#but you need 4 or more people to actually play it properly which is hard to find

[daz4i]

omg they made a mobile game version of dixit... mutuals let's play together...

[al-luviec]

I ran out of tag space but oomf had some good notes

smthn easy for today (sorry)

[castiwls]

"uh-oh, i'm falling in love."

being Bobby's adopted daughter and falling in love with Dean... [requested - anon]

You were around 15 when your parents were killed in a hunting incident and as a result, Bobby ended up taking you in.

You’d spent the first few months sulking around the house, something which began to worry Bobby as months passed and your behaviour seemed no different.

He knew he had to break your behaviour somehow but he was completely stumped. That was until one day he woke up to John quickly shoving his sons in the door before running off to do go knows what. 

Silently cursing the man out he quickly invited the two boys inside before continuing with breakfast (now for 4 people). 

“Who are they?” You looked up from the book you’d been reading, frowning in slight confusion at the two boys who were currently standing in the doorway. The younger of the two smiled brightly before almost tripping over himself to see what you were reading while the older silently gapped in the doorway. Since when did Bobby have a daughter?

After this, you quickly found friends in both the boys. 

While Sam was someone who you could talk to about lore and any other books you might have been reading, Dean was someone who you were able to fully confide in.

Over the three weeks the boys stayed you and Dean quickly became inseparable and for the first time in months, you didn't feel grief-stricken constantly. You actually felt happy.

Over the years Sam and Dean became a constant in your life. As you grew older Bobby began letting you go on hunts with the Winchesters (something which Dean enjoyed more than he would admit.)

Over time though you felt a slight shift in your feelings towards the older boy. Every time you saw him or even heard his voice butterflies would swarm in your stomach and your cheeks would quickly grow hot.

The shrill ringing of your phone pulled you from your book. A small frown played on your lips as you noted the name on your screen. “Hello?” Placing your book down you crossed your legs sitting up properly on your bed. “Hey. I didn’t wake you right?” Dean sounded sheepish almost as he spoke. At the sound of his voice, a small burst of butterflies exploded in your stomach. “no..no I was awake.”

Late-night phone calls quickly became an almost daily occurrence whenever you weren't together, and when you were together these phone calls were exchanged for late-night diner trips just the two of you.

Every day you felt yourself falling harder and harder for Dean Winchester and little did you know he felt the same. 

After Sam had gone to Stanford Dean had showed up on your doorstep only hours later, his eyes red as he’d quietly asked to stay the night.

He’d ended up staying for a few weeks after that. You’d spent every day together over that time simply listening to him talk about what had happened between his dad and brother and how he was scared for Sam being on his own.

As happy as you were that Sam had gotten out it broke your heart slightly to see how Dean was handling the situation.

Over this time you’d found yourself more than once falling asleep beside him (something which Bobby wasn’t too happy about) and you’d also felt yourself grown closer and closer to him.

He’d allowed himself to be vulnerable around you, something which you knew was hard for him. The idea that he trusted you enough simply left your heart fluttering in your chest.

During these few weeks, Dean quickly found himself falling further and further in love with you. He’d known for a while now that he had feelings for you but the way you’d allowed him to unload onto you and made him realise how utterly in love with you he truly was.

One night when you’d both been sat on one of the old cars in the scrap yard he finally felt his feelings bubble over.

The world was quiet as you and Dean both sat watching the stars above. You knew he had to leave soon, his dad had been relentless with his calls saying that Dean needed to come back to his job and that he’d had enough time. Truthfully you didn’t want him to leave. Over the last few weeks, you’d grown used to the warmth of him beside you. “My dad’s coming in the morning.” Dean turned to face you. “He insisted this time.” He frowned, rubbing his thumb over your hand. “What time?” You asked quietly turning to look at him. “He didn’t give one,” Dean answered. You both fell slightly for a moment, simply gazing into each other's eyes. As if being pulled in by a magnet you felt your body move on its own until you met Dean halfway. As his lips pressed against yours you felt his hand cup the back of your head while your own moved to his knee.

After that night your relationship changed. Neither of you actually asked the question but the unspoken promise was there. Dean Winchester had stolen your heart and it seemed you had also stolen his. 

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 17 - Complex Dice Tests

We lied! Today was going to be about the meta-campaign mechanics, but we did a really cool system overhaul instead and we simply have to tell you about it.

Basically, we overhauled a part of our dice system in a pretty major way. It’s involved some fairly dramatic changes to how rolls are done, though all the other systems we’ve created plug pretty seamlessly into it (and as we’ve integrated it, it’s actually let us effectively cut systems now that they’re covered automatically by the new system). It’s one of the deftest bits of game design we’ve ever done and we gotta brag about it.

Development of the Previous System

One of the things that has been a problem for Torchship for a long while is that it wanted to be a dice pool system (roll X dice, looking for Y amount of Z+ results), which doesn’t just have binary pass-failure outcomes. We wanted players to feel competent in their fields, but we also needed there to be interesting difficulties and complications so that stories aren’t just a stateful progression of experts effortlessly performing the tasks they’re experts in.

This is surprisingly difficult!

Nailing down exactly how it would work has gone through about a half-a-dozen iterations, all of which always felt like hacky temporary solutions. The version we came up with before this, which the game has been using for about a year, involved two thresholds on each roll; a “Difficulty” to do the thing, and a “Complexity” tacked onto it that you had to reach to do it without any extra problems.

This served the purpose, but its various incarnations slowed the game down a lot more than it should have, and put too much stress on the GM to work out what these two targets would be and how complications would emerge from it. It was a clunky solution which required a lot of experience to use properly, functioning just well enough to build systems around without ever being stellar on its own.

It Must be Tuesday

While working on Must be Tuesday: Revived Edition, which uses a similar dice pool system, my wonderful editor Lexie came up with a really clever system while we were working out the dice odds. In that game, you have a “Skill” target from 6+ to 3+ with a variable dice pool and a number of Successes needed. 

Our partial successes there comes from a concept of ‘Scrapes’; dice which are 4+, but don’t meet your Skill target. If you reach the number of Successes you need when you add your Scrapes to your rolls meeting your Skill, you get a partial success! Brilliant, isn’t it? That means everyone has a chance to get by on even hard checks using their worst skills, but it’s never easy.

When we poked at Torchship stuff after testing that system out, we found ourselves wondering if something similar wouldn’t fit here as well. It wouldn’t translate 1-1; Must be Tuesday is about teenagers fighting monsters in a horror/comedy setup, where nobody is doing anything really complicated, and even the people who are the best at things are still only as good at it as, you know, teenagers. It’s not a good tone fit, but it inspired the system we used.

Complexity Certs & Complications

The solution we came up with, which we are so proud of we bumped a whole dev diary for it, is the idea of Complexity Certs.

Basically, we’ve ditched the previous Complexity target from before. Your dice Test just has a single, easily determined Difficulty. In ideal circumstances, you roll a number of dice determined by the tool you’re using, needing to get results over your Cert target. Get as many of those as the Difficulty, you succeed, otherwise you fail. Simple binary outcome to a simple problem.

But you’re playing cosmonauts. You know, you boldly go places you probably shouldn’t. You don’t face simple problems.

When the GM calls for a roll, they can tack on Complexity Certs in accordance to the situation you’re facing. Essentially, they’re saying this roll is a test not just of the ‘Primary Cert’ that determines if you pass or fail, but it’s also a test of some extra skills that have come up because of the number of moving parts involved in the situation.

So while you still only have one Difficulty, you need to meet that difficulty using multiple dice targets to succeed without qualifiers. If you just meet the difficulty on your Primary Cert, but not the Complexity Certs, then the GM can hit you with a Complication that can emerge naturally from the Cert in question. Conversely, you could end up in a situation where you have a better value on your Complexity Cert than the primary, so you could fail, but avert other disasters.

Or you could fail at both, and now you have two problems!

This system elegantly compresses a bunch of things the system needed to do into one quick judgement call by the GM in the moment. We don’t need to have specific penalties for working remotely through a robot, working in a spacesuit, or doing things in low gravity; the GM can just add the Drone Operator, EVA, or Cosmonaut Certs to the Test as Complexity Certs. There’s no limit to the number of Complexity Certs that can get added either, so you can sum up really complex situations with a single roll.

It also made the game’s group test mechanics much simpler and more impactful. Helping can be a complex game design challenge; you want people to be able to give each other a hand, but you need to make sure people can’t simply do it on every single roll to avoid slowdown and the trivialization of gameplay challenges. The way Help works now is allowing you to lend a friend one of your Certs to take on a Complexity Cert, basically monitoring a potential problem for them while they focus on the main task. 

As you get XP for Helping or being Helped on Checks where somebody is rolling with a higher Cert than you, you might want to point out potential problems with people’s plans that relate to your expertise as they come up so you can be the one to solve them. It also means that the presence of a Complexity Cert acts as a prompt for characters to step in and help one another out, and rewards a properly multi-disciplinary crew working together to tackle complex problems. 

You know. Like… like a Star Trek.

Examples

The example we use in the game rules is as follows.

Let’s say you are at a shooting range with your laser pistol, and you want to shoot a target. That’s a straightforward Sharpshooter Cert test. You either hit the target or you don’t. Easy!

But let’s say you’re doing the same thing but in a combat situation where you might get hit in return. The GM can (and is encouraged to) add the Soldier Cert as a Complexity Cert to the roll; Soldier is the Cert that covers tactics, movements, and the use of cover, so if your dice meet the difficulty using your Sharpshooter target, but don’t from your Soldier target, then you probably hit the target but exposed yourself to danger in the process.

Suddenly, we can see the difference between an Olympic target shooter and an infantryman.

Or let’s say you’re a guard posted in a reactor room; if you are doing some shooting there, the GM could throw in Damage Controller as a Complexity Cert to represent the chances of you breaking something vital in the antimatter reactor by throwing lasers everywhere. Suddenly, you have a really good reason to cross-train your guards in engineering skills, at least enough that they know not to shoot the matter/antimatter exchangers.

Or maybe you’re trying to incapacitate an unfamiliar alien creature without killing it; the GM could add Life Scientist. What if you’re doing it in a spacesuit? Add EVA. Knocking out a piece of machinery? Add Technician. Aiming a remote turret instead of doing it yourself? Drone Operator.

Which means you could, conceivably, be in a spacesuit operating a tablet controlling a gun drone non-lethally shooting a strange device on a strange alien in a combat situation inside an engine room… and it all happens with one roll and no need for infinitely stacking penalties.

Knock-On Changes

The biggest knock-on change this has caused is a need for finer gradation between Certs so that the differences come up more often and are less severe. For that reason, we moved the game to d10 pools from d6s; yes, this was an enormously annoying change to make through our draft, and we’re still working out how to rebalance advancement through it. It also means we have to do yet another pass through the Traits, which we were midway through… oh well! 

(We have a cool new lever that’s come out of, actually; we can have Traits just make Complexity Certs just not count in appropriate circumstances. Freefaller characters get to ignore 0g penalties, for example, which includes adding Cosmonaut as a Complexity Cert to a lot of rolls). 

I’ve submitted Torchship to Metatopia again this year, and I’m really looking forward to running it on the other side of a year of rewrites and de-heartbreakerification. I’m confident it’ll go much better this time around. 

Anyway, next Dev Diary will be about the Zinovians, and then we’ll do the meta-campaign mechanics. Unless something even cooler comes up.

[rqbossman]

Hello Mr Bossman! (and possibly anyone else who reads this)

Its an honour to be here, I have a few questions. First i appologise for the long paragraph, you may dismiss it for the questions at the bottom. For context, i am here after finishing TMA and being up to date with TMAP, i then went over and listened to RQG, and have just finished listening to Epilogue 3 and might i just say, good sir I am grateful for your podcasts. I am currently just a few months away from my final exams of High School, and as someone who even just 1 year ago was very lost, struggling with school and being just overwhelmed. TMA isnt exactly comforting, but the characters and plot managed to serve as a good form of escapism while sorting myself out. I found my self engaging more in creative things that i had originally put aside in favour of maths and science (which i hated but thought i needed to do). I started drawing again, even if just fanart. and i found things going well. By finding podcasts, story telling and these communities have helped me in my own understanding of what i want in life. I got an ADHD diagnosis earlier this year, and almost directly after started RQG and as my first hyperfixation (that i was aware of as an hyperfixation) gosh dang it hit hard. (in a good way). Ive been able to do so much more creative writing and drawings, and got re-involved with a small dnd group with some friends who i played one game with almost 4 years ago now. So overall, inspirational sounds cringe, but it was. Im doing my best with the upcoming exams, but trying to get in to Medicine is not my only prority, and the fact ive been re-introduced to my first love (Literature and story telling), im planning to go do an Arts degree and i know i wouldnt have been able to confidently make this decision, or even have survived this long in the school system without the work you and your coworkers do. Now the sap is out of the way, Question time! (if you could answer even just one of these questions it would be so cool)(they go in order of RQ relevant to random stuff)(dont feel pressured to answer all/any. i know i wrote alot): 1. what would you say is the best way to draft out a long-form story. (with "Erasing the Line" as an example) Did you start at the end, with the links to the overarching plot.

