#i don't recommend any of these except my latest

[thepapernautilus]

AO3 fic stats meme!

rules: give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

Tagged by @allaganexarch ! Go read her fics! ❤️

Most Hits | stars, hide your fires. | Final Fantasy XIV | Warrior of Light/Crystal Exarch | Explicit | 90.5k words

people are still reading this thing for some reason unexplainable and inexplicable to me. i think i went actually insane in the nine months writing this.

Second Most Kudos | you're mine. | Final Fantasy XIV | Warrior of Light/Crystal Exarch | Explicit | 8.3k

what is wrong with y'all. really. i wrote this in stats class what feels like a hundred years ago.

Third Most Comments | penumbra. | Final Fantasy XIV | Various ships & ratings, written for 2021 FFXIVWrite Challenge | 50.1k

tags include: i regret to inform you there is vore in chapter 2.

Fouth Most Bookmarks | baby, we're ultraviolet. | Gojo Satoru/Reader | Explicit | 5k

why is it always the fics i wrote in a 2 am delirium possessed by a white-haired anime man

Fifth Most Words | (my, my, those eyes like fire) winged insect, funeral pyre. | Baldur's Gate 3 | Astarion/Tav | Explicit | 14.3k

at some point while writing original fic i figured out how to write things over 5k without keeling over but now everything i write feels way too long!

Fewest Words | violent delights, violent ends. | The X-Files | Fox Mulder/Dana Scully/Walter Skinner | Explicit | 1.4k

god bless that hot mess, every day part of me yearns to return to the sweet lands of MSR.

Tagging: @witchfall, @crimsonsynastry, @omgpeachsnapple, @mildlymoonstruck and you, if you're reading this and write fic! 🫵

[ghost-proofbaby]

so scarlet (it was maroon)

in which eddie gets everything he dreamed of - except you. based off of "maroon" by taylor swift.

→ warnings: smut, severe angst, hurt/no comfort, 18+ minors dni

→ pairings: rockstar!eddie x fem!reader

→ wc: 11.3k+

→ a/n: don't mind me, just trying to see if tumblr will let me finally post this. this is cross-posted from ao3 (and wattpad)

ao3

"When the morning came, we were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf 'cause we lost track of time again. Laughing with my feet in your lap, like you were my closest friend"

“You’re fucking with me,” Eddie sits up to stare at you, lit joint still dangling between his ringed fingers and the last of his latest hit lingering in a ghost of white smoke on his lips. 

“I’m not,” you laugh at his reaction, tilting your head forward just enough for where you were sprawled out on his bed to get a better view of him, “I’m scared to take cold medicine now.” 

“There’s no way you got high off of the recommended dose!” he cackles, shaking his head in disbelief, a hand coming down on your shin to ground himself. You watch his shoulders shake with laughter, how his curls come down to curtain around his reddening cheeks and his reddening eyes, how his doe eyes are pinched shut and crinkled in the corners.

A map of a million lifetimes, branching out from the corner of those eyes. A million lifetimes, a million possibilities, a million futures. And every single one of them begins and ends with Eddie. 

If you stare for too long, you’re going to say something you regret in your high, so you sit up as he had in order to snatch back the joint, “Stop babysitting. Aren’t you the one who’s always chastising me on ‘puff, puff, pass’?” 

He feigns offense, mouth wide open and face scrunched up adorably so, as you take a delicate hit. The smoke enters your mouth quickly, wasting no time as it barrels down your throat and curls into every crevice of your lungs. Your chest aches slightly at the intrusion. 

His eyes never leave yours. He watches the glaze continue to intensify over them as you slowly exhale. His thumb begins to trace gentle arches over the bare skin of your leg as his warm palm shifts upward, inching until it’s over your knee and resting on your thigh. “You’re fucking ridiculous.” 

“Learned from the best.” 

“That you did, sweetheart. That you did.” 

He holds his free hand back out for the joint, and your fingertips brush as you return it to him. 

“So what? Was it better than this kind of high?” he teases before bringing it to his lips. They’re pursed in preparation, and you only lose your concentration for a moment before remembering to answer him.

“I dunno, Munson. You’ve got some good shit here but… Dayquil might be giving you a run for your money,” you mock, tilting your head and leaning in closer to him. He’s grinning again, looking up through shy lashes before he takes his hit. 

This time he doesn’t exhale immediately into the cloudy air of the room. Instead, he takes you off guard as he shifts on the bed and pulls you closer. Soon enough he has you in his lap, draping one arm around your waist as he takes the hand not holding the joint and gingerly grabs your jaw. 

You already know the drill. You’re familiar with the process of his shotguns as his fingers tap your cheeks and you let your mouth fall slightly open, leaning to meet him halfway. He still doesn’t exhale, not until his lips have grazed over yours lightly, teasing before he finally seals the two of you together. The kiss is messy, as it always is with him; your tongue can’t differentiate between the taste of him and the taste of the smoke as he presses the kiss deeper. You’re not even sure you breathed in enough to capture any of it, but none of it feels like a waste as he’s biting your bottom lip, hands pulling your hips impossibly close. The joint is eventually discarded on one of the ashtrays on his bedside tables as you lose yourselves into each other. His nose presses itself into flat against yours between hot breaths. 

“We can’t-” you pull back, a trail of saliva chasing you before Eddie follows, capturing you in another kiss that you pull back from, “The joint-” another interruption with another desperate kiss, “The incense-”

“The incense will be fine, baby,” he insists, pouting slightly, “It’s not going to burn the house down.” 

He kisses you once more, wasting no time to fall backwards into his pillows and dragging you with him. For a moment, you’re straddling him, hovering over him, but he quickly turns and presses your back into his sheets before he’s rolling over on top of you, caging you in. You don’t mind it. You never mind him taking up your space, your breath, your mind. 

A hand comes up to rest on your neck as you take a moment to press both hands into his chest, forcing distance. His eyes snap wide open, and they’re shining like a dozen moons at once, even with his pupils blown out. 

“And if it does? It if does burn down the house?” you whisper, hands beginning to wander, one finding its way up and around the back of his neck, toying with the curls in its path. The other smooths over his shoulder, prepared to pull him back in impossibly close even without an answer. 

He’s looking down at you with all the love in all of Hawkins, in all of the world, as he smirks and answers, “Then I say let it burn.” 

"And I chose you, the one I was dancing with in New York, no shoes. Looked up at the sky and it was maroon."

Within a year of graduation, Eddie had made it very clear he wanted to get out of Hawkins. Corroded Coffin had been slowly but surely crawling their way to popularity outside of Hawkins, and when the moment was right, he came to you with an offer you couldn’t refuse. 

“Come with me. Move to New York. I know, it’s insane, but-”

“Yes.” 

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. Was it ever really a question, Eddie?”

He was it for you, and so when he’d been prepared to beg you on his knees to move with him, it had been a no-brainer. You packed up all your belongings without second-thoughts, said goodbye to the town that never really deserved either of you, and started your life in a big city. 

The apartment was small and impossibly cramped, but the first night you two arrived, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if it was in the dingier part of town, or that you two were going to be penniless the next several months as you barely scraped by with rent. The moment you walked into that one-bedroom apartment, you knew it was yours, and you knew with certainty then that you had done it - you had escaped the bleary town and come out the other side. 

“Holy shit,” he sighs as he places down one of the last few boxes you’d brought with you amongst one of the several piles littering the living room. You’re sitting on top of one particularly sturdy stack of boxes, the top one serving as a seat most likely filled with your books from home. 

“Yeah,” you breath, looking around, completely stunned, “Holy shit.” 

Eddie turns in a full circle, almost as if he was drinking it all in, before he faces you once more. His face is a blank slate only for a second before the serendipity and sudden gaiety takes over his features. He’s unexpectedly running in your direction, arms wrapping around you and lifting you off the boxes as you squeal, swinging you around effortlessly. 

“We fucking did it!” he cheers over your giggles. When he finally finishes spinning you, letting your sock-clad feet find stability on the hardwood floors, he still doesn’t let you go. He only pulls you into his chest tighter, “We did it. We’re in New fucking York.” 

You smile brightly, pressing your cheek painfully against his t-shirt, nodding as you echo, “We did it.” 

The moment pauses as he pulls away as suddenly as he had picked you up, still radiating happiness.

“Hold on, wait here. I’ve got an idea.” 

He jogs over to one of the stacks of boxes at the entrance of the kitchen as you just laugh, “Not like I’ve got anywhere to run off to, Munson.” 

“You better not!” he calls over his shoulder, digging for whatever his brilliant idea was. 

You disobey him indirectly by wandering across the living room, steps slow and careful as you approach the large window offering a lackluster view. All you could see, for the most part, was the large brickwall of the neighboring apartment building. It was old and faded, scattered marks of paints from clear graffiti at random intervals. The city had clearly tried to wash away the few remnants of whatever art the random city vigilantes had covered it with, but the reminders of what once was remained. A nod to the fact that sometimes, no matter how hard you try to wash away things, their legacy lingers stubbornly. 

You don’t even hear Eddie setting up one of his old boomboxes with a favorite mixtape of the two of yours until it begins to play from the speakers, probably a bit more loud than you should have if you were attempting to be considerate neighbors. 

But neither of you cared. 

When you turn, you find Eddie approaching you steadily to the beat of the song playing. He takes a step with each beat, swaying his hips in clear exaggeration. 

He’s only several paces from you when he holds out a hand, grinning like a fool as he says, “Dance with me, sweetheart.” 

You take it, immediately. There’s not a trace of hesitation as you let the boy who held the sun in your eyes drag you across the barren living room, not even dancing to the beat but growing dizzy with love regardless. You let your own happiness mingle with his. As he spins you for the hundredth time, dipping you low and dramatically, you imagine that this is it - this is as good as it could possibly get. Because you’re with your boy, and you two are dancing to your own beat as the mixtape ends, and there couldn’t possibly be a more perfect person than him. 

He brings you back up to him as he stands up straight, and not a word is passed as lips crash together. An eager kiss, all teeth and revelations and silent promises of forever. It’s saccharine sweet as his tongue passes over your lips, begging for more closeness. Your chests are so tightly pressed together that with each breath he gasps in, you’re forced to exhale. 

“I love you,” he mutters, pulling back momentarily and staring into your eyes. His arms cradle you so carefully, as if scared that when he lets go, you’ll completely disappear from him, “I love you so goddamn much, it hurts. I can’t believe this is real.” 

“It’s real, so you better believe it, rockstar,” you reassure him, “Now shut up and kiss me.” 

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he mutters, already so close to you that his lips brush against yours before he’s back on you, hot and heavy. 

You’re not sure how exactly it happens, or who first starts encouraging the steps taken towards the hallway, but you end up with your back against the wall as Eddie leans completely into you. You both feel drunk on each other, giddy on your current reality. After a particularly harsh tug on his hair, in sync with a yearning squeeze on your hip, he whispers ‘jump’ into your kiss. Hands find the back of your thighs, molding them into his knuckles as he carries you into the bedroom. 

The room is only filled with a few artifacts: boxes of both of your clothes, Eddie’s prized guitar propped up in one of the corners, and a mattress on the floor only covered in a comforter and no sheets yet. The afternoon light is golden as it flutters in through the open window, the sounds of the city muted by your breaths. 

He’s impossibly gentle as he lowers the two of you down onto the mattress, careful as he lets you unwrap your legs and flop back. Even with his carefulness, you find your own eagerness causing your movements to be too rough, bouncing back slightly and bumping noses with him. You both take a break to laugh. 

“Careful, you klutz,” he warns, balancing himself up on his forearms as he looks down at you in adoration. You don’t respond, instead lifting yourself to capture his lips in yours, pulling him down. Your teeth clash with his as you both continue to giggle into the open-mouthed kiss. 

He gives in, hands roaming as they slip below your tattered shirt you’d worn for the occasion of moving. His warm hands find home on your chest, squeezing softly and thumbs flicking your already pebbled nipples in order to pull gasps from you. He lets his head drop to your neck, his messy curls tickling your nose as he presses wet kisses down your jugular. Each kiss is in sync with the heavy beating of your heart. 

He stops when his path leads him down to your collarbone, sucking and nipping before releasing blooming skin to glance up at your face, twisted in euphoria. “This is real, isn’t it?”

His voice is so soft, you almost don’t hear him. But you look down at him, a boy made of contradictions - of sunshine and moonlight, of passionate and tender actions - and can only smile in serenity. 

“Yeah, it is.” 

It’s the only encouragement he needs to continue his worship, leaving no patch of supple skin unkissed. 

"The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me, and how the blood rushed into my cheeks. So scarlett, it was maroon."

It could have been hours later or days when you’d finally tired yourselves out. It took an impossible amount of willpower, but eventually, you two had untangled yourselves from each other, leaving the warmth of your comforter to continue unpacking.

Or rather, you were unpacking. Eddie had taken to stretching out on the bed, back propped up on the bare wall behind him with his guitar in his lap, strumming mindlessly as he watched you begin to pull your clothes from one of the boxes. You took your time, smoothing out any wrinkles that had formed during the move, focused as you hung your shirts on hangers and put them away into their home in your new shared closet. 

Eddie pauses whatever song he had been practicing when he catches sight of a particular shirt you pull from the box. 

It’s a white t-shirt. Nothing impressive, but what piques his interest is the splotch of once-red-now-maroon painting the center of the fabric. It’s faded, feathered at the edges, but he knows the story behind that stain all too well.

“You really kept that shirt? Even after I ruined it?” he chuckles, shifting his guitar off his lap, scooting towards the edge of the bed. 

You hold it up, laughing as well, taking in the stain that refused to wash out, “Yeah. Sentimental value or whatever,” you tease, looking down at him. You take his breath away like this, in nothing but his Judas Priest shirt that barely reaches your thighs, nothing but underwear on underneath, hair in tangles from your previous activities. But you’re glowing, a glow that he’s been lucky enough to witness on multiple occasions, and it takes everything in him to keep his hands to himself, “Never really wear it, though. Guess I should get rid of it, huh?” 

“No,” he answers you far too quickly, “Never. Keep it forever. We can frame it, hang it in the hallway.” 

You know he’s not serious, but the thought still makes you smile. You’d never really get rid of it, far too attached to the memories it held, even two years later.

Another Harrington party. Another sea of almost-adults getting far too drunk, far too rowdy. You’d been to your fair share of them, but they never really got easier.

There’s an excitement in the air you can’t place. Maybe it was from graduation, still nearly six months away but on the horizon nevertheless. Or maybe it was simply from the holiday - Halloween. Whatever it was, it buzzed through the air and across your chilled skin. 

