#i think i fixed all the formatting from copying it over

[loverducky]

tryouts | oliver aiku x gn!reader | 1.5k

suggestive (kink discussion, bondage and petplay mentioned) with some grinding + praise at the end, i’m tagging dubcon because oliver just kinda jumps into it, reader’s a little insecure, a lot oblivious, and is implied to be more on the inexperienced side, oliver’s like. a soft tease in this ngl, this is Very selfship coded and based on this post, sorrgy not sorrgy :3

“so, whaddya think about being tied up?”

you and oliver are lounging about on the old couch you’ve got in your apartment. you lean forwards and grab your soda, half shrugging, “sounds fun to me! not a huge fan of those, like, metal handcuffs, they don’t look very comfortable, but rope and all that’s cool! shibari’s pretty too, although i don’t think i’d have the patience for it.”

you rest your face on your hand as you lean on the couch arm, cheek squishing a bit as you ask, “what about you? you got any fantasies about being tied up?”

he laughs, shaking his head, and you crack a smile when you notice how grown out the green is. “i’m more of the type to be doing the tying,” he says, shooting you a lopsided smirk, and you consider this with another sip, setting the can down on the table.

“huh. neat!” is your conclusion, and there’s a slight lull in the conversation as oliver stares at you. you tilt your head at him, curious, and he laughs again, quieter this time. weird.

“oh,” another thought occurs to you, “what‘s your opinion on petplay? ‘cause of the leash and all.” you gesture to your neck.

his smile turns cocky at that, and he leans in closer. “why, you trying to collar me?” he asks, voice low, and you turn to glare at him, fist raising in the air.

to his credit, he backs up in an instant, his hands held high like you’re holding him hostage. “woah, woah, woah, i’m kidding, i’m kidding,” he flashes a quick grin, “or am i?”

you roll your eyes and let your fist drop, going to grab your drink again, using it to gesture at oliver. “yeah, yeah. that’s not an answer, bitch.”

his arms drop to rest on the back of the couch, fingers tapping to an internal beat as he thinks. “sure, yeah, i think it’s pretty cute. sometimes they get all whiny, and that’s fun—”

you choke in the middle of chugging the rest of your soda, and you see his eyes flash towards you as you curl in on yourself. he scoots closer and pats you on the back while you hack away, his hand warm as he rubs circles into your shoulder blade. he grabs you some napkins from the table too, passing them over so you can wipe your mouth. when you finally straighten up, he leans back, smirking at you a little. you can only meet his gaze for a second before it drops to the floor, and suddenly sheepish, you mumble, “sorry bout that. wasn’t expecting you to bring up— well. you know.”

he nudges your thigh with his own, his voice teasing as he asks, “weren’t expecting me to bring up personal experience?”

“well, i mean,” you feel your body flush, and your shoulders hunch as you curse yourself internally. “i’ve told you this before, i know i have. haven’t i?”

your leg bounces in place as you continue to ramble. “it’s just that. well. i haven’t… god. okay.” you take a deep breath. inhale, exhale. “so, full disclosure. i haven’t really tried a lot of the things that i say i’m into? i guess it’s more like… i like the idea of that stuff?” your voice gets even quieter than before, “like, i, um. get off? to it?”

you’re not even sure if oliver hears those last bits. when you get the courage to look back up at him, though, he’s staring at you with a quiet intensity, a small smile playing at his lips that makes your gut twist in knots.

“something funny about that, asshole?” you clear your throat, trying to ease some of the tension that’s built up all of a sudden. “because i swear—”

“you interested in trying it?” oliver interrupts, and your mind blanks, your brow furrowing.

“trying… what?”

“petplay. or bondage.” your jaw drops a little and he laughs, not unkindly. “or anything else you think you might be into.”

you shut your mouth in a frown, kicking him lightly in the ankle. “very funny, you dick. there’s a reason i haven’t, you know.” you sigh dramatically, slumping over his lap with your full weight. you close your eyes, placing the back of your hand against your forehead as if you’ve fainted, and say, “not all of us are six foot tall football players with beautiful thighs.” your free hand pats them for emphasis, but with your eyes closed, you miss the flush of color that rises to his ears.

after a few long moments of silence, you peer through splayed fingers to see oliver looking down at you, that same soft smile on his face. he’s handsome, you think, reaching up to caress him, feeling the stubble scattered across his jawline. he lets you for a bit, before his hand grabs yours and guides it close, and you blink up at him in confusion as a gentle kiss is pressed to your wrist. you feel a wicked edge to his smile curl against your skin, then, and before you can tug it back into yourself, your arm is pinned high above your head.

oliver pulls his legs out from under you, and your second arm quickly joins the first, his body settling above your own with a practiced ease. you squirm in his grip, but he’s got you pinned against the couch, a knee between your legs and a smug look in his eyes. he leans down and you let out a little whine as he grinds his knee right where you want it, lust pooling between your thighs as your whole body shakes underneath him.

“well, would you look at that.” his voice drips with satisfaction, his eyes roving up and down your body appreciatively, and you bite back another embarrassing noise. “seems you do like being restrained, hm?”

you open your mouth to answer, only for your words to die with another half choked gasp as he grinds his knee into you again. his breath fans against your neck as he settles into the crook of it, alternating between soft kisses and tiny, nipping bites, and you feel like you’re losing your mind from how good everything feels. he’s got you by the wrists, his hold steady and warm and immovable, and at this point your hips are practically moving on their own, desperate for relief.

it doesn’t help that oliver won’t shut the fuck up. “-so cute like this, you know? always so loud, so brash, but all you wanted was a little attention, hm?” you feel the rumble of his laughter more than you hear it, feel it alongside the gentle scratching of his stubble, and you want to sob — from pleasure or relief, you’re not sure. “it’s alright, baby, you’ve got it, now. whatever you want, whatever you want to try, i’m right here, promise.”

your hands flex under oliver’s grip, and you whine again, trying to collect your scattered thoughts. your hips continue to buck against the sturdiness of his thigh, and you can pull yourself together just enough to whimper out a little “please.”

even you aren’t sure what you’re begging for, but when he lifts his head from where’s he’s been terrorizing your neck, the sheer lust in his eyes makes you shrink away from his attention. it’s too late, though. he rubs a little circle on your wrist with his thumb, before he switches his grip, holding both your wrists with one hand, the other guiding you by the chin to tilt your head into his. when he leans in and presses his lips to yours, it’s chaste at first, to your surprise, although your eyes still flutter closed at the feeling of his lips on yours.

his free hand wanders down, down from your chin, down your chest and below your waistline, and oliver’s kiss gets greedier as it travels closer to where you need it, eventually swallowing your cries whole when finally, finally, he’s reached between your thighs.

the direct stimulation is too much, too fast, too quickly. oliver’s good, even when working with just one hand, and within the next minute the coil within you snaps. you stay there shuddering beneath oliver’s body for a while, him releasing his grip on your wrists and you clinging to him in turn. when you think you’ve settled enough, oliver sits up, grinning at you like a madman.

you, on the other hand, scowl at him and punch him in the arm on your way up, crossing your arms and huffing. “you dick! have you just been trying to get in my pants this whole time?”

he shrugs at you, cocky half grin still clear as day.

“unbelievable. this isn’t happening again,” you poke him hard in the chest, “you hear me?”

“sure, baby,” he says, easy as anything, and you already feel your heart start to race again. fuck. “wasn’t lying when i told you i’d be your partner if you wanted to try some of those other kinks out, though. what was it you said again? petplay?” he leans down, drops his voice, and grins, “you’d look cute in a collar.”

you shiver, glare up at him, and point at the door. “out!”

[s3thwrit3sstuff]

❝ YOU ALREADY HAVE A PIECE OF MY HEART (WHICH I HAVE NEVER GIVEN TO YOU) ❞

Gojo Satoru x male!reader | Nanami Kento x male!reader | Sukuna Ryomen x male!reader | Geto Suguru x male!reader | polycule (Satoru x r! x Suguru), polygamy (Satoru x r!, Satoru x Suguru, r! x Satoru, r! x Kento) | Heian Era!Sukuna Ryomen x Heian Era!male!reader | drabble of alternate universes | NOT PROOFREAD

warnings: burn scars, battle scars, grief, derealization, trauma (so much trauma), major character deaths (Satoru, Suguru, Tsumiki, Nanako, Mimiko, Principal Yaga, (Y/N)'s mom), Fushiguro Megumi angst, Junpei mentioned (surprisingly without angst), Itadori Yuji angst (minor), NSFW content for Sukuna's section, implied cannibalism

masterlist; part 1; part 2; part 3; alternate ending; playlist; au's and what if's

authors note: NOT PROOFREAD AT ALL! The formatting is a bit all over the place but these are straight-up taken from Discord chats I had with Elias, pls. I hope they're not too hard to understand. These are all basically "what ifs" and alternate universes + one section for Heian Period Ryomen Sukuna with a (L/N)'s ancestor! " " = means straight-up copy-pasted so I guess they kinda act as a foreword for each drabble

starting off with some HCs of (Y/N)’s high school years!

(Y/N) thinks Satoru must understand the pain of being the next head of the clan, get trained vigorously, and deal with aching bones and sores. Nope! Satoru’s never dealt with that much less dealt with (Y/N)’s father.

Shoko has a dark sense of humour so she laughs at his dark jokes but (Y/N) does notice the three of them end up pampering him more often.

Satoru buys him food most of the time. Drinks and snacks and ice cream, if (Y/N) gazes at something too long Satoru just tosses it into his cart.

Suguru tends to help him stretch or massage him. He’d even fix (Y/N)’s hair, almost motherly in his actions. He makes sure (Y/N) is presentable, makes sure he doesn’t have to worry because; “Su-Su will fix it~”.

Shoko makes sure (Y/N) is always wound-free. From buying antiseptics to burn relief gels (they all have a travel-sized bottle on their person to be fair). She buys him cigarettes when he needs them and always pokes him in his sides or the back of his head, she made it a habit to use RCT on him just in case he’s in pain but can’t feel it.

"You'd come back to me"

"What if Nanami Kento and (Y/N) survived the Shibuya arc?"

Kento stroked your bangs away and then pressed kisses with every compliment he gave. Your chuckles give him this feeling that if you ever told him "please" he'd give up everything just to hear it again. Kento lightly pushes you away but slips a hand underneath you, tugging his (Y/N) closer. “Kennnnnny."

Usually, Kento doesn’t enjoy nicknames but every time you say it, the world seems bright and sweet. So he noses at your jaw and relishes in the giggles.

“You’re beautiful,” he says with so much sincerity.

“You’re not too bad yourself.” Kento grins and presses a searing kiss to your lips.

You are both covered in scars. Nanami’s still pinkish and healing even with the help of socerery and yours still aching and bruised. But nothing about you could be wrong. Because that wasn’t possible. The ring on your hand is cool on his neck as you tilt his head to deepen the kiss. Kento turns and chuckles as you yelp, straddling him now.

“Kento!”

“Yes, my (Y/N)?”

Your eyes soften, and he kisses you again.

"The beach will be more cloudy. We can sit on the porch and I'll make you that milky tea again." He thinks it's a shame the two of you are stuck inside the house. It cannot be helped; his skin was far too sensitive for Malaysia's unapologetic sunny rays and dry heat and although you comfort him by saying your scars are still healing too, he wants nothing more than to pick you up and wash away all the remnants of Shibuya in seawater. "I can make it," he says. "Kento," you press your finger onto his lips, tracing it until you're cupping his face and stroking over his cheekbones. "Let me take care of you." Kento frowns and places his hand over yours, tracing the shape of your healing knuckles and raised scars. "Only if you'll let me do the same, my (Y/N)."

Kento who survived the Shibuya arc is left with a very sensitive wound all over the left side of his body. His hearing is unbalanced and his depth perception is fucked but (Y/N) helps him through all the transitions he goes through.

(Y/N) feels guilty for using his curse technique when it’d been fire that hurt Kento. Who doesn’t use it around Kento or if he does use it, he makes sure the smell is gone and washes his hands, and makes sure Kento can hold him without fear. But Kento doesn’t fear him! Kento figured it out and he just tells (Y/N); “My love, you never need to hide yourself from me…”

Yuji helps Kento with physical therapy. Kento grunts but allows Yuji to hug him when he regains consciousness. Kento who asks Yuji if he’d like to be his ringbearer during their wedding.

(Y/N) who is so nervous to meet Kento’s parents. He knows non-sorcerers and sorcerers don’t have many differences in their daily lives outside of exorcising curses but worries nonetheless. Kento’s mom is bright and jovial, and his father is even more so! (Y/N) is honestly taken aback by how soft-hearted they are and how they thank him for saving Kento. He finds himself loving them so much because they remind him of his mother and how gentle and kind she was.

When he asks for their blessing? He bows but is surprised when Kento’s father blocks his forehead from meeting the floor, blinking away tears when his mother holds his face.

“We’ll gladly take you in as your son, (Y/N),” and they all start crying because (Y/N) is crying, LMAO.

Kento tells (Y/N) he asked for his parent's blessing and he's confused because Kento should never do that - he doesn’t need to ask his father for his blessing but Kento simply says:

“I visited your mom’s grave. I asked for her blessing. I talked to her about how much I love you.”

At their wedding, there are empty seats in the crowd. Seats for their fallen comrades, their loved ones, seats for Tsumiki, Principal Yaga, Yū, Satoru, Suguru, (Y/N)'s mom… (blame Elias for this one)

In regards to (Y/N) seeing Geto Suguru's "body" as he descended into madness: Kento who spots him muttering to himself or staring into space. (Y/N), who after surviving the Shibuya arc, still sees Suguru and now Satoru as well. At times, he even sees Yū, Kento, Megumi, Tsumiki, Yuji, Nobara, Maki, or -His brain constantly makes it hard for him to decipher reality or fiction.

A HC based on Katniss and Peeta: (Y/N) asking Kento, “Real or not real?” when he can't tell reality from fiction.

“You’re alive, real or not real?” “Real.”

“Megumi is still breathing. Real or not real?” “Real, my love. He’s just healing. He’ll wake up soon.”

"...You love me, real or not real?" "Real, my love."

When Fushiguro Megumi wakes up:

When Megumi recovers he cries. Openly cries, sobs, and wails as he begs for forgiveness from everyone around him. (Y/N) literally rushed into the room which made Megumi flinch, yelling at him to stay away because he killed his father (Satoru), his sister, and everyone else Ryomen Sukuna had killed. But (Y/N) just holds him and holds him and holds him. Megumi finds it hard to piece his brain together after what Sukuna has done so Yuji helps. Yuji asks Kento for advice because Megumi and (Y/N) are lowkey in the same boat-ish.

Megumi who begs for forgiveness because Sukuna had done unspeakable things to (Y/N) just to make him his concubine and (Y/N) just comforts his son.

When Megumi is strong enough they go to Suguru and Satoru’s graves. There are no bodies but they buried the things that they treasured. Their wedding ring rests where Satoru would have along with Megumi and Tsumiki’s childhood drawings, pictures, and Suguru’s hairband and button. The flip phone was full of memories and high school photographs - his wedding picture too. He rests beside Geto Suguru, whose grave is filled with his daughter's belongings and the flip phone he kept too, the creased photograph of himself with Satoru, (Y/N) and Shoko. Tsumiki, Nanko and Mimiko are next to their fathers. Megumi cries as his knees give out, his only family left, his dad; (Y/N), just comforts him as much as he can. His precious boy, his beautiful son... They visit as often as they can, telling tales of their days, their weeks, and their months. Soon enough, it will be less painful for them to visit that hill. It'll be scenic and they'll no longer curse at the heavens for all this loss. They'll hate that they're no longer the same person their loved ones had seen, hate the wrinkles and the greying hair and the way they couldn't grow old together. Hate that they've been alive longer than them when they feel like they don't deserve to be. But one day it'll stop and they'll take it as a blessing to grow this old, knowing they'll see their family soon enough with so many stories to tell.

"And isn't it just so pretty to think? All along there was some invisible string, tying to you me?"

"You know - in every universe, Satoru falls in love with Suguru and (Y/N). In a few universes, their love is not tragic. In this special few, Satoru does not use (Y/N) for honor. Suguru comes back after his betrayal,l and (Y/N) and Kento defend his rights as a human. Satoru has (Y/N) help him with Suguru’s rehabilitation, and Kento helps Suguru with his clashing ideology. In the special few, Megumi is still beloved by YN but he doesn’t fear betrayal, and love just needs love to be perfect. Uncle (Y/N) cherishes Tsumiki and Megumi and Uncle Kento who teaches them how to be kind and responsible. Mimiko and Nanako learn how to befriend Tsumiki and Megumi!”

(Y/N) would've become a teacher like Satoru! Kento sends him to and from. He pouted so much when Kento knew Yuji was alive but forgave him. (Y/N) invited Yuji to eat homemade lunch and dinners in their home, and Yuji pretended not to feel himself tremble; a homemade meal was eaten around a dining table.

Yuji, who never had such an experience before; and who craves familial bonds; can’t stop shoveling food in his mouth because he keeps grinning too hard -

And when Junpei is brought back alive? (Y/N) takes to him like a moth to a flame. He volunteers to help Junpei, to house him, and bares his teeth at the higher-ups who dare take the boy from him.

Junpei wakes up to Kento cooking breakfast and (Y/N) who makes tea. Junpei gasps as (Y/N) opens up a movie and invites him to watch with him. Junpei relishes Kento’s words of advice for his newfound curse technique.

Junpei cries into the pillows and gets surprised when (Y/N) comforts him, telling him he misses his mother too, and lets (Y/N) hug him.

Junpei stares at himself in the mirror when Shoko heals his cigarette scars, brushing back his bangs confidently for the first time.

Junpei who bonds with Megumi about having shikigamis! Who Nobara (affectionately) bullies and toughens up! Maki is reminded of Yuta every time, and Inumaki chuckles at her face. Panda just loves being his senpai but keeps pushing Junpei away from him when Junpei tries to touch his fur -

Satoru and Suguru come over with Mimiko, Nanako, Tsumiki, and Megumi to their home. Yuji and Junpei picked out the movie (it’s obviously Human Earthworm - all 4 movies). The Gojo-Geto’s brought snacks and drinks, and the Nanami’s made their home so cozy and warm.

"Tell me you belong to me"

Heian Era Sukuna and the ancestor of the (L/N) clan, his only male concubine which he adored so much it caused his unending.

