#i was trying to place lights with the mod and my game was Not Impressed - it crashed while i was setting up another cool shot :(

[robo-dino-puppies]

dragon age: the veilguard | neve gallus 5/?

[arthurmorgan-vp]

Hi there!! I was just looking through your awesome screenshots and I was really impressed with how crisp and beautiful the characters look. Whenever I try to take nice screenshots of Arthur, he kinda looks like a hobo :[ I would love to get better at taking screenshots of this game because I love it soooo much, Do you have any tips & trips & mod recommendations for taking nice screenshots? Thank you <3

Hi, thank you for the question! To start, I've actually been planning a thing where I discuss this in a video a bit, but that's going to take some time so here are my easy ones: -FOV (zoom in on the camera, it helps so much) -work with the blur feature. I'm pretty sure you're on pc too bc you mention mods, but for anyone reading, I think all of them have this option. It makes the edges of his face a little less blurry. -lighting! Find a lamp, find a campfire, anything, and mess around with how you position arthur. Certain places/lighting can make or break a shot imo. I actually have a post that shows that a bit and I'll link it in a comment under this post. Even in daytime consider this. -take note of the background. Sometimes, having too much clutter back there can distract from our pretty arthur so I'd look out for that. -as for mods, I use the WhyEM and Eastern Epic outfits/hair. I also have the free camera, but only use that for far away pics and for my videos. -Utilize animations! Have Arthur stand still and then have him turn around. Sometime during that press the cam option; he might be making a decent expression that can turn into a beautiful pic. Many other actions can give a decent result like that too. Anyone with anymore questions is free to ask! I might not know but I love helping where I can.

[mosthuggableffxiv]

As Promised: The Ardbert Essay

(specifically the one that didn't come from a wiki)

Full text below

Alright, fine, 8 paragraphs? Honestly, I should've seen this coming. But here's the thing, mod. My original Ardbert submission was just his Wikipedia article copied and pasted. I mean, what more could I say? His story and pain speaks for itself, and for that reason, I thought there was no better propaganda for Ardbert than who he is. But I see that is not enough, and so, I am responding with a fully fleshed out essay of at least 10 paragraphs.I hope it goes to show the lengths to which I, @teridani, believe that Ardbert Hylfyst needs a hug. (Or, depending on your interpretation, "is the most huggable". More on that later.)

When Ardbert first appeared in patch 3.1, it was a mysterious hook meant to drawn us players in. Who is this guy? Why is he speaking with the Ascians? The Warriors of Darkness appear as a threat. When Ardbert first introduces his group, dear mods, I laughed. I was playing through the game with a friend and I found it hilarious that they would be called "warriors of darkness". It's not really any sillier than "warriors of light", but the idea that our enemies, our RIVALS, would just use that name was... so silly. I did like their style, though.

I was a bit frustrated at the return of the Ascians once again. You must remember, dear mods, that I was playing through the entirely of ARR just recently! I was binging the story! And the early Ascian characterization left a lot to be desired. So, here I was, believing Ardbert and his crew were nothing more than Sunday cartoon villians-of-the-week, here to end the world just because. This initial reaction is important for you to understand how big of a switch first impressions were to where I'm at now.

Ardbert himself seemed to relish in this role early-on. He fell into the role of a villain easily, casting aside any doubts towards his goal. He had to. Look what being a hero had brought him and his friends. Still, a degree of hesitation persisted. Ardbert didn't really want to hurt anyone. He never did. He says himself, "We were just adventurers trying to make our way. An odd job here, a favor there—we never aspired to be Warriors of Light." His feelings towards being a hero, I believe, mirror his feelings towards being a villain. Swept up in the tides of fate and tragedy, there were no other paths left for him.

Urianger was the one who brought up the idea of luring out the Warrior of Light, casting the realm into chaos with their death. Of course we have the blessing of hindsight to understand that Urianger never wanted them to come to harm, but Ardbert steeled his resolve and set forth. All he said was that he would make it quick. A mercy in its own right. There is no way Ardbert didn't see a reflection of himself in the WoL, an echo of the same unsundured soul. Through his eyes, eventually any hero who espouses the virtues of *one* element, be it Light or Dark, would doom their world. It seemed a choice between two paths with the same end: doom the Source now, or later. The only difference is how many he could save by doing the former.

Over the course of the finale to his Heavensward arc, Ardbert reveals the missing pieces to the puzzle to us. How he and his friends took their lives just to have a chance at saving their world. As heroes to their world to the very last, they participated in the ultimate sacrifice. I believe I do not need to remind readers of this line. "We did everything right, everything that was asked of us, and still—still it came to this!" How could you not want to give this man a hug? When you think of the pain, regret, grief, and anger he must be feeling? When you see the blind unfairness of the world rest entirely upon him?

In the end, the most heartbreaking thing was when the Warriors of Darkness placed their trust in Minfilia and Ardbert simply asked if she could take them home. They had failed, it was all up to someone else, and at the very end without any other choice... They chose to go back to their home that they destroyed. If only Ardbert could've passed on with his friends, at the very time, perhaps he would have felt some degree of finality. Some measure of redemption. But instead, they were gone along with Minfilia, and he was left for a hundred years alone.

Whether he whispered or screamed, not a soul could hear his voice. His body and mind were barely held together by the time the WoL came to the First. Devoid of hope, he still followed the WoL and watched as piece by piece, sky by sky, night returned to the Norvrandt that he alone beared as his mistake. Ardbert was denied, again and again, any chance of redemption. The only person who could bring hope and joy back to him was the WoL. Of course he was more than willing to sacrifice himself once again at the end of it all—for such a person, he would be willing to do that and more.

I also promised to speak more on his huggability, so I will do so here. First, we look at his height. As an average height Hume, Ardbert comes in around 5ft 9in, or 175cm. I can't attached a picture here, I don't think, but if you find a height comparison tracker and input the 50% height data of each race, I believe it will be of use to you. I used the Male 50% sliders because I'm nonbinary and I get to make the rules here. Au'Ra: Ardbert comes up to shoulder height, a perfect height to rest his head upon your clavicle and wrap his arms around your waist. Roegadyn: Oh baby! How couldn't you hug him? Ardbert comes up to a Roegadyn's tit- I mean chest. There's a reaction image somewhere on the internet about this very thing. I'll leave it up to you to find. Miqo'te: At 5ft 5, Ardbert is slightly taller than the average Miqo'te, and you can rest your head extremely easily on his shoulders. As he wears traditionally Warrior attire, this means nice, high quality leathers and soft furs. Of course, he'd take off his shoulder pauldrons for you. Elezen: The average Elezen can rest their chin perfectly atop his head. I believe that says all I need to say. Viera: A Viera is slightly taller than Ardbert, and but not overtly so. At this height, neither person would have to bend or stretch too far: they would fit like puzzle pieces. Lalafell: For this, not only will I note that a Lalafell could be completely wrapped up in Ardbert's arms, but I ask you to remember one of the other best characters of Shadowbringers. Lamitt wouldn't fall for ANY person who wasn't extremely huggable. Her endorsement says it all. Hrothgar: A Hrothgar and Au'ra are only 2 inches apart, but ther's something more I would like to note. Ardbert has both scruffy hair and facial hair! Like whiskers and fur of his own, he would be a perfect nuzzling companion.

So! For the true hero of the First, for one who gave us the push we needed at the end, who has suffered more than any person should ever have to, I believe we owe it to Ardbert to give him a hug. And also, we owe it to ourselves to hug him, regardless of our height, because as proven time and time again in the story... Ardbert loves you. Thank you for reading.

[possumcollege]

I dont know how it took me till you posted that most recent sole survivor art to learn you were a fallout enjoyed, it fills me with joy. Fave companion/storyline?

Of the main companions, I think my favorites are Dogmeat, Nick, and Piper, but I've probably brought Ada along more than anyone.

I really love the character of this robot, built by a band of survivors from spare parts, developing attachments and feelings. I appreciate her trying to square the conflicting input of grief and justice at the point where neither really fixes anything unless the root of that injury is repaired. Ada's friends died because the robots programming was flawed and lacked the ability to see struggling humans as viable, not because Isabel wanted them to kill. At that point, killing her would be cathartic but it punishes her for a mistake she rekt didn't intend and lowers us to the level of the other wasteland factions who perpetuate the broken exterminationist view of conflict. It lets Ada continue to grow as a living being in spite of her loss and status as a robot. It's something I love about Ada in my interpretation that I felt was lacking in my impression of Curie.

The game wants to give us a romanceable female synth who is even less experienced than we are, so porting a robot's memory into a "human" works but that's a bit cheap for my taste. I don't dislike Curie but I would've enjoyed the option to help her realize a human body wasn't strictly necessary to help people. Developing the "humanity" in a machine feels more in line with rebuilding a better world than finding ways to eliminate the anthropocentric limitations of machines in a world where they can be fully sentient.

And yes, I think you should still be able to romance Robot Curie. It seems to work for Mr. Zwicky and Miss Edna! I think that's sweet and let's be play this as a world where people realize joy is precious wherever you find it instead of queueing up Curie's emergent personality. We see plenty of other robots with fully functional autonomous identities. The ability to accept them for who they are and can become in spite of their origins is a wonderful aspect of the world for me.

In general, I like keeping folks around and trying to give them another chance to make a go of it in the Commonwealth without the Institute or the Brotherhood trying to pull the strings from above or below. I try not to kill anyone I know I don't have to unless they're going to keep trying to kill me.

I've destroyed the Prydwen and the Institute every time, but I wish there could've been opportunities to bring a few BOS characters over to my side in the process, Proctor Ingram, in particular. I also like that there are hard choices to make though, that characters you would want to join you can just have incompatible ideology and loyalty.

For the game's sake I back the minutemen and the Railroad, but ideologically, the Atom Cats are my "faction" of choice. They're good people, hacking out a place for themselves, putting their skills to less genocidal use, and trying to bring a bit of light and beauty to their little peninsula. They watch out for their friends and neighbors. They ain't so keen on exterminating anything in particular. They aren't looking to rule over anything in spite of their impressive power armor skills. My favorite outfit these days is the armored AC jacket and modded Mechanist helmet.

Far Harbor has some great missions too. The hotel murder mystery is a hoot and the settlement locations offer a lot to play with. I try to strike a live-and-let-live balance there too, preserving the synth refuge, Far Harbor, and the CoA if I can help it. I never rat them out to the BoS. The memory-retrieval mini game missions are miserable though! It glitched out on my first playthrough and I couldn't finish it before my PS4 died.

Favorite settlements are probably vault 88, the Starlite drive-in (makes a fanatic multistory apartment base), Spectacle Island, Abernathy farm, Egret Tours Marina, the lumber mill, Outpost Zimonja, Greygarden, and the lighthouse. I'm a fan of modding-off the build limits and resource cheats so I can build elaborate apartment blocks out of scaffolding, warehouse bits and vault pieces. I can't get enough of encasing ruined buildings in larger buildings like warehouses or vault atrium assets too. After a while, the settlement building becomes my favorite aspect of the game after the story and world-building.

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

Majora's Mask 3D: Restored

TL;DR: Majora's Mask 3D made a weird bunch of changes that make it the inferior gameplay experience compared to the N64 version. But now there's Project Restoration, which fixes all of that and more. Try it out! Full story below.

A good while ago, I found Nerrel's video review of MM3D, which asks the question, "Was Majora's Mask 3D a Bad Remake?" In his opinion, yes. The remake fucked up Deku Link's movement and Zora Link's swimming, butchered the boss fights and ice arrows, disabled saving with the Song of Time, weakened the Inverted Song of Time to slowing time to 50% instead of 30% (he forgot to mention this one but it's true), and failed to implement obvious quality of life updates, all the while adding light and color in places that take away from the game's dark atmosphere.

His halfway solution was to make an HD texture pack for the N64 version, which is very, very impressive. He redrew pretty much every texture by hand, but unfortunately couldn't update the models without the game crashing. And at the time of his video, there was already a mod of the game that made a few of those QoL updates. Nerrel admitted that the texture and model work in MM3D is great, and that a mod that fixes all the regressions it made might make it the definitive way to play the game.

At the time, no such mod existed. So I went through the trouble of installing and setting up his texture pack, Majora's Mask HD, on my computer. I played up to the Snowhead Temple before losing steam and getting wrapped up in something else. I was impressed by his hard work, but at the same time, the 20 fps, inconvenience of emulating, lack of motion controls, and awkward juxtaposition of HD textures with N64-quality models made it not quite satisfying to play.

A couple days ago, I finished my most recent playthrough of Ocarina of Time 3D. I was faced with a tough choice. MMHD, or MM3D? That's when I discovered Project Restoration, a fan project to fix the regressions MM3D made while adding QoL features. Link's movement? Fixed. Bosses? Fixed. Songs of Time? Fixed. Transformation masks mapped to the D-Pad? Yes. New button combos with ZL and ZR? Hell yeah. Subsequent cutscenes of playing the Song of Soaring and Elegy of Emptiness? Disabled. Owl statues still saving if you want? You betcha. A whole bunch of other QoL featuers? Oh yeah. I already homebrewed my 3DS, so I downloaded it.

Holy hell, this is great. The lighting and colorfulness is so easy to forgive when you have the best of both worlds. I'm having such a good time right now. And with the way patching games works with Luma, my MM3D cartridge is perfectly safe. If I put it in my other 3DS, the patch isn't there. So yeah, it's been a blast. Playing the way they intended in 2000 with better graphics, controls, and performance. What a time. This is certainly the best way to play Majora's Mask.

[thetoxicgamer]

Doom, Warhammer 40k, and WW1 unite in grimdark FPS you can play now

Conversions for Doom never fail to impress. Thanks to devoted gamers and creatives that completely convert the id Software industry landmark into new works, the 1993 first-person shooter game is still in circulation today, and the current Doom mod is seriously, seriously remarkable. It is what results when Warhammer 40K, Doom, and a grimy, dieselpunk aesthetic come together, and I adore it. Called Trench Foot, you’re thrown into a WW1-looking warzone filled with cultists, demons, and a grimdark visual style that’s sure to impress, especially considering it’s a conversion of 1994’s Doom 2 no less. TrenchWork is the team behind this total conversion, and they recently shared eight minutes of new footage that shows the opening of Trench Foot, and it looks disgustingly beautiful. Frenetic combat and demonic shrieks dominate gameplay, and while you can tell it’s based on the Doom framework, the lighting, colors, and visual style scream anything but. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA7RzmpzAfg With 15 original enemy types, 14 weapons, and an entire universe built around Trench Foot, it’s safe to say this is one we FPS fans should keep an eye on. Taking place in the world of Cretu, the people are under the thumb of the totalitarian Canonicate, and it’s either them, otherworldly demons from beyond, or rebellious cultists – no pressure. You control a Master Templar Supersoldier, a conditioned killing machine under the Canonicate’s Exousian Church that needs to take on this ruthless cult as it wages a decades-long war that is pushing both sides, and everyone caught in the crossfire, to their absolute limit. If that sounds an awful lot like Warhammer 40k’s constantly at-war universe, the religious underpinnings of Blasphemous, or even the desolate atmosphere of Dark Souls to you, then you’re on the right track. There are more modern fog, explosion, and smoke effects littered throughout Trench Foot, and the way all of this combines with the subtle green and red glows makes for a visual spectacle. While there’s no release date for Trench Foot just yet, there is a demo you can try out for free with your copy of Doom 2 right now, alongside a survival horror prequel you can play that adopts a different approach. If the My House WAD was of interest to you (which Doom creator John Romero has actually played), Trench Foot is definitely something to keep your eye on. There are going to be more individual prequel episodes before the full release of the Doom conversion too, so keep an eye out for those. If you want more classic shooters than just Doom, we’ve broken down all the best old games you can play right on your modern PC, alongside the essential horror games you should add to your library as well. Read the full article

[rockethorse]

F and R (I love your style 🥺)

Whaa?? But I love YOUR style, it's seriously a big inspiration to me-! If I didn't have so many self-imposed limitations on adding new meshes to my game I would have everything you've ever made I think LMAO

F: Gameplay With or Without Cheats

It depends!! In my head I think of myself as not using any cheats at all, but I think other people would disagree, lol. I use a lot of mods that change game behaviour in some ways people might consider to make the game "easier" (or at least, less annoying) - is that cheating? Before starting this Legacy I was a hopeless save scummer, so is that also a kind of cheating? Technically I'm inputting "cheats" all the time; even in the case of something like moveobjects, you could argue that placing more objects in a space than are "allowed" to be in there is a form of cheating - stretching the intentional limitations of the game's grid system.

