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nanigma · 4 years ago

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Blue Lions Translation Chapter 4

Bringing you the next chapter in my project. Hope you guys enjoy!

As always, my financial situation isn’t the best, so if you feel like throwing some change my way for what I do here, here is the link to my ko-fi page. I really appreciate any amount you can give.

Also shoutout to the @teaveetamer, who has been putting my translations in tables, for easier reading and comparison to the localization. I’ll do a better job of reblogging those from here on, but feel free to head to her blog to see what’s up. I am incredibly grateful for the help.

My comments in italics

Scene: The Enemy’s Aim

Dimitri: In preparation for the assassination attempt, we have been assigned to the defence of the monastery. That appears to be our mission this month.

Dimitri: The knights will be busy defending Rhea, but that's not where the enemy's true aim lies...

[Choose: What do you mean?]

Dedue: … Your Highness. Would you mind telling me as well?

[Choose: I agree] +Support with Dimitri

Dedue: … May I still ask what this is about?

Dedue sounds a bit snarky in Japanese here. The line delivery is perfectly stoic like always, but basically he goes “Can I still ask what’s going on first, before we continue this conversation?”.

[Continuing]

Dimitri: Lord Lonato went out of his way to carry a secret message with an assassination plot written on it, never thinking to get rid of it.

Dimitri: Doesn't it make you think... That the assassination plot was meant to hold everyone's attention while they are truly after something else?

[If Annette, Felix and Sylvain are alive]

Annette: If we are talking about valuables... That would be the treasure vault! Otherwise, there's the library or Professor Hanneman's room...

Felix: There are bound to be weapons stored at the monastery which might even rival the Heroes' Relics.

Sylvain: Well, no matter what they are after, we can't let any harm come to the girls at the monastery.

English adds a line to Sylvain’s dialogue about how he wouldn’t know what else to do in his free time, making him sound a bit more callous.

Dedue: So what you mean to say is... We should investigate the monastery to find out what the enemy is truly after?

Dimitri: That's right. And to prepare us for when we face the enemy, we need to invest in our training as well.

[Shamir and Cyril enter the scene]

Shamir: You conspiring together, Professor?

Literally she is saying “Are you sticking your faces together to conspire?”, which I find a funny way of phrasing it.

Shamir: Oh, I haven't given you my name yet. I am Shamir.

Dimitri: Shamir is a member of the knights of Seiros. And this boy here is...

Cyril: I am Cyril, an attendant of Lady Rhea and apprentice to Shamir.

[Choose: Attendant?]

Cyril: I take care of Lady Rhea's daily necessities.

This is interesting, because unlike the English version, this specifies Cyril’s role in Rhea’s services. He isn’t just a normal servant, he is her personal attendant, which is a pretty important job and normally wouldn’t involve some of the things we see him doing in his supports (like chopping wood), so I assume those are tasks he himself took on.

[Choose: Apprentice?]

Cyril: I am trained in stuff like swords and bows.

Cyril: I wish to protect Lady Rhea as well... That's why I am Ms. Shamir's apprentice.

Shamir: Cyril adores Rhea, you see. Well, we each gotta do what we can.

In English, Shamir tells Byleth they can ask her anything.

Exploration

Dimitri

[Quest: Learning the Enemy’s Aim]

Dimitri: If the enemy truly has a different aim, then we need to find it out ahead of time.

Dimitri: It really seems there is no other option than to explore the monastery on our own, searching each place individually.

Dimitri: Afterwards we need to gather information from everyone living here. If we manage to come up with something, let’s speak again.

[If talked to again with insufficient information]

Dimitri: There's still some places I'd like more information on. Is there no one else who seems likely to hear us out?

[If talked to again with enough information]

Dimitri: … I see. To the church, there is something they put above all else.

Dimitri: On the day of the ceremony, it will be much easier to enter compared to normally, due to being opened for the public. That would be...

[Choose: The enemy will target the Greenhouse?] and [Choose: The enemy will target the dining hall?]

Dimitri: … How could that be the case?

Fun fact: When I first read the line, I thought the そうなる was referring to Byleth and he said “Why are you like this?” xD

Dimitri: Yes, I am afraid so.

Dimitri: We still do not know their objective, but the chances of them targeting the Holy Mausoleum are high.

Dedue

Dedue: I thought to help the monks with their duties, but they refused.

Dedue: They said you can never know when someone from Duscur will betray you and that I might be involved with the plot.

English just had them more concisely say that “no one from Duscur can be trusted, especially now”

Dedue: ...Them being nervous about the current situation is to be expected.

Felix

Felix: … An assassin targeting the archbishop, you say? I hope they are worth fighting.

[Choose: I hope so too] +Support with Felix

Felix: … Hah. It appears we are of the same mind.

[Choose: I want to avoid a battle]

Felix: … That's just what you think.

“That’s just, like, your opinion, man.”

Ashe

Ashe: Ah, Professor... I am sorry. I was just thinking about Lord Lonato...

Ashe: … Sorry for being in such a state at a time like this. It seems I still haven't been able to sort out my feelings.

[Choose: It can't be helped] and [Choose: Pull yourself together] +Support with Ashe for the latter

Ashe: … Thank you. I'll still be taking care of my duties of course.

Ashe: By the way, my younger siblings, who were living at Castle Gaspard, are both well.

Ashe: They are still very young, but it seems they've been taken in by a nearby church...

Ashe: … Even with everything that’s happened, this gives me some peace of mind.

Sylvain

Sylvain: Haah, there's no class on the day of the festivities, so I thought I'd be able to fool around all day..

Sylvain: Hey, Professor. Do you really think they specifically chose the day of the ceremony of rebirth for their assassination plan?

Sylvain: You'd think there’d be times where security would be less severe.

Sylvain: In that case, I wonder if there's a reason it simply had to be that one day?

Mercedes

Mercedes: There are a lot of treasures at the monastery. The enemy is probably after them.

Mercedes: But really, it is such a dreadful thought. To even think someone would steal church property.

Annette

Annette: Ehehe, I came here to buy ingredients for making sweets. Ah, I'm not just messing around or anything.

Annette: I thought it'd be nice to have something on the go for when I get into fights during my patrol.

[Choose: That's a great idea] +Support with Annette

Annette: Ehehe, right? Once I get better at cooking, I'll let you know how to make them, Professor.

[Choose: There's no reason to make sweets...]

Annette: I think eating sweets helps cheer you up... Ah, didn't you say you liked spicy food, Professor?

Ingrid

Ingrid: Professor. Although the investigation is important, you also have to take care not to neglect your training.

Ingrid: In case a battle happens, it wouldn't do to have the tables turned on us.

Ingrid: As we have no idea about the identity of our enemy, we can't be too careful about this.

Scene: The Goddess’ Right of Rebirth

[If you have not completed the quest “Finding the Enemy's Aim”]

Dimitri: At last the Goddess' Rite of Rebirth has begun. … And yet, we have been unable to narrow down what exactly our enemy is after.

Dimitri: The only thing we can do is immediately respond to whatever occurs as we patrol the monastery.

[If Felix and Annette are alive]

Felix: Tch... Being one step behind is hardly gratifying.

Annette: Ah, I baked us some sweets in case we get hungry during our patrol.

Annette: Though I might have messed them up a bit...

Dimitri: Annette... About that explosion in the kitchen last night...

[If you did complete the quest]

Dimitri: At last the Goddess' Rite of Rebirth has begun. We shall move out exactly as we discussed.

Dedue: Yes. Leave it to us. … Professor, you are well prepared as well, right?

[Choose: I am all set.]

Ingrid: Right, we also managed to figure out the enemy's goal after all. Let us do our duty!

[Choose: I don't think so.]

Mercedes: Oh my, the Professor doesn't have faith in this. How disconcerting.

[Choose: I am hungry.]

Annette: Eh? Ah, I'll sneak you some of my sweets after this.

[Continuing]

Dimitri: Professor. We are counting on you. Now then....

[Seteth+Flayn Dialogue. 100% identical between routes.]

Dedue: So it's time.

[If you have not completed the quest]

Dimitri: I managed to narrow down a few places that caught my attention.

Dimitri: Let's check on them one by one. The second floor, the white tower, and after that in the basement... the Holy Mausoleum.

[If you did complete the quest]

Dimitri: Now, let's hide in the agreed spot. We'll stand watch over the entrance to the Holy Mausoleum.

Dimitri: If any suspicious people should enter, we will capture them one and all. All right?

Battle: Aussault at the Godess’ Right of Rebirth

[If you have not completed the quest]

Dimitri: Tch... we were one step behind. It seems the enemy has already infiltrated this place.

[If you have completed the quest]

Dimitri: It is just as we thought. The enemy did actually infiltrate this place.

Mysterious Mage: Those guys from the Central Church already noticed us.... Buy me some time until I lift the seal!

Western Church Soldier: Hahaha!

Dimitri: The enemy is seeking something inside... Saint Seiros coffin. They can't possibly be after her remains, can they?

Dimitri: Although we definitely want to defeat them before they can open Saint Seiros' casket...

Dimitri: Take a close look at the floor. It seems some kind of mechanism was set up here.

Dimitri: Attacking from the best possible position as we proceed, while keeping an eye on the enemies' weapons, seems to me for the best.

Mysterious Mage: Death Knight! You are very strong, yes? Scatter them!

Death Knight: I do not take orders from the likes of you... And facing off against the weak is boring.

Dimitri: … He seems quite experienced. Challenging this knight recklessly would be a foolish idea.

Mercedes VS Death Knight

Mercedes: My my, how scary. Go easy on me, okay?

Death Knight: You are... I see... this chance meeting... was once again fated.

Mercedes: Yeees...? Just what could you be talking about?~

[When the battle ends and the Death Knight retreats]

Dimitri: … He got away. Right now, we'd best give up on any plans of chasing him.

Dimitri: That said... Professor. That sword, that glow... could it be...

Scene: Judgement

[Right after the scene with Rhea]

Dimitri: ….And there you have it. It seems as if the assassination attempt and the attack on the Holy Mausoleum were all orchestrated by the Western Church.

Dimitri: The whereabouts of the masked knight who led the attack are as yet unknown.

Dedue: Still, why would the Western Church do this?

Dimitri: It's because the Church of Seiros is not a unified entity, Dedue.

Dimitri: The church's management is in the hands of the leaders here are Garreg Mach. Even on the Church Council, the Western Church's voice is very weak.

Dimitri: The Western Church must have nursed dissatisfaction with the Central Church for some time.

[Choose: The Western Church...] and [Choose: The Central Church?]

Dimitri: Ah, that's right. Sir Jeralt mentioned that you did not grow up within the church.

Dimitri: The Holy Church of Seiros operates from multiple different branches across Fodlán.

Dimitri: The biggest is the Central Church, whose headquarters are here at Garreg Mach...

Dimitri: The Western Church lies far to the west of Gaspard Castle, where Lord Lonato raised his troops.

Dimitri: Their headquarters are on the other side of the most durable fortress city in the Kingdom, Arianrhod.

Dimitri: It seems the current incident was about the Western Church aiming to throw off the Central Church's authority and eliminate Lady Rhea.

Dimitri: Naturally in this case, the Knights of Seiros make an inquiry concerning their leaders... no, they will ride out to subjugate them.

Dedue: If they do... it will also be our duty to help them, right, Your Highness?

Dimitri: Yeah. However, you really are strange, Professor. To think that someone could be born in Fodlán...

Dimitri: And live their life without any contact with the church, is quite an unbelievable thing.

Dedue: … I wonder why the archbishop would appoint them as Professor.

[If Ashe, Mercedes and Ingrid are alive]

Ashe: Um... Lady Rhea had all the people from the Western Church killed, right?

Mercedes: It couldn't be helped. Going against the teachings is something that just isn't done...

Ingrid: … Those who do not conform can only be killed. Still, Professor, I....

Seteth: There you are, Professor. It seems the archbishop has something to tell you. Come with me.

#nanigma translates #3H #blue lions

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drarry-with-a-side-of-wolfstar · 6 years ago

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Drarry Fic Recs

My Favourite Drarry fanfictions from the past two years.

Stop All the Clocks (This is the Last Time I’m Leaving Without You) by @firethesound [E, 44K] Major Character Death

Living with Draco was difficult; living without him is unbearable. But if there’s one thing Harry learned from the war, it’s that even when one life ends, the rest of the world goes right on living.

You open always (petal by petal) by birdsofshore [E, 65K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Harry’s not the kind of person who pays for sex. He really isn’t. Until he is.

Lumos by birdsofshore [E, 41K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Harry never expected to spend eighth year listening to Draco Malfoy wanking.

Touch by @bixgirl1 [E, 44K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

When Harry is referred to a professional cuddler for the soothing power of touch, he’s dubious — even more so when the Cuddler who shows up turns out to be Malfoy. But in the years since the war, Malfoy’s changed, and over the next several days Harry is confronted by how much he still doesn’t know about this new version of his old enemy — and by how much he wants to learn.

Draw a Line From Your Heart To Mine by CreateImagineWrite [T, 40K] Creator Not To Use Archive Warnings

Being Harry Potter's best friend isn't always fame and beating off raving fans. It's also the anxiety of hearing your best mate's been cursed by another Dark Lord, or love potioned by some crazy woman. Or having his boyfriend you knew nothing about turn up on the Burrow's doorstep. Crime/Mystery fic.

My Big Fat Pureblood Wedding Series by QueenyMidas [E, 306K] No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage

Chaos ensues after Harry proposes to Draco on their three-year anniversary. The two must plan a wedding around their fighting friends, warring families, and each other's stubbornness. EWE, post-war, disregarding Remus, Sirius, and Colin's deaths and the fact that gay marriage is not legal in the UK.

Through the Looking Glass and What Draco Found There by @magpiefngrl [E, 16K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Draco discovers the Mirror of Erised is a portal and he enters an alternate reality where your deepest desires come true.

Or how Draco found himself in the world of his dreams and Potter had to come and ruin it.

Nearly Lost Things, Carefully Tended by SquadOfCats [E, 46K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Three years after the war, Harry is lost, drifting, and feeling left behind. In an effort to get control of his life, he commits to cleaning out Grimmauld Place top-to-bottom and forcing it to be a home, whether it likes it or not. The rotten old house is stuffed full of antiques, and Harry is shocked to discover none other than Draco Malfoy running the local antique shop. Malfoy is polite -- too polite, and Harry soon finds himself with a mission: to annoy and bother Malfoy with the most hideous, absurd antiques he can find. But along the way, Harry comes to appreciate Draco, his work, and the power of connecting to the people who came before him. It's a hard lesson, but Harry learns that if he wants to build a future, he has to reconnect to his past, and Draco might just be the one to help him do it.

All Our Secrets Laid Bare by @firethesound [E, 149K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Over the six years Draco Malfoy has been an Auror, four of his partners have turned up dead. Harry Potter is assigned as his newest partner to investigate just what is going on.

Kiss the Joy (Until the Sun Rise) by ICMezzo [M, 37K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

The Room of Requirement was severely damaged in the war, but not so much that it could not provide for one lost student and another young hero—especially when they needed each other most of all.

Then Comes a Mist and a Weeping Rain by Faith Wood [E, 21K] No Archive Warnings Apply

It always rains for Draco Malfoy. Metaphorically. And literally. Ever since he had accidentally Conjured a cloud. A cloud that's ever so cross.

Lost Boys by Dahlia_Rose_83 [E, 32K] No Archive Warnings Apply

On his way to meet Voldemort in the forbidden forest, Harry ran into Draco, who kissed him. Now they're both back at Hogwarts for their eighth year and he doesn't really know how to act towards the blond.

Wish Upon a Star (as Dreamers Do) by ICMezzo [M, 27K] No Archive Warnings Apply

There’s plant magic and celestial magic and dark magic and the normal magic that allows Harry to use a spell to clean his socks when Myrtle’s taken up in his laundry room again. Then there are wishes, and dreams, and love, and those are even more magical still. Career Choices: Harry: Hogwarts Consultant; Draco: Wishmaker

At The Crossroads There We’ll Meet by @firethesound [E, 24K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Potter keeps dying; Draco keeps saving him.

Solder by Oakstone730 [E, 34K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Seven years ago, Harry disappeared out of Draco and Scorpius's life without a trace after Harry's addictions destroyed his and Draco's marriage. Now, Harry’s back, and Draco wants to believe he’s changed. But Harry isn’t the only one haunted by the past.

The Devil’s White Knight [E, 64K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

When Harry wakes up in an alternate timeline--a timeline where Voldemort was defeated long before the first war--he discovers everything is different. His parents, his godfather, his friends--and him. Harry must deal with the consequences of who he would have been if he had been raised by his parents, and figure out where he stands with his casual hook up, Draco Malfoy.

Teach Me by @xx-thedarklord-xx [M, 34k] No Archive Warnings Apply

"If you can’t learn Occlumency, then you can’t become an Auror.”

No. All of this couldn’t be for nothing. Harry hadn’t spent so much time proving himself, proving that he was more than just a famous name for all of this to go to shite. “This can’t be the end.”

"I have someone in mind that could teach you if you are willing, but I can't guarantee he will help, especially considering your... past."

"You don't mean Malfoy, do you?"

Running on Air by eleventy7 [T, 74K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Draco Malfoy has been missing for three years. Harry is assigned the cold case and finds himself slowly falling in love with the memories he collects.

The Light That is Blinding Me by Leontina [E, 22K] No Archive Warnings Apply

After Flourish and Blotts stop stocking the books of Harry’s favourite author, he is directed to a queer bookshop and discovers it’s owned by none other than Draco Malfoy, who has more in common with Harry than either of them realise.

Another Mask Behind You by @letteredlettered [E, 116K] Rape/Non-Con

Draco is a high-end prostitute who hides his identity. Harry unknowingly hires him. And then there is porn, questions about identity, domestic bliss, more porn, and truth as seen through a web of lies. (And then more porn. Seriously, if you don’t want sex scene after sex scene you probably shouldn’t read this. And please read the warnings.)

Yours is the Earth (Hold On, Hold On) by chickenlivesinpumpkin [E, 127K] Graphic Depictions of Violence

When they first meet after the end of the war, Draco doesn't want anything to do with Harry. But as time goes by, Draco's growing love may be the only thing that can save them both, because after a serious accident in the Forbidden Forest, Draco's personality begins to undergo subtle changes. At first, Harry credits this to a new enthusiasm for life. But as the days pass and Draco's behavior becomes more and more mysterious, Harry begins to suspect that something bigger--and darker--is at work.

Any Instrument by dicta_contrion [E, 131K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Draco Malfoy wouldn't go back to England for anything less than an exceptional case. Being asked to figure out why Harry Potter can't control his magic might be exceptional enough to qualify.

And Back Again (Where You Belong) by @eidheann [E, 15K] No Archive Warnings Apply

He thought back on their previous handshakes, and smiled faintly at the fact they always seemed to mean so much more to him than they did to Potter.

And I Know the Spark by @firethesound [E, 15K] Graphic Depictions of Violence

All Draco cares about is keeping Potter alive, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

The Light More Beautiful by @firethesound [E, 81K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Thirteen years after Draco accepts Potter's help escaping the horror of his sixth year, he returns to England where he makes the unfortunate discovery that Potter is still as obnoxious as ever. And worse, more than a decade overseas hasn't been enough to dim Draco's obsession with him.

Of Wands And Trees by Omi_Ohmy [E, 45K] No Archive Warnings Apply

All Draco wants to do is be a wandmaker, but to do so he needs to understand the soul of trees. Of course, the only man who might be able to help him is the one man who is more of a mystery to him than any tree.

My Little Berserker by @aelys-althea [E, 105K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Eighth year was supposed to be calm. Moderated. Peaceful, even. Draco returned to escape the chaos wrought upon his shambles of a life and Harry to flee the responsibility of a world that sees him as something greater than was truly possible. Hogwarts was a safe haven, right?At least it was until Hagrid comes up with the wonderful idea to introduce some additional members to the student body of the fluffier variety. Hagrid doesn't do moderated - where's the fun in that?

