#for any remaining followers without context for this - i do apologize

[n3ongold3n]

Look. Sometimes you have to let your inner 12-year-old zoom into a picture and laugh. (OF calendar day 15)

[candy-red-river]

WARNING!! ATTENTION TO ALL RANFREN FANS.

RECENTLY THERE HAVE BEEN 3 INDIVIDUALS IN THE COMMUNITY THAT HAVE BEEN CAUSING SEVERE DISTRESS TO THOSE AROUND THEM. WHEN YOU SEE THESE INDIVIDUALS BLOCK, REPORT, OR AVOID THEM.

I REPEAT DO NOT GO AFTER THEM OR HARASS THEM FOR THE SAKE OF EVERYONE INVOLVED.

BELOW ARE SEVERAL COPIED TESTIMONIALS FROM DIFFERENT PEOPLE WHO USED TO INTERACT WITH THESE THREE PROVIDED WITH SCREENSHOTS.

THE DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS WILL REMAIN ANONYMOUS AND DIFFERENT PEOPLE WILL BE REFERRED TO AS DIFFERENT COLORS FOR THEIR OWN SAKE. TAKE THIS AS YOU WILL.

🚨🚨 IMPORTANT ALARM 🚨🚨

ATTENTION, RANFREN COMMUNITY ON TUMBLR! PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THESE IMPORTANT ALERTS ABOUT INDIVIDUALS TO AVOID:

KITTYGIRLCARPET (carpetkittie) RATMISCHEFINPROCESS SEBASTIANTHEHUMAN.

FOR THE SAFETY OF OUR COMMUNITY, PLEASE BE VIGILANT AND TAKE CARE IN WHO YOU INTERACT WITH ONLINE. STAY SAFE AND PROTECT YOURSELVES! ⚠️📢

I will add the reasons why in the following…

First and foremost, I want you to be aware that several individuals have been persistently targeting me for absolutely ridiculous reasons!!!! Despite not doing anything to provoke them, they've been quite unkind and even extend their hostility to others within the fandom. This is why I've been noticeably inactive lately, as a result of their relentless attacks!!!

Starting off with Sebastian, during our former friendship he would often purposeful endanger himself even when his friends would tell him not to. For hours. He'd say he wouldn't do it but would go claim to do that thing anyway. He would also talk heavily sexually when I and him were with other friends despite being 14 (he told me and someone else he was 15) his made me, as an older teen and new adult, VERY uncomfortable. I tried to ignore it and laugh it off.

He would repeatedly lie to us about everything, and played coy whenever we were suspicious. Recently he admitted to harrassing us in private via tumblrs anonymous asks. After we realised what he'd done he had threatened suicide on his instagram, and would immediately go back to using discord the next day.

Sebastian has been spreading lies abt his ex under the age of 13, while he is 14, calling them a groomer and such, a manipulator, spreading their personal vents/rants without permission, etc. Those were all lies, his ex was doing nothing he said. Even when his ex’s status on disc had nothing to do with love or relationships, Sebastian would change his status to pretend he had a boyfriend, to quote on quote, ‘make them jealous’. Sebastian has been obsessing over (censored), going as far to harass his friends, carve his name into his chest and show him, lie abt his age to get closer, then play the victim once confronted. Randal would give Sebastian compliments, which Sebastian would take way out of context, often making lewd and inappropriate comments in response unprompted. He exaggerates Randal’s words, making it seem that they were genuinely flirting or in love. While joking flirting was not unheard of, they were not genuine feelings. Randal had stated several times that he had no romantic/sexual/etc feelings towards Sebastian in any way. When Randal confronted Sebastian, mainly his only responses were “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, no apology, nothing, just feigning innocence. Along with those two things, Sebastian has been sharing his friends personal info, as well as publicly suicide baiting on Instagram stories. He has been saying multiple times that he has “been shoved into a hospital” and/or “actually killing himself tonight”. A final thing he did quite often was make many comments about how “Incel’s are hot” or that he was purposefully going to get groomed, most definitely for sympathy and attention. Also for attention, he would act overly sexual, making random sexual comments unprompted. He is a manipulative liar, he never defends himself, because he can't.

Before reading this, please know I have really bad memory, so I might have skipped over or watered down things Sebastian did, so please bare with me,

Back when I was 12, Sebastian had groomed me for months when him and I dated (and he now refuses it despite me having proof), he also was racist and tries to defend himself over it by saying "it was a dream" which doesnt make things any better. He also frequently spoke about sexual topics and even sent me a list of things he was into despite me telling him I didn't like talking about that stuff considering my age, also considering the fact I was recovering from something disgusting my stepdad did to me a few days prior, which I told him about. He also had shared stuff about my personal life (my hypersexuality, intrusive thoughts, vents, and probably more things I'm not aware of.)

When I broke up with him for the first time because our age gap made me slightly uncomfortable considering I wasn't considered a teen, also because he made me feel like shit and he was already a horrible person for things he did that I explaiend above. Afterwards he made hints that he would be killing himself, he also obsessed HEAVILY over me and manipulated me until we dated again. This time, he treated me as if I was some sort of secret which made me feel horrible because he KNEW our relationship would be heavily frowned upon for two reasons, one being that hes 14, i was 12. and two, people hated his guts and i promised those people I wouldn't go back to him.

He did a lot of things on calls that I can't provide proof for because I'm 99% sure he was taking precautions just in case I left him again. I WILL be mentioning it but they'll just be considered allegations as I can't provide proper proof. We broke up a final time after a month because he kept ignoring me for hours and made me feel like shit because he met new people and I suddenly became irrelevant.

He also liked to make fun of my overuse on painkillers, and constantly called me a "druggie" which only made things worse on my end. He also never shut up about me claiming I ruined his life, I manipulated him, and he was the victim despite me getting groomed by him.

He made me isolate myself from all my friends (irl and online) so he could be the only one in my life, he did this subtly by saying "I don't like your friends blah blah blah" and gaslighted me into believing I hate them. He also liked to flaunt what he did to me because he got away with it, he also admitted he didnt feel sorry for a single thing he did to me. For whatever reason he also faked having a boyfriend to try and make me jealous (which never worked.)

I'm sure theres a lot more things he did, but I'm having a hard time remembering

I have things about Sebastian and it’s just him sending me a mean anonymous question + him telling me about how Randal thinks that he’s the one sending mean anonymous questions so I can write a message about that ? But I’d also like to stay anonymous because I don’t want to be associated with that,, ( ;´ - `;)

The next person to be spoken of is kitty carpet.

The person who kins kitty carpet has been an on and off bother for me and my friends for months now. She would occasionally come up again to insinuate drama, going after my friend and people adjacent to him online. She has also been dating and interacting with people way too young for those such as cherrycon. She gets angry at proshippers but is a self proclaimed "necrophile", who loves talking about how writing dark content is ok while being against it making her morals unclear.

Kitty has a contentious reputation. She inserted herself into a drama not involving her aggressively harassed someone for no reason, causing them to delete their Tumblr account. She's dated a younger person, age 14 while being 17, and spreads malicious rumors about those who reject her advances. Not only did she label a 13 year old as her “master,” but she also resorted to misogynistic name calling a friend of mine.

My experience with Kitty is pretty limited because when I was active in the Ranfren fandom she had me blocked. Not exactly sure why since I had never interacted with her once. Her ex-boyfriend (I forgot his name but his URL was 'Rabiesivory' I think at the time) and I were mutuals. When he had first followed me, I had "MINORS DNI" in both my bio and pinned post. Since he followed me and was reblogging content marked with the "18+ content filter" I had assumed he was of age (he probably lied about his age while registering so he could have access to 18+ posts). I later found out that he was a minor (14 years old), and I ended up blocking him due to this. I was unaware that he was a child because he was not forthcoming with his age. Later on, someone had informed me that Kitty had just turned 17/18 (I forget which one it was but IIRC she is actually 18 IRL) and was still dating this 14 year old boy. My main issue with Kitty is that she is a massive hypocrite and tries to constantly manufacture drama. She has accused me of things I did not do, and has tried to send her friends and followers to harass me. She also is a self-identified necrophile, and has posted about supporting illegal/immoral paraphilias & being a proshipper while simultaneously saying she "hates proshippers" and "doesn't want them to interact with [her]". She has also repeatedly made romantic advances towards non-consenting people. Kitty is a very dangerous person in the fandom, mostly because of her hypocritical nature & her insatiable thirst for drama. I would recommend avoiding her and people she associates with, because from my own experiences she will try to start drama with anyone and everyone over small, irrelevant things. She is also not above lying about things to make others look bad. I especially want to warn any minors in the fandom of her behavior since she is a known groomer and potential abuser.

This section was short, however most of the people above have the same problem with her.

Final one is Michael, this is the shortest section as most people don't know him very well.

My experience with Michael

Michael who was once a friend of my friend or is still a friend, I’m not sure…consistently harassed me and spoke poorly about me. He repeatedly called me a derogatory term because I wasn't online for a day. Even after my friend forgave me he refused to move past the situation, even though it wasn't a serious issue. He has connections with a lot of problematic individuals involved in the entire situation.

Well for starters He seems to enjoy mentioning how my parents like him better than me a lot, for no reason either, its something he likes to brag about a lot which has always annoyed me. In his pinned post where it says he has untreated bpd is a lie, he’s never gotten a diagnosis with bpd, he also shares things that no one needs to know, for example he’s stomped out a little toad before and wouldnt stop talking about it for a week like if it was the best thing he’s ever done.

Warning for transphobia below.

Green has informed me that minors can not be diagnosed with bpd due to puberty and hormonal changes.

I tried to get all of the relevant screenshots down, to avoid stress and harassment I will not be responding to any questions (maybe).

Please do not harass or go after anyone meantioned. Block and report.

[vetinarivimesy]

Kenobi-centric fic recs

Everything here will heavily feature Obi-Wan Kenobi in some fashion, and will vary wildly by ship, tone, and fic-type though I'll do my best to give little blurbs/not-too-spoilery summaries.

The fics range from gen to explicit, in some cases pre-date tagging ettiquette, and, no, no I have not re-read them all (ye gods have you seen the word counts).

In a few cases I'm basing my summaries on very hazy memory and I have a noted bad habit of skimming straight past explicit porn when I don't want to read it, then forgetting its there entirely - so caveat lector!

These are mostly fics that I currently mentally catalogue as Wonderful Obvious Obi-Wan Kenobi Goodness fics rather than expecting to dig up any obscure hidden gems. The list would probably look very different on a different day. It's far from comprehensive, and the categories are loose at best. But here it is!

I've been contemplating putting something like this together for a while but been a bit nervous of sticking my head up above the metaphorical parapet. As, follows my fave character around without caring overmuch about the ship trash, I've got quite a list of Star Wars fics inhaled/rediscovered.

(Wee bit too used to coming into very dead fandoms long after everyone's left, put the chairs up on the tables, the metaphorical lights have been turned off... and the not so metaphorical bills have stopped being paid. More than once I've stumbled into a wonderful old fandom fic archive only for it to vanish into, Only What Was Saved on the Internet Archive Remains status. Even when the archive isn't actually an ex-archive, many don't actually allow for interaction. Apologies to the authors I've never worked up the courage to comment on, this is an explanation not an excuse!)

Obi-Wan's apprenticeship fics:

Commander Kenobi - norcumi (complete, 9646 words)

Obi-Wan gets de-aged in the midst of battle. Cody gets to find out what teenaged Obi-Wan was like. Given Obi-Wan thinks he's fresh out of Melida-Daan, nothing like whatever Cody might have been expecting.

A Town Called Stagnation - deniigiq (complete, 33,000 words)

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan take a trip to Stewjon, to let Obi-Wan get in touch with his roots post the horrorshow of his early apprenticeship. Smalltown thinking and the trauma of recent events clash horribly for everyone involved.

Another brilliant author who's whole fic-output is well worth checking out. Their wry utterly charming character voices never fail to amuse, even when the POV character is one I'm currently in an... actually I wouldn't mind some bashing of this guy kinda mood. I draw amusement and sympathy for Qui-Gon's character in every single one of their immediately post-Melida Daan fics for context here, with my knowledge of that event thoroughly warped and contaminated by the current popular fanon take on the matter too.

Though more Cody-centric, and thus Clone Wars era, than anything parallelogram (Complete, 33,000 words) and they're neutral (complete, 9900 words) by the same author are also wonderful.

poisoned chalice - qigiined (Complete, 9900 words)

Another author with the wit and deftness of characterisation to make immediately-post-Melida-Daan Qui-Gon's POV both amusing and sympathetic. They've also got quite a few other gems!

Qui-Gon's very wry POV as he tries to navigate raising a very traumatised child, and appeasing his various lineage members.

through hardships to the stars - kivaember (WIP, 148,000 words)

Canon divergence where Obi-Wan's apprenticeship snafu on Melida-Daan went just that much worse than those Legends-were-never-technically-canon novels would have it.

As a result Obi-Wan and a very young Jango Fett end up on the run from a terrifying darksider, whilst Jaster Mereel and Feemor despearately try to catch up with the pair.

Little Lights Stories - ms_nawilla (WIP, 628,000 words)

Qui-Gon neglected too much of Obi-Wan's training, so Obi-Wan isn't immediately knighted post-Naboo despite saving Qui-Gon's life and defeating the Sith.

Anakin goes to the creche, Qui-Gon's in utter denial, and Obi-Wan begins the rocky process of finding his own feet post-Naboo, getting through the thorny process of working out who you are as your own person after living under someone else's oppressive shadow for far too long.

