#despite my lack of posting I have been drawing a lot more than usual

[samantha-scribbles]

Mr. 2099

4 months to the day I first saw Across the Spider-Verse, I conquered my fears and not only drew him, but I coloured him as well 💪

It took me two months to simply work up the courage to try and draw his stupid (affectionate) face!

[iamthecomet]

hours later I saw ur post abt fishy rain and like idk if he counts but! shark rain!

predator rain who will hunt his prey down just by the scent of blood

lures prey into the water and wraps around them, rolls them under water until water fills their lungs and renders them useless

fiercely protective of his pack rain, baring his teeth at those who sneer at anyone he cares about (there are threats to muzzle him if he doesn't rein it in—cant have him needlessly biting people after all)

on the flip side he finds himself in the water a lot, on sunny and warm days, floating on the surface before diving down deep—sometimes he'll breach just to show off to whoever is with him

he's charming despite his lack of vocal cords, a smile and a wink will usually draw a blush out of whoever he's set his sights on (it always gets Swiss really good)

he doesn't like to glamour all that much, so anytime he opens his mouth, his serrated teeth are all visible, rows of them in his mouth, terrifying and sharp but again Swiss gets a lil horny about them

he's one of the strongest swimmers that has been summoned to date, his build and fins and webbing between his fingers (and toes if he's in a human form) give him an edge most of the other water ghouls don't have

he is very proud of this

SHARK RAIN. FUCKIN' SHARK RAIN MY BELOVED. Lee, LEE, you are 1000000% correct. Rain is majestic. He is sleek. He will bite your face off if you so much as look at his pack or his Papa the wrong way. Everyone thinks Dew is the one to be careful of--but really it's Rain. It's always the quiet ones--the thoughtful ones. Rain will end you without a second thought for the smallest infraction. He will not feel bad about it. And you know Swiss just hangs out on the beach during the summer so he can watch Rain. He pretends to read, but really he's just waiting for Rain to show off for him--or better yet, to beckon him into the water so Rain can show him what he can really do. And the teeth? God, imagine some innocent sibling waving hello at him, smiling, and him returning it and there's just...so many teeth and they are so sharp. And the Siblings know to stay, far, far, away from Rain--not that he minds. I just think that Rain truly enjoys being the thing nightmares are made of. He likes the way siblings shy away. He likes how they thrash when he pulls them under. He likes the way they bleed, and more than that he likes how every monsterous part of him attracts Swiss to him. How Swiss repeatedly proves to Rain that he doesn't just want to cut himself open (literally) on Rain's sharp edges--but that he loves it. This version of Rain is EVERYTHING to me and I could write 10,000 fics about his protective nature, and his blood lust, and how god damn sexy every monsterous part of him is. FUCK. Thank you for sending this it is giving me SO MANY thoughts.

[drabbles-mc]

Crunch-Time

Angel Reyes & EZ Reyes & OC Evangeline Reyes

Warnings: 18+, language

Word Count: 3k

A/N: This exists in the same universe as Interruptions but can be read without having read that first. I have the next part of this universe written up already as well, so I'm hoping to post that over the next few days at some point. this piece and the next one are focused more on the three Reyes Siblings than Evangeline and Franky but i promise it is all gonna come back together haha. anyway! as always unedited and unbeta'd because the muse caught me by the jugular tonight lmao

The morning had been quiet so far. Mornings in the middle of the week didn’t tend to be busy times for most of the shops on the strip, and Evangeline’s was no exception. She took advantage of the lack of foot traffic, calling and emailing with the people on both sides of the border who sent her their clothes and jewelry to sell in her shop. She was far from a big name or a huge retailer, but she was good and fair to the artists and designers that she worked with. And for a lot of people who were just trying to make some extra money to get by, that was more than enough.

She was updating some of her order spreadsheets, getting to the bottom of her first coffee of the day, when the bells above her shop door chimed. Out of habit she smiled, turning her head slightly to the door even though her eyes were still on the computer screen in front of her as she spoke to the customer who had just come through the door.

“Bienvenidos! I’ll be with you in just one second.”

“Okay,” the woman responded, a twinge of uncertainty in her voice.

Her tone got Evangeline to look up and over at her, wondering what was going on that was making her sound like that. The woman was standing in the tiny little foyer area of the shop, right by the chair that her brothers usually occupied whenever they stopped by to bother her. She looked a little older, enough gray strands of hair mixed in with the brown to be prominent. She had dress bag draped over her arms. Despite the fact that the woman seemed to be trying to keep a neutral expression, Evangeline could see the worry in her eyes.

She got up and walked around the counter, stopping a few feet in front of her before asking, “How can I help you?”

The woman drew in a deep breath, and for a moment Evangeline wasn’t sure if she was trying to steady herself, or if she was about to let loose a tirade. She braced herself for both regardless. The woman locked eyes with her, lips curled into a small frown. “I’m so sorry,” she said, words tumbling out along with the deep breath she’d just taken, “just barging in like this. But I didn’t know…a friend of a friend recommended you and I just,” her shoulders slumped in defeat, “I’m in a bit of a tough spot.”

Evangeline nodded. “Okay. What kind of tough spot are we talking about?”

The woman gave a small lift of her arms, just enough to draw attention to the dress bag. “My son’s wedding is this weekend, and the dress that was supposed to be delivered a month ago isn’t going to be delivered until next week so I had to go out and buy another one but nothing fit off the rack and everywhere else is saying they can’t get it done in time,” she spoke like the sentence was never going to end, like she had been trying to pick certain bullet points to say and then just decided on all of them, “and I understand it’s short notice and it’s not their fault but I really need—”

Evangeline took a small step forward, just close enough so that she could rest her hand on the outside of the woman’s arm. “How about,” she spoke gently, “we get this on you and take a look. Let me know what you need done and I’ll see what I can do about having it ready for you before your son’s wedding.”

The woman’s eyes instantly glassed over with tears of relief as she nodded. “That would be great. Th-thank you.”

She nodded as she let her hand drop back to her side. She motioned for the woman to follow her towards the back of the store. “I’m Evangeline, by the way.”

The woman let out a shaky laugh. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even—” she shook her head, “April.”

“Nice to meet you, April.” She reached and opened up the door to the dressing room. “Let me know if you need help.”

It didn’t take long for the woman to re-emerge. Evangeline instantly smiled. The dress was beautiful—a deep purple floor length gown that was one-shoulder. From the first glance she could already tell that, unless April was planning on wearing heels high enough to snap her ankles walking down the aisle, the dress was at least going to be hemmed. If that’s all it was, she could get it done quickly, but she didn’t want to speak too soon.

“I know it’s not the dress you wanted,” she said as April stepped up onto the small platform in front of the trifold mirror, “but it looks amazing.”

She laughed and smiled. “Thank you.”

Evangeline was slipping on her wristlet that had a collection of pins and sewing needles jammed into it. “So, what are we looking to get done?”

She sighed. “I at least need it hemmed…”

Evangeline nodded as she looked at the flats the woman was wearing. “How short? Are you wearing heels or—”

She laughed and waved her off good-naturedly. “I’m too told to be worrying about heels and a dancefloor at this point. I’m just trying to make sure I don’t fall over and take my son down with me.”

Evangeline laughed. “I get it, I get it. Alright, so we’re hemming. What else?”

She motioned to the waistline. “If you could let this out a little bit maybe? Feels like I can barely breathe let alone eat.” She paused to laugh. “And I know they got a really good cake for the reception.”

Evangeline hummed in amusement. “Well, can’t have you missing out on that, can we?”

“I’d love not to.”

She nodded understandingly as they talked about a couple other small things that she was looking to have done to the dress. She made a quick lap around to get the full scope of it before giving her final verdict. “I should be able to have this ready for you by the time I close up shop on Friday.”

Shock completely absorbed her expression. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I got a couple jobs that can wait until next week. I can get this done for you as long as Friday isn’t too late.”

April’s laughter was coated in relief as she stepped down and wrapped Evangeline in a hug. “Thank you.”

She hugged her back, unable to stop herself from laughing as well. “Don’t thank me until it’s done,” she joked.

She had April step back up onto the platform so that she could start pinning her dress where it needed to be hemmed to. Now that the initial panic that caused her visit was mostly resolved, Evangeline noticed how much more relaxed they both were, but especially April. They made small talk as she walked around and placed her pins and marked where she needed to for later.

Getting the dress marked up was, surprisingly enough, the quickest part of their exchange. She understood why it was hard for April to find a place to take care of her last minute—it was prom season and the start of wedding season so most places were probably slammed. It wasn’t as though Evangeline’s schedule was painfully open, but she always tried to leave herself a little wiggle-room just in case.

The two of them were putting the dress back on the hanger after April had changed back into her regular clothes when Evangeline heard her brother’s bikes outside. Or rather, she assumed it was them—it wasn’t as though the other members of the club made a habit out of stopping by to visit her very often.

She was purposely ignoring it as she and April traded contact information. The roar of the engines stopped, moments later the door chimes rang, and Evangeline was still intent on ignoring it all. She noticed the way that April turned to look and see who had walked in, and she also noticed the momentary shift in her expression. It wasn’t a negative change, but she definitely hadn’t been expecting two men in club kuttes to walk through the door. Evangeline couldn’t blame her for the shock.

She walked with her back towards the front of the store, still not acknowledging her brothers. “I’ll give you a call first thing on Friday to let you know when you can come and pick it up.”

April had let out so many sighs of relief that she’d lost count, but she added another one to the tally. “Thank you so much. Really, I, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Of course. It was nice meeting you, April.”

She nodded. “You too.” She tucked the card that Evangeline had given her into her purse as she tried to slip past Angel and Ezekiel without getting in their way. She brushed by Angel, giving him a small nod and a kind, “Excuse me,” on the way.

There was a smirk on his face as he stepped out of her way. Hands tucked in his pockets he put on the most charming voice he had as he said, “You have a good day, Miss.”

Her smile stretched a little wider. “Thank you.”

Once the door shut behind her, Evangeline immediately rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I could kill you for how ridiculous you are. Sabes?” She gestured to EZ. “He wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

Angel laughed as he held his hands up in surrender. “What? I was just bein’ n—”

“You weren’t bein’ anything good. Poor woman just trying to come in here to get a dress hemmed and she’s gotta…” she trailed off as she shook her head.

EZ was trying and failing at his attempts to stifle his laughter. He looked at Angel. “Told you we should’ve come later.”

Angel waved him off without even looking at him. “Nah, nah. This is breaking news. Can’t wait.” He focused on Evangeline. “Think I might have a job for you.”

She was shaking her head as she turned around and started returning to the back of the store. “I told you guys—I only stitch fabric. I’m not sewing up anyone in the club who—”

Angel sucked his teeth in annoyance. “No, Eva. I meant,” he huffed, thrown off his game. “Will you fuckin’ listen?”

EZ wasn’t even trying to hide his laughter anymore. Evangeline turned around and faced Angel, one hand on her hip, the other gesturing vaguely in the air. “Alright, alright. I’m listening. Dime.”

“Like I was fuckin’ saying,” Angel started again, “I think I got a job for you.” He reached dramatically into the pocket of his kutte. “Think you got time to maybe, I dunno,” he pulled out a small slip of fabric that Evangeline almost didn’t recognize for a moment, “stitch on your little brother’s Secretario patch?”

Evangeline’s smile was warm as she laughed. “Got a promotion?”

“Hell yeah,” Angel agreed.

She nodded as she folded her arms across her chest. “Congratulations, Angel.”

He gave a dramatic bow. “Thank you, thank you. Please, don’t feel like you have to hold your fuckin’ applause.”

She laughed. “I think I still will.” She saw the way he was shaking his head at her and stepped in to hug him. “I’m happy for you, ‘manito.”

He kissed the side of her head. “Thanks.” Pulling back, he looked at the wristlet she was still wearing from her meeting with April. “Really, though. You think you could, uh, maybe stitch this—”

“Angel Ignacio. You’re not actually—”

“Just if you had some fuckin’ time, I don’t know!”

She shook her head. “I don’t. I don’t have time. Here,” she plucked a needle form her wristlet and quickly went back and grabbed a spool of thread that would be tough enough to stitch his patch on effectively and handed it to him, “This should do just fine. Won’t take you very long.” She heard and saw the way EZ was laughing and quickly turned her attention on him. “Don’t laugh too hard, Prospect. A title flash is easy—wait ‘til you need to stitch on your bottom rocker.”

It got EZ’s laughter to stop and Angel’s to pick up. He walked over, roughly shoving his shoulder against EZ’s. “Yeah, what she said. Shut the fuck—”

“That’s not what I said,” Evangeline cut him off with a laugh.

Angel waved her off. “Close enough.”

It took a few moments for all of them to stop laughing. Once they did, Evangeline asked, “You going next door to tell Pops now?”

