#i stuck a couple up on the side of my pc case :^]

[8bitspiders]

some trial boss & yshtola mini prints and stickers! i had a lot of fun drawing them :3

[snowyquokka]

Hi gorgeous 💞

I honestly love you work, thank you so much ❤️

If it's not too much to ask but my birthday is on 14th March so can you write a hyunjin x f reader smut +fluff with him giving reader his birthday gift for her (surprise me with your writing)?

I would really appreciate it 🥺

Bye 👋

SYMPHONIES

cw: mature content MDNI, fem reader, oral *f receiving, swearing, friends to lovers, no aftercare shown but is implied

wc: 1.3k

a.n - happy birthday beautiful!! i hope this was a good enough present <3

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

12:00 AM

Tons of DMs, calls and texts erupt on your phone simultaneously, wishing you a happy birthday. Everyone but the one you wanted most.

Is it wrong to be in love with your best friend since the sixth grade? To a normal person, maybe, but to you it’s the reality you’re forced to live.

4:00 AM

Did he forget? You can’t blame him; he is an idol after all and he’s probably exhausted. At this point the group chat you are in with all the guys is blowing up to the point where you had to silence it once you realized that Hyunjin wasn’t responding or jumping in the conversation.

CHILDREN OF CHAN

|lixie - happy birthday cutie

|hanji - HAPPY BIRTHDAY

|hanji - get ready to party bitch. it’s on

|seungmo - im not getting stuck with han’s shitfaced ass this time

|minhoe - it’s only like one in the morning and you’re already plotting?

|innie - felix get back on league

|channie - im trying to sleep

|seungmo - put your phone on silent then old man

|seungmo - nvm you probably dont know how at ur jurassic age

You let out a small laugh and bite your lip, contemplating if you should thank them or not. Ultimately deciding against it and telling yourself that you’ll do it when you wake up, you turn off your phone and roll over onto your side, soundlessly falling asleep.

10:00 AM

There’s a knock at the door, startling you out of yet another poor attempt at sleeping. You hop out of bed sluggishly and make your way to the living room. To your surprise, Hyunjin is leaning against the doorway, having let himself in with the emergency key you gave him when you first moved in.

“Just in case,” He insisted, “What if something happens and you need me? Or vice versa.” The fact that you believed that would be the only scenario he used it for seemed a bit foolish as he visited more and more.

You spot a somewhat large box, royal blue with a red ribbon on top, in Hyunjin’s hands. He smiles and pushes off the doorway. “I’m sorry to intrude like that, you weren’t answering your phone.” He says when he reaches you.

You shrug, “It’s okay. I was only sleeping.” Hyunjin nods and places the box in your hands with a sly grin, “Open,” He gestures towards the box. You move to the couch and take the lid off the box. The first thing on top is your very own Jiniret. “So you stop kidnapping my child,” Hyunjin laughs and slides onto the couch next to you. The next thing you pull out is an all black hoodie and when you turn it around you see Hyunjin’s name on the back. The small gesture shouldn’t cause butterflies to emerge in your stomach, but it does to your dismay.

You take out the rest of the stuff (a few small fake plants, Versace perfume that you scold him for buying for you, and a couple of his PCs sprinkled in between everything). You finally reach the bottom and furrow your eyebrows when you pull out a blindfold. You look at Hyunjin whose expression has morphed into something mischievous. He moves the box out of your lap and takes the blindfold out of your hands before tying it around your head, obstructing your vision.

“C’mon, stand up.” You do and Hyunjin slides his hand in yours, guiding you somewhere.

After a few moments you assume you’ve reached your bedroom, the smell of your favorite candle filling the air. The door clicks behind you and now you’re hyper aware of Hyunjin’s presence.

“Why are we in my room, Jin?” Instead of answering you, he runs his fingers delicately down your bare forearms, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.

“I think we can both agree that we have more than just a normal friendship, don’t you think?” Hyunjin’s voice has noticeably dropped, causing shivers to wrack your body. Your heartbeat quickens so much that you wouldn’t be surprised if he could hear it. “I asked you a question, baby.”

Are you dreaming? You must be dreaming. There is absolutely no way you aren’t. He would never say anything like this. Right? Right. You’re pulled out of your thoughts when Hyunjin places his hands on your hips and presses you flush against his body.

Maybe you aren’t dreaming, judging by the very real, sizable erection digging into your stomach. “Hyunjin I-” You aren’t too sure what to say except to agree with him. He walks you back to the bed and gently lets you down, climbing over you soon after.

“Are you sure?” You know for sure that he would never lie about something like this, especially with you. You’re asking yourself more than you are him.

He toys with the hem of your shirt, “May I?” You nod and raise your arms as he lifts it over your head before immediately attaching his lips to your neck. Hyunjin nips at your shoulder and collar bone before making his way down to your breasts. “Do you want this?”

“Yes, please.” You whine. He unclasps your bra and throws it somewhere. His mouth attacks your right breast, his other hand massaging the other. Your back arches in pleasure and you can’t help but let out a groan. How can’t you when Hwang fucking Hyunjin has his pretty pink lips wrapped around your nipple.

“Fuck, baby. You make the sexiest sounds.” Hyunjin drops to his knees, pulling your shorts and panties down with him. His mouth waters at the sight of his index finger being swallowed whole by your tight heat.

“Holy shit,” You say breathlessly. You raise your hands to take the blindfold but he stops you.

“Not yet, baby. Want to make you come first,” With that he adds another finger and watches, mesmerized, as your cunt takes his digits. The lewd sounds filling the room are enough to make him bust right then and there. He manages to pull himself together though. That is, until he gets a taste of you.

Hyunjin’s tongue slides in between your folds in one flat stripe and he groans. The groan is so deep that you feel it vibrate through your entire being. He traces figure eights across your clit and you swear you're in heaven. His tongue is euphoric and the feeling of his delighted groans are better than ecstasy.

“Hyune, please. I’m almost there.” Your fingers tug at his roots so hard you might have to apologize later. Hyunjin doesn’t seem to mind very much.

“You’re so good for me, baby. Come on, finish for me. Let me hear those pretty little symphonies of moans.” You clench around his fingers as he increases the pressure on your clit, giving you a knee buckling orgasm. You crash so hard that Hyunjin has to hold up your waist to prevent you from falling.

He chuckles and licks the insides of your thighs clean before rising to his feet and pulling you into a wet kiss, your own juices invading your tastebuds. Hyunjin finally lets you take off the blindfold after helping you sit up. The man in front of you looks so proud of himself with a lopsided grin, your release glistening on his lips.

“Happy birthday, baby.” He pulls you into another kiss and cups your jaw.

“This gonna happen every year?” You smile. Hyunjin shakes his head.

“This is gonna happen whenever you’ll let me.”

[lex1nat0r]

The Danse Mechabre: White Elephant

AAR #01

Ran the first session in what is hopefully going to be a full Lancer campaign over the weekend. Gonna be posting these after-action reports from the GM perspective in case it's useful to anyone (and it turns out there are a couple of things I need to make sure I remember). No spoilers because at least half of the players are on the tumbles (eye see you).

Characters (LL 0):

Raiju (Hacker/Ace/Centimane) - GMS Everest - Delta

Sunshine (Grease Monkey/Technophile/Leader) - GMS Everest - Exchange of Affection

Rook (Walking Armory/Stormbringer/Brutal) - GMS Everest - Not Fun By Myself

Daylight (Technophile/Crack Shot/Infiltrator) - GMS Everest - Hits Different

Magpie (Hacker/Technophile/Centimane) - GMS Everest - General Protection Fault

You will notice right away that there are three - count 'em, three -characters with the Technophile talent. That means there are three bonus NHPs in the party. And the first thing I neglected to do is prompt for more interactions with the bonus NHPs. The only one that got characterization in this session was Molotov, Sunshine's little buddy.The reason I didn't prompt for more interaction is mostly because this group is used to 2.5-3 hour sessions and I am trying to hit one combat per session, which does not leave a lot of time for roleplay outside of combat. The schedule will need to be adjusted somewhat.

So in the year 4570u the PCs depart as crewmembers (and one stowaway) from the secret KRAKEN facility on the highly experimental blinkship Eye of the Tiger. The crew of the Eye of the Tiger had secretly been replaced with revolutionaries, planning to use its blink carver to quickly head towards the core worlds and help overthrow Union's Second Committee. They go into stasis, trigger the ship's blink carver and wake up to a variety of alarms blaring. It eventually turns out the year is now 5016u and the blink carver may have moved them in space as well as time. Or something. They fix up the ship a little and realize that they're near a planet that is putting out a distress call. When they also get the opposing force's broadcast about returning the planet to 'traditional Cradle values' they decide the situation requires mechanized intervention. Important note: I'm very happy with my players for not immediately deciding they need to intervene on the side of the people putting out the distress call and that maybe they need more information before getting stuck in. Keep hold of that instinct, just because you didn't need it this time doesn't mean you won't in the future.

So while the Eye of the Tiger engages the enemy fleet in orbit, the lancers drop right in to protect an urban area.

Combat 1.1: We get to be the Cavalry for Once

Sitrep: Control

OPFOR:

Pyro x2

Priest Vehicle x2

Hive x2

Grunt Breacher Vehicle x6

Outcome: PC victory, 11 - 8

No PC structure or stress damage, though Hits Different and Not Fun By Myself both used a Repair. The only mech to not get hit was Delta, which secured the lower left control zone and blasted away with its howitzer (whoever put the howitzer on the default Hacker loadout in COMP/CON is a real joker).

Here's the aftermath of the battle after I invoked the mercy rule when it became clear the NPCs couldn't take enough control zones some time around the middle of the last round (not pictured: the Hives' Razor Swarms that were still in 3/4 control zones).

(Tokens by Retrograde Minis (on the basic blank 1-hex tokens that come with Lancer so they show up well), map by Interpoint Station's pixel art assets, they released their new mapmaking tool like the day before we played. VTT is Roll20)

Most of the civilians had already been evacuated from the area with two exceptions: the blue building just above the lower left control zone (some kind of cultural building maybe, there were a lot of civilians around it), and the orange building to the left of the lower right control zone (an IPS-N showroom/liaison office). Those were both intact at the end of the combat, which will be relevant next session.

The enemy comp is very short-ranged which ended up working because the PCs had to get at them to get into their control zones. It also features a lot of burn which I ended up not using correctly (see below). I maybe went a bit hard on Strikers with that many Breachers, but I knew it would be fine because Breachers can only hit something once in a blue moon (Hits Different was the only one to get tagged by a Breacher shotgun). A lot of vehicles because I like combined arms in my mecha (I think I get this from my exposure to Battletech). No optionals on any of the enemies to reduce cognitive load on me, and even then there was plenty I forgot (see below).

I was worried about cover and LoS going into this because it doesn't feel like the Lancer rules have enough detail on that but it was easy enough to adjudicate in practice. Also shout out to one of the best rules in Lancer: the PC that went last nominates the PC to go next. That helped speed things up a lot.

Overall for a first combat with 5 PCs, getting through it in ~2.5 hours is pretty impressive! HOWEVER:

Things I Definitely Forgot About:

Tech attacks ignore cover!

Engagement gives +1 diff on ranged attacks!

Pyros deal double burn to anyone who already has burn!

Pyros can put out their FIREBREAK shield at the end of each of their turns!

Breacher's shotguns have a threat of 3!

All the PC talents!

Thankfully this can kind of be written off in fiction as the OPFOR being kind of bozos and the PCs not being fully familiar with their mechs (maybe some residual grogginess from stasis and the fact that mech warfare was still pretty new to them).

So definitely some things to keep in mind for next time - I'll have to come up with a format of NPC stat blocks that works for me because just using their stats in the core book clearly means some things get overlooked.

Next Time: Straight into the Wall?

INDULGE ME:

Campaign notebook is a Maruman Mnemosyne N195A, 7mm lined. A month ago I swore I would only use binders for campaigns going forward but Lancer seems constrained enough (note I did not say 'on rails') that I can get away with not doing that (as opposed to, say, a hexcrawling sandbox) that I can get away with it. Plus this notebook was only holding a half-done campaign idea that is unlikely to see the light of day so I figured I'd use the rest of the pages up. I've found the paper is very good at taking fountain pen ink, though I'm not using a fountain pen for these notes. I've settled on a Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.5mm gel pen as working best, and I do like that pen (it's what I used to finish out my #Dungeon23 notes).

[felassan]

Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.” 

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game 

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively 

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’” 

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’” 

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.” 

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde 

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine 

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures 

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[ldwritesstuff]

Tales From The SCP: Critical

I'm alive? nah, just posting an idea I had based on this thing (which you will need to read before this or nothing gonna make any sense). Might turn this into a series, we shall see, it depends on life, which is kicking my ass. Tip to ya: don't advertise your stuff at a convention because then you might be compelled to do something with it while all your other WIPs stare daggers at you. Anyways, there is the disclaimer: the only characters I own are Dr. Raven, Dr. Generic and Collins. SCP doesn't belong to me either, go check it out yourself if you want to get into in and find yourself down a huge rabbit hole. And obviously I don't own the Dream SMP or their characters.

Tales From the SCP: Critical

When it came to dealing with SCPs, Dr. Raven was no stranger to them. Having been stuck in this cat’s body and given a different life, he has been carted all around the earth, from one site to another, dealing with his new specialty against reality benders. But this was a new one he didn’t expect to be dealing with. One Dr. Generic had experience with and even worked with. Apparently things have changed and now the situation of the Keter Class SCP has become critical. In this case, the SCP the doctor is working with has changed, or rather, an instance has suddenly been released from the SCP itself. Dr. Raven is here to merely observe and act as a deterrent from the reality bending SCP during the interview. The cat with black fur covered by a white lab coat and wearing a blue collar with an ID card with his name and rank dangling from it continued down the halls. A Mobile Task Force operative assigned to make sure he stays safe follows behind as they make their way to the interview room.

“Collins, what do you think?” Dr. Raven asked, his voice cold and neutral as always.

“I’m not too sure sir, I'm not a researcher,” Collins shrugged.

“And that’s why you are only an MTF member,” Dr. Raven grumbled.

Collins didn’t respond to that, opting to just adjust his body armor. Dr. Raven just rolled his blue eyes and came to a stop in front of a door. Collins opened the door and the two of them stepped inside the dark observation deck. Another researcher greeted the pair with a nod. Collins stayed by the door while Dr. Raven sprang up on the desk and looked through the one way window down to the interview room below. Harsh fluorescent illuminated the room, showing a single table with two people on the opposite ends sitting in plain, metal padded chairs. One sat Dr. Generic, a simple man with short, dirty blond hair, sunglasses he is normally seen with set on the table and a black face mask. But on the other side sat a woman, somewhere in her 20s, looking scared and confused. Her light blue eyes continuously scanning the room. Her long, blond hair disheveled and in need of a good cleanup. That is how they found her, in an abandoned looking house, in a dusty room with a book with furious scribbles inside and a glitching PC with the game known as Minecraft on it, the main menu screen putting on a light show with the glitching. Reports of activity in the house and her disappearance from the SCP prompted action, with MTF apprehending her and bringing her to the Foundation. This surprised Dr. Generic, the one who wrote the file on the SCP and swore to study it and figure out everything about it. And yet another mystery is thrown at them and more questions needing to be answered. Then again, the Foundation is all too used to such curve balls being thrown, which is why continuous study and testing is needed. And in this case, an interview with an instance or a victim of the SCP, depending on how you feel about such things. Dr. Raven looked to the other doctor and nodded. Then the interview began. A speaker was switched on in the observation room to hear their conversation and record the whole thing.

