#idk how to link to the specific part of the feed since it’s not an article with a separate url :/

[coffee-at-annies]

From the mouths of babes:

ie get the jars trade rumors out of your mouths they love each other

🐧

[slut4thebroken]

bite me

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Pairing | Jason Todd x vampire!reader

Summary | Jason is an annoying little shit who likes to tease you.

Warnings | Sexual content, 18+, cutting? (barely), blood drinking, oral (male receiving), face fucking, vaginal fingering, hand job, praise, degradation w a sprinkle of humiliation, flirting, kissing, grinding, bad puns.

Words | 4.7 k

Notes | Idk I had a vision one day and this is what came of it. (Also this is part 29373928 of me not being able to find a good gif/pic for Jay 😔)

Ao3 link | <3

Masterlist

You’ve never been an optimist. Ever since you can remember, you’ve had a glass half empty view of the world. There’s no specific reason why, that’s just how you are. Which is why if someone told you you’d be working with crime fighting vigilantes, you would’ve laughed in their face. 

People are bad. That’s what you’ve learned so far in your 40 years of life. People are bad and there’s no saving them. “That doesn’t mean we can’t save the good ones from the bad.” He had said. “What good ones?” You asked, but the more you thought about it, the more you understood what he meant. 

That’s how you found yourself working with the bat. Or more specifically, the bat boys. Mostly Dick and Jason though. 

Mostly Jason. 

You tried not to think too hard about that. When you first met, you just clicked. His energy was a near perfect match for yours. That’s not to say you don’t like the other bat boys… Jason’s just different. He’s Jason.  

“So you like- drink people’s blood? Or…” That was the first thing he said to you. 

“I try not to. But stealing blood bags is a hassle and I love animals too much to do that. I mostly try to hold off for as long as possible so I don’t have to feed as often. That makes me weaker though.” And Bruce couldn't have a weak vigilante underling, so he arranged for you to have a fully stocked fridge of blood bags. You didn’t ask where or how he got them. You can get anything if you have enough money. 

“How old are you?” You didn’t mind his curiosity, it’s a natural reaction. After all, it's not everyday people meet a vampire. But you’ve always hated this question in particular. It’s embarrassing. When people think of vampires they think of 100+ year olds. Not someone who’s literally younger than their parents. 

“40.” 

“How old were you when you turned?” 

“20.” 

Another reason you and Jason click so well is because of shared trauma. Kind of… You both died. His death was a lot worse than yours and at least you came out of it with abilities, rather than enhancements, but it was nice finally knowing someone who gets it. Most people can’t fathom what it would be like to die and come back to life so they don’t understand how bad it can actually be. 

And then there was the flirting. It was less flirting and more just him driving you up the wall to be honest. But either way you loved it. You’d never tell him that though. 

It started with more casual jokes like “Are those fangs or are you just happy to see me” and asking if you wanted to “get a bite to eat.” But obviously, because it’s Jason, the more comfortable you got with each other, the more sexual they became. 

“What kind of sex do vampires like?” He was trying to hide his smirk and you just rolled your eyes, not acknowledging him. “Vein-illa.” You scoffed and his smirk widened. “What, you don’t like it?” 

“No, Jason. I don’t. You’re not funny.” You feigned seriousness but you knew he knew you didn’t mean it. 

Another time, he walked into the living room where you were sitting, sipping on a blood bag and reading a book. He sat down next to you and you could feel his eyes on you. 

“Is it true what they say about lady vampires?” He asked and you raised your brows as you looked at him with a deadpan expression. “That they really know how to suck.” 

Rolling your eyes, you muttered, “Bite me.” Which instantly proved to be a mistake as it gave him another way to tease you. 

“I thought that was your thing?” He smirked and you considered moving your foot to kick him in the head. “Come on, don’t be such a sucker. It’s just a joke.” 

“Jason,” Your voice was eerily calm, “if you say one more vampire pun, I will rip your throat out so you can’t talk anymore.” 

“Not even just one more? To really hit the nail on the coffin.” You slammed your book shut and glared at him as you stood up. 

“Come on, babe. I’m just teasing.” He smirked and you started walking away, but he grabbed your wrist and yanked you backwards, making you fall on top of him with your back pressed to his front. “Don’t be mad. Please?” He said lowly, against your ear, making you shiver. 

“You’re so annoying, you know that?” You mumbled, settling into your position. He let out a low chuckle and moved his hands to run up and down your thighs. 

“Yeah but you love it.” 

“Do I now?” Against your will, your voice was turning breathless because of the prolonged proximity. 

“Oh definitely.” His hands gravitated toward your inner thighs, but he kept up the motions. “Just like you love me. It was love at first bite.” You groaned in annoyance and moved to stand, but his grip on your thighs tightened and he pulled you back onto his lap. 

“Jason,” You warned, trying to sound threatening, “if you don’t let me go, I will rip your throat out.” 

“Why? You don’t like being in my lap?” He teased and you huffed. 

“No.” You gritted, trying to ignore the way you could smell his arousal and how that made you want to grind your ass back against his dick. 

“I think you’re lying, babe.” 

“Stop calling me babe. That’s like the worst pet name you could pick.”  

Only a week later, you were standing in front of the fridge as you chugged a blood bag. You didn’t really need one yesterday, but today you did so much training that you felt like you were going to collapse any second now. 

“I'll let you suck me dry.” You could hear the smirk in his voice as he walked in. 

“Shut up.” You muttered, just barely pulling away long enough to get the words out. He chuckled and moved toward you, making you step back the closer he got. When you hit the counter, he placed both hands on either side of your body, caging you in. 

You finally finished the blood bag and pulled it away from your mouth, wiping the blood that had dripped onto your bottom lip. When you looked up at him, you found his gaze on your lips for only a second before it moved up to your eyes. 

“That’s not very nice, princess. I’m just making a proposal, no need to be so rude.” He said, making you raise your brows. 

“A proposal? To what, suck your dick? Hard pass.” You scoffed and tried to push past him, but his grip was unmoving on the counter. You could move him… technically. But… you’re enjoying the game. 

“That’s exactly what I’m proposing.” He grinned, making you roll your eyes. 

“And why would I do that?” Your confidence never wavered, even as your cheeks started to grow warm. 

“Because you like sucking. It’s not all that different, really.” 

“No?”

“Nope.” 

“What, so anyone who drinks with a straw automatically likes sucking dick? How do you even know I’m not lesbian.” That made him chuckle lowly. 

“Princess, you’re not lesbian.” He condescended

“Fuck off.” You groaned, pushing his chest lightly. He retaliated by moving his body forward until he was completely flush against you. 

“One of these days I’m gonna fuck that attitude right out of you.” He growled and you swallowed thickly as you watched his eyes darken. 

“I’d like to see you try.” You said through a breath. 

“I’m sure I will soon.” He smirked, then just walked away from you. 

“Do you even like the blood bags?” 

“I don’t know how to explain it. They’re not bad… they’re just- it’s like a freshly made pizza versus reheated pizza, you know?” 

“Do you want the fresh stuff?” 

“Obviously,” You laughed dryly, “but the first and only time I did that, I killed them. So it’s not worth it.” You tried not to focus too much on the memory. 

“What if you drank from me?” Your eyes widened as you replayed his words in your head, making sure you heard him right. 

“What? No- did you not hear what I just said?” 

“You won’t kill me.” He scoffed a laugh and you just stared at him. 

“Jason, I’m serious. I can’t control it. And plus, it’s… a lot more- um… erotic, than media makes it out to be.” 

“Even better.” His lips curled into a smirk and you felt your cheeks grow warm. 

“I still can’t control myself.” 

“I think you can. You need to give yourself more credit. What were the circumstances of the last time you drank from someone?” 

“It was a few hours after I… woke up, so to speak.” 

“That’s completely different. You were starving and barely even knew what was happening. You had a blood bag yesterday and have spent 20 years controlling yourself. Here, I’ll prove it.” 

“What?” Before you even finished asking, he was taking a small knife out of his pants. “What are you doing?” You asked nervously, watching as the knife flipped open and he presented his arm. 

“Relax, babe.” He brought the blade down to his arm and you stiffened. 

“Jason, don’t-“ You cut yourself off with a sharp breath when the scent immediately engulfed you. He removed the knife and you watched a drop of red trail down his arm. 

You could feel yourself turning- your eyes changing color and fangs coming out. You squeezed your eyes shut and dug your nails into the palms of your hands. 

“Jason…” Your voice was a strained whisper, then you felt his thumb on your lips. Your eyes snapped open as your chest heaved at the scent of his blood right in front of your face. 

“It’s okay.” He said quietly, his gaze moving between your eyes and mouth. You couldn’t help it anymore when your lips closed around the digit. Letting out a low groan, your eyes fluttered shut as you sucked his thumb into your mouth more, careful to avoid your fangs. 

“How’re you feeling?” His voice broke you from your haze and he removed his thumb, making you whimper. 

“More.” You whined, reaching for his arm. He let you take it and watched as your mouth closed around the small cut. 

You’d forgotten what fresh blood tastes like. It’s like a cold glass of water when you wake up in the middle of the night. Or a dessert that’s so good, it makes it feel like your mouth it’s having an orgasm. 

Your grip on his arm tightened considerably and distantly you heard him wince but he didn’t pull away. The cut was small enough that the amount of blood you got was basically like a shot. And you wanted a full glass. 

Your fangs grazed his skin as you panted, getting ready for more. But before you could bite, his free hand grabbed a fistful of hair and he roughly pulled your head away. You whined and sat up on your knees as you tried moving his arm to your mouth but he just tightened his grip and pulled your head back until you were almost looking at the ceiling. 

“Please.” If you weren’t so blood drunk, you would've been embarrassed about how whiny your voice sounds. He said your name in a warning and you finally looked at his eyes. The color was almost completely gone because of how dilated his pupils were. 

“Don’t be greedy.” The way he reprimanded you was infantilizing. But god if it didn’t make you even needier. 

“I need more.” You whimpered. Your mouth was still watering as you panted, desperate to get your mouth back on him. “Please, Jay. You taste so good, please I- I need more.” 

“What did I just say?” You let out a choked sob as your hunger rivaled your need for his praise and approval. 

“I- I promise I won’t take too much. Just- I just… please.” You cried, practically on top of him now. He removed his hand from your hair and helped you settle on his lap, then placed it on your neck. Your head felt even lighter as he tightened his grip and you couldn’t deny that not only were you drunk on blood but you were drunk on him too. 

“Baby… Look at you. So fucking desperate for just a drop. I bet you’d do anything for it, wouldn’t you?” He cooed, the condescending tone flying right over your head. You nodded eagerly and he let out a low chuckle.  

“You poor thing. If only there was something I wanted in return…” He pretended to think and you whined once you caught on to what he meant. 

“I’ll- I’ll do it.”

“Don’t just say that because you want more blood.” 

“No I- I want to. I have wanted to.” His smirk returned. 

“Yeah? You were just playing hard to get, is that it?” You hummed in agreement and nodded. 

“God I want to so bad.” You groaned. “I can- I can smell you and it’s making me so fucking wet.” 

“The smell of my blood makes you wet?” He was teasing you, but there was still a hint of surprise in his voice. 

“No- no… I can smell how-“ You let out an embarrassed whine and closed your eyes. 

“Tell me, baby.” 

“I can smell how turned on you are. And it’s driving me fucking crazy— I can barely think.” He stiffened and you opened your eyes to find him looking at you in shock with pink cheeks. 

“Have you always been able to smell that?” He asked quietly and you bit your lip as you nodded. 

“It always smells so fucking good. You smell good normally but that just— god I think it’s my favorite scent.” You don’t know why you’re saying all of this. You’d normally be too shy, but something is just making you want to confess everything to him. 

“That’s so fucking hot.” He groaned, closing his eyes and throwing his head back. The sight of his neck bared to you made your hips buck forward into his as your mouth watered and your mind went blank. He opened his eyes to find your gaze on his neck and you watched as he swallowed thickly. You could practically hear the blood rushing through his veins. 

“You look like you want to eat me.” He chuckled nervously. 

“I do.” You whispered, bringing your hand up to drag a finger over his pulse. His breathing grew heavier the longer he watched you. When you subconsciously started leaning toward him, his hand tightened on your neck and he pushed you back a little. 

You could overpower him. You know you could. Sure he’s a far better fighter than you, but you’re ten times stronger than he is. When you looked into his eyes though, all fight just evaporated from your body. The only thing you wanted was him. In any form you could have him. 

You slowly started moving your hips, grinding your cunt on his length over the far too many layers of clothing. He let out a low groan and took his bottom lip between his teeth as he eyed you. 

“What do you wanna suck first?” He gruffed, bringing both hands to your hips to guide your movements. 

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to get rid of the fangs in my current state to be honest.” You said through a breath, placing your hands on his shoulders and grinding harder against him as you grew more desperate. “It might be better to do that last anyway cause I wasn’t lying when I said blood drinking is more erotic than what everyone thinks.” 

“Okay, princess. Have at it.” He leaned his head back on the couch, baring his throat to you.

“You have to stop me though. I don’t want to take too much.” Despite your desperation, you were still terrified of killing him. He agreed and you slowly moved forward. The closer you got, the stronger the scent became. When your nose brushed the delicate skin, you inhaled deeply and closed your eyes. His grip tightened on your hips and his already fast heart rate increased slightly. 

“Your heart’s beating really fast.” You whispered, trying to hold off at least until he replied. 

“That’s kind of what happens when I have a hot girl on my lap breathing against my neck.” He chuckled breathlessly, but abruptly cut off with a sharp inhale when your fangs brushed his throat. 

Your patience finally ran out and you tried to be as gentle as possible when you bit him, but the second the blood rushed into your mouth, all thoughts of that disappeared. You felt the vibrations against your lips as he let out a deep moan when your teeth pierced his skin. You started sucking now and his grip turned bruising on your hips, but after only a second or two, he thrusted up, meeting your movements halfway. 

You whimpered at the constant grinding of his bulge against your clit and the taste of him. God you wanted to taste him forever. 

“Fuck…” He said through a moan. You snaked a hand up to his hair and gripped it tightly, holding him against your mouth- not that he was trying to move away. 

