#i had a vision and then got hit with the ''oh right pcs have that huge tail gap''

[starcatcher-psywurm]

Chat is this anything?

Edit: There is now a pinglist for when I print this in the notes ♥

[thebetterboogerman]

Another nice interview I found, where J.A. Laraque talks with Chris Tremmel about his time working on Boogerman and his fond memories of making games in the 90s.

I've made a copy of the interview below the divider in case the original page ever goes down! There seems to be a bit of an editing goof in the original transcript as well, so I've fixed that in my version.

There are thousands of great games across all platforms that we as gamers have enjoyed for many years of our lives, but what about the people behind them. Just as there are fans of games there are the game makers themselves who weave a concept into code to be displayed on your system of choice. Many times the idea that became the mega-hit game of the year came to the developer or designer in the middle of the night, but from there it was many sleepless nights to turn that vision into reality.

One of Obsolete Gamer’s main purposes is to get the story behind the game and we do this by speaking with the designers, developers and publishers who helped bring us oh so many hours of enjoyment. Sometimes it begins with a gamer profile where we just find out a game they like and from there a dialog starts and soon you find out all kinds of wonderful information.

This is what happened with our gamer profile of Chris Tremmel. I discovered him through his clothing store, Gamer Cultoure and when he submitted his gamer profile with the game BoogerMan I wanted to find out why he liked that game and what I found out was he was one of the main creators of it. After that I had to learn more and Chris was very accommodating in answering our questions.Gamer Cultoure logo

Obsolete Gamer: Let’s start with a little history, what was it that got you into gaming and working in the gaming industry?

Chris Tremmel: When I was a kid, my parents hooked me up with a Texas Instruments\99-4A computer. I was already a gamer thanks to PONG, and the AT2600, but the TI-99 allowed me to begin making my own games! I think I started with “porting” my choose your own adventure books into interactive form.

Obsolete Gamer: When did you begin working at Interplay?

Chris Tremmel: I officially started working at Interplay in 1992 I believe. It’s funny because I first interviewed for a tester spot. I didn’t get the job because my “autoexec.bat, and config.sys” knowledge was a bit rusty. I went home, studied up, and returned for a 2nd interview a month or two later. This time I got the job. The 1st games I tested were the original Alone in the Dark on PC, and the Lost Vikings on the Amiga.

Obsolete Gamer: Who else did you work with primarily at Interplay?

Chris Tremmel: I initially worked in the testing department but quickly made friends with a couple of designers and producers, primarily Mike Stragey and Alan Pavlish.

Obsolete Gamer: What was it like working for them?

Chris Tremmel: I hate to sound really cliche’, but working at Interplay in 1992\1993 was “magical”. I was in awe of everything being made and was thrown right in to working with some of the brightest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with. It was an amazing time as I was being taught my core design fundamentals by great guys like Mike and Alan. I knew this is what I wanted to do forever.

Obsolete Gamer: When did you first start working on Boogerman?

Chris Tremmel: I believe we started Boogerman in early 1993? It’s hard to remember exactly.

Obsolete Gamer: Who else worked with you on Boogerman?

Chris Tremmel: My boss, and the man that hired me out of test Michael Stragey. Also Alan Pavlish was the executive producer who we would run stuff by on a regular basis. We also worked with an external animation house called Little Gangster, as well as some in-house artists, and additional programming support, but primarily it was Mike and myself.

Obsolete Gamer: How did you come up with the concept and story behind Boogerman?

Chris Tremmel: Interplay came to Mike and said “we want to make a gross-out game that appeals to the Garbage Pail Kids demographic.” Interplay logo

Obsolete Gamer: Can you tell us a little bit about the development process?

Chris Tremmel: Conceptually we knew we wanted to make a “gross” game. Mike came up with the idea of a gross Superhero and off we went! The ideas just starting pouring out from Michael and myself, I would say we were never short of ideas for characters, locations, etc.

As for the design of the characters, we worked very closely with Little Gangster and went through dozens of designs until we finally settled on what you see today. Funny enough, several of the bosses in the game including the main boss BoogerMiester were originally design concepts for Boogerman himself.

Obsolete Gamer: When Boogerman was ready to launch did you believe you had a hit on your hands?

Chris Tremmel: Ya know, this is a weird thing… I was so new to the industry and so excited and stoked every day to be making games that I never really thought about “hits”. We knew we had something fun, and we knew people responded to the content the way we wanted, so that was enough for me. I still remember our very 1st magazine preview EVER. It was in Diehard Gamefan, they dubbed it an “instant classic”, we were happy.

Obsolete Gamer: Now some gaming sites and magazines game you high marks while others gave you more middle of the road scores. Do you think they just didn’t get it or what was the disconnect?

I think we were pretty happy with the reviews. We had some serious competition that year with Earthworm Jim being released at the same time. I think Boogerman got the scores it deserved, it was a good game, just not everyones cup of tea.

Obsolete Gamer: What was your feeling about winning the grossest character of 1994 award from Electronic Gaming monthly?

Chris Tremmel: Honored for sure. The entire Boogerman universe is still very close to our hearts to this day (Mike and myself). I still believe the franchise has a lot of potential.

Obsolete Gamer: Was there a plan to make more Boogerman related games?

Chris Tremmel: Yes, absolutely. AND a cartoon. The cartoon was actually started, at least script writing, character design, etc. but I believe in the end Universal went with the Earthworm Jim cartoon that was in development at the same time. Which btw, I am a massive EWJ fan and I loved loved loved the cartoon.

There were clocks made, t-shirts, and even a Boogerman phone. In addition we DID start the sequel on the Sega Saturn. We had a basic design document done and had contracted some amazing matte painters to start working on backgrounds. Unfortunately, it never came to fruition. Michael and myself left Interplay to pursue work with another company, I think we both wish Boogerman 2 could have been made. We had some really fun ideas.

Obsolete Gamer: How was it to see Boogerman released for the virtual console in 2008?

Chris Tremmel: Neither Mike or myself were involved in this. I believe this happened after Interplay changed hands. We were incredibly happy to see it up there though, downloaded it immediately!

Obsolete Gamer: Did you play Boogerman a lot yourself and do you still play it today?

Chris Tremmel: Absolutely! Mike and I both played all the time while making the game, AND after the game was released. Out of all the games I have made, this one probably got played the most. I definitely still bust it out once or twice a year. I like looking back and try to figure out what the heck I was thinking with a particular layout, or just to laugh at some of the character designs. Lot’s of laughing during the development.

Obsolete Gamer: After Boogerman what came next for you?

Chris Tremmel: Mike and I left Interplay to make a game for EA based on a Saturday morning TV show called “Bump in the Night”. Unfortunately this game was never finished\released, although we did have a rad demo running on the Saturn. I ended up at Virgin Interactive after that working on the N64.Gamer Cultoure dog tag

Obsolete Gamer: Can you tell us a little about Gamer Cultoure?

Chris Tremmel: Sure! Gamer Cultoure is a side project I have started that is clothing centric. It’s really a basic line of T-shirts, hoodies, etc. that are gaming themed. The line is really small right now, but I intend to continue to grow it over the next year or two. After leaving Activision early in the year I decided to take a little time off and try something different for a little while. It has been a fun, rewarding process for sure.

Obsolete Gamer: What do you think of gaming today in comparison to gaming back in the early to mid nineties?

Chris Tremmel: Oh no, this is a loaded question. It is definitely different. The process has become more complicated, usually requiring a large number of people to make something significant. The money involved in some of the triple A games is staggering with some budgets now reaching 100 million dollars. That naturally changes everything in terms of peoples priorities, and agendas. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. One of the nice things though as of late is seeing the rise of the “indie” studios, small teams executing on great ideas. It is very easy to get distracted now a days when making something. The bar has been raised so high, and with so much money involved it takes some serious planet-aligning powers to take something killer to market. All of that being said, I hope the younger guys and girls that are in the industry today feel the same sense of magic that I felt in 1992.

Obsolete Gamer: Are you working on any video games at the moment?

Chris Tremmel: As of right this second, no. Expect that to change very soon. I will definitely keep you posted any news.

I quickly wanted to give a shout out to all the people I worked with at Interplay. Thanks Mike, Alan, Brian, Rusty, Tim, Burger, Kerry, and way too many more to list. All of you guys helped me get started on this amazing journey and I appreciate it to this day.

Obsolete Gamer would like to thank Chris Tremmel for taking the time to answer our questions.

[allronix]

Carth and Force Sensitivity (crossposted from Reddit r/kotor)

This is for @k-she-rambles:

Okay, so while we're shooting the bantha crap over on KOTOR fan theories, u/134340Goat mentioned my all time favorite "Have you been chewing spice?!" fan theory when it comes to KOTOR: Is Carth Force Sensitive?

So this one starts with a story. I mentioned my brother in law, who is pretty much Keeper of the Jedi Archives. Seriously, he's an English teacher and my sister is a librarian. They met at a sci fi convention and their first date was Phantom Menace. We're taking not just geeks, but geeks who can throw the damn bookshelf at you. Brother in law bought KOTOR on the day it launched and turned it into a week long binge watch at his house. And because brother in law is that kind of geek, he's translating the characters into the West End D6 system. I'm watching him do a playthrough, and he's got Canderous and Zaalbar at Ajunta Pal's tomb.

Allronix: Huh. That's odd. Why aren't commenting on anything when Ajunta is speaking?

Bro in law: Oh. They can't even see Ajunta. You have to be Force Sensitive to see a Force Ghost The stronger your Sensitivity, the better you can see it.

Allronix: Really? Then how come Carth can see it?

Bro in law (gets the "holy shit, I gotta confirm this" look): Really?! He just sees something out the corner of his eye or something?

Allronix: No, he sees Ajunta just fine. Understands what the dude's saying too.

Bro in law instantly rolls back to his last save, swaps Zaalbar for Carth, and sees the bit in question.

Bro in law: Oh. Dear. (Goes over to make some quick scribbles on Carth's character sheet)

Okay, so maybe that was a lore fail. I didn't really think about it too much until I hit that False Level Up glitch and ran around with Carth and Mission as Sentinels. Now, while I couldn't really see Mission as a Sensitive, that little bit with my bro in law nagged at me. And became a "once you see it you can't unsee it." Apologies to TV Tropes, where some of these were my additions to the Wild Mass Guess entry on this topic.

Any one of these on its own is pretty easy to blow off. After all, man is career military, and knows All this Shit is Weird. I also like to think of Sensitivity as a spectrum and not a switch. If all life is connected by the Force, then all life would be Sensitive to some degree or another. It’s just a matter of to what degree. It’s only as the list gets longer and longer does the case start looking damning...

What are the odds of surviving that attack on the Endar Spire, getting to the escape pods, sharing the last escape pod with the mindwiped Sith Lord, piloting through the chaos, landing in what passes for the "good" part of town, remaining uninjured, pulling the badly injured mindwiped Sith Lord from the wreck, evading Sith detection while all this is going on, and just happening to find a dump of an apartment where the landlord's not asking questions? That is one amazing string of coincidences and good luck. Get that many in Star Wars, and it's definitely The Force sticking its nose in things.

Piloting the escape pod to land in the Upper City, piloting the Hawk through the Sith Blockade of Taris, the random Sith patrols, the escape from the Leviathan, and the fleet around Lehon along with the crash landing that left the ship easily repairable. Now, compare to Atton who we know to be an excellent pilot and drawing on The Force who still manages to crash the ship at least three times.

He's a scary good judge of character if you're interacting with other NPCs. If you watch him with other NPC characters, he's got a pretty good compass as to which characters are being helpful and which ones are full of shit. The only one he calls incorrectly is Rukil, who is probably also an untrained Sensitive (the age, the "marked" comments) and half senile, which is probably throwing him.

Related to that, his distrust and wariness about something not adding up with the PC, the Jedi Council feeding the party a line of bull, that things just aren't adding up. And on all of it? Dead on. He's 100% right about the Player Character, he just expected something a little less crazy than "that's Darth freaking Revan."

If you play Female Revan, then Carth's the one who gets fried in the torture cages on the Leviathan. Saul comments how strange it is that Carth takes so much punishment and still remains conscious. Now, this is a low level thing, but in lore, Force Sensitives have drawn on it to keep them alive or conscious under duress. Explicitly, the first sign we got that Leia was a Sensitive when she withstood the Imperial torture droid.

Another of his scary ass judge of character feats? In the comics, Zayne (who is on the run from the Jedi, who framed him for the murder of his classmates) has a vision that Mandalorians are coming for Serroco. Saul? Laughs it off, throws Zayne in the brig. Zayne's own friends don't even believe him. Carth gets one of those creepy hunches and starts calling in "duck and cover" sirens as far as he can broadcast, which sends seventeen cities and millions of people heading for shelter. It saves their lives and Carth is called a hero for it. Armed with another hunch, he disobeys Saul (remember this is before Saul nukes Telos) and lets Zayne "escape" from custody. Mind you, not even the Jedi or his party members believed Zayne. Carth did.

Carth makes a lot of creepy weird offhand predictions about the future. He says he knows on some level he'll be there when Saul dies. That certainly pans out. He makes an offhand prediction that the Jedi have set the party up to take a fall. Right again. He tells a female PC that she'll have to make a choice soon, one she can't walk away from. And then we get the temple top. He even blurts out that "I sensed you would have to make a choice soon, and that was it*, I can feel it!"* If you specify a LS Female Revan, his recording for T3-M4 says he's had a hunch Revan would leave without warning. Again, spot on.

Specify a LS male Revan, and Carth will remark to Bastila that seeing the Exile reminds him "there are worse things to lose." The only other people who can see just how screwed up the Exile is are the Jedi Masters, Chodo Habat, and the Force Sensitive party members.

Specify a LS female Revan, and Carth will insist that he would know if Revan were dead (again, scary ass intuition) and that there's an "emptiness" where she used to be. Now, remember one of the things about a broken Force Bond? It would simply be "empty, a wound."

You know how your party members in KOTOR 2 feel upset or even horrified as they realize they feel compelled to protect Exile and can't being themselves to leave, even when said actions are kicking puppies? And how they swing wildly from being crazy, almost stalker level possessive of them to being scared out of their wits and clamming up when you try to pry anything out of them? And the more potent (and untapped) their Force Sensitivity, the more they get hammered with the effect? (Mira and Atton in particular) Yeah. Now, Carth's "I don't wanna talk" looks a bit different, doesn't it? It could also account for that romance arc, especially if you roll a DSF Revan and go for that "everyone dies" ending.

Again, Ajunta Pal. Seeing a Force Ghost? Yeah. Some degree of Sensitivity needed. Understanding what he's saying? Yeah. Takes a bit more than that. And Carth makes a weirdly insightful comment about the Dark Side on top of it.

Notice that this a wall o text argument already, and I'm now just getting to the "Yeah, his kid is able to throw around mid-level Dark Side powers and packing a red lightsaber." Given the jawline and the muleheaded attitude, no way Morgana was fooling around with the pizza delivery boy. That's definitely Carth's kid, and that's definitely Force Sensitivity. Now, while it can skip a generation (see Theron Shan), it tends to run pretty heavy in families.

Lastly? Gee. He comes from a planet settled by and heavily populated by descendants of Force Sensitives who failed their training. I'm also willing to bet some bastard children of Jedi get passed off as "foundlings" and "orphans" and dumped there, too. Jedi are forbidden attachments, but not sworn to celibacy, so...yeah, bastard kids are gonna happen. There's probably a Jedi or two in that family tree. It's circumstantial evidence at best, but it still supports the case.

Now, any arguments I missed? Counterarguments?

And the million credit question: If there's a character who gets to break this news to poor Flyboy, who do you think would actually take that on? How do you think Carth would take that kind of news? And what, if anything, would come of it?

I kinda figure Jolee might be the only one nuts enough to poke that with a stick...I also kinda figure "Sentinel" would fit best. Consular? Hell no. He hired Mical for that. Guardian works with the feats, but the whole "ferreting out deceit and injustice?" Yeah. That's Carth.

[felassan]

Insights into DAI’s development from Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

The book is by game industry journalist Jason Schreier (it’s an interesting read and well-written, I recommend it). This is the cliff notes version of the DAI chapter. This info isn’t new as the book is from 2017 (I finally got around to buying it). Some insight into DAO, DA2 and cancelled DA projects is also given. Cut for length.

BW hoped that DA would become the LotR of video games. DAO’s development was “a hellish seven-year slog”

The DAI team are compared to a chaotic “pirate ship”, which is what they called themselves internally. “It’ll get where it needs to go, but it’s going to go all over the place. Sail over here. Drink some rum. Go over here. Do something else. That’s how Mark Darrah likes to run his team.” An alternative take from someone else who worked on the game: “It was compared to a pirate ship because it was chaotic and the loudest voice in the room usually set the direction. I think they smartly adopted the name and morphed it into something better.”

A game about the Inquisition and the large-scale political conflicts it solves across Thedas, where the PC was the Inquisitor, was originally the vision for ‘DA2′. Plans had to change when SW:TOR’s development kept stalling and slipping. Frustrated EA execs wanted a new product from BW to bolster quarterly sales targets, and decided that DA would have to fill the gap. BW agreed to deliver DA2 within 16 months. “Basically, DA2 exists to fill that hole. That was the inception. It was always intended to be a game made to fit in that”

BW wanted to call it DA: Exodus, but EA’s marketing execs insisted on DA2, no matter what that name implied

DAO’s scope (Origin stories, that amount of big areas, variables, reactivity) was just not doable in a year, even if everyone worked overtime. To solve this problem, BW shelved the Inquisition idea and made a risky call: DA2 would be set in one city over time, allowing locations to be recycled and months to be shaved off dev time. They also axed DAO features like customizing party members’ equipment. These were the best calls they were able to make on a tight line

Many at BW are still proud of DA2. Those that worked on it grew closer from all being in it together

In certain dark accounting corners of EA, despite fan response to DA2 and its lower sales compared to DAO, DA2 is considered a wild success

By summer 2011 BW decided to cancel DA2′s expansion Exalted March in favor of a totally new game. They needed to get away from the stigma of DA2, reboot the franchise and show they could make triple-A quality good games. 

DAI was going to be the most ambitious game BW had ever made and had a lot to prove (that BW could return to form, that EA wasn’t crippling the studio, that BW could make an ‘open-world’ RPG with big environments). There was a bit of a tone around the industry that there were essentially 2 tiers of BW, the ME team and then everyone else, and the DA team had a scrappy desire to fight back against that

DAI was behind schedule early on due to unfamiliar new technology; the new engine Frostbite was very technically challenging and required more work than anyone had expected. Even before finishing DA2 BW were looking for a new engine for the next game. Eclipse was creaky, obsolete, not fully-featured, graphically lacking. The ME team used Unreal, which made inter-team collab difficult. “Our tech strategy was just a mess. Every time we’d start a new game, people would say, ‘Oh, we should just pick a new engine’.”

After meeting with an EA exec BW decided on Frostbite. Nobody had ever used it to make an RPG, but EA owned FB dev studio DICE, and the engine was powerful and had good graphic capabilities & visual effects. If BW started making all its games on FB, it could share tech with sister studios and borrow tools when they learned cool new tricks. 

For a while they worked on a prototype called Blackfoot, to get a feel for FB and to make a free-to-play DA MP game. It fizzled as the team was too small, which doesn’t lend itself well to working with FB, and was cancelled

BW resurfaced the old Inquisition idea. What might a DA3 look like on FB? Their plan by 2012 was to make an open-world RPG heavily inspired by Skyrim that hit all the beats DA2 couldn’t. “My secret mission was to shock and awe the players with the massive amounts of content.” People complained there wasn’t enough in DA2. “At the end of DAI, I actually want people to go, ‘Oh god, not [another] level’.”

It was originally called Dragon Age 3: Inquisition

BW wanted to launch on next-gen consoles only but EA’s profit forecasters were caught up in the rise of iPad and iPhone gaming and were worried the next-gen consoles wouldn’t sell well. As a safeguard EA insist it also ship on current-gen. Most games at that time followed this strategy. Shipping on 5 platforms at once would be a first for BW

Ambitions were piling up. This was to be BW’s first 3D open-world game, and their first game on Frostbite, an engine that had never been used to make RPGs. It needed to be made in roughly two years, it needed to ship on 5 platforms, and, oh yeah, it needed to restore the reputation of a studio that had been beaten up pretty badly. “Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we’ve ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did. With tools that don’t exist.”

FB didn’t have RPG stats, a visible PC, spells, save systems, a party of 4 people, the same kind of cutscenes etc and couldn’t create any of those things. BW had to create these on top of it. BW initially underestimated how much work this would be. BW were the FB guinea pigs. Early on in DAI’s development, even the most basic tasks were excruciating, and this impacted even fundamental aspects of game design and dev. When FB’s tools did function they were finicky and difficult. DICE’s team supported them but had limited resources and were 8 hours ahead. Since creating new content in FB was so difficult, trying to evaluate its quality became impossible. FB engine updates made things even more challenging. After every one, BW had to manually merge and test it; this was debilitating, and there were times when the build didn’t work for a month or was really unstable.

