#but also thank you because you saved my sanity

[imnotgreen-art]

okay so if you are one of my close friends then you know. you KNOW this book has completely taken over my entire life

the warm hands of ghosts by Katherine Arden is an absolute literary masterpiece and it makes me tear up just thinking about it and I canNOT recommend it enough

I drew this piece the other day inspired by one of the special editions (fairyloot, which I snagged a preorder of >:)) and ngl I was just really proud of it idk what to tell you

if you know you know

the book is just breathtaking its set in WW1 and follows one of the most beautifully written bonds between a brother and a sister I have ever seen

I have drawn so much

thank you to @blaithnne for putting up with my nonsense I love you forever

OH ALSO

katherine arden put it on her INSTAGRAM (cried)

So if you see it there that's me :)

She is such a genuinely lovely person

[factual-fantasy]

Can you tell us about the characters in your Amazing Digital Circus AU? I find the AU very interesting...

I'm still cooking up the AU and the characters, but I can tell you about some of my plans for them! :)

Lets start with the main cast.

Pomni is mostly the same save for some design changes and the presence of Gummigoo! Caine doesn't think of him as a human like Pomni does though. He thinks of him as Pomni's emotional support A.I. Which is actually the only reason he let Gummi stay- he hopes that letting her keep this NPC will help her adjust to the circus better.. (He's right-)

Kinger has been shown a lot of mercy in this AU <XD Queenie is still around and both of their sanity is mostly intact! The only time either of them become very stressed or appear insane is when they are forcefully separated. Caine is very careful to craft his adventures to be very accommodating to them specially. So thankfully separation is very rare. (I also intend for Queenie and Kinger to have been husband and wife in the real world! Which is why their digital forms are a matching pair of chess pieces. They renew their vows in the circus :}} )

Gangle was also shown a lot of mercy here! Early on in her stay she went on an adventure and became really attached to an NPC within it. This absolutely rotund cat that was part of the adventures plot. Caine let her keep it because it was the first thing that made her smile since she'd been here. Seeing how much this cat helped Gangle was actually what motivated Caine to let Gummigoo stay. She still has the cat NPC today and it makes her very happy :)

Ragatha hasn't changed too much. Other than she doesn't have this happy go lucky facade.. In my AU thanks to the help of Caine and the other circus members, she's a lot more sane and finds a lot of comfort and support in her friends.💗

Zooble and the other concept sketch zooble thingy..? Are best friends in my AU :) they look at their bodies pretty differently though- while the other gal likes her body and the fact that she can change its shape how ever she pleases.. Zooble still kind'a struggles. Its made a bit better to have someone just like her, and the fact that Caine is so accommodating and is constantly making new parts in hopes she'll find something she likes. My Zooble still isn't satisfied with her body to be honest.. but she's in a much better headspace thanks to all the support around her. Oh and she doesn't swear like a sailor XDD

(And before people come at me again- Zooble canonically goes by any pronouns. She/her, They/Them and He/him are all equally appropriate.)

When it comes to Jax, I mostly just made him less of a jerk <XDD in my AU Caine doesn't let Jax get away with all the crap he pulls and enforces real consequences. Jax also has Kaufmo and one of the other humans as his close friends. Having people in his corner and being properly disciplined has mellowed him out over the years. He's a much more tolerable character here <XD

Now for Caine.. its hard to explain what I did with him. He's more.. attentive.? Sympathetic? More serious..? He takes the sanify of the circus goers and their situation very seriously. And more importantly, he actually understands their situation and knows what they mean when they say they want an exit. So my Caine isn't trying to make a fake exit to please them. He is actively stretching his code out into the void looking for a real exit.

Kaufmo, the other zooble type thing, Queenie and all the other circus goers as seen here 👇

Are all unabstracted and mostly sane thanks to Caines efforts and the support they give each other. I don't have much to say about them yet as I'm trying to nail their designs first.. but what I can say is I have ideas in mind for this guy👇

What I'm thinking is that this guy and Kaufmo were brothers in the real world which is why they're both clowns with similar/the same features and body types.

Which might be nice normally.. but they had some relationship issues back in the real world..

When they entered the circus and were forced to grapple with the horror of their situation together?.. They really mended their fractured relationship and now really rely on each other. The two of them usually pal around with Jax because of their shared sense of humor. Thanks to the two of them Jax has mellowed out a lot more. (Having people on your side would make anyone feel a bit better :) )

Woof, that's a ramble. And there's a mountain of stuff I haven't addressed.. but this is a good start I think! :) I hope I gave what you were looking for!

[jpitha]

The Oxygen Breathers: Sales Pitch

It wasn't until Late Summer Storm was being strapped into the small human ship that he realized that it was really really happening. Sure, he had seen the extremely small ships the humans had brought out to show off; a resurrection of a very old design, they said. And sure, he had noticed that one of them had two seats instead of one. They had said that one was for training or ride alongs, would he like to try it out? And sure, in a moment sans sanity, Late Summer Storm had agreed to the ride.

That as going to be it, right? They'd find some incompatibility, or there would be some political fallout and he wouldn't have to go. Face would be saved by all.

But no. The humans were so excited about the prospect they - to use one of their own strange idioms - 'moved heaven and earth' to make it happen.

First was political. Summer had hoped that Innari high command would balk at the idea of one of their own being wedged into a prototype human ship, but to his dismay, they were excited about the idea. They were so excited in fact that several members of the Isolators had paid him a visit and informed him in no uncertain terms that he was to be cooperative, polite, and above all, interested in what he was being shown. Interested enough to recall it, and write a report on the state of humanity's technology. His feathers fluttering nervously at a visit from the secret police, Summer agreed. He would report back on what he learned about their singleship, the one they called a fighter.

Next was logistical. Innari don't breath the same gas mixture as humans. It's not as dramatic a difference as say, the Von, who have much more methane hexafluoride in their breathing gas, but humanity's breathing mixture has frankly an irresponsible amount of oxygen in it. Oxygen narcosis occurs for Innari who breathe human concentrations and pressures of oxygen, and they die shortly after. The Innari medical community has published research papers stating that they are pretty sure that the humans suffer from oxygen narcosis too, they're just... used to it. 'Fortunately' for Summer, the human fighters had plumbing and fittings for hardsuits and supplemental breathing gas. Summer would wear a pressure suit and bring a atmosphere generator and his human pilot would do the same.

When the appointed day arrived, Summer stood in the too bright lights of the ship bay of the human Nullship Kon-Tiki. His pressure suit - a brand new one, printed up by the Innari navy, tailored and form fitted to his body - felt heavy and squeezed his feathers uncomfortably because of their higher gravity and atmo pressure.

Among the human workers bustling around without pressure suits - or really that much in the way of clothing either - someone walked in wearing a heavily armored pressure suit. Made of segmented pieces of reinforced coropolymer, they looked like they were headed to the front lines of a war, not a joyride.

"Late Summer Storm?" The voice said over his radio. He could speak their language, but he had his suit translate with subtitles in the bottom of his vision. It helped when they got going and spoke too quickly, or used some obscure idiom that needed translation. They translator also helped with body language. "I'm Captain Meghan Delrin, I'll be piloting today." They saluted sharply, and Summer noticed how maneuverable their suit was, even though it was quite heavily armored.

"Thank you, Captain. Please, call me Summer. My full name is unnecessary now." He said, turning to look at the fighter. "I am... interested in our upcoming flight."

"Are you now?" Captain Delrin laughed. Summer was surprised at the sound. He hadn't heard a human laugh before. The staccato pulses of sound were much different than the more musical Innari laughter. "You look like you're on your way to a funeral."

Summer's eyes flicked down to the translator for help with the phrase. She thinks you look despondent it said, helpfully. "Oh, please don't misunderstand Captain. I am grateful for the opportunity and I am excited to learn what your fighters can do, it's just..." He struggled for the word in their language. "Scary." That was probably closest.

To Summer's surprise Captain Delrin lifted her glass face covering, revealing her own face squeezed tightly in the foam of her helmet, surrounded by wires and blinking lights. He had no idea they were crammed into their suits so tightly! They moved so fluidly he had assumed their suits were much more loose fitting. "Summer, I want to make this crystal clear. We are doing everything within out power to make sure that this flight goes without incident and is even boring, but-" she raised a gauntleted finger "-we're scared too. If we weren't, we would run the risk of making mistakes. Scared is good. Scared means you're careful." The glass folded back down. "Come on, Summer, Let's get seated and belted."

The fighter was so small that there wasn't a door, per se. The clear canopy slid open and flipped up, revealing the two seats, side by side. Captain Delrin sat on the left, and Summer's seat was on the right. His seat was filled with pieces of closed cell foam, to fill in the gaps and hollow spots making up the differences between their bodyplans. Summer had spent a few hours in the fitting room with some very terse engineers sitting down and standing up, sitting down and standing up, until they were satisfied. As he sat, the seat was comfortable and he was belted in by more engineers. When they were finished, they looked at him for confirmation. He nodded and made the gesture he was taught - his outer manipulators and sensory feathers curled around into a fist, except for one pointing straight up. The human returned the gesture, saluted, and backed down the ladder.

As Captain Delrin was belted in, she had been pressing buttons and flipping switches. The fighter began to hum and throb as it came to life, motors rising in pitch and maneuvering jets puffing. Summer's sense of balance was thrown off for a moment, and then it recovered. "What was that?" he asked as Captain Delrin continued to start the fighter.

"Gyro" she said without stopping. "We can spin the ship for free with it. Good for tracking targets and maneuvering. Why? Did you feel it?"

Summer nodded, and then realizing she wouldn't be able to see the gesture said "Yes, I felt it. Is it magnetic?"

"It is suspended in a mag field, but the gyro itself is not, why?"

"We're sensitive to electromagnetism. It was how our ancient ancestors navigated our world."

"Huh. That makes sense I guess." She said, looking at him now. "Will it be an issue?"

"I don't know" Summer said. "But, I don't think it's enough of a reason to stop the ride."

"Fair enough."

Eventually they were warmed up and at power, and a small tug wheeled them to the launch tube. Captain Delrin explained that during a battle, the fighters could be launched every few minutes "But the ride is rough" she added.

Summer wondered what 'rough' was to a human when he heard the launching clamps grab the ship. Captain Delrin looked to an officer on the side, saluted, they returned the salute, and they launched.

Much later, Summer had to watch the video playback to see the launch. The fighter was shot out of the Nullship at a withering five gees. Captain Delrin grunted and took sharp breaths but was otherwise unharmed as Summer regained consciousness. "You made it Summer! Glad to have you with us once again." Delrin said, laughing. "We made it a light launch in deference to you. Normally we launch at twenty gee with the compensator set to ten."

"These fighters have a compensator and you didn't activate it?" Summer's whole body ached from the launch.

"What fun would that be? You have to feel some of the forces, it keeps you honest. Now then." Delrin flipped some switches and the color of her screens changed. "Let's see what we can see."

They spent the next solar hour flying around, showing Summer what the fighter was capable of. He had to admit, the maneuverability of the teeny ship was impressive. "But why?" he finally asked.

"Why what?"

"Why-" he gestured at the console "-all this. You have your Nullships, and they are more heavily armed than one of our Battlecruisers. They can travel farther, faster, and hit harder than anything in the Coalition. Why do you need fighters?"

Delrin reduced the throttle until they were practically coasting relative to the Nullship. "That's a good observation Summer. We have a few reasons. One, fighters will help us to engage multiple targets at once. The Coalition knows that our Nullships are powerful, so if they were ever to attack us, they would come at us en mass. A swarm of less powerful ships could overwhelm our targeting, and could do damage. Fighters could engage them, and divide their efforts."

Summer nodded to himself. His own government had decided that If anyone were to attack the humans, a swarm of a huge number of ships was just about the only way to have any chance of success.

"The second reason, is we're hoping to sell them." Delrin said matter-of-factly.

"You're what?" Summer stared dumbfounded. He couldn't have heard that correctly.

"We're going to offer them up for sale. The Coalition's defenses are woefully underdeveloped. Something like this is just what they need to help defend themselves.

"You'll give the other Coalition peoples weapons?"

"Not for free, but yes, why not?"

"It's just..." The Innari never shared technology. The idea of such a thing was too dangerous. Sell a weapon today, and tomorrow it could be turned back onto you. "What if the people who buy it use it against you?"

"That could happen, yes." Delrin said thoughtfully. "But history shows us it probably won't. Fighters aren't standalone things. They need parts, maintenance, upgrades, ships to haul them, printable matter, all kinds of ancillaries. If someone buys from us and then attacks..." She shrugged. "They'll find it very hard to keep their new fighters supplied and maintained. Also-" She looked out of the canopy into space. "It would be nice to have an opponent that was more our speed."

Summer was sure she was just playing a trick on him now. "Ha ha, sure thing Captain Delrin. You're telling me that you want to fight?"

"No Summer, we want to fight a good opponent. Someone who thinks on their feet, has close to our level of training and technology, someone who makes it worth while. Do you remember when you came to us and asked for our help? How we brought our ships out of Nullspace and defeated the Felimen almost instantly? It was boring."

"Boring?!"

