#but yeah sorry not a very interesting answer :( but actually a great reminder for me to watch these!

[werewolf4vampire]

brain damage and strangers on a train for the movie ask?

hii omg thank youu

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

unfortunately for i haven't seen either of them yet! but they are both on my watchlist. i've always meant to watch more hitchock (and just more movies from the era in general) and brain damage always looked fun. i always get that and braindead/dead alive mixed up lmao

[fallstaticexit]

Prev / Next / Beginning / Pillowfort

AN: Source for tarot reading

Transcript under the cut

Morgan: Ever done this before?

Nancy: Can’t say that I have.

Morgan: Are you as put off about this as that other bible thumper?

Nancy: [rolls eyes] We’re not all the same. I’m more than my faith.

Morgan: I don’t doubt that. I’m sure there’s many layers to you. Where are you from?

Nancy: Brindleton Bay.

Morgan: Really, I’m from Portridge, a small town south of the Bay. Originally.

Nancy: Yeah? So, how did you end up a Fyres?

Morgan: Great question. My mom was his secretary. Super scandalous shit, which would explain while the Royal Barbie hates my guts. He’s not a bad step dad though. Hell of lot better than my actual dad. So, your parents-

Nancy: Isn’t the probing developing a bias or something?

Morgan: Just a little small talk. So, is there a question you want answered? Perhaps, a question about your past, your present or your future?

Nancy: I-

Nancy Narrates: [I want to get forget my past. I want to survive my present. I want to escape my future. Could there really be an answer for all that in those cards]

Nancy: I don’t know...

Morgan: That’s ok. You intention will guide us.

Morgan: Pick three cards that call to you. Based on the three, we will see what the cards have to say about your past, present and future.

Nancy: And you believe in this?

Morgan: We believe what we believe in, right? You have your three?

Nancy: I think so..

Morgan: Let’s take a look.

Morgan: Your past—the Upright Fool. Innocence. Curorsity. Something new and exciting—perhaps a first love in your youth that swept you off your feet?

Nancy Narrates: [Already I hated this...]

Morgan: Your present- the Reversed Star. Insecurity. Self doubt. A loss of faith. Interesting. Perhaps a struggle with one’s own faith? Are you having any doubts, Nancy? About yourself? About your God?

Morgan: Your future- the Upright Devil. Lust. Obsession. Temptation. Could be for the material things of life, or maybe a desire of the flesh.

Nancy: [clears throat] That all seems incredibly vague.

Morgan: [grins] Does it? Your poker face could use some work. Let me ask you something. Who exactly did I remind you of? Someone from your past?

Morgan: Your silence is very telling. I have a real gift for reading people.

Nancy: I’m sure you believe you do.

Morgan: [laughs] I really do!

Morgan: Tightly wound, fidgeter. You bite the hell out of your nails, right at the skin on the tips of your fingers, unconsciously. You pick at it until it bleeds. It’s the only thing that’s keeping you tethered to your own body. The pain, that is.

Morgan: Right?

Geoffrey: You made it! And making friends! Sorry, am I interrupting girl talk?

Morgan: It’s cool, boy wonder. Want me to do your reading?

Geoffrey: Are you kidding? Of course I do!

Nancy: Actually, I think I want to g-

Geoffrey: Really quick, Nance, then I’ll walk you to your dorm!

Geoffrey: Upright Death for my future sounds kind of scary when you think about it, huh? She said it could mean profound change. Sounds promising.

Nancy: [tsks] That could mean literally anything. That whole practice strives on vagueness. You can never be wrong if you’re bound to be right.

Geoffrey: Yeah, but it’s about how you perceive it, right? It’s unique. She did yours, didn’t she? What did yours say?

Nancy: Yeah, I um, don’t remember.

Geoffrey: Maybe you can ask her again. You two seem to hit it off.

Nancy: [huffs] Please. I am not going back to that shabby bar. She’s a sham. Those cards mean nothing. It’s stupid.

Geoffrey: [sighs]

Nancy: What?

Geoffrey: [blows raspberries]

Nancy Narrates: [Truth was, I was more curious than anything]

Nancy: So. Those cards. Could they...I don’t know- tell me something that could happen in a week? Like if I asked if I’ll pass my Statistics exam?

Nancy Narrates: [I was completely captivated by this otherworldly experience, whether I’d admit it outloud or not]

Nancy Narrates: [and Morgan was always happy to indulge me]

Nancy: [whispers] So I past my exam. How does this even work? I mean, how could they know? The cards. Could you do another reading after the debate?

Nancy Narrates: [But of all the questions I did ask, there was one that burned inside me more]

[heavy metal spills into the hallway]

Morgan: [startled] Nancy?

Nancy: Is this a bad time? I know it’s late...I can come back another time. I just have so much on my mind and I can’t sleep.

Morgan: You want another reading?

Nancy: Is that ok?

Morgan: Of course it is, Nancy. Come in.

Morgan: Sorry for all the smoke. I can open a window.

Knox: Babe, who’s this? It’s not my birthday.

Morgan: [smirks] Want me to get rid of him? I can.

Knox: Hey! I’ll be quiet! Won’t even know I’m here.

Nancy: I don’t mind. I just had a question.

Nancy: Could you do a reading for someone else, even if they’re not here?

Morgan: [hums] Not really...not without their permission or their intention. Who is this person to you?

Nancy: [looks away] Someone from my past. Someone I need to forget but- I can’t.

Morgan: Did this person hurt you?

Nancy: [shakes head] If anything, I hurt them. I ruined them with my... [lowly] um, perversions. I just need to know if they’re ok. If they hate me for it.

Morgan: [softly] I see... Here’s what we’ll do. Just like before, I’ll do a three card spread.

Morgan: Set your intention. Clear your mind. Ask your question. The first card is ‘you’. The middle card is ‘them’. The third card is the relationship.

Nancy Narrates: [‘Vanessa, do you hate me?’ ‘Do you blame me?’ ‘Do you regret loving me?’ ‘Do you know that I never stopped loving you?’]

Nancy Narrates: [‘Do you know that I’m sorry?’ ‘Do you know that I miss you?’ ‘Do you know that I need you?’]

Morgan: [exhales] It says... that you are a filled with love, Nancy, even though the world around you wants to drain you of it. There’s just too much of it inside of you and your friend-

Nancy: [weakly] Vanessa.

Morgan: [smiles] Vanessa. She loves you all the same. She may be experiencing her own hurt in this world, but having loved you keeps her strong. You two brought something bright and beautiful into each other’s lives.

Morgan: You can’t rid her from your life, because she’s apart of you, and...I- I think that’s a love worth fighting for, Nancy.

Nancy: [between gulps] Right. Right, thank you. Thanks, Morgan.

Morgan: Wait, Nancy, you don’t have to leave. It’s ok-

Nancy: It’s fine. I uh- I should go.

[door clicks shut]

Knox: Uhh, did you just make all that up?

Morgan: [weakly] I don’t know why I did that..

[factual-fantasy]

29 Asks! Thank you!! :}} 🏇

Ah- yeah that's just a reminder to check the FAQ before asking. :0

I put that notice there because despite having the FAQ, I still got like a dozen asks of things my FAQ already answered...

@caprico54

My Wally does not eat with his eyes, thankfully, XD that cant be good for his vision!

@soulful-rodent

I'm still trying to figure out a way around the 100 link limit.. but maybe someday I will! :0

(Referencing this post)

XDD That makes 3 of us!

@how-am-i-still-here-lmao

The Muppets don't exist in my AU <XD and unfortunately I don't know enough about the Muppets to think of the hypotheticals.. <:( sorry!...💔💔

(Julies monster form post)

If Julie ever did reveal her true form, I'm sure Barnaby would appreciate paw pads! XD Hey! He's not the only one now! :D

AAAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DDD Hugs are by far my favorite thing to draw, so I'm glad you like them and can feel the emotions I try to portray in them!! :DDD

AAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DDD As for the boops.. that's a good question actually :00

I can imagine Frank, Howdy and Poppy wouldn't like a nose boop <XDD

Wally and Eddie would just be confused <XD maybe don't do it to them either..

You might get away with booping Sally once!

Barnaby and Julie would probably laugh and boop you back!

Home would just stare.. 👁️👁️

@randomgir2020 (Referencing this post)

Aw man, <XD I cant relate! I live for the cold. When I get slightly too hot? I am WAY too hot. 😭😭 But it take's a LOT of cold to make me uncomfortable :00

But hey! I guess that means you might be enjoying the summer we've had this year..? XD

(Referencing this post)

I'm thinking Wally and Frank get along swell! :) Wally is respectful and a great listener. And Frank always has something for them to talk about XD

Something I can see them doing is Wally tagging along with Frank when he goes out to study bugs. Wally makes for good conversation but is also good at staying very still and quiet when they're trying to not to scare away a butterfly.. :0

(In response to this post (?))

I didn't intend for Home to directly project nightmares into Wally's mind or anything. But I imagined his many sleepless nights and constant stress/anxiety is what creates them.. <:(

@minnesotamedic186

XD Factual or Fantasy is fine, also sorry/you're welcome!!(?) XDDDD Either way I'm glad you seem to have liked my artwork!! :}}

Evil Sylvester talks the big talk, but in reality he's such a wimp. XD If he saw an enormous Metagross- even if it was just standing there completely neutral- he'd probably run away screaming XDDD

@ninaandthegames

AAAAAA THANK YOU SO MMUCH!! :DDD And don't give up friend! You improve with every piece you make, it gets easier overtime! :)

@caronaro-flipaclip

I have it saved to my watch later list! :D I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually.. <XD

@charactersnatcher

WAHHGGG THANKYIUUUU!!!! :DDDDDD

@xxanxious-anxietyxx

Thank you!! :DD and it was rather funny XDD, although sorry.. I don't take requests! <:/ But don't worry! I'm guaranteed to draw Foxy again at some point XDDD

@neo-metalscottic (Welcome home character chart) (classic FNAF crew) (Last ask with awesome artwork! :} )

Hello hello! :DD I'm glad to hear you've been enjoying my posts recently, thank you so much!! :DDD As for your questions..

Home is interested in Sally because she's so.. strange.. She's a star.. here amongst common people? Walking and talking and dressing like them?.. how odd...

For Julie, Home looks at her and knows this isn't the real her. She is something else beneath the surface. Something much stronger and bigger than she makes herself out to be. Why is she hiding?.. hmm..

And Eddie, well. Its Eddie <XDD Human from our world an all-

As for Poppy, yes yes! Its because she's been around for so long. It used to watch her sleep through her window when she was a child. Well it did, until she made a habit of closing the curtains every night.. I can also imagine that Poppy helped paint Home and what not. Which furthered Homes interest in her :00

As for the FNAF stuff, it was mostly meant to just be a joke, yes. <XD But I did have some thought/structure behind it! :)) The other animatronics might react similarly to Foxy when they overheat. Getting ramblely and disoriented.. eventually just shutting down. But Foxy is particularly vulnerable to heat-

Foxy moves a lot more than the others do. So he's built up a lot more wear and tear than they have. This also means that even though he's missing a lot of his shell all over his body, he still overheats quite frequently..

In that scene, I imagined that Freddy and the gang had preformed a show that day. So Foxy did his friends a solid by pointing the only fan they had towards them..