“God- I feel like I’m about to come.” He whined. By now, he was basically using your body to get himself off, you weren’t moving your hips on your own at all anymore. You moaned in acknowledgement but never removed your mouth, wanting to get as much as he’d let you have. 

“Fuck- princess, I’m gonna come if you don’t stop.” While a distant part of you wanted him to come in your mouth instead, you couldn’t bring yourself to stop. Unfortunately, he made that choice for you. He grabbed your hair again and pulled you away from him, making you whine loudly. 

“As hot as this is, I’d rather come in your mouth.” He rasped, trying to catch his breath. You nodded absentmindedly, but never removed your gaze from his neck. The sight of a drop of blood trailing down had you moving forward before he could stop you. You licked a stripe up his neck, doing your best to control yourself and not dive back in for more. When you reluctantly pulled back again, he gave you a proud smile, making your stomach flutter. 

“Think you can get rid of ‘em now?” You nodded and closed your eyes, trying to focus. It took a moment, but once you started focusing on the scent of his arousal rather than his blood, it was pretty easy. Opening your eyes, you gave him a small smile and he pulled you closer, pressing his lips to yours. You gasped but quickly recovered and kissed him back, melting into him and pulling on his hair, trailing your other hand up to rest on his shoulder. His kiss was bruising, but you loved it all the same. When he pulled back, he pressed his forehead against yours, both of your breaths fanning across the other’s face. 

“Why the fuck does that feel so good?” He finally asked, both of you releasing breathy laughs. 

“I have no clue but I’m glad it does.” You pulled back a few inches so you could look at him. “Now if you don’t mind, I believe you promised me something else to suck on.” You smirked and he raised his brows. 

“Wow, a little blood straight from the source and now you’re eager for it, huh? I’ll keep that in mind.” He smirked, making your cheeks heat up. “How ‘bout you show me just how eager you are?” You looked at him with furrowed brows, trying to understand what he meant, even though you were pretty sure you already knew. “Go on, baby. Beg for it.” Your entire face and neck flushed at that. 

“You’re pushing your luck.” You narrowed your eyes, playfully. 

“See, I don’t think I am.” He raised his brows again, as if he was waiting for a protest that you both knew would never come. “Go ahead, then I’ll give you what you want.” You bit your lip, your pride and neediness waging a war inside you.  

“Please.” You muttered, bored. 

“Not convinced.” He shrugged, making you glare at him. 

“You’re the one who wanted me to do this in the first place!” 

“Really? Because I remember you saying you’re the one who “wants it” and “has wanted it.’” He smirked and you clenched your jaw with a huff. 

“Please can I suck you off.” You tried to put a little more emotion into it. 

“Suck what?” You let out an annoyed groan and rolled your eyes.  

“Your cock. I wanna suck your cock… please.” You mumbled, not being able to meet his gaze. 

“There we go,” He cooed mockingly, “that wasn’t so hard was it?” You scowled, making him chuckle. Sliding off of him, you landed on your knees between his legs. You eyed his bulge and bit your lip, not being able to control your thighs squeezing together. He placed his hands behind his head and settled into the couch with a smirk. 

“Keep looking at me like that and I’ll bite it.” You growled, making his smirk widen. 

“Just admiring the view.” Ignoring him, you reached up to undo his pants, then tentatively freed his cock. He really did look like he was about to come any second now. The tip was so red it almost looked painful and you watched as it twitched in your grip, desperate for more stimulation. 

Slowly leaning down, you licked the bead of precum on the top as you looked up at him through your lashes, making him let out a low groan. 

“Fuck my face.” You whispered, breath fanning his cock. 

“Fuck- are you sure?” Even though you didn’t answer yet, his hand was still making its way to your hair, running his fingers through it before gripping lightly. 

“Yes.” He didn’t need any more convincing. Wrapping your lips around the head of his cock, you swirled your tongue around it as you waited for him to start. He all but whimpered as he slowly pushed you down his length, not stopping until your lips reached the base. You watched his chest heave as he moved his other hand to join the one already in your hair. He adjusted his grip, then started moving you up and down his length. 

When he threw his head back with a low moan, you eyed the remaining blood that was starting to drip down his neck. Even though you wanted nothing more than to taste him again, you had to force your thoughts elsewhere before your fangs reappeared. 

He started moving your head faster now, still pushing you all the way down, despite your light gagging and choking. It wasn’t long before he was holding your head still and thrusting up into your mouth, bucking his hips wildly as he chased his orgasm. 

“Shit- I’m not gonna last,” He said through a moan, only thrusting a few more times before pushing your head all the way down and holding you there. You felt hot come hitting the back of your throat and you let out a garbled moan, making him whimper. 

Fucking whimper. 

That made you push a hand down your underwear and start rubbing fast circles on your clit. Which he seemed to appreciate, since it made you moan around his length again. His sounds died down until he sagged into the couch, chest heaving. His grip on your hair relaxed and you slowly pulled off of him, making sure to swallow any remaining come that didn’t immediately make its way down your throat. 

“Jay,” You whined, voice raspy and needy. He opened his eyes and looked down at you, then trailed his gaze down your body. Even though him watching was making you nervous, you couldn’t stop touching yourself. “Please.” 

“What are you begging for, princess?” He gave you a sleepy smile and stroked your hair gently. 

“Wanna come.” You whimpered, leaning into his touch. 

“Yeah?” All you could do was nod. “You poor thing.” He cooed, cupping your cheek before pulling you up to straddle his legs. His hands rubbed up and down your thighs teasingly, making you whine. 

“Please.” You gave him your best puppy dog eyes and it wasn’t long before he folded. He brought his hand to the apex of your thighs and lightly brushed his fingers over your clothed heat. Your breath hitched as your hips bucked into his touch and you were about to tell him to hurry up but his hand was already making its way inside your pants and underwear. When he ran two fingers through your dripping folds, he cursed under his breath. 

“Sucking my cock did this?” He asked breathlessly. All you could do was whine and nod. “Or was it sucking my blood…” His fingers just barely brushed over your hole and your clit, teasing you. 

“Both.” You whined, hips squirming. “Jay, c’mon.” Before you could even finish those two words, he was inserting a finger. You choked on a gasp and brought your hands up to hold on to his shoulders. He moved it fast inside you as the heel of his hand stimulated your clit and you could already feel yourself nearing your orgasm. 

You squeezed your eyes shut, head falling forward as you panted and moaned. When you opened your eyes, you were met with the sight of his cock, still wet from your mouth, getting hard again. So you moved your hand down and grasped it, immediately stroking to bring him back to full hardness.  

“Shit— fuck, princess… Sensitive,” He gasped out, hips bucking up into your hand despite his words. You raised your head to look at his face and almost moaned at his expression. His brows were furrowed, mouth open in a silent moan, eyes dark and half lidded. 

“I wanna come…” You whispered, biting your bottom lip and stroking his cock faster. When he pushed a second finger inside, you whimpered, grinding down on his hand. 

“I bet you do.” He said, trying and failing to hide the smirk growing on his lips. 

“Jay,” you whined, almost obnoxiously, “please.” 

“I dunno… doesn’t really seem like you want it that bad.” He shrugged, fingers picking up the pace. 

“I do! Please let me come, I need it.” He let out a low chuckle and raised his brows. 

“You need it, huh?” You replied with a whimper and a nod. “Okay, princess. Since you need it so bad, go ahead.” He smirked. You all but breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Thank you.” You whispered, closing your eyes to ready yourself. 

“Look at me.” Your eyes opened, wondering why he was prolonging it. “Good girl. I want you to keep your eyes on me as you come, understand?” You clenched around his fingers at the praise and agreed. You did your best to focus on stroking his cock so he could maybe come with you, but as you neared the edge, it became increasingly more difficult. Your eyes flickered between his face and his cock, and when you saw the precum beading at the tip, you dragged your thumb over it and lifted it to your mouth, moaning at the taste. He cursed under his breath and moved his fingers even faster inside you. 

When you finally fell over the edge, you squeezed your eyes shut, but quickly opened them again when you remembered his words. His fingers never even faltered as your walls fluttered around them. When you started unconsciously humping his hand to get the most of your orgasm, you felt his cock twitch in your hand and you looked down, finding spurts of come shooting out, landing on his shirt and your hand. You whimpered at the sound of his moans, feeling your fading arousal start to return. 

When his fingers slowed to a stop, you did the same with your hand, then let go of his softening length. You winced when he slid his fingers out, but your lips parted when he sucked your arousal off of them, letting out an exaggerated moan at the taste. 

“Stop being a tease.” You frowned, making him smirk.

“You love it.” 

You just rolled your eyes, biting your lip to hide your smile. 

[fabdante]

I know it probably wasn't a thing when the reboot was being made/came out, but the Qliphoth from DMC5 feels like it's something that could/should exist in a Mundus controlled Human Realm. I'm not sure how exactly it could be a thing, tho, without it being blatantly obvious, cause like. Its a big fucking demon tree that turns people into Qliphoth pollen by impaling them on spikes and gathers human blood, sometimes by sending out demonic insects to do the gathering for it. Maybe it only exists in Limbo? I know Mundus harvesting human's energy was kinda vague in the reboot, so maybe the Qliphoth could be how? Or something similar, maybe based only in Limbo, maybe using the Qliphoth as a model?

Idk. Fun to think about.

The only snag is that the Qliphoth only takes like, A MONTH, at most, to produce its super awesome demon power up fruit, all for the relatively low price of a few cities worth of people. Given how much influence Mundus has in the reboot, that feels like it'd be an easy thing for him to do. Maybe it'd take longer than a month, but not much longer, especially if Mundus is there to harvest the fruit himself. Especially since, iirc, the humans don't even have to be ALIVE for their blood to "count" as food/fuel for the Qliphoth fruit. Mundus could just feed the Qliphoth human bodies straight from the morgue/funerals, or from people that donated their bodies to science, and it would still work just fine.

Given how easy it'd (probably) be for Mundus to harvest human blood, it feels like he should be more powerful than we see him be in the reboot? I mean, given that eating the Qliphoth fruit ONCE was enough to give preboot Mundus the power to rule over the Underworld.

Best excuse/explanation I can think of is that either reboot Eva and reboot Sparda destroyed whatever Qliphoth seeds Mundus (or whoever) had before Mundus had a chance to use them again. Or that whatever weird reality bending shit Mundus did to create Limbo, link himself/his power to the Hellgate, and keep the Hellgate open for as long as he did, did something to how well the Qliphoth could grow in the Human Realm, and Mundus just figured the trade off was worth it.

I do think the 5 concept of the like, demon power fruit, really could easily be adapted into the reboot if someone wanted!

If keeping the lore as we have it in 5, I do agree it'd be really easy for Mundus to create the Qliphoth tree and everything. And like you say, the easiest answer to why, if it existed in the reboot at all, it doesn't exist would be that it was somehow destroyed before it even starts. If one wants to keep the lore as close to 5 as possible.

I do like the idea of Eva and Sparda being part of destroying it as I like to headcanon that they've been on a long quest to destroy all the hellgates and unseat Mundus (my reasoning for this is how Vergil talks about the hellgates make it seem like there had been more and now there aren't and the fact reboot Yamato seems specifically made to destroy hellgates and the fact that it isn't featured on Sparda's crest despite being his sword, implying it's newer then Rebellion and just like....idk what else would Eva and Sparda have been doing for all those years before getting caught by Mundus?). If their ultimate goal is to get rid of Mundus, getting rid of the hellgates is essentially to weaken him and keep him in one place so, naturally, they'd want to get rid of anything else that'd possibly make him more powerful.

The other option would be adapting the lore to fit the reboot though I'm not quite sure how one would do that? Perhaps instead of the Qliphoth being something made, it's something found and no one quite knows where it and it's fruit are.

[archaictunic]

i know it'll be hard to go back to botw after totk, after how MUCH BETTER- strictly through gameplay- totk was. but like. i really want to purchase botw eventually, and maybe finally finish it myself. i've seen the ending of the game dozens of times through other means. but idk. there's something about totk and botw that's so... uniquely special to each person who plays.

i've been watching alongside plenty of streamers and youtubers with totk, because honestly, i think that its a great game to be able to "spend time" with someone else during? saker and i parallel play all the time, both laying in bed next to each other having our own unique adventures in hyrule. today he was telling me about a merchant he's met and befriended to the point that merchant will STOP DRIVING HIS CART if saker hops off to go grab something, then resume when he gets back on!! why is that programed into the game!!! i don't even know if i've met that merchant specifically- i mostly see xyle, but saker was talking about eryck !! granted, we may have just been on different parts of the map at the time.

but its still so interesting, how different the experiences with this game can be? i cried about the tears of the dragon questline. i've listened to another streamer cry about it. i've watched so many people geek out about the new mechanics. no two people follow the quests the same. i think that also feeds into why, with link specifically, he's one of the few muses i've ever had where there's been no hint of anxiety towards duplicate muses. another wilds link will not be my wilds link. it's honestly really refreshing. it's been years since i felt so attached to a muse, and even longer since i felt so uniquely about my own that i didn't mind interacting with others. idk. totk and this blog, albeit with my lack of ic due to Life Events, have been so helpful and happy for me.

thanks for sticking around with me / my portrayal thus far everyone ♥ thank you for enjoying my headcanons, my writing, my art, my silly clip of breaking a phantom ganon. just. thank you for letting me have a good time here.

[thegmdfangirl14]

my dumb ass trying to read the messages:

Also holy crap, I can’t exactly read all of the stuff on the screen (of the desk tablet thing), but the stuff I can make out is VERY interesting to say the least! (Also, Foreshadowing? Color me intrigued.....)

And since I have WAY too much time on my hands, I’m doing the reading of the messages for everyone, so people can see at least most of the stuff here!

And yes, I am a giant nerd. Why else would I be doing this on a Monday night instead of anything productive?        

