#but at the end of the day it's a silly fucking block game about creativity (that's a complaint i do agree with for the movie as well)

[daxite]

i think some of you guys are looking way too fucking deep into the shitty minecraft movie lol

[op-smash-or-pass]

Welcome to One Piece smash or pass

This is based off of @fe-smashorpass except with One Piece characters here are the guidelines:

-Each day we will have 2 characters be chosen for smash or pass. The polls will last for a week.

-Obviously I am skipping: Animals, Children, characters that look like children, and dwarfs(Any character that is over the age of 18 after the timeskip we will use those designs)

-You guys can send me asks! Honestly I don’t know how quick I’ll respond to them but go ahead! It can be about anything (yes including headcannons + ships)

We also have a popularity poll going on! Here

Some important tags: #OP smash or pass (where you can find all the current and previous polls)

#Inbox trick or treating- the trick or treat event that is going on

Below are some FAQ’s that might pop up:

Q: how are you keeping track of the characters? How will you prevent from repeats?

A: I spent four hours making a spreadsheet and tried to weed out all the characters we can’t post here. If a character I missed pops up and I post it I’ll take it down and post a new one.

Q: What else are you a fan of?

A: I’m really into Coral island as of late. Fire emblem has always had a special place in my heart. I also have been playing a ton of Identity V as of late. (I’m a college student so I can really only watch anime)

Q: Are you gonna make a spreadsheet of the most smashable characters?

A: Yes! I have a friend who is willing to do it! Plus at the end I have something else planned :]

Q: Are we allowed to request characters?

No, I’m going in alphabetical order, but if I miss someone please let me know! Though if you want people to smash or pass your One Piece OC’s I can do that!

Q: What characters are we including?

A: As long as they fit in our categories and have a photo of them, they are welcome in this. So yes we have some movie characters but not a lot.

I have decided Momonosuke will not be in this poll because he has the mindset of a child

Q: Why are you doing this?

A: I’m jobless, bored, and hyper fixating hard. Also I thought it would be fun. Plus I wanna get a consensus on characters

Q: Do you have an age limit on this blog?

A: Not really, though if you are a minor and try to argue about this being NSFW then…unfollow idc it’s just a silly poll

Q: The series is still running what about future chapters with characters?

A: I’ll add them to the end of the list and we’ll circle back to them once my main list is done.

Q: How many characters are in this poll?

A: 1000+ most are male there’s only about 250 women in this poll. And yes I checked EVERY big mom child

Q: How are we incorporating Zoan devil fruits in this?

A: As long as they have a human form we will be using them. But the lab made zoan fruits were gonna go with how they look

Cheetah for legs: ❌ Ox for stomach: ✅

Q: Why are people smashing XYZ?

A: Idfk it’s Tumblr man, have you seen the bitches these people are into??

Q: I have a friend who you blocked why did you do that?

A: They probably shipped Coralaw, DoffyCora, or some other illegal ass ship, we’re a pornbot, or straight up being racist. Just don’t be fucking weird man and I won’t block you. I love shipping but if your shipping something illegal I’m gonna block you.

Q: Why is Corazon the profile photo?

A: I think he’s hot + idk heart theme kinda fits. And he has some good alts so I can do Halloween and spring themes

Info about OP:

Hello! You can call me Deer/Rafiel (Raffy) Michael/ or Rosinante!!

I am trans masc and use He/they/it/thing pronouns! Though just He/they is fine too!

I am in my first year of college majoring in creative writing leaning towards video game scrips with a minor in digital art.

I’m still catching up on One Piece so please be patient if I don’t tag things correctly! I’m very close though!

Dni:

-Homophobes/transphobes

-Proshippers (fancy way of saying illegal ships)

-Racists

[lixenn]

For your khr 3.0 questions!! ⚙️, 👻, 🦟 and lastly 🎁!

How late am I to answer my own fucking questions?

Yes.

As you might have guessed I did not prepare answers for my ask game in advance, so this took me ages to get to OTL

Thank you for your patience Momo, have my take on my silly questions:

⚙️You somehow, in some way ended up as a Vongola guardian. Now, what form does your Vongola gear take?

Why me? Why did Reborn drag me into his recruitment scheme 😭😭 I’m just some guy, an innocent lil bean that has done no wrong. Ignore those schmucks chilling in the ditch, they are just taking a nap. …. What? Blood? Nah that’s just ketchup, don’t worry about it, they are fineeee~

Aehm…

Now that I have delivered some nonsense let’s get to the actual questions:

I’m really not a jewellery person, I do have various bracelets, necklaces and some rings but the only jewellery I really wear on a day to day basis are my earrings. I mostly stick to my two trusty hoops and leave the other two holes alone simply because the hoops are the only ones that won’t bug me when I sleep.

So, my Vongola gear will most likely take the form of earrings and since I’m a Cloud (because I wanna be one lmao) I’d say I would have dangling knife earrings, where I can easily take off the knife part (maybe some magnetic mechanism? or simply Vongola gear bullshittery) resize the weapons and then dual wield them in battle. Or if I wanna go distance just throw them at the enemy over and over again because the Propagation property just allows me to duplicate my weapons for as long as I feed them my flames.

(Disclaimer: I have not reread the shimon arc in years and I really don’t have the energy for a research dive rn so I’m taking artistic liberties for how a Vongola gear works)

👻Which KHR character is your spirit animal?

This is an easy one! It’s Fuuta! Simply because I resonate so much with these panels, they speak to my soul:

While I don’t really mind the rain unless it’s storming and I need to go places, the wonky part… I know it’s just a translation but I use “my brain is wonky” so much… Fuuta and I… two sides of the same coin…

As for this one… that line is so fucking accurate. I often get ideas either late at night when I want to sleep, when I’m outside on a walk or even when I meditated recently. And by god if I don’t write the exact sentence down at the moment it comes to me, it will be lost to the void. I might be able to remember the basic premise (which is less likely when I have an idea while half asleep) but the phrasing will be gone unless I note it down. It has caused me much frustration and it’s the reason why I write notes on my walks or sacrifice my sleep at times.

So have this quote from my khr reread: “Fuuta is my spirit animal, my soulmate, my darling babyboy.”

🦟 There's been an "accident" and one of Shamal's mosquitos got you good. What deadly disease are you infected with?

Need… to draw… need… need to write…

Creation so near but yet so far. The longing so overwhelming it borders on obsession, alas no words bring joy, no art brings peace. For I have been struck down with maniac creative block, which compels you into wanting to create with your entire being while at the same time preventing any creation from happening via intense burnout and extreme self-doubt. Thus, eventually leading me into a pit of despair which I won’t be able to dig myself out of. RIP me 😔

🎁 bonk "Fuck!" A box has fallen into your lap. It seems like it can be opened via flames. It could be anything: a weapon, a box animal, random junk or radioactive waste some dipshit sealed away for shit and giggles. It's a ✨ mystery box ✨ What will you do with it?

I stare at the box.

The box doesn’t stare back but that was more based on the lack of eyes than anything else.

It appeared out of nowhere, hitting my head with particular viciousness like spiteful God chucked it into the mortal realm in a rage. One wouldn’t expect that a thing that small could do this much damage but the throbbing pain at the top of my skull suggests otherwise.

Now what to do with a mystery box…

Curiosity gnaws at me.

A normal person would throw this thing into the trash. They would get rid of it and move on with their life. Common sense would tell them to not interact with the box that could contain who knows what and might possibly be cursed.

However, I’m a scientist. I’m a scientist that has been handed a funky new thing, which holds countless possible outcomes in its tiny square body.

Naturally, self-preservation is yeeted out of the nearest window and I’m reaching for my notebook, phone and toolbox.

Time to pick the mystery apart.  

Khr ask game 3.0

[milogreer]

DA PIZZA GUYYY (for the send me a character game)

Anonymous asked: guy 🍕

THE ONE AND ONLYYY ↳ send me a character!

My first impression: i actually accidentally skipped the confession audio in chronological order so my first guy audio was “unwinding after a long day” and, like… i was conflicted. i thought he was A LOT. really funny, but a lot. i didn’t hate him but i also probably would’ve been fine without another audio. back to back with that one was “tries helping you sleep” which was still like.. hmm… puzzling feelings out…. and by the end of it when he made a suite life of zack and cody reference i wanted to push him around. so i think i liked him, but it wasn’t anything super serious

My impression now: jesus fucking christ. so like four days after those two ^ i had gone back to the confession audio bc i realized i’d skipped it. i can pinpoint the exact moment i passed the point of no return with guy and it’s at 1:58 when he says “and you know how i feel about a slot, ehh~ 🤪” because i tweeted it with the caption “i do quite like him… kind of annoying” LMFAO this one really brought a lot of character to honey and basically every line was like he was talking about me personally and it was UNREASONABLE. fell very deeply in love with him after this and even though he’s recently fallen from #3 to #5, i still love him very very much

A favorite thing: HE’S SO FUNNYYY humor is the number one thing i look for in people and guy has it in fuckin spades. speaking in references and quotes is something i’m very familiar with so it always makes me giggle when i recognize one 🤭 and his silly little “unhh 🤪” noise after he makes a dirty comment gets me too hehe, i catch myself doing it irl sometimes now 

Least favorite thing: please for the love of god i need him to talk about his creative writing degree. i want to know his favorite genres and i want to hear about his works in progress!! like i’m fine with guy being a less developed character with little to no angst but his degree is established in the timeline and definitely comes through in the way he talks sometimes, so let us have more of that!! i wanna knowww

Favorite interaction they have with another: WHEN HONEY LEAVES HIM SPEECHLESS IN THE CONFESSION AUDIO. obviously the cameos in gavin and asher audios are really good but ohhh my goddd when a yapper is left speechless by a kiss >>> honey’s surprise kisses are everything to me bc they seem very put together and always thinking two steps ahead so when they’re impulsive and it throws guy off his game i go CRAZY

A character that I wish they would interact with more: everyone talks about david/guy bc of david and honey being so similar but what about asher/guy, huh!! what about THAT trainwreck! they would set the building on fire within the hour. 

A headcanon: he is definitely lactose intolerant but he refuses to let it get in the way of the joys of life (pizza and ice cream). he’s also been practicing his signature since he started college for when (not if!) he becomes a best-selling author

A song: who i’m singing to by bug hunter !! i love bug hunter 💕 his stream of consciousness is just sooo guy

An unpopular opinion: while i do want more character development/lore when it comes to guy and honey, i don’t really want any angst out of them … at least not, like. wrt their relationship or major life events or whatever. if honey’s had a bad day at work or is feeling self-conscious or if guy tanks a pitch or he’s struggling with writer’s block then that kinda thing is fine, but i don’t want heavy angst 🫠

[anthosaidsmth]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[sapphire-innit]

MD is a trip in SO many ways lmao

HI!! So it's been a while but I was feeling sad about some minecraft boys and it finally kickstarted me enough energy to do this again. For those who haven’t seen this before everything is tagged “dream smp liveblog” if you wanna look back.

I was thinking about rewatching some of the exile vods again to get back into the right headspace but honestly I’m gonna ride this wave while I can and jump right back into it. Maybe when I catch up fully I’ll go back and watch them all in a marathon and see how much I can make myself cry, who knows

Intro out of the way here we go! VOD: Tommy Speaks to Mexican Dream in Exile

(rp): oh man I forgot how fucked up his skin was…. And hes drowning again

He’s also lashing out at people in chat and then pulling back “Ranboo: are you alright man” ahhh buddy YOU KNOW HES NOT

….You know. Some of the Dread HAS faded but it STILL sucks when Dream logs in.

“And Tubbo hasnt spoke to me…” :(

But hes still trying!!! Hes gonna make a path!!

Lol what is this melon monstrosity lol the youtube praise Tommy just screamed lmaoo

….Dream YOU can get out of VC 2 fuck off

….just the casual “oh yeah sorry” while he blows up the armor….

“DId anyone come to see you while I was gone” I see you, you obsessive fucker

“Weve become better friends” :/

HI MEXICAN DREAM WHAT AN INTRO THEYRE JUST STARING AT HIM LMAO

Yes BULLY HIM MD BULLY HIM

“WHICH ONES HOTTER” cursed cursed cursed

Lol the tone is so absurd Im having a good time

cc!Dream taking the time to pinpoint the particular restaurant its from lmaoo this man is funny

Lol Mexican Dream just chasing Dream away with Spanish YEAH GET EM MD

Tommys so excited to have someone who might live with him omg

“Borderline my owner” ….

…,,,look I just needed a short hand ok Mexican Dream is too long to type lol

,,,,,I dont know how to process Mamacita asdfsdfsd

SOMEHOW GOT MORE CURSED

Cant believe this is canon lore because it gets. SAD?? What is happening right now

This must have been a great tension breaker for people watching live though. A Nice break. Honestly I have mixed feelings about this being my first stream back lol

…..what are those maps huh? Old Memories huh? Tommy seems actually a bit embarrassed lmao

TUBBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TUBBO!!!!!

Asfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdfds these fuckign pictures jesus omg

Somehow this would be more sad if Tommy wasn't blowing out his mic fake crying lmao

…..hey fuck girl Dream though

Is girl Dream canonically Dream or a different character?

“You two are the happiest couple I know” … F for the dream smp where no relationship survives lol Love is Dead

….my heart was racing while Tommy was hiding the rest of the Tubbo pictures…

“Not on my stream you better not!” afdsfdsfsdfsd

Rip Mexican Dream lol Quackity dies to mobs a lot doesn’t he

………..I just got the walls joke F F F

……hi Dream you fucker

HEY BITCH, HEY BITCH BOY!!! YEEEEE TOMMY GET HIM

….. This is why Dream kills MD isn’t it

OUCH DIRECTLY AFTER THAT

MEXICAN DREAM DID JUST JUMP IN FRONT OF TOMMY JEEZ

….. Welp this is turning serious, Tommy is literally trying to distract Dream from chasing MD

The fucking decapitation joke asdfsdfsdf

OH MD WITH THE REAL GEAR!!!

….well that was short lived. As was Mexican Dream, Rest in Pieces I guess

“That was my last friend on the server. And that was his last death” “.......” “WELL WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO TODAY ~ :D”

“I never thought I’d see the day where Mexican Dream is canonically dead”

….. The serious tone is back for sure ….. Its staring into lava and gaslighting time

Literally just killed his friend and Dream already getting Tommy to say they’re friends…

“He died of a drug overdose” “I watched you kill him” “Noo he died of natural causes” >:(

cc!Tommy really canonizing this just to twist the knife

...hes just standing in the fire :(

………begging him for company.. “I don’t think I have very long left” …….

At least Drista will be fun?

“Its fine, its really his rules now” “After tomorrow, then I think its over”.... This is the pillar isn’t it. The pillar is happening soon

“Tommy can you stop going insane please?” - FUNDY PLS LMAO

Strange interlude with Lazar… obviously Tommy is lashing out but I also feel like there is a bit of back-handedness to his interactions as well. Maybe the only one ACTUALLY only reaching out because of pity..?

Well that was a strange and oddly sad interlude. The middle was just the wildest of rides, but the end still managed to ground it back, mostly. 13 did NOT HURT in that regard honestly lol. I feel like I’ve definitely lost some momentum by splitting things up like this -- my recommendation to anyone watching is Definitely to shotgun it if you can do so safely. Its such a well written arc, even and up to including silly streams like this, and its a shame not to have watched it all at once.

STILL! Looking forward to seeing Drista, that little chaos godling has grown on me quite a bit, not least of all BECAUSE she’s a chas godling with creative mode lol. I’ve also heard thats the other “break” exile stream, so probably a bit more lighthearted (not least of all bc idk how much Drista the person actually knows and or cares about her brother’s block game role play canon lmao)

[notanacousticsetcal]

begin again - calum hood

summary - based off of the song “begin again” by taylor swift. because i adore her and her songs are basically perfectly condensed little stories. so here’s what i think of when i hear that song.

mood board

warnings - hints at prior emotional and physical abuse, some emotional abuse flashbacks. toxic relationship.

word count - 1.9k

a/n - i’m not sure how I feel about it. I think I like it. please enjoy!! i love doing these song-based stories though I think they’re so fun to write so ill probably do more if you guys like it? highly highly recommend listening to the song first. or after if you want but definitely listen to it, its so good.

Took a deep breath in the mirror. He didn't like it when I wore high heels, but I do. Turned the lock and put my headphones on. He always said he didn't get this song but I do, I do.

You straightened your dress in the mirror, sucking in an anxious breath, and applied a thin layer of lip gloss. You glanced down at your heels pushing away his voice in your head. The voice that controlled you for so long. You checked the time, 6:14pm. With that, you grabbed your bag and pulled out your keys, locking the apartment door behind you. A foreign feeling washed over you as you walked down the hall. One that felt a little bit like confidence. You hadn’t felt that in a long time. It was quickly replaced by nerves at the prospect of what would be happening in 15 minutes, but you did your best to suppress them, the constant feeling of not being good enough entering your mind once again. 

It was a beautiful day. The sun was still shining though it was getting nearer to the horizon, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. It was a warm 80 degrees. 

He would say it's too hot. He would ask to stay inside. You, however, wanted to enjoy it. And that’s what matters, you reminded yourself. 

You put your headphones on as you walked along the cement sidewalk and shuffled your playlist. A song you used to love started playing softly into your ear and your finger itched to change it. You almost pressed skip, but stopped yourself. What was it he always said?

“I don’t get this song. The lyrics are kind of silly, don’t you think?” He grabs your hand and gives you that little smile he always did. The empty one that made you feel small.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll change it.” You reach up and change the station, falling back into the passenger seat and resting your head against the window, not knowing exactly why you felt so sad. 

He knew how much you loved that song. 

You shook yourself out of your thoughts and tucked your phone away, letting the old song play out. It sparked some of those old feelings in you. The ones you had before you met him. Those feelings of contentment and comfort. Happiness.

“I get this song,” you whispered softly to yourself.

Walked in expecting you'd be late, but you got here early and you stand and wave. I walk to you. You pull my chair out and help me in and you don't know how nice that is, but I do.

You stumbled into the small cafe and began to scan the room for an available small table. You were shocked to see the brunette already occupying a table near the window. Your favorite spot. He had a book out, but you couldn’t read the cover. 

Not wanting to disturb him, you walked up hesitantly, prepared to wait awkwardly until he happened to glance upwards, but he noticed you right away, closing his book and shoving it in his bag. 

“Hey,” he said as he stood up. A smile quickly took over his adorable features. 

“Hi.” You glanced down shyly, and his smile only grew. Before you could move, he reached around behind you and tugged your chair out from its position under the table and gestured for you to take a seat. You stared at him, embarrassingly dumbfounded, before quickly taking the seat and muttering a quick, “thank you.” 

A small, unfamiliar feeling began to grow in your stomach, replacing the pesky nerves from earlier. 

You didn’t know what it meant, but you knew you liked it. 

And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid. I think it's strange that you think I'm funny 'cause he never did. I've been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end.

“And so I ran out of the room, completely covered from head to toe in flour and practically broke down my mom’s door begging for help. She forbade me from baking ever again and I can’t say I blame her.” You smiled proudly as you watched Calum throw his head back and let out the cutest chuckle at your stupid childhood story. 

“That’s fucking hilarious. You’re really funny, you know that?” He looked at you in admiration, the most genuine of smiles on his face. Not a hint of the emotion you used to see in his face when he looked at you. One of apparent disdain and resentment. For what, you didn’t know.

You blushed a deep shade of red. 

“You really think so?” Your intonation says the questions rhetorical, but you genuinely wondered. 

“We hid behind a shower curtain at Kohl’s and won the entire game.” You finish the story up and the entire table erupts in laughter. 

“Max, you never said your girlfriend was such a blast, you should bring her around more often,” one of his friends says from across the table. Max laughs a hollow laugh but you don’t think anyone else picks up on it but you. You’ve gotten pretty good at reading him.

“She’s great, isn’t she?” He grabs your hand. It's a compliment so why does it sound like a threat?

The table continues with their conversation and Max’s jaw sets, his grip on your hand tightening,

“Are you trying to make me look bad?” He whispers. 

You lean back in your chair, dumbfounded at his ridiculous comment. “What are you talking about, Max?”