Unfortunately everyone was too hot and tired to remember that duh, Foxy's internal cooling is shot :x its okay though they were reminded some minutes later when he started rambling about pickles.. <XD

@errorinside

I've always pictured Freddy having a taste for savory things rather than sweet :0 Like pizza! :}}

@i-dogtor-dawg

I've seen a lot of fanart of it! :00 Cat sluggy bois.... I like dem :)

@glitchhayden418

*snimfle... I love her so much.. 🥹💞💞

@artblock200322022

AAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DD I'm glad to hear it!! :}}}]

I can imagine that Home has been very tempted to lock Wally inside, but its trying not to spook him away-

Since Barnaby's gotten involved, he's been spending more and more nights at Barnaby's' house.. Home knows that if it comes on too strongly, Wally might just up and leave. So for now it lays low and doesn't lock him inside..

@jean-arclight (Referencing this post)

In that comic I was going to show Ingo and Emmet's first close encounter with a Tarr.. Ingo wasn't there to protect Emmet..

Emmet was fine in the end and ultimately his injuries were minor. Ingo did a great job taking charge and comforting Emmet in the aftermath. So Emmet was mostly mentally ok. But Ingo took this whole situation really hard.. thinking that Emmet almost died today. And Ingo wasn't even there.. it was awful..

Usually Ingo covers up his feelings for Emmet's sake. But this time he couldn't help but just break down in tears. Coming in after Emmet had already fallen asleep and just scoping him up in a tight hug. Emmet was tired and it wasn't great to have woken him up.. but at this point hearing Emmet's voice might have been the only thing that could soothe Ingo..

Also yeah, <XD I'm glad/sad to hear someone relates to my struggles! <XDD I got to the battle scene and lost a lotta steam. 😞 although these angsty paragraphs reminds me of why brainstormed this comic in the first place! :00 Perhaps I'll finish it someday! :}}

@i-only-created-this-to-read

ONE GRAIN OF SAND?? Man.. but I see what you mean! :0 I'll have to think about that..

That nail thing is GENIUS! :00 The first thing that came to mind though was Home poking a nail out and Wally steps on it <XD giving Barnaby a good reason to stay longer to help him out-

Or, if Barnaby stepped on it, Wally would spend a day or two at Barnaby's house to help him with chores. Since he can't walk now <XD What a backfire Home!

I can see home being able to move almost its entire body for short intervals. Kind'a like focusing and tensing your entire body all at once. But if it wants to make significant movements it can only move little bits at a time.

As for the lock, it cant meld or change the shape of the lock. But it can turn the inside of the lock so that a key wont go in. Effectively making you unable to unlock it. And yes! Home can lock all the doors and windows that are apart of it >:)

@abaroo

Well as the asker previously talked about, Home could stick nails up through the floor <XD That would leave a mark..

I was envisioning less of a child with a toy and more like... a scientist with their experiment..?

Home is very curious about Wally and is kind'a experimenting with him. Seeing how long it can stare at him before he wakes up. When he wakes up, what's the first thing he does? How will Wally react to certain creaks and groans of the floor boards?

Although it is a little closer to the child thing when it comes to Barnaby. Home doesn't like Barnaby because he's looking out for Wally prying into this situation, And he keeps offering his home as a safe heaven taking Wally away for days at a time. He's messing with its experiment....

(In response to this post)

I've considered an interaction where the two of them wind up in the same area and start to chat. They joke back and fourth and generally have a nice conversation. At this point Eddie starts to feel bad and apologizes for always avoiding small talk with Wally..

He explains that after his little freak out at the Christmas party, he's always just felt uneasy whenever he would pass by Wally's house. He then says,

"I might sound crazy here, but it always feels like I'm being watched by somethin, haha!.. <XD"

That's when Wally would pause and his tone would shift drastically. With fear in his eyes he replies,

"...You feel it too?"

This would change their dynamic entirely. They'd now see each other as a victim to the same weird anxiety. Finally someone understands what they're feeling..

The only thing keeping me from doing this though, is that if Wally knew that someone else felt that way, it would make his anxiety a lot more real. I kind'a wanna keep this whole stalking situation in Wally's head. Which is why he hasn't just up and moved in with Barnaby.

If he thinks he is the only one experiencing this "being watched" feeling.. then he'll be more likely to tell himself its not real and stay with Home.

Other than this potential interaction, I actually don't really have any current plans for them to grow closer <:( 💔

AAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :DDD Not gonna lie I've been considering it! :00

[lizhly-writes]

staring at my sqh/yqy peak lord fiance ficlet. consider this! sqh is still consorting with demons while this happens because why not. mobei-jun still exists and is fully aware of the whole "haha i'm engaged to my shixiong and everything is so fucking weird" and sqh is muttering about this as he looks through some northern desert stuff.

it's just. come on, yue-shixiong. we're engaged, you don't have to keep chasing after your xiao jiu -- not that sqh minds!!! if you two get along, great, that's everything that great airplane god wanted! but like, it gets really awkward when you run away while you're on a date with lil ole shang qinghua, and then everyone starts feeling very sorry for sqh for having a fiance so obviously in love with another man, which, okay, sqh absolutely took advantage of to get paperwork done at first, but it's starting to get wayyyyy more awkward now --

mbj finds himself in the wonderful position of being able to give sqh dating advice. does mbj date? no. but does he know what dating looks like? hell yeah. it seems a shame that his best spy/advisor/friend(?) doesn't know the answer to this.

"hit him," mbj suggests.

"what," sqh says.

"three times a day."

and then we get into a discussion on demon courting and sqh going "haha that's nice but yqy isn't a demon" and mbj is like "i don't understand why you don't try it, how else are you going to get his attention".

"humans don't court by punching people???"

"you don't appear to be making any progress doing this the human way." and mbj says this super condescendingly, too. like hey, sqh, you're such a loser. you have no game. of course you have no bitches. how can you have bitches if you don't punch people in the face.

well, yeah?? fuck you too, my king! it's not like you've ever had a date, are you not launching a boulder while being precariously balanced on your glass peak (me: i'm paraphrasing bu-ding-talk, check them out)? sqh could totally make progress if he wants to! not that he wants to! who wants to make progress with yqy??

anyway, this gets buried until the next time yqy pays sqq too much attention and sqh had the most resigned fucking look on his face. like come on. this again?

lqg is there. sqh makes incredibly awkward small talk. like haha hey how's your engagement to sqq. good? bad? ahahaha yeah, actually, sqh didn't have to ask, obviously it's bad. look, our fiances are running away with each other. people keep telling sqh that he needs to keep yue-shixiong's attention somehow, but all the advice is weird. in fact this guy last week said that sqh should hit yqy three times a day, not that sqh is going to try that --

"hmm," says lqg. "that's not a bad idea."

sqh is abruptly reminded that he is talking to lqg, a man who probably would be more interested in people if they punched him in the face.

"is that what you're doing with sqq???" says sqh.

the answer is no, of course not, don't be dumb. but like, if sqq WASN'T a poisonous snake of a man and a decent human being, lqg would mayhaps have his interest piqued with a good fight. that's so much better than flowers and haircombs. who wants courting gifts when you can have a good punch in the face.

"hahaha thanks liu-shidi but maybe not i think yue-shixiong could probably kill me if i tried," says sqh and scurries away.

fast-forward a week or two, in which sqh is having a stressful time. maybe it's tax season. maybe it's a shitty night hunt that he has no business being on. either way, yqy is there with him and good god is yqy zoned out.

is yqy actually zoned out? eh, maybe not. perhaps he is actually fully paying attention, but also he takes a look at a stand for fans while sqh is talking to him and sqh is like "shit, is this sqq again?" exasperation turning into anger while sqh is just, super stressed, and he just needs yqy to pay attention to him just this once, and the thought occurs -- well, at least two separate people have told him that he just needs to hit yqy --

all this to say that sqh just fucking decks yqy

[l-in-the-light]

(Mis)adventures of Law with the Strawhats [fanfiction snippet, part 3 - the final one!]

[Links to: Part 1 and Part 2]

"Alliance?" all of them ask at the same time.

"You will find out once someone actually lands on same field" Law cuts his answer short.

"What's with that half-assed effort? Admit it, you just didn't think it through yet!" Usopp accuses him, meanwhile Luffy's eyes get their spark back.

"That's the best idea ever, I can't wait to land on same field with Torao again!"

Yamato looks at the dessert in front of him, so far not even touched. Then he takes the small spoon and digs in a bit, brings it to his mouth and his eyes grow larger. "This is actually really good. So sweet!" then he looks around the table. Law turns his gaze away before their eyes can meet, but somehow Yamato still stops at him for a moment; he can tell.

"Does anyone want to try it too? I don't know why Sanji only gave it to me"

"That's because he thinks you're a lady" Usopp replies. "And no thanks, I'm good, I have lots of salty crackers now"

"I'm also good" Brook says, still sipping his tea. Is it still the very same one since they started playing, Law wonders.

"I want!" Luffy says, but Usopp stops him just in time. "Don't give it to him, he will gulp it all down in one bite. There, you have enough snacks on the table already"

"Yeah, but I would want to try that one too" Luffy says, eyeing the dessert, but seems he finally gives up and downs a full bowl of crackers instead.

"I would want to, but I think Sanji will kill me, or even cook me, if I even try to come near it" Chopper says, because he got interested since the moment Yamato declared it was something sweet.

"He won't know" Yamato assures him and gives Chopper a spoon with quite a big bite of cake on it. He smiles when Chopper quickly catches it with his mouth and a moment later some tears spill from his eyes. "So nice~!"

And finally Yamato's eyes turn to Law. "I'm good" he finally voices out, avoiding to look at the dessert or Yamato.

"Hm" Yamato muses, but seems to leave it be.

"So, how do we play it now?" Usopp asks, because they have been playing for a bit already, but Brook literally just finished the game. "Should we make Brook start over from the beginning?"

"That's cheating, he won already" Law comments.

"Right" Usopp frowns.

"Can I play two turns instead of him?" Luffy grins, but everyone quickly cuts him off with a loud "NO".

"It's kinda not nice to play without him" Yamato says, the dessert forgotten and left unfinished for now.

"Let's just start over, I wanna win!" Luffy decides and stretches his hands to gather all the pawns.

"Then I'm out" Law retorts back and Luffy's hands freeze. He quickly retreats them back.

"Torao" he says, turning to him, his brows furrowed. "Are you in a bad mood? Why do you not want to play with me anymore?"

Law looks deliberately away. Why does Luffy have to constantly act this way? With every day he reminds him more of his little sister. Why did Law had to buy this game in the first place, now he wishes he never did.

"I had to play with you like dozens of times last night, how much more do I have to play till you're actually satisfied?" He finally blurts out. Even this line sounds like something from the past in his ears.

"Every day?" Luffy attempts and Law smashes his hand on the table in reply, startling everyone.

"You can play with other people now" he snaps.

"But I want to play with you too!" Luffy cries out and reaches towards Law's hand that's still splayed on the table. The touch is brief and barely there, but takes Law by surprise and Luffy can feel him freezing up. "Sorry" he mumbles as he retreats his hand immediately, but it's too late and Law is already on his way to the door, trembling slightly. Usopp whispers "Great, now you made him angry", but Law can still hear it.

Usopp peeks at Luffy's face and he just knows he has to do something, anything to stop this. "Let's calm down, it's just a game, Luffy will soon get bored with it anyway" but it has no effect and Usopp nearly gives up at this point.

"Wait, please!" Chopper suddenly shouts. "I had a lot of fun playing together, especially when you allowed me to roll the die for you! I… I never played any board game before! So thank you! And I'm sorry if I did something bad, I'm a dummy after all, so it's probably not fun to play with me…"

That, curiously enough, made Law stop in his step.

