#it’s just so fun writing whatever nonsense comes into my mind first

[hplonesomeart]

Would

(go to one of his theatrical broadway-wannabe concerts or perhaps a late night gameshow comedy hour sketch performance. I’m not too picky I’d be willing to pay money just to see him perform anything period)

Yea I felt like doing something silly in order to break away from the dread of finals week coming up. What can I say? I’m a professional procrastinator. But man oh man it was a good call this time around—I mean just look as this scrumptious masterpiece right here. Time well spent for sure. Genuinely I believe to have cooked with it chat /j

This is a version without the added stars by the way. And the second one is obviously just raw image reference/the original “bereal concert meme” source. I was very tempted to put Puzzles in that same exact outfit—however I decided it would be overly time consuming to make two separate versions. Maybe once finals are over I’ll be able to do that :)

[strawbqq]

―⟡𝘽𝙎𝘿 𝙢𝙚𝙣 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘 𝙨/𝙤

[Warnings: none.ᐟ✰] [Word count: 631 || 𝓮𝓷𝓳𝓸𝔂.ᐟ]🍓

°ᡣ𐭩ft. chuuya, ranpo, jouno

sfw. hcs

ℂ𝕙𝕦𝕦𝕪𝕒

literally gets SO worried every single time

as soon as he notices you're feeling dizzy, he'll immediately stop whatever he's doing to focus on u

rushes over and demand what's wrong

constantly checking on u even when it's smt minor 😔

offers to call the doctor over, which of course u refuse because this happens quite often

legitly the BEST bf for this ever

holds ur hand in public even tho he's not a big fan of pda

may occasionally whip out his gravity ability so u wont fall on ur ass <3

leaves the house immediately to go buy u iron pills or some shit

forces u to eat them as well yuck

i headcanon that he for some reason gets angry every time this happens???

not at u tho, bro's just concerned

100% overreacts

lets u cuddle w/ him while he finishes his paperwork

gets so worked up every single time but its totally worth it

cuz that means he *might offer to carry u around for the day 😏

9/10,, i need myself a chuuya right tf now :,>

ℝ𝕒𝕟𝕡𝕠

well dang he'll prob make fun of u at first

does get a lil worried if u keep just..,crashing out the second floor window tf

makes u sit down and then jumps on ur lap

proceeds to offer u a snack, because in ranpo's mind sugar = instant recovery

^invents some nonsense that would supposedly make ur dizziness go away and acts completely serious abt it .ᐟ.ᐟ

one time, u got really dizzy in the middle of shopping w/ ranpo and unfortunately it's much worse than usual :,(

u can't even hide it lmao, ranpo's way too observant dang it

guides u to a nearby bench and tells u to wait????

obviously u refuse, the last time he wandered out of ur sight he went missing for 3 days until the ADA managed to track him down again 😭

usually u just wait for the dizziness to pass while ranpo's just kinda...there

even w/ detailed instructions to him in what medicine to buy & where to go, he somehow always manages to get lost 😑

get atsushi to go with him or smt lmao

6/10,, tries to help while causing more harm 😭 im sorry ranpo ily

𝕁𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕠

MWAH MY HUSBAND.ᐟ.ᐟ.ᐟ

uhm. another one who would prob make fun of u at first

let's not forget bro's a sadist eheheheh..forgotten

literally finds out ur a anemic the FIRST day y'all started dating???🤨

keeps an eye out for u since

secretly likes it cause that just gives him a reason to hold ur hand <3

isnt overly sweet like chuuya but y'all???? literally the most helpful

actually gets u the stuff u need

doesn't let u overexert urself but doesn't overreact either

more tactical than the others...prob hides the yucky medicine in food so u wont complain

its scary how he knows exactly when ur gonna get dizzy

like bro will randomly come over and make u sit down while ur like ??????

lowkey on top of ur iron intake

isnt a big fan of physical touch but

would let u cuddle w/ him for a lil bit or play w/ his hair until u feel better

bro im an anemic and im so humbled by him like hes literally blind and he isn't falling all over the place

8/10.ᐟ my fav guys,, but I'm biased🤭

a/n: dejkdhs totally not me kicking my legs & being in love with my own writing.// im just bored and missing my bf, so here's some fluff hcs I made.ᐟ.ᐟ im prob gonna make a pt 2 of this but finals are coming up and uni isnt nice sooo...w'ell see .ᐟ.ᐟ

𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾.ᐟ ʚ🍓ɞ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢs + ʟɪᴋᴇs ʜɪɢʜʟʏ ᴀᴘᴘʀᴇᴄɪᴀᴛᴇᴅ

o(≧▽≦)o

[grandline-fics]

Immune To Your Charms

DESCRIPTION: Soulmates are incapable of harming the other in any way. Normally that would be a good thing but not when you're meant to be enemies.

WARNINGS: It's Doflamingo so it features mentions of killing/ injury/ general violence. Soulmate! AU, Enemies to Lovers

CHARACTERS: Doflamingo

WORDS: 2,046

A/N: Part of the Good For Your Soul Series. The next part is here, I had so much fun writing the first part that I just couldn't stop thinking about the next chapter of this.

*REQUESTS ARE OPEN*

DIRECTORY | PROMPT LIST

Chapter One | Chapter Two (here) | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen (coming soon)

——————

Your Marine photo lay on Doflamingo’s desk beside a copy of your file, the information sent through by Vergo in record time. It was sitting waiting to be read the second he returned to Dressrosa. One of the Palace’s doctors tended to your injuries while he withdrew to the peace and quiet of his private quarters to get his mind straight. The entire journey home he couldn’t stop but think about the cause for his powers not working on you. Over and over he tried to make sense of it, nothing added up and the longer he thought about it the more agitated he became, desperate for an answer. Desperate for a cure or a fix or whatever you wanted to call it. No one would get the better of him and certainly not some unknown Marine that came across his path at the wrong time. 

Settling into his chair he pushed your photo aside and flicked open the file, lazily reading over the information. He didn't need to know about your past missions or any of that inconsequential nonsense. Doflamingo was searching for something remarkable, a mention of a Devil Fruit, anything in your parentage that could give him some insight in his search for answers. He felt the vein in the centre of his head throb when nothing jumped out at him. As if sensing his unhappiness, the den-den mushi rang and he lifted the receiver, not even bothering to speak first. Vergo’s voice sounded. “Was the file acceptable Doffy?”

“Acceptable in that it's detailed but not what I was looking for.” Doflamingo snapped your file closed and pinched the corner of your photo between his thumb and finger, lifting it to inspect your appearance blankly. “Could anything have been missed?”

“From what I can see everything is accurate and up to date. Medical history, combat and mission logs, specialised training and skills.” Vergo noted, on his end of the call he was looking at your file too checking over everything to ensure he hadn't missed a page or annotation. “Is there something specific you’d hoped to have known?”

“Devil Fruit ability? Something that would render my skills useless against them.” There was a beat of silence from the other end of the call. Vergo found himself genuinely surprised that someone could be unaffected by his master’s power.

“If they possess a Devil Fruit capable of that, they’ve managed to conceal its existence for as long as they’ve been part of the Marines.” Doflamingo glared at your picture, not satisfied at all. “I’ll look into things on my end just in case someone higher up has intentionally kept certain information out of their file.”

“Good.” Doflamingo ended the call and discarded your photo, in one swift movement he rose from the desk and left his room. He suspected you would be awake by now and he was in no mood to just sit back and wait for Vergo to research things. It was time to ask you directly and if you knew what was good for you, you’d answer his questions. 

He slammed the door open and without needing to say a word the doctor fled the room, leaving him alone to stare down at you as you lay on the bed. You were awake as he suspected and staring blankly at the ceiling. You weren’t restrained and you’d only been in here with the doctor, even with your injuries you were most likely capable of overpowering him and escaping had you wanted but in Doflamingo’s view of the situation you looked bored. “Did any of them survive?”

Doflamingo’s grin appeared at your question and he sat on the edge of the doctor’s desk. Still no begging for your life? Not even a curious ask of where you were or what was going to happen. Instead you were looking for confirmation of your unit’s status. “Every single one of them died.” He tilted his head to see you nod in acceptance. “No tears to shed for them?”

“I’ll mourn them privately if I live long enough.” You told him stiffly, training you gaze on the ceiling, refusing to look at the man whose presence filled the room intensely. The memory of what happened at the warehouse was fresh enough and you didn’t need to look at the Warlord. Perhaps if you didn’t feed into his sick entertainment of tormenting you, he’d grow bored and kill you quick. You’d reasoned that was why you were still alive, you’d fallen unconscious too soon before he had his fun. “You’ve been keeping me alive for a reason.”

“I want answers about your power.” Doflamingo told you, grinning wider to see you slowly look at him at last. Your expression was unreadable but the fact you finally looked at him felt like confirmation that you knew what he was talking about. “Born with it or is it a Devil Fruit?”

“I don’t have any power.” You answered, confusion evident in your tone. Doflamingo’s jaw clenched, you were a skilled liar. You had to be because for a second he almost believed you. “You wasted resources in healing me. I can’t tell you anything about something I don’t have.”

“I’m trying to be patient here. You can stop lying about your ability I saw it for myself.”

“Then you were imagining things. I don’t have any-” You were cut off when Doflamingo was across the room and lifting you into the air so you were eye level with him, his hand tightly around your throat. You could feel the strength in his grip, the power but you didn’t feel any pain. Was he just trying to intimidate you? To let you feel the ultimate control he had over himself when he could easily snap your neck or squeeze the life out of you. In a way you wanted it to be quick, being a prisoner and dragging out the torment was not ideal. With a heavy sigh you could only repeat. “I don’t have any power.”

Doflamingo felt the rage building in him once again. Even now you lied to his face so blatantly? He had put enough force into his hold to choke you, to at least make you squirm and hold some fear for your life and yet you didn’t react. You didn’t even twitch or try to struggle for breath as it still came to you so easily. It wasn’t just his powers or using a weapon, his own strength failed him around you. He was incapable of harming you.

Keeping you in his hold he turned and left the room, ignoring the frightened and scrambling servants who leapt out of his way and bowed lowly until he passed. Even his subordinates from the lowest rank to some of his elites didn’t even register in his mind not even when they called after him and followed close behind. At this point in time he was in search of only one other person who could give him some clear insight. Bursting into one of the drawing rooms he locked eyes on the former Princess of Dressrosa. “Violet. Your power now.” He growled as he dropped you onto the plush armchair. “I want to know the truth of their ability.”

You looked at the woman who stepped forward, remaining silent as she made a circle with her thumb and finger and peered at you intensely. If only you knew what power or ability Doflamingo was so adamant you possessed, at least then you’d have some idea of what was going on. One moment you were a Marine, just doing your job and now you sat in the home of a feared Warlord completely clueless. You jumped when Violet let out a shocked, strangled yell. Even Doflamingo tensed at the sound and he stared at her hard. “What do you see?”

“It’s not possible.” She whispered, not just looking at you but also Doflamingo with equal shock and disbelief. “Never thought I'd see such a thing.”

“Stop the riddles Violet, what’s their ability and how do we reverse it?” Your head snapped up to him and you frowned heavily. Reverse? What had to be reversed? Did something happen while you were unconscious? Could it have been something to do with what was in the warehouse before it exploded. Had remnants of some weird substance gotten on you? 

“It’s not an ability…it’s something bigger than that. It’s fate.” She whispered and Doflamingo scoffed in annoyance, his fingers flexing. He was getting agitated and if he didn’t get answers soon, a lot of people were going to get sliced. “I swear! It’s the only way I can explain what I see. The two of you are connected. It’s not at the mind or heart…it’s deeper. Your souls are bound to each other.”

Now it was your turn to scoff. No, this had to be some trick. Some sort of bizarre theatrics planned while you were unconscious. You still didn’t know how long you’d been asleep for, it was likely they kept you sedated in order to perfect these performances although for what end you couldn’t tell. You weren’t high ranking enough to be of any use to Doflamingo and he was a Warlord and a King of an entire island. He had enough power and influence as it was. Just what was going on and why of all things go with the ‘connected at the soul’ nonsense? The existence of soulmates had been recorded a few times throughout the world’s history but it was extremely rare to the point it was considered myth. Violet seemed exasperated at not being believed and looked to Doflamingo. “You’ve tried to kill them already?”