2. When working with the players (in a form of TTRPG), what did you do to make sure you didnt miss relevant timing of plot points/ avoid creating spoilers while still giving enough detail?

3. What are good places to start with making a job out of storytelling/voice acting/audio etc. In the case of RQ, how is this a job and where do i sign up please! /j (what i mean is, how is best way/how did you find all the people involved and was there a common path that you were all on before getting to where you are now?) 4. Do you have recommendations for Terry Pratchett Books, i may be an literary-leaning student, but it seems i have never actually properly read any of his books. so where is best place to start?/What did you read first?

5. Similar authors or similar inspirations? Did you have a favourite podcast you listen to in your free time that you havnt had a hand in producing/directing/working on. 6. Favourite song/album/artist. And more specifically, what you like listening to in background when doing either writing or (for ttrpg) character research/game planing. 7. Since the olympics are on at the moment, what has been your favourite sport to watch, if you have been watching at all. Thank you for your time :)

Thankyou for all the kind words. Knowing our work is helping people really keeps our engines fired up. Let's see if I can't answer your questions: 1. I "sandbox" which is where I just shove everything I can think of into an unorganised bullet point list. Characters, setting, plot, all of it in one big mess. Then I decide what type of story you want to tell, copy and paste to a new document and then start to organise the thoughts (with the sandbox on standby if new stuff comes in I don't know what to do with). I think of it like scultping, you cut away bits and reshape until something comes out the other end that is story shaped. Only then do I attempt to build the sandcastle and put something coherant together like a synopsis or scratch draft etc.

2. Very tricky. I did a complete review and update of all notes after each recording session and don't forget the audio eas edited. I made lots of gaffs that you never heard as audience.

3. I contacted anyone I could convince to take part and just proved I was serious by overworking. I don't reccomend that route. Unfortunately it really is "who" you know. That doesn't mean chase established professionals as much as it means you need to get out there and associate with other up-and-comers who match your vibe. For me the route was long and windy and not a particularly good example. 4. I normally recommend people do not read his books in publication order. Don't get me wrong, its wonderful watching his craft grow from one title to the next but I would recommend new readers tip their toe into his later works to see if they like where he ended up before committing the time. I often recommend 'Monstrous Regiment' as people's first one. My favourite though is 'Thief of Time.'

5. I don't get much time to listen to podcasts in the last couple of years. I used to listen to a lot of non fiction. 'Stuff you Should Know' and that ilk. I also read a fair amount of classic YA fiction to unwind (Windinsger trilogy, Bartimeous, stuff like that.) 6. Paul Simon's Graceland but when working I assemble a playlist for each seperate project that is tonally appropriate. If I really need to focus I listen to Classical Minimalism. Or the Old School Runescape soundtrack. I'm allowed to be ecclectic. 7. I am actually in an incredibly busy work crunch at the moment so haven't seen any of it!

[captainzigo]

so unfortunately very few entries here are going to properly be vintage. also what i consider vintage might not line up with what you do. i am not old.

also i am not wealthy. and my family isn’t wealthy. this is an expensive hobby to have. i get most of my stuff from loving it and refusing to throw it away… and digging through the trash at university. you would be surprised with the stuff people throw away. planned obsolescence has nothing on the fact that people can’t be bothered to fix a sour harddrive.

i actually fix computers as a sort of second job. it’s nice to work on computers i can’t afford and that aren’t from the trash. but i love old tech. i love breathing life in to things long dead. i’m a technonecromancer. i am not including pictures of things i haven’t finished yet for the most part. and i simply am not including most things. this is but a fraction of my power

ok so these are all my computers that work. i didn’t include ones that im still working on. they all worked but needed repairs variously. mostly they just needed new hard drives.

my game consoles. again not including ones that don’t work. i actually bought that 3ds, but the rest my parents gave me after they got them used. that gameboy has needed a screen replacement that required soldering. the ds is my little trooper and has needed nothing ever. the wii needed a new disc drive. and the 3ds came in japanese and i hacked it to english.

there’s a back view of my stickers

these are some of my various devices. again not including ones that don’t work. that nano needed a new battery which was actual hell and i’m surprised it survived. that ipad is the first ipad and she works beautifully and one time i fastened it to my tummy for a tellytubby costume. i was slutty lala and i played the old spiderman movie trilogy in glorious VHS quality. i couldn’t find my iphone 3gs for this picture :( but it will turn up. i’ll include an old picture instead of cleaning my room to find it lol

here are some novelties i just like. thats an old radio i swiped from my great grandfather. i got it working but it broke again. i dont know whats wrong with it and its so old that the parts are impossible to find. on the right is the browser for DS which is just so quaint. i love it. it barely works at all but i loaded a wikipedia page one time so xP

this is my terrible stupid tiny phone i got from aliexpress that barely works BUT IT DOES WORK and is technically loaded with all modern smartphone features. i attached a video of it barely playing roblox

this is my og imac. with the og keyboard. i didn’t include it with the working computers because it doesn’t. the harddrive died and im trying to fix it but its really hard. i’ve already sought out two different adapters that haven’t worked

and this is a commodore 64 that i also got out of the trash. it does not work but im hoping to make it work. someone clearly loved it. enough to paint it crazy colors and enough to

write some weird scifi quote on the inside of the case under the RF shield. but maybe they died, or it just became too much of an undertaking.

not included here is:

• several more apple products that i just don’t think look good. all the iphones between 6 and 11 are just so ugly. and i don’t actually like the way apple watches look

• the phone, tablet, and smart watch i actively use

• various bits and bobs like the official speakers for a imac 4, an electronic pocket dictionary, various wii peripherals and so on

• all of my audio equipment

• my iphone 3gs. i just never found it or any pictures of it. i love it tho. it was my first phone (hand me down. i’m not that old) and i have had to repair it so many times and i love taking bad photos with it

• all of my monitors

• my many videogames

• my old fridge that i love and cherish and use

• anything i have fixed and then given to someone else

• a bunch of other stuff

so if you are a beautiful trans woman, are you in love with me yet? or do i need to make a part two

[s-4pphics]

rip, halloweekend! (e.w.)

hi😳 it’s my last week as a student and i felt sad so i wrote fratadjacent!ellie lol. literally just wanted to reminisce on party hookups since they’re over for me </3 

wc;cw: 3.4k mmm, MDNI!!, NOT PROOFREAD AT ALL IM VERY BUSY LOL, all ocs r black coded y’all see it, mentions of (faux)blood and vomit like once, alcohol weed it’s a party duh, 21 and tee grizzley promo like pay me, girls kissing🤭, dubcon(every1 is faded af lol), ellie’s sleazy, mentions of orgies and anal? uh oh, ellie’s so cocky <3, dirty talk, fingering, eating out no mcdonalds, spanking ass and tits lol, okie yeah dassit <3 

everyone say thank u to the loml @fandomshitpostingqueen 4 the title :3

Your school always turned up and out for Halloween. 

You and your friends had been complaining about how trash the parties have been for months, but now the streets are littered with people dressed as bare as possible in the freezing cold. They were all shotgunning beers in the middle of the street, blasting trap music through their portable speakers, throwing up everywhere. 

And you were so excited! This was going to be fun. 

You never particularly liked going to frat parties: their houses were never clean, it was always boiling hot in the basement, and the cops almost always showed up to shut the entire place down (only for another party to blow up in the early hours in the morning, and they shut them down, too! Fuckers!). But after your first ever mind-numbing, toe-curling, drunken fuck with… her at the Alpha Sigma Phi house in September last year, you hardly ever stepped foot in clubs again. 

You two weren’t super close even though you fucked on and off, but you were friends with her housemate, Riley, so whenever she invited you over, you would discreetly watch Ellie silently making cereal—high out of her mind—in only her sports bra and gray sweats. You hadn’t seen her since the start of the semester, when she’d dropped off your wobbly, highly intoxicated roommate with after she’d snapped you a hey. ur roomie drank alooottt and is really fucked up rn imma drop her off leave the door unlocked pls lol. 

It was a mystery how they got past your building's security since your roommate could barely hold up her I.D. according to Ellie, but you didn’t press since she seemed in a rush to get back to the party she was at. She quickly laid your friend in her bed before throwing you a quick see ya! before fleeing out the door. You didn’t even have a chance to properly look at her before your own door slammed in your face. 

And now here you are, standing in the frat entry line freezing your ass off in your slutty, glittery angel costume with a cheap, but feathered halo atop your head. Your dress barely passed your thighs, and your white, lace-up heels were getting scuffed on the concrete. You didn’t even want to be an angel, but your friends forced you to match with them with their demands of Were gonna be Charlie’s Angels, bitch I’m not playing!, to which you’d argue, they weren’t actually angels, clown! But after three days of consistent glares and pleading from your googly-eyed group, you gave in. 

“Bro, I’m so fuckin’ excited. I need more shots, I need more shots! —“

“Can you shut the fuck up, you sound crazy,” your good friend, Cleo said to your… feening friend, Evelyn. A gust of Fall wind blew past all of you, and you shivered in unison. 

“It’s too fucking cold for this shit! If y’all would’ve let me down that Svedka bottle, I would be warm as fuck right now!” Evelyn pressed at both of you between chattering teeth. 

“Bitch, you almost peed in these people's kitchen sink the last time you did some stupid shit like that! In front of everyone!” Cleo scolded with a glare, and Evelyn scoffed before turning away to look at the moving line. Your friend then turned her attention to you. 

“You tryna see your girlfriend?” Cleo said to you with a smirk while she hit her dab, and you rolled your eyes so hard, they almost fell out. 

“She’s not my fuckin’ girlfriend, shut up,” you tried to say as convincingly as possible. They both snorted at your attempts, clearly in denial. 

Your friends always made it sound like you were in love with Ellie when she was brought up. You could admit to having a crush on her, sure, but you weren’t always craving her attention. You let her come and go as she pleased, and you did the same. 

Your thoughts were cut off by some drunk, obnoxious asshole screaming at the two of you to pull out your school I.Ds. You all did, and the door immediately pulled open, and you were hit in the face with the bass from the speakers. You all entered, hand in hand, and watched people dance in masks, people making out, people twerking on the counter. And you all were finally warm. 

You moved through the packed, LED lit house to where everyone was dancing, and you and your friends made a small circle in the middle of the crowded floor. Evelyn managed to snag an unopened bottle of Tito’s from the counter and you, and Cleo stared in shock as she downed three large gulps like it was water. You snatched the bottle from her before she could get any more down, only to take three large sips of your own, before turning to Cleo, ushering her to lean her head back so you could pour some in her mouth. 

You felt lighter. 

Thirty minutes passed, and Cleo was throwing it back on you, and you were throwing it back on Evelyn as she clumsily thrusted her hips into your ass, bottle in hand. Your halo was tipping, you were sweating out your press, and your glittery liner was smudging, but you couldn’t give a fuck. 21 was on, and nothing else mattered. 

Until Evelyn stopped, pulling you up to her chest and sloppily whispered that she had to pee. You shook your head as you giggled, pulling a very high Cleo up to guide her to the bathroom by her iced-out wrist.

The line for the bathroom was so fucking long. What the fuck. 

But you and your friends were finally next. Evelyn was leaning back against the wall as she squeezed her legs together, whining out quiet dontpeedontpeedontpee’s to herself with her eyes shut. You shook your head at her. 

However, you all immediately stiffened when you heard a desired squeal of fuck yes, like that! coming from the bathroom. That’s why y’all were standing here for so fucking long?! So somebody could get their nut?! 

Cleo shook her head with a I know you fuckin’ lying before banging her fist on the door. “Bro, hurry the fuck up! We don’t have time for this shit!”

“Hold the fuck on, damn!” and your back straightened at the voice, eyebrows furrowing. Ohh, shit oh fuck! —

And the door swung open, revealing a very flushed Ellie, lips glistening and eyes tinted pink with a black cloak on, Scream mask in hand. She even had fake blood smeared on her face. And a girl in a devil costume hopping off the counter, adjusting the horns on her head. 

You made eye contact with Ellie, and she froze, only to quirk her slit brow at you, slowly gazing at your attire from top to bottom before reconnecting your eyes. You shivered, and she smirked. 

