#literally started making a mind map of my thoughts in class

[slutt4ellie]

Fated Hearts Start With Fire

PT2 - Unforeseen Harmony

masterslist

PART 1 // PART 3 // PART 4 // PART 5 // PART 6 // PART 7

Moving to a new city is tough, but it’s even harder when your roommate is a dick.

Summery - After moving in you find yourself distracted on why your roommate has this very prominent dislike when it comes to you?

Warnings -> Same mean Ellie / Reader is also rude / Alcohol usage / Mentions of previous relationships / Girl flirts with reader 🫣 / Jealousy (if u squint idk) / Slow burn!! / Toxic relationship /kissing / Smut in future chapters! / (Lmk if I missed anything else!)

WC : 4.4k

(Not proofread)

DAILY CLICK 🇵🇸 - (takes a few seconds!)

Fuck.

To say living with Ellie is “Hell”, that would be an understatement!

The whole interaction with her the day after she came home completely plastered, the one where she said you looked “shitty”, that was about 3 and a half weeks ago.

You didn’t even understand what the actual fuck was wrong with her! And sure that seems mean, you knew how it sounded! But she’s probably the most unreasonable person you’ve ever met.

She’d get pissed if you got up to early for your classes because the moving of you just simply walking “Woke her up!”

She constantly takes your food, drinks, snacks, whatever. Basically everything that was in the fridge, and purchased by you, also now happened to be hers!

And every time you brought up how it was rude or disrespectful she’d shut it down! Saying something along the lines of “Well I lived here first!”

Living in a place that was completely foreign to you, and having the worst possible fucking roommate unsurprisingly didn’t mix well!

It also didn’t help you had a grand total of 0 friends. You were shit at small talk and conversations, that was nothing new.

But then again you also knew staying in your shared apartment with Ellie. That wasn’t something you could deal with much longer, you just had to suck it up and talk to literally anyone except for fucking her.

So that’s what you did.

Walking to class was alright, the cold air hitting the back of your neck was extremely apparent but you sucked it up.

The sun was still struggling to make it past the clouds but to be fair it was the least of your concerns, because as of now you were making some genius plan to make some friends..!

You had Jess and Alex who are great. You wouldn’t trade them for the world. But even they knew you had to get out there more.

At least that’s what they’ve been texting you all morning. Stuff along the lines of “You got this!” and “Just try not to panic”

So you kept that plastered in the front of your mind as you continued to walk down the campus trail, there was music blasting in your ears, trying to come up with conversation starters till there was a slight tap on your shoulder.

A girl, she was taller then you, had brunette hair, blue eyes, and a tiny smile on her face.

Her hand slightly moves signalling you to basically take out your headphones which you complied. You assumed it was already weird that you were staring at her for at least 5 seconds.

She spoke softly. “Hi..!” You just give her a smile back, thinking something along the lines of “Who the fuck is this??”.

“H-Hi?” You stuttered out a confused tone leaking which she clearly picked up on because she followed by saying. “I’m super fucking lost right now and you seemed approachable!” She chuckles letting out a quick “I’m a transfer student, and my class is 182..? Do you mind?” She holds out her map which shows the campus.

This leads you to quickly smile back. “Shit, I’m 182 as well. I can just walk you if you want?”

This has her immediately nod and you see the relief all over her face. “Fuck, thank you. I have no clue how to read paper maps”

“No?” You smile at her words and she follows up by shaking her head.

“Never thought I’d be in this situation, so no!” She smiles at you, causing you go stumble over your words.

“I-I uh didn’t get your name?“ You choke out.

“Fuck right! Mia, sorry!“ Mia smiles holding out her hand to shake.

You hold out your hand and shake it back. Quickly telling her your name.

༻♡︎༺

You learned that apparently during Mia’s transfer, the papers got all mixed up, which is now leading her 3 weeks after the term had started.

You and her quickly found yourselves sat beside each other during the whole lecture. (Which you hardly followed since you guys were talking a shit ton.)

And by the time it finished she didn’t hesitate to get your number, she was definitely way more bold then you..

You couldn’t tell if Mia was being simply platonic or if maybe she was trying to flirt?

You were sorta bad at signals and so when she asked you to do homework today, specifically together, quickly calling it a “Date!” you decided to deem it as non-platonic.

So here you are now walking back to your apartment shoulder to shoulder, talking about school, friends, where you both grew up, shit like that. Really just getting to know each other during the walk

It didn’t take long till you reached your apartment fumbling over the key hole as you unlocked it giving Mia a clear view of the auburn sat on your couch.

When Mia sees Ellie sat on the couch she quickly talks “Oh is she your?-“

You assumed Mia was going to finish off the sentence with “girlfriend” which had you almost shout out a quick no, because Ellie. Gross.

But! You decided as a calmer approach “No!- No we’re roommates! I- It was like an ad and shit so..”

Mia then smiles and nods looking straight at your. “Okay cool!”

Did Mia care if you had girlfriend??

But before you could even fucking talk, Ellie turns around, this makes you assume she was probably going to the kitchen, but as soon as her green eyes hit Mia’s then yours she just sorta stops. Spitting out a harsh.

“People are desperate now!” Ellie chuckles continuing to pick up where she left off and walking to the kitchen. Grabbing a few snacks.

Your eyes land on the side profile of Mia’s, her eyebrows are furrowed, she knew the comment was directed towards you. Because Ellie’s eyes stayed on you when she said it.

Mia was about to say something but you quickly grab her hand intertwining your fingers with hers.

You’ve never had a girlfriend. You didn’t know if this was normal to even do considering you and Mia were probably the furthest from dating, but you just wanted to draw her attention off of someone like Ellie.

You got the impression Ellie wouldn’t turn down a fight, which see showed with you, and those just all happened to be verbal.

You didn’t exactly want to see what the fuck would happen if Ellie got into a physical fight. Especially not with a girl which is showing at least some interest in you?

Mia’s eyebrows drop, no longer furrowed, and you see a pink rise to her cheeks.

You clear your throat, because now you’re nervous having you hand intertwined with Mia’s. So you quickly disconnect the both of your hands before talking to her..

“We can uh-my room is just over her” You point and quickly lead Mia to your room avoiding Ellie’s gaze purposefully.

You open your bedroom door, you and Mia instantly stepping into your now properly decorated bedroom.

Having a bed which you lacked just 3 weeks ago.

Mia finds herself on your bed dropping her bag on the side of the frame. She scoots back pushing her back against the headboard.

She quickly started up conversations which you grazed over considering you now have a fucking person in your room. On your bed!

