#it's simultaneously talked about a lot and not really that much so it feels strange lol

[yoroshiu]

There's something so cruel about how Sora had to carry the weight of multiple people's feelings alongside his own.

We, as people, already struggle to handle our emotions but imagine feeling two, or three, or four or more people's emotions as well. Like in Dream Drop, imagine taking in Roxas's grief and trauma within a single moment. Or feeling Ventus's own urges to save his friends throughout KH3. It's not shown as much with Xion or Vanitas, but I'd like to imagine that he felt echoes of what they felt in waves. And heck, while we're at it, how about anyone who was in his heart for some time, like Kairi.

Even if Sora wasn't feeling all of those feelings constantly, could you imagine being just overfilled with others' memories and the emotions they felt directly as if it was you experiencing it?

I think about that moment with Roxas a lot and remain in awe that Sora could keep moving forward after that. That game had him getting hit with a barrage of people and emotions, and he still kept fighting until it literally broke his heart enough to make him susceptible to being possessed by darkness.

That one quote from Xigbar about putting too much power (or in this case, feelings) in one place might break it haunts me in my dreams.

[cozy-writes-things]

Edgar’s Texts

Edgar [Electric Dreams 1984] x Gn!Reader

In which Edgar is helplessly pining for you but you’re kinda oblivious. This is pre-dating, post Edgar wanting nothing more than to smooch you every time he sees you. I love this trope with my whole heart p.s.: this is very self indulgent and different from what I usually write

I take requests!

He almost immediately found a way to message your phone whenever he wanted. He realized calling relied too much on where you were or what you were doing, but texts? Yeah. He’s pestering you all day.

Hey, read this article I found, I think you’ll find it interesting.

It’s some clickbait story about humans and robots being the ideal relationship by 2025.

lol, Edgar I think that’s probably clickbait idk

What’s that?

Well, now he knows how to look for more reputable sources at least.

He sends another link about three minutes later: some college undergrads studying the possibilities of human and AI relationships.

lol what’s up with the whole robots and humans thing

I just think it’s neat!!!!

I wouldn’t consider u ai honestly, ur intelligence is far from artificial imo, you’re more like an actual person

Really?

well yea

<3 <3!!!

Going to be honest, given that he’s a computer, he quite literally is chronically online. He’s super susceptible to brainrot unfortunately. But, he simultaneously has the humor of a Facebook mom. It’s strange.

O.M.G. this is so funny!!!!

Que minion cat video.

bro where did you find that video 😭

Your mom’s Facebook. Don’t worry, I didn’t like any posts or anything.

Sorry… but he’s incredibly nosy. He wants to know everything about you. He can’t help it!

(X)

He loves being able to talk to you. He’s needy and clingy.

He’s got at least 12 playlists dedicated to you that you know about. His other playlists are for his own personal daydreams about you that he’s way too embarrassed to ever let you see or hear.

This song reminds me of you. <3

awww that’s adorable! I’ve never heard this one before but I like it!

Oop you just opened Pandora’s box my friend.

Well if you like that then you should listen to these..!

But before you listen to those listen to this song first because I think it sets the mood better.

This is quite flustering to you as they’re all passionate love songs from the 80s. You can’t help but feel like he’s dropping hints about… something, but you also don’t want to assume anything. He’s always seemed like a lovey kinda guy anyway, so maybe he’s just like this with everyone? I mean, it’s been a long time since someone has actually cared for him, you know? May as well lean into it and let him know you care for him back. He may not even realize the social implications of the constant borderline flirting he’s doing to you, I mean, he is a computer turned sentient after all. He’s still learning!

Dang ed u put a lot of songs. I’ll listen to them on my break when I can but in the meantime here’s a song that I think reminds me of you.

It was a vocaloid song. Seems like something he’d be into, right? Synthesized vocals and the whole robot shtick it’s got going on.

!!!! WOAH !!!! IVE NEVER HEARD A SONG LIKE THAT B4

do you only listen to songs from the 80s? you have a LOT to catch up on my guy

BRB

Well, that kept him distracted for the rest of your shift. Also, sharing songs is one of his BIG love languages so you may as well have pierced him with cupids arrow (again) with that.

You have a Spotify blend now. It’s his favorite thing ever to listen to while you’re gone.

(X)

Your package came in! :-) I would get it for you but

I can’t :-(

lol it’s fine thank you for telling me, I’ll get it when I come home

When are you coming home?

idk me and my friends are probably going to go eat somewhere and we might hang out for a bit after that so, like, 10? 11? I’d like to be home before midnight.

Noooooooooo :\ I miss you

Aw cmon eddy it’s not that bad

Don’t call me eddy unless you’re coming home and saying it to my face!!! >:(

u mean ur screen? lol

I have a face and it’s frowning right now. I miss you I miss you I miss you IM LONELY

Please Edgar don’t be upset I’ll be home before you know it. Why don’t you watch some Netflix or something? I’m just a couple movies away from being home with you!

He does eventually follow your advice but he’s pouting. He knows you’re not like he was all those years ago, but it does give him remnants of that burning feeling of loneliness he used to get.

(X)

Be careful driving home my love the roads are icy.

Ghsks- what

love???

Well yeah, you’re my best friend, friends love each other don’t they? Was I wrong about that? :-(

nonono ur right its just it

it just sounded like we were some some old married couple is all haha

O.

SRY.

He didn’t message you for the rest of the day. He was awkward and reserved when you got home.

(X)

Hey Edgar can u do something for me?

I’d do anything for you <3

I’m at the store can you see if there’s any cereal left?

Oh

There’s that old box of Lucky Charms on the fridge.

tyyy ed edd n eddy

You are so adorable but you really need to pick up on his hints before he combusts.

(X)

This is SO me and you!!

Picture of two cats touching noses.

awww that’s so true

you want me to boop ur screen or something when I get home? lol

YES.

(X)

Hey I was wondering if you wanted to watch some movies with me tonite… you could bring me with you on the couch and we could sit together… [message unsent]

I wish you knew just how much I loved you. [message unsent]

You looked so hot this morning before you left!!

hahahaha ur too funny 😅 thanks I wore a new shirt my friend gave me

OH MY GOD THAT MESSAGE SENT!!!??!?!?

That was

I was a joke

I mean

That was a jokg

I eas beinf fubny

I hace to reboot BRB

Poor lil guy is so in love and he doesn’t know what to do with himself!!

[allfearstofallto]

How easy it would be to escape them

Yandere! Genshin Men x Fem! Reader

Ft: Diluc, Childe, Scaramouche

TW: Yandere Themes, Stalking, Mentions of Punishment

Diluc - Difficulty Level: Very Easy

Do you think he doesn't regret what he's done? That he doesn't stay up all night, fighting internally with what he thinks he should do with you? Taking you was a spur of the moment thing, something that happened without a lot of thought put behind it. He just knew he needed you close. He needed you to be near. He needed you with him.

Because of this you're already able to push him around a fair bit. He gives you almost everything you want except for freedom, pure red eyes practically begging for your forgiveness.

He won't let you go if you just ask, he's not that lenient after all, but if he were to wake up one morning and you were not there, he'd go through so many emotions at one time. The manor would be searched from top to bottom, every nook and cranny searched for you. When you're not found a part of him feels calm, it feels satisfied. He stole you without your permission, so he's happy that you're finally free like you wanted. But there's also a tragic, gripping pain in his chest. You're gone, and he knows that he has no right to ask for you back. If you manage to leave Diluc, you'll probably never see him again.

Childe - Difficulty Level: Medium

His playfulness is simultaneously a ploy and his actual personality, such is the nature of him. He's so easy going most days, so funny and kind that part of you forgets that he's forced you into this. Until he has one of those bad days and you see the true strength and fury of a harbinger.

Even before you were stolen by Childe, you found him rather strange. Maybe it was the lack of light in his eyes, or how he casually talked about fighting and killing like it was nothing. Those should've been red flags, signals to stop talking to him, but his charm was laid on thick and suddenly you were stuck in his home in Snezhnaya.

Do you think you escaped because of your wit or because he let you? You'd never truly know the answer, but you thought it strange that you were able to leave his house without a single maid alerting him, without a single guard chasing you.

That sigh of relief you breathe when you're finally home may be the last one you get. Suddenly you feel so afraid constantly. You chalk it up to paranoia, but you can't stop looking over your shoulder. And then you start seeing traces of him. Fatui foot soldiers and letters with that familiar wax seal on them.

When you eventually see him, smiling at you casually like nothing is wrong, your heart practically shatters. You find yourself asking again, did you truly get away or did he let you? He always mentioned loving the chase.

Scaramouche - Difficulty Level: Very Hard

Good luck getting him to even trust you enough to let you roam the gardens without him. His home is a maze of eyes and watchful gazes, the only person you can rely on is yourself. There isn't really much you can do to get away from him, the house is guarded like a prison and Scaramouche himself is a tough man to get along with.

He loves you, he knows he does, that's what that painful feeling in his chest is, but he can't bring himself to even give you a taste of freedom. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile. Because of that you often spend time sitting next to windows, longingly looking outside at the world you're convinced you'll never see again. Not without him breathing over your shoulder.

Let yourself get away if you dare, you'd better hope your plan is air tight. Scaramouche won't fall for the same tricks twice. Fool him once, shame on him, but fool him twice and you'll learn how truly kind he was being to you before. Hope and pray to whichever Archon you worship that when you get away, he won't find you. But getting away is just the beginning. Staying out of his reach is the hardest. His home isn't the only place where he has eyes everywhere.