The demon girl snatched Ellie’s wrist to lead her out of the bathroom as Evelyn rushed in, barely shutting the door behind her. You held Ellie’s searing contact as she trailed behind the girl, nodding her head in greeting as she brushed past you, leaving the hallway. You turned towards Cleo, who’d been barricading the door for Evelyn, shaking her head at you with a knowing grin. You let out a quiet fuck you as she busted out laughing. 

Sometime in the night, you all scurried back to the dance for when First Day Out blasted through the speakers. You have zero recollection of what happened after you ran towards the packed dance floor(all your liquor body-slammed you at once!), but your tongue was shoved in Cleo’s mouth as she grinded on Evelyn, holding her by her thigh to pull her closer. She pulled away, licking your bottom lip as you both smiled before your hazy gaze traveled behind Evelyn, locking with the ones you were conflicted about seeing tonight. 

Ellie was smoking by herself, just watching you. You held her stare as you wrapped your arms around Cleo, drunkenly waving your hand to lure her over. She smirked around her blunt before shrugging, shaking her head no. You sent her a pout. 

“Ellie’s over there,” you bent down to talk in Cleo’s ear. 

She hummed in acknowledgment against your neck, “We’ll be alright. Go see her.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah, I got her,” She said in reference to a very drunk Evelyn screaming out YOU KNOW I BROUGHT MY KNIFE!

“Text me if anything happens, okay?” You demanded, and she nodded before encouragingly patting your ass. 

You unwrapped yourself from your friend, squeezing through the crowd until you reached a very… calm Ellie. She was leaning back with her head propped up against the wall, doing tricks with every exhale of smoke. You leaned up next to her, shoulder to shoulder. 

Neither of you said anything, but she held her blunt up to your face. You accepted, parting your lips to inhale the smoke as you watched the lit tip shine orange. You pulled away, leaving the remnants of your gloss behind, and breathed in before exhaling away from her. 

You watched as she pulled her phone out, slowly typing something out with one hand as she ripped from the blunt again. 

You felt your phone vibrate in your bra. 

You looked at her suspiciously before pulling it out, unlocking it to open the snap from Ellie.

e: cum upstairs? 

y: 😐

You turned to her and watched her smile before typing. You looked back down at your phone. 

e: lemme give u some imsorry head :(

y: 😐

e: pleek 

y: where

e: upstairs duh 

e: jesses gone 4 the weekend so ye

e: fuckin u in his room lol 

… Who the fuck is Jesse?

You didn’t get an opportunity to respond before you felt her grab your wrist, pulling you into the crowd. You couldn’t help but look up at her frame, loose strands of her ponytail falling out, her dangly earrings, her fucking shoulders, her neck moving every time she looked back to check on you. She looked so fucking good, fuck—

You felt a smack on your ass, and before you could turn to beat the fuck out of whoever it was, you caught your friends giggling at you. Cleo suddenly made her O-face as Evelyn pretended to hit it from the back before they started laughing at you again. You stared blankly at them. 

“Okay?” You heard Ellie say in your ear, lips brushing against yours. You only nodded before turning back to face her. 

You watched as she looked behind you before smiling and looking back down at you with a headshake. She turned and led you towards the staircase. 

She pulled open a door—Jesse’s, you guess— at the end of the hall. It was a bit messy, but you ignored it as she closed the door behind you. 

“Where’s Riley? I haven’t seen her at all,” you said as she looked at you. 

“Dunno.” She replied simply, ripping from her roach. 

“…You got bored quick,” You hoped she knew what you meant. 

“Mhm,” she said as she exhaled before stubbing it out on the dresser. 

And then silence. 

This is awkward. You hoped she would be ripping your halo off by now.  

“You look cute.” 

“You don’t,” you replied sharply. Fuck, yes she does, she always does. 

She snickered at you before kicking her chucks off, “That girl thought I did.” 

You’re going to strangle her. 

“Fuck you.” 

“You’re gonna,” she said as she stepped closer. 

“You’re a slut.” 

“I am,” Another step. She said with a slimy grin. “The dirtiest.” 

You hated how wet that made you. 

“Your friends are funny,” She said with another step, finally in your space as she spoke quietly. “And they’re hot.” 

“I know they are.” 

“Orgy?” She asked with a bright smile.

“Ellie, are we fucking or not? M’feet hurt,” you slurred out, rolling your eyes. 

“You look so good right now,” she said more to herself than to you, it seemed. She’d been so quiet, tone filled with awe. Your face ran hot. 

“Wanna kiss,” She said as she leaned forward. 

You placed a hand on her chest. “‘M not about to kiss you, you were just giving somebody head, like, an hour ago.” 

“So?” She said, grinning wider. 

“The fuck d’you mean so? That’s gross, Ellie.” you said with an agitated tone. 

“Wanna bend you over his dresser,” She said silkily, and it made you clench tight. “Missed you, y’know?” 

You didn’t reply as you looked at her skeptically. She didn’t care, grabbing you by your hips to pull you closer, bodies now flush against each other. She bent down to plant soft kisses on your neck. You would’ve complained, but her mouth felt so good, fuck.

“You wet enough?” She whispered out against your throat before sucking on the wet spot. You threw your arms around her neck, your knees buckling. 

“Gettin’ there, keep kissing me like that,” you breathed out in a shaky whisper. You felt her smile against you before licking over where she sucked. 

You felt her hands travel down to your ass, as she grabbed both cheeks tightly in both hands. You let out a breathy moan at her grip before you felt her slap a cheek, and then the other. 

“Take this shit off,” she whispered out as she hiked your dress over your hips. You pulled it over your head, tossing it near the bed along with your halo. 

“Fuck you, I spent time making this,” you said with a pout as she laughed softly. She grabbed your bare tits in her hands before sucking a nipple into her mouth. You moaned as you peered down to watch her flick it. 

She switched sides, sucking the hardened bud into her mouth while she hummed quietly. Your hips pressed against her.

“Prettiest fuckin’ tits,” She whispered against your breast. “Gonna fuck ‘em one day, I swear to god.” 

You moaned at her promise as you felt her slap your ass again before whispering a get over there, nodding towards the dresser. You scurried over as quickly as your heeled feet could manage, tits bouncing with every step. You leaned back against it with your hands propped up behind you as you watched her pull your halo from your discarded fabric. 

“Gotta keep this on,” she said as she walked over, dangling it between two fingers. “For… affect, and whatnot.” 

“Right.” 

“Mhm,” she said as she carefully placed it on your head. “Turn around.” 

You listened without question, and you were faced with your own reflection. Your wet nipples, your rising and falling chest, your wet thong. And her darkly looming behind you closely, all bloody and grinning. Another gush of wetness in your underwear. 

“You know what I think?” She said into your ear, meeting your eyes in the mirror. 

You hummed out questioningly. 

“We’d make a sexy cam-couple,” She whispered huskily as she licked your ear and you couldn’t stop squirming, pushing back on her as she grinded forward. “I could see it now: ‘slutty Scream murders cute angelic pussy’, we’d get paid so fuckin’ good.” 

“You’re stupid,” you shakily whispered out as she reached around to pull at your nipples. Your eyes fluttered shut as you leaned back against her, one hand reaching behind you to wrap around her neck while the other dug into her jean-covered thigh. 

She slapped your tits as she messily kissed your neck, sucking more bruises into the skin as she moaned against you. You felt one of her hands disappear from your tits, and before you could move to bring it back, you felt it grab the back of your neck to push you down against the dresser, arms falling in front of you in reflex. Your eyes tore open, and you were met with your sloppy-looking reflection. Lip gloss completely gone, eye-makeup smeared, sweated-out press sticking to your forehead(dammit!), and your halo lopsidedly hanging off your head. 

“Uh huh,” she muttered out as she watched you through the mirror, slowly thrusting her hips forward like she was fucking you and fuck, you wanted to fuck so bad. You hated how you instinctively pushed back on her, propping yourself up on your elbows. “Would make a sexy little pornstar.” 

“Fuck, El, ‘m so wet, c’mon, please! —” 

“Gonna baby, just lemme look at you,” she said back, and you whined, pushing back on her again. You wish she had her dick with her! 

“Make me cum, El, pleeease,” you whined out again, and you felt her slam a hot hand on your ass. You cried out as your cheek seared. 

You felt her slowly pull your panties to the side. You lifted your head to watch her through the mirror: her brows pulled down, her lip between her teeth, and she had the audacity to release a glob of spit on your pussy. You felt a gush of wetness leave you as it trailed down your pussy. 

“You’re so nasty,” you slurred out quietly. 

She reconnected your eyes in the mirror, and she grinned cunningly. You felt her free hand come up to run slow, deep circles on your slippery clit, and you moaned out as your eyes fluttered shut. You dropped your chin on the dresser in relief. 

“Cutest fuckin’ pussy, can tell she missed me,” you clenched tighter gushed wetter at her tone, your pussy screaming missed you so much, daddy! You could tell she noticed when she snickered out a small yeah, you did.

And then you felt her slide a finger in. Your jaw dropped as you gasped wetly, and you hated how she immediately found that spot that makes you scream. Your walls were gripping her finger tight tight tight—

“Fuck, angel, gonna gimme this pussy later?” 

“Fuck yes, ‘s yours!” 

“Yeah? Say it again,” and she dug her finger in deeper. 

“‘S your pussy, daddy, make me cum!” 

She gently pushed another finger in and she grinded them into you, barely pulling out. You hadn’t even noticed that the grip she had on your neck disappeared, her other hand reaching around you to massage your clit. You stayed bent over the dresser so she could hit it deeper, and fuck, she made you feel so good!

Your eyes were glued shut as you breathed and moaned out, but you felt her press kisses all over your ass, biting the cheeks. Your eyes fluttered open as she sat up, slowing down her fucking. She met your eyes to ask, “You ever get your ass fucked?” 

You barely reacted at her bluntness due to your hazy mind, but you shook your head no. She nodded as she pouted. She went back to fingering your cunt. 

“Mmh, you can if you w-wanna, when you take me home later, shit—“

“Who said I was takin’ you home? Hm?” She said and you heard the smirk in her voice. She pressed up against that spot harder as she slid another finger in. 

“Fuuuck!—“ 

“Yeah?” 

“Yes, baby, yesyesyes!—“

You watched her drop to her knees and felt her suck your clit in her mouth and your eyes rolled back and it was about to make you cum—

The sloppy noises of her sucking your pussy and the soppy sounds of her fingers inside you made you hotter, and you felt that burning feeling pulling in your gut.

“El, fuck, baby, I’m gonna— “ 

“C’mon angel, get me wet, want it all over my fuckin’ face— “ 

You couldn’t hear all the nasty shit she was muttering on your pussy as she fucked you through your nut, her lips taking your throbbing clit back in your mouth as she massaged that spot inside you. She was eating you like you were paying her for it and fuck you would if she asked. 

“Taste so fuckin’ good, no one tastes this good, what the fuck,” she said dazed. You knew she was watching your pussy twitch as you rode out the aftershocks on your orgasm, slowly fucking her fingers into you. 

You felt her stand up, slowly rubbing your clit as you calmed down, planting gentle, wet kisses onto your back. 

“You good?” She whispered against you, and you nodded against the desk. 

She chuckled gently, massaging your ass in both her hands before pressing a kiss on a cheek, “C’mon, we’re leaving.” 

You barely could catch your breath, “W’na dance, still.” 

“No, you don’t,” she said, licking up your spine. You felt her press her lips to your ear before she whispered. “Text your friends and tell ‘em we’re leaving. ‘M dropping them off so I can fuck this ass.” 

You shuddered. 

And nodded. 

And she cheesed wide. 

see yall inna week or so lol c:

[bunnyfern]

Groove Salad

Chapter 4

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

I knew I had a competitive bone in my body, but I didn’t think it was that bad. 

After three hours of playing jenga and winning one single game, I was over it. How does one person even properly win at that? It’s stupid. So we moved on to uno. That was fun, most of the games ended in someone throwing cards at one another. Or hoarding the cards until the untimely demise of using a plus 4. Which caused more throwing of cards then losing some of them. Then spending a few minutes finding them and shuffling for another round. 

Seven times, I lost seven times...“I hate this game.” Tossing basically half the deck back on the table. Larry laughed at my defeat, “You suck ass.” Isaac agreed, hurling his own cards in the middle. “You guys are cheating,” squinting my eyes, “I know it.” Crossing my arms as they scoffed, mocking me for being a sore loser. “Its uno, of course we fucking cheat.” Isaac admitted, making me gasp from shock, very overdramatically. Clutching my chest for extra effect that gained more laughs from them. 

