I give you full permission to, but I will not force you into such a situation."

He looks at Samilen, casting the young keeper a glance with his blue hues, "It won't do to hide part of yourself. Balance is part of a Red Mage's task. You must find the balance within yourself." A soothing smile works over his lips, "I am your teacher. I simply wish to help you find your balance."

Samilen brings a fist to his lips, teeth almost gnawing against one of his knuckles for a moment as he deeply considers the worth of his soul and if he is going anywhere pleasant in the afterlife.

"And that only makes it more reprehensible," he argues after a moment, finally dropping his hand so that he can play his fingers against one of the buckles of his shirt, pulling at the leather and metal in their eagerness to be doing something . "There's hardly anything to talk about. I just--I want--..."

' I want them .' Though it's the truth, he can't bring himself to say something like that to the man before him. He's supposed to be ashamed of the feelings, and yet Samilen can't help but find himself almost desperate in the night's he's awoken by half-dreamt hands pressing against his skin and a powerful voice all but growling in his ears. It's certainly an issue that's creeping into Samilen's ability to learn red magic, but the keeper is desperately ashamed in that...well....he likes them.

"I don't know anymore." Is all he can finally say, hands moving up to hide his face in a moment of pure, overwhelming exasperation.

X'ruhn approaches Samilen in less than the time it takes to breathe. He crowds into the other man’s space space; he does not corner him, no, but he does get closer than he needs to be.

His memories call back to Alisaie. She had been a different case entirely and had refused the soul stone out of principal. He wonders now if she knew the side effects, with how very learned she was she probably did. He feels guilt for forcing these feeling onto Samilen.

"Do you need me to take it from you?" He asks, setting a hand on his shoulder. "If you can not handle it... if you feel panic at being shown these visions..." His brow furrows in worry. "Is there anything that I can do to help alleviate this pain?"

Samilen can practically feel X'rhun as the man nears him, his body churning into overdrive as the trickles of emotions start to fall over his thoughts--his breathing quickens, just a hair, but it's enough to make his heart start hammering against his ribcage and throw his thoughts into chaos.

The mere mention of taking away the Soul Stone brings Samilen's face back into view, expression suddenly distraught for a number of reasons--fear, longing, a feeling of pain for disappointing someone he trusts.

"No!" he says, almost hisses with a fervent shake of the head. "No no I--I want it, I want to keep it, I--"

X'rhun is so physically close. Samilen's body all but shakes, the Soul Stone burning his hip through the leather pouch and bringing forth flashes of memories from the evenings since taking the ruby-red gift in hand. The nights of hazy passion, of desperate mewls and the touch of Samilen's own hand finishing the memory of another, touch like fire against his cock.

All the keeper can do is stare up at X'rhun, face hot and ears pinned back, expression desperate for a mixture of reasons that twist hard in the pit of Samilen's stomach.

X'ruhn looks down, his brow quirks for but a fraction of a second before he move forwards again.

"Samilen." He lets his voice slip low, a rumble in the back of his throat. "If you need something. You need to ask."

It's not a command, he would never command him to do this. But he does let the hand on his shoulder squeeze a little harder before it slips lower down his arm, gripping softly at the meat of his bicep and pulls him flat to him. He knew that Samilen was muscled, a man who was once a bard could never not be, but he feels all of him against the planes of his chest, even with the layers upon layers of clothes he wears.

Samilen can't hide the gasp that falls from his lips when his body presses against X'rhun's own, the older's grip firm and unyielding as he tugs them together. It leaves so many things hazy and so many more things clear as crystal, though the focus seems to fall quickly on the fact that Samilen is but hard against his trousers and can't help but feel a shiver of pleasure in how good it feels when the red mage's hips slot against his own, if only for a moment.

"I need-" Samilen bites his lip and tries uselessly to get his brain to work, to organize the situation and all that's happening, to at least try to put together all of the emotions in their rightful place. Alas, he can't--all he can think about is the man's low growl and rough hands on his skin.

"I need you." The words are hot with yearning. "Please, please I need--I need you ."

X’rhun is quick to respond, slotting his own lips against Samilen. He has to bow at the waist to do it, so much shorter than him is the other man, but he manages it all the same.

He takes Samilen into his arms, one hand going the small of his back and catching there, pressing him closer and closer still. This would be a quick rut. Not many people passed by the Coffer & Coffin, regardless they were also hidden by the shadows. Stranger things have happened in Thanlan than two men seeking pleasure with each other at the far end of a bar. His hand moves to Samilens crotch, pulling at the lacing there.

"How do you want it?" He asks, voice husky in his chest.

"Just-" Samilen's voice catches in his throat as his mind all but rolls over the words, the question, made so ravishing by the deep tone of X'rhun's voice. "Touch me, fuck me, I don't care. Anything."

Truly, Samilen hardly has a preference at that point, so addled with lust and yearning that he's hard-pressed to pick when the mere notion of X'rhun being pressed against him while he crests over climax is plenty enough to leave the younger man feeling dizzy with emotions. His hands reach up to grip at the other's shoulders, fingers winding tight in the ruby-red fabric that the keeper has come to know X'rhun for. He wants to keep the man close, so close, wants the moment to be forever seared into memory if only to sate the curiosity and wanting that digs against his heart and thoughts.

X'rhun presses closer, his hand stripping away the laces that keep Samilen's pants joined to his hips. He pulls them down slightly, revealing his underclothes and along with it, his straining cock. Thankfully the older male kept oils on him. In his travels they had come in handy from more things than just polishing his blade, euphemism entirely intended.

He presses the Keeper's underclothes down, freeing him of their constraints enough to reveal his cock. X'rhun was already hard as well and this sight did not help matters much. He pumps Samilen, once, twice, but then his hand is working at his own pants, trying to get them off.

Though addled with heat and stomach all but twisting with lust, Samilen certainly has enough of his wits still about to reach his hands down between the two of them, eager to help loosen the front of X'rhun's pants. Every brush of the back of the seeker's hands against his cock feels like electricity down Samilen's spine, only spurring him on all the faster, the question of what the other man's cock may feel like rutting against his own nothing short of desperate.

"Let me help-" is all the younger man can say, words nothing more than a rush of sounds and syllables as his fingers find how to loosen the buckle at the front of the other's pants.

The keeper hisses, one of pleasure as Samilen's quick hands are able to press away his belt and laces as if they are nothing. His pants threaten to fall as he moves Samilen back. Farther away from the lamp light and into a corner of the patio where someone might be unable to tell what they were doing.

X’rhun is careful to tug down his undergarments, hissing once more as the cool night air touches his already sensitive cock. It was large, ribbed, with a bulbous head that had made him embarrassed when he was younger but was now a large boost to his ego.

With a blink, Samilen came to realize that X'rhun was nothing if not proportional , leaving him with a heavy flush across his dark cheeks and a sudden twist to his stomach, as if his body could finally just feel --and twelve be damned, it felt for what those golden eyes see. As their hips press closer, both of their cocks come close enough that Samilen just can't help but compare, if only for a breath so hot and quick that X'rhun's comment of him repeating the coming into manhood was more accurate than he assumed.

"I never realized seekers were..." Samilen whispers hotly, voice trailing off as his eyes can't help but look down, then finally back up to the other man's face, lower lip drawn between his sharp teeth. "....bigger."

The Twelve help him; X’rhun laughs, only stopping when he bites his own lip.

"I told you I was to be Nuhn, yes?" He says, taking one glove off and then the other. They fall to the ground without a care and he takes the oil from his pocket. "In Seeker tribes," He explains, pouring some onto his fingers, "When you become Nuhn you tend to become ... bigger. In more ways than in musculature."

X'rhun rumbles another laugh. "I suppose I've gotten so old and been on the road for so long my body responded ... accordingly." He moves his hand behind Samilen, finding the base of his tail and then tracing down, circling his finger at his entrance. "I hope you don't mind."

Samilen all but whines as he feels fingertips tracing past the base of his tail, and squirms when those same fingers start to press against the tight muscles beneath. It brings to mind the last time he'd done something similar--which is to say but a handful of escapades several years earlier and with men and women of equal experience that he had (which was little at that point in Samilen's life).

The keeper's legs widen in an almost instinctual response and his ass presses back eagerly against the rough pressure of X'rhun's fingers but toying against the rim of his entrance.

"I...hardly mind," he breathes out through parted lips, arms seeking to wrap around the other's neck to anchor himself closer. "I don't see how I could mind at all, actually, it's--it's a bit of a turn-on, actually."

X'rhun hums, giving him a small kiss on the lips before he dares to press his finger into him, thrusting it in and out a handful of times before he sets a steady rhythm.  He presses a hand into the soft white that is Samilen's hair, letting it lace through the tresses there, undoing his so tightly kept braid. He would be wrecked and beautiful after this, and X'rhun would be lying if he said he wasn't excited to see it.

"Good," He says against his lips, rutting his cock forward against the other Miqo'te's with a low growl.

So much happens in but a scant few breaths of time, though Samilen takes it all with a blooming willingness in his chest, a rapturous twist of heat in his stomach as the desperate frayed edges of his fantasies become nothing short of real and material. He's caught between the seeker's finger slipping deep within him, rubbing against his inner walls in careful encouragement to loosen him up, and the hot pressure of a stiff cock rutting against his own.

Samilen would have been a liar to say he wasn't excited by the notion of all of it happening, by even the soft peck of X'rhun's lips intimately against his own for but a flicker of a moment.

But it's the growl that gets him the most, the low noise seeming to make something just click in the keeper's mind, a switch left dormant in his brain that's finally been toyed with enough to life--and of all the noises that slip from his lips, he can't help but mewl .

"Careful," The older man says, even as his cock stirs to leadened hardness, even as he presses another finger alongside the first one, scissoring them in an attempt to steadily get Samilen ready for his girth and length. The mewl is so soft, so sweet, a man who has defeated beasts X'rhun wouldn't dare to have nightmares about is mere putty in his hands.

He presses his lips to an ear, reveling in the softness of his fur, "You wouldn't want someone to hear? Would you?" He asks, his voice a purr as he ruts his hips again, almost drowning in how good it feels.

Samilen's ears flick gently against X'rhun's lips, the words doing more to stoke the flames in his belly than put them out. What if someone did see them? Would they do anything? Would they sit there and watch? Samilen can't seem to find the shame to twist the thought out of his mind, a throbbing in his cock from the mere possibility that they could be caught--no, that Samilen himself could be caught. The esteemed warrior of light with his pants around his ankles, getting railed hard just outside a tavern like some desperate whore.

"Fuck," the man all but squeaks, ducking his head beneath X'rhun's chin, trying to figure out whether he wanted to press his hips forward or back as he's stretched open on thick, experienced digits.

Purring comfortingly, X’rhun presses his fingers through Samilen's twisting white locks once more as he adds a third finger.

He's careful now, spreading them to stretch Samilen open more as he readies him for the real thing now. He hears the wood squeak beneath someone's feet as they leave the bar. They either don't notice or don't care what they're doing as they walk past without incident. Good. He certainly didn't want them interrupted.

His cock was fire between his legs and he knew that only Samilen could sate this burning within him.

May the gods strike him down where he stand, Samilen absolutely felt a throb in his cock at the squeak of the wood hardly several yalms away from them. It's almost that he could feel the gaze of the anonymous bar-goer, though it could have easily been a trick of his own addled mind in the heat of the moment--regardless it did things to him, twisted and gnawed at the pit of his stomach just as he felt a third finger slide past the tight ring of muscle.

" X'rhun ," Samilen half-mewls, the noise muffled somewhat in the fabric of the man's jacket. Three digits already feel so thick, the calloused tips rubbing expertly against walls of his ass that he could go insane with the rising pleasure--would his cock even fit? Despite the worry, Samilen couldn't stop the eagerness in his voice as he all but pleaded,

"More, please--need you now--"

All X’rhun can do is nod. He wasn't about torture the man. Gently he turns him around, having Samilen hang onto the wooden pole that lifted the roof over them. His hands are firm on hips as he presses the head of his thick cock to the other man's entrance.

He teases it there, shivering at the pleasure that spikes up his spine and down into the pit of his stomach. He wants nothing more than to plunge into him and take him against the railing of the patio, but he waits instead, slowly getting him used to the idea of even his cock entering him.

Samilen grips the pole, his forehead pressed to the wood and his nails digging in deep, clinging to something to give him anchor as his muscles  twitch and ache for the thick heat pressing against him. He almost expects X'rhun to thrust without hesitation, if only for the heat of the moment and the rushed nature of the encounter itself. No, Samilen certainly doesn't expect for the older man to wait, to pause long enough that Samilen can get his thoughts in order--long enough that it's purposed and it means something deep in the keeper's chest.

Samilen's ears pin back as he can't find the words to plead--only actions, his ass pressing back against X'rhuns thick cock to encourage the man forward and to slip inside of his needing body.

The seeker huffs, mostly because his last, single thread of control snaps, and he presses into Samilen with a groan.

At first, he takes it as slowly as he can, pressing into the smaller body before him inch by inch. X'rhun's fingers grip at his hips, squeezing there as he tries not to just take the man before him. Samilen was a good soul, a good Red Mage, he shouldn't have to put up with someone like X'rhun pounding him like a simple whore.

Eventually he allows himself to slot inside the younger man, biting his lip to keep back a cuss that stirs at the back of his throat. Oh, it'd been too long and yet just long enough.

Samilen is certainly no virgin, though there are too many years between his last encounter with a man and the breathless moment of now. He scarcely recalls what it was like to be beneath another person, to feel their hands on his hips and their body against his.