So, here’s a little rough transcript-ish thing of some of the stuff I saw for anyone who doesn’t want to have their face like half an inch away from the screen to see this:

Okay, so first we got the Pacbook messenger (heh, I see what ya did there) messages (I’m approximating for a few words since one or two were hard to see a little):

Tan(?): I WAS THERE IN NORTH PACOPOLIS FOR THIS BATTLE. THOSE DUDES WERE FLYING AND SHOOTING FIRE OUT OF THEIR HANDS LINK ABOVE IS THE CLIP PAC WORLD NEWS HAS ON THEIR WEBSITE AND IT’S CLEARLY EDITED. 

THE EDITED CLIP HAS THEM WITH JETPACKS ON!!! BUT THEY WERE ACTUALLY FLYING!! I’M GONNA LOSE IT ASKSHDNFDNFKN

Green: YOU SURE THAT’S NOT A MANDELA EFFECT THING?

Tan (again): NO! IT WAS A REAL THING. I REMEMBER THEM FLYING. THERE WAS SOME WEIRD MONSTER THINGS WITH THEM TOO. THEY DEFINETLY DID NOT HAVE JETPACKS. THEY WERE FREAKING GHOSTS. 

Pink: HEY @PACSTER256, WOULD YOU SHOW THIS CLIP TO YOUR FREEDOM FIGHTER AUNT AND SEE WHAT SHE SAYS ABOUT IT?

Yellow (Pac): IDK I CAN TRY. SHE’LL PROBABLY JUST BE VAUGE ABOUT IT LIKE SHE ALWAYS IS. SHE GETS WEIRD ABOUT THE WAR. WON’T SAY MUCH. YOU GUYS KNOW HOW IT IS.

(Oh hello, we got some worldbuilding, and some stuff about Pac’s Aunt Spheria that’s probably going to come into play later... And what’s this? Hints of a cover-up? VERY interesting......plus this whole idea of the government feeding the public one narrative about the war in Pacworld when there are citizens who actually experienced the war is tickling a very specific part of my dork brain, but I will save any future nerding/fangirling out for later)

Okay, moving on from the right side of the screen, let’s take a look at the left side of the screen! This is going to be a little rougher compared to the first bit of this, but I’ll do my best all the same!

Okay, first things first, we got some photos of what looks to be President Spheros and wait.....holy crap, is that Sir Cumference??? Looks like we’ve got some (very small) pictures of some characters that are going to be joining this story in the future!

Okay, I’m going to approximate what is being said in the articles, since I can barely make out most of the words on one of them, but I’ll do my best!! 

Article one (my best approximation): Something about Sir Cumference receiving some sort of award for some sort of invention? 

IDK, this is the best that I can do, if anyone can figure out what this says better than me, I will give you a virtual hug, because you have no idea how long I spent trying to make out the title of the article-

Article two (This one’s a bit easier to read for me): PRESIDENT SPHEROS EXPERIENCING ALL TIME HIGH IN APPROVAL RATINGS DURING FOURTH TERM

(Gee, this President Spheros guy seems like a decent guy, it’d be a shame if he was hiding any sort of secrets about what really happened during the war....)      

And let’s not forget about the picture (at the bottom of the screen), with a lineup of yellow ones! We got a standard yellow one, a yellow Pac-person with what looks like a space helmet that looks like the original Pac-man from the game (I think), and we got someone with an Indiana Jones-style hat (like the one Pac’s dad, Zac used to wear)!

Okay, that’s all the stuff that I was able to pick out from this singular panel. Yeah...I really have too much time on my hands, don’t I?

All in all it’s VERY interesting, to say the least, and I can’t wait to see more of this, because holy crap....the level of detail and story stuff on this page is amazing....

You don't have to read the messages so don't stress about it. There's not any heavy-handed foreshadowing in there or anything.

[fatuismooches]

Compilation of Anon Asks (Part 1)

I have a BUNCH of sweet anons in my ask box frequently but I usually don't have the time to answer everyone so in this post I'm just going to be screenshotting the asks and putting my responses underneath. Not every ask is here since it'll get too long but yeah I'll make other parts soon. Kind of long, but may be worth it since I ramble a lot about cute Harbinger stuff and personal hcs so yea :)

As someone who also headcanons Childe to be cuddly af as well, this hurts me to my core😭 Like I just know this man would not give you a break you'd be trying to do literally anything and his arms would be snug around your waist, and he would not let go for anything 💀

As such, you are very correct when you say he'd have a hard time with a nontouchy lover. Childe's pretty disheartened at first. But is there a specific reason you don't like being touched? Maybe he can get you to explain? Maybe you can at least link pinkies with him? He's starving over here. Of course, he would 100% respect your boundaries, but he'd be very sad :( Boy would have to get real creative with his love otherwise he might explode.

♿️🛐 That's what I think. More seriously though, this idea has a lot of cute fluffy potential, thinking about how this would be nice in maybe an olden times AU (pls idk the names) 💓 I'm thinking that they hid their true identity from you for a long time - you looked so fragile and helpless, and lived all alone - perhaps they were eyeing you up because your blood seemed so sweet, more than the average person even.

But even though they have much opportunities to take you, they don't. It seems that they have fallen in love with you somehow, and they can't bear to reveal their true form to you now. Until you somehow stumble upon them dizzy, completely needy for your blood. No matter how much they feasted on others, their throats still burned for your blood. Some would be more resistant and tell you to get away from them now. But all of them in the end, are clinging desperately to your shoulders, begging you for your blood and love otherwise they may go mad. If you accept, well... you'll belong to them forever👀

(Would they turn you into a vampire?? Some of them definitely would I think, like Scaramouche and Dottore who want you to be with them for all eternity. Others would be conflicted over you keeping your precious humanity vs wanting to claim you as theirs.. :()

(I don't know much about vampires other than that I played Ikemen Vampire before so excuse me😭)

PLEASE I love this! At first you have no idea whether Capitano is unamused or unaffected by you cuz all you can see is the pitch darkness of his helmet covering his face so you end up dying a little inside cuz you don't really know how to act now. But little do you know internally he's wondering how it's possible for one person to be so sweet and cute. Poor man doesn't know how to express his feelings in any other way besides unintentionally staring at you menacingly and then patting you awkwardly.

This is fiction, anytime is possible 🛐🛐 He gets embarrassed when his kid makes fun of him for his first meeting with you 😭 (Would he let his kid meet Ei?😭 She would probably feed them sweets behind his back </3 Yae teaches his kid how to be mischievous)

Ngl, Scara as a dad is very interesting :( I feel as though he'd want to give his kid a lot of attention due to how much he suffered from feeling as though he was abandoned by his creator, but at the same time the only person who taught him how to love is reader so he isn't sure how to properly express his feelings to his kid and might end up staying away for a bit :( </3

Scara fic is on the backburner for now, I think I will wait until 3.2/3.3 to finish it, or when I have a long slot of free time💀 But I love my boy sm <33

Your Capitano brainrot always amuses me, I love to see it 😭💓 I can't wait for solid info on him to come out, bc you deserve accurate fanfics with your man

You know, I always wonder how you and other Harbinger lovers survive with such little content on most of them😭 This includes me but are y'all doing ok?

The way you are so right 🥝 anon... Maybe he'd been conditioned for years to keep a poker face and be trained for war and negotiation so he's always like😐😕, a sharp contrast from your wide variety of emotions.

Even with the mask on you can sense sometimes his emotions, it's not too bad when you get to know him because in the presence of others, you know it's just his usual face. But with you it can either be - a weird form of smiling, a downward mouth due to concern for you, or his usual face.

Seeing him watch you without his helmet on for the first time is such an experience😭 He be looking at you and you're a bit scared cuz his face is not very inviting and you question him and he's like ? in his head he thinks that he's looking at you affectionately and you're like THATS UR FACIAL EXPRESSION FOR AFFECTION??

Imagine taking your hands and pulling up his lips to form a smile and his mouth droops immediately lol

[dodo-begone]

Now Listen Here Sad Bitches - Stop Being Sad

Pairing: Yan!Xisuma x Reader (idk if it's rlly yan tbh)

Request: If you’re up to it can I get yandere nHo hcs? Bc I’m desperate for nHo content, But if you don’t know enough about the nHo boys can you do a continuation of your yandere xisuma fic? bc it was really good👀

Word count: 5k words

Warning: Falling, Depression, Death, Yandere (?)(just a bit posessive/protective at the end), Bit of confusion/memory loss, Mention of Running Away

This is a Part 2 to Ugly Fuckling

If this EVER looks funky or glitched, here's a link to it on Ao3.

_______________________________________________________

A methodical ticking echoes around the room, the only indicator that time was passing. The room was nearly a blinding black, yet a ray of moonlight made its way into the room. From that, you were able to see Xisuma. Without his helmet covering his face, he looked much more welcoming and soft. It wasn’t like he wasn’t soft and welcoming anyways, he just looked so much softer and approachable. A real person - man what were you even thinking?

Mentally shaking off that train of thought, you let your mind wander onto a different topic. Since Xisuma stopped you from following through with your impulsive decision to leave, he hadn’t exactly let you out of his sight. A few of your activities were free from his supervision, but otherwise you were with him.

At first you felt like an absolute bother to him, but his insistence that it was all fine made things better. Minimally better, if you were to speak honestly. It didn’t alleviate your feelings at all. He was being so nice and attentive to you and your needs. And what were you doing with that? You were being the little debbie downer that you are and not getting better. Come on, this was all for you. That meant you had to get better for him since he was putting so much effort into making you get better.

He made you all of your favorite foods, cuddled you any time even a tear fell from your eyes, asked about what was worrying or saddening you and trying to talk you through it to feel better, and so much more. All around it was everything you needed, really it was. Everything was getting better, yet you weren’t.

This had been going on for days, and you were still thinking of leaving. Though technically you did. Maybe the entire server moved with you. Maybe that fact could be ignored. Maybe. Everyone gathered up and went to a new server not too long after your most recent “escape” attempt. You weren’t sure if it was the unsaid yearly move to a new season or what, but it seemed a little too convenient if you thought about it. But thinking was a laborious and bothersome task. So no thoughts - only depression. Yea, that’s how things rolled for you.

The thought of leaving was far from leaving your mind. It was always on the backburner, but became a prominent thought whenever you weren’t with anybody. Especially Xisuma. Voices whispered to feed your insecurities, giving a source for your depression to grow off of. And boy was it growing. Adding in this new move made you question a bit more.

You knew you wanted to leave the server because of how icky, disgusting and disappointing you were, but now you were truly realizing where the issue lay. Wel, you knew before, but it just became more evident. It wasn’t the server itself. The issue lay between you and the hermits. So that feeling of not belonging? Still rather prominent. Even with their fresh new start where everyone had the same resources, said “resources” were nonexistent since everyone started with nothing, it was rather evident you still didn’t belong.

Grian was the only one who didn’t build a “starter house” immediately. That made two hermits you knew who didn’t make a starter house. The two hermits being you and Grian, so that made you feel better. Until you found out the reason he didn’t make a house was because he went to defeat the Ender Dragon and get loot from end cities. Yea that really didn’t make you feel better. And these “starter” builds the others made were no joke. They weren’t even starters, in your opinion. These were whole builds in and of themselves. Like things you’d be building late game, if you even got around to making anything that could compare.

Once again, your mind cemented that you were very alien to this group. Alongside the “new fodder” that you had, which was really recycled thoughts, memories, or insecurities, you started to cry. Stifling your sobs without being able to cover your mouth with your hands is a very hard task. All remaining strength you had went into calming your breath and being as silent as possible. You still allowed the tears to continue their route down your cheeks with no intent to stop them. If you only allow tears to flow with no noise, you can get your emotions out while not bothering Xisuma. A win-win.

Time was illusive, slipping through your hands like sand. One moment you were crying next to Xisuma in bed then a blink later you were waking up in an empty bed. The ever annoying sun was flaunting its energy and jovial beams into the room and blinding you with it. Man, how you envied the sun. It was able to get up every day and do its duty. And not even the duty it was exactly made for. One that it conveniently worked with. A necessity to life.

Still, you layed in bed. Too lethargic to move on your own; there was no will or energy to move. Well, there was one reason; you wanted to search for Xisuma. Where could he have gone off to? He wasn’t in the bed. Somewhere else in the house? Out on a project? Who knows. The likelihood of him being gone was high and that, along with the thoughts, kept you in the bed.

The day passed. Maybe you slept. You were still very tired and very sad, so it really made no difference in the end if you did actually sleep sometime that day since nothing changed. Snuggling into the blankets for warmth and comfort, you awaited for Xisuma’s return. Though you don’t remember him saying that he was going anywhere in particular yesterday. Did he? Memories blurred together and multiple days became one mushed memory. Many memories of him mentioning future projects to you or other things came to mind. How recent were those? Mulling over your memories, you tried to pinpoint when they happened based on some other memories. You referred to them as your “time reference memories”... They had a different name, but the name eludes you. But that was their purpose, so that name shall stay.

Soon a plethora of other memories came to mind as you quickly sorted through them. So they obviously didn’t take place in the same time area-frame thingy as when you joined the Hermitcraft server. That was months ago- clearly off the table. Then did they happen around the time you were building the trash on the server? Also a big no- that’s way too early. Oh dear- all the memories that were popping up were far too early. Crap- think. Think, think, think. Come on, more recent. What about when you tried to leave? Well it happened after that, but much closer.

A flash of memories pass behind your eyes yet you can’t decipher all of them. It was obviously some memories and you could faintly see some things, but it was all a blur of colors. You didn’t have the time for this right now. After you figure this out, you could reminisce on them. Now you had to figure out which memory out of the blob you had was most recent-

Staring at the ceiling did nothing to help. No new spark of memories came up, even with your mind scrambling for any scrap it could get its little grubby hands on. Great- now you were stuck going off of his appearance and what the house looked like during those times. Now the dilemma was “which came first”. Almost every memory took place in the house.

Wait! He didn’t have the diamond armor in all of them! Only two of them had diamond armor involved. Specifically on Xisuma. You didn’t have anything on this new server. Well, compared to him or any other hermit, anyways. To say you were behind or “lagging” was an understatement. Having iron armour isn’t really a flex. Especially when it goes missing. Like who just up and loses armor like that? You do, apparently.

That isn’t the point. Stay focused! So he had armor, what did the house look like? Or anything outside the window?

