#gonna try not doing the flavour text and seeing if that makes actually making the polls easier.

[roguerambles]

I understand the disappointment, I really do, but I think people might be blowing the whole world state thing a bit out of proportion. "This is SPITTING IN THE FACE of long-time fans" no it's not Steve, calm down.

The series has always had to compromise when it comes to the state of the world because so many of the choices (especially from the end of Origins) were so wildly different that trying to build a sequel from so many conflicting factors would be more or less impossible. It's why we've never seen the Architect again, because him being alive or dead has HUGE ripple effects that are damn near impossible to write around.

Heck, it was entirely possible for Anders to die at the end of Awakening, but the writers wrote around it by saying "oh no he actually faked his death" even though logically that made very little sense because at that point he'd have absolutely no reason to do that? But Anders was in the sequel so that had to come up with something.

Basically nothing from Dragon Age 2 was important in Inquisition - Hawke siding with Mages or Templars made no difference, Anders being alive or dead made no difference, whether Carver or Bethany were dead or Wardens or whatever made no difference. We got some flavour text and that was literally it, everything else played out exactly the same.

Hell, the Temple of Sacred Ashes gets blown to bits at the beginning of Inquisition, rendering everything to do with that quest from Origins basically moot. And we've never gone back to Orzammar, and everything we have heard from it has been kept super vague, because depending on who the King is and if Branka is still alive there things would look WILDLY different.

It's why I highly doubt we'll be able to side with Solas and help him tear down the Veil because that would result in basically a whole new world being created. Imagine them trying to make Dragon Age 5 and being like "okay 50% sided with Solas and tore the Veil down and 50% kept the Veil intact....wtf now what do we do--?"

Again, I understand the disappointment, but I just hope once the dust has settled and people calm down a bit they'll see that, realistically, very little has changed. Your saves are still there, your experiences and enjoyment of the games and the characters and the story are still there, but they were always gonna have to draw the line SOMEWHERE. And that's not to say none of our previous choices will come back - if we get another game, or a spin off or something they'll probably do what they're doing with the Inquisitor now. They're just taking what's relevant to the story they are trying to tell.

[columbidaecontest]

[ID: the Philippine cuckoo-dove has a red-brown body and is perched on a branch. two brownish-red Andaman cuckoo-doves are perched in a tree facing eachother]

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

Hey honey!! So Im back with more dad!tan request. What if like y/n and tan were not dating, maybe just one night stand or were kinda talking at some point/friends with benefits, and tan did not know he was a dad until he runs into y/n either during a mission or just like at the store, and y/n has like a 5 year old who looks like tan. Like… the DRAMA!!

Hope you’re doing well hon!!

-🍼

hii bb!! I just realised that I automatically wrote this in headcanon format, hope that’s okay. I really love this idea🤭 thanks for requesting hope you like it💌 sending love

I got carried away, apologies!! wc: 675

TAN NOT KNOWING HE’S A DAD.

at the beginning, maybe his job got in the way, so you both kept things casual - ie friends with benefits. things ended abruptly and kinda suddenly, and you lost contact. and then soon after you split, you found out you were pregnant

you didn't tell him as you knew he wasn't ready, and bc of how things ended, you didn't want to bring him back into your life. maybe you relied on the support of family and friends to get you through the pregnancy (and with the uncertainty at the start)

I always write tan having a girl, so im gonna switch it up and say you had a boy (WHO is practically the spitting image of tan. but he also has a mix of your genes too. your body did the work. you deserve the credit for a pretty baby too)

when you were pregnant and when baby boy was born, you kept it secret and hidden. and didn't tell tan. you were very conflicted about it. you wanted him to know that he had a child, but you couldn't stomach the potential disappointment for you and your son. and then you got so busy bringing him up, that the time almost flew by. over the next couple years, you debated picking up the phone to text him, but every time you see your last message chats, you decide against it

maybe your son's birthday is coming up in a couple days, so you take him to the store to pick out decorations and flavours for his cake. he's sat in the trolley, playing with a toy while you walk down the aisles. THEN maybe you see the back of someone familiar... see where this is going?? so you try to avoid him and go down another

then out of nowhere, tan pops up and you both see each other. maybe bc of the child in the trolley, he feels compelled to say hi to you (he's nosey like that) and you do one of those internal 'fuck's for making eye contact with someone you don't want to speak to

you twist the trolley and turn baby boy away so tan can't see his face. and you have pleasantries - asking how the other is doing, what they've been up to etc. then the elephant in the room topic comes up. he asks if you're babysitting, then you say no. then he asks if he's your nephew, you say no again. he pauses, connecting the dots. then baby boy turns around and it's game over

and while tan is looking at your son (they have that vision & white vision moment in wandavision. please say you get the reference) and then tan asks how old the kid is, while he's smiling and nodding at the kid. then you say he's almost 5. and he's speaking in a friendly way while entertaining your son (like a baby voice, pretending he's speaking to baby boy but it's actually to you) "he's mine, ain't he?"

and you're looking between them both, and it just makes you feel warm and fuzzy. so you tell him "yeah" and then right after he asks when the birthday is, so you tell him it's in 2 days at your place. so he says to you "is it alright if I come?" and you tell him "yeah" and it's very sincere. and you and tan have this sweet, silent moment. then before leaving, he says to his son "see you in a couple days little buddy" 

and he turns up for the birthday with tonnes of gifts!!!! everything you need that might not have been able to afford (being a single mum and everything) gifts, balloons and basic necessities he wished to have bought when you both needed them

he apologises for everything, and you do too for not telling him (maybe you feel guilty for those 5 missed years) 

he asks if he can come over again tomorrow and do something. asking if he can spend time with both of you

[xxblairexxss]

Flushed

Pairing : Charles Leclerc x reader

Theme : Angst / fluff

Requested!

Your attempt to move on from your ex, Charles went terribly wrong.

Based on Google, the symptoms they mentioned were dizziness, abdominal pain, visual problem, trembling and reduced sense of control so I wrote based on it. I’m sorry if it wasn’t accurate! Thank you for the request, anon! I hope it lives up to your expectation!

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“Excuse me?!”

You jolted awake when your friend came bursting into the room with a bunch of chocolates and chips in her arms. Your hair was looking all disheveled, your eyes were red and puffy.

“What?” You brought the tissue paper to your face to blow on your nose before laying back down, tugging on the quilt to cover back your entire body.

“Y/N! It’s been months! You can’t seriously still crying over this. I mean, I get it, break up is sad but is this all what you gonna be doing?”

“I miss him!” Your voice became a muffle under the quilt and you heard Y/F/N groaned as she pulled the quilt away.

“Then call him. Tell him you miss him.”

“Should I?” You looked at her in surprise. She had always been telling you to move on, to just find someone else so you were expecting her to say the same thing over again. “No, I can’t do that. See, he doesn’t miss me as much as I do. I’m the one suffering here!”

“How do you know the break up doesn’t effect him?” She took a seat in front of you and went through all the chips she had bought with her. Her brows raised in excitement as she picked a salt & vinegar flavoured chips, offering you one when she opened it, to which you took and crunch on it.

“Because he doesn’t look like it? Have you seen his Instagram?” You scooted closer and dipped your hand into the chips packet to get another one.

“He’s a freaking Formula 1 driver. Have you ever seen Lewis Hamilton post a crying picture of him when he go through a break up?” She rolled her eyes, looking very much done with you. “What about the guy you were talking to last week?”

“Oh, I stop replying to him. Got an ick. But! I met this other guy.” You took your phone to click on the picture of the guy you were talking about and showed it to Y/F/N. “What do you think?”

“Let me see.” She took your phone away and stared, more like analysing the picture. “Sketchy. I would say no.”

“Why! He’s cute though.” You took the phone back and scrolled to a different picture. “See?”

“Oh, so now you are all interested with other guys just when I asked you to call your ex? I swear you be doing the exact opposite of what I told you.”

“It’s not like it was serious or anything. I still miss him. None of the guys I talked with could make me feel the same way like he did.” You turned off your phone and laid down by Y/F/N’s side, eyes trailing the details of your room for the hundredth times.

“Why don’t you try and go out with him?” She scowled at you jokingly when you turned to look at her. “Not Charles, idiot. That guy. Who knows a proper date could make you stop thinking about the Ferrari guy. One step at a time?”

“Do you think so?” You sat up and gazed at her in hesitation.

“I would prefer to see my best friend all dress up and going out on a date so I could hear some tea instead of hearing you wail over the same guy for another month.”

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

“Too much?”

The date didn’t happen until another week after your conversation with Y/F/N as you weren’t exchanging texts everyday with the guy, Alan, and he didn’t mention anything about a date until the weekend arrived. You were actually contemplating to say yes because you had a hunch of something but you weren’t sure what it was and decided to dismissed it as ‘a feeling everyone gets when they try to move on from their exes’.

“Too much? Are you really asking me that? You look absolutely phenomenal!” Y/F/N walked to the dressing table and picked a few shades of lipsticks. “Try this one. It’s gonna pop your look even more.”

“I feel like I’m betraying Charles for this.” You closed the cap of the lipstick once you put it on and fixed the smudge on your eyeliner with your picky finger.

“Stop talking about Charles! You are on to a new adventure and a new dic–“

“Okay, I’m off!” You immediately stood up after applying perfume on your insides wrists and neck, walked back to the bad to get your handbag along with you.

“I just finished the longest shift in the world! Don’t wake me up and keep the tea hot until I wake up tomorrow, okay? Enjoy your date and go crush that dic–“

“Stop it!” You yelled back and slammed the door.

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“You look beautiful.”

“Hi!” You stopped when you were by the side of the table that he had sat. He looked exactly like how you pictured him. Fancy and well formed would be the words to describe him. He had told you beforehand that he would arrive a little early to the restaurant, asking you if you would mind about it to which you said no because it didn’t feel right to make him wait for you.

He greeted you with a hug and you were slightly taken aback when he ran his fingers through your hair, sniffing it as he pulled away. “You smell nice.”

“Oh, thank you.” You smiled back and took a seat as he pulled your chair out.

“I was actually going to wait but the waiter recommended a drink so I ordered it for you. I hope you don’t mind?”

“No, not at all. Thank you.” You placed your small bag on your lap and took a sip from the drink. It looked like a pinã colada so you were expecting a sweet taste on your tongue but this one had a weird smell and tasted salty. “Wow, it’s really strong!” You cringed as the drink hit your throat, thinking it could be a twist drink menu from the restaurant.

“Is it? Should I order a different one? Excuse–“

“No, no. It’s totally fine.” You waved your hand and he retreated his hand from calling the waiter.

“So, what’s up? Wait,” He shook his head and laughed in disbelief. “That was really bad. You are so beautiful it made me speechless for a while.”

He carried the whole conversations and you knew he would. He was also the one who had been picking new topics for you to talk about through texts. He looked exactly like his pictures, yes, but the way he approached certain topics were somewhat interesting, you would say. You saw the way he talked about women and though it was very subtle, he sounded haughty but you weren’t gonna jump into conclusion as maybe, just maybe, he had a bad day today so some of his emotions were conveyed through his way of thinking.

But it was hard for you to deny the discomfited feelings when he kept on touching your hand whenever you put it on the table and you had to continuously taking a sip from your drink just so it gave you a reason to pull your hand away.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah? I’m– I’m sorry I got distracted. What were you saying?” You shut your eyes as you felt yourself spacing out.

“I was asking if you ever had a pet.”

“Yeah? Yeah! I used to have a dog but he passed away like, last year. I’m sorry but I think– I am not sure– but–” You placed your fingers on your temple area and applied a pressure on it. You realised that you started feeling the room spinning around when you focused on him but everything around him swayed, making you nauseous. Everything he said went from clear words to a mumble to nothing at all. Your ears were ringing so bad they were no longer registering anything he said and you only see the way his mouth moves over and over, as if you had put it on mute.

“Is there anything wrong?”

“Yeah, I don’t– I don’t feel really good.” You winced from the pain on your head and took his hand as he stretched out his arm.

“Do you want me to bring you home?” He stood up and for a split second, you saw a smirk. You realised you had been spacing out, disoriented every second now. You didn’t know why, but you knew something was wrong. It couldn’t be from your food as you never had any food allergy. You felt completely fine before you left the house, exhilarated, even. But the little smirk that he had divulged as he offered you a hand sealed everything together.

You quickly retracted your hand and struggled to push the chair back, feeling suffocated as if it was trapping you. “I– I need to go to the bathroom. Excuse me.” You took your bag with you and tumbled when you tried to walk past him.

“Are you sure? Do you want me to walk you there and wait for you?” He held your waist, even pulled you closer as you felt his breath on your neck.

“No, it’s– it’s okay. I’ll be back. I– yeah.” You pushed him away and saw he trailed his eyes from your neck down to your chest, making you grapple to breath. Stepping aside, you held the wall as you took a few steps, leaning against it as you shut your eyes, trying to shake off the dizziness.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

“Yeah– yeah, I’m fine.” You gave a little smile and continued walking to the bathroom, nearly toppled over a couple of times. You could feel the eyes on you from the workers and customers and there it was, again, the smirk from Alan as he looked at you from the table, hands in his pocket, looking full of pride.