Meanwhile the art department were having a blast. FB was great for big beautiful environments. For months they made as much as possible, taking educated guesses when they didn’t know yet what the designers needed. “For a long time there was a joke on the project that we’d made a fantastic-looking screenshot generator, because you could walk around these levels with nothing to do. You could take great pictures.”

The concept of DAI as open-world was stymying the story/writers and gameplay/designers teams. What were players going to do in these big landscapes? How could BW ensure exploring remained fun after many hours? Their teams didn’t have time for system designers to envision, iterate and test a good “core gameplay loop” (quests, encounters, activities etc). FB wouldn’t allow it. Designers couldn’t test new ideas or answer questions because basic features were missing or didn’t exist yet. 

EA’s CEO told BW they should have the ability to ride dragons and that this would make DAI sell 10 million copies. BW didn’t take this idea very seriously

BW had an abstract idea that the player would roam the world solving problems and building up power or influence they could use. But how would that look/work like in-game? This could have used refinement and testing but instead they decided to build some levels and hope they could figure it out as they went.

One day in late 2012, after a year of strained development on DAI, Mark Darrah asked Mike Laidlaw to go to lunch. “We’re walking out to his car,” Laidlaw said, “and I think he might have had a bit of a script in his head. [Darrah] said, ‘All right, I don’t actually know how to approach this, so I’m just going to say it. On a scale of one to apocalyptic... how upset would you be if I said [the player] could be, I dunno, a Qunari Inquisitor?’” 

Laidlaw was baffled. They’d decided that the player could be only a human in DAI. Adding other playable races like Darrah was asking for would mean they’d need to quadruple their budget for animation, voice acting, and scripting.

“I went, ‘I think we could make that work’,” Laidlaw said, asking Darrah if he could have more budget for dialogue. 

Darrah answered that if Laidlaw could make playable races happen, he couldn’t just have more dialogue. He could have an entire year of production.

Laidlaw was thrilled. “Fuck yeah, OK,” he recalled saying.

MD had actually already realized at this point it’d be impossible to finish DAI in 2013. They needed at least a year’s delay and adding the other playable races was part of a plan/planned pitch to secure this. He was in the process of putting together a pitch to EA: let BW delay the game, and in exchange it’d be bigger and better that anyone at EA had envisioned. These new marketing points included playable races, mounts and a new tactical camera. If EA wouldn’t let them delay, they would have had to cut things. Going into that BW were confident but nervous, especially in the wake of EA’s recent turmoil where they’d just parted ways with their CEO and had recruited a new board member while they hunted for a new one. They didn’t know how the new board member would react, and the delay would affect EA’s projections for that fiscal year. Maybe it was the convincing pitch, or the exec turmoil, or the specter of DA2, or maybe EA didn’t like being called “The Worst Company in America”. Winning that award 2 years in a row had had a tangible impact on the execs and led to feisty internal meetings on how to repair EA’s image. Whatever the reasons, EA greenlit the delay.

The PAX Crestwood demo was beautiful but almost entirely fake. By fall 2013, BW had implemented many of FB’s ‘parts’, but still didn’t know what kind of ‘car’ they were making. ML and team scripted the PAX demo by hand, entirely based on what BW thought would be in the game. The level & art assets were real but the gameplay wasn’t. “Part of what we had to do is go out early and try to be transparent because of DA2. And just say, ‘Look, here, it’s the game, it’s running live, it’s at PAX.’ Because we wanted to make that statement that we’re here for fans.”

DA2 hung on the team like a shadow. There was insecurity, uncertainty, they had trouble sticking to one vision. Which DA2 things were due to the short dev time and which were bad calls? What stuff should they reinvent? There were debates over combat (DAO-style vs DA2-style) and arguments over how to populate the wilderness.

In the months after that demo, BW cut much of what they’d shown in it. Even small features went through many permutations. DAI had no proper preproduction phase (important for testing and discarding things), so leads were stretched thin and had to make impulsive decisions.

By the end of 2013, DAI had 200+ people working on it, and dozens of additional outsourced artists in Russia and China. Coordinating all the work across various departments was challenging and a full-time job for several people. At this sheer scale of game dev, there are many complexities and inter-dependencies. Work finally became significantly less tedious and more doable when BW and DICE added more features to FB. Time was running out though, and another delay was a no.

The team spent many hours in November and December piecing together a “narrative playable” version of the game to be the holiday period’s game build for BW staff to test that year. Feedback on the demo was bad. There were big complaints on story, that it didn’t make sense and was illogical. Originally the PC became Inquisitor and sealed the breach in the prologue, which removed a sense of urgency. In response the writers embarked on Operation Sledgehammer (breaking a bone to set it right), radically revising the entire first act.

The other big piece of negative feedback was that battles weren’t fun. Daniel Kading, who had recently joined BW and brought with him a rigorous new method for testing combat in games, went to BW leadership with a proposal: give him authority to open his own little lab with the other designers and call up the entire team for mandatory play sessions for test purposes. They agreed and he used this experiment to get test feedback and specifically pinpoint where problems were. Morale took a turn for the better that week, DK’s team made several tweaks, and through these sessions feedback ratings went from 1.2 to 8.8 four weeks later.

Many on the team wished they didn’t have to ship for old consoles (clunky, less powerful). BW leadership decided not to add features to the next-gen versions that wouldn’t be possible on the older ones, so that both versions of the game played the same. This limited things and meant the team had to find creative solutions. “I probably should’ve tried harder to kill [the last-gen] version of the game”, said Aaryn Flynn. In the end the next-gen consoles sold very well and only 10% of DAI sales were on last-gen.

“A lot of what we do is well-intentioned fakery,” said Patrick Weekes, pointing to a late quest called “Here Lies The Abyss”. “When you assault the fortress, you have a big cut scene that has a lot of Inquisition soldiers and a lot of Grey Wardens on the walls. And then anyone paying attention or looking for it as you’re fighting through the fortress will go, ‘Wow, I’m only actually fighting three to four guys at a time.’ Because in order for that to work [on old gen], you couldn’t have too many different character types on screen.”

Parts of DAI were still way behind schedule because it was so big and complex, and because some tools hadn’t started functioning until late on. Some basic features weren’t able to be implemented til the last minute (they were 8 months from ship before they could get all party members in the squad. At one point PW was playtesting to check if Iron Bull’s banter was firing, and realized there was no way to even recruit IB) and some flaws couldn’t be identified til the last few months. Trying to determine flow and pacing was rough.

They couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of DAI. “I think DAI is a direct response to DA2,” said Cameron Lee. “DAI was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point that we went too far... I think that having to deal with DA2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

At this point they had 2 options: settle for an incomplete game, which would disappoint fans especially post-DA2, or crunch. They opted to crunch. It was the worst period of extended overtime in DAI’s development yet and was really rough: late nights, weekends, lost family time, 12-14 hour days, stress, mental health impacts.

During 2014′s crunch, they finally finished off features they wished they’d nailed down in year 1. They completed the Power (influence) system and added side quests, hidden treasures and puzzles. Things that weren’t working like destructible environments were promptly removed. The writers rewrote the prologue at least 6 times, but didn’t have enough time to pay such attention to the ending. Just a few months before launch pivotal features like jumping were added.

By summer BW had bumped back release by another 6 weeks for polish. DAI had about 99,000 bugs in it (qualitative and quantitative; things like “I was bored here” are a bug). “The number of bugs on an open-world game, I’ve never seen anything like it. But they’re all so easy to fix, so keep filing these bugs and we’ll keep fixing them.” For BW it was harder to discover them, and the QA team had to do creative experimentation and spend endless late nights testing things. PW would take builds home to let their 9 year old son play around. Their son was obsessed with mounting and dismounting the horse and accidentally discovered a bug where if you dismounted in the wrong place, all your companions’ gear would vanish. “It was because my son liked the horse so much more than anyone else ever had or will ever like the horse.”

MD had a knack for prioritizing which bugs should be fixed, like the one where you could get to inaccessible areas by jumping on Varric’s head. “Muscle memory is incredibly influential at this point. Through the hellfire which is game development, we’re forged into a unit, in that we know what everyone’s thinking and we understand everyone’s expectations.”

At launch they still didn’t have all their tools working, they only had their tools working enough.

DAI became the best-selling DA game, beating EA’s sales expectations in just a few weeks. If you look closely you can see the lingering remnants of its chaotic development, like the “garbage quests” in the Hinterlands. Some players didn’t realize they could leave the area and others got caught in a “weird, compulsive gratification loop”. Internet commentators rushed to blame “those damn lazy devs” but really, these were the natural consequences of DAI’s struggles. Maybe things would have been different if they’d miraculously received another year of dev time, or if they’d had years before starting development to build FB’s tools first.

“The challenge of the Hinterlands and what it represented to the opening 10 hours of DAI is exactly the struggle of learning to build open-world gameplay and mechanisms when you are a linear narrative story studio,” said Aaryn Flynn.

“DA2 was the product of a remarkable time-line challenge,” said Mike Laidlaw, “DAI was the product of a remarkable technical challenge. But it had enough time to cook, and as a result it was a much better game.”

Read the chapter for full details of course!

[miraculousandbts]

OT7 | Bosses Of A Kind

Summary: Two bitches at work target you, just because you’re close to the CEOs, who they were crushing on. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t know you.

Pairing: None

Genre: Fluff, Savage (?)

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: Light profanity (I should probably put that in my other posts too…). I guess that’s it.

You were hurriedly getting ready. Somehow managing to comb your hair and zip your pants at the same time, you hopped on your right foot while wearing a sock on your left one, fully knowing that there was a ninety percent chance you'd fall down. Heaving a sigh when you tripped but caught yourself before you fell, you did the same thing for your other foot.

You grabbed your shoes, hair tie, car keys, and office bag and ran to your car in just your socks. You saw your neighbour and a good friend shake her head at you, adorning an amused smile. She was used to your antics. You gave her a small smile in greeting and got in your car.

You started your car and tried to slip your feet into your semi-formal shoes. Finally stopping your car at a traffic light, you tied your hair. You bent down and put on the velcro on your shoes. Not wanting to wear heels, finding the men's office shoes too formal and sport shoes too casual, you had opted for some simple and stylish school shoes.

You weren't like most girls in your office, wearing tops or shirts with opened buttons showing cleavage, and pairing that with skirts and heels and wearing a lot of makeup and stylish hair. Some women did wear suits, but that looked like they were overdoing it. You simply wore a normal buttoned shirt with trousers with your hair always tied up. You also didn't wear any make up except some lip balm. And your friend f/n was just like you...as long as it came to outfits; she was more girly than you could imagine.

You finally reached your office, parking your car and being extremely careful to not hit another car. You took the thick file from the passenger seat and opened it, checking every document properly and mentally ticking off stuff from your list of things required for the meeting today.

You gathered the papers band put them back on the file. Taking your office bag and tucking your file beneath your armpit, you stepped out. You just stood there for a moment, relishing in the chirping of the birds and swishing of the trees with closed eyes and a serene smile, thankful that one of your bosses was just as much of a nature lover as you were. You opened your eyes when you heard a couple of snickers. Looking around, you saw the two girls known throughout the company for gossiping and crushing on the seven bosses, instead of doing the work they were given. You often wondered why they were still working when they never even submitted their work on time and always lacked behind. The only thing they were great in was spreading rumours.

As soon as they saw you looking their way, they looked away and tried to hide their laughing faces unsuccessfully. You just closed your car door and made your way towards them. Thinking you were coming for them, they moved to the side and nervously pretended that they were laughing at something they had been talking about. But all you did was enter the building, hurrying up a little when you checked your wrist watch and saw that the meeting was starting in half an hour.

You didn't care what they thought about you; you were going to do what you wanted to.

You dropped all your stuff on your desk, and took all the things required for the meeting to the conference room. Inside, you found seven men sitting there doing nothing. One had his head on the desk, sighing every now and then, clearly indicating he was bored. Three of them were talking about something you couldn't hear about.

One of them was being productive and was going through files, while the another was just sitting there staring into nothing. The last one was busy on his phone, and donned a set of headphones, looking out of place in the room.

They were your seven bosses, and none of their antics surprised you at all. Seokjin was the one chatting with Jimin and Hoseok. Namjoon was the responsible one going through the meeting files. Taehyung was the one getting bored. Yoongi was the one with the headphones, and Jungkook was the one staring into space. (Inspired by Jungshook.)

You cleared your throat, and everyone but Yoongi looked at you. Satisfied, you walked towards Namjoon and handed him the file. And nodded his head as a thank you and went back to proofreading the documents. When they saw that it was just you, they went back to doing what they were before. You made your way towards the cabinet and took out some other files. Sitting between Namjoon and Jungkook, you started doing your work.

*****

You plopped down on your very comfortable chair in front of your desk. That meeting was exhausting. At least the deal was finalised. You just laid there for a bit, closing your eyes. You would have definitely fallen asleep if someone didn't poke your stomach suddenly. You opened an eye and looked up in search for the culprit, fully knowing who was it.

As soon as you're eyes fell on her, she gave you a cheeky grin. "Hey, y/n!" She innocently cooed and fluttered her eyelashes. She was such a girl. A lot of times both of you wondered how you both were friends despite being polar opposites, but as they say opposites attract. This was just not that kind of attraction. You narrowed your eyes at her playfully. "F/n, you bitch!" You got up suddenly, taking her by surprise, and started poking her stomach. She squirmed and laughed, trying to get away from you. Thankfully, both of you had the brain enough to not be loud.

After finally calming down, you both sat down, her on your chair, and you on your desk. "How was the meeting?"

"Great. The deal's finalised. The idiots are happy. Which means that we may get to go home early today. You can thank me later." She squealed and hugged you. You smiled and returned the gestured. Then you both heard another one of your colleagues calling her. Giving you a small wave, she went towards him, asking about what happened. You tuned out and decided that you finally had energy enough to start working.

You switched on your PC, logging in. Just as you started typing, a voice was heard behind you. "Miss y/n." You could recognise that voice anywhere. You got up and turned around, mentally grumbling that you hadn't gotten even a little bit of work done the whole day. "Mr. Kim," you saw Seokjin. And then Namjoon came, "and Kim," you furrowed your eyebrows as Taehyung followed Namjoon and came in your line of vision, "and Kim?" You said the last Kim like you were asking a question.

All the three men looked amused and you raised an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, just wanted you to invite to a thank you lunch. Again." Namjoon seated himself on the edge of your desk, as Taehyung leaned against Seokjin. "And you needed to come here yourself to tell me that? And you brought not one more person, but two. Mind tellin' me what's actually going on?"

Taehyung and Namjoon smiled bashfully. "We were getting too happy and too bored." Taehyung explained. You raised an eyebrow, mentally noting you have been doing that a little too many times. "So what do you want me to do? Entertain you?" You leaned against the other end of your desk, opposite Namjoon. Seokjin sat down. "Yes."

"Shut up!" You laughed, the three men joining in. "Anyway, if there's a lunch, you have to— "

"Invite f/n too. We know. She's been told already. Chill." Seokjin interrupted you.

The four of you spent your entire afternoon until lunch break sitting there chatting about everything and anything. You saw some girls shoot you looks of jealously and hatred. But you only ignored them, not wanting to get into silly fights for no reason; it's not like you were crushing on either of the CEOs. And if you started using your mouth at those girls, they wouldn't stand a chance.

At last, the lunch break came, and all of you went to a nearby restaurant, well-liked in the area. Most of your colleagues often found themselves there, including you. You and f/n both noticed those two girls following you all, trying to be discreet but failing miserably. They were the ones laughing at you in the morning and the ones who were giving you glares just minutes ago.

F/n rolled her eyes in your direction, and you gave her a look which said 'what did you expect from them?' Reaching inside the big building, a mouth watering aroma hit you immediately, making your eyes go wide. You had been visiting this restaurant since you started your job three years ago, and yet, the food always had this effect on you. You looked at the seven men giving each other big smiles, hardly able to wait for the food. And none of you were even seated yet.

*****

You and f/n were both staring outside at the big beautiful trees and the shrubs decorating the bottom. Flowers were everywhere and they made you smile. Both of you had nothing to talk about right now and both of you were sick of the two girls being fake-asses and sticking to the boys like leeches. It was amusing to see the uncomfortable glances they sent each other and you at first, asking for help, but it got tiring when the girls just couldn't get a hint and leave you all alone in peace.

They had followed you and given a very stupid excuse to join your fun, naming our peaceful lunch as a company party and saying that they deserved to be one of the people having fun because they contributed so much to get the deal. Being the kind people the guys were, they allowed them to join, despite knowing that they didn't do any work. They weren't even given any work related to the deal in the first place.

"Oh, really?! That's great!" You heard a nasally voice pierce your peace of mind. F/n gave you a deadpan look and rolled her eyes, regretting coming here. You made a face and nodded back  at her, telling her you understood. The guys were not just your seniors, they were also good friends with both of you, and you were hoping to have a good time with your favourite people and favourite food.

Instead, all you got was a headache. And they guys wouldn't even let either of you leave, as you were sitting facing each other near the window. You saw them give one of the girls a stare. She was the one who said that whatever they were talking about was great. You raised an eyebrow at Jungkook, who was sitting right next to f/n.

"They've been giving positive reactions to everything we say. The last to last deal being cancelled is not great." He whispered, not even trying to be subtle. He wanted them gone and you knew it.

And then it finally happened. The other girl turned to you. "Y/n! Why have you been so quiet? And I can just tell by what you're wearing that you don't have a sense of fashion," she gave a stale glance to f/n, who was still lost in her own world, and continued, "You should come hang out with us, we'll give you fashion advice and help you do your make and hair every morning. It's time you let go of your trousers babe."

You had made a face of distaste as soon as she had started speaking. "I would rather be like this than hang out with people like you who laugh at others enjoying the serenity of nature and stick to their bosses like glue. At least I have some dignity." Your reply was very blunt and straightforward.

Both the girls became very flustered at your reply. You hadn't realised but when that girl was speaking f/n had suddenly directed her attention at her, and had listened to your whole answer. You heard her very obnoxious laugh when you stopped speaking, and that made you smirk. You could see the seven men trying to hold in their laughter, trying not to be rude.

"Seriously, it's lunch time, from angle does this look like a company party to you? None of the work concerning the deal was given to either of you, because the whole building knows what would have happened if you were allowed to even help a little bit. And about that," you pointed an accusing finger to her tightening her hold on Jimin's arm, "do you even know Chim's birthday? His favourite colour? Even his fucking personality?! Fuck, you don't even know why his nickname is Chim in the first place.

"I will never ever be hanging out with you. Give one more look to f/n and I'll have your throats. I'm not going to convert into some bitch like you. I sometimes wonder if you even use a bra with the amount of times you've opened your shirt buttons to show off your cleavage. Learn to get a hint, both of you. That, and get out of our faces." All this time, you never even raised your voice, but somehow attracted the attention of most of your peers around you anyway.

Both of them had been getting more and more nervous by the second hearing what you were saying. You opened your wallet and took out money enough to pay for everything you all had ordered. Slamming the notes down on the table, you attempted to get out, and this time, the guys let you. F/n followed suit, and you saw her give a proud smile in your direction. The girl holding Jimin's arm let go on her own, but Yoongi had to snatch his arm from her hold. The guys walked behind you too.

You were in full mood to have a stern talk with them. F/n knew what you were thinking and went to do her own work. You went straight to the boys' office, and they could do nothing but follow you. You seated yourself on the table, taking off your shoes, opening the collar button, and hitching up your pants a little. When they all came in and closed the door, you were comfortably seated on top of the big table with crossed legs.

"Before I start talking, what's wrong Hobi? The last I heard you talk was during the meeting." He had been looking worse for wear since after the meeting, and you had thought about asking him during lunch. "This idiot didn't sleep last night, and now he's exhausted." Seokjin hit the back of his head. "C'mon guys, there's not one CEO running this big ass company, there's seven of you. You need to start taking care of yourselves."

Hoseok rubbed his face and came towards you. Keeping his forehead on your shoulder, he sighed. You rubbed his hair. "I thought I'd regain my energy during lunch by having fun with you all, but now I have a headache because of those girls. I didn't even know they were working for us."

"Me too!" You whined and kept your head on his shoulder. You heard all of them chuckle.

"Well, I guess it's going home early for both of you." Hoseok slightly raised his head. You let yourself fall behind, knowing someone will catch you. "I love you, Joon!"