Super detailed epic detailing all sorts of wonderful possible jedi-culture headcanons, illuminated manuscripts! beer! force-manipulation games! communal caring! crystallography! sex ed! old-people's homes! the engineers! clerical branch! outreach via art! dance instruction! reincarnation! politics! spies! terrible james bond esque spy films to hide that the spies were really real! lightsaber classes! non-jedi temple residents! U and L leaning prejudice! Alderaan!

Just what would happen if Qui-Gon Jinn were exactly the sort of irresponsible unpleasant adult who should never ever be given a child a lot of fandom suspects he is. His implied treatment of Obi-Wan here can be fairly harrowing, for all that its emotional neglect rather than anything graphic.

The jedi are never depicted as anything less than trying their best, unfortunately no matter how thorough the system tries to be, sometimes people do just fall through the cracks. As was v.nearly the case for Obi-Wan in this verse.

Mostly character driven, though the hints of the greater plot bubbling away underneath all of this glorious worldbuilding and character growth are both ominous and intriguing. The pairing is a hell of a spoiler, but also one that could potentially be a bit of a squick, I don't want to spoil the slowburn of this thing but I do want to give fair warning. Does tumblr offer spoiler tags?

Preventing Order 66 fics:

When Duty is Done - thosenearandfarwars (WIP, 257,000 words)

Wonderful long-form piece - technically a WIP but all installments so far are complete - a what happens next post-Palp's getting his comeuppance, messily. Features Codywan, grief, internalised ableism, jedi order reforming in a very nuanced 'we were this close to the brink' and lost so many people to the war sense *not* the sneaky 'jedi-positive but actually bashing' sense.

Hell I wholeheartedly reccie just about everything this author's ever done tbh!

(This Too Was a Gift (Complete, 69,000 words) is also utterly wonderfully done, and a complete fic in a similar vein, albeit much more focused on the ramifications for individual characters than the ensemble cast of thousands that is Star Wars.)

I Got My Head Checked - frostbitebakery (Complete, 79,000 words)

Codywan Sith!Obi-Wan AU. Cody falls for the hot Sith in the next cell...

Light of the Mists- Snowy Egret Chimes of Kyber, Songs of Kyber, and Anthem of Kyber (Complete, 166,000 words)

This one technically also fits the Obi-Wan's apprenticeship category too. Bit of an epic of, what would happen if Obi-Wan never made it to Bandomeer, and instead trained under a force sect with rather different ideas about how things worked than the modern jedi order?

Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi - stonefreeak (WIP, 113,000 words)

Wonderful crackfic premise done mostly seriously. (WIP)

By an extremely obscure bit of Senate Legalise, Obi-Wan finds himself thrust into the role of Supreme Chancellor. Palpatine is furious.

How A Romance Novel Saved The Galaxy - Ariana Deralte (WIP, 184,000 words)

The galaxy takes a left turn when a popular novel takes the world by storm, and the Jedi and Mandalorians mutually discover their two cultures aren't so different after all...

sanguine - glimmerglanger (complete, 158,000 words)

In which Obi-Wan being a vampire, with all the nasty prejudices that come with being a non-human in the GFFA, somehow saves the galaxy.

Just Go Kill Palpatine - nevertheless_turtle (WIP, 6662 words though this is likely an underestimate due to formatting of a wonderful epistolary/OutsiderPOV social-media-centric chapter)

Just as the title says. Obi-Wan goes and attempts to do just that. Wonderful and hilarious.

The More I Live the More I See this Life is Not About Me - K_R_Closson

Another de-aged Obi-Wan fic. In which post-Melida-Daan suspicious of everyone and everything Kenobi somehow fixes things. Everyone around Obi-Wan is suitably horrified by the news of just what his apprenticeship under Qui-Gon entailed.

Not Quite Sure How to Catergorise these...

This category is the equivalent of the draw marked 'misc.' sorry! Mostly a mix of action/adventure stuff and fics I suspect will turn into, and they prevented order 66 fix-its, but maybe not, with some other truly misc. things thrown in.

backdrop - esama (Complete, 2300 words)

Short and sweet self-contained little tale. Very succinct, but what the author does with those words...

Gunslinger's Paean - Idiot's Array + Homeworld Elegy - Ashcroft_Writes (WIP, 299,000 words)

Epic, what if Obi-Wan post-Rako Hardeen paired up with Cad Bane action adventure tale. Mistrust. Violence. Gunslinging. Espionage. Murder attempts galore!

We Brothers, We Sisters, We Vod'e Few - infinitecompositions(WIP, 322,000 words)

Hell of a fic. WIP. What if canon were to take just a step to the left... Post-Naboo Obi-Wan finds himself recruited for the Shadows branch of the jedi order...

Another epic, cough, can you tell what style I like yet? Uh, starts off as a bit of a dark action adventure romp, rapidly morphs into a detailed dissection of spy-craft, espionage, and galactic politics - but becomes no less tense for it.

Kneading - Threebea O (WIP, 79,000 words)

Manages the miraculous trick of being canon, whilst seeming to be a fluffy bakery AU for a significant chunk of the first few chapters.

Jango/Obi - Jango falls for a local baker whilst hanging out in small town with Boba. Increasingly important to the fate of the galaxy shenanigans inevitably ensue when aforementioned baker turns out to be Obi-Wan Kenobi undercover.

Be Your Love - glimmerglanger (complete, explicit, 9000 words)

I tend not to go for 'real world' AUs but this author's work is so very excellent that I'm reccieing this one - hell I think most of their work is well worth a look through, and every fic-genre they've attempted has proven very fun indeed.

Heed the tags. Explicit Codywan BDSM stuff contained within.

Wizard of the Jundland Wastes - phoenixyfriend (complete, 3200 words)

Obi-Wan on Tatooine, outsiderPOV.

One of many wonderful Star Wars fics this author has written. If this one doesn't catch your fancy, one of their many delightful utterly bizarre premise taken to logical conclusion fics probably will.

Father of the Year (Not) - phoenixyfriend (complete, 2430 words)

Obi-Wan and Jango find out they're each other's soulmates. Mostly they're furious.

Wonderful very pointed skewering of all the usual soulmate and Jango is actually a decent dude tendencies in fic-writing.

Time Travel fics:

I thought I fought this war alone - stonefreeak (Complete, 3783 words)

Wonderful short and sweet Obi-Wan time travelling to his padawan days fix-it.

this is unexpected - MarbleGlove (Complete, 4461 words)

Very succinct and perfect with it time travel what if. Old Ben Kenobi goes back in time and immediately ruins Palpatine's day.

This author tends to be delightful no matter the fandom.

The Sun Swings East - kj_feybarn (Complete, 33,000 words)

Brilliantly done timeloop story of woe and hope. As much about recovery as the initial plot-driven despair. Mind the tags, Obi-Wan is understandably severely depressed throughout much of this fic.

The Making of Mavericks - AppoApples (complete, 146,000 words)

It was extremely difficult to choose just the one time travel fic from this author. Their output is wonderfully varied, don't like their particular take on the Jedi Order and/or the Mandalorians in this fic? Pick another, and odds are they'll have explored the concept from precisely the opposite angle.

This author has a wonderful exploratory sense of, okay okay, so how do we fix this thing/how do we make it worse?

In this case, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Cody, and Rex time travel to the past. This creates broad sweeping changes to the timeline, not always for the better.

The Desert Storm (complete, 1,144,599 words) & Rise and Fall series (WIP, 396,000 words) - Blue_Sunshine (WIP)

Wonderful epic-length time-travel fic. Highly recommended. Technically a WIP, but what there is already is well worth the time.

Ben Kenobi, now Nasaade, in utter furious despair finds himself back in time, pre, well, everything. He decides to take matters into his own hands and change things.

Gorgeous character-work, where by the end of the piece the characters are all in very different places than where they started out. And you utterly believe the growth (positive and negative) that got them there.

Draws from both legends and canon in a bit of a hodgepodge approach - despite drawing from a few of the more leaning towards the jedi were the bad guys sources in legends, impressively manages to tread a nuanced stance on, okay so what if the jedi and mandalorians did decide to start reforming in the face of this grave existential threat that's been brought to their attention?

Wonderful utterly enviable pacing - I know this one's extremely long. But at no point do you ever feel/notice the length when reading this thing.

It Was Another Time and I Another Man - Pell_Binterhol (WIP, 196,000 words)

Multiple Kenobis time travelling. Absolute chaos for absolutely everyone else; fellow time travellers, fellow Kenobis, and plotting Sith alike.

the massive machinery of hope - Killbothtwins (Complete, 150,000 words)

Obi-Wan travels back to his padawan days and annoys everyone else into helping him save the day. Wonderful sense of wry humour throughout this fic.

Living Memory - elsa3beth (WIP, 363,000 words)

Epic very detailed wonderful fic detailing just what General Kenobi would do if he had to fight the war again.

Deals with just what could happen if Anakin had ever had to face his fellow jedi with even a few of his flaws laid bare, and the fallout.

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan, just barely managing to hold himself together, fresh out of the middle of his exile to Tatooine, is desperately playing four-dimensional chess against Palpatine and trying to use the awful structure of the Republic's Army to save both the Jedi and the Clones.

The 212th Attack Battalion's Guide to Saving the Galaxy by Accident - antigrav_vector & quarra (WIP, 783,000 words)

Long, character driven fic that's an incredibly fun take on just what might happen if Obi-Wan and a bunch of Ghost Company stumbled into Jaster Mereel's True Mandalorians and get themselves adopted. Heed the tags wrt pairings!

All the complications that come from being an adult stuck as an apparent child ensue. From being squicked out about being a kid again, to having other people being concerned that a kid is behaving like an adult, to just... time travel complications, kidnapping, force esoterica, and fighting a small war.

Plenty of Jedi thoughtfully staring at this strange miniature jedi master, lots of Mandalorians being both stunned and horrified by these tiny soldiers, and Dooku/Sifo-Dyas being a surprisingly lovely central pairing.

Not Qui-Gon friendly in the least, and in this verse you can't help but feel he very much deserves it.

Suicidal Misunderstandings - nevertheless_turtle (WIP, 67,000 words)

Obi-Wan spends much of this fic convinced he's hallucinating and on a bad spice-trip. The trigger warning is very much in the name here.

That said, wonderful, often hilarious time travelling Obi-Wan fic, as the jedi desperately try to work out 1) what's wrong with Obi-Wan, and 2) how to stop Palpatine.

Re-Entry (Complete, 568,000 words) and Re-Entry Journey of the Whills (WIP, 889,000 words) - flamethrower

Fair warning, might turn into a deadlink fairly soon. The author's stuff is in the process of being transferred to another archive. Not a big deal (though fandom being a collective arse is, ffs), as with many older fics this one has moved home fairly often! (Squidgeworld.)

Wonderful absolute epic time travelling Obi-Wan Kenobi fic. Even if you're not a fan of the central Qui/Obi pairing it's written from a very believable perspective, of you can see precisely how these two adults got there, and an extremely enjoyable read with it.

Starts off as a fairly character-driven piece, as the plot slowly builds into something extremely ominous indeed, though once the plot momentum gets going ye gods it gets going.

Another case of technically a series that's a WIP, but every individual story that's up is complete and a satisfying individual whole.

Filled with all the things I love in a Star Wars fic, Obi-Wan getting to be awesome, force esoterica, Obi-Wan getting to be a little shit, plotty plot, the jedi getting to be nuanced and awesome, canon and fanon star wars lore all over the place, and plenty of action adventure and gorgeous character work.

I don't want to go into too much spoilery detail here, but suffice it to say this one is a classic in the fandom for a reason, and deservedly so.

Warning that the dark stuff in this fic can get dark, the level of whump Obi-Wan endures goes all the way up to extremely creepy Palpatine-torture on par with the Ventress/Sith-mask/Alpha-17 situation. It's never gratuitous with it, but in places this fic is explicit, at turns in both the fun porny way and the whump sense.

Star Wars crossovers and fusions:

Alas this section will be shorter than I'd like it to be - unlike a lot of other sci-fi fandoms Star Wars fandom seems to shy away from crossover fic by and large. There's both less of it, and what there is seems to get a hell of a lot less interaction than it would in a different fandom. Not guilt-tripping, again, I am very very guilty of failing to interact myself, just a weird, 'huh, where are all the crossovers?' thing I've noticed.

Rouge Handed - nevertheless_turtle (complete, 2190 words)

As the name hopefully implies this one's kinda sorta a Moulin Rouge crossover. Ish. In that it's firmly set wholly in the GFFA.

Delightful little crackfic.

The weeping stone - Gabriel4Sam (complete, 6965 words)

A wonderful crossover with The Mummy that somehow manages to thread the needle, hitting the humorous tone of those films perfectly whilst simultaneously making you feel very sad indeed for Obi-Wan.

A Star to Steer By - dogmatix, norcumi (first fic in the series is complete, second a WIP, 109,000 words)

Absolutely wonderful Stargate crossover/fusion - it somehow manages to be both a crossover and a fusion at once.

Largely told from Jack's POV, the Jedi are symbionts, with all the misunderstandings that would imply, given the SGC are much more used to dealing with malevolent parasitic Goa'uld than benevolent symbiosis.

Lost Jedi - Augusta Pembroke (complete)

A Velvet Goldmine crossover fic. Curt Wild meets Qui-Gon Jinn, and things get complicated. Qui/Curt with implied unfulfilled Qui/Obi feelings.

All the unhealthy messy relationship stuff the Velvet Goldmine tag and the age of the fic implies is probably present and correct here.

Qui-Gon ends trapped on the wrong side of the galaxy, he finds Curt who's force sensitive, and trains him to help him get back home to Obi-Wan... Things get messy.