As a foreword (just a fan theory I adored not canon at all): "The theory that Sukuna keeps CTs within his Malovent Shrine (hence, in my fic, it’s why the (L/N) clan never flourished. Sukuna took their innate technique and left them with a CT so strong none of them had enough will-power to master). It’s not confirmed but in the Jogo fight, he says “open” and all of a sudden he can use a flame CT???" "This is basically an AU of (Y/N)'s ancestor, lmao."

They sacrificed (Y/N) to Ryomen Sukuna and gave him their prince who came to him with a sharp glare and dirtied with bruises and cuts.

“You wrap my gift so carelessly?” Sukuna drawls out.

(Y/N) is bound and gagged. His hair must have been in an impressed top knot, now a mess that spills from his shoulders.

Uruame shifts next to him and they grip (Y/N)'s cheeks to inspect him.

What a beautiful man, they think with mild surprise, it was no wonder he was chosen as a sacrifice.

But, Sukuna wants him. So, he adds his first male concubine to his harem. (Y/N) is scrubbed clean, dressed to the nines, and made to look like a doll. His face was painted, his hair brushed, his nails trimmed, and his skin moisturized.

Ryomen Sukuna is a monster with a picky tongue. Despite his greed, he only eats refined meats and fights the strongest sorcerers.

Sukuna doesn’t “love” his concubine but he favors him. That much, (Y/N) can tell. When he plays the biwa or recites sutras and haikus, Sukuna is ever so attentive. When (Y/N) bows and sits next to Lord Sukuna to feed him his meals, he finds those big hands holding him in one way or another.

When he takes (Y/N) as a “woman”, he is not gentle. Uruame is the one to prepare him. They provided him with oils and aromatic smoke to ease him, not out of the kindness of their hearts but for their Lord’s pleasure. (Y/N) swears he nearly rips taking his size but Sukuna spreads his legs and pushes in deeper and (Y/N) gasps, his tears like diamonds as he pleads for his Lord to grant him mercy.

Sukuna does. It surprises himself. But he does.

Maybe Sukuna will never understand the word love because he tells himself he’s never loved. Or maybe, he confuses it with ownership and cruelty - because it’s obvious he loves (Y/N).

He’s unfair to all but him.

He is still the King of Curses, a cruel tyrant, but (Y/N) is someone who calms his wrath with ease.

When they made that Binding Vow for (Y/N)'s curse technique to be given to Sukuna in exchange for Sukuna not being able to kill off his clan. He had thought to give YN another curse technique. But then, after (Y/N) learns Sukuna murdered a huge chunk of his clan, (Y/N) plans for his betrayal.

(Y/N) seeing the shock on Sukuna’s face as he gets sealed away, feeling the God's disdain weigh on his bones as he breaks the Binding Vow - he weeps for Sukuna despite knowing how horrible he is.

(Y/N) marries and his bloodline continues on, but there’s this terrible desire to be loved. It persists in every one of them. This ache that the King of Curses had left. This magnetism that power holds over the (L/N) clan.

In another universe, where (Y/N) finds no love in Satoru nor Kento, but Sukuna?

How delighted would the King of Curses be to see his concubine so willing for him? The King of Curses would have a harem of women. But the one man? Oh, he’s beloved. His room is closest to Sukuna’s, his appetite always filled and his bookshelves overflowing. Uruame enjoys his presence, tending to him personally and making him food as well.

(Y/N) who takes a liking to human flesh. Who finds himself ignoring the screams of tortured men and women, and only curls his nose in distaste when Sukuna wants to consume “soft” flesh.

Who grins so serenely in his King’s lap, who can’t decide which mouth he prefers on him or which hand is his favourite. Sukuna loves to be fed by (Y/N) and does the same to him.

Who learns how to please Sukuna’s cocks all by himself. Who has servants prep him open only to be killed right after - but what a privilege they had, to have Sukuna’s concubine mewl around their fingers.

Sukuna loves watching him ride, loves seeing the bulge in his stomach, the twinge of pain on his face. He loves sticking his tongue out (the one on his stomach) to lick at (Y/N)’s cock and (Y/N) yelps every time.

At times, you’ll find his precious concubine so stunning after a night of pleasure you’d stare. Each time, Uruame is there to gauge their eyes out.

Their master's toy is his alone after all.

"What must it be like to grow up that beautiful? With your hair falling into place like dominoes"

polycule of satosugu x yn!

Satoru thinks he’s selfish. He knows that marrying (Y/N) fulfills duty and honour but in doing so it would be cruel for the boy. On the other hand, marrying Suguru was completely out of the realm of possibilities no matter how hard he insists.

His personal feelings about them both confuse him too.

Satoru loves Suguru. Satoru loves (Y/N).

You could imagine the relief 16-year-old Gojo Satoru felt when (Y/N) blushed at Suguru’s soft-spoken voice or when Suguru caught himself staring at (Y/N)’s lips for too long in a conversation.

In this AU - Satoru never dated Suguru, he instead gathered the two of you and just announced his feelings.

It was choppy waters to navigate through, among the political aspects of a marriage and teenage emotions and deadly missions.

But the three of you made it work. This relationship was among three men who fulfilled honour, duty, and love. Who only needed each other to feel filled.

A polyamorous marriage wasn’t taboo, it was just outdated, still with Gojo Satoru and Gojo (Y/N) both insisting that Geto Suguru would be their husband after Satoru became the head of the Gojo clan. It wasn’t as though they could be refused now.

In this AU, Suguru would not betray his husbands though not without thinking of it. He simply tightened his hold on the rings before he brought the twins back home and his heart softened as he saw them tend to the girls.

What a rowdy household. The children are so loved that they cannot fathom love doesn’t exist.

Satoru who will sigh and embrace his husbands out of the blue.

“You’re beautiful,” he’ll tell (Y/N) as he cups his face while the poor man is simply reading some document at the dining table. “Our husband is beautiful, Suguru!”

Suguru immediately gets drowsy whenever your fingers thread through his hair, and chuckles when you trace his features as he’s about to wake.

Gods, seeing you and Satoru hold onto your children’s hands as all of you walk together in a park makes thoughts of those dark summers dissipate into nothing.

Satoru sleeps in the center of your California king-sized bed. He simply refuses any other spot.

The Tokyo School has its hands full of the Gojo’s. From the husbands to their 3 children with rambunctious abilities.

When Tsumiki got cursed...it was an emotional day for everyone. Suguru swore he’d do anything to break it while Nanako and Mimiko yelled and yelled, Megumi just sobbing into your chest.

The girls visit her often, talking to her as they fix her hair and ensure she’s comfortable. Megumi appreciates their care as he silently stares from the corner.

Oh, breakfasts are always bustling.

The children are spoiled just as much as Satoru’s husbands are.

What a terrifying trio you are - abilities powerful beyond the curve!

Shoko always takes a few shots before heading over to celebrate holiday dinners, lmao.

She understands that you three enjoy asking about her love life though all three of you were made to kneel in apology as she glared after Satoru and you “accidentally” found the woman she’d been seeing.

Suguru rolls his eyes every time Satoru and you stroke the dragon spirit's snout or compliment the spear-wielding spirit.

While they bring burn-relief medication for you, Satoru and you ensure to bring snacks to wash away the foul taste of curses for Suguru and Suguru and you always have extra blindfolds and painkillers for Satoru.

Yuta grew flustered as he found out the three of you were together. He had honestly thought Suguru was cheating on Satoru with you but Maki’s scoff of “disgust” and her brief explanation made his face bloom into fifty shades of red.

Yuji would honestly not care - he’d be surprised at first but bounce back rather quickly (although Ryomen Sukuna would certainly have his comments).

ANGST TIME!

The Shibuya arc would be very different of course, though wouldn’t it just be delightful if Kenjaku managed to grab (Y/N) and force his husband to see Ryomen Sukuna not only take over their son’s body but see their husband get claimed by another?

Delicious angst, me thinks.

"But I just wanna stop right next to you, if I could my dream? I just wanna stop right next to you."

polygamous marriage (?) of Satosugu and kentoYN!

In this AU, (Y/N) and Satoru would feel so guilty for letting their eyes wander to their significant future husbands.

It’s not as though they don’t love each other but there’s this societal norm of monogamy and despite never getting physical with Suguru/Kento the emotional aspect still makes them feel like they’re doing something dirty.

It wasn’t fair to anyone.

Shoko dryly mumbling about polygamy had Satoru and you instantly perking up.

You loved Suguru and Satoru liked Kento - but neither of them wanted to be in a relationship with each other. So this arrangement of Satoru’s boyfriend and (Y/N)’s boyfriend honestly worked. It was confusing at first but it worked.

When Satoru married Suguru and you married Kento, it was a joyous event. A double wedding!

A rowdy household once again, Satoru insisted on living on the same land just with multiple “sections”. Even if this was a polycule, I’d imagine solitude from one another is still appreciated after all. The house was built from the ground up and it was a labour of love to ensure all four of you (and your kids) would have their own slice of heaven.

Kento adores you, the rings on your fingers, and the home you share.

Satoru adores you as well, never once making you feel as though this is a competition.

Both Satoru and you are fair to each other and your respective husbands. Never favouring the other or anything that would make them feel like a “glorified side chick.”

The kids aren’t confused at all.

Although they did have to adjust to call which father what.

They settled with Dad (you), Papa (Suguru), Pa (Kento), and Father (Satoru - only to annoy him.) Sometimes the four of you will have to play it by ear since they just use “daddd!” interchangeably.

Shoko still takes shots before she heads over to go to holiday dinners.

The students are also not confused. Yuta got a bit flustered but Suguru just informed him about it and Yuta felt less anxious - he genuinely thought Satoru was cheating on (Y/N) when he walked in on Satoru and Suguru making out in an empty classroom.

You’d honestly just giggle at Yuta’s face when he told you this which made him more confused while Suguru gave him the mercy to pat his head.

Yuji would think it’d be so cool that such a dynamic worked.

Nanako and Mimiko as Tokyo High students make my heart soar - Megumi has his older sisters tease him relentlessly whenever their schedules overlap (they always do).

[airbendertendou]

May I please get a scenario or hc (whatever is easier for you!) of Rindo’s s/o dying their hair to match his hair color? Like they do it while he’s at work and he has no idea until he comes home. Thank you! I hope you have a good day/night!

synopsis : reader changes their hair to match their boyfie <3 characters included : mikey, ran, draken, koko & bonten!rindou

if you have a blank blog [no bio, no user, no header or profile pic, nothing reblogged, etc] do not interact with my content. you will be blocked.

— MANJIRO! ♥︎ you copy his classic, half-up hairstyle ♥︎ doesn't even notice you've changed your hair ♥︎ draken says something snarky abt it like "oh, you're matching, cute." ♥︎ nd mikey goes ??? w his cheeks puffed out from a taiyaki ♥︎ but when he turns to see you ♥︎ it's like the sun shines down onto you carefully ; like angels are singing ; like he's falling in love all over again ♥︎ his head flops onto your shoulder, arms shakily bringing you closer to his hold ♥︎ mumbles something about turning you into a sano /:

— DRAKEN! ♥︎ you go for jus a simple braid, a little piece of hair tugged out ♥︎ he snorts when he sees you, rolling his eyes nd everything ♥︎ but his ears are so so red ♥︎ and hes thought abt how to tell you how pretty you look ; how you need a dragon tattoo now, too ♥︎ shoves you under his arm when you tease him abt his blush, digging his chin into the top of your head annoyingly ♥︎ tugs on that little strand a lot!! jus to get your attention, he swears ♥︎ but has this sort of pride in his eyes when you show your hair off at the toman meeting

— RAN! ♥︎ your hair is styled into two braided pigtails ♥︎ oh hes so smug ♥︎ but also keeps an eye narrowed and focused on anyone mking inappropriate comments ♥︎ we live in a society where pigtails are sexualized ♥︎ twirls your braids the way he twirls his!! ♥︎ will also purposely mess his hair up so you have to fix it for him ): ♥︎ grins at any and all matching hair accessories he see ♥︎ talk him out of getting the giant, obvious bows please

— KOKONOI! ♥︎ can b his bonten hair or his current one! ♥︎ either way, you twist or braid a few pieces of hair to mimic his style ♥︎ hates it at first ♥︎ bc how dare you make his signature style look better than he does ):< ♥︎ ends up liking it bc now he has easy access to kiss your ear nd neck ♥︎ he goes through all the other styles you'd look nice in ; all the colors you could pull off ♥︎ something about your hair matching his... ♥︎ makes you feel more official, somehow

— RINDOU! ♥︎ bonten era ; you get the jellyfish cut! or maybe copy his colors- ♥︎ he knew abt your hair appointment but didnt think it was anything out of the ordinary ♥︎ little did he know.... ♥︎ he just stares ♥︎ like wide-eyed, heartstopping, can barely breathe stares ♥︎ stands to his full height and cups your chin, turning your head gently to get a full view ♥︎ grins w pink cheeks ): kisses the tip of your nose and just continues to stare ♥︎ "all mine......" its whispered before he takes your breath in a kiss ♥︎ He's Obsessed.

——♥︎—— im so sorry for the lack of content lately ); hope this was okay / the format was alright. if youd like to b tagged / untagged in any tokyo revengers content, let me know! ♥︎

🍓FOREVER TAGS : @star2fishmeg ♥︎

🍓 TOKYOREV TAGLIST : @thatpoindexterpixy @night-shadowblood-writes2 @muichirouswifeandhusband @chrofeisnightmaregf

airbendertendou © do not copy, plagiarize, repost, or translate my content on any platform. if you see my content under any other name than my own, let me know. i only have this tumblr and an ao3 account under the same name.

[sits-bound]

Bound: Drarry as written by GallaPlacidia

It's hard to tell from photos, but this is a big ol' book.

Over 11 inches tall and 9 inches wide.

For scale, next to a "normal" sized book.

It is done! I say that like I worked on it for months. Really, it was a couple of weeks. I've had the idea for a while to make an anthology of all of GallaPlacidia's fics (because the individual binds I did aren't enough? I guess?) but when I started to put one together, I realized it would be waaaaay too long for one volume (all together it's around 450k words) and if I had to divide it up, well, that kind of defeated the purpose.)

But then. I got a wide format printer. And I realized I could make it big. Print it on 11x17 sheets of paper so that each page was 8.5x11 instead of 5.5x8.5 like a regular folio bind is. However, the printer does not auto duplex, so I had to hand feed each signature through the printer to get the reverse sides printed. Happily, I didn't screw it up once!

This does mean that the paper is long grain, not short grain, but with this size paper, I don't think it makes a huge difference in the finished bind. This is 20lb paper, and I also bought 28lb paper, so I can cut it in half to make short grain letter sized paper in a pinch.

The typeset came together fairly easily because I already had 12 of the 13 fics already set, so it was just a matter of copying and pasting and then ensuring the styles were consistent. I kept things fairly simple, using a fancy dropcap that gave a kind of illuminated manuscript feel and then a few swirly bits and bobs to fill in white space here and there. The end papers came from Paper Source, they're just perfect.

And check out those end bands! I inadvertently made them in Hogwarts house colors.

I mainly use precut book boards for my half-letter sized binds, so they weren't going to be big enough for this. I had a bit of leftover bookboard I had bought off Amazon, but it was thinner than I wanted, so I bought some art board and glued them together to make some really sturdy book boards.

The spine is bookcloth and the covers are paper that I printed on the laser printer and then used toner foil on. I did this instead of covering it all in bookcloth because then I would have had to use HTV and I probably would have lost my mind trying to decorate a case this big in HTV, particularly when I had such an elaborate design in mind. I sprayed it with a fixative and used metal corner protectors so hopefully it will wear okay.

Oh, and the spine was foiled using a foil quill and my silhouette. I was very pleased with how well it foiled. Of course I had to make it twice because I messed up the spacing the first time. OF COURSE.

And then I had to make the back cover three times but it's FINE. It all worked out. When I pressed it during my second attempt, I didn't put any scrap paper in the press to absorb moisture, so it got very wavy. Third time was the charm!

One interesting thing about making this bind (and why I don't really feel the need to repeat this experiment) is that many of my tools, like my punching cradle and the press I use when gluing and sewing endbands, were too small for this, so I had to improvise here and there. But it all worked out!

GallaPlacidia's fics are no longer on AO3 but there's a google drive of them here. And all of my binds of her fics are here.

[goat-guy-tm]

I was talking about deep analysis of Curly and Jimmy's dynamic in my discord server (which you should join), and I thought "Hey! Maybe tumblr would like this!" So, here this is! It's a rough copy paste of what I said, edited slightly to fit better in a post format:

Also long post warning.

I feel like because a lot of ppl haven't experience people like Jimmy irl they have a hard time understanding why Curly acts the way he does, and by no means is it still 100% okay, but when you know someone that's been mentally manipulating you for years if can become easy to be tunnel visioned to they pain they cause others. I think a big example of that is when Anya shows concern over Jimmy's last psych evaluation but when Curly does it Jimmy (from the little text we get about it) tells him it was just all jokes, which could have been, but when it's just Jimmy and Curly it's much lighter in perspective, because Curly believes him, and Curly sees no reason for Jimmy to lie to him about his mental state (which he obviously was doing as he has quite the psychotic break a few days later)

Not to mention, Jimmy gets quite aggressive at Curly when he notices that Curly is rethinking his career. He activly calls him horrible things for 'not appreciating his position and wanting something new' (<not direct words but overview), when if Jimmy was a good friend he would have been talking about it with Curly. Instead he shames Curly for it, that in Jimmy's mind it's unfair for Curly to not be happy cause Curly has a better seat than him, but he'll frame it as them, the whole crew, to make Curly feel bad about it.

Like, when the rest of the crew learned they were going to be let go after that haul, none of them were really mad at Curly for him being the only one to be given a recommendation and compensation. Yeah Anya and Swansea are upset about it, but only Jimmy is the one to call out Curly for being the only one to relieve special treatment, when it's pretty established Curly is/was one of Pony Expresses' best pilots. But Jimmy doesn't talk about himself during the party. Swansea mentions how unfair it is that PE is throwing them to the side after all these years, Anya almost has a panic attack over not having any money in savings, Daisuke isn't really phased since he's only an intern, but Jimmy gets mad at CURLY, not Pony Express. He even full on calls it Curly running away, as if Pone Express closing them down is Curly's fault for wanting something different for his life

I mean what's wild to me is I'm p sure Curly even has a conversation with Jimmy in the game about how he hasn't been handed anything and has been working hard for where he is. Curly never out right really says it, but he does make mention of both of them working hard. Then again Curly doesn't talk about himself a lot even in conversation (minus the "on the edge of a bridge with your feet in the cememnt" one cause Jimmy made it about him)

When going back through the playthrough, I realized Jimmy is such a well written villian because he convinces even Curly that Curly is the villian here, the one in the wrong. Curly isn't perfect, he is quite literally the imperfect victim, but Jimmy is such a big manipulator that he convinces Curly it's HIS fault all this is happening, that Curly needs JIMMY so that he can fix all this, only for Curly to realizes what Jimmy's been doing when he finds Jimmy curled up outside the cockpit with a ship wide system failure blaring.