“Hello, I would like to ask you some questions,” Dr. Generic began.

“Where am I?” the instance asked, her eyes continuously darting around.

“You are in a safe interview room. Now then, can I ask about your experience with the Dream SMP?” Dr. Generic asked gently.

“How--How did I get out? It’s impossible,” the instance’s voice laced with panic.

Dr. Raven’s ears twitched, he had a funny feeling about this whole thing but couldn’t shake it. Everything seemed fine, nothing registering on any instruments. And yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched from somewhere. But he continued to focus on what was ahead of him, in this case, instance SCP-6969SMP-5 getting more and more agitated. He has a psychology PHD after all, he can tell the signs of anyone in great distress. But that didn’t matter to him in the long run. As a level 4 researcher, he had the power to shut down this whole interview, but he didn’t. He needed answers right then and there. So he let Dr. Generic continue.

“Care to elaborate?” the doctor asked.

“No . . . I shouldn't be here. I can’t remember . . . . this isn’t right,” the instance was becoming more and more distressed.

The instance suddenly jumped to their feet, eyes wide with fear, her breathing becoming more and more erratic. The chair she had been sitting in fell backwards, slamming on the ground with a clang. Nobody in that room flinched.

“STOP, I can’t be here, I can’t be out here. None of this makes sense, I'll get pulled back. The others, oh my god the others. No, you have to help them, they hardly know. Sometimes they know, but it makes us forget. YOU HAVE TO HELP!” the instance screeched, her movements all over the place, even slamming the table with her fists a few times to empathize her point.

Dr. Generic stood up slowly as well, holding his hands up in submission. A member of MTF entered the room in case things got hostile. Dr. Raven leaned forward, interested in her response.

“Please, you have to calm down,” Dr. Generic pleaded with her calmly, the MTF gripping their gun tightly.

“No, no, you don’t get it. They were sucked in, the whole thing is a lie, it’s all a lie. You have to help them, anyone who goes in there--you have to help them!” she cried out, running her fingers through her hair and even tearing at it. Tears had begun to pour down the side of her face, shrieking a bunch of nonsense in the process.

“Stop the interview,” the observer ordered through the microphone.

“What? No, continue the interview, we could get vital information,” Dr. Raven hissed.

“Doctor, with all due respect, even you can see that it would be futile to try and press with the instance in this state,” the observer said.

Dr. Raven looked down to see as she pressed herself in a corner while Dr. Generic tried everything to console her. The MTF had a few more enter the room to escort her to a humanoid containment cell until they can get her to calm down and do another interview. Dr. Raven’s tail twitched in annoyance but he wasn’t stupid. Once a person had gone down this route, their emotions all over the place, no good could come of it. He looked over his shoulder at Collins who nodded in agreement. Dr. Raven sighed and relented. The observer then ordered the MTF to take the instance to her assigned cell and wait for further instructions. Dr. Generic waved them off and the instance went along, sobbing in her hands, still muttering about others. Dr. Raven leapt off the table and Collins opened the door for him to exist. The observer would be in charge of the recording they got, uploading it to the file. The pair of them would meet up with Dr. Generic to discuss what they have learned. The feeling Dr. Raven had gotten before faded away for the time being, but he was suspicious of a potential return of whatever. That’s a common occurrence in this dangerous line of work after all. Dr. Generic did catch up with them and the three of them began their walk to the nearest break room for a quick drink and a short debrief.

“Her name is Alyssa, or username ItsAlyssa,” Dr. Generic informed them as they walked.

“Why does that matter? 6969SMP-5 is just that,” Dr. Raven replied coldly.

“Doctor, they are victims, pulled into the SCP, as the file reads. Though I didn't think the thing was too keen on spitting any of its victims out,” Dr. Generic huffed.

“Yes, and that is why we need to press for another interview as soon as possible,” Dr. Raven said.

Dr. Generic shrugged. The three of them entered the break room where maybe a few other personnel sitting around. They took a table in the corner while Collins got them drinks and even took the opportunity to take off his helmet and body armor. They sat around for a moment, Dr. Generic sipping on some coffee, Collins with some tea and Dr. Raven with some plain water. Oh how Dr. Raven missed coffee, the only thing that kept him sane. But ever since the incident with 239 that turned him into this cat form and even left him with a few extra abilities, he had no choice but to give up the delicious bean water. Apparently the stuff is deadly to cats and him having a cat body, there were a lot of things he had to avoid now. So he lapped up some water while the three of them took a breath for a moment. But then Dr. Generic’s phone rang a few times. He pulled it out and looked at the alert.

“Well, what timing, a couple of instances have gone live on Twitch,” Dr. Generic hummed.

The doctor in turn set up his phone to show a twitch stream of what could be ordinary Minecraft players on a server, playing the unsuspecting block game. But if you knew the truth like the Foundation did, this was the SCP at work again. Knowing those were real people inside this Minecraft Server, putting on a performance for millions who had no clue, it would make anyone’s stomach churn. But to the Foundation, this is just a regular Tuesday. They did flip through a few streams and something caught their attention soon into the stream.

“They don’t even notice Alyssa is gone,” Dr. Generic said, stunned.

“It seems the SCP has made them forget after 6969SMP-5 escaped, interesting,” Dr. Raven hummed.

“Complete control over the environment it created, damn reality benders,” Dr. Generic fumed.

“So what now?” Collins asked as he finished his tea.

“Simply put, what we normally do, continue to observe and study,” Dr. Generic shrugged.

And Dr. Raven watched, that feeling came back. The three of them leaned closer to the screen. It glitched for some reason, causing the three of them to lean in even closer. Suddenly, words began to form on the screen in the Minecraft chat text font.

‘I can see you,’ it read.

Immediately, Dr. Generic whipped out his camera and took a picture and started to record the stream itself. Nobody from the looks of things had seen what they had just seen. The Twitch chat continued as if nothing happened, spamming ‘E’ again. Even Dr. Raven was flustered, his fur bristling a little on his back and tail. He didn’t see that coming and even if he did, he figured this reality bending SCP fell into that 20% that he couldn’t use his ability on fully. That being, deterring reality benders from doing just that, reality bending. The SCP was mocking the Foundation, clearly. The writing disappeared, followed by an ‘:)’ flashing on the screen for a brief second and then the whole stream returned to normal. The room seemed to turn cold, folks noticing it but not really making a move. All eyes turned to the three practically squishing their faces onto a tiny screen. This simple block game had produced a dangerous SCP and now it was up to the Foundation to contain the thing. But that was the issue, containing something like this would be difficult. And throwing it into the sun wasn’t an option, they didn’t need another incident where they did that to 682, what a disaster.

“So, it's aware of us,” Collins muttered angrily, leaning back in his chair.

“That actually might work in our benefit of making contact and learning more,” Dr. Generic huffed, folding his arms and drumming his fingers on them.

“Right, I suppose the next step is to increase efforts of contact through private direct messages and even donations,” Dr. Raven added.

“Right,” Dr. Generic nodded.

[hzdtrees]

White Falls

I didn’t know how much I needed the vast crunchy whiteness that is the Cut until I crunched my way through the DLC, giving Aloy an extra workout because staying on the paths wasn’t half as satisfying as trudging through the deepest snow I could find.

Frozen Wilds was the part of the game I went into mostly blind. I’d mentioned before a Youtube LP was my main source of HZD content prior to August 2020, and sometime between the release of HZD and Frozen Wilds, or at least the time the Youtuber of my choice got around to play the latter, I’d lost the patience to watch other people play games. Incidentally, I bought myself a then-decent (and still my current) gaming PC during that time, enabling me to finally enjoy games I’ve wanted to play for years, so maybe the sudden loss of interest in watching others play entire games before having played them myself was caused by that. Nowadays, if I watch a Let’s Play, it’s usually because I’d like to see how others reacted to a certain story section or reveal, or because I’m longing to (re-)play a certain game but am currently stuck somewhere without any means to do so.

In any case, I remember watching up until that first meeting with Naltuk, the first tower, and the better part of Waterlogged. Everything else was unknown territory, real unknown territory, as even though I couldn’t recall the details of all of the main game’s side quests since a bunch of them are fairly forgettable, they weren’t completely new to me. Take the fruit-stealing Carja refugee in Brightmarket: the quest is very light on story, an errand, really (to be fair, it might even be classed as such), so even though I’d already seen it in the Let’s Play, I couldn’t immediately place it when I was tasked to find out who stole the merchant’s fruit. A trail of fruit piles, rabbits, boars, some unfortunate Chargers and annoying Glinthawks later, I came upon the familiar part of the quest: the confrontation with the fruit thief, and his slightly insulting way of thanking Aloy, which was still very present in my memory. Something about Aloy complaining that now people aren’t calling her an outcast anymore, but “savage” instead, was memorable enough to stick.

From The Shaman’s Path on, I had an - for me - unusually unspoiled experience, which was a nice change of pace. So much that I’ll likely have to bury myself under some rock if HFW continues to be set to release in late 2021 as it is now, as I’ll likely have little to no time to play it then. (But I’ll be helpfully buried under mountains of study material, so I won’t even need a rock.) Not knowing how the story would play out, and therefore the retained potential of surprise, might have played a huge part in why the Cut, and the “main” quest in it, are among my favourite parts of the game.

I once read a review of Frozen Wilds pointing out the DLC isn’t doing anything new, and simply adds a few things. Which is, all questions as to why one would expect a DLC to introduce completely new concepts altogether aside, an accurate observation. It adds things: some more information on the escaped subfunctions, mostly HEPHAESTUS; some more lore on the Banuk; some new machines and challenges; a couple of new weapons and outfits; a new area; and most importantly, snow. Lots of snow. 

[gaymer-hag-stan]

My Top Five Video Game Franchises

I wasn't planning on sharing this but it turned out good so I decided I will!

5. SoulCalibur

I'm a big fighting video game fan! I'm nowhere near being a pro though I can beat most of my friends in many different fighters. SoulCalibur is one of the games I played with an old friend during summer while at the countryside when we were kids. His uncle would occasionally come over at his grandpatrents' house and bring his Dreamcast with him and he had SoulCalibur with it! I also had the PlayStation 2 demos of SoulCalibur II and III. When I still had a Wii and a PSP I got SoulCalibur Legends and Broken Destiny for each console respectively and while none were particularly spectacular games I had hours of fun playing both and I was happy knowing I finally own two SoulCalibur games! I couldn't afford a PlayStation 3 yet and by then PlayStation 2 games were really hard to find in Greece. My main character is Ivy. Ivy is infamous for being a very striking example of female video game characters who are grossly oversexualised and while it never had any effect on me whatsoever I realised while growing up why it is an issue. Despite that, I believe that you can enjoy and appreciate characters despite their portrayal but at the same time I can understand people who want a better representaion of female characters and I support them in that endeavour. I tend to always appreciate video game characters on a deeper level, or at least I try, while playing a game and I think that even fighting video game characters can have more substance than what meets the eye, and Ivy is no exception, especially considering how SoulCalibur has really deep background stories and lores for all its characters. My favourite game is SoulCalibur III. I love its character and stage design, music, everything. I really miss this game.

4. Dead or Alive

Another game I started playing as a kid during the summer at the countryside with my cousins, I think you'll come accross this concept in almost all of the games I'll be mentioning 'cause you basically can't do anything in Greece in the summer during noon because it's too hot to go outside until the sun starts to set so gaming was our favourite pasttime after returning from the beach and while waiting to go out later in the day. My cousins and a friend had DOA 2: Dead or Alive 2 for the PlayStation 2. Since me, my friend and my cousins were four people but didn't have that many controllers we each played story mode in turns trying to unlock more costumes for our favourite characters. My main is Helena Douglas. Again, the entire female cast is grossly oversexualised but a lot of them are close to my heart. The first game I owned was, for better or worse, Dead or Alive Xtreme Paradise for the PSP, one of the side games that features only the girls in a tropical island basically playing beah voleyball, and... being sexy... The game is a mess but the voleyball part is actually really fun and trying to collect all the swimsuits for all the girls was strangely addictive! The series came back from the grave back in 2012 and I finally got to play a mainline Dead or Alive game again as it had been an Xbox exclusive from 2001 to 2006 and there were no new main games after that. The second update to DOA5, Last Round in particular is really fun and I've spent hours upon hours playing. Definitely my favourite in the series and one of my favourite games overall.

3. Tekken

Again, a fighting series and yet again, one I played with my cousins and friends during summer at the countryside xD ! Tekken 5 was one of the games all of us owned and played the most so it's also my favourite and among my favourite games overall, definitely my favourite fighting game. My main is Nina Williams and along with Lara Croft I think they're my ultimate favourite female video game characters. They have a very similar demeanour and character design though Nina's costumes lean a lot more on the sexy side than Lara's ever did and she is a lot colder than Lara is but both were among the things that helped me realize how very gay I am. I think that any other fellow male Greek gamers or gamers from more conservative countries in general are very familiar with the concept that "playing with girls is gay", a sentiment I haven't really seen fly around in more open-minded societies. In any case, at some point I realised that I actually was gay all along so all these people were right and there was nothing wrong with it. So in that regard Lara and Nina are kinda my main heroines. I even got her own action-adventure spin-off game. The game itself is... mediocre, but I loved it because it was all about Nina! It kind of had a Tomb Raider meets James Bond feel to it. A friend of my dad's gave me a couple of games as a gift at some point and one of them was Tekken Tag Tournament that had all those classic characters that were either dead or a thousand years old in Tekken 5 featured while they were still in their prime so we also had a lot of fun with that game during summer. In 2009, I still couldn't afford a PS3 so I asked my mum for a PSP and Tekken 6 was included with it, spent countless hours with it and eventually got it again when I got a PS3 along with Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

2. Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy is a series I absolutely hated until I somehow didn't anymore... I tried a Final Fantasy X demo as a kid and I was extremely put off by the turn-based combat system. It was something no other games had at the time, none of the games I had played anyway, and it felt really weird and unintresting to me. so I decided that I will hate it forever and ever... Until 2015. By then I had just started university and I was kind of depressed because I really hated what I was studying and felt very trapped. For some reason that still puzzles me until today I decided that I wanted to try out Final Fantasy again. I made a little internet search and found out Final Fanatsy XIII was the most recent entry (side note: I hadn't upgraded to PS4 yet). I rented it from the video store and spent a week staying home playing it instead of going to uni... I understand now that it wasn't the most sensible option but it was honestly a break I really needed in order to truly realize that I should seek out other options if I'm not happy with my studies, and I did. After XIII I got VII for the PS3 and last March my friends got me XV for my birthday. A couple months ago I went on a "shopping spree" and got VII, VIII, IX, XII and X / X-2 for the PS4 and I am currently waiting for my copy of the FFVII Remake to arrive. Final Fantasy is probably the series that has made me cry the most and also inspired me a lot. It's also the only one that has ever come close to replacing Tomb Raider as my favourite series. Lastly, Final Fantasy XIII along with Resident Evil 6 and Tomb Raider: Legend are my "holy trinity" of video games people love to hate but I personally adore xD I'm not sure I can pick a favourite as I've enjoyed all of the ones I've played but maybe X? Though I'm feeling the VII Remake might surpass it.

