#but there was ONE boss that just wouldn’t spawn. just ONE.

[imogenkol]

Second game I have ever gotten platinum for 😭

[cottonlemonade]

Accidental Confession

word count: 1562 || avg. reading time: 7 mins.

pairing: rival!Kuroo x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff with smidgen of spice, enemies to lovers

warnings: mdni

request: fluffy-spicy, accidental confession with rival Kuroo, as manager

When you moved to Tokyo, you had your pick of schools. You could have gone to Fukurodani or even Itachiyama, the entrance exams to either was a joke, but after you visited a local volleyball tournament with your parents you decided on Nekoma. Their persistence, strategy and determined gameplay was hypnotizing and your fascination for the club was born. You wanted to be a part of the team, design tactics against individual opponents and fantasized about giving the decisive hint to lead them to victory. So imagine your disappointment, when you met the team in your first year and some bed-headed, cocky boy went at it with the libero. From what you gathered, the libero, Yaku, had badly defeated the other one, Kuroo, during a game in middle school and Kuroo had been salty ever since. Instead of trying to mediate you agreed with Yaku‘s arguments and took his side, turning Kuroo from a mildly annoying nuisance into the enemy.

On the other side, it took Kuroo two summers to realize that all his proverbial pigtail-pulling meant he was in love. The feeling hit him one afternoon as he lounged upside down on Kenma‘s bed, watching his friend defeat the latest boss in a video game. Kuroo’s mind began to wander to the previous week when Kenma had pointed out that he had mentioned you six times in as many minutes and the realization was so earth-shattering that he nearly slid to the floor.

When you met him again in the hallway on your first day back of third year, you were prepared for whatever lame comment would come your way. What you didn’t expect was him avoiding your eyes and hurrying around the corner. You squinted, a skeptical frown plastered on your face. As you walked past he was casually conversing with the water fountain. What was he playing at?

“Hey, demon spawn, do you have a minute?”

Yaku looked up from the cup ramen he was slurping in the convenience store and although a little miffed that his quality after school time was interrupted, he nodded to the empty seat next to him.

Kuroo plopped down and Yaku began twirling a new ball of noodles around his chopsticks, thinking nothing more than this would probably concern homework or volleyball.

There was no use to dance around the subject.

“Does y/n ever talk about me?“

The libero almost choked and Kuroo waited until he calmed down, not moving a muscle to help.

“With deepest hatred, yeah.���, Yaku eventually pressed out and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

“You sure?“

“Very sure.“

“Maybe it’s just a front for her real feelings because obviously she wouldn’t wanna tell you that she is madly in love with me and-“

“No no. She really really hates you.“

“But I’m so lovable...“, Kuroo pouted, earning a scoff from his fellow teammate.

“Why are you asking, anyway? You better not try pulling some dumb prank on her.” Yaku scowled.

“Me? Never. - I just… I was just wondering, that’s all.”

“That’s a really weird thing to wonder about.”

“Do you never have a self-absorbed day? Hahaha…” Kuroo laughed nervously and grabbed the still wrapped melon bread next to Yaku, opening the package and taking a large bite to muffle his still ongoing awkwardness.

“Hey!”

“Just doing you a favor. These aren’t good for you.”, Kuroo said wisely through a mouthful of pillowy bread and, swallowing laboriously, added, “Sorry, gotta go. Thanks for this.”

Unfortunately, the uselessly tall jerk was nimble in his movements and jumped up to rush out of the glass doors. Yaku was about to pounce but the convenience store clerk asked him for quiet and, apologizing over and over with deep bows, he went back to his ramen, groaning inwardly because the noodles had gotten soggy.

Alright. He had three options. Pine for the rest of his days, wear you down over time with his infinite charm or confess and run away before you could insult him. None of them really tickled his fancy and with his disadvantageous starting point of “deepest hatred” - as per Yaku - his chances were slim but there was nothing else for it.

“So…” Kuroo ignored your rolling eyes when you turned to him. It was after practice on a Friday and he figured if he confessed now he had all weekend to hide in case it would go south.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Why?”

You eyed him suspiciously, standing there all tall and handsome in the utility room. He had just wheeled in the basket of volleyballs, subconsciously placing his hand on one of them for support. Hoping no one would bear witness to his almost certain failure he closed the door behind him. He did it gently so you didn’t think he was trapping you, but the gesture made you raise a brow nonetheless.

When he didn’t answer right away you snapped, “What’s it to you?”

You ducked your head a bit at your tone. The hostility was of course just a front for your real feelings because obviously you wouldn’t want to tell Yaku that you were madly in love with Kuroo and -

“I thought maybe you wanna grab a drink at the convenience store on the way home.”

He increased the pressure on the ball, tension running through his body and his heart throbbed loudly in his ears.

To his surprise you didn’t shoot him down immediately but just asked, “Who else is coming?”

“No one?”

“Why?”

“Be…cause I want to be alone with you?”

“Why?”

Abort, abort, abort!

“Because I like you?”, he offered and gave you a smile that may have been an attempt at “winning volleyball captain” but only reached “uncomfortable idiot” at best. He flinched when you started laughing, then, in his desperation to save face joined in, although robotically.

“That was a good one.”, you admitted.

“Yeah… definitely. Got you good…”, he said lamely, “Well it’s been great talking to you as always. Remember this was a joke. Not serious. At all! Definitely didn’t confess to you just now, okay? - Okay, cool. See ya bye!”

He spun on his heel, internally rolling his shoulders, ready for a sprint to get far away, and a moment later inspected the useless door handle in his hand. A loud clunk kindly let him know that the other side of the handle had broken off as well. Oh no.

“Kuroo, that’s not funny.”

“I agree.”, he said, much calmer than he felt, and raised his hand to knock on the metal door, “Hello?! Anyone?! Can someone open the door, please?! There are people stuck in here!”

You took out your phone and dialed Yaku’s number. But after ringing through to voicemail twice, you sent him a text. “They’re all probably already in the shower.”, you said, “Mori will get the text eventually and come to help.”

“Did you tell him you’re in here with me? Cause that might delay his response time.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well he wouldn’t really rush to help me, wouldn’t he?”

You crossed your arms and, adding an exasperated sigh, said, “You know, you guys are so childish. Why can’t you just get along?”

“We’re childish?”, he asked with mocking disbelief, “We are not the ones who hate on the incredibly charming, suave, level-headed captain for no reason.”

Being met with silence he added quietly, “Too much?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t hate you so much if you weren’t so damn kissable. It’s annoying.”, you muttered.

“What?”

“I said, you’re annoying!”

“And the part before that?”

“Didn’t say anything before that. You’re hearing things, grandpa.”

“Nooo, I definitely heard the word kissable.”

“Aww, going senile?”

“Hey, listen! You’re no different, okay?! If you weren’t so god damn cute all the time I wouldn’t have to ask for notes on lessons so often! You’re freaking distracting!”

You squared your shoulders, your body turning warm from embarrassment and, because you didn’t know what else to feel, completely unfounded offense.

“Oh, you think it’s easy for me?! With that stupidly great hair you’re always sporting?! And don’t even get me started on your voice! Makes me wanna drag you into an empty classroom!”

“What about your fruity lipgloss, huh?! You’re just asking me to stare!”

“And your biceps?!”

“And your hips?!”

“Your dumb weirdly hot smile?!”

“Why are we yelling nice stuff?!”

“Because I like you, too, you idiot!”

A moment’s pause draped itself between you, only disturbed by the breathless panting on either side.

“Yeah?”, he said finally, “Prove it.”

You unceremoniously closed the distance between you and pushed him back against the metal door, standing on tiptoes and grabbing the front of his jersey for good measure. The coward eventually unfroze and gripped your pudgy waist to pull you closer. His hands were everywhere and you gasped when he squeezed your ass, allowing his tongue to slip into your mouth. When you needed to come up for air he instead opted for dipping his head lower, kissing your neck, obviously determined to leave a hickey if he continued as he did. And you were very much about to let him when the door opened and both of you tumbled out. Kuroo made sure to cushion your fall, holding you safely in his arms when you landed on top of him and looked up to meet the utterly disgusted grimace of Yaku.

a/n: I got three accidental confession requests for Kuroo in slightly different variations xD so I decided to kind of mash them all together. For a purely fluffy non-manager option I have A Chaotic Confession if you’d like to check it out ^^ thank you so much to the three anons who requested this prompt. I hope you enjoyed it 🌟 (special thanks to @haikyu-mp4 for helping me out of a corner with this one!)

[fairlyang]

been having thoughts of this concept for weeks and i loveeee this series so i just had to spitball something for fun. happy halloween🎃

w/c: 777

tags: blood, murder, cruel violence, wade being wade, silly, death, more murder, revenge, helping, then a lil horny, just some headcanons really

purge night with wade would include:

taking down every singular person that has spoken bad about you, or done you wrong in any way, shape or form

sure wade could’ve done that anyway since he’s a merc but breaking in after that alarm comes on was the fun part

depending on how awful they were to you would depend on their punishment from wade

like your creepy and annoying ass boss just got a warning by wade barely grazing his chest with his katanas, marking a big x

the one who had it the worst was your god awful satan’s spawn asswipe of an ex

wade would have a blast with him

“oh you thought you’d slip by this day just because you bought an expensive security system to protect yourself? well it’s not your lucky day baby boy…”

he’d make sure that piece of shit could feel absolutely everything that he did to him

ending it off by putting a grenade in his mouth and wishing him luck while skipping away

—

he’d def be wearing wearing all kinds of masks just because he could

spider-man? the first one he got. winnie the pooh? fuck yes. darth vader? abso-fucking-lutely. he’d even add his own impression and make you dress up as padmé

—

he’d blast every wham! banger as loud as possible while driving around being a menace

maybe he’d pretend to be dead in a street or alleyway to bait people out and about because who the fuck is out on purge night besides pyschpaths?

“hey hey! oh you’re out purging huh? yeah i’m sure… stay safe out there! there’s loads of crazies out here.”