Buddy Corl: "Hey, just an idea, would Jimmy keep Anya alive so that Curly can stay alive? He berates her medical expertise but never elects to care for Curly beyond feeding him pills."

I'd say 50/50. A big thing is Jimmy quite obviously doesn't view Anya as a person, or at the very least views her as bottom of the barrel useless, but after the crash and with Curly how he was, there was no way he'd be able to do it and survive, because the entire time Swansea has the axe and Jimmy even recognizes that if he steps out of line too far within the lines of "I'm captian so I say so", then Swansea would basically usurp him. His own personal caring for Curly was most likely to keep him suffering. He voted on keeping Curly alive, and unless he was just trying to blend in with the others, then he did it because he wanted to keep Curly suffering.

Friend Corl again: "There was a Tumblr post that claimed the hands of the others were missing (the overview angle of Curly on the table was used as evidence) but this could just be the angle of the scene itself as he was going to die shortly after."

Hm, it could have been either the angle, a rendering choice from the devs or Jimmy could have cut their hands off. Idk why he would only go for the hands though, since he seems to show full intrest in cannablism. But you could chalk it up to a concept of keeping them from being able to do anything. Yes they are dead but Jimmy is far gone enough to believe that cutting their hands off could still make him better because they can't do anything to change what he's done.

Anyways that's it! For some context on why this is so important to me, from elementary school to the end of middle school I had a 'friend' that I was extremely close with. She was a horrible person who mentally, emotionally and physically tortured me for years, but since I was a child I never saw anything wrong with it. I would even rush to her defense when people would point out to me that what she was doing was bad. Now a days I hate her, and I love to talk shit about her, but I think a lot of people don't fully take in Curly's actions because they haven't gone through that (and they shouldn't, mind you).

I feel for Curly a lot, because I see myself in him in how he tries so desperately to protect someone he didn't even realize was killing him. Curly isn't perfect, and believe me I wasn't perfect when I was friends with her. She made me act out against people to gain her approval, she made me bitter and mean to others, do things I would never do. Very few people acknowledge what an over powering manipulator that has been controlling you for years can do to a person.

[physalian]

Beta Reader Checklist! (Suggestions)

Beta reading is highly, highly subjective, so take this whole post with a massive grain of salt. IMO, in short, more feedback is always safer than less feedback, unless the author states otherwise.

Like, if they ask you to do a final read through for any lingering issues, you can speed-read your way through the manuscript for general vibes and enjoyability. If this is the first round of edits and beta reads, the more you can give them, even if you think you're over-reaching, the better.

Thank you to all my betas thus far, absolutely no shade meant with this post. Everybody's got different expectations. This is meant to help anyone who's unsure about the task before them.

So I'm going to use some snippets from my seasoned beta reader's feedback from my upcoming novella for the variety of commentary you can give.

Positive vibes/reader reaction

Even if the manuscript is a hot mess, sending back a beta read with 0 good things to say is going to demoralize the author. Even if all you can say is "this is a cool concept that can benefit from a better execution," letting the author know that they've written something salvagable helps, especially if you can do it in the first few paragraphs.

Grammar and Syntax

You are not a line editor and should not be expected to line edit someone's first draft (and this beta got the ~7th draft). However, if you do see something while reading, there's no reason that you can't leave a suggestion.

Fun commentary

We authors like to know that the reader is connecting with the story. These comments tells me absolutely nothing helpful about bettering the manuscript, but they're human responses from a human reader and it's just nice to see. Beta readers are casual, you should be allowed to stay stuff like this.

Developmental edits

Beta readers generally come before the big expensive editor (if you ever hire one at all) which means the goal is more big picture, developmental commentary over splitting hairs about punctuation. This comment got me to add about half a paragraph's worth of extra narrative to expand upon, because I liked the suggestion.

Continuity and reader comprehension

This novella happens to be about a niche subject that not every layman reader will understand, so I have to find the line between overexplaining to those who know, and underexplaining to those who don't, without reading like a textbook. The top line I ended up leaving as I didn't think the risk of confusion was worth the added technical detail. The bottom line was a continuity error that I did have to fix.

Repetition and style

I'm an author who will always look for ways to lower my word count. Sometimes cutting a random line is better for the narrative than doubling down and trying to justify it with extra details. In this case, I over-used a motif, and happily saved myself 7 words.

Potential for extra detail

If you struggle with lengthening your word count, you can ask your betas to focus on where the narrative is thin and can benefit for more immersion and backstory. This beta leaves me comments everywhere suggesting places for extra sensory details, as I write very lean narratives with little fluff, and my consistency with sensory details varies widely.

All told, over 21k words of story, this beta left me exactly 100 comments, and a couple quick line edits within the text itself. It shows me, at the very least, that she was engaged with the story. The only time she doesn't leave me comments is when a scene is so intense that she forgets to make one.

The Reader Report

The reader report is a separate document from the manuscript copy that compiles and condenses the beta's thoughts into a much shorter format so the author doesn't have to scroll up and down constantly for a big picture takeaway. It also expands upon any commentary the beta had, but didn't want to put in a single tag within the narrative and is typically written after most of the manuscript has been read for overall thoughts.

This beta in particular knows what I like, which is breaking down the report by chapter (or parts in this case). The only thing missing from her delivery is a final conclusion that will answer the three big questions:

Did she like it?

Would she buy it?

Would she recommend it?

But it was also done in a rush and in her email she said I made her cry so I count that as a yes for all 3.

—

I did not implement every suggestion from her, but I did acknowledge where other readers might feel the same and weighed the pros of trying to satisfy everything vs maintaining my clear vision.

The benefit of the beta process, if you work with multiple betas, is having more than one reader's opinion, and why I don't think anyone should pay ridiculous fees for a developmental editor. My betas all had different opinions on this manuscript, and I can treat their feedback like a scatterplot, deciding on revisions with an average throughline.

At the end of the day, you write for yourself, not to please any one beta reader. They're suggestions, not rules, and even if your beta tells you they hate it, you at least learn who your target audience isn't, and what naysayers wouldn't like.

[alexawynters]

Scarlet Whispers - pt 2

Gif not mine

A/N: Not sure about the formatting, copy and paste didn't quite work out as planned. Title subject to change, not sure how I feel about it. This is my first published fic here so pls be gentle. Also I'm terrible at summaries.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female!Reader

Trigger warnings (let me know if I forgot to tag anything): Mentions of past child abuse, ongoing adult child abuse, stalking, horror, dubcon, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, gaslighting, angst, smut. There will be bits of fluff tho.

Rating: M. Minors DNI

Master list here

You miss your stop.

Not only do you miss your stop, but you end up all the way at the bus depot before the driver notices you passed out in one of the seats. The driver, a kindly older gentleman, offers to give you a lift home since it is the end of his shift anyway. He takes pity on you, perhaps due to your tired and sad appearance. Interestingly, no one seems to notice the red wisps behind his eyes.

You appreciate his kindness, but you are anxious about returning home. A quick look at your phone reveals that it is well past 6 PM and you have missed multiple calls and texts from both of your parents. This is not going to end well. In simple terms, you are fucked. Fortunately, the man doesn't seem to notice your restlessness as your leg bounces nervously as he gets closer to your home.

As you exit the vehicle, you politely thank him and offer to pay for the gas, but the man refuses. His accent changes slightly as he says, "anything to help." You shrug it off, as it is not your concern where people are from. Your focus is on more pressing matters. After closing the door, you square your shoulders and mentally prepare for the absolute shit show awaiting you as soon as you step through the front door.

It shouldn’t surprise you that your father’s booming voice is the first to be heard. “Where were you?”

You start with the truth. “Dad I’m sorry, I was on the bus after my exam, I fell asleep with my headphones-”

”I don’t want your excuses! While you live here under our roof, you will show us some respect, you will follow our rules! You had chores to do today, why didn’t you do them?”

A bead of sweat trails down the back of your neck. You hate being interrupted, and you hate being asked questions when they clearly don’t want the answers. Besides, you are in your twenties, not a child. “As I was saying, I-”

This time your mother interrupts. “Don’t speak to your father like that. He asked you a question, we expect you to answer it!.”

You grit your teeth. “I fell asleep on the bus, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Always with the excuses this one.” Your father laments. “Do you think your future employer is going to care about any of that? No. He’s just going to want to know why you weren’t there.”

It takes every ounce of your sanity to not snap that your answer is the reason WHY you weren’t there, and not simply an excuse. Instead you hold your tongue. They aren’t here to listen, they don’t care. They just want to yell at you, and for you to be sorry.

“I tell you, with behavior like that it’s any wonder at all you’d even be able to keep a job. They would probably fire you on the spot, and then you would be right back on our doorstep, our problem once again to pick up the pieces.”

It’s all hypothetical of course - you’ve never been late to any of your classes, but you have not yet had a job, you weren’t allowed to. You are sure you wouldn’t be late to it though if you were to treat it like your classes. You know you can’t tell your parents this however. Might as well bite the bullet and get it over with.

“Yes Dad, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Saying sorry simply doesn't cut it! Sorry doesn’t fix the problem that you caused, so tell me, how are you going to make the problem right?” he demands. A vein throbs in his forehead. Absently you think about how he knows he should watch his blood pressure, but that would require him to watch his temper. Y/D/N could never.

You know what he is looking for, he wants you to do your chores now, but it’s after 8PM and your exam is at 8AM. If you do your chores now, that leaves you little time for last minute studying, eating, bathing, sleeping, and then catching the bus back to the university. Helplessly, you look to your mother for help.

“Don’t look at me, this is your mess you’ve created. If you had just done what you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If you had just been good, you could be doing whatever it is you do with your free time right now.”

It had always annoyed you greatly that your parents were unaware of your academic achievements. While it's true that you didn't have the best grades as a child, once you entered university and chose a major, you became a straight-A student, even going so far as to make the President’s list the last three years in a row. However, in their eyes, you would always be the little underachiever they had to take care of.

Tears well up in your eyes. This situation wasn't fair. It was an accident. You had fully intended to come home and do your chores, but you couldn’t have known you would sleep through your alarm on the bus. You had been so incredibly exhausted that you experienced a vivid nightmare whilst awake. You were aware that you needed more sleep, but your degree was your only way out of this miserable place. You couldn't risk losing it all just because you missed a few hours of sleep now and then.

“Please?” You beg. You didn’t have anything else to argue in your defense. “I’ll leave my headphones in my bag this time, I’ll set multiple alarms, I won’t sleep, just please let me go study!”

Your parents look at each other, having silent communication. Seeming to come to an agreement, your mother speaks first. “Y/N we’re sorry it has to be this way, but you have already proven on multiple occasions that we can’t trust you to do the right thing. Tonight, you are going to do your chores even if it takes you all night to do it. Besides, we all know you’re not studying up there. For all we know you’re just up there masturbating in the window or something.”

Being stabbed in the chest would have been less painful. You don't understand why you're caught off guard; it's not like your mother hasn't said off the wall shit like this in the past. It's almost as if she thrives on finding the most hurtful and outrageous statements to throw in your face, as if you deserved them. As if you had ever done any of the things she accused you of. Like you were some sort of deviant, when all you wanted was simply the right to exist.

“What the actual fuck, Mom?!” you scream, having finally had enough. Both of your parents look taken aback. Rare is it for you to raise your voice at them, even more so to curse at them. “I know you’ve been pretty checked out of my life for a while now, but I’ve had a 4.0 GPA for the last three years. I don’t know where you got that… comment… from, but I can assure you that all I want to do is go to my room and study.”

“Now listen here young lady,” begins your father.

"No, YOU listen, Father," your voice dripping with sarcasm. “You were right about one thing, and that is I am a gods damned adult. I take my studies seriously, and while it may come as a surprise to you since neither of you have paid any actual attention to my life since I turned 18, though it could be argued you really stopped paying attention earlier except for when I was being an inconvenience, but I am actually a great student. This is my last semester before graduating with honors and again, a 4.0 GPA, and I will have my choice of job opportunities. I will leave this place, and you miserable old bats will have no one to be your punching bag anymore. Then maybe just maybe you can finally take a look at the flaws and fix what's wrong with your own marriage, instead of trying to break ME!”

Your chest heaved. It felt good to speak your truth, but as the silence grew, you began to realize that you might have made a mistake.

Your father has finally gotten out of his chair, looming over you. A resounding slap echoes across the room as your father backhanded you, knocking you to the floor. “You ungrateful, miserable little bitch! I don’t know what lies those ‘professors’ at the university have been filling your head with, but you have no future, and you are lucky your mother and I care enough to let you live under our roof! And so long as you do, you will obey our rules, and show us the respect we deserve!”

Fearful, you scramble back to the wall and attempt to push yourself to your feet. “If that’s the price of living here, then I will happily live in the University’s library. One week, that’s all I need!” You step forward to make your escape from this house, but this time your mother shoves you, and once again you find yourself on your knees.

You raise your hands in self-defense, but your mother sneers, "Do it, Y/N, hit me, and you'll be out on your ass faster than you can blink!" Crying, you lower your hands and prepare to allow her to strike you.

The lights went out all at once, and everyone froze. Has the power gone out? It couldn’t have, you could still hear the hum of the AC unit. So what was wrong with the lights?

The lights turn back on as suddenly as they had gone out, and all three of you look around in confusion. However, despite the lights returning, the room appears darker, creating an almost eerie atmosphere. The shadows cast a looming presence over all of you, sending a shiver up your spine. Your home, which you have lived in for around twenty ish years, suddenly feels foreboding, and you wonder if it's too late to flee. It almost resembles one of the nightmares you have been experiencing recently.

Red mist fills the room, a dreadfully sinister voice speaks. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

All three of you turn to the source of the sound - the corner of the room, as a red and black leather-clad boot, attached to black leather pants, steps through a portal and into the room. The Scarlet Witch follows, radiating her full glory. She warns, "If you wish to keep your body parts intact, you will never lay a finger on Y/N ever again."

You’re pretty sure your eyebrows have never been closer to meeting your hairline before and yet here we are. You don’t know who this unfamiliar lady is, nor how she seems to know you but God damned if that outfit doesn’t look as if it has been painted onto her. You blush at your sinful thoughts. Now is not the time, and you’re pretty sure you’re having a stroke of some sort. If nothing else, however, you are grateful for the reprieve from your beating.

Meanwhile, your parents had never taken well to being told what to do, by anyone, they certainly weren’t going to now by this costumed stranger. Your mother bristles. “Who is this Y/N? Another one of your little whores?” Completely disregarding the fact that you have never in fact had a partner in your entire life, and you don’t know whether to be pleased that she seems to think you’re capable of having a sex life or affronted that she thinks you’re some type of floozy. Your mother’s words, not yours.

“What? No, I-” You look helplessly from the floor between your parents and this woman you now recognize as the one from your visions, and the same one from your hallucination this morning. Is she here to help, or to hurt you? She has been your savior and aggressor in both; there’s no telling which she has chosen for now. Glancing between them, you are unsure how to de-escalate this situation. There is no way to convince your parents, for their own safety, that this woman is powerful and not to be trifled with. Nothing you could say, they would believe, and you were pretty sure this woman would kill your parents without a second thought if they didn’t tread carefully.

Seeming to sense your struggle, the woman speaks up in your stead. “As I’ve said, you would do well to keep your hands to yourself. I am here to take Y/N with me, and you will not stand in my way. This is your only warning, which I am giving to you out of consideration for Y/N.”

She reaches down for your hand to help you back up. Hesitantly, you take it, ignoring the shock that runs throughout your body, and begin questioning your entire reality. Take you with her? Who even is she? Where exactly is she going to be taking you? You had questions, and you would like some answers, but if you didn’t get your parents to stand down, you were pretty sure she would follow through on her threat. Sure, your parents were trash, but they were all you had. You loved them, and you were certain that, in their own warped way, they loved you, too.

She helps you up and proceeds to give you a thorough once-over, carefully inspecting your injuries. Her intense scrutiny makes you blush. Meanwhile, your parents remain silent, their thinly veiled anger evident as they observe your interaction. How dare this woman speak to them in such a manner? Thankfully, they wisely choose to keep quiet. Perhaps they also sense the dangerous aura emanating from this woman, perceiving her as a true threat. Then again, it could be due to the fact that she just stepped through a literal portal conjured out of thin air moments ago. Maybe they had been paying attention, but even you are unsure of what is real anymore.

Still holding your hand, the Scarlet Witch leads you back towards the portal she arrived through. "Come, Y/N, we have much to discuss." At this point, all you could do was helplessly trail after, hoping you weren't going from bad to worse. At least by leaving, your parents would be out of danger. As for yourself, well... It was clear that the Scarlet Witch wanted something from you. Hopefully, whatever that was would be sufficient to ensure your survival. Perhaps even enough to negotiate with.

At the last possible moment, your mother chooses, whether out of genuine love and concern for your well-being, or fear at the loss of her control over you, to reach out to take you from this bizarre woman. “Mother, no!”

Y/M/N finds herself promptly flung onto the wall behind her, and stuck there, unable to move. You aren’t sure who exactly screamed but you’re pretty sure it was every member of your family. The Scarlet Witch hadn’t even turned to look, the only indication she had even been involved is the raised hand, opposite the one holding yours, with dark, ink-stained fingertips, bent at slightly odd angles.

“Stop, please! Let her go, she won’t do it again, please! I'm sorry, please!”

Unsure of why you are begging for this woman’s life when she has spent the entirety of yours making sure you were miserable. Still, your heart lurched at the thought of anything happening to your mother. You didn’t like her, and if you never saw her again, that was probably for the best, but you certainly didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.

The Witch took a deep breath, seemingly to calm herself, before turning to face you.

In the softest voice you had ever heard she whispers “Detka, I-.” She opens and closes her mouth a few times, deciding what to say. To your absolute mortification and delight, she leans down to place a gentle kiss on your forehead, and promises “I will let them live, but I must say my piece.”