"Stop being over dramatic and get out." The person who was holding you said. You opened your eyes and found an upside down Taehyung. You gave him an award-winning smile. "Fire those idiots. They've been trying to mess up with me since the day I started." Suddenly, there was blanket of quiet around the room. You got up saw them all frowning. "Why didn't you tell us?" Jimin was the one to speak up.

"Uh...because I'm a grown woman and can handle them myself?" You gave him a 'are you dumb?' expression. Being the same age came with privileges. "I mean, I'm asking you to fire them for their safety. If I see them even look in my direction one more time, I swear to god, I will break all the 206 bones in their body, exchange the places of their lungs and intestines, and dispose them off into the next century!"

They all were looking at you with wide eyes. "I really really think you need sleep. That headache is messing with your brain." Seokjin gently pushed you off the table and guided you and Hoseok to the door. "Call me when you reach home, both of you."

You both nodded and went to your desk. Finding f/n there, you quickly explained the whole situation to her while collecting your stuff. She bid you both goodbye and went to do her work.

You dropped off Hoseok to his house and firmly told him to go to sleep, even making him promise to you. Half an hour later, you found yourself snuggling a pillow in your bed, already half asleep.

*****

It was your third day off. You had unexpectedly gotten sick, not that you cared. You still went to office the next day, but when Jungkook saw you drinking glucose instead of water the whole day, he dragged you to their office. When you told them that you had had a fever the whole day, they had guilt tripped you into taking some leaves.

You were in your kitchen, drinking a glass of water. The fever was still there, and that's why you didn't go to work. You were hating this; even in school, you had barely ever taken a day off if you got ill. Then the doorbell rang. Wondering who could it be, you opened it, only to find a big basket filled with your favourite foods. It had a cute little card attached to the handle, and you read it.

Get well soon!

- Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi, Jung Hoseok, Kim Namjoon, Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, Jeon Jungkook

You chuckled when you saw that all of them had signed their full names on the small card. You also found quick-to-make noodle soup in the basket.

You called Yoongi. Knowing he had the phone on speaker, you closed the door and said very loudly, "Thanks guys! I love you, you idiots!" Making a 'muah' sound, you hung up.

[jphbk1982]

A third part to my InDex fanfic if you feel like reading. 

“Distraction”

Indi was staring. She knew it. She was pretty sure he knew it. Indi quickly broke her gaze and glanced around her at Candice on one side of her and Austin on the other.

It had been her idea to convince Candice to come to the PC on a day she did not normally, to get some training and cardio in. She used the excuse of a title defense, but in truth, it was because she knew Dexter would be here on this day.

You see normally at the PC, people knew each other's schedule pretty well and tended to avoid being around people they were not exactly fond of. So this was not a day Indi would normally find herself here. She glanced around at many of her foes working out on the mats and various equipment. She quickly moved her eyes back to the back right corner.

"What are you smiling about?" Candice asked, slightly out of breath from her time spent on the treadmill next to Indi. Her voice snapped Indi out of her thoughts.

"Huh?" Indi responded, peeling her eyes from Dexter as he was adding more weight to the bar he was working with.

"You are grinning like a crazy woman," Candice continued, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Oh... I was... I was just thinking about how we are going to retain our titles," Indi fibbed. She was careful to keep her attention on Candice as she spoke.

"I don't think we needed this extra day of training to do that," Candice shrugged. "But I admire your commitment."

"Thanks," Indi said, sneaking a glance back at Dexter. Austin moved into her direct line of view with a big grin on his face.

"Too bad Papa John couldn't join us," Austin said with his usual exuberance.

"Yeah," Indi nodded in agreement, looking over his shoulder.

"What are..." Austin started to speak.

"IT IS too bad, Johnny couldn't be here too," Indi spoke loudly to stop Austin as she raised her eyebrows slightly at him, which only seemed to confuse him. Indi shook her head.

"I am getting hungry so I am gonna hit the shower and then go get some food!" Austin stated loudly, causing Indi and Candice to exchange looks and small laughs as he walked off toward the direction of the locker room.

"You feel like getting in the ring and working on a few things again?" Candice asked as she pushed a button to stop her treadmill.

"Umm..." Indi had one eye on Candice's movements and the other on the back corner again. "You know, I don't want to overdo it in the ring, hate to get an injury before our defense."

"Right," Candice accepted the response as she walked over and retrieved a water bottle from her bag, and took a sip. "I think I may hit the showers then too and call it a day, it is getting late."

Candice gestured up at a large clock on the wall, prompting Indi to turn and see it was late enough to be getting dark outside. The thought made her smile, but it wasn't a conscious reaction, at least she didn't think so.

"Okay... well I am going to get a couple more miles in on this before I head out," Indi said lightly patting the handles of the treadmill and smiling at Candice.

"Alright then," Candice said as she grabbed her bag and turned to head toward the locker room area. Indi watched her go and noticed that she wasn't the only one heading in that direction. Her eyes instinctively moved to the back corner to see that he was not one of them. She smiled.

Indi watched as he laid back and begin some presses. She was trying to calculate the weight on the bar in her head and found herself fairly impressed. She watched as his expression barely registered the weight each time he lifted. She found herself mesmerized by his movements.

The sudden stoppage from him and sitting up nearly startled Indi as he sat on the bench now seemingly catching his breath. His black tank top was soaked with sweat but somehow his face and hair seemed unbothered by it.

Indi nearly lost her footing on the machine when he turned his head half sideways and she knew she was in his line of vision now. She quickly looked around to see only a couple of people were left in the gym area with them and they were on machines not facing the two. She felt her breath catch in her throat a little when his eyes raised to meet hers.

Indi wished she could describe what it was like to be on this side of looking into Dexter Lumis' eyes, but she was not sure when she could even begin to do that. It was almost as if his eyes were an oasis in the middle of a desert. You could not resist jumping in even if you were not sure if what you were seeing was real or imaginary.

Blue. Just pure blue. Indi wasn't even sure she liked the color blue until the first time her eyes locked with his. Now it was her favorite. She could close her eyes now and she knew she would still see those blue circles. Her face was flushing and not because of the intense workout she had put in today.

She watched as Dexter got up from the bench and walked over to get a towel draped over his gym bag, he retrieved it, patted his face with it a few times and backed up to the exit door behind him, and disappeared into the night, all while never taking his eyes off Indi.

Indi was transfixed on the doorway not sure if he would be stepping back in at any minute. She stopped her machine and stepped off of it, nearly losing her balance at the change in movement and the spaciness of her headspace at the moment. She glanced around and saw that now she was the only one left in the area.

Indi took a deep breath and made her way slowly over to the area Dexter had been in. She ran her hand absentmindedly over the bar he had been pressing moments before. She smiled as the faintest scent of his cologne was still in the area. He always smelled nice. A very subdued smell. Indi assumed it was cologne but to be honest she had never smelled any like it before.

Soon she found herself sitting on the bench. It was still warm from him and a shiver went through her despite the heat radiating from the room. She glanced over noticed his gym bag was laying open and something was peeking out of it. She strained her eyes to make out what it was once she recognized it was indeed a drawing of some sort.

Indi scooted down the bench and craned her neck to get a better look at it. She crinkled her nose in annoyance when she still couldn't see enough to make out anything other than some lines.

It was then it dawned on her that Dexter must have left and forgotten his bag. So she hurriedly got up from her seated position and gripped the handles on the bag with the intent to run and see if she could catch him in the parking lot. Her hands had just fully enveloped the handle when she felt the air change next to her.

Indi glanced up to see him standing close to her. Very close. She gulped slightly. Not from fear of him, but fear of what him being so close to her might make her feel. She straightened up to meet his eyes.

"Hey..." was the only word Indi could manage to formulate. He didn't verbally respond but he didn't need to. She saw his response deep in those blue pools.

Indi raised his bag up to him.

"I... thought you had left and forgot this and was going to bring it to you," Indi explained, reaching up with her free hand to tuck away behind her ear some hair that escaped her ponytail and fallen into her face.

His eyes moved down to the bag and then back up to lock with hers again. She felt suddenly as if she didn't even have the strength to support the weight of the gym bag anymore and felt rescued when his hand moved gently around hers to take the weight of it from her.

Indi stepped back slightly as he fully took the bag from her. She studied his face for a moment before her eyes moved down to his chest as it steadily rose and fell behind his tanktop. She could swear she could almost hear his heartbeat but that was probably just her own pounding in her ear.

Her gaze moved down as he took one hand and reached into his bag. He fumbled inside for just a moment before he pulled out the very drawing Indi had been struggling to see earlier. He held it away from her until she moved her eyes back up to his again. It was only then he moved it closer to her body.

Indi held her hand out and gripped it around the paper. She wanted to turn it to see what it was but was find it frustratingly hard to break away from swimming in his eyes. A gentle head nod indicated he wanted her to see the drawing so she turned it to her and immediately smiled.

The drawing was of both her and Candice with their championships over their heads and their opponents lying on the mat below them. The caption simply said, "And still..."

"Thank you..." Indi said quietly as she studied the way he had drawn her specifically. Something about it made her feel special. She couldn't quite explain it. Indi didn't lack self-confidence, but when she saw his depictions of her it boosted it to levels the likes of which she had never experienced. "I love it..."

Indi moved her eyes back up to him and saw his mouth was curled into a half-smile. He seemingly was feeling pride at her reaction.

A noise coming from the locker room caused his expression to go neutral and he started to back away from her.

"Wait..." Indi reached out and placed a hand on his chest. It was risky. It was dangerous. But she couldn't resist capturing him in a kiss. It was quicker than she liked, but the danger of it made it her favorite yet. He continued back to the door and pushed his way out, glancing back at her once more before it closed. She could swear he was moving into a full smile before the door closing blocked her view.

"I am out... unless you want me to wait for you," Candice's voice coming up behind Indi startled her and she quickly folded her drawing and turned.

"Um... no... no... I will be fine, just going to make it a quick shower and then probably straight home to bed," Indi responded. Candice nodded.

"Okay well, I will see you tomorrow then?" Candice asked.

"Definitely," Indi replied. With that, Candice walked past her and out the same exit Dexter had disappeared out of earlier. Indi watched the door close again before she walked over and picked up her bag next to the treadmill and hurriedly made her way toward the locker room.

Indi reached the locker room area and plopped down on a bench. She unzipped her bag and played with the folded drawing in her hand. She had the urge to view it once more and unfolded it carefully. She smiled when she laid her eyes on it again.

She viewed it for several seconds, committing it all to memory before gently folding it again. It was after the second fold she noticed something written on the back of the drawing. She furrowed her brow and flipped it over to make out what it said.

"Dinner?"

Indi moved a hand up to cover her mouth but her smile escaped out of it anyway.

[creacherkeeper]

How is the cowboi doing? :) I’d love to hear about some of their recent adventures.

OH WELL IT'S ME + ALSO MY DICE HATE(/love) ME SO YOU KNOW THEYRE GETTING WHUMPED CONSTANTLY LMAO

there have certainly been some Events Unfolding so those are under the cut, casey since youre in our campaign now NO PEEKING

fair warning this is .... long ..... you have asked me to talk about my dnd character and you simply CANNOT stop the floodwaters now. enter at your own risk

okay so basically the first arc of the campaign kind of kicked off with them getting a vision from their goddess (the grain goddess/goddess of agriculture) saying that she was trapped in a fey gate and that they needed to come rescue her

so erley immediately Rallied The Posse and set off to do that. they NUMEROUS times tried to pray to her, commune with her, basically just get ANY sort of communication or guidance from her, but the dice like to tell their story so i literally never got above an 11 (paladin with only +2 to religion my beloved) and they never heard from her, which was making them. pretty nervous. when it seemed like everyone else was able to talk to their gods just fine

well we eventually figured out that there was a huge gathering of fey in the woods (me: this might be too big for us to fight. what if its like 30 fey? / my dm, glancing at his notes where he has 2000 fey written down: (: ) and basically the fey like. had captured and were trying to kill what was left of the pantheon so they could bring back gaia as the One True God

we found all this out because it turned out several members of the party had been lying about how much they knew of the fey and had personal connections to the fey they'd kept hidden. and erley, who is ALSO HIDING A LOT from the party like. immediately went on the offense and was just generally very unhappy about this

there had been this fey merchant who kept popping up wherever we were trying to sell us magic weapons that seemed tied to us specifically. erley was always VERY suspicious of her and did everything in their power to stop the others from buying her weapons (which we literally had to buy with -5 to a skill point, not money, v sus) to mixed results. but basically when we got to the fey gathering (we called it gaiapalooza) erley rolled a 1 on their survival check to get through the magic field and like. got teleported to her. and they really wanted information from her so they basically were like LEORA I DONT KNOW WHO TO TRUST I THINK MY PARTY HAS BEEN LYING TO ME, CAN YOU TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THEM CAN YOU SEE US WHEN YOURE NOT THERE? and basically pretended to need a therapy session in order to milk her for information lmao. she also seemed like. REALLY interested in erley and i was also very nervous about that

and i was RIGHT to be suspicious of her because we found out she WAS ACTUALLY THE BIG BAD and we had to fight her in the arc finale. and several of our party members had rl stuff and were not there, and in game our druid was away casting an 8 hour long spell to try and stop the palooza ceremony, so our party was SUPER nerfed and also as soon as erley realized it WAS actually leora who was behind all of it and she WAS trying to hurt them with those weapons (the weapons were tethers to the gods to be able to kill them basically), they got .... a little angry

and my party found out after irl a year of playing these characters that erley's first level is barbarian :))

so erley raged and did frankly a staggering amount of damage in this fight, and also only stayed up because of rage because they took a LOT of hits. but also. they dont rage FOR A REASON so it sort of took them over and when leora dropped, one of the other pcs ran over to stabilize her as she was making death saves and erley :) maybe :) drove a spear through her heart and killed her :)

and her body immediately just like. overgrew with plants and vines and flowers and basically wrapped the spear in a bed of plants and it was very cinematic and cool

(we have since found out that leora was like. actually an aspect of gaia so. that is. interesting)

of course then erley popped out of rage and was like FUCK this is why i dont do this, i went too far, it always goes too far, THIS is why im ashamed of this, and just got very emo boi about it. so they used their last spell slot to cast restoration on the space they had fought in and reached out to their goddess, having just saved her and the rest of the pantheon like she had asked them to

and i rolled a nat 1!!!

(the dm was like "you have committed this violent act, you feel so low and so bad and in need of guidance, and reach out to your goddess. and the absolute lack of a response just makes you feel empty inside" and i was like :) oh :) okay cool :) you love to see that with your paladins huh)

at this point the druid came back in and, instead of erley like. examining any of their own shit immediately lashed out at her and was like "why did you lie to me about the fey, why did you lie about why you were here, why ARE you here because i realize now it wasnt to help me"

and at that point ONE OF THE FEY QUEENS WALKED IN and the druid was like "... mother ..." and we were all :O

so it turns out the fey queen is her birth mom but had like? kidnapped one of the children of her firbolg tribe and was holding her hostage and the druid was on a quest to find her and bring her back

so erley :) felt :) even more bad about that :) and very shamedly pledged their help to her, and basically was like "as long as youre on this noble quest i will follow you if you'll have me"

so we're on our second arc now, which is traveling across the country to go meet the fey queen and get this kid back. as we were traveling my dm had me roll religion and a luck check and i got a 21 ON RELIGION FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER and a 6 luck. and he was like "you dont usually dream, but you have a nightmare. you know this nightmare was given to you, it was divinely inspired, but you dont know who sent it" and it was just erley killing leora over and over and over again. so they were like. well fuck

(my dm also messaged me privately and we talked and he was like. yeah you can get rid of your oath of devotion and change it to oath of the ancients, i am not telling you or erley why the subclass has changed and you also might get nerfed later. also level up barbarian for the next fight)

so erley was. feeling PRETTY DANG BAD and very guilty and stressed and all that. they did also realize their barbarian side was getting stronger which, considering their backstory is all tragic barbarian shit they were NOT happy about. i was fully prepared to have them be more ostracized from the party and go into full angst mode, but then the druid actually like. pulled them aside and explained why she had hidden information from them, and had a very sweet conversation with them and held their hand and it was VERY touching (she also had the baller line "you think your goddess can hear you and she's not answering. but maybe you're talking in a whisper and she needs to hear you scream")

we had another fight (we're level 7 and my dm told us after it was a cr 32 fight like. dude??? what the fuck?????) and once again erley didnt go down only because of rage

THEY ALSO UNINTENTIONALLY CAST MISTY STEP (which is an ancients spell they didnt have before) and were like WELL NO TIME TO UNPACK WHAT THAT WAS RIGHT NOW, HAVE TO NOT DIE

after the battle was over i asked to roll a check to figure out why i had access to that spell and got :) yeah you guessed it :) another nat 1 :) so erley has literally no idea how they cast that or what it could mean. we just had a new pc introduced who is a sorcerer so erley is definitely going to talk to her and see if she knows anything. because they are FULLY IN THE DARK about their subclass change or what that means in game

we're also (because of the fucking cr 32 fight) going to be leveling up again soon, and babey you KNOW im leveling barbarian. after rage kept me up and then rolling another nat 1 religion check, and also me the player not knowing whats up with their goddess/magic, i simply cant level paladin rn. so im BETWEEN A FEW SUBCLASS OPTIONS and ive been thinking them over but i think it really depends how the next few games go

my FULL ANGST option was to make them level into zealot barbarian like their awful dad, but i thought that made the least sense in universe rn

secondary angst option is to level into berserker, which i think fits pretty closely with how i've been roleplaying the rage so far. trading off an extra attack for a level of exhaustion fits pretty closely. also whump central

the NICE option is to have them be a totem warrior barbarian, and have both their paladin steed and their totem be a bull :) (they are a cowboi after all) i think thats the closest i can marry their two classes and potentially have some healthy growth for them, let them see that the rage doesnt HAVE to be a bad thing, that being a barbarian isnt something they HAVE to be ashamed of. reskinning the bear totem would give them resistance to all damage but psychic while raging, and im planning on taking the tough feat, so theyd pretty much be ... an unstoppable tank. plus i can still divine smite while in rage so theyd be VERY powerful

and now youre all caught up on my very special boi :))))) bet you didnt expect quite that much of an infodump but. listen. listen im simply obsessed with dnd i cannot help it. any chance to talk about my characters i WILL TAKE IN A HEARTBEAT (thank u for prompting my ramble lmao)

[heyitslanesl]

And Then They Were Isekai'd

>:)

tags; Sandrone(oc) x Tartaglia + Reader(platonic.. fOR NOW), isekai, modern, nothing crazy, this is my opener fic.

@justsidecharacterthings

When you had gone to bed the previous evening, you hadn’t exactly expected to wake up to crashing in your living room. Fingers wrapped around the knife you keep nearby, you slowly remove yourself from the bed. A quick check of the time tells you it's barely five am. There are distinct voices coming from the living room. One sounded particularly chipper, the other sounded rather bland.

Even less expected was to stumble into your living room to see two characters from the video game you had stayed up until two am playing right there. The ginger man turned towards you, he seemed rather confused. The masked man brought his hand up, he looked at his hand as he attempted to summon his claymore. “I can’t.. Tartaglia, I can’t summon my weapon.” You blinked at them, this was a dream, right?

“Your vision maybe?” The taller one suggested. The masked man nodded, a blade of ice forming in his hand, that seemed to still work. Two war criminals, from a video game, were in your house. And they had access to their weird elemental powers. You screamed, blade dropping to the ground and skidding across the floorboards. “Whoa! Hey, we won’t hurt you! Sulien, put that away.”

“Absolutely not, they could have been the one who summoned us here for all we know. Stop-” Sulien sighed, bringing a hand up to his mask. “Stop screaming please, I’m getting a headache.” He flicked his wrist and the ice disappeared from his hand. You backed up into the hallway, this was definitely a dream, just go back to bed just go back to bed- “Ajax you’re much more sociable than I.” Sulien took a seat on the couch, he couldn’t be bothered.

You ran the rest of the way to your bedroom, opening and slamming the door shut behind you. A few seconds passed and there was a soft knock. “Hello? We really won’t hurt you, we’re just lost. We woke up in your living space.” You heard a soft thud on the other side, presumably Ajax’s back hitting the door. “Do you have any idea how we got here?” He questioned and you took a deep breath.

Slowly, very slowly, you opened the door, peeking out of it. Ajax was leaning against the doorframe, looking at the painting you had on your wall in the hallway. “I don’t know how you got here. But I know where you’re from.” You watched as his features formed a frown, but you had the distinct feeling it wasn’t directed at you. “Could you uh, move?” He moved out of the way and you properly exited your bedroom.

Returning to the living room, Sulien was raiding your bookshelf, a book in each hand and a third tucked into the crook of his elbow. “Ajax, you won’t believe this. I haven’t read any of these.” A tad less monotonous than the game would have him portrayed. Maybe his book obsession wasn’t an exaggeration on the VA’s part. You made your way to your computer in the corner of the room, powering it on.