—

or drive out to hot spots of shoot outs to “help out” one team but really just making jokes and annoying both groups that they all turn to shoot him

which of course doesn’t do them any good when he just regenerates in front of their eyes

—

or he’d be an absolute sweetie and break in to those playing where rich white people auction to kill off poor minorities and just absolutely ambushes those sick fucks

luckily if they shoot him, he’s perfectly fine after a few seconds and shoots up like a zombie frightening them all

he’d def make sure that all those rich fucks never have the nerve to do that stupid shit again or else

“you think of doing this ever again baldie and i’ll make sure you live the rest of your life afraid to do be in a room alone because i will be there to fuck your shit up and not in the good way!”

—

or maybe someone killed you and he vows to kill the mother fucker who took his whole world away from him

he’d have a very clever and thought out plan, and best of all, no collosus to stop him this time

he’d have every fucking gun, sword, and grenade he owns in his car as soon as the siren goes off and get there as fast as possible

they wouldn’t be let off the hook at any point and he had a shit ton of back up plans in case he lost them

“didn’t you hear John Kramer is back in, you son of a bitch!! this house is your fucking trap dipshit.”

—

public sex

sure you’d be doing that anyway because wade truly didn’t give a fuck if you were caught but doing it on this day meant no tickets

and doing it anywhere

he first took you to the mall, just wanting to fuck you in the food court where your moans would echo loudly

it was way better than he thought

just taking you in multiple positions on a table before quickly scrambling to put his clothes back on to go to the next location

a rooftop

he’d have you only holding onto the edge of the roof while fucking you in doggy

“god what a fucking view.”

“oh yeah your ass looks good from back here too.”

his crazy ass would ask you to ride him while on the very edge which just had you explaining that you weren’t invincible and would just splat on the floor if you fell

“that just means you need to practice more as a cowgirl…”

after that failed he fucked you on the hood of his car, covering your body just in case anyone would pull a fast one

but no one did, only a group of guys passed by cheering you on saying “fuck the government!”

finishing it off by fucking in every room of your apartment but really truly ending it by fucking in front of the window like true exhibionists, the way god intended

[tkdb-hell]

woah #1 and #2 with ren plzsbzm 🫶🏻🫰🏻💕💕💕🔥🔥🔥💗💗💗🫰🏻🫰🏻🫰🏻🫰🏻💋💋💋💋💋

#1 - Small kisses littered across the other’s face.

Kisses Prompt List • Kisses Masterlist

(I do my best to write the reader as gender neutral unless otherwise specified - if you send me an ask and prefer masc or fem, please let me know)

♡ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT ♡

The glow of Ren’s phone illuminated his face as his thumbs moved in rapid precision across the screen. His eyes, half-lidded with a mix of boredom and focus, stayed locked on his game. The soft hum of the Jabberwock reserve filled the background: rustling leaves, distant animal cries, and the faint crackle of weather shifting from a humid warmth to an overcast chill.

You, on the other hand, were sprawled out beside him on the over-worn couch in the corner of the Jabberwock lounge. Ren had been ignoring you for at least an hour now, mumbling occasional comments like, “This level’s impossible,” or “If that clown calls me one more time, I’m throwing this thing into the lake.”

And you had had enough.

Shifting closer, you leaned on his shoulder, peeking at the screen. A cluster of brightly colored creatures exploded into pixels, followed by a triumphant victory banner.

“You’re still playing that?” you asked, feigning disinterest.

“Mm-hm.” Ren barely glanced at you, his thumb hovering over the next stage. “I’ve gotta grind for this rare drop. If I don’t get it, this whole week was a waste.”

You rolled your eyes. “What about me? Am I a waste too?”

This time, he did look at you, one brow raised, as if gauging whether you were joking or not. “Don’t be dramatic. You’re fine.”

“Fine?” you huffed. “I’m just fine?”

He turned back to his phone, muttering under his breath, “You know what I meant—wait, crap, the boss just spawned.”

The corner of your lips curled into a mischievous smile. If words wouldn’t get his attention, you had other ways to distract him. You shifted closer, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his cheek.

Ren flinched slightly but didn’t pull away. His thumb faltered for a split second before he resumed his furious tapping.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice more curious than annoyed.

“Nothing,” you said innocently, leaning in to press another kiss near his temple.

This time, his focus wavered. His character onscreen took a hit, and Ren muttered a quiet curse.

“Seriously?”

You hummed in response, trailing kisses along his jawline now. Each press of your lips was slow and deliberate, warm against his cool skin. Ren froze for a second before groaning, his voice tinged with both exasperation and embarrassment.

“You’re not playing fair.”

“Neither is this game, apparently,” you teased, placing another kiss near the corner of his mouth.

Ren shifted the phone out of reach, his free hand half-heartedly trying to block you. “Do you mind? I’m—ugh—this boss is going to—wait, stop—”

You laughed against his skin, delighting in the slight flush spreading across his face. “What’s the matter, Ren? Can’t multitask?”

“Obviously not when you’re—” His words faltered as you kissed the tip of his nose, the sudden affection stunning him into silence.

With a triumphant grin, you pulled back slightly. “There. Now was that so bad?”

Ren stared at you, his phone hanging loosely in one hand, the game forgotten. His expression was unreadable for a moment, then he let out a long, dramatic sigh. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re adorable when you’re flustered.”

His ears turned pink at that, but he muttered, “Yeah, yeah,” and leaned back into the couch, letting his head tilt against your shoulder.

For once, Ren didn’t complain about being distracted—or about losing his rare drop.

[luvindrr]

Kenma is harassed into getting his nails done

kenma kozume x fem!reader | fluff | 773 words c/w: skinny shaming (briefly, once)

It’s a weird building, Kenma thinks, as he pulls into the parking lot. Enormous arched glass on a too-pink wall. It hurts his eyes. The entire street does; it’s all so Barbie-like.

He finds the inside is just as pink when he enters. “Time of appointment?”

“Uh, no, I’m just here for my girlfriend.” Where are you? It smells like alcohol in here. Maybe he should just text-

“Kenma!” His eyes whip towards you, as every other set of eyes whip towards him.

“Your boyfriend?” “He’s very pretty.”

“Very pretty.”

“Like a girl.”

Kenma feels himself go rigid. It feels like a family dinner, where every aunt is scrutinizing his long blonde hair. He points backwards with his thumb. “I’ll just uh- wait outside.” Fuck. Why is he so awkward? This is pathetic.

“You sure? I think I’ll be here for another half hour-”

“PICK A COLOUR! PICK A COLOUR!” Cardstock flurries in his face, and he instinctively stumbles backwards. The sheets are shoved into his arms- some land on the floor- and pushy hands are now ushering him into a chair. “Uh, no, actually, I’m just here for my girl-” He’s shoved into a seat- a very plushy one- before it rams into a table, lurching him forwards slightly. He whips up. Are middle-aged women supposed to be this intimidating?

“I’m- uh, I’ll just-”

“Pick a colour.” The sheer intensity of her glare shuts him up.

Fuck, are you laughing?

“Pick a colour, Kenma!” He whips around, affronted. “We can be matching!”

Kenma looks down at your nails-in-progress. Stickered. Sparkly. Kuroo would never let him live it down. “I don’t think I want that.” You smirk, and he knows you know exactly what he’s thinking.

“You have a My Melody keychain.”

He looks down at his hands, still holding his keys. They certainly are adorned with an obnoxious My Melody plush. You won it at an arcade, but couldn’t fit it on your own keys.

“Oh! You should get Pompompurin. He’s yellow, like you.”

“COLOUR!” He snaps back to the woman in front of him, somehow more irritated and somehow more frightening. He cowers. “PICK A COLOUR!”

Is this normal treatment? Is he paying for you to get your nails done or to be harassed and accosted? Because if this is normal he’s not sure he wants you coming to this place anymore-

“Kenma.” Your familiar scent drifts over him, releasing the tension he didn’t know was there. “You can get something simple. What about this?” You pull out a picture on your phone, but he doesn’t really see it, not when he's resting his head on you behind him. “Whatever you think.” Is that a mistake? Will he regret that later?

Thankfully, he doesn’t see the usual devilish smirk on your face, which surely means you’ve taken pity on him. He stares daggers as you walk away, willing you to come back. Why are you ditching him at the boss level? You’re supposed to be a team; this is supposed to be a two-player game.

“Your hands are pretty! Long fingers!”

“Good nail shape. Very healthy.”

“Too soft. You don’t work?”

When did the crowd spawn? And how the fuck did he get roped into this?

—

The next half hour is a blur. Somehow, he weathered the scrutiny of the mob (“too skinny”, “why blonde?”), paid some ungodly sum, and escaped that Barbie dollhouse hell. Fuck. It’s getting dark. He was going to treat you to boba but the shops are closing so he can’t do that. The shops wouldn’t be closed if your appointment wasn’t pushed back- and your appointment wouldn’t have been pushed if that one rude customer hadn’t been late. What’s up with late people anyway? Fuck them. This is why he became a streamer- so he doesn’t have to deal with people. Now he has to drive in the dark- he hates driving in the dark- he’d fucking die if he crashed the car and you flung out the windshield and paralyzed yourself. He’s not going to be responsible for making his girlfriend a paraplegic-

“Kenma. Your face is weird again.”

He’s never treating you to boba again-

“C’mere; I want a picture.” Kenma lets you manipulate his hand into frame, holding yours when you let him. They’re pretty, your nails. They always are, but this time they’re sparkly, catching the light at every turn. His aren’t bad, either. A simple four-point star in the corner of each. And a Pompompurin sticker on one. It’s cute, actually. They’re nice.

“Okay, let’s go.”

He looks back up to the sun. Probably not too late for boba after all.

masterlist

[redwinterroses]

(part one)

Oakville was, according to Tango, not the closest sign of civilization—which was fantastic, because by Jimmy’s reckoning it would have taken them weeks to cover what the train had in a few hours. Such was the wonder of modern technology.

“We’re only a few hours—maybe five? Maybe five hours out from Eureka.” Tango said, pulling a compass out of his pocket and checking their heading. “Not much of a place, but they’ve got a communicator station and horses. And whiskey.” He sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a drink right now.”

A drink. Jimmy was suddenly aware of the cottony dryness of his mouth—and they’d barely been walking an hour. The sun was down, the night air was cool, but he was already thirsty.

“We, ah—” he half-tripped over a rock. “It’s really dark. Are we going to stop for the night?”