"I also never played before. My crew did, mostly card games, but since I don't have eyes, I couldn't join them"

"Wait, you must have had eyes when you were alive" Usopp points out, despite just a second ago feeling kinda sorry for the skeleton man.

"Oh, right. Then maybe it was one of the illusions I experienced when I spent years surrounded with their dead bodies, stranded in the Florian Triangle" he muses, and like an afterthought adds "YOHOHOHOHO".

It doesn't help at all to solve the tension, Law notes in his head despite himself. He didn't sign up to hear all those tearful stories and he for sure isn't gonna share his own one.

Yamato makes a worried expression, but then nods to himself and his eyes become clear like a cloudless sky. "This is actually also my first time playing any board game. Or any game at all, really. Since I was locked alone for almost all of my life and no one was even allowed near me"

Usopp stays quiet for a bit, his brows furrowed and he stares at the table. When he finally speaks up his voice is much quieter than the others. "I lied, I actually also never played any board games before… other kids kinda avoided me in my village. I did have dices though!" he doesn't add that he actually just picked them up from the ground after other kids most likely lost it.

"I kept them, because I thought it was a mysterious object lost by the nomadic tribe of Spotted People. Everyone knows about Spotted People, they're the ones responsible for drawings dots on everything, like skirts. They draw dots on everything that belongs to them, so if you see any dotted objects you know it means one of Spotted People was passing by. Those squares looked kinda important, so I kept the dices for them just in case The Spotted Tribe would cross this path again, searching for it."

"That's so nice of you!" Chopper says, wiping a tear with his hoof. No one comments that the Spotted Tribe doesn't exist in reality, so neither does Law.

Luffy looks at his crewmates expressionlessly, and Usopp has to actually nudge him and whisper to share his story as well. Luffy just keeps staring, but when Usopp points towards quiet Law still standing near the door, he seems to connect the dots.

"Torao!" he calls after him, his voice slightly cracking. "It's okay if you don't want to play with them. Let's play later on, just the two of us instead!"

"OI!" Usopp smacks him on the head. "What's wrong with you?! You were supposed to share your sad story about never playing games with anyone before! And what about us and our feelings?!"

"Why are you hitting me?!" Luffy replies, a bit sulky because he doesn't get it. And Law thinks that of course he doesn't. After all Luffy told him all about it already yesterday night. How he never saw a board game before, but he once played some jumping game one of his brothers drew on the sand.

"We saw some kids playing it before, but we didn't know the rules. Sabo taught us how to play, but Ace said later that those weren't the correct rules, Sabo probably thought them up, because he said earlier he also never played before. I didn't care, it was fun to do something together like that"

Luffy couldn't fall asleep and was kinda moody as the result, so Law, not really knowing what to do, simply proposed to play, because that's the only thing that came to his mind. And then he somehow told him this was the first game his parents gave to Law and his little sister. After Luffy wondered outloud how it's like to actually have parents around, Law somehow ended up playing with him till the earliest hours of the morning.

Usopp just shakes his head, and calls to Law, bringing him back to reality. "Just ignore him, he was always slightly off in the head, there's no way to fix him"

"Hey, that's not a nice thing to say!" Luffy complains.

"What you said earlier also wasn't nice!" Usopp retorted and he smacks him again. Luffy doesn't stay indebted for long and returns the favour, which makes Usopp do it again as well, and they probably would keep on doing it for longer, but Law finally turns around, sighs and just goes back to his seat.

"Do you all have to be always so dramatic about everything you do" he grits through his teeth, crossing his arms and looking at no one in particular.

"Says the most dramatic one around…" slips from Usopp's lips despite his better judgment, and he is immediately greeted with a glare promising many death threats, but their staring contest gets interrupted before Usopp can duck under the table in fear.

"Here you go!" Yamato smiles as he places a plate in front of Law. There's a half of the chocolate dessert resting on it, together with a clean spoon. Law looks at him and raises his eyebrows. "I heard there's nothing better than a make up snack after a fight!" he cheers and goes back to his own half of the dessert, finishing it up with a wide smile.

Law just looks at the plate wordlessly. He admits he feels kinda stupid over all that now, but he would rather bite off his tongue than admit it outloud.

"So, what are we doing about Brook?" Usopp returns with the annoying question. Law closes his eyes and snaps his fingers.

"He will play, as an assassin. He will go backwards, retreating his steps all the way back to the beginning" he says, not even bothering to acknowledge the puzzled looks directed at him. "And every time he will pass by another player, they get eliminated"

"Wait wait wait, that sounds scary!", "It actually sounds fun! Can we fight him off somehow??", "Yohohoho!" are comments that are soon following.

"Hold on, but then no one can reach the end goal!" Usopp points out and is greeted with a very sinister smile in reply.

"Good job for catching on that"

Luffy at least doesn't seem to mind, Chopper is still panicking, Brook doesn't stop laughing, and Yamato's mouth is just comically gaping open. Usopp for once is not giving up though.

"Or maybe" Usopp starts, pondering. "The assassin is instead a ghost. Every time he passes by someone, he starts to follow them around, like a curse! And if that person doesn't do something in particular, they have to return to the start… or they get eliminated!"

"If they don't throw two sixes in four rounds, the haunted person will have to move backwards from now on as well" Law adds. "All the way till they reach the starting point"

"Or if they roll two fours. Because four means death and eight is double death so it breaks the curse!" Usopp nods. "Wait, do we even have another dice?"

"Now we do" Law says, flicks his fingers and another die lands on the table. "You can also escape the assassin following you if you slide down a snake or go up the ladder. We can consider it a special rule that applies only when you're followed by the assassin."

"Then the ghost has to give it up and find someone else to follow around!" Usopp finishes, pointing at Brook. "But if the person who is followed rolls two twos, they become a ghost as well till they get another pair of fours!"

"Good idea" Law comments and Usopp flashes him a smile. And then extends his opened palm towards him, pausing and waiting for something. Law looks at him. "Come on, that was brilliant, high five is in order!"

Law looks at the offered palm and at his own hand. Should he…? And then slowly raises it up and leaves it hanging there in midair, not moving it any further. Usopp smacks his own hand with his, smiling from ear to ear and wiping his nose with his finger. "We make a good team!" he declares.

Before Law can take his hand away, Chopper and Luffy also join in for the high five-ing, earning themselves a groan. Law quickly takes his hand back and hides it under the table, as far as he possibly can.

"Sorry, Torao!" Luffy says and no one gets it, but Law doesn't really comment on it either. Usopp just shrugs, probably thinking it's just another of Luffy's weird things he does. Law starts to realize that's the usual consensus around the Sunny.

"So, whose turn was it?"

"God Usopp's" Law answers, which makes Usopp both flush and giggle at the same time.

"You can be God Torao as well, if you want. You earned it!" he says mercifully.

"No, I'm good" Law replies immediately.

"Suit yourself, I won't offer it to you again!" he warns, waggling his finger at him.

They roll the die, Brook finds his first victim, yohohoho-ing all the time when stalking Usopp's pawn (which was the closest to the goal) while the latter already regrets all his life choices up until this second. Taking advantage of the commotion Law places a plate in front of Luffy. It contains half of the half of the dessert.

"For me?? Really?!" Luffy can't believe his eyes and dumps everything that's on it in his mouth, which is why he has to retrieve the spoon a moment later from his rubbery maw. "Wow, it's indeed very sweet"

Yamato sends Law a smile, but it gets blatantly ignored.

"Ooff, I'm alive" Usopp wipes sweat from his forehead, he slid down a snake to escape Brook's clutches. "The ghost couldn't take me, haha" he laughs weakly. "Why did I even agree to this rule?!"

"Assassin, not a ghost" Law comments.

"It's a ghost! The Bone Snatcher! Because he will steal your bones once he puts the curse on you" Usopp insists.

"I prefer just Brook" says Brook. "Yohohoho"

"No, it's actually a villain! A marine! An admiral!" Luffy butts-in.

"A Germa" Law corrects him.

"A Germa!!" Luffy agrees, throwing his fist in the air.

"I dunno why you're talking about those bastards, but I agree about every bad word you said about them" says Sanji, as he returns to the kitchen. "Or actually, no, just don't talk about them in my presence if you want to get any dinner today" he reconsiders, after he gets back to his counter.

He then notices almost immediately an extra plate in the sink that Law shambled away. "Confess, who snatched something from the kitchen when I was away? Was it you, Law?!" he looks accussingly, knowing fully well what Law's powers could do. Law doesn't exactly agree or disagree, because he might have indeed made Sanji's life a bit harder when he sometimes snatched some snacks for Luffy between meals, just so Luffy would give him some peace. But when Sanji just gives him a stare full of daggers and past resentments, Law remains completely unremorseful.

"You need more than an extra plate as a proof" Law defies him, but before the conflict can escalate any further, Yamato raises his hand, trying to attract Sanji's attention instead.

"Sorry, it was me. I'm a big boy, so just one plate wasn't enough!"

"Oh, if it was Yamato-chan, it's alright" Sanji swoons. "I'm not apologizing to you though, even if you hate on Germa. I have no guarantee you didn't force Yamato-chan's pure heart to help you get extra food" he huffs in Law's direction. Curiously enough, just a moment later he swears when he turns on the water in the sink and it splashes all over him.

"Bone Snatcher!" Usopp still insists on his idea.

"How about Oden?" Yamato asks cheerfully like people aren't fighting and about to punch each other to push their ideas, and suddenly everyone turns to look at him.

"Oden, how nice" Chopper comments. Almost everyone else nods as well. "Oden it is!"

"Since when was Oden a vengeful ghost?" Usopp frowns, but Law just shrugs. "Oh, come on, you can't agree to this as well!"

"It's Oden" Law replies, smirking again when Usopp groans.

"I regret sharing my God title with you, I take it back!"

"I didn't accept it anyway"

At that moment Usopp notices that Law is munching another cookie and narrows his eyes.

"Liking sweets doesn't really suit you" he says, trying to get back on him, judging him with his narrowed eyes.

Law furrows his brows. "I use my brain, brain needs sugar"

"I can confirm that it's a scientific fact!" Chopper butts in, nodding his head vigorously.

Usopp is still looking sceptically at him, when Luffy suddenly shouts. "Finally! I made it on the same field as Torao again!"

They all look down on the board.

"So, what now??" Luffy looks expectantly at Law. They all do. He blinks once. Oh, right. Alliance.

"Now…" he starts and taps his finger on the board. "…we play as one team. We roll two dice, you one and me another, and we add up the number and move our pawns the same amount of fields. The alliance lasts till we roll two ones, which means we can go seperate ways from that moment again"

"What if I don't want to finish the alliance?" Luffy asks immediately.

"Then, I guess, it continues" Law answers reluctantly.

"TWO DICES?!" Usopp screams. "That's an unfair advantage, it's like rolling dice twice every round!"

"Also, anytime we step on a ladder or a snake, only one person can go up or down. That's also a way to seperate an alliance" Law adds, because he knows he needs to balance this rule out a bit.

"Eh, I don't like that" Luffy complains.

"But if we're haunted by Oden and lose to the curse, we both have to retreat our steps all the way back to the beginning, unless we manage to lift it"

"That sounds fun" Luffy cheers again.

"What about the end goal?" asks Usopp, who is now munching on a cookie which he wouldn't touch before, suddenly crackers long forgotten for some mysterious reason.

"Only one person from the alliance can win" Law clarifies.

"How will that be decided?" Yamato asks.