Snow and Cinder - MrsHamill (explicit, complete, 16,000 words)

The pre-requisite wonderfully done Highlander/Methos crossover fic. Obi-Wan hangs out with the ROG for a while post-Naboo in a bid to get over a falling out with Qui-Gon Jinn and work through his own messy feelings on the matter. The main pairing is Qui/Obi as many older Master&Apprentice archive era fics are.

All you really need to know about Methos is he's very old, and very cynical. He's literally seen and done it all.

This one doesn't fall into the all too easy to fall into trap of having Methos, understandably an extremely old and cunning immortal being so much better at anything and everything than everyone else around him that it stops being fun and starts bashing the other-verse in the crossover, for which I'm extremely grateful. It's a difficult balance to tread and this author manages it wonderfully. (I say this from first-hand, I have tried and failed to airdrop this character into other sci-fi fandoms you'd think he'd work well in, fic-author perspective rather than as a crit of anyone else's work!)

Look at the publishing dates please.

A few of these fics pre-date Attack of the Clones. They were written in the 90s.

If I find out someone's been bashing an author for outdated terminology or characterisation or for not using the current 2022 language, or a character the fic pre-dates in a fic they've not looked at for over twenty years, or how they wrote the central pairing in the era when the punchline to every single joke in Hollywood was 'haha they're gay!' I... Well... I won't be writing another one of these rec lists. Which isn't much of a threat I realise, but please, be civil.

I could probably easily fill a couple more of these lists tbh, and get more specific with it genre-wise... But as a general, here's a few fics I remember fondly often. I can feel myself getting neurotically 'this has to be perfect' at this thing, so, this'll do for now.

[naomihatake]

Nanami Kento headcanons #1

Summary: random Nanami headcanons, general personality traits I observed and demeanor. I might elaborate later on some of those.

TW: none, I guess?

︴He definitely has a hard shell. Genuinely, he has a stoic and low key shell rather than a cold one. He just seems unbothered and annoyed at the same time.

︴He's kinda sassy and blunt as fuck, but his comments are only for the best unless he's genuinely mad. He adores discipline and having plans for his next day, so he probably gets quite grumpy when it comes to unplanned things. Less grumpy when it's about a mission because he got used to how unexpected those are.

︴I see him as selfless. A bit too selfless even. He wouldn't let anyone die on his watch even if it costs his life (we're all crying about this one, I know)

︴I wonder if he has a hard time accepting his wrongdoings. And by that, I mean he has a hard time with himself rather than being unable of apologizing. I think he's very harsh on himself and he doesn't forgive himself easily. At the same time, I see him as someone who doesn't regret much. Those two sides of him depend on the context, most probably.

︴He cares more than he lets you see. And he's the type to believe in actions more than words and he follows that belief himself. He's the type to show more through actions than words and he tries his best to keep his promises. Is it even necessary to mention he doesn't make promises unless he's sure he can keep them?

︴His toxic trait is probably being so hard on himself he tends to avoid people thinking he's doing them a favor. However, I don't think this happens everytime. He has to go through really hard times and he doesn't forgive himself at all when he's on a mission with someone and they get badly injured.

︴He's honest. He's honest and very sincere and his bluntness probably makes him look cold, emotionless. He feels so much more than he lets be seen.

︴When he's close to someone, be it a friend or a partner, he's most likely softer. So much softer and his sincerity cannot only be heard, but seen on his features, in his eyes. He tries to mold his bluntness into positive criticism more, especially when it's about people he cares for, the ones he empathizes with.

︴He doesn't settle for less than he thinks he should receive because he gives everything, but he does feel guilty if shit goes down in any kind of relationship. He doesn't settle for less, but he doesn't wish for the moon either. It's kind of balanced, if you get what I mean?

︴If he's hurt, he tries to play it cool and take care of it by himself. He'd try to hide his pain, be it physical or emotional, but he wouldn't get mad if someone tries to help. He might say things that seem harsh, but if you'd look up at him as you help, he'd have such a soft gaze. He's genuinely grateful for help, even if he doesn't accept it at first.

︴He puts too much responsibility on his own shoulders, reason why he most probably doesn't want to become a sensei for young sorcerers. He'd burden himself with so much and he's sure there are people much better at this job, even if he can explain well. He's a good mentor, he'd be a great sensei. However, he swears up an down about how he wouldn't ever become a teacher.

︴He remains a kind person, despite what he seems to be. He's kind and if he'd get born into another life, he'd choose a universe without curses and the burdens he has to carry because of situations in the past he calls "mistakes". Once again, he puts so much on his own shoulders when no one asks him to. He's hard on others, but most importantly, he's hard on himself.

︴He's not optimistic or pessimistic most of the time. He's realistic and realism sometimes appears like pessimism to other people. He's able to read both the good and the bad part from a situation and to put into words. His way of talking/communicating makes it seem like it, but he's just realistic. He used to be very pessimistic as a teenager from what I gathered. He matured over the years and now sees everything from many other perspectives.

︴He's very good at communicating. If the conversation or the group of people he's with feels worth it, he definitely talks. And he's a smooth talker as well.

︴He doesn't let anyone walk over him. He'd be passive aggressive while also casually pointing out they're being an idiot. (I live for savage Nanami)

︴He hates when people disrespect others and ranks and the way sorcerers' grading is viewed is very annoying to him, most probably. In his eyes everyone has potential, in a way or another.

︴He's definitely sorry for the way those kids and teenagers have to just accept being sacrifices. And he'll protect them no matter what it takes because he's been there as well and he wishes he can give them better than what he's experienced as a young sorcerer.

︴"He returned to being a sorcerer from the life of a salaryman because he never felt truly appreciated and didn't believe his work had any significant impact on anyone. In contrast, work as a sorcerer allowed him to build up small bits of appreciation from innocent people. For Nanami, this was more than enough to allow him to live without regrets" — That's what Jujutsu Kaisen Wiki says about him and I couldn't find better words to explain this

[ozzgin]

Dear Ozzgin,

I am currently in the process of working on the Ozz Harem narrative, a project I have not previously undertaken. After dedicating several arduous days to research and study, I am pleased to report that I have managed to grasp some key elements necessary to initiate this storytelling endeavor. However, it is worth noting that this may be a narrative that initially falters before gradually improving.

On a separate note, I recently acquired a new personal computer, which unfortunately resulted in the loss of all the Sims characters I had previously created. This has left me feeling quite disheartened. While I intend to redownload all of my custom content, I cannot predict when I will muster the energy to do so, as my motivation has been significantly diminished.

In more positive news, I had the opportunity to view the 'Amnesia: The Dark Descent' edit that you produced. Though I may not excel at providing feedback, I am eager to experiment with creating posters once again. I hope that you find them satisfactory, and if not, please do not hesitate to express any criticisms so that I may refine or reconstruct them accordingly.

How have you been? It has been some time since our last correspondence, and I offer my apologies for my extended absence. The demands of life can often become overwhelming and all-consuming. I have noticed the expansion of your harem and trust that you are enjoying the experience. Your blog continues to captivate and amuse me, and I am grateful for your commitment to engaging with your audience.

Warm regards, Unicornymous

Dear Unicornymous,

Allow me to start by praising your work, as it’s the very first detail that catches my eye. You have put all my previous text edits to shame. Not only have you followed the game aesthetic masterfully, but the choice of fonts is just flawless. Had I not known the context of the image, I would’ve assumed it to be an official dungeon game. This is clearly the hand of someone with digital design knowledge and an instinct for aesthetic. You have my compliments.

I am saddened to hear about the loss of your saved files. I personally keep a (periodically updated) copy of my Sims folder, with all the data, in a safe place to be transferred in the case of crashes/errors/new devices. Perhaps it is something you can consider in the future, to save yourself the grief of lost progress. I suspect it is a shared feeling among simmers.

You do not have to apologize for your absence, I will always appreciate your correspondence regardless of its regularity. Your own well-being in daily life should remain your top priority.

Lastly, it is I who should be thanking all the kind people reaching out to me, as there would be no conversation without the others’ input. I merely respond to the creativity and humor that is being offered, and for that I am grateful. I look forward to hearing more about your ongoing project, and - most importantly - I hope it brings you joy and entertainment.

Yours truly,

Ozzgin

[shadowshrike]

Early morning thoughts because I can't sleep (apologies if they're a mess):

Setting aside the obvious boost that comes from being a classically attractive wicked vampire elf with a beautiful voice, tragic backstory that is executed in a very real way, and entertaining manner of speech, I believe one of the reasons Astarion's stories get such a strong reaction from so many people is because his narrative has several distinct threads beyond the obvious. Each possible path presents different problems and perks with satisfying but contradictory conclusions - a brilliant trick of CYOA writing - and that dissonance is part of what causes so much fandom fighting. We each value different things based on our life experiences or just what we enjoy in a story. It inspires visceral reactions from the player.

Value honesty in your friends, your own safety, and consent above all else? He's probably not going to spend long in your camp without a stake in him.

Value bodily autonomy, absolute freedom of choice, and the ability to speak freely without fear of repercussion? Ascension might make the most sense for you.

Value the emotional healing process, the hope of becoming a better person, and learning to accept and move on from a crappy life rather than doing 'whatever it takes' to get what you deserve? Him staying a spawn is likely the most satisfying choice.

Of course, we all exist on a sliding scale of values, especially when playing with fiction. People who value honesty or consent highly may let him stick around because they hope he can learn to be better. Someone who values absolute bodily autonomy and confident speech may choose to have him remain a spawn because they believe with time and some DnD magic to cure vampirism, he can reclaim those things eventually a healthier way. People who believe in the emotional healing process and becoming a better person might even go for ascension because they believe his ability to walk in the sun and speak his mind bluntly are essential for him to heal rather than be dependent on others in the long run.

This sliding scale is also part of why people fight. Throwing him out or killing him for attacking or biting you is seen as an overreaction from someone who has a higher tolerance for boundary pushing. Ascending him is equated with irrevocably dooming him for those who want to change his view of the world (and himself) for the better and believe ascension will inevitably lead to abuse of his paramour and whatever spawn he creates. And keeping him as a spawn can feel to some like you're like taking away his freedom so completely by refusing what he wants and forcing him back into shadow that you've trapped him in a new, 'nicer' but similarly insidious cycle of abuse with a "savior" figure that he isn't emotionally mature enough to recognize as controlling his life.

It's all very relative, and that's what makes it fun. Players reacting to Astarion's approvals/disapprovals, following a romance vs non-romance narrative, knowledge of 5e lore, and having a strong versus weak relationship with him can all drastically change the experience of his story. And with open endings, it's easy to tidy up any values that might be important to us but underrepresented in Astarion's fate. I think that's actually a huge strength to his story: we don't know if he gets better or worse when he survives to the end and you make that Good or Evil choice. We can guess based on contextual clues, our biases, and in-game lore. But ultimately, you get to choose for yourself whatever future you like best, even if that's him leaving the party.

So for those who can stomach all the paths and enjoy a bit of literary exploration of competing narratives, I highly recommend you try all the different options for Astarion (and the other companions, but especially him) rather than sticking with one. You'll need unique playthroughs for context, but it's so worth it. The writing and acting have phenomenal breadth with tons of subtle shifts that can happen depending on what you choose.

Just please don't harass your fellow players or Larian employees about whatever preferences you have in the end, okay?

[puella-1n-somn10]

🍁🍂 Fortress Magica [ A TF2 / PMMM AU Concept ] 🍂🍁

...Welp; I caved. Someone had to make a Team Fortress 2/Puella Magi Madoka Magica crossover someday, and that someone had to be me. The brain maggots worms were too strong.

So, before I open this can of concentrated ramblings and bullshit, I do have to write down out the groundworks of this AU in order for it to make sense in the context of both universes and to make it easier for both myself and my remaining sanity left. As such, the rules are as follows:

Outside the help of incubators, humans are still able to gain magical abilities from other sources, so Merasmus and the Bombinomicon aren't necessarily connected to Kyubey and the likes. Akin to the elements of the air we breathe in, however, they all function under the same label of what we deem as "magical", so these different systems of magic do tend to coincide with one another.

Girls are not the only ones who are able to contract with Kyubey, though they are the most common demographic. I have a long-ass rant on why I chose to say "fuck canon" on these grounds, but now is not the time for it.

The history and worldbuilding of Team Fortress 2 stay mostly the same; the Blu vs. Red team, Grey Mann taking over, Australium, Saxton Hale- all the likes, baby.

Since we were not given the definitive end of the comics, I'll leave it up to ya'll on whether the AU takes place after Saxton takes over Mann Co. and diverges the timeline from there, or that, somehow, everything was back to normal after that cliffhanger of an ending is all up to you. This WILL be important later down the line, especially when we get to Medic's part.

I will be referring to the masculine individuals who have contracted Kyubey as either Puer Magi or Mahou Otoko (Magical Man), the masculine version of Witches are called Hellerunes, and the plural version of those who have contracted are Magicae. If there are any errors with these decisions, please PLEASE lmk so I can correct them accordingly.

Building upon the above point, a Puer Magi's equivalent to a Witch's Kiss would a Hellerune's Touch; both being common types of love languages that have been twisted for the purpose of causing despair amongst mankind.

Ah, now that we got all that out of the way, I also need to point out that I, admittedly, have no clue on what I should do with Sniper, Soldier and Engineer; I still need to look up the foremost former's lore and character writing, Soldier's a wild card, and we weren't given a lot of info about Engi. On top of that, be prepared to realize that some sections are WAY longer than the others; I am still catching up on TF2 lore and the comics, so I apologize in advance for missing info, apparent character favoritism, etc.

Lastly, if you guys have your own tips, interpretations, or even whole-ass AUs surrounding the topic, please do share them!! I really wanna know and see ya'll's takes on a PMMM AU- it's so fun!