Tango waggled the compass at him, the silver rim catching the starlight. “Moonrise in less than an hour, it’ll be plenty light.” He slipped the compass back into his vest pocket and shrugged. “Anyway, it won’t stop the Greysides boys. They’ll bring lanterns though, we’ll see ‘em coming.”

Somehow, that wasn’t comforting. In the distance, a wolf howled, and Jimmy shivered.

“Normally,” he said, trying to shape his voice in a conversational tone. “Normally, this would be the point where I’d build a dirt hut and wait out the night.”

Tango flashed him a grin that Jimmy could hardly see. “What, you afraid of a little mob action?”

“Considering I’m being tracked, can’t risk my gun, and don’t have so much as an iron sword?” Jimmy grimaced, thinking wistfully of the two shulkers of gear in his carpetbag. Abandoned on the traincar, loot for pillagers. “Yeah, I’d say I’m not exactly looking forward to running into anything.”

Tango gave a little chuff of a laugh, and there was a rustling sound as he dug into the side pocket of his satchel. Because of course he had his satchel.

“There ya go, greenhorn,” he said, and held out a faintly-glowing diamond sword, hilt-first for Jimmy to take.

“What?” Reflexively, Jimmy reached for the weapon, his fingers closing around the hilt before he could consider it. Tango let go of the blade and shrugged, slinging his satchel back to rest on his hip. 

“Can’t have my traveling buddy unarmed,” he said. “Bad look, for an experienced trail boss like myself.”

There was something in the way he said “experienced,” some note of sarcastic self-mockery, that Jimmy did not care for.

“When you say experienced,” he said, holding the gifted sword low to the ground and letting the gleam of enchantment dimly light his way. “Exactly how many—”

“Hey, will you look at that?” Tango interrupted him. He pointed into the distance, and Jimmy squinted.

“Lights?” he ventured, though if that was torchlight it looked almost indistinguishable from yellow-tinted stars.

“That’ll be Eureka,” Tango said. “We’ll get there well before dawn, if we don’t run into too much trouble on the way.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to go back to the question about Tango’s trail experience, but stopped himself. No reason to push for the fellow’s backstory—it wasn’t as if he was eager to share his own.

“Right,” he said. “Right, then. What trouble is out here? Creepers? Zombies?”

“Not too many undead,” Tango said. He rested his hand on the hilt of his own sword as they walked. “Husks, mainly, with this heat, unless you go underground, which I don’t advise. But yeah—creepers are a big nuisance in these parts. Them and the endermen—frontier mob griefing is the worst. I keep tellin’ folks we need to lobby to get an anti-griefing patch out here, but—” he shrugged. “You know how frontier people are. Obsessed with keeping things vanilla. You want luxury mods, go back to spawn.”

Jimmy made a noncommittal sound. 

“I’m not talkin’ like, full-on spawn blacklists or anything,” Tango continued, tromping along. “People want that, they can do things the hard way. I’m just sayin’—”

“Look out!” Jimmy saw the creeper just before it rose up out of the scrub, its eyes flashing a warning.

Tango swore and leaped nearly a block in the air, dodging away from the creature. 

It settled back, glaring at them balefully from its nest of brush and grass, and Jimmy eyed it with wary caution.

“It’s smaller than the ones back home,” he said doubtfully.

“Ehhh—” Tango’s voice was tight with concern, and Jimmy looked away from the creeper to find the man staring over his shoulder. “That’s… that’s cuz that one’s a baby.”

Jimmy froze.

“The… there’s a big one behind me, isn’t there.” He swallowed, and a hint of burning gunpowder drifted past his nose.

Tango nodded. 

Something hissed lowly behind him. A warning—the only one he was likely to get. 

He bolted. Behind him, he heard Tango’s startled yelp, and then following feet. 

“Is it chasing us?” Jimmy shouted.

“Keep running!”

Jimmy chanced a look over his shoulder.

It was a bull creeper—easily twice as big as the feral creatures he was used to back spawnward, its pelt dun-colored and mottled with green to camouflage it in the scrubby grasses. It charged after them, its eyes flickering with anger, hissing as it ran.

“Holy—” Jimmy tripped, caught himself, and kept running, eyes back on the ground in front of him.

“Get to that rock pillar!” 

In front of them, one of the strange, spiky landforms jutted up out of the dark landscape. They were at the base of it in a moment, ducking around the back, momentarily out of the creeper’s line of sight.

“Climb!” Tango ordered. 

Scrabbling up the steep side of the rock, they managed to drag themselves onto the top just as the creeper reached the base. It hissed furiously, but they were out of its reach—and blast radius—and it could do nothing but pace below them, its stubby legs not made for climbing. Thank void.

Jimmy flopped on his back on the narrow ledge, feeling his gun digging into his hip and not caring enough to move. His chest heaved as he panted for air, and cold sweat trickled down his ribs.

He closed his eyes against the stars, hating everything in that moment. Hating the stupid night sky, hating the ridiculously huge creeper below—seriously, since when did they get that big?—and most of all: hating that once again he’d managed to pull someone else into his mess.

“Alright,” he managed, swallowing hard. “Alright—look. You gotta get out of here.”

Tango, crouched on the edge of the rock, making faces at the creeper as he caught his breath, waved a dismissive hand. “It’ll lose interest and wander off eventually,” he said.

Jimmy pushed himself up with one arm. “No, seriously,” he said. “I mean it. I’ll keep its attention—you sneak off the back and head for Eureka. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not leaving you on a rock in the middle of the wasteland, pal,” Tango said, with a baffled laugh. “Like—I mean, no offense. But you’re greener than beans, and I’m at least half the reason you’re not on a train right now anyway.”

The creeper was snuffling around the base of the tower, and Jimmy had the sudden horrible notion that it might figure out how to climb. Or Tango would fall off the edge. Or Jimmy would trip and knock him right into the creeper’s paws.

He glanced down at the sword. “Sharpness?” he asked, squinting at the runes carved into the blade.

“Obviously.” Tango turned away from the creeper and gave him an evaluating look that was far too sharp for Jimmy’s liking. “It’s just a creeper, James, it’s not like it’s gonna—” his foot slipped on a pebble and he flailed his arms for balance.

In an instant, Jimmy shot forward and snatched at Tango’s arm, yanking him down toward the middle of the stone platform. Tango fell to one knee, yelping in surprise and pain. 

“Hey!” he exclaimed, yanking his arm out of Jimmy’s grasp. “What was that—”

Before Jimmy could second-guess himself, or even stop for half a heartbeat to consider why he actually cared—why he still cared, after all this time—he rolled off the rock toward the creeper.

He landed with a thud on its sloping back, and the thing gave a startled HISS that buzzed in his bones, the smell of sulfur flooding the air. With a shout, Jimmy gripped the sword in both hands and drove the blade into the back of the creeper’s head, exactly where the spine met the skull. The point of the sword—enchanted as it was—met little resistance, driving straight into the creature’s brain.

The hiss turned to a crackling gurgle, and the monster went limp underneath him.

Jimmy staggered away, catching himself against the base of the stone pillar, letting the sword fall to the ground with a flat clang. 

He heard scrabbling above him, and looked up to see Tango half-climbing, half-falling down the cliff. 

“What kind of damn heroics are you trying to pull?” the other man demanded, his derby knocked askew and a look of baffled fury on his face. “That thing would have detonated in your face! You’re lucky you—”

“Not lucky,” Jimmy cut him off, exhausted. 

“—didn’t hit… what?”

The adrenaline jitter in Jimmy’s arms—what, the third rush of the night? I’m going to sleep for a week—felt like it was going to shake his skin right off his bones. 

“Not lucky,” he repeated, spitting out the word.

He stared past Tango at the dead creeper. Already, it was starting to curl in on itself, desiccating in the wasteland heat. By tomorrow night, it would be nothing but a pile of super-flammable ash. 

Tango paused. “Not… not lucky?” He tilted back his derby and peered down at Jimmy's face, rant kicked off its rails. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jimmy cursed every unlucky star he’d been born under, and double that for Sausage. For a long moment, he considered not answering. Nothing, nevermind, he could say. Let's just get to town.

In for a penny...

“I can’t die,” he said, meeting Tango’s eye. “And I don’t expect you to believe that, but the fact is: people around me die. Constantly. Never me, though.” 

A bitter laugh crept out of his throat. “If I hadn’t got that creeper…” He shook his head. “I dunno. It would have got you somehow. Or you’d have fallen and broken your neck. Or the pillagers would have appeared before we got down. Any number of things. You’re not safe until you’re away from me.”

Tango took this in. Jimmy could see him weighing the words—and probably dismissing them—but all he said was:

“Why?”

With a shrug, Jimmy pushed himself up, and retrieved the sword from the dirt. He wiped the point on a knob of scrub brush. “You saved my bacon on that train, I think,” he said. “That’s enough to tie us.”

He held out the sword to Tango. “Look—you go ahead. I’ll just… I dunno. Camp here for the night, I guess. You get far enough away, for long enough, the curse seems to… disengage. You’ll be fine.”

Tango didn’t take the sword. He looked at it, then looked at Jimmy.

“You know I don’t believe a word of this, right?” he said.

Jimmy’s heart sank, but he wasn’t surprised. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured.”

“Great.” Tango glanced over his shoulder toward where the lights of Eureka flickered in the distance. “Let’s… let’s just get you to town,” he said. “Get some water in you.”

Get a horse, Jimmy added internally. Hit the road. Put a thousand blocks between me and here.

“Right,” was all he said aloud. “Water.”

Tango kicked the creeper’s shriveling carcass and started toward Eureka, and Jimmy followed behind, still holding the enchanted sword. 

I should have just chanced the train.

[obsidiancreates]

One Undead To Another (Chapter 2)

Shawn can't speak, his bleeding thumb trapped in his mouth by the absolutely frigid hand clamped over his face. Nails press into his cheek as two other figures seem to melt straight out of the shadows, snarling like wild animals.

No stalling with rambled nonsense, no breaking down the case to play for time, not even any chance to get in a clever quip or movie reference before he dies. Now would be a great time for a classic Lassie and Jules last-minute rescue. He keeps glancing to where he thinks the in-house entrance is, waiting for them to burst in with guns drawn.