"Boring. I was on one of the Nullships, Summer. It was practically a drill. People didn't even run. Didn't have to. We slipped out of Null, shot up a few Felimen cruisers, did a little light planetary bombardment, and slipped back into Null."

Summer was stunned into silence. The Felimen were a fierce enemy that had driven all of the Coalition people back for more than a year, winning battle after battle, claiming more and more space until the humans traded entry into the Coalition for defeating the Felimen.

It took the humans one solar day.

"If we sell some fighters to some of the Coalition who knows? Maybe in a few decades or centuries we'll finally get a good battle. Something really worth going all our for." Delrin said, wistfully. She really sounded like she wanted all out war.

Delrin took them through some more high gee manuvers - with the compensator turned on this time - and demonstrated the weapons; two missile racks, two slug throwers, one exawatt laser and enough printable matter to keep them in consumables for an impressive amount of time. She had fired at some drone targets that the Nullship had launched, and even let Summer have a go at the weapons suite. She ordered a new wave sent out and Summer took over. It was intuitive, and easy to use, and frighteningly effective. As the last drone evaporated in an orange puff of exploding missile Summer looked down at his hands. He had - without any official training - destroyed more targets quicker than any Innari ship he could think of, and this was just a single human fighter!

The demonstration over, Captain Delrin took them back in. The landing was more gentle than the launch, but only just. As they rolled to a stop, the canopy popped open and Delrin's face mask opened again.

"So! How many fighters can we put you down for?"

[dinogoofymutated]

Okay so like,,,,I usually never make requests (I’m a lurker fr fr) but your writing Is god tier, so I gotta ask:

Could you do a fic for Hank/Beast? He’s my personal fave but I never see any content for him ever, like the fic scene for this man is a ghost town. he’s underrated as hell. My man is ripped, highly intelligent and respectful of the arts! Yet he doesn’t get any attention.

I would love to see some general headcanons (SFW & NSFW) if you’re up to it. no problem if you don’t write for him or something, I just thought i would ask.

Thanks!

SFW!Beast/GN!Reader

To be honest, I actually wasn't really sure about writing for Hank at first because I've never really had a connection to the character, but he grew on me!! Plus, I'm here to serve lolol we've been starved of fics as a Fandom for basically forever and it would be a disservice not to fill the Hank void out there! Hope it's okay that I only wrote Sfw headcannons, I have a separate req for NSFW for him so I decided to split it into two to save my sanity lol. Finals are gonna be hell for me.

-ps- Should I be writing right now? no. Am I doing it anyway? Yurp. Also, I'm basing his history off of the fandom wiki, so I'm sorry if anything is off.

Tws: none that I can think of atm. As always, reader written while picturing fem but no pronouns mentioned.

Hank, despite what some would think, was most definitely a heartthrob, particularly in his college days!! I mean, a man who's confident, smart, respectful, and also an athlete? Who wouldn't swoon? He was 110% the guy that everyone wanted to take home to their parents.

And He's such a sweet, attentive lover too!! Acts of service almost definitely is a love language for him. He cooks for you, fixes the broken things that you didn't even realize were broken, even organizes your notes before a difficult exam.

He loves to surprise you with flowers, even if it isn't any special occasion, and if you ask, he'll help you preserve them as well!

He loves to kiss your forehead, temples, and hands. On top of that, he's very touchy. The two of you were most definitely seen as the parents of any friend group.

Things changed a little after he took the serum that mutated him further. His confidence had taken a blow, and he just didn't quite know how to approach you anymore.

It took a hot minute to reassure him that you didn't really care if he was blue, or furry, or beastly, he was still Hank Mccoy, wasn't he? He was the man you were in love with, and you certainly weren't going to stop now. Besides, you still thought he was handsome. With the kinds of books he's seen you read, you're a bit surprised that he didn't think you would find him attractive.

Things gradually got back to normal, but for a while, he didn't kiss you as often as he used to. Well, he didn't kiss you period. Even though he knew the incredible extent to which you loved him, the shape of his mouth had changed. Hell, he had fangs that he would rather die than mark you with.

You practically had to tie him down into a contract to get him to kiss you again. He was always one to experiment, why not treat this the same? If you kiss, and it goes well, you do it again. If it goes well a second time and a third, you have a pretty reliable test. Validity shouldn't matter when he knew that you loved him to bits already.

He felt like he was falling in love with you all over again, and yet he still hesitated. It wasn't until you had grabbed him by the collar to drag him into a kiss that he actually relaxed, and what do you know, it was a pretty reliable test after all. A predictive one too, with how often you continued to kiss him afterwards.

Domestic was the best way to describe your relationship with Hank.

    You yawned as you made your way down to the lab, still in your pajamas and slippers. Just a few hours previously, after a shower and self-care routine, you had settled into bed with an eyebrow-raising book as you waited for your husband to come to bed. This was a normal routine for the two of you, you immersing yourself into a book to stay awake until Hank entered, kissed your temple sweetly, and began his own nightly routine. It was a set of events you were used to. 

    Today, however, you felt like you had done a lot more reading than usual. When you finally pulled yourself out of your book and checked the time, the clock by your bed read 11 pm. A rather late time for Hank to be out, but you already knew where he would be. The lower levels of the mansion were extra cold at night, and you find yourself rubbing some warmth into your arms as you approach the lab. 

    The doors open with a swish, the light of the lab having all been darkened exempt for the lamp on Hank’s desk. He’s so immersed in what he’s doing that he doesn’t even realize when you come in. You walk up behind his chair, running your hands through his hair softly when you reach him.

    Hank isn’t surprised, sighing at the pleasant sensation as he tips his head back to encourage you. You giggle a little, leaning down to press a kiss to his head as you begin to massage his scalp.

    “It’s late.” You say gently. Hank hums in response, eyes closed as he appreciates your touch. 

    “I’m sorry, my love. Seems I was a little entranced.” He says. You huff at him playfully.

    “You say entranced, I say you’re overworking yourself. You’ve been working on this project all week. Don’t let it cut into your rest time.” Your scolding always sounded too nice, but he knows you mean it. Hank sighs again, this time sounding a little more tired, but he doesn't argue. He rolls around to face you, pulling you into a tired hug from his chair. 

     “Perhaps it is time I go to bed. What time is it, my dear?” 

    “Eleven.” Hank lets out a quiet chuckle at your quick reply, finally standing up. He doesn’t let go of you however, choosing to rest his head on your shoulder as he sways the two of you back and forth.

    “You’re most certainly right, it is late. Much too late for a man to leave his lovely spouse waiting. Oh, whatever shall I do to make it up to you?.” His words come out as a purr, and you let out a curt laugh at him. You pull away a little, taking his large hands in your own as you lead him to the door. He smiles widely when you stop for a moment, remembering his glasses and placing them on his face before starting to drag him to bed. 

    “I’ll let you decide that, Love. As long as you make it to bed, that’s apology enough for me.”

[justawritterwithideas]

law in pink | s.r

♡ previous part | next part ♡

summary: A case takes them to Massachusetts, where you are reunited with your past and the people who carry it.

warnings: a bit of jealousy on Spencer's part, though overall nothing so far in this part.

this story is spencer reid (season 7) x ssa elle woods!reader

words: 1,185 words.

a/n: after a while, I finally bring you the third part of law in pink, the truth is that I've been wandering a lot about what to write, but I finally found it. I want to point out that this "chapter" will be divided in two or three parts (I'm not sure yet), to reward you for your time. Without anything else to add, thanks for reading.

Working in the FBI field always ended up surprising you.

Not because every day was a new adventure, with new cases that could border on the edge of human sanity, but because it could bring you face to face with people from your past.

A new case had dragged you to Massachusetts, where you saw old faces you recognized on your way to the police station.

The conversation with Emily was what was stealing your attention, and even more so when it was about one of the topics you dealt with the most, besides the criminal code, and that was hair care. You had recommended a new product to the woman and she was talking to you about how good her hair looked, it even looked shinier than usual from both perspectives.

"I know! Plus, it's not tested on animals and their products are 100% natural, it's like a little bit of paradise in your hands." You commented sipping from your coffee, placed your bag to the side as you watched Spencer walk in with a folder in his hands and well focused on it.

It was no secret that after his gift it had caused the two of you to connect a little more than usual, and everyone could tell with the little love language gestures you each had on each side, like how every morning you gave him his coffee the way he liked it because you had memorized them or how he took care to save you a spot next to him on the jet where the sunlight would hit so your skin would get the vitamin D it needed for the day.

You quickly pushed away the chair that was in front of the map the opposite had drawn up and watched him sit down, returning to your conversation with Emily. Spencer thanked you with a silent gesture, causing you to smile as you listened intently to Emily converse about the difference in her hair from week to week.

But, their conversation was interrupted as Derek and J.J were entering the room with a box of donuts.

"The breakfast express had just arrived, ladies... And Spencer." The smell of frying and sugar made you immediately turn to the table to see that they had found just the donuts you had been chatting about a couple of days ago.

"Are those the gluten-free donuts? I haven't seen them in years, they look just as delicious as when I was here." Your voice let out a soft sound of joy, approaching the one glazed with pink and had a flower drawn on top. "These are the best donuts you'll ever taste, and it's also suitable for the gluten intolerant."

The sweet taste of the donut made you stir as you brought a hand to your mouth in surprise, it was as if the past had just slapped you in the face.

You turned in the direction of Spencer, who looked quite immersed in his work.

"Spencie." The man looked up at your call. You brought the doughnut close to his face and smiled, letting the scent of your 'Miss Dior' perfume permeate his nose. "Try it."

"Ah, no thank you. I am at the moment somewhat busy, Y/N..." His hand was trying to push yours away, plus you kept watching him with that look that caused Spencer to give you the whole world. "B-besides! I'm faithful to my chocolate donut with sprinkles-"

"With sprinkles on top... Come on, Spencer, I'm not asking you to eat it all, just taste it."

The tasting-not tasting fight they were carrying on was interrupted when Hotch walked in where his face showed quite a bit of annoyance.

"What's going on, Hotch?"

"The suspect's lawyer is in the interrogation room." Commented Rossi, who simply modulated 'he's a jerk'.

"He's coming to talk to us now." Finished Hotch, who was heading straight for a cup of coffee but didn't quite reach for it when a rather annoying voice interrupted him.

You didn't know if it was your imagination or the memories of that place that made you cough, the smell of expensive cologne and mint made you push the donut away from your hands. You set it down on a napkin, listening as it echoed back to that voice that once spoke honeyed words to you.

"Agents, a pleasure. I'm defense attorney, Warner Huntington III."

Where was the closest place to hide from that character? You thought, but you wouldn't let the man you used to call "teddy bear" get you down at that moment.

" Lawyer Huntington, this is the BAU team. Agent Rossi, Morgan, Jareau, Prentiss, Dr. Reid and Agent Woods."

Your gaze connected with Warner's, who let out a gasp of surprise at the sight of you.

"Y/N... Wow, it's been a while, darli-"

"It's good to see you, Attorney Huntington." You commented as you watched him from your position.

You watched him approach you, plus Spencer's body made it so he couldn't take any more steps than intended, well... Spencer's leg was the one that separated you, as he stretched his legs out, separating you both just enough so that nothing of your bodies would rub together in any way.

A safe distance for both of them, thanks to Spencer.

"You two know each other?" J.J. asked, who watched intrigued.

"We were coupl-"

"We were part of the same Harvard Law generation, actually. We both graduated, but we took different paths." You lied in front of them, and they could read it when Warner's face grimaced.

It was clear that the two of you had a bond that was more than close, but the way you didn't want them to find out was the answer to resolving that which the others had to find out until you decided to talk about it.

"Rather, both of us-"

"Counselor, what exactly is the reason you're here?" asked Spencer, who watched from his position, with that feigned smile you already knew how to distinguish.

"Ah, yes. I was coming to introduce myself as the defense attorney, as well as discuss the legal issues surrounding my client." He turned to look at Hotch, who was drinking from his cup with that face that the situation displeased him. "I'd like to discuss a few things with Agent Woods, since we both graduated from Harvard and have the same degree from-"

"Actually, Agent Prentiss is also a Criminal Justice graduate, you could discuss with her along with Dr. Reid in addition to Agent Woods."

The way Hotch had cut Warner off made you let out a small chuckle, thanking in the direction of the major, who was simply giving you a discreet wink.

"Yeah, right. Three's better than one, you're right." Warner's voice wavered a bit before he opened his mouth again. "Good, then I'll come by later to discuss these details, they're calling me from the firm, excuse me."

Silence immediately settled in the room, but before they could blurt anything out, you immediately turned in everyone's direction and blurted out.

"I have a good explanation for this, I promise."

♡ first part | previous part ♡

If you like it, don't forget to like and repost it.

a lot of love, alme. ❀

[frvnkcastles]

Hi! I love your writing so so much!!

If possible, could you do one where the reader has been working overtime at work and is exhausted, like they've been having headaches and barely sleeping & Frank notices and basically convinces them and helps them to take a break? Thank you!! 💕❤️

KEEP ME COMPANY ’TIL THE END ➵ F. CASTLE

Summary: You’re pushing yourself past your limits for work and Frank intervenes.