They started to gather the cards and shuffle as I took my phone out. I don't clean out my messages as often as other people do. Another way of hoarding and clinging on to past years I suppose. My mother has- or had?- an embarrassing hoarding problem, passing it down to me in different ways. Turning the screen on and clicking on my messages, most of the conversations being from one of the guys. 

Except for the one at the very bottom, no contact picture and from years ago. I was the last one who sent the message. 

She'll want to know. Right? Biting my lip out of a nervous habit, and whenever I zone out. Which is what I’m doing right now. 

Psyching myself out with each thought and argument along with it. I mean, would there be a point in even letting her know? It'll just end up with her saying that she hopes I'll 'feel better' and that's it.

The conversation would end.

No follow ups or even a hint of care. Just dismissive of the blood we share. If she even sends something back, god, it might be worse if she looks at it and chooses not to respond. That'll really cement the fact that she doesn't ever want to see me again. 

“-gonna play?” I snap out of it, clearly confused about what's happening. Nick asked again, “You gonna play another round?” Oh...yea. I forgot where I was for a second. “Uh, nah. I’ma skip this one.” He took a second before shrugging, passing out the right amount of cards. They began playing and I watched, more like zoned out, while my thoughts ran wild. 

I couldn’t help it, everything in me wanted to send the message, to see how she’s doing. To actually see her. But the anxious jumbled feeling of embarrassment, disappointment and nerves got to me, telling me not to even try. Cause really, I am still her little sister, wanting attention after I get hurt. Will that really make her want to talk to me again? Or add to the growing resentment? 

It’s been a few hours since we got here, the mold on the couch was starting to remember me. The only thing in the house that knew me. Even though I was friends with them and came over maybe thousands of times, I barely knew the place. Never went into any of their rooms before, only getting a glimpse of it when they record or live stream. A few times I wonder how much of a friend they think of me as. If they like me enough to show me something that personal. But I have no room to talk since none of them have been to my apartment yet. 

Well, not anymore. Isaac’s been there. And not because he wanted to, but because he needed to watch over me, so he didn’t necessarily have a choice. I glanced over at him, watching his eyes flicker between the cards in his hand and on the table. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking. And I so desperately want to know what he’s thinking about. I want him to know what I’m thinking about. That I’m thinking about…I’m actually not sure what. 

This stupid injury is the only thing that’s been in the front of my mind. And my sister. Then it would get clouded with, well, him. 

I really should tell her, she might actually respond. For once. Turning my doubts into optimism. For once. 

My phone was still in my hand, feeling light as I forgot about it. Bringing the heaviness back once I lifted it back up to type. I could so easily make our message reach the top of the screen again but it was hard to even open it. The idea of looking back on the old convos makes me sick. Reaching out to her made me feel sick. I didn’t know why it twisted that deep. Has it really been that long that I can’t just act like no time has passed between us? 

Would it be considered stupid or smart to act like it was just yesterday that I talked to her? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, maybe she’ll be happy that I sent a message wanting to talk to her. Letting her know how life’s been, which admittedly, hasn’t been going so well lately. If the injury and my weird desired feelings are anything to go by. 

Sweat trickled down my neck, god I have a problem. Simply clicking on her contact and typing, then retyping, retyping once more, and staring at it. 'it's been a while, hey.' Getting startled from three yelling out complaints after Nick won the round, who was proudly laughing at the two losers. 

“I’m done playing, I’m getting hungry.” Larry stood up and went to the kitchen to look around in the fridge. “What about you?” Isaac asked me, getting up himself and waiting for me to answer. I wanted to lie, I didn’t really want to eat in front of them, but my stomach betrayed me, rumbling loud enough for him to hear. “Kinda.” I meekly muttered. 

Nick was the only one who bothered to clean up, asking them to make him something since he won. Clearly taking his win humbly. I rolled my eyes and looked back at the screen. The longer I waited to send the message, the more I was chickening out and I didn’t want to. The thought of talking to her again made me queasy. In a good way...in a sense. 

So instead of freaking out over it and cause a scene, I sent the simplest thing of ‘hey’ and flung it under my thigh. Heart beating through my chest loud enough they could probably hear it too all the way in the kitchen. 

Nick noticed the sudden jolt of movement but didn’t say a word. Waiting for his sandwich and clearing off the table for the others. “What kind of sandwich do you want?” Larry asked me, knowing Nick's without asking. Hesitating on wanting to eat anything, “I'm fine,” looking over my shoulder, “I'll probably have something later.” 

Like when I leave, whenever that is. Mulling it over. 

Isaac glanced back, concerned about why I changed my mind so quickly. “I thought you were hungry? ” Poking his head in the fridge to find something else to put on his sandwich. I rubbed my sweaty palms on the shorts fabric, “Eh, not much. I can wait.” Nick went to grab a drink, “What ? You don’t wanna eat with us?” He teased, “We won’t make a mess or steal your food if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“I don’t care about that,” Rolling my eyes, “Well, kinda. But no.” I fiddled with my ring and tried to put the reason into…nice? words, or at least something that wouldn’t offend them. “It’s just like, a pet peeve of mine when I can hear someone chew.” Larry bursted out laughing, agreeing and throwing the others under the bus at the same time. “It pisses me off when they do that, especially when Nick does it.” Giggling and waiting for him to fight back.

Which he did, pushing the blame on Tanner instead. I tuned them out. They really get as loud as they can and I wasn’t used to it. More familiar with one person screaming their issues and self deprecated worries instead of their playful upbeat tone. They really were like children in these kinds of situations, it was sweet. But also so annoying. 

I didn’t even realize that Isaac snuck up behind me. “Then does that mean you're fine with my chewing?” Smirking and eyeing me down, I fumbled at laughing normally. “Huh?” There was no reason I should've been getting flustered by that. It's a stupid question, yet I paid attention to it. 

“Or were you distracted cause you needed to finish your cosplay stuff?” Going back towards the kitchen to munch on his food. “You cosplay?” Nick asked, seemingly done with, or putting it on hold, arguing with Larry. “Yooo, who do you dress as?” Larry leaped closer as I corrected them. “I make cosplay props. I don’t dress up, usually.” The two started to bombard me with questions on what I make, wondering if I could make them something as well. Asking to come over and see it themselves. 

I wanted to die in a hole, the heat on my face was easy enough for them to know my embarrassment. “I don't know,” tilting away from their looks, “Maybe next time…I'll think about it.” Hearing their rambling of ok’s and excitement. Obviously I wasn't used to getting that sort of attention for something I do. 

Isaac leaned on the couch, the side I was trying to keep my face hidden. “Then what about a snack? I think we have some fruit if you want that instead.” He wasn't going to quit, and I wasn't either. Our stubborn sides showing through. But I couldn't help it, the way he smiled at me, like he was actually worried about me. And this time I think I was ok with that so I folded. 

Why does he have to look so cute? I bit the inside of my cheek, squishing down the flutter in my stomach just from him looking at me. “I guess.” Giving in, huffing at how easy it was for him to convince me. 

“So what else are you guys doing today?” Asking the three so I can figure out when I'm able to leave. “I have to edit the video and I don't know how long that'll take,” Nick scratched his head, thinking about the others' schedules, “So I'm not able to go back with you tonight.” I blinked, unsure of what I heard, “Go back where?” 

Footsteps were heard, revealing a hyper Tanner like usual. “You guys are eating without me? Lame.” Dragging it out and pouting. 

“To your place,” Nick finished his sandwich, “I don’t want you to be alone.” His insistence was getting on my nerves so I went back to arguing, or compromising, with Nick. And Isaac who was about to chime in when he handed me some fruit. “I'll be fine tonight. If anything happens then I'll call. You don't need to babysit me.” 

“We're not ‘babysitting’.” Nick got up to throw his plate away. “It's just..” He tried to find words that didn't make it seem like they didn't trust me alone. A toddler who couldn’t walk yet and just crawled around on the floor. Which I guess are my only capabilities right now. 

I rolled my eyes, “It's just you don't trust me and think I'm gonna break my other leg or something, from like, slipping on a banana peel.” 

Isaac chuckled at the comment but I wasn't sure about Nick, his back was facing me. Maybe it wasn’t a good time to humor my way out of this. “Look,” Reiterating my point, “If I need something then I'll call one of you guys. Nothing bad will happen in one night.” I rubbed my eyes, afraid of getting any more heated in the conversation. Shoving the cold fruit in my mouth to distract from the sting in my eyes and the bubbling forming in my throat. 

Isaac hesitated to say his own thoughts and looked to Nick. They shared the same look of worry but didn’t say anything out loud, wanting to discuss this on their own without the others hearing. 

“Depending on how long it’ll take to edit,” Nick checked something on his phone before facing me, “I can take you back tonight.” I hummed, half-assed thinking it over.

Straining out a nice tone. “Maybe, sure. We can figure it out later.” He headed towards his room before stopping. “Oh, can I include you getting hurt?” Nick asked. I scoffed, “Yea, milk it like a cow’s titty.” And immediately laughing at my own joke then somewhat embarrassed for saying that. “But yea,” nodding at the idea, “You can add me getting hurt and going to the hospital, or whatever you want.” He nodded and left, shutting his door to work. 

Tanner finished making his food and sat down on the couch between me and Larry. They began to talk which gave me time to check my phone. Feeling fifty-fifty on what I do or don’t want to see. But it was obvious how much I really wanted a message to pop up, my hope dropping into my stomach. No matter how long I stared at the screen nothing would show up. 

My face must’ve shown how upset I was. “You alright?” Tanner faced me with his usual dopey grin. I hummed a yes, going back into the emptiness and zoning everything else out. Larry gives a small side eye and then goes back to normal with Tanner. 

At this point, those two are messing around and watching- who knows what- and I’m left to think. A bad choice in my opinion. But it is a good distraction from what’s really happening. 

I don’t want to deal with any of this. Maybe I should’ve stayed home, I have my favorite blankets there. My leg itches- fuck, I can’t scratch it. That’s gonna bother me. A lot. I wanna leave, just another hour and I can ask Isaac to take me back. 

My hair feels like it’s sticking to my neck and face, so are my clothes. Maybe I was too in my head. I hate that feeling. Everything is burning up, I know I’m sweating. It always happens when I don’t want it to. I need to calm down but how can I? Everyone’s watching me, judging me. Why wouldn’t they? I would do the same. I'm taking up space in their house and can't do anything for them in return. 

Instead of practically dying on the couch, I went to the bathroom. With some trouble and a wobbly balance but reaching it in time before I had a full meltdown. 

Slowly breathing in and out. The warmth from my hands feeling the cold porcelain sink, grounding me way better than I thought. 

Do they have a fan? I should turn that on. But I’ve already been here for a minute. They’ll wonder why I didn’t turn it on sooner. Would it be weird if I do it now? Yeah, it would. Just don't make any noises like someone's in here. 

I psych myself out, taking a seat on their toilet instead.

It’s not that much of a shock that their bathroom is in need of a clean up. Matches the rest of the house- from what I’ve seen. Their voices were heard even from this distance, making me wonder how much soundproof they need in their own rooms. Though I got used to their loudness, a small headache was forming. 

Forcing myself to take a deep breath and heaving myself up and back out. 

Tanner and Larry were watching videos. I couldn’t see Isaac anywhere, thinking he went into his room for a break of his own. In my bag was a half empty bottle of headache medicine, taking one with some room temperature water. They looked busy so I didn’t disturbed them and headed out the back door. 

Careful grunts and steady feet flowed all the way to the wooden bench, or bench swing, they had. It sat under one of the trees that shut any prying eyes out, shadows easily covering every inch on a rainy day like this. Dew covered the mowed grass, blinking in the sunlight. Wood shifting under the sudden weight. 

It’s funny. With how big their house is, how many rooms they have, it doesn’t seem like any of them like to hang out in the backyard. But it’s perfect when I need some alone time. Or when I really want to scream my head off like a headless chicken…that can still scream. Maybe freaking out and overthinking senseless things is better than worrying about the doom of my sister deciding to reply. 

Third time’s the charm, right? Three is my lucky number. I just wished something would appear and make it true. 

Maybe she changed her number. 

It was a pathetic sight. Convincing myself that's the reason why and not because my sister lost a sympathy bone. For the only sister she...had? Has? Does she still want to be my sister? 

She can't be the only one I blame, I blame myself too. Like I have been for years. The only thing I know how to do right. There's no way I can mess that up. 

‘The phone works both ways’ said by anyone who hates being alone but doesn't want to admit it. That sentiment is only true when you're desperate enough to do anything to get them back.

And I think that's what I'm doing. Contorting the doubts into something digestible. Almost to the point of throwing it back up just to taste the acid. 