Your costume was last minute. A half-assed attempt at a pirate costume. It had been thrown together with things you could already find in your closet, for the most part - one of your more flowy white t-shirts, black jeans you’d taken scissors to the knees of in an act of temporary rebellion, heavy boots originally bought for hiking. The only real clues as to what you were had been aiming to disguise yourself as were the cheap eyepatch and doltish pirate hat you’d bought when shopping with your friends for the occasion. But you’d long forgone your eyepatch as the alcohol impaired your vision well enough without the loss of use in one of your eyes. 

The hat was a cheap velvet-texture, deep maroon in color and an extravagant black feather barely holding on by the factory glue used to secure it. 

Your friends had long since abandoned you. One of them went off with a jock who had caught their eye, the other getting dragged into a very serious game of beer pong. It hadn’t bothered you too much - it had left you to your own devices, nursing a cup of whatever punch had been spiked in a dark corner of the kitchen. You watched your classmates trail in and out for their own dose of alcohol without much interest. Until he walked in. 

He was glued to the side of the host himself, Steve Harrington. You overheard a couple of scolding sentences coming from Steve’s lips, something about ‘cutting him off’ and how he needed to ‘compose himself’. It was entertaining, at the least, to watch the boy fumble with himself. 

“C’mon, you’ve got to have more whiskey around here somewhere, pretty boy!” he whined, leaning into Steve as he lost his balance momentarily. 

“No, Eddie! I mean it, you’re cut off! Now stay here or so help me God-” Steve appeared irritated, but was far more patient than you would have been as he carefully guided his friend to lean on the counter across the room from you. He left the room in a hurry, and you snickered under your breath as the predictable happened right before your eyes - once Eddie was left alone, he immediately began to pilfer for more alcohol. 

It takes him a second, to your amusement, before he reappeared from the lower cabinets he had crouched in front of, letting out a loud ‘Aha!’ with a bottle of red wine in hand. He wasted no time in digging through multiple drawers as if it were his own house before he found a corkscrew, and the entire time, your eyes continuously flickered to the entrance of the entrance, waiting until Steve returned and would catch his friend red-handed (literally). 

He never did, though. Eddie has enough time to begin struggling with the cork, curses and mutters falling from his lips as you watched on. You’re only pulled from your watchful gaze when you hear a loud pop, and hear a triumphant ‘Fuck yeah!’ from the boy. 

Maybe you thought you should intervene, considering you were clearly not as far gone as Eddie, but you weren’t quick enough. You’d walked up behind him, about to announce yourself and stop him, when he turned suddenly, a red cup in hand that was nearly overflowing with red wine. 

Eddie hadn’t expected you to be so close, hadn’t even realized he wasn’t alone in the kitchen. Immediately, the cup collided with your chest and the red wine sloshed down the front of your shirt. 

You gasped, jumping back slightly, as he cursed, “Oh, shit! Fuck, I’m so sorry.” 

Wide, brown eyes found yours, looking sincere in their apology. 

He looked around before grabbing a random kitchen towel, unfortunately also a starch white, and began to try and dab at your shirt clumsily. 

“No, no, it’s okay,” you insisted as you felt your cheeks begin to burn. He continued to attempt to rectify the matter, clearly panicked. You have to eventually grab his wrists, pulling him and the now-ruined towel away. He looked back up.

It was almost like slow motion. His eyes met yours and you felt time stop. Your fingers stay pressed into his wrist, feeling the beat of his pulse, for far longer than necessary. 

“It’s fine,” you said once more, finally prying your grip from him. You might have been a little too drunk to care, and you’re sure that sober you would be disappointed in the comfortable t-shirt now being collateral damage, but for now, it didn’t matter. 

“I had no clue you were there. I’m- Fuck, I’m drunk. I’m an idiot. Sorry,” he slurred, looking down at you. 

You shrugged, playing it off, “Shoulda announced myself sooner. Don’t be sorry, it’s a problem for sober me.”

You really had liked that shirt. It was a shame. 

“You know, if you really wanted more alcohol, they still have punch left,” you jabbed a thumb over your shoulder, in the direction of the crystal bowl on the counter you had just been leaning on.

Eddie’s face scrunched up in disgust immediately, “Ew, God no. That shit’s way too sweet.” 

You bit your lip to fight laughter, “And wine is any better?” 

“It can be, when shared with someone as pretty as yourself,” he has a shameless, flirty grin on his features, raising his eyebrows suggestively at you. You broke, laughing softly and shaking your head. 

He had a point. The punch wasn’t very good. 

“Alright, then, mister ‘you’re cut off’. I suppose I’ll join you in your antics,” you turned to the sink, dumping the remnants of your punch before turning back to him and reaching for the bottle of wine he still held. 

His hand flew out of reach, tsking immediately, “Nope. Allow me.”

It wasn’t a good idea, but you let him take your now-empty cup regardless. He put it down on the counter and focused intently on filling it, nearly emptying the wine bottle as he topped it off just as full as his own had been. 

“Jesus, you’d make a shitty bartender. You’re definitely overpouring right now.” 

“Hush,” is all he replied as he finished the task at hand, setting down the empty bottle once he poured the last few drops into his own cup, attempting to make up for what was now soaking your shirt. It had started to dry, becoming cold and uncomfortably sticky, but you were too distracted with the boy in front of you to care. “M’lady,” he finally handed back the cup, looking far too proud of himself for not making another mess. 

“Thank you,” you teased, giving a messy and exaggerated bow, careful to not spill the wine. 

Once your glass is back in your own hand, his began to fumble into the pockets of the leather jacket he wore. It led to him spilling some more of his wine onto his own shirt this time, and you considered how lucky he was that he was wearing black. 

“Here,” you gave him no choice as you gingerly took the cup from his hand, freeing him up to find whatever it was he was so desperate to find in his pockets. You take the moment to glance over his costume: he was wearing black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. On his face, a pair of small, circular sunglasses were perched haph-hazardly on his nose, the lenses a barely opaque red. You noted the obnoxiously long necklace swinging against his chest, a large silver cross at the end, “What are you even supposed to be dressed up as?” 

He yanked a pack of cigarettes successfully from his pocket, grinning like a fool, “Ozzy Osbourne. Duh.”

“Duh,” you mimicked, handing him back his cup of wine before turning more serious,“From Black Sabbath, right?” 

His eyes lit up. “You know Sabbath?” 

“A little bit,” you shrugged, but that was enough for Eddie. 

He slung an arm around your shoulders, cheesy grin and all, as he rattled the pack of cigarettes against your ear. “Say, you smoke?”

You didn’t, but for him, you did. “Yeah, yeah. I could use some fresh air anyways. Lead the way, rockstar.” 

"When the silence came, we were shaking, blind and hazy. How the hell did we lose sight of us again?"

“Eddie, you have to call them back and tell them you’ll do it!”

“No! I can’t!”

“You can and you will.”

The fight had started over Eddie’s casual mention of a phone call he’d had earlier that day. It had been six months of New York, of bliss, of living in a pattern of waiting. Every day, you were both waiting; waiting for the next show Corroded Coffin would book, waiting for the next chance he’d have to send off yet another demo to another record label, waiting for the shimmers of what could be his big break. It had been comfortable while it lasted - the two of you were still wrapping your head around having your own routine. Of having something that’s yours. 

The phone call today was the end of that waiting game. 

The management of a slightly larger band, extending an offer to Corroded Coffin - they wanted them to be the opener for their next tour. It wasn’t an overly large one, it hardly spanned over three months and most of the venues were painfully small compared to what you believed Eddie should be playing, but it was an offer. Gigs, travel paid for, an opportunity for exposure right at his fingertips.

He had told them no. 

“I’d have to leave. I’d be on the fucking west coast until December. I’d miss your birthday!” Eddie continues to argue. The two of you were standing in your living room, finally filling out. Shelves had collected framed photos, small knick-knacks that partially came from you and partially came from Eddie. You finally had a couch. It wasn’t a nice one, but it was a couch and it was yours. Something that belonged to both of you.

“You’d be playing shows! Selling merch! Gaining fans! This is your chance. Who cares if you’re not here for my birthday? We can celebrate over the phone, who cares?” your voice was breaking from frustration, not understanding how Eddie isn’t more excited. Instead of the joy you had expected to find on his face when he revealed the news to you, all you could see was fear. He was petrified. You finally drop your voice, taking on a soothing tone as you step in front of your boyfriend, taking his face in shaking hands, “Eddie, I’ll have other birthdays. But this? If you don’t do this… there might not be other tours.”

You could feel tears building up, some from exasperation, but most for the boy in front of you. This was his chance. He was your entire world, and you couldn’t let it pass him by. 

He has tears mirroring in his own eyes, searching your face frantically, “I… I don’t want to be away from you. Not right now, not when we’re just figuring all this shit out.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” you tearily laugh, “Where would I even run off to, huh? No, stop this bullshit - don’t be an idiot. You go pick up that phone right now and tell that band they have an opener, and a damn good one at that. Right now.” 

He’s frozen, leaning his cheeks into your touch, eyes fluttering closed. He just wants to live in this moment. He doesn’t want to think about the enormity of the decision in his hands - he just wants to stay here, in your arms, in the space you two had come to call home. 

When your thumb swipes one of his escaped tears from his cheek, he caves. His voice is a ghost of a whisper. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll go call them. But- But when I get back, we’re celebrating the hell out of your birthday, do you understand me? Fuck Christmas, Jesus has had, like, thousands of birthdays. When I get back, all I care about is you.” 

You believe him. You believe him with your entire being, never once worrying about him missing something as trivial as the celebration. 

“We sure will. Now go on, rockstar. Catch your big break.” 

He finally smiles for the first time since he broke the news.

At the moment, all you saw was a world full of beginnings for your boy. This was it, the moment you’d been waiting for, and you couldn’t have been happier for him. The rose-colored glasses never gave you the chance to see it was the beginning for the two of you - the beginning of the end. 

"Carnations you had thought were roses, that's us. I feel you, no matter what."

“I miss you.”

Those three months couldn’t have dragged on slower if they tried. But Eddie kept good on his word; every night, like clockwork, he called you. The two of you would take about anything and everything: he’d tell you about the latest crowd that included people who seemed to actually enjoy Corroded Coffin’s set, you’d tell him about the takeout you had for dinner after nearly burning your shared kitchen down, he’d mention the names of cities you could only dream of visiting, and you’d indulge him in theatrically stories of your latest customers from Hell at the small dinner you waitressed at. 

“I know you do. I miss you too, Eds,” you sigh over the line, curled up on his side of the bed, even though it had finally stopped smelling like him. Long gone were the scents of late night cigarettes and woodsy cologne, replaced by a nauseating sweetness of your own shampoo and perfume. You hated it, but you’d never let him know that. Not when he seemed to actually be so happy. His breakdown over the offer seemed to fickle now, as it was clear he was enjoying himself. He was living out his dream. Something neither of you had fully processed yet. 

“Hey, just two more weeks, right?” you whisper, eyes staring into the shadows across the room. Two more weeks. Fourteen days, and he was all yours once more.

It was your birthday. And it had been the most lonesome to date - a few coworkers had convinced you to go out for drinks after closing up the diner, but the entire time, you had just been anxious to get home and prepare for your phone call with Eddie. Just as the two of you had said, you had committed to somewhat celebrating over the phone. 

“Do me a favor. Go into the kitchen real quick,” his voice instructs over the line, and you perk up slightly. 

“What? Why?” 

“Just trust me, sweetheart.”

You do as he asks, making your way out of the bedroom and down the hall. The apartment is dark, and a bit cold, but you don’t pay it any mind as you make your way to the kitchen. 

“Okay, I’m in the kitchen. Now what?” 

“The drawer to the left of the fridge. Open it.”

“Our junk drawer?”

“Yes, the junk drawer,” his tone is teasing, never growing irritated with your endless questions, “Open it.”

You hadn’t really touched the drawer since Eddie left, normally only discarded random pens and junk mail filling it. But you're shocked when you find the drawer more organized than you remember it - and in the center of it is a pack of candles.

“Candles?” you ask softly, a smile playing at your lips as your free hand reaches down to grasp the package. You flip it around in your palm, heart warming at the notion, but still feeling confused, “Babe, I appreciate it, I really do, but I don’t exactly have a cake, or even a cupcake, to put these in. 

“You don’t? Damn it. If only I had thought of that,” he hums in a teasing tone, making you lower the hot phone from your ear and glare down at his caller id that illuminates the screen, “Well. What a shame. Hey, do you know the time by chance?” 

“Munson, I’m gonna kick your ass,” you mutter, turning to look at the clock over your oven, “It’s 7:59. What’s your game here?” 

He doesn’t answer, leaving you further puzzled, instead mumbling what sounds like to himself, “Three, two-”

“Why are you counting down?”

“One.” 

A loud knock echoes through the apartment, causing you to jump. 

“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” you hiss over the line, gripping the candles impossibly tight. 

“Go answer the door.”

“If you’re on the other side of it, I’m kicking you straight in the-”

“It’s not,” he interrupts, “I wish it was, sweetheart. It’s not. But just trust me, yeah? One last surprise, promise.”

You grumble your entire way to the door, still holding the package of candles as you stop in front of your front door. You pause, taking a deep breath. 

“That doesn’t sound like you’re opening the door.”

“Give me a second. Jesus, for all I know, you hired a hitman and I’m about to be brutally murdered when I open this door,” you bite back, and you can hear his guffawing laughter over the line. Your chest burns, wishing you could hear it in person instead, imaging the glee on his face in the moment. 

“Not a hitman. That’s for after we have life insurance, baby,” he drawls, and you finally muster the nerve to reach out and twist the knob. You swear you can hear chattering on the other side of the door. 

It takes you some struggling as you refuse to let go of the candles, but when you finally swing the door open, you gasp. 

There in the threshold stands your friends from Hawkins. Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler, and Johnathan Byers. It’s clear that Nancy and Steve are mid-argument when you open the door, but Robin stands there, proudly showcasing a birthday cake in front of her, shit-eating grin on her face. 

“Surprise!” she yells, capturing the attention of the rest of the gang that you and Eddie had left behind. Everyone faces you now, beaming, as you immediately go teary-eyed. 

“Oh my God,” you gasp out, dropping the phone and candles to the floor, in shock. Steve steps in first, chuckling as he pulls you into a hug. It’s only then that you notice the bouquet in one of his hands, cellophane crinkling from how tightly he’s holding you. He shuffles the two of you out of the way just enough so that everyone else can enter. 

“Your face! God, Munson was right, that was so worth it!” Robin barks as she steps up to the kitchen table and sits down the cake. She’s the next to hug you, yanking you out of Steve’s grasp and nearly crushing you, “Happy birthday,” she whispers happily into your ear, swaying the two of you as she continues to embrace you. You catch sight of Steve over her shoulder, wearing a look of amusement, chuckling and shaking his head. 