“A few times.” He answered tightly. First at the warehouse with his strings, then with your gun, then again in the doctor’s room. You didn’t even bruise in any of the attempts. Behind his bright glasses he looked down at you out of the corner of his eyes, noting you didn't seem surprised by his admission. Instead you looked confused about how you were still alive. You shook your head, still not convinced by any of this. No, this wasn't happening. You jolted in your seat as the sound of gunfire sounded loudly above you. 

Slowly you tilted your head up to meet the smoking barrel of the gun that had been aimed directly with the top of your head, the weapon held steadily and unwaveringly in Doflamingo’s grip. There was no missing with that proximity but you were alive, you hadn’t even been grazed by any of the bullets. Swallowing hard your body began to shake, not out of fear of the weapon but by the undeniable truth of the situation. You glanced down to see the bullets on the ground, the pathway they would have had to take to land beside the chair was impossible but there they were. You were protected from any harm by Doflamingo's hand by fate as Violet said. 

Both of you had the answer now and neither of you liked it. Those that were in the room that had been there to witness the truth of the matter for themselves were stunned and silent. To see the existence of a soulmate and the rumoured power it had for the pair would be something they would never forget. For some it was also an extra thread of proof that their master, Doflamingo was truly amazing to have a soulmate. With a growl, Doflamingo threw the gun across the room, letting it smash through the antique vase and send the roses it held scattering onto the floor. Then a sound filled the room, you began to laugh. You couldn’t help it. The sheer absurdity of it all and the weight of this new reality was too much. It was like some higher power had decided to play the cruelest joke imaginable on you and you finally got the punchline. 

“So what’s the plan?” You asked, looking at your ‘soulmate’ expectantly. “Do I go home and we pretend this isn’t happening? Or do you have another idea?”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Doflamingo’s statement was firm and quicker than you anticipated. You could only nod slightly and glance once more at the bullets on the floor.   

“Thought as much.”

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

TAG LIST (If I've missed anyone or if you want to be added just let me know) @3v37773, @tsaaps , @i-am-all-love-puns-and-lazy , @sanemisnonexistenteyebrow , @fiery-captain-spider-santa @kabloswrld , @atanukileaf , @ane5e , @stuckinthewrongworld , @deathsmajestysworld , @cloudysunset04

[askthestans]

Are any of you older than each other like by 7 minutes or something

Stanley: Oh boy, here we go. Anon, I'll give ya one piece of advice when it comes to dealin' with my brother Ford: do not - and I repeat - do NOT remind 'im of anything he's either good at or proud of. Your ears will thank me.

Stanford: I'll translate that for you. He means to say, "I'm the younger twin, and I'm incredibly insecure about it.". There.

Stanley: Pfft, like a few minutes means anything!

All of the sudden, Dipper and Mabel walk into the room, looking quite bored. They see Ford and Stan having an argument and they both get sly smirks.

Mabel: Grunkle fight?

Dipper: Grunkle fight.

Stanley: Kids, that's not gonna work. I'm not gettin' into a fight with Sixer here just for your entertainment. Besides, I'm right: a few minutes doesn't matter. And even if it did, me and Ford are past fighting over petty crap now, because we're mature adults.

Dipper and Mabel give each other a skeptical look.

Stanford: Stan's right, kids. We might have fought in the past, but no longer. Our bond's been strengthened over a year of traveling together on the Stan-O-War II, and nothing - absolutely nothing - can make Stan and I turn against each other.

Soos walks in the room.

Soos: Do my eyes deceive me? Is another Grunkle fight upon us, and will it serve as good canon material to inspire more of my Stanfiction? Not gonna lie, the canon material's been kinda lacking these days. It's almost like the writers have forgotten about us!

Stanley: No! No Grunkle fights! And I thought I told ya to quit writin' Stanfiction or whatever about me or my brother! Stanford: Nonsense. He puts his hand on Soos' shoulder. Soos, I encourage you to follow your dreams. Write all the Stanfiction your heart desires. Stanley: You're only sayin' that 'cause Soos always makes you the hero!

Soos: It's okay, Stan. Ford may be the hero of my Stanfiction... His voice turns into a whisper and he tenderly pets Stan's hand. But you're the hero of my heart.

Stanley: He rips his hand out of Soos'. Yeesh, I take it back! Write about Ford all ya want! Just keep me out of it. He sighs. Anyways, the point is, is me and Ford are not gonna fight. We never fight anymore!

Soos, Dipper, and Mabel look at each other. It's a mix of a knowing skepticism, a smirk, and a glance that almost seems as if an agreement made in secret is being referenced. For some reason, Soos just smiles, then runs off to the kitchen, where the sound of popping popcorn can be heard down the hall for no reason in particular.

Dipper: Oh, right, right. Of course. We all know you guys are over that fighting stuff. I mean, you're the oldest ones here! Surely neither of you would ever get into a fight so petty that you turn the whole Shack into a warzone over something as dumb as whether or not who was born first matters. He glances over at his sister. Right, Mabel? They're responsible, mature adults, our Grunkles?

Mabel: Totally! Definitely! The most responsible adults the world has ever seen! Although... that argument you and me had the other day... nah! Never mind. I shouldn't bring it up.

Dipper: Oh, the one over... Dipper pauses, as if he's just making something up. Right, the one about whether Ford or Stan is the more fun Grunkle. Yep. A real snoozefest, that argument was. It was obvious what the answer is, anyways.

Stan and Ford glance at each other, suspicious, as if testing the waters to see if the other will start arguing about it.

Stanford: We're both equally fun, kids. And that's all I'll say about it.

Stanley: Exactly! Equally fun. His grin widens. Even if Ford's summer fun ideas involve more dangerous explosions and injuries and strange chemical smells than a World War I trench.

Stanford: Yes... His smile fades a bit and shoots Stan a major case of stink-eye. And even if Stan's summer fun ideas are as entertaining as a nursing home activity schedule, yet still somehow end up with us in jail 50% of the time.

Stanley: He pauses, his grin fading as well. Well, we can't all be interdimensional criminals like Ford here! I'm just tryin' to take after my older by only seven pointless minutes brother. Imagine havin' a whole Multiverse hate ya, and not just Earth!

Stanford: Well, for your information, what you call 'explosions and injuries and strange chemical smells' is something you wouldn't grasp in a million years: science. Some of us need to actually contribute to society, you know.

Stanley: Yeah? And some of us need to look up the definition of 'rational' and 'safe' in the dictionary, because apparently you can't tell the difference between a biohazard symbol and a welcome sign! ~

Three hours later, Soos, Mabel, Dipper, and now Wendy are on the front lawn of the Shack, sitting in comfy lawn chairs and inhaling popcorn and Pitt Soda like their lives depend on it. Mabel's knitting another 'Stanwich' sweater, Dipper's got his arms behind his head and is smirking, Wendy is recording, and Soos is writing Stanfiction on a laptop.

Stan and Ford are on the lawn in front of them, wrestling.

Stanford: I'm the more mature adult here!

Stanley: More mature? The only thing more 'mature' about you is seven stupid minutes and your ridiculous fashion sense! AKA, none!

Stanford: Trench coats and turtlenecks are stylish and classy, two words you don't know the definition of! At least I don't spend half the day in boxers!

Stanley: Yeah, that's 'cause I don't need to wear tight pants all day to hide a giant stick up my ass, unlike some people!

Soos: Tapping away at his Stanfiction. The Muses... they sing to me!

Wendy: Um... how long do these Grunkle fights usually last, anyways?

Dipper: Shrugs. Eh, anywhere from two hours to three days, on average.

Mabel brings out a scrapbook, showing a Grunkle fight prior. The pictures seem to indicate a squabble that involved the furniture turned over into cover to hide behind, a Stan and Ford with eyes more sleepless than usual and stubble that looked like it hadn't been shaved in days, a fist fight with oven mitts, and nearly the whole town watching at one point as Stan chased Ford down a street, both in Disney princess dresses, with a spoon and a goat in Stan's hands and Ford flipping a double middle finger behind him at Stan. Mabel: The world record is one week! Too bad you weren't there for Grunklegeddon, Wendy.

Wendy: Her eye twitches upon seeing the photos of Grunklegeddon. And what are the chances this one will turn into something just as bad or worse?

Dipper: Depends. Usually, we know it's gonna be at least four days if Ford brings up the meatloaf argument.

Wendy: Meatloaf?

Just then, Ford and Stan still wrestling on the lawn, Ford brings up said meatloaf argument. Something about their time on the Stan-O-War II, Ford making his favorite meatloaf recipe every Friday night, and a pack of mermaids always following soon after, asking if they had any more 'meat tasties' that the 'old man clone that smelled like cigars and regret' dumped overboard every Friday night right around dinnertime.

Stanford: You could have just told me you didn't like it!

Stanley: Newsflash, Poindexter, no one would like a meatloaf made of eel and gorgon meat!

Stanford: Come on, I spent thirty years in the Multiverse and ate way worse than that, and you couldn't handle a little eel and gorgon!? So what if it had some snake heads in it!? Besides, scientifically, gorgon and eel is much healthier for you than beef, and you did lose some weight, remember?

Stanley: Because I kept dumpin' that freaky slop in the ocean!

Soos, Dipper, and Mabel look at each other, excited. Wendy just looks concerned for a moment as Stan and Ford keep fighting, then shrugs and smiles, leaning back and watching the festivities commence.

[theprismyyy]

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt

Gwen Stacy x Fem!Reader

Tw: Mentions of self-harm, nothing really graphic but still don't read if you don't feel comfortable.

(English is not my first language)

Here's your request, I did my best to keep this interesting without being too extreme (I like lighter stuff), I hope you like it and enjoy @jas-the-shrimp

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Firstly and obviously, she would be super worried, so...like…basically panicking if she caught you in the middle of it, she would probably need a second to compose herself before she could actually help you; taking a few deep breaths and going to get the first aid kit, sitting cautiously next to you and very carefully starting to inspect your wounds.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Who will pay attention to every little wound, whatever type they may be; she will clean and dress quickly and efficiently, trying to make things easier, even if just a little; she would kiss each of her bandages, she would put colored Band-aids on the little bruises and if they were too big for that, she would simply put the Band-aids and small stickers over the bandages.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Who would let you cry if you needed to or dry your tears, hugging you close to her chest and giving you the sweetest affirmations of affection.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ I would think a lot before actually saying anything about the situation, she doesn't want to pressure you and would completely understand if you want stay silent for a while. But assuming you want to talk, she'll be all ears, just letting you open up and sometimes talking back to you gently.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Who would do everything to create a welcoming environment for you, respecting your individuality, without ever invalidating or neglect your pains no matter what they are. She always makes a point of highlighting how important and valid two emotions and thoughts are, even if sometimes you may find them silly.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Who would care to know the things that can set off triggers in you, so that she doesn't end up accidentally slipping up; The last thing this sweet girl wants is to be the reason for her tears or worse, her bruises. She knows she won't be able to protect you from external events in the world, but she will try to do everything possible to keep you away from stressful situations or situations that she knows can trigger you.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ God help the person who tells her that her pain is nonsense, she would definitely avoid making a big fuss or getting physical about it, unless the person does it first, but it would definitely give the idiot a piece of your mind.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Who always makes a point of helping you find other healthy alternatives to resolve things.

Do you like painting, drawing or just doodling? This girl will make sure to always save a portion of her allowance to buy her things, never missing the most colorful and fun pencils of all, she bought white and colored sheets, sketchbooks, markers colors, paints, brushes and basically everything you need. She gave him a gift set with 12 colors of those colorful glitter pens and it was so adorable.

If you like writing a diary to express yourself I'm sure she would buy you a new one whenever the previous one was full.

Hot and relaxing baths??? It's a complete yes for this girl, she will reserve God's favorite bath products for you, she can come out and let you have fun or just sit on the toilet seat and talk to you quietly or just be silent (for you two, it's not something weird, it's just an intimate and affectionate way of showing how much she cares for you). Now if you ask her to take a shower with you, this girl will triple her efforts, washing your hair, rubbing and massaging your back, whispering words of affirmation in your ear and hugging you affectionately.

