#hopefully the added art makes up for the lateness!

[picas-art]

If arkham did art classes where the rogues were asked to draw the person in front / next to them, how would that end up? how would for example, riddler draw jon and vice versa, I cna imagine how Harley would draw Joker... I am interested in your thoughts tho! Imagine being their art teacher, who would you pair up then? / would you leave asap, lol?

Sorry to answer this half a year later, but I had this sitting in my drafts and then prompty forgot about it 😭

ANYWAY I would go the safe way and ask the Arkham staff who of the rogues are least likely to kill each other and pair those up lmao. Also the last time they did something involving pencils a guard lost an eye, so painting class it is.

Pair ups I can imagine:

Harley and Ivy - Both take it very seriously and try to paint each other as beautifully as possible. In which Ivy actually succeeds and Harley's looks more like something a 10-year old would draw. But Ivy loves it nonetheless.

Croc and Clayface - Croc is trying to take this seriously but is annoyed at Clayface constantly changing shape.

Mr. Freeze and Jervis - Both completely ignore each other, Victor paints his wife and Jervis paints Alice.

Two-Face and Bane - Harvey doesn’t see the point of this and refuses to participate, but is in awe of Bane’s portrait of him, being surprisingly good at this.

Joker - Is not allowed to participate because of the pencil incident.

And last but not least, Edward and Jonathan, which is just:

And then I get out asap before the paint throwing war begins.

[undermostcorgi]

ANOTHER ONE

[fiabex]

FIAB: Sign-ups open!

Sign-ups are now open for Fic In A Box, a 10k fandom gift exchange, and it's time to officially join the event!

What Is FIAB?

A gift exchange is an fandom event where participants create fanworks to gift to each other. Fic In A Box is a fanwork exchange with a large minimum gifting requirement and several unique features. Participants have 6 weeks to create their gifts, and gifts can include fic, art, audio, video— and much much more— aiming for a minimum of 10k of fic or equivalent to give to their assigned recipient.

This sounds enticing but you have questions? More under the cut!

Signups? What's that?

To officially join the event and be matched— so that you are assigned someone to make a gift for, and someone is assigned to you— you have to sign up on Ao3. It is the "sign up" button in the sidebar on the left-hand side of the Ao3 page. You have until signups close on September 7th (10pm EST), to get your signup filled out. You can edit your signup after you submit it, so feel free to get a minimum signup done and then tinker with it during signups.

To sign up you fill out your Requests (what you are saying you'd be okay for people to give you as a gift), and your Offers (what you are saying you'd be able to make to give someone else as a gift), and submit it. You use tags from a special event tag set to fill out your offers and requests, and you'll only be able to use the tags in the tag set for the event. The tag set contains fandoms, ships, characters, worldbuilding tags, and gift types ("mediums"), all of which you use to refine your requests and offers to make sure you are signing up with exactly the type of gift you want to get or make in mind (with a bit of mystery still, part of the fun of the exchange is the challenge and surprise of it all).

Tag set?

Hopefully you heard about FIAB early enough that you were part of the nomination process where we built the tag set, where anyone could nominate their ships or worldbuilding ideas or fandoms. But maybe you just heard about it and you didn't nominate any tags— can you still participate? Yes! There are two options! First one: check out the tag set here, and if there are any ships that you like, smack those into a signup and you're good to go!

Second option: FIAB accepts late nominations if they are tags that you imminently intend to use in your signup. You need to format them in such a way that we can batch load them into the tag set, and you need to submit them through a comment on the designated Dreamwidth Blog Post— check out this post for more information and an example in the comments of what a submission would look like. You do not need a dreamwidth account to comment on the post, you can comment anonymously! Late nominations closes 6 days before signups close.

What if I only like one ship in the tag set, or at all? What if I like several ships, but only one fandom?

If you only like one tag in the tag set you still have a minimum viable signup, and you can sign up with just the one fandom, one ship! However, there are two points of order for that.

The first point is about your offers. You must be matchable to at least one person to get an assignment and stay in the exchange. If we can't give you an assignment, we'll contact you to ask about adding more offers, and if it ends up we cannot match you to anyone, your sign up will be deleted. So you need to be offering something that at least one person is requesting when the exchange closes and locks. You can look at all current signups here to see if there's anyone you can add an offer to, to make yourself matchable! It's best practice to offer at least three different fandoms to make yourself matchable— but if you have only one fandom you main you can still sign up, as long as you're matchable! (And pro tip, even if it comes down to the last few hours and you're not matchable, don't delete your signup! There's always a flurry of signups in the last few hours of the exchange, and someone from your fandom might still sign up.)

The second point is about your requests. If your original gifter drops out (life happens! People's lives blow up, computers break, people leave fandoms, etc.), the mods will put your assignment up for a Pinch Hit on the blog. That way people who want to take on an extra assignment can claim it and still write you a gift! If you have three or more unique fandoms in your requests, the mods will hold the entire exchange until someone has turned in a gift for you— nobody gets their gift until everybody gets a gift. However, if you have less than three requests you are still welcome to sign up, and you will still be posted as a pinch hit if something happens to your original gifter, but the mods won't hold the exchange for you if you only have one or two fandoms, so you might not get a gift. There is a dedicated group of pinch hitters who will do their best to make sure that everyone gets a gift, but you do run the risk of no gift if you sign up with a restricted list of offers.

I can't write 10k of fic, but I could do 10k's worth of art— what do I do?

The standard assumption is that everyone gets 10k of fic by default, and everyone signs up to make 10k of fic by default. But this is a special unique exchange, and we love to have people participating who are not fic writers. How does that work? You do not specify that you are a non-fic-writer in your signup, because that would break Ao3's matching. The mods match you manually— as long as they know that they have to do that. So you have to let them know that you want to give a non-fic gift.

If you want to work in a medium that is not fic, contact the mods by email (ficinaboxmod@gmail.com), and tell them

The username you are signing up with.

A list of usernames of participants who are requesting something you can make, and what relationship/character/WB: tag and medium tag(s) you are aiming for.

It will look something like:

Hi mods, My username is RanbooLive, and I'm a podficcer who just signed up. I would like to be matched to either CarthagoDelendaEst (for the tags Chara & Flowey & Toriel (Undertale), and Medium Opt-In: Audio - Podfic of any of my fics that match this request's fandom/relationships), or Clif_Bar (for the tags Padme Amidala & Royal Handmaidens (SWPT) or WB: Prequels-Era Jedi Culture (SWPT) and Medium Opt-In: Audio - Podfic), or ThingsForgotten (for the tags Billy Brennan/Alan Grant (Jurassic Park OT) or WB: Effect of Dinosaur Reveal on Careers of Academics (Jurassic Park OT), and Medium Opt-In: Audio - Podfic). Thanks, let me know if there are any issues!

We need the info about relationship-field tags and medium tags not because you will be obligated to create that exact thing, but because we will double check during matching that the recipient we’re matching you to hasn’t, for example, removed the medium you said you can create from their request. We do not want to give you an assignment you cannot actually complete.

You do not need to have multiple options on the list you send the mods— as long as there's one person you're matchable to, you're matchable and we can assign you! It is a somewhat safer idea to have multiple options so you know you're still matchable even if someone changes their signup at the last minute, but technically one option is all you need.

And how do you get the information to put in the letter about who you're matchable to? That would be searching through the automagic app, which is a searchable database of everyone who's signed up, which lets you sort by medium tags and fandoms! Check there to find people requesting podfic/poetry/art/spreadsheets/fibercraft/cocktail instructions/video/whatever your art form is!

Honestly I'm still baffled/I'm staring at this Ao3 box and it is swimming in front of my eyes/What on Earth is a medium tag and how many do I need:

The system for signing up is pretty complex, especially if you haven't done it before. That's why we set up a discord server with a bunch of experienced people who are happy to answer questions! If you join the server, look for the #event-questions channel and we would be happy to explain anything you need, from "how do I sign up for an Ao3 account" to "why is my signup yelling at me when I save it" to "what's the difference between these two medium tags and do I need them both"? We are all standing ready to answer questions, hit us up!

If you do not want to talk to people, there is extensive documentation on the dreamwidth blog, and there might be an answer to your question there!

Or if all else fails— shoot us an ask here or email the mods!

Note: FIAB is not an all-ages exchange. You must be 18 or older to join FIAB.

Links

Email: ficinaboxmod@gmail.com

Ao3 Collection

Automatic Ao3 App (contains the signups for everyone who's signed up so far, sortable by fandom or by tag, allowing you to see who you're matchable to)

Tag Set

Dreamwidth Blog

Discord (includes question channel)

[bangaveragewhitewine]

Pinch Me

After your first date with a familiar face from home, waking up next to Steve feels like something out of a dream. 

or

This is a follow on from Clean Slate but can be read as standalone fic. 

Word Count: 4.5k

Warnings/Content: Both you and Steve are in your late-twenties and were in school together; you met again on a blind date almost ten years later. This is an 18+ fic; oral (reader receiving), penetrative sex. Spoiler but use of ‘good girl’ in a sexy content. Steve Harrington being a smooth mf comes with it's own warning.

I have tried to leave physical descriptions as neutral and inclusive as possible! Some mentions of anxiety and insecurity. Plenty of kissing to make up for that! 

Author’s Note: Clean Slate was intended to be a one off fic but here we are! This is my first attempt at smut in a fic, so hopefully it’s not horrendous! Thank you for reading, enjoy!

Thank you to my lovely @specialagentmonkey for beta reading for me💖

Once again, this is an 18+ fic. Please do not do any AI fuckery with my work or repost on other sites.

(divider by me)

Ever since you were little, your bed had been one of your favourite places. Soft sheets, books on the bedside table and a perfectly curated stack of pillows all topped off with the quilt you had made with your grandma before her arthritis got too bad. 

In your mom’s photo albums there was more than one snapshot of you as a sleepy toddler with a wild bed head peeking up from your pillow on Christmas morning. Another few of you reading Nancy Drew in a pillow nest with a gap toothed smile. 

By now, you had made your own little nest out in the big bad world now; a surprisingly roomy studio with big windows and noisy neighbours on one side. You had bought new sheets and a duvet printed with dusty pink roses on porcelain white cotton, curated a new stack of pillows and added too many decorative cushions on top of the same quilt that had made the move with you to Indianapolis and on to Chicago. There were still books on your bedside,  a little dish for your jewellery to sit in while you slept, and an accumulation of lip balms, pillow mist and a candle or two to set the mood. 

After long shifts and bad dates, your bed was still your haven. When you were particularly anxious, you could still hear the shrill of your old alarm blaring in your ears; the sound of that clock that had dragged you from sweet dreams in your beloved bed on chilly winter mornings. Some mornings, as you rode the subway to work, you swore you could hear your bed’s own siren song calling you to get off at the next stop, come home to read and nap the day away. 

The sanctuary was for you alone, save for an occasional sleepover with your best friend Annie. Your dates were never invited to stay and make themselves comfortable. But this morning, waking up with Steve Harrington in your bed? That was new. 

It was safe to say that your blind date went well. Really well. 

You had resolutely avoided talking about school, only mentioning people each other might have remembered in the context of a story about your lives outside Hawkins. Steve was still in touch with a lot of people from home. You recognised some of their names; Robin who grew up a street away from you, Eddie Munson who you knew from art class and the occasional house party in your youth, even Nancy Wheeler. The way he lit up with so much fondness for ‘his kids’ who weren’t kids anymore made your face ache from smiling.

And Steve had listened, wanted to hear how you had liked Indianapolis for college (he had spent some time there too before making the move to Chicago with Robin after Eddie had sussed the place out and found an apartment near his own for them that they still shared). He had asked about your job, your life in the city, and took a real interest in you. 

His attention had stayed on you, never straying to see who else was around or looking for an escape route. His honeyed gaze had stayed focused, watching how you used your hands when you spoke and dipped occasionally to look at your lips. Steve’s hand had stayed close by when his fingers weren’t outright intertwined with yours. He did this thing with his thumb, stroking it across the bone of your wrist, and a few times he had squeezed your hand while you spoke as if to say ‘go on, I’m listening’ - it was so centering for your often anxious mind.