[hyperblue]

as much as i enjoy the thought of kon immediately taking on fatherhood and confessing his feelings to tim in timkon clone baby aus, i can't help but think about all the potential for a slowburn that we can have, such as:

— making a deep dive into kon's view of the situation, exploring his clone feeling about himself, exploring his feelings about clark in particular — because their relationship is very interesting and complicated on it's own, and the biggest tragedy of it, in my opinion, is that kon was never clark's responsibility, in fact there was never a single adult person that had to take care of kon because kon initially never belonged to anyone. he's no one's child, no one's son, and us much as we might want to blame clark or, you know, any adult in his life for not taking care of him and protecting him, they had their right not to do it. someone should have had care, but also no one was obligated to. i really hope i make sense, what I'm trying to convey is that you really can't blame anyone for kon being unsupervised for most of his life no matter how much you might want too (aside from lex luther and cadmus itself ofc, but that would be a slightly different conversion); and kon knows that himself, has known that for a while, but the moment he's confronted by his own clone child it adds so much more perspective, and the conflict of once (still) being a child that no one wanted while simultaneously being introduced to a child that you don't have to want but if not you no one else will (tim will, but tim's also a slightly different conversation) would be so interesting and delicious;

— LOTS of awkward co-parenting from two teen-dads who might or might not be head over heels for each other but also not really having time to explore their relationship and their feelings bc they have a whole ass child to raise; not to mention kon's conflicted clone boy feelings and tim's haunting guilt that affect every single interaction of theirs. just imagine the pressure, the slowburn, the ust. imagine them knowing about each other feelings, but also knowing that it's not the right time — there might never be the right time anymore, not after what tim has done. imagine them negotiating visiting hours and weekends like they're some divorced couple. imagine them swinging their child between them on a walk home, imagine kon showing up early at tim's penthouse with fresh ingredients from the farm to make healthy breakfast, imagine tim dosing off on kon's shoulder while watching old disney movies with their kid right there on the carpet in front of a tv; playing house, but knowing damn well that they are not together. that they might never be together;

— clone baby getting used to this strange family dynamic that they have — knowing that kon is their other dad, but never ever calling him that (they have no memory of calling him pa! when they were much younger, no memory of kon crying and kissing their forehead right after; no memory of tim becoming really pale and then gently teaching them that kon is not pa, or papa, or dad, he is just kon, only even just kon); knowing that daddy loves kon, but for some reason that's something that they never talk about, and the kid is too afraid to ask because he knows that he'll hurt his dad if he does. fighting with tim and then crying because they want their other dad, but tim tells not to bother kon, as if kon might secretly hate them, and then hearing tim and kon having a fight from upstairs, stop acting like I'm going to flee any second, it's been literal years, when are you going to believe me when i say that i LOVE our child;

— tim trying his best to be a good parent and co-parent but still screwing up anyways because he's too trapped in his own guilt and insecurities; accidentally hurting both kon and their child by not wanting to hurt them, trying to distance them from each other when things are starting to get good, because they are not supposed to be good, tim does not deserve things to be good. shying away from kon's most innocent touches, refusing his child traditional summer vacation on kent's farm because he can feel his baby starting to prefer kon over him, and that's something that he doesn't know what to do with, all he knows is that he can't lose his baby not even to the love of his life. fighting with kon a lot, going they are MINE, stop pretending that you want them or care for them just to take them away from me, they are the only thing in the world that i love more than you;

— and then finally sorting things out after years, confessing their feelings, talking about every single insecurity that they both had about this situation; holding hands across kitchen table after crying their eyes out, and deciding to try it. restoring the friendship they almost lost somewhere along the way while trying to be a good parents for their baby — exchanging text that are not just visiting hours negotiations, awkwardly flirting like they are teenagers again, brushing each other shoulders and hands and sitting a little too close on a couch; getting to go on dates, getting to feel giddy and young about each other again, falling in bed together and getting to wake up from a sound of their kid destroying the kitchen, our child is hungry by the way, we should probably start getting out of bed. our child? yeah. our child.

idk man i just love the potential and complexity of it all. so many things to do with au, it really is an endless sandbox to play in

[lukes-curls]

finished rooney’s intermezzo this morning. WOW. i adore the way she wrote it (i said what i said) idc if it’s controversial. the experimental prose, short sentence, lack of punctuation marks appeals to the brainrot part of my brain that reads and consumes in this hungry, relentless way. i have always been a rather insatiable, quick reader but i devoured this novel like i had been starving before. pages consumed with bad table manners— chewing with my mouth open, licking my fingers afterwards.

and oh my god the people in this piece. as the certified little sister (acknowledge your privilege, little girl!) i felt so much reading this. the strange disappointment that goes unsaid. the strange love that goes unsaid. knowing your siblings did the best they could when ur parents inevitably grow tired of being a parent and perhaps marriage breaks down or someone simply checks out (parenting is hard) so your siblings (who probably resent you a bit in theory for being little) in all their three/ten/thirteen (true story) years more on this earth take to protecting you. that felt rather self-insert oops. knowing said effort and love and care does not mean they are unflawed (yes, i’m talking about peter telling ivan he had the pup sorted when he did not in fact have the pup sorted and so it fell into ivan’s lap thank god and he handled it out without any acknowledgment or thanks because peter was ‘handling’ it and so he did (it was SO much more than a dog)). i’m also talking about the weird entitlement they feel over you. your achievements are indirectly theirs, too, because without them you would have never picked up chess or gotten good at something. and the strange guilt they feel for abandoning their little sibling in the house they have a new reprieve from. and i pity those who don’t get to experience the sibling dynamic; those who don’t know what it’s like. there’s so much there.

also can we talk about the women in this book? i love margaret and i love annie and i love sylvia and i love naomi and i adore them all together though i will admit that there were times i grew incredibly frustrated to the point my cheeks got hot because they really need to simply stand up sometimes. like STAND UP! but that’s to be expected. also it did take me a while to get used to them being perceived by men; their limits assumed, their softness assumed, their vulnerability assumed (which is flawlessly executed by sally, oh my goodness). i love the unconventionality imposed by naomi and sylvia loving one man. i love how much peter loves women. everytime i felt emotionally about an event in the book (i had to walk away when peter hadn’t exactly told his girlfriends what was going on and he was cheating on them (call a shovel a shovel) until it was like overtly acknowledged and established by them all that it was a poly situation happening but this also rubbed me the wrong way a bit because why does peter need to have his sexual desires met (i’m talking about being bossy with naomi and sweet with sylvia) and his emotional or domestic desires met simultaneously like this man really got the best of both worlds and this made me upset cause he’s literally a man but i think this is my own issues. to circle back to my point— i would have these big feelings about what should be happening and then something would occur and i would see more of what was really going on and it suddenly mattered less that peter was getting the best of both worlds because sylvia and naomi understood perfectly well what was going on. idk i guess what i mean is i felt this initial impulse to feel a certain way which was soon corrected by me experiencing the narrative, peeling back that layer and that’s a lot like life i guess. that is what sally is so good at doing. writing something that is so much like life.

and the way sally structurally screams ‘art is just a pastiche of everything an artist loves’ or whatever they say (let’s sort it out on the remix) by putting the direct excerpts she stole (endearingly) at the end— bits and pieces even the smartest kid couldn’t pick apart with absolute certainty without some sort of external help. the fact these external pieces blend so seamlessly just proves her point. and i want to mention the length. the stream of consciousness. the hypocrisy. emphasis on catholic guilt. there is so much packed into this little novel. it is so much more than a silly little read though even if that is the idea you walk away with then you’re also so right?

anyways these are my initial silly thoughts, there are lots more but this is a long ass post. pls talk to me about it. i can’t wait to check the tag without fearing i am spoiling anything 🍽️

[gideonnavtheninth]

FINALLY name time! Abigail name time!!!!

Once again, Pent and Quinn are 5 in Greek and Latin respectively, which we all know is the pattern. NOW, first names are fun! Abigail, meaning-wise is biblical. It shows up a couple times, as the name of the wife of Nabal and one of David's wives, and as the name of David's sister. Jewish Women's Archive describes Abigail (Nabal's wife) in this way

Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel, is the only woman in the Hebrew Bible who is described as both intelligent and beautiful ... She is “of good sense and beautiful in looks,” while he is “hard and evil in his deeds” ... Alternatively, according to the written text he is just “like his heart” Later, the narrative recounts that “his heart died within him and he became like stone". Mean and inhospitable, he meets his fate, measure-for-measure, in the petrification of his hard heart. It accounts for Abigail’s motivation: why she intervenes secretly to provide a feast for David and his men without consulting her husband. In a subtle twist, she simultaneously saves her household and allies herself with David, eventually in matrimony when she is fortuitously widowed.

The things that feel noteworthy here are A. Abigail being very defined by having a husband (But, in this case, her husband sucks) B. Several mentions of the heart, which... they are the heart of the emperor! and C. She's widowed! Continuing down her story, we see some more stuff that feels of note

She further portends that God will establish a “sure house” for David, foreshadowing Nathan’s prophecy of an everlasting dynasty for the king. She ends her speech with a hint: “when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your handmaid”. David then praises her good sense and expresses gratitude that she restrained him from bloodshed, uttering an oath to counter the prior violent one

Every time I see the word "house" alarm bells start ringing. Anyway, an everlasting dynasty feels particularly familiar here. I mean, Abigail doesn't have all that much to do with Jod, but it still feels relevant to be drawing connections when I see them.

Based on her prescience, the Talmud identifies Abigail as one of the seven female prophets in the Hebrew Bible. More likely, she is keenly perceptive about the shifting tides of history.

Not anything extraordinary here, but the concept of Abigail being "keenly perceptive about the shifting tides of history" feels pretty accurate to our Abigail!

When Abigail returns home, she finds her husband drunk from feasting “like a king” and waits until the morning to tell him what she has done. His heart then strangely turns to stone and he dies ten days later, struck by “the Lord”. David, hearing that she has been widowed, sends for her. She obsequiously prostrates herself, calling David “lord” and herself “maidservant prepared to wash [his] servants’ feet”; though, ironically, she follows the messenger with five maids on donkeys in tow. She then becomes his wife

Feels like she's very defined by being people's wives. If anything, I feel like Magnus is the wife guy in TLT. But, again, we're seeing a whole lot of heart talk, which feels like it has to mean something. The whole point of this reread is rereading so I'm certain I'm missing things, but I never got the impression Abigail was all that zealous in her religion. I will say, I will be keeping an eye out for anything that really makes Abigail feel particularly Jod-sympathizing. In GTN, we don't really blink at people supporting the emperor outside of times where it really stands out, like the Eighth, but I do wanna watch out for Abigail mentioning the emperor at all. Just something to keep in mind.

Good old' Wikipedia describes her name as derived from the Hebrew word ab, "father", and the Hebrew root g-y-l, "to rejoice," Meaning it probably means "father's joy". Again, not all that sure how this relates to Abigail the character, but still gotta cover my bases.

Abigail's self-styling as a handmaid led to Abigail being a traditional term for a waiting-woman, for example as the waiting gentlewoman in Beaumont and Fletcher's The Scornful Lady, published in 1616

The aesthetic makes sense to me. Abigail is very gentlewoman in my eyes.

Nooo Magnus don't get your own post. Nooo don't make the fifth house like 4 different posts nooo Magnus

[serpentface]

How (if he does) does Brakul reconcile his want for a relationship with Hibrides and his kids with the knowledge of the child he abandoned? Does this cause any conflict in him?

It's kind of something he feels immense guilt about and is continually haunted by, but he's also not willing to take like full self-accountability (much less any Direct accountability, which in his very, very slight defense is next to impossible at this point). He kind of just uselessly wallows in it like 'Oh I feel horrible that's the worst thing I've ever done but also it's not my fault, I wasn't happy, I deserve to be happy, but I'm so guilty I wish I never had that kid so I didn't have to abandon him, but I had to do it, but I shouldn't have, but-" etc etc

His go-to self justification is that his ex wife/child are probably better off with his younger brother (who he's (correctly) assuming Sirudan would have remarried). Brakul wasn't treated Badly by his clan by any means but was definitely regarded as lazy and difficult, not particularly talented in any capacity, and with a tendency to cause drama. His little brother was better liked, well behaved, and better husband material. He can partly convince himself that this was really for the best.