Warnings: Stress, mostly fluff, gender neutral reader, language

Word count: 770

Author’s note: Hiiii my loves! I am so sorry for being MIA, this semester is kicking my ass :( Rn it seems like my posts will be a little infrequent because I have sooo many deadlines before Christmas, but I’m gonna try my best!! I have not forgotten about all your requests!! Thank you so much for your patience, thank you also for 900 followers, that’s so wack but I am so grateful <3 Anon, I hope you enjoy this short fic and that you forgive me for being so slow to get this out. Much love!

A brewing headache pinched at your temples and you were painfully aware that every minute you spent staring at your outrageously bright laptop screen only sealed your fate tighter and tighter. It was getting late but you still felt like you had so much to do; like you had barely scratched the surface of all your responsibilities. You had only taken a break to go to the bathroom and reluctantly eat something when Frank had insisted on it, and now the tension from sitting on the couch with your laptop huffing and puffing on your thighs was starting to seep into your shoulders and neck.

Frank didn’t like it, the way you worked yourself to the bone, but he had swallowed down his complaints when you had promised to wrap things up within the hour. Still, you could feel his scrutinizing stare on you from across the couch, his attention on your focused frown rather than the football game he was supposed to be watching. He was itching to say something, to force you away from the suffocating bubble of stress, but he was trying to be patient — though the scratched label of his beer bottle said plenty.

When you winced at the pulsating headache behind your eye, though, he cleared his throat and reached for your laptop.

”Hey! Frank, noooo. I’m not done”, you insisted, trying to get the device back but he was quick to save your document and then slap it closed before you could retrieve it. He angled it behind his back and tutted at you, disapproving of the way you were pushing yourself for the sixth day in a row.

”Nah, sweetheart, I’m tellin’ you, you’re gonna waste away if you don’t take a break. You’ve been at it all day, aight? I want you here with me, not worryin’ about shit”, he argued back, your pout doing nothing to sway him. He always caved in and gave you what you wanted — unless your health and sanity were at stake.

You frowned, a sudden surge of guilt swinging at your chest. ”I guess I’ve been kinda neglecting you…”, you admitted with shame. That had never been your intention, but you couldn’t deny that you had not been a very present partner lately.

Shaking his head, Frank set the beer on the coffee table and took your hand in his own. ”It ain’t about that, darlin’. It’s the fact that this is wearin’ you out. I know you ain’t sleepin’ and I gotta jump through all these hoops to just get you to eat. I’m worried, y’know?” he explained, his tone stern but still warm. He was trying his hardest to be understanding, but he took your well-being too personally to let this newfound routine go on.

You managed a nod and squeezed his hand. ”I know, Frankie, I’m sorry, it’s just… there’s so much to do and I can’t fall behind”, you tried to rationalize your persistent working, and he sighed softly, not out of frustration but to acknowledge the difficult situation.

”I get it, sweetheart. But no one can expect you to be efficient at this hour, aight? You need to rest, too. Yeah?” Frank pointed out, tilting his head to catch your gaze. He was right and you knew it, so begrudgingly, you admitted defeat.

”Okay. I’ll limit myself”, you agreed, and with the concern in his eyes slowly fading, Frank nodded approvingly. He placed the laptop on the table before opening his arms for you, gesturing for you to cuddle up to him. The invitation made you smile and seeing joy on your face for the first time all day got Frank’s lips twitching, too.

You nestled against him and he wrapped you into a cocoon of safety and warmth, hoping to distract you from the stress lingering on your mind. It was hard not to think about all the work you could have been doing, and Frank suspected as much.

”I know it ain’t easy to just turn it off. But you deserve a break, baby. And I’m fuckin’ proud of you for all your effort, but I’ll be proud if you cut back a lil, too”, he spoke up after a moment of just cuddling, and with your heart soaring at his praise, you tilted your head up so you could kiss his jaw tenderly.

”Thank you, Frank. Love you”, you muttered, feeling the exhaustion of the past week creep up on you. Frank noticed, but he was glad — you needed sleep, and he was going to try and help you do it however he could.

”Love you too, sweetheart.”

[breadbrioche]

apologies

so mun x reader

➳ summary: after telling mun to take better care of himself, he ends up taking care of you instead

➳ warnings: description of treating wounds, mention of guns/gunshot wounds, self deprecating thoughts, season 2 episode 3-4 spoilers

➳ word count: 1.5k

➳a/n: my offering to the tuc tumblr fandom haha fyi the reader is also a counter but was not with mun during the scenes mentioned

As you hunch over your desk, trying to get as close as you can to your mirror, you become aware of how pathetic your situation is. Blood soaked cotton balls litter the surface of your desk from your attempt to clean the injuries inflicted on you just hours ago, though you’re doing a pretty horrid job at it because every time an alcohol swab just even brushes against the open wound, you flinch away from your own hand and hiss at the pain.

You sigh regretfully, thinking about how you could’ve avoided all this, been fully healed and pain free hours ago, if you just didn’t cause such a scene earlier.

You bursted into the base, shoes slapping against the floor loudly as you made a beeline towards the table where all the counters were waiting to be healed by Ms Chu. Stopping right in front of Mun, who was looking worried at your apparent injuries, your scowl deepened as your gaze landed on his shoulder and the perfectly circular openings in it.

Frustrated and thinking of no other way to express this, you slapped your palm against the offending shoulder. Mun jerked back with a yelp and looked at you in disbelief.

“You’re an idiot, did you know that?” You began, not beating around the bush.

“Let me expla-“

“Explain what? That you let yourself get shot?” You cut him off quickly. “Us counters may be stronger than average humans but at the end of the day we’re still humans! And humans aren’t bulletproof like how you apparently like to think!”

Words were spilling out of your mouth without a second thought, your voice getting louder with every angry confession.

“Do you think of yourself as someone who can just die whenever they want? Evil spirits aside, did you even think about how your death would impact everyone!”

At this point, you couldn’t remember how the rest of the confrontation went down apart from that when you finally finished your rant he looked at you with an expression incomprehensible to you at the time - maybe he was shocked or mad or sad, either way you didn’t stick around long enough to find out as you finally gained back your sanity and dashed to hide in your room.

Maybe you’re the idiot, and not Mun.

He didn’t get shot for no good reason; he saved the chairman’s life! And you had a go at him for doing what was right. So on top of being a pathetic coward, you were also an idiot who blamed innocent people. What an amazing turn of events.

Before you could wallow in your pity for any longer, knocks on your door pull you out of your thoughts and make you turn towards it. You come eye to eye with So Mun, who’d left himself inside your room before you could even get up to open the door.

“Hey.” He begins awkwardly, probably trying to gauge your reactions to see if you were still angry at him. “You missed dinner.”

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realise” you say dumbly.

“I just wanted to let you know that I saved some food for you, its in the kitchen if you ever feel hungry”

You smile slightly; grateful for Mun’s thoughtfulness, even if after your tirade on him earlier.

“Thanks, Mun-ah. I’ll go eat in a sec once I’m done with all of-“ you gesture to the mess of medical supplies on your table “-this.”

Taking note of it, Mun frowns before approaching you and leaning down to assess your injuries. He immediately picks up an alcohol swab and gently cleans the cuts on your face. Instinctively, you jerk away from the sting but Mun keeps you still with a hand on your cheek.

“You know that Ms Chu can heal these for you.” He says gently, though the close proximity of your faces makes you hear it loud and clear.

“They’re not big… I don’t wanna be a bother for a few cuts here and there” you murmur in defense.

Mun’s hands pull away from your face for a moment to reach for a band-aid on your desk but you grab his wrist to stop him.

“I can treat myself, you don’t have to do it”

He huffs shortly before pulling out of your grasp and shaking his head stubbornly.

“I want to. Please?” He asks with a classic So Mun smile that makes it hard to remember why you were ever mad at him. You reluctantly nod, allowing Mun to put the bandage on your face.

It’s quiet as he repeats the process of cleaning and wrapping the rest of your wounds.

“Uh-“ You speak up suddenly, unable to handle the suffocating silence. He perks up and faces you fully, attentive.

“Sorry about what I said to you earlier…you did what you had to save the chairman and I blew up at you for no real reason but when I heard that you’d gotten shot, I guess I started spiralling and assumed the worse so…” you trail off and lower your head in shame, eyes focused on the scrapes on your knuckles that Mun is currently working on.

His hands clasp yours and intertwines your fingers together with his, then pulls you up to your feet which forces you to maintain eye contact with him. He’s smiling at you calmly, eyes creasing ever so slightly.

“Don’t worry about it. Honestly it’s okay.” he says in a reassuring voice. “I’m sure I worried all of you so I would’ve gotten an earful from someone eventually.”

You laugh slightly at his comment lightening your mood. Being around Mun is addictive - his warm presence pulls you in and his positivity infects you, putting a small smile on your face too.

Though, part of you couldn’t let go of your guilty thoughts and you still feel apprehensive. Mun must have sensed it because he squeezes your interlaced hands tight, stroking your hand with his thumb.

“You had every right to be mad at me. I don’t regret what I did but you're right about the fact that I didn’t think about how my actions would affect everyone else. So I guess that was pretty selfish of me.”

Mun rests his head down on your shoulder, face nuzzling into your neck slightly. His breath tickles your skin as he exhales which makes you squirm slightly.

“Could you forgive me?” He whispers into your ear.

Since he entered your room, all of his sweet actions were slowly piling up, making you feel flustered and heartbeat speed up, but this was the tipping point. You try to push away from Mun, feeling far too overwhelmed, but he effortlessly pulls you back in, his eyes twinkling.

“So~?” He insists you answer, dragging out the last syllable. You roll your eyes, feeling heat rise to your cheeks.

“Fine. I guess I could forgive you” you huff out. “But only because you’re annoying and you won’t stop until I do.”

Mun chuckles and brushes away hair hanging over your face to get a clear view of your reactions.

“You’re so cute.” he points out teasingly. He watches your nose shrivel when you scowl at him.

“And you are a little shit.”

“Hey! Is that any way to speak to your cool and amazing boyfriend who patched you up?” Mun grabs your bandaged hand and shakes it in front of your face to emphasize his point.

“I told you that you didn’t have to do it”

“And I told you that you should’ve seen Ms Chu!”

“It’s too late for that now anyways, she’s probably sleeping. I can just have it done tomorrow” you defend yourself.

“But knowing you, you’ll definitely forget!”

God, Mun could be so stubborn sometimes. You sigh before flopping onto your bed, bouncing slightly as the springs in the mattress resist against you.

“If you’re so bothered, maybe you should just sleep with me tonight so you can remind me in the morning.”

Mun gasps dramatically as if your suggestion was something obscene. You roll your eyes at his act, your point from earlier being proven - he is a little shit.

“You’re welcome to go back to your room then” you point out, gesturing to your door. Mun shoots you an offended look before pulling your blankets open to climb onto your bed quickly.

“I never said no!” He complains as he worms his way to get closer to you.

You shuffle about for a second before getting into a comfortable position, with your face pressed against Mun’s chest, head laying on one of his arms. A silence envelops the two of you again but it’s not the awkward tension from before.

This silence was cozy. Relaxing.

“Thank you, Mun-ah” you whispered, cuddling against him more. He pressed a kiss on the top of your head, silently answering you. Gently he stroked your hair, lulling you to sleep.

[askblueandviolet]

Ask Box is Open!

Ngl, I went incredibly overboard with this one- WBEKDNDKSNF but hey I'm actually pretty proud of it.

I decided that I really wanted to have a little more fun than I usually do when answering asks and so this time, Baihe and Mayor are playing Macaque's video game! In the chapter itself, the two of them play the game separately but I decided for the sake of making things a little more fun, both of them would be playing at the same time here :DDD. You can ask all three questions, and you can have as much creative freedom as you want with how you do it! I honestly don't mind if some of you pretended to be a demon or, a helpless villager or even some sort of interactive tree- go wild! Have fun! So long as it's within the realm of possibilities within a video game that Macaque has made, you can probably do it!

Also, here's a higher contrast version of the drawing, because, idk which version is better :'DDD

Update: Ask Box is NOT closed yet BUT- there are already about 18 asks in the box! If this keeps going then I will have to close the box prematurely for my own sanity, haha. So if you do have an ask that is not specifically related to this week's chapter (aka a general question) I highly recommend you saving it for next time! Thank you so much everyone :)))).

Further Update: Ask Box is now officially closed!

[thisgirlnamedblusy]

Can you make a story where reader protected Donna from danger that almost cost her life. Donna manage to save her but reader hs been unconscious for a weeks. While she's taking of her, Donna couldn't forget what almost happened to her lover. This became worst because of the severe mental illness that Donna has, but this time she's actually losing her sanity at this point but still clinging to the reader because she's the only one can make her sane. Miraculously the reader woke up, still injured but alive. Donna felt a sense of peace in her soul.

Note: Reader almost died because a soldier tried to kill Donna but she save her. The soldier is possibly a BSAA agent.

It's in Donna's POV, I want to see things her perspective especially when she starts breaking down.

Donna is also shy and weak not like most of her siblings so she struggled with this to.