“What’s uh.. What’s your reading speed like..?” You question as you watch the masked man place your book back into the shelf, focusing on the other one in his hand. He didn’t respond, enthralled with his reading. You looked over to Ajax who shook his head, nobody, not even him, could get through to Sulien when he began to read. Your PC booted relatively quickly and you started Genshin Impact. “Okay, come here.” Ajax obliged, moving closer to you and bending down so he could look at the screen.

“What is this device? It’s fascinating.”

“Oh.. Oh right you don’t have these. This is a computer!” You began to explain a bit of modern technology, Sulien looking away from his book at you two in order to listen. Ajax nodded along excitedly, you even let him click the ‘Begin Game’ button. He was entranced by the sound of the mechanical keyboard too, like a kid in a candy store. “And this is a phone, it’s like a little computer.” You pulled your phone from your pocket.

Before Ajax could take it though, Sulien crossed the room and swiped it, much to the ginger’s chagrin. “This reminds me of Khaenri’ahn technology, my brother would know more about it.” Sulien flipped the phone in his hand, looking at it from every angle. Ajax leaned over Sulien’s shoulder to watch him fiddle with your phone, it was kind of cute, they were like dogs seeing their reflection. “Perhaps Dottore too..” He hummed, powering it on. “Oh this is a cute dog, look.” Sulien showed Ajax your background, a friend’s puppy.

“I haven’t even given you my name!” Your cheeks warmed in embarrassment as you gave over your name, Ajax testing it on his tongue a few times. Sulien hummed in acknowledgement as he somehow managed to bypass your password..? “Okay, look here. This is a video game called Genshin Impact.” You placed your teapot and waited for it to load. Sulien set your phone down on your desk and Ajax awkwardly leaned down to watch.

First things first was the cottage kitchen you had constructed inside the manor, where.. “Is that..?” Ajax furrowed his brows in confusion. Your Traveler ran up to the harbinger in game, quickly triggering a line of dialogue. “I’m confused..” Ajax admitted, trying to connect the pieces. How was he here but also in that video game? It made no sense to him. Next you headed up the stairs to the library you had created on the second floor.

“And that would be me. If I’m understanding correctly, it would seem we’re characters in a game. This, however, implies either one of the other characters has become self aware enough to create a portal to this world. Or somebody in this world messed up summoning us. Fascinating how our visions still work though.” Sulien stood straight, arms crossing over his chest as he spoke. You were almost attracted to how intelligent he sounded in the moment-

“Do you have any food, comrade? I suspect we’ll be stuck here until mister well read over here can get us back, and I am starving!” Ajax looked around for the way to the kitchen, you pushed back your chair, standing as well. The moment you stepped away, Sulien sat down, inspecting your headset, keyboard, mouse. He was curious, if anything. “Do you want food, Lien?”

Sulien waved his hand, preoccupied with the computer and game. You had no fear he’d break anything, so you led Ajax to the kitchen instead. “I don’t have a lot, I need to do groceries.” You open your freezer, grabbing a box of frozen pizza, a rich war criminal would eat this, right? Probably. Ajax investigated the kitchen, specifically the appliances, he took an immediate interest in the coffee machine as you started the oven. “Wish your video game money worked here, I could order us actual pizza.” You snort as you slide the za into the oven.

“Mora is made from gold, would your banks not take that?” Ajax questioned as he stood straight, a piece of plain bread in his hand. “Well ichor, but Rex Lapis supposedly bleeds gold. Same thing.” He promptly bit into the bread. You stopped for a moment, brows furrowing as you considered this.. Maybe they would? You’d have to Google it later. Also Rex Lapis bleeds gold? Interesting tidbit..

Sulien entered the kitchen, your phone in his hand. “So I’ve messaged the writer for my brother and I since his Twitter DMs were open. I’m hoping he has a way to get us back.” Sulien announced, scrolling through twitter on.. His own account? You choked on your spit as his words settled in. “You seem surprised, I know this is a bit of a gamble, but if he’s my writer he should know what my face looks like, right? I have sent an image.”

“That’s how you get blocked for being crazy, Sandrone.” You brought your hand up to your face, shaking your head. Ajax snorted, holding out his half eaten bread to his colleague, lover, wait you could ask! “They don’t really make it clear in game, but you two are like.. Ya know?”

“I do not want your bread, finish what you’ve started. And yes we are lovers.”

“But it's bland.”

“Did you even ask if they had any condiments to put on it?”

“No.”

“I have jam?” You open the fridge, pulling out the aforementioned jar of jam, which Ajax took greedily. He scoured your drawers for a knife, which he found relatively quickly. “Huh, I figured. When you found out he lied about your brother, phew, the emotion?? No way that was straight.” You lean against the counter. Sulien’s head snapped to you, away from the phone. Ajax stilled in his movements, looking over his shoulder.

“Oh my archons, our whole lives are on display? Ajax, do not tell my brother this. He’d be so sad.” Sulien brought his hand to his mask, as if he were pinching the bridge of his nose, he then shook his head. Ajax hummed in acknowledgement, going back to what he was doing with his bread. “I do apologise wholeheartedly for our intrusion however.” Instead of dropping his hand, he pulled his mask off, using it to fan his face.

You supposed the apartment was too warm for the cryo user. He was pretty, that much was for sure. A surprising lack of scars adorned his face, especially given how his body is rumoured to look. “It’s fine, I don’t have work this weekend. If you’re still here come Monday though, you’re on your own.” When you finally tore your eyes away from Sulien’s face, you noticed Ajax’s wolfish grin. Seems you have two roommates now.

[sillyrabbit81]

Her Heavy Cross

Summary: Three years after tragedy hits, Lana she decides to start dating again. She meets Will through a dating app and they begin an online romance. After months of constant requests, Lana relents and agrees to meet and go on an irl date with Will. But is Will who he says he is? Lana is quickly pulled into an intense relationship forcing her to confront her tragic past. Will Lana face it or will she close her heart forever?

Pairing: OMC x OFC

Word Count: approx 3.6k

Warnings: smut, swearing, Dom vibes, dirty talk

Authors Note: The story started as a Henry Cavill fanfiction but I changed it to be an original character, but shades of Henry are still there. Hope you enjoy the story and thanks for reading.

Part 14 Part 16

Part 15

After lunch, Liam took me on a tour of his house. We skipped the ground floor as I had already seen pretty much everything.

The first floor was a complete mystery to me. First, Liam showed me his study. It had two desks; on one, Liam had a fancy-looking PC, the other had a laptop and scripts and other paperwork scattered around. It had a large built-in bookcase with only a few books in it, most of them mine. I frowned at this. For an avid reader, he had a small collection. There was also a tiny bathroom, a guest bedroom which Liam says sometimes Ryan stays in.

The last room was a cinema room, all painted black with three rows of reclining chairs set on raised platforms with a projector screen. "This is fantastic," I said. There were cupboards, also black to store discs. When I opened them, I saw Liam's movie collection was also surprisingly bare. "For someone in the film industry, you don't have a lot of movies."

"I do, but most of them are back in London. It's the same thing with all my books and half my wardrobe. I don't know how long I'll be here. If the show is a success and gets picked up for another series, I might ship some of it here."

I let his words sink in. I don't know why, but it never really occurred to me that he may pick up and leave in six months. I felt myself close up and shut down. Regret started to set in. I tried to ignore it and tell myself to cross that bridge when the time comes. I forced a smile as I closed the cupboards and said to Liam, "What's next?"

We went up to the second floor. Liam's bedroom was there with another two bedrooms and a sitting room. The final floor was where the real master bedroom was. It had the gorgeous bathroom we were in last night and a huge bedroom that took up nearly the whole space. It had an even bigger wardrobe than Liam's, split in two with distinct areas for each partner. The bedroom had its own lounge area, and the whole room was arranged like a hotel suite complete with en-suite balcony and city views. It was exceptional. I was so blown away by the house, mansion really, that for a while, I forgot to worry about the future.

"Why didn't you use this as your bedroom? It's amazing."

Liam shrugged. "I did when I first moved in. But it was too big for just me. I felt lonely up here, and it was that bit harder for Cole to come and see me. I almost moved down to the first-floor bedroom, but it doesn't have a dressing room, so I went to the one I'm in now. What do you think?"

I was leaning on the balcony railing, looking towards the city. The trees were a colourful mix of green, red and gold. A few were starting to lose their leaves. It was so pretty. I felt Liam come up behind me and wrap his arms around me. He put his chin on my shoulder, and we both looked out towards the city. "Of the house? It's amazing. I don't know how else to describe it. I mean, it's a bit much for me. I'd cry if I had to clean it. But I assume you have cleaners?" Liam nodded. "Yeah, I wouldn't live in a place this big without a cleaner."

"I'm glad you like it. I want you to be comfortable when you come over."

I interlaced my fingers with his and held them against my belly. "I'm definitely comfortable right now." We stood there for a while and relaxed into each other. Thoughts of Liam leaving reared it's ugly head a few times, but I ignored it. Instead, I focused on now. All I could do was enjoy the time I had with Liam and make the best of it.

Soon the wind started to pick up, and I grew cold. Liam took me back inside.

"I've got to work out for a bit," Liam said as we took the stairs down. "Do you think you can keep yourself occupied for an hour or so?"

"I could join you if you want? I didn't go to the gym yesterday so I could do with some exercise."

"Yeah, ok, let do it."

Liam went into his dressing room, and I changed in his room. I put on a pair of white and black ankle grazer tights and a white sports bra. I felt good in it and knew I looked good too. I went over to the chair to put my shoes and socks on and caught Liam looking through the door.

He was dressed already in shorts and a singlet. Guys always seem to get dressed so quickly. It takes me ages to dress unless I'm in a rush. Liam leaned in the doorway, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching me. I ignored him as I did my shoes up.

"You look good in that." He said. I caught myself straightening my back, and a warm tingle flowed through me. I liked his little compliments.

"Thanks," I said, getting up. I put my hair in a ponytail, deliberately sticking my chest out as I did.

"Is that what you normally wear to the gym?"

"I usually wear a singlet over the top."

"But not today?" A smile spread over his face.

I smiled and said airily, "Nope, not today."

"I know what you're doing, Sweetheart." He walked past me, patting my bottom as he did. I tried to look innocent. "Come on. Let's go."

Liam put some music on and got started. Cole heard the music and came in, plopping himself on his mat in the corner. I blocked both of them out as much as I could and focused on the music. I was not going to get caught looking at Liam. I was going to make him look at me.

I got on the bike to do a bit of cardio. After warming up, I spent 10 minutes doing some interval training and worked up a decent sweat. I went over to the barbell, removed several weights, muttering "fucking hero" under my breath. I started my weights with a few sets of deadlifts. I noticed Liam in the corner of my eye with a kettlebell. He was sweaty too and looked amazing doing his lifts, but I pulled my eyes away. He was watching me. Good. I tried hard to keep the smirk off my face, but it was bloody difficult.

I focussed on my next exercise. I changed the weight again for the overhead press. These were hard for me, as my upper body was weaker than my lower body. I did these as quickly as possible because I hated them and only did them now because I knew they would drive Liam to distraction.

I did some goblet squats with a dumbbell before moving to my favourite, the weighted hip thrust. I got the barbell again, sat with my back against a bench, and brought the barbell to my hips. I planted my feet, and exhaling, I leaned back onto the bench, squeezing my glutes until my upper body and hips are straight. Then I lowered and exhaled again and repeated the exercise. When I had finished the set, I lowered myself to the floor and rested.

"Do you do that at the gym?" Liam asked.

I didn't look at him, knowing I would smile if I did. "Yeah. Why? Am I doing it wrong?" I knew full well I was doing it right.

"No, your form is lovely," I ordered myself not to blush. Liam paused and asked, "Are there men at your gym?" Got him.

"Yeah, it's usually 75% men."

"Lucky bastards." I looked at him and giggled. I wanted to smack myself. I was trying to be sexy, not a fucking child. He was sitting on a bench press. His legs were on either side of the bench, and his elbows rested on his knees. He was still sweating, his curls plastered to his forehead. His arms glistened. I wanted him to fuck me so badly.

Composing myself, I said. "I have another set to do."

"I'm finished." He said, "Go ahead. I'll wait."

I got back into position and repeated the set. When I finished, I lowered myself back to the floor. Liam asked. "Done yet?" Liam was standing now. He had moved closer and had his hands on his hips.

"One more." I was excited. My heart rate was raised, not just from the exercise.

Liam growled impatiently.

I started my last set, and my body was trembling. I didn't know if I could do the full set. I was too excited, too turned on. Liam entered my field of vision, watching me as I worked. I wasn't going to be able to do it with him watching. I closed my eyes, found my focus, and continued.

As I finished and rolled the barbell away, Liam lifted it and put it away. I laid down on my back and stretched out my muscles.

Liam stood over me. "You did that on purpose." It wasn't a question.

Still trying to play innocent, I said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I was just working out."

"Get up."

"I'm stretching."

"You're done. Get up."

I smiled at him and put my hand out. "Help me up?"

He grasped my hand and lifted me. He pulled me close and kissed me hard. "You're a fucking tease." He said. He didn't let me go. He held me tighter, his hand resting on my arse.

I started to protest that I didn't know what he was talking about, but he spanked me and said. "Don't deny it." He said, lifting me and wrapping my legs around his waist. "You know you were trying to get me hard." I could feel him against me. It had worked. "Since it worked, you can deal with it." His voice had taken on the gravelly tone he used when he was turned-on. It thrilled me. I put my arms around Liam's neck. Kissing me again, he walked out of the room. His lips tasted salty as I kissed him back.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"I'm giving you what you want. I'm going to fuck you."

"I didn't say that I wanted that," I said. Oh, but I did want that.

"You didn't have to," Liam said. He pushed me against the wall in the elevator as he pressed the button. "You know what to say if you want me to stop." He looked me in the eyes, "Anytime you want me to stop, I will. Don't hesitate or do anything you don't want to." I nodded to show him I understood. "Good."

When the lift opened, he took me to the bathroom we had used last night. I chuckled when I saw his clothes were still in a pile on the floor. He had let the water out of the bath and replaced my robe.

Liam took me over to the shower. "Shoes off," he said, and I took my shoes and socks off while he did the same. "Let your hair down." I pulled the band out and shook my hair until the curls fell around my shoulders. "Take your pants off." I lowered my tights slowly and stepped out of them. Liam did the same I could see how hard he was now. He continued to tell me to undress as he did the same until we both stood, our bodies bare.

He was beautiful standing there naked and hard. His arms looked more impressive than usual because of his work out. I wanted to touch him. I stepped closer to him and put my hand on his bicep. I felt my way up his arm, over his shoulder and across his collarbone. I stood on my toes to kiss his neck while I felt his chest. I reached my hands around his back and pressed myself against him. "Get in," he said. "Hurry."

I let him go and got into the shower. The temperature was perfect, and I let the water run all over me. I ran my hands through my hair to make sure it was all wet before turning around and facing Liam. He turned me around until I met the wall and used his body to shepherd me until my whole body was against it.

The tiles were cold, instantly making my nipples grow hard and tingly, sending ripples of pleasure down to my sex. My arms were pulled behind my back, elbows bent and forearms next to each other. Liam's body pushed into me, holding them there. In this position, I was helpless, and at his will, he could do what he wanted. It excited me. My whole centre throbbed. I wanted him. He was taking too long.

Liam's knees forced my legs apart, and I could feel my slick arousal on my thighs. He tilted my hips so my bottom jutted out. I thought of how I must look, arse out, legs apart, arms behind my back with my breasts and face pushed into the wall, his huge body covering mine. He leaned his head on the tiles next to mine, and his teeth nipped at my ear. I shivered in pleasure, in desperation and need.

I cried out in shock and relief as I felt Liam's fingers reaching around and parting my slit. "Fuck," he growled into my ear. "You feel so fucking good." He found my clit and played with me.

I cried out. I was so aroused I was almost too sensitive for his touch to feel good. I tried to pull away, but Liam's hold was firm. His fingers followed my every movement, not willing to let go until their mission was complete. He kissed and bit my neck and shoulders, adding more sensations to my already overwhelmed body. I didn't think I'd be able to take it.

Then it felt good, better than good, and I was able to stay still and let him have me. Liam's fingers danced over me. My cries quickened, and my body felt tight. I knew my climax was fast approaching.

Liam knew too. "Are you going to cum, Lana?" He stopped kissing me and watched my face. I couldn't say anything. I was too strung out, too close. I nodded as best I could. Liam put his hand into my hair and pulled my head back.

"After you cum I'm going to stick my cock into your tight wet pussy and fuck you until I cum. Is that what you wanted, Lana? Is that what you wanted when you got dressed in your skin-tight clothes? When you wore that bra that pushed your perky little tits together? When you lifted those weights, and I had to watch you thrust your arse and hips around? Is this what you wanted?" I tied to say yes, but instead, I came undone.

Liam kissed me, his mouth consuming me, his tongue owning my mouth as little aftershocks rippled through me. He took what little breath I had, and I was left gasping. The sound of the shower was suddenly thunderous in my ears as my senses returned. The stream of water was hot against my cooling skin, but it felt good. I was still gasping when I felt Liam's cock at my entrance. He stood up straight, releasing my hair and arms. Although they ached, I put my arms against the wall to brace for what I knew was to come.

His hands steadied my hips as his cock parted me, opening me up to him. I heard him groan as he entered me. I was tight from my orgasm, but I was so wet and relaxed he slid in quickly. His size stretched me until I was full, and he had sheathed himself completely. He wasted no time and immediately ploughed into me. Each thrust was rough, almost reaching the point of painful, but always just shy. I pushed back into him, arching my back further to give his movements more room.

His fingers dug deep into my hips as he forced them back to meet his. Each push seemed to elicit a deep exhale from Liam's throat, a growl that grew more shallow with each moment. I heard him bellow as his hands reached up for my shoulders. He pulled my shoulders down as he pushed so hard into me, I thought I would split in two. He held me there for a moment as he let go into me, and I cried out, unsure if it hurt or felt like heaven. I felt him release inside me, pulling me down while he pushed into me. I almost cried no more, but it would have been a lie because the hurt was too sweet.

Liam's head lulled onto my back as he released my shoulders and regained his breath. He lifted his head to turn me around. With my back against the tiles, he once more leaned into me, this time just to hold me, his head buried in my neck. I held him to me, wanting his comfort, and he kissed my neck softly, moving up to my face and kissing my lips.

He was smiling as he brushed my hair off my face. Then he moved me under the water. He found the body wash, couldn't find a sponge or anything so he just used his hands to wash me. He ran his hands all over my body, and it felt heavenly. He rubbed my shoulders, massaging deep into me, his thumbs moving so deeply they almost hurt. Any tension I had left fell away, and I felt light and free. He gave himself a quick wash before he stepped out and brought me a robe and slipped one on himself.

"Finally, you decide to cover up," I said as I watched him use a towel to dry his hair. His curls were a cute little mess on his head almost fluffing up like a duckling.

"Yeah, righto mate." He said, using my slang back at me.

I laughed. "Seems I'll make an Aussie out of you yet."

"Pull your head in," Liam said, complete with a halfway decent accent.

"What the hell? I don't think I've told you that one!"

Liam smiled and kissed me on the nose. "That one I learned from Boyd."

"Who's Boyd?"

"Boyd McCarthy. He is going to play my best friend. He's helped me out with a few phrases. However, I don't entirely trust him. He tried to get me to believe in drop bears."

"I like him already," I said as I gathered my clothes.

"Well, you'll meet him on Thursday."

"I still don't know what to wear to that."

Liam had his clothes, and we went downstairs. "I can take you shopping tomorrow if you'd like."

"I wouldn't even know where to start."

"Usually, high-end fashion boutiques or department stores."

I thought for a minute. We had arrived in the bedroom, and Liam went into his dressing room.

"Ok. I think a department store. They will have everything I need, shoes and a bag. We won't have to go to a million places."

"If you want to go to a few boutiques as well, I don't mind. We can take as long as you want."

I shook my head. "I don't like clothes shopping. I order most of my stuff online. I'd rather spend a day online shopping than dealing with crowds in shopping centres. I'm only agreeing to go into a shop because I have no idea what's in fashion or if I enough time to get the right dress online." I looked at my bag, "Hey Liam, what are we doing for dinner? Are we staying in?"

"What does it look like?" Liam came out in his tracksuit pants.

"Fair enough, tracky dacks it is."

Part 16

[19umbrellas]

Crimson Field || Bill Cipher x Reader || Chapter 3

Summary

You were born with the gift of the oracles much like your own father, however, after the strange disappearance of your parents when you were just a teenager, you have been seeing strange things in your dreams. You and your brother believe that your visions could lead you to your parent’s whereabouts. For years, you and your brother had been traveling the country, searching for your parents until your dreams lead you towards a really strange town in Oregon called, Gravity Falls.