You had a few more drinks, picked a few songs on the jukebox, kept talking and talking until you were sitting close enough to hear Steve’s stomach growl, making his cheeks flush pink. 

“I know a pizza spot close by if you’re hungry?” you suggested. 

“DiFontaines?” Steve smiled a little, nodding at your suggestion. “Yeah I love it. Let’s go.”

Neither of you wanted to end the night yet, say goodbye. So you didn’t. Instead you headed hand in hand into the warm night air, nicely buzzed and in search of hot pizza and crispy cold sodas. 

The sun had dipped in the sky, taking the worst of the heat with it, but the night stayed humid and sticky. Despite the warmth, Steve held your hand and between stories, as you walked down the next block, he lifted his arm to twirl you when you passed a bar blaring Achy Breaky Heart onto the street; Billy Ray’s crooning was eclipsed by your laughter. 

“You’re such a dork,” you giggled, pushing him gently before Steve quickly hugged you against his side again. Never had you felt so comfortable on a first date - but this wasn’t just any blind first date. 

“Dork?! You been talkin’ to Robin?” Steve smiled down at you, sparking heat in your belly. 

“Guess your reputation precedes you, Harrington.” With a burst of bravery, owing it to your younger self, you bounced up on your toes to peck his cheek before taking off a few steps ahead, turning to grin back at him as he jogged to catch up before you swerved into the pizza place. 

You joined the line of late night pizza lovers and Steve had slipped an arm around you, leaned his chin on your head as your heart pounded hard. “So, what’re we getting?” he asked.

The familiarity of it all made you feel fuzzy around the edges, his thumb stroking your shoulder, the heat of him pressed against your side. 

“It’s probably sacrilegious but the New York style slice, veggie or… artichoke.” Feeling brave again you cover his hand with yours and squeezed. “You?”

“Okay so we’re both sinners then.” He hummed, considering his options. “You’re vegetarian right?”

“Yeah, I try to be.” You liked how he had remembered a tiny detail from a story told hours ago.

“Okay. Four cheese then.”

“You sure?” Your interest piqued. 

“Yeah, ‘course. You might not want a goodnight kiss if I have pepperoni breath.”

You swear your jaw dropped as Steve schooled his smile, watching the group of tipsy tourists ahead of you order their slices before his eyes darted back to you. 

Steve was more timid, his voice quieter as he filled the silence between you when you had been too stunned to answer. “It’s also totally fine if you don’t want to kiss me, sweetheart. I know I can lay it on ki-“ 

Instead you rocked up to close the gap between you, ignoring the pinch of your sandals to lay a kiss onto his lips. Steve was quick to cup your cheek, keeping you there to kiss you back just as sweetly. 

His nose has nudged against yours before he let you go, gazing into each other’s eyes until your attention was pulled to ‘order or get out’. His arm had stayed around you as you placed your orders, splitting a third classic deep dish slice between you so you wouldn't be run out of town with torches and pitchforks. 

Full of pizza and soda and bravery, you had taken Steve’s hand again and strolled through the sticky Chicago night, steering him toward your apartment with the guise of proving that the same pink scrunchie you wore in high school was in fact on your bedside table. You both knew what you were really suggesting. 

Part of you niggled away, expecting him to make a polite excuse to head home instead. But Steve only had eyes for you and sealed the deal with another kiss. You lost yourselves in each other, feeling younger together, and made out with Steve’s back against the shutters of somewhere long closed for the night as he squeezed your hips and you toyed with the ends of his hair. It was with regret that he had to tear himself away from your lips to hail a cab for you both, where you did your best to behave on the way to your apartment.

As you lay in bed that next morning, watching how Steve’s chest rose and fell with breath, how soft he looked in sleep, you felt warm and happy. His golden glow was just as dazzling in the morning light.  

Your night together had been unrushed. Steve hadn’t just hit it and quit it with you. No, instead you had kissed and kissed, making out and letting your hands roam like two teenagers except there was no hurry; no seven minute deadline or someone pounding on a guest room door to see if it was occupied. The rumours in school had been true; Steve Harrington was an amazing kisser. You had listened to a friend of a friend rave about his soft lips after a lucky spin the bottle in junior year; now you had tasted him for yourself, you understood why she had brought it up so much. But Steve was in your bed now, not hers, you thought smugly. 

On the way from the couch to your bed, he had unzipped your dress and you made sure his powdery blue shirt wouldn’t be too creased in the morning, draping it over the back of a chair instead of leaving it balled up on the ground. 

Steve had made sure you knew how beautiful he thought you were, kissed you everywhere before taking his time with you and spent an age between your legs as he worked you open for him. Lying there the next morning, you could feel your face heat up when you remembered how his touch set you on fire. The pleasant all over ache weighed you down into your mattress. 

With a messy bed-head, Steve woke a little after you and saw you smiling dreamily to yourself. He reached out to pull you closer, tucking his face into your neck. 

“Mornin’.” His voice was gravelly and deep. 

“Morning.” You brush his hair back gently and dot a kiss to his forehead before stroking your fingers over his shoulders soothingly, dragging them down his arm.  

“S’nice,” he said, lips moving against your neck before he pressed a few kisses there. 

Lying face to face on your pillow, your fingers played with the fine gold chain that settled around his throat, dipping lower into the thick hair on his chest. 

“I had a really good time last night.” Steve’s fingers walk up your arm, before twirling your hair around one carefully. 

When you look up at him, he’s got this little smile on his face. He inches closer, letting his gaze drop to your own smiling mouth before you share a slow morning kiss. 

“Me too,” you whisper, settling your hand on the side of his neck before returning his kiss again. Your fingers skate across and behind the lobe of his ear, the underside of his jaw and the shade of stubble there. 

With his large soft hands, he drags you closer still, pressing you right up against him. The t-shirt you had pulled on after the sweat on your body had started to cool last night was rucked up over your hip as Steve’s thumb strokes the dip there. 

You sigh into his mouth, feeling warm all over despite the chill of your box fan to cool the room down. This morning you're warmed by the heat and glow that radiates from Steve Harrington, hotter than the sun itself. 

“You’re really beautiful,” he murmurs against your lips, shifting his weight so you’re on your back again with one of his thighs slotted between yours. Steve brushes your hair back, fanning it out over the pillow before dipping down to kiss you again. He leaves you breathless before his lips trail lower to your jaw and neck. 

It’s an intimacy you hadn’t had with anyone in a long time, feeling safe enough with Steve to let yourself be loved on like this. You will yourself to be present with him, bask in his glow as it warms you, but barbs of anxiety have crept in to distract you.

Last night was amazing, slow and syrupy and tender. If that had been the last time you ever saw Steve Harrington you could have probably died happy - happier than before anyway. But instead he stayed, and as he kisses you again (morning breath ignored and forgotten). Steve didn’t care that you had faded into the background of your shared high school halls, he had loved how you had the bravery to break out of Hawkins and be you now. 

Steve notices you tensing up and peels himself back, thumbing your cheek again as he says your name. “Do you want me to stop?” he asks, concern in his eyes. It makes your heart ache. 

You shake your head and cover the hand on your cheek. “No. Never.” You pull him to you again and relish the weight of him on top, your hands over his shoulders. “I’m getting in my head. You’re straight out of a dream, Steve. I feel like asking you to pinch me.”

You feel a little embarrassed about being quite so honest with him like this, but he oozes a magnetism and calmness that makes you want to tell him everything. But you don’t want to scare him away, be left waiting for another call that’s not coming, or hear him say ‘that was fun but I’m not looking for anything serious right now’. 

He smiles and leans his weight on one strong arm so he’s not totally crushing you. “I can, if you want. But I promise I’m real. And I’m just some guy.” 

You laugh. “Some guy? Nah Steve, I think you might be some sort of apparition. Or like, a Greek god.” You squeeze his bicep for emphasis. “Definitely dreaming.”

Steve rolls his eyes, playful, and pinches your cheek lightly. “See? Silly.” He presses a kiss to where he pinched before going in for another on your smiling mouth. Steve was not shy or stingy with his kisses, you had learned. You liked that a lot. 

“I think you’re pretty amazing, y’know. If you’re not sick of me yet, would you wanna go for breakfast with me?” Steve kneels up between your thighs, the sheets pooling around his hips. Your eyes go right to the white Calvin’s pulled tight over the thickness of him. Your eyes rake up over his body until you’re caught staring, ogling, and Steve smiles when you pull a pillow over your face. You certainly hadn’t been so shy last night; he laughs and lifts it away to gaze down at you, hoping you will say yes. 

“C’mere. Then you can take me for breakfast.” You coax him back down, hooking one leg over his hip. “Prove to me again that you’re not just in my imagination?”

Steve grins and rolls himself down over you. “You been imagining me like this? Scandalous,” he teases before resuming his kisses from earlier, which you are eager to return. Your bodies move together, hips tilting toward each other seeking out that pressure that makes your tummy sizzle. As Steve’s hands slip under your sized-up sleep shirt again, your own dips down to cup him through his underwear. His breath hitches, eyes fluttering shut. 

“Baby…” 

Baby. 

You smile and repeat the movement firmer this time before beginning to coax him to hardness, breaking your hold on him only to help him remove your tshirt. It’s lost to the floor along with Steve’s briefs. His breath is hot against your mouth as your bodies press together. The feeling of Steve’s hands on your breasts draws out a whine that’s swallowed by another kiss; his hands are so big and they feel like they are everywhere, like Steve is everywhere. His mouth and hands trail lower, spreading you out for him on your dusty rose bedsheets. He cups you there, thumb swiping in a delicious rhythm that has you gasping against his shoulder. 

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, kissing the tops of your breasts. “Let me hear those pretty noises again, baby. Please?” 

You whimper as his fingers ease you open, so gentle like the polite ‘please’. Steve had proven he was a talker already last night, his words making you feel hot all over as he had pushed so carefully inside, turning tipsy giggles into needy gasps. You felt the same heat engulf you now as he lay wet kisses to your tummy, your hips, pausing only so that he could lie comfortably between your thighs after shouldering his way between them. 

He’s looking up at you, his cheek against the meat of your thigh. Lips curve into a smile when you meet his gaze, and he closes his eyes when you stroke his hair back. One of his hands takes yours and rests together on your belly as he dips to kiss you where you need him, humming against you when you gasp his name. 

Your eyes drop closed, fireworks bursting behind them as he makes you feel so good. The once or twice any other man had done this was lacklustre in skill and enthusiasm, which Steve possessed in every cell of his being. When you chance looking at him you spot his hips shifting against the mattress, chasing relief for his own ache which makes you moan louder. His whispered “good girl” sends your eyes rolling back into your skull. 

Steve brings you to your peak quicker than anyone ever had before. Mindful that you might be a little tender from the night before as he presses one long and thick finger inside before a second joins it a few moments later, gentle but with a purpose of making you forget your own name. His shoulder presses firm against your thigh, spreading you wider as his fingers pump steadily, keeping the pace and press against the spot inside you that makes you feel fit to explode. 

You squeeze his arm while your capacity for coherent speech vanishes, focusing only on the swirl and suck of his mouth and the crook and curl of his fingers. It’s so sudden, and you swear you’ve never made a noise so loud as you moan for him, trembling all over. He whispers his praise against your thigh before bringing his mouth back to where you’re weeping for him and doesn’t stop until your thighs are crushing his ears, muffling your voice. 

Chest heaving, you feel him move up to check on you. He brings you close, holding you as you glow with him and presses feathery kisses to your hairline. “You still with me? Not still dreaming about me?” 

“Mm, think I died,” you manage, peeking up at him with teary eyes. Another tender kiss to the dopey smile on your lips. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me, sweetheart.” 