She is willing to accompany you and participate in any activity that helps you cope, she just wants you to be well, so: running, dancing, tearing something or screaming, all of this is a big yes for this girl, anything that can help you in a healthy way she would automatically accept.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ If you take medications for this, she would make sure to always remind your doctors to take them; Gwen knows how medications can affect you and also always tries to be as understanding and calm about it as possible.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ It would collapse if you ever ended up in the hospital because of it, she would never yell at you for it, but she would definitely hug you strong at the moment when I saw you and I simply cried holding onto you. Seeing you like this just breaks Gwen's heart and she can't even imagine losing you, it scares her so much😭

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Who would definitely accompany you to the psychologist or psychiatrist's office whenever she could, waiting with you at the reception until your time and still patiently waiting until the end of your session, probably buys you an ice cream after each session. Even when she can't accompany you, Gwen makes a point of sending you a message to know if you arrived at the office safely.

Gwen with a girlfriend who gets hurt —------ Who would just be the sweetest and most understanding girlfriend of all, always willing to help and listen to you. She's so sweet and I just need one Gwen in my life😭😭.

© 2023 theprismyyy — please do not copy, translate or repost any of my work without my permission.

[distractedducky]

So I was thinking about it… why sterek

I’ve shipped a lot in my time. From the classics like spirk and destiel, to the straight vampire diaries nonsense, from murder husbands to buddy to name a very small few. They all hold weird little places in my heart and mind but they fade and as I flow in and out of fandoms I move on to the next hyperfixation. But sterek just keeps sticking around.

It’s an old ship for me. If you go on my ao3 all the way back to 2013 you’ll see my first ever book mark was a sterek fic. That fic is still a comfort fic for me today and is something I read when my anxiety is uncontrollable.

It was something I read late in 2022 when the reality of the pandemic and the last few years hit me hard and got me back into Teen Wolf so hard it actually pushed me out of the supernatural hole the start of the pandemic put me in.

I’ve always been a shipper and I have my ride or dies, my OTPs and Ot3s, and so on and so forth, but fandom has always been weird for me. I started young and witnessed the birth in Tumblr and ao3, as a tween my taste can only be described as pure trash* Affectionate * but as I got older, like most things in life, my taste changed. And though I still love me some hot garbage, I engage with it differently than that little 12-year-old who thought werewolves and vampires were cool no further explanation necessary.

Now I’m an academic, a librarian, who actually studied critical lit analysis, book studies, and religion. Who spent years learning how to dissect prose and poetry to look beyond text in an professional setting. And though I don’t regret it and it has led to some fun changes in the way I engage with fiction it also kinda ruined the fun engagement I had with things back in the day when baby me bookmarked that first fic.

I need more from my characters now, more from my fandoms and it has led me away from and into the arms of content that I never saw coming. (Looking at you Danny phantom phandom) I needed depth or the potential for depth that some shows just didn’t lend themselves to cleanly enough to satisfy me and yet… sterek persisted.

One of my problems is I didn’t really engage with the fandom when the show was airing and only watched a few season sporadically until recently, so I wasn’t there when things were forming organically. It has left me out of step with the primary directions fan content creators have taken with the ship and the directions they took, though fun and interesting, aren’t really my usual thing.

I hate the infantilization of stiles and other teen wolf characters like Isaac. I generally hate infantilization of adults, hyper feminization of certain types of characters and so on and so forth and it has to do with my own gender stuff, but I usually avoid it in fanfiction. I am also not a huge fan of modern werewolf romance erotica. I have a lot of opinions on real supernatural mythology and legends and I don’t like the anthropomorphism that shows up a lot in werewolf stories. Not that I haven’t read some amazing takes on werewolf lore, especially in the Teen Wolf fandom but I’m speaking generally. I’m also not a fan of pack mom stiles (again my own gender stuff) and though I think Scott’s inconsistent character and writing throughout the show lens him to be whatever your fic needs to be (best friend, hype man, wingman, idiot, genius, villain, so on and so forth) I don’t like a lot of the 'Scott sucks just because' fics. I don’t like the hate in the fandom around that. I also don’t like the hypermasculine depictions of Derek in a lot of fics and on and on. I have read a lot of TW and sterek and by all accounts, it should be a fandom I wouldn't personally engage with this much. Yet for all that, I have found there is an exception to every trope I hate, every hard line i draw for myself, because the fic was just so good. For every dozen or so fics that seem to tell me that this isn’t the fandom for me, there is that one amazing thing that says “No! This is exactly where you wanna be”.

Like I said, I need more from my fandoms now a days and most of what that boils down to is plausible deniability. I need enough gaps in the narrative to fill them in myself, but with enough connective pieces that everything can make sense when put together. The fatal flaw of telling without showing, which allows people to extrapolate out what they want from certain things -all the subtext with none of the text - is exactly where my degree comes in handy.

And sterek well… I think what it is for me as a shipper is the inconsistencies. That is kind of why I still ship it so far and for so long. It's the fact of why was Stiles in Derek's dream at the end of 3b? We can talk about all the things with him being his anchor and the grasping at straws that we as shippers all love to do but the narrative fact is they did not spend that much time on screen together or even saying they were doing things off-screen together. That leads us to a lot of whys. Why were they together at the beginning of season two talking about the alpha pack? Why were they in certain situations in season four that ld them to work so well? What happens in all of this dead time? What happens in season six? We see stiles in episode one be like "Oh my God Derek is a mass murderer wanted by the FBI" and at the end of the season, they've apparently driven and or flown back to California together, apparently spent some time together. They're not on the run from the FBI so that got cleared somehow, stiles isn't limping so his foot healed. There's so much dead time like that throughout the show so when scenes happen like the hand on Derek's shoulder after the death of Boyd you're left thinking that's kind of off, we haven't seen any interactions with them that would show that they have that kind of deep solemn relationship where comforting him would make sense.

The show notoriously has a terrible timeline, but all that does is fuel the fact that we don't know how much time any of these characters are really spending off-screen together. We can only assume that it happened in this weird dead time. This is why somehow Derek's view of Stiles in his head is like a calm stable dependable figure who can help him talk through an issue. This is why they always gravitate towards each other in fights. This is why they work so well together in a crisis. Like we have to assume that happened before which is stupid and I know it's so much reaching, but in my little brain, it's the only way that makes all of this random shit fit together- so I gotta ship it. Obviously, the real-world explanation is inconsistent writing plus putting space between them once the writer stopped wanting people to ship it, but because you get all of these disjointed scenes where they're too intense for what we've been previously seeing there is some type of disconnect here -what is that? and if you're looking at the show, not as a work of fiction, but as a narrative, what else are we gonna do then assume that they have spent way more time emotionally connecting than we have seen on the screen.

And for me that’s everything I want in a ship, that ability to play and extrapolate random events and ask, okay now how would these all fit! And that’s what spawns great ideas and stories and art and why I ship it, dispute the fact that it really shouldn't work for me personally.

I think it’s why a lot of people still stop sterek despite the fact that the attitude towards it and the show has shifted a lot and in many different ways in the last decade.

Sorry for the rant, I’ve been thinking about this for days and had to get it out there. I hope I didn’t offend anyone. I truly love the Teen Wolf fandom and everything it’s done and everything it created and I’m so happy to be able to engage with it.

[ran-orimoto]

• { Iniziando da capo una tempesta nella testa } Restarting again from a brainstorm •

[ LMAO I said I would put my effort in writing and I did it. I put my butt on gear and kept the promise, -because I had already broken one, so I didn’t want to risk to make the same mistake twice in a row-. Now, if I could adopt the same attitude to write my bachelor thesis, I would be the happiest in the world, so once I cross publish this here, off I’ll go⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️. I believe in me! ]

[ Context: Junpei and Izumi met again in Parma four months ago and have started hearing from each other more often. The calls Izumi shares with him and Takuya instill in her a sense of nostalgia that takes her back to Italy sooner than the boys had expected. She couldn’t miss a snowy trip to Val di Fassa organized by a Kouji who could have never imagined he would spend holidays with the whole group.

The story is set during San Silvestro, on the 31st of January, or better, some minutes after it because anything can happen in the first beats of a new year, even to Junpei. ]

XXX

“I like this song, y’know? It would be nice to go dancing it together, eh eh.”

“Va bene! What a great idea, it will be fun!”

…

Every spell was meant to wear off at the stroke of midnight and his, whatever it had consisted in, hadn’t been an exception. However, he hadn’t been warned by the usual, sumptuous bells of a clocktower, but by the screech typical of a CD that has been abruptly interrupted, so by one of those awful noises that could really spoil even the best weather.

And yet, the music had kept on going, indifferent to the lancinating stridor never ending in his ears, to the stasis it had frozen his mind in despite thick pillows and big stoves, to the wince of slight fear he welcomed, once he gulped at what had sounded like the first heart pulse he had ever heard in his life.

Confused and disoriented in his own world and skin now that the enchantment had taken off, without even giving him the chance to ask for a little, if not minuscule, concession. After all, it wasn’t like he would have praid for the miracle of a reverting night, of stars spinning backwards to disappear behind Val di Fassa’s mountaintops, of the Moon diving in some dark lake like a biscuit dipped in a mug of chocolate. He would have simply settled for just a crumb of what it had stolen away from him too soon. All that boldness, recklessness, that hint of arrogance too which would often often fog the meaning of life in the mind of some during the first hours of the new year.

It was a special kind of nonsense inebriety coming after having gobbled down one or two drops of Teroldego or having left a glass of spumante full to the brim on the table. It would allow people to do what they would never do in other occasions, because it would bring along an accentuated sensitivity to the flow of time, the dash of the years, the succession of the songs.

It was the common sight of the shadow mounds of grey swabs project on Earth.

So, yeah, he guessed things might have gone a bit differently. Endowed with those special gifts, guided by such a magic and urged by the awareness it wouldn’t last forever, he would have grabbed that hand at once. And , maybe, he would have also managed to look into the eyes of a beautiful cyclone without pushing his gaze downwards, not certainly at the level of those fingers and their flashes of violet, but even more downwards, on his thighs which his palms had attached themselves to with a refound stickiness.

“ Su !” Izumi exclaimed and he could only reply through an awkward chuckle, reaching out to try dragging her along with him, down into a dive in his universe of perplexity and bubbles transforming certainties into ambiguities.

Thus, he soon felt her arm hesitantly pulling away, then her parting from him with some steps backwards taken on her ticking boots. By doing so that rapidly, she gave him the impression of a gradual suck of air draining him of the freshness of the still distant spring, with the consequence that he got left inert in the asphyxiating embrace of his body’s heat.

Fortunately, she spoke again as soon as she returned onto her seat, in front of her coca cola and its munched straw, at the opposite end of the table…Or so he believed she had, at least, not expecting he would find himself stranded below a marine sky having just opened above the Alps like an unexpected aurora borealis.

“Oh, I see,” After having occupied the chair Kouichi had been on, until he, - the quiet, sober Kouichi in the flesh!-, had been incredibly persuaded by Takuya and Kouji, and Tomoki too, to join them for another toast, she seeked for satisfying comfort in the sinuosity of a contorted pose. With her head resting on her knuckles and bending to a side to follow the slope of her lips, she giggled through an echo of embarassment which he was so used to seeing on the reflection of his face, in the opaque mirror of a bottle, but he wasn’t when it came to hers at all. “I think I got carried away by the general excitement. You weren’t serious, were you?”

There might be a pinch of irony in the fact that for the whole duration of that dinner, that one had been the only instant he had spotted clarity in both words and thoughts, and the mere reason what that she was right…Like always, needless to specify that.

Actually, when he put a certain amount of effort in picturing a dimension in which he had brought himself to accept her invitation, - as if he hadn’t been the one who had invited her in a first place!-, he gasped at the realization he had no idea how that story would have unfolded next.

