#i run this server! come hang out ;o

[aquaquadrant]

How would htp!Tango go with the bit from Limited Life episode 4 when he's running from everyone?

How would it be different from the actual scene?

(not canon to HTP ofc because the timelines don’t match up but HEY i like angst)

"tango!" skizz calls desperately, peering out over the ocean. he could’ve sworn he’d heard tango’s voice when he came this way, but the range of amplification their voices get from the proximity mod can be a little tricky sometimes-

“skizz?”

tango’s voice crackles out of skizz’s communicator; he must be in range, after all. but skizz doesn’t relax just yet. crouching by the water’s edge, he scans the waves intently. his grip tightens around his axe.

"alright, where are you, dude?" he asks, voice low. he keeps the horizon in his periphery; he can just barely make out the horde of yellow names off on the distant shore, digging and searching for tango.

“r- right below you.” tango’s voice is shaky; probably from the adrenaline. being hunted by almost the entire server isn’t exactly a picnic. “where- is impulse with you? or- or etho?”

skizz shakes his head, even though he knows tango can’t see it. “no dude, they’re running interference, okay, but it won’t be long before the others see me over here.” he swallows. “you gotta let me kill you.”

there’s a brief silence.

“okay.” tango’s voice is barely audible. the tone of it gives skizz pause; that sounds like more than just nerves. “okay, o- okay, fine, i’m- i’m fine with that.”

“are you?” skizz asks, his brows furrowing.

“i…” there’s a shuddering exhale. “i don’t- i’d rather it be you, if- if i’m honest. the others, they might…” he breaks off, making a distressed sound in the back of his throat. “y- you know.”

there’s definitely something wrong. skizz’s heart is starting to pound, but he keeps his voice steady. “alright, yeah. this is gonna stick it to them so bad.” he lifts his communicator up and peers through its lens. “can you give me a quick tag, buddy?”

tango doesn’t reply, but skizz sees the flash of a gamer tag beneath the ocean before it vanishes again. tango’s not taking any chances, apparently. not that skizz can blame him.

“you’re pretty deep underwater, dude,” skizz informs him regretfully. “and i don’t- ugh, i don’t have my stupid shovel.”

tango inhales sharply. “i- i can’t- uh, can you…?”

“okay,” skizz murmurs. he knows tango won’t be harmed by water like a real blaze, but it’s uncomfortable even on the best of days and that’d be a lot to ask of him right now. “alright, i’ll come to you. stay put, okay?”

“okay,” tango whispers.

“there a hole for me, buddy?” skizz asks, putting his axe away.

“yes.”

“alright.” skizz straightens up, folding his wing tightly against his body. even one wing will cause a lot of drag underwater and he’s already not looking forward to soggy feathers. “i’m on my way, just hang on.”

taking a deep breath, skizz dives into the ocean.

salt stings his eyes as he swims towards the sand at the bottom. it’s darker down here than he’s expecting for midday, only the faint glow from his halo allowing him to see. he starts digging as soon as he reaches the bottom, hoping he’s in the right place. he’s acutely aware of how long he can hold his breath for and the last thing he needs is a stupid drowning death to steal even more time from him-

a figure enters his field of vision, making him jolt. it’s scott, his freshly yellow timer barely visible in the deep. still holding his breath, skizz equips his axe.

scott actually rolls his eyes. “i’m not gonna kill him, don’t worry.” his voice carries well underwater, and he doesn’t seem to have trouble breathing. must be due to those recently acquired gills of his.

well, that’s fortunate. skizz nods quickly and puts his axe away before resuming his digging. to his surprise, scott floats down next to him and starts helping, his webbed fingers making easy work of the sand. after a couple seconds, they’ve cleared enough sand for skizz to see a hold in the underlying stone, with a faint light beyond it. lungs burning, skizz dives for it.

he makes it through right as the first damage hits him, head breaking through the water with a gasp. kicking against the current, he finally emerges from the ocean. gravity once again takes hold of him. he flops onto the damp stone floor quite ungracefully, his wing heavy and pulling him slightly off-balance.

skizz hauls himself to his feet, dripping wet and catching his breath, and looks around the cave tango’s carved out for himself. it’s tiny, with just three blocks between them, and lit only by the glow of tango’s blaze rods. they’re redder than usual and roaring with flames, whirling above his head in agitation- the way a blaze spins before it starts shooting fireballs.

tango himself doesn’t seem to be doing any better. he’s crouched against a corner, his arms wrapped around his knees, claws digging into his skin. his pupils are blown, so much so that it almost makes his wide eyes look completely black. his chest is rising and falling rapidly, and the noise that comes with each breath sounds disturbingly like a blaze. his mouth hangs slightly parted as he pants, lips drawn back to show his sharp teeth- like a wolf does. but there’s no ferocity in his expression; just sick fear.

altogether, the sight sends a chill down skizz’s spine. it’s like he’s looking at an animal; a cornered, terrified, wild animal. there have been things in the past tango’s reacted strangely to, sure, but skizz has never seen it this bad before. god, he wishes impulse was here.

“hey, tango,” skizz says softly.

for a moment, tango just stares at skizz. then his eyes dart to the side, to the hole in the stone. belatedly, skizz realizes what’s got tango so concerned.

“scott,” he calls carefully, keeping his gaze on tango, “just uh, just stay out there, okay, dude?”

a dark shadow passes by the hole before vanishing. “you’re fine, just get on with it!”

skizz swallows. he stays where he is. “tango, buddy, you okay? talk to me.”

tango’s gaze cuts back to skizz. “is martyn…?”

“no, no martyn,” skizz assures him.

tango takes a shaky breath. “i killed him,” he says hoarsely. “he- he’ll want revenge. and- and the other yellows- you have to kill me, before they find me. skizz, please.”

“hey, hey, hey, it’s alright,” skizz soothes, despite the way his heart feels like it’s twisting itself into a knot. he never thought tango would fear the other players so badly; these are his friends. “you got it. what do you- uh, how do you want me to do it?”

“TNT?” tango asks quietly. “if you light it…”

“alright, yeah, i got some TNT,” skizz says, rummaging through his inventory and pulling out a block of it. “here, uh- you wanna just take that?”

warily, tango teaches a clawed hand out and takes the TNT. he sets it down right in front of him, flush against his folded knees.

“tango?” skizz prompts gently, pulling out his flint and steel. “i need to hear you say it, buddy.”

tango shudders. “do it,” he whispers, turning his face away. “you can kill me, you- i- i just want it to be over.”

“okay, thank you,” skizz murmurs, taking a cautious step forward. “that’s right, dude. after this, it’ll all be over. i’ll come find you at spawn, okay?”

“okay."

“i’ll see ya there. now, count to five for me?"

tango swallows. “one…”

skizz lights the TNT. the sound of sizzling fills the air as the TNT starts to flash.

"t- two..."

putting the flint and steel away, skizz turns and dives back through the hole, into the ocean. tango's voice still sounds from his communicator.

"three..."

kicking madly, skizz swims towards the surface, where scott is waiting.

"four-"

BOOM.

skizz breaks the surface, gasping for breath. he glances back down and sees a new crater at the bottom of the ocean, water and sand churning into a froth. treading water with one arm, he holds his communicator up and looks at the chat.

Tango blew up.

scott gives skizz a sidelong look. "i know how hard it is to let a teammate kill you," he says, his voice low, "but that seemed..."

"scott, buddy," skizz says tiredly, heading for the shore, "keep this between us, will ya?"

~

[thatssomuchlove]

Fic-o-Ween Day 1

For Fic-o-Ween 2024 put on by @noots-fic-fests! All characters by @lumosinlove

The first (and hopefully not only) chapter inspired by the Mafia AU invented on the Hazelnoot discord server:

Sitting on the couch in his apartment living room, Leo was interrupted from struggling not to let his eyes skip lines during a very suspenseful moment in his book when he heard a loud crash from the kitchen. He jumped up and swung around the door jam to see all his nice pans on the floor…again.

His roommate looked up at him with wide eyes from where he stood by the coffee maker, “I swear I didn’t touch it!”

Leo sighed, “It’s not your fault, Finn. That rack keeps falling down because apparently these wall anchors do not hold their advertised weight!” He huffed. The cabinet space in their tiny New York apartment was abysmal, so hanging up his pans like they do in those fancy kitchens with marble counters or copper detailing seemed like the best option.

“Could also be these shitty walls,” Finn chirped and tapped the wall behind him.

“Yeah, that too,” Leo returned Finn’s grin and could tell he was also thinking about how well they can hear the music from the online Zumba class that one of their neighbors attends religiously. “I’m just going to have to get a stud finder at the hardware store. You have a drill, right?” Finn grimaced and shook his head. “Then a drill set, too.”

Finn clapped a hand on his shoulder as he brushed by with his travel mug, “I would offer to go with, but I’m headed into the office.”

“What? Finn, it’s Saturday.”

“A journalist never rests!” And he was out the door.

Leo looked at the small tear through the dry wall from the anchor being ripped out forcefully and sighed again. He stacked his pans on a clear spot on the counter and went to collect what he needed for a walk to the hardware store.

~

The bell on the door jingled overhead as Leo entered the shop. The closest one he could find on maps seemed to be a family-run place without much information on the page at all—just the open hours and a handful of reviews, no website or pictures of the inside. Leo would have to agree with kathybee309, it was surprisingly warm and inviting as soon as he stepped inside. He couldn’t see the check-out counter from the door, but clear, handwritten indices at each aisle directed Leo to the stud finders. He was holding two options in his hands, trying to think of a reason he shouldn’t just get the cheapest one, when a soft voice spoke up to his right.

“Are you finding everything you need?”

Leo noted an accent and looked up quickly only to almost drop what he was holding. The employee that spoke to him was decently shorter than him and had a combination of curly chocolate hair, bright green eyes, and prominent muscles—truly the way his heavy apron cinched around his waist and barely covered the width his denim-wrapped thighs was criminal—that had Leo a bit weak at the knees. “Umm, hi, yeah I think I’m um good,” he stammered. “Just,” a nervous laugh, “trying to decide.” Leo held up the stud finders and tried to make his smile friendly and not as painfully awkward as he currently felt.

The store employee walked closer to him and examined the options in his hands before meeting his eyes again. At this distance Leo could read his nametag: Logan. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, I’m just trying to hang up my pans. The darn wall rack keeps falling out, so I decided to go a little more heavy duty than dry wall anchors.” He held up one of the stud finders and tried to joke, “need some studs.” Logan gave him a smile, small and breathtaking.

“Well, they’ll both work for that, but this simpler one should be sufficient,” Logan tapped his finger on the cheaper one. Yeah, Leo would say that they were working just fine considering the person in front of him. “Is that all?”

“Yep,” Leo nodded, no thoughts in his brain.

“Trés bon, you can follow me back to check out.” Logan jerked his head back the way he had come and started down the aisle. Leo hurriedly put the other stud finder back and trailed after Logan, almost tripping when he noticed the way his ass moved in those tight jeans. He kept his eyes fixed on the back of Logan’s head for the rest of the short walk to the register.

It wasn’t until Leo had closed his apartment door behind him that he realized that he completely forgot about the drill. He leaned against the door and cursed quietly. At least this time he would be prepared for the hardware store hottie and maybe not make quite as big of a fool out of himself.

~

He had decided to give it a day, with the hope that Logan would not be working so that he could avoid further embarrassment. The other half of his brain really wanted to see the hot employee again, convinced that this time he would be able to successfully flirt.

“This is a terrible idea,” Leo murmured under his breath as he rounded the sidewalk and came upon the beautifully carved dark red-brown doors set into the corner of the building.

He beelined to the drill section upon entering and luckily didn’t have as much trouble choosing this time. He came from a Milwaukee household. His eyes bugged out a bit when he saw the prices, “Jesus, that’s expensive.” Good thing his new job paid pretty well.

“We actually have a sale going for those right now.” Leo jumped at the voice behind him and turned to see a familiar, unfairly handsome face.

“Logan, hi,” Leo recovered quickly and came to the conclusion that he would have been far more disappointed to not see Logan today.

“I feel a bit at a disadvantage with you knowing my name when I don’t know yours.”

“Oh lord, where are my manners? My name’s Leo,” and he reached out to shake Logan’s warm, callused hand. He couldn’t squash the urge to explain himself, “I realized yesterday that a stud finder is a little useless without a drill and screws .”

Logan turned to the opposite shelves and scanned them for a second before picking up a box of screws. “These should work well for dry wall and studs.”

Leo offered a winning smile, “What would I do without you?” and took the box from Logan, quite possibly deliberately brushing their fingers together.

Logan looked up at him for a beat too long before stepping back. He cleared his throat, “Just doing my job. Do you need anything else?”

After taking a quick survey of what was in his hands—drill, drill bits, screws—Leo responded, “nope,” and followed Logan to the counter. In effort to keep the conversation going as Logan was ringing him up, he commented, “the front doors are gorgeous.”

“Merci. That was a long project, but one of my favorites. I can’t stand painted front doors.”

Leo chuckled, “Neither can my mama.” He looked behind him in the direction of the front of the store, “I can’t believe you made them,” turning back to look at Logan again, “y- that’s incredible.”

He was rewarded with another small smile, but this one had a tinge of something sad, “Oh I didn’t do them on my own. I was mainly helping my father. This whole store was his passion project.”

“Hell of a successful passion project, I bet I’d be astonished to see what he could accomplish with his day job!”

Logan’s smile twisted confusingly wry, “His day job wasn’t as important to him,” then that same sadness again, “But we’ll never really know what all he could have done, he passed several years ago.”

Trying to temper his shame of talking with Logan about his dead father with the fact that Logan brought him up, Leo erased the shock off his face and brought one hand up to squeeze Logan’s shoulder, “I’m sure he feels at peace knowing you are carrying on the legacy of what he loved.”

“Well, he’s not the only legacy-carrier, are you Lo Bear?” a voice called, and a young woman emerged from the back. Leo dropped his hand. If he hadn’t already guessed that they were related from her statement, he would have known just by looking at her. They could have been twins, but her green eyes were piercing through him where Logan’s were a warm, solid weight.

Logan, with color on his cheeks, huffed, “Leo, this is my sister Noelle.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Noelle.”

“Likewise,” she cocked her head at him. “What brings you here this fine Sunday morning?”

“Oh, just trying to hang stuff up in my kitchen. Not enough cabinet space.”

“An eternal struggle in Gryffindor.”

Leo chuckled, “Yeah, I’m finding that out.”

“Did you move here recently?”

“Yes, actually I moved here only a few months ago.”

“For a job?”

Leo was starting to get slightly unnerved by the accuracy of her guesses but tried not to let it show, “yes ma’am.” Logan had finished putting his things into a bag and pushed it his way while glaring at his sister. He looked between the siblings for a second before politely saying, “well I’ll let y’all get back to work. It was nice to see you again, Logan.”

Logan turned back to him and his gaze softened, “come back any time, Leo.”

~

As soon as Logan heard the sound of the door swinging shut behind Leo, Noelle jumped up and hastily looked around the store, but it was empty. She turned back towards Logan, who furrowed his brows at her.

“Thank god I was here today. You need to be more careful, Lolo.”

“Quoi?” Logan looked around in confusion, “What are you talking about?”

“Are Jackson and Evgeni here?”

“Ouais, of course. What’s going on?” Logan’s eyes started darting around the store and his fingers gravitated towards the handgun strapped to the underside of the counter.

“Nothing right now.” Noelle flashed him a quick smirk, “I thought you were just flirting with a customer and wanted to come out and see, but then I got a good look at him. The tall blond cutie pie is not what he seems, he’s the newest detective on the Gryffindor police force.” At Logan’s wide eyes, she tacked on, “Ouais, the ones who would have us in handcuffs if they even so much as caught a whiff of what’s going on.”

