#at the end of the day nobody but me will ever actually read my dnd oc fics

[sayaratyriea]

google search how to get over myself

[yikesharringrove]

We’re Us

A little commishy for my bxtch @thinger-strang.

Read on Ao3

This shit is SOFT

-

“Dustin, we all saw that fireball hit you,” Will said accusatorily, gesturing to the red bean bag on the ground at Dustin’s feet.

“Okay, first of all, you’re supposed to call a pause of play before using my real name,” Dustin said, all in one breath. “And second of all, the fireball only hit my lute, therefore I sustained no physical damage.” Dustin gestured to the cereal box that was taped to a jump rope, slung over his shoulder like it was a prized instrument.

“No, it didn’t. We all saw it hit your shoulder. You’d lose that arm at least, and take probably, like, fifty damage points.” Lucas pretended to aim a bow and arrow at Dustin while he spoke.

Dustin was getting dangerously close to huffy territory.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll take the stupid damage points. Can we resume play yet?”

Everyone nodded, and they fell right back into battle.

It wasn’t often they took the game off the DnD board, but the weather was perfect, summer beginning to make itself known a little earlier than usual, giving them April days that were clear and perfect and made for the best LARP sessions known to Indiana.

Will aimed a fireball at Max, and launched it right as she darted out of the way. It sailed past her, missing her left hand by less than an inch, and she laughed wildly, raising her pool noodle sword and aiming blow after blow at him.

The bean bag hit the fence and went spiraling awkwardly into the small alley between the house and the old wooden fence

It was Will’s last fireball, and he hurried to retrieve any he could reach, dodging as best as he could around Max’s wild sword-wielding.

She tended to wallop them as hard as she could, somehow knocking the wind out of them with her soft excuse for a sword.

Will scrambled to pick up his bean bag from the overgrown grass and curling weeds, catching his breath quickly in the alley where he couldn’t be seen.

And then a sound drew his attention away from the battle.

It was a soft sound. He wouldn’t have heard it if the rest of the party had been so quietly focused on battling one another less than twenty feet away.

But he did hear it, and his head whipped around to find the source of it.

Steve and Billy.

Against the house.

Kissing.

It was like time stood still.

Like Will had been hit by one of Mage El’s freezing bombs.

Steve had Billy pushed up against the side of the house, their bodies pressed flush together.

Steve was clearly propping up Billy with his body, Billy’s mobility cane, the one he had let them cover in stickers, was laying forgotten on the ground.

Billy’s arms were wrapped around Steve’s shoulders, his hands curled in the fabric of Steve’s t-shirt. Steve had his arms wrapped around Billy’s waist, half holding him close, half not letting him fall without his cane.

They were kissing like they were trying to devour one another, and Will realized that the sound he had heard was a moan.

It wasn’t like seeing Lucas and Max kiss, or Mike or El, or even Nancy and Jonathan.

Seeing Billy and Steve,

Will knew he shouldn’t be seeing them.

He knew this was wrong, and people said two boys kissing was foul and bad.

But this didn’t look anything but, well, loving.

The way Steve was making sure Billy didn’t fall while they kissed, the way sometimes they would pull back and smile, their faces never moving more than a few inches away from one another.

One of Billy’s rough hands left its place clawed in Steve’s t-shirt, reaching forward to brush one thumb clumsily down his cheek.

They pulled back from one another, smiling stupidly, still staring into each other’s eyes.

Billy brushed his thumb down Steve’s cheek again, and Steve moved like he was nuzzling into the touch, turning his head to the right, pressing a kiss to Billy’s rough, scarred palm.

It made Will feel like he was floating in space with nothing keeping him down.

Steve pressed a kiss to Billy’s cheek, then his nose, then his other cheek, and Billy’s cheeks flushed and he giggled, a sound that was so foreign to Billy Hargrove it almost made Will rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing the right person.

And Billy smiled, so calmly and easily.

It made his whole face change. He looked like a completely different person.

And Will realized, he’s never actually seen Billy smile like this.

The only times he’d come close, we tight tiny things that never reached his eyes and were dropped within a second or two.

This was a genuine smile, full of genuine happiness, and god -

They’re in love.

They’re two boys, and they’re standing right in front of Will and they’re in love.

They went back to kissing, moving their heads slowly side to side, their mouths opening and closing and Will was so aware of having never kissed anyone before.

“Will, seriously! I’ve been yelling for you-”

Mike stopped talking the second he rounded the house.

He was stalk still, his mouth hanging open like a dead fish at what he saw.

Will’s heart was thundering against his ribcage, and he tried to push Mike back towards the game, pleading quietly at him to move.

And then the rest of the group was joining them. Faces mirroring Mike’s dead fish expression as they stared, open-mouthed, at Steve and Billy.

Will had his back to them, but in the quiet, he could hear. He could hear the soft sounds and the moans, and even the giggles that made his face go hot and his stomach do a whole gymnastics routine inside of him.

Will was staring at each of his friends in turn, pleading with them to just turn right around, and continue on with play as nothing had ever interrupted their battle.

Like they haven’t just stumbled on a huge and dangerous secret.

He went as far as to push Lucas, gently shoving him backward saying go! Go! Under his breath.

The last thing he needed was for Steve and Billy to notice them here. To realize what they had seen. What they know.

And then-

“What the fuck?”

Billy and Steve broke apart, looking towards the entrance of the alley, and seeing all six of the party, staring at them.

Max had been the one to speak, and she was looking at Billy oddly, almost like she didn’t know who he was.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, her voice quavering slightly.

Billy looked like he wanted to ground to swallow him right up.

Steve scrambled for the forgotten cane, keeping one hand on Billy’s elbow as he crouched down.

The movement made Will’s stomach flop over.

It was practiced.

Once Billy was standing on his own with the cane, Steve approached the kids calmly, his hands raised up like they were all wild animals that might attack at any moment.

“Look, I know how this looks, and you guys can’t-”

“It looks like, you guys were making out .” Dustin’s tone was hollow, and he looked as struck dumb as the rest of them.

“I know, and I mean, yeah. We were, but you need to listen -”

“Steve.”

Steve whipped right around when he heard the murmur.

Billy was standing slumped over against the house, one scarred, shaking hand covering his face, the other clutched so tightly to his cane his knuckles were white.

“Bill, I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. You’re okay.” Steve rushed to Billy’s side, holding onto his elbow again, brushing his fingers softly through Billy’s short hair, winding his fingers through the wild curls that were just long enough to form. “I’ll deal with this. It’s okay. They’re not going to tell.” Steve glared at the kids when he said that, as if daring them to argue.

Billy kinda, fell forward, leaning against Steve once again, his face going into Steve’s neck.

Steve didn’t react, still brushing his fingers through sandy blond curls.

“You all know what could happen to us if people found out?”

Nobody answered him.

Truth is, they did know.

They knew the stories about young men being beaten nearly to death. Being run out of town or put in the hospital over nothing but a rumor.

Being gay wasn’t something that was tolerated in Hawkins.

Hell, Will himself has been pushed around and called queer as long as he could remember.

Even by his own father.

“We won’t tell anyone.” Will felt like how Billy looked. Like he was shaking apart right in front of them. “I promise. We won’t. Not anyone.” He could barely get the words out. It was like his jaw had locked up with the rest of his bones.

He thinks it would kill him if anything happened to Billy and Steve over this. They needed to keep them safe.

He needed to keep them safe.

“Yeah. I promise,” El parroted. Steve beamed at them.

Will knew El had been very confused the first time she heard about Ryan Anderson, the high school sophomore that had been humiliated and beaten so badly his family had to leave town six years ago.

She didn’t understand how a boy that liked to kiss other boys was something that merited violence.

Hopper had surprised them all by saying that it didn’t, but some people felt like it did.

Who you kiss doesn’t matter as much as who you are. If you’re a good person, it’s all just extra fodder. But some people like to they’re better than anyone that’s different than they are.

El had called those people bad and that was the end of it.

“Billy, I won’t tell.” Max didn’t take her eyes off Billy while she spoke. “I swear. I’ll never tell anyone. Not even mom.”

Billy’s hand flexed on the handle of the cane, and his knees gave a wobble. Steve kept him upright, leaning over to murmur into his ear.

Will could just barely make out the words I’ve got you.

“I promise, too.” Dustin’s cereal box/lute was forgotten on the grass at his feet. “The party protects each other. It’s one of our laws.”

“Yeah, we stick together. This isn’t different.” Max gave Lucas a watery smile when he spoke up in turn.

Mike was quiet.

It was well-known how much he disliked both Steve and Billy.

All of the kids had some trouble trusting Billy after everything that had happened last summer. Billy didn’t seem to blame them. He kept to himself, even when he moved from his cold room in the military hospital into the Byers’ spare bedroom seven months ago, he was like a ghost moving through the house.

Only Steve could make him come out of his shell in those early days. Only Steve could make Billy join them for dinner and movie nights, take slow walks around the yard with his walker, and later with his cane. Only Steve could make Billy’s shoulders relax from their defensive position up around his ears, and now, it was finally dawning on everyone why.

The kids mostly left him alone, only Max and El bridging the gap and actually speaking to him. Max had been determined to see Billy through his recovery, glaring at him and watching like a ginger hawk while he did his physical therapy, practicing his grip and moving buttons from one bowl to another.

El would sometimes talk to Billy in a hushed voice. She would get him on his own and hush words like Papa and Mama and bad and Billy would have to retreat to his bedroom for slowly decreasing amounts of time.

Nobody but Joyce and Hopper knew what she saw in Billy’s head. They were just informed that he wouldn't be returning home after his two-month stint in the military hospital. Max hard clenched her jaw and nodded jerkily and nobody dared ask any further questions.

He and Will traded a lot of good mornings and tended to generally avoid eye contact when they came across one another in the house.

But none of them hated him, they were just a little weary.

Mike, on the other hand, had some unexplained vendetta against both Billy and Steve and Will found himself willing Mike to be kind in this moment. To not see this as some power over them, or something.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Dustin’s right. We protect each other.”

Steve gave them a smile that was so dazzling and bright, it almost gave off its own light.

His eyes were shining and he gave a watery laugh.

“They really meant it when they said children are the future.”

“Who said?” El asked him.

“I don’t know, actually. Just people, I guess.” Steve shrugged, jostling Billy who was still nestled in his shoulder. “Look, seriously guys, thank you. I can’t even imagine how I would’ve felt if-nevermind.” He cut himself off quickly, shaking his head. “It just means a lot. To both of us.” Steve smiled at them one last time, this time much softer and thoughtful. “You’re good kids.”

Nobody said anything else. They didn’t know what to say to Steve.

“I came back here to get my fireballs. I, uh, I got ‘em.”

Everyone looked back at Will, and, almost like they were coming out of a trance, began picking their makeshift weapons back off the grass, and chattering idly as they went back to the yard in order to continue their battle.

Will lingered for a second, looking over his shoulder at Steve and Billy, who were still wound together.

They were talking softly, and Will was pleased to see Billy lift his head back up, still looking pale and nervous, but smiling at Steve.

He leaned back down and planted a kiss on Steve’s neck, right above the edge of his t-shirt.

Will felt his face go hot, and tugged himself away, going back to the game.

It wasn’t until well after dinner, when everyone else had gone home, that they spoke about it again.

Will. Will! Do you copy? Over.

The static rasping of Mike’s voice through the walkie-talkie was coming from under Will’s bed where he had stashed it.

He quickly turned down the volume dial on the side before answering.

“Yeah, Mike. I copy. Over.”

“We need to talk about today,” Mike said through the walkie. “I mean, did you have any idea? Over.”

“No. I didn’t,” Will said, truthfully. Finding out had made a lot of things clunk into place, but that doesn’t mean Will knew. “Over.”

“It’s just, neither of them seem the type. You know? Over.”

Something about that statement didn’t sit too right with Will.

Before he could respond another voice crackled through the channel.

“This is gold leader joining the conversation to let Mike know he’s being a dick. Over.”

Will laughed. Trust Dustin to listen in on the conversation and come forward to defend Steve.

“Lucas, do you copy, too? Over.” Will waited a moment after he asked.

“Yeah, I copy. I wanted to hear what you all were saying first. I don’t really know what to think about all this. Over.”

“I don’t think there’s much to think about. Steve seems happy. Billy too, I guess. Over,” said Dustin.

Will’s heart swelled with a pride he didn’t quite understand at Dustin’s words.

Outside in the hall, the phone rang.

Will heard his mom scramble to pick it up, calling softly down the hall for Billy, and the unmistakable thumping of Billy and his cane coming to take the call.

He heard his mom scrape a chair over for him and retreat to her room, giving him some privacy.

“It’s just scary, you know? Like, something really bad could happen to them if anyone else found out.” Will thought for a second. “You think anyone else knows? Over.”

“Robin. She was making comments to Steve a few days ago about his secret relationship and I kept asking him about it until he punched me in the arm. She knows. Over.”

“I’m just confused,” Mike sighed down the line. ���Steve dated my sister for like, a year. And Billy is always disgusting and flirting with my mom. Or at least, he would do that. You know, before. Over.”

“Yeah, that’s just Billy being Billy,” Max chimed in.

“You have to say over when you’re finished. Over.”

“ Fine, dickheads. Over.”

“That makes sense, but Steve and Nancy doesn’t. Over.”

“Lucas, it doesn’t have to make sense. David Bowie says he likes guys and girls. Billy has, like, three different magazines where he says that. Over.”

“Max is right. We don’t have to understand any of this. They seem happy, and good together, and that doesn’t really concern us. Over.” Will was hoping he could speed through the rest of this conversation. He could hear Billy in the hall, shifting and murmuring something Will couldn’t make out but was dying to overhear.

He had a feeling he knew who was calling.

“But, now it does concern us. We know. And as we’ve previously established, the more people that know, the more danger they could be in. Over .” Dustin almost sounded as though he might cry.

“Then, we can’t talk about it. Not unless we know for a fact that we aren’t going to be overheard. And maybe we should give them codenames. Only call them something like Han and Leia when there’s a chance of someone listening in. Over.”

“I like Lucas’s codename idea, but I’d rather die than call them Han and Leia. Over.”

“Okay, Mike, it was the first thing that came into my head! What, you think you have a better idea? Over.”

“I don’t know. Harold and Maude? Over.”

“That’s stupid, Mike. Clearly, they’re Bert and Ernie. Over.”

