#i just wanted them to have a good future so they can work on their flaws together and be a happy healthy pair 🤲🤲🤲🤲

[inkskinned]

you said you were stuck in a time loop, which was fine. i feel like late-stage capitalism has us all in a time loop, ammiright? you came barging in at 5:33. in the morning. i hadn't even processed the idea of coffee.

but you had this look of utter panic in your eyes. terror like the ocean. you grabbed my cheeks. im in a time loop.

i don't know why in movies the first reaction is to deny it. when someone is panicking like that, it's not appropriate to ask them to calm down. it didn't matter if i believed it, what mattered was that you believed it so much that it was consuming you.

so here we are. i pour you some of the dark roast. "you look like utter and entire hell," i say.

you push your fingers into your eyes. "you always say that."

i try to think of something funny to say that i wouldn't have said on previous time loops, but jokes don't land without the proper timing (lol). "remind me to think -"

"-yeah, of a joke that only works in the future. and before you say anything, i know you're pissed i just stole your punchline." you bolt the coffee, which is wild. it's very hot. you don't seem to notice.

i blow on mine to cool it down. i both am very pissed at you and also i can't see you in this amount of panic without wanting to help. but i'm also not really sure what we are, not since i saw you kiss her like that, no offense. it just was like, kind of rude when you knew i liked you.

and besides. i'm just like, barely a person. i write omegaverse fanfiction. i love the concept of a time loop, but what the fuck am i gonna do? send an alpha in there? i open my mouth.

you point at me. "you're about to ask why me. and then say some disparaging shit about yourself. i'm just a nerd who plays dnd or something. that self-own is slightly different each time." you sigh. "i know you think you can't really help me. i don't know who can help me. i only came to you because you fucking believe me." you check your watch, sigh, and throw your head back. you cover your eyes with one hand. "i've come here on 26 separate revolutions," you say. "you have believed me every time. and yeah, i have no idea how you fit into this but i just -" you sigh again. "i just like fucking talking to someone about it."

"do you need more cof-" i start, but you're already holding the empty cup out. i frown at it. "you're not getting any more until you promise not to bolt this one like an animal."

you laugh a little and sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. "okay, that's new dialogue. but to be fair to you, i'm not usually this rude. i'm still pretty new at all of this." you check your watch again. another sigh. i guess you're cruising for a personal best in the Sigh Olympics.

i almost tell you im not an NPC but i've played enough video games to know i'm very much an NPC. i pour you another cup. "so what happens in the loop?"

"really bad explosion." you mutter into the mug. you put your elbows on the table (rude) and bury your face in your arms like an angsty teenager. one hand floats up while you talk, because evidently you literally can't talk without your hands. "i have to save the day and there's this bomb and i have no bomb training and it keeps moving, you know."

"do i die?"

you peek up from your arms. "yeah. bigtime. you keep trying to run or stay or do anything and you always super die."

"oh."

"to be fair, like, everyone dies in it though.... so you're in good company."

i hate that you make me laugh. i hate that being around you always feels tingly and strange, this electric tension between us. something that is evidently (given how you stuck your tongue down a stranger's throat literally 3 days ago) (well. 3 for me) super one-sided. i take a sip of my coffee and close my eyes.

i die today, i guess. a little spark of panic starts at the top of my hands and starts whipping up my wrists.

"shit," you say. you look at your watch and jump to your feet. "i have to go. if i can come back, i will. i am still trying to figure out when is best to do everything, you know? the order of stuff. maybe morning isn't good for us."

i look up at you and think about how you keep kissing me in the back of my car and in alleyways and in the dark. and i can never fucking get a read on you. and i also think about how incredibly panicked you look. how broken. how long have you been doing this? "i don't want to die," i say.

you glance downwards. "well, you're not really dead, you'll come back in the loop."

"but i will have died." my hands are shaking. i am trying really hard to stay calm.

you push your hands through your hair again. "i really have to go. i will have this discussion with the next version of you, though. it is like, something i am thinking about."

"but i don't get a next version," i say. i don't really have the language for this, because i haven't had 26 tries with you. i only have my memories: you, a week ago. drunk and telling me you loved me in my ear. you, kissing her anyway. you, months ago, throwing up on my birthday, whispering to me i ruin everything i touch, always, over and over. please don't ask. i can't ever fucking have that be you.

i run my finger along the rim of the mug. "i don't want to die in this one."

you seem baffled by this. "i get that but - time will reset, you'll be fine, you won't even remember we talked about this."

"but i know now." i stand up too. "i have to live the rest of this day knowing i could die. knowing i probably am going to."

"you could always die, to be fair."

i feel my hands get out of control. "earlier, you said i always say a different insult about myself. what if you're just going through different parallel universes and those are all just different - but real - versions of myself? what if you're not in a time loop, you're in a fucking universe loop?"

"if it helps, i've wondered this too. also, you're hot in all of them. if that helps."

i point at you. "no flirting. i'm trying to figure out if i die today."

"who's flirting?" you catch my wild hands and give me that long, perfect smile. like we're in this together. "i won't let ya die." you check your watch and sigh again. "well. maybe not this time."

i grit my teeth. you are so not making quips at me while i try to explain the existential dread i'm having. "does the time loop reset if i fucking kill you?"

"honestly i don't know how long it continues after i die, because i just wake up. it could be that the loop goes until the explosion for everyone, and we're all in the loop, or it could be that when i die, the loop restarts. when i die i wake up, is all."

i pull away from you and stalk into the kitchen and start doing all 3 of my dishes. "okay, first, you know i was joking. and secondly, this is exactly my point. you don't know if this is just a parallel universe. maybe in the ones where you died, the explosion happened and nobody reset and it's just you travelling." i have to stop and push my heel into my eyeball. "... how often have you died?"

i look at you. you look at me. you give me this very sad, halfway smile and a little what can ya do shrug. something in that action seems so old and weary that i want to burst into tears.

"i have to go," you say. "really. for real. there's this family of five i save from getting into a car crash. and i know it's like oh but we're all gonna die in the explosion anyway, what's the point. and..." you shrug again. "it matters to me, is all. at least i saved them for now. at least i saved anything."

you pad over to me and wrap me in a tight hug. you always seem so tall against me. i feel your cheek rest against the top of my head for a moment. for a second, it's just us, and the space is warm, and my heart is a little broken hare.

you leave me there, and i stand in my stupid badly lit kitchen with my stupid mugs. i think about you. i start texting my mom that she needs to get out of the city, but it feels pointless.

i don't know what to do. tomorrow is the same day for you. but i have to prepare to die in my today.

[kyri45]

✨ShadowPeach Bio Parents Bio AU Q&A! 21/11✨

Welcome to the Q&A! A space where I can answer related or similar question about the Shadowpeach Bio Parents AU! If you submitted your ask anonimously, then you’ll have to check the whole post if it’s answered here, if it’s not, worry not! Your asks might have been used for a future comic or just in the queue~

Anonimo ha chiesto: Hi! Would Macaque kidnap Wukong again? I read your comic, the last page, where Macaque is the kidnapping expert. And I'm very curious about it. Anyway, I love your comics! You are awesome.

Haha I don't think they really need it unless they want to do a "traditional wedding courtnapping" but it would be pretty odd since they kind of already live togehter.

Anonimo ha chiesto: I know this is definitely a LONG ways away, but, imagine: Wukong and Macaque playing the newlyweds game. What questions? What answers? Who’s asking the questions? Who’s getting the most right?

I wont list all the lesson but I think Macaque would get most of them right just because Wukong never really changed a lot during the years, while Macaque went through different stages of his life, and and he has new hobbies and tastes.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Will mk have a nightmare about LBD? If yes Then we will have some angst with fluffy monkeys family moments!!!

Oh he has. He has many. Most of them he has while he is at pigsy's.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Can you please shows up a flashback backstory on how MK/Wukong discovered/found out/came out as trans?? 🙏🙏🙏 Banana sundae with chocolate sauce, rainbow sprinkles, THREE cherries, and a super-deluxe one-and-only Monkie King™️ collectible spoon???

Anonimo ha chiesto: will we see any past Shadowpeach?? I’m interested to see how you frame their dynamic back 5en.

Hahah maybe in the future, I'll see

Anonimo ha chiesto: Can we get Wukong telling dad jokes? Please, I’m begging i want to see MK laughing and Macaque just being so disappointed with Wukong yet so smitten. I want to see more Monkey family domestic blissss. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

I don't have my dad jokes book here but man give Macaque an award for the patience he has with these two children

@goofybearclown ha chiesto: Hi :3 Just wanted to say I love your shadowpeach and cotl AU!!! I didn't notice you made both at first but when I did I was like "waow :0". Tbh your works are in my top 3 series on Tumblr! @fenikzia ha chiesto: I love your LMK comic so much, I look forward to reading the new additions to it when they come out every other day,and reading your comic just makes my day better. Even if it hasn't updated a particular day, I make sure to go back and reread the newest part.Keep doing what you're doing and make sure to take breaks! @skye-minecraftyt-blog ha chiesto: You! I like you! Your Bio parents Lmk au always makes me extremely happy and I regularly reread it. ((o(^∇^)o)) Just wanted to say it @blazeandsilver ha chiesto: Hello, I just wanted to say your artwork is absolutely stunning, it makes my day whenever I see that you posted something new to the BioParents comic. Please keep up the good work and be sure to take some time for yourself, you’re important too.

AWWWWWW THANK YOU FOR ALL THE LOVE!!

Anonimo ha chiesto: Hihi shadowpeach au question: You mentioned in the latest comic that Mac is more lean and skinny than Wukong. Will we ever see the full extent of that?? ALSO I ADORE YOUR ART OMG ❤️❤️

A fully naked Macaque you say? Maybe.... who knows....

Anonimo ha chiesto: I come to defend Wukong acting like a man looking at a victorian lady ankles, he hasn’t seen his (ex) husband’s fur in centuries. And he probably hasn’t socialize in years either besides MK and the gang. Romantically he is stunned right? I doubt he has even looked at anyone besides Macaque anyways…

Honestly I like to think that Macaque was the only being in all the universe that was eer able to make him flustered

@mochalikesdrawing ha chiesto: So I got a question, will we ever get to see kaiju MK again?

I have a scene post AU I would like to draw. Maybe.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Ignoring all the angst because it is crushing my soul /pos, I'm lowkey convinced that Macaque knows Wukong feels some kind of way about him because he can hear his heartbeat go crazy at certain moments and isn't dumb, but just isn't calling Wukong on it because he's still trying to sort his own feelings first. BUT ONCE HE DOES OH BOY-

Hahah Macaque knows perfectly well Wukong is down for him. In the meantime Wukong is alwasy afraid he's just imagining things bc he's dense af.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Do you think Wukong and macaque would be cuddling and macaque would be watching something scary and Wukong would be trying to not pay attention to it because he hates scary stuff or would it be the other way around?

yess

@ep2nd ha chiesto: In your shadowpeach bio parents au, if MK and Wukong were created by Nuwa, with Nuwa using Macaque and Wukong as a base, has anyone wondered who created Macaque? And does Macaque himself knows?

Wait Nuwa created Wukong? If that's so I think then all the 5 monkeys were made by her, for some reason.

@boonalina ha chiesto: Sooo what exactly is the courtnapping process like? Is it just a simple "I'm gonna pick you up and carry you away" or is it an entire ceremony? Does someone have to lure the person into place? For example, Mei bringing Redson over to a secluded spot so that Mk can "courtnap" him? (Side note: I've been in this fandom for around two years now, and this comic is what made me find out about courtnapping lol)

I "think" anything that can be counted as like a sneak attack that takes them out of guard and brings them to the designated courtnapped room can be considered as courtnapping technically.

Anonimo ha chiesto: ... Hey so your shadow peach bio parent AU is better way better than season five. WOAH, WHO SAID THAT!! (no but seriously it is like a sitcom I tune on ever so often. Much love 🫶)

Haha thank you! That's a HUGE statement!

Anonimo ha chiesto: I wonder if MK has any unique attributes/abilities as a living mass of celestial material?

He's such a cocktail ofdifferent energies I wouldn't be surprised he is able to glow in the dark.

@cjtuy ha chiesto: I do have a question it's mainly about pigsy and tang when and how long have they been together as a couple and did both of them find mk are they married ?

They have been together for almost a year, but I don't think they are married, but maybe that could happen in the future??? But yeah MK found out a little after season 5 that they are together, that was also the same time he started calling Tang "Papa"

Anonimo ha chiesto: Has macaque added any personal items to the house? Like is he moved in? Have Wukong and macaque improved or changed anything else besides making the bed bigger?

Yes he did! Half of his belongins are in FFM, althought he's a little more minimalistic than Wukong. He also have been bothering Wukong to death so that he can finally organize his stuff (and they were roomates

Anonimo ha chiesto: I feel like if they were to play Minecraft or something macaque would be the base mom. He would be the only one to remember to farm food to not starve. The others would probably forget all the time that hunger is a thing in game. Wukong or Mk: oh dang does anyone have food I'm starving Macaque: (always brings extra for this reason) "sighs" yes

AH!

Anonimo ha chiesto: Remember the Minor Scale episode, from season 2? Where MK learn how to shrink himself? And there’s also the final episode of that season where MK just grow very big to try to fight LBD. I just love that part of his power and I have seen very little people showing it. Like, sometimes that power can show up when the poor boy is experiencing overwhelming emotions that can’t be contained anymore, or pure exhaustion. For example, Having many responsibility can lead to a lot of stress and exhaustion and at some point MK just can’t do more and just become tiny, not able to do more. On the opposite, maybe he experience trauma again through a nightmare (like about azure for example) and the emotional burden is to much and he just becomes big because of that. You see my vision? I love sizeshifting base on emotions :)

Aww and i love emotion-based powers, they are just so easy to play around.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Tbh the show should let macaque have a motorcycle. Wukong gets to be passenger princess

Yesss

Anonimo ha chiesto: as we get into the colder months i like to imagine MK’s first winter coat and he’s all super fluffy and warm

Cool for the monkey parents, bad for pigsy and all the hair in the restaurant from sheeding.

Anonimo ha chiesto: I think it would be so funny if MKs rock hadn't been cracked and he'd been raised on FFM by wukong. If the same thing happens in the show macaque planning to take mks powers thinking he's just Wukongs student but then while macaque and MK are training. Since macaque is so close he notices his ears. (Being raised by a monkey he gets his form sooner) suddenly putting everything on hold busting into FFM and is like WUKONG WTF

There's a fic on AO3 about it it's A Son of Two Dads

@cheese-hommo ha chiesto: Hii, fiesta I want to say I love how you draw and everything, it just looks so cool and beautiful. Now, with the last chapter of Monkey parents Au and so, with the acknowledgement of the demon etiquette and else, DBK and Wukong really misunderstand the comfort scene for a confession? Or something more? It was just so funny seeing the two of them getting so embarrassed at the end 🙂‍↕️

Ah, 2 young demons in their true forms so close to each other, blushing? Scandalous.

Anonimo ha chiesto: I've seen Mk is his Lego merch- he gots a tooth gap- so does this MK have one or did he get it filled?

Wait that was a tooth gap??? I though it was like, a detail of the smile

Anonimo ha chiesto: 🎤 what is your official (if any) opinion on Ink MK? (as a character, plot device, literary parallel, what have you)

It's ok. I personally believe "shadow" version of one character with their own fears and doubts is a clique a little bit too much used. But they give a lot of angst.

Anonimo ha chiesto: Thoughts on Macaque knowing either Japanese or Korean due to him liking anime.

I'll give you one better. Macaque always traveled to Japan pretty frequently during the centuries. Then became a weeb

Anonimo ha chiesto: Maybe it's just me but Wukong looks a bit thicker each time, is it because his fur's thickening or is he getting chubbier ??????? Anyway luv ur art

Both.

[dailymanners]

If your job requires emailing at all, I've also picked up a few methods for responding to rude emails.

In my current job I strictly work B2B (business to business) and before this job had only worked retail and food service. I thought when I broke into office work that I was finally done with, well, the types of things you deal with in public facing customer service roles (the constant rudeness, dehumanization, unnecessary hostility, etc you know) but unfortunately after nearly two years sending and receiving emails in a B2B setting I regret to inform you that people are still rude dehumanizing jerks even when you are both professionals at work representing your own respective companies.

So, here's a few firm yet professional replies I've picked up.

If you are emailing with a supplier (as in a situation where *you* are the client) obviously you still need them to function at your job so you still need to be professional and remain on good terms with them, but unfortunately with the way things work when you are the client you do get a little more leeway in being firm and standing up for yourself. My go-to response when a supplier is being out of line rude / unprofessional / disrespectful is:

"Unfortunately I have to express disappointment at the lack of professional tone in your email."

