#like they have no idea that they’re all doomed to play out the parts handed to them until it’s too late

[reignpage]

Frat Boy!Gojo

Cosmopolitan: sober thoughts

Word Count: 6.1k Contents: their first date, cursing, a little angsty, but mostly fluffy, not proofread (barely skimmed this so again, dunno how much sense it makes)

“Before you get any bright ideas, just know I’m sharing my location with at least ten people.”

Whistling, the biggest pain in your ass saunters over to you

The moon is full, a big white orb that would otherwise bring you a lot of peace to look at but right now, only pisses you off for reasons you’d rather not spend too much time pondering. Rarely anyone comes around these parts; it’s at the very edge of the city, a half-hour drive from campus, and surrounded by miles of dull, old suburbia. You’re standing in front of a metal gate, slightly taller than you, with vines wrapping around the pickets. It swings slowly with every gust of wind, creaking before it meets the stone wall with a bang.

Gojo grimaces. 

“Seriously, did you have to choose the scariest place in all of Eden? I mean, I respect the commitment to the aesthetic, but this is just crazy,” he grumbles, eyeing the cathedral from its huge marble pillars to the sharp spires piercing the night sky. 

You roll your eyes. Trust him to leave the date planning to you just to complain every step of the way. You’re already regretting playing along with whatever games he’s conjured up this time, but at least you’ve got home turf advantage; you know this place like the back of your hand. There won’t be any surprises happening tonight. 

Without replying, you walk off, heading straight through the gate. 

“Hey, wait! Don’t leave me here. I don’t want to end up as a statistic.”

Shrugging, you say, “If you’re scared, you can go back home.”

When he doesn’t say a thing and follows you, you smile. You win. But that feeling of victory doesn’t last very long because then he starts muttering about the cobwebs and how they’re everywhere, then about the tombstones, how they’re so messy with moss covering the engravings and that ‘the spirits must definitely be like so mad about all that’, and when you don’t respond to any of his musings, he even complains about the eerie music foreshadowing his pending doom, like in Jaws.

There is no music. 

“Where are we even going?” He pokes your shoulder, snatching his hand back faster than you can swat at it. “I thought we were going to, I don’t know, have a picnic under the stars and cuddle on top of someone’s grave, like Mary Shelley did.”

“How the fuck do you even know about that?” 

Gojo lifts one shoulder. “Must have heard it online or something.”

You roll your eyes again — you have a feeling you’ll be doing a lot of that tonight, maybe even for the rest of your life if things go the way your parents plan. When you had first found out the village idiot is the president of the most sought-after fraternity of the most prestigious university in the country, you thought maybe no one else had stepped up. But then you found out he’s a Legacy --the Gojos have governed that fraternity since its conception -- and well, the pieces fell into place. 

Mischief no doubt sparkling in your eyes, you look at him over your shoulder. His eyes are full of suspicion and when they meet yours, he becomes even more doubtful of your intentions. With a grin, you whisper, “We’re going someplace no one will hear you scream.”

“Kinky.”           

That didn’t have the desired effect. How annoying. Though you don’t fail to notice how he moves in closer to you, his warmth radiating to your body through your black, fur cloak. You don’t shift away. 

Gesturing for him to follow you through a gap in a wooden fence, you squeeze through to avoid splinters, pulling at your dress when a piece of lace catches on a nail. Just as you’re about to offer advice on how to contort his body to get through, he climbs over the fence and lands on his feet without stumbling, all in one quick sweep, like he’s who wanders these hallowed grounds at night and not you. 

“What?” He asks when he spots your glare. 

Not even those stupid sunglasses are out of place. Very annoying, indeed. 

“Come quickly,” you bark, fixing your silk gloves to cover more of your skin as the chill settles in. It’s only six in the evening, and yet there’s no hint of light in the broad expanse above you, just the moon and the stars lighting your way, and occasionally your companion’s phone flashlight when he needs to look at what he’s stepped in. 

He laughs. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

“Do you make it a habit to talk about your sex life with a girl on a first date?”

“You’re the first, so not a habit. Not yet anyways.” 

Screeching to a halt, your hand clutches his elbow to still him. Your jaw is slack and you’re staring, completely disbelieving. “There’s no way this is your first date. You took that girl to the casino.”

Gojo stares off into the distance as he ponders the notion, fingers tapping his chin. Then, he insists, “No, it really is my first date. And anyways, I don’t consider that night a date; she pretty much invited herself along. It was more like I was just taking her to the casino as her escort. Or maybe that does count as a date. If so, then I’ve been on a lot of dates. But none where I’ve actually used the word date. Does that even matter because —“ 

You wave a hand in front of his face to cut off his rambling; he talks way too much. “So, you’re telling me, I’m the first girl you’ve ever asked out on a date? That’s insane, Gojo. You hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he protests with a frown.

“You sure acted like you did for months,” you counter. 

He insists, “I don’t hate you. Never did. I just acted out but yeah, I’m sorry. I was a dick.”

Clearing your throat, you straighten up and continue walking. “It’s fine. Water under the bridge.” 

“You sure? ‘Cause I can get on my knees and beg.”

“Don’t tempt me, Gojo.”

He catches up to you and hums a playful tune, his light mood returning; Serious Gojo is gone like he never existed. “Guess that’s what you’re into, huh?”

“You’ll never know,” you snort, pushing a branch away from your face and letting it snap back into his chest, he yelps.

His hand reaches past you, lifting a thicker branch high above the both of you, before leaning close to your ear and whispering conspiratorially, “We’ll see.”

Disregarding the shiver than runs through you, you push on, moving almost on muscle memory alone. Your mind is attempting to distract itself by scanning the area, being careful not to be caught on church grounds after hours, pushing through the woodland to get to the clearing tucked away at the very back, where you go for peace and quiet. 

Truthfully, you have no idea why you decided to have this date here, of all places. This place is sacred. Literally but also figuratively — this is the place you always ran to when the world got a little too loud, a little too busy and bright for you. No one else knows about this haven as far as you’re aware and you always thought you’d do anything to keep it that way. And yet, you’re showing it to him. Actually, guiding him to the place. 

You should have at least blindfolded him so he couldn’t memorise the way. 

Maybe you wanted to spite him by living up to his expectations and being the gothic monster that he thinks you are -- you want to scare him off before he lets his curiosity take him too close to something that might scald him. He needs to be afraid of you. 

Or maybe you recognised that shadow in his eyes, the ones that suggests he’s lost as much sleep about this whole farce as you and thought he could do with a little silence. 

You both arrive at a thick bush, a massive wall of a shrub towering over even Gojo. Behind you, the cathedral is only a blob, lit up by lanterns, whereas you’re both submerged in darkness; there are no streetlamps here. 

“I’m totally going to be murdered here, aren’t I?” He whistles as if to say, ‘it’s been a good life, and I’ll have to just accept my fate’. 

“Yeah, I was lying when I said it was all water under the bridge. I’ve actually been colluding with the devil to sacrifice your white ass.”

Gojo laughs.

He laughs a lot, but rarely like this, you note. He chuckles when his friends do something stupid like push him into the fountain, and he snorts when he reads the most recent article on The Bulletin. But you’ve never really seen him throw his head back and clutch his stomach, at least not with anyone but you. He does it when you get caught texting him under the dinner table, when you give him the middle finger from across the Quad, and that one time you bumped into him in the hallway and almost apologised before you realised it was him.

It’s the kind of laugh that’s infectious, and you hoped every time he does it that you’re somehow immune. However, when he looks at you with a brightening sparkle in his eyes, you realise you’re very much not. 

You clear your throat again. 

“Through here, is a very special place. You must swear you will not desecrate this place, lest the Mother Crone curse you for your treachery,” you announce, wiggling your fingers at him for extra flair. 

Placing a hand on his heart, he stomps his foot like a soldier and swears, “I would never. I will take this secret to the grave.”

Satisfied, you grab the loose part of the hedge wall and pull it aside to reveal the little doorway to your secret hideout. He throws you a side glance before he ducks down and enters. You follow behind him, tucking the disguised door behind you. 

He doesn’t say a thing as you zoom to the side where you grope for something in the grass, right under part of the hedge. When you feel the smooth, cold plastic, you don’t hesitate to switch it on. 

Long wires of fairy lights light up, bulb by bulb, along the top of the hedge and down, like a really wide Christmas tree circling the hidden clearing. You hear him mutter a ‘woah’ under his breath as he scans the area — there’s only one thing here on the flat ground, it’s also lit up fairy lights along the top pole. It’s your most prized possession.

“You have a swing?” He shouts incredulously. Giggling like a child, he makes a run for it, jumping onto one of the two seats where he rocks back and forth on his feet. Then he’s whooping as he swings higher and higher, hair whooshing back and forth as he grins, taking in the cold autumnal air and the growing warmth of the lights. “This is freaking awesome!”

Sitting on the spare seat, you kick your feet gently so you can swing a little. Deep down there was a worry festering within, anxious that he would find this place boring, that he’d scoff at your idea of fun especially on a first date, but looking up at him, still hollering and grinning, you think, that was such a silly thought. 

Gojo slows to a mild back and forth momentum and wonders, “Are you sure I’m allowed to be here? This place seems pretty private, like your own mancave or something. Do girls have a version of a mancave? ‘Womancave?”

In the corner of your eye, you see him clamber down to sit as you answer his question. “I wouldn’t have taken you here if you weren’t allowed, dumbass.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still not convinced this isn’t an elaborate scheme to murder me and hide my body in a grave.”

“Neither.” You shrug. 

He laughs. 

Eventually, you both swing side by side, alternating up and then down. The wind is howling a little, rustling the trees surrounding you and the moon’s obscured by dark cloud. Neither you nor he say anything to break the silence. You were also worried that you’d come to hate his presence in your safe space, finding his tall, lanky presence an irritation, but surprisingly, you don’t mind it. 

It’s nice to have company. 

Especially when that company is keeping his mouth shut. 

“How often do you come here?”

Or not. 

With a sigh, you reply, “Like twice a week. I can’t come as often as I’d like because of all the classes and stuff, not to mention all the wedding planning we have to do.”

“Guess you have it worse than me since I don’t even need to be fitted for a suit; they already have my measurements,” he muses. 

“For whatever reason, it’s always the women who have to plan these things, even though it’s the men that propose.” You accidentally make eye contact with him. “Or at least, that’s how it usually goes.”

Gojo hums, a little sheepishly, before he changes the subject. “So, how did you find this place?”

“We buried my grandmother in the graveyard when I was fifteen. We were close and I took the loss pretty hard. I couldn’t stand all the people pretending they cared so I ran off, got lost and found this clearing. Well, I actually fell through the hedge, but I found it, nonetheless. And this swing was here already. I don’t know how long it’s been here or why it’s here, but it is.”

“That sounds like a fairytale.” He swivels, swinging a long leg over to straddle the seat, facing you as he leans back against the metal chain. “I’m sorry for your loss, by the way. I lost my grandmother too and it was rough.”

You saw that on the news years ago, it was one of those private family events that make the national headlines by complete virtue of the family name. Your parents grieved in public like it was their own loss and you didn’t understand why. Of course, as you got older, you became more and more acquainted with the idea of ‘reputation’ and ‘public image’, but you still feel that same distance to the concept as you did when you were but a child. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you repeat back to him.

He shrugs. “It’s alright. I’ve got my gramps. We’re best buddies.”

“You have a lot of best buds, don’t you?” 

Gojo strikes you as the kind of guy who makes friends easily, thought you question the depth of most of those friendships; sincerity is a rare phenomenon in your world. 

“No,” he huffs, “I have Suguru, the girl that gave you my number, and gramps. I have lots of close friends, though.”

Considering his words, you realise you don’t have any best friends. Sure, you have friends you hang out with often, people that share your interest, that you can party with, but none you feel as strongly about as he does with those three people. You can hear it in his voice, the conviction, the pride, the confidence. And when you glance at him, you know he doesn’t even realise how defensive he sounds about his people.

How nice it must be to have someone like him as a friend.

“We could be friends, if you’d like,” he offers, and when you look at him with confusion, he adds, “You said it out loud, silly. You think I’m a good person to be friends with. Which, of course I am. I’m like super awesome.”

You burst out laughing. What he said isn’t even funny and he certainly doesn’t mean for it to be, but for some reason it is. So, you laugh, throwing your head back and clutching your stomach. He makes noises of complaints, telling you it’s rude to laugh at people. That makes you laugh harder. 

“Gojo, be serious for a second. We can’t be friends, idiot,” you push out between puffs of laughter. 

He frowns, lips twitching to fight back a smile at your flushed face. “Why not? We’re getting along fine right now, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, for now. But we’re going to be married. Or at least, we’re supposed to be. And think of all the complications that brings, it just doesn’t provide the conditions for a healthy friendship, especially considering our beginning. Think of all the people in our circle who had arranged marriages. How many of them get along? Like, really get along. Hell! Think about our parents.”

“Well, we could be different. We don’t have to end up like them. We can break the cycle or something.”

You stop laughing.

Something shifts in the air, like the moon’s reappeared, the wind’s slowed down, and his eyes shine just a little brighter. It’s sudden and you almost don’t notice it, almost shrug it off. But there’s a sincerity lingering between you and it demands your attention.

Fixing him a solemn look, perhaps similar to the one he gave you before, you assert, “That sounds an awful like an admission of surrender, Gojo.”

“Maybe it is.”

The speed at which he concedes, the sheer resolution in his eyes and the way he doesn’t falter when he says it all scream at you something you won’t accept. Can’t.

He grips your elbow, his long fingers wrapping around the limb with ease, demanding your attention. The sombre expression on his ghostly face haunts you. It’s like he’s shifted into a different person, into someone years older, a man burdened with great responsibility. 

“I’m sorry. About how I started this year off. I regretted everything I said as soon as I said them. I can’t even remember why I said and did those things, but I definitely don’t have a good reason,” he rasped, a desperation lacing his words like he needs you to understand, like he tosses and turns over it. “I know you’re just as much a victim of this as I am, but I was facing a problem I didn’t know to solve, and I lashed out. At you. At someone who didn’t deserve it. And I’m sorry.”

You reel back, snatching your arm away. His touch burns the way ice does, and you have to rub warmth back into it, despite the layers between your skin and his. The sincerity in his eyes is alien, revealing far more about the ongoings of reality than you can absorb in one night. Confusingly, your heart is pounding to the beat of a song you’ve never heard before. 

This date thing, taking him to your secret haven, giving him the opportunity to see you not as the enemy but rather as a woman was a mistake. It’s all one big mistake. It would have been fine if he had stayed as the Gojo you knew, the boisterous, obnoxious party animal that cares only about immediate gratification. But the man in front of you is not someone you can marry. He isn’t the type of man you can be around and feel absolutely nothing for. 