“Merde,” Logan breathed out. While he wouldn’t have pegged Leo as a cop in a million years, he could see how his underlying air of quiet confidence would make him an effective detective. Still, he seemed too genuine to be at the shop secretly sniffing around for a case, and Logan had a good bullshit detector, “I will be more careful, Noelle, but I don’t think that’s why he was here.”

“I trust you, Logan, just don’t let that pretty smile blind you.” Noelle ruffled his hair and stepped back, “I’m gonna head back to Maman’s. I love you.”

“I love you too, Nolly.” Logan waved goodbye and waited until she was out of sight before he sat down with a loud exhale, running a hand through his hair.

He wished that knowing Leo was, in essence, his enemy had halted his fantasies about the man altogether, but it had unfortunately and predictably only intensified his desire. It was unusual for him to feel a connection with someone so quickly, without really knowing them at all, but Leo was special somehow, just like… Logan shook his head.

Why was such a seemingly sweet guy working for such a corrupt system? Why did Logan have the urge to trust him anyway? He opened his laptop and set to find out everything that he could about Leo, the new detective at GPD, for his family’s safety, of course.

[twoturtlesinatubetop]

A Creak Through The Crater

>>FIC BELOW THE CUT<<

a gift for @surfpent for the @mcyt-halloween gift exchange !! ill be honest, this one got away from me a little uhmm.. the concept is basically ghostbur but what if he was the creaking from hit videogame minecraft

1600 words, crimeboys, i do not support cc!wilbur fuck that guy

with that being said, hope you enjoy o7

—

Even after all these months, the air still smells like ash. A carpet of foggy smoke hangs low over the ground, coloring everything gray. Tommy visits L’mantree every week. Not because he’s some sappy sentimental bitch. No, no, he’s a big man. And big men have big manly traditions they must follow. That’s all this is. Honestly.

It's been a gloomy couple days, but whatever. Tommy cuts one more poppy from its stem before tucking his dagger back into his pocket. He decides five will do.

See, he's been doing this for a while now. He's sort of a Tradition Expert if he does say so himself. Usually he leaves five flowers at the foot of the tree, six if he's feeling adventurous.

Why are they always gone by his next visit, you ask? Ha. Tommy doesn't have time to worry about such silly little things. Probably the wind blowing them away or some cow with an appetite.

It doesn't matter. He never stays too long. He stops by long enough to drop off the flowers, have a minute or so of sombre quiet, and then he goes about his day.

Today will be no different, he's sure.

The trek up the hill is always annoying. The ground’s still littered with debris. Concrete, metal beams, just a boatload of shit that sticks and pokes at his shoes.

Obviously he could stop and clean it up, but time waits for no man. At least the terrain at the top of the hill’s less fucked up.

Familiar branches start coming into view.

With a sigh, Tommy drops the bunch of flowers on an exposed root like he always does.

If Wilbur were here, he’d suggest at least tying the bouquet together, Tommy. Ooh, have a little decorum, Tommy. Meh meh meh.

But the high-pitched bitchy little Wilbur in his head has no power over him. So Tommy sits on the grass, as Un-Decorum-Ly as possible, and leans back against the trunk.

The trek up here was longer than usual. There's some kind of construction project happening by the Prime Path. That slowed him down a little. Fucking new people always running around building new shit. On this server? By next week, it’ll be vandalised at best, destroyed at worst so what's the point, really?

Point is, Tommy doesn't feel like walking back just yet. Big men get tired too, you know.

Okay, he could stay a little longer today. Have a quick power nap, maybe. No one except him comes around here anyways. It's no big deal.

He manages to doze off, gazing up at the roof of half-singed leaves before closing his eyes.

It could be minutes, hours, Tommy’s not sure. But at some point he's woken up by a bothersome light seeping through his eyelids.

He groans. It's late afternoon, it's been muggy for ages, and the sun chooses now to show its stupid fucking face?

Except, when he petulantly opens his eyes, the annoying beam isn't sunlight, but a soft glowing blue coming from right above his head.

What in the shit? It looks like it's coming out of the L’mantree.

After squinting up at it, Tommy does consider just going back to sleep. Maybe he's dreaming, imagining things, seeing shapes where there aren't any.

But when the light doubles in brightness, Tommy shoves down his weariness and gets up with a grumble.

The glowing comes from behind the bark. A bright radiant blue, seeping through the grooves of the wood. It looks like someone's placed a lamp at the centre of the trunk, like a weird Jack o’ lantern but, you know, it's a fucking tree.

Tommy tentatively places a hand over the cracks.

He draws back with a gasp when the light pulses, a warmth thrumming beneath his fingertips.

Okay. Okay! Fucking nevermind. He is awake. Wide awake.

Tommy snatches his satchel off the ground. He throws it over his shoulder in a rush before booking it back down the hill. Whatever that is, he decides it’s not his fucking problem.

…

Tommy has put off his next visit for weeks now. He debates not coming back at all. He comes up with a lot of excuses in the process. It's time he moved on anyways, he reasons. Totally fine and normal, normal and fine.

But as the days go by, his pride catches up to him.

Is he really going to stop because of… whatever that was? Tommy Innit did not fight a whole ass war only to be bested by some glowy wood. He's better than that!

Odds are it's just Tubbo playing a dumb prank on him. Has Tommy confronted him about it? No. Is he still going to blame him for it? Yes.

Tommy shoves his shit back into his bag and strides out his house with a rebuilt confidence.

The Prime Path is still cluttered with random build projects. It's like everyone else is trying to find a New Big Thing to replace the literal hole L’manberg left. Tommy gets it sort of, but he also thinks it's kind of pathetic.

He stops by the wild flower patch again. This time, he gathers six freshly bloomed cornflowers. As if to go Ha! See? I’m not scared.

As Tommy hikes back up the hill, the cracks in the wood have widened. So much so that he can see the blue light blinking through the fog from a distance. Leaves crunch beneath his feet, making him jump a little.

Tommy leaves the flowers at the roots per routine, but he can’t seem to take his eyes off the tree, off the web of wood woven and backlit by the most vibrant blue he’s ever seen.

Tommy steels himself. He’s strong, he’s brave, and he’s not scared of a dumb fucking tree.

Tommy shuts his eyes (out of strength and bravery, not because he’s nervous) and places his palm over the blue light.

It beats. A dull but steady rhythm that undulates against his skin.The blue light glows brighter and brighter, so much so that Tommy has to crane his head away.

Out of nowhere, the moss crawls up the bark. It wraps around his fingers, over the edges of his palms, moist and mushy. Tommy yells out, ripping his hand away. The moss stretches, clinging to him like a living web of mottled green. Fuck that. Actually fuck that, what the hell?!

In an instant, instinct grips him in a vice. Before he knows it, he’s pulled his dagger out of its sheath and plunged it into the wood.

Tommy’s breathing comes ragged as he pulls his shit together. He scuffs his hand against his pants, scraping off the remaining moss. Okay. From here on out Tommy Innit hates trees. All trees. They’re worthless hunks of wood that stand there like right bastards. He’s never coming back ever. Stupid L’mantree isn’t worth his time anyway.

With a huff, he pulls his dagger back out the bark.

And a viscous blue ooze drips from the wood like a puncture wound.

Tommy scowls at the… blue shit– for lack of a better word– with disgust. What in Prime’s name is going on? Last he checked, trees don’t bleed. Do they? No, they definitely don't.

Breaking the silence, a long drawing creak pierces the air. Chipped ash-grey fingernails dig into his shoulder, rings of bark rough on his skin even through the fabric of his t-shirt.

Tommy whirls around, heart pounding in his ears, ready to plunge his knife into his attacker.

Only for it to drop to the ground.

The creature(?) freezes in front of him, going stock-still as if it too is in shock.

This tall, lanky, asymmetrical thing… for a good few seconds Tommy can't make sense of it. Its body looks like it was made from the bark of the L’mantree itself. Its “hair” comes in the form of unkempt roots flying in every direction, thorns jutting up and out like a false crown. A trail of moss drags at its feet. But, oh, the most piercing trait this creature possesses is the multiple luminous, royal blue eyes littered across its shoddy imitation of a face.

The only way Tommy could recognize his brother is the long, withered cloak still draped over its jagged wooden shoulders. He knows those patches. Tommy spent hours sewing them on.

“Wilbur?” He says through a breath, more a question than anything else.

Wilbur— or, what’s left of him— doesn’t move, not even an inch. He doesn’t blink. His chest doesn’t rise or fall.

Strangely enough, his many eyes aren’t trained on Tommy, but a few steps behind him. He’s staring at the flowers.

Without really thinking, Tommy turns to pick up the bunch of flowers.

By the time he whirls back around, Wilbur’s moved closer. Tommy flinches, “Agh! What the hell—���

Wilbur’s palm, covered in moss and tree rings, lies face-up and outstretched in front of him.

Maybe Tommy’s dreaming. Maybe he inhaled too much smoke and he’s hallucinating. Maybe he’s finally lost his fucking mind. Either way, some kind of autopilot flicks on in his brain and Tommy deposits the bouquet in Wilbur’s hand.

Still no movement. But he does blink. Each eye closing and opening again, slowly and out of synch, like a weirdass cat.

Once again, it could be minutes, it could be hours. Tommy can never be sure. All he knows is by the time he musters up the willpower to move his feet and walk back down the hill, when he looks back over his shoulder, Wilbur is nowhere to be found.

[pokenimagines]

SFW Grusha fic, could we have him with a burnt out champion s/o? Like the s/o has been utterly overworking themself and choosing their pokemon's wellbeing over theirs?

Bro let's go; burnt out reader. I'm sure 90% of us have dealt with serious burn out and it sucks ass.

Rules | Discord Server (16+)

SFW Grusha: Burnt Out

"So this is it? You're just quitting?" Grusha asked, as you hummed. The bags under your eyes had never been so prominent in your life; you let out a huge yawn, as you looked over at Grusha. You were just hanging out when you decided to tell him the news.

"Yup, I'm all done. I don't think I can do it anymore. I might battle on occasion, but...I'm kinda just...done." You admitted. You had been one of the youngest champions in the region, and with that came a lot of responsibility.

Nobody told you becoming a Champion meant that you'd be doing so much league work. You were always running around for the Chairwoman, going form gym to gym to test their strength, or even dealing with random disturbances. Free time was lost on you...hell most of your childhood and early twenties were now lost. That isn't even taking account for your team...

"You can't just quit..." Grusha grumbled, getting a bit pissed, "I thought you loved battling."

"I do...I really do but...Grusha how many gym challengers do you face every week?" You asked, turning to him.

"Maybe two a week, sometimes three. During the Treasure Hunt I can get up to ten a week." Grusha said and you hummed.

"Wanna know what I did yesterday?" You asked and he was quiet, "Seven black crystals popped up. Nemona was busy, so I had to go across half the region to take them down. Took twelve hours. My team is still sleeping." You commented.

"You took down...seven of them?" Grusha asked.

"Orders from the Chairwoman. Next week I'm going to all the gyms to fight everyone. I got a solid three days to fight all of you guys. Then the week after, I need to check in on the training camps. The chairwoman told me this morning, that tomorrow I need to deal with one of the titans that's acting up, so gotta deal with that as well." You explained. Grusha was silent for a few moments.

"What about Nemona?" Grusha asked and you shrugged.

"She's got her own things going on. Especially since she's leaving the region soon, so she can try her hand at Galar's gym challenge. Once she's gone I can only imagine the workload I'll be receiving." You said with a huff.

"What about a vacation then? Set some boundaries with the chairwoman as well. You and your team are burnt out." Grusha said; finally understanding. When he used to do snowboarding professionally, there were a few times that he debated quitting for the same reasons. He loved it, but everything got to be too much.

"Think that'll work?" You asked, turning to him.

"La Primera isn't ruthless...I don't think. She's just capable of lots of work and expects that of everyone else. She probably doesn't realize what she's doing." Grusha finally said.

"Man...she's gonna turn me into Larry 2.0 at this rate." You chuckled and Grusha groaned, hitting your side.

"Don't even joke about that." Grusha said, a bit annoyed, "I can't be seen with someone so lame."

"Whatever...fine...I'll ask her for vacation as well as work condition changes...but you're coming with." You said, as you decided you'd be doing that right now.

"Wait...why?" Grusha said, eyes widening a fraction.

"It was your idea, obviously. Now let's go!"

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅• Thank you for reading! Did you know we have a discord? It has everything from RPs, General Discussions, and even an 18+ area to go hog wild in! We even do announcements early for when the inbox is opening for requests, as well as other events! Come in and join us!

[kumidark]

more on these ships below the cut:

sorbetcrepe: they met when sorbet shark accidentally destroyed some of strawberry crepe's wafflebots;;; as an apology, they let strawberry crepe run jam/dough tests on them since they were curious how sorbet shark worked (being a cookie/shark and all). the two get up to hijinks together, and sorbet shark brings strawberry crepe little trinkets from the travels across the sea. as a thank you gift, strawberry crepe built a miniature saltwater pond for sorbet shark to stay in/rehydrate in when they visit the vanilla kingdom!!

kumidark: they're traveling together after dark choco left the cookies of darkness. kumiho is super casually affectionate with him, something that throws dark choco off. he only lets her get away with it because sometimes it's nice to feel loved (also he's touch-starved but shhhh he doesn't know that). if you wanna know about how they met n stuff, feel free to read my kumidark fic on ao3 and/or look through my older kumidark posts^^

carapastry: somehow, pastry manages to get away from the st pastry order and caramel arrow and her become friends!! caramel arrow helps her move past her trauma related to the order and pastry helps caramel arrow realize she wants to kiss a woman on the lips 😳;;; also they both wield bows!!!!

figblossom: someone in my server created this ship and i'm in LOVE.....okay so basically they're both super friendly and kind and caring and they both love picnics/storytelling!!! they would have the sweetest on dates in flower fields and cherry blossom would bake delicious treats for fig to try and!!!! basically they're super cute!!!!!

twizzlytiger: okay HEAR ME OUT: twizzly gummy comes across tiger lily at some point and realizes she's s u p e r fun to mess with and now everytime she stops by that area she seeks her out to mess with her. meanwhile tiger lily is completely done with twizzly gummy and exasperated with her shenanigans, but also she has the most fun when she's around her, and twizzly treats her butter tiger nice so....maybe she can stick around.....cue accidental pining and twizzly realizing she doesn't just hang around tiger lily for the laughs, but because she actually Likes Her. twizzly gummy wouldn't know how to deal with it so she'd end up blowing up a castle or something idk.....yeah.......

wereyam: another ship from my server!! i fell in love with it because purple yam would NOT take werewolf's self-deprecating comments. werewolf would say something bad about himself and purple yam would yell WRONG and werewolf wouldnt be able to say anything else. also werewolf's always scared of hurting people because of his big wolf form but purple yam not only wouldn't be scared of it, he'd be able to handle it and fight back if werewolf ever lost control (which he wouldn't)^^

avomala: BUTCH GIRLFRIENDS!!! as stated above, mala's one of the only cookies who'll openly laugh at avocado's jokes and genuinely finds them funny, but also!! avocado is one of the only cookies who can almost handle mala's spice preferences (not completely though; she still has her limits);;; also!! avocado makes weapons for mala sauce sometimes as gifts, which mala l o v e s :3

cacaocaviar: dark cacao is notorious for being stern and refusing help from anybody, but imagine if the republic heard of his troubles (maybe after the whole thing with the soul jam) and sent caviar to help out!! caviar could help keep the licorice sea at bay, and cacao would finally have someone experienced whom he could put his trust in! peepaw x peepaw <3

univamp: yet another ship from my server!! vampire n cream unicorn are both essentially immortal, and they both are very mellow and somft;;;; cream unicorn is one of the only cookies who wouldn't mind vampire's sleepiness/laziness and would sit with him for hours while he nodded off^^ also, most importantly: THEIR HAIR FORMS A HEART!!!!! 💕💕💕💕

[mysteriawrites]

hello it is me hi hello

anyway…you already know from the server…

hi, im hannah!, im obviously swedish! my oshis are shu, luca, koto, and kyo…some wosemi too.