But by and large, most of how I modify the game is to make it HARDER, lol, or at least to me. I don't use money cheats; I don't max motives; I don't cheat for skill points or career rewards or aspirations; I don't age Sims up earlier than should be possible (if that is also considered a form of cheating in TS2); And I have tried to push myself not to save scum and to let my game and its happy accidents just happen, even if the results are devastating, because it's more interesting that way. If my Sims pass out and pee their pants and have an awful wedding party and set fire to their grandpa and fail their semester and forget to pay the bills and get a demotion and have their kids taken away by the social worker, and it's not because of some glitch or mod or conflict, then I try to just sit back and enjoy the show. And it's made playing TS2 much more enjoyable for me!

R: Cartoony or Realistic Sims?

I don't think it's any surprise to hear that I prefer a cartoony aesthetic in my game (sorry to all the clay haters but I think vanilla TS4 looks beautiful actually) BUT I really admire realistic Sim aesthetics too! I think it's easier for them to fall into the "uncanny valley", but I'm super, super impressed and in awe of Simmers who can pull together and style cohesively realistic Sims and worlds.

The main reason I prefer a cartoony/Maxis Match aesthetic in TS2 is because it allows me to keep my game light, lol. I do genuinely like a lot of EAxis textures (like hair) but if I could default replace everything without bloating my game, I probably would go even cartoonier. I'm still lowkey fiddling with a low-poly, flat aesthetic for TS2. And I admire people who push their own games even more cartoonishly than Maxis did. But for me, MM all the way!

[headoverheelsforramsey]

Hello, hello! This week, we are going on a little:

Home Tour!

Notes: Answer the following with pictures (dialogue from your characters is optional!). Collages are highly encouraged if you want to answer a question with multiple pictures because tumblr mobile only allows 10 total pics. Otherwise, tumblr on a desktop lets you add multiple pictures (non-beta)!

For both:

What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc)

Living room and home office (if any)?

Kitchen and dining room?

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Other rooms?

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Super super late to this, because of my stupid exam but now we are here so let's go! 💃🏽🏠

A/N : I am placing this two years and seven months after the wedding, because I HC Ethan and Meera staying at Ethan's apartment for two years after the wedding and they only start house hunting when they have the baby talk and start trying for a baby. So technically not newlyweds anymore. Now let's get started! ✨

Meera opens the door and greets Bree.

Meera : Hii Bree, welcome to our humble abode.

Bree (chuckles) : This place is anything but humble. I hope I am not causing much trouble.

Meera : Absolutely not. Who else is going to make me feel like a youtuber?

Both laugh, Ethan joins and greets Bree.

Bree : Congratulations on the good news Dr. Ramsey. How far are y'all?

Ethan : Thank you Bree. It's been 3 months already.

Meera (cradling her small bump) : Yup one trimester down two more to go.

Ethan (kissing her forehead) : And then there will be a mini version of you running around these halls.

Meera : Nope it's gonna be a mini you.

The couple shares a look as if challenging each other.

Meera : Fine, Bree, whose team are you on? Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?

Bree : I am happy with either because at the end I'll be interviewing him or her too.

The three of them share a laugh.

Bree : Let's get started, shall we?

Ethan : Sure.

What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc)

Front :

Meera : We were looking for something modern yet chic, something that is totally us. I fell in love with the design whereas Ethan was in total awe of the open space and glass doors. Needless to say our heart was stuck on this no matter how many more houses we visited.

Backyard :

Ethan : The backyard also doubles up as the garden but it's not quite completed yet.

Meera : Yes it's been two months since we moved, and we haven't been able to work on the garden because of work and the pregnancy. Ethan : But we want to build a garden with a tree house and maybe some swings.

Meera (too excited) : Ohh swings! Yes please add it onto the list. Why didn't I think of it before?

Pool :

Meera : Definitely my favorite part!

Ethan : She is a water baby through and through so that's no surprise.

Meera : Don't act like you don't appreciate me in a swimsuit, Ramsey (winks)

Ethan : There is no denying that.

Living room and home office (if any)?

Living room :

Ethan : Meera was hell bent on having an L-shaped couch.

Meera : Those things are so bougie I had to have one because now I can finally afford one. But yeah the living room is so relaxing with a beautiful view of the outside.

Home office :

Meera : Honestly speaking, I do not understand the utility of a home office, I didn't understand back at his apartment neither do I understand now. If I am supposed to work from home I can do that on the couch or on my bed or even better on the daybeds by the pool.

Ethan (shaking his head) : You'll get it darling. When you start your maternity leave I'll see how you make zoom calls with the pool as your background.

Meera shrugs.

Kitchen and dining room?

Meera : This part was all Ethan so I'll let him do the talking.

Ethan (proudly) : A Poggenpohl kitchen with a granite-topped island adds an ultramodern touch. Glass shelves display colorful glassware convenient to the wet bar. A translucent sliding glass door below the shelves hides the more utilitarian gadgets. And finally playful mod pendant lights seem to levitate over the dining table, which is meant to resemble a river running through the woods.

Meera : You sure you didn't miss your true calling as an interior designer babe?

Ethan (smirks) : Nope, just the fact that I tend to excel at everything I do, Rookie.

Meera : And that makes you 10 times hotter!

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Master bedroom :

Meera : The bedroom has a different color scheme and tone from the rest of the house because I wanted it to stand out and break the monotone.

Ethan : Again the chandelier was Meera's opinion.

Meera : Finding common ground between his minimalistic taste and mine was difficult but we made it through.

Master Bathroom :

Ethan : Meera I don't think it was necessary to bring Bree in here.

Meera : It was absolutely necessary! Just look at this tub Bree! The bubbles and champagne dates we have here are a total hit.

Guest rooms :

Ethan : We have two guest rooms and both are styled the same way, but unfortunately we haven't had any guests yet. 

Meera : Is it unfortunate Dr. Ramsey? Bryce is just a call away from crashing here. 

Ethan (pinching the bridge of his nose) : Anyone but Lahela.

Meera : We haven't thought about the baby's room yet. But we have the nursery now. 

Ethan : Yes, maybe we'll turn the nursery into a bedroom or one of the guest rooms in a few years. Let's see.

Nursery : 

Meera : This was completed just yesterday hence the delay in the interview, Bree. 

Ethan : We decided to keep the gender of the baby a surprise so we went with a gender neutral nursery that matches the colour scheme of the house. 

Meera : Also because Ethan Ramsey would rather die than paint the walls of his house pink and blue. 

Ethan (rolls eyes) 

Other rooms?

Home library :

Meera (takes in the smell of books) : Better known as my safe haven. 

Ethan : This was absolutely non-negotiable for Meera. 

Meera : We both own a lot of books and the collection keeps on increasing now with the baby incoming. And look at this reading space. It's from my dreams. 

Ethan : This is tucked away in a far corner of the house and is the most serene place around here. Once, I returned home from the hospital and called out to Meera a hundred times, she didn't answer, I started panicking and then found her silently sitting here in her own world. 

Meera : If I ever go missing please check here before running to the police, because once I am in here I forget the existence of the world.

Bree picks up "Peppa pig's super noisy Sound Book" which was kept on a thick medical journal with a smile. 

Ethan feels embarrassed but Meera laughs. 

Meera : Yes these are the new ones in our collection. Ethan was reading it to the baby before you arrived. 

Home Bar : 

Ethan : The wine cellar grew into a home mini bar because we had this unused space left. 

Meera : He loves showing this and his collection off. 

Ethan : Excuse me! If I remember correctly your friends were very impressed as well. 

Meera : True that. Bryce went bat shit crazy during the housewarming party. He said he felt he got back his bartending days.

Ethan (proudly) : And Jackie's exact words for that evening's toast was "to hell with Donahue's" 

Meera : Yeah yeah, you did a great job honey. Also the more surfaces the better for us. 

Ethan : Keep it PG for the love of God. 

Meera (shrugs) : Pregnancy hormones. 

Bree (points) : And that? 

Ethan (facepalms) : The only thing that doesn't match with the vibe here.

Meera : Nonsense! It was a housewarming gift from my friends and I absolutely love it. Ethan just feels it is a cheaper and juvenile version of his favourite game, soccer. But don't worry Bree, I'll get him to play someday. 

Ethan (smirk) : I would very much like to see you try Dr. Ramsey-Bose.

Meera : And I'll see how you say no when your son asks. 

Ethan : It's gonna be a daughter. 

Meera : We'll see. 

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

Ethan : For the majority of my life home for me was a structure of bricks and cement with a ceiling but Meera was the one who brought all the love and light and showed me what a real home felt like. So for me, my home is where my heart is and for this lifetime it's kept safe with this gorgeous woman whom I fortunately call my wife. 

Silence lasts for a couple of minutes then Meera snorts. 

Meera (drying her eye) : Damn you pregnancy hormones, I am not even wearing waterproof mascara. It was super cheesy Ethan, a non pregnant me would have definitely called you out on your cheese but this pregnant Meera has to agree with you. Even a stable is my dream home if I have my dream husband with me. (she kisses Ethan) but I wouldn't mind a Jacuzzi, a home theatre, a game room (laughing)

Ethan (an easy smile on his face) : Always knew you were in it because of the money Bose. 

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Meera : The library. Just him reading to our unborn child like he isn't already the most perfect man in the world. 

Ethan (a very satisfied smile on his face) : First I am very surprised that you kept it PG. So the obvious answer is the bedroom but other than that, the patio, which is not a room though.

Ethan : Meera has a slight deficiency in vitamin D so to avoid complications, we spend a lot of time here in the sun. We play board games, read and even discuss work here sometimes.  

Meera : Ooh yes! This was another great investment and a great way to utilise the humongous outdoor space we have.  

Ethan : I hope you had fun Bree. Thank you so much for doing this. 

A quick shoutout to @a-crepusculo and @jamespotterthefirst who came to my rescue when  I couldn't add more than 10 pics. Also thank you Bree for doing this you are a star and an angel. 💜

Tagging my usual : @starrystarrytrouble @mm2305 @charisworld @choicesfanaf @potionsprefect @genevievemd  @shanzay44 @little-flowers-on-heaven @schnitzelbutterfingers  @coffeeheartaddict  @gryffindordaughterofathena @chemist-ana @adiehardfan @custaroonie @ireneadlerisseggsy @takemyopenheart @natureblooms24 @mainstreetreader @izzyourresidentlawyer @a-crepusculo @quixoticdreamer16 @starryeyedrookie @barbean

+ @openheartfanfics

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[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Hi! I’m a big fan of your work!! I am looking for more but unfortunately I feel like I have read all yhe good Harry Potter docs on Ao3. Do you have any recs?

Sorry for the delay, I just know that whenever I make rec list it usually ends up taking a while.

With that, Harry Potter fics are a big genre. Just saying Harry Potter in general really isn’t that specific to me so this is across genres/character focuses/you name it.

Also, as usual, I’ve been on fanfiction longer and have amassed more favorites there. Some of these are cross posted to Ao3. Similarly, a lot are unfinished, this personally doesn’t bother me but if it bothers you take heed.

Also, you’ll see my embarrassing obsession with Tom Riddle. So, heads up for that.

Stepbrother (Tom Riddle/Hermione Granger, period piece, in which the two remind me a lot of Nabokov)

Cat Among the Pigeons (Tom Riddle/Lily Evans, Psycho-Pass Detective AU, in which I am a beta actually so my promoting this goes without saying)

Til Death Do Us Part (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Voldemort wins AU, which for me does very well with the concept of immortality and what exactly Tom is supposed to do after he wins)

This Tangle of Thorns (Tom Riddle/Hermione Granger, modern AH AU, a full on Nabokov inspired fic which I enjoy because Lolita)

Delusional (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, sort of. Harry wins the war, goes crazy, checks into a mental hospital. Or he’s not crazy and Voldemort is as unkillable as Palpatine.)

Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (OC insert, D&D inspired, shameless crack. I mostly enjoy the beginning of this but it makes me laugh enough to recommend.)

A Hairy Business (AU, Harry is a deer, he is literally a deer, that’s it. It’s funny.)

Animus, Anima (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Harry travels back in time, gets stuck in Tom Riddle’s brain, and it turns out Harry’s responsible for every terrible thing that ever happened. This one was squicky even for me, very well done, but strap in.)

Addendum, He is Also a Liar (Tom Riddle/Hermione Granger, Tom has an inexplicable ability to travel to the future, but only to this random little girl Hermione Granger)

Framed & Fractured (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Harry gets stuck in an evil painting back in time. Tom is creepy as usual.)

Trying for Eden (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Harry travels back in time to lecture Tom into morality. It doesn’t work.)

Magical Mirrors (Luna Lovegood and Severus Snape, Luna and Snape stumble on the Mirror of Erised at the same time and strike up a conversation)

Aphelion (Hermione Granger/Loki, MCU crossover, Hermione and Loki strike up the world’s weirdest toxic friendship when Hermione’s young and attending Hogwarts, this leads terrible places as Loki slides into madness and despair)

Wandering Souls (Luna Lovegood and The Undertaker, Black Butler crossover, Luna meets and strikes up a conversation with the Undertaker)

Of Lies Most Beautiful (Tom Riddle, Hunger Games crossover, Tom wins the Hunger Games becaues that’s what he does bitch)

In Wonderland (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Harry ends up back in the past and decides to raise Tom Riddle. This goes so poorly that the pair almost get eaten by eldritch gods multiple times.)

Rumpelstiltskin, Guess My Name (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Female Harry travels back in time and offers to save Merope’s life/get her Tom Riddle Sr. the non rapey way in return for her firstborn son. Merope thought Harry was joking. She wasn’t joking. In the sequel, also linked, Harry kills Morfin.)

The Eyes (Harry Potter, AU, turns out “the power he knows not” is the power humanity knows not, Harry’s ability to see eldritch abominations and cosmic gods and thus bring them far enough into our reality that they eat everything. And I mean everything.)

Mirror Mirror (Harry Potter, MCU crossover, Harry makes a huge mistake and stops Hulk in the middle of a rampage. This gets him abducted by octopus nazis.)

I See the Moon (Harry Potter and Bruce Banner, MCU crossover, Harry got brain damage from the war and wanders around the middle of nowhere. He runs into Bruce. He’s now Bruce’s only friend.)

You Will Be the Death of Me (Harry Potter and Tom Riddle, Despicable Me inspired, through a series of convoluted events Tom as the world’s worst father figure ends up raising Harry the sad adorable orphan.)

In Death, Standby (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter (sort of, the authro claims), Tom raises Harry, the only Tom raises Harry that I’ve seen done well because Tom is the world’s worst father. Harry thinks he’s a deformed snake until the age of three.)