He remembers fooling around in the shadows of the soldiers' quarters of the Twin Adders, of curious kisses and desperate hands, of movements yet experienced and the shape of a cock spreading him open while he could only keep his lips sealed of noises that threatened to fall out.

But this, oh, this is something different; a combination of many years untouched and partners lacking as much experience (or girth ) as the miqo'te behind Samilen right now. His body opens up to the intrusion, slicked with oil and finger-fucked to a looseness that leaves him gaping soundlessly against the wooden pole--Samilen felt sorry for anyone who may look upon the marks he's leaving with his claws and wonder what caused them.

" Fuck ," the keeper whispers, the sound breaking up in his throat and only barely loud enough to hear. "Fuckfuckfuckyou'resobig-"

His tail lashes angrily against X'rhuns stomach as every inch of is sheathed within his wanting body, unable to find purchase or rest even when the older man's cock is pressed to the root inside of that tight, hot grip.

He moves forwards, his lips to Samilen's ear.

"Do you like that?" He asks, one hand slipping to his shoulder, the other firm on his hip. This would not be a gentle and languid love making, no. It would be a rough, quick fuck against a wooden post outside some dive bar. If Samilen wanted to make noise, then he could, it wasn't like he was coming back here any time soon. He uses his hands to pull him firmly onto his cock, letting his head rest against the soft, mussed white hair that carded over the other Miqo'te's shoulder.

As soon as he is snug around him he bucks forwards again, leveraging himself against him as he growls low in his chest. He can feel the ridges of his cock catching against Samilen's rim, and it causes him to moan, shutting his eyes with the pleasure.

" Yessss~ " is the best answer that Samilen can give in the moment, his brain addled with a pleasure unfamiliar enough that most of his brain is occupied with simply letting it wash over him. He's a fool to admit it out loud, but he's also a fool who's being fucked up against the outside of a tavern and he's already crossed that bridge and burned it to ashes behind him. Consequences are little more than a shadow in the back of Samilen's mind.

He squeezes around X'rhun's cock, as if to remind himself of the thick girth settled so deep within his body, if only to keep him inside for but one thin breath longer than normal between each hard, rough thrust. All Samilen can do is press his ass back, feeling the other's nails digging so painfully good into his skin that the marks will take days to fade away.

A few small moans escape the seeker’s lips, sounding far too close to the mewl that spilled from Samilen’s lips just a few moments before. The pleasure is already radiating down to his core, hard to control and harder still to hold restraint.

The hand on Samilen's hip splays downwards, slowly wrapping his calloused fingers around his cock and beginning to pump in tempo with the slow, hard thrusts of his hips. He grunts with the effort, pressing his lover firmly against the pole before him. The tavern behind them is loud and rowdy now, as it is deep into the night and people with nowhere to go are intent on staying in the warm light of the bar for as long as possible.

This probably isn't the first time someone has had a triste just outside the glow of the lanterns, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

It doesn't take long until Samilen is pressed near-flat against the wooden pole, his hands scrabbling for purchase until his claws dig deeper into the wooden surface. The only thing not pressed forward is his hips, instead caught between the grip of X'rhun's hand and his cock sliding deeper within him with every hard thrust forward. There's little to muffle the keepers noises than his lips, bitten between his teeth and doing next to nothing to hide each gasp and low whimper that spills every time the head of X'rhun's cock nudges up against a particular spot inside of Samilen.

So deep , Samilen thinks, hardly coherent enough to speak. The seeker's cock is so deep inside him, as if Samilen was made purely to compliment the shape that leaves him shaking, and there's no high greater than being purely at the mercy of cock-desperate lust.

One of his hands finally move from the pole and down to overlap X'rhun's own, not so much to guide the older miqo'te than simply to feel the tautness of muscles and dexterity of calloused fingers as they slide up and down the shaft of his throbbing prick, urging him ever closer to climax.

X’rhun grunts with each thrust, pressing as deep as he can now. X'rhun's lips nip at Samilen's ear, biting gently at the soft white fur.

"C'mon," He says, losing his usual cadence, all his high speech and pretty words. "I now you're close. I can feel it. Tell me baby..."

He purrs, fisting his cock now. The man beneath him his tight and hot against his cock. There is laughter and life behind them in the tavern but the night air is so much hotter now, so much brighter than any bar could be. He plunges himself in Samilen, quick snaps of his hips threatening to send him over the edge.

Baby.

In all the span of a second, no, but a breath, Samilen feels his entire world snap like twigs underfoot. He feels his body shake against his will, his ears flick uselessly against the nip of X'rhun's teeth, feels his mind turns to a blankness as rapturous white-hot euphoria fills his being. If sweet words are like syrup, Samilen feels sticky and sweet with how the other man's whispers fall upon him, drawing him over the edge and into a haze of babbling words of pleasure he cares not to hide or muffle.

" Fuck yes, y-essss- " Samilen's mewl is a strained whimper, fought only by the sound of his claws dragging down the gnarled wooden pole he's pressed against. " YespleaseX'rhunfuckdaddyohblessthetwelve -"

He feels himself spill over the seeker's fingers, sticky and hot and making a mess at his feet, but he's hardly in the mind to care when everything in the world around him feels just perfect .

The seeker gasps, something just as much unlike him as taking a not-quite-student and fucking them just outside the light of a bustling tavern.

Samilen's words had been a mess, yes, but he was coherent enough to make out quite a few things that he liked. Those thoughts, however, would have to be kept for later as he mind goes stark white. Every memory seems to be erased by the pleasure he feels as he plunges into Samilen one last time, cumming inside his tight hole as he lets out a long groan.

He keeps the man tight against him as he rides out his orgasm, and even he can feel his thick seed threatening to fill the other Miqo'te to the brim. He hisses his pleasure, the hand on Samilen's shoulder squeezing hard enough to leave bruises as the blinding white euphoria threatens to overtake his entire being. Finally, it passes, and he is left panting behind him, wallowing in the afterglow.

The pleasure of orgasm works it's last waves down through their forms, leaving Samilen to shiver when a sudden breeze picks up and licks icily against his skin, sweat accumulated on his brow and the nape of his neck.

He feels exhausted and dirty, legs quaking and body suddenly falling into the gaping emptiness that had long been dug in the haze of sex and need. The afterglow itself is pleasant, numbing the edges of his thoughts enough that he can at least enjoy the few moments of silent intimacy, the warmth and pressure of X'rhun's cock still sitting inside of him.

Samilen lets out a soft groan as he shifts his hips, the movement bringing to mind how full and wet he feels inside and how very, very spent he is; streaks of white paint over X'rhun and his own knuckles and across the wooden floor below.

But most of all, the keeper is left silent, just breathing in the cold desert air, unsure of what, if anything, he can say to break the warm silence between the two of them. He at least squeezes X'rhun's hand in his, cock going soft as even the last tendrils of afterglow too have to fade away.

X'rhun lets himself stay put, if only for a moment.

The heat around his cock feels good compared to the cool night air that now blows across the desert. He shivers both from stimulation and from the breeze that cools his already sweaty skin. After another breath his pulls out and away from Samilen, inspecting his cum coated hand.

Ah, it seemed that his partner had not partaken in this in quite a while, if the potency of the liquid on his hand is anything to go by. He hums, pulling his pants up and tucking himself away, before he looks to Samilen.

"Let's get you cleaned up," He says, gently pulling him from the railing to help tuck him away and make him more presentable.

Samilen helps as best he can, though his brain feels about as sluggish as the thick maple syrup that rolls down the tree trunks of the Black Shroud. It's not perfect, but the two of them together manage to get his clothes back on in a way that doesn't make him look as fucked as he feels, though every little shift of Samilen's hips leave a rolling wetness down his inner thighs which-oh gods--he will have to take care of the moment he's in an inn room or somewhere far more private. It's uncomfortable, but it does keep a flush painted dark over his cheeks, barely able to glance up at the seeker as he keeps the younger tugged close.

Samilen's tail thrashes softly behind him, indication only of his twisting thoughts as reality starts to burn through the pleasure; shame is a quick, vile beast after all.

"You don't-," Samilen starts, unsure what to do with his own hands. "-you don't have to."

"I don't. But I am." He says with a shake of his head, tutting as he tries to set Samilen right. He presses a hand through Samilen's hair, letting it all loose to slide over his shoulders. Unfortunately he'd never been very good at braiding, so Samilen would have to make do.

He helps the other man steady himself, looking the other man over once before nodding to himself. He looked like he might be slightly drunk, which in a way he was. He looks down at his hand, still coated in cum.

Well, there was only one way to get rid of that.

His tongue darts out, licking at the fluid, strangely salty sweet, until it was all gone. Good as new. He then bends quickly, retrieving his gloves and slipping them on. He looks to Samilen, nodding his head towards the bar,

"Let me buy you a drink, it would seem you need it."

Samilen's eyes are drawn to the smoothness of X'rhun's motions, the casual tone of his voice for an encounter he himself would not know how to handle so well. For the fact that the two of them just fucked in practically public view like two desperate teenagers just on the cusp of their adulthood, the seeker acts as if they merely finished the conversation that X'rhun had brought them out to partake in.

Samilen reaches a hand up to his crudely-rebraided hair, feeling touched in the fact that the older man gave even an attempt, and surely it would have to do until he could find a mirror. Just as golden eyes looked back for him to thank the other, Samilen's gaze froze as he saw the last flick of X'rhun's tongue over his cum-splattered knuckles, leaving him at a loss for words for several long, heated moments.

"A drink would be nice," he finally found the words to say, hoping he sounded half as composed. "After uh, something like that. Yes. A drink."

X'rhun gives another nod, moving to place a hand on the small of Samilen's back as he guides him back into the din of the tavern. The patrons don't seem to notice, or possibly don't seem to care about their previous actions. He leads them both to the bar regardless and taps the counter twice, letting the  barkeep know that he wants is usual, but twice.

"Do you feel any better?" He asks, leaning to casually against the bar as if he hadn't been balls deep in the man beside him moments prior. He almost felt bad for whomever got the soul stone next. They were most certainly receiving that little tidbit of experience and it would be hard for either of them to explain exactly why.

Samilen took a seat beside X'rhun, mouth open to say something to the barkeep before the other's tapping distracted him--ah, he forgot how often the seeker frequented the bar, enough to have such a short-form gesture. It was on a second thought that the younger man figured it best that he avoided trying to hold conversation elsewhere anyway, considering how little he trusted the sound of his own voice.

"Physically better," the keeper says at last, fingertips tapping lightly on the surface of the bar, his ears falling in momentary caution. "I'm not so certain about emotionally. I mean--why--" His brows knit together as he turns his golden eyes to meet icy blue, face facing X'rhun well enough to see the dark color painted across his cheeks. "Why did you do that? I mean, I'm not--well, complaining at all I'm just--confused. About it."

X'rhun shrugs.

"Is it not another part of your training? To know how your body reacts and how to take care of it?"

He watches as the two ales slid down the slick surface of the bar. Whether it was because of the finish of the wood, or all the spilled drinks, he couldn't tell.

He grabs one, holding it aloft for Samilen to take. "It's just another way of finding balance. And balance is what you need, warrior of light." He smiles to himself. "A balance between self care and working hard. A balance between pain and pleasure. Red magic is much the same."

Samilen feels his brows knit, tension leaking into his expression as he weighs the words--perhaps it's simply his inexperience that colors his perception on the act the two of them had committed, but he is confused how the other man can act so casual about the whole situation.

Still, perhaps it's for the best that he does as the younger of the two has little idea what to say about it, and forgetting the encounter doesn't seem to be much a viable option at this point when he is still shifting in his seat, vaguely aware of wetness leaking from between his thighs that he'll surely have to deal with soon after leaving the tavern.

Samilen takes the offered drink in-hand and brings it gingerly to his lips, sipping once at the bitter liquid before collecting his thoughts up with a breath. If X'rhun can act casually about it, why can't he? Is it no different a challenge than besting primals, after all? Is it no more intimate than the visions he received from Hydaelyn so many times before, just....a little more...intense? Surely he can think of it that way, though it doesn't at all help that the seeker's smile almost makes Samilen's heart flutter just a little bit in his chest.

"If I didn't know any better I'd call this an elaborate ruse bestowed as a cruel joke of fate to press me harder into the studies," Samilen finally says, feeling his body soften with the taste of alcohol on his tongue. "I don't think I've had anyone much consider it that way--they're quicker to worry for my skill in battle than if I'm satisfying physical needs."

"I assume you're speaking of your friends, The Scions?" X’rhun asks, leaning casually against the bar. "But your physical needs are just as important." He hums, looking into his cup to think. "It's as if ... it's as if you have too much white magic in your system. Every once in a while you need to be selfish, to be greedy, if only for a moment." He sends him a small smile, "That way you can be a functioning person." He takes a long drink, the ale is bitter in his mouth but it feels cool as it runs down his gullet.

"I only wish things worked as simply as how you explain red magic," Samilen muses, nursing at his drink for a moment, as if to let the bitter liquid numb away the reminder nipping at his mind. "The Warrior of Light can't afford t'be selfish, and I think that's how they all see me--Not Samilen Jawantal, not a keeper from Limsa Lominsa, just...the Warrior of Light. Infallible, indomitable, incapable of fault or fear."

The bloom of heat in his belly is nice, though it's not a feeling Samilen often allows himself--the warrior can hardly be caught drunk, lest someone's life be on the line and he the only one to save it.

X'rhun's eyes turn sad, he puts a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Take the rest of the night off. Tomorrow too. No warrior of light business for you. Be yourself, if only for a few days." He gives him a small smile. "There is time for selfishness, even if you are a champion of the just. Take those few moments to yourself and come back to me. We'll begin your training then." He leans against the bar once more. "Though I would suggest rest before anything else, our exercises seem to have tired you out."