“Stop trying to show me up, these are my fucking friends,” he spits. He looks angrier than you’ve ever seen him, his face tinted red. You glance around the table to see if anyone else is noticing this. They aren’t.

“I’m not trying to show you up. I’m sorry.” You feel so small. 

“Just shut up, alright? I just want to spend time with my friends without you ruining everything for me.” With that, he turns away, leaving you to hold back your tears.

You didn’t know it, but from that moment on, you would find it hard to talk in group settings. Or to anyone at all. Because whatever he said, you believed. 

And you didn’t want to ruin everything. 

“Hey, you alright?” Calum asked, reaching out his hand gingerly to touch your shoulder. 

You jumped slightly, partially because you were daydreaming and partially because of the jolt of electricity his touch sent up your arm. “I’m sorry, did I scare you, love?” He laughed and you blushed at the pet name.

“Sorry, sorry, I have no idea why I do that sometimes. I’m so sorry.” You repeatedly apologized, growing increasingly flustered. You shook your head in an attempt to brush away the unpleasant memories that plagued your mind.

“Hey, hey,” he reached out and grazed his fingers against your arm again in reassurance and butterflies practically exploded in your stomach, that gut feeling you couldn't identify earlier growing stronger with every passing moment. “You don’t have to apologize. I was just wondering where you went, is all. I’m curious to know what goes on in that pretty head of yours.” Here comes the millionth blush, you thought as you ducked your head down, a cheesy grin on your face. 

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

But on a Wednesday in a café I watched it begin again. 

You said you never met one girl who had as many James Taylor records as you, but I do. We tell stories and you don't know why I'm coming off a little shy, but I do.

“Do you like music?” He asked, resting his chin in his palm, all his attention on you. Something you weren’t used to. It made a pink flush wash over your cheeks.

You weren’t aware at the time, but Calum found it incredibly endearing.

“I love music.”

“What kind of stuff do you listen to?”

“Honestly, I mean it when I say I’ll listen to anything, but I think I most enjoy alternative. All the different sub categories. Indie, Folk, Punk, Rock, you name it, I’ve probably tried it. I think I like how all-encompassing it is. What about you?” Talking that much made you clam up a little bit, worried you’d seem annoying. He didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered, though, as his fingers began to drum softly on the wood of the cafe table, his other hand stroking his chin in thought. 

“I think I’m the same way. I think all genres have some creative element to offer and what I love most about music is the fact that there are so many different kinds.” 

You smiled to yourself, running your finger around the rim of your coffee cup.

“What’re you smiling about?” He teased.

“I just like your passion. That's all.” His expression turned bashful and he gently kicked at your feet under the table. 

Calum wondered about you. About how you would freeze up or disregard compliments. About how you remained hesitant to share your interests. About your unwillingness to really let him in. About your passive nature. He wondered about how you flinched at his touch. That hurt his heart. He felt the urge to make sure you felt safe with him.

Most importantly, he wondered who would’ve ever tried to hurt someone as gentle as you.

And we walk down the block to my car and I almost brought him up but you start to talk about the movies that your family watches every single Christmas and I would talk about that and for the first time what's past is past.

“You told him you were from France?” Calum struggled to get the sentence out as he was laughing hysterically. 

“Yes,” your hands went to cover your face in embarrassment as you let out a pained groan. “I even faked a French accent and everything but ended up getting a detention anyway.”

Calum continued to cry laughing at your story from your formative years. “You were a little rule breaker back then, huh?”

You laughed and kicked a few pebbles on the sidewalk. The breeze had picked up slightly as a storm threatened the skyline. Involuntarily, a shiver traveled up your spine. “I guess I was. No idea how I turned out like the grandma I am.”

He glanced over at you running your hands up and down your arms to ease the goosebumps and immediately started pulling off his leather jacket. You, of course, protested but he insisted and draped the heavy piece of clothing softly over your shoulders, rubbing them affectionately. 

“Thank you,” you said, softly, kicking a few more pebbles on the sidewalk as you made your way to the parking garage. 

The jacket smelled expensive and woodsy and you felt yourself cuddling into it, the scent feeling so welcoming already.

Calum felt giddy at the sight. You were blissfully unaware. 

A comfortable silence filled the evening air and you felt yourself wanting to talk about him. To tell Calum why you don’t let people in. Why he broke you. Calum chuckled to himself and your train of thought dissipated immediately. His laugh practically made you forget your name.

“Have you ever seen A Christmas Story?” 

You smiled warmly. “Of course. I love that movie.” And you felt in that moment, a piece of you slipped away. A piece of you that was never really yours… rather, who you were told to be. That happiness sucking, all consuming, toxic piece of you that left you exhausted and resentful. You decided you didn’t want it anymore. You didn’t need him anymore. You never did, you just didn’t know it.

You were you. And that was enough. More than enough. And it felt so fucking good to start to realize it.

That cool evening on that quiet sidewalk next to that cozy cafe with that smiley brown eyed boy was the night you watched it begin again.

[p---ink]

Stark Contrasts: Chapter Two

Author’s Note: Hey guys, an anon asked for angst, so I gave them a bunch of drama with this chapter. Though I personally wouldn’t classify this as angst, im gonna tag it that way. I think angst is more like a story with a depressing tone, but this is more so dramatic if anything.  But don’t worry I sprinkled in a bit of fluff and some smut to lighten it up a bit. This is a sequel to Stark Contrasts, which I recommend reading first in order to get a background of what led to this chapter. Caution, I used google translate, to add in some French. If any French readers find it offensive or wrong, let me know so I can take it out or edit it. I really hope you enjoy reading this chapter, it took me over a week to write due to writer’s block, but I am pretty happy with the outcome. Once again PLEASE DON’T REPOST MY WORK! 

Summary: Edward Stark realizes the errors of his ways towards the reader, and tries to woo her in order to save their relationship.

Warnings: Smut, Angst, cheating, age gap, daddy kink, etc. 

Song: From Eden by Hozier for the first half, and Run by Hozier for the second. 

Word Count: 11.2k.

Parts: one | two | three | four | five

Chapter Title: Daddy Issues. 

So much had changed since your night with Tony. For one, the entire dynamics of your relationship. Long gone were the unsure lovers with unresolved sexual tension. You two were more confident in your affections now, and this made you reach a new level of comfort within each other and within yourselves. Through the eyes of a stranger, the description would be that of an old—in love, married couple. 

Though he was much older, you were the more mature one. Tony enjoyed doing things just to annoy you. He found your irritation both adorable and sexy. You would get so pouty, and your voice would go up at least three octaves. If he really did his job right, you would end up banging your small fists against his chest, which he thought was the cutest shit in the world. He took pleasure in poking the sides of your stomach, when you were performing tasks that took your attention away from him. “Kitten,” he’d whine when you were entranced in a book, “put that down, and come and play with me.” Then he would lay his head in your lap and talk about absolutely nothing until you noticed him. He only ever drew the line in his endeavors when you were studying. He preferred his head attached to his neck, rather than rolling on the ground. 

Besides always trying to piss you off, he religiously spoiled you rotten. That extravagant lace pale blue body con dress that you saw in your favorite shop? Better believe you’d find it on your bed the next day after Edward left for work and you were getting ready for classes. He would place expensive Cartier bracelets around your breakfast muffins, and bvlgari necklaces around the necks of gifted stuffed animals. He loved buying you luxurious gifts, ranging from earrings to bags. But besides your pleading for him to stop, he knew you struggled to find ways to hide it. If he happened to notice it, explaining to Edward where you got the money to pay for diamond encrusted rings would prove difficult. You were only able to wear your shiny new gifts when you were out with Tony; he found other ways to spoil you however. There were many days, where you had nothing planned, and he’d surprise you with a day at the spa, or a night on the sky in his private helicopter. If it had been up to him, everyone in the world would know you were his, but he just couldn’t risk being seen with you. Because of this fact, he had to become creative with the ways he treated you. From the rooftop dates in secluded towns to the lavish wine tastings alone in Napa, you had experienced more with Tony than you had in your entire life. When he could arrange bullshit business events for Edward to attend, he gave you bullshit reasons to fly with him to Paris, Italy, Greece, and everywhere in between. While Edward had his trips, the two of you had your own. 

Of course you always felt it was too much when he would do all of this. However, no matter how much you begged him to stop spending money on you, he never listened; it was like second nature for him to give you the world and more. He felt it necessary for someone he believed created the moon and stars. 

Most who knew him closely thought he was an asshole. He would often over-talk, dismiss, and challenge others. They always pinpointed on his shortcomings, forgetting that he was a good man in the process. He was a genius billionaire philanthropist, for fuck-sake, who many a time sacrificed his own desires for the wellbeing of others. This is why he always felt guilty. The one thing he kept to himself, the one thing he was not willing to give up, was you, even though you belonged to someone else. 

He just wouldn’t give you up though. Tony adored you. When the rest of the world felt like pollution in his lungs, you were his breath of fresh air. He was intoxicated by you. Enamored in your existence. He saw you as perfect which he knew was impossible in a world full of imperfections. 

He became obsessed with your hair, curious as to how it could defy gravity some days, then dance on your shoulders the next. He needed to know the secret on why the sun resided in your skin, giving it a mahogany glow, with golden undertones.  Your soft full lips, coffee-colored with a tint of pink, were his eternal bliss. It didn’t matter if you smelled of his sex the morning after or if your tired eyes were baggy from a night of studying, he knew you were the most beautiful person he laid eyes on. It was just as simple as that.

Tony wasn’t the only one to change. One could argue you became more bold. Where he showed his love through gifts and adoration, you showed yours through care and touch. “Tony, you’re working too hard. Come to bed now," you’d urge when you’d find him in his study hunched over a stack of papers at his desk. If he had too much on his hands, you would happily take over to help him get done sooner. You were surprisingly stubborn, and would stand firm in your attempts to get him to take care of himself. Though Tony loved annoying you, he hated when you were worried. If he was sick, you’d drop everything to tend to his needs. Whether it was making homemade soup, or driving halfway across town to get a specific type of medicine; you would do it for him no hesitation. It got the point that whenever he wasn’t feeling well, he tried to hide it. In a way being ill made him feel insecure and old. You couldn’t give a shit about those silly worries of his though, because if he needed to be taken care of, that’s what would happen. When nameless idiots over the internet spoke bad on his name, you were the first to draw your sword to defend him. You could never tell him that, but the screen name Tonysbitch99 wasn’t really fooling anyone; how could it when the anonymous face behind the name would say exactly what you would? To you, your love felt minuscule in comparison to his. It’s the reason you hated when he spoiled you. Tony however, appreciated your gestures, and felt that he was the one that was lacking. In reality your love language complemented each other perfectly. His love for you was loud and vocal, whereas yours moved silently. He needed you to ground him, while you needed him to drown out any shadow of a doubt that his actions were genuine. Besides, what could you possibly do for a man that had everything in the world?

Among other things that were now different was the constant sex. You two fucked like rabbits. He once cleared out an entire store just so he could fuck you in your dressing room. Your favorite times were when he didn’t clear the store at all. “Daddy, someone might hear us” you’d moan into his skin while he thrusted into you against a wall. “I want them to.” He would counter, before picking up the pace to build your reaction. On the way home from dining out, you would often ride him in the backseat of his car, the two of you clawing at each others skin desperate to get closer. When you just couldn’t wait to get home from your outings, he would start fingering you underneath the restaurant table while whispering sweet-nothings into your ear; this usually resulted into you getting dragged to the nearest bathroom stall. On nights where Edward was home, he would come up with any excuse to get you alone so he could bury himself into you. The two of you were playing a dangerous game, but Tony was an addict and he didn’t plan on stopping any time soon. 

Perhaps the person to change the most though, was Edward. Whether it was because he learned to work hard for the things he desired in life, or the fact that said things could be taken away from him in an instant, he was changing. Most importantly, he saw that you were changing. Tony and you may have thought him to be a self-absorbed idiot, but he saw the fading love marks that littered your neck. He saw the expensive shopping bags filled with shoes and high-end lace, carefully tucked away in your shared closet as if it was meant to be hidden. The new housekeeper bought your hand-stitched lingerie in with the laundry, smiling to him relishing in how lucky he was. But you didn’t wear that for him. He saw the way you bounced around without a care in the world, even though he had not done right by you for the entirety of your relationship. Who was all of this for? Whose texts were you chuckling at while you laid in bed so late at night? Whose scent was embedded in your bedroom sheets? Whose hickeys bruised the surface of your skin? Who was all of this for? 

It was true that he was somewhat of a different man now. Edward in the past would have accused you of being the biggest slut in the world. This Edward however, knew that he had no room for anger. He had absolutely no room for judgement. He had cheated on you since the genesis of it all. That didn’t change the fact that he loved you. He meant it when he said you were his forever girl, and that you were the best thing to ever happen to him. How could he be so foolish and let you give his love away?

“Dad,” he started, looking up to observe the older man. He and Tony were currently sitting opposite in their breakfast nook. Tony with his legs folded, newspaper in hand, orange juice in the other, hadn’t even looked up to acknowledge him. All that could be heard was a barely audible “Hmm?” 

“I think maybe I need some time off from the company” He stated.

Expecting his father to just be okay with that, he was slightly taken aback when Tony replied, “Why is that?” briefly meeting his eyes before returning to the words on his paper. 

“Well, its actually about Y/N” at this, he had his full attention. 

“What’s wrong with Y/N? Is she sick?” Slight panic dripping in his words.

“Well no but…” he began, trying to find the words to say. 

“But what Edward? Use your words, kid!” He demanded, tone a few notes away from a shout. He saw the surprise in his son’s face, so he straightened himself and said “Sorry. It's just you know how close we are. She’s my best friend.” He wanted to say you were his girlfriend, but best friend reigned true as well. 

“Well,” Edward began again “Our relationship is in shambles. I’m pretty sure she’s cheating on me and I don’t want to lose her. She might be the only woman who’s gonna put up with my shit. And I know she’s genuine because she doesn’t ask for my money. I feel like if I’m here more, I have a chance of rekindling our connection” Edward stated, confiding in his father, hoping to find some sense of relief. He hadn’t realized how hurt he was. Is this how he made you feel? Tony almost felt guilty. But protectiveness over you soon clouded his sense of remorse. Who was he to try and take you away from him? 

He examined his son. The younger boy looked like he hit copy paste on his mother’s genes. They shared the same facial features, down to her high cheek bones, only Edward had raven black hair and dark brown eyes. He was more compared to Robert Pattinson than he was to his own father, even though he looked nothing like either of them. Man, genes were a funny thing. 

Tony thought about his words. It was true that you were humble and any other woman with an ounce of self-respect would have hit the door running the minute they found out how sleazy Edward had been. You almost did, until you met his father.

He put down his newspaper, turned to Edward and took in a sharp breath before saying, “She is taken care of, so you have nothing to worry about. There isn’t any unknown man coming in from off the street sniffing around your woman.” Tony chose his words carefully. They were cautiously crafted so that he technically told the truth. He was many things, but he hated to be called a liar. 

He read the uncertainty in Edward’s face, then continued his case. “In all honesty, Ed, you know I need you at your desk. You wanted this, are you really gonna let your insecurities get in the way of that? If so, maybe I should find someone better to take your—” 

Quickly interrupting his rambles, “No dad, listen. I don’t want to give up my seat. I’ll just have to find some other way to solve our issues.” 

“Exactly what issues do you have?” Tony pressed, eyebrows knitting together. 

“Don’t ask me how I know, but she’s cheating on me. I’m sure of it.” He confirmed, staring blankly into his father’s eyes. What does know? Tony thought to himself. Does he know it’s me? “Besides why are you getting so defensive?” Edward challenged. “It almost sounds as if you’re mad.”

“It’s just I know what kind of girl she is.” He defended, throwing his hands up and sitting back in his seat a bit. “She wouldn’t cheat on the man she loves. And I’m sure she cares about what you think.” Taking in his words after a moment, Edward chuckled to himself. His dad was right, you had to care about him. Why else would you still be here despite how much he had put you through. 

“Thanks dad. I think I was worried about nothing for a second there.” In the back of his mind, he still knew you were sleeping around, but now he was certain that it was all done as a cry for help. You just wanted his attention. He felt silly. He smiled to himself, then to his father. Tony returned a weak smile; the rest of his face couldn’t fake the empty sentiment. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, you came in to distract them. You came bounding down the staircase on your way to make some breakfast before your trek to school. Both of the men instantly averted their attention away from each other, to instead lay it onto you. 

It was a cool fall day, so you were wearing a cropped white turtleneck that you paired with a pleated floral skirt. Long tan thigh high boots hugged your brown legs in just the right way, and you wore a simple (but expensive) necklace that Tony purchased for you. You used to care, but now you thought nothing of it since you knew Edward never paid any attention to you. Today happened to be one of those days that you were wrong. While Edward silently fumed over your choice of jewelry, Tony thought of new ways to violate you. With your consent, of course. 

Focused on the iPad in your hands, you failed to notice anyone else in the room until you heard the creak of a wooden chair. Looking up from your device, you were greeted by the men of the house eyeing you meticulously. “Oh sorry. Good morning” you smile, shy from the sudden attention.

“Good morning sweetheart” “–Morning babe.” Tony and Edward say simultaneously, surprising each other, and surprising you. As they say it,  their necks snap towards each other for just a second and their expressions match; furrowed brows and clenched jaws. Your eyes widen for a second before you continue on with your business. 

Before swallowing the awkward silence, Tony begins, “You’re down here pretty early. Do you have something important to do?” 

“I don’t have anything planned, I just wanted to wake up early to get some things done before class.” You returned, searching the cupboards.  

Upon hearing your plans to do nothing, Edward sparked up an idea. He cleared his throat, and rose from his seat to hesitantly trudge over to you. At the moment, you were standing on your toes trying to reach your favorite coffee mug in the top of the cupboard. Tony always placed it there to watch you struggle, just like he was doing right now. While taking pleasure in how cute you looked bouncing up and down, he hadn’t noticed Edward leave from his seat until he blocked his view. He shadowed your form to place a hand over yours bringing down your mug. Slightly startled, by his touch, you dropped it. It fell into his hand before it could shatter on the floor. “I’m sorry for scaring you.” He chortled, turning his lips into his famous sexy grin. It did nothing but repulse you. 

“Its fine.” As you take your mug and turn away from him to pour your coffee, Edward wraps his hands around your hips to turn your body towards him. You were now facing Tony, but even if you weren’t you would be able to sense the daggers he was throwing into Edward’s back. His orange juice glass was on the verge of shattering, and the wood on the table threatened to splinter his fingers, from the grip he had on it. He wasn’t supposed to touch you. 

“So I was thinking” Edward began, dragging his thoughts out. “Since you don’t have any plans, I’m taking you out tonight.” You mentally cursed yourself for going into detail about your day in front of him. Mouth agape in utter disgust, you were at a loss for words. Tony could think of a few he wanted to say; however, but he stayed silent. Edward took your silence as surprise. In his eyes, you were happy to finally be spending some time with him. Everyone just stared at each other. Edward at you, you at Edward, and Tony back and forth between the both of you. “I can tell you’re happy.” His hands began to roam up and down your sides as he spoke. He drew a line up your spine, and pressed his lips to your ear before whispering, “Make sure to wear something sexy—”

“Edward sweetie, as the boss, don’t you think you should be at work bright and early.” Tony advised. Saving both you, and Edward. He worked very hard to ensure his words didn’t fall through gritted teeth.

Without taking his eyes off of you, Edward rolled them and smirked at you, as if you too were frustrated with Tony for cock-blocking. He quickly pecked your lips and went to grab his workbag. Your eyes followed his movement about the room. Just before exiting the house, he turned back to you to say “Be ready at seven” and then he turned the knob to leave.  

You, Tony, and silence were all alone together. You didn’t dare look at him, but the side of your face was burning from the glare he had on it. Acting as if nothing happened, you turn back around to prepare your day.  

Still staring in your direction, it was now Tony’s turn to get up. He leaped from his seat to take long strides towards you. He stopped just short of where you were standing, waiting for you to acknowledge him. You tried to busy your hands with your current task, cracking eggs into a bowl, waiting for him to break the silence; he was waiting for you to do the same. The sound of egg yolks hitting the surface of the bowl, followed by the stirring of a whisk were the only noises to be heard in the kitchen. 