“I’m hungry,” you mutter, standing abruptly.

He looks up at you, something passing in his eyes, almost akin to disappointment or sadness, and you can’t bear to think about what that could mean, so you simply gesture for him to follow you. 

In silence, you walk back the way you came, using your phone’s flashlight to navigate through the thick haze of darkness. This was a mistake; you let him in for a second, gave him a glimpse into your life, and you aren’t even sure why. Was it because you could hear your mother’s voice telling you to do whatever it takes to drag the man to the altar or because, despite yourself, you actually wanted to see what going on a date with Gojo means? 

Maybe it was both. 

Or neither. 

You’re losing more and more of yourself these days, doing things you’d never thought you’d do for one reason or another, and you no longer even know what you want. Your pride or your family? A marriage with Gojo or the friendship he’s offering? Is there’s a third option.

“What’d you wanna eat?” He asks, rocking back and forth on his feet as he stares up at a streetlight. 

You’ve both made it back onto the main road, the swings a mile away. He didn’t press the topic more, simply walked beside you and pushed branches away like before. 

It’s nearing eight in the evening and your stomach growls. 

“Who said I’m eating with you?”

Gojo rolls his eyes and pokes your shoulder. With a sulky tone, he groans, “Don’t be mean. You’re hungry, I’m hungry, let’s eat. Simple!”

“Can you cook?” 

He beams, sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he looks at you over them, bright eyes sparkling with what you can only guess to be mischief. You realise you really should think before you speak. 

—

That’s how you find yourself in his frat house kitchen, cloak discarded, hair up and gloves off. His frat members are out, partying, he claims, so the whole house is free. When he suggested it, you looked at him like he was insane, but he only wiggled his brows.

“You scared?” He cocked his head, grinning at you in a way that made you want to punch his teeth in. 

Narrowing your eyes at him, you responded, “No, of course not.”

Gojo bent his arms and rocked his head, making clucking noises that echoed in the empty street. Every note pierced your body, mocking and goading. You knew exactly what he was doing, and it was fucking working, the stupid bastard. Without responding to his accusation, you stomped over to his car and gave him a glare. He fetched his car keys and spun them on his finger with a victorious whistle.

“Grate this,” he orders. 

His kitchen is huge, which is understandable for the size of the house and how many people live here. Apparently, there’s three more kitchens in the damn place, not that you believe even a quarter of the guys that live here know what a cutting board is. The kitchen is surprisingly clean, however. It’s sparkling clean. 

“We have cleaners that comes in every other day,” he chuckles, noticing your looks of complete judgement whilst he boils some pasta. “But we are pretty strict on cleanliness, regardless. And everyone knows, I’m not afraid to crack the whip to keep everyone in line.”

Scoffing, you clarify, “You? Cracking whips? I find that hard to believe.”

He leans against the island you’re stationed at, the sound of water simmering filling the small space between you. Watching you grate the cheese, he hums, fingers fiddling with the lace of your sleeve. He mutters, “I know how to be serious when I need to be.”

You hum too. 

Still fiddling with the fabric, you ignore his wandering hand, fingers slipping under to roll the soft lace between his fingertips. Goosebumps rise on your skin. His touch is tentative, hesitant and gentle — one would think he’s just afraid to snag the fabric, acknowledging the craftsmanship, but one glance up at him, seeing his gaze fixated on your exposed skin more than your sleeve, you know otherwise. 

“Hands to yourself, Geralt.”

“If I’m Geralt, that must make you Yennefer,” he retorts. With a laugh, he pulls away, returning to the stove to tend to the pasta sauce. You don’t realise how much warmth he generated until you feel a sudden draught. 

The smell of frying onions and garlic is delicious and you’re becoming more and more starved by the second. He’s agile, moving swiftly and on muscle memory as he opens drawers and cabinets to gather the things he needs. 

“How often do you cook?” You ask, arm getting tired from the motion of grating the block of cheese.

Gojo shrugs and admits, “Not as often as I’d like. Weekends are for parties and pizza and all the other days, everyone’s doing their thing, studying or whatever, and eating by myself is kinda sad, so I just eat out usually.”

“How is it possible that you eat out so often but still remain so skinny?”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say because the next thing you know you’re being spun around and pressed into the island with a hard body. His arms are caging you in, keeping you still as he grins at you. 

He had thrown his jacket by the door when you both walked in; his biceps bulge as he flexes. They’re so much bigger now, or maybe they were always like that. And he’s pressed so close his Adam’s apple is right in front of you, bobbing when you tilt your head back so you can meet his eyes. 

“I’m plenty jacked, actually,” he brags and to add salt to the wound, he leans down, cheek brushing against yours to whisper against your ear, “wifey.”

You shove him off, snorting at his lame line. He back away with little protest. Trying to hide the heat in your face, you wash your hands, turning away from him completely. 

The rest of the hour passes by in a blink of an eye, and you finally sit down at the dining table across from each other. He’s a decent cook and you pay him a compliment even though it physically hurt to do so. 

“Do you not cook very often?” 

“I make sandwiches and ramen, that’s as far as I know how to do,” you admit with no shame.

He pours you a cup of water and asks, “Do you not have a chef to pre-make meals for you? My father insisted I have one, but I complained to my gramps about the lack of privacy and independence, and he gave up pretty quickly.”

You pause. It’s a stupid question to ask someone, from anyone else it’d drip in condescension, but you know he’s genuinely asking and it’s a valid question, just not one you’re ready to answer. So, with a careful shrug, you say simply, “I’m fine with the way things are.”

Gojo doesn’t sense the tense quiver of your voice, or if he does, he has enough tact to ignore it, so he continues the conversation. He talks to you about what being a frat president entails, and you tell him your experiences as the Treasurer. 

He also shares stories of his friends: the time ‘the gang’ snuck into the gym to put shaving cream in Toji’s locker after he had his room bubbled wrapped down to every single pair of boxers, each and every one of his friends’ drunk habits, and how he’s actually a lightweight so he sticks to beers most of the time but he hates the taste and actually much prefer cocktails. 

“Wait, wait,” you say between laughs, “you drink cosmos in secret ‘cause you don’t want your frat mates knowing their president actually hates beer?”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. But it isn’t my fault those things taste like wheat piss!”

You laugh harder. “They do! They totally do!”

“Has anyone ever said you have a pretty la—“

“Woah!” A voice yells out. “What’s going on here?”

You both turn to look at the wide-open door. Two men walk in, they’re in gym clothes, wide toothy grins on their faces as they stare between you and their president. You recognise them as second years, often hanging around Gojo in pictures or loitering in the Quad. 

One guy, a fake blond, wolf whistles when he sees you. “Satoru, you didn’t tell us you were having a girl over. It’s been a while; we rarely even see your bestie nowadays.”

“Yeah, this is a sight for sore eyes. This place was getting too much hotdog and not enough buns, if you know what I mean.”

When they both guffaw, you grimace. Their voices are grating, like sharp notes, and despite yourself, you cower in your seat. You hate the way they’re looking at you, in half desire and half repulsion — they’re enjoying the sight of a woman in their space, but they don’t know what to make of your attire. Usually, you don’t let people like them get to you, not their comments and not their stares. But something’s different, you’re more sensitive, less guarded. 

“Isn’t she your fiancé? We’ve heard all about her. The girls from Delta Sigma said she dresses like a witch, and well, they aren’t entirely wrong.”

“Get out.”

Three heads turn. Gojo’s standing; you hadn’t seen him move. He’s leaning on his fingertips, head hanging as he stares at his empty plate. No one says a thing. There’s no air in here anymore. Only silence, a grim, gut-wrenching silence. 

They stammer. “H-hey, man. What’s wrong?”

“Get. Out.”

“Come on, we’re just messing around,” the fake blonde chuckles nervously. 

Gojo looks up, slowly, like a creaking door. When his eyes settle on them, they stagger back with the force of his disappointment, and again with his wrath. Though you feel the tendrils of that infinite space between you, you don’t bear its impossible weight. 

With his body tense, veins bulging along his arms, broad shoulders pushed back ready for something you can’t quite grasp in this moment, you realise he really is jacked. And those muscles aren’t just for show or pressing girls against marble countertops. 

As great as it would be to be his friend, it’s even greater to not be his enemy. You didn’t realise it then, but you do now, if Gojo had ever really wanted to make someone disappear, he probably could have done so. 

“You would do well to remember that I, as descendent of the founder of Alpha Phi Delta, have a right to terminate any fraternity brother’s membership without a need for sufficient cause. Just because I’ve never exploited that clause doesn’t mean I’m above it. So, get out. Now.”

Cheeks red and heads hung low, they walk back out without sparing you another glance. 

Gojo sits back down, shoulders still tense. 

The silence hasn’t disappeared, but it has lightened, much more tolerable now. With an uncertainty in your movements, you push your knife and fork together and pat your lips dry. 

“Well, this has certainly been an eventful night,” you say. “I really ought to go, though.”

Gojo nods and takes your plate, leaving to go to the kitchen whilst you freshen up in the bathroom. 

When you come out, he’s already waiting outside with his hands tucked in his pockets, staring up at puffs of clouds he breathes into the night sky. There’s a sombre air around him, like you’re better off not disturbing him, but when he spots you from the corner of his eye, that air evaporates and he beams, literally brightens, practically shadowing the moon. 

“Hey, come on, I’ll drive you to your dorm,” he asserts with a smile. 

And he does. You get into his car for the second time of the night and watch the campus blur past you. Through the ten-minute car ride, he sings along to the pop songs on the radio, bopping his head to every beat like they’re coursing through his veins. 

“You don’t know these songs? Really?” 

He’s completely incredulous, looking at you as if you’ve grown two heads. You roll your eyes and jokingly explain you’re committed to the aesthetic. He finds that funny. The rest of the ride continues wordlessly.

“Alright, this is me,” you announce when he parks. He climbs out the car with you, leaning against his door as you shuffle awkwardly on your feet. “Despite certain parts of the time being…stiff, should we say, I had a lot of fun. Surprisingly.”

A tinge of red colours the tips of his ears. “Yeah, me too. I expected to lose my life, or at least a few limbs, at that graveyard, so I’m pretty happy with the turnout.”

You roll your eyes. “And I’m very happy I’m not covered in pig’s blood coming out of your frat house.”

“No, closest we had to that was the pasta sauce,” he chuckles. 

“Which was surprisingly delicious, by the way. You should cook more often instead of the junk food you eat.”

“Says you?” He pushes your shoulder lightly. “Miss Cup Noodles.”

“Whatever.”

The conversation dies there, laughter fading as both of you eye the doors of your dorm building. You pull your cloak tighter around you, irritated that, even though he’s just in jeans and a plain graphic tee, he’s seemingly unbothered by the temperature drop. 

“You should go in,” Gojo suggests, voice softer, barely louder than a whisper. 

You nod and make a step to go, but then a warm hand wraps around your wrist, tugging you back. He’s carrying the weight of it in his palm, thumb grazing your wrist. There’s electricity thrumming where he touches and you’re about to snatch your hand away before he tightens his grip. 

“Just a second,” he mutters, before pulling out something from his pockets. Something black. 

Your gloves. 

You forgot to put them on, having left them in the kitchen. 

He’s taking his time, smoothing the material over your knuckles, ensuring your fingers are tucked in properly. His thumb lingers on the curve of each finger, exploring the slopes. Your breath hitches as his hands envelope yours completely, his touch deliberate and light and there’s no other way to describe it: it’s positively reverent. 

The glove slide snugly into place, a second skin but they feel new, as if fresh from the machine, still warm. 

You shouldn’t let him reach for your other hand, shouldn’t just watch as he unfolds the other glove, slipping it on with much more care than you yourself had ever done. His eyes are watching the fabric consume more and more of your skin, until they meet the ends of your sleeve, and no skin remains. 

“Gojo,” you breathe out. 

He shakes his head, brows furrowing. “Satoru. Call me Satoru.”

When he finally looks up, your eyes meet and your pulse quickens, quick and short breaths pulling your chest up and down. You didn’t even realise one hand is clutching his shoulder whilst the other remains in his grip. And you certainly don’t notice that you’re standing much closer than before, only a hair’s breadth from finding out whether his lips are as soft and plush as his touch. 

“You smell really nice,” he whispers, thumb running across your knuckles, like he’s willing warmth into your hand. 

You’re so close it only takes one gust of wind to push you together, to taste what a future with him could mean, to seal the first date with something that’ll keep you up at night. Just one kiss, one bad decision and everything could fade away for a second. You could pretend he’s just a boy and you’re just a girl and this is a normal date, that you have a normal relationship and tomorrow you could go back to being arranged lovers. 

His lashes flutter, so long and wispy and you’re jealous. Flickering between your eyes and your lips, you know he’s searching for any sign that you might want this just as bad as he does. You’re craning your head back, back arched to reach him, and when your chest rubs against his for a millisecond, he shuts his eyes with a groan.  

“Hey! If it isn’t Gojo,” a gruff voice bellows.

You step back, gasping for air and desperately smoothing your skirt down as you give a shaky smile to the newcomer. He’s a tall, buff man wearing shorts and carrying a basketball. He pats Gojo on the back, oblivious to the tension, to the way his friend is pouting, grumbling about how he ‘ruined the moment.’

The man looks at you with a friendly enough smile, eyeing your appearance with nothing more than curiosity before he gives you one of those manly nods. 

“Whatcha doing at my girl’s dorm?” He asks. 

Clearing his throat, Gojo answers, “Just dropping my wi—I mean, my friend off. Yeah, just stopping by.”

The guy doesn’t look ready to stop talking. So you take the initiative to excuse yourself with an awkward kiss on the white-haired boy’s cheek and you whisper, “Goodnight...Satoru.”

You don’t wait for him to reply.

Just as you’re about to enter your dorm building, you hear a distinct, “Dude, I totally cockblocked you, didn’t I? Fuck, put that thing away. You’re gonna poke my fucking eyes out!”

You smile just as your phone pings.

[cynningly]

oh to have your story be told hundreds of times yet still be unable to change it

The Guardian, The Firebrand, The Damsel, The Voyeur; damned to repeat this cycle of torture until they all fall prey to it-

-only to begin it again

“THE GREAT FLOOD SHALL WASH AWAY ALL THE ASH, READYING THE WORLD FOR ANOTHER GREATER, CYCLE”

-HABIT

[vinylfoxbooks]

25 Days of Jegumas | Day 1 | Day 8 December 9 - Holiday Movies | @noblehouseofgay | wc: 697

Regulus sighs, watching his partner sit in front of the DVD player with three cases in hand, looking between the three of them contemplatively. He’s helping Harry finish the last of an assignment that he got for over the weekend, something about making Santa do something or into something else to help promote childhood creativity, and the boy is in his own little world with the crayon he’s scribbling away with. So Regulus is focusing on his partner, his gaze flicking to his phone occasionally to see if he has any updates about where his friends are.