Finally a lightbulb went off in your mind. Of course! He talked about a fire last time. Yes, you were sure of you. Not sure why but you were very sure of that fact. He mentioned that some gravel on a mountain was on fire and he wasn’t sure why. Then he talked about a building in the next memory… Everything was starting to add up! Oh you felt so smart right now. So good.

So what mountain did he say he was going to? It was a villager hall, right? Or was it the future place for a build… No, villager hall because he mentioned villagers and trading. Obviously not another build. But what if it was? Now you were conflicted because you were so sure but at the same time doubt pranced around your mind obnoxiously. Your anxiety was getting ticked off more.

First the disappearance of Xisuma and now your worries are getting to you? Really, it was the opposite order. More of an Oreo, but that wasn’t important.

Taking a deep breath, you try to get your thoughts under control again. Regain you cool. Alright. If you find Xisuma then you can calm everything else down. That was your biggest worry right now. The longer you didn’t know Xisuma’s location and condition, the worse your mental state became. From there, it was obvious how everything would decline.

All you had to do was go to Xisuma. Right. Go to Xisuma. Who is outside. Out of the bed. Debating on whether or not to leave the comforting confines of the blankets or search for Xisuama was definitely something. It was hard but also wasn’t all at the same time. Because yes, staying in bed and being warm would be amazing. The preferred option. But you were worried about the lack of Xisuma’s presence. That took precedence over comfort.

Grumbling, you slowly start to drag yourself out of bed. More accurately rolling out and only turning to properly get out of bed and onto your feet. Same end result really. Slowly, as to not cause a dizzy spell, you get up and walk toward the door. Said dizzy spell still hits you like a baseball gets hit by a bat, but there was an attempt. Black overtakes your vision for a second before everything goes back to normal. Boy you didn’t miss those pounding headaches with dizzy spells. Damn vertigo.

Shaking your head, you steady yourself for the journey to the outside. It was going to be perilous. Well not really, but your mind tried to come up with the worse case scenarios. Like some Dream SMP members coming for you to drag you back. Or pillagers near or at the front door. Or some other nasty mob. Oh the possibilities were nearly endless. But you had to do this.

Hyping yourself up, you mentally prepare for what you could think of. Aka prepare for something bad like pain. To be fair, pain would be better than a Dream SMP member but pain still hurts.

A noise of annoyance leaves your lips as you once again try to get yourself back on track. You hated how easily distracted you got sometimes. Though it did help in some situations. Admitting to that wouldn’t be too helpful in any regard so back to ignoring it you go.

Soon you’re back on track and continuing your journey. The only thing standing between you and the outside world stared at you. The front door. It wouldn’t be for long. All you had to do was open it and then start the other leg of your journey and- wait.

The door greeted your face with a nice hearty slam as you walked right into it. Confusion was just written all over your face. You grabbed the knob, did you not? Taking a step back, you peer down. Low and behold, you were holding the door knob. Your brows furrowed as you twisted the knob. Nothing happened. Trying with more strength and vigor or whatever might do something? Maybe it’s just stuck. Unlikely but hey! Delusions are much sweeter and easier to swallow. Plus being more violent with an inanimate object makes it work! Usually, anyways. Beat a banana and you get mush so not always. That’s besides the point because the darn door still refused to open. Huffing, you try being a little harder with the door. Though that leads to nothing but you fearing it breaking. One creak escapes the poor door and you’re off of it like a puppy squealed rather than a door.

Anxiety started to bloom in your chest for the uptenth time or whatever. It’s happened a lot and that’s all that matters. Deep breaths. In and out. In and out. It’s just a door. If it breaks it can be replaced. Also it’s a door. It’s probably fine. Though you didn’t exactly want to test that. Who knows when the door is going to just say “nope! I’m done” and just break?

Leaning against the door, you slide to the floor as you think of another plan to leave. The door was locked, right? This is a brand new door we’re talking about. Rust couldn’t have shut it already, right? You were by the sea though so who knew what the salt and water was doing to it. That ruins doors, wood, and mentals, right? If only you were a builder or someone more fluent with stuff like this. Someone who knew how stuff like that worked. Because wow, you were beyond dumb on that subject.

You curl up in defeat. Bringing your knees to your face, you wrap your arms around them to secure them. To feel safer and smaller. Block out the world. All you wanted to do was stay there, just like that. Not that exact position, but you want to feel comforted and safe. A craving for belonging and love. Although something you craved, whenever it was just handed to you or offered, you turned it down. Nobody actually likes you. They just want to use you.

Everyone has used you in the past for something.

Tears started to form in your eyes. As you lift your head from the curl, you take a deep breath. This is annoying, tiring. Crying is useless right now. Nothing is going to be fixed this way.

As you subdued the tears, you looked around the house again. There had to be another exit, right? Maybe. Half of the houses you’ve lived in only had one entrance or exit. The other half either had a secret exit or another doorway. This wasn’t one of the latter, though. It was one of the former; you were only informed of one way to exit or enter the house. Xisuma didn’t mention any emergency escape. Well there weren’t any holes in the house besides that- OH WAIT!

Smacking your forehead, you scramble to your feet and look directly at the closest window. If it had the ability to, it’d probably be sweating out of fear or anxiety. Either or, that window wasn’t going to have a good time. Fortunately for you, though, the window couldn’t judge you. And the window is very easy to climb out of.

Walking closer for inspection, it didn’t seem like it’d be too hard to open. Just flick a latch or two and just lift the bottom. You’re home free after that. The latches weren’t an issue. Grabbing the bottom of the glass, you silently pray that it won’t be as stubborn as the door.

Some deity was feeling nice today because the window opened without much trouble. A little elbow grease but that was a small price to pay. Now started the awkward maneuvering to get outside. This was one thing you didn’t miss from your past.

First a leg, then the other, and slide later, you land ungraceful into the outside world. Either you were going to land on your face or bum and you didn’t want any of that. So instead you did a nice little dance.

Okay so dance would be the fun way of stating it. What happened was you stumbled around for a bit, waving your arms around in a desperate attempt to regain balance. But you get to stay on your feet, so the trade off of your dignity was well worth it. Plus nobody was around to see it.

Once balanced, you were in awe of the builds that were just a wall away. How much has changed since you last came out? How long were you inside? You only remember the comically tall portal and the partial build of the portal tower being around when you came. Besides the starting house and a few other small things, of course. But now there were two completed towers. The dark one was obviously the portal tower because of the color scheme. What was the other than? It was colored like a lighthouse with the red and white bands encompassing it, but you didn’t want to say anything definitely. After all, it was somewhat hard to tell.

The coloration indicated a lighthouse, along with the silhouette, but it looked a bit too artistically done. And when something is artistically done, it could be anything. So you’ll call it tower two! Tower two was rather pretty!

Xisuma wasn’t around though. Right. The mountain wasn't around here, was it? Where was it, anyways? It must’ve been pretty far away.

With the prospects of a long walk ahead of you, your shoulders slump. Dear lord, this was more work than you wanted to go through. Who knows how far it is! But it wasn’t just some walking for fun, it had a purpose.

Gathering your remaining energy and grit, you start the laborious, long, and treacherous journey through the continent for Xisuma. Hiking wasn’t your strong suit and keeping an eye out for Xisuma too? This makes everything so much harder.

You were only able to get off the island and back onto the mainland, where you started to scale the mountain before you heard a ruckus. Progressively, it got louder and more discernible. Yelling. Sounded like words. Gibberish, but it slowly grew clearer.

“Oh my gosh,” danced with the wind by your ears. “Oh no.” A cry of your name, or something really similar. Were those words? Those couldn’t be words, right? Whipping your head around, you see Xisuma running your way frantically. Okay, so those were most definitely words if the scene before you proved anything.

Excited, you start your descent back to the ground. Step by step. Is it step by step when you’re climbing? Your focus is on Xisuma. Pretty much entirely. It really shouldn’t have as you misjudge the next step. In the blink of an eye you went from viewing rock to viewing sky and a scary feeling building in your chest. The feeling grew exponentially and it didn’t take a genius to know what was going on.

A scream ripped its way from your chest as it tightened more. Said scream doesn’t last long for it ended as quickly as it came. No air could move, no noise could come out any more. Air was stuck in your throat, unable to reach your lungs. Fear paralyzed your muscles, eyes shut for there was no difference in the view. Everything was blurred and the black was more welcoming and comforting.

Too fast. Time wasn’t even a consideration. A social construct thrown out the window as soon as your fingers lose contact with the rocks.

The ground had to be near by now. It felt like hours passed now, but at the same time everything seemed to be zipping by.

Contact is made, and you expect it to be the end. You grunt as all remaining air is forced from your body. Another noise came from beneath you. Gasping for air, panic made you feel so cold. Is this what death felt like? No air was coming in and you definitely hit the ground. Were you going to die because you slipped up?

Black was encompassing your vision once again. Frantic attempts to regain air were barely rewarded for your lungs remained mostly empty. Everything still felt paralized, but now your chest felt worse. It hurt so much.

Something was moving beneath you. Pink entered your failing vision. It shifted you around, moving your head and body. More accurately, it moved. Your head was placed on a soft surface while your body was on something else.

Slowly your vision ebbed back to reality. Or you did. Everything still felt wonky. But an axolotl helmet came to greet you. That was a nice thing about your vision clearing, you guessed. Pretty pink axolotl.

“Are you okay,” the axolotl shakily asks. It’s hands were shaking and it sounded masculine.

“Yea,” your voice felt and sounded weird. Very airy, frail, and kinda delirious. You know, the “I don't feel right” type of delirious. Is that delirious? Oh wait you were talking! “Yea i’m good.”

“Are you sure,” the axolotl keeps persisting. It seemed to be looking over you for any injuries. How nice of it! “Double sure? Triple sure? No scrapes? Nothing hurts?”

“I’m absolutely sure,” you assure. Man this was a comfy place and you wanted to stay here longer, but you need to get standing. With shaky arms and legs, you unsteadily get up, stumbling or leaning a bit too much at times. The axolotl panics and helps you to your feet, never letting go afterwards. You thank it for its help and try to walk away, back to Xisuma’s house. Though it assists you, staying by your side as if it were attached with cement.

“You need to stop doing stuff like this,” it begs, leading you by the elbow. “It’s like everytime i’m gone, you purposely go get yourself into trouble, get hurt, or try to leave. I don’t get it. Why do you keep doing it?”

To say you were confused would be an understatement. What’s it even talking about?

Suddenly a thought hits you like lighting and everything starts to line up. This is literally Xisuma. How did you forget that? He changes skins with every new season. Wow you either hit your head, panicked and forgot every important detail ever, or you really needed the oxygen for those brain cells because they finally got what they needed to function.

“Sorry,” you really are sorry. For half of those things, if not almost all of them. If you were simply allowed to go back to the Dream smp in peace, you would be completely fine. Not a bother to the hermits, not a walking hazard to society, and you wouldn’t feel inadequate anymore… Actually that wouldn’t go away no matter where you went or what you did. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

Xisuma doesn’t reply to your words and you start to panic again. “You weren’t in the house and I got really anxious, okay? I didn’t remember where you said you were going and I just… I needed a hug. I know that sounds stupid or childish, but i wasn’t feeling good. And you said that if I needed something, I'd just have to go to you. Oh who am i kidding, this was the dumbest thing ever. I’m so so sorry for bothering you-” Tears started to well up in your eyes, blurring your vision entirely. You were thankful that you weren’t walking alone while like this. Who knew what else you’d get yourself hurt on.

Not only were your words stopped, but your whole body was too. Jerked back by Xisuma, your teary eyes look directly at his visor which only reflects back your pitiful face. Though you don’t see it for long as you’re pulled into a hug by Xisuma. This only causes you to cry harder.

“Hey hey hey,” Xisuma’s voice is a low murmur, a comforting rumble from his chest. “It’s okay. It’s alright. Did I not tell you where I was going before I left?”

Shaking your head, a tiny “no” escapes you between sobs. Xisuma just hugs you tighter and you snuggle closer. That’s if you can, but you still try.

“Oh i’m so sorry,” he starts to pat and rub your back in a comforting manner, repeatedly apologizing for forgetting to tell you. And other things. Though you can’t exactly tell what they are through your sobbing.

It takes ages for you to calm down. You don’t really have much to go off of, besides the sun. What was once a noon sun glaring down on you was a peaceful sunset over the ocean. When you finish crying, only shaky breaths and tear stains remain to show off the previous crying fit. That and the red eyes.

The sunset is pretty, so you focus on that. Positioning your face to not have it smooshed into Xisuma’s chestplate was a struggle since he was holding you so tightly. But you managed. Soon your face wasn’t full on smooshed into his chest plate, only the side. Your cheek was definitely doing that pancake thing which smooshes out like a flat tire.

Everything’s so peaceful and quiet. Only the waves and sea life disturb it, but it made a great background noise. Xisuma soon adds to everything with some light humming. Rumbling from the chest is so comforting. Why was it such a forgettable yet amazing thing? It felt so nice.

With the humming came some rocking. Going side to side, humming a nonsensical tune. Not long after, you join in as well. Yours was definitely less consistently though, for it was broken up but little giggles. The longer you two went on, the more you giggled.

His arms unwrap themselves and you feel disappointed and saddened by the loss. You needn’t wait for long though, as on both sides of your body, you suddenly feel a tingly sensation. Bursting out into laughter, you try to struggle away from the tickle attack Xisuma has launched on you. But he’s relentless, keeping up with your retreat. It’s only when you’re out of breath, on the ground, and playfully yelling your surrender at him, that he stops.

You two start to calm down again. Laughter slowly ebbed away to chuckles or silence. Not an uncomfortable or awkward silence by any means. A safe and comforting one.

“Come on,” Xisuma prompts, getting up from the crouched position he had to be in for his attack, giving out his hand when he was properly on his feet. “Let’s get home before mobs start to spawn.” You’re more than happy to take his hands. With a pull, you’re brought back to your feet. But you two don’t let go of each other’s hands.

Together you two finish the trek home, and rather quickly too. With the sun setting, it was just a matter of minutes before danger would appear. Luckily you two made it to safety without any issues. The beginning area Xisuma had set up was well lit, safe from the dark and the dangers it harbors.