“Your room’s pretty” Mia smiles

“T-thank you!” You smile looking at her finally being able to bare proper eye contact “If you came her 3 weeks ago we would have been on the floor”

Mia laughs and let’s out a “Why??”

“I had no fucking bed! Since I travelled so far, they were losers and didn’t want me bringing my queen bed on the plane?” You chuckle obviously joking which prompts a laugh from Mia.

“Seems lame” Mia smiles and you finally sit beside her on the bed.

“Super lameeee” You drag out your “e” which now left you feeling super fucking lame, it made you cringe at yourself which you tried to laugh off.

Mia smiles and chuckles, grabbing her laptop which she conveniently already took out of her bag. “I don’t wanna do all this fucking work” Mia looks at you having the blood rush straight up to your cheeks.

“Y-yeah no me neither, I already have like 3 things I gotta work on.” You chuckle looking back at her.

Mia had almost 0 problem having her eyes glance down to your lips. Yet you fucking did.

I mean sure you obviously wanted her to kiss you but you had no fucking knowledge on what to do? But before you could even think about it, Mia’s lips find themselves right on yours holding your cheek softly.

You immediately respond kissing her back having your eyes roll to the back of your head.

You were really just hoping your doing it right, but considering she’s not pulling back, you sorta come to the consensus it’s good enough!

You felt Mia’s tongue invite itself inside your mouth, her kisses now leaving and moving to your jaw and neck.

To say you were now just a bit nervous would be an understatement!

You obviously fucking liked Mia? You’d be dumb to not? But to be fair you didn’t even fucking know her middle name? Or really to much shit about her.

You didn’t know what this was? Like what if she just wants to hook up or something..! You obviously didn’t want that??

And she had to feel something was off because she pulls back her eyes now falling onto your face studying your face trying to read it. Quickly noticing how your eyes are planted on the ceiling.

“You okay..?” Mia ask having her hands drop from the back of your neck to your arms.

You didn’t even notice her lips where off your neck and jaw since you were doing your best to just disassociate.

“Hey..” Mia sits more up now her eyes meeting yours.

“W-what?” You stutter quickly swallowing the lump in your throat.

“You okay?” Mia says her eyes not leaving your face making sure she didn’t make you uncomfortable and accidentally do something wrong.

“Fuck- was I reading it wrong??” Mia ask, now starting to panic thinking she just kissed a straight girl or something?

“N-no! No! Fuck- no i’m sorry I just, I- I haven’t done this.??” You say spitting out not wanting Mia to leave or something.

“Like what? Shit with a girl” Mia says.

“At all.” You say really trying to have this justify and explain to her why the fuck you were practically tweaking out just from getting kissed.

“O-oh?” Mia says it surprised, now slowly fixing your shirt feeling bad. “Fuck i’m sorry”

Mia looks at you “I-if I knew I wouldn’t have like gone so fucking” Mia try’s to explain with her hands which failed causing you both to laugh.

“I-no your good. I just like- maybe slower.” you say looking at Mia thinking she’s gonna laugh. Not a lot of people go “slow” now, and you knew that.

“Slowwww” Mia smiles dragging out her words before softly kissing you again now not doing anything crazy like tongue, literally just kissing you.

༻♡︎༺

That was a crazy as it got. Literally just kissing which you appreciated. It also didn’t take long before the sky turned dark and Mia had to leave, you walked her out, kissed before she left and everything felt insanely intimate.

But just like in Ellie fashion she always had a whole lot to say. You hardly noticed her before she talked.

“I meant what I said by the way! Didn’t realize people were so fucking desperate” Ellie slightly laughs her hair falling over her face which she promptly moves.

You just look at her. “The fuck is your issue Ellie.” You say trying to shrug off her comments but it just doesn’t work.

“I don’t have a fucking issue, just think anyone would have to be insanely fucking desperate to go out with you, that’s all?” Her stupid fucking laugh echos your shared apartment.

“You always have a lot to say.” And you don’t even know what made you say the next sentence considering you knew hardly nothing about the situation. You had a lead, an idea of what it was so you took it.

“What happened with Cat Ellie? Dina and Jesse brought it up, fuck did she leave because of how fucking annoying you are or?”

It didn’t take long till her face dropped the smug smirk no longer planted on her face.

Guilt stuck you hard. Sure you didn’t like Ellie but the fact her eyes are glazing over, just from one fucking sentence means you probably crossed a line.

I mean was it fair she could say all this shit about you with nothing in return. Obviously no?

But then again you didn’t know what actually happened with this Cat? You knew it was some sorta “situation” at least that’s how Jesse worded it a few weeks ago. But then again it wasn’t your place to bring it up.

“Fuck you.” Ellie’s voice chokes up for the first time in god knows how long. She turns around. So clearly the Cat thing is personal! You quickly thought to yourself!

“Ellie..” You follow and she turns around and pushes you, which almost has you fall straight back.

“Fuck off!” Ellie says her voice now stern, fist clenching at her sides.

There was no doubt she was probably going to punch you, but luckily there was a knock on your guys door.

“Ellie let us innnnn!” Dina’s cheerful voice comes through the door.

Almost immediately Ellie walks over shoving you, in the process her shoulder comes slamming against yours which almost causes you to fall back.

You hear the door open and a pair of footsteps enter. Ellie doesn’t even bother to great them.

“Okayy? Rude” Dina chuckles thinking it’s just Ellie being Ellie.

But when Ellie also glances past her and sits on the couch. Dina starts to get a weird vibe.

Dina slowly turns her body towards you “Hey!”

You don’t even know what to reply with. You just let out a slight “Hi.”

Dina tilts her head, her eyes glancing from you back to Ellie. Both of your eyes seem heavy. Jesse quickly puts down alcohol and snacks on the kitchen counter.

Quickly Finding himself beside Ellie on the couch which she quickly shoves over to the furthest cushion, being the possible furthest away from him. Hardly matters though because she stands up. “The fuck?”

He mutters looking at Ellie’s body slowly leaving, trailing to her room.

“What happened” Dina says both her eyes flat on you.

“I-I brought up Cat.” You mutter out.

Just by the fact Dina’s eyes trail straight to Jesse and Jesse immediately stands up walking down the hall “Imma check on her”

Dina nods and looks back at you once again. “What’d you say…?” Dina’s tone is stern, her cheerful tone now lacking. She’s literally just trying to figure out what happened.

“I-I just, she was being m-mean to mi-mia and me-“ You try and spit out but Dina cuts you off clearly not trying to hear about someone she literally doesn’t know.