His grin is deservedly cocky, earning himself the warm grasp of your hand around his length. The prettiest frown graces his face as you squeeze and slowly pump your hand, your lips moving to his neck. 

Steve’s gaze moves from your face, dragging down your body to where your hand holds him. His size makes your hand look small and you feel the kick of his arousal on your palm. You manage to swing one wobbly leg over him, sitting on the breadth of his thighs with new confidence as he holds you steady. 

You lean across him, earning kisses to your chest as you fish for a condom to rip open and roll on to him before lowering yourself down into his lap. 

Sinking your teeth into the fat of your lower lip at the stretch of him, Steve huffs out a breathy swear against your chest. His hands settle on your hip and thigh, grounding and never rushing as you breathe into the feeling of him inside you before beginning to move. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs, watching you in awe. “So pretty f’me.”

That spurs you on, chasing the tingle deep in your abdomen. Your fingers lace with Steve’s on your thigh, the other hand braced against the wall behind his shoulder. 

His head leans back by your hand, turning to kiss your wrist as you move in his lap. You curl your arm around him, bringing each other close as his hips hitch up to meet you. 

“So good, baby,” he murmurs, kissing you again as his breath comes quicker now. “You’re so fuckin’ pretty.”

Gasping his name, you hold him tight to you as you move together. He can’t take his eyes off of you, “Good girl, so gorgeous.” 

Messy kisses broken by gasps and Steve’s praise are traded back and forth. His hands feel huge where they hold you at your waist. 

The cord of pleasure deep in your pelvis winds tighter. Steve’s jaw twitches as he holds on to you, and you kiss the tense muscle before whispering, “You make me feel so good.” The sound he makes is almost a whimper and he squeezes the meat of your ass. Your hips continue their rise and roll, you feel like every cell of your body is aflame. 

Steve watches you, praising words fanning the fire low in your belly. The burn in your thighs makes you pause and he takes the chance to kiss you stupid again. 

“Feel good? Yeah?” When you nod, feeling spaced out, he pecks your swollen lips and whispers, “Let me take care of you, sweetheart.” You wonder if he lets anyone take care of him, return his generosity and affections. 

He is so gentle as he holds you to his chest and slouches lower on the bed. You close your eyes at the feeling of being held like this, cheek to his broad shoulder. His feet are flat and firm on the bed and the experimental thrust up into you makes you sigh his name. Steve sweeps your hair to one side so that he can kiss your neck again, checking in with you before continuing. 

His name echoes on your bedroom walls as he grazes the elusive spot inside of you; the way you press right against his pelvis gives a rub of friction that makes lightning zing through your limbs. “That’s it. Huh? Right there?” His voice is tight as he drives up into you again, faster now with the new angle. 

You can hardly summon the sense to make a sentence, babbling now with how good he’s making you feel, the occasional broken curse or plea. After last night and this morning, the neighbours won’t be happy or forget Steve’s name anytime soon - not that you give a fuck. 

You kiss him again, though now you’re both so far gone it’s messy and needy, hot breaths against each other’s cheeks. The lick of his tongue against yours makes you shiver. You feel ready to burst, pleasure building as his hips drive up hard into you

With the feeling of him so deep inside of you, you fall over the edge again. The feeling of your orgasm, clenching and fluttering and soaking, drags him with you, groaning against your neck when his hips slam and stutter still. His arms are tight around you, both heaving deep breaths together. 

Steve eases you both down onto your sides, tangled together. You feel dazed and heavy but the stroke of Steve’s fingers on your hip, his hot breath on your collarbone grounds you until the sounds of Chicago on a Saturday morning remind you that this wasn’t a dream. 

“You okay? That.. Jesus…” Steve’s voice is breathy, but you hear his smile. 

“Yeah. I’m…amazing.”

“Yeah, you are.” 

There’s comfortable silence as you both come back to earth. 

After a few moments Steve dots kisses to your cheeks, forehead and nose before he eases out of you to bin the full condom. Soon you’re back in bed with him, held safe in his arms. His cheeks are pink and you want to squeeze them. 

“You’re so gorgeous, Steve.” Your fingers brush over the moles dotted along his cheekbone, and he catches your hand to kiss your fingers sweetly in distraction. “Hey. Look at me, Harrington.”

“Back to Harrington?” he teases, looking into your eyes with faux intensity to make you giggle. “M’lookin’.”

“Steve. Steven.” You match his teasing with pretend-seriousness.

“Not Steven. Please, baby.” His mouth turns down, exaggerating his unhappiness with you, but the stroke of his fingers on your hip say otherwise.

“Ms O’Donnell called you Steven.”

“Please don’t bring O’Donnell up while my dick is still out.”

You both dissolve into giggles, pressing your face against the chain on his chest. “Shut up, she had that much of an effect on you?! Calling you Steven gets you all worked up? Okay perv, good to know.”

“You’re sick in the head.” His voice is shaky with laughter against your hair. “S’a good thing you’re cute.”

“Mhm. Definitely a sicko. Two cute sickos.” You take his face in your hands again. “You’re a great date Steve Harrington.”

He smiles, but it falls a little - you just about catch it. It makes your heart hurt. Your inability to just say that you don’t want this to be a one time thing makes you want to pull your own hair out. 

“I do my best. I had so much fun with you. I’m just kinda… sick of first dates though. Yknow?” 

“I do know. But that’s not how last night felt.” 

There’s a flash of recognition in his eyes as he nods. 

“Definitely helped that we had a bit of a head start on the ‘where are you from?’ shit..” There’s a twinkle of playfulness in his heart wrenching sincerity. 

“I hate that part.” You look into his eyes. It makes your chest flutter, how he looks at you.

“I know we didn’t know each other all that well in school..”

“Since kindergarten.” Your shrug is tiny, you smile playfully as he groans. 

“Since kindergarten. Shit. What’ve I been doing all this time…” he asks the ceiling.

“Same as me. Getting out of Hawkins. Going on crappy dates...” 

“Mm, true. Growing up, I guess.” He’s quiet for a moment, “Last night wasn’t crappy. Best date I’ve been on in a long long time.”

“Me too. I think I’ll let you take me out again, if you want to…” you say, whispering bravely as you act all playful despite your hammering heart. 

The smile on Steve’s face makes the butterflies in your stomach swoop again. You weren’t the only one who felt so dimmed by dating around, having your heart broken. There’s a beat of silence, charged electric as Steve looks at your lips and you touch his chain again. 

“You like pancakes, or waffles?” Steve’s eyes twinkle. 

You squeeze the bulk of his bicep. “French toast.”

His head tips back in laugh, showing off his delicious throat. “Oh she’s fancy?”

“She is.” 

He leans in to kiss you in more time. “I can do fancy, baby.” 

“You’ve done fancy twice. Fancy is hungry, Steve.”

Your laughter echoes in the golden morning light that fills your room as his fingers skate over your ribs, finding the ticklish spots before he hauls you as close as possible again. 

Steve’s nose presses against your cheek, smooching one more kiss there before sitting up to find his pants. As you stargaze at the constellation on his broad back, you think this might just be the start of something really amazing.

comments, reblogs and likes are not simply appreciated - they are cherished

[kingofbodyrolls]

Thanks for recommending I read them all do you know any other jimin fics

I can share with you some of my ‘to read’ Jimin fics – I hope there’s some that you haven’t read already so you can dive into those 💜 I also suggest looking/searching on AO3, maybe you can find more there too 😃

Facade (series) by @taeescript

Dirty Little Secret by @tipsydipsydo

Family Lane by @hayjeon

Mismatched Pages (series) by @knjoodles

Ignorantly, Yours by @ot7always

Best Friend of my FWB (ft. jjk) (series) by @xiutingmyself

Troll in Love (series) by @justasparkwritings

Running through the Night by @sketchguk

Strictly Confidential by @ppersonna

The Misadventures List (series) by @kimvvantae

Bad Habits by @yoonjinkooked

Paper Hearts by @namfinessed

Pick you Filter by @ppersonna

First Kiss (series) by @ggukbabyy

Temptation (part of the Pleasure collection) by @ayyosuga

Never Falling by @yoonia

The Glow Up (ft. kth) (series) by @bangtangalicious

Peaches and Cream by @snackhobi

Opposites Attract (series) by @kpopfanfictrash

Neon Seoul by @readyplayerhobi

The Devil in his Details by @johobi

Couchsurfer by @heartbeatan

Of Stars Erased (series) by @fantasybangtan

New Experiences (series) by @littlenoona

Thank you for your Service by @jiminniethemarshmallow

Growing Pains (series) by @taleasnewastime

Put it on Me by @jimilter

Feel your Touch by @jimilter

Captivity by @jimilter

The Prince’s Cinderella Syndrome by @jimilter

Making him Jealous (ft. jjk) by @parkmuse

Blue Kamikaze (ft. jhs) by @gguksgalaxy

Serendipity (series) by @sopebubbles

All of You (series) by @writtenwhalien

Two in One (ft. jhs) by @here2bbtstrash

Lust for Life by @aquagustd

A Change of Heart (series?) by @whitesparrows97

A Work of Art by @missgeniality

Tonight by @pjmparadise

Oh, What A World (series) by taestybae/cutechim on AO3

A Serpent’s Flower (series) by @jimlingss

Love Her (Love Yourself) (series) by @xotoosweet

I’m sorry for the late reply, I added some extra fics in there to hopefully make up for it! I haven’t read any of them myself, but I really look forward to reading each one, because they sound amazing to me (which is why they are on my to-read list). I haven’t checked if all the series are completed or discontinued, but I think they’ll be a pleasant read either way 🙂

I hope you enjoy 💜

[mangochii]

The Crow and The Butterfly 🦋

(Holm Kranom x Half-foot!reader)

Fine then, I'll make one myself 🥹 Sorry for any grammar mistakes and misspellings in advance, I'm writing this during a flood and blackout. Might as well write while our 1st floor is flooded LOL.

Also some art too in the end.

I stared intently at his hands, the way it moved and swayed as he spoke. Marillier floated blissfully, seeming to enjoy her time being fed with mana, the sweet undine dripped little droplets on the ground as she ate.

"Spirit care is quite simple, really..."

His voice tickled my ear, he had always been a bit soft-spoken. Every syllable that fell out of his mouth I consume with much fervor, I nod every now and then. The small tug at the corners of his lips did not go unnoticed by me, his face always lights up ever so slightly as he talks about spirits.

"Though, gnomes like me usually have an easier time to gain a spirit's trust. Being more attuned to nature, of course."

"I see..." I mumbled, as if I could even befriend a spirit like Marillier, I'm not attuned to anything but probably myself. My eyes met with his, and I can't help but get lost in it. It's like he carved his initials onto every gemstone in existence, and made it his eyes. It glints as he opened his mouth, a beautiful melody filled my ears with every word he spoke.

I am a crow, and intrigued I was with a sparkling treasure, his eyes, a pretty shiny.

"Pretty..."

"Hm? What was that?"

I closed my eyes, hopefully not noticing my expressions. "Pretty interesting, I said. Can you tell me more?" I want to hear more of you, more of your voice.

I am a crow.

"Of course."

And I am smart enough to know that you're out of my reach. The shimmering gem fell into a hole, too deep for my beak to reach.

Why he keeps on indulging me is beyond me, but I fell into the same trap every time. Hoping he'd feel the same.

"Teach me more, Prof." My lips tugged upwards, my eyes closed. "I'd like to know more of the things you love."

I saw him smile softly, a smile softer than the moonlight in the winter. "You never fail to amuse me." With a chuckle he turned to fully face me, Marillier by his side.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything." I breathed, voice barely heard. I saw his eyes widened slightly, I hear his heartbeat racing, his breathing hitched, and muscles tensed.

"Okay." He whispered back, pink lightly dusted the apples of his cheeks and to the tips of his ears.

For once, I felt like that shiny gemstone is within reach. It's so wrong, so selfish of me. But I can't help it.

Holm stared at the fire, he felt the eyes of his party members bore through him. "So Holm, you never really opened up about your love life to us." Daya hummed, her finger pointed at him.