The only sound is his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

He feels something cold, and wet, drip onto his shoulder. The person holding him licks their lips, wet and loud, and he realizes they’ve drooled on him. It feels like ice water.

“Breaking, entering, and stealing.”  Gruffest Man Alive, AKA Gramv, who looks exactly like Shawn expected by his voice, reaches into Shawn’s pocket to pull out the crystal. “Aren’t you working with the cops?”

“He’s faking psychic. Of course he breaks into places, probably looks around and pretends to have a vision once he’s with the police.” The smoother, lighter voice he’d heard arguing with Gramv before belongs to a 30-something year old woman whom he’s dubbing ‘Cyndi Chomper’ for her pop-star resemblance and extremely sharp and obvious fangs as she snarls at him.

Surgical, has to be surgical- they’re a cult, they’re murderers, he wouldn’t put it past them to have weird body modification surgeries to follow that lifestyle- even though he didn’t see them when he came with Lassie and Jules before and they’re too natural-looking to be glue-on or otherwise removable.

“Aw, crap, he even bled on it.” Gramv holds up the crystal. “Now we have to clean it… before… you’ve got to be joking…”

Shawn flicks his eyes away from Cyndi Chomper’s chompers and to the crystal. There is indeed still a bead of his blood running down the side, and as it does the crystal is… changing. 

As his blood rolls slowly down it’s side, leaving a warm and sticky trail behind, the yellow moves with it. The blood rolls down, the yellow chases it, the hue of the entire crystal shifting. Once the blood meets the bottom and pools at the base, getting into the cracks separating each column, yellow blooms at the bases and reaches up to meet the tips.

“He’s for real?” The one holding Shawn practically growls the words into his ear. He’s decided to dub them ‘The Popsicle’. “I can’t believe this. Right under our noses the whole time!”

“No way.” Gramv snarls at Shawn and grabs his other wrist, tight, yanking it up! “I’m not spending eternity with a guy who tried to do a fake interview with us after he snooped around our house. He’s an idiot.”

Actually, I sent Gus in for the fake interview. He hates not being able to talk. He hates not being able to move. He hates that he’s starting to believe this is for real.

Gramv takes Shawn’s hand and presses it into the crystal, hard. Shawn cries out, muffled by the two hands in and over his mouth, twisting in The Popsicle’s hold as pain shoots from his palm.

The crystal, somehow, turns even more yellow as the much larger amount of blood rolls down.

“... Crap.” Gramv hands the crystal over to Cyndi Chomper. “He’s real.”

“Just our luck.” Cyndi nods at The Popsicle, and they push Shawn with their shoulder as the group begins navigating the maze of the basement. Not good.

“Hey, at least The Boss will be able to shut him up with the sire bond,” Cyndi says. Shawn flicks his eyes over to see she’s rubbing Gramv’s arm comfortingly.

“No she won’t.”

“Why not?”

“You know that sire bonds don’t happen with psychics.”

“Those are just stories.”

“They aren’t. I know.”

“... You mean you’ve been in a coven with a psychic before?”

“Not a coven. I travelled with a loose group of nightstalkers back in the Old West days. One day one of ‘em- this young girl who got turned maybe a year before- comes back with a shaking new spawn with her, another girl. First one says ‘Hey, I found us a psychic, like the campirefire stories!’ all proud. Psychic spawn tried to run away all the time, but the others thought she was too useful to let go- me, I didn’t care either way.”

“Wow.”

Gramv notices Shawn watching, and scowls at him. “Count yourself lucky, buddy. You know what happened to that girl? She went nuts- visions every hour of the day, until one day she got one just after sunrise and ran out the door in a fit. Poof.” He makes a gesture of poofing with his hands for emphasis. “Disintegrated in the sunlight, right in front of the whole town. Least when you lose it, you won’t expose us to the whole damn city.”

“Guess it’s luckier for us than you,” Cyndi says with a shrug. She turns away from Shawn, uninterested in his growing panic as it sets in that this is when he dies. There’s no rescue this time.

“So what happened to the rest of the group?” The Popsicle pipes in.

“I got the hell out of there and left ‘em to the townspeople,” Gramv says with a scoff. “Even if I’d woken them up and warned them, what could they do? Escape in the middle of the day? Easier and cleaner to just ditch them.”

“Amen.” Cyndi coughs after saying it, ash flying out of her throat. “Dammit. Every time.”

“It’s been a hundred years, you’re never going to learn.”

“Think The Boss will give me a sip of him to heal that up?”

“No chance.”

Shawn tries to kick back and hit the shin of Popsicle. He does- and they don’t even twitch. This is really it. Is it better if his imagination is getting away from him and these people aren’t actually vampires like he fully believes now, or is it better if they are? He doesn’t want to die, not like this, but he doesn’t want to be some vision-plauged vampire captive either. He can’t even touch the Possible Actual Psychic part of the whole ordeal yet- that’ll only matter if he makes it out of this basement, anyway. 

Serious, Lassie, Jules, Gus, Dad, anyone! If he was actually psychic he should be able to get a message to them, right? He souldn’t be in this situation at all! What’re they going to do if he wakes up a vampire and they realize he isn’t psychic? They don’t seem very excited to have him around- which he takes some offense to, frankly- so he doubts they’ll be nice about it. Is he going to be killed, revived, and then killed again? That’s just overkill, literally.

Speaking of overkill, when Popsicle finally stop Shawn can’t help but roll his eyes because of course they’ve got a freaky ritual circle drawn in blood with candles all around it. As though this couldn’t get even more horror-movie-cliche. It’s his own fault for ignoring the obvious signs, he supposes. He’d always thought he was more a Final Girl type than a First Sacrifice, but clearly he needs to reevaluate.

Popsicle leads him to the middle of the circle and kicks his knees, sending him collapsing to the floor. They finally pull their hand away from his mouth, and he takes his pucker-skined thumb out. At least it stopped bleeding, but he thinks he has frostbite now when Popsicle was holding him- and where they’re not tying his hands together behind his back. Great.

But… his mouth is free now.

“Listen, guys,” he says, panting a little as his heart races. “I get that you want to keep me around forever, I can’t blame you. I have a dynamic personality and hair like an alpaca, but thicker. But this is a terrible start to an eternal friendship.”

“Shut up,” Gramv snarls. “I’m keeping my eye out for the second we can replace you with a different psychic.”

“Seriously, man, I think you guys have a great thing going- you set up interviews with a specific set of parameters that’ll probably attract unaware psychics, right? And-and then you use your crystal thing to check. If they’re for real, great, mission accomplished. If not, well, then you have dinner, and you make the body all nice and untraceable as a vampire attack by slashing the throat to cover up the fang holes, it’s-it’s good planning. But this is ridiculous, I mean- you don’t need a psychic with planning like this.”

“You don’t know what it’s like out there.” Cyndi walks up with a wet wipe and starts scrubbing his neck. “You know why you don’t get any paranormal crap here? Because of two things. The sunshine, and the ghosts. You’ve got enough spirits around you to drive off every other creature within a hundred miles or more. No-one likes messing with that stuff.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Shawn tries to lean away, but as he starts to tip over Gramv walks by and roughly shoves him back into position. “Why is that?”

“The dead don’t like the undead, and we don’t like them either. You can guess why.”

“... Right, right. … So this is just- this is happening, then.”

“Believe me, we’re not happy about it either. You’re the worst.”

“Okay, you can at least pretend to like me. What, we’re just going to argue forever? That doesn’t sound fun! That’s only fun to watch, on sitcoms, or to do with Lassie!”

“You’ll lose your mind to your visions within a few years,” Gramv grunts, “If we’re lucky.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Cut out your tongue, maybe. Premonitions are fine, but the solitude is better.”

“My tongue? Are you medival vampires, what-”

“He really is insufferable.”

A new voice. No, not new- just new right now. That’s the voice that greeted him, Gus, Lassie, and Jules at the door when they first came around, who lead them through the house, and who-

Who convinced everyone else not to check the basement. With-

“Hypnosis.” Shawn says it as she kneels down in front of him, red eyes boring into his. “That’s how you kept everyone else off your trail when we came in for interrogation.”

“Aw, he’s slow.” The Boss says it pityingly, patting his cheek. She doesn’t look like a vampire queen- she looks like a lawyer, maybe an attractive accountant. “Yes, hypnosis- which I should’ve realized wasn’t working on you and tested with the crystal right then and there.”

“You’re why no-one will follow me on this lead.”

“Maybe you can be clever. That’s nice, I hate having to lead idiots around. Speaking of, someone go get Charlie from the door.” “Why? Is this a family event?”

“Ha. You’ll learn.” She tweaks his nose, and puts a hand in his hair. “What do you want your last words as a free and living human to be, psychic?”

He tries to undo the knots around his hands, but they are tied impossibly tight. He looks The Boss in the eyes, his tongue touching the center of his top lip as he tries to seem Definant and Unafraid.

“... If I’m not able to keep eating human food after this, I’m putting garlic in every bed or coffin we find.”

“Cute.”And then she jerks his head to the side, shoves his face into her shoulder, and bites.

[13tinysocks]

A nonexhaustive list of creepypasta x reader ideas ive had over the years and will never write. Please feel free to steal them and write them.

Red Eye

Coffee shop + slender mansion au. Yn is a lone night shift barista. The creepypasta(s) of your choice comes in every night for a red eye right before closing. Gotta fuel up before chasing down idiots who wandered in the woods. 

 Anyone whos worked customer service has felt a little homicidal before. After weeks of dealing with a shitty customer who management has done nothing about, yn takes matters into their own hands. By smashing their head in with a stovetop expresso maker. The creepypasta sees this though yn is unaware. Expecting them to be like any other human, the pasta thinks the next time the shop’s open yn wont be there. They’ll probably turn themselves in. Whatever.

But there’s no break in business for investigation and yns working there the next night. Upon realizing yn cleaned up the scene and is going on like nothing happened, the pasta’s interest is thoroughly peaked. Especially when another shithead customer gets brained a few weeks later. Realizing there’s a new serial killer in town, the pasta is more than interested but infatuated. 

Dead by Daylight

Slender mansion au + Splendorman

Slenderman had proxies that hunted and killed but what about Splendorman? Had always been the opposite of his stuffy older brother. When visiting after his domain collapses, he brings along his proxies. To which slender’s housemates/proxies were unaware existed. 