Jonathan is the one with half a mind to pick up your abandoned phone and candles at the sound of muffled yelling over the line. He wastes no time, putting Eddie on speaker.

“Hellooo? World’s best boyfriend here, remember me? Wow. Can’t believe you’ve already forgotten me. Guess I’ll go fuck myself.” 

You laugh as Robin finally lets you go, reaching up to swipe away the tears of jubilation.

Nancy rolls her eyes. “She’s in shock. Give her a second, Munson.” 

Jonathan continues to hold your phone as you’re passed into Nancy’s arms and then his. Each whisper their own soft ‘happy birthday’, rubbing your back gently until your focus is back on the phone.

“Edward Munson-”

“Ah! There she is! She lives! And remembers me!”

“Fuck off,” you half-sob, half-laugh. It may not have been as good as him standing there, on your doorstep and embracing you, but it was damn good, “You’re so dead when you get home.” 

“Dead? Wow. Weeks of planning only to meet my demise,” he sighs dramatically, “I suppose it’s a good way to go. At the hands of the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. Beat that, Harrington.” 

“Way to stay humble,” Steve chimes at the mention of his name, still grinning. He suddenly remembers the flowers in hand, suddenly thrusting them in your direction as he says, “From Eddie, by the way. He told me if we didn’t get you flowers, he’d castrate me.”

“And I meant it! That’s still on the table if you guys don’t make this her best damn birthday ever.” 

“I’m sure he would,” you sniffle, reaching out and gripping the flowers. Your heart cracks slightly, not knowing how to tell him that despite how absolutely endearing the surprise had been, it’d be impossible for them to make this your best birthday.

He wasn’t here. It could only make the top of the list if he were here. 

You feel no resentment, though, as you bring the flowers to your nose, smiling until your cheeks ache. “Red carnations. Pretty,” you hum, lost in the moment. 

There’s a beat of silence before Eddie’s voice rings out across the room.

“Carnations? Harrington, I said red roses. You’re a dead man walking.”

"And I lost you, the one I was dancing with in New York, no shoes. Looked up at the sky and it was maroon." 

Once Eddie returns home, it’s just as he promises - he almost doesn’t even make it through the door when his lips find yours at 3 AM, his suitcase thrown off somewhere to the side of your entryway. He’s too busy to care about anything else but you at the moment. 

“Fuck,” he gasps between kisses, “I fucking missed you. God, I missed you.” 

You’re silent as you nod in agreement against him, just eager to feel his touch once more. You’d waited three months too long for this moment, ever since he first left through that door for the tour. 

“Needy, baby?” he teases, just as breathless as you are when the two of you finally pull apart, him kicking the door shut behind him. Your hands are grabbing weakly at the lapels of his jacket, too eager to be embarrassed, “God, always so needy for me. Just how I fucking like you.” 

He’s always talkative, even during sex, but you have no patience for it tonight. “Shut up.”

“Aw, now that’s no way to greet your boyfriend you missed, is it, baby?” he eggs you on, looking down at you and your swollen lips with a wicked grin. 

You open your mouth to snark back, but he refuses to give you the chance before he’s picking you up, lifting you up and throwing you over his shoulder.

“Eddie!” you shriek, but laughter laces the protest. Your hands grip the back of his t-shirt as he begins to walk down the hallway, and you start to kick your feet out of defiance, but a sharp smack sounds through the quiet apartment as he playfully slaps your ass, putting an end to the kicks.

“Yeah, you better warm up those vocal chords,” he chuckles. The moment you’re back in your bedroom, he’s quick to toss you onto the mattress, finally mounted on a frame. The comforter flares around you, your head sinking into a pillow as Eddie is quick to remove his jacket and shirt, climbing up the bed between your legs, “Gonna have you chanting my name like a goddamn prayer, sweetheart.” 

He removes your pajamas as he has a thousand times before, but it still doesn’t feel fast enough. You find yourself squirming, trying to help him pull off the flannel pants and t-shirt you’d stolen from his side of the closet, but he stops all movements immediately.

He shakes his head, hovering above you, his hair like a curtain around the two of you as your top lip brushes his bottom one and his mint breath fans over your face. “Slow it down for me, yeah? Wanna enjoy this,” he murmurs. 

You obey, stilling below him save for your chest, rising and falling rapidly with waiting breaths. He finally dips down, his pick necklace tickling your collarbones as his mouth covers yours. 

A culmination of three long months is spent into the kiss. All the restless nights, long phone calls, endless yearning. You can tell that he had missed you, longed for you, just as much as you had him. 

It’s languid, the way your body reacts to each of his touches. As far as it was concerned, no time had passed. He does as he had said, taking his time, savoring each kiss he presses down your throat and over your breasts. He’s memorizing each crevice of you, every soft curve he’d dreamt of for 91 days. 

Your squirming resumes when his hot breath reaches your navel, but he doesn’t scold you, bringing his hands to your hips and pressing them down into the mattress. “Let me show you just how much I missed you. Let me take care of you, baby.” 

He’s enjoying it, the sound of your whines a better soundtrack than any of the music that had damaged his eardrums during the tour. His fingers dance over your bare skin, skimming right over the band of your underwear and tracing lines down your thighs. It’s agonizing - the waiting is terrible. 

Terribly worth it, as it turns out.

When he finally decides to speed up his teasing, bringing a finger to brush across your clothed slit, you gasp. Your hands twist into the sheets at each side of you, but he isn’t having it. 

“Now that’s not where those belong,” he mumbles, a hot breath over your panties sending shivers down your spine. He’s quick - his fingers suddenly hook into the waistband, and he’s pulling them down and off over your ankles with an eagerness finally matching your own. He throws them aimlessly to the bedroom floor, joining the rest of your discarded clothes recklessly. Neither of you care - you won’t be needing them the rest of the night. 

He settles into the mattress, a leg thrown over each of his shoulders before he grabs your hands and guides them to tangle into his hair. He’s still taking his time, sucking his way up your inner thighs and leaving flowering bruises in his wake. Once he reaches where you want him to most, where you’re aching for him so pitifully, he pauses.

He repeats his earlier words, “God, I’ve missed you.”

He takes you by surprise as he dives right in, tongue flattening and licking a long stride up, starting at your entrance. His nose bumps over your clit before his tongue begins to dance circles, painting a secret language between the two of you over the sensitive bundle of nerves. One of his hands joins him, middle finger circling your entrance slowly before he presses in. He sets a pace quickly, pumping the finger a few times, tongue working magic, before he adds a second one. They curl with intention, pressing into the spongy spot of your walls that he knew like the back of his hand. It’s the exact spot that makes your back arch off the bed.

He pulls back his mouth, fingers continuing to pump and curl vigorously as he looks up at you dreamily. He eases one of his arms over your hips, pressing down, holding you in place. 

He’s a dream. A goddamn dream. He’s finally here, looking up at you, grinning like a Devil as he watches you unravel at his hand. 

“So pretty. Always so, so beautiful, but especially like this,” he says more to himself, but you hear him, a moan falling from your lips. His mouth returns to you, lips latching onto your clit, sucking harshly. 

“Fuck,” you breathe into the still air of your apartment room, not caring if the neighbors hear but your chest too heavy to grow much louder, head fuzzy and all-consumed by him, “Eddie.”

He was right. His name falls from your mouth in pants, chanting to him as if he were your God. 

It only spurs him on, fingers working expertly as he alternates between sucking and lapping at your clit. You can hear how wet you are for him, how close you are before the knot forms in your abdomen. 

“Oh my God- Oh, fuck. Right there,” your hips buck involuntarily into his face, and he loosens his grip on your hips, letting you, “I’m gonna…G-Gonna…”

“Gonna cum for me, pretty girl?” he encourages, fingers curling harshly, “Cum on my face, baby. Do it.”

He puts his tongue back to work, You force your eyes open to catch sight of him, buried in your pussy, admiring how pretty he looked from this angle. The sight of his tousled curls, twisted tightly in your grip as you yank mercilessly, is all it takes for you to finally come undone. 

A broken prayer, repeated over and over as a warmth rushes over you. Your vision goes white, eyes tightly screwed shut, toes curling and thighs clenching over his ears. It doesn’t phase him, continuing his assault until he’s sure you’ve come down. You have to tug on his hair, more intentional this time, to pull him away from you due to how sensitive you grow. 

He rises, letting your legs fall limply against the mattress as he wears a boyish grin on his slick lips. Slowly, he makes his way up to you, back to the virtues of patience as he takes his time to finally kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue, a bitter sort of sweetness, as he cradles your face. 

“You good?” he gently asks against your lips. You can barely move, nodding lethargically.

“So good,” you croak, a smile breaking out. Your eyes crack open to see him looking down at you with pure adoration, “I missed you.”

You start to run your hand down his chest, reaching the zipper of his jeans before his hand stops you.

“No, not yet. We’ve got plenty of time for that. Just wanna hold you right now, baby,” he nearly pleads. You can’t deny him, not with his eyes shining like that, so you allow him to fall into place on his side of the bed before you curl up against his bare torso. 

The two of you stay that way for what feels like hours, his arms wrapped around you as he traces out constellations on your bare shoulder blades. Just outside of your solace, a bubble you’ve trapped yourselves in, you can hear the faint call of the city. Honks from cars on the street, shouts from pedestrians, the occasional siren. It’s all background noise to this moment. 

“I have something for you,” he suddenly whispers as you teeter on the edge of sleep. You hum in response, lifting your head lazily. He pats you gently, signaling for you to let him stand before he walks to his discarded jacket by the door. When he returns to your side, he's gripping a small, white box, tied with a scarlet ribbon. 

“A gift?” you ask, excitement helping wake you up as you sit up quickly, “For me?”

“For you,” he affirms, taking a seat beside you. Your knees bump as your hands fumble to take the box from him. A soft glow from one of the restaurants on your street floods between the curtains and into the room, a soft neon pink illuminating your features as you carefully unravel the red ribbon. 

As the silk falls, you hardly can contain your excitement before lifting the lid off the box. 

A necklace. 

Your eyes trace over it, already fawning with appreciation for your boy, but then you catch sight of exactly what the necklace is. 

“Your mom’s ring?” you can’t hide the emotion that shakes the timbre of your voice. It cracks into a million pieces. 

At the end of the delicate silver chain, sits his mother’s ring. The one you hadn’t even noticed missing from his barren right hand. 

“Happy birthday,” he whispers, pulling you in and pressing his lips into your temple. You’re still too stunned, too overcome with a million and one feelings all at once.

“Eddie… I- I can’t… this is-”

“I want you to have it. I think she’d want you to have it, too,” he insists, taking the box from your grasp and lifting the necklace from its cotton cushion, “I know it’s not a lot, but I just… I wanted to get you something that let you know how important you are to me. Something for you to always have as a reminder that I’ll come back to you. You’re it for me, sweetheart. This is- this is real to me. The kind of real that lasts forever.” 

You can tell he’s growing emotional, too, as his feather light touch brushes your hair to the side, bringing the necklace up around your neck and clasping it securely. When the ring falls to its new home at the base of your neck, cool against your skin, you can feel tears falling. He’s quick to swipe them away, his own watery irises peering into yours. 

“You’re everything to me,” he says this with vindication. With such assuredness it terrifies you, burrows into your bones and claims you. 

In this moment, you know he has forever stained you. There was no washing this mark he has left you off - there would forever be a piece of your heart occupied by the brown-eyed boy in front of you. 

All you can do is lean forward, hands gingerly threading through his bangs as you push them back to plant a kiss on his forehead. A crimson blush spreads across his cheeks and neck at the act of tenderness. 

When you pull back, he immediately lifts his fingers to the necklace he’s just gifted you, fingers careful but determined as they tug you back to him, kissing you with everything in him. He pours his soul, his body, and his heart into it. 

“I love you,” you exhale against his swollen lips. 

“And I love you.” 

You believe him, because he believes himself. That’s the thing about endings - no one sees them coming. 

"The mark they saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones, the lips I used to call home. So scarlet, it was maroon."

The next year proves you right. After that tour, Corroded Coffin became a phenomenon. A record deal falls into the boys’ laps quickly, multiple one-off shows selling out locally before the news finally comes that they are officially in the position to record their debut album. 

The two of you celebrate with cheap wine, but it’s as sweet as champagne in your contentment. 

The recording of the album is brutal. Night after night, you attempt to wait up on Eddie, eventually falling victim to drowsiness before he would wake you with his arrival from the studio in the early hours of the morning. You never minded, only happy for his warmth as he crawled right into bed with you, collapsing into you and letting the world melt away. 

Long gone are the days of struggling paycheck-to-paycheck as the boys’ can hardly keep up with printing enough shirts for their shows, merchandise selling out in the handfuls. 

You catch sight of a young girl wearing one of their shirts one day in the grocery store, and can’t help the flood of pride that overtakes your chest. Your boyfriend, your Eddie, was finally having all of his dreams come to fruition; the world was finally seeing him as the rockstar you’d nominated him as since that first night. 

You can tell that it’s tiring. Eddie is exhausted by the time the album is finished, but you can also sense the satisfaction he felt at finally completing it. When the first demo arrived, he wasted no time in electing you to be the first to listen to it. It was an entire ordeal - the two of you ordered your favorite take-out, curling up on your couch and pressing together as the same boombox that had played that mixtape on your first night in your home now plays his songs. 

Your reaction was exactly as he had expected, as he had hoped for. 

You had always been his number one cheerleader through it all. With each new song, you were gushing to him with admiration and reverence. Pointing out lyrics that tugged particularly taut on your heartstrings, praising the guitar solos and vocals he’d worked tirelessly to perfect. You don’t leave a single stone left unturned, claiming this was your new favorite album.

“Careful, sweetheart. You’re really stroking my ego here,” he warns, but his smile shines as brightly as your own. 

“Eddie, this is… this is… it’s fucking incredible!” you cheer, completely at a loss for words. You weren’t exaggerating - to hear all of his hard work paying off, to have watched him grow from covering Metallica in a stuffy garage to this left you starstruck. You were in absolute awe. 

He blushes, playing with his hair and bringing it up to hide his emotional reaction. 

The album could fail. It could become nothing more than a whisper in the night, but the fact that you liked it was all that mattered to him. 

You look at him earnestly, taking his cheeks in your warm and soothing palms, “I’m so fucking proud of you, Eds.”

And you were. You continued to be. The album was a hit. 

It climbed the charts with ease, just as you expected. Local alternative stations played it on loop. You were sure to hear it at least once during taxi rides, and had even heard it playing softly over the speakers at the gas station on the corner by your apartment complex. Eddie had been with you, and took pleasure in getting to inform the cashier that it was his song playing, his band was on the radio. 

It was New York, so the cashier couldn’t have cared less, but it made you glow with pride. 

But with a hit album came a new slew of responsibilities for the band, including a headlining tour.