1. Tomb Raider

Again, the summer story, you know the drill. I remember first playing Legend's demo and then while I was staying at my cousins' at their home in a town which is near the countryside we usually spent our summers, our uncle would have us go pick up games to rent at the video store after returning from the beach. We kept on renting Legend and trying to beat it. We only ever got up to the waterwheel puzzle in Ghana... If you have no prior experience with Tomb Raider (and you're literally nine!) Legend can actually be very challenging! Next year I got Anniversary, which was the first Tomb Raider game I ever owned and then got Legend. At some point during one of our video store raids my cousin decided to rent Angel of Darkness instead of Legend so we also got to experience that. It's probably his favourite. On my playthrough I got up to the point where you see Kurtis running off with his bike and then I think I got stuck in the sewers and didn't really know what to do next! I haven't been able to get my hands on it ever since. After the summer I converted a bunch of my classmates into Tomb Raider fans. Two of them had a good PC and that was the first time I ever got to play Chronicles. I got Underworld in 2008 but it was just the crappy PS2 version. I own all main and Lara Croft games except AoD. Lara Croft has been my favourite video game character for about as long as I've been playing video games. She is very special to me for reasons I already explained with Nina and it's very very hard to imagine how my life would be without her. I'm truly thankful for her and Tomb Raider. Legend will forever be my favourite and possibly favourite game ever.

[purplesurveys]

592

Let's start off with some basics. Cool, I haven’t started off a survey with basics in a while. What's your name? Robyn, but y’all who have stuck around for a while know that already. How old are you? 21. What's your hair and eye color? Hair’s black, eye color’s dark brown/black-ish. How tall are you? I’m pretty certain I’m 5′1. What's your relationship status? In one. Alright, enough of that. Let's move on to the random shit.

What's your favorite song? Uhhh at the moment it’s Sam Smith’s cover of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love. They did their own twist to it and it sounds incredible. It would probably take a bit to get used to in 2019, but once you warm up to the sound, the cover is just brilliant. What does that song mean? What is the message behind it? It’s a disco song, the lyrics just repeat for three straight minutes and is not supposed to be any deeper than ‘I feel love.’ Is it your favorite because you relate to it, or do you just like the beat? I love the beat, the sound, and what Sam offered to the song. Have any pets? If so, what are they and what's their names? Yes, I have a cute Santa Claus-outfit-wearing dog at the moment :)) His name is Kimi. Have you ever met your idol? I have never met Kristen Stewart, AJ Lee, Hayley Williams, nor Beyoncé. And I’d most likely pass even if there was a chance to meet any of them; I’m too afraid that I’d mess up in front of them. If so, were they nice or were they kind of an ass? What's your favorite method of gaming? (PC, Xbox, Playstation, etc) I don’t play a lot myself but I do enjoy watching games on Nintendo or Playstation consoles. If you're in college, what's your major and why did you pick it? I’m in journalism. I picked it because I thought it’s what I wanted to pursue back in high school. I was good at writing and loved telling stories, the obvious path was towards journ so I don’t hate myself or regret picking such a major. But through the years I’ve learned to hate it more and more though – my interests lie within public relations and advertising now, a complete 180 from the world of journalism. How're you doing today? A little too early to be asking that, it’s 7:43 in the morning. I do feel quite nice because classes ended up being suspended today due to the incoming typhoon, but otherwise it’s just mostly meh for now. What color are your bedroom walls? They’re white. Describe your favorite shirt. Right now my favorite shirt is a halter tank top I got for ₱50 at a small tiangge booth in Feliz, hahaha. I just wish I could wear it everyday without anyone judging because I look cute in it. Use this space to tell someone off. I don’t think anyone I know deserves that at the moment. What's your view on smart watches? Cool or a waste of money? Waste of money, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting one lmao. What is one poster that you have hanging on your bedroom wall of? I still have that damn poster of Nam Joo Hyuk up near my bed lol. I haven’t seen a k-drama since 2017, but I’m just too lazy to take it down. How many times have you moved in your life? That I can remember? Two. I think we moved a couple times more when I was an infant. If you moved, do you like where you are now better than where you were? It’s definitely more peaceful, quiet, and much much cleaner in our house; but there are days where I still miss having my cousins and grandma under the same roof. What's your favorite color and why? Pastel pink. It’s pleasant to the eyes and looks good on most stuff. My wallet,  purse, main school notebook, one of my highlighters, my phone case, clipboard, backpack, and shoulder bag are all that color hahahaha Do you have a calendar? If so, what's the theme? I have one on my phone; I don’t really need a physical one. No theme because I don’t think my phone allows me to customize my calendar anyway. Have any famous person's autographs? I have AJ’s from a signed poster that I bought like 5-6 years ago from WWEShop. Was never actually sure if she actually signed it but it’s always easier to believe that. Do you draw well? That’s the worst thing I can do, or try to do at that. What type of cell phone do you have? I have an iPhone 8. Should you be doing anything else right now or are you just bored? I am actually supposed to be working on final requirements, but they’re all for my newspaper layout class and I cannot be ASSED to open Adobe InDesign and work on some dumb layout stuff right now. If you're in school/college, what's your favorite subject and why? This semester my favorite class is Kasaysayan 117, or Social History of the Philippines (‘Kasaysayan’ means history in Filipino). Social history veers away from the typical elite/heroes/war/colonization/what have you narratives that history books typically go with, and focuses instead on the developments of, say, gender, education, illnesses, and religion in the country. It basically focuses on the everyday life of the ordinary citizen, which I find more interesting and relatable than war stories. I certainly wish I can take this class more than once. Are you a cat or a dog person? Why? Dog person. They’re friendly and sweet and silly and will always stay by your side, which I love. I have never been able to connect with cats and finally at one point, trying just tired me out completely lmao HISS at me then, sis Tell me about the plot of your favorite book. Not my favorite, but definitely a memorable one – Scarlett O’Hara is in love with some dude named Leslie who’s married to his first cousin. Scarlett ends up gunning after him for a good chunk of time, even as she marries Rich Guy Rhett Butler and has a kid with him. Eventually [spoiler] kid dies and Rhett realizes Scarlett never cared for her just as Scarlett realizes she loves Rhett. Not a good ending for Scarlett. Bunch of people die. Oh and all of this takes place during the Civil War. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Glasses. I flinch at the idea of putting anything anywhere near my eye, so contacts are a no-no for me. What do you think about horror movies? It’s a hit or miss most of the time. Great genre with some even greater hits, though. If you love them (I do), what's your favorite? Misery or The Shining. Cliché picks, but I personally enjoyed both so why not. Got any cool Christmas presents picked out for family or friends yet? I dunno about ‘cool’ but I got Gabie a Hydro Flask water bottle and I’m SO excited for her to get it because she’s always been envious of mine and she’s always talking about wanting one because water tastes so crisp and fresh from those bottles. It’s kind of a bittersweet story for me though – I lost my own Hydro Flask a day after I got hers. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Do you do Black Friday shopping or wait for Cyber Monday? I do neither of those things because I’m from the Philippines and we have no idea what those holidays(?) mean. Have any mental illnesses? I’m sure I do, I just have never gotten myself checked. What's your favorite word and why? I’m not really obsessed with any right now. What is the most expensive thing you own, and what is it? It’s either my laptop or my phone...I’m not sure how much they were; my parents paid for both. Although I’m guessing the phone cost more because it was the newest in the iPhone line at the time of their purchase. Did you buy that item yourself? Hahahaha, nope. Super grateful to my parents for getting it for me despite knowing I have the tendency to crack and break all the phones I own. This current one is staying strong, though! Where do you work and what is your postion? I don’t have a job yet but I’m part of two organizations in college, if that counts. I’m the vice president for external affairs in my journalism org and associate editor in our graduating batch’s yearbook club. How often do you cuss? Probably once every few hours? Definitely way less than when I was an angsty, feisty, annoying little teenager lmao. What type of car do you drive, if any? I have a Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback. Are you happy with it? If no, what's your dream car? I’m happy with it; it’s small, convenient, and easy to drive. My dream car is something just as small but a little more fancy, so I’m wishing for a Mini haha. Do you have a lot of social media accounts? Which ones? Nah I just have three main ones – Twitter, Facebook, and this Tumblr. I’ve made accounts on other apps like Snapchat and Instagram, but I stopped using the former and I never use the latter. What is your favorite genre of music? I don’t have one. Does your family have holiday traditions? If so, what are they? It’s not a unique tradition but we go to my grand-aunt’s house and we do Monito-Monita, which is essentially a Filipino Secret Santa. We fix ourselves in a circle and when you’re It, you have to dance/walk/prance around with your gift while everyone sings the monito-monita song (which I’m too lazy to expound on, lol). When the song ends, you have to hand your ‘baby’ their gift. If you're in a relationship, are you happy with it? Yes. How long have you been with your significant other? Three years, but that’ll change to four by February. Do you like psychology? (It's my college major). I love it. It’s one of my the-one-that-got-away courses, along with history. I wanted to have a glimpse of psych by taking a psychology elective once, but I got a bad prof and never got in the mood to take another elective again, so that’s a shame. What is something your state is popularly known for? We don’t have states, we just have provinces and cities. Antipolo is known for their delicacies such as kasoy, suman, and latik. Do you like to do craft projects? If so, what's the coolest thing you made? Kind of? I don’t like anything I have to sculpt or mold myself; but lately I’ve been into paint-by-number kits and I asked Gab to get me a couple of them as a Christmas gift. It’ll help with my seasonal depression, so I’m excited to be preoccupied during the holiday break. Do you watch sports or do you think they're overrated? I don’t think they’re overrated. I just don’t find most of them interesting to watch. What's one occupation you think gets paid too much and doesn't deserve to? TROLLS Do you straighten your hair? No. Ever dyed your hair a color that isn't natural? (blue, pink, etc) I haven’t dyed it at all. How's your relationship with your parents? We have a best friends-type of relationship in that we banter and not opposed to insulting each other and cursing in front of one another, but I don’t let them know me any deeper than surface-level. The angst and trauma I developed due to my mom being horrid to me when I was younger permanently kept me from ever desiring a soft, emotional, intimate bond with her. And as for my dad, well he’s worked overseas all my life and I only get to see him once or twice a year, so it’s easy to understand why I have not developed a super super SUPER close bond with him as well. Do you still live with them or do you have your own house? I live with them but I’d love to have my own place soon. What's something you are currently saving money for to buy? More Christmas gifts for loved ones. I’ve only bought gifts for my girlfriend so far. Do you smoke/vape? If so, what brand do you smoke/what device do you use? I vape, but don’t smoke. Gab gave me her vape pen which is from a brand named Smok, because she soon learned after vaping a few times that she’s asthmatic. :( I do get disposable vape pens from Vedfun which I honestly prefer more, though. Ever done drugs? Other than painkillers, no. Tell me one of your worst habits. Letting myself go hungry because I’m a little obsessed with the thought of saving money. What's a weird quirk you have that no one else you know does? I have to lock my car doors three times in a row before I feel entirely secure. If you game, what type of headset do you use? What type of computer do you own, and do you like it? I have a Macbook Air, and I love it. What's the thing that annoys you the most? Metro Manila traffic. What brand of TV do you have? All of our TVs are Samsung, I think. Are you excited for Christmas? (It's December 1st today when I made this) I can take it or leave it. Tell me about your favorite vacation you've taken. Sagada x Baguio last 2014. I was hurting a lot that time because of recent shitty events that all happened to me, but the climate, the nature, and the peace and quiet allowed me to recharge and let everything out. It helped that there was a movie that had just come out then called That Thing Called Tadhana (Fate) wherein the lead girl was going through the same stuff I did, then she took a bus trip to Sagada, stood on top of a cliff, and yelled and cried her heart out. I set out to do the same (I didn’t scream though, just cry haha) and it was a good release. I’ll never forget that trip because I had never been more in touch with myself and allowed myself to be that raw until that week.

Tell me something cool about yourself. [continued all the way from 7 AM because I just got lazy for the rest of the morning. It’s now 4:41 PM.] Anyone outside of pro wrestling will probably not find this cool but I’ve been acknowledged by all three of my all-time favorite female figures in the industry (retweeted by AJ Lee, followed by Natalya, greeted happy birthday by Stephanie McMahon). All three are memories I’ll cherish forever. Did/do you get good grades in school/college? Not so much in grade school, because I was admittedly irresponsible and my elders didn’t pay much attention to my study habits, either. I got better in high school, but I still made sure not to tire myself out because I knew the grades I’d get then literally wouldn’t matter in college. Now that I’m in college and for once the grades DO matter, I’m working 15 times as hard and getting good grades throughout. What's your ringtone on your phone? They’re all ringtones provided by Apple. What's your favorite store to shop in? For clothes, independent stores would do. They can sell a tank top for ₱50 (1 USD) that I would otherwise find in H&M for like, ₱299 (6 USD) lmao. If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would buy and why? I’d pay off my parents’ various purchases like our house and cars so that the guilt doesn’t eat me up when I treat myself. How long have you had a Bzoink account? I don’t have a Bzoink account, but I’ve been using it to find surveys since 2008. My survey habit started veeeeery early, y’all.

Ever been to Field of Screams? If so, what's your favorite attraction? I have not. I’m not even sure I know what that is. Do you own a Polaroid camera? I don’t. Do you have hardwood floor in your room or carpet? Hardwood. It's a Saturday night, what are you typically doing? Taking surveys or catching up with work. Do you have a lot of friends or do you not have any at all? I have a lot, fortunately. College taught me to open up my circle. What's your all time favorite movie and why? Two for the Road. It just clicks with me. Audrey and Albert very both very passionate in their roles and their tandem worked amazingly to bring the story to life.

How many blankets do you sleep with at night? Just one. What's the last TV show you watched? Did you enjoy it? Queer Eye; I made Gab watch the Jones Bar-B-Q episode which is usually cited as one of the best of the series. I loved watching it the second time. Do you prefer cable TV or do you use Netflix? I use Netflix; I haven’t tuned in to cable TV for a good 4-5 years maybe. What is your dream job and why? Working somewhere in WWE. That company’s been a part of my life for...welp, my whole life. A part of me just feels as though I HAVE to end up there. Do you think you would be a good therapist? I know I’m a good listener and that I can read body language and signals quite well, but I don’t think I’d want people to dump their burdens and rants on me. What's your favorite brand of clothing? H&M. Did you like this survey? Sure!

[y-not-loki]

“What do you think? Is purple my color?” Loki (can have a ship or no ships, I just wanna see Loki going clothes shopping lol)

HEEEEEELL YEEAAAAAAHHHHH. SOMEONE FREAKIN’ ASKED ME TO WRITE SOMETHING THAT’S OUT OF A WRITING CHALLENGE, EVEN THO I GOT SHIT I NEED TO WORK ON FOR WRITING CHALLENGES.

This is gonna be as short, sweet and sassy as I can make it, because I’m gonna go a mix of platonic/romantic and make Loki and Reader be those two people you think would make a great couple, but refuse to say anything on that matter.

Made a moodboard as well (in case it was for a moodboard not an imagine).

Anyway, I’m not going to use my usual layout for one-shots, but I will have warnings.

Warnings: Some swearing??? That’s about it. Maybe Loki getting pissed off enough to think up some nice bodily harm for a few store clerks who try to help.