I don’t have anyone to spill my guts out to. My phone contacts are barely a swipe long; having the guy's; sister if she kept her number. My mother who I blocked once I moved here. I never had my fathers number, and I don’t want it either. 

My grandparents. Sending texts to both from time to time, only getting a response from my grandma. Never giving myself a second thought about deleting my grandpa’s number, he was usually a call type of person instead of texting anyways. She still pays for his number. But now I just listen to the voicemails he sent. His voice is the only thing I can come close to remembering on my own. Everything else is fading away in my forgetful mind. 

Checking again, nothing. It's a lost cause at this point. The possibility that she never wanted to talk to me again is fine, I just wished it didn't make me feel like crying. Or wanting to throw my phone at the wall. Throw a tantrum from the lack of attention. 

The back door opened. Shutting just as quickly and footsteps being muffled from the grass, coming closer to where I was sitting. I didn't bother to look at who it was, waiting to see if they would say something first cause I knew I wasn't going to. All they did was take the seat next to me, creaking the wood with it. 

They sat there for a minute, not saying anything, letting his hand tell me who it was. And it was easy to figure out. 

“You doing alright?” Isaac softly pushed his feet, causing the bench to swing with the wind. “Yea, I'm cool. Just had a small headache.” It wasn't a complete lie. Even if I couldn't see his face, I knew he was staring at me. 

Humming, “What're you doing?” He didn't want to say it aloud, but there was a feeling of tension, one I didn't notice. 

It's called life when someone can't answer a message right away, so it's easy to just say that. And yet, the words were stuck in my throat. Twisting in a way I thought wasn't possible. 

“I texted my sister.” Heat creeping up my back and sweat threatening to make me uneasy and squirm again. 

A complete surprise and confusion of blurting that out. And I don't think he did either since his foot slipped when he went to push again. “You have a sister? That's cool.” His tone gave way of a question rather than a compliment. There was another question on his tongue, but he didn’t want to say it. And unfortunately, I wanted him to ask. 

Humming since I didn't trust my own voice. “So you told her what happened?” It was like a game of 20 questions with him. Each one makes me want to drown a drink. 

“No. Not yet.” Diluting myself with courage to look at him. “I mean, what am I gonna say? ‘Hey, I just broke my leg and have to be in a cast for a month. But I'm fine, nothing to worry about’.” Laughing at the ridiculousness. The floodgates could burst out if I try to say anything else about it. Say anything about the issues I’ve had for years now, building up. 

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe ease into it,” Tracing his fingers of the wooden swirls and lines, “Don’t start off too strong. Just tell her like you normally would.” I scoff and roll my eyes. 

Isaac makes it so obvious sometimes that he’s an only child, never able to understand how siblings act. And especially sisters at that. None of them would, which makes it a bit harder to even talk to them about this kind of situation. Standing by myself in trying to navigate through this. 

“Yea, my problem is that I’m not normal,” Leaning back on the bench, “I can’t be normal around her, she’s- was, the same though. I freak out around her, I rather freak out about you-” I catch my tongue, “A-arou-around you. Around anyone really, I freak out when I leave my apartment sometimes. Most of the time really. That’s what I do.” Awkwardly laughing and hoping he joins from the slip up. 

Why am I talking so much? I wanna kill myself. 

Thankfully he doesn’t question it…for now. Looking at me like I fully said something crazy and showing an amused but confused smile. “So you have an older sister?” Guessing correctly. “Wow, you’re surprisingly right. How long did it take you to guess that?” I look at him with a mocked shocked face. 

Rolling his eyes and playfully nudging my shoulder. “You never mentioned her before, why not?” 

“Why would I?” Looking over at him and covering it up with a mix of nodding and shaking my head, “I mean, she doesn’t live here. So there isn’t a point to bring her up.” Curling up inside myself. 

There wasn’t a way to know if Isaac knew how much those words weighed, but he knew how to lift them. His gentleness contrasted my strained language. Yet our voices overlapped the soft hum of blowing winds and the rhythm of insects. Everything about this shouldn’t be so smooth, yet I’m willing to pass this by. And not everything has to have me grieving over the smallest things. A bad habit I’m still trying to get rid of and learning to correct- that I still forget to do. 

I sigh for the millionth time. No new messages. 

✧₊⁺

We watched the oversaturated, idiotic video they chose before I heard drops outside. More sprinkling. And it was confirmed by it harshly picking up and hitting the window, calming down afterwards. “More rain, seriously?” Mumbling and staring out the window. 

“If it gets worse you gotta sleep over.” Larry looked over his shoulder without pausing the video. 

“Do I really need to?” The idea of staying the whole night at their place, in a way, terrified me. For a multitude of reasons that I can easily list off. But if I told them the list then they might- or surely- get annoyed at what I have to say, so I kept my mouth shut. Only thinking about the worst case scenarios and very exaggerated things that’ll most definitely never happen, cursing my brain. 

Being lonely for a really long time and being a hopeless romantic is not a good combo. Or anything else for that matter. 

Tanner chimed in, already decided on me staying. Going over the different kinds of games we can play. Like a typical sleepover: inviting bloody Mary and summoning demons from the over world. Old, half lit candles would complete the s��ance. 

Isaac talked over Tanner, who didn’t care about being ignored by us. “If you get the cast wet it’ll be bitch to deal with. It’s better to stay here.” His eyes burned holes on the side of my face. I knew I had to say something, like agree with the logical reasoning, but I couldn’t bring myself to. And it seemed like my thought process was plastered across my face cause he tried to convince me to stay. 

In his own odd ways. “If you stay, then you can see how much better our couch is.” I laughed, confused on why he came up with that. The rational part of me told me to sleep over for the night. Then the other part wanted to scream and just walk back to my apartment. 

“My couch wins, no competition.” Crossing my arms and slouching further into the cushions. Reluctantly agreeing to stay the night. But overall he took it as a win. I'll give him that…and only that. 

[late-to-the-party-81]

Power Play Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Free Week - “S”

AN: It’s the chapter you’ve all been waiting for! Hopefully you love everything that happens here. Thank you for joining me on this wild ride. It's still the 2nd of August in Honolulu, so I'm all good.....

This week is a free week, with the optional prompt of something starting with “S” - so I’ve gone simple and just gone with Sex, but another word beginning with S also applies and hopefully you will all work it out at the end. Thanks @buckybarnesevents

Also, like in the cinema, don't leave straight away....

Beta’d by @buckysbarne

Dividers by @firefly-graphics and banner by me

Master list | Hot Bucky Summer Master list | Chapter 4

Summary: You return to Bucky’s mansion after quitting your job and confronting Walker. Are you ready for the rest of your life to properly begin?

Relationship: Mob! Bucky x Undercover Agent! Reader

WC: 3.4k

CW: Soft!Dark! Bucky, Canon Typical Violence, Russian Pet names as mangled by Google translate, Explicit sexual content (body worship, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected PinV sex), Minor character death

The car came to a halt, pulling you from your memories.

Had it only been a few days ago that you’d woken, tied to a chair in Bucky’s office, scared for your life but trying not to show it?

A few days in which he’d convinced you that not only did he wish you no harm, he actually admired you and thought that you could change your life for the better by joining in.

Were you ready to throw your morals away for the promise of a better life and, by all indications so far, mind-blowing sex? Surely people did that everyday in the name of capitalism?

“I can hear you thinking, Pchelka.” At the sound of Bucky’s amused voice, you lifted your head from where it had been resting on his shoulder during the car ride, and looked up at him.

Despite the fact that you’d been living in his mansion for a week and spending a significant portion of each of your days with him, his beauty still took your breath away, more so when he unleashed a smile.

The feared mob boss reached out to cup your jaw, rubbing a rough thumb across your cheek..

“Don’t second guess yourself, milyy. You did wonderfully. You did what you had to do, and now you are free. Free to do what you want, what pleases you.”

His eyes sparkled and you felt emboldened. The car may have stopped but the doors hadn’t yet opened, despite the fact that Bucky’s driver had already alighted. Taking advantage of the apparent privacy, you twisted in your seat, and moved to straddle Bucky’s lap. His lips twitched, suppressing a smile, although he did raise one of his eyebrows. You grasped the lapels of his suit for balance and then ground down over his already partially chubbed up cock.

“What if I want to ‘do’ you? I have a feeling you’ll more than please me.”

It was obvious from the flex in his jaw that he was finding it harder to keep a straight face.

“Let it never be said that I don’t give a lady exactly what she wants and needs.”

In a move that surprised you, he flung open the door, swivelled in his seat and stood out of the car, with you clinging to him. His hands were under your ass, hoisting you up and your legs wrapped instinctively around his waist. That it had the unfortunate effect of sending your skirt shooting up around your own waist had you squeaking in embarrassment, but your soon to be lover just chuckled.

“There’s no-one around, Pchelka.”

You peeked, firstly over his shoulder and then turned your head to look around further. He was right, of course. For once you couldn’t see hide-nor-hair of any of his guards or close associates, not even Sam.

“Show me your bedroom, Bucky.”

You kissed him then, harshly and with a fierce need, as though the damn holding your back had finally burst. Unfortunately it made it rather hard for him to carry out your request, so he only indulged you for a few moments, drawing away before you were ready to let him go, and he chuckled again at the needy noise you let out.

“Patience, lyubimaya. If you wish to be made love too in comfortable surroundings you need to let me take you upstairs. There’ll be time in the future for more… unusual trysts.”

His mocking words, no matter how affectionately meant, had heat racing to your cheeks and you buried your head into his shoulder. Your mind was assaulted by thoughts of Buckty taking you in the back of his expensive car, of him bending you over the desk in his office, of him between your thighs in his home cinema as some erotic French art house film played on the screen. You let out another whine, your hips bucking against his torso as your body sought friction for your aching clit.

Thankfully, Bucky managed to get inside the house and upstairs in record time, shouldering the door to his room open, kicking it closed and then laying you on the bed, following your down so his body pressed into the V of your hips, and finally kissing you back as ardently as you’d kissed him minutes before.

The beard scruff covering his cheeks and chin, scratched across your skin, but you didn’t care. His hands skimmed down to your waist, kneading your soft flesh over your clothes, before tunnelling under your blouse, freeing it from your skirt and starting to work on the delicate buttons that held the soft silk closed. You gasped at his touch, and at the way his kisses moved from your lips to pepper your jaw and then your throat.

The buttons dealt with, Bucky eased the front of your top apart, baring your lace covered breasts to his gaze.

“Prekrasnyy!”

You may not have understood what it was he said, but the tone in which he said it, and the way in which he ducked his head to press his lips to the swell of your breasts, explained enough. When his mouth moved lower, sucking on your flesh through the lace, your body arched up, your hands flying to his short hair and clutching his head. You didn’t know whether to push him away or pull him closer, the stimulation sending your senses into a tailspin.

As Bucky worshipped your breasts, his left hand, the one so artfully decorated with ink, slid up the outside of your right thigh, skimming over the stockings you wore, until they reached the clasp of your garter belt. He deftly dealt with the two clips, and then his hand was pushing up under the belt to grasp your ass again, squeezing gently as you sighed and moaned beneath him.

His mouth continued its journey southwards, until it was halted by the bunched up fabric of your skirt. His deep chuckle, by now one of your favourite sounds, broke from him again as he eased away from you. However, he took hold of your hands, drawing you up into a sitting position as he dropped to his knees in front of you. 

The image of the most powerful man in New York acting and looking subservient to you sent a fresh rush of arousal to your pussy, and you were certain that your new, La Perla panties were hopelessly ruined.

With his ice blue eyes never looking away from your face, he slipped your blouse from your shoulders, whisking it away and, without a care, tossing it away from the bed. His hands slid around your ribcage, to the fastening of your bra. He tilted his head, a silent question, to which you replied with a small nod, your lower lip held gently between your teeth in anticipation. The lace dropped away quickly, and you heard Bucky’s intake of breath and saw his eyes darken.

“Tak ochen', ochen' krasivo.”

You expected him to take your breasts into his mouth again, but he surprised you with his actions, instead peppering your sensitive skin with gentle kisses. His stubble tickled you and your skin puckered, your nipples standing to attention.

Bucky’s hands then moved to your waist.

“Up, Pchelka.”

You stood, and your one loosened stocking slithered slowly down your leg. But your lover ignored it, instead pulling your skirt back down over your ass and thighs, but only so he could reach the zipper and undo it. It too pooled at your ankles, but Bucky steadied you as you stepped out of it. He then undid your one remaining stocking and removed your garter belt.

“Sit again, milyy.”