“Shh brx lq wkh fulpvrq ilhog”

Pairing

Bill Cipher x Reader

Chapter: 3

<Previous || Next>

I kept my head down as I followed the twins down the street. I put some distance between us in order to avoid suspicion but also not too far to lose them. I slowed down when I saw them stop in front of a building. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I was sure that the girl was convincing the boy to go in. He chuckled and nodded, letting the girl pull him in with his arm.  

A quick glance at the building made me realize that it was an arcade and, by the looks of it, It was flourishing. And here I thought PC's killed businesses like these. I pulled my hood down and pushed the glass doors open. As soon as I walked in the scent of sweat and cheese dug deep into my nostrils. I gave a soft smile as I examined the area. Children were running around, holding tickets as they raced each other to the prize booth, Others were arguing about who was going to play next. It reminded me of my own childhood back in [home town]. 

I let my fingers trace through the dirty wallpaper as I walked. I lightly tapped each vacant game I passed and an odd feeling, kind of like a small jolt of lighting, tickled my fingertips. I glanced at the screen and realized it was an old fighting game. I read its title above, "Fight Fighters.", it said. I remember this. My dad and my brother used to play this game a lot when we were still kids. My smile quickly turned as I pulled my hand back and shoved it into my pocket again. 

When we do get them back... What am I supposed to say to them?

Will they... Will they even forgive me for what I've done?

Tears began to form from my eyes but before they could drop I felt someone tap my shoulder. I turn around to see the boy smiling at me. "Um, hi, excuse me, do you happen to have some change for 10 bucks? Preferably coins." He laughed. "My sister and I kinda ran out of coins for the machine." he said while pointing to the girl waiting on the 'Dance Dance Revolution' pad. She waved at me with a smile. "Hi!"

"Uh- sure thing." I fish through my pocket and pulled out some coins. I counted them before putting the extras back into my pocket. I reached my hand out to give him the change but I accidentally hit the back of his hand with my own and a jolt of electricity suddenly went through my body. I dropped the coins out of shock at the odd sensation. 

"Ah, shit-" he cursed. "Sorry!".

Both of us crouched down and started to pick up the scattered coins across the dusty floor. One by one we picked up a penny from the floor and when there was only one left, we both reached for it at the same time. As soon as our hands intertwined, multiple visions began to flash before my eyes. 

Gnomes.

A silver-haired fraud. 

A  sweet Trickster.

An undead handyman.

A portal.

A perfect bubble.

The one-eyed beast

I gasped as I quickly pulled my hand back. The boy gave me a concerned look and asked, "H-hey are you okay?". 

"Oh my god,  Your eye!" he exclaimed. He raised his hand up to reach my face but I quickly stood up and rushed outside, all the while blocking my face from the eyes of everyone that was staring. I quickly made my way to the back of the building and leaned against the wall of velvety bricks. I fished my phone out from my pocket before I opened the camera to selfie mode and then I gasped.

My right eye was completely red and blood began to drip from its socket. I tried to wipe off the red liquid with my fingers but I just smeared it across my cheeks. My hands were trembling. What the fuck is happening? 

I quickly went to my contact lists and looked for my brother's phone number. I scrolled through the different contacts I had saved on my phone until I read his name. I was about to click on it but then a hand grasped my shoulder and turned me around.

Now I was face to face with the girl. She gasped when she saw my face and backed up a bit. "Oh shit, That looks really bad. You need to see a doctor right away!". I saw that she was about to grab my arm but I quickly flinched back and ran. "Wait!" she called out for me to come back but I didn't want to. 

I shimmied my way inside the bathroom window as I tried to push the other half of my body inside. My brother had the only key to our room and this idea was less expensive than me breaking the front window. When my hips finally came through the rest of my legs followed easily and I dropped to the floor. 

I hit my head on the toilet pretty hards and I let out a groan as I clutched my aching skull in my hands. When the pain subsided a bit, I shakily stood up, grabbing onto the toilet for support. I stumbled towards the mirror above the sink to take another look at myself and I almost cried at what I saw. 

I honestly looked like a ghost in a horror movie. I tried to touch my eye but when my fingers got close to it, a strange numbing feeling suddenly shot up and down my hand and arm and I stopped. I turned on the faucet and splashed my face with water. I grabbed the towel I used earlier and rubbed it on my face but when my hand went over my eye again the strange numbness came back. I quickly shoved the towel down into the sink and the blood from the fabric seeping into the puddle of water that had accumulated. 

I stared as the water slowly became polluted. First, it was a light pink hue then a dark cherry-like color. Its surface reflected my face and I watched as my watery face contorted into a grin. 

<Previous || Next>

AN:

Hi guys!

I just wanna ask if anyone would like to be on the tag-list for this story? 

uwu

[dumbwaystodeviate]

Working with triplets had it’s ups and downs. Some days it was ok, if Hank had to swap partners and work with Niles it wasn’t too odd and he easily adapted to it, the connection to Connor giving him more than enough info to make things work smooth. On the other hand there were days like a few months back where LN Allen mistook Connor for Collin, giving him a mocha to start the day off just like he always did. He found out fast that not only was this not Collin but that Connor did *not* agree with cinnamon. Needless to say, the Lieutenant had to take some time off to recover.

Between the three humans, the androids saw a lot of each other, and for that reason now found themselves crowed into Connor’s own place, the home meant more for three than six. But that was ok, the androids weren’t all that picky about things like that. 

There wasn’t all that special a reason they were there that night, other than a solved joint case that had been driving Niles and Connor up the walls like spiders. So a family night was decided, and the androids brought along for the ride. Seeing as they all couldn’t fit in the kitchen the bots chilled out at the table, curiously watching the mayhem unfolding between the three. They had no idea what they were making, and in truth they don’t think the humans knew what the other was doing either.

They each finished on their own, returning to the androids with the most asinine choices for dinner the bots has seen yet. They each saw red, Gavin being the brightest and first to speak up.

“Detective, that is not healthy. At all” If he had been deviant he might have cringed at the parfait the man had gone with, a bowl no less. To Niles right the GV could see Connor cringing.

“Man, you could kill a elephant with that much sugar. What are you? An ant in human clothes?” The man looked close to gagging seeing the treat his brother was getting into. Gavin would have been too had he not still been trying to calculate the sugar intake of Niles “food”.

Niles stuck his tongue out at him, taking a bite before talking. “Says the man eating lava, the amount of times I had to cancel searches for dragon peppers from your laptop are absurd.”

There was a gasp, Connor’s hands hitting the table and making the androids jump. “YOU WERE THE ONE DOING THAT?! YOU ASSHOLE.” Despite his outburst Niles was laughing.

Hank’s led blared as red as whatever Connor was eating. “But that has a rating of 2,480,000... That can be harmful.” He stuck a note to his hud to keep track of the man’s search history, lest he harm himself.

“Damn it I will try it and no one is going to stop me!” He punctuated the end by shoving a whole fork full of noodles into his mouth.

Quiet the whole time, Allen nearly spooked them when he finally piped up. “Lieutenant, what precisely are you eating right now?” All this talk of the man’s diet now had him skeptical that what Connor ate now was even safe, possibly less safe than what Niles was eating.

“Fire noodles.” The human made it sound like the simplest thing in the world, even grinning as he heard Niles hissing at that from the side. Clearly the man didn’t like it one bit.

“Shit’s making my nose burn from over here. You are less human than the androids.” Collin’s comment got Hank’s attention, prompting him to grab a noodle to test it.

While Hank couldn’t really taste, per-say, even his sensors went wild with information about the heat his wild partner was eating like it was nothing. Warnings screeched in the red of his vision until it all but melted under the strain of the alarm the info sent though him, a look of shock crossing his face.

“Holy shit, Con. It’s so bad you even freaked out an android. Congrats, you disaster.” Hank ignored him as he threw his head back laughing, damn near praying to RA9 that he can get the man some help.

“And what the hell are you having? I know damn well you tend to eat like a drunk. Or pregnant.” The leer Niles gave could almost freeze a man, pinning his surprised brother in his seat.

He hesitated for the longest of moments, which was enough to get everyone else staring at him as well. “Shrimp... with... with cajeta.”

There was a confusion at first, the humans having no idea what that was and the androids looking it up. Hank almost glitches out as he realizes what it is, Gavin fairing no better beside him. The poor android’s programming, unable to keep up with the mess he just saw, crashed like it was an old XP pc and his face fell into horror.

“That... That...  sweetened caramelized goat's milk... Oh RA9 save me.” Gavin was out of his seat in an instant to hide behind Hank, followed by the shrieks of of the other two brothers grabbing their bowls and jumping from the table. Allen remained strangely undisturbed, perhaps used to it by now but he was definitely getting errors.

“WHAT kind of unholy abomination are you?!” Connor looked read to fight him, and the HK was prepared to stop him if need be, but didn’t think it would come to that seeing as they kind of already knew Collin was being nasty.

Dropping his bowl on the counter Niles stormed into the kitchen, hollering out. “I’M CALLING A FUCKING PRIEST YOU DEMON.”

Hank thought that might be a bit of an overreaction but guessed he was just being dramatic so he didn’t follow the man. Still, he was stuck on horror between the three’s diets and the face the LN hadn’t moved an inch during all this. Maybe he just started tuning everything out when everyone started bickering?

Coming back into the room Niles took his treat to eat again, not taking his eyes off Collin even as he kept eating the weird food mix the man chose. The quiet lasted long enough to get half though the food before the bell rang.

Allen was the one to get up to answer the door, the only one not caring for the staring contest happening in the dining room. What greeted him had his led finally screaming as red as his programming. Standing at the steps, as cheery as can be, stood a priest. A actual priest. It took him longer than he would like to admit to realise Niles hadn’t been joking when he went into the kitchen.

He should have said something, but he just couldn’t. Instead, he left the door open and turned on his heels, charging though the red telling him to greet the man to stomp back into the room. “You actually called a real priest?”

Niles shrugged as the man let himself in, without any kind of warning as he dumped holy water onto Collin’s head, causing the man to yell out in frustration and try to keep it from getting in his food. “I do hope you will go to church after this.” The grin on his face was enough to say he was amused however, and he waved to his caller.

“Thanks, Kamski. Sorry to call you this late.” He sure as hell wasn’t sorry, not with how he grinned and ate his sweets.

Waving him off, Kamski laughed, starting back out the door. “Don’t worry about it~ You always have something fun when you call me up.” Allen was just glad the man closed the door after himself.

As he three bothers glared at each other, the androids could only spin red in the realization they each had a mess of a human on their hands.

[marvelxfam]

Growing Up✨

(Steve x Reader)

(Dad!Tony x Reader)

Summary: You are Tony’s daughter, and you have a crush on Steve.

Requested by: @talk-geek-to-me (sksk this idea is so cute btw)

“BIOS is the long-standard firmware that manages your PC outside the operating-system environment—that is, before you boot up. Access the-“

“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there,” Wanda put a hand up and took her computer from your lap, smiling slightly. “You’re starting to sound too much like your father. I’m going to need English please,” she joked, giving you a somewhat serious look. You rolled your eyes, having to pry the computer from her hands as she tried to put it out of your reach.

“I’m going to access the compiler, and then you are going to turn off your computer and turn it back on,” you spoke slowly, attempting to annoy Wanda. After helping her with computer issues, you decided to leave her room before she tried to ask you about anything else.

“Wanda, you know you could’ve asked Vision, right?”

“That would just be more of a headache. How about we grab some food?” Wanda suggested, accompanying you to the kitchen. The two of you were engrossed in the topic of discussion as you entered the kitchen area, but the sound of two other voices overlapped Wanda’s ranting.

Tony and Steve sat across from each other, deep in conversation. It seemed to be playful banter, as Steve threw his head back in laughter and your dad took off his glasses-of-the-day, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Steve.

Your eyes met his for a moment, and that’s all it took for you to throw open the refrigerator door, practically inserting yourself into fridge. You stuck your head into the shelf of food, taking a big breath. You could feel the hotness of your cheeks knowing there would be redness, although the chill of the fridge surrounded you.

“Y/N, what are you-“

You pulled Wanda next to you, striving to act natural.

“Y/N, I’m hungry, and I’d really like to see the food I cooked instead of your head.”

You moved to the side, allowing Wanda to take out the pasta and chicken she had made the day before.

“What was all of that about?” She asked as she put the food in the microwave. You tilted your head in Steve’s direction, smoothing down your hair and smiling widely in an attempt to draw attention. Wanda’s eyes followed, looking at Steve.

“Oh,” she laughed. “I almost forgot about your crush on Steve.”

“It’s not a crush!”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

You glanced over again, watching as Steve told Tony a mission story, using his hands to elaborate. His eyes lit up as he made sound effects, which made you bite your lip to keep from looking like a grinning idiot. You knew it was wrong to like Steve Rogers-your dad’s good friend and someone you had grown close to over the years, considering him family. But Steve was so...good. He was constantly making sure everyone was okay, always working for the right thing. Plus, how could anyone’s heart not go into overdrive when Steve smiled or laughed?

You wanted something-someone-like that.

“Y/N, come over here!” Tony motioned for you, and you looked back desperately at Wanda for help, but she was already making her way with her food out the door.

You scurried over to your dad, sitting next to him. Steve smiled brightly at you as you approached, choosing a seat next to the couches they sat on either ends of. You returned Steve’s smile with a warm one of your own, a million thoughts running through your head, never wanting to break eye contact. Tony eyed the both of you before clearing his throat in suspicion.

“Okay. Y/N, dear, I know you enjoy working more in the lab with Bruce and I rather than being out on the field with the rest of us. Now, normally I wouldn’t want you going out on a mission with us, but-“

“YES!” You yelped, smacking a hand over your mouth from your sudden outburst of loudness. Even your ears rang from the sound of your reply. You looked over at Steve who was chuckling quietly, and you felt the heat rise in your cheeks again, wishing you could curl up in a ball and disappear from embarrassment.

Tony’s brow furrowed as he saw you continuously look over at Cap while trying to explain mission details. They needed you because you had such a similar skill set to your father’s and while Tony was blasting people and buildings, he needed you for your coding (more like hacking) skills that he taught you so well. He noticed how you pressed your hands to your face, drawing in breaths to calm yourself. How that dumb smile on your face glowed when Steve cut in to share information. Tony clucked in annoyance wondering why you were paying so much attention to Steve and not your own dad.

And then it hit him.

Tony authorized Steve to speak for the rest of the briefing, crossing his arms in distaste. He was already opposed to you going on the mission, much less getting all happy with America’s number one captain.

As Steve ended the meeting and got up to leave, you followed him in a trance, silently squealing as you wiped your sweaty palms. The trace of Steve’s cologne was in the air. It was a wonder to you how he smelled like joy.

“I’ll see you later, Y/N,” Steve smirked and left the kitchen area. You leaned against the counter to compose yourself, but couldn’t seem to get over the floating feeling you felt from his presence. Tony grabbed your arm and spun you around, his mouth dropping in horror. For once he was at a lost for words, questioning how his little girl was already falling in love with a man older than Apple.

“What was that?” Tony squawked, forgetting how to form words. You were too young, he thought. Too young to get into all of this already.

You struggled to cover up your expression of glee. “What do you mean?” You tried to look innocent, looking into your father’s eyes with question. Tony scoffed and shook his head.

“You were gawking at Steve. You think I don’t have eyes, Y/N?”

“I wasn’t gawking. I was giving him my attention, like you told me to. You’ve always told me to look someone in the eyes when engaged in conversation.”

“Engaged? You want to be engaged?” Tony’s eyes widened with terror, gripping your shoulders.

“What? No! Dad, why are you so-“

“-Because I know you like Cap, Y/N! It’s written all over your face!” Tony burst, laughing to himself. It seemed like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the same time. His daughter, liking his friend.

“Dad, this is embarrassing to talk about.” You flopped onto the couch and put a pillow onto your face, trying to block out your dad’s voice.

“Well, I’m embarrassed that you like him! You know, I have power. There’s this thing called ‘grounding’ and I’m thinking of trying it.”

Tony wasn’t going to do it.

“You know what? I can’t stop you, honey. These things are complicated, and I can’t hold you back forever,” Tony admitted in defeat, pulling the pillow off of your face and putting an arm around you. It saddened him to think his daughter was already growing up, fighting with him about boys he didn’t want around her.

“So...you’re okay with me liking Steve?” You asked, laying your head on Tony’s shoulder. Tony kissed your head, nodding.

“I guess.”

“Well, if it did happen-hypothetically, of course- that Steve asked me out or liked me back, would you-“

“-NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!”

“DAD!”

The End☺️

**There is now a Part 2 if you want to see what happens next:)

[flyswhumpcenter]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled.)

[SPOILERS FOR SWORD & SHIELD START HERE].

Oh Hop, my sweet, sweet summer child.

I've used a similar setting in three fics already. Time to get original bitch. Anyway! This story was a test run for a Postwickship fic for me and it's a success: I've had tons of fun. This is supposed to be set post-game but in an AU where Shieldbert and Swordbart or whatever their Eng names are didn't show up to steal old rusty held items idk. I just really wanted to write hurt/comfort for them lol I headcanon the player character and their crew as 16 in SwSh so they're 16-17 here. I wouldn't puncture the lung of a 10-year-old, jeebus. This could be a little incoherent because I wrote it in more than one sitting and while doing some research on the side at times, so I hope this is satisfying to someone out there.

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Anima Curanda (A Soul Who Will Be Cared For)

Summary: Hop tries finding his way back to civilization after a trip field gone wrong, Gloria finds her best friend injured in Postwick and the air surrounding them is filled with unanswered questions, undisclosed pain and concerns. A lot of concern.

Fandom: Pokémon Sword and Shield Ship: Pre-rel Hop/Gloria (Postwickshipping)

Wordcount: 3.8K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

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Hahaha, it hurts! It just hurts!

What hurts? Too much to keep track off, frankly. He just aches all over, from head to toe; from the migraine of having barely slept to the pain of having walked and biked for days and days; from the dark thoughts he tries to keep buried from the outside world and the hazards on the ground that he stumbles over when he starts to overthink things.

 Despite how many times he’s been curb-stomped to the ground, how many times he’s flown in the air after the shockwave a move can make, and how much all of these hurt afterwards, he’s kept rising to his feet over and over again. He’s lost to his rival ten times already, he’ll never shine as bright as his brother or the friend he spent his childhood with, unbeatable as they are and ordinary as he is. He’s nothing special, nothing shiny, just nothing.

Portraits of Lee decorating the living room and countless discussions between his own family aside, there’s a lot of other things that tell him he’s the inferior product. A lot of other little, tiny things – of details, even – that ache to think about, that pinch his heart to the point of being slightly nauseous.

 Everyone on his team has fainted, aside from Dubwool who’s courageously fighting the hail with him. He regrets having ever taken his first partner, his most loyal one, away in some PC box out of the sheer mass of his insecurities, of that constant will to improve despite nothing good ever coming from that. He hangs onto its Ball as firmly as he can, the strength of it making him afraid he’ll make it shatter if he clenches it too strongly.

He’s actually surprised he feels this strong to begin with. After trekking for days, fighting everything he could, trying to find new members to reinforce his team, it’s surprising he can still think of himself as strong enough to do that. If it wasn’t for the pain bolting in his chest, he wouldn’t be clenching that ball as if his life depended on it.

 And what a pain it is! It started with the missed Psycho Cut of a wild Gallade, whom Corviknight had narrowly the assault of shortly before getting taken down itself, hitting right into the left side of his chest and most likely at least making some internal damage in there. That was around two days ago, if he isn’t wrong, and it’s shown no sign of hurting less anytime soon.

It bruised rapidly, or so he thinks compared to those he’d often get when he was younger (and also not unlike the ones Lee got during the Eternatus incident, on second thought…). Pressing a hand against it too strongly makes him yelp in pain while his skin keeps worsening in colour around where he got it. He was lucky for it not to have bled on the spot, but that doesn’t make anything much better: it still hurts a ton and he still has trouble breathing because of it. If it’s not getting better after a couple days, when will it do so?

 At times, black dots appear all over his vision, for some reason, and he starts swaying and staggering until Dubwool catches him back with its fur. He used to apologize verbally, the first times that’d happen; but he’s found himself having less and less breath to give his excuses with. Sentences became a couple words, words some syllable.

It doesn’t help that he’s constantly lightheaded and easily gets dizzy. If he moves a little too rapidly, his vision goes for a swim and may not come back. If it wasn’t for Dubwool fending off the Sneasels that take interest in them at times, he’d have been a goner for sure. He has the feeling this is all related to his injury, to that toxic-looking bruise that’s festering under his miserable layers, but doesn’t see exactly how. Well, that’s not entirely true: he can easily suppose it’s because that injury makes it harder to breathe, so much harder, because of the pain it fires up in him every time he tries to speak and breathe.