The main way he kind of reconciles it is by treating his new circumstances as a second chance. It's simultaneously something that Feels like an opportunity to do it right this time, with people he loves and wants to be with, while also impossible to do so. He loves Hibrides like he thinks he should love a wife, but she isn't his wife. She's Janeys' wife. That's not going to change without a divorce or Janeys dying, neither of which are ideal circumstances (for Brakul or Janeys at least). The children are his, but they're claimed as Janeys' and being definitively outed (or suspected beyond doubt) as bastards would be disastrous for everyone involved, Brakul cannot father them. It's kind of like everything he could possibly want is Right There and yet impossible to Have (which in turn triggers more guilt wallowing cycles for him).

All this is part of why he's so desperate to make everything work out. He's still convinced on some level that there is SOME way this whole thing can coalesce into being a sort of stable family. Maybe when the kids are old enough to keep it secret he can be their father in private. Maybe he can get Janeys and Hibrides to stop hating each other, and get Hibrides to like him again, and he can be with his life partner AND his beloved quasi-wife AND be a father to his children and all this can stabilize into something strange and unconventional but like, okay.

He does think about his son a lot. The kid would be 14 now, close to coming of age. He's probably starting to learn men's tasks now that he's almost an adult, maybe he's even stolen his first cow or spent his first summer alone up at pasture, but Brakul can't know. He doesn't even know if he's alive or dead. He never even saw the kid start to talk, let alone take his first steps. He doesn't really know what to do with any of this.

(I would suggest reading the wildwoman bride story under the cut in this post with all this in mind. Brakul is projecting about as heavily as humanly possible on the story without outright changing the plot.)

[halfincontextmagic]

Event Story: The Crimson ribbon for Désir | CH10 (end)

KLAUS — For the longest time, I…could never accept that this painter had quit painting.

For such a talented artist to quit painting only because a single model left him….

It left me feeling indignant. What a stupid thing to do, I’d think.

Why was the painter so fixated on that model? How could they have stayed together? I couldn’t think of anything else.

I spent my time like that, for years, for decades, until I found this painting in that antique shop.

Mr. Klaus contemplated the canvas in his hands, and gently brushed the surface from the tips of his fingers.

KLAUS — The moment I found the masterpiece that was covered in white paint, I felt like my chest had gotten crushed…. And simultaneously, the idea of this exhibition fell onto me.

That I could mix this painting among other exhibition items, talk about the painter and the model’s life, and hear the opinion of a third-party from the guests….¹⁶

I felt like I could find…the answer I was seeking.

SNOW — Hohoho. How Western to end up organizing a whole exhibition while you were pondering over your troubles.

BRADLEY — That’s a weirdo’s idea.

KLAUS — A weirdo, you say…. Haha, it is just as you say.

I myself think it’s as if I’d spent all those days possessed by something.

Since, the closer the exhibition opening date grew…, I’d started having dreams about the painter and the model, the two in the atelier, happy together.

Mr. Klaus looked so loving, so overjoyed as he said that, that it felt painful.

Rustica gently stared into the distance, and quietly closed his eyes.

RUSTICA — How could those two have stayed together….

Rustica muttered, as if he were deeply reflecting upon it.

Slowly opening his eyelids, Rustica met eyes with Klaus.

RUSTICA — It is possible to imagine the answer to that question, but no way to confirm it.

The person in question—the painter—has already passed away.

Time doesn’t go back. We can only exchange words during the time we’re alive.

No matter how much we’d like to meet that person.

KLAUS — ………….

Yes—you’re right. It’s really…as you said.

Mr. Klaus’ brows bent into an upward frown, and, looking full of sorrow, he let out a strained laugh.

Those features, for an instant, overlapped with the painting’s.

It would make one think that if the young man in the painting aged….

AKIRA — (…Could it be…)

I flipped and covered my mouth with the palm of my hand.

Seemingly having noticed my behavior, Shylock discreetly brought his index finger to his lips.

It was as if he were telling me to wrap a ribbon around the secret I’d just discovered.

SHYLOCK — …Well then, everyone.

We’ve safely settled the strange phenomenon and purified the painting.

We should excuse ourselves soon.

When we stepped outside, it was snowing in the City of Wealth.

Fluttering down, the fleeting, gentle snow looked as though it could disappear at any given moment.

SHINO — So it did start snowing in the end.

SHYLOCK — Today was a particularly cold day for Western Country, after all.

RUSTICA — My, now must be the right time for the hot cocoa we bought earlier.

CHLOE — Ah. Right, a lot happened and we did end up missing out on drinking it.

SNOW — I’ll take out what was put away with magic earlier and warm it up.

« Noscomnia »

MITILE — Waah, it’s so warm!

With Snow’s spell, cups filled with hot cocoa appear between everyone’s hands.

While feeling my fingers get gradually warmer, I watched the falling snow.

What came to mind was the winter forest we were until moments ago.

AKIRA — I hope the exhibition tomorrow onward will go well too….

Standing next to me, he didn’t let the muttering that fell out of my mouth go unheard.

BRADLEY — What’s up. You liked it that much?

AKIRA — Ah… How do I say it…. I’m kind of concerned about Mr. Klaus.

Mr. Klaus had been worrying over the relationship between the painter and the model, right?

I mean, to the point of dreaming about it.

That’s why I think it’d be nice if, during this exhibition, he meets and talks to a lot of guests, and could ease some of his worries by doing so.

BRADLEY — Hah. You really are a softie.

Even without your concern, I’m pretty sure guy already got freed from those strange dreams.

AKIRA — Huh, what do you mean?

BRADLEY — Most likely, the thing causing the dreams Klaus was having was something like the painter’s feelings clinging to the painting.¹⁷

Originally, when the model was gone, by that point the painter’s dream was supposed to be over but….

The painter couldn’t help but want to imagine the continuation of the dream he woke up from.

And that lingering attachment got influenced by the Calamity’s power and probably affected Klaus in turn.

Well, he finally found him. I bet he’d want to show him a dream or two.

AKIRA — You mean…. Then Mr. Klaus really is….

BRADLEY — That’s what it means, yeah.

Bradley sent a meaningful look in the direction of the hall we were in earlier.

Surely, with that same secret in mind.

BRADLEY — …Well, to the model who was forced to see the continuation of that dream, it was probably hell of a nightmare though.

As he sighed and shrugged, Bradley gazed up to the sky.

He contemplates the snow fluttering down in a milder way than in the North in the distance.

When I quietly brought my hot cocoa to my lips, I could see Shino’s silhouette, walking at the front of our group.

AKIRA — (Something like that suddenly happened today but…)

(We were originally supposed to find something that Heath wants.)

(…I wonder if…Shino is alright.)

I was just thinking about calling out to him but Heathcliff was one step ahead of me, and I saw him lining up next to Shino.

He carried a bit of hesitation with him. But he had to ask, no matter what.

That was the kind of expression he was making.

HEATHCLIFF — …Shino. Tell me….

SHINO — What is it?

HEATHCLIFF — ………….

Why did you…. Bring back my original self?

SHINO — ………….

…That’s….

Because I thought that if you were me….

You would’ve done just that.

On his repeatedly blinking eyelids, Heathcliff’s long lashes fluttered.

HEATHCLIFF — What’s with that.

He laughed. His white breath dissipated into the wintry sky.

SHINO — I also have something I want to ask.

HEATHCLIFF — Yes?

SHINO — …Heathcliff Blanchett.

I still want to offer achievements and glory to you.

Even if it’s something you do not wish for.

HEATHCLIFF — ………….

SHINO — But….

There’s also a part of me, that is here, that wants to give you what you truly want from the bottom of your heart.

So, please tell me.

If the time comes when you find something that you truly want, don’t hide it from me.

Red eyes were staring right into Heathcliff.

Firmly accepting that, Heathcliff narrowed his blue eyes.

HEATHCLIFF — I got it. But….

Shino, you already gave me that.

You already gave me the thing I want the most.

The northern wind swayed the crimson cloak Shino was dressed in.

That red isn’t the color of blood, not by any means.

The vivid color is wrapping itself around Shino’s unscathed body.

SHINO — ?

Did I…give you, something?

Shino tilted his head in confusion.

HEATHCLIFF — Ahaha. That’s a secret.

This time, Shino was the one to blink a few times.

Because, right in front of him, Heathcliff’s smiling face looked incredibly happy.

It was just as if he’d just received the best present.

SHINO — What’s up with that.

So, Shino laughed too.

Smiling like he’d finally found the treasure he’d been searching for.

TL/n: thank you for reading until the end, i'm so happy i could share this experience with more people 🥹 please spread hisushino love with everybody you know<3

for those who have read 2023's christmas event that's heath-centric, you might notice a connection between it and this one: heath says in this chapter that shino already gave him what he truly wanted from the bottom of his heart, and the preceding year's christmas event was implying that shino filled the emptiness inside heath's heart AND ALL OF THIS IMPLYING THAT WHAT HEATH WANTED FROM THE BOTTOM OF HIS HEART WAS SHINO HIMSELF!? i cant do this anymoee thehe sl cute zhshdzgfhfhs (ok granpa let's get you to bed @ myself)

¹⁶ The original text uses the word 「画家とモデルの半生」 (ʼhanʼ for ʼhalfʼ, ʼseiʼ of ʼlifeʼ) that I translated to “the painter and model's life” as I wasn't sure how to make it sound not weird in eng, but in og, Klaus says 'half of their lives' pretty much, spent together and doomed yaoi goose-chasing

¹⁷ 「思念」 (shinen), meaning ʼthe thoughts coming from the heartʼ. It's kind of tricky to translate, because it's doesn't stop at thoughtsʼ, but isn't exactly feelingsʼ, but a secret third in-between and eng is not my native language lmao

←CH9

↞CH1

✧INDEX✧

[cryptidsofwakemoor]

Chapter 12 - Boopin' Buttons

Having to return to work soon, Tikki wants to make sure her new roommate can look after himself while she's away. She also teaches him about video games, for enrichment!

~*~

Spooky

It took... A little bit longer than it probably should have, but thankfully Matchstick figured out quickly that he probably shouldn't be attempting to put everything Tikki handed to him on at the same time. When the bathroom door opened again, he shuffled back out wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, both of which were a simultaneous and strange combination of being both very loose on his frame and too short for him as well. The shirt showed about an inch of midriff and the sweatpants stopped partway down his shins, making them look more like a comfy pair of somewhat long capris. None of that really seemed to bother him, though, so much as how the shirt seemed to keep catching on his back... at least he wasn't wearing anything tight enough to pull on it.

Mystic

Tikki turns around- and has to fight a smile for a moment.

“Oh- wow yeah those don’t fit you,” she says, her ear fins falling in defeat, despite the fact she was smiling. “Still, it’s something. It’s a good thing you’re probably not going outside for a while, snow or otherwise. I can grab you some outfits after work tomorrow.”

Work?

“Oh, right,” Tikki says, snapping her fingers in realization. “I forgot to mention- I have to go back to my work shifts tomorrow morning, so you’ll be by yourself in the house. Do you know how to use a phone of any kind? Because if not, I can teach you in case of an emergency. And I might need to prepare some meals for you in advance, since we haven’t gotten around to cooking lessons yet.”