"I will tell you once we get to that situation"

Everyone but Luffy protests.

"That sounds like an adventure!" he snickers.

"What's with that shtick of yours and witholding the rules! I protest! Come on guys, join me in my rebellion!" Usopp tries to rile up the crowd, but they all decide it's not worth it, because who cares, it's still fun. Law sneaks him a small V sign in his direction, which is Usopp's last straw.

"Fine, you want to play this way, then we will add some mines to the board!" he says, maniacally munching on the cookies, sugar rush probably getting to his head as he leans forward, fishing out a pen out of nowhere and coloring one, two, three, four fields completely black before Law reacts, at first trying to catch his hand to stop him, but in the end he just snatches his pen away, using shambles. "Hey, I wasn't done yet!" Usopp complains.

"That's enough already" Law huffs. "Returning people to the beginning all the time is poor balance, it will just make everyone frustrated all the time"

"So what? My luck is flawless and I will laugh at them all the time!"

"What a petty reason"

"It's done already, so deal with it!"

"Think of something else for the mines"

"Guys" Luffy interrupts them. "How about whoever steps on that black field jumps in the air?" he proposes.

They both look quizzically at him.

Luffy simply puts a pawn on that field and flips the board up so the pawn flies in the air (together with all the rest of them) and then lands back on board in a completely different spot. "An earthquake, shishishi!"

"Now you made a mess" Law comments, looking at the board, no surprise in his voice.

"I don't remember where was my pawn located before… How could you Luffy??" Chopper laments, but Luffy only laughs more.

"You basically destroyed the game, you know" Usopp criticizes, but Yamato and Brook look at each other and only laugh. "We can't play like this"

That caused a brief silence. Luffy is scratching his head, about to open his mouth and say something, but Law stops him.

"This doesn't destroy anything" he bluffs. "You just have to start over from the spot where your pawn landed on. And if it landed in the middle of a ladder or a snake, you put them up or down accordingly."

They all look at him like he just saved a world on his way back home from a grocery trip while not forgetting to buy the milk in the process. He has a hard time trying not to cringe.

"What about the pawn that fell off the board or beyond the borders?"

"Just put them on closest fields" he said, taking one of the pawns that completely fell off to the table, pondering. Putting it back on the start seems a bit cruel, but he guesses it can't be avoided…

"Just toss it in the air again, wherever it lands will be it's new field!" Luffy says, snatches it from Law's hand and demonstrates. The pawn fell slightly to the left from the middle of the board. "See, it works out!"

Everyone leans forward to find their new respective spots for their pawns, besides Law who catches Sanji frowning as he steals a peek from his counter. He also didn't miss the way Sanji stared at the board earlier on and Law looks towards the door, lost in his inner world again. He thinks back to their lunch, when everyone was here as well.

"Eh, but what about our alliance?" Luffy suddenly remembers and looks expectantly at Law who returns his attention back on him.

"We still roll both dice and move the same amount of fields"

"Oh, so it's not affected, good" Luffy practically beams, like suddenly something heavy was lifted from his chest. "So we just have to meet up again, shishishi"

"You know it will be harder now that you will move exactly the same amount of fields each round, right?" Usopp asks, taken aback by Luffy's carefree attitude.

"It will be just more challenging, is all! That's nothing for a future king of the pirates!" he cries out. "Also, it can't be helped"

"Indeed" Law says, looking at him. "It was an earthquake, after all"

Luffy chuckles. "Exactly!"

They keep on playing for whole afternoon, Yamato becomes Oden twice and seems to enjoy it more than the regular gameplay, chasing after Chopper who escapes all the way back to the beginning from him before he realizes he's safe already, Brook gets released from his Oden curse by two twos and is close to the goal again. Red and blue pawns mysteriously meet again by a chain of random circumenstances of Law escaping from the Oden curse up the ladder and Luffy sliding down a snake. They're seperated exactly by five fields now.

One die, the one that Law threw, shows a two. Luffy's die swirls a lot and seems to have stopped on five, yet it somehow flipped to show a three instead.

"I saw it!" Usopp shouts, pointing an accussatory finger in Law's direction. "You manipulated Luffy's dice so it lands in the way you want it to!"

"You saw nothing" Law comments back. "And you have no evidence that I ever cheated"

"Wait, why does it suddenly sound like you were cheating all this time??"

"Guys, Brook won again" Chopper complains worriedly. "Does it mean the game is over again?"

"No, we're playing to see who's last now" Law reminds him, ignoring Usopp's question and avoiding his long nose proding towards him.

When Luffy and Law, still somehow in an alliance, reach the goal together, they all finally learn how it will get decided who will be the first and who the second.

"We take the dice, throw it the hardest we can, and whichever one lands closest to the board wins" Law's lips curl up, smile sharp like razor blades, and everyone feels the chill run down their spine at the sight. Luffy laughs and everyone take it as a sign that now is the time to duck under the table, the fastest they can.

Law wasn't kidding when he said "the hardest they can", both of their dice bumped all over the place and hit the ceilling, till finally Luffy's one lands in the pot on the stove, while Law's one bounces off of Luffy's head and rolls away to some corner of the room.

As the result Sanji throws them all out of the kitchen angirly and threatens they won't get any dinner today.

"We need to play like this every evening! After Sanji is no longer in the kitchen" Luffy declares as soon as they're on the deck.

"Without me" Law deadpans, because how dare he decide that on his own again.

"Why?? Usopp, do something, make him agree!!"

"No way, convince him yourself, if I do anything he's gonna murder me in my sleep tonight"

"You bet I will"

"Scary!!" says Usopp as he hides behind Luffy who just laughs like it's all a funny joke, because Torao is always so funny.

----------------------------------

Later that evening, Sanji is still preparing some snack for Franky who finally managed to sit down after a whole day of making some inventions and repairs. Nami and Robin are chatting at the kitchen table, and Zoro is lying down on the sofa under the window.

"What's that?" Franky asks, noticing a cardboard box sitting on the table. "Isn't it that snakes and ladders game they played before?"

"What?" Sanji sounds alarmed as he peeks over from the counter. "I was sure I threw it out together with all those rascals"

"Oh, so that's the game they were playing" Robin looks curiously when Franky opens the cover. "It looks rather simple"

"It might look this way, but they invented shit tons of new rules" Sanji grumbles, unquestionably thinking back to all the chaos they created in his precious kitchen.

"They did? What kind of?" Franky inquires, taking out some pawns and two dice.

"Whoever finished first was an assassin chasing other pawns down on their path, I think" Sanji says, waving his hand dismissively.

"Oh, how interesting" Robin smiles.

"What are those black fields?" Nami asks.

"Now that you mention it, I have never seen those before in that board game" Franky shrugs.

"They shook the board, scattering all the pieces randomly around whenever someone stepped on one of those" Sanji explains.

"That's surprisingly inventive. Was it Usopp's idea?"

"I think it was actually Luffy's"

"Huh"

"Okay, you're the orange one" Franky hands Nami the pawn. "And you're gonna be green" he turns his head towards Zoro, placing his pawn at the start.

"What? I'm not playing any games" Zoro protests.

"Neither am I" Sanji warns Franky before he can move on to give him a pawn as well. "I only told you about those rules because my beloved Nami-swan asked me"

Zoro looks at him. "Ah, you're just afraid to lose to me"

"WHAT"

"Come on, guys, let's play. It feels so nostalgic, I didn't play this game in forever. They left it here, we can as well play as we wait for our snacks. Sit down here, Zoro"

"Only if you make the stupid cook play"

"I'm not playing!" Sanji shouts. "Why are you here anyway? Aren't you on the watch tonight?"

"Torao took over for me today, actually, so I'm bored"

"Great, then go to bed early like a manchild you are!"

"Sure, if you declare my victory by default" Zoro snickers, moving on from the sofa to the table, and patting the chair next to him. "Come on, don't be a coward"

"The hell will freeze over faster than you will see me playing a stupid board game with you!"

Nami sighs. "Come on Sanji, Franky says it's more fun with more people"

Sanji looks at Nami, his swirly eyebrow flying all the way up on his forehead. "Fine, roll for me until I'm done here" he sighs. "Just so you know, I'm doing it only because Nami-swan asked me to" he clarifies, making a face at Zoro.

"Keep telling yourself that" Zoro smirks.

Soon, they're all sitting down at the table, few of them laughing and others sighing when Zoro somehow manages to turn himself around a few times, earning multiple scoldings from Sanji in the process.

"This is actually first time I'm playing any board game" Robin shares after a while.

"Me too actually. We didn't have any money so we couldn't really play any games" Nami muses. "This is surprisingly rather fun. I was gonna just join you all so Franky doesn't feel lonely"

"Oi thanks, I super appreciate that!" Franky shows her thumbs up. "Did you two ever play before?"

"Nah" Zoro answers.

"You probably only trained yourself stupid even as a child" Sanji comments.

"You bet"

"And you, Sanji?"

"I…" he says, taking a longer exhale of his cigarette. "I only watched my brothers play it before. They played it so often that I memorized the rules just by looking at them. That was before father found out and threw the game away"

Nami shared some condolences with him. He just waved them off, because he was too distracted by stupid marimo attempting to climb the snake from it's tail.

Meanwhile, just outside the kitchen, Law leans on the wall, standing there quietly. After some time, he shambles himself away to the crow's nest, where no one could see him smiling ever so slightly to himself.

[auncyen]

today's felt terrible so I impulse wrote anyway

You try to keep your smile up as much as possible even with the Sadness weeping into your back as it clings to your shoulder. It's so wet. You don't know if your shirt will ever dry. Maybe toddling Sadnesses aren't dangerous, but apparently they're pretty good at being annoying!

And that must show in your face somehow, because Siffrin's face starts to fall, and then he's no longer looking up at you but down at the ground, clutching the brim of his hat. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you--I'll let you get back to--"

"No, no, Sif, you're not bothering me! Not at all," you say quickly. "Actually, maybe you could me with... um, I wouldn't say it's bothering me, yet, but it's something I need to figure out. ...You have to promise not to freak out." Because Siffrin is very very fast with his knife and you don't want him trying to stab the Sadness. Partially because it's on you, but even if Siffrin can tear it off...if it's destroyed now, it'll just reform later on, possibly worse, and still no one will know whose it is to help the person.

You've got Siffrin's undivided attention as they look up at you again. "I won't freak out. What is it?"

"Um, just try to think of if this reminds you of anyone?"

"'This'?"

"..." You hold your breath for a moment, wondering if it'd be easier to just turn around and show him than try to explain, before remembering sharp knives and quick reflexes. Yeah, explain first. "It's a Sadness. Not a dangerous one!" you add quickly when Siffrin's eye widens with alarm. "Um, stages...it's not an infant, but it's not really gotten to the juvenile stage yet either. So it's only got a few characteristics, but it was found near the inn you're staying at? So I was wondering if you might recognize anything about it?"

Siffrin narrows their eye. "Where is it?"

"..."

"Isa."

"Promise you won't freak out?" you ask again. That serious look on Sif is actually. It's interesting. It's doing interesting things to your heart. But also making you nervous that maybe you shouldn't have brought this up? Oh crab Sif has the most reason of anyone to react badly to this, you were so worried about hurting his feelings by making him think he was bothering you that you didn't consider. the trauma.

"Isa. Where. is. it."

Before you can decide whether it's worse to answer or not, the Sadness cries out loud, what almost sounds like a sobbing gasp. You don't know if Sadnesses even need air. Siffrin brings one foot forward as they stare at your chest, the right height for where it is on your back, and you quickly back up to the wall. The Sadness squishes a bit between you and the wall; after it squeaks out a cry, you give it a smidge of extra space.