Yesss!!!! Thank you for your request!!! I hope you like it and sorry about the language mistakes!!! :))))

Come back

Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Fem! Reader

Warnings: Angst, fluff, Donna's POV, mental health issues, Donna being Donna

Word count: 5,650

Summary: Please, let you light come back to my darkness...

N/A: Sorry about the language mistakes!!! Requests are open!!! I'm waiting yours!!! I love you all!!! :))

“Come on, Donna, it's just a walk,” you said in a tender voice, with those eyes you knew perfectly well I couldn't resist.

I sighed, shook my head and fought the gentle tugs you gave to my hand.

“We, we're better off at home,” I murmured, looking away and causing you to sigh tiredly.

Your pleading look didn't change.

“Come on, today is a too great day to be locked up in this horri… I mean, wonderful, dark house,” you said jokingly, swinging my hand with yours. “Please…”

“(Y/N),” I said a bit nervous, shaking my head again but, surprisingly, starting to think about your offer, as always.

You always did with me what you wanted, and I let you. I would do anything for you, always, (Y/N), always.

“Is that a yes?” you asked with a sufficient smile, completely ignoring my protests. I wish, (Y/N), I wish for once, you hadn't insisted.

“I didn't say yes,” I said, frowning, gently pulling you along, with an amused sigh.

“Now you did,” you joked in my ear.

How could I refuse?

“W, well, okay, okay...” I whispered defeated, unable to make you see how comfortable I was at home. I don’t liked going outside. Of course, you were always there to make those fears, which you said were irrational, disappear.

You jumped for joy and stole a kiss from me, one that relaxed my nerves even more. Your kisses had that effect on me, a wonderful effect. I returned it, unable to do anything but look at your eyes, your smile. You were my only addiction.

With a brief triumphant smile, you walked towards the door and I followed you, reaching out for my black veil, the one I never left off if I had to go out for some reason. I already knew I was a monster, you did too, but you denied it, you always denied it.

“Hey, no, leave it there,” you said, giving me a gentle slap to get me to let the veil go before I cover my face.

“But, but, (Y/N)… I have, I have to…” I stammered, trying to make you understand that I needed that veil, that the sunlight was a privilege that someone like me didn't deserve.

No, the world didn't need to see my deformed face.

I couldn't stop you from seeing it, but I could stop nature from being disturbed by my horrible appearance.

“It’s just a walk through the grounds. There's no one around here, you don't need it,” you said in a soft, comforting tone, definitely moving the cloth out of my reach.

I, in my perpetual madness, tried to snatch it from you, without success.

“Donna, stay still,” you said, this time with a firm voice, forcing me to remain paralyzed and nod defeated once again. “That's it... Good girl,” you whispered, pleased by my answer, by my shoulders falling helplessly and my slightly angry look.

“You like to make me suffer,” I hissed, unable, again, to face your decisions.

Deep down I knew you did it for me, you always did it for me.

“Yes, yes, I like to make you suffer...” you repeated rolling your eyes, without letting the smile disappear from your face. “Stop complaining and come here,” you ordered softly, gesturing with your hand. “Come on, come here.”

A bit reluctant, but motivated by that look, by that smile, I obeyed, grabbing your hand again as we left the estate. It was the first time in a long time that I could see the sun clearly, and it was blinding.

“If you feel sick, you get nervous or want to go back, just tell me, okay?” you said as we walked.

“I want to go back,” I whispered, in an embarrassingly childish tone. You laughed amused, arching your eyebrows and squeezing my hand tighter.

“You’ll see how good the fresh air is for you,” you said, ignoring my protest and kissing me on the cheek. “Besides, I’m here with you, holding your hand very tightly, see?”

I looked down, distrustful, looking at our intertwined fingers, my hand next to yours, fused into one. I don't know how you did it, but your advice always worked, relaxing my spirit.

Before I met you, I thought my life had only one purpose, one that I even doubted: to exist, to attend to the requests of my savior, Mother Miranda. Being named Lord was not a relevant change in my life.

I spent all those years alone, as if the world itself had forgotten me. I cannot be surprised by that. I, Donna Beneviento, never knew the meaning of appreciation, affection, love...

My misfortunes haunted me. I was unable to escape from my demons, from the illness that damaged my mind. Feeling powerful, with control over people should have been enough to give meaning to my life, but it wasn't.

The hours, the days, the weeks... Not even the passage of time had meaning in my old estate, I wonder if it ever did. No, nothing in my life could keep me away from the darkness, nothing could silence the voices in my head, my cries in front of the mirror, the nightmares…

Angie was a good support, but it wasn't enough. I guess my father thought the same when he gave her to me. It's a shame that she didn't serve any purpose. It was just to increase my problems.

People, conversations, human contact… All this stuff always sounded like something impossible in my head. I was aware that there couldn't be anyone, that no one would be able to understand me.

Solitude became my name. Isolation was my home. A horrendous monster, was my appearance.

I had already assumed my sentence, my sentence for existing, for being born in that cursed place, in that cursed family. There would be no remedy for my soul, or so I thought.

Then you came.

(Y/N), a girl from the village who dedicated herself to weaving, to selling her fabrics. What a curious coincidence. I needed those fabrics, you made them. Always, even before I met you, you had something I needed, something I craved.

Love was a dream for me. I could only get close to it in my books, in my dreams where a female hand held mine.

Was it your hand from the beginning? I have no doubt.

But, thanks to you, I knew what it meant to have someone by your side, someone who… loved you. Maybe it wasn't hard for me to fall in love with someone like you, a beautiful, smiling, cheerful girl… However, I still wonder what you could see in someone like me, (Y/N).

 I was, I’m a monster.

Your lips silenced my doubts with a kiss, one you gave me under my black veil. You said you never cared about what was underneath, you only cared about knowing if I was as crazy about you as you were about me.

I was, really, I was.

Loving you was easy, the fear of losing you wasn't. You should have abandoned me when my demons forced me to yell at you, to hurt myself. You didn't, you never left.

Like an angel I never had, your presence illuminated me. It revealed to me the little light left in my soul. Your hand, the one I dreamed of before I met you, held mine tightly to calm me down, to return to being that good monster you wanted to kiss.

The little sanity left in my tormented soul was like a thin thread that your perfect hands held. There came a point where I couldn't, I didn't want to live without you.

“Are you okay?” you asked, taking me out of my thoughts, entering that dark forest, walking slowly, in silence.

I nodded, smiling as I remembered you, as I thought about that first kiss, about all the ones that came after, about all the things you showed me. You showed me to love, and to be loved, just thinking about it could make my deformed face smile.

“I was just thinking,” I said, clearing my throat.

You nodded slowly, leaning towards me, resting your head on my shoulder, sighing in conjunction with the calm of that forest.

“Nice things, I hope,” you joked with a purr.

“Of course, tesoro, I was thinking about you,” I said whispering, making your cheeks blush while your gaze became shy.

Silence was our company again. That walk was certainly not a bad idea. Nothing could be bad if it was with you.

“You are very sweet, Donna,” you sighed, stopping and turning my head to give me one of your kisses, a gift much more divine than the Black Gods themselves.

“I try,” I said amused, moving your hair out of your face. I hated it. I hated seeing how the locks got in the way of your beauty.

Did you also feel the same when I put on the veil? No, impossible, you were an angel, I was the devil, a monster.

“Look, let's sit down, the sun is about to set,” you said, changing that sweetness into enthusiasm, pulling my hand towards the edge of a cliff, where an old tree seemed to catch your attention. “Come, sit down.”

I looked at you strangely, but I nodded, obeying you. I would always be faithful to you, (Y/N), I would do everything you asked me to do.

You let yourself fall in front of me, leaning against my body, completely relaxed.

“Are you comfortable, tesoro?” I asked, trying not to disturb the romantic atmosphere of that place with my husky voice. You laughed, looked at me, and shook your head.

“No,” you said abruptly, searching for something with your gaze. You located my arms, grabbing them and passing them around your waist, snuggling among them. “Now I am.”

You were right, it was a beautiful sunset. Maybe it was because you were beautiful. Gods, I love you so much…

“Donna,” you said, interrupting that relaxing calm, playing with my hands with a playful expression.

“Mm?” I murmured, resting my head on your shoulder, kissing you slowly on your soft cheek along with shy laughs.

“Come on, do it,” you said, moving away and looking at me expectantly. I frowned, confused.

“What?” I asked amused. Your cheeks blushed even more.

“You know…” you said with a soft voice, with shining eyes. “Speak to me in Italian, you know I love it,” you asked me, biting your lip.

I opened my mouth to fulfill your wishes once again, but some unpleasant cawing prevented me from doing so. The crows that used to rest in the trees of the forest flew away. It didn't take a genius to know that this was a bad omen.

“Wow…” you said, looking at the birds, curious like me. “What's wrong with those birds?”

“I, I don't know,” I said with a different look, worried.

My hands were starting to shake. It was time to go home.

“There are no lycans around here, right?” you asked, getting up scared by the strange behavior of the forest animals.

“No,” I said, standing up as well, looking around for the source of that horrible feeling that was starting to run through my body. It was like someone was watching us.

“I have a bad feeling,” you whispered, as if you too were focused on a danger you couldn’t see.

“Me too, let’s go home,” I said, grabbing your hand, almost pulling you along, heading back to the path that led us back to the safety of my darkness.

“Donna, wait,” you said, planting your feet on the ground, stopping abruptly. “Have you heard that?”

I shook my head nervously, grabbing your hand again. The chills were getting more intense. You, horrified by something, stopped again with your eyes wide open.

“Don’t, don't shoot,” you said with your hands up, looking towards a corner, where an armed man was crouching, with what looked like a rifle pointed at us.

“Get away, civilian,” that masked man said, focusing his attention on me.

I was paralyzed. I didn't know how to react to that strange threat.

“Donna, watch out!” you screamed, lunging at me just as a thunderous shot echoed in the forest, followed by a flash of light. There was no doubt, that man had come to kill me.

“Back, stay back (Y/N),” I said, pushing you away from my body and dodging another shot. I should have noticed you, I should have.

“Shit,” the man whispered, trying to reload his gun. It was too late for that poor bastard.

I walked slowly, keeping my monstrous gaze on that strange mask. He was going to pay for what he had done, no doubt. With a strange calm, which I needed to use my powers, I extended my hand towards him. He couldn't see my face, but I knew that I terrified him.

“Wait, wait,” the poor man begged, crawling on the ground, throwing away his gun and trying to flee.

Soon my powers began to take effect, forcing him to writhe in pain for things that didn't exist, to grab his gun, point it at his head, and pull the trigger, ending his existence forever.

“Bastardo…” I hissed, kicking the lifeless body of what was, without a doubt, a soldier.

“Donna…” you said, in low voice, crouched on the ground, hunched over yourself.

I looked at you, still filled with the adrenaline that came from using my gift. I ran towards you, I bent down to help you up, but when I looked at my hands, there was only blood on them.

On your belly there was a wound, a wound caused by that weapon, by that stupid act of throwing yourself at me.

 Once again, I was paralyzed, horrified, I only saw blood, your blood.

“(Y/N), (Y/N),” I said nervously, checking your condition.

Your eyes danced, your skin paled dangerously. My hand pressed your wound to stop the red flow that stained it. No, it couldn't be possible, it was a nightmare.

“Donna…” you sighed, letting yourself fall into my arms, losing strength. I didn't know what to do. I was just trying to keep the light that wanted to leave your gaze. “I saved you…” you whispered with a smile, before fainting completely.

“No, no, no, no…” I repeated furiously, holding your head up high and my hand on your wound, looking for help with my eye, a help that wasn't going to come. “(Y/N)!” I screamed furiously, passing my hand over my forehead, bathing it in your blood.

Do something, stupida…

The voices in my head rebuked me for my frustration, forcing me to take your unconscious body in my arms, running you back to the home we should never have left.

“Resisti, (Y/N), per favore…”

I couldn't say how I got home. All I saw was blood, your blood desecrating your beauty. All because of me, all, because, of, me.

“In… In… In a coma?” I asked when Mother Miranda, in her eternal mercy, came to my call for help. The priestess looked at me after bandaging your unconscious body.

“The bullet has pierced part of her spleen, be thankful she's not dead,” she whispered, closing a briefcase and looking at me with hatred, with the hatred of not being able to save you, surely.

I, still nervous, soaked in your blood, couldn't stop shaking, I couldn't think of seeing you like that, almost lifeless in bed, with your beautiful eyes closed, would I ever be able to see them again?

“Did you kill him?”  Miranda asked, distracting me from the task of squeezing your hand, like you taught me, like you told me all problems passed. “Donna!”

“Yes, yes,” I answered without looking at her. I should have been grateful to her, but I couldn't, I could only hate myself.

“Fine...” the blonde sighed, with that golden glow blinding my eye. “That rat has been causing problems for a while now. I guess it finally got what it deserved.”

I suddenly let your hand go and got out of bed, furious at what those words implied.

“Did you know? Did you know that bastardo was lurking around?” I asked furiously, feeling my temples throbbing as if, without your hand squeezing mine, I would lose control of my actions.