Angel shook his head. “Nah.”

Evangeline sighed. “Angel—”

He knew where she was going next so he stopped her before she could start. Turning to look at EZ, he said, “We do gotta ask him about delivering to the clubhouse though. Cater the celebration.” He returned his attention back to his sister. “This one you actually gotta show up for. Since it’s for me.” He grinned.

EZ laughed. “It’s not just—”

Angel held his hand up. “Shut it, Prospect.” He raised his eyebrows. “You gonna come through?”

“I don’t—”

“It’s Friday! Not even a work night!”

She tilted her head in confusion. “That’s still a work night for me, you know.”

He let out the type of groan someone would expect from a petulant child not getting their way. “Come on, Eva. It’s gonna be a good time. Other charters coming through and shit.”

Normally she made it a habit not to hang around the clubhouse too often. She had no bad blood towards the club, not really. Everyone was just doing what they knew how to do in order to get from one day to the next. She was no different than them in that regard—her means were just different than theirs. She didn’t hold it against them but she also wasn’t going to let it upend the life she had been working very hard for years to create for herself.

Her guest appearances were rare. Every now and then if one of her brothers had needed something she would stop by. Sometimes she wouldn’t even go past the main office for the scrapyard, leaving whatever she’d brought with Chucky and a note. She could count on one hand the number of parties that she could say that she really went to. The look in Angel’s eyes had her thinking that that miniscule number was about to go up by one.

“I’m gonna be late,” she finally conceded after a few more seconds of silence, “’cause I’ve got some stuff I’ll need to catch up on but—”

Angel was already hugging her and laughing. “That’s what I thought!” He let her go and started to backpedal towards the door. “Alright, I’ll let you get back to work. Gonna go tell Pops we need him Friday too.” He looked at EZ and nodded towards the door. “C’mon, he ain’t gonna say yes unless you’re the one asking.”

EZ chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll catch up in a sec.”

Angel opened the door, calling back to his sister, “Love you!”

“You better!” Evangeline was still shaking her head at him even when he was out of sight. She walked the rest of the way back to take the purple dress off its hanger and put it on the dress form to start working. She was lowering herself down to the floor to get started when she said, “What’s on your mind, Ezekiel?”

He shrugged, hands holding the edges of his kutte as he walked back to her. “Nothin’. Now I’m just stressing about having to stitch on my rocker in a few months.”

Evangeline laughed. “If you’re really up a creek with it maybe I’ll help.” She paused, still not looking directly at him as she reiterated, “But really, what’s going on?”

He paused as he tried to figure out how to go about trying to start the conversation that he wanted to have. “If you don’t wanna go…”

She looked up at him for a moment. “Angel’s very excited. I don’t have a problem showing up for a little while for him. It’s fine—I don’t need you to give me a pass.”

“You’re not excited though.”

She allowed herself to fully plop down on the floor. She kept her legs bent so that she could drape her arms across her knees. “I…I’m glad that it’s going well for him. For both of you, actually. I know that this,” she made a vague gesture towards his kutte, “is what you’ve both chosen to do. And you’re apparently very good at it. I’m glad you found something together.”

“Yeah but you’d rather—”

“There’s no rather,” she cut him off but made sure to keep her tone calm. “We’re all grown, EZ. We’ve,” she chuckled, “we’ve been grown. You should know that better than…” she trailed off. “We’re all just doing what we have to do to be okay. I’m not going to start holding that against you or Angel now.”

“Really?”

Evangeline was too smart to take the bait that was packed into his tone. She gave a simple nod and a small smile. “Really.” Before he could try to push her farther, she gestured towards the door. “Angel was right—he’s gonna need your help getting Pop to agree to play caterer for you guys.”

He frowned for a moment, not expecting the dismissal. “Right.” He started to back up towards the door. “See you Friday then.”

She nodded, still offering a smile. “You will.” She watched as he turned and walked. “Ezekiel?”

He paused at the door, fingers wrapped around the handle but he didn’t push as he glanced back over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Love you.”

The frustration disappeared from his face, at least for the moment. “Love you.”

Mayans Taglist (please let me know if you'd like to be added!):

@garbinge @withmyteeth @darqchilddaydreamz @artemiseamoon @proceduralpassion

@justreblogginfics @narcolini @cositapreciosa @fanfic-n-tabulous

[nights-at-crystarium]

Fragments - episodes 12-14 author notes

Hi hello and welcome to yet another ramble about Fragments C: I’m doing these regularly because there’s so much I wanna say about my idiots, and I like looking back and appreciating the work I’ve done.

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

I haven’t commented on any of the ShB episodes yet, so here we go. Chapter 2 is estimated to last for over a year real-time, it correlates to the msq events up to Amity. The name honestly I’m not too proud of, I didn’t wanna spend too much brain juice on it :’> But the cover.....

Obligatory ShB spoiler warning!

- Investigating each other. They’ve become completely new people since ARR.

- Despite what he thinks of himself, our lord and savior Crystal Exarch has the ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ grandeur ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆.

- Vivi’s self-image is similar, he doesn’t see himself as anything grand no it’s not a height joke but Exarch rapidly grows in his eyes as he learns about him.

- He sports an outfit I once doodled and found cute, I’m just being cheeky about his newfound obsession.

- He also appears fragile to Exarch, who’s literally seen a world where he died being this young. Exarch wants to protect him, to say the least.

- Vivi’s perceived helplessness and lack of agency in ShB, although it’s nothing he hasn’t already been through in his other WoL misadventures.

- The Light, of course the wicked white surrounding them.

Episode 12 I’m proud of writing-wise, but not art-wise. Turns out the Ocular is a bigger bitch to draw/paint than I’d anticipated, and, although I’ve mostly figured it out by now (having just released episode 16 for patrons), the colors and light in the episode 12 will forever stick out like a sore thumb to me, probably until I find the time to redraw it. Same goes for the Scions, learning to draw a whole bunch of new characters over a week (roughly, an episode takes 7~14 days to complete), well, I should’ve taken a bigger break and practiced some more.

I’d even apply the ugly word “crunch” to this episode. But ah, the best page wasn’t crunched, hell started breaking loose a bit later. Yeah I don’t work in order, usually I do the most important frames first.

A bit of a sidetrack: even though I sometimes find myself wanting for more time between episodes, I don’t think I can afford making the releases even more sparse, current 2-week cycle ensures that this story WILL reach its finale in some distant 2028 if not later, I’m not kidding, it might take even longer and I’ve only been working on the script for a year. The broad strokes are complete, but I indulge in adding more sweet nonsense here and there. Or sometimes a raw af dialogue pops up in my head and MUST be included in some chapter. In other words, help, this behemoth keeps growing.

Personally I’m loyal to my fandoms, and not in a rush to finish the comic, but my mmo experience bangs on that nothing lasts forever: I don’t know where the xiv community would be in 5+ years from now, and I need A LOT of people supporting me, allowing me to work on this full time. So I’d rather keep a steady pace while it’s still possible.

As I get more xp in painting backgrounds and learn all the ShB character designs, it should become easier for me. Currently I’m fumbling through a new field, so please bear with me :’D

Back to the main topic: I came up with and scrapped at least 2 ideas of the transition between ARR and ShB, the timeskip was always planned, but Vivi needed some more introduction still. Current iteration of Exarch “interviewing” the Scions seems the most fun and creative to me.

Also, tea parties with Urianger and Feo Ul :> They’re his only two friends in my hc, Urianger he purposely revealed himself to, and Feo Ul, merely being a soul in a sparkly shell, can see Exarch’s soul as well, hoods are useless. All while they’re somewhat reliable, truly the paragon of pixies who wouldn’t randomly spill his secrets (probably).

Vivi’s a mirror. Every single one of us is, to some degree. We react and adapt to the way the others treat us, and so does Vivi. Unintentionally, of course. It’s a natural “passive trait”. All the Scions except Urianger (for the same reason he managed to trick the pixies, he’s just a special smartass) see their reflections in Vivi, direct or warped.

Y’shtola is basically this:

Can’t promise equal amounts of screentime for all the Scions, but the twins and Thancred are the closest to Vivi, you’ll definitely see more of them.

He’s 26 now, which is still rather young by the elezen standards, and he’s way too tired (tm) probably like most WoLs at this point in time.

Maybe not of life itself, but he’s definitely sick of the Source and all its inhabitants. For all he cares, this place can go to hells.

His state just so happens to be perfect for the isekai love story that awaits him. How did he get there? I know, you’ll have to stick around until I deem it appropriate to drop some flashback episodes. I’m leery of loredumping too early on: firstly, you current readers will get more invested over time, therefore have more fun learning about him at a later point; secondly, I’m personally not a fan of tragic backstories right in yo face, before the main story gets a chance to breathe. And, mind you, Vivi’s past isn’t even THAT tragic, just, well.. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes \o/

In this episode I wanted to show his practical approach to things. He may possess an Echo, Blessing, soul stone and whatnot else, but gotta stick a good ol’ dagger in a boot just in case. He’s a doubter, just a tiny bit paranoid.

Also he has The Chair (tm) where he dumps clothes on. His room in the Rising Stones looks vague for now because we indeed don’t return there for years in real time, I don’t need to spend my energy on designing this room in detail just yet.

Most items don’t hold any special meaning, he simply prepares for a journey into the unknown. Well, there’s the journal he dumps his cringy thoughts in, and doodles sometimes. The trinket he holds here is a Princess Ai easter egg:

I talked about Vivi’s character influences and inspirations here if you haven’t seen yet C:

Exarch’s glorious meltdown does a good job averting eyes from Feo Ul being right there in the beginning of the episode 14, but yeah they’re present not for no reason :>

Mentally he’s still in the msq cutscene.

Gotta mention that there’s no amnesia, insanity, or other sad brain fuckery ever in this comic. Vivi’s head’s made of dense and sturdy stuff x’D

Just a meme I made because I had to :>

There isn’t much Deep Meaning in this episode, the visuals speak for themselves, and I’m DAMN PROUD of them.

We don’t see Exarch in this moment ingame, so I took my creative liberty to illustrate the range of emotions he goes through in like 5 minutes before finally rushing out to meet his hero in person, forgetting that he can teleport at will (yet another hc of mine) anywhere in the Tower’s vicinity, and doing so on foot.

That’s it for now, thank you for reading this and enjoying Fragments C:

[nohoperadio]

[this is responding to @wellmetmat's reblog of my aesthetic self-modifications post, I'm only quoting them in part so you should click and check out the whole thing if you wanna keep up. Replying like this to keep the thread from getting crazy long!]

Tattoos: I like the idea a lot. I like face/body-painting even more: not make-up, mostly, and not usually henna (blobby, a stain rather than a paint, almost a normal skin colour but a bit off, not glorious at all); but war-paint and costumes and body glitter under blacklights - gorgeous - and the tradition of children's face-painting at fairs, and getting, too rarely, to draw on people with coloured zinc cream by way of sun protection, and smearing my face and limbs with ochreous clay or ashes from a campfire, something I have a strangely recurrent urge to do and feel modern urban life is rather impoverished for lack of. I liked Darth Maul's appearance. I think most people look better in eyeliner, and would look even better again with their faces transformed into unearthly blue-black masks of woad and ashes, at least on special occasions.

This is cool there's lots of examples I wouldn't have thought to think about here! I'm gonna try to extract some takeaways about what the things you mentioned might bring to the table in contrast to tattoos and makeup, although I have little to no hands-on experience with most of it so tell me if this doesn't ring true:

I get the impression that the tactile element is important in several of these, as much as the visual element? Especially with "smearing my face and limbs with ochreous clay or ashes from a campfire" which feels like a very sensuously-motivated description, but possibly this is in play with the body-paint and war-paint too? I like this idea because it implies that the goal is a transformation where you can feel yourself changed, it's a more first-person kind of change than either makeup or tattoos where all the emphasis is on the visual effect, and therefore (perhaps?) implicitly on what other people perceive. You actively want to feel these things on your skin and feel how your body's different.

Is there an element of democracy that's important here? Tattoos/makeup are both things where there are high ceilings one can exploit both in terms of how much money you're willing to invest and how much skill you have available (with tattoos the skill part is outsourced to someone else, but still). Whereas with a lot of things on your list the materials are simple and relatively inexpensive, and the desired effect isn't particularly intricate or subtle and most people can achieve it for themselves untrained (I think!). This doesn't necessarily apply to face/body paint but I feel like it does to a lot of the other things.

There's also a quasi-ritual social aspect to some of these which I guess is somewhat connected to the previous point, I like that you've introduced the experience of being the "artist" of other people's modifications into the conversation, it's a nice contrast to my very I-centric post.