As you sank back down onto the counterpane, painfully aroused and almost vibrating with anticipation, Bucky lifted your right foot onto his knee, undoing the ankle strap of your shoe and removing it just as gently as every other item of your clothing, his fingers returning quickly to divest you of your stocking, before doing the same to the other foot. 

With you now only wearing your panties, Bucky rose to his feet and stepped back. He loosened the tie at his neck, undoing it and tossing it away, his eyes still fixed on yours, and you swallowed thickly. His jacket quickly followed, shucked and discarded at lightning speed, but when he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, you let out another whine, pressing your thighs together.

He gave you a knowing smirk and you mentally cursed him, however, when he finally released all the buttons of his shirt and let the fine cotton slip to the floor, it was your turn to gasp. You obviously knew about the tattoo on his left arm, but he now revealed to you that it covered his left shoulder and the top of his chest on that side. You itched to trail your finger over the twisting vines and ask him what the various words meant, but now wasn’t the time. Especially as now Bucky had, oh-so-slowly, popped the fly of his pants and was drawing the fabric down over his thick thighs, and…

Oh my…

Black boxer briefs clung to him like a second skin, leaving very little to the imagination, and you knew you were staring.

“My face is up here, sladkiy…” That condescending note appeared in his voice again and you automatically dropped your chin and turned your head, for some reason feeling ashamed, yet also excited. 

Bucky didn’t let you hide for long. He was back on his knees, between your legs, tilting your chin up with his index finger.

“Don’t hide from me, Pchelka. And never apologise for looking at what’s yours. Because I am. And you are mine. Now, lie back and I will prove how much I worship you.”

You eased back onto your elbows, and Bucky curled his fingers around the waistband of your panties. You lifted your hips and finally you were fully exposed. For a moment Bucky said nothing, just placed his hands on your thighs and gazed at your sex. His hands shifted, his thumbs reaching up to spread your folds open, and he groaned. Then, without any further warning he bent his head those last few inches and licked a stripe right up your weeping pussy, flicking over your erect clit.

Your elbows gave out, your head meeting the mattress with a dull thud. Bucky’s fingers tightened on the malleable flesh of your thighs as he explored your folds. All you could do was moan and mutter ‘yesyesyesyesyes’, over and over again. When he pressed one of his fingers into you, you almost came on the spot, your body clutching at the intruding digit, squeezing around it, greedy for more. Then, as if he could read your mind, after a few exploratory thrusts, he added a second finger.

Your eyes rolled back in your head, and you palmed at your breasts. With his free hand, Bucky lifted one of your legs and placed it over his shoulder holding you open and pulling you impossibly closer. You thought you’d known pleasure when he’d touched you before, but this was different, both exquisite and tortuous. It was as though he knew when you were approaching your peak and purposely changing tack to keep you hovering right on the edge.

Then it hit you. He was ensuring that you were just how he wanted you - spread open and needy.

You let out a whimper, knowing you were playing directly into his hands, and not caring in the slightest. You wanted him. No, needed him. As if he were the very air you needed to breathe.

“Bucky!” Your stomach tightened and your legs trembled as you wailed out your plea. You no longer cared how pathetic and wrecked you sounded.

You felt him shift between your thighs, his face leaving your soaking pussy and you raised your head to look at him. His eyes were dark with lust, his cheeks pink and his mouth wet with your arousal. You reached out your arms, making pathetic grabby motions with your hands and with a smile Bucky climbed up onto the bed. 

Aware of how your legs dangled over the edge of the mattress, you shuffled up the counterpane as Bucky’s form slinked forward, covering your own. You lifted your right leg to hook over his still clothed hip, your body arching up against his erection.

“It’s okay, Pchelka. I’m here. Soon, soon.”

He kissed you, transferring your essence from his lips to yours. His left hand cupped your face, his weight on his forearm, while with his right he pushed down his briefs. Your hands gripped his shoulders, and when you felt his cock settle between your folds, hard and hot, your nails dug into his skin as you gasped. Then his hand was between you, notching himself at your entrance, and you lifted your hips to help him. 

Bucky sank home, engulfed by the clutch of your body and the sound of your twin moans filled the room. He thrust into you gently, still kissing you and your arms left their death grip on his shoulders to twine around his neck. You moved together, an erotic version of the dance you’d had when you’d first met, and Bucky was right - you just fit so well.

The fire inside you, which Bucky had so carefully stoked with his earlier endeavours, became an inferno. You didn’t want this to end, but at the same time you ached with the need for that ultimate satisfaction, and wanted to feel him find his in your body.

“Bucky, please.” You whispered against his mouth, and without missing a beat, he moved his left hand from your face to where you were joined and using his unerring instinct to touch you just right, drew soft circles on your clit, spreading your arousal over the bundle of nerves.

You came.

Hard.

Your voice let out a strangled cry, your eyes squeezing so tightly shut that tears rolled down your face. Your hips continued to meet Bucky’s, thrust for thrust, and he let out a few small grunts, letting you know he was close too. As your body shuddered with the aftershocks, you cupped his face with your hands.

“Come for me, Bucky. Please. I need to feel you.”

“Moya malen’kaya pchelka. Moya koroleva. Nastol’ko sovershenen. Perfect.”

You felt his hips stutter and loose rhythm, and felt the warmth of him flood you as he let out a deep groan. His body collapsed on yours and you ran your hands up and down his sweat-coated back, basking in your shared closeness. After a few moments he rolled to the side, his arms keeping you flush to him. You tipped your head up to look at him, and he smiled back down at you.

“Sleep, lyubimyy. It’s been an eventful day. We can talk more in the morning.”

You nodded against his chest, sighing in satisfaction and accepting your body’s request for slumber. You whined as he eased away from you, the mattress shifting as he got up, but he returned quickly, a warm, wet washcloth making its way between your legs.

Bucky got back in, sitting up against the headboard, and tucking you against his side, your legs tangled. As you drifted off, you heard the soft chirp of his phone.

“Is it done?... Good work, Sam. The message should be clear enough.”

Tag list: @jobean12-blog @sidepartskinnyjeans @flordeamatista @krissy25 @bodeckersdiamonddoll @goldylions @luxeavenger @wheezy-stucky @doasyoudesireandlive @chemtrails-club @seitmai @talia-rumlow @peaches1958 @pono-pura-vida @writing-for-marvel @kmc1989 @casa-boiardi

Post Credits Scene

Sam chuckled into the phone.

“Clear as crystal, boss.”

The call ended and he pocketed his phone, before looking back down at the ground. 

Walker’s blue, lifeless eyes started up at him, the bullet hole in his head a gorey facsimile of a third one. The former agent, and grade A douchebag was sprawled in the alley outside of his favourite bar. 

Sam knew he should get going - this watering hole didn’t lack for patrons and it wouldn’t be long before the body was discovered - however, he needed to find the bullet, and remove all traces of himself.

It hadn’t been hard to carry out Bucky’s orders. Walker was - had been - nothing but predictable, heading straight there after his confrontation with the boss and his little bee. Sam smiled to himself. It had only been a week and he already had a soft spot for Bucky’s Queen. She’d do the boss good - he’d already noticed a change in Bucky’s demeanour, and so far it was all for the better. He’d have taken out Walker for her, even if Bucky hadn’t asked.

Sam had bided his time though, waiting for night to fall before taking any action. Walker liked to come outside into the alley behind the bar for a smoke. Sometimes Hoskins came with him, sometimes he came alone. He wouldn’t have minded shooting Hoskins too, but someone had to relay the message.

His opportunity came at around quarter to eleven. The rear door of the bar opened with a crash and Walker stumbled through it, so drunk he could barely stand. He slumped against the wall, and pulled a battered box of cigarettes from his pocket. He placed a smoke between his lips and started to spin the steel wheel of his lighter. It sparked, but didn’t light and Walker cursed to himself.

Taking that as his cue, Sam had stepped out from where he’d been hiding himself. His target had looked up, but had been too drunk to be wary.

“Hey man, you got a li…”

He didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence, as Sam had raised his arm and shot him straight in the forehead, decorating the wall behind him with his brains. Sam had considered taunting him, but what would’ve been the point? The man would die anyway, and in reality he wasn’t worth any extra time or energy. The corpse had slithered down the wall before tilting sideways, barely coming to rest before Sam had pulled out his phone to notify Bucky. 

With that done, Sam pulled out his flick knife, stepped over the corpse, and dug the bullet out of the brickwork. Pocketing both, he was about to make his way out of the alley to walk the half a block to where he’d left his car when he suddenly halted.

Being in the business he was, he’d developed keen senses and knew when he was being watched. He waited a breath, and then another. The sound of a glass bottle falling over and a stifled gasp had him pinpointing where the watcher was hiding - down the side of the large garbage bin, behind a pile of overflowing bags.

Four large strides and he was there, pulling the refuse sacks away.

“What have we got here?”

A pair of large, sunken eyes in a gaunt face, surrounded by dirt matted hair looked up at him in fear.

“I won’t say anything, mister. I promise. Please don’t kill me.”

Sam was torn. He killed who needed to be killed, avoiding collateral damage at all costs, but he couldn’t afford to leave a witness either. And this girl - no, young woman - obviously hadn’t had an easy life so far. He reached out toward her and she shrank back, squeezing her eyes shut as she undoubtedly prepared herself for her last moments. Then, unexpectedly, she sagged, her face going slack, and Sam realised she’d fainted.

Fuck!

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill her. But he couldn’t just leave her here either. He knew what type of predators were out at this time. Hell, he was technically one of them.

He dragged his palm down his face and pulled his phone back out, dialling a different number than earlier.

“Steve? It’s me. I’ve got a situation and I need you to bring the car around to the back of the alley. And try and be stealthy this time, man….Yeah, fuck you too.”

With a sigh, he cut the call, shoved his phone back in his pocket and bent down to scoop his new charge - cos he sure as hell knew that he’d just made her his responsibility - into his arms. She weighed far too little, and that realisation caused some kind of ache inside him. He didn’t want to investigate that feeling too much. 

As he walked down the alley, a passed out homeless girl in his arms, Sam wondered what the fuck he’d gotten himself into?

[mars-ipan]

hell yeah for the driving progress :D i still need to learn to myself lmao

for some random questions...

how's the prsk going? i've been distracted from it the last few days.

do you speak any other languages? any you'd want to learn?

any hot takes on DR you don't see talked about?

THANK YOU!!! it’s scary but i’m better at it than i think i am and also i Love My Car (veronica aka ronnie my darling <3333) so. progress yay!!

to answer your questions:

pretty solid! i haven’t been playing as much but i do my dailies (i want that 30 consecutive days title and then the fc grind goes until i stop having fun) i got up to master rank songs a few days ago and omg they are SO hard i always have trouble quickly reading charts with a bunch of hold notes in ‘em and “do shit with the hold notes” is basically the main gimmick so i’m getting. TURNED AROUND !!!! but it’s fun also. AND THESE EVENTS ARE BEING NICE TO ME MY GACHA LUCK IS IMPROVING !!! I���M PULLING MORE 4 STARS :D thank god for that i was gonna go crazy. i can finally start leveling non-vbs characters (almost have my birthday akito maxxed out tho… just need to get his skill up one more time <3)

i’m not fluent in any languages other than english BUT !!! i took 3 years of spanish in school and bc i live in texas i maintain enough of what i need to know to have a (very broken) conversation. i tried to learn japanese for a bit which WAS really fun but i have a hatred for duolingo and when it got to kanji i very quickly realized that there was no way in hell duolingo would be able to teach me kanji. so i haven’t been back since. i would love to properly learn japanese some day tho. and there is one more language i really wanna learn! that being german ^_^ my dad was stationed in germany when he was in the army in the 90s and it left an imprint on him so i grew up with a fair bit of german culture stuff (mostly food (i could fuck UP a bowl of saurkraut don’t even need anything else. though mustard is nice. ouugh and wurst i love german wurst)). like in my household it’s normal to say danke/bitte in place of thanks/you’re welcome. and i loveee the way german sounds. i was actually gonna take a college course on it! but uh . that was the semester i had to withdraw from </3 maybe i’ll try again tho i’ve been wanting to see what minors my school offers.