“Shh, calm down,” Miranda said, with a grimace of disgust, without moving, without blinking. Stoic, all-mighty  as always. “Of course I knew. The BSAA never gets tired, right? I assumed it wouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“Not for me…” I whispered, squinting, clenching my red fists tightly. “And for her?!”

“Stop, yelling, Donna,” the witch said, pressing her eyes shut with her fingers, again, not even slightly fazed by my behavior. “I couldn't possibly know that your girl was going to play heroes.”

I growled furiously, pacing erratically around the room, thinking of a thousand ways to kill my adoptive mother, to end it all, to make everything go up in the air. I couldn't stand it, I couldn't stand that you had risked your pure life to save a monster's. Anything but that.

“I'll come back next week to check on her,” the blonde said, disinterested. Of course, you were a mortal, she didn't care about you.

I cursed all her ancestors. I really wished that her body and her golden robes would fall down the waterfall where my family died.

“Take care of her in the meantime, or kill her, I don't care,” she whispered, making me growl in horror. “But I don't want you to give me any trouble, is that clear?”

When Miranda disappeared, everything collapsed around me, my body collapsing against one of the bedroom walls. There was no more laughter, no more gasps, no more moans of passion in the dark bedroom. Only my agonized crying echoed off the walls while my hands pulled at my hair, hitting the floor in rage. A pathetic scene that I couldn't avoid.

When I managed to calm down, I saw that Angie was next to me, as always.

“Is she dead?” the doll asked unpleasantly pointing at your inert body. I shook my head, realizing that I had hurt myself, that the blood dripping from my head was mixing with yours on my hands.

“No!” I shouted, angrily pushing the puppet away. “She's not…” I said, this time sobbing, burying my head in my hands, sinking into my knees the shame of not being able to save you.

“Bad Donna, stupid Donna!” Angie protested, damaging my ears.

I was about to, about to deactivate her, but I needed her, I needed someone to speak for me, someone to keep reason in my head, to keep madness away from my sick mind.

“I'm sorry,” I said, getting up from the floor coldly. Angie nodded without resentment and climbed into bed next to you.

I approached slowly, taking your hand in mine, squeezing it again like you taught me.

“She's asleep, huh?” Angie said, getting too close. I controlled my impulse to mistreat her again, with an absurd idea in my head.

If you were asleep, that meant I could wake you up, right?

“Wake up, wake up…” I whispered, caressing your cheeks, your soft, addictive skin. There was no response and I took a breath again, resting my hands on your shoulders. “Come on, tesoro, wake up…”

“Wake up, you fool, wake up!” the doll shrieked, moving you too. Yes, it was true that Angie was jealous because you had captured all my attention, but she appreciated you, really. It was impossible for her not to, she was part of me.

“Per favore…” I begged, sobbing again, seeing that your body still didn’t react to my gentle movements.

My breathing became agitated and my hands trembled as they moved you more and more roughly. My heart was about to explode.

“Svegliati, (Y/N), svegliati!” I shrieked, moving you roughly, desperately. I knew it was a good idea not to deactivate Angie, she stopped me.

“Hey, hey, Donna, stop, stop, you'll hurt her!” the puppet shouted, uselessly placing itself between your body and mine, clinging to my unhinged arms.

I finally left you alone, sinking beside you, crying on your chest, pathetically settling next to you, wrapping my arms around you, just the way you liked it.

“Don't do this to me, tesoro, please... Don't leave me alone...”  I sobbed, staining your skin with my tears, crying until at some point, my monstrous body gave in to exhaustion.

A day passed, two, you didn't wake up.

My desperation seemed calmer, but it wasn't. I took care of you, I looked after you, but in my head there was only a flash, a horrible sound: the light of the shot, the sound of the bullet that pierced your skin.

That bullet must have pierced me, not you.

You had saved my life, what for? Why would I want to live in a world without you?

It was absurd, (Y/N) I should be dead, not you, you should wake up, smile, light up the world with your smile. It was too unfair.

Little by little I forgot to eat, to drink, to live…

I tried to stay sane while I read you your favorite books, hoping that the words that made you feel those emotions would revive your soul and I could see your beautiful eyes again.

But I was never well, I was always sick. Without you, without the thin thread that kept my sanity, I began to take small steps into the darkness.

“I sat with them at the table, next to Queequeg, and mentally prepared myself to listen to some stories about whale hunting…” I read calmly, next to you, my disastrous body didn’t separate from yours for a second, my hand always held yours.

Donna…

A dark voice interrupted me, a voice I knew, that I knew where it came from. Shaking my head, I tried to ignore it, but it wasn't possible. In that old book the words danced, making me dizzy, that dark voice sounded louder and louder.

She's dead…

That voice spoke to me again. I dropped the book, pulled my hair as I bent over myself, preventing it from continuing to speak in any way.

“No… No…” I said nervously, kicking the floor hard.

Yes, of course she is… Because of you…

“No! (Y/N) is alive!”  I screamed neurotically, to respond to someone who didn't exist, who only lived inside my crazy head. “Stai zitto!”

Really? Check her pulse…

Knowing that they were just trying to undermine my morale, that those voices weren't there, just as you always told me when they appeared so I would stop listening to them, I ignored your own words and brought my trembling hand to your neck.

You were cold, frozen, there was no sign of your heartbeat on your neck and, in front of me, your body began to crack, to calcify.

“No… No!” I screamed with my hands on my head, falling to my knees on the floor, crying, pulling my hair, unhinged again.

Yes, Donna, you killed her…

“Basta! Basta!” I yelled crying, covering my ears to uselessly silence the voice of my demons.

It's your fault! It's your fault!

“Donna, Donna!” a squeaky voice interrupted that horrible spectacle. It sounded like Angie, but I couldn't be sure. In my mind, I only saw your body falling apart, breaking into a thousand pieces. “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t answer, I just pointed at your body with my finger. The doll climbed onto the bed, the bed I didn’t want to look at.

“What? What’s wrong with her?” the doll asked, with a confused voice.

Dead, dead, dead…

“Angie, (Y/N) is…” I murmured, swallowing my own tears, hitting the floor helplessly, furiously. I had to fall apart into a thousand pieces, not you.

“She’s what? She’s still asleep,” the doll said, getting off the bed to stand in front of me, tilting her head curiously.

“She, her body is…” I said in a low voice, making an effort to get up and dare to look at your broken body. It wasn't, you were still intact.

Your chest rose and fell calmly. Your expression wasn't cracked, but serene.

Confused and scared, I ran my hand over my sweaty forehead as I sat next to you, relieved to see that it had only been my imagination.

You will kill her, Donna… She saved your life, and you will kill her…

“Gods… (Y/N),” I said, resting my forehead against yours, keeping my face very close to yours.

“Are you okay?” Angie asked, suspecting what was the cause of my attitude.

“Yes, I…” I lied, moving away to let you breathe. “It, it was nothing.”

“Why don't you cut her throat and end her suffering?” Angie asked, with an amused tone. I stood up in surprise, grabbing the puppet by the neck.

“What did you just say?” I hissed as the doll struggled against my grip.

“Hey, let me go! I said why you don’t keep reading,” the puppet protested.

I let go, shaking my head, confused, overwhelmed by the situation.

I was losing my mind, and I knew it.

“Ugh, you need a break,” the doll said, comically shaking her dress. “And a shower, you stink.”

I closed my eye, breathing slowly, like my gardener, Josef, had taught me. It was true that I was a monster. That man was good, and I killed him.

“What I need is for her to come back…” I said sobbing, succumbing to crying again, squeezing your hand tightly, trying to beg you to come back to me.

“I miss her too,” Angie said, tenderly stroking your hair. Not even the fact that Angie acknowledged that she appreciated you was enough to reassure me.

“Please, (Y/N)… Please… Come back to me… Don’t, don't leave me alone, I need your light to get me out of this darkness…” I begged, squeezing your hand perhaps too tightly. The voices returned.

She will never come back to you, she never loved you. You will never feel her lips again. You will be left alone, with us, Donna, in the darkness where you belong.

Three, four days passed, or so I thought.

I lost track of time as well as I lost my mind. The voices were already a constant sound in my mind, the panic attacks, the hallucinations began to put you in danger. I decided not to get too close. My hands could turn against to you.

I kept repeating how much I needed you, how bad I felt without your comforting presence. You were my light, (Y/N), and you were fading away.

The weakness that my mind felt soon entered into harmony with that of my body. I was hungry, I knew it, I had to eat, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to leave you alone. I wanted to be with you, to cling to your unconscious body to feel that I wasn't lost, that there was still hope for me, and for you.

Exhausted, sitting on the floor against a wall, I closed my eyes tightly so as not to hear the voices that now asked me to leave everything, to abandon you, to abandon the life that was granted to me by the grace of Mother Miranda, that second chance that I didn't deserve.

She is like this because of you, you should die, Donna...

But no, I couldn't succumb to those requests. You needed me. You needed my care, for me to be by your side. You had saved my life, I couldn't abandon you, but neither could you.

“Don't you dare to leave me,” I sighed, my voice broken by crying, my weak body struggling to stay awake, in pain from the blows caused by the wounds caused by the crises.

My madness worsened as the hours passed. Reality, my own existence became something inexact. I didn't know when it was night, when it was day. There were no windows in that bedroom, you were always sleeping.

“Hey, hey, Donna,” a strange voice, which didn't come from my head, scared me, waking me from my exhaustion with some soft slaps on my face.

Cagna... She's coming to fuck her.

Ignoring the warning from my subconscious, I managed to make out my sister Alcina leaning over me.

“What...? What are you doing here?” I said, leaning on the wall so I could get up, ready to fight for you until the end. I didn't care if she was really there or it was another vision.

I was always jealous of my sister.

“You didn't come to the meeting. Miranda is asking for you,” the tall woman commented, walking sensually towards the bed. I couldn't move as fast as I wanted, and weakness made me stumble against the lady in white, who held me with her raised eyebrows.

“Vaffanculo…” I whispered, letting my sister guide me until I sat on the bed. “Get out.”

“You're a mess…” she murmured with disinterest, fixing my dress, almost torn by my own attacks. “How long has it been since you ate, dear? Not to mention how you stink…”

“I told you… to get lost…” I said furiously, pushing her with pathetic force. She just laughed, was she really there? “Porca puttana…”

“How vulgar…” Alcina laughed, holding me by the shoulder, dodging my furious attacks. “Aren't you supposed to take care of her?”

“I take care of her,” I said furiously, crossing my arms in a childish manner.

“Do you? I doubt you can take care of yourself, dear,” the lady in white mocked.

I growled again, guiding my gaze towards you, searching for your hand and grabbing it with the little strength I had left.

“Alcina… I'm…” I said calmer, relaxed by the softness of your skin. Maybe you were right and your hands were magic. “I'm losing my mind.”

“Oh, that's not new,” the vampire said, with a mocking expression.

 I ignored the comment, suppressing a sob.

“I feel, I feel that without her I…” I said with a broken voice, letting Alcina lay me down on the bed, next to you, sighing with pity.

“That's it, draga…” the big woman whispered, making sure I was comfortable. “You must stay strong, it's the best for (Y/N).”

“I don't, I don't know if I can do it… Alcina… I, I don't want to be alone, I want, I want her to come back,” I said, noticing how sleep attacked me again. At least when I was about to sleep, the voices didn't attack me.

“You must come back first, Donna,” my sister whispered, caressing my messy hair while covering me with a blanket. “(Y/N) needs you… Sleep, my sweet Donna…”

Those were the last words I heard before the darkness of my nightmares invaded me again.

Even today I still don't know if my sister's visit was real or if it was just a last breath of my sanity demanding me to come back, to force my demons to stay in a cage.

Three more days passed.

The voices continued to harass me, but something changed after that unexpected visit. My desire to fight my madness, to get you back, was much stronger. I even dared to accept the fruit that Angie brought me. Eating gave me strength, the softness of your hands kept the flame of hope alive.

“Actually I had always felt that way...” I read, like every day, another one of your favorite novels.

Miraculously, the voices that whispered horrible things to me no longer interrupted my words. I felt strong, or so I tried to show. With each passing day, the vision of the light of your smile became more blurred.

“…Without being able to explain why. I had never wanted to accept that life was so grey and indifferent, so without secrets or wonders as people pretended when they said…”

“That’s life…”

I read the end of that paragraph and nodded with a sigh. I soon realized something strange. No, it wasn't a horrible voice in my head. It wasn't Angie's voice that continued my reading.´

I dropped the book, let it fall loudly on the wood when I noticed something warm in my hand, yours, squeezing it tightly. Afraid that my mind would play tricks on me again, I closed my eye, opened it again and looked at your hand in mine, moving.

“Hello, darling…” a hoarse voice, broken by tiredness reached my ears, your voice, your angelic voice, your voice that came back to illuminate my dark path.

“(Y/N)…” I whispered, looking slowly into your bright eyes, half-closed but shining. “(Y/N)!”

I threw myself into your arms, burying my body in yours while my hand squeezed yours, to confirm that it hadn't been a dream. Not wanting to waste a second, I captured your lips in a kiss, crying with joy, crying for having you back, and scared in case it was just a dream.

“Hi… Hi…” you repeated, fighting against my gestures of affection, laughing weakly.