Ever since James learned that Regulus didn’t grow up watching any movies, let alone Christmas movies since his parents hated the idea of joy, James has made it their mission to educate Regulus on his lack of knowledge. So every Christmas since they got together has entailed James sitting him down and watching at least two Crhistmas movies, and they watch Home Alone every year since James loves it. Harry has always enjoyed it as well, since they have a movie allowance for him every weekend. However Regulus can’t say that he’s thrilled -- he’s not a big fan of watching movies, he would much prefer reading books. 

And to either make it worse or better, Regulus was talking about how he was being forced to do this during his most recent dinner with Evan and Barty and they very excitedly declared that they wanted to join in. Regulus denied it at first, but then later mentioned it to James while they were getting ready for bed and James seemed thrilled about it and immediately told him to invite them over for the night. 

So here he us, watching his son play with his crayons and his partner putting together the optimal movie night -- as much as he doesn’t love these nights, he does love the effort that James goes through to make the night good for him and to make up the missing parts of his childhood -- waiting for his doom in the form of his annoying best friends and partner and Home Alone for the fifth year in a row. 

But soon there’s a loud knocking on his door and Barty screaming for Regulus to let him in. Regulus leaves Harry alone to open the door, being pulled into an enthusiastic hug that Regulus only partially wants to be happening. He forces himself out of Barty’s arms and slips away from them, “Come on in. Harry and I are at the kitchen table and James is setting up the movies in the living room.” He guides them into the house, and they both follow him into the kitchen. 

“Is that my little Haz?” Barty bellows, walking over to the kitchen table and leaning down onto it and turning his head to make eye contact with the boy. 

Harry looks up at the voice, lighting up, “Uncle Barry!” He swivels around until he can see Evan, “Uncle Ev!” 

Evan smiles at the boy, walking over and ruffling the younger’s hair, “Hey kid, how are you?” 

“Good! You like Santa?” 

Evan hums and leans over him to look at his drawing, grinning down at him, “It’s cute, are you excited for the movies tonight?” Harry nods dramatically, and Evan ruffles his hair again, “My man.”

Regulus rolls his eyes as James walks into the kitchen, “How about we put your Santa away and get ready for the movies?” Harry nods, making a noise of vague disgust when James walks over to the group and pulls Regulus in for a quick kiss. They laugh and say hello to the other two men and go to finish preparing for the movie night, pulling out some extra popcorn. Regulus leaves Harry in the trust of Barty and Evan -- chaotic motherfuckers and possibly bad influences as they are, they are incredibly good and loving with his son and it lights up Regulus’ heart -- so he can put the drawing in a safe place for the next week and goes to help James.

And when they’re all done with the prep work, the five migrate into the living room and James presses play on the movie.

Day 10

[ardentpoop]

top 10 sam relationships ranked and why

for simplicity’s sake I will try to exclude threesomes/foursomes, platonic or otherwise. but note that every dynamic on the show that I have a dedicated pretentious tag for (all of which involve sam) is one that I like to play with in my head.

samndean. what can I say besides failmarriage of all time. one of the most interesting relationships ever portrayed on tv if you’re watching closely, and too many ppl try to cram it into a box and imo they’re all missing the forest for the trees (to be clear this does Not apply to most people who correctly recognize it as an abusive relationship; imo you can’t truly understand either of them or their dynamic if you are unable to reckon with this)

sam & jack. mother and son biologically linked to the same predator (lucifer) and orbiting the same violent head of household (dean)……both of them scapegoated for their Inherent Impurity and shuffled from cage to cage…..bursting at the seams with anger and grief over how powerless they feel to contain the powers that broadcast to the Men In Charge their slow but steady “corruption”…..sam couldn’t prevent jack from experiencing the exact same life-changing trauma that sam experienced at dean’s hands….what’s better than this 💕

sam & cas. shockingly underrated to this day. they’re patient and doctor (sexual) they’re worshiper and heretic (alternating. also sexual.) they’re dean’s brotherwife (sam) and dean’s cuck friend (cas) who’s in unrequited love with him and regularly getting his wife off in strange and unethical ways. they’re parents to jack and dean is the beloved angry man in their house who calls the shots bc they’re too sloppy and broken to make their own decisions. the lucifer&sam&cas link paralleled with the lucifer&sam&jack link. the devil’s rejects. sam can watch cas torture some guy with a look of admiration on his face and then they’re retiring to sam’s room in the bunker to watch shitty tv together in comfortable silence. cas experimenting with sam’s body is so commonplace that he can offer to do Anything to him and sam okays it without hesitation. I love thinking abt how their relationship developed over the seasons esp given where it started. delightful to me :)

sam & john bc they let me explore my many serious issues with my own father without burning myself too badly <3

sam & mary because much like sam and jack they were doomed from the start in the same way and watching them get hollowed out makes me want to scream (complimentary) plus the audience doesn’t appreciate either of them properly they are both Riddled with interesting bruises in the same places.

sam & meg bc BUABS gender fuckery forever (they’re both trans. to be clear)

sam & ruby bc ruby is dean-mirror and she is mother and she is fattening up her little lamb for the slaughter and she is teaching dumbo how to fly and she is saying “I’m sorry you’re hurting. I had no idea that dean would do that to you” and she is Poison, dean says, after locking sam up, and she is tenderly stroking the tears off sam’s face and smiling after she permanently shatters his faith in her.

sam & crowley. they are never ever fucking in a million years and that’s the best part. sam’s condescending “am I supposed to be impressed by that?” made my brain short-circuit. she isn’t this mean to Anyone else it’s beautiful.

sam & rowena. I can’t write the essay abt them that I want to write. they’re hot. I love how much crowley would’ve Despised seeing them getting along.

sam & gadreel for the fic potential alone. they are my little cutesies </3

[lowpolynpixelated]

The Great Divide

What is an Indie game? Is it the literal definition? A game developed and distributed by an independent developer and/or publisher. Is it a connotation of style? Pixel or simplistic graphics, cozy vibes, outlandish mechanics. Is it a representational title? Small development teams, smaller experiences, cheaper games. It is, in a way, all and none of these things. During what I would call the “true bloom” of the Video Game Landscape in the late 90s and early 2000s, such a term was seldom common nomenclature. No in those days it was “enthusiast titles” or “hobbyist” releases. Nothing like the Indie-Directs we see now. So what happened? And why does there seem to be such a clear divide in people’s minds between what’s Indie and what’s Triple A, and why can’t they explain it very well?

Part One: Where did it start?

To say that it started in the early 2000s would be incorrect. Ever since video games began being made people have taken it upon themselves to let their creativity flow through their digital catalyst of choice. The interactive medium was, and still is, unlike anything that came before. Video games are far more than “movies you can play in” they’re art pieces. Statements. An entirely unique way to engage with and experience a work of art, music, writing, and digital wizardry all packaged onto something that fits in the palm of your hand. Video games are magic. And so its no wonder that people wanted to make them. Look at such a famous game like DOOM. Ids smash hit originally had its first level freely distributed via mail-in receipts or at electronic stores, and was sold by Id itself before it took off to a nationwide scale. Developed and distributed by just a few people in an office. Sure there’s always more logistics to it than that, but doesn’t that fit a few of the definitions already? The 80s and 90s were truly the “Wild West” of video games. Because of the market’s fresh growth and upwards trend it took very little to get your game onto a console. Just look at all the titles on the original NES/Famicom systems. Before the advent of the term “Shovelware” it was quite common for such experiences to flood a library. Though this fell out of fashion more in the 90s during the SNES/Genesis era of things in favour of more well tuned and marketable competitive experiences. Such varied scales of polish and concept were doubly so if you look at the Computer Game community from the time. Developing your own games was a passtime. A trick to learn on new fangled devices. So what happened after? During the 3D revolutionary period in the 5th generation of consoles there were more standards. Sure, there were still some more shallow experiences around, but if you wanted to be known in the mainstream world video games you needed to be on a console. And so this is where I think began the true form of what most modern standards would call an “Indie game”.

My favourite examples of such titles include games like “Katamari Damacy” and “Okami”. Both games were developed by either a much smaller studio or in Katamari’s case, just a few select people. They were indeed published by established names, Namco and Capcom respectively, but they have much more in common with the Indie titles of today in that regard as well. In this era it was quite common to find games made by smaller studios, or even sometimes smaller teams within larger studios, given a run on the most popular hardware because the idea was fun. Or for perhaps a more clinical point of view, the idea could be sold. So I ask again, what happened? If you could find such games on consoles for six entire generations of video game consoles, why is there now this “Great Divide” between the Indie and the Triple A? Let’s go back to PC gaming during this time for a bit more information.

In 2003 something very important to this conundrum happened. This event would forever change the way digital distribution of video games would happen, and eventually, in my opinion, lead to where we are now. In 2003 Valve Software launched Steam as a software client meant to manage and deliver updates to their catalog of games. In 2005, only 2 years after its launch and the same year as the launch of the 7th generation of games consoles, they began using the client as a digital storefront to sell and distribute 3rd party software. Before Steam digital distribution of games was spread quite thin due to its relatively new nature. The early 2000s saw internet speeds both fast and stable enough to properly facilitate said distribution, and Valve were hardly the only ones to try and jump on the train as it began to speed up. Storefronts like Stardock stand as earlier examples of attempts to sell games over the web. Steam would be the one to not only take off, but to stick the landing as well.

In the year before Steam’s foray into offering 3rd party software, the 6th generation of consoles had an early adopter of this online storefront model. In 2004 the Xbox Live Arcade as launched on the original XBOX. This allowed owners of the console to purchase additional titles directly to their console, granted they had Xbox Live and the hard drive space to spare. These two factors, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam, would become the catalyst for the explosion of digital purchasing as well as ground zero for when The Great Divide would begin to form. When Xbox Live Arcade was in its prime it was offering games more frequently and successfully than any other console at the time. The Wii’s Wii Shop did a decent job keeping up and was a delightful experience in purchasing old Nintendo Software, and the PlayStation Store was no slouch either. Xbox, however, had an edge. As a part of many of their events such as “Summer of Xbox Live” it would offer alongside many well known console titles, smaller titles made by small and often independent developers. Games such as Castle Crashers, Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Splosion man, and many others joined the ranks as “Xbox 360 experiences”. Meanwhile on the other side of the coin, Steam was offering these independently made games as a part of its online marketplace. But of course, as we discussed, it was common to find these in the PC space.

So why was Xbox a big deal? Because suddenly, offering these “Indie” games for smaller price tags was wildly successful. It had precedent, certainly. In it’s infancy the Xbox Live Arcade offered games at smaller price tags, anywhere from 4.99-9.99. It wasn’t just a way for smaller games to get recognition on consoles. On the other side of the coin, it was a marketing tactic. “Indies” were hot ticket items all of a sudden. Bolstering your library with indie games meant that the Xbox was the place to go for smaller developers who wanted a life on console, it meant that Xbox was supporting the wider gaming community, it meant that Xbox had video games at bargain prices. I’m sure the executives had dollar signs in their eyes the whole time, and perhaps that is a bit of a cynical way to view it, but it worked out that way. The ramifications of this tactic would continue on and its consequences felt for years to come. Some good, some bad, all very frustrating to categorize.

Part Two: The divide widens

After the massive uptick in the marketing of “indie games” via the pushing of the label in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the gap between what people considered “Triple A” and what was considered “Indie” only got wider. Indie games were small, quaint, not to be judged on the same rubric as those big budget releases that sold consoles. Criticism towards these titles was usually relegated to things like length and price. People were more forgiving to games made by two person teams on aspects like music, gameplay, and graphics. But if you dared to think that your game was worth 30$? Now you’re pushing it. Criticism levied at independently made video games grew more and more harsh in these realms. Why is your 6 hour game 25$? Why does a game with graphics like this cost more than 5$? Pixel art is easier and cheaper, right? This type of criticism was the bread and butter of judging the value of an indie title. If you packed in all the polish and fun of a “triple A” release and sold it for 15$, you were perfect. If it was your first title that you worked on for 5 years straight and DARED to think it was worth 20$, or even 30$, you weren’t experienced enough to ask for that. Every rough edge, every bug, every glitch was now ammunition to say how your game was a “flawed masterpiece that just costs too much” or “A surprisingly fun hidden gem held back by a few things”. The softer “fun little game” approach wore off quickly, and what was left in its place was criticism and judgment just as vicious as those reserved for big name releases.

This was also the time in which some of the more glaring flaws of the “triple A” sphere began to rear their heads higher into the light. The mid 2010s saw the data size of big name releases double or sometimes triple in size demanding more and more storage space for consoles. Some of the time the responsibility was put on the owners of the consoles, with external hard drives being common for the ps4 and Xbox One even more so than they were with the PS3 and Xbox360. A big reason for this was that larger games were steadily getting worse quality wise. Rushed development cycles, overbearing crunch time for developers, and corner cutting development practices encouraged by executives were making AAA games into buggy messes that didn’t go down in price and needed day one patches. Criticism did keep up with these factors, but not in a very popular light. Voices in the gaming landscape who had been advocating for people to pay more attention and demand better from larger companies with resources to do better (a prime example is Stephanie Sterling, who is a longtime video game journalist and extremely vocal about the myriad issues plaguing the industry), and were often ignored in favour of hype and “just wanting to enjoy things”.

All of this amounted to a market with a clear divide. Indie games were small and shouldn’t be judged as the bigger stuff is, but the bigger stuff is also getting worse and deserves more criticism. Indie games were their own genre by this point. Anything that could be called cheaper or less impressive than a standard console release was an indie game. Anything that could be called WORSE than a standard console game was compared to an indie game. They became both a standard that triple A games should outdo, and an insult to be hurled when the game didn’t. The passion, skill, and artistry of hundreds upon hundreds of developers and artists became nothing more than what the Nintendo Switch was using to boast “hundreds of new games every day!”, with most of said games being shovelware and phone apps being hocked onto the console at inflated prices. Still, with how games had come to be categorized, Hollow Knight and Calculator App 412 are worth the same.

Part Three: What does it mean?