“What do you think? Is purple my colour?” (Y/N) whirled around to see Loki in a purple suit, with a black tie and white under-shirt. Or whatever those things were. It fit perfectly, outlining that perfect, slim triangular form of Loki’s midsection and his toned legs.

Which was not good for (Y/N). She couldn’t have him out-shining him.

“Yeah, it looks good.” She responded, distractedly. before pulling out a matching purple dress that she grabbed before Loki (the diva he truly was when clothes shopping) dragged her off to find the changing rooms - “Surely, even if it is inferior to the Asgardian market places, it has changing stalls for privacy” “Lokiiiiiiiiii, at least let me-” “I’ll have none of that, this shopping trip is about me, and it will remain about me.” - and it may be true that it was about Loki, because Stark decided that it would be good for publicity if Loki made an appearance and actually behaved, so (Y/N) was tasked with the job of keeping him on track as they had been inseparable from day one.

Luckily, Loki liked to appear smart and well-dressed, so it wasn’t that difficult for him to get side-tracked with the suits.

Even if it was meant to be about him, (Y/N) needed new dresses, and she would definitely not have Loki of all people outshine her on the red carpet and at whatever gala or party Tony decided to throw.

It was a common, unsaid, competition between Loki and (Y/N), both wanting to outshine the other in the most mocking and ridiculous ways.

But that didn’t stop Loki’s looks taking her breath away. “(Y/N).” He whined, dragging out her name so she’d pay attention to him, and only him, not the current saleswoman approaching them.

“May I help you with anything? Are you just trying out clothes?” She asked politely, a blatantly fake smile on her lips as disapproving eyes fell on Loki’s face. He stiffened and shook his head.

“No, we are fine, mortal. Now leave before you are dismembered.” He hissed, obviously sensing her hatred.

(Y/N) leapt to do her job; damage control. “Loki, Loki, Loki, don’t say that. She’s just being polite and doing her job.” She pushed his chest lightly, stepping between Loki and the unfortunate woman. Neither noticed the paling of the lady’s face, or her hurried goodbye as she got out of there as fast as she could, Loki just stared down at her hand.

They didn’t often come into contact, and usually when it was, it was when (Y/N) was braiding Loki’s hair, or painting his nails when he came for Girls’ Night. He was the only male (or when he’s in male form) they refused to kick out (occasionally Stark could join them because he had gossip as well and didn’t mind getting his nails painted). Other than that, it was usually play-wrestling, pranking or sparring. They were close, but not the closest. It had only been a few weeks since Loki came to Earth - or Midgard as he and Thor put it.

“If you would kindly unhand me and let me know of your true feelings towards this suit, I would be grateful.” Loki spoke cautiously, eyes narrowed, and (Y/N) cleared her throat, taking her hand away and brushing imaginary dirt off. The light-hearted air came back as she faked offence.

“Well, I think it suits you, your hair really matches the shade of purple and it’s cut to your frame.”

Loki smirked, “Yes, I had to alter the frame a little, because it was slightly too wide.” He told her off-handedly, before turning around and admiring himself in the mirror that was next to (Y/N), at the end of the hallway that the cubicles were placed in.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re a magical dude who can and will do as they want. My turn!” (Y/N) almost leapt into the cubicle, and closed the curtain with a wide sweep of her arm.

Which unfortunately opened the other side. Sighing, she got onto her tip toes and closed the other side properly and changed.

Stepping out, (Y/N) looked at Loki, who had stopped preening himself as soon as he saw her in the mirror. His face was wiped carefully blank before (Y/N) could register what emotion he was feeling as he turned around in a smooth motion. He glanced up and down her and frowned.

(Y/N) sighed, rolling her eyes, “Really, it’s that bad? It’s bad enough that you won’t even tell me what you think to my face?”

“Oh, I think it suits you, your body shape was made for such a colour and cut, but let me make a few adjustments….” His voice trailed off as green tendrils of magic swirled out of his hand and his eyes narrowed into an assessing glare.

She felt the fabric loosen, shift, then tighten and rearrange itself. The material wasn’t all too comfortable, and the seams rubbed painfully against her skin around her midsection, but she didn’t complain. If she complained, then Loki would just smirk and say nothing.

He always did that.

He was annoying like that.

And she often got him back for being so… Loki. Well, not Loki exactly, just seemingly unimpressable, yes that’s a made up word, but she often felt like nothing could surprise Loki, and nothing could impress him either.

The magic stopped, and he stepped back to stare at his work. Nodding, he smirked. “You look like a goddess.”

“I thought I do all the time.” (Y/N) returned, raising an eyebrow. “Are you saying I don’t?”

“No, I’m saying you look twice as alluring as you usually do.”

(Y/N)’s thought process immediately dampened, confidence was something that she was often still working on, with today’s society using weak, vulnerable women as the desired type, and everyone wanted to be desired in some way or form. “Two times zero is still zero.”

Loki frowned. “I hate humanity.” Before (Y/N) could defend herself, he continued. “Humanity is so stupid, they pride women as being less than human and simply breeding stock, and men as the capable ones, when it is the women that are keeping the world together. It was the women who created the clothing, fed the people, and raised the children. Why are they treated less when they should be treated more?”

“Woah, Loki, we’re clothes shopping, not good to burst out with humanity-hatred. But it’s only for the more dominant culture. I’m all for hating the social hierarchy, but please can we not do it in a clothes shop?” (Y/N) reminded him where he was, and he visibly relaxed, shoulders dropping imperceptibly, and she relaxed too, glancing down to see what Loki had changed.

He had changed the entire freakin’ colour of the dress, and she saw that it now had a sweetheart neckline, which was actually the horns of his helmet.

“Loki!” She exclaimed, punching his arm lightly as he cackled at her reaction and waved a hand to change it back to how it was originally.

“Well, I do like seeing you in my colours, but I guess that dress shall do. At least it matches my suit.” Loki grinned at her, and she turned bright red. Thor and Loki were in an endless bid to claim the little mortal that they deemed so breakable, and Loki having her dress in his colours was not the first time, but it was the first time that he had outright said that he liked it. “Now, we best get changed back into our normal clothing so we can blow all of Stark’s money on these garments.” Loki’s strange mixture of his own lilting speech pattern, mixed in with what seemed to be her speech pattern sounded strange. Especially with his voice.

“Of course, you don’t need to change, you can just magic it away.” (Y/N) grumbled, and got into the change room. As she suspected, Loki was staring impatiently at the curtain when she finally stepped out, in her normal clothing.

They paid, uneventfully, but Loki remained suspiciously quiet. He was never this quiet and had his head stuck in the metaphorical clouds unless he was planning a big prank.

It was all (Y/N) could do but pray that she wasn’t the target.

Edit bc I forgot the tag list (again, I’m a freakin’ mess and really have no excuse because school doesn’t start for a bit) and you can’t access tags on PC Tumblr, so I always edit in tags when answering asks on PC.

Taglist: @drakesfiance

[the-beastslayers-queen]

Magic and Moonlight: Chapter 1

Here’s chapter one. No warnings yet. I will add warning appropriate. Tagging: @queenofthearchitect Message me if you want to be tagged in this. Enjoy!

“Thea,” your roommate, Charlotte, called as she poked her head into your room, “Time to get up so we can head to the PC.”

“Five more minutes, mom,” I mumbled as I turned away from my door.

“Theadora Rose Bartlett, wake the fuck up,” Charlotte ripped my quilt off my sleepy body, “We have training and promo class today. Now move or I will sit on you.”

I groaned and finally got up. Seeing as I had showered last night, I opted to just dress myself in my typical work out ensemble of a sports bra, loose tank top, workout leggings, and my cross-trainers. I ran my hairbrush through my tangled, loosely curled hair, and pulled it back into a messy bun near the top of head.

Once I was done, I grabbed my gym bag with my spare change of clothes, and went out into the tiny living room and kitchen of my shared apartment here is Orlando, to see what Charlotte made us for breakfast since it was her turn to make it today.

“About time,” Charlotte smirked as she dished up my share of scrambled egg whites with Colby-jack cheese melted on top, “Oh I think you forgot to put on something today.”

Charlottle tapped on her neck, which made my eyes go wide. I forgot my choker necklace I always wore. Since I was very powerful with my magic and having The Morrigan, one of the most powerful ancient witches, in my soul I had to wear it to suppress most of my magic so I can blend into society.

“Oh shit,” I ran into my room and found my choker on my side table. I quickly slipped it on and sighed in relief.

I was worried you’d forget I was here, ma darling.

“How can I forget,” I mumbled to myself, when I was really talking to Morrigan, “You make me a danger to a lot of people when you get in one of your moods.”

I get in my moods to protect us, child.

I just rolled my eyes as I rejoined Charlotte to eat our breakfast before leaving.

Once Charlotte and I got into the PC, she went off to hang with her friends Becky, Bayley and Sasha. I opted to go off into an isolated corner to start stretching before being my training routine. I trained in parkour and tumbling and I used yoga for post-workout recovery. I saw it as a means to help me with my style of wrestling. I loved to just fly from off the ropes. I lived to be agile and strike quickly. I also liked being flexible so I can’t get submitted easily.

I was lost in my thoughts, stretching to get loose before I’d climb into a ring to run the ropes to warm up, when I looked up at very tall presence in front of me. I looked up and saw this very attractive man with dark brown, almost black hair, with a shock of blond to the right of his face. He had a well-kept, but short beard on his face. But his eyes, oh his eyes were a beautiful warm brown that I swear was making me melt under his warm gaze.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” he held out his hand to me as a soft smile graced his lips, “I’m Colby, but my ring name is Seth Rollins.”

“Thea Bartlett,” I took his hand as I righted my posture, “My ring name is Casey Ferguson.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Thea,” Colby smirked, “I’ll see you in the ring later. Maybe I’ll see what moves you got.”

He walked away, going over to a pair of guys standing off in another corner. One had shaggy, dark strawberry blond hair that was tousled all over the place. The other was much taller than both, and was much bigger overall. He definitely looked Samoan and he had black hair, pulled back in a neat and tight bun.

“Thea,” I looked up to see Charlotte coming over with Becky and Bayley, “I see you’ve met one of the resident hotties here at NXT.”

“You mean Colby right,” I asked her innocently. As I looked over at the three men, I noticed that Colby was looking over at me, his eyes locking with mine for a moment. I swear, I thought I felt my magic stirring in me, making me worry a little if I accidently exposed my true nature all because of a guy I just met.

I think I know what’s going on here. You got a crush on him.

Go away, Morrigan. You’re not helping.

Maybe he’s your, our, soulmate. After all your crescent moon faces the left. And I sense he’s not human.

Drop it, Morrigan.

“Is she bothering ya again, lass,” Becky asked.

“When doesn’t she,” Becky was a druid, so she knew all about Morrigan, my parasite in my soul.

“So you met Colby,” Bayley waved over at Colby, “He’s a nice guy actually. And I will let you in on a little secret. He’s not human. I can tell.”

I just shook my head and went to climb into the closest ring to me. Charlotte and the girls hopped up onto the apron and watched as I started to run the ropes. I started to do back bumps and kip ups, trying to get my muscles to start firing and warming up for sparring practice later. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Colby and his buddies come over to lean against the apron opposite of the girls. Colby’s eyes followed me as I ran the ropes. I think I saw him wince every time I did a bump.

Once I felt I had ran enough through the ropes, I decided to do some work flipping off the turnbuckles. I wanted to work on my recoveries from leaping off the ropes, just in case any of my opponents roll out of the way of my high-flying diving attacks.

You have an admirer. His eyes haven’t stopped following you the ring.

Morrigan, not now!

Of course, being distracted by Morrigan and her observations, I didn’t pay attention to my footing on the ropes, and I ended up slipping off the turnbuckle and got my ankle stuck. I screamed in pain as I felt a pulling sensation on my ankle as I dangled precariously in the Tree of Woe position.

“Oh shit,” Colby dove into the ring and immediately came to my aid. Charlotte also came to help, “Hang on, I got you. Char, can you help me out. I’ll hold her while you untangle her leg from the ropes.”

Charlotte nodded at him as she got a grip on my ankle. Colby scooped me up into his arms, holding me close to his chest to get my body weight off my ankle so Charlotte could release me. I winced as Charlotte moved my ankle, trying to not scream out in pain. The last thing I needed was to be seen like this in front of Colby, but too late for that.

Thanks, Morrigan.

Not my fault you can’t multitask.

“Alright you’re free,” Colby helped you stand up a little, not letting you entirely, “Can you stand on your foot?”

I went to put weight on my bad ankle, but I immediately winced and nearly fell. Thankfully, Colby hadn’t left my side yet, and caught me before I could fall.

“Nope,” I winced as I leaned against him, “This is the worst kind of luck. I don’t want to miss anything this early on into NXT. Fuck.”

“Hey it happens,” Colby helped me over to the ropes, by his friends, “Hey Roman, can you help me get her out of the ring. She needs to go to the trainer’s room to get checked out.”

“Sure thing, Uce,” Roman got closer to the ring apron, “Lay her down and I’ll help her down from under the ropes.”

Colby laid me down on the matt, being careful of my ankle. Roman reached over and pulled me into his arms and held onto me as Colby rolled out of the ring. Roman handed me over to Colby and he took me to trainer’s room.

As I got settled on the exam bench, I hadn’t noticed my birthmark was exposed. I looked over at Colby and he was looking right at my birthmark on my hip. My crescent moon. I instantly panicked and fixed my tank top to cover it.

“Your birthmark,” he started before swallowing heavily, “Is it a crescent moon? Are you a witch?”

“Yeah,” you answered both of his questions at the same time. You decided to prove it to him by conjuring a lily in my hand. I held out my hand for him to take the lily from me.

“Wow,” Colby was in awe as he took the lily into his hand, “I mean I’ve heard of witches, but I’ve never met one before. Or at least not knowingly anyway.”

“Ah,” I simply nodded. I was about to speak again when I trainer came into the room.

“Alright, Miss Bartlett, let me get a look at your ankle,” the trainer started to check on my ankle as Colby started to make his way over to the door.

“I’m going to wait outside the room,” Colby said, “I can come back after you’re done and I can help you get back out into the floor for promo class.”

Once we were released for the day, the sun had long since gone down. My ankle was going to be fine in a couple days. Thanks to Colby’s quick thinking, he saved me from severe damage and my ankle was only strained. So, I just had to wear a brace on my ankle and rest for a couple days.

“Hey Char,” I called to Charlotte as I grabbed my keys and my jacket, “I’m going out to the park for a walk and to take in the moonlight, don’t wait up for me.”

“Be careful,” Charlotte warned, “If you need me to come walk you back, give me a call okay.”

I nodded and headed out. The night air was cool and felt pretty nice. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the breeze was calm. As I walked to the park, I was careful to not put too much of my weight on my bad ankle. Once I got there, I took a seat on my usual bench, and gazed up at the stars.

“I wish I could meet my soulmate,” I huffed to myself. All the people I grew up with had found their partners during grade school, but I hadn’t. I mean I knew I had someone because of the mark on my hip, but it still hurt to not have my soulmate yet.

I was lost in my thoughts when I heard a twig snap. The sound startled me as I looked over at the bushes not far from my bench. I stood up slowly, ready to lash out with my magic if I needed to.

Something is in the bushes. I can’t tell if it’s friend or foe.