"It's on you?!"

"Haha! Surprise!" you say because wow are nerves great at making you say stupid things. Siffrin's upset, you need to reassure him. "I mean! It just kind of latched on?? It hasn't tried to hurt me though, it'll be some time before it's a danger to anyone! So I wanted to figure out whose it is while it's with me."

"But if it could hurt you--"

"Sif, Sif, I promise, there's time. It doesn't even have its Craft hands yet." You hold your hands up, placating. "So can I show you?"

Siffrin meets your gaze and nods.

"You're not going to freak out?"

"That you're letting a Sadness piggyback on you? Already did."

You laugh sheeplshly at that tone. "The piggyback ride wasn't by choice. This one's a little whirlwind when it's not sobbing. I could probably stun or destroy it by ramming my back against the wall, but, uh, my back would hurt. And I really want to help find whoever's in trouble. So...yeah."

Siffrin looks away as they mumble, "I won't freak out." So they're definitely not happy about this, but that's enough reassurance for you to step toward them and slowly turn around. You can feel the Sadness shifting, undulating really as you do, and when you look over your shoulder, it and Siffrin are engaged in a staredown.

Siffrin doesn't look scared or frightened. He looks repulsed, his lips pulled back in a grimace. ...You guess that's a normal response toward a Sadness, maybe, because even if it's barely a juvenile it could still turn into an adolescent or maybe even an adult later, but you hate that you put that face on him. You should try to get this done quickly. "It likes physical touch, it's fast... is it still favoring the one eye?"

"Yeah," Siffrin says, voice rough on that one word. Then they smile, looking up at you. (It looks almost painful in how forced it is.) "...But who it could be though...I have no idea!"

-

loose idea for Sadness stages, which I ended up just using infant->juvenile->adolescent->adult because numbered stages seemed wrong for Vaugarde ("that is an Odile labeling system, Isa wouldn't even pick it up from her"):

infant: small blobs. Some float some don't. Floating blobby infant sadnesses sometimes weren't recognized as Sadnesses and started the legend of the will o' wisp.

Juvenile: still mostly blob but slightly more grown/defined.

Adolescent: Has Craft hands, will use them. They don't usually attack people though, only lashing out if they feel encroached on.

Adult: fully mature. Will chase down victims.

Since Sadnesses aren't really able to be observed from beginning to end (or at least, any sane and slightly decent person is going to try to help the person with the Sadness before it gets too bad), it's known from anecdotes that an 'infant' Sadness can turn into a juvenile, or an 'adolescent' into an 'adult', etc., but sometimes adult Sadnesses pop up where no Sadness was noticed before, making it uncertain if Sadnesses have to go through all the stages or if some go through them unusually fast.

[rayslittlekitten]

I Almost Told You That I Loved You Ch 15

Chapter 14 | IATYTILY Masterlist | Chapter 16

A/N: Finally, a new chapter! Some recent events have inspired me to continue this so hoping it'll be smooth sailing from here. A short chapter.

Rating: T/M

Word Count: 1,466

Pairing: Jax Teller x F! reader

Plot: This takes place shortly after Tara leaves Charming. You start working at Teller-Morrow and an unlikely and messy relationship forms between you and Jax.

Contains: mentions of abuse?, marijuana use, protective!Jax

You wake up to find Jax’s warm body enveloping yours from behind. His soft and steady breathing is calming. After the two of you went back to his place last night, the sex continued but you can tell Jax was more cautious and careful with his words. You try to slip out of bed without disturbing him, but you’re unsuccessful. He stirs and pulls you in closer to his body.

“Good morning,” Jax says, feeling his deep morning scratchy voice vibrating against your back.

“Morning,” you reply as you turn over to face him.

“How’d you sleep?”

“I slept alright. How about you?” You pull the comforter up to cover yourself more.

“Guess I slept alright,” he replies, yawning.

He continues to stare at you for a few moments, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Are you feeling better?”

You break eye contact with him, feeling a bit embarrassed by what unfolded last night.

“Yeah,” you answer quietly.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you go all psycho on me when I called you…” Jax pauses, letting his question trail off.

“Psycho?” You chuckle nervously. “I’m sorry. I know I overreacted.”

You stare back at Jax for a moment before speaking again.

“My ex used to call me that whenever he wanted me to do something for him. Usually in a very condescending way,” you explain. 

“I’m so sorry,” he sincerely apologizes.

“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” you reassure him.

“I’m sorry about last night too. I let that prick at the restaurant get to me. Ruined our date.”

“You’re better than that prick,” you remind him.

He smiles while looking back at you. Leaning in, he cups your face and slots his mouth over yours, working towards a morning quickie before getting out of bed.

***

You and Jax have been surprisingly spending more quality time together lately, without any incidents. You’re like two teenagers in love. You’re starting to really warm up to him in a way you hadn’t expected. Seems like he’s doing the same with you.

“So what’s this one about?” Jax asks, pointing to your book.

“I don’t know. I just started reading,” you tell him. “But I think it has to do with a bird in a window or something.”

It became a bit of a routine of Jax asking you about the things you are reading and learning in school. It was refreshing to see someone actually take interest in you and your interests. He may not be book smart, as per his own words, but he has enough curiosity to want to learn new things. You’ve even let him borrow a book or two.

“Did you finish that other book yet?” you ask him, pausing your own reading.

“No, but I was able to get another chapter in before we had to make a run yesterday.”

“What do you think so far?” You bookmark your page and close your book, giving him your undivided attention.

“It’s actually pretty interesting.” 

You notice his eyes light up the same way he did on your first date when he talked about one day becoming President of SAMCRO. You know that Jax is capable of doing great things if he just applied himself. As he continues talking, a warmth starts growing in your chest, but he gets interrupted.

“Hey, Jacky Boy! Church!” Chibs jumps in.

“I’ll be there in a minute!” Jax tells him before turning back to you. “See you later.”

He leans in to give you a kiss and send you a wink as he walks off.

***

Saturday night rolls around and you both find yourselves at the weekly party at the clubhouse. A group of you are drinking and smoking weed in the parking lot. You try your first puff, taking too big of a pull and cough your lungs out. Some of the people laugh and giggle.

“Come on, guys, it’s her first time,” Jax defends you. “But you’re gonna be high as shit."

Jax smirks as you continue to cough, trying to get all the smoke out of your lungs. You pull away from Jax to give yourself some room and accidentally bump into someone behind you, making them knock the beers in his hands. You gasp hearing and then seeing all the bottles crashing down onto the asphalt, glass shattering and amber liquid splashing everywhere, including on your shoes.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” you apologize, looking up at the prospect. In fact, it’s the one you’ve had not-so-fun interactions with.

“What the hell, man!” the prospect huffs.

“Hey, prospect. Watch where you’re going next time!” Jax steps in between you and him.

“But Jax–”

“What was that?” Jax cups his ear and leans in. “You’re gonna go back to get us a round of beers after cleaning up this mess?”

“She’s the one who-”

“Don’t bring her into this,” Jax cuts him off. “You’re the clumsy one. Also, apologize to her.”

“For what?!”

“Jax, it’s okay-” you jump in.

“No, he fucked up,” he interrupts you. “Apologize to her.”

The prospect glances at you for a moment before finally saying sorry. You shoot him a tightlipped smile.

“See, was that so hard?” Jax asks. “Now go fetch us another round and don’t drop them this time.”

The prospect rolls his eyes and walks away. The others laugh at him.

“Anyone who disrespects you disrespects me,” Jax tells you as he puts his arm around you shoulder.

“So what are you now? My bodyguard? My boyfriend?” you ask half-jokingly, leaning into him.

Jax stares at you for a few beats, taking his time while smoking his cigarette.

“Do you want me to be your boyfriend?” he asks before exhaling his last pull.

“You can never give a straight answer, can you?” you tease.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, just like you do with me,”Jax smirks.

You roll your eyes at him and return the smirk.

“Don’t worry, I was just teasing,” you tell him. “I’m gonna go clean my shoes.”

You lean in to give him a kiss and start walking away but Jax’s fingers wrap around your wrist.

“I’ll be back,” he tells the group and follows you, hand in hand.

“I don’t think I need to be escorted to the bathroom,” you chuckle.

“Yeah, I know.”

***

Jax finishes his cigarette while waiting for you to finish cleaning yourself up. As he waits in the hallway right outside, he feels a hand on his arm. He turns to the person and recognizes her. He straightens himself up and flicks the cigarette butt.

“Hey, Jax! What are you doing all alone here?” she asks, running her palm up and down his arm.

“Hey, just waiting for someone,” he answers.

“Perhaps waiting for me?” She pushes her body up against his, nearly falling on top of him and pinning him to the wall.

“Oookay! You’re very drunk,” Jax tells her and gently pushes her off of him.

“Yeah, you can do whatever you want with me,” she slurs and leans in to kiss him, but he dodges her.

When you come out of the bathroom, you find Jax struggling with a woman. He looks over at you and you raise an eyebrow.

“Am I interrupting something?” you ask.

“This isn’t what it looks like. She just literally threw herself at me,” Jax explains while putting some distance between them.

“Who are you, bitch?” the woman asks as she looks over at you.

“Excuse me?” you shoot back with wide eyes.

“Okay, get the fuck out of here,” Jax shoves her away towards the main floor of the club house. 

“How chivalrous of you,” you jest. “Come on, let’s get back to the party.”

As you start walking off, Jax grabs your hand and pulls you into his chest, his other hand on your waist.

“Hey,” he looks down at you, licking his lips. “You wanna be my girlfriend?”

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” You tease.

“I’m just simply asking, do you want to be my girlfriend,” he answers.

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “Who needs labels, right?”

He smirks and chuckles, you giving him the same energy he gave you earlier.

“Touché,” he nods.

“Do you want me to be your girlfriend?” you ask.

Jax thinks about his answer.

“All I know is I really like you,” he admits. “And I like spending time with you.”

“I do, too,” you tell him. “You know, when we’re not talking about our exes and having a terrible time.”

“Yeah,” Jax laughs and nods.

“Whoa, I think the weed is kicking in,” you mention, holding on to Jax for balance.

“Come on, darlin’. I got you.”

Jax interlaces his fingers with yours and leads you back to the party.

[landwriter]

oh menacing writer of the land, I bow to thee. forgive me for my intrusion, for I come to you with great reverence. might I be granted with the holy scripture of the musician!dream x professor hob au? I bring an offering of information on touring, musician life + music industry insight, should you so graciously answer my prayers 🙏

a handsome gift! the least I can offer is more twitter beef au!! most of this was written right in my tumblr drafts when I was still labouring under the delusion that was I was doing could be called "describe the fic you would write" - hob learns about The Diss Track. in his introduction to english lit class:

On Thursday morning, Hob is walking to his lecture, wearing his one sweatervest, because he can, thank you very much. Morpheus hadn't posted in over a day, and he supposes that's just the speed of the internet, and their little battle of wits is over. When he gets into the hall and sets his bag down, every single one of his students looks up at once. And several young people who - who are not even his students, he thinks.

"Right, hello class. Good to see you all here and keen on our last lecture before winter break. And welcome to the new faces as well. I can only assume you're here because of your interest in Marlowe."

"Oh my god," someone says at the back, loud enough for Hob to hear. "He's wearing the vest." He firmly reminds himself this is exactly what he wanted.