The bathroom was empty, which was a relief and you scurried inside one of the stall and clumsily tried to lock the door, your hands shaking as it felt as if someone was chasing after you. You were now on the floor, your legs gave away as soon as your felt, not safe, but shielded from whatever it was outside.

You tried to unlock your phone but your blurry eyesight and trembling hands made it hard which caused your phone to lock itself from the repeated wrong passcode inputs. “No, no, no, no. Please.” You pressed everything that appeared on the screen and it was finally ringing to which you quickly placed it to your ear. “Please pick up. Please, please.”

The ringing stopped and you were greeted with a soft breathing sound from the other hand. You took in a shaky breath and wiped your tears with the back of your hand. “H–hello?”

“Y/N?” It was Charles.

“I– I don’t know– I don’t–“ Your words were stuck in your throat and you couldn’t stop sobbing so everything became a mess. None of your words were spoken, every sob you took made you feel more and more breathless.

“Y/N? Hey, hey, hey. Slow down. Where are you?”

“I’m at La Table and– I think– something in my drink– my head hurts.” You mumbled and pulled your phone away where you heard footsteps coming.

“Y/N, hey, Y/N, listen. I’m coming to you, alright. Stay on the phone with me. Can you do that?” You nodded but he was expecting to her your voice. “I need words, Y/N. Say something.”

“Yes…”

“I’m heading to my car. Can you tell me where you are?”

“I’m in the bathroom. Can you please–” You flinched when you heard a knock coming from outside your stall.

“Baby? It’s me.” It was Alan. Then came a woman’s voice after his. “Ma’am, we thought you weren’t feeling well so we brought your boyfriend.” The knocking sound came again.

You were trembling so hard that the phone nearly slipped off your hand. You pushed on your leg to scoot as far as you can from the door. The bathroom was big, bigger than usual but it still made you feel like as if there wasn’t enough room for you.

“Charles– I’m– I’m scared.” You whispered, and flinched when they knocked on your stall again. “They– he is outside.”

“I’m 5 minutes away, Y/N. I promise. Fuck!” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel when the traffic light turned red before he could pass.

You turned you head to the door when you heard the clicking sound as the door came unlocking, the handle being pushed down from the outside. “Ma’am, we are unlocking the door for you.” The worker had an extra keys and they had permission from Alan, which they assumed was your boyfriend and guardian to unlock the door and you scurried deeper against the wall. Your phone had now fallen on the floor and long forgotten.

“Baby,” Alan crouched down on his knees and brushed the strands of your hair away, one finger trailing down to your neck and you shook your head in urgency, shutting your eyes and you trembled in fear.

“No, no. I– please, no.”

“What do you mean? I’m your boyfriend. I’m taking you home.” He pulled you by you wrist so your hand were no longer covering your face but you kept your eyes shut, too scared to look at him in the face.

“Look at me, baby.” He gripped on your chin roughly, jerking you which made you opened your eyes in fear. You saw he was looking back, checking if the worker was still there before bringing his face to your ear. “Behave, or I’m gonna make it worse for you.” You felt his tongue under your ear and it caused you to shiver with feart.

“I– go home– I wanna go home.” You saw he pulled a face, nodding as if he was mocking you.

“I can’t wait to go home too, baby.” He bobbed your head, his grip on your face still stayed.

“Move.”

“What?” You heard he said and as you shut your eyes, refusing to look at him in the eyes any longer. You were no longer felt any force on your cheeks but you could still feel his presence near you, in front of you.

“I said move, bastard!” Charles pulled his back by clenching roughly on the back of his collar, pulling his out of the stall, away from you.

“The fuck is wrong with you?!”

He ignored the man and immediately went in front of you. You had your face hidden against your knees. “Y/N,” He timidly tried to hold your trembling body, hands went to grip on your shoulders. His touch was different though you weren’t aware of your surrounding. The significant difference between the touches made stop quivering a little. “Y/N, princess, it’s me.”

“Please– please don’t leave me.” You unable to form any words, slowly lifting your head to seek comfort from whoever in front of you when you found yourself in someone’s embrace as Charles pulled you into a hug, the familiar comfort inundated your heart when his arms tightly wrapped around your shaky frame.

“I’m not, I’m not. I’m right here, Y/N. I won’t leave you.” You didn’t see it but when he stroked his hand on your back, it was shaky. It felt like he had been holding his breath ever since he received your call and now only could he finally filled his lung with air. He didn’t know and hadn’t properly check if you were hurt but you were in his arms, no longer a phone call away where he could only imagine the worst.

“I am so sleepy– I can’t– everything hurts.”

His hand went to stroke your hair as he shushed you, realising that you still couldn’t speak properly. “It’s okay, princess. It’s okay.“

“Who the fuck are you? Let me handle her.”

“Lay your hand on her and I’ll fucking break it. ” Charles pushed the guy away, sending him tumbling back. “Can you stand up? Y/N, hey, look at me. I need you to stand up. Can you do that for me?”

Charles patted you on your cheeks when he saw you were spacing out, your eyes getting droopy. “Fuck it.” He went from crouching to kneeling down as he wrapped his arms around your back and your knees, standing up and your head was leaning against his neck.

“Head hurts. My– stomach.” Your words became a mumble against his skin as you were falling asleep and he leaned his cheek against your forehead, trying to reassure you.

“I know, Y/N. I know.” He took your phone and bag, hanging it on his arm before trying to walk out from the bathroom.

“Y/N–“

“Go fuck yourself.” Charles pushed the guy by his elbow, causing him to crash against the sink. “I’m not done with you yet.”

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When you woke up, you were in an oversized shirt, Charles’s shirt. Your skin didn’t feel moist from all those skincare and makeup products and you had a gel-cooling pad on your forehead. Your head was still throbbing but it was better than what you felt last night.

“Y/N?” Your turned your body to the back, facing the door of the bedroom and saw Charles walked in. “No, no. Just lay down.” He straighten his arms to halt you from sitting up and he crouched down by your side of the bed so he could meet your eyes. He the. caressed the side of your face, letting his hand so stay cupping on your cheek as he gently stroked the temple of your head. “You scared me a lot. Does your head still hurt?” The warmth of his hand, the comfort of his gaze, the reassuring smile could pull you back to sleep. Long gone all the insecurity and perilous feelings from yesterday. You felt sheltered and secured just from his touch. The touch that you had been yearning.

“No, not anymore.” You smiled at him back taking his hand in yours and brushed your lips on the palm. “What’s wrong with your hand?” You frowned and trailed the cuts on his knuckles, stopping when you see him grimaced.

“I got into a fight. It’s nothing, princess.” You haven’t heard the nickname for the longest time ever but it still gave you butterfly.

“A fight? With who?”

“No one. It’s not important.”

“Can you lay down with me?” You saw he blinked, looking at you as if he was asking you to repeat the words.

“Is it– is it okay? I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Please?” Charles gqve in when he saw your look, almost pleading and stood up to get on the bed. You scooted closer, your head finding its way to its home, against his chest as you felt his fingers playing with your hair.

“Why did you do it?” Charles asked, breaking the silence in the room.

“Do what?”

“The date. Why did you go on a date?”

“I–“ You drew in a breath. “I was trying to move on from you.”

“Why?” His hand is now on your back and you felt your shirt tugged a little as if he was trying to snake his hand under it but held himself and went back to stroke your back, hand against your shirt.

“Because I miss you.” You fixed your head on his chest, your legs are all tangled up with his.

He didn’t say anything else and you felt like you were chagrined, feeling rejected, even slightly ashamed for being too blunt with your feelings. You knew you shouldn’t have said that. He probably had been talking to someone else by now.

“I miss you too.”

“Hm?” You tilted your head when you heard his voice cut all the thoughts in your head.

“I actually miss you a lot, princess.” He looked down and beamed when he met your eyes on him.

“But you don’t look like it.” You muttered, making him chuckle.

“What do you mean?”

“Your Instagram, it doesn’t look our break up effect you.” He chuckled even more and leaned his head against your hair. Your voice was so full of diffidence he found it adorable.

“My Instagram doesn’t speak for my feelings, silly. I miss you, a lot. I always wanted to call you but I couldn’t, scared if you would find it annoying. When I got a call from you last night, I thought you were gonna said something, anything about us but I heard you whimpered and my blood ran cold. God knows how many speeding and disobey sign traffic tickets I have gotten by now.”

You giggled and turned yourself facing him, your hands fondled with his chin, feeling the stubble poked against your skin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even know I was calling you. I didn’t want to call you, actually because I wasn’t sure if you would come because, you know, we broke up.”

“We broke up but you are still important to me, Y/N. You always will. I would even take the damn flight if you called me from a different country. Just– don’t call me when you are on a date. No, no more date for you.”

“Why? How am I able to move on if I can’t go on a date, Charles. I can’t keep on crying over you.” You shook your head, looking dejected. You needed to move on. That was what Y/F/N had been telling you. You couldn’t keep on hoping for something that you, yourself didn’t even know if it was worth the wait.

“You don’t have to move on. I’ll be taking you out on your next date. And your next next date. And your upcoming date. All of your dates, basically.”

You sat up almost instantly, hand was still on his chest and you blinked. “What? What do you mean? Are you doing this just because you felt bad for what happened to me last night because if that was the reason, then it’s totally fine. I–“

You felt his lips on yours. It was the kind of kiss that was enough to speak for all of the unspoken words to which he didn’t even have to say anything else. The kind of kiss that erased all your insecurities, all unanswered questions you had been keeping in your head. He pulled away and leaned his forehead against yours. “It means I still love you, princess.” His lips is back on yours as he pulled away, again. “A lot.” Lips were back to mould against yours. “And I don’t want to see you go out on a date with someone else. No more silly date, okay?”

✧.* tags! @i83andrew @cltrlne @karmabyfernando @ohthemisssery @ru-kru @tastebaldwin @f1obessed @aundercover @love4lando

let me know if you would like to be removed or added to my tag list! or if I missed anyone!

Wanted to also point these out. The other symptoms mentioned were difficulty to speak and slurring words, hence why none of the words she said made any sense. Feeling confused, where the reader asked Alan to bring her home and memory loss, where she didn’t ask about what happened last night since she couldn’t remember large sections of it. Hope it makes sense! 🫶🏻

[the-pink-baphomet1861]

The biology of Dredge

Or: What the f**k happened to that fish!

Menu/Next

Part 1; The blue mackerel 

So, Dredge.

It’s that one simple fun fishing simulator about sailing to four different scenic, beautiful, geographically impossible locations while helping the locals and interacting with the wildlife. Just you and your boat for miles, nothing else at all. Sit down, grab your rod, don’t worry! It’s not like anything’s gonna happen to you, especially not involving the noises you’ve been hearing from under the hull. They’re probably just the currents hitting the side of the boat, relax! Feel the cool night air and the gentle, salty, insidious mist on your face and listen to the sounds of the sea, but not too closely. You never know what might be whispering on the tides.

I am, of course, messing with you. In reality, Dredge is a game about sailing through a haunted sea full of unknown horrors and lovecraftian abominations all while searching for the key to a lock you can’t fathom. I loved Dredge, it was a fun game, and my favourite part had to be the art, (besides the wonderfully simple gameplay and riveting story, of course) and my favourite part of the art had to be the aberrations.

For some explanation to the people who haven’t played Dredge, every time you fish from a fishing spot, there’s a chance that the thing you catch won’t be a normal fish, but a mutant little beast with all sorts of fascinating deformities. The chance is basically guaranteed if you see a little blue glow above the fishing spot and these guys are a good bit more valuable than their non aberrant counterparts, so you’re kind of incentivized to collect as many as you can. 

Looks like mama’s eating good tonight!

That isn’t the reason I’m writing this though, because each fish and crab in the game comes with at least one aberrant variety, each with their own unique design and flavour text, which I LOVE! It makes the eldritch presence feel all encompassing, even as you deal with the much larger threats in the sea. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking about the actual, physical effects of these mutations and how they would affect the bodies of their poor, unfortunate hosts, and as a marine biology student, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to both study and learn about the biology of some of the fascinating animals in the ocean and talk about a game I like! It’s a win-win!

Some ground rules first:

Dredge is a video game, and as such things that appear in it don’t necessarily reflect reality in all aspects. The team at Black Salt Games are amazingly talented people, but I’m not so sure how much marine biology they know, and if they do, they probably aren’t going to drag the game to a screeching halt in order to explain three pages of notes incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t been studying marine biology for at least three years. It would also make the game a lot more boring if everything strictly adhered to reality. So everything in this document will be strictly speculative.

I may be a marine biology student, but I am in no way a complete expert. There are going to be a lot of things that I’m probably going to mess up. This isn’t a strict scientific breakdown with 100% accurate information, and while I will try my best to find good, reliable sources for my info, things are going to get pretty fantastical as time goes on, especially for the fish that are specifically made for the game. This is just for fun and not some inscrutable scientific paper built on loads of evidence.

I will NOT be covering any of the larger monsters in the game. This is already a massive undertaking with nearly 200 fish and aberrations to get through and a ton of research to do, and that’s not even getting into the lore implications that these guys are full-on eldritch abominations from another dimension instead of just mutated animals. I might do something like this for them in the future, but for now it’s just the aberrations you can catch and sell.

And with those formalities out of the way, let’s get into it!