Though his words bring warmth to Samilen's chest, but they also spark a thread of concern--no, sadness. The prospect of taking time for himself is indeed a nice thing, something he's not had time to do for many moons since taking on the mantle as the Warrior of Light. Though Samilen misses spending time in the Black Shroud and collecting various flora and making money on the occasional task from Fufucha, he...would be a liar to say that his adventures with the Scions did not spark a need that he had long since ignored.

Companionship.

He couldn't simply return and act as if life was the same as before--Samilen fears returning to Gridania as but a botanist or carpenter, if only because people see him as something more, because he can't take the same joy in solace when his body craves for the touch and attention of another person. It's been a curse that he's found bittersweet relief from when his constant missions leave him too busy to think about it.

"...I can...try to do that," he finally says, a cold stone in the pit of his stomach as he forces a smile to his face. "It will be interesting to take up the axe instead of the bow or sword, I hope my skills haven't faded."

X'rhun smiles, nodding, "Of course, my friend. Take as much time as you need and then return to me. We will begin learning new skills when you've found your balance again." He says, taking another long sip of ale. "But for now I dare say you may need to see an inn room. You look as if you are falling down tired and I would not keep you from the sleep you seem to so desperately need." He himself probably needed it too. Drinking the night away was something he'd only done in his younger years and those were long behind him. Not to mention, sex did tend to take a lot out of a man.

Samilen hums, sipping at the drink in his hands until it is empty and his mind is full of thoughts he would very much not like to ponder on.

"I suppose I'll take my leave then, wouldn't do for someone to find the Warrior of Light passed out at a tavern in the middle of Thanalan." He hesitates for a moment then, after deciding that he'll have to move at some point, makes his leave from the bar itself. He passes X'rhun with a soft smile on his lips, though it's born of bittersweet emotions. "Keep an eye out for me if you happen to pass through the Black Shroud in the next several suns."

It's the closest thing he can bring himself to say that begs for companionship, if only for politeness' sake than anything else.

[amethystdarkwolf]

Emotionless Emotionals [Chapter Four]

AU: College

Ship: Analogical

Warnings, for the entire fic: Swearing, self-harm (both mentions of past and present), Panic attacks, emotional detachment, mentions of past eating disorders, hints of present eating disorders, homophobia, emotional abuse, previous death mention, car crashes mention.

Word count: 1,619

Okay! So this is a fic based on an Rp I am currently doing with @side-for-sides it’s going to be incredibly long and there are bursts of both angst and fluff.

As it’s ongoing, there may be more warnings added if need be, so be cautious and actually read them before each chapter in case I have updated them.

[Ch. 1] / [Ch. 2] /  [Ch.3] / [Ch.4] / [Etc. Soon]

Note: Perfect Imperfections has begun! It is another Multi-chaptered Fic like this one and has a completely separate Taglist. Again, Perfect Imperfections is the Royality parallel to this story, at certain points the two stories will cross over, you don’t have to read that one to get the crossover points and they won’t be for a good bit, if you enjoy mine and Gale’s writing then go read the first chapter here, and if you’re really interested in the story ask to be added to the tag list!

Enjoy the chapter!

As their lips connected, Virgil’s swirling thoughts vanished, leaving him blissfully blank. His eyes fluttered shut and he focused on the softness of Logan’s lips and how gently he was cupping his cheek. Holy shit, Virgil thought. This is actually happening.

After a brief moment, Logan pulled away, his eyes opening trying to gauge if he'd just royally screwed up, or if he'd just made one of the best decisions in his life. He didn't move his hand from its place, but his touch was still subtle and gentle so Virgil could, again, easily pull away. Virgil stared into Logan’s ridiculously beautiful eyes, only pausing for a moment before plunging back in for another kiss. It was a little messy, a little rough, but so, so good. He shifted so that he was even closer to Logan, throwing one of his legs haphazardly over his waist so that Virgil was practically on top of him. He pulled away after a moment, panting, his cheeks flushed.

Logan's face was burning red, at first, he was caught off guard by Virgil's decision, his hands moved and gripped onto Virgil's waist. He realized just how close they were as he felt their panting and heavier breaths bouncing off one another, he cleared his throat. "I... I'm unsure of what to do now..." He admitted quietly, he normally knew what to do in almost every situation, but this left him uncertain, and not necessarily in a bad way. Virgil blinked, his mind still blank and empty. “I, uh, I don’t really know, either,” he whispered breathlessly. “That... that was...” He trailed off, a tiny smile quirking his lips up. “Fuck, Logan, that was incredible.” Logan smiled, "I... I certainly agree with you... It... It was amazing." He gave a breathy laugh, "As I've previously stated, I'm not good with emotions... But... I'm well aware that... I am romantically attracted to you," he spoke, his tone clearly still nervous and slightly shaky. Virgil was fully convinced by this point that his face was going to be permanently red. “Shit, I feel the same way,” he said, then added quietly, “Honestly, I wanted to do this since I saw you on move-in day.”

Logan was noticeably surprised, "Really?" He asked, "If I'm being truly honest, I thought I had scared you when we first met..." He added. Virgil‘s tiny smile turned more sly. “I called you intimidating, yeah, but I definitely meant that in the best possible way.” Logan's smile was replaced by a bit of a smirk in response to Virgil's sly smile, "It's rare to hear intimidating in a positive context, and even before that you seemed rather tense with just me being present, therefore my point still stands," he replied with a bit of uncharacteristic sass. Virgil’s smile dropped, his eyes going wide at Logan’s ungodly smirk. He hid against the man’s chest, not wanting him to see how flustered he was. “Fuck, I thought you were hot, okay?” Virgil whined, his voice slightly muffled.

Logan tried to ignore his own face flushing yet again, as he quietly chuckled, "I found you incredibly attractive as well, now onto a different topic... Are you alright?" He asked, moving his hand from Virgil's waist to his hair. Virgil lifted his head up solely so Logan could see him roll his eyes. “Really, Logan? We finish making out- great first kiss, by the way, like holy fuck- and you ask me if I’m alright?” He kept his tone light and teasing, a smile making its way onto his face. “I’ve never been better.”

"Well sorry! I was just checking!" Logan replied sarcastically, and obviously joking, he sighed in a content manner, "and that's great..." There was another silence for a few moments, while he was happy with this, they'd been in bed for a while longer than normal, "We should probably get up now..." He offered but made no attempt to actually get up. Virgil interrupted Logan with a huff, shifting so that he was laying completely on top of him. “Just a few more minutes...”

"I have a feeling if we stay this way for 'just a few more minutes' it will more realistically turn out to be maybe a couple hours," Logan stated, "and you do realize I could easily move you off of me, right?" He questioned, Virgil’s pout slowly morphed into an evil grin. “You underestimate my power,” he whispered mischievously. Logan tilted his head slightly, "Yeahhh right, anyway..." He held onto Virgil's waist and tried to move him off of him and onto the other side of the bed. Only instead of cooperating,  Virgil practically hissed, latching onto Logan even tighter. He snaked his legs around Logan’s, looping his arms around his shoulders and hanging on."Oh, come on...." Logan rolled his eyes, his tone and expression weren't annoyed in the slightest, however. "Virgil, come on, we have to get up..."

“Says who?” Virgil asked dryly. Getting an idea, he buried his face in the crook of Logan’s neck, leaving soft kisses along the skin. “Logan... stay... for... awhile...” He purred in between kisses. Logan noticeably shivered, "You aren't playing fair..." He whined in a whisper, while Virgil grinned to himself, pleased at the effect he was having on Logan. “When did I ever say I’d play fair?” He teased, playfully nibbling at Logan’s neck. “Staaaaay...” Again, Logan tried to move Virgil off of him but failed.  He sighed, getting an idea in his head, but decided to act like he was giving in to get Virgil to let go, "fine... But only for a few minutes." He mumbled.

Virgil relaxed on top of Logan, grinning in triumph. He unwrapped from around him, now snuggled against his chest, his eyes closing peacefully as he curled on top of him. After about a minute of Virgil being curled up on top of him peacefully, Logan again, but much quicker this time, grabbed onto Virgil's waist and moved him to the other side of the bed. He smirked as he sat up and stretched. Virgil let out a surprised yelp as he was suddenly moved, scowling at Logan. “You little shit!” He lunges forward, latching onto Logan again. “You’re not going anywhere!” Logan laughed at Virgil's reaction,  "Virgil, we're already awake, give up already, we can cuddle later tonight," he explained, trying to unhook Virgil's arms from him.

Virgil leaned against Logan’s shoulder, pressing a few more kisses to it. “I would, but it’s a matter of pride now.” Logan rolled his eyes, "I guess we're staying like this then, where neither of us is comfortable enough to fall back asleep." He said, again with that smirk. Unfortunately for Virgil, he had tilted his head to look up at Logan... right as Logan smirked down at him. He groaned and finally let go, hiding his face in his hands. “I can’t stand it when you smirk like that,” he grumbled, refusing to look at Logan. Logan chuckled as he stood up and grabbed his laptop, "and why is that?" He asked Virgil huffed when he heard Logan’s laugh but refused to move his hands away. “Because... it makes me flustered... because you’re cute...” He mumbled.

"And you're incredibly adorable when you're flustered, so remind me to smirk like that more often," Logan stated as he made his way over to his desk and sat down. “Noooo,” Virgil complained, pulling his covers over his head. “Not adorable...”

"Yes, you are, you know I don't lie," Well about most things Logan spoke, looking over at Virgil and just smiling in appreciation, "So just accept the truth." Virgil hesitantly moved the covers away from his face, staring at Logan before mumbling, “I wouldn’t choose the word adorable to describe an angsty emo nightmare.”

"Well, that's just how you see yourself, I see you as adorable, therefore that is the word I choose." He said before turning back starting to work on the project again, Virgil offered Logan a tiny smile before he turned back to his work. He reached over and grabbed his laptop off of his desk, pulling up the research paper he had tried to start on the night before. He suddenly froze, a thought occurred to him. “Hey, Logan...” Virgil said softly, too embarrassed to look away from his computer screen. “Does this mean... we’re dating?”

Logan paused, his fingers stopping on his keyboard the noticeable lack of the clicking noise making the room go silent, he turned to look at Virgil over his shoulder, "I... I would assume so," there was another tension-filled silence before he hurriedly spoke up again, "I mean... Unless of course, you don't want that..." Virgil nodded quickly, waving his hands. “No, no, I- I absolutely do!” He stuttered. “I just- I didn’t want to assume- I didn’t know if you- if we- if it was... official.” He winced at his oh-so-eloquently phrased response, muttering an apology before turning back to his work, his shoulders hunched. Real smooth, Virge. Real smooth.

"Well, neither did I... Neither of us asked the other out directly... So there wasn't a definitive way to know... But... Now.. I assume, we are? Officially dating?" He said with a more questioning tone as if asking again if Virgil was wanting and okay with this, Virgil’s eyes wandered back over to Logan as he spoke, slowly nodding again. “Yeah. Yeah, we are. Officially dating.” His voice was full of awe.

"Good... I'm... I'm glad," He said before turning back and zoning out on his work for a while. Virgil broke into a dorky grin as he turned back to his computer, starting on his research and somehow managing to find some really good sources.

[Taglists under the cut, ask to be added or removed.]

Sanders Sides General Taglist: @starryfirefliesbloggo @weirdsthenewnormal @purpleshipper @darkle-elkrad @just-an-anxious-mess @emo-potato-virgil @kaymischief25 @pinkpandapancakes @blueeyedscorpion @rayndropsonrosez @ts-random-pictures @aurinkari @itsme98z @lunacatzuniverse @illogicaldeath @heretoreadmyfics @echomist13 @crownswriter123 @logan-smarter-than-you-sanders @never-saygood-bye

Analogical Taglist: @patchworkofstars @virgil-is-verge

Emotionless Emotionals Taglist: @thequeendevious @dragonsight9 @shadowamongfireworks @alldewonderfulfandoms @soft-boy-patton @sopi-montezzz @prickly-problematic-programmer @kawaiikiwi984 @fandom-random2405 @certifiedfangirlluna @rieka-onyx @warnadudenexttime @notveryglittery

[cardhouseandthecage]

I actually am wondering about the Star recruitment process, Denizen-Star communication, and the interface between our reality and Faerie with regard to all this. Like if you or I was to get sucked into the Star process, what would it be like in terms of ordinary logistics? How would they first reach out to us? What if we tried something like getting other people involved who legit believed in all this but the Cardhouse really didn't want them involved? Apologies if this can't really be answered!

an EXCELLENT QUESTION, friend, and incidentally a subject of ongoing investigation on my part. THE subject of ongoing investigation. My whole life. Which is to say: I can’t give you a complete answer—I can’t even necessarily give you a correct answer—but you have absolutely come to the right place. You wont get any kind of answer anywhere else. Here’s what I’ve pieced together from my research, thus far:I. The first thing you need to know about Stars is that they don’t actually believe in fairies. Not Literally. Not necessarily. 

You are familiar, I assume, with the Moment of Magical Proof™? You’ll find it with most stories that begin in the mundane. Our protagonist might want to believe in magic, but they can’t—magic is fake and everyone knows it—so they’ll rationalize for as long as they can. Then something happens. Magic intrudes upon their lived experience in a way they can no longer deny. YER A WIZARD, HARRY. Magic is real, and will continue to be real for the duration of the narrative.

That moment never happens.