I’ve been doing dance for a super long time and i LOVE LOVE LOVE physical touch! (giving and receiving)

uhhh im bad at this

i tend to be a super fast typer so my messages always come out looking like gibberish

uhhh i hate calling but if im calling my bff or my s/o i will never hang up i love it sm!!

uhh, i tend to be pretty extroverted (due to my meds LMAOO) and im described as more of a golden retriever (however, i look like a black cat aporently)

SORRY IF THATS NOT ENOUGH ITS ALL I CAN THINK OF 😭💔💔

Luca Kaneshiro!!!

Congratulations Hannah Chan you got ur oshi! In all seriousness I think you guys would make a good pair.

You’re both sweet and energetic. You care a lot about the people around you and love to make friends. You also both try to hide your own problems and worries from others, but i think since you’re so similar it’ll be easier to notice and break each other out of these habits.

You and Luca met on somewhat unconventional means. It was the boss’s birthday and so he was having a big birthday bash with lots of people invited family, friends, and famous people alike.

You were hired as some of the entertainment. You were a well known and highly respected dancer and only the best of the best was expected at this party.

You had meticulously planned and practiced your performance for weeks until it was flawless. You had been told that this show could be a huge stepping stone in your career.

You arrived at the party in your finest outfit and set the stage for your performance. You were a bit nervous since it was such a large crowd of important people, but as every good performer knows: the show must go on.

Your show enraptured Luca to his very core. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Your moves were so graceful and delicate yet bold and dynamic. He had to know who you were!

Sadly it was hard for him to get the time to see you given all the guests wanting to talk to you. By the time he got away from them your group had already packed up and left.

After the party Luca was on a mission to see you again and tracked down where and when your next show would be. He canceled all his plans and meetings to book a flight to your next location.

Was it an impulsive decision for someone he barely met? Yes. But something inside him was telling him he had to see you again.

You were in your dressing room one night after you last show when suddenly there was a knock at the door. You opened it to receive a delivery of chocolates and flowers with a note that said “Meet me at (insert restaurant here im too lazy)”

Sure you’ve had messages and gifts from creepy stalker fans before and you knew going was a safety risk. However something in your gut told you it was worth checking out.

And so you went. When you got there you were met with a familiar man with golden hair and amethyst hair.

Luca Kaneshiro finally found you.

Fast forward to you guys becoming fast friends and even faster lovers, you and Luca are a very active and energetic couple.

You both like moving and be being active. Him with working out and you with your dancing (which arguably is a workout in an of itself he has mad respect for you he couldn’t imagine moving like that). You guys stretch and go on runs together laughing and having so much fun it doesn’t even feel like working out.

~~and when you’re both sore afterwards you take a warm bath or shower together and give each other massages. Both activities may lead to a lot of touching 👀~~

Despite being busy with his work he always makes time for you as quality time is one of his love languages. He will always clear his schedule to go see your performances and spoil you afterwards because you deserve the fucking world.

He also uses dumb puns and pick up lines on you when you guys go on dates. Dates with you guys are usually a day out having fun and unwinding from your hectic lives. Like going to the amusement park (that he rented out for your whole trip) or going for a walk.

A couple with a lot of puppy energy that only has love to give. (I was gonna put more but this is getting too long)

Runners up: Vantacrow Bringer, Doppio Dropscythe, Yu Q Wilson

[tu-es-gegg]

28 , 32 and 1!

28. Favorite animation(s)

(i have so fuckign much holy shit)

32. Drop a lore hot take🔥 (Or cold take🧊 who cares)

i can try to name a few

idk if this is a hot take, lmao i think the presidential elections arc were kinda mid in retrospect (this one is kinda hard to discuss because of yknow) but like, at the time it was ok it was enjoyable and there were some good additions to the server because of the end result, but like idk the election debates themselves weren't really fun for me to watch because theres a lot of yelling and ofc irl political theories and influences got roped in because thats just kinda what happens, and thus people there also fought abt it, also like half the candidates say outright they hate the federation and are running for president to WORK with teh federation so like that's not going to go great so idk what was going on, its weird because dsmp elections i liked but ig at the time theyre weren't taken as much seriously, and the stakes in the elections were not focused on politcal bureaucratic gains and more of personal stakes for a nation itself. idk when i look back at the elections and try to watch back then in 2023, even from gegg perspective i only could stand to rewatch the dinner and everyone hanging out, the actual presidential debates i couldnt BEAR at all. also elq wtf were you going to do with charlie please explain

also i dont understand why doied exists like the only other precursor to that is abuleoier somehow on the island and also having a past with being in prison adn such, but like i was so confused when he appeared like what. i love roier's lore i loved the tape streams, i just wish there was more prep to that, the namemc spoilering and the messages were really clever but i wanted at least SOME hints before doied jsut.... appeared.

uhhh the bobby death should not have been counted its obvious there was lag at the time and other egg deaths because of lag was also not counted, i cant rememebr exactly what happened for them to come to the conclusion of the death but god bobby did not deserve to die, damn you telmex

AND ALSO I WILL SAY THIS, QSLIME WAS AT LEAST A GOOD ENOUGH FATHER TO FLIPPA, MAYBE NOT A GREAT INFLUENCE, he wasn't the best at first is the thing, like yes he did instigate fights and cause a bit of an unstable household because of his very temperamental attitude but when nearing the later parts, he learned the swing of things of being a good enough parent, like he paid attention to flippa's needs, the difficult part of it was communication because at the time they couldnt communicate without the preset signs, instead of the free use of jsut text, it was only later she started using sign for slime, she did with mariana but not yet charlie as much at that point, plus i think there were some issues of flippa understanding charlie just generally (which is fair even i dont understand him), ITS THE THING OF LIKE, he kinda was fumbling at first but flippa genuinely was happy and taken care of by both parents. its was unfortunate that was cut short because of the thing. most part is jsut a bad influence in terms of being selfish and possibly spreading that to flippa but honestly i wish she stuck aroudn logner so i could see that happen GOD;;;; it frustrates me because qslime's path to being a good parent IS RIGHT THERE but when trying to try again he's scared of fuckign up liek everyone tells him and liek that reminder of his mistakes isnt helping him in the slightest to actually trying again, GOD GOD:;;;;

1. Favorite theory and least favorite theory (If you have one)

ok i like the theory that the federation made the codes in teh first place and then tried to cover up but they came back to get the islanders out any which way they can, then leading to my theory that codeflippa was a real egg at one point because of how the resistance describe her in that one report, not a faulty vode but a faulty egg , so i have reason to beieve she was an egg merged with a code in order to have a stable form the way she is. also that theory that at some point the eye guy started to corrupt codes themselves which is why some codes went rogue against orders from the resistance.

uhhhhh least favourite, idk i dont have any theories i dont like much, mostly because they are kinda convincing, i think i saw maybe a theory abt ll the islanders were experiments from the federation, maybe some select few have fistory but i dont think ALL of them

[siriannatan]

Hermit High Volleyball Club

I might have written some notes on that Hermitcraft Haikyuu AU...

Ren - the club advisor and most of the member's English teacher, would advise drama club but they already had an advisor,

Doc - the coach, Ren's boyfriend, former Olympic level player, has three Olympic medals, "Stress's older brother actually...)

(numbers might change, all my volleyball knowledge comes from Haikyuu manga and anime which I haven't interacted with for ages )

#1 Xisuma - team captain, wing spiker, opposite hitter, an ocean of peace hiding a lot of sass and chaos

#2 Cub - vice-captain, Scar control, setter, will blackmail you into doing stuff for him, Scar is his only weakness,

#3 Scar - ace, wing spiker, opposite hitter, chaos causer, very loud, always somewhere near Cub

#4 Bdouble O. - libero, definitely average height, will get that growth spurt soon, 'shut up Keralis, it's coming,'

#5 Iskall - wing spiker, opposite hitter, second best spiker after Scar, just a lot less loud,

#6 Hypno - middle blocker, lanky bastard, (basically Tsukishima if you've seen anything Haikyuu)

#7 Impulse - middle blocker, will smack you if you act out of line,

#8 Etho - pinch server and backup setter, does not feel like putting a lot of effort in but is quite good at serving so Doc has him focusing on that

False & Stress - managers, secretly dating, have a bet going on who will figure it out first. Cub already knows but is waiting for the best moment to say it

Mumbo & Grian - in the club bcs clubs they actually wanted to join were full, Xisuma let them stay in the volleyball club after Scar asked him. Mumbo has a massive and obvious crush on Iskall who just happens to be dense as a rock. X instantly figured out Grian likes him but didn't say anything.

Track & Field squad:

Keralis - Bdouble's boyfriend, pick him up after practice since both clubs have a similar schedule - totally not on purpose on Ren's part

Tango - Impulse's boyfriend, could do well in volleyball but he likes running around more

Zedaph - Impulse and Tango's 'third-wheel', might have a small crush on Wels - the track team's star runner which his friends make fun of all the time

Wels - X's best friend, silent, diligent star student, very popular

Literature Club:

Jevin and XB - Hypno's boyfriends, often hang out around VBC's practice while waiting for him,

Pearl - Grian's twin sister, at the brink of shoving Grian and X into a closet

Gem - Pearl's best friend, might have a massive crush on her,

'Chess Club' (not really)

Joe and Cleo - only two members of the club, their advisor agreed to oversee the club to have an excuse to not oversee any actual club, study buddies with X and Wells. Cleo has a weird rivalry with Jevin

Art Club

Beef - Etho's boyfriend, sometimes waits for him during VBC's practice time

The club has a massive sponsorship from Giga Corp from day one pretty much because Ren talked at home about how he's overseeing a sports club now.

I might have considered making Cleo track club's advisor and Joe the principal but making them just bum around the school and be an after classes nuisance was more fun.

[papermoonloveslucy]

ARBOR DAY

Trees of the Lucyverse! 

“I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.” ~ Joyce Kilmer

(Everything Except Christmas Trees.)

“The Marriage License” (1952) ~ To correct an error on their original marriage license, Lucy and Ricky travel to Greenwhich, Connecticut to renew their vows. While there, Lucy makes Ricky renact his proposal at the tree bench where it first happened.  

LUCY: “Gee. I don’t remember this seat being so small, do you? I guess the tree grew in a little from each side.”  RICKY: “Let’s face it, we’ve grown out a little from each side!”

“The Camping Trip” (1953) ~ Lucy wants to do everything Ricky does - including going on a camping trip to go fishing and duck hunting. To make sure she bests Ricky in hunting and fishing, Ethel tags along out of sight, hiding up a tree to make sure Lucy is a sure shot!  

LUCY: “These look like pretty good duck trees to me.” RICKY: “This might come as a surprise to you, Lucy, but you find ducks on the water, not up in the trees.”

Later, Ricky spies Ethel in the branches. 

RICKY: “Ethel, you get out of that tree!”

“Lucy’s Last Birthday” (1952) ~ When the Friends of the Friendless marches through the park, a low-hanging tree branch snags Barbara Pepper’s hat knocking it to the ground. Pepper continues the scene hatless and (for consistency) also appears hatless in the next scene inside the Tropicana. 

“Lucy Writes a Play” (1952) ~ The title of Lucy’s first script is “A Tree Grows in Havana”, a pun on “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” a book and a film in the mid-40’s. There was even a Broadway musical of the same title starring Shirley Booth that closed two weeks before the episode filmed.

“Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (1952) ~ Ricky demonstrates his English skills by reading aloud from a children’s book. 

RICKY: "He spent his time in the forest cutting down booges from the trees." LUCY: “Wait a minute. Wait  just a minute. What is this booges?" RICKY: (points to text)“Booges, right in there.” LUCY:“That's boughs.” RICKY: “B-O-U-G-H is bough?” LUCY: “Right.” RICKY: “Bough.”

“Lucy is Enceinte” (1952) 

“Were having a baby, my baby and me. You'll read it in Winchell's That we're adding a limb to our family tree!”

“First Stop” (1955) ~ On the way to Hollywood, the gang has no choice but to stay at the run-down One Oak Cabins.  

In “Lucy and the Stolen Stole” (1964), con-man Harry Barton (Buddy Hackett) lives on Old Oak Drive in San Fernando. 

In Danfield, Hoffstedder’s Drugstore is located on Oak Street.

When “Lucy is a Process Server” (1964), she is hired by a new employment agency located on Oak Street.

“Ethel’s Hometown” (1955) ~ To upstage Ethel on her ego trip homecoming, Fred performs an old vaudeville routine involving a rapidly growing tree! 

“The Tour” (1955) ~ Lucy scales a wall of the Richard Widmark estate to pick a souvenir grapefruit from his tree - then gets caught on the other side. 

“LIttle Ricky’s School Pageant” (1956) ~ Big Ricky’s role in “The Enchanted Forest” is to play a Hollow Tree.  

RICKY: “The only father in the whole school that is in show business, and they want me to play a hollow tree.”

LITTLE RICKY: “Why don't you want to be a tree?” RICKY: “Oh. Well, I'm a performer. I've been in show business since I was a...” LITTLE RICKY: “I think you should be a tree. It's more fun to cooperate than to be the center of attention.” RICKY: “You're absolutely right. I'll be a tree.” LITTLE RICKY: “Oh, boy! Daddy's gonna be a tree!  Daddy's gonna be a tree!”

“The Ricardos Dedicate a Statue” (1957) ~ While seraching for Fred the dog, Lucy decapitates the statue by not looking in the rear view mirror!

LUCY: “I jumped in the car and forgot all about the trailer and backed right into that elm tree.”

Danfield’s Elm Tree Inn was mentioned in several episodes of “The Lucy Show”: “Chris’s New Year’s Eve Party” (1962),  “Lucy Teaches Ethel Merman to Sing” (1964), and “Viv Moves Out” (1964).  

In “Lucy and Bob Crane” (1966), Crane says he owns a home on 993 Elm in Beverly Hills.  

In Danfield, Mr. Mooney’s home is located at 429 Elm Street.

Rescuing Grandma Sutton’s cat from up a tree is the first call of the Danfield Volunteer Women’s Fire Brigade in “Lucy and Viv Are Volunteer Firemen” (1963). The incident is mentioned again in “Lucy Drives A Dump Truck” (1963). 

“Chris Goes Steady” (1964) ~ Lucy Carmichael and Mr. Mooney are stranded in a Jerry and Sherman’s tree house hoping to catch their kids eloping. They didn’t count on a snowstorm while they waited.     

“Lucy the Rain Goddess” (1966) ~ At a dude ranch, Lucy and Viv listen to a guide Tex Critter (Willard Waterman) explain the local foliage. 

TEX: “Now... this is a Joshua tree, and there's a real romantic story behind it. You know all about the birds and the bees. Well, this is a love triangle between two Joshua trees and a little bee called the Joshua Tree Bee. See, the Joshua trees depend on this little bee to carry the pollen from one to the other. You know, it makes me feel poetic. Where would the Joshua tree be without the Joshua Tree Bee?”