Splendor’s proxies are different. They don’t kill to feed him. They survive to feed him. Splendor puts them in near constant mortal peril for his own entertainment and sustenance. Be it randomly spawning them in the wilderness, sending random attackers after them, or straight up slicing off limbs. Most of his proxies don’t last a week. But yn has for years. Grizzled and exhausted, yn is a ruthless survivalist. They to keep the others alive but those stupid assholes never listen. There’s maybe one or two other proxies but they’re just this weeks cannon fodder. 

Splendor convinces Slender to let their proxies play. AKA “Hey! Your proxies should hunt mine down and try to kill them! Who ever has the best proxies wins this (slenders domain). Wouldn’t that be funny!” Except the game is contained to be only inside the vast slender mansion. 

Fun dynamics ensue. Cat and mouse. Splendor has a time out twice a day for a few minutes. Which really makes things awkward when a pasta is about to kill yn and they have to let them go because breaking the rules on their end means death. Ensue awkwardly eating lunch in the same room after trying to kill eachother. Okay, time outs over. Yns already gone. 

A rivalry esc romance blossoms from there. They def hatefuck. 

Meat Is Me

EJ x reader

Life hadn’t gone the way you wanted. Now you were working as a mortuary assistant. Work was gruesome but not that bad. Until money gets tight at work and you’re alone, finishing cleaning up after the boss went home. Strange people come into the mortuary, family, with fists full of cash to spend just another hour with their loved one alone.

Afterward, you don’t think that was a family member but you’ve made one month’s rent in a single night. He keeps coming back. He tells other freaks. They come in the night when you’re alone. You have to hide the things they do to the bodies from your boss. Sometimes they take pieces. But at least your pockets are well lined. It was almost worth it until he came in.

He hid his face. You thought he was more shameful than the other necro-freaks. When you go to check on the body after he’s had his time with it. Fuck. He’d re-opened the chest cavity you so skillfully sewn shut post-autopsy. Everything was fucking gone. Worst of all? He skipped on paying you.

You manage to hide it from the boss. But he keeps coming back. He keeps taking more and more. You can’t go to the cops about him skimping your cash, you weren’t doing the most legal shit either. But you were too pussy to do anything about it. Especially after you walked in on one of his sessions and found a gray-fleshed monster eating strings of tendon from the body. 

How the hell are you going to get out of this one? 

The Archive

Just a magnus archive au where yn is John and the creepypastas are the fears. Think about it ok.

[firesofdainix]

I honestly didn’t expect you answer my phars comment since I wasn’t sure if you’d respond on that ship but I saw your chart on the extras with Phaeton crushing on Mars so here’s my questionable takes while your on break

Mars saying he didn’t like Phaeton in a convo with Venus (average Earth listening in) while also acting like a mourning widow waiting for her husband to come back from the dead from war

Phaeton somehow spawns in and Mars absolutely freaks out? It ends up in an argument and everyone is looking away minus Earth who’s confused who that guy is. Venus just tells him to look away. Phars argument gets worse, they get louder and the hatred/complication is clear that everyone in the solar system can hear it but it also sounds like a badly written fanfic leading up to smut (hatesex) and even the sun is looking away from those freaks, the two of them get so much closer and now people are just full on ignoring them, minus Earth whose getting jealous because why is he hearing Mars implicate that he’d rather fuck (insert someone) rather than Phaeton who responds with “you wouldn’t because I’m the only one who makes you feel good” and Mars pathetically agrees yeah and they makeup? They hug each other… uh. Look into each others eyes for a good long moment. Heavy hard long PDA after what had just happened.

Mars casually talking to Mercury before being like “I miss my ex-"friend" phaeton” sighs in heartbreak while Mercury nods like yeah we know. Shut up.

I hate this and I hate Phars!! (This is a lie) I see any other Phaeton and Mars with different writers and I’m so fine and normal about it but when I see yours it’s just flat out "You wanna eat me and my heart out so bad" or they just give doomed yuri vibes i don’t even know anymore. Your characterized versions of everyone make me go insane.

Can you tell I love your Mars?

— GOE Marth anon

…Yes I promise I’ll make another Marth comment later

I love those "Phaeton was Mars's first love" angst videos that always happens in YouTube and TikTok videos, but I wanted to do my own twist. Phaeton was Mars's first situation ship is their motto right now lmao.

That second one... Is getting SO CLOSE to whatever I have planned for Aftermath Redux. Oh yeah it's coming together. Except Mars will disagree with him saying he was the only one who made him feel good, and just. Talks about his relationship with Earth. Like a fucking boss. "He tastes like you only sweeter" ahhh type of comeback.

Phaeton made Mars worse but Earth? Earth made Mars realize he's still a shitty person and will try and work on that. Earth isn't the type to encourage people, and helps them be better in his own fucked up way. Although yes, he CAN be worse than Phaeton amongst certain aspects, but he is prone to calling Mars out on his bullshit often.

Thank you for loving my version of Mars 🙏🏽 I wanted to see where he came from with his peacemaker personality, so this is what happened. Don't you love it when bad people get comeuppance? And then redeem and try to do good for themselves and others?

[blackdragon-selfships]

✍️ 📝

For whoever :3

Thank you for asking! 💜

Normal human Meg from The WORST Guardian Angel can’t answer here, because TWGA is treated as a spin-off series to the source (and an alternate universe where Adam doesn’t die) and she probably won’t meet the main cast of Hazbin Hotel outside of the angel characters.

So the birds are the only ones that can answer here. lol

✍️: Overall, how does the fandom trait you? Are you a beloved character, or hated? Are you popular, or a minor side character? Anything in between?

Goetia Meg

Loved I hope, since she’s an Ars Goetia demon in Hazbin Hotel, and the others are all in Helluva Boss, and love or hate their personalities, they have fanart-worthy designs. I would hope she’s loved for that, and hopefully for her personality as well even if it might be boring. She’s like Charlie, but not bubbly and pushy. Just too kind for Hell.

She’s a side character in season 1, more in the middle in season 2.

Seraph Meg

Loved, I hope, as another Seraph and the one that sided with Emily in the courtroom scene. She may lose points for being Adam’s (current) wife, but maybe that would make her more intriguing since he dies at the end of season 1. After that they would wonder: How will she respond? Will she change her mind about Exterminations and support Lute in grief-driven revenge? Or double down on the believe that they are wrong and he was wrong? Will she even care he’s dead?

The audience wouldn’t get much about their relationship in the show itself, after all. So they won’t know a lot about the kind of relationship she has with Adam. Though I would put her in the scene where the Exorcists are getting ready to attack the Hotel. Meg would appear and try to talk Adam out of it in front of the girls, and he would reassure her everything will be fine and he’ll explain more about why it needs to happen when he gets back. Ending it with a “love ya” and a short kiss before following the soldiers through.

A brief look at their relationship, showing it wasn’t toxic, but not super sweet either…Adam is still dismissive of her concerns and feelings on this job, and she doesn’t use her position as a Seraph to stop him when she could have.

Seraph Meg is a side character in season 1.

📝: How would your story in canon go? How would you influence the events of the original story?

Goetia Meg

It won’t be explored in season 1, but Meg came to the hotel to see if her Sinner parents could check in and become good enough for Heaven. She ends up getting recruited to work there and spends most of season 1 being the third wheel to Charlie and Vaggie’s attempts at encouraging and organizing events for the others.

At the end of the first season, she’s helping patch up the others after the fight with the angels and they decide she’ll be the hotel doctor (since she was not opening the floor for ‘sexy nurse’ jokes). But otherwise the only way she changes the plot is she develops a crush on Sir Pentious as they interact more, but he clearly likes Cherri Bomb and Meg isn’t much of a fighter even in love (self-esteem issues don’t help), so doesn’t try.

Seraph Meg

Not explored in season 1 either, but this Meg is the Seraph of Patience and works in the Heavenly Play Place (credit to starbright349 for the Adam x Reader fanfiction that this concept was spawned from) where she cares for the souls of children that die and come to Heaven. She is also married to Adam (the relationship that stuck…and because of this, his story about sleeping with his drummer’s girlfriend is from years before this relationship. Adam isn’t a cheater…in his own relationships) and until the courtroom scene, isn’t aware of the Exterminations. Somehow Adam was able to keep quiet about them until that very moment in court…

Also doesn’t have much influence in season 1. She’s in Heaven, and aside from the meeting with Adam and Lute in episode 1, Heaven isn’t relevant again until episode 6. Meg is with the other two Seraphim when they come to greet Charlie and Vaggie at the gates, then is revealed to be with Adam when in the courtroom. Something that could be explored more in the show…but I’m going off of the time constraints they had and will say it isn’t explored in season 1.

She could influence the ending of season 1 and prevent Adam’s death…but I’ll leave it up in the air what that would do to season 2 since it isn’t out yet at the time of answering this Ask.

‘Imagine Your S/I Was Canon…’ Self-Ship Asks

[simp999]

A New Home Ch. 19

Various! Splatoon Manga x Skilled! Isekai'd! Reader

Wc: 1.4k

A/N: Died for a bit, my bad

A/N 2: Leo gets a fanboy?!!!

Back to the start! Previous Next

“What?!”

You hadn’t planned on joining the tournament, not wanting to mess with any major battles. Wouldn’t this make the number of teams uneven? What happens if your teammates give it their all, and you get really far in the tournament, to the point that you make it up against a major team? And surely you can’t half-ass it, or else your teammates would be quite disappointed. Damn it, Leo!

“Yeah! We’ve been aiming to get stronger, and what better way than to have a chance at battling lots of strong players, right?”

“You’re not wrong, but…”

“It’s not like you were busy, you don’t have any other friends.”

Wow, thanks Tasha, how nice of you. 

She’s not wrong though, and there’s no backing down now. You take a deep breath in, and do a couple of little stretches before the match.

“So, any words of encouragement, boss?”

“I dunno, kick ass I guess.”  You mumble unenthusiastically.

You look around at your teammates, and you’re sure that if you were in an anime you’d be able to see a comical sweatdrop on each of their temples. You sigh, and explain.

“There’s not much to add, you guys have already improved significantly since we started training together. Hell, Skull barely had any improvement tips for Tasha.” 

