#like i have a spreadsheet kinda thing for shows and stuff to. just to keep track but also bc i enjoy that kinda thing

[eunhos]

.

[cinnbar-bun]

first off— I LOVE UR WORK!! i think i just went thru and read everything you have for one piece LOL. second!!! i saw hc / drabble request open !! i have a silly idea that i feel like you can make come into reality.

recently i’ve been watching isekai’s so…imagine. reader getting isekai-d into the one piece world!!! (more specifically, interactions with the cross guild!!!)

A/n: Thank you very much nonnie!! I really appreciate you taking the time to read my stuff. Please enjoy this <3

Getting Isekai'd Into Cross Guild!

Rating: SFW

Relationship: Cross Guild x Reader

Notes: GN!Reader, a bit crack, short and sweet. No relationship is defined so you can assume it to be platonic or romantic <3.

The wonderful Truck-kun granted your wish of getting isekai’d by sending you straight to the One Piece world! How wonderful! 

Except, you quite literally fell on top of Buggy just as he was trying to argue his case to Crocodile and Mihawk. 

Now, they have no clue what the hell just happened but Mihawk already agrees with whatever that just was. 

Buggy is about to scream over the fact you just fell on top of him and Crocodile is wondering how you managed to get here. 

Crocodile assumes a Devil Fruit, Mihawk assumes you snuck in, and Buggy assumes you’re the devil. 

It takes a moment for things to settle down as they demand you tell them what you’re doing here. You explain that well… uh… you’re not really from here. 

Crocodile almost plans to kill you right away because he doesn’t have time for stupidity like that, but you show whatever you have on hand to prove otherwise. 

They’re all immediately entranced by your phone, but they have something they’re also interested in too. 

Crocodile: Your credit cards and money. When you explain how a credit/debit card functions he’s amazed. Tempted to start a bank and overhaul the current financial system. Also loves the excel spreadsheets. The fact this “machine” will calculate all of this for you and put it in a neat list… well… mark him down as interested. 

Buggy: The shiny games on your phone that are colorful and fun. The fact he can “Google” anything and look up new material. 

Mihawk: EReaders and, this will sound hilarious, but text messaging. He doesn’t care to talk, but he thinks that sending texts would be so much more effective and efficient than having to haul himself around the sea or, god forbid, answer a phone call. 

Okay so you did manage to prove you’re not from this world (or that perhaps you were an alien freak but that’s okay) and Crocodile and Mihawk are pretty much entertained. That’s it. You can go. Bother someone else. 

Buggy however, holds you close and pouts. “Can we keep them? Can we keep them pleeeeeeeease???” He begs as if you’re a little puppy. 

Crocodile is against this but Mihawk shrugs and agrees. Whatever. This could be interesting. 

Buggy still doesn’t understand you’re not some circus animal and rambles about what he should have you wear and perform for his show while Crocodile cuts him off. 

Frankly, if you’re telling the truth and have nowhere else to go, you gotta earn your keep. Crocodile just makes a new position for you that shouldn’t be too hard after you said you have 0 combat skills or training. 

You’re basically just their assistant and do menial work that no one else really wants to do. For now at least. 

Buggy is actually… kinda happy you’re so nice to him? He’s used to either worship from his crewmates or abuse from Mihawk and Crocodile, so you quickly become his new favorite person. He’s pretty shocked you’re as nice as you are considering how crappy this situation is, but he’s grateful. Softens up to you right away and loves having your attention. 

Buggy likes to do silly tricks to make you laugh whenever he can, mostly as a way to be the “flashiest” guy in your eyes. He really doesn’t like when others try to take you or away or interrupt his time with you, since he’s a brat and finds you entertaining. 

Crocodile and Mihawk are tougher nuts to crack. Neither of them trust people, but they find you interesting, even though you are incredibly weak compared to others. 

Crocodile always tries to see what you may/may not know about him since you made a few offhand comments that were a bit too… knowledgeable… so he often tries to get you to slip up more or confess to something. He hopes to see if you know something useful that can be used (but also deep down is afraid you know too much). 

Mihawk on the other hand finds you amusing. Plenty of things are similar to your world, but it’s quite clear you’re not used to many aspects of this one. He forms a habit of just watching you or actively messing with you to see your reaction. It’s a bit funny to him, admittedly. 

Of the two, Mihawk is the first to somewhat let his guard down and be a bit protective of you. He figures even if you were hypothetically “dangerous”, he could easily kill you so what does he care? You do your job, you’re entertaining, and you don’t give him a headache. 

Crocodile only lets up when you “prove” time and time again that you are reliable and not trying to go after them or sabotage them. He does think it’s a bit weird you’re eager to help them, considering what they do and what you know, but hey, who is he to complain? 

To sum it up: Crocodile cares the most about you being isekai’d, Buggy cares the least (except when it comes to his perception. He wonders if he’s also got a following there).

Buggy likes showing off his new tricks or discussing silly hypotheticals with you. 

Crocodile likes when your eyes grow wide whenever he drops an expensive item on your desk as a token of his appreciation to you. 

Mihawk likes when you talk him to normally and share deep discussions with him. 

It is a bit strange that there’s some “normal” person with these three villains, but you’ve become important to them. You’re unique and special, practically one of a kind in this zany world. They show their feelings towards you in different ways, but the way they’ve grown attached to you and try to protect you show that you’re valued in their life.

[vaspider]

Hello humans!

My beloved brother Jake & his partner Roman are fundraising for medical bills for their two formerly-stray cats (Sunny and Scrambles) and their upcoming move to Portland.

Here's what Jake has to say about it all:

TLDR Roman Todd and i are moving to portland this spring, please help us with our continuing tremendous Vet Bills for Sunny and Scrambles that currently total $2,228.56 hi friends you can read the whole story over on the GFM but the short version is that we rescued two cats last summer (a very very very sick feral and a six week old kitten) and i was trying to bootstrap us through all the vet bills like a True American Man, which would have been "fine" if we were staying in jersey. however, NerdyKeppie has hit a ceiling with our current set-up and i need to move to portland so that we can take the business to the next level. so now i'm finally asking for help with these past vet bills!!! grand total of the cats' previous vet bills: $2,228.56 procedures still needed: dental surgery to remove Sunny's rotten teeth, spay for Scrambles

Sunny had one of her rotten teeth break today and required emergency surgery to remove the broken tooth. She'll require more help to get the rest of her teeth taken care of.

If you love your NerdyKeppie stuff, Jake is very much the one responsible for making things continue to happen. He is the one who keeps the spreadsheets and helps me make sure that shows get scheduled and things get ordered in the right quantities and sizes, who organizes items and standardizes size charts and keeps me on schedule with when we need to have art made and items posted.

We have hit the limit on what we can do with NerdyKeppie without Jake being present, in part because Emet hates to fly on account of being 6'8", so traveling to further shows wouldn't be possible, and we really just need more hands in the shop if we want to be able to do some of the bigger projects we want to do. If he's not here, we're just kinda... stuck at this level.

If you can help, please do - reblogs are very appreciated.

[talenlee]

Decemberween 2024 — My Players

You know who you are, if you’re reading this.