Will snorted at Max’s suggestion. He heard Billy coughing wildly in the hall. He listened carefully to him until it died down and he knew it wasn’t a bad one.

“I think we’ve come to an agreement. If we need further discussion, codenames: Bert and Ernie. Okay, my mom wants me to spend time with her tonight. So this is gold leader, signing off. Over and out.”

“I’m going too. Over and out,” Mike said.

“Over and out,” said El, not surprising any of them that she was listening in. She did that a lot. Simply listen to her own walkie, and when asked why she didn’t say anything would shrug and go nothing to add. They only asked that she sign off so that they knew she got whatever information they had discussed.

Everyone followed with their own sign-offs, and Will twisted the top knob on his walkie, shutting it off.

There was a moment of silence out in the hall, and then three beats on Will’s door.

He found Billy on the other side, slumped in the chair under the phone, his cheeks going red.

“Can’t get up,” he grunted. “Can’t reach the hook.”

Will didn’t say anything, nodding quickly and avoiding eye contact as he took the phone, placing it carefully back on the hook.

Billy got stuck in chairs fairly often.

His core muscles had been slashed up worse than anything else, and sometimes he just needed a good pull up.

Will took hold of his wrist, leaning his body weight backward to yank Billy to standing.

Billy kept his weight heavily on his cane, patting Will once on the upper arm in thanks.

“You guys know Steve has one of your little walkie-talkies, right?”

“ What ?”

Will genuinely didn’t know that.

“Dustin gave him one. I don’t know when, but he’s got it.”

“So, uh, so he heard. Everything.”

“And relayed it all to me through an embarrassing amount of tears, by the sounds of it.”

But Will could see that Billy’s eyes were brighter than usual in the dark, and suddenly Will remembered that there had been a wet spot on Billy’s sleeve.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I mean, well, you’re good kids. All of you.” Billy patted him on the shoulder again. “I was shitting myself out there when you found us. Thought for sure one a’ yous would go squealing.”

“Maybe we would’ve. Before.”

“Never thought I’d be grateful for nearly being turned inside-out.”

“And I never thought I’d be grateful for being found dead in the water, but here we are.”

“Yeah, shit’s pretty weird if you stop and think about it for a few minutes. Near-death experiences really put your sexuality in perspective.”

“Is that why you two started dating? Perspective?”

Billy huffed a breath, looking up towards the ceiling. He coughed twice, and Will could pretty much hear his lungs rattle and crackle.

“Yeah. ‘S why we started dating. Both of us kinda realized there’s no sense in feeling like shit about the things that can actually make you feel not like shit.”

“So, you’re in love? Both of you?”

Billy’s cheeks were flooded with color, the deep red spreading all the way back to the tips of his ears.

“I think so. We’re both a little too fucked in the head to say it, but,” he shrugged lamely, not bothering to finish his thought, and looking anywhere but at Will.

He gets it, though.

Fucked up parents make for fucked up kids.

Will considered himself the luckiest person on Earth, and any kinda parallel universe, that he had his mom to stop, and later heal, all the damage his dad had caused.

“Well, I’m glad that you have it. Both of you. I mean, we saw you guys. And after everything, it's good that you’re happy.” And Will meant it.

Even before last summer, he had never seen Billy look the way he did when he was kissing Steve. Look that calm, and relaxed, and that goddamn happy. It really meant something.

Especially to Will.

Because he had never thought of someone looking that happy when they kissed someone else.

He had never thought of a boy looking that happy when he kissed another boy.

Billy surveyed Will for a moment, still leaning heavily on his cane in the hallway.

Will had the suspicion that Billy could see right through him.

“He came to visit me a lot when I was in the hospital. Steve, I mean. I don’t know why he did. It’s not like we were friends or anything. But one of those days, when I was barely awake he started talking about everything that happened those couple days.” Billy shifted closer to the wall, bracing himself with one hand as he lowered himself back into the chair. “The Russians. I don’t know what he’s told you kids, but it wasn’t pretty.”

“He hasn’t said anything. I mean, we all saw how he looked after, so we figured maybe he got in a fight.”

Billy chewed on his bottom lip.

“Look, you gotta swear not to tell any of the others this, but, uh, it was a bit more than a fight.”

Billy was giving him a meaningful look and something churned around in Will’s stomach.

“Torture?”

Billy gave a tiny, shaky nod.

“He started talking about it. Said after that, he started thinkin’ about shit different. Said he thought he was gonna die down there and that nothing would change without him. It was heavy, and I was mostly feeling the same way, and I think that’s why he told me. Knew that I could get it. After that he kept visiting, and I noticed that I didn’t hurt as much when he was there. Or maybe I did, but having him there, squinting at the t.v. ‘cause he can’t see worth a’ shit, or making some stupid comment about a nurse on the floor just made it easier. He makes a lotta shit easier.”

“I think that’s what it should be like. I don’t think love should make things harder.” Will thought of his mom and dad, and how different she acted with Hopper.

Like she didn’t hurt as much when he was there.

“It was hard in the beginning. I mean, before we got together. I thought that he didn’t feel the same way, you know? That I was just being an idiot, feeling like that for my best friend. But then he told me. He’s always been a lot braver than people give him credit for. Anyway, he told me, and it should’ve been fucking terrifying. And I was scared of people finding out. Still am, but it’s like, even if we get run outta town, and everyone we care about turns against us, it’ll be fine because we’re not just me an’ him, we’re us .”

Billy blinked quickly, almost as if he was surprised by his own words.

They clanged around in Will’s head.

We’re not just me an’ him, we’re us.

“You don’t have to be scared, though. I mean, of people finding out. Of turning against you both. We won’t let that happen. Not about something like this.”

Billy gave him a weak smile.

“I guess it makes sense. I mean, you all took me in after killing half the town. Tracks that you wouldn’t throw me out for. Being gay.”

“There are worse things to be than gay.”

“Psycho killer not one of them?”

Will gave Billy as unimpressed of a stare as he could muster.

“That wasn’t you. You forget, I know what it was like to have him controlling me. I know what it’s like to not do anything to stop him, even when you are fighting with everything you’ve got. I nearly killed my mom. I even might have, if I’d been stronger. You fought against him, and in the end, you won. I never could’ve done that.”

Billy just stared at the wall slightly above Will’s left shoulder.

“I killed people, too. When he had me. Led a whole group of people right into a trap. And it still scares me what he did. But I know that it wasn’t me that did it. It wasn’t you that did any of that, Billy.”

“I tell myself that. Hell, Steve tells me that about every five minutes. Just hard to watch yourself doing that awful shit and not be able to tell your body to knock it off.”

Will didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t.

Billy was right. It was a nightmare watching yourself hurt people around you, feeling like you were in the backseat, screaming at yourself to stop.

But Billy had done what Will couldn’t’ve.

Right at that last moment, he stood up to the thing controlling his every move.

Stood up to that horrific flesh monster, adn died rather than let it kill El.

El, who he didn’t even know.

And then Billy’s bedroom door down the hall opened slowly, and Steve poked his head into the hall, swearing under his breath when he saw someone in the hall with Billy and trying to duck out of sight, knocking the back of his head into the doorframe and swearing again.

Billy laughed, a low wheezy laugh that ended in a short coughing fit.

“Real fuckin’ subtle, Harrington,” he choked out.

The door opened once more and Steve stepped out into the hallway, trying to look casual.

“I didn’t realize it was you there, Will. How’s it goin’?”

Billy laughed again, and gestured for Steve to come and help him stand up.

Steve did so quickly, smiling warmly at Billy when he had righted him on his feet, and keeping hold of Billy’s arm.

“Why are you sneakin’ in my window like some kinda perv?”

“Because I wanted to talk. I have a lot of emotions today.” Steve turned to address Will. “You kids are gonna be the death of me. And I mean that in the nicest way I possibly can.”

“Yeah, well. You guys are family.” Will shrugged, feeling very awkward when both Steve and Billy. Looked as though their eyes were overbright. Will panicked, trying to think of an exit strategy before he saw either of them cry.

He had seen them both in too many intimate moments today.

“Um, I’m pretty tired, so I think I’m gonna go to bed. Let me know if you need, uh, help tomorrow. You know, heading of my mom or anything.”

Will turned on his heel and slipped back into his own bedroom.

“Alright, Bert. It’s been a long day and I’m gonna need some help getting into bed. My legs have gone totally stiff.”

“Oh, in no way am I Bert! I’m totally Ernie. You’re Bert. Think about it: you’re surly, and rude, and-”

“Gonna dump you if you don’t shut up and help me go to bed.”

“Spoken like a true Bert.”

[basically-i-write-shit]

Basicallyiwriteshit's Haikyuu fic masterpost

I'm bored at 3 am you know what that means! it's time to compartmentalize all of my my hq!! fics on ao3. Please note that some of these were written as far back as 2015 when I was 15- they may not be good but I keep them up because some people may still want to read them. These will be ordered oldest to newest.

Fluff/feel-good fics (rated for general audiences, up to teen)

Kei's phone: Kuroo and Bokuto snoop and find that Tsukishima has a soft spot for two things: brunettes and their dogs.

Since I've heard your voice: big bang 2016 piece about Tsukishima being cursed by a witch and needing "true loves kiss" to break the spell.

To fall in love: Tsukishima realizes his crush on Yamaguchi while reading romance manga.

Just despicable: office worker AU where everyone thinks tsukkiyama are cheating on their spouses with the other....only, their spouses are each other.

Taking flight, flying to new heights: tsukkiyama gift exchange 2017 piece featuring band AUs, mild hurt/comfort, and figure skating AUs.

A series of...fortunate events?: an ushiyama meet-cute featuring amnesia and a caring Ushijima.

Because the future's brighter with you: tsukkiyama week dribbles featuring meet-cutes, established relationship fluff, and dnd.

The one where Tanaka loves his boyfriend: Just Tanka loving on his boyfriend, Ennoshita.

Press record and tell me your feelings: Influencer AU. Tsukkiyama, kiyoyachi, ennotana, kuroken, bokuaka. Completed.

Stalemate: Sakuatsu fake dating au featuring meddling MSBY Black Jackals. Mild hurt/comfort to come, but eventual happy ending. Ongoing.

Open Doors: Tsukkiyama professors AU

Full Sentences: Kuroken, can be read as romantic or platonic. Nekoma reminisce about their first words. Kuroo is delighted to tell them Kenma’s. 

Nobody: Tsukkiyama Valentine’s Day fic. Mostly canon compliant, post-timeskip, fluffy domestic bliss. 

Hello, my old heart: Jump-cut to uni, and Tsukishima is absolutely, undeniably smitten. He can't help but stare, and that leads to some teasing from Yamaguchi- and an...unexpected new fact about his best friend.

Angst, hurt/comfort/pain (gen. audiences, teen)

That makes you the ace, right?: Tsukishima and his anguish at being lied to by Akiteru. Happy ending.

Cut: tsukkiyama acting in one of Ennoshita's films gets a little too personal. Happy ending.

Codependent, maybe: Yamaguchi gets insecure about his codependency on his best friend and boyfriend, so he calls it quits. No one likes that idea. Happy ending. (Side note: I hate that troupe of Yamaguchi being the insecure one, but this fic stays up because of ONE (1) comment in the bookmarks of this fic)

Never had to wait: ennotana, post-timeskip Tanaka emotionally and then eventually physically cheats on Kiyoko when he meets up with Ennoshita again by chance. Open/ambiguous ending.

Secrets, secrets: Parent-Trap-esque miya twins angst where they're separated very young and don't know they're twins until they're trying to make it in life and reporters keep asking them about each other. No happy ending/ambiguous ending.

Not your part, but all your fault: Sakuatsu get-together fix. A deep look into Sakusa's mental illness and why he feels he can't ever have a relationship- until Miya Atsumu. Mild hurt/comfort, direct mentions of being ill/throwing up, OCD and related disorders. Eventual happy ending.

Growing Apart: Miya twins character study. Open-ended, no actual plot just angsty thought. 

A rose by any other name (would be as sweet): Delinquent!Yamaguchi manages to get the attention of not only karasuno's boys volleyball team as a whole, but of Tsukishima Kei. But he can't accept his feelings without accepting himself first. Internalized homophobia, mild violence, child neglect, parental loss. Eventual happy ending.

18+ rating 🔞 (some teen, some mature, some explicit)

Little red riding hood(ie): Yamaguchi is caught by a curious creature walking home late at night. Only features heavy petting, mildly dubious consent. 

Deception: Daichi gets the entire Karasuno team to masturbate in front of one another with a little ruse involving a fleshlight. Heavily kinky, dubious consent. Characters aren't aged up but also author was 17 when they wrote it.

Arms tonight: an edging fic w an ironic title. Tsukkiyama fic based off of arms tonite by Mother Mother. Edging, overstim, dom/sub, choking, toy use, blowjobs.

Loving is easy: kinktober 2021 oneshots for various hq ships. I made my own list! Heed the warnings and tags

Omegaverse (teen & up) 

Our starlight: dark au centering around Yamaguchi finding a lost civilization that won't let him leave. TW for dark themes such as kidnapping, cults, forced marriage/mating, rape, violence. Ongoing. 🔞

Jealousy: Tsukishima gets jealous when another alpha gropes Yamaguchi at the club. Minor assault warning, dubious consent due to alcohol consumption and pheromones. 🔞

Potentially triggering content that doesn’t fit in another category (read at your own risk)

The loyal knight: AU where the seijoh boys are training to be knights. Demons, violence. (One of my favorites I've ever posted)

How an angel loses it wings: AU where Yamaguchi is an angel sent to bring fallen angel Kuroo back to the Light. Misuse of the Christian bible, angels and demons, suggestiveness, religious imagery.