You double-check your ink tank, making sure it’s hooked up correctly, 

“Just do what we do, and don’t overthink anything. You guys are hella skilled, and I believe in you.”

…That came out a lot sweeter than you were hoping. It’s all true, though, you are extremely proud of how far they’re come.

Leo shouts out in excitement, Milo offers you a big smile, and you can see the way Tasha’s cheeks move up under her mask before going back to inspecting her weapon. There’s about one minute until you guys have to super-jump to your spawn point, so you take the opportunity to say one last thing.

“I’m sure I don’t have to remind you guys since you all have common sense, but just be sure to have respect for our opponents.”

The battle is set on inkblot art academy and it doesn’t take long for Leo to rush in and splat multiple opponents. Milo focuses on inking the ground while you run support right behind Leo, splatting an opponent that had ninja squid. Tasha’s already on the center pillar, being the last line of defense and not allowing anyone by. After inking all of the nearby areas, you retreat to the left side of the stage, covering that escape route. Milo does the same for the right side, inking that path with his Heavy Splatling. Leo stays on the front lines, basically spawn-camping the opponents. You almost feel bad, but these are the preliminaries, so you shouldn’t have expected too much competition. At least you weren’t all the way in their spawn. The timer hits two seconds, and your teammates are quick to save up enough ink for one last sub-weapon. You’ve taught them well.

The music dies down, and both teams look over at the big screen to see the score. It’s obvious who won, but it was always good to make sure. A win, 73.06% to 19.4%. Ouch. Their teammates are kind and respectful about it, wishing your team luck and offering you a handshake. You’re appreciative that they have good sportsmanship, that seems to be rare at your rank. You thank them for the battle, and your team heads to the main area of the tower to see what teams have entered and by how much they won. You already know that there are some big-shot players, but you want to see how much the main teams won by. Gloves’s battle was a decent match, he won by about 12%. The yellow-green team seemed to be doing much better than how they were doing when they started teaming up, winning by 30%. The S4’s score was unsurprising, getting a couple fewer points than your recent score.

Your team leaves Deca Tower, and can barely move with how crowded the front is. Milo gently grabs your hand as well as Leo’s so that the two of you don’t get lost (And probably for comfort, too). He’s not too worried about Tasha, with her height towering over most inklings, along with the fact that she’s fine in crowds. Well, anxiety-wise, at least.

You guys almost make it out of the crowd, but a shout of your name interrupts you.

“This way!” He’s waving his hands around excitedly, despite having seen you just a few minutes earlier. Goggles is quick to hug you when you come over, and you stand there like a brick, unmoving for a second before slowly cradling one arm around him awkwardly. 

You spot a character that’s new to the story. There’s a smile on his face, and he’s got - supposedly - the freshest gear in town.

‘He should be fun to be around.’

He fixes his gear, almost in a comical way, before introducing himself.

“Yo! The name’s Gloves! I saw the beginning of your battle, and I can bet that you’re gonna do great in the tourney!”

He looks over at Leo, pointing right at his face with an exaggerated swing of his arm.

“And you! You’re super fresh! You’re quick to attack, and you can hold your ground well with those dualies. You’ve got some crazy agility, props to you, dude!”

You see the way Leo’s eyes light right up, it seems he’s not used to having fans. 

‘If we keep battling like this, that’s sure to change.’

You let the two dorks chat for a bit until you’re cut off by an announcement over the loudspeakers;

["The battle to be king of the square has begun!”]

A smirk begins to form on your face. Game on. There’s no going back now. The rules are explained, and some notable players are pointed out. Gloves is the first, and you waddle to hide behind Milo since Gloves was right beside you a minute earlier and you didn’t want all the attention on you. Next they point out Rider, you’re surprised you didn’t spot him earlier - he’s not that far away from where you’re standing. He looks around and meets your eyes, the both of your giving eachother a nod that says no going easy on eachother, and no hard feelings. Next up is Skull, and you spot Avi behind him, who shoots you a wink(?), you couldn’t quite tell, but his lopsided smile along with the way his head tilted to the side made you assume that that was the case.

“Hey, doesn’t Goggles pants Rider and Skull right about now?” You quickly survey the area, and indeed, Goggles is happily making his way over to the pair. Before he can do anything, you smoothly tug him backward by the back of his jacket. He still says the line he was supposed to say, so it seems that your little intervention didn’t change the story. Rider didn’t notice Goggles there at first, only looking behind him when he made his presence known. Rider sees the way your hand is just now letting go of the back of his jacket. He also sees the way Goggles’ arms drop from in front of him to his sides, as if he was reaching out for something. Rider gives to a nod of thanks, now realizing that Goggles was up to his regular shenanigans and that you may have just saved him from a really awkward situation.

Skull is none the wiser, and only looks at you. Just.. starring. You know that he’s just acknowledging your presence, but at least give a nod or something!

Your thoughts are interrupted by the final notable player being announced. There’s no doubt that there should be boss music playing when you look up to the stage and see an Inkling standing with his arms crossed. He’s standing above everyone, the only thing higher up than him being his ego.

‘Things sure are about to get interesting. Can’t wait to see an entirely new level of skill~.’

Next Part

May.28.23

[obligatebureaucrat]

Mario Wonder spoilers below the cutoff!!

An overly long overanalysis of Castle Bowser, the Wonder Flowers, and why Flower Castle may be one of the most magical places in the Mario world:

So the Flower Castle must hold immense magic/wonder power, right? Let’s compare a typical Wonder Flower effect to Bowser’s transformation into Castle Bowser:

Regular Wonder Effects

Leaves the user and surrounding world entirely at the mercy of its effects.

Can be stopped with a regular Wonder Seed.

Naturally ends if the user leaves the area (by finishing the stage, exiting the stage, or sometimes by leaving a certain part of the level)

Castle Bowser

Grants the user the ability to create custom wonders at will. These wonders range in scale from spawning a single enemy, to radically altering entire palaces, and possibly up to universal reality warping (if Bowser’s boasting is to be believed).

These user-created wonders can be as strong or stronger than those created by Wonder Flowers, as many require either a Wonder Seed or Royal Seed to undo (see the end-of-level Poplin houses and palaces, respectively).

Can only be stopped by a Royal Seed, but the user can shield it from multiple Royal Seeds (see the Cloud Piranhas).

Persists perpetually even after leaving the level and world the Wonder Flower was found in. Additionally, the user-created wonders persist simultaneously across the kingdom.

So yeah, what happened to Bowser is orders of magnitude more powerful than a typical Wonder Flower effect. Why do I blame the castle itself, then? First of all, Bowser seems to say it directly. When he transforms, he says:

“The Flower Castle is me, and I’m the Flower Castle! Soooo much Wonder power!”

Pretty cut and dry, right? Eh, maybe? He could just mean that the act of transforming him came with a lot of Wonder power. So, to be more sure, let’s run down some other possibilities:

The Wonder Flower at the start was special.

It’s possible, but there was absolutely nothing about that Wonder Flower that seemed different than the dozens of others.

Bowser is more powerful than the other users.

There is some precedent for Bowser getting stronger effects from powerups due to his raw strength. For example, in the final boss of 3D World, Meowser seems to be a much better climber than Cat Mario and his Double Cherry clones don’t die in one hit.

That said, there’s a big difference between “gets a bit better effects from powerups” and the vast gulf in power we see in Wonder. Sure, Bowser is stronger than Mario, but the difference isn’t orders of magnitude like “funny little transformation vs world-altering magic god.”

Bowser’s magical talent allows him to tap into all Wonder Power through one flower.

Various games have portrayed Bowser as a bit of an evil wizard (see him transforming Toads into blocks in SMB1). And this wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten more mileage out of a magical artifact than Mario and friends, best exemplified by Power Stars. In 64, he seemingly uses them to transform Peach’s Castle and create warps and/or pocket dimensions in the paintings, whereas Mario can only use them for one-time warps back to the castle and as keys. And in Galaxy, Power/Grand Stars are basically just fuel for Rosalina and Mario, but are being used to create a whole Galaxy in the center of the universe by Bowser. This is the most plausible in-universe explanation imo, but there are a few holes.

Frequency

First, while Bowser has pulled off some astounding feats with Power/Grand Stars, he’s never exerted this level of power so easily. Both the transformation of Peach’s Castle in 64 and the Galaxy at the Center of the Universe in Galaxy 1 were planned operations that seem to have taken some coordination and time to execute (plus a lot of technology in Galaxy’s case). And importantly, these are actions Bowser takes, but not powers he can whip out willy-nilly.

But in Mario Wonder, Bowser does almost everything completely on the fly. From the moment he transforms into Castle Bowser, he’s flying, spawning massive Piranha Plants, trapping Poplins, transforming levels and palaces, etc. And this isn’t a one-time thing either. In palaces and the final world, Bowser is constantly creating small wonders by spawning enemies. The one exception is his hyped-up “big wonder” which takes time to charge up. But even ignoring that, he’s casually and constantly doing stuff his counterparts in other games could only dream of.

Form

If Bowser’s immense Wonder Power is just due to the flower and not the castle, then we’d have to assume that he could wreak all this havoc with any Wonder Flower in the game, which just doesn’t sit right with me. As hilarious as it would be, I doubt Wubba Bowser would be the kingdom-altering terror that Castle Bowser is.

And it can’t just be because he’s huge, because we’ve seen giant Bowser countless times and it’s never enhanced his magic like that.

Peach

The real elephant in the room (pun fully intended) is Peach. While not as gifted as Bowser, Peach is often portrayed as a counter to Bowser’s magic (recall that the reason she was kidnapped in SMB1 was that only she could undo the spell that turned Toads into bricks). Despite this, Peach gains no more power from the Wonder Flowers than any other character. You could chalk this up to Bowser being more powerful, but like in the section on his physical strength, the gap between Peach and Bowser’s magical abilities is nowhere near the scale of “funny little transformation” versus reality warping magic god.

Bowser gets different powers because he’s evil.

Plenty of stories have magical artifacts that react based on the heart of the user and it’s common for these artifacts to be much more devastating in the hands of someone evil. My problem with this theory is twofold: first, you’d think that, if that were the case, Prince Florian would’ve said something about keeping the Wonder Flowers out of the hands of evil, but the Wonder Flowers are portrayed exclusively as amoral wild magic. Second, there’s Nabbit.