“Just what did you say!” Dina says fully over the rambling, she knows whatever the fuck you said must be bad because Jesse is still trying to get into Ellie’s room.

“I-I just said something like ‘did Cat leave you because you’re annoying’! I didn’t- I didn’t except shit. Like I didn’t except it to actually strike a nerve??” You quickly say looking down embarrassed of your words. “I brought yours and Jesses name up accidentally, I swear!” You quickly add.

“Shit..” Dina sighs rubbing her hand down her face letting out a groan. You don’t know the story and Dina’s trying to remember that.

Dina was about to talk more but you quickly cut her off. “I swear I didn’t- I didn’t except her to freak?”

Dina shakes her head. “You don’t know the story. Okay.”

You don’t even know why you care. I mean Ellie’s a dick, she’s been for the past 3 weeks. But you never wanted to actually hurt her? You wouldn’t consider yourself “mean”. But as much as you convince yourself you no longer seems if you care you just spit out.

“I- then tell me..the story?” You say.

2 months earlier.

(Ellie)

“Ellie” Dina says laying on Ellie’s bed looking at her.

Ellie’s spacing out looking at her celling.

“El!” Dina says a bit louder sitting up waving her hand over Ellie’s face having Ellie quickly snap out of it.

“Fuck yeah” Ellie says her voice cracking trying to form a smile which feels all to fucking forced..

“We should go out tonight. You know get out of the apartment that has Cat in it.” Dina says looking at Ellie’s facial expression. The idea seems uncomfortable. Going out without Cat at this point felt foreign...just weird…

“I don’t know.” Ellie fiddles with her hands instead of facing Dina’s brown eyes which feel like they’re piercing into her thoughts right now.

“It’s a break. I mean I could invite her?” Ellie suggest looking at Dina almost like she wants approval.

Dina knows the idea probably isn’t smart but she sorta shrugs. After all it’s just a break. Not a breakup.

“Yeah! I can bring Jesse too” Dina smiles suggesting looking at Ellie.

Ellie’s eyes finally light up like they used to.

“I’ll ask then!” Ellie quickly stands up smiling at Dina before leaving her bedroom which just a few nights ago, had Cat still sleeping in it.

—————————

The argument between Cat and Ellie was stupid. Ellie and Cat wanted to go do something special for their 1st year anniversary. They had an idea to go somewhere special, like a foreign country or something. Just to get out, spend quality time. Shit like that.

Then the first problem came. Ellie and Cat had two very fucking different budgets. Ellie has lived in New York for a bit and had a stable job.

A type of job she could live off of.

Then Cat. Cat definitely had a better job, she wasn’t shy to bring it up either, quickly pointing out all the places Ellie could realistically afford were “shitty” and “gross” instantly forming a fight.

“Why do you act like i’m not trying?” Ellie says looking at Cat tears already brewing on her lower eyelid..

“I’m not acting like anything Ellie?” Cat says scoffing sarcastically. Almost like she’s blaming Ellie. “I just think your job clearly isn’t paying enough.”

“Doesn’t it matter we’re going together?” Ellie says looking at back at Cat now standing up.

Cat follows up by standing in front of Ellie. “Ellie don’t pull that shit!” Cats tone is getting louder and she shakes her head fast.

“I’m not pulling anything! You’re acting like me not being able to afford places that are 700+ dollars is like i’m purposefully doing this!” Ellie’s tone is also getting but it has more cracks rather then Cats.

“Okay Ellie.” Cat says sarcastically just rolling her eyes, grabbing her bag.

Ellies eyes are shifting from Cats hands, to the clothes she’s grabbing, and back to the bag. “W-where are you going?”

Cat sighs and shakes her head. “I just want space. I’m gonna stay at a friends tonight.”

Ellies almost baffled. Confusion is flowing all throughout her brain. “Why?” Ellies eyes again are glossy. ‘this isn’t a breakup, this isn’t a breakup, this isn’t a breakup.’

“We clearly fucking need a break Ellie!” Cats words echo throughout Ellies brain..

“W-“ But before Ellie could even finish her sentence a slam of the front door rings Ellie’s ears and she’s now left alone in their shared bedroom.

—————————

Even though Dina thought it was stupid Ellie was shoulder to shoulder with Cat as they stand outside in the alley, which the club is left of.

Ellie’s eyes are the brightest they’ve been since that day. So even if Dina thinks Ellie even talking to Cat after the fight was dumb, if Ellie’s happy. That’s what matters.

The reason they were all outside the alleyway of the club is because Jesse is the only 21 year old in their whole group so he had let them all in through the back.

And as soon as the door opened and the music poured out Dina, Ellie, and Cat all entered.

It really didn’t take long till they were all drunk, they easily got served so they got loaded up fast with shots, the whole group downing them in mere minutes.

Ellie was enjoying her night, at the end of the day she was with Cat?

The girl she loved no matter what..

“I’m gonna go get us drinks!” Cat says talking into Ellie’s ear so she can hear over the loud music.

Ellie quickly gives Cat and thumbs up and a slight smile. “Okay!”

10 minutes go by, still no cat.

it’s been 10 minutes since Cats been gone, Ellie now just wants to make sure Cats okay? It shouldn’t take that long yet it was?

Ellie quickly taps Dina’s shoulder as she dances with Jesse. And leans into her ear “I’m gonna go find Cat! She’s been gone a bit!” Ellie says and Dina nods responding with a quick.

“Want me to come?” Dina smiles looking at Ellie.

Ellie shakes her head and smiles point at Jesse. “Nah! Enjoy dancing!”

Dina chuckle and nods watching as Ellie disappears in the crowd.

Ellie is pushing through a few bodies not seeing anyone who represents Cat getting drinks. Her eyes are scanning all over debating whether or not she should check inside the washrooms?

Until she sees Cats head in the middle of the dance floor. “Cat!” Ellie yells smiling until she sees it. Her voice falls short and her smile fades.

Cats kissing another girl.

Ellie’s whole face turns pale and she gets hit with a wave a nausea that hits her like a brick.

Everything goes in a fucking blur. Ellie’s shoving through a shit ton of bodies. Tears streaming.

The scene is..ugly..

But she’s been dating Cat for almost a year. All of it, it’s down the drain in the matter of seconds. Ellie’s hands are shaking as she pushes the alleyway door open quickly trying to calm the fuck down.

Ellie sits down on the ground her chest falling up and down as her vision blurs. Black spots are appearing in her eyes and she feels like she can hardly breath.

It doesn’t take long till she can hear Dina’s muffled voice. “Jesse! She’s out here!” Dina says crouching down rubbing Ellie’s back.