I am a big fan and advocate for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, for the simple and objectively true reason that it is the best version of Dungeons & Dragons that exists. It is the version of this iconic game that enables new players, tactical play, and a consistent, even player power level that still lets players do cool things they want to do. Based on this, it is the game I think that you should always start with if you want to introduce a new player to the most generic platform for tabletop games.

Anyway, I haven’t run 4th edition D&D in about a year. My play group hasn’t been happening.

I have instead been running Blades in the Dark now for about four months for a group that includes at least one player who’s never played TTRPGs before.

If you’re not familiar with Blades in the Dark, oh there’s my link to my review of I’ve written about it, oh and things that are built off it that I also like and even contributed to, oh and here’s me comparing another game to it as a failure, never mind. I think it’s reasonably clear that this is one of my favourite TTRPG systems, for entirely personal reasons. I mean one of the things I love about this game is that the book is nice to hold in the hand, which I could use as the underpinnings of a 2,000 word academic article about interface design or I could just be as honest and say it satisfies me to hold it.

Blades in the Dark struck me as the place to start because it meant that I could hande the pdf to my players and know that they had 100% of the information they needed to play the game and we were all working off the same, public information. This occurred to me as a nice way to ease the experience since I knew I was dealing with more than one neurodivergent player. Blades in the Dark is also very flexible; when players engage with the game, I can reassure them that there’s a lot of power in their hands, that they get to make choices and demands and my job is to adjudicate and illuminate around the, not to present their choices to them.

Blades in the Dark also parcels up player time in really handy chunks; there are scores, there are downtimes, and because the game splits things up like this, a player can drop in or drop out of it easily. That meant that if I set up a game using this system, players could drop in or drop out very easily, and the game would handle the presence or absence of characters, without needing excuses or reasons for why a character wouldn’t be present in the narrative.

Also, Fox, who is playing in the game, she made us a Virtual Tabletop. Now, when I read this to her she’s going to point out that hey, hey, she didn’t make it from scratch, there was already a thing that she built it from or she ‘just’ updated something to make it viable for us, which I appreciate but it’s also silly as hell because just because you bought the table from Ikea doesn’t mean you’re not the person who made it in our living room.

I used Discord for this. I made a Discord, set it to a community discord, and that gave me access to the forum tools. Then, I could set up the forums, where one set of forums were for the players. Each player could make a forum thread for their character, to keep notes, ask questions, put lore, images, that kind of thing. On my side of things I set up a forum of world stuff, where I could put districts, gangs, that kind of thing.

Okay, but this is just describing things around the Decemberween Thing. Right? Like this is a Decemberween article, I’m meant to be using this as an opportunity to tell you about stuff you can watch or listen to, right? Is this promoting an Actual Play or something?

Kinda.

Or rather, I’m trying to promote you, personally, starting your own TTRPG group, with any TTRPG you like, on discord, or whatever, and play with your friends, because that social experience rules. It is the highlight of my week, to show up with my friends, using a Google Spreadsheet to manage my locations and factions and all that, a dice roller program, and the joy of listening to and sharing with my friends. We even have our own strategy examples for doing great at this game, which is, you just roll sixes.

This is what I recommend. I think you should start this kind of thing up. I think you should, if you like TTRPGs, start a group. Ask some friends. You know how many friends you need to try out TTRPGs? One. You can just pick one friend, pick any of the free games, even the GMless ones, and see how you like telling stories together.

And…

I have world information.

I have world building for the setting I made to put this game in. I have this space which is a sort of alt-history, Victorian whalepunk, island country, modelled on Australia, the Phillippines and New Zealand. It has gangs and factions and it has a system for police districts. It has a world deepened by the players’ creations and their contacts and friends and it’s so cool and at least, right now, at least right here, I’m not writing about it, or sharing it with you. Not to be rude to you, not because I don’t trust you or don’t want to brag about how cool my players are!

But because not everything I make becomes part of this blog.

It’s a balancing act: On the one hand, I want to make sure you know that what I do is demystified. Nothing I do is hard, nothing I do is done because I am special and better and able to do things you can’t. On the other hand, these players aren’t here to be Media that I Produce for an Audience. Maybe we’ll all decide sometime in the future to make this as shareable content, maybe letters or missives from the world. Maybe I’ll put together a dossier about the world, its gangs and the lore, so you can use it to run a game yourself, if you like.

Here, though? Decemberween?

I want to highlight that my players are incredible.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[britt-kageryuu]

Donnie is working on some little bipedal turtle 3D models. He explained it was for a new game idea he had. The audience was kinda confused, because Donnie was already still working on his other games project. So they asked.

"Hmm? I see a good portion of the chat today are not part of that Discord. In short, the game is basically done. We're just going through a rigorous bug hunt, and one other issue before release." Donnie switches the screen to show a menu screen.

On the menu screen is three 3D anime style girls in typical poses, but then it glitches slightly so the girls eyes are now purple with some symbols in them, before going back. Also on the screen is a little dragon like stuffed animal that moves between the girls. The game title is 'Stream Restore!' in changing font so that it matches each girls aesthetic.

"For those you don't know this is Stream Restore, the game in question. I won't go into detail because I might spoil something. The main reason, other than bugs, that we haven't released it yet is mainly distribution. And maybe some localization issues. But most how do we distribute the game to others."

Donnie switches to a screen with a spreadsheet of pros and cons of different places that indie developers can sell their games from.

"Clears Throat. As you can see, we're going over the different, would the word be publishers?, sites that you buy the game from, you can see we even have a note of just distributing it ourselves from our store, but it's still a bit of a holdup." Donnie stops to take a drink from a cup that reads 'Spare Battery Juice'.

"Anywho, that is for a different day. What I want to focus on is seeing how well I can put together this new game. It's going to just be a little 'Cozy Game' thing. Though it's going to be based on our backstory. Let me bring up the-" Donnie pauses and turns to look slightly down at something.

"Hello. How may I help you, little lost one?" Donnie quickly mutes his mic before anything else can be heard.

The audience can see that Donnie is talking to someone, and even grabbing his phone to call someone. But they're going a bit nuts with wondering what is going on.

Then Donnie, without un muting, switches the screen to show a game environment that resembles a defunct underground train station with fairt lights strung all over. He then starts to add and move around little pieces of furniture. Then adding one of the little turtle models and had it walking around the environment.

For the next few minutes Donnie is moving things around and changing colors, and switch out the turtle with a salamander, and then started to dress up the model.

He pauses again, and looks up towards someone likely Raph and talks with them shortly before they left, and Donnie un mutes his mic.

"Sorry about that. Red is watching Stars sibling again, and they keep wandering off during games. And apparently they like the studio because of the random stuff we leave sitting around here." Donnie pauses to look behind himself at the studio, "We should clean up a bit in here, some of this stuff is a potential tripping hazard... but that is for later. Now let me actually explain what I was just doing while entertaining my potential younger brother-in-law."

The next bit of the stream is just that. Going over various ideas for this little game, and possible plans. All while purposefully ignoring those who want to know more about the 'brother-in-law' comment.

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

Masterpost

I feel like I'm just gonna start having Donnie talk about game ideas I have, but no idea how to make them, or if they're possible.