 The city is in sight. Wyndon’s lights and tower are in view, and he finally feels some relief, Dubwool seemingly bleating in agreement. However, right as he charges his legs to rush there, he trips over some ice, his damp sole gliding for a split second, losing his balance and falling again. Dubwool doesn’t have the time to react properly and stop him, so he falls right on his chest from all of his height, a sickening thumb resonating with his fall. The air gets propelled out of his lungs in one fell swoop, dizzying him even further.

He has no time to lose, especially not what he’s that close to the city, so he tries getting up on his arms. The pain that has been dully brushing against his ribs is now acting in an even fuller swing, the black dots not leaving his line of sight, almost preventing him from breathing altogether. He could stop to take a taxi, but what if he’s to pass out before it even comes? No, no, he has no time to lose…

 His legs have endured a beating of their own before, decorated with scratches and bruises from the rocks he didn’t see coming and the claws of the local wildlife, tired of pushing on themselves to make him keep going. As a result, he has to use Dubwool as a support, failing to rise up once or twice before managing to finally regain a footing and continue his route to Wyndon. He’ll be there soon, he’ll be able to know what’s wrong and to finally give himself actual rest. Arceus, doesn’t that sound amazing?

He suddenly coughs violently, not even having the time to say anything or even put a hand in front of his mouth. He’s left gasping for air, unable to really make oxygen enter his chest anymore, especially once he sees what has just gotten out of his system, spread on the snow like an unremovable stain on an immaculate carpet. This is it: he has to go forward now or he’ll never see the light of day again.

 With tremendous efforts, he makes it to Wyndon, out of breath; legs shaking in instability and arms tired of holding a hand against an injury that most likely doesn’t get any better from getting pressed. He’s still coughing, even if it hurts him even more to do so, and he’d just like to laugh it all off. He’d have done that if the pain wouldn’t get even more excruciating from such a gesture alone. The Centre is very much near now, and he can get there if his chest doesn’t give up on him too. Still, there’s another sight that makes him stop for a few seconds, and a shiver goes down his spine.

In the distance is his childhood best friend, his journey companion, his (former?) rival, waving at him vigorously. She’s smiling, grinning even, as he runs towards him. It’s only when she notices the hand clutching the hurtful part of his abdomen that Gloria drops the smile and immediately worries. It’s kind of hard to say for sure when most of his vision is blurry from the tears that are flooding it by the second.

D-dammit, he doesn’t want to worry her of all people!

 “Hop, are you alright?” She asks, voice hesitant, in a tone he hasn’t heard in a little while.

“Y-yeah, I… I should be… real soon…!” He’s breathless and speaking hurts even further; yet tries smiling, only for his face to follow his chest.

“You’re sure about that? You look like you’re in pain!”

“It’s nothing…! I pro –”

Before he can pronounce his false oath, he starts coughing again, despite all his best efforts not to. The thing building up in his airways gets out anyway, no matter what he wants, and his vision starts swimming again. He’s afraid he’ll blackout before he can reach the Centre, so he should quickly stop that conversation and…

“Let me see.”

 He stares at her for a millisecond, eyes squinting. He was just about to grab a tissue and clean the inside of his palm.

“Hop,” her voice strengthens, reminiscent of the Champion who’s beaten his until then undefeatable brother. “Please, Hop, let me see. It really doesn’t sound right.”

He reluctantly gives her his hand, the black dots dancing around them like will-o-wisps. She doesn’t respond to it, her reaction instead cementing itself in silence. That is, until she finds what words she wants to put on it. It drops in a glacial, no-nonsense tone, raw and undignified:

“…I’m calling for help.”

 Before he could interrupt her attempt at doing so, the quick move he tried to pull off to do so makes itself felt and he collapses on his knees, the pain in his chest unbearably intense. It’s like he’s been kicked in the abdomen, and then someone was twisting something inside of it. Breathing is becoming impossible, or at least barely, from how painful it is to inhale and exhale, from how difficult it is to simply focus on that with such a hazy mind. He wants to cry, but that sounds like choking himself even further…

Gloria seems to be over with her call rapidly, as she next kneels down to his level, her warm hands on his cold shoulders, then on his forehead. Her touch is delicate, as if she’s stroking crystal, while he’s busy not strangling himself with whatever’s happening inside of him at the moment. She gives him soft words of reassurance, shelters him with her arms from the rest of the world, tells him he doesn’t have to lie or suffer anymore. He likes that. He wishes his arms could do the same for her, but she simply is so much stronger than he is, and there is nothing he can do about it. Maybe, one day, he’ll be able to pay her out…

“Don’t worry, you’ll feel better soon,” is the last thing he hears before his vision fades to black.

  Gloria wishes she could have been waiting with Dubwool by her side, both so she wouldn’t be alone and because it’s her best friend’s closest partner; but, naturally, that’s not possible in a hospital, so she instead fumbles with its Ball.

She tried calling Leon and Sonia earlier to warn them about what had happened, but neither of them responded. If she’s to assume, she’d say Leon is busy with managing the Battle Tower and Sonia is head-deep into her studies, may have had a sleepless night and is now snoring over her desk, left unable to be awaken by her phone (which she most likely put on Plane Mode anyway…). She’ll have to wait for them to pick them back up and call her back, then. Ah, that sort of stuff happens. Plus, they can’t have known.

They really can’t guess what happened.

 She can’t quite put back the pieces, at the moment, because of how little she knows about the sequence of events that brought Hop to Wyndon, on a fairly sunny day with cold air, with most of his party fainted, an exhausted Dubwool and, most of all, a couple broken ribs. If Hop can communicate with Dubwool, then she really can’t, even if she’s never wished that much in her life that she could understand bleating. She hadn’t even considered the question until today!

What worries her the most is the blood he was spitting when he was trying to talk to her. Is that a symptom of broken ribs? She can’t remember having ever broken such a bone in her life, or known someone who did. Truth be otold, there may have been that one time where that could have happened, but she never got to know why. A few years ago, the neighbours suddenly went to Wyndon for a week, taking Hop with them, and Mum just kept saying that things would be back to normal soon. She didn’t lie, but the sketchiness of it all makes her suspicious… It doesn’t help that, that year, the Gym Challenge finals got postponed.

 Still, there’s something inside of her that just knows something’s gone terribly wrong. She can’t exactly pinpoint how, or why, or if it’s even possible that such a feeling could be right. All she knows is that she’s having an awful impression of it all and that her heart is beating in overdrive. Winding out is not exactly the easiest thing to do when she’s stuck in a waiting room, having to choose between pacing indefinitely or sit on a chair and play around with her fingers or her phone.

She’s tempted to go outside to wait for the news to be given to her, absolutely; but she’s afraid that, if she does so, the doctors will have nobody to give it to if she’s still outside by then. That’d be underestimating how much she wants to see him, to know what exactly happened and how she, as a Champion and as a friend worthy of such name, can fix things. That’s part of her missions as Leon’s successor, right?

 Set on staying here until someone gets out of the operation room, the bright red light of the “In Use” sign sitting over the doorframe whose direction she regularly glances at still shining over the daylight pouring through the windows, Gloria settles on studying her surroundings yet again. The walls are still white and pristine, with barely any spot or stain to be noticed. The floor is covered by a layer of grey linoleum, as boring to comment on as it’s functional. If she can guess such a room is regularly cleaned, she can also tell there’s been a couple stretchers that have wheeled through it to the operation room today already. The lines and stains left by these, unlike the walls, are still visible.

The room is empty and, aside from her unnerved breathing and impatient footsteps, silent. The soundproof walls make it so she can’t hear a thing, even if she puts her ear against the wall, morbidly curious, trying to keep herself from dipping into some seriously messed-up thoughts that have been trying to assault her mind ever since Hop started showing signs he wasn’t as fine as he’d have liked her to believe.

 In a way, it’s funny that he’s doing exactly the same thing as his brother. They both said “I’m fine, don’t worry” at times where they knew they weren’t. Still, she doesn’t think that Hop did that on purpose, now that he’s tried freeing himself from Leon’s shadow. It’s more of a thing that she sees herself doing… As hypocritical as that may be, and as much as she dislikes knowing he purposefully lied to her thinking it’d be the right thing to do for her sake, she can understand it. She can understand it and that has to be why she hates it so much…

Gloria’s back hits the wall as she glides down to her feet, crouching with her forearms on her knees. Time’s too long and she’s getting nauseous from the anxiety that keeps piling in her throat and chest, heart throbbing. Trying not to cry is already a behemoth task in itself, so she focuses on that, only for her thoughts to change back to what could be happening and questions she can’t have an answer to.

 She snaps back to reality when the red light turns off and the door finally opens, revealing a gurney getting wheeled to the other side of the room and a surgeon, still wearing his stained scrubs, walking up to her. She stands back up, rising herself on stiff and yet trembling legs, and lies back against the wall, gulping. Her mind rings and burns with a thousand questions; but her voice can’t catch up, not even a whisper exiting her mouth. The man gives her a tired, yet soft smile back:

“Your friend will be fine. Absolutely is the brother of the former Champion, his fighting spirit showed in the OR…”

 She has to retain herself from hugging the man right in front of her and give him a waterfall of thanks. Instead, she remembers for a split second she’s the current Champion, shakes her head and keeps the waterworks from unfolding for a little while longer:

“Thank you so much, doctor.”

  There is a silent horror seeping in her veins from being here. Everything about the room is eerie: the slow, somewhat regular beeps of a monitor; the oxygen mask sitting there, accompanying an otherwise soothing breath; the abnormal serenity of the air around her, the whiteness of a room that reminds her of the snow and the smell of antibiotics.

She remembers waiting in a lobby with Hop decorated like that in Hammerlocke, his hand clutching hers while he tried not to bit his thumb or cry in stress, the both of them tired and battered yet the lucky party of the fight against Eternatus. She remembers the horrified yet relieved look on his face as they discovered in what state his brother was. She remembers the words that got out of his mouth, how he found it so creepy to have Lee lying there, almost lifeless.

Surely there is some irony to be found about Hop now playing that role.

 It hurts to be there, to see the time standing still yet again, as she waits for him to wake up. A part of her does like him to be resting after the nightmare he must have endured to end up like that. With the injuries he’s sustained, it’s only normal he doesn’t wake up immediately. She’s trying to combine that with the effect of sleeping gas, but as a girl who’s never had a surgery, it’s hard for her to estimate such a thing. She’s got to wait and…

“Gl…”

 She’s about to drift off when she realizes Hop’s head is now turned towards her, the faintest smirk on his lips. He looks beyond tired, exhausted by the experience and the trauma of the surgery, pale all around, but he’s still here, safe. The light press she feels on her hands makes her realize she’s been holding his all along. That’d be embarrassing if she wasn’t trying to get her priorities straight.

“Hop, you’re awake!” That’s beyond obvious, what’s the point of saying aloud like that? Maybe it’s just from the sheer happiness of this being a fact…

“T-thanks…”

 His voice is weak, low and raspy, barely more hearable than a whisper; quite the opposite of the roaring tone he’d usually speak in. Still, that’s his voice, that’s him being able to breathe yet again, and it’s more than enough for now. Of course, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t wish deeply for his recovery to happen soon; that’s just settling down for a sustainable goal for now. Better not rush things in, for she has a feeling that may have happened to her good old friend over here…

“How are you?” She asks, keeping her own voice down.

“Huh… Sore…?”

“Better than gone, I suppose.”

“…Yeah…”

 Hop inhales deeply, wincing slightly when he does. A slow hand strokes the left side of his chest, trying to calm something down.

“A-again… Thanks for… y’know… saving me…”

“That was nothing. We have to look out for each other, don’t we?”

“Ha… Yeah…”

The mood sinks with his smile, dragging her heart with it.

“Sorry for… that…”

 Gloria doesn’t reply immediately, letting a silence settle itself, uncomfortable and thick.

“You’re having problems breathing, right?”

He nods.

“No wonder you do, with what you got for yourself… How did you even go for that long with these injuries?”

“I wanted to… make sure my… team would be safe.”

“The good news is that they’re safe, now. Dubwool seemed really worried about you when I found you two!”

“He’s such a great ’on, right…?”

“He sure is.” She clears her throat. “Anyway. I meant to ask you to be easier on yourself from now on. It was really heart-breaking to see you like that struggling to even breathe.”

“Sorry for being such a klutz… Got hit by a Gallade… Slipped on some ice…”

“…and pierced your lung.”

 He freezes.

“So, as I said: don’t do that again, okay? You deserve a lot more than dragging yourself like that, Hop.”

He looks aside.

“You… think?”

“Of course I do! What am I to you, a liar?”

He almost laughs until his pain catches back to him, causing the fit to immediately stops in its tracks.

“’t wasn’t what I meant…!”

“I guessed so.”

 It’s to Gloria’s turn to look aside and feel something burn inside of her, scratching her chin with her finger.

“I meant to say, you’re amazing, Hop. I don’t want to see you go like you almost did. What’s a Champion without her rival?”

“Huh…”

“That’s right, not the same person! You matter very much to so many people! So, please, can you take care of yourself?”

Hop still doesn’t reply. He looks like he’s lost his words somewhere along the way.

“Not for anyone either. For yourself. I… I hope you’ll one day understand how important you are.”

She can understand she’s being confusing and emotional. Trying to pull strings together is harder than usual.

“I’ll try that, then…”

“Good.”

 The two of them settle in a comfortable silence. She’ll have to ask him when he’s better what happened to him in case such a disaster is to happen again (which she really hopes it doesn’t). For now, he’ll recover, and she’ll be by his side as he does so. Too bad for her Battle Tower scores and public interventions, some things just matter more than clout and fighting experience.

You know, once she’s sure they’ll be safe and sound, she can tell what’s truly on her mind and heart. It seems like he still doesn’t have a clue as to what’s hiding under the rocks…

  “Hop!!”

Busting through the door, not even waiting for a yes or a no, Leon enters the room his baby brother is stuck in. Soon, however, his intense concern turns into a sort of awkwardness and utter surprise when he realizes he’s facing his brother and his best friend sleeping against next each other, their hands fiddled together.

 Before he can mellow out and smile at the sudden sight of safety and softness, Sonia’s voice comes from behind his shoulder.

“Let them sleep instead of screaming like that, you big idiot.”

He has to agree with her, so his shoulders untenses as he lets her enter and closes the door behind them.

[samsbastardzone]

Hey, you know that 35 d&d questions ask meme? I answered all of them.

This is a long ass post. Be warned. It took up seven and a half pages in google docs. Original post here.

1. A favorite character you have played.

Would have to be Zize Fortier, dragonborn gunslinger. Their tag on this blog is #zize and you can find their bio and info on my character page. Love that bastard!! He’s sweet and bratty and a total delight to play (we are such an OP party, y’all).

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

UM UM gonna talk about a few here. To be fair to people I play a *lot* of games with, I’m only gonna  talk about one PC per person.

- The bastard trio in my Wildemount game– @toomanyorphans ’s Nakoria, @overplannedbutunnamednpc ‘s Zier (also an NPC in the campaign Zize is in), and @glasyasbutch ‘s Nissy. They all really suck so bad but in SUCH funny ways. They’re varying degrees of self centered and awful, but we trust each other in this campaign, and those 3 players are SO funny in their RP.

- (RIP) Avri in my Wildemount game. They and Bly named each other,,,,  they were parent and child…… VERY sweet. huge goliath with tiny bird in backpack.

- @bekahdoesnershit ‘s Raini. Zize’s BFF, and her tag on that blog is rich. She’s SUCH a bitch but we love her.

- @bhissar ‘s Saela. She is a dream character for me to DM for– very little fleshed out backstory with room to explore, with still-concrete events in it. Consistent character choices and personality, to the point I can sometimes predict what she’ll do. Very cool aesthetically. And overall? EXTREMELY sweet. Baby, baby bird.

3. Your favorite side quest.

Either the one going on right now in amnesia, where we have to collect brain matter from big powerful elementals, or the stop we made at a family of vampires in Acarnya (the one I played Osfyr in).

4. Your current campaign.

There are five of those, with two on hold. 

-Wildemount, aka the Frozen Sick module from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount (we’re almost done with that, my PC is Bly). 

-Amnesia campaign aka high level campaign: we woke up in hell with no memories! PC is Zize. 

-Hoard of the Dragon Queen module, near the beginning of that, PC is Pointy. 

-Horror campaign, only two sessions so far, but we’re trapped in an alternate dimension carrying out tasks for a creepy dude. PC is Vinny. 

-Kithan, where we’re high level monster hunting guild members searching  out ancient artifacts of the gods (campaign based on the Monster Hunter games), PC is Topaz.

-Silas, party is currently trying to help dragons free themselves and stop a… dude? No spoilers! I DM. On hold because I had too many campaigns going at once.

-Silas v2: extremely vaguely based on the plot of season one of the web series Carmilla. A tweaked version of the first arc the Silas party went through. On hold because it was played in person at school.

5. Favorite NPC.

I don’t really have any NPCs in my campaigns that I’m super attached to, except– Nikeo, a goliath rogue PC in Silas 1, had many adopted children. Three of them– kobolds– sometimes stand on each others’ shoulders, put on a long coat, and help out around their parent’s store. They’ve named themselves Koby.

As for favorite NPCs in campaigns I’ve played, I can think of… a lot. The first is Laurel, a blue dragonborn loner type who followed Osfyr and friends in Acarnya. They were kind of broody and dark, but they really drew me in. They were the first NPC we really talked to– they were sitting on top of the post office laughing at the mob scene of people protesting not getting their mail delivered.

I’d also pick Osfyr’s partners in that campaign– Yelkian, a backstory love interest I came up with, a flamboyant soft sorcerer. Jupiter, politician’s niece, who took pity on Osfyr’s attempts to seduce information out of her and let them succeed on both counts (seduction and information). Xerxes, extra AF rogue with a big loving family, who swept in after a fight on the back of an eagle-wildshaped Brysth (npc druid). 

There’s a blue dragon in the HOTDQ campaign that we don’t know much about. I really enjoyed the way @dungeonsanddraconicqueer played him. He’s just a dude! Lex’s warlock made a Deal with him to leave the town alone. We still don’t know the implications of that. It’s fine, guys.

And then, there’s Stewart the Skin Steward, a servant of False Mystra. Fun dude.  Very cavalier– nigh, enthusiastic!– about the fact that his entire city was made of skin. Something of a skin connoisseur, in fact!

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Saela, hands down. She got breathed on by a dragon, yo. We then had to stop playing for 4-5 months because a player lost access to the Internet. I wrote a vision/speech from her warlock patron, the Raven Queen, the night she died, and basically didn’t touch it until I read it out in game. It involved a confession that the Queen was  tired of being a god, and showing Saela all the lives she’d touched. Then we used Matt Mercer’s rez rules for her. She came back– but it was her choice.

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

Fucking tinkering dude!!! I don’t get to do it enough as Zize and that is entirely my fault. @ morgan, eyes emoji

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

I LOVE creepy shit. There was a train car with people dancing in it, and party members got enchanted to dance along and eat the food,  and the revelers were clearly in pain, and snuffing out a candle caused a reveler to disappear. Creepy shit!

In Kithan, we had to climb a staircase, and we timed it with produce flame which is a 10 minute duration cantrip, and we were climbing for 50 minutes. We started to see things in the edges of our vision. Then someone realized it was an illusion, and it all vanished. It freaked me out so bad.

In amnesia campaign, at level 19, we were traversing a cave, and our shadows started dripping the same black goop we were there to investigate. We killed one and it took down the max hp of the person whose shadow it was, and then they straight up didn’t have a shadow until they long rested. It really freaked us out, realizing the shadows were actually creatures, but they were like CR 1. Really effective use of a low level monster.

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

The way it has something for everyone… the way it’s brought me so many friends… the way it’s inspired my OC creation like nothing else.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

I’m not sure if this is asking about NPCs I’ve had as enemies, or any monster in D&D canon? The longest campaign I played in didn’t have long term enemies  per se. I’d say I was frustrated with the cultists that ambushed us last session in HOTDQ,  but I didn’t hate them! I just couldn’t seem to hit or dodge them. As for a favorite… probably False Mystra: the demon lord Orcus who’d taken over  the position, and therefore the duties, of Mystra, the god of arcane magic.  We killed it,  but then whoopso!! Our wizard lost her powers.

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

I play an ideal amount, honestly: four times a week, for about 2.5-3 hours a session. HOTDQ Tuesdays, Kithan and horror campaign switching off Wednesdays, Wildemount Thursdays cause we miss CR, Amnesia Sundays.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Amnesia: Yocheved, the party barbarian/full time fish, has a secret third arm and/or a prosthetic ass. Cylthia, the druid, does arson (but actually). Relentless is a Crown paladin, so she puts her fingers in her ears when we do crime/lie. She also has a rod of lordly might that, immediately post amnesia, she made into a 32 foot climbing pole. Yocheved eats pounds and pounds of raw fish for every meal.