So what relation does this have to indie games? Well, the issue with the way criticism was being levied against big name releases was that the criticism effecting independent releases stayed the same. The late 2010s and early 2020s saw some of the worst triple A launches in gaming history, but when a game made by a few people sold for 15$ does all the supposed highest level of the industry can and sometimes more it’s only “surprisingly polished for an indie game”. I ask you, reader, what are we comparing these games to? When most so called “triple A” releases are half finished, rushed to release, or just barely functional, how are games that meet their own goals or even surpass them still a surprise? My argument here is that the terms “triple A” and “indie” no longer apply as much as they used to. In more recent years (I’m writing this in 2024) a middle step has been gaining traction among popular gaming news and review sites, the AA game. “Double A” games, as they’re being called, are supposedly indie games with much higher levels of polish, but not enough to reach the supposed heights of “triple A” games. A more apt description of how the term is being used though, is a way to justify big name releases, floods of half-baked remakes/remasters, and substandard work being pushed by the heads of the industry. Saying a modern big name release is “about as polished as a double A game”, is less inflammatory than saying “it only plays like an indie game” but is no less insulting.

What even IS a double A game? A previous example, Hollow Knight, has often had this new classification applied to it due to its level of polish and apparent higher value than other independently made games. All this label has done is create yet another step for independent games to never achieve unless they get popular enough. There is no inherent value to a video game. The circumstances of its development and skill of its developers do not make it worth more or less than another. So without labels like indie, double A, and triple A, what do we call video games? The answer lies in the question, Video Games. This isn’t to say you can’t judge the quality of a video game. That quality, however, will vary wildly from person to person. Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a classic masterpiece to some, and a boring military shooter to others. The same can be applied to all “classic masterpieces”, and all modern works as well. Horizon Zero Dawn and Hollow Knight exist on different levels of developer and artist intent. They exist in different genres, in different dimensions of art, in different modes of gameplay, but they’re both video games available for the PlayStation 4 and will have their fans and detractors just the same. Hollow Knight was priced as its creators thought they could value it, but price is not quality. Quality in art cannot be discerned as fact. Art does not exist in such cut and dry terms and circumstances. What is inspiring to one might be mundane to another.

There ARE inherent things on which to judge a video game. To exist within the art medium certain factors MUST be up to snuff with what the developer wants the game to be. Core mechanics and gameplay, graphics reading well for what they represent, audio functioning correctly within the expectations set by the game. A game must be playable to be enjoyed, after all. But this is a baseline. You can’t call a calculator app a video game. That just isn’t what its meant to be. It doesn’t meet the base of what a video game is as an interactive experience. What you actually judge and criticize within a video game is the developer’s skill to make it what it says it is. Its price, and more often than not its length, do not determine that. Neither does an arbitrary category created to split the market into “standard and premium” video game experiences. You, the player, do.

Part Four: Thanks and future thoughts

Hello, and thank you for reading my article. The Great Divide is a theory and thought process I’ve held about the gaming landscape as a whole for quite a while, and it feels good to put those thoughts to digital paper. I do have more thoughts on the subject, but am electing to leave this here for now and return to it later in the form of another article, or perhaps an extension or video companion piece to this one. This piece is an opinion, and though it states true facts about video game history I do not offer the whole as fact. These are the ways I feel, and I hope that if you read them you might feel the same. Thank you for reading.

[steve0discusses]

Ep 45 Part 2: I, Again, Did Not Expect Ryou

The revolving door of characters wandering into this boss arena continues, and this time it’s Pharaoh who is trying to catch up to the plot with the dead woman on the ground, the giant tablet to the side, and Seto who is cackling to himself in a corner.

And Seto does a big ol laugh and it’s been a while since we got a villainous laugh out of Seto. Been a LONG TIME. Probably felt great for this voice actor to go back to his roots.

(read more under the cut)

Y’all.

It’s been a while I’ve been doing this blog, right? And I take it slow, especially right now with chronic fatigue stuff, but MAN I really thought we’d be dueling SETO. Not Aknadin in a Seto Bean! That’s a different guy!

Yugioh! That’s a completely different guy!

And there’s time for the big showdown between Pharaoh and Seto to actually happen. But trying to write it so we no longer develop this rivalry between Seto and Pharaoh feels like...they had to do that because Seto became a friend maybe kind of unintentionally.

It still works, they haven’t lied to us, I just...I have mixed feelings about it.

Mimicking Blue Eyes in Season 1 and Season Zero, this dragon will not work for you if you are not Seto Kaiba. Or Yugi. She’ll sometimes allow Yugi to play her in his deck. But definately not Seto Imposters. And like that, Aknadin is dead by his own hubris.

Hubris be killing a lot of billionaires lately, amiright? Yugioh just leaning into my love of killing billionaire gentry with hubris.

This romantic moment somewhat ruined by the animation team refusing to draw fingers and always keeping everyone’s hands clenched like they’re gonna furiously poop.

Yami watches as Seto recreates the vision that Kaiba had seen several years prior on the blimp. And Yami I’m sure felt entirely 3rd wheel. But he’s used that. He lives in Yugi’s bean. He probably thinks 3rd wheel is normal and how everyone feels all the time.

And then THIS HAPPENS.

Seto decides he’s had enough of watching behind a pillar, and now that everyone is dead and sobbing he should go out and harass Yugi. Youknow, at this funeral. The funeral of his beloved from like a previous life or whatever. Seto is kind over it and for once he is the one that needs a ride home.

And he’s like “hey so...I noticed that guy looks like me”

And then, when you think “well I guess Seto joins the party?” they just start screaming at eachother, within earshot of Seto, within earshot of the dead dragon card, within the earshot of like the entire world.

Remember that no one can actually see Seto but Pharaoh, which makes it even more funny.

Bakura segue’s us back to Yugi and his cursed friends, where he’s trying his best to explain the logic of cursing your classmates with dark magic so you can go on playdates.

The idea that you go through all the trouble to curse people into liking you, but the puzzle itself is made of dark magic, so it finds the most terrifying people to make your friend, is funny to me although it is completely my headcanon.

Anyway, get ready for the still my computer caught for this next one.

(it’s “surprise” but eh I don’t feel like fixing it at this point.)

It DOES look like Tristan is doing a weird cross punch, he’s actually tossing both of them and his hands over extended to the other side, which is a thing we do in animation, we go past the point you intend to go so it looks more fluid--but it does make the tweens funny.

The floor gives way and creates scales made out of the eyes.

Will Yugi leap from his scale and send his friends to purple doom, or will he find Pharaoh’s name and save the world?

which like, wouldn’t be a good episode of Yugioh unless multiple people were asking to die, and Joey nailed it in the most Brooklyn way this Japanese boy knows how.

And so Bakura was like “never mind.” which I guess was an option in the footnotes that only he could read.

Not shown is a hard to cap animation where Yugi leapt from his edge of the scales and just clung to Joey’s waist and Joey was like “gotta hang on to your friends, right Yuge?” And Yugi was like “Does that mean you forgive me already? Or are you being sarcastic right now?”

Inside of the room is this.

I LOVE the outline tool in photoshop. Good stuff. I LOVE it. and so does this animation team. Outlined the HELL out of those birds.

They leave the name zone room, with no idea at all how to say Pharaoh’s name. Where, they ran straight into Tristan and decided enough was enough, it’s time to have a chat. Because no, they haven’t figured it out.

You may be asking “so where did Tristan go?”

I DON’T KNOW.

He’s probably not fine. But um. No idea where Tristan went.

Also, guess who we haven’t seen in like 20 episodes since Seto stepped over his prone body on the steps?

Ryou! Little Ryou is back!

This guy who we...thought was a good guy? Anyway he’s off to literally kill Yugi, just like he’s want to do.

Straight up...I can’t fully predict Ryou, mostly because we rarely ever see the kid, but damn, he sure did wake up just ready to do a murder today, didn’t he?

And yes, this does mean that Ryou was pretending to be Bakura pretending to be Tristan, just so we the audience could get a fun triple reveal in this episode.

For some damn reason Ryou brought a duel disk to ancient Egypt. So we WILL get actual proper cards. And by proper cards, I mean Yugioh TV show cards, which line up not at all with the actual card game. Can’t wait to spell FINAL and then die.

Anyway, here’s the link to read these in chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

We are quickly running out of people in this season to kill, but we still got a few of Pharoah’s ancient friends left, and as for who dies next episode? My bet is on...Isis. Sorry Isis, I know you got a cool hat and you’re the token girl but, she’s super dead next right?

[adrift-in-thyme]

Day 26: Forced to Choose (Wild & Time)

Ao3 link

Cw for blood and injury, implied/referenced torture

Quick disclaimer: this has some Tears of the Kingdom stuff in it, BUT for the most part it's spoiler free. I haven't watched any gameplay videos except for the Nintendo one, or read any reviews, or seen the artbook leak. So, this whole plot is just me having fun with angsty ideas. If any of it is actually in Tears of the Kingdom I'll be amazed. Still, if you want to go into it completely spoiler free, avoid reading this until you've played the game.

——————-

Time is dying.

Wild can see it in the deathly paleness of his skin, the tremor that runs through him with every labored breath, the blood spreading along the middle of his tunic like the sky during a blood moon. He’s slumped forward, eye trained dully on the ground, the grip of the Yiga assassin on his shoulder the only thing keeping him upright. But when Wild chokes out his name, he raises his head to look in his direction.

“You’ve gotta hold on,” Wild manages through the tears and the pain and the terrible crashing guilt because this is his fault, all his fault. “Please, old man.”

The Yiga drag him back even as he fights to reach his brother, his friend, the man he’s come to think of almost as a father. He inhales sharply as the ropes tear into his wrist (his fleshy, soft, human wrist, not the one that can no longer be torn by such things as weak as rope. Not the one attached to an arm whose powers he hasn’t even begun to fully understand yet has still landed them here.)

“What-whatever they want,” Time says, voice quiet and hoarse, strained by blood loss and pain, “don’t gi-give it to them, cub.”

Laughter erupts from behind him, deafening and maniacal, and it sets Wild’s blood to boiling. He glares at the assassin standing behind Time, wishing for all the world he could tear every one of these cursed sadists apart. It hardly has the effect he wants it to, though, what with the tears streaming down his cheeks and the blood and grime smudged over his body and his arms pinned behind him.

He could escape if he wanted. With his new limb, he could drop right through the floor and resurface wherever he so chose. He won’t though, not now, not when leaving that way means abandoning Time. That’s not an option Wild will ever entertain.

And the Yiga know it.

“Your friend isn’t doing too well, is he?” One of the assassins sneers now, leaning over Wild’s shoulder, his breath hot and clammy in his ear. “Looks to me like he’s bleeding out.”

“Oh dear,” another joins in, jeering tone grating upon Wild’s ears. He holds a demon carver in his hand, the same one responsible for the wounds marring Time’s body. “What a horrible situation! Whatever can the chosen hero of the goddess do?”

“If only there was a way to save his life,” the first Yiga murmurs. He reaches over Wild’s shoulder to dangle a potion in his face, tone changing from mocking to threatening. “You know what we want, hero. Give it to us and he lives. Refuse and we’ll make you watch as he dies a slow, agonizing death.”

“Champion,” Time says, stern despite the pain in his voice, “do-don’t.”

Wild squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out the sight of Time battered and broken and covered in blood, trying to stop the sound of the cackles and jeers surrounding them. He knows exactly what they want, he’s heard their demands repeated for the last few hours, whispered and murmured and screamed inches from his face. And he’s refused them for just as long, every single one landing in a new strike upon Time’s body.

But he couldn’t give in, he just couldn’t. What they want from him, what they’re asking him to do, could doom Hyrule.

His arm, this wonderful new appendage gifted by the gods when Ganon’s dark magic devoured his natural one, is one half of the key to the Silent Realm where Ganondorf is now locked away. The other half is the Master Sword, lying hidden deep within the Korok Forest where the Yiga cannot go. But the assassins, loyal as ever, want nothing more than to set Ganondorf free. And they will stop at nothing to accomplish their goal. Even if it means forcing their sworn enemy to unlock the Silent Realm for them.

Last time Ganondorf revived he’d nearly wiped out Hyrule and the remnants of people working to rebuild it. This time, Wild doesn’t doubt he’ll finish the job.

“Cub.”

Wild pries open eyes clouded with tears and raises his head to meet Time’s gaze. The man seems to have grown even paler in the last few minutes alone. But his face is set in a look of determined resignation.

“You can’t.”

And he knows he’s right, he does. But to just let Time die, to sit and watch as he’s deprived of his future, to see the light leave his eye and know he’ll never lead the group again, never tell cryptic stories around the fire, never laugh or smile or feel. To know Malon will lose her beloved “fairy boy” long before his time…

Wait.

Wild’s spiraling thoughts come to a screeching halt, eyes widening as it hits him like a stone talus to the face. Fairy boy. Time is a fairy boy. He grew up in the Lost Woods, has even admitted to knowing them like the back of his hand.

He raises his eyes to Time once more, a plan formulating in his head.

It can be too much sometimes. I can’t take the grief of my entire kingdom, only to lose just one friend.

But maybe, just maybe he doesn’t have to.

“So, what’s your answer, hero?” The Yiga hisses. “Will he live or die?”

Time gives him a small smile, and Wild knows with terrible certainty that he has made peace with the fate he believes he will meet.

Wild swallows, and steels himself. It takes every inch of his strength to keep his gaze on Time as he speaks the words, trying desperately to communicate what he cannot say.

“I’ll do it. I’ll open the Silent Realm.”

The laughter swells around him once more, full of victory and mad glee. But all Wild can focus on is the way Time is looking at him.

“The Look of Disappointment” is what Twilight has dubbed it, and Wild sees now why it sends shivers down his spine. Though in this situation, he guesses it’s warranted. For all Time knows he has just doomed his Hyrule to utter destruction. He only hopes he can communicate his true intentions soon.

******

In true Yiga style, the assassins refuse to give Time the potion until Wild has done the deed. So, when they drag their captives to the entrance of the Lost Woods, the old man is limping. He is white as a sheet, now, and swaying dangerously on his feet. More than once he collapses, only to be kicked and prodded back into a standing position. Wild can’t help but wince every time it happens.

“Well?” The assassin says once they’ve reached the spot where the first torches gleam. “Lead on, hero. And–” He presses his demon carver to Time’s neck, “–don’t you dare try to lead us astray. Do it and he dies.”

“That’s just the thing though,” Wild replies, as steadily as he can under the circumstances. “I can’t lead you without a torch. I don’t know these woods well enough.”

In an instant, another Yiga is up in his face, blade pressed against his chin.

“You want us to untie you, don’t you, little hero? Don’t think for a second that we’re gonna fall for that trick.”

Wild stares him down for a long moment, then inclines his head towards Time. “Then he has to lead. He can do it by memory.”