There is no first contact for a Star, no revelation, no paradigm shift: it’s only ever a slow fade. And that little voice of in the back of their heads, the one that knows none of this could ever be real? It never goes away. That’s important. It’s part of what splits them—and without a split there is no harvest.

The Cardmaster settled upon this business model for a reason. Certainly he could present the Cardhouse more literally, but he’d be working against dominant trends: most people don’t believe in fairies literally, and our beliefs govern the channels through which fairies can contact us. So if you don’t really believe that some fairy bitch could pup up in your window and approach you with the deal of a lifetime, they’re going to have a really difficult time making that happen.* It’s much more cost-effective to build on a pre-existing system of belief than to overturn it. 

II. But what’s all this nonsense about the power of belief, HQ? Are you really going to sit there behind your screen and tell me that you subscribe to Magical Thinking? Who exactly is funding this study???

AHAHAHAHAHA NO ONE, naturally, but also: no. No, of course not! I may not be funded but I take myself very seriously here: I’m not arguing that our beliefs can change reality directly. Antoine was absolutely right about the tree root: that’s a thing in the physical universe and it’s going to go on existing regardless of what we think about it—outside of what we think of it. Oxygen doesn’t care about my feelings! There’s a side of things won’t budge, no matter what I believe (I know this; I’ve tried). Even if I clapped my hands and dreamed with every fibre of my being, it wouldn’t wouldn’t make a fairy into something I could bring into a lab and prove.

But my belief would change something. It would change the Faerie-Reality interface. If I believed fairies were real, they’d be real to me. It would change how they exist in the extra-dimensional space in my head. And that space in my head—in all of our heads—that’s the dimension of things that connects up with Faerie. That’s what empties into Faerie, perpetually, without our volition or consent. I’m fooling myself if I think I’m in control of that space just because my thoughts effect it: I didn’t choose most of my beliefs any more than I chose my body. There’s a whole world of thought that I inherited, and correspondingly a whole landscape of Faerie that’s built up in connection to Reality over time. By this mechanism, then, our beliefs can alter reality: indirectly. Reality generates Faerie, but Faerie is incessantly fucking with us in return, and the ways in which it fucks with us influence the actions we take in Reality. III. Any agency behind such fuckery I term “a fairy.” 

Fairies “live” in the backworld (they’re made of the same stuff it is) and can manipulate the residue that accumulates there: they’re not real by any means, but they do exist. It is worth noting that fairies, by this definition, don’t give a damn whether we believe in them. This may first strike you as counter-intuitive: if they’re made of our thoughts, then surely our belief means a great deal to them? To which I answer: yes, it does. Absolutely. Just not in the way that you’d think. I’m guessing you’ve probably encountered some version theory of belief-dependancy and the Decline of the Mythical? It’s related to a lot of things (many of which are true, see: placebo effect), but generally it asserts that the vitality of imaginary beings has diminished in direct proportion to our diminishing “belief” in them, and consequently there has been a great falling off in the power of gods and fairies and the like as we have entered the modern era. My findings suggest the otherwise. I say we still believe in plenty of “unreal” things, and as strongly as ever we did. Even our science feeds into the Faerie: it’s made of our thought! We use science to describe reality, but it itself is not fully “real.” Besides which, it’s not as if fairies are limited to drawing upon our literal beliefs. We don’t generally think of fiction as real, and yet it shapes us. And a desire can be every bit as potent as a belief. Fairies don’t care whether we believe in them: all they require is that we want to. They’ll play our beliefs against our desires and catch us between them, bring us to our knees before the impossible; we’ll yield our sacrifice readily enough, god or no god.  All they require is that we dream. 

So no, I don’t think we’ve impoverished fairies at all by sorting fact from fiction as we have. I think we’ve blinded ourselves to their power, locked the door and thrown away the key only to have them catch it. I think we’ve given them everything. I think we’ve spoiled them.

IV. But I digress. You asked me about the logistics of Star recruitment and Denizen-Star communication. 

It starts, traditionally enough, with a fairy ring.

Not a literal ring, generally (that’s very retro), but the there are certain channels of interface—certain ‘meta-forums’—that the Cardhouse keeps open as traps for potential candidates. For a while now, the internet has been the best “place” to set up such a forum, so they frequently overlay or branch off from real online sites. But they could be anywhere. Any work of fiction can easily serve as a jumping off point (provided it’s fantastical enough), or else game of make-believe, or even a good old-fashioned glade or a shopping centre or an abandoned house. If you’re intrepid enough you might find your way to to one through pure whimsy: it’s only a matter of stumbling into the right headspace.

Unfortunately, there’s no clear indicator for when such a stumbling has transpired. The meta-forums interface so seamlessly with what we think of as plausible that we don’t recognise them when we see them and we can’t tell once we’re in.** You can’t necessarily tell when someone else is in one either. It just looks like preoccupation—an obliviousness to the “real world.” But it also looks perfectly realistic, especially from the standpoint of the Star. Because fiction exists, and games exist, and there are all kinds of things you can get obsessed with on the internet and none of them especially challenge the laws of physics. They way you engage with the meta-forum doesn’t look different from how you’d engage with any other imaginary thing. Generally, it starts out as a game or an RP or a kind of choose-your-own-adventure story through which you get to know the characters and the basic setup. That setup presents itself very differently depending on what you’re into, but you’re usually given to understand that the Cardhouse produces very special magical items, and that you can help the Cardmaster gather ingredients for these items by undertaking quests or solving puzzles or making certain offerings or blending the perfect tea or getting your two favourite denizens to make kiss or doing whatever it is you’re doing that is “playing the game”. One denizen in particular serves as your primary contact and guide. You might also be given to understand that Cardhouse products are all a part of the ongoing effort to Fight The Encroaching Darkness. It’s a very all-consuming obsession, and while you’re immersed in you often ‘forget’ it isn’t real, but never in a way that raises any suspicion. For the most part, you know it’s just a game. And for some people that’s all it ever is, and they move on.

If you are destined to become a Star, however, at some point the game will change. One day, your denizen approaches you in great distress: the threat of the Encroaching Darkness, they say, is much worse than they had previously let on. The game might end, as if it had never been! You may well never see us again, in which case… farewell in advance! It will be a very moving performance, and naturally you, the potential Star, will be deeply upset by this news. If you’re right for the job you will offer up your assistance on the spot, unprompted. You will say the magic words. Is there anything you can do to help?

…Funny You Should Ask.

And now the denizen will lay it out: there is, in fact, a way. You may not know this, but you happen to be a very special sort of person: a Star sleeps within you—a great power—but its light is not for the human world. If you were to promise to fight on our behalf, we could help you unlock that power on the other side. You would swear fealty to the Cardmaster, pledging your light to the cause and security of our House, and help us to beat back the darkness. But be warned! It is no task for the faint of heart. You would be asked to undertake missions in the depths of the Wild Lands, where evils reign free. You would be placed in grave danger. So yes, you really could save us, but we would never ask anyone to accept such a burden! If however you should choose to do so….well. You would be richly rewarded.

If it’s gotten to this point, the potential Star (feeling very heroic) almost always accepts.They are assigned to a team and presented with a “cage” to help concentrate their powers and serve as a holding space for any magical items they’re give in Faerie. The cage exists between realms and the Star can access it from either side. Generally, the more they use their powers as a Star, the more it fills up with light for them to draw upon. Doing certain things in the Mundane however can cause that light to diminish or spill out, so they learn to avoid doing those things. Yet insofar as they are human, the Star still regards this all as a kind of fantasy. Insofar as they’re a fairy, however, it is very real. How any given Star rationalizes the paradox will vary, but at no point does the human fully “believe” that what’s happening is real. So a fissure develops between the two selves, and the more and more the Star invests in their fae identity, the deeper it splits them.

And here is the difficult part—the part no one understands. People often ask me what a Star’s human self is doing when they are a fairy. Are they sleeping? Unconscious? Physically elsewhere? Mentally dead? Sitting behind a computer screen as in hypnosis? All of those, possibly. None of those, necessarily. The trouble is that there’s not a one-to-one correspondence between time spent in Faerie and time spent in Reality, so it never maps on perfectly. It’s very difficult to make it add up: I don’t have a working model for this part at all.

But I do know this. When a Star is harvested, they are harvested whole. No one notices them go, and there is no body to find. Everything that ought to have been real about them has been redirected to the other side. They make ghosts of themselves. They split off without a trace.

——

*Oh, you might say, well if it’s as easy as believing…—no. Believing is far from easy, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not convinced? Then try! As an experiment: just try to alter your basic beliefs in what’s possible and what’s not. Tell yourself you might wake up in a flower tomorrow morning. It’s possible! Tell yourself the earth of flat (come on, really in vogue). Or tell yourself I’m right! Tell yourself believing makes any difference. COME ON JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF,,,YOU CAN DO IT!! Ha. Of course you can’t. 

**This may appear to stand in contrast to more traditional fairy-lore, but I think it’s actually very much in line (and it’s one of the many reason I’ve chosen to call these creatures fairies). Sure, in those stories, the human usually knows that they’ve crossed into some kind of Other Realm and accepts the fairies as real, but none of that especially shocks them. They’re not experiencing any major paradigm shift: either they’re in an altered state or this encounter still falls well within their understanding of “plausible.” But their conceptions of plausibility will only stretch so far: they don’t understand that time is passing differently in the other realm, that a very alien set of “rules” governs the very fabric of it. The shock only comes when the person tries to leave Faerie as they would leave a party at someone’s house, and finds that they can’t. And it’s the same with Stars. Our notions of plausible versus implausible have shifted a little, so the trick happens at a different level, but it’s the same trick. The human has passed into foreign territory, but they’re still processing it in mundane terms, and consequently they won’t pick up on the most “unrealistic” aspects of the encounter (if ever) until it’s too late.

[fusionfreeks]

Rangers and Allies Unite!

Hello team! It is with great pleasure that I announce the reopening of Fusion Freeks on Monday, April 30th at 6:00pm EST. How exciting!

Largely, we will operate as we did prior to break. The admin team has returned— in full— with the addition of LJ who has graciously agreed to help us out. What this means is, you now have four points of contact: Devin (Bianca), Michelle (Syria), LJ (Eury, Liam), and myself (Rory). Given our different time zones and careers, somebody should almost always be around for questions. That said, if you require a relatively rapid response, we encourage you to message me, Michelle, or LJ directly as Devin is quite busy with her studies.  

And now for the details.

C A S T

Returning members include:

Dani— Sawyer & Evie (Alycia Debnam-Carey & Naomi Scott)

MJ— Aspen (Shay Mitchell)

KT— Reese (Daniel Sharman)

Amy— Griffin & TBA (Bob Morley & Joe Keery)  

Mo — TBA (Ki Hong Lee)

That leaves (and this is new) five spots open for grabs. Opportunities include five Earthlings OR another species that may or may not have been picked up by team evil.

Each member can have a maximum of two characters, but if activity falls to a particularly low proportion, we may ask that you stick to one.

Note: If your character starts evil, you are under no obligation to keep them in that position. Additionally, we would like to avoid casting characters that appear to be too strong and/or invincible. Our characters need flaws and weaknesses!        

F A C E C L A I M S

We encourage everyone to use a faceclaim that speaks to them and their muse! However, due to the content of this roleplay, we ask that all applicants apply with faceclaims age 18 or over. And please, no YouTube personalities.

P L O T

In the past, we have provided a timeline presenting step-by-step plots for each individual character, but what we’ve learned is that the task is both daunting and nearly impossible to keep up with given our daily activities. 

So, while attempting to remedy this, we’ve decided that each individual player is responsible for the development and progress of their own character. The admin team will continue to drop plots involving team evil, but we are all responsible for the follow up. It is crucial that everyone follow these posts (tagged f:plotdrop) in order for their characters to react appropriately and do what needs to be done to resolve the issue. Otherwise, New York City will fall to Devone while dissolving into some sort of dystopian land. Believe me when I say— nobody wants that! 

What this all breaks down to is this— the admins will drop plots such as “Devone cuts the power” or “Devone continues to dig his underground tunnels unbeknownst to the rangers,” and it is  your responsibility to try to resolve and/or discover those things. If Rory and Syria want to have a Mighty Ducks marathon, that’s on us, but if Devone attacks Griffin (for example), that’s on everyone. 

Any questions?

A C T I V I T Y

And finally, writing is not meant to be a chore. It’s meant to be fun, and we shouldn’t feel guilty about taking time off when we need to or dealing with other obligations. However, activity (as we’ve seen) is key to keeping this RP alive. To monitor this, we will be having activity checks, but don’t stress. We’re asking for conversational (ie. texts, convos, paras, etc) posts every four days. On the fourth day without posting, a public warning is issued and a message will be sent to check in. If 24 hours pass with no contact, you will be removed from the roleplay.

We aren’t doing this to be jerks. We just want to ensure the survival of our writing group, and should this happen to you, you are more than welcome to hit us up for your role (assuming that it is still open). We do ask, however, that this doesn’t become an ongoing problem. 

More or less, we’d like to see activity 2-3 days a week if at all possible. That is the goal, but we realize that this isn’t always realistic! Just do you’re best, and it’ll all work out.  

And that’s all she wrote, folks! If you have any questions or concerns, hit us up in the comments! We take criticisms both constructively and seriously, and we’d love to hear what you think. We’re just happy to be back! Now what do you say y’all— Ranger up? 

-Admin Team 

[cookignis]

Shitty Discourse Salt Mine

0.                                                         Let A Bitch Live

I’d like to start this piece off by quoting a wonderful friend of mine:

“How ‘bout you let a bitch live….”