The night that the band’s manager called Eddie, informing him they were set to start planning the tour, he’d run into the room, so frantic you were worried something bad had happened. 

“Holy shit!” he yells, causing you to shush him once you recovered from the scare he’d caused you. He ignores you, grabbing you off the bed, lifting you up and spinning you, just like the very first night, “Holy shit! We’re going on tour! A headlining tour! I’m going to be a goddamn rockstar!”

Once you process his news, you become just as animated in his arms, “What? No fucking way!”

“Yes fucking way!”

“Oh my God!”

“I know!”

You hear banging on the wall from the neighbors, probably shouting at the two of you to quiet down, but neither of you can contain your excitement.

“I’m going to be a goddamn rockstar, baby,” he laughs deliriously, placing you back down so that you’re face-to-face with him, “A rockstar.” 

“You’ve always been a rockstar, pretty boy,” you giggle, cheeks sore with elation, “The rest of the world is just finally getting the memo.”

The planning takes a while. Part of you is grateful, selfishly drinking in and enjoying the time you have left with him before you’re sure he’ll have to leave for an extended period. The names of cities you had never had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with once again enter conversations, talks of how far and wide the band would travel becoming Eddie’s favorite topic. 

You’re proud of him, you really are. But reality seeps its way into the crevices. 

What starts as the possibility of a brief, three month tour - something the two of you had already faced and defeated triumphantly - quickly turns into six months. And it doesn’t stop there. Six months could become eight, easily, with adding in a few pit stops to radio stations to guarantee continued radio-play. There’s talks of signings, of meet and greets, of music festivals. The more time given to planning, the more time given for the band’s popularity to grow even more. 

The entire thing expands without consideration, lifting Eddie right up with it, right out of your reach. 

The night before he’s set to leave for tour, your anxieties are getting the best of you. You had helped him pack, going over the list of necessities with him three times too many. He had everything he needed, packed tightly into a suitcase - everything except you. 

That night, you sit on your side of your shared bed, watching Eddie pace with excitement. You feel guilty that your own anticipation can’t quite match his. All you can think about is how long he’ll be gone: eight months, two hundred and forty five days. Five thousand, eight hundred and eighty hours. Over three hundred thousand minutes. You’d done the math. 

“Fuck,” he sighs, finally throwing himself down onto the bed beside you, “I still can’t believe this is happening.” 

You can’t bring up your insecurity, your fears, to him. Not when he’s so happy. Not when he’s finally getting everything he’d dreamt about for so long, worked so hard for. No, it would be selfish to share your unease at the time and distance about to spread between the two of you.

Besides, you had done it once before. Not on this scale, of course, but you convinced yourself it would work out all the same. He would call as often as he could. He’d be coming home to you. It would pass - it would work out. 

“It’s real, so you better believe it, rockstar.”

An echo of the past. A time that felt so far away from the two of you now. This time around, as you say them, you don’t feel the same joy coating your tongue. 

Your tone is supportive, so Eddie doesn’t taste any of the disdain. Later that night, as he’s kissing you, hips rolling to meet yours in a sacred promise, fingers intertwined in yours as you pant each other’s names back and forth, he still doesn’t taste it. All he tastes is euphoria. And he brings you right to it with him, over, and over, and over again. 

Euphoria tastes metallic by the end of it. 

He leaves bruises painted up and down your neck, covering your collarbones and chest like an art piece hanging in the Louvre. You can’t help but wonder how long it will take for his marks to fade, for the physical reminder that he was here and in your arms to disappear from your grasp. 

As he makes love to you, it begins to feel like a goodbye, because it is. 

He doesn’t mean for it to happen, but it does. 

The first month follows similarly to how his first tour did. Nightly phone calls, whispered love confessions and discussions of each other’s day. For a moment, you convince yourself that all of your fears and anxieties had been silly. They almost recede from your mind completely, fading with his love marks on your collarbone. 

But then it begins.

Phone calls become less frequent. Every night because every other night, until they’re eventually weekly. At some point, you only have the privilege of hearing his voice over the line monthly. It is a slow burning fire, turning everything you had built with him to ashes. Conversations that once could drag on for hours turn to ten minute discussions that end in him rushing off the phone, someone on the other end of the line demanding his attention more urgently than you did. 

You can’t even fight it. You need him, but they need him more.

You know you’ve lost him when he stops saying he loves you. It’s subtle, you don’t even believe he’s noticed, but one night’s phone call is cut particularly short, and the end arrives.

“Hey, baby, I’m sorry, but they need me for soundcheck,” he says, the line staticky with white noise, making it hard to hear him. 

He’s never felt farther away, and they’re not even on the west coast leg of the tour yet. 

“Oh,” you whisper, disappointment gripping your lungs, “Oh, that’s fine! Go, they need you.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. You miss hearing that in person, that soft laughter in the shell of your ear over inside jokes and one too many glasses of wine. “Rockstar duties and all. We’ll talk more later?” 

“Of course. Go give ‘em, Hell,” you keep your tone light, but the tears have started to build up across your waterline, “I love you.” 

The line goes dead before you can even finish your sentence. The dial tone echoes back to you, and it doesn’t matter how hard you strain, no words of affection can be deciphered in its deafening ringing. 

That’s when you break.

The flood comes, tears racing down your cheeks as you roll over and clutch the pillow that you’re not even sure was once his. The bed no longer has a clear boundary, a side that belonged to him and a side that belonged to you. It’s all muddled together now. You’re not even sure you’d recognize the smell of his cologne now.

A heart has never broken so quietly. The sobs are there, but no sounds escape your mouth as you whimper. You had always known it would be hard, everyone had warned you, but you had always assumed you could take it, because Eddie would be by your side, hand slotted with yours as it was the two of you against the world. But now you stood in the storm, and the space beside you was eerily empty. It was all a bit much. A gaping hole forms in your chest that night, gory as it bleeds scarlet red for a boy a world away, and you know that there is not a single bandage in the world to heal it.

He doesn’t call back after that, and the hole tears larger. 

There’s a few texts here and there. But none of them ever say the three words you so desperately crave from him. You feel like strangers. 

After two months of radio silence, save for two text messages from him, you’ve made up your mind.

He never calls, so you never tell him. You gather what belongings can be called solely yours, which isn’t many, and you write a letter in your cowardice. You find an apartment on the other side of town. There’s a nice job waiting for you, something that pays better than waitressing. 

You leave your key on the kitchen counter beside a vase with wilted carnations. 

"I wake with your memory over me, that’s a real fucking legacy (it was maroon)."

Six months later, the ache never fades. He calls. When he returns from tour to find an empty apartment, cursive letter calling it quits, he calls. You almost consider changing your number at one point. 

There’s a flood of text messages. Small letters on a shining screen filled with all the words you needed to hear so many months before. All of the things he should have said, now revealed too late. 

You don’t reply, because if you reply, you’ll change your mind.

You tell yourself it’s for the best. That in order for him to achieve what he’d wanted, he couldn’t have someone back home weighing him down. You were a road bump on his path to everything he was destined to be, and this was for the best. 

At some point, he gets the message. You wish he hadn’t, selfishly so, but he does. The phone calls stop. The text messages don’t light up your phone at midnight anymore. You keep up your end of the lease on your once-shared apartment, sending checks to pay your half of the rent until the lease agreement has ended. You have no clue if he moves. Returning to that side of town would simply hurt too much. 

A new normalcy is found. It is a lonely one, but it is one all the same. Sparse phone calls are still exchanged with your friends from Hawkins, but none of them ever bring up Eddie. You’re sure they know, that he had told them, that they had witnessed the aftermath (if there had been any). They were always his friends first, though, and so when the calls dwindle, it doesn’t surprise you. 

It’s a year later when someone mentions his name to you. You had kept up well enough with Corroded Coffin, the last remnants of your past life being something you couldn’t get rid of. You knew they were thriving; they were in the talks of releasing a second album, and going back on tour soon. His name is mentioned when a coworker brings him up. 

They ask you if you want to attend the Corroded Coffin show with them next week. They have a spare ticket and would prefer to not go alone. 

You lie and say you have plans.

But the only plans you have on that bustling night are the ones spent in your apartment. Your one-bedroom apartment is in a nicer part of town, better views out of the window now. When you pull back the curtains, you don’t find a brick wall forever tainted by what once was - you can see the entrance to a music venue that’s sign currently advertises tonight’s show. 

CORRODED COFFIN, ONE NIGHT ONLY - SOLD OUT

You avoid the window at all costs as you get yourself ready for bed that night. Neighbors had already off-handedly warned you it would be a noisy night, claiming you’d feel as if you were at the show yourself based on proximity. On your way home from work, you bought earplugs. 

But the night grows older, a chill in the air as the clock strikes ten, and you can’t help it. You’ve been laying in bed for hours now, earplugs in, only feeling the faint thrumming of intense bass for less than an hour when you finally stand up. You approach the window timidly, scared of what you find. Maybe a ghostly reflection of him, standing in the street, holding up a boombox playing a mixtape of your favorite songs. 

It’s a bitter hopefulness that is full of childish dreams. 

When you stand in your window, curtains pulled back and earplugs finally disregarded on your nightstand, Eddie Munson isn’t standing on the street. All that is there is the neon glow of a red sign that shatters crimson shadows across your cheeks. 

He’s not on the street. He’s too busy on the stage inside, being the rockstar he had always been destined to be. The one he could be now that you had let him go.

All that you see as you look out the window is your own tired reflection, donning nothing but a wine-stained t-shirt and a delicate, silver chain around your neck, a ring you couldn’t bring yourself to return resting heavily between your collarbones. 

"That’s a real fucking legacy to leave."

reblogs, likes, and comments appreciated! <3

[a-sunset-outside-my-window]

hullo friend, do you have any wolfstar fanfic recommendations for remus going through the lunar cycle? something like hurt/comfort but not only, just him dealing with all the things that come from being a wolfy

oh boy do I ever! I'm wiggeling in my seat because of this question

(disclaimer, I've been kinda busy the last few weeks so I might come back to this ask later with some more recs lol)

The 39 Steps by gilbertsdoor

Remus hated having to lie, but he could see no other way around it. Closing in on Sirius, he gripped him by the fabric of his t-shirt, pushing it up towards his throat. ‘Alright then. You’re alone in the muggle countryside, wandless, in the dark. You’re manacled to an evil, murderous werewolf, a known killer who doesn’t hold an ounce of pity for your pathetic human life. If that’s what you would rather believe, then by all means,’ he hissed, ‘be my guest.’

One minute Remus is between jobs, isolated, and thoroughly disenfranchised with life, the next he is on the run for murder, being a werewolf-at-large, and for knowing far, far too much.

One minute Sirius Black is a bored auror in training, the next he is caught up with Remus in a mess of secrets and dark magic.

Their lives intertwine, but how long can they keep running from the Death Eaters, and how long can they keep running from themselves?

Harry Potter and the Dog and the Wolf by thewholeofthemoon I live and breathe for this series!) it's very much focused on lycanthropy especially the latest work wich is still a wip but so so so good!

Scent of the Moon by Quietlemonhush this is a little different but very much lycanthropy focused even if it's not always the source of the hurt

Not content to only disown the wayward heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Walburga calls in back up. Bellatrix has all those new friends with their good ideals and their sharp, sharp teeth.

Sirius Black returns to Hogwarts with a bite in his side and a fever he can't shake.

they also have some more smutty wolfstar fics wich feature the lunar cycle if that's more what you are looking for

Dunes and Waters by MarigoldWritesThings ( @marigold-hills ) this is probably the fic most focused on lunar cycles and just the magic theory behind lycanthropy and I also just can't reccomend it enough

Remus is sensitive to changing tides, a part of the moon always with him, and Black is like the sea. He can smell it on him, the way his magic builds up and crackles about the fingertips.

***

A werewolf, a convict, and a riddle.

The W in Weasley stands for Werewolf by gonzoclock this one is mostly here for fun werewolf lore I'm not gonna lie

When a werewolf comes out of nowhere and attacks nineteen-year old Arthur Weasley, he thinks his life is over before it's even really begun. He's wrong, of course, and now all of forty years later the Weasley family is thriving, happy, and healthy- and every one of them is a werewolf.

Things are going really well for eleven-year old Ron... except for the part where he has to get through school without anyone finding out his family's secret while simultaneously keeping his new brother alive. Easy-peasy. Right?

(Pay no mind to the one-eyed beast that seems to be lurking in the shadows- it's almost certainly nothing to worry about.)

Features the entire Weasley family adopting Harry Potter practically the second they lay eyes on him (or before that, even); Ron Weasley finding himself being altogether far too nice too slimy gits who don't deserve it; Percy Weasley doing his best; Harry deciding that being enemies with this Malfoy kid is too much work actually; Hermione Granger being as smart and ruthless as ever; Severus Snape who did not, and I repeat, did NOT sign up for ANY of this; and much, much more

By Moonlight by Eiiri this one, as well is mostly here for the werewolf angst, not nessecarily between wolfstar

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Remus recognizes something familiar in Draco Malfoy and offers him sanctuary. With nowhere else to turn--his parents in prison, his home a crime scene--Draco reluctantly accepts and becomes a tolerated, if not welcome, member of his schoolyard rivals' and wartime adversaries' family of choice. As pages of the lunar calendar turn and the summer wears on, Draco and the others begin to see each other in a different light.

but definitely check out these authors! <3

sorry for bad grammar it's late

[twig-tea]

Canadian LGBTQ+ rights; a whirlwind summary

Back in August of 2023 @wen-kexing-apologist wrote an absolutely stellar piece here, and I didn't want to co-opt it (especially because it was already written with an American gaze and I don't want to pile on/distract from the fact that we're talking about Thai BL) so I decided to make this a separate post. And then it lingered in the sad pile of my drafts. But, I'm gonna post it anyway, and take this as an excuse to talk about Canadian history of LGBTQ+ rights apropos of absolutely nothing except the most recent move of the provinces (specifically Saskatchewan) to use the notwithstanding clause to force through legislation that the courts have said goes against our charter of rights and freedoms--specifically legislation that says a teacher cannot respect a child's pronouns without permission of the parent. This is being taken to court (latest as of this writing is that in Feb 2024 the group fighting the law was granted the right to be heard by the court in spite of the notwithstanding clause being invoked, so there is still a chance of it getting revoked via the courts).

WKA talks about what the conversation was like in the US around queer rights in the 20th century; highly recommend reading the linked post first. In Canada the conversation was a little different though with very similar themes; we had the shift to a focus on "privacy" as the driver of our rights long before the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in the 1960s. So much of the push and pull of our laws around homosexuality and gender identity and expression have had to do with the public vs private.