I approached the bushes cautiously. I had to be extra careful because of my ankle, but I was curious and little scared.

“Who’s there,” I called out toward the bush, “Show yourself.”

There was movement in the bush. I was startled by what came out of the bushes.

It was a wolf. A werewolf to be exact, and he was fairly large one. He was a beautiful deep brown color with some patches of white on his paws and chest. His eyes were the most beautiful feature about him, they were a warm chocolate brown. They looked similar to Colby’s but I wasn’t too sure do to the darkness of the night.

But as I looked into his eyes, I felt this weird sensation. I was tingling all up and down my body. I knelt down to the wolf as he approached me. He bowed before me before he laid down in front of me, resting his chin on his front paws. I tentatively held out my hand to him. The wolf sniffed me before he nudged my hand and licked it. I decided to pet him behind his ear and I swear he gave a groan of approval at my action.

But in that moment, I knew that this wolf was special to me. Even Morrigan knew.

I think you just found your soulmate. I feel this wolf’s imprint on you.

[atlantisking]

knowing how people on tumblr are, doing this is actually terrifying, my anxiety is all over the place but my conscience is more important than what people might throw at me or whether they block me or not.

i have a friend, they don’t need to be named. i hear often about their terrible situation, having a step-father who suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, but rather it’s his immediate environment that suffers from it. people he latches onto, fools them until it’s too late. their mother is stuck in a terrible marriage with a monster who does nothing to battle this condition, rather tortures the two people around him. it’s not my story to tell, but it horrifies me, because to the outside world this man seems perfect, charming and lovable, exactly how he wants to be seen.

now imagine that’s a woman and she’s in the perfect profession as well, in a place where she’ll be admired by millions. she also latches onto people and tortures them and would not let them go, otherwise terrible consequences will occur. yet someone dares to make that move and behold, the wrath of the narcissist is upon them. she plays everything for the media, everything for the public to still love and adore her, but she shows no actual legal weight, nothing that would hold up in court. she won the public side so much so that she could truly destroy her partner in ways that matter a lot.

i have to say i was one of those people who were fooled as well. i felt guilty because i have liked the man in question, i looked up to him and therefore i felt i needed to counterbalance, but it only took a few tabloid articles to be convinced instead of truly looking into the case. now i have read all that’s out there and weighing that evidence i want to say that i was wrong. now this might turn around, and then i will come here and will say again that i was wrong, but you know what? it’s good to admit that.

we live in a culture of purity nowadays that is absolutely unhealthy. everyone needs to be perfectly pc and everyone always has to say the right things and the right words, you make one mistake and the public crucifies you as if they have no faults of their own, as if they have never stumbled in their life. people are afraid to admit to their faults because then the witch hunt begins and therefore they start to believe that everything they do is good and righteous. that’s not a healthy way to live.

at this moment in time i feel strongly that i was wrong reading through available evidence and i’m here willing to admit that. even though i have to state, this sort of matter between two people should not be our business, it’s personal. 

the story itself resonates with me, not just because i know a person who has to live with a narcissist, but let me tell you, reading through everything that happened, the narcissistic traits shine through clear as day. but i have also been emotionally abused for 6 years in my past relationship, i was isolated, i was broken, and when i finally got away, i took everything i could when i walked out, i left many things that were dear to me that i’ll never get back. but becoming free of that suffocating influence was worth it. this person does not act this way.

my husband whom i’ve been married to nearly 3 years now and have known for 7, he is the light of my life. he brought me back from my broken self like no one could’ve. he was also emotionally abused by his own mother but he turned it around and chose to give to the world, and he gave so much to me. without him i could not be the person i am today, and i’m still learning how to love myself. but i said he was also abused and something we both share is anger issues. most of the time we don’t argue, we’re great. but sometimes things snap and i know i can push the wrong buttons, no relationship is perfect and really you have to try and take a deep breath, but when anger just wants to explode in you it’s so hard to dial it back. now, i only shout, but he needs to lash out. he punches the wall or something to try and channel that anger. there is still a whole on the inside of our bedroom door, there is a scar on his fist when he punched a desk so hard it cut his skin deep open and he bled heavily. you might think that sounds horrible, but here’s the thing, i know, for a fact that he’ll never hurt me. that’s not who he is, he never had those urges. i have never in my life felt threatened by him and i will fight the whole world for him, because he just needs to channel that anger somehow and he is doing his best to work on it and he’s been doing great actually.

such a vulnerability has been used against this other man in question, a moment when he’s in a period in his life when he’s deeply hurt and he had a couple (only a couple, the word meaning 2) instances of publicly lashing out, but never towards loved ones. no person close to this man could say anything else but good things about him, people who have no real incentive to lie, people who are strong and would’ve come out a million times if anything bad would’ve happened to them but they never had to.

i’m in literal tears over this as pieces of this make me feel very personally about what has transpired. so this is what i’ll say at the end, everyone, every single person claiming they’ve been abused should be listened to. not believed. every person should be listened to, they need to be given a safe and caring space in which they feel they can share their story. and that story needs to be weighed and measured in the court of law. not by the public. you have no business there. the law is not perfect but it weighs the evidence and is impartial, and you might think that’s not important, but once you’re emotionally invested your judgement goes out the window and that’s not how justice should work. i am emotionally invested. i am a victim of abuse. but i still believe this is the right way.

i have said no names throughout this, but i’m sure you know what i’m talking about. if you feel you need to block me, then do so, but i keep an open mind and looking at strictly the evidence this is where my conclusion lies at the moment. i have felt it important to state once again that i feel i was wrong before and i urge you to just look at the facts. the court papers are out there.

[cloudynames]

The Demon Knows Best

hey guys!! how is everyone? i hope youll all excuse me for this late fic ;; school has been killing me but during my winter break ill make sure to post more! please study hard if you take exams this december but make sure to take care of yourself!! hopefully this will power you through exams <3 

Word Count: 2,914

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Underage drinking, underage usage of drugs, driving under the influence, and swearing

lets get it!

------------------------

“Thank you so much for coming!” You yell out, waving at your friends for coming to your birthday celebration. You turn around and grin at all the presents left for you before jumping into the pile and starting to rip off the wrapping paper from the gifts.

Tearing the envelopes and boxes open, you’ve received countless cards to all your favorite stores and some clothing. You laid back once you’ve opened everything and smile. Your friends were so sweet to be giving you all these wonderful gifts. Making a mental note in your head, you were sure to thank them later on that day.

Just as you were about to stand up and grab a snack, a sharp edge stung the side of your thigh.

“Ow! What the hell!” You fume, about to throw the object that suddenly attacked you when you realized it was a wrapped present. Confused, you try to recall if you had missed any present but couldn’t come to any conclusion. Unwrapping the gift, you were left more confused than ever.

The present was a black box with gold engravings on the edges and forming a floral pattern in the middle of the square. Analyzing it from all six sides, the best bet as to what the mystery object could be was a decoration. You sigh, setting the object down and taking out your phone.

Typing in the group chat, you ask if any of your friends gave you a ‘sharp tiny box.’ The responses varied from, ‘hell no’ to ‘I bet it was from Jisung.’

You huff and throw your phone next to you. Did Jisung really buy you a decoration for your birthday? You sincerely appreciated the thought, but he knows that you two don’t share the same aesthetic.

That day, you didn’t look at the box again.

Nor the next day.

However, you messed with it the following week.

That night you were taking a break from studying and YouTube was getting boring so the next best option was to clean your room. Upon dusting your dresser, your eyes landed on the mysterious black box that had been secretly haunting your thoughts. Grabbing the box, you sat on your bed and stared at the markings.

Noticing the tiny scratches and small indents leads you to suspect that the gift had been previously owned. A loud groan fills your room. Why the hell did Jisung give you a box? More importantly, a box that has already been used! You seriously needed to teach him some proper gift-giving etiquette.

However, the box had scratches and small indents. Someone must’ve played with it or dropped it previously before. But if they had dropped it, why were they even looking at it in the first place? The box might’ve been the size of your hand, but it was quite heavy for its size.  

Your finger glided across one of the golden strokes and the piece suddenly shifted to a new position. Your mouth hung open in shock and suddenly you yelled, “OH!”

It was a puzzle!

You carefully worked on the puzzle for twenty minutes and smiled in satisfaction once the final piece set in place. The markings weren’t supposed to be a floral piece, but a cat. But after that last piece set in place, the box began to glow. Throwing the box on your bed and jumping up from your seat, you wondered if the box was simply a decoration. Checking the time comforted you as it was late at night. The clock read 2:37 so it was about time you get some rest.

As the box began to glow more and more, soon becoming blinding to even look at, it was definitely not an illusion. Fearful to make a sound, you slapped a hand over your mouth and closed your eyes tightly, hoping it would all end soon.

Suddenly, the glowing stopped and you opened your eyes.

There was no longer a box in front of you, but a black-haired boy with just as black horns and a tail.

“Finally! I’ve been yelling at you the entire time to solve me.” He exclaims, sitting down as your desk chair while you stared at him with wide eyes.

He took a few chips from your chip bag before jumping up and holding his hand out. “I forgot, humans introduce themselves to each other. My name is Jeno.”

Due to you not responding, he took your hand and slid it into the grip of his, shaking firmly.

“W-What the hell are you?”

“Well, I’m not Hell. But I do come from it! I’m a demon. I’m friends with The Devil if you guys want to go out sometime.”

“I swear I can see stars right now…”

“No, no, no! That’s not good at all. Oh please don’t die on me! This has happened before.” He rushes you put a pillow behind you in case you collapse.

“W-WHAT?”

After taking a few moments to breathe and collect your thoughts, you iterate to Jeno the new information about his appearance.

“So, you’re a demon that’s supposed to make me do bad choices in order to live? Somewhat similar to a leech?”

He makes a pained face and grabs his heart. “Leech is low. Parasite is much more educated and proper.”

You stare at him in shock. The fact that demons existed in your oh so black and white world confused you more than ever.

“S-So, can you like go? I’m a very busy person and I don’t worship The Devil.”

“Nope.” He plopped on your bed and snuggled into the covers.

“Why not?”

“Okay. So here’s the thing: I’m supposed to take your soul so I can leave and I need to make you as vulnerable as I can to make extraction easy. I need to make you do bad decisions though, almost like to destroy your sense of morality and slowly kill you from the inside to out.” Jeno monotones.

“I’m stuck with you until I die?”

“Or until I take your soul.” He winks and a strange pulling at your heart occurs.

However, being with Jeno wasn’t as bad as you thought. He threatened to eat your soul a couple of times but he honestly was a good dude.

“Ugh, I hate eating all this fast food.” You muttered, shoving a fry in your mouth, “but it tastes so good!”

Jeno sips on his milkshake loudly and nods. “I agree—Ooh! Brainfreeze!” He yells and holds his head, shaking from side to side. You grab the milkshake out of his hand and finish it, throwing away the garbage.

“Okay, what should we do next?” You questioned Jeno.

He was in deep contemplation, playing with the end of his shirt until he randomly stood up. “Video games!”

“With what system?” Your room had no consoles and no extra PC for him to play on.

Holding out a hand, a black mist covered his arm and a Nintendo Switch made an appearance.

You open your mouth to question him but he quickly cuts you off.

“What? You don’t think we have video games in Hell?”

You smirk and quickly rush to your TV, only to play Smash until the next day. The next day, however, happened to be a school day.

Falling asleep just twenty minutes ago and hearing your blaring alarm startled you from your slumber. You jolted up in surprise and groaned at the clock. “No way it’s already seven! I’m so tired.” Yawning and lying back down, you curled up close to Jeno. “You’re so warm.” The words came mumbled and gargled, but Jeno understood you perfectly.

Blushing, he opened up more towards you and whistled out, “Well, you can just skip.”

“Yeah… I might just do that.”

Jeno could feel your moral compass failing already, but he didn’t want to take your soul just yet.

That night your parents couldn’t stop yelling at you for skipping, but spending the day with Jeno made you feel better. They made you swear on your life to study that night to make up for skipping and you promised.

Having Jeno in the kitchen was a terrible idea. While trying to study names of scientists for chemistry, he kept opening and closing cabinets, banging pots and pans together, and trying every condiment available to him. He almost smashed a bottle of spicy mustard after it disgusted his tastebuds.

“Ohohoho! What do we have here?”

Turning over to the devil boy holding a bottle of fruity rum, you jump out of your seat and reach for the bottle, only to have your face pushed away.

“Jeno! No! You’re not drinking that!”

“Why? The drinking age in Hell is whatever you want it to be!”

You growled, “Good thing you’re on earth at the moment!” Jumping and stretching for the bottle only frustrated you more when all he did was raise his arm higher.

“Come on, don’t you want to try it? It’s going to be sooo long until you can try it.”

He tempted you and he was doing one good job at doing it. Pursuing your lips, you grab the bottle and two shot glasses, filling them halfway. You tentivany bring the alcohol to your lips and down it. The drink leaves a slight burn and leaves a pit of despair in your stomach afterwards if your parents ever find out what you were doing.

But it was damn good.

Jeno and you spent that night drinking and dancing in your room. Even though it left you with a hell of a hangover, you powered through the day and went to school that following morning.

All was going well (other than you almost tripping with every step) until lunch arrived.

Renjun was rambling off about his newest obsession which happened to be an anime while Chenle was picking at his food half-heartedly, more interested at his phone. Your group was only disrupted when Jaemin, Haechan, and Jisung sat at your table, almost clinging to each other.

“What happened?” Renjun stops his rant to question them.

“Well, you see, uh—“

“Haechan accidentally bought edibles!” Jisung yelled and Jaemin almost sent him out of his seat, a fist flying very close to his head.

“How the fuck do you accidentally buy edibles?” Mark asks, taking a seat at the far end of the table.

“I didn’t know what edibles meant! I thought it was one of those pretty arrangements of fruit!” He complained, slamming the bag of what appeared to be chocolate chip cookies.

Chenle let out a laugh before snatching the bag and letting out a even louder laugh. “Yep. These are for sure edibles.”

The whole table bursted out in laughter and amusement while Haechan’s face became a pretty pink color. He shoved his head in his hands and breathed, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do! I don’t even do drugs! I’m part of student council! They can’t catch me doing this shit!”

“I’ll take it.” You speak up, holding out a hand and Chenle places the bag hurriedly in your grasp.

“Ooooo, honor role student taking a bag of edibles? Who hurt you?” Jaemin giggles.

“Shut up. I know someone who’ll take it.” You grumbled.

Deep in the back of your mind, you knew it was a lie. You were the one who was going to take it, along with Jeno.

“Are you sure you wanna try this?” He asks, fidgeting with his fingers.

“Jeno, if I didn’t know you any better, I would say you’re scared!”

He was. He was incredibly terrified. Every time he looked at you, you were doing something bad. Whether it was telling a lie or drinking, your moral compass was decreasing at an impeccable pace. Jeno would admit he had developed a tiny crush on you. You were so innocent, but you slowly turned into someone he didn’t recognize.

You had already taken a bite out of the cookie and with crumbs falling out of your mouth, you speak out, “I don’t feel anything.”

An hour later, you laid on your bed and giggled. “Hey Jeno, how would a dog wear pants? On all four legs or only the back ones?”

Jeno wondered if someone high even acts like this.

“I can’t honestly tell you {y/n}, but I bet it’s based on preference.”