Ellie assumes she hit Dina on the way out since she was so fast to find her. Ellie’s having a full blown panic attack and it’s not going away.

Jesse also crouches down beside Dina, reaching his arm on Ellie’s shoulder asking Dina if she saw what even happened.

Dina continues telling Ellie to breath. She softly rest Ellie’s hand above her chest to follow her own breathing pattern. “Ellie in…and out”

Dina looks at Jesse. “Wanna get her some water.”

Jesse quickly nods running over to the convenience store which is across the street.

As soon as Jesses leaves, Dina looks at Ellie. “Ellie what happened.”

The sparkle which was in Ellie’s eyes during the beginning of the night is now gone. And she just shakes her head. “Cat kissed some girl. I saw her while-while it was happening.”

Ellie try’s to clear her throat, a cover to stop the tears that are threatening to spill from her eyes again.

After that night Ellie didn’t want to feel.

So she made the decision she was done with trying to feel.

Present

(You)

“Fuck.” You sigh now realizing how much you fucked up. You brought up a situation you knew literally nothing about and probably just gave Ellie new fresh wounds which were probably just healing. “I thought the girl who moved out went back to her hometown or something, It was Cat though..?”

“She probably didn’t feel like explaining it” Dina let’s out a dry chuckle which is to cover how fucked the whole situation is.

“Listen it’s not your fault.” Dina sighs shaking her head.

“You didn’t know?” Dina tilts her head her eyes finally meeting yours.. “Trust me I know Ellie can be a dick.” Dina says rubbing your shoulder, she doesn’t want you to feel guilty.

“Give her time to ease up” Dina nods trying to reassure you her behaviour will be better.

“I’ve gave her 3 fucking weeks?” You say. Almost all your sympathy leaving your body once again. Sure you wanted to feel bad for Ellie? But she’s mean all the fucking time.

What happened to her unfortunately doesn’t excuse that.

“I feel bad, a-and I get what happened to her isn’t fair. I know it wasn’t right for me to say what I did, but it’s also not fair for her to take it out on me Dina.” You say looking at Dina and Dina’s head drops.

“I’ve been friends with Ellie since freshman year. I swear to you she’s only ever fucking been like this these last 2 months.” Dina says, it’s like she’s trying to convince you that Ellie’s not a complete dick. Which you’re finding hard to believe.

Just as you were about to speak. Ellie walks out of her bedroom with Jesse. She looks straight at Dina then you, for the first time in fucking weeks Ellie doesn’t go straight to insulting you.

You can tell by the fact her eyes are now red she’s obviously been crying. You’ve never seen vulnerable before. Never with red eyes, her nose still sniffling, the outer area of her eyes still wet, you haven’t ever seen Ellie like this..

You didn’t say anything considering you couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt since you were 100% the cause to her crying.

Your eyes follow Dina as you see her step forward and just hug Ellie. Ellie doesn’t push back or refuse. She just wraps her arms back around Dina.

Ellie’s face goes in Dina’s neck and it’s like a different version of Ellie.

Not like the version you’ve constantly been seeing.

You’ve seen Ellie like this before, it was when she was sleeping on the couch after coming home drunk with Dina and Jesse..

A version of her which was calm and real. Not someone behind a dark, mad, rude, persona. Probably the Ellie before Cat decided to fuck her up.

The Ellie which felt.

A/N -> Part 2 is here!!

I really hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, because I did actually enjoy writing this! I already have a full plot lay out for the 3 part so expect that maybe next week. (don’t hold me to that 😭)

I’m gonna shift from a bit of the angst because I feel like i’m sorta shit at writing it, idkkkk!

I’m still super busy with school but so far my work load has been going down a bit, so I plan to work on obviously my other fics while still prioritizing this one! (Because I plan 5-6 parts)

That’s all! Ty again for reading likes and reblogs are really appreciated! 🫶🏽

Taglist - @a-little-bit-of-everybody @bready101 @shiimer @boobdrug @amberputh

[delphinus-dancer]

A deep dive into a swan lake and flipping the (metaphorical, sadly) bird:

A Mihaly-centric view of JD 2024 story mode

(because they’re my favorite and I’ve thought about this way too much over the past few days weeks) Spoilers for JD 24 in the almost-essay under the cut, including some images!

Starting off with Mihaly’s first appearance in the story mode in Canned Heat, it seems like not too much time has passed since the end of jd23- Sara seems to be at the same party, Jack still at the tower, etc. (how Brezziana got to the beach that fast and had a workout class is something I’m going to guess was preplanned before everything went down).

We can assume this would be the first time Mihaly’s come back to their room since then (which makes the idea of Wanderlust FaceTiming everyone like 5 minutes after they left even funnier). Of course there’s the shot of Mihaly ripping the poster off the wall, which probably puts their feelings into words better than anything else within an E10 rating. <Side note: I don’t know much on lore but does the setting mean there’s a chance they’re from Eternyx? Both maps started in dark crowd/nighttime so wasn’t sure if confirmed or not>

While Sara has the spot pretty much clinched for a Night Swan’s foil, Mihaly is a really close second. This shot literally puts it into perspective- Mihaly’s color scheme has as many color elements of Master Panda’s (shirt/jacket/foot wraps) as it does Night Swan’s (hair-that-perfectly-matches-the-poster/ gold of headphones and glasses/pants). Their dance style also overlaps moreso with hers than the other dancers, with the precision and technique of their moves, from the footwork and leaps of Rather Be to the dramatic powerful motions of their Swan Lake part. It’s pretty obvious who the song is directed to, and what makes the song so interesting compared to their last story mode one is how loose it feels. This is unlike their usual technical style because of the connection to Night Swan with the control demanded of certain moves that they’ve presumably mastered- maybe they were fueled by a desire to achieve her success. Regardless, the song and emotion fueled, less ‘perfect’ dance lets Mihaly basically flip the bird at Night Swan’s corrupted idea of perfection. Either way, it culminates in them achieving a new high in their training with channeling their ‘true’ inspiration of the (master) panda. Although they retain most of their same costume after sort of becoming a furry?, a noticeable change is that the black leggings are understandably switched to something looser- but to the navy color of master panda instead of Mihaly’s black.

What’s also interesting is that the specific point Night Swan interrupts Mihaly’s song isn’t at the beginning like Brezziana/Sara/Jack’s or the very end like Wanderlust, but at the climax of their journey for the song. Not only does this imply that she may have been watching the entire time but choose to interfere later, but she is also the only character to see the Panda form before Swan Lake.