Every time I've used this with a supplier I get an apology and a change of tone from thereon. You don't want to escalate the aggressive tone in a work related email, that never ends well, once they drag you down to their level there's no coming back from the fact that you just normalized the aggressive and unprofessional tone of your email communications with this supplier, so you want to keep the "high ground" so to speak. When you keep on the high ground instead you can shift the tone back to professional and courteous, which obviously makes your job easier.

However, you're still not letting them off the hook or just letting it slide with expressing your disappointment, and it's also good to be (professionally) putting your foot down and calling out the behavior so they don't get the idea that they can throw tantrums at you again in the future in a professional setting.

Handling rude and unprofessional emails from clients is obviously more tricky, because depending on what industry you're in the power dynamics are typically shifted more in their favor, so you have to watch your tone a little more.

I'm lucky enough that at my job I'm not only part of a union, but I have a boss who takes my side when clients are being unreasonable and unprofessional, so I can get away with a:

"Let's keep the tone of our communications professional, shall we?"

It still has a bit of a "customer service" tone to it, it still gives you the high ground (again, you don't want to sink down to their level and normalize rude / petty / hostile interactions with this client, it will make your job harder and more stressful if you do) but it does still address the behavior and let them know you're not just letting it slide.

Tips and ideas for how to respond when someone is being rude to you

For personal reasons I won't get into, I have a history of just freezing when some is rude / hostile / aggressive / condescending / patronizing / etc. It's obviously not something I'm happy about at all, most people who freeze or fawn aren't happy about it and would change it if they could.

One day I confided in my co-worker, a middle aged woman in her 50's, that this is something I struggle with. Considering how confident and assertive she always struck me as, I was shocked when she told me this is also something she's struggled with.

The advice she gave me is to just memorize and practice a few broad statements or reactions that you can pull out of your pocket so to speak when someone is being rude or disrespectful to you. It's not easy if you're someone who's been conditioned to freeze or fawn, but practice helps. Practice saying these things when you're alone. Put up a sticky note next to your bed or on your bathroom mirror with these phrases and practice them when you see them. Practice saying these with a partner or trusted friend, role-play scenarios where you might need to use these phrases.

Here's a few phrases that have worked for me. The nice thing about them is that they tend to shut down the situation rather than escalating, while still letting the aggressor know that you don't find their behavior acceptable.

"Are you okay?"

This works well in professional settings, because it's not like your work place's residential bully can run to HR about you asking if they're okay (but they might if you try to retaliate and give them a taste of their own medicine). However, it still effectively sends the message "I think there's something wrong with your behavior and don't accept it". It's also not likely the response they're expecting, so it'll likely throw them off and prevent further verbal aggression.

"Could you repeat that for me? I didn't catch what you said."

This one is most effective for people you believe to actually have a conscious and might regret what they said if they actually thought about it a little more. I find that often when I do this one, when people repeat the rude/snippy/patronizing/etc thing they either shamefully stumble over their words and show some remorse, or they change altogether what they say. In the off chance they don't regret what they said and end up repeating exactly what they said, this at least buys you some time to think of a better reaction since you're no longer caught off guard by a sudden rude and snippy remark.

"Can you explain what you mean by that?"

Similar logic to the last one. Often when people are being rude/snippy/patronizing/etc they're caught up in their own emotions in that moment and didn't think it through. This is a polite and civil way of putting their rude behavior in the spotlight and making them reconsider what they said. The other advantage to this one is that in case you did misread their intentions and they meant no harm by what they said or did, this gives them an opportunity to clarify that, instead of you just feeling bad over a statement or actions they actually had no ill intentions with.

If anyone has any further examples of reactions / responses / statements that have worked for them, I'd love to hear about them. I'm new to studying the art of how to civilly yet effectively shut down bad behavior from others, so I'm always open to hearing more suggestions.

[maybefae]

Messages From Your Forever Person

Pile 1 - Pile 2 - Pile 3

Remember, this is a general reading and it may not resonate for everyone or completely. Tarot is a tool to help guide but you are responsible for your actions and life, you choose your path.

Just a note!: I don’t like doing general love readings because I don’t feel like they are as personal as, well, personal love readings, but I had the urge to make one. Your forever person can be what you consider your significant other, long-term partner, or future spouse.

Tips!

|Pile 1

Tarot: King of Pentacles, The Fool, Ace of Pentacles, Three of Pentacles, Black Numen, Six of Wands, Knight of Pentacles, Three of Swords, Ace of Swords, The Star, Ten of Cups (Bottom of the Deck:

Oracle: Uplift, Forgiveness, Consistency

You know how the planet Jupiter is the defender of our solar system? How Jupiter pulls asteroids away from Earth and even take the hits itself? That’s the energy of this person. As soon as I pulled the cards, I got the feeling of comfort from a strong and stable energy. I must say, this person also has a comforting smile and as soon as you look at them, your nerves will instantly be soothed. They feel like they are standing beside me, hands in pockets, as they watch me write this. They could have a favorite cream cable knit sweater that they like to wear as soon as there’s a chill in the air. 

They are very patient and have the mentality of “it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done”. You could suffer from anxiety, but I feel this panicked and shaky energy coming from you. I don’t know if you used to be yelled at or punished for doing something wrong by a parent or partner, but it feels like you are terrified of doing anything around your forever person at first. And there are cards here that are telling me that you have been hurt in the past. It seems like this could be the first safe and healthy partner you’ve had. This could just be the first partner you’ve ever had and now you're 20/25+ years old and you don’t know what you’re doing, which brings out this anxiety towards this relationship. But your partner here holds a lot of patience and comfort for you! They really love you. Honestly, this is really fucking close to unconditional love (which is rare). They hold no judgement towards how you operate now because of your past, absolutely not. And they want you to know that. It’s like they have told you this but you continuously don’t believe them, which does hurt them a little ngl. The Jupiter reference could be what this was for. They will take the small hurts you do but persistently and consistently show up until you believe in their love for you. And it’s not that you don’t know, but there is a voice in your head that makes you doubt often even if there isn’t proof of those thoughts. 

God, pile 1, they love you. They are such a steady energy. They are also very stable in the physical and spiritual realms. They are a very hard worker and would do anything to help your dreams become a reality. Your dreams are their dreams and vice versa. They really just want a peaceful home life with you honestly; they like the simple things. I think a good personality reference would be the husband to the pregnant wife in Kiki’s Delivery Service. 

They really want me to drive home the message of forgiving yourself, pile 1. Sure, your actions or thoughts do hurt them sometimes, but they don’t really want that to be the focus. They want you to be aware that they do but in a way to help you heal. They aren’t your past partner, they aren’t going to react like your parent, they aren’t playing you just because you haven’t had a partner. It’s heartbreaking that you would dare to even compare them to others. Maybe this person hides a lot of their hurt not to upset you and this is a hurdle that they have to work through. It’s only really coming out towards the end so that’s why I want to say that. 

I think this message was to let you know how the beginning part of your relationship will be like. They just want to make you aware of it, maybe so you can comfort the insecurities you have so the beginning won’t be as difficult.

|Pile 2

Tarot: Ten of Swords, Queen of Pentacles, Six of Swords, The Hierophant, Three of Pentacles, King of Cups, Three of Cups, The Sun, King of Pentacles, Seven of Pentacles, The High Priestess, The Moon

Oracle: The Moon (again!), Wept Breath, The Chariot, Vulnerability, Divinity, Sacred

Before I pulled the cards, I heard six months to a year or eight weeks. I don’t like to do timing but that’s what I heard. So if that feels right to you, then take it. Or somewhere between a waning crescent and a waning gibbous moon.

Honestly, they are just happy to be here. I think they were ready to give up on love after so many failed attempts and heartbreak before you came along. And you honestly could’ve sworn off love too but you saw them and was like “I want that one.” This is the black cat, golden retriever pile. Raven and Beast Boy, Maleficent and Diaval, or Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit. 

The vulnerability oracle strongly comes from your side. It does come from theirs but they admit that they were practically enchanted by you. “The idea of giving up on love was a stupid idea on their part, sorry your highness, that was my bad.” They just folded and they would happily fall under any love spell you send their way. They are obsessed with you, in the most healthy way possible. They are banging the table with their fist, credit card in hand. There’s an energy that you were in the same room with them and kept your eye on them because you were drawn to how “pathetic” they were. You couldn’t help yourself so you gave in. There’s also an energy of “of course, you’re the fated one to be with me.” You two end up talking and you could kinda bust their balls a little, tease and be a little sassy, but they keep up with you and “pass your little test.” 

I don’t think they were necessarily a player in the past but they had quite a few lovers and most of them played your person. They could have the vibe of one just from how cheeky and flirty they are but those thoughts are soon squashed with you seeing how pathetically devoted they are to you. They are just a lover at their core, they like to keep things light and fun, but they also know how to be serious and fix any issue that comes up in the relationship. They would truly do anything for you. This could come from an insecurity of not getting the love they needed from their past partners so they are overcompensating to keep you in love with them. :( 

Are these the older daughters/siblings that I usually get? There could be something here that they have a pretty put-together family and you’re the first partner that the family actually loves. You could honestly get the love and care that you missed out on with their family. 

God, I keep seeing your partner looking at you with the biggest heart eyes and they do this all the time, which could make you so flustered. This could be one of the things about them that honestly gets you to melt a little and lower some walls you have up. This feels like a love that you probably didn’t get to experience in your teen years but this will span on until you're old and wrinkly. They will carry the “honeymoon phase” through the rest of your lives. You know those videos that people make of their parents being in love and fooling around? That’s you two! 

There’s just an overall feeling of excitement coming from them. They could talk about you a lot to their friends and family, but not in a bragging way. They are just so happy with you and thinks you’re the most beautiful person they have ever seen. I heard “A wish I didn’t know I was wishing for.”

|Pile 3

Tarot: Two of Cups, King of Swords, The Hermit, The Fool, ? Dreamworld (reconnection), Six of Wands, Two of Wands, Four of Pentacles, Five of Cups, The Chariot (rest, feeling at home)

Oracle: Serenity, Sincerity, Respite, Surrender

If this resonates, this could be a lover you had that had passed away.

For others, this pile is for the ones who believe in lifetimes before the one you’re currently living. Energy is recycled after all. This is the more mystical pile. 

Your person here has a large energy and could come off as cold and intimidating. They have come to me wearing all black, leather boots, and darker hair. They have very muscular arms and a broad chest, very tall. They could be goth. This could’ve been them in the past life or that is how they show up in this lifetime. They have their head down as they stand beside me and there is an energy of wanting you to know they are here. Their soul does watch over you and guide you but they may stay quiet and don’t give you many signs or messages that they are around. But I suppose they came through today to say hi! 

They are very protective over you and they think you’re a ray of sunshine that graces their life. They aren’t one to show many emotions nor really speak them out, but you accept this and know that you are deeply loved. They know you doubt that they even exist or if they are coming or if they love you and so they are very hesitantly showing up through this reading to say that “I’m on my way” and “just sit tight.” They could have a deeper voice. They could give you reassurance if you ask for it, by the way! They want me to specify that so they don’t come across as heartless. I think you’re the only one that they truly love with their whole being and they do make it known, but if you need a little verbal reassurance, all you gotta do is ask. They are a cat person.

There is something here that you may have lived in timelines where they never got to exist in, like it has been a long while since you two have been together. I heard, “I waited for the right time.” There could’ve been timelines where your lives probably wouldn’t have worked together or it was going to end in tragedy “like the one I met you in.” So they had to wait. And they watched over you through each timeline. Everytime you didn’t get to live a happy lifetime or if your partner of any lifetime didn’t treat you right, it would make your person terribly upset and they couldn’t do anything about it. They are very upset while they show this to me, angry and frustrated. But this lifetime is the one where you two will finally be together. 

You could feel like you are meant to be someone, like a little void spot where your soul is…and you could be waiting out until you meet this person. You actually could’ve done this for the past three lifetimes (which you probably lived more happily than others). And this could’ve been a lifetime where you planned to do the same thing, but your person is coming in. You will be suspicious but you will probably be very enamoured by them. They are different than others and stand out to you. I think they like to rub your back because I just got the feeling of someone doing that to me. They let you be your bubbly and lively self and actually love that about you. They have complete trust in you. They may be on the more quiet/shy side but you two work together perfectly. You two can rest easy in this lifetime. 

Dividers: @inklore

[wolftarotcrafts]

Hello this is my first ever post I hope you like it.

Pile One

Hello pile one I see your future spouse having dark hair, like dark black or dark brown that might even look black. As for eyes, I see them having dark blue eyes, and just in general, really dark eyes. I don't see them having light eyes. I can also see them having really intense eyes, like they can be very intimidating. Like they can see into your soul type of thing. For their skin color, I see for some of you they will be light skin, possibly really pale, and for others of you, I am seeing a really tan to darker skin tone. They either be really tall or really short, so like taller than average or shorter than Average. There is something about them that stands out, like their eyes, hair, or how they dress. They might dress really expensive and just look expensive. You look at them and go, "Damn, they got money." They might look really intimidating, but when they smile, their whole face changes, and they look all soft and nice. They have a cute smile. They are also gorgeous and look very put together. They take really good care of themselves. For their body type, you can tell they go to the gym because they look strong. I see them being muscular. 

Extra: Straight hair, red hair, short hair, really long hair, colored hair, Sagittarius, may, cancer, Capricorn, water signs, earth signs, French, Canadian, Mexico, love songs, weekday, freckles, clean-shaven, smart, twin flames, 2, in a few months, stands out from the crowd, red, money, witty, intelligent, strong.

Pile Two

Hey, pile two for how your future spouse looks; I'm getting they kind of look spunky and fun. They may have some type of birthmark or markings on them that are noticeable. I can see them dressing in some dark colors; they could even be more punk or goth. For hair, I see light auburn hair and blond. I see them being lean and athletic. They are not that muscular, but they do look like they are active and workout. For eye color, I see green and brown, maybe a mix of those. For skin color, I see them having a tan to olive skin tone. I see them being averagely tall—not too short but not overly tall either. I can see them having piercings and tattoos. I see them having an intense or strong gaze. I see them having interesting eyes. They might have heterochromia eyes; there is something about their eyes. 

Extra: Eyes, gaze, observing, birthmark, tattoos, dark skin, fire signs, curly hair, blond hair, 32, 41, 16, brown, green, red, friends, friendly, extroverted, party goer, fun, loud.

Pile Three

Hi pile three, Your future spouse is really intimidating, and I think even more than pile one's future spouse. I see them possibly being spiritual, and they also seem very serious. They might not smile that often and have a resting bitch face. I see them having dark hair, like black hair. I see them have darker skin tones. I see them having brown eyes. I can see them being tall, at least taller than you. For their body type, I see them having muscles but not to prominent. They are fit, and they take care of themselves, but I see them taking care of their minds and souls more. So they may do meditation and self-care. They might not really go to the gym. They may work out by going on runs or cycling, something like that. I see that while they have a strong aura around them, they are very calm. 

Extra: Proposal, children, family, traditional, masculine energy, music, sneaky, Gemini, 45, 35, 1212, good looking, stern, macabre, grim, morbid, serious, protective, physical touch, romantic, black hair, RBF, spiritual. 

Thank you, and I hope you liked my reading. If you want to buy a personal reading, I have a Esty shop called WolfTarotCrafts. I plan to open a Ko-fi, but for now, I have them available on my Esty. 

[local-lamppost]

Act 3 Thoughts

Watched Wicked, came home, waited 20 minutes, binged Act 3. I do not recommend this lifestyle. Anyway...

I was so satisfied with where we ended up, but I would have also appreciated about 20 minutes to an hour more. It felt like some beats were skipped over, they wanted to get to specific endings and didn't have the time to wrap them up as neatly as I would've liked.

Maddie is a good example. She's a plant for Ambessa, okay but when and why did she become one? She couldn't have been one before Cait being named commander and when we next see her she's pushing for Cait to take power back from Ambessa. Did Ambessa just message her right after Cait and Vi started working together again as like a "the woman you love's actual love is back in the picture, you can either wallow or get revenge with me", but also made a smarmy remark about Cait 'at least being warm' or something. We didn't need to absolve Cait or villainize Maddie for their 'relationship' because they didn't even have a relationship-just a coping mechanism for Cait, similar to Vi's drinking. At best it was all unnecessary and at worst a waste of time.

Away from that, I want to focus on some good.

I am officially a JayVik shipper now. Them disappearing into a void together, encircled with each other, after Viktor spend however long within timelines/multiverses in hopes of finding a Jayce able to bring him back to his humanity? Come on, they needed to kiss. Especially after Jayce and Mel's low key break up. Honestly we were denied the three of them working together, because they would have been unstoppable.

Speaking of Mel, I love her. I love her design, her powers, her matricide, her taking command of Ambessa's armies, etc. I wish we could have seen more of her adapting to her new powers, finding peace with what she now is. There could have been a cool interaction with Viktor over how Arcane power has changed them both for better and worse.