Don’t like something on the Internet? Don’t read it. No one forces you to read/watch or fap off to anything on the web during your free time. As such, just because you dislike something doesn’t mean you get to make other people feel like shit for liking it. Oh, you don’t like the pot roast tonight? That doesn’t mean you can climb up onto the table and shit all over it, ruining it for everyone else.

Stay in your lane and just keep liking what you like without being a dick.

Now that we have that cleared, I’d like to say a few things on some arguments that I’ve seen. I’ll be covering a few topics in this piece.

First and foremost, we cannot look at the game’s history and events through the lens of only today’s worldview if we wish to remain objective. A lot of FFXV’s familial lore (the Caelums and Nox Fleurets in particular) is based off of medieval families despite the ‘modern’ or ‘futuristic’ setting of Insomnia and Eos as a whole. If we examine decisions of royal families within the context of their time and culture, there are many decisions that would be controversial today that have been chosen with the best intentions or what was considered the norm during previous eras.

I.                                                               Child Rearing

We’ve all seen this before: Regis is a bad dad who neglects his son and distanced himself. Once we’ve demonized certain aspect of a person, we oftentimes forget to see deeper into them; whether it’s their motivations or culture.

In medieval times, entrusting babies to wet nurses in country estates distant from the royal court was considered a necessary safeguard for a child’s health even though this practice might separate the child from his or her parents for months at a time. In most cases, even if the child was on the premises, they would still be taken care of by the wet nurses as this is the culture that has been present for centuries. Parenting skills weren’t exactly passed on and most would treat their children as their parents did them; sound familiar? It still occurs today, we learn from our parents and raise our children in a similar fashion. 

In terms of the personal feelings of royal parents toward their children, there were a variety of different kinds of relationships in both medieval and modern times. Such items are subjective and depends on the person at the end of the day. There are royal parents who took a close personal interest in the daily care of their children. Most often, royal parents took an interest in their children’s health and education but entrusted their daily care to others.

If we look at Regis, prior to Bahamut coming to fuck things up and tell him that Noctis is the chosen king, he spent a fair amount of time with his son (as much as a busy king could). We are able to tell that Regis did indeed care about and loved Noctis as he held him close and cried upon finding out the fate of his son. After that, he began distancing himself from Noctis in order to prepare for the coming days and deal with the ongoing Niflheim attacks. Was this also a badly handled defense mechanism to cope with having to send his son off to his death and possibly kill him? We say yes because again, we are going off of our perceived notions of what parental love should be by today’s standards. 

Could Regis have done better and done more? Of course. His decision for Noctis to try and ‘live a normal life’ was made with Noctis’ best interest in mind. We think it’s not enough because our judgment has already been made. 

Was Regis a shitty father who didn’t spend enough time with his kid? By today’s parenting standards, yes. But did he love Noctis? In his own way, yes. 

II.                              Royal intermarriages, Alliances and Estate Gain

Royal intermarriage is the practice of members of ruling dynasties marrying into other families of the same status. It was more commonly done in the past as part of strategic diplomacy for national interest. It’s a practice that has been done worldwide, from Europe to Asia. Marriage between families act to initiate, reinforce or guarantee peace between countries.

As the lines continued on, over time, because of the relatively limited number of potential partners, the gene pool of many ruling families grew progressively smaller, until all European royalty were eventually related. As such, most royals could potentially be descended from one person through many generations. A prime example would be the British royals and nobility, many of whom are descendants of Queen Victoria of the UK or King Christian IX of Denmark. 

Though in other cultures, many a times, inbreeding was done in order to keep the royal line ‘pure’ and strengthen the line of succession. In the Ptolemaic dynasty, all rulers were married to their brothers or sisters. 

Hey, they even did it in Game of Thrones. 

III.                                                         Gene Pooling

Let’s sit down for a moment and pretend we’re back in secondary school listening to our biology professor drone on about Punnett squares and fruit fly generations, shall we? 

I’ve been seeing some discontent with ships here and there but let’s remove the ‘abuse’ and ‘manipulation’ for a moment and focus on another point of contention: incest. 

A focal point disagreement for most people on Ardyn and Noctis as a ship is that they’re related. They have between them, two thousand years (or more depending on which Ardyn RPer you talk to) and possibly up to a hundred generations. Remember as I stated previously, much of FFXV’s lore is based off of medieval lines, so if we assume that all the members married relatively young and bore offsprings at a young age, more or less a hundred generations would be about right. At least they aren’t fruit flies, right? 

What’s more interesting to bring to light is the alliance between the Nox Fleuret and Caelum lines. As mentioned above (Note: See point II), intermarriages are not uncommon among close royal and noble families and even more so with the whole oracle/king dynamic. It would be more surprising to learn if they had never crossed lines between them before. I would assume that it might have happened more than a few times considering the friendly relations and as a guarantee of peace between the two dynasties. 

So, guess what? Luna and Noctis could very well be related as well. I would think that due to the amount of intermarriages that could happen, the similarities in their genetic pool is probably a lot closer than Ardyn to Noctis.

Let’s take a gander at this table. A person shares 25% of genetics as their grandparents. And if we think about how with each generation, genetic coding changes. Even with inbreeding, the code is not even quite the same due to a mutation in the coding. 

With so many generations between them, we’re looking at bare minimal in terms of shared genetic coding here. 

Conclusion? They share the same name but they can hardly be considered relatives. Luna and Noctis also could possibly share DNA, so by these standards of those against Ardyn and Noctis shipping, that’s incest too. 

IV.                                                       Mun =/= Muse

I’ve seen this in the Tumblr RP community since I first started roughly three years ago. This incessant belief that if one writes something, one must absolutely condone it. Your muse is a jerk to mine? Clearly, that’s a personal attack. It isn’t, stop. Get over yourselves. 

If this argument was actually valid then we can say that Stephen King absolutely condones murderous demonic clowns dismembering children. Or George R.R Martin is all about incest and rape in addition to brutal execution methods. 

If someone chooses to write a darker theme because they feel that they are able to explore an aspect of their muse and have development from it? Great for them. Hell, if they want to do it for fun, that’s their business too. No one should be policing what anyone else does. No one is better than anyone else here. We’re all fucking nerds living vicariously through fictional characters for shits and giggles. 

Something about that blog bothers you? Don’t read it. Unfollow. Block. Go bleach your brain with cute cat videos or dumb memes, I don’t care. Just don’t be a dick and put someone else down for liking something you don’t like. You’re free to salt with your friends in a private setting where no one gets hurt. Hell, I do it all the time. 

No one holds a gun to your head and tells you to read what makes you uncomfortable. You make that conscious choice to follow this person despite the fact that they produce content that ‘triggers’ you. Want to know what that’s called? Winning the Darwin Award. It’s very much akin to being squeamish about gore and going to watch a Saw movie. Does that make sense to you? Don’t do this to yourself. 

Let and let live. At the end of the day, this is a hobby where people come to enjoy themselves and escape reality for a short while so don’t ruin a fun thing for others. Respect each other enough to just click the block button, walk away from it and let a bitch live. 

Thank you. 

[huntershowl-moving]

GETTING  TO  KNOW  THE  MUN:

NAME : raine

NICKNAME :  ive been called rainey before? thats about it tho

FACECLAIM : we’ll get there

PRONOUNS :  she/her

HEIGHT : 5′10″

BIRTHDAY : may 25th

AESTHETIC : if i say rain will u kill me

LAST  SONG  YOU  LISTENED  TO :  ghost - acoustic by au/ra

FAVOURITE  MUSE (S)  YOU’VE  WRITTEN : honestly. this bastard child

GETTING  TO  KNOW  THE  ACCOUNT :

WHAT  INSPIRED  YOU  TO  TAKE  ON  THIS  MUSE : i’ve had hellhound for about 4 years now – she started off as a D&D character for a sci-fi campaign. back then, there was no ‘hellhound’ - just a girl with a gun and a (very different) twin brother. she was an artificer, ironically, with a knack for tinkering and poisonmaking – still just as hard to get along with though, lol. but, yeah - that campaign died out, then a couple years later my friends and i started a blades in the dark campaign. muse for her did not die out, and i really wanted to play her in something, so she became hellhound – an industrial fantasy sniper with smoking hair and a beastly persona. thing is, we haven’t actually played that campaign in like two months. hellhound muse was banging on the walls SCREAMING – and i had no outlet.         the idea to make a blog for her sorta... floated through my head at one point. but i’ve made an oc blog before. had a multimuse, a while ago, and it got absolutely no traction, so in low spirits i decided never to try to make an oc blog again! just to stick with my canon blog ive had for five years and let that be that. i made a sort of joking sort of self-deprecating post on that blog about making one for hellhound, assuming folks would scroll past it. instead, @waywardsignns​ encouraged me to do it and gave me a list of cool blogs to follow, so i decided to give it one last shot. and here we are! i havent been this happy on an rp blog since the early days of my canon when the community was thriving.

WHAT  ARE  YOUR  FAVOURITE  ASPECTS  OF  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE : i really love playing with mystery and misconceptions. running this blog in a way where i slowly reveal her past as it comes up naturally in threads was a risky decision, because i had no idea if i was gonna be able to really hook people like i wanted to. i didn’t know if i could make them care! but yeah, i really like being able to focus backstory-wise on the other character and have hellhound’s personality stand up on its own without context.         i also just ... i love to play with the rumors, the fear – when muses are scared of her or hate her from the outset because of her reputation (rarely happens but c’est la vie!) that’s my absolute favorite shit. i understand why most muses just treat her like a normal person, but i do wish more people had Opinions and preconceptions on her notoriety upon first interaction.          another thing i really enjoy about her is that despite everything, despite the sheer unholy amount of shit she has been through and inflicted upon people, she still loves easily. if she didn’t? like – if the body pile and the sins that make her lungs feel black had snuffed out that trait, i think hellhound would have skewed FULL evil by now. she’s still clinging to this tiny ember that’s kept alive by her brother, by the ghost that manifests in her subconscious. that provides a really interesting contrast to how hard she pushes people away, because it’s kind of a constant push and pull. it also provides an interesting contrast to her anger. which i’d talk about if i wasn’t already pushing the length of this post lol – just one more thing, though: i don’t know everything about her yet. because she’s a character in an ongoing campaign, there are a lot of parts of her lore that i’m still not even clear on, so it’s really fun to be able to find out about her along with everyone else!

WHAT’S  YOUR  BIGGEST  INSPIRATION  WHEN  IT  COMES  TO  WRITING : i listen to hellhound’s instrumental playlist when i’m writing her a lot. in between threads or campaign sessions, i’ll watch the punisher season 1 or read six of crows – both have characters ( frank castle, obviously, and inej and kaz in soc ) who really resonate with parts of hellhound’s character. for the most part it’s music, though. there are playlists for all the major figures in hellhound’s backstory, all with very different moods. there are three different playlists for hellhound herself. (slaps computer) spotify is Always Open on this bad boy

FAVOURITE  TYPES  OF  THREADS : that’s a great question, i’m not 100% sure yet. like i mentioned previously, i really, really love threads where muses fear or hate hellhound upon meeting her because of her reputation. the public LITERALLY calls her a dog. a beast. so like – when muses share in that, it shows that the mun took the care and time to think about how their character would react to this important lore and it makes me really happy. no loss if they don’t, of course! i’m happy to write with people either way.         i also love threads where hellhound’s actual feelings come up beyond her walls. her repressed anger, her grief, her fear of losing people. i don’t think any of those have actually happened yet because she’s SO guarded but... we will get there. i’ve really been enjoying threads where people annoy the shit out of her, because for some Fucking reason she always ends up developing a soft spot for those folks ( @prphyrik‘s vicente and @nclled​‘s litho come to mind. ) that ends up evolving into enemies to friends and i get so soft when people hate hellhound at first and then warm up to her over time it’s... so good...         threads with muses either very similar to her – violent people, angry people, those who are hell-bent on revenge – are very fun as well. look into that mirror and see yourself motherfukcer

BIGGEST  STRUGGLE  IN  REGARDS  TO  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE : god... hellhound’s always in an INTENSELY UPSET headspace. she hasn’t been happy in like five years. she has pretty severe PTSD. she’s suffered and made people suffer. she’s guarded, violent, and destructively angry all the time, and she can repress in one minute what i have to take like a month to process. it ends up falling into the same issue that method actors face – because she’s a big hyperfixation of mine rn, i’m almost always thinking about her, listening to her music or writing her because i love to do so. i have to immerse myself fully into her mindset in order to play her properly. to an extent it’s cathartic but it’s also a lot to feel this way all the time. i wouldn’t say it’s taking an actual toll in any sense, but it does get kind of exhausting? i gotta remember to force myself to take Breaks sometimes.

tagged by: borrowed from @legendmade tagging: if i’ve mentioned you in this then you’re tagged, but otherwise anyone who hasn’t done it yet!

[evilsciencebros]

RP Wishlist

[[Since I’m slowly becoming more active on this blog again, and desperately want more mutuals to interact with, I decided that instead of just posting a series of starter calls, I’d actually write down some potential plots I have wanted to explore for some time now, and would like to find the right person to explore these themes with.

None of these ideas are set in stone, there is plenty of room for growth and re-working, they’re just key themes I’ve always wanted to explore but never could work them into an ongoing plot.

I’m also interested in hearing about your ideas. Roleplaying is a two way street and I’m not asking for someone to dedicate their time effort into my muse’s character arc without helping developing yours in turn. If you have an idea that you think would link together seamlessly with any of these, then do not hesitate in contacting me and telling me about it. Even if it doesn’t quite quite mesh, I may still be interested in it and want to develop a new thread around your idea.]]