[dbssh]

📃🎥 with trollhunters? :3

what is the plot of your hyperfixation? so at its most basic: jim lake jr is an unremarkable teenage boy who dreams of adventure, and one day comes across a magical artifact that gifts him cool magic armor and enstates him as the "trollhunter", an ancient line of heroes protecting human and trollkind from monsters and mayhem of all sorts. He's the first human trollhunter ever to be chosen, and is mentored by disgraced scholar Blinky and former-evil-soldier-turned-pacifist Arrrgh, alongside his best friend Toby and love interest Claire. he has to try to yknow, save the world, deal with highschool, solve mysteries, convince the stubborn troll society that he's even capable of being the trollhunter in the first place, fight monsters, and keep it all a secret. there's obviously a lot more to it than that, lots of enemies and allies and twists and stuff, but thats like the elevator pitch. do you have any favourite scenes? OH MAN SO SO MANY. i posted a few clips the other day and one of my favourites is the scene where blinky arrrgh and draal are playing dnd, which is just. so endearing. I also really really REALLY like the scene at the end of the grit-shaka episode where he confronts bular, and the opening fight sequence in episode one between bular and kanjigar, and the scenes in s1p2 where arrgh and vendel talk about the whole "arrgh is dying" situation it hits my right in the heart every time. i really like the scene at the end of episode six with the nomura and draal fights, and i LOVE all of nomuras scenes with jim in season 2 shes so endearing. uhm uhm uhm i could keep going forever if nobody stops me uhm. i like the bridge scene in unbecoming i like the scene where jim and arrrgh wrestle in jimhunters i like the opening of a house divided where jim is just fully dissociating i liked the exorcism of claire nunez like the entire episodei just really enjoyed i like when claire thinks jim is dead and she starts quoting romeo and juliet at him i like all the times claire says something really fucked up in her monotone peppy girl voice i really liked the scene with angor at the end of its about time i really liked the opening scene to where is my mind with stricklers vision i liked all the scenes that take place in the void and SPECIFICALLY i like the scene where jim comes out of the void and draal is giving him puppy dog eyes like "did you see my dad :pleading: did he say anything nice about me" like oh dude youre fucked up for real uhm i like when jim and draal fight in the reckless club i like that one scene where jim is imagining punching strickler in the face in front of everybody i like that shot at the season 2 finale of steve and eli with the umbrellas i think the twilight looks really gorgeous there and the organge-yellow colours are so beautiful i really liked the line "ive spent so long in the dark i'd forgotten there were stars" i like in adventures in trollsitting when blinky and arrgh are like parent bickering about how to teach the kids best i like when claire gets to come down to trollmarket for the first time i like basically every scene that usurna is in especially when she is fucked up. i like when angor rot attacks strickler that felt vindicating but i also liked seeing angor defend arrrgh and draal i thought the parallel was a little hamfisted but it was sweet to see angor get treated with some actual grace i like him i like when claire steals the shadowstaff and it cuts to angor alone in the middle of the desert with the thunderstorm overhead i like when jim uses the sword as a lightning rod to kill the stalkling i like that really fucked up scene in episode six where he writes goodbye letters to all his friends i like when claire and notenrique sibling bond i like when vendel asks blinky for something and blinky goes "yeah and i wanted reading glasses but nobody made those for me sooooo" like yeah king so true i like that arrgh gets to beat the shit out of both bular and gunmar it felt cathartic every single time i like when blinky gets to play good cop/bad cop with claire and they just start

throwing bombs at people it makes me laugh i like when he's getting ready to go fight in the eternal knight and that beautiful piano refrain is playing in front of the eclipse nd i like when jim and nomura are making fun of strickler together in the darklands i like that scene where draal blows his cover by saying bless you to claire i thought that was funny i like when blinky plays piano for no reason i like uhm uhm. basically i dont know if you can tell but i really like this show and i think it has a lot of good scenes.

[hellishhin]

Since today is the last challenge day, Day 30 is all yours: Tell me something you wish I'd asked you, and didn't cross my mind! Rubber duck it out or simply talk as much or as little as you want about something from your wip or your wip in general! I'd really love to hear your thoughts😊

(You already know how much I love your three girls. And you've taught me so much lore about dnd?? I'm very very grateful. Your answers were always so rich and I loved reading them to the end, sometimes I was pulled right in that I even forgot it was my question that started the prompt)

Wishing you the best!

Ok so I had a whole post for this then my computer shut off and I lost it soooo take two! I am so sad underwing is ending but it's not like we are all disappearing. Let me tell you though, I have absolutely loved your questions and I have had so much fun diving into them! I needed to get back into the lore and you gave me the push I needed to do that <3

Gosh I have no freaking clue where to even start. You tell me to talk about anything but anything is a lot of things! lol! So I really think one of my favorite things is how Sadie interacts with the gods. There are so many different gods with different personalities and so many of them appreciate her for one reason or another. I'll just spoil this a bit, Sadie ended up literally in the heavens, standing in the middle of a table where the entire pantheon of deities were around the table all in their fifteen foot tall god-like forms. They had this meeting called because there were several gods vying to have Sadie bear their child and she had enough of being jumped by gods so she forced them all to a meeting and they surprisingly agreed.

She had most of the table trying to convince her to pick them to be the father of her child and you freaking BET that her husband was there and was absolutely ready to blow his freaking lid. It was one of the most fun RP scenarios we've ever done, my DM and I. Because of that meeting, Sadie eyed a few different gods and even after she chose one the others were still very interested in being next in line. I will say that this is how Sadie and Skolfi the Beastlord became close with her. But other than that, Sadie also has such a close relationship with Chaldira, aka Lady Luck.

Ok so there's just so much stuff and telling this one part is not going to spoil much. History timeeeee! When Sadie learns about this it is really profound for her but it won't be worse knowing the information beforehand gosh I can't even type fast enough I'm so excited.

So the Hin is the official racial name for a halfling. Halflings are a "nickname" given by the humans that stuck and became the common term for that race of small people. But the Hin used to be an entire nation all on their own. They used to have such rich customs and history and they used to live completely separate from humans. They even had their own pantheon of gods.

That was until the humans decided that they couldn't have another set of gods within their realm so they attacked the Hin and said worship our gods or die. There were so many brave small Hin who stood up for their deities but unfortunately it was not enough. The Hin had to bow to the humans and their gods. Years and years went by and the Hin ended up becoming halflings who were forced to worship the human gods to such an extent that their pantheon was fully forgotten. Their culture fully destroyed. I can say pretty much nobody even knows this piece of history. Sadie only learned it from the spirits of the halflings who had died a long time ago but research into it found it to be true. This upset her so so much that she made a pledge she would restore her gods to their former glory. She would tell the Hin of their culture, their history, and get them to return to what their people used to be.

Chaldira is halfling goddess who is actually in the human pantheon. This happened because Tolaar the Mad God did what he does best. He went mad and killed the human goddess of luck many years ago. This had him banished to Pandemonium, no longer a part of the pantheon anymore. In order to have her place and domain filled, Chaldira was put in her place and sort of switched pantheons. Then the humans made the Hin forget the other Hinnish gods and when they lose worshippers they lose power, nearly fading away. But they all managed to continue existing and now they are gaining power because Sadie is raising awareness.

Seeing what she is doing, Chaldira blesses Sadie with Fatespinner, her artifact of luck. It's an amazing staff for Sadie that gives her more magic, it protects her, and she continues to unlock powers for it as she proves herself to Chaldira and prove her loyalty to the Hinnish gods. But if she upsets Chaldira, like she already did once, Chaldira will take powers away. Currently the rod is at about half power from what it was because she cursed the gods and threw it away when she had to watch her soldiers die on the battlefield and nobody she called on would help.

But I digress. Chaldira and Maelel are like her goddess mothers. They both come to her when she desperately needs them and they help steer her in the right direction. Sometimes she doesn't like that direction though. Her husband convinces her to do less than great things and so she basically has a devil and an angel on her shoulder but it's more like a hot devil she married and two goddesses which you can imagine the kind of pressure that puts her under. It's always a stairway to heaven and a highway to hell because its so much easier and more fun to go to hell.

So anyway that was kind of rambly but I really wanted to talk about the Hinnish gods. They are all so sweet and lovely and the Hin deserve so much more than what the stupid fucking humans did to them. Also, in order to be successful at all Sadie literally has to overthrow the church because you can bet your ass they will persecute any Hin they catch worshipping the wrong pantheon.

By this point all I ask is that you hate the Imperial Church as much as Sadie and I do <3

[mercuryislove]

Which of your characters did you create first? Is that character significantly different now compared to when you first created them?

okay i wrote this at like 3am last night when i couldn't sleep and it makes absolutely no sense but i figured if there was anyone on this earth that would appreciate it, it might be you lol

It's kind of funny you should ask this because the last few days I've been reading the stuff I was writing when I first picked it back up this time last year and like. shit's changed a lot lol

Of like. the stuff I'm writing now uh TECHNICALLY Yixing came first because when I was first toying with the idea of running a dnd campaign of my own, I started coming up with some npcs just to like. get some inspiration I guess? (I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before...) So I didn't really have any ideas about a setting or a plot or anything but I had two very specific characters, and one of them was like. a classic drifter/outlaw type character. And his two defining features were that he had really long black hair and was covered head to toe in tattoos. And uh. Only one of those stuck lol (though in my dnd campaign he still does have the tats! And they are plot relevant lol) OH also it stands to say that in my campaign Yixing is a MONK WITH A GUN because he was originally a gunslinger but I didn't really like any of the way the gunslinger homebrew options worked, and a lot of them were basically monk adjacent so I turned him into a monk and made his fucking monastic weapon a GUN.

Also the other npc I made was a really bonkers woman that lives in the woods and thinks the world is about to end at any moment and is extremely magically adept and eats a whole lot of shrooms lmao. idk if she'll actually show up in the campaign but she has a character sheet ready just in case

anyway. Yes Yixing is WAY different. He still has the yeehaw flair but he was originally intended to be shady and self-serving and standoffish and the kind of person who will play all sides but still find a way to come out on top. (he is still like that in my campaign..... he's like a quadruple agent lmao SPOILER for my dnd campaign that nobody cares about: he CLAIMS to be working for Anwei but he's actually working for Ciaran who knows he's also working for Anwei but he's actually double-crossing them both AND someone else that he's working for because he has his own side hustle and honestly he may or may not end up being the actual Big Bad of the campaign. I don't know yet. I hope my sister isn't reading this lol) anyway again, in the context of my novel he's now only a little bit self-serving and he will probably complain if he's super inconvenienced by helping out other people but he's still going to do it. He's a GOOD PERSON and even though I still have an extremely detailed outline of the idea I had where the plot is basically the same but he's a real shithead instead, I can't bring myself to really entertain the idea because I like him being nice. :( the whole point is that he's been through hell and back and has had a really shitty life but still finds a way to be kind and to see the good in people in spite of it all!!!! I get like. really passionate about this. Like truly agonizing about it to no one but myself. I'm the one writing the damn thing I can do whatever I want so why do I care so much about an alternate reality where Yixing is a real bastard??? I do not know.

ANYWAY AGAIN. (now here is where we really lose the thread of the original question lol) This all goes back to dnd lol because as someone that is a hard atheist, it's like. tough for me to get into the whole uhhh god thing in fantasy settings (but in this case I'm talking dnd). Like they EXIST FOR REAL in the context of the game so when your cleric or paladin prays, someone is really listening. And I was like... hm. What if I want to write a campaign where they just aren't there? (and some of my friends said I couldn't because that's breaking the rules which is stupid.. I do what I want!!!) Or that they had otherwise abandoned humanity? So then because I played final fantasy x too much in my formative years, I had the idea of “what if the gods got really fucking mad about people forsaking religion and punished them?” which turned into “what if the gods just DIED suddenly and the world fell apart in the wake?” which turned into “what if the gods realized they sucked at their jobs and that humanity was unintentionally destroying itself so they made a pact to start over but when they tried to do just that, they accidentally killed themselves?” and that is........... mostly the so-called lore now (but there is definitely more but I can't say at this time because spoilers lol) uh. I forgot where I was going with this. OH. How the characters changed. WELL. Anwei has probably changed the least lol. She is still kind of mean and weird and thinks of herself and the others like her as Far Superior to everyone else, but she's no longer downright evil. At one point she was intended to be the villain!!! but I changed my mind because I love fellow mean lesbians so much. Also it was kind of uhh. low stakes with her as a villain/antagonist. She's a little shady and definitely still very manipulative and she gets mean when jealous but not like in her first iterations.... she does still sort of try to get yixing killed though lmao

Oh also Ciaran was the last of the three that I came up with lol which is funny considering he's like. such a big deal. The only reason he exists at all is because I wanted to come up with a real Corruption Arc kind of Guy because I am a big fan of those. Also I wanted the Big Bad in my campaign to be related somehow to the Big Good. And like. what better way to do that than siblings! And then I needed a way to make my Very Cool New npc connected to both of them somehow to make the whole uhhh revolver ocelot style mind games work so I sat down and was like. well. time to tell a tragic love story lol. soooooooooo uh Thank you dnd for inspiring me to write a trilogy of novels because I wanted to do a SINGLE basic worldbuilding exercise for my dnd campaign (that even now has only had uh. four sessions ever) while I was sad and lonely last summer.

I totally went off the rails with this question and I am sorry for that :( also I could write a thousand essays about how much I love Yixing and also how many versions of him there are in my mind lol he's like that one oc that everyone has that they find a way to put in everything always. he is my alternate universe oc. very versatile

[nerdpiggy]

Tell us about your ocs!! I'm genuinely curios bc of the tags

[ID: Meme of Hatsune Miku smiling. Top text reads "Thanks for sending me a message". Bottom text reads "You're very cute and I will be replying to you".]

Robin "Robbie" Fuller: The character i play in a DND campaign.

they/them pronouns. they're nonbinary and asexual and don't care to label their romantic attraction.

They're 22 years old and 5'9" (175cm)

Their birthday is November 12th. they're a scorpio

They started off as a Mundane MOTW character and they're now a level 7 warlock in DND. They're a human

They live in a small coastal town in massachusetts called Holyoak and they go to the local college to learn culinary. They live in a single dorm and they have a cute widdle black cat named Chickadee

One day (for various reasons) their life was flip-turned upside down with discovering the existence of monsters, portals, different dimensions, and rifts in spacetime

One of the reasons for them discovering all of this was them meeting a man named Thomas who's a human from a different dimension called the Palisades. He's a well-known Judge over there. (Thomas is @bevtastic 's character)

Robbie gets an offer to join the Interdimensional Defence Agency (IDA), says fuck it and accepts, and Robbie and Thomas stay friends by virtue of their similar jobs.

Robbie is tasked to go to a different dimension (A half-medieval half-wild west desert town called Argyle) to stop a threat that was growing there. Threat turned out to be a massive mind-controlling dragon who wanted revenge for the rest of her dragon species that were killed off by medieval "heroes". Robbie was not cut out for this as their first job. They (with help) subdue the dragon eventually but not before she burned down multiple towns including Argyle to a crisp. Robbie feels very bad about this.