“Let her breathe, silly Donna!” Angie shrieked, pushing me away from you, jumping with joy on the bed. “You're back, you're back!”

“Yes, yes, it seems so…” you said coughing, in pain from the wound in your abdomen, trying to sit up, something I prevented.

“Don’t, don't move, you could... You could hurt yourself,” I said, playing nervously with your hair, with your hands, with everything that was within my reach.

“Hey...”

“Tell me, tesoro,” I said nervously, hoping to hear a request for water or food.

“I'm glad to see you again, Donna...”

“What are you talking about?” I asked confused, shaking my head. “(Y/N)... I'm, I'm the one who...”

“I told you a long time ago...” you sighed, exhausted, exhausted but awake. “That I would never abandon you...”

[kolyubov]

Ok I need you to hear me out! What about dazai, Fyodor and or Nikolai with a s/o that is the psychologist/therapist for their respective organisation! Is reader aware that they are way beyond redemption? Yes, does reader know that they can't fix them? Also yes, but as their s/o they try their best to save the little sanity they have left by reminding them to take their pills/vitamins, having casual therapy sessions with them and comforting them after (btw I don't think any of them would go to therapy on their own so reader being the therapist of the organisation they are in would make more sense for them to communicate and eventually form a relationship, plus I think a emotionally intelligent reader would really balance them out)

Have a wonderful day or night and don't forget to hydrate!!!!

omg nonnie, this is very interesting! I tried my best to imagine these three going to therapy… sort of.

please remember to hydrate yourself too<33

Therapist s/o!

✧ contents. sfw!!

I'm kind of sure that a psychologist (and I think a therapist too) is not allowed to have a personal relationship with their patient, so I'd like to think that their relationship with their s/o is a secret, at least inside the organization.

Dazai will come to visit you every day even if it's not necessarily for a therapy session.

He only goes to the Agency to see you— I imagine you have a small office inside the building of the Agency, so whenever Dazai is bored, he leaves the Agency's office and goes downstairs to visit you!

For him, it's a good thing that his s/o is also his therapist because he won't open up with anyone else but you. He would ask for you to run your fingers through his fluffy hair as he tells you how his past memories are still tormenting him sometimes.

Since you're a professional and know so much about people's minds, your conversations are always very deep which he's thankful for; knowing that someone understands him and gives him the comfort that he needs badly.

Dazai doesn't need any type of medication I think. Maybe he'll need to sleep better and eat properly but as long as you sleep with him and remind him to take his meals, he'll do as you said<3

-

I believe Fyodor doesn't want therapy, or pills, even if he needs them.

You know his physical and mental health are not the best, and he knows it too, but he doesn't care about it that much.

Maybe the roles would turn upside down? He would ask why you have such opinions and would discuss a lot of philosophical stuff about human beings and their lives and the way they socialize with other humans.

Fyodor would be the stubborn type; like, you would tell him to go out for a walk and get some fresh air because he's lacking vitamin D but he only chuckles and says that he doesn't need to, that he's perfectly fine.

A few hours later he would go out for a walk as you said and left a small bouquet of flowers he collected himself on your desk.

Also, he comes to ask for your opinion on important things before doing them!

-

Nikolai wouldn't take things seriously most of the time. He needs to make silly jokes and tease you as you try to advise him for his own good.

He would gladly take any pills you give him but you need to sit on his lap and give him the pill yourself, then kiss his forehead and call him a good boy. If not, he would refuse the medication.

Sometimes he feels very very down, like; he enters your office with a somber expression and needs to be cuddled as you try to help him solve his problem.

You make him feel happy even if it's just with a kiss on the cheek or words of affirmation<3

Definitely surprises you and teleports behind you as you're doing paperwork.

About his “freedom” thing… As much as you'd like to tell him that it's (almost) impossible, he won't stop trying to reach his goal and will keep on telling you with a big smile how he plans to achieve it. Well… At least he's still your Nikolai for now.

2024 © pinklacydovey

[stormblessed95]

Hello💜

Just doing this quick and fast for anyone who doesn't know me, is new here, or just forgot who I was when I disappeared for a while.

Hi! My name is Storm (obviously not really but it's what everyone calls me here, or variations of it). My pronouns are she/her. I'm bi, married and have kids. I work in the mass communication and education fields, for now. I LOVE to read, write, and listen to music.

I've been ARMY since the beginning of 2020. I found BTS basically by accident. My music and dance loving baby was losing it and my husband said oh wait "there is this group out there who does amazing choreo to their songs" and put on the fire dance practice. And I, too, LOVED it. MOTS7 was my first comeback so it holds a very special place in my heart. And boy did BTS and learning about them save my sanity during the pandemic.

I am Yoongi and Jimin biased. Jungkook is my main bias wrecker, Hobi a very close second. You may call me a yoonminkooker if you want. I am not a shipper, but I do exist and operate this blog in shipper spaces. I do think there is a high chance that Jimin and JK have *something* going on that's more than just friendship. I don't care if I'm wrong though. I do know for a fact that they are the bestest of friends and nothing will ever change that. I also believe that yoonminkook are all very likely queer in some sense of the word. That has nothing to do with their relationship status and is just how I see things.

On this blog, I stress facts and original content first. Anything that isn't straight from original content though is solely my opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. Everyone is always free to agree or disagree with me as they please. I am not here for followers, the numbers don't matter to me. I started this blog for me and because a friend and a few others were encouraging me to share my thoughts over larger topics and I write essays. If you follow me or not is totally your choice, but my content will be whatever it is going to be. That's never going to change. I'm always happy to talk with people though, even through disagreements on opinions. As long as there is respect, I'm always more than happy to agree to disagree.

I love and adore all BTS members. I am OT7 through and that will never change. I love all 7 members, and I love them in every single duo/trio/grouping combination. And I will never tolerate any hate or slander towards any of them on my blog.

And finally, my post masterlist is here, if you haven't seen it yet, please check it out. Thank you!

Hopefully that's a sufficient introduction 😂 felt weird to have to do. I am not this important lol. If you guys have any questions or have anything you want to share, feel free to ask 💜

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello!

I've always wanted to do a stealth game/campaign, but all my attempts to hack it into DnD have failed. Do you have any suggestions for a stealthy system? Not something as abstract as Knives in the Dark (tbh, I just have never been able to get into it) but something that hits the Assassin's Creed feeling of watching the target, making a plan, and then sneaking through the base taking out guards and hiding their bodies and such. Preferably on a grid map or similar, s we're terrible at theatre of the mind.

Thanks!

THEME: Stealthy Games.

Hello there, so I did some digging and I found plenty of stealth games, although none of them seem to really require a map in order to play. That being said, I don’t think that should stop you from providing maps to your players, even if they’re abstract! Some of these games might ask you to sketch out a rough map of the town or building that you’re in, which may help you provide your players with some visual references as they sneak around, trying not to get caught. When it comes to stealth, I think of three things: horror, heists, and spies.

Delta Green, by Arc Dream Publishing.

Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green opposes the forces of darkness with honor but without glory. Delta Green agents fight to save humanity from unnatural horrors—often at a shattering personal cost.

Delta Green comes highly recommended as a great way to play an X-Files type rpg, mixed in with the Cthulhu mythos. It uses a d100 system and is based in the modern day, casting your characters as former members of government agencies, recruited into a super-secret bureau that investigates supernatural things - and keeps those things hidden from the common public. The stealth of this game is mostly about covering up the eldritch and unnatural, even if it means framing someone else or condemning a beloved building.

Your characters in this game have some familiar pieces to them, such as six stats with the same titles as you’ll see in games like D&D. However, you’ll also have pieces like Bonds, which represent relationships that keep your character grounded, and a Sanity system that I’m personally not crazy about (I do not recommend this game for a group that doesn’t like trite mechanization of mental health disorders), but that gives you a way to incur penalties that aren’t just physical damage.

This looks to be the closest to a traditional rpg on this list, and with all the elements to keep track of, I can see how a physical map would be helpful. However, keep in mind that there isn’t a pace or speed stat attached to these characters, so things like line of sight or distance probably won’t be super granular - if you are shooting things you may have broad range bands to determine how difficult something is, but the final decision will be a GM decision, not something necessarily determined in the rulebook. Because the setting is a modern one, I think finding visual references for locations in this game would be very very easy.

If you want a taste of the game before you put your money down, you can check out the Free Starter Rulebook!

Minutes to Midnight, by Oliver S.

Minutes to Midnight is a game powered by Blades in the Dark about a crew of spies, trying to disrupt the balance of power in a modern cold war. They will have to stand strong in the face of their vicious opposition and handle a fragile web of untrustworthy informants, devious intrigues and deadly lies.

We play to find out if our agents can thrive in the cutthroat world of espionage. While the public may never know about their impact, their actions shape the political landscape and outcome of conflict. Will the players prevent the outbreak of a global disaster and use their influence to create a better future? Will they attempt to send the opposing bloc into a turmoil and establish a lasting hegemony? Or will their actions lead the world down a path of war and nuclear destruction?

The Forged in the Dark system uses a cycle in between missions and downtime, sinking your characters into the heart of the action as they pursue clandestine missions in locations built by the group in a session 0. Since the game takes place in the real world, using maps of real cities might be a great way to keep they players visually engaged, and using a city that the group has been to or is familiar with might also make it easier for the group to visualize the kinds of buildings and streets where their spies may be sneaking, scheming, and sleuthing.

Madstones, by xiombarg.

Those who know magic exists at all are the rich and teams of breakers like yourself that go into the jartowns for the Archons. Jartowns are created by burning folk alive in a wicker man, in a ritual known only to the oldest jet-setting Archons.

A jartown is an isolated area of spacetime that was cut out of our reality. Most jartowns consist of a small amount of space (enough for a suburb or town) and a loop of several years. Jartowns become more magickal and horrific with each loop, creating madstones. 

Madstones are small things, from actual stones to human organs, infused with concentrated, distilled magic. They're secretly coveted by the wealthy.

In this tiny 24XX-based tabletop RPG, players are breakers, desperate folk from the occult underground who find a way into the jartowns, hothouses for magick, to perform errands for the ultrarich Archons.

Play as a variety of roles, from sawbones to sinner to spook, and choose to hail from one of four origins, including jartown native.

24XX games are another toolbox that you can pick up and play around with to help you get started with creating your own experiences. Your character consists of a few skills and gear packaged together in a character class. In Madstones, these classes are various specialists, trained to deal with different elements that might pop up when you go delving into eldritch pockets of reality. There is both a stealth and a combat specialist in this game, but there’s also classes for things like a getaway driver, a hacker, and an occult specialist.

24XX games also exist because of their OSR predecessors, meaning that combat is risky, and often deadly - and therefore finding other ways to solve the problem is implicitly encouraged. However, the openness of the system means that your players don’t necessarily need to resort to stealth - they might prepare an elaborate ritual, create a unique piece of technology, or just decide to run away as fast as they can. In regards to maps, I think you could probably use a typical dungeon framework: leading the characters through various rooms or sections of the pocket dimension, and throwing horrors and weird environments their way.

Night’s Black Agents, by Pelgrane Press.

The Cold War is over. Bush’s War is winding down. You were a shadowy soldier in those fights, trained to move through the secret world: deniable and deadly.

Then you got out, or you got shut out, or you got burned out. You didn’t come in from the cold. Instead, you found your own entrances into Europe’s clandestine networks of power and crime. You did a few ops, and you asked even fewer questions. Who gave you that job in Prague? Who paid for your silence in that Swiss account? You told yourself it didn’t matter. It turned out to matter a lot. Because it turned out you were working for vampires.

Vampires exist. What can they do? Who do they own? Where is safe? You don’t know those answers yet. So you’d better start asking questions. You have to trace the bloodsuckers’ operations, penetrate their networks, follow their trail, and target their weak points. Because if you don’t hunt them, they will hunt you. And they will kill you.

A combination of modern spy fiction and vampire intrigue, Night’s Black Agents uses the GUMSHOE system, which is an investigative roleplaying system that provides your characters with resources they can spend to get into secret locations, compete against vampiric agents, and pick up information to help you put together the details of a conspiracy. In Night’s Black Agents, finding clues isn’t left up to chance - you will always get information as long as you tell the GM that you’re using a relevant skill. The obstacles in this game are more likely going to involve getting in and out of sticky situations - and if your opponents are vampires, well, stealth is likely going to be a more appealing than trying to slit their throats.

GUMSHOE games don’t need grid maps either, but a rough map of the city or country is probably very helpful, and it might be fun to draw the floor plans of various buildings that your players investigate in order to help them determine what areas may be the most interesting places to search for clues.

The Breathing, by Fistful of Crits.

You reside in The Archive, an unending and depthless structure spiralling deep into the dark and misty depths, devoid of life and presided over by a being known only to you as The Archivist.

The Archive is made up of windowless rooms and halls that vary greatly in their height, size and danger. All these spaces house numerous shelves containing the collected knowledge of the world outside of The Archive; a place you have been told you must earn your access to. The price of your freedom comes from the discovery of new or forgotten knowledge that can be found in the deepest parts of the structure. 