Despite that, I don't have any [tattoos]. Partly because of pain and needles (significant deterrents! I'm not brave), partly because as of last year I have a skin condition which can be pretty wretched and the thought of voluntarily seeking more skin misery for any reason at all is offputting (and I have a lot of little scars and discoloured patches from it now, and they look distressingly messy, and the addition of tattoos would probably increase the general look of shabbiness and disorder); and in the main because I'm very indecisive and slow to commit to anything.

Very reasonable to not want to put your skin through another ordeal when it's already been through a lot! I do think tattoos that incorporate scars and such as a basis for the design are one of the coolest uses for the technology, although I guess you mostly only hear about people who were lucky enough to get the kind of scar that sets up something good. (I mean "lucky" is obviously a wrong and borderline callous word but you know what I mean!)

I don't think I mentioned "reluctant to commit" in my bit about tattoos but yeah definitely a thought I always have when I think about tattoos is "how could I possibly know whether, ten years from now, I'll still be the kind of person who thinks this is a good idea?" I guess the positive spin to put on this is that I put a lot of value on leaving room to change one's mind and change one's feelings about everything, which I do genuinely think is a virtue. The negative/depressive spin on it is that at any given point in my life I've always felt like I have a lot of personal growth still to do before I'll be somebody I'm actually happy being, kind of as if my current identity is a provisional one that I hope will at some point be replaced with something better and more solid, and so making what's basically a small lifelong commitment while I'm still inhabiting the "provisional" self feels reckless. (Damn sorry wasn't expecting this paragraph to take that turn! I should clarify I'm doing pretty alright for the most part, my full-on depression days are long behind me now.)

-

All of your tattoo ideas sound awesome to me! The dandelion is particularly compelling, I like the idea of a tattoo that's expansive enough across the body that you can't necessarily easily see all of it at once, and it's a good example of a design that really uses the medium well, you couldn't get anything like the same impact with an ink drawing on paper.

I hadn't heard of a winter count, it's a very beautiful idea, I feel like I would stress too much about my years not containing enough significant events to come up with a summarizing icon though!

I don't think I need to tell you how much I approve of the pigeon.

-

Hey thanks for sharing this was fun! Fwiw chatter will always be welcome, I'd like to increase the amount of chattiness in my tumblr use in general, but more to the point I've always enjoyed your ( )-shaped thoughts whenever you've shared them so always feel free please!

[misty-wisp]

did something big to make you dislike omori or was it just the hyperfixation wearing off

Like I personally am not here for omori stuff but I am curious (don’t answer this if you don’t want to idk)

i kinda just realized the game's writing sucks ass and the fandom is kinda lame and there's better stuff out there, LMAO

like don't get me wrong the game's well-crafted (for the most part) but the story and character writing is the weakest part. what fans assume is its strong character writing is mainly due to their own headcanons, theories, and interpretations and not what's clear-cut in the dialogue and events. there are some small details? but only so much. hell, even i fell into this trap. also omocat's a shit person lolololololololol

i think i also got super tired of the way the fandom's shaped. since it's a newer fandom, it's bound to have a lot of kids. and kids don't know a thing about what makes fandom good. from what i see (and from what others have observed iirc) modern fandoms have this issue where all the "content" is supposed to come from popular or skilled creators--not just fans in general. sure, you can draw, write, and share whatever you've got, but if you're not popular, super skilled in digital art, or just straight-up lucky, you're likely not going to get anywhere aside from a couple of notes here and there. and that's usually if the more popular blogs notice you. i can go on and on about how this is capitalism's fault but then we'd be here all day and i'd be biting off a lot more than i can chew and/or talking out of my ass

what i mean by this is, if you're going to craft a super long, arc-filled AU fanfic that serves as a sort of sequel to the source, and you're not popular or willing to bust your ass drawing art for it, do not go into it with dreams of people talking about how great the writing is and sharing their fanart outside of your friend or mutual circle. i had a wholeass crisis around the lack of attention i got despite what i thought was hard work in around june and lord almighty i think that's what really solidified my loss of interest.

also it's got that issue where if a fandom can't sustain itself on what's found in canon it's going to drown itself in AUs where the characters are completely unrecognizable and these people need to come up with OCs for the love of god. i'll admit my AU probably fell under this trap too but my glasses were too rose-tinted for me to see it

i think the main thing is just that it's really hard for me to draw or write for myself if it's a huge project i'm working on, so i'm really just sticking to RPing out longass narratives with my partner. and god that's been so much more enjoyable than posting chapters and getting like, minimal comments and reblogs on them. highly recommend

part of it's probably also got to do with an ex-friend of mine who used to be my beta reader? but hoooly shit that's a whole other tale i can spend ages covering

[dollsonmain]

Feeling both crabby and stupid today. Hopefully my period will get started soon. That usually helps with both feelings. I'd also like it to get started sooner rather than later so it's over my the time I need to go in for an ultrasound of my kidneys. Menstruating doesn't affect that procedure, but I'd like to have less discomfort overall at the time.

I'm crabby because That Guy dumped another chore on me: Taking out the recycling. He usually does the recycling and the trash, but lately hasn't been taking out the recycling at night so I end up rushing it to the curb at 4am because the truck comes super early, and that hurts a lot to do. I even heard Son talking about it last night and he still didn't take it out.

I wasn't very nice about that this morning.

Also feeling stupid because there was a great comment on that post I boosted yesterday talking about self-teaching some programs and doing odd jobs on the internet.

I've tried self teaching myself programs and never could manage it. Like, I've been looking at those "Learn these steps to use Excel and wow employers!" kinds of things and they're like "Do THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS" and I'm still on the first THIS going

because the more complicated things are, the more steps they take, the more things that I need to remember, the faster my whole brain shuts down and nopes out.

I've had graphics programs for years that I don't know how to use at all despite trying to figure it out. I used those solely to block out personal information on photos, or draw circles or arrows on things.

I use spreadsheets to make simple lists and that's it. Anything more complicated than that and I bluescreen.

I also tried the online odd-jobs and the ones that people actually need are things that require more artistic and design

I lost the word - knowledge?skill?aesthetic?ability?

than I have. I am an artistic void.

I remember doing MTurk years ago and it took two years to earn $100 with CONSTANT work. I was on the site most of the day every day for two years and earned $100. The worst were the surveys that promised $3-$5 and would ask demographics at the end then say you didn't qualify for the survey you just spent 20 minutes filling out after they already had all of your answers.

I don't like only being suited to doing retail or manual labor, especially lacking a car and a functional body.

[eshbaal]

A Nice Little Moment

I know I usually just shut up and post drawings, and certainly do not have the follower count for anyone to care to read a wall of text from me, but I just wanna share a little nice moment I had recently, and one I think might be nice for those with patience to read. Things have not been going well for me lately. For a while, really. A lot of things are feeling stressful, frustrating and hopeless, and this last weekend was definitely a moment where I had no reason to be in a good mood. On top of many other stressors that I don't need to go into, my long-struggling laptop - the one computer I own, the device I need to do not only all of my hobbies, but to do the very-rare-not-very-well-paying bits of actual work my otherwise worthless, unemployable ass occasionally manages to scrounge up, finally decided to up and die and refuse to charge normally unless the cable is held at an extremely specific degree, lest it immediately lose all charge in like fifteen minutes. It decided to do this at 2 AM, the very day before I had to go to a Bachelor party that I could barely afford to attend, thanks to my economic situation. A bachelor party I ONLY had the money for, due to being given a small salary recently that, let's be honest, I would have liked to spend on something fun or cool for myself. My lack of financial stability met that I, at the age of 33, had to take my mother up on her offer to pay for a new one - using her inheritance money from my recently deceased grandfather. Not something I am proud of - it feels rather infantilizing to have mommy buy you a new computer, after all, and again - I felt as if that money should be hers to spend on herself. Naturally, as a mother, she says she is happy to do this, and I have little choice but to accept unless I want to pay it off for like eight years, but I am sitting there feeling like a burden. So there I am - sitting up at 3 AM, desperately wriggling a charger cable as I try to panick-backup all my files onto a drive that keeps digging to absolute snail shit pace. I get up in the morning to head off to this Bachelor party that I have to worry about being too poor for if we do just about anything more than planned. The weather is gray and windy, making things not look great for our plans to play various games at a park. Despite me leaving in good time, the ONE train on that entire day that decides to mess up is, naturally, the one I am on - ensuring that I will arrive just a minute later than intended, almost entirely ruining the surprise.

So you can imagine me being very annoyed as I got off at the station - cold, sleep deprived, hair all a mess from the wind, worried about finances and feeling knocked down, constantly internally ranting about how I am nothing but a leech to my own mother, incapable of caring for myself, rejected by a working world that constantly reminds me I have nothing to offer, not even doing well with my creative endeavors online. All of these thoughts are going through my head, while desperately trying to remind myself to be in a good mood after all, because in a moment I will be seeing friends and celebrating all the things that are going well for one of them. Right as I am gritting my teeth, right as I am about to have to push yet another intrusive thought about my own lack of worth in the world away, a kid runs right by me, almost bumping into me. I look at where he is headed, and I see him run straight into the arms of a smiling older lady (a grandmother, I assume). And I not even exaggerating when I say that this was like the stuff you see in movies. Arms outstretched like a plane. Her on one knee. Both smiling. Kid practically leaping into her arms before they both get up, hold hands and walk away. It'd have been hilariously corny if it wasn't so genuinely sweet. That made me smile all to myself for the first time in a solid two or so days. Oh, and the weather cleared up and I had a wonderful time. Not a less expesive time, but a fun and memorable day all the same. Things still generally aren't going great. This little moment definitely won't stave away the things that bring me down for good, and I will likely feel many of the same things again very soon and go right back into the pit. But it was a nice little reminder that on occasion, nice little things do happen. Maybe not to you, right now, maybe none that fix anything, but they do. And they're worth keeping an eye open for, cause they really can make things better, even if just for half a day.

[awiola]

Normal update, autumn??? XXIII

Okay, so I thought it would be a nice, winter quarterly update but turns out the last one was titled summer and I guess going by calendar, winter barely started so it's??? autumn??? I guess??? Last day of the year but autumn, sure, let's go with that. That being the case, I have no new year's pic for y'all cause I can't draw I was devving uhh, rly hard, let's say. Totally.

Anyway, the mushroom jam has ended and I planned to have a release update BUT THEN I DIDN'T FINISH THE GAME ON TIME YET AGAIN, who would've thought, so, like, there's nothing. I mean, something exists but yeah >_> I'll write a devlog when it finally looks presentable. Moving on...

Current game stuff

The spooktober game has been finished, kinda - The enmity of dead things. It, well, it works and it contains the full script and everything but lacks both art and music cause I couldn't finish it on time laziness goes brrr. Then I wanted a break and worked on other games and kinda left it like that... So that's the first item on my "Finally finish it in 2024, you stupid fuck" list. All in all it wasn't a total failure and I had fun for the most part. Committing to my bad decisions [look at the textbox] is actually the main cause the game wasn't finished on time... You live and don't learn.

The failure of the year... Or quarter at least - Mushroom game. Despite being technically published to add it to the jam, it's so unfinished I won't even link it here. And it's all my fault cause I was being lazy and, as usual, forgot I can't actually program. Yeah...

Helped with Cool Days. There's really not much of my work there, I honestly considered making a new category for games I kinda helped with but tbh the amount of work actually finished was close to zero but hey, it's still more than nothing so Check it out, it has cool graphics.

The ace teens game got shelved/postponed and it's not my fault this time but instead we're working on a fantasy kinda thing for Ace jam [and maybe also Zack jam while we're at it but that might've been said in jest]. Fortunately it's small enough I don't expect any delays. I can say it involves a golem who isn't a humanoid (灬˘╰╯˘灬)♥｡･ﾟ

Now for the big thing.

Fanfares, please.

🎉🎉🎉

IMPOSTOR SYNDROME - is a game for winter jam which also happens to be a demo cause we ran out of time but! - it will be finished soon-ish. I'll share more details in the release devlog so if the link to the game works already, that means the page's up and so is all the info. If it doesn't work, check again in a few hours but I'm assuming most people who actually read all that will do so post winter jam anyway.

Genre wise it's an otome chat sim comedy that's extremely self indulged and I'm not ashamed of that. Gotta make games for yourself and all that. Though, again, my own conribution to the development process remains minimal. I'm truly becoming the idea guy.

The "Finally finish it in 2024, you stupid fuck" list aka the stuff that should've been finished already but isn't

Umm, yeah, everything. Or, to be more specific, Mushroom game and Enmity take priority here but all the other games that needed some quality of life adjustments like making the web build work on mobile etc are also included [which is kinda funny cause a lot of them could be corrected in like an hour if I actually sat and did just that].