I don't think Mel's story is done. With other characters, I can see them coming in for future story arcs as like, cameos or background details, but if the next LoL story is in Noxus I fully expect Mel to be a major player again.

Back to Jayce. I like Jayce, that could be my Arcane hot take, and I definitely want to write something more in depth on him. On all the characters really. For now, I'll just say that his determination to destroy everything he has built, because the only creation worth saving is his relationship with Viktor is just... glorious.

Viktor was amazing. I love Viktor in the lore, and they took his traits from the lore and amped them up to eleven. His body being destroyed and rebuilt, the process of which has chipped away his humanity and mutilated his dreams. He lives up to his own quote: "In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good. We have to make it right."

Ekko is a character I never realize I miss. That sounds mean, it probably is, but I am never the less so happy to see him every time. It's like finding the missing piece you didn't even know was lost: that is Ekko to me. His mini adventure in the parallel universe was adorable. Us getting to see what could've been alongside learning what matters most to Ekko, him getting a taste of a near perfect life and still choosing to return to his own time. That's why Ekko is the true hero of this story.

In terms of Jinx, I'll just say I'm not a hundred percent sure she's dead. The airship leaving at the end followed by her scribbled sign off, plus not getting a dead body shot. It was definitely left open ended. Her looking to do something good, to not mess up, alongside her fear of not wanting to try again because she is just tired of failure, of being a Jinx, was too real in many ways. I will go in depth on her at a later date.

Caitlyn's arc is going to be argued about, no question. It needed more time (see the start of this long post) to make her point of her anger burning away, of it not being sustainable, hit harder. I would have made her realize what her anger was doing to Vi, have Jinx point out that they really are acting the same in their treatment of Vi, and use the whole Ambessa was literally stoking the fires of her hatred to help fit what time they had left. Honestly just have Cait learn Ambessa was the one behind the memorial attack, that would be a much better way to explain her anger diminishing enough to look beyond her own hurt to realize and take account of her mistakes.

Vi, as usual, needed more screen time. Not necessarily because her story would've been helped by it like in act two, but just because I wanted her to have more time to enjoy her life. I went into act three with the sole hope that Vi would have a nice day, only for her to loose everything again. The only people she has left are Cait and Ekko, and god help anyone who tries something against those too now. Her ending being the chance to finally rest, to lean on someone else, was beautiful. She is my favorite character and please let her have only good things in the future, she was traumatized in almost every scene this season please-

Nobody tell Vi that in a universe where she died young everyone else ended up living. It would destroy her.

Vi and Cait relationship was great. I wouldn't say it was rushed in act three, because it felt like it was where it should be for a final batch of episodes, if that makes sense. It felt like the set up was Cait being genuinely remorseful and Vi just wanting someone in her life who wanted her in return. It helps that they have great chemistry and that when given the chance they fit so neatly together. I think Jinx encouraging Vi to be with Cait is what sold it to me. Jinx realizing how much Vi has given/sacrificed and giving her blessing for her sister to be happy with someone she disapproves of; not to mention Cait pulling the guards from their posts to give Vi the chance to actually meet Jinx in order to have that conversation. All in all, it comes down to Vi's "I don't care" because that's really all there is too it for them. Vi is done being miserable and Cait makes her happy, vice versa. Cait is someone Vi can rely on, Vi is someone Cait can find strength in.

Spitfire round:

Sevika being made a councilor

Every single one of Mel, Cait, and Jayce's designs were 10/10s

Vi not being given an actual uniform, just armor and the gloves

Jinx cutting her hair further to match Vi

Ekko getting his crystal sword/bats

Heimerdinger dying after living a life where he could make his city something to be proud of

I was fully expecting Vander and Silco to kiss in that one shot

Everything with Benzo

Loris' name being said

Vi humming the song and the song being their mother's lullaby

Viktor being held within the Herald

Sky leaving so Viktor was free to bring Jayce to his space mind palace

Caitlyn's rifle never surviving

Fishman McBlue being the only one of Cait's soldiers to stick to his guns and stay loyal

Sevika and Shoola side eyeing each other

Vander and little Vi and Powder with the bunny

The bunny being a passenger on Jinx's balloon

Singed's messed up family getting a happy ending

[scribefindegil]

Lorraine Baines McFly and Female Autonomy

Hello. I have spent the past month slowly losing my mind about Lorraine Baines McFly, Marty's mom in Back to the Future, so I am finally trying to articulate some of the reasons I'm so feral about her.

There's a quote from Lea Thompson, the actress who played Lorraine, that goes, "The three parts that women usually get to play are virgins, whores, and mothers, and in Back to the Future Part II, I got to play all three." While this is commentary on Hollywood and the limited roles that fictional women get forced into, I think it's also interesting to think about it in terms of how these roles are reflected onto actual women and used to limit their personhood and confine them to a very narrow range of acceptable behaviors . . . and then in turn to think about how the character interacts with these roles on a Watsonian level. They're affecting not just Lorraine the character as she was written, but Lorraine from an in-universe perspective trying to navigate life as a woman in a patriarchal world. Some of the sexism she faces is a deliberate narrative choice and some of it is a result of the writers' blind spots, but for the purpose of this essay I'm less interested in teasing out which threads are which and more in looking at it holistically.

Because the thing about Lorraine is that she's aware of what the acceptable roles and behaviors for women are, and the versions that we see of her across the various timelines alternately fight against and capitulate to these constraints. What is a woman allowed to be? How much is Lorraine willing to break from those restrictions? How much does she allow other women to break from them? Does she resent her role or embrace it? I have a lot of thoughts specifically about how the different iterations of her interact with concepts of female agency and autonomy.

(Putting this under a cut because it is. Long.)

I started thinking about this when I was talking with my partner about 50's Lorraine. She's extremely active and driven and planning to Get What She Wants (in a way that is very scary, if you are Marty) . . . but at the same time she's clearly aware that she isn't supposed to be. A Good Fifties Girl is demure and passive. Lorraine isn't--but she's still trying to toe the line. I think constantly about the scene where she shows up at Doc's garage to be like "I followed you home . . . so that I can ask you to ask me to the dance." The girl can embrace borderline stalking but she draws the line at directly asking a boy out! She's exercising a lot of agency but views doing so as rebellious and subversive--and risky.

And I also want to talk about the whole "boy crazy" thing because like . . . society (especially in the fifties) tells women that the most important thing they can possibly do is find a good man and become wives and mothers, that this will define the success or failure of their entire lives (and given how many things were unavailable to single women at the time this is in many ways true) . . . and then relentlessly mocks and punishes anyone who actually takes an interest in pursuing this instead of just sitting back passively and waiting. She is trying to do what society says will make her happy! And even her desire for a white knight is very much based in the reality of her situation! She's getting sexually harassed at school and around town and she's doing exactly what she's supposed to and standing up for herself and saying no and fighting back--and this is not enough. She does need backup! Biff harasses her in the middle of a crowded cafeteria and Marty is the ONLY person who does anything! No fucking wonder she latches onto him as hard as she does! (There's. I promise this is related but there's a BttF parody musical on YouTube where when Strickland comes to break up the lunchroom fight he says, "Now, I can excuse sexual harassment, but LIGHT SHOVING?" and like it's a haha funny joke but also?? Yeah?? That IS how it works. The way Lorraine's being treated is so overlooked and normalized that the authority figure isn't going to step up the way he will when it's a physical altercation between two guys. Screams.) I wonder if part of the reason she stuck with George in the original timeline even though they didn't have a lot in common is that "I have a boyfriend" is a boundary that some people might actually take seriously whereas "I'm not interested" is not.

But. In general 50's Lorraine is very much about grabbing as much agency as she feels she's allowed to . . . and then Twin Pines Lorraine is what happens when she regrets the result of those choices (because while we don't see it, it's pretty obvious that in the original timeline she pursued George as aggressively as she pursues Marty in the new one), and so she decides to deny, not just her own agency, but female agency as a general concept. She leans so heavily on the idea that her relationship was "meant to be" because it absolves her of any culpability in creating a life she's unhappy with. She's rewritten her own past to view herself as a passive participant in something inevitable. (Exactly the view of womanhood that she was fighting so hard against in the 50's!) And she extends this idea of female passivity to the women around her: telling Linda that she should sit back and wait and a relationship will "just happen," actively resenting Jennifer for doing something as simple as calling Marty on the phone. It's a really interesting form of internalized misogyny, perpetuating these sexist ideas as almost a misguided form of self-defense.

And then for Lone Pine Lorraine this is completely flipped! She loves Jennifer for the same reason she disliked her in Twin Pines: because she reminds Lorraine of her younger self. And like . . . this is something of an extrapolation, but while obviously her husband and kids are still very important to her, it also feels like she has interests and friends and other things going on in her life, whereas part of the isolation of Twin Pines is that her life has shrunk down to the point where she's ONLY a wife and mother with nothing else to define herself by. And it also matters that in this timeline she has a partner that supports her, not just in the big dramatic moments (although also that), but you can easily see the dance as a catalyst for George actually learning to listen to her and stand up for her about smaller things as well. George McFly feminism arc. (I'm being slightly facetious but like. George starts off kind of shitty. The spying is actively Bad and I hope Marty chewed him out for it offscreen, but also his reaction to the harassment scene being "I think there's someone else she'd rather go with," implying that he sees what Biff is doing as like. Normal flirting that he expects to work. He doesn't GET it. Unsurprising because he is. A teenage boy in the fifties. But I do believe that saving Lorraine was something of a wakeup call and after that he listened to her about things that make her uncomfortable and gave her the support that she needed. Which would also give her a lot more freedom in this timeline because she has someone with more societal power who has her back!)

And then. Hell Valley.

If Lone Pine is the version of Lorraine who has the most freedom, the most opportunities to make decisions based on what she wants instead of What Is Expected Of A Woman, Hell Valley is the opposite. The things denying her agency in Twin Pines is largely societal forces (and herself); in Hell Valley she is actively being denied autonomy by her evil husband who functions as the personification of a bunch of sexist ideas.

She's been objectified to the point that she doesn't maintain control over her own body; Biff pressures her to get cosmetic surgeries so she can continue to look attractive to him because that's the only value he sees in her. Her physical appearance is entirely tailored to his preferences.

Biff's view of Lorraine is wife-as-possession. He treats her like a prize he's won and her kids like parasites. And he is NOT subtle about this. But Lorraine is still desperately clinging to the idea that she's wife-as-family. She calls Biff "your father" to Marty when he arrives, and talks about "our children" because she wants so so badly for this to be something different than what it is. It's especially terrible because this is a timeline where she got seventeen years of being happy with George, she knows what she's missing, and she keeps trying to force this new relationship into a similar mold even though Biff is openly contemptuous of her and especially her kids. It's been twelve years and she's still trying to pretend. To call back to that Lea Thompson quote: it's obvious where Biff thinks Lorraine fits on the virgin-mother-whore axis, while Lorraine is actively trying to centralize her motherhood partially because the kids really are that important to her and partially as a defense mechanism.

(And it's also such a bleak cautionary tale about how fragile women's stability can be when they're dependent on their husbands; Lorraine was happy with George and had a fair amount of freedom, but he was the only one with an income so when he died she was suddenly forced into a truly horrific situation because she had no other means to support herself and her three young children. Especially given that the Hell Valley universe is also worse in some broader political ways that mean there were probably even fewer social supports available than in real life 1973)

And god. It kills me the way that we see her lash out, the way she's clawing for autonomy when she threatens to leave . . . and then exactly how Biff levels all his axes of control against her. It's very interesting that his first tactic is consumerist (Who will pay for all your things? Who will take care of you?) and that doesn't work even though not being able to support herself is a very real concern. It's only when he threatens her kids that she folds. And then she immediately crumples and pivots to rationalizing Biff's behavior and blaming herself for her own abuse (in a way that is both HEARTBREAKING and also? surprisingly sympathetic and realistic for an 80's movie?). It's similar to the passivity we see in Twin Pines, but here we see exactly where it comes from. She doesn't have any way out so she has to pretend. It's the only way she can keep going. She has these flashes of rage but they're immediately snuffed out by despair and denial.

There's not a lot of talk about Lorraine and what there is tends to reduce her to "well she's Marty's mom" as if she's a boring character who doesn't have a lot going on. But even though most of her role in the movies has to do with her relationships with the various men in her life, those relationships are really interesting if you actually pay attention to them! She's not just (in the 80's) a wife and mother--she's someone who has a complex relationship with marriage and motherhood and the societal expectations surrounding them. She's not just (in the 50's) a vapid boy-crazy girl--she's doing her best to go after what she wants in a world that doesn't want her to (the fact that one of the things she wants turns out to be her time-traveling son from the future is unfortunate but not something she has any way of knowing!). She's stuck in a society that doesn't want women to be people, and she knows this, and because we see her across two different time periods and three different timelines you can watch how sometimes society grinds her down until she gives in and tries not to be a person. And also how, sometimes, she fights back.

[zara-renata]

And everything that is now already existed then | ao3 | masterlist

Summary: Sylus shows you his favorite parts of his house, you are haunted by a strange feeling of familiarity, you spend some time with the twins and Noah, you learn about the bet they have going, no this is not a wattpad bet story that will be turned into a multi-part tv series even though i love that trope so much, the self control i exerted should be acknowledged if not praised. This part has less humor than other parts, I've been in a contemplative mood recently, sorry. Part 17 of the Sylus series.

Notes: Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Sylus POV. They/them pronouns are used to refer to reader as a placeholder for your preferred pronouns. The slowest of slow burns friends-to-lovers. This story contains: angst, fluff, banter, poetry, questions of morality, video game violence, discussions of real life violence, profanity, alcohol mention, self-harm mention, mc with self-esteem and guilt issues.

The water is warm. The man underneath you is warm. Your heart, you realize, is also warm. Quiet. Nothing hurts. You marvel at the feeling. How long can you get away with this? Plastered against Sylus’s big body, his rough hands just resting on your back. You feel guilty for keeping him from doing something else. For not being at work. For doing absolutely nothing useful to anyone. For feeling so good.

Sylus holds you, seemingly content to just sit here with you as the water laps against the sides of the pool.

“Don’t you have business to attend to?” you reluctantly ask, because you’re incapable of just trusting that good things can last. That the fulfillment of your deepest desires won’t be snatched away when you least expect it, so you push, push, push, seeking the weakness that will ultimately crack and cause the moment, finally filled, to break.

Sylus holds you a little tighter. “No.”

You wait, but he doesn’t elaborate. You should just accept it. Just enjoy this moment. All you have in this life is each moment—that’s all there is. Why can’t you just experience each one, savor it, suck it dry, until the next? Why must you always waste the pleasure of each moment by being in such a rush to get to the inevitable end?

But you can’t just accept it. You don’t know how. Your whole life has taught you that the moment you trust the permanence is the moment that the moment shatters. Might as well ruin it first, instead of fearing the end. And who are you to complain? What have you done to deserve it in the first place?

“Business slow in the Onychinus economy?” you ask.

“Tch,” he responds, seemingly indignant at the mere suggestion that his business isn’t printing him money even as he canoodles in a hot tub with you. “Business is booming, darling. The human capacity for cruelty is an endlessly growing market.”

You press your cheek harder against the sweaty skin just under his collarbone. You don’t want to think about what he offers people to enable that endless cruelty right now.

“Then how do you have the luxury of lazing about with me?”

“I’ve tasked Aidan with handling business that requires executive decisions for the foreseeable future. As much as it annoys me, I will likely have to answer calls like this morning, but I’ve informed him that I will not be leaving the base unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

You lift your head, curious. He looks down at you, relaxed, eyes glowing in the low light from the pool.

“Why?”

One corner of his beautiful mouth lifts. “Guess.”

You stare at him. He’s taking time off, not pursuing new deals, not focusing on growing his wealth… for you? Ridiculous. 

“What will you do while you’re not doing business?” you ask, not able to bring yourself to guess out loud that he took time off for you, to spend time with you while you’re staying with him.

“What do you want to do?” He runs his fingers along your temple, brushes a lock of hair behind your ear, traces the shell of it with a fingertip.

“That’s not an answer,” you say, softly.

“Yes, it is.”

You can’t believe it. The man who is always on the go, from one deal to the next, disappearing for weeks at a time, doing who knows what, who knows where—the man who probably gets bored out of his mind while instigating a riot—says that he just wants to do whatever you want to do. You, whose idea of excitement is a new pair of sleep pants and a night off to watch let’s plays of horror games that you don’t have the time and energy to play yourself anymore.

“You can’t mean that.” You frown at him.

“Try me,” he challenges.

You try to think of something that he’d hate just to prove your point that he doesn't actually mean it when he says he’ll do whatever you want.

“Oh, kitten’s plotting,” he snickers after seeing your expression.

“I want to watch every Justin Bieber documentary ever produced,” you say defiantly. You really don’t. But you’re sure he’ll balk at this outrageous suggestion.