"Well, I don't think Holm's the type to have a partner, y'know?" Mouth filled with meat, Mickbell shrugged, with Kuro nodding in agreement. "I've crashed by his place few times already, it's maidenless."

"No..." Kabru, the ever so perceptive man, spoke. His hand covered his mouth as he began to mutter. "I've seen him talk with a half-foot lady everytime we go back up from the dungeon, she looks like an adventurer too... Maybe a newbie? No, she looks a bit experienced... Hmm..."

Holm's breath hitched, he dare not to look away from the fire. A futile attempt to delay the inevitable, in the back of his weary mind, he thinks that it's already a bit too late.

"A half-foot lady with Holm? Oh!" Mickbell eyes lightened in recognition, "I know her, she bought me and Kuro free food when she accidentally spilled grape punch on me."

"Meat yummy."

"You're so right, Kuro! Gods, I wish I can eat there again... Anyway, I heard that she's with that dwarf, Namari, for a bit... I didn't think she'd be into gnomes though, most half-foot ladies nowadays prefer to be with dwarves, because they look muscular than us half-foot men."

"They're right, you look like a noodle." Rin added, eyeing Mickbell's form up and down, with Daya giggling in tow.

"Oi!"

"A good noodle in our eyes, Mick." Kabru sneaked in.

"That doesn't make it any better!"

Holm flinched as Mickbell stood and pointed at him, "This is about Holm's love life! Not my physique!" He huffed and sat back down, arms crossed. His brows were furrowed together so hard that it might leave a crease in-between.

"There wasn't anything really... She was just curious about Marillier and gnomish magic." Lies. The way she tries to listen intently to his explaination was adorable, her smile every time she met his eyes filled his heart with such a comforting warmth, the way she asks questions to clarify some of his points, the way she bites her lip when he talks a bit too fast, everything.

She was Holm's everything, but they're just... Nothing. There's nothing between them at all, despite the two of them knowing they both want to be something, anything but what they both currently have. There was nothing.

A series of groans came from the rest of the party, disappointed. But Holm couldn't help but sweat at the way Kabru looked at him, sapphire eyes stare at him knowingly. He swallowed hard and looked away.

To love her was selfish, and cruel for himself. She could've fallen for any other half-foot, but chose him. What happens to him once you pass? Look for another? Or spend every waking moment of his life grieving til' he too, passes away? Surely she had thought the same, settling for ghostly touches and lingering smiles.

He knows and feels her hesitance, how her fingers twitched when she tried reaching out. But they both feel too far from each other.

No, she knows this is unfair to him. Unfair to the both of them.

But gods, why does she look at him so fondly like that? Why? Her eyes shine brighter than any jewel in the world every time he spoke. Why?

"I love you, Holm." With a sad smile, my voice hushed and sung a broken melody, I finally spoke my heart out. I've mulled it over day and night, and I've concluded that my happiness is worth less than his.

"But I can't. I can't have you. It's too cruel for you."

His eyes widened, mouth opening and closing. Words failed to get past his throat, so he stood there, frozen. As he'd always do.

"I'll spare you the decades worth of pain. The years worth of you grieving my inevitable death." I said as softly as I could, reaching for his cheek. "Thank you... For indulging me." I rubbed tender circles on his skin, before pressing my lips on his own, his lips were dry and a bit chapped, he tasted like sweet fruit. For mere seconds, that's how long the kiss lasted, but I was for sure thought it lasted for minutes.

I am a greedy, greedy crow. And you are a butterfly.

As I pulled away, his hands crept up to the back of my neck. Slowly, delicately pulling me back closer to him. "No." He breathed, shakily. I hear his heart hammer on his chest, his eyes glimmer amidst the tears that began to pool.

"I want to love you, I want to hold you more like this. I want... I want to love you in every library, by the fountain when we first met, on the sidewalk, at that one restaurant that you said you liked, at the storage room that I found you stuck in,

Under the, the tree by the hill,

In the dungeon,

Everywhere.

Let me love you."

Little butterfly placed delicate kisses on my beak, your wings were more beautiful than any shiny that a crow like me could ever find.

His kisses was chaste, delicate, and thorough. Tenderly engraving his name in my soul. "I don't care if I have a decade or two or whatever years left to be with you."

His fingers guided themselves to my waist, he held me so desperately, as if I'd disappear had he let go of his tight hold. "I'll cherish those years like a family heirloom."

In his eyes, I'm neither crow nor butterfly. But a little flower, your crystalline jewels stare at my petals, as I guard the spinning nectar that you can't help but consume.

I guess you're no better than me. You drink and drink, an endless parchment of my love.

My body relaxed as he kissed me once more, the sweet honey of my soul pours fresh unto his heart and tongue. His heartbeat is my beautiful orchestra, and his eyes is the forest that I don't mind getting lost in.

"I love you." He whispered to my ear like a silent prayer.

I couldn't help but smile, red flooding my face. "I love you too." Your voice is the sweetest symphony.

___

YAY ART 🥰

[thecoffeelorian]

Fandom Friday, 07/26: Fanart

Hello again, everyone...and welcome back to a slightly shortened, though hopefully no less interesting, Fandom Friday update.

Firstly...wow. It's been quite the week here on my end of the universe, and if anybody's taken even five seconds to look at the news, it's probably rather easy to figure out why. 😅

Second...I had a rough day or two over the past weekend where some health issues decided to creep up on me, so. As a result of unforeseen circumstances, I may need another week to catch up on lost fanfictions, and I hope it's not too late to start apologizing for my recent sluggishness.

Anyways. Before I get too off topic here, it's time to bring in my picks of the week, so let's get straight to them all below!

THE ACOLYTE

The Acolyte Fanart--By @blessyo4:

THE PREQUELS

The Prequels Fanart--By @ann-i-inthestars:

The Prequels Fanart--By @bellum-gero:

THE CLONE WARS

The Clone Wars Fanart--By @enzoo-art:

The Clone Wars Fanart--By @alabyte:

THE BAD BATCH

The Bad Batch Fanart--By @keef-a-corn:

The Bad Batch Fanart--By @nika6q:

THE MANDALORIAN

The Mandalorian Fanart--By @fimloly:

The Mandalorian Fanart--By @haat-ade-rise:

In conclusion, as part of my mission to poke around the Star Wars fandom and, on Friday every week, highlight those artists who might otherwise go unnoticed…I hope you will check out the links I have included for yourselves and like, comment on, and reblog them, as well as also giving the artists a few more followers to their Tumblr pages.

Please also like and reblog this latest installment so that these links can be spread around to as many other fans as possible, just in case not all of them can tune in at the same time.

An additional thank you goes to @djarrex for making the divider I used earlier in this post, but still want to give credit for.

And finally, so that I do not forget…thank you to my friends, thank you to this fandom, good afternoon, and good luck.

No Pressure Tags Go Out To:

@theweepingvulcan91 @libraryfordyslexics @olafur-neal @theunknownartist1 @bluedeedeedoop

@crazyinspirationaldreams @theosb0rnway @gun-roswell @melymigo @skellymom

@cinnamonsugar-pretzel @its-time-to-rise-above @vaderkin-is-a-lightning-rod @universitysunflowers

@tazmbc1 @thegreenspectr @leos-multifandom-corner @badbatchposts @sharpasanaro

@tlmtwelve @thatflatfrog @nadjem-mari @leenabb104104

@difuf @rott1ngbra1n @saviinika @everybirdfellsilent @algo-o-nada

@botherdv @justhereforthesherlock @sportlover4life @aelfgiure @typewriters-and-love-letters

@maggie-dylan and anybody else who might be on the lookout for new and interesting fanart.

See you all in the next update!

[ihatedean]

please help my baby get his ear surgery done<3

thank you for clicking read more :)

so after months of testing the vet informed us a few days ago that our cat does, in fact, have skin cancer. to get more specific it's actually squamous-cell carcinoma.

(text is in spanish but im sure google lens can translate pretty well.)

it's affecting the tip/side of his left ear and hasn't spread to his nose or the other ear, so the vet recommended surgery to get the ear removed as soon as we possibly can. this would be on september 2nd, this monday.

exams like x-rays and biopsies have already been pretty expensive so i'm making this post to hopefully offset the cost of his pinnectomy (ARS$180,000->USD$189) even just a little bit. the whole thing has been really stressing and adding to that a messed up family situation where i can't ask them for help, please trust me when i say i wouldn't do this if i didn't need to.

details for the fic commissions:

my ao3 account for reference

right now im working on stuff for supernatural and formula 1 so that's where my brain's at, mostly, but ive done a lot of writing for jojo's bizarre adventure (im Very fluent with jotaro and all part 3-4 characters) and for the argies in the room, i've even written stuff for los simuladores and el marginal. i have no issues writing in spanish (rioplatense).

im also comfortable writing for genshin impact. been playing for years and im familiar with the lore up until fontaine. i've been itching to write something for a while :)

im Very Very familiar with x reader fics and will do OC x Character or OC x OC gladly as long as you provide character art or detailed descriptions to help me capture them best.

im comfortable writing pretty much every ship for the fandoms i named and can do gen, teen, mature and explicit works. im open to all kinks and have a history of doing incest and age-gap pairings. im comfortable with most dark themes— will write dub-con, non-con, cnc, and want to hear your weirdly specific skinks. in general, it's easier to say what i will not do than what i will. no judgement, as long as you respect

what i will not do:

horror

gore

necrophilia

violent non-con or explicit non-con (mentioning it in the story is fine, but i will not write the actual scene)

scat

vore

race play (hateful imagery/racial slurs)

kidfic

for formula 1 im simply inept at doing maxiel and c2. in general, i struggle with max and carlos. won't write anything for lando, sorry. anything else from 2010 to 2024 is fine, and im open to AUs of any kind as well as gender bending :)

pricing

Tier 3 — USD$5 for 500 words. 5 slots open

Tier 2 — USD$10 for 1k to 3k words. 2 slots open

Tier 1 — USD$25 for 4k to 10k words. 2 slots open

if i exceed wordcount in any case, it's on me. i'm a yapper.

contact me here or ask for my gmail in tumblr dms ^^

i can only accept ppal for USD$. if you're in argentina and you're interested, dm me for mercadopago info :)

(if you just want to donate that's totally cool. i just felt weird asking for money without anything to offer. it's a me thing)

ppal link

if you read this whole thing, thank you. here is the boy himself. he's almost 11 years old, incredibly grumpy, manipulative, called ugly by almost all my friends, has already gone through eye surgery so that's why his eyes look Like That, and on the rare occasion he sits on my lap i literally cry.

please put sunscreen on your cats, especially if they have white hair like aki. we didn't know for the longest time that exposure to the sun could cause skin cancer on cats and by the time we knew and started doing it, it was too late.

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA JANUARY DEV LOG : "LOG 1, WOOHOO!"

Hi! For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, or are just stopping by, let me introduce you to this post to really set the tone.

For 2024, I am going to try to release a dev log about HYPERSOMNIA once a month, may come earlier, may come a little late, but I'm doing this to help give insight on to how the game is going, and to give me motivation to work on the game.

First things first, big news!

HYPERSOMNIA IS NOW AVAILABLE TO WISHLIST ON STEAM! (LINK)

After a while of back and forwarding with Valve, I've finally got a Steam page to call my own, and MAN is it bizarre seeing my weird little RPG in my Steam library. Like, that's my logo, and my key art, and screenshots of MY game, that's so weird. It doesn't feel real. BUT IT IS!

And, I would really really really really really appreciate it if you would consider wishlisting the game on Steam. It helps with the algorithm, and my happiness because I like seeing numbers go up, it feels good.

I even drew this as a announcement/commemoration for the page going live.

(P.S; if you couldn't tell, I really like Half-Life, it's one of my favorite game series.)

Secondly...

A new trailer is in the works! We were accepted for this year's MOTHER Direct (4th time baby, whoo!)