Amanda, who sits at the front and always does the readings, raises her hand. Hob calls on her in relief.

"Uh. Professor. We love Marlowe. But haven't you seen it yet?"

Hob had forgotten to silence his phone and it's started buzzing. He ignores it.

"Seen what," he says, very levelly. Smiling firmly. Not at all panicking. Ignoring his students' exchanged glances.

"The song."

"It's a diss track," says another student.

"Sorry, yeah, the diss track."

The entire lecture hall is faintly vibrating with anticipation.

"Is there swearing?" he asks, "I mean, more than I do in class. Anything particularly offensive?"

"No, professor," she says, understanding immediately.

"Well, I suspect I'll find it pretty quickly if I check my phone just now, and that only half of you are here for Marlowe anyways, so let's just put it on, shall we?"

Some kids actually cheer. "Enough of that," he says, "We're going to have a rigorous academic discussion about it afterwards." Then, because he cannot and will not help himself, he adds, "Presuming, of course, there is sufficient subject matter to engage with."

He pulls out his phone and fails utterly to hide his grin at the chorus of ooohs. Someone in the back actually shouts, "Get him, professor!"

Sure enough, the same video has been sent to him half a dozen times. He pulls it up, gets it displayed on the lecture hall's screen, and presses play.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s see what all this fuss is all about.”

He has enough professional goodwill from years of teaching to do this kind of stupid thing, and it's nice to cash it in, sometimes. He likes to be the cool professor when he can. Even in a sweatervest.

He leans back against the lectern to watch. It's not Morpheus on screen, but a woman that Hob distantly recognizes. She's gorgeous, and apparently, given the rapturous whispers behind him, also at least a little famous. She's surrounded by takeaway containers, fiddling with her phone until music starts playing. "Good job, baby brother." She takes a sip of her beer and then wipes her mouth, and grins brightly right at the camera. "This one's for you, prof," she says, laughing.

Afterwards, the entire lecture hall is silent. Hob is silent.

"Holy shit," says a student, and Hob turns around, face burning. "She murdered you."

Hob gathers himself. He feels a little dizzy. It might low blood sugar. Or love.

"Indeed. Right. Well. Certainly a lot to unpack there." His hands are a little sweaty. It's definitely love. "This isn’t a classics class, but I know some of you are classics students and would be happy to educate us, so let’s start with that parallel made right at the start between the Lotophagi - that’s the lotus-eaters from The Odyssey - and the concept of academia as an ivory tower. Who wants to talk about that?"

Five different hands shoot up. "Wow. Okay, okay," he laughs. "Tristan, start us off."

In the next 80 minutes, he hardly gets a word in edgewise. He is, absolutely gloriously, playing discussion moderator instead of lecturer. Hob knows, feels it in his gut even now, that he will look back on this as one of the best classes he’s ever held. Students are twisting around in their chairs to engage with each other.

It is, he thinks, absolutely worth a bit of murdering.

[fantomette22]

Hey!!! 3, 13, 20, 49 for Dores and Caryll in your interpretation!

Thank you Faree! :D Ask game here

First I tried to draw this morning but failed so thanks for the ask i got inspired to draw a lil something!

(And then they got lost. They do have weird shenanigans with eldritch stuff. So they will be fine. Actually their friendship is quite funny i love it)

3. What first drew you to this character?

Hm well for Caryll they seems like quite a very important character we know nothing about! In lore I mean. Runes are so op I'm glad they exist 🙏 everyone used them and it seems quite important! Caryll didn't make/translate all the runes but the first one to do so while a students at Byrgenwerth! It's so impressive so it made me wonder who they were... and we don't know what happened to them too ;-;

As for Dores I guess I got interest thanks to the fans actually giving a damn and drawing Dores ! Also ""her"" link with Willem, gatekeeper and probably Gehrman by extension made me think and wonder about their missions in the pthumerians labyrinth. Plus idk Dores seems to have quite a wild personality! that's very cool. And the set descriptions and the 2 hunters is very interesting

13. If you could draw effortlessly and as much as you wanted, what scene (s) would you draw for this character?

Caryll : Hm... lots go things lol. Caryll do have a huge role in my Bloodborne stories and is very present so I have lots of ideas XD but would be difficult to draw... hm maybe caryll with tons of hunters around them and explaining smt. Or Caryll staring at water (sea/lake), or caryll fate... or idk smt with lot of runes to draw something esoteric when they ear great ones! Caryll & friends too. But I would also like to illustrated Caryll getting very scared and encountering a sick man who's at the early stage of beasthood. At Byrgenwerth. During prom night. Yeah can't wait to write that XD

Dores : hmm either Dores' childhood (with almost everyone treating her as a weirdo creepy kid 💀 and featuring Gehrman) or well badass fighting against pthumerians. That also make me think I need to draw Dores being task to watch the kids (Rom & Laurence when they were younger) by Willem while he's out and she panicked and ask if they wanna see organs in jars or smt. Or maybe draw her withe the twins. Yeah I haven't decided yet if the Madaras twins are her kids or long lost brothers I am hesitating because there's the 2 guys with the graveguard set too. OR ALSO (sorry last one) Dores doing artisanal liquor and almost accidentally killing people. (I mean Laurence is the only one who almost died but he was fine after few days. Her other attempts where better)

20. Do you feel affectionate towards this character?

Caryll is my lil guy (gender neutral) 🥺 I love them so so much they remind me of one of my friend too. I really like Caryll I am so mean for all the tragic scenarios I imagined toward the end of their life 😔 but I swear the 3 decades before that are very wholesome if we forgot some lil details. But yeah must protect and deserve the world. So yeah.

Hm idk if it's "affection" but yeah I do like my versions of Dores yeah! I really like to develop her backstory and personality and I can empathise with lot of things she went through that weren't easy.

49. What’s your favorite personality trait in this character?

Well it's purely headcanons but I like their soft sides? I think.

So Caryll kindness and everything would be ok attitude.

As for Dores her more harsh and scary traits are very cool but with her very close friends she can show a way more carrying side <3 she still a bit of a brute XD but I like this too. Everyone is always surprised of it at first.

Hope it answer! Thank you a lot Faree I really like to wrote about it!

[sandu-zidian]

I'm sorry if you've answered this before but I'm super curious and I wasn't able to find the answer easily. Would you mind sharing your favorite Jiang Cheng ships? (I'm a huge Jiang Cheng multishipper and I've loved all the content you've come out with but I was curious if maybe there were Jiang Cheng ships that you don't often post about that you also like and how high the ships you have posted about rank 😀 I'm also a tiny bit curious about any Jiang Cheng ships (if any) that you might dislike altho you don't have to share those if you'd rather not lol im just curious about your opinions)

Hello! Don't be sorry! I've never really talked about JC ships in full before, and even if I have, I don't mind answering again <33

I'm gonna be honest, I find it really hard to say for certain what my "favorite" Jiang Cheng ship is. For one, my enjoyment of Jiang Cheng is first and foremost about his character as like, playing important thematic work and in this mindset I'm like ship neutral and don't need ships to have a fun time haha. I started as a hardcore aroace!JC lover, especially since I'm also aroace. My entry into JC ships came quite a bit later into my time in this fandom, so even if I say a ship is my favorite, just know that like, I'm not really a die hard fan of any JC ship. He's my blorbo because I think he's a bit fucked up and pathetic and already has enough baggage from platonic/non-romantic relationships.

Currently, I would say zhancheng is my favorite given the fact that I am like, knee deep in the AO3 tag for it LMAO. And also this is probs the ship that I have posted about the most! Which isn't saying a lot, but it is the most! I also was really into xicheng a bit back but it's taken a backburner recently, though I do still enjoy it. I've also read some mingcheng as well. I enjoy sangcheng but I haven't actually taken the time to read sangcheng-centric fics as of yet and I need to actually use the otp: true on AO3 for that ship. I also enjoy chengqing but like strangely it's not a ship I've taken the time to read fics for either. Another one that needs the otp: true on.

(This is me showing my ass as a bottom!JC enjoyer. Much respect for top!JC fans though!)

The only Jiang Cheng ship I don't really like is like, any ships with other generations, especially the juniors. Like I'm sorry those are teenagers... It's funny as a joke for juniors to have like puppy love crushes on Jiang Cheng, but I can't with them actually being in a relationship together. I'm a bit more accepting of JC shipped with older generation characters but in very limited scopes/premises where JC is much older when he meets the love interest than like. A teenager.

I also waffle on chengxian because I very much came into the fandom viewing them as brothers and that has stuck hard for me even though like, yeah they're not actually related but I guess chengxian kind of come packaged with pseudo-incest vibes that like, I find hard to navigate personally. I do like zhanchengxian but again I waffle with how I feel about chengxian. I am first and foremost a Yunmeng Shuangjie fan, and then maybe chengxian. Maybe.

There's also just like, other Jiang Cheng ships like chengyao, chengxuan, ningcheng, etc. that I don't not like, but certainly don't spend much time actually thinking about. Except for chengyao -- every so often I'm reminded of this ship and extract great amusement from just picturing the kinds of neuroses they give each other if they were ever in a romantic relationship together. I've certainly seen a few rarepairs for JC that I think are rad. There's someone on here who ships QS/NHS/JC which like, good for them I see the vision.

So yeah, this was long. TLDR zhancheng is my current fave and focus. I enjoy xicheng, mingcheng, sangcheng, and chengqing. Don't like JC shipped with people of different generations, and chengxian is like, in a nebulous place in this lineup and I am more likely to view those two as familial than romantic. Other JC ships are fine, but I don't think about them much.

[comical-icicle]

how did nh pull bard just wondering?

I tried to find it somewhere but nada

Probably because I haven’t posted anything about that.

It is a great question and I have thought about it before (briefly). I don’t really delve into romance that often and the ship was more spontaneous of ‘what would they be like together?’ Like at first I was trying to come up with a reason to ship them, as if it would be checked (?), but eventually threw that out the window and rolled with the spontaneous ship for just the vibes they have. Hence why there’s nothing really about how they got together originally. Also because I wasn’t very confident about it at first.

But now that I have more confidence in this ship, I’m actually a little excited to talk about it, even if it isn’t set in stone and I may change it. I just have thoughts right now and being encouraged to talk about it I am hyped.

Under a read more just so main tags don’t have to deal with my nonsense. I’ll give them that.

I’ll try to make this as simple as I can, so a lot of stuff will be left out. I’m just going to cover the tipping point that will get them to hang out with each other more. So… if this isn’t what you wanted, sorry, that’s what I got.

The catalyst would definitely be super villain island so… thank you Zeus? At least in terms of Nervous Heart actually talking with Mordred without being too stressed out. Considering the start of the dream is about being trapped in a room and how she knows they’re located in erehwon prison, it’s a familiar feeling and she doesn’t like it. BUT ANYWAY, it’s not the worst when someone else is there.

Being able to go into bard’s dream and just chat with Mordred for a while? Yeah, seeing him actually in front of her, even if it’s only a dream, was a major reminder that bard is a person that has more thoughts to them than just taking over the universe. That didn’t help the fight in the dream where she actually gets the totem which she thinks will help bard be not evil. The guilt would be eating at her continuously. Then it turns out that Zeus was manipulating her the entire time, not helping the guilt as now it was for nothing. And now villains are loose and she’s got Zeus to deal with so she doesn’t have time to process it before she heads off to kick Zeus’ ass thanks to Poseidon.