He shrugs a little. “Okay. We can see if they’re on demand in the theater room. If not, I’m sure we can pirate them.”

You narrow your eyes. He can’t mean it. Fuck, if he’s going to call your bluff, you’re going to have to actually sit through who knows how many hours of Justin Bieber: Our World. You barely suppress a shudder.

“Actually, I want to fly to a warm seaside resort and swim with dolphins,” you try, the picture of casual entitlement. You do not want to do this. You’re fucking tired. The last thing you want to do is get on an airplane.

“Dolphins can be as vicious as humans, but if you really want that, we can pack some things now and be on our way by dinner,” he says calmly. As if the suggestion isn’t utterly outrageous.

Is he being as petty as you, intent on not admitting that he didn’t actually mean it when he said he would do whatever you want, or does he actually want to do whatever the fuck you want? You can’t read him at all right now.

You’re desperate and stubborn. “Actually, I think the amusement park in Linkon City is having a furry event all week. I’d like to dress up as our respective fursonas and ride the roller coasters all day.” 

Sylus doesn’t even blink. “Do you have a fursuit already, or do we need one tailored before we can go?”

You laugh in disbelief and rest your forehead on his shoulder. “What about you? Do you have a fursuit already?”

“No, I don’t have a fursuit, because I’m not a fucking furry,” he says drily.  “But I do think I’d make a very majestic caracal cat. Which goes nicely with your kitten fursona.”

You blink. “That's quite self-aware of you." And then you scowl. "My fursona wouldn’t be as lame as a kitten.”

“Oh? What animal do you think accurately portrays your personality?”

You lift your head and think. You’ve never really thought about it. Something small and mean, probably. “A mongoose.”

He tilts his head, considering. “That actually fits you quite well. Good at hunting snakes, and very, very cute.”

You can feel yourself blushing. “Yeah, well. I’m not a furry, so it doesn’t matter even if it doesn’t fit,” you mumble a little.

“And yet you want to go to the furry event at the amusement park,” he lifts an eyebrow. 

You stare at him, mulishly. You’re not going to admit that you’re trying to poke holes in his patience because you can’t trust nice things.

“But I don’t think that’s what you actually want to do,” he continues, with a gentleness that hurts your heart. He urges you to wrap your legs around his waist. “When I said you could test me, this is not exactly what I had in mind,” he teases. “How about you test me by telling me what you actually want to do, and then you’ll see that I mean what I say when I refrain from complaining about being bored while we do them?”

You wrap your arms around his neck as he stands gracefully, the water sliding down both your bodies. “I don’t want you to just not complain about being bored,” you argue. “I don’t want you to be bored at all. You don’t have to entertain me while I’m here. You can do whatever you really want to do.” You mean this. It’s enough, just being in the same house as him right now. Knowing that in the evening he’ll end up in the same bed as you. You don’t want him to tire of you too quickly by insisting that he spend every moment with you.

“Then I repeat—what do you want to do?”

Okay. Okay, he asked for it.

“Show me your favorite things to do at home, when you’re not being a warlord.”

He looks surprised. “That’s it?”

“Yeah. I’m really tired. I never get a chance to just relax. I don’t want to go anywhere, or do anything exciting.” You bite your lip, unwilling to admit that you’re desperate to learn more about him and that worried he’s going to think you’re boring. 

He leans forward and catches the side of your lip not caught in your own teeth with his. With your lip between his sharp teeth, he pulls back, gently, until you release it from your own. He pauses, inhales, and then lets go, licking your bitten lip with a quick, soothing flick of his tongue.

“That’s my spot,” he murmurs, pulling back.

Your brain is offline. You have no idea what you were just talking about, or what just happened. All you can feel is the slick of his saliva on the plush of your lip.

Fuck.

You want to fuck him so badly.

You search his face. Can he tell? Does he feel the same way? He touches you like this, and then does nothing. What does he want?

If he can tell what’s going on in your head, he doesn’t comment on it. “Then we can stay home. I’ll show you what I like to do when I’m tired and don’t want to do anything exciting.” His faint smile is tinged with self satisfaction.

“Okay,” you choke out. You will not slide down his body, push him onto the soft moss, and jump on him. 

“But first, I will feed you.” The tendrils of his evol bring the fluffy towels to his waiting hand, and he wraps one around you, all while you cling to his torso. He just drapes the other around his shoulders, over your arms still wrapped around his neck. His evol then ferries the two cocktails that remained untouched for the whole time you were in the hot tub, following you back through the pool room and into the chill hallway as Sylus carries you to the kitchen. Between the heat of Sylus’s body and the towels blanketing you, you’re still warm. You watch the drinks following you over his shoulder, and then glance at him.

At your look, he says, “What? It would be a shame to let perfectly good drinks go to waste.”

“What time is it? Don’t you think it’s a bit early to start drinking?”

He shrugs. “It’s probably past midnight, sweetheart. That’s when one normally drinks alcoholic beverages, isn’t it?”

You sigh. “So it’s basically noon in your day-night cycle.”

“Time is a construct, and inherently meaningless,” he says serenely.

After this insufferable response, you give up trying to save his liver for the moment.

____________________

Later, after Sylus serves you a meal packed with protein that pairs nicely with the cocktails as the fire crackles pleasantly and the clouds, reflecting the N109 Zone’s bright lights even at night, sweep across the sky outside his kitchen windows, after you’ve showered and put on warm, comfortable clothes, you find him in the sitting area of his bedroom, reading a book, the Beatles playing on his record player. You recognize the song— The long and winding road. 

You stop, suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of sorrow. He looks up from his book and watches you curiously.

You left me standing here, a long long time ago

You feel like you’re forgetting something very, very important. Like your dream last night, but not about your family. About the man watching you inquisitively, his long, graceful fingers holding the book gently, the outline of his aquiline nose limned in the soft lighting of his bedroom.

Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door

You suddenly can’t bear to be separated from him for one more second. You pad to him on your freshly bandaged feet, knock the book out of his hand, clamber into his lap, and hug him.

His arms come around you as if he doesn’t mind that you’ve just bulldozed your way onto his lap. After a few minutes, the song ends, and a new, more upbeat one begins.

You feel like you can breathe again.

You sit up, looking down into his face. You want to kiss him so badly. You’re afraid that he’ll gently push you away, as he pushed your hand away from the tie of his sleep pants that you were fiddling with recently. With such kindness, but a loud, resounding rejection of what he perceived to be you offering your body to him.

He’ll bite your lip, but you’re so scared that he doesn’t want to kiss you. Sometimes it seems like he wants you, you, not just a body, not just anyone praising him or challenging him, but you. Do you really still not know? My beloved is perfect to me.  

But what if you’re wrong? What have you done to earn this incredible man's devotion?

“Will you tell me what you’re thinking right now, without the guessing game?” he asks softly. 

You shake your head. “No. And I don’t want to play the guessing game right now.” You can’t bear to think about what you may be forgetting as you look into his blood-bright eyes. You can’t bear to reveal how badly you want to kiss him, only to be rebuffed.

“Not even a hint?” He nudges your nose with his. “Otherwise I’ll spend every free moment sitting around reading, listening to classic rock music.”

You look at him in confusion. “Why?”

“It seemed to work in luring a kitten into my lap this time. Maybe it works every time.”

Your heart is doing something funny. It doesn’t hurt. It feels… it feels so fucking warm. Like in the hot tub. What is happening to you? 

“The music made me sad,” you offer this truth, as a reward for his sweet response.

“Not a fan of the Beatles?” He fiddles with the hem of your shirt, his knuckles brushing against your skin underneath.

“I do like their music. My gran used to listen to them a lot.”

“Is that what made you sad?”

You give him a look. “I said I didn’t want to play the guessing game.”

“I’m just asking questions,” he protests, the picture of innocence. “Is it a crime to want to get to know you?”

You gaze at him. Weren’t you just thinking about how you’re desperate to know everything about him? “Not one I’d arrest you for,” you say, looking down, smiling a little.

He laughs softly. “Lucky me. It would be hard to uphold my end of our deal and show you the music room, the library, and my favorite part of the greenhouse from behind bars.”

“That sounds like a busy itinerary,” you say, lifting a finger, tracing his clavicle revealed by his soft v-neck sweater.

His knuckles sweep over your skin just above the band of your soft pants.

“We have time—we don’t have to do everything today. Which one do you want to see first?”

You don’t care. Your heart is being weird and Sylus is touching you, and you’re touching Sylus. You could just sit here, forever, and enjoy whatever this… feeling is. But you’re afraid you’ll ruin it. Like you always do. If you take too much, he will actually get bored. You should pick one.

“Library,” you say firmly.

“As you wish,” he says, standing, holding you all the while. You can’t bring yourself to protest. You can walk on your own feet. Your feet already feel a little better after just a day. But he’s warm. And he doesn’t seem to mind at all. You drape yourself over him, and let him carry you through the dark halls to his library.

He sets you down outside one of the ubiquitous black doors, and then opens it for you. 

His library, like the greenhouse, the pool, the room like a mountain hot spring, is lovely in a way that the rest of his house simply isn’t. Soaring ceilings, heavy built-in wooden bookcases lining the walls, a huge fireplace, electric as opposed to the wood-fireplace from the kitchen, at one end of the room. A wrought iron spiraling staircase leads up beyond the heavy wooden rafter beams to a space you can’t see. Deep red, plush rugs in antique designs hush your footsteps. Plush, deep seated chairs and loveseats, side tables with Tiffany lamps gently illuminate the space. One wall of his preferred floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the N109 Zone night, the red moon bright in the sky as the clouds scuttle past. 

It’s like a library from an old, prestigious university. The kind of university you always wished you could have gone to, if you lived in another world. If this world didn’t need people prepared to kill and die for existential threats to humanity. Where you could study something functionally useless, but enriching to the human experience. Like French literature or poetry. The room smells of wood oil, old paper. 

You turn in a circle and find Sylus leaning against a bookcase, watching you take in the room. “This is one of your favorite spots in the house?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s quiet. The twins aren’t big readers, so they don’t come in here. It’s a good place to think, and concentrate.”

“Have you read every book in here, like you’ve seen every film in your collection?”

He straightens from the bookcase and walks to you. As he comes to a stop in front of you, he reaches for your face, holds your cheeks gently in his hands. “No. This room is more about the future. Books I’d like to read when life is a little less busy. I’ve read some, but not as many as I would like.”

“Do you think that someday your life will be less busy?”

“If I have my way, yes.”

“And you’ll spend your days quietly reading in the solitude of your lovely library?”

“Not in solitude. But yes. You think it’s lovely?”

You look at him strangely. Didn't he just say he enjoys it because it's quiet and no one bothers him here? “Of course I do. It’s like someone designed it just for me.”

He looks down into your face, thumbs brushing across your cheekbones.

“Like I said. This room is about the future.”

You tilt your head at his non-sequitur. What does your loving the library have to do with his quieter future?

It almost sounds like…

The moment is full. You refuse to shatter it by considering such outrageous thoughts. You will enjoy this moment for what it is. A peek into the mind of this enigmatic man. The opportunity to explore a beautiful, private space in his home.

“Read to me,” he orders, striding to one of the soft couches and plopping down.

You snort. “What do you want me to read you, your spoiled highness?”

“Anything you want. Look around, pick something that catches your interest.” He lets his head drop onto the back of the couch, eyes half-lidded as they follow you walking to one of the bookcases, as you let your fingertips run along the spines of book after book. You see a lot of titles you don’t recognize. You see a lot that you do—classics as well as newer publications. You and Xavier spend enough time in the bookstore that you know a lot of titles by sight, even if these days you rarely have the time to read beyond the manga you share with your partner.

Your eyes catch on a familiar title.

“Oh,” you breathe.

“Find something?” Sylus asks languidly.

“One of my favorite poets. Gran had a copy of this.” You pluck the book from the shelf and walk back over to where Sylus is sprawled on the couch. The moonlight through the windows makes his eyes look even brighter than usual, glowing in the soft light.

“You’re a fan of poetry?” he asks, eyebrows lifting.

“Don’t act so surprised. I’m not entirely uncultured.”

“Your manga collection could have fooled me,” he teases.

“Manga is art. You’re a pretentious fool if you can’t recognize that.”

“No need to get your knives out, kitten,” he smiles, one sharp tooth peeking from behind his full lip. “I have a collection of manga here as well.”

“You do?”

He just steadily stares at you.

“Where?”

He closes his eyes. “Guess you’ll have to stay long enough to explore and find it.”

You stand over him, drinking in the sight of him. Surrounded by the scent of books, polished wood, the moon’s red light rendering him slightly otherworldly.

You want to stay long enough to find out. It’s only been two days, and you want to live in this moment forever. You're so greedy. You're so unworthy.

“Still want me to read to you?”

Instead of answering, the tendrils of his evol wind up from your ankles to your waist, lift you, deposit you on the seat next to him. He scoots down, places his head in your lap.

“You could have just said yes,” you say drily. “No need to be dramatic.”

“I don’t hear any reading. Chop chop.”

Oh hell no. You scowl down at him, but his eyes are closed. “Lap service costs extra.”

“Good thing I’m filthy rich.”

You scoff. “I don’t want your money.”

He opens his eyes. “I suspected as much. It makes taming you all the more difficult.”

You look at him curiously. “Is that what you’re doing? All of your generosity, in order to acquire a tame hunter?”

“What use is a tame hunter?” He dismisses your suggestion. “Your imagination is distressingly limited.”

“Once again, I disappoint,” you murmur. He clearly isn’t in the mood to answer your questions.

He tsks and closes his eyes again, wiggles a little to get more comfortable in your lap. “Make up for it by reading your favorite poetry to me.”

You want to lean down and kiss the smug look off of his face. You don’t want him to turn away if you do.

You begin to read.

“Try to praise the mutilated world.

Remember June's long days,

and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.”

He interrupts you. “I see why you like Zagajewski. Someone else who shares your taste in middling wine.”

“No comments until the end, thank you,” you jostle his head by bouncing your thigh a few times.

He scowls, places one big hand on your thigh and presses down. “Stingy. This should be interactive storytelling.”

You ignore the howling need in you to grab his hand, to guide it further up your leg. You continue to read.

“The nettles that methodically overgrow

the abandoned homesteads of exiles.

You must praise the mutilated world.

You suddenly think of the N109 Zone and all of its misery. Paying the price of some shitty corporation’s greed. But you keep reading.

You watched the stylish yachts and ships;

one of them had a long trip ahead of it,

while salty oblivion awaited others.”

You pause, thinking about Sylus’s wealth, the wealth of people like him, and everyone else. The yachts, versus the ships that will sink.

“That’s not the end. Why have you stopped?” Sylus's voice jerks you out of your thoughts.

“You know this poem?”

“I own the book, don’t I?”

“You said you hadn’t read everything in here.”

“Point,” he concedes. “But yes, I know this poem. I’m also an admirer of the poet.”

You think about him calling you kindred spirits, when you first met. How angry that idea made you. Now, you want to lean down and kiss him. You shake your head a little. You keep reading.

“You've seen the refugees going nowhere,

you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.

You should praise the mutilated world.

Remember the moments when we were together

in a white room and the curtain fluttered.”

Sylus interrupts you again. “I always liked the imagery of the moments spent together, the simplicity of the white room, the curtain fluttering. What more can one desire, when at their love’s side?”

You don't think you've ever heard him say something so romantic. But why would you have? You're not in a romantic relationship with him. Your heart doesn't seem to understand that fact—something inside you thrills that his idea of romance mirrors yours so closely. But his focus on the gentle moment, instead of the rest of the poem, strikes you as strange. “That’s what you see? Not the lovers enjoying simplicity, safety, while the refugees are going nowhere, and the executioners are singing joyfully?”

“The point of the poem is that you must wrest joy from an imperfect world where you can. You’re not helping the condemned by moping about their fate.”

“Is that the point? Perhaps the point is that all you can do is try to praise the mutilated world, but it’s fruitless. If that were the point, he would have entitled it 'Praise the mutilated world,' not 'Try to praise the mutilated world.' ‘Trying’ isn’t succeeding—try all you want, but it’s impossible to praise the world as it is. Better to use your yacht to save those drowning in the salty oblivion.”

“Idealist,” Sylus scoffs, as if the label is a profanity instead of a compliment.

You jostle his head again. “Cynic,” you retort.

“You’re not done,” he sniffs, closing his eyes again.

You resist the urge to buck your hips in order to dump him on the floor. You read again.

“Return in thought to the concert where music flared.

You gathered acorns in the park in autumn

and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.

Praise the mutilated world

and the gray feather a thrush lost,

and the gentle light that strays and vanishes

and returns.”

You finish, filled with a strange feeling. You’ve loved this poem ever since the first time you read it with the sunshine gushing into your gran’s living room on a slow summer day. As you grew, you loved it for different reasons, for its ambiguity, its hope and its resignation, its acknowledgment of the horrors of life and its simple pleasures. It always felt familiar to you, but the specific imagery reading it this time around is familiar in a way that feels concrete. 