[olderthannetfic]

A question about fanvidding: do you usually 1) have a song that inspires an idea for a ship or show the vid will be about or do you 2) usually have an idea for what kind of scenes the vid will contain or what "vibe" it will have and then use a song you know that kinda fits or do you 3) look for a song with a specific "vibe" without necessarily knowing the song first and if yes, where do you usually look for specific songs? Is there maybe a specific site you'd recommend if you use a specific site?

I have a vague idea for a vid and an even more vague idea for the song's "vibes" and that I'd like to use an 80s song but no actual song where my brain shouts, "Yes! This is it!" and no clue where to specifically look, apart from putting vague terms into a search engine in the hopes it will actually show me useful stuff for a M/M vid that's supposed to be about their sexual tension. I thought maybe "Poison" by Alice Cooper could fit but it's not really it although it also fits the ship because "the 'no fraternization with fellow members' rule says no but my body says yes please" and that kind of secret mutual or at least one-sided attraction is supposed to be the topic or vibe... No idea if I'm making sense. Sorry if not, it's very late. Your recent stuff about looking for danceable vids for Escapade made me want to try to go for a danceable song because spring approaching always makes me want to dance, so that sounded fun.

--

Most vidders try to avoid 3 because it's a pain in the ass... but yes, that's very often what I do.

One time, I googled "saddest saxophone in the world film noir" to find music for a vid. (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud for the record.)

I don't find any sites helpful. All of the 'find me music that sounds like x' ones straight up don't work for me because the traits that make me like a song aren't categories of metadata they contain.

To pick a standard complaint: Vidders love like 3 Vienna Teng songs and vid them constantly, but any pandora/spotify/etc. thing will immediately fetch you soft, meandering piano glurge wholly unsuited to vids instead of songs with that soaring quality of the few people are looking for more of.

What I typically do is search for "top ten greatest hair metal ballads" or "songs about starting over" or the like and go down somebody's best-of list. I'll sometimes find a youtube channel devoted to highlighting new artists and go through their archives.

I also keep a huge spreadsheet of songs that have caught my attention that could be good for a vid some time. I'll go back through it when I'm looking for inspiration.

Sometimes, though, the perfect song remains out of reach. I did my Escapade vid super late because I just couldn't find what I wanted and had to settle for a slightly different vid structure and a song that was in the ballpark but not quite perfect.

[likeadevils]

I was trying to find out timelines for one of my favourite artist's songs(not taylor). So can you give some tips? What is the first things you do while trying to find a date? Anything I should remember?

oooh good question

so, first tip, there's various different ways to be useful--one of the reasons this project has kept my attention for so long is i can do it in so many different moods. some days i just want to organize everything, some days i want to compile a bunch of links, sometimes i want to read old interviews, and sometimes if i'm lucky i want to actually use my brain to connect all the clues. don't get in your own way, just follow your gut

step one: organization

i find my spreadsheet set up very useful and i wouldn't be able to keep track of everything without it-- i would say my must haves are track, title, written, recorded, writer(s), producer(s), misc credits, and location recorded (for example here's 1989).

you'll want to set up some sort of key for how certain you are of the date (i do white text if i only know the general timeframe, red highlight if i have no idea where the date comes from, yellow highlight if its a shaky source, and green highlight if it's certain). i also like to color code everything else so i can quickly see basic information but that's just me being extra

in my experience genius has a list of most credits, and if not this website is super thorough (kinda a beast to sort through tho)

i add also add comments to each song and copy paste any quotes from taylor or her collaborators that i think might be useful to figuring out when it was written

step two: interviews interviews interviews

youtube is a gift from god-- i have a folder for interviews from each year and it's so nice (a good place to start is literally typing like, taylor swift 2006 interview, and following that rabbit hole wherever it will lead you), and when i'm in the mood i'll watch them.

old print interviews are a bit easier to find in taylor's case-- taylorpictures.net has a whole section dedicated to it, and i've noticed a lot of other big pop girls have something similar. if not, i've literally google searched "taylor swift interview" gone over to tools, click "any time", change it to custom time frame, and just crawled month by month through target years.

i'd say start with articles around the release date of the album and then work backwards

if you get tired of crawling through a bunch of interviewers asking about literally anything other than the art at hand, search interviews with the producers about the artist, and they tend to be more on track

step three: social media

use twitter advanced search to search specifically your artist and words like "studio" "writing" "guitar" "piano" "song" "album"

i like to add relevant posts to my spreadsheet like this

but i also have a full sheet for just taylor's old posts

if your artist is also insane and deleted all of their old posts, then wayback machine is so helpful

step four: when and where

a fair amount of the work comes down to figuring out where the artist was and when they were there-- especially if your artist works out of multiple studios

location stuff can get a bit icky, so personally i don't track stuff until two years have gone by, and even if you want to steer clear of candids you can still gain a good amount of information from public events only-- most artists are constantly touring, doing interviews, maybe attending award shows, stuff like that, and its useful to keep track of all that

again, the wayback machine is super useful-- most artists have an events page on their website, and smaller artists especially will add almost every television show appearance they have to it

Misc tips

CITE AS YOU GO

get around paywalls by copy pasting the link into the wayback machine

in general, i've gotten so good at googling because of this project it's insane-- check out this article to get more specific search results

i've also gotten crazy good at creating and using spreadsheets-- check out conditional formatting if you don't want to manually color code stuff

go one album at a time, at least until you've gotten a feel for it

have one or more work sheet on your spreadsheet- you'll need to format/sort stuff without worrying about screwing up everything else

i do this all in one massive spreadsheet with little individual sheets inside of it for each thing i need to keep track of, but like. i've literally opened up the sheet and then used my computer as a heating pad for period cramps. so do what that what you will

A rough date is easier to organize than no date-- get something down, and then you can refine it

[chayscribbles]

Happy STS, Chay!!

For either AR or GH, or both!

Share an image (or several) that reminds you of your story/a character.

In the vaguest sense possible, what is this WIP about? (Love, Hope, Revenge, etc.)

Share 3 songs that fit the vibes and/or plot of your WIP.

And as a bonus:

How do you organize your planning / character notes? Do you have a google doc? A notion page? Handwrite it all?

(I know you mentioned getting overwhelmed, so feel free to only answer a few of these questions!!!)

~Morri🗡 (@memento-morri-writes)

gonna answer these for the gemini heist!

In the vaguest sense possible, what is this WIP about? (Love, Hope, Revenge, etc.)

revenge, betrayal, trust. also being gay and doing crime.