“Yes, my love?” You ask after a few moments, the quiet becoming too unbearable. 

“Why aren’t you looking at me?” He replied, eyes boring into the side of your head. 

“Tony what are you talking about. I’m busy.” You sigh, growing annoyed. 

“Well fine, if you won’t look me in the eyes, can you at least answer me this? What. The Fuck. Was That?” He asked, soaking his words in drama. He placed his hand flat onto the counter awaiting an answer.

“I honestly don’t know.” You answer truthfully, still whisking your eggs. 

“Well did you two make up?” Tony pressed.

“No, I guess—”

“Well then why did he kiss you?”

“Tony, I don’t know wh—”

“Well then why don’t you know?”

“Could you let me finish!” You shouted before giving him your undivided attention. Your outburst both surprised and shut him up. “I don’t know why he kissed me. I don’t know why he asked me out on a date. We did not make up, because as usual we don’t say a word to each other. Fucking hell, this has been the first time in a year since we’ve been in the same room for longer than a minute, besides when we’re asleep.” You end your rant with this “All that I know is this, I don’t care. I’m not going on that date because I would rather spend the night with you. To be completely frank, I think I’d rather spend the night in a closet with murderous clowns, than go on a date with your shitty son.” With that, you walk away to aggressively click on the stove to begin cooking your breakfast. 

“Well,” Tony began, only slightly taken aback. “I know he’s shitty, but you didn’t have to say it. He is still my son, so I’m the only one who reserves the right to call him a shitty.” He chuckled, leaning opposite to you against the counter, looking down to observe your actions. 

“And to that I say, when you do a piss-poor job at raising a man to respect women, then anyone reserves the right to call them shitty.” You comment, meeting his eyes with a small smile before turning back to your  cooking. 

Tony smirked at your remark. “Blame his mom, because I’m a total feminist.” He grasped your chin to turn it towards him, bringing his face down to kiss yours before abruptly stopping. He took a paper towel from the bar, and began wiping your lips, earning a glare from you, that soon turned into a fit of laughter. His smirk only grew wider at his successful attempt to diminish your anger. 

“You make me sick.” You roared, calming down from your fit, before wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him in for a deep kiss. When you were ready to let go, Tony wasn’t. Ignoring his needy looks, you turned back around to your task at hand. Like that, the mood changed from light-hearted, to serious in an instant. Unsatisfied, Tony moved from his spot at the counter to wrap his arms around your middle, pulling you flush against his chest. 

“You know I could get used to you yelling at me. It really turns me on” he said, rocking from side to side which made you sway in his arms. 

“Babe.”

“Hmm.” He hummed, rubbing a finger down your spine the same way Edward did earlier, only this time instead of chills and shivers, you felt warm tingles. 

Not now.” You warned, already knowing where this was going. He pushed a bang behind your ear to admire your neck.

“Why not. Can’t you skip school for just one day?” Tony responds, fanning his lips over your ear.

“ No. No I cannot.” You reply, trying to overlook the kisses he planted against your neckline, and the traveling hands against your curves. 

“Then just be a little late.” He said, palming your chest, taking his time to massage the fleshy mounds. You lose your composure as he brings a hand down your sternum to dip underneath your skirt. You both groaned, him at how wet you were, and you at how good his hands felt. “Besides I know you wanna stay a little longer.” His voice was shaky and husky, and he was about to snap, which made your knees like jelly. 

“Tony, please.” You were going for stern, but your demands came out in labored pants. You felt his hardened member pressed against your ass and back, and you knew if you didn’t stop him now, there was no way you were leaving the house any time soon. You unfastened his hands from your waist, and pushed him away from you before continuing your cooking. You cleared your throat to say “Maybe later.”

Seemingly defeated, Tony started with a sigh “Fine. No more teasing. But I’m hungry.” 

“I have time to make you some French toast or pancakes.” You respond, placing your cooked breakfast on a plate and turning the stove off. 

“I think I’ll have you instead.” He says, before planting one more kiss beneath your ear.

“No thanks love.” You chuckle. 

“I wasn’t asking,” he retorted, before hoisting you up by your knees and placing you on the island away from the stove. You laugh in the process, knowing that this was inevitable. Upon sitting you down, his lips were on yours in an instant. Hurried sloppy kisses, covered your mouth and jaw as he explored your body with his fingers. As he traced his the index along your collarbone he realized he found new things to worship every time. His lips were hot and wet on your skin, both burning and soothing everything in their path. Breaking the kiss for just a moment, he brushed passed your shoulder  to push everything that was on the kitchen-top’s surface to the ground. 

“You’re cleaning that up this time.” You exhaled, before grabbing his face to bite his bottom lip, something you knew drove him crazy. 

“Fuck it princess, it’s worth it.” He groaned, before roughly pushing you down, while being careful enough to not injure your head. He reached up your thighs and under your skirt, to pull your panties down your legs and over your boots. 

“Let me take these off” you suggest, lifting the band to your shoes, but he raised his hand up to stop you, eyeing you through his tousled brown locks. 

“I like them on.” He pressed a gentle kiss against your exposed skin, before saying “I’m keeping these by the way.” in reference to your lacy black underwear, before stuffing them in his back pocket. He bent down to pepper love-marks along each leg before lifting your skirt to place a soft kiss against your entrance. There was no time for him to be a tease, so he quickly dived his tongue between your folds, and he began writing his full name into your lips. The name Anthony Edward Stark felt both long and short, as it was being etched into your core. Shocks of what felt like electricity rippled through your spine, as your pussy purred to his beckoning. You were a fucking mess. He let a string of spit fall from his lips and onto yours, before flattening his tongue to gather the mixture, slurping and suckling in the process . Your eyes started to roll to the back of your head, until Tony pinched your clit. This became his favorite signal for you to give him your attention, the jolt always conflicted your pain and pleasure receptors. You loved and hated eye contact. That feeling of vulnerability sent your mind into a frenzy. But Tony refused to let you look away; he was obsessed with the way your face looked when you came undone. He began making the lewdest sounds against your cunt, tonguing it in the same way he’d do your mouth. You made a mess of his face. Your juices were dripping down your folds and in between your cheeks; what his tongue didn’t catch spilled onto the island. With his face buried in your box, his nose would lightly brush your clit, sending you straight into ecstasy. 

You slightly squeezed around his head, only to have him pry your legs open. His tongue fucked your hole, making you clench around it.  You were already so close, but Tony wanted this to last—that way, you’d be bursting at the seems by the time he was finished with you. “Someone wants to be fucked senseless, doesn’t she?” He asked as he raised up, licking his lips. Smirking down at you, he lifted your sweater up to your chin, in order reveal your happy breasts. He then pulled your bra under them to get a full view of the spread.  

Dragging you closer to the edge, he massaged his fingers into your pussy, running them through your lips, while watching you squirm underneath his touch. He placed a hand between your thigh, kneading the immediate area with his thumb. He was enjoying the view, but knew that he only had a few minutes left; so, he pulled his pants down, coated his length with the hand he previously used to massage you with, and sunk into you no warning. 

You took in a sharp breath, tears welling in your eyes and chest rising and falling. As many times as you had been with him, you still weren’t used to his size. “Shit, kitten. I’m sorry, I thought you were ready for me” he swore, grunting at the feel of you. Despite the overwhelming pleasure, he wouldn’t move until you said it was okay. 

When the pain subsided pleasure quickly took over. You looked him in his eyes to say “Please wreck me baby.” He crooked his neck to look at you sideways for a second as if to ask ‘are you sure?’, dick twitching inside of it. You were more than sure. Then, before you were able to comprehend he snapped his hips forward, drilling into you at a brutal pace. Your moans and pants turned into screams, and you braced your hands against his abs. He grabbed your wrists to steady himself, so that he could thrust deeper into you. He loved this shit. The way your chest bounced. Your broken moans and cries. Even the expressions you wore, were enough to spur him on. 

“I can do this all day!” He growled, relentlessly hammering into you. He thought your tight little cunt was euphoria. At this point you felt like he was in your stomach, threatening to go further. You felt your dam about to break once more, but he was a step ahead of you. 

He sat you up and pulled you off the counter, quickly turning you around, ridding you of your orgasm again. Frustrated, you wiggled your ass, and pressed it against him, desperate for his touch. This earned you a harsh slap against the cheek. “Don’t play that game with me, unless you don’t wanna walk for a week” he warned before digging his nails into your skin. Within a second after that, his cock vanished behind your walls, instantly hitting your g-spot. You yelped throwing your hands back to cushion the slaps between his thighs and your own. Tony grabbed them, and like before,  used them to pull you back onto him. “No, no princess. Take all of me baby. I want you to feel it all.” He growled, slamming his frustrations into you. The cabinet doors below you were shaking from the impact of your thighs. Your nipples, slid across the cool countertops as Tony stroked in and out you. You laid your head down on the counter, strength leaving you as he rocked you back and forth.

To reach a better angle, he grabbed one of your knees, lifting it to lay beside your hip against the counter. He then leaned over, so that your back was against his chest. “This pussy is mine, do you understand?”

“Yes daddy.” You whimper. 

“I’m sorry what was that?” He challenges, grabbing a fistful of curls to yank, lifting you both back up.

“I said yes daddy” you shout, approaching your orgasm once more. 

Tony roughly grabs your chin to turn it towards him, pressing his forehead against yours. “I can tell you’re close princess. I can feel you getting tighter around me. But good girls always ask before they cum. Beg for it.” He whispered. 

You knew he wasn’t joking, but you wore your worried expression on your face. “Don’t be shy kitten. It’s just you and me.” He assured, lightly kissing your lips as he spoke. 

“Please let me cum Tony.” 

“Do you think you deserve to?” He questioned, suddenly ticked off from Edward’s bold gestures earlier. His lips ghosted over yours and he began slowing his moments, to really pound himself into your core. “You’re a filthy little slut for letting another man touch you.” On any other occasion, his words would have pissed you off, but in this moment they just made you wetter. 

“I only want you to touch me daddy, I’m sorry” You whine, throwing your ass back onto his cock, determined to take your orgasm, but wary of the consequences if you do. 

He gripped your neck with one hand, and grabbed a tit with the other. He fondled and massaged the breast, while applying pressure with the hand on your neck. He places his face to the side of yours, chin hairs tickling your cheek.“Do you promise to never let that happen again? Hmm?’” He presses, squeezing your breast and tweaking your nipple. All of this was happening while he was continuing his movements in and out of you.

“I promise baby, please just let me cum.” You screamed. You were losing your composure, and your vision was becoming blurry from tears. He had denied you one too many times, and you didn’t know if you could hang on any longer. You were pleading with him at this point. 

“Cum” was all he said, as you coated his dick in your juices. Tony followed you not a second after, shooting his load up, feeling it come oozing down his member. He bit into your shoulder-blade to suppress his moans. You however lets yours come out in an almost embarrassing shriek. You had no shame though, Tony had brung you out of your shell many, many orgasms ago. 

Now a sweaty mess, he unsheathed himself, and leaned down to place a kiss on your back before readjusting your sweater and skirt. He then turned to readjust himself. 

“I know you’re gonna hate what I am about to say,” he warned, buckling his belt and bracing himself for your reaction, “but you should go on the date.”

“What, why?” You questioned, turning to face him, confused by his suggestion. Was he tired of this? Was he tired of you?

“I just don’t want this to end. So…to not raise any suspicion, you should go out, and have fun.” He stated before averting his gaze. He clearly didn’t want you to, but he knew you needed to. 

“Tony I’m not going.” You stated, fixing your hair and walking away to collect your items for school. “He didn’t even ask me, he told me. So I don’t want to do this.” You pout. 

Trailing behind you slowly, he asked this question “So if he had asked you, would you have been more willing to go.” You were kneeling down to adjust the straps on your school bag at the moment, but you stopped to survey him. His hands were buried in his pockets, and his shoulders were squared. He wasn’t the usual sure of himself cocky man you’d come to know, for a minute he seemed insecure. 

“Tony, I wouldn’t want to go period.” You confirmed, raising up to stand at his level. You unplanted his hands from his pockets, and clasped them to your own, stroking his knuckles. 

“Sweetheart,” he started. He let go of your hands to so that he could cup your cheeks. “I think you have to baby.”

“Ugh.” You loudly scoffed, letting his hands go to walk back into the kitchen and grab your breakfast. Your eggs were cold now, so you searched for an apple and a granola bar instead,  as Tony continued his case. 

“Listen, Edward knows about us. Well, not us specifically, but he knows you’re with someone. Without him, there is relatively no reason for us to continue…us. It would look bad if we still remained close with each other if your relationship with him ended.”

“Tony I’ve been living here for over a year now. I think it would be even weirder if I just cut off ties with you completely” you sneered, violently flinging the refrigerator door open in search for the string cheese. Tony mirrored your movements, and slammed the door back. 

“Sweetpea, could you just think about it.” He pleaded, while talking with his hands and peering down at you with his chocolate orbs. Butterflies started to flutter in your stomach, at the new pet name he assigned you. He always tried out different ones for different situations, and this one just happened to fit this one. “We always knew this was a difficult relationship. Even if you guys ended on good terms, dating me right after would not be the greatest idea. At least if you’re with Eddy, we have more time to figure things out. Please.” 

Contemplating his words, you knew he was right. But that didn’t change the fact that you hated it.  “Fine. I’ll go on this stupid ass date.” As you said it, the word date was laced in venom, venom that you wished to reserve for Edward’s veins. “How are you okay with all of this though? Whats your secret?”

He thought about it for a moment, and then replied, “I’m not” before pursing his lips and looking down at his feet.  Weirdly enough, you needed to hear that. Knowing that you both were going through this dread together oddly made you feel better. You grabbed his chin to lean in for a passionate kiss. Your taste from earlier still lingered on his tongue. 

“Everything is going to be fine.”  You assured, gazing up at him. 

“Ya, I know.” He smiled, before looking down at his watch. “Well not everything, because you’re late for class again.”

“Shit!” You screeched. He watched as you sprinted through the door after scrambling to grab your stuff, all before he could even blink. 

“I love you, Y/N.” He said to himself, as he waved at your fleeting car. 

——————————————————

“How does this one look?”

“No. No. No. That slit is entirely too high!”

“Tony, it’s literally below the knee. And you’re the one that chose it!”

“Too much skin. Next.”

“Yea well he has seen me naked before so.” You mumbled. 

“What was that? Yea maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. You were  right kid, take it off and we’ll come up with an excuse as to why you couldn’t go.” He was worried. He became worried after the first dress. Though he would never admit it, you knew when he was upset. He would place his glasses on his face and get to talking faster than normal. 

“Baby, like I said earlier, everything is going to be fine. Trust me.” You assured, as you went to get changed into the 7th dress of the night. 7:00 o’clock was approaching faster than normal. You had been home for a few hours now, so you and Tony mentally prepared yourself. He drew you both a hot bubble bath to calm your nerves, but it didn’t do much for them.  As the time got closer, it got harder to convince each other, that this was fine. At the moment, it was your turn to persuade Tony.

You came back into the room, in a flirty fit and flare dress. Though the dress was less than a foot away from your ankles, it hugged your curves perfectly. “Hell no. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” He shouted. He had crossed and uncrossed his legs so many times at this point, you thought he’d pull a muscle. He got up to pace the room. You had never seen him worry this much. 

You met him from across the room, skipping to stand behind him. As you hugged his back, you stood on your tippy toes to press your chin on his shoulder. “Honey,” you cooed, “it might help if you told me exactly what you were afraid of.”

“I’m a grown ass man Y/N, there isn’t much that I’m afraid of.” He retorted. 

Aware of the sudden attitude, you reply “Fine, maybe afraid is the wrong word. Let’s say nervous. What’s got you so anxious?”

He placed his hands on top of yours  before sighing, “I don’t want him to steal your heart. But I also don’t want my son to be hurt. I really don’t want to lose you, but I also feel like I am being selfish towards you both.” He turned around after making his last point, entangling your fingers together. “Most of all, I don’t wanna lose you.” 

You placed your head on his chest and chuckled, the gesture sending small vibrations through him.“You said ‘I don’t wanna lose you’ like three times already.”

“Well I don’t. And you know what, who gives a fuck about me being selfish. I am that way when it comes to you. And don’t I get to be?” He asked the question more to himself than to you. 

“Yes pumpkin.”

“I know. I mean, I’ve failed him as a parent you know? If he doesn’t have the decency to appreciate someone as wonderful as you, then I have failed him. I don’t know what to do. I usually do, but I just don’t this time.” You had never seen Tony be so vulnerable before. Over the past year, he had seen you in so many compromising situations that would have made any other man run straight for the heels. But you seldom saw him in those same compromising situations. This was new, and while you always liked new, this was scary. You feared, that he saw an end to this before you could. 

“It is going to be okay.” That was all you could say. He sighed, and placed a kiss against your forehead before speaking. 

“Y/N,  I’ve been wanting to tell you,—”

“Dad! Y/N!” You heard Edward yell. You two quickly removed yourself from each other, just before he could make the room. You ran back into your bathroom to slip into another gown. When Edward came in, he was surprised to find his father in his room. “I was looking for you, but I didn’t expect to find you in here.” He began changing out of his work clothes, to freshen up. 

“Well yea, she asked me to help her pick a dress.”

“I hope you helped me out here. I am trying to get laid tonight.” He admitted, winking at his dad. Tony just stared at him blankly. Taking his expression as disapproval for his choice of word, he awkwardly laughed, “Oh come on dad, don’t get stiff on me now, you know you taught me everything I know.” He began changing into his date attire, before realizing something was missing. He went to look in your shared bathroom. 

Attempting to walk in, the door was immediately slammed back into his face. He was embarrassed that it happened in front of Tony, who was currently chuckling on your bedroom couch. Regaining his cool, he knocked on the door. “Babe, I need to get in for a sec.”

“I’m in here.” You replied, with short words and short tones. 

“Yea babe, I know you’re in there, the thing is I need to be in there too.” He was annoyed, but you were already pissed about going out with him. Especially since he interrupted his dad from earlier. What was he gonna say? You thought. 

“Well you’re gonna have to fucking wait Edward.”

“Listen, if this is about your dress, I’m gonna be happy with whatever you put on for me okay?” He assured. 

“No, Edward. This is about me not wanting you to see me naked.” You corrected. “Now you could either wait, or forget about the entire date.”

“Well, I guess that means you’re not getting laid tonight.” Tony teased, fighting the shit-eating grin, that threatened to plaster his face. It got harder when Edward looked at him with the biggest death-glare .

Why does the bastard seem happy about that? he thought to himself. “Whatever. There’s always next time.” He stated matter-of-factly, not noticing the joy that left his father’s eyes. “Do you have any cologne that I can borrow?” He was still annoyed but it was fleeting. You two were not going to ruin his night. He would have you by the end of it. 

“Uh, yea I left it in the downstairs bathroom, follow me.” Edward found it hard to read Tony at the moment. As mentioned before, the older man rarely lost his composure. Those closest to him, knew his ticks, but by no means were Tony and Edward close. Father and son, maybe, but they would never be friends. Edward always took to his mother, listening to the poison she spewed in his ears from the time he was old enough to understand. To him, Tony was a terrifying, self-entitled, know-it-all, who never granted mercy tho anyone, even those he loved.  

Up until recently, he saw that that wasn’t true, or if it had been it was in the past now. As he followed him down the staircase, they reached the bathroom where the cologne resided. Tony, trying to play nice, handed Edward a tiny glass bottle. The bottle itself probably cost over a thousand dollars, what did that say about the tawny brown liquid inside. “Thanks man.” Was all he said, as he carelessly took it. 

“Hey, you be careful with that! It cost more than your entire outfit.” 

He spritzed the liquid onto his collar and wrists before speaking “This smells really good. What is this again? I feel like I’ve smelled this before.”

“Forget about the damn cologne Edward. We need to talk about Y/N.” His demeanor turned serious, as he addressed you. 

“What is there to talk about?” He questioned, tousling with his hair in the mirror.

“She’s fragile right now, and I just don’t think you should force yourself onto her.”

“Woah, woah, woah. I’m not a rapist.”

“That’t not what I’m saying at all. The very fact that that’s the first thing your mind jumped to is alarming to say the least. Whatever, anyway, I’m saying that you can be a little aggressive with your approach. She doesn’t appreciate your selfish nature.”