Robbie, Thomas, and the rest of the party receive a mysterious letter leading them to an old abandoned mansion in Holyoak and get roped into a rescue mission to save Thomas's old friend Percy who has apparently been bodysnatched by a bad guy and trapped somewhere for what felt like thousands of years. This is the arc where we switched from Monster of the Week to DND, and Robbie gets connected to a nature deity Adelaide through a purple necklace. They also get a familiar, who is an owl with pitch-black feathers and glowing yellow pupilless eyes that Robbie named Mr. Muffins.

Robbie and Thomas become very good friends :)

Thomas dies.

Robbie goes to the Palisades to find out what happened to him. Turns out he wanted to reveal the secret of interdimensional travel to the public and work to make it open, free, and safe. The people in charge did not allow him to do this by legal means so he aimed to do it illegally, which was when he was murdered by a group of bandits.

On top of that, one of the main reasons why he wanted to reveal the different dimensions is because there is a HUGE interdimensional threat coming our way, and we need to act on it if we want to live.

Percy finds Robbie and asks them to help with this threat, who apparently is a singular person named Siris that has been locked in a prison for thousands of years and somehow got out. Robbie doesn't have much of a choice and accepts.

In the Palisades, there are monsters called Behemoths. they emerge from people who get bitten by a behemoth or who touch the black tar-like substance that runs like rivers in certain areas of the Palisades. During a battle, Robbie gets bitten by a Behemoth, and now they're a candidate for Behemism (aka turning into big giant monster syndrome).

Because Robbie has Behemism and Siris is part of the reason for Behemism existing, they're mind roommates now. Robbie and Siris do not get along very well.

There's more to Robbie but this is their main backstory!!!

[ID: a drawing of Robbie holding a chrysanthemum. They have short pink curly hair, and they're wearing a yellow floral button-up and a purple necklace. They have bandages on their freckled face and they're looking down at the chrysanthemum with a neutral expression.]

Emile Azarel: A character i play in a different campaign that does MOTW.

He/him pronouns, he's trans, demisexual, and demiromantic.

He's 19 and he's 5'3

He doesn't know his actual birthday but the day he celebrates is January 23rd

His MOTW class is The Expert. He's a fire genasi

He was born in central Russia but he doesn't know his parents well because when he was ~8 months old there was a big monster attack that unfortunately killed his parents. A monster hunter named Avery Azarel found Emile, took him in and raised him.

Emile learned to hunt monsters with Avery and the two traveled around together as monster hunters.

Eventually Emile wished to have a solid place to live rather than constantly traveling, because he wanted friends. He found a town in the pacific northwest called Salmon Peak that had everything he wanted: Russian culture, a fairly small easy-to-get-around layout, and some very weird mysteries going on. (Just because Emile wanted to settle didnt mean he wanted to stop monster hunting!)

He moved to Salmon Peak and has met a bunch of new friends! He's also learning more and more about the town, which is turning out to be somehow even weirder than he expected.

Emile is a very sweet, polite boy, but considering the fact that he's only ever been around one person mainly for his entire life, he has a bit of a ways to go when it comes to interacting with people. The monster hunting life means that when there's a monster, you kill it and that usually solves all your problems. Emile has transferred this logic to people as well (if they're a monster, kill em!) and he's learning through friend influence that maybe human lives are a bit more sacred than that.

His favorite color is blue because he loves the sky!

A lot of people underestimate his skills because he's little and looks very young, but he is a very good monster hunter. Because of Avery (the best monster hunter in the biz), his last name has a bit of a reputation.

Emile is blind, autistic, and has vitiligo!

I have much more planned for Emile but I can't say it here because it is MAJOR spoilers!

[ID: a drawing of Emile walking forward. He is wearing a blue shirt with stars on it, blue jeans, a fluffy white jacket, a belt with a star on it, star earrings, a moon necklace, and black shoes. His blue hair is swaying behind him and he's holding a white cane with a red tip. He's smiling slightly.]

Avery Azarel: Emile's parent! I've not played them as a character yet but I've made a character sheet for them.

they/them pronouns. They're agender, aromantic, and pansexual

their age is (???) and their height is 5'7

they have a birthday but nobody knows when it is

Their MOTW class is The Chosen. they appear human

They're widely considered the best monster hunter in the biz. Their name is well-known and they're requested for help all around the world

Because of this, they're constantly traveling and having a house would not make sense. They just pack their things, stay at motels/hotels/etc., camp in the woods and move around to wherever people need them.

Since they've been pretty much everywhere, they always seem to know at least one person from each town. They never seem to get too close to anyone, though

They are fluent in many different languages!

In the past they were paired up with another monster hunter and they made a great duo. That was a couple decades ago; they go solo now.

Years ago, an unexpected and incredibly destructive monster rampaged a small town in Central Russia. Avery came as fast as they could (they were nearby in the area) but they still couldn't finish off the beast before it tore the whole town to shreds. Dozens of homes were crushed, but surprisingly most people survived, with the exception of a couple of people who died under the rubble. Avery felt awful (this was their biggest failure in a while), and as they were searching through the rubble for any more casualties they found little baby Emile, miraculously unscathed. They took him in and raised him from then on.

Nobody, not even Emile, knows very many details about Avery's childhood, their family, their age, or really any information about them. (Emile has been trying to figure out Avery's birthday for AGES so they can celebrate, but Avery has refused to budge)

Their main weapon is 2 pairs of bolas! those are those chains with 2 balls on either end, usually made to be thrown at people's legs to restrain and trip them. they use the bolas both as restraining tools and as their main weapon, because i think weapons where you spin them really fast in front of you are cool

There's a scar over their left eye; whenever someone asks how they got it they always spin a different elaborate tale of an epic monster battle. Nobody knows which (if any) is the true story

there is a WHOLE LOT that I am leaving out if you couldn't tell. There's a huge chunk of their past that I'm leaving out because it's all a big bundle of spoilers. Someday I will be able to elaborate more on Avery!

[ID: a picrew made by djarn of Avery. They're smiling, their head is tilted slightly, and there's a scar over their left eye. Their hair is tied half-up half-down. They're wearing a black shirt with "òwó" on it and a blue jacket with an aromantic flag pin and a pansexual flag pin. the background is an agender flag.]

These are my main OC's! I have more (Orion, Nottwyrm, "Noodlearms", etc.) but these 3 are the main ones that I post about. :3 thank u for asking!!!

If you have any questions about any of my characters I always welcome asks!!! 💖

[mattkenzie]

So with a lot of changes going on in June with all this talk about racism being a hot button topic indeed, WotC (Wizards of the Coast) wants to revamp and update the diversity of Dungeons and Dragons especially those that are centred around the orcs, drow and the Vistani

So one of the biggest things I would change about the real world is to have fantasy races (elves, dwarves and orcs... etc) but my biggest fear is that deep down... humans can sometimes be racist to one another and I’ll be adding even MORE racism into the world if my dream and ideas of fantasy races lived in the real world would become a nightmare. 😢

So the first thing I will want to address is our mean, green fighting machines (the orcs); So it all started when J.R.R Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings Trilogy so we were introduced to the orcs there and soon the orcs have became the staple of fantasy novels henchmen, brutes and thugs for our heroes to fight against. It’s sad that we have to picture them as stupid brutes and when I was younger in my Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy days (I was about 12 or 13 at that time) I hated the orcs because of how the books considered them to be these dumb brutes (nobody wanted to play with them because in 40,000 they have the lowest Armour Saves you have to roll a d6 and prey to the dice gods that you’ll get a 6 if your opponent doesn’t use an AP 6 (Amour Penetration) weapon (+5 if they have scrap armour) and in Fantasy Battles if you have a Dwarf Army (with I did) you get to reroll your failed rolls to hit giving us more chances roll to wound (eventually I stopped using the Dwarves ‘hatred’ rule that the other players say that I am the easiest person to win against because I choose not to use the hatred rule. (I just don’t know why I never heavy rely on the Hatred rule, why should hate win?)

When I started playing World of Warcraft after my college years (For the Alliance) I loved the Draenei but eventually there were times I wanted to know what it was like being the Horde. (you have your Undead, Tauren, Trolls and Blood Elves but what stood out more are the Orcs.) I sometimes want to know how the other half lives that I have slowly became accustomed to the Orcs, sure the Alliance had their Paladins as their exclusive class but the Horde had something different and I love the fact that they are spiritual (shamanism), No I have never seen the movie. But as a human, I started to find tusks appealing.

It’s funny how in the real world, eventhough I am a Caucasian male, I wanted to know what it’s like to be black. (with all that “Black Lives Matter”, I will admit that I used to think that all lives matter... but that is not the case anymore because some people aren’t treated as equals. We portray those who are different from us ‘savages’ even in modern media (of television, movies and video games) we portray people in the Middle East as Terrorists ever since the 9/11 attacks (September 11th) and we portray people who are black as gangsters and thugs and one of my favourite shows happens to be The Boondocks and while Riley Freeman plays the stereotype (that portrayal needs to stop), my favourite character is Huey Freeman and for a fictional character, he challenged the way I think about things). I have made some awesome friends at Church who are black but they’ve broken that mould. I went to college with them (but we didn’t go to the same department mind you) while I was getting a higher education, they have been studying to become physicians (they are smarter than me). They go to interviews to not get hired (instead they hire someone less qualified) they have been stopped by the police for driving cars they shouldn’t normally have (but earned it fair and square).

Heck there were times where they didn’t fit in the black community because they acted white. “How!?” (I’m sorry, how you can be rejected for being black on the outside but have personality traits of a Caucasian?) just to be called a ‘Sell Out’ or a ‘Bounty Bar’.

So anyway back to my D&D discussion, to me when I’ve played my first ever D&D 5E game with a gaming group known as the “Natural Oneduhs” my first character that I’ve created is Kamui, the Half-Orc (my DM wanted Kamui to either be a shade of green or grey, but I was having none of that “All orcs should be green or grey.” so I chose to stick to my guns to be Caucasian). I played against type because orcs in a fantasy setting (with their +2 Str and +1 Con they would be suited to play as Barbarians or Fighters) so because orcs aren’t an intelligent race I thought I’d kick things up a bit so I chose to play as a Bard. After these sessions with the (playing in the DM’s world and no stories for the individual players) Kamui grew up in a human society because the orcs rejected Kamui for not being an orc, but is always portrayed as a monster no matter the colour of his skin, (in 2nd Edition orcs aren’t a playable race, it was later introduced in 3rd Edition) sick and tired of the prejudice he sees where people see Kamui as an orc and not an actual person only one person accepted Kamui.

“What I hate about society is people tend to use violence as a weapon to get their point across (which ends up breaking into war) instead we need to use our voices and our own words to speak volumes.”

So the books that I have read where the orcs/half-orcs have became the anti-heroes is The Grey Bastards and True Bastards by Jonathan French (it’s the most boyish book I ever read) so I have Volo’s Guide to Monsters and the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount.

Now the Vistani (they are a travelling group of gypsies commonly found in Barovia in any Ravenloft campaign) and in the real world we look down upon the Romani gypsies because they couldn’t follow our “rules of society” by dumping their old trailers (fly-tipping), setting up camps in public spaces and being in large groups (I’m a large man, but I’m scared of getting ganged up on or mugged by them when I am walking down the road) not exactly Esmarelda from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I don’t know why, but I tend to see them hanging out in boxing clubs and riding (or racing) in those 1 horse carriages or sometimes having lunch in the carvery (and ignore social rules like changing a baby on the dinner table) which is gross, “We having changing facilities!”, Oh it’s your kids birthday and you let them watch a 12 rated movie instead of a U rated film yet your kids choose to cause havoc in the cinema “Yep, still ignoring the rules of society!” and then having the audacity to be dumping popcorn on me when watching Avengers Assemble because your kids couldn’t follow the rules! in this TV show on Channel 4 My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I never played a Vistani before but it would be interesting to see more variant humans in the game.

In real life, with what I had to put up with, I think I would be scared to make a friend with the Romani (learnt behaviour) but I admire them for being a tight knit group, you don’t see that in modern day society, we are all wrapped our heads around social media.

I can picture them with Animal Handling and Performance as their skills, have a proficiency with a musical instrument.

The Drow (Dark Elves) have been painted as sadomasochist and well... “evil” but what I find fascinating and appreciate them is their religion because they have female priests. What I am saying is that in the real world, it’s a rare sight to see a female Vicar (I feel that it’s quite progressive but other people (old men and traditionalists) are apprehensive about having a woman to preach about the gospel.) Look at Matthew Mercer’s Critical Role campaign 2 and take a look at the Krynn Dynasty.

I never played a drow before and I don’t think I shall anytime soon. I know that a popular drow that is well known is Drizz’t and to fight against the stereotypical world view that all drow are evil because of Lolth, the Spider Queen... I don’t think a religion should define you. But it’s like I said, I believe that this has ushered in having a female priest (if you’ve seen the Victor of Dibbley you might understand where I am coming from.)

For me the Orcs in my world are indeed a tribal society (and I give them a Polynesian/New Zealand/Aztec/Hawaiian flair to them, instead of “Makin’ um as da dum broots dey are”).

[jellyfishdooter]

Okay so, back when I asked for asks for my Ego DnD AU, @lace-maze sent a really good ask a while back asking about why each of the egos chose the characters they did and their playing styles- and I can’t for the LIFE of me find the original anywhere on my blog. ;3;

But! I finished it and I bet it reads horribly but whatever who cares I’m tired- enjoy!

So to FINALLY answer your question, the way I went about choosing what each of the egos would play more or less boiled down to a combo of trying to pick what I think THEY would want to play, and what I figured they would be in the Dungeons and Dragons universe. (wink wonk)

Marvin- Dragonborn Sorcerer

One of the top veterans of the game, he likes to play something with more of a challenge and a lot more mechanics. And since he’s a magician it’s definitely has to deal with magic of some kind (I mean c’mon, he’s already got the aesthetic wardrobe irl for it so why not?). So he’s currently playing a Sorcerer- a magic caster who has the power naturally within him (which ties in his Race for it’s from his draconic bloodline:)

He could have easily chosen his race to be a Tabaxi (a human-cat like hybrid), but he already got enough shit of being the “furry” of the group as it was so instead he decided to go for a Dragonborn. In the game there are different types of Dragonborn, so specifically he’s Brass- which both deals fire damage breath, and is also resistant to fire.

Being one of the older players, his play style depends on the day. For the most part he is the cool, collected member of the party who doesn’t rush in and thinks things through... Until it’s later in the evening with a few drink in ‘em and then they just say, “Yeah, this might as well happen.” Before taking another shot and round-housing someone poor guy’s ass for mocking his scaly features.