You nod, completely dumbstruck at everything happening in this moment. What. The. Fuck.

Y/M/N, still pinned to the wall, whimpers and struggles to move but is clearly unable to. The Scarlet Witch turns from you to face your parents. Another wave of her hand, and your mother slumps to the floor, alarmed, but otherwise unharmed. It is clear whatever the witch did, both she and your father are now restrained.

Footsteps approach the pair, and the lights in the house flickered ominously. Despite your mother being nearly 40 years older than her (or so you assumed, as you had no idea of this woman's age), the power emanating from her exuded confident malevolence. She showed no fear towards them, and for once, although ashamed to admit it, you were glad to see that they were afraid of someone else.

Though she was only about 5'6", the woman knelt before your parents, her voice filled with menacing intent. "I know everything you have ever done, everything you ever could do, and everything you ever will do. I know what you are guilty of. I know what you deserve, and I can assure you that it is not mercy. I will spare your lives and leave you unharmed due to the kindness of your daughter, the daughter you’ve abused for decades." As her head tilts, you can't help but feel that she becomes even more dangerous. "But if you ever try to take her from me again, I will seek retribution on her behalf, and I promise you it will be the most excruciating agony you have ever experienced. Do we understand each other?"

You squirm uncomfortably. This should not be doing things to you, but then again, no one had ever stood up for you. Ever. Gods you needed therapy. It’s fine. Little boxes, and this was for a little box for later.

The witch stood up and once again took your hand, leading you through the portal and leaving your parents behind. Perhaps for good, you weren’t entirely sure, and you suddenly realized you didn’t care. Anywhere was better than here; even if this woman was dangerous, at least for the moment, she seemed to care about you, and that was enough for you to follow her to the ends of the earth.

Again, therapy…

The pair arrive at a massive stone temple, which you would later learn is called Mount Wundagore, the Scarlet Witch's temple. It is built into a massive, rugged mountain with steep cliffs, situated above dense forests and enveloped in mist. The mountain exudes an air of mystique and possesses an eerie atmosphere. Scattered across its walls are depictions of the woman in front of you, accompanied by various runes whose significance you suppose hint at a potentially supernatural importance.

The Scarlet Witch does not make much of an effort for introductions, nor explanations, simply heads towards the entrance to her temple.

“What is this place?” you ask, hints of awe and fear in your voice

“Our home.” 

Your brain stutters. “I’m sorry, what now?” 

“Detka, do not pretend you did not hear me, I don’t enjoy repeating myself. This is our home.” Her accent sounds vaguely Eastern European, and becomes more pronounced the more irritated she is. You wonder when she started trying to hide it.

Your mind balks at the idea of this being your new home, it couldn’t be less foreboding. “Uhhh… this.. is a giant stone temple in BFE nowhere, with ice, snow, and-”

Movement startles you out of your reverie. Beings made entirely out of stone shift from foot to foot, as if adjusting their stance. Their eyes have the same red glow as the woman who leads you now.  

 “Are those rock trolls??” The stone guardians loom threatening, but make no move to engage, they await their Queen’s orders. “Right. Rock trolls. Why is this our home? WHERE is our home? And,” you spin, taking the aesthetic of the temple in, trying not to have an anxiety attack. “What do you mean -our- home? Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

You can’t tell if the faint twitch of the other woman’s lips is in amusement or annoyance at your ramblings, but in your defense, she had let you speak uninterrupted. You were known for getting entire paragraphs out if left unsupervised - it was a talent and a curse. Personally you felt she should be grateful you weren’t jumping down her throat, you didn’t know anyone else who would be taking this half as calmly as you were. Then again, you were still waiting on your Hogwarts acceptance letter at 25. 

“My name is..” she hesitated. “Wanda. I am.. I was an Avenger.”

You looked on blankly, hoping she would elaborate. The fuck was an “Avenger”?

"In my universe," (you filed away the fact that she implied the existence of a multiverse for later, as it was a problem for another time) "the Avengers are superheroes. Well, that's what we called ourselves - Earth's Mightiest Heroes. A bit arrogant, if you ask me. We dealt with threats that the military and ordinary people couldn't handle. We were the last line of defense. We saved the world countless times, but at a great cost of lives. We were vain, thinking we were above it all because we believed we were acting for the greater good. But try explaining that to those who were lost as collateral damage.

I digress. We.. were considered to be heroes. There were several of us, we were a team. A family. We lived together, fought together. Died together. Until we didn’t.”

Wanda explains the dynamics of the Avengers team, including how she and her brother Pietro joined. She mentions Pietro's death in the battle against Ultron, as well as the events leading up to and the battle against Thanos. She also covers the events of the “Blip”, and what happened afterward. However, she conveniently chooses to omit the events of Westview, as she didn't want you to know about that just yet.

“That’s.. wow. Wanda, that's a lot. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen your powers myself, I wouldn’t believe you. But all of that still doesn’t explain why you’re here. You mentioned your universe as being so fantastical, why would you come here? And what do you want with me? If you’re a hero, why are you here in what totally looks like a villain’s lair and not with your other superhero buddies?” You neglect to mention the unease creeping up your spine.

This is fine. Everything is fine. Right? Right. 

A look of utter despair crosses the witches face as she locks eyes with you before glancing away.

“I mentioned my team before, but I didn’t mention you.”

“…” You slow blink. This was not how you thought your day was going to go, and honestly, you were already getting a bit of a headache. Could she be less cryptic because that would be great. More details, fewer questions. Maybe another nap.

"Y/N, where I am from, you were also an Avenger. You had joined the team before Pietro and I, and were one of the few who made us feel welcome. Despite the fact that we had previously been enemies, you didn't treat us as ticking time bombs. Instead, you welcomed us with open arms. Your go-to tactics were kindness and understanding, which made it hard not to want to get to know you. When Pietro died, you were the only one who checked on me and cared. You taught me that grief is just love persevering. You became my closest friend, and over time, I couldn't help when those feelings began growing into something more.”

You swallow uncomfortably. It sounds like Wanda is telling you that in this other universe you both were an item. It’s not that you wouldn’t be honored to be with such an attractive woman, but it feels weird knowing that that was a different version of you. Someone with superpowers, someone likely more confident by the sounds of it. This feels almost as if you are intruding on something you shouldn’t, yet Wanda is the one telling you this; if it weren’t okay for you to know, she surely wouldn’t be sharing. You don’t really know what to make of this; if she has feelings for this other you, why is she here with this version of you?

“In the battle against Thanos, we learned that the source of your powers was an infinity stone embedded in your skull courtesy of H.Y.D.R.A. experiments, which altered your genetic DNA. Thanos had also learned you possessed this Mind Stone and sought to take it from you by force.”

Anguish on her features, the witch turns to you. “You were going to die, Y/N. We tried, I tried, so hard to protect you, to keep you away from him but at every turn he found you. If he had gotten the Mind Stone, he would have been able to enact his plan to rid the universe of half of all life. You told me.” She hiccups.

“Y-you told me it was okay, that you forgive me. That I needed to.. that I needed to destroy the stone to save the universe. I didn’t want to. I would have given anything else but that. But you held my hand and told me you forgave me, that you only felt me. Then Thanos came, and we were out of time. I was the only one with the power to do it because its magic was so similar to my own. I placed my hand to your head and I-.” She is unable to continue, breaking off into sobs.

Oh. So she had to sacrifice you to save the universe. Well. You agree with the alternate you, you didn’t blame her, and you would definitely forgive her. Awkwardly you try to find some way to comfort her. While obviously you were not the same person she had loved and lost, and you knew from your own experiences with loss that sometimes words just couldn’t cut it. Instead, you shuffle forward, making sure you were heard in case she wanted to refuse you, and pullher  in for a hug.

Wanda tenses in your embrace, as if she can’t decide if she wants to sink into it or send you flying. “The worst part,” she continues, “was that it meant nothing.”

If you were a dog your head tilt might have been cute.

“In the end, Thanos was still able to get the Mind Stone, and you were still dead, by MY hand, and it all meant NOTHING!” Wanda wrenches herself from your grasp, looking positively unhinged. You probably should have been scared. You weren’t. Her wrath did… things… to you. Therapy…

“All because Strange saw supposedly every possible future and CHOSE to let you die to save everyone else. As if there was no other possible outcome!”

Oh, that... that makes more sense. The other you was still dead, and Wanda was definitely suffering from PTSD from her involvement in it. Her little stunt with your parents was probably her way of trying to save you or bring you back to life. But in your universe, there weren't any superheroes, magic, or Thanos to protect you from (that you were aware of at any rate). So what was Wanda doing? This wouldn't bring her version of you back to life. You may have looked and sounded alike, and you might have made similar decisions, but you simply weren't the same person. The lack of the same life experiences meant that you had different personalities, despite having a similar genetic build.

“So we saved the world, and I left to live in exile. After the funeral, Clint handed me your belongings, and in them was a letter. A deed to a plot of land you had purchased in our names where we were going to build a house. I think it was supposed to be a surprise after we defeated Thanos. We had never lost before, not since Pietro - I don’t think it occurred to us that we could. So I drove out to see and.. Y/N I was still so new to my powers. They were still mostly subconscious. I was grieving and... it would be easier if I show you. May I?”

“May you.. what?”

A subtle smile appears on the witches' face at your ignorance. You are tempted to mention how beautiful she looks with that smile. Shaking off the thought, you ponder if she can read your mind, as her smile becomes knowing and a slight blush colors her cheeks. Ink-stained fingers reach towards your temple, but she hesitates, waiting for your consent, and your heart fills with warmth. You nod once, despite not really understanding.

Her charcoal-colored fingers, cold to the touch, make contact with your temple. Just as you're about to complain about the lack of warning, you're abruptly transported into a completely different world, surpassing the immersive experience of any 3D movie you've ever seen. You not only hear and see everything in every direction, but you can also feel and smell it all. It feels as if you are truly present in that moment. It takes a few minutes for you to realize that you are witnessing someone else's memories, to be precise, Wanda's memories.

She starts her memory with the unexploded bomb created by Tony Stark, which sat in the middle of the rubble of the Maximoff residence. In that chaotic scene, there were two children, the twins, hiding in fear under a bed. However, before you could offer any comfort, the scene shifted. The twins had been taken to HYDRA, where they were subjected to brutal experiments. Witnessing their suffering broke your heart, and despite your best efforts, you were unable to interact with your surroundings, although you desperately tried. Repeatedly you threw yourself against the walls of the cells in which the twins were held, hoping to free them from their hellish situation. You observed the twins' powers first emergence: Pietro's as he attempted to reach his sister's side, and Wanda's as she tried to defend Pietro from the scientists.

Scene after scene, each one as traumatic, if not more so, than the last, depicting all the events from Ultron and beyond. And then there's you. Except, it's not really you. You've certainly never possessed the power of teleportation, nor have you ever been so self-assured. This must be Wanda's universe's version of you. With bright eyes and a warm demeanor, you appear as a beacon of light in Wanda's otherwise bleak life. You observe as the version of you in this universe warmly welcomes the twins to the team, a stark contrast as to how the rest of the team treats the newcomers ranging from suspicious to openly hostile.

It’s surreal, watching yourself from outside your own body, knowing this version isn’t really you, but still no less real of a person. Wanda’s memories begin focusing less on missions and more on interpersonal relationships. Specifically, the one developing between yourself and Wanda. It’s intimate and you feel like an intruder watching this unfold. Sadly, as you grow closer, Wanda loses the only other connection she has - Pietro is hit by stray bullets while saving children. A true hero, and there was nothing anyone on the team could do to prevent it. You watch in horror both for the loss of Pietro as a friend, as well as knowing the absolute devastation this will cause your beloved Witch.

You can tell at this point that that’s what she was to you. It hasn't been long, but that bond has clearly already been sealed; you can see the signs in both your alternate self and Wanda. You would have to be blind not to. The loss of her brother does terrible things to Wanda and it’s all your other self can do to try to keep her afloat. “What is grief but love persevering?”

The scene shifts again. Time has clearly passed, and Wanda appears to have healed to some extent. She and the team have become much more cohesive, which delights both versions of you. Your relationship has definitely progressed, if the blush currently gracing your face, extending to your ears, is any indication. You feel the remnants of the emotions from your alternate self. They are not yours, but neither are they entirely unfamiliar. It makes for a disconcerting sensation to say the least. You don’t know Wanda like that, even though this version of you does. You wish you could view these memories dispassionately, free from your alternate self’s emotions that are bleeding through, but you suspect that’s not possible. Once again you try to reassure yourself that you are not the same person, no matter the genetic makeup.

Jarring you from your reverie, next you find yourself in another battle, and this one is massive. There are more superheroes here than you have ever seen before, either in Wanda's memories or in films. This must be the fight against Thanos she had told you about. Dread settles in your stomach like a stone, and for a moment, you contemplate what it will be like to witness your own death.

Traumatizing, for sure, though not for the reasons you had expected. While you are unable to interact with your environment, you are able to freely move about. Instead of looking at the memory entirely from Wanda’s perspective, you move to stand beside yourself. Wanda stands before you, ethereal, magnificent, yet utterly devastated. She knows what she has to do and pleads with you not to make her. It is unjust for a woman so powerful to suffer such loss, and still you implore her to sacrifice your life, her happiness, for the sake of the rest of the universe. It is unfair. It is cruel. You know it, but you ask anyway.

She never could tell you “no.”

You know the moment this universe's version of you had died when you witness the sheer devastation on Wanda's face. Most people would probably look away, but you couldn't. For some unknown reason, you feel compelled to witness this moment in all its horrifying detail, if only to gain a true understanding of the witch and the immense pain she has endured. There were surely few things more intimate than allowing someone to share their own memories, and here Wanda was, granting you unrestricted access to hers. The least you could do was accept this gift she was offering, no matter how painful it might be.

The images that follow blur together, evoking your personal experiences with grief and a sense of detachment from the world. The funeral is somber, one and all everyone dressed in black and grey. Wanda is present only in body, and you can’t blame her. Clint, the archer, hands her your belongings, including the letter she had mentioned. It unnerves you how detached Wanda appears to be at this moment, despite being surrounded by friends and colleagues. You worry about what lies ahead for her. So much loss in such a short time, it didn’t take a psychiatrist to know this would surely take a toll on her. You prayed that her friends came to check on her, but you had a feeling either they didn’t, or in her grief, she refused them entry.

Colors blend into one another and fade out. You find yourself standing on a plot of land in a town called Eastview, crouching next to Wanda as she collapses to her knees. Her body is wracked with anguished sobs as she finally allows herself to grieve. You wish you could interact with this memory, to hold her and alleviate some of her pain, even if only for a moment. Instead, you sit with her, sharing in her pain as she releases it all into the world. Wanda allows herself to experience her grief in its entirety, no longer burying her feelings beneath a veneer of numbness. Colors leech from the world around her, turning it greyscale. You're pretty certain that even at their strongest, the average person's manifestation of grief isn't supposed to do that, but then again, the average person isn't the Scarlet Witch. Briefly, you wonder what consequences this will have on her world. Your head feels fuzzy, and as your vision fades to black, you suppose you are about to find out.

You regain consciousness and find yourself in a world entirely devoid of color. Disoriented, you blink as the details of your surroundings slowly come into focus. In front of you stands... well... yourself. Or rather, an alternate version of you who appears to be from the 1950s, slightly older but still alive. Seated beside 1950’s you is Wanda, also monochrome and dressed in 1950s attire. Blearily, you rub your eyes. It has been a long day, and you are extremely tired, unsure if this is just an incredibly vivid hallucination or if you have actually passed out somewhere.

Alternate you asks Wanda a question, to which you aren’t listening, and she replies with a quip - you still aren’t listening, wondering where you are and why everything is in greyscale. What catches you off-guard though, is the surround sound laugh track that‘s garnered in response. It’s galling to admit but you jump, startled, and look around. There’s no one else in the house besides yourself, the alternate version of you, and Wanda. Where did that come from?

Alternate you replies to Wanda, and again with the laugh track. This time you are not as startled, but no less unsettled. What fresh hell is this? Could this be Wanda’s doing? It doesn’t seem like you can ask her though, as you’re just a passive observer in this strange situation. The last thing you remember, Wanda was grieving in Eastview at the plot of land which alternate you had purchased to start your life together after retiring from being superheroes. Strange grey wiggly woos (as you were starting to refer to her magic) were emanating from the witch, quite different from the familiar scarlet color you had grown accustomed to.

Perhaps this was her doing, if only subconsciously. You tried to recall, didn’t Wanda mention something about her powers being new to her and mostly unintentional? This could be what she had been referring to. Apprehension made a home in your chest as you found yourself dreading whatever was about to unfold before you. Oh no, Wanda, what did you do?

It doesn’t take long after observing the hijinks and mishaps, for you to realize that Wanda's grief had manifested through her powers. She had transformed the town of Eastview into Westview, resembling a 1950s-style sitcom town. Wanda, along with an alternate version of yourself (if you were truly still alive - that part you hadn't figured out yet), and the entire town were trapped. While it may have started unintentionally, Wanda became aware of it and began actively using her powers to maintain her idyllic town, keeping it isolated from the outside world and preventing the townspeople from leaving. In her grief, Wanda was essentially playing house, holding everyone hostage. However, despite her powers growing stronger, it was clear that the people living there were suffering. If you could even consider their existence as living.

There were even two boys - twins, just like Wanda was a twin. Your heart broke, knowing this could not possibly end well. While technically not "real" and not even "yours" at that, watching these boys be born, live, and grow caused you to cultivate a love for them almost as if they were your own. Your heart thumps uncomfortably in your chest; you didn't want to see how this plays out, but you didn't have a choice.

Despite the dysfunction in your parents, you had always wanted a family of your own. An attempt to break the cycle and bring new life - happy and healthy - into this world. You wanted to raise your kids with the love and care you had never experienced yourself.

You understood the motivations of the witch, but that didn't justify her morally questionable choices. Once again, you are condemned to remain on the sidelines, unable to take any action to resolve the situation. You are forced to witness this charade unfold, hoping and praying that it would end well for everyone involved, yet knowing that it would not. How could it possibly?

Despite your bias, after witnessing everything Wanda had endured, you found yourself wishing for the best outcome for her, in particular. Among all the people you could think of, she deserved a break from the misery that had plagued her life until now.

Eventually, it all came to a head when another witch named Agatha Harkness had infiltrated the town with a book called the Darkhold, attempting to convince Wanda to join her and increase their powers. If Wanda refused, the witch planned to take Wanda's powers for herself. Something about a prophecy regarding a Scarlet Witch.