Time meets his eyes, a frown creasing his brow.

“It’s a good thing too,” Wild continues, keeping his gaze stubbornly trained on Time. “It’s too easy to get lost in here.”

Understanding dawns like the sun breaking through the clouds, and Time draws himself up a little straighter, some of that horrible disappointment gone. Wild is glad to be free of its oppressive weight.

“Fine.” The Yiga growls, shoving Time forward with such force he nearly faceplants. “You do it. And be quick.”

Their progress is certainly not quick. Time is hardly standing at this point. He stumbles forward, every step a struggle, every breath one that Wild fears will be his last. It’s not enough just for his plan to work, Time has to survive until it’s through. And with the wounds he’s sustained so far, he can’t help but wonder if he will.

He manages to stay alert enough, however. Wild may not have the same sense of direction as him, but he’s been in these woods enough to have a feeling of the right ways and the wrong. And Time takes them on a path that’s all wrong.

The Korok’s giggles grow closer with each step, and the Yiga grow more visibly nervous. Then, when the mist has become so thick Wild can hardly make out the ground beneath his feet, they begin to disappear.

Playful, tinkling laughter fills his ears as the forest children swoop in, working their magic. The Yiga’s screams of terror are drowned out so fast, it’s as though they were never in the forest in the first place. Where the Koroks whisk them away to, Wild hasn’t a single clue. He doesn’t care, though, especially not when the last assassin is dragged away right as he lunges forward to seek revenge for his companions’ deaths.

“They’re gone,” he says after a moment or two has passed and no other red-costumed maniacs leap from the fog. Relief bubbles up in him, so exhilarating and overwhelming, he nearly chokes on it. “It actually worked.”

“You did well, cub.”

He looks up and Time is smiling down at him, looking proud and alive (if only barely), and Wild feels tears of an entirely different sort spring to his eyes. But then, the moment ends as abruptly as it came. Time collapses, spreading crimson upon the green grass. He’s unconscious before he even hits the ground.

[ramonag-if]

It’s one of the first times a story line here in the if community has truly hit me. The idea of coming to find yourself, a child, seemingly replaced by another is really scary. A very why not me? Situation. It makes me react visercally. It’s something I’ve had to try and cope with in real life and hope not to feel again, I’ve been given reassurance but the tingling possibility makes me feel sick. Reading about the mcs situation made me feel ill. I felt anger towards her new kid, like a child again. Real child like driven resentment all doom end of the world type beat and it was suffocating. Reading her call the mc planned and the new child a ‘blessing’ made me enraged. (Hope I’m remember ing correctly) They’re a blessing but mv isn’t? Mc was ‘planned’? Planned for what? And you left them? Yet you insist on how the new child is a blessing? What is mc to you? What does that even mean, once you got your use out of them it was over and done with? Did you ever plan to love, care and hold them for the rest of their days? It makes me incredibly upset. It’s so nauseating. It’s demeaning and it’s cruel. I’m hearing based on your posts they tried to contact the mc through the father and maybe this is personal child like never gonna forgive you wanna bawl my eyes out trauma speaking but it doesn’t matter. I don’t know their circumstances, but at the end of the day you didn’t come. You didn’t show up. You didn’t care for them when they were ill, didn’t touch up their wounds and didn’t have to deal with the dumb unreasonable repercussions of their identity and what trauma it brought them due to others. You didn’t support them. My relationship with my mother has only truly started these recent few years, for a lot of reasons. It truly hits home for me.

It’s not the kids fault, but a part of me can’t help but be bitter and resentful and no child deserves to be put in that position. Just the idea of ‘the new child’ is so rotten. Like dear Lord it’s sickening I can’t do it. It’s hard to make yourself sympathetic no matter how reasonable you know you should try and be. I hope mc gets so much cuddles and love. That is all.

Thankyou for the work you’re doing, you’re truly bringing up some real topics. It is a truly unfortunate and dreadful thing and I can’t help but be negative. Give me a ray of lightttt aghhhh help

Thank you so much for playing 😊🌼 I'm so happy that the game could make you feel so deeply! I do enjoy writing angst and poor/complicated parental dynamics because I find it so fun 😅

There is a lot to unpack with Salyra and her choices. She's made some bad decisions and Ahlf did play a part in it too. I don't think I ever set out to make them this complicated, but the more I wrote their characters, the more they seemed to shape into villains for the MC. A lot of bad parenting is showcased in the game. Unfortunately, the MC just experiences it first-hand 😅 Elora and Irus also have their own issues with parents and I can say that Anu and Oren also have issues regarding their biological parents 👀

I tend to steer away from any deep, heavy topics when writing but, here we are 😅🤷‍♀️ I couldn't resist a fantasy game with tons of angst and emotional upheaval.

Thank you for your support 🌼

[adornesibley]

IT'S GONNA BE MAY: a Newsletter

Reading: The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly, How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Finished Reading: Horrorstör, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, and We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix, The Secrets we Keep by Shirley Patton, The Vegetarian by Han Kang 

Podcast: Unwell: A Midwestern Gothic Mystery

Playing: God Hand and Nier (Jank is Good, Jank is Life)

Making: Doom levels

Writing: Project E and *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧NEW THING*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ (which I will talk about below)

Word Count: Word counts are just a way the patriarchy can arbitrarily muffle voices it doesn’t like… but it’s 167338 

TLDR: I talk about my new short story anthology project, word counts and the desperation of doe-eyed newbie authors, the insular nature of TTRPGs and nerd culture jargon, glossary provided for her pleasure.

Firstly, new thing! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  I’m working on a super secret idea which I’m going to keep secret until precisely … now. It can be summed up in five words: TECHNO HORROR ANTHOLOGY FLOPPY DISK. Take yourself back to a bygone era, where the hair was big and often mulleted (wish that trend stayed dead, crimped hair stayed away but mullets came back? WTF humans) to when everyone is reading their Goosebumps or playing with their Tamagotchis. Close your eyes. Can’t you hear the dial-up now. Smell your breakfast cooking in your George Foreman grill. I know I’m talking about a large year range but for most of us millennials the 80s and 90s is just a blob monster of slow computers and corded phones and Scrunchies and listening to the radio, waiting for your fav song to play so you can hit record on your cassette player. I will keep you posted here on the progress and continue to give hints as to the full plan with all the gory details of its taxonomy. For now, this is all you get.

Project E’s progress was not so bad. I’m actually really proud of this word count. I shaved off so much this month. I was productive AF. And yet I feel compelled to continue on. The average scifi novel length is up to 150k words and I’m still well above that. Then you go to the average DEBUT scifi novel length and psht… 120k. If I remove 50k from Project E, that’s a whole book on its own!  

I’ll admit that sometimes, a book is really and truly longer than it needs to be, but let’s also admit that plenty of books get published that are CERTAINLY longer than they should be. I’m looking at you, Herman Melville! So to act as though this is an aspect which would make it impossible to publish a novel is disingenuous. The shit reality is simply that more words means more ink and pages, and publishers are scared of losing money, so unless you’re well established or the concept is a “sure thing” then they’re unlikely to give you the time of day.

I have no proof, and this is not a statement I’d backup in any legal capacity, but I’d imagine it’d also be quite easy to find a manuscript which says things you don’t like, and then force the author to gut it to fit your requested word count. Once it barely resembles its initial form, then it’ll be toothless enough to be allowed to get by. New authors are desperate to have their stories accepted. We’ll do anything. ANYTHING. This isn’t to say that Lit Agents and publishers are mustache-twirling villains. I’m saying that shitty people exist in every corner of society, and those folks would likely be happy to abuse their positions of power.

So, a month and a half ago I watched a video about the TTRPG community and its insularity. Well, technically the video was about ShadowDark, but Indestructoboy spent a significant part of the video discussing this problem. I’ve never considered how impossible it would be to understand folks in our community when we’re discussing games. “So I just got to try out a new OSR1 TTRPG2, it’s a Roll Under3 3d64 system with no Death Saves5, or HP6 and it’s entirely GMless7!” Just imagine for a second that you don’t have access to the acronyms or specialized jargon. That sentence would be word salad!

Shit, just TTRPG is useless to anyone not already in the community. Tabletop Roleplaying Games have the power to be an incredible tool for community building and a creative outlet, but by creating so much shorthand, we force folks to learn a tertiary language to even engage with the simplest examples of this style of game! I think that a good stop-gap would be a Glossary of terms in the back of tabletop roleplaying game books, but long term I think it’s pretty important to consider that maybe doing away with the acronyms at LEAST would benefit the community significantly. (Or if you’re gonna use them, consider explaining them somewhere in your post/ book/ video.)

Support weird. Support indie.

OSR either means Old School Revival or Old School Renaissance. What these means is up for discussion and debate, but the “Revival” side appears to be focused on literally reviving old-school games like Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition while the “Renaissance” side takes ideas from these old Tabletop game systems and adapts them to more modern game design sensibilities. OR AT LEAST THOSE ARE MY DEFINITIONS.

TTRPG is simply short for Tabletop Roleplaying Game(s) which generally involves a certain level of imagining the actions (theatre of the mind) of a character whom you embody in that game, where you must take on the role of someone who likely does not think or act like you would.

Roll Under is a type of system where you will be rolling dice to try to get a number lower than your character’s ability scores. (The numbers that represent their Mental and Physical aspects) If you do, you succeed, and if you don’t, you fail to complete whatever task you were attempting.

d6 is shorthand for six-sided dice, which is the cube dice most folks think of when they hear “dice.” In this example, there is a 3 at the beginning which tells you that you would be rolling three six-sided dice and adding them together.

Death Saves are a concept from Dungeons and Dragons. When your character loses all of their health points/ hit points (a number representing how healthy your character is) then they fall unconscious and are forced to roll a twenty-sided dice each time their turn comes around. If they fail to roll a 10 or higher, then they have a “failed” death save. If they roll a 10 or higher then they “succeeded”. Traditionally you need three of either of them to finish being in this unconscious state. If you get three failures, you die, and if you get three successes, your character “stabilizes” but remains unconscious for some time. There are more rules, but those are for someone running a game to explain, this gives the basic understanding, I feel.

HP is short for Health Points or Hit Points. This tells you how much damage a character can receive before they fall unconscious or die.

GMless. So, first, a GM is a “Game Master” and their job is to narrate what happens around your characters and to roleplay pretty much everyone in existence that isn’t your character. In Dungeons and Dragons they’re called “Dungeon Masters” or DMs. So, a game that is GMless simply means that there is no Game Master and instead the players are cooperatively telling the story together, usually by allowing the outcomes of dice to tell them whether they are succeeding or failing at certain tasks.

[ordinaryschmuck]

So, I watched The Flash

Mainly because certain people online were being REALLY annoying about it, and I had to check it out to see if it’s really as bad as people say. Or even AS GREAT as others said. And it’s...fun.

Yeah, that’s the best way to describe the movie. It’s not OUTSTANDING or even complete garbage. It’s just...a fun movie. And, call me crazy, but I think I KIND OF understand why James Gunn said it’s his favorite of the year.

Now, that doesn’t mean I see how it could have been a masterpiece of film making. There are a lot holding it back, the most egregious being the CGI. This film looks UGLY in a lot of scenes, some looking like they’re part of a video game. The worst of it is in the final battle, and I honestly can’t tell if the CW show might have looked better than this movie.

The worst of it is when they used CGI to resurrect dead actors and actresses for a cameo fest that just feels unnecessary. Like, I get the idea of showing the universes colliding, but if that’s the case, why not just...use current media? Like why not bring in the CW Flash in one of those universes? Or Robert Pattinson’s Batman instead of a fake Adam West? Or throw in Doom Patrol or the Titans. Just DON’T resurrect the guy who committed suicide because he didn’t feel like he could live past the legacy of being Superman. Seriously, James Gunn...WHY did you let that slide?

And, of course, there’s the psychotic elephant in the room with this movie starring Ezra Miller. After they went to play real life GTA in Hawaii, Miller might have hurt this movie’s chances due to the iffy it’d feel giving THAT actor residuals just to watch a dumb superhero movie. It’s kind of why I stuck to using...special means to watch this one because I didn’t feel comfortable in any other way. And I know, you should separate the art from the actor, but I agree with this idea that it’s a case-by-case and it only depends on how well you can do it. And...MAN it’s hard sometimes when you see Ezra Miller put a baby in a microwave, debate on how hard you have to punch someone to knock them out, and just...get REALLY violent during that final act. Sure, Ezra Miller does great in OTHER scenes but those bits make things kind of uncomfortable.

But with that said, there ARE some great scenes with Barry. BOTH in fact. Ezra does a great job of differentiating both Barry Allens and giving solid emotions for when its right. There’s this great scene with Barry and his mom that’s carried by the tragedy of EVERYTHING the character went through and what he needs to do, and I hate to say it because of how insane Miller is, but...They nailed the right emotions. And when interacting with this other Barry, they do this good job where I’m somehow convinced that there are two Ezra Millers on screen together, having a conversation, even though such a thing is literally impossible in real life.

And the journey both these characters go on and the lesson they come to learn honestly works and leads to some pretty powerful emotions where I’m willing to BRIEFLY shut my brain off and enjoy these characters for what they are.

Plus, they’re not the only standouts. Sasha Calle introduces us to a new Supergirl and, despite having a short screen time, offers an interesting character. And with how passionate about the role she had, I really hope Gunn brings her back for the DCU. She deserves it.

And Micheal Keaton really does try to give it his all as a returning Batman. Even though there were definite fight scenes that WEREN’T him, you can tell he had fun with some scenes.

Speaking of Batman...I think Brave and the Bold is in decent hands. The same guy who directed this is going to direct the DCU’s Batman movie and he definitely has a good vision of how to make Batman cool...I just hope he relies on less CGI to do so. And if he DOES feel obligated to use CGI, PLEASE make it better.

So, yeah. The Flash is a decent movie. It has some good acting, a fair story, some surprisingly effective emotional moments, occasionally fun action, and even the humor isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But why do I think it’s James Gunn’s favorite? Well, probably the same reason why I consider Spider-Man: Homecoming my favorite Spider-Man movie even though Spider-Verse is RIGHT THERE. Into and Across are better. I KNOW they’re better. But, I don’t know, I just have more fun with Homecoming. It’s sort of my comfort Spider-Man movie with how enjoyable it is to me. And that might be James Gunn’s logic when considering it his favorite. There are DEFINITELY better movies, but he had a lot more fun watching this one. Just because something’s your favorite, that doesn’t automatically make it the best.

Personally, I had fun watching this too. Maybe even watch it again one day. It’s not the worst movie in the world, it’s not the best, but if I’m in the mood for some dumb fun, I could see myself putting this on.