From experience, some sixth sense whispering from inside his chest reassured him he would have made a fool of himself. Therefore, he immediately grimaced at the fantasy of a nightmare dotted with stutters, forced coughs and sneezes, hands rubbed against the checkered feast of yellow on his waistcoat as, of course, they would have grown so sweaty at invisible touches grazing the rosy fabric of a pretty winter dress. Oh, and a final, sonorous face-plant that couldn’t miss to coronate the performance, one drawing the attention of everyone present the hotel hall after having spoiled their jubilation.

In truth, he couldn’t remember a single party during which he had ever messed up that terribly. Indeed, he couldn’t really remember a party during which he had messed up in a first place and hadn’t attracted each single spotlight over him. He had also danced with his fellow sopranos during the celebrations of their successes and he hadn’t only managed to carry out the delightful task brilliantly, but he had also taken their squeals away by putting on display his surprising skills, -and for the record, those were the words of the ladies in question!-.

Still, when it came to Izumi, he was aware it would be totally different. Everything was in her company…Especially the reliable, confident, eloquent, gallant young man he had grown into, that person she hadn’t regrettably got to meet yet in those four months of frequent videocalls. He had hoped she would in those days of holiday in the cold Trentino, but she hadn’t had that luck over there, either. On the contrary, she had stayed by the clumsy Junpei’s side for the whole time, included on those occasions he had slipped on ice and had created impromptu snow angels by frantically agitating his limbs out of frustration.

Honestly. What the hell was I even thinking!?

A little overwhelmed, he sighed and gave up on controlling his shoulders’ resigned sagging: his brain seemed to want to work only to sabotage his plans, or better, him himself. Staring at the glass in front of him, he decided to finally pick it up, but he did just to fiddle with its content, make the precious liquid rotate, generate little waves that failed to make the foam on its surface fade at each lap.

“ Now that you’ve asked me, I’m not sure whether I was or not.”

Nevertheless, he still attempted to clean the one floating on his conscience, though he made sure to occasionally send strained laughters in Izumi’s direction, certainly not as fleeting as only hers could be. Actually, the very first of them, already heavy and lumbering, ended up dwelling on her flickering petals for more seconds than he had planned, waiting for them to completely open and uncover the majestic scenario from before. When he forced it to hastily return on that thin, transparent edge off which it was easy to fall in the thick mist stretching below, he felt like something had changed but his absent focus couldn’t seem to want to sharpen that perception.

“I had figured as much, but I didn’t want to make assumptions. It…Would have been rude to let your words hang like that. So, I came and tried.”

“Had you because you believe I can’t dance?” However, since those lilac buds could open the door to the only place in which he was convinced he could retrieve the transparency he had been longing for, that’s where that smirk went back, plunging the tip of its curve in alcohol just to be carried away by the tide, in a journey through libeccios, lightnings and, inevitably, thunders.

As soon as he woke up on a dreamy shore, the sensation that something was so different from what it had been lately came before the one of pinkies twitching, dim colours reigniting, gusts of a strong breeze whistling. “Eh eh, that wouldn’t have been rude at all. Many think I can’t dance and, I mean, I can’t blame them: I’m aware I hardly look like someone who can.”

“I have no reason to have got doubts. Many, me included, also believed you weren’t able to sing, and yet…?”

Then, he sat up, no matter where he exactly did, whether on humid sand or his chair, because in both dream and reality he eventually smiled at the crystallinity of a clean sky, though in the latter he didn’t with with the immense relief of a castway, but with the goofy grin only Junpei could crack.

Especially at Izumi.

“And yet what ah ah…?”

“Don’t act as if it’s hard to predict what I was implying,” She retorted in a steady tone while hugging her torso, her natural frankness making him lose teasing duels before they even began. Yet, probably unluckily to her, it was right because her orbs were soaked in so much honesty that they themselves betrayed her, by showing him new unusual signs of that shyness his ears had previously been tickled by. “And whatever, who cares if you’re also decent at dancing, right? The song you said you like finished ages ago.”

Never stopping staring at each other like if they had been condemned to live as statues together, they blinked in unison as they listened to the slow duet that was currently advancing in the heart of the room.

“ Oh mio Dio ,” Izumi trusted her giggles with her comment. She didn’t add anything else, except a millimeter of tongue she promptly hid behind her hand.

“Yeah, you can absolutely say that,” His amused reply followed immediately afterwards, babbling about opinions that hadn’t been phrased, -and to him, they had never needed to be for their gist to be grasped-. “It’s from a cult movie I watched as a teen. It’s mushy, but I remember it gets very catchy as it progresses.”

While diverting his pupils from her after what had felt like so long, no desire for more determination, courage, impulsiveness, stupidity and whatever else you could add as ingredient for an illusion ever crossed his mind. There was only he and the dear struggle of imagining her hand in his, of trying again and, like that, a spell that had never existed, one which, most all, he had never needed, definitely broke. If he had asked her once, he could do it for a second time, glueing his nose on the same wood, taking the same deep breath, inhaling in the same warmth, pronouncing the same stammering question.

More or less.

“I-I like this song. Just a bit, though, I promise I’m not sentimental! It would be nice if, y’know, we could-“

“Go dancing it together?”Actually, she cut him short, and happy as he was, he allowed himself to get persuaded she had completed his sentence not because she had already heard it, she had been invited to dance twice, but because she had got the glimpse of pure honesty in his ponds of honey as well. And…Maybe, why not, of something else too, which poured red wine she had never tasted in her cheeks.

“Uh, y-yes! Exactly!”

He stood up as soon as he felt smooth velvet caressing his palm, tenderly mocking her intention of lifting his big size. Still, he allowed himself to be led to the dance floor by her as if he was as light as a feather, free from all his trivial worries, futile complexes.

Marching, clapping, spinning and rumbling next to that tornado she was, he wondered if someday he might come to find limpidity in the tempest they could assemble together, in the clouds of a storm.

But for now he, indeed, they would go on dancing, not wanting to waste further time, other seconds of that night, another single song from that party.

XXX

Buon anno, Junpei. Buon anno, Izumi. Buon anno a tutti noi!

Because, of course, I wish you all spent a good beginning of this promising 2025, -we always have to hope in good things!-.

Italian notes (not many this time, another present!)

• I want to start from a note about the title, as here come they, the beautiful language gaps. Brainstorm, which I ‘ve found an ideal term for what is happening in Junpei’s mind for well-known reasons, is not a term I can translate in italian with the same “pun”. We have got nothing similar here, so I had to be lamer in my own language merely replacing it with a simple “Tempest in the head”. However, I love how the whole thing sound in my head tbh. I love the random rhyme (I hadn’t planned it lmaoooo).

• Va bene!: The longer, italian “ OK! “ In my head it sounds like the same Izumi pronounced at him in Train of Hope, when he tells her he has got a present… *puts thousand of heart emoticons *.

• Val Di Fassa: A valley of Dolomiti, mountain groups dominating the Eastern Alps. Val di Fassa is precisely in Trentino, in its north-east.

• Teroldego: red wine typical of Trentino. The end. Ah listen, I don’t drink just like the Izumi of my stories, so I know nothing about this stuff, even if my father is a wine sommelier lol. Now that I think about it, I could ask him about more details tomorrow.

• Su!: Common exhortation to push someone to do something. A bit like c’mon…?

• “Oh mio Dio”: Oh my God. It’s always that, but I don’t want to skip any clarification despite repetitions among chapters.

[tc-doherty]

@bluejay-in-flight

I'm not sure if this is going to be helpful to you and it's kind of ramble-y but! Here's what I have to say about me and first drafts, and some suggestions as to how to enjoy them more:

For me personally, I write because I love the act of writing so first drafts are super fun but editing is work and is more difficult for me

I don't plan a lot! I plan as little as possible in fact. Planning is work too, and writing is about having fun!

What I love about writing first drafts is the chaos and the creativity and the freedom to be super messy and super silly and slapdash, it's about discovering things about my characters and groping my way forward and seeing what I can come up with!

I personally love writing stuff that sucks LMAO I love writing trash. I am in love with the process of pure creative nonsense and writing things that no one is ever going to see and not having to be perfect or polished because that's what editing is for!

Although you like editing (at least more than writing a first draft) you said that you still struggle with perfectionism and I suppose you should try to figure out why that's the case.

I don't have very many pieces of writing advice but some of the ones that I do live by is "write it now, fix it later" and "it's always okay to write the stupidest possible version". The first draft only exists to get the story out there, and the editing exists to make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.

Do you share your first drafts with people? Would you be embarrassed for them to see something unpolished? If not then I think you should maybe try to find a way to be a little kinder with yourself. To cut yourself more slack. There's certainly something to be said for saving yourself effort down the line, but you're still going to have to edit it anyway so there's absolutely no reason to be perfect on the first draft

People who can plan out things and write good first drafts are incredible to me because I absolutely cannot live that life, but I also think I have a lot more fun overall even if it means I have to write 6 or 7 drafts of something before it's good

I also think that it's no good editing until you have the full story so getting caught up in perfectionism with the first draft - when the story is still being formed - is causing yourself to expend more effort on it because you don't actually know the changes that you're gonna need yet (again though, I don't plan anything so take that with a grain of salt)

So what can you do about it?

It's one thing to train yourself in discipline, that's something that's pretty well studied

BUT if you want to train yourself in a lack of discipline, I actually think that's not as easy. You can of course try to force yourself to write without editing but that might stress you out and make the experience not fun, which means you're significantly more likely to not do it again

So I would suggest trying to make it a game for yourself. Try to find the joy of writing something unpolished, in whatever way works for you. Maybe do some time based writing challenges? Like in the way that NaNoWriMo gets people past that because the time limit of one month forces you to keep going! but that might be a bit intense to start with because it is a full novel and a full month

If you could get some friends involved and do time challenges together maybe you could begin enjoying the process of just writing something as it first comes to mind, and you and your friends can have fun laughing about all of your silly writing afterwards

Or maybe you could find some people to RP with, because that's certainly a different kind of writing that doesn't allow you to get super bogged down because you're not doing all of the work

And I also highly recommend writing the absolute most self-indulgent nonsense possible that is purely for you and no one else is ever going to read it because that can be very freeing!

Some people also find it helpful to actually label something as "the dumb version" or "the bad version" because it gives them internal "excuses" to write something that isn't polished.

Well, I don't know if any of this will be helpful to you but I hope so! I know I use the words "fun" and "enjoy" a lot but I really think writing first drafts should be fun. I think writing should be fun! Because after all, we love writing don't we? Finding the particular joy in each stage of writing can go a long way to helping you get through it and help you really appreciate the entire process ^__^

[skylermadness]

Projected Reality (Hephaestus TF/MC)

(Original Date of Upload: May 22, 2024)

Original Description:

A bit of a belated birthday gift for my beloved boyfriend. This was a story I've actually wanted to write for a little over a year now. I had first wanted to write out a Hephaestus TF around Spring of last year when I was planning out a concept that I have since long abandoned. During that time I did have a few stories that involved people I was close to, and Arti had volunteered to be used for the Hephaestus concept. Although even after the concept was scrapped I still wanted to write a story for them involving this character! A few months later it's August and Housamo finally translates the Virtual Summer Memories event. It was around this time that I finally come up with an idea for this TF, but due to a bunch of stuff happening at the time I was completely unable to follow through and the story was left unwritten for a very lengthy amount of time. It isn't until Spring of this year that I finally got the motivation to write it out as I realized I could actually use this story as my gift to Arti for their birthday! Thus, the story finally came into fruition after over a year of constantly being pushed back. Beyond that though, the actual writing process for this story was extremely fun! I love using random VR nonsense for TFs, and it was honestly extremely easy to play around with that seeing how Hephaestus' one event appearance had a lot of focus on virtual reality. Furthermore I just love using my boyfriend as a TFee, and I gladly wish them a late happy birthday! I do wish I could've written this story out earlier, but college was beating my ass at the time of early May. But I'm still very glad to have gotten this out for them! <3

   Reality is many things. Inconsistent, imperfect, unstable, and almost never lives up to your expectations. It's always ever changing, the world constantly malleable to the whims of fate. Such whims that are beyond the grasp of a mere human. That's why we here at ScybR Essence Technology believe reality should be yours to control.