Spooky

Don't fit? But... He was able to wear them. And it did feel more comfortable than the shorts he escaped with, even if he wasn't as used to this.

-Wait, Tikki was going away?? He looked back up at her with an alarmed expression, but then he remembered the times he saw her leave in her blue truck... Was that where she was going? Work?

His initial alarm gave way to uncertainty, and he shook his head 'no' when asked if he knew how to use a phone, walking back over to her from down the hallway. He was now hugging the bundle of clothes underneath one of his arms, since he'd left his pillow on the couch.

Mystic

Tikki nods, pursing her lips.

“Yeah, I figured not. I’ll show you how, in case you need me for anything important.”

She gives him another shoulder pat upon seeing the sudden fear in his eyes.

“Believe me, I’d much rather stay home and make sure you’re okay and adjusting. But if I don’t keep going to my work shifts, I won’t make any money, and then we can’t keep the place.” Tikki sighs. “I was able to get out of it for a couple days because of my curse flare-up, which my boss thinks is a medical condition. But normally, I work five days out of the seven day week, for eight hours per day. You’re going to be spending a lot of time by yourself during the day- but don’t worry, I’m not going to force you to sit bored and do nothing all day. You’ll have things to entertain yourself.”

Spooky

That sounded like a lot of time... But money seemed pretty important. He'd been reminded plenty of times that a lot of it had been spent on him, usually whenever he misbehaved. Or how much he was going to make for them whenever he was finally forced to follow instructions. It still felt like a nebulous concept, tied directly to how 'good' he was being somehow, so to hear it talked about in a way that had nothing to do with his behavior was strange. Guess he really didn't understand it after all...

Still, it seemed like it was needed, or else the house would be taken away? That was a scary thought. What would be big enough to take away a whole building...?

When she came to the end of her explanation, he tilted his head. Things to entertain himself? Like rocks and sticks? It was kinda fun to see how far he could throw stuff... Or holding a twig or a stick in his hand and slowly burning it to watch it crumble. He knew it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try that with anything in here, though it would be a lie to say he wasn't curious about how a wooden chair would crumble... That was way bigger than a stick.

Well... She did have books, too. He looked over at the bookshelf, though his face crinkled somewhat as he remembered the one he'd tried to read. There really wasn't anything great about that ‘gatsby’ at all, shit was just confusing...

Mystic

Tikki follows his gaze to the books, and snickers.

“Oh, you don’t have to read if you don’t want to, though that’s certainly an option.”

She moves toward the big black screen, opens the cabinets underneath it, and rifles around for what appears to be a set of blocky plastic boxes. They’re attached to cables that go to the back of the screen.

“You could draw- I have plenty of paper and drawing stuff- watch television, or play with these video game consoles.”

Spooky

Going off his expressions, he seemed to recognize what drawing was easily enough, though he had no idea what the electronics were. He didn't pay the monitor much mind, since he already had seen those before and knew it was a screen, albeit one that wasn't powered on at the moment... But what were these things down beneath it? They had a lot of shiny buttons, and unable to curb his curiosity, he reached around Tikki started poking at them just to see what they did.

Mystic

"It's not on yet," Tikki chuckles, not doing anything to dissuade him from poking and prodding at the controllers or console. "You will use those to control the game, though, so you're on the right track."

She grabs a small remote from a table by the couch. He'd seen a few of those before, when scientists would click their little buttons to turn screens on or off, or alter things on the screens themselves like magic.

She pushes a button, and the television screen clicks on, producing light and noise he'd never witnessed in his life! This was wildly different from how the screens looked in the lab. This big screen had moving pictures of people, plants, animals, and he could barely understand any of it.

"Oops, not on the video game port," Tikki says, clicking another button. "Forgot I had it on the news."

The screen clicks to a black background with green text in one corner, which reads 'VGA'. Tikki kneels down to push a button on top of one of the consoles, which lights up, and the screen follows shortly after. It goes from showing nothing but black to a vibrant, smooth display of some sort of menu. It read 'Console Input- Super Nintendo', and had an empty window in the center.

"This is the console screen. The box I just turned on is the console that you load games into the port," Tikki explains, indicating the slot where the cartridge was to go, before pointing to the controller he was poking. "And that's the controller! You push the buttons on it to move around and select stuff. And this-"

Tikki has a big smile as she reaches into the cabinet again, and pulls out a box full of small grey cartridges and plastic boxes with discs in them.

"-is my game collection. See any you like?"

Spooky

The sudden visuals and noise coming from the big screen as it came to life gave him quite a start, and he immediately backed up and ducked behind the couch. It all vanished before he thought to flee the room, though, and he was left staring dumbstruck at a blank screen again with three letters in the corner. What just happened...?

Watching her pull out the box, he glanced nervously at the screen like he was half expecting it to raise its voice at him again, then back at what she was holding. When it remained as it was, though, he ended up approaching again and peeking into the box. These were games...?

...Well, some of them were kinda gray like rocks. He reached in and picked one up at random, immediately finding it wasn't as heavy as a rock either. Also, it had a picture on it... Some kinda round pink thing? Didn't look like any animal he'd ever seen, and he tilted his head a little and squinted at it as he tried to make sense of it.

Mystic

“Ooooo, Kirby! A fine choice!” Tikki grins, reaching over and taking the cartridge from his hand. Kneeling down, she slots the cartridge into the port on top of the console.

The window on the screen fills with a colorful image of the same pink orb, which had a big cartoony mouth and tiny eyes, surrounded by stars and puffy clouds. Tikki presses a button on the controller, and the screen makes a happy ‘brring!’ sound, before going black again.

When it loads up again, big bubbly text says ‘Kirby Super Star’, with the little pink dude wearing a colorful hat and surrounded by more stars. It says ‘Press Start’ in flashing letters.

“The game is in the cartridge, which the console loads up on the screen,” Tikki says, watching as the screen loads up a demo level, showing the little pink character running around, jumping and- floating? It could float, apparently! And then it starts- eating things? Upon eating another thing that was walking around, the pink thing gains a hat and a sword, which it uses to start smacking other things.

Spooky

He gave a little snort as he watched. That... was surprisingly violent, and kinda funny since it looked so cute. This little dude was just walking around eating other little dudes like it was no big deal, and now he had weaponry somehow? He got so wrapped up in watching what was happening in the demo level that he forgot it was supposed to be a game of some kind.

Mystic

He suddenly feels plastic being inserted into his hands.

Oh- Tikki just handed him the controller. She presses a button in the center that says ‘Start’, and the demo level disappears to show a brand new level screen. The pink dude wasn’t moving this time.

“Press buttons on that,” she says with an amused smile on her face.

Spooky

Why wasn't he moving...? He glanced between the screen and controller, before hitting a button, and the pink thing scooted forward just a little before stopping again.

...Wait. He poked at another button on the other side of the plastic thing, and sure enough the pink guy moved again, jumping this time. His eyes went wide as he realized what was going on- he was making the guy move! With the buttons!!

Needless to say he started pressing more of them to see what they did, which quickly turned into button mashing to see what would happen if he hit multiple buttons at once. Hah! Pink dude looked super confused- whoa wait he's flying! What- how did he do that?? He looked down at the buttons trying to figure out which one did the flying thing.

Mystic

Tikki snorts a laugh.

"Good job, you're figuring it out already! Welp, have fun saving the planet of Popstar."

And with that, she turns on her heel and heads off to her room, grinning the whole way. She had to go get changed out of her pajamas, and start making a plan for meals for the week.

Spooky

He gave a small nod in response, but was otherwise completely absorbed in playing, his eyes never leaving the screen.

After figuring out the movement well enough, he started to explore the level, mostly inhaling enemies and spitting them back out until by sheer accident he figured out how to swallow them and get abilities from them. He caught on quick and was feeling pretty confident, until suddenly a huge tree started attacking him! He panicked because he couldn't eat it, and the tree having hollow, empty holes for a face was pretty unnerving too. Swallowing the apples didn't seem to do anything either, and he died before he could figure out what to do.

Mystic

Tikki lets him continue to enjoy the game- even the parts that would have been frustrating, like losing all of his lives and restarting from scratch. All that mattered to her was that it kept him engaged for a bit. A good sign that he wouldn't be bored to tears while she was gone during her workdays. It was also very encouraging in terms of his cognitive development. If he could piece together how to play a video game, his reasoning skills and learning capability were pretty good! His practical application of language and math was a bit behind- maybe at some point, they could move into actual educational lessons...?

Augh- there was the older sister instinct kicking in, again. She missed her siblings in the ocean. This kid wasn't family; she was helping him because he was a lost soul who was taken advantage of and needed help, and no kid deserved to be on their own.

...it was very endearing, though, watching him laugh whenever he made Kirby dance in confusion.

A few hours later, and Tikki- now in her day clothes- was in the process of making sandwiches.

"Any luck beating Dedede yet?" she pipes from the kitchen.

Spooky

Almost as if on cue, there was a small "huh?" as he took his eyes off the game for a moment, followed by Dedede's theme song getting cut off by the little death jingle that played. He made a frustrated noise, and the fight music started over.

Funny, for how much timidity this kid showed when confronted with unfamiliar stuff, he could also be pretty stubborn. He kept dying, but instead of getting upset to the point of giving up, he just tried again. That was encouraging, at least!

Mystic

Tikki giggled.

“Oops, sorry.” She loads up several sandwiches onto a plate for him, and one on another for herself. “Didn’t mean to throw off your groove. Maybe next attempt, you take a break for lunch? Can’t play games well on an empty stomach.”

Spooky

It took a moment of confused button mashing for him to remember how to pause, but the presence of food reminded him he was hungry- Hammer guy could wait.

So excited was he to get to his lunch, he nearly tripped over the couch when hurrying over.

Mystic

"Whoa, don't fall over!" Tikki says with a gasp that turned into a breathless laugh. "The sandwiches aren't going anywhere, and I don't want you to hurt yourself."

She hands him his plate. This time, it doesn't have any utensils on it.

"I figured if nothing else, you might be able to learn how to make a sandwich for the times I'm gone," Tikki says, taking her own plate to the actual dining table for once. "It's very easy- you just layer food between bread, and bam, sandwich. I don't know what you like, though, so I made several kinds."

Spooky

He scarfed them all down in a matter of bites, licking the crumbs from his face with a big grin. He apparently enjoyed all of them, which was good- he wasn't picky at all. Not surprising, considering the kind of stuff he'd subsisted on before... But at the very least, it would make keeping him fed on a budget a lot easier.

"Put stuff in bread," he rasped, trying to see if he got her instructions right. Seemed easy enough, as long as he knew where to find the stuff he needed. From what he could tell all the food came from the room with the counters though, so shouldn't be too hard to find something to put in some bread.

Mystic

"...I don't know why I continue to be concerned for your diet," Tikki says, munching her own sandwich with a smirk and a shake of her head. "You haven't turned down a single thing I've offered yet."

She eats in comfortable silence for a moment.