It's been more than three years since I released Argousze and yes, you gessed it, it's also unfinished. Which is extra funny in a pathetic way cause it was supposed to be a low effort game with, like, 2k words of wordcount. To be fair I kinda dropped it cause I couldn't design my aliens but maybe I'll actually get a good idea for once and manage to release it on its fourth anniversary. That'd be nice.

Other than that, well... That's more of a resolution than anything but I should stop constantly joining new teams and all... And either take a proper dev break or work on ye olde projects waiting for me since the beginning of HS. I'll become older than my oldest LI before I finish them at this point lol

Pariiish noootiiiceees

This year we're gonna have two new jams instead of one. Stuff happened and yeah. No links just yet cause not only are the pages not finished but there's also no planned date/duration beyond 'sometime in the later part of the year'.

The first jam is Tentacle jam which, I'm pretty sure, would bring us eroges. This was not my intention and all kind of sfw tentacles are allowed but tbh as long as there's a proper story, even a nukige would pass. Basically the rules remain like in all the previous jams I hosted.

The second jam is Insect [adjacent] jam which actually accepts all kinds of arthropods but it started as just insect jam and I wanted to keep the name. So yeah. Obviously more detailed rules of what's allowed would be written on the page when it's up properly and not in a half dead state like right now.

Incidentally, whatever the date ends up being, both of these jams would be hosted at the same time so if you wanted to make a story taking place underwater or something, you could submit it to both of these jams. Neat, right?

That's it for this year.

Over.

[valleyfthdolls]

Michael headcanons gimme here please meowe

YESGFBDH MY BELOVED

So like, poor guy absolutely has CPTSD. I don’t think there’s any debate to be had about that. He’s been through a TON of trauma. Lost his sister, killed his brother, abandoned by his abusive dad- like shit man 💀 I’d have CPTSD too

That’s a stupid joke though given I do have CPTSD

He was a super shitty teen. He probably treated Elizabeth pretty shitty before she died too.

Because one parent was abusive and neglectful and the other MIA, he was basically made to be the babysitter, the third parent, and he hated it.

After everything that happened to his siblings he’s way mellowed out. He absolutely hates having kids look up to him, because it kind of terrifies him.

He could probably never be a father, not out of lack of ability or that he would be a shit dad, but solely because of his trauma from his dad. He would only be able to see his dad in himself.

Which he already does. He loathes looking in the mirror.

I like to imagine his hair is deliberately longer than his father’s to try to distinguish them. He spent his whole life hearing he’s just like his dad. Part of him really does believe it, but he doesn’t want to be anything like him. You’ll notice this is a recurring motif between my main AU and my rebirth AU, which both involve Michael’s actions as an extension of his father. In fact the exact phrase “I don’t want to be anything like you” shows up in the rebirth AU.

I like to make jokes about Michael smoking weed but honestly I see a lot of people draw/write him as a smoker and I’ve kind of adopted that headcanon

Post-scooping, he has an awful phobia of worms, snakes, wires, maggots, tentacles, and, most embarrassingly, spaghetti. Just the sight of any of it makes him sick.

He still lives in his family home, but it’s a complete mess. He has a lot of money from his dad’s business, but no use for it. It’s livable, but it’s not in good shape, and he doesn’t care to fix it.

He doesn’t usually go outside before dark. He stays inside with the windows drawn and lets all his old friends think he’s dead.

While he’s a pretty emotionally troubled and still very jaded and cold, he has a heart of gold underneath it all, and he loves his siblings more than anything. He has an odd way of showing it, but he cares a lot about people, especially the children.

If I say he’s a bottom will I be judged because he’s totally a bottom

Because of the scooping he is prone to random facial bleeding. It is somehow a much more disturbing thing to see because his blood is all dark and deoxygenated. Like you’d think a corpse guy having black nosebleeds would be less scary than normal blood. It’s still terrifying.

Despite his inhibitions, he’s actually pretty good with children. A bad role model, definitely, but a caring and protective figure, especially for kids who otherwise wouldn’t have one.

He is just so done with everything all the fucking time, constantly. 0 energy. Go girl give us nothing.

He gives me very specific gender vibes I can’t place. His gender is male but not and also it’s the fact that purple is his favorite color

[ghostsandcoffeegal]

I'm sitting at a different coffee shop today than I usually go to and I'm struck by how different the vibes are at each one.

The ones I usually go to are the small local ones. My usual is big and in an old post office building. It's usually bustling and the clientele is a mix of different people. There's music that changes based on the people working at the time and it's almost always dynamic though never overwhelming.

Another I go to often is a metal themed café. It's small, and dark, (and often loud) but the people are kind and cool and interesting to talk to. It's also usually busy despite how small it is. Some of the people are metal heads like me, but you'll just as often see a grandma in there enjoying a damn good cup.

Today's though strikes me as different. It's medium size and Very millennial chic: a plant wall, a chalkboard wall, cozy oak wood on one half. There's two couch/chairs seating areas but most are at the tables. Some of the ceiling panels are clouds. It's very cute and cozy.

The thing is, there's no music playing and somehow the entire clientele seems to be over 50 with a few exceptions. A more modern preppy vibe over all I'd say. I feel a bit out of place here for some reason. I've been here before and had a similar feeling. Is it just the lack of music? The decor doesn't strike me as particularly different, save for a window wall that while it brings in a lot of good light also opens onto the main street, cars bustling by with people . That's not the café's fault though. That's a US thing that the main streets, even of little towns, are designed like mini highways, the pretty planted flowers clinging on as cars whip by.

The more I write, the more I think it is the lack of music primarily that gives the place a weird vibe. Interesting how that can happen. Also the more I write the more I realize there IS music, it's just so low that it's almost impossible to hear what's playing. Could that add to the weird vibe? Not sure.

Do you have certain places you frequent? What draws you to them or turns you away from them?

[saduko]

PRICE OF FAME

Lando Norris x Reader 6.2K words | click me |

Summary: The clubbing scene wasn't anything new to Lando, and the multitude of women at his feet wasn't anything new either. What was new was the way his eyes drew to just one single point in the room. He wasn't the type to approach a woman, but the way you moved had him captivated and it seemed everyone wanted a piece of you yet no one could have you—and Lando was determined to be the first to bite. He didn't know it but your intentions were just as elusive. Or in which, Lando thinks you're enthralling and you think he's bold; and he doesn't know it but you're a lot quicker than him, obviously.

Pining, Mutual attraction, MORE Pining, Alude to Smut. Note: this is yet another re-upload after I stupidly deleted my last two posts. Fotunately, this one is edited despite how mad I was that I needed to do it again.

This club he had been so looking forward to tonight was quickly becoming a red blur of flashing lights and a continuous shrill of pounding bass. It was a familiar scene in which Lando had drifted through countless times before, a scene he was eager to engage in yet again after a long week of work. But tonight, he was only vaguely aware of the friends that had accompanied him here like he usually would be, because his attention had narrowed to a single point on the dance floor.

That point was you, a glowing sight of swaying thighs and rolling hips. He'd spotted you early on in the evening, just about as soon as he had stepped in and downed his first round of drinks when he noticed you caught up in the middle of what he assumed was your group of friends. Your laughter had cut through the blaring song like a melody all in its own and he had to admit that when he spot you, the way you sung every lyric like the playlist was your own was captivating.

You were undoubtedly the center of gravity in this club right now, everything and everyone just seemed to gravitate towards you as if you were a magnet; your girlfriends, other girls who seemed to want to dance with you too, men who were eager to test their chances with you, even the music seemed to follow the sway of your body. 

The way you moved with a confidence so rarely executed so effortlessly was hard to ignore, and each step and roll of your hips was obviously drawing more than just his own eyes. He had seen the multitude of men attempting their best pick up lines on you, watching intently as one by one each guy tried to approach you—some with drinks in hand, others with cocky grins plastered on their faces, some even tried to jump straight to physicality—but you turned them all away. Sometimes it was with a polite smile and a shake to your head, and other times it was with a sharp look that would make them retreat almost as fast as they’d come, and then you would quickly go back to dancing with your girls like it never happened. It was a sight to see, the way you handled yourself and brushed them off so effortlessly, like you had no time for their attempts to impress you.

And maybe you didn’t. Maybe you were here just to enjoy a night out with your girls, no interruptions, no distractions. Maybe you had someone waiting for you at home, someone who wouldn’t appreciate the attention you were getting tonight. There were so many reasons he could make justifying his own lack of attempts at impressing you, thoughts that swirled in Lando’s mind which fed his hesitation and kept him rooted in his own circle of friends because similarly, he’d spent the night brushing away a flurry of women of his own. Women who would approach him with flirtatious grins, asking for photos, trying to strike up conversations that all felt the same.

It wasn’t the first time, and he knew it definitely wouldn’t be the last, but tonight the empty conversations were wearing on him more than usual. So he resorted to staying in the VIP area behind the red ropes where no one else could attempt to approach him, and ironically enough he was now debating on if he should attempt to approach you. He felt guilty for it because he knew how it felt to not be left alone, having no one get the hint that you just wanted your privacy and it was yet another reason he kept himself out of your space.

He knew how that felt, and the same routine over and over again was exhausting. The initial spark of interest that quickly faded when they realized he wasn’t going to take the part of the flashy driver they expected him to play. Lando wasn’t interested in being just another notch in some random girls belt or a name to drop later to brag about with friends. And as he watched you fend off the advances of other guys with a self assured ease he only wished he could replicate, he felt a mix of curiosity and maybe just a hint of challenge spark within him. You already had something in common. So, what would it take to stand out to someone like you, who seemed to not care about a body to grind against or an arm to grab onto? Would you see right through all the superficial charm his title seemed to initially come with? 

He wasn’t the type to get nervous—at least not usually. He was a Formula 1 driver for god's sake, he could truly have any girl he pleased whenever he pleased, and he’d never really been rejected before either. But watching you so confidently handle every advance with a beaming smile that never seemed to falter had him second guessing himself. What if you really just weren’t interested? What if you were just looking for a quiet night with your friends, far from the eyes and hands of strangers? The last thing he wanted was to intrude on that and have to become just another guy you had to wave off.

But there was something in the way you laughed, something in the way your eyes danced under the lights as you moved your body with so much authority, that made it hard for him to look away and just forget about it. You were playing on his mind. Every time he turned back to focus on his mates, it was only a matter of time before he found himself leaning up against the banister and attending your curves with his greedy eyes once again. Lando wondered what that laugh you kept emitting would sound like up close and what those dark eyes would look like when they were focused on him, honed in on his sultry ones, attention directed at no one else. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized he really wanted to find out.

Still, lingering on the edge of the banister he hesitated, half-hidden by the shadowed alcove the VIP section seemed to provide, not confident in his chances of not being rejected. He hadn't even noticed it yet but Max had caught him staring for what must have been the hundredth time so far, and it was only when his best mate nudged him with a grin that he finally focused his whole attention on something other than you that night. “You gonna do something about that, or just stand there all night?”

The statement had Lando shaking his head and he swiftly threw a quick grin on his face, crossing his arms over his chest in hopes of playing the slight embarrassment of being caught off. “She’s not interested mate.” Lando replied, though even he had to admit the words sounded like an excuse even to his own ears.

Max rolled his eyes, the teasing glint in his gaze sharp. “You're a famous athlete mate.” But Lando’s face remained expressionless at the implications of his words, nothing but a quirk of an eyebrow in obvious contempt at his statement to express the disapproval he felt, and the act had Max laughing. “You’ll never know unless you try. What’s the worst that could happen? She says no? And you move on.” 

Max’s hand came up to slap the back of Landos neck, the jolt of the motion causing the contents of the cup in his right hand to slosh back and forth, spilling a bit of vodka redbull up the side of his arm where the slightest bit had stained the cuff of his white button up. Lando grimaced, sending a glare towards his best mate who only laughed at the irony of it all and turned away to continue dancing with P. 

“Be pissy all you want, but it’s me with the girlfriend, and you who’s struggling to talk to one girl at a club.”

And though he did not want to admit it, Lando knew Max was right, it just didn’t make it easier. Despite his extraverted tendencies, he was an introvert at heart and yes he had had his fair share of shy moments, sure, but this felt different. You felt different. Something about you drew him in so intensely and he just knew he had to at least try to talk to you. And yet, he could feel the moment slipping away, that small gap of confidence Max was pushing for closing, and he knew if he didn’t act soon he would go home regretting it.

Noticing the shift in expression, it was clear to Max that Lando was debating what his next move would be in that dense head of his, so he was sure to give his mate yet another nudge, one with just a little more force in hopes the pressure would translate into working brain cells in his skull. “Go on, Norris. She’s been turning dreary blokes away all night; maybe she’s waiting for someone who actually has something exciting to show for. And maybe a pair too.”

Lando let out a short laugh at his mates sharp words, shaking his head as the debate finally came to an end. “Fine, fine. I’m going.”