You, and a few others, are known as The Breathing, in a place full of creatures who were once like you but ultimately failed in their bid for freedom; now known as The Breathless. 

The Breathing is just an example of a broader style of game, using a system called Breathless. Breathless games use a series of polyhedral dice that deteriorate as you use them, with different dice attached to different skills. Throughout the game you pause to “take a breath”, and re-set your skills, bringing your dice back to their threshold. However, pausing to take a breath also gives the GM a chance to introduce a new trouble or complication, creating a cycle of mission, rest, mission, rest, etc.

As a game system, Breathless is pretty light and is fairly easy to hack. But the lightness of the rules also allows for creativity and add-ons, which could include rules for movement or placement. Since the game rewards finding ways to solve problems without having to resort to direct conflict, I can see games like this encouraging characters to think carefully about when to use their resources and when to just… sneak around the problem. If you want to include maps and a grid, you could provide a blueprint of a room inside The Archive and watch the players try to navigate it using their limited resources, with designated “rest areas” that they would have to get to in order to take a Breath.

This certainly isn’t a solution in a box, but it might provide some interesting tools to help you build the experience you’re looking for.

Night Reign, by Sinister Beard Games.

Night Reign is a roleplaying game of stealth, guile, violence and devilry for a GM and one or more players, set in a quasi-Edwardian metropolis perched on an inhospitable peninsula beset by toxic black rain and ruled by a corrupt cabal of Noble Houses.

You take the role of members of The Red Right Hand, a conspiracy loyal to the recently deposed royal family, using your talents in assassination, infiltration and dark sorcery to strike out at your oppressors.

A game all about the things you do in the shadows, Night Reign uses cards to resolve conflict, rather than dice. It also uses a token system to help you overcome obstacles without having to resort to violence - loud, messy, dangerous violence. The Ruled by Night system (which has an SRD that you can download for free) is about balancing the suspicion you’ve already raised against an increasing cost to being stealthy. You spend Shadow tokens in order to be able to attempt to do something, and try to get a hand as close as possible to 21, or at least higher than whatever the GM draws. Your characters will also have powers that can be very effective, but are likely to draw a lot of attention, so using them is risky.

Because of how this game runs, things like movement and speed are not likely to be tracked. However, I don’t think mapping out a location so that the players can understand where things are or what kind of space they’re in is going to hurt the experience. The SRD describes something called City Conditions, which appear to be elements of the fiction that might result from the characters’ choices, or provide obstacles to the players. If you have a map of the city in front of you, you could draw symbols on the map to indicate what’s happening as the story progresses, and even cross out places that have been destroyed.

Heist, by Hark Forsooth Games.

HEIST: Get the Crew Together is a cooperative RPG where you and a group of suave, savvy and slick fellow crooks plan and execute capers, grabbing the fanciest loot from the world's wealthy elite.

Heist is great for fans of shows like Leverage or movies like Ocean’s 11: you’re going to steal something shiny from someone who certainly doesn’t deserve it, and you’re going to do it with style. While combat is an option, your characters will also have to deal with suspicious marks, security systems, laser grids and bank vaults. The characters are composed of special talents and personal flaws, and the GM has the task of designing something the game calls Murphy’s Gun - a major twist that will reveal itself midway through the heist.

It can be tricky to determine what to prep for a game like this, but one thing that you can for sure prep is the location. Design the building, draw the floor plan, and come up with obstacles for the different areas - there’s not really movement tracking in this game but having the layout will certainly help your players come up with ideas about how to get in, get out, and get rich.

Another thing to consider…

Mothership doesn’t have any stealth skills, but what it does have is the incentive to be sneaky. If an alien horror is moving through the ship, you’re more likely to try and stay out of it’s way - and having no stealth skills means that the players have to describe what they’re doing to stay hidden; climb into vents, squeeze yourself into cupboards, and try to wriggle into the space suit. However, this doesn’t mean that you’re not rolling - you might roll to clamber over something or to fit yourself into something, or you might roll to scope out a location to find an exit or suitable hiding place. It’s also excellent in terms of maps - plenty of adventures will provide at least a blueprint of the space station or ship that you’re exploring, which you can use to spook your players with fresh horrors.

[sssammich]

day 2: romance

you can also read the fic on ao3

the rest of sctober prompts: crepe AU: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 day 19: hazy, day 22: art, day 24: enchanted, day 30: magic

--

Now, here's the thing. Lena is a reasonable woman. She's a woman of many, many means and has more money that even God knows what to do with. So she doesn't expect much, save, perhaps, for some respect and authenticity. 

But even that seems like asking for a lot tonight. Especially when she peers over her wine glass over at her date in front of her—a man who sounded perfect on paper (which, in retrospect, was probably where this slow demise of a date began): great job, good looks, decent upbringing—and knows there's clearly been a miscommunication of sorts.

His nervous energy, she can understand. His overcompensation, even more so. Yet that manifests in rude manners as he interrupts her, arrogance in not-so-subtly considering her position as a CEO, and his tired misogyny in his expectations of what his paying for dinner truly affords him.

So she waits for him to finish talking, as he's monopolized the last ten minutes talking about some financial tech start-up for fish or something or the other. He FINALLY glances at her, flashes what she can only assume is his most winning smile. Which is the only thing she was waiting for, frankly, before she scoots her chair back and subtly waves at a server who already seems to have her coat at the ready.

"Whoa-wait, where are you going? They’ve barely served us the apps."

She smiles down at him, though her eyes are sharp and narrowed. "Riveting as you may think it is to listen to you, I'm going home and having a very lovely evening with my vibrator. I believe I'll have a much more fulfilling time with it than with you."

His jaw drops slightly, sputtering out sorry excuses for words, his face going through a roller coaster journey of expressions—a considerable improvement from the smarmy smile he'd been presenting her since she first saw him. She can even see how his cheeks and ears redden at her comment, could have possibly considered it cute if he was even an ounce less of who he was. The look on his face is almost worth the stress of what little of this dinner has already cost her sanity and time. She turns to the server beside her just as he helps her shrug on her coat, his face the poster of professional decorum, except for the slight twitch from the corner of his lips that betrays him slightly. 

And just because she can, Lena rummages through her clutch and pulls out a few hundred dollar bills, where she throws a couple on the table and rolls one to insert in the server’s breast pocket. 

She leaves without a single glance back despite feeling all eyes on her.

When she exits out of the restaurant, her driver is already waiting for her at the front. She takes a deep breath and exhales before walking up to him and dismissing him for the night, telling him that she’ll find her way back just fine. She walks away with a final greeting and heads towards the direction of the park.

Lena reaches the edge of the park where she finds a slew of food trucks lining the curb. Most of them have some customers in line waiting except for the bright yellow one parked at the very end. Typically, Lena would hesitate approaching a food truck without customers as that is surely cause for concern. Yet the name ‘Love is Crepe’ seems to call to her, perhaps fitting of the night she’d just endured. 

She stands just to the side of the awning with a gaze towards the menu, determining if she should treat herself to both sweet and savory crepes. She decides she deserves to indulge herself. 

Yet when she walks up to the front counter, she realizes there’s a handwritten sign that notes: 

SOLD OUT 

THANKS AND SORRY :( 

-crepe mgmt

She can’t help the amused smile on her face even if she finds herself disappointed in not getting any crepes, after all. She’s just about to turn around when she jumps at the sound of someone yelping in surprise behind her. 

“Oh!” 

She turns around and stops in her tracks when she finds the most attractive woman she’s ever laid eyes on carrying three different bags of food from what appears to be the other food trucks. It takes her a second to process that she should speak, yet her eyes can’t help but glance at the blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, the sharp jaw, the perfect curved lips, and the blue of the woman’s eyes behind black rimmed glasses. Her gaze dips to the womans’ biceps, the t-shirt sleeves folded up to her shoulders, straining slightly under the weight of the bags she’s carrying. 

Lena clears her throat. “I—I thought you were open, but I see you’d sold out of everything.” 

Despite being the one to have been caught surprised, it’s the blonde woman who’s standing stock still in front of her, surprise slapped on her face. “You’re Lena Luthor.” 

This time, it’s her turn to be shocked. “Oh, um, yes.” 

The woman shakes her head and quickly drops the bags on one of the tables parked right in front of the truck. “Oh my golly, I’m so sorry, that’s—well that was very impolite of me. I’ve just–I’m a big fan. I, wait-no. I mean, I am. I totally am, but like, you’re you, I mean—hang on. Um, wait.” The woman then puts her hands on her waist, and positions her body so she’s properly facing Lena before taking a deep breath. “You want crepes?” 

Lena’s brows furrow in amused confusion even as she slowly nods. Something about the way this woman stumbles through her words and her movements has Lena endeared, and so she responds, a slow smile already forming on her lips. “Yes, but I see you’re sold out.” 

“Oh, right. I am, but I—” the woman pauses and puts a finger up, a frenetic energy about her, before rushing to the back of the truck. Lena hears rummaging and movement, until the woman pops her head out of the front window, crumpling the piece of paper notice as she slides the window to the side. “I can—I can make you one crepe. Like a malnourished crepe because it won’t have as many strawberries or Nutella, but I can make it. Do you still want it?” 

She’s poised to decline, not wanting to interrupt this woman’s night, but the expectant and almost eager way the woman is staring down at her from the window, hopeful and anticipating, has Lena nodding her head before she can even gather her wits about her. 

The woman is overjoyed, so Lena believes she’d given the right answer. Something warm buzzes inside of Lena when she witnesses the woman’s bright smile before she disappears from the window. 

Lena takes a seat right by where the woman’s food is, a small frown forming when she realizes she’s more than likely interrupted this woman’s dinner. Yet, the woman seems more than happy to work in her truck, so with hesitant resignation, Lena just waits. 

Before long, the woman comes out and personally puts her plate right in front of her with a set of plastic utensils wrapped in a napkin. “You didn’t have to do that,” she comments, even as her mouth salivates at the smell of the dish in front of her. 

“It was no trouble at all.” Then the woman’s eyes widened. “Oh, unless you wanted it to go. Oh man, I didn’t even ask. Did you—” 

But Lena just shakes her head. “Here’s fine.” 

The woman beams at her, and Lena briefly wonders how it feels for people in this woman's life to constantly be on the receiving end of such a bright and warm smile. Lena’s frown forms as she watches as the woman then takes her bag of food off the table. 

“Won’t you join me? Since I so rudely interrupted your dinner.” 

“But you’re Lena Luthor.”  

She smiles at that. “And you are?” 

The woman’s mouth opens, shock evident on her face, before it transforms into a smile. “Kara. You can call me Kara.” 

“Well, Kara. Won’t you join me?” 

There’s the smile again as Kara wordlessly nods, and sits herself directly across from Lena. She waits until Kara empties out all of the food from her takeout bags, the spread fully taking over the table they’re sitting on. Kara nudges the containers her way, prompting Lena to quirk a brow. 

“Please help yourself.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Absolutely.” 

She responds with a smile in kind and digs into her crepe, enjoying the flavors of her sweet crepe. “This is really quite delicious,” she offers, meaning every word. 

Kara shyly ducks her head even as she smiles proudly. “Thanks! It was slow going for a while, but my friend Nia mentioned that I should put myself in the videos so they could connect with me and not just the crepes. So I guess they’ve been able to see that I really care about the food I make and the videos have been going viral.”  

Lena tilts her head in observation, thinks to herself, I don’t think it’s just the crepes they’re looking at.  

Suddenly, Kara’s mouth drops and her cheeks redden. Belatedly, and much to Lena’s horror, she realizes that she’s said her thoughts out loud. This time, it’s her turn to cover her face. “Oh god, I’m sorry. That was—” 

“Thank you, Lena.” 

“You dropped the Luthor.” 

“I realized I’d said it twice already, I feel like I’ve hit my quota of full naming you for the day.” 

She laughs at that, though a sense of self-deprecation leaks out despite her best attempts.  “Thank you for not shunning me away even knowing who I am.” 

A crinkle of concern appears between Kara’s brows and Lena wonders, not for the last time that evening, how it feels to see that regularly. 

“The only Lena Luthor I know is the one who has tirelessly made the Children’s Hospital the best one in the country so my niece Esme can get the care that she needs. So, I’d say you’re the last person I’d shun away.” 

Kara’s stares at her intently, gratitude written all over her face. 

“I’m glad to hear that,” is all Lena says, not wanting to overstep by asking more questions. She and Kara are basically strangers, and she wouldn’t want to make her uncomfortable. 

“Besides, who shuns away pretty ladies?” Kara says with a shrug before popping an entire potsticker in her mouth. The two of them sport identical rosy cheeks when Lena catches up to Kara’s words just as Kara seems to realize exactly what she’d said. 

“Well, thank you, Kara.” 

Kara tilts her head and smiles, making a show of swallowing the potsticker that Lena giggles at, and shifting her glasses back up on her face. “Anytime, Lena.” 

She can’t help but compare the woman in front of her to the man who’d attempted to wine and dine her earlier tonight. How their eyes shared the same shade of blue, yet Lena thinks she’d happily lose herself in staring at Kara as she listens to the other woman talk about food.