“Lucy and Curtis Are Up A Tree” (1986) ~ In this unaired episode of “Life With Lucy,” Curtis is building a tree house for Kevin. When Kevin overhears his grandparents are planning to move out, he removes the ladder to the tree house stranding them in a rain storm.

The Arnaz-Morton family poses between the boughs of a tree (1965).

A plaque has been placed at the base of two tall palm trees where The Long, Long Trailer was filmed in 1954. A resort is now on the site where the trailer park was located in the film. 

[destroyerarcher]

The First Descendant Endgame Review - An Unrealized Road

Nexon. A game developer and publisher well storied for its suite of online games, and most notable for popularizing the idea of an in-game purchase besides expansions. While they had laid low in the western sphere for years ever since LawBreakers failed, they started being discussed more often in the west when they published Dave the Diver and The Finals. So when I heard that Nexon’s Magnum Studio were developing a looter shooter, I was mildly interested, but not very keen on trying it at first, until dev videos were released claiming an emphasis on the endgame. This made me interested in giving The First Descendant a shot and seeing if the endgame was substantial enough, as it’s the main hook it has against Warframe, its closest competitor. Unfortunately, I think it has much before its endgame can be considered good.

Note that this review will center primarily around nearly every loop of the endgame at the time of writing, and anything related with it. Anything that is unrelated with the endgame, such as the campaign, will only receive a brief explanation. If you are only interested in my final thoughts, I recommend reading the concluding paragraph at the end.

The First Descendant is a third person looter shooter where you primarily go through instanced zones and do missions of varying objectives. Players have a grappling hook for faster mobility and choose characters that come with four active abilities and one passive ability that can provide a power fantasy when built correctly. Unlike Warframe and Destiny, there is a much larger emphasis placed on these more open zones, with certain crucial endgame loops being tied with these maps. The campaign is fully voice acted in both Korean and English, with a loose story taking the player through all of the maps and missions, all infiltrations, which are the game’s dungeons, and seven of the eleven total colossi fights, before Hard Mode is unlocked. Note that Hanged Man, although necessary for unlocking Hard Mode Colossi, is not necessary for unlocking Hard Mode maps and infiltrations. Hard Mode is when the endgame starts, and players can properly experience the main gameplay loops that The First Descendant has in offer. In Hard Mode, all items will drop at the level cap of 100, instead emphasizing tactfully optimizing a build as the main chase.

The technical state of the First Descendant is not great. In the first few days, the servers were down for half a day. Beyond this, the servers were only down for scheduled patches, but there are other technical issues beyond server uptime. As compensation for the launch downtime, players received 6 days worth of all boosters and even gave all players at the time beta tester exclusive rewards, effectively showing that Nexon considered the launch as a beta. On occasion, I’ve been in parties with all of us in different regions where we all rubberband. Sometimes, map instances just completely lag out before all players in a party are booted out of the game. Server instability is not the only technical issue I’ve experienced. As my PC is not very powerful nowadays, I’ve had issues running the game even at a stable 30 FPS on my GTX 1060. I would not recommend playing on anything except current-gen consoles and fairly up-to-date PCs as the performance is not very desirable without a good rig. This is made even worse with a lot of things within the game being tied with FPS, most notably fire rate, which can result in a massive DPS loss on lower-end devices. There was also a clientside patch that nerfed a gold farm, but did not force players to update until a few days afterwards, letting players do said farm on the previous patch for a few days if they wished.

So, what does the endgame consist of?

One of the core gameplay loops is collecting new characters, called descendants, and weapons, and optimizing your builds so you can tackle tougher and tougher content. Like Warframe, a large part of optimizing builds revolves around expanding your descendants and weapon's mod capacity. This is done through the use of energy activators, which add capacity, and crystallization catalysts, which assigns a socket that halves the cost of a mod with a matching socket. A mod that does not match will instead have its cost increased.

Crystallization Catalysts, like Warframe's Forma, will reset the item's level and can only be used at max level, but unlike Warframe, descendants will keep their abilities maxed out, making the only loss be mod capacity and defensive stats until reaching level 40 again. There is no universal Catalyst in the game, and sockets are shared across all mod settings across all instances of a specific weapon, so players cannot make multiple weapons and apply different sockets for different optimized builds. The player cannot even save multiple copies of the same descendant, although normal and ultimate variants are separate. This means that if two builds a player has in mind require two different sockets, the player must settle for an unoptimized build.

Energy Activators on the other hand are much, much simpler. All they do is add 30 capacity for a gun, or 20 in the case of a descendant. In both cases, farming these items simply requires farming a few materials and acquiring their blueprints, or buying them with Caliber, the premium currency, which requires real money. For both of these items, a few are given for free throughout the campaign, setting the player up for a better build in Hard Mode. 

So, how does one acquire the blueprints for these two items, alongside ultimate weapons and descendants? For the most part, they must be acquired from Amorphous Materials, often abbreviated as Amps by the community. They must be acquired typically from completing an infiltration or clearing outposts on maps, then opening these materials, where the player can then use their amps and have a chance at five random blueprints predetermined by the designated number of the amp. Every single amp will either have a chance at the blueprints for a catalyst or an activator, so the player always has a chance at these two blueprints while chasing descendants or weapons. These amorphous materials can only be opened through a specific activity tied with a specific amp. For materials earned from outposts, this will be a void reactor, and for materials earned from infiltrations or special operations, they are opened by completing a void intercept. When opening an amp, a shape stabilizer can be used that boosts the drop rate of the two lowest percent materials, at the cost of lowering the percent of the two highest percent materials. If multiple players all open amorphous materials, they will only receive the reward from their own amorphous material, and cannot choose a reward from another player’s amp. Both of these methods have different gameplay loops.

Infiltrations are the equivalent of a dungeon in other games, where you clear through rooms of enemies with varying objectives, before finally fighting a boss or two. In Hard Difficulty, the objectives featured in Infiltrations are remixed, providing different objectives from its normal counterpart in some cases. There is also a scoring system in Hard Difficulty where the multiplier goes up when more difficult modifiers are enabled, and goes down when more players are in said Infiltration. Scoring is simple, it is just dependent on killing enemies for points. Reaching certain thresholds will increase the chance of receiving a second amorphous material and/or a shape stabilizer. 

Unfortunately the scoring system completely undermines the fun that infiltrations could bring oftentimes. Most of the modifiers are negligible, but there are three of note, that disable sprint, jump, and grapple, respectively. Of the three, grapple softlocks the most runs because of how levels are designed around them, so clearing levels without grapple is nearly impossible. The scoring system only being based on number of kills also takes away from the fast paced nature of the game, instead incentivizing stalling for as many spawns as possible, all while easily slaughtering them. Matchmaking is only enabled if no modifiers are selected, so playing with multiple players with modifiers requires finding a group elsewhere. The bosses all have a mechanic that is either some variation of shooting 3-5 floating orbs or summoning adds that must be killed before the boss can be damaged again, which quickly ends up feeling monotonous. I think this scoring system should just be scrapped and replaced with something else, as it actively takes away from the buildcraft portion of the game.

Another gamemode that awards amorphous materials are special operations. They are horde modes of varying objectives, but are not actually endless. Instead, players are given a choice of staying or leaving at four set intervals after a certain amount of rounds, with the fifth being the end of a special operation. Unfortunately, the rewards from these operations are not very good. The gold per hour is very low, and the amount of marks that drop for more gold is very inconsistent. Outside of the amps, which are actually opened at normal difficulty bosses, there is very little reason why players should do these operations right now. Not being an endless mode also robs players of another potential endgame mode players could have spent hours theorycrafting in. One exception is the Block Kuiper Mining Operation, where an optimized squad can level up weapons quite rapidly.

Of course, opening those materials requires fighting Colossi in Void Intercepts. Colossi are giant bosses whose towering height dwarfs players in size. All bosses have an enrage meter that is typically progressed when they receive damage or with certain boss-specific mechanics. The only way this enrage meter can be stalled is either by knocking them down with enough damage or by grappling onto a boss and staying latched onto them. Bosses can only be grappled when removable parts are weakened enough and glow yellow, where players then must stay on just like Monster Hunter 4’s mounting mechanic, where one button lets the player smash the boss, while the second button lets them hold onto the boss when the boss tries shaking the player off. Press button 1 enough times and the boss will be knocked down. Unfortunately, this is undermined by boss mechanics ranging from simplistic to poorly slowing the pace, and a meta that disincentivizes anything except raw DPS. The arenas for these bosses are also bland, consisting of grey rectangles and sometimes lava, and nothing more.

The other way of acquiring amorphous materials is by completing Outposts within zones. These activities are poorly explained in-game which has even resulted in players grinding them for hours with no chance of ever earning the item they are after. Strategic Outposts require players either hack or destroy power units within the outpost, before the player must fight a miniboss which upon defeat, completes the mission, where it will be unavailable for a minute before reappearing. The power units can only be hacked if they are undetected, which basically requires a specific descendant, Sharen, that can go invisible, as enemies immediately detect players if there are no obstacles blocking their path. By hacking these terminals, players will either receive more chances at the same amp in normal, or in hard difficulty, reward a completely different amp with different rewards. Because of this, using said invisibility character is actually mandatory for certain components, although the player can simply join a squad with another player using Sharen. Doing these outposts solo can get very tedious solo if the player does not invest very heavily in said character, as most of her mod slots will be spent on duration for this activity. Note that receiving the amp is not even guaranteed, so players can easily go over ten runs without earning the desired amp.

Opening these materials from outposts is a two-fold process that makes farming components only from outpost amorphous even more tedious. Void Reactors require void shards, and without this currency, players cannot even open their amps, even if they are in a party with another player that activates a reactor. Acquiring void shards requires doing an activity also called Void Shards, where players must bring a descendant of a matching element, slay hordes of enemies, and repeat until they have enough shards. After acquiring shards, players can then do the void reactor, where players fight a reused miniboss that when defeated, lets players finally open their amorphous material. This process is overall much more convoluted than the method requiring a Colossi kill for opening an amp.

Of course, in these zones, there are other things that go on. Unfortunately, they are fairly empty overall, with only a small patrol of enemies occasionally roaming the map. No dynamic world bosses or Colossi will show up that could make these maps feel even remotely alive. There are missions that have basic objectives the player can do, mostly for resources or so they can defeat enemies. How these missions play in the end game loop is that they firstly provide a way of acquiring certain resources and mods from specific enemies. There is also a weekly rotation for reactors, an equipment type that can roll with certain types of stats, and each zone will make most enemies have a chance of dropping a certain kind of reactor with a designated element and weapon for different characters and builds. Thus, players typically must do missions so they can farm many reactors in pursuit of their perfect build.

One of the things the First Descendant does very well is actually provide an in-game guide for where the player can farm most things. For the aforementioned weekly rotating reactor, there is an in-game guide that shows what zones drop which reactor for a given week if the player presses F on the world map on PC. This does not just stop at reactors, as acquisition sources for nearly everything in the game are also listed in an in-game guide. For the more invested player, they can even search up the most successful setup for a given descendant and weapon in a given Void Intercept encounter, or even access an official open API from Nexon. Unfortunately, this is where the usefulness of the guide stops, as in-game mechanics lack a good in-game way of reading up on mechanics the player may have missed, such as the previously stealth mechanic for outposts. That being said, giving players a way of finding acquisition sources without relying on external sources is one of the reasons I played for as long as I did, as loading up an external site every time I am searching for something is tiresome.

Of course, players must farm resources for their perfect build. The two main resources players must farm for are Gold, used for about everything, and Kuiper, used for upgrading Modules. For Gold, typically the best gold farms at the time of writing involve mindlessly killing hordes of enemies in often unintended ways, which also gives Kuiper. While Operations seem like they are designed around only giving gold, their Gold per hour is quite low relative with other methods. For Kuiper, they have a viable dedicated farm through Vaults. Vaults are scattered across the map and must be discovered by using the scanner until they hear a sharp beep indicating they are facing the right direction. When they finally find a vault, they must play a hacking minigame before they are awarded with kuiper and a map-specific resource. Hacking vaults require keys that randomly drop from enemies in most activities. If the player hacks the highest tier vault with Enzo, they have a chance of acquiring a transcendent mod for him. This is the only way players can acquire said modules, thus incentivizing players to run that specific character.

So, how do players then use those resources in crafting a perfect build? For the most part, it involves a modding system just like Warframe’s, with some differences. First, upgrading a mod does not upgrade it by the same amount every tier, instead higher tiers provide more of an increase than lower tiers. Mods of a higher tier will consume more capacity, but the stat bonuses from higher tiers will outweigh the increased capacity cost. As mentioned earlier, Crystallization Catalysts and Energy Activators are the main way of reducing mod capacity cost and increasing capacity, respectively. In the case of descendants, they have a dedicated slot for a sub-attack mod that either changes their melee attack, or changes the way their grappling hook works. They also have another dedicated slot for a transcendent mod which will change at least one of their abilities, whether active or passive. Unlike Warframe, an Ultimate Descendant, the equivalent of a prime, have access to two unique transcendent modules, alongside the slightly increased stats and extra base sockets. I personally do not like this, as this actually locks players out of certain builds if they lack an ultimate descendant.

As for guns, the player can reroll the perks of guns using a certain upgrade material crafted from materials from dismantling guns alongside gold. Players can lock up to three of four total perks when rerolling a gun, and the cost of a reroll goes up when doing so. Stats on said perks can vary in power too, giving more of a chase for higher stat rolls. For Ultimate Weapons, they have a unique ability that feels like an exotic weapon from Destiny, and this ability can be upgraded four times using a copy of that same weapon, thus requiring five total of the same Ultimate Weapon before its full potential is unlocked. Note that in some cases, these upgrades are very marginal and unnecessary.

Compared with Warframe, modules often cost a full 16 mod capacity, which often ends up requiring guns and characters to have all or all but one slot socketed for a theoretical optimized build. Combined with the fact that separate loadout slots cannot even be separately polarized, this effectively locks players into a single build per character or gun. I think adding the reactor mechanic from Warframe just pushes players away from trying out different guns, and the activator drop from amorphous materials should have instead been a voucher for extra slots of a player’s choice, or a universal catalyst that could accept any polarity, which would solve the loadout issue. 

As for the actual gameplay itself, despite having “AAA” level presentation at times with the graphical quality and fully voice-acted story, other facets of the game feel more like what we would expect from a lower-budget production. The physics oftentimes can result in unexpected things happening, such as players being flung after grappling onto a colossus, or being blocked by a single piece of geometry shorter than the player’s thighs. Animations generally feel janky, and melee attacks feel incredibly weak even when fully charged. If you try shooting too close to an object, your character will actually shoot up for no real reason. The inventory having no auto-dismantle filters gets really tiresome when the game drops junk perks on reactors like mismatched elements, and duplicate guns are pointless when a reroll function exists for cheap, all while activities shower players with tens of items a run when they only have around 20-50 available slots.

The English translation is of a quality on par with machine translations, and more specifically, ones from ten years ago. It is so bad that there is even untranslated Hangul when playing in English on occasion. In the Molten Fortress fight, when the enrage phase starts, even though voice acted dialogue plays, there are no subtitles detailing what is going on, let alone a description of the mechanic. There was also a pr statement made by the developers that was mistranslated as they would not nerf a farming spot, then a few days later an official statement was sent that corrected the translation as nerfing the spot so it is on par with other gold farming spots. 