“Selfish? Did she tell you that?” He stopped with his hair and eyed him through the mirror. 

“All that I am saying is that you may win more points with her, if you ask her about what she wants.” Tony didn't even know why he bothered trying to help him. In all honesty, he was just trying to to help you.

“Dad, you just let her call me selfish? I am your son, shouldn’t you care more about what I think?”

“You literally just proved her point. And shouldn’t you want to be more attentive to your girlfriend’s needs?”

“Why are you two so close? Don’t you think that’s a little weird?” He inspected his father skeptically. He turned around to slowly look him up and down before continuing “Whose side are you on?”

Tony stood firm. He made sure to show no sign of weakness. “I’m on her’s.” His eyes burned a hole through Edward, and the younger boy bit back his anger to cower his head away from his father’s menacing look.

“Let’s go, before I change my mind.” They both perked their heads up to look at you standing through the bathroom’s doorway. 

You were wearing a silk mauve spaghetti-string top, paired with pearl colored high-waisted wide-leg dress pants; those were held together by a simple Gucci belt. A chic baggy blazer that matched the pants graced your arms, and three-tier pearl earrings dangled from your lobes. Your perfectly manicured cream colored nails clutched a large white wristlet against your person. You sported a curly shoulder-length bob, and your makeup was done to look natural. On your feet were a pair of costly looking suede heels whose color resembled your top; their points were so sharp they could puncture skin. You looked more ready for a business meeting, than a date. 

“Wow babe” Edward started, eyeing you in detail. “You look great, but I thought you were gonna wear something a bit more comfortable.”

“Well Edward, you said you would be happy with whatever I chose.”

“I mean I am but—”

“You look amazing.” Tony interjected, eyeing you a little too long for Edward’s liking. 

“I mean don’t act so surprised, I am a boss ass bitch” You respond feeling shy all of a sudden. You broke eye contact to bite your bottom lip and examine your feet. How could your stomach still swarm and your face still heat up after all this time. 

He cleared his throat before saying, “Right well, you guys have a date to attend. I hope you have fun” He turned to Edward to adjust his collar, “But not too much fun.” He left it at that for a moment before adding, “Because ya know, I’m too pretty to be a granddad right now.” He patted his chest and turned him so that he could push him out of the door.

He stopped you before you could follow, to say in a hushed tone,  “You look beautiful. Hurry back please.”

“I’ll try. Don’t worry.” You gave him a small smile, before turning to leave. 

He grabbed your hand to whip you around and slam the door. He pressed you against it, hands on either side of your head. 

“Tony what the fuc—”

“Say the word and we can call it off.”

“Honey, at this point it’s too late. He’d know something is up if we did that.”

“Do you think I give a flying fuck what he thinks. Come on just say the word.”

“Tony, I am going. We won’t be long. So don’t worry.” You grabbed his cheeks to peck his lips. 

He released his hands from their spot on the door and reopened it to a confused Edward. “Sorry.” He directed towards him. “It looked like she had a gaping hole in her pant leg. Couldn’t let it ruin your date.” He was always a terrible liar, and as he said it, he watched your retreating movements to the vehicle. 

“Thanks for looking out,” Edward said sarcastically before following your steps. He tried to open it for you, but you ensured that you could open the door yourself in a cold manner.

When you got into the car, you prepped yourself for the long night before you. If you had looked back at Tony’s expression, you may have never left with Eddy. 

———————————————————————

Shit. You thought, as you pulled up to the restaurant. Of course it had to be one that you and Tony frequented a lot. Every time they saw him, they called you both by name. You should have known something was up when the drive took an hour outside the city. 

“Eddy, why don’t we go somewhere else.” You say as you slide down in your seat. “This place looks expensive.”

“I want to try this. I’ll take care of the bill.” He was being short with you now. It was due to the lack of communication during the entire drive. No matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t get more than two words out of you. You almost felt bad, but that diminished when you saw him shamelessly checking out a girl who was passing by your car. You didn’t even care about it, you were just annoyed that he did it in your presence even though it was his idea to take you out. 

“Fine.” You retort, unbuckling your seatbelt to beat him inside. You felt that if you got in before him, you could warn the staff not to mention Tony, or your being there before. Too bad Edward’s legs were way longer than yours. 

“Slow down, I’m the one who made the reservations.” He ran up to walk beside you. He sensed you sense him checking the other woman out, and took your sudden mood shift as jealousy. “Don’t worry baby, she wasn’t even that pretty.” He snaked an arm around your waist, which made you recoil away. He opened the glass doors for you, and you were immediately embraced with the familiar smell of French cuisine. The ambiance was soft and warm, and the lights were dim as golds and yellows lay in the scenery. Being here without Tony wasn’t the best, but at least you felt somewhat at home.  

As the two of you approached the maître d’s desk, the jolly man lit up at the sight of you. Samuel was the sweetest, and sassiest person you had ever come to know. The fact that he could be both was why you loved him.

“Aww ma cherré! C'est si gentil à vous de nous rejoindre ce soir!” Samuel exclaimed. He was elated to see you since it had been a while. 

“Tu m'as manqué Samuel!” You were happy to see him as well and expressed how much you missed him. 

“You two know each other?” Edward inserted, causing Samuel to focus his attention on him. 

“Well no. I just read his name tag.” You said nervously.

“Qui est-ce?” Samuel asked, trying to figure out who Edward was. He was currently sizing him up. This wasn’t his precious Tony.

“What did he say? I knew I should have gone somewhere, where they speak English” Edward complained. 

Samuel mumbled something about Edward being an entitled prick, which made it hard for you to suppress a smile. “He asked what was the reservation name under.”

“Ahh, it’s under Stark! I am the one who called ahead 3 hours ago!” Edward shouted, like the asshat he was.

“Monsieur, I understand English. I’m from New York.” Samuel stated with an attitude. “However speaking French helps set the tone for this environment. Also, if you yell at a person who you presume to speak a different language, it makes you look like an obnoxious prick.” You couldn’t suppress your smile this time. 

“Is it customary to speak like that to your guests too?” Edward challenged, making both you and Samuel’s smile falter. 

“Non monsieur.” He replied, the confidence from before had left now. 

“Yea I didn’t think so. I would like you and your staff to speak English to me for the rest of the night.” He informed, a menacing smirk playing on his face. “I should see that you take care of those who give you service.” 

“Yes sir. Allow me to lead you to your table.”  You tugged on the cuffs of his jacket to look at him with sorry eyes. “ Ahh Mrs. Y/L/N, will you be taking your usual spot on the roof—”

You looked at him with wide eyes before you said “Monsieur!” You shouted. You guys had stopped, “Could you show me to the restroom! I am sorry I cannot hold my bladder any longer.”

“But you already know—” Samuel you idiot! You thought to yourself. 

“Restroom please!”

“Okay okay, just a minute!” Your outbursts were out of character, so he was just now realizing something was wrong. “You can sit here sir. Right this way ma’am.”

When you two got  out of earshot, that’s when you tackled him with a hug. “I am so sorry he treated you like that.”

“It’s not your fault, my dear. But who is that son-of-a-bitch.”

You rolled your eyes and scoffed before saying, “That’s Tony’s son. We are dating.”

“Wait! No what happened with you and Tony!”

“Nothing, we are fine…we just met at the wrong time.” 

“Ahh, does he know that you are dating his son?” You basically just told Samuel that you were dating two people who were blood-related, and he didn’t bat an eye-lash. 

“Of course he knows! Edward doesn’t though, so if it isn’t too much to ask, please tell everyone to act as if they never met me. I would really appreciate it.”

“Anything for my favorite girl! You stupid bitch, I can't believe you didn't tell me all this juicy gossip.” He winked at you before leading you back to your table. 

You sat down in the booth and let your blazer fall from your arms. All of a sudden you felt nervous, but determined to play nice. Edward’s irritation took on a new level, and you forgot that you were supposed to be “rekindling” your relationship. All you had done this entire evening was make it worse. You almost forgot how to talk to him, being alone only made things worse. He was sitting opposite to you, examining his menu. And when he spoke it was cold. 

“I took the liberty to order us some drinks while you were off talking with that server.” So he knew you had lied about the bathroom, yet his eyes hadn’t left his menu. Maybe he was trying to decipher the French, and wasn't really worried about you.

“I don’t drink anymore.” You declared.

“So much has changed about you. Like you speak French now, when did that happen.” His voice was like liquid turned into stone. Hard but smooth at the same time. 

“I took an online class.” You lied. Tony was the one to teach you. “I have an internship in Paris that requires me to learn it.” That part was true though

“Does that internship pay you ahead of time?” He glanced up from his menu to meet your gaze.

“It doesn’t pay me at all.” Your brows furrowed. Where was he going with this? 

“Oh. You know I just thought it did, since you can afford Gucci, and what is that?” He asked referring to your wristlet “That’s a Valentino right? Oh and let’s not forget the Louboutin’s on your feet!” He was losing his cool now. 

“Eddy you’re gonna cause a scene. Lower your voice.” You hiss. 

Fortunately your waitress came over to distract him for a second. “Bonjour, je m'appelle Elise. Je serais heureux de te servir ce soir.” You knew Elise, but you had to act as if you didn’t. You hoped that when she looked away from her notepad, she wouldn’t recognize you.

“English please. I already told your host this.” He was already an ass, but now he was being plain rude. 

The peppy red-head looked up from her notes to examine him. Her doe-like eyes wide in terror that quickly turned into joy upon noticing you. 

“Y/N! It’s so nice to see you!” She looked around for a second before looking back to you, “Where is Mr Stark?” You held your breath at the mention of Tony. I guess Samual hadn’t warned Elise yet. 

“I am Mr. Stark.” Edward rudely inserted. You were relieved he didn’t realize the error, until he spoke again “Look. We’re not ready to order yet. So why don’t you come back later. Fuck off” He waved his hand in a dismissive behavior, before turning back to you.

You watched the girl bow her head before quickly retreating.“Why do you have to be such a fucking dick?” 

“What? Do you think I hurt your little friend’s feelings? Why did you act like you’ve never been here before.” His nostrils began to flare, as he sat up from his seat.

“I haven’t—.”

“Don’t fucking bullshit me Y/N. I heard him ask you about your usual spot on the roof. You must think I am an idiot.” He snarled. “I asked about it before reserving the restaurant. My point is that I know it costs more than your tiny bank account could hold. So what, did you plan on freeloading off of me and my dad, while your sugar daddy takes care of you too?”  

“Don’t speak to me like this.” You state through gritted teeth. Your eyes were starting to water from his interrogation, but you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry. 

“Who pays for it? Hmm? Is it the same person who put those hickeys on your chest? Or is it the person who bought you that cheap ass bracelet.” Before you knew it, he grabbed your wrist to snatch off the Cartier bracelet Tony got you for valentine’s day. It meant the world to you, since he had the words ‘My heart belongs to you, T.S.’ engraved inside it.  You watched the jewels bounce and clatter on to the hard-wood floor. Rolling under feet and nearby tables. People were starting to look over, but you didn’t care. You also didn’t care about the tears that spilled from your eyes. 

Edward sat back in his chair, and rubbed a hand through his hair while acknowledging your tears. He coldly mocked these next words “What’s wrong. Can’t he afford to buy you a new one?” 

“Yea.” You said, voice shaking, while your eyes remained on the floor. You turned back to him to say, “Maybe if I fuck him good enough, he’ll get me an even prettier one.” His hands began to shake as you watched him go red in the face. He balled his palms into fists, knuckles turning white; a sharp contrast to his crimson fingers. He unexpectedly slammed them on the table, causing you to jump, and the conversations around you to cease. 

“Well maybe he should give you a ride back home while he’s at it, you fucking bitch!” He shouted, spit flying from his mouth. He got up to storm out of the door, pushing passed Elise who was coming back with your drinks. He left you embarrassed, without a way home, and alone. Oddly enough, you weren’t crying because of Edward. You were crying because you felt like you failed Tony.

————————————————————

You arrived home over four hours later, after hailing a taxi. You would have been home sooner, if you didn’t spend the night with Elise, Samuel, and the rest of the staff, insisting on helping them close. You partly helped to make up for the scene you and Edward had caused, and you also wanted to give Edward enough time to get home and go to bed. From the looks of it, he had made it there in just a little under an hour, because that’s when Tony started lighting your phone up. That’s why you stayed longer to wait for him to fall asleep as well. You were an even bigger idiot than Edward if you thought he would be asleep before you made it home. 

He was sitting on the staircase when you unlocked the door to come in. “Are you okay?” He asked, leaping up to stand before you. 

“Yea I’m good.” You respond, tiredly. 

“Good. Because I am fucking livid.” He said in a frantic tone. “What’s wrong with your phone?”

“Nothing. Where’s Edward?”

“He’s asleep. So why didn’t you answer you phone?”

“It died.” 

“Was that before, or after you turned it off? Because I know for a fact that’s what you did. That’s always your excuse when you don’t want to talk to someone.”

“Can we not do this tonight.” He grabbed your shoulders and bent down so that he could look you in your eyes. 

“I would prefer it if we did this now.”

“Well it’s not about what you fucking want all the time,” You snapped.

“Hey. That’s not fair.” Hurt was plastered on every inch of his face. You saw it, so you began to apologize. 

“I’m sorry.” Your voice cracked, and you were about to cry again. “Tony I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live in this house with him anymore. I can’t live this lie any. more.” The tears spilled, and you couldn’t tell who was more hurt at this point, you or Tony. 

He pulled you into his chest, which muffled your sobs. “What am I supposed to say, when you get like this? I can’t bear seeing you cry, princess. What do I do?”

“Please just hold me. Don’t let me go.” You mewled. 

He pulled back to wipe away your tears with the backs of his thumb. “Now when have you ever known me to do something stupid.”

“Everyday.” You laugh. He tapped your nose and gave it a quick kiss, while still cupping your cheeks.

“Yeah, well besides then.” 

“Never.” You whispered. He stared into your eyes lovingly. You two stayed mesmerized in each other for longer than usual. 

“I love you, Y/N. I guess that goes without saying, but I thought you should know.” He confessed. Believe it or not, it was the first time. The two of you never had to say it, because you just felt it. Just knowing it, still wouldn’t beat hearing the actual words though. He had just made it fact in your heart. 

Speaking of your heart, it was beating faster than a hummingbird’s wings, threatening to leap from your chest at any second. The butterflies he gifted you quickly turned into elephants, that threatened to trample your insides, and replace the remains with Peruvian lilies.  Your cheeks were now hot to the touch, and your mouth searched for words that came out in random incoherent spouts.

Tony, suddenly overcome with unsureness started with, “Maybe this wasn’t the right time to—”

“No!” You shouted, “I love you too.” You cried, smiling before you stood on your toes to wrap your arms around him. His arms dropped to your sides, and he pulled you in by your shirt, latching his mouth on yours. This kiss was different from the rest. They all felt good, but this one felt better than them all combined. Taking in all of you, your scent, your taste, your feel, he felt spoiled. He grabbed at the sides of your face to deepen it, while you grabbed at the back of his neck. You both tried your hardest to get closer, but it may have not even been possible, since there was no space left between you. 

You were the first to pull back for air, while Tony still pecked at your lips, stealing wet kisses, that trailed from your mouth to your forehead. He peppered them over your eyelids, nose, and cheeks, desperate to cover every perimeter of the skin. 

You fluttered your eyes open when he was done, smiling up at him though your lashes. His chocolate brown orbs danced with more joy, than you had ever seen, and his pearly whites peered through his goofy grin. He eskimo kissed you, and rest his forehead against yours. You were happier than you had ever been. 

You both snapped your necks towards the sound behind you before you heard Edward say “I should have known it was you.” He, like his dad before, sat at the bottom of the staircase watching the both of you. You two were so wrapped up in each other, you didn’t even hear him walk down.

And just like that, your happiness left the chat. 

  A/N: Sooo... tell me what you think? Also, I proofread, but please let me know if you see any errors. Please like comment and share. To  @swaggysposts​ @scarletsoldierrr​ I am so sorry for posting so late, but I really hope you are still interested. Please tell me what you think!  PART 3 here 

[sourbat]

hmm maybe magmel and first time making the other laugh?

hello. this is over 4k words, because of course it is

Rating: T for swearing and suggestive conversations

Read it on Ao3, or keep reading below

A general meeting occurred exactly at twelve. The subject: team building.

Melmord couldn’t tell if the presentation was a punishment aimed at him, Magnus, both, or something Offdensen deemed necessary for the betterment of the company. Admittedly, their first few days partnered together could have worked better. Melmord ended up writing a few complaints regarding the threats of violence during the first two days, a meeting with human resources after a suggestive comment about deserving a busted lip on the fourth, and practically begging Offdensen to “have a word” with Magnus regarding his short temper close to the end of their first week as workmates. He assumed Charles wouldn’t bother, and either tell Melmord to make it work, or accept that Magnus was, to some extent, equal parts partner and penitence.

But was the powerpoint necessary?

“Here’s, ah, a slide I think many of us here can relate to,” Charles’ voice broke through the stuffy air and uncomfortable silence hanging in the meeting room. “Behavioral Management in the Workplace.”

Across from Melmord, and sitting close to where Charles stood, was Magnus. Arms crossed and legs kicked up on the table’s edge, he was high on alert, defensive and incredibly unapproachable. There sat the first musician Melmord was charged with since meeting Dethklok. The first real talent Melmord was assigned, and when Melmord tried greeting him the first time, had a ball of phlegm hacked and unloaded right between his feet. The first prisoner Melmord had the pleasure of meeting, speaking with, and discovering a shared hatred of Offdensen, though to what extent Magnus refused to share. There were a lot of things Magnus Hammersmith declined to provide Melmord, including the reason behind his imprisonment, his prior relationship with Charles, and why the hell he was “worthy” enough to come back. The file Offdensen handed him hours before his assignment only contained the basic information, the kind of trivia any committed Dethklok fan would already know. The whole “stabbing Nathan Explosion” thing was new and certainly worth discussing drinks over one night, but aside from that? He inquired to know more about Magnus, of course, but according to Offdensen, had to “earn it” on his own time.

Melmord shrugged at the backdrop of words playing around him, setting his interest on the exposed, pink scar resting dead center between an older, paler set of scars already adorning Hammersmith’s chest. Technically speaking, Melmord didn’t know what killed Magnus Hammersmith. The pink, healed scar suggested something involving the chest: a heart attack perhaps? Heart failure? But if that was the case, what made Dethklok’s infamous rhythm guitarist worth the trip to hell and back?

“Fjordslorn?”

Melmord returned to the darkened meeting room, to Offdensen’s reflective glare cutting at his throat. Next to him, Magnus remained positively disengaged. At the center of the table was a hat filled with shreds of paper.

Melmord raised a brow at the two. “Come again?”

Melmord watched Charles bring his eyes to a close, then raise his hand and signal a klokateer to hit the lights. With a restrained sigh, he asked, “Can you manage several unsupervised minutes conversing with your client without upsetting him?”

Carefully, Melmord made a quick glance to the projector, images blurred from the additional light now blaring in the room. The title of the slide read something along the lines of exercises, and beneath it a list of team activities. He saw an image of a small, happy-go-lucky group of hoods huddled together, pulling cards from a bowl.

A team building activity? Really?

Melmord returned to Charles. “Sure, as long as you’re back before we perform the trust falls.”

Offdensen’s eyes narrowed, frown thinning to an almost white line glowing with disapproval. It’s a slap on the wrist compared to what he was used to from Charles. With a sigh, he shut off the power point, then turned to Magnus.   

“Magnus.” He placed a hand on Magnus’ shoulder, steady against the jolt that arose at the contact. It was like Magnus had been struck by lightning. He looked ready to leave his seat. Tear at his jacket and toss it to the floor. Melmord almost flinched in reaction, watching silently as Magnus’ eye lit up, not with fear, but pure indignation.

He turned, disgusted, entirely repulsed by the hand that remained, but with a swallow, made it all disappear. An exhale, and his shoulders sank. His wild hair deflated. He withdrew. “Charles,” Magnus returned, voice not carrying a shred of what Melmord was sure he’d seen just seconds before. It still wasn’t fear, but it was something. Another fine reminder that they shared a common enemy. 