Little Harry’s Mirkwood Adventure (Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley, Hobbit Crossover, one of the most Tolkien style crossovers I’ve actually seen and is very good)

A (Self-Imposed) Trap for a Fool (Ginny Weasley, turns out Harry Potter never existed, as in he’s a collective hallucination made up by the entire wizarding world)

McLaggen and From McLaggen with Love (McLaggen, a detective AU then a James Bond style adventure starring McLaggen, the greatest wizard who ever wizarded)

Tom Riddle’s Diary: on keeping devils in the summer (Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle’s antichrist orphan adventures involving exorcism and burning people alive)

and the fates sing (hold on, son) (Harry Potter, MCU crossover, Harry is the son of Loki and like all children of Loki he is a wretched and cursed thing)

A Faulty Master (Harry Potter and Itachi Uchiha, Naruto crossover, Itachi after the massacre of his family has a run in with a master of death Harry, who is a creepy creepy man)

Eye of Reason (Harry Potter/Jack Frost, Rise of the Guardians crossover, due to the mythos surrounding his life Harry ceases to be a man and becomes akin to a god)

Flowers for a Ghost (Luna Lovegood and Itachi Uchiha, Naruto Crossover, Luna befriends a blind ghost)

Third Time’s the Charm (Harry Potter, MCU crossover, Bruce Banner keeps trying to kill himself and MoD Harry is there to have himself a real good day)

Blind Faith (Bellatrix LeStrange/Tom Riddle, canon compliant, an in depth look at Bellatrix from the escape of Azkaban onward)

Cocktail Time (Rita Skeeter and Gilderoy Lockhart, Rita does an expose and autobiography detailing the descent of Gilderoy Lockhart and how he became what he became)

Fantastic Elves and Where to Find Them (Harry Potter, canon divergent AU, Harry thinks he’s an elf. That’s it.)

The Twine Bracelet (Colin Creevy, a look at Colin’s death) 

Legal Alien (Harry Potter, MCU crossover, Harry visits New York and an alien invasion breaks out. Culminates with the best, dumb, joke.)

The Root of Desire (Tom Riddle/Hermione Granger, Hermione travels back in time and tries to influence Tom. All this does is inspire his sexual awakening.)

Deadheads (Harry Potter/Godric Gryffindor, a romantic comedy of a kind, culminating in the best dumbest joke)

Give and Take (Tom Riddle/Hermione Granger, Hermione tries to outwit Tom, it ends in despair)

The Road to Somewhere (Harry Potter, Spirited Away crossover, Harry as MoD is in the realm of the spirits)

Absolute (Harry Potter, Harry picks up a death note, he kills everyone)

Fortunate Son (Dudley Dursleys, years afterwards Dudley looks back and writes a memoir and expose about the abuse inflicted on his cousin)

Elective Affinities (Severus Snape/Harry Potter, Harry travels back in time to discover his parents are assholes and things are more complicated than he imagined)

Juxtaposed (Bod, Graveyard Book crossover, Bod attends Hogwarts)

The Fire Omens (Tom Riddle and a look at WWII)

Broken Toys (Tom Riddle and his useless broken toys)

The Fine Art of Poisoning (Madame Zabini)

A Marriage of Convenience (Pansy and Theo get married)

Reparabilis (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Tom becomes a professor, he still destroys Harry Potter)

The Unforgivable Curses (Draco Malfoy, a look at the 4th year unforgivable lecture with Moody and the Slytherins)

Ugly (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy one sided Dudley/Harry Potter, Dudley’s fat, ugly, and creeps on his cousin)

Three Can Keep a Secret (Harry Potter, on secrets and secret keeping)

Caveat Incimici (Hermione Granger, on Hermione and her terrifying wrath)

Babylon (Harry Potter and Tom Riddle, Harry never gets rid of Tom)

Wonderful Tragic Mysterious (Luna Lovegood and Albus Dumbledore, Luna Lovegood time travels and becomes a young Albus’ neighbor)

In the Clockface, Weighted and Weary (Harry Potter/Ariana Dumbledore, Harry after DH ends up back in time in Dumbledore’s childhood and witnesses the beautiful Dumbledore family dysfunction)

Eternal Return (Harry Potter and Tom Riddle, Harry is reincarnated as Tom Riddle and as a result becomes Voldemort so that a Voldemort exists)

Like Pale Fire (Harry Potter/Godric Gryffindor, the Founders are resurrected and it turns out Harry had travelled to the past and become Salazar Slytherin, turns out the Founders were more complicated than people expected.)

12 Moves Sideways (Harry Potter and Light Yagami, Death Note crossover, Light becomes the Defense Professor, for once Harry does not figure out the mystery.)

A Very Young Girl’s Record of Her Own Impressions (Ariana Dumbledore’s diary)

Night Comes Early (Moody on war)

Little Witches (The Black family women and how it all falls apart)

Paved with Good Intentions (Petunia on finding a baby on her doorstep)

Emerald Serpent for Vanity (Draco and Nagini introspective)

Blue (Tom Riddle/Bellatrix LeStrange, Voldemort wins dystopia, Tom visits Bellatrix’s grave and is very crazy)

Eighteen (Hermione Granger, on Hermione’s betrayal of her parents)

Ouroboros (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, on what they’ve made of each other)

Not so Different (Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird Crossover, Scout reflects on the wizarding world’s raicsm)

Traitor (Hermione Granger, Hermione is captured by the Death Eaters and commits unspeakable acts to free herself)

Smashing Mirrors (Tom Riddle, introspective)

Twelve Dark Moons (Luna Lovegood/Tom Riddle, Luna becomes a captive of the dark lord)

Full Circle (Harry Potter, Harry wins and is miserable)

The Web of a Thousand Spiders (Luna Lovegood on the diary)

The Metronome (The fall of Lucius’ entire generation)

Understand (Hermione Granger and her betrayal of her parents)

Tea with the Headmaster (Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore, the pair have tea)

This Grief Feeling (Hermione Granger and Severus Snape after the end)

After Innocence (The trio after the end)

Of Great Turmoil and Excess Stupidity (Sesshomaru and Hagrid, Inuyasha crossover, Hagrid decides to capture a demon for class)

What’s Left of Hope (Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore, on preserving hope)

In His Keep (Severus Snape and Luna Lovegood, Snape informs Luna her father has died)

Wednesday (Petunia Evans, introspective)

In the Presence of Angels (Moody in WWII)

What He Grows to Be (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Harry Potter raises Tom Riddle in the past and it goes horribly wrong)

Being Cassandra (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Tom, and their strange AU friendship)

The Girl (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, a fem Harry Potter keeps accidentally appearing in Tom’s childhood)

Corruption (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Tom wins AU and female Harry slowly becomes corrupted)

One Night Stand (Tom Riddle/Lily Evans, a wonderful look on the first war, Tom Riddle, Lily Evans, the Order of the Phoenix, and terrorism)

The Voldemort Principle (Severus Snape, turns out Snape was Voldemort the whole time and Harry is a lying liar who lies)

Harry Potter and the mountain of pure diamond (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Harry has become an ageless god who travels worlds and decides to raise Tom Riddle. He’s disturbed when he realizes Tom is more of a person than he is)

A Road Less Travelled By (Harry Potter/Lucius Malfoy, Harry’s a veela, just read it, it’s amazing, I know I sound crazy but it is)

Transformation (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Draco gets eaten by the Forbidden Forest and then Harry gets eaten too)

Rock Bottom (Tom Riddle/Harry Potter, Tom gets trapped being defense professor and has a miserable time)

[forbidding-souda]

Hi!! If its okay could i get Mondo, Sakura, Kazuichi, and Kaito with a short S/O (Think 4'11 to 5'0) who's the SHSL Florist? Bonus ponits if you you give me their reaction to their S/O giving them a large bouquet of flowers as a gift? NB pronouns if that's okay!

Mondo Oowada, Sakura Oogami, Kazuichi Souda, and Kaito Momota with Short SHSL Florist S/O

‘Bonus’! How cute is that :D /pos

Also your taste in men is iconic yes our minds - I DID NOT MEAN TO MAKE THE KAITO ONE TWICE THE SIZE AS THE OTHERS BUT I LOVED THE IDEA

Also also I use the word bumblebee bc once I thought of it I thought it was really cute. Bc get it?? They are small and also flowers yeah <3

Do I get ten points now? =D

-Mod Souda

Mondo Oowada

He thinks you are like a little bumblebee.

So nice and small! Adorable.

Short jokes all the time.

He definitely thinks flowers are a little lame.

But is definitely impressed by your knowledge of them!

So when you pile together a purple toned bouquet, you’re honestly a little curious on how he would react.

Or if he would even react at all. Does he know to put them in water? Maybe these should be your flowers too.

The roar of the engine is a comfort noise. So when it abruptly stops outside, you can just feel how the butterflies hatch in your stomach.

So you travel to your almost garden in the guest room, picking up the bouquet. It still looks beautiful. That’s good. Admittedly, you do get quite impatient at times.

Ah, the front door! And his welcoming voice telling you he’s home. How nerve-wracking. Your whole plan has a lot of questionable details, but as long as the response isn’t negative then what’s the harm in showing him your love?

“Mondo!” You call out with a bubbly tone before walking down the hallway searching for where he might be.

Your boyfriend, who you are terribly unimpressed with, lays slumped on the couch, tired from the heat. 

Again, you speak, interrupting his decline into sleep. “I made you these!”

He opens one of his eyes. “You got me flowers?”

A bit of heat crosses your cheeks, and you squeeze them harder. “I thought maybe you would like them.”

“Of course I fucking like ‘em,” he says while sitting up. His think fingers brush against yours when he takes them from you. “These are some cute ass flowers.”

Cute ass flowers. How romantic!

Sakura Oogami

She can give you piggy back sides whenever you want and likes to carry you around.

Definitely lets you put flowers in her hair.

Flowers in her hair sounds so cute I am crying.

A part of her actually is jealous of your talent. She wants to know everything about flower patterns, too.

And so she listens every time you explain things.

You pick together the pinkest flowers you can, trying to make it as aesthetically pleasing as you can rather than focusing on intent.

A few white roses find themselves in the batch, too.

The shop around you is cold. The layers of warm clothes aren’t going to help you when you go outside.

But the flowers always need special things that are not convenient for you.

While you contemplate whether or not you can leave clothes here, the bells attached to the door ring out.

A customer! Or maybe Sakura is here to bring you lunch. 

You pop your tiny head towards the main shop, looking left and right. 

She holds a styrofoam box in her hand, holding god knows what meal. 

Horrible for the environment, by the way, how embarrassing.

“Sakura!” You exclaim. And then it surprises you. You got so excited over something as simple as seeing her.

Even in the way your heart pounds at her soft eyes.

“I brought you a meal,” she says. You dip into the back room, and she follows your lead.

But before she comes through the door, you offer her the flowers, almost shoving them into her face. “Flowers!”

“Flowers... What a thoughtful gift, thank you very much.”

She looks nothing more than flattered. Her face usually sports a content look, often a light flush on her face, so seeing her smiling so wide feels special. 

“Oh,” you snap yourself out of your admiring gaze, “and thank you so much for the food!”

Kazuichi Souda

Kazuichi is definitely the sexiest man alive when he’s working on a car. His jumper will be tied around his waist, his hair slicked back.

He never wears his beanie when he’s working. It’s probably the best thing about him.

I just wanted to get that out of my system.

You like to surprise him whenever he’s working. Even though he doesn’t mind the work, you’re sure he’d have a better time being together with you.

The optimism is definitely appreciated.

Especially when it’s easy to scare him. You’re tiny and he gets over concentration. Just sneaking under the car and grabbing his ankle is your favorite.

But for Valentine Day, you didn’t want to be cruel like that. 

So while puffing your cheeks, you hop on downstairs, carrying a bouquet of different shades of yellow flowers. A few pink ones are thrown in for his hair. 

And so you approach him, trying your best to shrink yourself even shorter.

You don’t even know what he’s doing. What do cars need when they get fixed? A new engine? Something about a gas tank? You have no clue.

But whatever it is, it takes a lot of hard work.

And it’s your job to distract him.

You are almost an arms distance away until, and it scares the shit out of you, he immediately turned around screams as loud as he can.

The flowers run too close to slipping from your fingers. God, that was about to be the worst day of your entire life.

Before anger can crack through your demeanor, the sense of humor the both of you have came back. So you started laughing, placing a weary hand to your chest.

You were laughing because you noticed his hands holding a plastic container of sweets. 

“Ah, you nut head!” You call out. “I got you flowers!”

“Why did you get me something? You were supposed to come and scare me!”

Kaito Momota

You hum underneath your breathe while you pick together the best array of flowers you can. Purples and dark colors, just for him.

The moon shines through the school’s window. With the dorms downstairs, every night has became a game of who is going to catch you this time?

Every night you’ve been sneaking up to the garden, trying to raise these flowers just for this occasion.

For the last few months, all you’ve ever wanted was to be with Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars!

And now is your time to impress him! The flowers are all ready!

You wrap them together in green tape. The trembling of your hands makes the job quite difficult. And then the white ribbon to top it all off, but you have to take a deep breath while wrapping it.

There’s no backing out of this.

The fight to continue raged on while you walk upstairs, going up the many of them. It gives you time to think.

To think about how much you love him.

Horribly sickening how much you love him. His positive outlook on life motivates you all the time. If you ever feel like giving up, you just remind yourself that Kaito Momota wouldn’t want you to!

The door to the roof is unlocked, as you assumed. No - as you knew. You’ve watched him climb up here every day when he first interrupted your gardening. “I’ll be up on the roof whenever you need me, I tend to go every night.”

You never forgot about it.

Pulling open the door comes with a click. A pang of anxiety rings through you. But why? Should you really be sneaking if your intention is for him to notice you?

He lays on his jacket, arms behind his head and one of his feet crossed over his knee. And he pipes up when he sees you.

“Bumblebee! It took you long enough.”

The flowers in your hands don’t even cross his mind until after he stands up. There’s a nervous blankness as your expression. 

When he steps closer, he can even see the way your pupils dilate. “Are these flowers for me?”

It feels as if your words are trapped inside your mouth. He’s actually in front of you, towering, and flattered. So you shove the flowers against his chest.

Your body feels like it’s in front of a fire.

“I grew them for you. And I tried to make it look like space, you know? With all the dark colors.” You whisper. 

He smirks with satisfaction that only he could portray. To say he is proud is an understatement. You have always been obvious about your interest in him. It was just a matter of when you would gain the confidence to make a move. That’s why he invited you to join him on the roof all those months ago.

Still, he looks a bit smug. But that doesn’t last long, as his face falls to contentment as he turns back around. “Come, come.” He beckons.

You follow him up to his jacket, where he places the flowers down. His eyes are cast upwards, at the sky. You follow his gaze.

How can he gaze up for hours? It’s almost unbelievable. 

You sigh. “Can you explain to me - woah!” 

His arms grip onto your thighs as he lifts you up. The lack of struggle terrifies you, in more than being in the air.

“Kaito, what are you doing?” 

“Look up at space! Tell me what colors you see.”

A small noise escapes your lips. You relax a bit, accepting your position while placing your hands on his shoulders.

What colors? There are a lot. Not exactly the purple you thought it was. Maybe a dark blue, light blue, too. 

You haven’t thought about what color space is.

“Blue.” Is the only word you let yourself say.

He lets you down slowly. “Blue is a good answer. I’d like to think space is every color - Eh? Why are you looking at me like that?”

You blink, once... and maybe a dozen more times. “No reason, I just like you.”

[twitchesandstitches]

emergency digestion

(Commission for @heimkoheimkofan of my OC Odina getting vored by thier OC Sariel and my Tia to actually help her out!)

-----

A beach was a fine change of pace from the dangerous places Odina usually saw, but she wasn’t in much of a mood to appreciate it properly.