There are no official clans in-game, no combat log detailing damage received and dealt, and there are only two tabs for the chat in-game, one for global and one for local/party chat. There is no dedicated LFG system in-game, and the LFG channels in the official discord are so condensed that chat messages fly very quickly, making finding a group incredibly tedious. Guns also do not feel very weighty, and gunplay feels like a very generic 3rd person system overall. That being said, making a build that works for a given function is very satisfying, and characters generally feel distinct in how they approach combat with an optimized build. A Yujin running an augment for his 2nd ability prioritizes tagging enemies with his 2 before killing them and setting up massive chain reactions, countering dense crowds of enemies. This is in contrast with Bunny, who is reliant on her 3rd ability that will create more aoes from her center the more distance she travels, incentivizing a close-medium range, high mobility playstyle. The same can be said for single-target DPS characters and so forth. 

Unfortunately, the balancing in this game is not very good. Certain characters are leagues above other characters that share a similar role. Characters like Lepic or Gley will rapidly make quick work of all Void Intercept bosses in under a minute if their builds are optimized as a team, including Frost Walker and Molten Fortress, meanwhile other burst DPS characters such as Esiemo struggle even beating Devourer, the easiest of the Void Intercept bosses, before it starts its enrage. For clearing hordes of enemies, Bunny is generally the best because of her mobility, followed by Valby or Viessa as they can spawnkill enemies better than Bunny. This problem is exacerbated by how easily enemies die, as there is not too much content in the game where enemies are tanky enough that Bunny can’t just kill in one aoe or two. In terms of weapon viability, it is all over the place, where certain weapons like Beam Rifles and Shotguns get all the downsides and none of the benefits, where even in optimal conditions their DPS is sub par compared with other options such as SMGs, Sniper Rifles, and Machine Guns.

Boss design is unfortunately not very impressive either. Void Intercept bosses generally are fairly simple loops with simple attacks that do not incentivize playing in unique ways beyond raw DPS. Even though some bosses have tracking attacks, the damage output from those attacks are generally not high enough for justifying a dedicated defensive or heal support, and they can be blocked with obstacles. In terms of mechanics, they generally are more like puzzle boxes than dynamic attacks, as they do not push the player to change their strategy around these mechanics in any meaningful way. For the most part, they are just about dodging attacks or shooting certain areas so the enrage can end and the players can damage them normally. Molten Fortress in particular slows down the pace with a puzzle mechanic that does not challenge the player’s builds at all, instead simply requiring players shoot a button on six towers until they all connect, forming a hexagon, and protecting said towers by shooting down orbs spewed by the boss. Overall, I think if you are after encounter design that will push your strategic thinking to the limit, it may only come with the release of the first Mega Dungeon during Season 2. How Mega Dungeons are designed in the future will be indicative of the tone Nexon wants for their endgame.

Now, as a Nexon game, the monetization is quite bad, although players can still play mostly as Free to Play without losing out on much. The standard overpriced skins are in the shop, but the dye system for characters uses a system that Destiny 2 dropped years ago. Paint for characters are one time use only, so once you use a paint, the paint will be consumed and the player must buy another paint before they can apply that color on another cosmetic. Paints cannot even be used on the default skins, which takes away from potential customization players could have had. The worst part is that Nexon planned even worse things during the 2024 May beta, as that beta had paints acquired through gambling instead of directly buying them with Caliber, the premium currency. Catalysts and Activators are also grossly overpriced, as Catalysts cost $6 worth of caliber, while Activators cost $24 worth of caliber. In comparison, Warframe charges $2-3 worth of platinum for 3 Forma, the equivalent of a catalyst, while Warframe only charges $1-2 USD for a reactor, the equivalent of an activator in TFD.

All items have a wait timer when being crafted ranging anywhere between 10 minutes to 36 hours. Unlike Warframe, only 5 items can be crafted at a time, which arbitrarily limits how much weapons and characters a player can make progress on, but timers can be sped up with Caliber. While normal characters typically cost around $6 or $18 USD worth of Caliber, Ultimate Descendants cost $60 worth of Caliber in their cheapest bundles. The $60 Bundles come with the Ultimate Descendant, a unique skin for said descendant, and a character slot, while the $100 bundles also come with an energy activator, two catalysts, and a unique backpiece and spawn animation. These bundles will be discounted by $39 by owning the respective ultimate descendants, so players only need $21 worth of Caliber if all they want is the unique character skin. Ironically enough, buying the ultimate descendants is self-defeating, as they are acquired from the bulk of the content of the game…and by buying them there is even less of a reason why you should log in, without a more concrete goal one can chase.

The Battle Pass is very low value compared with other games, as it costs $10, but only contains $6 worth of Caliber, two extra copies of the battle pass Unique Weapon, two days worth of boosters, and a few weapon cosmetics, emotes, and paints. The unique weapon can even be acquired without purchasing the battle pass, so people seeking all the weapons do not necessarily need the paid pass. Boosters are surprisingly not that potent, as $12 gives a months worth of a single booster type, but they only offer a +30% boost for weapon/descendant experience, gold, and kuiper, respectively, while the equivalent boosters in Warframe offer a 2x boost for a similar price point. And last but not least, there are inventory slots for about everything in the game. With few exceptions, they can either be purchased with Caliber or earned from leveling up your mastery rank. Leveling up a gun or descendant for the first time will award mastery EXP, and each rank will give slots for most things except two things.

The first thing players will not receive slots at all from mastery are descendant slots. Players start with 10 character slots and can only acquire more slots by paying real money, as trading does not exist in the game currently. Thankfully, if a player does not keep regular variants of characters, only $5 worth of slots is necessary, as by the July 31 update, there will only be 15 unique characters out of the total 21, as 6 are simply ultimate variants of existing characters. The other type of slot that is not raised from mastery are mod inventory slots. There is a limit of 1500 mod slots, and this limit cannot be increased whatsoever, whether paid or not. Because the game does not sell you transcendent mods or gives you any means of deleting mods outside of Albion, the game’s main hub, if a player does not keep track of whether their mods are full or not, a player can easily see a module drop but have no means of picking it up. This actually happened with me when farming for an Enzo mod, where I saw a red module drop but could not collect it, and I considered quitting there. Given Nexon's history of manipulating drop rates in Maplestory, I would be wary of drop rates Nexon posts that are not mandated by court.

Overall, do I recommend the First Descendant for its Endgame? Currently, not really. I think it is best if you check in within half a year at the earliest, since by then players should have a good grasp on the Mega Dungeon that should be released then. Until then, haphazard systems and lackluster content design means that players realistically have limited avenues of experimenting with builds currently. While slightly unrelated, I find it weird how many looter shooters nowadays are 3rd person, with new first person looter shooters largely being relegated within the procedural permadeath genre with titles like Gunfire Reborn and RoboQuest. Given the oversaturation of 3rd person looter shooters, I would think that if there was a new first person looter shooter, it would probably grab the attention of people more than another third person looter shooter. Sources:

Official Recommended Modules Webpage: https://tfd.nexon.com/en/recommend TFD API: https://openapi.nexon.com/game/tfd/?id=20 Official mistranslation correction: https://tfd.nexon.com/en/news/2606262 Nexon manipulating MS drop rates: https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=209008

[hoshidanmudkip]

HI HELLO UHH SHE'S SO SILLY. THE BABEY. I AM HYPERFIXATED HARD

Her ability is so interesting and while it'll probably only be used in situations such as when a kiter is running past and/or ended up looping the area that she was decoding in, it'll be so goddamn useful to be able to pick them up if they get downed nearby just from playing a silly rhythm game. Either hunters will have to just deal with the free pickup her ability gives or waste time letting their main target get away to hit her and make her stop giving them tokens.

On top of that, her ability ties in to Tarot a DISGUSTING amount. It'll be like Enchantress is right now, she'll be literally everywhere and she deserves it <3. Her ability revolves around sticking around the kiter and playing a short rhythm game that provides a token every time she hits the notes right. She seems to only be able to give 8 at a time, but BROO they basically get a knock-off flywheel. Imagine a team of someone who is great at kiting in Tarot (Like Toy Merchant on Sacred Heart Hospital), with an Enchantress and Cheerleader to boot. She's gonna kill everyone and I love her for it!!!!!! Stan Lily I also think that her speed boost, due to how it slows her down afterward, will be used like a sort of Flywheel Effect, and in general her ability spread makes her seem like she'll blend REALLY well with Flywheel. I've seen Flywheel being recommended for survivors that sometimes want to hang out around the kiter and support, so I anticipate that that's how she'll get used in higher tiers and tournaments.

I currently have a theory for her backstory that will either be Dead On Right^tm or not the case at all. She's a cheerleader, so she had to have had a team of other girls that she cheered with. We don't know if anything particularly sad happened in her past, but we might be able to assume some deaths? I'm not sure. But I wanna talk about how she's a ginger girl. Imagine the prejudice because of this. Perhaps she was trying to be a prominent cheerleader for her team or whatever and she just. Never got to. Because "THE RED HAIR AND FRECKLES ARE THE SIGNS THAT YOU ARE THE DEVIL!!!" or something. I need her story to drop n o w I feel like I'm grasping at straws and I need Lily juice rn

In general I think she's SUPER SILLY and I AM SO EXCITED FOR HER ARRIVAL AND I AM BEGGING FOR HER TO COME OUT ON THE TEST SERVER SO WE CAN GATHER MORE INFORMATION (unless she's already come out there and the people who make those testing videos are in the middle of filming/editing, idk)

This might not be seen but oh well.

What are your guys thoughts on the new idv character , cheerleader? I've been seeing a few people either like her or hate her.

[kairyu-dragonite]

Heya! We’ve got a hot new Osomatsu-san themed server on discord, and it’s all for Furrymatsu! If you just like Ososan and want to see more furry content, or you like both already, this is a great server to come to! It’s all-ages, and relatively calm. 

If you’re interested, click this link here! https://discord.gg/GGdM47c

[twistyprefect]

Hey hey!!! You do write a lot omg owO, is it ok for me to request too? The overblot gang (if it's too many, just Leona, Vil, & Jamil) saw a scar on their gn!s/o's body & that scar is because they attacked s/o when they overblot(ed). Please take a rest, you do work a lot!! Take your time too!! Thank you oWo

{always willing to take more requests unless otherwise stated 😎 i've only played through book 3 as that's what's available on the US/English servers BUT i managed to find more info on Jamil and Vil's overblots so i did my best with them!}

Spoilers for Books 1-3, minor spoilers for Books 4-5

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle doesn't like remembering his overblotting incident, especially since he knew it also upset his partner

he didn't really see their arms often since the uniform was long-sleeved

so when his S/O rolled up their sleeves for flying lessons, Riddle was surprised to see a long scar running from the inside of their wrist to their elbow

asks about it, expecting it to be from an accident when they were a kid or something similar

freezes when they explain that it's from when he was in his overblotted form, when he first lashed out at the group of freshmen

he pulls them aside before the lesson can start and profusely apologizes, barely holding back tears as he offers to try and find magic to help the scar disappear

Leona Kingscholar

Leona doesn't usually mind talking about of acknowledging his overblotting episode, especially since he recognizes that he isn't alone

still, he's uncomfortable when it comes to his S/O remembering it and talking about it

he notices the scar on their neck after a few weeks and asks about it

had an inkling that it was from his 'episode', but is still devastated when they explain it's from him

he apologizes over and over again and even offers to put his pride aside to try and remove the scar if that's what his S/O wants

he doesn't mind if they want to keep it since it's their body, but it'll serve as a constant reminder of his faults

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul hates acknowledging his overblotting episode, since it was a very obvious crack and reveal in his calm and cool façade

more importantly, he almost seriously hurt the only friends he has, as well as his partner

he didn't realize how bad it was until he saw the fresh scar on his S/O's leg from where he'd grabbed them

immediately puts down whatever he's doing to hug his S/O, apologizing over and over again and crying into their shoulder

offers to remove the scar if they want to, but doesn't ask them to for his own sake

reassures them that he'll be better, and more importantly that the scar isn't something for them to be ashamed of; it's something for him to be ashamed of, if anything

Jamil Viper

Jamil actively reminds himself of his overblotting incident to keep himself accountable and remember what happens when he doesn't allow himself to be vulnerable or say no

that being said, he hates that his partner had to see him like that since he wants them to be comfortable around him

he first notices the scar when they two of them are relaxing and hanging out, months after his episode

the burn-looking mark stretched from their hip to their ribs; he saw it when resting his hand on their waist, his fingers rubbing circles into their skin

he freezes before hiding his face in their neck, apologizing profusely and expressing how ashamed he was to have hurt them

doesn't offer to hide or erase the scar himself, but if his S/O seems like they want it gone he'll definitely find a way

Vil Schoenheit

Vil is constantly and profusely embarrassed by his 'little episode' of overblotting

he never really considered it more than just a bit of an 'oops', especially considering how many other students had overblotted before him

his perspective completely shifted when he finally saw his partner's new scar from his outburst

his partner had a relatively fresh scar on their neck and ear, running from their collarbone up to the shell of their left ear

he finally notices it when braiding their hair, moving it out of the way of the scar; since he pays attention to his partner's looks, he knows it's a new scar and knows exactly where it came from

he tries to avoid talking about it, but still offers to teach them how to cover it up with make up or something similar

[peakdeer]

To Fall in Love with your Fellow Henchman

Sausage likes Joey. Joey likes Xornoth. Sausage knows this. He just wishes the universe would stop shoving it in his face.

Or: The ah discord server needs to stop giving me ideas. I can't write them all

Sausage swung his axe to dispatch the zombie trying to punch Joey, watching it vaporize after only one hit.

“Thank you! My hero.” Joey chirped, causing Sausage paused in putting his axe away. He turned to beam at Joey and puffed his chest up proudly, warmth spreading to his cheeks.

“It’s a little dark and scary outside, lots of mobs everywhere! Oh be careful, I believe the demon is around here somewhere. He usually shows up during rain and thunderstorms.” Sausage spun around and squinted at the trees around him, trying to see if he could make out Xornoth’s shape before realizing he’d completely ignored Joey to do that. He spun back around to see Joey with a half-frightened, half-elated expression, making his heart sink. He knew it wasn’t for him.

“Oh, oh! How do I look? How do I look?” Joey turned quickly, modeling his wings and outfit. It was pretty much the same thing he wore every day, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t impressive. After all, he himself wore the same cape every day. It was the height of fashion! Well, actually, he didn’t know anything about fashion. Fwhip probably knew more about fashion than he did.

“You look very majestic, yep, very very majestic,” Sausage complimented Joey, smiling dreamily up at his friend.

It was true, Joey did look magnificent. The neck shawl or whatever it was that Joey was wearing didn’t hide Joey’s impressive muscles, and his tight shorts showed off even more of his impressive physique. His feathers were glorious, shining in every color of the rainbow, looking so soft and downy. He reached his hand out wistfully to run his fingers through the feathers, before pulling it back. That would be weird, if he did that. Joey would think he was weird. And that’s not what you want your crush-slash-best-friend-slash-fellow-cult-member to think about you. Especially when he’s dating the demon you serve.

“Oh, okay, good,” Joey look relieved, his feathers smoothing down and face relaxing. Sausage liked that face, almost as much as he liked Joey’s easy grin. It was hard not to when Joey was so cute.

“Yeah, gotta make sure you look your best when the demon comes, yeah?” He teased, smiling up at Joey.

Joey nodded affirmatively, though he wouldn’t quite look Sausage in the eyes. He was fiddling with his feathers, looking very nervous and very unlike the Joey he knew best. He was going to ask, but he shut his mouth when Joey began to speak. “So I’m looking to make a banner, and I need your help… I heard you were the banner king or something?”

That. Didn’t explain what he was wondering. But it would be rude to change the subject now, so he led Joey to his banner shop, despite many encounters with mobs along the way. “O-okay, I think it’s the blood sheep, hang out right here, please! Thank you, all right, come in, come in! It’s safer in here.” Sausage’s chuckles hadn’t quite died yet as he pulled Joey into the warm safety of his shop. Joey was laughing too, ruffling his feathers to clean them from unwanted moss and dirt.