And with all that said and done, let's get down to the meat and potatoes of this topic, starting with....

--

Scout

Ah, the literal gift from God to straight ladies everywhere, and, no, that is not hyperbole. With a fate like that, a backstory of being the underdog amongst his family, and familiarity with bloodshed, you bet your ass that his karmic potential would be off the charts; possibly moreso than either Tart's or MADOKA'S.

When you look at his character, it becomes increasingly evident that he is prime candidate for being a Magi; outside his karmic destiny, he is the most, let's say, volatile of the mercenaries- the most likely to actually burn himself out due to sheer cockiness and pride alone - one second he believes that his soul gem is fine and dandy, then the next he sees how dark it became and goes "oh shit" -.

This is also without mentioning the potential reason why he would contract in the first place; deep beneath his egotistical exterior, you can see that he wants to keep bettering himself- to get stronger and faster, and for what? Well, either to impress the dames, or to protect his mama. After all, we all know that the "disappearance" of his father is such a painful memory to him that he dropped the tough guy act just to tell Heavy that he would rather not talk about it, period. So his wish would be related to wanting to keep his family safe- by becoming stronger.

--

Spy

Now you see him, and now you don't. We don't know much about the Spy outside of the barebones, evident details; he hailed from France, possesses technology that allows him to become invisible at will, is able to seamlessly, successfully disguise himself as any person in mind, and is Scout's mom's...buddy. True to his profession, the Spy is an enigma through and through, so the difficulty of properly placing him in this jigsaw puzzle of a universe is inevitable....

or is it? In the Naked and the Dead comic, he's disguised himself as Tom Hones in order to make sure Scout passes on peacefully, and admits to having hooked up with his mother- and conceiving him as result. As Scout closed his eyes, Spy reverts back to his real form, telling him how he was so proud of him- his own son.

A traumatic disappearance, immense karmic potential, the themes of gifts, and the spy's ability to be a literal chameleon...

Now, personally, I am unsure about Spy's wish that not only ties into his traumatic disappearance and Scout outright refusing to talk about it, but it should be tied to his canonical powers- whether it's his ability to turn invisible, him being a master of disguise, or both. I'd also wager that he's a veteran Puer Magi- and, as we all know, a magi gets weaker the older they get (the witch Roberta is one such example), so, over time, he's begun relying more on his intellect and deception than raw strength alone in order to win a fight.

--

Demoman:

He can see the Incubators even to this day. He claims to have killed the Loch Ness Monster. He has a possessed eye socket. The Eyelander is a sentient weapon, so you bet your ass he knows most of the rudimentary details about magic-

He is not a Puer Magi.

After he had lost one of his eyes and was returned to his biological family after accidentally killing his adoptive ones, a deep pit in his heart was formed and hollowed him out- from the expectations of him parents to the traumatic incident causing his eye to be removed, he was aimless, and, soon, fell into the hands of a witch-

Yes, yes, I know that this is similar to how Madoka met Homura, but remember: he had at least some skills as a demolitions expert at that time, on top of the whole possessed eye socket thing (which may or may not have a certain effect when wandering through witch domains). This is Tavish fucking Degroot we are talking about, so, even as a wee tot and influenced by a witch's kiss, you bet he's managed to blow that witch into smithereens right before whatever group of Magicae got to it. If Homura was able to do it with non-magical weapons, so could the iron-willed Tavish.

(either that, or he did get saved by a bunch of Magicae- it all depends on your interpretations, and I personally wanted throw him a bone here)

As the barrier dissipated, a grief seed slowly fell from the sky nearby the exhausted child. Whether he was curious as to what it was or saw it as once of his very first spoils of way, he took it. Whatever research a child like him at the time was able to do yielded barebones results; ranging from only talk and scraps regarding unresolved tragedies, to the unexplained runes that he was sure he's seen in that barrier.

So many threads, but very little leads - if any -. Tavish looked at the grief seed in his hands...

If he was going to get some answers, he was gonna hunt them down himself.

It wasn't tough to find another witch- or, rather, it was no challenge for another witch to come his way; with his eyesocket and that grief seed in his hands combined, he's practically become a magnet for all things magical. This time, however, Tavish was more than prepared if things got too nasty...and he wasn't alone in the hunt-

In the midst of debris and shifting magic, the silhouettes of multiple Magicae - and an odd, mishappen fox thing - came into view. Both sides had their fair share of questions; the context and absurdity of it all on Tavish's side, and the inherent impossibility of an ordinary human being able to take down a witch on that of the veteran magical people. Considering the pros and cons, the group made an alliance with the young boy, as an ever-curious Kyubey looks on- intrigues by Tavish's peculiar abilities.

Over time, the young lad and the veteran magicae grew closer, even if it was still odd to them that Tavish didn't contract. It wasn't that he didn't want to be a magical boy - he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious over the idea of having any wish he desires come true, and he was damn close to contracting several times, too -, yet experience with magical artifacts have left a sour taste in his mouth, so he had his suspicions. He'd wave his hand at the ferret thing and say "Probably another time."

Despite the apparent ups of the Magicae life, there were also the many downs in this rollercoaster. Though he was closer to the sidelines, Tavish was able to witness all the downfalls that come with this duty of becoming bound by Kyubey's sick rules.

By the time he was a teenager, the last member of their group fell - shattered their own soul gem in order to spare themselves the inevitability of becoming a witch -, and all he was able to do was...walk away with their body in his arms between tears; a noble person like them deserved a proper burial.

Without much consideration into his emotional strife, Kyubey inquired the demolitions expert whether or not he considered bringing the team back. He had all these chances to change all this handed to him on a silver platter, and he almost caved in numerous times - whether from guilt or the pressure from his "teammates" -; so why the hesitation? It wasn't as if he didn't need any additional magical abilities- so why couldn't he help his friends?

Help? Help them by bringing them back into this shithole of a life they fell into? A vicious cycle of betrayal, backstabbing, and inhumanity?

What befell each and every one of them was terrible, but it was outright selfish if he were to "save" them by dragging them into this endless samsara of horror.

Bitterly, the Scot scoffed at the alien beneath his feet.

"If I've got one wish..."

SQUASH

"Then I'd wish for ya to go back to whatever hell ya came from."

Nowadays, outside of his experience working with the Magicae and his knowledge of the incubators, he is still our lovable, honorable, sword-wielding drunkard. He eventually joined Mann Co. participated in the Gravel War, and the rest was history. The lives of the mercenaries were on the way of reaching a familiar beat and tune they were all comfortable with...

That was, until his eye caught the glimpse of something fuzzy and white.

His blood ran cold- and he was damn sure it wasn't the alcohol poisoning his senses this time.

--

Medic

(TW: mentions of Antisemitism, N-zis, unsanitary topics)

"It's the sound of progress, mein friend."

Our lovable quack doctor himself. Much like Spy and Pyro, we weren't given much information surrounding his backstory aside from his dialogue in Meet the Medic - in which he reveals that he has stolen a patient's bones and had his medical license revoked - and the subtle yet shockingly plentiful nudges towards his Jewish heritage and the, uh, considering the time period, he's had to escape his home in Germany due to All ThatTM. Yes, he has little to no respect for the hippocratic oath and the human dignity, but one can't help but wonder whether or not his apparent insanity did come from somewhere.

So, where can we go with the Medic? You remember when I said that the timeline will affect how we're gonna go with him? Because we are going the Hellerune route 100%.

Medic's obsession with his sick idea of "medicine", studies, and experiments will be his downfall, and I believe his wish has something to do with his advanced surgical techniques. After all, he's managed to fully heal Soldier without having to separate the blood types and by using his fucking underwear to get all the blood in the first place. It wouldn't be a stretch to already call him a witch in human form, not only due to said obsession, but also the fact that he has 8 souls sewn into himself sans his own.

Here's where the problem with the timelines starts to show; I am personally of the opinion that the souls Medic has were that of the Classic team's, because, if it were his teammates' souls, then not only would that not make much sense chronologically, but Sniper and Scout would have been barred from Heaven had it been the case. After all, Medic did sell one of those souls to Satan just for his pen.

If we were to go with the Saxton timeline, then the souls must have come from someplace else- since we also need a valid reason for Kyubey to target Scout; it wouldn't be in his best interest to target someone who is running around without said soul, after all.

So why am I blabbering on about the whole soul deal? Because, my dear friends, not only will they boost his Hellerune's powers - if we're going by the logic that the reason why Walpurgis is so stupidly powerful is because she's a fusion of several other witches herself -, but they'd also influence one set of his familiars.

Yes, I am aware that a witch's familiars are reflective of the witch's inner thoughts, their desires, and even goals; while Oktavia's Holgers exist solely to provide music for her, the Clara Dolls openly mock and berate Homulilly as she endlessly marches on towards her death sentence.

HOWEVER-

Holger was not Oktavia's only familiar throughout the timelines Homura went through; the first time she's ever seen Sayaka become a witch, the familiars that Oktavia had manifested in that timeline were the Klarissas, who were tasked to dance behind the witch as she focused on defeating the magical girls in her sights without giving a care for their wellbeing. Do take note that Holger and Klarissa both represent the two individuals who have aided in Sayaka's descent into despair; Kyosuke and Hitomi. Plus, let's not get into Walpurgisnacht's familiars, especially in the manga.

Besides, even if that wasn't the case, the souls have to manifest in some way. So whether his Hellerune's familiars look like random patients or the Classic team heavily depends on where this AU takes place in the TF2 comics' timeline. Either way, they ain't gonna be looking pretty.

Going back to Medic, I am certain that he seeked out the incubators himself; though his domain primarily focuses on human physiology, human experimentation and "medicine", he did showcase his fair share of intrigue towards magic whenever Merasmus is around, and even states that he has chosen the wrong field to study- that magic was the way to go. That's also without mentioning the wish-making aspect in all this- even if he would probably try and experiment on the incubator whenever he could, you bet that this would pique his interest from the get-go.

I'll be going by the possibility that Kyubey, whether prior to or during contracting, figured out that Medic had more than one soul within him- thus, multiple destinies. Status as a hivemind be damned, whatever Kyubey that Medic ran into hit the jackpot with that one.

Medic was already deep into immorality and obsession; while he would look for less-than-moral ways to keep his soul gem constantly functioning, all he'll be doing at this point was delay the inevitable- perhaps even unknowingly increasing his own karma in the process (whether or not this means even more souls being sewn into his system is up to ya'll). His fate was sealed as soon as his and the incubator's eyes met.

Aside from the familiars, the additional souls have also boosted his Hellerune's power and sentience- that, or it was his already-fleeting sanity that allowed him to stay aware in this new form. If Walpurgis achieved such strength via fusion, Medic was like this as soon as his Hellerune hatched.

His memories and moral standing as a Hellerune...wouldn't really change much. He's already caused more than enough despair as a human (just ask the classics and look at the money he blew just by siding with them /j); I bet he's still our old medic, just in a new body...and, boy, he's LOVING it.

And, yes, Archimedes would be another one of his familiars; he'll find a way to drag that bird into his barrier.

--

Pyro

So, remember when I said that though the kinds of magic Merasmus and Kyubey utilize are vastly different, they are still interlinked and are under one label? There are many a factors and intersections that come between these two systems, and, as we are going to dive into, Pyro is one of those links that tie them all together.

Depending on your own interpretation of Pyro, whether or not they are under Pyrovision 100% of the time, and how their Pyrovision manifests in the first place is all up to you. I will simply be talking about how this ties into the Madokaverse and try to make as much sense of it as I could, but, as I said earlier, I am all open for interpretations and suggestions.

You see, in this AU, Pyrovision kinda functions like the evert mechanic present in the game Eversion- that everything is somehow real and not just to Pyro; that Pyrovision is simply another "layer" or perspective of reality. As such, the logic of non-magi being unable to see witches, their familiars, or even the incubators does not apply to Pyro because their perception is vastly different from that of a common person.

Whether they've contracted or not and their perspective on the witches+familiars+kyubey+etc., again, it all falls on one's own interpretation of Pyro's character. I could start going on about mine, but that would lean too much into hc territories and this post was getting too long, anyway. ^^;

--

Heavy

Finally, we end it all with the big man himself, the face of Team Fortress 2; Mikhail. The stone-cold killing machine with a sound mind and soft soul (who else would willingly starve themselves just to keep animals alive? Much less personally name his own guns?).

Just like Scout, there are many a reasons as to why Heavy would be a target for contracting; much like Tavish, his backstory is riddled with tragedy- upon his father's death, Heavy, his mother, and his sisters were sent to the North Siberian Gulag due to said dad being a counter-revolutionist. They were there for 3 months, but it was still approximately 91 days of being trapped in a heartless, frozen hell- until a fire consumed the camp, the soldiers there perishing, and the prisoners - heavy and his family included - running free from the disaster.

A...frankly fucked up story so far, and let's not get into the implication that he might have had something to do with the burning of said gulag; that he risked his life for the chance of his younger sisters and mother to be set free. This speaks volumes of Heavy's role as a guardian figure to those around him, and as one of the most understanding and empathetic of the mercs next to Demoman and Engineer.

Above all else, the Heavy's duty revolves around the safety of his teammates, both during gameplay and in-lore. He values the lives of those around him, human or otherwise, and, like Tavish, has a sense of duty- in his case, it is towards his surviving family and the comrades of his team. What better wish would fit a giant like him than wishing to ensure the safe escape of his family and the other prisoners?