   With our team of advanced scientists we have invented the next advancement in the field of virtual reality: the Hyperreality Manifold. Using a mix of our patented hardlight technology and neurolink engineering, the Manifold projects small worlds for you to spend time in. With just the single press of a button it can turn your living room into an RPG-style dungeon with you as the explorer; or your kitchen into a bustling tavern bar for you to begin a lengthy adventure in. The possibilities are endless, and the only limitations are the ones your mind would impose.

   While the Hyperreality Manifold is still in active development, pre-orders are available with prices starting at 8500 USD. We will also be releasing Lite versions of the Manifold to carefully selected individuals to test out prior to the worldwide release, with the next major Hyperreality Manifold Lite testing date being May 4. So please keep that email inbox open for any important information regarding your potential selection!

   ScybR Essence Technology: We bring the future to the present to change your reality to whatever you desire…

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

   The advertisement on Arti’s phone proceeds to come to an end. This is perhaps the third or fourth time they've watched the strange video ever since they got that email a few days ago telling them they've been selected as a tester for this Hyperreality Manifold thing. Initially they had assumed it to be some kind of spam mail, and even after they got a tracking number for the package they weren't fully convinced it was real. But then the fourth of May had arrived, and roughly a few minutes before noon Arti had been notified their package was delivered. The open box of that package was what sat on their living room table now, and the contents of it sat beside the cardboard container. 

   “No matter how many times I watch that ad, it never sounds any less pretentious…” Arti muttered to themself as they shoved their phone back into their pants pocket. Their gaze then drifted over to the unpacked objects of their recently acquired package.

   The most important object was of course the Hyperreality Manifold. Despite the complex sounding name, all it looked to be was a simple white cube with dim gray circuit lines etched across five of its six faces. The only face without circuitry just had absolutely nothing on it. To Arti it just looked like some kind of fancy paperweight. Perhaps an expensive one too if that eight thousand five hundred dollar price mark was correct.

   The mysterious cube had also come with an instruction booklet. “At least it doesn't look like it has 40 pages worth of information I guess,” they remarked as they booked up the plain looking booklet and began to read through it.

   ‘If you are reading this then that means you have been selected to test ScybR Essence Technology’s Hyperreality Manifold. Your selection means that you have…’

   Arti could already tell the first page had absolutely nothing of value besides boring legal stuff. If they didn't read the terms and services of every website they sure aren't going to read two pages of extremely small legal text. So instead they just started to skim through the pages after to try and gleam whatever information they deemed important, talking to themselves as they did so.

   “This is only a lite version of the Manifold and comes with a pre-installed package, to attain all features for you Manifold you must buy the full version at our store, this is just more boring disclaimer stuff- oh, finally, instructions!”

   ‘The Manifold relies on a mix of physical and cognitive manipulation. To do so requires two important steps in Manifold setup. The first is to place your Neurolink Encephalon Adapter on the side of your face. After the Adapter is secured, press the blank side of the Hyperreality Manifold with two fingers. This will begin the area scanning process which should not take too long.’

   Arti stared at the instructions for a good five seconds, mild confusion already arising in their mind. “The fuck’s a Neurolink Encephalon Adapter??”

   Placing the booklet down, Arti looked back into the box, which was still full of bubble wrap, to see if they had missed anything. They plunged a hand into the box to remove the bubble wrap and they had found one last component they apparently had missed. A small plastic bag containing some kind of thin metal sheet.

   Casting aside the bubble wrap they pulled out the bag, opened it, and removed the metal sheet. It wasn't particularly wide, it was extremely thin, and it was shaped like a crescent. It had the cold gray coloration that metal, typically aluminum, tended to have. Although it also seemed to have circuit lines running through it as well.

   With a brow raised in curiosity, Arti removed their glasses for a moment so they could properly put the unremarkable metal sheet on their face. “I wonder if this'll work…” they thought aloud as they put the crescent-shaped strip around their right eye before putting their glasses back on. They then adjusted the cube on the table so that the blank side faced upwards before doing as the instructions said and pressing two fingers into it.

   Absolutely nothing seemed to happen at first. Arti was going to make a snarky comment saying, “Knew it was a useless paperweight,” but only got half the sentence out before something actually did begin to happen.

   The circuit lines on both the cube and metal sheet started to glow an orangish-yellow, and the cube itself began to float in the air. As the cube levitated it also seemed to release a bright yellow gridline wireframe that encompassed the surface area of the room they were in. 

   “Woah…” was all Arti could think to say as they looked around the room, gridlines just overlaying the walls, floor, and ceiling. “I guess it's not a hunk of metal after all.”

   An automated voice then started to speak from the cube. “Scanning complete. Room dimensions logged. Beginning psychophysical projection in five seconds. Please have any objects you wish to take to the virtual reality on your person at the time of projection. Five, four…”

   “Uhhh-” Arti vocalized, a little confused by the robotic voice’s stream of words. They decided to just pick up the instruction manual, which seemed to be a good move on their part as the moment the voice reached zero everything in the room seemed to straight up disappear. The table that was in front of them, the box the cube came in, the couch that was behind them, even the walls and doorways just blinked out of existence. All that was left was Arti, the cube, and the wireframe outline of their living room's surface area. Mildly panicked at the prospect of having their entire home sucked into some kind of virtual void, the enby looked back at the instruction manual to see what it had to say about this.

   ‘Once scanning is complete the Hyperreality Manifold will begin the psychophysical projection system. The general explanation of this system is that it will trick your senses into believing you're in a void for a few seconds. Your cube will then project the reality that is programmed into it. This projected reality will be completely interactive and will be seemingly realistic for as long as you have both the cube and neurolink active.’

   By the time Arti finished reading through that paragraph, the wireframe began to fade away as their surroundings rapidly shifted. Manifesting into the void was a menagerie of various objects. A sizable table with multiple papers and what seemed to be unfinished metalwork projects. Some kind of large cylindrical object that Arti presumed to be a furnace just manifested in the corner to the left of them. There was an even larger cylindrical object that was on its side that appeared to their right! Some kind of engine if they had to hazard a guess? Turning around they also saw a massive rectangular entranceway that opened to an alleyway. There had also seemed to be a building parallel to the one their living room transformed into. All the while the air of their room shifted, the warm indoor heating fading to the slightly cooler temperature of a room that always has access to fresh air.

   A low pulse came from the cube before it spoke again. “Psychophysical projection complete. Currently active projection: Crafters Workshop at Kamata Technical University.”

   “Okay then…” Arti responded, slowly circling around in place to take in their surroundings. They were astonished, to say the least. That cube managed to project all of this? And why does it feel so realistic? This all felt so… impossible to them.

   Logically this meant Arti’s curiosity would lead them to the newly created furnace that the cube just popped into reality. Without a second thought the enby placed a hand in the furnace for a second, felt the metal, felt the extreme heat, then retracted their hand with a slight hiss of pain. “Well I guess I know it can mimic temperature now! Hm…”

   Stepping away from the furnace, a thought began to cross Arti's mind. They looked back at the booklet with the feeling of curiosity rolling around in their brain. 

   “What else can this thing do…?” they asked themselves as they tabbed through a few more pages. It wasn't until close to the end of the booklet that they found what looked to be a page on projection editing.

   ‘While the lite version of your Hyperreality Manifold is limited to only one projection type, your projection can still be edited in various ways. These include changing the time, the season and the weather, and the color of your surroundings.’

   “Okay, that just sounds boring- oh, but what's this…”

   ‘Despite your Manifold being a trial version, we are generous enough to have included one premium feature for you to test out: the Self Manipulator. This is a highly experimental feature that allows you to alter your own physical form to fit the projection you have been provided with. Please note that this should be temporary and usually should not have any carry over to when the projection is dispelled. However due to its highly experimental nature there may still be bugs and glitches that may occur during usage. Please use with caution.’

   “Right, right,” a sly smile formed on Arti's face. What kind of caution would be needed with weird virtual projections? It'd probably be like they were wearing some weird suit or something more than anything else. Still sounds intriguing either way.

   ‘To activate the Self Manipulator, you must take hold of the Hyperreality Manifold and use a single finger to make a circular motion in the blank side. This will then display a face of the character your Manifold has been preloaded with. Then you must do one more finger press to begin the projection on yourself.’

   With that information in mind, Arti walked over towards the floating cube in the middle of the room. They placed the instruction booklet on the table among the multiple other papers littered atop it, then took hold of the cube. “Let's see what you've got…”

   They placed a finger on the blank side, then did a circular motion, and instantly the cube registered it. What was promptly displayed on the cube was the outline of a man’s face. The man had spiky hair and an equally as spiky beard, thick eyebrows, and a rather uninterested-looking expression. This was also accompanied by the cube robotically stating, “Preload selected: Hephaestus.”

   “Hephaestus, huh?” Arti remarked. “Hadn't thought of this place as a domain for a Greek god but whatever, he looks hot.”

   With that said they did the final step of long-pressing the image with a finger. The cube seemed to respond by glowing a brighter orangish-yellow before saying, “Preload accepted. Physical alterations will begin shortly. Please note this is a highly experimental feature and may result in-”

   Arti rolled their eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Skip the legal stuff or something!”

   “Physical alterations beginning. Please stand by…”

   A low heat then began to arise in Arti’s body, beginning at their core before slowly spreading further out of their body with each beat of their heart. But as the heat warmed up more and more it started to cause a secondary sensation to well up within them. One that felt like a low pressurizing feeling that entered into their practically burning chest.

   “Is it supposed to- ough-” Arti leaned forward a little as they clenched a fist over their chest. “Is it supposed to feel like that??”

   Beads of sweat started to form in their forehead as their blood continuously boiled. Their breathing steadily became a bit more labored as their chest continued to burn and a pressure continuously pushed itself onto their upper torso. They weren't sure what exactly was happening but it felt like a lot for a virtual reality to make their body experience.

   Arti was unaware of the truth behind these sensations though. That truth being their physicality seeming to alter. The heat and pressure was working in conjunction to forge new additions to the enby’s body, the first of which having obviously been in their chest.

   Typically their chest was undefined since Arti was never one to work out and put effort into building muscles. However it seemed as if with each breath they took their chest steadily expanded. Its size was just slowly increasing, previously unimpressive muscle swelling up larger with each ragged inhale. It didn't take very long for a pair of pectorals to properly formulate from the nothing of their upper torso, and each pec would only grow out larger and larger. Firm, meaty chest muscles just get pushed out even more every few seconds. Their roundness would soon even etch itself into the fabric of their undershirt, pushing open their open jacket to reveal the massive shelf that the enby had developed beneath the deep indigo of the shirt itself. Their new cleavage has indented into the shirt as well, further accentuating the pure size their chest had obtained.

   Their muscles hadn't been the only thing being changed however. One major change seemed to enter into their skin, the tone of it darkening at a rather rapid pace. Pale ivory shifted to a raw umber, and that change in tone continuously spread across the rest of the skin on their chest. All while this occurred there had also been a second major shift being introduced alongside it. Arti had usually been a pretty scarred individual, but as their transformation grew in prominence it seemed as if their scars were being altered in some way. This was most prominent is the massive scar that stretched over their upper torso, where the size of it seemed to shrink and reshape. This alteration seemed to be centered at the exact middle of their chest as the longest points of the scar retreated into that area. In the end the scar would just become a still rather sizable one that was etched into the middle of their chest and over the inner sections of their pectorals.

   Arti had been subjected to the feeling of their skin brushing up against their now much more ill-fitting shirt. A feeling that had been increased as they felt their abdominal region churn and their shoulders ache. “I-it’s working! I think-” they said, although a mild hesitation was present in their voice. They weren't going to deny this felt extremely weird, especially since it was changing them at such a fundamental level. But also they couldn't deny that this had all felt rather… nice.

   The lower end of their torso hadn't been left out as while Arti was in the middle of their internal musing, their abdomen entered a process of bulking itself up as well. Intense heat mixed with a burgeoning feeling of strength just churned around in their gut. This was followed by their abdomen bubbling as hardened muscles started to properly formulate. Abs then routinely jutted out at a somewhat rapid pace, a firm six-pack properly forming out of their previously flat stomach area. It was also at this point that Arti’s form seemed to widen almost, their width ever so slowly increasing to accommodate their much thicker muscles. 