You think about the gray feather, the light that strays and vanishes and returns. You think about the feeling while listening to the Beatles, that you’re forgetting something important. You think about Sylus’s casual dismissal of the suffering of others.

Calling suffering fate seems like a convenient excuse to you. Why bother trying to make the world better, if fate deems that it should be miserable?

You think about sipping the rosé, biting the strawberry Sylus offered you. Your curtains fluttering in the breeze in your room, when Sylus has come to your place at night. These things you have enjoyed, as people suffer beyond the safety of your apartment and Sylus’s fortress walls. 

“Stop torturing yourself, darling,” he says through your racing thoughts. He turns his head, presses his lips against your thigh, inhales deeply. It’s not a kiss, but you feel the press of his mouth through the fabric of your pants as if it were. You resist the urge to spread your thighs further.

“Should I read another?” you ask quietly. You don’t want to think about these things. You want to live in the moment. What kind of person does that make you? The desire to ignore the cost of this pleasure, your enjoyment of Sylus's home, proves that you don’t deserve it. 

“Of course,” he says, but his phone vibrates in his pocket. He grunts unhappily as he reluctantly sits up, sliding the phone from his pocket. “Keep exploring,” he says, heading to the door. “I’ll try to make this quick.”

So you do. Wandering amongst the books, finding other titles that are your favorites, but so many that you’ve never read, never heard of. Many of them are not in your native language. You wonder how many languages Sylus speaks.

After a surprisingly short amount of time, he returns. "Read more to me," he orders, sprawling on the couch once more.

You look back at him, admiring the wrought-iron staircase spiraling up, the moon through the windows, his long, strong body casually stretched along the couch.

“Can we light the fire?”

“Of course. Fire," he says, and the fireplace flares to life at his command. You wonder if such a system is in place in each room. You wander back to the couch, and he pulls you down. You read him the rest of the poems from this collection, arguing here and there, learning his favorite parts, both matching and diverging from your own. Until your stomach growls, causing him to nuzzle it, insist on taking you to the kitchen and feeding you another meal. After you're once again full, he offers to show you the conservatory.

“Okay,” you say, relaxed, satisfied. He wraps his arms around you, lifts. You let him, wrapping your legs around his waist. You think about a gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns. What are you forgetting?

He takes you to the music room. It’s behind another black door. You would never be able to guess, walking through his solemn hallways, each expansive room unfolding behind each uniform door.

As you walk into the beautiful space, you’re struck with the realization that Sylus’s home is strange in many ways, and not just because it serves as both his home and his fortress, an armory and an indoor playground. The halls are winding and despite the height of the ceilings on each floor, they’re oppressive. There is no open floor plan for the house itself. Each room’s door can be closed, barricaded, turning the room within into a bunker. But behind each door, each room fans out, soaring windows, high ceilings, glass giving way to a savage view of the harsh landscape in a way that renders even the ugliness of the N109 Zone beautiful in a stark, barren-planet kind of way. You suspect that the glass is bullet-proof. You wonder what kind of impacts it can withstand beyond firearms. Could it survive a thrown grenade? A direct strike from a drone? Would anyone dare actually wage a full-on assault on the leader of Onychinus’s home?

“Not even the greenhouse rendered you speechless, kitten. Does that mean you like it, or hate it?”

You blink. You had been so busy wondering about the strategic choices of Sylus’s architectural design that you hadn’t even begun admiring the metal support beams, curling like vines in a distinct art nouveau style between multiple panes of glass, each meeting at the pinnacle of a glass ceiling. Two of the larger glass panes are not the standard window glass, but are stained glass, continuing the art nouveau theme, depicting colorful curls of plants, flowers, as well as animals—beasts from mythology, dragons, phoenixes, winged chimeras. Luscious potted plants scattered along the white marble floor. A white grand piano sitting in the center of the circular space. Instruments of all kinds, from all parts of the world, hung or resting on more organically wrought metal display mounts along two-thirds of the glass walls. A seating area, filled with comfortable, low furniture, carved blond wood in flowing, plant-like designs, sits between the piano and the view of the landscape through the clear glass, framed by the murals of stained glass.

It’s breathtaking. But you’ve had your breath taken by the greenhouse, the pool, the room with the hot tub, the library. Each in a distinctly different style from the rooms of the house that see daily use by their owner: Sylus’s bedroom. The kitchen. The hallways. The imposing dining room and its equally imposing banquet table. The cave-like theater room. Each dark—black marble, maroon accents, deeply masculine, modern, abstract art. But the rooms that have taken your breath instead of making you feel oppressed are so startlingly different from Sylus’s often-used spaces.

You can’t accept the moment. You can’t stand not knowing, even as you are afraid to know. You have to ask. “I don’t understand,” you say, turning to him.

He glances around the room, and then looks back at you. “It’s a home conservatory, sweetheart. Not a trick question.”

You ignore him. Your curiosity will eat you alive if you don’t ask him. You want to know. You don’t want to know. “Why does it feel like two different people designed your house?”

His eyebrows lift in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Half of your house is edgy, big-dick rich vampire man-cave, and half is this,” you sweep an arm to indicate the delicate yet sturdy steel beams, organically curving into the height of the room, the chairs carved like palms, stained glass, the lush vegetation.

“Can one person not appreciate more than one style of home decor?” he asks, walking over to you, winding an arm around your waist.

You stare at him. Nothing Sylus does is by accident. You know this much by now. You know a lot about him by now. You don’t know enough about him by now.

“The parts of the house you spend the most time in reflect your style. But the other parts… the parts that wait for an owner that rarely comes. Did you choose the design yourself? Or did you let your architect run wild?”

His smile is faint as he gazes down at you. “How very observant of you, darling. But I designed every room in this house. The architect modified the plans where necessary to ensure the structural integrity was sound, but I chose the decor.”

You wait. It sounded like he ended that sentence with a ‘but.’

“You’re right. I didn’t have just my preferences in mind as I was planning each room.”

You want to know. You don’t want to know. What if you’re wrong? The very idea is insane. Presumptuous. How could he possibly know? You only met him a few months ago. This base isn’t newly built. You have no idea how long I’ve already waited, his voice whispers through your mind.

“Whose preferences did you have in mind?” you ask, your heart doing that thing again. That weird thing that doesn’t hurt but scares you with how good it feels. Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door.

His smile widens, just a little. “Do you really not know?”

You can’t process this. How could he have known?

It’s like these oases in his dark fortress of a home were designed with your deepest heart’s desires in mind. 

You want to kiss him. You want to resonate with him again. You want to drop to your knees in front of him.

The enormity of your feelings is terrifying.

What if you’re wrong?

How much worse will it be, if you let yourself believe, and he turns you away. What if he designed all of this for someone else. Because how could he have known, before you met just a few months ago—how could he have known the contours of your tastes, the things that make you most comfortable, the yearning of your heart in your small apartment, of what you’d give yourself if you could ever afford to make your home exactly how you would want? A refuge from the harsh world. Space to breathe.

Your feelings are choking you. You step away from his embrace, turn. You have time. He said he’ll wait. You focus on this room.

It’s beautiful. Because of course it is. You don’t recognize even half of these instruments.

You turn back to him. He has moved to the piano, straddling the white bench, legs spread, just watching you.

“Do you know how to play all of these?”

He shakes his head. “No. Most of these are collector’s items, antiques. But I do know how to play the piano.”

You stand, resisting the constant pull towards him. You want to go to him, run your hands through his hair, tug his head back, expose his throat, bite.

“Only the piano?” You satisfy your need to move by walking over to the sitting area, forcing yourself to sit away from him. You need to control yourself. You plop down on one of the beautiful chairs, carved like a ginkgo leaf.

He turns, sitting properly on the bench in order to face you, and opens the cover over the piano keys. He leisurely presses down on one key, and the note resounds through the lovely room.

“I can also play the organ,” he murmurs, before beginning to play in earnest.

You don’t recognize the piece. You know you’ve never heard it before. But the longer he plays, the more you’re overcome with the sense that you know it. The blood under your skin, your lungs, your bones—you feel pulled to him, to his long fingers sweeping over the keys, unseen from your vantage point in the room. You know what’s coming, the crescendos and the pauses. It’s beautiful. It hurts. Your thoughts drift to the poem. Its strawberries, its rosé wine. Its familiarity. Return in thought to the concert where the music flared. You want to ask Sylus if he owns a yacht. You’re convinced that there will be a park, and acorns, and you will pick them up and offer them to him on a sunny summer morning after a long, long night. It has already happened. It will happen in the future.

You can’t resist the pull any longer. You stand and walk over to him, stand next to him at the bench. His hands hypnotize you. Big. Rough. Delicately pressing the keys—sure, confident, flowing. Like his evol. Like him.

“Sit,” he orders, and you obey, sliding in next to him. You try to give him space, but he takes one hand, still playing with the other, and pulls you by the waist until you’re shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. 

You watch his hands, lost in the moment, lost in the feeling of recognition, of … something. That warm feeling in your heart, threaded with the pain of having lost something that you can’t remember.

Slowly, the piece comes to an end. His hands become still on the keys.

“What song was that?” you ask.

He flicks his eyes to yours.

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“Who composed it?” You hope that perhaps you can track it down later and listen to it again when Sylus isn’t around.

“Me,” he says, turning his head to look at you.

Wait, what?

“It’s already shocking enough that you play, but when do you have the time to compose?”

He lifts one of your hands and threads his fingers with yours. “Why so shocked that I have hobbies, like anyone else?”

“I just figured you’re always too busy with murder, mayhem, and munitions to have hobbies like a normal person,” you squeeze his hand as it swallows yours.

“I don’t have a lot of free time, but when I do, I like to spend some of it practicing and composing. Sometimes when I’m bored during business meetings I compose a little in my head and then write it out when I get home.” 

At your incredulous look, he flicks your forehead gently with his free hand. “What would you have guessed that I spend my free time doing if it occurred to you that I do not, in fact, work in every waking moment?”

You consider it. “I would have assumed you spend all your free time hanging out in your shady nightclubs.”

He frowns at you. “I own classy nightclubs because they make me money and provide convenient venues for business deals now that I no longer host such deals in my own home. I do not spend any more time in them than necessary.”

“Is that what you meant when you said that Amnesia isn’t really your vibe?”

“You remember,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised. 

“Even though it feels like weeks ago, you did just tell me that like, two nights ago,” you flick his forehead in revenge.

“Fair point,” he concedes. “All right, then, yes. That’s what I meant.”

“So what is your vibe?”

“Curious, kitten?”

“Yes.” That warm feeling you have is overriding your fears of admitting this to him. You want to know him. You want to know everything about him.

“It’s easier to show you my vibe,” he shrugs. “We’ll make a date of it.”

He dropped the “fake” part again.

His phone begins to vibrate in his jeans pocket again.

He frowns in irritation. You stand, forcing yourself to move away from him.

“I’ll entertain myself,” you smile at his questioning look. He holds onto your hand as you move away, until your arm and his are stretched between you, and then he lets go.

You’re thankful for the interruption. Too much unadulterated time being the subject of Sylus’s entire focus makes you think insane things. Like that he designed parts of his house with you in mind. That you know music that you’ve never heard before. That you’re forgetting something important about him, even though you only met him recently. That a poem you read in your youth is a roadmap of things that have already happened between you and the man pacing behind the door, and what will happen before the light strays, vanishes… returns again.

You step into the hallway and wander back toward the kitchen. After a few minutes, you hear the flap of Mephisto’s wings. He’s keeping you company again. You keep walking.

You’re distracted halfway to the kitchen, however, when you hear voices coming from the theater room. It sounds like the twins, and someone else whose voice is familiar, but you can’t pinpoint it. You knock.

“No need to knock,” one of the twins yells.

You open the door and peek into the room. It’s dark, with all the lights dimmed.

On the large screen where you almost watched a movie with Sylus the other night, a video game is playing.

Luke sits on one of the loveseats, holding a game controller, while Kieran is squished onto the same small loveseat with him, their two big bodies barely fitting, hiding his face in Luke’s shoulder.

Noah is sprawled out on another loveseat, perfectly at ease. She gives you a lazy wave.

Luke pauses the game and looks over his shoulder at you.

“Boss busy?” he asks as Kieran lifts his head, a look of relief on his face at the interruption.

“Business call,” you say, nodding. You stare at the screen. It looks like…

“Are you playing the Silent Hill 2 remake?” you squeal.

“Yeah! Since boss is on a little holiday, he gave us the time off as well. Figured we’d finally play it.”

“Are you a fan of the original?” Kieran asks.

You nod. “Huge fan. I was so excited when they announced the remake, but I’ve been too busy with work to play it.”

“Wanna join? Kieran is too scared to look half the time. We can take turns, if you want,” Luke offers, sounding pleased to have another person to share the game with.

You seriously consider his offer, but you’re still so tired. You don’t really want to learn the controls mid-way through a playthrough. Weren’t you just thinking about watching let’s plays of horror games you haven’t had a chance to play yet? You can watch Luke play without having to do a thing.

“I’m good, but do you mind if I stay and just watch until Sylus is done?”

“Is that even a question? Get in here.”

Luke unpauses the game, and the familiar sounds of the world of Silent Hill, with amazing, updated graphics fills your vision. You slink inside the room and sit on another love seat, preferring to give Noah her space since she’s sprawled out like she already owns the place.

You watch as Kieran hides his face in Luke's shoulder again as a lying figure jerkily lumbers towards James Sunderland.

Apparently Noah notices Kieran’s fear as well.

“Aren’t you one of the feared Raptors of Onychinus? Like, you’re famous in the Zone. How can the same person who is known for intentionally leaving mutilated corpses in public as warnings to your boss’s enemies be afraid of video game monsters?”

You turn and stare at the twins, a little horrified. Not entirely surprised, because you know what kind of man Sylus is. You know what his organization stands for. But mutilated dead bodies? Where normal people just trying to get through their shitty workday, where kids can see them?

“That’s fucked up,” you say out loud.

“Hey, you’re a fucking cop. We know what cops are capable of,” Kieran says softly, with a flatness in his tone you’ve never heard before. Noah looks between you and Kieran like she wishes she has popcorn. “Don’t act like what you sometimes do is any better than our calling card.” Luke kills a monster shaped like two shapely pairs of legs attached at the waist with a metal pipe, and it dies loudly. He stomps on it for good measure. “At least we’re honest about it, and don’t hide behind a shield of so-called legitimacy. People know what they’re getting when they deal with us.”

You look at Kieran thoughtfully. It’s difficult to admit, but he has a point. You know that there are corrupt hunters. The so-called Tenebrae. You also recognize that dark part of yourself, when you’re faced with someone who you know has done terrible things, and the itch to pull the trigger before you can bring them in. You know that innocent people suffer at the hands of criminals and law enforcement alike.

Kieran stares steadily back at you, his normally cheerful face serious. “How did you come to work for Sylus?” you ask.

Luke pauses the game. “We don’t talk about that,” he says in the same flat tone that his brother just spoke in.

“Oh?” you say, because you don’t want to continue to pry, and you don’t know what else to say.

“Boss says it doesn’t matter where we come from. Only where we’re going. So there’s no use talking about the past if we don’t want to.”

“And you don’t want to?” Noah asks, the look of entertainment morphing into something else on her face.

The twins shake their heads in unison.

You think she’s going to say something snarky, but she just nods. “Then you shouldn’t. No one is entitled to your story.”

“That’s what boss says. I see why he hired you now,” Kieran says, smiling at her, the odd stillness broken.

“He hired me because I’m fucking awesome,” Noah sniffs, flicking her braids behind her shoulder. They’re down now, spilling over her back.

You tilt your head. “Are you a new hire?” For some reason you thought that Noah had been Sylus’s driver for a long time.

“Did he not tell you?” she asks, looking at you strangely.

“Tell me what?”

“I’m not gonna do his work for him,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she smiles at you, and it’s unnerving instead of soothing. “Anyway, yeah I’m a new hire. You’re gonna be seeing a lot of me in the future.”

Although Kieran seems to have reached some sort of approval of Noah, Luke still shudders and starts the game again.

You let it go. You’ll ask Sylus about Noah’s weird comment later. Instead of dwelling on it, you sink into admiring the awesome graphics, the atmosphere, your childhood nostalgia rendered in state of the art graphics

When the sirens go off as James is about to enter the Other World, you have a sudden flashback to playing the original Silent Hill 2 with Caleb. You were also too afraid, like Kieran, to play yourself, so you just clutched Caleb’s arm as he held the controller, and you delighted in the safety of vicarious thrills, of Caleb’s reassuring, solid presence at your side as you experienced the story. You suddenly miss him so, so much. The feeling of loss is overwhelming.