A beach sprawled about into the distance, as far as the eye could see. There was no horizon, just a faint curve of dim light that grew darker and then brighter in something like an alien imitation of a solar cycle. The sea went on, and subtle awareness of the geometries suggested that it just went on forever, a serene expanse of ocean and tides.

Probably, there were sea creatures there. She thought she’d seen a few of her friends, or teammates, bringing some back from a hunt, on the basis that a beach vacation demanded barbeque. She was in too much pain to notice.

Odina and the rest of the eccentric people she’d gotten stuck with had seen a lot of strange places over the past few years. She’d met a lot of strange people, and some of them were… friends, she supposed. A few were more intimate than that suggested, and she wasn’t comfortable enough with her feelings to acknowledge that directly. She’d been to many places, too, some of them were weird. Others were things she’d remember in twisting nightmares, brief memories scarred into her soul that reminded her of how small and brief she was.

A beach was a pretty nice change of pace. Even if they’d gotten there through a doorway and it had opened into a plane of existence that was a single continuous beachfront. Seemingly going on forever, as far as they could tell. Odina had been to many weird places, that defied all common sense and rationality; a perpetual beach, complete with days and nights despite there being no such thing as stars or a sun here, was a lot less awful than some other places she’d seen.

Odina sat huddled on the beach, looking as terrible as she felt, her squat body curled up like she was trying to compress herself into a living ball. She was a human woman of Algonquinian descent; her features were broad, her skin a deep brown, and her thick hair an earthy tone offset by a streak of red dye. Glasses covered her eyes, dipping slightly as she stared down. her toes wiggling into the sand. Her face twisted with pain, and a subtle sense that there was something horribly wrong with her.

She was not a large woman… at least as far as height was concerned. She was one of those humans whose ancestors had been mutated and bred true. She was one of those known as dwarves; a human’s full mass compressed into a squat form about half the size. She was barely four feet tall, but she was nearly six feet wide, particularly at her massive hips. She was a buxom woman, her huge breasts spilling all over her massive thighs, though her butt was probably the most impressive aspect of herself.

Magical energy, the availability of transformatives across most known worlds, and shape-changing abilities all meant that body types tended to get pretty extreme in the modern day. Odina’s body emphasized hips broad enough to wreck most doorways, her thighs wider across than most men’s whole bodies, but her butt in particular was incredibly huge. It squashed beneath her, apparently as big around as she was, and so soft, yet strong, that it was propping her several feet off the ground, a living couch she carried with her. If she stood up, the top of it would be level with her shoulders, her legs mostly swallowed up in its bulk; as it was, she was sandwiched by it as the two fatty masses swelled around her.

It was also glowing faintly, pulsing with random flows of magic. Each pulse made it grow visibly larger, both cheeks wobbling violently; so much that it was visibly hurting her. She winced, looking more ill as it kept growing.

She hugged herself. A modest top, emblazoned with her favorite crafting/sandbox game’s title, did its best to support breasts swelled to torso-obscuring size by her own particular magical abilities. Odina had the power to nullify magic in all its forms by directly absorbing it into her body, mainly her backside, and grew bigger by turning it into physical mass until she processed that energy.

She was so charged up, so full, that even her breasts were growing. Odina thought, in a bleak and intensely worried way, that his was an extremely bad sign.

Around the beach, others from her group had spread out to have fun or set up a small settlement. There were slime girls and robots, humans and beast-morphs, nagas and centaurs, fauns and angelic entities, and stranger creatures; all of them knew Odina, if only as the short human who yelled at them to focus and stay on task. She didn’t want any of them to see her, and she was a lot better at going unnoticed than might be expected.

Her discomfort and distress had not gone entirely unnoticed, though. There were two people watching her from a distance, debating about the matter.

“She’s sick! I’m sure of it!” This first speaker had a soft, gentle voice with a faint accent that was hard to place, but suggested an islander origin. The speaker was also abundantly female, and a testament to the power of what modding (or self-shaping powers) could accomplish.

Her name was Tiashar; her friends, including Odina, usually called her Tia. No one was quite sure what she was, Tia included. Many of the others around the island now were big people, ranging from human sized to larger; special powers, the luck of genetics, their species, or simply deliberate magical or biological modification allowed them to be as huge as they wanted. Tia was even larger than the biggest of them, freely changing her size as seemed warranted, and she didn’t just tower over her friend here: she would have towered over trucks and cars. Even now, her power deliberately reigned in and her body significantly downsized, she could have been mistaken for a hill, and crouched and almost laying on her enormous breasts, she was at least thirteen feet high.

She gleamed faintly, her thick skin a lustrous shade of pitch black and lubricated, like her body oiled itself up. She was vaguely humanoid in form, but she wasn’t human in the slightest; her skin was like a mix of a frog and a whale’s, and she crouched on two digitigrade legs, with broad three-toed feet like some primordial beast. Behind her, a massive tail curled and lashed about anxiously, various flapping bits smacking heavily against herself. Generally, she looked like some amphibious creature that was, bit by bit, adding in various other traits to herself.

Sensory organs running down her back her to her tail, nubby and resembling a kaiju dinosaur’s dorsal spikes, wobbled as she picked up on mysterious signals. Her neck was very long, almost serpentine, and bent slightly as she slowly raised up her solemn-looking face towards Odina. Massive flaps like huge bunny ears (though covered with the same sensory nubs) fell over her shoulders, and around her head a massive mane of pink tentacles swished about, rather like living hair.

Massive breasts spilled out before her; they were bigger than queen size beds, and likely made up a lot of her body mass; nearly as much as her butt, which rose behind her like a pair of matching hills about the base of her tail. It was an interesting dichotomy; she was definitely inhuman in appearance, but she was spectacularly curvaceous, even matronly.

“I mean, I suppose it makes sense,” said the other speaker. This one was even less human-like than Tia, and that was saying a lot. Her voice was musical; not just in the sense of having a pleasing voice, but with a reverb as though the sounds were made by ethereal instruments all playing in tune together. It also did not appear to be spoken; her voice welled up from around her, and her mouth did not move in any way. She simply willed the worlds in, or sung them in a deeper way.

Her body, coiled in a tense cone with her torso at the center, was vaguely serpentine. She had no legs, but a long curling trunk and tail, gently tapering to a tip, all a faintly luminous substance that appeared to be bluish-purple, shimmering like fire made into something solid. She rested on this, rising up so she was roughly the height of a human, but where it should have met her torso, the rest of her body simply detached from this tail. There was a green sphere, glowing like a small star, and above that, there was something like a human woman’s torso, made of the same substance. Two large breasts (roughly the size of her head; not so grand as Tia’s, or even Odina’s) hung suspended under their own power, and four arms branched off from her shoulders, claw-like digits anxiously wiggling together.

This being’s name was Sariel. She was not… from around there. She called herself an angel, and she certainly looked the part.

Six purple wings, similar to a dragonfly’s but fleshy, hung morosely down her back. And finally her head floated just above her shoulders, detached from her body and with no signs that it was meant to attach, a cloud of something like hair above several pairs of eyes and a human-like mouth.

The two of them watched Odina sadly. They knew she was sick; that she’d gotten sick.

They didn’t even know her powers could do that to her. Odina didn’t like talking about herself much; now both of them were very worried that they didn’t know what was wrong with her, exactly.

They did have theories, though.

“Do you remember that fiend berserker who came out of nowhere?” Sariel asked.

“Yeah,” Tia said, thinking about the size of a massive horned brute charging and screaming bloodthirsty war cries, just as Odina dropped on it’s head.

Everyone, in the magical transformations the mortal universe had experienced, had their own unique abilities. Odina was unexpectedly gifted with a singularly potent ability: she could drain magical energy. It was a simple sounding technique, but as everything was made of magic on some level, it translated into an ‘I win!’ skill if she’d bothered to work at it. As it was, she was well within her power to short-circuit spells, nullify magic-powered attacks sent her way, and in the case of purely mystical entities, absorb them entirely.

Case in point: the berserker had dwindled away, until he was dissipated. Nothing but essence on her butt, to respawn later on.

And she’d started looking queasy around them, Sariel thought.

She added, thoughtfully, “And then those… ghost things that tried to ambush us.”

Tia winced, remembering the wave of howling, grotesque things, bundles of raw emotion and the lust to kill, bound into an undead framework of bones and muscle. Odina had simply extended her absorbing field, and their frameworks had collapsed on the spot, the ghosts sucked right into her backside.

That was how they’d found the portal to the beach; the ghosts had been eying it, perhaps to build a nasty trap there. And then, with the rush to explore somewhere fun for once, Odina had been allowed to quietly suffer in silence.

“...She processes magic, doesn’t she?” Tia asked, giving Sariel a sidelong look. “Like… she gets all stacked for a while, but it dies away eventually. Like a short-term power boost.”

“I think so?” Sariel’s wings flapped like someone making an awkward gesture. “I’ve never seen her have problems, uh. ‘Digesting’, I think?”

“But… I guess it’s not a problem with most forms of magic, but she absorbed a big, strong demon and ghosts,” Tia pointed out.

Sariel’s color faded. Horror drew her face into something crumbled and ill. “And they’re made of evil and, and death, and she just took that into herself!”

Tia blinked. “Ohhh, that makes sense. No wonder she’s feeling ill!”

Sariel flapped around. “We have to do something! We have to get her to a doctor or, or something! We need to rip that bad stuff out of her! Ohhh, please don’t just sit there, we have to do something!”

Tia grabbed her with one massive, flipper-like hand. “Sari! This isn’t the time to panic!”

“This is exactly the time to panic!” Sariel wailed. “Our Odina is in danger!”

Tia gently pushed her face into the sand, muffling her. Briefly, she had considered pile driving her on the basis of it being totally awesome, but decided at the last second that it wasn’t the time for that. “Yelling and running around isn’t going to help! Helping will help! And I have an idea!”

Sariel made a vaguely interrogative mumble. Tia leaned down and whispered to her.

------

Odina was still clutching herself, whimpering faintly in pain, when she felt the sand shake, and a familiar ethereal presence wash over her. It honestly made her feel a little better, a thought so sappy she was instantly revolted at herself for it.

She glanced up, a shadow falling over her. Sariel hovered before her, her four hands grasped in a very prim way that Odina instantly knew was Sariel trying very hard to pretend she was composed. Behind her, so big that she practically was her own crowd, Tiashar loomed. Mostly Odina saw a pair of massive black breasts extending over the immediate skyview like a platform, wobbling faintly even though she was standing still, a sign of her exotic internal structure; she was built like a big mass of jelly, honestly. Curiously, though, she didn’t seem particularly sexual in a way that would normally make Odina uncomfortable or irritable.

Her outfit helped the part. Tia had a tendency to dress either like a mom-type figure with a punky flair, or she wore so little that she technically qualified as nude; she had a poor grasp on social norms, rather than being some kind of exhibitionist. The funny thing was that either way, she didn’t feel particularly sexual. Today, she was fairly primly dressed, with a massive white t-shirt and beach shorts that looked quite sensible. They were rather tight and the neckline was so low it nearly reach her belly, so much cleavage visible that the bottoms of her breasts were nearly on display, but that was down to her body sorely testing any confinements she found.

Tia leaned over. A thick mass of belly pushed over her waistline, while her tail looped overhead, making a sort of perimeter that made the whole scene feel a bit more private, or perhaps intimate. “Hey, hun,” she said, now so low that her massive breasts were pushed into the sand, but she appeared not to notice. “You’re not doing so great.”

Odina glanced above the massive valley of cleavage, unfazed. “I’m fine,” she said, and immediately rolled back into her own swollen backside. Dark flesh rolled around her, swelling and pulsing erratically with light; sharp pain struck out with each pulse, and in its wake, there was a nauseous bile, and a raw feeling like she’d been slashed with hooks, and something was leaking through the wounds.

She groaned, miserably.

Sariel eyed her, wings fluttering in distress. “You are not fine!”

Odina tried to speak, but groaned again, twisting with clear pain and holding onto her body. She flinched as her breasts visibly swelled larger, trying and failing to hold in a pained gasp.

Any kind of physical reaction from Odina was notable. And that kind of growth being painful? Tiashar and Sariel shared another worried look. That wasn’t normal at all.

The mechanics of the way bodies got bigger through power absorbing or the many ways superpowered digestion could empower you, they were not well understood. But it was almost always a pleasant thing; sometimes addictive. But it was never painful. It didn’t make people sound like their guts were being filled with acid.

Sariel fluttered down, her serpentine lower body curling gently around Odina. Though ODina was normally adverse to even friendly touches, needing to be leaned into it, now she leaned desperately against Sariel’s length. Her butt, improbably, was stiff to the touch, as if filled with sharp edges instead of fat.

Something very much like a hand pressed out, as if from somewhere else. Tia recoiled in horror and sudden awareness, and Sariel had to remain very still to repress the urge to pull away from the sudden surge of malice and inhuman ferocity welling up from… well, Odina’s hindquarters.

Her butt was full of evil. It’d be silly if Odina wasn’t whimpering in agony, and the presence of so much nasty energy enough to make her feel nauseous. Tia’s tentacles writhed and slapped against each other anxiously, and from the way her heavy legs shifted, Sariel got the impression that Tia was fighting the urge to simply lash out at what every instinct knew to be a threat.

Tia’s massive, floppy ear-like structures shifted. She’d grown those a while back, apparently just for the aesthetics, without them actually doing anything. Currently she’d adapted them into something like a cat’s whiskers, or the barbels of some fish; organs to form a new sense out of, sampling the etheric energies around her for total sensory awareness. Right now, they curled back as she flinched away, and the little nubs on them glowing erratically as her sensory powers went active… and then dimmed.

“Odina?” Tia said carefully. “Um. Not trying to be an alarmist buuuut…”

“Just say it, fuck!” Odina howled the last word out, a fresh stab of pain making it too hard to bother with the niceties.

“The energies you absorbed are still independent of you, but they’re interfering with your body! They’re spreading their bad energy through you, and it’s poisoning you!”

“Yeah, kinda figured,” Odina groused.

Tia nodded miserably. She was not a very serious person; she tended to speak in random, whimsical nonsense, and she preferred to not take things seriously if at all possible, and so it was a very bad sign when she spoke in a grim tone. “Odina, this is bad, this is really bad. Do you, um. Get it?”

“I think something I ate is disagreeing with me,” Odina managed, with a hint of her usual sarcasm. The skin on her backside, quite visibly with her very small swim trunks, again stretched from inside. There was no actual hand there; nothing there but fat. All the same, something there, a malign intelligence, was imposing itself and magically lashing out, and so her form was distorting around the… infection. “Oh, hey. A literal metaphor. Neat.”

“This isn’t funny!” Sariel yelled, wings flapping about and her hands struck out, finding Odina’s soft shoulders and squeezing. “You absorbed them but you can’t process that kind of magic!”

“They’re… dead, right?” Odina said hopelessly.

“I mena, kind of?” Tia said. She loomed above them both, and her presence was calming. “As dead as they could be. But their essence is still packed full of everything about who they were, and they were almost literally made of evil! I don’t think your body can just dissolve that kind of thing! Sariel and I can do it, but I really don’t think your body is adjusted for just… purifying the evil from demonic or these kinds of undead things!”

Odina’s eyes went wide. Her glasses dropped off. She didn’t even notice. “Oh no… oh noo…”

Sariel swallowed. “We can help.” Odina’s head tilted up sharply. “We can digest things like that. Easy! But… we can let you ‘borrow’ that sort of thing from us. No, I mean. We can digest them for you.”

Odina squirmed, looking uncomfortable and in pain at the same time. “Oh… ohhh…” She knew full well how their abilities worked. “That means you’re gonna have to… to…” She stopped, shutting her eyes tight, face twisting up in an expression best described as like a pear shoved through a grate. It was certainly an embarrassed look.