Specimen #1: Blue mackerel

This little guy is probably the first fish that you’ll ever catch, they’re the easiest fish outside Big Marrow, not requiring any special equipment, and are in many ways the game’s tutorial for how the fishing mechanic works.

But what kind of fish ARE these guys actually? As in, which species do these guys belong to and what does that mean for how their physiology will change once they start mutating?

Well that’s what this first section is all about.

Who’s that ichthyoid?

In this section, I’m going to be going over the appearance and description in the game and trying to use that in order to find out what species these guys belong to and how exactly their bodies work. This section will vary in length from entry to entry, as while the game isn’t generous enough to give us the scientific names of each fish, there are some that are more obvious than others, and there are some that need a bit more digging.

Starting off with our little guy here, we can see that my largest trophy was about 28,1 cm in length, although I did read that their max in-game size was 30 cm. They have a bluish grey colouration with six black stripes running down both sides. Their body is that of a standard fusiform plan, which means that the animal has an almost cylindrical form that tapers off into two points at both ends, as opposed to other body plans like eel-like or elongated. The tail fin also has a particular shape, in this case forked, which means that the tail has a two-pronged appearance while still being a singular fin, as opposed to a lunate tail fin, which is two separate fins that both have a pronged appearance

A triad of diagrams that display the differences in body plan, the different kinds of fins and tail fin shape, you’re gonna be seeing this a lot. BE ADVISED that these are incredibly variable and can change a lot depending on the species of fish.

Our blue mackerel also has two evenly spaced dorsal fins that are somewhat rectangular and relatively short, reaching their highest points at the top right corner of the fin (although the rectangularity of the fins might just be part of the artstyle) and the pelvic and anal fins seem to share these characteristics, although the pelvic fin is much shorter than the rest, and although I can’t fully make out the pelvic fins, it seems to an almost teardrop shape with the bottom left portion of the fin connected to the area near the second gill slit. The mouth ends in a pointed snout which isn’t too thin, but it is still quite noticeable. 

I haven’t really said much about the habitats of the fish yet, which you would think is pretty important, but here’s the thing, Dredge is frustratingly vague about where it actually takes place. I joked about it before, but the fact that a volcanic hotspot, a mangrove swamp, a coral reef, a temperate cliff area and wherever the marrows are all occur within a few days of sailing doesn’t sound likely to me at all, (although if anyone does know any similar real world areas I would absolutely love to hear about it) but there might be something we can use here. As you can see, each fish comes with an area marker that tells you what kind of gear you need for catching it, but we can actually use this to mark down a habitat and narrow down our search a little. For the blue mackerel we see that it is listed as coastal, which means that it probably stops appearing once you get too far out into the open ocean, so keep that in mind.

Now we can get to the fun part, actually identifying the specific species this fish belongs to.  

First off I think we can safely say that this fish belongs to the ray-finned fish group because it probably has bones and isn’t a coelacanth or a lungfish, which I think is pretty uncontroversial. Narrowing it down is where this gets tricky. You see, the identification tool I was using, a site called fishbase which seems pretty reliable, has a bunch of different options to make your search easier,but they’re all things like the habitat where the fish lives, what it eats, how many spines it has in its fins, and for some reason lacks things like the fish’s colour. All things that would be helpful for a real-world marine biologist trying to identify what they caught, but not so helpful for us trying to find a fish in a fictional video game.

Eventually I did manage to whittle away the options through looking at things like the fin and body shape as well as things like size for species I found interesting, until I got to the Scombridae family, which consists of tuna, bonitos, and of course, mackerels. From there all I had to do was find the species that fit the description best, easy right? WRONG! None of the species I found had all the key characteristics I was looking for. None of them had that deep, bluish-grey colour or those six long stripes running down the sides that I was looking for. So in the end I decided on the closest match I could find.

Image source:https://www.fishbase.se/summary/Scomber-australasicus.html 

The blue mackerel (Scomber australasicus) 

Most of the main traits are there, it has relatively short dorsal and pelvic fins, with a similar almost-teardrop shaped pectoral fin and that same forked tail fin. The colour is a pretty good match too, albeit silvery blue instead of dark bluish grey, but still pretty similar. There are some differences though. The six, distinct, vertical bands on the game version are much less distinct and vertical, and much more numerous and the anal fin is much shorter than in the game and the maximum size was also said to be higher, around 44 cm with 30 being an average rather than the stopping point, but I think we can ignore this as part of the game.

And yeah, I know. Big whoop. The fish called a blue mackerel turned out to be a blue mackerel. I do think that going through this is important however, as it doesn’t just give us a starting point to work with when it comes to the more vague fish, (and trust me, it gets vague sometimes) but also lets us learn a bit more about both the morphology and taxonomy of these animals. Plus, that info will be pretty handy when we inevitably find a fish we can’t properly identify and have to dip our toes into speculative biology.

Now we get to the part you’ve all probably been waiting for since this post started:

WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO THAT FISH?

Finally we can actually get started on looking at the aberrations and breaking down the physiological changes! Hoo boy, this is gonna be fun!

First off, some more groundwork. (I know, I know, but this is still important, so bear with me) 

The internal anatomy, specifically the skeleton, is something we need. It’ll allow us to pinpoint the basic look of what happened anatomically, which gives us the information we need to make more specific assumptions about what’s going on here. I will also bring in information about specific, real-world fish diseases for more accuracy. So be warned! There will be pictures of real fish gore and gross parasites, and with that disclaimer, on with the show!

I couldn’t find a specific diagram of S. australasicus’s skeleton, so I decided to use this neat 3-D model of another, incredibly similar (so similar that scientists used to believe that the blue mackerel was a subspecies) species known as Scomber japonicus, or the chub mackerel.

Image source:https://sketchfab.com/osakanaWatch 

Now let’s get into some mutations!

Mutation #1: Grotesque Mackerel

This little guy was the first aberration I ever caught, I can still remember the day. I was happily fishing, minding my own business, when suddenly the fish I had caught came up with a distorted version of the normal “You caught something!” jingle and I was looking at this gross, sick-looking, mutated version of the blue mackerels I was so used to finding. I knew that the aberrations existed, I had already peeked at the encyclopaedia a little, but actually seeing and catching one was a whole nother experience. I remember feeling both morbid curiosity and a bit bad for the little thing, neither of which were helped by the flavour text that pops up the first time you catch an aberrated fish, but that’s enough nostalgic waxing, let’s get into some marine biology!

The first thing to note is the noticeably bent spinal column, which gives the fish a very distinct hunchback look. There are several different kinds of spinal deformities that can affect vertebrates, but I think the one most likely to be the culprit here is called kyphosis, which is a deformity which causes the upper back to curve forward into a pronounced hump and can affect basically any animal with a spinal column, including fish. We can’t exactly dissect the animal to see where exactly it bends but it seems to reach its highest point around the 10th or eleventh vertebrae, roughly right before the halfway point, and is quite extreme, as the whole spine is at a curved angle. This would probably be quite painful for the fish, the vertebrae disks would probably start digging into each other as well as impede its ability to swim straight, but that isn’t the only thing that would mess with its swimming.

Most of the fins, aside from the pectoral, tail, and one of the dorsal fins have completely atrophied into the fish’s body, with the remaining ones having undergone some serious changes. The pectoral fins appear to have lost a lot of the spines that make up the fin, and the remaining ones have grown to nearly half the fish’s length, which makes it much harder for the animal to make sudden turns, not helped by the lack of a primary dorsal fin. Speaking of which, the secondary dorsal fin is the fin that seems to have undergone the least amount of changes, being just a bit taller than normal, as well as the abnormal colour, but we’ll talk more about that later. The tail fin has gone from a general forked shape to an almost perfect crescent, again suggesting a difference int the number of spines, but this time an increase rather than a decrease, and they have also appeared to have increased in number as well, leading to the fin being proportionally much larger than before. The fish would still be able to swim, just not very well, as the narrower pectoral fins, the larger tail fin, and the lack of stabilising fins would probably give it a rough time controlling its movements, leading to uncoordinated swimming as well as a lot of collisions with obstacles.

The last of the skeletal deformities is the skull which, while still retaining the pointed shape, is also pretty messed up. The upper jaw appears to be forced forward over the lower jaw, along with the cranium, and the entire mouth just seems smaller than before. This might also be an effect of the spinal deformity, but it's hard to say for sure. It also looks like the skull has swollen and deformed a bit, as the snout is much less pointy and far more wide and blunt, as opposed to the normal fish.

You also might’ve noticed another feature of the mouth, those magnificent pearly whites of theirs. They’ve grown much larger and sharper than you can see (or rather, can’t) on the skeleton which, when combined with the deformations in the skull, would definitely affect their feeding behaviour and their ability to catch prey. In real life, while the blue mackerel is mostly a planktonic filter feeder, they can also be rather voracious predators, striking at basically anything they think they could eat, which is a lot. Things like plankton, squids, small fish, and even non-food items like burnt cigarettes and bare hooks aren’t off the menu, so they pretty much only have one row of small, pointed, teeth on their bottom and top jaws and some teeth on the roofs of their mouth. This coincides with their lifestyles as mostly planktonic but still very predatory fish in coastal and open oceans, with their teeth mostly serving the function of holding prey in place when feeding and to keep them from leaving the mouth, not to grab onto and tear like animals with larger teeth.

The altered teeth on the other hand are much larger and sharper, and appear to have decreased in number as well, there is still only one row however. They also seem to be much more uneven. Assuming that there are no large changes in behaviour, and the fish still catches prey in a similar way to before the mutations, it would mean that the teeth’s new shape would actually get in the way of capturing prey rather than helping them, which when combined with the decrease in swimming ability from the deformed fins and spine, would probably mean that the fish is much less successful than the healthy fish when hunting, which would lead to smaller body sizes and much more aggressive behaviour as the fish grows hungrier. Yeah, these fish aren’t doing well. 

With the skeletal abnormalities out of the way, let’s move onto the other forms of mutation. We can’t see much about the internal organs and muscular structure, but there does seem to be some swelling across the body, which could indicate a multitude of things. First, it could imply inflammation, which is when bodily fluids fill an infected portion of the body to allow the immune system to react better to a large amount of disease-causing organisms, but filling areas of the body with fluid can be detrimental in certain cases, not to mention painful. It could also be the sign of unregulated tissue growth, large amounts of an almost cancerous level of growth, which could cause the body to expand, which would not help the fish’s already hunger-strained body, but these growths are nothing compared to another little mutant. (we’ll get there soon, don’t worry)

The next part to discuss is the colour, which has gone from the regular bluish-grey to a vivid electric blue. There are multiple ways an animal’s skin can reflect a certain colour, such as specialized cells in the skin which hold different kinds of pigment, which is how colours like yellow or orange are produced by animals, but blue is a bit different. Instead of being produced by any sort of pigment, blue is reflected by the structures of an animal’s skin rather than any sort of pigment. So in a fish’s case, the scales would have certain structures on them which would scatter the light and make it appear blue. In our little grotesque buddy’s case, all it would take would be a shift in these structures in order for the light to scatter differently and for our eyes to pick up a different shade of blue. Actually, the fact that the fish has lost the black stripes makes it seem like the scales have actually lost pigmentation, which isn’t a very good sign for the fish’s health as the pigments in the body are breaking down for whatever reason. The lighter, more vibrant shade of blue could also make them more visible to predators, which also would not be good for the fish’s health, but in a different way.

The very last thing I want to talk about are those small beady, red eyes. The encyclopaedia describes them as bulging, but the illustration makes it seem more sunken than bulging, so let’s go with that. In any case, it probably isn’t good. Eye pigmentation is based on genetics, but to get a bright, vivid red like that usually means one thing: blood, and lots of it. It could mean that a lot of blood vessels could have burst and flooded the eye, obscuring the pupil and giving it a menacing deep red shade. The sunken-in state of the eyes is something known as enophthalmos, which can be a result of various things in fish such as sudden changes in salinity or a result of certain infections.

Mutation #2: Lumpy Mackerel

How long was that last section? Like three pages? Hoo boy we’re gonna be here forever. Thankfully I think that the rest of these are gonna go much faster, I hope. In any case now we’re gonna be looking at one of the more intense mutations in the game. Look at this thing, Where do you start!? I guess with the obvious.

This thing is absolutely covered in large, bulbous masses, I mean just look at it, you can hardly tell there’s a fish under there, and these things are huge as well. Compared to the rest of the anatomy, they would be at least a decimeter or even more if they appeared on a human, which isn’t good, in case you were wondering.

Now onto what I think these actually are. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what they are, but I have a few ideas. They could be cysts caused by something like lymphocystis, which are sacs that can contain air, fluids or semi-solid materials, which would explain things like the smooth shapes, but the problem is that cysts usually form in one specific part of the body due a specific cause, like an injury or infectious organism, and that cause can change depending on where the cyst forms, and considering the sheer amount of growths, I don’t think a single kind of cyst can be the culprit. They might be some of the growths, but I think that the main cause is actually cancerous tumours.

Tumours are clumps of cells that can form under specific circumstances, and can sometimes result in a rather obscure medical condition you might have heard of called cancer, which in short is when cells in the body undergo several key mutations which essentially makes them go feral, they stop fulfilling their ordinary function and start rapidly multiplying and draining valuable nutrients from the body, growing into a large clump that does nothing but take up space, get in the way of important functions and generally be a nuisance. There are two categories that specific tumours can fall into, benign and malignant, which basically describes how aggressively the tumour is growing and how much of a threat it is to your health. 