The sudden punch of grief leaves you breathless. Everyone else is so focused on the screen, they don’t notice your gasp. You want to watch. You’ve been wanting to experience the remake ever since the developers announced it, over a year ago. You want to experience it with who you are tentatively thinking of as your new friends. But you need a second to ground yourself before you can bring yourself to keep watching. 

Your force your voice through your throat. “I’m going to grab a snack. Do you guys want anything from the kitchen?”

“Popcorn!” Noah calls.

“We’re good,” Luke answers, because apparently Kieran is almost catatonic with terror.

“All right, be right back.” You take your time getting to the kitchen, Mephisto following you out the theater room door. You rifle through the fridge, shove some snacks into your mouth. You’re shocked to find microwave popcorn in one of the cupboards. Sylus strikes you as the kind of snob who insists on popping loose kernels on the stove, or over the fire in the fireplace. Nothing so pedestrian as store-bought and in the microwave. You snicker, that feeling of sorrow fading as you engage in everyday tasks, with company to look forward to. You’re not alone right now. You’re excited to see more of what the devs retained from the original game and what they added or changed in the remake. You head back to the theater room, but accidentally drop the bag of popcorn before you can open the door. As you pick it up, you can hear Noah.

“You know you don’t actually have to kill every monster you encounter, right?” She asks in barely disguised disdain.

“You know that you don’t actually have to offer your opinion when no one asked, right?” Luke snarks.

“Oooh, someone’s grumpy because he isn’t going to have an advantage in the bet like he thought,” Noah says through a snicker.

“What advantage? We agreed not to interfere. Boss is gonna have it in the bag even before the two weeks are up even without our help,” Luke responds.

“If he doesn’t fumble it by being too passive,” Kieran adds, thoughtfully.

“What ‘help?’ I bet your help would result in more delay than progress,” Noah taunts. “I probably don’t even have to do anything to counter your nonsense. You’ll do all my work for me.”

“Hey, flooding the guest floor was a good idea,” Luke protests.

This is just met with a cackle. 

You stand, frozen. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But what is their boss going to have in the bag without their help? What bet?

Something inside of you already knows. Hadn’t you thought earlier that the twins probably made a bet out of your obvious, pathetic crush?

But they said it was about their boss achieving something. Not about your feelings.

You don’t want to know.

You try desperately to cling to that warm feeling you’ve had since the pool.

Boss is gonna have it in the bag.

You spin on your heel, intending to return to the kitchen without them knowing you heard anything, just to buy yourself time to process. But of course, you promptly knock over another ugly sculpture. It shatters on the floor.

You stand there in your bandaged feet, holding the popcorn, staring down at the mess you just made.

The door swings open and Kieran, Luke, and Noah jostle each other to see what just happened in the hallway.

“Sorry,” you say. What the fuck else can you say?

“What happened?” Kieran asks.

“Just me being clumsy,” you say, trying to smile.

Luke squints at you. “Oh shit.” He turns to Kieran. “They’re making that horrible face again.”

Kieran stares at you.

Noah flicks her braids and tilts her head, examining you like an art critic trying to find meaning in a child’s finger painting. “What does that face mean?”

“It means they heard what we were discussing,” Kieran says grimly.

Luke glares at Noah. “What are you even doing here? Now the bet is fucked and boss is gonna be mad because his hunter’s making that expression again. Look at them. We’ve hurt their feelings!” He gestures at you.

She glares back. “Boss told me to report here for duty every day to remain on standby in case the hunter wants to go anywhere. What are you doing here?” she sneers.

“We live here,” he answers, looking confused that that’s even a question.

You take a step back, away from the sharp shards of the broken sculpture. Maybe they’ll be too busy arguing to notice.

That good feeling is gone.

You think about every move Sylus has made since the auction. All of his attention, his gentleness, his kindness, his dogged reappearance at your home, his arranging for you to have sick leave.

Would Sylus do all that for a bet?

Is he that bored? Is he that good of an actor?

How on earth would you even know? You don’t know shit about him. You’ve known him for a few months. In that time, you’ve seen him a handful of times. What the fuck are you doing?

You think about that feeling you had while listening to the Beatles, while listening to Sylus play the piano, of forgetting something really important. You want to throw up. 

Yeah, you’re forgetting something all right.

You can’t stand the feeling inside you right now. It’s too big. It’s eclipsing everything you’ve felt up until this point.

You think about what it will take to get out of here.

You think about picking up one of the sculpture’s shards and digging it into your thigh, anything to override this feeling inside you now.

You think about the resonance with Sylus when you woke up. Could he fake that?

His evol is unearthing a person’s deepest desires. But is it more than that? Could he make you feel adored without using his aether core? Did he promise not to use his evol on you because the terms of the bet forbade interference? Your fears send you spiraling.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no,” Luke says, peering at your face again. He takes a step forward, reaching out to you like someone trying to calm a wild animal, his house shoe crunching on the broken bits of sculpture.

You take a step back.

Noah just looks between the twins and you, confused.

“I’m just going for a walk,” you lie. You take another step back, turn, and start to walk down the hallway that will eventually lead to the lift. The lift that goes to the underground garage.

As you round the corner, Luke says,“Get—”

“On it,” Kieran says, with his phone to his ear.

Noah looks thoughtfully down the now empty hallway. “The hunter’s fucked up, huh?”

Luke shrugs. “Aren’t we all?”

Noah frowns at him. “Speak for yourself. You don’t know shit about me.”

“I know that boss hired you after looking into your soul. Which means you’re fucked up too. He isn’t interested in wholesome things or people—too boring.”

“And you?”

“You said it yourself. I really enjoy carving people up.” He shrugs. “Soothes something from our shitty childhood.”

Noah considers him. “Your brother seems to be okay with me now. Are you going to have a problem with me?”

Kieran grins at her. “What makes you think I have a problem with you?”

“You were mean when I suggested you try to stealth around the monsters. And don’t think I didn’t see your reaction when I said I’d be around more often. And acting like the hunter being upset is solely my fault, when we all made the stupid bet.” She counts each piece of evidence on her pretty fingers.

“Who the fuck likes backseat gamers?” He pouts a little. “And I didn’t like being hit on within an hour of meeting you. I don’t like people like that.”

Noah scowls back at him. “You don’t like people like what? ”

“I mean, I don’t like, like people. I get the creeps when people hit on me.”

Her lovely eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Oh.”

“But boss likes you, so I like you. We’re cool, so long as you don’t hit on me again.”

Noah nods.“I was just giving you two shit since you hauled me in front of your scary fucking boss. But I promised boss I wouldn’t do it again.”

“Then we’re cool. And if you don’t like how I play Silent Hill, then you can play if you want.” He opens the door again, gesturing for her to go in ahead.

“Nah man, I like being in the peanut gallery.”

“Does that mean you’re not gonna shut up?”

“You know it.” Noah gives him a big, feral grin.

Luke grins back at her, equally frightening. “Then I’ll be sure to kill every single monster we come across, no matter how much ammo it wastes.” The door swings shut on Kieran standing in the hallway, looking thoughtfully down at the phone in his hand.

_____________________

Sylus hums the melody of the music he played for you as he ends the call with Aidan. Luckily the issue this time could be settled by answering Aidan’s questions, and he can still look forward to a mostly uninterrupted day with you. He wonders where you’ll like to go next. Back to the library? To the greenhouse?

He’s in a great mood, despite the interruption. Every conversation with you convinces him that you’re closer and closer to accepting the truth. That you’re his, and he’s yours. He wants to drag you back to the library, listen to you read to him, argue about poetry—the way your eyes flash when you’re making a counterargument, the sneer in your retorts to his needling you—he wants to kiss you. He wants to kiss you so much it hurts.

His phone vibrates in his pocket again. He clenches his jaw, pauses. He wants to throw the damn thing against the wall and just continue looking for you, business be damned. But he also doesn’t want to leave Aidan in an awkward position. He fishes the phone out of his pocket and accepts the call.

“Boss, your hunter is making a strategic retreat again,” Kieran says breathlessly.

Sylus jerks to a stop.

“Repeat that?” he demands.

“They overheard us talking about the wager,” Kieran explains, sounding pained.

It takes Sylus a second to remember what he’s talking about. “The bet about how long it will take for kitten to realize that I want to date them?”

“Yeah.”

Sylus thinks. Why would you be spooked by a stupid bet between his henchmen and your driver?

“But they—well, they overheard us talking about it, and they don’t know what the wager is actually about. I am afraid that they might have misunderstood something,” Kieran says carefully, like he’s waiting for Sylus’s wrath.

Sylus immediately realizes what probably just happened.

“I left kitten alone for less than twenty minutes,” he sighs. Just his fucking luck. It’s like the universe or some cruel god wants to create obstacles in his path to winning your precious heart.

“Your bet is over,” he barks.

“Understood.”

Sylus ends the call and pulls up Mephisto’s app. You’re walking quickly, with purpose. He squints, trying to figure out which part of the house you’re in. It looks like you’re trying to get to the lift that leads to the underground garage. Sylus dissipates into red and black mist.

_______________

As you walk, you make your way to the garage, not even sure what your plan is. You have that hollow, manic feeling filling you—the feeling that always fills you when you’re hurt like this, when you just need to get out, to outrun your own body and the feelings it contains. This time though, through the noise in your head, you remember your promises to Sylus. About not hurting yourself, but going to him. If you have doubts about his intentions, to go to him. To ask him when you have questions, instead of making assumptions.

But how can you? What’s the point of honoring promises made to a man who thinks your feelings are fair game for a bet? 

You need to think. You don’t want to think. You’re hurting so, so much. You need time. Your body feels like you’re out of time. You miss Caleb. You miss your grandmother. 

It takes all of your self control to stop moving. You hear Mephisto’s wings flapping behind you. You close your eyes. You resist the urge to punch yourself, barely. If you’re just a bet to him, you should punch him instead. You open your eyes and realize you stopped next to a door with an electronic lock blinking on the handle. You turn and look at it fully, and you hear the lock click.

It recognized your face. Just as Kieran and Luke told you all the locks in this house would. Why would Sylus bother programming your face into his home if you’re just a bet?

You watch your hand reach out, grasp the handle. You pull, and the door opens easily. You slip inside and let it close before Mephisto can follow.

The lights flicker on.

You gasp.

It’s like standing inside an upscale jewelry store, built inside a bank vault. Except instead of sparsely filled display cases, designed to emphasize and showcase a select number of precious jewels, each glass case is stuffed with the things. Diamonds. Rubies. Emeralds. A mind-blowing variety of beautiful stones that you don’t even know the names for. Loose stones, as well as jewelry—necklaces, rings, earrings. Where most of Sylus’s house is the picture of meticulous order, this vault looks like a dragon’s hoard of priceless treasures, casually piled high without much thought.

Why would Sylus trust you with access to such wealth, if you were just a bet?

But more importantly, how much death must Sylus Qin sell, to afford such a vault?

How many lives in exchange for each gem?

You turn in a circle as you slowly process the fact that you’re standing in the middle of a sea of blood diamonds.

What are you doing?

What the actual fuck are you doing?

You were just marveling at the luxury of the rooms he designed, filled with the thrilling possibility that he had built them for you. You had thought about the cost of the heating in the hot tub, the pool. And yet you were willing to overlook such expenses. Why? Because at least the pool, the lovely architecture are useful? Because they provide some value to the human experience, even if only a select few will ever get to experience them at Sylus’s house?

But what value do diamonds have? Shiny clumps of compressed carbon. You can’t burn them for warmth. You can’t eat them. Okay, so maybe they’re used in some industrial processes, but for fuck’s sake, artificially created diamonds could serve that purpose. And you’re absolutely sure that the diamonds Sylus has hoarded in this vault are real, products of millions of years of pressure, and not made in some lab.

You sink to the black marble floor. It’s cold. You draw up your knees and hug them.

There’s too much happening in your brain right now. Your grief. Your uncertainty about Sylus’s intentions—the question of who his beloved is. The bet.

The realization that you’re falling in love with a man whose life’s work is bringing misery to others.

You hate yourself. Here you are, thrown into a tailspin from the idea that Sylus may have spent all this time on you because of a bet with his minions, when you should be in a tailspin about the fact that it’s probably already too late for you to stop falling for a man who not only praises the mutilated world, but is one of the people shoving the knife in deeper. 

There is so much you don’t know about him. But what you do know is that Sylus is too busy pouring salt into the wound of the world to dedicate so much time and resources to something as frivolous as a wager about how long it will take for him to get you in the bag. It’s pure, self-pitying hubris to assume otherwise.

You’re focusing on the wrong things, again. You’re forgetting what’s important, again.

What do you want? What can you live with? Why do you feel a connection with this complicated, cruel, ruthless man, as if you’ve known him for more than a few months? What kind of person are you, if despite sitting in a sea of diamonds paid for in other peoples' blood, you still want this merchant of death to come find you, to hold you in his arms, tell you that he wasn't placing bets on how long it would take to have you in the bag?

You begin to rock, somehow resisting all of your terrible urges: to hurt yourself, to run, to set this awful room on fire. You rock, and you hurt, and you wait for the terrible man you’re falling in love with to find you, as he always does.

______________

Sylus finds Mephisto pacing on the floor in front of his gem vault. He caws in distress when he sees his owner re-materialize in the hallway. Sylus finds the fact that you’re in the gem vault, and not currently trying to procure a getaway car, to be a source of hope—a strange feeling for him. What use does he have for hope? He has plans. Plans with contingencies, alternatives, backups. They either succeed because he planned well enough, or they fail because he did not plan well enough. 

Hope has no place in his world.

People suffer and die. Deals are made and broken. Fate is cruel, inflexible. He knows this all too well, no matter how much he’s struggling against fate this time around.

Hope has no place in his world.

But.

You could have kept running. You could be in any one of his vehicles right now, trying to break land speed records to get the fuck away from him, convinced that he was involved in a bet about the biggest gamble of his life.

But you’re not. You’re in his gem vault, for some reason. You strange, unpredictable, delightful creature.

He finds himself hoping that this misunderstanding hasn’t just caused you to retreat beyond his reach again. 

Your fingers in the dip of his clavicle.

The yearning look on your face, that he doesn’t think you even knew you had, when he bit your lip—the closest he’ll allow himself to a kiss until he’s one hundred percent sure you’ll welcome him while awake.

He opens the door.

He pauses, struck with the strange sensation of viewing his greatest treasure surrounded by so much of his material treasure. You belong here. The value of all of these precious stones nothing in comparison to you, shining like a beacon to him at the end of a long and winding road from the marble floor, dimming everything else in this room by comparison.

His house shoes whisper along the cold marble floor where you’re sitting, curled in on yourself.

He has watched you take down wanderers the size of an elephant. All that strength, contained in your huddled body. You look so small to him. He wants to protect you from all the horrors of the world. But of course, he’s the biggest horror of all. Is it any wonder that he keeps hurting you instead?

A better man might keep his distance in an effort to protect you. Like your partner. A better man might know when to quit. Like your dandy artist friend. A better man might be content with loving you from afar. Like your fucking doctor. 

But Sylus is a terrible man, because he’s not going to stop trying to get it right, even as he hurts you in the process, until you order him to stop and mean it.

You don’t look up at the sound of his footsteps, but you also don’t retreat as he approaches.

He sits on the floor next to you, wraps an arm around your shivering shoulders. He pulls you into his arms, feels the rush of hope when you let him.

He cradles your head in his palm.

“The twins bet on everything. Which snail is the fastest on a leaf. Whether it will rain or snow tomorrow. How long it will take someone to bleed out. Whether the traffic light will change in five versus ten seconds,” he says softly into your hair.

“About how long it will take to get your pathetic hunter in the bag?” Your voice is small, just as your body feels in his arms.

“About how long it will take for my beloved to realize how I feel about them,” he sighs.

You stiffen, and he feels a moment of paralyzing fear, before you melt into him. He breathes again.

“What did you bet?” you ask, and Sylus feels the sorrow in your voice like a gunshot in his chest.

You ran, but you stopped. You assumed, but you’re asking questions now. You’re allowing him to touch you, to hold you. The hope in him surges again. 

“I didn’t place a bet in this particular wager,” he manages through the unfamiliar feelings. “But if I had, the gamble would be my whole heart.”

“Does a man who has a dragon’s hoard of wealth, bought with the blood of the guilty and the innocent alike, have a heart?” you ask, finally looking up, your eyes hollow in a way that he doesn’t like.

Sylus is a terrible man. He has never lied to himself about this, or to you. He showed you the worst of himself, the day you met. He has to hope that the fact you’re still here, still asking him questions, means that he hasn’t lost you yet. An unpleasant feeling of doubt slithers through him. Is it the bet upsetting you, or something else?

“Even dragons have hearts, darling.”

You close your eyes. He wants you to open them again. He wants you to look at him. He never wants you to look away from him. Even if you’re looking at him with doubt, or hate, so long as you’re looking at him, that means you’re not leaving him.

“What do you want?” he asks.