You chuckle and roll around in your bed. “Jeno—“ You call out sweetly.

A heat rushes to Jeno’s face and he replies, “Yes?”

“You know I like you a lot. Like, a lot a lot. More than a normal person should.”

Jeno feels his heart stop momentarily and he swallows the lump in his throat. “What do you mean?”

“Like, I think sometimes I’m in love with you.”

Oh, how ironic that now he feels as if he is going to faint.

He passes it off as you exemplifying your feelings and he states, “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

He looks back at you for your response and only breathes out a sigh of relief when he notices you’re in a deep sleep.

Slowly, Jeno started noticing your moral compass failing more and more. Although it was his job, he never wanted to take your soul. You were too pure to him, something untouchable. Fate hated you clearly, due to the black box within your room.

The last straw for Jeno was a late night at a party. Since it was Halloween, nobody would question his horns and tail. You decided you wanted to bring him along. Perhaps he pressured you to a few shots, but nothing more! He saw how much you could take with the fruity rum.

However, you stepped up to play a game of beer pong once Jeno used the bathroom. A few beers later and secret shots, you were officially wasted. Jeno, even as a demon, knew better than to let you wander around the disco-like party. He begrudgingly grabbed you and dragged you into your car.

Whilst he kept you from falling all over, he quietly waited for you to start the car, only to realize that you’re drunk and he doesn’t know how to drive on earth.

Panic sets in, but what’s the worst that could happen?

The worst nearly happened.

He didn’t think much of it when you were drifting off into different lanes, but when you almost crashed into a tree, he started to worried.

“Oh my Devil, I have a serious case of whiplash. Hey, are you alright?” Jeno shook your shoulder and you held a hand to your mouth.

“Dude, I’m seriously going to puke if you mess with me like that.” The words came out slurred and Jeno frowned. He knew something had to be done.

He made sure to get on your ass for the next week. Jeno made sure all your homework was completed and you studied at least one hour a day. You resented him for it and it caused that every day stress to creep back into your life once again. Feeling an itch to find some quick relief, raiding the liquor cabinet didn’t seem to do any harm in the short-term.

Sneaking quietly to the cabinet and grabbing one of your mother’s favorite champagne bottles, you turned around only to smack your face in the chest of a demon.

“And what do we have here?” Jeno questioned, snatching the bottle from you.

“Jeno, give it back.” You complained, reaching with little effort.

“What did I tell you about drinking?”

By this point, you were fuming. Who gave Jeno the authority to boss you around? It’s not like he cared anyway. He wants you to do these terrible things!

“Why do you even give a damn anyway? It’s not like you care.”

Jeno remained quiet and you felt your heartbeat pounding harder than ever.

“I don’t care? I am risking my job to keep you safe. I have disobeyed every law in Hell for you just to spend time with you. I even have a crush on you, my fucking host. If Satan ever finds out my feelings towards you, he would keep me as a pet, which is not fun at all!” He almost slammed the bottle on the counter before taking one final look at you. “But go ahead. I don’t give a damn apparently.”

Jeno left you and the bottle remained unopened.

You weren’t sure how to exactly apologize to a demon. They might not even accept apologizes! Yet you needed to set things straight with Jeno.

About an hour or two after your argument, you crept up to your room and tapped lightly on the door. Peering in, you saw the somewhat small lump on your bed, covered in your personal blankets. Resisting the urge to grin, you tiptoed to your bed and laid down next to lump.

After a few moments of shuffling, Jeno poked his head out from the blankets and pouted, “What do you want?”

You breathed out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I fought with you and got mad. I know you’re looking out for me.”

Jeno contemplated your response before responding, “Forget about what I said earlier.”

Your mind flashes back to his confession and you feel suddenly light-headed, being in the same bed as the boy who just confessed to you.

“What about if I don’t want to?”

Suddenly, Jeno moves closer to your body and wraps both of you in the warm sheets.

“I would say don’t. After all, the demon knows best.”

[northernrainforest]

Power

The power went out last night, an hour after I’d stocked the fridge and a half hour before we were going to start making dinner. The last time the power went out, Ladybug was in school and I was just across the parking lot, at the rec center. Somehow the cardio machines were still functional, so I carried on with my workout – and it never occurred to me that my daughter might be fifty yards away, in the dark, and scared. Only when I picked her up did she coming running up to say, “Mommy, the power went out and I was as brave as I could be!” It turns out she was in the bathroom with two other preschoolers when the lights went out; the three of them held hands and walked back toward their classroom. They were picked up on the way by the school librarian who had come to find them, and they were very proud of themselves for being so clearheaded in the face of an emergency.

Last night, once the lights went out but before it got fully dark, we pulled out candles, headlamps, and flashlights and geared ourselves up for the possibility of a long evening with no power. After the lights had been out for ten minutes, I started calling restaurants around town to see who was open. On our way to Fat Stan’s, we tried to figure out where the grid started and ended; the power was on at the post office but off at A&P across the street. I later found out that our Coast Guard friends who live ten miles north of town lost power too. (They had cereal for dinner, which didn’t actually cross my mind. When your preschooler inexplicably hates eating in restaurants, you jump at any chance to say, “Sorry, we haveto go out.”)

I was slightly disappointed that the power was back on when we got home, but I can’t say I was surprised. As many outages as there have been since we’ve lived here – I think it’s up to four – they’ve never been long. It was Flo and Ladybug who reported back from their respective schools the most common reason: bald eagles get tangled up in the wires and blow the transformer. (Or as Ladybug put it, “They break the wire and the power goes out.”) I grew up with power outages, though rarely in Brooklyn. We spent our summers at a little house in Maine (the Canadians across the lake call them cottages, and New Yorkers would call them cabins, but the locals on East Grand Lake all call them camps.) Life at the camp was simple. We kids had a dishwashing schedule which rotated meals by day – really easy with three children in the family. If you had the breakfast dishes you were in luck; a handful of oatmeal bowls and then you could run out and go swimming. Lunch got more complicated, and dinner was the absolute worst, so one of us came up with a compromise: you could choose to cook the meal, and then Mom and Dad had to do the dishes. This is how and why I learned to cook – not because I had some deep love of fine cuisine (although I was always a fan of beautiful illustrated cookbooks) but because I wanted to avoid the odious doing-of-dishes. There was also no television at the camp, and the only person with a computer was our dad – a big hunk of plastic we all called “the IBM PC” – so all fun had to be analog. It’s funny to think that losing power would be such a big deal in that context – we were already living a pretty low-tech life. But it wasa big deal. Some of the most fun summer evenings I remember involve playing Scotland Yard by candlelight. (If you’ve never played Scotland Yard: do yourself a favor.)

So our power was back on last night, but I tried not to let the power of the adventure fade. We all stayed in the living room together, doing our own separate things part of the night, but then reading some new library books together, playing limbo with a jump rope. I’ve sometimes felt sad for our little one that she doesn’t have any allies in the house; if the grownups don’t want to limbo with her, she’s on her own. It has bred a creative spark in her, which is cool. I often see her instructing an entire schoolroom filled with stuffed animals, or turning empty sketch pads into letter-learning workbooks, a doll by her side. But I do think she’s lonely at times: there is no dishes chart, because there’s simply no one to share the task with. One would think an evening in the dark might exacerbate that, but I’ve always found power outages to be thrilling and to bring people together, and Ladybug seemed to agree. Right when the lights clicked off, she and Flo raced down to pick up a package at the post office – a task she might otherwise not have wanted to do, but she was too curious to see the post office bathed in darkness. Even the drive to dinner became an adventure, as we looked for lights in all the businesses we passed and discussed which friends might also be in the dark.

We had something of a haphazard earthquake kit in California; Flo was convinced that the most important element was ramen, but half the case of ramen ended up in my trunk and I couldn’t tell you where the other half was. (Also. I’d have to be very, very hungry to eat cup-a-noodles at this point in my life.) We did have several big jugs of water at the ready, and a first aid kit. But the tricky part about an earthquake kit is where to keep it: what will be destroyed in an earthquake? Where will you be? If you’re somehow trapped in your kitchen, you’ll be fine for awhile; no one keeps an earthquake kit in the bathroom, but of course that would be the worst place to be stuck – no food or drink if the water turns off, and a window too small to escape from. I lived in LA long enough to feel several earthquakes. I was two blocks from the epicenter of a pretty big one and even though it only lasted ten seconds or so, I’ll never forget the feeling of my feet losing their grip, my body tossed around like I’d come unglued from a snow globe. Flo lived through the Northridge earthquake, which shut down the city. He still talks about the eerie devastation of it, 25 years later.

These are eventualities we don’t have to consider anymore, but it’s a good time to put together a power outage kit. We’re going to consolidate our flashlights and headlamps, buy some more candles, throw in a deck of cards. Maybe we’ll put some sort of treat in the box – something we only have when the power goes out. I’m at the stage where I wonder how many more outages there will be before the baby comes. Could there be one while I’m in labor, the entire maternity ward going dark, Ladybug at home with her aunt or her nana, proud of herself for being as brave as she could be? The funny part about a baby is how little he will require: there’s no need to add anything to our kit for him. All this baby will need, for a very long time, is us. Someday we will have a dishes chart, maybe inspiring one of our children to learn how to cook. Someday we’ll play Scotland Yard (we’ve already tried, but it’s hilarious with a four-year-old.) Someday I’ll look up and see Ladybug building her schoolroom, forcing a little boy to sit quietly and listen to her, the way I did to my very accommodating younger sister. It’s been a tough couple of years, getting us to the family that we want – a blog post for another day, perhaps. But in the day to day, caught up in the mundane details of child-rearing, the grief melts away and it’s all very simple: a board game, some library books, limbo-ing with a jump rope. It’s the stuff of life, and there’s power in that.

[free-the-mages]

Dragon Age questions

!!!!!!!!!!! i was tagged by the lovely @bitchesofostwick (thank you so much!!!) and i’m not tagging anyone because i’m late to this (sorry, i didn’t do it immediately when i saw it and in my usual fashion i forgot for a few days. >_>) so i know basically everyone i would tag has already been tagged. but anyway, let’s get on with it!!

p.s. this’ll be long because i ramble. ❤️

01) favorite game of the series? i’d say inquisition, probably. i rather like the character creator and the open-world feel of it. i like the gameplay of it too. it also gets bonus points because it’s the only game i know how to mod even a little, which makes me happy because i can get characters that are 100% unique to me. :]

02) how did you discover Dragon Age? Shit, nearly a decade ago i remember finding this disc for a game called Dragon Age: Origins lying around one day. it was my brother’s and i can’t remember where he said he got it, but anyway it was damaged and wouldn’t play anyway. i didn’t give a rat’s ass about it tbh. my thoughts of it went no further. it wasn’t until about three years later that my brother bought it for the 360 and i saw him play a bit and then learned that there was a character creator and I FUCKING LIVED (AND STILL DO) for games with character creators. so my happy ass started playing!!!! (that was the very first version of my Tabris, Lark!) shortly after that i purchased it for PC and the rest is history!

03) how many times you’ve played the games? I’ve completed Origins only once. I’ve started a few playthroughs, but i’ve never gotten very far. :/ oh, and i also completed Awakening once. i’ve completed DA2 i believe twice. Again, i’ve started multiple playthroughs, just never finished them all. and basically the same for Inquisition, tbh. i’ve done one playthrough without Trespasser and one with. OR i might have just loaded up the finished save and played Trespasser when i bought it. xD in any case i’ve played each game through at least once.

04) favorite race to play as? i don’t really see it as favorites? in Inquisition i’ve technically created a couple characters for each race (except a dwarf. haven’t gotten around to making a dwarf quizzy yet) but most of them are just “throwaway” characters that i make to romance people because i want to try all the romances but i can’t make every character i create into like, a character character, that exists fully in my head and outside the game. so any characters you hear about from me are ones that have really stuck out to me in one way or another. anyway the only warden i ever made that mattered any was Lark, who is of course an elf. i like them all tbh! i was rather excited about being able to play a badass qunari chick, though! (even though my first character was a human. go figure.)

05) favorite class? mage!!!!! when first played Origins i made Lark a warrior. idk for sure why, but i think it was because i didn’t want a character in the Circle. i wanted a city elf. idk why i picked warrior over rogue though. my first Hawke was a warrior. again, idk why. my second Hawke was a mage, and I. FELL. IN. LOVE. i loved the fighting animations, i loved the spells, i just…. i loved. when i finally was able to play DAI (which was a few years after it was released) my first character was a mage. again, i loved it. however, when i went back to DAO at one point and tried being a mage i was not a fan of it. i didn’t like the way it played. BUT OVERALL my favorite is definitely mage. :]

06) do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time? the same. it might be sad and pitiful, but in-game decisions give me real-world feelings and anxiety so i just make the decisions that stay in my comfort zone. :] sometimes i’m brave and try different things, but for the most part i make the same decisions.

07) go-to adventuring group? Disclaimer: if applicable, i take my LI everywhere i go. :] i honestly try to take a variety of people because i want a balanced team as much as possible. i’m also a very casual player, so i don’t use the tactical camera or like, the behavior patterns or anything. i leave everything default. so i try to mix and match and come up with a team that i feel best compliments my character’s class/abilities or whatever, without me having to babysit them or really do any work in regards to that. that AND i like to hear the different banters tbh. when i’m picking my team sometimes i’ll stop and think, “omg, what is [character] and [character]’s relationship really like??? i never take them together so i don’t know!!” so i’ll expand my horizons and take groups of companions that i don’t normally take together. that being said, I LOVE ALL THE COMPANIONS ALL THE TIME SO I DON’T PLAY FAVORITES. :]

08) which of your characters did you put the most thought into? Probably Sydnie, because she was the first game character that really developed into an OC. the first one i really wanted to try writing for. my first Inquisitor. :] she was the first (game) character that, as i was playing, i really sat and thought, “what would this living being with a soul do when presented with this situation?” instead of just clicking whatever. xD anyway, ideas just came flying at me when i thought about her. overall i feel like she’s very underdeveloped still as far as character’s go, but i love her and i’ve been thinking a lot more about her lately. i’d really love to finish writing something for her eventually. xD

09) favorite romance? oh man, idk. tbh i’ve not finished all of the romances so a part of me wants to be like, “i can’t really answer this tbh”. Lark romanced Alistair, and it was cute and i love them. (i’ve toyed with the idea of writing some stuff for them and it’d be so cute if i could actually get my ass into gear.) i really liked Fenris’s romance (and DA2 was the only game that i played through more than one companion’s romance.) and Cullen is the only one i’ve completed a romance for in DAI, though i played most of Josie’s and i’m love. :] honestly i really do feel like there really isn’t an answer from me for this one. sorry! D:

10) have you read any of the comics/books? nope. i was thinking of maybe getting The Masked Empire but i haven’t fully decided yet. i unfortunately don’t read books much these days. (i’d rather be on my comp playing games or arting or maybe reading fic!!)