Benign tumours generally aren’t very dangerous, they’re mostly just a clump, with some never even requiring removal. They don’t invade surrounding tissue or grow back after being surgically removed or even growing all that fast. However, benign doesn’t mean harmless, as they can still cram other, more important organs and do have to be monitored in case they do become malignant, which I think we should talk about now.

Malignant tumours are the dangerous ones, the ones that have entire foundations dedicated to treatment, and with good reason. These things are nasty, they do everything that benign tumours do and more, they’re cancerous, they invade tissue, they can grow really fast and take a lot of nutrition, they spread to new parts of the body, they kick grandmas and burn down orphanages, they are the worst. They are also what I believe to be causing these growths in the fish. I’m not entirely sure what exact kind of cancer it is and frankly I don’t think we can know, just that it is now everywhere. This I think is the result of metastasis, when cancerous cells break away from the original tumour and migrate to new parts of the body, where they begin growing into malignant tumours themselves.

However, there are a few other things we have to consider in this situation, the size and the amount. Most of the time tumours are rather small, even if comprised of thousands of cells, there are cases of absolutely massive tumours inside people, (don’t look up pictures if you value your mental health) but they don’t grow to this frequency in that size, probably because a person usually dies without treatment before that can happen. Which means that something, probably dark magic, is keeping the fish alive.

Other than the tumours, I couldn’t really see any easily identifiable deformities to the skeletal structure under the growths (except for one, but we’ll get there soon) as the only fin I could make out, the tail fin, seems relatively unchanged, at least compared to the grotesque mackerel, but the other fins appear to be either obscured or reabsorbed by the growing masses. Now for the skull, oh boy the skull. A particularly large mass seems to have grown either on the top of or inside of the skull, stretching the eyes from their sockets and deforming the jaws. I believe it to be inside the skull as the entire structure of the face seems to have been changed rather than a tumour simply growing on top of the skull, and since we can’t see the rest of the skeletal structure, we can’t tell if there are any more significant skeletal disfigurement.

The last thing I wanted to discuss is the colour, which has gone from the usual to a sickly greenish-yellow. Now yellow fish aren’t uncommon, with xanthophyll being the primary pigment, but given the obviously unhealthy nature of the fish, I don’t think that it’s just the pigments changing. So I did some research and eventually found another likely candidate known as jaundice, which is a condition that occurs when dead red blood cells accumulate in the body due to issues with the liver, causing the skin to turn a rather sickly shade of yellow, and it can occur in fish as well, and it can also be caused by certain kinds of liver cancer, which I’d be surprised if this fish didn’t have.

Mutation #3: Many-Eyed Mackerel

Here we are! The last mutation in this post! Can you feel the excitement? Let’s not dawdle and get right into it!

So unlike the other two, I thought I’d start with discussing the colours instead of the skeletal structure because it doesn’t seem to have changed all that much. The fins, except for the pectoral fins, which seem to be completely gone, and spine are all in basically the same place as the healthy fish and don’t seem to have undergone any specific changes, but the colouration is another matter entirely. The fish looks like a giant, eye covered carrot, which should clue you in on my idea on the matter. Carotene, a pigment most often associated with carrots, but can appear in a ton of other things as well, such as brown algae. It bonds with chlorophyll and allows it to pick up and receive energy from other light sources, basically expanding the range of colours the organism can use for photosynthesis. I don’t think it serves this function in the fish, as fish are not known for their photosynthetic qualities, but it is probably the result of whatever genetic scramblings the magic is doing to these fish, causing these pigments to form in the skin of the animal where there previously was none. 

Eyes are incredibly complicated structures with lots of different parts that all contribute to their function. You have the lens, optic nerve, iris, retina, cornea, and all the muscles that allow the eye to move and contract. This means that the eye begins to form very early in the development of an organism, driven by proteins called morphogens which tell certain undifferentiated cells to turn into specific cells at specific points, and all the eyes in the mutant seem to be fully formed despite their random placement. So that means that the extra eyes would have had to form very early into the fish’s development, probably caused by the disruption of morphogens in the embryo, which caused eyes and their surrounding structures to form sporadically across the fish’s skull.

The eyes also seem much larger than before, compared to both the illustrations and the real life photo. In fact, the one that I believe to be the normal pair of eyes, the top-right pair, seem to have bulged out of their sockets, and the other eyes seem to be in a similar predicament. We can’t know for sure, but it seems like the other eyes have formed with eye sockets of their own, albeit while bulging out of them like the normal pair, but again, we can’t know for sure.

At first I thought that the fish would be unable to absorb oxygen considering that several of the eyes seem to have grown over the the gills, but it’s possible that the eye growth would have spared at least the last gill slit, which would allow the fish to have water pass over their gills and absorb oxygen without the eyes completely compromising the fish’s ability to breathe. Gills are really good at absorbing oxygen and can function pretty well as long as water can pass through, so even if there's some difficulty, it's not as impossible as it seems.

Final words

So now we’re done with this round of fish! I’m not really sure what to put here, it’s not like there’s some scientific conclusion we can draw other than “these fish are fucked up”, which I’m sure you could draw just by looking at them, so I think I’ll just give my closing thoughts.

I really like Dredge. It’s a game which has a lot of great elements which make it fun and rewarding to explore, such as learning about the story and seeing the new fish designs that come with each area, especially as a student myself learning about the sea and the creatures that live there. Each of the designs are beautifully and carefully crafted to fit both sides of the game, and I love going over each one and learning more about both their eldritch, mutated forms with wild changes, and the real world biology that inspired them.

This is the first in a series that will be going over each catchable fish in the main game and the dlcs and analyzing their biology both as real world animals, and as little mutant monsters, and it would be wonderful to share this with anyone who is willing to listen to me ramble on about a horror fishing simulator and its wonderfully creepy inhabitants.

[lazodiac]

It's time again to look at Thunder Junction's cards and try and divine where each and every one of these bad boys are from.

Also just a note in case people are curious; since Tumblr has a 30 image limit per post, I'll be doing all of The Big Score at the end, after all the colours and stuff. It's my prerogative and I'll do as I please. If you missed the first part, you can find it here! So without further ado, it is time for...

BLUE

While I don't think EVERY mount is from Thunder Junction Proper... newts ARE a creature that shows up in the west. I was initially thinking this could be for Eldraine, especially given it belongs to an archmage, but... ultimately, I think this is a native to the plane.

Another native, and dare I say this is a CHARISMATIC crab. I love the crystals on its back! I also love the blue cacti nearby it? Those are real by the way!

There aren't many turtle-men in Magic. Three, in fact, before this one; the Lagoon Sage, a Quandrix student, and a Kappa from Kamigawa. The Kappa has a VERY distinct look, the Quandrix is a sea turtle, and the Lagoon Sage is a snapper just like the Thunder-Thief over here... and I'm gonna make a called shot and say this is from Bloomburrow as a result!

Homarid are a Dominaria specialty, so this racist bastard is absolutely from there.

Djinn of this type are only found on Tarkir, so this one is easy. He's taken a break from his dragon-infested plane to relax under a waterfall martial artist style, and that's just kinda fun.

This is a tricky one, since the ability is pretty plane agnostic, and the design doesn't evoke much in it... but her collar DOES have the typical three-fang Dimir tell, and it'd fit both colour and what she's doing, so lets go with Ravnica.

Sadly a cursory Wiki glance tells me only that this guy is from America.

... okay okay, taking this seriously; the wings and the scroll and the steps, the name, all the flavour suggests this is from Amonkhet for me. It could be from elsewhere, but this feels the most "correct" for lack of a better term. I wish cards like this would get flavor text reprints down the line though...

These are some home-grown ghosts, and we know from various other stories (Gideon, Elspeth, etc) that when you die you go to the afterlife of the plane you're on... so these are some newly "born" natives.

These unfortunate individuals are from the dead plane of Oregon.

... what? I already used that joke? Okay fine. There really isn't any actual signifiers here, and the only humanoid in the art is too indistinct to tell. Given the content of the card is trying and failing to ford one of Thunder Junction's mighty rivers, I'm calling this card "native to the plane" for lack of anything else appropriate.

Oh hey it's everyone's favorite running gag from Ravnica. Fblthp is an easy one, so instead of elaborating more on our mono-eyed friend instead I'll bring up a question I want any of you reading this to answer.

Didn't they say during the initial preview teasers that there was an important plot event happening in the background of this card? That never bore fruit and I can't remember the exact preview stream I heard it, but I swear I did. I want someone to confirm this for me. I'm abusing my power.

Regrettably, the flavor text makes this spell be sourced from Oko's Home Plane. I do love this weird tumbleweed creature though!

God I hate Oko he's such a scum bag (derogatory).

A personal favorite character of mine, Geralf is an Innistradi born and raised, here to investigate the Thunder of the plane- as well as test how mana bonds work for planebound folk now that they have access to planar travel. Good luck, sir.

An obvious native of the plane. I quite like the flavor of this card as well by the way, it's just a clever way to incorporate the geysers you would occasionally see in the old west.

Another Thunder Junction native! It's wild how many of these there actually are, but wild animals do make up a bulk of cards in Magic so it's not THAT unreasonable.

Fun lore tidbit; allegedly the Thunder only started after the Omenpaths opened up. No one has lived here before that so no one can confirm that is true, and this flavor text suggests otherwise.

One of the only cards showcasing the least important members of Oko's gang of ruffians! Kaervek and Satoru busting out of jail thanks to the help of Annie Flash. The framing of the card makes it feel more like Kaervek's doing the real world (valid, Satoru is a loser this entire story) so I'm gonna call it for Zhalfir here- and yes even though technically everyone from Zhalfir is from Dominaria, it's a plane all its own now. I make the rules here!

The Fomorian made star-key to open up their vault on Thunder Junction, I feel like it is safe to say this was made here. It's got little arcs of Thunder and even looks like a deputy star, so it fits the vibe.

Fun fact; being a six pointed star, plus the fact that in the story they mentioned the sixth slot started glowing purple, I briefly had the idea that they might be implying the Fomorian's know of Purple magic and we'll get it in the big Space set we're getting down the line. Then I remembered Cosmium is purple and a major energy source for the Fomorion people, so nevermind.

I can't confidently say this is from Bloomburrow, given we don't know how big the people of that plane can get- so far they've maxed out at Badger and Fox- but I really don't know where this guy could be from otherwise! Maybe Ravnica? So lets call this Bloomburrow until corrected otherwise.

Incidentally this is one of my favorite pieces of art in the set. Love this fucking guy.

Beyond all the art signifiers, I believe it was straight up said on twitter this is a Therosian Sphinx, so she's from Theros. Good for her. Why is she wearing spurs...?

I'm fairly confident this is meant to depict Stella Lee, and she's from the Atiin people, so that's where this is from! Rundo meanwhile sounds like a Ravnica, but that's just some trivia.

This one I'm not fully sure on. The little bird like flecks of white in his magic, the watery energy... I feel like I've seen it somewhere before, but I can't quite place it. The red and blue suggests Izzet but then he's a Slickshot, the red-blue faction on Thunder Junction. I'm gonna go with my gut and say Ravnica, though.

Shit like this is why I wish we'd gotten a planeswalker guide...

Blue, so far, has some of the most easy and obvious ones to place, and for this I'm thankfully. This guy is a Stitcher, so he's from Innistrad. Easy as.

She's got some of the Sterling Company aesthetic going on, but I'm a stickler for stupid jokes so I'm gonna say she's from Zendikar. The armor could evoke Sea Gate, and they've always been good with ropes so why NOT translate that to combat?

Like with the earlier ghosts, dead-then-revived means you're native to Thunder Junction... but also this guy is clearly an Obscura from New Capenna, using some of his old magic, so I'mma call it for the big city here.

Oko's big bad gang preparing for the heist of the life-time. Since it's Oko's big idea it's from Oko's stupid plan.

The sort of misty blasts of fire and ice we're seeing here is aesthetically similar to the "gunfire" magic of New Capenna. I love this guy by the way.

Hey wait a second Ashiok can't do stuff like this. They can only read nightmares, not minds!

YEah for those of you who don't know, the Ashiok in this set is actually Jace in disguise! So this is from home-grown celtic Vryn mind-shredding. Our hero(?) ladies and gentlehommes.

An actual Sterling Company goon, though at least this one has a funny joke to his card. I still really like the work they did in making sure every weapon used in the set has the needed arcing loop for Thunder to channel through it.

Oh right the reason why we're here. I'm gonna say New Capenna again, because there's basically no defining traits here. Also god I just realized he's missing the front brim of his hat and it looks terrible. Graywater pay your men properly they can't even afford complete hats!

It took me a bit to realize what was happening in this card. The lady in the back is only choosing the final Spree option here, swapping around the Outcaster and the Hellspur's clothing. Rude!

Clothing swap spells seems like a funny prank to pull at magical college, so Arcavios is where this is going.

I think in cases where I just cannot make any reasonable assumptions based on art, I should look at mechanics. Flashback is usually in Innistrad... but this lady's neckline is WAY too exposed for that Even accounting for the new plane... honestly I give up, the only real identifying factor here is her little lockpick device, which... kinda looks Kamigawan? Lets go with that.