“It’s not very well lit around here, is it, Sausage?” Joey quipped, smiling teasingly at him.

“I- well- it’s- I- your area’s not very well lit either, Joey, don’t judge me!” He squawked indignantly. “You have the same problem!”

Joey just laughed at that, slinging his arm over Sausage’s shoulders. “So where’s the banners?”

“Oh! They’re upstairs, come along this way,” he chattered, leading them to a relatively large shop. There were several labeled barrels, some with banners poking out from them. There was a tired-looking villager there, staring at the two rulers warily.

“This is the head banner maker! Good morning, or actually, is it night? Ohhhhh we interrupted your sleep. I’m sorry! I’m sorry, okay, I’ll raise your wages!” Sausage promised the poor villager. The poor guy had just wanted to sleep, not to deal with two rulers in his house at some odd hour in the morning.

The villager sighed, nodding to Sausage his king and offering Joey a half-bow before heading downstairs without a word. If Sausage had to guess, he’d say he was getting coffee. Joey offered the man a smile, watching after him curiously.

“So here are the dyes, here are the banners, and here are the banner patterns! I do have the globe banner pattern in here, let me get it for you.” It was rather unnecessary for Sausage to list where everything was, as it was all labeled, but it made him feel useful.

“Oh, okay, thank you,” Joey thanked him as Sausage handed him the pattern, looking around distractedly. “Do you mind if I use your workshop?”

“Oh yeah, yeah of course! My house is your house! Well, it’s not technically my house, but it’s part of my empire—you know what I mean.” Sausage stammered out.

The nervous look began to reappear on Joey’s face as he worked, and he wouldn’t look up at Sausage. Which was probably for the better, honestly, since he was working on a banner. “So, I… I have a bit of a confession to make. I have… a little bit of a love interest, and I’m—I’m making a banner in honor of him.”

Sausage forced a smile, staring decidedly at the gem on Joey’s neck instead of at his face. “Is it the someone I’m thinking of—?” The words were out before he could stop them, before he even realized what he’d said. A sloshing feeling began to form in his stomach, and he suddenly wished he was anywhere else. The only thing he could think was please don’t be Xornoth, please don’t be Xornoth, please don’t be Xornoth, please be him, be Sausage, please. He wasn’t sure who he was praying to—Aeor would never do anything for him, would never even listen to him, and Exor was probably thrilled with this development. Exor didn’t care about Sausage or Joey. The blood sheep didn’t get involved in the ‘affairs of mortal men’. No one would answer him.

“How about I make the banner and then you can guess who you think it is?” Joey suggested nervously, messing around with the dyes on the banner. There was a sincerity in his eyes, a genuine fear that silenced his complaints. He wasn’t going to upset Joey over his silly little crush on the Lost Emperor.

They were silent for a few minutes, Sausage pointedly avoiding looking at the banner. “Okay, I’m kind of nervous to share who my love interest is with you…” There was an odd lurch in his stomach as Sausage tried to think of a way to calm Joey and support him, though a part of him didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear Joey say it.

He forced his mouth open anyway, searching for the right words and the strength to say them. “Oh, um, you never know! I might be really good friends with them and I can put in a good word for you, if anything! I can be, like, your wingman!”

“Okay!” Joey stood up abruptly, thrusting out the banner towards Sausage’s face. “Okay, it’s been created!” He looked so proud of himself, and Sausage couldn’t help but wish that he could be that proud of Sausage one day.

“You got it?” Sausage offered a smile, even if it was a bit off-center and not as happy-looking as it should be. “Let me see it! Here, you can hang it on this wall!” Sausage gestured to the only blank wall in the entire banner shop, a spread of empty space likely used for the sole purpose of hanging up banners.

Joey hung the banner proudly on the wall, the black fabric swinging until it stopped, sitting flush with the wall. The banner was void-black, with two red spots that looked like eyes, the kind you could get lost in. Not in the romantic way, more like these eyes will swallow you up and trap you here, so that you can never escape. The face was familiar, sending both a bolt of fear and a zing of elation through his chest, before it faded into gray disappointment.

“Oh. Oh.” Sausage knew it wouldn’t be him. He knew. There was no way Joey would have liked him, and if he somehow did, this is not how he would tell Sausage. But this was maybe worse. He’d set himself up to be Joey’s wingman, with Joey and the demon he served. Who was a demon. Who he served. He could overlook the demon bit, but the other one might be an issue. He expected this the instant Joey had said he had a love interest, but he still couldn’t muster up an emotion other than shock.

“That’s my senpai.” Joey said it oddly calmly, considering how worried he had been to tell Sausage. His eyes were slightly glazed, and he stared at the banner with something that looked almost like devoted worship.

That was probably fine.

“That’s… that’s Xornoth.” Sausage paused for a moment, attempting to bite back the thoughts that he had about this new development. Not that there was much room for those, with the sudden vacancy the revelation had caused in his head. “That is so nice,” he forced out through gritted teeth. He would support Joey if he had to bite his tongue off, if he had to third-wheel while Joey and Xornoth flirted with each other. Even if it felt like he was dying.

“Do we look cute together?” As much as Sausage wanted to deny it, Joey’s colorful scheme and the demon’s black and red palette blended together quite nicely. It would fit better if Xornoth wasn’t all black, but beggars can’t be choosers. Well. That saying actually doesn’t work, because Joey could woo anyone he wanted, so… maybe ‘you don’t pick who you love’? He knew that one was accurate.

“You actually look fantastic together, you know what, are you going to the wedding tomorrow? Or is it later today, actually? I’m not sure, maybe—it doesn’t matter, that’s not the point.” Sausage had no idea where he was going with this, only that words were spilling out of his mouth too quickly to filter or change, with a reckless sort of abandon that was really going to hurt him one of these days.

“Ooh, Lizzie and Joel’s wedding? Yeah!” Joey answered, looking equally curious to see where Sausage was taking this as he himself was. Joey, however, look excited as well, and Sausage most definitely was not excited about what he might say next.

“Yeah, yeah, if anything you know what’ll be really really cool? If you proclaim you love to Xornoth right at the wedding.”  Sausage proposed the idea, sent reeling by his own words. That’s what he said? That’s what his mouth decided to say? This was not going to go well.

“Oh my god…” Joey’s eyes got a far-away look, as if he were planning it out in his mind, deciding whether it was a good idea or not.

“It’s very romantic!” Sausage prompted, waiting for a response. He wanted to make sure he hadn’t said the wrong thing, because he would rather like this to not end terribly, though he had a feeling it would end terribly either way.

“Like, after they get married, right?” Joey asked, calming Sausage’s nerves slightly. At least he hadn’t angered Joey.

“Yeah, after, don’t do it before, because then it’ll be a little weird, you know, it’ll look like you’re taking the spotlight away from them, but right after. When it’s done? I think you should.” Sausage bumped his head against Joey’s shoulder, looking up for some form of confirmation.

“Okay, I’ll be like, ‘I have an announcement to make.’ And then I’ll display the banner and say, ‘I’m in love!’ Okay. Love that!” Joey agreed, clapping his hands and doing a little spin. He looked about five seconds from sprinting through the door to prepare, and Sausage found himself blurting out anything he could say that would make Joey stay, just for a few minutes longer.

“Guess what? A lot of people are scared of Xornoth, a lot of people are scared of that demon. But if there’s one person who’s not, who’s actually pretty good friends with them, it’s me.” The words fell out of his mouth like rain from the sky, all jumbled up and spoken too fast with a desperate energy that Sausage hoped Joey wouldn’t pick up on.

“You’re friends with Xornoth?” Joey looked genuinely curious, surprised. It made Sausage wonder what Joey was thinking. Did he think that Sausage had extended his friendship to a demon because why not? Did he think he was only friends with Xornoth for power? None of those thoughts were entirely wrong. Or perhaps he was wondering if he had competition. The last thought almost made him laugh, but that would be rather inappropriate in this situation, so he bit his tongue to hold it back.

“Yeah! I could put in a good word for you with them!” Sausage really needed to stop talking. He was digging his grave to bedrock, and nothing he was saying was going to be easy to do, not when he felt this pain in his chest every time he so much as thought of Joey and Xornoth together.

“Okay yes, yeah, that would—that would, that would be so great! Thank you, Sausage!” Joey looked delighted, clapping his hands together excitedly. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, if he got Joey to smile at him like that. He couldn’t have Joey, but he could have this.

“You know what, you, you got this! This, this is gonna be great, okay? Xornoth is a little—okay, maybe a lot, or, really, Exor is—a little rough around the edges, but, uh, if there’s anybody out there for him, it’s you. You got this!” Sausage wasn’t sure how many of his words he actually believed, but at least it seemed to please Joey.

“Wow Sausage, thank you so much! I knew I could always count on you!” Joey had an easy grin on his face paired with that far-away look he had when he was imagining how something should go, or when he was planning vengeance against his enemies. Sausage just wanted to step forward and kiss that face, but, that. That’s not very proper behavior for Joey’s wingman.

“I told you! Everything’s going to be great,” Sausage couldn’t help a rush of pride at Joey’s words. That was him! Joey counted on him! Joey trusted him! Perhaps he should stop acting like a lost puppy, but he couldn’t help it. It just made him happy, to be appreciated and trusted and believed in, especially by Joey. He trusted Joey more than anything. That’s was why he’d betrayed Gem and Fwhip, wasn’t it? For Xornoth and power, of course, but also for Joey. Because Joey came with those two things. And if he’d sided with Gem and Fwhip… he wouldn’t have Joey. And was it worth it without him?

“I’ve made some, uh, deals—promises—whatever you want to call them!—with the demon. He promised me I’ll be a great warlock, I’ll have great magic, I’ll be even more powerful than Gem! But to, uh, do that we… have to kill the dragon. That’ll free him, restore him to his full powers, and then we can have everything we want! And you can have your boyfriend!”

“Yeah! Let’s kill that dragon!” Joey cheered excitedly. “Hold on, I gotta prepare my weapons, get some golden apples, ooh! We could use some totems of undying!” He ran off, presumably to begin to prepare for the dragon fight. Sausage watched him leave longingly, wishing he could follow Joey and talk to him more, to hang out with him and maybe get a few cuddles. Because cuddles aren’t just romantic! They can be platonic! And he. He would really like to cuddle with Joey. Really, he just wanted cuddles. He hadn’t gotten cuddles since he was, like, eight. He would like kisses, too, but Joey liked Xornoth, so he wasn’t going to get those, and who else would like him anyway?

Well. At the very least, he was in the friend-zone, by which he meant they were friends, not that—well, the other meaning works too, because Joey didn’t like him. He liked the demon.

He was maybe a little bit jealous about that.

Okay, so, maybe a lot jealous.

In his defense, Joey was very pretty! And funny and bubbly and always nice to him and also he was very, very hot. But that didn’t matter because he wasn’t telling Joey. Joey would be happier with Xornoth. Probably. Maybe. Xornoth was a demon, so he might hurt Joey, or manipulate him, or…

Sausage was going to stop thinking about that. Xornoth was nice to him! And he was pretty too, a darker aesthetic than he usually preferred, but he could see why Joey liked him. The demon was a catch.

It would be fine. Nothing would go wrong. Everything would be great.

They just had to kill the dragon first.

[cdroloisms]

uhhhh ,, , hi ??

i feel bad bc i havent been here in. LITERALLY forever lmao - hope you guys r all doing good!! ive been working on some stuff but it’s been pretty slow going, and school is also A Thing, so i definitely havent been writing as much as i’d like. 

as an apology, have this? really self-indulgent feel-good syndicate + c!dream centric oneshot bc i felt like writing this so u know. why not. 

tws: implied torture, abuse, self-harm, disordered eating, starvation mentions, prison arc themes - overall everything’s just blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mentions, not too much angst here for once! c!sam and c!quackity critical, sorry guys but we r still in the prison arc and they still r on their “fuck human rights” arcs. 

Dream leaves.

 It’s a surprise - or maybe it isn’t one, Niki isn’t quite sure. She’d never grown to quite trust the man, she knows, and she can’t really tell if the bitter twist of emotion that swells up her chest when Phil comes to her city with the news is betrayal or resignation - what can she say. She’s gotten more than her fair share of broken promises. They don’t exactly faze her anymore. 

 None of them seem all that surprised, save Techno, who entirely fails to hide the worry that flickers over his face when he calls the Syndicate meeting to officially inform them of what’s going on. She shares quick, careful glances with the other members when his back is turned - despite how many times he’s been burned, Techno still seems so adamant at holding onto every thread, trusting all too easily those who would use and leave him behind without a second glance. He can handle himself, she knows. Still, that’s not going to stop her from slapping Dream upside the head for being yet another worthless person to betray her friend’s forgiving nature. 

 Nothing much changes in the next few weeks. Niki has to admit, it’s strange without Dream around - he’d not been an ally, much less a friend before dipping completely, but he had been some sort of constant - and Niki is self aware enough to know that she misses him, a little, the same sort of way you might miss an old routine once it’s gone, if only for the familiarity. She still visits Techno and Phil with various baked goods, knowing that Phil would have his hands full just keeping Techno from running himself ragged - makes sure to check on Ranboo, whose nerves have inevitably returned with Dream’s disappearance. To be honest, she doesn’t worry as much as he does - ally or not, she’s spent enough time with the Dream that had left prison to expect that he won’t exactly be able to get himself very far should he come for the four of them, and doesn’t particularly care about he might pull with the rest of the server - if things get bad, she’s sure Phil and Techno will have it handled. She asks Phil, once, what happened, and he shrugs. 

 “I don’t know, mate,” he heaves a chest to the side, pulling out a stack of stone blocks that Niki gladly holds for him. “One day we woke up and he was just- gone. Everything. Was like he wasn’t ever there at all.” 

 Niki hums. “Why’d you think he’d do something like that?” 

 “If I could understand half of why Dream does what he does, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?” He smiles at her from behind a crate. “Shall we bring these things upstairs and start on dinner?” 

 Niki laughs, knowing that the conversation about Dream is over. “Of course, Phil.” 

Dinner is a welcome distraction; all of them have gotten better at cooking in recent months, between her baking and the veritable library of recipes Phil knows that she’s never even heard of, but Phil is still the only one she really trusts to hold his own behind the stove - Ranboo is still a little too nervous around water, and fire, and much of everything, and though Techno can be a perfectly capable cook, he’s been distracted as of late. She has a strong feeling that left to his own devices, he’d just grab a stack of steak and disappear for another few weeks, searching the server for information. 

 Honestly, she’s a little thrown off by his behavior - he’d not done anything like this with Tommy, if she remembers right, and had hardly seemed affected by Wilbur’s betrayal on the Sixteenth at all (then again, she was a little too lost in her own head to notice if he was.) She tosses her head over to ask Phil, who’s leaning over a few carrots he’s slicing to throw into the stew he’s making, and the man pauses, frowns. 

 “From what I know,” he starts, words slow, careful, “they’d spent three months in there together, and the conditions weren’t exactly- stellar. According to what Techno said, I’d assumed they had come to some sort of understanding.” He goes back to the carrots, expression dipping into shadow and out of sight. “Guess I was wrong.” 

 Niki hums. She can see it, sort of - spending months together with someone, no matter how insufferable, probably would end with some degree of attachment - she thinks back to plotting through sleepless nights with Jack, anger and grief leaving them simmering, crabs in the same pot of boiling water, remembers looking into his dead-eyed gaze and seeing her own stare back - and feels a brief pang of guilt. Besides, Techno is Techno. She’d never met someone so willing to forgive, understand, reach out despite everything that’s happened - for Dream to take advantage of that feels almost too obvious. Of course he would - what were they all thinking?