Paradigm by dysonrules [M, 57K] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Harry Potter is an Auror and Draco Malfoy is a rentboy, but this is not a typical rentboy story.

Tear Out The Pages by alphinski [T, 74K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Draco didn't do things by halves. Instead of just walking out on Harry, he left the country. He's back now with a book and half the Wizarding World fawning over him. Harry refuses to join that number.

In The Hand by aideomai [T, 28] Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Two months after Harry went missing, when Hermione was frantic with fear and panic and sleep deprivation, Draco Malfoy cornered them outside the Great Hall before breakfast.

The Claiming of Grimmauld Place by @bixgirl1 [E, 74K] No Archive Warnings Apply

When Grimmauld Place begins fighting against Harry’s ownership of it, he decides he needs help to train the historic home — but little does he expect that it’ll be Malfoy who’s most suitable for the challenge. However, as Malfoy and Harry get closer, Harry comes to understand that expectations aren’t always the best path by which to guide his heart — and in the process learns just what is needed to make a house a home.

The Frisky Furnishings of Malfoy Manor by @writcraft [M, 19K] No Archive Warnings Apply

The course of true love never did run smooth.Or: Hermione has a crafty plan, Harry and Draco are fake boyfriends and wizarding traditions have a lot to answer for. Featuring awkward dates, mince pies, a saucy sofa and a line of sequined house-elf haute couture nobody asked for but got anyway.

The Arrangement by RurouniHime [E, 65K] No Archive Warnings Apply

It's worked for years. Why change it now?

The Truth is in the Rain by aki_hoshi [E, 74K] No Archive Warnings Apply

It rained, and Harry Potter was his friend. There isn't any hard and fast rule for friendship, or even love. It comes, sometimes as unwanted as the rain, and its effect lingers long after it's gone. Draco struggles to understand why this is all happening to him, and why Potter can't just go bother someone else.

Adventures in Solitude (Are You There Sirius? It’s Me, Draco) by oceaxe [E, 25K] No Archive Warnings Apply

Draco is grateful to have had Sirius’ portrait to confide in all those years ago, about his sexuality and unwanted feelings for a classmate named Harry. But when he gets the portrait out of storage after twenty years, the secrets he has kept from Sirius all along come out. Secrets about Draco’s role in the war... and secrets about Harry Potter.

The Standard You Walk Past by @bafflinghaze [E, 46K] No Archive Warnings Apply

On returning to Hogwarts for their Eighth Year, Headmistress McGonagall decided to room Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter together. She may have hoped for a leading example of house unity; the other students fully expected insults and fights. But nothing happened. That was, until Harry sleepwalked into Draco’s bed.

I could be wrong, I could be ready by @harryromper [M, 57K] No Archive Warnings Apply

At first Harry wonders if they’ve managed to destroy his vaults and are trying to tell him in the most oblique way possible. But when he turns the page he realises they’ve found a vault. A vault in the name of Lily and James Potter. The parchment trembles a little in Harry’s hand. He takes another gulp of wine. Harry Potter left Britain after the war and didn’t look back. Ten years later, when Gringotts discovers a vault containing his parents’ belongings—including their badly spell-damaged wedding rings—he’s forced to face up to friends and family who’ve grown in ways he could never imagine, a wizarding London rebuilt beyond his expectations, and the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the entirely unforeseen problem of Draco Malfoy. Featuring pureblood wizarding traditions, ancestral magic, open mic nights, marriage equality, a diner in Brooklyn, and the return of Fleamont Potter.

I’ll probably keep adding to this list as I find/read more amazing fics!

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deadskepticfiles · 5 years ago

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THE DREAMING PROPHET, EPISODE ONE [Transcript]

LAVANYA Good morning, Red Acre! And welcome to your favorite nighttime show, the Dreaming Prophet. Now, they may have taken away our phones, and they may have taken away our computers, and they may have taken away that coveted one hour of subliminal messaging that passes as television here.

LAVANYA But do you know what they haven't taken away? The shitty radios in the garage, which is exactly what we're using right now to bring this especially to you, because we're just that fucking dedicated dedicated to you. You're welcome. Now, my name is Lavanya --.

ASTRO And I'm Astro, and we'll be your hosts for tonight!

LAVANYA So make sure you have fun~.

LAVANYA First of all. We're gonna start off this podcast with a quick explanation of what it is. If you want to do the honors Astro?

ASTRO Yes. This is a "The Blackout Club" podcast for Blackout Club players, and we'll talk about what that means after we wrap up with our intro. But the basics are that this podcast focuses only on the facts. All lore, no speculation.

LAVANYA Even though we love speculation.

ASTRO We do. We love speculation. But we want to provide solid facts for other players use in their own speculation, so we'll try to keep ours to a minimum. We begin each show with a spoiler warning, and a content warning, because this game does deal with some heavy topics. And we will go right into that now.

LAVANYA Our general content warning for this podcast is that there will be discussion of children being harmed, and children being injured! Nothing in depth, but that is kind of part of the premise of the game, as well as general horror themes.

ASTRO And as a blanket warning, please keep in mind that the Dreaming Prophet will not be spoiler free. If you really want to experience the game to its fullest, play it yourself, don't listen.

[Music cue: Sleepers playing strings]

ASTRO If you haven't heard of The Blackout Club game, go ahead and check out WWW.BLACKOUTCLUBGAME.COM.

ASTRO And there's a lot of info on that page, but I'll read off a little bit. The premise of the game is that you are a child in this suburban town, Red Acre. And you are recording evidence of the strange things that are going on, to try to tell the world about this cult that's taken over everyone - including you, including your parents.

ASTRO When you close your eyes, you get possessed by a god, and so does everyone else in the town. It’s called “blacking out,” and it causes people to sleepwalk, and then wake up with dirt and blood on them, and trails that lead through their houses. Or they may not even wake up in their bed at all. They may wake up outside of town. They may wake up on train tracks. Kids in the Blackout Club are trying to record what’s happening in their town, to hopefully stop it, and they’re also trying to protect their own while they do it. Because as they’ve found out, the organizations behind this phenomenon - the god, Speak-As-One; the organization, CHORUS - They don’t want anyone to know what’s going on in Redacre, and they certainly don’t want it to stop.

[Music cue: Stalker switch]

LAVANYA The Blackout Club is primarily a multiplayer game, but there are parts of it that are single player. As of right now, there are no plans for single player missions, but we do have the prologue! The Prologue basically involves you, instead of playing your own individual character, you are playing Bells, who is a young woman 14, about to be 15 in three months, if I recall correctly. And she is trying to figure out a way to leave Red Acre!

BELLS V/O OK, recording... I think... Hi. It’s Bells - Isabella. If you’ve done your homework, you probably know I live in the Radio Quiet Zone. We have no cell signal here, no internet - Nothing. So no one knows what’s happening to us. At night, our town - [stuttering] - it changes. We like, wake up in the woods, or on train tracks, no idea how we got there. If you tell an adult, they just laugh it off, and most folks my age - well, they’re cowards.

BELLS V/O But - so last night, I set up a hidden camera, and I finally got proof. Stuff the world needs to see. The video’s all on this thumb drive, and tomorrow, I’m gonna take Mom’s car, and sneak it far enough out of town to finally get online. To reach you. When you see this, come to Redacre. Help us. Please. Um, thank you.

LAVANYA OK. So that exciting clip is a line directly from the prologue of the Blackout Club, the single player mission. What we heard there was Bells explaining the basic premise of the game. I personally feel it's important for most players to try to play it, because it sets up the basic themes of the game.

LAVANYA The basic themes of the game are friendship and also psychological terror. What Belles keeps having emphasized to her throughout the prologue is that she cannot trust anything that she sees or anything that she hears. She's seeing a strange shape that is pursuing her and trying to maybe kill her, maybe mind meld with her, throughout the prologue. The game will instantly end if you're caught by it.

LAVANYA She's getting mysterious voices in her head: two different ones that are speaking to her and trying to guide her through this to safety. And she's realizing that: are her parents are on this conspiracy that she's discovered prior to the start of the game, or is literally everyone in town?

LAVANYA She cannot trust anyone in the town and she cannot even trust herself. As is shown by the ending of the prologue, when the voices lead her all the way to the boxcar, and then she is dragged away.

LAVANYA So, it's kind of a good summary for the overall game, because the children face the same issues during the multiplayer game play as well. You can't trust the adults. You can't trust the other children who might be following opposing Daimons, and you certainly can't trust yourself, because the game keeps empathizing, every time you close your eyes - every time you black out in game - you're being possessed.

LAVANYA So the only people that you can trust actually are your friends. The player characters operate in missions of up to three other players, all of whom are bound together by friendship, trust, and the knowledge that they are working together to succeed in taking down CHORUS. Bells is betrayed by her parents in the prologue, and she is potentially betrayed by the voices as well. The player character, any time that you play with stalker enabled, is betrayed by the stalker, who is someone in the Blackout Club that is working for SAO instead of the kids. So, when you can't even trust yourself, the only people that you can rely on are the friends that you choose to surround yourself with - which is one of the biggest themes of the game.

[Music cue: Stalker switch]

ASTRO The prologue, in addition to introducing you to this story, also introduces you to a lot of the core gameplay, which we'll go over here.

ASTRO You have two different things that you can see. When your eyes are open, you can see the overworld, you can see the adults walking around sleepwalking or not, and you can see the houses and everything else around you.

ASTRO When you close your eyes, you can see the Shape, you can see footsteps that are guiding you to your next objective, and you can see secret messages that may be hidden somewhere in the map. Among other things, there are several new things that have been cropping up lately, so it's always a good idea to close your eyes every so often, and see what's out there.

LAVANYA Exactly! Because sometimes it's secret messages, sometimes it's just secret marks that, when you look at them with your eyes open, they just look like scuffs on the ground - and when you close your eyes, they're glowing in red!

LAVANYA We're going gonna do a quick breakdown of all the basic items in the game. The way that the items are set up in game is that you have two classifications of items, basically.

LAVANYA You have the hero items, and then you have the standard normal items that you use and then they'll be terminated from your inventory. Let's start off with the hero items. Hero items are controversial! They are a controversial part of the fandom, because everyone has their specific favorite and everyone will talk shit about others. Which one you take ultimately just depends on how you feel and what your gameplay style is, because this will change the way you play the game pretty significantly.

LAVANYA So with the hero items, we have three hero items. First off, we have the Taser which is, to quote the game, “a close range stun gun. It requires time to recharge after every use and is not for use by children.” Luckily, we're not children in game. We're 14, going on fifteen in three months. Perfectly safe for us to use!

LAVANYA The way that the Taser works is: it is an item and it is an escape item, basically, that will recharge over time. So if a lucid or a sleeper grabs you, then you'll be able to automatically tase them as long as you have a charge on your taser and be able to escape from them. It traps them for about three to four seconds in a loop of electricity.

LAVANYA If you have a Stalker in game, you can also tase them. If you have a friend who is shaped in-game, and thus wandering around spouting off voice lines about being asleep, you can also tase them. I don't know why you would, but that option is there!

LAVANYA The second hero item is the grappling hook. The description for the grappling hook is: “will stick to walls and ceilings, and lower a climbable rope.” So it's pretty straightforward! What the grappling hook does is basically it increases your mobility in a game that is already so heavily focused on movement.

LAVANYA With a grappling hook, you don't have to jump up places. You can throw your hook and you can hop right onto it and climb up. I would say it extends about 15 to 20 feet down.

ASTRO On average, it's about two stories. So if you are three stories above something, [you] will have a steep drop, but it'll be less fall damage than if you fell from the full height.

LAVANYA Exactly. And the grappling hook - most places in the game, you'll be able to get with the grappling hook, or else you'll be able to get as long as you and a friend have a grappling hook. Most of the tunnels that connect the rooms in the underground and most of, like, the major shorter cliffs, like Hoadly's Leap, in the first two areas, you can climb up that with a single grappling hook. So it's pretty useful if you want to increase your mobility.

LAVANYA It's by no means required. You can get anywhere that you would get with a grappling hook without a grappling hook, it may just take longer.

LAVANYA The last hero item is the crossbow which says, “modified from an old history project to fire tranquilizer darts with pretty decent accuracy.” Because Red Acre plays history rough, I guess. In a lot of ways, the crossbow is possibly one of the most powerful items in game so long as you have tranquilizer darts. So if you are willing to drop the snacks to buy tranquilizer dart at the beginning of each game, what this does is it means that anyone within - I would probably say, 60 meters or so - as long as you have your crossbow cursor aiming at them, you will be able to shoot them.

LAVANYA You can shoot and tranquilize tranquilize a Lucid from about two houses, down as of June 6th, 2019. This may get changed after we say that. [laughter]

LAVANYA Honestly, the crossbow is my favorite item, when I'm not scampering around the walls like a fucking aye-aye. Because you can use it to take down Lucids. You can use it to take down drones - not the large ones that fly overhead, but the other player drones, if you just want to be horrible for some reason. You can take it to take down sound mines. You can use it to.. I think that's about it, actually.

LAVANYA So, maybe technically, it doesn't have a lot of use? But it has a lot of use in my heart. I love the crossbow. We have a very special relationship.

ASTRO It's not versatile, but it is useful.

LAVANYA Exactly. It is useful and if you have stalkers in your game you can absolutely buy a ton of tranq darts and load that motherfucker up.

ASTRO The hero items will become obvious to you when you're in the boxcar. There is a table that has all three of them laid out in a row. And, strictly in my opinion, they're in the order of difficulty.

ASTRO If you're a new player - if you have just picked up the game - the taser is going to be your best friend as you try to learn how to navigate and how to get out of these scrapes. The taser is your second chance.

ASTRO The grappling hook helps you explore more after you understand parts of the map; after you start getting on your own two feet.

ASTRO And the crossbow, I feel, is extremely difficult to master, but once you do have mastery of it, it is so helpful to everything that you do.

LAVANYA It really is. It takes a minute to master it [the grappling hook] because the walls are not always smooth in the areas in which the grappling hook can actually successfully land are not always straight-cut.

LAVANYA I've been using the grappling hook for three months now, and I still sometimes hit spots where I throw it, it should land and instead it ricochets off the walls. [laughter] Because early access! But once you get the hang of it and you have a general idea for what the grappling hook looks like when it will be able to actually drop down, it is absolutely wonderful.

LAVANYA So now we're just going to cover the in-game items real quick which are largely self-explanatory.

LAVANYA The first of the in-game items is the bandage! The bandage is basically: you can find this in chests, you can start off the game with this if you have the Medic perk, and you can buy them from the snack machines or from the firework vendors in game. What it does is it will heal about one third of your stamina. So if you've taken a wound by falling off a cliff, being grabbed by a lucid, or being fucked up by a stalker, it's here for you. You can bandage yourself or else you can be bandaged by another player, too, which is always useful.

LAVANYA Second up is the energy bar, which is often having debates involving it on the various Discords over whether or not it is OP. Because the energy bar will briefly top off your complete stamina bar, so you have endless energy, and more importantly you will do not get staggered when you fall. So you can jump off as high of a cliff as you want, and when you hit the bottom, as long as you had an energy bar on the way, you will be able to still keep running with no interruption.

LAVANYA Third up is the flash bang, which - it is an escape item. It is a military flash bang, which - we are not asking how these fucking children found this in Red Acre. Red ACre is just stocked the fuck up. What it does is you can throw it and you can blind enemies - in what I'd probably say is a six foot radius around where it lands? - And it will also stun the Shape. It will also make the screen flash white for any players around, but it won't stun them the way it will for, like, Stalkers, which is always nice.

LAVANYA Third up is the noisemaker. It's little fireworks. When you toss them, it will create a ton of noise, and it will attract any lucids or sleepers who are not presently engaged over to it. So it's a very useful method of crowd control in a game that does not necessarily have crowd control. It also seems like it may be one of the most common drops because you will usually have a noisemaker in your games.

LAVANYA Foam grenade.. basically, whether or not its OP, like with the flash bang grenade, is a pretty big topic of discussion in some parts of the community. Because a foam grenade, once you thought it will create a puddle of foam - hyper absorbent foam! - on the ground. When you land on that, it will produce no fall damage. If you walk on it, it will have no noise. It will disable cameras temporarily if you throw it at it. It will disable sound mines and proximity mines permanently if you throw them on it. And anyone who walks through it will start producing footprints you can see exactly where they go. In addition to that, if you throw it at the Shape, it will stun the Shape very briefly, and it will highlight the Shape, so he'll be covered in foam and you can actually see him with your eyes open.

ASTRO The foam grenade as one of the most versatile items in the game, if not the most versatile item.

LAVANYA Oh I think it's absolutely the most.

ASTRO It's quite genius. I think it's one of the highlights of the blackout club as a game..

LAVANYA It is, it is, because the thing is the foam grenade is one item, and people can use it for about five different gameplay styles. Which is very nice, because I almost never use it to actually make - to reduce noise, I use it as a limited form of crowd control to get Lucids the fuck away from me, as a method to stunning Lucids, and also to ensure that I don't take fall damage, so I never have to stop. [laughter]

LAVANYA The next item is basically, uh, a tranquilizer dart. Unless you are carrying a crossbow, it is melee only. It is an escape item. You can use it when you are grabbed, or else you will have to grab a Lucid in order to use it. Or a Sleeper, or a Stalker. Kids can be tranquilized by Stalkers. It is not a big deal. It will stun you for about 5 seconds, but it is fucking infuriating. Best way to make somebody tilt in zero point five seconds! [laughter]

LAVANYA The sleep trip wire is basically the tranquilizer dart for anyone who plays more stealthily. It will create a trip wire across the ground, and any enemies - whether that's Lucids, Sleepers, or other children - who walk across it, will be stunned. In the case of Lucids and Sleepers, it will knock them the fuck out. You can also set it up for the Shape, and it will stun him temporarily the same that it will do for player characters.

LAVANYA Quick note here! Except for shooting other players’ drones, TBC does not have friendly fire. So you don't have to worry about setting up a sleep tripwire and then fucking over your teammates, because they just won't be affected by it at all.

LAVANYA And the last item is lock picks! The locked areas in game are the chest, doors to the houses, and I do believe that's it. You can also “kick in” anything that is locked instead of unlocking it, at the severe risk of drawing a shit ton of aggro. So, it's another matter of gameplay style.

[Music cue: Stalker switch]

Astro [00:06:58] When you play a mission your character has one of four classes. These are called major powers in the game, and the four major powers at this time are Takedown, Prankcaller, Unstoppable and Drone.

ASTRO Takedown players are your hand to hand combatants. They are really really good at wrestling with sleepers - with adults - which is something that not all of the kids can do. As a 14 year old, a 15 year old, you don't have the strength or body weight of an adult, but Takedown players have trained themselves to be able to do that to be able to stand a little bit more of a fighting chance. Takedown players can wrestle enemies for themselves or for their friends. If you see a friend in trouble, you can grab an enemy and hold them down and try to decrease the danger in that area.

LAVANYA Takedown is one of the most uncommon powers for people to take, but honestly it's one of the most useful, because what's more helpful than when somebody is jumping for your friend when they're on low health, than being able to just jump in there and pin them for the rest of the session down to the ground? The Lucid! Don't pin your friends.

ASTRO Prankcaller is a more stealth focused class. Prankcaller asks you to use your tech know-how to hack into phones and other devices, and disable them for your friends. You can call sleepers at the first level, which distracts them with a spam marketing call while you sneak past them. Sleepers can't see you. They can only hear you and so filling their ears with pyramid schemes will distract them pretty well, unless you make a horribly loud noise.

ASTRO Unstoppable temporarily makes you invulnerable and gives you extra stamina. Your stamina doesn't deplete when you run or jump. At the first level, you have about 10 seconds to do whatever you want and get the hell out of dodge.

LAVANYA And, my god, you can do anything you want. Fall damage: no. Lucids: no. Sleepers: no. Speedmines: they will fucking destroy you, don't do those. But anything else!