11) if you read them, which was your favorite book? n/a

12) favorite DLCs? i am so fucking ambivalent wtf. seriously, people. i’m coming to learn that there are few things i have an actual feelings on either way. -___- Trespasser is the only big DLC i own and i fucking hate it. it’s great and all but i kind of cried at the end so whatever. :] but honestly i really really like the Spoils of the Qunari DLC!!!!! the antaam-saar!!!!!! (i think i spelled it right idk i’m too lazy to check please forgive me) and the mount!!!!! good stuff. i own (i think) all of the DLC for DA2 and i like them all well enough. i also own all for DAO and i like them well enough. i’ve only ever played the DAO in-game DLC as well as Awakening (meaning no Leli’s Song, no Witch Hunt, etc.) i just never got around to it. anyway, really. not really playing favorites here either. xD

13) things that annoy you. not much tbh. i suppose it’s annoying that sometimes in some games i’m sitting here like, “okay, why did my character just say these words? that wasn’t what the words that i clicked on said. ?????????”

14) Orlais or Ferelden? Ferelden! because it’s more rustic and i like that. :3 also mabaris.

15) templars or mages? mages. though i do believe there’s an argument to be had about the treatment of both groups at the hands of the chantry. but still mages. :]

16) if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one? obviously i intend to have and OC HOF, champion, and inquisitor all in one universe. i’ve had a hard time trying to figure out which characters i want to be canon and which aren’t. i’ve also toyed with the idea of having multiple world states that act as their own individual canons, but that’s a lot of work and like… lazy. :] for a while i just figured Lark was my canon warden no canon Hawke thus far and Sydnie my canon Inquisitor. but idk.

17) what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc) UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM………………….. one of the mabaris in the first two games was named Charlemagne (i think my Hawke’s dogs are always Charlemagne) and i think Lark’s dog was… omg hold on i have it documented somewhere. *a few minutes later* Shawshank! Lark’s dog’s name is Shawshank.

18) have you installed any mods? yes because i’m garbage that is privileged enough to be a computer gamer and can install mods. i also really like having mods and making mods so yes. yes i install mods. :]

19) did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden? not particularly, though she didn’t mind having to leave the alienage. she’d be dead or worse if she’d stayed and also she would have attempted to run away long before shit hit the fan if she didn’t have her family to think about. she still cared for her family and she did feel some sadness over leaving them, but it was like her soul made a sigh of relief and a weight was lifted. she was truly happy to leave. becoming a Grey Warden was sort of like a not completely unpleasant side effect.

20) hawke’s personality? i don’t really have a Hawke atm but I generally tend to play blue Hawkes.

21) did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition? no and they should all thank the maker because every fucking one of ‘em would be in plaidweave and that’s that on that.

22) if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change? ugh this is too much thinking for me. why are there so many questions?!??!?!!? anyway idk. i think Sydnie would change the way she let herself react to a really bad thing that happened in the circle. because she reacted the way she did, it completely changed who she was and it takes her a long time to get herself back. sorry it’s vague but that’s just how these things go sometimes. :] Lark doesn’t really live in the past, if that makes sense? she doesn’t dwell on things enough to regret. why change the past when you can own this day???? as a certain cheeky lesbian elf apparently says maybe. :3

23) do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon? kind of, but mostly small things, and generally only things that pertain directly to my character. also i like to switch things up when it comes to romances. :] i try to take the basics of the in-game romance arc and tailor it a bit more to what i envision. or just what i want. ;D so i guess that could maybe be considered off canon, though i don’t really see the romances as canon anyway.

24) are any of your character(s) based on someone? no. not intentionally, anyway. it would take me way too long to explain my thought processes when it comes to creating characters (and this bitch is already long enough at this point) so i won’t go into details. :] so basically no, i don’t ever really set out to base characters on people. maybe subconsciously it happens? idk.

25) who did you leave in the Fade? my first playthrough was the default world state so i sacrificed Stroud because of course i did. with the custom world state i have now i sacrificed Hawke. D: because you know i’m not sacrificing Alistair!!!! especially not after he said the stuff about Lark and them being together AND I COULDN’T TAKE THAT AWAY. also it wasn’t like it was MY Hawke, because i don’t have an actual OC Hawke it was quite easy to sacrifice her because i had no real attachment to her. anyway don’t fucking ask me who i’ll sacrifice when i finally get around to actually deciding on my canons and their world state because I DON’T KNOW AND I DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. thank you. :]

26) favorite mount? i don’t use mounts much actually. i like hearing banter. that being said, i really like the way the qunari horse looks. i also like the harts and i don’t care what anyone else says i love their nails-on-chalkboard screech. fight me if you must but i said what i said. :]

THANKS SO MUCH TO ANYONE WHO READS THIS I APPRECIATE YOU LETTING ME WASTE YOUR TIME!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

[serahsanguine]

Whats Left Unsaid, Says It All. pt. 2

Whats Left Unsaid, Says it all part 2/?

Rating; NC-17, NSFW

This Story can be found at Ao3

part one can be found here pt.1

Tagging; @peacenik0 , @today-in-fic

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 Chapter 2; News, 

One month later

Scully was walking down the dark corridor, towards the X-Files office. She found herself suddenly hesitant about knocking. Fox Mulder was his name, a joke throughout Quantico "Mr. Spooky" as everyone liked to call him. She knocked and entered the room.

"Nobody here but the FBI's most unwanted," Mulder said without looking to see who had entered. Scully recognised his voice instantly, it was the voice of the man she had met a little over a month ago in a bar on her birthday; the tall man with the hazel eyes and chestnut brown hair. Scully nervously walked into the room and looked around spotting the I Want To Believe poster and some pictures covering the walls. He turned to look at her and she smiled.

"Agent Mulder? I’m Dana Scully I’ve been assigned to work with you"

"Oh, isn’t it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded. So who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, scully?" All he kept thinking was oh god why did it have to be her. The woman that he couldn't stop thinking about, the woman the entered his life on February 23rd and gave him all the pleasures of life and leaving just as quickly as she appeared in his life.

"Actually I’m looking forward to working with you. I’ve heard a lot about you" Scully blushed at that statement and so did he, both knowing the double meaning behind her words.

"Oh really…. I was under the impression you were sent to spy on me"

"If you have any doubt about my qualifications or credentials,"

Mulder stood up, taking a piece of paper from the pile on his desk (the phone acting as a paper weight). "You’re a medical doctor, you teach at the Academy. You did your undergraduate degree in physics. Einstein's twin paradox, a new interpretation Dana Scully senior thesis. Now that's a credential... rewriting Einstein"

"Did you bother to read it?"

"I did, I liked it." Mulder smiled at Scully, he could tell she was more than a little annoyed at him but she smiled back.

He carried the slide wheel to the other side of the room and put it on to the projector.

"So, your name isn't really Katherine, is it?" he said trying to break the awkward silence and getting back to the flirtatious conversation they were just having.

"And your name isn't Bob..." she smirked "but I can see why with your first name being Fox, you'd go with that instead"

He gave her a teasing glare "You’re an FBI agent. You didn’t say anything about that either"

"So are you, and I can say the same" she replied quickly the banter was, thankfully, heating up again.

"Touché, Miss Scully" the comment made Scully giggle and he made a mental note to do that more often. Mulder clicked the projector on and started talking about the case.

This flirtatious nature between the two of them was going to make things very interesting.

24 hours later  Scully’s Motel room

Bellefleur, Oregon

Scully was typing away on her rather chunky laptop, trying to get down everything she had heard and seen during the case thus far. Mulder being extremely weird and spray painting a giant orange X in the middle of the road and later in the same spot their so-called lost nine minutes, which she didn't even believe happened. A thunderclap rings out and the power goes out. ‘Great’ she mutters to herself. She walks through to the bathroom carrying a candle, wearing her red bathrobe. She moved the shower curtain aside, turning on the tap for the bath. As she looked at herself in the mirror at her loose curly hair, she sighed and disrobed, revealing her silver/white bra and matching underwear. She ran her hand along the waistband of her panties, starting from her stomach and moving around to her lower back that was when she felt the two raised bumps she hovered her fingers over them; making sure she wasn't imagining the eerily familiar bumps. Before exiting her room in a hurry she remembered to turn off the bath.

She knocked on his motel room door. Mulder walked towards his door carrying a candle in his hand, only to find Scully standing there in a red robe, visibly shaken and scared.

"Hi"

"I want you to look at something"

"Come in..." Mulder's mind was working overtime, as flashes of her naked sweaty body underneath his invaded it, her flushed cheeks and look of pure ecstasy on her face; it was amazing and beautiful. He shakes his head to try to get rid of the thoughts because this was most definitely not the time to fall down that rabbit hole again.

Scully rushed in past him, turned around and slipped her robe off of her lovely, delicate pale shoulders. She stands there, vaguely embarrassed and almost naked, in front of him and looks over her shoulder at him, her eyes flutter down to her back worried. Mulder is still holding the candle, he kneels down and brings the candle up to the skin on the small of her back, following the length of her spine. His desire for her was starting to make itself known against his trousers.

"What are they?" she asked questionably "Mulder what are they?"

Mulder smiles even though she can’t see him. "Mosquito bites"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he chuckles. "I got eaten up a lot myself out there"

Scully hastily pulls her robe back on her shoulders and slips her hands around his waist, bringing her body close to his in a grateful hug. He smells a little musky and sweaty from his run but he also feels warm and snuggly in her embrace. She brushes her fingers lightly against his back under the hem of his t-shirt and begins to relax, listening to the sound of his heartbeat her anxiety slowly slipping away. Scully's fingers move down his spine and she heard Mulder's heartbeat a little bit faster.

Mulder smiles at his partner feeling her cold skin against his, she smells of honey and jasmine. It's a smell he’s never going to get used to. His breath hitched when she moved one hand to his stomach, his erection pressing against her thigh. He wants to kiss her so bad that he leans down, unexpectedly and placed his lips on her, tasting the salt of the rain with a mix a red wine on her lips. She pulls away apologising profusely, looking at him and all she saw was desire there in his eyes... just for her.

"We really shouldn’t... we’re on a case," she says half-heartedly.

"Ok" he can't say he’s not disappointed but she is right, even though he really wants to continue to kiss her, and make her feel the way he does.

She moved towards the bed as endorphins flooded her system and images of him flashing before her eyes; his body in hers dripping, slipping, sliding and grinding in and out of her. If he looked over at her now, he would notice that her cheeks were flushed. She laid herself down facing the window trying to will the thoughts away and he moved toward the other side of it sitting down staring out the window, trying not to look at her and changing the subject.

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It was late June now; their bond had grown and was stronger now than when they first started and she was slowly learning to trust him, after the conversation on the bed that late rainy night in Oregon. He had opened up and told her of his sister's abduction when he was younger and she could tell it was hard from him to talk about it, there was sorrow in his voice and he couldn't look her directly in the eye.

Since then they had a fair few hard cases.

There was this one case where a man could squeeze himself into small spaces like the old folklore of "the folding man". She had been at home one night, when he squeezed himself out of her vent and into her apartment. Even though she and Mulder had agreed not to sleep together again after that fruitful night back in February, he had found himself once more in her bed all hot naked and sticky. She was thankful he was there that night because the alternative could have been so much different and deadlier. They had had a hard time explaining to the cops why he was there but didn’t question them on it.

Couple of days after that they had The Jersey Devil Case and oh boy that was a strange one, involving a half-man that turned out to be a half-woman / half - beast creature and right in the middle of the case she had her godson, Trent's, birthday party that she attended; it was nice to see Ellen, of course, as they hadn’t had time to catch up since her birthday. One of the father's of Trent's friend asked her out on a date that day but she politely refused because she knew that she would be thinking about Mulder the whole time anyway.

After that there was the case in the Arctic, they had sex there too even with suspicious living extraterrestrial parasitic organisms invading the human body but the prospect of being caught overruled their judgment.

Then there was a case with twins but they weren't twins because it turned out there were a lot of them and the Government called it the Eve project.

"When aren't the Government involved," she thought, sounding like Mulder which made her giggle.

She was sitting alone, typing away on her PC, having learned just a few days ago of her father's passing. She was so desperately trying to stay strong and not to cry, but the more she tried not to think about it the more she did and the tears started flowing freely down her face. She was done sitting alone, wallowing in self pity so she got up grabbed her keys coat, badge, gun, and bag before locking up the X-files office and walking to her car.

She was finally home after stopping at the grocery store on her way back, she was carrying two large brown bags full of fruit, salads, and plenty of orange juice, and trying to open the door to her apartment. She briefly thought about how her favorite fruit and veg would be coming into season soon but she couldn’t shake the feeling of what Mulder had said before he left; thinking back to that moment she recalled how he had called her Dana instead of Scully, which made her flinch at the sound of her first name coming from his lips. She had thought that they that she would always be Scully to him, and he would always be Mulder to her and never Fox. even saying it out loud sounded weird. She was so tired and emotional much more than usual but she just put it down to long nights, a stressful job and it being the week leading up to her period. (Scully was aware that she did occasionally get quite moody and tired as a result).

Once she had finished putting away her shopping, she walked through the hallway to her bedroom removing her uncomfortable work clothes and leaving them in a pile at the foot of her bed (she made a mental note to clean it up in the morning) and she crawled onto her bed foregoing her sleepwear and nightly routine because her sheets smelled of him, which made her smile. As soon as her body relaxed into the mattress and her head hit the fluffy pillows, she fell into a blissful slumber.

Meanwhile at Apartment 42

He had called her Dana in a moment of understanding and comfort, it was meant to sound sincere but it came out kind of creepy. What the hell was he thinking? Scully had fast become the only stable fixture in his life, keeping him grounded and from running off half-cocked into the night, chasing monsters and little green men. Disputing everything he thought he liked in a woman, she challenged him in so many ways and he liked her for it.

They had agreed on no sex a few months back but that hilariously flimsy agreement didn't stand too long much to his relief, they either ended up in her bed or his couch when in DC or rental car and dingy motels, when on an X-File case. The tension between the two of them would become too much some days and they would hate each other and then some days they would fuck it out till the morning sun rose. Mulder started kneading the leather couch as memories of her came flooding back to him, the way the sun hit her fiery copper hair and how it would make a small halo above her head which he thought was adorable but also turned him on at the same time, the way her pale complexion would flush with arousal and her cheeks would turn a delightful shade red whenever he was close to her; either touching or just by breathing on her slight, delicate neck. He had started to notice that her alluring blue eyes would be brimming with desire whenever they were left alone for more than 5 minutes, the way her breath would hitch whenever he touched her, or when he would place lovely kisses on her neck and breasts.

God the way she would scream his name, like a mantra over and over again as an orgasm would override her body, forcing her body to twitch and convulse around him. He was so hard, even now, just thinking about her but he was brought back to reality as he heard someone shout across the street and realised his hand was underneath his boxers, wrapped around is member moving at a steady place up and down his shaft as he reached his tip, spreading the leaking pre cum around the circumference of his throbbing head; a small strained grunt, unconsciously tumbling from his slack jaw.

Ignoring the shouts from out on the street, he returned his thought to his beautiful partner -straddling his cock, riding him up and down as he caught her nipple with his teeth nipping and sucking - his hand began moving faster and faster on his shaft - bringing his finger down to her sex that was wet and dripping for him - he felt his balls tighten and his penis twitch and he moaned her name uncontrollably as he felt hot cum spurt from the depths of his balls and drip onto his hand and stomach, leaning over to grab a tissues to clean himself up before throwing it into the wastebasket and letting his eyelids fall closed until sleep caught up with him.

Scully's Apartment Early morning

Scully woke up, the sun was just coming over the horizon and trickling through her open window, normally that kind of thing wouldn't have woken her up but last night she forgot to close her curtains when she climbed into bed.