Now uh, I do think that bard finds out about the fight because I think with the whole islands being destroyed, it would have been a big deal that covered several islands, and that’s kind of what makes them interested in seeking out Nervous Heart again, not because of any heroics but because a mortal fought a god- the king of gods no less- and won? How?? Details??? Especially because I think bard has the ‘how does this work?’ mindset, whether it be electronics or events. They just have to know more. Nervous Heart feels too guilty about causing the whole thing to really reject, which Bard does catch onto and uses to their advantage for a bit (resentment for being defeated both in their dream and in life most likely) before they stop doing that because it started to not feel good.

Uh… hopefully this answers your question? This could make sense or it could be nonsense rambling. I don’t know. Again I am filled with thoughts after being prompted, but I didn’t want to make this too long so I tried not to get too caught up with specifics. I didn’t want to overexplain in case that this isn’t what you mean or you wanted me to refer to something else. I’m not sure!

But uh… yeah, thank you for letting me think about these idiots, even if my thoughts are all over the place! I didn’t want to take up too much in the case that it was too much.

[inktailsaystuff]

Rose finds Mordecai Lackadaisy One Shot because reasons

TW: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort

Rose stood at the st. Louis train station, clutching the letter she had stolen from her mother in her paws. The old worn paper, a reminder of what she lost. Her older brother Mordecai. Gone one night to never return. After years of trying to find him, she got a tip from someone that a tuxedo cat that fit the description Rose had sent out lived in st. Louis. A tuxedo cat with a permanently angry expression and green eyes. Rose's tail lashed, this was is it. Maybe she would finally find Mordecai.

St. Louis was miserable to say the least, however finding a room was easy. An old cat named Ms. Bapka had let her stay in her apartment, her neighbour was a terrifying cat missing one eye. Viktor he was called apparently. When Rose first said hello to him he seemed to do a double take when he saw her. He was gruff and spoke with a heavy accent, and once she had settled in she began her search.

She spent most of her days hiding under the guise that she was a man and watching cats as they passed through cafe's and restaurants. Her eyes looking over the crowds for a familiar face, bright green eyes and a white muzzle. However after one week of no luck, Rose started to lose hope.

Rose slammed her fist into the table, fury making her fur bristle as she cursed under her breath. Storming down the stairs she nearly ran into a young smoky grey cat.

"ACK!" She dropped her stacks of magazines.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry!" Rose immediately back tracked helping the cat pick up all her magazines off the floor. "I'm so sorry I wasn't looking where I was going and-"

"It's fine." The cat smiled regaining her composure. "Are you new? My name is Ivy." She extended a paw, her bright yellow eyes looking into Rose's green ones.

"Uh... yeah uh- I'm Rose." Rose introduced herself., subconsciously fixing her jacket.

"Huh." Ivy looked Rose up and down. "I've never seen you before." Ivy commented.

"Oh yeah. I'm- I'm just staying for a while." Rose's tail twitched as she spoke.

"Well it's great to meet you!" Ivy grinned, "Would you be willing to go for a cup of tea sometime?"

""Uh..." Rose stepped back, "I'm actually- um kinda busy right now."

"What are you doing?" Ivy pressed.

"Just uh visiting." Rose smiled awkwardly trying to escape the smokey cat.

"Great! I can show you around!" Ivy grinned grabbing Rose and dragging her off. "Hey Rocky! Can you start the car!?" Ivy called out to a tabby in a blue suit.

"Uh I-"

"Come on." Rose was pushed into the back of the vehicle. Ivy sat down next to her, meanwhile two cats sat up front. The tabby named Rocky, and a ginger who's name she was unaware of. "I can show you around and show you some of the most popular places." Ivy prattled on, that peaked Rose's interest. Maybe she could find her brother.

"A-Alright." Rose nodded, "Do you happen to know anywhere where one can get a good tea and french toast?" Rose spoke up remembering her brother's fancy pickings.

"Mhm." Ivy grinned, "Little daisy cafe. C'mon Rocky let's show Rose."

The cafe was small and quaint, once nearby Rose practically threw the door open as if trying to catch her brother sitting at one of the chairs. However to her disappointment no one was there. While Ivy prattled on about the cafe, Rose took it upon herself to look around for any trace of her brother. Perhaps a surface was too clean, or items were in perfect symmetry. However she found no trace that hinted to her brother.

"Uh are you looking for something?" The ginger she had now known as Freckle asked her as she inspected the counter.

"No." Rose answered a little too quickly. "I'm just looking around."

"You are... looking rather closely at that counter..." Freckle mumbled as Rose's nose was practically glued the smooth counter surface.

"Just looking." Rose flashed him a smile, an attempt to calm the ginger's nerves. "So. Have you met anyone that looks like me around these parts?" Rose asked very casually.

"N-No?" Freckle mumbled, stepping back. His round face contorted into an expression of confusion. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason." Rose smiled again, before going back to staring intently at the walls. Her ears pricked as she listened for rats and other vermin. Rose ignored the whispers between the two male's as she scanned the walls, her gaze landed on a framed picture. But her eye was drawn to the tuxedo cat in a suit. " MORDECAI!" Rose practically threw herself at the picture as if to make sure that she wasn't seeing things. Sure enough, the familiar angry expression and tall stature solidified it. That was Mordecai. In a heart beat she had turned to Ivy. "Do you know where Mordecai is?" She asked pointing at the picture.

"Uh? Mordecai?" Ivy stared, "How do you know him?"

"Not important where is he!?" Rose asked urgently.

"He doesn't work here anymore." Rocky grinned, "He works at the hotel now."

"What hotel." Rose asked, her gaze piercing through the cat.

"Hotel Maribel." Rocky grinned.

"Where is that." Rose was already storming out of the cafe.

"Why do you-"

"I could drive you?" Rocky interrupted Ivy.

"Deal." Rose sat in the front seat of the car while they drove, the world didn't exist to her anymore. She was so close. And this time she would not let him get away. If she was looking around she would have noted at how beautiful the hotel was.

However Rose didn't care, putting on her sunhat to hide her face, her eyes scanning the crowd. The other three sat nearby, but hidden in shadow something about enemy territory or whatever. Rose tapped her foot against the floor as she watched cats walk in and out. A woman with a bone necklace, a tall man with yellow eyes...

Rose's heart froze as she spotted him. Mordecai. Her brother stepped into the hotel looking aloof as ever. Rose didn't care how obvious she was. Standing up she stormed over in his direction. She watched how Mordecai stepped back placing his hand into his trench coat. But Rose was faster, grabbing him by his shoulders she glared at him.

"Mordecai." Rose snapped, her hat had fallen off. Her brother looked like he had seen a ghost, his tail bushed up as he stared at Rose.

"Who-" Mordecai wrenched himself out of her grip.

Rose placed both her hands on her hips, her tail lashing behind her. "Oh? Don't remember me?" Despite the fact that Rose had imagined their reunion to be happy, it was everything but that. Rose's bottled up emotions had decided to show, years of built up rage, anger, and resentment. "It's me. Rose. Your sister." She snapped, shoving one finger into Mordecai's chest. "You know. The sister you ABANDONED!"

Mordecai looked mortified, with one swift movement he grabbed Rose dragging her to a random room. "What are you doing here?" He hissed, staring at her as he shut the door behind him.

"Finding you." Rose crossed her arms, glaring at her brother.

"Why-Why would you do that!" Mordecai groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I told you-"

"I don't care what you told us!" Rose snapped, "Do you not know what happened after you up and left?" She could feel her eyes tear up.

"Rose..." Mordecai looked down at her as he fixed his pince-nez.

"I spent years looking for you." Rose snapped her voice cracking. "Years." She wiped the tears that spilled out of her eyes. "I- I thought you didn't love us anymore." She whispered.

"Rose..." Mordecai wrapped his arms around her, despite his hatred for physical contact. This was his sister. An exception to this rule.

"Why did you leave...?" Rose asked, as Mordecai soothed her. "Why did you leave us?" Mordecai refused to look her in the eye, instead staring straight ahead at the wall.

"Because..." Mordecai sighed, "I got... I got into bad business." Mordecai stroked her hair trying to comfort her. "And, I ran away because there were hitmen after me. And then... I could not come back."

"W-what?" Rose looked up at him horrified.

"I know." Mordecai looked away, "But then I joined Lackadaisy and a gang, and I couldn't exactly leave. So I stayed."

"Why- Why would you do that." Rose whispered.

"Money." Mordecai shrugged. "You needed the money,"

"You stupid furball!" Rose whacked him, "You idiot." She collapsed, "We could have... we could have just found a different job."

"I'm sorry Rose." Mordecai hugged her, "You should go home."

"I am not going back." Rose stubbornly looked up at him. "I'm not letting you leave again."

"Rose-"

"No!" Rose grabbed him, clinging to him. "I- I don't want you to go..." She whispered. "Please..." She clung to her older brother. The brother she had spent years trying to find.

[sapphosdickandballs]

Dear Sapho- her dick, her balls (dont blme me blame amal El-mohtar)

I see you have taken my challenge and engaged me in battle. Now beholth! the arcane edition!

Vi.

Cait

Jayce

Viktor

Mel

Silco

powder (note i did not say Jinx).

I look forward to your reply,

kiekebe

Vi-

How I feel about vi…I do feel like fandom has fucked her over a bit. I think she’s undergone hot and gay syndrome (fatal) when she’s actually a complex character. I’m super excited to watch her spiral into depression. I also think thatttt Caitlyn makes her better and more interesting

CAITLYN KIRAMMAN is there even any other answer

her and jinx

I…don’t think she’s that hot. I wanna look like her, for sure (gender envy like you wouldn’t believe) but like. She’s competing with sevika and mommy abassarda and Mel and jinx and Caitlyn and that’s just counting the women. So like. Also maybe it’s finding out the VA for vi is a Zionist. And I feel like her voice was a main appeal for her (at least to me) so

Canon caitvi. I wanted it in the first season. If it’s not in the second season I will genuinely cry

Caitlyn -

Literally number one cait fan here. She’s never done anything wrong and I love her and I also need her so bad. Girls with blue hair istg

Again. Vi. Best ship

Her and Jayce are actually pretty cute together I fear

She’s one of my favorite characters, which might be uncopular. And I like her more than vi, which is definitely unpopular.

I need angst. I need her to lose her mind. I need to watch her spiral into a terrible mess. Literally a requirement.

Jayce -

😴😴😴. He’s boring. I will give him the benifit of the doubt that he needs another season to cook, but like. Boring man

No one lmao.

Like I said, him and cait or him and viktor are sweet.

Idk. Probably that I don’t like Jayvik. Or that I think he’s silly looking.

Wanted him to smack his head on an open cabinet. The man needs that idk.

Viktor

Uh. He’s okay. I think he has a lot of potential. I think he’s gonna eat in the second season. As it is I thought him a tad bit underwhelming. But I’m strapped in and ready for his arc to finish.

Therapy

Him and Jayce or I feel like him and Jinx would get along

Hes not attractive to me 😭 I’m sorry. He looks malnourished I’ve never been into that

I want him to die

Mel-

Trying very hard not to bark at my screen she’s so arugaidiajkekfn. She’s so fine i swear. Oh she’s done shitty things but who cares.

No one is good enough for her. Especially not Jayce 😭

Her and her mom should patch things up I feel like that’s very sad. And if she dies! If she dies and never gets to make up with her mom!!

That she can do no wrong. She’s the best

Living. I need her to live that’s what I want.