Wildemount: just the shenanigans and sabotaging each other that the Bastard Trio get into. Example: Nissy was tasked with buying Zier a cloak for cold weather and purposely got him an  ugly one. Zier then prestidigitated it to be a nicer color.

13. Introduce your current party.

Oh boy, I have 6 of those. Here goes. Keep in mind many of these characters are played and games are DMed by my friends who have OC blogs of their own: Raini and Ayen are bekahdoesnerdshit, Ezra, Nissy, and Roona are glasyasbutch, Horror DM, Lent, Eve, and Nakoria are toomanyorphans, Wildemount DM, Saela, Daecyne, and Cylthia are bhissar, HOTDQ DM is dungeonsanddraconicqueer, and Amnesia DM, Zier, Nyxi, and Sarril are overplannedbutunnamednpc. Not an OC blog, but Yocheved, Avri, Arbor, Thraf, Nikeo, and Whisper are mickgoesabsolutelyhamforbarbie.

Amnesia (Zize): Lent, tiefling paladin, former crownsguard who “fell” (became an oathbreaker), then un-fell when we lost our memories. Cylthia, tiefling/elf druid who can shift between tiefling and elf forms and loves setting things on fire. Yocheved, 14 foot tall nereid (fishfolk) barbarian with a dry sense of humor, is the party parent. And Raini, aasimar wizard, sass machine and Zize’s bff.

HOTDQ. My PC is Pointy. Ezra, quiet human paladin. Theata, moon elf rogue. Freya, sweet (human?) light cleric who sometimes misreads situations. Eve, 13 year old (!!) human warlock who kinda sucks, but like, she’s 13. Nyxi, motherly gnome bard who Is going to adopt Pointy. 

Wildemount (Bly): Alene, human barbarian. Quiet and with somewhat of a parent instinct. Some sort of Mysterious Backstory. Delta, aasimar rogue, similarly shady backstory? Unclear. Sticks with Alene. Nissy, drow rune knight, sucks. Zier, drow sorcerer, also sucks. Nakoria, dragonborn warlock, ALSO sucks. (Those three make up the Bastard Trio.) Avri (F for them), goliath bard and Avri’s guardian, died last session by falling on a floor full of knives. 

Horror campaign (Vinny): Roona, halfling bard, very impulsive, eats exclusively with her spoon that says ASS, and chills in Vinny’s fanny pack. Ayen, elven teenage warlock with a dark backstory. Sarril, Ayen’s not-dad, half elf beast barbarian who got it from his wife. Arbor, dryad  monk, who wears an all white plague doctor outfit at all times.

Silas v1 (DM), Original party before 1 left and 1 died: Hacka (RIP), human luchador-styled drunken monk. Nikeo (left), goliath rogue with so many adopted children. Inferno, fire genasi paladin/phoenix sorcerer with anger and impulse control issues. Saela, babiest aarakocra warlock of the Raven Queen. Hacka’s player now plays Voda, a stoic water genasi tempest cleric who cast Raise Dead successfully on Saela. Nikeo’s player now plays Whisper, a tabaxi astral soul monk.

Kithan (Topaz): Thraf, monsterborn (universe-compliant dragonborn) barbarian. Very social, very outgoing, very stupid, and very traumatized. Fucks majorly. Daecyne, sweet tiefling druid and Topaz’s good friend. Viosa, aasimar homebrew class I forget the name of, uses her small stature and allure to her advantage. Damur, half-orc eldritch knight, the party’s only braincell.

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Acarnya. My PC was Osfyr. Soraphine, traumatized halfling bard. Azalea, human fighter. Durzuell, haughty high elf sorcerer. James, nerdy half elf wizard. Drago, erratic Russian dragonborn monk. Kairon, slightly edgy ranger/paladin (but we love him). 

Nordenheim. My PC was Cap. I will admit: we only played 2 or 3 sessions, so I don’t really remember  most of the other party members except Rory, a fire genasi ranger who almost burned to death.

Silas v2 (hopefully will continue; I DMed): Kysseris IV. Half-elf paladin, uptight. Tower 1-6, warforged wizard who crawled out of the desert and is looking for info on how he was made. Mae “Pock”, gnome rogue, very small and  sweet. Josh, human trickery cleric, kind of an asshole, but in a way that’s funny and hasn’t bled over into IRL annoying.

[school] West Marches campaign (Ner): by the nature of West Marches, there was never a consistent party, but a few stood out to me. Red Foot, a hyperactive kobold sorcerer who’s level 8 against all West Marches odds. Lyra, Great Old One warlock of Tzee’Mhor, an abomination goat that a party I was in accidentally created. Fildo Baggins, divination wizard who can only affect allies whose toenail clippings he has in his vial.

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Hell yeah babey!!! I mostly play digitally, especially during COVID, and I need something to munch after DMing for a while. Shit’s exhausting.

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

Welp! Online mostly, since everyone I want to play with has the audacity to live far away, and now exclusively online because of COVID.

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

Our Amnesia party is so rich that we just don’t keep track of money. In Kithan, a lot of rules that make characters less powerful are just… abolished (like the bonus action spell rule). (The DM likes super OP characters so she can throw SUPER OP monsters at us.  My character has a necklace that gives 5 additional uses of channel divinity.)

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Nope. No opportunities for them. Zize’s party has a little water snake on the druid’s arm but I doubt that will last very long.

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

Absolutely. Cursed dice get j a i l.

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

Acarnya got me into d&d, it was my first campaign, and it was happening at the place I lived. I’ve been playing almost 2 years. (Critical Role inspired me to DM)

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

Not sent a fucking letter to say goodbye to their boyfriend before the world-fate-deciding bullshit that was gonna happen and possibly destroy shit. It was fine in the end though!

22. What color was your first dragon?

Red. Man, that guy sucked, he almost killed Osfyr. We were investigating a monastery secretly run by dragons disguised as humans.

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

Original campaigns. I’ve never run a module before! I’m not opposed, but most of my campaigns came from ideas  that I had. I’ve never been short on ideas for a game.

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

As a player, I just open my character sheet and get out dice. As a DM, I try and think about what material I want to get through this session, and write some narration and/or stat things out if I feel like it.

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

A lot of times, Inferno has rushed into battle from what I’d built as a stealth mission, and gotten her ass and sometimes the party’s asses kicked. I should really have learned by now.

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters?

Definitely Saela’s resurrection ritual and vision.

27. Do you allow homebrew content?

Yes! I’ll check it first,  but I’m all for expanding the boundaries. I homebrew items and monsters all the time, why shouldn’t my payers get to homebrew their shit?

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?

Too often in my first arc. I had like 7 NPCs running around at all times (they were Carmilla characters). Super not recommended. I have 0 right now.

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

I’m still finding my groove with RP as a DM. I like encouraging my players to RP amongst themselves. I consider myself fairly good at combat on both sides of the equation, DM and player, so that’s always fun to me, especially when my players enjoy it too.

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

I have one actively reforming murder hobo player, the rest are diplomatic. (The character, Inferno, is having a great growth arc. I’m super proud.)

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

I fucking love genasi as a concept. Favorite class would have to be rogue or cleric, but gunslinger’s up there too.

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

I  honestly don't have the patience to not play DPS. I love doing lots of damage. Healing is satisfying, support is satisfying, but there’s a reason I picked rogue twice and tempest cleric over other domains.

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

Sometimes the backstory is part of the character concept– especially for Pointy, because I had the name first, then went hmm why would she have this name. Almost always, though, more backstory gets written during the campaign when I have an idea. Sometimes a character will act in a way I don’t expect, and it’s fun thinking of a justification to fill backstory gaps.

34. Do you tend to pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

Mostly  usefulness honestly. I’ll make choices among several for flavor, but I’m a big proponent of using mechanics to build character. What I mean is, think about Magnus in TAZ Balance– his protection fighting style contributed a lot to the way Travis played him as a protective person. I love that shit.

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

I like to do a lot, but unfortunately my  energy is pretty down lately so I haven’t been doing as much.

[uzumaki-rebellion]

“Stark’s New Intern” Chp. 2

"Ridin' 'round town, they gon' feel this one Ridin' 'round town, they gon' feel this one Ridin' 'round town, they gon' feel this one Ridin', ridin' 'round town, they gon' feel this one (oh) (Got my, got my, got my, got my eyes open) (Got my, got my, got my eyes open) (oh) (Got my, got my, got my, got my eyes open) (Got my eyes open)…"

Tyler The Creator – "Igor's Theme"

Tony put a mark on his back.

Erik spent the rest of the morning orientation in the Stark Industries offices feeling like a target. He wasn't trying to be like Tupac with all eyes on him, but that's what happened after the Big Boss put him on blast.

The interns were divided up into groups of twenty and given a physical tour of the headquarters. He was separated from Giselle and Curtis and herded along with his group to visit the on-site cafeteria first. From jump, he was inundated with questions from the other interns as they walked from tour site to tour site, and he was already mentally drained by the time they broke for lunch. They were not allowed to eat in the cafeteria just yet and were given meal cards that could be used outside of the building where a plethora of restaurants and fast food places were within walking distance in downtown Los Angeles.

On an elevator, a cute Filipino girl with honey-brown skin stuck close to him asking about what he would study at M.I.T.

"Bioacoustics," he said, keeping his eyes on the lights of the elevator floors they were cruising past. Eighty floors. Stark's was the tallest building in Los Angeles, beating out the U.S. Bank Tower by seven floors.

"Interesting," the woman said.

Erik peeped her name tag. Maria Alvarez. Spanish colonized name, Filipino-American roots.

"What's interesting about it?" he threw back out her.

He could feel the ten other interns on the elevator with them eavesdropping on them. All white guys except for three other white women and a Nepalese woman who attended Oxford. He only knew this because she was bragging about it every chance she got when she was near him.

Bitch, no one cares…

Erik's eyes went back down to Maria. Pixie haircut. Heart-shaped face. Eager brown eyes that twinkled. A people pleaser vibe wafted off of her.

"Just interesting. I've never met anyone who studied that before. What made you choose that?"

The elevator doors opened. Thank God.

The interns surged out into a larger sea of interns gathered in the lobby and heading out to have a meal. They were given ninety minutes for lunch. Time to walk, find a spot, eat, socialize, digest, and have time to walk back.

"Erik!"

Giselle was waving at him and he was happy to see her. He felt Maria sticking to his side as he maneuvered through the throng of people to get to a familiar face.

"Hi," Giselle said looking at Maria hovering near him.

"Hi, Maria," she said pointing to her name tag.

"Giselle," Giselle said pointing to hers.

"Can I hang out with you guys? I feel very overwhelmed and don't do well by myself," Maria said clutching her handbag.

"Sure. What are you guys up for? The Stark App listed about twenty spots ten minutes from here," Giselle said.

"Five Guys Burgers—"

"Phở-," Maria said.

"Hold up, how you gonna invite yourself to eat with us?" Erik said glaring at Maria.

"Who said I was eating with you? Maybe I'm going with Maria," Giselle protested.

Maria smirked and Erik stared at Giselle.

"You called me over here," he said feeling perturbed that they were still standing in the thick of the crowd.

"Yeah, to say hi and ask how the tour was for you," Giselle said, "Phở sounds great, Maria."

Maria held up her micro cell.

"Five-minute walk from here," she said.

"Cool. So, would you like to join us, Erik?"

Giselle's lips had a pouty curve to them and Erik found himself staring at them and wondering some things he shouldn't.

"There's a burger place right in the same food court," Maria said holding her cell up to him.

Erik glanced around looking for Curtis or anyone else that may have a taste for red meat. The interns were filing out of the building like rats jumping ship. It was best to make a power move before there were long lines for food.

"Let's go," Erik said stalking past the two women and leading them toward the exits.

Outside, the Los Angeles smog kept the heat hanging down low and Erik was ready to climb out of his suit and hit the hotel pool.

"Did you guys hear what went down earlier?"

Erik was glad to hear Curtis' excited voice swooping down on them as he walked over with a white guy who had a jubilant smile on his face when he saw Erik.

Erik and Curtis shared some dap and he gave a head nod to the white guy named Owen from his nametag.

"Five interns got cut already—" Curtis said.

"Cut?" Giselle asked.

"Yeah. They were pulled aside right after we left Stark—"

"I was near them when they were removed," Owen said.

"Hey, this is my roommate Owen," Curtis said, "tell them the rest dude."

Owen's hands went out like he was telling a scary story around a campfire, his sandy-brown hair slicked into stylish professional spikes and tapered around the sides. A Malibu Ken if Erik ever saw one.

"Check this, we were finishing the last of the group divides and none of these guys were placed with anyone. They're standing around looking confused like they missed their names being called or something, but then this huge guy shows up, um, Hogan, that was his name, and he pulls these guys away and takes their intern badges away from them. They are escorted by security out of the room. It was crazy."

"But why were they kicked out? Were they told right there?" Maria asked Owen.

"No. Everyone is pretty nervous about it. What if Mr. Stark is doing a ten little Indians thing—"

"That's racist dude," Erik said.

The tone in his voice made Owen tight-lipped.

"Racist? How is that racist? It's just an expression-" Owen said perplexed.

"And it's still racist. Like Indian-Giver. Spirit Animal-?

"Dude, how is Spirit animal—"

"You not Native, so you don't use it," Erik said stepping closer to Owen to punctuate his point.

"You Native or something?"

"Got Native family, so I don't let shit slide—"

"Please, can we save the PC talk for later. Finish about the guys being kicked out," Maria said, her face pinched like she was scared to lose her place among the interns too.

"That's all we know so far," Curtis said.

"Let's go get some food. Maybe we can find some people who can give us more details," Giselle said. Erik could see the worry on her face too.

They all walked to a stoplight at a one-way street surrounded by the mass of interns chattering away and laughing.

"Damn!" Curtis shouted as a chrome and black Lagonda Vision pulled up in front of them. The driver's side dark tinted window rolled down, the beginning of Al Green's "Love and Happiness" blasting out from inside the vehicle.

Tony Stark glanced over at them, dark shades gleaming.

"Stevens, get in," Tony said.

Erik closed his eyes for a second and once again felt the tension of being singled-out from the group. Curtis nudged Erik to move forward.

"If you don't get in that whip," Curtis whispered to him from between gritted teeth.

Erik made the walk around the front of the car to the passenger side. It felt like it took him twenty years to make it inside the ride because all the eyes that watched him made his stomach churn again. He opened the door and climbed in. Tony barely waited for him to close the door before he had his foot on the gas and the deep rumble of the ultra-luxury car sped them away from the plebeians.

"We're having lunch at Durangos," Tony said, turning down his music.

"Why you put me out like this?" Erik said, annoyed as he watched Tony speed through downtown L.A.

"Put you out?'

"Yeah. How am I supposed to fit in if you keep separating me from the pack? Shits not cool, bruh."

"You speak to adults like that with that potty mouth, kiddo?"

Erik curled his lips and glanced out of the passenger window.

"I singled you out because I needed to let the other interns know that I won't tolerate disrespect or racist behavior—"

"Racist behavior?"

"I had five interns dismissed because of you."

"What did I do?"

Erik's eyes glared at Tony hard. Tony pushed his dark glasses to the top of his head.

"You did nothing but be brilliant. And word got to me from last night that there were some young men making comments about you and some other interns who are not my hue. Calling you all forced diversity quota recruits, a minority pity party to make myself look good. I don't accept that type of bullshit in my world—"

"Language," Erik said giving Tony a sly look.

Tony glanced over at him as they idled at a red light.

"I put your picture and your stats out there to let any other privileged asshats know that you set the standard. That way any other little punk with that hate in their heart would know that they need to get their act together and that they are not the only talent out there. Capiche?"

"I hear ya," Erik said focusing his eyes back toward the windshield.

"You have your big boy pants on. You can handle the scrutiny."

"But why not let me have lunch with everyone else?"

"Because you're not like everyone else and they need to know that. Chill. I know what I'm doing."

"I hope so. Will you replace the guys you dumped?"

"Maybe. But it's good to let the others stew. Tighten up the ship a bit. It forces people to reevaluate how they arrived here."

"Are you going to tell the others why?"

"They'll figure it out. The grapevine is on fire as we speak."

"Good looking out then."

"I have a reputation too, not always the best in the public, but the last thing anyone can accuse me of is being a racist or grooming them. I can be an asshole, but I'm an asshole to everyone from every walk of life."

Tony zipped the car into a valet carport.

"You like lobster?" Tony asked.

"Who doesn't?"

"People with allergies to shellfish. Keep up Stevens, what's wrong with you?" Tony said winking.

Erik stepped out of the car.

"Welcome back Mr. Stark," a thin Black valet said taking Tony's keys.

"Hello, Marlon. This is Erik. Get used to seeing his face."

"Yes, Sir," Marlon said jumping into Tony's car and whipping it away down the street.

"Yeah, I need to talk to him about that speeding," Tony said watching his car disappear.

Erik followed Tony into Durangos and the hostess at the door lead Tony right away to a private seat in the back.

Tony immediately reached for the wine and spirits menu.

"You drink?" he asked Erik.

"I'm nineteen."

"I didn't ask for your age, I asked if you drank."

"I could go for some Henny," Erik said reaching for the other drink menu.

Tony slapped his hand.

"What's wrong with you? You’re underaged young man. Shameful!"

"You got jokes," Erik said leaving the drink menu alone.

"I'll get you a Shirley Temple. More your speed—"

"Tony!"

"And here we go…" Tony said slipping his drink menu in front of Erik's place setting.

A severe-looking slender blonde with sharp features and a nasal-sounding voice stomped over to Tony's table.

"You are so predictable," the woman said as a scowl spread on her face.

"Hey Pepper. Have you met Erik? Erik this is my assistant, Pepper Potts."

Erik allowed his eyes to flick back and forth between them.

"W'sup Pepper?" Erik said.

###

Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4  Chapter 5

Tag List:

@fonville-designs​ @soufcakmistress  @cherrystainedlipsbaby @tclaybon  @thadelightfulone @allhailqueennel @bartierbakarimobisson @cpwtwot @shookmcgookqueen @yoyolovesbucky @raysunshine78 @the-illllest @terrablaze514  @l-auteuse @amirra88 @jimizwidow @janelledarling @chaneajoyyy @sweetestdream92 @purple-apricots @blackpinup22 @hennessystevens-udaku @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @bugngiz @stariamrry  @honeytoffee

[oneshotficrecsbymn]

17

https://oneshotficrecsbymn.tumblr.com/17

a happy medium - wonhui

wen junhui is just your average 20-year-old university student. he pulls all-nighters, goofs off with his friends, and parties a bit more than he should. oh, and he talks to dead people. somehow, he manages to balance being a student and a medium without much difficulty, but lately he’s been getting a little too distracted by spirit. more specifically, by a grandmother spirit belonging to the hottest guy in his lecture… and she’s desperate to try and set the two of them up. he really doesn’t want to give the stranger a reading, afraid she might make him say something embarrassing, but at this point, he’s going to fail the class if she doesn’t shut up.

a long time coming - wonhoon

Wonwoo knew the back of Jihoon’s head better than anyone.

a mother’s favor - meanie

Visiting the Underworld has never been on the list of Wonwoo’s favorite things to do but he guesses it can always get worse.

a wave breaking on the shore - soonwoo

When the sun stops shining so brightly, make a stop by the beach to check up on it. Soonyoung and Wonwoo are figuring things out.

and the stars forever dwell - meanie

“I’m Wonwoo. My dad is the caretaker here, but you already knew that.”

Wonwoo is right, and Mingyu is a liar.

Sir Jeon is the resident caretaker of these dragons—the best in the capital—and his son, Wonwoo?

Well, Mingyu wouldn’t call him a stranger.

art isn’t meant to be hung up, anyways - soonwoo

“I’m taking you on the first date,” Wonwoo says, surely, though Soonyoung catches the slight tremble of his fingers, the catch in his throat, the way his eyes dart back and forth between Soonyoung and Seokmin, as if daring to contradict him.

“I would like to take you on a date,” Soonyoung decides to say instead, putting the flowers into a vase. “It’s nicer if you ask this way. I’d also be more inclined to say yes, you know.”

“Yes,” Wonwoo tilts his head. “What you said.”

—

or, the one where Wonwoo decides it’d be a good idea to take Soonyoung on dates because he really, really wants something Soonyoung has.

as the carnations bloom - wonhui

Junhui presses his lips onto Wonwoo’s, slipping the red carnation into Wonwoo’s hair, and Wonwoo knew exactly what it meant; deep love and affection.

become the star of this night (and shine on me) - soonwoo

Wonwoo has always loved the stars.