Jackie- Half-Orc Fighter

Always wanting to be the hero, Jackie wants to fight and protect his fellow party members. He only has a few sessions under his belt, but he’s confident in saying that he's comfortable with playing more tanky characters and dealing heavy damage.

Jackie doesn’t have a lot of reasoning for his Race other than Orcs Are Cool so he just rolls with that.

As for his Class he likes having a bunch of different fighting styles to choose from while in combat so he can pick and choose which would work best for the situation (they also get more of a range in picking which Armor Class they want-).

His play style is Protect the Party, but also Rush In Head First Into Danger. He’s always in the front lines of a fight to tank the most damage and provide cover for the more squishy characters. It can get quite frustrating for the healer at times when he runs battleaxe-first into battle, leaving his head behind.

Speaking of healers-

Henrik- High Elf Alchemist

A lot like Anti, Henrik found the idea of playing to be quite silly. But once he got into it, the doctor found it quite enjoyable to get into a fantasy character and forget about the real world for a couple of hours. But wanting to retain some kind of dignity, he decided to play as a High Elf. He was drawn to their grace, wonderlust for adventure, and near perfectionism. To say the least, it's easy for him to slip into character.

Strictly speaking, Alchemist is not the the 5E DnD Handbook, but Jack allowed it and made some homebrew additions to the character so their party would actually have a fucking healer. So in addition to the damage-dealing bombs Henrik’s character uses, he also has a special healing bomb he can yeet at the other players when needed.

Henrik’s play style is serious, but curious. He’s always wanting to explore the world Jack created for them and peacefully interact with the NPCs, enjoying events that unfold naturally. However when it’s time for a proper fight he does not beat around the bush, staying in the back for more long-ranged attacks rather than right on the front lines.

Chase- Human Ranger

The recently-single father needed an outlet other than drinking to try and cope with the loss of his family. So like any good friend, Jack offered Chase a spot in his campaign that he was putting together! He wasn’t too sure at first, Chase said that the game seemed really complex and hard to get into. But Jack waves it off and told his friend, “You honestly have to fully jump into it if you’re gonna get anywhere. There’s not really a small way to start. It’s pretty much all or nothing. But trust me, it’s gonna be great!” And ever since his first session, Chase always looked forward to next week’s game.

Being one of the newer players, Chase doesn’t really play anything too crazy, so he sticks to his guns and runs a Human pc. And he may or may not have based the character on his old life to some degree. Giving himself a stable home, a fulfilling job, and a big loving family and at least 3 dogs. Ya’know, real heavy fantasy stuff.

Jack offered him the newer class/ homebrew of a Gunslinger, but he politely declined ‘cause he didn’t want to have to deal with new rules. So he decided to go with a Ranger for his class, figuring it would make for a cool character to play.

Chase’s play style is pretty average (no pun intended), and not all that spectacular. He gets a few good one-liners in here and there, but for the most part he plays passively. Fights when there’s a fight, and interacts almost only when others interact with him directly. (He’s been trying to get better at being more engaging, but he tends to zone out.)

Jameson- Halfling Bard

This session being JJ’s (and Robbie’s) first ever game, JJ pleasantly surprised Jack when he decided to be a Bard. When asked why, the silent man replied simply, “There’s nothing in the rules saying bards HAVE to sing. At the core of them, they are performers.” Jack beams and asks what’s their instrument of choice then? Jameson smiles and shows him this video, saying he thinks it would be interesting to have this as his musical item. (Also gotta love that good The Bard Seduces Everything trope. He’s keeping that in his back pocket for the right moment.)

As for being a Halfling, Jameson figured it would be fun to play a smaller character. And nobody ever suspects the small man to pack such a whaloop. But really, his love for the hobbits in the Tolkin books had captured his heart and really wanted to try and emulate that in the game! Maybe leaning more towards being a little prankster, but still at the core- in short- Soft Cottage Aesthetic™

Jameson’s play style is bouncy and go-gettem. He’s eager to explore the world and have fun with the NPCs. In battles he’s more comedic relief in the back inspiring the other players (and intimidating enemies by aggressively cranking his music box rapidly). And AT LEAST ONCE he has had Jackie’s character YEET his at the enemy to get the final blow to slay the beast. That was a fun session.

Anti- Changeling Rouge 

Do I really gotta explain this one? 

Naturally Anti always tries to play the edgiest characters he can. Giving them dark, moody personalities but with a slight crazed tick. (Chase naturally calls hypocrisy when Anti says his character is a self-insert to the game.)

I’m almost out of steam here so in short-

Anti loves the idea of having puppets to mess around with irl- so in the game he can somewhat do the same- by changing his figure/ features to mimic those of somebody to manipulate another. He doesn’t care much for the society around him and does his own thing, but can easily blend in and slip into other’s traditions if he needs to. His character has a tendency to pick fights pretending to be someone else before ducking out and watch the fight take place with a smirk on his hidden features. None of the party has ever seen his real face/ form, always changing it subtly so every time someone tries to take a second look something seems different or off.

Rouge: Quick and Stabby. Like the bitch himself.

Robbie- Undead Druid

Jack had to make a special homebrew character for Robbie ‘cause he was set on being an Undead. Apparently Robbie and Marvin talked about character ideas before hand and Robbie got a little overwhelmed with all the options that they had, so Marv suggested something Rob could relate to easier. So after an afternoon of crafting a special stat sheet, Jack allowed their favorite zombie ego to play.. Well, a zombie. (I’m sure someone else has made something similar out there but I might try and make a sheet later.. That could be fun lmao)

As for Druid, I like to see Robbie as being a little more connected to nature than the rest of the egos. Since he.. Yaknow, crawled out of the dirt at one point. (Side story- before the others found him in an old cemetery, he liked to just hang out around the area that was slowly being reclaimed by nature and liked watched the birds and animals). So he was pretty drawn to choosing this class. It’s a little complicated at points, but that’s why Marvin sits between him and JJ, so he can help them out through the whole process. Robbie gets really excited when one of his spells works in combat or just having fun interacting with the NPCs by growing them some flowers to be nice. 

As a whole Robbie’s play style is pretty passive. He gets distracted pretty easily and unless Jack is waving his arms around or using miniatures/ figurines to keep a visual, the zombie will sometimes lose focus and stare off into space for a minute before coming back to the game and raising his hand for something to be repeated.

It’s one big mixing pot of different people and play styles, but at the end of the day, Jack has a lot of fun trying to bounce around and keep up with everyone’s antics and storylines. It’s hard as hell at times and it gets a little frustrating when things get out of hand, but they all try to check each other and keep things rolling. And at the end of the day, all the boys enjoy the game and what Jack has to offer and really fucking enjoy themselves. DnD is a good destresser for most of them and all around a grand fun time!

[yikesharringrove]

So, this began several months ago like this and because I cope by putting my sweet bby through the ringer, it has risen.

Some of that sweet sweet Steve angst. This takes place post-season 3 but they burned the Mind Flayer outta Billy, established relationship.

Read on Ao3

-

It was Will Byers that found him.

Steve had begun hosting DnD night after the second run-in with the Upside Down. He said it was to keep the kids out of the hair of the rest of the Party Moms, but Billy knew it was to keep the house filled with noise, light, life.

He knew Steve had been hanging on by the slimmest, teeniest little thread after this summer, so the kids were over more often than not. They would play for a few hours, watch a movie (deciding which movie usually took at least an hour in and of itself) and all the kids would pass out in the sitting room. Billy and Steve would take that opportunity to sneak up to Steve’s room for the night.

It was a typical game night when Will was startled awake. Almost a year later, he was still getting nightmares of his possession, of the Mind Flayer using him to hurt others, lure people to their deaths. He needed a minute to gather himself, so he went to the bathroom to the left of the upstairs landing, the bathroom almost nobody uses.

When he opens the door, the first thing he notices is the clumps of dark brown hair littering the counter and sink.

He met Steve’s eyes in the mirror and found them red-rimmed, filled with tears. His hair was a fucking mess. Random chunks had been cut at odd angles. Nothing was the same length and overall his hair was shorter than Will has ever seen. 

He didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

He was wearing green shorts Will recognized from the Hawkins High Basketball Team and a ratty old Mötley Crüe shirt Will would have never pictured Steve wearing, let alone owning.

He put the scissors down when he noticed Will behind him and whipped around. His breathing was fast and ragged, he had a white-knuckle grip on the counter behind him.

“Steve?” Will took a step forward as Steve’s knees seemed to buckle. He lowered himself to the ground

“Get Billy. He’s-he’s in my room. Tell him I-” he closed his eyes and took a few shuddering breaths. “Tell him I need him.”

Will booked it the fuck outta the bathroom, opening doors at random as he sped down the hall. He felt like shit leaving Steve alone in the obvious panic he’s in, but if Billy can help, then Will’s helping too.

He knew Steve’s room from the honey smell. Steve had a very particular scent Will recognized immediately, the fresh wheat of a meadow in late summer. The next thing he noticed was the giant lump of very obviously naked Billy draped across the left side of the bed. Will’s mouth was dry as he approached, but this was important. Focus Will, c’mon. He whispered out Billy’s name.

Billy was a light sleeper. He heard the door open and was awake right away. When it wasn’t Steve who was silhouetted against the hall lighting, he knew something was fucking wrong.

The second Will Byers whispered out his name in the darkness, he was up and out of bed, digging through the piles of his and Steve’s clothes strewn about the floor for something, anything, to put on.

“Where is he?”

Will just turned, motioning for Billy to follow him down the hall to the large bathroom just to the left of the landing.

Billy’s heart shattered the second he saw the devastation that was Steve Harrington in a heap on the floor. He approached like he would a scared animal, slowly lowering himself near Steve’s head, carefully keeping his movements slow and deliberate.

“Baby, it’s me. I’m here, I’m right here for you, Honey. I’m not gonna touch you, okay? You come to me when you’re ready just like always. I’m here, Baby, I’m not going anywhere.”

Will’s brain was going a mile a fucking minute. He felt like he was going to throw up. He was too worried about Steve to actually process what Billy was saying, to actually process the fact that Billy and Steve were obviously, together, in a way Will had dreamed of being with another guy. All he could think about were Steve’s uneven breaths and all the fucking hair covering the bathroom.

He began to clean it up, quietly picking up the clumps of dark hair and placing them in the trash he found under the cabinet while Steve slowly came into himself enough to crawl pathetically into Billy’s lap.

“Can you talk to me, Stevie? What’s going on?” Billy was running his fingers up and down Steve’s back, gently making patterns through the shirt Will now figured wass Billy’s.

“I wanted, I wanted it gone,” was Steve’s mumble. Will had abandoned cleaning, dropping himself down the wall adjacent to the one Billy was propped against.

“Okay, okay. Can you tell me why? Take your time, Baby. We’re right here for you.”

“Had another, ‘nother nightmare,” Steve was still taking shaky breathes, spitting out his words on every exhale. “‘Bout the-the Russians.”

“Okay, I know what happened. I understand, Baby. Just focus on your breathing, okay? Try to match mine. We’re not going anywhere.” Billy looked at Will, flashing him a small smile he sheepishly returned. Steve turned his face into Billy’s chest, closing his eyes and checking out, focusing on the steady rise and fall of Billy’s strong chest.

“Is he, is he gonna be okay?” Will was about to have a breakdown of his own. Watching Steve, someone he always saw as strong, the protector, succumb to the same panic and fear Will had felt his whole life. It was jarring.

“Yeah, kid. This happens sometimes. We just gotta give him a little extra love.” He huffed a breath. “Anyone ever fill you in about the Russians?”

“Kind of? Like Dustin told us all about being trapped in that elevator and the underground base while we were getting the Mind Flayer out of you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Steve say anything about it though.”

“Well, you know how he is. Threw himself of the sword so Dustin and Erica could get outta there. He ended up getting- I mean he and Robin both got, drugged and, and tortured.”

Will felt the tears he’d been holding back this whole time roll down his cheeks.

“I didn’t know that, he-why didn’t he tell us? We can help him. We all l-love him a lot and we’re a family. We’re his family.”

“He knows that. He does, and it means a whole hell of a lot to him, you guys really are his family, but he’s-he’s got it in his head he’s gotta be the strong one. The one to protect all of us, so he pushes his shit down until, well, until this happens. But, kid, you gotta, you gotta promise both of us not to go tellin’ this to the other nerds, okay? You know he would fuckin’ hate it if they all knew about this, and I’m not-I’m not just talking about the attack, I mean, you know, me and him.”

“I promise! I really promise, I know what it’s like, the-the panic and, you know, the, well the other thing.” Billy’s eyes brightened.

“Yeah? You a social deviant too, Baby Byers?”

“I, well, I think so.”

“Hey, welcome to the club! Nice to know there're more queers in Hawkins. I need to give this hick town more fuckin’ credit. Good for you, figurin’ that shit out quick. It’ll save you a lotta confusion. ‘Lotta heartbreak too.”

“I think I’ve always known. Never thought about girls, not when, not when-well. I always knew.”

“Who was your first crush? That guy that just made you go ‘hot damn’?” Billy was grinning at Will. ���Mine was Jim Morrison. Saw a poster of him at a record store once, and just, you know. Knew it.”

Will didn’t really know what to say. He knew exactly who it was that awoke the gay beast inside him, but he didn’t really know how to tell Billy.

“This is kind of, well it’s kind of embarrassing,” That only made Billy’s smile grow.

“You need to tell me right the fuck now, kid. C’mon, I can tell you Steve’s too!”

Will flushed. So he was doing this.

“So, he probably told you this, but um, Steve used to coach little league. And, he was my coach the summer before sixth grade, and, well...” he trailed off, not making eye contact with Billy until he let out a bark of laughter.

“Are you fucking telling me,” He shifted Steve around on his lap who made a disgruntled noise before settling back into Billy’s chest. He was entirely zoned out, focused on the rhythm of Billy’s breaths and the cadence of his voice, not registering any actual words from the other two.

“Are you fucking telling me, that Steve Harrington, this lump right here, caused your sexual awakening?” Billy was laughing.

“I mean, he was always really nice to us, and like, I hated baseball, but he made it, he made it really fun and he would always be so excited for us when we did well-”

“Plus, he’s hot as fuck.” He cut Will of, shooting him a wink, with his tongue between his teeth. Will went bright fucking red. “I’m just fuckin’ with you kid. I know he’s a sweet one.”