She groaned, as she swung her legs off the bed, looking at her clock and reading the time 4.32am, it was far too early to be awake. She tried to stretch and wiggle her body but came to the conclusion, that she must have slept in some very weird positions last night due to the fact that her lower back was killing her right now, and that her boobs were sore and swollen. Scully stood up all the blood seemed to rush to her head and she felt dizzy and sick, so she made the quick dash to the bathroom as the contents of her stomach emptied itself into the toilet bowl. A sudden cold sweat developed on her pale, freckled skin, she sat down on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor for a good few minutes before standing up and grabbing a washcloth to wipe the sweat off her skin. After she was finished throwing up, and dabbing a wet washcloth on her face, she crawled back into her bed to try and get some more sleep before her hospital check up.

Scully rolled over carefully, so not to upset her stomach again and contemplated phoning Mulder to see if he was also sick... maybe from the dinner, they had shared the day before? But did not want to worry him so she put the phone back down closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

5 hours later Gynecology Outpatients Department.

Scully was sitting in a chair, waiting for her doctor and long-term friend Dr. Rachel Richards. They had gone through Medical school together and managed to stay in touch, when she had been transferred to the FBI. She was there to have her annual pap smear test, this time she just wanted it over and done with so she could get back to work. Rachel walked in and sat down at her desk, across from her and started typing away at her keyboard bringing up her medical history records.

"Dr. Scully, I know it's early but I'm pleased you could make it"

"It's fine. It's me, Rachel, you can call me Dana. And thank you I'm sorry I had to cancel so many times... I know I shouldn't neglect myself, it's just that work has become my main focus"

"You're right, your health is important, Dana but I’m glad you're here now." there was a slight pause but Rachel carried on "So, Dana did you bring your urine sample?"

"Yes," Scully lent down and retrieved a small container full of urine out of her bag before handing it to Dr. Richards.

"Ok, so as you know we test for pregnancy before doing the smear test," Rachel said, pulling out a pregnancy test from her cabinet and dipping the stick into the yellow liquid and sitting it off to the side on the metal table.

"Yes. I'm aware but it's unlikely to be positive"

"While we wait for the results I need to ask you some questions, very personal in nature"

"It's ok. Go ahead"

"Are you sexually active right now, Dana?"

"Yes," Scully said a bit too quickly, which made Rachel smile.

"Any unprotected sex?"

"No. I'm always safe, you know that"

"And how many sexual partners have you had in the last 6 months?"

"One"

"Is he cute?"

"Rachel" Scully said, shock but began to laugh at the indulgence of friendly gossip about guys.

"What? I'm only asking in doctor/patient confidentiality remember?" Rachel said smugly.

"Yes, Rachel. He's cute... really cute, in fact"

"Good to know! So, I need to do some blood work but once the pregnancy test completed and I check it, you know... just in case, Mr. Cutie Pants wasn't so safe we can get on with the smear test"

"Rachel, he's not like that... he's nice and would never put me in a position like that"

"I'm just kidding. I'm sure you're not pregnant"

"Ok. It's my least favorite part of coming to see you, you know"

"It's every woman's least favorite part of visiting me, Dana"

Scully rolled up her shirt sleeve before lowering her arm, and presenting the crook of her elbow to her friend. Dr. Richards put a rubber band around her upper arm and tapped her vein to find a good one to take blood from before inserting the needle and drawing a small tube of blood from her.

"All done..." she smiled, tapping the spot the needle was removed from "I will check on the pregnancy test now so we can move forward"

Dr. Richards set the vials of blood down on the blue plastic tray in front of her before picking up the pregnancy test to find out the results.

"Well, Dana, I think congratulations are in order"

"What... Why?"

"You’re pregnant. How exciting!"

"Exciting? No. No, it's not possible! I can't be..."

***************************

also tagging some friends, @invisigoth-1013 @viceversawrites @gaycrouton

[sometimesfrancis]

30 days of DID system asks: Day One

Describe your system.

My system is medium-sized.  The core group is a group of six, three married couples.  Nora to Francis, Gilda to Harvey, and Grace to Richard.  Then there’s the whole internal family system, bearing in mind that all three couples have acted in a parenting (or sibling, in the case of Duella and Nora and Francis, because Duella is older) role to all the children in the internal family system, there are also littles of Nora and Francis, called Boom and Little Francis. Lord Ryan is their son, he’s ten. Gilda and Harvey have Duella,  I’m not sure how old she is. but I do know she’s like a sister to me.  Then Grace and Richard have Francis as an adopted son.  Francis is 25 this fall.  I’m not sure how old Grace and Gilda are, you know what they say about a lady and her age.  Richard is eighteen-- I know it’s weird that Francis is Richard’s son even though Francis is older than Richard.   To explain this, Richard imaginably fought in world war two, but for some reason he stayed eighteen.  Harvey is the second oldest, at 125, and Hanora is 319.  Harvey, as a changeling man, has some vampiric abilities, but using them costs him his life experience, and Hanora is part gnome.  Among other racial qualities, she has very sensitive pointy ears, and songs can get stuck in her head for days at a time.  When I keep hearing the tune (that is to me a schizophrenic hallucination,) we say that they’re hearing it “In the gnome caverns”.  Luckily for me, this means that Hanora has her own body in a place she personally believes in, so she never argues with me about haircuts/hormones or clothes.  She just dresses up her gnome doll however she wants to, and in return I’m not allowed to say that the gnome caverns are part of a “headspace.”  They are a fairy tale, and personally Hanora believes in them.

While I don’t have many great historical memories from three-hundred years ago, Hanora has friends who have come to help me for no reason other than my being Hanora’s son, like Thomas Blue, who taught me everything he knew about becoming a lawyer, which permitted me to put the Joker on trial when he came to my apartment asking for help.  Hanora has been married several times, first to Victor Fries, a long long time ago, when I was in high-school, then, when I was in college, she married an introject of my high school friend and crush Charlie O’Connel (I hope he sees this.) I turned 23.  Harvey had been out of his coma for a year and five months. We met a man at Alchoholics Anonymous who invited us out for non-alchoholic beers and pool and pinball at a local bar.  His name was Henry.  One night, walking home from the beach, I introduce myself to him as the name “Harv,” and tell him I’m a multiple personality.  He takes it all pretty well.  We talk about getting married.  I’ve used my vampiric abilitties since then so I don’t have the same timeline I had when I was dating Henry, but I wanted us to be gay lovers.  

Back to my mother Hanora’s love life:  She broke up with Henry when his schizophrenia got out of control.  I was put away in a nursing home, where there was an implied familial relationship between Harvey, Duella, Francis, Richard, and Nora. Nora got married to Richard when we thought he was on his deathbed and she didn’t want him to die alone, then to a factive of Michael Fassbender (a marriage which lasted only one night before we had to admit Michael to the asylum,) then to a factive of Nick D’Agnostico from Gotham, who has his own alternate personality of Harvey.  She was married to a factive of Aaron Ekhardt for one night, who similarly has a Harvey introject.  Lucky for me my introject of Charlie is still in my life, and he’s always very respectful.  Sometimes they roleplay a game-of-thrones era fantasy where Nora is a shy noble lady and Charlie is her knight.  Her last marriage was to a factive of Brandon Flowers, who is also part gnome, but he looks like Owen from Torchwood for some reason.  Sorry, the last man is a gnomish man, I know that for sure, and I don’t always understand gnome customs.  Suffice to say, she calls him Brandon, but he looks like Owen.  Finally, she’s been escorted home several times by John Barrowman (another factive obviously) who honors his role as army captain from the doctor who universe.  And my mother’s introject is dating Nathan Filion, making him a father-in-law type figure.  His factive helped set her up with Nick D’Agnostico.

Speaking of the Doctor Who universe, I once wrote a very immersive episode of doctor who fanfiction called “Adam and Fate,” and in it the eleventh Doctor gets admitted to the psyche ward I was in at the time, well he formed an introject, surprise surprise, and although he was dressed like the eleventh doctor he wanted me to call him Matt Smith.  To help pass the hours I would daydream silents behind every door, and this was the same hospital stay where my Robert Downey Jr. Factive went out for a game of cards, he’s in love with Aaron, who was very akward with me at the time, because I once said “Joker’s Daughter!” and punched him in the balls.  

This was around the time a very malevolent introject of my oldest brother appeared and tried to take Francis into his headspace permanently, I remember Francis throwing water over himself, one of his defence mechanisms, and I remember Aaron:  He asked for an apology for my  holding a hot zippo lighter to my face to feel the burning so we put some lotion on.  Aaron and Robert are in love, and he’s on again off again with Maggie Gyllinhall , who acts like a big sister to me.  At the time he was still convinced that I was brain-dead from my death at the end of the Dark Knight era in my life, which is actually from when I was eight years old and fell down a flight of stairs, but I recreated my trauma in a shared dream-space and it translated to getting thrown off a building.  I was actually put to work in a daydream factory, and my subconcious submitted certain scenes to the Dark Knight. I don’t want to believe that completely but here’s another perspective  I will ask for my father-in-law Victor to help me rather than Francis:  

According to Victor I have a trauma that could be categorized, a blow to the back of the head, and I didn’t make the dark knight but I came from it because there’s an applicable cause of death involved.  

Thank you Victor.  Let’s get on with describing the system.  In my job at the daydream factory that’s where I first met The Scars of the Architect, who takes on the appearance of the Joker from the Dark Knight.  They plugged me in to a modern machine:  A PC, and architectural drawings appeared on the screen.  This is part of how the Joker got his scars.  Then there’s another Joker, his full name is Jackson P. Fitzgerald and he looks like a Joker-colored version of Michael Jackson. The Joker isn’t the only black villain in my system, there’s also Dr. Ivy Green AKA Poison Ivy who looks like a young Whoopie Goldberg, but I never claim to be trans racial or anything like that the alters know that they are only an influence on me and I’m glad they help me include races other than white bread in my stories.  But there is a lot of white bread coming right up:

THE ASYLUM

In my headspace I live in a version of Arkham Asylum that has gone through a period of mental health reform.  My first alter from the asylum was Dr. Jonathan Crane Sr, and I saw him experimenting on his children out in the backwater countryside south of Gotham.  This all happens in Gotham City Indiana, by the way, which is on the map where Gary, Indianapolis, and Michigan City are so they’re north of some swamplands which turn into farmlands and south of the lake the city is very much a part of my system and my first introduction to it was Johnathan Crane’s old shack out in the country where(TW  BONDAGE) he strapped his kids down to a chair in the garage and injected them with fear toxin  and made them watch horrific videos, these are the Benson siblings, Elizabeth, Crowley, and Johnathan Jr.  They all have wide white eyes except for Jr, whose eyes are very soulful and dark, and they all have SI scars again except for Jr. who is the black sheep Crowley has cuts on his arms from a carpenter knife and he chews fear weed while Elizabeth smokes it in her cigarettes and she has burns on her hands.

I follow the action one night, old lady Benson is worried about Crowley always cutting his arms so she takes him to the asylum in their rusty pick-up truck, well he spooks in the parking lot he grabs a shotgun from the back of the truck and escapes into the woods.  Where the ambulance driver says “Don’t worry, Batman will catch him.”

BATMAN

Yes, I have an alter of Batman in my system.  He started as a foil for me to fist-fight in a bar he sliced up my face pretty good I wake up with blood on the pillow.  I go through plots trying to bring Batman the psychiatric help he needs, enacting a similar plot on my best friend Bruce Wayne, who is like Batman by day, similarly rageful, similar sizes and face shapes too but Batman is obviously funded by the military and Bruce isn’t smart enough to sneak out every night dressed in black leather without getting caught by his butler, but these are my two friends Batman and Bruce.  I’ll talk about Batman first, I get a gang together one of these days I put some plastic explosives in an elevator shaft and I threaten to take the building down if Batman doesn’t go in for treatment and Jim Gordon intercedes saying we both need help well that bastard Batman jumps off the roof and vanishes into the night, but I go down the driveway to Arkham Asylum in Jim Gordon’s car he drops me off at the gate he says it’s up to me so I throw my coin into the woods and I’m walking one way or the other when an ambulance stops me and the driver manhandles me I punch him until he stops moving the Joker climbs out of the back and says “So you pulled off your first plot. What do you want the newspapers to call you?”  And the scarred side of my face smiles and says “Two-Face.”  I’m thinking Acid-Face or Coin-Voice but this is what the scarred side of my face says to the Joker and the Joker says “Two-Face it is!”  and he climbs in the driver’s seat and he crashes the ambulance into the gates with the driver unconscious  behind the wheel and meanwhile in the back I find my friend Bruce and he says “CALL ME BATMAN” so great Bruce Wayne thinks he’s Batman that’ll be the day.  

RICHARD

I’m in the asylum when  I realize I have a brother, adopted by the same old lady, Gertrude Dent.  His name is Richard and he’s vegetative from the lobotomies.  This is when the story really starts to cook.  We get kidnapped from our cells one night by Harleen Qunzell posing as a nurse she takes us away to the parklands surrounding the asylum and says we’re in Poison Ivy’s Garden now.  I’m Harvey AKA Lillian Valley, my brother’s are Francis aka Hawthorne, Creeping Charlie AKA Morning Glory, Poison Oak, and Patrick Isley we’re all a tribe out there in the park I rarely get into trouble but I get into trouble rarely I’m given a motel room to sleep in after a certain therapeutic period among the plants.  Arkham Outpatient Treatment:  Lodgings Included.  

This next memory is from Francis, we do share some memories.  I overheard a lady bullying her teddy bear in the bed next to mine back when I was in the nursing home and someone woke up he said “I’ll steal that bear!” and Francis said “Calm Down, Harv.”  He’s easy to recognize with the scars from stress on his face and then a Harvey woke up and said “What did he say just now?”  And Francis says wow youre keeping him on a pretty tight leash well it wasn’t long after that he woke up in one of poison ivy’s green-houses and she said something like “What are you doing coming back to life?”   And he turned out to be called Richard.  Richard Richardson is the name he wrote on the ARkham Asylum intake forms.  

HARLEEN

So Harleen comes into my room and asks if I’d like to be part of an experiment like I said kidnapped so they put a mitten on my burned hand and moss in my head to regrow the brain matter that got damaged in my massive back of the head concussion and the subsequent ECT that happened only in Gotham City which is like we all know imaginary but so was the moss and I’m a better man for it and as I came round to reality I realized I had a roommate they had put me with this other man Dent-- Richard Dent, criminal turned whore, WWII veteran and semi-immortal like me, I don’t know the details of his age but he’s one of Jupiter's sons and for all the time he’s spent in prison he’s only eighteen years old to this day.  Sorry twenty-two he aged up a bit earlier this year when he took his wife Grace home their anniversary is July 25th I’d better remember that

So Poison Ivy really cleaned up the asylum with Harleen working under her and Johnathan Crane doing anything to get his license restored they made a pretty ship shape asylum the doors are unlocked the walls are white and the uniforms are grey. I remember Harleen’s first experiment with me she said there was a fifty-fifty chance I would revert back to my old personality and she gave me my coin back and I threw it in a lake. This is a recurring theme with me the coin represents my reliance on the god Janus to make decisions and with every major step toward rehabilitation I have to leave the coin behind so I started over in jail with Jonathan Crane observing me I told him I was a changeling and if I didn’t get twice as much food then my twin brother would starve so he gave me double portions and I’ve always been indebted to the man.