[Both/Either Muses]

Elite Squad - Team Chaar and it’s members (Strika, Blackout, Cyclonus, Spittor, Mindswipe, Blot, and Sky-byte.)

This verse would only be open to actual members of Team Chaar. I’m not against the idea of your muse having an au where they are a member of Team Chaar and it’s rotating roster, but I mainly want to see my muses interact with those in their actual canon. To build upon the established dynamic in their single scene and craft some amazing relationships and new headcanons. How was each member introduced, how do they bounce off each other, do they even like each other? Why does Oil Slick find Spittor so disgusting, and how did Scalpel feel about having to repair Mindswipe?

Note: Romance is not necessary for this verse. Actually, I haven’t really considered it since one of the major things that makes a group dynamic so enjoyable to watch is the lack of romance and the empathises on platonic comradery.

Space Bridge 687-030 - Team Athenia and it’s members (Rodimus Prime, Red Alert, Hotshot, Ironhide and Brawn)

Again, another verse that would only be open to muses listed above. Every character needs a good rivalry and I loved seeing Team Athenia step up and take on one of Megatron’s most feared Generals and her personal strike force. I would especially be interested in exploring a possible rivalry with Rodimus Prime, considering the Oil Slick put him out of commission for so long. I bet Rodimus would want some well deserved payback for that cheap stunt.

Note: Can be canon divergent. Relationships are not really necessary for this verse to work, but unlike Elite Squad, I am more open to the idea because I’m a sucker for cross-faction ships (especially if its Red Alert).

[Oil Slick Only]

The Wreckers [au] - Oil Slick searching for Grinder’s murderer.

Grinder was partnered up with Oil Slick during the height of the Great War, before he was killed by the Wreckers under unknown circumstances. Oil Slick, showing actual compassion for someone other than himself, is determined to find the Autobot responsible for his partner’s death and make them pay, slowly.

I am willing to blend elements of the IDW Comic interpretation of the Wreckers into this AU and even help build the foundations for a new Wrecker Team in the TFA universe. Please keep in mind that your muse doesn’t necessarily have to be the one who offlined Grinder, just as long as you identify as a Wrecker, you have Oil Slick’s attention.

If however you did want to take credit for Grinder’s termination, then that would have to be something we discuss in great detail, because Oil Slick is going to be blinded by his emotions and not thinking straight. Your muse would be Oil Slick’s enemy through and through. Someone he doesn’t just want dead, but begging for death.

I would especially love the idea of plotting a thread where Oil Slick develops some kind of relationship with your muse, not knowing what they’ve done, and is eventually confronted by the truth further down the line.

Note: Open to muses (canon or non-canon) who are, or have ever been, part of the Wreckers lineup.

Toxic Deluxe [au] - Based on the Toxic Oil Slick action figure that was never produced

An au where Oil Slick has undergone some horrific modifications (either by his own hand or some freak accident), that has left him unable to take off his outer-armour and glass helmet without infecting any Cybertronian he comes into contact with. This makes him a powerful weapon on the battlefield, but it leaves Oil Slick unable to have any physical contact with another bot. The experience isolates him from everyone, partially because he can never touch anyone again, and also because everyone is afraid to be in the same room as him.

Note: Open to anyone. Possible gore and nsfw material. Romance is not necessary, but possible if there is chemistry between muses.

Human [au] - Exactly what it says on the tin. A human AU

To avoid any confusion I will elaborate right now, I’m not interested in a standard, normal human au that is exactly identical to our own, boring every day existence. If I am going to plot a human au, then there needs to be a niche to it. I love putting humans in different settings and turning that world into a sandbox. Whether it is a sci-fi adventure in space, high fantasy with dragons and witchcraft, post-apocalyptic cyberpunk, or even Victorian era steampunk with vampires! I will write anything that is not the generic, anime slice of life high school setting (although that would be hilarious XD).

Note: I will however plot a modern day earth au if Oil Slick is using his holo avatar

[Scalpel Only]

Tyran Scalpel [au] - Set in the same continuity as the live action Bay movies.

A slight divergent within the main story line where Scalpel is mysteriously absent after his initial introduction in ROTF. Taking bits from the tie-in comics, Scalpel is still alive, acting as medibot for the surviving Decepticons and taking full advantage of his small stature to sneak into military facilities and download any sensitive materials or free captured Decepticons (Seriously, he teams up with Bludgeon helped free all the prisoners. That’s kinda badass)

Note: Open to Tyran muses only

Behind the mask [au] - Scalpel was a normal transformer? Waaa?

Due to the lack of any miniformers in the TFA continuity, I want to explore the idea that Scalpel was not always so tiny. We know he is sentient, has an altmode, and I’m assuming, a spark, but what if he was a regular Autobot before the war? What if something happened to him that ultimately lead to him becoming the irritable mantis-bot he is today?

This au would have to be set with a muse who knew Scalpel before, or during, the Great War on Cybertron. I have a quite a few headcanons as to what Scalpel would be like during this time, how he looked, and even his work at the Ministry of Science with Perceptor and the other scientists, but I want to keep this vague as possible so I can discuss the possible relationship your muse would have with Scalpel, assuming there is one.

Note: This thread in particular would have to be very political, due to the time-frame it is set in, and because TFA is so vague about how Cybertron was run before the revolt. We can move the thread into a future timeline where Scalpel has undergone his change in appearance and reunites with your muse in his new body, but I would like to establish a backstory first before going down that route.

[actuallymuffet]

One Year Later...

“Say cheese!”

On March 20th, 2016 Muffet was accepted to Città Alveare, and taken to Hive City against her will!

And now March 20th, 2017 marks her one year anniversary of being here, somehow managing to survive every activity check and every thought of dropping that came to my mind. Incredible!

And wow, it’s been a rather good year at that.

Over the course of the past year, Muffet has interacted with 155 unique* muses.

* In this case, unique includes duplicate muses, but ran by different people. For example, Muffet’s talked to a couple different Lapis Lazulis, but the first one dropped and a different one apped, so I counted them twice. Sue me!

(For the extra curious, this is a list of the muses she’s interacted with.)

The first muse she interacted with, and the person to originally show her around the city was Nick Valentine, from Fallout 4. Very helpful synth, that one is.

The only muse that’s still active that was let into Hive City on the same day as Muffet is @favillautcinis (assuming I didn’t miss someone when checking that). She was a re-app, so they don’t share an anniversary, but still!

The muses who have had the most threads with Muffet is actually a tie! Between @mellifluencex and @koraava— which makes sense. The first is her girlfriend, the second was her best friend.

The longest ongoing thread I currently have is with @arnath. We started it in May of last year!

Random fun facts out of the way, big, big thanks to @hyper-light for not only being the one to get me into Città in the first place way back when, but for being an incredibly good friend?? Like we’ve been mutuals for, what, over 2 years now? And you’re one of my absolute best friends??? That’s amazing and I love you so much !!!! You’re an absolutely amazing Drifter and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who disagrees, and your writing, while not something I try to emulate per-se, played a large part in how my writing style developed in a good way. Because you’re writing is so so so incredibly well done. I love every thread we’ve had and I love that I’m lucky enough to know you!!!

I’d never even heard of Città (or any tumblr RP community, actually) before I learned about it through them and I’m so glad I did? I’ve had a ton of fun RPing my lovely spider wife on here (and a couple other muses, too!) and there’s so many of you and you’re all so, so good!!! Like, I wish I had enough time in the day to read all of your guys’ threads because everyone here in Città has lovely writing and lovely muses and I’m so happy I’m in the same group as a lot of you guys!!

And while I feel bad pointing to specific people and leaving everyone else out, but it rings especially true for a few of you!

Like @shadowesqxe, who from Korra to Nico and every muse in-between you’ve been an absolute dear to me and someone I’m really really glad I was able to meet through Città and I don’t know what I would do without you as a friend you’re so good and I love you so much! <3

Like @mellifluencex who is not only a great Nami but a great person and a great shipping partner who is oh so patient and understanding with me and an absolute joy to talk to (whether it be about the cute couple we write or about non-RP things in general) and did I mention how cute you are? You’re incredible and I love you <3

Like @scirephysica who has the best representation of Gaster I’ve ever seen, somehow defying the odds of writing an incredible character based off of a skeleton that barely exists seriously I’m consistently impressed by your writing and you’re a huge inspiration to me. And you let me come to you and talk about random Undertale headcanons and annoy you that way and you don’t complain and that’s really great. If only I weren’t so nervous about talking to you most of the time! ;o; I’m working on it I promise. <3 (Also you and your partner are super duper cute)

That’s just three people and I hate leaving people out but I could write a ton about a lot of people and if I tried I wouldn’t be done with this post until Muffet’s next anniversary. Just know that if I’ve ever RP’d with you, sent you a meme, talked to you outside of RPs like in IMs or on twitter, even if briefly, it means I like you and I like your muse and I’ve probably thought about talking to you more but can’t bring myself to do it. Seriously, you’re all great.

I’ve written waaaaay too much for someone who’s only been here a year when some of you have been here for four or more but that’s because a lot has happened this year for me specifically and Città is one of those things and it’s.. one of the best. One of the best years I’ve had, to my knowledge, and joining Città and the things that resulted from that are a big part of what made it so good!

So thanks to everyone who’s threaded with me, talked to me, sent me memes, interacted with me in basically any way. Somehow you’ve been able to put up with my writing that started awful but got better (at least I like to think so! And so do some of you~!) as time went on! And hopefully I’ll be able to improve even more in the time to come <3

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Cogmind recently made it through a second whole year of its pre-Steam early access program, and as this period comes to an end I'd like to take the opportunity to, like the first year, share some data and pretty graphs :)

This is an interesting milestone because it more or less coincides with the completion of Cogmind's primary content, represented by the Beta release just last month, meaning it took around two years of work to bring the game from Alpha 1 to Beta 1. And it's still amazing that support has been sufficient to maintain full-time development for this long--Cogmind's lifetime revenue passed the $100k mark in April :D. So a big thanks to everyone who has helped it reach this stage!

@'s celebrate the Beta :)

For a more general summary of late-alpha progress you can check out the data in my 2016 annual review, whereas this article will instead be mostly looking at revenue and pricing. And while the first year of sales data was neat simply because it was seemingly the first time anyone in this genre has provided so much open data, the second year is much more interesting due to tier and pricing changes.

Let's jump right in: Cogmind made US$ 40,325 in its second year. Looking purely at the numbers, that's only two-thirds of what it made the year before, but it's important to note that a $25k chunk of year 1 revenue was earned in the first month of alpha alone, the result of pent up interest from two years of open pre-alpha development prior to that. In that light, the second year has technically been a little better than the first in terms of revenue, an 8% increase from $37k to $40k.

Cogmind Year 2 daily gross revenue, annotated (Year 1 graph here). (Click on any image in this article to see at full size.)

Year 2 started with a minimum price drop, from $30 to $24.99 (albeit by adding a new lower tier without any perks, and keeping the old price as an option). This naturally sparked a good number of sales in the short term, which eventually died off as player growth returned to normal once those who'd been waiting for that to happen got their hands on it. At this point the price change didn't seem to have any long-term impact, but we'll get to data on that later.

The next noticeable bump coincides with the Roguelike Celebration, an awesome event at which I gave a talk and news about Cogmind subsequently made the rounds. The effects of that alone lasted for a good couple weeks.

Then the obvious spike is obvious :P. RPS has been following Cogmind since pre-alpha and I hadn't expected to see anything more until after alpha, but it was a nice surprise to have a sudden article about my work arrive the following month.

Starting mid-November, buyers in the EU could finally get Cogmind "VAT-free," which basically boils down to a loss for me though it's technically the industry norm to include VAT in the list price. Considering I was still losing money throughout development it took me a year and a half to reach a point where I was willing to eat a 20% cut in revenue from those regions. Since I made that change, between November 15 and June 6th $5,085 of actual revenue received originated from EU countries, meaning $1,271 went to extra taxes (a low estimate). That's all money I could've kept for development if Cogmind was available before 2015 when the EU introduced VAT for online purchases!

For New Year's day I made an ASCII fireworks gif (actually the first iteration of the one shown at the top of this post) and that garnered some attention, which pretty much always translates to more sales. That's not why I made it--it was just a fun side project to see if it was possible with the engine, but it's nice that it had that side effect :)

Valve pre-announced the end of Greenlight in February, and since I 1) wasn't sure whether I'd like what would replace it, 2) know that having a little Greenlight campaign is itself at least worth some exposure, and 3) already had all the required media on my own website anyway, I decided to put Cogmind up for voting. There was literally only two days between the time of this decision and hitting Publish :P. It was greenlit not long afterward, but that wasn't really the point--notice that nice little spike in the graph... it's nice to have some free exposure from Steam when people who'd rather not wait can already buy from my site! Putting Cogmind on Greenlight clearly contributed an instant $750 or so to revenue :D

In April I again lowered the price, to its current and final base price and the level at which I've always planned to sell Cogmind once the main game reached completion. In that sense the price change came a little earlier than expected, since the Beta release wasn't to happen until early the following month, but sales had been flagging over the previous six weeks and I couldn't let revenue fall too much since I'm relying on it to get by before bringing a mostly complete Cogmind to Steam. (Other reasons: It was also a good excuse/opportunity to do a little advertising that didn't overlap with the upcoming Beta release, and I also wanted a longer buffer between the price change and Cogmind's upcoming Steam debut.) I actually silently lowered the price a week before even announcing the change, just to see what kind of impact it would have on random visitors. It seems to have been beneficial, though one week is too short a period and there are too many other factors at play to really draw any conclusions. (I'll share more data below to shed light on conversion rates.)