oh god dr hot takes . hmmmm. let’s see if this one works: i think a lot of western fans (americans especially) are Not Very Good at recognizing the cultural context that dr exists in. it is very much a story that is Set In Japan and western fans…. do not always get that. i think it can be fun to go “what if i viewed these characters through an american lense” (there is a reason priest au is set in the midwest. i wanted to see what they’d be like in american culture) but a lot of the time people will like… criticize the writing of the game over just. cultural misconceptions. nothing in particular is coming to mind right now for examples (which . kinda relieved i do not wish to invite discourse) but it is something i’ve seen in the fandom and i wish there were less of it. this even goes for the poor writing choices btw— like yes we can absolutely criticize kodaka for some of the writing choices/jokes he makes, but japan in 2010/2012 (my issues with v3 bias me too much to have good commentary wrt this and also iirc kodaka was less involved with the writing here) was not exactly the most progressive place. (neither was america btw but ppl don’t always like to admit that). so like one writer isn’t gonna be capable of being perfectly sensitive of everything— i doubt he even knew much about some of the things ppl criticize dangan about. am i saying he Did Nothing Wrong and everyone is being mean? no. there is some nasty shit in these games. but we gotta like. acknowledge that this was a series that started in japan in 2010, and nobody knew it was gonna take off and get translated to english. like english speakers are NOT the target audience n i feel like a lot of people forget that. the stories get so much more interesting when you consider them from a japanese cultural perspective imo. this isn’t ace attorney we can’t japanifornia it. it is Important that they are japanese because one of the main things danganronpa is is a Criticism Of The Japanese School/Work System. like it is integral. anywho i’ve rambled about that enough i think

[victorluvsalice]

Hello all -- it's New Sims 4 Build Day here on Victor Luvs Alice this Wednesday! And I am showing off a build that I've been working on in some form or another for a good while, and which I'm rather proud of -- my new Ministry Of Joy Nightclub! Which, as you might guess, was inspired by The Smiler roller coaster over in Alton Towers. XD Specifically, this thing started life as an attempt to build what I thought like the Ministry Of Joy would look like in the Valicer In The Dark universe, but ended up morphing into this after I thought it would be fun to make it into a nightclub Sims could visit. Let me take you on a little tour:

-->The exterior of the build is based off the basic shape of the actual The Smiler coaster's station (which was SURPRISINGLY hard to find to find pictures of -- fortunately I found some videos on YouTube of the old The Smiler mobile game that had a virtual recreation of the coaster and its station that I could look at to get an idea of the shape) -- though I did change the color scheme, as the actual building is gray for some reason instead of black. It does have pipes like that on the front though! I went with a fancy Art Deco front door because it had one of the best black-and-yellow color schemes, and of course I had to slap a yellow security camera above it. XD I also put that weird spire thing atop it just because I liked it -- it felt right, is all I can say!

-->The first floor is mostly taken up by a big old dance floor (which I sized up a little bit just so it would properly take up the space), with a bar area near the front of the building; a big five-stall bathroom at the back to the left, behind the stairs to the second level; and a "chill-out" space in the weird extra room attached to the back right corner. As you can see, things are aggressively yellow and black in here. XD Though I did make sure to put some extra color in with various paintings and neon lights and such! Anything that was bold and bright and interesting. :) For a few more specific notes:

A) The area behind the DJ booth is a little dark because I was trying to use lights that wouldn't completely wash out the neon lights on the walls over there -- it's a little brighter when the laser light shows are going in Live Mode!

B) The bathroom is so big because I originally had a little side area in it for a diaper-changing station and a toddler potty, complete with its own sink -- I eventually decided that it wasn't particularly likely you would have such things in a nightclub and got rid of it, which allowed me to fit in two extra stalls. Hey, at least your Sims will never have to wait for a bathroom in this build!

C) The "chill-out" room was originally the "worship" room when I was building this as the home of the Valicer In The Dark Advocates (there was one of those weird twisty modern art statues in there with a bunch of chairs around it to represent Mar-Mal), but after I changed the theme of the place, I decided that I wanted it to play host to a couple of bubble blowers. Because the Advocates seem like bubble blower people. XD I ended up adding incense and a couple of meditation poofs for more things to do in here, and because they fit the vibe of this being a place where Sims can chill if they need to. Also, the yellow stripes in this room are the glowing Spa Day walls, because I really wanted to use them SOMEWHERE, and this seemed like the best place. XD Same with the glowing tiles underneath the statues in the corners of the room.

D) Oh, and almost all the interior lights are sized-down rec center lights from Growing Together because they looked vaguely spiraly. Gotta keep on-brand!

-->Up on the second floor, we have an arcade room and a karaoke room, because I like giving my Sims things to do at community lots and those seemed like fun rooms to have! Though, given the lack of actual arcade machines in unmodded Sims 4, I ended up making the arcade a bit more of a general "games room," with a foosball table and a table games table to fill out the area along with the big games machine and the virtual reality gaming mat. The karaoke room also ended up getting a popcorn maker because I really wanted it to have some snacks available, and popcorn seemed like the best bet.

-->And as for the roof surrounding the second floor...well, I took a look at all that empty space and went "I need to do something with this." So I turned the little "balcony" at the front into a hang-out space with spiral-themed loungers, a drinks tray, and a telescope, scattered some benches and a chess table around the place --

And set up a whole hot tub party area in the back above the chill-out room! Because who doesn't like a cool hot tub party area? Especially one with loungers, another drinks tray, an ice cream machine, and a busking area? Oh, and the most fun outdoor lights on a string that I could find? :p Advocates never do party time by halves, after all!

-->As for lot traits, I went with Party Place (because look at it, this place was made for parties), Convivial (because of course the Advocates would want everyone to feel like they can get along with everyone else), and University Student Hang Out (...because I honestly wasn't sure what else to put on the lot and this way the drinks are cheaper XD).

So there you have it -- the Ministry of Joy, ready to help your Sims on the path to happiness! It's up on the Gallery if you would care to check it out, under my user ID AliceNVictor -- you can also find it under "#thesmiler" if you prefer to search by hashtag. It is one of my patented "uses fifty million packs" builds, but hopefully it can find a home in your game anyway. :P Enjoy -- next week, robots!

[mrs-monaghan]

Shaz i Just realized something today. Pple really need to start taking you more seriously when u say certain things. I remember months ago, you mentioned a few times that you know Jk would very much like to go Live with Jimin but maybe Jimin is the one who doesn’t want to. I remember saying to myself “nah Shaz is probably talking outta her ass and being very taekookerish rn” lol. But u were vindicated cuz we came to find out that Jk does indeed want to do a live with Jimin but Jimin is playing hard to get. I also remember you talking about how Jk hates the vermin but I personally had not seen any reason to believe he hated them cuz he still hung out with Tae and stuff but i guess these last few months or weeks have proved you right again because the whole world can clearly see that Jk has a problem with those pple. Let’s start with him looking almost disgusted at the mere thought of living with Tae, or how visibly uncomfortable he looked when he kept getting questioned about Tae on that Live, and also how everytime he does stuff for Jimin, the cult start manifesting he does the same for Tae and he just doesn’t. And now after liking that Jin video from a tk page, he went ahead to (probably) delete the comment prolly cus his algorithm got messed up with tk stuff. My point is, I won’t be completely closed minded to certain theories u come up with cuz u’ve actually been proven right quite a few times. Cuz who would hv thought we would see an almost desperate Jk insisting for Jimin to let him come over and do a live? I never thought i’d live to see a day like that lol.

Let’s be honest, pple wanna be like shippers this shippers that, but the truth is, Jk has never shown any discomfort at pple thinking he is fucking Jimin. Not even once, hell he is the only one feeding us jokers now cuz Jimin aint giving us shit to eat. Without Jk alot of us might have thought they broke up and gone about our lives but everyone can see clearly that Jk is the one still keeping us grounded in our Jikook belief. He does all these but doesn’t care to feed tkkrs at all. The only thing he does which feeds them is basically hanging out with his friend Tae. That’s literally it! He doesn’t go out of his way to do anything that might feed the vermin and that is why now, they are claiming Jk is Tae’s washing machine and Tae is Jk’s refrigerator lmaoo. That is why now they are getting hit tweets by claiming that old sounding hacking and coughing we heard from Tae’s live was Jk lmaoo. That is why now they are photoshopping blurry af pic to claim that tk went on a restaurant date and a beach date😂😂😂😂. Tae used to feed them alot b4 but for some reason he stopped so they basically hv nothing these days. Plus taennie gets one step closer to getting properly confirmed everyday and they are losing it. Now they are planning to hit us with “Jikook is fake love” everytime we have something to celebrate lmaooo.

Anyways, i respect you my dear. I’ve learned my lesson. From today i’ll be more open minded even when some of ur theories sound a lil taekookerish lol.

How I'm I supposed to take this ask?

I have said this a milli times; i go by history. My theories and conclusions depend on history. Has JK done this before? Have Jikook behaved like this before? The number one reason why Jikook stand out to alot of people is CONSISTENCY. This is why people like me who are convinced they're together believe this to be the truth. Because they are sooooo fucking consistent. Yeah after year after year they act the same, they are the same. Their behaviour towards eo has remained the same.

So no, I'm not all knowing or a Jikook professional but I am quite good at remembering useless things that will not help me IRL in any way shape or form. I will have dated my fiance for 4 years in October and I still mistake his year of birth. Thats right, I keep forgetting my fiancé's year of birth. But I know that when Jimin had his foot on JK's crotch, that took place in Bon Voyage season 1 episode 6, but we only see it in episode 8 the finale at 38 minutes in.

That's my mind ladies and gentlemen. 🤦🏽‍♀️

JK has been debunking tkkrs for years. Its not new. He genuinely does not like them. We know this because he goes above and beyond to correct anything that may be construed as him and V being a couple. But u will never catch him doing this for Jimin/ to Jikookers. And yes, this is fact.

We don't get debunked, we get fed.

I've consumed enough BTS content to see it happen so me drawing to this conclusion stems from HISTORY. (And talking with a bunch of great friends who love to analyse) All year we had seen JK be defiant and go against the company and be unapologetic about it. While we had Jimin telling him to stop drinking on live, making fun of JK for singing unholy (a sexual song) on live. So it only made sense to conclude Jimin was the hesitant one. Not JK. Jungkook aint scared to blow shit up but his boyfriend sure is.

If you work with the belief that Jimin and JK are a couple, all that's left is to observe. And u will come to the same conclusions that i (and my pals) do.

When Jikookers make delulu theories I believe we are allowed to. Because Jikook is real and because of this, we are most likely correct. Jikook have done some crazy shit over the years, u can't blame us for coming up with some crazy theories.

Thanks anon, I guess? 😳😳

[whenthechickencry]

Our Confession

I actually have read both this one and Last Note Before, it was a long while ago though... so I know the general gist but I don't quite remember all the details

The way Beatrice is doing her dead inside sprite before she realizes others were in the room and then she plays up her hamminess a bunch is really sad, aaa.

Dlanor constantly tells Beatrice she's a good writer and she's so excited but a little sad she won't get to see it as a full-blown game first, and Beatrice is like you don't need to flatter me but she's right Beato you should accept her compliments.

Iirc what the Booklet did for this was having the pages be sealed after this and you had to unseal them, which is actually extremely cool. They did their best here but a simple choice prompt just can't match that, I think.

Haha, the complaining about how Natsuhi is hard to make an accomplice... she's like the only person that cares about the headship as much as the gold, Eva as well but Eva isn't getting that without Sayo's help anyways, thinking about it even in Episode 4 she was one of the first to go,, so I can imagine getting her to cooperate is kind of hard. Granted, once you bring up Jessica to the equation you can probably get her to relent.

Beatrice getting a gun sprite is kind of uncanny, haha, really bringing it home was an early draft before Sayo had the chance to embellish the story with magic.

Kinzo being willing to explain to his children that he would blow them up if he felt like it worked in Sayo's favor when getting accomplices, I suppose.

You know, the fact Genji was like "hey! you are a product of incest. we rewrote your entire life for your incestuous grandfather. All your lovers are your cousins. Everything in your life is a lie. By the way, you have a bomb to blow everything up!" like okaayyy what were you expecting at that point Genji.

It's kind of interesting Beatrice tells accomplices that Kuwadorian is safe - technically Rosa could have probably survived Episode 2 with Maria if she just checked Shannon's corpses and realized she really was dead and just tried to make a mad dash to Kuwadorian, maybe.

Krauss is like yeah sure, sure, why not I guess. The fact that Natsuhi is the one more hesitant about this when she's the one thrust into solving all their problems, figuring out what to do, and she never had the option to not do her part...

This episode really does feel like tearing up the guts of Umineko... you can tell a lot of the accomplices act a little weird around Battler so you can guess Sayo probably told them vaguely of her plan, but it's the sort of thing you don't expect to be explicitly confirmed.

Kumasawa is grinning here, haha, she really does think she's a prank up to the very end.... it's kind of sad. She probably can't even imagine Sayo as someone who would do what she did, but I guess that also shows the way she didn't reach out to try and understand her enough...

It's kind of funny how sometimes you see the story going, ah, shit, sorry I have to embellish this more, right.

While thinking on how to properly kill 5 people she gets distracted by the fact she wants to draw a cute girl instead of a man, haha.