 “He’s Dream,” she says as if that explains everything, flipping open the oven door and feeling a wave of heat blast her face. Phil hums lowly, understanding. “I hope Techno will be alright.” 

 “He’s tough,” Phil cracks a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “And he has us on his side. He’ll get through.” 

 Niki opens her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the front door slamming open. Outside their quaint little cottage, the wind howls - it sounds like the beginning of a blizzard out there, flurries painting the world in a thick blanket of white. In the door, Techno strides into the entrance with loud, decisive movements, shutting the door loud enough to make the walls shake. Inadvertently, Niki finds her eyes drawn to the small pile of snow that he’s tracked into the house - Techno’s usually so careful to kick it all off on the porch, never liked it much when there was a pile of melting ice and snow dampening the floorboards and soaking into his shoes. He huffs harshly, stripping off a snow-dusted scarf from his face - a long, multicolored abomination that had been the product of her attempting to teach Ranboo how to knit. Phil has reached his side, hands splayed over his upper arms, eyes soft in the corners from concern. 

 “Techno, mate-” his tone is chiding but his movements gentle as he brushes snow off of Techno’s signature cloak, “you’ve gotten snow everywhere. What were you doing, dueling a blizzard?” 

 Techno shakes his head, not meeting Phil’s banter as usual, fur sticking up from the snow melted into it. His voice is gruff and holds little humor - unconsciously, Niki feels her shoulders tense. 

 “Phil, call a Syndicate meeting.”

 ---

 Phil, per usual, is unrelenting, so it’s not until a quick dinner and some hurried messages to their final member later that the Syndicate is gathered in their meeting room, Techno pacing the length of the room as they wait in their respective seats. He looks less frazzled than he did when he first entered the house, in part due to Phil’s sitting him down to eat and picking through his fur to smooth it out of its windblown spikes and tangles - Techno had grumbled at him to stop preening him, but looked a lot more relaxed by the time they were all finished with their food. Still, his ear flicks periodically, twitching toward ssome sound that Niki can’t hear, movements tighter and jerkier than she is used to. He’d always been a little flightier after the prison, but not quite like this - everything here feels like that but dialed up to eleven. Inexplicably, it reminds her of Dream. 

 “Techno?” Phil gestures towards his seat, prompting, and he settles into it with an obliging huff. 

 “Y’know, Phil, the code names are kinda pointless if we never use ‘em,” he says, words carrying no real heat - he looks back at the rest of them, lips thinning into a line. “Anyway. I called this meeting because I found a couple leads on Dream.” 

 “O-oh,” Ranboo stutters, tail lashing behind him. 

 “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, mate,” Phil reminds him gently, a sentiment that Niki affirms with a determined nod. 

 “There’ve been some reports- rumors, really,” Techno says, calling their attention again, and they all turn towards him, “of increased activity around the prison again. The Warden spending more time on its grounds, movement seen around the walls and around the portal- so I decided to go check it out for myself.” 

 Niki frowns, and watches as Phil does the same beside her - Techno had seemed to avoid the prison if he could help it, save for when he went on the initial mission to break Dream out. It was no secret to them that he didn’t exactly like the place. 

 “We could’ve helped if you asked,” Phil reminds him, and Techno shakes his head. 

 “I know, Phil. It’s just- that place is bad news. I’d rather keep you guys away from there if I can-” his hand goes to his head with a poorly hidden wince. “Sorry, Chat’s a little- worked up, at the minute.” 

 “Sorry, we’ll stop interrupting you,” Niki says, cutting off Phil before he says anything else. “So you went to the prison?” 

 Techno takes a second to gather his thoughts, mumbling quietly in the way that usually means he’s telling off Chat. “Right- I decided to stake out the portal. The rumors were right- Sam has been hanging around there, entered and left the prison four times yesterday. And today-” he hesitates, expression visibly darkening. “This morning, about an hour after the Warden arrived, Quackity came to the prison and went through the portal. He left the grounds about six hours later.” 

 “Quackity?” Niki frowns, eyes flicking over to how Phil has stilled in his seat. “What is Quackity doing at the prison?” 

 Phil ignores her question, reaching towards Techno, something indiscernible in his gaze. “Mate…”

 “He smelled of blood when he left,” Techno says, words sharp, and Niki feels her heart skip a beat. “Warden left about half an hour after, and I came back here.” 

 Ranboo clears his throat, sounding tentative. “Okay,” he drums his hand on the table when they turn towards him, eyebrows drawn, “but what, exactly, does this have to do with, uh, Dream?” 

 Techno and Phil trade glances, one of their bouts of unspoken conversation that Niki’s grown extremely used to. They seem strangely hesitant, she notes internally, Phil looking towards Techno with a question written clearly in the planes of his face. Techno sighs, a long puff of air through his lips as he closes his eyes and turns his face towards the table. 

 “You know how Dream was- injured,” he starts slowly, looking back up at them. Niki shifts uncomfortably - of course she noticed, it was impossible not to - if not the bandages that peeked under his sleeves and the cuffs of his pants, then how skinny he’d been, all skin and bones curled up uncomfortably in a pile at the corner of Techno’s couch. She’d not know the extent, by any means, and had always assumed that they’d been self-inflicted - she’d been in a bad enough place on her own before to know how your head can make you want to hurt, sometimes, how eating food can feel like choking on sawdust and the world could feel so much smaller when focused into delicate pricks of pain. Phil’s eyes are trained on Techno - on his face, then on the pinkish raised skin of a still-healing scar along his forearm, and she feels understanding settle like a rock in her gut. 

 “The Warden had apparently been lettin’ Quackity into the cell to torture Dream for the revive book,” Techno trails off, eyes narrowed and seemingly fixed on a random point of the opposite wall. “By the time I go there, it’d been goin’ on for months.”

 “But wait,” Ranboo’s tail moves even more erratically behind him, “You mean you think he’s back- there? How?” 

 “He has to be back in the prison,” Techno points out. “I can’t imagine anyone besides him that the two of them are goin’ to just start torturin’- Sam had been iffy about the whole thing when Quackity started in on me. It has to be Dream in there again.” 

 “But how did he get in there, then?” Ranboo asks, visibly confused. “Last time it took the entire server to lock him up!”

 “There were no signs of a struggle,” Niki points out, matter of fact. “I believe you, Techno, but I don’t really know how they managed to drag him back so easily. I can’t imagine he was jumping at the chance to go back in there.” 

 Techno shakes his head with an uneasy sigh. 

 “I have a feelin’ of what might’ve happened,” he says quietly. “And I really hope that I’m wrong and he’s less of an idiot than I think he is.” 

 ---

 They set out to investigate - and maybe attack - the next day, Techno and Phil taking on the bulk of preparations as Ranboo stays behind. He’d been understandably uneasy about the whole mission, so they’d left him back by the Syndicate room to set off their pearls in case anything went wrong. (“By the end of the day,” Techno had said, giving Phil a look with the corner of his lip quirked upwards, “don’t be like Phil here and think I meant the end of the month, alright?”) They’d all be supplied with armor and weapons, thanks to Phil, but she’d been handed the bulk of their potions, arranged neatly in her inventory by type in case they’d be needed. She lingers in the back of the room as Phil and Techno chat amiably over the sound of making last minute repairs on their armor, listens to Techno’s ceaseless reminders for Phil to be careful, watches as they make sure that their stasis chambers are properly prepared should they need them.

 (She watches as Phil nudges Techno’s shoulder when he lingers behind a certain chair, empty as long as she’s been part of the Syndicate, the fountain behind it bubbling quietly without a pearl inside. Techno sighs, expression strange. 

 “Should’ve set him up with one,” he says, quiet, and Phil pats him on the back. 

 “You couldn’t have known, mate. We wanted to wait a little before telling him about the Syndicate, remember?” 

 Techno hums, noncommittal. “Still.”)

 They Nether travel to the site of Techno’s lookout, which ends up being a little shambling thing with dirt walls dug into a small hill looking towards the prison portal, having hardly enough space to fit the three of them. Phil looks at it with no small amount of apprehension, and Techno shrugs lightly, wearing an expression that makes Phil turn to him with a look that makes Niki break into giggles. Techno crosses his arms- “in my defense-” and Phil looks up at the dirt ceiling with a long-suffering sigh. 

 “You couldn’t have made this a little roomier, mate?” Phil asks, voice dry as kindling, and Techno raises his hands by his head. 

 “Hey hey, it’s discreet, it gets the job done, it’s perfectly structurally sound-” the sound of the leftmost wall crumbling, along with the cloud of dust that puffs from it and fills their tiny space, undermines the tail end of his statement and leaves him sputtering, Niki falling into another fit of quiet giggles. Underneath it all, Phil sighs again, raising his wings behind him. 

 “...these are going to take so long to clean out.” 

 To his credit, Techno looks sheepish. “Sorry, Phil.”

 They sober up quickly; Techno turns around to the opposite side of the hill, where he’s hidden some peepholes inside the dirt - Niki settles herself by one, leaning forwards to put her eye to it and catch a glimpse of the prison looming over the water. It’s been repaired since the breakout, she notes, the gaping hole in the roof completely gone and replaced with obsidian, as intimidating and undamaged as it had been before, if not more so. Phil makes a considering sound from behind her.

 “Same plan as last time?” He asks, and Techno shakes his head. 

 “They’ve probably reinforced it, and Dream’s blueprints won’t include anything new the Warden’s added. I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved Dream to a different location completely. We don’t want to draw too much attention, either, we were cutting it pretty close during the breakout.” He narrows his eyes. “I was thinking we’d try something a little stealthier, this time. “ 

 He gestures at Niki, who blinks back at him with wide eyes. 

 “You got a couple of invis potions for us?”

 She distributes the potions among them all, one regular and two splash potions of invisibility each, and Techno points towards the prison once she’s done. 

 “The most important thing is to get through the portal,” he says with a grim expression. “Worst comes to worst, once we’re inside we can always blast our way through - but gettin’ through that portal is our first priority.” 

 Phil narrows his eyes at him. “The portal is locked, though. We’ll need to follow someone else inside- and I’m pretty sure Sam uses pearls, so he’s out.” 

 Techno nods. “Which is why I’m bankin’ on the prison gettin’ another visitor today. We’ll just have to wait.” 

 Niki swallows. “Do you mean-”

 “Quackity?” Techno turns away, not quite meeting her eyes. “I’m not totally sure, but he’s not exactly the type to just give up on his goals. He’s pretty predictable- an empire needs an emperor, always needs something new to rule- you know the type,” he says, tipping his head towards Phil. “He’ll be mad at Dream for disappearin’ on him and won’t miss the opportunity to prove he has the upper hand again. I’m not sure that he’s going to come today-”

 “-but you wouldn’t really be surprised, either,” Phil finishes for him, eyes steely with cold determination. “I trust your judgement, mate. Just stay safe- from what I’ve heard, Quackity has been...erratic.” 

 “When is he not,” Techno huffs a short laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll be fine, Phil. Just be careful, both of you. Don’t get too close. And if things get messy- which is what we’re tryin’ to avoid, by the way- then don’t do anything too risky. Our priority is gettin’ in and out alive.” 

 “We can handle ourselves, Techno,” Niki reminds him with a small smile. “And Ranboo is there in case anything goes wrong.” 

 “Alright, then. Here’s the plan.” 

 ---

 It takes quite a long time for Quackity to arrive, long minutes that Niki spends fidgeting in the corner of the room, brushing her hands over seams of the netherite plates that Phil had shoved into her hands, back at the Syndicate room. The set is inexplicably light - not weightless, by any means, as it is still netherite, but not nearly as bulky as any set of netherite armor she’s owned or seen in the past. The runes are precise, lines thin and exact, written with graceful strokes of lapis. 

 “Phil’s the best metalworker I’ve ever met,” Techno tells her with a small grin, catching her in the middle of tracing what she can make out as an Unbreaking rune along the metal strapped to her forearm. “But then again, he’s had the time to practice.” 

 “Are you calling me old again?” Phil huffs, and Techno flashes a smile her direction before looking at Phil with a slight grin. 

 “Well, Chat is,” he says, lips twitching when Phil glares back. 

 “You can’t just blame Chat every time you insult me, you little shit,” Phil groans, and Techno only grins wider. 

 “Phil, my ad revenue,” he complains, a dramatic lilt to his voice that has Niki stifling a snort, and Phil’s glare only grows deadlier. 

 “You’ll have more than your ad revenue to worry about if you keep this up,” he mumbles, going back to keep watch at one of the peepholes and stilling as he does. “Shit- Techno, Quackity’s here.” 

 Techno straightens up, hindered slightly by the low ceiling of their room. “Alright- we all know the plan, right?” 

 Niki nods in the affirmative, pulling out a splash invis and letting it settle in her hand, the glass cool beneath her fingertips. She reaches into her inventory and lets her armor fade into it, takes a deep breath and watches as the two across from her do the same. She doesn’t wear armor often, but so close to the prison, feeling mining fatigue settling deep into her bones - she’s never missed the security it offers more. Techno keeps watch, waiting- drops his arm in a signal. Now. 

 Niki throws the potion at their feet, flinching back at the sound of shattering glass and feeling its effects seep into her skin. When she opens her eyes, she can’t see anything but the inside of the room that they’d holed themselves in and the faintest of wisps rising from where their feet must be, curling around the grass. 

 (Please let this work, she begs to no one in particular as they walk towards the prison. And if you can hear me- please keep us all safe.)

 She hardly breathes as they follow Quackity across the path, holding someone’s hand in her own - Phil’s, by the feel of it - careful to muffle her footsteps in the grass and stand still whenever Quackity’s eyes come a little too close. Thankfully for them, he seems focused, hardly stopping or looking around at all as he walks towards the prison’s portal, movements stiff as he walks forward. He punches the button on the wall particularly harshly, and Sam’s voice comes crackling through a speaker a second later. 

 “I’m here for my visit,” Quackity says, punctuating the sentence with a snort of laughter that doesn’t sound particularly sincere. Niki hasn’t seen him in a long while, not after everything that happened in Pogtopia, and she feels a chill worm down her spine - this man looks nothing like the one that had laughed and danced and sung at her birthday party what feels like an eternity ago. What happened? 

 Sam sighs, the sound turning into a sharp burst of static through the speakers. “Hello Quackity,” he says, voice deep and tired. “Please step into the portal after I tell you to and then wait on the other side.” 

 “I know the drill, Sam,” Quackity rolls his eyes. “Just because the bastard was gone for a few weeks doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how this damn place works.” 

 “Just going through protocol, Quackity,” Sam replies, and something about this response has Quackity exploding into a brief fit of laughter, the sound grating against Niki’s ears. She feels her grip tighten on Phil’s hand, air caught in her throat. 

 “Protocol- ha. Whatever you wanna tell yourself, pal.” Quackity smiles, cold and cruel, and Niki tries not to think about how she’d seen that same grin on Wilbur, eyes sparkling from the light of the lanterns hung from the bridges and walls of their ravine, remember how she’d looked into them and realized her old friend wasn’t there, anymore. Quackity disappears into the portal, and after a second, the hand around her own pulls her inside of it too.

 On the other side, Quackity taps his foot impatiently, crossing his arms and waiting- Sam’s voice comes through the speakers again, words clipped. 