“Swallow you,” Tia said bluntly. “Yeah.”

Sariel nodded, holding her gently. “We won’t digest you. Just… be close enough so we can use our powers on you, dissolve that stuff right out of you. I can do it for you!”

Tia’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “Uh, hey! That’s not entirely true, this is a team effort-”

Unfortunately, at that moment, Odina’s distress gave her unwanted guests an opening. Her mind had to firm to keep them contained, and she was too worried and upset to do that properly; her body was a prison for what was left of their shattered essences and impulse to damage things, but in that moment, there was enough for one of them to lash out.

Power coiled around her. To the naked eye, it manifested as a faint discoloration of air, as if of the air freezing over and curdling at the same time, with a profoundly unpleasant aura around her, but to the magically perceptive, they might have seen the energy pulsing from her and concentrate into a large spike-like mass. It manifested in real-space, sand pulling around it and condensing into that pointed shape, transmuting into bone and metal as the magic poured their energy to it, and it did so violently, launching right into Tia like a cannon blasting off; it hit and then-

She was gone, flying away over the sea.

“Oh holy shit!” Odina shouted, throwing herself back into her butt, the twin masses around her writhing like a bundle of monsters. She pulled Sariel down, in a tangle of wings and arms. The tension keeping the spike held back by Odina’s will let go and fired; she wasn’t strong enough to keep it back.

Tia was mildly put out as the missile was deflected from her body in mid-air, though. It had rocketed off into Tia’s breast, with so much force that she was sent flying like she’d been punched by artillery. The missile did not damage her, though, sinking a little into her breast and then bouncing off, into the water. But Tia kept flying into the distance, skidding along the surface of the water. Her body twisted and morphed, her powers instinctively trying to find a configuration of the many traits she’d absorbed to something that would get her out of this mess.

By this point, she was already out of sight, and as far as they knew, had just had a giant spike launched into her; they did not get to be so lucky as to see her deflect it with her extreme bustiness. “Tia!” Sariel yelled, unfurling upwards, briefly forgetting about Odina’s own situation. She was reminded as Odina actively howled in pain, and Sariel turned back to her, freezing up as Odina’s backside turned knobbly and hard, dozens of gruesome shapes pushing against its insides.

“I, I don’t know how long I can hold them back!” Odina cried out, into the sand. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

Sariel hesitated. “I don’t know if I can! We need Tia here!”

“Do it now!” Odina screamed.

Sariel made her decision. Odina needed her unique help right here, and right now.

She held Odina’s hands, another pair of hands finding what remained of her hips beneath the swelling butt mass, and she leaned in. Her wings enfolded around her and Odina’s smaller body (at least the bit of it not swelled to the size of a full couch), and then her lips met Odina’s.

The kiss was soft, and those who did not know Odina well would have been shocked at the passion from her as she sank gratefully into it.

Sariel’s jaws widened. Her face shifted form as her mouth opened wide, her throat expanding to fit anything she might gulp down. Slowly, her lips spread over ODina’s face. First the whole of her mouth slipped into Sariel’s own, and her jaws opened more impossibly wide, the kiss going deeper. Odina’s entire face pressed into those lips, and then sank into her mouth, against her tongue.

Gently, Sariel leaned forward, pushing Odina’s head into her mouth, sliding her down into her throat and tongue. She felt Odina’s hair tickle the insides of her throat as Odina’s head, from the top all the way down to her chin, slid into her body.

---

(About a mile away, Tia poked her head out of the water like a very lost softshell turtle. The water churned with her tendrils, and water foamed into a geyser as her massive tail raised up and then smashed down with so much force that it propelled her towards the shore.

Racing like a living speedboat, she REALLY hoped that Sariel wasn’t about to panic, or go off the plan!)

---

Back on the shore, Sariel felt Odina’s body trembling. Waves of pain flowed through Odina to Sariel, and though it hurt to feel, Sariel forced herself to just let that pain pass through her. Without comment, or visible reaction.

Sariel had no throat; at least one in a conventional sense. She had no neck, her head simply floated at a fixed distance from the rest of her body. She formed one now, her head bobbing down and then back up, a slim neck connecting head to body.

Now Odina’s head moved down that throat; the passage was slick and glowing faintly, and where there was light, it was very easy for her to move downwards. It should have been uncomfortable; Odina’s hair was already drenched with saliva, the muscles of Sariel’s throat squeezed so hard on her that Odina’s feet left the ground, and Odina hated personal contact to begin with.

But some people have at least one exception to their ‘never touch me’ rules. Odina visibly relaxed, letting the soft warmth slide down her ears and hair. The sense of wrongness invading her body seemed distant, somehow. The remnants of the monsters she had absorbed snarled their wordless cries of mindless, in the back of her mind, but they were stifled.

Sariel gently lowered herself, pushing downwards. Odina’s head sunk further into her body, her shoulders sliding into her mouth. Odina wiggled, letting Sariel do her work and even grabbed her breasts, compressing them. It wouldn’t work much to make it easier on Sariel, who felt how large they were, pressing against her own stomach. They were bigger than Odina was.

Nevertheless, she did her best. Her jaws gaped even larger, the tops of Odina’s breasts bulging around Sariel’s lips. More spilled down, smacking into the sand, all the way to where Sariel’s serpentine body curled on the ground. Sariel’s lips had a very good grip on Odina’s body, though, and she smooched, or perhaps slurped, very hard, with a magical potency strong enough to overcome physical limits. Reality warped to accommodate her desire, like clay bending beneath a sculptor’s fingers.

Odina’s back slipped entirely into Sariel’s mouth, and her breasts dragged off the ground. Despite their sheer size, or the wriggling as the captive essences fought to make her body fight on her behalf, they were pulled in, Sariel’s mouth too powerful to be defied. Her throat bulged, swelling out with a massive pair of twin spheres that slid down as Odina traveled into her belly, and Sariel sighed with pleasure as Odina’s head settled into her belly, the comforting fullness growing more as her engorged breasts joined her, and then her back falling into position.

Odina was very short, as befit a dwarf-type human, and so her belly and waist were swallowed up all at once. Her hips and butt, though, loomed above Sariel, a daunting and terrible sight. Briefly, doubt crept across her mind: how was she supposed to engulf something as big as that?!

One cheek was close to her mouth, Odina leaning at a slight angle. All Sariel could see was a massive sphere of an enticing dark brown, contours that she knew intimately well… though the rigidity of them was an offense to her, and she felt the hateful attention of the monsters that were concentrated there, and she forced herself to think of Odina’s good. She had to do this.

Sariel inhaled. Odina’s waist slipped down into her, and Sariel’s mouth gaped into a massive ring as that butt came down.

It should have hurt, she thought distantly as the upper curve of them went into her. It was so big; each buttcheek more than twelve feet across and far higher than that, dwarfing her so imposingly. Yet, magic flowed into her body, giving her greater flexibility, and so her body simply expanded around it, growing wider to accommodate it.

Odina’s butt came down. Slowly, grindingly, with horrible slowness, but it was the kind of slowness that was also an inevitability. Soon the brown flesh was passing by her lips, and then a massive distortion in her throat. Sariel wobbled with the weight of it, wavering in place, her Odina-stuffed belly shaking in place, and then she gave one massive gulp-

And then it slipped down, and her belly filled, so violently that it knocked her over, and a huge swell of faint blue filled her vision. Odina’s legs and feet came with the butt, so comparatively tiny that Sariel honestly didn’t notice.

Her stomach squirmed. Odina moved around inside her, getting comfortable as divine fluids washed over her, and at once, Sariel felt the pain retreat from Odina. The demonic essence plaguing her recoiled form it at once, weakened by her digestive powers.

Sariel sighed in relief, and blinked up as a shadow loomed over her.

“Sariel! This wasn’t the plan!”

Sariel’s wings flapped weakly as she tried to shift her position, but it was too hard to move now; she’d expended a lot of power to swallow all of Odina, and just propping herself upright proved difficult. She managed it all the same, and tilted her head upwards to look at Tia, who was panting heavily. The green-feathered gills of Tia’s neck flapped in exhaustion, and she was almost walking on all fours from how tired she was. Her hair tentacles flopped down somewhere around her waist, one or two of them growing crude mouths just to wheeze pathetically.

Tia loomed over her now, even so; her massive breasts wobbled indignantly upon a chubby belly that Sariel was nearly eye-level with. Her legs could support her well enough, but her arms were drooping, almost jointless, and her tail flopped out behind her. “Whoo. Gimme a second…”

Sariel did so. “I, um. Already got Odina.”

Tia gave her belly an indignant hand wave. “I, uh! I noticed!.” She held up a wobbly tentacle; it extended a tiny pseudopod, as if to say ‘give me one second’. She panted and huffed for a while longer. Sariel obliged her.

Finally, Tia got back up, having recovered. “We were supposed to fuse and combine our powers! That’s the best way to fix Odina and pull those nasty monster essences out of her!”

Sariel coughed. “Um. I might have panicked a little bit?”

Tia gestured at her belly, full of Odina. It was an amazingly expressive gesture that conveyed ‘you call THIS just panicking?’

“She was crying! I had to do something! I thought they were about to take over! OR something even worse!”

Tia rolled a shoulder, half-shrugging. “Okay, okay, I understand. But it still takes two of us.” Sariel gave her a dubious look. “You can handle the demon-y guys! You’re an angel, I know. But what about the undead? I got my body adapted to digest them real good and prevent them from poisoning you with their soul-gunk. Do you?”

“Um. That can happen?!”

“Yeah! Their kind of undead is all about spreading rotting essence to poison the physical world! It is literally their thing!”

“Oh…”

Tia patted her on the head. “Not to worry. I did have a back up plan!”

Sariel smiled faintly. “Oh. That’s… good. Are you going to merge with me?”

Tia waved a hand. “Ehhh. From a certain point of view, I guess you could call it that?”

“You’re not going to swallow me, are you?”

Tia looked speculative at this. She put a stubby finger to her mouth and frowned, apparently mulling something over. “Uh. The answer there’s kinda complex, but I’m leaning towards ‘not technically’?”

And with that, Tia took a step forward. Without an explanation, or the slightest hint of propriety, she grabbed her shorts and pulled them down to her knees, completely exposing herself from the waist down.

Sariel squeaked and turned away sharply, blushing terribly. Her imagination reminded her of brief sights that involved very puffy, ample flesh, and little tendrils wiggling coyly.

“Right, this will take a bit!” Tia lowered herself, and it was a physical presence, her immense size growing closer to Sariel. It was not particularly threatening; someone of her size, particularly such a potent predator with a digestion so powerful, should have been fearsome, but being afraid of Tia would have been like being afraid of a plush toy. She was just too soft and pleasant.

She was also… well. Sariel had definitely harbored some kind of feelings for the monster heroine for a while, and this was brushing up against some intense emotions. From the stirrings in her, she suspected Odina had the same feelings.

Though she didn’t look, and thought that would be rather rude, she heard the gentle noises of Tia’s body transforming, the noise of thick fleshy lengths extending themselves.

The air above her went black; Tia’s legs lowered themselves around Sariel. Soft, damp coolness engulfed her, Tia’s thighs easily more than several feet across and big enough to cradle her whole body, and doing that very thing right now.

And, though she couldn’t see it, she felt several long tendrils extend from Tia’s sex; multi-colored and faintly glowing, and they curled around Sariel’s whole body.

“Um. There we go.” Tia murmured to herself as her tendrils went around Sariel’s arms and dipped down, to the base of her Odina-stuffed belly and her snakey lower body, wrapping around and securing her very tightly. The tendrils clasped on, and lifted her, all at once.

“Oh!” Sariel said, realizing what Tia meant to do, and blushed furiously.

Tia hummed softly to her, sing-song, perhaps trying to ease her. She was a good singer; her voice soothed Sariel, the lilting melody a sweet lullaby. Her tendrils were thick and muscular, and very soft despite their considerable strength. Sugary fluids dripped heavily off them, coating Sariel’s body in tingly raindrops that made her feel a bit lightheaded.

Up Sariel, and by extension Odina too, went. Many feet above the ground, past Tia’s knees, over her enormous bed-sized thighs… and then, Sariel felt her head slide into something soft, and now very slick. With a meek cry, she felt powerful muscles take hold of her as the tendrils pulled her into Tia’s body, and then all she saw was darkness.

Sariel’s shoulders were pulled into Tia next, the plump flesh of her sex locked around her and slowly sucking her in, very gently and taking care to not hurt her in any way. Glowing muscles, very much like a throat (given Tia’s mutant body, it was an apt comparison), pulled her up, towards Tia’s core. Sariel’s breasts came next, and then she felt those tendrils pulling her tail up ahead of her belly, and then that too was sucked into her.

Tia adjusted herself, an enormous and heavily distended gut hanging out from between her legs. She panted and made faint keening noises, pleasure pulsing throughout her lower body. Oh… this felt so good. She longed for this sense of fullness, and the sense of another inside her, her massive body protecting them, nourishing them…

Her body swelled, a big distension appearing there. It wasn’t exactly a massive belly, but it looked similar. It was where Sariel’s belly and Odina were pushing against her own body, and it was traveling upwards.

She moaned, face wrinkling in a very silly expression; there was little pride in the face of such pleasure, and a massive tongue drooped out of one side of her mouth as the belly was pulled into her too.

Slowly. Her hips widened, her body adjusted around its guest. Eventually, she gaped to a point that she thought sufficient. Her tendrils retracted, and her inner muscles pulled gently, but firmly.

The belly slid up her legs, and into her. Slowly, the whole massive bulk slipped inside her, wobbling all over with the bulky masses inside it. Tia softly cried out; waves of pleasure crashed hard in her, but she mastered the impulse to be loud. She was trying to be a courteous host! (At least that’s how she thought of this sort of thing.

And her entrance closed, as all of Sariel and Odina were pulled into her.

Tia trilled with happiness. She sat down, and her internal muscles pulled at Sariel, moving her upwards. Tia’s own body was a bit fluid or elastic even normally, and she was used to reshaping it to suit her needs. Or the needs of others, as in the here and now. Currently Sariel was in a sort of internal cavity; a storage section. But that was pushing her upwards, deeper into Tia’s body.

Tia’s belly twitched and swelled faintly. She formed a nice organic room for them inside herself; it was pretty much a womb.

And Sariel saw the inviting darkness around her, with its pulses of neon lights, give way to a sudden open space that she was squeezed to. There was more light there, blues and pinks mainly, and she was pushed into it. From head to toe, and belly too, she and Odina slid up, until they were pushed into it and their entrance there sealing itself.

Sariel felt fluid all about; warm and flush with magical energies, pulsing around them, and with each pulse, raw nutrition and healing energies were infused into her body. It went deeper; into her belly, and into Odina, and she felt something happening there, just as she felt Odina getting even calmer. The pain was gone from her.

Sariel relaxed, and allowed herself to recline in the womb Tia had made, just for them.

Tia’s belly swelled out; she looked pregnant, her belly slung out and with a distinctive projection to her belly too. It didn’t stand out that much, though, thanks to her sheer size. She lay on the ground for a while longer, eyes closed and mouth smiling faintly. She felt so occupied, so full with happy friends that needed her.

The moments went on, and they pulsed with a very particular happiness for her.

Inside her, Sariel curled up peacefully. Her wings framed her body, her arms cradled her belly (which was as close as she could get to holding Odina with more than just her guts), and her tail coiled around her. Tia’s body embraced her, and she slept in restorative fluids.

And the magic of those fluids seeped into her, magnified with both Tia’s own powers and now Sariel’s too. Their combined energy flowed into Odina, bolstering her body’s magical resistance, digestive powers all pooling against the remnants of the things she had absorbed.