Yes, this does fit in rather well with the rules and present themes of karma and sacrifice PMMM is so well-known for. The contrast between his and Medic's destinies is evident; in which Heavy's empathy and the specifications of his wish have assisted in allowing him to live on for so long- to stay still and strong to keep on for his loved ones' sakes, while Medic's fervent fascination with his unorthodox experiments in the name of discovery, progress, and satiating his sick curiosity was eventually his downfall.

--

I wish I was able to write more here, I really do (especially Heavy's reaction to Medic witching out, and said Hellerune not only recognizing him but also calling out his name). Alas, it is 2 in the morning where I live atm, so I'll leave it all here for now. :'D Sorry!

[wheeler-things]

Mike Wheeler as a DM, and What D&D Says About Him As a Tactician and Broader Character

Okay, I need to talk about Mike Wheeler as the Party’s de facto DM because I have some thoughts.

So.

First of all, I want to point out that acting as the DM puts him in a really interesting position given that he’s also the leader of the group. Yes, the Party is a democracy, but when it really comes down to it, Mike’s word is law (which is partly why Max and Mike should be shown as friends in their own right, because Max will challenge Mike to his face without it having to be a Big Thing unless Mike makes it one/on the small stuff the others would just let go by to keep the peace, and vice versa Mike has no fear of sticking up to Max/fighting back against her, and both of them benefit from that).

We see this in s2, where on Halloween Dustin and Lucas both want Max to come, and they ask Will if he’s okay with it, and he says that he is, so Max comes along— but they don’t ask or even inform Mike. Even though they have the majority. When asked, Will says that he assumed Mike would be okay with it. Which either implies he knew Dustin and Lucas weren’t going to tell Mike and didn’t say anything himself because he thought he knew what Mike would say anyway/at least knew how Mike would feel after finding out (at least pre-s1 Mike), which then suggests that this was a plan to circumnavigate Mike specifically. Or it means that he believed Mike would be asked and would respond positively, which suggests that Mike usually gets the final say/gets asked and it’s unusual for Dustin and Lucas to go behind Mike’s back, still suggesting that Mike has the final say because Lucas and Dustin DIDN’T do that this time when they wanted it their way— and I really wish I knew which it is. But either way, the fact remains that if the Party is a democracy, and Mike is not the one calling the shots, then there was no reason not to go to Mike and let him have a vote in Max coming— with Will in agreement, the democracy has spoken. But we see later in s2 that actually, when Max wants to participate and Dustin and Lucas want her to participate, and Will is functionally abstaining from voting… Mike’s firm refusal (which, to be fair, in that moment is pretty reasonable since Mike knows involving Max would mean telling her about the UD at that point) translates into Dustin and Lucas meekly apologizing to Max, and the only reason Lucas decides to include Max later is because it comes down to following what Mike (and at that point the government) wants or losing any potential at being friends with Max. Because his relationship with Mike will survive, while his relationship with Max will not.

Also, I think is really interesting because the previous season he was the one claiming that Mike was going against the Party’s needs for some girl he just met (erroneously, we know as an audience— like, regardless of whether you believe Mike ever had feelings for El, Lucas’ belief that s1 Mike lost focus on Will/finding Will because he was mooning after El was wrong), in s2 it’s Lucas doing just that (and I’m NOT saying Lucas was necessarily wrong— I think he was in a complicated situation, and I don’t think there was a right answer, because there’s really no way to know whether Max would have been safer from the UD or not, had Lucas never told her). And then in s3, the “Mike mirrors Lucas” season (again, inarguably true that he’s doing that, whether you think he’s legitimately interested in being with El or not), he… finally puts El ahead of the Party in his order of importance until Will calls him out for it (it remains interesting to me that s1 Mike and Lucas basically have the same fight as s3 Mike and Will except that s3 Will is correct and also… the framing is so wildly different. But sure, I’m supposed to believe these are fights between Mike and two of his best friends who he feels equally platonically about). And this puts a lot of context onto why in s4, he seems to believe that Will having a girl he’s interested in means the end of their friendship (again, whether you read him as romantically jealous or not… all of this together IMPLIES that Will, in Mike’s mind, won’t care as much about Mike as soon as he gets a girlfriend, and he’s upset about it).

REGARDLESS of that tangent, my point is, Mike’s the leader. The Party’s a democracy when things are minor, but when the chips are down, Mike has final say, and we’ve seen this in practice all s1 and s2.

Which makes his role as the DM super fascinating, because the DM is not the leader in dnd. Obviously, they know where the story is going, but barring some very specific situations, any “leading” any DM does is in the form of character control— basically, either setting up situations where PCs choose to do what the DM wants them to in an organic way (a hard skill to master), or being skilled enough to work with a player’s choices to help direct them to the right place anyway, while respecting the player’s autonomy/character choices (which requires a deft touch so as not to make the players feel railroaded). Often, both of these require some level of cooperation on the players’ parts (ie. if your DM throws a plot hook your way, it’s usually polite to try and figure out a reason why your character would get involved with the plot hook/to have built a character who would get involved in plot hooks pretty reliably), but a DM leading the PCs would be bad at almost every table (though Mike also has a PC and I’m fascinated to know what the Party does with Mike’s Paladin when Mike’s DMing, so that he stays close enough to the Party’s collective levels in order that he doesn’t get totally bodied by enemies the others are strong enough to have a balanced fight against, the odd time when he’s a player and not a DM— I’m curious because there are totally multiple ways to do it).

And we know that Mike’s leadership carries over to the dnd table, because in s4, when Dustin is deciding whether to take the risk and go in to kill Vecna with Erica, he specifically turns to Mike and asks his opinion. I’ve talked before about how this illustrates the respect Dustin has for Mike as a tactician (which totally makes sense— Mike has similar respect for Dustin’s scientific findings/ideas which is why they work so well together), but I think it’s important to note that up until Dustin asks Mike’s opinions, everyone (sans Erica and Mike— yes, I do think it’s a really fun little detail in this scene that everyone was chanting “the the death”, but only the three who have ACTUALLY been involved in life or death battles/situations took the phrase literally) is arguing back, saying that it’s too much of a risk. But as soon as Dustin asks Mike’s opinion, and Mike deliberates then gives it, there are no more arguments from anyone. Even though all Mike really said was (paraphrased because I don’t remember the exact quote) “it’s risky as hell, you [and Erica] are the ones on the field/currently still active, so you guys have to make the call”. The implication of that being respected by the whole club (even those who haven’t faced death beside Mike), even though it’s not a new plan and doesn’t offer any new insight, is that the whole Hellfire Club respects Mike as a tactician enough to believe that if he thinks Erica and Dustin can do it, then it’s worth a try/there’s no further argument to be had.

Which! Says some insane things about Mike’s skills!! We talk all the time about how often Mike is right about his plans/leaps in logic about the supernatural stuff on the show, and there are a lot of reasons why that could be, but I think it’s important to note that he’s heavily implied to just be good at this stuff. Like. Will’s an artistic genius, Dustin’s a scientific genius, Robin describes her ears as “little geniuses” and backs it up so we can assume that she’s incredibly skilled as a musician, Nancy’s a savant with a gun in addition to being a genius researcher (“her shot in the dark was a bullseye”)— I could go on but my point is, all the kids/older teens have something that they’re really good at, where they excel, where they are a genius. And for Mike, that’s pretty clearly his ability as a tactician.

Which is an incredibly useful skill as a dnd player!! And it’s clear it’s something the Party is used to relying on irl! They generally listen to Mike when shit hits the fan and, more than that, we even see a hint of this in the first dnd game in s1e1. Mike’s introducing the Demogorgon, and Will asks “what is it”, looking straight at Mike, like he expects Mike to answer. Obviously as the DM Mike just smiles and looks away while the rest of the Party bickers, but the fact remains that it was Will’s first reaction, while caught up in the moment, to turn to Mike and ask his opinion… it says something about how the Party (and Will in particular) views Mike.

And frankly, we can see why in that session. Will’s tendency to freeze when under pressure is clear in that moment, and all Lucas and Dustin can do is bicker. Mike actually has to use some of his character control skills in having the Demogorgon move towards them (even though teeeechnically it’s Will’s turn and the Demogorgon shouldn’t be able to move in that turn, but I can let it slide because of what it tells us about Mike and because it could well be a house rule that if the Party is devolving into bickering, Mike can put the pressure on) in order to lead them into making a choice (Will picked Fireball when backed into a corner where he couldn’t just freeze, but Mike’s the one who technically broke the rules to put him in that corner in the first place and I’m choosing not to think of the implications of that because this is not a Mike and the Upside Down post, this is a Mike’s character post and I’m going to shove that thought aside and move on).

So, the fact that the Party allows Mike to DM most of the time implies a few things:

1) Probably nobody in the Party likes DMing all that much, or at the very least, Mike likes it enough to insist that he wants to do it. That’s actually pretty common. There’s a joke that if you DM once for your friends, you’ll be a DM for life for a reason. That’s because DMing is hard work, time consuming outside of sessions, and requires a lot of skills which are distinct from those required of regular players. It’s fun if you like it, but it’s not for everyone. However, Mike clearly enjoys DMing (we can see that in how he acts as a DM), and we can also assume that nobody else at the table LOVES doing it, because it would be very easy to set up a system where the Party members take turns DMing. This is what a lot of irl tables do. And it’s obvious that would be possible to figure out even with their extended campaign style of play, because Will seems to fill the role seamlessly in s3. And we see in s4 that Mike can and does also enjoy playing as a player, so it’s unlikely he would throw a fit if someone else wanted to DM. But this also implies…

2) Mike is a good enough DM that the Party likes his campaigns. Not just in concept (though that’s important, given that he seems to be plotting his own campaigns rather than using official/pre-made ones), but in execution as well. If they didn’t, either the Party wouldn’t have gotten into dnd as heavily as they did, or someone else would have stepped up to take over DMing at least on a rotating basis. Lucas and Dustin are unknowns, but Will, at the very least, is shown to be at least a competent DM and he seems to enjoy doing it (at least well enough to put energy into it/be willing to do it when Mike seems disinterested).

3) Mike is a good enough DM that the Party is willing to give up his skills as a tactician on their side in order to play his games regularly. Which. This is massive, because we know from everything I’ve outlined so far that he’s a good tactician.

But one other small moment that I think highlights this is the one time we see him acting as a player in s3. Firstly, he starts out acting disinterested (which we know is because of s3 Mike brain and not because he doesn’t like being a player, because he’s totally invested in Eddie’s campaign and lbr that point of that scene was “Mike’s acting weird and it’s hurting Will” not “Will’s not a very engaging DM”), and while he’s doing that, he asks Lucas what he should do. This is fun, because it parallels s1e1 Will asking the Party what he should do, except when Will asks it’s because he’s so invested in the game that he’s frozen (while Lucas has chosen the fight option and Dustin has functionally chosen the flight option— YES I think it’s significant that Dustin learns to fight instead of flee irl and then shows that growth in the final dnd battle of s1, and continues to do so in s4, yes I think this really impacts why Dustin is the Party member who has that final Moment with Eddie about choosing not to run away “this time”, yes it does add to why I’m scared for Dustin— also, YES I do think that it’s interesting that as of s1e1, Lucas fights, Will freezes, Dustin flights, and Mike… well, he certainly has a backbone/a temper, but his biggest fear is about losing people/people not wanting him anymore, and when he’s faced with that what does he do? Fawn. Yes, I do think it’s interesting that all four boys pretty clearly match to all four responses in a show about trauma, and yes I do think it’s interesting that Will’s learned how to fight at least a little bit more, Dustin’s learned to fight more, Mike clearly STARTED the show having learned to fight first— in the moments with emotional stakes which matter most to him— then fall back on fawning only after, and Lucas has grown from s1 to the point where he very rarely allows himself to have emotional/interpersonal fights anymore).

Lucas notably gives a very limp suggestion (to attack). Which Mike does, in a very straightforward and uninspired way. But as soon as Mike is motivated to end the game, he shows his hand a little too much (in a very subtle way). He instantly has a plan of action (meaning that he’s been thinking enough about the session that he knows what to do, despite his pretence of being so out of it that he’s asking stupid questions), and one that he’s SO confident will work that he feels comfortable saying that all the jujus will be killed without even trying to roll for it (despite the fact that they’re resistant to fire damage, meaning he knows where they all are on the field, and likely remembers off the top of his head— or Will supplied the info but that’s less likely— what a juju’s HP and AC are) AND that he and Lucas will also be killed. YES, I acknowledge this could also just be Mike being flippant instead of having it all thought out, and that’s definitely how he plays it, but there are easier ways, one of which I point out later in this commentary, for him to be flippant while foreshadowing the end of the season AND not killing off his and Lucas’ characters.

Which? Is fascinating? Because I highly doubt they rolled new characters for this campaign, so EITHER they have some weird house rule about deaths in one shot games/games Mike doesn’t DM not “counting”, OR, more likely, he has their HP counted out and knows how much damage the fire will do in the environment they’re in (again, irl he would most likely skip this step and just say they die forever to be flippant to Will, but this is a show and that was not necessary for foreshadowing OR for Will to get upset enough to leave, unless it implies something more significant than just Mike being uninterested in the campaign at hand— which is only true if the damage from that attack WOULD actually permakill Mike and Lucas’ characters rather than 0 them out, because you can’t come back from permadeath under most circumstances but a 0 out or dropped game can easily be overwritten if/when you play again), and he’s fully trying to kill his character and Lucas’— and Lucas agrees??!?— which REALLY explains why this is what drives Will over the edge, because it’s not just Mike saying “I don’t want to play right now”, it’s Mike saying “I never want to play again (at least not in this extended patchwork campaign we’ve been running for years, which has been a particular labour of creative love for you and I, Will, as I’ve spent hours writing for it and you’ve spent hours drawing for it)” and Lucas agreeing. Hence, this is why Lucas makes time to apologize when they have “bigger things” going on (it’s not JUST about that session, even in Lucas’ actions), and hence why Mike implicitly saying that he does want to play again, and that he does want to play again with Will IS actually an apology for what he did wrong that led to their bigger argument (though obv it doesn’t address the comment he made about Will not liking girls, and I highly suspect Mike won’t get to apologize for that until he finds out Will actually doesn’t like girls, because there’s no way Mike CAN apologize for that, with the information he currently has, without either only halfway apologizing, which would be narratively frustrating, or unintentionally hurting Will more, which would be narratively pointless— plus it adds to the drama of Will finally coming out to Mike if Mike gets to have a moment of horror over “oh GOD you’re— and I said— *oh*, oh no”). I just… the context of this fight is really interesting to me.