The most recent mini-surge surrounded the Beta release, a pretty big milestone considering it allowed me to declare Cogmind essentially complete by multiple metrics. A number of people were waiting to hear that, and the price had already been lowered the previous month, factors that combined to generate a decent amount of revenue for May.

Another factor that I find valuable in examining daily revenue graphs, but that you might not immediately notice above, are "zero days." Any day during which there are no sales at all is a zero day, and too many of these, especially in a row, can honestly start to get demotivating. On the other hand, ongoing streaks of anything-but-zero days are quite motivational--even if just one or two sales. I always keep an eye on that sales number (it's easy to follow because I receive an email for every purchase, and I don't look at them but each one increments a label-based counter in my inbox :P), and if I start to see zeroes it means I'm not quite doing enough outward-facing development, like sharing my progress across social media. I always work harder when there are continued sales every day, so getting into a routine of posting updates is a nice long-term self-reinforcing cycle--especially when I wake up in the morning and get to see how many there were overnight! That's been a ritual wake-up habit for the past two years now...

The all-important Order counter :P

Throughout Year 2 I made a more concerted effort to ensure there was always something to show at least once every week, and I believe this is reflected in the relative number of zero days: Year 1 was 9.8% (36) zero days, compared to 4.9% (18) in Year 2. In fact, the improvement is technically even better than that: notice a third of Year 2's zero days occurred close together over summer 2016--that was during my one-month vacation. No work, no pay xD

Cogmind Year 2 revenue zero days.

Looking at revenue on a monthly basis, there's been a clear positive trend over the past year. (May passed $3k with its Beta release, though isn't shown here as it technically extends into the third year.)

Cogmind monthly gross revenue, annotated.

I've labeled a few of the larger effects already discussed earlier, though I can find no reasonable explanation for March. The graph includes Year 1 for comparison, though I didn't annotate those months--that stuff was covered with the first year's data.

Cogmind Year 2 monthly gross revenue by country.

By country the revenue data doesn't hold many surprises. Comparing to Year 1's country revenue graph, the only notable difference is that Germany overtook Australia, somewhat interesting because as an English-only game Cogmind is assumed to mostly sell in native English countries. Of course, Germany does have plenty of English speakers as well as three times the population of Australia, and (perhaps more key here) more than one German LP'er picked up Cogmind over the past year. (Plus there was the mentioned VAT change in November!)

That graph would be far more interesting if there were localization, but at least this gives you an idea of what an English-only fairly text-heavy game can achieve in an international sense. Localization is a great idea for any game that can manage it, but sadly it's simply not possible with Cogmind.

But we do have some extra interesting data to analyze for Cogmind's second year of sales, now that we've been through multiple tier and pricing adjustments!

At the beginning of the year I wrote a lot about Cogmind's first price change in 2016, including some common and not-so-common variables factored into my pricing decisions. Here I'll add to that discussion with some final results of that change and the most recent third phase.

As a reminder, Cogmind's base price was $30 for the first 12 months, $24.99 for the 11 months following that, then $19.88 for the last month of the second year (and on through today). In the context of daily revenue above I already talked about some of the more immediate effects of those price changes, but the bigger picture holds a few more details. One element I finally have enough data to explore is Cogmind's conversion rate.

Cogmind lifetime conversion rate (2015.5 ~ 2017.5) based on buy.html visitors.

I wouldn't read too much into that graph because there are a lot of factors at play here, so many that this data is not quite as meaningful as it appears, but it's fun so I wanted to talk about it anyway :P

First of all, notice that it's specifically the buy page! Unlike most other indie developers, I don't put a buy link on Cogmind's main web page. In fact, I also don't even put it front and center at the top of the buy page itself! I prefer to 1) avoid generating impulse buys and 2) manage potential player expectations. Thus I intentionally force visitors to wade through other stuff before finding a link to actually buy the game :). Yes, it's counterproductive from a marketing standpoint, but I don't care, I'm here to build a good game and foster a healthy community, not rake dollars from random people on the internet.

Thus this source data definitely skews the conversion rate higher, because anyone arriving on that page already has a somewhat higher interest in purchasing than the average visitor. (Note that based on general industry data, those rates are high.) For comparison I did the same with /cogmind/index.html.

Cogmind lifetime conversion rate (2015.5 ~ 2017.5) based on index.html visitors.

Part of the problem with sourcing stats from main page hits is that they're filled with referral spam which can't always be completely distinguished from real visits (which, like incessant referral spam, may simply leave without visiting other pages :P). This is why using the buy page provides nicer metrics, because it doesn't get referral spam--we just have to remember all the additional factors that feed into the buy.html stats.

Getting back to those factors, Cogmind's exposure comes primarily via roguelike-focused channels, so new visitors coming to the buy page are already going to be of a rogueliking disposition and even more likely to buy :)

Also specific to the fact that I prefer basing data on the buy page, there are a lot of people who have followed development for a long time, even years, who eventually make the decision to buy when it's right for them, whether due to a lower price, the right timing, or a combination of other personal factors. I believe there's a fairly steady stream of people who fall under this category, and they'll naturally just go to the buy page and... buy. This is often after having mostly obtained information about the game through one of the other channels I frequently use,  like Twitter, r/Cogmind, the forums, the dev blog, TIGS, Bay 12, Facebook, etc...

Regarding what appears to be an upward trend in the conversion rate, while it makes some sense when paired with the fact that the price comes down for each period, I think that trend is much less meaningful on breaking down the average number of daily visitors and thinking about where those numbers are coming from. For example in its first year of release Cogmind had the greatest exposure on a number of major websites, so naturally visitors from those sites were less likely to be among the target audience. That was the highest average at 71.8 visitors per day. The second period, during which there was much less general exposure, saw a significantly lower 47.5 visitors/day. And the most recent period with the lowest price, albeit shorter, recorded only 43.5 visitors/day, yet had the highest conversion rate.

Of course, knowing this doesn't negate the fact that Cogmind's website and my frequent (if minimal) outreach efforts are fairly effective at selling the game to those who are interested. And on the reverse side, supporting the likelihood of an improving conversion rate, obviously during each consecutive period Cogmind was closer and closer to completion with a longer and longer history of steady releases. That helps convince anyone just discovering the game that it's both a substantial and promising project.

One of the buyer behaviors I've really been looking forward to quantifying is the percentage of those opting to pay more than the minimum price, and how that changed along with the tier adjustments.

Percent of Cogmind buyers opting to pay more. (This data just looks at the two lowest tiers for a given period, since the higher tiers are more complicated and aimed at group buys. The Prime tier and each respective basic tier are more directly comparable.)

After Cogmind's first year, during which $30 ("Prime Tier") was the lowest price, I added a new perk-less Alpha Tier for $24.99. For the next 11 months, buyers could decide whether they just wanted the game, or if they could afford and would like to contribute a little extra in return for having their name in the credits. Surprisingly 13.8% of individual buyers still chose the Prime tier!

Part of the equation here would be the relatively low difference in price, percentage-wise. Only 20% more for some extra perks and to support a project they like? Why not? Compare to the rate after the price was lowered to $19.88, which means a 50% (!) increase for Prime, and the ratio of buyers choosing that option was basically halved. Many of the long-time fans interested in paying more to back the project will have already done so anyway. (Though also note that data for the latter period was only collected for about a month, because the Prime tier was removed as of the Beta release. That said, I don't suspect we'd see much of a difference if I continued to sell that tier--it was removed primarily because development was entering a new phase, and keeping the "early supporters" tier active for much longer didn't seem right.)

In the end I'm very glad I chose to handle tiers and pricing the way I did, because otherwise Cogmind wouldn't have gotten nearly as much pre-Steam development as it has! Lowering to $19.88 sooner also probably would've been a bad move based on what I'm seeing now, since over the long term there's been no noticeable increase in the raw number of buyers. Anything in the $19-$30 range really falls into the "too expensive" category for a lot of people, even more so if it's not on Steam where the convenience of purchases can take some of the edge off a price, or where there's more likely to be some sort of discount to provide additional impetus. (I'm still not working at getting more exposure to make up for the loss in revenue per player--it's just the same old social media channels--but that's why I chose April/May to do this, around when it's time to transition to Steam.)

However, I certainly wouldn't claim that sticking with $24.99 would continue to generate a proportionally higher revenue. Conversion rates would likely drop if the price remained unchanged. Each time I've reduced the price over the past two years, I was already feeling that sales were starting to flag and would likely continue to do so if I didn't take action. Even if that may not have come to pass, I also knew that there was already pent up interest in a lower price, and it was about time to lower the gates a bit further and let more fresh players in.

So where does this funding go? Well, as a solo dev with relatively low asset costs, much of it naturally goes to pay my meager salary, and my job is to both create and sell Cogmind :)

As always I've been maintaining my detailed records of development time, which show that compared to 3,065 hours of pre-alpha development and 2,177 hours for the first year of alpha, Year 2 continued at a stable 2,192 hours of work. These numbers aren't too pretty, because it shows that this is a lot of work for the amount of revenue coming in--certainly not worth it in an economic sense, but that's okay for now as long as it's been sustainable.

Cogmind development time, July 2013 ~ April 2017 (excludes 2012 7DRL work).

There's always more coding to do along with any new features, so that has of course continued its long-term upward drive, and community-related efforts are finally starting to catch up to it as I spend a little more time on promotional stuff as the core game approached completion. Content-focused development accelerated significantly over the past year, which is what ate into coding time.

Comparing only the major development categories of Year 1 and Year 2 more directly, the shift from code to content is clear, while other areas stayed more or less constant.

Cogmind Alpha development time breakdown by major categories.

Because "what's a good percentage of time to spend on outward-facing efforts?" is a common question among newer gamedevs, let's also look at the major category breakdown for the project as a whole so far.

Percentage of Cogmind development time invested in each major area, July 2013 ~ April 2017 (excludes 2012 7DRL work).

So altogether it's 66.7% game stuff vs. 33.3% community/marketing. This is really a bare minimum, which I can get away with because the traditional roguelike community is pretty tight knit with a small number of key places to stay in touch with players, making that part of the job easier. Other experienced devs will say literally half or more of your effort needs to be some kind work that helps get your game noticed (or in my opinion just as valuable: serves as time spent interacting with the existing player base).

I have much more behind-the-scenes dev stats and dedicated analysis to share once Cogmind is complete, though wanted to share a little of it in this article to give the revenue more context. (There's also a month-wise breakdown of development hours in the latest annual review.)

Aside from dev time there have been a number of other expenses, but they account for less than 6% of the total budget (which doesn't really have room for anything more xD). Music is something I've been thinking about, but how much money can be budgeted there is still an unknown for something that may not be entirely necessary and for which there are multiple valid approaches at different cost levels.

Cogmind still hasn't broken even, but the hope is that it will as soon as it's launched on Steam.

It's been a good two-year run of alpha releases (see history), and the ability to extend pre-Steam EA development has been wonderful for fleshing out the original vision--some of the stuff I've been adding, even entire maps, was totally not planned from the beginning! And as a result of sufficient support despite the previously higher prices, the player base could be kept from growing too large and distracting (as mentioned in my pricing article) while still getting constant feedback on new features and mechanics.

Now that the Beta is out and further development is mostly optional fun stuff, it's time to seek out more exposure and put Cogmind on Steam :D. Performance there will be extremely important for the future of Grid Sage Games... so hopefully it can make a splash.

Making a splash.

(This article was originally published here, on the Grid Sage Games dev blog.)

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Cogmind recently made it through a second whole year of its pre-Steam early access program, and as this period comes to an end I'd like to take the opportunity to, like the first year, share some data and pretty graphs :)

This is an interesting milestone because it more or less coincides with the completion of Cogmind's primary content, represented by the Beta release just last month, meaning it took around two years of work to bring the game from Alpha 1 to Beta 1. And it's still amazing that support has been sufficient to maintain full-time development for this long--Cogmind's lifetime revenue passed the $100k mark in April :D. So a big thanks to everyone who has helped it reach this stage!

@'s celebrate the Beta :)

For a more general summary of late-alpha progress you can check out the data in my 2016 annual review, whereas this article will instead be mostly looking at revenue and pricing. And while the first year of sales data was neat simply because it was seemingly the first time anyone in this genre has provided so much open data, the second year is much more interesting due to tier and pricing changes.

Let's jump right in: Cogmind made US$ 40,325 in its second year. Looking purely at the numbers, that's only two-thirds of what it made the year before, but it's important to note that a $25k chunk of year 1 revenue was earned in the first month of alpha alone, the result of pent up interest from two years of open pre-alpha development prior to that. In that light, the second year has technically been a little better than the first in terms of revenue, an 8% increase from $37k to $40k.

Cogmind Year 2 daily gross revenue, annotated (Year 1 graph here). (Click on any image in this article to see at full size.)

Year 2 started with a minimum price drop, from $30 to $24.99 (albeit by adding a new lower tier without any perks, and keeping the old price as an option). This naturally sparked a good number of sales in the short term, which eventually died off as player growth returned to normal once those who'd been waiting for that to happen got their hands on it. At this point the price change didn't seem to have any long-term impact, but we'll get to data on that later.

The next noticeable bump coincides with the Roguelike Celebration, an awesome event at which I gave a talk and news about Cogmind subsequently made the rounds. The effects of that alone lasted for a good couple weeks.

Then the obvious spike is obvious :P. RPS has been following Cogmind since pre-alpha and I hadn't expected to see anything more until after alpha, but it was a nice surprise to have a sudden article about my work arrive the following month.