Fiends and specters alike were corrosive and an existential terror to someone like Odina; alone, her body couldn’t process energy so based in pure malicious antagonism towards mortal life. They were anathema to her; no wonder she wasn’t able to absorb them fully into her. But Sariel and Tia were adapted to deal with them.

And so, they withered away, these shades and echoes. Their power waned; any influence they had left over Odina was sharply burned away, cornering them and leaving them to their doom. What little remaining of their willpower dissolved over the next few hours, and those hours stretched out into days.

For the moment, though, Tia simply reclined on the beach. Her body trembled with the movements of her passengers.

All three slept in the sunlight. There were no more thoughts of pain, now.

It would take a long time before Odina was fully recovered though. And all three of them thought that staying together, like this, was a very pleasant thought.

[thetoxicgamer]

Explosive Skyrim mod lets you unleash the wrath of the heavens

I’ve seen and tried a lot of the best Skyrim mods in my time, but this has to be one of my favorites. Skyrim has been around for many years now, and the legendary Bethesda game is among the best RPG games, remaining at the pinnacle of the series while we wait on the Elder Scrolls 6 release date. Yet while Skyrim encourages you to look to the stars for your skills, it stops short of actually bringing the very heavens down on your enemies… until now. The Constellation Magic mod for Skyrim comes courtesy of mod creator ‘Kittytail’ and, quite frankly, I can’t get enough of it. The pack includes four spells that draw on the stars themselves, unleashing them on anyone unfortunate enough to challenge your Dragonborn – or, in some cases, just be within a several-mile radius of them. Your introduction to Constellation Magic comes in the form of Novice spell Gravity Diamond, which traps your unfortunate victim in a shimmering gravity prison, rendering them unable to move. From there, things step up to the Expert spells, Stardust and Celestial Rays. Stardust opens a portal above your target’s head, dropping a meteorite from above that impacts to deal damage and stagger them, with Magicka damage also dealt to those of a magical persuasion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkFKl2CY6IQ Celestial Rays opens a similar portal to the heavens, but instead calls down a three-shot blast of pure Magicka from above, like a rapid-fire ion cannon of doom. Kittytail notes that the version seen in the demo video above isn’t doing the correct damage, so expect it to be even more devastating when you bring it to bear against Giants, Trolls, and Falmer alike. Every spell in this collection is spectacular, but the real showpiece of the set is its Master spell, Supernova. The description reads, “Tears a rupture into the Aetherius and brings forth volatile energy of pure devastation.” That might be an understatement. It’s almost worth trying out sight unseen, but if you want to know what you’re in for, Kittytail helpfully provides footage of Supernova in action. Initially, it seems as if nothing has happened, save for a bright flash of cosmic light. Then, as their camera pans upwards, an explosion roars out across the sky, followed by a colossal meteor storm. It’s not exactly the most subtle of tools, but if your goal is to make an enemy of an entire city’s population, there’s probably no more spectacular way to do it. The good news is that none of them are likely to survive the encounter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpyGq2Gbu3Q “Please keep in mind that the Supernova spell has the potential to damage everyone in the loaded cells,” Kittytail helpfully points out, “Townspeople and friendly NPCs from radiant events are likely going to be hit by a stray comet.” You have been warned. If you’re eager to get your hands on this unimaginable power, you can find Kittytail’s Constellation Magic mod here, along with the instructions to install it. Once in-game, the spell tomes will be automatically placed into your lists when you reach the appropriate skill level to use them. Note that they’re aligned with the fire element, and don’t get any benefit from dual casting – not that they need it. Go forth, and unleash the fury of the stars! Once you’ve cleared out the entirety of Solitude, you might be interested in taking a look at the impressive Morrowind remake built in Skyrim. Alternatively, we’ve got more of the best dragon games, along with more great games like Skyrim if you just can’t get enough open-world fantasy RPG action. Read the full article

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #11: EMIYA

Today’s build on Fate and Phantasms is the surprisingly versatile swordsarcher EMIYA! He’s technically not a servant, but he looks polite so we’ll make him a build anyway. We have three goals for this build: you need to be able to throw all kinds of swords everywhere; you need to be able to enter spirit form for fast getaways; and you need to be passable with a bow and arrow. As usual, the build’s spreadsheet can be found here, and there’s a more detailed explanation for everything below the cut!

Race and Background

Emiya is a Human, but he’s not a normal servant, so we’ll take the variant option. This gives him +1 to Dexterity and Intelligence, proficiency in one skill of our choice, grab Survival, since it’s the closest thing the vanilla stat sheet has to cooking, and an extra feat, which will be Spell Sniper. This turns Archer into the Archest, doubling the range on spells with attack rolls, ignoring half and 3/4 cover on those attacks, and giving us a bonus cantrip. Grab Eldritch Blast. It has to use your charisma for the attack roll, but any spell that involves throwing a lot of projectiles around will work for you, as long as you remember to always call them swords. 

Your background is a bit of a pickle. You were an orphan, but not alone, so you’re not an Urchin. You spent plenty of time perfecting your magic, but the most you can do is make swords, so you’re not a sage. In the end I had to throw my hands up and just say you’re a Far Traveler. You get proficiencies in Insight and Perception, and you also get to speak another language (like, say, English).

Stats

As usual, we’re using the standard arrary, but feel free to roll if you want. Just make sure your dex and wisdom are high enough to multiclass later. First, put your highest score into Intelligence. You have info on game mechanics that even we aren’t that clear on, and also you really need this. Next is Dexterity. You’re an archer, so it would be nice if you’re good at it. Follow that up with Charisma, then Wisdom. You’re Chaldea’s #1 mom for a reason, and we just need wisdom to be a 13. Next is Constitution, you’re an archer, so just try not to get hit too much. Finally Strength is your dump stat. Your muscles are impressive, but we needed other stats more.

Class Levels

1. Wizard 1: You may be an archer, but making things with your mind means we need magic and a lot of it. First level wizards gain a spell book and Arcane Recovery, letting you recover a number of spell slots on a short rest with a total level equal to or less than half your wizard level, and they all have to be below level 6. 

You start with three cantrips and six 1st level spells, and can prepare a number of spells each day equal to your int mod and your wizard level (so right now 4). For your cantrips, grab Sword Burst (Swords out of nowhere, nice), Blade Ward (you’re... making swords to block physical attacks coming in?), and True Strike (Taking aim at a long distance target). For spells, grab Catapult (throwing existing swords at people), Ice Knife (Somebody’s had to have made a sword out of ice by now, right?), Jump and Longstrider (anime level movement), Mage Armor (you’ll probably die without it), and Magic Missile (more swords, and these can’t miss!). In case you couldn’t tell, a lot of the work for your kit is going to be more flavor based than anything. If we stuck with only spells that explicitly involved making and throwing swords, we couldn’t get much done. Fortunately, Unlimited Blade Works is well suited for this, as your DM can’t prove that flaming sword you just threw doesn’t exist in UBW.

2. Wizard 2: Second level wizards graduate from their chosen school of magic. Sadly, the School of Swords doesn’t exist (there’s the bladesingers and the bard’s college of swords, but neither of them are really what we’re after), so we’ll have to go with the next best thing, the School of Conjuration. As a conjurer, you become a Conjuration Savant, so copying conjuration spells into your spellbook costs half the time and money. You also learn Minor Conjuration, letting you spend an action to conjure a copy of any nonmagical object you’ve seen that would fit in a 3′ cube. The object is magical, glows, and only lasts for 1 hour or until it takes any damage. You can also only have one object at a time, so you can’t make  Kanshou and Bakuya just yet.

For your spells, grab Expeditious Retreat and Shield for more movement and survivability options. You have Rho Aias bumping around in there, so it tracks.

3. Wizard 3: At third level, grab Cloud of Daggers and Misty Step. The former is an obvious choice, the latter counts as moving really fast, as long as you say “Nothing personnel, kid” afterwards. 

4. Wizard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to beef up your Intelligence. Also grab Message as your cantrip, you’ll be away from the action most of the time and should try to stay in touch with your team. For spells, grab Invisibility to get closer to a true spirit form and Magic Weapon to improve what you can already conjure up.

5. Wizard 5: Grab Shadow Blade (weirdly not conjuration) for more sword-based fun, and also Summon Lesser Demons. The latter lets you summon 2-8 “swords” somewhere within 60′ of you. You don’t actually control these “swords”, so try not to get your teammates caught in the crossfire. The phb says to let your DM decide what gets summoned, but generally if you already have a stat block ready to go they’ll let you choose. I’ve attached stat blocks for some easily-flavored-as-living-swords demons (Dretch and Manes) in the spreadsheet.

6. Wizard 6: You gain Benign Transposition, letting you teleport as an action to any spot within 30′ of you, so long as anything in that spot is willing and small or medium size. You either teleport to that spot, or you and the willing creature swap places. You can only use this ability once per long rest, but it also recharges every time you cast a conjuration spell.

For your spells, grab Nondetection to conceal your presence and Melf’s Minute Meteors (again, weirdly not conjuration) to create and fire several broken phantasms over the course of a couple turns.

7. Wizard 7: Grab Stone Shape to make swords that will actually last, and Conjure Minor Elementals to create more living “swords”. These will listen to you, at least! Like before, you can make 1-8 “swords” that will obey your commands. Like with the demons, I’ve included some likely candidates for you to use in the spreadsheet.

8. Ranger 1: Despite being an Archer, you haven’t had proficiency in a bow and arrow yet, so let’s fix that. We’re using the Class Feature Variants UA for some of this level. As a 1st level ranger, you gain proficiencies with Light and Medium Armor, shields, simple and martial weapons, and one skill from their list. Grab Stealth to make combat an even bigger pain for your enemies. You gain a Favored Enemy, giving you advantage on checks to track and remember information about a group of creatures. As a Counter Guardian, Beasts are a pretty good choice for you to pick. You also become a Deft Explorer, grabbing the Roving option which increases your walking speed by 5′ and gives you a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walk speed. You don’t need to worry about melee combat when you’re faster than everyone else.

9. Ranger 2: You gain another bit of spellcasting as a ranger, but you’ll have to check the multiclassing table to figure out how many spell slots you’ll have. Grab Hail of Thorns (A flurry of shots in that general direction) and Hunter’s Mark (just really, really hating that guy in particular). You also get a fighting style, Archery, which gives you +2 on all attack rolls made with ranged weapons. Sadly, saying every spell you cast is a sword doesn’t count.

10. Wizard 8: Use your Ability Score Improvement to grab the Sharpshooter feat. This lets you fire a bow at long range without disadvantage, ignore half and 3/4 cover, and take a 5 point deficit to your attack roll in exchange for a 10 point bonus on damage. Ideally, your opponent should be somewhere in the next zipcode when you engage them.

For spells, grab Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere for more shield action and Greater Invisibility to get closer to your spirit form.

11. Wizard 9: Grab Conjure Elemental for one big “sword” that will follow your orders. Just try not to lose concentration until next level, or it might start swinging at you. As with the other summoning spells, some good picks for swordifying are in the spreadsheet. Also grab Telekinesis to get finer control when you throw swords around.

12. Wizard 10: You learn Focused Conjuration, making it impossible for you to lose concentration due to damage when focusing on conjuration spells. Grab Green Flame Blade as your cantrip this level. You probably will never use it, but it does have blade in the name so it can’t be all bad. Also grab Creation to make swords that can last a bit longer than the ones made by Minor Conjuration. Also, grab Animate Objects so you can perform Triple Crane Wings from 500′ away.

13. Wizard 11: Grab Sunbeam to make some Swords of Revealing Light that will ruin the day of anything within 60′ of you. Also grab Legend Lore. With this many legendary weapons rattling around inside you, you’ve probably gotten pretty good at figuring them out.

14. Wizard 12: Use your Ability Score Improvement to max out Intelligence, and grab Melf’s Acid Arrow- I mean sword- and Tongues to make sure everyone knows how cool your chant is.

15. Wizard 13: Grab Crown of Stars to put more finesse behind your Swords of Revealing Light, and Etherealness to reach a true spirit form.

16. Wizard 14: You now have Durable Summons. Any creature you make with a conjuration spell starts with 30 extra hit points. Sadly this only really effects your demonic and elemental “swords”. Grab Prismatic Spray to launch eight different elemental swords at once, and Plane Shift to drag your enemies into Unlimited Blade Works if they get too close. You haven’t made Unlimited Blade Works yet, but you’ll get there.

17. Wizard 15: Grab the spells Demiplane to start making your own pocket dimensions filled with swords. Each casting of Demiplane makes a door to a 30′ cube room that can hold anything that can fit in it. Each cast can either make a new room or connect to a room you have already made, or even one made by someone else if you know of it. Also grab Counterspell. You have Rule Breaker in UBW, so chuck one at a wizard if they start getting too uppity.

18. Wizard 16: Use your last Ability Score Improvement to become Resilient in Dexterity. You have plenty of movement options to avoid physical combat, but a fireball is still an issue. Now you have a better shot at surviving a spell or two. Grab Mighty Fortress to relive the Gudaguda days, and Flame Arrows/swords to give your bow attacks a bit more variety.

19. Wizard 17: Grab Wish to win the Holy Grail, and Meteor Swarm to launch some supercharged Broken Phantasms.

20. Wizard 18: For your last level, grab Prismatic Wall and Invulnerability to make some shields worthy of the name Rho Aias. You also gain Spell Mastery, letting you cast a first and second level spell at will for no cost, as long as they’re prepared. I’d suggest picking Shield and Ice Knife so you can use the former constantly and the latter to recharge your teleportation in a pinch, but you can always change them later, so it’s not a huge deal.

Pros: You have a lot of long ranged attack options, with plenty of damage types to pick from. If any enemies do get close to you, you can always teleport away. 

Cons: You have very, very, very low health. If you get surprised or run out of teleportation, a solid crit can be a serious threat to you. Also, you only have ranged attacks, meaning your usefulness is inversely proportional to how far away you can stay from the enemy. Open fields? very powerful. Cramped caves? Much less so. A lot of your spells need concentration too, so you can’t summon too many swords on your enemies at once.

[despairingly-hopeful-imagines]

Hi! Could I possibly get a danganronpa V2 matchup please? I’m a straight female, 5’5, slim/fit build, have medium length auburn hair, and light blue eyes. I’m always trying to make a good first impression when I meet someone. I’m very insecure and struggle to take a compliment. I’m really sensitive and have a big heart so it’s easy to make me cry, whether it’s sad tears or happy tears. I have a good sense of humor and I’m able to keep people entertained with my antics. I’m quite clumsy and accident prone. I love scary movies and exploring paranormal/haunted places. My hobbies include Irish dance, baking, and I do some small acting roles on the side. I like to spend my free time playing games and napping with my cats!

You're so valid! Please never forget that!! I hope you enjoy your matchup!

-Mod Kiibo

Your Danganronpa 2 match is...

.

.

.

.

Gundham Tanaka!

You better have had read his name in his dramatic voice

He gets a good first impression from you which sparks his interest!

He loves how big of a heart you have!

He admires how you can make people laugh

Boy goes soft for you everything you're around and its obvious

He watches over you and makes sure you don't fall or trip

Calls you 'kitten' I don't make the rules

Will investigate the paranormal with you!

Also loves your baking its his favorite thing

Naps with you all the time

He likes to gave you cuddled into his chest in a sweethearts cradle

Very cute

10/10 would approve

Even your cats

[hellfirenacht]

The Convention Fic Chapter 4

Beetlejuice x Reader (Gender Neutral)

First Chapter

Friday (Evening)

It didn’t take long for you to get ready to head to the aquarium. You dug through your suitcase and pulled out the outfit that you had brought specifically for partying in. Though you knew that this was a date and wanted to look nice, the aquarium would allow everyone to wonder around for a few hours before letting those who paid for the After Party into one of the Ballrooms, which Beej was quick to inform you was a 21+ event. 