ASTRO So this is really, really good if you are a player who tends to get yourself in a bunch of bad situations and needs to run very, very fast. Also interesting: Unstoppable recharges when you take damage. If you end up in a lot of scrapes, that will eventually help you down the road.

LAVANYA Exactly. And if you like going places and you like going to them fast, Unstoppable is an excellent power - but you have to keep in mind when Unstoppable runs out, you will have to take a ton of damage in order to turn it back on. So don't race into danger, race across the map, separate yourself from your team, and then start crying when your unstoppable is gone. That's the classic mistake.

ASTRO And the last class is Drone. Drone players have a secondary player character, if you want, which is this drone. It's a stolen drone from the cult that you've managed to jury rig into your own device. Drones are a remote camera that you can send around the map within a limited range from yourself that can see other things and at higher levels can perform actions such as recording or tasering. Drone players are able to look around corners and scout out inside houses and rooms without actually going there and putting themselves in danger.

LAVANYA Yes. If your drone touches anyone, then it will, like, fucking die? But the good news is you can either send your friend over - your friend with Unstoppable - Make sure your team is well-varied! - into danger to grab your drone off the ground and bring it back to you, or else you can manually fetch your drone. So, it cannot be destroyed permanently, as far as I know.

ASTRO Now these classes all work well together. Having a well-balanced team helps you because it means that you have access to all of these different powers.

LAVANYA Exactly.

ASTRO But it's by no means required for you to have one of every single type. I think that's a really nice feature of the game, which is that you can have whatever team composition you want. If you have one take down and three unstoppable, that will still help you a lot.

LAVANYA Exactly. I will clarify: if you have four drone users, you may have a little bit more of a rough time, but you just have to take it steady and slow. And also have a designated victim who has to collect your drones back.

ASTRO Now the minor powers get a little bit more complicated. There are six of them right now. They are Locksmith, Atlas, Improved Stamina, Lucky Loot, Medic and Nutritionist. Most of these will give you an extra item. Locksmith, Medic and Nutritionist will all give you various items at the beginning of the game to help you out, which are, respectively, a lock pick, a bandage, and a energy bar.

ASTRO So if you happen to be the type to use those items a lot. Those are definitely minor powers to look into. Atlas allows you to run while carrying bodies. This won't impact the noise made from carrying bodies, but it will allow you to move quicker while you're carrying them.

LAVANYA There isn't much practical use for carrying bodies unless you want to be a sociopath and dump them off the cliffs or something. That's not advisable. Don't kill your grandma.

ASTRO Bodies can be discovered and if you happen to be in a tight spot and you need to hide a body, Atlas is a great power to help you book it.

ASTRO Improved Stamina gives you 10 percent more stamina than what you start with. Again, super useful if you want to run a little bit, but maybe you aren't into the idea of the whole Unstoppable power. Improved Stamina can get you a little further. The description for Improved Stamina also says it can be used to rush skills as well as movement. They mentioned lock picking and hacking like in the Prankcaller power. I don't know how true that is. I've tried rushing lock picking and I think it speeds up a little bit, but this is not necessarily true.

LAVANYA The truth of the Deck is whatever you believe will become true. If you just believe that you're lock picking a little bit faster, I'm sure it's 100 percent working as the devs intend.

ASTRO And the last minor power we'll cover is Lucky Loot. Lucky Loot will sometimes grant you a second copy of whatever item you pick up. Extremely useful in all cases. Honestly, Lucky Loot players are an asset to every team.

LAVANYA They really are. Lucky Loot can sometimes be the absolute difference between acing a level, and crashing and burning after a Stalker throws a foam grenade in your face. You will semi-frequently end up with doubled lock picks, doubled flash bangs, and everything else. And even with the ability to buy flash bangs and tranqs and bandages and candy bars with the little fireworks machines now, that can make a ton of difference. As far as I know, you do not get Lucky Loot when you purchase goods, though, you're just out of luck there.

[Music cue: Stalker switch]

ASTRO So, as mentioned in the prologue, the core premise of the game deals with this idea of gathering evidence of what's happening in your town and hoping to eventually take it out of the town. And in the game, you do this quite a lot.

ASTRO There are some missions that will require you to record things. There are also things called bonus evidence which are scattered around the map. When you go into your pause menu, you can see how many pieces of bonus evidence you have in any specific game. It can be anywhere from three pieces to possibly 14 pieces and maybe more. As your map expands, you have the opportunity to find more bonus evidence, but it will also be scattered further. You'll have to travel more to find it. And each piece of bonus evidence that you get will give you more XP, and it will also unlock journal entries for you to read in the boxcar.

ASTRO These pieces of bonus evidence can be various things. You will know them, because they will prompt you to record them by having a little bit of TV static and a slight green haze on them. They can be posters. They can be suitcases. They can be -

LAVANYA They can be creepy duffel bags full of mail. Depending on the mission, sometimes the bonus evidence will be things like pages from confidential files that you can kind of, but not quite, read. Or else they'll be bloodied up furniture, or blood stains on the ground that you have to clean up. It really just depends on what type of game you're in at that point!

ASTRO Yes. So if you happen to see that TV static effect - if you happen to see that green haze - take out your phone record whatever it is. Ultimately it can only help you.

[Music cue: Stalker switch]

ASTRO As if we couldn't have more things to do in our games - in addition to the main missions, the bonus evidence, just listening to the different enemy voice lines to get lore - there is another objective that you can complete throughout many missions, which we might call a fragment quest.

ASTRO There is a Daimon of this game called Thee-I-Dare, and Thee-I-Dare was fragmented. He was shattered. And because of that shattering event, various parts of his name are scattered around the map. They appear as small bits of fog against a wall, or in a specific area, and you can collect them by turning on your flashlight, aiming it at the spot, and closing your eyes.

ASTRO This does make you more visible, so it's not something you should do in a risky situation, but collecting these named fragments allows you to choose how to use them. You can return them to Thee-I-Dare, or you could turn them over to Speak-As-One to be burned. There are no in-game mechanics for this. However, when you interact with those Daimons, you can choose what you'd like to do.

LAVANYA Personally, I was going to do this fragment section, but someone banned me from it - [laughter] - on account of the fact I keep burning mine! But if you want to burn them, the way you do that is you light up a Light of Rebellion, one of the reward items you can get from the chest, and you just send off a prayer. And you're like, hey, Speak as One, I want you to know - here's some fragments for burning!

ASTRO Fragments will appear once in a while. And if you spy a fragment in one place but you can't retrieve it at that time, your next fragment will always appear in that place until you collect it.

[Music cue: Stalker switch]

LAVANYA So as your resident Speak-as-One stan, I'm going to cover the next game mode, which is possibly the most important game mode that you will ever play. Fuck the main missions, because this is what we're placed on this Earth for.

LAVANYA So, Stalker Mode was introduced in Update 5, which was phrased ENTER THE STALKER. Basically, in order to access the Stalker mode, you'll need to gain one Dossier, and then enter into the Stalker van, and select a mission to stalk.

LAVANYA The stalker is the player antagonist of the game. Basically your mission is not to make the team of children wipe, but to increase the spookiness of their playing experience, by not getting caught, filming them, and attracting enemies to them. You're trying to make the game harder and you're trying to freak them out. It's a lot of fun. The responses and reactions you can get from the player characters is always fucking amazing. So you'll be playing one versus two at the very minimum, because in order for a Stalker to arrive in a game, it has to have two players at the very least. Often you'll end up in a fourstack, so it'll be you versus four players.

LAVANYA Again your goal in this game mode is not to wipe the player characters. You will almost never be able to wipe the player characters. But! It is to just make it more difficult for them. And usually if people see a stalker is in the game, they will derail everything and become dedicated to hunting you down like a fucking dog. So it's a lot of fun for everyone involved! Like a really sadistic game of tag!

ASTRO It should be noted that when you begin the stalker mode, there is explanation text on the screen that starts with you will be caught. This stalker adds atmosphere, adds danger, but they are not the protagonist of the Blackout Club. The club kids for which the game is named are the protagonists of the game.

LAVANYA And It's important to note that that if you wipe the kids, you will get your dossier back, the only way that you can get points is keeping them alive to farm them for interactions with the lucids or for proof of their crimes. You get points and you reach the top with the Stalker leadership board, which can reward you either a jacket or a shirt, through recording and interacting with the kids. The goal is not, which can never be stated enough, to wipe them wipe the entire party. The mode is ultimately about encouraging interaction.

ASTRO Maybe the real winning was the friends we made along the way.

LAVANYA Yes. Maybe the real winning is the friends we made along the way. And the real purpose of the stalker mode is learning the beauty of the enemys to bff-les for life. Don't hunt down your stalker like a dog and tie them up to sacrifice In-Her-Teeth. Bring them home for hot cocoa and a blanket.

[Music cue: Stalker Switch]

ASTRO So if you are a player from the Blackout Club, you may have listened to this episode and thought to yourself - I already know all of this! What is this podcast of use to me? The reason we’re making this episode is to catch everyone up to the same point. From here on out, we'll be moving on and talking about new things, we’ll be talking about things more in depth, that you may not have thought about before. Or maybe you did!

LAVANYA Exactly. And it's always important to note - we're starting off these first few podcasts with an introductory to the game series and everything in it, partially because so many players in game have no fucking idea what's going on. They don't know how the Lucids are alerted, they don't necessarily know what the storyline is, they don't understand [Enhanced] Horror Mode.

ASTRO The learning curve of the Blackout Club is very steep, and that isn't a bad part of the game..

LAVANYA But it can be very frustrating!

ASTRO It can be very frustrating, but ultimately, it requires you to rely on your friends, which is the core of the game, and you learn together. This podcast is a small way to help that learning curve, and to help individual players learn the language and the playstyle of the game, so they can become better, and pass on more information.

LAVANYA And this podcast is also about ensuring that we can become not only your friends, but your best friends. Your truest, closest friends. WE SPEAK AS ONE.

ASTRO Oh my god. I can't believe you used me for advertising!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CREDITS:

The Blackout Club is made by Question Games. Our fact-checker is Be11amy. Our transcript is by Lavanya. Audio editing is by me, Astro. Xaviul is a henway.

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thatbluegibson · 6 years ago

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CH 81

Liz was still in the haze of deep sleep when she felt his fingers graze her cheek and his lips against her forehead. She distinctly heard him tell her that he loved her and then he was altogether gone. Rolling onto her side she tried to fully wake, but the bed was too warm, too soft, too perfect to allow for anything more than blissful unconsciousness and she slipped back into the deep with her nose buried in his pillow.

It felt like hours later when she finally woke with a start, sitting up to quickly get her bearings. She felt dizzy and disoriented after sleeping so deeply for so long and she scrambled out of the bed before it convinced her to stay, pulling the flat sheet off and wrapping it around herself. The clock on the fireplace mantle read 8:30 am and Liz frowned, thinking it had to be wrong. It had to be at least noon, she had slept for so long but her phone on the nightstand concurred and she wondered what time Dave had actually left that morning.

Getting her first good look at the bedroom, Liz wrapped the sheet around herself a bit tighter. It had been dark by the time they had finally gotten to the hotel in Paris and she had been so exhausted from running off of such little sleep that she and Dave had gone straight to bed. The room was painted in several shades of white with ebony wood and silver accents and it felt as of Coco Chanel had just stepped out for a smoke on the terrace. The bed even had a cream silk canopy that stretched across the ceiling to the elaborate crystal and silver chandelier that hung in the middle of the bedroom and Liz actually laughed when she leaned into the attached white marble bathroom. It was far and away the nicest place she had ever been in, much less wandered around wearing only a luxury linen flat sheet.

Overwhelmed, she stumbled across the dark room to pull back the curtains and swore under her breath. Paris was laid out before her, along with a decent sized rooftop terrace that she stepped out onto. The sheet blew against her in the soft breeze as she stared at the Eiffel Tower in the distance and the Seine beside it.

"I thought you made a break for it."

She turned at Dave's voice and managed a smile. "Yeah, I was about to make a rope out of bedsheets so I could escape this torture chamber you've locked me in."

He handed her a cup of coffee and sat in one of the plush chairs in the sunshine. "Torture chamber? I've never really tried the S&M thing, but I'll give it a go if you're into it," he grinned, his eyes fixed on the outline of her body in the thin sheet.

Liz laughed and ignored the other sumptuous chairs around him, opting to sit in his lap instead. "I'm not that bored with you yet."

"... Yet," he muttered, taking a sip of his coffee.

"How's a girl gonna get bored when you put her up in a fucking palace like this?" she threw her hand towards the open bedroom door as he wrapped his arm around her waist. "Honestly, Dave. That room is ridiculous."

"I wasn't going to put you up in a fucking Motel 6 for your birthday, Elizabeth," he laughed.

"We could have put little party hats on all the cockroaches though," she whined, then giggled when Dave laughed harder. "And who the hell told you it was my birthday?"

"You have a Wikipedia page, you nerd," he teased and dragged his fingers across her cheek when she blushed. "Don't make any plans today, okay?"

Her smile returned and she looked out over Paris. "But I thought we could storm the Bastille, guillotine some politicians, abolish the absolute monarchy... you know, do as the French do."

"You're pretty focused, Liz. I bet you could get all that in while I'm at soundcheck."

She crossed her arms and shifted so her back was against his chest. "So much for my date night idea," she pouted.

He kissed her shoulder in response and her eyes followed his hand as it began to creep under the seam of the sheet towards her bare skin but frowned when he paused and played with the fabric instead.

"You don't happen to have that picture of you and Lemmy, do you? From when you were a kid?" he asked suddenly.

"Um...," her brain lurched from one thought to the next like someone learning a stick shift for the first time. "Yeah. Hang on." She reluctantly left his lap for the bedroom, grabbing her phone off the nightstand and sitting on the edge of the bed to find the photo.

It took her a while to find it in the depths of her phone, but the moment she had it on the screen he was kicking off his shoes and pulling her into the bed next to him. She studied his face, sensing something heavy was on his mind before handing him the phone.

He stared at it for a beat, showing no emotion until he spoke. "He had asked me to play this fucking festival with him for years," he said quietly. "But we were always too busy or the band was fighting or fucking whatever and now..." Liz felt her heart break when tears flooded his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. "Every year I think it isn't going to hurt and every fucking year it does."

"Oh, honey," she whispered and crawled into his lap so she could hold him.

His knees came up behind her, propelling her into his chest and he held her so tightly that she couldn't properly fill her lungs. She laid her head on his shoulder and waited him out, telling herself that he needed this more than she needed air.

A few minutes passed before he broke their silence. "That's the first time you've ever called me anything but my name," he whispered.

"You want me to give you a nickname?" she asked, smiling into his shoulder.

"Yes. Make it French, though."

Liz smiled and pulled away to lean against his bent knees, his tear-stained face breaking her heart all over again. "Okay, what about... mon petit chou?"

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Literal translation is 'my little cabbage'," she giggled.

"Nope," he shook his head but finally cracked a smile. "Next."

"Mon cœur."

Another head shake, but with a wider smile.

"Mon chéri?"

"Closer..."

She took him literally and leaned back into his chest, kissing him before deciding on her final nickname, "Mon amour."

"That one. I want that one."

"Je t'aime mon amour," she said quietly against his lips, then laughed when he threw her down onto the bed beside him.

"You're sure it's okay?" Liz asked, searching for any sign that he would need her at the festival, but he revealed none.

"I'll be fine, baby. I promise," he insisted and pulled her into one last hug. They were alone in a corner of the extravagant hotel lobby while the rest of the band and crew waited outside by the vans. "Go hang out with Ally, Taylor can console me if I get all weepy again."

Liz grinned and walked with him towards the doors. "That's my job, though."

"Think of it as a day off from your emotional wreck of a boyfriend then."

"Maybe I like when you're a wreck," she teased gently, careful not to make fun of him lest he never show his vulnerable side again. And she did like that he was comfortable enough with her to break down and let her build him back up, something Kyle had never been strong enough to do.

"Yeah, so I've learned," he laughed, adjusting the collar on his shirt to cover the mark she had left on his neck earlier.

Out on the sidewalk, Ally bounced on her toes while waiting excitedly for Liz's final decision. Taylor rolled his eyes and tried to kiss her goodbye while everyone else filed into the vans.

"I'm fucking pissed!" Pat yelled at Gus, throwing his hands up in the air. "They get to go to Gucci and I'm stuck with you assholes!"

Liz laughed at his semi-restrained rage when Dave turned her back to him and bent to kiss her. "Go. Have fun."

Ally, Josie, and Liz had wandered through most of the shops on the same avenue as their hotel and were juggling their various shopping bags when Josie dropped hers in frustration.

"Give me your bags," she said, motioning for Ally and Liz to hand them over. "I'll take them back to our rooms and we can hit the other side of the street."

Liz gratefully peeled the luxury bags off her arm and handed them to her friend. "We'll wait here," she said, then turned to see that Ally was already halfway down the block.

"Ally?" Liz strolled towards her, gently placing her hand on her shoulder when she saw the tears in her eyes. What the fuck was with these people and Paris? "Ally, what's wrong?"

"It's...," she waved her hand at the store window, then threw herself at Liz and buried her face in her shoulder as she sobbed.

Liz steadied herself on the pavement and looked over at the elaborate display of baby clothes, strollers, cribs and car seats that adorned the shop window. Oh shit, she thought, Dave hasn't told them yet. "Let's go in," she said softly.

Ally shook her head and stepped away, dashing her tears off her cheeks so she wouldn't ruin her makeup. "No, I can't."

"Yes, you can," Liz said slowly. The lights turned on in the shop, illuminating the sidewalk and making Ally look up again. "Come on," Liz tugged on her hand. "Let's go pick something out."

"For who though?" Ally asked miserably. "You? Are you...?"

Liz shrugged and started towards the shop, then casually called over her shoulder. "Not yet. Whenever you and Taylor are ready."

She made it just over the threshold before Ally's scream pierced the air and she tackled Liz onto the wooden floor of the shop, covering her face with kisses. Liz distinctly heard the clerk say 'lesbiennes' before approaching them.

"Can I help?" she asked in broken English.

"Salut!" Liz said through her laughter. "Nous allons avoir un bébé..."

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luthienliveblogslately-blog · 6 years ago

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Milestone write-up!

Since the story seems to be closing one story-arc and moving on to another, I feel this is a good place to take stock, summarize what we know and make some more or less educated guesses at what might happen in future. It got a bit away from me (”a bit” lol), so here’s a read more for your convenience.

Players on the board

Last we left off, shit had decidedly hit the fan. We got painful confirmation that the elves successfully assassinated King Harrow, but they in turn had a painful price to pay. From what we can tell, Runaan is the only survivor, and he has been captured by Soren and Claudia. Claudia thinks he might come in “useful”, whatever that may mean. Might be they’ll interrogate him for information about Xadia, might be that Claudia has some more nefarious, magical things planned. She might ask him about Rayla and the egg, but it’s not like he can tell her anything that she doesn’t already know, aka Rayla and the boys have the egg and they plan to return it and use it to restore peace. Maybe, if they keep talking for long enough, he might actually get her to see that the egg really is just a yet to hatch baby dragon and therefore a sentient being in need of protection, and not just a powerful magical weapon to be used by whoever sees fit. If Runaan manages to escape or communicate with other elves, our heroes will have some real problems. He clearly sees Rayla as a traitor and seeks to punish her for the perceived crimes she committed, and there’s still that pesky magical bounty on Ezrans’s head…

It’s hard to say what Claudia and Soren will do next. I think it depends very much on if Viren is sticking around the castle or not, and what his plans are. As to what his plans might be… god knows. Just how much does he want the egg back? Is he willing to go after it himself, or will he maybe send Soren? How much does Soren know about all this anyway? Five bucks says he had no idea about anything tbh. You know what still hasn’t been opened yet btw? The fucking letter. It’s still in Viren’s study. If it really has a contingency plan like “Callum becomes prince regent until Ezran is old enough to rule” I get the feeling Viren might pull some GoT-style shenanigans and try to put himself on the throne. At this point there isn’t really anything I wouldn’t put past him. In any case though the kingdom might be thrown into serious chaos for a while. After all: the King is Dead, long live the…. wait, who now? The crown prince is missing? The step-prince is missing, too? Well, guess it’s time for some good old-fashioned power grabbing!