Meanwhile, the alternate version of you had become self-aware of the true nature of Westview. This version of you pleaded with Wanda to prioritize the wellbeing of others over her own happiness, once again. They urged Wanda to defeat Agatha and free the townspeople, even if it meant losing her spouse and children. It was an impossible choice, and you questioned whether you could have mustered the courage to make the same decision in Wanda’s position.

Wanda defeated Agatha, not that you ever doubted her for a moment. She said goodbye to you, again, and then to her boys, and released her spell. The town was free, but her family.. was gone. Wanda was once again on her own.

A startled gasp leaves your lips as you awaken from the memories. It feels like it’s been ages, but from what you can tell, it must only have been minutes since Wanda first began sharing her memories with you. “Oh.”

Cringe. You wish you could have said something, anything more eloquent. Unfortunately, you feel as though you've just been hit by a Mack truck and could nap for a week. It doesn’t help that you were still feeling the effects of lack of sleep for the last couple of weeks. 

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t feel so good, is it okay if I lay down somewhere…?” A quick glance around the temple makes you second guess the question you were about to ask. Stone floors did not make a good bed.

With a tone much softer than she had been using, she replied. "Of course, Detka, you only need to ask." 

An elegant wave of her slender fingers and gone is the stone temple, replaced by a cozy bedroom. At a cursory glance, you can tell it is a sanctuary of comfort and tranquility, featuring a plush, inviting bed. The room is adorned with personal touches, such as framed photographs of you and Wanda, and artwork that is somehow absolutely your aesthetic. Shelves display a carefully chosen selection of your favorite books, each waiting to be explored. These items add character and give the space a feeling that is unique to you, even though you have never set foot in this place before.

“Come,” A glimpse of Wanda and you are surprised to discover instead of her red and black uniform, she is now garbed in an oversized sweater and some cotton sweatpants.

“You have been holding space for others for so long, it is time you took some well-deserved rest. You work much too hard.”

“Uh s-sure.” About to make a comment that perhaps you should also change, but looking down to find that you are wearing your favorite worn Legolas shirt and some pajama shorts.

“Right. Rest.” Part of you wants to ask when you can return to your home so you can finish studying for your exams, but based on previous conversation, context clues tell you that’s the least of your concerns right now, and Wanda probably wouldn’t be too pleased with that topic of discussion right now.

Wanda takes your hand, leading you to the bed and it takes your overworked brain far longer than you care to admit to realize that she means for you both to share it. Your brain short-circuits at all the factors at play here: Knowing that you yourself are touch-starved; this absolute enchantress of a woman dated an alternate universe’s version of you, even going so far as basically playing housewife and mother of your children, and here she was asking you to share a bed. Sure, she wasn’t asking you to sleep with her, but she was still asking you to share a bed next to her and what if you accidentally spooned her in your sleep, and what if-

”You’re thinking too loudly, malysh.”

“What? You can- you’re a mind reader?!” you panic, backpedaling mentally, praying to every deity that existed that you hadn’t had any unsavory thoughts in her presence, and nearly fainting as you recalled that you in fact, had some rather explicit thoughts from the moment you first saw her.. The mortification alone was enough to put you into an early grave. You weren’t sure how you had missed that during everything she had shown you, but you reasoned you were probably more focused on the physical manifestations of her powers. 

"Relax, Y/N. I don't intentionally read minds, at least not anymore. Sometimes, surface thoughts are so loud that I can't help but hear them. Like right now, you're practically yelling them at me," she said, trying to offer a reassuring smile.

Unfortunately, while you were no longer freaking out about having accidentally offended the witch, you were now spiraling down a different path. You were agonizing over the pain you had, and likely were still causing her by thinking so loudly. If you remembered any media involving mind reading, the person with the ability usually suffered greatly at the hands of others unintentionally. Naturally, the average person didn't know how to shield their thoughts, and you were afraid that you might be giving her a migraine. To the woman who had only tried to bring you to a safe place and offer you shelter. 

You began to hyperventilate.

Wanda could see that you were spiraling, even without being a mind reader. It was written clearly on your face. However, being able to hear your thoughts helped her identify the source of your anxiety, and she berated herself for not considering that earlier. This version of you lacked confidence, and it was now Wanda's responsibility to help rebuild it. At least, according to her.

"Your parents really did a number on you, didn't they, detka?"

Cool hands gently held your cheeks, pulling you out of your thoughts. Suddenly, Wanda invades your personal space, and the scent of vanilla fills your nostrils, momentarily distracting you from what was happening.

"We're just going to take a nap, okay Y/N? You don't have to worry about anything. I'm not bothered by any of those thoughts you have." A leering grin unfurls across her face.

“If anything I’m quite flattered by them.” She winks.

Heat flashes across your body, and you can’t tell if you were embarrassed, aroused, or both. Unfortunately, you knew your thoughts were likely betraying you. Gods, if only the floor could just open up right now and swallow you into the abyss. Yes, that would be fantastic.

"However, there is time enough for such things later. It's been years, Y/N, and I've just got you back. Nap with me, please?" The witch's eyes gaze longingly into yours, and well, when she looks at you like that, how could you say "no"?

She leads you to the bed and, with the practiced ease of her time in Westview, pulls you into her embrace as the little spoon. Earlier, you had been worried about accidentally touching her inappropriately or having a dirty dream. Now though, with her arms wrapped so protectively around you, sleep claims you almost instantaneously.

[missmists]

First bookbinding project a success. I think that my cat approves because he would not stay out of my photos. Five months in the making, but I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

I started with @armoredsuperheavy's amazing fanbinding tutorial to create a typeset of each work in @erisenyo's Burning Bright AU published on Ao3. Then had to reread the works in the new format and edit as I went to make sure everything was formatted correctly, (combined word count somewhere around 1.3 million) that took over a month all by itself.

I picked up a copy of Introduction to Bookbinding & Custom Cases by Tom and Cindy Hollander from my local library, to look at some detailed how to images and get multiple perspectives on construction methods. Excellent book, I do recommend.

My hunt for materials included a trip to Detroit with a side stop at Blick to look at decorative papers in person. Blick and the fine people at Hollander’s ended up having everything I needed to make covers. So between my brother kindly 3d printing me a punch cradle, making a DIY sewing frame of my own invention (courtesy of scrap lumber and a trip to the Lowe's hardware department), and three reams of late night printing, I managed to amass all my supplies.

Folding three reams of paper into signatures (the little bundles you sew together) takes about five days if you don't want to lose your mind or your place, and longer if you discover you need to fix things because that definitely happened. Then you get to unfold them to stab holes in them which is as terrifying at first and therapeutic by the end as it sounds.

Next came weeks of sewing books together, a magical process. I learned three new knots, repeatedly stabbed myself (because all forms of creation forcibly demand blood sacrifice) , and felt like I was roleplaying a monastic librarian from the time of Gutenburg. That's 600 years ago, 24ish generations, over 8million ancestors since then (by geometric progression, which excludes the possibility that any of my peasant ancestry is from small towns which is you know likely but I digress) and here I sat sewing pages together in a basement because story is the most sacred of human arts as it binds communities together and shapes perceptions of the self and our brethren, of outsiders allies and enemies, of the world as we know it and as it may come to be. Did I mention sewing books felt magical.

Then came the glue. So much glue. Multiple types of glue. All sticky. all stuck to me. I smeared glue with my fingers like a child.

At last it was time for the covers. Choosing combinations of the decorative papers and bookcloth and making sure I could get enough out of each material for what I needed. Precise cutting so many thanks to the architecture school professors who showed me how to properly cut chipboard. Then measuring and gluing, and more measuring, and more gluing. At last press a little groove by the spine and repeat eleven times.

Then I get to impress all my people with my latest and possibly coolest maker skill unlock, I am a book binder.

Bottom to top in the stack or left to right at the bottom are: These Things Written  These Things Unsaid with Without Consent These Things Known with A Third Chance (or a First) Oh, The Way Your Makeup Stains My Pillowcase That Love You've Been Looking For  All I Need Is To Be Struck (By Your Electric Love) To Open Every Door to Night, To Meet Each Rising Sun (my favorite) Love Is In the Hair (fanart of this one originally lead me to read the series, thanks @ash-and-starlight) Lessons in Proper Asset Management Tangled Up With You  To Be Named, To Be Known (To Be Loved)

[copperbadge]

Amateur Translation Programs

So I had a lot of imaginative and informative responses to my post about looking for an amateur translation program -- something where I could load in a foreign language and it would insert a box where I could add a translation every-other-line. The idea was that this way I could practice translation with more advanced texts, and texts I chose, and thus move away from Duolingo, which at this point is good for drilling and daily practice but not for more advanced learning.

I didn't find precisely what was needed but I did get some inspiration for further explanation, and I also learned that adding the term "glossing" (thank you @thewalrus-said) into my searches helped a great deal in terms of weeding out programs that were either "Let this AI translate for you" or just endless promotional links for Babbel and Duolingo and such. I thought I'd collect up the suggestions and post them here; at the end I'm including my best swing at designing what I wanted, and why it doesn't work yet.

Suggestion one, from many people, was various ways to generate a page that is simply fixed Italian text with space underneath each line to add in a translation. This is pretty simple as a process and there are sites that will do it for you, such as this one that @ame-kage suggested. However, most of these don't allow for movement in the Italian text, and many produce a PDF which you would need to print out in order to write on unless you're willing to open it in Acrobat (and deal with Acrobat). A good solution for some but not what I'm looking for purely because I'm trying to make this super frictionless so that (knowing myself as I do) I will actually do it.

I did find this version interesting, suggested by @drivemetogeek: Have one word doc saved as your "template" doc and set the line spacing as 2.0 or higher. Select your text from source and paste it into the template doc as text-only. Ctrl a, ctrl c to select all and copy, then open a new document and "paste special" as picture. Right click and set the "wrap text" as behind text. Now you have a document where you can, basically, type over the existing text because it's the background of the page. This seems like the most frictionless version, because you could set up a bunch of them ahead of time. If you wanted to move between desktop and mobile, however, you'd need to ensure that the pasted image was fairly narrow so that you don't have to sideways-scroll.

Relatedly, people suggested generating a document that is simply the Italian text with empty space beneath it for typing in of the translation. This can be done either semi-automated, using a macro or a language like Python, or find-and-replace on, say, the stops at the ends of sentences. It basically outputs the same as above but with a more digitally accessible format, without any more effort than above. If you were to do this in Google Sheets you could also fix the column width so that it didn't do anything weird when you opened it on your phone. But it is still very friction-y, and does not allow for easy shifting of the Italian as needed. There's high probability of the translation breaking weirdly across the page. Still a top option in terms of simplicity and access.

@smokeandholograms suggested another variation illustrated here where essentially you're converting the text to a series of tables, with each paragraph a row, and an empty cell next to it for the translation. I might play around more with this one eventually, since I think I could possibly make it a three-column and put the Italian in one, the translation in the next, and the auto-translate to let me know where I might be slipping in the third. (Not that I trust auto-translate but comparing a hand translation to an auto translation can be useful in terms of working out when I've messed up the way a tense or mood is read. I tend to read indirect verbs as automatically imperative because I'm a weirdo.)

@wynjara linked to an add-in for Word specifically designed for translators, known as TransTools; this appears to employ a macro to do the same thing, though it does have a format where you can place the translation next to each sentence directly rather than in a separate cell. The full suite of tools is only $45 which is reasonable for my budget, but for what I need I think I could also just create the macro.

Using LaTeX as a tool specially designed for glossing was an option on offer, but I don't know enough about LaTeX to figure out the pros of this one, which is in itself the major con -- there's a learning curve that I think varies widely by person but for me is unfortunately a wall. It came out of a discussion on Reddit about trying to find something like what I want; also in that discussion is a link to a code generator that allows you to…do something…to the initial language, but it's not entirely clear to me (I'm sure it's clear to people who understand coding) what you would then do with it that would allow it to be output in the way I'm hoping for. Like, I could turn a paragraph of text into HTML, I understand that far, but any Italian I find is already on a website.

Moving more into apps that might work, Redditors on the LaTeX discussion suggested SIL Fieldworks, which is a professional language tech tool. Fieldworks isn't a program I'd previously encountered but much as with the ones I had, it looks like the learning curve is fairly steep and it is definitely overkill generally for what I need, though it might also harbor within it the thing I want. It is free, so I may download and play around with it.

@brightwanderer suggested using note-taking or "whiteboard" apps such as Freeform or Nebo; these are generally a kind of "infinite canvas" in which you can drop objects, text boxes, or handwriting. I don't know that Freeform would be measurably different to just using Word and a macro, since I'd still have to input/format all the text and then be stuck with the same "fixed text" setup -- and it's also iOS only -- but for some folks it might be more helpful. Nebo is a similar infinite-canvas with unfortunately the same issues, though on the plus it's available for Android, which is where most of my mobile property resides.

@bloodbright suggested that I was looking for a CAT tool, a professional translation tool mainly used by translators working in the field. This was a concept I'd encountered, but I hadn't found a good starting place. They suggested Smartcat and OmegaT. Smartcat bills itself as an AI translation platform and is HARD pushing the "don't translate it yourself, hire a translator or let AI do it" angle, so it's difficult to tell what it offers in terms of actual tools for translators, and it's also cagey about pricing, so I can't really evaluate it. OmegaT is free and gives off big "some weirdo homebrewed this in their basement" vibe (which I am here for) but I also recognized it from screengrabs that were the reason I veered away from professional-grade software: it looked too complex. Realistically, the major downside of OmegaT is that I don't think I can put it on my phone. One thing I did find interesting is that once you translate a portion of the text, the original language goes away, though I assume you can turn that off if needed. I do kind of like that because it means my distractable brain is looking at Less Stuff.

So where did I end up?

Well, it looked like I was going to have to try a homebrew myself. I had the idea of trying some of the initial suggestions but in reverse -- designing a document where every other line was a single-cell table fixed to the page. You could paste in the Italian, which would wrap around the cells, and then enter the English in the cells.

You can fix a table in place in Google Docs -- you click on the table, then under Table > Style select Wrap Text, Both Sides, and Fix On Page. Getting the whole page set up is a little labor intensive but once you did that, you could just save it as a template and make a duplicate of it each time. And this actually works….on desktop.

Unfortunately, if you open it in the mobile Docs app, the app can't handle the fixed tables and automatically moves them all to after the text that's been pasted in. I tried redesigning it so that it's a table within a table -- one for the Italian, then within that a series of them for the English -- but when you nest a table in Google Docs, it doesn't let you fix the second table in place. And you are also still dealing with the wrap issue, although you can resize the page and add a large right-hand margin as a kludge of a fix for that.

You can build this same kind of document in Word, so I tried building one in Word and then uploading it to Drive, but when you open the Word file in Docs (or in Microsoft Word for Android), it still strips the fixed positioning -- there's just some functionality missing from both apps that doesn't allow them to handle fixed-position tables.

So, the design is sound, just not the final execution. If I could program an app, I could probably remedy the issues with it -- it's simply a series of text boxes nested inside one another with different formatting. I would imagine that's relatively basic to set up, although given that neither Docs nor Word can handle fixed tables in mobile, perhaps I've stumbled on a much bigger problem that everyone is ignoring because nobody actually needs or wants fixed tables in mobile. :D

Experimentation is ongoing, anyway. I might simply have to resign myself to the fact that my translation study is going to have to be in front of a computer, which might be for the best anyway when I inevitably want to compare my translation to an auto-translate to see where I might have read something wrong.

[alolanrain]

So regional Dragon type specialists right, youd think that they are the most put together based on their public appearances on TV and online right? Wrong

Lance keeps everything professional but behind closed doors or when nobody is watching he is an absolute menace, regularly spars hand-to-paw/claw with his pokemon (yes even his Hydregon and it thinks its funny whenever it fakes him out) this man also has the tendancy to seemingly teleport behind people especially during his G-Man work (ie Rocket Grunt thinks their safe and the next minute they know theyre being german suplexed by a red haired man in a cape like he's Batman or something)

Drake is an enigma being the oldest acting Hoenn League member but nobody really knows much about him (the man barely makes any live appearances and any League challengers over the past 20 years havent even gotten past his Flygon except for Steven of course) nobody knows where he lives or where he even came from (they ask and every single time they get a different awnser with the strangest being Poni Island, nobody knows how old he is and speculates that he is immortal) Briney knows everything about him and refuses to tell because its both hilarious and also just a straight up cognito hazard and will not elaborate

Draydon is relatively normal until back when he and Alder were young Alder saw him deadlifting a boulder with zero effort (the guy is insanely strong) people do speculate that he and Drake might be related and he refuses to dispute or prove it, the beard however is just gravity defying and what makes it worse is that he doesnt use gel or anything its just like that with no explanation (funnily enough he holds back in all of his battles and if he didnt he could easily become champion, Iris took after that energy and evicerated everything in her path while wearing her magical girl champion costume)

Drasna generally keeps to herself but she likes to piss off Seibold on occasion and sics him on paparazzi when she gets bored (usually in the form of 'oh dear it looks like youre getting review bombed again' followed by very angry mega blastoise noises and the loudest Kalosian swearing you can imagine) she was at one point a poison specialist with her Dragalge but partially moved away from it (she still has an insanely overpowered Naganadel that nobody knows where or when she got it)

Raihan knows just about anything you could ask for, need to know the history of the Turffield Rock Formations? He knows it at the top of his head, where to find a super specific type of phone charger? Wyndon Stadium Kiosk on the 45th floor the red ones suck get the yellow ones, Where to get a Japanese dub of Space Buddies? Spikemuth district apartment complex 3rd floor knock on the 4th door say you want butter noodles and the guy will slide you a copy on a burnt DVD, Where the hell is Leon? Put an air tag on his cape last year Leon is currently lost in a pocket dimension being taunted by a small green onion fairy (Raihan also has several alt accounts that just post anywhere from doing handmade cosplay weapons to baking to somehow a podcast with Clemont and Iono about the importance of RGB gamer light PC setups while neither of them know its him)

Everything about this ask that has graced my inbox is an automatic yes.

Lance having to spend a fortune on clothes and going through wardrobe after wardrobe because his clothes get torn by his play flighting/work out. Also having a little whiteboard on the fridge at the gym-men head quarters or at the elite four castle with “how many Rocket Grunts Lance has suplexed this month.” On it with the score.