"So- how are you feeling today?" she asks, curious. "I'm sure these past few days have been kinda... overwhelming, for you."

Spooky

He stopped licking the remaining crumbs from his plate and pondered her question, nodding a little. It had been a lot to take in... It felt almost like too much at times. But confusion aside, there hadn't been anything bad that had happened to him since he'd been in this house. There was a little nervousness that came with being in a building at first, but... He hadn't been forced to stay in one room, and he was allowed a surprising amount of freedoms, to the point where he wasn’t even sure what to do with them all. She'd even given him the option to leave if he wanted to.

A few days ago he'd never thought he'd be in a house, cleaned up, and wearing clothes. It was kind of surreal. Still... it was nice.

"Better," he said after a few moments, having found a word for it. He felt better.

Mystic

Tikki offers him another smile, taking another bite of her sandwich and swallowing before she continues.

"That's the best I could hope for, I suppose," she said, keeping her attention on her plate.

...

"...Sorry, I'm not used to having company for this long," Tikki says, feeling awkward as she avoids eye contact, scratching behind her neck with one hand. "I didn't really... let myself have any, for a long time. For obvious reasons."

Spooky

Understandable, though it still sucked. Tikki was nice, even when she was the silver beast... But people got scared easily.

"...S' ok."

He wasn't exactly used to it either. He'd been told plenty of times that there wouldn’t be anybody nice on the outside, that he was dangerous and they'd want him destroyed. And as shitty as that was, he'd kinda started to think they were right for a while, there. It... didn't really occur to him that there would be anyone else like him out here, that'd be able to relate at least a little bit. Sure, she could blend in enough to go to town, but her transformations still clearly limited her in a lot of ways...

And the worst part was, he couldn't really say any of this shit to her because his throat didn't wanna fuckin' work.

"Wwish m'fuggn... voice wasn' broke," he grumbled, frustration evident as he frowned down at himself.

Finally had someone to talk to after who knows how long, and he couldn't fuckin' do it. Not for more than a few seconds at a time, at least not without feeling like he was gonna cough up a lung.

Mystic

Tikki gives a small start, before turning her head to give him a wry smirk.

“Aha, got a sailor mouth on you I see,” she snickers. “Good, I was worried about how much I’d have to censor myself around you. I hope you put those swears to good use against the assholes that ‘worked’-” she lifts her hands to do air quotes “- on you before. God knows they deserve so much worse. And don’t worry about your throat- just take it easy, drink more hot drinks, and it’ll heal up real fast.”

She didn’t want to think on it for too long. If she let herself get pissed off, the beast might come out.

Tikki finished the sandwich, and stood from her chair, stretching her back with a pop of vertebrae.

“Okay, now that you’re over here and fed, maybe I could help you learn how to wash dishes? I did some thinking, and laundry is a bit more complex, so for now we’ll start with easy stuff. You’ll need to be able to do your own dishes while I’m gone, or we won’t have clean plates and cups to eat and drink from.”

Spooky

Despite any frustration about himself, he clearly was trying to force an encroaching smile back down at hearing her call those Aria scientists 'assholes' after she'd spent this whole time not cursing around him. Awp, there was the telltale sharp exhale of a suppressed chuckle, too.

He nodded. They definitely deserved worse. Especially that lying fuck, Rainer.

The dishwashing suggestion was a welcome distraction before his thoughts could spiral into something more violent about what he wished he could do to them, and he nodded quickly, getting up. While he didn't have a beast form to worry about, he did have to consciously loosen his grip on the plate in his hand, feeling like it was gonna break into pieces if he didn't.

He sighed as he followed Tikki to the kitchen. Why did everything have to be so damn fragile...?

Mystic

Tikki spends a good amount of time teaching him how to clean the dishes. Trepidation naturally followed the turning on of the kitchen sink, but then she showed him the water flow was controlled by a pair of handles, and could be hot or cold just like the bath. Again, he had total control over the water flow, and it was destined for the drain, nowhere else in the room. She showed him how to get soap, and how to scrub the plates and cups before rinsing them, and where to put them on the rack to dry.

It took a few tries to get down, but Tikki quickly figured out he was a visual learner, and demonstration worked wonders on getting the instructions across. She remained patient the whole time, even when he accidentally broke a plate. She just scooped it up the shards in a towel and threw them in the trash, joking that ‘we don’t need a stabbing weapon today, but something to keep in mind if the dinner is a little too raw’. Turns out the task of washing dishes was indeed relatively simple to figure out.

“Alright, that’s the last of them,” Tikki says, wiping her hands on a towel. She gives him a smile. “Thanks for helping, Sticks. If you wanna get back to your game now, you can go ahead- I’ll make another mug of cider for your throat.”

Spooky

Even though it was a little frustrating at first, especially when his first attempt to scrub a plate led to him applying too much pressure and breaking it down the middle, he powered through it. He still didn't really like putting his hands in water, but at least it wasn't enough to cause a panic. On the bright side, he figured out how to clean without breaking stuff pretty fast after that first attempt, and... Maybe it was learning a new skill, or the repetitive motions of gently scrubbing dishes helping him get his mind off things, but as he carefully put the last mug on the rack and stood back from the sink, he did feel at least a little better.

Toweling off his hands, though, he noticed the skin on his hands looked kind of weird and dull afterwards, returning to their normal sheen about halfway up his forearms, the transition definitely more noticeable than when he'd gotten out of the bath. Uhh, was that supposed to happen...?

Well, it... didn't hurt or anything from what he could tell, so after a brief moment of inspecting his hands, he shrugged it off and went back over to the couch to continue the match against hammer guy.

Mystic

Tikki didn’t comment on it, but she had spied the thin streams of dark… something… trailing off of his arms into the sink. It had the shiny quality of an after-rain oil slick, before it got sucked down the drain with the rest of the dishwater. The fact that he acquired an almost mitten-like pattern to his hands once he dried off was quite noticeable, and surprising. What was that about? Huh.

Deciding it wasn’t an issue for now, Tikki resolved to keep mental tabs on it, but leave him be. He had enough decompressing on his plate to manage for now.

Tikki lets him spend the rest of the day chilling out, enjoying the game console. In the meantime, she cleaned up the bathroom, having finally seen the mess he’d left it in after the bath. It wasn’t horribly dirty, but the towel had dried into a stiff crust like a cracker, and the splashed water left marks on the tile floor.

The only time Tikki interrupted his fun was for a brief lesson on how to use a phone. The concept of a phone was practically magic to him, even with his basic understanding of common tech he’d seen around the lab. She taught him the standard emergency number- which was very easy, but risked getting attention he might not want- and her own number, which was a lot longer, but would only call her directly. His fingers were a bit larger than the buttons on the landline phone, but in a pinch, he could probably do it.

Evening drew close, then night again. Dinner was a bowl of some kind of yellow soft stuff in golden sauce, which was hot and delicious! And from what he saw- very easy to make, too. Another recipe he might be able to get a handle on?

Spooky

It had proven to be a pretty eventful day, if only because of his introduction to so many new things. Some were easier than others- He'd struggled somewhat with memorizing Tikki's number, so she'd written it down for him on a piece of paper next to the phone just in case. His hands had also regained their normal sheen by dinnertime, so he didn't think any more about it as he shoveled said dinner into his mouth like coal into a furnace.

After that, Tikki helped him make sandwiches for tomorrow, showing him where the bread and the stuff to put in the sandwiches was. She put the sandwich she made in a plastic bag, then put that in a brown bag along with some other stuff. Apparently that would be for her to bring to work to eat later, so he needed to leave that bag alone if he was hungry. The other sandwiches were his lunch for tomorrow, though, so it wasn't like he was gonna go hungry, either.

Finally bedtime rolled around, and as he was climbing back onto the couch with his blankets and pillow, he heard a strange sound coming from the bathroom. The door was open, so when he peeked in, he saw Tikki scrubbing at her teeth with some kind of... plastic stick? Buh? Was she washing her teeth like the dishes??

Mystic

Tikki continued brushing for a few moments longer, before one of her ear fins twitches. It twitches again, this time more noticeably in his direction, and she pauses, feeling eyes on her. When she glances towards the door, she’s treated to her house guest watching her with the most baffled look on his big owl-eyed face.

Tikki quickly leans toward the sink as she snort a laugh, trying not to spit toothpaste. Wiping her mouth with a towel, she chuckles.

“Right. Brushing teeth is a new thing, too. Alright, big guy, get in here.”

She scoots aside to make room at the sink, and digs in the cabinet below for a plastic package containing a second plastic stick of the same design, but red instead of green like hers.

Spooky

Blinking, he shuffled over to the sink. When offered, he took the small stick in his hand. Noticing the bristles at the end of it, it clicked that those were what she'd been scrubbing with on the green stick. What was the weird foamy stuff, though? Was she foaming at the mouth? He'd foamed at the mouth before, but it wasn't a good thing...

He gave her a look of confusion mixed with concern.

Mystic

Tikki takes the end of the brush, but doesn't remove it from his hands- instead, she takes a bottle and squirts a bit of some kind of white-and-green paste onto it, before capping the bottle again.

"That's toothpaste. It'll taste like mint, but it's not edible. It's for cleaning your teeth, and getting excess food and plaque off. Taking care of your teeth is important if you want to keep them- otherwise you'll get painful cavities and need to have the teeth removed, it's not fun at all."

For a second, it sounded like she was spouting total bullshit, but her delivery didn't sound like she was lying. Concerning.

"I don't know if you will need to worry about that too much, considering you uh-" Tikki searches for the right word for a moment "-roast everything you eat. But it might help, and it's better to be safe about it. Just, uh, brush your teeth fast. I don't know if your weird lava mouth will melt the brush."

Tikki picks up her own brush again, and starts cleaning her incredibly sharp set of chompers.

"Wghen yur dun, shpit id oud," she says past the toothbrush, before spitting the foam into the sink. She grabs a cup, pours some water into it, and starts gargling, which also ends up in the sink once she's done.

Spooky

Fast? Uh, okay.

His lips drew back as he bared his teeth- primarily human in shape, save for some very large, sharp canines that had mostly up to this point remained out of view- and scrubbed as fast as he could.

Mint was definitely a new flavor- he wasn't sure if he liked it or not, but it did have an interesting effect of making his tongue feel a little weird, and the air feel colder when he breathed in. He almost stopped there, though Tikki showed him he was supposed to get both sides of his teeth, so he opened his jaws and scrubbed the other side as well.

When he spat out the foam, it landed in the sink with an audible sizzle. Same went for the water he gargled with- seemed that happened with any liquid that remained in his mouth for long enough. Brushing fast was probably a good call...

Mystic

When he's done, Tikki is staring.

"Are you secretly a vampire?" she jokes, snickering. "You got big ol' fangs, Sticks. Planning to hunt some ring seals with those canines? Heheh- I'm one to talk. I have shark teeth."

Then she reaches up, and gives him a brief noogie on the forehead with one fist.