Sodomy has been illegal in Canada since colonization (earliest known conviction: 1648) but laws against gross indecency, which included dancing, kissing, or touching between two men, didn't get codified in Canada until 1892 (and not extended to apply to women until 1953 (thanks)). While these laws essentially outlawed any physical public affection between men from the turn of the century, the fervor to root out and eliminate gayness from society didn't really reach its pitch until mid-century.

I need you all to know about the Fruit Machine, which was an ostensibly "scientific" detection device to identify and purge gay and lesbian civil servants from the military and public service in Canada. While the machine was built in the 1950s and used through the 1950s and 1960s, the practice of using psychology, polygraphs, and interrogation to force military and public servants to come out and take a voluntary discharge existed through to the 1990s.

Our former Prime Minister PE Trudeau made famous the line "there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" as part of his so-called decriminalization of homosexuality 1967; this is of course a joke because "buggery" and "gross indecency" stayed on the books for another 20 years, the only difference being they were only punishable if the people involved were under 21, there were 3 or more people present, or the participants were performing these acts outside of their home. You may notice that this meant the policing of public space was where and how homophobia continued to be perpetuated by the state via police.

Highlighting the importance of privacy as a framework for gay rights at this time, The Right to Privacy movement was the name for one of the forerunners of modern Canadian LGBTQ+ rights groups through the 1970s--though worth noting that this group in particular was criticized for its exclusion of WLW and our trans siblings (some of whom of course overlap). The infamous bathhouse raids of 1981 ("Operation Soap"), leading to at the time the largest arrest in Toronto's history, were one of the precipitating factors in the recognizable start of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. In 1986, five years after the raids and thanks to massive effort by LGBTQ+ organizing, sexual orientation was added to the protected list of attributes that it is illegal to discriminate against under the Canadian Human Rights Act (gender identity and expression was added in 2012), and in 1987 "anal intercourse" was made legal for those over 18 (the legal age of consent was made the same for everyone--16--in 2019), and "gross indecency" as a law was finally repealed. The fight for marriage equality was the next step after achieving real decriminalization, and was strongly based on the right to freedom from discrimination as protected by the Human Rights Act.

[Just going to take this moment to note that for some reason they never struck off the law criminalizing sodomy when more than two people are present; this is still an inequality on the books now and people do (rarely) still get charged with it.]

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the censorship fight was most famously held in the written sphere--if you've seen the movie Better than Chocolate, you might already be familiar what I'm talking about. From approximately 1986 through to 2000, Canada Border Services targeted shipments to queer bookstores, holding them up, sometimes destroying the content, putting those businesses at risk, and preventing queer content that passed through border control to be stocked in physical stores. It took the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in 2000 to shut down that practice as an illegal suppression of a bookstore (Little Sisters in Vancouver, BC, shout-out!)'s right to freedom of expression.

Raids on safe spaces for sexual activity continued to be a driver for action through to the 21st century. The WLW bathhouse the Pleasure Palace (changed from "Pussy Palace" in the late 90s to be more inclusive of our sisters without that particular body part) was raided in the year 2000; 19 years after Operation Soap, and notably the first and last raid on a queer woman's bathhouse in Canadian history. What followed was a massive public coal-raking of police, including the very telling call to action: "out of the bars! Into the streets!" I don't think this was necessarily the intended implication at the time, but looking back the threat was that if we were not given our rights, we would be in everyone's faces (and conversely if we were given our rights, we'd be quiet). The legalization of marriage between any two consenting persons of legal age came five years later in 2005 (I don't mean to imply this effort was the only reason--the fight for marriage equality was active all the way through the 90s and early 2000s; it's just an interesting parallel that two of the biggest wins for equality for queer people in Canada came 5 years after a historic police raid).

One of the factors in gaining acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in Canada was the fight for marriage equality; as it focused the conversation on sameness rather than difference. The queer activism movement here pivoting from messaging around bathhouses and being left alone to marriage equality was an intentional, strategic attempt to be accepted as the same rather than being honoured for our differences. And that fight coming after the HIV/AIDS epidemic and bathhouse raids is no accident as it framed queer people directly in opposition to the stigma of promiscuity that surrounded assumptions about gay people which fed into the lack of support for medical intervention, research, and treatment for HIV/AIDS (here in Canada too, our history is just as gross on that front, people just don't talk about it as much. But Canada followed the US government's example, and so people were left without medical resources for at least eight years in Canada (since the first cases were identified here in 1982) and THREE YEARS after they had been approved by the US--AZT wasn't available in Canada until 1990. Three years in which people died unnecessarily. We similarly approved PrEP four years after the FDA, in 2016. Today, despite "universal health care", if you want access to PrEP, it will depend on the province you're in as to whether you can get it at all for free or whether you need to pay--in my province, it takes 2 months to get free PrEP).

Today, just over 50% of the people with HIV/AIDS in Canada are men who have sex with men; it's estimated 80% of people infected with HIV know their status, of those 75% are being treated, and of those 89% are effectively unable to transmit the virus. In that context, the ongoing fight re: HIV/AIDS in Canada today is around decriminalization, specifically decriminalization of drugs (since ~20% of HIV infections are from IV drug use--one of the many reasons I support harm reduction strategies), and the decriminalization of non-disclosure (since Canada is one of the few places where you can be charged for not sharing your HIV status with a sexual partner). Until very recently, we were also fighting to be able to give blood--it was only in 2022 that men who have sex with men were allowed to donate blood in Canada, which meant every visit to a blood donation clinic involved questions about the gender of your sexual partner(s). And, as mentioned at the top, one of the rights we are fighting to retain right now, is the right to have our gender expression respected without forced outing to a parent or guardian; Once again, the fight in Canada has become centered around the right to privacy.

Slightly tangential to the topic at hand, but I would be remiss in talking about moments in recent history when the law did not prosecute us, but it failed to protect us. In the 2010s, a serial killer was targeting men who he thought he could get away with making disappear; and he was right. The police ignored calls from the community to treat the case as a serial killer for years. Bruce McArthur killed 8 men who had gone missing from Toronto's Gay Village between 2010 and 2017, several who were vulnerable because they were distant from their families (because they were gay and closeted), homeless, and/or in immigration limbo (waiting for status), so it took longer for them to be reported missing. During this time, through to just weeks before the arrest, the Toronto Police insisted in public statements that there was no serial killer.

Black and Indigenous queer people have regularly died as a result of the police being called while they were in crisis. An unnamed trans woman (who was midgendered by the SIU after her death); Regis Korchinksy-Paquet, both in 2020. In 2022, Dani Cooper, queer activist who advocated against police-run wellness checks, was shot and killed by police during a wellness check called for them.

As a positive step, in 2016, Black Lives Matter Toronto staged a protest as part of the annual Pride Parade, making a list of demands, but the one that got the most coverage was the demand to ban police at Pride. This was taken up by the Pride Toronto committee, and since 2017 police have been banned from having an official float or presence at the parade. This has been taken up by several Canadian cities including Vancouver and Hamilton and inspired action in other cities globally.

With that context, in which queer people are rightfully distrustful of police, it is alarming that police-reported hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people (one of the only ways we have of tracking hate crime consistently) had a record-breaking increase in 2023.

In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (the son of PM Trudeau quoted above) gave a public apology to LGBTQ+ Canadians. Here's just a brief excerpt:

"To the kids who are listening at home and who fear rejection because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity and expression; And to those who are nervous and scared, but also excited at what their future might hold; We are all worthy of love, and deserving of respect. And whether you discover your truth at 6 or 16 or 60, who you are is valid. To members of the LGBTQ2 communities, young and old, here in Canada and around the world: You are loved. And we support you."

The important part about this apology was twofold; one, it explicitly named many of the specific instances of oppression I mentioned above, and two, it listed the things the government was doing to make reparations. This included the repeal of the law that equalized the age of consent (which went through two years later, as mentioned above), the pardoning of people who had a criminal record due to unjust laws based on LGBTQ+ discrimination, settlement of a class action lawsuit for victims of The Purge, and a commitment to work towards better resources for mental health and housing for LGBTQ+ people, as well as a committment to continue working to remove the barriers for gay men to donate blood (which went through in 2022). One of the other important achievements was the change to allow an "X" option under gender on Canadian Passports (so the three available options are M/F/X) in 2019 [some provincial gender opt-out options have existed since 2017].

The current government is by no stretch perfect, but it has been good to see some of these moments of our history acknowledged and corrected for. As the global pressure towards fascism continues, it's critical that we remember these changes are the result of hard work, not inevitable "progress", that these fights are ongoing and require our energy, and that change, using a variety of tactics, is possible.

Quick hit facts if you prefer a list to a narrative:

In Canada, it was illegal for men to hold hands with men or women to hold hands with women in public until the 1960s;

The government tried to expunge us from public service in the 60s and 70s;

it was illegal for men to have threesomes until the 1990s;

bathhouse raids were made possible due to legislative inequalities through the 2000s;

Canada took three years longer than the US to approve treatments for HIV/AIDS, four years longer to approve PrEP, and still today access can be complicated/expensive;

it was possible to be of legal age to have sex but not anal sex until 2019;

Gay men were barred from donating blood until 2022;

Canada remains one of the few countries in the world where you can be prosecuted for not disclosing your HIV status (though does not apply if you retain a minimal viral load);

In 2023 some provincial governments tried to make kids choose between gender expression and their privacy (and potentially safety) from their parents; as of March 2024 that fight is still actively being fought.

The take-aways I hope people get from this post:

This history is more recent than we pretend, and is ongoing

Framing gay rights as right to privacy vs right to being not prosecuted for being in public is nuanced and intertwined

Transphobes need to fuck off

Some references/further reading/watching:

Brief history of LGBTQ+ laws in Canada at the Canadian Encyclopedia

The Fruit Machine documentary made by TVO

Article on HIV/AIDS in Canada policy written by one of the policymakers

Timeline of HIV/AIDS Developments (only goes to 2010 so does not include PreP, which was approved in Canada in 2016, four years after its availability in the US)

Article on The Pleasure Palace raid by one of the organizers

Article on the Bathhouse Raids 40 years after Operation Soap

Article on Bruce McArthur's crimes and the review of how police handled the case by former judge Gloria Epstein

Regis Korchinksy-Paquet and the unnamed trans woman dead after interactions with police

Dani Cooper's death

Article about the Supreme Court case brought by Little Sisters bookshop

HIV Non-Disclosure Law Fact Sheet

Article about the end of the blood ban for men who have sex with men

Black Lives Matter Toronto on their 2016 action at Toronto Pride

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's apology

Gender "X" Options on Passports

Stream Better Than Chocolate (you may need to look up where it's available in your region)

Little Sisters Book & Art Emporium

Glad Day Bookshop (Makes a claim for being the oldest queer bookshop in the world; one of the few queer public spaces being maintained/actively protected as more and more of our spaces are eroded, and also just a personal fave so I'm taking the excuse to shout it out too)

[burronetta]

Journey to P3 - Playing through everybody in "Dead by Daylight"

I've clocked in nearly 800 hours into "Dead by Daylight". It's easily my favorite competitive game and is definitely among my top five favorite games of all time. When I got started, however, I realized that I needed a process to unlock every perk in the game so that I could get the most out of my experience and optimize my perk builds. Otherwise, I was going to get burnt out and FAST. So, I've opted for a series of rules that help me to navigate DbD and try every single character for the perfect period of time by simply leveling them up to Prestige 3 (or "P3"). This unlocks the perks at max level for every other character, Survivor or Killer, in the game, and gives me some time to test out which perks I like and which ones I find tedious.

So, without further ado, and because screaming into the void is better than pretending I don't exist, here are my rules that help me to get every character in DbD to Prestige 3!

CHOOSING/LEVELING SURVIVORS/KILLERS:

Selecting a Survivor or Killer can be based on any criteria; friend/forum suggestion, playstyle, how interesting their perks look, etc.

Once you have selected a Survivor/Killer, they must be advanced to P3 before a new selection can be made.

The first selection of perks on a Survivor/Killer must be a loadout of their original three perks and nothing else. This is so the “Adept” achievement can be completed during the initial P3 run.

Once the “Adept” achievement has been accomplished, then you can change out any perks for a full, new loadout, provided that the first perk is always one of that character’s original perks.

This build is not meant to be an optimized strat for effective play. Optimization will come later once all Survivors/Killers are at P3.

Leveling the Bloodweb is to be completed with a focus on advancing perks first, then BP-increasing offerings next, and finally items/offerings that influence gameplay.

PLAYING IN THE TRIALS:

No add-ons/items may be brought into the trials:

In the case of Survivors, this is to get a feel for raw gameplay and to take advantage of perks that may improve skills or make finding items in the trial easier.

In the case of Killers, this is to allow you to get used to their basekit and to not be dependent on any playstyle that requires a specific add-on.

There are exceptions to the “No add-ons/items” rule:

Tome challenges that require you to use an item during the trial can be used as an excuse to bring said item. However, it is recommended that you attempt to find an item during the trial to make the challenge more interesting.

Scratched-Mirror Myers is the best reason to bring add-ons to the trial, and possibly the only reason I’d break this rule as Killer.

The only offerings allowed in the trials are BP-increasing offerings. They are to be utilized in an order that focuses on maximizing BP for all players in the trial first. The specific order of preference for offerings is as follows:

Event-specific BP offerings (Screech Cobblers, Frightful Flans, etc.)

Bloody Party Streamers

Green Envelope (In the case of Survivors)

Escape Cake/Survivor Pudding

Yellow Envelope/Hollow Shell

Green Offerings (Survival/Sacrifice is offered last)

Yellow Offerings (Survival/Sacrifice is offered last)

Brown Offerings (Survival/Sacrifice is offered last)

No matter what perk loadout you have selected for the trial, the ultimate goal is not just attempting to escape/sacrifice as many Survivors as possible. This goal may be circumvented in favor of more entertaining play, such as goofing around with the Killer/Survivors, playing for the sake of increasing BP, or participating in tome challenges. It’s not to say that you aren’t allowed to play the game exactly as intended, but fun is most important.

NEW CHAPTER PROTOCOLS:

Whenever a new chapter is released that features a new Killer and/or Survivor, the current Killer/Survivor is placed on hold until the latest additions have been advanced to P3, then you can return to the withheld Killer/Survivor.

Adept achievements for the new additions are considered absolutely necessary, as it’s more likely to test the value of all new perks while attempting to complete the achievements. Any additional achievements that are added alongside the new chapters are assumed to either be completed during the P3 run incidentally or to be accomplished later.

EXPENDING BP:

BP received during trials is to be accrued until you hit approximately 100,000 BP, then is to be expended on the Bloodweb. Exceptions are made at the player’s discretion.

All BP gifts are to be utilized in the following way:

Randomly provided BP gifts, BP earned during Tome challenges, and weekly free gifts are to be expended (at personal discretion) on the current Killer/Survivor being advanced to P3.