The trailer has been coming along well, I hope to show more battle oriented clips that I've missed the last few years, like special moves.

Can you believe I've never actually gotten to adding those in the game? I mean, they come set-up in default RPG Maker projects but I've never gotten around to revamping them until now, year 4 of engine work. Isn't that strange?

I also hope to improve on editing in the trailers. Whenever I finish a trailer I come back a few months later to notice minor points where I was kinda sloppy.

I'm not much of a video editor, (I only learned so I could edit trailers on my own) but I'd like to keep them at a good presentable quality. You gotta have standards with that kinda stuff, it's important!

OK, TIME FOR THE ACTUAL GAME STUFF. HERE WE GO.

Abilities are now implemented! And work! Wahoo!

In HYPERSOMNIA, players are able to switch abilities between party members. I find this a really interesting mechanic for how simple it seems, you get to choose who plays what role in your party. I think this is HUGE, and opens up a lot of unique scenarios for the game's encounters. I've had this planned for years, as far back as 2021 if I can recall, so it's super cool seeing it in game.

Mapping is being worked on!

I've also been working on mapping out more areas of the game! The forest part you hopefully saw in the last trailer is almost completely mapped. I've been working on the second part to it and am hoping to finish it sometime soon.

Mapping forests really suck. THOUGH, almost all the maps for the first chapter of the game are done! That's just another step closer to the demo. (Which, FYI, will be on Steam and Itch! ^^)

I've also been working on re-spriting older scenes!

This one's been really fun to do, I've been going back and redoing older stuff from the 2022 trailer, like this train! It's weird seeing it side by side, because you can definitely see where it's come from but at the same time, it looks so different.

(Also side note, these sprites are CRUSTY! EWWW!)

Lastly, Script and Music updates!

The script for HYPERSOMNIA's first act has been completed! with just 37 pages of just cutscene dialog alone! We're also currently working on wrapping up NPC dialog! Not much else to say.

And music is being worked on!

Music has been making some progress! I like to lay out demo's for areas I'm mapping out to help make both the music and scene come together. (Also, to help break up the eerie silence when playtesting...)

Speaking of music, FIREBALL, the games main battle theme, was recently delisted on our YouTube channel.

We did this because we decided we wanted to resample FIREBALL, and found that it's best to not have the song uploaded until a complete, final version is made. At least for the demo, it could possibly change before the final game but that's a bit too far in the future for me to think about fully.

Hey! Thanks for reading the whole dev log! Unless you just skipped to the end, you should probably go back up and read it. there's a steam page now. and some cool ross art at the top. you're missing out!

I hope this was like, readable to you all. I'm new to this whole dev log thing, so if you read it all the way through, let me know! It'd be cool!

I'd like to use this portion to pretty much just advertise Unique Indie RPG's.

Have you ever seen that strange purple square at the beginning of the 2nd and 3rd HYPERSOMNIA trailers?

Yeah, that! That's UNIQUE INDIE RPG's, which is a Discord community for you guessed it, Unique Indie RPG videogames developed by people like me! Or you! Or whoever! Who cares!

I help run it with some of my friends, and we all share cool stuff about our videogames! There's a ton of other SUPER cool RPG Maker games there like Astral Guard [LINK], or SOMEWHEN [LINK], or even MOMOinc [LINK]!

And of course, HYPERSOMNIA. It's a really laid back community, we're all super chill. Come swing by! We'd love to have ya, and SHOW US YOUR GAME!

[LINK TO DISCORD SERVER]

TWITTER

YOUTUBE

STEAM

UNIQUE INDIE RPG'S [SHOW US YOUR GAME!]

[PREV] [ABOUT HYPERSOMNIA] [NEXT]

[ladyloveandjustice]

Anime Expo Day 2 Report: Dungeon Meshi live draw panel

I'm on my way hope and can finally sit down and make a log of my Anime Expo Journey, day by day/

Here's the Friday report:

I attended the Dungeon Meshi panel on Friday! I made sure to do so by sitting through the end of the Gundam panel and the whole Terminator Zero panel to make sure I was in the room (they don’t clear between panels). The terminator anime actually does look pretty cool! Jacki from Anime News Network was hosting and she’s so enthusiastic you get swept up. I did feel bad she kept commenting on how big the crowd was when I’m pretty sure at least half had the same idea I had and were there for Dunmeshi. But hopefully it got people who wouldn’t have considered it (like me, I do like Terminator but it wasn't on my radar) interested!

As has gone around the internet, the panel got hijacked by a guy carrying a boom box and waving an anarchy flag and a person singing (badly). It was very confusing, they got on stage and at first I thought it was part of the show, but then I realized the singing person was shirtless and had their tits out under the jacket they were wearing and was like probably not. Someone in the audience mentioned it was a Panty and Stocking song. They were demanding we dance, we all realized they weren’t supposed to be there and started booing. A guy behind me yelled “you’re being disrespectful!!!” which I thought was a very wholesome reaction. They proceeded to flip us all off. People were yelling “where’s security” and they finally came and slowly hauled them away. The person said “something something gay something” and someone yelled something back and I guess it’s a good thing my hearing is bad. As they were hauled off, they deliberately opened their jacket and flashed their tits as like, a screw you, like we all hadn’t already seen them.

Fortunately Trigger staff weren’t on the stage as this happened, just the host (who I felt bad for). The director, Yoshihiro Miyajima, and character designer, Naoki Takeda, came out and one of them joked “what a special guest!”

Now onto the stuff that actually matters:

We were shown a ton of concept art (no lines all colors, can’t remember what that’s called) and everyone screamed like crazy when it got to Marcille and Falin in the bath. There were quite a few screams for necromancer Marcille. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pix.

There was also a live draw for the characters. We were allowed to pick two by yelling out who we wanted (I yelled Marcille and Falin) There was a huge coordinated chant for Senshi but that was kind of ignored and they chose Marcille and Izutsumi. We did get to take a picture of that:

The producer was actually recording the whole panel for a future Youtube vid, walking among the audience (he almost fell getting off the stage at one point which was a little scary since he was pretty elderly) and he was so enthusiastic and adorable.

Fans got to line up and ask questions and some notable ones I wrote down:

What monster would you eat if you were in the dungeon? "I wouldn’t want to eat any of it honestly, but if I had to choose, the Red Dragon".

“Which part of Falin would you want to eat if you had to?” “The dragon portion, definitely.” “Which part?” “The thighs look delicious. I want to make it clear I’m talking about the dragon here”.

Someone asked about the added Senshi panty shots, and the director responded “very keen”. And then said to ask the animators because they were the ones who added them. He also said “look forward to the future”.

After the picture was finished, one of them mentioned that Izutsumi was just like their cat who runs away whenever he tried to pet it.

I did try to get into the Bocchi panel since it was just upstairs and an hour after Dunmeshi finished, but they made us go outside the building and come back in, I guess to be fair, but that obviously meant I got there too late. I waited in line but it was capped.

[tricitymonsters]

I know I put a lot of attention on Steam because of the sheer size of the marketplace and the effort Steam itself takes in marketing for devs but I really wanted to take a second to shout out TCM's numbers on itch.io because I really feel like the game found it's first platform there and I especially want to highlight what a great community it is for Indie Devs of all experience levels.

So I have TCM split up between 4 titles on itch- the main one is for all the new stuff and then each beta has it's own homepage. Downside, it kinda splits all my metrics up but the plus side its much easier to navigate for yall so I'll refrain from complaining lol.

Now given we started with just the Mori beta in late 2021, and added chapters slowly over time, here's where we're at right now.

Views: 312k

Downloads: 22.3k

Browser Plays: 35.6k

Ratings: 347

Collections: 5295

Comments: 189

So there are a couple really interesting things going on with this data. Let's analyze

Firstly, the numbers on the main chapter beat the *hell* out of the beta numbers. BUT this makes sense as more people are going to find the main game or PLAY the main game first at a vastly higher rate. So even though that game page has been up the least amount of time, it gets *by far* the most traffic. For example, if we take away the main page numbers, here's how the betas are doing on their own:

Views: 63.3k

Downloads: 5.4k

Browser Plays: 18.2k

Ratings: 133

Collections: 847

Comments: 42

So, if you were an indie dev posting your game on itch.io, these numbers should tell you to carefully consider how you're going to organize your game- especially if it comes in multiple parts. When I was going through the betas I did consider keeping everything on one page and therefore aggregating all of my traffic stats into one place but there are pros and cons.

Mostly, I went with separate pages because:

It's easier to organize files for downloads per character/game piece than to have a huge list of system-specific builds for every character that players have to scroll through. It's just hard to parse out.

Second, I thought that breaking up the chapters like this might help me better gauge each character's popularity via their stats. This... sort of worked. Because the Mori beta went up almost a year before Amir's, his numbers are MUCH higher and I have to be careful not to conflate that with his raw popularity. Another tricky note is that since Mori was the first chapter uploaded, many people will play his beta and then if they decide they're not into the game, won't play the other two characters, which again inflates Mori's numbers.

It was obvious in the gap after Spooktober 2021 and Amir's chapter that I had a project worth pursuing but the way I structured itch.io has made it hard to accurately gauge how popular exactly each character is.

Most of you know I'm running a popularity poll right now for some milestone art and while I expected Mori to lead (even with all the caveats I just listed, he does tend to be the most popular of the bunch) but I did not expect Akello to be *right* on his ass, even before weighing the patreon votes so.

Goes to show you that understanding structure and traffic trends can really go a very very long way to engaging your audience and build a stable, fun community around your game.

Another huge advantage to itch is that- in generalities- the community and ecosystem there is much kinder to beginner devs and passion projects. On steam, I'm taking up the same marketplace space as AAA multimillion-dollar games and while the eyeballs that comes with that is great for TCMs longevity hopefully, it also comes with the reality that I'm marking a queer niche adult visual novel right next to Mainstream Gamers. Now, I do want to be extremely clear that my experience with Steam so far has been really good- TCM has good and (more importantly) honest reviews, people have passed constructive critique to me and been extremely reasonable, I've managed to connect to some content curators who have similar tastes... But Steam is also the home to like. "Oooh Naur Woke Games Kill Art" Lists and stuff so. My experience on Itch is that- while some of that exists to a certain degree- the general ecosystem is much more forgiving and less sharply fractured.

I'm not sure that I would change anything I've done in the point leading me here so far, I think that by and large I've made the best choices I could given what I knew at the time and also managed to roll with the punches as the come but my experienced advice at this stage is definitely for an indie dev who hasn't landed a solid success yet or a hobby dev looking for feedback to start with Itch.io as a place to build your game's community.

There are other game hosting sites too, like Gamejolt, for instance, but while TCM used to be on Gamejolt their content policies and audience demographics were not a great fit, as was my experience with Newgrounds.

So. there are MANY choices but in all I'm grateful I didn't jump right into steam and also that my itch.io audience has been SO supportive and so enthusiastic about rating/commenting/and curating TCM to help spread the word. Especially since early in the project I had basically no marketing budget (I have a very small one now that covers the occasional blazed post but still).

ANYWAY thanks for reading my big dumb rambling posts but I really wanted to shed some light on the virtues of Itch after I've been chasing my own tail trying to get Steam working for me the way I want.

[jaykinarts]

Takin' Over The Asylum Merch PRE-ORDERS NOW OPEN ⭐️

[ ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO DONNA FRANCESCHILD ]

WAHOOO!! After a long wait, I've finally managed to set up etsy (a lot of the wait times are long due to busy schedules and also I used my post office's estimated delivery time covid adjustments. Rest assured I will keep tabs on your merch and hoping it arrives smoothly! If anything happens please bare with me as it is my first time selling online and I'll do my best to make sure it everything gets settled ! Hopefully they will arrive earlier as I just added more days to compensate if schedules dont work out.)