The vibe, the way she wears her hat, and the little phone cord(?) on her belt makes me think of New Capenna. Look some of these are really difficult and I gotta go by vibes!

And that's the 30 card limit, give me a half second for part two!

[dirtbra1n]

hello! its tashiro anon with another random idea, this time valentine flavoured since its everywhere and i cant escape

i think tashiro would try to make handmade goods for his friends,, maybe not immediately but like after seeing somewhere just how happy it can make someone to receive handmade sweets he would go 'oh i gotta try that' and what better day is it to give them then the chocolate day?

it definitely would take multiple tries to get it good but i can see him presenting them proudly to them. the shape is not perfect and neither is his packaging but his smile alone would be enough to make ones heart feel full i think,,, kuresawa would probably immediately send it to his gf with the caption 'someones trying to give me valentine chocolates'

he would make some to hanzawa too,, although if he would actually manage to give them is debatable, i think it could create a cute scenario

thats all have a great day!

TASHIRO ANON!!! HI!!! I do always love to be brain blasted into the wall

I’m writing this as thoughts develop Went and opened up the second years novel because there’s a chapter about white day. tashiro anon did you know this chapter is crazy There’s some really crazy stuff in here. kuresawa’s always got insanely Something things to say about his friends IIII’m suddenly dizzy okay anyway. kuresawa’s crazy ANYWAY

really really fun thing about tashiro is that he can kind of. do anything he puts his mind to. he sees what kind of expression someone can make when receiving chocolates and goes Oh I can do that. I need to do that. and he does. looks up a recipe at home jots it down and makes a day of going to the grocery store. browses aisles with his hands at the back of his neck. realizes he needs like, a basket at least. helps one of the bathhouse ladies with her stuff when they cross paths. laughs raucously when she jokes a little crassly about how busy her valentine’s day is gonna be.

gets home three hours later with a few bags worth of stuff and things. headband keeping stray hair out of his eyes. squinting at his handwriting. chocolate! some a little lumpy others bigger than he meant them to be. takes a nibble and they taste fine. it’s not like he’s someone’s girlfriend doing this, anyway. a few lumps aren’t gonna kill anyone. except the lump in his throat, maybe, What kind of thought was that even? ha ha ha I have fun

brings them in the next day though, yeah, and kuresawa texts his girlfriend and she replies Reject them. and tashiro’s protests can be heard from the rooftop. miyano almost starts to argue before he looks at tashiro’s face, the barest trace of maidenly anticipation. and he takes them staring at the floor and his ears warm. Fine, he thinks. and he says thank you, and tashiro whoops.

shirahama gets his thrown at him, second he comes through the door. catches them last minute. starts sniffling with damp eyes.

and you’re so right tashiro anon…. some dedicated to hanzawa senpai. when’s he supposed to even give them to him? is the sort of question on his mind. he’s passing the packaging between his two hands, back and forth, on his way out of school. down the street. after practice, so the crisp not-yet-spring air is biting at him a little. downhill to the bathhouse.

serendipitous, hanzawa senpai standing in the middle of the street. it isn’t a steep decline but it feels like one.

Tashiro-kun, hanzawa senpai calls up at him. he looks small from up here but his voice is the same as ever—just a little surprised.

tashiro, eyes wide and earnest, holding his full hand up, calls back down, Chocolate!

[feralkwe]

4, 8, 16 and 26 for Kit from the ask meme? :D i'd copy the questions in but i think i'd run out of space with that wall of text lol

haha probably! in fact i'm gonna put this under a cut!

4. how does your wol's echo manifest itself? do they see visions as they happen? all at once? delayed? do they get any physical symptoms from it?

the echo as i understand it is purely hindsight/after the fact (and it is entirely possible i am forgetting instances where it might be otherwise?) so i'd say it's largely a clear, all-at-once thing. in-game it reads to me to be a little painful, or at least distressing. i imagine it to be like a sudden onset headache that maybe leaves behind it a bit of nausea when it passes. it doesn't look pleasant by any means. that said, kit has a high pain threshold, so don't let her fool you. it hurts, she's just determined to grit her teeth through it an soldier onward.

8. how good is your wol at taking care of their armor/clothes? do they mend them themself? pay to gave it fixed? just change it when it gets old?

i would say that her axe she maintains herself with loving attention to detail. she's probably an axe nerd like holga from d&d: honor among thieves, and will correct you on what type of oil and how often you should use it to keep that blade in good shape. this has nothing to do with the fact that kit specifically has the axe of light from sos ex. i'm also sure that rava viera learn to maintain and even make their gear themselves, so whatever she left golmore knowing, she's only enhanced along the way. if there are things she's unsure of, she would absolutely seek out an expert, but she would definitely want to learn to do it herself.

16. is your wol good at cooking? what's their specialty? what can they never get right no matter how hard they try? what flavour profile are they good at cooking? what do they eat on the road?

again, i imagine the viera of golmore to be very communal people, so i am sure kit has at least passable cooking skills. she could probably feed a lot of people in a sustainable way if needed, so the profiles would be of a generic appeal for the broadest demographics. that said, i don't think she likes doing it. food on the road is probably dictated by circumstance: inns or taverns if available so she can get a hearty, hot stew or (if she's lucky!) a really spicy dish. if not, whatever travels best. food is necessity that has to be dealt with, but good food meant to be enjoyed is a treat.

26. what does your wol think about lying? is it unacceptable to ever lie, are white lies okay, are they a pathological liar? how do they feel about people who lie to them?

ooh this is a meaty one. kit does not appreciate being lied to, even in a mild way, or manipulated with half-truths, even for a good reason. it definitely depends on the level of contrition from the liar regarding the lies told, and she does try to approach it with the context of why it was deemed necessary. urianger is the most complicated example of how she views it. the first time was hard. it hurt because it was him and minfilia was the cost. the second, she felt like his hand was forced, and he went out of his way to make amends. right or wrong, she held/holds that one against g'raha, and she's still not fully over it (but trying). her grudge against g'raha will take time, and they need to have an actual meaningful conversation about it. venat/hydaelyn? well, some things will just die hard, and that's all i will say about that here in this specific post lol.

thanks so much for the ask!

[izzy-b-hands]

So. I'm allowing myself a vent post or two abt Stuff in the Brain today that won't fuck off, but it'll all be under a cut if I feel I'm at risk of being too wordy so folks don't gotta see this if they don't wanna. And on this one I did get wordy, multi-paragraphs so. fair warning if u decide to be brave and read thru it lol

I'm behind on getting Mum a bday gift. Like two weeks behind. Partially bc money, partially bc the thing I really wanted to get her involves bidding on ebay and attempting to win a listing (and I just haven't managed it yet lmao), and partially bc like:

For once I've been living my life for me, thinking abt me and Housemate first and foremost, and focusing on what I actually want/need from day to day, and that means I'm away from my phone a bit more than usual, which means I've missed some calls and texts from Mum and just haven't been as Available via phone/apps/etc as I've been in the past

(including one time in the last week or so where Housemate and I stepped aside to the kitchen to make ourselves mac n cheese, and Mum was late to calling me for a planned call, so I figured I was safe to leave the phone by the couch while we cooked. Nope! In that less than half hour, 25 mins at most that it took us to finish mac and get plated up, she figured we'd both A. fallen down the stairs and were now dying from brain bleeds while the cats sniffed us in panic and fear B. decided to cut her out of my life forever and so now I wasn't going to be answering her calls (tho this point I didn't know until a much more recent text where she admitted to it and did say she was ashamed of feeling that way.) )

So I really need to get something out to her, either the chocolates I was planning on sending for her and the family from a local shop, the Snoopy Build-A-Bear plushie with a lil 'I miss you' tshirt and a voice thingy inside it with me telling her to remember that I love her and am always grateful for her help and care and things like that, whatever will fit lol (this is the fucker that triggered this whole train crash of a set of thoughts today lmao), and/or something from one of the ebay listings I've been trying to get (I just need to accept it and pay the buy it now price considering what the thing is isn't like. Uber rare? But apparently Bon Jovi doesn't have their figurines made any more, so they're a bit harder to find and I'm gonna risk not getting one at all if I don't just. do the dang thing lmao)

I'm thinking the Snoopy would be best/easiest for rn, but I keep getting stuck on what I'll say for the recording and it's so dumb but like:

I know, for the sake of both of us and the deeply grown and intertwined sort of emotionally incest-flavoured codependency Mum and I have, we probably should eventually try going NC or LC for at least like. a month or two in the future? Probably even a bit longer? Not as like a 'this is forever' thing (unless something would happen that would point to that as the best option for both of us), but just until we can maybe both heal a bit and work closer towards something even vaguely approaching a more normal mother/son relationship.

And the particular fear is very silly but like. I'd hate to say the things I have planned, that I mean (I do love her, and I know she does her best, and so I'm grateful for every bit and every sort of help she's ever given or will ever give me), and then we someday go NC or LC, and she's hurt by having the plush and audio around as a reminder of how things were before. I could see her throwing it away in a fit, and then being so sad and begging for a new one by the next day. And I'd want to get her one. I don't know if that's right of me or not.

Like, the trauma has me Entirely overthinking this and I know it's ridiculous, you know? But still. Got the Build-A-Bear tab open on my phone bc the chocolate is at least partially to be shared, so that's Not Enough as a partial belated bday gift; and I'd like to hit another paycheck (or part of it, since the uni rarely puts the full fucking direct deposit in on scheduled payday lmao) before I try for the Bon Jovi figurine (and hope it isn't bought before that point.) So the plush is really the best choice, and I don't want to wait any longer to send anything out bc like. Her bday was at the beginning of March, this is fucking ridiculous of me and not how I like handling gifts at all, for anyone!!

Fingers crossed I just. Get the fucking recording done, get it ordered and have them send it out to her, and that'll be enough until I can get my hands on a figurine and/or order the chocolates and candies for her, her bf, and to share with the rest of the family.

[nightsidewrestling]

D.U.D.E: Moments - Part 4 - The Meeting (Set in 2020)

Tags: @piratewithvigor @tantamount-treason @thedollmaker16 @janetreader

This takes place during Part 2, after Eddie texts Kirby, extends into Part 3.

Also, Kirby is still Orange. Italics are inner thoughts.

Eddie's P.O.V:

He had talked Moxley into dropping him off at the meeting place, checking out of his hotel room and takin his bags with him. Something in the back of his mind had convinced him to leave, trying to make him run but also desperately wanting him to take Her with him.

"You didn't tell me what flavour you wanted so I went with strawberry."

Her voice alone was enough to make him want to smile, especially when she's calm and not sobbing or screaming. Decent choice, damn you look pretty in this light, "I wanted to see what you'd choose." In all honesty he had forgotten to actually think before sending her a text back, "These fries for me?"

"Yeah, I don't know what you like so I hope it's okay."

If I'm with you, Hell, I'd eat anything you bought me, "More than okay," Now comes the make-or-break question, how do you respond to smokers, "you don't mind if I smoke?" He asks, already lighting up the cigarette.

"I'm more than okay with it, I've been around smokers my whole life."

Eddie raises an eyebrow, she didn't smell like cigarettes, and she hadn't seemed like the type who had even seen a cigarette before last night in the hotel, she was too innocent, too gentle for that to be real. "Really, do ya parents smoke?"

"No, my uncles do. All seven of them, Many of my cousins do too."

Okay, now she's fuckin' wit' me, she's gotta be, that's a fuckin' lie an' I'm fuckin' callin' her on it, "Big family?"

She scrolls through her phone before showing Eddie a photo of her and her family and the many, many people she's related to, "The Rhydderch clan, owners of C.R.C and trainers to many."

Holy shit, she wasn't lyin', that's a lot of people, "Jesus H, you have a big family, are those two ya parents?" Please say yes, 'cause I don't wanna guess who in this photo is if it ain't them.

"The two on the left, yeah, needless to say neither of them were expecting me to be a giant."

"Any brothers or sisters? Nieces, nephew?" Anyone who might kick my ass if I flirt wit' ya?

"Nope, just me, Mam and Da."

"Any boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé?" Anyone who'll really kick my ass if i flirt wit' ya?

"That's very forward of you, Eddie."

Shit, act casual, cover up the flirting dumbass, "I just ant to know if there's anyone, other than the girls and Damien," who I will kill if ya let me, "in your life."

"Nope, as far as I'm concerned, I'm by myself."

Eddie nods as he leans back, breathing out a cloud of smoke as he looks at her. I think you're so fuckin' pretty, I wanna make you happy and I wanna make you my girl. I don't just wanna fuck ya, I wanna love you, romance ya, fuck it, I'll marry your fine ass, If you'll be mine forever I would die happy.

"I have… had friends, back home, T.J, Mike and Yoshi. Haven't spoken to them since I left Wales, though, two years ago." She mutters.

"You have me," he smiles softly, before realizing how the words sound, "and Mox, if you need us, I'm always a text or phone call away if you need me."

"You'll protect me?" She cocks an eyebrow as she jokes.

"Yeah. Sure on TV we're at war right now, but now I know what your 'Boss' is like, and he's an asshole by the way," Eddie grins, "I'm gonna keep you safe whether you like it or not."

"Don't be an ass, Eddie." She chuckles, her laugh making Eddie fall further for her.

He sticks his tongue out to make her laugh a little longer before deciding to tell her why he's got his bags with him.