You were practically bouncing with excitement as you changed and freshened up. The hyena that Beej had given you was sitting on the bed, protecting your phone as it charged. Beej was kicked back on the second bed, watching you with an amused grin.

“You know, you look great no matter what you’re wearing.” he commented, scanning you up and down. “But I gotta admit, if I wasn’t already dead you’d be killing me right now.” 

You gave him a smirk. “Is that rigor mortis, or are you just happy to see me?” 

He laughed, “And here I was worried that you’d be too tired for this.” 

“Normal tired is gone, I’m only left with that kind of 4 AM tired where everything is funny and I’m invincible. But don’t worry- I completely intend to pass out as soon as we’re done.” you affirmed. 

“That’s why you’re my best mod- you’re always ready to party and work.” he replied with a grin. “You ready to go yet, Babes?”

“Yup! Just gotta put my shoes on and I’m good to go!”

You grabbed your beat up tennis shoes, not wanting to risk blisters for the rest of the weekend. As much as you wanted to look good, you also had a job to do for the rest of the con. You swapped out your backpack for a small pouch that rested on your hip and around your waist and shoved your phone, camera battery, key, badge, and money in. 

“Ready!”

Beetlejuice just snickered at you as he pulled himself off the bed and looked you over. “I gotta say Babes, you look stunning for our first date. The fanny pack is really doing it for me.”

You pouted slightly. “Watch it, Bug Boy.” you warned in a playful tone. “Besides have you ever washed that hoodie?”

“Nope!” he said with such pride for a second you were inclined to believe him. 

The playful teasing continued as you made your way out of the building and towards the Aquarium a few blocks over. The sun was just now showing signs of going down, though late in the evening. Beej’s green-tipped hair was an interesting contrast to the warm yellows, reds, and hints of lavender of the setting sun. The air around you was comfortably warm as you crossed the busy street with other nerds who were also on their way to the nights event. The two of you cut through the large park where you had held the meet up the other evening, and Beetlejuice slipped his hand into yours again. 

It was comfortable. Though the two of you had only met in person just the other night, not even 24 hours before, it didn’t feel awkward or strange. Maybe you were closer to him than you had originally thought. All those late nights in the chat, playing games, talking on cam, they suddenly meant so much more now that he was there with you. He was real, and the two of you were close, and now here you were, on a date. A real actual date. A warmth spread over you at the thought. 

The air around the Aquarium was cooler than the air at the park. Perhaps it was the shadow the building cast in the late evening sun, or the slight smell of sea water that tinted the air. The two of you easily slid through security and presented your tickets before entering the building. 

The aquarium was large and tall, split up into five different sections ranging from river fish to freshwater fish, to ocean fish. Together you decided to start at the river fish, and you pulled out the video camera. Though this was a date, both of you agreed that even if you didn’t post the footage, it was still something the two of you wanted to remember together. You couldn’t help but be okay with that, plus seeing him through the lense of the camera as well as in person felt right to you. 

Together the two of you toured through the different sections, looking at fish, getting B-Roll footage of cosplayers and at one point Beej even interviewed a fan that came up and introduced themselves. With each new section brought new fish and creatures for the two of you to point and look at. Beetlejuice was fascinated by all the creatures, which surprised you. 

“I’ve never been able to see fish before.” he stated, which seemed like a strange answer. “I’ve never been to a fish zoo or even the beach before so this is all new to me. You know, I never understood the whole thing with humans being obsessed with other animals but I think I get- oh my god they glow!!” 

Beej grabbed you by the arm and pointed excitedly at the Jellyfish that were glowing against the blacklight of the tank that they were chilling in. Beej’s smile was so wide and his pupils were so large that you his eyes almost looked black. It was clear that this man was going to lose his shit at any fish that had bioluminescence. He was practically shaking with excitement as he pressed his face up against the glass like a little kid. 

You did manage to scoot him out of the way to allow yourself room to get some footage of the tangled mass of jellyfish. You agreed- it was really cool seeing the different fish glowing under blacklight. As you pointed the camera a Beej again, you swore that he was glowing under the light as well- the same green that you saw back in the arcade just the night before. You made a mental note to ask him what kind of hair dye he used but for now, your breath was caught in your throat with how... weirdly beautiful he looked. 

He was still the same Beej that you had seen a million times before on a screen, but there were some things about him that a camera just couldn’t do justice towards. His laugh was louder in person, and right now it felt more honest. Not that you were surprised, you always understood that internet personalities were just that- personalities. You saw what they wanted you to see but with Beej it felt different. Yes, in this time and place it was a more intimate experience being next to him and seeing him in person, but you were starting to realize how genuine and honest he was with his audience. You could feel your heart swell at the thought, not only could he be himself on camera, he could also be himself with you. 

“Oh man I’d stay here all night if I could!” he said, leading you out with a big smile on his face. “Next year we’re staying an extra day and we’re gonna sneak in here at night and scooba dive with the jellyfish.” 

“That’s a terrible idea.” you laughed. “I’m in.” 

He smiled at you, his eyes still shining with excitement. “And that’s why I asked you to be here with me!” 

“Someone’s gotta bail you out of jail when your roommates aren’t around.” you countered. 

The tour ended with the last area- the Ocean fish. It took you a little bit longer to make your way in there, as the two of you stood in front of the exhibit, pointing your camera at the mascot of the aquarium; a large orange fish named Deepo. 

The two of you stood there, laughing hard. Beej has his phone out and was going live as the two of you laughed at the ridiculous looking fish. 

“Disney... Disney please sue something!” Beej begged, zooming in on the wide lifeless eyes of the statue that smiled across time and space. “DEEPO. His name.. Oh God-Satan his name is DEEPO!” 

There were tears streaming down your face as you both pointed and laughed. Around you, some other con goers were also taking pictures, while some were looking at the two of you like you were high or drunk. It didn’t matter, the point is Deepo would either save your soul or destroy it. After cities collapsed, oceans dried up, and humans were eradicated- Deepo would live on as the uncaring God of the New World. 

You really needed to get some real sleep tonight. 

After finally pulling yourselves together, the two of you straightened up and finally the two of you stepped into the large tunnel, finding yourselves surrounded by fish and soft blue lighting. You couldn’t help but let out a small gasp as you looked up, seeing a fish swim over your head. All around you was ocean life- the tunnel was right under a large tank, allowing you to see fish from every angle. 

“Oh wow...” you whispered, looking up. Beej took the camera from your hands and started filming as you took in the view. Fish of all colors, shapes, and sizes were swimming around the two of you, feeling so close even though the glass protecting the tunnel was at least two feet thick. 

“I gotta admit, this is pretty impressive.” you heard Beej from across the tunnel, filming a small school of yellow fish. “I’m glad we- oh holy shit!” his head shot upwards and you followed his line of site and gasps. 

Above the two of you, a whale passed over head, followed by a shark. 

“That’s a shark!” Beej gawked, following the creature with the camera. “Holy crap, that’s a shark! Babes, I want that. I want that shark. I love that shark. I need that shark to live.” 

“Well it’s a good thing you’re dead because it’s staying here.” you replied, eyes still glued to the top of the tunnel, watching the larger fish swim around you. It was absolutely breath-taking. You moved to the side of the tunnel until your legs hit a ledge for you to sit on, keeping an eye on everything around you. You were suddenly okay with the suggestion of just staying here forever with these fish. You had no clue that fish could make you feel this safe or content. 

After a few minutes, you glanced over at Beetlejuice who had the camera pointed at you. How long had he been filming you staring at the fish? You felt a little embarrassed now. 

“Hey, I thought this was your show.” you said, trying not to be embarrassed. 

“It is, and I like to show off things that make me happy.” he said with a wink. “Plus you’re stunning in this light. I can’t be the only one that looks good here.”

The compliment felt warm in your chest compared to the cool air of the aquarium. You wanted to brush it off, or tell him no, or even fire something back at him but instead you said something that surprised yourself. 

“Thank you.” 

You accepted the compliment with grace and a smile. It felt true- between the amazing lighting, the outfit you had chosen, and the feeling of being with Beetlejuice... you felt stunning. Moe than that, with Beej around you felt seen. You felt like all your hard work went both noticed and appreciated. Everything you did for him he thanked you, praised you, told you how much it meant to him. He saw something in you that you hadn’t seen for yourself in a long time. For this moment, you could see yourself the way he saw you- an amazingly capable person, a fun person, a giant fucking nerd, a friend, a crush. 

That was the confidence boost you needed, and you felt secure. You felt safe. You felt like you could do anything you wanted because knowing that someone you looked up to and respected so much could see it in you. You stood up and walked over to him, keeping eye contact the entire time. You reached out and lowered the arm that held his camera knowing that this next moment was for just the two of you. 

Beej got the hint and allowed you to stay in control of the situation, knowing exactly what was going to happen next. You reached out and touched his cheek, feeling the scratchy beard against the palm of your hand. Briefly you wondered how much maintenance it took for him to keep it tinted green like his hair before leaning in and pressing your lips against his. 

His mouth shifted into a smile against yours as his free hand rested on your lower back. The cool skin of his lips combined with the cool air around you caused goosebumps to appear on your arms and the back of your neck. The kiss was short, only a few seconds long, but it was enough. When you pulled back, Beej was grinning hard and you could almost swear that he had hearts in his eyes. The two of you stared at each other like the dopey love-struck idiots that you were for a moment before you took his hand. 

“Come on, Love Bug.” you said. “Let’s keep going.” 

The two of you finally made your way out of the tunnel after getting a few more shots of different fish before making your way into the next room. Again, you were almost rendered speechless as the two of you found yourselves in front of a large tank that stretched from the floor to a very high ceiling. The large tank gave you a perfect view of how large the whales and sharks were compared to the smaller fish. There were whales and stingrays and large bloated looking fish you had never seen before. 

Maybe you would take up Beej on the offer of breaking in to spend the night. 

The two of you found a spot to sit in front of the large glass wall as you stared out into the water. In this moment, no words needed to be said. For once Beetlejuice was enjoying a comfortable silence as the two of you put away the camera and just let yourselves be. His hand found yours, and your head found his shoulder. Together for the next half hour, you rested and just took in the view of the amazing sea creatures swimming around. 

Around you, cosplayers took amazing pictures next to the tank, nerds took selfies with the fish, and the two of you couldn’t help but laugh a bit at one pink-haired cosplayer crying happy drunk tears over one of the large bloated looking fish. (“It’s so ugly!” she cried and laughed. “I love grouper fish! I love him so much he’s so ugly he’s beautiful!”). 

You almost dozed off once or twice as you rested against Beetlejuice. It felt so relaxing being next to him, that you wished that you could just spend the rest of the weekend here. But after a while, he nudged you. 

“You still good to go to the after party?” he asked. “It’s gonna start soon, but if you’re tired I understa-” 

“I’m gonna party!” you yawned and stood up. “Give me a sec to wake up and I’ll be good to go.” 

You took a moment to stretch and get your body to wake up. Turns out at the fish for however long you two were there had left you feeling pretty well rested and happy. Your brain was still a little fried from spending the past few days on little sleep but you could make the the next few hours. 

By the time the two of you made it into the ballroom where the party was being held, the DJ was already blasting music and people were lining up at the two bars set up on each end of the large room. There were two glass walls on different sides of the rooms, much smaller than what you had just been looking at but still large enough to peer in and see it was large enough to fit in a few whales. The tanks were dark at the moment, you assumed to give the animals some rest after a long day of being gawked at, but a few congoers were still camped out by the viewing areas, relaxing with their drink and peering into the darkened tanks. 

The two of you bought some drinks and found an empty standing table to stay at for the moment. There was a large dance floor in the upper right corner of the room, the DJ booth next to it. On the wall they were projecting clips from various animes and also Steven Universe for some reason. That was the only non-anime being shown on the screen, and you wondered who had put the looping montage together. 

Beej chugged down his two drink quickly, itching to get to the dancefloor. “I gotta show these breathers how to really party!” he said. 

You had to admit, you wanted to get on the dance floor as well. The DJ was playing an amazing mix of anime, cartoon openings, group dances, old emo music and songs that would make any nerd get up and dance. 

The music woke you up better than the drink in your hand. Beej politely waited for you to finish it before dragging you to the dance floor. Beej was a beast once he was in the crowd, jumping from group to group and dancing with anyone who would let him close. You couldn’t even be jealous when he found himself in the middle of a group of girls as he began flossing like there was no tomorrow. 

You could have sworn he said he hated flossing before. You wondered if that changed one he actually learned how to do it. 

The crowd started to form into a circle around Beej. People jumped in and out, showing off their moves and having small dance-offs. Everywhere people were cheering and having fun. The DJ changed songs, and a spark ignited inside you- this was a song that you knew very well. A specific song from A Goofy Movie that made every inch of your body suddenly go feral. Beej had his moment in the spotlight but now it was your turn. 

You were about to teach these nerds what it really meant to do the Perfect Cast. 

You waited for the right moment to jump in, your confidence fueled by the slight buzz of alcohol in your system combined with your amazing date with Beej. This was the moment you had been waiting for your entire life, and nothing could fucking stop you. 

The chorus kicked in and you found yourself rushing to the center, looking around at the crowd and starting on the dance that you had learned so long ago. Everyone lost their shit. 

“THEY’RE ACTUALLY DOING IT!”

“WOOO!”

“IT’S THE PERFECT CAST!!!”

“TEACH ME PLEASE!” 

“Oh snap, looks like we got someone who knows their Disney!” a voice said over the speaker and you realized that the DJ was talking about you over the mic. You snapped back into reality with a huge smile and looked over at Beej who couldn’t have been more proud of you. As you jumped back to the side of the circle and let someone else take over you got a few highfives and compliments. 

“Damn Babes, why didn’t you tell me you could dance?” Beej asked, still smiling wide. 

“I forgot!” you laughed. “Oh wow, I haven’t done that in forever. I... I forgot I knew it until I did it!” 

The two of you danced together on and off for the rest of the night, taking breaks to occasionally have another drink or rest. Beej had much more stamina than you, seemingly never needing to rest or take breaks. When you needed a second to catch your breath he’d hover between making sure you were okay and running back to the dance floor. You honestly didn’t mind, you loved seeing him out there, making friends and being the center of attention. 

By the end of the evening, as the party was starting to draw to a close, you found yourself sitting against the viewing glass, tipsy and happily gazing out into dark tank where a few whales swam in circles. The pink-haired girl who you’d seen earlier crying over fish was next to you, seemingly in the same boat. There was an unspoken agreement that this spot was the Quiet Spot. Even though behind you a party raged on, filled with nerds, and lights, and alcohol, this spot was for being drunk and watching fish. This was a pastime you could get used to. 

“There you are!” came a voice from behind you, causing the two of you to jump slightly. You looked up at beej and held your finger to your lips. 

“Shhhh....” you whispered loudly. “You’ll throw off the whales.” okay, maybe you were closer to the side of drunk than tipsy. 

The DJ started playing Don’t Stop Believing and there was a roar of excitement from the crowd behind you as drunk nerds scrambled to the dance floor. A chorus of voices of all kinds filled the air as everyone in the room seemed to sing along to the music that was pulsating through the air. 

“I think I’m having a religious experience.” the pink haired girl said, as she stared continued staring at the whales. 

“Me too.” you said, to Beej’s amusement. “Same time next year?” 

The girl nodded in agreement. “May the whales don’t stop believing.” she said solemnly. 

You stood up, wobbling a bit, but Beej held you steady. “You usually this much of a light weight?” he asked. 

“Strong drinks.” you mumbled with a smile, leaning into him. 