Products:

- Acrylic Keychain Resin and Glitter flinish with Star clasp

- 1.75" Button pin matte

-2x2 Matte vinyl waterproof stickers

-7x7 SATIN photo paper square art print

( Read the listings for more information and if you have any questions just ask! Im really nervous but excited and I just wanna thank everyone who has been following this project!! ENJOY YOUR MERCHENDISE ! ALSO I RECCOMEND TO BUY IN BULK SO THAT SHIPPING ISNT TOO AWFUL!!)

⭐️ Etsy Shop: https://jaykinarts.etsy.com

(I'll be reading some of the orders in a few or tomorrow afternoon as its quite late for me, again please bare with me and I will always keep you guys updated!! )

( for those who wanted to be notified when pre orders open: @finchyboo @randompajamaalt @graysonorson @payaliyaaaaaa @leon-swedfinqs !!)

[xxannettemariexx]

- A kiss for you -

Artist's Notes

Hello! This is my first post in quite a while. I can't help but get nervous at the thought of sharing my art. Today I've brought Spirit Blossom Yone. I had a lot of fun drawing him! (So much so that I would stay up late and wake up early to work on it!) I wanted to share my thoughts on this piece. Hopefully it will sound coherent as I have quite a bit to say.

I put a lot of effort into the detail. It helps that Yone's Spirit Blossom skin has quite a few references to draw from. The ones I used were specifically the 3D model, the splash art, and lastly the sprite used in the visual novel. They all have different interpretations when it comes to the details, so I picked whatever I felt was fun to draw. (Lots of shapes and patterns! I would be happy if you took the time to look at them.) I still need to work on drawing folds and clothes, but I hope I captured his image. He's super pretty…!

I think you'll also notice my cross-hatching. I might have overdone it? I had a lot of fun making a lot of lines so I went a little crazy with it (even if I don't entirely understand how to shade yet.) I wonder if you could tell which parts were shaded in with the ruler tool. I forgot that I had that at my disposal for most of the drawing. ^_^; I prefer not using it, though.

I wanted to portray a romantic scene. Originally this was a picture of my self-insert getting a kiss on the hand from him. I cropped it, though, as I hoped that maybe more people could imagine who they want as the receiver. I wanted the focus to be on Yone anyway. I tried to give him a soft, gentle look. (A gaze filled with love!) However, the more I look at my drawing, the more smug he looks. I think it's because of his eyebrows, or more specifically, the shape(?). As in, the sharp point in the thicker part of the eyebrow. I remember it looking the way I wanted it to before I added it. But I didn't want to leave them out… Maybe I'm overthinking it. >_<; I've been looking at this drawing for too long!!!

(I don't know where to put this but the kimono sleeve on the right is actually based off his Rose Quartz Chroma.)

xXAnnette MarieXx

[legendary-cookies]

Happy New Year everybody!

January 1st is also funnily enough this blog's anniversary!

Legendary-Cookies is now 3 years old which means of course your obligatory cheesy post lmao

I'm putting it under a cut because the post ended up longer than I meant

Sorry gzjrhrzjziyt

I feel like I've only been posting less and less lately, but I really appreciate every one of you for following this blog anyway!

Thank you all so much!

I still very much like Cookie Run but I've been much more busy with less motivation, so I haven't been posting nearly as much as I want to

I can't promise anything unfortunately, but this year I hope to be able to get through my art ideas list for this blog and work on some other projects I have planned

For one, I do plan on adding Black Pearl to the profile picture and banner

I haven't forgotten

I just haven't gotten around to it lmfao

I also want to work more with animation this year, so things like animation memes or test animations or stuff like that might happen in the future

I'll still post in-game content about the Legends as well of course

I've made two other anniversary posts but I feel like I've never talked about how this blog started

Honestly though, I'm not sure how I started this blog lmao

I remember I wanted to make an ask blog with Cookie Run characters, but I couldn't tell you why I chose the Legends specifically

It could've been that I liked their concept because I've always been a sucker for elemental characters

I feel like it also could've been that of all the groups in Cookie Run, the Legends appealed to me the most

For those who didn't know by the way, this blog used to be just the Elemental Four

I added the rest of the Legends later, but Sea Fairy, Moonlight, Fire Spirit, and Wind Archer were the very first

Funnily enough, the first Cookie Run character I ever remember seeing was Sea Fairy

It all came full circle lmfao

I love all of the Legendary Cookies, but those four specifically will always be close to my heart

It's about to get extra cheesy, but ever since I started this blog, those four specifically have become so special to me and are definitely comfort characters

Maybe one day if I'm brave enough, I'll go through my old posts and redraw some stuff

But I digress

To finish this long post off (sorry about that hgszhdjihfz), I want to thank you all again so much for following me and my content!

I guess we'll see what 2023 has in store for us

And hopefully it's better

- Mod Velvet

[hillbillyoracle]

Journal Hacking

I’m not sure if this will make sense to anyone else but I wanted to document something I’ve been trying lately with regards to planning/bujo/journaling type things. Even if only so I can go back and see what I did lol. 

So I have been bullet journaling in some form on and off since 2014. So it’s been a minute. And while I like it on the whole, it’s just not been working out for me lately. I tried a Hobonichi weeks mega and while I really like some aspects it’s just not enough room for me. My handwriting is not that small. 

I ran across a simplified GTD-like system called Ugmonk Analog and I liked the principles (even if I didn’t like the price tag) so I adapted it to my new journal. 

Ugmonk’s Analog system has three cards - Today, Next, and Someday. I’m just using notecards I have for this. I put the Today card on my cover with washi tape so I can see it without opening my notebook and easily write things down (my pen is in the loop to the side there). 

The Next and the Someday cards - along with some others are in the inside. I made the pocket by taping one of the notecards horizontally and taping the two outside sides. 

The long bit of text on the inside cover is the Heart Sutra. I like to write it on notebooks I’ll be using regularly so I pause and reflect on it more regularly. 

In addition to Next and Someday cards, I have a blank one for scratch paper and one with my ideal timelines for doing home and personal tasks. The personal side is lacking, I’m kind of in a state of transition on that so I’m unclear what I want to do regularly. The house stuff never happens all the way but I like knowing what I’d like to do when I’m adding tasks to my Today card. 

I think my favorite part of this system is the memory keeping part. It’s not super elegant or pretty but on the pack of each today card, I record any notable things about the day on the top (period, mood, fights, symptoms) with a hashtag, the weather, and then I fill the card with what I did that day. It’s been very helpful so far for jogging my memory throughout the week. I like that I can pull them out and see as many as I’d like throughout the week. I plan on digitizing them at the end of the year and keeping the last year as a hard copy. 

I keep the card in this little green box. Might decorate it soon. 

I don’t really feel like sharing my finished cards so hopefully this gives you an idea. I like that I can see what happened in a day and what I got done on one card. 

So yeah, I’m really liking it so far. I still do long form journaling (Morning Pages type things) in the notebook itself. I actually turn it so the short side is on the top and it’s kind of like writing on an A4 sheet of paper. I do that so I don’t start auto rereading old journal entries when I’m flipping through for other stuff. I index and thread anything that isn’t journal entries like I would a normal bullet journal. Right now I have some random notes for subject I’m studying, some pen and paper games I’m playing, and writing notes. 

I’m also going to add either an A6 monthly calendar or print my own calendar set up to add to the back pocket for scheduling things in advance. I know everyone uses Google Calendar but I never check mine much. So people can schedule things with me on my Google Cal but my source of truth will be the hard copy. 

Some resources I took inspiration from in setting all this up: 

- OG Bullet Journal - I’m surprised by how many people I’ve met who don’t know that bullet journaling isn’t just making your own pretty planner but an actual system (no shade to the art journaling folks, I’m just not one of them). When I say I use bullet journaling, this is what I’m using. Check for some of his more recent videos if you like it, he’s updated it. 

- Ugmonk Analog - slightly expanded to-do list system on paper; the product seems nice but they’ve actually been very supportive of people making their own knockoff versions for personal use which is cool to see

- Everbook - I think if I had more to juggle, I’d upgrade to something like this system. This guy has so many neat ideas sprinkled throughout the channel. He also really supports people making their own version. Love a good open source ethos. 

Anyways - hope this helps someone! 

[rokhal]

ANGR Magical Girl AU: Wrong Universe

The Robbie I usually write wakes up in the Ghost Rider Magical Girl AU.

I figured that in Magical Girl AU, Robbie is likely to go to Lisa to ask for help walking in heels (assuming Johnny's tips are less than useful) and Lisa gets so excited at the prospect of Robbie participating in drag and he denies that's what he's doing but refuses to explain so in her desire to be supportive she ends up stalking him so she can cheer for him at his show and ends up finding out that he's a magical girl which somehow makes a lot more sense. She becomes a valuable member of the team because she has social skills. Of a sort.

If anything here contradicts any other ideas anyone else has in the works, MULTIVERSE BAYBEE it's noncanon :) The Sharpie thing is purely a case of Great Minds Think Alike though. I saw that in Moose's fic and was like, twins!

This is way too long 😭

As Robbie scrubbed the brake cleaner off his hands, the axle grease wiped away and so did the black Sharpie he’d hastily scribbled onto his fingernails that morning. His bright pink fingernails. If it was nail polish, the brake cleaner should be taking that off, too; he scrubbed hopefully at his thumbnail but this was as useless as the acetone he’d tried before resorting to Sharpie.

He’d woken up feeling more normal than he had in a long time. The pleasant sensation of a full night’s rest had faded as he’d gotten dressed and made Gabe breakfast. His bad eye was mysteriously back to normal and the scar on his forehead was completely gone, but his goatee was shaved off, he had some kind of jewel embedded in his chest, his fingernails were pink, and. And Gabe wasn’t his Gabe. It was Gabe’s face, and Gabe’s smile, but instead of cartoon and comic book heroes filling his shelves and plastered all over his door, it was sparkly anime girls and Japanese motorcycle riders; he was happier, stronger legs and steadier hands, and he didn’t second-guess Robbie’s every expression and movement or double-check his identity after every time Robbie left his sight. Robbie spent half an hour tossing the bathroom looking for his epilepsy meds before he checked the app on his phone where he tracked expenses and found that this Gabe had been off them for an entire year.

The apartment was mostly the same; same view across Hillrock Lane out the apartment window, same pile of automotive magazines on the coffee table—now with manga mixed in—same thrifted art on the walls. Robbie had wondered if he was still asleep, and dreaming, or better, if the last two years had been a long and vivid nightmare, until he noticed the time and realized that he’d missed Gabe’s bus and was about to be late to work. He’d stuffed a stale tortilla in his mouth and gnawed on it while grabbing a pair of coveralls and helping Gabe into the Charger to get to school. He’d dropped Gabe off and made it all the way to Canelo���s before he realized that he hadn’t heard from Eli all morning.

He stood now under a half-disassembled Chevy Tahoe, scrubbing desperately at his glossy pink fingernails as though with enough solvent and friction he could wipe himself from this world and return to his own body, his own curse, his own Hillrock Heights, his own brother. He simply had no better ideas.

“Reyes!” Canelo barked from across the shop, and he jumped, dropped the can of brake cleaner. “Quit daydreaming!”

Eli would have had a snide comment about how Canelo ought to mind his own fucking business or risk getting disemboweled. Robbie checked the time and added up the hours he was due by the end of the day, for future reference in case Canelo rounded his pay down when it was due next week. If he was still here next week. He couldn’t be stuck here until next week but he didn’t know to do anything but work. Did his other self know anybody here who dealt with interdimensional travel and too-pleasant dreams? He wasn’t a Ghost Rider here, Johnny Blaze wouldn’t have any reason to have met him…

...But he was a something.

What the hell was he now?

He was on the clock, that’s what. He had a job he knew how to do, to provide for a brother he loved, even though neither of them were his, and he would reinstall this truck’s axles and wheel bearings and not get his alternate self fired and then he would, somehow, figure out how to get home. (Dread filled him.) (He hadn’t fantasized about murdering anyone all morning.) (The world felt brighter, his senses more vivid, his flesh and skin snug over his bones, and he could believe for the first time in a long time that he might be safe for others to be around.)