 “Go through the portal,” he says, and Quackity does- once again, they wait for a second for his body to disappear, then go within it themselves, pressed close enough together within its frame for Niki to feel the warmth of a wing wrap around her shoulders for a quick second before they’re out of the hot, stifling air of the Nether and into a large, neatly made lobby of blackstone and quartz. They duck into a corner, watching as Quackity moves towards the front counter, the Warden waiting there with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks- tired. His movements are slow, footsteps loud against the floor, shoulders tense and back hunched. He walks around the counter, sword strapped to his belt, and Niki feels her breath hitch at the sight of dried blood still stuck to the blade in patches and splatters.

 “He ready?” Quackity asks, holding his hands out - Niki catches a flash of metal as Sam drops something into them, watches as Quackity raises what ends up being a pair of shears, dangerous-looking and gleaming with enchants, to the light. 

 “Yes,” Sam says, side-eyeing Quackity with a small glare. “You know, it’s supposed to be your job to clean those things off when you’re done with them.”

 “I told you, busy day back in Las Nevadas yesterday,” Quackity waves a hand- “I’ll do it, alright? Don’t get all pissy now. What happened to being partners?” 

 “You said we’d be done with this months ago, Quackity,” Sam sighs, and Niki feels a light tug on her arm as Quackity and Sam begin to walk towards the wall to the right of them, breathes in slow and deep as she follows Techno and Phil towards the others. The wall yawns open with the hiss of redstone firing and pistons pulling blocks upwards, opening into a dark hallway that feels like entering the maw of some sort of giant, insatiable beast. They step inside as one, and the door shuts behind them. 

 “We’ll be done soon enough,” Quackity says, and Niki feels hairs rising on the back of her neck. “Trust me.” 

 They stalk forwards through a labyrinth of blackstone, Niki brushing the palms of her hand against her clothes when it goes clammy from adrenaline. Halfway through, she pauses to tip back a second potion of invisibility, careful to keep her movements slow and steady as not to make a sound - the liquid is silvery, cool and light on her tongue, and she lets the effects wash over her with her breath caught in her lungs before moving forward. The tunnels are simpler than she’d expected, bearing little obstacles or checkpoints - Quackity makes a wry comment a second after (“Guard tunnels today, huh? Appreciate the hustle, pal-”) that confirms her suspicions. Despite the potion particles still whirling around their bodies and the sounds of their footsteps, too loud in her own ears, they manage to make it forwards without much trouble, entering a large room with a doorway filled completely with a curtain of lava. 

 “Set your spawn,” Sam says, still stoic, and Quackity rolls his eyes again before doing as told. Niki keeps looking back at the lava flowing past the wall, its heat filling the room and making her already slick palms even worse, and Sam moves to the side to flick a lever, eyes trained on the lava slowly bubbling in front of him. 

 “Give me your tools?” Quackity asks, and Sam sighs before doing so - Niki watches as he hands over a netherite axe, then potions, then a few raw potatoes that Quackity accepts and puts into his inventory. Sam raises an eyebrow once he’s done, hand tight around the handle of his trident. 

 “You bring your own sword, today?” He asks, seeming irritated, and Quackity shrugs. 

 “Sorry pal, I need to make a new one. Guess I’m borrowing yours again.” 

 Sam sighs again, louder, and hands over his sword as well, watching as Quackity swings it a few times experimentally. The blade skims a little too close to her on one swing and she can’t quite help the squeak that escapes her lips as she throws herself out of the way, feels her heart hammer in her ears as she backs up against the wall. Please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that-

 “Quackity, wait.” Sam raises a hand, ear twitching as he looks over in her direction with narrowed eyes. “I think I heard something.”

 Oh fuck.

 “Well, guess show’s up then,” Techno drawls, and both of them whirl towards his voice, giving Niki enough time to pull her armor back on, scrambling to get her sword and shield in her hands as Phil does the same besides her. Pieces of armor appear where Techno is standing, then a bucket of milk- oh, why must her friends be so dramatic- and Techno’s standing there, smiling sharply, with Orphan Obliterator held loosely at his side. “Let’s get this done, then.” 

 As one, Techno and Phil blur into action - Techno moves forward to catch the prongs of Sam’s trident on his blade as Phil parries Quackity’s blows with his own sword- they move fluidly, easily covering each other’s backs as the room devolves into chaos. Niki remembers their guidance as she flits in and out of the fight, scoring quick hits to keep the Warden and Quackity off balance while remaining out of range from their weapons, and it’s not long before both of them have fallen with a spray of items and experience orbs scattered all over the floor. 

 Techno moves over to block off the exposed face of the bed with a block, looking over at the two of them with an uncharacteristically severe expression. “They’ll be back soon- we have to move fast. Niki, you have those fire res, right?” 

 She nods as she reaches into her inventory, finding the potion’s orange-pink glow and smashing it at their feet. They dive into the lava together, Niki scrambling to keep up, her arms struggling to move through the thick lava, loses sight of both until she flails into something directly in front of her and hands are pulling her up out of the lava. 

 “There you go, mate,” Phil smiles down at her as hauls herself to her feet, making a face at the feeling of the lava clinging to her clothes. “Yeah, swimming through lava isn’t exactly fun. You good?” She flashes him a thumbs up, and he laughs- “Niki, you’re still invisible.” She flushes pink- right.

 A few sips of milk later, she gives him a proper thumbs up, and he laughs, loud and bright. She looks past him to where Techno’s crouched over something- someone, she realizes with a start, in the corner. Dream’s back in prison clothes, ragged and ill-fitting, and he’s curled up with his back towards the front of the cell, shaking enough to be obvious even from where she’s standing. Techno speaks lowly, voice barely more than a deep rumble in the air, almost inaudible.

 “You there, Dream?” 

 She watches as Dream turns his head, looking up with wide, bleary eyes. His hair flops in front of his face, and something within her itches to brush it out of the way. “T-Techno?”

 “Yeah nerd, who else?” Techno smiles, and Dream seems to blink awake, drawing himself up with a shuddery breath. 

 “Techno- it’s a trap- what are you doing here?” he hisses, and Techno gives him a look, deadpan.

 “Yeah, yeah, it’s a trap- come on, Dream, we’ve been over this by now, bro. You have to know that their traps aren’t goin’ to do anything to me by now,” Techno rolls his eyes, reaching forward to steady his hands on Dream’s shoulders when the other man sputters and struggles to breathe. “Easy, now. Geez, you wanted to prove me wrong about being homeless bad enough that you came back here? We could’ve just made you a house, you know. You didn’t have to go this far.” 

 “I- they were gonna kill you,” Dream breathes, face twisted up uncomfortably, and his eyes flick past Techno’s face to where Phil and Niki are standing at the opposite wall of the cell. “All of you- they said-”

 “And that’s what I thought you’d say,” Techno groans. “Come on, you idiot, I thought you were smarter than this-” 

 “They were right there, Techno!” Dream fires back, eyes alight. “You- they were right there, what were you thinking, they could’ve-!”

 “And my best friend is a necromancer, remember?” Techno shakes his head. “Come on, Dream- Sam and Quackity? You know we can handle them in a fight, especially when you can just revive us if anything goes wrong. You don’t have to do this whole self-sacrifice thing, bro- there’s only so many times I can break into the same prison, y’know.” 

 “You’re so stupid,” Dream huffs, but he leans in anyway, head just barely settling against Techno’s shoulder. “I- I can’t believe. You’re so dumb.” 

 “Hey, don’t be sayin’ that to the guy that’s breakin’ you out of prison,” Techno laughs, slinging Dream over his shoulder with an easy motion and laughing harder when it makes him yelp. “That’s just bein’ ungrateful. You’re making Chat sad, man, and when they’re sad they don’t subscribe-” 

 “I regret this entirely,” Dream says, voice muffled against Techno’s shirt, tone completely flat. “Put me down- you idiot- I’m staying here. You’re worse than Quackity.” 

 “Rude. Now you’ve really made Chat mad. I demand an apology-” 

 “Boys, boys.” Niki can’t help giggling, watching the way their gazes snap towards her, rolling her eyes as she moves forward with a few potions held loosely in her hand. “Dream, do you want a health pot?” 

 Dream seems to deliberate for a second, before nodding at her, expression slightly strained. “...sure.” 

 “You two can finish your argument after we’ve broken out of the biggest maximum security prison on the server,” Phil drawls from behind her, arms crossed at his chest. “Come on, now, before Sam gets back.” 

 “Isn’t this the only maximum security prison on the server?” Techno asks aloud, an amused expression on his face - one that only gets worse when Phil glares at him with one ice-blue eye. 

 “Shut-” he sighs, shaking his head. “You two are chaotic little shits, you know that?”

 “Don’t compare me to him, Phil,” Techno complains, Dream mirroring his words with muffled protests of his own, and Phil breathes another drawn-out, long-suffering sigh as he rubs at the bridge of his nose. 

 “Niki, give us some fire res please?” 

 She finds the potion bottle between giggles, throwing it to the ground as she tries to choke down the laughter rapidly bubbling up her throat. “Of course, Phil.” 

 She looks back at Techno and Dream before jumping into the lava, the two of them once again lost in some sort of argument, Dream draped over Techno’s shoulder. He’s breathing easier now, she notes, and Techno looks looser too - a little less tense, leaning back with a perpetual quirk to the corner of his lip as they fire insults back and forth. This is familiar, she recognizes with a soft twist in her chest, the same way that Phil and Techno can finish each other’s sentences and look at each other with laughing eyes sharing the same memories of the past, the same way Ranboo watches Techno’s every step as he adjusts his stance and lifts his sword and Techno laughs and calls him a main character in turn, the same way she and Phil will settle together on the porch over cups of tea and sit at each other’s sides for hours. The rhythm between them is one well-established, the road well-worn - she imagines them, huddled in this dingy cell for months together, and breathes in slow and deep. 

 “Come on,” she smiles, making sure to keep it on her face when Dream meets her eyes with wide, startled ones of his own. Dream still isn’t an ally, and isn’t a friend. 

 But - she watches as he smiles back, something inexplicably warm in her chest - maybe, one day, he could be.

[pinkoushi]

all dressed up

MINORS DNI

summary: due to a promise, your boyfriend Atsumu had agreed to get styled by you. turns out that he looks delicious in more feminine clothes

characters: atsumu x female!reader

warnings/contains: atsumu in more feminine clothes (skirt, crop top, fishnet stockings, a little makeup), dom!female reader, atsumu gets loud and whiney

word count: 1.1k

A/N: shout out to the love club server for helping me decide on the theme for this one <3 also! i call this more feminine clothing, but clothes have no gender!!

sub!haikyuu boys masterlist

“I’m not coming out.” Atsumu’s voice rang from the bathroom, muffled by the door. You could hear his awkward shuffling in there, the occasional grunt and curse escaping through the door.

“come on, you promised!” you were practically vibrating on the bed, excitedly playing with your fingers and bouncing your legs. “you can take it off right away if you want to, but you promised to let me dress you!”

You could hear him sigh behind the door, a mutter of him saying fine, and then the door opened. You nearly passed out. The black skirt was short, flowy material hanging deliciously over his muscular thighs clad in fishnet stockings. The deep purple crop top complimented his skin, laying tightly against his pecs and cutting off to show off the sliver of abs between the top and skirt. Making him sit down and put eyeliner on him was a good choice, the glittery eyeshadow as well, bringing attention to his beautiful eyes. Matte black nail polish already covering his nails. You shifted on the bed, arousal already pooling in your underwear.

“you wanna tell me why there’s no crotch on these?” he asked, picking at the stockings and glaring at you.

“mmh no reason~” you smirked, “give me a twirl, yeah?”

Atsumu sighed, cursing at himself for making this promise. But he twirled around, the skirt flying up a little, his soft cock peeking out. You hummed, standing up and walking over to him, placing your hands on his chest.

“so pretty” you whispered, hands moving down to his bare waist. For a second, you thought you saw your boyfriend blushing before he turned around, moving back to the bathroom. “wait! Hold on, come here…” you grabbed his wrist and turned him around, gasping when you saw his burning red face.

“stoooop” he whined, trying to move away from your hands now cupping his cheeks. Your nearly 6’2, professional volleyball player boyfriend was blushing. He wiggled, pouting and avoiding your eyes, huffing in frustration and blushing harder at how intensely you were looking at him. “’s embarrassing”

“but you look so cute, I don’t think I’ve seen you blush before!” you giggled, cooing softly when he once again tried to break free from your hands. “you’re so handsome baby, so pretty all dressed up for me” the deep blush on his face only grew darker, something poking your lower stomach. You look down, smirking when you notice the front of the skirt being lifted. Looking up again, you raise one of your eyebrows, the smirk plastered on your face.

“shut up” his voice was small, whimpering and shying away, hunching his shoulders to make himself smaller. Your prying hands moved down, wrapping your fingers around his thick cock and stroking him over the fabric of the skirt. Mewls and moans passed from his slightly parted lips, his shoulders shaking. You moved your hand off him, grabbing his wrist and bringing him to the bed, sitting him down. The skirt just barely covered his cock, a slight wet spot forming on the fabric from his pre-cum.

Straddling his lap, you stroked him some more over the skirt, staring down at the way it moved. His cock twitched under your touch, gasps and pleads spilling out of him, his hands holding your waist tightly. Atsumu still had his eyes closed, head slightly thrown back and his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. The blush was growing, slowly moving down his neck towards his chest. Your lips met the burning skin, sucking hard marks on his neck.

-

“o-oh! Ah- please!” you never realized just how vocal your boyfriend could be in bed, but riding him like this, with him wearing such pretty clothes, you’re taking notice. He’s barely keeping it together, it felt so filthy. The skirt was barely flipped up, exposing his hard and leaking cock. Hickeys littered his neck, sweat dripping from his body and the pressure from your hands on his chest was nearly enough for him to pass out. It was dizzying, your slick walls enveloping his cock in warmth and friction, he was a mess. Babbling noises of appreciation and pleasure poured from his mouth, squealing when you clenched around him. “fuck, I- please!”

“please what?” you grinned, sweat running down your face from the strain of bouncing on him. You could see the way his eyes had glossed over, rolling back in his head as another loud groan left him. It was addicting, the eyeliner smudged from his tears and the way he kept bringing his hands and arms over his face. You always pulled them off, demanding to see his face when he falls apart under you. Asking him a question in this state was probably cruel, knowing from experience how hard it can be to find the words when your brain is turned into mush from the pleasure. However, it was something he always did to you, so it was time for payback.

“I-! shit, fuck! Cum! Gotta- please!” he babbled out, a string of loose words being thrown out, some distant part in his brain hoping that you understand what he was trying to say.

“hm? Pretty boy wanna cum? Beg some more, then you can cum.” He nearly screamed at your words, stumbling over his own trying to get out as much begging as possible.

“please! Pleasepleaseplease fuck, I- fuck, please! Please, please let me cum, please let me fill- fill your pussy with, fuck, with my cum! Pleaseee!” his body was shaking, stomach tensing desperately and his cock twitching deep inside you. You only hummed out in approval, and he lost it. His hands flew up to his hair, tugging on it and moaning loudly. His body curled up, nearly knocking you off his cock with the force of his knees hitting your back. You could feel him spilling inside, stomach filling deliciously with the warm, heavy feeling of his cum.

Atsumu was still shaking when you moved off his lap. Breathy gasps passed from his parted lips, hands reaching out to pull you to his chest. He whined when your weight landed on him, a choked sob leaving him and his hands clawed at your back, wanting you impossibly closer.

“you okay?” you smirked, kissing his clothed chest.

“I- ah, I’m… I’m…” he was still dizzy, head spinning and his words escaping him. You fucked my brains out echoed in his head, in some distant part that he couldn’t reach. He managed to nod, at least he thinks he did because he could feel you sigh happily against his chest, laying you head down softly.