“Alright, I think you’re partied out.” Beej said. “Your fragile human body needs sleep. And probably other things too.” 

“Water... food.” you replied and the two of you made your way out of the building, headed back towards your hotel. The night air felt good against your warmed skin, you didn’t realize how warm the room had gotten with so many people dancing. You were comfortably drunk with a dopey grin on your face as you clung to Beetlejuice. 

“Hey... Beej.... are you my... booooooyfriend?” you asked, looking up at him. 

“I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Babes.” he replied. “Think you can handle dating a demon?” 

“Pffff... you aren’t scaaaary.” you slurred, and laughed at the offended look on Beej’s face. 

“Excuse you, I am the ghost with the most!” he said. “I’m the scariest demon you’ll ever meet!” 

“If you say so, neeeeeeeeerd!” you giggled. 

Beetlejuice managed to drag your drunk ass back up to your room, and helped you use your key card. This time you did not immediately drop your pants (much to Beej’s dismay) but instead went straight to the bathroom to pee, wash your face, and get a glass of water. 

“Beej... Beej I got a secret.” you said as you exited the bathroom. 

“Yeah? What’s that?” 

“I’m a little bit drunk.” you giggled and took a few long gulps of water. 

“No shit?” he smiled at you. 

“Not even a little turd.” he laughed at that. 

“I’m gonna... I’m gonna drink this water so I’m functional tomorrow.” you set the glass down. “OH! Oh! I did... I did something smart!” you were bouncing on your feet. 

“You’re the one that holds all the braincells here, but what did you do specifically?” Beej watched you with an amused grin as you stumbled slightly to the mini-fridge and pulled out a to-go box. “Got more food at Waffle House when we went. Because I’m SMART!” 

The two of you turned on the tv to watch a movie with too many commercials as you ate your cold waffle and drank your glass of water. You soon found yourself resting against his shoulder again. 

“Hey Beej?” you asked. “Where are you staying this weekend anyway?” 

He stiffened slightly at the question. He wasn’t ready to tell you that he was just teleporting between the con and his home hundreds of miles away. 

“I uh, don’t exactly have a room.” he replied, hoping that your drunk brain would let it go. It didn’t. 

“What?” you looked up at him. “Wh-where are you sleeping?” your eyes looked like they were tearing up, oh shit, oh fuck, he did NOT want to make you cry. “Are you sleeping in your car??” 

“Yes!” he blurted out. “I am... sleeping in my car!” 

“No!” you pouted. “No! Bad Beetlejuice!” you stood up with a look that would be angry if it wasn’t coming from a half-drunk breather. “Stupid Beej, dumbass...” you mumbed to yourself and walekd over to the tv, grabbing a small envelope and pulling something out. “Can’t do anything without me, I swear.” you threw a piece of plastic at him and he looked it over. It was an extra key-card. “You’re staying HERE for the rest of the weekend you stupid, dumb... stupid face!” 

When his mom had yelled at him when she was drunk, it was horrifying. He’d retreat into himself and tell himself he was as worthless as she said he was. With you, it was different. Your words sounded angry, but your eyes were full of hurt and concern. You didn’t really think he was stupid, or maybe you did, but either way it wasn’t a feeling of malice towards him. Someone was concerned for him, someone cared, someone wanted him around. 

Who was he to say no to that?

“Alright, alright, if it would make you happy.” he replied with a grin. “But where am I gonna sleep, there’s only one bed!”

You looked at him in confusion, glancing between the two beds in the room. You were drunk but you weren’t stupid. At least, you didn’t think so. 

“Beej there’s another bed right there...?” you questioned yourself. Was there one bed or two? 

Beej stood up and grabbed a hold of your suitcase that was laying on the floor in the corner of the room. He walked over to the second bed and sloppily dumped out the contents onto the spare bed. 

“I dunno what you’re talking about, all I see is this large pile of clothes!” he smirked. “I don’t know about you but in my experience humans don’t usually sleep on piles of laundry.” 

You smiled and let out a small chuckle. “Oh, silly me. I suppose you’re right. There’s only one bed. One large bed that we could both fit in.”

“I insist that you take the bed and I will sleep on the floor.” he smiled. 

“No no no, you’re the guest, you take the bed.” you said, grabbing his arm and pulling him onto the bed. He pulled back the covered and crawled in. 

“Nah, I think you should take the bed.” he pulled you close against him, allowing you to take in his scent. 

“...Your hoodie smells awful, take it off.” you grumbled, helping him remove the offending piece of clothing. You wondered if he had been correct about not washing it ever. 

You didn’t hear anything after that as sleep overtook you quickly. Beej’s cool body under the warm blankets created the perfect temperature for falling asleep. Beej held you against his chest and turned on the tv low. He didn’t need to sleep, but he would stay until you woke up. Your warmth and weight on him allowing him a feeling that he’d only ever felt in one other place. 

To Beetlejuice, you felt like home.

--------

NOTE: Want to make a cameo in the next chapter? Click here!

[protag-rantaro]

"Confusion and Familiarity" Prologue [PART 3]

Written by the fabulous Mod Tai!

Where should I go next? Hmmm...

He looked around and noticed a big door at the end of the hall. Of course, he immediately walked towards the big door, but the moment he reached out- something held him back.

What is this? A deja vu?

Strange, I feel like I have been here before, but that's impossible, right? 

He overcame his own thoughts and tried opening the door, but it was locked.

Seems like I was wrong after all or…? 

He closed his eyes and stopped walking.

That's really not the time now. I should just move on. Next station are the stairs leading to the basement.

Rantaro headed down the stairs with caution and in the basement he found… a game room? and a new person! 

"Sheesh, what a strange place. Didn't expected a game room when we're trapped in here- hmm, but it seems pretty cool. Compared to prison anyway..." he turned around with a sigh. 

"Hm, I'm Ryoma Hoshi, the men called the Ultimate Tennis pro… no longer exists. I'm nothing more than an empty shell" he stared Rantaro directly into the eyes and he backed up a little. 

"Hey, Ryoma? Are you alright? Is there something you want to talk about?" Rantaro asked and reached out his hand, but Ryoma turned around uninterested. 

"No, it's nothing. It's not like me to talk so much… anyway, I'm warning you, little one- it's dangerous to just walk up to a killer like me" and with that he left and Rantaro was completely confused.

I guess, I should try to find out more about him when I get the chance. He seems very interesting like most I already met.

Now, let's see if I can remember the way to the library, because earlier nobody seemed to be in there, but maybe now someone is…?

Rantaro entered the library and looked around curiously. The library was really packed up with a lot of books and that made Rantaro a little happy. 

He enjoys reading a lot and since they probably won't be able to escape that easily he will have enough time to read a few books in here. While looking around he noticed a girl with long brown hair sitting on the ground.

"Hey, are you alright?" no answer.

"I'm Rantaro Amami and you?" the girl turned around and quietly watched him, before standing up from the ground.

"Maki Harukawa, Ultimate Child Caregiver..." Rantaro waited for her to continue, but nothing came.

Huh? That's all?

Maki seemed to have waited as well since she took a long pause before continuing.

"... surprised? I don't look like someone who would like kids, right? Because I don't. They just come on their own. I'm not good at taking care of them and I'm not friendly either..." she played with her ponytail a little before looking back at Rantaro. 

"But Kids are intuitive! If they like you so much to come on their own... they can probably tell that you're actually a good person, Maki!" Rantaro encouraged her and Maki blushed lightly at that comment.

"It's just…! I grew up in an orphanage and got saddled with helping out a lot, that's all!" she tried explaining and Rantaro kept on smiling, while listening. 

"Don't worry! I'm sure we will get out of here pretty fast!" a blonde girl walked around the corner together with Shuichi, who Rantaro parted ways with earlier.

"What makes you think that a group capable of this would just simply let us walk out of here?" Maki asked, not believing any word the blonde girl said.

"If they won't end this then we will! I know we can do it if we work together!" she placed a hand on her chest and smiled brightly.

Wow, she is hella optimistic and-

His thoughts got interrupted by the brown haired child caregiver.

"You're a naive fool if you think you can end all of this so easily" Maki pointed out and Rantaro nodded silently. She was indeed right about that.

Maki turned around to get the book she had read earlier and walked to another corner of the library.

"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself! I'm Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist!" she smiled gently and they shook hands.

"Rantaro Amami and I know being optimistic can be really helpful, but do you really feel like this is going to end so easily? I mean, I asked the others and all of them can only remember their names and talents and I… I can only remember my name, not even my talent. It's like we all have amnesia or something like that" Rantaro explained and shared his observations with them, but Shuichi cut him off.

"... but that's not normal if everyone here has amnesia-" The detective was getting quieter and quieter by the second and Rantaro put his hands to his hips. 

"Maybe, we're all in a pretty abnormal situation then or something simple like brainwashing or group hypnosis...well, it doesn't matter now, does it?" Kaede took a step back in surprise and stared at him, waiting for him to continue talking.

"Well, I just hope we can get along since we won't go anywhere any time soon... sounds suspicious, but I promise I'm not a bad guy or anything" Rantaro ended his sentence, shrugged and left Shuichi and Kaede behind in the library. He still has to meet a lot of other people.

He stopped at a small gate and it seems like someone was already waiting there for him. They stood up from the bench they were sitting on and walked up to him.

"You wonder "who is this?" Yes, I will make that clear first. My name is Korekiyo Shinguji... I am called the Ultimate Anthropologist. However, please call me Kiyo and for anthropology, would you like a simple explanation?" Kiyo asked politely and Rantaro nodded clearly interested in what Kiyo has to share.

"Anthropology studies costumes, legends, folk tales, songs and much more. For example… certain aspects of birthdays or new year celebrations. It's a study that examines the thought behind culture, faith and costumes… and I believe that human beings are truly beautiful. Every aspect of humanity, even the ugly parts are beautiful- to me, at least" Rantaro listened carefully to Kiyo's little speech. 

He was truly interesting, maybe a little bit weird, but still interesting.

"What beauty will I be able to witness in our current situation, I wonder? Kehehee, people are wonderful!" 

"Wow, you sure are something else, Kiyo! But that's good, I'm sure it will never be boring with you- by the way my name is Rantaro Amami, nice to meet you" they both shook hands and chatted for a little bit, before Rantaro decided to finally step through the door he was curious about the whole time.

He opened it and was immediately greeted by a bright light, a gentle breeze and he slowly opened his eyes to see…

"A cage?" Rantaro said out loud. 

To be honest, not surprising.

I mean, I already knew it's not going to be easy to get out of here…, but giving up is not something I ever want to do.

Rantaro walked around and noticed two people in the back of the field. He quickly rushed over there to introduce himself.

"This cage is nothing compared to the universe!" One of them yelled and the taller one looked down in confusion. 

"Oh, ups! I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Kaito Momota, Luminary of the stars! Even crying children adore the Ultimate Astronaut! How about it? Pretty cool, right? I mean I wasn't in space yet, but I'm the first teenager to ever pass the exam!" The purple haired male posed proud and the taller one clapped.

"Wow, really? Don't you need a college degree to even take the exam?" Rantaro interrupted their conversation and Kaito jumped in front of him with a huge grin.

"Actually yes, I had a friend who got me in there, but I got caught in the end and was like in pretty deep shit, y'know? But they decided they liked me and let me in anyway! Cuz I aced the exam, too" Kaito explained and he was a little speechless by Kaito's confession.

"That was pretty damn reckless, but it's really impressive as well!" Rantaro admitted, but he was so impressed that he almost forgot how this could have ended as well.

"Well, sometimes you have to be reckless to reach your dreams and make them reality! Everyone told me it was impossible, but I never gave up and aced the exam. Limits don't exist unless you set them yourself!" Kaito seemed to be an optimistic person as well… just like Kaede earlier. 

Hmm, that can be a good thing, but it can also turn out very bad… I may have to keep an eye on them if things go the way I think they are, but they are very friendly and nice so far.

"Gonta thinks that sounded very cool!" The other one smiled and  clapped a few more times in his hands. 

Third person? Rantaro looked up confused, but simply accepted it. I'm sure there is a reason for it and I don't know about it yet.

"Hehe, Thanks dude! Now introduce yourself as well!" Kaito showed a thumbs up and 'Gonta' nodded firmly.

"Uhm, Gonta's name is Gonta Gokuhara. Gonta's talent is Ultimate Entomologist. Kid Gonta bigger than other kids. Other kids scared of Gonta...so kid Gonta play alone often. That how Gonta came to like bugs, but then Gonta really focus he end up lost in forest" he explained and both Kaito and Rantaro stared at him.

"But they found you and everything was alright, right?" Kaito asked with wide open eyes. 

"Yeah, but took 10 years though" 

"10 YEARS?" for a second Rantaro had to steady Kaito so that he wouldn't fall backwards right out of his slippers. 

Why the hell is he wearing slippers anyway?

"Don't worry! New family took care of Gonta!" Gonta continued to explain his situation and the other two sighed in relief. 

"I hope they are nice people" Rantaro smiled, but Gonta looked confused.

"Not people, wolves! Cuz of forest family Gonta learned to speak bug and animal and as thanks Gonta wanna show new family what great gentlemen Gonta is" he stated happily and smiled proud.

"W-WOLVES?" and again Rantaro had to catch Kaito so that he wouldn't fall. He sighed defeated.

"That's all you heard? Seriously?" Rantaro turned his head to look Gonta in the eyes. 

"I think your forest family would be very proud of you so just be yourself! By the way you two- I'm Rantaro Amami, nice to meet you!" he pushed Kaito back on his feet, they chatted a bit, but after some time Rantaro had to leave these two behind.

Who is still missing? We're 16 students and-

Rantaro didn't know how, but somehow he found a little waterfall and a girl was curiously watching him.

"Yaahoo!! My name is Angie Yonaga and I'm the Ultimate Artist!" She quickly introduced herself with a very positive attitude.

More optimistic people? Oh well, that's going to be hard to keep track over. At least, they are all really nice, I guess.

"I'm Rantaro Amami, you're pretty cheerful, aren't you?" he asked, not sure how to respond to her positivity.

"Nyahaha!! There's no reason to carry bad thoughts with ya! You gotta live everyday like it's big, cheery and fun… so says Atua!" 

"Wow, it's amazing how positive you are- wait… Atua?" Rantaro tilted his head in confusion and Angie laughed again.

"The god of my island, Atua, is always with me, speaking to me with his divine voice… Atua also makes the art, I only offer my body as his vessel! Do you want to offer something to Atua? Boy's blood is also an acceptable offer!" Angie spoke slowly but clearly and Rantaro laughed loudly. 

That's a nice joke-

please tell me it's a joke…

please?

And then he ran for his life.

Some time passed until Rantaro found the rooms for each person. 

Finally, I'm so exhausted, I need a break… 

The moment he wanted to open the door with his picture above it someone stopped him. 

"I'm sorry, but I haven't introduced myself yet- I'm Kirumi Tojo, the Ultimate Maid. Please let me know if you need any kind of help or service!"

"Nice to meet you, Kirumi! I'm Rantaro Amami! I hope we get along well and you don't have to talk so formal, it's not necessary!" He assured her, but Kirumi didn't seemed to care much. 

"Do you have any plan what to do from now on?" she asked and Rantaro stopped in bis tracks.

"That's a tough question… it's more like what can we do… I guess we have to wait and see what happens, do you have an idea, Kirumi?" he thought hard, but nothing came to his mind. 

"As a maid my only desire is to fulfill the desires for others so please think about what you desire for yourself. No matter tge situation, no matter what happens… I am here to serve everyone" Kirumi gently put her hands together and smiled lightly and Rantaro smiled back at her.

Okay, I get big mom vibes from her… hm, we will see how this will turn out later.

Ding Dong- Bing Bong!