The entire Hoenn league begs Mr.Briney to divulge information about Drake and he’s tight lipped. Steven has even worse luck since Drake keeps giving him “my paperwork’s already been filed when I started this position, it doesn’t need to be fixed or filed in any different way.” And said file is so officially redacted by a past Champion that has now sadly passed.

Somehow and somewhere hidden very strategically, there are polaroid photo’s of Drayden doing lunges across a gym with him holding Alders in a fireman carry when they were both young. There might be a video as well that may or may not have been accidentally lost in a city by the Champion and got snatched up off the street later in the day. Sitting somewhere in some poor persons drunk drawer because they saw a cute cam corder that doesn’t properly work anymore.

Drasna is totally scheming when it comes to Seibold. There’s always a little prank she’s writing down on scrap papers during long meeting or waiting for challengers to come through the elite four. Picking on her coworker and getting away with it is her favorite pass time.

Raihan is a walking encyclopedia on almost anything and everything. He gets text messages not only from the other dragon trainers in the leagues but also almost everyone else, including Clemont on the rare occasion, and he always takes time to respond back with either a link to a website with proper information or to craft a well knowledge text message.

[jalenay]

Nothing's Wrong with Dale - Publishing Update May 4 2024

So my work work is starting to relax - it'll be 'normal' working hours after May 15, but i'm manifesting some early additional free time (by ignoring some of the things i still have left to do) and i thought i'd give an update on my current NWWD plan to fill you guys in (if anyone wants to know) and to motivate myself to, you know, do it.

let me know what you think and if you have any questions! or if there's anything else you want to know!

So the overall plan is as follows:

First Rough Edit - this is basically just changing the POV from 2nd POV to 3rd POV. This is very tedious and currently what I'm doing right now. I'm also making a list as I go for high level updates/changes i want to make. Just thinking about the story as a whole and what tweaks i want to make now that the whole thing is finally done (primarily moving exposition around, if there's anything extra i can remove, timing of when certain things are discussed, and so on).

My Main Edit - this will be more time consuming but probably more fun as i do my main revise and edit of the story as a whole. i'll likely print the entire story out, make edits on hard copy, and then type up all the edits. I will also probably be sending the updated chapters to my main beta, for her opinion. (this would be the person i first texted about Dale in Dec 2021, she deserves first look lol)

Editor - After I'm happy with what I've done, i'll send the entire thing over to my editors, the main ones who worked on DSM. This will likely take a good amount of time (DSM took one month) but in many ways involves less effort from me lol. Just nerves.

Cover, Self-publishing Details - while my editors have the manuscript, I'll be narrowing down what I want the cover to look like and hiring a cover artist. (i've got a short list of artists right now, but i'll probably continue to refine that). I'm bad a visualizing covers and so this will be hard for me, although i have some basic ideas. i'll need to gather reference photos too and then work with the artist. I also want to publish more widely than just Amazon and will hopefully get DSM out to other places as well as a test run before NWWD. Look into more marketing? This is the most miscellaneous of the steps.

Process Edits - actually go through all the edits and notes given to me by my editor. This takes a lot of time (and is mentally taxing - no one likes to read pages of people telling you what you need to fix about what you wrote even if its overall extremely helpful and necessary)

Finalizing - I'll send the edited version to my first beta and another ARC reader/friend. I'll work on the formatting for the book. Coordinating where it will be published and when.

Publishing!

This is a loose list of steps that I mostly defined right now, but are similar to what i did with DSM. As i said, I'm in step one, currently just finished Chapter 25 of 36 of that rough edit.

I'll try to provide some updates on the process at it moves along, if people are interested in hearing about that. I'll most likely keep those updates on this blog, along with any other publishing specific commentary. if any one has any questions or thoughts on the whole thing, please feel free to send them to this blog or comment on this post.

I'm very excited to really dig into publishing NWWD and looking forward to sharing it with you!

Thanks to everyone for all their support - I wouldn't even be considering this (i probably wouldn't have even had a finished draft) with you!

[purefandomonium]

The Lingering Ghost

(Title pending because titles are hard)

Alright even though it's late and I'm tired, I'm really excited to share this! So I'll be posting it here first before I give it one final edit and post it to AO3. I posted some snippets before but here's the entire thing.

I've been wanting to do some kind of horror story w/Initial D for ages and this is the result. It's more angst and bittersweet than true horror, but I still had a ton of fun working on it. It's a little under 5k btw so give yourself some time to hunker down if you do decide to check it out. Also formatting should be ok but I also just copied/pasted it so it's possible something got jumbled somewhere.

Summary: It wasn't uncommon in the world of street racing. People crashed all the time. Curses were shouted, cars fixed up, wallets run dry. Eyes too, sometimes. Stories of crashes were spoken about as often as songs were sung. Usually, though, the stories came from the drivers themselves. They weren't supposed to be told in hushed tones as a warning to other racers who thought themselves too good to wreck. They weren't supposed to end so badly. They sure as hell weren't supposed to happen on Akina.

Iketani slumped against a nearby pump, in part due to the day's heat but mostly from the weight of his gloomy mood. Its surface was covered in dust with a bit of grime, and he internally sighed at the thought of having to wash it and all the others before his shift ended. He drew bored little patterns across the filth. "Man… I haven't felt like hitting the pass at all this past week." The frowning stick man he completed seemed to share his miserable demeanor.

"Same here," Kenji sighed from beside his friend. He kicked a small pebble and watched it ping off a nearby sign. "I don't know what it is but something about the whole thing just has me on edge. I can't stand the thought of being anywhere close to the mountain right now."

"Yeah… Me three." Even Itsuki's usual energy couldn't overcome the heavy air around them as he, too, leaned against one of the pumps in despair. Despite being far from it, Mount Akina's presence seemed to loom right over his shoulder. He felt threatened by his own sanctuary; the ultimate betrayal from what he considered an old friend. It hurt in a way he couldn't describe.

"Wonder how he's holding up." Iketani nodded to Takumi who was finishing with a customer. "Not having a choice in the deliveries and all that. It's gotta be hard on the guy." It would certainly be hell for him, and he'd only driven out there once since it all went down. He couldn't imagine having to be out there every night. Alone. At the mercy of whatever strange force was holding their mountain hostage.

Kenji hummed and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I dunno, he seems the same as always. It's hard to tell if it even bothers him or if he's just spaced out as usual." Takumi was a strange one. Hard to read and even harder to get a reaction out of. He looked normal but there was no telling what inner turmoil he may be hiding, if any.

Two sets of curious eyes soon landed on the youngest Speed Star. Itsuki met them both and shrugged in response, not quite as easily excited by the attention as he used to be. "I couldn't tell you what he's thinking," he replied as he shifted his gaze to the approaching Takumi. There was only one way to find out. Standing straight and adding some energy into his voice, he called out, "Hey, man, how you holding up?"

Takumi stopped in his tracks and noted the three sets of eyes fixated on him. He couldn't quite pin it, but they seemed… concerned? "Fine, I guess," came his reply. "It's pretty hot out though." He blinked in confusion as the three idiots he called friends simultaneously groaned. OK, so that was the wrong answer. What was the concern for then if not his health?

"Dude, that's not what Itsuki meant," Iketani sighed, rolling his eyes. Pushing himself up straight and smudging his little dust doodles, he continued, "We're wondering how you feel about the crash on Akina."

A sharp jolt shot through his spine, but he reigned it in before his body could respond to it. His voice was steadier than he felt. "Oh. Well, I feel awful about it, obviously. It's sad." He leaned back as Itsuki shoved himself into his personal space.

"Yeah but… what about all the, y'know…" He glanced around like there were people eavesdropping. Lowering his voice to a whisper despite the lack of paparazzi, he spit out, "The stories?"

"What, about a vengeful ghost or whatever?" He nudged Itsuki away and kept his expression neutral.

"A lot of the guys have been talking about some weird stuff going on since it happened," Iketani supplied. "I thought they were just being paranoid but the one time I went out there…" He shivered despite the oppresive summer heat. Already, goosebumps were dotting his arms at the mere memory. "I can't really describe it, but I got the worst feeling of dread. Like I wasn't supposed to be there and needed to leave immediately." He huffed out a bittersweet laugh. "Imagine that. Chased off my own turf by some invisible force." He absently rubbed at his arms, still feeling a lingering chill.

Takumi mulled the story over in his mind with a quiet hum. He'd been running the deliveries like usual and while there had been an odd sense of something, nothing had ever come from it. He was pretty sure what he'd been feeling the past several days had been nothing more than discomfort at the whole situation.

Not that they needed to know that.

Keeping his voice in its usual deadpan, he said, "Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I haven't noticed anything. Driving on Akina has been the same as always." Same corners, same speed, same road. Nothing had changed. Nothing except for one unfortunate spot.

"Bah! That ghost probably doesn't want anything to do with a boring person like you anyway," Itsuki shouted, forgetting about the imaginary spies from just moments ago.

"Or maybe," Takumi began, flicking his best friend on the forehead, "there is no ghost and you guys are just being weird."

"Normally, I'd agree with you, Takumi," Kenji said as he crossed his arms. "But this is…" He glanced in the direction of Akina and grimaced before turning away from the distant titan. "I don't know, something really does seem off out there. The other Speed Stars all have some wild stories. Don't you think it's strange that so many people are agreeing on this?"

"Yeah, I guess so." He shrugged and went to head inside to cool off for a minute, ignoring their combined chagrin at his nonchalance. He could really use some water and a nap right now. It was unfortunate that he'd be allowed only one of those things.

***

Having finished the deliveries, his run down the mountain was no different than the countless other times he'd raced home. It was the same as always, just like he'd told the others earlier. The familiar road blurred beneath the Eight–Six, headlights the only things cutting through the darkness of Akina. There was only one thing that stood out amongst the shadows, revealed by the Trueno's yellow-white glare.

The words of his friends echoed through his mind as he slowed to a stop and stared at the only remaining signs of wreckage. The engine's soft purring did nothing to soothe the sudden wave of emotion that hit him, so much stronger than it had ever been before.

The guardrail was still twisted and deformed—far worse than when Iketani had wiped out—and its silver sheen was marred with scrapes and oil. Caution tape fluttered about, a pitiful barrier between life on the road and death on the side of the mountain. Fragments of plastic and glass twinkled like they were stars embedded in the earth. The emergency workers had missed a fair bit of debris, or perhaps they would get the rest of it once the guardrail was replaced.

Somehow, even though he hadn't been present to witness it, he could hear the jarring sound of the impact, of metal shrieking and plastic crunching. The sharp echo of breaking glass rang in his ears as his imagination played out the scene against his will. In his mind's eye, he watched the car hit the guardrail and shatter into thousands of tiny pieces. The headlights were first to erupt in an explosion of glass. The front end crumpled as the windshield formed a network of cracks before giving way and sending shrapnel into the cabin. The force that bent the guardrail into its horrid shape would no doubt have been enough to cause the interior of the car to shrink. If it somehow wasn't, well, the jagged cliff face would take care of that.

With a gasp, Takumi blinked the terrible vision out of his mind before it could show him what the driver must have felt like.

The driver who had been declared as unsalvageable as the car was. Loaded up and taken away in something better than a weathered tow truck, but loaded up and taken regardless. It was no wonder the guys were so shaken up by the whole thing. Truth be told, he wasn't entirely unbothered by it either. Every time the gruesome scene flickered past his headlights he felt the cold grip of dread squeeze his insides. He hated that feeling.

It wasn't like he could avoid driving on Akina though. The deliveries weren't gonna run themselves, and they'd sooner do exactly that before his dad would bother.

Really, he wasn't sure what about it was getting to him. The road had been scrubbed of oil and the tiny fragments of a broken vehicle were the only things left behind. Well, them and the destroyed guardrail, of course. He'd been spared the worst of the details—not counting the ones his mind unhelpfully supplied whenever he least expected. Aside from the grim melancholy of his friends, there was nothing tying him to this depressing turn of events. Some people liked to race on dark mountain roads, bad things were always possible, and there was nothing to be done about either.

Despite the fatigue gnawing at him and willing him to get home and sleep as much as he could before school, Takumi found himself stepping out of the Eight–Six. Without its refuge he was left at the mercy of the chilling breeze. There was nothing he could have done, nor could do, that would make any of this better. Yet he felt compelled to do something anyway. Perhaps it was because it happened on Akina. He continued to deny he was a street racer, but he did consider this his mountain. In a way. He'd been driving it for years, no one knew it better than him. So far anyone who tried to prove they could drive it better than him ended up losing.

He sucked in a heavy breath as it hit him. Was that it? Was this feeling… some kind of guilt? Whoever it was that crashed hadn't been local. That was the first thing he learned about all this. The second had been that they weren't the most experienced racer. Any further detail than that—like who they raced with or even who they were—was a mystery to him and probably for the better. He wouldn't know what to do with that information anyway. Send his regards? No.

He sighed and stepped closer to the mangled sheet metal, hand hovering over it. The Eight–Six murmured behind him, the only sound in the quiet static. He stood there for several—seconds? Minutes?—before mustering up the courage to rest his hand on the railing's cold surface, at the last spot before it became a misshapen mess. He sniffled and couldn't tell if it was from the cold or something else.

"I'm sorry," he breathed into the silence. His fingers tightened against the guardrail as he stood there wondering what in the hell he was doing. He'd driven past this same spot every night for the past week and never felt compelled to do… whatever this was. Still, he was already out here. Might as well commit.

"I, uh, I know that saying sorry doesn't really change anything but…" Dammit. What was he trying to do here? Apologize to someone who was already dead? Whose death had nothing to do with him? He sniffled again and realized the weather wasn't the culprit. It was the middle of summer. It should only be slightly below stifling right now. Yet out here, silhouetted by the warm glow of the Eight–Six, his skin felt cold and prickly. Goosebumps. Maybe there was some truth behind Iketani's ghost story after all.

Takumi let his hand fall from the guardrail and turned back the panda Trueno, the stark white of its paint the only other thing standing out against Akina's darkness. There was no whispering of leaves in the wind, no insects making their grating calls, nothing but empty silence punctuated by the still-idling engine. The goosebumps returned full-force as he froze in place.

Standing beside the red glow of the Eight–Six's taillights was a lone figure. It looked to be about his height—the same age too, by assumption—and that was all he could make out. The shadows clung to them like a cloak.

Takumi swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat as he stared at the entity. "Hello?" He was met with silence. The shadowy mass remained motionless, seeming to stare right through him. Without thinking about the risks of turning away, he craned his neck to glance at the site of the wreck once more. Noting a lack of changes, he swiveled his gaze back to the eerie figure who still hadn't moved.

Their silent staring contest went on for another uncomfortable few moments before Takumi worked up the nerve to try speaking to them again. He took a couple of steps closer and when nothing happened, he spoke up. "Are you… the one who died here?" He winced. Of all the things to say to a potential ghost, the first thing out his mouth was questioning if they were dead? Brilliant. It would be a miracle if he survived this encounter.

That unnerving silence still hung in the air as what Takumi assumed was their head dipped down once in a simple nod.

His lips formed a silent 'oh' as though the answer weren't already obvious. As his mind processed what to say next, he blinked once only to stumble back in shock at its sudden proximity. He lost his footing and landed on the dusty pavement as the ghost loomed before him, mere steps away. Even with the headlights shining against its back, it remained shrouded in pure darkness. The shadows of its body seemed to swallow the light whole, a hungry abyss. The air around it was still and icy, like that of a frozen lake. Aside from its humanoid figure there was nothing else separating it from the dark night around them.

In the back of his mind, he wondered if dying meant erasing who you were somehow. He shoved the thought away before he could really question it. Lying vulnerable in the dirt before a potentially angry spirit was a bit more important than a mortality crisis.

His own shadow began to pool in wisps around him and a bolt of panic made his stomach drop and his heart lurch. The smokey tendrils tickled his skin like electrified feathers as they danced along his arms and hands. His throat was tight and he didn't know if it was the spirit's doing or his own primal fear. He remained rigid, helpless to the supernatural force before him.

Before the tears that had been welling up could start running, the shadows that were lapping at his hands and legs slithered away to the ghost. They flowed and swayed around its feet with wild movements, like a writhing octopus.

Takumi blinked back the wetness and realized the misty darkness was shaping itself into words. Slowly, as if it took great effort, a sentence was formed.

Why are you here?

He didn't know the answer to that question. How could he answer that question? As the sheer panic he'd been feeling dissipated—gradually, because this was still an unknowable entity before him—Takumi felt his shoulders lifting in a half-hearted shrug.

The ghost tilted its head, clearly just as lost and confused about all this as Takumi.

He found his words after a long, uncomfortable silence. "I, uh, I guess I'm here because I feel really bad about what happened." And he really, truly did. The thought that this could have been him in his early days of deliveries hadn't escaped him. "Uh… Lots of people feel terrible about what happened." The shadows twisted before him once more.

Why? It's not your fault.

Now that it was clear the dead racer meant no harm, Takumi slowly stood and dusted himself off to stall for time to process. His eyes locked onto the ghost once he felt his heart rate return to normal. The abyss that was its face seemed to swirl and twist like a smoky whirlpool, and he found himself almost entranced before snapping to his senses after too many moments. His gaze then drifted to the crash site beside them, illuminated by the Eight-Six. "I know it's not my fault. But still." He turned back to the ghost, careful not to get lost in the inky blackness once more. He found focusing on the harsh lights of the car to be good at preventing that.

"I've been driving here for years. My dad owns a tofu shop and I run the deliveries to the hotel." He scratched the back of his head as something like fondness bubbled up. It was strange. "I kind of consider Akina my second home, so something like this happening has me shaken up."

I see. I appreciate your honesty.

What an odd thing to say. Then it clicked. His eyes widened. "Wait. Have you tried talking to people before?" It would line up with all the creepy stories his friends and the other racers were talking about. Some of them had mentioned that it seemed like the 'Dead Racer of Akina', or whatever they were calling it now, had tried to communicate with them.

Most of the people I wanted to talk to ran from me, the shadows spelled. Their movement was becoming sluggish now; it took longer and longer for them to form words. I tried to catch up to them but they were too fast. I never was a very good racer.

The ghost's 'shoulders' bounced like it was laughing. Then it stilled again.

I thought I could use the practice, but now I can't even form my car.

I think it's getting harder for me to stay here, but I don't want to go.

It's not fair.

Takumi's heart clenched. He wasn't sure if there was an afterlife, and he wasn't keen on finding out anytime soon. He could relate to the ghost's fear and anger about being left behind and doomed to an uncertain future more than he cared to admit.