Being back in the base area made you feel more at peace, calmer, less endangered. Whatever you wanted to say, but you felt safer. And everything looked so pretty at night! You really need to come out more with Xisuma. Staring in awe at the builds in a different light, you and Xisuma dawdle on home.

Everything was perfect again. Just like before. You were happy, Xisuma was happy, what else could you need.

Xisuma walks ahead of you to unlock the front door, to which you say a little “thank you” out of habit and slip on by him and into the house. You do mean it, but still, it’s a habit drilled into you.

After getting back into the house, with some idle chit-chat, you start to get things fixed up in the house. Some dinner was in order for the two of you. After all, you just tried to climb a mountain to find Xisuma and who knows if Xisuma actually ate today. Plus you haven't had anything to eat yet. Whoops.

Leaving Xisuma to his own devices, you continue your conversation as you prepare a meal.

You don’t notice him locking the door and windows, or the dark look he has when he sees the window open, or him putting the keys in his pocket after locking all of the other windows. When he doesn’t reply immediately, though, you turn toward the last direction you heard him from, only to reveal an empty house. Perplexed, you look around a bit, but are stopped by a tap on your shoulder.

Jumping, you whirl around to see Xisuma without his helmet on, chuckling at your reaction. Laughing along with him, you give him a nudge with your hip. He returns it, laughing harder when you’re bumped away from him. This goes on for a while as you cook dinner, with Xisuma helping you.

The night goes on like this. Full of gentle, playful antics and a loving atmosphere. The love you felt was immense. You hadn’t felt happier in months.

Xisuma hasn’t been so scared in months either.

He should’ve secured the house better. Made sure you were fine before he left. Locked the windows before he left.

Now he knows to lock windows. You’d try to use them in the future. Better a situation where you went looking for him than you leaving him. But now he knew.

And all was good again.

[citrineghost]

Struggling to stay organized because you have ADHD?

Well, I have a fantastic solution for you! There’s this bitchin site called Trello and I’m gonna tell you all about it

This is not sponsored, I just really like organization and Trello is awesome. And, as always, no readmore because this is targeted at ADHD people and y’all ain’t gonna click it

[ID: a picture of a website with many columns/lists. Behind the lists, there is a customized background. To the right is a sidebar showing that you can search Unsplash for backgrounds right from the site. Each column/list has a bunch of ‘cards’ on it. The cards each have a title and color coded label(s) /end ID)

Here’s a picture of my to-do board

There are some things blacked out, mostly just my avatar, name, and some original creative stuff I don’t feel like broadcasting.

So, Trello is broken up into different levels of organization. Let’s start with the most important level: boards.

Boards

A board is what’s pictured above. Think of it like a corkboard where you pin your notes. You can make as many of these as you want. You can title them, invite people to them, automate certain parts of them, and more.

On your board, you can make

Lists

Lists are those columns you can see on my board. You can title each list, click and drag them around to reorder them, set them to automatically label the things on them, and so on.

My lists on my to do board are titled with a time period for when I aim to do something. The time periods are large and vague, which makes them great for my ADHD. I can move things between them as I need, which is also great for my ever shifting brain thoughts. 

But! What makes it great is that whatever I put in the left list, titled Next, I know is what I need to be focusing on at the moment. It makes it easier to ignore what’s to the right of it and let’s me relax knowing I won’t just forget everything I’m not prioritizing.

Lists are used for holding

Cards

(ID: A picture of a small window that opens after clicking on a card. It contains the title, the labels (with their names now visible), and a functioning checklist. There is also a place to type a description, a place to add comments, and a list of buttons on the side for managing the card and its place on the board /end ID)

Each card can be as simple as containing just a title (making it a simple entry on your list), or as complicated as housing photos, descriptions, checklists, labels, and comments. You just click the card and it opens the window shown above.

My card is for a tabletop I’m working on, nicknamed TAP. I have it labeled with all of the things pertaining to what it involves (world building, writing, in progress, spreadsheeting, and art/creative). These color coded labels make it easy to see what kind of cards I’m looking at when looking at the overall board and lists.

As I do things on the checklist, I can mark them off. You can even set it to hide completed items on the checklist.

When I’m done with an item on my to do list, I click and drag the card to the Done list (which is offscreen on the far right). If you don’t want a visible Done list, you can also just archive a card and it will disappear from the board.

You can also set due dates on cards, which will notify you when they’re almost due or when the due date arrives.

Customization

One of my favorite things about Trello is that you can customize the appearance of your boards! My ADHD brain can’t stand looking at the same thing constantly, so it’s great that I can change things up. Each board can have its own design too, so you can match the vibes of the board with the appearance.

You can pick from a bunch of solid colors for your board or you can use the connection Trello has with Unsplash to search and select free stock images provided by photographers.

Other Parts of Organization

Not only do you have boards, lists, and cards, you can also make Workspaces, which are basically categories to sort your boards into. If you use Trello for projects, and have a board for each project, you can sort your boards into a Projects workspace.

There is also a function called Butler, which you can use to automate boards. For example, you can set it to automatically create a card called “Pay Rent” at the start of each month.

On the right, in the same sidebar where you can see the background options, there’s also an activity feed, tracking every time a card is moved, commented on, added, archived, and so on.

Team Work

Not only is Trello great for keeping private boards, you can also invite people to them! That makes it incredible for household management, group projects, or even friend groups who feel like storing plans and personalized memes. You can literally use it for whatever you want and in whatever way you want!

ADHD Applications

So, now let’s get down into the specifics of how this is great for people with ADHD.

You can make as many boards, lists, and cards as you want.

This is a big one for me, because I really struggle with websites that limit how much you can do with one account and force you to make multiples and then juggle multiple logins and so on. Start a new project? Make a new board. Follow your heart. Be free. If you end up giving up on it, just delete it, or store it for later. You can Star the boards you actively use and just use the Star list to access the boards you need, so if you star all your active ones and then ignore the unstarred, failed projects, you can leave them to rot or abandon them until the mood strikes again.

You can organize in a way that works for you.

So many organization applications are made to work one way and that can be really difficult to navigate as someone with ADHD. So many people with ADHD have such specific needs in regards to how they organize that it can be really hard to find something that works. Half the time we end up just scrambling around from application to application, cursing them as we go because one has one thing we like, but it doesn’t have the thing this other one has that we like and nothing ever seems to just work.

Trello makes it possible to personalize how you organize and even change how you organize halfway through. I keep my to do list organized in 4 priority levels with the addition of a Pin list and a Done list. You could also:

Keep a list that works as a calendar, with a card for each entry, organized in order of date

Keep a list of reminders where automated weekly/monthly/yearly responsibilities pop up

Jot down reminders as you think of them

Keep lists of school assignments in the order they’re due

Use descriptions and photo uploads on cards to collect information or resources needed for said assignments

Keep lists of information that’s easy to forget or lose track of on paper like address history, work history, references, contact information, and so on (like I’ve done on my ‘Pin’ list)

Use boards for projects, to keep track of things like resources, due dates, meeting times, sending files between classmates or project partners, and so on

Use boards for planning events like weddings, parties, conferences, school dances, or whatever else you’re into

Collect resources, references, or recreational to-dos (like links to fanfiction you want to read)

Literally anything

You can separate everything onto different boards, making everything visible from the titles of cards, or combine it all into one, with lots of information available on a click

The sky’s the limit

You can automate repeat tasks.

ADHD comes with a lot of forgetfulness when it comes to regular tasks, such as weekly appointments, medication reminders, and a yearly charge for your Nintendo membership. You can put that stuff into your calendar, but that can also be tricky because then you have information spread across multiple platforms.

Just as easily, you can set Butler to make new cards with reminders on them.

There’s probably more but I have ADHD and I forgot

Just think of the possibilities!!

I used to get debilitatingly stressed out because I would have 10 things floating around in my head because I was simultaneously trying not to forget them and also stressing about them and I would make what I call “spaghetti lists” where I would list all the things I’m thinking of, just as a way to calm down and know that I won’t forget them, so that my brain could quiet down.

Since starting this board, I haven’t had to do that once because all of the things I’m afraid of forgetting are already listed, even if they’re on the list titled ‘ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ‘ because idk if they’re ever actually gonna happen.

It can be incredibly stressful to see all of your to do items in one place, but since starting this, I have been less stressed overall, because I now know I can find them all in that one place. Learning to manage and cope with the stress of knowing I have a lot to do is easier than forgetting things and then realizing I’m late on something or things just never happening because I never remember them when I’m in a place where I can work on them.

And when you have everything in one place to reference when you have some executive energy, you can suddenly just start doing things. I have them labeled by type so I can go, “I’m in the mood to draw,” and then check all the dark blue labels for creative projects. It makes everything so much easier.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to some of you, it’s genuinely been life changing for me

[disaster-vampire]

i'm so sorry but i have no idea how to put in a "read more" on mobile. this is really long.

this rant was inspired by this post, i agree with most of it but it prompted a lot of thoughts that derailed the more i wrote, so buckle up. i wrote a whole ass post on hannibal and dante that you can find here, where i highlight how impressive it is that hannibal can give lectures on dante as a foreigner, just to get that out of the way. i add a few more thoughts on that specific topic here on the technicalities of how hannibal would even get to that point and why dante is so fitting for hannibal but let's go.

i also grew up bilingual with italian being my main language and sardinian regrettably being my second when it should have been my first. and i learned italian much faster than sardinian, even with both being my mother tongues, because i was taught italian in school and it's kind of "forbidden" to speak sardinian in formal environments as it's considered low-brow to speak it for historical reasons so i only really speak it with family and a few friends that know the language, as not everyone does. bear with me this is part of the meta.

so, all that said, growing up in lithuania and interacting with other lithuanian people, including his family and whatever staff they had in that big ass castle, plus schooling, he probably knew lithuanian better than italian in his childhood. that is not taking into consideration the soviets though. i went to read about it without falling in too deep into the rabbit hole and lithuania has been independent since the 90s, so even show hannibal, who is younger than book hannibal, would have only known soviet lithuania. i unfortunately know fuck all about how soviet russia treated its conquered countries and am not willing to dive into that right in this moment so i'm not gonna make assumptions, but as was said in the original post hannibal did end up in a soviet orphanage so he was likely taught russian there.

this would mean that hannibal grew up knowing russian very well, speaking lithuanian with family and friends outside of school and formal events, which means reduced lexicon, and only speaking italian with his mother, maybe his sister and father, and his other italian relatives who we know nothing of.

i like to think he also speaks esperanto as it was developed during the soviet occupation of poland to be spoken amongst the various countries that were also occupied by the soviets but that's more headcanon than anything.

idk how to feel about him and lithuanian considering what has been said in the original post and in its notes, because i'm a bit biased. i'm very proud of where i'm from and i speak sardinian to spite mussolini and hope he rolls in his grave every time a child learns a new sardinian word. considering mischa in the books was killed by soviet soldiers (correct me if i'm misremembering that, i haven't read all the books yet but i know the gist of his backstory) i like to think hannibal also speaks lithuanian both to spite them and to keep the memory of his sister alive. i'd say if anything he'd hate to speak russian since it was spoken by said soldiers and in the orphanage.

considering that what he does is re-enact what was done to him, he's not letting that memory go, despite how much he likes to say "nothing happened to me, i happened," he feeds other people human meat without them knowing just like he was fed his sister unknowingly.

and yes i do think he probably had it in him before as well, and i do think if nothing had happened to him he still would have turned out to be a criminal anyway, but what happened to him did shape what kind of criminal he became in his adulthood, and he even put (in the show) will through the same ordeal when he convinced him he ate his surrogate daughter and actually force fed him part of her as an effort to change him.

he's very self aware, and i think he knows both that he always had the potential and that what he chooses to do is linked to his trauma.

now, more on latin, dante, and italian. this is about to get unhinged because it's 3am and i have strong opinions on dante (namely: he thought he could dole out judgements on whether or not other people would or would not go to hell- which is a thing he made up btw, based on the greek myth of hades, and the vatican had to make it canonical because so many people read his books that it became a widespread belief- based on his personal opinion of their actions).

i have no idea if hannibal being a dante lecturer in florence of all places is something the show took from the books, and i'm also not sure where the hell hannibal studied dante, but i'll do my best here. i know about dante because boy do they drill dante into your brain in italian school from middle school onwards. i assure you every single living italian can quote the opening of the inferno to you. i don't think they teach dante that religiously in french schools but lemme know if i'm wrong.

so i'm assuming, again, that he went to high school in italy and likely went to a liceo classico, which as you can probably guess from the name, is where you study classic literature. classic as in roman and greek. so. they study latin and ancient greek, and they probably got dante coming out their eyeballs.

i believe the reason hannibal likes dante so much is that dante was an asshole who put all the people he knew irl and didn't like in hell in his self insert fanfiction where he meets god and various creatures from greek myth. and if any of y'all come at me defending dante and being pretentious asshats about calling the divina commedia a self insert fanfiction i will bite you because i hate his guts even if the inferno is a fun read. the dude couldn't write a transition scene to save his life, he just fainted every time he needed to change scene. the only credit i give him is that he wanted to bring academic discourse to the common folk. anyway. the way dante wrote the inferno is very reminiscent of hannibal's modus operandi. he tortures and consumes people that have committed a sin that specifically irritates him, thus making himself god (and yes dante did that too, he hated indecisive people and made a special circle in hell just for people who wouldn't pick a side, and as a non-binary bisexual, i love that for me).

lemme tell you about this real dude that dante put in hell that i believe inspired hannibal lecter as a character: count ugolino della gherardesca. now those of you who know the story know where i'm going with this. count ugolino is in hell because he changed political factions. yea. as i said. dante hates indecision. he's showed gnawing at the head of another politician he was associated with when he was alive, and i won't get into the political side at all because it's been 800 years and i do not care, though dante cared Very Much, in fact this circle of hell is the one reserved for the traitors of the country. the interesting part is that from the way that dante worded the passage about the count, people interpreted it a bit differently from what he may have actually meant. count ugolino died of starvation while imprisoned in a tower with his sons and grandsons. the way dante wrote it made it sound like they died before him and he, mad with hunger, ate them, and then died of starvation after that. thus the legend of the cannibal count was born. we actually have no idea or historical proof if he cannibalised them or not, but that's the story most people hear anyway. yes my family told me they would feed me to count ugolino if i misbehaved as a child.