Share 3 songs that fit the vibes and/or plot of your WIP.

this is just 3 but i'm working on a wip playlist lol

bonus question: How do you organize your planning / character notes? Do you have a google doc? A notion page? Handwrite it all?

i mostly use airtable for my story bible!

it's like a spreadsheet but there's different layouts that work for different things. for example i make a classic spreadsheet to reverse outline, with one row per chapter, and columns for chapter summaries, characters present, locations, lore dropped, and editing notes. it looks something like this (gonna use the one i have for AR for this. also i cut off some of the columns for this screenshot)

then i use the gallery mode to keep track of the characters. it looks like little cards with their name and basic info, but then you can expand it and have fields for other details. the one for AR looks kinda like this

(not gonna show the expanded versions bc spoilers abound oop)

and then i have other tabs for stuff like planets, a historical timeline, a glossary... i spend a lot of time organizing it and am very proud of how it looks kjdfsd

otherwise i also just have a couple of google docs and a onenote notebook for brainstorming dumps and misc notes lol

thanks for the ask!! <333

[asoulofatlantis]

I think when it comes to Victor, what they wanted was to “get rid” of a strong and righteous character so they didn’t have to explain why he doesn’t show up to fight for Erebonia/Zemuria/Peace or whatever in future games, as this is what many people would expect from a great swordman like him how has been painted as a hero throughout the Erebonia Arc. The damage his respiratory-system has taken from the fight with McBurn has propably had not enough impact on his fighting strength for Falcoms tastes, so they also took his left arm from him. We see later that obviously he is still strong, but he certainly won’t be winning any wars in the future. You could say he makes space for the next generation of great sword fighters this way without keeping out of fight were one could need his former strength. Plus, George trying to get a prosthetic for the man as a way to pay for his sins, was also a nice way to make that traitor asshole look like he deserves to be forgiven. And since we don’t like to kill in the first three arcs, I guess this was the best way to “get rid” of a strong, but older character who is a great swordmaster and fighter, without actually really getting rid of him.

I guess the goddess was watching over him, huh? I mean he has friends in hight places, if you get me XD Jokes aside, it seems like a bit of a miracle that he is unscathed of all the people, given that his heart lies with the number one of the Grahlsritter, whos name was just on his lips when he fought his end was near. I would not be surprised if we find out one day that him being this damn lucky has something to do with Ein in some way. Like a protective Grahlsritter-spell or something.

Absolutely in love with! But pssst! Mueller doesn’t want us to know XD

This is of course in no way, shape or form meant to be fanservice for any player interest in man. Nu-uh. Why would you think that? Oh my... I think my nose is bleeding XD Jokes aside. Fanservice for us who are into men is so rare in most games and animes and mangas. Its always big breasts and short skirts and hardly ever shirtless guys with a sixpack. So... this is heaven ♥ (No imagine the stuff a certain Liberian would come up with if she could see this scene XD)

The reason why this game takes so long to finish even with a cheat-engine and while avoiding monsters and sidequests is because its so dialog-heavy.

Despite me sometimes being slightly annoyed by the whole walking and talking stuff, you have to hand it to the game that they never miss out on taking the time for a shipping-hint or two XD I still think, by the way, that is sucked that we didn’t know Eins reaction to Tovals death. I mean, Ouroboros has been keeping the Gralsritter on their toes as we know already since CS3, but I can’t imagine the news have not reached her. Then again, when you face people like Harwood you probably do not have much time to grieve...

Its kinda sad that Elise belongs to Reans harem. Patrick could have had a happy ending with Elise if she wouldn’t be so determined about having her brother fall in love with her. That is one of those ships that Falcom hints tho and they make it very clear that Rean tells Elise about his feelings for someone else, even if you never do any of her bonding events, so... maybe... we shouldn't give up hope just yet?

You know guys... you are ruining my ship-teasers if you make that face every time someone dares to hint at you to being a thing! That is not cool at all!

I think a lot of players can relate to that feeling. Especially if you do go in blind. The Horrors of being constantly cruelly reminded of losing Olviert and then Schera vanished too... the amazing feeling of having them back alive and apparently closer than ever must have been overwhelming for all those who waited patiently for the english release of CS4 or played the japanese version with the spreadsheet. I am not one of them, but I can still somewhat relate to Alfin feelings.

Tho... seriously... the first Spoiler I saw after CS4 got out was the wedding-picture, so I was very well aware that those two are alive and happy XD Its good to have them finally back regardless of that tho...

“Because I loved her that much... I mean... like a sister of course. Achem...” XD But seriously, tho Altina too makes her feelings and attachment towards Millium visible, the way she does it (as she IS the actual sister) differs immensely from Jusis, making it clear that their feelings for her are not the same. But there is no sense in shaking our heads about the sister-zoning. Later games will take care of that eventually... patience is ALWAYS needed, when it comes to Trails ships. I mean heck, Joshua and Estelle were by far not an easy ship, but when was the last time any ship in a trails game became canon after them? And its not like we didn’t have any ships in the meantime... in fact, we have plenty. But it took us until here. CS4, for Schera and Olivert to become a thing. And yet another game for Randy and Mirelle. God knows how many years I have to wait for Agate to finally get a grip and marry Tita. And god knows what will become of our princeboy and his ogre girl, given that we don’t know when we will see them again and what kind of role they will play. (I mean, we’ve met the Stahlritter in Crossbell, but we only learned about them in Cold Steel. So if an Enforcer shows up in a game, that doesn’t mean they will have a big role.)

But... *achem* back to the task at hand.

I guess in a sense, this serves as a reminder that not all of trails lovestorys end happy... and it seems especially our Arnor-Man have it rough. Lets hope history does not repeat itself for my little arnor-boy.

[solivagantsalix]

yknow in twilight when bella gets so depressed that a few months of the book are just the month names and nothing else? thats me

[dailypokemoncrochet]

Maybe I'm overly rejection sensitive, but I look at this spreadsheet of which social medias I've posted my crochets to and it's so funny to me that Imgur is noticeably barren and I didn't even bother with Ravelry

I made the list back when I was trying to suss out where I could get the best feedback from (Tumblr obvs lmao) and in Imgur I got routinely downvoted early on, and Ravelry was stuck up about me wanting to post some patterns. So I very quickly stopped posting on either of those.

Tumblr so far has been best for me because I'm more consistent here and this is what I consider my "main" platform. The most complete showing of my art as well as other personal tidbits (blogger lore) and misc pokemon and crochet and blog thoughts and rambles.

Reddit has been mostly good (I'm love hating the new post insights because I am fascinated with all these numbers (thousands of views?? Invisible) and I want to know WHO is downvoting and making the upvote rate 97%) (and I am salty and jealous that other people's work reach tens of thousands of views more easily than mine (but that's a me issue not reddit))

Twitter is okay? I keep trying to structure it like Tumblr which really doesn't work and also it feels so much more VISIBLE and PUBLIC and kinda scares me. But there's a handful of people who I think only know me through there and consistently like my art so I'm still there for them ♥️. One thing I like about Twitter is that I can "log" all of my crochets in one Twitter thread and it doesn't get obscenely long like it would in Tumblr so I confidently know that I have crocheted # of Pokemon and on which days

Facebook has real people some of whom I know irl and I feel weird about all of that so I haven't refilled its scheduled queue in..a while

Instagram I love for the focus on just my art but I do not like the platform itself or the way tagging works there. Also somehow there's always a bot promoting themselves on my stuff how rude. I forget it exists until my mom says something (she got an Instagram just to follow me) and then I'll post a random thing.