I was able to talk to a couple people like this, the shadows offered to the silence. But they were more interested in the gruesome details of my death than anything else.

It made me angry.

Now it all made sense. The ghostly car chases, the heavy feeling of dread, the anger the mountain seemed to radiate to anyone who dared drive it. All except for Takumi. It was weird how he was spared from all of that.

I know who you are.

A sound of surprise escaped his throat. Was his mind being read? Before he could question it, the shadows had already shaped the answer.

I came out here that night because I was hoping to race you.

I didn't expect to win. But I didn't think I'd lose my life either.

The guilt boiled over and before he could stop them, the words were pouring out of his mouth. "I'm so sorry! I know I didn't ask you to come out here but I didn't want this to ever happen. I never wanted to be famous like this. I just wanted to get home as fast as possible to sleep! I-"

It's OK.

The words presented themselves right in front of his face, cutting off his rambling. Takumi felt the warmth sliding down his cheeks despite his best efforts to hold back the tears. There was something strangely comforting in the ghost's words even though they were never spoken. It was as though the shadows emitted more emotion than a voice ever could.

Speaking of shadows, he noticed the way the Eight-Six's light seemed to cut through them now. The darkness was no longer absorbing the light. It seemed whatever hold the dead racer had on this reality was slipping.

The ghost sensed this as well, as it stated, I know there's a lot you want to say but I don't have time.

All he could manage was a pathetic nod as he wiped away tears.

I don't know what happens now but I have a favor to ask you.

Will you race me?

Takumi's jaw nearly fell open. "After… everything… you still want to race me?"

It's the only reason I came out to Akina after all.

'Please allow me a proper sendoff,' was unspoken. Takumi didn't know who this person's family was but he could only hope they gave them a formal goodbye. It was obvious now that none of the racers on Akina had bothered to pay any respects; they were either too scared or too callous. Who would he be to deny their final request?

I don't expect to win, the shadows revealed, mistaking Takumi's hesitance as something other than realization. I just want to do the thing I died trying to do.

"…OK." Nothing more needed to be said. He'd give the ghost what it wanted, make it home in time to catch some sleep, and lay awake all night hoping the dead racer finally found peace.

Takumi's legs carried him past the ghost to the Eight-Six, mind alight with too many thoughts once more. He fell into the seat, the suspension creaking in response. As he shut the door, he looked up to where the phantom shadow had been standing only to find it gone. A glance in his rearview revealed a semi-solid mass of car behind him. A… 3000GT, Iketani had told him shortly after the accident. It wasn't the blinding white it had been pre-crash; it was comprised of total darkness just like its owner.

There were no lights on it but the red glow of his brakes confirmed it was there. He didn't need to be told to give it his all. Anything less would be downright disrespectful. Putting it into gear, the Eight-Six crawled away from the side of the road and began gaining speed. The ghostly car behind him lit up once more in his rearview as he hit the first corner, only to vanish into darkness again as he barreled away.

Three corners was all it took for him to no longer feel the presence behind him. He didn't know if it was because of the gap he'd made or if they'd finally lost their hold on the world of the living. It didn't matter. At least they'd gotten their final wish.

Takumi drove home feeling oddly lighter.

***

"It's so weird," Iketani said to a wide-eyed Itsuki. "I finally worked up the nerve to confront this ghostly pressure keeping me away from Akina, and it's just… gone. Like it was never even there." It had been just over a week and it was still all he could think about. After all that time being afraid, he'd gone out the previous night and had a completely normal drive.

"Maybe you guys were buying into that ghost stuff a little too much," came Yuichi as he exited the station with the intent to scold them for standing around.

"You don't understand, boss," Iketani argued as he whirled around. "I felt it! I couldn't make up that feeling if I wanted to."

He let out a disbelieving hum. "Not even if you were listening to a bunch of hogwash that got you all worked up before you even set foot out there?"

The leader of the Speed Stars deflated. "I know what I felt when I went out there a few days ago," he mumbled as he crossed his arms.

"I believe you," Itsuki said. He hadn't been out there at all since the crash due to the stories he'd been told, but that didn't change the fact he believed every single one. He didn't need to be out there to sense the creepy pressure warning him to stay away.

Iketani sighed. "Yeah, nothing screams believable like you of all people having my back."

The younger balked. "Hey I'm trying to help you, man!"

"Will you two quite goofing around and get back to work? Takumi's the only one who's got any semblance of sense right now, and that's saying something." The latter was spoken quietly so as not to catch his attention, though it wouldn't have mattered.

Takumi was lost in thought yet again, though this time it wasn't one of his usual dilemmas. He was distracted by what it meant to become a ghost and what sort of afterlife there was, if any. He couldn't get it out of his head. For all he knew, the ghost of that racer had faded into oblivion. That thought bothered him the most but he just couldn't shake it from his head.

It was fortunate he had a boisterous Itsuki to do it for him.

"What's got you all spaced out now?" he asked as he latched an arm across Takumi's shoulders. "You've been dazed a lot lately, you don't have a secret girlfriend, do you?" He gave his cheek a good pinch.

"Ow! Cut it out! That's not it at all." He managed to pry his friend's hand off his face and weasel out from his grip with an annoyed scowl.

"Are you OK, Takumi?" Iketani questioned as he shooed Itsuki aside. "You're not still upset about the accident, are you?"

It wasn't often his senior could get a good read on him, but when he did it never ceased to take him by surprise. He struggled to get his bearings. "I mean… It's just kind of messed up, you know?" Even moreso, now that he knew the real reason of the crash.

"Hey, I hear ya." He rested a hand stop the teen's shoulder and squeezed. "It's always terrible to hear about someone crashing. It's even worse when it leads to a death."

The three fell silent as the heavy truth settled over them. Even Yuichi took a moment to grieve the deadly stories he'd been privy to over the years.

Moment over, he continued, "Look, all we can do is try to be safe. Us Speed Stars take great pride in sanctioning races and making sure there's little to no risk. All the other teams worth their salt do the same. The sad truth is there will always be people who bite off more than they can chew." Hell, he'd nearly done the exact same thing not too long ago. It was a constant reminder to be more aware of his limits.

Itsuki, not wanting to be left out and hating the melancholy look Takumi wore, butt in with, "It's not your fault, Takumi. You didn't make them crash. I know we've been going on about ghosts and stuff, but Iketani was just out there last night and said it's fine now."

Takumi wanted the words to soothe him, but they did the exact opposite. None of them knew—nor would they ever know, if he could help it—that the whole thing was his fault. What a twisted way of fate. If he hadn't been so famous, if he weren't so skilled, if he had been the one to crash five years ago-

No. No going down that road. He couldn't control what other people thought of him. He couldn't stop people form wanting to become street racers. He certainly couldn't stop anyone from making a fatal mistake behind the wheel. The very person who'd died assured him he wasn't to blame. It would be disrespectful for him to ignore that fact in favor of self-loathing.

…This was going to eat at him for a very long time.

Yeah so I thought about giving 'the ghost' more of an identity but decided not to. Partially due to laziness but also because I like how mysterious it is. They're dead. They're just a mass of shadows so does the identity really matter anymore? They clearly aren't themselves anymore and I was trying to capture that but I'm not sure how well it turned out. I still had a ton of fun with this. It took me a long while to get it complete. I thought about adding a scene w/Bunta after Takumi returns home later than normal but decided not to. It was so freaking hard to write Takumi and I don't know how well I handled his personality or the hidden things I was trying to carry across. There was no way I was gonna attempt to write Bunta lol. Anyway. Thoughts are always appreciated. If you see any weird typos or something doesn't make sense, please tell me. I probably won't post this to AO3 for a little while longer because there's some stuff I'm still considering.

[coconox]

my 2 cents on the state of whb

i've been contemplating about my thoughts on this game since i never really sat down and processed it, and a month of not playing the game and just keeping up with fandom content/official game news i think i can properly format my words (hopefully idk lol)

if you're looking for a specific section dw i'll properly format everything under the cut so you can just scroll till you find whatever you're looking for (also head's up it's insanely long i'm sorry but kinda not sorry i wanted to just put all my thoughts into one post rather than multiple)

SMALL INTRO

for some context on my experience, i have been playing this game everyday since launch/day 1, i was f2p up until i got juno's card, which i'll talk about later, but just know in advanced that juno was the only case where i've spent money. i uninstalled around the time the announcement was made in regards to no posting full stories of paid content, so almost month ago, and only reinstalled recently to grab certain items to add to the spreadsheet that i've been maintaining since november (aka a month after launch)

i've said it privately to a couple of close friends but i'll say it publicly here: imho, i think they released the game way too early even with the fact that they delayed launch 3 times.

i understand a handleful of bugs are from the fact that the public servers are significantly larger than test servers, but playing this game after the servers kinda stabilized feels like we are the test players, like we're constantly given rough drafts rather than the final copy.

the localization is rough to say the least, but i think i've been so used to it from other gachas that i've played that it didn't really ruin the experience for me,,, except when the text would switch to an entirely different language HJGFDHJGK

from visual bugs to gameplay bugs to voiceline bugs, there's been a lack of communication in terms of what has been fixed and what is still a wip. instead the players just have to "fuck around and find out" in terms of whether something has been fixed or not.

as i continue to state the issues with this game and its direction i'd like to put a disclaimer that i am by no means an expert in any of this stuff lol. i'm just a guy who nerds out over math, spreadsheets, and video games and everything i'll be saying is my personal opinion based on what i've seen/experienced.

THE ISSUE(S)

SOLOMON SEALS AND GACHA

i think the first mistake was them adding solomon seals in the first place. based on what packs in the past looked like, it looked like red keys were originally designed to be for debut characters, but instead they throw a curve ball and add ANOTHER gacha currency that was essentially p2w only up till some point early this year. this ultimately led to there being 2 standard banners, both of which essentially do the same thing except one doesn't have A/B/C-ranks. the fact that now even with realm of seraphim, in order for f2ps to have enough to guarantee with seals, they need to save for a year and a half. that is WAY too long for ONE character. this is of course worst case scenario of needing to hit pity, i'm aware you can get characters early but you should never always expect you'll get early in gacha games, i learned that the hard way during my idk how many years i've been playing gachas lol

i personally think that there's no winning across any of the gacha banners. there's no pity for either of the standards, and debut L/S-ranks have imo too high of a pity for what we're actually receiving per week. we essentially get more or less 1 pull per week in terms of red keys, yellow keys, and seals through dailies/weeklies alone, though of course that can vary cause of the rng key boxes, monthly login rewards, etc.

PANCAKES

there seems to be a general pattern that i've noticed of rather than confronting an issue directly they try to create something new in hoping that fixes the issue instead. an example of that would be the pancake shop.

the old pancake shop was fine as is, we could get a multi for relatively cheap price and get pie boxes everyday (albeit they're rng but pies are pies). what they could've done was add the L-ranks and skip tickets or whatever new thing they wanted to add into that old shop, adjusting the currency wherever necessary. yet instead they just remove the old system entirely and replace it for a new one that no one really asked for? while having the L-ranks in shop are nice, an entirely new system wasn't necessary to make that one relatively small addition. having A+-ranks and lower give gold and books was also not necessary, we have resource stages containing those 2 things and it's very accessible to everyone. what resources we are lacking in however are tears and pies, which are arguably more important than gold and books since those 2 currencies are the core to ascending/lvling characters and their skills.

PIES

i've emailed pb in the past in regards to if there will be other permanent methods for obtaining pies, and their response was holy coin portal and events. those two are NOT stable enough for pie income considering the prices of skills. if there's instances in unholy board where we need to level a character's skills, i'd expect there to be some sort of resource stage that would allow us to get pies so that we can easily obtain that skill level requirement.

"META" GAMEPLAY

i'll explain the quotes in a bit but i do want to put a disclaimer that whb was the first time i've experienced a full on tower defense style gameplay for gachas. i was already familiar with how it works kinda because of neural cloud even though the game as a whole is more like an auto-chess game of sorts, but some story gameplay had tower defense mechanisms and i learned a fair bit from playing that. personally i also haven't played arknights since i'm trying to cut down on the amount of gachas i play but i am aware of its playstyle through friends who like to attempt to drag me into playing it cause of certain characters that i might simp over (*cough flamebringer cough insider cough chongyue cough*)

disclaimer aside, trying to piece together what characters work and what don't genuinely hurts my brain. i put "meta" in quotes because realistically there's only 1: all L-rank light types, ideally at least 1 tank, maybe 1 healer (though a tank can act as both), rest be whatever dps you'd like really (preferably satan considering the fact he can be extremely reliable without his ultimate unlike a few characters). of course, everyone will have a different opinion on what they deem as meta, but that's the general idea i'd personally follow based on what kind of battles have been given to us, what characters are available, etc. the rest tbh are just "cope and seethe" for lack of a better term.

there's a huge type advantage with light and dark types, and i really wish they could buff the other elements more just show they have some spotlight too. i also wish there were more non-light L-ranks. as of making this post, out of the 23 L-rank characters there is currently only 1 non-light L-rank, and it's juno, an L-rank fire marksman.

the part that really "hurts" me the most (don't really know what other word to put here LOL) is the fact that this game is going in a very specific direction of just dps'ing through everything and hope you clear the stage before the enemies kill you.

this game has a huge and imbalanced ratio between dps characters and support characters regardless of element. the fact that we only have 5 healers (NOT including lucifer (victory) considering he's technically a marksman and the healing is from his artifact and not in his skills) and 8 tanks, whereas marksman and close-rangers have twice or thrice the amount is absurd. what pains me more is the fact that for tanks, if you don't have mammon, you're screwed. arguably the best non-mammon option players have that's accessible is bimet. valefor and eligos share the same kit with the fact that their downfall is the possibility that they could be instakilled the second they pop their ult. healers on the other hand are somewhat more lenient. if you don't have lucifer, marbas is your next best, then gamigin (marbas and gamigin can technically be placed interchangeably since their healing differs by 0.1%, it just depends on who you have), then morax, then maybe buer but he only heals 1 unit at a time rather than multiple but i digress. healers still have multiple and very reliable non-L-rank alternatives whilst tanks really only have 1. i really, really hope there's more support units in the future cause man this sucks.

NIGHTMARE PASS

spending $50-$70, on paper, is significantly better than spending ~$400 for a character, and that's really the only "good" thing about it 💀

$50-$70 may feel like nothing to some players, but to a majority, that is a portion of a cost towards food, groceries, rent, etc. basically, i'd assume a majority of people would prioritize surviving than watching pixels on a screen.

i understand at the end of the day pb is running a business, but for kings to be fully locked behind a paywall knowing for a fact that a majority of the player base are 1. casuals/f2ps and 2. are here for the kings is absurd. plus with the fact that typically nightmare pass characters aren't added to standard and aren't always 100% guaranteed to rerun in the future just puts the nail in the coffin for me.

i think it makes more sense for non-kings like juno to be in nightmare pass because it's just additional fun and silly content that arguably won't be tied to the main lore and whatnot, maybe referenced as a silly bit here or there but it'd be more of an easter egg than something important that you absolutely need to know.

personally i bought juno's pass because i love his design, kit, and voice. story was kinda meh for me personally but i really just cared more about the va and gameplay. gameplay-wise, he certainly does not disappoint as a gehenna support unit. but do i regret purchasing him? yes and no. oddly enough this was probably the first i've ever felt guilty in terms of buying something i wanted in a gacha game. yes i regret it in terms of i'm no longer really playing this game anymore, which is unfortunate considering i barely made it through half a year of this game's release. yet at the same time, no i don't regret it because he is a really fun unit. for example, when it's gabriel's rotation in realm of seraphim, juno's, leraye (nostalgia)'s, and leraye's ultimates absolutely DESTROY gabriel in a matter of like <10 or so seconds and it's so satisfying to see. i also just really like his va, scratches a very particular itch in my brain.

anyways before i get sidetracked over appreciating juno, the fundamental flaws of nightmare pass are essentially

you shouldn't need to buy both tiers to get the character. you should realistically need to buy the highest tier and by default it unlocks all previous tiers below it

ui is a bit confusing. i still don't get why f2ps have to unlock parts of nightmare pass that they can't even access/obtain. there should be a clear separation between what f2ps get, what advanced tier gets, and what premium tier gets.

it's too expensive. most bp's i know are ~$10 at the highest tier, though that's considering the fact that bp's i'm familiar with only give cosmetics rather than actual units

from what i've heard through the grapevine, beel (bath) is basically in the same formatting as all the other currently existing bath cards, which are all currently obtainable through gacha. beel has no reason to be in nightmare pass. it genuinely makes no sense as to why pb put him there aside from getting money and that in-turn alienates a majority of the fan base since we can't even view the prologue of card stories if they're a nightmare pass character.

when nightmare pass was first released during christmas, everything was in chaos. the fact that a nightmare pass character needed the other two limited gacha characters gameplay-wise is absurd (mind you, this was before we were given the chance to earn seals through weeklies). everything was too expensive, and rather than an enjoyable christmas event it felt like a "merry christmas, now give us money" kind of situation. i think nightmare pass should not be happening as frequent as it is now. the gap between gabriel and juno was perfectly fine (4 month gap btw), but for a nightmare pass to happen back to back on top of gacha events is too much for both f2ps and p2ws.

the point of buying packs, bp, anything that costs real money in a gacha game is so it makes your gameplay experience easier, paying shouldn't be the main component of your game. personally based on what i've experienced through playing gacha games you should theoretically be able to pull for almost every character on debut just by playing dailies/weeklies/events, yet here we get a bit over a multi per patch (this includes playing realm of seraphim).

DICTATING FANDOM INTERACTIONS

i wholeheartedly believe a fandom is what keeps a game alive. a hindrance to the fan base is a hindrance to the game, which can be seen with the aftermath of pb announcing that legal action will be taken if full stories of paid content are shared publicly. while i understand from a business standpoint that pb would want to enforce the "no sharing full story" thing for paid content since they want players to yk, buy the card, like i mentioned in the previous section, the majority of the player base just cannot afford it.

the people who posted full stories wanted to share to those who cannot afford it, some people may not want only tidbits of the story but rather the whole context, especially those who enjoy dissecting character lore but don't have the irl funds to fully experience it themselves. some people may even want to archive it, cause honestly no one knows how long this game will stay up and we want to archive story so that it's something we can easily look back on. to essentially make players borderline terrified on trying to figure out whether or not it's ok to publicly post stuff in relation to any sort of story content is absurd.

there is also that loophole of what is defined as a paid story. when events end and get put behind a paywall, does that now count as paid story or is that still ok? what about debut L-ranks that are behind seals and there's a 3 month downtime till they're added to standard? or is it just referring to nightmare pass characters? paid stories in the context of the state of the game right now is insanely broad, it's practically at least 50% of this game (i'm exaggerating (or maybe not i wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the case)).

i understand no datamining, while it technically speaking isn't illegal, it's disrespectful to the devs, but a lot of these call to action methods they're announcing are rather extreme imo.

with the most recent cards either being put to standard 3 months after their banner ends or flat out paywalled and not 100% guaranteed to have a rerun, story content as of late has been very sparse. what people want most is a main story update, which we were originally promised to be updated every 3 months and it is now month 6 and we still have nothing.