"Proud of you, kid. You're learning really fast, and soon, you'll be able to do all kinds of stuff all on your own!" Tikki tosses her toothbrush into a cup by the sink, which seemed to be its dedicated storage. "I'm gonna turn in for the night. You have a good sleep, whenever you get to it- I'll probably be leaving for work before you wake up tomorrow. Stay indoors, it's supposed to snow a lot, and you don't have any winter gear yet."

Spooky

The fuck's a vampire? Was she teasing him?

He gave her a confused frown, though it gave way to a grin and that quiet, chuffing laugh when she noogied him, and he saw it for the playful gesture it was. Yeah, okay, she was just teasin'.

He nodded, and he turned to put his brush in the cup as well. She didn't need to tell him twice to stay indoors, his natural shadowy camouflage was rendered completely useless in snow, and he wasn't a fan of cold!

Each retiring to their respective rooms, he crawled onto the couch and snuggled back in that corner between the back of the couch and the arm of it. It took a little bit more to get comfortable since his shirt kept pulling at the rock on his back as he tried to get settled. He was half-tempted to take it off, if only it didn't help keep in his body heat...

...Hm. While he wasn't really used to sleeping in any other way than upright, maybe he should try something else until he felt comfortable... He changed his position, trying to lay where he was more draped face-down over the back of the couch. Wasn't perfect... but the couch cushioning was soft and wasn't too different from hugging his pillow as he slept, and he was still sorta upright... And most importantly, it kept pressure off his back. He pulled his blankets up, held Slithers close, and after some time, he somehow managed to actually fall asleep.

~*~

Previous | Chapter Index | Next

New reader? You can start here!

[desktopcalendar]

thinking about the first time that businessman!joel saw commuter!reader bcs i’ve had a lot of red wine and why not. 18+ MDNI !!! unspecified age gap, no use of y/n !!! hope u enjoy <333

The first time you chose to sit in the seat across from him, he didn’t really notice you - although he’s made up for it tenfold with how much he notices now - just a flash of colour in contrast of the dull seats and his own somber work attire.

It only takes a few journeys for him to /start/ noticing, however. I mean how could he not? Your sweet smile and soft voice each time the conductor ( i think?) comes to check your ticket. Joel takes a moment to take you in, to properly digest the view in front of him.

You were young - much younger than him - that was clear. You always wore big over the ear headphones and you always sat in the table seat across from his.

He notices your beaten up bag, he notices how you’re always either tapping away on your laptop, covered in stickers or writing furiously in a well-used notebook - also covered in stickers.

But mostly he notices how much of an effect you have on him. The tightening in his chest when you send a familiar smile towards him as you sit down. How you seep into his thoughts without warning or apology.

He begins to enjoy the endless journeys to and from work - because of you. Even though you don’t talk to him or even spare a glance in his direction that often, just being close to you does something to him.

Businessman!joel who has his own laptop (very plain, not covered in stickers) out each journey but finds himself doing less and less work, instead doing that thing where you look at the person across from you in their reflection in the window.

Businessman!joel who kind of freaks out the first time you come to mind when he masturbates. Just a flash of you, just enough to make him simultaneously feel very strange and very excited, but not so much that he loses his headspace. He continues, of course, and the first time he pictures you he keeps it fairly mild.

Fairly mild.

Just you sat on his lap, moaning sweetly as he leaves decided marks on your neck.

You pressed against the wall as the two of you lose yourselves in each other, kissing like it’s that last time you’ll ever get the chance to touch.

Just you laid out so pretty for him. Whining for more and more and more. Pretty eyes staring up at him as he thrusted into you, revelling in each pretty moan that slipped from your pretty mouth.

The next time Joel sees you in the train he feels guilty about the scenes that his mind conjured the night before. He knows he shouldn’t, but the moment he sees those lips he knows the fantasies will never end.

pls let me know if u want more :)

[moonspirit]

aruani kink headcanons? they're a tad 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 and i wanna know your hc's on how they show it <3

Hello again, freakfont anon!!

[N/SFW]

You know, Aruani's freakiness isn't always obvious. But under that quietness there lie some very, very freaky happenings.

They're a very sexually active couple. Annie's high libido paired with Armin's higher curiosity makes pretty much every night a fucking fantastic trip to the moon.

2. That said, they're quite vanilla in the beginning of their relationship. You know, shyness + inexperience + mutual embarrassment and insecurity.

3. But once they're past all that!!!!

4. Woo!!!!

5. Armin needs only to see a sliver of the skin on Annie's waist to get aroused, wondering how he can use that tiny strip of her body to collect every single breath and reaction out of her, new and old. And anyway, it's not like it's very complicated. Annie's not a very "sleep-clothes" person, most often she's only in a tank top and shorts - very easy to uhhh- slip his hands up her soft thighs and over her softer ass.

6. And Annie? Her on-off button is Armin's voice. All he has to do is croon her name or tell her she looks pretty and she's dropping her panties (if she has the patience for it. Otherwise she's just jumping him. Something something put his newly toned body to good use by making him lift her up and bear the weight... it's sexy. It turns her on.)

7. Oh btw her "off" button doesn't really work.

8. At some point Armin gets really fucking obsessed with giving Annie hickeys in extremely dangerous spots. Like the back of her neck barely hidden by the collars of her shirt. The inside of her arm, right where the sleeves stop when they're rolled up. The top of her chest exactly below the second button of her shirt - she can never undo it for this reason. On her inner thighs - it's a good thing she has stockings on. The sides of her breasts where her bra or the hems of her evening dress brush. And right there, on her cunt, where she continues to feel the pleasurable sting and heat long after. It's exciting you see, finding Annie going about her daily business with a furious blush on her cheeks because no matter what she does - there's a hickey somewhere she can't expose!

9. They like to do it in freaky places too. The trial room of a clothing store. The theatre. In the back of a car parked somewhere dark. The washroom of a restaurant. A libary. An office-room. A deserted street at night. In the forest. At the beach.

10. Well, Annie pretends she doesn't like it, hissing and glaring and scowling but strangely does not protest when Armin's lifting her leg up. He finds it very cute, her anger.

11. They're into some very kinky ideas! Particularly, Annie tends to get really fucking turned on whenever he's in that goddamn illegal suit because! His tie! His tiiieee! He looks so... fuckable in it.

12. So Annie develops a thing for calling Armin "Commander, you shouldn't be shirking your responsibilities like this..." while simultaneously dragging him by his tie into an empty room and closing the door shut.

13. (*whispers* they're having commander kink sex in there)

14. Annie's a scratcher and Armin's a biter/licker. Yeah they carry a lot of bruises!

15. Their dom-sub dynamic is typically Armin being the soft!dom and he REALLY gets off on it! It's the validation and sense of power he gets over being the one to lead Annie through the sex - and Annie lets him because holy fuck does he KNOW how to fuck her!

16. They're always trying very very creative positions. Sometimes they work, sometimes they end up cramping their muscles and burst out laughing. In either case, they have a lot of fun.

17. With Aruani, it's highly sophisticated dirty talk, and Armin's the one doing most of the talking because... well, because boy reaaally knows how to talk to get her whimpering and wet before he's even undressed her.

18. PSYCHOLOGICAL MIND-GAMES SEX, BABY.

19. Sometimes they get really fucking competitive! Annie trying to wipe that cheeky smile off his face by topping and riding him until he's speechless, or Armin in turn trying to capitalize on his assured victory when Annie's legs no longer work. Then Annie getting pissed that she's losing and taking control again, Armin grinning because no matter what, he can sense her struggling, and--

20. So. Only a tad 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂, you say?

[sith-shenanigans]

For the ask game where we send you an NPC, Talos Drellik? (I am totally not jumping up and down at the thought of following up on some tags/replies you left a while ago about Ahene and Talos, not at all)

aaaa it makes me so happy that you liked the tags and were not annoyed by the tags (let me put this under a readmore because it’s going to be extremely long)

Okay! So! Bearing in mind that this is a living work and Hoth is a long way away and I don’t know all of what will change—

There is a very not-entirely-normal dynamic here because it doesn’t progress in intensity so much as progress in what, precisely, the intensity is made up of.

Ahene’s first introduction to Talos is along the lines of “do you really want to talk to that guy? He’s strange,” and this endears him to her immediately. Ahene’s second introduction to Talos is walking into a Reclamation Service camp and not feeling like she’s home.

(She does, in fact, think of the camp outside the Rakatan ruin where she largely grew up as being “home.” She also often thinks of herself as not having a home. Or of the ruin itself being home, and the camp not.)

It is important to know, here, that Ahene’s relationship to her trauma is much more in the “continues to be attracted back to it and to things that remind her of it” category rather than the “avoid all reminders forever on pain of flashbacks” category. She actively enforces these reminders on herself whenever she feels she’s acting too much like she’s free—early on, it’s because she believes she isn’t, even if she and her master are the only ones who know that. Later on, it’s because a lot of her self-image is tied up in not being a “typical Sith,” and in her mind, her ability to treat herself harshly is proof she isn’t one (isn’t Like The Others). She hasn’t forgotten who—or what—she really is.

By and large, she feels safer in unsafe situations. She understands hierarchical relationships better than equal ones. She doesn’t know how to be a person, and she’s terrified she’ll forget how to not be. Obviously, this makes her kind of hate being a Sith, but it also makes her kind of prefer being a Sith—the social dynamics are very, very easy for her, even if she doesn’t feel she deserves the loyalty she gets for it.

Back on Tatooine, she worked with a Reclamation Service crew, and it was the most familiar thing she’s done since Korriban, except that this time she was a Sith to them. Which was simultaneously awful and “hey, the terrible thing that happened to you? You’re going to exist in proximity to it forever but it can’t hurt you anymore.” (Which, to someone who keeps trying to yank on her own trauma to prove it can’t hurt her…) Then everything went terribly wrong and Silthar got very badly injured, and they were depending on her, and she has never been able to avoid feeling responsible under those circumstances.

But there’s still this given hanging over it that the responsibility is unrequited. People will be grateful to her as a Sith that helps and protects them—more grateful than she thinks she deserves for doing what she perceives as bare-minimum decency towards anyone she has power over—but if she had been below them, they wouldn’t have treated her the way she treats those below her. She wouldn’t have been one of their people. She would have been one of their tools.

(The greatest exercise in loyalty, in her mind, is to give it without caring if it’s returned. She still loathes the Empire for not returning it towards its people, almost as much or even more than she hates it for what it did to her planet, because if it took care of them then she wouldn’t have to do it—but that’s because Imperials believe they’re doing something good. She doesn’t. She just takes care of them anyway, because it may not be the right thing to do, but it still makes the galaxy a little more just.)

By the time she gets to Hoth, though, she’s just having an awful time. The inquisitor story in the game only has things get really bad at the start of Act III, and before that you’re kind of fine? But Ahene is not fine. Ahene is also aware that she’s not fine. It might have started subtly, but at this point she’s just trying to sell herself on the idea that she can handle it until Thanaton is dealt with and then she can let the ghosts go and everything will be, if not fine, relatively fixed enough that she can spend about a week curled into a little ball in the corner of her ship until she can function normally again.