(in which Wonwoo and Soonyoung found each other underneath the stars)

bedtime tendencies - meanie aff

Mingyu doesn’t know when and why exactly he starts leaving a space on his bed for Wonwoo at night, but he does it anyway.

blush pink roses - soonwoo

Wonwoo is a cute florist and Soonyoung is the disaster gay that comes in every week to buy flowers so he can see him.

breakfast: the most important meal of the day - meanie

Without thinking about the possible implications of his action, Mingyu cooks breakfast for his one-night stand. So when his one-night stand comes out of the bedroom looking like he’s about to leave, awkwardness ensues. And just when Mingyu decides everything will be okay because he’s never going to see the guy again, he sees the guy again.

budding love - wonhui

Coming from rival flower shops, Wonwoo and Jun are not allowed to interact. Too bad they don’t particularly agree with their family rule. (Or the one where WonHui become the modern and flowery equivalent of Romeo and Juliet)

burnt norton - soonwoo

Three (completely!!!) hypothetical questions, two boys with a hangover, and one ramen joint booth in Seoul.

(but i got) tunnel vision - meanie

“But you’ve only just created your account.”

“Exactly.” It takes a lot of self-control not to toss his phone to the far end of the table the way one might a hissing snake; as vehement a statement as it might make (and Wonwoo’s feelings are most definitely vehement and then some), it is an expensive phone.

He settles on setting it down as decisively as possible, pointedly turning off the screen. “Ok, I’ve signed up for OkCupid, gotten the welcome email, filled in the necessary details, yadda, yadda, yadda. Can we get to revising now please?”

-

If there is anything that will get your mind off an unrequited crush on your best friend, it’s definitely an online dating application. So naturally, Wonwoo ends up being coerced into joining OkCupid for two weeks.

can’t do without - soonwoo

“You don’t talk much, huh?” the boy says, wrinkling his brows and squinting at him. “That’s okay though, I talk a lot.”

Wonwoo stares at the unwavering smile on the other boy’s face.

“I’m Kwon Soonyoung, by the way,” he says. “We should be friends.”

car trouble. - wonhoon

Wonwoo sits back in his seat after his umpteenth attempt at starting the car, muttering “useless piece of junk” under his breath, although Jihoon could practically spell each word out in the air in front of him.

choosing the right place to put it - woncheol

Seungcheol lets Wonwoo adopt a cat. It’s a lot worse than he thought it would be.

clusters of galaxies in your eyes - soonwoo

Soonyoung’s astronaut boyfriend is finally coming home. Finally.

come a little closer - soonwoo

It’s a long weekend, and Wonwoo intends to enjoy his Sunday.

Or: I just wanted an excuse to write more soft making out Soonyoung and Wonwoo fic.

come to me - wonhao, soongyu

wonwoo is sick and tired of soonyoung trying to set him up with every guy he meets, so instead he takes matters into his own hands.

confession - wonhan

Jeonghan likes his potions partner.

cradle me in your comfort, will you? - wonshua

Wonwoo finds his way with words.

aka a soft, domestic, a-day-in-the-life wonshua for anyone who likes and appreciates this ship

cupid hit me with precision - woncheol, jihan

The thing about working at a PC Bang is that it tends to have regulars. Guys with big glasses who are dreaming of going pro in League of Legends, guys in their late 20s who just want a place to go to play games in peace, kids who don’t quite have the gaming setup they want just yet. Seungcheol’s favorite regular comes in on Thursdays.

curiosity killed the cat - soonwoo

Soonyoung is having a no good, lousy, awful day. And it doesn’t help that the attractive stranger sitting next to him on the train smells strongly of fish, for some strange reason.

cu(t)e cards - meanie

Wonwoo helps Mingyu for his job interview. Mingyu loves playing around.

diving too deep for coins - meanie

Taking a step forward, his entire body shudders, gravity and wind working against him and pushing him towards the dark surface. Tears well up in his eyes, and he wipes them with his sleeve. He sways on his feet.

Wonwoo lets his tears drop first.

His body follows.

don’t gotta worry about me (i got all my love in my arms) - meanie

They live together and love together, but that doesn’t mean everything is perfect.

(It’s more than perfect.)

dots & lines - soonwoo

Wonwoo just wishes someone had told him how easy it is to fall in love with someone, especially when that person is Kwon Soonyoung.

dramatic fool - meanie

Of all the dramatic things that Kim Mingyu has done and said, some tend to shock Jeon Wonwoo more than others.

Or the one where the best friends have climatic-non-climatic feeling realizations.

earth angel - wonhui

Even when Jun’s perfectly planned date falls apart, and they’re stuck at some old diner in the middle of nowhere, it seems like Jeon Wonwoo can put anything back together and make it worthwhile.

aka, the one where Jun tells Wonwoo he loves him for the first time

easier said than done - wonhoon

It’s easier for Jihoon to express his endearment with expressions and actions rather than with words, but it’s difficult because he’s not sure if it’s easy for Wonwoo to decipher.

eat your heart out, joshua hong - wonshua

No one ever told Joshua that the hardest part of being a superhero is getting the boy.

eggsquisite - wonhao

Minghao watches them go, observes the couples and hopeful singles that filter through the store, looking for the perfect present to give their loved ones, and hopes, with that small part of his mind - stuffed and locked away as it was - that he’d be able to have a fairy tale like that for himself one day too.

Alternatively: Minghao is a salty, single pringle.

everything i could give - soonwoo

Wonwoo is a servant in the Kwon household, and Soonyoung is the Crown Prince.

floriography (you’re my orange blossom). - soonwoo

Soonyoung speaks with flowers. Wonwoo speaks with paint.

(a.k.a florist!Soonyoung meets painter!Wonwoo and feelings ensue)

flower petals - 96z

When he had first seen the flowers bloom across his flesh on his 16th birthday he had been entranced. He had sat in front of his mirror until the clock struck midnight waiting with as much exposed skin as possible in an attempt to watch his mark appear. The slow outline of each flower being drawn had kept him staring at his mirror for nearly an hour.

forever (a place where i’m with you) - soonwoo

Wonwoo’s concept of forever has always been by the book. It’s not until today that he realizes that he had been using the word “forever” wrong all this time and it’s all thanks to Soonyoung.

frustration management issues - wonshua

joshua hong, the boy gifted with the power of being calm despite the stress and frustrations university may bring about, has a secret (or two) that only jeon wonwoo knows.

together they learn the best way to de-stress when hell week comes.

(it may or may not involve dark alleyways and drunken kisses.)

got you dreamin’ - soonwoo

Oh, why’d you have to be so cute? It’s impossible to ignore you, ah Why must you make me laugh so much? It’s bad enough we get along so well

(loosely based on goodnight n go by ariana grande)

gymnopedie - soonwoo

If fanning on embers is a bad thing, I’ll become a bad man.

Soonyoung may have slight abandonment issues and a fear of guilt-tripping. Wonwoo mistakes loyalty as an excuse to hold against touching him. Everything falls into place, bit by bit.

herbs - soonwoo

Single father Soonyoung and his daughter Soonji have just moved into a rural community and decide to visit the herb garden near the village.

hersheys - meanie

Mingyu and Wonwoo are best friends, sometimes they share kisses.

holding out for a hero - wonhao

the life of xu minghao, a superhero, and how he balances fighting crime by night and swooning over a cute cashier by day.

hope you find your peace - wonshua

Wonwoo dances on a tightrope looking for the silver lining to destruction.

how to get a date with a hot cat dad - soonwoo

Soonyoung is a self-admitted helpless romantic, which is fine, until one day at the pet clinic he works in walks Jeon Wonwoo and his damn cat. And then, again. And, again. It makes Soonyoung ask 1) how many cats does this hot stranger have? and 2) how the hell do I get a date with him?

how to woo a pretty boy with his favorite flower - wonhui

Junhui didn’t expect to meet the cutest boy in the world in a flowershop while hiding from creepy fans, but he did.

how will i know? - wonhao

how will wonwoo know when he’s finally gotten things together? minghao doesn’t give him an answer with words, but wonwoo already has one anyway.

hush hush, kiss kiss - wonhoon

When everyone thought the student council president and vice president were just best friends.

(+ the time everyone found out the truth)

i just wanna be yours; - wonshua

wonwoo cups jisoo’s face in his hands and murmurs against his lips, “i want you.” jisoo blinks. “hm?”

i kinda want u(ber) - wonhao

Cute delivery guys apparently really do exist.

i kissed a boy - wonhao

“I kissed a boy,” Wonwoo says. He didn’t really have much thought on it other than that he kissed a certain Chinese sophomore in the room.

i want (a pizza) you - meanie aff

Mingyu isn’t really expecting his request for the cutest delivery person at one in the morning to be fulfilled.

i want a refund - soonwoo

“Wonwoo, quick! Kiss me!”

“Wha-”

“My boss is walking over! Kiss me!!”

Soonyoung’s probably rubbed off some or completely transferred over all his panic to Wonwoo because Wonwoo doesn’t even think. Except for maybe one last “Fuck it.” in his head before he uses his free hand, the one not holding the bottle of beer to gently grab Soonyoung’s chin, turning his face towards him and crashes their lips together.

i’ll give you everything - meanie

“I’ll give you the sun, the stars, the ocean, the time, the wind, and the fireflies—hell, I’ll give everything I have only if I can have you.”

OR

When Kim Mingyu is willing to give up everything he has just to be with Wonwoo.

i’m okay (i’m not okay) - wonhui

Junhui misses Wonwoo, and maybe Wonwoo misses him too.

if it ain’t chickens, it’s feathers - soonwoo

And if it ain’t feathers, then what is it, really?

if these blankets could talk - soonwoo

Soonyoung should not be left alone to his own devices. After living with him for the semester, Wonwoo has come to learn precisely why.

in a heartbeat - meanie

Mingyu finds himself drawn to him, to his effortlessly handsome features and slender frame, to the way the sunlight reflects off his dark hair just so, to the slight scrunch of his nose when he smiles.

For the first time in his life, Mingyu forgets to take a photo.

in out up down - soonwoo

To forget, to remember, to live, to die. They’re all jumbled up lately, and Wonwoo can’t seem to remember what the difference is.

inhale/exhale - wonhoon

Wonwoo hides behind his sweaters. The world is a scary place.

it’s alright if it’s you - wonshua

let it be known that:

1) joshua hong jisoo hates skin contact with a burning passion

2) jeon wonwoo loves it

and

3) jisoo can do anything for his boyfriend

it’s my favourite thing - meanie

Long before they became intimate, long before he fell for his friend, Wonwoo noticed Mingyu’s mouth.

jazzcat tango - soonwoo

Just a couple of guys on a cruise through the stars, searching every corner of the galaxy for something they don’t know how to find, only now they have a cat.

kiss me through the phone - meanie

mingyu’s a solo artist dating his manager, wonwoo. he wishes it wasn’t so secret, though.

kitten

Wonwoo wants attention. He’s not very good at exactly asking, though.

keep me in your chest - wonhan

Jeonghan leads a very comfortable life. It’s not often he gets the feeling something is about to burn.

liar liar pants on fire - meanie

No one believes Mingyu when he says he’s dating Wonwoo.

leave (vb): to go away from, to remain - meanie

You always hear stories about the one being left behind. They should tell more stories about the ones leaving, Mingyu thinks, as he stares blankly at the road disappearing behind him in the rearview mirror. Because they all talk about being left behind, but no one ever told him that leaving would hurt like this.

(In which Mingyu is Wonwoo’s moon.)

light up a fire - meanie

wonwoo’s six break ups with mingyu

like the broken pottery mended with gold - wonhui

“You’re not a robot, are you?” Wonwoo asked, incredulous. Junhui laughed at him instead of answering. And Wonwoo could only stare from across the table, transfixed, because when Junhui laughed the rest of his body also laughed with him. That, Wonwoo thought, might just be one of the most charming things he had ever seen. * The world broke for Junhui. Wonwoo put his pieces back together. Kind of.

love story of a boy - soonwoo

Soonyoung doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t know Wonwoo, doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t know how it felt to have Wonwoo next to him.

Childhood friends AU, posted for Soonwoonet’s PushxPull Fanfiction Challenge.

love you so loud - meanie

“So I guess what I mean is, find someone you’d wait to have brunch with.”

messier 31 (all of the above) - soonwoo

There’s just so much light, knitted into the dark between stars and clouds of gas and dust, that the human eye can’t see no matter how long it looks or how wide it’s opened.

morning rush - soonwoo

In which Soonyoung finds love in a hopeless place. Not really, he’s just running late on one particular day and has to enter a battlefield, also known as, Japan’s railway morning rush, when he finds himself utterly and irrevocably whipped for a stranger he meets inside a very, very crowded train.

muscles and flowers - meanie

a day in the life of florist wonwoo and fitness trainer mingyu or the florist and fitness trainer au no one asked for but got it anyway

quiet love - wonhoon

Person A feels uncomfortable when people touch them; they don’t want people to think that they are trying to be rude or anything, so they often deal with this discomfort in order to fit in. Person B is the first to notice.

paper boats of love - meanie

Mingyu loves to send off small paper boats with cute sayings written on them on the pond near his house, hoping his neighbor will see him. One day, he’s surprised to see a paper boat that comes back with writing that isn’t his.

pack (and unpack (and unpack)) - wonhao

At the end of it all, there will be nothing but boxes full of things you don’t need and nowhere left to put them.

recollections - wonhui

Junhui reminds him of a storybook character, of one of those princesses trapped within a tower, unable to escape. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Wonwoo likes to indulge the delusion that he could be Junhui’s prince.

reinventing the flightless bird - soonwoo

Wonwoo already knows that folding paper is not as simple as it looks, but the boy in the library still takes every opportunity to show him exactly how.

save as draft - meanie

“I gotta write a poem; it’s due tomorrow.”

Mingyu doesn’t flinch, but Wonwoo uses his right foot to nudge a bit of his skin, trying to help him relax. “Shouldn’t you be writing it then, instead of doing laundry, ordering food and washing my hair?”

“You’re quite distracting.” But what he means is “you’re quite inspiring”.

-

Wonwoo has a poem to write for a class. And for the sake of his creativity, a night with Mingyu is all he needs.

seared into my heart - meanie

wonwoo waits for a name to appear on his wrist, not knowing that his soulmate is already seared into his heart.

second life ( of sorts ) - woncheol

seungcheol’s spell backfires. but everything goes as plans ( sort of ).

secret kisses behind the school gym - wonhao

Jeon Wonwoo the ordinary high school boy. Xu Minghao the school’s infamous delinquent.

They both shared a few things together. Things involving lips and secret jokes.

secrets we hold - wonshua

wonwoo likes jisoo. that’s it.

serenata - wonshua

The four instances Wonwoo remembers Joshua playing the guitar for him and the one time Joshua doesn’t.

shangri-la - wonhui

Junhui found love in art at the age of four. Wonwoo found love in music at the age of six. They would find love in each other at the age of twenty-three.

spectrum - wonhui

Jeon Wonwoo doesn’t know color, but he does know Wen Junhui.

taming more than beasts - soonwoo

Soonyoung can only dream of catching up to the prodigy named Jeon Wonwoo. When circumstances lead them to meet more often, however, he realizes that the school genius is more down-to-earth than he first thought.

take a sip from my secret potion - wonhoon

a potioneer and a herbal witch cross paths with a bad witch.

or, how wonwoo and jihoon forget their playful jabs and awkward tension to try to stop another witch from causing chaos.

take care

Wonwoo’s migraine is killing him- or, at least, that’s what it feels like. The members to their best to make it all better.

take my hand (take my whole life, too) - meanie

Mingyu loves spending time with his friend, Wonwoo. Mostly in bed, mostly without their clothes on.

Mingyu also wants to spend Wonwoo’s birthday with him, since that’d be cool.

Except Wonwoo has a date (or at least Mingyu thinks so) and now he has to think about why his heart aches at the thought if they aren’t in a relationship to begin with.

taste your name in my mouth - soonwoo

Wonwoo wonders why he is at the beach, in the cold, when a storm could start at any moment.

tell me we don’t look good together - meanie

q: what would you do if you could do anything without fear? a: tell him you love him.

tell me how to win your heart (i haven’t got a clue) - wonhoon

Jihoon is drunk out of his mind and decides now is the best time to discuss feelings. Wonwoo can do nothing but indulge.

tessellation, variegation, and other synonyms - soonwoo

Soonyoung wonders about a lot of things. Wonwoo, evidently, has his own curiosities.

the cat’s pyjamas - soonwoo

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. When Wonwoo moved into his new apartment with his boyfriend, he hadn’t been expecting the latter. Domestic pet-raising AU.

the equation of gravity - soonwoo

It’s kind of a paradox, really: they’re both wholly averse to love, but also half in love with each other.

(Soonyoung is the complete opposite of Wonwoo, but he’s a pretty good roommate. Anything more with him, though, would be messy. And to Wonwoo’s credit, he actually lasts a surprising amount of time before he feels the ground give out from underneath him and falls.)

the methods i do best - soonwoo

Everything starts, as it always does, with Seungkwan opening his mouth.

the snake that lives in water - soonwoo

When taking a job as a snake milker, Wonwoo assumed that his greatest challenge would be three-foot long, venomous reptiles.

As it turns out, it’s a lovesick co-worker.

these memories are for us - wonhui

Before they start their last year of college, Soonyoung convinces Junhui, Wonwoo and Jihoon to go on a road trip.

this might be cheesy, but i think you’re grate - wonhui

Junhui is a flirt. Wonwoo knows this. Hell, everyone does. Once Junhui warms up to you, he drops lines left and right. Most of their friends just roll their eyes and shake it off. Minghao sometimes smacks him. Seungkwan makes sassy comments about how he should stop learning Korean. Wonwoo mostly tries to pretend he hasn’t heard a single word and prays his pokerface is good enough to conceal the sheer gay panic that runs through his veins every time Junhui flirts with him.

thumbs up - wonhoon

It’s a twist of cheese bread, first.

That makes its way onto Jihoon’s desk, an assortment of food laid out for him.

to give back - wonhan

Wonwoo wasn’t the best at expressing his emotions. But that didn’t mean that he loved any lesser.

to write about love - soonwoo

I’m not a love poet. But if I was to wake up tomorrow and decide that I really wanted to write about love - my first poem would be about you. Soonyoung owns a vegan bakery, Wonwoo’s a down on his luck author with writer’s block and sometimes we find good things in places we aren’t even looking.

transmogrify - soonwoo

in which wonwoo has an incurable disease, soonyoung is determined to cure said incurable disease, and stealing from a witch has consequences, no matter how pure your intentions.

(a fairy tale, kind of, with a happy ending, kind of.)

waiting up all night - meanie

“Up all night, by Oliver Tank.”

“Pardon?” He asks, curious about the sudden response.

The shorter boy smiles, “The song you were dancing to. It’s called Up all night by Oliver Tank. He makes good music.”

Or: where Mingyu waits each night for the mystery boy who buys a pack of cigarettes, skittles, m&m’s and recommends him songs.

wanna marry me? - wonhui

Jun has a plan to get free cake, and it involves proposing to Wonwoo. (or the one where WonHui get engaged for a week)

when the moonflower blooms - soonwoo

moon·flow·er /ˈmo͞onˌflou(ə)r/ noun a tropical American climbing plant of the morning glory family, with large, sweet-smelling white flowers that open at dusk and close at midday.

who do you love? - wonshua

Joshua was searching for the truth. For his love.

Luckily, Wonwoo left him clues to find it.

wishes for the moon - wonhui

Wonwoo is a cat who continuously has to watch Junhui get jerked around by the guy he’s dating. Desperately, he wants to become human in order to protect Junhui. Upon a night of the full moon, Wonwoo gets his wish.

you feel like summer time - meanie

The light from the slowly sinking sun creates a soft glow around Wonwoo’s head, revealing the warm brown tones in his hair that usually go unnoticed.

The smile drops from Mingyu’s face without him realizing it, completely lost in the ethereal aura of his best friend. It’s only when Wonwoo’s face falls in concern that Mingyu realizes he must be acting weird.

“Mingyu?” Wonwoo asks carefully, eyebrows knitting together. The pulse in Mingyu’s veins only quickens, because no matter what face Wonwoo pulls, it carefully tugs at each of Mingyu’s heartstrings.

—

Or—it’s summer time and maybe Mingyu is a little bit in love.

you make me feel (how you’re looking at me) - meanie

Wonwoo made room for Mingyu without being asked, put his back to the wall so Mingyu could slide right into his arms.

“Please,” Mingyu said in a whisper so soft that Wonwoo almost didn’t hear it. He didn’t need to. He knew what Mingyu was here for.

—Or—

Jeon Wonwoo’s continued collision with Kim Mingyu, or more correctly, with the truth.