EVENTS AND EVENT STORIES

event stories being locked behind a paywall after the event ends is probably the first time i've ever seen a gacha game do this. most of the gachas i've played either don't archive event story at all and just rerun it every year, don't rerun or archive the event at all (i.e. if you miss it, cope and seethe), or they archive it for FREE. it feels insanely greedy how EVERY event story needs payment if you ever want to backread an old event.

what also concerns me is the fact like instances like gamigin's event or beleth's event carry so much lore for their respective region and that may never show up in main story, which then screws new players over in not knowing the full context behind every region. events like minhyeok's or bimet's are fine in the sense that it doesn't carry that much lore in comparison to the more recent events. the first few events were like silly banter and getting to know a bit more about the cast.

also changing the event shop from daily pies to a set limit per account was an awful choice it just emphasizes my point earlier of how unstable obtaining pies are in this game.

FULFILLING PROMISES

i think while it was a smart move to list what's gonna be implemented throughout the year, they shouldn't have stated deadlines on when they're doing so.

the following are the things that still aren't implemented yet as of making this post:

new daily chats (expected within february)

friends system (expected within march)

birthday system (more specifically celebrating your bday) (expected within april)

new main story chapter (new chapter expected every 3 months)

if pb were to just say "here's what to expect in 2024" and NOT give specific months, that's fine, but giving these specific months sets an expectation that they would complete it within that timeframe. main story for example is probably the one people have been anticipating the most. by now as of july, if we were to follow the expectation pb gave us, we would currently be on chapter 7, or at the very least chapter 7 would've been released some time this month. we have not even gotten chapter 6 yet. chapter 5 was released in january. it has been 6 months since the last main story update. failing to meet these timeframes will make people upset, because it was mentioned in the announcement that it's 1. a promise (i hope i'm not the only one that takes promises seriously) and 2. in bold yellow text, "what we can realistically expect to see in 2024." the only promises that were fulfilled on-time were the ones in january, the rest have been delayed by at least a month. if you're giving a timeline of what's happening, announce if there's any changes to that timeline, because not doing so will make players believe you were lying to them even though you probably aren't and are instead just falling behind schedule.

i think what hurts more to me is the fact that they aren't publicly communicating these delays. it shouldn't be our responsibility to find out why or when something isn't happening within the timeframe they promised (e.g. by emailing them), it should be up to the devs to communicate that publicly to us. i'm not saying they should overshare what's going on behind the scenes, it can simply just be a simple announcement of "hey, we're very sorry but we're having some technical difficulties with this certain feature and we need more time. here is some compensation in the meantime, thank you for your patience and again, we're very sorry." it's that simple.

FINAL THOUGHTS

i mentioned back in my intro that i feel like this game was released too early purely because the fundamentals of making a bare minimum decent gacha game are just not there. if every patch update has people complaining on what's just recently been added/removed, you're not fully listening to what the audience wants. while i understand pb is a small business, a business is still a business regardless of size and criticism/feedback is necessary especially in a game dev setting.

i've followed this game's news ever since it was teased, which was december of 2022, i've lurked/participated in the fandom (on here at least) ever since september of 2023. i've felt a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions of "omg this is so great" to "why is this even a feature," hoping that over time the game would get better, but the only thing that's improved was server stability (and even that's still a bit rocky 💀).

a huge part of my stay was just being a lurker in the fandom. i genuinely appreciate all the creatives who fulfill asked prompts of characters, make ocs, fanart, write theories, reactions + many more. i love seeing other people's works/opinions and having just a lively fandom made it all more fun.

but at this point this game is just not for me. i've really only stuck around to read mammon's lore but since main story hasn't been updated in 6 months i'll really only chime back in when there's finally an update. it still amazes me to this day that my patience lasted this long. i think i've covered everything i wanted to cover but my memory is swiss cheese so if i forgot something,,, woops 💀

as for the future of the spreadsheet for those who check back on it, it's still being managed by myself and windy, who has been a huge help since day 1 of creating the build lists and team comps and i honestly can't thank her enough for also enduring this pain of a game with me as we've worked on this spreadsheet together hgjdfgh (luv u bestie 🫶). though it's written in the narrative that both of us will eventually quit updating it entirely if this game persists on not having any signs of improvement. when that day comes i'll make sure to post an announcement about it.

as for myself i'm probably still gonna lurk in the fandom/keep an eye out on game news. i doubt i'll be making any fanart anymore unless if i really have the motivation/boredom for it, but currently i'm revamping the "aesthetics" of this account so nothing's really set in stone. maybe i'll make a few whb rambles here or there if some game news really irks me but for the most part i've already been in the process of moving on to other things.

if you've stuck around this long to read this mess of a post, thank you for sticking around and have a cookie, you deserve it 🫴🍪

[harleychick91]

Seeing Red (rated M)

After finding out the truth, Lena refuses to speak to Kara or the Superfriends and throws herself into L-Corp business. After some personal information about her former best friend is brought to her attention, Lena is kidnapped by Lex. To save Lena, Kara must expose herself to Red Kryptonite. AU-Canon divergent.

Please read tags and warnings if you are sensitive to violence. This is only posted on AO3 because of FFN formatting issues. I’ve posted a notice of this on my FFN.

Lena’s POV

“Thanks for meeting me,” Andrea smiled as she sat across from me at the small table. “These lunches make work bearable.”

Picking up the menu, I nodded. “They are nice.” A pang pulled at my chest remembering the lunches Kara and I shared.

Studying me over her menu, Andrea spoke cautiously. “I’m glad we were able to reconnect. I know it’s hard for you to look back. Even if it was for a business venture.”

She’s holding something back. “It is, yes.”

For the most part, lunch was filled with small talk about L-Corp and Obsidian North. The beta program of the newest set of lenses was going well with little bugs to fix. I skirted questions about my own projects because I didn’t want to reveal anything. As the waiter approached, Andrea pulled out her wallet. “It’s on me.”

Eyeing the woman, I waited until we were alone to speak. “What is this really about? Yes, you wanted to catch up over lunch but you’ve been holding something back all afternoon. What is it?”

Relief washed over the woman’s features. “You’re right,” she drummed her fingers on her black leather clutch. “What happened between you and Kara Danvers?” Andrea continued before I could answer. “Because something clearly happened between the two of you. Before you contacted me about buying CatCo, I thought the two of you were dating. From how she wrote about you in her articles, the fact that she was always on your arm at events, and that beautiful introduction you gave at the Pulitzer event,” she paused. “You seemed happier than I’ve ever seen you.”

“We were friends,” I muttered. Even now, saying the words hurt. Kara was more to me than just a friend. She meant the world to me. I let her in and she broke my heart.

“Uh-huh,” Andrea smirked. “Friends don’t look at friends like that. Since the award ceremony, anytime your name comes up in the office, Kara looks like a guilty puppy who’s being scolded by her owner.” Looking away, Andrea pulled something from her clutch and placed it on the table. “As the owner of Obsidian, I have to keep an eye on what its users do. If I were to accidentally leave this here and you were to take it home and accidentally look at the files, I can’t stop you.”

My brows creased. “What files may or may not be on this flash drive?”

“A copy of the data from a user named KD102493.” Kara’s initials and my birthday? “So, you do realize who this is? Good. Now,” Andrea stood, “I need to hurry off to a meeting. What you decide to do with this drive is up to you. All I ask is that you don’t let it fall into the wrong hands. Have a good rest of your day.” With that, the woman pushed in her chair and left me staring at the device.

Kara said she didn’t care for the VR contacts. That she only wanted to live in the real world. What could she possibly be doing with a set of them?

“May I get you anything else, Miss Luthor?” I was startled by the waiter’s cheerful tone. “Sorry, Ma’am,” he smiled apologetically.

“No, thank you. I’m fine.” With a nod, he left. Taking the device, I called for a car. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to focus on work, I sent Jess a text asking if she would hold my calls and reschedule my last meeting of the day.

Arriving home, I made some tea and sat on the couch. My laptop and the flash drive sat on the coffee table. Knowing what I’ve used the contacts for, I can’t imagine what Kara has used them for. But Andrea wouldn’t have given this to me if she didn’t think I needed to see something. Leaning forward, I toyed with the drive as my laptop hummed to life. My chest clenched seeing the background. I love that picture of us. My first game night. We beat every other team by a landslide. Grumbling, I plugged the drive in and opened the first video file.

Kara cheered as J’onn announced the night’s winning team. Bumping my shoulder, she grinned. “My perfect game partner.”

“I swear, it’s like you can read each other’s minds,” Nia laughed. “Are they always like this?”

“Yes!” The group answered in mock annoyance.

All of the other videos were her playing back a different memory of us. A lunch, a gala, cooking dinner, or even working independently in my office. Opening the final file, my brow creased. This isn’t a memory. Is it a daydream?

I stood feet from Kara, in a white dress, anger radiated from me. ”Lena, please…” She begged. “I’m sorry. Let me-,”

“No!” I growled, turning towards her. “You had so many chances to tell me how you felt! I forgave you for keeping the truth from me for years but this…” My lip trembled. “You let me go to Sam when I needed someone. I fell in love with her because I never knew how you felt!”

“I know,” she whispered. “I should have done so many things differently.”

“You should have. Goodbye, Kara.”

The video ended and I stared at the final image. She is in love with me. What was that? Her own kind of torture? Seeing me with someone else? Why not James? Biting my knuckle, I thought back to when Jack was here and when I dated James. If she is in love with me, a few of her looks make more sense now. The anger I felt started to give way to sorrow. Rubbing my temple, I closed the file and ejected the flash drive. Turning it in my hand, I dropped it in my half empty tea mug.

Taking the mug to the kitchen, I rinsed the cup and crushed the flash drive with a meat tenderizer. That should take care of it. Brushing the remains into a bag, I dropped it into my purse to incinerate in the lab tomorrow.

Walking back into the living room, a purple portal opened. “Hello, Sis,” Lex grinned. Lunging towards me, he covered my nose and mouth with a cloth and held it firm until I stopped fighting.

Finish reading on AO3!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57148156

[fi-niamh]

Ellipsus vs Google Docs

(from someone who's been using Ellipsus for 3 months)

I think I've finally been using ellipsus long enough to be able to give it a proper comparison against Google Docs, which I've using for almost ten years

Is ellipsus still in open beta? yes. will this review be out of date in a couple of weeks? probably.

Do I still recommend it to literally anyone? yes absolutely

For those unfamiliar, ellipsus is a website that's (from what I've seen) being marketed as a google docs competitor specifically for writers. it's really good, I really enjoy it, but it does have some draw backs

I haven't tried any of the collaborative feature, so I won't be talking about them here, but here's the TLDR:

Ellipsus is great overall, it doesn't crash on you randomly like Google Docs tends to, it has built in dark mode, the drafts feature is an absolute godsend, and Ellipsus explicitly states that they won't feed anyone's work in AI training. The two biggest downsides is that there is currently no custom dictionary option, nor is there offline support. But both of these options are planned and in development, respectively

I'm going to go into a bit more detail here with some pros and cons that I've found. Please note that this is not a guide on how to use Ellipsus, just a general pros and cons list that I've created over the past few months

Pros

Built in dark mode

I cannot stress enough that this was the thing that made me switch over to Ellipsus in the first place. The fact that Google Docs still doesn't have native dark mode on browser was starting to drive me insane, so once I learnt that Ellipsus supported it, I made an account immediately. And it's not the bad dark mode where all the colours are inverted; it's proper dark mode with greys and a nice off white text to match. And there's also light mode for those of you who prefer burning your retinas off /s

Drafts

The drafts option basically makes a copy of what you've written and gives you an option to play around with your writing without changing original document. This was basically what I was doing with Google Docs, but instead of trying to balance three separate documents and inevitably confusing myself, it's all in one spot on the side bar. Plus, there's an option to compare changes so if you're like me an write in the draft instead of the main document by accident, you can see the exact place you went wrong

No AI Training

Ellipsus is very clear that they will not share any of our writing data with AI which is really nice and something I'm certain Google will never guarantee.

Ellipsus will explain it better than I ever could so if you're interested, you can read their stance of generative AI

Folders!!!

Ellipsus has folders!!! Folders!!!

Because I refuse to use Google Drive to organise things, my Google Docs home screen was either filled with a million documents (one for each chapter) or one very, very large doc with some 100k words on it. It did not load. I crashed my browser on more than one occasion.

This is not an issue with Ellipsus because they have folders.

It doesn't crash

A constant issue I've with Google Docs is that once a doc hit 20k words, I would get phantom lines running across my screen, the screen would tear when scrolling, and occasionally my browser would crash entirely. This isn't an issue I've encountered with Ellipsus.

Now, I haven't tested just how big of a document Ellipsus can handle but I've written up to 15k words in one document and didn't run into any issues other than scrolling was occasionally a bit unresponsive

A dedicated AO3 export button

A big problem I know a lot of people have is that Google Docs formatting does not carry over to AO3 very well so if you add italics for example, copying and pasting from Google Docs to AO3 will result in random spacing. Example:

"This is how it should look!"

" This is how it ends up looking !"

Note the spaces between the punctuation and the words. It gets really annoying having to go back and fix it all, but it's not an issue with Ellipsus because they export directly into ao3 friendly HTML

Easily accessible word count

This one is very minor, but I love that the word count is just hovering at the top of the screen. The shortcut to access it on Google Docs was annoying, so not having to bother with that is really nice

Cons

No Custom Dictionary

I imagine this one is a deal breaker for a lot of people, but you don't have an option to add words to your own custom dictionary. This feature is planned, and has been since May 2024, so I imagine that there's a lot of backend stuff that makes this feature pretty complicated. Still, it is pretty annoying especially when writing fiction. For the time being, I've just turned off the spell check and used a third party grammar and spell checker that allows custom dictionaries.

No Offline Support

Unlike Google Docs, Ellipsus has no offline support which means that nothing you write is saved to your computer. This was a pretty big one for me, so I've started manually saving everything I've written into a folder on my laptop and uploaded it to a cloud service just in case something happens to the Ellipsus servers.

This is a bit of a pain, but this feature is under development so I imagine I won't have to do this for much longer

The website can be slow to load

It's hard to tell if this is because of my terrible Australian internet, Ellipsus servers, my million folders, or a mix of all three, but occasionally the website does take a bit to load. It's not too bad, and it's like lightning compared to how long Google Docs can take to load sometimes, but it's something to be aware of if you're like me and suffering from already slow internet

Formatting

This one is mostly just nitpicky, but it put me off at first so I imagine it might do the same for someone else.

The formatting is constantly being improved, but there are some things that aren't great.

The font options aren't super extensive, and I really only like one of them (which is entirely subjective, I know), and there's no option to set a default one. At the moment, you can't embed images, add page numbers, or add links to page breaks further down in the document. These features are planned, but it might be a while before they're added.

I know that formatting is important to a lot of people, and by no means is ellipsus formatting bad, it just might not be right for you. It didn't impact me too much because I was able to readjust my workflow so that I didn't need page numbers, but others might not want to do that

Final Thoughts

Ellipsus is really good for what I use it for, and I don't think I'll be switching back to Google Docs for writing any time soon. I might give another update on my thoughts in the following months when I'm back at uni and need to use Docs for uni work, but from what I can tell so far Ellipsus is the superior writing app

It's definitely missing some key features, but it's still in open beta so that can only be expected

New features are being added, just in the last few months some new text colours were added (I think, maybe I just never noticed them) but they didn't impact me as much as I imagine they impacted others. The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is offline support but my software engineer brother tells me that requires a lot of work so best of luck to all the ellipsus devs

[ongreenergrasses]

ask game

totally would love to hear a director's cut on sea shanty/anything you want to mention that people don't know! (also i accidentally deleted your ask when clearing out my inbox but i DID see it)

my beloved cowriter @kitkatsandrainbows is off the internet for a bit so I’ll speak for both of us and once she’s back she can add if she so chooses -

i typed so so many paragraphs and then deleted them and keep going back and forth bc I really do love that fic and I could talk about it forever. I think we really egged each other on, we’d be sitting in the Google doc watching each other type and jumping in lmao I remember so clearly when we were finishing the end of the first chapter and playing off each other because we were alternating like. every couple paragraphs. we also did not take anything out. what’s posted is what we wrote, and usually I take out enormous chunks of my writing to make it more effective but genuinely we did not need to.

idk I feel like it’s hard, right, because rape and sexual coercion are really hard to talk about and write about. they just are. and I know I’m not happy with how I’ve just sort of. glossed over that in general because sexual violence is such a reality and cornerstone of life in Panem in many ways, and to leave that out it’s. you’re not really capturing that universe fully if you leave it out, and there’s no reason anyone has to write about it if they’re uncomfortable doing so, but i’ve felt for a while as a writer that it was something that I personally was missing in my work and wanted to look at. I definitely would not have had the courage to write anything close to this without @kitkatsandrainbows, she is absolutely fearless and does such an incredible job handling sexual violence in her work because she is so stark.

but I think honestly we did a really good job because in my eyes the way fanworks handle Finnick’s situation (including my own btw) often ranges from ineffective to borderline offensive, and I think we wrote something that balances clearly portraying the absolute horror and deep impacts of prolongued sexual violence without getting too gratuitous and over the top, or even worse almost romanticizing it? (yes it happens. it’s disturbing.)

this has all gotten very long but a fun fact that I would like everyone to know is that i was fucking fighting for my life getting that shit formatted on ao3. i don’t normally work in google docs so I forgot that you can’t just. copy and paste straight in. because all the italics went away, it turned into just one massive wall of text, and the ellipses turned into the euro sign? now if I’d had my wits about me I would’ve looked up the script to repaste and make that not happen but I’ve been having A Time so I spent probably four hours fixing it by hand. sigh. if there’s any random euro symbols in there it’s supposed to be an ellipsis