Charles slipped off Magnus, then headed to the door. Behind him, two klokateers followed.

“Gentlemen,” Charles announced, then opened the double door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. If there’s any problem, these two will, ah, act as mediators, understand?”

He shut the doors behind him. The gears immediately stood in front of it, blocking Magnus and Melmord’s only exit. 

Melmord waited until he heard the footsteps disappear, then started to relax. Finally, the devil was gone. The lackeys were still hanging around, but there was a change in the air. Even Magnus, who’d been so rigid, finally let go of his arms in favor of having them drop and rest on his knees as he sat.

Glancing at the door, Melmord chuckled, “Can’t stand the man, but I got to give it to him: he makes a mean presentation.”

Magnus’ bad eye twitched. He sank into his chair, the heel of his boots now barely hanging from the table's edge.

“Damn, not even a snicker?” Melmord asked, shrugging at the less than stellar response.

“I’ll laugh when you finally say something warranting it.” 

Was there ever a day in which Magnus didn’t have a stick lodged deep in his ass? Well, so much for the presentation doing its job, not that Melmord could give it any credence to begin with. Hopefully Offdensen wouldn’t test them on the subject later.  Melmord could handle a difficult client, but failing a test?

“Well, I appreciate the honesty,” Melmord said, coming to a rise. 

He left his chair, kicking back his seat with the sole of his shoe. He glanced at the hat filled with colored pieces of folded post-it notes and rolled his eyes. Did Charles really assign someone the task of writing conversation starters and then folding them into some worn hat? For what purpose, other than to waste their precious time? Melmord could go on, but left the thought to hang at the edge of that foreboding cliff. After death, time was literally the only thing Melmord had, which meant Charles wouldn’t return until whatever sick lesson he wanted to teach had finally resonated. That, or in increments of five minutes, like the slide suggested.

With a sigh, Melmord reached for a folded sheet of paper. “How about–”

“You do realize this is a waste?” Magnus loudly interrupted. “Charles has us together for the sole purpose of watching us bicker.” 

“And you’re fine with proving his point?”

Magnus sneered at him. “Excuse me?”

The paper crumbled in Melmord’s hand. “Contrary to what he’s told you, I’m not a complete fool.”

Magnus remained unimpressed by the declaration, and merely shrugged in response.  A nasty jab at the pride, but Melmord knew that was the point. This wasn’t supposed to be easy. Some clients will be difficult.

“Offdensen wants us miserable,” Melmord continued, reopening his palm to find the crumbled shred of paper. “Guy’s been busy. Too busy to fuck with us as much as he’d like.” 

That had to be it. Why else would Offdensen award him with the challenge and opportunity to train and work alongside a musician? Magnus was well known in the music industry as someone difficult to work with, to the point that once his name was on a project to help boost sales he was cut and kicked from further creative output. But was that punishment enough for someone as bored and desperate as Melmord? It wasn’t like Offdensen was offering him freedom or the chance to promote from his position to an official member of the dethstaff for kissing up to Hammersmith. Just the order to work with him and do everything in his power to get some new, original creative content from Hammersmith. That was all, and Melmord hungrily took the job knowing the rumors shadowing the man. He’d been that eager to take on the project. They both had, so whatever hesitations and challenges they posed were merely products of their own undoing. This presentation, cringe inducing as it was, held no contest. This was a test posed by Charles, and right now they were playing into his hands.

“He’s relying on us to do the job for him.” Melmord snickered as Magnus’ attention suddenly came alive. “You said it yourself, right? So, you going to prove to him we can’t get along, or can we get this cheesy team building crap done and over with?”

He held his ground, patiently awaiting Magnus’ response. There was a long, drawn out silence that followed. Still, Melmord waited. He knew he couldn’t delve into the nitty gritty with Hammersmith. The man wasn’t prone to easy persuasion. But Melmord hung to that hunch that they were both desperate to chat with anyone aside from their malevolent overlord, and leaned against the table until Magnus finally snorted a hot burst of air through his nostrils. 

“Fine,” Magnus replied stiffly. “I’ll placate you and Charles if it means making it back to my room sooner rather than later.”

“A fine goal,” Melmord responded, keeping his tone as neutral to avoid offending the older man. He had Magnus working with him for now, and that was a start. If he could get through a few questions and make it out without upsetting Magnus any further, then maybe Charles would put an end to this silly game. Hell, maybe Charles would congratulate him on a job well done.  

He snorted at the thought as he unfolded the paper. The post-it read:

Are you making the most of your second chance at lie? Why, or why not? 

Melmord stared blankly at the wrinkled sheet. He read it over one more time, his jaw clenching and teeth grinding as it played out in his head. Was that correct? Lie, or did the klokateer charged with writing out the questions make a mistake? Were they capable of such?  Did Charles write this? Was this part of the game? Was this for him?

“Well?” Magnus asked, still disinterested. He rubbed his sole into the table’s edge. “What does it say?”

Melmord put on a smile. “Your… favorite mixed drink?” 

Magnus tugged the base of his beard, eyes cast upwards as he thought a moment. “Whiskey sour. No egg white. Fresh cherry.”

Short, quick and to the point. But it was a response, and it was something Melmord could most definitely use in the future. It had always been a habit of his to take his new clients out for a drink, and to continue inviting those who were easily swayed into making poor decisions under the influence. Though he doubted he could take Magnus out any time soon, he could at least make a note of his preferred poison and give him a good time soon, should Magnus allow it. A hard liquor man, too. Non-conventional, either. Not afraid to go against a recipe for his own comfort, not that Melmord needed the drink to figure that one out.

“Nice, a whiskey man,” Melmord replied coolly, then selected the most nonthreatening drink he could still compare with Magnus’ choice. Equally unconventional, but recognizable. Nothing too fancy. “I’m a tad less refined. Cuba Libre, heavy on the white rum.”

“Defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?” 

“I like to have a good time,” Melmord replied. He rolled the sheet into a tight little ball, then tossed it over his shoulder. “To add on, I like it with two lime wedges and sativa. Huh, guess we have something in common.” 

“Which is?”

“We both like our vitamin C.”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “You’re not funny.”

The statement arrived less harsh than the previous comments. Another good sign. Melmord shrugged. “I got plenty more where that came from.”

Magnus shook his head at the thought, then turned inward to the hat filled with conversation starters. “Guess it’s my turn,” he said, dropping his long legs from the table. They landed hard with a thud that rattled Melmord.

He froze as Magnus reached for a shred of paper. “Oh, you–”

Magnus picked up a sheet from the messy pile. Anxious, Melmord pressed more of his weight against the table, dug his nails into the fine wood. His eyes locked on fingers unfolding a small pink slip of paper. Magnus raised the sheet up and quietly read the line. Silence returned, and Melmord swallowed thickly at the sight of Magnus’ pupils shrinking to a dot at whatever was scribbled on the sheet. Melmord had no idea what sort of questions had been laid out for them, and whether the previous one he read was written with him in mind. If any were written with him in mind. God, if only he knew what sins Magnus committed beforehand, what foolish dance he engaged with Charles to be trapped in this predicament. 

A clock ticked. Melmord shrank into his chair. “Well?

Magnus finally lowered the slip. “How many years have you been working in the music industry?”

Relief.

Melmord fell into his seat, lighter and mind temporarily cleared of doubt. With a hand, he fixed his hair behind his ear. “Seven together,” he answered smoothly, replying to Magnus’ recovering stare with a honey sweet smile.

An interview question? Well, a tad conventional, but he appreciated Magnus’ effort for trying to hide the truth and keep with the peace. And an interview question, while lackluster, was something Melmord could manage without effort. 

“I’ll be real, music’s been an on and off relationship for me,” he explained with a strong command of his words. “I take my business where it’s booming, and music? That girl’s volatile. I’ve had my hits, but I’ve also experienced my losses, and although my manner of style suggests I like a good time, I prefer my career like my relationships: easy and stable. You dig?”

There was a little bit of everything there. Plenty of options for Magnus to pick and comb through, select and build off from. Vague enough for anyone listening to not make any sense of, and be forced to interpret on Offdensen’s order at a later point. 

And to his surprise, Magnus smiled at the question. “Indeed,” he replied, bringing his arms back up. But when he crossed them, Magnus didn’t keep his appendages close to his chest, but instead let them rest upon his stomach. “Well, by this point… I’ve been living it for about half my life? Let’s see, I didn’t get discovered until I was about twenty-three…” 

Melmord lifted from the scarred chest, to the thick array of dark brown and graying curled laced throughout his many waves. Melmord quickly performed the math, and like clock, devised a compliment. “You’re lookin’ pretty damn for someone…” he stopped once he saw Magnus start to regrow his frown. “I’ll be quiet.” 

Magnus’ fingers tightly wrapped around his thin, frail waist. Melmord tried not to notice, but quietly cursed himself for his impatience. Why did he go and inject humor the second things were just starting to let up?

Magnus huffed, clearly offended by Melmord’s attempt. “…to make a long story short, I’ve been on and off projects. Much like yourself, I chase after success. If something stops sounding like a good idea, I cut my ties and move on.” 

Short, vague and to the point. Great. 

Still smiling, Melmord clasped his hands together and hoped there was more to come. He had Magnus relaxing a second ago, surely he hadn’t fucked up so monumentally that he was back to square one. That couldn’t possibly be all, could it?

Melmord playfully shook his head at the silence. “That can’t be all though? Given your history–”

“What about my history?” Magnus inquired stiffly. With his thumb and forefinger, he raveled the pink post-it sheet into a compressed  ball, then brought it down on the table, crushing it with his fist. The smack echoed in the small, stuffy room, and old rumors about Hammersmith’s unpredictable behavior arose to smother any remaining familiarity that sparked between them.

“Nothing.” Melmord pointed to the hat situated on the table. “My turn.” 

Magnus’ heated stare never left his hand. Melmord scooped folded sheets of green, blue and yellow post-its, letting several fall from between his spreading fingers until only one remained resting on top of his open palm. Hesitantly, Melmord picked it up. He unfolded the sheet and carefully read the sentence to himself: 

How did you die?

Melmord’s throat dried at the final word. Somewhere, he heard his screams getting lost in the winds, the distant howl and pleas of his animal spirit calling to the heavens for another shot, a second chance at life.

“What does it say?” 

Magnus’ voice disappeared under the growing nausea, the darkness numbing Melmord’s senses and drowning out his thoughts, his ability to push words out from his constricting throat. This question. Was this question just for him? 

“Well, Fjordslorn?”

Melmord lowered the yellow sheet. “Uhm, what’s your favorite…”

Wind spiraling. Falling. Magnus watching from afar, growing smaller, fading.

“My favorite what?” 

“…Brittney Spears song?”

“What?”

“You know?” Melmord blinked, surprised by how soft he’d gone. He cracked a nervous, strained grin. He fought the deafening rumble of an incoming train threatening to crush and end him, and scrambled for a chorus line, a melody or title that he resonated with. Anything, but what was daring to crush him a second time. “The artist?” he added with forced gusto. “I, uh, really have a thing for “Femme Fatale”. Yeah, that one. Some real bangers in that CD, let me tell you.” 

Magnus was incredulous. “Are you serious?”

“I know,” Melmord said, rolling the paper between his sweaty palm and the table underneath it, “It’s recent, and there aren’t many big hits in that one, but here me out: I’m pretty sure “How I Roll” was written specifically for my Friday night benders. Like, it’s a “party and get fucked” song, but it’s confident and in control. Just the right amount of chaos before crashing into bed with a stranger. My kind of anthem if you ask me.”

Melmord heard the words coming out from him, and wanted to scream. Of all the impromptu questions for him to come up with, this was arguably one of his more cringe-worthy ones. Pop subjects were best regulated to other pop artists, preferably the budding kind lacking any sense of identity. To bring up another artist in front of someone already so seasoned, and of an entirely different genre. And fucking Brittney Spears, too. If Melmord wanted to come off non-threatening, that artist and song certainly did the trick. Magnus was busy staring at him, mouth agape and being supported with the help of a hand. Eyes glazed in a layer of perplexing aura, a haze from which the hard rocker was trying to discern from a joke. This had to be a joke, right? But it wasn’t and Melmord, panicked, went on about the song’s upbeat rhythm, the positive notes surrounding female sexuality, and how up until recently, resonated with the whole “nine lives” bit.

“Like, doesn’t even have to be for Friday night’s either,” Melmord went on, to the point where the men guarding the door were now invested in his argument. “There’s a lot of workout potential in that release. It’s a fun song. She’s having fun and living her life.” 

“Melmord,” Magnus interrupted as Melmord mentally scrambled for something palpable. Lost in the moment, and caught red-handed by Magnus, he stuttered himself into muteness. He was a man proudly poised in his seat, but behind the visage, he was shaking, sick and at a complete loss for words. Across, Magnus leaned close. He pointed at the flattened, yellow thing resting on the table. “What did the paper actually have written down?”

Without moving, Melmord brought his eyes to the stained paper. Did he have it in him to confess what he had read to himself, and why it affected him so? Could he effectively call Magnus’ bluff and return the very same question towards him without risking a black eye or tossed chairs? He wanted to stay on Magnus’ good side. Magnus looked concerned. That was a good sign, right? Did it matter? Did being honest matter if it meant facing the deadlights charging at him at over 100mph?

Melmord carefully resituated himself into place, brushing his coat down and fixing any slight wrinkles starting to form. He reclined into his seat, resting his hands behind his head. “We’re doing trust exercises, and I just poured out my heart and soul to you,” Melmord stated as best he could without faltering. “Now you’re telling me you don’t trust me? I’m hurt, Hammersmith.” 

It was so quiet Melmord was sure he could hear the maggots in the walls squirming from the line he uttered. A chair groaned. A klokateer coughed.

Magnus was beside himself. He stared at Melmord, dumbfounded that he’d have the gall to use humor to deflect, and after so many warnings about how unamusing he’d already proven himself. His jaw sank, as did his hands. And then he snickered. He shut his lips and fell into a low, short chuckle that was further muffled by him slowly covering his mouth. 

“Alright, Fjordslorn,” Magnus replied. He fell into his seat, hair flowing over it as he drew a fine smile for Melmord. “I’ll let you have that.”

If it were possible, Melmord would have slipped in his chair. He slipped a sigh through his barely parted lips, letting the fear that collected spill out while Magnus regained better control of himself. When he was feeling a little better, he asked, “How about a song title, while we’re at it?” 

Magnus snorted. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Alright,” Melmord conceded. “I'll take the laugh, though. Save it for a rainy day, if you don’t mind?”

And just like that, the topic was dropped. Easier than Melmord could have hoped, and over a terrible joke, a sad attempt to deflect from the conversation. It wasn’t very funny, but Hammersmith laughed, and Melmord hardly had a chance to process the significance behind the act when Charles returned a few minutes later. It was hard to say whether he was pleased or upset at the peaceful scene he had entered. Magnus smiling, and Melmord so relieved. Charles merely looked over the table, the few tossed pieces of conversation starters, and gave a short nod.

Two new klokateers followed after him, one wheeling a cart carrying something that was covered in a sheet. The second klokateer picked up the hat. Both Melmord and Magnus watched from their seats. Neither had bothered removing any more shreds of folded post-its from the hat. While they never commented on it beyond what was already hinted by Magnus, both harbored their own suspicions regarding the remaining questions posed. While it was pointless to make accusations, both agreed to keep their mouths shut about it and agree that Charles carried some ulterior motive. Whether that motive was to unsettle or unify would remain unspoken, as neither were willing to take a risk and openly discuss Charles when his men were within earshot.

“Offdensen,” Melmord greeted dryly.

“Charles,” Magnus murmured, eyes avoiding said man as he took to the front of the table. 

“Gentlemen,” Charles greeted with his usual, contained tone. “Glad to see the two of you chatting. Are we, ah, ready to begin the next set of exercises?” 

“Yes, but only if you let me catch you first,” Melmord sarcastically jested and, to his delight, heard another snicker from Magnus.

“Now is not the time for jokes,” Charles stated firmly, earning the shuddered grimace of several cornered gears. Such a reaction would normally crumble Melmord’s resolve and make him regret his decision, but in angering Charles, Melmord only humored Magnus more, and as Charles’ eyes narrowed in annoyance, Magnus broke into a fit of airy laughter, enjoying every second of his flushed face, many lines and trembling bottom lip. How could Melmord possibly regret speaking when Magnus’ antagonistic laughter carried the schedule off course, and jabbed at the once unmovable figure that haunted their every waking moment. 

Best of all: this time, it sounded real.

[blindrapture]

a union-mandated break post

(okay, let’s see if I can type this all over again after losing the post. gotta remember how it all went.)

Hey there, the few mutuals who Like all of my posts, the lurkers who occasionally make their presence known, the lurkers who I also hope are there, and all you folks who come across this post naturally before scrolling on (that’s fine too, please have a nice day! remember to take a deep breath and unclench!). I wanted to make a post giving a casual update.

Things have been going. You know how it is. Time proceeds onwards at a pace that is a crawl to some and fleeting to others, depending on relative perspective. The average of all these observations may be Objective Truth, a hazy mythical and abstract prospect which to this day no living human has ever known (due to the nature of perspective). We still try to know it for some reason, an endeavour which may be “a good thing” or “a condemnation of our species,” but that’s relative too. See above. Still, it is possible to take an approximation of what we figure this average to be and find ourselves (mis)balanced on a knife-edge in between all perspectives. This narrow path, the knife-edge between fast and slow, between good and bad, between ecstasy and despair, seems precarious at times, yet at other times is like a garden, wide and spacious enough to sit awhile. Our perspectives cover this garden from us with the shrubbery of Can’ts and Shouldn’ts, and the way to the garden is fraught with the misty cloud of Look-Like. And yet, ultimately, these shrubs and mists are but prismatic scenery colouring our time on this Earth, a perspective which is easy to see from within the garden. The Earth is brown and grey and immortal, though wearing an impermanent coat of blue and green. One day, we will slip out of our perspectives and return to the Earth, join her mounding’s mass, and that will be death.

So that’s the weather. Sometimes cold, sometimes mild, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes bothersome and sometimes the only backdrop I could ever want. I’ve been up to the usual, cycling between interests like a bat between haunts.

- The other day I got around to playing Smile For Me, an experience which took me about three hours to more-or-less complete 100%. Really cute game, I fell in love with all the characters, and the budding horror elements made me excited to see where it’d go.

- Currently I’m playing A Monster’s Expedition Through Puzzling Exhibitions, a game often cited in the same breath as Baba Is You and Stephen’s Sausage Roll. I think those two games are puzzle masterpieces, and A Monster’s Expedition is hitting me in the right spot. It frequently fills me with awe, which is impressive considering the game is just a long series of oblong block-pushing puzzles. It has scope, though, and it has the guts to hide that scope from you until you’re able to discover it for yourself. I’ve played for about 10 hours so far, beaten over 200 islands, and yet I feel I’m only getting further away from the end goal. Hard to describe. It’s a good game.

- When I’m done with that game, next I’ll be checking out Spelunky 2. I’ve wanted to try the original for a long time but never got around to it; I picked up the sequel. I know very little about the games (with a rough idea of what gameplay is like), and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can. I like games that rely on discovery.

- Book-wise, I’m, y’know, reading Finnegans Wake as I fall asleep, occasionally inching through other books too, but my main reading focus at the moment is The Familiar. I went and picked up a new copy of Volume 5, and I found the Volume 3 I had kinda lost for a while, so now I have the full Season 1 again. And it’s been long enough since I read any of them that it’s finally time to reread them. As a unit this time. I am... so happy to be in their headspace. I’m currently in the second act of Volume 1, taking in a lot more details this time (and I do still remember a sense of where the whole plot goes), really cherishing the commitment to physicality and aesthetic. There’s not many authors out there like Danielewski. House of Leaves kickstarted my book obsession, y’know. And The Familiar is about as grand as a project can be. It’s supposed to be 27 volumes, each one 900 pages long, and the design of these books is goddamn sublime. The publisher only let him do the first 5 volumes, which is sad, but luckily those 5 volumes make up a “Season,” so they’re still a whole thing, a complete story arc for each of the nine protagonists, and plenty of secrets and details that give a good sense of the true scope. And did I mention the series is fucking scary? Profoundly so, each new volume weaving you deeper into its conspiratorial web of eldritch coincidences and patterns. The story is full of cats, immortal cats, God-cats. There’s a scientist who keeps a freaky magic orb and is known as Wizard. There’s an Armenian taxi driver who’s one of my favourite characters. And you can probably get all the volumes Used for fairly cheap on Amazon now. ........please, somebody join me in loving this series.