we also get a quote about his sons offering up their flash for their father to consume after they died as he is the one that created it which i know some of my mutuals are gonna love.

btw did ya know count ugolino was a lord and vicar in sardinia? did ya know the first victims of the real mostro di firenze case were sardinian? did ya know the first suspects in the mostro di firenze case were sardinian? did ya know there were rumors during the case that a foreign doctor was buying the organs of the victims in the black market? did ya know that they consulted quantico in the mostro case? did ya know mason's man-eating pigs trained by sardinian people are a direct reference to sardinian faida culture that i don't think the average italian knows about? did ya know thomas harris was sitting at the mostro trials taking notes that later inspired red dragon?

moral of the story i think hannibal lived in sardinia at some point and he heard the story of count ugolino and then had casu marzu (cheese with worms, yea people eat that and it's considered a delicacy but it's illegal to sell it and hannibal would be down for that and my proof is the ortolans) and it made him a crazy bitch

[grittyreadsfic]

how do you make your uh fic stat things? they look like spreadsheets but im not sure. it just seemed cool and i kind of wanted to track the amount of fics i read too. sorry if this is a dumb question i was just curious

hello pal sorry for the delay in responding i meant to do this yesterday but uhhhh things happen so

so what i do is i have a google form that i fill out for every fic i read that feeds into a google sheets where i have a like. data dump page and a page where i pull the things i want and use it to track the details. i have to manually pull it down each time i enter a new fic or else it breaks and i have to update the monthly section manual each month in my little summary section up top. (these are both copies i made so idk if they're actually linked now, but since i do a notes section and specify if i'd rec it i don't wanna post the originals)

i do the google form specifically bc sheets as a mobile app is horrendous and i largely read and track on my phone, so i didn't want to have to deal with it because i'd just give up

idk how much of my tracking stuff you've seen, but historically i also fucked around with some graphs in sheets and i'd just screenshot them and stick them on a slides presentation and then screenshot the slides to make the post with even sized images that looked vaguely uniform/tumblr wouldn't fuck up

this is my second year of tracking my reading and i really like it, for the most part. i like seeing trends in what i read and it's fun to fuck around with data, and also it makes it really easy to find fics for reccing/rereading/etc

(also not a dumb question i love talking about this tbh!!!! i am very proud of my lil spreadsheet, mrs gritty helped me set it up last year but mostly it's all my own doing and i'm shit at excel lmao so i'm very proud of it)

[echos-newlegs]

Hey there y’all, this is my first ever post and it was a request from a friend (idk their tumblr yet, I’ll probably just share it with them on Instagram lmao.) anyways it is a multiple part, Echo x Fem!Reader and you’ve landed on the first part! I will be linking the second part below after I make it. You can message me request too, and I’ll get to them before or after I finish this, I may do some prompt lists 😏 This is post and then Pre-Citadel. Reader has a daughter from a previous relationship and I promise it’ll get more interesting. I’ve never actually wrote and posted a story of any of the clones and I feel like I don’t do Echo any justice, but enough talk here ye be.

(P.S. c/n means child’s name. My friend was very specific with this request)

Part One - Part 2

Echo sat up at the bar. A drink in hand that he was slowly milking. His mind was everywhere but there. He was thinking about the war, sleep, his brothers he’s lost, who he could have and didn’t save. It was all a nightmare and a half. He’d honestly pay for just a simple hug from someone who wasn’t his brothers. Even from Ahsoka. Someone who he knew cared about him, but wasn’t part of him. If that made any sense?

So he stepped away from the bar with a sharp sigh. Patting Fives back. Gloved hand slapping against the others armor. “I’m gunna head for a walk,” “Want me to join ya?” Fives asked in a slur. He was obviously not milking his drinks like Echo was. Causing him to smile with a chuckle, “no, I’ll be fine, you.. Keep an eye on Rex.” He teased and Fives grinned. “You got it, vod.” He spoke and spun in his chair to face the other clones.

The moment Echo stepped out the door he felt a bit better. It wasn’t as stuffy and loud out as it was back in 79’s. Starting his little stroll with a small hum. He wasn’t even sure what he was humming. Just a ramble of tunes he had heard. “Mama, look!” He heard a voice shout. A little one. “C/N! Get back here!”a woman shouted and before Echo could turn around there was someone tapping on the back of his leg. “Mister, are you a clone?” Echo turned, raising an arm and looking down to the child. Brows furrowed, a small smile rising to his face. “Hello to you too, little one, yeah, yeah I am..” he murmured and the little girl squealed. “Mama it is a clone trooper! Are you one of the boys in blue? You have to be! I see you on the holo- Mama!” She rambled, and then shouted when you pulled her from Echo. “I am so so sorry about her.” You spoke. Bags of fruit and other groceries in one hand and stuffed under your arm. Your other hand now holding your daughters hand.

Echo was amazed by how much the kid knew. Smiling softly in amusement. Though he was even more amused when you came into view. You were breath taking, really. Running up behind her and pulling her back from him. Apologizing for the incident. Though he didn’t really mind. “Oh, no need to apologize ma’am, feels nice to be recognized by someone,” he joked, c/n whining a bit. “Mama, he’s part of the five oh first, I know it, I do. I was just asking him questions.” “Well baby, you can’t go running off like that,” “but mama-“ Echo kneeled and caught the girls attention, both of you actually. “You know, good soldiers follow orders, you need to listen to your mama, she just wants you safe,” he spoke. Smiling at the kid and she stared at him in awe. You watching Echo with an intrigued expression. “Yes, mr. clone sir.” She piped and Echo giggled at that. Nudging the girls shoulder. “At ease, solder, I’m an Arc Trooper, not a Captain or Commander, names Echo.” “Echo..” she whispered, “I’m c/n, and this is my mama, and she loves the 501st, and-“ you grew a bit flustered, laughing a bit nervously. “Okay hun, that’s enough. We should probably let him be now.”

Echo stood from where he was crouched, looking you in the face for a moment. “Can I at least help you with your bags,” “y/n,” he smiled as you said your name. “Y/n, it’s the least I could do.” He spoke and you smiled a bit sheepishly. Glancing down to the bags and then back to him. “Sure,” you gave in. You couldn’t say no. His eyes pleaded with you and you lost the battle. Though it wasn’t hard to convince you when help was offered. You handed him some of the bags and he took them. You stuck with less now since he took most of the heavy things. Giving you a look when you went to tell him it was fine. That you could carry them. “Least I can do for a supporter,” he added with a smile that had you smiling black and even blushing a little.

The three of you got to the apartment you lived at. You pulling out your key as your daughter rambled, somethings incoherent. Pushing the door open, your daughter running in, and you following. Turning to motion for echo to follow with a small grin. “C’mon, Arc Trooper,” you added with a grin, snickering slightly as he stumbled a bit through the door.

Echo sat the things down, looking around the house slightly before they landed back onto you. “Would you like to stay for supper?” You asked, putting away some of the groceries. “Nah, I don’t want to intrude.” You smiled, turning as you shut the fridge. “Please? It’s the least I could do, for a helper. Plus you’d make my daughters day, you guys are her hero’s.” You added and he smiled, “Alright, alright, you got me.” He added. Though he was going to say yes even if you would have just said please. He was hungry, and something other than rations sounded like an absolute blessing. Not only that, but he wanted to get to know you more. You intrigued him, you were beautiful and kind. Yet he barely knew you and already wanted to make this a normal thing.

While you fixed up supper Echo ended up wandering off with your daughter. The five year old grabbing his hand and dragging him back into her room to show him her toys. It made you a little nervous, even if he was a clone. You knew he wouldn’t hurt her, but you rarely left anyone alone with her. She was really all you had left. Her father leaving the both of you behind shortly after she was born. So you ventured back while you let some of the meat cook. Seasonings already filling the air and your senses. Peaking into the bedroom to see Echo sitting on the floor with her.. Playing. The sight shocked you more than it did him really. Standing, watching for a moment with a small smile on your face.

Echo was using the toy ship she had, flying it around and imitating noises as your daughter did the same. Brows knitted together just the slightest bit in concentration. “Ahhhh, your ships been hit!” She exclaimed and Echo gasped. “Oh no, Crash landing, or as General Skywalker would say.” “Surprise landing!” The two exclaimed at the same time. Causing the, to break into a fit of giggles. You bringing a hand up to your mouth as you leaned against the door way. Giggling a bit yourself.

Your little laugh made Echos head turn to face the door. “Ma- er- y/n,” “is the food ready mama?” Your daughter interrupted him, and you could swear he was blushing. “It nearly is, go get washed up honey,” you added and your daughter shot up. Tapping Echos shoulder, “C’mon, we have to wash our hands before we eat, Echo.” She stated with a grin and you chuckled as the two passed you to the bathroom. Catching Echos glance and shrug. Which cause you to giggle again. Catching him smile even more before he turned away,

The two came back, your daughter on his shoulders and you were dishing out food for the three of you. “Mama look! I’m big!” She was in a fit of laughter, and he was too. You hadn’t seen her so happy in what felt like forever. “You are, aren’t you?” You cooed a bit and watched as he pulled her off and placed her into a chair. Sitting in his own. “No, mama sits there,” she spoke and you furrowed your brows. “Oh sorry,” “I’m joking,” your daughter blurted with a snicker and you sighed. “She’s full of those.” You rolled your eyes as you sat and Echo seated himself again. Smiling at you as he sat across from you. “Does she get the sense of humor from you?” He asked with a brow raised. You meeting his gaze with a bit of a smirk. “Maybe she does,” causing you both to laugh a bit.

The three of you ate, but it wasn’t without conversation. You had your fair share of questions. Asking about the hand print on his armor. Why he was on Corusant and wandering. Instead of at 79’s like you noticed most other clones were. Which he has an answer for each question. Though he did seem a bit nervous almost. Once finished you instructed your daughter to get ready for bed. Though she was hesitant, she finally did shuffle off to the bathroom to brush her teeth and then her room to get dressed. Leaving you and Echo in the kitchen by yourselves.

You collected all the dishes and placed them in the sink, deciding to do them after he left. “Let me help you,” “You’ve done enough helping today, soldier.” You told him with a grin. “Sit back down, it’s fine.” You added, and he smiled. Doing as told, “yes sir,” he added and you let out a titter. He was so formal and cute.

You sat back down across from him, and he was staring at his hands. “Thank you,” you spoke. He looked up with his brows raised. “For helping, and making my daughters world.” You spoke and he shrugged. “It’s my pleasure, y/n.” You pressed your lips together. Watching him for a moment or two. “I’d love to have you back,” you words shocked him. Watching as your cheeks tinted pink and your eyes darted down to your hands folded on the table. “I mean, if you’re ever on Corusant again, I really enjoyed your company. Don’t find a lot of nice people anymore.” People. The word was vague, meaningless to most, but the fact you didn’t call him a clone made his day. You included him as someone, not what he was. “Plus it’d make c/n’s day.” He smiled and nodded. “I’d love to, I don’t find a lot of people willing to feed, let alone hang out with clones like me.” You scoffed a bit and chuckled. “You’re kidding right?” His smile faded a bit. “No?” “Echo, you’re absolutely wonderful, and I don’t see why People wouldn’t want to hang around you. What? Just because you share the same face with a million other people? That’s ridiculous and people are obviously missing out.”

Your words weren’t much. It wouldn’t mean much to a lot, but to him it was like poetry. Without the rhyming. “Thank you,” he nearly whispered. Staring at you in awe, and you smiled back. Reaching a hand out to place on top of his. It made him jump a bit, causing you to retract your hand. “No no-“ he blurted, clearing his throat. Eyes darting around. “I mean, it’s fine, you’re fine, I just don’t get touched often.” He spoke, voice light and faint. Looking up to you with tinted cheeks. You wanted to pull him over to the couch and just hug on him. He was so sweet, so unloved by those who weren’t his brothers and you could tell. Frowning a bit and you placed your hand back onto him. Watching as his expression changed a bit. Softened even more, if that were even possible. He seemed relaxed. You barely knew him and you wanted him to be as comfortable as possible.

A few moments passed. The two of you sharing glances and unspoken words. Which was soon interrupted by Echos com link. “Echo, we’re heading back, I hope you’re not getting laid right now.” Fives spoke over, drunken giggles following after. Echos tanned face flushed red. Eyes widening and his eyes darting down. “Kriff, I better get going, thank you so much for the food.” He spoke in a near ramble and you couldn’t help but smile. A small giggle following after. “Of course, you should come see me next time you’re in Corusant.” You added, walking him to the door. Both of you smiling like idiots. “Sure thing, how could I not?” He added and you directed your gaze down at the floor. Smiling a bit more. “I’ll be expecting to see you again, then.” And those words were enough to keep Echo fighting hard during the war. The two of you exchanging good byes. Echo making his way back to 79’s. Hoping Fives didn’t just up and leave him.

———————

[queenlua]

hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue.  see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP.   and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP.  so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on.  there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc.  you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

[plumsaffron]

Final attempt of making it appear in the specific tag feed. So it’s split it into 3 parts. This is part 2 of 3.

Ignore this as well if you remember seeing this same really long post of me talking about Wallflower Blush, Forgotten Friendship, other EG (Equestria Girls) Villains or Antagonists. Or just ignore cause you rather not. (I’m just posting this 3 last times cause the darn tags won’t show up for the og one and the previous (before I split them into 3 parts)

You could look at this link here before I start diving deeper if you wish

Now to sunder the some of those foolish generalizations, misconceptions and nonsensical slander or rage.

*Worst villain?*

Hmmm what do you mean you mean? Bad villain? her motive and reason? Idk it’s pretty clear to me why and makes sense. maybe its because she’s not actually a villain as you expect but more of an antagonist. And the route always went to antagonist after rainbow rocks or probably after friendship games. Bad antagonist? Is it because you’re looking for something like Vignette Valencia, Gloriosa Daisy or Juniper Montage? Is it because Wallflower is the remaining one with a grudge and reason while everyone else now forgets and forgives (besides Trixie but that’s cause she wanted something out of Sunset at the time and she’s kinda like that normally at times, even her pony counterpart does similar)?