With one last glance at Max, who raised his drink in a mock salute, Lando finally pushed himself down the flight of stairs beyond the rope, his heart pounding a little harder as he threaded through the crowd with a slight hesitance, each step against the sticky ground bringing him closer to you in the middle of the dance floor. And even though a slurry of doubts still buzzed like an incessant drone in his mind, he couldn’t ignore that pull that had been drawing him toward you all night.

​​As he approached, his hazy vision grew attentive of how the lights seemed to illuminate the way your lips curled as you sang each lyric of the song you danced along with your friends to. Lando found himself wondering what it would take to make those lips curl at him for more then the few measly seconds you had given all the other striving men. There was something teasing about your smile, like you were in on a joke that the rest of the room wasn’t privy to and it urged his want to know more, maybe be in on that unspoken joke and coax that grin into something a little more personal, a little more directed at him.

As he walked, he used the time to think about what might catch your interest, what he might do or say to be the one to finally pull you from the lock your circle had on you tonight. Maybe it'd be a playful comment or a witty remark, or maybe it would just be the confidence to meet your gaze head on and see if you would hold it back. Just the idea of it sent a fragment of anticipation coursing through him, and he noticed that he was becoming less and less nervous as the thoughts began flowing, as if the thing pushing him forward was the thrill of the chase.

Soon enough he realized his legs had lead him to his newfound position directly behind you, and the moment he was close enough, he paused, watching with rapt attention as you swayed your hips to the beat with an almost mesmerizing precision, the movement of it all dragging your hair up and over your shoulder which consequently exposed the curve of your bare back to his hungry eyes. It was delightful to see. And almost a little intimidating because he found himself hesitating for just a second more.

There was something about you that made him want to get it right, to make sure he didn’t come off like just another guy with nothing to offer. The thought of misstepping, of him fumbling and you just brushing him off without a second thought like all the other times made his stomach twist with a nervousness he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He wasn’t used to this—this uncharacteristic overthinking and the knot in his stomach almost felt ridiculous considering he was someone who was more than used to high-stakes situations. Normally, he’d rely on instinct, a quick quip or a confident move to keep him propelling onwards, but you had him motionless; an unfamiliar feeling for a man who relied on always being in motion to stay alive; as they said, speed never killed anyone, it was suddenly becoming stationary that got you. And damn, you got him.

Just as he was about to settle on something even slightly choreographed in hopes to successfully pull your attention, one of your friends, the one directly in front which you had been dancing with, suddenly caught sight of him drawing in.

The girl didn’t say anything as Lando approached, but her eyes flickered up and over your shoulder from her spot, a motion that had her gaze locking onto his for a brief second and though it was an almost imperceptible movement, it sent a ripple of alarm coursing through the air. You had quickly taken notice of her redirected attention and he saw the way your posture slightly tensed, head turning just enough to glance back with curiosity and a hint of annoyance, as if you were already racking your brain in search of what you were gonna say this time to brush off yet another unwanted advance.

The moment hung in a balance between shock and acknowledgement, and for a split second, he considered maybe retreating, going back to his table with his tail tucked between his legs in defeat and letting you go on without disruption. But then he caught your eye, and something in your gaze—the flicker of what he thought may be recognition, or perhaps it was just surprise at seeing him so close—sparked the flame of courage he knew he needed.

Almost as soon as the moment happened, your expression shifted, your initial scowl softening into one of intrigue and he watched as your eyes traveled up and down his body shamelessly and boldly, taking the site of him in and he now couldn’t help but feel a little validated when you didn’t tell him to kick rocks. You didn’t turn away. Instead, you held his gaze with a teasing intensity and something akin to challenge, then slightly tilted your head as if assessing him, sizing him up with a mixture of amusement and intrigue swimming in your sultry eyes.

You were purposefully allowing your eyes to linger on him - he knew it, he could see it; eyeing him deliberately slow and taking in every detail with an almost tantalizing curiosity. He watched as your glossy lips curled into a provocatively pretty smile, as if you were daring him to make another move and now he was acutely aware of the way the club lights casted an alluring glow that highlighted the playful glint in your eyes. 

Frankly, your boldness had Lando weak. As hopeful as he was, he had truly expected a polite smile or a curt dismissal to be the outcome of his predicament, but instead, you held his gaze with a lightning look that had his pulse quickening. His heart felt as fast as it did when he was pushing his car over 300 kilometers an hour; and it was exhilarating. The way you held him in your gaze, combined with the effortless confidence in your stance created a tension that left him both exhilarated and a little breathless. It was a stark contrast to the usual, superficial attention he received which left him unsatisfied and bored, and it made this moment all the more intoxicating.

Your non verbal eye contact stretched for longer than he had anticipated in silence and it was like you were intentionally letting the seconds stretch, enjoying the play of power and allure you obviously held before finally, with a mischievous smirk, Lando watched as you leaned in slightly, your voice a low, teasing murmur. “Don’t worry, you’ve got my attention." Your voice was melodic. "Is that all you came here for?”

The question hung between you, heavy and provocative and Lando’s breath caught in his throat, a mix of surprise and exhilaration washing over him. With a playful glint in his eye and a hint of apprehension, he knew it was time to put one of his aforementioned plans into execution, and so he extended his hand toward you, palm face up, open and inviting. His eyes met yours in a silent challenge and an invitation rolled into one and the directness of your challenge lingered as he found himself stepping closer, the heat of your proximity almost too much to bear. 

“Apparently I'm the first of the night so I’d say it’s a pretty good start,” he said, his voice smooth. “Now, maybe I can direct your attention that way.” He beamed as your eyes followed his finger pointing off to the side, towards nothing particularly specific, but an obvious invitation to step away from your group and over somewhere private with him. His hand was a suggestion, one he was giving you the power of rejecting because he wasn’t trying to grab you like he’d seen a few others try. He was leaving the ball in your court, one he was silently begging you would pick up and throw back.

He watched as your eyes danced across the lines of his palm, your lip coming up to catch in between your teeth in what he could only assume was deliberation. The moment felt suspended, each second stretching longer as he awaited your decision because it was like he could see the gears turning in your mind, and it shook him to watch you hesitating. But then your hand came up to find his own; manicured fingers curling around his calloused ones, and Lando’s heart raced with a mix of excitement and nervous anticipation at the fact that you hadn't turned him down, oh my god oh my god. He quickly took the opportunity to gently guide you away from your friends before you could--for some reason--have a change of heart, slipping through the crowd towards a quieter, privater corner of the dance floor where the music was still thumping, but the energy felt different here—more intimate, less eyes.

Now you were in the quieter space and he had you all to himself, and he could finally focus entirely on you with the assurance of knowing that you were fully focused on him now too. And so Lando turned to face you with a confident smile, one you quickly reciprocated and his hands soon found the place they had been itching to be all night; on your waist, feeling the warmth of your skin through the fabric of your little dress.

He was rapt when he felt you move closer to him, the vibrant thrum of the bass seeming to louden as the alcohol had his vision swaying. He watched with intensity as your body moved like water against his own and the contact felt charged, every subtle shift of your body against his sending a jolt of something through him, something he wished he could place but it almost felt ineffable. The way you pressed your body into his was both intoxicating and exhilarating, and it'd be stupid if you asked him if he noticed the way the curve of your body seemed to align perfectly with his because of course he did.

He was hypnotized by the sway of your hips, the gentle friction creating a heat that spread through him like wildfire and god, he really was trying to match your rhythm but each time you brushed up against him like that the heat had him losing focus and tripping over his tempo. Something you were acutely aware of apparently, as you glanced up at him, a playful glint in your eyes at how easily you knew you drew him in. Soon your hands were sliding up to rest lightly on his shoulders and now you two were so close, close enough that when you spoke, he could hear the smack of your gloss clearly despite the blaring of whatever afrobeat song had been playing.

“So all you wanted was to dance?”

He swallowed hard at your voice because it sounded like honey, and his pulse quickened when he tried to muster a response but the intensity of the moment was making it difficult to focus. And it took more energy than he'd like to admit, but he did managed to maintain a semblance of composure.

“Dance, yeah,” he swallowed, his voice a low murmur which was nearly drowned out by the intensity of the bass that rattled the floor. “And talk.” He chuckled softly, “You’re very alluring you know.”

Your smirk widened, eyes sultry with a confidence he found so attractive as you chuckled deeply. “I’ve been made aware.”

“Of course.” Lando shook his head, almost as if he was stupid to forget it. “You’ve had half the clubs clientele approach you tonight.” 

And for the first time tonight, Lando saw just a glimpse of what he thought to be bashfulness gleam through your features, your smile timid as you bit your lip. “Yeah, well, no ones really interested me.” You replied, body sliding just a little closer to his own if it were even possible at this point and he very quickly took this as an opportunity to slide his hands just a little lower on your hips, biting his lips with a smirk at your words. 

“And yet here we are.” His own words were rich with confidence on his lips.

“And yet here we are.” You reiterated with a smirk of your own, the site warm against the cold atmosphere of the club air.

There was a part of him that thought maybe he shouldn't question it in fear of finding something he didn't necessarily want to know, but the drunker part of him-- the less rational, more curious part --was gleaming to know why. "Care to share why that is?" The smirk your wore was devilish, “Maybe I’m just picky,” you teased, your eyes twinkling with mischief. “Or maybe I’m just waiting for someone who can actually hold a decent conversation.”

Lando grinned, clearly amused. “Oh, so you’re saying the bar is set pretty high tonight?”

“Something like that,” you replied, leaning in slightly, your voice playful. “But I’m open to being impressed if you’d like me to lower it for you.”

He scoffed loudly at your words, an action that had your head tilting back in a boastful laugh, a laugh he quickly found himself mimicking as his eyes simultaneously trailed up the length of your glistening neck which he quicky realised how badly he wanted to put his mouth on. You were enthralling, and he knew it wasn’t the alcohol making him think like this because everyone else seemed to agree, and yet you were here with him out of all the men who had approached you, and apparently that was an unbiased decision. You seemed genuinely interested in getting to know him without any pretense. The lack of recognition was oddly comforting; and it felt like he was actually connecting without any of the usual pressures or expectations his title came with.

For a moment you both had just let the beat take over again, no verbal conversation present, only the sway of your movements as you let your bodies do all the talking for you. It was loud, speaking all the sensual things your tongues were just a little too uncoordinated to say right now because of the pulsing alcohol in your veins. The heat between you two was palpable and Lando made notable effort to maintain his composure, but it was a challenge when paired with the sensation of your skin; of his hands guiding your ass hips, and of your hands wrapped in his hair locked around his neck. And as good as your lower body felt against his thigh, he really needed to see the way your hips were grinding against his pants. And so Lando pulled away just slightly enough so he could glance down between you, to watch your tantalizing figure in that tight backless dress he was beginning to adore rolling on him, back and forth, back and forth, side to side, left to right. Fuck, you were a master with your body and it was irresistible.

Becoming so captivated by the precision in your movement, he had almost missed the frantic cheer of someone from across the room and it took a moment, but nevertheless, Lando caught sight of Max’s watchful gaze from the edge of the VIP section with P in the corner of his eye, Max fixed on the two of you with a look of amused encouragement.

The noise made Lando’s eyes widen slightly, and as subtly as he could, he shot a quick, exasperated look at Max, rolling his pupils in a silent command for him to mind his own business. The gesture had Max’s smirk widening as he turned to P, just about grabbing her face but not quite doing so, more like hovering besides it, before theatrically pretending to mack on with her, clearly egging his best mate on. Lando shook his head in disapproval, but he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t laugh just a little as he pulled his attention back towards you, hoping you hadn’t noticed.

With a playful smirk, you leaned in closer, and it took Lando by welcoming surprise at the change in pace from Max's stupidity as your lips slightly brushed against his ear, “So, is this how you charm everyone, or am I just lucky tonight?”

Your voice was like ice to his body, but in the best way he could imagine, like a shock to the Pavlov'ed routine of every other sensual encounter he had with a stranger. His breath caught, a mix of surprise and excitement flooding him as he chuckled low, the sound barely audible over the music. “Why’d you ask?”

“Because it seems like your mate over there knows the drill.” You smirked teasingly.

Landos eyes widened, head shaking as he silently cursed his dumbass of a best friend for being such a dickhead. Of course the only person to nearly fuck this up would be the idiot who encouraged him to go for it in the first place. Max is lucky you took the gesture as lighthearted and didn’t immediately jump to conclusions at the possible implications it could have, otherwise he would have woken up tomorrow with blisters from having to walk back to his place. “Yeah well, Max has a way of making everything about him,” Lando found himself replying with a strained chuckle. “Don’t let him steal your attention at his stupidity, he’s just trying to rile me up. I’m more interested in what you think.”