As Night Swan basically invades Mihaly’s //mind/headspace/flowspace?/no idea on the lore// they initially try to fight her off, but unlike Brezziana in her map, don’t fight until the end. Although Mihaly themselves wasn’t being corrupted like the background coaches in Brezziana’s map, they still let themselves, in a sense, lose a more internal battle to Night Swan as they leave the metaphorical and literal height of their understanding and power in the Flow and come back to the real world.

This then takes us straight into Swan Lake, which is really interesting for the Night Swan/Mihaly interactions and how they compare to the other dancers. Although from a format standpoint it makes sense for the movements in the bridge to be different, there are more differences too.

A big one that I only realized once I watched Majesty again is how the other swan soldiers/minions were turned back- and that was mainly by doing the same moves to ultimately come together and bring the dancers back. Here it’s the opposite for effectiveness- what causes Wanderlust and Brezziana to fail is that they think that’s how to stop Sara. Sara matches the moves in a way that <well> matches, if not surpasses the power that they put in. As a result of meeting them head on and assuming control, Sarah actively corrupts the two of them. She makes motions to bring in the smoke, and both of them also are stationary/surrendering as their color drains.

When it gets to Mihaly, the dynamic with Sara changes completely. While Sara starts off watching with the same expression as when the others challenged her, it shifts as she realizes she can’t emulate what Mihaly does, with the movements almost like Night Swan’s-dramatic and slower. It comes to a head when Mihaly channels the panda again and visibly knocks Sara back, so she’s unable to push any of the smoke towards them.

Sara’s expression also becomes noticeably softer for the rest of Mihaly’s part, and she doesn’t reassert that dominance/control she had earlier- with dancing or the smoke. See how she looks almost pensive in the photos above/below, especially compared to the earlier parts.

Speaking of the smoke, this is the key part about Night Swan seeing the panda earlier. She knows it exists and how to force it off after the earlier song, and as Sara is incapacitated/distracted, she presumably sends down the smoke that starts attacking Mihaly in Panda form.

This attack is why despite having a chance to get through to Sara, Mihaly still ends up failing as they return to normal. However, they are the only character to be so dynamic in their active corruption. Not only does Mihaly manage to send a signal out to Jack, which was a display of power never seen from them previously, but they also do it as they are actively losing their color and control. Unlike the other dances, Mihaly still moves as they lose control, possibly having the strength to continue to fight had they not realized that Night Swan was attacking alongside Sara.

Although the signal is in the shape of a pawprint, its underlying meaning is more than just a plot device to send Jack on a wild goose chase (pun intended that I couldn’t pass up). With the way it opens to form a window into the location from such a distance, it almost seems to be a step away from a full fledged portal. With the sudden appearance of a new power, it’s also an interesting parallel to Night Swan, who here uses powers to create a unique form of control that wasn’t seen in the previous game and who regularly uses portals with her magic.

Another note is the lights that appear for each of the dancers in the upper left corner during the song as they take on Sara. While Brezziana and Wanderlust’s fade out a few moves before they fall, Mihaly’s still goes strong even as they completely turn grey, as seen the the photos above. This could be a possible indication to them having a more stable power than the other dancers, or a form of magic more comparable/competitive with Night Swan’s. Also to note about the lights: looking on the floor during the song, the diamonds flash 3 colors: hot pink (Night Swan), a deep green (Sara, especially while corrupted- her original outfit but darker), and a teal (the exact same color as Mihaly’s flow energy). Like everything else, this is a stretch, but it could possibly mean that Night Swan’s control and magic background could have stemmed from a pure form of flow like Mihaly practices.

This could also be a factor in why they retain the most of their original outfit in the corrupted design- possibly a form of resistance like they displayed during swan lake or general flow magic? Notice that while they have significant changes to their robe/face/accessories, their feather motifs are much less pronounced than the others, simply appearing as marks on the robe that can be mistaken for stripes, rather than overt feathers like Wanderlust/Sara or Sara/Brezziana’s feather tights. Unlike the others, Mihaly keeps their leggings exactly the same (which were notably lost in the panda form, as mentioned earlier), and interestingly enough, their wraps. I initially thought that Night Swan would have changed that to something like ballet slippers with ribbons, so I think it’s really interesting that they are the only dancer who had any details remain exactly the same, especially one that had unique opportunities to be changed.

Going off of that, since they were the last to turn and have (some?) control over their outfit and (some?) magic that may be similar to Night Swan, I could see them being the first/easiest coach for Jack or someone else to turn back when he (hopefully) takes on the coaches.

One last note is the number of maps per story mode coach at this point. Counting Stronger /Survivor, and Treasure/Lose Yourself (hopefully coming soon after that ending!), that seems to be setting a trend for the other coaches to potentially have an additional map as well. If so, maybe that would be one where Mihaly could individually be freed, or a chance for them to further explore their rapidly developing powers (maybe in a confrontation with Night Swan?? a girl can dream).

And there y’all have it! Thank you for somehow reading to the end!! Happy dancing!!

this took forever oh my god

[the-scarlet-witch-22]

hi hello how are you? i have a genuine question, hope it’s appreciated but like im literally curious on how your mind works, ANYWAY SO.

first of all, have you already thought about the general lines of the whole plot of your stories or are you freestyling your way through them?😭 like do the ideas pop up from time to time, even tho you have the story “mapped out” OR you don’t have a clue and just go with the flow (and somehow it turns absolutely perfect)

staying on that, do you think/already know if you’ll be adding Wanda in Love and Liabilities too? would be an interesting turn of events, LIKE SHES IN HER CLASS AND THEY BECAME FRIENDS AND AGATHA GETS JEALOUS (sorry my mind wanders, im mixing up the stories😭) but yeah maybe it wouldn’t make sense you’re right…wait you haven’t even replied yet OKAY IM CHAOTIC goodbye

(THOUGH even if it’s “nothing new” im sure that if u did add her, you would do it in such an inventive way that it would be perfect, cause your ideas are golden and sorry i’m a sucker for your writing i can’t get over it. I WILL STOP…eventually…or even if u tell me to stop cause i don’t wanna weird u out idk)

Hi!

I always have the main plot mapped out in my head for my fics. Usually I get ideas based off of songs, I listen to way too much music lol. So for example, with Lark there were two pieces of music that inspired it, and I had the whole fic from start to end planned out while listening. I will typically not be quite as set with subplots, secondary characters, and things of that nature, as within editing I almost always change a lot. Not sure if that's the best way to go about it, but that's how my brain has always worked lmao. Everything is music based, you see.