Does Patreon count? I post like 4 things consistently on a monthly basis because I don't want to flood anyone (who actually pay for the content?? Wild. Love it) with notifs (bc then I lose the money!!). But it's very different from the other places because people interact with the polls there, they get patterns, I put all the photos into neat collages. It's so disorganized as a platform tho and difficult to work with. I'm always yoyoing about if I want to continue it or not (pros: dollars! polls where patrons can engage anonymously and directly! ) (cons: connect all the dots bc I don't want to: hustle culture, monetizing hobbies, work for a living, paywalling content, clunky ui)

[caleiiiii]

mcyt subway au pt 4 - ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

check out the master post here !

halloween

phil lets everyone dress up for the halloween weekend as long as they wear the nametag and hat

tubbo dresses up as a bee (it matches the pin on his visor :D)

tommy tries to “dress up” as schlatt, but gets denied as soon as he walks in the door

wilbur, the shift lead, decides that tommy can just. wear a sheet over his head with the eyes cut out

he has to wear the hat and nametag on the sheet tho

wilbur, quackity, and fundy decide it would be hilarious to all wear their uniforms backwards

hats, shirts, aprons, pants, it’s all backwards

wilbur asks fundy if hes gonna wear his fursuit (this is before the philza smackdown)

fundy is Not Pleased 

the dream team + karl dress up as hogwarts students

instantly the favorites from all the kids who come into the store

technoblade dresses up as a vampire 

isnt allowed to ring people up because of the fake fangs

eret dresses up as a king, also attempts to wear those like 5 inch platform heels

the reason he cant is because he kept hitting his head on things

niki dresses up as wednesday addams

phil told her she wasnt allowed to keep the crossbow on her :(

schlatt just shows up in his everyday clothes

when quackity asks who hes dressed up as schlatt just responds

“God”

no one else asks any questions

the proofer incident

one time tubbo was sick and couldn’t work his shift

everyone else was busy so phil let tommy and wilbur work it alone

since tubbo always bakes the bread, tommy had to do it

(for context, you have to proof bread before you bake it so it rises)

so tommy placed all the dough in the proofer to proof

but he didnt set the timer right

cut to a few hours later

the two are just finishing up a big rush when wilbur looks into the proofer

“tommy, you do know how to set the timer on the proofer, right?”

“what timer?”

tommy looks into the proofer

its just

dough

so much dough

(when you overproof dough it gets really big)

wilbur starts CACKLING 

tommy just. stares

they run out of bread that evening

languages

tubbo asks niki to teach him german one night

niki decides to hang up a bunch of sticky notes on items around with the store with the german word for it

fundy and quackity begin to do the same for dutch and spanish respectively

phil tells them as long as its in the back room he doesnt mind

speedrunning sandwiches

dream is hella good at making sandwiches

prides himself on being pretty damn good at his job

one day he hears rumors about a worker from another subway store who is super fast at making sandwiches

dream, curious, asks what location and decides to pay a visit to this newfound competitor

when he gets there, he meets illumina

the guy is just so fast at making sandwiches

dreams internal monolouge: “oh, this is my new rival”

as illumina is making his sandwich hes just like. mentally taking notes

he starts going to the other subway like about 3-4 days a week

everytime he asks for illumina to make his sandwich

every single time

time skip to two ish weeks later or smth

dream has made way too many google docs and spreadsheets over this

once he was editing it on the company computer and sapnap caught him and just stared in horror

he goes into the subway to order another sandwich and asks for illumina again

as dream is paying illumina kinda asks

“hey, so uh, is there a reason that you come in here like every day and always request that i make your sandwich?”

dream just. Freezes

its a weird conversation

the kitten incident(s) -an expansion on an idea by @trademarked-but-not-really !

schlatt, despite the façade he puts up, is a big softie

one time he finds a tiny kitten on his way to work

in a split second decision he just. brings the kitten to work

places the cat in his cubby behind his sweatshirt

during his lunch break he goes to the back room to play with the kitten

quackity catches schlatt holding the kitten and baby-talking it

“who’s a good kitty? you are! you-”

“uh, schlatt, what are you doing?”

quackity gets so much blackmail

“if you tell anyone about this you’re dead.”

quackity uses his blackmail to get out of so much stuff

after that incident, schlatt gets better at hiding the kittens

there are still some slip ups tho

phil: “is that cat hair on the floor?”

schlatt, hiding a kitten in his apron: “no... hopefully”

after his shift he always brings the kittens to the local animal shelter

he also volunteers there during his free time

one time niki comes in to adopt a cat and walks in only to see schlatt holding 3 small kittens

one in each hand, and another climbing up his shoulder

they just -stare- at eachother

needless to say, another person gains blackmail on schlatt that day

trade-offs

tommy, tubbo, and wilbur haggle and trade doing certain tasks

mainly sweeping the store and stocking the chips display

these trades get VERY intense

“i’ll start on freezer pulls if you sweep and mop” “only if you do prep work tomorrow” “deal!”

“i’ll let you bake bread and cookies if you also stock the chip display” “ugh, fine”

one day phil comes in to do inventory just to see the three boys standing by the task list screaming at each other

luckily only bad and skeppy were in the shop

schlatt and wilbur origins

when schlatt  first started working at subway, he always got paired with wilbur on shifts

(this is before tommy and tubbo started working at subway)

they got along like a house on fire

they always made up bets to complete while they worked

on their first shift alone they decided to play a hellish rendition of “the floor is lava”

whoever lost had to buy the others meals for a month

skeppy and bad agreed to be the referees for the day

they took extra chairs from the back and placed them around the shop so they could get around without touching the floor

they even put chairs behind the bain (the area behind the counter)

after they set everything up, the game began

from then on, they spent the whole day perched on chairs

customers were

very confused

to say the least

many tasks were done poorly or not at all in an attempt to win the bet

the two survive until the end of the day with no major failures

in a last ditch attempt to win, schlatt made a dramatic final speech and pushed wilbur from the chair he was standing on

skeppy recorded the whole speech

unfortunately, wilbur hit the floor just as phil arrived

the manager in question was PISSED

wilbur and schlatt were banned from working together in the future

feel free to send my asks about this au!! also, if you write/draw anything for this au, please tag me!!! i’d love it see it :D

tag list :)

@i-am-a-wizard @eva-ticket @oakskull @thesmpisonfire @trademarked-but-not-really @orange-is-salty-tm @pixelatedrose @hollow-hypocrite @astrono @nootella23 @hot-dumbass @jen-dot-net @karlljacobs @gearstorm @nico-nat @marvel-snowbaz

[ridiasfangirlings]

Fushimi and Yata planning their wedding. Fluff all around :>

Maybe more like 'Yata planning their wedding and Fushimi being lazy and not caring' :P Though actually imagine he is really excited but doesn't want to show it and anyway effort is a pain so Fushimi's like low-key doing a lot of wedding planning while trying to act like he's not and like he doesn't care. Like Yata will be showing him a bunch of venues and asking him which one he likes and Fushimi keeps shrugging and clicking his tongue and saying they're all 'okay' and that Misaki should pick whatever he likes, Yata's like 'come on Saruhiko you need to be part of this too.' Fushimi says he doesn't really care but then later that evening he drops like a whole spreadsheet in Yata's lap, he researched each venue Yata showed him and compared prices of each in relation to their budget and to how many people each place can hold. He tries to act like he just did it because he was bored but it's very deeply researched and Yata just gets this big grin because clearly Fushimi was paying close attention the whole time and actually does care where they choose to hold their wedding.