But the implication behind the context (assuming that it’s meant to imply something about Mike’s play style and isn’t just him saying Literally Anything to get out of the game— which I assume it is because “uh… we decide the challenge is too great and flee to regain our strength/get reinforcements” is totally an option Mike could have taken instead, and would also have foreshadowed the end of s3 with El losing her powers and having to “flee” to Cali while waiting to get her powers back— with less permanent consequences/a lower chance of hurting Will as deeply as what Mike actually did does) is that Mike was paying enough attention to the session/environmental details to know exactly how to end things the whole time, because he can pull it out the instant he really wants to. He simply didn’t, because, for all that he was complaining, he was willing to keep playing the game. This may honestly be why Will (who knows Mike well enough to know how skilled he is) seems totally willing to keep playing/keep being in character even while Mike is being performatively bored/to not be taking it seriously. Because the unspoken truth is, Mike proves to the audience that he can end the game any time he wants, if he’s willing to make ruthless sacrifices in order to do it. So if Mike is still playing before that moment, it means he’s still interested/still willing to humour Will, no matter how he’s acting outwardly.

ALL of which is to say… firstly, if Mike can just decide to end a session/campaign that confidently at the drop of a hat, when he’s at least pretending to be disengaged, he would be an INVALUABLE player as part of a team, because he could absolutely figure out a way to do that same action, or something like it, without resulting in his and Lucas’ characters’ deaths (people do crazier things in dnd all the time and their characters survive because Antics with feats, abilities, and magical items are essentially what the game is about). Secondly… the honest answer for why Mike DMs? Might legitimately be because it’s hard to DM for him when he’s on his game. He’s clearly done something to make Hellfire respect him in s4 (and he zeros out FAST which… paladins are tanks, especially when they get up around lvl 16 (iirc?), assuming Lady Applejack is representative of the group level— so while it’s not impossible that he might have just taken enough hits that beat his AC to run out his HP, it’s also possible that Eddie might have angled for taking him out/Eddie’s Vecna might have angled to take out his character so he couldn’t screw things up, much like a number of theories suspect Henry will do in s5), and he breaks/ends Will’s campaign the exact moment he wants to (also dear god— DMing for Mike and Dustin working together? That sounds like an actual nightmare and I respect Eddie so much as I’m thinking of it, like, there’s a reason he says those two are the future of Hellfire lol). That’s a hard person to DM for (it can be rewarding if you like DMing, and can totally be done, but when I think about Mike’s likely style of play, based on what we know about him, the only thing I can think is Emily Axford in Dimension 20 planning and executing Operation Slippery Puppet right under Brennan’s nose— which plays SO well in that session, where Brennan described what was happening to him as the DM as “being Oceans-11’d on [his] own show”, but would frustrate or throw off a lot of newer DMs). A player like that with a good DM (which Eddie is heavily suggested to be) is an awesome combination, but can be a Lot if you don’t know what you’re doing/aren’t yet great at figuring out what to do with curveballs on the fly.

And finally…

4) Mike, by proxy to being a good DM who is also a good tactician (not an absolute requirement for a DM who is good enough with narratives/character work/rewardingly challenging encounters) is actually a brilliant enough tactician that he can modulate his abilities in order to make sure his players feel challenged by the encounters he has set up without finding it impossible.

And, yes, part of this comes down to appropriate challenge selection which usually happens in the planning phase of campaign/session building. But a lot of things happen on the fly. And the comics, at least (iirc— I’ve only seen them in sceenshots), imply that Mike actually gives his big bads real hit points and sticks to them (which you DO NOT have to do— LOTS of DMs don’t do this because for a satisfying narrative you just have the bad guy last long enough that everyone gets to do something they can feel good about and that it feels like the battle’s gone on long enough to be challenging), and he thinks practically/tactically about how they’ll be attacked. Iirc in one of the comics, he remembers that Lucas is next in the initiative order after Will, who already took his turn against the Demogorgon, and realizes that Lucas will kill it based on HP and the items Lucas’ character has on him, and Mike does end up fudging things a little, again iirc, but only after getting stuck on how to make the battle last longer in a practical/tactical way (because no matter how brilliant you are, sometimes there’s no way out), and after Nancy makes a suggestion which gets him to consider options which technically don’t fit the rules of combat he has in his head.

Meaning, Mike is tactically skilled enough to, under most circumstances, make an appropriately levelled fight challenging to the point of being rewarding, but not so challenging as to be frustrating to the players. And to keep it that way on the fly when they pull something weird and unexpected. He can modulate his tactical skills, essentially, to what’s needed in the moment. Which is pretty impressive.

All of which… really explains why his irl plans always work out tbh.

(Shhh now I need a fic where Will and El are doing heists a la Will’s idea in s4 and Mike’s the guy drawing up the plans I’m desperate shhhh.)

But also!! I think it’s super interesting that the Party is broken up into a pair of good liars (Mike and Will— even if they don’t LIKE lying, we see in s4 that they’re good at it together, Mike’s the only even vaguely smooth liar in the Party in s1, and Will shows at the end of s1 that he’s good at it when he lies about the slug) and a pair of bad liars (Lucas and Dustin). Without saying anything about the question of how, if Mike is intended to be read as queer, this also breaks the Party up along (canonically acknowledged) queer vs cishet lines and the broader meta commentary there on queer children learning to lie convincingly from early on in ways their cishet peers often don’t (or at least don’t learn for the same reasons)… this is the divide between Party members we know to be at least decent DMs (Mike and Will) and Party members who we have never seen DM or show any interest in DMing (Dustin and Lucas). Now, obviously DMing isn’t the same thing as lying, but some of the skills are transferable. Being a good DM requires creativity, but it’s also creativity that happens on the fly/in an improvised way. At the same time, it also requires you to keep track of those things you’ve made up, to keep them internally/logically consistent, and to get you good at making things up in concert with your players also making things up on the fly (hence, Mike and Will are not only good at lying alone, but also as a tag team even when Argyle attempts to help by supplying something stupid which would have caused lesser liars than Mike and Will to trip). AND you have to develop a poker face when you’re DMing, which really helps when lying.

ALL of which is to say… god it’s fascinating how Mike as a DM plays into his broader characterization!!!

My final point? I’ve seen some confusion on this point (it was a while ago and I honestly can’t even remember if it was on Tumblr or from talking to someone I know irl, but I wanted to mention it anyway because I do have some thoughts), but— Mike in s1 saying that he spent two weeks planning his campaign? Not overkill, and not him over-prepping, especially given that he also goes to school and does clubs/hangs out with his friends outside of dnd. Honestly, one of the hallmarks of a good DM (which Mike appears to be) is that they don’t over-prepare. They HAVE things prepped, and usually have an idea how a given session will go/an overarching plan for the campaign (typically), but too much prep work can easily lead to railroading your players or being otherwise inflexible when people want to do something you didn’t think about. With that being said, what “over-preparing” looks like depends significantly on who you are as a DM, who your players are, and what sort of campaign you’re running. Personally, I’m currently prepping for a campaign that starts in February, and I have been (between other commitments) working on it since mid-December. In my case, it’s pretty long form, and very character driven, so a lot of that has been me figuring out the world and then getting info from my players about their characters and figuring out how to make sure the narrative accommodates them all equally, AND it’s in a homebrew system that I had to construct for the purposes of this game so… yeah, lots of work. A lot of that is outside the scope of what Mike would need to do, but two weeks isn’t an unreasonable amount of time to spend, especially given that there are likely days when he barely has any time to work on it, if he has the chance at all. Especially because the comics imply Mike thinks really carefully about how his players will counter what he throws at them so he can make sure they have a good fight (and as a form of character/narrative control— so the fight ends the way Mike wants it to but in an organic way where the players feel they succeeded).

What I will say is interesting about that two weeks line, though, is how Karen reacts. Because Mike says “this campaign took two weeks to plan”, and Karen responds by rolling her eyes. Which is an entirely unreasonable reaction. I get that she’s annoyed by Mike in that moment, and I can even roughly understand why she’s annoyed to hear they’ve been playing for ten hours (even though… how did she not know? She knew they were in the basement that long SURELY— at least one would hope— and dnd is not a video game so… I’m mildly confused how dnd is worse than just hanging out and talking/eating snacks which is theoretically the only other thing they could be doing down there all day)… but. When your kid says a creative project of theirs took two weeks to put together? That’s not when you roll your eyes!! Sure, you can and should be firm on the fact that they need to finish the following week, if they really do need to, but rolling your eyes in that moment heavily implies that you are rolling your eyes at their work. Which?? God, I get that Karen and Ted are not interested in dnd and do not understand how much effort actually goes into planning a good campaign. But????? I hate that response from Karen so much, and I think it’s more subtle but just as telling as Ted’s interest in the TV over Mike in that same scene.

I just. They specifically show Karen rolling her eyes at that moment, NOT when Mike asks for twenty more minutes. And then later in s1 they go out of their way to show Joyce remembering spending time with Will and asking him questions about Will the Wise with interest (despite also clearly not understanding the game), and encouraging all the time he spends drawing for/about this game, and offering to get him new crayons (which is a significant expense for the Byers, presumably hence why Will makes due with green fireballs rather than bringing up the fact that he doesn’t have any more orange) so he can do his art properly… I don’t know. I just think it goes a long way to illustrate some of the differences in Mike and Will’s home lives.

[the-mist-striders]

News & Updates - Edits incoming soon

Hey everyone, apologies that the updates are very spotty, I’m not very good at remembering to update this.

So we got a few things to cover;

1. Amahlia’s player is working on adapting these into a video format! We haven’t published any yet but stay tuned. Here’s a link to the channel so you can go give them a follow early: The Mist Striders (YouTube)

//Edit: if you just got here the below news will be confusing. Feel free to call it good here

2. Since we wanted to do an adaption of the sessions we kind of encountered a few issues. This is what the rest of this post will be about and I will be detailing spoilers in order to address it, so feel free to keep scrolling and not click ‘Read more” if you want to stay spoiler free. You have been warned.

So one of the things is that Imil died so early into the campaign that he didn’t get a portrait made. We want this fact to be less obvious in the adaption (and here too, it always kind of bothered me) it also would help a lot with the video part of the format.

This by itself isn’t an issue however. It’s the real world context of the table that is.

We had a table dynamic that shifted more and more negative that led to a fallout between Imil & Liliya’s player and Amahlia’s player. Imil/Liliya’s player (understandably) left the table, the terms of which are a bit grey and vary from player to player.

So my first idea was to draw Imil from memory, this however isn’t an option because I hardly remember what he looked like and didn’t have access to the ref image that was used.

Second idea was to request permission + some details on what Imil looked like. I am no longer in contact with her so I asked someone who still was if they could ask.

After a month or two, this contact told me that It would be better to just replace Imil with a (similar) new character, and Liliya as well. I didn’t want to pry too much, and am choosing to trust the contact’s intuition that it would be bad to ask (sometimes even a simple question can be salt on ones wounds).

Long story short, I will be swapping Imil’s name for “Cinderell” a character we’re kind of putting together as a group. Haven’t gone far enough to plot out who is replacing Liliya yet.

The actions committed by the two characters will mostly remain intact since we can’t diverge much without changing the whole story.

I’ll be working on some episodes again so expect a burst of updates soon after the updates are complete <3

-Kai’s Player

[checkmatehq]

hello! i get that this can be so confusing to follow, but another suggestion could be a dual timeline style, a la yellowjackets/haunting of hill house, wherein, if you guys are not familiar with, past and present events will be explored interspersedly throughout the narrative. doing so, we can leave room to develop new mysteries and "aren't what it seems" that could shape our muses in the present. but if that sounds a little bit complicated (which i admit it is), i just want to ask if you guys would still allow us to thread 2016 events after the skip for flashbacks and also as a way for writers who may be joining late in the game to still be able to establish their muses in the 2016 timeline?

thank you so much for this suggestion — this sounds like such a great idea! we will admit that it was a little daunting to consider at first, but after some discussion and timeline planning, we think it's definitely doable! we also apologize for the late response — we wanted to make sure everyone got their votes in before starting another poll! with this revised structure, we now have the following options:

I PREFER TO EXPLORE 2016 AND 2024 SEPARATELY.

this option was favored in our last poll, so we're keeping it in to respect everyone's choices! this will run very similarly to what we've stated, wherein we will remain in 2016 for 6-8 weeks before moving on to 2024. however, instead of stopping 2016 threads fully, we will now allow you to thread non-event related interactions in 2016 at any point! to avoid confusion, all event-related 2016 threads will need to be wrapped up when we move over to 2024.