The way you tilted your head slightly was alluring, lips curling into a playful smile as you assessed him with flirty eyes. “And what is it you’re hoping I’ll think?”

Lando’s arms which were wrapped around your waist, suddenly pulled backwards, drawing you just a little closer to him as his voice dropped to a teasing whisper. “That maybe this night could get even better if we continue it somewhere a bit quieter.”

It was a very fast gesture, but suddenly, Lando was hyper aware of the way you had arched yourself away from his body, his grip consequently loosening up a little to allow you the room to execute the movement without hurting yourself. It was as if your whole body had tensed up, your expression shifting to one of surprise, one Lando was evidently taken aback by as you raised an accusing eyebrow at him. “Wait who says I’m going anywhere with you?” Your voice was light but edged with something Landos intoxicated brain just couldn’t really conceptualize right now, especially with the bubbling panic that was rising within his body at your reaction. Had he misread the vibe? Maybe misread the situation entirely?

He was almost certain you had been sending him the same lustful signals as he was, batting your lashes and biting your lip like you would have if you were reciprocating the mannerisms he knew he was sending you. But now the confidence he had in the surety he felt earlier seemed to evaporate as fast as the doubt seemed to creep in. He was certain you were into him, but now he was questioning if he had perhaps overstepped a boundary and actually offended you. Maybe your gestures were more innocent then he thought, maybe he had taken your kindness for lust. The uncertainty was making him falter and he quickly found himself scrambling to justify his words, and clear the tension.

“Wait, I—” Lando started, his tone steady but laced with a hint of hesitation. “I didn’t mean to come off like that.” His voice was airy and a little far, trying to piece together what he could have missed in hopes to reverse the offense you displayed. 

But you cut him off with a sharp glance and a small, teasing smile that seemed to hide something beneath, “Do you want me to leave with you tonight?” Your words were way less accusatory and much more stated as a genuine, flirty question, your voice a mix of challenge and curiosity, and it was here that the edge Landos brain couldn’t make sense of earlier began to click in place.

His breath caught in his throat as you leaned into him again, closing the distance you had created a second ago, your whisper carrying a playful edge. For a moment, Lando’s mind raced, trying to decipher whether your reaction was a subtle pushback or if he had genuinely misread the chemistry between you and the anxiety that had crept into his chest began to ebb away as he soon realized that your teasing wasn’t an affront but rather a playful test of his intentions.

He watched as your expression softened, the corners of your mouth curling into a mischievous smile, white teeth gleaming up at him with a charm he found undeniably attractive. The realization hit him like a truck—the realization that this wasn’t your way of rejecting him but instead a flirtatious push on your end, you were winding him up and seeing how far you could stir him because you liked watching him squirm. The tension that had wound its way around him moments ago quickly began unraveling, replaced with a surge of relief that was both profound and slightly embarrassing, and he found himself biting his lip to hide the red tinge rising to his cheeks. 

Your voice was ringing in his ears, playing like a loop as he thought about your words, Do you want me to leave with you tonight? Does he want you to? Silly question, that is. And he soon paired the bite of his lip with a bashful smile, quickly nodding his head at your question.

His response had you tilting your head, your smirk widening as suddenly, once again, you leaned in closer, your hands sliding back up to their position behind his neck with a confident, yet teasing touch. The proximity of your body against his sent a shiver down his spine, and he felt he could almost see through your large eyes as you spoke. “Okay then, I have one request,” you said, voice dropping to a whisper that carried a hint of both mischief and promise.

Lando’s brow quirked up in question and suddenly the weight of your fingers on the back of his neck grew a lot heavier as you used it to propel yourself forward, pushing against him until your head was right by his head, no height to separate you anymore; and your lips pressed up onto the skin of his ear. Your tippytoes extended you up taller than you were before, and Lando would have wondered how that was even possible considering how high your heels already were if your proximity wasn’t causing a hard reset to his system. His senses heightened ten fold when he felt your warm breath against his ear, but it was ultimately the words you whispered that really had his breath halting. “You better walk as fast as you drive.”

What?

It was like the world around him collapsed as he tried to process the implications of your sentence; the implication that you had known exactly who he was this entire time. Your words had caught him so off guard, because here he was thinking you were simply just a captivating stranger but not only did you recognize him, he realized that you had been testing him all along. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one doing that?!

This unexpected twist made his head spin and it all really felt like whiplash as he tried to make sense of the way you had managed to play him so well. You had been testing his attitude, seeing if he'd slip up and act like a pompously famous asshole in order to lure you in. It was frankly insulting and yet so entirely attractive, it was intoxicating. 

He was so taken aback by it all, but not as taken aback as he was when he had suddenly felt you pull away from him, the absence of your lips from his ear, of your hands from his neck and your body from his body slapping him right back into reality and he couldn't help how pathetic he felt when he actually began panicking at the sudden distance. He could feel his heart pounding so insanely hard when you turned on your heels, and blinked blankly as you began to saunter away.

He watched as you hips swayed with a captivating grace that made your departure somehow both so assertive and yet strangely alluring, leaving Lando momentarily frozen with wide eyes blended in an assortment of shock and lust. 

He couldn’t decipher the swirl of emotions inside him. His head was reeling, caught between the surprise of your words and the intensified attraction he felt towards the view of your hips swaying while you left him in your dust.

He knew he looked like a fool. His jaw lack, was basically sweeping the ground and his eyes had to be as wide with shock as they could possibly be. As you moved through the crowd, Lando’s gaze was locked on your figure, watching you gracefully weave your way through the mess of dancing people without effort and he just couldn't even conceptualize how you were so coordinated with your teasing. 

For a good moment, he really wasn’t entirely sure of what to do next, what he was supposed to do now that you had made your hit and run. His eyes slowly turned to catch the perplexed ones of Max, still watching with P from beyond the banister as his friend noticed the girl Lando had been with, walking away. Lando must look like a goddamn muppet, standing there shocked and alone replaying youre words like a mantra. Walk as fast as he drives?

…Huh?

Lando’s expression remained as bewildered as earlier, and as shocked as he knew he looked, he was curious as to if Max could see the lust now coursing through his eyes too. Walk?

He could barely contain his arousal as his vision grew a little less foggy and everything started becoming a little clearer, finally his brain seeming to click back into action, and he endured in real time as the initial shock morphed into a burning determination. Fast?

It had to be the rush of emotions from surprise to heightened attraction that ultimately propelled him into action, his mind officially snapping back to present time….Oh? Shaking off the daze that had settled over him, he was no longer just an observer in his body but now a man on a mission.

Oh!

His head snapped back just in time to watch as you threw your hair behind your shoulder, covering up the glistening skin of your back, the back he had his hands all over just moments ago and now he knew, more then aware that you were in control, you had been the entire time.

He couldn’t wait anymore, you were obviously the governing power here and something about that didn't turn Lando off like he felt it usually would have with any one else, in fact, it burned a primal need for more deep within his chest.

So without hesitation Lando found himself rushing through the brunt of the crowd head on. To anyone watching, it was clear his gaze was fixated on nothing but your sauntering form, evident by the multitude of people he clumsily bumped and brushed into along his way. But the way you moved with such sensual grace, hips swaying in a manner that was both hypnotic and assertive, made it utterly impossible for him to look anywhere but at you. Every step you took was an alarming reminder to the cards of gold you held, and he was intent on closing that distance.

Now completely clear of the dance floor, Lando watches as you glance over your shoulder, checking to see if he had bitten the bait and followed your retreating figure, and you were quick to catch his eye with a smirk when you confirmed what you knew he would do. It was a look of challenge and triumph, as if you really did know that it was an absolute no brainer for him, because of course he was going to follow you.

And the moment your eyes met, a playful spark ignited in his chest, fueling his urgency, something you made quick note of as your smirk widened, clearly amused by his pursuit. And it only spurred him on faster because how was this for fast?

It took him only seconds to catch up to you, and the moment he was in range, his hands took firm grasps of your round hips, pulling you just slightly back so that his front was flush against your back, but not forcefully enough that he disturbed your saunter towards the exit, a path he was now very intently guiding you towards with his hands fast just like he guided the car he drove fast, because god he had never wanted to lay someone down on his bed so desperately in his life. He needed to knock that smirk off your face and show you just how much control he could have too. He was not going to waste anymore time in getting you in his car parked outside.

And yeah Max may have not completely fucked it for him, but it looked like he was gonna be walking home regardless.

[cardfight-casual]

Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene post DBT-09

Budget friendly here we come. It’s my boy, Eugene. AKA maybe the worst boss card from DBT-01? But that was over two years ago. Eugene himself might not be the best by himself, but his rearguards more than make up for what he lacks. Why is this post DBT-09 instead of DBT-10? Because I haven’t decided if I’m going to add any of the newer cards yet. Needs more testing. The triggers here are a bit messy, but I’ll finally have all effect triggers eventually. They’ll be listed a bit differently from normal since I don’t want to list a bunch of one-of placeholders.

Deck Log Code: GEKN Ride Deck: -x1 Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene -x1 Cataclysmic Bullet of Dust Storm, Randor -x1 Gunning of Dust Storm, Nigel -x1 Double Gun of Dust Storm, Bart Main Deck:     Grade 3 -x3 Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene -x4 Hunting Gatling of Dust Storm, Firas -x3 Best Harvest (Order)     Grade 2 -x4 Twin Bullet of Dust Storm, Travis -x4 Strong Fortress Dragon, Gibrabrachio     Grade 1 -x4 Assault Bullet of Dust Storm, Oswald -x4 Strong Sharp Dragon, Geizfort -x4 Twin Buckler Dragon     Grade 0 -x3 Draw Trigger -x4 Critical Trigger -x4 Front Trigger -x4 Heal Trigger -x1 Dragon Deity King of Resurgence, Dragveda (Over Trigger) Eugene gets overlooked a lot. Since he wasn’t very good when he came out, most people tend to forget about him, and that’s probably only going to be even more true now that Gandeeva exists. But Gandeeva is expensive. And thankfully, Eugene mostly isn’t. There’s really only one card that breaks the 10USD threshhold, and that’s the over trigger. If you used base rarity for everything and stuck to vanilla triggers and Olbaria, you could put Eugene together for around 35USD as of writing this. That’s including the special perfect guards as well, so you could drop that about 12USD or so if you run one of the start deck ones. Heck, you could even get frame rares or holos for a lot of these units and it would barely change the cost at all. The main goal for Eugene is to retire rearguards. Somewhat expected for Dragon Empire. His second skill is mainly useless unless you’re in desperate need of units on the field. The main skill you’ll want to be using every turn, assuming the other player lets you, is his first skill. You rest two of your own units to retire an enemy rearguard, then he gains 10k power. That skill might have been a deal-breaker way back in DBT-01, but as early as DBT-02 he already had a card that could use that to its advantage. Gibrabrachio can stand itself and gain 5k power as long as your opponent only has one rearguard when battle starts. Even if you don’t rest it with Eugene’s skill, you can soulblast one and rest it to retire one, so it can get the re-stand and power anyway. Geizfort works similarly and is one of your preferred rest targets. Once per turn, when an enemy rearguard is retired, it can stand and gain 2k power. Since the skill that rested them in the first place retired a unit, they would stand right away and essentially be 10k boosters. The newest card I’ve added to the deck is Firas. He helps you search out Best Harvest when he’s placed, and he’s another preferred rest target. Despite being a grade 3, usually you actually want Firas in your back row. When an opponent’s rearguard is retired, as long as you soulblast one, he can stand and gain boost until end of turn.Since ideally you’re retiring something every turn, he’s consistently a 13k booster. Your final unit capable of retiring is Travis. He’s not the cheapest since he sees play in other decks as well, but he makes things so much more consistent. Once a turn when an enemy rearguard is retired, you can counterblast to soulcharge and retire another unit, then he gains 10k power. And your last grade 1 is Oswald. It’s not too often that I’ve actually gotten to a situation where I can use Oswald, but his skill is just too good not to have. Your opponent has to have no rearguards, but with all your other units working together, it’s 100% possible to clear them all out before the battle phase. As long as he’s boosting Eugene and the opponent is also on grade 3, he lets you counterblast one and discard a card to re-stand Eugene with one drive and one critical. In situations where this is possible, you want to attack with Eugene first to maximize how dangerous your front row rearguards can be. Oswald is also why you can get away with having Olbaria instead of Dragveda. Best Harvest is the only order this build runs for now. What is does is simple enough. When you play it, just choose a vanguard and give it a continuous skill that lets you draw a card whenever an opposing rearguard is retired. If their board is full and you retire everything while this is active, that’s five new cards in hand. The only excuse for not including this would be because it’s only gotten more expensive over time. As of writing this though, it’s only around 3USD, so still budget friendly. A few possible alternative choices for the deck would include: -Spiritual King of Determination, Olbaria     Technically any of the over triggers with the same skill would also work. Dragveda is not cheap, and until it gets reprinted as much as Gallmageheld has, it’s not going to be cheap. Thankfully, Eugene doesn’t care as much about which over trigger you use, they’re both effective. Sure Dragveda gives you the opportunity to re-stand the vanguard,but since Oswald is also here Olbaria giving 100mil power to two units instead of just one is also plenty effective. -Fierce Bullet of Dust Storm, Nawfal     I guess Randor needed a friend that also had a not normal name. This promo card is still a bit on the pricey side at over 3USD, but if you happen to have him and want to use him, then go for it. His main use would be recycling units you might want to call by putting them on top of deck as long as you’ve retired something that turn. Downside is he can only select cards that are normal units and not sentinels. -Howitzer of Dust Storm, Dustin     This card used to be played in this deck before the addition of Firas. You have to put a hand card into soul, but he lets you draw one and then retires a grade 2 rearguard. His second skill gives him 2k for every open rearguard circle on your opponent’s field for that battle for the cost of a soulblast. -Inscribing Bullet of Dust Storm, Baxter     This guy is weird, but the art is nice. I can’t imagine his continuous skill ever being of much use since it requires your opponent to attack it from a column other than the one he’s in. Especially since it just prevents him from being hit. His other skill is the interesting one. Baxter on his own can’t retire any units, but when a rearguard in the same column as him is retired, he gives 5k power to himself and the vanguard. If the column was previously full and you retired the whole thing, then Baxter gives himself and your vanguard 10k power just because he’s on the board.     I wouldn’t run more than two or three copies, but this is a DBT-10 card I’ve considered making space for. -Scarlet Flame Bow of Demolition     This would be in addition to Best Harvest, not a replacement. Remember how Baxter benefits from retired rearguards in the same column as him? Well this order, for the cost of a counterblast, chooses a column and retires the enemy units in it. Since this order chooses a column, instead of a unit like most of the other retire skills in the deck, this can get around units that say they can’t be chosen.    If I can find the space, this is another card from DBT-10 I’d like to test in this deck. Sadly Eugene often gets written off as a bad deck just because he wasn’t great at initial release. Thankfully for budget players, this means that most of his cards are extremely affordable, and the powerful rearguard skills more than make up for what the vanguard might lack. He might not be winning any major tournaments any time soon, but Eugene is still a really fun deck that manages to pull out a victory sometimes. Remember, these deck lists are for fun and not necessarily optimized. If you have another card that you think would make a better fit, then go for it and test it out. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send me a message!