If a more recent tome challenge requires you to play as a specific Survivor/Killer that has already been advanced to P3, you may play as that character for the challenge, and any BP accrued from completing that challenge will be expended on the current Survivor/Killer being advanced to P3.

BP awarded during the monthly 13th MMR reset are to be expended advancing Survivors and Killers not currently advanced to P3 all to level 15 (unlocking all four perk slots). Once all Survivors/Killers are advanced to level 15, then the MMR reset BP can be used to randomly advance the current Survivor or Killer.

So far, these rules have served me VERY well while I've been playing the game, and once I've completed getting everybody to P3, I'm planning on doing a "Journey to P6" next! This is where for each Prestige level, I will take one of the Survivor's/Killer's original perks, and craft a build around it so I can get used to thinking about how to maximize value out of those perks. I've only got 8 Survivors and 9 Killers left, so I'm extremely excited about the next leg of my journey now that it's in sight!

[s1utspeare]

The Long-Awaited: WILLIAM WATCHLIST UPDATE!!!!!!!!

hello beloved members of the William Community! It's been a while since we've had an update as to what William is doing in his latest film projects!!! And I gotta say, we're all in for a surprise here!

Once again, this is the William Watchlist, where I watch all of William's filmography, so you don't have to!

Faces in the Crowd (2023)

Williams back, and he’s having a myriad of queer-coded relationships with men!!! If u liked seeing Zhu Yilong get his shit rocked by a zaddy with a gun in The Rebel, you’ll love seeing William get his shit rocked by a zaddy with a gun in Faces in the Crowd, cause that’s basically all this movie is.

Faces in the Crowd is about a lil guy named Jiadong who is in the Chinese army and is hunting some communists bc that’s what they do in these movies. He teams up with his old zaddy who was a communist and then decided to have money instead, and they work on tracking down a communist who looks shockingly like bai yu. William runs round and shoots a gun (except he’s. Shockingly bad at it) and learns about communism

What I don’t get is why they keep having william do rom coms bc every time he’s in a rom com I forget he can actually act sometimes. Anyway he’s stupid in this like most of his other shows, but I really enjoyed watching it!! Definitely the best out of his three 2023 projects

TW: there is a sexual assault scene; nothing super graphic, but be aware!

Overall Rating: 9/10 there wasn’t really anything super new or original here. Also the final fight was ???? William outran a machine gun and then got set on fire but he lived

William Rating: 8/10 he’s JUST about to get to the point where he’s a little too old to keep playing characters in their 20s, so I don’t quite buy the naivety thing from him anymore and he kinda hams it up with that one in this. Otherwise he’s fantastic, lots of action and running around and making men fall in love with him by using his cow eyes and pretty smile

BURSTING POINT (2023)

Literally Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ William what the fuck. What the actual fuck.

Y'all know me, I love a drug cartel-action heist-undercover agent shebang as much as the next girl but HOLY SHIT. This is a particularly good genre for William and he likes to do them, so there have been a few but this one. Crossed a lot of lines. And I'm not really surprised it hasn't been allowed on any streaming services.

The plot is that William is a cop but no one at his job likes him, so he gets blackmailed into going undercover in a drug cartel. William's really good at going undercover in a drug cartel. He is a little too good at going undercover in a drug cartel, which leads to a falling out between him as his boss who he is in gay love with. You can kinda get the gist.

What you can't get the gist of are the trigger warnings that should be on this movie! So, I highly do not recommend this film if you are triggered or made uncomfortable by any of the following: extreme violence, blood and injury, major character death, extreme violence against children, sexual assault, drug use, drug overdosing, police brutality, and William's superhumangift tattoo being on full display the whole time (seriously though, this movie shows a lot of shit so definitely go into it with that in mind; I can always answer any specific questions if u have them!).

Overall Rating: 8/10 like it was really well-plotted and it was very well executed in terms of acting and script but it was. A Lot.

William Rating: 8/10 where did this boy learn how to act???? cause he's acting in this. Minus 2 because his ass is way too good at acting a little stupid and a little gay and making old men fall in love with him.

A Date With The Future (2023)

This show is fucking stupid oh my gosh. So so stupid. There are some great bits, like william being in a very homosexual relationship and also aroace coded, and he’s cute with a dog, but everything else was BAD

plot is that a girl named Xu Lai gets trapped in a building during an earthquake and william saves her so she falls in love with him and then harasses him at his workplace. William is like “I am not interested in dating never have been never will be” but then she has a dog and he really likes dogs so I guess they’re gonna fall in love?? It’s ridiculous all of it. Xu Lai is also sooooooo fucking annoying like girl stop stalking him!!!!!

But huge fan of william being aroace! Also for some reason they kept having the firefighters do sexy rain scenes??? And made them do like three stupid little dances and william looks like he’s the only one having any fun

Overall Rating: 4/10. It’s just really not good or interesting!!!!! williams a goofy goober tho so that’s fun

William Rating: 5/10 he’s cute and stupid but he could have done something way better than this. Literally anything

[exoticalmonde]

Part I. Hortus de Escapismo Dr. Evealia's Reaction

Ah, finally.

Hortus de Escapismo

Garden of Escapism

Full experience includes waiting for 19837364 endless hours for the servers to open, rewatching the PV (English Version)

The animated PV

And listening to the biggest banger of a boss music without knowing any context. Including to whatever this splash art is meant to be about why does he look so... sad?

The following contains only the aftermath of the gacha and me being real chatty about the way characters look + expectations, so if you're looking for commentary of the story, please refer to Part II!

Hortus de Escapismo is on the horizon and Dr. Lundi is a radiant and unavoidable ball of excitement during the pulls. How could she NOT be??? Six months of saving, an ungodly ammount of pulls and a surprising eagerness of Executor to arrive home later (i.e. the fact out of eight 6*, only two were strangers).

Speaking of strangers, an obscure horse wandered into the pulls to remind her that he's still her number one husband and Executor comes second. Most likely because to summon Federico she changed Mlynar on her homescreen to Executor normal version and he got a little worried, the old man.

Among the 4 Doctors there's always 7 pots of each Elite, so it's no wonder the other one went to Dr. Pinkie before pity, which pretty much concluded our pulls. I don't know what happened to Dr. Kryo, but I personally didn't pull because Hoederererer is on the horizon four months from now and I am BEHIND because of Silverash Kernels.

Fastest character build ever in the world. I think maxing out characters ASMRs have to exist. It's so nice to see it happen so fast. Aesthetically pleasing, complete and right.

But since I'm giving statements that are already unrequested, I just want to say that Executor is not my type. I don't like stiffly blunt and I am also on the side of Sarkaz, so just Sanktas in general are a little... off for me. Except Enforcer, Enforcer is my baby and I would kill for him.

Go on, TRY and convince me this isn't one of the coolest arts ever. I need old 6* characters to get a revamp on their E2 art, because compared to this few can truly compare. God is behind him, holding the scythe, the statue is half a robot for whatever reason???? And it's so cool???

Not to mention that he looks exactly the same face-wise versus his E0 art, which cannot be said about, I don't know, SilverAsh, who looks like he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone in an alley.

His token is also so so so so cute, I don't know what the overall experience with listening to him talking into your ear feels like, but just-- just read this:

'A wireless earpiece. The latest of the Lateran Curia's tech products, and the same model that Executor himself currently uses. Is he giving this to you so you can stay in contact with him at any time, perhaps?'

??????????????????????????????

Cutie patootie.

Base skill not all that impressive. For some reason while looking into it Dr. Pinkie expressed surprise, because she couldn't find any other operator who gives productivity for EXP cards, but by complete accident I saw FEater is another one.

Insider's splash looks great, he's the embodyment of that one weirdo who always gets in trouble for some reason. Might be the spiky hair. Might be the army of pigeons following him.

Their voice actors are amazing so far as I heard, so we wait and see what he's like personality wise.

HIS POTENTIAL IS ABUBUBUBU

'A handwritten dessert recipe. With proportions finetuned to Insider's own personal tastes, the sugar content ABSOLUTELY exceeds recommended guidelines! This one's a pick-me-up!'

Ma'amn...

Not me. Not with that look.

Jail.

'A user manual for precision machinery. Though the only thing inside is a special phone number, since she thinks telling you what to do directly is easier. (But sometimes she'll teach you wrong on purpose–depends on her mood.)'

JAIL FOR YOU

[townofcrosshollow]

How to Keep Your Twine Project Safe

It is a tale as old as time. The app crashes, your cache is cleared, your laptop breaks, and hours or days or weeks of work is lost. It's a terrible experience, and you never think about what to do in that situation until it happens to you- and by that time, it's already too late. So here's your prompt to get ahead of things and keep your project protected before something goes wrong.

So here, I'll be going over some layers of security you can use...

1. NEVER use the web app

I know this one's gonna be controversial. I know, a lot of people use the web app! It exists for a reason! But if you do, you're leaving your work very vulnerable.

When you use a local installation of Twine, your files are being saved to local storage. That means that everything is saved on your hardware, and with the exception of a freak event, it's not going anywhere. Don't get me wrong, those freak events aren't rare enough to dismiss (we'll talk about that later), but it's not quite as bad as the web app.

Instead of saving your files locally, the web app saves your progress to your browser's cache- the same thing that saves your cookies and keeps you logged in on websites. If your cache is cleared for any reason, your games will be gone.

2. Write your documents in a separate program

Chances are, if you're using Twine, there's a lot of stuff you can do outside of Twine before moving it into the program itself. A common practice is to write prose in a separate program, and then move it all into Twine when you're finished and write the code in Twine. This is a great way to back up your work, because if Twine has an error, you'll still have all the source files to reconstruct what you had before.

I'd recommend trying to use a stable program to write in. That means something that saves locally and doesn't frequently crash. In other words, do not use Google Docs. Instead of Docs, try one of these:

Microsoft Word (expensive, subscription, but stable)

LibreOffice (free, stable)

Scrivener (one time purchase, stable)

3. Back EVERYTHING up

I can not stress this enough. Back up your damn work. Back it up in multiple places if possible.

"Oh, but I'm using Google Docs, it's already backed up!" NO. No it is not. To keep your work truly safe, you need multiple copies hosted on multiple pieces of hardware. If one of those is a Google server, great! But if it's just one, that means that one single failure in that hardware (or the software associated) will mean everything is lost.

You can back up your files from the Twine program by going under the Build tab and selecting Publish to File or Export as Twee. Saving that to your device is already better than having it saved by the Twine app, but you'll be even safer if you back that file up to an external hard drive (or just a cheap USB drive) and a cloud hosting service like Dropbox or Google Drive. To make it extra safe and minimize lost progress, make sure you replace these files regularly.

That seems like a lot of work though, right? Yeah. So here's my final piece of advice...

4. Use Git

Git is how I've been backing up my latest project, Signal Hill. It's intimidating at first, but there are simple and easy ways to use platforms like Github to keep your work safe and fix big errors. To teach you how, I've created a whole separate tutorial, which you can find here.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Good afternoon Sex Witch!

I was hoping you could help me figure out how to change how I think about sex and unlearn some prudishness/ disentangle it from more genuine concerns and red flags.

Yadda yadda conservative small town childhood, classic backstory. I definitely got a sense of… I guess, safety and rightness by being very “these things are always bad”; not just sex things but sex was, of course, still one of the big things. Of course, then came puberty, and getting out of my comfort zone, and realizing how toxic purity culture was. Growing up meant, in part, my learning to do better by re-examining things I’d taken for granted.

That’s why I’m asking: there’s a lot of… lingering discomfort with a few things. I realized I still feel pretty… uncomfortable around people who have a lot of sex with multiple partners, along with the topics of polyamory and open relationships. I’m monogamous and I’m not ashamed of that, and of course I keep my opinions to myself when around friends who are happy in non-monogamous relationships. Cuz like, this is ABSOLUTELY a me-problem. I would just like to not feel like this and be unambiguously happy for people I otherwise love living their best lives.

(I’m also single and shy; I strongly suspect that envy over people who can attract multiple partners when I can’t seem to even attract one is a polluting variable.)

Regardless, do you have any links to point me to or thoughts to help me dismantle this ugly bigotry protoplasm? Cuz I know I’m wrong; I’d just like to get the bit of my brain to stop sending these stupid alarm signals.

hi anon,

okay, so, first I just want to say congrats to you on the obvious massive amounts of work that you've done to identify the biases you were raised with and work to uproot them. I know you're here because you feel you still have work to do, and I respect that completely, but I think it's also important to recognize that you've clearly come very far from what you were raised with. being able to recognize when something is a you-problem is HUGE.

I also want to say, as gently and with as much love as possible, that it may not ever be possible to totally 100% possible eradicate thoughts that we don't like. in a way, the idea that we can and should be able to control our impulsive reactions to things is still very conservative, right? it's the idea of "thought crime," except now instead of being upset at yourself for having a sexual thought it's being upset for having a thought that's not sexually open enough.

while I understand wanting to eradicate that unpleasant little "yuck" response out of your brain forever, I also believe very firmly that your thoughts alone don't define you or your values. okay, so your knee-jerk reaction to someone you love announcing that they're in an open relationship is discomfort. but what are your actions? what are you saying and doing? are you lecturing them about their immoral lifestyle, or are you pushing that discomfort aside and doing your best to be supportive of someone else's happiness even if you don't personally get it?

your actions and how you're treating the people you care about matter a lot more than the thoughts that you can't help.

having said that, it's still nice to have some framework for how to work through those feelings of discomfort to at least see if it's possible to diminish them and change that line of thinking. luckily, sex educator Nadine Thornhill just wrote about this in her latest newsletter, which I definitely recommend checking out - Dr. Thornhill is gem.

so, with full credit and hoping that she would forgive me for borrowing, here's an excerpt from Dr. Thornhill's newsletter:

Like all humans, I have a judgey little mind that is constantly observing, assessing, assuming, inferring, and drawing conclusions based on random stimuli. That’s always happening, even when I’m in sex-educator mode. But what I can do (and you can, too, if you want) is practice being mindful of my judgements, especially negative judgements. The most critical part of the practice has been getting curious about my body signals. When someone makes a sexual decision I don’t like, a question I try to ask myself is: What does that feel like in my body? Sometimes, I’ve struggled to maintain that level of in-the-moment mindfulness when working with real people and consequences.Movies and TV have helped me explore some of that stuff. It’s a safe place to judge fictional folks and their fictional sexual choices freely. Meanwhile, being able to pause, rewind or replay a provocative scene lets me take the time to take stock of my physical reactions. With time and practice, it’s become easier to recognize the specific muscle tension and rapid breathing that signals disapproval. Why is this important? We may not be able to stop ourselves from forming judgements about other people’s sexual choices. But if we understand and acknowledge them as judgements rather than facts, we can work to avoid imposing our will on other people. One way we might do so is by asking ourselves the following questions: Does this person’s decision affect my body, relationships, or autonomy? What would have to be true for me to want to make this same choice? What might make this a positive choice for this person right now? How might my own experiences or situations be affecting my opinion? How can I express kindness and compassion while still respecting their right to make their own choice?

much appreciation to Dr. Thornhill for putting this so succinctly; I'd definitely recommend checking out her work for anon and anyone else!