Nabbit is not a good guy, nor one of Mario’s pals. The game specifically states that he just follows them around, meaning he presumably hasn’t abandoned his thieving ways from New Soup U. Despite this, the Wonder Flowers react the same to him as they do Mario, Peach, etc.

That said, maybe the Wonder Flowers just have an evil threshold. So like an evil conqueror like Bowser is bad enough to activate Evil God Mode, but a small-time thief like Nabbit isn’t. Interesting side note: if this is your headcanon then it means that the Wonder Flowers have a separate and almost opposite system of moral judgment to the Mario afterlife. In Super Paper Mario, the standards of goodness to make it to the heavenly Over There are so strict that even Mario and Luigi don’t make it, and the Wonder Flowers would seemingly have an equally strict badness criteria. So this explanation is possible, but between the Nabbit question and any sort of moral standard for the Wonder Flowers being totally absent from the text, I don’t quite buy it.

This Wonder Effect both merges you with the Flower Castle and gives you incredible power.

Wonder Effects can get somewhat complicated. I’d argue that “turns the level into a pyramid dungeon” is about as complex as “turns you into the main villain.” However, I’d actually argue that this explanation works in favor of the Magical Flower Castle Theory™.

Wonder Flowers are depicted as nearly identical - the only differences being that the color depends on the world. From this, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that Wonder Effects are context/location-dependent. You only get Hoppo effects in levels with Hoppos, only get attacked by an airship in airship levels, etc. If that’s the case, then there’s something about the area around Flower Castle that would make the local Wonder Effect turn you into a wonder-powered castle god.

With all other explanations (hopefully) ruled out, let’s take a look at some of the implications/why this makes sense in the Flower Kingdom.

Flower Castle as a seat of power

At least three different worlds in Mario Wonder are home to sprawling ruins of separate once-great civilizations (plus a lot of smaller castles, ruins, and structures possibly built by lost civilizations, such as the Search Party parks and underground areas in Pipe-Rock Plateau). You have the Wubba Ruins in Fungi Mines, the lost Goomba/Spike ruins in Deep Magma Bog, and, most prominently, the lost civilization of Sunbaked Desert. The Sunbaked Desert civilization was so powerful that it managed to create a massive structure that holds multiple levels, including the world’s palace (which is dwarfed in size by the structure as a whole).

So how did a land populated with so many great and powerful kingdoms get dominated and united into the Flower Kingdom - especially when the dominant Poplin society’s buildings are humble by comparison? Well perhaps the Flower Kingdom originally only controlled the Pipe-Rock Plateau (maybe even just the first part of it with the first three levels). Then, they either built their castle on an especially magical spot, or managed to infuse their castle with incredible amounts of magic, and used that power to expand and conquer the rest of the land. Some capitals exert control through military might, some through central location, and some through finances, but the Florian Dynasty does it through magic.

A Wiggler Prince?

For decades, it’s been a fun question in the Mario fandom to wonder how a human (a species virtually non-existent in the region) came to control the primarily Toad-inhabited Mushroom Kingdom. Wonder’s Flower Kingdom presents us with a similar conundrum. The Flower Kingdom is primarily inhabited by Poplins, and we only see three Wigglers besides Florian himself, yet the reigning Prince is a Wiggler. We don’t need an explanation for this, but I like to imagine that the first ruler of Florian’s dynasty came to power by using the magic of Flower Castle.

Cross-Kingdom Chaos

This last bit is less of a proper implication and more of a funny observation. Out of all the places in the Flower Kingdom where the ultra-magical seat of power could be, it just so happens to be in a small valley a couple of miles from the border of the Mushroom Kingdom. It almost feels like the Mushroom Kingdom’s craziness is leaking out into its neighbors.

So yeah, that’s a lot of words to make sense of a game whose entire mission statement is to have fun not making sense lol. I don’t actually think we need an explanation for Castle Bowser, but I adore this game and the fact that we have a 2D Mario that actually has a little bit of lore and worldbuilding, so I’m gonna dig into it as much as I can :)

[deusvervemakesgames]

Project RBH Devlog 0027

This DevLog is going to be another short one, since all I did last week was working in that spreadsheet.

Planning ahead in design is important for a variety of reasons, ranging from game balance to understanding what exactly is the most pressing thing that I need to work on, but that doesn’t make it any more interesting for me to write and entire article dedicated to putting in entries into a spreadsheet. Even if they are the planned future upgrades.

I guess the most interesting thing I could do is discuss the intent and plans behind the upgrades I’m putting into the spreadsheet.

As you should know by now, the idea for this game is that the random upgrades you get during a run of the Roguelike dungeon changes the behavior and properties of the bullets that you fire, creating a Reverse Bullet Hell where you are the terrifying boss unleashing waves of destruction.

The reason I need to plan out my upgrades then is that they’ll each mess around with more than on stat. For example, I could simulate a sniper round by having an upgrade make your bullet much faster and deal more damage, at the cost of a slower firing rate and a smaller bullet that requires more accuracy.

That’s another thing. I need to adjust the player’s fire rate at some point. It’s been fine for testing, but when the enemies only have about 5 or 10 health each, being able to shoot a bullet every 0.2 seconds, or 5 bullets per second, is pretty overwhelmingly in your favor even before you start getting upgrades. At some point I’ll be dropping the fire rate to every 0.4 or 0.5 seconds, with the more rapid-fire options being upgrades that you can receive.

Another thing I have is Bullet Friction, which has been in the game this whole time. Friction allows me to make the bullets slow down over time, like how the Missile Turret enemy missiles slow to a stop before exploding. This too can be added to player bullets via upgrades as a downside attached to certain upgrades.

I’d also like more status effects, which I believe I’ve discussed before, and more things that the bullet can spawn in, in addition to the explosions and the thing that shoots bullets in a random direction.

Actually, speaking of subbullets—my term for any upgrade that makes more bullets appear after the bullet you shoot, or for drone bullets, etc. –those too can be upgraded. It’d work differently than other upgrades, since subbullets are each created in very different ways, but it wouldn’t be too complicated. I just need a Global Variable that anything can reference which I use as a multiplier of some kind. Then you can get a single upgrade that makes your drones stronger, or the burst upgrade stronger, or the grenade upgrade stronger, etc.

I also intend on getting some fancy names for these upgrades as opposed to their current, very on-the-nose names. While those names are very useful for telling you what an upgrade does at a glance, there won’t be any times where you can’t take your time to read the description before you make your choice, so that is a bit redundant.

These are the kinds of things I think about from the depths of my spreadsheet. Which I must return to this week.

Until next Devlog!

-DeusVerve

Special thanks to my Tier 3 Patrons, Haelerin and Christos Kempf!

Support me on Patreon to get Early Access to builds!

[alln64games]

Superman: The New Superman Adventures

NA release: 28th May 1999

PAL release: 23rd July 1999

JP release: N/A

Developer: Titus

Publisher: Titus

N64 Magazine Score: 14%

Superman: The New Superman Adventures (or The New Superman Aventures, according to the back of the US box) is commonly referred to as just Superman 64, and is one of the worst games of all time, according to everything I’ve ever read about the game – all because of broken flying and flying through rings.

The developers, Titus, were dealt a rotten hand. After they got the license, Warner Bros became a nuisance to deal with. The developer’s plans for the game were constantly overturned, including the main idea of an open world that Superman would protect, allowing for him to damage buildings, which would affect the city. The developers were told that Superman couldn’t hurt anyone or damage anything, so the virtual world idea had to be made, and so much time was waiting for approval that there was little time to develop.

Everyone talks about the rings and the flying controls, so I’ll begin with that. And, frankly, I think most people trying out the game are trying to make it seem worse. If you hold down the accelerate button, you’ll travel too fast to turn well, but with regular taps, I found flying to work rather well, and I actually began enjoying the ring stages once I got used to it. Press the R button and you’ll very quickly stop and if you press up/down while not moving forward, you’ll move directly up or down. I actually think they did a decent job of capturing Superman’s movement – it’s just a shame the flying isn’t used for much more than the rings. N64 magazine said that that there was no way to stop flying, and I have no idea what they’re talking about.

The big problems with the ring levels are how many there are (with some taking upwards of 6-7 minutes) and how checkpoints work in the game. After each ring segment is a short action sequence – stop cars, beat up baddies, destroy robots, stop tornadoes – but it starts immediately, and the timer (which can be as short as 20 seconds) starts counting down as soon as the text appears. This wouldn’t be too bad if you just restarted form there – but you have to go back to the previous ring segment and do that again (save states really help).

Sadly, the immense amount of fog really makes the world empty, so there’s not much to look at. It’s a shame because there is a single open world, and some of the building designs do look quite interesting – the game is based on Superman: The Animated Series so uses that style – but you can’t see them from further than 5 metres away. Still, the rings and objectives are only half of the game, the rest are actual levels, with a set of challenges in between each one.

The controls for Superman on-foot are rather slow and clunky, with tank-based controls to make it more of a pain. The first level is quite simple, but you do have to return to the start after getting a key for no good reason. The boss fight in this level is probably the toughest in the game, and you have to rescue some workers from an underwater tunnel.

The Lexcorp level is one where just just keep going forward, pushing buttons and getting keycards. The enemies in the game are either “dark shadows” (presumably a restriction so Superman isn’t hitting people that look too human). There are some rooms with nice reflections and others that look dreadful.

Then its off to a warehouse to rescue Lois Lane. I spent ages flying around because I coudn’t find where to use a keycard – turns out it was hidden in an alcove, hidden by the black fog that indoor areas have. After you rescue Lois Lane, she walks around a corner and gets captured – and this happens multiple times until you can finally escort her. She starts off running and then slows down when enemies start appearing – and if you get too far away, one will spawn next to her. If either one of you die, the game’s checkpoint system rears its ugly head again and you have to start from the very beginning of the level.

The Daily Planet’s underground car park is by far the worst level. It’s a colossal maze (much harder than the “Solve My Maze” rings) and so much of it look the same, so it’s incredibly easy to get lost. I found myself spending most of the time flying around the same corridors again and again, and it definitely didn’t help when I picked up a tank and was thrust out of the game’s map into another section.