Sooooooo with Wanda in Love & Liabilities, she is the defendant in the case, and is Agatha's client. I haven't introduced her directly for a reason, just brief mentions in the present day chapters, but she will be popping up more as the story progresses and we get to the trial. How Wanda got to know Agatha, why Agatha's representing her, that sort of thing. I do loveee your idea though, haha. Wanda is one of my favorite characters to write- I find her to be very very intriguing, especially in the MCU and her connection to Agatha, and I'm praying for her inevitable return.

Also thank you so much for sending this in!! I mainly just talk about my writing process with my girlfriend since she reads over all my stories and edits for me :) But it's nice to type it out as well, haha. I hope my thoughts make sense! Thank you again <3

[crguang]

ahajsksbywpqp sat guess who has 2 tests in the same week in the same class next week. Not very fun for me. anyway I was think abt Kafka (honestly when am I not is the real question). See if it wasn’t Kafka in ur au and I was r I would definitely turn her in for the money, but I unfortunately think I might like Kafka just like a little bit ig so I don’t think k would be able to do that .

Reread part 3 today is her fingers twitching bc she wants to shoot something or is it just bc Kafka and her fingers. Ok thats not what I meant but also…what I meant was that she works with her fingers a lot I wish she used them on me instrument, guns, etc. we still haven’t gotten an in game Kafka appearance w an actual violin, it probably won’t happen but I’m still holding out. And she’s the highest threat level possible for a criminal but she STILL commits petty theft. She is so I saw someone say that the stellaron hunters were all siblings, Kafka and blade are like the older siblings that have to drive/pay for everything, silver wolf is the gamer (so original) and firefly is the youngest. Wish they had more in game interactions, or like they had synergy, meta wise, since canonically they’re one of the most tight knit groups.

oh also your inbox must be full as fuck so it’s fine if you don’t reply to everything, esp bc you answer a lot of stuff, and even tho someone already said this ur rlly great to talk to ur thoughts are always more coherent than mine. And we all get to simp over hot fictional women together.

ngl I might start playing ptn, like I’ve been seeing screenshots and…wow, I don’t think I have enough storage tho. I think the two types of characters I usually like are tiny mentally ill ones and hot evil women, so…

im so sorry my messages are always so long btw, I keep rambling 😭

-🌠

aaaa study well and good luck for your tests!!! hope you get a good grade and if u dint i will hack i to your prof’s computer and change it for you

im with you entirely, if it was anyone else in that story i wouldve already called the cops LMFAOOO kafka gets privileges because shes hot and my fav unfortunately… for the finger thing, i think its just one of her quirks! in her idle she mimics playing the violin and like you said she has very dexterous hands (even mentions it in a voice line) so i think she’d absentmindedly move them around when her mind is elsewhere. this is the kind of overthinking i was talking about, when i map out a character in my head i think about the most irrelevant stuff that dont matter😭 but imo they add to her charm a little and make her a rounder character, idk. AND YES i love that her crimes go from suicide inducement to petty theft shes so ridiculous hfjfhdhfj that time in her character story where she just walked in a store and took clothes off the rack then left in front of everyone… shes funny as hell😭

i see the SH as family too! silver wolf and firefly are sisters to me, and both of them are def kafka’s little sisters. i think silver wolf is the youngest though, she even gives off sassy youngest child vibes. i wish they could work together too, having them all in one team would be so nice. but it’s also cool that each of them has a speciality, it makes sense for the work they do

my inbox is full i think i have around 70 asks rn…😭 but to be fair a lot of them are veryyy old i just havent gotten around to cleaning up my blog yet, i’ll do it at the same time i change my masterlist and actually make it pretty to look at. i usually try to click on notifs as soon as i see them but like i said, i just forget to type my answers </3

and omg. anon. if your type is mentally ill and hot evil women ptn is literally the game for you. there is an abundance of mentally ill women in there, trust me… like there’s every kind of character you could want in that game— you could give me a specific type and i could find you a character that matches it, you should definitely play. and if you do, do it before the second anniversary ends (starts around mid/late-october) bc trust me you are gonna be upset if you miss shalom :/

dont worry abt ramblingggg i love talking to u and answering every point it’s really nice!!

[magpies4nights]

Do you guys think Dummy from GASA4AM:SNACKCORE knows how to use a microwave (Dev log #9)

Hiiiii everyone, I am back again. I'm starting to get used to my new classes, which may be considered a while for some people. I would have updated y'all last week, but I had NOTHING but music. and honestly, that's just boring. Literally last week I thought I was being nice to myself by not doing my homework for a very important class.... It was due the next day. I cried myself to sleep at 3 am because of how terrible I was with managing myself. I mean my brain was melting since I took a quiz before that and the teacher was relatively very demanding with the questions.... sooo yeah. I put this on myself......haha......... I lived though. Miraculously.

(sorry)

I’ve still been working on more locations! Whoopee! The player's room is done. there iiiiiis another location that was not originally on the GASA4 map like ever but was on Todd's Breakfast Adventure, but I decided since it was associated with spooky shit, you know damn well I'm gonna use it. I started working on the upstairs section of it. I also reworked the GASA4 house because I didn't like the way it was handled before, and yeah it's a bit glitchy but it works for how I want it to be.

I'm almost done with making the music. I just have to make music for outside the house and the Diner, and then after the 10th dev log you guys will be spared from any of my music.

Aaaaanyways, here is some of the music I made recently. They're pretty short compared to the usual because they're gonna be looped a lot (one of the songs has me singing in it (and is the only song with vocals, because I hated the vocals for Semicolon, so I had to rip 'em out), and I can't sing. You have been warned):

🔥🔥🔥🔥Mimimiii mimimiii mimimimimimiii 🔥🔥🔥🔥

(don't mind the fact I didn't screen record it like a normal person, this was a video I sent to someone before I turned it into a gif)

[animal-lover-forever]

Guys!

I just went on a long ass walk with my dog, Amicus.

I hurt now.

My original plan was to just walk around the block.

But clearly, that was not what ended up happening.

I ended up having to carry Amicus for a bit because he was slowing down and getting tired.

Keep in mind that Amicus is a 12-year-old Chiweenie.

And that I am overweight, commonly have pain in my ankles, knees, back, neck, and shoulders, I might have scoliosis (Dr. suspects but hasn't been confirmed.) and I usually only walk 3,000 - 5,000 steps a day when at school.

I only pick up a few 100 steps at most when staying home.

And at school, I walk from one class to another, then take an hour break for class time.

I just took 8,309 steps in one stretch!

I'm not as tired or hurting as bad as I thought I would after this.