[northern-passage]

so with this being the Hot Topic of the week i wanted to make a post talking about fat characters and body diversity in IF. if we’re going to talk about it, let’s actually talk about it. and as a fat person myself, i want to talk about it.

i don’t think i really need to say that fat bodies are neglected in media in general - we all are aware of this. in interactive fiction specifically, there is definitely a notable absence of fat characters, but especially fat romance options. and when there are fat romance options, they tend to be stereotyped, or sidelined, or seen as “undesirable” to the average reader. more mainstream IF games don’t even have any body diversity at all, with all romance options being described as conventionally attractive (euro-centric) and skinny, or “super model-esque” which is usually just another way of saying conventionally attractive and skinny. on the other hand, a lot of IF leaves characters more vague and up for interpretation, simply because that is the nature of IF and it is designed for people to be able to fill in the gaps with what they want to see.

unfortunately, this may lead to people automatically defaulting to “skinny.” which, it’s already been said: that says a lot more than i ever could about how society views fat people. though, i do think it’s important for authors to be specific in their descriptions and identities when it comes to representing marginalized groups, not just with fat people but all across the board.

this lack of fat representation does feel particularly malicious when it comes to romance, with fat people very rarely, if ever, getting to see ourselves depicted as the person that is desirable, or the person that gets to be in love, and receive love, be deserving of love. fat people are mocked and shamed and fetishized from a very young age, with no positive depictions of people like us in media to look up to, and it can be extremely cruel and alienating. 

and society is actively hostile towards fat people. the BMI is used to shame us, despite being fake science. doctors actively ignore our problems and reduce all of it to “you need to lose weight.” there is no standardized sizing when it comes to clothing, and fat people are almost always left out. fat bodies, when they are represented, are reduced to negative stereotypes and “cautionary tales”, a thing to avoid and fear. only in recent years has there been any kind of push back against this, but we still have a long way to go.

and then there’s the word fat itself. there can be a lot said about the word “fat” and what exactly it means. it’s something that i think every fat person has strong feelings about. and i know a lot of people have a complicated relationship with the word, myself included. a lot of times people avoid that word to describe their characters - i know i tend to, because as a fat person it’s been used against me all my life and i’m still trying to unlearn that. it’s a word with a lot of stigma around it, and for some people it can be really personal. but ultimately, it’s a neutral word, a descriptor. it took me a long time to realize this, but fat is not a bad word.

i wanted to write all of this out because i do think this is an important conversation to be had, and i think the first step is just making people realize that fat is not bad. skinny is not the default. if you find yourself constantly interpreting characters as thin unless they are explicitly stated otherwise, challenge yourself about that. if you’re an artist, start drawing more fat bodies. if you’re a writer, think about what you can do to normalize fat people through your stories, and help destigmatize the word fat.

here are two articles i want to share:

Fat is Not a Bad Word

Creating Fuller Stories About Fat People

And the Health At Every Size website, which has its own page of resources.

finally, i wanted to highlight some authors & games that do include fat ROs. this is by no means an exhaustive list, but simply the games that i’m familiar with, and i think it’s important to show support to the people that are already doing the work and making strides to turn IF into a more inclusive community. (i also want to note that all of these games are WIPs, and may not yet explicitly state in game the description of their characters. however all have been portrayed and confirmed to be fat by the author on their blogs)

The Unknown One in The Moonless by @moonless-if (demo tba)

Bautista and Devin in Greenwarden by @fiddles-ifs

Florrie in Body Count by @bodycountgame

Hekate in Fields of Asphodel by @asphodelgame

Charlie in You Live and Fern by @beetlebethwrites

Nico in When It Hungers by @roast-ifs (currently undergoing edits)

Aja and Luc in Magician’s Voyage by @magiciansvoyage

EDIT:

Jabberywocky in Rabbit Hole by @if-rabbithole (demo tba)

Blake and Carmen in Off Script by @offscriptif (demo tba)

W in Witches of Ferngrove by @witchesofferngrove (demo tba)

James in Inner Demons by @innerdemons-if

C in The Heir Quest by @theuwriting

Roselyna and JM (as crush options) in Mommy, We Created a Plot Hole! by @mwcaph-game​

Greta and Galeon from Trails Lead Home by @trailshome

Azalea from Speaker by @speakergame

[pivsketch]

back in february i was inspired by @minacoleta 's count the lights to make a wrestlestory of my own. i spent the last five months narrowing down every single concept i like and melting them all down in a crucible to pour into a mold to craft THE MOST SELF INDULGENT OCs i could possibly come up with. i think its probably embarrassingly obvious where all their little components and dynamics came from but whatEVER! whatever!! it rules, actually!!! make the most insanely self indulgent ocs you can think of and live a little!!!! its liberating!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway i dont have the constitution or patience or focus to execute an entire graphic novel so i'm just going to post their character introductions / plot premise under a readmore. its 1.3k words (JEEZ) and thats about as condensed as i could get it while still relaying their individual motivations and setting up ~The Main Conflict~ for a story im not going to get around to telling properly (SORRY). i still will post drawings and comics from time to time of them all being cute though (i have a backlog i didn't want to post until i properly introduced them. i didnt realize it would take so long for me to do so however.)

anyway heres the tl;dr summary of the members of two tag teams who are in a tag team tournament:

[TAGCEN]

TAGCEN is a wrestling promotion so dedicated to tag teams that their name is twice as long as your typical three-letter acronym wrestling company. They've been around long enough that their seasonal tag team tournament (aka: the main setting for the story) has somehow acquired a lot of prestige, despite their comparatively humble level of production. TAGCEN is mostly ran by a husband and wife tag team that is too busy running the show to wrestle nowadays: Cedric (most neurotic man who has ever lived) and Arsha (who loves chaos).

[Taggart]

One passion (wrestling) and one brain cell (dedicated to wrestling). Taggart loves wrestling so much he pulls his punches just so he can wrestle against his opponents longer. That's... the kind of guy he is. His overwhelming enthusiasm and lack of ~grandiose ambitions~ does tend to limit how seriously people take him, but he isn't to be underestimated: just because he's a genuinely nice guy doesn't mean he can't hit hard, and it also doesn't mean he can't take the hard hits either. That title of "brick wall" is not for show!

His tag team partner unexpectedly had to leave in the middle of the season, which left Taggart in a bit of a bind as he isn't allowed to work the rest of his matches all by himself (it is a TAG TEAM CENTRIC WRESTLING PROMOTION after all). Due to this, he manages to convince his ex-wrestler friend/roommate Basil to stand in as his tag team partner so he can finish out the season. Basil doesn't want to wrestle anymore and Taggart wouldn't want to force his friend to anyway, so Taggart just never tags him in and fights the matches 1v2. He loses, but its fine, with the time left in the season there's mathematically no way for them to get that much further than last place anyway.

Taggart's just glad to be wrestling, and he's especially happy that he (finally…) managed to draw his friend Basil back into the ring under the public eye. With a little more time Taggart thinks he can coax Basil into wrestling proper again, so long as… nothing comes up during this TAGCEN season… ha ha ha HA HA HA

[Basil]

Officially billed as "Ben Basil" with the title of "some guy", he is apparently some rando that Taggart got to fill in as his tag partner. Taggart never tags him in, so he usually just spends the entire time hanging out on the corner in a t-shirt and hat nonchalantly watching the match. Nobody's ever heard of him, and anyone who has seen him around just knows him as Taggart's weird friend that hangs out with him all the time. But! He is not just some guy Taggart found off the street:

Basil met Taggart back in wrestleschool after he had ditched his entire existing group of friends for reasons too elaborate to get into right now. Basil didn't know anything about wrestling and Taggart loves to talk about wrestling, so they ended up becoming extremely good friends.

Back then Basil was a copycat/mimic heel wrestler named Afterburner and really leaned into being kind of a dick! With nothing else to do, he just got really good at wrestling. This didn't last too long though, he eventually got caught up in his own head about being a bad guy (oops!) and retired comically early in his career.

Usually this is where Basil would pack up and go start a new life somewhere for the third time or so, but he MYSTERIOUSLY changed his mind this time around and decided to stick around instead. It's been like X years now and he still lives in the room he rents in Taggart's house, idly supporting Taggart's career by training with him and sparring with him and helping him do work at the wrestleschool and occasionally driving him to wrestling matches whenever he needs a ride.

For a guy who adamantly quit wrestling he sure still wrestles a lot.

Anyway…

[Samson]

a charismatic, mildly sardonic well-known top-tier veteran good guy. Samson is legit skilled and has been in wrestling for so long, everything has become a bit of a game to him. Things get boring if you win all the time, yeah? Effectively, this has (over the years) turned him into a bit of a wet blanket and low-key control freak about meta things like "narrative", whatever THAT means. He gets away with it, though, as he's usually raining on the parades of heels who deserve it, and is a generally entertaining guy.

Previously, Samson was the longest running title holder of the region's definitely not cursed and/or haunted solo Interstate Championship, which he eventually lost in a very exciting (but normal) wrestling match. His legendarily long title run had him being his usual Samson self the whole time, proving once and for all that there is nothing weird about the title. Wanting a fresh new challenge, preferably away from the definitely not cursed and/or haunted Interstate Championship, Samson set his sights on the tag team world.

Unfortunately while still in the process of deciding who to team with, he unexpectedly(!) lost a stipulation match to insufferable young upstart jackass Chip and now is obligated to tag with him. Samson is crafty enough that he doesnt lose unless he chooses to, so this… is… an unusual thing to happen to him. He's taking it in stride (or at least appearing to) though, as Chip is a pretty good wrestler himself so its not like its too bad of an arrangement. Besides, he's a man of his word. :)

In any case, the two of them actually get along, weirdly enough! Maybe Samson's just used to dealing with annoying heels. It's anyone's guess as to whether Samson is going to reform Chip into a good guy, or if Chip is going to do what holding on the Interstate Championship Title didnt do and finally tip Samson over into being a bad guy. There's a lot of people keeping an eye on the TAGCEN tournament to find out.

Of course that's how it was supposed to be going…

[Chip]

Competitive topcard rising star asshole guy who plagues every promotion you can think of. Talks a big game, and the worst part is, he can back it up. He really is some sort of insane wrestling prodigy, or something.