Also imagine them trying to pick out decorations and food and everything, Fushimi is in charge of keeping an eye on the budget but he's also super indulgent when it comes to Misaki so while Yata thinks they're well within budget Fushimi's trying to figure out how to massage the numbers to make this all fit. Yata eventually finds out and he gives Fushimi this 'you're so stupid I love you' look as he's like you know you don't have to agree to everything I want, this should be a wedding that both of us like (and Fushimi's like 'in that case let's go elope right now' and Yata's like well okay but also my mom will kill us if she doesn't get to actually see me get married). I imagine Homra and Scepter 4 getting in on it too, especially the closer the wedding gets, and maybe it's a little exhausting because Yata will be at the bar and everyone's trying to go over wedding stuff with him and meanwhile Fushimi's at Scepter 4 and Munakata's stopping him because Munakata just found the most splendid deal on flowers and would Fushimi-kun like to come and give his opinion. They both return home from their respective clans kinda exhausted and not even wanting to think about getting married, just both passing out on the bed side by side. Yata's like 'I'm tired of weddings' and Fushimi grumbles that this isn't his fault, he wanted to elope. Yata's turns to look at him and Fushimi looks back and imagine them just suddenly smiling at each other and then laughing, just exhausted but amused and Yata reaches over and pulls Fushimi close like okay, I'll think about that eloping thing.

[poedameronloverx]

Changes and Surprises

Hiiiii! Finally posting the intro to the series I’ve been on about the past few weeks. 

Life In Lockdown - Series Masterlist

Summary - A stay at home order is issued, you now need to work from home. Your best friend and house mate throws a spanner in the works when she invites her boyfriend and his best friend, who just happens to be your long time crsuh, to move in with you for lockdown.

Warnings - Mentions of Covid

Word Count - 1545

Lockdown, quarantine, whatever you wanted to call it. It was going to be your new way of life for at least a month. The stay at home announcement had gone live and your work had sent everyone home with whatever they needed to do their jobs remotely. The stay at home notice started at 10pm, giving everyone the chance to sort out what they could. You were lucky, you had a nice house that you shared with your best friend Rose, there was a good sized garden and the house was big enough that you and Rose would both be able to work from home without getting in one anothers way. Rose’s job consisted of her making a lot of phone calls and doing spreadsheet work so she’d texted you and said she would set up her work station in her bedroom, leaving the desk in the living room for you to set up. You were happy with your new work space, it was right next to the large French doors that led out to the garden, giving you a nice view for working. You’d just finished setting up when you heard Rose arriving home. She’d said she would do a food shop on her way home to stock up the fridge and freezer for the first week or so.

“Hey, could you give me a hand with all this stuff?” she shouted from the door.

You threw a pair of shoes on and headed out to her car. You helped her bring her work stuff in then started taking the shopping out of the car. There was double the amount of stuff you normally had for a week.

“Rose, why did you buy so much food?” you asked as you set the last bag down in the kitchen.

“Well… you know that you’re my best friend in the entire world right?”

“What have you done?”

“I resent the fact you think I’ve done anything” she replied “But yeah I have actually done something”

“Which is?”

“Well, we don’t know how long this staying home thing is going to last right? I mean four weeks at least”

“Right”

“So I maybe, kinda asked Finn to move in”

Rose had been seeing Finn for a year and a half. You adored the guy, he was one of your closest friends and had been for longer than him and Rose had been together. Finn had stayed over plenty of times with Rose but living with him constantly would take some getting used to.

“Right, I mean thanks for asking” You replied, rolling your eyes “I’ll get to play third wheel in my own home”

“Well, about that…”

“Rose?”

“He said he would move in, but only if Poe and BeeBee could as well!”

Poe Dameron. Your friend, Finn’s best friend and house mate. Also your long time crush. Living with him would absolutely take some time to get used to. His corgi BeeBee was the cutest dog you’d ever come across so you were at least looking forward to one of your new house guests.

“Poe is moving in?”

“Yeah” Rose nodded “Look, I’m sorry I know you have a thing for him and I’ve probably put you in an awkward position but I can’t go weeks on end without seeing Finn. I know I should’ve told you first but when I heard the announcement while at work I panicked!”

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked Rey and Ben to move in as well!”

“Y/N no offence, but nobody apart from Rey would want to live with your brother!”

You glared at her “Not the point here Rose��

“I know and I really am sorry” she replied “But it’s done now and I really hope you can be alright with it”

“When are they arriving?”

“Anytime now” she replied “Finn said he’ll bring takeout with him for tonight”

“I’ll let you put the shopping away then and I’ll go and sort the spare room for Poe”

You went upstairs and quickly cleaned up the spare room and put fresh bedding on. The room was practically spotless already but it gave you something to do to take your mind off the fact you were going to be living with your crush. The spare room was nice, it was spacious, it had a comfortable double bed and plenty of storage space where Poe would be able to put his stuff. There was also plenty of space in the room for BeeBee and his things. You’d just put the cleaning stuff back into the cupboard when you heard the door. You could hear Rose running along the hall to open it and let them in. You ducked into your room to check you looked alright before going downstairs to face them.

“Y/N” Finn beamed when you made it into the living room “Thank you so much for agreeing to this. I don’t know how I would’ve coped without my girl”

You caught Poe’s eye and he dramatically rolled his and made a face, you smiled.

“No problem Finn, it’ll be fun to have you guys here”

BeeBee was sniffing round the room, getting used to his new surroundings before he ran over and jumped up at your legs

“Hi BeeBee, have you gotten even cuter since I last saw you, I think you have!” you said, bending down to tickle the dog, his tail wagged excitedly with the attention.

“We brought takeout” Finn said “I didn’t know what anyone would want so we got Chinese, Indian, Taco Bell and some stuff from the new Italian down the road”

“I’ll get some plates” You replied

You all sat down at the dining room table and helped yourselves to all of the food Finn had brought with him, everyone chatted away about how strange life was going to be for the duration of the lockdown.

“So what sort of space does everyone need for working?” you asked “I’ve already stolen the desk over there and Rose is going to work from her room but what about you guys?”

“Well I need quiet for my job” Finn replied, he was a high school teacher “I’ll be doing classes online so ideally I could use someone’s room”

“I don’t need privacy or anything” Poe replied “I could set up at this table if that was alright”

“That would work” Rose said, “Y/N over there, Poe here, Finn can use Poe’s room and I’ll use mine. Keep the kitchen clear and we can all eat there together at lunch and use it for dinner for the time being so Poe doesn’t have to re-set up his work station everyday!”

“Sounds good” you nodded “I’ll wash up”

“No, I’ll get it” Poe said, taking hold of your wrist before you could get up “You’ve been so kind to let me stay here so it’s the least I can do”

“Let the man do it” Finn said, seeing you about to protest “It’s one of the rarest things you’ll see in your lifetime, let it happen”

“You’re hilarious Finn” Poe said, making sure to elbow his friends head as he picked up the plates

Finn smiled “Well I’ve always known I’m funny but thanks man, I appreciate it”

After the dishes were done you all watched TV for a while, eventually Finn headed off to bed. He wanted an early night so he was fresh for his classes the following day. He knew it would be a struggle to keep his students motivated whilst they were at home. Rose headed off to bed with him, she gave the excuse that she was tired but you knew she wanted to cuddle with Finn. Poe had been upstairs for a while before Finn and Rose went to bed, he wanted to set up his bedroom space and make sure he left enough room for Finn to work. BeeBee had gone up with him for a while but had since come back down to join you in the living room. You were curled up on the couch, watching a few episodes of a show you loved. BeeBee had wandered over for some attention and you’d lifted the cute dog into your lap where he slept peacefully. You heard the floor boards in the bottom stair creaking. Poe made his way into the room.