- Creative-wise, I’m working on music as always, putting notes next to each other until I get a result I can do something with. There is one piece that’s definitely done, a collaboration between Lindsay and I, but it’s going into Nine Is God so you won’t hear it just yet. Speaking of, that’s coming along. I haven’t even started making any codes or cool connections yet; I want to finish the... Core of this update first. Let’s be deceptive and call it the Main Blog. I have proven to myself that I definitely can do this; I keep stumbling on new mechanisms I can add, and I have a pretty vivid idea of what the whole thing will look like. It’s gonna be maybe a decent size for a Blog, all told, but it’s the form of the thing that mandates a lot of care. Luckily I have made Viceking’s Graab, so this isn’t the first time I’ve done something this mechanically ambitious. ...look, just. Of course I’m excited to Actually Talk about this thing, but like with the Graab, its nature requires me to keep it secret until players finally discover it for themselves. I like making that kind of thing, I want the sense of discovery, of climbing up a hill only to reach the summit and see an even bigger mountain looming over you that you hadn’t realized was there. Like Frog Fractions, or its sequel, even if you know there will be more than meets the eye you still get surprised and filled with delight. This concept fits neatly into an ARG format.

- Oh, also, I’m super excited for the Braid remake. It’s gonna have a comically thorough amount of developer commentary, and that’s all I want from this world. It’s even coming to Switch!

Media can be used as a tool to assist with the experience of life, and that is the way I want to approach things. I have spent time adapting myself to feel comfortable in these boring aesthetics (of understated puzzle games, thoughtful pretty books, blogs as art) because this means I am less susceptible to getting burned out during contemplation and self-examination. It may seem like a matter of taste, but taste is relative too; it’s not hard-wired, it can be adjusted, it does adjust all the time under the hood. ...I don’t know where to go with this one, other than that I should be careful not to condescend. I am not above anyone, I am confused too. I just.. like confusion and mazes, and I try to speak these aesthetics in an approximation of how I see others talk about theirs.

Right. I think that’s the bulk of it, that’s what I wanted to say today. I hope you are holding on, reader. It’s a wild and lonely world out there, and it’s our world; it’s yours just as much as it’s anyone else’s. You are important to it.

I leave you, mysteriously, with an old Genesis song. It’s called “Can-Utility and the Coastliners,” which is a silly way of saying it’s a song about the myth of King Canute. Sick of flatterers claiming he was equal to God, he went to the sea shore and said “If I truly am equal to God, then let the waves halt at my feet!” They didn’t. An astute demonstration, but it just prompted his flatterers to praise his ingenuity. “But he forced a smile, even though his hopes lay dashed where offerings fell.” I’m not really sure how the story ends. But it’s a wonderful song, starts off very folks-y but quickly takes a left turn down Mystery and Beauty. And it’s freaking Genesis.

See ya.

[popculturebuffet]

Mickey Mouse Birthday Shortstravaganza!

It’s Mickey and Minnie’s Birthday! It was 92 Years Ago Today everyone’s faviorite mouse came in on a tide of whistling, romance and animal abuse and swept into America’s hearts and wallets. Okay I am a day late on this, I had a busy day, but hey a belated celebratoin’s still good right? Right? Eh i’m doing it anyway.   Anyway since then he’s been one of animations most iconic characters, and while out of the classic power trio I vastly prefer donald and goofy, they still woudln’t be around without Disney’s big cheese and having not seen a ton of Mickey’s shorts, I felt I owed it to the big eared one to take a look at a bunch of his shorts for his birthday and see how I liked em. If your curious about my previous Donald Duck marathon, it’s CLICK THIS LINK.  Unlike last time all of these shorts are on Disney+ as more of Mickey’s library is on there and one or two of these were added recently, as Disney tends to add a few a month. I do wish there were more on there.. but unlike with say the handful of shows they haven’t put on there, i’m a bit more forgiving here. For one thing, YouTube has all the shorts available from various uploaders and DIsney hasn’t touched them despite Plus’ launch. Given like most companies Disney usually has their bots a cirlcing for their content, this has to be delebrate on there part and it’s a good gesture from the company. So while not in crisp HD like the Plus copies, or as easily avaliable, you can find any short that’s happened. So the shorts not all being up at once isn’t an issue like most of the shows that are absent on Plus. 

They also heavily need to cherry pick their library as some shorts simply haven’t aged well or have offensive stuff. With the exception of “The Beach Picnic”, which has a racist caricature of native americans via ants.. yes really, most of the shorts are fine to show kids, and have aged pretty well. And as my last marathon showed some shorts.. just haven’t. While not you know racist, seriously why is the Beach Picnic on there?, “Donald’s Penguin”, while utterly adorable at first, ends with Donald trying to murder a baby penguin with a shot gun. No amount of content warnings is going to get past one of their beloved icons pointing a shotgun at a baby. While Disney’s self conciousness can be silly, the splash edit and not putting the Darkwing Duck episode “Hot Spells” on plus for instance, this is one time when I can agree with them: if someone is curious about a paticuarlly offensive short or a propoganda one, youtube exists. But given Plus is trying to be all ages and dosen’t have censoring they have to be careful what they put on there, and I can respect that. I don’t think anyone’s crying a river over the fact that the goofy short where his reflection keeps saying “Hey Fat”, over and over while he struggles with his weight isn’t on Disney Plus and thankfully never will be. But seriously get rid of the “Beach Picnic”. It’s not a good short and you already have one batch of native american stereotypes with “Peter Pan”, I don’t think racist ants are the hill you want to die on disney.

So yeah, this time all of these are from Disney Plus, and since I watched them all at once, their in Watch order rather than chronological like last time. So with all that out of the way...

After the cut

1. Steamboat Willie (1928): It’s All Fun and Games Until Mickey Strangles an Innocent Duck Starting from the obvious source, Steamboat Willie was the start of Mickey’s career. And it’s.. okay. The animation is fantastic and the first half is pretty good: Theirs a pretty good gag with one of the cows. But the finale, with Mickey abusing various animals just isn’t that funny A LITTLE rattling of an animal for comedy is fine.. but the things Mickey does here are just sociopathic> And yes I know it was the 1920′s, but even in that lawless, racist, sexist time, they knew better than to strangle a duck, or, in the moment that puts it over the top, remove suckling pigs fromt heir mom and then play a pig’s teats like an insturment to make it squeal musically.. I assure you I did not make this up. That actually happens.  The pacing is also fairly slow at points, with some gags dragged out, though that can be chalked up to having no way to edit the damn thing, so that part I can forgive more.  What makes up for it, like I said, are some good jokes, and some gorgeous animation. Decades later and while clearly made a long time ago, it still looks vibrant and really pops even in black and white. It shows just how talented Disney was and how far the company could go with this medium.  One last thing to note is Mickey’s Early personality. While he’d retain trickster aspects at times, here he bounces between the loveable jolly mouse we’d come to know for the rest of his career who sometimes has a wild streak.. and a total asshole who strangles a duck. It’s just intresting to see such a diffrent side of him,  most of which would end up going to Donald over time. Overall the short is decent, not the best of Disney’s catalogue but worth a watch for the historical significance despite it’s shortcomings, pun unintended. 

2. Thru the Mirror (1936): That Was a Weird One This was easily my favorite of the bunch and as of now, my favorite Mickey Mouse Theatrical Short. Part of it is that it’s entirely bonkers; The film STARTS with Mickey , sound asleep, some how astral projecting as his soul, his spirit or whatever lead shis body and having been reading Alice Thorugh the Looking Glass, goes into a mirror world. But instead of encountring evil goatee mickey, he encounters a bunch of living objects and a bunch of fun set pieces for jokes ensue. He dances with playing cards, fights an army of them, has a sword fight with the king after dancing with the queen which.. no Mickey, bad mickey, your in a relationship and so is she. Bad Mouse bad. It is entirely fucking insane, even including a living nut cracker which.. words can’t.. look

They.. they had to know how this looked right? did the director have a ball busting fetish? I mean okay if he did, nothing wrong with that, but maybe don’t put it in your children’s cartoon.  That being said it does eat the shells which I find creative. And that’s what really makes this one pop. The creativity. Not a single minute is boring, every minute has something intresting going on, but without throwing too muchi n your face. It’s just a wonderful short and one that like Mr. Duck Steps out, i’ll be rewatching a LOTTTT. 

3. Mickey’s Rival (1936): Mortimer: The Original Bro From the same year we have disappointment. Having grown up with the disney classic House of Mouse, I was a huge fan of Mortimer. So when I first saw this, I was happy to see where he came from.. then justifably blocked it out of my mind till this review. While I love mortimer, I love Mickey having a sleazy rival and one diffrent than Pete who has different goals and tactics than the big guy. But his debut just has him as an obnoxious snickering bro.. which to be fair is who he is, but without the venre of charm his later version would have.  Mortimer just spends the short being a pranking douche, and blatantly hitting on Minnie in front of Mickey while their on a date. Which even in an open relationship is a no no, so he has no leg to stand on.. metaphorically. He also walks weird in this one because, and this is true, he’s carying 9 volt batteries in his pants. Yes really. That’s the level of Douche we’re dealing with. Someone so up their own ass they carry batteries int heir pocket instead of money or a mask or children’s trading cards like a normal person or a me.  What makes it frustrating is Minnie just swoons over the guy. And not like “Awww he’s so funny”, I mean romantically then has the gaul to say “your just jealous” when Mickey is understandably fuming over the jackass who swooped in, pranked him, is hitting on his girlfriend in front of him by teasing a bull, and in general is just the worst. Yes.. yes he is. Justifably. Jealousy is an ugly emotion but there’s a line between some dude bro like Mortimer getting mad your friends with someone you could be in a relationship with, boy, girl, neither, both, whatever your into, and Mickey getting mad his girlfriend is chuckling all over her ex who agian, crashed their date and treated him like garbage and is very transparently hitting on her in the middle of it.  It’s also just not a very funny short, outside of the bit pictured and tha’ts more for the sheer aburdity of Mortimer elctifying his pant for a really dumb gag about stealing people’s pants button. He’s very lucky we didn’t see Mickey’s Epic Mickey is what i’m saying. But given he’s a frat bro, the 1930′s version granted but a bro nonetheless,  he’d probably find that hilarious until he noticed the sheer size and scope.  Overall a forgetable, frustrating short. The one bright spot is mickey and mortimer’s cars which have faces and stuff and look neat.. otherwise it was just a waste of my time and the only good thing it did was bringing Mortimer into our lives. And that ain’t nothing. 

4. Mickey Down Under (1948): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

This is a quick one.. because this one was a vacum. I mean I can at least say for Mickey’s Rival it’s interesting.. i’ts not good but it’s interesting. this is just.. Mickey farts around with a boomerang with his dog and then pisses off an ostrich. There’s not really a lot of consequence or intrest is what i’m saying. I can’t even find a good opening to make a letterkenny joke. No one got close to fucking an ostrich here. It’s telling by the fact theirs no gif’s of this one that no one cares and it baffles me this is one of the ones Disney chose to gussy up for D+ release. But still no donald messing around with a robot? 

5. The Band Concert (1935): That’s More Like It.  Okay scooting back a year we have the band concert. This is my third time watching this one and it’s a delight. Like the last one I don’t have a ton to say.. but it’s more because this one is just so good rather than because it wasted my time. It’s got a fun concept and the breakout performance from my boy donald duck as he constantly fucks with the band’s performance by either getting in their faces or hilariously pulling Flute’s out of thin heir. I miss that gimmick for donald, his love of pulling objects out of the either via magic and shenanigans. They should bring it back. Also his shenanigans remind me of opus and that’s never a bad thing. 

Also Horace takes off his shirt. For the Ladies. A Classic for good reason. 

6. On Ice (1935): Donald is a Bastard Man Another great one from the same year. This time around we have what i’ve come to call a Mickey and the Gang Messaround. This is back when Donald and Goofy were supporting characters, so generally each of the big three do something, usually coming together for the climax.  In this case Mickey tries to help Minnie with her skating, with him adorably following her around with a pillow before showing off for her, just really sweet stuff. Goofy’s bit is hilariously dumb, as fitting my boy, as he feeds fish tobaco to get them to spit into a spitoon, and tries to club them, with predictable results. While not the most enivrionmentally friendly just the sheer oddness, the fact it sort of works minus him actually clubbing them, and one of hte fish smacking him in the face all make it work.  The only bit that reallyd osen’t is Donald and pluto... it was present a bit before but here illustrates why I really dread Pluto based shorts. While I don’t hate the dog, he’s a dog I love dogs, most of the gags in his old shorts, and even up to mouseworks are him either being blamed for shit that’s not his fault, a pet peve of mine, or being tourtured in some way...

But dosen’t work at all now. He puts the poor dog on skates and then laughs at him and even sings a song mocking the poor dog, before justifably nearly ending up going over a watterfall, then ending up clubbed in the head. Good. I love donald but good god is he unsympathetic here.. and for some reason they teamed the two up again for more shorts! Why. It’s why I don’t get why Pluto was the star of his own shorts: if this is all they had.. why do it? Was the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s equilvent of a micheal bay audience really that into dog abuse?  So yeah otherwise a good short but that segment drags it down. not Donald’s best work. 

7. Clock Cleaners(1937): This is a Great One Not much to say on this one. It’s pretty good, has some fun set pieces, and some great jokes from all three characters. Mickey deals with a seagull, donald effs with a main spring and Goofy fights some statues. All good clean fun. My lack of brevity is more because I don’t have any jokes rather than this genuinely being bad. It’s pretty good. 

8.. Mickey and the Seal(1948): More Pluto Torture Porn! 

This one’s more of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it is really cute, as a young seal ends up going home with mickey after he visits the zoo to feed them fish. On the other hand.. it’s mostly Pluto chasing after the seal, Mickey being kind of a dick to pluto and not getting he clearly saw SOMETHING in his house, and then teasing him at the end despite him having been right. That being said the ending, with the seal brining back all it’s buddies to mickey’s house, is fricking amazing. ALso the seals in this unvierse who aren’t antrho can speak. That.. that raises a lot of questions I don’t think disney can answer. 

9. Ye Olden Days (1933): Jaunty Dueling Music Now this.. this was a fun one. Mickey and Minnie head to Medivil times, proving that the current shorts tendency to jaunt to various settings isn’t a new thing, and it’ sjust a much of a fun change up here as it was there. Mickey, a wondering minstral, ends up trying to rescue Minnie after her father throws her in a dungeon for not wanting to marry Prince Dippy Dog, who hopes she can learn to love him. I can’t tell if he’s genuine or a dick here. But it’s fun, especially the part where, after Minnie declares she loves mickey which.. it’s been a few hours slow down, they decide on a duel and thus sing some ragtime, 1930′s getting ready for duel music that’s just catchy. if X Of Swords ever gets a movie, I want to use this song. Just.. really good stuff. A fun short with some great gag,s a great concept, and my boy goofy as the villian. What’s not to like? Alright one more. 

10. MIckey’s BIrthday Party (1942): Big Chicken Breasts We end on another all together now, Mickey and the Gang Messaround that was a great note to end on. I did watch another short, Pluto’s Birthday party.. but it was both more of a Pluto short and more Pluto torture nonsense, so yeah, skipping that one, as I ended up one short of my 12 goal because I can’t count, apparently. So Mickey gets 10, but this one’s a good note to go out on. 

Minnie throws a suprise party for mickey which almost turns into a live sex celebration as Mickey clearly is a wee bit horny going in. But it turns into a fun dance party, with Donald throwing out razzes like a good buddy, Goofy making a cake, and some fun gags with a piano they all bought him. It’s a really good short. That’s the problem with Mickey Shorts and doing all D+ ones: There just isn’t the weirdly offensive stuff to talk about there is. He’s not a bad character, but there’s a reason in every short that features all three, Donald and Goofy easily outshine him. Mickey’s not a bad character, but when not in trickster mode, there just isn’t a lot for him to do. It’s why the comics reinvented him, much like they did for donald, into a plucky detective/reporter who reguarly sovles crimes. He’s not bad, and as seen with Ye Olden Days and Thru the Miror, his blank slateness cna be put to good effect and house of mouse gave him more of a personality, but here he’s just the bland good guy to Donald’s loveable scmap and goofy’s loveable dumbass. It’s an issue comedy has to this day: having a lead whose just.. not as intresting as the rest of the ensemble.  There is weirdness to note, as Donald dances with Clara Cluck> That’s not the weird part, he and daisy took a while to be etched in stone. The weird parts are 1. Donald wearing a sombrero and smoking a cigar, and 2. Clara’s MASSIVE boobs.. yes really. Clara Cuck has giant breasts. Like actual boobs that sway around while she dances with donald. it’s.. bizzare. Not terrible, who doesn’t like big chicken boobs but just.. really really weird to see ina  Disney cartoon.But yeah it’s jus ta fun note to end on. 

And that was MIckey’s Birthday special. I enjoyed it even if I had less to say than I thought. If you liked this review, you can comission your own for five bucks, just hit up my pms or my discord , avaliable on request. You can check out my ohter disney reviews in the disney tab on my blog and until next time, ther’es always another rainbow. 

[whatsthenameofthisgame]

Intergalactic Interrogations (II)

"Where am I?"

[What do you mean?]

"Instead of just sitting there moving blood all day, and failing roughly might I add,- Are you recording this conversation? That's disrespectful, I'll have you know we started learning binary and ridiculous little facts about your friend. I don't know who raised you wrong,"

[Hey.}

"I'd- {emmited} have you forget. Speak English numb for brawl! *maybe there is a slap here*"

["Go to the top 10 close or near you everywhere you go that you consider the smartest people in the world & become their best friends foreverest...," I drawl out every one of my answers like a disgusting fountain, yet they aren't happy with any of them. To think it all could have started with a scared girl asking me what I know and warp through timespace paranoia, or that quantum mechanics has caused this all to be real.]

"Here's (apparently) what living sages do they write all of the time. And they secretly don't give a fuck what anyone thinks about them."

[I'm listening to someone write the show for me, I don't always connect parts of my brain with other parts so well, but when I don't its's because I'm completely mental that I can make things out as other sounds.]

"He inserted apparently over us. What a dick head."

[I was writing before this as well. Get ready for another roundabout of Intergalactic Interrogations]

["How would you describe this, Fake Judas(2) what kind of situation do we have here? Remember, I'm made to forget and then reremember again."]

"It's very logical. It's simple. You have to have a Marine Corp mindset in infilitrating the cause."

[I am both afraid and completely unafraid of what I am doing. To be afraid of this silly game would be ridiculous and stupid. On the other hand he's been learning from me as I learn from him-]

"He's been completely thinking ridiculous things over what we're saying. He's a whoremonger." ""IT IT,"" maybe demons scream, but I am untethered from the boulder like a chain beneath the ocean, the weight simply presses into the sand. The fishes swim around as I wander in my drowning to the top where the ship is safe in the sunlight.

[On the other hand- quantum questions pose like prose, possessing possibly -  I ignore FakeJudas(2). It is hard to keep up with everything. I need a writer still. I turn to Affiliate. Please have Alliteration do her thing without guiding us into rap for hours on end again, thank you very much. Affiliate looks confused and furious, for I often thought he was on the wrong end of the job spectrum ever since our staycation in the fire bird land of no sounds, place of the falsified Gods, faces in the spaces, The Devil's home of Peter's ignorances ... Anyway where was I? It is really hard to keep up with everybody and everything. There is a whole plot line, that I feel truly matters, and we are all missing it for the amount of activity going on in all of your heads while I've got mine. Is it mine? To start. Or are all of these conversations I'm tapping into the way of the real brain. Every particle of water an ocean? Every idea a world of thought? I already thought so. It isn't time for creative freedoms. I think we are supposed to focus on my suicide. For the sake of suicide. "Aha! Where we were last standing, one of the better reasons why I have roses elegantly and unevenly tattooed on my fingers. They're both cocked and one is in my mouth outright, while the other is at you. It was in your hands, and I gave you the tools necessary to save it. Save your belly aching. Every bit of paranoia, was it real, or were you trying to induce it? Save it for the masses. I know it's always a little bit of both. And that the most obvious answer is usually the truth. Variety is the best spice- and I'll have at my dad's pizza with way too much spice, for the loving good Grace from which Moses parted the water of life into place, (I am making a Tokyo MewMew joke that is a bit elongated) the V for which has He, Friends With Time, Drawer of Lord Excalibur when I actually love myself, rainbow gay pride I've forgotten uniciorn chapter books volume one and two powers activate!) *I start to turn, /now I am not paying attention to anything as I mash jokes into my own life story./

"This is what we paid for. This is disgusting filth. Think you can handle it?"