Bitter that he wasn't able to win the Interstate Championship off of Samson, Chip figured he could get his vengeance (and a tag team championship, eventually) by roping Samson into a tag team with him. Together, they've been wrestling tag matches all over to get enough clout to qualify for the big prestigious semi-invitational continental tag team championship. They were on track to win the (fairly notable) TAGCEN tournament to further these aims, but one day Chip realized who Taggart's new partner was, and, uh, well…

Chip also went to wrestleschool with Taggart and Basil, but was still trying to do something with his college degree at the time and gradually fell behind as a result. After they graduated, Chip hounded Afterburner (Basil) for a while in a rather one-sided feud and took some things Burner flippantly said to him extremely personally (like... he changed his ring name to Chip about it...). After a string of (frankly, embarrassing) defeats from him, Chip took a brief step back from wresting matches to reinvent himself. He buckled down to become extremely tough and cool, then came back ready as ever to finally kick Burner's ass once and for all.

…So imagine how furious he was when he found out the guy quit and disappeared from the scene while he was gone. Welp!!

Chip kept wrestling in the years since and became the insane jerk wrestleguy we know today. He moved on. Except not really. Seeing Afterburner (well… sort of) at TAGCEN after all these years has rekindled every single inch of fury all over again. Everyone else may not know or care about some wrestler dropout from X years ago, but destroying this guy (on equal terms) is everything Chip ever wanted. He just needs to figure out how to get Basil to fight him for realsies.

Of course, Chip being obsessed with fighting some jobber team instead of ranking up is not good for their tag team's prospects, and while Samson is a good guy, he does want to win…

[rheawritessometimes]

{ Childe x GN!Reader }

{ Summary } Childe gets an owie while sparing. Series Masterlist

{ Warnings } Violence, Swearing, Angry Reader, Injury, Physical Intimacy (Kissing).

{ Notes } Hurting Childe just a little because he refused to come home for me. Lost the 50/50. Reader is a sword user. Reader is suggested to be the Traveler. Self-indulgent again because all my writing is. This one is a real trainwreck but I didn't want to go too long without posting. Something better than nothing? Masterlist

{ Word Count } 2,404

Meeting Childe at the Golden House every week had been your routine for a while now. Right after you had defeated him the first time, he immediately begged you to train with him and you gave in, unable to bear those puppy-dog eyes. And the entire week he spent pestering you about it.

The whole fiasco with Osial had been put behind the both of you. It was probably true that you were too quick to forgive Childe, but he was just so charming. Not to mention he often paid for your meals, suggesting going out to eat after your sessions or if he saw you around the harbor. On a few occasions, you had been out eating with friends or on your own and found he had picked up your tab.

Since Liyue hadn't been destroyed and you got free food out of it, you really weren't all too upset about the situation. The Snezhnayan was actually pretty easy to get along with when Fatui matters weren't involved. He made you laugh too, so you supposed you could tolerate the once-weekly sparing sessions with him.

Childe called it sparing, but normal people didn't spar with actual weapons and fight like they were going to kill their partner. At first, you had tried to convince him it would be much better and safer for the both of you to use practice weapons instead of sharpened blades and arrows. He was quick to decline, saying something about both of you being competent enough not to get seriously hurt. You thought about refuting that on the basis that he had yet to beat you even once.

Even so, every week you found yourself pushing through the doors to the chamber Childe was always patiently waiting in. You'd never gotten there before him and wondered if he intentionally came early. You wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, he probably paced the room plotting his seemingly unobtainable victory.

The hydro vision paired with his combat experience and skill made him a difficult opponent, but he didn't seem terribly good at strategy. He might have been careless because it wasn't a real fight, but somehow you doubted that. He seemed the type to always give it his all. It could be that was his problem, since his loss usually came due to his exhaustion. Maybe if he didn't spend so much energy trying to show off he'd actually be a proper challenge.

"You're finally here," Childe proclaimed dramatically, voice echoing off the walls, "I thought you might have gotten lost on the way or something. Was starting to worry I'd need to go out and rescue you."

"I'm fifteen minutes early, Childe. How long have you been waiting?" you asked dryly, raising your eyebrow questioningly. You took a moment to shrug your adventuring pack off your shoulders and drop it near the door. You rolled your shoulders, relieved to be free of the weight.

"Ahah, anyways, we should get started. I have some business to attend to today," he responded, indiscreetly ignoring your question. It shouldn't have been very surprising that he didn't wait for your response before sending an arrow flying in your direction, but he'd always waited for you to signal you were ready before starting in the past.

Materializing your sword out of habit more than anything else, you raised it to block the arrow with the flat of the blade. The arrow bounced off the metal with a weak dink, clattering to the ground. If you'd reacted a moment later it would have pierced you.

You shot Childe a dirty look, irate from the cheap shot. He responded by grinning wider and taking aim again. You silently promised that he would face your wrath shortly.

Advancing towards him, you swatted the arrow flying your way with your sword. A bow would be less effective at close range, so you intended to close the distance. The redhead laughed, a hint of nervousness creeping into the sound at the pace of your advance. Or perhaps it was the building rage in your eyes.

The bow dematerialized, now Childe held dual hydro-blades in his hands in anticipation of close combat. Once in range, he immediately swiped at you with a blade. You stepped back out of the way, quickly bringing up your sword to parry the next slash coming from the opposite blade.

Childe seemed encouraged by you backing away, a smug look crossing his face. You furrowed your brows, he was so unthoughtful. He insists on using real weapons, shoots at you before you're ready, and now he has the audacity to get cocky.

You raise your blade to swing down at him and he catches your sword on crossed hydro-blades. He lets out a little huff of air, not expecting you to strike with such force, but his arms hold steady. You swiftly draw your blade back to slash at him again. Thorough training has you swiping at him with practiced ease while Childe is forced to switch to the defensive.

It gives you a sort of satisfaction to see his expression change to one of worry, it was your first time seeing such a look on him. You had no intention of actually hurting him, but it was nice to scare him a little. Maybe after this, he'd take the dangers of sparing with actual weapons a little more seriously. But probably not.

You're hardly thinking when his hydro-blades finally fail to parry your blows, the flat of your blade slamming into the side of his chest resulting in a soft crack barely loud enough to reach your ears. A look of surprise crosses your face when he lets out a pained grunt, what had happened finally being processed in your mind.

Immediately you drop your sword, ignoring it as it clatters to the ground before dematerializing. You were internally relieved to see his hydro-blades dissipate too, it would have been terribly unsportsmanly of him to stab you now. Stepping forward on instinct, you pause as you realize you're not exactly sure what to do.

Childe clutches his chest as he coughs a few times and a flood of panic washes over you. If you broke his ribs, his lungs could have been punctured. That would be bad.

"Fuck, that hurts," he huffed out before he attempted to gingerly sit down, right in the middle of the Golden House. Childe winced at the movement, but he managed to settle, leaning on his arms for support. His breathing was heavy from the strain of sparing and you felt extremely guilty, broken ribs had a tendency to hurt terribly and pain would flare up with every breath. At least he seemed to be breathing okay, so his lungs were probably intact.

"Let me get something to ease the pain," you said hastily, jogging towards the door to grab your bag. Your first thought was to numb him up before bringing him to Bubu Pharmacy to get some proper help.

"Aw, are you actually worried about me?" he cooed teasingly, maintaining that signature annoying grin despite the pain that followed him speaking. It was easy to ignore him as you rummaged through your bag for something useful.

It crossed your mind that it would be exceedingly difficult to get him all the way back to Liyue if you gave him anything strong. That limited your options rather greatly, adding that on to your lacking medical knowledge and limited variety of resources left you with fewer options than you would have liked. He probably could make it back without any anesthetic but it would be slow and you'd feel terrible for it.

Even with your lack of selection, you were thankful to have some knowledge and materials for this sort of thing, adventuring made you better at improvising and you learned a lot along the way. Taking everything into consideration, you decided it would be best to go with something topical. You could make a salve to numb up the area and then hopefully drag him to Bubu Pharmacy.

"I'm really sorry, Childe," you apologized, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Oh don't worry about it, this isn't the first time I've broken my ribs. Probably won't be the last, either," he replied with a laugh, which caused him to wince. You only frowned at him as you pulled out some plants to grind up. A rock would have worked, but you kept a mortar and pestle for this kind of thing after realizing you'd be doing it often.

You were soon mashing some leaves and a few petals into a paste, with some water Childe so graciously provided. Having a hydro user around was rather convenient when practicing field medicine.

"Whatcha makin'?" Childe asks after a short period of silence, leaning over to get a closer look. You wonder if he's actually curious or if he just can't tolerate the quiet. It seemed the two of you were always talking when you were together, save for when your sparing got too intense to spare the breath.

"A salve to numb you up so I can drag you to Bubu Pharmacy," you responded, still mostly focused on getting the paste to the right consistency.

"What? No, I can't go. I've got work to do," he argued, moving to stand up now.

You were quick to grab his wrist to prevent him from getting up, furrowing your brows. Childe paused, waiting for your explanation.

"You have at least one broken rib, whatever you need to do can wait," you told him sternly, maintaining eye contact. He turned his gaze away from you to hum in contemplation. He knew well enough that giving injuries time to heal was important, but so was his job.

"Fine, I guess what I was supposed to do today isn't that important," he relented, leaning back into a comfortable position once more. Childe had a feeling that if he had insisted on working you'd have found a way to stop him anyway.

"Can you take off your shirt?" you asked, trying to sound as casual and not awkward as possible once you were satisfied with the consistency of the paste. You would have offered to allow him to apply it himself but you figured it would be less painful this way, plus you'd need to bandage his chest afterward, so it didn't make much of a difference.

"Oh my, you're not usually this bold," he teased, reaching to begin undoing the clasps holding his jacket together. His remark made you decide against offering your assistance despite the awareness that even just wriggling out of the jacket probably hurt. It's okay to be a little petty sometimes. As a treat.

Once his torso was bare you shifted your position to be a bit closer and examined his side. There was already the beginning of bruising, but it would get much darker by tomorrow. You ignored the scars and other bruises that were present, very aware of the fact the redhead would tease you for staring if you looked any longer.

"I promise I'll be gentle," you assured, "But it'll probably hurt a little."

Childe just hummed, waving off your warning, so you gathered some of the salve on your fingers. You silently wished you'd had gloves that weren't absorbent with you so your hands wouldn't grow numb later.

It was a quick process of spreading the paste over his ribs, but his eyes remained on you the entire time. You couldn't be sure if he was just interested in what you were doing, but it surprised you that he remained entirely silent.

"It'll take a little while to numb up. I'm going to bandage your chest for support. This will hurt more," you informed him, dragging your pack towards you to dig out a roll of bandages.

"Don't worry, I'm a tough boy," he laughed in response, and you could only smile and shake your head at him. You had faith in his strength, but that didn't stop the guilt you felt over being responsible for his pain. It did make you feel better when he started reminiscing on past injuries he'd sustained in battle once you began bandaging him. How he could look back on them so fondly was a mystery to you.

At first, you were mindful to touch him as little as possible while you were wrapping the bandages. They needed to be a little tight to provide support but you tried to ensure they put as little pressure on his ribs as possible. Unfortunately, your fingers started to grow numb and you hadn't realized you'd been bandaging too tightly until Childe let out a soft grunt of pain.

"Fuck, sorry," you apologized, quickly unraveling the last section of bandaging to rewrap it more loosely.

"Don't worry about it," he said, thinking for a moment before adding, "But, if you want to make it up to me, a kiss would make me feel better."

Pausing in your ministrations, you looked up to see a cheeky grin on his face. You raised a brow, giving him an entirely unimpressed expression. It wasn't entirely uncommon for him to flirt like this, trying to get a reaction out of you. But as you reached one hand up to gently grab his chin, it was his turn to become flustered.

Leaning up, you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek before moving away and releasing your hold on him. You patted his cheek twice, giving him an amused grin.

"You're welcome."

"Hey! That doesn't count!" Childe immediately whined, pouting at you. You could only laugh at his playful antics as you finally finished wrapping his chest.

"You're cruel, you know that?" the Snezhnayan grumbled, eyebrows still furrowed as he continued to pout. He really did seem like a spoiled kid at this moment and you laughed again, causing his frown to deepen.

You knew his demeanor was all theatrical, but as you stared at his expression you found yourself leaning towards him again. You gently pressed your lips to his, smiling into the kiss when his hands eagerly flew up to your face. You indulged in the kiss for a few moments, smirking when he followed you as you pulled away. Putting a hand on his shoulder, you halted his attempt to continue.

"You can have another kiss once you get checked out at Bubu Pharmacy."

-

If you read all that, I'm sorry lol. I wanted to spend more time on it but I don't want to take too long posting things. Anyways, if you have any better ideas for what I should write send them in. Please.

There's a part two now: Part 2