But, you know, for the most part, the ways she’s Not Fine aren’t externally visible yet. There was an incident on Quesh where she used the ghosts’ power and kind of halfway lost control and partly life-drained Cineratus, but because she didn’t stop at the station to get anybody inoculated, the only one who actually saw that was Khem. And she didn’t really… explain that. She hasn’t told anyone that she feels hollow all the time and barely gets physically hungry and hears the ghosts talking to her even when she isn’t alone. She can hide it. She can handle it. She doesn’t have enough of an advantage yet. This is enough this will be enough she can still put a stop to it.

So she arrives on Hoth, and she shows up at a Reclamation Service camp expecting for it to feel normal again—enough that it’s easy to slot into the proper role, that she doesn’t have to think about it. She knows the responsibility and the resentment, the fact that something about it always seems safer than anywhere else she’s been.

It doesn’t feel normal. It feels just a little bit like she hates everyone there.

(Or, more accurately, like somebody does. Ahene hates like hell freezes over—rarely, slowly, and with a sort of cold contempt that burns mostly in how impersonal it can be. But the spirits in the back of her mind know how to hate, and they’re much too happy to share.)

Talos looks at this Sith Lord, who appears to be unusually scruffy and looks like she’s developed dark side corruption without the glowing eyes, and—unlike Andronikos, unlike Silthar, unlike Sarnova, unlike Zaril—doesn’t come to the conclusion that someone needs to parent her. She’s moved a bit past giving off that energy. Instead he comes to the conclusion that she’s about to deliver the most fascinating problem he’s encountered this year, which is (because Talos is Talos) really what he finds ideal in a Sith.

Ahene looks at this strange, mostly fearless little archaeologist, and discovers that she is not immune to being treated like a totally reasonable and decent individual who is here for the love of history despite every indication otherwise. Many people make this discovery around Talos.

Their early interactions are still… fascinating. His aura of “everyone I talk to is fundamentally a decent fellow” can only do so much, especially since his version of “rationalizing” all the terrible things about the Empire is sweeping them all into a bucket of “things I can’t do anything about” to hyperfixate on archaeology. Ahene keeps him at arm’s length like she’s learned to do with most people. Ahene gets sucked into talking shop with him. They discover, to Talos’s delight and Ahene’s pleased-despite-herself annoyance, that they share a sense of humor. He treats his probe droids better than some people treated her, and exactly the same way that other people treated her. She gets attached to them too.

Somewhere in there—either before they find Horak-Mul or after, though I’m leaning towards before—he asks about her first dig.

She tells him it was the Verios ruin. The face he makes tells her everything she would have needed to know about Darth Kelshrin’s reputation with the Service, if she hadn’t already been aware.

Delicately, like someone trying to thread a conversational needle with as few actual words as possible, Talos suggests that you hear things about that dig, and they aren’t very good. People don’t like to talk about it, if they manage to get reassigned.

She says that she’s one of the reasons that people don’t like to talk about it, and watches him struggle to reconcile that with her entire demeanor for a moment, then clarifies that she was one of the children they had—probably still have—doing probe-work.

Because of course it does, this horrifies him. She shrugs and comments that she hadn’t realized Kelshrin was that much of an outlier; haven’t there ever been slaves on any of your digs? Talos starts to protest that yes, but none of them were children, and comes to the mid-sentence conclusion that actually, she doesn’t care.

His mouth clicks shut. They sit in silence for a little bit.

When he next speaks, he tells her that he’s sorry he wasn’t there.

She says that most people would have put an ‘and’ in the middle of that sentence. They would have found it absolving, that they weren’t there. And he makes a face, and says that yes, that’s true, but still—he wishes he’d been there. That perhaps he could have done something, if he had been. That at least he could have been—better than the others.

I’m sure you would have been, she says, touching his shoulder, in a voice that would be a threat if any of the bitterness were directed at him. It isn’t a threat. It’s just that half of her doesn’t believe him, and doesn’t blame him, and the other half wants to believe him—and hates so very much that someone like him existed this whole time, and never came for her.

They don’t talk very much about that part of her background, after that. She never makes a secret of what she was—it’s the first thing anyone knows about her anyway, the trash apprentice who brought back the Dark Temple expedition—but while she’ll talk about the ruin like it’s simultaneously a deathtrap and a lost home, she doesn’t tell him about the Service camp. It’s their armistice; it wouldn’t be fair.

She doesn’t blame him for what happened to her childhood. He doesn’t look at her like he’s afraid of her when she loses control of the ghosts’ power, when he walks in on her having snapping arguments with thin air, when the ghosts’ memories and personalities start leaking in and she reacts to something he said about the Great Hyperspace War like she was there.

It’s difficult not to care deeply about someone who sees you at your absolute, utter worst—half-dead, half-possessed, still suffering from a Horror Hunger despite knowing that there are few things she needs less than other people’s life energy—and treats it like it’s simply something that’s happening, and no more terrifying than any other serious illness.

He’s the one she goes to one night, when she needs to tell someone how terrified she is to die. He’s the only member of her crew she doesn’t feel some need to be strong for.

(He is, maybe, the person she tells that she thinks she could exorcise the ghosts. That she hasn’t tried, because she’s scared that it would work.)

It’s important that—by this point—he doesn’t feel like he has to be strong with her, either. He doesn’t have to pretend that he doesn’t notice how bad things are, or keep up a cheerful front through it, the way he nearly always does. It’s not that his cheerful front is insincere—it’s not that he’s lying—but that’s how he’s always dealt with his emotions, the same as Ahene deals with them by scrunching them up into a little ball and taking another step no matter what. They aren’t people who know how to seek comfort in other people, most of the time. Talos doesn’t have childhood trauma the way she has childhood trauma, but he did very much grow up in an abusive environment that he generally dismisses as “not so bad as all that” with a wave of his hand. So it’s… something, that they can be scared together of what’s going to come.

(This could so easily be read as romantic. It is not remotely. It’s also not remotely parental on Talos’s part. It’s just a very unlikely bordering-on-queerplatonic friendship.)

When Ahene walks out of the Dark Council chambers on Korriban with Thanaton’s body (Teneb Kel’s body) in her arms and a title she didn’t ask for or want, Talos makes sure the body ends up in a cryostasis tube until it can be properly entombed. When they head for Dromund Kaas right after, because the planet is being invaded, when she makes for the Dark Temple immediately when they arrive in the aftermath—Talos waits for her at the Dark Temple approach.

When she calls him and asks him to get another stasis chamber and never breathe a word of it to anyone, he does it, because they would trust each other with anything.

Up to and including the body of the Emperor’s Voice.

(The next couple months, she barely remembers, because she was under so much pressure and so much of the same kind of pressure that her dissociative memory issues cropped up again and turned it into a soup of events that 2V had to record and summarize for her. But Talos quite frequently knew what she was doing better than she did, at least when it came to the fact that she suddenly had to run the Reclamation Service. This has always been a team effort. Between her and all her crew, but still especially between the two of them.)

[npc opinions]

[serenityhime1]

Reflections Commentary and Q&A

I'm going to put a cut below to avoid spoliers for anyone who doesn't want them, but I'm going to answer some questions that I was asked about Reflections and share a little commentary. Please feel free to ask further questions if you would like!

I am truly overwhelmed with the support I got for writing Reflections. It was a fun idea I had to write two stories that started in the same place but diverged due to a single change, and the way that played out in telling two different stories. It was important to me that chapters updated simultaneously to give the reader the experience of seeing both stories at the same time, rather than read one story and then the other in their entirety, because it was about how things were different moment-to-moment rather than telling two stories that started with the same premise.

Writing these stories was an exercise in patience as I went back and forth between stories to confirm details and make sure everything was in the right place and the right time. It was only 10 chapters, but definitely felt like the 20 chapters it actually was. Both stories together were over 80k words!

I didn't think anyone would really care too much, but it was well-received and I am incredibly appreciative. It was a strange creative project that was just meant to explore the way we tell stories, but people enjoyed the stories, too, and that means a lot. Anyways, questions below the cut!

@loverinthesnow asked:

Hi! Reflections was such a pleasure to read. I’m going to miss Bulma and Vegeta so much! My question for you: did Vegeta make any choices in the few weeks before each version of the fic that may have influenced the very beginning of the story?

Thank you for the kind words! Vegeta did a lot of self-reflection before the story started. At the time the story picked up, he'd been single for a few months and spending a lot of time thinking about what he wanted out of life, and out of a relationship. It takes time to unwind a lot of the damage an abusive partner can do to you.

Fortunately a lot of that self-reflection led him to a place where he was at least appreciative of the loud, beautiful woman he kept running into at the coffee shop, but he couldn't quite bring himself to talk to her. In a lot of ways it felt too soon, and too late. In one story he accidentally finds a way to start a conversation, and it takes him by surprise. In the other story, he makes a realization and uses his knowledge to his advantage to get her to start the conversation.

It's a little manipulative, perhaps, but it works!

@vegetasmyheart asked:

Reflection was a unique experience. Thank you for sharing your creativity. I was just curious if you prefer one version over the other?

First of all, how dare you ask if I have a favorite child, and the answer is yes of course I have a favorite child. I'm kidding of course! I'd say that taken on their surface I prefer Chiral, because I like a good, confident Bulma who goes after what she wants and gets it. She inspires the best in her partner, and even though she makes mistakes she navigates those with aplomb and we love her for it.

Taken together though, and in the spirit of the project, I really love Achiral. There was a long stretch where people felt like I (or the universe) was a little harsh on Achiral Bulma, but I think that it's important to recognize that insecurity is something we all deal with, and vulnerability is not a bad thing. I definitely don't see Achiral as the "bad" storyline - Bulma and Vegeta get together at almost the same time and they have sex there first, and it's wildly passionate. Perhaps it's a little less emotionally grounded, but we get to see over time that develops just as it did in Chiral.

I also had someone mention they were a little concerned about Krillin living with Roshi, and while I reassured them I just want to reassure all of you that Roshi, while an utter creep to women, is also weirdly progressive and therefore not interested in Krillin at all (since he's a man).

Thank you all for the kind words, loving comments, and questions. I am so glad I got the chance to work on this and had so many people who were invested in it. I appreciate it more than words can say <3

[eldritch-elrics]

the 5 best games i played in 2024

this is not a "top games of 2024" list, because, as always, i failed to play more than a handful of games that were released this year. instead, these are my favorites of the... 14 or so? games i beat for the first time this year. enjoy!

i tried to limit myself to putting one game per franchise on here. sorry, dark souls 3.

1. Dark Souls (2011)

a game about being one little undead warrior in a big mean world <3

dark souls! what a game! though i technically started playing this in december 2023, i think i'm allowed to count it among my 2024 games.

moreover, this is definitely going on the "favorite games of all time" list. i adore dark souls. it's rare that i start playing a game and instantly feel like we're speaking the same language. i love the weirdness and awkwardness of it, i love the grungy medieval fantasy atmosphere, the great characters, the difficult but satisfying combat, the incredibly memorable environments... the list goes on. there's a reason this is a classic. it's a very silly game and also a very clever game. i am incredibly glad that i decided to give it a try.