Think you can handle it? Would Filthy Frank even read this shit right here? We didn't even pay for all of these references. We're just hoping we get so many more people on team blue than team red so that we're able to just diss the suing right out of the waters like a lotus. Hah! Get that. I'm named after water so I'm doing water jokes. Listen, kid. I have heard a lot of jokes from the demons. You really don't want to start with me. I'm trained to accept them as a compliment, which I was saying back before we were all *I'm channeling Filthy Frank's voice in a ricefields sunhat visor right here* simple and shit. Now they are even trying to insult me with compliments and it's working. Listen, you never did knew that evil was good and proper and right. There was a new face of evil on the block, and it was the face of a genius sociopathic borderline child.

"Oh my God, You really do think like you're God."

[Guess what. Bitches, I have Autism so I cannot understand the emotional connotation in your words. Knowing that, I interpret it as fast as crazy, which is why no sweat because I also know that sometimes that's exactly what you're doing. Meaning I think of many ideas and crap. Your every thought could come to me like an intellectual process. I have no way of being.]

"Do you think you're special? Stay on topic please, I've seen we've gone a little socio today lady."

["I am silent. All is the same in my canoe which is made of wood and has travelled from hell through the underground rivers to the open and vast, great sea. Cold, or hot, shivering or sweating, thirst or hunger, war, famine, fire, flood, I know that I must and can navigate through it and 'round, 'round again, for this canoe and its lantern was tethered to my soul, it was tethered to my idea of neutral state meditation through chaotic forces. I was the canoe, one could say. I was the ship. Or the wood. The wood which came from the tree. Maybe The Tree. A Tree of Time, careful creature, making friends with it. And as the tree, and with brainwaves being like a tree, and all things one in the same, I made a hollow for those beyond to perch before they fade to worlds-"]

"This is artinery, itternerary(?) Get to the point."

[Often what I say, I sort of contribute to ghosts and other things.]

"This is what we get out of you? Jesus. (What are you, Santiago?) What happened to the sainthood?"

["Indeed I am Santiago, Another one of my many names, Dare ye say it, (Which they didn't.)]

"Look at what this kid is thinking of completely loaded. I think that maybe it is hilarious. Or perhaps all his excuses for crap."

[Indeed that all of this content was now filler. JENGA was on hiatus since the before times. We cannot remember those Interrogation Negotiations. But they were amazing. We have screenshots of half of them and had to delete the better half because they were too good and terrifying. We will try to interpret the rest of them someday (soon?).]

[The prophet wasn't just an excuse I made up. It was A Dream. A Dream that one day we will live not by the color of our skin, but by the confusing and complex mental makup which propels us towards the best future for us evolutionarily. Forget about that, everything. Like you have made me, by my words, let us start from the beginning.

Two systems learning from each other causes complex interactions to occur, especially when both have different and unfair advantages over each other. One could say each part of the brain that makes up the whole is its own complex system.]

"Stop talking about them to other people. I hope they rot for what they did to those people."

[Here is a classic bit where I have the chance to explain how either The Devil or The Enemy (FakeJudas2) Might try to make me look like the culprit. Reverse Psychology. It works on me. Which is why my card is chaotic. I don't want you to know what I'm doing, and if you do, then why should it matter what I do? It seems the whole world knows and yet no one knows. God knows what nobody feels like, because he is like us, we are made in his image. If I am nobody, he is nobody. So nobody knows just as well enough as anybody knows. But in both parts give or take, there are still bodies. Lot's of bloody and mutilated bodies which The Enemy has made of my Friends' & Loved One.]

/I take le break/

Depending on how serious JENGA gets, we have to use different members of the army through me. How did we get here, how is this all possible. It is a really meaningful story with lots of science, but we do not have infinite time. I will try to get to that at most.

"What about your boyfriend,"

["For the sake of Einstein, for the sake of proving you can go from Autism to full-blown socio, that realizing the brain works in the way that it does, and that it is all of your faults for being stupid assholes. It my fault for being a stupid asshole. And God is My Judge. Not You."]

"So, are you planning on telling him about any of this, or do you not know how important he is?"

["For the sake of insanity, genius is found."]

"Are you still completely avoiding the question? And how is it that he knows we're watching him for? Does he complete God in the blood?"

[Some things I do not understand. Or remember, or reitterate well. Catch me on drugs. Dattebayo! *flashback* Dattebayo was where it all started. The ten men, pandora's box, the stories, the puzzles, the lands across, the signs, a single time fine dining, and it is also there but not completely all-there.]

"So dattebayo was where it all started, huh? How embarrassing for one so wasted on the regular."

["Never giving up. Dattebayo. Believe it." "How about the story of the modulators some more? Before or after they were modulators? I have many stories to entertain you."]

"even when the conversation is all dead he has a way of going more crazy." a girl chimes in "He's probably been listening to what we are saying and considering it as JENGA."

he continues "Tell me a story to entertain me, that is what I am here for, give me a wild ride, show me some lude-icrous, something more, vivid, that shows me your kind of ideal lifestyle."

["You sounded like the villain in Tarzan for a second there. Well that's me, Tarzan. Me. Need. Jane. Didn't think I could play her. Rub the mud on my face, ask my monkey mother why I am not like them, she says to wipe the mud off.]

"I'm getting more curious, about what you're doing... you can write more than pages, you can write a book."

[I have, it's something I've always been working on. I've written loads of books, just lost, unpublished, deleted... How about I get really high and have someone speak through me now that we're getting down to the odds and ends. Let's get to the nitty-gritty of it. Once you find a way to constantly market off of things that might bother you, you have struck gold my son. The idea however, is to make them better, not worse, so they have a reason to last through the ages. Easier said than done...]

"He/She talks like an old wheezer. They can't- Can they hear me? Can they hear over our conversations? *plethoras of someones' breathy Oh my Gods" over everything. That means they know we're here, they can really hear us! Good job,"

[Did the dialogue switch into a ghosts' narration? It is hard to tell without any figures to watch with my eyes, and the words coming with systems built into a natural Ouija of my own. I won't literally raise hell again, yet... it is always tempted. And must be avoided. We're stepping too close to stories of old. The quantum questions must be pressed. Think harder. I don't know what it is you're thinking, I'm only typing. I am a genius if we aren't psychic, and a numbskull for God if we are All One.

The modulators can be set to different configurations, and put into different settings and events to see the initial outcomes in a module. At all of the Modulators worst configurations, M for their last name is capital. A good example of perfect awful configurations is religious reenactments by a family module within my own person. One's nature is that of a dads', Two is that of a moms', Three is that of a sons', four is that of a daughters', And the configurations always leans towards the predominantly biased neutral algorithyms.

Too much math, too may graphs to come, not sure how to organize it all, so we will have to say, partay.]

"So it feels like you're being taken advantage of by everything." my best friend asks me as my mom may also paranoidly be bothering my brother about me in the distance because I am typing so fast in the middle of the night.

[We've has this conversation before, so it's GroundHog day, only bigger, it's a show.]

"That's what we've been trying to tell you, You should write a show instead of bothering, us."

["Where is Jeremy Todd Ewbank?" I am the horseman, or headless, all the numbers, and the dungeon master because we currently already have a dab master, so you can Direct Message me the answer, Because I'm the Daniel Manual you've been looking for.]

"Jeremy Ewbank is not with us anymore. He's literally done. He can barely breath from your shit."

[The interrogations go haywire as soon as they begin again. Which one of us is being interrogated. "What happened to Jeremy Ewbank. Don't make me rhyme a hundred things with master in a bad rap. Aye, you know that gurl was my princess. You know, we know, we would never let go of or throw away one another, so where is he, *I put an invisible gun, but because I have written this, I will always be paranoid of them. We have to avoid them.

Evacuation Strategies: Red dots: Fun if you're a cat, dangerous if it is a gun. Shrodinger's Gun.

I take a break from interrogations because of laziness and lack of drugs. "JENGA," I claim, and the imaginary tower falls. How to explain a thing about creative manifestation to you, about all of the wild possibilities? So hard, I'd rather play Nintendogs for three hours.]

This is breaking bread with thine enemy

[pixelatedrose]

A Rose For A Valentine

Part 1/Part 2/???

Pairings: Eventual Prinxiety, Logicality, background Demus, background Remile

Cast:

Lochesis Lodgick (logic). Lo, Lochy, Sisi for nicknames

Pandora Morralitie (morality) Panda, Pan, Dora, Pancake for nicknames

Rose Kreativve (creativity) Ro, Princess for nicknames

Valentine Anxxiatie (anxiety) Val, Valen for nicknames

Dahlia Desceat (deceit) Dahl, Di, Dahli for nicknames

Ruby Kreativve (Remus/intrusive thoughts) Ru, Ruru for nicknames

Riley Sleapp (Sleep) Riy, Lili for nicknames

Emily Picani (Emile) Em, Emmy for nicknames

Trigger warnings: uncensored swearing, high anxiety, fighting verbally, being left alone, breakdowns

Chapter 2

Valentine Anxxiatie threw herself onto her bed. She had just gone to public school for the first time since second grade and she'd had the best worst day of her entire year.

  It was her best friend, Pandora Morralitie, and her two moms that had finally convinced her to go back.

  "Come on, Val! It'll be fun! And at the very least you'll have me!" Pandora had said.

  "Yeah right…" Valentine muttered through the thick blankets. She rolled over and closed her eyes, thinking over everything that'd happened that day. She opened them again and stared at the ceiling, letting panic and anxiety wash over her as she started to sob.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. I thought this was going to be fucking good…

~~•~~

  Valentine had gotten to school and received her schedule alone, unable to find Pandora and the school's Wi-Fi blocking any connection she might have had.

  She looked the paper over and over and over, her high strung anxiety working overtime in her mind.

  Valentine had art first period, followed by math, English, computer animation, orchestra, and chemistry.

  The day was pretty slow and they seemed to do no work at all. All they did was play stupid get-to-know-you games and read stupid rules. Valentine shared lunch and her chemistry class with Pandora, so that was a plus.

  Things started going off for Valentine in her English class when a popular redheaded girl sat down next to her and tried talking to her.

  "Hey!" Rose, the popular one, hissed. "My name's Rose! What's yours? Are you new around here, I've never seen you before."

  Valentine pulled her hood up over her head. "...i don't like talking…" She breathed to herself.

  Sure, Valentine had teased the girl by ignoring her deliberately, but she really didn't have any interest in talking to the plastic girl.

  However her desire to see the bitch suffer outweighed and was used as a mask to cover Valentine's anxiety and she was able to mock and gather a small video of blackmail on the redheaded Rose.

  But everything was all downhill from there.

  Valentine waited against the hallway wall for her one and only friend, Pandora.

  "Vaalll~!" A familiar and happy voice chirred delightfully, pretty blue eyes sparkling through her big round frames. Pandora bumped playfully into Valentine's shoulder. "Heya girl! Sorry I wasn't there this morning, I couldn't find you and my girlfriend wanted to wait for our other friend."

  Valentine drew a smile to her face. "Nah, it's fine, Pan." She reassured the honey haired girl.

  "You found your classes Okay? Did you meet anyone nice? See any cute girls? Anything you need explained to You?" Pandora asked fervently, her mom mode activating.

  Valentine chuckled softly. "I'm doing just fine, Pan. The only real problem I had was with this one chick in my English class. Bitch's a classic plastic doll. Got a kick out of messing with her though."

  Pandora frowned. "Oh, I'm sorry Val…" something caught Pandora's eye and she smiled widely. "Well you can tell me all about it right after you meet everyone else!!"

  Valentine faked a smile and walked ahead with her friend. She really didn't want there to be an everyone else. It was just fine with her and Pandora. That was all she needed.

  "Hey hey hey y'all I'm here~!" Pandora called, bouncing up to two other girls. "And this is my friend!"

  Valentine looked up and instantly froze. "...oh hell no…" She cursed under her breath.

  "Valentine!" Pandora finished with a flourish.

  Right in front of Valentine's eyes was the preppy plastic from her english class. Her stupid red hair bouncing as she looked to the emo girl.

  Their eyes narrowed at each other and like a battle about to begin they pointed at each other and yelled.

  "YOU!!" Their voices twined in one another as they mirrored each other's offended disbelief.

  "You're the chick from English!!" Rose yelled.

  "And you're the princess from my nightmares…." Valentine groaned.

  Pandora looked from Valentine to Rose through her pale blue and white frames. Realization dawned on her face and she clapped her hands and jumped with delight. "Oohhh~!! You two know each other!! This is great oh my god we're all gonna be best friends forever!!" Pandora laughed and hugged the contrasting friends.

  Valentine seethed poison from her eyes staring at the preppy redhead.

  Rose glared furiously through the energetic hug at the dark haired emo.

  "We don't know each other!" Valentine yelled, pushing out of the hug. She was so excited to maybe make some actual friends. Now, seeing that fake preppy princess of a girl, Valentine was on the brink of a breakdown.

  Rose turned to the tall girl she'd been with, pointing again at Valentine. "That's that emo chick I was talking about!!" She turned back to Pandora. "You're friends with her?!" Disbelief and agitation dripping from her voice like honey from a spoon. Her words were thick and poisonous in Valentine's ears. "Why are you friends with her?!"

  "Weirdo" "You have two moms" "idiot" "loser" "whisper girl" All the names came back to Valentine. The reason she didn't go back to school at the start of 3nd grade. The only thing stronger than her anxiety was her anger and spite, and Valentine was riding on fury.

  "It's none of your business who Pandora is friends with!" Valentine shouted. "And who's to say that maybe she'd rather be friends with someone who's deeper than a puddle on the sidewalk!"

  "Are you calling me shallow?!"

  "If by shallow you mean that I wouldn't get my feet wet if I stepped in you with no shoes on then yes."

  "Bitch!! Who the hell are you to tell me who I am?!"

  "I don't have to; it's written all over your everything!"

  "At least I try and be friendly instead of hiding in the back of the classroom and sulking like someone just killed my dog!!"

  "Well at least I know my friends want to be my friends!!!"

  Rose stopped for a moment.

  "What? Aren't you clever enough to-" Pandora put a hand on Valentine's shoulder. When she looked, Valentine saw her friend shake her head at her, a look of what could be horror on her face.

  "Valentine, stop…" she said quietly.

  Rose turned and started to walk away. The tall girl stared at Valentine with such a look of cold disapproval it could have broken her had she been made of glass. The girl turned after her red haired friend, Pandora jogging after them.

  And Valentine was alone, the once busy and loud lunch room had grown quiet to witness the fight, seeing Rose leave, the commotion picked back up. But it was cold now.

  "Did you see That? That emo chick?" "Rose is so sweet, what a bitch." "How could she do something like That?" "What a bitch." "Idiot loser." "Jerk." "Brat." "Nobody." "Scarecrow girl with the patchy hoodie." "Scarecrow." "Scarecrow." "Scarecrow."

  How could a nickname spread so fast?

  Valentine pulled her hood up and stormed away. She pushed through the doors and planted herself onto a bench.

  Her eyes stung with the threat of tears and her hands shook. All she could think about was how badly she'd messed up.

  What had Valentine been thinking?! I insulted and mocked and fought with one of Pandora's friends...and by the looks of things she's gonna take Rose's side over mine… Valentine fought back tears, looking up to the sky and blinking furiously. If she cried here, her eyeshadow would run and everyone would know.

  I thought this was supposed to be good for me; I thought this was supposed to fun. Thought high school was gonna give me friends not make me lose them…

  And in the quiet of the outside world, Valentine waited painfully for the bell to ring.

~~•~~

  Valentine's next period was slow and empty as she dreaded her next class with Pandora, who now no doubt hated her. The hours drug on, but the bell eventually did ding it's ring and Valentine reluctantly moved to her next class.

  Valentine opened the door to her chemistry class and felt her breath catch in her throat. Near the back of the classroom sat Pandora...and Rose.

  She pulled Pan away from me. Valentine felt anger simmer up to the surface and she felt ready to spit fire at the girl who had seemingly torn Valentine's world apart. But she let her anger go. There wasn't any point anymore. Whatever dumb thing they had been playing, Rose had won.

  Valentine resigned herself to emptiness again and started walking to the back of the class, opposite of Pandora and Rose.

  Pandora was the only real friend Valentine had ever had in her entire life. She'd been with her since before Valentine could recall. And if Pandora didn't want to be-

  "Val!!"

  Valentine stopped and looked over to the honey haired girl waving to her, a bright goofy smile plastered across her freckled face.

  Pandora bounced up to the emo girl and took her hand. "What'cha doin, silly? Come on and sit with us!"

  Valentine felt her heart lighten and rise, free of the heaviness that the void of emotions bring. "But don't you-"

  Pandora shushed her friend. "Whatever happened at lunch, don't worry about it." Pandora stopped tugging at Valentine's sleeve and faced her, kind, warm blue eyes comforting and easing her friend's now decreased anxiety. "We've been friends for years, Valentine. You think I'd end it because you had a fight with one of my other friends?" Pandora continued before Valentine could give a false answer. "Besides, I want to show Rose that you're nowhere near as bad as she thinks." Valentine was happy at this. Correcting the plastic's wrongness would- "And I want to show you that Rose isn't as shallow and plastic as you seem to think she is." Pandora jeered, letting Valentine know she wasn't going to be let off the hook that easily.

  "....fine." Valentine relented, a joke I'm her voice.

  As Pandora and Valentine walked up to the redhead, Rose seemed to sink lower in her seat, shrinking and sulking like how Valentine would have done herself.

  Rose glanced between Pandora and Valentine. "Waddya want…" she mumbled depressively.

  In fact, Rose's tone was so much of a contrast to how she'd been before it almost startled Valentine.

  Rose seemed to notice and sat up. "What?" She seethed. "Shocked to find out I had feelings?"

  This was a bad idea this was a bad idea this was a bad idea, it always was, God, Valentine, you're an idiot… Valentine shifted her weight and sunk back into her hoodie. That's what Valentine had made it to do; consume and hide her face and emotions behind fabric and string.

  "She knows you have emotions, Ro," Pandora said. "She just gets a little…Antisocial. And snippity. You know. She got-"

  "It's okay, Pan," Valentine put a hand on in her friend's shoulder. "I can speak for myself." She turned to face the redhead and opened her mouth to explain how her defences had shot up instantly, how her natural reaction is to sneer and jest and tease to hide how scared and nervous she actually is, how she was upset at what she'd said to the preppy girl at lunch. "See, Rose, I'm sorry for what happened, I just-"

  Ding!! Ding!!

  "Alright class, take your seats." The teacher said, getting up from his chair and picking up a stack of papers.

  No!! Valentine thought, panic setting into her chest. No, no, No! Why?! Couldn't the bell have rung just a little bit later?

  Class was slow and Pandora had sat between Rose and Valentine, preventing any real whisper conversations to happen between the two girls.

  Class ended and the bell dismissed school.

  Valentine tried to talk to the red headed girl. "Rose I-"

  "Save your breath. I know what you think of me."

  Rose's words stung more than Valentine thought they would.

  Valentine set her jaw and mind. "Listen, I just want to-"

  "I have a bus to catch. I'll see you later, Panda." And Rose left the classroom.

  Valentine stared after her. "..."

  "Listen, Valentine…Rose-"

  "Is a whiney mellow-dramatic bitch…" Valentine finished for Pandora in the most profound sounding voice, you'd think that God himself had sent the sentence down wrapped in revelation and divine truth; Rose is a whiney mellow-dramatic bitch.