“Can I join you?”

“Sure” you replied

“I see the best boy is making himself at home” he chuckled as his dog opened one eye to glance at him before settling back down to sleep. “Thanks again for this. I know it must’ve come as a surprise to you that we were moving in. It certainly came as a surprise to me when Finn sprung it on me when I got home from work”

“Yeah it was a bit of a surprise but at least they’re happy right”

“Yeah” he smiled fondly “I would’ve stayed at home. I didn’t push to come here”

“I’m glad you’re here” you replied “Rose was right, we don’t know how long this is going to go on, but I’m certain it’ll be more than the 4 weeks they’ve said so I’m glad you won’t be on your own”

Poe smiled. It was certainly going to be interesting having him living with you.

A/N - So here’s the intro. Please let me know what you thought. I’m still really new to this, and I’m not totally confident with writing so I’d love some suggestions of how to get better and what you liked :)

[muffinrecord]

Some Updates?

Youtube NA Archive Channel Updates

I’ve disputed a ton of videos (I’d say 60 out of the 66 currently waiting), and most of them are up again while I wait for a response from Sony. The way it works is that the Copyright Holder has 48 hours to respond, and if they don’t then the video will still have a claim but be available to watch on the channel. If they don’t respond within 30 days, then the video loses its Copyright Claim. So right now it’s just a matter of copy + pasting the same reply over and over where necessary, which is kinda time consuming but not too bad.

If you’re struggling with this issue, I use this very generic response. Feel free to use it, change it, build off of it, whatever:

“This video is not a substitute for listening to the original song. It is a recording of gameplay and story, with the background game music playing as a way to enhance the story itself. The actual gameplay is not an issue for copyright.”

Keep in mind that it’ll still take two days / 48 hours for the video to be able to go up. We can all still upload videos, it’s just that there’s going to be a wait period to combat these wretched Copyright Checks.

Unfortunately I had deleted some of the videos back when I planned on replacing them all instead of making disputes.

Some of them, like the above, are still within that 48 hour period. But once these two in particular are done (and the copyright claim on Chapter Nine is lifted), all of the Main Story will be available to watch again!

Lastly, like I said some videos are deleted. It’s kind of hard for me to tell what is up and what isn’t and what is just in the process of being disputed, so I won’t be uploading videos until things settle down a little bit more. 

Additionally, a stupid amount of videos are muted and will need to be reuploaded. I’ll probably be asking for help from people to check what is muted and what isn’t (things might be muted for like 30 seconds of the video and otherwise with sound, and I’d like to make sure everything has its proper audio).

However do not fear! If you’re a subscriber and worried about all these damn videos going up and clogging your feed, there is luckily a solution.

I’m not sure how long this has been an option on youtube, but it looks like you can make it so that uploaded videos WON’T show up in your feed! So don’t worry-- No spam!

If this isn’t true and there is, please let me know so that I can space out the videos instead of like, uploading all of them at once and overwhelming everyone x_x

Google Drive Archive

I have a lot to do here because I need to:

Upload JP Events

Upload JP Magical Girl Stories that are missing

Re-record old NA videos because their quality in the Drive is abysmal for some reason

Re-record a few missing videos (those videos are up thanks to a helpful individual who had ripped them from other channels, but I’d like to make my own and put them up)

Actually put together the three branch events for NA that I never finished and upload them

So what have I been doing? Recording Magia and Doppels! It’s actually kind of relaxing and this event with Half AP is great for it lmao. You can see what the folder for it here. There’s also a Spreadsheet that shows what I have up and what is missing so far.

I know that there are folks on tumblr who like to turn the Doppels and Magia into gifs-- feel free to use any of these! Unfortunately I don’t have really rare ones up yet (like Seika or Seira) because I’m limited to what I have and what my followers have.

... I’ve been thinking that once I have them all done, I might make a massive video for Magia and one for Doppels and upload them? That’s just scope creep though.

Memoria Blog Stuff

I completed all of the memos for Nayuta’s event!

I’m going to work on the ones I didn’t do in time for Sae’s event, and then do some missing personal memoria for Dependence Blue and for Alexandra.

My queue is really low at the moment. Right now, the queue is filled with memoria that have been stuck in there for months (but weren’t published in favor of other things). A lot of these memoria are ones that NA Refugees won’t have. I know that is kind of obnoxious, but I want to get these out of the queue because of how long they’ve been sitting in there for.

Right now I’m kind of focusing on building the queue with unlimited two-star and unlimited three-star memoria. I still have about twenty or ten unlimited four-star memoria to work on, but they’re all annoying ones to write. x_x So instead I’m working on the unlimited ones that are comparatively easier. I feel like also this is good because these ones are more accessible to F2P.

You guys have seen the little posts on this blog that collect all the completed events. I don’t imagine these are actually useful for anyone but me-- it’s my way of seeing what events I finished and what still need to be worked on.

Uhhh, separately, I’m beginning the slow process of going through old reviews and updating them. This is going to take a while, so if you see something on an old review and it looks off, it’s because its a WIP. I haven’t deleted any info in them though, so the review still works, I’m just trying to format it better.

Conclusion

That’s about it! Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to get everything out there.

I’ve heard that the last Tart event was really good and my friend Antimony suggested I liveblog it, so once it’s translated and I can read it in-game with the Rayshift Patch, I’ll try to do so! It might be a while though because I’m busy with other things (not just magireco related but also real life).

[hartigays]

3. “It’s always been you.”

3. “It’s always been you.”

billy storms out of the apartment, seething and fighting back tears. because billy hargrove does not cry. ever. he didn’t back when he lived with neil, he didn’t after his mom left, he didn’t when he got arrested for possession and almost lost his scholarship to UCLA.

he’s not about to start now.

not because steve pretty boy harrington has to go around acting like a grade-A asshole, with his soft hair and big eyes and pouty lips, screwing everything with a goddamn pulse. no sir. billy won’t give him that luxury.

the reality is, steve has always had a thing for plowing his way through as many people as humanly possible. or so billy heard all those years ago when he’d first arrived in hawkins and started inquiring about the pretty-faced indiana boy who billy just couldn’t seem to stay away from.

but billy thought all of that was behind them. they live together, for fuck’s sake. they’d moved out to california together so billy could go to school, and so steve could take a position at one of the offices of his father’s company in LA. steve hasn’t been seeing anyone, billy hasn’t been seeing anyone. they’ve been happy. content.

and okay, so maybe they aren’t dating. maybe billy hasn’t exactly told steve how he feels. but, like, steve should know. billy has gone out of his way to make it glaringly obvious. steve may be oblivious, but he’s not dumb. not like everyone thinks.

billy is pretty damn sure there’s no way steve isn’t aware of how he feels.