[ms-scarletwings]

Nothing messes me up like knowing that magic absolutely exists in invader Zim and the only beings to capitalize on its potential are like a tiny handful of sapient primates on Earth. Demonic entities exist and sometimes pay visit to this plane… but only on Earth, as far as we know.?

But then, again, maybe I’m wrong and aliens absolutely do take use of magical forces, and just don’t make the categorical differentiation between the two concepts like we do. Kind of like how Star Wars is literally a high fantasy setting but it has the outward aesthetics of a futuristic sci-fi. Kind of also like how humans are comparatively primitive and ignorant compared to sum of their society’s knowledge. Maybe part of the difference was that they cracked powerful “natural” forces we aren’t even aware of yet. Vortian tech is not only hyper advanced, but actually does things technology should not ever be capable of under the limits of basic physics and universal laws, unless the “infinite power generating thingy” is not a literal concept and is more like a very efficient fusion reactor. The meekrob are still beings of pure unspecified energy, and the standard voot cruiser’s capabilities are far beyond what even Professor Membrane calculates should be possible for interstellar travel.

Spelldrives are fascinating to me in particular

In effect, there’s no practical difference between them and a dnd wizard’s scroll. They’re digitized magical tomes. I never thought about how cool of a concept that was until these babies came along. It’s good proof of concept regarding integrating advanced technology with what is absolutely and without question straight up sorcery. It also applies heavily that warlocks or mages or whatever they would call spell casters in IZ have persisted into the modern world, and have adapted to the current standards of media storage. But that also makes Dib’s collection and use of them extremely reckless because the show clearly conveys he has no idea how they actually work, he understands their powers about as well as I understand Minecraft enchantment tables, and he’s never gotten a moment to speak with one of their intended users. (Plot hook where a very pissed off technomancer finds the twerp who’s been playing with his dangerous af tools like they’re toys when?????)

Your last paragraph I believe encapsulates exactly what I think has been happening to Dib’s perception of magic, this sort of expectation and outcome conflict. The “spiritual” kind of paranormal is an especially difficult beast for him to try to tackle and tame, because by definition, magic does not follow conventional scientific understanding of the world. Aliens and Bigfoot and lake monsters are some things that mostly do. They’re material and grounded, just really damn good at hiding from average humans. Irken technology is something that operates in ways predictable and usable to anyone who can get a firm grasp on its machinations and counter its protections.

And I think Dib runs into a wall when he tries to deal with magic the same exact way. A wall that especially loves to burn him for his naivety and shows how sometimes he can be a lot like his father when it behaves as though it doesn’t want to be conveniently figured out. His disappointment with magic being a very unreliable and high-risk tool, and how it reflects his broader frustration with his whole hobby was the straw that broke the camel’s back in “Mopiness of Doom”, after all.

He also read a freaking pamphlet about Mortos and showed up entitled to a boon without much real respect for the entity, just “Now that I think I know the rules I can command this creature as a weapon that makes me look very badass, like it’s a freaking genie”. Turns out mystical stuff not only takes great offense at his abuse of it, but it’s way more capable of retaliating against an unworthy user than the Takship is. So, he’s probably going to still passively study it where-ever he can, but as far as what to bring to the field and gamble his life on, I wouldn’t blame him for sticking with more reliable methods and gizmos in the meanwhile.

New headcanon, in fact: A lot of Dib’s general misfortune and random events of the universe screwing over victory every time he’s in arm’s reach of it is all actually a karmic result of how thoroughly he’s attracted the spiteful attention of very annoyed higher beings.

Something I wish they did more was having Dib try to combat Zim using magic instead of science. He did try summoning a demon to steal his soul in Mortos and in Mopiness of Doom he attempts to use a talisman from a wizard store in the mall, (which led to him giving up on trying to defeat Zim altogether). But we never really got to see Zim actually try to grapple with magic being used against him.

Normally Zim's knowledge and resources dwarf's Dib's when it's a battle of science vs science, perhaps no better illustrated than in The Wettening. But Zim doesn't know dick about magic or the supernatural, so he'd be way out of his depth trying to combat Dib if he ever found something actually effective he could use against him. You could have Dib use a protection spell that prevents Zim from harming him, or a curse that makes Zim unable to lie, recruit a ghost to harass him in his own home, take control of him with a voodoo doll, or magically summon fire and shoot it out of his hands. Lots of possibilities to keep him on even footing with Zim as their conflicts escalate.

I kinda like the idea of Dib becoming a super powerful warlock who still somehow can't get anything done because of how overwhelmingly corrupt and ineffectual the world around him is and who's also still desperate for approval that he never receives despite how outrageously accomplished and OP he gets. In a way, becoming even more like Zim, who absolutely has the resources to destroy the world, but has no idea how to use them effectively and constantly wastes them on petty skoolyard bullshit.

Either that or everything Dib finds that he thinks he can weaponize against Zim always comes with a serious design flaw or drawback that makes it functionally as useless as the Megadoomer's cloaking device. He studies mystic lore, learns spells, and collects ancient relics, building up this huge knowledge base and arsenal that's almost entirely useless bullshit. Over time he becomes super jaded about magic not living up to the hype. Like, not so jaded he loses the curiosity and enchantment that keeps him pursuing paranormal investigation, but he definitely stops getting excited about the latest source of "untold power" he hears about and approaches the legends with a lot more skepticism about what it can actually do.

[wordsandrobots]

Dragon Slayer

[I wrote this seven years ago, as part of a series of stories I was playing with at the time. I’ve moved on from working on them, but I happened to look this one up today and it’s not terrible so . . . here it is!] According to the books, Elspeth Drake slew the last dragon in England in 1804 with an enchanted hat-pin. No one paid much attention at the time on account of dragon slaying being a couple  of hundred years out of fashion.

The dragons didn't pay much heed neither.

People imagine dragons are ancient. They imagine big old dinosaurs and because they're dinosaurs, they assume they must've died out. Ancient means extinct, they say. Stands to reason. It's right there in the song – the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

They're wrong.

Ancient's a funny word, see. Means different things. Could be hundreds of years. Could be decades. I'm ancient. The ground's ancient. But we're ancient in different ways. On different scales. And dragons, dragons aren't ancient like old bones and fossils. They're ancient like rot. They don't sit there, quiet and dry in the rock, they fester away down there like big, fat maggots, chewing on their own tails 'til something makes 'em force a way to the surface.

They're simple things, in their way. All they need to hatch is something horrible. A family burning in the same fire. A whole village, dead of the plague. A war. Nothing complicated, nothing unusual. Sometimes the echo of those things sinks down deep, down into the dirt, down where there aren't any new families to come along and build new houses and there aren't any medicines to heal away what's gone before. They stick there, those echoes, 'til they've gone mouldy and ancient and in the end, out comes that fat maggot, a memory gone sour. An idea gone rotten.

Up and up it comes, clawing through the earth and out it comes and if you're lucky, it'll just drive a few shepherds crackers or make the local parson murder his sister. If you're lucky. If you're not . . . well, mebbe it's best not to think about that.

Elspeth Drake slew the last dragon. Happen she did a good job of it too. But it weren't last dragon. Couldn't of been. Not when they're being born all the time. It were just last dragon to make it to the surface.

Now I've got to deal with the next one. Me, all alone in this big empty field, in the dark, while a whole townful of people it'd gobble up in a day sleeps a couple of miles away. And me without an enchanted hat-pin.

Not that I have much truck with enchantment, mind. All that faffing around, trying to tie what you can do to something you can hold in your hand. I say, if your hand's good enough to hold summat, it's good enough to work with and to blazes with the rest. I never needed a wand in me life and I don't plan to start now.

So it's just me, me hat and me stick. Damn thing, that stick. Only started using it to get a bit of sympathy but these days it's stopped being pretend. Every time I wake up I seem to have a new ache, and another every time I go to sleep. Makes me wonder if I'm still up to doing this on me own. Mebbe I should have got one of the young 'uns to lend a hand . . .

Tch! Pull yourself together, woman. Yer still plenty strong enough to deal with one measly worm.

Stroke of good luck I heard about it though. Sensitive souls sometimes feel dragons and the like coming but I've never been much good at sensitive. Took old Elsie Moon rattling by on the bus to pick it up. Otherwise, first we'd have known about it would've been pitched battles in the railway station or some such nonsense.

That's not going to happen now though. Nothing's getting past me.

Wish the wretched thing would get a shift on. It's blooming cold out here. Pity specifics have never been Elsie's strong suit, otherwise I mighten'tve had to make this an all-night vigil –

All at once, it's knocking against the topsoil, sounding like the crack of doom inside me skull. Two ticks after that, a great whoosh of wind hits me. The grass around me is blown flat – I feel that, even if I can't see it. Same way, I feel the dragon pulling itself into the night, right in front of me.

It's not got a shape, exactly. Not so as you could point to. There's nothing to block out the muddy glow bouncing off the clouds, nothing that casts a darker shadow. It's just there. Big as a nightmare and twice as ugly. Its breath rolls over me, hot and angry. I remember swords in the distance and flaming hay blacking out the sky. I can taste drying blood in back of me throat. Nasty ideas choke the chill from the air.

But I've got me hat. Me dad's tin hat, from back when he were an air raid warden. He stood up to fire, did dad, to fire and worse. I shove that bit of him, the bit of him that was able to do that, between me and the dragon and tell it to lay off mithering me.

It don't take kindly to that.

Ranting and roaring, it comes at me. Doesn't stop to think or plan. All fire and poison and fuss and shouting. Never thinking about what it's doing. Never caring. Nothing to care with. It falls on me like burning fog, like all the worst days of me life. There's so much of it I have to plant me feet and brace against the wretched stick to keep meself upright. Every bone I've got shouts up at the weight of it. Me skin prickles, me eyes water – the damn thing's wrapping itself around and around, squashing the air from me lungs.

I can hear its heartbeat, pulsing strong and hungry. They're coming to get you, it hisses, those men with swords and spears. There are always men like that. The men who want to tear down your world and kill everything you've ever known. They're going to kill you. You're going to die. And even if it isn't them, you're going to die anyway. Because you're old and you're weak and your breath burns in your lungs where it once came easily and your limbs are brambles where they once were oak. Soon you'll be stuck in your bed, a hollow husk, just waiting for your eyes to go dark and your mind to turn to porridge, waiting to turn into a stupid lump of gristle, slick with your own filth and blood. You're going to DIE.

It shouts the last bit, jaws snapping shut around me. I'm in an oven, cooking alive in the stink of other people's half-forgotten terror. Hard to remember I'm still standing in a field, that I'm not walled in with broken timbers and hot coals. You're going to DIE. Hard to be sure which of us is the one thinking that now. I should've brought help. What were you thinking, woman, trying to kill this thing on your own?

YOU'RE GOING TO DIE.

I lift a hand to me head, to press at the pain. Only me fingers knock the tin helmet instead. The metal's still cold to the touch, cold enough to give me a shock. Course it is. There's no heat, not really. Just hot air and most of that's on the inside.

YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!

Of course I am, you daft snake. We're all going to die. We're born dying. That's good and it's bad but mostly it just is. Nowt any one of us can do about it. But let me tell you, it's better than mouldering away like you are, stewing in your own bloodiness. What do you know about dying, or living come to that?

I grip me stick as it roars some more, flapping at me face, shouting about how terrible it all is. The wood is hot with sweat, but it's an honest heat. I push me mind down the stick, down into the ground. I feel me feet from the wrong side for a second and then I go deeper, down into all that muck the dragon pushed up through. You want death, y'great stupid worm? I'll give you death.

I'll give you the death of everything that ever walked this patch of land, the death of every last thing that walked and hopped and flew. I'll give you the death of everyone who ever cared about whatever it was that hatched you. 'Cos that's the truth: you're an anger that's got nothing left to point at. Those men with spears? They're long since dust and bone. What did they ever leave behind? Bunch of gold that got lost? Bunch of swords that rusted away? You're sour milk. No one in their right mind would drink you.

And even if there's someone mad enough out there to let you in, they'll die soon enough. And the next and the next and the next. You'll play hopscotch until you run out of people. And then you'll die too. Die of hunger. No one left to think you.

Dragons'll be around forever. But this one won't be.

It screams at me. You're going to die, it screams. So're you, I tell it and smother it in the truth. I take it by the neck and shove it into the earth, show it everything that were ever lost to the mud. I'm going to die. It's going to die. And tomorrow there will be something new. Mebbe better, mebbe worse. But new. Different. It tries to make me despair over that. I show it why that's hope.

It can't take it. It just falls apart, fire going out at last. I suck down grateful lungfuls of night chill and let the embers flutter down on me. Everything aches and everything's sore but I don't care. This is the good kind of ache, the ache of a job well done. I snort and thump the ground with me stick, muttering a quick thanks to dad's ghost for making me swear never to sell his hat.

The last shred of worm whirls away on the breeze, scattered to join with the rest of the dead leaves. I watch it go and smile into the darkness. Too old, my eye. What were I thinking? I'll be doing this 'til I drop, just you see if I'm not.

According to the books, Elspeth Drake slew the last dragon in England in 1804. They'll need to be updating them now.

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

Camila Noceda and Flawed Parenting

A perspective by a flawed person with loving but extremely flawed parents

I’m genuinely baffled at some people’s hostile reaction towards Camila. Like… do any of you have flawless parents that always know the best solution instantly, make no mistakes and never get emotional?

My parents are great. They’re super supportive and I love them very, very much. Overall I think I got very lucky in the parents department.

But god, they are far from flawless. I still live at home, and despite all the good, there’s moments when I can’t take my dad anymore. He’s the kind of dad that stayed up until two am to help me with homework when I was in school, and he does so, so many things to make sure I’m happy. I know that. But despite all of this, I have told my mom in emotional moments before that I’m not sure if I can keep living with him, because for all his good sides, he has a couple of fatal flaws that sometimes make him unbearable.

My mom listens to me and is very open to being educated on certain topics, but she has her flaws, too. She hates when I fight with my dad, and gets so torn up about it that I’ve once apologized to my dad out of fear of her getting into a car crash otherwise. She’s very vocal about certain flaws of mine, and sometimes uses the things she does for me as leverage against me when she gets very emotional.

And both of my parents pay a lot more attention to my brother because he needs it more, because he’s more of a “problem child” while I “seem so capable” even when I’m not.

And guess what? I’m not a perfect child. I make mistakes sometimes, some of them pretty severe. Just like Luz, I’m the kind of person that struggles to communicate certain issues of mine to her parents. I’m stubborn, and when I get emotional, I say very hurtful things sometimes. So do they.