And then there’s our three four protagonists. We don’t know where the kingdom of Katolis is exactly, but in any case they have a long journey ahead. They will have to stick to the woods for most of it and avoid towns I think. Rayla can’t be seen by humans, the egg can’t be seen either, and Viren might try and put a bounty on all of them anyway, so the boys might not be save either. I trust Rayla will be able to get the foods from the woods though, so that should be alright. And then eventually they’ll reach the Breach and have to make their away across it and around however many standing armies manning the border from both sides. Yikes. Though we have no idea how far they’ll go in three remaining episodes. There are after all at least 5 more potential seasons in store for us, so there’s a good chance they won’t even remotely come close to the Breach in this one. What I’m really worried about is Rayla keeping the truth about Harrow from the boys. While it breaks my heart just thinking about them having to mourn their dad, I’m worried about Callum lashing out at Rayla in his grief. We already had a scene when he found out about the assassination plot and subsequently flipped out at Ez out of fear, and Ez hadn’t even really done anything. How much worse will that reaction be if she’s been lying to them for several days, even if it was just to spare them the pain? It might damage his trust in her, Callum might even try and make them split up and continue without her. Sounds like a really bad idea, but people do stupid things when they’re angry and sad.

Other unresolved plot points

WHAT DOES THE FUCKING LETTER SAY

What’s up with the Mirror? For that matter, why is the mirror fishy enough to be covered up but not fishy enough to be hidden in the Lair of Dead Things?

What’s with the picture Harrow looked at last time we saw him alive? It’s gotta be something, right? Why would they make the camera zoom in on it lying face down on the bed otherwise? Just have Harrow put it away and then forget it exists, don’t give it an extra shot!

Pip! Is he still alive? D:

Callum still has the Storm Stone, but he might have to get his hands on a book or find himself a teacher to learn some new spells probably?

WHAT DO THE BLACK EYES DO? DO THEY EVEN DO ANYTHING OR ARE THEY JUST FOR CREEPY EFFECT?

Viren’s staff! Just cool historical artifact or actually relevant to the plot?

Shameless Tin-hatting aka Foreshadowing Fucking Everywhere aka Miscellaneous Shit I Noticed While re-watching ep 1-3

Callum’s drawing of a Dragon roasting a Marshmallow Monster -> this show’s version of the Cookie Cat jingle? Possibly depicting Viren’s inevitable demise?

Not foreshadowing, but I realized when the Narrator says “on the eve of last Winter’s Turn” in the opening what is meant with “last” is just most recent, as in “last month” or “last Christmas”. So it probably was some solstice type date after all. Makes sense with it now being spring.

People keep pointing out how shit Bait is at hiding. I’m afraid at some point they’ll have to hide from something REALLY BAD and Bait will get them found. :/ Really, Bait being called Bait just seems super unfortunate in general.

You know how Rayla says “My Heart for Xadia” during the ritual? Yeah, I’m getting the feeling Rayla will be instrumental in getting Ezran out of the magical contract, possibly in a super heroic way by just doing what her heart tells her to and saving the day, or possibly just… by dying in his stead. Oh god I feel like I jinxed her. :(

You know how Callum was like “You’re so lucky, you get to learn magic!” and Claudia was like “You get to learn sword fighting!” and then Callum was like “I’d switch places in a second!”? Well, he’s doing magic now, so…. the little disaster bi that is myself is praying for Claudia in armor with a big-ass sword being a BAMF. ´

Anybody else who really wants to know what is under that OTHER, BIGGER tarp in the Lair of Dead Things? Because I really wanna know. I bet Ezran knows already.

Harrow said about the letter that “[Callum will] understand in time.” What makes me think there’s more in there than just his last will, possibly it’s also his last confession. What terrible shit has he done over the years of his reign, how much of it did Viren have his fingers in and how much of it can Viren use against him post-mortem? And how will the boys react when they get confronted with their dad’s uglier side, possibly via what the elves or even some direct victims have to say about him?

I’d really like to have a look at that book Callum is carrying everywhere. I figure it’s his sketch book and not relevant to anything, but it might still be fun to get to see some pages anyway.

Stuff that I got spoilered on because there’s too many tags to block :(

I saw some pics of the Dragon Prince after hatching! D: I’m sorry, it feels like I robbed myself of an awesome surprise and you of a genuine reaction. :( I didn’t look very closely, I just saw that he was adorable and had roughly the same color scheme as his dad. Which leads me to some more tin hatting: What with Thunder being called that and also breathing lightning, I’d like to propose that the Storm Stone still has a big role to play after all, other than just providing Callum with a magical source he can carry around.

I saw General Amaya of the Standing Battalion being name dropped in a text post. I scrolled too fast to see any context, but considering who she is I guess we’ll get her as an upcoming character in some capacity.

I know that the elf making the MAGIC TREES amulets gets another ending slide at some point, and that people are theorizing he and Runaan are a Thing. I’m not a super big fan of Runaan at this moment in time so I couldn’t give less of a shit about his love life tbh, and as much as I like to ship things I usually need a bit more than literally two pictures to get me going, so. I dunno, don’t expect much from me on that front until more material comes out in later seasons I guess. Like… if there isn’t enough for people to make emotional gif sets out of, can you even really call it a ship?

Netflix tried to push Chapter 4 on me when I went to re-watch the others. I got it shut down quickly enough, but I still saw the title. I think it was… Bloodthirsty? Bloodlust? Either way I think either Runaan is gonna have a REALLY bad time very soonish or our protagonists will have to run REALLY fast from people trying to catch them. Maybe both.

#the dragon prince #tdp liveblog #drapri liveblog #rambling review

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How Hunt A Killer Expands the Blair Witch Universe with New Horror Game

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The manila envelope is unmarked and tightly sealed. It takes some effort to tear it open, as if the envelope itself is warning me: “Are you sure you want to see what’s inside? Are you entirely certain you’re up for this?”

I answer the question by tearing the package open. As the 10 objects within slide across my desk – a journal, incident report, map, newspaper clipping, and more – it would seem I’ve accepted my role as a detective on the case.

And it looks like I’m delving into the dark history, and ongoing mystery, of Burkittsville, Maryland, the home of the Blair Witch.

This is the Blair Witch tabletop experience by Hunt A Killer in partnership with Lionsgate and marks the first time the interactive murder mystery subscription box company has invited players into a story tied into an existing franchise. And with the first of six monthly “episodes” of Hunt A Killer: Horror – Blair Witch available now, a yarn is unfolding in real time that references the Blair Witch movies – and shares several characters with the Blair Witch video game — while still remaining accessible to the uninitiated.

Speaking of yarns, whether you choose to crack open the case each month on your own (as I did with this episode) or with a group of friends, you don’t need a corkboard with red yarn to connect the dots in this story — but it might be fun to have nonetheless.

“Blair Witch has a rich playground of storytelling,” says Melissa LaMartina, Hunt A Killer’s Director of Production, and someone who grew up in Maryland close to the real-world Burkittsville. “And there is this sense of mystery and exploration and discovery sort of inherent in the world of Blair Witch.”

When developing the Hunt A Killer: Horror – Blair Witch story, LaMartina says showrunner Elinor Haney – along with writers Travis Madden, Tatiana Nya Ford, and Will Rogers, and designer Alaska S. Kellum – revisited the franchise installments and identified commonalities within the universe. And while observing guidelines and rules to the universe, she said she and the team viewed Blair Witch as a “perfect metaphor of just walking into a dark wood,” with all the fears and mystery humans carry about wild, unknown reaches of nature.

But ultimately LaMartina said this Hunt a Killer series is about plucking out a single person, or single family, and exploring how they might fit within this established mythology.

So who is this family?

As the detective on this first installment, I learn about Rosemary Kent, a woman who lives on the edge of the infamous Black Hills Forest. Her son Liam has gone missing under mysterious circumstances, and the Burkittsville Sheriff’s Office has failed to turn up any information. Rosemary has asked me (and all players) to investigate the events of the day Liam went missing, as well as Liam’s connection to the legend of the Blair Witch, to move the case forward.

To reunite the Kent family I will need to explore the mysterious forest, uncover the truth about recent disappearances, and learn about the supernatural forces behind them. However, to do so, as the story’s logline challenges, I must be willing to “face down the wrath of the Blair Witch and those loyal to her.”

The Hunt a Killer: Horror – Blair Witch experience intrigues me straightaway. To preserve the mystery, I don’t want to reveal every item in that Episode One manila envelope. But if you look at the main image on the Hunt A Killer website for this series, you’ll get a sense of what to expect.

Players are dropped in the middle of this narrative-driven drama, and everything is a clue, but there is no map of where to begin. Well, there is a map, but that’s a literal map of Burkittsville.

Where to begin?

The first thing I read is a letter from Rosemary, which begins with:

“It’s been weeks since I’ve felt any sliver of hope, and frankly, I was starting to lose my mind a little before I found you.”

The words sound like a concerned mother, and she draws me in as she breaks down what she knows. Everything looks and feels legit, like what a Sheriff might say during a press conference or witness interview, or how a magazine or teenager’s journal might read (down to the chicken scratch handwriting).

My approach is to read and absorb everything before trying to piece it together. Before I get to know Liam, I want to learn about the town, and what others might have to say about the Kent family. As for Liam himself, some of his belongings included in the packet give me a sense of who the missing boy is.

In addition to the artifacts and documents mailed to me for the first episode, I also discover an in-world website where I gather more evidence, interact with characters, and access digital files. (There is also an out-of-world site where hints, recaps, and solutions can be accessed if a detective gets stumped).

There is a verisimilitude to the items in the Hunt A Killer kit. And designer Kellum – who has likewise created a very cool “Creepy Baltimore” print on her own site – leans into the horror elements, and the aesthetic of the foreboding woods (and what may be lurking in them) without straining the reality of the proceedings. There is a hidden Episode One clue that particularly struck me with its eeriness when I discovered it.

Go back to Burkittsville with Hunt A Killer: Horror – Blair Witch

Names, locations, and little details begin to recur, which all spur questions. Where was this person at this time of day of Liam’s disappearance? And how does that person quoted in one document connect to the landmark and date on the map?

I find myself having a moment like Charlie’s Pepe Silvia meme from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I’m piecing it together when I discover THE clue, the detail that opens up the door to answers in this episode, and then subsequently presents more questions.

Over the course of a couple of hours of investigating (Hunt A Killer anticipates between 90 minutes to three hours of gameplay experience per episode, depending on number of players, and other factors), I find a sense of escalation and anticipation setting in. Yes, I am uncovering clues, but things feel like they are just beginning.

That is intentional, says LaMartina. When approaching the story, she says they set out to recreate the feeling of having senses engaged while watching a horror movie in the dark. But, like any compelling narrative, she adds that “a lot of that comes from the way you’re engaging with the characters” over the course of six months.

“You really come to care for the fate of these people with whom you’re interacting,” she says. “You’re not only getting the story of this individual and this woman who’s desperately reaching out to you for help, but you are also really, immediately, fully immersed in that larger world of the Blair Witch….And I love the idea of people opening these boxes and starting to sift through these documents and just getting this uneasiness settling in, because it’s very much a world in which things just are not right, you know?”

I find this to be true in my own adventure with the first episode. While I feel empathy for Rosemary, I am already suspicious of other characters who are popping up in the story. And then I find myself questioning those suspicions, because of course any good mystery will involve some sleight-of-hand and misdirection where a person is looking one way, while the real villain can operate undetected. And in a town like Burkittsville, I develop a keen sense that everyone has something to hide.

For the two hours I was working the Blair Witch case, and then when I interacted on the 132 thousand-strong Facebook Group, I did feel like the immersive nature of the Blair Witch experience taps into something I’ve been craving during the long months of a pandemic where I’ve been unable to go to the cinema or gather in large groups. The sense of discovery is cinematic at times, and I found it exciting to compare notes with players online to see who had trouble with certain clues, and who solved the episode faster than I.

Can you survive the woods?

“There is a shared sense of unfolding the mystery, and a shared human experience when we’re living our lives so much more online now, in Zoom meetings solid for eight hours a day,” said LaMartina. “I think this is a way of feeling more connected and knowing that as you are playing this game, we have a whole community of people who are also playing; it’s just another way to reclaim some of that human connection.”

And that is a connection that can be pursued over the next six months for any player who chooses to take on the strange case of Liam Kent and the Blair Witch story in Burkittsville, Maryland.

But as I learn, the mystery is just beginning. At the end of my investigation, I reach a cliffhanger. There is much more detective work ahead of me over the next several months before I get to the other side of this case.

However, if you go down this rabbit hole, or have already cracked Episode One of Hunt A Killer: Horror – Blair Witch, then perhaps you can make use of this exclusive Episode Two clue provided by the game company.

But first, ask yourself, are you certain that you can handle a horror story where you are the main character?

Hunt A Killer: Horror – Blair Witch Episode Two Tease…

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

In Episode 2, you’ll be introduced to a mysterious figure with strong ties to the Black Hills Forest. Who is this figure, and what could they want with Liam Kent? The clue raises questions of how they were communicating and what their relationship is.

The post How Hunt A Killer Expands the Blair Witch Universe with New Horror Game appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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juniperhillpatient · 7 years ago

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Summary: Stanlon with a side of Bichie.

Plot? Sorry, I don't know her. This is just fluff. Everyone is happy college AU. Rated PG for language, making out and alcohol

******

"I never thought I'd say this but I missed Derry."

"You never thought you'd say that?" Mike Hanlon's mother put her hands on her hips, shaking her head before giving her son a hug.

A swirl of autumn leaves tumbled past the Greyhound bus stop in a gust of wind, chilling the air. Mike zipped his jacket, stuffing his hands deep in his pockets. It was a cold, gray afternoon in Derry. Mike had come home for the weekend to help his parents set up their annual haunted trail, which took place in the woods behind the Hanlon farm, but it was time to leave, time to say goodbye to his parents and Derry. Mike felt both a sense of sadness and relief at this. For some reason, he couldn't quite place his finger on, he always felt like there was something sinister about Derry, especially in autumn. It was like the rotting autumn leaves smelled a little more of decay in Derry than anywhere else.

Will Hanlon was smiling in his knowing way. It was a smile that always seemed to imply there was something only he and Mike understood. "But you're enjoying college, son?"

Mike grinned. "I really am."

This was very true. Mike had enjoyed learning in high school, as much as any high school student does, but college was different. He was learning not because some teacher forced him to, not because the state mandated it, but because he wanted to. He loved reading and discussing literature and history with others who truly wanted to be there.

More than anything, he loved his friends. He had met Bill and Richie and moved in with them during the second semester of his freshman year. By the summer, they realized they really needed a fourth roommate if they wanted to keep the already cramped apartment which had a mold problem and usually smelled like weed, which was mostly Richie's fault though Bill and Mike were not blameless. The place was everything a group of college guys could ever dream of, and, well, it had become home. So, they had put an ad on Craigslist.

That was when Stan moved in.

Now a month into Junior year, Mike was realizing more and more every day that he was head over heels for the socially awkward, neat and tidy, straight edge nerd that was Stan Uris and he had no idea how to deal with it.

The Greyhound pulled up bringing with it the smell of fumes and the promise of warmth and a comfy seat. Mike hugged his parents and, pretending not to see the tears in their eyes, grabbed his bag, and climbed aboard.

Back to school, back to his friends...back to a certain curly haired blue eyed roommate.

***

"I miss Mike."

"Stan, my buddy, my guy, Mike has been gone for a total of two days. He's literally going to be back this afternoon. You need to take it down a notch. Take it down ten notches. You're at a one hundred, I'm going to need you to take it down to a fifty. You-"

"Beep beep Richie," Stan interrupted, moving across the kitchen to grab a fifth cup of coffee. He stared at the textbook open in front of him on the table for a few seconds before sighing and sitting down. Stan had never gotten below an A in his life and he wasn't about to start now, even if he had no idea how to write a dialogue between two European colonizers living in America in the fifteenth century. He could tell you everything about the colonization of America, but how the hell was he supposed to know what these people would say? How was he supposed to know what they would think?

Stan glanced at Richie who was playing with a fidget spinner and staring into space. He decided to rib him a little, more to procrastinate the assignment than anything else. "Sometimes it's just nice to have someone else here to shut out the sound of," now it was Stan's turn to do a voice impression, which was usually Richie's job "oh god Bill! Oh god!"

"S-someone say my n-name?" Bill asked, entering the room.

Richie fell off the counter in a heap of laughter, knocking over several empty beer cans and bumping his head on the corner of the table.

"You okay?" Bill asked, concerned. Richie, who was still wheezing with laughter, nodded.

"That was a surprisingly good impression Stan the man," Richie sputtered. "What do you do, listen?"

Stan grabbed the fidget spinner from Richie. "It's a small apartment dipshit," he said. "Have you two never had roommates?" he began playing with the fidget spinner, thinking that if he took one of these to class the way Richie did, he'd be distracted the whole time. Richie managed to get amazing grades though, somehow.

"Of course w-we have," Bill said, sitting down at the table and laying out his own textbooks before grabbing the fidget spinner from Stan and beginning to fiddle with it. "M-mike was here before you, remember?"

"Mike is more tolerant than me."

"I agree already but why's that?" Mike asked, entering the room. He glanced down. "Why are you on the floor?" he asked Richie.

***

It was well past midnight and Stan still hadn't gone to bed. Not that Mike was keeping track. The hallway leading to Stan's room led directly past Mike's, and he had left his door open just a fragment.

Mike decided to enter the kitchen under the guise of getting a glass of water. That was innocent enough...right?

He headed down the hallway on soft feet, past Bill and Richie's room. Their door was open and they were laying in bed watching a movie on a laptop, sharing headphones. Bill looked nervous and a little disturbed but totally engrossed and Richie had a huge grin which meant they were doing another of their October horror marathons. Mike sometimes joined the horror marathons, but tonight he had ended up spending the evening getting caught up on schoolwork after missing a day of classes.

He entered the kitchen and headed to the cupboard, grabbing a cup and filling it at the sink. He turned around and saw that Stan's eyes were closing. He was hunched over his textbook, and the page it was open to was covered in notes and almost every line was high lighted.

"What are you working on?" he asked.

"A history report," Stan muttered. "I have to write from the perspective of early European colonizers in America."

Mike frowned, sitting down. "That doesn't sound so bad," he said.

"Think you could help me out?" Stan asked. Mike felt his heart flutter. Stan got better grades than he did. Hell, Stan got better grades than almost anyone he knew.

"I don't know that I could do this any better than you," he said.

"Come on," Stan said. "You're creative - I know you are. You always understand what the teacher wants us to say in those book discussions. Your points are so well thought out, and," he seemed to struggle to think of a word. "Intricate," he said.

"I just like studying characters," Mike shrugged.d "I'm no writer like Bill, but I love reading and thinking about what motivates every character, what makes them tick."

"Great," Stan said. "What made early European settlers in America tick?"

"Racism and greed?" Mike suggested, straight-faced. After a beat, they both burst into laughter at that.

"Fair enough," Stan agreed.

Mike reached over to pull the textbook closer to him and as he did, he felt his hand brush Stan's and his heart about fell out of his chest. "Look, I think you could totally do this on your own," he said. "But I'm happy to help if you want."

***

"It's Halloween," Richie said. "We're doing something."

"What do you wanna do?" Bill asked. Richie was sitting on the sofa and Bill was resting his head on Richie's lap. Mike sat in the chair across from them, his feet up. Stan was sitting on the other chair, scrolling through his phone. Mike could see over Stan's shoulder that he was looking on Instagram, mostly pictures of nature and wildlife, especially birds were showing up.

Mike liked Halloween, but he didn't really care what they did. He'd just as soon sit on their couch drinking beer and watching horror movies as go out and party, but knowing Richie, they were going to end up either at a party or a bar.