“He made me want to play baseball. I hated baseball. Only did it because my dad made me. He probably thought it would straighten me out.” Billy’s teasing smile dropped from his face.

“Sounds like we had the same kinda dad.” He took a breath, looking down at Steve for a moment. “He ever hit you?”

Will’s blood ran cold.

“No, not me. He used to hit Mom and Jonathan. I think they both thought that if they got hit, at least the rest of us weren’t gettin’ any. She definitely caught him slapping Jonathon around once, though. All his stuff was on the lawn within the hour.”

Billy smiled, but it was kind of, sad. “Your mom is a damn spitfire. I adore that woman.”

“I do too. She’s the best mom in the world.” Will could talk about his mom all day and all fucking night.

Steve was shifting around again, moving between Billy’s legs and sitting up more on his own.

“Hey, Baby. Welcome back to us. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” He looked at Will. “I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry you had to see all that.”

“It’s okay. I understand. I get anxiety like that too.” Steve smiled at him blearily before turning to Billy. “Okay, be straight up with me. How bad’s the damage?” He swept his fingers over his hair, wincing when he felt the different lengths and random chunks.

“I’m not gonna lie, it’s not good. But I think Robin could fix it. She seems like the type that can cut hair. It’s gonna have to be short though. Real short.”

Steve whined, pushing his bottom lip out at Billy. “You gonna dump me? I’m not pretty enough for you anymore?”

Will’s heart nearly stopped when Billy leaned in to bite at Steve’s pouty bottom lip. He had never seen moments like this between two men, just sweet moments that showed how much they love each other.

“You’ll always be my Pretty Boy, you fuckin’ know that.” They were smiling at one another so softly. “You know Will and I got some nice bonding time in while you were working on your breathing.” Steve leaned sideways against Billy’s chest, slipping one hand into the big front pocket of his sweatshirt.

“Yeah? What’d you all talk about?”

“Oh, you know. Shitty dads, first crushes, normal stuff.”

“Oooh, I already know yours is Jim Morrison, you’re old news around here, Bill. Care to share, Will the Wise?” No, Steve, he does not care to share.

“Oh, umm it was actually uh,” He reached around for a name, absolutely not ready to admit to Steve his first crush. “Marlon Brando?”

Steve’s tired eyes lit up a little. “Brando? Honestly, he was one a’ mine too. And Harrison Ford. I saw Star Wars four times in theatres. Couldn’t tell you a single plot detail. So you’re playin’ for our team?” Billy rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like fucking jock under his breath. Steve elbowed him.

 “Um, yeah. Although, I haven’t really, told anyone, so if you guys could, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, discretion is key.” Steve nodded. “We’re not too bad at keeping secrets, you don’t gotta worry about us.”

“So none of your friends know? That’s rough, Byers. I mean, even here I’ve found a few people I can tell, Steve, obviously. But California, all ‘a my friends knew.”

“Well, I mean, I told Mike. Last year. And he was really cool about it, but then this summer we got into a fight, and he kinda, threw it back in my face.”

Billy and Steve both looked shocked and appalled on Will’s behalf.

“What did the little fucker say? I’ll kick his ass if he called you a fa-”

“No! Nothing like that, it’s cool, Billy. He just, well we got into it about how he and Lucas didn’t really have time to play DnD, or hang out with me in general anymore, and he said ‘it’s not my fault you don’t like girls’. We didn’t really talk about it, I mean, he kinda apologized, but it was right when everything was going down. So, I put it aside.” Steve got his Mom Face on.

“But have you talked about it since everything has blown over? Has he apologized? He shouldn’t have said that. He just wanted to hurt you and that was the one thing that probably came into his head, but that isn’t okay, especially if he was the only one you trusted enough to tell.”

“I know. I keep meaning to talk to him, but we’ve been really good lately and I don’t want to, want to,  fuck anything up.”

“All the more reason to do it now. If you two are really tight right now, he’ll probably listen to how shitty he made you feel, and feel really bad about it.” Billy was nodding along to what Steve was saying. “And, you know if you ever need to talk about shit, we’re here for you, and you know, probably understand  you more.”

“Or if you just want someone to teach the little poser a lesson-”

“I think I’ll just talk to him, but, uh, thanks?” Billy grinned. Steve leaned back into him, pulling Billy’s left arm around his chest to pull him in more. “Um, Steve, do you think I could-I mean, would it be okay to ask you what, um, all this is.” Steve’s face fell immediately, and he shrank back more into Billy. “You don’t have to! I just, it kinda freaked me out to see you like that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s okay. I can’t-I can’t talk about it too much right now, I’m still a little” he looked at Billy “fragile, I guess. But, well. What do you want to know?”

“Nothing you don’t want to talk about, or, or feel okay telling me but, I mean, why go for the hair?”

Steve shifted some more. It looked as though he was trying to disappear into Billy. 

“You know about the Russians? The ones under Starcourt?”

“Yeah, Billy filled me in a little. Just generally what, what happened to you.”

Steve sighed. 

“Well, for some fuckin’ reason, the general that was, in charge of us, he, uh, he really liked pulling at my hair. He would just grab it and move my head around, or-or use it to hold me steadily while they, um, while they hit me and-when I woke up I couldn’t think. I just, I wanted it gone.”

Billy’s face was white as a sheet. He looked like someone had pulled the entire floor out from under him.

“Steve, why the fuck didn’t you tell me? I thought you-you used to love when I played with your hair. I would’ve stopped.” He looked disgusted with himself at the idea of contributing to Steve’s pain in any way. 

“I thought that-I don’t know. Maybe it would go away? That I would like it again?”

Billy looked like he could cry. A level of hurt and remorse and apology Will had never seen him exhibit. 

“Jesus, Stevie. You need to tell me when you feel shit like that. You know all of my shit and triggers and whatever.”

“I know,” Steve buried his face back into Billy’s chest, curling his body inwards again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, you know me though. You know I don’t like-”

“Having a weakness?” Billy seemed sardonic. Steve’s head shot up to glare at Billy in the eye.

“That is not what I was going to say and you know it. I was going to say that you know I don’t like being vulnerable and I’m sorry and I’m working on it. But this was, I didn’t even realize what I had done until Will walked in.” 

A look of pure horror came over Steve’s face.

“How the fuck am I supposed to hide this from the rest of The Party tomorrow? Dustin is gonna ask so many questions I do not have the answers for.” Billy chuckled lightly, all tension that may have been building between them melting away. They snuggled even closer and Will’s heart turned to a big pile of mush.

“Just stay in bed tomorrow. I’ll tell the nerds you’re sick. Plus, you always ass out for about 18 hours after a panic attack anyway.” Steve rolled his eyes. 

“Will, do you think you could maybe, not tell anyone about this? I’m gonna have to come up with a cover story and everything.”

“I already promised Billy I wouldn’t. But, you know how you said I could always talk to you two? Well, the same goes for you. We all really love you, Steve. And maybe we don’t understand exactly what you’re going through, we just, we want to be here for you. We are here for you.” Steve’s eyes went even bigger and all watery when Will spoke. 

“That, that really means a lot to me. I love you shitbirds. I hope you all know that.”

“We do,” Will said quickly. He doesn’t think he could watch Steve cry anymore tonight. Or maybe ever. “We know that.” Steve gave him a watery smile, looking at Billy’s watch. 

“I think it’s time for sleep. I need a soft bed and a big man. Now.” Billy rolled his eyes, but picked Steve up as if he weighed nothing. 

“Go to bed, Baby Byers.” He knocked Steve’s foot into Will as he went past.

“Thanks, Will.” Steve’s voice was soft as Billy brought them back into the bedroom. 

Will went downstairs as quietly as possible, settling back into his little makeshift bed.

“Hey, you okay?”

And of course it was Mike, whispering to him from his own little spot. 

“Yeah. I’m good. Let’s talk in the morning.” And Mike smiled at him, and gave him a little wave, and flopped back onto his pillow.

[internetremix]

I was wondering... Do you any of you have tips for a rookie GM? I'm setting up a game night here soon and I'm stressing the heck out over it.

Alex: No matter what game system you play it's usually quite intimidating because there are like 600 pages of information to digest. At any given time you need to have memorized only, like, thirty. At the end of the day most tabletop games are just two things - math and improv. Admittedly things that, outside of tabletop games, people go out of their way to avoid, but still.

Stress can lead people to get things done fast but also get things done sloppy. You don't need to plan out every single detail of what the characters might encounter eventually in a session. You can flesh out a couple of interesting people, places, or things you want them to see and just keep a scratch card of notes and traits for if/when they go off the beaten path. Remember, no matter what you plan, there is no accounting for the actions of players, and rolling with them provides a far better experience than slamming your fist down and saying "NO" to every deviation.

And above all else, remember that tabletop games are a collaborative effort. People come together to play games, tell stories, and shoot the shit. If shooting the shit overtakes the game you can rein that in a little but at the end of the day everyone's there voluntarily to have fun, and no one is there to see anyone fail.So to recap -

1. You are the arbiter of rules no matter what the book says. You can double-check later and take notes for future games if it becomes an issue but generally you only need to have in mind rules that are actively going to be used in game. If you don't know the exact way to handle something just make up what the closest action would be and if the player rolls what you think is well enough to do it, they did it.

2. If you don't have time to take notes on every single thing the players might encounter, congratulations, you're an average person. You only need a few based on the following factors - what do you want the players to do, how do you think they're going to do it, and do you have something prepared for when they go off the beaten path.

3. Have fun! Seriously, it's called a tabletop GAME, not a tabletop dictatorship.

Kristen: All of my games are Tabletop Dictatorships, all of them. Unfortunately I'm a terrible, weak-willed dictator so this helps nothing.

Alex: Discord Murder Party is different. Mafia/Werewolf operates way differently than D&D and needs a GM SPECIFICALLY so that players don't go off the rails.

Kristen: You are 100% correct.

God my first tabletop I ever DMed for I made my own thing and wrote like... twenty pages for my first session. And then as soon as I started, my players were like HEY I WANNA EXPLORE THE SHOPS

"O-oh.... y-yeah, here's uh... heeeere's a list of shops..."

So then I had to improv like... five shops and make multiple NPCs on the fly and then I found out "it turns out writing an entire paragraph for every NPC is an awful idea because you can't fucking read those notes mid-session"

So my point is don't do that.

Juno: Oh yeah. Last night I had to make up a guy named Lucas on the spot because JoJo's character wanted to convince a guy not to kill them

Kristen: YEP I ran the generic 5e DnD starter for a group of friends and somehow it went from a generic "you all hunt down and kill a bunch of goblins and a bugbear in a cave, way to go" to "You spared a Goblin who has a ridiculous Brooklyn accent who hates his job and now you're starting a ridiculous worker's revolution and this has ended with you all enlisting every other goblin you were supposed to fight into swarming the bugbear boss. Okay."

Juno: I mean. That's a pretty bomb plot twist if you ask me.

Kristen: Oh yes, I enjoyed it immensely. Also really in the context of a DnD game I'm pretty sure that shouldn't be doable cause I don't think any of them were supposed to be able to speak common. If your players are setting themselves up for a more interesting story and you have to bend the rules a bit to make it happen, go for it. One of the most important things for GMing is making your players feel like they have agency- as Alex said, it's collaborative, it's not just you telling your players a story.

Another thing to keep in mind is what sort of players you have. I usually prefer to play with people who are more into the RP/story aspect, but some people are gonna be more into them fighty fights and mechanics and such. Which is fine and can work, it's just a matter of striking a balance in your game.  I usually try to tailor things in such a way that everyone's getting a chance to get what they want out of a game and their shot at the spotlight, in whatever manner that takes. For me it's helped to ask my players directly "hey, what do you want out of this game? Do you have any ideas or anything you're really into?"

Mostly what I'm saying is just try to keep in mind what your players are in this for, since that contributes a lot to how much fun you all have.

Atwas: Something that's helped me a lot is to not stress out or stop the game entirely to double check rules. It sort of kills momentum. In my experience, ruling a situation and then looking something up later is a lot less stressful than the pressure of putting something completely on pause while you flip through a book/google something.

If you're doing stuff in real life, I would recommend making a little cheat sheet of your PC's information. My DM screen has sticky notes with each party characters HP, AC, Passive Perception, and Spell Save DC to keep things streamlined.

Kristen: Oooo smurt

Alex: Hell yeah dude. Also there are custom DM screens you can get tailor-made to give you quick rules references. Fairly cheap on Amazon.

Atwas: Also your players don't know if you're winging stuff unless you tell them. ;^)

Also also don't be scared of bumping monster hp up or down depending on a fight or having monsters run away or call in reinforcements. If you go off script in an encounter--surprise! Nobody knows but you. I did that quite a bit when I was starting out because balancing encounters is a bit of an art and CR is a loose guideline at best.

Also also also the point of the game isn't to win. Don't fall into the trap of "beating your players" or stuff like that. Imo that kind of messes with the table dynamics unless 100% of everyone is on board with that type of game.

Kristen: Yeah, don't fall into that and also be careful not to go into the mindset of "punishing" your players if they do something dumb. Like if it's a silly "you did this thing and consequences have gone WILDLY outside of what you expect wheee", awesome, but I've had DMs who basically would act like if you didn't somehow read their minds and find their exact solution, welp you made a dumb choice and now everyone is penalized for it. Made for a pretty toxic atmosphere, do not recommend. Kind goes hand in hand with "don't be a tabletop dictator".

Atwas: oh gods i could go on and on about how punishing someone in game never works for out of game behaviour but i digress. also please don't feel afraid to talk to your players, even if having adult conversations is difficult.

Juno: Cause and effect is the biggest thing to think about I think, especially in a DMing situation.

Alex: For instance, siccing a Revenant on the party? Thavagath made a bad decision in character, that's the natural consequence, he gets a chance to save his ass. Someone makes a dick joke about your carefully crafted NPC? Don't be a dick right back.

Atwas: sweats, trying to think back to the last time a dick joke was made in Fallen Empires

Alex: Like I think the last major one was Phill pulling a muscle stretching so hard to make a joke for five minutes about the "Male Room" rather than the "Mail Room"

But then we - wait for it - ACTUALLY DISCUSSED THE ISSUE OUT OF GAME and stuff like that doesn't pop up any more.