But I did get a headache while doing this and almost thew up twice while walking.

My God.

I'm really not sure how I did it.

But I know one thing for sure.

I will never do this again.

From here on out, I'll be sticking to the block walks.

Oh yeah, Life 360 isn't completely accurate.

I didn't walk in the grass. (Unless there was no sidewalk.) I kept to the streets.

And I didn't have any water on me while walking.

So this was a straight-through walk, with no water, and in new territory.

Wait.

I didn't mention that?

Oh.

Yeah, I went further than I have ever walked, and into areas that me and my mom drive through rarely if at all.

I ended up pulling up Google Maps at some point so I could make my way home.

Only to realize that I wasn't very far from a Walmart that's literally half a mile away from our house.

My mom has so much trust in me.

I love her.

I was gone for over an hour and went decently far away from the house.

She didn't call me once to check in, (which I was a little surprised about. But when getting back home, she didn't even realize it had been that long. So that does make sense.) and she wasn't at all mad about how far I had gone.

My dad on the other hand?

He would have called me every 5 minutes asking where I was, and if I would have gotten half as far as I did today I would have gotten in trouble.

It makes me sad that my dad has no faith in me.

When I decided to go back to my mom, he told me that I would fail school, start doing drugs, and get pregnant.

And here I am, a year and a half later, not doing drugs (That aren't prescribed to me by a Dr.) and not pregnant. (I'm still virgin, in fact.)

I might have failed school this year because I completely lost all motivation near the end.

But even if I did, I plan to make up for it next year.

Because I won't allow myself to be a high school dropout.

So even though my dad has absolutely no trust or faith in me, at least my mom does.

Dear God.

Sorry guys.

I didn't mean for my little walk story to turn into drama, or for it to become this long.

[astralartefact]

Placeholder Name for Atarase's Media Diary

Entry 002 - Dragon's Dogma 2 <<Prev: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Synopsis

A prolonged camping adventure with the loyalest boys and a mage prodigy who gives me sass only often enough to make me paranoid she has the evil guy disease that kills everybody (might just be puberty)

Special Shoutout to whoever I stole Zoe the Beastren Healer Girl from (Your character name is/was Melina), she was a regular fixture of my party and is mine now.

How much did I know before playing?

I didn't play the first one, but I kept up with the marketing somewhat, and I was hyped to finally play it.

Did I like it more than I expected?

I fully expected to like it and I did. From what I've seen from the game before I bought it I knew its approach to an Open World would be my kind of game - and it was.

But seeing the discourse (and we will get to the discourse) this feels like a daring statement to make lol

Since I liked it, here's what I hated about it

Okay, this is the weirdest criticism to have about a game I completed in 113 hours, but it wasn't big enough. When I unknowingly made my way to Battahl and realized it wasn't as big as the other biome my reaction was a sad o: face and that feeling stuck around until the end, everything was just "I wouldn't mind if this was bigger :/" and it did impact my enjoyment of Battahl as a whole (Agamen not as much).

The game as a whole is really cool - I really loved it, I'm having to stop myself from starting a NG+ right now, and I think given an endless stream of new content I could literally play this game forever - and to some degree I feel like its size was calculated pretty well by the devs and shouldn't be bigger (if it was a lot of other minor details would suddenly become much bigger problems) but I guess it feels unexhausted.

I disagree when people say the open world is empty and one note - I personally had a great time exploring the entire map and I think the variety inside of the biomes is realistic and nuanced, I think if they just rethemed what's there into more different, but smaller biomes that wouldn't have done it for me either. The world might not be "new and exciting" everywhere you go, but every space in a given biome has some nuance in its topology and context that makes it stand out from the rest and it really feels like this world could be a real place exactly the way it is.

And since being grounded and 'realistic' is kind of this game's entire deal, having beef with that is to me kind of pointless, that just means you should have researched better what you're buying into (and we'll get to that!)

But I guess it feels like they could have done more, that all of these systems slotting in with each other would have benefitted from more stuff. Take the pawn specializations and classes for example, I think all of them are pretty neat but there aren't that many so running into 'one of that type' doesn't really change anything, especially since situational ones like the Elvish Speakers are coded to appear where you need them and you only "need" them in one specific place so you don't ever really have to think who you take with you. Same with environmental hazards like those water dams.

I guess that's the good thing of being able to expect Capcom to overdo it on DLC - I think adding more stuff like that in for example an expansion would really benefit this game, even though I will say that I think for the game that we have right now, the stuff that is there is enough.

Because in a fit of madness I don't even mean stuff like the enemy variety with that? I thought for the size of the game world the enemy variety was fine, not great but fine, even if it was on the smaller side at least the variety of their placement was really well thought through so I didn't really fight two of the same enemy groups in a row (the only problem i had with the enemies was that the enemy groups spawn way too densely and too frequently, you can't move an inch without aggroing another hassle of a fight and it also happens with paths you just cleared half an hour ago so map movement starts to become a chore at some point)

Finally: Men. But we'll talk about that.

What did this game make me think about?

We can only change the world by wanting to change it :) I love that as a theme, I'm really glad this is becoming a contemporary staple

Specific Impressions that will stick with me

THE TITLE SCREEN BEING DRAGONS DOGMA (NOT 2!) UNTIL THE THING HAPPENS i noticed that and it made me fall in love with the game so much more, it being a stealth remake and how it plays with that is so fcking cool i love that (again, I haven't even played the first one)

The coastal path to Bakbattahl. As I was randomly exploring I was wondering what the red waymarkers along this cave path were, so of course I followed them until at the end of this seemingly endless pilgrimage I finally realised what they were leading to. The entire experience of travelling along the cliffs and having to watch out for the harpies and the griffon was just really beautifully crafted. That whole journey will defo stick with me for a long time.

CHARACTER CREATOR OPEN WORLD RPGS ARE THE BEST Character Creators are my VisualNovel where the general audience seems to think they're cheesy but no, you don't get it, it's just that devs don't use them right because barely anyone has thought about their artistic merit yet. i can add so much visceral character development to my journey by changing hairstyles, adding scars, making my pc more muscular after training a new class, etc.

the day one of these games shaves a pc's head when they're imprisoned or adds scars when losing to a monster instead of a Game Over (all optional ofc people would scream if they forced that on their waifu) without me having to do that on my own is the day i will die happy

Outstanding Audio

The boss themes were cool? I did like the music and didn't just feel ambivalent about it but I couldn't tell you any specific piece :(

Favorite Character

Well, my character and my sweet pawns of course.

Aside from that I really liked Nadinia, even if she didn't get to do all that much, I just really love characters like her.