You have to find Jimmy, grab a keycard (which isn’t there if you look before finding Jimmy), go back to Jimmy and then find a bomb. Then it’s off to find Darkseid. Incidentally, I got so lost on the way to Darkseid that I approached him from behind and used laser eyes to take him down before he could do anything.

Star Labs, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward in terms of structure. You need to find a scientist, stop water from rising and trap Parasite in a forcefield (a Superman villain I am unfamiliar with, but seemingly Superman can’t harm him). There’s a long corridor that’s makes going back and forth a pain, but this level is alright.

After some more rings, Lex traps Superman in a subway tunnel. This is a very long tunnel, with a lot of enemies. Turns out you can ignore most enemies as the objective is to fly all the way to the end of the tunnel where an explosion will trap Superman. So you have to fly all the way to the start where another explosion will happen. You then have to fly to a station (which is near the other end of the tunnel) and beat up some enemies to escape. Although this level has one intriguing oddity.

On the way back to the station after the second explosion, Superman will encounter an old man who says he knows the way out, and says you can freeze him to protect him when needed. It’s a big pain to protect him and he walks extremely slow (you can push him from behind). When you get to the station, a cutscene will happen and – as the camera has moved away from the man, an enemy will spawn and attack him while you can’t do anything.

Using save states I managed to time it so I could rescue him, and he just casually walks through the “Exit” doors (that Superman can’t use). When he gets round the corner, an enemy spawns and kills him. I can only guess that this was the original method of finishing the level, then the developers thought it was to annoying, changed it but forgot to remove him.

The final level is on Brainiac’s ship. This game does the annoying thing where it locks the final level away from lower difficulties (luckily, there’s a skip level cheat to skip to it). The objective is to collect a load of data discs These discs are oddly extremely highly detailed and look higher detailed than most 2D objects in 3D N64 games (or, indeed, any of the graphics in this game). Getting around the level isn’t too bad, although the discs only appear on at a time, some open doors and other doors require you pushing buttons, so progressing is just flying where you previously were.

After breaking the virtual world and pushing some ice cubes of your friends across a lightning generator, then finding some bombs to blow up the ship. The end of the level is a window that literally says “the end”. You then get a cutscene saying that you escaped the virtual world, but Lex is still out there in the real world.

And that’s Superman 64. It’s definitely a bad game, but it really doesn’t deserve its reputation as the worst game ever. The flying is pretty good once you get used to it, and it really isn’t as buggy as I was expecting. The checkpoint system is atrocious, but then it was a pretty normal thing for games back then.

Superman 64 has some interesting elements, it attempts to do what it can with the license, even with severe restrictions. I honestly prefer a game that’s a little bit wonky to one that’s just flat out boring. In the end, I found myself both enjoying the game because I was laughing at it, and at times genuinely having fun with the game. And isn’t enjoyment all that matters in the end?

Fun

There’s only a select band of games that can stagger you into silence with their utter ineptitude and Superman is one of them. From promising beginnings (i.e. there’s no spelling mistakes on the title screen), the game quickly descends into astonishing crapness with a first level amalgamation of Pilotwings’ ring contest, and three mind-blowingly awful sub games.

- Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #31

Remake or remaster?

It will never happen, but a remaster with fog removed and things smoothed out would actually be interesting to see.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Superman: The New Adventures

[val-of-the-north]

Hemwick and the Hintertombs: An observation/headcanon

Hello guys, here’s something I noticed that I thought was pretty cool! The Bloodborne Wiki helped a lot with this observation, so I’ll be posting screenshots from it. Check it out here -> [x]

The Eye Collectors are very rare enemies in Bloodborne, appearing only in Yahar’gul (during the Evening) and the Hunter’s Nightmare. However, many have correctly pointed out that they are identical to the two Witches of Hemwick that we fight as an optional boss, only, they are not covered head to toes in eyes and don’t hold a strange cluster of eyes in one of their hands. Maybe, that’s why they are still just collectors and not witches?

Either way, it’s clear from their locations that these hags and the countryside of Hemwick itself have a deep connection with all that is dead and cursed... but how deep does this connection goes?

The Eye Collectors are also found in two other places: the preset Hintertomb Chalices. The Hintertombs are a place of death and stagnation, endless ever-growing graveyards where filth and dregs deposit. These women are attracted to what lurks there for its usefulness in rituals. For example, we can find several Bloodshot Eyeballs down there, as well as Inflicted Organs.

But it’s not over yet. Bloodshot Eyeballs are actually NEEDED to access the Hintertombs, its the primary ingredient in fact! And it’s exactly what the Witches of Hemwick drop upon defeat.

It seems like Hemwick and the Hintertombs are more connected than one would first realize... but it’s not surprising. Hemwick too is turning into a massive ever-expanding graveyard. I doubt the place was called “Charnel Lane” before the plague ravaged the adjacent city of Yharnam. Perhaps then, it’s all just a thematic connection? Maybe, but maybe there’s more to it than that.

The specialty of Hemwick, the Bone Marrow Ash, is found in great quantities in the Hintertombs. How strange that something the Charnel Lane is known for would to be this plentiful underground. (Retranslation on the right by Last Protagonist, found here ->[x])

Perhaps then, this is nothing but a long-standing tradition originated from the Pthumerians who reside here, the Hintertomb Tribe, as I like to call them. It wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary for the people of Hemwick to have descended from them somehow. After all, we know the blood of Pthumerian royalty survived at least in part within the Cainhurst nobles. Perhaps the common folk of Pthumeru would still be under their rule even on the surface, mingling with humans just as their rulers were...

And yes, the Hintertomb Tribe was once from Pthumeru, as Bone Marrow Ash is also found in the lower parts of that set of dungeons, such as the Ihyll and the Cursed Pthumerian Defilment. In fact, both the Lower Hintertomb and the cursed Chalice of Pthumeru are some of the only places where we can find Inflicted Organs. And what do we need those for? For the rotted offerings, most notably the Lower Hintertomb and the Cursed Chalice.

Rotted offerings are known to spawn new enemies, Rite Keepers and Tomb Prospectors, but most interesting are the Eye Collectors. This variant unique to the Rotted Offering have the power of summoning Mad Ones to disrupt dungeon crawling. And unlike the other two enemies, their spawn rates are higher in the Hintertomb Chalices, almost as if these crones were drawn to them.

[esotericfaery]

The Ascendant Sign: the Soul, Through the Spirit, With the Ego

TLDR: Ascendant & Sun signs briefly defined, The Moon, plus a hypothetical situation, and practical reminder of what to ask ourselves about.

As the Ascendant rises across the eastern horizon at each birth, it imbues us with the purest core of self-hood. This is the God/dess-spark which is still without ego; the part of a person which is still closer to the Divine, than it is and could possibly be during life itself. We are all spirits having the human experience; parts of one soul which is Divinity Itself.

This is why the chart is begun at the Ascendant, and why the Ascendant sign (most-directly-connected-to-Soul) is as important as the Sun (ego) sign. We’re parts of Creation, exploring Itself, and this ego-based experience is of equal importance with working to define exactly what Divinity is and how It functions.

The Ascendant brightly colours our future experiences, with our earliest memories. How do we naturally long to contribute to the world? How do people perceive us, as we give away clues to who we are, through body language, and regular vocal intonations? This is in the Ascendant sign.

Of almost equal importance is the Moon sign, as the Moon reflects egoic emotions generated through the Sun, thus intending to heighten those emotions. When worked with consciously, the Moon can help us to figure out that our emotions are only perceived as heightened because of this mirroring effect, and that sometimes we are merely unshielded, and picking up on the emotions of others.

There is a lot of misinformation online claiming that the Ascendant is only the mask we wear so that people don’t see our true selves. Rarely is the wider-reaching reason for this explored.

The ego spawns vulnerability.

We want something, and there is only one of that something.

We think we need it, because we have allowed ourselves to become attached to it.

It can be something trivial; there’s only one jar of the best peanut butter left at the store. Someone else is also reaching for it. You weren’t fast enough. And so because you’ve had a long annoying day at work, where your boss wanted you to do extra work without being paid extra, and you went along with it for job security. Meanwhile, one of your kids was sent home early sick, so you lost half a days work, and when all of the kids got home they were screaming about different things and wouldn’t settle down, so you thought your head would explode. Your spouse came home and you took the chance to get out of there; roll down the window and go for a drive. You want to distract yourself from all of the stress with food. You’re too tired to go to another store, and you need to sleep early for work tomorrow, so you’re pressed for time. So instead of sighing as you fail to get the last jar, and maybe buying something else or just going home, you yell at the person who got “your” peanut butter, like a child. Maybe you even swear. You know it’s wrong as you do it, but you do it anyway.

Why?

Vulnerability.

Some might say it’s only selfishness. It’s that too.

But it starts with vulnerability.

And yet we also manage to surprise ourselves when we finally lose it?

We’re taught it’s socially unacceptable to admit as adults that stresses are piling up, and becoming overwhelming. Because then we would have to admit that we would feel lesser than. We would have to confront our inner wounds; no not our past wounds, because we can run from ourselves, but we can’t hide. Vulnerability = denial, and perpetuation piles up more and more dissonant debris within our EM fields; fogging our brains.

No, we don’t have emotions. Only children would cry. I’m fine. No, there’s nothing in my tone. I have a happy family and everyone is fine.

The Ascendant is a return to the deepest recesses of the inner self, to where we remember in some way, who we were, where we came from, and how we can re-embody ourselves towards more idealistic thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviours. This is the core which must be reached, breached, and cleansed; the fire that must be stoked, and the steam that must be allowed to waft gently, yet fully outside of our physical bodies, and away from our EM fields.

We were Divine.

And just because we’re less Divine now, because we have egos, does that mean that we should, as many continue to do for entire lifetimes, forsake all Divinity? Should we refuse to look for different ways to handle stress as it arrises, or even make time for relaxing activities more regularly so that we can avoid at least some stress, or handle it easier?

Even if you lack time, you could give yourself 5 minutes before bed to meditate, listen to relaxing music, or do something else to decompress. It all adds up over time.

Let’s do it for each of us, for our kids, for our spouses, and for everyone in the World.