She does just that when they spend the rest of their time in companionable conversation, Kara urging her to try the dishes that litter their table. Before long, the first hour rolls into one, then two, until she glances up and finds that the other food trucks are beginning to break down for the night. 

“Oh, I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time,” she says when she wraps her coat tightly around her. “You now have to stay longer to clean up.” 

But Kara waves her off just as she finishes cleaning. “No! Please! You’re the one all dressed up tonight. I hope I wasn’t keeping you from anything.” 

“God, no. If anything you were saving me.” 

Lena thinks she notices Kara standing up a bit taller. “Bad date?” 

“Terrible. Perhaps romance is simply not in the cards for me.” 

“I don’t believe that,” Kara says, with a shake of her head. “You’re too amazing to not find someone who’ll appreciate you for who you are, Lena Luthor.” 

“Careful, you’ve exceeded your full naming quota.” 

“Forgive me just this once?” Kara bows her head slightly, a teasing smile on her face.

“Only if you take this.” Lena then proceeds to take out a couple hundred dollar bills and tries to offer it to Kara. But Kara covers her hand and closes it for her, the bills clutched in her fist. She is now fully aware of the warmth of Kara’s hand on top of hers, the softness of it on her skin. Now that she knows this, she’s not sure she can go back to not knowing. To not knowing who Kara is, really.

“Absolutely not! Tonight’s on me. Plus, that was not a true trademark Love is Crepe crepe, okay? I can totally do better. No, I will totally do better!” 

“Is that so?” 

“Yes! Why don’t you come back tomorrow, and I’ll prove it to you.” 

Lena’s heart flutters at the idea of seeing Kara again. “I suppose I can settle for that.” 

“Good, it’s settled. So see you tomorrow?” 

“See you then.”  

She doesn’t linger for too much longer, hailing a cab and staring out the window until a waving Kara disappears from view. 

When she gets home, Lena opens her phone and calls her best friend.

“Oh, Sam. I think I’m in love.” 

“The date went well?” Sam asks incredulously from the other end of the line. 

“Oh god, no. The date was a disaster, I never wanna see that guy ever again.” 

Sam laughs. “Okay, then if not him, who? Start from the top, babe. What’s his name?” 

Lena closes her eyes, images of Kara’s beauty filling her mind. Of their dinner together, of the meandering and rich conversation they had tonight. Of the way Kara laughed with her whole body, and smiled with her whole face. 

“Well,” she begins, unable to wipe the large excited smile on her own face. “Her name is Kara.” 

[brainrot-goes-brrrrrr]

Savannah Squad Presentation Night Headcanons/Drabble [2/3]

it has been forever :'D (everyone say thank you to @moonbiine)

ANYWAYS, here's part 2 :}

Part 1: Taylor & Logan Part 2: Ben & Tyler Part 3: Aiden & Ashlyn [WIP]

Logan's POV

Two hours and twenty-eight minutes. It has been two hours and twenty-eight minutes and we've been stuck at 76% complete for forty minutes. Whoever made Windows deserves to burn and I stand by that, cause what do you mean that they can push an update and force restart my laptop.

"Logan when was the last time you updated this?" "Logan, why are there fifteen updates that need to be downloaded?" "Bro, when was the last time you actually shut down your laptop?" ... "I've been busy, okay--"

So it might be my fault. Partially. I will admit that much, but the laptop's never given me a problem before and it was running fine. It's just old, and has a few odd... kinks? I mean, the left half of the mousepad is jammed to the point where it can't click, and, sure, the screen does go black every now and again, but just hit it a few times it works! It's character, charm even (and I can't be bothered to fix it...)!

It was, honest to God, easier for Aiden to run back to his place and grab his laptop.

"So we agree that Logan is off electronic duty right?" Taylor had asked as Ben was setting up the other computer to the television screen with Aiden helping. It was a unanimous decision. Ben and Aiden are the new tech guys.

"Yeah, that's probably for the better," I had conceded.

Ben Clarke

Ben goes next because he saved the groups sanity by suggesting that Aiden just gets his laptop. Everyone, thank Ben for the night not failing.

To address the obvious, Ben has a text to speech app on his phone, which is connected to a speaker, that he uses to present. I will say that there is a sort of humor in this for two reasons. One, the voice can either be monotoned like a typical text-to-speech program with funny pronunciation errors, or two, it will sound like one of those videos on tiktok where an AI is reading a tumblr post about SuperBats or something and gets progressively more expressive as time goes on. Personally, I want to hear exasperated robot Ben voice explaining to Aiden why "Life is a Highway" on repeat can and will be considered a torture method.

Ben's music taste is GODLY. And he's more of a eclectic listener too so he has experience with a good amount of genres. This man does not bash other genres of music that he doesn't care for, he thinks its rude to the person he's talking to and to the artist.

Aiden is the exception to this rule^^

DESPISES having to subscribe to music platforms. What do you mean that you can't listen to a song on repeat without paying, what do you mean that you will interrupt his carefully crafted playlist with a recommended song that does not fit the vibe. This end up derailing his presentation couple times.

He has a set criteria that he judges on: length, vibes, transitions, and replayability. Good playlists should at minimum be an hour, have similar vibes/sound while still being unique, the transitions between songs shouldn't be jarring, and the playlist shouldn't be painful to listen to after a month.

Taylor and Ashlyn helped him judge everyone's playlists by acting as secondary perspectives. Taylor is more open to everyone's music tastes while Ashlyn scrutinizes them more. They pretty much just took a playlist that everyone listens to regularly, one that they made but listen to it every so often, and their liked songs.

I would also like everyone to remember that the series is set in 2016... they would have songs mostly from the 2000s-2010s with the exceptions of some 90s and 80s songs. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying that I looked up 2010s hit songs and I'm filled with nostalgia.

Overall, Ben's criticisms and recommendations are genuinely thoughtful. Especially the recommendations. For each person, after critiquing their playlists, Ben made a slide of genres and artists that each person should check out to expand their tastes.

(I'll probably make a bit about what songs were on their playlist, idk tho)

Group Reaction (how they ranked in comparison to each other)

Personally, Tyler and Logan getting the best ratings because their playlists are very consistent in their vibes and are replayable. I also think that Ben's music taste fits the most with these two for some reason, so they got the most song recs out of everyone.

Ashlyn is third in the ranking. She has one or two that she listens to occasionally, and they're pretty short. They are absolute polar opposites though. One of the playlists is rock, since she canonically likes Paramore (if you don't, get well soon), and the other is classical music for her ballet performances.

Taylor is next. Her playlist isn't bad, its just... a bit everywhere. Like it starts pretty good, but you can tell that somewhere along the lines of creating this playlist she just added songs that she remembered that she likes. It mostly fits the same genre. Ben makes her a more organized playlist after the presentation.

Aiden is dead last. It's not because his music taste is shit. Aiden actually has a pretty good music taste. No. Its because he only listens to his liked songs on repeat like a monster. It is musical whiplash. You go from a movie theme song, to crying, to listening to white girl club music, to rock, to crying again, and then for some reason the Home Depot jingle???? The only playlists that he makes are for jokes really. Do you know the John Mulaney bit where he plays "What's New Pussycat?" 27 times. Yeah, that's Aiden.

Tyler Hernandez

Tyler's next, and, I'm letting you know now that he sprayed the fuck out of Aiden for interrupting. Yeah, Ash pulled them a part.

Motherfucker is so pleased with himself, like its honestly so funny. Aiden had him by the collar and Tyler was just fucking smiling. Taylor does throw her slipper at him for being rude, but he could honestly care less.

The slideshow itself is the most soulless thing ever made, man used the Blank Google Slides template and called it a day. Like one stock image on each slide, and its so pixelated. He probably did it like an hour ago. That's why his presentation is funny because he's just jabbing at Aiden over and over with a basic slideshow that you'd see someone pull out in a Spanish 1-2 class.

You know what? He probably had another presentation about what piercing he think would suit the group best, and just did this one out of spite cause Aiden was being loud. I take back my previous statement about him doing it an hour before getting to Logan's place, he did this on his PHONE WHEN THE LAPTOP WAS UPDATING!!!! Like Logan was taking a walk, Ben was trying to fix the computer, the girls went to make sandwiches, Aiden was running errands, and Tyler made this in an hour.

His presentation is based off a tier system where it gets more effective with each method. Methods 1-3 are pretty basic where its just stuff like duct taping his mouth shut, 4 and onwards just gets funny

I'll be completely honest, each way he put is wild, and it gets progressively more deranged as the presentation goes on. These one's my favorite

"Number 9: Dying You know, I thought this would be the best way, but the bastard got crushed by a ceiling and walked it off. I want you to try and convince me that Aiden wouldn't crawl out of hell just to ruin my day. " "Number 10: Put him in a room alone with Ashlyn's mom and dad *insert a picture of Aiden sitting not so comfortably in between Ashlyn's parents* I don't even think I need to say anything else, I mean, I will, but like... look at him"

This is honestly the shortest presentation of the night but so far it's the most chaotic (he will quickly lose this title).

Tyler went through two spray bottles, mainly for Aiden, but he did spray Taylor once or twice. She threw a shoe at him. It's only fair.

Groups Reaction

Aiden is standing to the side with a towel around himself because Logan said his grandparents would kill them for ruining their couch. He's not exactly pissed but he is kind of sulking. Honestly this just makes his presentation so much better for him.

You know how Tyler asked for suggestions in the beginning, Ben and Ashlyn give him genuine ideas. Mainly Ben, just out of good humor you know. And Tyler's taking notes.

Taylor is giggling, but she does feel a bit bad for Aiden. At some point she gives him a consolation sandwich to raise his spirits.

Logan, however, doesn't and he's just quietly enjoying the scene that's unfolding around him.

The end of these two presentations are by far more chaotic than the first two, and it feels like its only going to get worse from here(/pos). Because right now Aiden is fighting with Tyler, getting him soaked too, Taylor is filming them while Logan provides commentary, and Ashlyn is standing with Ben setting up the next powerpoint.

While it was initially decided that Aiden would go last, Ashlyn suggested that she and him switch. Mainly so that he can drip dry while presenting, and sit down when he's done.

Aiden is following a presentation that was just jabbing at him, how do you think his is going to end up now?

[fancychaostraveller]

I need to vent about the new X-Men97 show and about me being aro, so spoiler alert my darlings /!\

(And any bigot can joyfully go f*ck themselves thank you very much)

.

.

.

I viscerally need Rogue and Gambit to be the endgame, and if they aren't, it will crush me and do irredeemable damage to my mental health.

First and foremost because Rogueneto is not a thing in my head, since Cherik exists

But also, and more importantly, because Rogue and Gambit are inspiring together to me. They were the proof that physical touches isn't everything in a relationship (still are in some part of the episodes). This is so important to me, as an asexual folk. Like.... They mean the world to each other. Rogue is Remy's Queen of Heart and he is her Swamp Rat, they were there for each other when it matter, every single time through the og X-Men serie, and they bloody need to stay that way. Because at the end of the world they were the first they needed to check on. Because Rogue will always save Gambit first and he will always save her first.

And I know that Rogue's struggle with the fact that she can not touch anybody is a big part of her character development, and that she has every right to feel frustrated towards that, but I need them to endgame.

Because I need the reassurance that sex is not all that matter in a relationship (since they still hugs, comfort each other, love each other without it) and I need the reassurance as an ace person that not any potential lover would go around behind my back because of the lack of sex in a relationship.

Because my heart breaks everytime I see Gambit imagining Rogue and Magneto together, because I felt that in real life; because my sanity needs it, please let Rogueneto dies in a car crash and give me Rogue and Gambit together. ( I mean this. Someone crush rogueneto to the ground -without hurting any of them-)

That's it for now!

[nevarroes]

How do you come up with such great poses, what is your process like? I am in love with ur art.

thank you so much🥺💖

as for the poses... referenced… theyre ALL referenced in some way or another really, honestly I spend more time looking at pictures than actually drawing at this point fuck me....

generally though I have three approaches when it comes to choosing or making poses. The first is literally just referencing some image directly because its a great pose + angle, it happens, rarely, but it does happen gd bless

Second (what happens most of the time) is photobashing the shit out of a pose where I kind of just badly cut together 2-3 photos to get what I want. Then I usually add my 3D face model (I make these unless its like... ingame character then i just yoink it) because I tend to choose more flattering angles for my own sanity and…. yeagh You probably need to get a little bit of a feel for this one and I tend to even liquify the image (to fit stylistically and propertionally to what I want) because it’s gonna look horribly pieced together but if you squint you’ll see if the pose works out in the end iykwim😭 (on a side note I do this for painting references too, even vaguely photobashing and learning rough photo editing will save your ass I'm so serious)

Third one is if I like the pose in some reference but not the angle so I replicate the pose in (usually) MagicPoser so I can make it work in a different angle. but i try to not do this TOO often because in my honest opinion while posing apps can be insanely helpful they also tend to make my own art a good bit stiffer than when I directly reference photos and its like… personally it requires me to actively think about everything I’m drawing way more since stuff like muscle twists and creases etc will never quite be accurate when you reference psoing app so you'll need a good bit more prior knowledge

I hope this helps at all!