And this has nothing to do with my parents being horrible or abusive. They’re neither of those things.

The takeaway from this should not be that my entire family is made up of terrible people, but that we’re all flawed in our own ways, despite loving each other and trying our best. There’s things about my parents I wish I could change, and there are things about me that my parents wish they could change. And to an extent, that’s perfectly normal.

In our strengths and flaws and frustration with each other, we’re all human.

Specific, spoiler-y Camila and Luz things under the cut since this got very long.

We have no indication that Camila has a pattern of emotionally manipulating Luz. Her “emotional manipulation” as I’ve seen some people put it, is people for some reason thinking that the second you become an adult, you’re suddenly perfect and can no longer make mistakes, lest you’ll be dubbed horrible and abusive.

The whole concept is absurd to me. There is no perfect way to parent. There simply isn’t. Of course, there’s some genuinely abusive patterns that are horrible and inexcusable. But out of the parenting styles that aren’t, which one works depends on a number of factors, one of which absolutely includes that every child is different and has different needs. Camila is an amazing parent for Vee, giving the kid everything she’s ever longed for. She’s not an ideal parent for Luz. And that’s because Luz and Vee have fundamentally different needs.

Likewise, Luz is a pretty great child for Eda, but not a perfect fit for Camila. Luz relates to Eda a lot more than she relates to her mom, and that’s why the two of them have an easier time understanding each other. Both of these mother-child relationships exist, and one is not more doomed to fail than the other, but I think you’ll agree that the better you understand someone and where they’re coming from, the easier it is to communicate, pick up on certain signs, etc.

As mom and daughter, Camila and Luz are both flawed and have issues seeing the other’s perspective because of how different they are. And we should simultaneously acknowledge both of their roles in the issue and give both of them the space to learn and grow past those issues.

Luz struggles to communicate her problems. She doesn’t want to burden people in the demon realm, and it’s a given that this started out as not wanting to burden her mom. So she keeps quiet about her issues. Camila tries hard but can’t read her daughter’s mind, so there’s only so much she can do to understand and help the way Luz needs her to. Hell, Eda, who Luz is a lot more open with than her mom, struggles to help her, because Luz doesn’t tell her what’s wrong. I don’t see anyone calling Eda a terrible mom for that.

Camila tries her best, but she struggles to understand her daughter because of this, and because of how fundamentally different they are. She loves Luz’s creativity, we actively see her supporting it in the new episode—she keeps the weird stuff Luz made because she thinks Luz will regret throwing it away, and even plays along in what she assumes to be some elaborate role play because “she’s glad Luz kept her creativity even though it’s not made things easy for her at school”. But at the beginning of the show, said creativity got out of hand and people got hurt. Luz could’ve gotten hurt. So of course Camila had to interfere. I love Luz dearly, but she thought it was okay to bring snakes to school and set off fireworks inside a school building. Creativity is great. Doing reckless stuff that causes people to get hurt is not.

In sending Luz to camp, Camila tried to have someone else fix her issue because she didn’t know how to help Luz. That was a mistake, and a bad one at that, but she’s realizing that. She looks disheartened when Vee tries to throw out Luz’s stuff, because she never meant to change her daughter or take that part of her away. She just thought Luz needed a reality check—which, for the record, is something the narrative actually agrees with.

Luz spends her time in the demon realm getting reality check after reality check, realizing that even her ideal fantasy world where she has everything she always wanted doesn’t mean she’s free of consequences. She goes overboard constantly, causing:

-Eda to be forced to fly into a trap because Luz is chasing a fantasy (Witches before Wizards)

-Eda to almost be branded by her sister because Luz doesn’t think through why Eda doesn’t use magic to publicly announce her presence constantly (Once Upon a Swap)

-Eda and the twins to get kidnapped by a Slitherbeast because Luz stole Amity’s wand (Adventures in the Elements)

-Her friends to get hurt when she goes overboard trying to help Willow (Wing it like Witches)

-Eda to be captured and almost petrified because Luz thought she could just steal from the Emperor with no consequences in an attempt to help (Agony of a Witch)

I’m like 90% sure these aren’t even all. None of those make her a terrible person, for the record, but as all humans are, she is flawed and makes bad choices. She learns from these experiences and matures, just like her mom had hoped she would at camp. She’s also made friends there, which was another thing Camila wanted for her daughter.

You’ll probably realize that a lot of Luz’s behaviors I mentioned follow one of two patterns: 1. Luz’s idealized fantasy world causing problems, when she walks around with rose tinted glasses and gets people in trouble in the process because she hasn’t thought about the consequences, and 2. Luz trying to help someone she loves, but instead making things worse in the progress. The issue with this one is often that she doesn’t communicate her ideas/listen to the people she’s trying to help—like when Willow and Gus said they’ve had enough of Grudgby, or how she never actually talks to Eda about the healing hat idea before doing something reckless.

…does the latter one sound familiar to you at all? No? Because it’s the exact same thing that Camila did.

Some of the things Luz does are reckless and actively endanger others and herself, and that’s something that I think we need to acknowledge before judging Camila. As Luz’s mom, it’s Camila’s job to interfere in those situations. That she made a mistake while trying to protect Luz doesn’t make her a terrible person, especially as, again, the narrative proves her right to an extent.

I’m not saying her making Luz promise to come back and stay isn’t something that hurt Luz—it absolutely is. But it was born out of desperation. She’s emotional and in shock. She’s so full of pain and regret. She just wants her fourteen year old daughter home safe, and there’s nothing abusive or even morally ambiguous about that.

From Luz’s perspective, what she says is absolutely heartbreaking, but from Camila’s, it’s perfectly reasonable. I doubt Camila has the full picture, but even if she does, she’s had a full fifteen seconds to process that her daughter has not only been lying to her for months, but chose to leave her, and is in the demon realm of all places. Of course she’d be emotional and upset about that! Who wouldn’t? Camila isn’t a robot. If she’d been calm about this I’d be way more concerned, honestly.

My parents don’t get mad that easily, but if I would lie to them for weeks on end, they’d be pissed off too, not even taking the running away from home part into account. That’s a normal thing. People don’t like being lied to. Camila is absolutely devastated in that moment because she’s scared that Luz left because she hates her, when Luz actively states that her leaving wasn’t about her mom—which is another thing we should really be acknowledging.

Abusive parents suck and abuse should obviously never be apologized or trivialized, but saying something hurtful in the heat of the moment isn’t the same thing as being an abusive parent. My parents have done this. I’ve done this. And yes, those things can be emotionally manipulative, but there’s a huge difference in whether that’s a habit or a person speaking out of hurt and desperation in a very specific context. I doubt there’s anyone on the entire planet that hasn’t had a bad moment where they’ve said something like this because they were hurting. People lash out when they hurt, and they beg for reassurance when they’re scared. That’s something we all do.

The whole mindset of “all parents have to be perfect and can never get upset or make any mistakes” is harmful as hell, and honestly also very unrealistic. No parent is perfect, and especially people like me who have a relationship with their parents that’s very good overall should know that.

Once you have a child, parenting is a non-stop learning process, every day for the rest of your life. Taking away that room to grow and expecting perfection isn’t helping anyone, especially not struggling single parents.

And I see Camila as someone who is very willing to learn, because at the end of the day, all she wants is for Luz to be happy. Let’s give her some time to wrap her head around this whole situation. Let’s see what she says once she sees for herself how happy Luz is in that world, may it be via the videos eventually coming through or Camila visiting and meeting Luz’s found family, her friends and her girlfriend.

Ultimately, I don’t think Camila will force Luz to stay at home, but we have to give her some time. She wants what’s best for Luz, and she’s gonna need some convincing that a dangerous magical world is what’s best. I feel like that’s very normal considering the circumstances.

Her and Luz need to work on their communication on both ends, they both have things to learn, but I’m certain they’ll manage to fix their relationship in the long run.

If the bunk bed is any indication, I think Vee is gonna stay in the human realm permanently while Luz sleeps at home but keeps attending Hexside in the daytime. That feels like a solution that keeps everyone happy, and allows Luz to spend time with all the people she loves. I can’t see her being forced to choose at the end.

As a closing statement: Eda isn’t an ideal mom, Amity isn’t an ideal friend or girlfriend and neither is Luz, Lilith isn’t an ideal sister… but that’s because no one is ever an ideal anything. Being flawed is a big part of being human. Everyone has different facets to their personality. Their flaws are what makes them such great, relatable, believable characters.

And I feel the same way about Camila. She’s an extremely believable character that reminds me of my own parents, flawed but very loving nonetheless.

(Also honestly, I think it’s pretty telling that some of you guys immediately bash the black single mom that’s obviously trying her hardest while giving the benefit of the doubt to Alador, who has been portrayed as neglecting and threatened his six year old daughter on screen. This was already a thing before we knew much about either of them, and I’m disappointed but unfortunately not very surprised that it still is.)

[dulcewrites]

Coming back to this bc I have… some ideas (I know I know. ‘Flower shouldn’t you finish the stuff you’re working on’. Just stay with me)

First, I just want to give a tw bc I’m about to delve into some distasteful stuff pertaining sexual assualt and incest. Giving this warning since those are topics I normally don’t touch heavily in fics.

Also I would greatly appreciate if y’all have any thoughts/feedback on the ideas especially since like I said it delves into topics I haven’t really before. As usual my inbox is always open 🩷

I was thinking about an oc taken as ‘war spoils’. I went back and forth on this mainly bc as an alysmond girlie, I don’t want to be completely jocking her story. Plus one of my biggest best peeves is people taking a story/characteristics from an actual character in a book/show and just sticking them on an oc with a different name (for example people taking traits and actions from say like Baela and rhaena and giving them to random ocs)

But I was thinking about how I could make the story/the oc differ with their backstory and where the story goes. So I we begin with Aemond’s march through the riverlands. I’m almost even tempted to make it another part of the realm just to be ~different~. But the riverlands connection to war and destruction is so cool to me. I think I will keep Lucerys’ death being an accident but aemond has fully accepted his kinslayer, ‘the night was as black as his heart’ reputation. He’s young and honestly scared but he thinks this is the way to self soothe and control the narrative.

As for our oc, her story is awful. Her mother passed when she was a baby. He father begins an extremely inappropriate psychosexual relationship with her the older she gets. Her father never remarries so there are nasty rumors that her brother is her son (kind of playing into the f&b telling of it all)… it’s a mess and sad.

She often thinks about killing them bc her situation. But she has a bit of Stockholm syndrome going on. If not them, who will she have

Aemond (manic episode and all) comes in, kills males of the house after the fall of king’s landing (I don’t want oc to be a strong tbh lmaoo). oc doesn’t know how to feel about this. On one hand, they’re gone and that’s a relief. On the other, her fears about being alone are coming true. She gives criston sound advice war wise post fall of king’s landing. An off handed comment, but it leads to Aemond taking a liking. A fascination of some sorts more than a relationship honestly

the story deviates with Aegon being king/Aemond staying alive. I’d have to work out the logistics of that post king’s landing fall. Though I think a fight between Aemond and daemon was inevitable. I wonder how much would change. Butterfly effect and stuff.

The interesting part, imo, comes when Aemond wants to bring oc to court. Their marriage, bc they trauma bond as well as oc would probably be a bit worried to say no, would happen quickly after the greens win. The tension of him possibly not following through with his Baratheon proposal. The kids piece would be something. Bc you have (book) Aemond, who though I think would want kids, would also probably feel like he has to fight for his wife’s attention. Versus our oc who is weary to have kids, for obvious reasons.

Sort of plays on the trope of the oc being ‘saved’. But there is no being saved when you’re doomed by the narrative.

I also have the idea that oc is already at court, maybe has been there for years. It’s more slightly tongue and cheek.

Oc still has the same traumatic past, but she is the one that kills her father and brother/son. She’s a riverlands girlie, so this story/rumor makes it to Larys. He’s awful so he assumes the worst (the truth lol). he is very intrigued. A girlie willing to kill her own family? He likes!

It is all rumors and gossip about how they died, but the talk is still there. How did this young girl manage to survive such a tragic boating accident. Must be some miracle. I like the idea of Alicent taking oc under wing. In a way she sees herself in oc, and she techincally isn’t wrong considering the shared trauma (that no one knows about). But Alicent also projects a lot onto her. It titters between being fucked up and sweet. Oc uses her as a mother figure and to keep a place at court. Alicent uses oc as a surrogate bestie/daughter/confidant. Something about Alicent being surrounded by fucked up people then turning to this seemingly normal girl and her son.. just for the two of them to be.. like that lmao

Larys also uses oc as a bit. Holding over her head the possibility of outing her as some that not only enjoyed what happended to her but welcomed it. Then killed her father after being spurned. Larys is someone whose motivations we don’t really know and it would be interesting to play on that. He seems to just enjoy fucking with people for the fun of it (like a lot of abusers :/)

Maybe larys and her also conspired about poisoning viserys?? Working in the book theories but while they blamed Alicent, it was them 👀🤷🏽‍♀️

Frankly oc doesn’t fully like the targtowers. She feigns interest. Smiles when Aegon says something crude, pretends she isn’t freaked out by Helaena’s scorpion collection. But she can ignore them. Aegon isn’t around much, Helaena is nice and harmless

Oh but Aemond. In a way I only imagine book Aemond would, quite enjoys the rumors. He would probably taunt her about them. He ofc gets a taste of his own medicine post storm’s end. Aemond still spirals but his flippancy towards oc turns into fascination once he too is a kinslayer. The ending for this may be more ambiguous. I see the greens still ‘winning’ but idk about a marriage between oc and Aemond.

these are just ideas that can be tweaked as they go. But is this just the base infortmation I was thinking about.

I just hope to have a more dark humor element to the story (whichever one I go with). As a someone with trauma myself, I would want to be extremely respectful of what victims of s.a go through. So not poking fun or minimizing that obvi. But while I enjoy hotd as a tragedy, the funny moments of the show shine. There is something absurdist about the story itself/f&b. I can’t take it seriously sometimes. Book Aemond is… a lot, and I far prefer his show counterpart, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the surrealist nature of him. I think combining elements from both would work more than the overly possessive, sex crazed inappropriate fanon interpretation I see a lot with him. I think there is a nice middle ground between his book and show self that can be found.