Silco -

Silco’s story I was slurping it up with a spoon. I love sympathetic villains. I love horrible people with soft spots. The character himself was horrid but did I cry at you’re perfect? Yes

Proud Vander and Silco shipper. Those two old men should kiss I fear

Him and Jinx >>>

Ugh idk. Ig that I think he should’ve died. That makes sense. That’s a natural conclusion that’s the only way his story could’ve ended

I wish he would’ve given up jinx bro. For the good of the nation. Or fucked nasty with Vander at least once

Powder (you’re devious for this one)

😭😭😭 She kind of reminds me of my sister so I was in PAIN watching her scenes. I love her and I miss her. RIP in peace queen

Shes. A child??

Her and vi or her and ekko

She was kinda dumb for the monkey bomb thing. Like she threw a whole ass bomb and was like oh yeah this will have a great result. Ik why she did it but girl

🤷‍♀️

[purplekoop]

ngl I'm curious about your ideas for Venture and spaceranger. I saw a theory SR could be Fio from Blackwatch and I think Venture could be our Portuguese hero, maybe has a build (turret, wall, etc) made of duravidro. Still hoping for heroes 42 to 45 being Lynx 17, Maximilien, a Roman champion fighter, and an Afro-American New York firefighter.

Okay lot of parts to this one to answer

Starting with Venture, here's their art for reference:

Now, with their pretty apparent explorer/excavation-themed design, with giant drill and what looks like climbing/excavation gear on their back, my first thought for what map they tie into is actually Petra, the deathmatch map set in Southern Jordan's wonder of the world. The map is littered with details alluding to an ongoing excavation project, so I think Venture could be part of that team. Plus, I think the slightly darker skin tone could possibly fit an Arabic character.

While I can't make it out with just this little image, I think the insignia on this sleeve could be the key to figuring out this character's faction.

As for kit, I don't really have any great ideas yet. While their drill at first appears to be a melee weapon, letting you just drill into people for rapid close-range damage, but I feel like it could have some kind of surprise projectile component.

In addition to me thinking they're from Jordan and not Portugal, I also doubt they're a "builder" character due to those being an ongoing struggle to balance in the Damage role. My belief for what Esperanca is alluding to is still a Tank hero that we won't be seeing for a while. Considering how long it takes heroes to be developed (note Mauga was just revealed today after being first teased in 2019), I think something as relatively recent as Esperanca won't lead to something new so "soon".

(I actually have a character for my original hero/class shooter project War Bots who uses a drill in a couple ways, and they are actually a builder character who uses it to build buildings and also tunnel underground to move around safely. They deserve their own post soon though.)

As a reminder, we are due to see some early gameplay footage of Venture tomorrow in the "Overwatch 2: What's Next" segment of Blizzcon tomorrow at 1:30 PM PST (so 4:30 for me in the EST), so we won't have to wait long to see some of how they play!

Going from underground to out of this world, let's talk about "Space Ranger" next!

(I gotta say it if I haven't already that I love both of these designs, even if they're still certainly still concept art and might actually change a fair bit before release, especially in the case of Star Command here releasing all the way in the far off galaxy of Season 12. Still, very cute, love the colors and overall vibe, big fan.)

So starting off with the theory you saw, the idea that this is Fio, the Blackwatch pilot from Retribution, certainly is... interesting, certainly an idea with precedent if Sojourn is anything to go by. I didn't remember what they looked like so I checked the wiki and...

...Yeah no these are completely different people, sorry. Fio has what looks to be red hair underneath the helmet and... I wanna say a European face? Ranger meanwhile has the dang Twilight Sparkle hair, and her face strikes me more like how East Asian characters tend to look in Overwatch's art style, like D.va and Kiriko with their slightly more "anime-esque" faces. Not to say I wouldn't welcome Fio to the roster (even though they'd be. Far, Far from my first pick for an established character to join the roster), but this definitely ain't them.

As for who I do think this could be, or rather what characters they're related to, I think between possibly being Asian and also being more obviously space-themed, I think they could very likely be affiliated with Lucheng Interstellar, the Chinese aerospace company behind Horizon Lunar Colony. According to the wiki, they also have other space station projects they are/were working on, so Space Ranger could be related to either of those.

As for kit, I don't have much to say for them either. Some neat ideas I saw were that they could be another hyper-mobile support like Mercy or Lucio, and could possibly even have some sort of gravity-manipulating buff. I really don't have much to say yet, but there's plenty of room for cool ideas!

Speaking of cool ideas, lemme take a sec to go over all yours!

Lynx 17 is definitely a popular pick I can get behind, between their fun design and the capacity for a support hacker-themed character. My Sombra Role Requeue was just one way to take the concept, I feel like there's even more room to start from the ground up! Though I do also wanna shoutout Franky, a character from the Deadlock Rebels novel that was essentially the other main founding member of the gang along with Cassidy and Ashe (and B.O.B. too, of course), who's also a hacker. I don't blame people for giving Lynx 17 higher priority, both due to being around longer and also being another cool Omnic, as well as being canonically non binary already. I would like to see a human NB character sooner than later, (hence why I've been referring to Venture and SR gender-neutrally this whole post) but Lynx still slaps so I'd be happy to see them too.

Maximilien is I think probably the most notable lore character that's yet to be playable now that we've finally got our greasy mitts on Mauga. Another fun established design and personality who's been around the story even longer than Mauga actually. Shoot, we've even seen the bastard in one of the story trailers, with Doomfist implying that he's got a job to do that the greedy omnic seems uncomfortable with. That could easily mean he has to get his hands dirty when he doesn't want to, so... could be teasing him being playable? My main objection to his inclusion on the roster is that I don't have a great idea for what exactly he'd... do. He's basically a cowardly civilian who just happens to be bankrolling a terrorist organization. This could definitely work into his kit, making him a support who sucks in direct fights but has ways of backing up allies. The one solid ability idea I got for him though is that his gun would be a silenced pistol. that's it. Now obviously some creativity on the hero design team's part could fix that issue, but still, it's something to consider.

Now for the characters who aren't as established, a roman gladiator is another one that's been tossed around a lot since the map was first revealed. Like I said with a character teased by the Portugal map though, OW heroes take a long time to develop, and they're still catching up on established characters like Mauga, so the teasers from OW2's new maps could take a WHILE to get to at this rate. Which isn't shocking really, they wanna keep Overwatch going for a while and I personally can get behind that, so I understand them setting up so many teasers they can follow up on later. As for the gladiator specifically, this idea still hasn't actually excited me that much. I struggle right now to think about what could make one of the mech gladiators unique from the tanks we already have on the roster. A melee weapon and shield? Reinhardt. A spear? Orisa. Again, creativity solves a lot of problems, but it's why I've never been that excited for this idea since Colosseo was first revealed.

That last idea though, THAT has me interested.

I've honestly never heard that idea before! It's so cool too, a firefighter would have such a fun pool of ideas to work from. Overwatch doesn't really have any water-themed heroes, and as far as I'm aware the team hasn't considered it aside from one rejected concept for what eventually became Lifeweaver. I'm honestly not even sure what role would fit a firefighter better, because the bulky outfits and some kind of water pushing ability would fit Tank, but the whole "life saving" part could fit Support better. This is such a cool idea, I'd honestly love to hear you elaborate on it more!

So yeah, wanted to give a thorough response talking about all of these future heroes, confirmed and otherwise. I'll almost certainly have more to say tomorrow when they talk about the two new faces, but that's for 20 hours from now. Thanks for the ask though, fun to talk about all this!

[essskel]

i've just seen you post a lot of cool asks and deep discussions over the past day and i got lonely and want to join the party hehe. so i was going to ask smth that ive been meaning to ask your opinion on for a while: what do you think about philippa's martyrdom and the rewriting of history which occurred after her death? i was always kind of shocked with how violent a death she was recorded as receiving, and shocked twice-over at how positively she was thought of a hundred years after her death. but it's just very interesting to me, especially because of the real-life historical context as it relates to christian martyrdom, and the message around it about history often being obscured - nimue and condwiramurs 'seeking the truth' of the ending of the legend of the witcher girl and debating what is factual history and what is made-up, while at the very same time, discussing the accounts of the members of the lodge and not thinking to question their positive impressions of their morality or motivations. it makes for some great dramatic irony. like nimue and condwiramurs being fans of both ciri and philippa despite the obvious antagonistic relationship between these two. (well, okay, i suppose they're just like us, then...)

Sorry this answer is late but YEAH what was up with Philippa's ending.

I was initially put off by it especially after her final scene that's filled with all this anger and persevering determination to keep Radovid from holding power over her. It feels like this push of strength that's followed up by 'and then she died horribly anyway' which took the wind out of the sails a bit for me.

But...idk, now I think I'm more at peace with it, because like you said, her crimes being swept aside by history in favor of a more heightened and reverent narrative is probably the best ending she could have asked for after the life she lived. It's such a time-honored pathway to infamy that historical figures fall into, particularly political figures in colonizing countries.

Going further, I have no idea if Sapkowski intended this, but to me, her ending and the legacy that nimue and condwiramurs have adopted might relate to some of the discussions of white feminsm and the way that complex or even downright awful, murderous female historical figures have been romanticized and martyred by 'progressive' groups in ways that they should not have been. Marie-Antoinette, Mother Theresa, Virginia Woolf, literally any British Queen, Coco Chanel, Bonnie Parker (of Bonnie and Clyde), ect. (that list was all over the place, sorry lmao that was off the top of my head) Some of those women are war criminals, some are Nazis, some are outspoken racists, but they've all been called feminist figures at some point, some still are.

So Philippa with her covert, hard to track operations of the lodge, paired with a very public and cruel death? Yeah, actually it does make sense that she's a saint decades later, and I don't think she'd be very let down by this either.

And in relation to Ciri, it just feels like a final reminder that it's not the world, or the countries, or even history that's on Ciri's side, it was only ever truly her family that knew her and respected her in full. nimue and condwiramurs try to know her and they do in their own very important way - I don’t actually fault them - but they can’t 100% do right by her or even know her in the way they hope because that’s just not how time works.

[outsiders-apo]

You know fights were never my sort of thing, they were always more a deal for Void. or hell no one won a debate against Danger.

But hey! Why not try something new while rotting away here. And Last is a great teacher.

i don't know where Last learned how to throw a punch like that. They knew how to do a lot of cool moves. Most of which hurt. Which was nice. It helped.

To feel something. Just a reminder that somehow i still exist. it actually quite interesting that the only thing i can physically feel is pain.

And they even taught me some of the stuff so, we're friends now!

I know you said not to. but you couldn't stop it so why care!

I really think i'm starting to go insane. What about you? How are you holding up?

Do you have anything to go against Owen with? If i were you i'd take a page of his book and try to exploit his past traumas against him. which is actually incredibly easy to do with how many he has.

i'm not very funny am i?

Well then if your too nice for that....maybe turn his own plans against him. Apparently he wants to but the demons in prison. Maybe try locking him up instead if you don't want to hurt him.

If you want to be such a hero, then you don't even have to put him in that same cell he died in.

But Apo,

Promise me you'll stop him. Please?

-Salt Voice (Jade)

Salt Voice! Jade! It's been a little while, hasn't it?

I... Jade, I'm- you can't- you can't. I'm sorry, violence isn't the answer, Last is a bad influence, you-

You realize that if you turn to violence, you're just as bad as Owen, right? I'm- I'm okay, but that's not-

No! I'm not going to fucking manipulate him, Jade, what the fuck? What are you talking about? I'm- I... yeah. I'll find a way to imprison him.

I... I can't promise anything, Jade, but I'll try.

I'll try.