It's kind of funny because she does absolutely think they also did something wrong, but I guess talking to herself like this also makes it easier for her to justify herself to her...

Huh... now that I think about it most magic circles were indeed in places that people don't usually go to, ie the shed or Kinzo's rooms... I did think Sayo did the drawings in between murders, haha

The fact Sayo writes some of her tales while thinking about how the argument with Battler is going to go is kind of funny, haha. I wonder what the Japanese version said for metaworld here... it's not a sentence the translation has used so far and the side arcs don't have the greatest translation, so I am curious...

Beatrice is making fun of Battler for reading so many mystery novels but not being able to figure out the mystery, but also praises the person able to see the fantasy aspect of it...

The fact that so many of the mysteries in Umineko rely on several characters thinking that Shannon/Kanon wouldn't do X is very sad... like Sayo is writing these stories with the assumptions that no one in the family actually understands her and won't care to try to, so her mysteries are safe.

It's kind of interesting how in the episodes Sayo does this they mix up whether a Sayo actor is doing it or whether it's an actual conclusion the characters reached, in order to have more difficulty seeing the pattern. For ex: in Ep1 Eva, the accomplice, and Natsuhi both brought up this argument. Eva was an accomplice but Natsuhi isn't.

It's brought up that Gohda and Kumasawa don't know its actual murder, I knew about Kumasawa but didn't know about Gohda, actually... I think the roulette accomplices always know or at least figure it out early enough. Kumasawa's the one who is always clueless. Not really sure about Gohda in ep2, though. I think a lot of people were probably clueless in ep4.

This scene always fucks me up.... the way one of the few light conversations we see between Sayo and Kumasawa is here, the fact Sayo is crying after what she does before resuming the mocking Beatrice act. The use of "End of a Daydream" as the song...

In general this episode really highlights how? Disassociative? Sayo was during all of this. She constantly switches from doing the cruel witch that laughs at everyone's misfortune, to passing the blame on to Battler for what happened, to being fucked up about what is happening. None of these are Sayo on their own but all of them together make up Sayo. I think an episode like this really helps you see how all of the Sayos are one Sayo. Its role as a post-Umineko arc is interesting too. Even people sympathetic to Sayo occasionally role her as ie the innocent victim who did nothing wrong or flatten her into her relationship with Battler. Sayo is so much more than that and this episode forces you to confront that.

Shannon's words here hit so hard... Sayo here is affirming she was an incomprehensible being that was impossible to understand in the first place. In general, Shannon seems to be the persona most resigned to giving up... Beatrice might think its a long shot but her game and the meta arguments show that she does have a hope that she can be understood. Kanon might not think better is possible, but still yearns for it and isn't satisfied with what they have; as opposed to Shannon who seems completely resigned to the fact no one will understand them and that there is no hope for the future. Ofc all of these are the same person, so it's not useful to see them as totally different perspectives. But I think trying to understand each persona on their own is useful to analyzing Sayo. Like, why is the persona that has completely given up tied to George? Why is the persona that wants better but doesn't think its possible tied to Jessica? I think answering those kinds of questions can help you understand what was going on in Sayo's head during a lot of moments as well as help you contextualize their relationships more.

It's kind of funny how they do the missing corpse trick with Kanon constantly but never with Shannon, when Shannon's corpse appears its either after Sayo is dead or they hide the corpse another way entirely. R07 probably didn't want you to figure out they were the only corpses allowed to do this.

Dlanor points out that Beatrice surely wants to be understood by more than one person, Beatrice doesn't really answer to that remark and just says it's fine for her to just hope that one person understands her.

Of course, Dlanor did end up guiding Battler to Beatrice... and thankfully he didn't have to release her guts in order to do it, but... Battler still didn't understand her with just Beatrice's own words and actions. He needed to be guided and prompted by others to be able to get there, and it was still too late. This is still very sad.

Beatrice gets a shocked expression once Dlanor points out that said prince needs to have love for her or otherwise they won't get to her, and Beatrice relents in giving her the manuscript as long as Dlanor agrees to not release it before she is dead.

Now, on to the present.

Of course, Sayo didn't *just* want Battler to understand her. She wanted others to be able to see her heart. She wanted others to stop painting over her for the benefit of others. She wanted everyone to see her for the full person that she was. But that seems like such an impossible, naive dream that she won't even accept to having it.

There's just so much going on here... Dlanor begging for you to understand her, the reuse of the episode 4 red truth. Dlanor points out that just understanding what went on in the gameboards isn't enough to understand Sayo, there is still so much more for you to understand.

This is the first of all the side arcs I would say is completely required reading, Umineko's Saikoroshi basically. The writing here was excellent, allowing you to see the gameboard from a different perspective helps you understand Sayo much more. Being post-ep8 also lets them be so much more explicit with things they didn't have as much of liberty in the main arcs. There are so many heartbreaking scenes in this episode. If anyone reading this hasn't read this arc, I really beg you to do so.

[thegeminisage]

For Never Have I Ever: there was only one bed!

THANK YOOOU the last 3 or 4 times i posted one of these i didn't get a response you're a real g.

i have actually never written only one bed, unless you count "only two beds" playing a small but mighty role in the ot3 sleeping arrangements in @cambionverse, during which jesse turner, local antichrist who has spent 3 years in the wilderness running away from hunters because they traumatized him, winds up slipping into ben's bed (who is also a hunter) because there are only two beds, and the other bed is occupied by claire, who has a big flashing neon sign above her head that says NO TOUCHING EVER AND ALSO NO EMOTIONAL CLOSENESS EVER. anyway, ben and jesse wind up hooking up, surprise surprise (dean also once catches them snuggling in the back of ben's pickup, which he takes REALLY well and is super normal about), but then ben dies, and jesse misses sleeping beside someone, and claire misses the sound of ben breathing, so while on their journey to resurrect ben they ALSO begin to share a bed, and...? well. the fic is still being updated.

HOWEVER. if i were writing it properly, as in, the point of the fic, i can think of no better character to do this with than spock. (coin toss on whether or not the other bed sharer is jim or bones - normally i'd do both but i think it'd be hard to do THREE people in one bed.) in that one really racist episode we cannot get into rn spock is like "vulcans don't need sleep as much as humans" even though his ass is half-human, and he is also weird about his personal space. so if there was only one place to sleep and they had to share he would insist he was simply fine Not Sleeping (lie). and eventually his reaction times would slow, his thinking would get muddled...bonus points if it's cold or he's injured or some such thing that makes his resistance even more stupid. like, it's only logical to take the bed offered, mister spock. get your ass in there. snuggle. cuddle. canoodle, even. i think there would have to be something very specific he was afraid of or dreading besides simply the invasion of personal space that involved, ultimately, getting judged by whoever was in bed with him - dream transference? morning wood? trying to octopus his partner in their sleep because he secretly loves cuddling actually? and then that exact thing would have to happen except it would be fine because his bed partner would NOT judge him, the whole point of spock ships is he finally gets a space to be free of that constant criticism that's dogged him all his life. anyway, then spock and whoever would continue to share a bed regularly once they got back to their normal arrangements.

[ASK MEME!!!]

[themysticsword]

Quitting RoR2 Modding

(posting this in case anyone who plays my RoR2 mods isn't in any of the discord servers lol)

So, basically, yeah, I'm done with Risk of Rain 2 for good. Don't wanna associate myself with the game. Just really want it gone from my life. I don't want to think about it.

All of the mods I made out of my personal interest are now marked as deprecated, and potentially will even be deleted later. The only things that will stay are projects that were either made for friends, had contributions from more than just me, or are funny enough that I feel like they should stay.

Why? For a lot of reasons.

The Community Manager

So, SeventeenUncles (or Suncles, as we all call him). The guy may seem like a chill person on the twitch streams, but god. He's Bad at server moderation. Everybody in the server knows it. And if somebody has any kind of complaint about that moderation, he silences all the critique and tells to open a ticket via Modmail, which will not result in anything because why would he care lmao he's the community manager and he makes all the rules.

Like this one. I wrote a proper, consise ticket about my mute (which was unfair, by the way!), expecting to either get unmuted or at least get a response or have a conversation as to why they think it was fair. Guess what I got.

you're welcome suncles.

There's a lot of problems with how he's running the server, which I'm not gonna talk about, because, luckily, someone else has already done it, in detail! https://www.tumblr.com/gabrielultrakill-bigboobs/723312859455651840/the-official-risk-of-rain-discord-and-its-hellish?source=share

A lot of nasty stuff. In the official server, mind you.

But yeah. He represents the company Hopoo Games, and who am I to support a company with a prick as their representative :)

The Community Itself

Now, I know this is a dumb reason to quit over, but it's not the reason. It's just one of them.

It's toxic. Elitist. And, most importantly, way too controllable. We have, like, 4-5 mainstream content creators, and almost all of them manage to give the worst tips to newbies despite sinking hours into the game and, supposedly, having a lot of experience and knowledge.

It's so bad to the point where some youtubers call out the wiki for giving "false information", so their fans go on the wiki and make edits while parroting whatever Mr. Youtuber said.

Picture this: you're a new player, and you have unlocked a hard character. You struggle with them, so you go to the wiki, and the first thing you're told is that you actually need to unlock a different ability for them to make them playable. And only 7-8 paragraphs below, the wiki tells you how to use the base abilities properly. You know. The ones that you have right now, as a new player. While also making them sound weaker than they are in reality. Doesn't this sound like imposing someone specific's preferred playstyle onto everybody else?

Constant arguments. You open the discord server, or the subreddit, or a youtube video, just about anything, and you'll see people disrespecting each other over a video game. These arguments usually stem from someone being incorrect, them getting corrected by others, and that person fighting until the end of times just to prove that they're actually right, because, for some reason, they can't accept being wrong.

And I kept seeing these arguments. Engaging in them. When you want to interact with the community of a game on this scale of popularity, you just can't not encounter the bad parts. Statistically impossible.

Oh, and you know why the community partially is like that? Because the devs and the moderators are fine with that behaviour. The devs are known to be all mean and like "massive trolls" or whatever. Meanwhile, you don't see this shit happening in the A Hat in Time or Celeste servers.

Other Projects

Lastly, I've been meaning to quit RoR2 for a long time now. I want to move on and do something else. I've been making RoR2 mods for 4 years now, I think? It's a shame I have to leave like this, but eh, whatever.

If you're reading this, I hope you're doing well! I'm doing well, because I got rid of the part of my life that's been bothering me for way too long :3 See ya in other games that I'll mod!

[sostrangerous]

i feel like the way you write dialogue is SOOO good and i genuinely laugh out loud at the wit sometimes🧎🏻 any tips for writing dialogue that flows well?

To be completely honest i consider myself a totally humorless writer so this is a pleasant surprise(!) That's probably because i don't deliberately write comedic structure, it's purely incidental. Any comedic elements of my story are a quirk rather than a core trait of the text

When I write dialogue normally, I write it purely as verbal words first. And it's usually extremely rough.

this is an example of me trying to hammer out the jeno and mark conversation post winter break. I am usually more organized and label each line by which character is speaking, but I am also quite lazy lol. As long as I can understand it

It's basically like I am writing a script for a play with no blocking instructions. But then later in the real writing stage I have to turn it into prose, so I'm sort of like the director who's actually getting into the nitty gritty of how the script will be realized

I don't stick to these little scripts and sometimes I write multiple different versions for the same scene to figure out what works. I also take long breaks and come back to what I was working on only to finally realize what wasn't clicking

I think my work is almost entirely dialogue driven, I'm high key terrible at like... dynamic physical writing, at least besides fucking which I am great at :) but sex is just physical dialogue

Anyway I doubt any of that was helpful so if I had to give advice I'd say... edit! I always go thru my final prose and take out filler words in dialogue. In real life people constantly say um/uh, repeat words such as like/actually/well, and swear when they talk. But that is repetitive and boring to read, so ironically it can be a lot more natural to make your characters talk more properly than real people do

Something I personally have to keep an eye out in myself is when I send characters into fits of monologueing. Like the little script in that picture was wayyyyyyy too dense with information as well as self awareness on jenos part. That conversation was very hard to write I did a lot of chopping and screwing and deleting. Each point needed time to 1) be emotionally processed by jeno 2) communicated to Mark 3) processed by Mark and 4) responded too by mark. For high drama dialogue, I think everything needs time to breathe. The characters have to process, and the reader does too. Also some things simply cannot be shoved into the same conversation and will have to be addressed later or left unspoken

Anyway! You should write for yourself only, so if none of this works for you that's totally chill. God knows i am not a professional author or professor. Go forth and fanfic 👍🏻