Atwas: WHAT? SPEAKING LIKE REASONABLE ADULTS?!?! IN MY TABLETOP?!?!?! it's really useful. please have those conversations, even if they're uncomfortable. and if something is becoming an issue, bring it up sooner rather than later--turns out that people can't change stuff if they don't know about it! Most people want to stay friends after a campaign after all.

Jojo: Have your story planned, npcs, and what you want an end goal to be. Make sure it's all planned out BEFORE asking people to join it. And if you need a second DM to help you with Dice or story, then that's ok too! I'm still a beginner DM myself, so that's the best advice I can give

These guys are pros, so listen to them

Phill: Heheh... male room

Alex: Phill no you'll pull your hamstring again

Phill:

Atwas: what do you think is Phill's average Henderson rating?

Alex: Phill has at least One Henderson in him, he destroyed Underdark to the point of we can't go back to it ever now.

Phill: I mean. Yeah. Honestly, I could've very easily seen phresh reach a 1.75 hendersons eventually.

Atwas: I'd say 1.75 works. 2 is still out of reach, but one day...

Xander: Underdark is cursed content and deserved better

Atwas: How many of he players had that as their first campaign? 3/5?

Xander: I believe so

Alex: Uprising and I had played before, I don't think Jojo, Dawn, or Phill had.

Xander: I'm probably gonna reboot Underdark one day. Wipe the slate clean. Probably not gonna be done on IR

Alex: We did it! We reached two Hendersons!

Xander: Two full Hendersons.

Phill: time unveil my new original character. Blesh

Alex: Blerish

Xander: More like Blemish

[picsofshiro]

You said you have a person on trial. How do you test someone to make sure they are trustworthy enough to run your blogs?

I run a 2 week-1 month trial from the moment they start posting on the blog to see a few things. but before that, here’s what I do. This is based off of how I also handle other social media pages as someone who handles 5+ facebook pages as a chat/post moderator, 5+twitter accounts, and 2+instagram accounts. According to fans/followers who follow our professional work, it helps them feel safe to interact with us as staff doing our job (radio/reporting) and interact with fellow listeners/viewers consuming media, processing it, and discussing it. The same can be applied to other public spaces like these fan blogs. 

1. What’s the person like?

I check out their blogs/have seen them interact before with other people in other online spaces in and out of fandom. This means how they interact with other fans, with interacting with staff/voice actors in public spaces. I love Voltron as a show, I just personally focus my love where it counts. Lots of people complain when interviews come out, hate what happened in canon. Can you be critical of things said? Sure. But the thing is, it feels weird to take anything said at face value when Voltron as it stands is not a completed project so things can change and how we see them as the missing pieces come together. I take everything with a grain of salt and see where things go and I hope the people I work with are the same way and are cordial when interacting with others on their thoughts on characters, ships, the show itself and when interacting with the kind people working on Voltron.

More for what I look for and how I run stuff is under the cut and the standard I try to set for myself and for others who wish to work with me cause this is more volunteering to help out, it’s not technically our content to own, its fan run, and nobody is paid. But if you’re gonna do it, you gotta give it the love it deserves.  

2. Enforce set rules.

I got common sense stuff like don’t let bigotry slide when it’d directed at us as mods and people interacting on the posts that are hosted here. Block ant!’s on site since they are a source of a lot of why our fandom is accused of being garbage vs any other group within the fandom that’s chill, especially those who still currently openly hate/dehumanize other fans minding their business. Block them if they interact with the blog via reblogs/likes if you catch them cause that stuff spreads to other blogs who assume our fandom experience is for them — it’s not. For the most part, blocking is good if I’m/the mod running a blog is just tired and doesn’t wanna deal with inane bs or things we’ve already answered if a user or anon didn’t do their research to look through my history of asks and whether or not I’ve addressed their question/didn’t read our response because they’re not looking for our actual answer, they’re looking for something else. I don’t deal with people spreading misinformation like pushing br0ganes which is currently confirmed never a thing by staff repeatedly, pushing whether or not a ship is canon (I have even politely said that I appreciate sheith’s bond over at pics of sheith but never said it was canon as a ship), and I definitely don’t like individuals that shit on characters/ships or how others express their excitement over content or their interpretations or fanon fun. And I don’t appreciate when people get upset with staff for saying something wrong when the show is not completed and they can only say certain things in a certain way if they choose to answer questions at all then attack other fans and justifying it because they’re upset. Nobody gets to throw a tantrum and hurt others. Take responsibility for shitty behavior

3. Choose your battles - carefully decide what discourse to address.

I understand that a lot of people don’t have the time or mental energy to do what I do when I happen to bring down people who claim to have some higher morality/authority to speak from. Sometimes it’s outright bs and I block immediately, not giving my attention, move forward, nobody has to know about it unless I want them to. Maybe I joke about it. But that’s it. I’ve actually just skipped out and blocked some IP’s on this blog cause it was a “nah” kind of day. But I make sure to get a screencap, maybe even post it to my main blog because my main blog is linked in the description of these blogs so people can dispute why they were blocked from interacting with the blog. Then we can examine how I misunderstood a message if that’s the problem, cause that happens. It’s the internet so people’s tone of voice is lost, people might have brain issues that cause them to type up the wrong stuff or they insist they said what they said and I have to see if I’m not the only one “misunderstanding" it cause we’re all trying to communicate here, in the common English language which his a clusterfuck anyhow. It happens where I just can’t read shit but I have and try to rectify my mistakes.

And when I do address it, I do so point by point, concisely. That’s what I get for having a mother who is a paralegal and helped write legal arguments, deconstructs her child’s stupid arguments when he got in a dumb ass fight with her. I learned from it and now I can frame my arguments properly to follow logical structures based on truth, understanding how the English language works to examine what they said and what it sounds like, and show the true meaning of what was said which is often something pretty screwed up. They usually (as far as I know between one anon and the next) never come back to bother me again. Mods have to be able to have the stamina to handle it, and run it by me to make sure the argument is sound because we try to keep ourselves and everyone else safe.

4. be open to opportunities

If they continue to argue with me on my main blog which is where I’m fine dealing with discourse unless it turns into violent threats/harassment, I’ve already blocked them across the board at all the picsof blog urls I have in my account. But let’s say this person has come to understand why they are wrong…then I can find their name, unblock them hopefully, and everything moves forward and I keep tabs to show that they’ve changed their behavior. Hopefully because tumblr tells me if i block an anon, that i can’t ever undo it but I’ve also heard it’s still possible so who knows really on this broken website?

How I run this tight ship and expect others to run it (no pun intended).

1. Screencap for an hour or two - organize by character/ship -> season -> episode folders and number the images so that it’s in order frame by frame, then play around with the same image and crop accordingly just for fun. This gives random choices and variety for the next part.

2. draft and tag - for characters I use canon voltron legendary defender names

#keith #voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld

vs keith kogane which his defender of the universe. I’m a stickler for canon which is why i also tag

#shiro (how he’s often referred to) #takashi shirogane (in written canon and uttered by his own character in the dnd episode) #voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld

for a ship blog, i follow a similar formula but people get upset if they are looking for 1 character but don’t care for the ship so i try to be courteous and leave out characters and focus on the ship - hence the following:

#sheith #voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld

then as a mod, i have fun and put my thoughts into the screencap at the end of all that when I feel like it, for example #keith looks cute here / #shiro just [redact] me / #wow they hold each other so tenderly

Do this until i get between 90-200 posts in my drafts, then hit queue at random to scramble up the order in which they queue. Will the blog visitors see a screencap from episode 1? or episode 10? nobody knows. But it gets boring if i just queued everything in order which is why I do this. Predictability is boring.

3. Set queue post to 3 posts a day and leave, this is a fucking hobby and isn’t your life - focus on what needs to be done, this is just low maintenance fun. (Look at me rhyming!) Follow the stuff above with how you handle discourse and of course the mod who should obviously love the blog of their focus can have fun with any individuals asking about headcanons/ideas about ships. I wouldn’t give someone who doesn’t ship Allurance because it will show in their work that they don’t care when they’d rather have Shance and vice versa. Or a Pidge fan running a Hunk blog when they’d rather do Pidge. For these other blogs outside of the 3 I’m managing right now, i might have teams of people simply because we can all keep tabs on each other and be held accountable for our actions if we make mistakes. 

[localgorewhore-blog]

OKAY BUT HEAR ME OUT: BISEXUAL STEVE HARRINGTON

I want Steve’s bisexuality to just be a part of him, not something that is introduced, slowly hinted at, defines him, etc. but rather something that just happens and people don’t make a big deal out of it- characters and writers. For example: Steve is at the Leavers’ party and he- like the other students- is quite drunk. We see him in the background/ his own little scene- playing ‘Spin The Bottle’ or something similar, and the bottle lands on a girl. He kisses the girl, lingering, and then he spins again, this time it lands on a guy. He doesn’t hesitate and kisses the guy with an equal amount of passion. It cuts to the main plot as though it was just another thing that happened- it doesn’t need further explaining or elaborating.

At one point, Billy- the new Hawkins bully and ‘King’- starts provoking Steve outside of a service station where nobody else from school is there to see. Steve- someone who rarely sees red- loses his rag and demands to know what he did to upset Billy so much, for all he has ever done to him is stay out of his way and minded his own business. Billy, not thinking before he speaks, blurts out his real feelings towards Steve: he has feelings for him. Shocked but not empathetic, Steve explains (rather aggressively) that “love” is no excuse for “being a dick.”

In an attempt to impress Steve, Billy begins to tidy up his act and makes an effort to be kinder, though only to Steve. Harrington- being the newly reformed good-guy that he is- doesn’t care for that and tells Billy that he would have liked him if he wasn’t so cruel. This is another subtle inclusion of his bisexuality- he doesn’t mention anything about considering dating another guy or anything of the sort, he just acknowledges the only thing stopping him is Billy’s personality. He goes back to ignoring the school bully and trying to live his own life, while Billy reverts back to his old self.

Steve doesn’t want to work for his egotistical, materialistic parents (who he still loves dearly) but is strapped for cash. He needs money but can’t seem to stick to one job- he is always late, unmotivated or too busy with schoolwork to commit. He knows that he needs to find a job that allows him the time to work on his grades because he realized how little time he has left to become the man he and his parents would be proud of.

Instead of working for Joyce, like Nancy had suggested, he reluctantly agreed to babysit Dustin. While he enjoyed spending time with the boys, he wasn’t too sold on the idea of babysitting one almost every night- especially when some of those nights fell on his much-deserved weekends. Still, it was money and they were nice enough. It started off with Dustin blabbering on about how he can look after himself and didn’t need a babysitter, which Steve actually agreed with, and eventually evolved into a friendship stronger than either of them had anticipated.

 Steve would occasionally fall asleep on the sofa while Dustin slept in his room, somehow growing tired from doing so little, and Dustin’s mother would come home from work and gently cover him up with the throw to keep him from catching a cold. Those mornings would consist of Dustin waking him up by accidentally stumbling over the shoes by the sofa and falling onto him, Claudia’s clumsiness in the kitchen, or to the smell of bacon and eggs planted on a third plate just for him. Claudia treats him like a son she only gets to see during the holidays and Dustin grows to love him like a brother.  

Many months pass and Steve goes from crashing on the couch twice a week and making it home late from babysitting the other five days to spending every night at the Henderson household. For his 18th birthday, Dustin and Claudia surprise Steve with a turtle of his own, after having seen how fascinated he is by Dustin’s. Dustin teaches Steve the basics on caring for reptiles and even lends him his books he checked out from the library.

After many months of rolling a 3 on persuasion, Dustin finally manages to convince Steve to participate in the boys’ latest DnD campaign; at first, he doesn’t see the appeal in spending four hours staring at a couple of figurines being pushed around a fold-up table, but that soon changes. He finds himself sneaking a peak at Dustin’s DnD manuals every now and then while the boys are at AV club. His curiosity evolves from the odd gander to stealthily sneaking different campaign books out of Dustin’s room and staying up all night to read them- only to regret it in the morning, tired and grouchy. After a good few sessions, the boys begin to outright question his sudden tactical improvements and how they do not coincide with his (seemingly) lack of interest in DnD. Of course, he does not admit to finding the concept of something this nerdy to be thrilling. As the months pass by, Steve’s facade cracks and his love for nerd culture is made apparent- only making him all the more impressive to the boys.

Every other Friday, the boys and Steve all spend the night round the Henderson’s where they marathon a variety of different films. Sometimes, Jonathan and Nancy join them, though not often. One of the first movies they all watched together- though it was Steve’s first time seeing it- was Star Wars. Despite being aware that he had a crush on both Han and Leia, he knew pretty much nothing else about the films. Not understanding the premise of the trilogy, he constantly whispers all sorts of questions into Dustin’s ear in attempt to learn more. Dustin, being a huge Star Wars fan, doesn’t want to hear it but instead the film, and tells Steve to shut up. Embarrassed  because he knows he’s not as intelligent or quick to catch on at the others, he sinks lower into the chair and focuses on the TV. Dustin notices this and feels bad, so without being prompted to, he leans in and quietly begins to explain the things he feels would be confusing for Steve. This leaves Steve with a goofy grin plastered on his face because he is aware of what Dustin is doing for him.

All of the boys agree that Leia is a kickass and Mike tells Steve (in confidence) that Eleven reminds him of Leia because of their strength and willpower. Steve laughs and agrees. “They both have the force, I guess.” Mike would later go on to convince Eleven, with the help of Steve, that they should dress up as the iconic duo for Halloween, despite her not really seeing the point in it (other than it making Mike happy).

A little bit of time passes and Dustin becomes aware that Lucas has been confiding in Steve about his relationship with Max. Recalling how “girl troubles” were the basis of Dustin and Steve’s friendship, he shamefully grows jealous. Not wanting to upset the party for something he knows is petty, he keeps it bottled up. However, Steve comes home late one evening and sees Dustin watching their favourite film (Alien) alone. The conversation goes as follows:

“Hey man, watching it without me?”

“Wouldn’t you rather watch it with Lucas?”

“Dustin,” Steve sighs, ”you’re like my little bro, my best pal- so shut up and move over so we can watch this together.”

There’s a silence.

“I bought nougat?” 

“Son of a bitch... Fine.” Dustin reluctantly shuffles over with a ghost of a smile.

Roughly an hour into the film, now nearing the end, the boys fall asleep on the sofa together. When Claudia goes downstairs to make them some breakfast, she spots them still fast asleep and sneaks over to take a Polaroid. She would later go on to use that- much to their dismay- as a Christmas card.