"You're stuck with me today, kid, so you better get used to this asshole." He winks, upping his more flirtatious behaviour and expecting her to call him on it, but she doesn't.

"I'm stuck with you." Her smile drops, replaced with what he assumes is concern, "As in Mox dropped you off so you'll be with me all day?"

"Exactly, so put up and shut up." I know you ain't concerned for me, so why that look, "Where's your car anyway? We can talk and drive, get you to relax around me, too."

Eddie smokes as they walk to her car, glancing at her and smiling when his eyes connect with hers. He finishes his cigarette and disposes of it properly, knowing that she's watching him. A wave of nostalgia hits Eddie when Kirby turns the car on and her music starts playing. House of Pain, Irish-American Rap from New York, from 1990s New York.

"Oh man," He sighs happily, "you listen to House of Pain?"

"Yeah, why? Do you want me to turn it off?"

"Nah, how do I turn it up?" And which button is the volume, not that one, nope, no… she's staring at me, I should've waited for an answer.

[warpedlegacywrites]

Writing Forum Prompt - Subtext

Second week's prompt from @nirikeehan's forum series.

Write two very short examples of text (250 words or less), in which the true meaning of the action or dialogue is hidden in a subtext. Under each text, write a sentence or two that explicates the subtext. Objective: To learn to use indirection to illustrate the power of hidden meaning. This is something like a double exposure – a photograph that shows two images simultaneously.

First Entry: Bull and Solas

Solas: How you can drink that with a smile is beyond me. Bull: Not a tea drinker, Solas? Solas: No, thank you. It is not to my tastes. Bull: Yeah, I guess it’s not everyone’s cuppa tea. Heh. Get it? Solas: Yes, very clever. Bull: Hard to blame you. I’ll bet you’ve mostly had shitty tavern stuff - brewed in a hurry and not flavoured at all. Drank more out of necessity than real appetite. Have you ever tried the stuff coming out of Orlais? Give ya a whole new perspective on life. Solas: What concern is it of yours whether or not I drink tea? Bull: Just don’t want you missing out because of lackluster past experience is all. Don’t judge a whole flavour on a single cup. You strike me as a jasmine man. I could hook you up. Solas: I… appreciate the thought. I think. But I am really not interested in having this discussion at the moment. And it’s really none of your business what drinks I do or do not imbibe. Bull: Alright, consider it dropped. Bull: (muttered out of earshot) Probably wouldn’t be so grumpy if you’d had a cup of tea by now.

Subtext: Solas thinks Bull is talking about the Qun. Bull is talking about sex.

Second Entry: Varric and Cassandra

Cassandra: You’re back. Varric: You’re… here. Cassandra: You thought I’d be out? Varric: Yeah? I heard you were gonna be at the training grounds all morning. Cassandra: It’s pouring out. Varric: Never stopped you before. Cassandra: Well, someone used to always nag me about getting sick. Varric: …Right. Well, I can’t really stay. I just came back to grab— Cassandra: —Bianca? She’s right where you left her. Varric: So I see. Cassandra: You expected otherwise? Varric: I’ve seen you stab books with abandon. Couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t… I don’t know. Cassandra: Is that what you think of me? Varric: Cass, I didn’t mean— Cassandra: —Stop calling me that. Varric: …Sure. Seeker. I wasn’t trying to… Well. Guess it doesn’t matter. Cassandra: (scoffs) Of course not. Why should anything you do matter? Then you’d have to actually care. Or Maker forbid, face the consequences. Varric: (heavy sigh) Yeah okay. Make me the bad guy. Cassandra: You do that well enough without my help. Varric: This is exactly why I waited until I thought you were out… Cassandra: To avoid facing the consequences? Varric: To avoid a fight. And you’re not— Cassandra: Enough. Just leave. And take your ridiculous infatuation with you. Varric: …Yeah. Alright Seeker. Guess I’ll be seeing ya. Cassandra: (says nothing further)

Subtext: This is how I imagine Varric and Cassandra’s brief romantic entanglement ending - not with a bang but with a whimper. Mostly because of Varric’s inability to truly move past his feelings for Bianca.

[invisibleraven]

Compliment 25, rulie 🥰

Reggie tries to be quiet as he enters the dark house, not wanting to wake Julie as he comes in. The sun has not yet crested the horizon, so she should hopefully still be slumbering, a state he hopes to join her in soon.

"These night shifts are killing me," he mutters, cracking his back as he ambles towards the kitchen, hoping to have a quick bite before bed.

Only, sitting there at the counter, nursing a mug of tea, is Julie. Looking bleary eyed and dour, merely glancing at him as he enters. "Oh, I wasn't expecting you home..." she glances at the clock, and then slumps. "I didn't realize the time."

"What are you doing up darlin'?" Reggie asks, coming up behind her and embracing her in his arms. She sags into his hold and he can almost feel the bone weary exhaustion in her.

"Bad dream," she whispers. "Hoped the tea would help, but my brain is whirring, and you know it's impossible for it to stop when it gets like that."

Reggie sways them a bit, pressing a kiss to her temple. "I'm sorry hun. Should I ask how long you've been up?"

"Couple hours," Julie replies with a shrug. "I already texted them I won't be coming in today. They'll get it when they get it."

"Don't suppose I could coax you to come back to bed once I've eaten?" Reggie asks, not loosening his hold.

"Doubt I'll sleep and I don't wanna keep you up," Julie replied. "I know how hard it is for you on this new schedule."

"I don't think I'd be able to sleep anyways, knowing you were up and exhausted while I was snug in bed," Reggie said. He lets go of her and takes the mug, the contents long gone cold so he doesn't feel bad dumping them. "Here's what we're gonna do; I am gonna make some oatmeal, and once that's gone, we're gonna go to bed where I am going to snuggle you back to sleep. Then when we get up, we'll have a nice lazy day together, and hopefully your brain will have relaxed a bit."

"That sounds nice," Julie admits, biting at her bottom lip. "But let me make the oatmeal while you go put on your jammies. That way after we can just hope right back into bed."

"Always looking out for me, even when I'm trying to take care of you," Reggie said, nuzzling their noses together, then kissing the tip of hers so she scrunched it in that adorable way of hers.

Soon enough Reggie was pyjama'd up and sitting at the island, Julie perched in his lap, the two of them sharing his oatmeal, but only after he insisted she have a few bites because it was so delicious and maybe something in her stomach would help her sleep.

Julie gave a small moan at the flavour of nutmeg and sugar as she ate. "That is good," she admitted. "Thanks for sharing."

Reggie could see the tension start to bleed from her shoulders, the furrow leave her brow, and best of all, a smile graced her lips. "There's that smile that I love. Missed it."

"I'm really like your smile too," Julie whispered back. "Missed it so much."

"I know darlin'," Reggie sighed. "These opposite shifts have sucked. Hate feeling like two ships passing in the night. But it's only for a while. They said they're gonna put me on days soon, Then..."

"Then we can actually see one another?" Julie said, perking up. "Start planning again?"

Reggie ran his fingers over her hand, caressing the spot where her engagement ring usually lay, knowing it was safe upstairs in it's box. Bills and health issues had lead them to put off wedding planning. Now finally, maybe they could set a date, finally have the wedding they wished for all those months ago when he asked.

"That sounds lovely, but first, how about that nap?" Reggie said.

Julie let out a wide yawn and nodded, then let out a wild giggle as Reggie scooped her up and carried them both up the stairs towards bed. Snuggling deep under the covers with his arms secure around her. Julie found herself quickly drifting off to sleep, no nightmares in sight.

And even in sleep, the two of them were smiling.

[house-of-cards-and-crime]

Heeeyy welcome! (old pinned post)

Welcome to my blog! It's a blog!

I'm gonna be posting fandom stuff, mostly, along with probably some vague ramblings about things that aren't directly fandom related! I also don't know how much/quickly stuff is gonna be posted, especially at first, I need to figure out my followed tags and accounts, find stuff to post about, etc

(Actual info, including fandoms and abt me below the cut!)

(Here's the short of it: Good Omens, Hazbinverse, MCYT, I use he/they and some other pronouns, no specified DNI, please use tone tags, and I have some fun tags! Oh also, I tend to ramble, as evidenced by this post right here)

My active fandoms: Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, Good Omens, working my way into Death Note, MCYT (i do not support Dream nor do i consider myself a "DSMP fan" anymore, but still have an interest in MCYT content as a whole and fandom content surrounding it!)

I also may end up posting/reblogging some stuff from older fandoms/hyperfixations that I don't really engage in actively anymore, but cross my mind from time to time! (lookin' at you, Voltron)

What about me?: I use it/he/they/xey pronouns, nonbinary transmasc etc etc. I'm very much so neurodivergent and my hyperfixations tend to come in waves of two flavours: ramblings that are genuinely completely incoherent, and full on multi-thousand blocks of analysis text. Both of those will be making their way into this blog! I also have a tendency to swap rapidly between more formal typing styles and much much more informal and casual typing, depending on the tone of the post, so be prepared for that inconsistency! I am also auDHD, so please do use tone tags! I have a tendency to misunderstand tone and may end up asking for clarifications either way, so it's a good way to start!

This is very much gonna be a catch-all for any of my brain thoughts about fandom stuff, and I'm probably not going to bother with a queue, so things are just going to HAPPEN in bursts. I operate in EST but have a really ridiculous sleep schedule, so post times are inconsistent either way. I'm planning on including word counts on posts longer than one "block" of text!

Oh, also, I don't really have a DNI I plan to enforce? Don't come on here if you're, like, a bigot, or gonna harass people about shit they can't control, but I do also block freely. So, I'm not gonna tell you not to come in here, but I post what I post and you post what you post, so if I happen to click on your blog and see something that doesn't sit right with me, I'll go from there (do remember, though, that DNIs go both ways! If I see that something in your DNI, assuming you have one, includes me, I'll also block you then!)

One last thing: tags! I have them! I like being able to organize my stuff on here, so I try to keep several tags that will direct you to the specific stuff you want to see. All posts will also have the appropriate general fandom tags, so you can also go through there.

#helluva hotel : any posts relating to the Hazbinverse, either Helluva Boss or Hazbin Hotel!

#ineffably involved : anything related to Good Omens

#cubic nonsense : things related to both MCYTs and Minecraft the actual game, the game itself is another ongoing interest, so it's likely gonna come up and i'm gonna shove it in this tag!

#asphodel lore : my own thing! i have an OC lore that's really weird and detailed that i want to talk about more, and i'm probably gonna end up posting about it, so here's a tag!

#my own shit : anything I may post that's not directly related to an already-listed fandom

#hyperfixation type beat : posts for things i'm actively or currently hyperfixated on, they come and go

#analytics and word blocks : i tend to analyse stuff and write really long bricks of text about my interests, so anything that gets long enough for me to put it behind a cut purely for length

#stuff and nonsense ramblings etc : tag to catch any shorter and rambly posts, usually stuff that doesn't have much of a deeper meaning but i want to put out there

#this is not mine! : reblogged posts!

#this belongs to someone i know! : reblogged posts specifically from mutuals and people i know outside of tumblr! (used in addition to prev tag)

ANYWAY yeah thank you for reading! I think this post gives a good idea of how off-track and rambly I tend to get-

Actual posts coming real soon! (like, in a few minutes soon)! Welcome again, enjoy your stay, it gets weird!

[merchantarthurn]

So I’ve started compiling a Google Drive to make an archive of all WHA official art (not the text of the work, of course) and today I received my set of the playing cards from one of the special editions! I’ve not even seen HQ copies of these without SAMPLE watermarks before but! I’ll be making copies of them & the rule book available after I scan them.

On that note - if anyone would be interested in translating some of the text (especially the “special rules”) let me know! The game itself is based on “Love Letter”, so most of the rule book is not high priority, but it throws in some rule-altering “special cards” that have the characters on them and alas... machine translation does not make their meaning very clear lmao. I can provide an explanation of how “Love Letter” works for context - it’s a nice simple game. From my understanding there’s also video showing how to play the game which I have in my bookmarks which is an extra resource available for translators if you can translate by ear!

I’d love to see all the text translated though so if you’ve not got much time or aren’t confident enough for rules translation, there’s plenty of flavour text which would be cool to have translated too! 

With permission, I’d like to be able to put these in the Google Drive when finished (with credit to translators in accompanying documents and as a watermark)! There’s no deadline on these, this is a very long-term project.

On the Drive itself: I won’t link the drive directly on Tumblr because I don’t want the link to be something I can’t take down if I need to (please don’t post publicly on tumblr either! and check the rules/disclaimer document), but I’ll post a link to the tweet I share it in in the reblogs/replies! (Further rambling below the cut)

It’s a WIP as I’m tracking down the original sources and context of various images & I’m trying to find untranslated versions where applicable (as some are from translation teams who may not want their work in the drive) - but I’m hoping that’ll also make the Drive a robust archive regardless of whether the work needs to be taken down at any point (e.g. copyright removal requests). Since so much of the extra content is on Twitter, it’s actually very easy to locate the sources and provide dates! And I’ll probably throw in some extra links like Shirahama inking or the anime announcement trailer too :)

On that note sldjfg I might ask for some help to scrub through old tweets from Shirahama at some point, or just grunt work copy/pasting links from some of her twitter moments that compile individual artwork. So far I’ve focused on “sets” that I have the information of (like magazine covers, chapter cover art, volume covers, countdowns and holiday art) since it’s easier to nail down dates or sources for those, but for the rest... it’s gonna be a slog pfff. So if you know how to use the advanced twitter search to comb through time frames, I might have a job for you in future lmao.