I PREFER TO EXPLORE BOTH 2016 AND 2024 CONCURRENTLY.

with this new option, rather than our original time skip, we will now structure events in two parts: the first part will be placed in 2016 to provide context, and the second part will be placed in 2024 to deal with the fallout. similar to the previous option, you will be allowed to explore 2016 and 2024 interactions at any point and without any time limit as long as they are not event-related. all event-related activities — for both 2016 and 2024 — will have a time limit of tentatively two weeks post event.

for full transparency, the second option may require some flexibility to your muse as more information in 2016 is revealed. we will attempt to forewarn what you should and should not explore to prevent this as much as possible! though with that said, when it comes to individual conceptualization and plotting, you may need to do your part in being mindful of how much each muse has changed and grown — both professionally and personally — since the 8y time skip within the each two-part event. a nonlinear timeline also runs the risk of being generally confusing, but rest assured — we will attempt to plan events at least 3 months ahead at all times to make these events run as smoothly as possible! as always, our dms and askbox are always open if you ever need further clarification!

while we do not also have the option in this poll, we are happy to take any further suggestions! that said, we are mindful that our opening day is quickly approaching and will need to settle on a structure as soon as possible. we'd like to extend a special thanks to everyone who has voted and sent in such wonderful suggestions! if you have anymore either now or even later on, please do not hesitate to send us a message. our goal is and will always be to tailor this experience for your enjoyment!

[weber-carrier-boiczyk-chace]

Weber, Carrier, Boiczyk & Chace, LLP

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[heckinmari-blog]

Looked through quite a bit of my old posts and realized when I made this blog and how long it was active.

I made this blog around 2016 to escape rumors and assumptions in a niche community I was in. I had a massive falling out with a close friend of mine, and IRL I was going through some heavy stuff. I had no means of escape, and through this blog, I was determined to find it. No matter what exactly that would entail.

For further context, I joined tumblr around the time I graduated middleschool as an RP account. I gained a pretty massive following around that time, around 100 followers (I know, not that big, but it was big for an account that was rped MANY ocs. Eventually, I made a side account for myself (which became my main blog), and because of high school, I dropped my main hobby and instead got deep into fandom culture.

I had to delete my personal main blog during the darkest times of my life because it was no longer a safe space. The original discourse I was in had blown up out of proportion, and many nasty rumors came out about me. My mental health deteriorated, and I found myself without friends. Both online and IRL.

(And if anyone is reading this, I prefer not to get into any detail about the situation. I, and I hope everyone else involved, have grown as adults and hopefully made peace with it. I know I have for the most part)

I scrolled through about a years worth of my reblogging, reminiscing, and seeing how far I've come. Additionally, I found some pretty concerning stuff I've reblogged somewhere in 2016, particularly me (unknowingly) defending p*dophilia as well as other problematic behaviors. I was 18 and groomed that time by a man who was in his late 20s. I was desperate for any ounce of love that I couldn't find in whatever friends I had left and especially my family.

As someone who is currently around the age of my groomer at the time, I can definitely say any problematic stance I've had (IRL/online) has definitely changed for the better as I have matured and grown as a person. I see the error in my past ignorances, and to anyone doing a deep dive of this blog, I sincerely apologize for any and all offending behavior. I especially apologize to anyone that I have personally hurt— sometimes I still think about it and feel deep regret, but I have learned to live with it.

Other than that, this blog is the blog of a relatively normal teen girl who never gave up on her dreams no matter the circumstances. Going through this was equal parts nostalgic and healing for me, though I can't say that I will keep this blog active any longer. Other than this and my last post, this blog is untouched and will remain that way until Tumblr ceases to exist. I debated deleting it entirely, but I think 18-19 year old Vee should be allowed to exist as flawed as she is.

Also, I did the math wrong on my last post. I was 19. Not 18. Repeated a grade.

As owner of this blog, I give permission to anyone to search through this blog and treat it as an online archive or time capsule. Just know that if you send asks or anything, the chances of me replying are very slim to none.

And if you are reading this, thank you for listening, and have a nice day.

[abbysreverie]

The Classic (2003)

The movie title actually speaks for itself. It is indeed a ✨Classic✨.

The first time I saw this film was really reaaaaally a long time ago, I think I was only 12 when I first saw this, and it was aired on our local news channel (yes that used to be a thing here), and hear me out, it was also dubbed in Filipino language. Actually I don’t really have a problem with the dubbing of international films into Filipino back then, i repeat only “back then”. Cause they still do that here but not so often anymore as before because dubbing actors these days are just so cringey.

Comparing the first time I saw this versus today, I will say that I appreciate it better now. Watching this when I was still a kid only understood and enjoyed the funny scenes—especially this hospital scene with the clip right here so you can follow (you’re welcome)

12 years have already passed but this scene still cracks me up so hard.

Now that I understand the context of it, the story and its meaning, I was able to pick a lot of beautiful messages and lessons from this film. Joon-ha and Tae-su’s friendship is one of the most beautiful things in this film. Apparently, they were both in love with the same girl (Ji-hae), I think Joon-ha met her first during his summer break in the countryside, and when school was back, his best friend Tae-su welcomed him with a news that he’s been arranged for a marriage with—you guessed it right—Ji-hae… unlike most of the people being forced to a fixed marriage, Tae-su was actually happy about it and he expressed how he really likes Ji-hae. But once both of the dudes figured out themselves that they’re both inlove with Ji-hae, Tae-su—without a second thought—lets go of Ji-hae, poor guy already knew that Ji-hae’s inlove with another guy and that’s his best friend. Both dudes remained in good terms despite that romance conflict, that’s just how good friends they are to each other. Sure it was a relief for Joon-ha, but it’s exactly the opposite for Tae-su.

Since it was only a fixed marriage, the people responsible for this are of course the parents. And that’s when things get shitty for Tae-su. His father kept saying hurtful and degrading words to him and even physically hurting him. Suicidal thoughts start triggering Tae-su which eventually led to a suicide attempt. For real my throat starts to hurt because I was trying so hard to hold my tears. Somehow you knew this would happen given Tae-su’s situation, but not in that unexpected time and place, which is why I really got caught off guard and almost teared up (especially when Joon-ha found him hanging).

After Tae-su’s suicide attempt, Joon-ha realized how being with Ji-hae would ruin his best friend’s life, or worse, lose it. This time it was Joon-ha who lets go of Ji-hae. He joined the military and not so long, was already assigned to a mission in Vietnam. Tae-su and Ji-hae’s marriage was then carried on and they even had a daughter.

Holy crap, I think I just wrote a whole ass synopsis there! I apologize for spoiling and not giving a warning hehe

Both Tae-su and Joon-ha understood and considered each other’s situation, without any hard feelings and even giving support to each other. Which is why I said their friendship is one of the most beautiful things in this film.

Next is the movie’s concept of fate/destiny, Joon-ha and Ji-hae may have not ended up with each other, it’s their son and daughter (respectively) who continued their story and are basically being awarded with destiny instead. When that scene showed up I legit screamed “OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH”. “What a cute revelation”, I said to myself. It was like Life Itself, the Asian version. But since The Classic was aired first, I guess I should say that Life Itself is the American version of The Classic. Lol what I’m trying to say is they have the same concept and message, they just have their own different twists.

Last but not the least, ladies and gents, is the notorious “Cinematography”. 👏👏👏👏

You can never go wrong with the cinematography of Asian films. After seeing Wong Kar-Wai’s films, I have decided that the classic late 90’s to early 20th century Asian films’ cinematography is my favorite cinematography of all time. The Classic’s cinematography is one of them, the setting is so laid back and just simply feels nostalgic. Sure, modern films still do these kind of nostalgic vibe especially if it’s a coming-of-age film, but they’re basically only a visualization of the past and you can’t really help but compare it to the real classic times.

Final Verdict: 8/10

[cursingtoji]

𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐖𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐧 — 𝐀.𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐭

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: after he's informed about Eren and Zeke 's plan, all Armin can think is how he wants to use the little time he has left to put a baby in you before it’s too late.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: canonverse, hurt/comfort, AOT Final Season spoilers (Eren and Zeke 's plan), f!reader, breeding, the word mommy is used (within the breeding context), creampie, semi-public sex. 2.1k words

𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: this follows an order of events kinda different from the anime for fictional purposes.

𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨: One for Myself — E.Jaeger || Main M.List || AOT M.List

Your leg shakes anxiously, heel tapping impatiently on the stone floor, your mind is racing thinking of Eren and everything that is happening above you while there’s nothing you can do being trapped in the underground prison with your fellow scouts.

How could everything change like that so fast? How could you end up in prison? How does Eren have a rebel faction?

The thing that pulls you out from drowning in your own mind is Armin’s hand on your knee, a silent plea for you to stop shaking your leg, but his gentle blue eyes also pleading you to not let dark thoughts overwhelm you.

Armin and you were thrown in his cell, some chairs, tables, beds and a sink in the small space.

Your friends are caged beside you, until some moments ago you were discussing, trying to remain close by leaning against the wall separating your cells, the only thing you could see was Jean and Connie’s arms hanging outside the bars.

At some point you all have grown tired of standing finding a place to sit and to get lost in thoughts, that was until steps were heard coming from the hallway, Onyankopon voice greeting everyone as you and Armin exchanged a concerned look standing up once again to find the man in front of your cells.

He proceeds to inform you of everything that is happening above you, he says he has managed to escape from Yelena’s watch, and he apologizes for everything before informing you of Eren and Zeke’s plan.

Euthanasia.

Your heart drops hearing that word.

Not having any kids? Ever? Remaining in this cursed island till every single person gets old and dies?

Somewhere along Onyankopon discourse you grow deaf, ears buzzing as you look at a spot on the wall in front of you.

Armin, the sweet composed guy beside you is different, he starts to shoot questions at Onyankopon, his muffled voice sounding desperate, trying to defend Eren.

Eren.

His best friend knew how much he wanted to have kids, take them to see the sea at an early age. Show them the world. Build a family.

Onyankopon leaves, you guess, after so much shouting everyone is quiet.

Armin calls your name noticing how you seem dizzy as he takes you to sit on the bed.

“Where’s Onyankopon?” you ask like you missed the last twenty minutes of conversation.

“Someone called him, he shouldn’t be here but he wanted to let us know about the Euthanasia plan.”

Your breath hitches at that word again.

“Are you okay? Do you need some water?” his hand touches your face noticing how cold you feel, you only manage to nod.

He’s quick to fill a glass of water from the sink and bring it back to you, which you gulp fast.

Jean's voice breaks the silence asking how the two of you are. You notice Armin is about to say something about your condition so you grip his shirt silently shaking your head.

Armin and you have been working side by side for so long now, both being good strategists, but more than that, both truly enjoying each other’s company. After so long fighting and planning together you gained a connection, he knows what you are thinking without you having to say it and vice versa.

He knows you don't want to worry your friends, they already have enough on their plate.

“W-We are fine” Armin shouts, “Probably needing some rest after all that information.”

“I agree, my head hurts,” Connie declares.

Everyone gets quiet again.

“Armin” you tug his sleeve so he sits down beside you, “Is that really happening?” you ask in a whisper.

Armin can see you are scared, more than him, in fact Armin has tons of doubts about that plan.

That doesn’t sound like Eren at all.

But he notices you probably haven’t heard a word from what he said some minutes ago, when he was trying to defend his friend.

The voice in Armins head is loud and scary. It says: what if you’re wrong? What if Eren actually goes on with that stupid plan?

What if you never have kids?

Now it’s you who gets concerned about him, worrying if your question triggered something in Armin’s mind, from the way his gaze is lost somewhere.

You gently take his hand guiding him to lay down on the small bed with you. Armin complies, laying on his side, face to face with you, finding a little peace in your eyes as you do in his.

“How much longer do you think we have?” he whispers.

“Until what?”

“Until Ere— Zeke” he corrects himself, “make it happen.”

“I don’t know, maybe in a few hours, days…” your mouth twists.

“My grandfather taught me so much, I can’t die without passing at least some of that knowledge forward” you bring a hand to his cheek, you have listened the way Armin talks about his grandfather from the times you told each other childhood stories, the way he misses him is evident, “I wanna be a grandfather too” he confesses shutting his eyes before he can spill any tears.

You close the space between you two to lace your arms around his neck, hugging him tight.

“A few hours… that’s enough right?” he murmurs with his face pressed on your neck.

“Armin?”

“We can do it in a few hours” he pulls away from your hold to look deeply into your eyes. You know what he’s talking about, but—

“I wanted to wait till this whole thing with Eren was over to ask you out” he confesses, making your heart race.

“You were going to ask me out?” you ask smiling.

“Yeah, take you to a picnic on top of the wall Maria, point at where I used to live in Shiganshina, kiss you at sunset” he smiles tenderly, such a beautiful sight among tragedy.

“I would love that,” you admit.

“I know I'm asking for too much here, but if this plan really happens I won’t be able to live knowing I had the chance of having a baby with you but haven’t tried” you squeeze your legs together at the realization he wanted to have a baby with you.

“What if it doesn’t work?” you ask still unsure about it.

“At least we would have tried.”

“I really want a family, Armin” you grip his shirt.

“If we make out of this, we can be a family” he takes your hips pulling you to him.

You let your imagination wander to a universe where you have a house in the rebuilt Shiganshina district, where Armin makes love to you in the morning, quietly to not wake up your kids sleeping in the rooms next to yours. He leaves to work on something he loves, taking your eldest child with him so they can learn it too, when he returns he has a surprise for his kids and you: a pie he bought on his way back, the only condition is that they all eat everything on their plates during dinner before they can have a slice. The kids sleep fast after having so much food in their bellies, that’s when he takes you to watch the stars with him outside, talking about what he learned about them from his grandfather as you look him with adoration, not being able to hold yourself from kissing him under the moonlight.

“Okay” you accept, making his eyes glow, “Let’s make a baby” you look around making sure there’s no guard passing by, everything is dead silent, “We gotta be quick okay?” you murmur, placing one leg between his.