Did you skim her past and story again like initially referred to for generalization types or vote or bandwagon for weak context comments? Doesn’t she make Sunset suffer and later full on wanting her to suffer due to her lacking times of understanding her? That impact essentially put her in the same field at most with the old Sunset or Sirens actions of discourse but hey it could be you’re bored or not entertained or don’t feel Wallflower’s ways. I’m just putting that out there because that’s what a villain/antagonist might do and some antagonists > villains. Keep in mind the things that happened to Wallflower happened before finding the stone and is implied to be since she was a little kid.

*complains about people forgetting her and being invisible. also wallflower, erasing those memories. It’s basically you went on a path hurting yourself and getting mad at this occurrence and expecting people to remember*

optional or skip this link posted (in here)

Remember Wallflower’s memories again. It shows all (well a skimmed version) of what happened before her before finding the stone and what she said to Trixie and Sunset earlier and after implies how all of this crap she’s been going through happened for such a long time and none are actually are there for her to grant a new perspective to her (and it seems she doesn’t know the ability to leave an area like that. who knows if she can leave anyways). We also see it in the song too.

Stop using the memory stone as an excuse. Yes, it may have amplified it further and her getting carried away but that doesn’t override what’s true of before. It likely wouldn’t make a real difference. And I highly doubt she’d erase herself or people’s memories of her from all instances (let alone Sunset). That’s too complicated and almost impossible. It’s not absolute either as I explained earlier of how certain exceptions may exist due to what individuals may consider what the memory is to them. And even then new memories would form so she should kind of be known.

Think about her name. should be power or be known anyways. Why? Well it’s the first memory one should likely know of. And the second would be appearance. Where you might not remember the name but you’d remember the appearance. Those two ways of identifying who the person is. Now I’m not saying all should or possible but it appears the awareness remembering of her or knowing her and existence yade yada is somehow of o% for all and wouldn’t even grow to at least a few by default.

Maybe Wallflower’s expectations are too high for what’s obvious to know of or should know of, which can piss her off when it’s not reciprocated. You add that with her past, followed by a reinforcement, followed by a jerk who acts like you don’t exist that all else like nowadays who affected you and all else earlier on etc. and so here we are with Wallflower‘s disgust or contempt. And of course explaining why she is the way she is and being disrespected and ignored while informing later on.

*Wallflower Hurt and Threatened Everyone and tortured Sunset. The Power She possessed is evil. The possibilities what she holds are pure dangerous why we hate her I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE GOT AWAY SCOT FREE*

uhhh wouldn’t that make her legit not the worst villain/antagonist? Yes what she possessed is not good but isn’t that the trait that pretty much every antagonist/villain does in this Equestria Girls Series to have or do something similar? Anyways, no it didn’t and like I explained and Wallflower earlier, no one remembers knows or cares of Wallflower and it’s clearly shown, told, and proven until near the very end of forgotten friendship (near the very end as in Trixie and Sunset reviewing the video and Sunset’s and her memory restored friends and beyond). They can’t get mad over who they don’t know or care to know that exists.

Not only that, I explained, and she, herself, explained how in the end it was really affecting herself and owns up to it regardless. The only other that was affected would be Sunset (but it’s not as deep as you think and didn’t last long) and the human 6 counterparts that saw they made a grave mistake of giving her no chance. oh and guess what, they all apologized and forgave each other.

She got away with it, y’all whine.

Soooooo. And what’s with you weirdos wanting certain characters that go through consistent crap to go to jail because they didn’t react the way your former villains/antagonists or currents heroes of before and now when dealing with things because you don’t like them? (And in this case Wallflower ironically would be in good standing compared to most of previous and after but I’ll talk about this somewhere below.) It’s also hypocritical because that obsessed logic would mean Sunset would have to go too and everyone else and even the main character princess and her first teacher done something similar in the pony world in the past. No one went after the Dazzlings.

This favoritism haterism is pathetic (it reminds me of other characters I defend(ed), who get grossly hated guts on). Do you even know how bad jail is? Couldn’t say get help or therapy or some to tell her that maybe if the same thing keeps happening, she should go somewhere else if she can. But nah, just straight to say jail, some say or agree. Imagine sending a person broken to somewhere that’s worse and could make them worse or never the same when they don’t deserve that?

*She did the worst is the worst and ruined a lot of lives. She so obvious to be the culprit*

You must be fooling yourselves as I explained all of earlier. It was short lived btw. And everything went back to normal but even better. And So What if she was so obvious. The point was for them to find who it was, not you who already has the awareness. And remember 3 previous movies or a couple of specials had pretty obvious ones too.

PART 3

Part 1

[tlbodine]

Thanksgiving is Gonna Be Weird: A Survival Guide for 2020

It’s 2020, the pandemic is worse than ever, and the holidays are right around the corner. No matter what, this is going to be a weird Thanksgiving for a lot of people. With travel restrictions in place and most of us having a mighty desire not to murder our friends and family by spreading around a disease, there’s a good chance that you’re going to be celebrating a bit differently this year. 

And, hey, maybe you decide not to celebrate at all. Which is perfectly valid! 

But maybe you’re staring down the possibility of your first Thanksgiving on your own, or feeding just the small group you live for rather than a big crowd, or some other unusual circumstance. And if that’s the case, I wanted to compile together some resources/ideas to help you out. I know this isn’t my usual horror fare, but...well, I hope it’s helpful, regardless. 

“Help, I’ve Never Made Thanksgiving Dinner Before” Starter Kit

Maybe you’ve always gone home for the holidays but are currently stuck in an apartment with a few roommates, and none of you have any intensive cooking skills. Maybe you always take the kids to Grandma’s house and have never had to contribute more than a side dish but now really want to do a proper Thanksgiving feast for your partner(s), kid(s) and whoever else lives in your house. 

Never fear! A Thanksgiving feast doesn’t have to be intimidating! In fact, Thanksgiving foods are usually pretty simple; the most challenging part of the whole feast is the project management aspect of working with a lot of different dishes and getting everything ready at once. But the smaller your crowd to feed, the easier that is! 

So, the first thing you’ll want to do is come up with a menu. Sit down and write a list of all the foods you normally eat and enjoy on Thanksgiving. If something is served at your family meal that you’ve never cared for, guess what? You can boot that bad boy right off the list! 

By and large, the standard Thanksgiving feast consists of: 

Roast turkey 

Mashed potatoes

Gravy

Some kind of dinner roll

Cranberry sauce

Some number of vegetable side dishes (often a green been casserole and a sweet potato casserole) 

Some kind of dessert (often/traditionally a pumpkin pie) 

I’ve linked above some easy & favorite techniques/recipes for all of these foods, but of course you can buy time-saving convenience items to get you rolling -- from potato flakes to gravy mix to premade pie. I won’t tell if you don’t. 

If there’s something you’re used to eating every year that you don’t know how to make....call whoever usually makes it! If at all possible, obviously, I’m not recommending you do a seance to talk to your dead great-aunt and get her rolls recipe. Just, like...phone up your friend/family member, get the recipe, and use it as an opportunity to connect. Odds are both of you are missing the human interaction. 

“Hey, That’s Nice, But I Live in a Dorm Room”  Edition 

Okay, okay, I get it. You’re away at college and can’t get home to see your family safely and you’re living in some kind of weird socially isolated dorm situation where you have limited access to cooking implements. Or, shit, idk, maybe you’re couch-surfing or living in a motel or otherwise not in possession of a full kitchen. 

I got you, fam. 

Do you have at your disposal a microwave? Rice cooker? Even an electric kettle will work! 

If you have some way to boil water, you can make instant mashed potatoes, gravy, and stove-top stuffing. If you have a microwave, you can steam some vegetables and bake a sweet potato. For dessert, core an apple, stuff the cavity with brown sugar + cinnamon + butter and nuke in the microwave for 4 minutes. 

It’s hypothetically possible to microwave a turkey, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Instead, I’d opt to buy a deli roast chicken (about $5 at most grocery stores), or even just some turkey deli meat. Alternatively, ham usually just needs to be warmed rather than cooked, and you can buy a big ol’ ham steak at the store for a couple of bucks. 

“I’m Dead Broke Because COVID, Send Help” 

You know the great thing about Thanksgiving food? It’s cheap. No, really! It can be, anyway, especially since a lot of foods go on sale. 

In my area anyway, the local Wal-Mart and Smith’s Grocery have: 

A can of green beans for about 79 cents

A bag of instant mashed potatoes for about $1 

A big can of yams for about $1, or fresh yams for 50 cents/lb (usually a couple sweet potatoes = 1lb) 

Canned corn or peas + corn for 50 cents, or steam-in-bag veggies of your choice for $1 

Stovetop stuffing for $1 or sometimes even 50 cents per box 

Margarine for 79 cents to $1 

Gravy mix packets for 50 cents each

A can of cranberry sauce for $1 or less

Most of these are also available at Dollar Tree! 

A lot of food banks will also be giving out turkeys this time of year, and some grocery stores will give you a free turkey if you spend $50 or $100 on groceries or whatever. Do you have an older relative who needs groceries? Ask if you can go buy their food and deliver it to their door (contactless!) and keep the free turkey.

You can pretty easily feed a group of 4-6 for $20 or so, especially if you’re willing to be flexible on your protein. And what are you doing feeding more than 6 people in the middle of a pandemic, huh? 

“I’m Used to Hosting a Big Dinner But There’s Only Like Three Of Us Living In This House WTF How Do I Scale This Shit Down” 

Maybe you are a Thanksgiving veteran. Maybe you’re accustomed to hosting for a big crowd and cooking a small meal just seems dumb and pointless. I feel you. This is my life right now! But don’t despair! 

The way I see it, you’ve got a couple-three options: 

Option One: 

Cook your turkey + a different side each day, and eat your Thanksgiving feast spread out over a week or so. It’ll keep your leftovers from dominating your fridge, let you eat something fresh, and allow you to enjoy all your favorite recipes. Downside is you’ll have to cook every day, so you tell me if you’re too busy to do that. 

Option Two: 

Cook everything that you normally would, but portion off half of it or whatever to stuff into your freezer, or go deliver it to somebody else’s door. The odds are pretty good that you’ve got a friend or family member who is freaking out about the holiday, and if you can’t see them in person, you can at least drop food off on their porch and then honk aggressively/cheerfully from the safety of your car! 

Option Three: 

Make something different this year. If you’re a foodie, take this as an opportunity to challenge yourself to create something high-maintenance and weird that you wouldn’t normally make. This is a good choice if you’re off work and stuck in your house with nothing else to do. Basically you’re subbing out quantity for quality so the meal still feels special and unique even if it’s, y’know....just you and your cat, or whoever. 

PS: Roasting a whole chicken or a cornish game hen is a fun, small-scale way to get your bird-in-the-oven experience. You can also buy a turkey breast and just cook that, which will be a lot faster than the whole bird anyway. 

"I’m An Essential Worker And I’m Working Thanksgiving And Have No Time To Do ANYTHING, What Now?” 

Dude, I get it. And whether you’re a doctor, nurse, grocery store employee, or whatever other essential service-worker, my heart goes out to you because hoo boy this year has been shit, hasn’t it? I can’t do anything about the hazard pay situation, but I CAN tell you that there are a few places offering delivery-based Thanksgiving meal options! 

You might want to search around a bit for your specific area. Cracker Barrel, Marie Callendar’s, Boston Market, and other types of branded “home-cooking” type restaurants tend to have some kind of Thanksgiving thing. Why not call your local restaurant fav to see if they’re doing something similar? Most restaurants are desperate for a way to stay afloat right now, so a ton of places that don’t traditionally deliver are offering curbside service now. It’s worth a try! 

So, there you have it. 

I hope some of these tips taught you something new, pointed you to a helpful resource, or gave you some ideas. More than anything, I just want everybody to be safe and happy this holiday. So, please -- get creative, wear your mask while you’re shopping, avoid the get-togethers, and be careful. You may save a life! 

[onf-headcanons]

ONF MEMBERS AS YOUR SIBLING (MK & U version)

n 

OMG I AM VERY VERY LOOKING FORWARD TO WRITE THIS PART!!!!!

Either you are related from Yuto or Minkyun side and either one of them later joined the family. Confusing? OK example you are Yuto’s sibling by blood and then later Minkyun joined. Or in reversed, Yuto joined later.

1. You are the youngest sibling (could be in terms age when the family comes together or you being born later OR stand in of Yuto’s youngest sister)

2. You are the middle sibling, being either Yuto’s elder blood sibling or Minkyun’s younger sibling but is older than Yuto.

3. Or you are the eldest (Good luck if you do lol there will be a lot of face palming), and alot of  “Yuto, I thought you are on my side????”

Any scenario that is suitable to your own imagination. Also there will be some repeated ideas from first universe because i would like to keep characterization consistency.

Btw this pair of sibling would be one of the noisiest.

My recommendation, you are the middle sibling. But you can totally imagine that your are younger ones. I will try to elaborate both, I hope i won’t confuse you guys🙈

Also age recommendations, Minkyun born in 1995 while Yuto is 1999, so if you are the middle sibling, your birth year is at between.  I would prefer as 1997 or 1998. Preferable that 1997 born if you are Yuto’s sibling, while 1998 born if you are Minkyun’s. 

 If you are the youngest, either you are same age as Yuto but later birthdate or the 3rd child that born after your parents marriage, in this case, 2 years younger than Yuto and 6 years younger than Minkyun.

Heads up I mentioned in the Hyojin & E-tion household, 3 households in this universe are very close to each other.So, apologies in advance and by all means there is not explicit favoritism (I did wrote about household interacting for previous universes). It just convenient and i felt we can use it this way.  Also, Minseok is Yuto’s classmate.

General headcanons

Yuto family moved to Korea when he is still a toddler. So he speaks Korean outside and Japanese back home. Because his family speaks in Kansai dialect, Yuto picks up that dialect automatically

Of course it could be Yuto’s family moved to Korea when he is at middle school age as well, it can be flexible.