the worst part is, billy thought steve actually felt the same. at least, he had up until today, when he walked in on steve sitting on the couch with some girl, laughing and smiling and whatever the fuck else. he’d walked out before he could see anything more, despite steve’s desperate pleas for him to come back so they could talk.

there’s nothing to talk about. billy thought steve liked him, steve doesn’t. it’s done. he just needs some time to... process it, or whatever. billy finds himself on the beach soon enough, and he slips off his shoes so he can stick his toes in the sand, plopping down with a sigh.

it’s a private beach tucked a ways away from the pier, but billy knows the owners of this plot. they don’t stay at their beach house until the winter, when they want to escape to somewhere a little warmer during the colder months. he’s pretty sure the rest of their time is spent in aspen. so for now he’s safe to sit here and think, staring out at the water as the sun sinks below the horizon.

billy has brought steve here a lot. they’ve picnicked here several times, and billy even brought steve out a once or twice to teach him how to surf before they knew that steve was irreparably bad at it. the thought makes billy’s heart squeeze, and he has to pinch himself as a reminder to not be such a pussy.

because it’s whatever that steve is into some air-headed cheerleader type with a tiny waist and hair like strands of gold. it doesn’t bother billy one bit. not at all. he Does Not Care in the slightest.

maybe if he keeps telling himself that, it’ll somehow become true.

“thought i might find you out here.”

billy doesn’t turn around at the sound of steve’s voice, keeping his eyes forward even though his stomach sinks. “congratulations, you’ve finally managed to develop critical thinking skills. let’s bust out the champagne.”

“i can go if you want me to,” steve says softly, even though billy feels him sink down onto the sand next to him, close enough that their arms brush.

billy just snorts, shrugging. “i don’t give a shit what you do, harrington.”

steve just sighs, and for a long time he doesn’t speak. out of the corner of his eye, billy can see him staring out at the sunset, looking rather forelorn. billy wishes he could turn that look into something soft, something happy, but steve has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t have that right.

“you know, i remember the first time you took me here,” steve says finally, and billy can’t help but glance over at him. steve’s smile is warm and soft, but tinged with something like sadness. “you tried to teach me how to surf. the first time, i mean. i slipped off the board and busted my ass so hard on it you had to carry me home.”

“you suck at surfing,” billy acknowledges, nodding. “badly.”

steve huffs a soft laugh. “yeah, i do. i just remember thinking that it was still one of the best days i’ve ever had. because that was the day i knew you loved me as much as i love you.”

billy goes completely still, his heart leaping up into his throat and his eyes watering, because what the fuck? where does steve get off making an admission like that just to make billy be less upset with him?

“don’t do that,” billy says, his voice rough. “you don’t get to do that. don’t pretend like you feel the same just because you don’t want me to be pissed at you.”

“billy,” steve starts, sounding distressed. he pauses, meeting billy’s eyes and fuck, they’re filled with tears too and billy doesn’t know how he feels about that. “it’s you. it’s always been you.”

the words break something inside of billy, and he crumples. he can’t pretend to be mad anymore when the truth is that he’s devastated. plain and simple.

“you sure have a funny way of showing it,” billy tells him, sniffling and wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “i saw you two. you were two seconds from playing couch twister. would’ve been if i hadn’t walked in when i did.”

“leanne is gay, billy,” steve groans, burying his face in his hands. “she works with me and she’s gay. has a nice girlfriend named annalise. they have a fucking kid. we were just- jesus, i can’t believe i even have to explain this. to you of all people. i’m the dumb one, remember? fuck. we were just going over some fucking spreadsheets. yeah, riveting stuff. super romantic.”

“i didn’t- are you fucking with me?” billy asks, because he’s starting to feel really fucking stupid and a small part of him is hoping he didn’t just throw a (rather humiliating) tantrum over nothing. “you guys were giggling. and sitting so close, i just... i thought you were making a move.”

“god, you can be more dense than me sometimes, you know that? we were giggling about you, dumbass. i told her that i liked you and she wanted to know more,” steve explains, shaking his head in disbelief. “it was just- i dunno. like two friends at a sleepover giggling about their crushes.”

“would you quit calling yourself an idiot?” billy huffs. primarily because he can’t think of anything else to say - his mind is racing too much. but also because it’s true. “this kinda proves that if anyone’s an idiot here, it’s me. i just- i don’t understand why you never said anything.”

steve is shoving his hands through the sand repeatedly, watching the sand run between his fingers. “you know i’m bi, i told you as much. i figured you were like me, or gay, or- i dunno. i just thought you weren’t ready to talk about it yet. i left the ball in your court, thinking that once you were ready, we’d, y’know. address the fucking elephant in the room.”

“the elephant being... ?” billy trails off. and he knows, but he really just wants to hear steve say it again.

steve rolls his eyes, laughing. “you know what i mean. but fine: the elephant being that i’m in love with you. and that i’m really, really hoping you love me, too.”

“i do,” billy says, his voice soft. “and i’m an idiot. i’m sorry.”

“you’re not an idiot. i probably would’ve thought the same thing if the roles were reversed and i walked in on something like that.” steve glances over at billy, giving him a tender smile. “just... next time, let’s talk to each other, yeah? i think that’ll save both of us a lot of grief.”

billy just hums, nodding his approval. they sit in comfortable silence for a little while, both still too nervous to make a move despite having just confessed their love to each other. at this point billy just finds it endearing, but he really, really wants to be closer to steve, and not just emotionally.

“i am gay, you know,” billy starts, his palms sweating, “and i really want to kiss you.”

“i know. and i think i’d like that.”

steve’s lips are soft and yielding beneath billy’s. his kisses feel exactly the way billy imagined they would - tender and sweet and a little shy, but curious. billy tries to keep it slow, not wanting to shove them into uncharted territory, but it’s only a matter of time before billy has steve’s back hitting the sand, hovering over him, their lips never breaking apart.

steve just sighs into the kiss, embracing the new position without complaint. he relaxes into the sand, one hand threading through billy’s curls, the other curling into the tufts of hair at the base of billy’s neck. it’s a kiss that billy never wants to end. but he knows there’ll be more. so much more.

“i’d say at least now we can get a cheaper apartment, but i think we’ll both still need our space every now and then,” steve says when billy pulls away, staring up a him with big eyes.

“yeah. plus it’s... ” billy trails off, his cheeks flushing bright red.

“it’s what?” steve asks, his brows coming together in confusion. “seriously, what were you going to say?”

“it’s home,” billy says gently, bracing both arms on either side of steve so he can swoop down to capture his lips again whenever he wants to. “home is wherever i’m with you, but- y’know. i like our place. it feels like us.”

“you’re such a fucking sap, oh my god,” steve laughs, but he’s smiling so brightly that billy thinks the whole beach could stay lit up for the rest of the night. “billy hargrove, secretly soft and mushy inside. who would’ve thought.”

“wasn’t, ‘til i met you,” billy tells him honestly.

and it’s true, for a long time billy hardened himself to the world, protecting himself with an armor of indifference until steve came along and melted him to his core. but billy isn’t one to complain, not when it means he gets to go to sleep and wake up to steve’s smile every day now, for the rest of his life. forever, maybe, if steve is up for that.

he wouldn’t have it any other way.