But!! General statement for this archive - it is meant to be an archive, so the focus is on documenting source, context, etc. Which means logging the original tweets and whether they’re any explanatory text attached is far more important that reuploading artwork - if the artwork is requested to come down, it will! Whether that’s a request from the copyright holders, or translators. So DO keep in mind the rules regarding reuploading or sharing the link to the drive - I really wanna keep this stuff of Pintrest lol, but also keeping the link to the drive private or easy to delete (so, not a direct link on tumblr) is a must innit.

[420pogpills]

masterpost of random epic dnf moments

i find so much comfort in these posts that just contain links to loads and loads of epic clips so i wanted to make one of my favourite george&dream moments :’)... this took me several days okay.

in no particular order whatsoever

(♥♥♥) “so...dream.” “what?” “um, hello.” “hi”

(♡♡♡) “george!” “yeah?” “HEY 😁”

(♥♥♥) “that is actually george’s fish” “oh what? i will keep it safe” (bonus: giving fish back)

(♡♡♡) “you two and your inside jokes, you guys are such good friends”

(♥♥♥) “i saw an interesting donation on your stream”

(♡♡♡) “trust me. george - i’m handling it.”

(♥♥♥) “i’m not gonna be hurt if dream is next to me”

(♡♡♡) “you’re making me laugh it’s not even fair!”

(♥♥♥) “i shot you once” “no you shot me multiple times”

(♡♡♡) “oh that’s so hot”

(♥♥♥) “what you gonna do, fight me?”

(♡♡♡) “dream has my number because dream needs me sometimes”

(♥♥♥) “stop you’re hurting me” “i’m hurting you?”

(♡♡♡) “i’m very similar to george so i probably won't like it”

(♥♥♥) “i said i’m in the hot tub right now, he said ‘prove it’”

(♡♡♡) “dream stop killing me!”

(♥♥♥) “i’ve always wanted to explore my sexuality”

(♡♡♡) “this is what happens when you fall down my trap”

(♥♥♥) “i’m so used to having your attention 24/7″

(♡♡♡) “why are you so mean dream?”

(♥♥♥) “you know who reminds me of nemo? george”

(♡♡♡) “first thing’s first-” “i’m the realest”

(♥♥♥) “come hide with me”

(♡♡♡) “he looks so handsome, look at him, look at george”

(♥♥♥) “oh george” “oh dream”

(♡♡♡) “you love me?” “yes, i do”

(♥♥♥) “be careful george”

(♡♡♡) “you’re laughing at every different word i say”

(♥♥♥) “can i have the sword dream?” “say that you love me”

(♡♡♡) “just hug me george”

(♥♥♥) “i’m the mememan, my milk is delicious”

(♡♡♡) “george i’m gonna blow up - come with me”

(♥♥♥) “you couldn’t see what dream was doing”

(♡♡♡) “george is easily a top 10 mcc player”

(♥♥♥) “what would you say my weakness is?” “me”

(♡♡♡) “we were getting this computer repair guy - oh my god”

(♥♥♥) “every time you get near me you just get all red”

(♡♡♡) “you would follow me down here”

(♥♥♥) “dream is a simp for me” “yeah”

(♡♡♡) “nice dream!”

(♥♥♥) “smile - you see him everyday”

(♡♡♡) “you deserve punishment george”

(♥♥♥) “what are you doing george?” “i’m on twitter”

(♡♡♡) “george george george you look amazing george”

(♥♥♥) “you don’t have to follow me everywhere”

(♡♡♡) “get away from dream!”

(♥♥♥) “we’re in the stars”

(♡♡♡) thirdwheelboyhalo

(♥♥♥) “dream is so delightful”

(♡♡♡) “DREAM LET’S GO!”

(♥♥♥) “follow me, i’ll follow you actually - just take me”

(♡♡♡) “dream...” “i had to george, i had to”

(♥♥♥) “i trust my dream”

(♡♡♡) “you don’t brag about your looks”

(♥♥♥) “george just tell me you love me”

(♡♡♡) “someone said ‘dream do you think george is cute’?”

(♥♥♥) “kiss george” “that’s a pretty good forfeit”

(♡♡♡) “a plane ticket to dream’s house”

(♥♥♥) “okay that was pretty pog”

(♡♡♡) “i’ve been too focused on george”

(♥♥♥) little compilation

(♡♡♡) “why’d you say it like that?”

(♥♥♥) “dream’s trying to kill me, he’s killing me!”

(♡♡♡) “if you won, what would be your first date with george?”

(♥♥♥) “we do everything together”

(♡♡♡) “answer my question!”

(♥♥♥) “oh. yeah. but george too.”

(♡♡♡) “if you win, you have to kiss dream!”

(♥♥♥) “dream... i’m messing up” “oh are you still streaming?”

(♡♡♡) “be careful”

(♥♥♥) suspicious dancing

(♡♡♡) “don’t be greedy george”

(♥♥♥) just... this whole edit

(♡♡♡) “george is mine, go away”

(♥♥♥) “dreeeaaaaam i know you wanna help”

(♡♡♡) “george you’re a genius, george kiss me!”

(♥♥♥) “he was wearing like an oversized dream smile hoodie”

(♡♡♡) george compilation 10/10

(♥♥♥) “i don’t wanna hear you laugh”

(♡♡♡) “whenever dream tries to get a new speed run record he just disappears for a month”

(♥♥♥) laughing face to face

(♡♡♡) “can i have some stuff?”

(♥♥♥) “geoorrgeeee”

(♡♡♡) “he lives in your head actually rent free”

(♥♥♥) “you know quite often we just know what we’re talking about?”

(♡♡♡) “now it backfired because george knows me”

(♥♥♥) “he’s small it’s different”

(♡♡♡) “COME HERE GEORGE!”

(♥♥♥) “you can be my valentine if you want george”

(♡♡♡) “no mom no he broke up with me” (bonus: “george denied me”)

(♥♥♥) “just explain your reasoning for denying me” “you didn't mean it”

(♡♡♡) “goodnight george, goodnight gogy”

(♥♥♥) “dream just saved something from snapchat!”

(♡♡♡) “i’m breaking you out!”

(♥♥♥) “you’ll get punished george"

(♡♡♡) “guys this is like the cutest photo of george ever”

(♥♥♥) “guys i’m opening a new business” “selling george pictures?”

(♡♡♡) “don’t attack the wolf dream i’m not there to save you”

(♥♥♥) “you were like ‘you have to praise me now for 5 minutes’”

(♡♡♡) “why don’t you think i’m here?”

(♥♥♥) “we were playing geoguessr the other day”

(♡♡♡) “i am wheezing and dying and george is dying with me”

(♥♥♥) “you used to get mad at me for placing blocks beneath myself”

(♡♡♡) “you have to clip that” “no”

(♥♥♥) “c’mere”

(♡♡♡) “i almost died, water me!”

(♥♥♥) “me and george”

(♡♡♡) “i wouldn’t want to do it unless he’s here”

(♥♥♥) “me and george were literally holding hands in the hallway”

(♡♡♡) “you should get negative points if you’re an idiot”

(♥♥♥) “kiss”

(♡♡♡) “i thought you might want to confess something”

(♥♥♥) “we’ve been talking to each other for 10 hours?”

(♡♡♡) “i’m not here to disappoint you or anything”

(♥♥♥) “mimic my yawn, that means you love me you know that right?”

(♡♡♡) “i’m not helping you this round” “i need you”

(♥♥♥) “we’re literally on a boat”

(♡♡♡) “you’re so ridiculous”

(♥♥♥) “i fell asleep in a call with george”

(♡♡♡) “wow george you’re great”

(♥♥♥) “dream just went 👉🏻👉🏻”

(♡♡♡) “yessss let’s go” “wait let me pick you up!”

(♥♥♥) “dream sort this out!” “alright wait turn around”

(♡♡♡) “you have pretty privilege”

(♥♥♥) “george i have something that will cheer you up george”

(♡♡♡) “i’ve been by your side since the beginning george”

(♥♥♥) “sitting here forced to drink water, it has absolutely no flavour”

(♡♡♡) “gives back i’ll be good” “no no you won’t”

(♥♥♥) “don’t worry. i’m here george”

(♡♡♡) “dream say hi” “hi”

(♥♥♥) “so george why are you laying in bed while you’re talking to dream?”

(♡♡♡) “where did george go, george is not found”

(♥♥♥) “come over here greg i will save the day” “francis!”

(♡♡♡) “that’s not what you told me last night”

(♥♥♥) “please just swim drive the boat drive the boat”

(♡♡♡) “before i even met you, you had this ginormous impact”

(♥♥♥) “you’re not worthless george we love you”

(♡♡♡) “george is like the biggest idiot”

(♥♥♥) “alright fine i’ll play one more”

(♡♡♡) “you see george everywhere. you see what you wanna see”

(♥♥♥) “guess united kingdom because someone you love lives there”

(♡♡♡) “george don’t leave me”

(♥♥♥) “you say bolivia george?”

(♡♡♡) “why are you so feral?”

(♥♥♥) “you’re an idiot” “you’re the one who’s screaming to do it”

(♡♡♡) “”you’re so oh my god” “you’re so annoying”

(♥♥♥) “i trust you so m-so often”

(♡♡♡) “now i have you right where i want you”

(♥♥♥) “heads” “alright it was heads”

(♡♡♡) “george you’re the hottest piece of ass in dreamhunt”

(♥♥♥) “you said ‘just woke up’ and i said ‘me too, in sync bby’”

(♡♡♡) “dnf arc? yeah maybe”

(♥♥♥) *george shooting dnf into wall on csgo*

(♡♡♡) “george and dream’s brotherly relationship is so iconic”

(♥♥♥) “you can’t 👹LEAVE👹 it’s not allowed”

(♡♡♡) “oh we’re finishing each other’s sentences right now”

(♥♥♥) “you said you were gonna what, kiss me or something like that?”

(♡♡♡) “do you have a song that makes you think of dream?”

(♥♥♥) “here george take this take this george”

(♡♡♡) “hey dream” “hey george”

(♥♥♥) “do you have a crush on dream?” “yes, go on”

(♡♡♡) “i am proud of you” “wow thank you dream”

(♥♥♥) “1 dollar every hour” “for how many hours?”

(♡♡♡) “i clicked skip whoops - wait, where are all my balls?”

(♥♥♥) “get out of here GET OUUUUTTTT”

(♡♡♡) “i’m sleeping for at least 8 hours” “but then we’re gonna be out of sync again”

(♥♥♥) “this is actually disgusting, come to me where are you”

(♡♡♡) “thank you baby... oh no” “WHAT?”

(♥♥♥) “yeah i love dream so much”

(♡♡♡) “yes that is exactly what i was thinking dream”

(♥♥♥) “dream” “hi” “hello i’m streaming” “hi”

(♡♡♡) “mm poor little george”

(♥♥♥) “do you have fifty dollars?”

(♡♡♡) “please please half a heart half a heart!”

(♥♥♥) “that’s okay you wanna be near me, that’s fine”

(♡♡♡) “you would know all about the simp handbook wouldn’t you”

(♥♥♥) “please i need you” “i do need you”

(♡♡♡) “kill him!...or her.. or it..”

(♥♥♥) “cause he’s little gogy”

(♡♡♡) “do your parents know about gream?”

(♥♥♥) just... cuteness

(♡♡♡) “wait george my minecraft’s starting my minecraft’s starting”

(♥♥♥) “te amo sueno”

(♡♡♡) “yeah that was my idea” “yeah just like last night”

(♥♥♥) “you can just say he’s a bottom”

(♡♡♡) this entire video

(♥♥♥) “why are you leaving me?” “alright fine”

(♡♡♡) “george you look good in a suit”

(♥♥♥) “i have a present for george!”

(♡♡♡) “why don’t you want to facetime me?” “i haven’t shaved”

(♥♥♥) “dream’s killing me, why are you killing me?”

(♡♡♡) “george i thought you were going to choose me”

(♥♥♥) “you wanna watch a beautiful sunset? just for you dream”

(♡♡♡) “we don’t text that much” “we text everyday”

(♥♥♥) “georgie poooo come here”

(♡♡♡) “oh beat me dream beat me”

(♥♥♥) “you are so impressive dream”

(♡♡♡) “i just ran for like a million hours”

(♥♥♥) “mydic--kslong has subscribed, thank you..”

(♡♡♡) all of these moments are too funny

(♥♥♥) “dreeaaaam! loooook!” “oh he’s cute”

(♡♡♡) “oh george~” “this is scary”

(♥♥♥) “george do that water drop sound”

(♡♡♡) “why is everyone saying ‘george explain the text?’”

(♥♥♥) “why are you saying it like that?” “that’s how you said it”

(♡♡♡) “i’m going to my secret stash”

(♥♥♥) “it said ‘name a dessert’” “you should’ve put me”

(♡♡♡) “i need to come” “you wanna come?”

(♥♥♥) “i have missed your face!”