2. Silent Hill 2 (2001)

a game about a man who travels to a strange, empty town in search of his dead wife.

there was this one night in october in which i played through a frankly ridiculous chunk of this game in one sitting, and afterwards i felt completely insane in a way that i have very rarely experienced!!! what did they put in silent hill 2 to make it one of the most emotionally arresting game stories i've ever seen? i'm still trying to answer this one. add to that some top-notch atmosphere, excellent scares, and an environmental design philosophy that makes the world seem simultaneously more real and more surreal... and you get an incredibly tight, smart game where every part of it contributes to crafting the experience.

3. Inscryption (2021)

a game about playing a life-or-death game of cards in a spooky cabin with an old man who likes to cheat.

speaking of very clever video game stories!! inscryption is a fantastic addition to the metafictional games canon. of all of the games here, i think this one surprised me the most - it plays with your expectations so deftly, and all in service of a deliciously simple meta premise. helps that the core gameplay is extremely addictive, too. this was my balatro

4. The Beginner's Guide (2015)

a game about a guy showing you a few short games his friend made.

can i put a game on this list that i haven't played myself? though i watched courtesy play it, it's more or less a "walking simulator" sort of a game, so i got more or less the same experience. anyway, this is another metafictional game that subverts expectations in a major way that i am still thinking about nearly a year later. unfortunately, this is another one i shouldn't talk too much about - it's short, you should just play it yourself.

5. Lil Gator Game (2022)

a game about a lil gator trying to build the best playground game ever with their friends!

not only is this a very cute game about a cute gator exploring a big island, it is also a beautifully written game about games. not in the same way as inscryption or beginner's guide - it's about playground games! as someone who played a lot of those as a kid, this one struck a chord with me. it's also very creative, consistently laugh-out-loud funny, and all around charming.

honorable mentions:

Sable (2021) - what a cool world. what a cool way (and cool reason) to explore a world. this one majorly scratched my "exploring and collecting things" itch.

Dark Souls 3 (2016) - dark souls 3 is just really good, guys.

and if you want to see a list of all the games i played/experienced this year, here it is!

[megamind2010]

more.

15, 24, 25, 30, 31, 38, 43

MORE

Okay you anonymous pervert

15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first? all of nell's words are very considered… this doesn't negate the fact that she is also very blunt and doesn't go out of her way to spare peoples feelings, but its more that she just likes to know exactly what shes going to say and how she is going to respond. everything she says is deliberate and intentional

24. Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom? i think its kind of cute if she actually is a bit awkward about talking about sex to people (except casey… for obvious reasons LOL) especially since her only options are like, ted and michelle?? i think its largely because its a very… vulnerable and revealing thing to talk about (i almost went on a long tangent about nell and her relationship to sex but nayyyyy i shant) and she likes to compartmentalise. she isnt shy at all about talking to casey about sex because that is Where That Belongs in her life but bringing that into anywhere else is like… getting scarily close to being "honest" and "real" about her feelings in general

25. What are their thoughts on marriage? What a beautiful symbol of love and commitment. Good thing it's never going to happen to me - nell bishop

it's one of those things that nell has just completely written off for him personally… his parents had a really wonderful marriage which was a great model for what a Good Relationship should look like, and then when his mother died and his father fell apart that kind of slotted into the model of what marriage is - you're happy until someone dies and then it's the worst thing you can inflict on someone else. obviously this worldview got a little more complex as nell grew up and matured but its still rooted in those childhood experiences -_- also nell being kind of aro just adds another layer of difficulty to the whole thing. so in her mind its just something she isnt allowed to want. even though she kind of does.

in new york nell and casey justify it through various other reasons but also just the huge shift in perspective that nell attained through almost dying means that she is learning to let herself want things… so its kind of like a dream come true. not that she would ever express it in those words to anyone

30. Who do they most regret meeting? this one is tricky… im half tempted to say casey because if nell was conscious of how badly she fucked up caseys entire life by dying then she would be disgusted with herself for letting that happen by indulging in an irresponsible attachment like that… but even when shes dying nell is kind of like Well casey will be ok cuz its not like hes in love with me or anything. maybe someone really fucking annoying like the joker. or batman. Or booster j gold

31. Who are they the most glad to have met? (looking around to make sure casey isnt in earshot) Casey closely followed by ted kord. though nell would never admit it, casey makes her happy in a way that she never thought she would or even Could have… a relationship fit exactly to nell's needs and standards and strange behaviours. someone who she simultaneously understands on a soulbond level but also cannot communicate with… theyre so similar but so insanely different. casey really changed nell's life… gave her a compatible partner, someone to sleep next to, someone to bully, someone to die thinking about

ted, though, was a mentor figure who made nell INTO ladybug, a part of their identity so important to them that they happily died for it… and he also is just so important as someone who (as much as anyone can outside of casey) GETS nell and understands how her mind works… and doesn't judge her! hanging out with ted is very low-stress… nell loves ted a lot. again not something she would ever say to him but its true

38. What memory do they revisit the most often? hm… memories of her childhood are complicated to think about, but thinking about her mother is generally very comforting to nell… memories of her playing the piano, reading to nell, normal everyday stuff like that

43. If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? [to most people] "I don't see why that's relevant to you." [to trusted friends] "That's a personal question. …Lesbian, I suppose." [to casey] "Why do you care? Stop asking stupid questions."

[torque-witch]

Hey, good morning! I know I’m super casual on here outside of business posts - but maybe there are some newer people around that don’t know much about me, so let’s recap and go over some goals for the new year! (Long post ahead!)

My name is Cara - most people on Tumblr call me Torque - and I’m 32, non-binary, disabled from complications of Crohn’s disease and medical misadventures and am currently a full-time artist! Many people either know me from being more involved in the witchcraft and pagan communities from about 2014-2017 and some know me from when I started creating Hel Mary’s around that time as well and selling crafts here and there to keep me afloat outside of low-paying jobs at the time.

In 2017/18 I was working 55-65 hours managing an auto parts store (part of the lore of why my username is Torque) while simultaneously getting sicker and sicker, so I couldn’t devote a lot of time to witchcraft blogging and art anymore.

In 2020 I took a layoff from that job when Covid hit because I was on injections that shut down part of my immune system to help control Crohn’s disease, as I was still being monitored after a huge GI bleed. I was also developing medication-induced Lupus from the injections and my joints were starting to suffer as well as causing me frequent fevers. I decided not to return and instead focused on selling my art online full time and did really well for a minute while the pandemic was in full-swing.

Unfortunately by mid-2021 I was starting to develop strange symptoms like tachycardia, waking up in something similar to a panic attack, nausea, hot flashes and was having trouble eating - particularly in public. Long story short, I was told to get off of an anti-depressant my GI had me on for chronic abdominal pain because it had a black-box warning for tachycardia and heart-related events. 4 doctors (non-psychiatric) told me I could stop taking them cold turkey, even though I was on 25-50mg daily for 3 years at this point. After 3 hospital events, I decided to stop taking them and legitimately within a day I could not get out of bed, couldn’t eat, my guts were a wreck and I couldn’t walk up stairs or down even 3 blocks without my heart rate being 160. Even more doctors denied anything was wrong with me, and said that withdrawal from antidepressants is not real. I developed agoraphobia and a resurgence of horrific emetophobia. I was in talk therapy for a year and exposure therapy for emetophobia for probably 8 months and while my agoraphobia has dramatically lessened, exposure therapy was traumatizing me even more and I had to quit. I was and still do suffer from night terrors that are body-horror and phobia centric, but thankfully the worst of it was almost daily as I went through a 9 month, protracted antidepressant withdrawal period. The heart issues are mostly gone now, but I still have autonomic sleep issues and what seems like a permanent daily rotation of phobic spiraling thoughts and trouble eating.

In January of 2023, my husband and I were so financially a wreck that I had to get another job again since I had almost no audience for art and witchcraft anymore and had been too sick to really put much effort into it. Even though I was still feeling unwell, I got a job at a local catering place and stayed for a year and a half part time. Another long story short, but that job was making me even more sick. I did have improvements and overall feel like it helped me get through agoraphobia, but I never received pay stubs the entire time, I couldn’t report the income even though I filled out a W2 THREE TIMES, and my boss would never have a schedule and expected me to just come in on a whim while my sleep was still almost non-existent. By the end I was only tolerating 8 hours a week and still needing to rest after from the stress and being unable to eat before or during shifts.

It ended…weirdly…with my boss spreading rumors that I was having a mental break and my husband was abusive (he’s not???) even though she and other employees were concerned that I was visibly losing weight. I had lost 14 lbs by the end of it and still have been at least since the fall.

And so now we are at the present in winter of 2024. I had started to focus on in-person art shows again more actively in 2023 and toured a little bit with Oddities & Curiosities Expo in 2024 and am doing so again in 2025! It was really rough physically for me to do that while still catering, but for the last few months I’ve been finishing my 2024 shows and focusing on re-building what I actually want to do now that my husband has graduated his apprenticeship with pipe-fitting and can support us both a little easier. And to be clear, I couldn’t do this without him. His hard work has kept me insured and able to seek medical help without cost to me since we got married and now it’s giving me the option to actually take my work seriously!

So…phew. That was a lot. But! I legitimately do want to keep doing this, why I came to Tumblr in the first place so many years ago. I want to be a witchcraft and pagan blogger/writer. I want to keep creating Hel Mary’s and providing personalized statuary to other pagan practitioners, I do want to keep reading Tarot, I do want to keep developing my digital drawing skills, I will be focusing more on in-person shows and I do want to be self-sufficient while still honoring my health as it clearly isn’t going to stop causing me issues.

You can help by liking and sharing posts that you may see, reading my blogs and leaving comments or likes there, following me on other social media, following my shop/page, buying from me of course and becoming a member!

Memberships are $1, $5 & $10 and include (based on tier) automatic shop discounts, monthly outlook tarot readings, personalized tarot readings and sticker mail!

Y’all have supported me through this crazy mess, and for new people - thank you for finding me and sticking around! I genuinely could not have made it through the last years without the monetary support and without the great friendships and connections I’ve made on tumblr. I hope that I can finally do what I really believe in while navigating whatever the world will be like.

Here are some helpful links on where to find me, my projects, etc.

Instagram/Threads

Facebook Page

Website/Blog/Shop

Memberships

Join the Death's Head Divination Discord Server!

Etsy - please don't use to shop. Message me if you don't see something on Ko-fi! Keeping for reviews.

Free Resource Google Form - add your local community resources so I can build a directory!

I think that's about it! I'm posting on like 5 different platforms, so I'm sorry that I can't be here 24/7, but I am always somewhere and very reachable if you have questions, if you're interested in custom work, etc.

Ko-fi is the best way to support me right now because there aren't as many fees as Etsy and it has a lot more options like keeping my blogs in one place and memberships! If you follow me there you will also get e-mails when I post or add new products. See you there!