Sure enough, an hour later they were in a crowded bar listening to terrible rap music which Richie was trying to dab to with the encouragements of Bill from the sidelines.

Mike smiled and sat down on a bar stool off to the side, sipping a beer.

"Hey," Stan said, sitting beside him.

"Hey," Mike said. There was a pause between songs and Mike felt a sense of nervousness. He wished a new song would come on.

"I never got a chance to thank you, by the way," Stan said. "I got a perfect score on that history assignment you helped me with."

Mike decided against pointing out that they did live together so there had been plenty of chances. He got it. Sometimes it's not a matter of having a chance but a matter of finding the perfect time to say something.

A new song started to play and Mike spilled his beer all over the counter. A waiter hurried to clean it up and Mike and Stan both grabbed napkins and began helping as well.

You should take it as a compliment that I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk, you should think about the consequence of your magnetic field being a little too strong

“Thanks," Mike said, throwing away a beer covered handful of paper towels.

"No problem," Stan replied. Was he blushing? He looked away too fast for Mike to be sure if he had imagined the flush of pink across Stan's cheeks.

Whiskey on ice, sunset, and vine, you've ruined my life, by not being mine

They returned to their seats at the bar and Mike ordered two more beers on his tab.

"You didn't have to do that," Stan said.

"We're friends," Mike said. "It's not a problem." Was his head spinning a little?

"It seems like lately, you're doing all the favors in this friendship," Stan said.

"I wouldn't say so."

"Why's that?"

"Spending time with you is a pretty nice payback," Mike replied and felt all of the blood running to his face.

Mike found that their faces were very close. It was a crowded bar, but wasn't there something special about the electricity buzzing between them? Wasn't there something intense about the way Stan was staring at him? Like he was the only other person there?

Ocean blue eyes, looking in mine, I feel like I might, sink and drown and die

Mike wasn't sure what made him do what he did next, but it was either a moment of total insanity or total clarity.

He leaned across the bar and kissed Stan. When Stan kissed him back, he felt his soul descend into another dimension and his heart fall out of his body.

The kiss might have lasted moments, or hours, or perhaps several days. Time seemed to cease to exist until they heard Richie and Bill whooping from behind them and looked up.

"Knew it," Bill said. "T-told you it was only a matter of t-time T-Tozier."

"No way," Richie said. "I told you Denbrough, and you know it. Don't play me."

While the two of them argued over who had called it, Mike and Stan turned back towards one another and leaned in for another kiss.

***

A kid screamed from somewhere in the dark forest. Mike shuddered. Stan squeezed his hand, and any moment of unsettlement Mike had felt disappeared.

It had been one year since their first kiss, in a crowded bar on October 31st.

"Here," Mike's mother came hurrying through the yard, holding two steaming cups of cider and handing them to Mike and Stan. "You boys stay warm," she said. "I really appreciate all your help setting up for this year's haunted trail."

"No problem Mrs. Hanlon," Stan said. "It was a lot of fun."

After she walked away, Mike turned to Stan. "A lot of fun?" he scoffed. "You hate this kind of thing."

"I don't hate anything that's important to you or your parents," Stan said.

Suddenly Mike felt as if he'd never be cold again. The dark sky, the smell of rotting leaves, the dread he always felt at summer ending, none of it was real. Those feelings were far away and distant. Stan's hand around his and the hot cider on his throat, those things were real.

"I love you," he said. It was the first time he had ever said the words, but he didn't feel afraid or worried to say them.

He felt right - maybe because had had already said I love you and felt the sentiment returned a hundred times or more without ever really saying it. The words I love you existed in the way he watched Stan write down the names of birds he saw over the summer. The words I love you existed in the way Stan listened to him talk about the history of Maine with a passion most college boys reserved for football and sorority girls. And, the words I love you existed in the way they took care of each other, even when the world seemed big and sinister.

"I love you too," Stan said and kissed Mike's cheek.

******

A/N: Thank you so much to anyone who reads this story (is it a story if there’s really no plot? shhh) If you enjoy it, feedback is appreciated!

I'm going to tag a few people - don't feel any pressure to read I'm just tagging people I feel may be interested!

@skeletontozier @prettybatgirl @0firebrand0 @punkpisces00 @hair-fiber @sweet-but-mostly-sour @evalocity @antonioisbi

Again, no pressure to read! I just tag people I think might like stuff

But if you do read, love you :) <3

#stanlon #stike #bichie #it 2017 #losers club #college au #rose pretends she can write about it

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energonbunny · 7 years ago

Note

First of all, LOVE your blog! Secondly, have any recommendations on Sterek Fanfics?!? I feel like I've read them all but I always need more!!!

Thanks! We’ve been mutuals for a while now and it’s always nice to see you pop up :) I actually have a sideblog entirely dedicated to TW so if you’re looking for a blog that focuses on it then maybe take a look at that, too. @wheredidhiseyebrowsgo is probably the best blog I know when it comes to fic recs/finding fics/etc. so you should give them a follow!

As for Sterek recs, oh geez… So, fun fact, on ao3 I actually have over 700 Sterek works bookmarked! And then I know there’s a ton of little ficlets in my likes on here, too, and really my point is just that there are so many great Sterek works and I will list some of my all time favs in case you haven’t seen them. And I do love all of these but my super-duper faves will have a ★ next to them. I started at the back of my ao3 bookmarks and went in about five pages I figured 25 would be good enough for now, especially since some of them are series so that’s actually more.

★★★He Fucks My Best Friend by mydickisthealpha (667 words, rated M)

“I, for one, would like to vote to keep this as part of all the meetings,” Lydia announces and Stiles flushes scarlet basically everywhere. (My comment: short and funny, Stiles&Derek forget the pack is coming by and are having sex. Scott POV)

★★★As the Lights Go Down by standinginanicedress (62,890 words, rated E)

Stiles is standing there looking bizarre – which maybe isn’t a very nice thing or even a convincing thing to say about a person that Derek’s basically invited over to hook up with (whatever that even fucking means to kids these days) – but he…does. He’s wearing dark jeans, a black hoodie with the hood pulled up so Derek can’t even really see his face aside from his mouth and jawline, and he’s got that metal baseball bat in his fingers again.He looks like he’s come here to literally beat Derek to death.Then, he grins, lifts one shoulder up in a half shrug, and says, “I can’t come in until you invite me.”Derek is mystified enough that all he can say is, “really?” He thought that was a vampire thing.(My comment: AU but they’re all still supes. Stiles is a spark and they are powerful things, him even more so because of plot you should read. standinginanicedress has several good ones you might want to peruse.)

★★★The Domestic Series by thepsychicclam (149,239 words, various ratings)

First work’s description: It’s Saturday night, and Derek Hale is at Toys R Us. Shopping for Leapfrog games. If asked, it wasn’t exactly how he pictured his life. Or his Saturday nights. In which Derek and Stiles have been married for ten years, have two kids, and are planning their five year old’s birthday party.

(My comment: The domestic series is just parent Sterek fluff for the most part and it is absolutely wonderful. Realistic, I think, in the fights that happen and how Stiles&Derek fit together. I love the children.

Also @thepsychicclam has a lot of wonderful works besides this series that should be read if you haven’t but this is definitely my favorite.)

Nothing Short Of Perfect by GotTheSilver (27,019 words, rated E)

In which Derek and Stiles are made aware of their potential and have to make a choice about what their relationship will be.“Let me get this straight,” his dad says. “You’re telling me a witch told Derek and yourself that you could be destined to be together and now Derek will be going to college with you?”Stiles shrugs, resting his hands on his legs to stop himself from fidgeting. “That’s about it, yep.”

★★★My Heart Comes Tumbling Down by DevilDoll (5,689 words, rated E)

“This is a casual, adult relationship based on sex, and it is awesome.” In which Stiles and Derek have a great time buddyfucking until a burrito ruins it all. (my comment: devildoll is one of those I see rarely recced outside of SFiYE [below] and they have some really good other stuff, too)

★★★Stand Fast in Your Enchantments by DevilDoll (76,956words, rated E)

“Stiles knew damn well what a pissed-off wolf sounded like, and every hair on the back of his neck was telling him that somewhere in this room was a very pissed-off werewolf.” An AU in which Derek is feral, Stiles is magical, and they eat a lot of fast food.

Won’t Do Me No Good Washing in the River by DevilDoll (5,939 words, rated M)

“Remember, Derek: you never get back what you lost.” Story by Devil Doll, artwork by Rahciach, podfic by Jinxy. This story has a happy ending, but please read the tags. (My comment: Angst with a happy ending. Major character death but they are brought back.)

★★★The One with the Napping by Captain_Loki (4,768 words, rated M)

It is a unique and somewhat unhelpful talent, but Stiles can fall asleep anywhere.

★★★[Sleep]Walking After You by relenafanel (56,551 words, rated M)

Derek is a sleepwalker who keeps wandering into his downstairs neighbour’s bedroom.Stiles is pretty sure the hot guy from the park is going to kill him in his sleep. He knows he shouldn’t have been so obvious about objectifying the guy’s really fine ass.Too bad it turns out Derek is easier to get along with when he’s sleeping.

★★★Play It Again by metisket (63,206 words, rated T)

In which Stiles goes along with one of Derek’s plans and ends up in an alternate universe as a result. He should’ve known better. He did know better, actually, and that means he has no one to blame but himself.“Laura wants to lure the kid in with food and kindness and make a pet of him, like a feral cat. Derek wants to have him arrested for stalking. They’re at an impasse. (And the rest of the family is staying emphatically out of it in a way that suggests bets have been placed.)”

Hemingway Can Suck It by KuriKuri (10,054 words, rated T)

“For those of you who just transferred into this class or simply decided that day one wasn’t important enough to attend, I’m Professor Hale. Welcome to English 346, The American Novel.”Stiles is pretty sure his mouth is hanging open right now and that his eyes are wide with shock, because holy fuck, he thinks he knows why his students transferred. Hell, if he was still an undergrad, he probably would have transferred, too. (Or: In which Stiles is a Biology professor and Derek thinks he’s a student.)

★★★Baking My Way Into Your Heart by theSilence (178,630 words, rated M)

Derek is an uptight college student, all work and no play. His carefully scheduled life is thrown kilter when his regular barista is replaced with someone new. (My comment: Coffee shop/college AU with slowburn. It’s beautiful.)

★★★The Well of Living Waters by Kalpurna (30,322 words, rated E)

King Derek takes a consort. (My comment: royalty AU. Demisexual Derek although I don’t think it’s explicitly tagged. So good.)

Pretty Human Virgin Boy Comes to the Pond- Feed Him All the Best Heads by Delta_Immortal (49,771 words, rated E)

Stiles knew it was a bad idea to go into the woods, but little did he know his actions would cause the death of everyone around him. Running from the thing that killed Danny, Scott and Stiles stumble upon a pond, which happens to hold a strange man named Derek who floats around in the middle of it. Derek assures them they’re safe now.What appears to be salvation is nothing more than the start of the death of everyone Stiles cares about. The being known as Derek haunts him at every turn, unsatisfied until Stiles succumbs to Derek’s whims. Stiles isn’t sure if that involves sexing him or eating him, and he really doesn’t want to find out.

(My comment: pay attention to the tags! This is not a fluffy Sterek fic; what sex there is in this is basically Derek mind fucking Stiles and possessing him. It’s good, I love it, but definitely heed the tags.)

★★★(Sacred) In the Ordinary by idyll (78,759 words, rated E)

The Pack, after college, graduate school and the starting of careers, comes back to Beacon Hills. Nothing’s gotten less complicated after all this time.Based on a kink meme prompt that grew legs and got serious.Note: This is a whole lot of pack!fic with a very slow build Derek/Stiles. (My comment: I have read this fic like 8 times now. The pack dynamics are wonderful and the gang is all older here, coming back to BH after college. Set after season one)

When the Bough Breaks by The Feels Whale (12,068 words, rated T)

Look, Stiles knows he’s not really part of the pack, but really? He wishes the others aside from Scott and Allison would stay a little more up to date on what’s going on his life beyond how it affects them. (my comment: Stiles adopts a baby. Scott is having a pissing contest w/ Derek over Stiles and Allison so Derek and his pack doesn’t actually know Stiles is adopting a baby. Adorable chaos ensues)

The Time Travelling Werewolf’s Confused Spirit Guide also by The Feels Whale (4,832 words, rated G)

Normally you don’t imagine yourself as living in the dystopian future that hapless time travelers accidentally stumble into.Or: that one where Stiles learns the hard way that reality is not static, time is not a river, and sometimes the way things are is not the way they were supposed to be.

How I Met My Werebunny by Moku (19,873 words, rated T)

“This is going to end in tears,” Scott told Derek while he watched the man easily lifting Stiles’ desk up with one hand and driving nails into the ceiling with the thumb of the other. “Probably mine.”Or:When a Stiles and a Failwolf love each other very much, they’ll engage in a prank war. Basically, it’s a mating ritual for dorks in love.

★★★For better, for worse by Vendelin (13,336 words, rated E)

Derek and Stiles have been married for six years. Derek loves his job as a successful lawyer, loves his financial security and his large house. It isn’t until Stiles gets shot while working that he starts to understand that maybe Stiles isn’t loving their life as much as Derek is. (My comment: human AU! Stiles is a cop and gets shot in the line of duty. Derek hadn’t noticed they were drifting apart. Realistic with the coming back together & even has couples counseling. Angsty with a fluffy, happy ending.)

★★★the other shoe by stilinskisparkles (4,633 words, rated T)

They’re lounging on Derek’s bed one afternoon, Stiles halfheartedly trying to make headway on an essay, and Derek’s supposedly helping. Instead, Derek’s spent the last eight minutes mouthing lazily at Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles is five seconds from giving up completely. (My comment: pretty much just fluff.)

★★★Those Are The Days That Bind Us by s_a_m (52,171 words, rated M)

His father wasn’t stupid. He was an officer of the law, trained to look for patterns. He confronted Stiles about werewolves and they shouted and Stiles tried to explain but his father was so, so, so mad, more mad than Stiles had ever seen him, ever in all his life and then his father looked at him and said, “It’s like you’re not my son anymore.”And Stiles broke.(My comment: I love this one. Has some major angst and an unborn baby does die due to a possession kind of thing. But out of all the “Stiles is kicked out of/leaves the pack” things this one is my favorite. I think Stiles’ progression through this is so good. It does have a happy ending but not without a lot of healing on Stiles’ end. Heed the tags.)

Divided We Stand by KouriArashi (156,742 words, rated M)

Derek is being pressured by his family to pick a mate, and somehow stumbles into a choice that they didn’t expect and aren’t sure they approve of….

(My comment: This is the first work in The Searching Ceremonies. All of it is A++ and even has wolfcop (Peter/Sheriff Stilinski). It’s all AU and the world is very well developed, plus every part of it is over 100k words. KouriArashi also has a lot of other wonderful works that should be checked out.)

Stilinski’s Home for Wayward Wolves by owlpostagain (35,197 words, rated T)

“At least your puppies knock first,” Stiles snorts. “Here I thought their alpha raised them to be well-mannered.” “There’s a sign,” Derek responds stiffly. Stiles, whose curiosity outweighs even his hardest of grudges, abandons his chilly façade of nonchalance in a heartbeat. He jumps right up and all but pushes Derek out of the way in his effort to get to the window, and sure enough when he leans outside there’s a laminated strip of cardstock duct taped to the vinyl siding: DON’T FORGET TO KNOCK Stiles gets cranky when we scare him—Or, in which Stiles Stilinski moves to Beacon Hills for his junior year of high school and accidentally adopts a pack of teenage werewolves.(my comment: fairly fluffy and humorous. owlpostagain is one of those that I never see recced and they have some amazing writing.)

here is the deepest secret nobody knows by owlpostagain (22,322 words, rated T)

“Derek,” Stiles groans. “You have me. You’ve always had me, you absolute moron, how many physically impossible feats of life-saving heroics do I have to perform before you get it?” (my comment: post s2 and the pack is just starting to come together. lots of pack feels)

will to follow through by owlpostagain (42,411 words, rated T)

“It depends entirely on how you look at it, I guess,” Stiles shrugs. “On the one hand, instant healing and the apparently inherited ability to pull off leather at all times. On the other, serious attitude problems and a suspicious disappearance of eyebrows.”“Even Derek’s?” Danny snorts, “that’s a lot of eyebrow to lose.”“I know,” Stiles agrees. “You should see, it’s so weird. Every time I want to ask him where they go, except he’d totally eat my face off.”“There are worse ways to die.” (my comment: Danny&Lydia&Stiles ultimate friendship post season 2. So good.)

#getmeoffthisplanet #sterek #fic rec list #sterek fic recs #sterek fic rec #long answer

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embracetheapocalypsewithme · 7 years ago

Text

Bedtime Stories

This is the first of two prompts I picked for @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash‘s third writing challenge! The prompt for this one is “Caught Reading Fanfiction”...oooh! Scandal!

Summary: Sandra (aka. Mouse) is a timid, quiet woman who spends her days fantasizing about fucking Negan’s brains out. She discovers a group of other women living in the Sanctuary who feel the same way, and they collectively begin to write smutty, fictional stories featuring their sexy leader. But what happens when he catches her reading one? Will he let it go, or find some way to punish her for writing about him?

Word Count: 3,688

Warnings: Smut, smut and more smut! Swearing (of course), finger fucking, oral sex, hand jobs, and cum!

This is very loosely tied to another short fic I wrote called The Girl Named Mouse, but you do not have to have read that to enjoy this at all. The installment is a million times smuttier than the previous one. Enjoy!

Bedtime Stories

Sandra could feel his warm, rough hands gliding across the silk of her bare skin, from ass to neck. Slowly, gradually gaining territory as his fingers crept closer to their target: the long, dark hair that spilled over her shoulders.

A sudden burst of fire shuddered down her spine as he grabbed a handful near the base of her scalp, pulling her head back and up toward him gently but firmly. Negan’s hot breath puffed against her cheek as he leaned closer to whisper roughly in her ear:

“How d’ya do, Mouse-y Poo!?”

Sandra’s heart leapt instantaneously at the sound of Negan’s low, gravelly voice coming from right beside her. Her whole body shook with adrenaline as she quickly slammed the black notebook she held in her small hands shut quickly, hoping that he hadn’t caught her this time.

“I-um…N-nothing!” she stammered, jumping up from her place on the overstuffed easy chair which sat in the corner of the Sanctuary’s vacant common room.

It was before 10am on a weekend, so most of the building’s inhabitants were either sleeping or eating, leaving Sandra with the perfect opportunity to catch up on reading some smutty fan fiction in her favourite spot. She knew it was reckless to read literal erotica about the man who ran the whole bloody building in a place where she could easily be spotted by him or his Saviors, but she had assumed that he would be sleeping off another long night with his harem of wives.

Sandra, who was otherwise known as Mouse around the Sanctuary for her shy and nervous demeanor, had been part of Negan’s group since before he was even a part of it, so to speak. She had joined up with Dwight and Sherry around the time the world had gone to pieces and had survived alongside them until they had found Negan in the woods, wandering alone. Eventually she, along with the other group members, had agreed to follow Negan on a path that had led them all to the gates of the Sanctuary, and their current circumstances.

“Doesn’t look like fucking nothing, Mouse,” Negan replied as his eyes narrowed in on hers, “Looks really fucking interesting, in fact…”

He reached forward to grab for the book, but Sandra thwarted his plans by swinging it out of his reach and stepping away quickly until her back hit the wall behind her.

“It really n-nothing, Negan,” her eyes instinctively flitted down to stare at his heavy, black boots as they took a step toward her, “It’s just a stupid story.”

“Well, fuck! I like stories! I’ve read pretty much every fucking thing in my library twice already. Let me see, will ya! It’s too early to bone any of the wives yet and I’m bored as fuck…they’re all still sleeping. Fucking lazy asses, right?”

Sandra’s grip on the book tightened and she silently shook her head “no”. There were more than a few women in the Sanctuary who had contributed to the stories in the book, including herself, and they would all be furious if they knew that Negan had found out about it. The book in question held approximately twenty short stories within its pages; most of which were erotic in nature, and all of them featuring the Sanctuary’s fearless leader himself: Negan.