   That increase in wideness mainly came due to an alteration in the enby’s very bone structure. While much of their structure had remained similar during the course of their bodily expansion, there was one major portion of the skeletal region of their torso that had a more severe change. As the changes moved away from the front half of their body and onto the back, there had been a menagerie of shifts that came to it. Trapezius muscles bulging in size, the sides of their body burning a bit as their oblique muscles improved. The changes in their skin tone continued to wash across their form as multiple scars formed behind them. But soon enough everything started to centalize towards one major segment of their back: the spine.

   A slightly pained (and seemingly deeper) moan escaped Arti’s throat as something surged into the discs of their spinal column. “The hell…”

   There was a strange occurrence that happened within the bone structure. While it seemed to elongate in size, practically adding inches to Arti’s height, there had been a more alarming addition to that change. That being, Arti could no longer stand up straight. A prominent curvature was etched into the top end of their spinal column, an extremely noticeable hunch being added to them as a result. 

   “Ch-changing a lot about…” Arti started to idly comment before halting their statement. “My… voice…”

   Already their voice had begun a process of deepening. Although while it still had a specific tone that it could still be recognized as Arti to some capacity, there was still a steady amount of lowness entering it that wasn't there prior. Although they didn't have too much time to focus on any of that as they heard the sound of ripping come from… a lot of places, really, but mainly around their arms.

   While all the previous portions of the transformation were occuring, there had been a concurrent series of changes entering their arms. It had initially started at their shoulders as the changes in muscles and melanin had entered that area first. Size increased rapidly as a rigid roundness formed in them thanks to the rapid formulation of their deltoids. All while their enlargement caused the overall boradness of the enby to increase a bit more. Then there had been the manifestation of a few relatively large scars over the top portion of both shoulders.

   A few more scars then etched across the upper half of Arti's arms. This had been in conjunction with even more growths in muscle mass as strength and warmth constantly cycled around each limb. Biceps bulged out alongside the thickening of their triceps, and the growth in size was already becoming enough to rub up into both their undershirt and jacket. The ridges of their massive musculature just etching into the fabric more and more. It wouldn't take long until it forced their sleeves to reach a limit in the attempt to stretch over their arms.

   This would be further proven as the circumference of their elbows widened before the muscle enhancements jumped to the forearms. Extensors burned with an almost instantaneous workout as muscle mass continuously swelled up within them. The ends of their sleeves rode up their arms more and more as the bones in their arms seemed to lengthen. Meanwhile as the diameter of their arms practically doubled it caused their watch to just snap off their arm. All the while even more scars manifested across their arms, including a really large one on their right arm.

   Things didn't take long to move beyond their wrist and onto their hands. The size of both hands practically doubled as a chunky meatiness entered them, increasing their thickness to a point that it was consistent with their muscular form. This was quite tangible when it came with their fingers and all of them swelled into sausages while lengthening for consistency and blunting a bit at the end. A slight itch entered their palms as they hardened with callouses, accompanied by scarring on both the front and back of their hands. This had also come with the completion of the darkening of their skin, at least on a majority of the upper half of their body.

   Of course, with all of this muscle mass constantly vying for attention on Arti’s clothing it meant that the limits of the fabric would easily be reached. Their jacket suffered multiple tears thanks to their broader back and thicker arms. Their undershirt experienced a must worst fate however as rips continuously etched across the front, back, and sleeves thanks to how much raw muscle it had been containing this entire time. And while it wasn't completely torn apart, it very much was ripped to tatters. This was what Arti’s focus had been drawn to, while also meant they had been given a relatively easy view of their much brawnier form.

   A shocked expression formed on Arti’s face at the sight. “My skin- my scars?! I-I thought it was just going to be th-the muscles!”

   After saying that, Arti cleared their throat. Their voice had still been shifting more and more, deepness continued to form into it to a point that what sounded like Arti and what sounded like their new form was getting blurred. “Uurgh, this is… a-a lot…”

   It was definitely a bit overwhelming. Arti had expected some weird suiting experience but the fact that this VR technology seemed to have the capability to make them physically feel and witness the changes was… Arti didn't know how to describe it. Impressive? Mildly terrifying? And truthfully it made their head hurt a little.

   However their internal concerns were interrupted by the Manifold speaking suddenly. “It is advised that you stabilize yourself.”

   “Uhhh, wha…?” Arti raised a brow. Looking to their right they still had the railing of that massive engine, so they decided to reach out a hand and clasp onto it. “J-jeez, my hand is big- WOAH-”

   The lower half of their legs went numb in that instant.

   The transformation never halts, and all while they were thinking it just continuously progressed down to their lower body. Their belt had strained against their hips as their waist rapidly gained a wideness appropriate for their new form. Meanwhile their pants began their process of becoming rapidly undersized. This was mainly in due part because of the muscles in their thighs expanding. Quadriceps and hamstrings bulged and widened while the amount of scars that surrounded them multiplied quite a bit. It was enough to yet again cause their newly defined legs to push up against their legwear by quite a bit.

   The numbness didn't start until the changes had reached the halfway point of their legs, around the level of where their knees were. This feeling was then followed by the feeling of something cold within the entire crus of their legs. “W-why is…?”

   The answer to their half-inquiry was an easy one. Beneath the knee, instead of the pigmentation of their skin shifting, the very structure of it had changed instead. Flesh hardened, cells reformed at the atomic level, and a cold metallic sheen encapsulated the entirety of their lower legs. It didn't stop at the skin either as the internal workings of their legs were mechanized as well. All the while their diameters were becoming larger, and the length of them increased to give Arti a bit more height. This was followed by the frontal portions of their pants bursting open as the front half of their metallic legs gained armor-like plating to them, most noticeably a knee-guard that went over their still organic knee. 

   “P… prosthetics…?” Arti questioned. Indeed, the lower half of their legs seemed to have become some kind of robotic prosthetic. That didn't even seem to be the end of it as once the metal reached their ankle region it seemed to shrink a bit into a thick metallic pillar that was connected to the rest of the prosthetic. This also allowed some wires to expose themselves as they slithered down to the connect to the last region of their lower body: their feet.

   Art’s feet underwent a similar transformation to that of their leg’s crus, that being the envelopment by the constant formation of metal. Although as each foot grew in size the internals seemed to hollow out a fair bit, only having minimal internal systems that connected to their legs. Various regions became a layer of playing such as their feet’s instep and bridge. Meanwhile their toes, while thickening, gained a segmented appearance to them with the areas of segmenting glowing a faint orange. Of course with their feet growing in size and becoming a clunky bit of metal it meant the Arti’s footwear stood no chance against the transforming appendages. Thus their toes burst from the toecap of their shoes before being followed by the sides ripping apart to reveal even more of their metallic feet.

   “Oookay,” Arti started, breaths slowing to a more stable pace of breathing. They could feel whatever remains of their shirt’s neck just splitting apart as their neck thickened into a hefty and scarred trunk. This coupled with the rapid changes in their vocal cords left their voice completely unrecognizable of what it once was. It had become deep, masculine, and had a certain tone of bluntness mixed with a vibe that had a strange lack of confidence in itself. 

   “I-I guess all that leaves is my head?” Arti said with a weak grin. They felt a bit tired at this point, and oddly confused. The weird confusions and worries about this body had mostly faded into more concerning thoughts about themselves. They had a moment where they felt perfectly fine with it but now that was being subsided with a strange amount of self-consciousness that they don't think they've experienced before. Was it the prosthetics, or the scars, or that spontaneously granted hunch in their back? “Uurgh, why am I… th-thinking these thoughts…” they placed a massive hand on the side of their head. “Mind f-feeling… muddy…”

   They blinked a few times as their typically blue irises started to glow a reddish-orange. This was coupled by an odd heat entering the right side of their face, the metal of their Neurolink starting to glow as if it were in a furnace of some kind. “A-ahh…”

   The raw umber tone cascaded upwards from their neck and began overlaying their face. A couple clicks and cracks escaped from their skull as it began to restructure itself, becoming larger in size while reshaping into a more rectangular shape. This was accentuated by their jawline broadening and chiseling into a more square-like formation. Fuzz then began to poke out of their face, starting at the base of their chin and above their upper lip before quickly spreading across their entire jawline. As it grew the fuzz that was on their jaw thickened, a spiky-style of facial hair being born from that thickening. Pointed clumps of beard hair just poking out in various directions based on the placement on their face. Although it did result in a rather thick and fluffy beard that adorned their shifting face.

   Of course as their beard formed there had been other features of their face that shifted as well. Their nose became a bit more angular as the dorsum of it broadened and became rectangular. Their eyebrows thickened into large bushes as the hairs on them became a deep black and the furthest ends of them became a bit pointed. Then came the various scars that formed across their face. One over their left brow, one that slashed into a small bit of the left side of their beard, and a few scars that ran across the left side of their head and neck.

   The most major of changes came with their hair however. A deep red had overtaken the typically indigo coloration as the follicles had quickly undergone the process of shortening themselves. Long flowing locks of hair retracting into their scalp, meanwhile at the sides of their head the fluff would practically shave itself down to a buzz. The top of their head was different however as once it reached a sufficient length it began to heavily restyle itself. Fluffy hairs mixing together into more rigid clumps that had a certain look of messy spikiness to them that granted their hair an almost flame-like appearance. Such a change ran from the apex of their head down to the back, the new style only being describable as a messy, fiery fauxhawk.

   “Mmff…” they moaned, head continuing to pound with strange thoughts and memories that they hadn't had before. The familiarity of this place was becoming overwhelming, and his negative self-image of himself was growing. Wasn't he a different person a few minutes ago? Why does it feel like he's always been like this?! “I-I’m… A… whuh…”

   He blinked a few times. He's forgetting something crucial. He could've sworn his name was on the tip of his tongue. 

   “Finalizing Hephaestus Protocol…” the cube said from a few feet away.

   “R-right, I'm… Hephaestus…” such an admission felt weird to him. Like he was still forgetting something major. “W-why does that cube look like the ones from my Antibody P-program…?”

   Hephaestus stopped clinging to the engine’s railing, then stepped forward before momentarily losing balancing and stumbling. His brain feels a bit out of sync with his prosthetics for some reason. Like he's not used to them just yet, although his mind is on the cusp of familiarity with them. “Ugh, c-come on!”

   He stabilizes himself and steps forward again, oddly unaware of his ripped up clothing or the fact that it was now in the process of fixing itself. His undershirt seemed to completely slip off his body before dissipating into nothingness. Meanwhile his jacket remained, resizing to fit his bigger form while restitching itself to seal all the holes that his growth had caused. The lower ends of the jacket seemed to merge with his pants somehow, followed by the material of both that and the legwear shifting into a harder and more leathery texture. This had also caused the generally indigo shading of his clothing to shift to a brownish-gray instead. The jacket’s lapel shrunk away as the collar raised and folded into a different type of collar. Meanwhile the jacket’s split formed metallic teeth that trailed down to meet with his pants zipper.

   Changes soon began to ramp up. Sleeves rolled themselves up to his elbows while both pant legs rolled up to his knees, which had revealed the ruddy white interior of his new jumpsuit. Shoulder and breast pockets formed out from the material, and one of the breast pockets came pre-packed with a bunch of pens. Orange highlights also formed on the apex of the jumpsuit, alongside a series of diagonal orange stripes on the left leg that came with the name ‘KAMATA’ printed beneath them. His belt had somehow not been merged into the leather and instead bulked up before a bunch of pouches materialized to hang from it. All of these pouches came pre-packed as well, although this time with a large array of tools. Lastly came his footwear, shoes fixing themselves up before enlarging to fit his new feet. The deep blue tone shifted to brown while the tongue became orange, held down by orange and white shoe strings that crossed each other multiple times. While the bottom of each shoe became a messy white rubber, the cap of both of them ballooned into a hardened steel toe exterior. But perhaps the weirdest of any of these changes would come to the neurolink as the almost superheated orange came to its final culmination: igniting itself into a burst of flames. An eternal flame just casually engulfs the side of Hephaestus' face, and he doesn't even do so much as to react to it. All he feels is the nice warmth of it layer onto his body.