You open your eyes again. He is terribly tempted to use his aether core on you, because for once, he can’t read how you’re feeling.

“You offered me time.”

He leans forward, rests his forehead against yours. “And I will give you time.”

“I want to see your favorite part of the greenhouse.”

“And I will show you my favorite part of the greenhouse,” he whispers, breathing, breathing. He can’t tell how you’re feeling, but you smell like home, a door at the end of a long road. The hope grows.

“I want to see Luke and Kieran and Noah play the remake of Silent Hill 2.”

The hope shifts, dissipates. There is no need for hope, once it is fulfilled. You want to stay, for now. He can work with that. Whatever damage learning about the bet caused, he can work with your willingness to stay. If that look in your eyes isn’t about the bet, he has more time to dismantle your walls, to pull it out of you. Just two nights ago, you were running barefoot through the dark. Tonight, you stopped yourself and waited for him to find you. “You’re in luck. They’re still playing.”

You watch him, as if you’re weighing something behind your hollow eyes. “Will you watch with me?”

Of course, he thinks. Of course. You could ask for so much more, and the answer would be the same. “Do you want me to watch with you?”

“I want you to want to watch with me.”

He smiles, his mouth a breath away from yours. You smell like popcorn. He wants to throw a piece in the air, catch it in his mouth, feed it to you. “Again, you bring me luck. We have a win-win deal.”

He stands. Carries you out of his gem vault.

“Why do you have so many jewels?” you ask, quietly.

“In case the authorities freeze my accounts, physical currency will be useful. A sort of insurance.”

You gaze at his face, and he wonders what you see when you look at him. “You’ll escape with a truck full of precious stones?”

“Something like that,” he says.

“No other reason?”

He tells the truth. “I’ve always been fond of shiny things.”

“Do you have a favorite stone?”

He laughs softly. “Whatever stone you’re wearing.”

Instead of looking at him with suspicion, a helpless look crosses your face. Like you’re in pain from his admission. He doesn’t like it. But then you lean forward, press your face into his neck. He tells himself that he has time. He’ll figure out what’s bothering you, and he’ll fix it.

Outside the theater room, he pauses. Looks down at the pieces of shattered sculpture. "If you didn't like it, darling, you could have just said so."

You just mumble that you're sorry.

"We've talked about your apologies," he says, frowning down at you in his arms.

You huff. "Fine. I'm not sorry. That sculpture was edgy and ugly. You should replace it with something beautiful."

"Deal. But only if you come with me to choose something," he says.

"Deal," you say softly, and he still can't tell what's going through your head.

When you enter the theater room, Luke pauses the game. “We’re really sorry for hurting your feelings and shit. The bet was about boss’s rizz, not about you. Please don’t leave.”

Kieran nods in approval, as if he had helped Luke compose this little speech.

Noah just looks at you, face unreadable, as you rest your head on Sylus’s shoulder.

“I had planned to give you a lot of shit. But I think I would’ve lost anyway,” she says, not looking apologetic at all. “It’s only been two days and you’re practically merging into one person.”

Sylus carries you to a loveseat next to the twins, with Noah on their other side.

“Thanks,” you say. “No worries.”

Everyone is awkwardly silent for a moment after your brief response. You seem to notice, and smile a little. “Can we hang out while you play?”

“Fuck yeah,” Luke says, and Kieran groans as the game is unpaused.

After a while, you, Luke, and Noah start discussing the difference between the remake and the original. What everyone likes, what they don’t. Sylus leans back, draws you onto his chest. His relief remains intense as you let him. The discussion moves on to which Silent Hill games are the best in the franchise, which are the worst. Luke and Noah have a good-natured clash about Silent Hill 4: the Room, with only a few insults flung at each other. You and Kieran share your admiration for Bloober Team's Layers of Fear, which Kieran liked because he didn't think it was scary, and which Luke hated, because he thought it was boring. Sylus doesn't give a shit about video games, and certainly not horror games. Life itself is already horrific enough, he doesn't have the patience for manufactured terror. He just listens, feeling your heartbeat against his chest, breathing in your comforting scent.

A feeling of wholeness settles in him, as unfamiliar as hope. As unfamiliar as the happiness from your movie night, just last night. You, Luke, and Noah have moved on to animatedly arguing about some character’s outfit changes between the original and the remake.

He feels like he’s been standing, left behind in the dark for so long, and he’s finally being allowed home. Whatever is bothering you, he’ll fix it. He’ll destroy the world if he has to, to preserve the scene in front of him, so that he can offer you this, so that he can experience this with you, again, and again, and again. His gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.

End notes: I had planned shenanigans for the twins and Noah to increase their odds in winning the bet, but this story is already out of control with how long it is, and some of the things I thought of were really manipulative and fucked up even if I personally thought they were hilarious, but my brain is craving a softer vibe for this story I guess (lmao if this can be considered soft), so I hope this isn't too much of a let down for the resolution of the bet subplot. I've given up hinting at what's coming next because it turns out I'm very bad at guessing what's next.

[rebouks]

Do you have any recommendations for starting a story? Yours is so good and it really inspires me to try and make one of my own but idk where to start

Hmmm a tough question! I think we all just kinda start and learn as we go? It's the best way tbh.. if you look back at the beginning of most simblr stories they've usually come a long way! Here's a couple tips that I think might be handy tho...

Maybe we could start a thread and everyone could reblog this with their own tips?! 🤩

Decide if you want to build your own lots/sets or not. If you do you'll probs wanna start off with the main places you'll use that're full of personality, like a main characters house or place of work etc. you can always download some neat lots and edit them to your liking if you're not a builder, or maybe even download a whole save file!

Start a character page (or make an intro post for em if you can't be arsed with the technicalities) - not essential but useful for you and the readers to keep track of who's who and maybe state a few facts about them etc.

Start collecting some poses and ideally rename them so they're easy to find! I personally like to add smth like [PETS] or [KISSING] etc to mine (in s4s) in conjunction with twistedmexi's pose finder to make things easier to grab.

If you use reshade/gshade, taking the time to find or create a nice preset will save you a bunch of time editing.

For the love of god if you're gonna make a bunch of extras, try and dress them in maxis clothes/hair.. I'm so SICK of having to redress everyone every time I clear out a bunch of cc skjdksj 🙈 you can always give em an extra, fancy cc outfit for specific scenes on the day but yeah, do yourself a solid where possible to save time/pain in the future. Same goes for lots you don't use often, try and limit the cc you use!

Figure out if you're a planner or not! If you can't manage without a plan it's okay to take some time before starting to figure everything out and get a detailed outline going. If you're more of a pantser (like me!) you can always just get going with a rough idea in mind and see what happens!

If you're gonna go with the flow I'd still recommend creating at least a rough outline, you don't have to stick to it like glue but it'll probs help you stay on track and I wish I'd have done this in the beginning, esp if you're gonna have a plot heavy story.

Characters > plot.. (imo!) like.. you could have a super interesting plot in mind but if no one really knows or cares about your characters it's gonna have a limited impact/amount of interest. They don't even have to be likable lmao

Give your characters some flaws! It's fun and it makes them more relatable.

Start with a small cast - not a complete must but it'll be probably be easier for people to get to know your pixels if they're aren't a million of them right off the bat. You can always add more later.

Try not to shoehorn your characters into situations they wouldn't end up in just to further the plot.. a hard one to explain and mostly based on intuition but if a scene feels boring, out of place or forced, it probably is! aka.. be willing to kill your darlings. Maybe you've already established that your character is poor or smth but have this fun idea of a road trip montage or whatever.. like you can't just give them a car and the money to drive a million miles just cos you HAVE to see that scene y'know? Maybe they're gonna have to hitch hike, get the bus, or take out a loan? Probs a bad example but hopefully you get the idea! It can sometimes be more fun to force your characters into a different situation than you imagined anyway, like maybe they meet someone really neat on the bus and they join the trip, or maybe whoever they borrowed money from gets all pissy when they can't pay em back quick enough etc etc.

Let your characters guide you - sometimes characters talk to us! You could've had a whole storyline planned for them, or a romance of whatever, but when it comes down to it, it just doesn't feel right and that's okay! Let them lead you in a different direction now n' then.

Write for you! (ugh becca stfu with this shit) I know, I know but really.. if you're not having fun, what's the point? Don't write what you think other people want and learn to be okay with cutting ideas/scenes/characters/whatever! that you aren't excited about anymore. It should never feel like a chore to create, and if it starts to feel that way, take a break or change it up!

I feel like this is super rambly and I've missed a million obvious things but my brain is mashed potato rn lmao.. pls feel free to add your own tips in a reblog or a comment - everyone has a different take on things! I think it's really important just to start and see what feels natural tho 🤸‍♀️🧡

[thatnonameuser]

You said something about Azul's darling having children healing his childhood trauma. ANGST WARNING!! AND BULLYING!

This gave me an idea, he was bullied for being slow and different from other kids from the original plot. In this yandere au, that can be twisted into how he's such a loser, he'll probably never be good enough for a darling to accept him. He's so fat, not even a kind and pitiful darling, would want him. How the other mers think he's so stupid that he'd fumble trying to catch his darling and that they'll just be claimed by another, cooler, yandere. Laughing at him all the while so and flexing how their wonderful talents and skills would be enough to steal away a darling's heart, unlike him.

I can imagine how much this'll break his self esteem and brand him as a "weak yandere" to the other fishies. Azul would strive to be the opposite of all this, he would plan to take away their special abilities to "win a darling over" and make it his own, as his unique magic forms through sheer spite. He's so jaded and the thoughts of not being good enough to have a darling still ingrained in him. He probably won't fall in love with MC until after his overblot. Having the internal belief that, no darling would want a loser like him.. He probably won't care that MC is a darling at first and is just planning to use her as leverage against the other yanderes. Hence, taking over her only place to live. It benefits him as well since he'll be able to open another branch of the Mostro lounge and attract the other yanderes.

But then something changes. MC does something while they are inside the blot space. He realizes that.. she sees more in him than anyone ever had. Even if MC says so only in passing cause she's reasonably pissed- He can't help but focus on those specific words, ignoring the rest of her rant. Suddenly, he feels whole, and he knows she doesn't want to share this feeling with anyone. Suddenly...

He's already drafting a contract after their visit in the coral sea museum, giggling to himself as he marks that day their first date....

I hope you find this idea as interesting as I did!! I love Azul 😁

I really love asks for the yandereverse, because there are so many ways that the charas’ backstories can change. Azul’s bullying making him insecure when it comes to his darling is perfect, and it kind of works with how the Coral Sea sees yanderes and darlings. I also love Azul, I love me an evil mafia man.

The Coral Sea is an anti-darling rights area, so yanderes have more freedom to do what they want in order to take their darlings for themselves. And yanderes are supposed to be strong and tough, how else do they keep their darlings safe and with them? The kids of the Coral Sea know that well. 

And Azul wasn’t that. He was slow, and weak and a scaredy-catfish crybaby who hid inside a pot. HE was supposed to be a yandere? That was genuinely surprising to nearly all his former classmates. And they made sure he knew that. Their teasing was relentless….

‘Are you sure they weren’t wrong? You’re not supposed to be slow and stupid if you’re like us.’

‘He’ll probably lose his darling.’

‘I’d hate to be them, he’s so fat and icky.’

….And at the same time they rub salt into the wound. After all, they’re fast and strong and smart and talented and good looking. They’ll get their darlings no problem, while he will be left alone and broken hearted watching his darling being with someone else. All the bullying broke him down over a while, he started to think it was right. 

But despite all the bullying, Azul still tries his hardest to stop being the weak yandere his peers deemed him as. And in a form of vengeance, he’ll take away the special abilities they shoved in his face to remind him how inferior he was, After all, the yanderes that bullied him have their own insecurities that they want to hide from their darlings, so he’ll take their very best away to make himself better for his future darling. He’ll make himself better so that whoever he falls for won’t have to be disgusted by him. (While making his bullies as disgusting to their darlings as they said he’d be .)

But… He just can’t forget the years of bullying ingrained into him. What darling would want him? What darling would love him when he’s just a dim-witted octopus? That denial blinds him up till when he finally meets you. 

Once he’s aware of you being a darling he sees the opportunity, not love. (Because he doesn’t deserve you, so why bother?). After all, what would all your yanderes do or pay to have you for themselves? No price is too high when it comes to a darling, and so, getting you under his thumb is his first priority. Getting you out of Ramshackle and under his control/ownership will make this so much easier. But there’s one big problem. 

You won’t sign his contracts. You told him you’d rather never go home than sign one. I imagine after that point, he starts trying to find loopholes to get you to sign. And your friends are his best bet. So he tricks Ace, Deuce and Grim into being indebted to him, so that you’ll feel obligated to help them. But that didn’t work, because (to be honest, you’re grateful for the alone time) you just let them be stuck in a contract with him. Fortunately, Crowley got involved and you had to go into a contract with him. 

But unfortunately, instead of accepting his offer to stay at Octavinelle till the time limit was up, you proceeded to stay over in Savanaclaw. He’d never been more angry before in his life. The idea of you sleeping with and doing seven-only-knows with those beasts never made him more jealous. The smell of Leona Kingscholar on your skin made him want to add onto the debt the prince owed in vengeance. 

But not wanting to spoil anything more, in the blot space your attempts to pull him out of his self-loathing, change him. He sees that you care about him, that you don’t think he’s a not a stupid, ugly octopus and that instead you see him as something more. Someone who’s hardworking, intelligent, and even cute. And that moment, he truly realizes his love for you. You’re not like the others, you see something in him that no one ever had before. He doesn’t get that you’re saying it only for the sake of your, and maybe a little of his, life. Those words echo in his head. You love him, all his bullies were wrong, his darling isn’t disgusted by him. He feels whole….

…..And he doesn’t want to share this feeling. This complete joy.

He needs you to be his. He’ll draft another contract, one intended to make sure no one else will ever be able to steal you from him and ensure you’ll be by his side, on the land and in the sea. The museum will be like a date to him, hearing your kind words about his childhood appearance makes that younger self cry with joy.

You, quite literally, became the center of his world. And he intends to hold that same place as he becomes a part of your world. Whether you like it or not.

[cheshiresense]

How could you pull off AiIchi??? This shocks me because you said once that you can't see them as anything but platonic. How would a relationship between them even work in your eyes? I'm intrigued. (my favourite ship is Koyonagi/Ichigo by the way, your OCs are just... impeccable. But I would forever and always read any ship you write.)

Tbf I said that back when I hadn't tried my hand at writing Aizen yet as anything more than the villain, cuz before that, Aizen basically only served as the major antagonist in every one of my Bleach fics lol. Also I think TYBW had just come out/I hadn't really looked that deeply into the plot, so I def couldn't see AiIchi working, romantically or platonically. The main reason I grew more interested in their dynamic was because of the character development Kubo gave Aizen in TYBW.

Like look at this beautiful scene:

I just feel like Aizen was both more human and a little humbled by the time TYBW rolled around, and it was Ichigo who changed his perspective. It's not like he's suddenly a good guy or anything, but I could see him and Ichigo slowly connecting with each other. And when it comes down to it, those two actually aren't so different.

And after I did get into TYBW, I wrote the Ichigo & Aizen TBTP time travel AU, and they are platonic there, and then I wrote the UraIchi + potential future UraIchiAi fic, so now I can probably swing it if the fic happens to develop that way.

But like I said for this AU, Aizen would need his future memories for it to be an AiIchi end game, esp since this is an AU where they had an extended Quincy War so they would've had like eight extra years fighting together. They weren't friends by the end of it but they had something of an understanding at least. As it is, I'm still not sure whether I want to make him an ally or just have Ichigo and Starrk kill him off. Like on one hand, he would be really useful against Yhwach, basically the three of them would be the major powerhouses in that conflict, but at the same time, idk how to get from current Point A to future Point B without the whole memories thing.

[woodywood101blog]

Experimental: Delivery, Part 2

They were able to move Yazan into the car and urgently drive across to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Anna urgently dialled one of the other research assistants to arrange a private delivery room for Yazan to pick him up from one of the private entrances. The assistant managed to secure the room by declaring it a research facility, meaning the only authorised individuals in the room were Mike, Anna, the other research assistants, plus Randy and Yazan.

On the way, Yazan groaned more aggressively as the contractions became stronger. “Ahh, I honestly don’t know how much longer I can do this!”

“Yaz, we’re almost at the hospital. Once we’re in, we’ll see how far along you are and see if we can do a c-section, okay?”

“I -”

“I know, it’s not exactly our birth plan, but these kids are going to make a lot more calls over your life in the future, okay? Better start getting used to that.”

Yazan mumbled, before moaning when another wave of contractions kicked in.

As they were checking into the hospital, Yazan was speedily put into a wheelchair and strolled into the room, pulled out of his shorts and bra and into an open hospital gown. He felt comfortable holding one of the hospital bed rails and standing upright.