  "Uh...No...Not what I was gonna say, but-"

  "No don't worry, Pan, I'm sure there's something good down there. You're friends with her after all, so I'm sure there's a bit of like glitter or some shit hidden in her bra or something."

  Pandora snorted and threw her head back and laughed hard and loud. "I can't believe you remember That!!"

  "I can't believe you did That!" Valentine laughed lightly.

  Pandora calmed herself down and the girls started walking. "Hey, it was only the one time though." She paused and thought for a moment. "...I'm gonna do it again and show Lochy." She said matter of factly.

~~•~~

  Valentine sobbed alone on her bed. Despite having laughed with Pandora at the end of it all, every little bit of what had taken place washed over her and she couldn't take it anymore.

  "You're friends with her?!" "Why are you friends with her?!" "Did you see That? That emo chick?" "Rose is so sweet, what a bitch." "How could she do something like That?" "What a bitch." "Idiot loser." "Jerk." "Brat." "Nobody." "Scarecrow girl with the patchy hoodie." "Scarecrow." "Scarecrow." "Scarecrow." "Valentine, stop…"

  It all hurt so much.

  And it felt like it was unfixable.

  Rose had walked away and didn't want anything to do with Valentine.

  But Pandora was Valentine's only friend, and the two of them seemed close.

  So if Valentine wasn't able to make up with Rose and become friends with her, or at least pretend to be her friend, then Valentine would lose Pandora who would undoubtedly take her other friend's side, and then Valentine was sure they'd start spreading rumors or calling names, and then inevitably Valentine would drop out of high school only a week after joining, then she'd be alone forever and end up dying probably curled up under a bridge or something.

  So obviously, not making up with Rose meant inevitable death.

  ….eventually.

  But in all realness, for Valentine, she felt like she'd just failed the world. Like she'd taken someone's trust and twisted it and contorted it so beyond recognition that it looked like a deceitful shadow of what it once could have been.

  So Valentine sobbed and panicked alone in her room until she fell asleep from the exhaustion.

Hey you guys!! I’m having a ton of fun writing this fic! I don’t know when part three will be out due to the fact that I’m becoming very busy very quickly, but hopefully I’ll have something maybe by Christmas, maybe sooner? I’m not sure right now. Anyway, hope you enjoyed part two of A Rose For A Valentine! And do tell me if you’d like to see this fic with the original male characters instead, I have the first chapter all ready if that’s what you’d rather. Thank you all so much, love you!!

[frostiifae]

what does the wfo cast think of minecraft? what are their playstyles?

thanks for my life i love this ask

everybody loves minecraft! 

rei is a very methodical, thoughtful builder. she thinks up storylines for the builds she’s working on and commits very thoroughly to them. she prefers to play in creative, but almost everyone else plays survival so she joins them there instead because she wants to be a good sport. has a tendency to forget that mobs exist and has lost a lot of lives to creeper explosions, phantoms knocking her off of scaffolding, etc. she also does a lot of technical builds and lends her redstone/game mechanic knowledge to everyone else, but that means she tends to start huge personal projects and then never really gets the time to finish them : (. she most readily compares to xisumavoid on HC. 

naomi is a big adventurer. she loves seeking out dungeons, fortresses, end cities, strongholds, mineshafts, mansions, etc. she thinks mob grinders kind of ruin the fun of the game and prefers to get all her materials by hand but hasn’t put it together that that’s how rei and eliza can do all of their crazy scale builds. she kinda tries to make castles everywhere she goes because they’re cool but she’s not very good at it, but fuck it she’ll do her best anyway! maybe she’ll get better one day! naomi fucking LOVES ultrahardcore and/or Super Hostile maps and is fantastic at them, but she likes minecraft especially for its cooperative nature and how it feels like she’s working together with her friends!

eliza is a redstone mad scientist and an architectural genius who puts hours upon hours upon hours of casual thought into the biggest craziest superstructures you can think of. despite her building-oriented playstyle, she swears by survival because there’s “no point” to building in creative. she makes a big show out of not caring what anybody else is doing on the server, but also makes sure that any farms she needs for her builds are community available and does upkeep/fixes/quality of life changes if anyone finds them hard to use, so everyone knows that she’s actually happy to help out. it’s just as a general rule she spends most of her time doing something batshit crazy out in the middle of nowhere and you’ll only really appreciate her talent once it’s finished. she most readily compares to docm77 on HC.

gwen makes landscapes and cozy builds and befriends lots of sheep and cows and wolves. she likes to roam around with her wolves and pretend she’s in a wolf pack, though she feels silly about it if anyone ever finds her and makes up something else to be doing. she tends to get kind of lost in lategame minecraft because she’s easily pleased by simple builds, but she’s happy to help out on larger scale projects when asked. has a special talent for landscaping, not unlike scar, which both eliza and rei frequently make good use of. she is also the most likely to start a prank war, but all her pranks are really silly and harmless and she also helps you clean them up.

phobos: *walls off a section of tunnel, puts down torches + furnace + bed, throws a bunch of eggs to make a small chicken farm* cabe hous : )

aplistia probably enjoys minecraft the least. she has the same sense of grandeur and scale as eliza does, but is too spazzy to hold on to a mental image of her designs for very long and has trouble expressing them in reality, so even in creative she isn’t really able to make much. she’s a little too prideful to ask for help and a lot too prideful to let a half-finished or low-quality build stay, so she tends to go through cycles of “build something / tear it down / brood for a while / repeat”. if someone offers to help her, though, she readily accepts because she loves spending time with friends and she treasures any part of a build that someone else contributes to. she will get better at minecraft… it just might take her a while!

parias is the third, softest-spoken master player. she has decent redstone knowledge but an excellent sense of architecture and block placement. however she doesn’t build houses, or at least not for herself; she builds roads, pathways, waterways, etc. she admires the natural beauty of a freshly generated world or a pure landscape build just fine, but to her, she feels happiest when others use the pathways she builds and enjoys them, and she gets much more out of that than building an enclosed structure that people only have to go into every once in a while. if you look around the area where you’re building and can’t find any pigs, it’s probably because parias has been nearby recently and needed to eat. 

[irregulardiaryposts]

16:35 01/03/2021

so. its now march!!!!! march is an okay month. but it also means its been a year since corona really kicked off and thats proper weird to think about. it feels like absolutely fuck all has actually changed but yet im a very different person yk. i played minecraft for 10 hrs last week. im addicted to it. this time last year i was kinda sick and we thought i had corona but since testing wasnt really available i just had to stay home ages. it was horrible but to think that was a whole YEAR ago is absolutely fucking wild. 

anyway back to minecraft. i absolutely love it. its such a simple game and you can truly play however you want to. like. if u dont want to bother beating the enderdragon or doing any serious grind stuff, you can literally just fuck about doing whatever you wanna do... u wanna build a little cottage in the woods? yes. u wanna pick lowers and decorate and build cute farms? yes. u wanna explore a vast and expansive world filled with literally endless possibilities and find pets and loot and different biomes and blocks? yes. you wanna mess around with ur friends? yes. u wanna do pvp or multiplayer games? yes. u wanna meet new people? yes. u wanna play by yourself and become exceedingly rich? yes. u wanna do all this and comforted by the melodic tunes and beautiful landscapes? yesssssssss. it literally has something for everyone but people get so pissy about how others play its soooo annoying. like so what if someone wants to go into creative and cheat or they wanna play on peaceful or they have keep inventory on? they are playing the game in the way they enjoy the most, the way that makes them happiest, makes them comforted, allows then to enjoy playing it. coz i bet if everyone was made to play the exact same way and there was no way to customise your experience, it would not be nearly as popular as it is. it probs wouldve died out if people werent enjoying it because they got frustrated by it, or too scared to lose their things to progress in the game, or too anxious to play because its scary and they dont know how to beat things. or if people play solely in creative and they enjoy that the most and wanna try survival, they dont deserve to get made fun of coz they want to ease their way into harder things. or if someone just wants to build or just explore or just tame a million dogs, as long as they are happy they are already enjoying the game to the max, they dont deserve people being like “ if u play without X youll enjoy it more coz thats the way we play it” like fuck off it would be like if a hardcore players was like “play in hardcore or ur stupid” ppl would get mad because thats not the way they want to play it and they wouldnt enjoy it as much or at all as the hardcore player does. and dont even get me started on this whole bedrock vs java bs. this its such a waste of time like??? who benefit from this argument? because its silly java players think they are automatically better than every bedrock player because they have java. 

like obviouslyyyyyy java is better and im sure a lot of bedrock players would rather java, but u cant lie and say that a lot of og players didnt start on bedrock and then upgrade to java, because as kids u cant really afford a proper pc but everyone has an xbox or an ipad lol. like they literally forget that they probably started playing on bedrock too. and its so stupid because yes while bedrock is a little shit in comparison to java, ITS STILL THE SAME FUCKING GAME just be glad were not fucking fortnite players jesus its pathetic. yes this is essentially a minecraft post and what fucking about it. i told u im obsessed with it. 

i should talk about something else. perhaps my crippling procrastination? its absolutely abysmal how shit at school i am now. i get two unconditional offers and suddenly i think i dont need to do a single bit of work (its kinda true tho) i only have three classes and in doing 1 and 1/2 of them. im not even bothering studying for prelims/exams whatever the fuck because im hopeless. theres no point because even if i do end up doing the exam and i fail theres absolutely no consequences because i have 0 shame. ill walk out of an exam i failed with my head held high because i know uni will be so much better - ill only have one subject, one i actually enjoy and want to do work for (only somewhat tho, my procrastination problems still carry through, im actually doing this instead of a 15 min thing for class but whatever) ill have a reduced working day, i can focus on just one subject, ill have other things to work on too like a part time (scary) and car (exciting) and ill get to meet new people that also want to learn spanish and are interested in it too, and i want to make more friends and i want to be more independent (moving out??? hopefully but also scary) 

i cant believe im actually at a point in my life where im actually interested in the future and want to live to see it (lol yeah) like i wonder what 13 yo me would think. even 15 yo me. i wonder how 20 yo me will look back on this. hi me if ur reading. do u have a s/o?? or new friends? how many new experiences have u had? are u comfortable in ur life? struggling ? happy? i hope ur happy coz u deserve to be. i deserve to be. i hope u have a good time reading these. i dont know if ill ever forget about this blog or not. what was i talking about tho. procrastination. its horrible, I hope u get that fixed pls tell me u do. also please tell me u get better at typing.  this has accidently turned into a speaking to ur future self thing. ill stop now. 

im a very good procrastinator. and my ability to actually focus on stuff has been getting comical. idk if its the pandemics fault or mine or schools but is a bloody issue and it needs to get better. i guess its coz i just have absolutely 0 energy do do what i need to or it just absolutely does not interest me to do it and i know theres absolutely no consequences to it looool. 

every now and then theres a day where i feel very unproductive and lazy and it feels like how it used to. a sort of growing annoyance at myself and feeling like a slug. idk some days i feel teleported back to like almost 4 years ago and idk what to do about it. i used to have a coping mechanism (?) where if i felt bad about stuff id just shower, wash my hair and put on new pjs and do something i wanted to do. it kinda put me in a clearer headspace and allowed be to get out of a slump for like 20 mins. u could call it self care or whatever but it genuinely was like washing the bad thoughts away and starting anew (is that the word) like i was able to think more rationally and get back into the semi real world but i was also doing it because i never used to have a proper shower routine, i used to go days without showering or getting out of bed for much and it kinda feels good to have this little reboot thing where i just shower to get me away from straying back there. 

idk. am i articulating well enough. ive written a lot i think. is there any more updates? nothing really apart from my growing disinterest in all things school lmao. anyway until next time i suppose (will probs be either never or like june lol)

[survivorgalaxysedge]

Episode 4 | Space Cadet Blasting Off Again - Jessie

We swapped. And what a wild swap it is. I want from the Andro Tribe to the Circi Tribe. And so did Jonathan, Ari and Zoe. Four of us stuck together on a tribe of 5. We also have Ali with us. I’m worried Ali has an idol so I just don’t want us to lose at all. Let’s keep the good vibes flowing. 

AND NOW IM AM ON CALL WITH JONATHAN AND HE'S TELLING ME ABOUT THE EXACT PLACE I JUST WENT AND THE EXACT RIDDLE I DID LIKE "SOMEONE ALREADY GOT THERE" HELLLLPPPPPPPPP honestly this is what he gets for going off script! i had the room search under control and he was supposed to be in the hallway so it's not my fault he found my mess!

I encountered an alien in the idol search! I sang them a song and viola! I have a special power. I have the ability to kidnap someone from another tribe, for a full round of the game. They compete in the challenge with us. They'll attend tribal council if we go, but can't be voted out. Kind of a neat little power. It has to be used before merge. So I guess we'll see what happens. If we started with 18, swapped at 15, I imagine that merge will be at 11. I've got a few tribals to figure out when/how to use this power, if I even decide to use it at all. Man, I am loaded. Hidden Immunity Idol and this now. On a DISGUSTING note, someone used a power on me to destroy 10 of my fuel. Thankfully it was only 10 and not a whole lot of it. 

I’m actually so annoyed Why the heck would you say “we should throw the challenge .” Like legit why. This is my favourite challenge and I’m not throwing . I get that Jacob hasn’t said a lot but seriously throwing a challenge to get rid of someone who seems kinda new is so stupid . I’m actually so annoyed rn so I’m typing my thoughts so I don’t yell at the person who said they don’t wanna take the time and edit because we are losing anyways . You know what maybe if you didn’t have such a negative attitude about the situation we could turn out a badass video . Did you ever think maybe the other tribe would be down right awful and we could pull out a win ? I’m so tired of my tribe constantly losing . Anyways updated thoughts or whatever because we had a tribe swap Jacob: said creative challenges aren’t his thing . Trying to talk to him more Cindi : we haven’t spoke I don’t think she likes me from our last game though which is fine I guess? Nathan : Original tribe loyalty I guess ? Jay: Jays pretty cool. Okay that’s it I just needed to vent so that’s why it’s confessional form I also still have my idol so flex I guess ? Idk that’s sounds kinda cringe This is Jessie the space cadet blasting off again 

I AM SWAP FUCKED

I SWEAR TO GOD MY GAME ENDS WITH THESE HOES

Keegan is going home

Fourth straight immunity win! This game is wild. I’ve never done so well before! And now I’ve got another 6 fuel, which is a total of 16 fuel from reward wins. With my hidden immunity idol, and my steal a player advantage, I feel unstoppable. But, things can change at a moments notice so I’m not going to stand on my high horse, I’m going to remain realistic. I don’t have any alliance chats, the only person who has straight up said they want to work with me is Jay who is now going to tribal. It’s almost a bad thing not attending tribal so many times, because I have nothing to test or prove loyalty. Who knows what will happen moving forward. 

https://youtu.be/dm7Kta2n7hs

Well we just lost the challenge. Not that I'm surprised, we pretty much lost it when we didn't communicate for a whole day. I tried to do my part and get people discussing but once it was clear this wasn't gonna be a win for us, I just used it for strategy. I wanted to do my best despite the circumstances to prove that this tribe needs me since I'm active and good in challenges. And I think it worked! The judges shouted me out twice for my part in the video (even tho it kinda sucked, but I guess my white boy dancing was good in comparison). But anyways, I do like this tribe and I'm sad we lost, but I have a little theory on why some people didn't try so hard. It was discussed before the challenge even came out that we wanted Jacob out. How this happened was Nathan approached me as soon as we got onto the new tribe and we called and had a good talk on how we felt about the game. Turns out that the queen herself, Jessie Flynn, advocated for me as an ally to Nathan before we even swapped. And us both, and Jessie, all felt good about Cindi too. And ever since then, Nathan's been in my DMs talking about voting for Jacob. So overall I think I landed myself in a pretty sweet spot on this disaster of a tribe and hopefully we can get our shit together for the next challenge, cause things won't be so clear cut next time.

https://youtu.be/dm7Kta2n7hs

WE WON. THANK *GOD.* after flying across the country yesterday and dealing with several minor life crises, i literally spent the ENTIRETY of today working on that video - meaning from when i woke up at 10 to fifteen minutes before when it was due - and also spent seven whole dollars at the dollar tree for props & costumes soooooo if we had not won i would've been quite embarrassed. i was nervous about the editing part, as i've not ever actually put together a music video challenge, just weird silly videos like me as zac efron.... but it turned out okay! i'm not 100% satisfied with my work (i wanted to put more transition effects & it needed more variety / staging to make it less repetitive) but hey it was a thousand miles above the other teams' submissions so i will take it!!! and i never have to listen to space jam again!! anyway, i guess this means another boring day around camp. winning reward got me two more adventure missions, which i used to mostly complete the outside portion of the quest and jonathan is i think gonna finish it off for us tonight. i am hoping/assuming he'll get whatever is there since it's been literally only 48 hours since this started and the door keypad had five zillion combos, and that'd mean that's the last thing in this adventure probably? oh wait nvm we still have a shit ton of stuff to check in the hallway i should do that next. but yeah so that'll be good and i hope it is an advantage or a disadvantage that he won't play on me LOL. if i wake up and all my fuel is destroyed.... i know where you've been jonny! not much else to report right now. it sounds like ali's doing a good job of getting himself in the good graces of zoe and jonathan, which is the most ideal scenario for me so we can say bye-bye keegan. i was a bit worried that if we lost this challenge i wouldn't have a plausible reason to argue to jonathan for keeping ali - or actually, more likely, i think he would have wanted to vote zoe? she hasn't been around as much and he did express concern on saturday about whether she's doing okay. luckily though, this W has bought me a few more days to work on getting the people i like to like each other.

https://youtu.be/F4_Sylzyxyw

UGH UGH UGH I GOT TRIBE FUCKEDDDDDDD IM WITH MJ WHO I JUST SLASHED THE VOTE OF AND LIED TO AND THE OTHER 3 ARE FROM THE SAME TRIBE. GOD DAMN IT. UGH but on the other hand we won immunity and it'll give me time to get to know my other tribe mates. I just hope this isnt a "tribe strong" battle in this game. I hope everyone are free agents

woo! ari and i are together in the swap as well as keegan and jonathan, and ali wound up with us as well on the new circi tribe. we won the music video challenge so the streak continues. i’m very tired!

so the tribe swap went pretty much the best it possibly could, as i got swapped majority with the two members of my tribe i talked to the most. we won immunity so i'm chilling for another week. unfortunately, mj and silver seem to have no interest in talking to me. both of them left me on read after i initiated conversation. so. sits.

So despite the easy seeming vote, I'm still gonna be nervous until the votes get read. These players are no joke, especially knowing that Alex was completely blindsided by Nathan and Jessie. I'm staying positive because I think it's like, a 90% chance I'm in the clear, but you really don't know until you know LOL. I'm just trying to set up my position on this tribe and for the future. I've gone to Cindi, Jessie, and Nathan individually and reassured them that I'm with them for the long haul. And for now I mean it, but if any of them get too dangerous then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry not sorry~ looking specifically at you Nathan 👀

nothing rlly to say tbh happy we swapped!!!!! and happy we won!!!!!! happy to be here with jules. havent really talked much since swapping honestly but i think i'd like to work with jules and asya and somehow get silver tf up outta here when we get the chance!!!!!

https://youtu.be/kt66vebpU4k

https://youtu.be/t5x52CJdhjI

TRIBAL AGAIN. I'm so nervous. I'm the only one from Circi so that's an easy swap screwed if you ask me. But I hope I'm ok. I think I've made a good bond with Jay Nathan and jessie and they all say we're voting for Cindi so fingers crossed it's not all an elaborate ruse on me

First tribal should be a unanimous vote. I told Nathan if he voted me out I'd block him and our 50 day snap streak would be toast and, like, tbh I think that would crush him. Jay and I want to work together. The only one who might've been sketched out is Jessie but she doesn't have the numbers. It feels insane to be this not paranoid before tribal when I know Jacob is pushing my name...but also I literally don't think that he could get me out?? Like, Nathan and I were/are a dynamic duo so I do not know how he would flip. Jay flipping makes zero sense. The ONLY people this would benefit or be a neutral for is Jessie and Jacob. The only way I go is if Nathan and Jay are two of the dumbest players on the planet.

Tribals in an hour we lost Big sad energy I guess my hearts really going to supernova