[k-s-morgan]

Hello. Love your blog!

May I baldly recommend these two works:

Too old to be this young (Tomarry) is fascinating as it portrays smart adult Harry and minister Tom with a hilarious and healthy (?) dynamic.

In Sickness and in Health (Hannigram). Hannibal and Will being married with oblivious everyone is one of my favorite trops.

I don't actually know your preferences, so I got curious. Do you have any favorite/hated trops? Or maybe reading suggestions?

Hello! Thank you so much <3 It’s such an interesting coincidence - the day you sent this ask, I thought there is something familiar about the title Too old to be this young. So I checked and yes, this is the story I downloaded to my e-reader that exact morning :D I haven’t read it yet but I’m starting it soon. I’ve been checking out some new Tomarry stories lately and this one grabbed my attention. 

Also, I did read In Sickness and in Health! I love this trope as well, it’s amazing, I got so much enjoyment out of reading this story. I’m still subscribed to it but I don’t think there have been updates in a while - and to be honest, I remember it badly at this point. Maybe I’ll re-read it because I remember enjoying it a lot. 

I tend to dislike kid fics! Some are very well-written but I rarely enjoy them. I’m not fond of sci-fi, although there are exceptions. Anything else is pretty much go as long as there is some angst and a satisfying romance, preferably an obsessive one. 

As for reading suggestions; I have a list with some original stories I loved here; my old-ish list for fandoms is here. 

The latest Tomarry stories I’ve read and loved are

The Art of Falling: demon Tom and angel Harry. It’s so interesting, smart, and dark in places that I fell head over heels.  

That Deathless Death universe is brilliant, too, and while it’s so long already, I lament that it’s not finished yet. This AU story has a very complex and detailed world-building, focuses on many characters at once, which is usually not my favorite thing but I enjoyed it here, and it has a fascinating dynamic between Harry and Voldemort. It also feels magical from start to finish, there is so much soul in it.

Holly & Yew is about Harry and Tom growing up together. I love this trope and this story ticks so many boxes! Dependency, possessiveness, love, plenty of interesting situations and events. I also really enjoy how the author treats Harry’s attitude to magic. His love for it is palpable and it gives everything such a special atmosphere. 

[hyperpotamianarch]

All right, I posted a couple of Jewish stuff, so maybe it's time for a nice Fantasy post. Also, Howl's Moving Castle and Anne of Green Gables. You'll get it by the end.

You see, I'm not a writer yet. Which seems like a bad beginning, but it's going to tie in soon. I do want to be a writer, and have attempted to write books multiple times. Usually I have an idea that I try to latch on and make into a good story, though that doesn't always work. And yes, I've seen that post about writing encyclopedias or annotated maps and am seriously considering it. But anyway, one of my latest ideas was: what if Anne of Green Gables, but Fantasy?

The cause for this idea is the fact I'm usually very locked on Fantasy. By which I mean, I usually refuse to read things outside of this genre, with maybe Sci-Fi added in. I have somewhat mellowed out since and will not immediately refuse any non-Fantasy book recommendation, but I'd still prefer Fantasy over all else. Anne of Green Gables has, to some degree, come to be an exception. By which I mean, it's almost unique among my favourite books in not being Fantasy.

It is thus that I thought, hey. What if I take that thing I really like and make a similar thing in the genre I really like? That'll be great, won't it?

Well, the jury is still out on that. I still didn't figure out the essence of what I liked about Anne of Green Gables, so I don't really know how I might take on this project. I currently have two story ideas that are supposedly under this umbrella - one is a crossover fic that I didn't manage to actually make to work, and another which is an attempt at Urban Fantasy that is vaguely in the works. I would focus on the fic for now, though, because it arose from a realization I had: the closest thing to Fantasy Anne of Green Gables I've ever read is probably Howl's Moving Castle.

It's important to note that this is not so in plot. In general plot, those books are vastly different. It's not in characters either - I believe the only things Sophie and Anne share are temper strong enough to hit their live interest on the head, hair that could roughly considered to be ginger and a general belief they're ugly. The latter isn't really accurate and manifests in vastly different ways in the two.

No, what I do believe those books share is some of their atmosphere. They are still far from identical, as Anne's character is central to her book and Sophie is very different, but there are similarities. Here is the antagonistic relationship with the love interest throughout the book, and there are the relatively lower, more personal stakes of this book. I mean, there are many large differences, but... basically, Anne of Green Gables in Fantasy would have to be (I think) Cozy Fantasy. And Howl's Moving Castle is, in a way, a Cozy Fantasy book: it mostly deals with the day to day life of the four inhabitants of the Moving Castle, from Sophie's PoV. Sure, there's a curse that drives the plot forward and a witch and her fire demon, both perfectly willing to kill anyone who stands in their way. But it's still about How Sophie Cleans the House; How Sophie Pushes Her Nose Into Howl's Relationship With Her Sister; and How Sophie Is Generally A Nosy Old Woman Living In The House Of The Flippant And Cowardly Wizard Howell Jenkins.

I may have lost it a bit there. But it really is about the daily life in the Castle, which I think puts it a step closer. So, I thought of a crossover fic named Katie of the House of Reflections. It didn't really work, though I think the idea has potential if only I developed it a little more.

That is it: a comparison of the stories of two ginger girls who had anime adaptations. Don't thank me yet. You still didn't see me add Princess Eilonwy and Shallan Davar into the mix.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

Any favorite Car Games™ of yours? Forza, GT, Beam, Automation, etc.?

Auto/Beam are particular favorites of mine and also i have 10,000 hours logged between them

Since I wasn't a spoiled bitch, I can literally just list all the car games I had in my childhood. All for PC that is, because since I wasn't a spoiled bitch I didn't have a console. Okay actually there was NFS Carbon: Own The City and Herbie for DS but that was it. We were saying.

Colin McRae Rally 04 You've no idea what pain I brought to those poor little cars. Frequently I got to the end of one of those 2/4m stages with the car dying every 10/15 seconds. Such a good game. It also ran without having to insert its CD, which was very cool at the time, and very useful when I was gaming on the go on Father's Dell. idk if I also played it on his Toshiba but no such memory surfaces. Man I loved Father's Toshiba. I should try to retrofit it with new internals sometime.

Colin McRae Rally 2005 Liked that one too, but memories are hazier since at one point I was no longer able to play it for reasons I cannot recall so I just moved to 04 instead.

Test Drive Unlimited Got it recommended and didn't like it much. In hindsight it was an absolutely gorgeous game structure, but I just didn't care because I didn't like the way the cars drove. It collected dust.

Race Driver GRID For a long while, by far the latest racing game I ever had. Enjoyed it quite a lot! I even submitted an absolutely incredible gameplay clip to FailRace, though unfortunately it never did get featured. Bullshit, I say. And yes, for the longest time, I think until like 2020?, I had one single game that was younger than '06. See the part about not being a spoiled bitch. <-absolutely green with envy

GT Legends Played it a little during my youth, then tried to reinstall it years later to see if it lived up to my few memories of it and if I could get more out of it then by being less of a stupid baby. It corrupted the entire operating system and made the computer unable to start. A solid "no" to both.

And of course, who could forget, the Need For Speed series! In their chronological order:

Need For Speed Underground In my early childhood I didn't play it much, because I was still using the auto gearbox like a PLEB and you couldn't map controls in that game so when I got to the first drag race I couldn't figure out where the shift up key was nor could find it or remap it in settings and just abandoned the game. It should be noted as a child I was, in absolute, cosmically stupid. Later on I did pick it back up and see it to completion, loving it throughout (except for the part where you unlock the final boss' Civic you were neck and neck with on an R34 Skyline GT-R and they tell you it was stock. Sure honey now if you wait how did this bag of Fuck Off get here?). If only it had free roam, more races, a more varied environment, refillable NOS, the ability to have different cars simultaneously, and you get where I'm going with this don't you.

Need For Speed Underground 2 Man I loved this game since I started playing it at some ridiculously low age and I never stopped loving it and I was right throughout. I love love LOVE this game. I know the map by heart, the soundtrack by heart, the circuits by heart, the upgrades by heart, the starter cars specs by heart, you have no idea. This has been my childhood. This is by far and away the one I played and loved the most, even though due to the needlessly convoluted and completely obscure progression mechanics that childhood never saw me finish it - although I guess that helped me keep playing it, as when I got stuck with no way to progress further I'd just start from scratch again with no clue what to fix. I was able to pick it back up and finish it later on in life, through middle/high school, and later on still through the power of mods I squeezed and crushed and stretched that game like Tumblr did with Danny Phantom episodes. I modded it so much it crashed every ten minutes. I ran it off an iPod Nano. I messed the cars up so bad I'd essentially created new game modes. I managed to make a good desktop computer over a decade younger than the game itself run it at seconds per frame just by editing four wheel coordinates. And now you spoiled bitches can download it for free on somewhere like MyAbandonware (dot com, of course) and give it a try. And I can't recommend it enough. Literally; because if I could, friend of the blog @demoness-one would have done so by now >:(

Need For Speed Most Wanted The best Need For Speed game of all time, according to everyone. Everyone but me. I mean, I did go through it, but it looks bleak, the cars just seem to want to bounce from wall to wall, and I just don't like police chases - it's a game, why would I want a limited number of attempts? Also, they madly stressed me out, so, and here begins a funny story, I abandoned it when unable to rack up enough chase points to challenge the final boss. I picked it back up a while later to find out if it was just me being a baby, and no, I still didn't like it - but luckily I'd learned of the bug where if you park on a certain railing all the cop cars will pile up under you but never bust you, and decided to actually finish what I'd started so long before. Those points racked up, I worked myself through the good hour of bullshit unfairness of the duel with Razor (I have to win every race to win but he can win any race to win? Understandable. hey the bag of Fuck Off's back), even quitting the whole shebang three races in over a wrong input and having to start again, until, after hours of unsaveable progress, I finally was able to win the last race. And did you know that after that, just when you think you're done, you get the biggest, most intense car chase of the whole game? :) Well, I sure didn't, because right after I finished the race the game crashed and I had to do all those five races over again. :) And then I did that and it crashed again and I uninstalled the game and watched the ending on YouTube. :)

Need For Speed Carbon The takes get hotter still: I like this one more than MW. The colors got fixed, I liked the handling better (while obviously not as good as the mighty Underground 2 OF COURSE), drifting, my favorite race mode, replaced drag racing, my least favorite*, and yes, the car chases, and I may even like the soundtrack better? Nah, that's bull, I don't remember much of those two soundtracks at all off the top of my head. But I saw this one to the end and enjoyed it very much. *For the unaware, in every NFS game I played in my childhood, drag races did not give you steering control - to avoid traffic or obstacles, you tapped the arrow keys and the car would switch lanes. So you told the car to move out the way and if it did, good, if it instead took too long and/or had an unappealable loss of control and crashed automatically terminating your race, too bad.

There were also a couple other games there's not much to say about (Ford Streetracing, loved it, V-Rally 3, I think it had some issues and I never did play it, London Racer World Challenge, I recall nothing)... and now we move on to the car games I played since.

Assetto Corsa I've only ever dabbled in it a couple of times, but it's very fun when it works. My hardware is limiting on this front and I think I've some config issues, but when I'll have time to solve those I will be very glad to jump into it - especially because I really love driving simulators. Where with other games you kind of need some external validation of how hard it was to win with the tools the computer gave you -because it's not inherently cool that you beat a game, it was made to be beaten from the start- proper simulators just chuck you into an experience where no accommodation has been made for you (short of the damage level set, that is) and whatever you manage in it is your own accomplishment, not something the game let you accomplish. And on that note...

Richard Burns Rally This game is absolutely fucking incredible. "It's a 2004 game, how engaging a driving experience can it be" enough to make many still call it the best rally simulator out there and one of the best driving simulators period. Enough to motivate thousands of people to keep making a plethora of mods for it every day (which i've never been able to make work lol). Enough to make me seriously recommend buying yourself a wheel with force feedback* just to play this abandonware game (because using anything but a wheel for it is like using anything but a spoon for soup). And to be clear, this game is HARD. It just gives you a brief but extremely good rundown of how to master the driving basics and then have fun around rally stages where, again, the road has not been widened for you, the ditches not been filled, the car has not been programmed not to roll over too easily… essentially, the main way in which they are substantially easier than driving them IRL is the luxury of trial and error. So when, through however many days of trial and error it'll take you, you finally glide through those bumps smoothly enough to wipe the red off that time delta, this commercial flop the dozen-people-team from the Animaniacs GBA game developed when RAM was measured in megabytes becomes the most exhausting, intense, rewarding experience a computer has ever provided me. And a computer has gotten me laid. *I recommend the Logitech G25s, found for well under a dub, and the G27s, a small revision of the G25 with more buttons and a better shifter usually found for not much more (I found mine for 80!). They're from 2004 and 2010 respectively, and the wheel Logitech sells today is just a G27 with more buttons which says it all about how good a budget wheel it is.

TrackMania Nations Forever I hate this game, I fucking despise this game. "Alright, it's the same game we made two years ago with new tracks, and it has no story, opponents, traffic, cutscenes, or really any dynamic beyond checkpoints, a finish and a timer. But even still, there are so many fun mechanics to master anyway, like jump distance control, which you hopefully figure out you have because it's not like there is any tutorial to tell you! Or drifting, which is necessary to beat the best time in one of the last levels - you do it by pressing brake, accelerator and a steering direction simultaneously. Hope you randomly decide to do it autonomously to see what happens and find out that can be faster! And if you don't have a specialized keyboard with more than the normal 2 key rollover, hopefully something possessed you to map one of those controls to a completely different keyboard zone than all the others, or pressing all three will make only two register and you never will find this out! But at least not making any tutorials or the likes and keeping the interface absolute garbage allowed us to have the driving on absolute lock! Well, except for that bug where if you take the fastest line through a corner your car may decide to ragdoll and fuck your run. Oh and also the one where if you land a jump on all four wheels you may randomly lose your speed. Good luck!" I now get why they hate French people. Unfortunately, as for a lot of destructive hatred of mine, it manifests in yet more determination to conquer the little shit. I've gotten author times on every single one of the tracks except the last one, not because it's eight times longer than by far the second longest at an entire goddamn hour but because I wanted an effort that lengthy to be a special occasion and that never manifested. ...Maybe a stream?