Armin nods and takes your face on his hands, softly placing his lips on yours. You have wondered many times how kissing Armin would be, and although you wished your first kiss with him was under different circumstances, it still felt better than you expected, such passion and tenderness in just a kiss.

You rub your palm on his crotch pulling a gasp out of his lips.

“Sorry” you whisper, noticing you cough him off guard.

“It’s o-okay” his lip trembles as you lean in to take him in a more exploratory kiss, deepening it in a matter of seconds. Your own arousal starts to build, Armin removes your hand from his pants, taking your leg and putting it on his waist, so he could stimulate both of you by rubbing his bulge on your clothed core, both of you panting on each others puffy lips, trying to remain quiet. You reach down impatiently to undo his belt while he peppers kisses on your neck.

Intruding thoughts of someone walking by and seeing you getting nasty with your fellow scout is a possibility that makes your core aches in a mix of excitement and fear.

Armin gently rolls his hips against you, the roughness of his erection directly bucking against your clit.

“Let’s take them off” you suggest after some time struggling with Armin’s pants, he nods, getting up and helping you do the same.

Both of you standing, kicking off your shoes and attempting to quietly remove your belts.

As your pants fall onto floor, you are left in socks and the white button up that covers your underwear, Armin takes in your appearance, disheveled and uneven breathing.

He had thought of you in a position like that a couple of times, the first was when you two were assigned to do the cleaning one night, only the two of you scrubbing the floors, you had left to get a bucket of water, losing balance on your way back and spilling some on your white shirt.

Armin ran to help you not drop the bucket, he hadn't noticed immediately the way your shirt stuck on your torso, highlighting the shape of your body, you hadn't noticed either, only realizing how transparent your shirt had become when your partner for that evening assignment had turned into a blushing mess.

Now here you are, the reason for his many awaken nights and throbbing cock standing so pretty in front of him, he’s only sorry for not being able to see you fully naked.

In his despair, Armin doesn't wait for you to get back on bed, instead pressing you against the stone walls, taking your face in an intoxicating kiss, you comply letting him suck your tongue as you reach down to stroke his shaft, feeling the wet spot of his precum through the fabric of his boxers.

Armin doesn't think he can take any longer, he just wants to be inside you, so he lowers his underwear, taking one of your thighs to hook around his hips.

You help him by moving your underwear aside, hissing at the contact of the hot skin of his cock rubbing against your folds as he spreads your arousal on his length, surprised at how wet you have become in just a matter of minutes.

“All that because of me?” he whispers in your ear, “Wanna be a mommy that much?” his head pokes your entrance. You only nod, not thrusting yourself to respond with a decent sentence, instead biting your hand to prevent any loud sounds as he slowly split you open, burying himself until there's nothing left.

“You are so tight, fuck” he trails his hand down to squeezy your ass getting a muffled squeal from you, “Can’t wait to fill this tight pussy” his face burns, words making you arch your back, pressing your chest onto his.

If Armin had any restraining left if all went to hell when you moaned his name, fingers digging on his shoulders, he can not believe he's the one making you feel this good.

He bucks up, feeling your walls contract around him, he knows he can’t go fast, else everyone down the hall will hear the sounds of skin slapping, so he opts for hitting it hard, angling his hips to hit a spot that makes your eyes roll.

“Feels good, Armin” you cry his name, the hand not holding your thigh comes to your face caressing your cheek, thumb rubbing your bottom lip covered in spit.

When a particular deep thrust threatens to make you scream, Armin covers your mouth with his palm.

“I hope I can live to see you all round with my baby.” he places his forehead on yours, “Our baby” you find his deep blue eyes looking down at you, lost in pleasure too, but not forgetting your common goal.

It doesn’t take long till his thrusts become sloppy, you turn your head to take his fingers into your mouth, wetting them by with your tongue.

“Make me cum, Armin” you whisper, a string of saliva connecting you to his fingers until it breaks when you guide his hand down to your neglected clit.

“Yes, mommy” he kisses your cheek, circling your clit.

Your walls just feel too good, he wishes he could prolongate that feeling for hours. But unfortunately you don't have all that time, so he rubs you more urgently, taking your bottom lip in between his teeth, thrusting again and again as he explodes inside you, your walls clenching as you climax with him, hot cum filling your womb. Armin feels like your walls are trying to squeeze him dry, pussy hungry for every drop he has to give.

In his final moment of ecstasy he pulls out, using his fingers to push the cum that threatens to spill out back inside making you hiss, before he fixes your underwear to cover your pussy.

“Hold it in for me, will you?” he pats your cunt pecking your lips.

Your legs are shaking, he quickly fixes his boxers pulling his pants back on before taking you bridal style, placing your trembling body to the bed.

Carefully looking around making sure no one has seen him fuck a baby into you, he takes your pants helping you dress them back.

“I think we made it” you murmur gripping his hand as he sits on the bed, bending to kiss your knuckles.

Armin hopes you two succeeded in your possibly last chance to make a baby, but even if you don’t, he’s happy he’s got the chance to make love to you nevertheless.

taglist: @kittyymew @thekillingtimethekillingmoon @getomybeloved @crajishie @imkumichan @crybabyddl @ravenina14 @shamelessreaderthere @toobsessedsstuff @dukina @pink-apples001 @beware-of-the-rogue @sintiva @the-princess-button @mamslovebug @mixedfeeelings @stephseb @sleepy3 @wutya @novaresque @shepfics @casualtophat [wanna join the taglist? <3]

© all content belongs to cursedmoonchild; do not repost!

[myobmaya]

Hi! I’ve been following you for a while and loved your Nightmares fic! Idk why but I’m a total sucker for sadness tonight. Can you write some Eddie angst? Maybe a breakup but they get back together at the end? Thank you 💖

why are y’all wanting angst and why am I so down for it? are we okay? should we carpool to therapy together? anyways here ya go! ❤️ tysm for the support and I apologize for any grammar errors it’s 10:30 pm and I wrote this up real quick so it’s short and simple, I’ll be back in the AM to clean it up. in the meantime enjoy! ❤️

Eddie Munson x Reader (no specific gender)

TW: couple breaking up

——

The empty beer bottles that littered the floor now lay in the garage can outside the house. The record that would normally be playing throughout the walls is tucked away inside its case next to the player soon to be collecting dust. Your clothes that were shoved into the wooden drawers are now neatly tucked away in the suitcase sitting by the door.

You didn’t mean to clean the messy house. Yet, you couldn’t bare to leave your home in the state it was. The subtle resemblance of your home that mirrored the state of your relationship.

It wasn’t fair to leave it like that to him deal with it.

It wasn’t fair to you to leave at all.

The soft rumbling of the car outside tears you from your thoughts. The clock on the wall confirms he’s off work and here as expected. You wait for him to walk through the doors. The inevitable coming to a head.

You sit at the table focusing on your breathing. You weren’t going to let him see your tears. Was it smart for you to have waited for him? It was evening time now and you were sure the street lights were to be turned in anytime now. You had plans to go back to your parents house until you figured out your next move. Maybe you should have just left and waited for him to hate your forever.

Your thoughts go wild and despite you wanting to run without him watching you, you know you owe him an explanation. Surely he knew the end of your relationship was coming. But after years of being with him you can’t stand the thought of just walking away without so much of a word as to why. Had you really thought this through?

On the opposite side of the door Eddie hesitates putting the key in the lock. His eyes close as he remembers this morning’s argument. Something about him missing a date? Was it a date? Fuck. No it was about him not helping around. Right? He takes a deep breath. He can’t even remember the full context of what the cause of the yelling for was this time but he’s tired of it.

He doesn’t want to live in the constant state of frustration.

He doesn’t want to carry on like this.

He wants things to go back to how they were. The way you two were two crazy teenagers in love. The people you were before life came and hit you both with reality checks.

The door opens and you stop breathing. His eyes look around the clean space. A change from the state it was hours earlier. You feel your chest grow tight watching as he looks around the floor. He know somethings off. The house is clean but it’s silent. Too silent. You’re silent.

His eyes fall to your suitcase. He meets your gaze and the wall you spent the past hour building tumbles down. Tears immediately burn but you swallow them down. Eddie’s hand meets his hip while the other runs down his face as a humorless chuckle fills the air.

There was nothing funny about this. He doesn’t know why he laughs. He doesn’t know what to do at all.

You look down at your hands biting back tears. He sees the way your shoulders struggle to stand tall. The way you dig your nails into your hands to hold onto some sort of strength. Strength he no longer gives you. He sees you holding back your emotions. You don’t want him to see the hurt. You used to be so open with him and now he watches as you fight yourself to remain stoic.

You’ve blocked yourself out. You cut him out.

You no longer where the care free person he met all those years ago. When did you slip away? When did he stop noticing?

It’s then he realizes he’s the reason for this. He’s the reason this is happening. Eddie takes a moment to himself and finally shut up as a sob replaces the laugh.

Tears gleam in his eyes but he doesn’t wan you to them. He shrugs his coat off and throws it on the couch. You keep your eyes down as he make his way over. He pulls out the chair from beside of you and sits down. A million questions go through his brain but he can only think of one.

“Do you still love me?”

It’s a genuine question. Not an ounce of malice is behind it. Just sadness. His question breaks the damn of the emotions you try to hold in. You’re quick to wipe away the tears. Eddie stares at you.

He watches you break down. He wants to comfort you. Tell you that he’s sorry and that everything will be alright.

But instead Eddie sucks in a breath as he leans back in the chair. An arm crosses his chest as the other runs down his face. He looks up at the ceiling. You look up at him.

“Loving you isn’t the issue, Eddie. Fighting you is and I can’t do it anymore.”

The sound of your sniffle breaks Eddie from his trance as the reality set in. His eyes met yours and for the first time in a long time he no longer sees frustration in your eyes. He sees the sadness replace the light that used to shine so bright. Eddie was never good with words but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t use them.

“Answer the question,” you go to cut him of but he stops you. “Because I know for a fact that I love you. I know that because even when we go to bed fighting the moment I see you in the morning and you kiss me goodbye I know we’re gonna be okay. You’re the biggest pain in my ass but god damn you’re the one I want to come home too.”

“Eddie-“

“No. No.” He shakes his head waving his hands. He needs you to hear what he has to say. He’a loved you for half his life and he’s going to continue to do so even if you walk out out of his life.

Eddie looks up at the ceiling again and then meets your watery eyes. “I don’t want to fight anymore,” Eddie whispers. His hands are now holding onto your shaky ones. He turns them over to lace your fingers with his. He didn’t care that they lay limp against the hold he has.

“I’m not going to fight you. We’ve done enough of that and I don’t want us to continue on,” he starts again. “But I will fight for you to stay and we work this out.”

[cyelatm]

Hi everyone. I've spent the past few months struggling to decide if this is even worthwhile to say, and after a lot of thought I've come to the conclusion that I need to talk about this, both for my own peace of mind and because it's the truth, and telling the truth is the right thing to do. At the end of last year, as a result of massive public pressure as well as manipulative behavior from my ex, I confessed to abuse that I did not enact on my former partner, who did guest comics for cyelatm while I recovered from burnout. I was accused of offering to split my Patreon earnings with her, then suddenly and without warning withdrawing that source of income. We never discussed or agreed to sharing the Patreon money, and this was never a source of income my ex was dependent on. I'm including screenshots of some discord conversations to provide more context for our collaboration.

We were already romantically involved when my ex partner offered to help out with my daily comics, and she expressed understanding that splitting my Patreon income between the two of us wasn't feasible for me because I was already making very little. She reaffirmed this understanding when I asked to take the comic over full time again. Here is a tumblr ask she responded to shortly after the collaboration ended where she describes the situation exactly as I understood it to be, right up until her callout.

My ex implied that I exploited her sexually because I controlled her housing situation and could kick her out at any time. This is also untrue. My ex had legal protection under our lease, which I made sure she was on. We both contributed to monthly living expenses, and as I mentioned earlier, I made very little money from cyelatm and had no financial power to exert over her. I was making about as much as the average McDonald's cashier. We continued the exact same relationship we had established before and during our creative collaboration. If my ex had become less comfortable with our relationship after the collaboration ended, this was never discussed. She then accused me of kicking her out of the apartment without warning. This isn't true. I tried, as amicably as possible, to end our relationship, which had been steadily worsening since we had originally moved in together. I wanted to remain friends and offered to keep living together. My ex declined. This was followed by an episode of verbal abuse that caused me to leave the apartment shortly after. I never once returned to the apartment. She lived there until the lease ran out in April - here are her very own tweets detailing her move & even elaborating that she wasn't even being kicked out.

It has taken me a long time to process, but throughout most of our relationship, my ex would undermine and devalue me on a regular basis. She treated me like an annoyance whenever I was in common areas of the apartment, got into stormy, unpredictable moods and would suicide bait me which we'd discussed multiple times is a huge trigger for me. I had been worn down over several months, so her claims that the dissolution of our relationship had been all my fault and that I'm a horrible disgusting person were claims I readily took the blame for. I deeply regret doing this. I should have stood up for myself and told the truth as soon as all of this was put out there, but I didn't have the perspective or emotional fortitude to do that at the time. I was afforded no time to think about what I was being accused of or how to respond as immediate explanations and apologies were demanded of me. After several months of reflection, as well as conversations I've had with people who were similarly mistreated by my ex, I feel that I have a better grasp on what happened here. I still have no interest in becoming a "public figure”, and for my own health I'm committed to limiting my emotional investment in the internet. I am still striving to be a better, healthier person than I was before. However, I cannot sit on this information any longer as it's causing me a lot of inner turmoil and I don't think I can move on without talking about it. If you've read all of this, thank you.