“You alright, son?” Canelo asked from two feet behind him, and Robbie hit his head on the Tahoe’s subframe. It didn’t hurt as much as it probably should have. Canelo was just standing there, frowning a little. “Take five, I’ll get you some ice.”

What the hell, Robbie thought, and no one answered.

Canelo did, indeed, return from the break room with an ice pack. No one else at the shop seemed to think this was unusual. Marty winced at Robbie and patted his own head, mouthing, You okay? and even Ramon grunted sympathetically at him. Robbie retreated to the bathroom where he pressed the ice pack to the starting bruise and stared himself down in the mirror. Without his beard, he looked young and delicate—that’s why he’d grown it. But it wasn’t just the beard; his eyes were brighter, his skin was smoother, the scar through his eyebrow had faded—all the scars on his hands were gone, too, the bashed knuckles and burns and scrapes that were inevitable if you worked with cars all day. He looked tender and undamaged. He looked like someone worth protecting.

He had a terrible thought and whispered, “Talk to me. I’m not doing this on purpose but if I know you’re in here I think I can give you your body back.” He stared uncomfortably into his own eyes, but the back of his mind was silent.

He got out his phone—same PIN as usual—and checked his contacts list. Johnny Blaze was on there, but Johnny Blaze had almost killed him and Eli the first time they’d met; how would Johnny react to some strange, murderous version of Robbie wearing the skin of the Robbie he knew? He couldn’t beat Johnny in a fight in the real world. He didn’t know how to explain himself. There was nothing to do but finish the Tahoe.

The day rolled on, he returned the Tahoe to drivable condition and did a couple tune-ups and oil changes, and he snagged a moment to Sharpie his nails black again. He wasn’t afraid of nail polish—he had black nail polish at home somewhere, eyeliner too—but pink was not his style and was liable to attract the wrong kind of attention, especially with how...how he looked, in this world. (What was he? Was he something that could fight, defend itself? There was no fire waiting under his skin to consume his human weakness.)

He was puzzling over a set of trouble codes from a fifteen-year-old Nissan Maxima when his phone buzzed. If this version of himself worked on the same logic, he’d set it up to mute unknown numbers but programmed in all Gabe’s teachers and therapists. He dug into his pocket under his coveralls and checked it. It was Lisa, saved in his contacts list with a photo he didn’t remember taking: familiar bright hair and smile, raising two fingers in a V in front of one eye while her other hand displayed a river rock with a large hole worn through the center, dangling from a pink ribbon.

This was not a conversation he was ready to have. He ended the call. A minute later, she called again. Robbie walked to the time clock and punched out as he answered. “Uh, what’s up.”

Screeching and howling and buzzing in the background. “Omigod where are you?” Lisa demanded. She sounded out of breath.

“Work,” Robbie said, baffled. “What’s going on, are you okay?”

“What do you mean what’s—” Banging, panting. “Where’s Eli?”

A chill unfurled under his skin, his hand grew numb as he gripped his phone case. “What are you talking about.”

“Did you lock him in the freezer again?” Lisa demanded. What. “I know he’s annoying—”

“That’s one word for it,” Robbie muttered, swallowing bile.

“—but he’s an essential member of the team!”

“What team?”

Lisa paused. “The, the team,” she said hesitantly. “The Guardians of Hillrock Heights. Robbie, you. You know what you do helps people, right?”

He was disappointing her somehow—no, worse, letting her down. “Yeah, of course, I, uh.” Eli existed here, but this Lisa knew about him; obviously this version of Robbie had trusted her more. Or she’d just stalked him and figured it out. “What do you need me to do?”

“Get to the Cecil Hotel,” Lisa panted. “Bring Eli. And stay and talk to me after you transform back.”

Transform. Robbie rubbed the hard pink jewel embedded in his sternum. “Right. Okay.”

He left the time clock and approached Canelo’s office, racking his brain for some excuse—a lie about Gabe? A medical appointment? When he opened the door, Canelo met his eyes and sighed. “Again? Well, go on.” Robbie stared at him. He wasn’t even scowling. “What do you want, a hug? Go do your thing.”

He ran out of the shop and threw himself into the Charger. As he sped out of the parking lot, he almost clipped off one of its mirrors against the security gate. He grabbed his phone and started to search for the Cecil Hotel while making a left turn onto Atlantic Boulevard and almost crashed head-on into an F-250; he couldn’t drive and use his phone at the same time anymore. The phone dropped to the floorboards and he pulled hastily to the side of the road, cursing.

His connection to the Charger was different here, too. Still there, but weaker. Possibly just in his head. He tried to stretch out into it anyway, feeling its vibrations, listening to the loping chug of its idle and the continuous hiss of its supercharger, but his consciousness stayed firmly in his human body.

He heard something clank in the trunk.

Atlantic Boulevard was not a good place for a street fight. Robbie found his phone, pulled up a route to the Cecil, took a detour in an alley behind a warehouse. He hit the gas and slammed the brakes a couple times before shutting down the car and sprinting around the back to pop the trunk, confront this alternate version of his uncle, slam the trunk on his neck while he was still dazed, kill him like this alternate Robbie wasn’t yet sullied enough to do.

There was no washed-up mob henchman wriggling in the Charger’s trunk. Robbie found a couple bags of school supplies, a tool box, and a big first-aid kit, nothing sinister, and then in the shadows, oddly, something pink and shiny—one of this Gabe’s collectibles? A Beanie Baby?

“FUCK,” the pink thing bellowed, and then it unspooled and slipped up over the edge of the trunk, hit the ground with a slap, and slithered away, S-curves glittering in the sun as it struggled against the smooth pavement. Robbie gaped, then chased after it. Him. Eli was making slow progress and Robbie caught up quickly, but he turned on a dime; Robbie headed him off away from a nearby dumpster and danced around him for almost a minute before he had the idea to shrug off his jacket and throw it on Eli’s head. Eli backed out from under it but by this time Robbie had him by the neck. “Look. Revenge is, you don’t got the mindset for it? There’s healing in forgiveness. It makes you more stable. Less prone to violent, emotional outbursts. Kid. Kid! We had our differences, but it was the situation, the close quarters, you know? You’d do the same in my position, I just wanted to live, I had unfinished business! And now, heh, you got a body, I got a body, we can go our separate ways. Kid? Hey?”

Eli was a shimmery pink snake about half-again as long as Robbie’s arm. He had round shining eyes in a hundred shades of rose, and the large scale between them was shaped like a heart. His forked tongue sparkled as it scented the air. His voice was exactly the same.

“You, uh. Look different.”

Robbie had a sinking feeling that stomping the snake’s head under his boot wouldn’t be doing this world’s Robbie any favors. He dangled Eli in one fist at arm’s length—an essential member of the team. “You don’t know what’s going on, either.”

“Believe it or not, I’m not the cause of everything that goes wrong in your life.”

“Lisa wants us at the Cecil Hotel,” Robbie said, returning to the Charger and dumping Eli on the passenger seat. “She requested you by name. We’re gonna take care of whatever’s going on and figure it out from there.”

“The Cecil, huh? Good times.”

“Don’t tell me you killed people there.”

“I won’t.” Eli awkwardly pressed his long narrow body against the door, slowly lifting his head toward the window. Robbie took a hard left and Eli slipped sideways between the seat and the side pillar. “Fuck.”

“Apparently you’re important for some reason.”

“Can you not act like my existence is an imposition for two seconds.”

Robbie slammed his fist into the steering wheel. “You exist because you committed human sacrifice.” Eli slithered out of view behind the passenger seat. Robbie took a breath. “You’re a talking pink snake here. You probably have magic powers.”

“Pink?”

“You color-blind, too?”

Eli was silent for the rest of the drive. Robbie hoped he was figuring out what magic powers he had, otherwise they’d just have to wing it.

Hotel Cecil was a trio of brick buildings spanning half a city block and joined by skywalks. The complex had probably been impressive before the invention of reinforced concrete. No longer a failing hotel for people falling down the ladder of society, it was being converted to affordable housing for people crawling back up. Robbie parked across the street and squinted up at it. He was pretty sure the walls weren’t supposed to be covered in gray goo, but there was a ghost tour or something right there on the sidewalk and none of the tourists were taking pictures. Maybe it was a maintenance thing? An art installation?

“Huh,” Eli said, finally squirming his way up onto the dashboard to take a look.

Robbie texted Lisa: Here.

Her reply was immediate. Fourth floor front building room 73

No emojis. That couldn’t be good. “Any ideas on how to get inside?” Robbie asked.

“Put on your spare coveralls and act pissy.”

Robbie could have thought of that himself, but he had no better ideas. He stomped through the graffitoed doors of the unassuming entryway and through the unexpectedly grand marble halls of the lobby floor, scowling like he’d been called in on his day off to fix a plumbing catastrophe that could have been prevented by routine maintenance the previous week, and glancing up now and again at the pulsing tangle of veins the color of neglected differential fluid that wormed between the ceiling lights and which no one else seemed to notice. Eli wrapped himself around Robbie’s neck like a scarf; uncomfortably close, but better, at least logically, than having him ride along in his thoughts like usual.

“Art nouveau,” Eli commented, peering up an angular gold-and-green wall sconce beside a statue in an alcove whose opening was carved to look like palm leaves and Egyptian columns. “Classy place full of staff who don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Shut up,” Robbie hissed. They reached the pair of elevators that served this part of the complex: just two, and one was out of order. A big brass dial on the top indicated that the elevator was on the eighth floor, and going up. Robbie stabbed the button irritably, then gave up and ran for the stairs.

On the fourth floor, the gray veins were so thick that the ceiling looked a foot lower than it should have been, and the light sconces were mostly covered. Somehow, the light escaped anyway, leaving the carpet brightly lit and the air at shoulder-height and above dim like twilight. Robbie watched a tall man in a business suit strolling down the hall, his entire head vanishing into the pulsing fleshy mass. “Keep your head down, there’s gray magical crap on the ceiling,” Eli informed him.

Robbie felt a moment of glee that Eli couldn’t just look out through his eyes anymore. “I noticed.”

“Try touching it. Left hand.”

Robbie poked one of the ceiling tentacles with his left pinkie finger as he advanced down the hall toward room 73, and cringed as the rock in his chest seemed to shudder in protest. The gray flesh was clammy and yielding, leaving his finger numb as he pulled away. Even if it was invisible, how did anyone walk around with their whole head swimming in this stuff without noticing? What was it doing to the people it enveloped?

He passed room fifty, and noticed that the higher the numbers progressed, the thicker the veins overhead pulsed and the lower they sagged, growing to fill more of the narrow space even as he watched. He crouched low and broke into a run. Room 73 was nearly overtaken; limbs as thick as ventilation ducts sprouted through the walls, heaving and pulsing and moaning, ozone and rot thick in the air. He had to kneel beside the door as he knocked. “Lisa! It’s Robbie. I’m outside.”

“Get in here!” Lisa yelled from within.

“They ain’t changed this lock since ‘98. You can shim it with a credit card.”

Robbie bypassed the latch and shoved the door inward against the mass of shifting tendrils packed against the ceiling. There was barely room to crouch inside; the rust-red carpet shone in the light of fixtures completely swallowed by the strange rot overtaking the hotel. He ducked as a gray coil twisted past his face.“Can you get to the door?”

“Kinda busy!” Lisa grunted. Someone else screamed, inhumanly long and somehow muted, the volume too soft for the cracks of agony in the voice. Robbie leaned down and spotted what looked like a clear space around the hotel bed. He army-crawled toward it. There was something wet and sticky on the floor—not blood, it smelled like solvent. White spray-paint, circling the bed. He dragged himself over the painted lines and got his first look at what Lisa was busy with.