Minkyun struggling to learn Japanese but then give up. But it never stops him to randomly drops in weird Japanese when he is hyper, and then leaving Yuto （and you）facepalming because Minkyun used it wrongly

Actually even though mature but super sensitive brothers. Well in very different ways. But should you live with them long enough, you pick up that intuitively 

I dont think this family will have alot of fight because both are sensitive in nature and deeply scare to hurt each other. So this family is all about giving out mental security to family members as well.

(its very different from MInseok Yuto household, because them 2 are in same age, so there is less factor to consider, while Yuto would have to put in Minkyun being a hyung when he started to get used to Minkyun’s existence. And Minkyun will sometimes, not in a bad way, being to passionately and freeminded hoping the younger one to open up more)

I mean, Yuto is defo the tsundere one while Minkyun radiates big puppy energy for this pair chemistry.

Loud

Bonus, Yuto never knew Minkyun can be that clingy lol XD

Minkyun never knew Yuto can be such a fan towards his weird antics XD He thought Yuto wont get his joke due to cultural differences, but turns out Yuto loves it (well cause mostly is body gag/ mom gaegu, like you see what Minkyun did during his birthday’s mini game heaven in 2020, that suddenly motor engine starting? Ya that is total epic lol )

Its super harmonious? like this family combi does not shy away on expressing hey i need help and family members super volunteer to help out if needed. (not that i mean other family does not help out each other, but this one is particularly doing it with super high tendency)

Due to Japanese background, Yuto might try to settle things on his own, but Minkyun will break that mindset stereotype and helps him out (like why you think it is a hassle for me? Ask for help if needed that is what family is here for.)

Minkyun playing guitar while singing and that is how your family know if he is at home or not.

Yeap in this universe Minkyun is a songwriter while Yuto is a dance coach and dancer (later when they all grow up, BTW i am thinking that Yuto and Minseok runs a dance academy later on.)

Minkyun is also part time sponsor/volunteer at pet shelter. In the end you and Yuto also are familiar faces at the spot. 

Also, hanging out being little part timers at Baskin Robbins lol

OH IF WANNA TRULY LINK EVERYTHING FOR UNIVERSE 3, BASKIN ROBBINS being the main meetup/setup point.  Jaeyoung is Minkyun’s friend so he would always drop by to have ice cream. While Changyoon could be doing a part time job there before and while occasionally drop by when he is nearby. 

welp they all live in the neighbourhood/same city in this universe so they all coincidentally bump at each other very often.

Either Yuto joining a school dance club or a dance academy  so there is where he met Minseok. (Who is a really curious kid who also look up to Yuto and Yuto also look up to him, cos dance talents)

(for this part I wont be talking about how Minkyun snuggling cat snacks cos its repeating what I wrote.)

 Scenario 1

If you are related with Yuto and Minkyun is the new join

Could you be are extroverted and you kind off help Yuto to get close to Minkyun

You and Yuto would find this new brother fascinating. He looks quiet at the beginning but later he will prove you both wrong

But when Minkyun is his serious mode, you will feel strange towards that too, because how can he has such large gap

i thinking its super cute and funny that if you and Yuto both gets intimidated at Minkyun’s height lol

It will be fun if Yuto has a denial stage aka hard time opening up to accept it because he is cautious, but you just bluntly accept it and joins Minkyun. It shows difference between personality of related blood siblings lol

IF actually you and your blood brother are introvertedly fun, Minkyun’s existence will be the key to spark both of your dork traits. It is a assuring factor for your parents that you 3 hang out very well.

its not like your family never heard Yuto laughed, but ever since Yuto and Minkyun opened up and gets close, Yuto is laughing alot.

you and Yuto both asking MInkyun for help when you two could understand some Koreans. But since Minkyun fools around 50:50, you two ends up googling or just straight up asking your friends

But if it is homework/grammar wise, Minkyun will really really explain it to you.

Minkyun also get close towards Yuto’s classmate, Minseok. I think a few times, you did not join, but the boys went out to roam the streets to feed stray cats/animals.

Bonus if in this hc, and you are younger than Yuto, and you have a crush on Minseok. Minkyun picks it up and would wanna help out but you told him to keep still XD

you three gonna be game buddies for sure lol

Scenario 2

If you are related with Minkyun and Yuto is the new joined / OR my preference, Yuto being the home stay student, and your family ends up unofficially adopts a Japanese sibling since Yuto continues his homestay contract with your family.

You and Minkyun thought Yuto is a bit distant in the beginning, and you three overwork your brains on trying too hard not to do something impolite towards each other culture.

But you and Minkyun would be surprise at how Yuto is so adapted to Korean culture later on.

Could be you are similarly shy like Yuto and need time to open up. This time Minkyun will be the one to open up first and slowly helps you.

Minkyun would suggest 3 of you to hang out at pet shelter. It does help.s

hould it is the homestay hc, I do see your family and Yuto’s family going along very well. Occasionally showing up to greet Yuto’s family during Skype session.

As Minkyun is the one who gave up, you are the one who would pick Japanese up later on. It gave Minkyun a shock when you and Yuto casually switching Japanese and Korean (with you amateur Japanese, but its already enough to give Minkyun a fright)

He might pout a bit, thinking/semi blaming himself a bit for not putting more effort to try to manifest the tool get close with Yuto. But then will throw the worry aside because its not really that important. Because he understands that its not like he and Yuto could not communicate anyways.

if it is the student hc, This could be when you and Minkyun are still high shcool-ers/ middle school-ers. And your school opens for foreigns students.

Minkyun being a bit worried because of he is 95er and Yuto a 99er. But when one day he sees Minseok come to visit, he goes: “ OMG thank goodness, I was so worried that he could not get along with classmate.”

Yuto just sidelining his hyung lol like chill dude, I interacts just fine ok. Don’t worry. 

(maybe Minseok comes to pass homework for Yuto because Yuto was sick and Minseok know the address.)

Similar to above, should you are Minkyun’s younger sibling, he can picks up that you have a crush on Minseok too.

Scenario 3

If you are the child that born later from your parents marriage

Them both flustered when they first meet the baby you.

Idk why for this hcs, I felt that age gap will be wider, as Yuto and Minkyun’s parents come together when them both are more older than other hcs. My age range idea is Yuto is about 10 or 13 while Minkyun is 14 or 17.

So, also I do think them both had a fight with parents, especially the mom because of her decision to get pregnant at older age. But quickly reconciled, they are just worried, no bad intentions. 

Because they are more grown compared to other hcs for this scenario, they help out on babysitting even more and even practical.

Minkyun basically is just like a young flustered dad while Yuto is the calmer one. But sometimes when the baby you throws a tantrum because you specifically wanted mommy, cues in both  Minkyun and Yuto flustered.

Also, Minkyun being funny but you are unbothered, 3 seconds later, it was Yuto who could not hold in and burst out laughter. 

You might be the one who pick up the language. And because you master both language, maybe later on your career pick would be interpreter

Rather than Yuto gets confused with language, you are the one who gets confused with language  in the beginning lol

It only got better when Yuto decided that you should speak Japanese with him and Korean with Minkyun in the household.

Minkyun is gonna let his baby young sibling ride him, and he will do his iconic either elephant or horse voice imitations.

(super funny bonus, if you are scared of that when you are a baby, but it got better later on.)

A/N I will stop here because I dont wanna write repetitive stuffs

[illfoandillfie]

ok sorry but how many people do yall think rog has ever slept with cos i’m guessing four figures no lie

okay, i don’t normally respond to messages like this because, frankly, i dont really feel like its my place to speculate on roger’s sex life. Theres a difference between writing a fiction story with a character named after and inspired by him and discussing his actual personal life which i have no real knowledge about. What he gets up to in his free time is between him and the women he does it with. but i didn’t really feel able to ignore this one. please don’t take this as me telling you off or shutting you down or anything like that. If you want to speculate about roger’s body count thats up to you, go nuts with it. and i love when you guys message me and I don’t want to discourage you from feeling like you can talk to me or just send me your random thoughts or whatever about any subject. But I feel like I need to address why I disagree with this sentiment. Also so I can ask ya’ll to please stop asking me questions like this. 

So firstly, just to get this out of the way. 1000 is a lot. even 100 is a lot. I think if rog had slept with 1000+ people he’d have a least a few illegitimate kids and probably would have been checked into rehab for sex addiction (not to mention STIs and such because lbr people in the 70s specifically probs werent the most careful especially if drugs were involved). I mean even if we were going to say Rog got lucky with a different woman after every show we wouldn’t reach 1000. According to google, Queen played around 700 shows in their entire career. If we add shows played by The Cross thats only another 67 odd shows (according to wikipedia). 

now, i think there are 3 things that contribute to this idea of roger as especially promiscuous. 1. His attitude/demeanour/general way he sells himself. 2. the generally held conceptions about rock stars and rock star behaviour. and 3. what i’m going to call fandom dumbassery (but i mean that with a lot of love) 

So lets start with the man himself. Roger Taylor is loud and opinionated and not particularly humble. He knows he’s talented and attractive though for at least some time he was a little self-conscious about how feminine he looked. He’s always up for a laugh, likes to party and has admitted to enjoying his drink and his women. He’s had kids with two different women, who’s relationships “overlapped”, and is currently married to a third. At least that’s the perception we can gleam from his interviews, behind the scenes videos, and other public appearances. 

It’s easy to see how that image leads to accusations of being a womaniser and a cheater and basically a bit of a slut lmao. But here’s the thing. I think Roger, in part, markets himself that way. The thing is, if you look at his solo songs and the relationships he currently has with his kids and their mothers, and things other people have said about him/his relationships over the years, I think it’s fair to say he also has a bit of a romantic streak maybe? idk if thats the best way of describing it...he’s self confessed to not being a fan of marriage and the like but he’s not opposed to writing and singing love songs and seems to believe in ~love~ as a concept/power. He certainly cares deeply for those closest to him. Whether or not that translates to an agreement with monogamy I can’t say for certain. It’s hard to draw conclusions here because a lot of what we know of his personal life was fed to us through magazines and news paper gossip column articles and they were never looking for the truth, they were looking for scandal and sensationalism. 

For instance the whole thing with the overlapping relationships. I think most people who have read anything about roger and dom and debbie realise that it’s not as cut and dry as “he was cheating with debbie and left dom for her” even though that was the story being sold by the press at the time. The reality (or at least the version closer to reality since obviously no one outside of them and whoever they were closest with knows all the nitty gritty details) is that rog and dom had already split when they got married. it was a marriage of convenience to make sure her and the kids would be looked after financially etc even after he’d moved out. So while it looked to the public like he married one chick and 30 odd days later was spotted with another, there really wasn’t anything untoward happening.  I’m not saying he never had casual hookups or one night stands and i’m not saying he never cheated, but I do think some of it’s been exaggerated, whether by him to encourage the rock star perception or by newspaper/magazine articles.

Now, obviously, we have stories of rog, particularly in the late 60s and into the 70s, being with multiple women. There’s that bit in the Interview with a Queen “Groupie” (which is a fantastic read and i defs recommend checking it out if you havent already) where she talks about roger being a chick magnet and says that, at the time, it was pretty common to sleep about. But, she also says she didnt notice him doing it more or less than anyone else and seemed to mostly be with Jo (his girlfriend at the time). This is the same Jo that got a mention in the Queen in 3D book (”i think we all had the feeling that these two were together for life, but it was not to be”). Conversely, we have that quote (which i cannot find rn but i’ll link it when i do) about roger sometimes having one girl upstairs while another waited in the garage for them to be finished. I think it was about Rog in the mid-late 60s in Truro but whatever. Obviously he wasn’t anywhere near celibate and it’s likely was sleeping with people outside of his relationship(s). But one has to assume that as he got older those kinds of antics stopped happening, at least as frequently.

There is one potential story that I remember reading somewhere along the way about Roger cheating on Debbie while she was pregnant. But, take that with a grain of salt because I can’t find the article again and also I think it was from like The Sun or something equally as rubbish. The press was notoriously always printing mean shit about the boys and that might have been another thing they published to create scandal. Even so, if we assume it’s legit that is still only 1 story. Not to throw him under the bus but Brian is the one with multiple confirmed affairs, who literally wrote songs about it all. So why is Roger the one with sleazy reputation? 

This is where my second and third points come in. There is a pervasive idea about what it means to be a rock star. The whole trashing hotel rooms, sleeping with groupies, passing out drunk every night thing. And I’m sure that Queen was like that to an extent. I think it’s pretty common knowledge that all of them got up to shit on the road. Between innuendo laden interviews and songs, videos and accounts of their parties, stories CT has put online, and other stories like the one of Roger bringing out lines of coke as dessert when he was having dinner with motley crue. They definitely embraced the rock and roll lifestyle. And I think with Roger’s personality being what it is, it’s easy to link him to those traditional rock star tropes and say it was all true all the time. I also think Roger has done nothing to counter those beliefs. He’s been open about how he wanted to be a rock star since the minute he picked up a guitar, he’s labelled himself as a great lay in magazines, he’s joked about girls pulling their tits out over dinner in interviews (though he said he didnt take her home), he’s written songs like One Night Stand and Dirty Mind and Airheads which explicitly mention his preference for women and alcohol. I think it’s fair to say he’s kind of encouraged that view of himself. Whether it was just a side effect of being part of such a well known band and having such a boisterous demeanour/personality, or whether it was intentional as a version of promotion i don’t know. maybe a mix of them? I mean I’m sure it didn’t hurt sales and stuff. it’s the whole guys want to be him, girls want to be with him thing, right? Maybe that’s just me being cynical though lmao. 

Anyway, the fandom brain has taken all of that and compressed it into memes and jokes about rog being the band slut. Which i’m not complaining about, lord knows i’ve made the same jokes and reblogged the same posts and used those tropes in my fics. They’re funny and lend themselves to interesting fic concepts. Plus, i think roger is the sort of person who would probably laugh about most of it. But it’s an idea that keeps feeding into itself through fandom, perpetuating what is probably a misguided view of his personal life.

Again, I am sure he’s had his fair share of fun and I’m not trying to make out that he was always perfect or whatever, but I don’t think he’s been with as many women as the popular discourse would imply and I certainly don’t think he’s in the 4 digit numbers.