   The heavy steps of Hephaestus’ new footwear echoed through the air of the workspace as the man finally managed to lumber over to the cube. “S-strange, I don't recall ever making a ph-physical version of these…” he remarked as he took hold of the cube. He would analyze it for a few seconds before casually tapping the side with his own face on it. “What are you-”

   “The blank side has been doubled tapped,” the cube interrupted. “Disengaging Manifold.”

   Then in just seconds the entirety of the Kamata Technical University's Workshop seems to dispel like some kind of hologram in front of Hephaestus' eyes. He watches in a mix of vivid curiosity and concern. “W-what the fuck-” was the only thing he stammered out as a reaction. In mere moments the familiarity is lost to him as the workshop his brain has numerous memories of is lost, instead taking on the appearance of some kind of living room.

   “Manifold disengaged,” the cube in his hand said. “Please allow thirty minutes of downtime to recharge systems.”

   “Manifold?” Hephaestus asked, tilting his head in curiosity. “It was able to c-create some kind of virtual simulation of Kamata. Maybe-”

   Something then buzzed in a back pocket of the lower portion of his jumpsuit. Hephaestus lets out a startled yelp before panickedly patting around the location and pulling out some kind of smartphone. Although it looked nothing like the one he usually used. “Wha- who's is- huh??”

   Turning on the phone the man was greeted with a single text message displaying on the screen.

   MikeS💛

   Leaving work soon! Looking forward to seeing that cube thing you said you got :3

   Hephaestus' eyes narrowed as he looked at the screen. “Mike…?” He then turned his head towards the Manifold. “Cube thing. Hm…”

   Gears began to turn in his mind. He'd probably be able to reverse engineer this Manifold in order to properly learn how it functioned. Perhaps he could even manipulate it to such a manner he could make it do what he wanted. What exactly the limitations of that are, he wasn't quite sure yet, but that's why he's going to look into the make of it in the first place! And as for that Mike guy, well… he isn't opposed to having one or two live test subjects for this.

   A slight smile formed on Hephaestus’ face at the thought of that. This was accompanied by a single stray thought: he's going to have to find a way to bring Talos here with this thing.

[selya711-twiste]

what pose refer- OH

#if you know the pose reference i'm so sorry

poor poor anon. aware of the horrors. although if fellow had this much power since the start he wouldn't be doing all this nonsense huh

bonus giddy:

other meta about Playful Land that I've decided to hide in this post (minor CSM spoilers discussed underneath):

I got into Chainsaw Man during the time this blog was in a coma! if that wasn't obvious already ^-^

Fellow and Guidel growing up in poverty reminded me a lot of Denji and Pochita, and I listen to CSM ost often these days I'm only drawing Fellow as Makima for funnies because they both manipulate others without them knowing, and absolutely nothing else. he's too boyfailure for that.

"The country mouse gets to to live in safety, but doesn't get to eat delicious food like they have in the city. The Town mouse gets to eat delicious food, but runs a higher risk of being killed by humans or cats."

I've also been thinking of this line with them lately, either they live honestly and barely make anything when society rejects them as it is, or work at Playful Land despite its horrid conditions if it means their survival

in which I also headcanon that Fellow's drive in doing this in the first place is his envy, and to fulfill a sense of revenge towards people who get to live normal lives but fell for a "free ticket" the same way Pleasure Island also existed as a metaphor to punish people for giving in to hedonistic desires. So that's why he put up with it for so long especially under his greedy bosses

Not a lot of people talk about how as much as Fellow cares about Guidel, he still roped in a child into this job alongside him and exposing him to this sort of stuff, so I was hoping it'd be discussed more when analyzing their bond together and not just fellow's backstory (or whatever crumbs canon gave us), and that's what I had in mind when writing this

theres nothing wrong with finding guidel cute and silly! hes a cute little guy who is very much loved by his older brother, his... very irresponsible brother. but I think that's why I can still come to love Fellow and how raising and protecting Guidel could've played a bigger part in his change at the ending when he stops everything to start a school instead

I was really hoping that Stage in Playful Land would also give us Ortho-Guidel parallels the same way with Idia-Rollo and how they dealt with their grief in Glorious Masquerade, but this time with "little brothers" and their attachment to their "older brothers" but their autonomy outside of them being brought into question

Anyway, I was wondering how the Playful Land operations would impact Guidel, so I was thinking Fellow probably bullshitted some reasons so it isn't merely just guidel following his brother but also being in on it (that, and middle schoolers are built different.)

This worked until the NRC students brought up something sensitive to them, which was school, and it takes the veil off Guidel's eyes and ears for a second about what they're doing and what sort of lives he and fellow could've had seeing the nrc students have so much fun

Sorry this was all over the place LOL. If you've read this far, the contents in my blog may begin to take a darker turn if I post more about them, so I'm really sorry if you followed me for Rollo fluff... but it's also almost my christmas break, so :DDD

i can still see everyones requests in my inbox, by the way. sorry again.

[picathartidae]

For the most recent round of ask game I'd love to hear your answers for 5, 9, 23, and 26. 💙

I'm still answering for Alassane, despite him being a Dark Urge, because my Tavs are all from a different D&D setting and none of them are sufficiently fleshed out when it comes to the Forgotten Realms. I really hope that's okay!

5. Did your Tav have any formal or informal employment? If yes, what was their job? If no, how did they make ends meet? How did they feel about it?

The closest Alassane ever got a real job was when he was about 10/11 years old and found himself homeless and briefly wandering the Outer City. Through various wacky happenstance, a blacksmith took pity on him and he ended up becoming the man’s apprentice for a few years. It ended, as all nice things in Alassane’s backstory do, with murder, when he was 15. From that point on, he was a career criminal and assassin, and finally ending up as an adventurer/mercenary during and after the events of the game.

It all instilled a very blunt pragmatism in Alassane, as well as a general lack of respect for money or the concept of private property. He doesn’t have strong feelings about what he does, he just does whatever he has to in order to survive and achieve his goals.

9. What was your Tav doing when they were taken by the mind flayers?

He was catatonic, as he had been for maybe nine months by that point, and imprisoned in the mind flayer colony deep beneath Moonrise Towers. Then his pod was shoved onto a nautiloid, and the rest is history.

23. What are 2-3 songs that your Tav would relate to?

I always struggle with these kinds of questions, because I don’t really engage with songs based on lyrics, but rather entirely on vibes. Alassane’s vibes are mainly aggressive electronic, grunge, and alt rock — with a few bits of other extremely eclectic nonsense thrown in. The best I can do are songs I have written Alassane doing things to, and why I picked them.

1991, by Golden Features

This is literally the song I wrote the dance scene in his first chapter to, and is probably the closest I have to a ‘main theme’. It’s electronic nonsense with no lyrics at all, which I liked and thought fit him because the heavy synth feels very artificial and unnatural in a medieval fantasy setting. Since Alassane (as the Dark Urge) was created rather than born, it seemed very accurate for the character, and helps give off this terrifying and uncanny vibe. And I could so very easily imagine him doing an impromptu Fosse-style jazz ballet dance routine to this song.

Let You Go, by RY X

For slower and more introspective scenes, usually dream sequences that aren’t outright nightmares. This is very much a song for post-amnesia Alassane that kind of has come to represent his growth as a character because there is actually a bit of symmetry with his arc in the lyrics.

Elddansurin, by Heilung

It’s a good aggressive sounding song with lots of percussion and growling that flows into something a bit softer and more melodic as the song goes on. It’s got some nice dualism to it, and I think that reflects Alassane’s whole deal very nicely. Heilung is also one of my favourite bands and this song is amazing fun to write violence to.

26. Does your Tav have a treasured item with them? If yes, what is it and why is it special? If no, how do they feel about item sentimentality in general?

He’s not an overly sentimental guy, at least not about material possessions. The closest thing he has to a treasured possession is a serrated dagger he woke up with on the nautiloid, and that’s because it’s basically the only connection he has to his past after the amnesia. Before he lost his memories, I doubt that knife meant anything to him at all.

What he is sentimental about is his name, which is its own complicated mess of a subplot that relates to his foster family and how he perceives himself. It's his last connection to the person he wishes he still was, when he was still an innocent child and before Bhaal ruined everything. His foster family was desperately important to him, and their murder was what broke him. He clings to his name in the vain hope that one day, he can find that boy in himself again.

[thescrapwitch]

4, 14 and 27 for the fic writer asks!

asks from here

Thank you!

4. A story idea I haven’t written yet:

I'm sure no one will be surprised to learn that I have, like, a million ideas in my head that have yet to be written, so I can answer this one more than once :)

Bright Hearts of Numenor, also known as I will find a way to write a found family AU-fic set during the fall of Numenor featuring: a "reborn" (aka Sauron necromancy) child Celebrimbor who has no memories of his previous life, Tar-Miriel doing her best to navigate the viper nest the court has become, best dad Elendil finding himself the leader of a rebellion, Anarion deciding that Celebrimbor is perfect little brother material, and Isildur, who would love to take a fucking nap but his family keeps getting into danger and this magic sword he found named Anglachel will not shut up.

This will probably be another series, so I absolutely need to finish a lot more of my one-shots/multi-chapter fics before I commit to it. I don't like having too many long projects on the go at the same time (it stresses me out), but once I start I have some fun PLANS for these characters. Plus, it will be my first time writing a Numenor focused fic, so that'll be a fun challenge!

14. Where do I get my inspiration:

Lots of places! Daydreaming mostly, I like to listen to music as I walk and just let my brain run wild with possibilities. Throw the characters into "what ifs" and see what my brain does.

I find interacting with other people in the fandom give me some great ideas too. The Maglor is an Eldritch Horror series never would have gone past the first fic if one person hadn't asked if an overprotective, spooky Maglor meant that Celebrian might live. That sent my mind dreaming up what could happen, which lead to Lindir, which lead to almost 90k more words.

27. My favorite part of the writing process:

There's a moment I find when the fic starts to click. I'll be writing - and it takes me a bit to start, a lot of circling around the fic and writing nonsense lists in my notebook and trying to get comfortable - and finally I'll just sink into it. That doesn't mean that the words will always come easily, but I'll want to fight to get them out. I just sort of drop into whatever I'm writing and want to see it through to the end (or at least to the end of the scene). Its such a great feeling, watching the fic start to build, watching the sentences assemble into something you're proud of, fighting and then getting just the right line to end a fic on. Its so much fun and makes all the hard parts worth it.

[fury-brand]

Ysayle for 1, 12, 20, and 26?

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I like her because I think feeling your convictions so strongly that you deify yourself is cool. Says the Sephiroth fan amirite?

Ysayle's a little tricky because they put a lot of stuff down for her and then never follow through with it. She's got the a following dragon heretic cultists (badass) that they just... drop entirely and do nothing with. They set her up as an extremist, and then walk it back in a way that I can narratively reconcile but which smells very much like "we need to make her more sympathetic." I think it's rather stupid of her to unleash a hoard of dragons on Ishgard and then be surprised pikachu when the poor people get hurt and the upper class don't but like. I can turn my head and squint about it and say she got caught up in the moment, happens to us all.

Anyway she's the first character in XIV who I feel really starts to echo WOL and put down some of the themes and ideas that become more fully fleshed out later on in better expacs like shadowbringers. She's the first to start echoing answers, to say "we who walk before may lead those who walk after," the first to start looking at the history of an apparently intractable tension, the first to take an extreme position to try to correct an injustice.

She's also written very clumsily because she is a girl and they don't know what to do with all that complexity. They kill her off because they don't know what to do with her at the end and that's obviously egregious, but the whole confrontation scene with Hraesvelgr is nonsense. Prior to then her convictions are never predicated on the idea of actually being St Shiva reborn - that is a gift of power given to her that's separate from her honest beliefs about the injustice of Ishgardian society and the Dragonsong war, two points on which she is absolutely correct. But they can't let her have that so they do this rug-pull about how she's not actually Lady Shiva and then shuffle her off camera to have a breakdown about it, as if it invalidates anything else about what she believes - as if it isn't way more metal to have conjured that power in the image of a saint all unto herself.