Starting mid-November, buyers in the EU could finally get Cogmind "VAT-free," which basically boils down to a loss for me though it's technically the industry norm to include VAT in the list price. Considering I was still losing money throughout development it took me a year and a half to reach a point where I was willing to eat a 20% cut in revenue from those regions. Since I made that change, between November 15 and June 6th $5,085 of actual revenue received originated from EU countries, meaning $1,271 went to extra taxes (a low estimate). That's all money I could've kept for development if Cogmind was available before 2015 when the EU introduced VAT for online purchases!

For New Year's day I made an ASCII fireworks gif (actually the first iteration of the one shown at the top of this post) and that garnered some attention, which pretty much always translates to more sales. That's not why I made it--it was just a fun side project to see if it was possible with the engine, but it's nice that it had that side effect :)

Valve pre-announced the end of Greenlight in February, and since I 1) wasn't sure whether I'd like what would replace it, 2) know that having a little Greenlight campaign is itself at least worth some exposure, and 3) already had all the required media on my own website anyway, I decided to put Cogmind up for voting. There was literally only two days between the time of this decision and hitting Publish :P. It was greenlit not long afterward, but that wasn't really the point--notice that nice little spike in the graph... it's nice to have some free exposure from Steam when people who'd rather not wait can already buy from my site! Putting Cogmind on Greenlight clearly contributed an instant $750 or so to revenue :D

In April I again lowered the price, to its current and final base price and the level at which I've always planned to sell Cogmind once the main game reached completion. In that sense the price change came a little earlier than expected, since the Beta release wasn't to happen until early the following month, but sales had been flagging over the previous six weeks and I couldn't let revenue fall too much since I'm relying on it to get by before bringing a mostly complete Cogmind to Steam. (Other reasons: It was also a good excuse/opportunity to do a little advertising that didn't overlap with the upcoming Beta release, and I also wanted a longer buffer between the price change and Cogmind's upcoming Steam debut.) I actually silently lowered the price a week before even announcing the change, just to see what kind of impact it would have on random visitors. It seems to have been beneficial, though one week is too short a period and there are too many other factors at play to really draw any conclusions. (I'll share more data below to shed light on conversion rates.)

The most recent mini-surge surrounded the Beta release, a pretty big milestone considering it allowed me to declare Cogmind essentially complete by multiple metrics. A number of people were waiting to hear that, and the price had already been lowered the previous month, factors that combined to generate a decent amount of revenue for May.

Another factor that I find valuable in examining daily revenue graphs, but that you might not immediately notice above, are "zero days." Any day during which there are no sales at all is a zero day, and too many of these, especially in a row, can honestly start to get demotivating. On the other hand, ongoing streaks of anything-but-zero days are quite motivational--even if just one or two sales. I always keep an eye on that sales number (it's easy to follow because I receive an email for every purchase, and I don't look at them but each one increments a label-based counter in my inbox :P), and if I start to see zeroes it means I'm not quite doing enough outward-facing development, like sharing my progress across social media. I always work harder when there are continued sales every day, so getting into a routine of posting updates is a nice long-term self-reinforcing cycle--especially when I wake up in the morning and get to see how many there were overnight! That's been a ritual wake-up habit for the past two years now...

The all-important Order counter :P

Throughout Year 2 I made a more concerted effort to ensure there was always something to show at least once every week, and I believe this is reflected in the relative number of zero days: Year 1 was 9.8% (36) zero days, compared to 4.9% (18) in Year 2. In fact, the improvement is technically even better than that: notice a third of Year 2's zero days occurred close together over summer 2016--that was during my one-month vacation. No work, no pay xD

Cogmind Year 2 revenue zero days.

Looking at revenue on a monthly basis, there's been a clear positive trend over the past year. (May passed $3k with its Beta release, though isn't shown here as it technically extends into the third year.)

Cogmind monthly gross revenue, annotated.

I've labeled a few of the larger effects already discussed earlier, though I can find no reasonable explanation for March. The graph includes Year 1 for comparison, though I didn't annotate those months--that stuff was covered with the first year's data.

Cogmind Year 2 monthly gross revenue by country.

By country the revenue data doesn't hold many surprises. Comparing to Year 1's country revenue graph, the only notable difference is that Germany overtook Australia, somewhat interesting because as an English-only game Cogmind is assumed to mostly sell in native English countries. Of course, Germany does have plenty of English speakers as well as three times the population of Australia, and (perhaps more key here) more than one German LP'er picked up Cogmind over the past year. (Plus there was the mentioned VAT change in November!)

That graph would be far more interesting if there were localization, but at least this gives you an idea of what an English-only fairly text-heavy game can achieve in an international sense. Localization is a great idea for any game that can manage it, but sadly it's simply not possible with Cogmind.

But we do have some extra interesting data to analyze for Cogmind's second year of sales, now that we've been through multiple tier and pricing adjustments!

At the beginning of the year I wrote a lot about Cogmind's first price change in 2016, including some common and not-so-common variables factored into my pricing decisions. Here I'll add to that discussion with some final results of that change and the most recent third phase.

As a reminder, Cogmind's base price was $30 for the first 12 months, $24.99 for the 11 months following that, then $19.88 for the last month of the second year (and on through today). In the context of daily revenue above I already talked about some of the more immediate effects of those price changes, but the bigger picture holds a few more details. One element I finally have enough data to explore is Cogmind's conversion rate.

Cogmind lifetime conversion rate (2015.5 ~ 2017.5) based on buy.html visitors.

I wouldn't read too much into that graph because there are a lot of factors at play here, so many that this data is not quite as meaningful as it appears, but it's fun so I wanted to talk about it anyway :P

First of all, notice that it's specifically the buy page! Unlike most other indie developers, I don't put a buy link on Cogmind's main web page. In fact, I also don't even put it front and center at the top of the buy page itself! I prefer to 1) avoid generating impulse buys and 2) manage potential player expectations. Thus I intentionally force visitors to wade through other stuff before finding a link to actually buy the game :). Yes, it's counterproductive from a marketing standpoint, but I don't care, I'm here to build a good game and foster a healthy community, not rake dollars from random people on the internet.

Thus this source data definitely skews the conversion rate higher, because anyone arriving on that page already has a somewhat higher interest in purchasing than the average visitor. (Note that based on general industry data, those rates are high.) For comparison I did the same with /cogmind/index.html.

Cogmind lifetime conversion rate (2015.5 ~ 2017.5) based on index.html visitors.

Part of the problem with sourcing stats from main page hits is that they're filled with referral spam which can't always be completely distinguished from real visits (which, like incessant referral spam, may simply leave without visiting other pages :P). This is why using the buy page provides nicer metrics, because it doesn't get referral spam--we just have to remember all the additional factors that feed into the buy.html stats.

Getting back to those factors, Cogmind's exposure comes primarily via roguelike-focused channels, so new visitors coming to the buy page are already going to be of a rogueliking disposition and even more likely to buy :)

Also specific to the fact that I prefer basing data on the buy page, there are a lot of people who have followed development for a long time, even years, who eventually make the decision to buy when it's right for them, whether due to a lower price, the right timing, or a combination of other personal factors. I believe there's a fairly steady stream of people who fall under this category, and they'll naturally just go to the buy page and... buy. This is often after having mostly obtained information about the game through one of the other channels I frequently use,  like Twitter, r/Cogmind, the forums, the dev blog, TIGS, Bay 12, Facebook, etc...

Regarding what appears to be an upward trend in the conversion rate, while it makes some sense when paired with the fact that the price comes down for each period, I think that trend is much less meaningful on breaking down the average number of daily visitors and thinking about where those numbers are coming from. For example in its first year of release Cogmind had the greatest exposure on a number of major websites, so naturally visitors from those sites were less likely to be among the target audience. That was the highest average at 71.8 visitors per day. The second period, during which there was much less general exposure, saw a significantly lower 47.5 visitors/day. And the most recent period with the lowest price, albeit shorter, recorded only 43.5 visitors/day, yet had the highest conversion rate.

Of course, knowing this doesn't negate the fact that Cogmind's website and my frequent (if minimal) outreach efforts are fairly effective at selling the game to those who are interested. And on the reverse side, supporting the likelihood of an improving conversion rate, obviously during each consecutive period Cogmind was closer and closer to completion with a longer and longer history of steady releases. That helps convince anyone just discovering the game that it's both a substantial and promising project.

One of the buyer behaviors I've really been looking forward to quantifying is the percentage of those opting to pay more than the minimum price, and how that changed along with the tier adjustments.

Percent of Cogmind buyers opting to pay more. (This data just looks at the two lowest tiers for a given period, since the higher tiers are more complicated and aimed at group buys. The Prime tier and each respective basic tier are more directly comparable.)

After Cogmind's first year, during which $30 ("Prime Tier") was the lowest price, I added a new perk-less Alpha Tier for $24.99. For the next 11 months, buyers could decide whether they just wanted the game, or if they could afford and would like to contribute a little extra in return for having their name in the credits. Surprisingly 13.8% of individual buyers still chose the Prime tier!

Part of the equation here would be the relatively low difference in price, percentage-wise. Only 20% more for some extra perks and to support a project they like? Why not? Compare to the rate after the price was lowered to $19.88, which means a 50% (!) increase for Prime, and the ratio of buyers choosing that option was basically halved. Many of the long-time fans interested in paying more to back the project will have already done so anyway. (Though also note that data for the latter period was only collected for about a month, because the Prime tier was removed as of the Beta release. That said, I don't suspect we'd see much of a difference if I continued to sell that tier--it was removed primarily because development was entering a new phase, and keeping the "early supporters" tier active for much longer didn't seem right.)

In the end I'm very glad I chose to handle tiers and pricing the way I did, because otherwise Cogmind wouldn't have gotten nearly as much pre-Steam development as it has! Lowering to $19.88 sooner also probably would've been a bad move based on what I'm seeing now, since over the long term there's been no noticeable increase in the raw number of buyers. Anything in the $19-$30 range really falls into the "too expensive" category for a lot of people, even more so if it's not on Steam where the convenience of purchases can take some of the edge off a price, or where there's more likely to be some sort of discount to provide additional impetus. (I'm still not working at getting more exposure to make up for the loss in revenue per player--it's just the same old social media channels--but that's why I chose April/May to do this, around when it's time to transition to Steam.)

However, I certainly wouldn't claim that sticking with $24.99 would continue to generate a proportionally higher revenue. Conversion rates would likely drop if the price remained unchanged. Each time I've reduced the price over the past two years, I was already feeling that sales were starting to flag and would likely continue to do so if I didn't take action. Even if that may not have come to pass, I also knew that there was already pent up interest in a lower price, and it was about time to lower the gates a bit further and let more fresh players in.

So where does this funding go? Well, as a solo dev with relatively low asset costs, much of it naturally goes to pay my meager salary, and my job is to both create and sell Cogmind :)

As always I've been maintaining my detailed records of development time, which show that compared to 3,065 hours of pre-alpha development and 2,177 hours for the first year of alpha, Year 2 continued at a stable 2,192 hours of work. These numbers aren't too pretty, because it shows that this is a lot of work for the amount of revenue coming in--certainly not worth it in an economic sense, but that's okay for now as long as it's been sustainable.

Cogmind development time, July 2013 ~ April 2017 (excludes 2012 7DRL work).

There's always more coding to do along with any new features, so that has of course continued its long-term upward drive, and community-related efforts are finally starting to catch up to it as I spend a little more time on promotional stuff as the core game approached completion. Content-focused development accelerated significantly over the past year, which is what ate into coding time.

Comparing only the major development categories of Year 1 and Year 2 more directly, the shift from code to content is clear, while other areas stayed more or less constant.

Cogmind Alpha development time breakdown by major categories.

Because "what's a good percentage of time to spend on outward-facing efforts?" is a common question among newer gamedevs, let's also look at the major category breakdown for the project as a whole so far.

Percentage of Cogmind development time invested in each major area, July 2013 ~ April 2017 (excludes 2012 7DRL work).

So altogether it's 66.7% game stuff vs. 33.3% community/marketing. This is really a bare minimum, which I can get away with because the traditional roguelike community is pretty tight knit with a small number of key places to stay in touch with players, making that part of the job easier. Other experienced devs will say literally half or more of your effort needs to be some kind work that helps get your game noticed (or in my opinion just as valuable: serves as time spent interacting with the existing player base).

I have much more behind-the-scenes dev stats and dedicated analysis to share once Cogmind is complete, though wanted to share a little of it in this article to give the revenue more context. (There's also a month-wise breakdown of development hours in the latest annual review.)

Aside from dev time there have been a number of other expenses, but they account for less than 6% of the total budget (which doesn't really have room for anything more xD). Music is something I've been thinking about, but how much money can be budgeted there is still an unknown for something that may not be entirely necessary and for which there are multiple valid approaches at different cost levels.

Cogmind still hasn't broken even, but the hope is that it will as soon as it's launched on Steam.

It's been a good two-year run of alpha releases (see history), and the ability to extend pre-Steam EA development has been wonderful for fleshing out the original vision--some of the stuff I've been adding, even entire maps, was totally not planned from the beginning! And as a result of sufficient support despite the previously higher prices, the player base could be kept from growing too large and distracting (as mentioned in my pricing article) while still getting constant feedback on new features and mechanics.

Now that the Beta is out and further development is mostly optional fun stuff, it's time to seek out more exposure and put Cogmind on Steam :D. Performance there will be extremely important for the future of Grid Sage Games... so hopefully it can make a splash.

Making a splash.

(This article was originally published here, on the Grid Sage Games dev blog.)