It had all started as a joke, mostly. One of the other female workers (Sandra couldn’t exactly remember which one) had made a comment about wanting to “Climb Negan like a mountain” one night in the cafeteria while they waited for the food to be served. A few people had overheard her comment, and somehow the ensuing conversation had snowballed into a group of roughly five of the building’s women cracking jokes about what they would do to their resident crude, murderous giant if they had the nerve to approach him. They called themselves “Negan’s Cock Fan Club” just to be crass. Sandra thought that Negan probably would have enjoyed that namesake, if he had known about it.

She had been too shy to participate at first, but as the months wore on and the pages of the book filled with an unimaginable amount of fictional encounters with the man, her curiosity had gotten the best of her. She started by just reading a few of the entries that the others had written, all under pen names of course, and had quickly been sucked into the imaginary bacchanalian world of constant sex and mischief with a man she had fantasized about so many times alone. Knowing that other women felt the same way she did made her feel a little bit less crazy.

It wasn’t long before she began to add her own stories to the collection, sending them out to the “Fan Club” to be read and enjoyed by what she had come to think of as Negan’s second-string harem. She felt proud to be part of an assemblage of “wives” that he had no idea existed. This sexy, little secret that she shared with the others brought a smile to her face, though she still had moments of bitter regret for having turned him down once upon a time when he had propositioned her in a hotel hallway. But that had been before the Sanctuary and the harem, when they had just been a group of survivors huddled together, trying to stay safe.

“Hey!” Negan’s expression softened into feigned hurt as Sandra shrank away from him, pressing her body against the wall, “Don’t act like I’m some big, fucking monster, Mouse. You know I’d never hurt you, right?”

“Yes,” she said softly, still staring down in embarrassment, “I know.”

“Good. But you also know that I could make your life very fucking unpleasant if you don’t hand over the book, don’t you?”

“I…just can’t. It’s not only mine. There are other people who would be really upset.”

“What? You guys fucking plotting a mutiny or something?” his voice lost its jovial edge with stunning rapidity and Sandra felt her stomach clench in fear.

“No!” her eyes shot up to meet his in terror, “Of course not! Never!”

She wanted to melt into the floor or flee back to the safety of her room, but she felt trapped in the corner of the small room, sinking into the quicksand of his gaze with her heart in her throat. His face had gone from the usual genial expression he always used with her to a mask of cold nothingness.

“Prove it,” he said simply and extended a gloved hand toward her palm up.

Sandra sighed deeply, slowly bringing the book out from behind her and depositing it into the outstretched hand. The other girls would never forgive her for letting him see the book, but it wasn’t as if she had a choice. If he thought that she was part of some kind of coup d’état, he would kill her for sure, in spite of his earlier assurances.

Time seemed to creep as he opened the book to the first page and began to read what was written there. After several seconds of watching his eyes dart from left to right, Mouse saw his face contort into a confused expression.

“What the actual fuckity fuck is this?” he said slowly, dragging out the vowels of actual dramatically as his eyes lifted to meet hers, “Is this fucking porn about me?”

“I…It’s…I didn’t write that one!”

“But you were fucking reading it, weren’t you Mousey? You fucking jill off to this? Thinking about me?”

Though he still looked very solidly weirded out by his discovery, Sandra thought that she detected a hint of curiosity in his voice. Sighing deeply she thought of how she should answer.

“It’s just for fun, you know. It’s…like…a release. It’s something fun and, um, creative I guess. And other people write them too!”

“Other people?”

“A few of us…”

“How fucking many?”

“I-I don’t know. I think we’re up to eight now.”

“Fucking eight?” Negan let out a brief chuckle, “Well, hot damn! That’s a whole lot of panties I’ve gotten wet without even knowing it!”

Sandra’s face immediately flushed red with embarrassment at his exclamation, and her gaze fell back to the floor.

“You fucking do touch yourself to this, don’t you?” Negan persisted, unwilling to let the topic drop, “Its ok, Mouse. You can tell me. Truth be told, I’ve spanked it more than once to the thought of you riding my cock off into the sunset. What do you think of that?”

Sandra shook her head from side to side, at a total loss for words. She felt as though her head was about to explode from the embarrassment that was written all over her face.

“Awe, Mousey, don’t be shy now,” he reached out a single gloved finger, touching it to her chin and gently guiding her gaze back up to meet his, “I won’t tell anyone. Not even my dear, sweet wives upstairs. Hell, those chicks don’t write fucking odes to my cock, that’s for damn sure! I’m honestly fucking flattered.”

“Th-thank you, Negan,” she stammered, her eyes flitting around his face.

“But you know I can’t just let you get away with writing this kind of smut without some kind of retribution,” he said, his tone lowering and his eyes taking on a predatory gleam.

“What do you mean?”

Without answering her, Negan turned around and strode confidently to the room’s door, first shutting it and then locking it from the inside with a dull click, “You’re gonna read me a little story, Mousey. One of your stories.”

“No! Negan, please!” she cried out, raising her voice to him for the first time she could remember.

“Mousey, Mouse, Mouse…” he said with an amused grin, “So you do have a voice! Good!” he tossed the book at her suddenly and she fumbled with it, finally getting a grip on the hard cover before it fell to the ground.

“I can’t-“

“No. Read,” he commanded before flopping into the armchair she had previously occupied, “One of yours too. I wanna see what’s in that filthy fucking head of yours.”

Sandra clamped her eyes shut for a moment before opening the book to search for one of her stories. Her mouth had gone dry and she swallowed hard before preparing to read to him. As she opened her mouth to speak, Negan cut her off.

“Wait! Not up there.”

“Huh?”

He patted his thigh and gave her a lecherous grin, “Come sit on my lap while you read to me, sweetheart.”

The temperature in the room seemed to rise instantly at his words, and she had begun to tremble with anxiety, but Sandra did has he commanded. She walked toward the chair as if in a trance, and gently lowered herself onto his left thigh. Her entire body was rigid with fear, causing her to practically hover over him in an unnatural way.

“Hey,” his voice was soft and warm, almost soothing, in her ear “Calm down. You’re not really in trouble, Mouse. I’m just playing around. If you want to stop, we can fucking stop. Just say the word.”

She considered escape for a moment, envisioning herself standing up and running out of the room with the book in her hands, leaving him alone in the chair with that smarmy grin on his face. But she remembered the regret she felt the last time she had turned him down, and the gnawing need for him that had taken up residence in the pit of her stomach, growing stronger every day.

She wanted him. She was tired of being a scared, little mouse.

“Sandra,” she said firmly, “My name is Sandra. Please stop calling me ‘Mouse’.”

Negan inhaled sharply beneath her, evidently taken by surprise at her talking back to him, and for a moment she feared that he would be offended by the correction, but she felt his body quake slightly with a chuckle, “Well, oh-fucking-kay then, Sandra. Why don’t you read that story to me, Sandra?”

A faint smile played on her lips and she relaxed back into him slightly as she brought the book up in front of her face, “Ok. I’ll start.”

Her lips felt sticky and too thick as she began the tale, which was a smutty little number about fucking him in the commissary after closing time, but soon the words dripped smoothly from her mouth like honey:

“’Negan pushed you roughly against the counter, his lips crashing into yours, and the scent of his leather jacket invading your nostrils. It wasn’t long until he had removed your shirt and bra, before burying his face in your tits, nipping and licking at the tender skin,’” she read aloud.

Sandra felt Negan’s weight shift under her in the chair, and at first she thought that she must be making him uncomfortable after all, but as she continued to read she felt a very distinct bulge press against her from below. She wasn’t making him uncomfortable; she was making him hard.

“’You stood over him, relishing the sight of Negan on his knees in front of you, before bending down and helping him to remove the tight, white t-shirt he wore from his chest and tossing it aside-“ the words were cut off by more movement behind her, this time a little more vigorous.

She watched in amazement as one of his muscular arms came out from behind her. The white t-shirt he had been wearing was clutched in his hand. After he seemed sure that she had noticed what he was doing, he let the garment drop to the floor without saying a word. Sandra turned around in confusion and was met with those deep, brown eyes staring back at her intently.

“What-“ she began.

“Just trying to add some motherfucking realism to the situation,” he replied simply, “Continue, Mou- Oh! Fuck! I mean, Sandra.”

“’Negan reached up and ran his calloused hands over your arms until he reached your shoulders and then allowed his fingers to trail across your chest before gently grabbing one of your hardened nipples between his thumb and forefinger.’”

To her amazement, Sandra felt a very real hand, which was surprisingly not at all calloused, trail up her arm before coming to rest at the strap of the tank top she wore. In one surprisingly graceful motion, Negan flicked the strap off of her shoulder.

“Mind if I take this off?” he asked. She could hear that is voice had become slightly breathy with arousal, “You know. For realism.”

“Ok. Sure. Yeah!” she could hardly conceal her excitement, and without even thinking about it, she pulled the top off, tossing it aside.

“Fuck yeah! That-a-girl, Mousey!” he cried, “Oh shit! Fuck! Sorry! Sandra, Sandra, Sandra!"

"You’re starting to get it!”

“Yeah, I’m a little thick sometimes. Heh. In more ways than one,” he punctuated his last point with a pelvic thrust that caused his erection to dig into her leg.

Without fully realizing it, Sandra emitted a slight moan.

“You like that, Sandra?” he asked before grabbing one of her breasts in his hand and squeezing it tentatively, “Mmmm. That’s really fucking nice. Fucking A-plus titties! Hey! You feel like doing a little multi-tasking?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Instead of answering verbally, Negan shifted in his seat again and Sandra heard the unmistakable sound of him unzipping his pants. A moment later one of his hands found its way to her unoccupied extremity and guided it back to touch the soft skin of his extremely hard cock.

Sandra gasped as a flood of arousal took hold of her, causing her thighs to clench around Negan’s leg. She squirmed in his lap and tightened her grip on his hardened member, feeling a bead of precum drip onto her hand.

“Oh fuck! Christ yes! Stroke me a bit while you read, baby.”

Sandra did as she was told, maintaining a tight grip around him while she slowly glided her hand up and down his shaft. He hadn’t exaggerated about being thick earlier; her small hand could close around the girth of his cock, but only barely. As she touched him, her eyes re-focused on the words that danced across the notebook’s pages.

“Where was I? Oh! Right: ‘His hands continued to tour your body hungrily, as if he needed to touch every inch of you to claim you as his own.”

As she read, Sandra felt Negan’s hot breath on the back of her neck. His lips trailed against the tender skin of her pulse, sending a shiver through her body. Her voice faltered for a moment as his hands made their way to her hips and his fingers began to play with the waistband of the pants she wore, but she soon regained her composure.

“’H-he…um…he suddenly jerked your skirt down to the floor, taking your panties along with it, and pushed you back against the wall, causing your pussy to move forward and open to him, granting him access to you.’”

In reality, Negan had made his way to the button which held Sandra’s pants closed and popped it open with his thumb. His fingers dipped below the loosened fabric and softly grazed her cotton underwear, tracing the outline of her slit, and causing her to gasp sharply at another shudder of pleasure.

“Please don’t stop,” she whimpered.

“It doesn’t say that on the page…”

“Please, Negan!”

“Keep reading and I’ll keep going,” he teased.

“Ok,” she sighed in annoyance, “‘Negan buried his face into your folds, teasing you open and probing around with his tongue. First taking small, exploratory licks before lapping up your juices and swirling his tongue around your clit expertly.’”

“Fucking shit, you’re good with your hands, and your stories are fucking filthy,” he moaned, craning his head back against the chair.

Sandra continued to stroke his cock while she read, increasing her pace as the lust overtook her. Negan wasted no time in fulfilling his promise to her by roughly pushing aside the panties she wore and burying two fingers deep inside of her. The sensation of fullness was immediate and extreme, and Sandra ground against him with a deep moan.

“Oh god! ‘He-he continued to lick you into ecstasy, sucking your clit into his lips as his hands grabbed your hips, pulling you closer to him and…and m-maneuvering you just the way he wanted you.’”

With every other word she read aloud, Negan rammed his fingers firmly inside of her, pounding her G-spot and causing rushes of the most wonderful sensations to course through her limbs. It was becoming difficult to focus on the story, and even harder to speak, but she tried to soldier on whilst milking his cock with a fluid motion that made Negan’s breath hitch in his chest.

“Fuck! Christ, Sandra! You’re gonna have me make a mess all over this chair soon,” he practically growled at her and she could feel the muscles in his thighs tensing below her ass.

As if to punish her in a very backwards way, Negan pressed his thumb firmly against her clit and began to circle it, using the wet arousal that had flowed from her opening and covered his fingers as lube. Sandra let out a sharp scream of pleasure, which was muffled by a large hand over her mouth.

“Shhh! Fucking quiet down! Don’t want anyone walking in on us, do you? Now finish the story so I can finish on you.”

“Oh my god! Please don’t stop! I’m so close!”

“Keep reading…” he warned sternly, with a desperate edge to his tone.

“’Negan’s face glistened with your sweet h-honey as you ground against his lips, using his mouth to get you off. Legs trembling, you came hard and f-f-fast…’ Oh fuck yes! Right there, Negan!” she lost herself for a moment, nearly following the story’s timing into the heights of orgasm, but quickly regained control, “’…with…with an earth shattering rapidity that threatened to send you tumbling to the ground. But he caught you and held you…in…in place as you were undone by the roaring bliss filling your-‘“

Sandra’s words were cut off by low guttural moaning from behind her as she continued to pump Negan’s cock steadily. Seconds later her hand was covered in his warm cum. She could feel it land all over her arm and left thigh, dripping thickly to the chair’s upholstery. Looking down, she enjoyed watching the evidence of his lust for her gleaming in the light and snaking across her flesh.

As he came, his fingers curled deep inside of her while his thumb began to work her clit in double time. This, combined with the knowledge that she had brought him to orgasm with just the combination of her words and hand, caused Sandra to careen over the precipice of orgasm. Her breath puffed out in tight jolts ecstasy as her head strained back and into the crook of his shoulder. She could feel him still breathing heavily from behind as he held her through the spasms until she could control her muscles again.

“Sweet fuckity God damn! That was a fucking work of art, my dear!” his voice sounded dazed an heavy, and Sandra could feel the muscles in his legs relax into the chair’s cushions.

“Well, thank you!” she said earnestly, standing on still-shaking legs and buttoning her pants.

“You got a lot more of those floating around in that book of yours?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. A few, I suppose.”

“Well, rest up! Because I think I just might need someone to come read me a fucking bedtime story tonight if you get where I’m going with this,” he paused for a moment, “That is to say, I wanna fuck that sweet little pussy of yours tonight, if you’ll let me.”

“Yes, Negan. I had gathered that much.”

“You always were a fucking smarty pants, MousssSandra!” he slurred her nickname and real names together in an attempt to cover up his mistake, “Shit! I’m getting better at least.”

“Yeah. I think I am too.”

#ash’s round 3 negan challenge #comicnegan>#negan's thirst squad #negan fanfiction #twd fanfiction

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adapted-batteries · 7 years ago

Text

All Fun and Games

Fandom: The Librarians

Rating: General, with a bit of language

Relationship: Jazekiel

Word Count: 2041

Stone decides to finally start serenading Ezekiel, but it doesn’t go as planned. Inspired by @uncontinuous’s post.

Also posted on my Ao3.

---

April 1st was not a good day to start serenading Ezekiel Jones. Stone thought it was just a Monday, that is until Cassandra blasted an air horn at him as he rounded a corner after he got finished placing his gifts. Stone nearly jumped out of his pants, and barely restrained himself from punching Cassandra out of reflex.

“April Fools!” she shouted after she stopped the air horn. Based on the huge grin on her face, Cassandra was enjoying herself.

“That’s today?” Stone asked, eyes wide.

Cassandra didn't notice his concern. “Yup!”

“Shit.”

“What? You still have plenty of time to plan a prank,” Cassandra said.

Stone turned around, hoping he could get to the gifts before Ezekiel showed up. “No, it's not that-”

“Nice one Stone,” Ezekiel said, walking down the corridor with chocolates in one hand and a small piece of paper Stone had written a poem on in the other. “Totally surprised me. I didn't take you for someone who celebrates April Fool’s.” He walked past blushing Stone and really confused Cassandra like nothing happened.

Stone looked at Cassandra, eyes somehow even wider in panic. She shrugged back, giving him a little helpless grin before sauntering off after Ezekiel. With a noise of frustration, Stone followed them into the main room of the Annex.

By the time Stone entered the main room, Ezekiel had already managed to get into the box and eat several truffles. Cassandra didn’t exactly have clean hands either, as she literally was licking something off her fingers. Jenkins had been eyeing the box, but abruptly stood up straight when he noticed Stone.

“It wasn’t a pr-” Stone started, but the clippings book interrupted by shaking and flapping its pages. Reluctantly, the other Librarians abandoned the chocolates to see what their job was going to be today.

The mission was pretty fast paced, no time for Stone to pull Ezekiel aside and clarify what the gifts were actually for. By the time they got back, Ezekiel left for his apartment first thing, leaving Stone and Cassandra alone after Jenkins left to put the new artifact away for safekeeping. They both trudged to the Library’s mud room, thankful for heating and the promise of Jenkins’s tea in a bit.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” she asked Stone as they both de-layered from their day trip into another lovely Scandinavian snow storm.

“No! I mean, no, I’ll do it,” Stone quipped, shrugging out of a parka and placing it on a hanger.

“Alright,” Cassandra said, folding up a wool scarf next to the hat and gloves she had placed back on their shelf. “You know how he can be though…”

“I know, but I think if we both came at him he’d do his avoid and deny act,” Stone countered as he sat on a bench to pull off the heavy, still snow-caked boots he had on. “I just need to catch him at the right time.”

Stone found Ezekiel’s April Fools prank on him when he got in his truck that evening; the thief had flipped the wires around making it impossible to accelerate without honking his horn, or turning on the headlights without turning the windshield wipers on at full blast, etc. It was a pain to fix back, which thankfully he knew how to do, but it was better than driving home as loud and as obnoxiously as he possibly could.

---

He thought he had the right time a couple days later. Nothing came in the clippings book so everyone was doing their own thing somewhere in the Library. He left a note for Ezekiel, telling him to meet in the weapons room. Stone didn’t exactly hurry, but he didn’t lollygag either on his way there.

The lights in the room came up as he opened the door, glinting off all the metal. Normally Ezekiel would toy with stuff if he got somewhere first, but the weapons looked untouched that he could tell. Stone walked further in the room, letting the door shut behind him, content to wait till Ezekiel arrived.

As he was going over what he was going to say to Ezekiel, he heard a faint clicking sound to his left, on one of the weapons racks. Instinct took over as he stepped back, loosened axe slicing through the space where his hand had just been. Stone looked at the axe after it clattered to the ground. Tied around the handle was some thin, clear wire, anchored back on the stand where the safety latch had been undone.

Stone grabbed the axe, cutting off the wire with the axe that sat next to it. He ventured further in the room, keeping a much better eye on the weapons around him. Nothing else attempted to hack at him, until he neared the not-so-decorative suits of armor. He gave each one a good look, but nothing seemed amiss.

He thought about just waiting near the door for Ezekiel, and started heading back in that direction when one of the suits behind him stepped down from its stand. Reflex came to Stone’s aid once more as he slammed the blunt side of the axe into the shoulder of the armor, effectively staggering the person. Whoever it was would only have a sore shoulder if they hadn’t stumbled in precisely the worst direction, into a large rack of shields. Said rack of shields was also in perfect toppling distance of Stone, burying him in hard metal and solid wood.

“That...didn’t go...as planned,” a slightly muffled Ezekiel announced, shifting shields off himself as he sat up in the suit.

Stone purposely threw the shield that had smacked him in the face at Ezekiel. “As planned?!”