There was a body on top of the blankets, a middle-aged white woman with hollow cheeks and loose skin rising in narrow folds where gray tendrils sank into her from above. Lisa had a broken bottle in one hand and was sawing at the thickest of the tendrils just above where it sank between the motionless woman’s eyes. With another, she held a flat rock with a hole in the center, scowling through it like a lens. From the nest of gray veins on the ceiling, a human figure sagged down, joined to the woman joint by joint with those tendrils. Its mouth was a formless hole, its eyes cold wet pits, its flesh the same sludgy substance as the rest of the hotel’s infestation. Robbie swallowed. “Is she alive?”

“For now,” Lisa said, scraping furiously at the tendril. Robbie noticed with horror that two other tendrils had descended from the ceiling to sink into Lisa’s shoulders; he lunged forward and ripped them away. The rock in his chest shuddered as his hand went numb. “Was it on me?” She turned around and looked at him for the first time. “Omigod, why aren’t you changed?”

Robbie took a deep breath and stared up at the vacant eyes of the abomination on the ceiling. He pulled out the blade on his multitool and joined in cutting the woman free; the gray stuff yielded like flesh to expose a tough stringy black core. “We can wrap her in the blanket and drag her out.” The human shape began to drag one of its hands down toward them, struggling against an unseen force.

Lisa grabbed his wrist. “Robbie, she needs an exorcism. You have to change.” He stared at the river rock that dangled from a long pink ribbon on her neck as she tried to meet his eyes. “She’s got kids who miss her, she’s turning her life around, you gotta help! Come on!”

“I don’t remember what you’re talking about,” Robbie blurted.

“Omigod are you cursed or something?”

The horror on the ceiling reached closer, closer, as black claws unsheathed from half-molded fingers. Then it drew back and tension shuddered through its body; the woman on the bed shuddered in synchrony. Its eyes fixed on the back of Lisa’s neck. It lunged, but Robbie was faster, slicing its wet palm with his knife as he pushed Lisa aside. As it swiped back to retaliate, he instinctively leaned into its path—baiting it with the Rider’s leather skin filled with the Charger’s fire ready to erupt the moment those claws released it to burn his enemy—and screamed as the talons sank into his human shoulder. He could barely feel the wounds through the hollow ache the creature’s touch carried, but the worst pain was the furious hum from the stone in his sternum, rocking and jerking like an engine that had snapped its mounts; he thought his chest would crack open from the force. His hand went limp and the knife dropped and stabbed blade-first into the bed. He punched ineffectually with his good hand as the creature lifted him. New tendrils sprouted from its body, seeking to plug into his own. He was as frightened and angry and frustrated as he’d ever been in his life, and though he was suppressing none of it since this Lisa was already enmeshed in his supernatural bullshit, the transformation wasn’t happening.

Eli slithered down his coveralls and escaped out his pant leg as he struggled. Lisa stared in horror through her river rock. “Eli! Help him!”

“Eh, sure,” Eli said, watching Robbie from the bedcovers while Robbie’s leg went cold and dead. “Rake its eyes! Behind your left shoulder!” Robbie flailed blindly with his working arm, hoping Eli hadn’t gotten his left and right confused.

Lisa stood up and grabbed Robbie by the waist, trying to pull him down. Blood from his shoulder soaked her hair. “What’s wrong with you two? Say the words!”

“What words?”

Lisa groped his chest until her palm pressed against his pink troll-doll gem. “Oh, thank God. Say it: Tie cloth nee, ya toys or chalk!”

“What?!”

“Say it! Tie cloth—”

“Ty glavny, ya tvoy suchok,” Eli interrupted. “Five words, you can do it.”

“Die glovny, a twoy sujock,” Robbie gritted out just before the ceiling monster’s limbs closed around his throat. For an instant, all he knew was aching cold and darkness. Then the stone in his chest sparked and a shockwave erupted through his body, driving away the clammy gray tentacles in a blast of warm pink light. It doesn’t hurt, he thought, shocked. Changing into the Rider in his own world was a cathartic blast of agony as his body cremated itself from within, but this, this was nice. He was weightless in a void of dancing blue-green lights. The pain of talons crushing his shoulder was gone, and so were the low-grade headache he always got about halfway through the work day and the tension in his spine and the knot on his head from banging it into the Tahoe that morning; he tingled all over with the contentment of an hour-long hot shower where he wouldn’t have to pay the heating bill. He stretched out, luxuriating in the feeling, and realized with horror that his body wasn’t there.

I’m hallucinating, he told himself. It was hard to think through the nice bubbly feeling, but he remembered that Lisa was right there trying to stop him from getting eaten, and there was a woman on the bed below who was dying, and he couldn’t see or feel anything but the bright pink gem illuminating the hollow space where his body was supposed to be. He thrashed, but it was like trying to fight the wind with a puff of smoke. He was nothing but thought, and he couldn’t even panic properly.

Solidity returned in jolts and starts: cool fabric twisting around his body and snugging him into shape. Protective gloves, leather boots long enough to save his knees from road rash, body armor, something to guard his forehead. The familiar handles of a pair of body hammers filled his palms, and the world snapped back into place. No time at all seemed to have passed; he was still suspended above the bed by the ceiling monster.

He was not the Rider, but he knew what the Rider would do. He jammed one hand into the mouth of the humanoid sludge stalactite and stabbed the spike of a body hammer through its skull. It moaned, and he stabbed again, flipped himself around, gripped its leg between his knees to anchor himself, and struck for the heart, the throat, all the vital targets that he’d trained himself to avoid whenever he gave in to the urge to beat down local thugs in Hillrock Heights. Black blood spattered into his eyes and trickled up his nose, reeking of mold. Its touch no longer chilled him; his touch seemed to burn it. He beat the creature until it melted away and retreated back into the ceiling, all the veins and coils and tree-root limbs draining away after it. Robbie landed hard on the edge of the bed, bounced, and rolled to his feet. His feet—

“Point your toes!” Lisa yelled, too late. He tripped over his own ankles and crashed face-first into the bedside table.

Whenever the Rider ate shit like this, he’d sink through his own shadow and reappear in the car like he’d meant to do it—not that he was embarrassed, just that he preferred not to take the time to pick himself up. Robbie pried himself up off the floor when he realized that his powers in this world did not include the ability to dissolve into the room’s nicotine-stained carpet. He was wet, disappointingly fleshy, and entirely alone in his head. His protective gloves were doing a poor job, already soaked through with disgustingly organic black slime, and his feet—

He looked down at himself for the first time. He wasn’t wearing protective gloves or work boots or body armor. He had the kind of delicate white cotton gloves that women wore with ballgowns in old movies, and thigh-high go-go boots over tights, and what looked like a women’s ice-dancing costume. The ankles of the high-heeled boots were decorated with pink rhinestones, and so were his white-painted hammers. The worst part was that under the pink satin bow where the gem from his chest had migrated, the black leotard bore the same staple-shaped white stripe as his favorite jacket. This was his ice-dancing costume.

He tried to get his feet under him to stand, but the heels were in the way. Whatever force had undressed him seemed to have a grudge against the stock geometry of the human foot; the boots were so stiff he could barely bend his ankles. When he yanked at them, they didn’t budge. He couldn’t find any fasteners. He was about to grab one of his spiked hammers and try ripping through the leather when he noticed Lisa looking down at him from the bed, holding Eli twined around her forearms like a pet corn snake.

“Get the fuck away from her,” Robbie snarled, lunging on his knees.

Lisa jerked back, carrying Eli with her. “Okay, what is your deal today? I thought you had amnesia, but the way you bashed up that genius loci—are you, like, possessed by your alternate universe evil twin with a goatee?”

“Basically,” Robbie said, retrieving one hammer from under the bed. “Put him down.”

“Hey, looks like we’re friends in this universe, too.” Eli rested his head in the crook of Lisa’s elbow and flicked his tongue at Robbie.

“Rrrrrrrr,” Robbie growled. It sounded ridiculous without the rumble of the Charger’s engine filtering through his throat. He could tackle Lisa and rip Eli away from her, bash his head into the wall—but she’d never trust him after that. “He’s not safe, he used to be a—”

“I know you are, but what am I?” Eli interrupted, and Robbie wavered.

Lisa passed him the box of tissues from the bedside table. “Wipe your face and exorcise Mrs. Sanchez so we can get her out of here.”

Robbie hated that this “change” had left him with a human face to wipe. He struggled to his feet, gripping the mattress for balance. The woman on the bed hadn’t moved; she stared vacantly at the ceiling, black veins spreading from the points on her body where the ceiling-monster’s roots had anchored. She was breathing, at least. Her lips were an unhealthy gray-purple. “Any idea how I do that?” he asked, glaring at Eli.

“Search me, I dunno what trigger words alternate-me picked.”

“You make a cross with your hammers,” Lisa said, demonstrating with her empty fists, “and say something like, eej an owie, sucker?”

“Idi na hui, suka,” Eli corrected her.

Robbie had a bad feeling that all his powers were activated by Russian vulgarities. He took careful crouching steps as he retrieved his other hammer, keeping one hand on the bed or on the wall as much as possible, then crossed his hammers like a priest in a vampire movie and did his best to parrot Eli’s words. There was a rush of wind that set his hair fluttering along with the skirt and pink bows of his leotard, and a fountain of pink sparks erupted from the hammers, right at the comatose woman’s bare face and the flammable-looking bedclothes. He had to separate the hammers, to turn off the power or at least point it in a safer direction, but his body wouldn’t obey him: his spine straightened and his shoulders drew back and his legs stepped wide into a power-stance despite the boots pinning his feet at an unnatural angle; he was spraying hot sparks at a defenseless innocent person and he was posing like he was proud of himself.

The seizure ended and he dropped the hammers and stumbled to the edge of the bed, ready to smother fires with his thin cotton gloves, brush off any burning embers from the woman’s hair. Lisa caught him by the shoulder. “Hey! Hey, look, you did it,” she said, examining the woman through her river rock.

There were no fires or burns. The infected gray-black marks were retreating up from her skin and trickling away into inert slime. “What did I do,” Robbie panted.

“You saved the day!” Lisa said brightly. She lifted her rock to check the ceiling; fresh veins had begun to ripple over the paint in a human outline that mirrored Mrs. Sanchez. “You saved...two thirds of the day. Eli, so your thing.”

Robbie hated that he knew Eli well enough to read from the tension in his sigmoid posture that he was taken aback. “My thing.”

“Bite her!” Lisa said impatiently, watching the ceiling.

“What?”

“His bites heal people.”

“Puta madre.” Eli stared at the woman in...probably disgust. “This is…” He cut himself off, looking up at Lisa. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”

“You are so full of shit,” Robbie hissed. Lisa glared at him, and Robbie glared back. “He is!”

“We don’t have time for this,” Lisa said to Eli, making a strange gripping gesture beside his head. “Hurry up or I’ll do it for you. Manually.”

Eli grudgingly fit his mouth around Mrs. Sanchez’ wrist and wriggled his lips and teeth around with disturbingly more mobility than Robbie had expected a snake to be capable of. Robbie clenched his fists as translucent pink fangs flicked into view before sinking into her wasted skin. Eli’s body glowed, and pink sparks shimmered along her veins, circled over her heart, and flashed twice before vanishing. Mrs. Sanchez opened her eyes and sat bolt upright, staring at Robbie.

“Uh,” Robbie said.

“Oh thank God you’re okay!” Lisa squealed, throwing herself between them and gripping Mrs. Sanchez by the torso. “Ma’am, you just survived a carbon monoxide leak, it’s absolutely imperative that we get you to fresh air, you may still be experiencing visual disturbances, first responders have been called, come on, let’s get you out, don’t worry about your belongings, let’s go. Go. Go.” She half-led, half-wrestled the confused woman out the door. Robbie took two steps after them before his ankles did a death-wobble and dumped him to his knees. “We’ll figure out your amnesia-whatever when I get back,” Lisa assured him. “If the hotel wakes up again…” She mimed bashing something with a hammer. “You got this!”

“I got this,” Robbie whispered to himself, stumbling to the nearest wall for balance.

“He can’t even walk!”