There's a lot to DISLIKE about Ysayle tbh, if you just take the writing at face value. But if any character deserves to be saved from their own writing, it is certainly her. The pieces are all here, they just need some reconfiguring, and the points of weakness all tend to stem from the same root - wanting Ysayle to be sympathetic enough to hang out with you, and needing to punish her for complicating the narrative and not being enough of a "good guy".

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Uh, hm. I don't know. Not sure I have a headcanon in the strictest sense but it is fun to think about AU Scion Ysayle. She deserves to be there and keep Alphinaud "let's put the refugees to work in the mines" Leveilleur in check.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Me :) My Wol :)

No, kidding. I liked her relationship with Estinien. I'd have liked to see that antagonistic relationship evolve over time into a lot of trust because the reasons for their behaviour ultimately share similar roots, and they are both inclined towards drastic measures and striking off alone.

26. What's something the character has done you can't get over? Be it something funny, bad, good, serious, whatever?

Couldn't defeat the reaper so had to be her, made up her mind her fear is gone open her eyes and now here she comes obliiiiiiiviiiiiiooooon

[aghostinmyownmachine]

dbh-adjacent writing-program nonsense under the cut, a.k.a. let's talk a bit about WriteMonkey 3

I've used WriteMonkey 2 and 3 on and off for. hm. I guess it's gotta be eight or nine years now? but those instances of use have always been erratic and short lived, and I've usually returned to either Scrivener or, more frequently for many reasons, MS Word. (I also did just a ton of first-draft writing in discord back when I had an account and c/ped my writing from there into Word. near-peerless syncing between devices, appalling security practices. what can ya do 🙃)

anyway, due to ~circumstances~ I've switched to writing on a computer that isn't my writing program–filled work laptop, and so I've been experimenting with WM3 again because it's super lightweight due to plaintext markdown instead of rich text and I have a license key for it, which = fun plugins. it's also way less complicated and labor intensive to set up per project and use than, say, Scrivener. I love Scrivener! but scriv can be overwhelming and distracting when all I want to do is write, especially if I want a unique, quick-to-set-up theme (and I always do, because Aesthetic Is Everything), which is one of the reasons WM3 is so handy

in addition to the gorgeous stripped-down UI that showcases whatever background I choose (mine can be found here!), WM3 has some really neat little plugins? I don't actually use the word-frequency checker myself, but WM3's shows you where each word appears in the document via the little indicator bars to the right of the word, which. rad! (you can tell at a glance which chapters are written in whose POV based off name usage alone and I think that's neat.) also, when you click on a given word in the frequency list, it'll highlight that word throughout the document and also display all uses of it vertically over the scroll bar path. lots of nice little visual indicators of what's going on. I just really like the design, it's simple but extremely useful and intuitive

admittedly, Scrivener cannot be beat when it comes to how easily you're able to make notes in it due to its multitude of note-taking locations, plus it has internal splitscreen capabilities that make referencing a second document a breeze, so there's definitely a mental transition involved when it comes to WM3 and its single-document-at-a-time system, on top of switching to markdown-style comments/reminders. that said! being able to not only see those comments below the headings in the left-hand sidebar but also jump to them when they're clicked? stellar 10/10 would use again

finally, the repository. I <3 the repository. being able to quickly toss whatever text I'm not quite ready to delete or info I know I'll want to reference at some point in the future into the repository is great. it's a seamless process, only a couple seconds' worth of effort required, allowing my focus to stay on what I'm writing instead of distracting myself by tabbing my way through various open files to find my notes. plus the repository is searchable(!!!!!), and using it also keeps the actual text editor clean visually, especially since the right-hand sidebar can be hidden too:

hm! possibly that is a sneak preview of chapter one! who can say!

so yeah! if you're looking for a stripped-down, highly customizable, portable writing program, I absolutely recommend it. there are downsides, of course, the biggest one being no official WM3 mobile options available at present, but since the program is both portable and plaintext, you can toss it into a syncing service and access it via your handheld devices that way. it's also not open source, and you need to pay to access the truly useful plugin features. with all that said, if you don't mind fiddling around with some CSS to make everything look juuuuuuuuust right, you can get yourself a really snazzy setup with relatively little effort. but maybe that's just me—aesthetic is king and all that

[macbethz]

oh man i would love more transmetropolitan-adjacent 90s comics recs.....

omg i got you. I will be bleeding a little into the late 80s and early 2000s here (as transmetropolitan itself did with the early 2000s) but I do think they full of a similar kind of gross edginess (affectionate).

THIS GOT SO LONG SORRY I GOT EXCITED. also sorry for grammar etc i am kinda falling asleep but YAYY comics

first of all i will say MANDITORY DISCLAIMER that Warren Ellis is an awful person and you can find all his works online if you know where to look and/or used on eBay. HOWEVER he has unfortunately written some of my favorite comics, including transmet. which means of course a lot of the best transmet adjacent stuff is written by him. So some Ellis comics:

Desolation Jones: ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVES! which is unfortunately forever unfinished at 8 issues. It follows an ex-MI6 operative working as a private eye in Los Angeles, which acts as a secret prison for the discards of the intelligence community. Jones was put through the desolation test for a full year, which was a form of torture where, among other things, he was exposed to images of violence and death 24/7 without sleep, leaving him with little emotion and a very broken mind. Beautiful page composition and art. Be warned though it is just straight up unfinished

"Superhuman Trilogy": This is the name for 3 completely unrelated comics Ellis wrote that all deal with twisted takes on the creation of superheroes: Black Summer, No Hero, and Supergod. Of these I think No Hero strays a little too much into edge for the sake of it, the other two are very good and unique explorations of different aspects of the genre.

Stormwatch: Ellis' Stormwatch run is basically the lead up to the Authority. You CAN skip it and i recommend most people do because it is VERY 90s and not necessarily the good kind. but if you have a passion for 90s nonsense it is very fun and its cool to see the beginnings of the subversions of the comic industry that come to fruition in the Authority. I cannot emphasize enough that this run is fucking insane and of debatable quality. I believe his run goes from vol 1 #37 through the end of vol 2. and don't forget to pick up wildCATS/Aliens if you want to see the true craziness of 90s comics, where a cash-grab crossover is simultaneously essential to the windstorm universe. yeah they just did whatever back then

The Authority: The superhero comic that defined superhero comics for the next 2 decades. Coined the widescreen comic, unfortunately indirectly led the the creation of the MCU. Superheroes as anarchist gods. The end of the century as the end of the world. A lot of stuff that reads to modern eyes as cliche or overdone because the Authority made it so goddamn popular afterwards.

Now for some non Ellis!

If you enjoy transmet you will probably enjoy the other British Invasion writers. Basically there was a period in comics post-Alan Moore where a lot of British writers started getting hired in American comics and writing weird shit.

Sandman: I don't think I need to describe this one. A lot edgier and more directly goth subculture inspired than the netflix adaptation conveyed

Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol: What if instead of making you a superhero your "superpowers" were more like disabilities? And also you were constantly fighting the most batshit enemies possible? That is this comic. Weird, surreal, and very influenced by modern and postmodern artistic movements.

Peter Milligan's Shade, The Changing Man: imo this is such a British Invasion sleeper hit. No one talks abt this one. A being from another dimension with the power to control capital-M-Madness possesses the body of a serial killer right before he is executed on death row. He then teams up with the daughter of the serial killer's victims to stop a plague of Madness from spreading across the US called the American Scream. All about being weird, gross, and awesome.

Now, I have not read Preacher myself. HOWEVER I have seen the show and really enjoyed it. I am naturally suspicious of Garth Ennis but he is a staple of 90s edge so I feel like I have to say something. I can definitely recommend the show and have heard good things about the comic but again. It's Ennis.

Non british invasion and a little later, but I also really recommend Invincible! A lot of that same early 2000s satire and ultraviolence expanded over a MASSIVE storyline that loves superheroes as much as it parodies them

ANYWAY im probably forgetting some but i am sleepy and got excited abt this lmao. A lot of this is pretty popular so might not be anything new but i hope it helps!

[axolotlsupremacyowo]

The Return of Find the Word!

Hi! So, I'm bored and definitely need sleep, but can't. So! What better use of my time than to have this game make a little comeback! So yep! We're going with round two of find the word! This is gonna be super fun, I can tell already! Keep note tho, these snippets are gonna be from my newest works.

As for who I'm tagging? Hmmm! Well, that'll be my lovely besties! @mikaharuka @tsunderewatermelon @kayedium-writes @mrsmungus @bleepbloopbotz @sliebman10 @aislinnstanaka @hylianjo @justanotherpersonwhowrites @oceangirl24 @precambrian-sea-pancake @udaberriwrites @lena-hills and of course, open tag!

So, let's get on with this shall we?

Words for me!

expression, finger, gradual, breakfast, sympathetic

Words for you!

outlook, talkative, intensify, exchange, twist

Now! Here come all the snippets!

Expression (Momo's Ace Attorney Flufftober, Chapter 9)

Edgeworth nodded again and then ran back up the stairs, and a few minutes later he had come back fully changed and with bags. Bags, plural, specifically three big backpacks filled to the brim with whatever Edgeworth felt was “necessary”. Edgeworth carefully laid out the bags on the floor, looking up to Phoenix, who was staring down at the bags with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Surely Edgeworth was joking, right? When Phoenix saw the serious expression on Edgeworth’s face, he realized that he wasn’t joking.

Finger (The Things I Notice)

The first thing Klavier noticed was the adorable habit Apollo had whenever he was thinking. Whenever Apollo was deep in thought, he would press his index finger to the bridge of his nose. It was a habit that Apollo did even when they weren’t in the courtroom, like whenever Klavier would give Apollo a nonsensical riddle. It was a small thing really, something that he should have not noticed, but he did. Klavier watched as Apollo did that same habit in the courtroom.

Gradual (Hearts upon Hearts)

Pretty early on in their relationship, Alex had told Sebastian that he wanted to improve on the more intellectual things like reading, puzzles and games like chess and sudoku. Sebastian, confused at first, had suggested that he go to Maru instead, though he quickly caved when Alex had explained to him that he felt more comfortable with having Sebastian help him out first. After much insisting, Sebastian eventually agreed to help him. And so very often when time they spent time with each other, they often engaged in an intellectual activity like reading or puzzles for at least a few minutes. It was challenging at first, it really was. But slowly and gradually, Alex got better at understanding the books that he read and playing the games that he played. It was as though he was cleaning up the cobwebs in his mind, and he found himself delighted by this. Eventually, Alex was able to beat Sebastian at least once in most of the games they played. However, there was one game he had yet to beat Alex in. And that was chess.

Breakfast (Momo's Ace Attorney Flufftober, Chapter 9)

Phoenix Wright did not get up early this often, he had woken up early so infrequently that Trucy usually had to wake him for him to make breakfast. This time though, he had woken up early, a lot earlier than everyone in his house. He had woken up four in the morning, placing a chaste kiss on his sleeping husband’s forehead before he went downstairs to make preparations. He made food, packed bags, readied maps, and other various activities. Once he was done, Phoenix looked outside at the window, sunlight filtering through the windows. He smiled, the weather was warm, which meant that they could do what he had planned for them to do for weeks. They were going camping today.

Sympathetic (Ace Attorney: Maya Fey, Chapter 16)

“Tell me, then. What’s wrong?” Phoenix asked. (There’s no use trying to hide it from him…) Maya sighed. “Alright…It’s just…This is my first Christmas without Mia, first of many that is. I’m…bummed about it. I realized it this morning and I’ve been bummed since.” “Oh…Maya…” Phoenix said, giving her a sympathetic look. “I’m…I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.” “It’s okay, Nick…” “…You know, if it’ll cheer you up, the Wrights and Naruhodos are always gonna be there for you.” Phoenix said, a small reassuring smile on his face. “We’ll be here, through thick and thin, sickness and health, and in the courtroom and detention center.” Maya giggled, starting to feel better. “Thanks Nick, I appreciate it.”