“Okay, Yazan, can I take a look and see how far along you are in labour?” Mike asked.

“No.”

“Yazan, now is not the time -”

“I said no. You are not going anywhere near me.”

Mike groaned and raised his hands in frustration. “Yazan, your babies don’t have time for this! You are in a really serious situation here. We need to see what is happening so that we can work out how to help you and the babies stay alive. Now, can I take a look?”

Yazan looked towards Anna. Anna meekly smiled to try and give support to let Mike take the lead. “No, let Anna.”

Anna looked across at Mike in confusion. She’s a medical student, she shouldn’t step on her research director’s toes. “Alright, fine. Anna, step up and inspect Yazan’s anal cavity for me, please.”

Anna’s eyes bulged as she looked back towards Randy, who had just walked into the room. He sensed there were issues when Mike stepped back and was walking around the room in frustration.

Just as Anna was about to inspect, another contraction hit Yazan, which felt much stronger than before. Everyone witnessed Yazan’s belly tighten as he moaned out in pain and frustration, “Ahhh, get them out of me!!”

Anna slowly moved two of her fingers into Yazan’s ass, and could sense the contraction easing. She noticed his ass felt loose. As she moved her hand further, she quietly gasped.

“I can feel Baby A’s head. I think we should try and get Yazan to squat to help speed the delivery of Baby A. If we can do that, we could then still consider a c-section for the remaining three babies.”

“Good call, Anna.” Mike smiled. He looked towards Yazan, who looked more exhausted than ever. “Right, Yazan, we’d like to have you squat so we can get your first baby delivered. Can you do that, or do you want help?”

“I want you to fuck off out of here, that’s what I want!” Yazan screamed.

Randy stepped up from behind and rubbed Yazan’s shoulders. “Yazan, Mike is really trying to help here. Please… I know it’s not a comfortable experience at the moment, but we’re all here to make sure you and the babies are safe. Okay?”

Yazan quietly sighed. Yes, this is a pretty shit experience. Four babies hanging on for dear life, stuck behind a ‘loose’ asshole which shouldn’t even be giving birth to babies in the first place. But Mike, for better or worse, was the doctor who got him in this mess, and he was going to be the doctor to get him out of this mess.

“Fine. I’ll squat.”

“Thank you, Yazan. I really am sorry for putting you through this.” Mike quietly replied as he walked towards Yazan, held his waist and helped him squat on the floor. Yazan held a deep moan as he felt the further discomfort of the babies shifting and kicking around.

Almost immediately, a new contraction hit and Yazan felt Baby A move even closer towards delivery. Anna guided him through the breathing, while Randy wiped the sweat and rubbed his back when the contractions were stronger. Mike stepped back and let Anna take the lead.

“Okay Yazan, Baby A is crowning. I think a really strong man like you could do this in two really powerful pushes. Ready, let’s go! And push!!!”

Yazan screamed as he felt a new contraction rip through him. He gave all his might as he pushed the baby. Yazan held Randy’s hand extremely tightly, to the point where Randy was worried he might break it.

“The head is out! Well done, Yazan! We’ll just let the shoulders move around and at the next contraction, we’ll get to meet Baby A, alright? Ready, and push!!!”

Yazan screamed even louder as he felt the shoulders shift around, and almost immediately felt the body start to slide out into Anna’s hand. Yazan cried out as he heard the first baby cry. He also looked briefly down at his breasts and saw more colostrum than ever before start spilling from his nipples.

“Your baby girl is here, Yazan!” Yazan and Randy started crying as they heard the baby cry. Mike grabbed the baby and took it to a nearby crib to clean the baby. He returned and brought the baby to Yazan, who had slowly moved to an upright position.

“Hey there, little one!” Yazan whispered as he kissed the baby girl. However, the joy was short-lived as Yazan almost instantly felt a new contraction rip through his body and crouched back down to the squatting position. “Ohh, fuck!”

Anna quickly stepped up and looked at Yazan’s butt. “Hey Mike, I think we might need to put a pause on the c-section. I can see Baby B’s head.”

Yazan groaned in more pain as he realised he had no choice but to deliver all of his babies naturally at the rate he was going. These babies really are calling the shots.

With each building contraction, each of the three sons moved closer to being born. About 5 minutes following Baby A’s birth, Baby B was born. 8 minutes later, Baby C was born.

“Alright, Yazan, I can see Baby D’s head now. You’ve done such an amazing job today. We’re in the home stretch now! You’ve got two more big pushes to do and then you can relax.”

Randy was worried Yazan was slipping in and out of consciousness with the extreme pressure and pain his body was experiencing. He tried to dab some icy cold water on Yazan’s forehead to keep him alert, plus the contractions were also helping him stay alert. Yazan deeply moaned then screamed at the peaks of the contractions.

Yazan could feel another extremely painful contraction come on, and could sense this was the last one he could do at full power. As such, he screamed so loudly Randy needed to move his head back to avoid hearing damage, and pushed as much as he could.

Anna was shocked at how much power Yazan was using to push Baby D out. While the ass was loose, he could still conserve some energy. However, Yazan wanted this to be done, so he kept pushing to the extent of the contraction and birthed the baby’s head and shoulders. Anna took the hint and tried to see if she could grab the baby’s shoulders and pull him out.

“Yazan, you might feel some discomfort, but I’ll see if I can pull Baby D out for you, okay?” Yazan nodded while trying to catch his breath. Randy could see Yazan’s eyes glaze over. He might actually pass out, he thought.

Anna was able to use a set of forceps to latch onto Baby D’s shoulders and slowly pull him out of Yazan’s ass. “And, here we go! Baby D is born! Well done, Yazan!” They waited a couple of seconds before seeing Baby D squirm then cry loudly.

Yazan smiled briefly as he saw Baby D being carried away by Mike. Almost instantly, Yazan collapsed into Randy’s arms.

“Yazan? Yazan! Yazan, can you hear me?” Randy screamed desperately as Anna and Mike ran across to see what happened. The team leapt into action as they helped Randy lift Yazan onto the table, and pulled Yazan’s gown off him.

“He’s unconscious. We need to check his vitals.” Anna and Mike strapped a new heart monitor onto his finger. “Low blood pressure. Is he bleeding?”

Anna checked around Yazan’s body. “No, I can’t see any external bleeding. Has he birthed the placenta?”

“Shit, no he hasn’t. We need to get the placenta out and check for uterine rupture.”

Anna turned around and saw Randy distraught. She turned to one of the other assistants. “Hey, I think we might need to take Randy outside.”

An assistant moved across to Randy and quietly led him outside and shut the door. As soon as the door shut, Randy burst into tears and dropped to the floor. One of the midwives on the floor ran across to help him and move him towards one of their family rooms.

“Hey there, it’s going to be alright, sir. She is going to get the best care from the doctors here. Let me get you a cup of tea and somewhere to sit.”

Randy struggled to process what was happening. There are four perfectly healthy babies, but the love of his life - a man - is fighting for his life.

[scudismystud]

You’re on the right track but I think there’s more to it than that though. Spoilers under the cut.

Gale was told from a very young age that he would be a great wizard so he has to shoulder the expectation that he has to become one again after his falling out with Mystra (which I am of the opinion they were both wrong it wasn’t him just messing up with her- she was also using him but that’s a whole other conversation). Gale believes his only worth is if he is a great wizard and that is so heartbreaking. This is why he is so willing to sacrifice himself at the drop of a hat. He believes that if he can’t be as powerful as he was with Mystra and heralded as a great wizard instead of a great disappointment that he might as well give his life in a heroic way. He desperately wants to be great - like he views Mystra to be.

The reason he talks about her so often is because he wants to be her. This is clear when you reach Act 3 and he starts talking about the idea of becoming a god himself. Gale has megalomaniacal tendencies and will either pursue them if left to his own devices by the player because he just wants to be great. It isn’t until the player chooses options to tell him that he isn’t defined by his magic or grand power that Gale starts to realize he has worth just being himself outside of magic and Mystra. Yes he will always love magic but he becomes aware that it’s something he can enjoy without having to idolize Mystra in the unhealthy way he does through the first act of the game.

Relating back to your analogy, I think this is more of a case where Disney had all of the legal software to draw and you show talent from a very young age and everyone says you’re going to be the next great artist so Disney CEO hires and then starts sleeping with you when you’re of age. As you get older and your relationship is getting closer (at least on your end you believe the relationship is equal) you start asking for better software you know the ceo is using but they keep telling you that you aren’t good enough.

You then find out there’s a hidden software online that you’ve been told is an altered version of Disney software. You download it in the hopes of bringing it to Disney ceo thinking they’d be happy you found upgraded software for them but then they’re mad at you. They cast you out of their circle.

You then get a virus from that program that is going to slowly kill your computer if you don’t keep letting it eat your files and even though you can still use your other programs from Disney they don’t work like they used to so you can’t make art as great as you once did. You then are told by that ceo that they can stabilize the computer temporarily but you should get rid of your computer which would also kill you in the process.

On top of that you also find out the software you had downloaded never belonged to Disney to begin with. You find out other software has always existed but the public cannot be trusted with it according to Disney CEO. You find out you’ve been misled by the CEO for years and there’s so much more out there you could sharing with the world. You then start to pursue making yourself a CEO convincing yourself you’ll be different than Disney CEO.

I do think comparing Mystra to a CEO is very fitting because she does have a horrible power imbalance to the relationship she has with Gale so he sees her in a good light despite all the things she does wrong for way too long. I don’t think Mystra is evil but I do think that what she did to Gale was wrong and warped him into the man who thinks he needs to be a god to be worthy of being alive. To reiterate again this is why he is constantly talking about her. He wants to be her. He wants infinite knowledge and magic.

At least that’s what he wants if left to his own pursuits. If you romance him, he then starts to think of a future with you. He still talks about Mystra but it isn’t in the idolizing way it was before (“you make me forget my goddess” line my beloved). He comes into his own as a character who could see himself being happy as Gale Dekarios the man instead of Gale of Waterdeep the great wizard.

I feel like people don't grasp that Gale keeps talking about Mystra because (among other things) he's obssessed with magic.

I think it's hard to understand because in our world, any skill is an existence in and of itself but for a rough example,

Imagine if Disney had a monopoly on drawing. They were in charge of all of the drawing softwares, they own all of the art supply companies and hell, maybe they even own paper.

Now imagine you royally mess it up with the CEO of Disney. You love to draw but anytime you draw, it's ultimately seen or controlled by Disney. It must be rough. I feel for him, I really do.

Mystra isn't just some goddess connected to magic. Since most people can only safely access through the weave and Mystra manages the weave, as far as Gale is concerned, Mystra IS magic.

[last-sprout]

Last Sprout Dev Diary - Nov 22, 2024

Hello sprout folks! I'm Valerie, or @oneominousvalbatross, and I've been working on Last Sprout since July, and I'm wildly excited to share some of the things I've been working on with y'all.

Ignore that Twiggs' hat falls off that's natural.

I'm aiming for a Dev Diary once a week on Fridays, and I'm just gonna be giving a brief look into making a game! I'm learning how to do a lot of this stuff live, so I'm sure there'll be a ton of massive rewrites and changes. I have probably a dozen huge systems that are already built that I'm not going to be getting into in this post, since I'm already half a year or so into development, but I'm sure I will find space to include them later!

XP

I spent most of my time figuring out exactly how we wanted to represent XP in the world. We were pretty certain that we wanted XP to exist physically as a substance you picked up, so I started with a system from a previous build.

In that version, we just created a bunch of XP objects and scattered them into the world, then had some code that scooted them around. Of course, that means that we're tracking an individual unity GameObject for every single instance of a point of XP which is, uh, slow.

This is what we call 'suboptimal.'

So obviously we needed to not instantiate an entire transform every time we needed to spawn XP. Even if we re-used objects that would just be prohibitively expensive for an object that really just needs a position.

I'm not going to go over each step in the process, but after experimenting with GPU instancing to just draw a bunch of XP objects at once, eventually I landed on extending Unity's particle system, since it has a lot of the settings I wanted access to.

To make the XP move how I wanted, I wrote a pretty simple process that iterates through all the little blobs and checks how close they are to a designated collector, then uses an exponential decay function (with thanks to Freya Holmér) to make them move towards Twiggs.

I think every game should have an action that can be best summarized by making the noise 'SHWOOOOOP.'

Parrying

Parrying was a good deal simpler, but it still has its issues. Essentially, all a parry needs to be is a hitbox and an animation, with some callbacks to enemies to let them react to the parry. Whenever an attack hitbox intersects with either a Parrybox or a Hurtbox, it checks its tags to see if it's interacting with the appropriate entities, to makes sure enemies aren't hitting or parrying each other constantly. If it passes the test, it calls GetParried() on the intersecting object.

GetParried(), idiot.

For the basic behavior, parrying just interrupts the attack in progress and knocks the enemy back by a set amount, but there's room in the system to add all sorts of neat effects, which I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of in the future. It's been a challenge to juggle the various kinds of hitboxes, but it'll definitely be worth it going forward!

Of course, between all these bits there were a ton of bugfixes and little experiments, but that's a topic for a later dev diary!

[olderthannetfic]

The question of deleting fics is an interesting one. Ive definitely felt the impulse before, i have LOTS of ficlets and unfinished multi chapter fics that i absolutely despise bc they dont meet my current standards/employ tropes + characterizations that would now be pretty dated or even offensive -- but my parents were the type to tell me to save everything i made, because art was the only thing i was ever passionate about, so i could never muster the will power too.

Nowadays ive decided to lean into the fact that i have so many abandoned accounts -- even if a few have dissapeared for good by now (rip Quotev - that site was So formative in my writing life lmao), i like to imagine that there might be a handful of copies hanging out in a few scattered hard drives around the world, by anyone who did happen to enjoy them. Whether its materially true or not, the notion sits very well with me -- and serves as another reminder of how much of a wonderful thing internet anonymity can be. The chance that my stories, however silly, could be datamined off what will be considered old devices in the future, and will only be connected to some silly username like 'nyanslenderman' or 'tordkin'-- i think its almost heartwarming. Makes those stories stop feeling so cringey in hindsight, just as like.. another teeny tiny part of human history, which ill be a part of whether i want to be or not.

While i try not to /demand/ that people never delete fics or art, i wish people would consider that angle a little more... there's nothing wrong with something you wrote while inexperienced, or in a bad time of your life, being a part of your mark on the world -- especially if its hidden by a username instead of your real name. Its always a treat to see preserved children's schoolwork or passion projects, or an artist's earliest works + practice pieces, from decades to centuries ago -- so why would stuff from our generations be recieved any differently by our own descendants? Why not let it stay, for the chance of being remembered that way?

--

[deadboydetectives-confessions]

Maybe this'll be really unpopular (guess that's what this blog is for lmao), but with all the new spoilers dropping I'm starting to get a little glad we didn't get season 2. I'm sure they'd do everything really well, and I'd love to see the gay bar episode, but bringing back Esther and the Cat King? I had such a visceral negative reaction to both those pieces of news.

To explain myself: I think there is a massive problem in series', across a lot of different types of media, of having recurring villains, people who come back just because no one can be bothered to think up a new villain, and it ruins a lot of things for me. Imo Esther was really well dealt with in season 1; considering she'd technically immortal, I think they got rid of her really neatly and in such a beautifully appropriate way. She's being punished by the goddess whose gift she used to feed hundreds of little girls to her giant snake. That's such a wonderful ending. It's fanfiction's job to bring her back over and over, just like it's fanfiction's job to put Edwin in Hell over and over; it's the show's job to come up with a new villain.

I very much don't ship Catwin - I like the Cat King as a character but I am very strongly against the ship for reasons I have given before (the Cat King's loneliness means he needs friends, not a boyfriend, and I don't think it would set a good precedent for Edwin's future relationships to sleep with the guy who tried to coerce him into sex) - so that might be colouring my thoughts against his reappearance in season 2, but I just... I think he's served his purpose with the Agency. Maybe a spin-off or something about him, Monty, and Tragic Mick making friends and dealing with the fall-out from Esther's end would work, but I don't want him becoming part of the Agency or even really interacting with them much because, to me at least, it would just feel forced.

And also, it just feels like both Esther and the Cat King are very rooted in Port Townsend. They've been there for centuries. And now that Niko has 'died' and Jenny's considering moving to London, there's no reason for the Agency to ever go back there. I know a lot of people are attached to Port Townsend as a location because that's most of what we see in the show, but I'd love to see the Agency in London, where they've been already for years. They must have quite a large network of supernatural acquaintances, if not friends, in the UK and I think it would be a shame for the show not to properly explore all the potential that has.

Overall, I don't know. I think Dead Boy Detectives is an amazing show that deserves to have loads of seasons exploring lots of different characters and locations, and the number of characters that feel like they should have been a one-off in the first season but were apparently going to come back in season 2 suggests to me that it was only going to get one or two seasons anyway.

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