I feel the only way I could depict book Aemond is sort of making the oc in on it to certain extent. Not necessarily a willing participant in everything but also not idle, if that makes sense. She working for her safety but ends up trapped anyway….

by ‘darker’ anything you’re comfortable with really!! if you explore book aemond’s characterisation more (and how that maybe interacts with oc / reader) that would be fun to see :o or like for example aemond genuinely being satan incarnate, considering torture and war crimes every half minute while oc is trying to STOP aemond on acting such thoughts or not even knowing he has them ,, she’s just a sweetie all in all really

Well…. I have always been interested in Aemond’s psyche post being named protector of the realm/Aegon’s injury. Especially the “It looks better on me than it ever did on him.” Like imagine you hear him say that and you’re just like 🧍🏽‍♀️🧍🏽‍♀️🧍🏽‍♀️. Bc half the family is dead, the king almost died, and now he’s going off the deep end.

I’ll give this a think bc I am quite intrigued by book Aemond’s undiagnosed bdp slay

[ruby-whistler]

i made a list of the vibes of the hermits i watch, so you might want to check some of them out! this is just mostly jokes, but i thought all of the more “serious” propaganda was missing something, so have what truly makes hermitcraft worth it; the players’ unique styles!

will be back on my dsmp stuff asap but it’s the first day of season 8 and i would really appreciate if you checked them out through the links provided :]

Grian; [ episode one link ]

vibes of a 17 year old mcyter, is actually 27 and married

noo not my red jumpah!

chaotic capitalist

someone is making the server better through order? *starts another war* whoops, hand slipped :D

he built a- he rebuilt his entire megabase in survival, above a giant lake of lava, in the nether, on hard mode, upside down??

“watching as scar dies over and over in my trap is peak comedy and i’m tired of pretending it’s not” but it happens like 5 times i every season

video editing is very main-stream and good for short attention spans!

*sad montage over losing stuff he’ll get back in 15 minutes because he’s rich*

pesky birdd! great elytra flier! amazing builder! will tnt your house! poultrymannn!!

wholesome, chaos incarnate, talented architect

why won’t mumbo respond to my messages it’s been two weeks :[ (clingy)

doors???????????? your house has doors???? no doors for you good sir!

will laugh a lot at a lot of things, esp when he’s with his friends

genuinely just so fun to watch

Mumbo Jumbo; [ episode one link ]

perfect british accent

mustache man (warning: he has no mustache irl)

*fails ten businesses in a row* iskall please help

redstone is his element

“it’s actually quite simple” i like your funny words magic man, now can you repeat how in the hell you made a that fancy vault work-

filmographer?? i think? met up with grian irl

him and grian have a robot son named grumbot. that has nothing to do with the vibes but i had to mention him because he means a lot to me.

tries to stay out of wars and server politics until someone (grian) drags him into them

minigame maker, makes the hermits competitive and that is scary (also very funny) e. g. button, hermit challengesss!

“it’ll be fineee” *que shot of everything on fire behind him*

makes his base a living being and then all his neighbors end up feeding it instead of him

conspiracy theorist. bumbo baggins. the usual.

very entertaining videos that help you learn more about minecraft mechanics!

GoodTimesWithScar; [ episode one link ]

wheelchair creator with literally the best vibes

so wholesome i. he is so cool he makes me so happy :’D

*extremely cool announcer voice* ooooo hello there my fellow miners and crafters, good timeees with scar heree, and welcome backk to the wonderful world of hermits and crafting, and we’re flying over-

commentates everything extremely well

spends tenths of hours on builds within a single video and doesn’t bat an eye

lore for all of his builds! he builds these amazing bases to tell a story!

“i wanna see white flags! white flags, outside your base, by-“ wait no wrong anti-rebellion army leader

all videos have a clear objective

mostly building, but he loves hanging out/helping his friends!

loves disney movies! wants to go to space! :D

kind-hearted, always makes everyone else smile

can be chaotic but usually just tries to have fun and make sure everyone else has fun too

*flies into a tree on half a heart* wait what why did i die D:

scar. scar please eat. you’re going to die for the tenth time this video-

the non-chaotic capitalist, has extremely creative shop designs

a danger to himself, but also the kind of person you can’t be angry at for long

BdoubleO100; [ episode one link ]

the guitar music at the beginning of his videos brings a smile to my face, it just has such an immaculate mood

*camera pans over him as said music plays* ladies and gentlemen welcome to another episode of hoimycraffff

the way he talks is extremely endearing

one of the best builders on the server - probably best builder of interiors in existence

able to make a palette using any number of strange blocks and then make amazing builds using it

built a whole castle as a backdrop, then built an entire giant mountain for said castle

extremely sensitive to short jokes, usually gets pranked by others because his reactions are always so funny

his daughters show up from time to time in his room while he’s recording and it’s so cute

*has no way to see the sun but still knows it’s nighttime* gotta go schleep!

scar, pointing at him “this is why we can’t have nice sunsets”

(scar dies because of mobs every time bdubs isn’t on the server to sleep)

likes to be accomplice because he isn’t the one being made fun of (/lh)

*shoots himself in front of a confused grian because he thinks the guy wants his face again when he’s actually just looking for a netherportal*

is usually the underdog so it feels good when he wins

they’re all actually such great friends so it’s genuinely funny to watch

he himself is amazing at entertainment and just a very cool guy

ImpulseSV; [ episode one link ]

what’s going on everyone, my name is impulse and welcome back to hermitcraft!

always speaks with a smile in his voice

has a good dynamic with basically everyone

great co-worker and always helps out if he can

had his base turned pink during the swap, and instead of changing it back afterwards, he dyed his skin’s hair and clothing pink to match it

very cool and original building style!

makes a lot of farms and sells what he gets in his few shops

makes money to be able to do more stuff and make more farms

blows up most his base ever so often to rebuild parts. you know, like a normal person does in minecraft survival.

the grind is never over

the guy who always gets all of the work done on the school project and proceeds to be chill about it

always has very cool side-projects going on and puts his heart into all of them

pog timelapses!!

Rendog; [ episode one link ]

*short, funny scene from the video at the beginning slowly fades out into great music

dogs howling as the half-dog half-cog logo comes up*

greetiiings cyberdogs and citizens of the interbubs! this is ren diggity dawg coming atcha, in another minecraft episodes varuuummm the hermit. craft. server. (hey!)

we’re kicking things off today my friends, from the- *location name on screen*

that intro gets me hyped every time

he’s a furry who talks in bro language it’s great i swear - very atypical but fun

he transformed an entire biome into a star wars planet for his base

his building skills and dedication are incredible

horny (just a little bit)

the only person who cared about mycelium in the whole rebellion

does a lot of roleplay-themed stuff and mysteries to be solved

“b-dubba-dubs one hundred”

extremely upbeat & sweet guy

adds -age after everything “biddage” “flyage” to make it sound Cooler

amazingly positive always and funny as hell

mcc winner!! wooooooooo :D

always tries to be where stuff is happening and interact with people

very entertaining editing style

Iskall85; [ episode one link ]

drives joke into the mud and then picks them up and does it again which is funny

starts videos with one-off bits

iskallman!!! the superhero literally no one needed and yet there he is

only has one (1) braincell when with mumbo

they both do and they’re hilarious together every time

like when they laughed at squeaky noises for ten minutes straight. guys please you’re adult men

bernie the leaf master

omega (something) of doom!!

encourages gambling (in a videogame)

he has so many jokes he keeps using i can’t possibly fit them all in here

basically a wildcard

i have no idea what he’s doing this season

i have no idea what he’s doing ever actually

tame chaos, confusing to the point when it’s funny again

really great builder as well!

mostly for younger audiences but his videos are a good watch in general

feel free to send asks about hc! i’m already loosely involved in hermitblr but yeah, my dsmp followers aren’t immune :] /lh /j

[yesimwriting]

Dying Starlight

A/n: i dont think an audience for this exists?? ik it’s not shadow and bone related, but ive been reading red queen and i wanted to try writing maven and ive been playing with this idea. umm...on the off-chance that there is an audience for this i do think of this as more of a series but i’ll probably end up deleting this lol 

(Series?) Summary: reader is a childhood friend of Mare’s who isn’t officially part of the Scarlet Guard but gets captured by Maven. As a prisoner, she feels like her mind is being messed with as she begins to see a more human side of Maven. The new King tells himself the only thing he sees in her is that she’s a way to get to Mare, but something about her genuiness is infectious. 

-- 

Irony twists things. Right now, the irony that my last thoughts might be about how I wish I had been trusted with a suicide pill twist my impending doom into something almost comical. I’d laugh, but I’d rather not startle the rats in my cell. This has been their home for presumably years, but I’ve only been down here a few hours. 

I scratch the back of my wrist, staring at tired stone walls like they’ve done something to me. I wish I knew what time it was. How long have I been down here? How long has it been since I was separated from Mare? An hour? Three?Each passing minute strikes me like a bullet, but I can’t count them. I’ve never had a talent for accurately feeling the passage of time.

My head aches, frustration and dread tangling themselves in the pit of my stomach. Mare told me the Queen can search through someone’s mind, seeing memories even they can’t remember. What will they do when they see I know virtually nothing? What will happen when they see how close Mare and I truly are? i can’t do anything and the unknown hurts more than my bruised rib. 

The sound of the heavy door that divides the luxury of the castle from the wasteland of the cells creaks. I only let my arms flinch, moving from my side to wrap defensively around my stomach. Dull footsteps echo down the pathway that lead to the cell I’m in. I don’t cringe, not even when the sound of walking stops. 

I was not born into a rich family, but I was born into a proud one. Fear was practically a criminal act in my household. I’ve been trained to suppress all signs of weakness. My eyes don’t leave the stone wall, I mentally trace the pattern of a long crack in a specific rock. It reminds me of the slope of the Big Dipper. 

Will I ever see stars again? The answer leaves a sharp pain in my chest. 

“Mare told me about you.” 

The words jar me, my stomach dropping in revulsion. Mare had trusted him, and here he stands--successful because he’s a traitor. I know what it’s like to be the most overlooked sibling and to crave to change that. I know what it’s like to want to succeed more than you want air in your lungs, but I don’t think I’d ever betray someone. I like to think that there’s a line even the monster in me won’t cross. 

I don’t look at him, partially out of an attempt to protest and partially because I’m afraid of what I’ll see. “She might have mentioned you in passing.” 

His scoff is ridiculous. “She didn’t lie about your sense of humor.” 

That almost makes me wince. His words are too close, too personal. It’s like he knows me. I turn my. head, ready to cut through the uneasy beginning to get to the miserable middle if it brings me to the end faster. 

“You’re here to torment me, not make small talk.” Turning had been a mistake. I regret it instantly. His expression is unforgiving--cold, sharp, and made up of only angles. But that’s not why I stare. I did not expect him to be objectively attractive. The fine slope of his nose, the sharpness of his cheekbones, and the ice blue of his eyes. I need to snap out of this mindset. I’m sure his beauty will not be so distracting when he’s burning me. “Though some might consider that the same thing.” 

He scoffs again, the sound dry. The sneer of his lips does not diminish his attractiveness. The fact makes me loathe him. “I wonder if you’ll still be so prone to humor after you’ve been broken--any information of worth extracted from your thoughts.” 

“Let me save everyone the trouble and just tell you everything that I know now.” My back straightens despite the pain in my ribs. I look pathetic, dirty and in a torn dress. He’s regal, dressed in fine, all black clothing. “I know that Mare wanted to kill you today, I know that she needed a distraction and that her distraction needed to be expendable, which is why I’m sitting in front of you.” I squeeze my hands together awkwardly, a bit of genuine irritation rolling in my stomach. “That’s literally all I know, I’m not even part of the Guard.” I scratch the back of my wrist. If I were him, I wouldn’t believe that, but I’m being honest. How pitiful can one person be that they’re worth more disconnected from the group they work for than as an actual member? “You don’t take that kind of risk for someone that’s only skill set is in thought.” 

I didn’t mean to say that out loud, but I don’t regret it. Maybe he’ll think that my story is so pathetic it has to be true. “You have to know more than that.” 

“The Scarlet Guard only reaches out to me on a need-to-know basis, and anything worthwhile to you is something I clearly didn’t need to know.” In a way, I’m glad I can’t give him anything. “So are you going to kill me with a bullet or do you prefer more flamboyant executions?” My death should be plain. I am human completely--I bleed red and I have no powers. “I do think anything more than a simple death is more trouble than I’m worth.” 

His lips press together oddly, something beneath his expression tightening. “You don’t think your dearest friend will return for you?”

The sarcasm in his voice sparks something in me I thought only my sister could. “I think she has a lot of responsibilities and I wouldn’t blame her for having priorities.” 

His eyebrows draw together. “I think you’re painfully unaware of how attached to you she is.” I press my lips into a thin line. “She’ll come for you.”

Something selfish in me hopes that he’s right. No one has ever wanted me enough to come back for me. My mother wanted perfect daughters that knew how to only think in terms of trapping men with stable careers. My sister did it, but I could never manage, and to my mother that made me useless. 

“If you believe it,” I mumble beneath my breath.

I don’t know if he hears me. I can’t bring myself to care if he did. “For your sake, you better not have lied to me.” 

My back relaxes against the raspy wall, fighting down a grimace as the motion irritates my rib injury. “Cross my heart, Your Highness.” 

I watch him carefully, his expression turning into something much more grim. “A King is referred to as His Majesty.” 

“My father was a prominent war general and my mother only wanted daughters she could use to social climb.” I fight down a grin. “I know what I said.” 

His expression darkens into something bone chilling. “I am the King and you’ll refer to me as such or deal with even less pleasant circumstances.” 

I fight against the urge to cower, picturing Mare’s strength in my veins. There’s weakness in everyone, and if I squint I can see the thin cracks in him. “You have everything--the crown, the power, the support of the people, and it’s still not enough. You won and you still feel like you’re competing.” 

“You don’t know anything,” he seethes, practically growling. 

I shouldn’t press him, but the more he reacts, the more weaknesses are revealed. “I know what it’s like to have a sibling that’s the sun, and no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you’re always trapped in a shadow.” 

The lighting makes his eyes look almost glazed over. “My mother will be here soon and the truth will be revealed.” 

He can run from me, but not the truth. Cal has nothing, he has everything--the father that never cared for him is dead, and yet he’s still trapped. Our similarities hurt me more than my physical injuries. 

Maven turns, his gaze moving off of me feels like the removal of heavy shackles. “It would do you well to not press me. You’re worth as much whole as you are broken.” 

There’s the strangest hint of something more to his voice. I wonder if he’s speaking to more than just me. “You haven’t won until that voice in your head telling you that you’re not enough is silenced.”

“You’re a powerless girl who isn’t even wanted by a dying cause and couldn’t find a husband to drag her above the poverty line. You know nothing about me, and if you keep pretending I’ll slaughter you in front of your dear friend.” 

He leaves without another word. I fall asleep with my back against the wall and my ribs aching.