Further on down the line, Steve introduces the Henderson’s to his new (soon-to-be) boyfriend. Dustin on the other hand grows a little jealous of this new guy who gets to spend so much time with his “brother” and isn’t subtle about it. As a way of apologising- and reassuring him that nothing will change- Steve and Michael take Dustin to get as much chocolate pudding, milkshakes, and ice cream as he likes. 

Whilst at the diner, Dustin discovers that Michael is a not-so-secret huge nerd also. He expresses his surprise at Steve dating a nerd, having assumed that wasn’t really his type. The three of them sip their milkshakes and Steve sits back while Dustin and Michael gush over nerd culture, comics, and a hundred and one other things he doesn’t understand but is happy to hear about. These conversations continue over the course of four different milkshake dates. Steve jokes about how he is now the one that should be jealous.

 (tbc)

[defunctblogtobedeleted]

10/26/19 3:40 am - Inventing A New Ranking System For People

Alright I don’t know if it’s sexist since I’m bi (LOL Andi would hate when I called shit gay and say that it’s okay because I’m half-gay).

But I did a lot of brainstorming and wanted to show off my new rating scale.

1-10 is trash. We used to parody it by saying it was more efficient to just do Binary where 0 is you wouldn’t smash and 1 is you would.

There’s just no depth there.

The crazy-hot chart is at least a little better because it’s got two factors you’re assessing.

So Here’s what I’ve got for you today.

I spent that one night at Darlin’s watching her stream and drawing this picture because I kept imagining what it would be like to write down all my feelings and have her read about how much I loved her and how highly I thought about her and maybe she’d take me back. I came up with this scale, but didn’t draw that part of this page out until just now.

I’m glad I’m writing the official scale part and all the numbers now that I don’t really want Andi back. It all feels more honest, though the opinions haven’t really changed. One of the things I said to Andi when I was breaking off our friendship was that I felt shitty like I was manipulating her back into a relationship and not being real friends with her.

Honestly I don’t know if I could control myself to try to be platonic friends with her now. Probably not, I’m tryna fuck like everyone I hang out with LMAO.

But anyway, Andi and I loved DnD and so that was the inspiration for this scale. Forreal here it is:

So here’s the rundown. You’ve got your normal 6 stats on the left, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. 

It helps to fill these out as well, because then you have 12 points of assessment.

For example, Andi’s digestive issues means that there is no fucking WAY she’d be able to pass a constitution check on poison, since she can barely eat most regular foods; hence she has a -2 in that stat. It also helps to remember that when you’re doing real stats that 18 is like supergenius and 20 is literally unachievable naturally so there’s no way you ought to give a real person much higher than like a 16 or 17 intellect.

Okay now here’s the fun part. My made up stats are Hobbies, Spontaneity, Mental Health, Sex, Beauty, and Status/Refinement. 

Hobbies are what I consider to be the strength of a relationship. It’s how much you guys have in common with the things you like to do. On these stats I think it’s more natural to fill them out to a max score of 20. Andi gets two points off for not liking drugs and not liking fucked up shit from 4chan or videos where she gets grossed out like Me!Me!Me! but she was damn near perfect in terms of wanting to do stuff I wanted to do. Drinking, video games, sex? Yeah. got it.

Spontaneity is a subjective stat. One person’s SPO 20 is probably another person’s SPO 1, after all. You’d want someone in your life to be as crazy and willing to go out and do wild shit as you are, I’d presume. Or at least I do, which is why in terms of having Andi ready to go on road trip adventures across the country with me she didn’t quite hold up. I’d give her a -2 but she did fuck me in a parking lot the first night I met her. Really thought about giving her a flat stat just for that, but overall I think it’s negative.

Mental Health isn’t just a category for me to take a jab at Andi for having depressive issues, I fucking swear I’m not that much of a dick. Mental Health, or MHP, is a throwback to that Crazy-Hotness chart/meme/adage. You really do have to take into account if someone isn’t going to slice your ass with razor blades when they fuck you lmfao, or if they’re going to fight with you or fuck your friends any chance they get. Some people are just crazy and now here’s a stat for that. But alright yes, I am an asshole and took off points because Andi was depressed so much lmfao.

Sex + Beauty  I like these stats being their own categories for the same reason that INT and WIS are different stats. Raw beauty is your natural 1-10 scale of hotness. Of course, it’s more accurate because it includes .5 decimals by going 1-20. I’d give Andi a 7.5 on my hotness scale, where 10s are like Natalie Portman, Britney Spears ~Toxic era, and Kimberly from the Power Rangers. So in DnD Beauty she gets a 15. She had perfect tits, a great ass, a tight stomach, a pretty smile, and legs for fucking days, man. Pretty fucking hot.  For sex, I’d say you should rate someone on a scale from 1-18 normally, just because an 18 is the highest stat you can roll naturally before increasing your stats with feats. But then you can continue to add 1 or 2 if they actually have some mindblowing skills. Like if they give the best head you’ve ever gotten or something they can break into that best-in-the-world territory that a 19/20 stat in DnD is supposed to represent.  That being said, Andi was one of my favorite fucks. She didn’t have unbelievable stamina on top and didn’t give a legendary blowjob. But she was ALWAYS ready to fuck. And so enthusiastic. And so sexy. And kinky. The only area she loses points from rolling the nat 18 is for kissing and for whatever was causing the puss flavor.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I really honestly think it was just because we were too lazy to shower most of the weekend though so I didn’t want to take a whole second point off for that.

And so that leaves us with Status (/Refinement) Status is a somewhat more nebulous stat, but I wanted to add a stat in for how classy someone is. Does she come from a rich family? Does she have money? Does she make more money than you? How is her taste in music and culture and art? Would you feel shitty not taking her out to a fancy restaurant? Like sometimes you have to acknowledge that you’re tryna fuck a hot piece of trailer trash. It’s fine, man. Like Mungo Jerry said In The Summertime, “If her daddy’s rich, take her out for a meal / If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel.” It’s not a bad thing to not be classy.  For starters I liked that Andi made a little more money than me, but she wasn’t rich enough to take me in and be my sugar momma 😂 I also didn’t think she had Great taste in anime and music, so she ends up in an above-average-but-still-kinda-middling stat. 

And that covers it!

I hope this doesn’t make me the worst person ever. But I might start reviewing all the people I sleep with like this. I think it really demonstrates their appeal a lot more than anything else I’ve heard of. 

Let me know if I’m the biggest piece of shit ever for this so I know not to do it though lmfao.

Also Andi, if you ever read this for some reason I hope you’re... flattered? I guess? I really hope you meant what you said when you told me I could write about you because... this is probably a lot. I really don’t think I was out of your league though, and when you looked at your porn pics of us and said you couldn’t believe your ass looked so good I hope you know you always looked great. 

💕 It really was fun. Unblock me so we can be friends again. It’d be cool to chill now that I’m in a better headspace I think. 

I was thinking about calling you when I finally got to this part in my catching up, but I want to give you your space. Forever, I guess. You always said you were the bad bitch Ex’s And Oh’s girl who would have your exes chasing you to the end of the Earth and I’m not about that chase lmao.  But you were worth it. You were worth a lot more, to be honest lol, I wish I had gotten my shit together before we broke up instead of after. But you really convinced me to treat myself right, and take better care of myself in a way that nobody outside of my family has and you mean a lot to me for that. So I hope you’re doing well and I don’t want to do anything to fuck that up if you are, so I’m not gonna be that ex that calls you out of the blue that says “oh are you ready to be friends again, sorry for that shit I said.” Also because I’m not. But if you wanted to be friends anyway that’d be rad.  💕 💕

[dingus-the-mingus]

To all who follow me with the reason of good content ignore this. Also this is a tag game

of course as always this was brought upon me by none other then the mighty @het-lelijke-eendje, thanks yet again for making my evening less boring and more filled with personal and emotionally charged questions which is way better then just browsing dead dark souls memes

Last

1. Drink: cold mint tea

2. Phone call: i think my dad

3. Text message: “yo can you bring me my jacket tomorrow and drop it off later at my place?”

4. Song you listened to: Macdemarco “baby you’re out”

5. Time you cried: i’m not sharing that but what i can say is that i mostly cry because of my amnesia.

HAVE YOU

6. Dated someone twice: can’t say i have 

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: every kiss is the beginning of regrets

8. Been cheated on: nope

9. Lost someone special: every dog i ever owned, who cares about humans

10. Been depressed: yes severely, but it’s in the past and i moved on like everyone who got rid of their depression. 

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: of course, Cactus liquor of any kind tastes like nuclear waste now thanks to that one “drunk souls” evening with some friends.

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS

12-14: i’m colourblind and i like blue hues and maybe some purple

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU

15. Made new friends: a few 

16. Fallen out of love: well it’s more of a “stopped loving” but yes and it sux. 

17. Laughed until you cried:  my friends make that happen on a daily basis. but mostly when we play DnD or when we’re super high.

18. Found out someone was talking about you:  why should they? i’m a bland animator shut-in with no redeeming values except my undying love for the souls series, they should be ashamed if they were talking about me.

19. Met someone who changed you: yes, although i still can’t tell if it was for the better or not. i’m really reflecting on that part right now.

20. Found out who your friends are: I already know who my friends are and they know i’m theirs.

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: yes,

GENERAL

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them but i have circle of about 30 where i keep constant contact with.

23. Do you have any pets: Yes, a boston terrier he’s my silent animation buddy

24. Do you want to change your name: do i look like a guy with identity issues? i’m fine with my name. 

25. What did you do for your last Birthday: got extremely high with my closest friends and dungeonmastered a game.

26. What time did you wake up: god idk i don’t keep track of time in the summer vacation.

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: listening to some podcasts (just started harmontown and i’m halfway through acquisitions incorporated) and drawing some new homebrew enemies for my DnD campaign.

28. Name something you can’t wait for: this is gonna sound sad but to be loved. 

29. When was the last time you saw your mom: a few minutes ago when she said she was gonna go to bed.

30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: Everyone wants to change things, but no one is ever happy with the ways things are. it’s funny how we always yearn for anything we can’t have or didn’t do in our lives. but if i could i would change the way i handled things with my ex.

31. What are you listening to right now: Biig Piig “Vice city”

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: probably,

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: my always increasing solitude and hermit lifestyle which is at the same time very relaxing. it’s really conflicting

34. Most visited website: Tumblr, reddit, youtube, 4chan in that order

RANDOM INFO ABOUT YOURSELF

35. Mole/s: hidden on my back

36. Mark/s: the upper part of my right ringfinger doesn’t have any feeling anymore because it got stuck between a car door when i was child. that and an eyebrow scar that was created during a weird collision between me and the radiator in kindergarden.

37. Childhood dream: as child i didn’t know. right now i’m aiming to become an art school teacher and to follow in the footsteps of the art teacher who taught me how to draw and find meaning in life. Jeff if you’re reading this i’m coming for you! 

38. Hair color: Black, just black

39. Long or short hair: can i say medium/short  for the sake of being difficult?

40. Do you have a crush on someone: Yes,

41. What do you like about yourself: that i quit drinking and that i like to help people who struggle with personal problems. i also am quite a good Dungeonmaster but that’s just plain out bragging.

42. Piercings: None

43. Blood type: O positive so that means i can donate to all you suckers!

44. Nickname: Lewis, Jewie (i’m not jewish) but generally just Louis

45. Relationship status: single

46. Zodiac: Pisces

47. Pronouns: call me whichever i’m not a sensitive person on the issue 

48. Favourite TV Shows: none, any belgian TV show is complete garbage.

49. Tattoos: one day each of my closest friends including me is gonna make a tattoo design (we’re all artists so we know it’s gonna look ok) then we’re gonna put it in a hat and then we all take one randomly from the hat and put it wherever we want. but that’s all high concept stuff.

50. Right or left hand: Right

51. Surgery: i don’t wanna talk about that, it wasn’t fun and neither is having a neurological issue.

52. Hair dyed in different color: I’m fine with my black,

53. Sport: swimming

55. Vacation: this year it’s Japan and afterwards italy

56. Pair of trainers: no clue

MORE GENERAL

57. Eating: a small cookie

58. Drinking: yup still burning on that cold mint tea

59. I’m about to: finish this of and go for some dark souls pvp

61. Waiting for: some person to live for.

62. Want: to achieve new heights in my animation and drawing and to have an awesome DnD campaign this vacation.

63. Get married: god no, do you know how many people divorce these days? Nobody can withstand another person to the end of their lives. nothing lasts forever just go live together and have your own ceremony without all the paperwork and promises.

64. Career: again being an art teacher at my old middle school. 

WHICH IS BETTER

65. Hugs or kisses: hugs definitely

66. Lips or eyes: i can’t really see eye colours so i’m gonna have to go with lips even though it’s not a feature i necesarily look for.

67. Shorter or taller: neither every size is fine.

68. Older or younger: again it doesn’t matter!

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: who caaaaares

71. Sensitive or loud: again i’m not a guy who looks for these parameters in people. everyone is sensitive and loud in some way.

72. Hook up or relationship: Relationship

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker. 

HAVE YOU EVER

74. Kissed a Stranger: Nope

75. Drank hard liquor: i’m a belgian who got over his alcoholism a year ago...

76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: no lenses no glasses no problems

77. Turned someone down: yes, it never feels good tho

78. Sex on the first date: haha what do you take me for? no not in the slightest.

79. Broken someone’s heart: yeah...i’m a dork 

80. Had your heart broken: yes, Not so long ago actually. it’ll heal with time i suppose...

81. Been arrested: can’t say i have but i have been warned not to smoke pot outside once by a cop.

82. Cried when someone died: i’m human you know of course.

83. Fallen for a friend: yah

DO YOU BELIEVE IN…

84. Yourself: despite every action i make i would say yes. willpower is something immensely strong and is necesary for dealing with the hardships of life. but i’m not perfect i’m still trying to find such strong willpower.

85. Miracles: nope 

86. Love at first sight: i believe in love at first sentence. 

87. Santa Claus: krampus is the only santa i believe in.

88. Kiss on the first date: if it were to actually happen for once then yes. 

OTHER:

90. Current best friend name: i’ve got several and no i won’t name them

91. Eye colour: dark green

92. Favorite movie: District 9, the usual suspect.

HOLY MOLY THAT WAS A LONG LIST

i’m not gonna tag anyone further sadly. unless any of those lurking schmucks wants to follow up on this then feel free to reply.