(♡♡♡) just.. this entire video

(♥♥♥) more on george sleep talking

(♡♡♡) “that’s the same height difference between me and you george”

(♥♥♥) “you’re doing extremely well george. just calm down.”

(♡♡♡) “george~” “stOP. stop it”

(♥♥♥) “i know dream loves me a lot but unfortunately i don’t love him back”

(♡♡♡) “it’s fun to make him more afraid”

(♥♥♥) “someone said ‘dream do you think george is cute?’”

(♡♡♡) “oh we know george we know how hot you are”

(♥♥♥) “dream has friendship hacks”

(♡♡♡) “let’s watch a movie” feat. sapnap

(♥♥♥) “the only man i’m into is george”

(♡♡♡) “you broke my heart dream by....breaking my heart”

(♥♥♥) “keep lying to him george”

(♡♡♡) dream team not dnf but i love this so watch it plz

(♥♥♥) “you turn your camera off to sneeze? it’s okay we love you”

(♡♡♡) “dance with me dream”

(♥♥♥) “dweaaaam pleaseeee”

(♡♡♡) “it’s fine dream, i’ll stream another day” “waaaaaaah!”

(♥♥♥) “i just wanna talk to you”

(♡♡♡) “you’re just like interesting in general george”

(♥♥♥) “when’s my birthday dream?”

(♡♡♡) “here these are for you 🌹”

(♥♥♥) “i love you george”

(♡♡♡) “i’ll fight you in sumo when you’re in my house”

(♥♥♥) “we’re going together aaaaah”

(♡♡♡) “guess what, i had faith in you”

(♥♥♥) “or OR.. we could... kiss?”

(♡♡♡) “i haven’t had my first kiss” “that's a lie, you kissed me”

(♥♥♥) “hey dream give me an ak.... please”

AND OF COURSE THERE ARE SO MANY MORE BUT... i cannot do this any longer therefore the rest are compilations because i cannot do this any longer

(♥♥♥) every time george has said ‘i love you’ (kind of) to dream

(♡♡♡) dreamnotfound moments

(♥♥♥) gaymest moments

(♡♡♡) rare moments

(♥♥♥) wholesome

(♡♡♡) idiot compilation

(♥♥♥) love languages compilation

BONUS: this soulmate compilation...

SO ORIGINAL POST - links wouldn’t work when reblogged because it went over link limit with everyone tagged, so i will reblog with everyone who’s clips i’ve included!

[emiewritesthings]

doctor, doctor - jay halstead

jay halstead x fem!reader

summary: in which y/n takes it into her own hands to look after a sick jay 

a/n: i’m not gonna lie i think this is one of my fav things i’ve ever written, i would really appreciate some feedback and p.s the beginning of it is based on that scene from brooklyn 99 :)

masterlist

“okay, it’s 10 o’clock, meaning halstead is officially an hour late to work,” y/n announced as she appeared from the break room with a mug of poorly made coffee. looking around, she had immediately distracted everyone in the room with her playful smile. “okay let’s do this, theories!” she encouraged, taking a sip with excitement, but immediately regretting it as s he spat it back in the mug and abandoned it on adam’s desk as she leant against it.

“uh, he forgot to set his alarm?” antonio suggested, willing to play along with the little game that y/n had created. however clearly his answer didn’t suffice as y/n scrunched up her nose and shook her head in disappointment.

“you are a detective in a unit that just last week rescued 5 people kidnapped and used as chess pieces in a human sized version of the game and the best you could come up with is he forgot to set his alarm? pfft, disappointing, dawson. who’s willing to take this seriously?” she scoffed, brushing his idea off with a simple roll of the eyes as the group laughed at her ridiculousness. 

“maybe he has been murdered by a gang looking for revenge.” adam piped up, earning a sudden and rather forceful slap on the back as y/n cheered. her eyes looking over at antonio as she gestured towards the less experienced detective.

“yes, that’s what i’m talking about. bit dark, ruzek, but better than dawson’s,” y/n hummed, adam clearly pleased with the praise he had received by the pretty detective. “any one else wanna shot?” she offered it out into the room, suddenly the sound of rolling wheels on the chair had everyone turn to face al who was munching on a ham sandwich.

“he walked into the middle of a drug ring, slept with the kingpins daughter and is now having limbs removed, one by the hour.” suddenly an eery silence fell in the bullpen as al suddenly disappeared back to his desk and everyone was left with an image that she was sure was burned on the inside of everyones mind.

“uh, okay, someone might want to arrange a psych check for olinsky asap,” y/n mumbled, pointing in the direction where he had once been and looking around as if checking that she hadn’t been the only one to hear al’s suggestion. “anyways, all of you are wrong. clearly he has joined a motorbike gang and now makes his money on the road striking off names on the government’s hit list.” 

just as the room erupted into discussion about how idiotic this conversation was, as well as their ideas, the sound of footsteps caught y/n’s attention as she arrived at her desk. however as he reached the floor, the reason for his absence was clear.

“woah, you look like death.” adam chuckled, it immediately being silenced as jay sent a deadly glare his way. with his skin paler than normal with undertones of green, a layer of sweat draped over his forehead. jay flashed as smile at y/n as he passed, reaching his desk and collapsing on his chair with a wince. 

as everyone went back to what they were doing, y/n found herself straying her eyes away from her computer screen for longer and longer periods of time until she found herself by his side with a sickly sweet grin, pun intended. 

“i don’t wanna hear it, y/l/n.” jay mumbled, massaging his temples with his fingers hoping it would somehow sooth his pounding skull. whilst usually he had every minute of his day just to hear the woman chat away about whatever crossed her mind, he had found himself in quite the state since last night, leaving him restless and irritable.

“believe it or not, i just wanted to make sure you were alright,” y/n’s entire demeanour crumbled as she melted at the soft features of his face that came with being so vulnerable. but from the look in jay’s eyes, it was clear he didn’t 100% believe her excuse. “and to ask what the hell you think you are doing here? you are sick jay, you need to rest.” 

it was very rare that jay found himself ill. in the years that y/n had been working by the man’s side, she could count on one hand the times she had seen him with so much as a cough. in fact she had called him captain immune system for a period of time when she realised he was pretty much indestructible. y/n couldn’t deny the concern bubbling in her gut seeing him so weak.

“i’m fine,” with her eyes slitted in a look that practically shouted ‘bullshit’, jay continued. “i promise, it’s just a little cold. nothing serious, i think i’ll survive.” he joked dryly, finding it incredibly hard to look away from y/n for her eyes were filled with a warmth that he knew was an expression usually saved for those she cared deeply about. 

“yeah well, you need to take care of yourself, jay, i’m being serious. chicago can cope if you just have one day off, get your energy back.” 

y/n was reminded of the times she had the exact same words spoken to her by the exact person that didn’t seem to want to take them onboard. every time she had so much as a sniffle he would be straight over with some soup that his mother used to swear by and the name of a box set that he would put on for the two of them to watch as he sat stroking her hair in order to try and convince her body to rest. neither of them had anyone else to take care of them, so had taken it upon themselves to be that person for the other. 

“now, i’m gonna go tell voight that i’m taking you home before you infect this whole office.” before he could object, she had already ran (not literally but jay was impressed by her speed walking) to her boss’ office. knocking on the door, with a sweet smile and a sea of words running off her tongue so quickly that voight had to agree just to shut her up, y/n returned by his side. “come on, germ face, your carriage awaits.” 

“you know i love it when you talk dirty to me, y/l/n.” winking at her, y/n giggled as she supported him back down the stairs and out of the station. the two chatted away, y/n explaining how she thought al was secretly a sociopath and jay filing her in on the newest instalment of his apartment block drama until they pulled up in front of jay’s apartment building. 

as they walked through the door, jay’s arm resting around y/n’s shoulders as he struggled to find strength, they managed to reach the sofa before y/n’s body gave up. both of them letting out large breathes before looking at each other and falling into laughter. 

“you hungry, i could try making your mom’s soup?” y/n asked, as she pushed herself up to look down at the man. her hair falling down around her face and tickling jay’s skin. “i’m sure it won’t be as good as her’s but i’m willing to give it a try.” 

the way she was sat with the large window gleaming light behind her, y/n almost looked like an angel. her eyes and smile were wide, with her beauty wrapping its hands around jay’s neck squeezing until his head felt light and he nearly reached up to touch her porcelain skin. but jay had noticed the sensation way before he was blocked up with a cold.

“yeah, uh, that sounds nice.” jay agreed with a minimal amount of sass, but y/n didn’t seem to notice as she moved off the cushions and towards the kitchen. she had pretty much memorised the recipe when jay had finally given it to her on her birthday after offering to pay for it multiple times. whizzing around the kitchen, she was too busy to notice the tired eyes admiring her from afar. 

jay wished his mom was alive to see the woman that she would have loved. all the times he had brought girls back to his family when he was younger didn’t add up to an ounce of the beauty and power that y/n held in her middle finger. the way she bit back at his wit, but also had the ability to spot when he was upset from the other side of the city. she was everything her mother wanted in a daughter in law, everything she wanted for her little boy. 

“okay, give me your honest opinion. i can take it i promise.” y/n sudden appeared with a tray that held a large bowl of the semi-thick orange liquid, a glass of water and a couple pills. approaching jay, she carefully helped him up from where he laid and placed it onto his lap. “actually that was a complete lie, do not tell me the truth. i may just cry.” 

“why thank you, nurse y/l/n.” he teased.

“it’s doctor actually.” she quipped back.

jay chuckled lowly, as he grabbed the spoon and took a large spoonful to his mouth. feeling the slight sting of his tongue at the heat, it was only when the flavours hit that he was suddenly transported to an earlier time in his life. a simpler time. only this time there was y/n by his side. 

“the verdict?” she prompted, taking a seat besides him, pulling her knees up to her chest. 

“not sure whether i want to tell you, don’t think you’ll fit in this room if your ego grows any bigger.” y/n grinned as she leaned over to press a kiss against his shoulder. jay closed his eyes at the contact, feeling the ache in his body freeze for a moment as it registered the tingling sensation. “all jokes aside, it really is good.” 

“i’m glad, your mother was a smart woman.” she nodded, leaning forward to turn tv on. jay continued to spoon the soup into his mouth, as y/n chose a show that they both had started together and had refused to watch another minute without the other. y/n leaned back making herself comfortable, having already texted voight telling him that she would most likely need the entire day off, and getting the go ahead, she had no plans other than being by jay’s side for the next however many hours. 

it was sometime in the early evening and the tv continued to emit light, but neither jay nor y/n was paying any attention to the drama. jay, with his head on y/n lap, was leaning into her touch as her short, thin fingers ran through the dark strands that sprouted from his scalp. his body wrapped in a blanket that y/n had grabbed from his room, he felt completely at peace. 

“you know what, i think you are more bearable when you are at death’s door.” y/n joked quietly, as the forest green eyes were exposed back to her own. jay groaned in annoyance, realising that there was no sweet y/n without the sharped tongue y/n. a trait he adored, but at his own expense. 

“and to think i was starting to think you had gone soft on me, y/l/n.” he hummed, wishing he could forever have her giggle on repeat wherever he went, for the sound made goosebumps run down his neck and down his arms, like some kind of magic that only y/n possessed. 

“as much as i love you, i can’t risk my bad ass reputation for you.” 

although jay was sure it was just part of her banter, the moment the ‘i love you’ fell off her tongue, he found himself wide awake, unable to push past the feeling in his gut as it looped over again and again in his mind. y/n could see the conflict in his face, as he glanced up at her with something she had never noticed before. 

“you mean it?” he asked. 

“mean what?” confused, her fingers fell from his hair, making jay regret ever opening his mouth.

“do you really, you know, love me?” he knew he had committed too far to try and retreat. maybe he could blame it on the fact he couldn’t think straight, although she was like a lie detector that wouldn’t let such a bogus excuse pass. y/n blinked down at him, watching as he sat up to look at her with a hunger that needed to be addressed. swallowing the lump in her throat, y/n nodded.

“of course, you are one of my best friends, jay.” it was true, but it wasn’t the full truth, both of them knew that.

“i didn’t realise we had started lying to one another,” jay’s eyes were soft, as he reached to place his hand against her cheek, smiling as she slowly leaned into it. closing her eyes, she tried to find what direction she was looking for, but didn’t dare take the first step. without even thinking, jay jutted forward and captured her lips before they could form a single syllable. 

gently, but passionately, jay and y/n moved their lips against the others. the feeling was ever-growing as the kiss deepened and deepened until they had no choice to pull back, deprived of their ability to breath. as jay’s eyes came back into view, y/n, for the first time in her life, had lost the ability to form a sentence. 

“we just...” she began but it ran off quickly. jay chuckled.

“we did.”

the two sat in silence, examining the other one’s face until y/n found herself moving forward until she was sat in his lap, legs wrapped around his waist as she pressed her lips against his. just like before their bodies and minds were set ablaze with desire and what had remained unspoken for what felt like forever. jay had nearly completely forgotten about the illness that had put him in the care of the woman that he craved more than anything else the world had to offer. 

as their lips parted ways, suddenly the air had thinned and everything felt... normal. jay’s lips were unable to break out of the large grin mould that y/n had put them in, which was soon mirrored by the young woman. a small giggle escaping her lips.

“if i get whatever it is you have, i expect the exact same treatment.” 

“only for you, doctor y/l/n.”