A sword burst into the room, slamming the door against the stone wall, yipping at the two on the floor. A winded Flynn ran in after it. “Wait, Cal...slow down,” he panted, stopping short of the mess. “What happened here? You freaked Cal out for sure.”

“Accident,” they both mumbled.

“Why are you in a suit of armor?” Flynn asked Ezekiel, clearing a path to help him up.

“Uh, prank,” Ezekiel said, wincing as Flynn pulled on the sore shoulder.

“This was a prank?” Stone said, getting up by himself. He felt his face, finding his lip had taken the brunt of the shield and was bleeding.

“Okay Stone, help me get him out of this armor. Cal, can you go get Jenkins?” Flynn said, already fiddling the straps on Ezekiel. The sword yipped at him then promptly flew out of the room.

The two of them managed to free Ezekiel, revealing several tender spots from smashing into, and being smashed by things. Jenkins showed up, quite annoyed, and sent Ezekiel and Stone off to ice down bruises before they could swell too much. Stone intended to talk to Ezekiel then, but having your face smacked by a twenty pound shield doesn’t exactly make talking fun, and having an ice pack over it felt much better.

---

Stone intended to catch him the next day. He figured those bruises were gonna make Ezekiel more late than he usually arrived, which gave him ample time to leave a different but pretty obvious poem at Ezekiel’s secret entrance, and some more chocolates to help with the pain. He waited for Ezekiel to find him, occupying himself with a book in the Annex.

“You really need to step up your prank game,” Ezekiel said, announcing his entrance into the Annex. Stone didn’t hear him walk in, as usual, so his voice made Stone jump a little.

“What? I’ve not been pranking you.” Stone put the book on the desk. “Have ya not read the poems?”

“You did it on April Fools, how was I supposed to take it?” Ezekiel sat on the edge of the desk, putting the chocolates down next to him. “So...you’re serious…”

“Yeah, I am.” Stone watched him fidget a bit, but he didn’t leave.

“Sorry about yesterday. I thought you were trying to spook me,” Ezekiel shrugged. “When I got to the room, you weren’t there, so I wanted to get ahead of you.”

Stone nodded at him, standing up to stretch his legs. “Maybe next time don’t do that in a room filled with sharp objects and heavy things.”

“Yeah, I figured that out.” Ezekiel rolled the shoulder Stone had hit. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

Stone raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t?” He chuckled to himself. “And here I thought I had been obvious for months.”

Ezekiel looked at him, thoughtful. “I guess some things make more sense now.”

“Like what, exactly?” Stone asked, curious.

“Oh, just some looks, the touching, being in my space, that sort of thing. I thought that was just you being you,” Ezekiel said. “Apparently I was wrong.”

Stone stepped closer to him, stopping a few inches away from his knees. “Like I said, thought I was bein’ obvious with all that. I wasn’t exactly doin’ it to anyone else.”

“Here you go again, ignoring my personal space,” Ezekiel chided, not putting any snark into it. Instead, he leaned forward ever so slightly.

“And what are ya gonna do about it?” Stone teased, leaning in a little himself.

“Well, I have some ideas,” Ezekiel breathed, sliding forward on the desk a bit, trapping Stone in between his knees.

Stone got the hint and closed the distance between them. He would’ve liked to stay longer but his lip in particular protested greatly. Stone pulled away slightly, hissing. “Damn shield.” He pressed his forehead against Ezekiel’s. “We’ll continue this later.”

“It’s a date, Cowboy,” Ezekiel purred, kissing him on the cheek instead. Stone pulled away more so he could narrow his eyes at Ezekiel. “What? Everyone’s got their kinks.”

“Jones!” Stone sputtered, face going red.

“You can’t tell me with all the times you brag about being a good ol’ country boy that you don’t like being called that,” Ezekiel quipped with a smirk. “I’ve got my kinks too. You know, there’s that song, oh, what were those lyrics, ‘save a horse, ride a cowboy,’ wasn’t it?”

“Ezekiel…” Stone rumbled this time, who looked equal parts flustered and turned on.

“Looks like we share that one, hm?” Ezekiel teased. “That one’s gotta wait though, I’m too sore from yesterday.”

Cassandra chose to walk in just as Ezekiel finished his sentence. “Oh good, you’re talking to him...you were doing more than talking weren’t you?”

“No-” Stone started, but Cassandra was already walking past them to the main table.

“Totally fine, congrats, don’t mind me just need these books here, then I’ll be gone,” she interrupted, gathering books in a haphazard fashion. “But like, don’t do anything in here...where we work, I’m sure everyone else would appreciate it.”

“Do you really think Flynn and Eve haven’t-” Ezekiel started, but Cassandra was already speeding her way out of the room.

“I don’t want to think about it thank you very much, and I’d rather not have to think about you to doing...it...as well so I’m leaving now,” she said, quickly walking out of the room.

Ezekiel snickered as she made her hasty exit. “Lucky for her I’m too sore to climb stairs right now, let alone have some fun.”

“Actually I agree with her,” Stone said, earning an eyebrow raise from Ezekiel. “Unlike you I have a sense of decency.”

“Uh huh, we’ll see how decent you are in a few days, when I can move without impersonating my grandad,” Ezekiel challenged, hopping off the desk and then immediately regretting the sudden impact. Through his wince of pain, he smirked at Stone. “Plus, she only said in here...and there’s plenty of rooms in the Library.”

“Alrighty there, Grandpa Jones, don’t wantin’ you to get too riled up there or you’ll fall over,” Stone patronized, hooking his arm around Ezekiel’s like he was helping an elderly lady cross the road. Ezekiel batted him away playfully, definitely not putting any effort into it. “Sounds like a little walk around will help your stiff joints, whadaya say Grandpa?”

“Dude, that’s not my kink,” Ezekiel said, partially joking. Stone chuckled, kissing him on the temple as they ambled out of the Annex.

---

Post notes: If that last scene sounded familiar, it would be because I wrote it, then realized they had a similar conversation in my other fic “Dooooggg Boooiii” and decided not to change it since I apparently think this is what they’d say. Guess I’m a sucker for them realizing their not-so-platonic behaviors.

#Jazekiel week #the librarians shipathon #librariansshipathon #shipathon17 #jazekiel #ezekiel jones #jacob stone #the librarians fic #the librarians fanfiction #flynn writes

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yournewhappyplace · 7 years ago

Text

Full PlayLew: Kingdom Hearts

hey so it’s been a while since i really wrote anything about games but recently i bought the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 - ReMix - collection (not to be confused with Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue you silly goose) which is a collection of Kingdom Hearts, Re:Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II, Birth by Sleep and full cinematics for the two early DS games...that’s a lot of Kingdom Hearts...and because i only owned my first PS2 in 2013, i missed out on the whole Kingdom Hearts shabang! so let's document my first playthrough of the game that started it all; Kingdom Hearts! depending, i might write up a post about all the games as i play them and tell you all what a Birth by Sleep is but for now, let’s keep this Simple And Clean and start with the first game

(warning: spoilers for the game and full on rambling)

So there's a reason why I wanted to get into Kingdom Hearts, asides from Millenial Peer Pressure to understand what Simple And Clean means, cus there's one cutscene I saw from the second game where Goofy gets smacked with a rock and Mickey Mouse in a super hot topic zipped jacket gets really upset and the entire scene is both super melodramatic and absurd at the same time and I REALLY liked that. I really liked the idea of this crossover series from the two biggest giants of it's day, just going 100% extra and hopefully taking its premise to the next level...and it does.

Like, one of the first things you do in this game is meet Wakka from FFX and smack him with a wooden sword and there's a cutscene not further on where Aerith is having a serious discussion with Goofy and Donald Duck about a metaphorical darkness and...it's great. i'm going on about this aspect so much immediately because it's my favourite part of the game. the charm and the balance of touching tribute and ridiculous revelations that Kingdom Hearts achieves with merging its properties.

The actual game itself isn't the showstopper here but it's still worth talking about. It plays like a third person action game where you have all the bearings of it's Final Fantasy brethren with random encounters, leveling up, a party system and summons but the game doesn't load in and out of battles, you just get straight into a brawl on the map and there's no turn based battle system. I gotta give the team credit for wanting to make a different combat system than a lot of similar JRPGs at the time because it really helps give the series its own identity from minute one, with both the system and the keyblade weapon that you use to melee and cast spells with. At first it can be a bit jarring and hard to play. Sometimes the camera feels too tight behind Sora (the dude you play as) and processing the 3D space between you and the enemy can be a bit difficult to judge. Also the tightness means you'll get hit by off-screen attacks quite a bit more than you'd feel fair but once you start to get the hang of fighting through tough battles and slowly gain new spells, like a self heal, and a fuckin roll (!), it starts to click and becomes an enjoyable fighting system. The enemy variety in the game could've been upped to keep it more interesting in the later stages but it feels satisying to blow enemies UP with your keyblade (god I love the keyblade's design so much)...and it's hard not to admit the satisfaction of the one-on-one rival battles. When you're up against a dude the same size as you and he's got a melee weapon as well...it is Fire 100 Turn Up The BBQ.

It's a shame that those type of boss fights only really appear near the end because, for the first half at least, the boss fights aren't too great. The worst boss fights that show up in this game are the ones where the hurtbox of the enemy is on a head or a high part of their body, so as Sora you have to jump up and do an air combo at their hurtbox, hoping the hits connect or that you get your full combo out or the enemy doesn't move as you're jumping or the enemy just doesn't knock you out of it...but most of the time that stuff happens and it makes those boss fights some of the most annoying and unsatisfying. There's one boss fight in perticular, at the end of the Wonderland level, which is pretty much the first proper level of the game, that is really tall and his hurtbox is his main body which is propped up on two huge legs and trying to HIT IT is so tough. If you're on the ground, you have to make sure to jump and start attacking at the height of your combo otherwise you'll hit his legs which means that your attacks will literally bounce off him and you'll be flung to the ground. Even when I did get hits in on his body from jumping off the ground, i'd usually only get one or two hits in before I just hit the ground again and...that's not fun! There's a table in the middle of the arena you can climb onto that gives you a platform to jump off and smack him with but ONE that's just as annoying. having to keep climbing up this table to get three or four hits in, fall to the ground and repeat is bad and TWO the table is destructible by the boss! So he can just destroy it and make it even more annoying! Also he takes reduced damage from the 1 out of 2 spells you have at that time. Ahhhhh!!! And whilst no other boss comes close to being as annoying as that, there's still other bosses that use some of it's Anti-Fun Kata Techniques and they can be pretty unsatisfying.

Also some of the worlds in this game can be hit or miss. In Kingdom Hearts you travel between levels that, at most times, are Disney themed worlds like Neverland, Pumpkin Town and Olympus Collesium. Some of them are literally just 3 or 4 rooms, some are bland and some are downright barbaric like the Tarzan level that makes you travel up and down the level several times to trigger new cutscenes or events to progress the story and it can get really frustrating ESPECIALLY when the game doesn't make it all that clear where you need to go or what you have to do, so you're just hopelessly running around, entering in and out of buildings hoping something changes!

So okay, i've talked about what didn't work in this game BUT worry not, positive vibes are coming in the form of my early point; presentation! The game is a Disney and Final Fantasy crossover and the game's use of those licenses helps prop the game up massively. The Wonderland level, whilst not the most interesting level design wise, is propped up massively by just the very idea of it being Wonderland and everything that comes with it. Fun, colourful imagery! Gimmicks involving being huge and small! Twisted geometry spaces! A purple talking cat! Like the way they use their licenses to create these distinct, colourful, imaginative worlds with a diverse set of characters feels like cheating since they're using already existing brands but it's no lie that this all helps create a game that really feels like you're playing on this large Disneyland rollercoaster that shows you the world! And you're not just going by saying “I recognise the thing! I clapped!”, you're fuckinnnng in the thing! You're interacting with all the things! Sometimes you even kill the things and just twisting the properties onto their heads! Remember that time Clayton from Tarzan got fucking killed by a chameleon crushing him?? Yeah! Me too! It's rad!! Remember that time Hades from Hercules hired Cloud to kill you?? Yeah!! That's what makes this whole thing feel fun and worthwhile and not a simple nostalgia grab or whatever. Cus Disney gave them full license to do whatever they wanted and guess what W E D O I T said Nomura.

I also love how in certain worlds, aesthetics or even entire systems will change to match it. Like how in Little Mermaid level, you play it completely underwater. They could have made you stick to the bottom of the seabed and play it like a normal level or put you in a sub or whatever but they didn't, instead they change Sora and your parties models so you're a mermaid and you have to instead move using square and circle to go up and down through the water. That's cool! In the Neverland level, you get to fly like Peter Pan through the level and fighting flying pirate ships in the sky as you float is wonderful! And the part at the end where you go to a city level and you fly around the equivalent of Big Ben as the music swells up is one of my highlights from the game...cus it just FELT good in my hands. Even the smaller changes like Sora getting a new, gothed up, halloween costume for the Nightmare Before Christmas level is a cute touch! In a perfect world all of these changes would have happened for the majority of levels but alas.

There's also this Winnie the Pooh world that's probably my favourite. At a part of the game, you get a book that you can access and as you open the book, you find yourself walking around 100 Acre Woods and meeting Winnie the Pooh but the rest of the pages are missing. So as you go through levels, you find these pages for the book and for each page you get a new level of 100 Acre Woods that feels like a light, adventure where you're hanging around with Winnie the Pooh and friends. There's no combat in the levels, it's all just mini-games and talking with Pooh and the cast...and it's wonderful. Not only does it fit the tone of the license, cheerful fun, but the feel of the level from the writing and the adventures just feels...Pooh-like. And then when you get that last page and you get Pooh and all his friends together and they bid you farewell and the book closes to show a picture of Sora holding hands with Pooh...i got emotional man...i really did.

And then there's the other side of the spectrum, from fighting off tears over a really well done, careful use of it's properties to grinning like mad with tears of laughter at the ridiculous use of its property. Okay so like the end of the game is, the greatest. After you defeat the main bad guy (he was a scientist trying to use darkness for power blah blah), you get this scene where Sora and friends find the door to the Kingdom Hearts! The source of all hearts! And in it there are Heartless (the enemies) coming out of it so you have to go and close the door BUT doing it on your own isn't enough so you have to use the help of your friend Riku (he was a friend-turned-rival-turned-back to friend by the end)to shut it BUT! He has to shut it from the other side of the door which means locking himself in with the Heartless and the darkness within it. So he's basically gonna get fucked. And Sora realises this and after refusing to shut the door at Riku's request, he obliges and in an emotional moment goes to push it shut….BUT SHUT THE FUCK UP, DONALD DUCK PEEKS IN THE DOOR AND GOES “WUHHHHH” AND YOU NOTICE MICKEY MOUSE'S ICONIC EARS AND HEAD CAST A SHADOW AND IN AN EXTREMELY MICKEY MOUSE VOICE GOES “HEY SORA!” AND IT'S LIKE FUCKING AWESOME. FUCKING GREAT. EMOTIONAL MOMENT -DEFUSED-, PREY SLAUGHTERED CUS MICKEY MOUSE TALKED. I couldn't stop laughing the whole time and then mickey mouse shuts the door and all is saved. BUT THEN because of complications, Sora has to leave behind his childhood sweeheart Kairi that he saved to go back to her world whilst Sora gets left behind in wherever he is and then Simple And Clean, the main theme, just blast with its cheesy super early 2000's musical sheen as a closing FMV plays where Kairi is crying about missing Sora and everyone is all happy cus they get to see their friends again and it's so...innocent and perhaps naive at what it's doing but it fills me life man. I was singing the lyrics to this RnB track as I thought about the events that just occurred and seeing Pinnochio turn into a real boy and Cloud meet back up with Aerith and maaaaaaaan

That's why I really like Kingdom Hearts. The gameplay is generally fun despite some dips, there's some rewarding treasure hunts despite the level design being bland….on a purely Game perspective, it isn't that special and is probably worse than other 3D platformers of it's time BUT where it really shines and where the charm gets to me in this game is just how much it celebrates and lets you engage with it's crossover. Whether it's trying to evoke a feeling of sadness at a childhood gone by or drama through laughable scenarios involving Disney and Square Enix characters...it's just got real charm and i'm so happy this game exists. I'm even happier that it was successful enough to spawn an entire franchise that still has young kids and grown adults getting hyped for it's next installment. It's a weird kinda magic that I don't think any other game or series has fully replicated. Will the charm wear off I play through more and more of these games? I dunno, we'll see...but for now, Kingdom Hearts, thank you for being really Goofy.

P.S: Simple And Clean is so good

#long post

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kissingwithcannibals · 6 years ago

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I like to listen to podcasts while I sketch, and the other day, I put on an episode of Hidden Brain. If you haven’t check this show out, I recommend it. “Using science and storytelling, Hidden Brain reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, and the biases that shape our choices.” Basically, the show packages psychology and sociology through stories and interviews, making it much more accessible for plebs like me. The episode was “Close Enough: The Lure of Living Through Others.” I thought: hey, that sounds cool! Until it started to describe my life.

The show opens up with an interview of guy who enjoys doing woodworking projects in his free time. A good deal of what this guy knows about carpentry he’s learned from tutorials on Youtube. He’s a teacher during the day, and when he comes home, he’s confronted with several ongoing projects in his home wood shop. Unfortunately, he’s so drained by the time he comes home from work that, instead of working on, say, building a cabinet, he watches Youtube. Hours of it. He goes down a wormhole of videos, watching other people demonstrate how to, say, clean a car engine, or build a deck, or how to renovate your kitchen. Some of it relevant to him, some not.

Part of the show is devoted to understanding why people spend hours every day watching experts do expert things. I can happily unpack some of this for you, because, first of all, this guy’s story is my story, too. (Except nobody should trust me to handle a bandsaw, or to, like, educate their children.) I can tell you, unequivocally, that the whole act of passively grazing Youtube absolutely sucks. It’s addicting, but it suuuuucks. The first five minutes are great. I’ve got my bowl of frosted mini wheats and a video of, say, the 2018 Starcraft 2 WCS Global Tournament Grand Finale Match queued up. But I wolf down the mini wheats in, you know, sixty seconds flat, and then I’m facing an hour and forty-five minutes of a professional e-sport player from Finland try to take down another top player from South Korea in the game of Starcraft.

Seeing that my attention span these days is about the length in time it takes me to eat a bowl of mini wheats, I hop to one of the many videos that Youtube’s almighty algorithm has recommended I watch. Maybe another professional Starcraft match, or a watercolor painting tutorial, or a Vox video about Why Safe Playgrounds Aren’t Great for Kids. Each video provides a progressively diminishing feeling of satisfaction, until, eventually, I feel like a pig at a trough, and it’s no longer about eating because I’m hungry, but because the food is in front of my face.

I don’t know why I do this to myself. It’s no longer fun. The dull, flat “enjoyment” of Youtube is somehow more comforting than the real world. The world beyond my computer monitor is a place of sensation, and action, and deliberate thought. Youtube is passive, it’s voyeurism, and it’s artifice. I can’t even tell you why I’ve been watching so many professional Starcraft matches lately. When I was younger, holy hell did I put hours into that game (and I was always terrible), but I haven’t played it in years. I’m not a member of the community, and it’s meaningless to me which South Korean player takes the top prize this year. (Because, like, 95% of the world’s best Starcraft players are South Korean.)

I think part of my attachment to Youtube is that I do find it compelling to watch a person do something so well. As a horrendous Starcraft player, it’s kind of amazing to see what these professional e-sport players can do. They’re basically playing an entirely different game than the one I played. Or take programming: I’m new to coding, and very awful at it, so to watch some of these coders absolutely rip through crazy code and produce amazing results with it is, for me, almost entrancing. Honestly, anything that I’m amateur or mediocre at, I want to see how the pros are doing it.

And, to be fair, Youtube can be a great resource. I have learned a lot by way of guitar, coding, juggling, drawing, to name a few, from tutorials. But most of the content that I’m glued to is mindless, and the the time I spend watching these videos is time I’m not spending practicing guitar or trying to learn how to code.