Actually, I visited MyAbandonware to check the NFSU2 page and apparently they include a mod that puts the uncensored edits of the songs in the soundtrack and honestly I hella want to play it again just to hear that, so that could also be a cool stream idea if it wasn't a criminal deed to play copyrighted music on stream (I've not kept up with that whole mess, can you do it if you don't keep a VOD?). Or I could stream myself playing Richard Burns Rally and make you go "oh this is HARD hard".

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[ramennoodlezzzao3]

nobody asked me to answer, but I’m gonna anyways 😝

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats 

Idk how to do that lol

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?

I couldn’t find any fics that I wanted bc I’m too specific, so I started writing. It was purely for fun and I wasn’t fully thinking about the fact that people might actually read it AND enjoy it lol

  🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

me and some of my moots from TikTok created this playlist lol (it’s, like, 14 hours long)

🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that? Idk what that means but ima go off of what I’m thinking and that is just editing while proof reading and I enjoy it! 10/10

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

🙏👉😁🔥💀 (no, it’s not abt the burning church 💀🙏)

🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?

I’m new here, I have no EXTREMELY close moots so idk. But @paul-ster seems pretty chill so probably them (

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

I HAVE SO MANY I LOVE! But if I had to choose rn Soracha for the author and “Ron Weasley and His First Year at Hogwarts” by snoopy_owl. Two of my favs!

💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now? 

none, believe it or not. I constantly check it for ao3 updates. But I also have three separate yt accounts so I get regular emails abt comments and updates and I normally check them everyday. The only exception is one email I use for spam sites like grammarly, that email has 408 unread emails.

🌻 ⇢ tag someone you appreciate but don't talk to on a regular basis

@fictionalcharactergraveyard

🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both? 

ooo, neither tbh. Unless its a one-shot or a mini fic where I add a S/O or like my unpublished Uber fic where I had to add several OG characters, I don’t like adding new ones bc I think it disrupts the story a lot and I normally don’t read fics when people do that. And personally, unless it’s the ones that are supposed to be halrious and satire, I think self-inserts are kinda cringey bc most people who write them over-sexulize the characters and add weird stuff in that makes me cringe (key word: MOST not ALL) but also I just cant imagine myself dating someone let alone my comfort characters.

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

I don’t think I have any

🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?

I just can’t get into the writing mood. But when I start it’s really hard to stop

  🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

PURLY! I love to think Curly calls pony “Mi Amor” or like calls him pet names in Spanish. I think it’s really cute

🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual?

literally don’t be fake as hell. Don’t be all shy and sweet like, if you are comeback or Yapping king/queen then tell me bc we can yap together. Like, If I can call you Pookie within the first four interactions, we are besties, considered us married at that point

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

I’m redecorating my room, I got a new puppy, and- wait, bitch, who gives a fuck, let’s be honest 💀🙏

📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?

can’t say bc it’s an unpublished chapter of a on going fic 😝

  🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Harry Potter is kinda an ass

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I don’t write anything too bizarre so I can’t think of anything

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

strive to accomplish what you set as a goal, not what society set as a standard or a must

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

My comfort character gets ignored hard core, makes new friends, get into shenanigans, and then a lot of angst ensues. Who would write it best? Mmm…Fictionalcharacter graveyard or Soracha

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

if you have a scene you want to write for a fic, start writing it but ONLY WRITE THE DIALOGUE. You can add who said it but I do it all the time and it gives me new ideas and gradually helps me continue a fic. It’s also easier to add detail in between when you are focused on that instead of getting to the next dialogue scene.

🥐 ⇢ name one internet reference that will always make you laugh 

Nick Sturniolos iconic “Then he will taste the rainbow while he goes out”

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

“I LOVE THIS, I CAN’T WAIT FOR ANOTHER CHAPTER!” Then they go on an entire yap session about how they think the fic will turn out or parts they’re excited for. It always makes me happy to see someone enjoy my hobby as much as I do even though we have different perspectives 🤭

🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate

Alr, ik im gonna get backlash but i cant stand Cherry Valence. 1. I will give it to her, she’s a downright badass.

2. her hair is really pretty

3. She was nice to pony at the drive in, I’ll give her some points (still don’t like her too much tho)

🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what's the most recent lie you told?

Not much. Okay, this is gonna sound so fricking clique but that last lie I told was “Yeah, I’m fine, just tired” even though I know damn well I’m probably depressed asf

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

I have only older siblings and every time one moves out, I stop talking to them so I don’t become the annoying youngest sister, so I’m afraid their gonna forget about me, and they probably will. I only have two siblings that still live with me so that’s only two more people left to forget me before I’m totally alone lol. (Depressed, see?)

  🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing? 

book writers that can describe really well.

🍅 ⇢ give yourself some constructive criticism on your own writing

I think I’m too impatient and give myself an unrealistic deadline for stuff

🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises?

I like them a lot!

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

I’ll add that later lol

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

it was a name my family wouldn’t be able to find. I’m embarrassed to write bc my family LOVES to pick out your insecurities and hobbies and never let you live them down.

🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

again, I’m new here, so nobody here is my “supporter” but @shae-pine has liked all of my posts so ig them? I got to say, that “The Youngest (The Favorite)” fic I really liked! Ur also just the sweetest person ever! 😭🫶🏻

🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them

I have 7 (I had 8 but my cat passed away yesterday, RIP in the comments for Sophie 🩵)

I won’t post pics because that’s a large file 😭🙏

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

I DONT HAVE THE LINK BUT I LOVE THIS

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

self insert, too much OOC scenes, pairings I don’t like, oc’s/characters unless it’s the character I’m reading abt, pure smut or p*rn, over sexulization or romanticizing R*pe, over detailed non-con, specific characters are dead, and the fic doesn’t focus on a character that I wanna read about.

[jumpscaregoose]

hey goose you called?

tell me ab the latest adaptation

SHAMAN KING FLOWERS ANIME MY BELOVED

so we all know flowers right. first sequel manga covers the next part of the main timeline yada yada it's great

now the flowers anime itself goes CRAZY it's AWESOME it's PEAK SHAMAN KING ANIME. you won't believe this but the pacing... paces? like it's GREAT???

best way I can demonstrate is to point you towards the op, it's gorgeous

and then. this is the best part

all of the promo art released before the show premiered

looked like THIS

HANA MY BOY WHAT HAPPENED

these had me so nervous for the quality of the adaptation and then it turned out to be great so we're fine we're good everything's ok

the big thing we're all wondering about though is what they're going to do about the mainline sequels being stuck in a fucking death loop where their magazines get canceled and they come back under a new name (flowers -> the super star -> I've heard the next one is "shaman king yard" but don't quote me on that)

I think it would be pretty cool to adapt all the mainline sequels under one continuity because it would make it way less confusing but there hasn't been any news of flowers continuing past the current 13 episode run

we're all crossing our fingers for TSS anime adaptation because TSS also goes crazy

(personally I'm also hoping for red crimson anime adaptation of some kind but that's probably a pipe dream)

oh another thing about the flowers anime

they haven't announced ANY english simulcast streaming so far. the only english subs available are fansubs. this makes it significantly harder to find and watch the damn thing unless you know where to look.

fortunately I've been able to watch the episodes as they come out (except 6 which came out yesterday fuck you employment)

anyways where was I going with this

uh

flowers anime good. if you want to watch any single episode of it I recommend 4 (the BL episode) because it was everything I hoped for and more

[joycrispy]

So I've mentioned before that I've had a lot of arts n' crafts small creative projects on the go (and a few not-so-small ones, but that's another post), and I just kinda felt like talking about 3 of them.

SO I WILL.

1. Bookbinding

This is more of an ongoing learning process than any one particular book I'm binding --but the process is going very well. Pictured here is the latest attempt, and my most ambitious attempt in that it was mostly me going, 'huh, I wonder if that would work' and dicking around until I got some sort of result.

(Example: I dyed that cover black. Did not know if it would work. It...kinda does? Further testing required.)

The final book is far from perfect, but I'm actually very happy with it. It's like a prototype of the kind of book I've been wanting to make all along, the whole reason I picked up bookbinding. Old fashioned tomes are the goal here.

More on that in a bit.

2. DnD Character Journals

At the moment I am in three different ongoing campaigns (including one I'd been playing in for two years before Covid happened, now picked back up again, and another which is a sequel to a previously completed campaign. Exciting stuff. The third is a character I usually reserve for one-shots, but she got a whole campaign this time. Good for her!), and I have completed journals for two out of my three characters.

(If you don't know what a character journal is: it's basically just a Character Sheet, but way more extra and ~Aesthetic. Sort of a functional gaming scrapbook. I also design mine to make the game as accessible as possible to my very ADHD brain. I highly recommend it, as a practice).

Pictured here is the main stat page for my monk, Wormwood, who just reached level 5.

Speaking of DnD...

3. Campaign Journal

So anyone who has played with me knows that I take EXTREMELY DETAILED NOTES, but this time around I'm taking the notes, immediately converting them into readable prose recountings (as opposed to fast n' easy notetaker's shorthand, which only makes sense to me), and then sharing them as an editable Google document with the group. They can add anything I missed, or flesh out details I skimmed over, add their character's POV of a scene, or whatever they like!

(This also has the neat side-effect of generating material for the DM's World Anvil, which is nice. He's free to pick and choose what he wants, or ask me to write an article for him, etc.)

This makes it very easy for the group to refresh their memories between sessions, but also, when the campaign is finished...there will be a very thorough record of it.

Last year I had the thought that, with the way I take my notes, I could easily print out a campaign journal and bind it as a physical book, and then have that as a memento/give it as a gift to the other players.

That's an exceptional amount of work to do AFTER the fact, but doing it one session at a time, as they happen...that's very doable.

I mean. People bind novel-length fanfiction for their own personal collections. There's no reason I shouldn't bind a novel-length campaign, lol.

And I can personalize each book to each player, as well! No, yeah, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I love to contribute to a game. The group's excited, I'm excited, lots to look forward to, here.

I have other projects, including two large ones that are each going to take the better part of 2024, which slows all these little ones down...but I'm consistently whittling down the daily to-do list into something more manageable.

And work is nice right now because my main job atm is something I'm really, really good at...

(charity fundraising: my location is 1st in the district and 7th in the country for donations, and almost a third of those donations were made through me. I'm very, very good at this part of my job)

(I tend to be good at things I care about --ADHD, like I say-- and our partner charity benefits local queer and disabled kids who need shelter and support, so, YES, I CARE ABOUT THAT)

...so it makes the days pass quickly and peacefully. I get to come home in a good mood to all my little arts n' crafts. It's been very fun.

I'm glad I have time to be on tumblr again, though.

[11cupids-tarot11]

hi i did ur latest pac reading for clarity and i chose pile 3 and u recommended looking into pile 2 as well. I related to both and funny enough, i have been trying to manifest my own apartment. I get so many angel numbers whenever i think about it or try to manifest it, but i do get second thoughts bcuz im reminded of how expensive rent is and i dont make enough to live on my own yet. I know i should trust the universe, but it’s difficult sometimes considering the circumstances and im desperate to get out of my current situation. Any tips on how to cope with that while still manifesting?

Hi love!

I appreciate you reaching out to me, I felt pulled to pull some cards for you! So I don't know your situation entirely ofc but I feel like this is something you've been talking with your spiritual team with for a while now and trying to manifest. Like I feel some heavy energy coming from them and they tell me that you've been through a lot, but they love you and they're always with you, you're never going through anything alone!

So we've got the Justice cards, King of Pentacles, Knight of Wands, Eight of Swords,The Empress, The Hermit, The Chariot and Eight of Pentacles.

You've got lots of high cards!

I wanna start off by saying I feel like you're kinda young, I feel very young energy regardless of age, kind of young and very unsure, I feel like the collective has all been going through such uncomfortable energy and situations, but I swear there's gotta be one big giant rainbow at the end of it for all of us😭 I'm like 110% sure of it, I just have that feeling yk, and always trust your first intuition!

Okay, so your first card out is the justice card! Which usually if pulled means gaining justice, clarity/insight even! I feel like in your situation I get the feel that you're in a situation that's very uncomfortable, it feels like maybe there's a situation of not being treated fairly, I feel like you've had your fair share of people being shitty to you, maybe some loss? Some situation that happened to you and your guides want to bring you Justice, like you've been treated so unfairly and there's always that balance of things right? So if you know you've been suffering, just know great things are going to come after. It's like a rainbow after the rain, except your guides are wanting to take this situation in their hand and bring it to you! You're getting justice!

So I feel like your guides want to remind you that you are capable of managing money, you can attract money as well. I feel like there's just so much uncertainty around the financial area of your life and you just feel so unsure of yourself but your guides are like wdym you can't? I heard "you can do it, because you do it in the future just fine!" Lol. You're guides feel so loving and protective of you. I feel like even if you're not financially stable right now you definitely will be soon, anything you feel like you have no control over you will soon! You'll be gaining so much not financially but spiritually as well I feel like.

So I feel like you're just in a very icky situation, like my head hurts and I feel some violent emotions. The woman in the cards is all tied up and bound and I feel like you could feel that sometimes, and that's totally valid! I feel like your spirit guides want to remind you of how important it is to be kind to yourself and remind yourself that it's okay, I see a positive mindset is something that could always make us feel better, always try to make ourselves feel okay and valid and comfortable even in uncomfortable situations because it's very important to nurture our soul! I hope that makes sense. You're like an Empress btw! Sometimes it feels good to just tell yourself that lol I got it tattooed on my shoulder and it helps when I look at it when I don't feel good.

I also feel like your guides want you to spend more time brainstorming ideas and solutions because if there's a will there's a way basically! You said you couldn't afford an apartment on your own, this is my advice personally but maybe there's a friend or a relative you're close with that you can talk to about getting a shared apartment together and splitting the rent with or maybe you could do AirB&B (if you feel comfortable) and rent out your apartment if you get an extra room.

With the Chariot I feel like it's another reminder that you're going to come out on top of any war! There's going to be movement! With the Eight of Pentacles it's literally talking about you working on your craft, whatever that means. I kept hearing a message about you getting employment soon! You're going to be getting a job or maybe even working on your own personal business if you're into that or have been thinking about it, something along the lines of that but you're going to be running into some abundance through an opportunity. I feel like some of your negative thoughts are also blocking you from a few opportunities, it could even be blocking your intuition or maybe making it harder for your Angels to send you downloads. They might get in contact with you soon, via dream or maybe download, maybe something big and significant or maybe something small and simple, either way you'll notice it so don't try so hard to make it happen, just let it!

I hope this resonated and felt helpful! I'll pray for you! I hope everything you wish for comes true! 💕

-Cupid 𖥔 ࣪ ᥫ᭡ꗃ⋆࣪.