I’ll paraphrase a point made in the podcast: These videos are an escape into another person’s life. This passive voyeurism is simpler, cheaper, and the emotional results are “close enough”. You get a taste of what your life could be while eating ice cream on the couch. It’s a substitute for a lacking in your own life.

I was in a real Youtube spiral yesterday. By the end of the day, my brain was fried. I couldn’t find the excitement to do anything, and when I tried to sit down to read or blog, I couldn’t keep my concentration. It was completely demoralizing. Today was similar. I tried to do some coding this morning, but I kept messing up and getting confused, which only compounded my doldrums.

As a side note, learning to code has been a struggle this past week. I find myself jumping from lesson to lessons, topic to topic, not entirely sure what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it. Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to understand web applications, and how to construct and launch web pages using Python, Flask, and Bootstrap. But after hours of watching lessons, and writing code, and screwing up my code, I close my laptop and think to myself, Wait, when have I ever wanted to make a website? Was this even any fun? Why am I doing this?

Eventually, I felt so frazzled that I thought to myself: I literally need to just lie down for an hour and close my eyes. I put in my earbuds and played an episode of This American Life, knowing that I wanted to just invest in one single story for an extended time. Well, I fell asleep, and when I woke up, the episode had finished and the next TAL episode in the queue was playing. Still only half-awake, I really had no idea what was going on, but the episode was about, like, this library that had a really unusual collection, in part because the library would accept books from authors who had been rejected by publishers everywhere else. Or something like that. Don’t quote me.

In my haze, it hit me like a bolt of lightning: libraries? Libraries! In my slog of coding tutorials this week, I completely forgot that one of my original programming goals was to replicate a working library check-out system. Among other things, it would have databases for storing books and patron information, as well as a search tool that patrons could use to find books. And, of course, I would want to incorporate those little scanner guns. When I first started learning to code, my friend Gus recommended that I have a project in mind, as a means of giving myself something to work toward. I completely forgot about my model library idea, but this is the kind of goal I need to rekindle my motivation.

So today ended better than it started. And some days, that’s the best you can ask for!

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sketchy-vore · 8 years ago

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Feraltale (3-6): Open Book

Happy birthday to me! Have a little present!

This is just a small thing since chapter 4 is going slow. This chapter could happen anywhere between chapter 3 and 6.

Here is the first chapter in case you haven’t read this story yet.

Our collection of books had drastically increased over the past few days. When we were younger I’d often be more careful about what to give to Paps, destroying everything that contained anything other than happy animals. Thicker, pictureless books weren’t that much trouble, Pap wasn’t that fond of reading.

Now though, both my brother and I were collecting much more. I still made sure never to let him know it was about ‘humans’, but we did take more of the books containing them home. Papyrus recognized these creatures were the same species as Frisk, but the exact name for their kind was still a mystery to him.

All he (actually we) really wanted was to figure out more about the little kid and learn more about their habits. The childish picture books actually helped me to figure out what to get to take care of the kiddo’s hygiene. (You won’t believe how much ‘toothpaste’ and packaged ‘toothbrush’es humans throw away, so wasteful.)

Our box didn’t have enough room for the books and all the other stuff anymore, so we even got a bookcase. Some parts of the nice wood were chipped and dirty and a few shelves had to be replaced with random planks, but it quickly got a place right next to our nest.

And as per tradition we would pick a book and read it before bed. It started out as it did when we were kids, only now there was a tiny human child giggling with tears in their eyes as I tried to mimic everything happening in the text on the pages. Now though, it had turned into a narrated, one-man theater, with the kid reading out loud, as I played all the roles and Papyrus cooed happily from the nest.

I was still careful in some cases though. The last time humans had been in contact with monsters they weren’t too fond of us, and even their children’s books showed it. It was hard to find anything in which monsters weren’t depicted in a bad or frightening light. I wanted to give Papyrus and Frisk something fun to read with friendly monsters and brave kids that they could relate to.

This book didn’t have humans interacting with monsters but it had looked kinda promising. The monster on the cover was kinda scary, but it didn’t look too malicious, and the tiny mouse didn’t look like it was worried or afraid. In the middle of the night with only my eyes to light up the pages, it looked a lot different though. Literally everything in this book was trying to eat the mouse, especially the monster. And on top of that, the monster was pretty dumb, fooled easily by the tiny mouse's tricks. The book was kinda smart, playing on the ‘brain over brawn’ trope, but I didn’t think it would be something encouraging to Pap and the kid.

I felt my shoulders sagging. This is what humans think of us. Ugly, scary, dumb creatures, hiding under beds and in closets, that wanted nothing more than to scare and eat their children. No wonder the kid had been so scared. Not just because I was big and different, but also because it was ingrained in their brain from childhood that they should be scared of us. That we would eat them. I was surprised the kid was even trusting me at all after just swallowing them like that.

“Oh, I love that book!”

I was pulled out off my musing by the sound of a soft, enthusiastic whisper.

Papyrus didn’t sleep for long periods of time, but when he did he was out like a light (contrasting to my long, restless sleeps). Still, the kid insisted to be as quiet as possible when either of us slept.

I felt some kind of nervous fear tingling along my spine as the kid pushed themself up on my leg to stumble into my lap. After they situated themself to sit there comfortably their tiny hands reached up for the book.

I had half a heart to keep it out of their reach and ignore the problem, but if the kid already knew what the book was about there wasn’t really any point in doing so. Plus it would probably just worry them and make things worse. Humans might be practically deaf and blind, and their nose permanently blocked, but the kid was smart enough to notice things.

Reluctantly I lowered the book, tiny hands aiding to pull it down even faster as it came within their reach. As soon as the book was in their tiny lap they flipped to the first page. They smiled and wiggled their toes as they read through the text at a record speed, me only being fast enough to take a good look at the colorful and only slightly faded pictures. They stopped at a picture of the mouse talking to a fox, surrounded by pictures of a giant maw and claws.

“Ya know, in some ways you are a bit like the Gruffalo.” The child paused for a second and giggled as they realized they just rhymed. “I mean, you got ‘terrible tusks and terrible claws and terrible teeth in your terrible jaws’. And you also got horns, you’re pretty big and...you really want to e-eat me for one reason or another.”

I could tell from their tone that they wanted to joke about it, but that little waver in their voice and the nervous twitch around their eyes were a dead giveaway. My shoulder hunched up to hide my face in as much fur as possible.

I had done goofed, the kid just confirmed it; I was scary and hideous. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have cared much about how I looked, but for the kid’s sake I was starting to wonder.

Were they still scared of me? Not for the obviously anymore, but instead subtly? With how rounded and soft humans were Paps and I must look positively ghastly. No wonder they had stayed scared for so long. They had no idea what I wanted and practically their entire childhood had taught them that we were evil and treacherous.

How did we even have a chance to return to the surface? A second war didn’t really appeal to me anymore. I wasn’t stupid, humans were far stronger than us. It would only be a matter of time before we were chased right back underground or wiped from the face of the earth entirely.

And I knew that if Frisk was kind and friendly there were most likely even more humans that would be like that too, even if they hid it so they themselves wouldn’t be hurt. And knowing those same kind people would be thrown straight into a war they didn’t want, either to fight for their life or to die a ‘coward’. And in turn, peace wouldn’t be an option either if this was the kind of information fed into human brains from birth.

I was startled out of my mulling once again when I felt two small arms wrapping around my waist. I looked down to see the kid staring back up, hands going as far around me as they could reach and their chest pressed against my belly. They opened up their mouth as soon as they were sure they had my full attention.

“It’s okay, you might look kinda scary at first, but your personality is severely lacking in that ‘terrible’ department.”

I blinked in confusion before I put a small smile on my maw. There they went again, trying to reassure me and make me feel better. It kinda helped to sooth some of my worries, not all of them, but I wasn’t gonna complain.

The kid smiled back before turning to the book once more. I spent the next few minutes looking over their shoulder, following along with the pictures with a mouse, fox, owl, snake and the Gruffalo itself. At the picture where the furry monster ran away from the tiny mouse, Frisk paused.

“This is why I like this book so much; No one got hurt. Maybe the fox, owl, snake and Gruffalo didn’t get to eat anything, but they could have made the story so much more mean spirited. They could have made the Gruffalo go eat the other animals, or the mouse could have tricked the Gruffalo into some kind of trap so it couldn’t return to the woods, and his home. But instead the mouse just scared all the animals a little bit so he would be safe.”

Their head tilted back to lean against my belly, eyes meeting mine again. “Especially in the past stories with monsters were much more mean spirited. Knights would kill all kinds of monsters to save the kingdom, or even just to impress a girl.” Their eyes gave an angry little roll at those last words. Kinda cute to see.

“Monsters have changed a lot the past few years, or at least the way humans look at them. Monsters used to represent the humans fear of the scary and unknown. I once read that humans created werewolves because they just couldn’t believe a human could be a senseless murderer, and there just had to be some kind of greater evil from unearthly origins.”

“But, as we became smarter and took the time to actually learn new things, we slowly started to get less scared of things. It’s going slow and there are still some things we need to learn to understand, but we’re getting better. And as humans changed, the way we see monsters changed too. In some cases it’s even a little ridiculous.”

I could feel my eyes widen and my eye-ridges creep up my forehead at their words, which actually seemed to excite the kid a bit.

“Yeah! I mean, look at dragons! In the past they were scary, flying creatures that poisoned water, burned villages and stole princesses and sheep. But right now practically everyone wants to hug a dragon!”

I squawked in surprise at that statement. It only made the kid even more enthusiastic, eyes bright and lively, arms moving around as they talked, it was getting kind of contagious.

“And you can see it in so many stories and books and games and movies too. Scary things are starting to get cool and even cute sometimes. There are still a lot of people that fight change and refuse to look at things in a new light and that wouldn’t like the idea of you guys existing. But Sans, there are so many reasons why many people would like and defend you guys!”

My breath caught in my throat. Sure, people that would rather want us gone were to be expected. But, many others of them on our side? Liking us? Defending us? Really? Would they really?

“I mean, there are these people that try to prove the paranormal creatures are real. And seeing that many cryptids actually exist will make them so happy! And then there are creative people that’ll love you and the way you live for inspiration! People will want to draw you and write stories! And scientist! Those guys will be having the best day of their lives! And people that like fantasy and strange creatures and MAGIC! Oooooooh, everyone would be over the moon just knowing you exist! I can just see all the grownups picking up their dreams of doing telekinesis and throwing around energy beams again!”

“And there are people that want to protect rare creatures and nature! There are even people that would actually fight other people to make sure you’re safe! Many people can be mean to others, but there are also so many that’ll stand up for you and even want you to get rights! That’s actually what so many people are fighting for right now; so people that are different can be happy and safe. Some of them can go a little overboard though, so you have to be a little car-”

Their enthusing stopped as they turned their face to look up at me. The lively shine in their eyes didn’t fade out completely like the last time they were so expressive, but there was nervousness and caution, instantly making me feel a little bit deflated as well.

“Uhm, I’m sorry for rambling, am I boring you?”

Boring me? How could they when they were being so vivid!?

I mentally checked my body language for anything the kid could interpret as boredom. My body was bent over them slightly, but my eyes had been on them at all times, trying to catch a bit of the glow that had been on their face just now.

Why would they think-?

I forced a soft smile onto my face as realization dawned on me. I brushed my claws through the kid’s hair a few times with a soft coo before pulling them into a hug, tucking their tiny head under my chin. Only then did I allow a grimace to appear.

Bastards, leave it to humans to take a kid’s enthusiasm. ...No, that wasn’t entirely true. The way they just talked; they believe in humans. Or at least, their ability to accept us. They really did. Their fellow humans created the things they were so excited about right now. Maybe, if they could make a kid so hopeful for the future, I could give most of the other humans the benefit of the doubt.

My attention was drawn down as the kid snuggled closer, yawning as they squeezed me softly.

Oh well, that’s for later. And that book could wait too.

At the moment, my mission was to see the kid rhapsodize like that again.

#feraltale #feraltale sans #Feraltale AU

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nealiios · 8 years ago

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“The Derrick”: Part I - Returning To My RPG Roots

I’ve chosen to create a short game scenario set in a universe I’ve been building for literally decades. “The Derrick” has been a very long time in coming.

THE DERRICK - The title card for a possible upcoming interactive horror mystery game.

Now as with almost every story I ever tell you, I have to back up a bit to explain where some things have their origins, specifically the concept behind "The Derrick” as well as the fictional setting of Adams, Oklahoma (in which my upcoing short story “The Tome” is also set).

Like a lot of kids who grew up in the 1970s and the 1980s, I was an avid player of Dungeons & Dragons, and I spent a lot of time kicking down doors, slaying monsters, and trying to hit on succubi (since I couldn’t land a girlfriend in real life in those days). It was a marvelous first introduction to the world of role-playing games.

One day while perusing my favorite game store in Tulsa, Oklahoma I accidentally came across something which nearly cost me my sanity -- which was highly appropriate given that the game in question was the RPG Call of Cthulhu based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I was already a gigantic fan of Lovecraft’s literary work, and had devoured nearly everything he’d ever written, but the possibilities of actually playing in his horrifying universe was something that immediately “called” to me. I remember being so excited about it that I didn’t even wait to get home to break open the box, and I sat in the parking lot reading the instructions in my non-air-conditioned car on a punishingly hot Oklahoma summer day.

ROLL FOR SANITY LOSS - Discovering Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu boxed set introduced me to the sanity-losing joy of one of the best RPG systems ever devised. Several year’s later, Call of Cthulhu developer Sandy Petersen wrote the introduction to my book “Swords & Circuitry: A Designer’s Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games.”

By the time I finished reading through the full rule set (thankfully in cooler circumstances), I realized that I’d finally found the game system for me. D&D was hellaciously fun, but sometimes the gameplay felt repetitive. With my group, we mostly spent our time murdering monsters to get their stuff so we could get better equipment to kill bigger monsters to get even better stuff...rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Call of Cthulhu, however, was a game that was about exploring mysteries, solving puzzles, and doing your dead level best NOT to end up in a gun battle with eldritch Outer Gods (which never, ever, ever went well for players who tried to pay CoC like it was just D&D in 20s drag.) I loved that players were constantly battling to stay sane, and that everyone was HIGHLY mortal. Characters never leveled up to being unkillable demi-gods. You were always at risk, always challenged, and you had to use your head while simultaneously terrified about what was lurking around every corner. If you did your job properly as Keeper -- essentially a role equivalent to a Dungeon Master in D&D -- you scared the crap out of your friends as they worked to save the world from cultists, and conspiracies, and monsters who often concealed their actions behind phenomena which ordinary people might dismiss. It helped if you were someone with a strong sense of paranoia about the world.

While CoC was a great game, it was not a title that had a strong following in Oklahoma at the time. It didn’t have the strong word of mouth, and a lot players simply didn’t see the appeal of a horror game set in the 1920s. (It also didn’t help that the Cthulhu pantheon were, for a short time, a badly handled part of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. They were later retconned into a number of other monsters, with mindflares being the most clearly obvious remnant of Cthulhu’s original imprint on the D&D universe.) For a long time it was simply something I had to love without a regular group, but that didn’t keep me from working diligently on developing my own scenarios to run at OKON, the largest science fiction convention in Oklahoma at the time.

Like most Keepers, my first scenarios were focused on events in the typical settings of Innsmouth or Dunwich or Arkham. There was, after all, a seemingly bottomless wealth of source material upon which to draw from Lovecraft and his Kalem Club contemporaries. What I didn’t love about using his established canon, however, was that it was too easy to have certain details of each town too easily recognized by reasonably well-read players. They knew who Pickman was and what Whaley was up to in the woods. They understood what was happening when people began to display that “fishy” look in Innsmouth. Often they’d have the mysteries solved before we got very deep into my adventures which meant that I had to change my approach. In order to get players off the scent, I had to take them where they’d never been, and introduce them to characters they’d never met. Ardently I set about the creation of an entirely new Massachusetts town named Tallchester, determined to create it in as great a detail as I could manage. Although I wouldn’t have recognized it as that at the time, I was developing my first real experience as a game designer and as a world builder.

A MOLDERING, ANCIENT TOME - My notes on the Tallchester setting have not fared well over the decades, but it somehow makes the content feel moodily appropriate.

DOWNTOWN TALLCHESTER - One of several maps that I drew up as part of the Tallchester campaign setting.

As you can see, my folder for Tallchester is now a crumbling, moldy mess that would be well suited for discovery in the basement of Miskatonic University. In it I have extensive maps, character bios, and a multi-page print out from a BASIC program I’d written to randomly generate NPCs for the entire town. I had reams of handouts to give to players about events mentioned in the local newspaper, some of which were relevant to scenarios I was running, and others of which were “seeds” for adventures still to be written.

YOU LOOKIN’ FER A HANDOUT? - No Call of Cthulhu scenario is complete without a fistful of handouts, and “The Curse of Tallchester” was no exception.

I could easily have spent forever building up that fictional town, but I found that players at conventions really enjoyed it when I relocated my adventures to more familiar settings. Tulsa and its environs had been a major city during the oil boom, placing it right smack dab in the middle of Lovecraft’s 1920s. The richest oil magnate in the world at the time, J.P. Getty, lived in the Mayo Hotel. Movie stars made a point of being seen in the oil capitol, and major aeronautics companies were furiously building there. The north side of Tulsa was for a time the most prosperous black community in America, so much so that it was called “Black Wall Street” (and tragically it would also become the site of the worst race riot in America’s history). In a lot of ways it was an absolutely perfect Lovecraftian city, and all I had to do was put in the work on a source book.

Starting around 1987, I began spending a lot of time in the newspaper archives of the Tulsa Tribune, looking for any sufficiently weird headlines which might serve as the start for an Oklahoma-based Call of Cthulhu campaign. I did not come away disappointed. Between the strong streak of yellow journalism of the day and the strangeness of a world still grappling with spiritualism and science, the Tribune ended up being a gold mine of ideas. There was plenty of stuff to work with, and it was dovetailing with another project of mine to explore the ghost stories of my family and of the neighboring town of Sand Springs -- a town which originally had been named Adams before the land was bought and redeveloped by benevolent city founder, Charles Page.

FRONT PAGE OF THE TULSA TRIBUNE, 2/6/20 - Even Tulsa’s real newspaper was covering some eldritch-level creepiness back in 1920.

Around the time that I was beginning to draw these elements into a cohesive whole, the unthinkable happened. I got a full-time, salaried job in the computer game industry doing EXACTLY what I’d been doing for fun on Tallchester and for Tulsa. I relocated to the west coast where my life became a full time dive into other worlds and other projects. As I lived and breathed new settings with very little spare time, the Tulsa Call of Cthulhu sourcebook was placed on hold and would stay there for a number of years. It wouldn’t be until a visit to the Sand Springs Cultural and Historical Museum and a discussion about the town’s folklore that I’d begin to see an opportunity to fuse both projects into a fictional setting (see my previous blog post about “A Ghost Town of My Own”). My new world would be a dark, mirror image of both Tulsa and Sand Springs and would serve as the heart of a written-for-Chaosium campaign that I wanted to name Crude Awakenings. Not only could it serve as a game framework, it would also serve well as a fictional “verse” for short stories, films, comic books and a number of other potential properties that today we’d call transmedia. Tentatively I began toying with ideas for short stories all set in this universe, with the first tale to be called The Tome set in the city’s gothic and terrifying library.

For another long spell the ideas sat until last November when I began to dust off my notes. I considered the possibilities of simply taking The Tome and turning it into a game, but after reflection, I realized that it wasn’t well suited to being a game. I needed something that would lend itself well to the format, and which wouldn’t need to be completely restructured in order to be made interactive. And so I returned to my notes on Crude Awakenings and the first scenario that I’d described for the campaign. “The Derrick” began with an oil derrick, a mysterious death, and a romp that could lead on to a globetrotting adventure of mystery, exploration, and horror.

And that’s where we begin, back where we started, standing over a dead man in the oil fields south of the eldritch city of Adams, Oklahoma.

#Call Of Cthulhu #RPG #Role-Playing #Chaosium #Writing

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