Also I guess the Smith Girl in Battahl, I liked her :)

Favorite Arc/Story Line

I liked Sven and Ser Menella's quests, but more than anything I loved seeing how doing quests impacted evacuating the cities after being baffled that the quests just ended without a conclusion. So I guess the entire final arc? (btw get good guys, i did the colossus quick kill without the arrow and seeing that pay off afterwards was amazing)

Favorite Set Piece

Travelling to Battahl along the coast

Watching my Pawn fight as the colossus

Everything that had to do with the capital-D Dragon

also having a healer with a child-like voice around and being paranoid about the dragon plague any time she gave me sass (she has like two or three lines out of nowhere that felt very pointed and i was so scared)

Favorite Scene

The ending scene with your pawn turning into the plague dragon. something about that did it for me.

Best Performance (I played with JP voices)

Kakuma Ai of Edelgard fame gave Nadinia such an edge that I really appreciate, she really made that character for me. For some reason I thought she was going to be a well-meaning but helpless pacifist priestess type character and thankfully she was not just that, she knew full well what she was doing while still also kind of being that pacifist priestess.

German Localization Notes

I thought the Localization was great! It fit the setting (I think Vasall is a better term than Pawn, fight me) and there were barely any blatant mistakes (I remember one spelling error and one time I was referred to as female, but that might be a programming error instead)

From what I did understand from the JP Pawn Dialogue I think they changed a bunch from the "original Japanese" though (might be an EN issue though, we don't have our own DE Voice Over so it would make more sense to keep with the 'default' language's text instead of JP) but also I don't really care since 90% of the dialogue is just Pawn Chatter where the phrasing of the content isn't particularly narratively important

--- ENTERING THE PRETENTIOUS SECTION OF THIS ENTRY ---

What about this game gives me Hope for the future of gaming?

This game is so fucking cool. I love this game for how weird it is. The stuff people complain about? Glorious. I love every single thing.

I loved having to have a physical fist fight with the save feature every time I was scared of making the wrong narrative choice. Yeah, it's kind of dumb and annoying, but from the devs' perspective, from the game they wanted to make and the overall vibe they were clearly going for it just makes sense. You're suppossed to roll with your wins and your failings - and if you can just always win then what's the point. You're not supposed to save scum as "un-quality of life" that may be and this is one way to kind of limit it to preserve the vibe they were going for.

Only having one save state and limiting character makeovers (they already fixed this one) makes sense because you're not supposed to play this game 'in parallel', you're supposed to play this game in succession - in a cycle, even. Your character isn't supposed to suddenly be an entirely different character, you're supposed to connect with the story through this character that is yours and to that goal, continually letting you change them completely would hinder that.

And since clearly this is actually a stealth remake of the first one I also really respect them not changing the shitty Beloved system? For some reason it's much more interesting to me that they kept it exactly the way it was, despite being stupid.

I guess I love stuff like this because it forces you to interact with the game as a piece of software engineering to make your own goals in this game come true. And yes, to me that's a good thing, because Video Games are pieces of software engineering - They're pretty much the only type of media that can do this.

Let me, the person who needs to make Self-Inserts for Maximum Escapism, be the one to tell you that I'm with Brecht when I say that in all sincerity, Immersion is a skill issue. Fuck Immersion as an aspirational trait of a piece of art. Especially capital-G Gamers have no clue what they're talking about when they use the word Immersion - and I get to say that, because I know that Presence exists beside the two popular buzzwords Immersion and Suspension of Disbelief - and this shit gives me so much Presence, I can't even begin to tell you.

I had to read the phrase "This game not maintaining 30FPS is breaking my immersion" about a game that made me pick up a child that had developed a crush on me, run in circles until my stamina ran out in order to drop it in a way that makes it crash into the stone floor, spraying blood everywhere because it was the only way I could make the child like me less - and I had to do that multiple times all so I could ensure I wouldn't end up kissing a child in the ending.

And while doing that, I did think "It's stupid the game works like this", I did feel fucking bad for the child I was abusing all so I could romance... well I romanced a random guy off the street because the men in this game were kind of boring - and yet in hindsight I was completely immersed into what I was doing because I was unironically engaging, grasping for agency in the systems put in place by the game's developers. I am rummaging through the rules of this universe all to spite god by making a child hate me a little bit more - and if that's not in the spirit of Dragon's Dogma II then I don't know what is. (this is only like 20% sarcasm btw)

To say it like this: Video Games aren't just to immerse you into a story better. Arguments about Immersion also always make me wonder what people think books are doing. But Dragon's Dogma 2 certainly is first and foremost a video game.

It feels like the people working on this game thought about what they were doing and during my journey through this world I got the feeling of understanding what exactly the devs went for in all aspects of this piece of software engineering - It's not trying to be a movie, it's not trying to be a book. It's trying and succeeding to be what it is and I really appreciate that.

I just wish there was EVEN MORE of it!!!

What about this game makes me scared for the future of gaming?

It grinds my gears that this keeps coming up so here it is, another round of idiot Gamers making me defend capitalism for something it didn't cause:

It's great that you all have awakened to corporations squeezing you out of your money, that's very anti-capitalist of you and I applaud that communist thinking (i'm not a communist but a lot of angry Gamers aren't either so let's make them mad by calling them that)

And yet I'm so sorry to inform you that even in Utopia people would still try to scam you.

It's not a Video Game Company's fault that you believed what they told you. I'm empathetic that it's hard, annoying and most of all stupid that we have to interact with a media landscape that is constantly trying to scam us for our money and attention, but even a genuine and well-intended artist is going to sugarcoat their product - so why would you ever believe what CAPCOM of all people is telling you without seeing physical proof first?

And even if they're point blank lying - which, straight up, for the most part Itsuno wasn't - if someone tells you they will sell you a green mug and the mug they hand you is red and you ask "but this is red" and they say "no it's green" and then you still buy it and at home you're upset that it is indeed red then you're the idiot!!! Yes, why did that person tell you that? Did they think you`re stupid? Why is Capitalism uniquely rewarding scamming people like this? All valid questions to seek answers for! But you can fall to the ground crying capitalism all you want, it's still your own foolishness that caused this!!! Don't buy shit if you're not adequately sure that you will enjoy the product!!

You have to - and will always have to - make your own informed decisions about what you invest both your money and your time into. 95% of problems that not only this but pretty much any video game discourse these days is critizising could be solved by simply researching what kind of game you would be buying into before buying it. And in this case, you have luck, this game existed before and you can try that game out for literally 5€! You know how I knew that? Because I fucking googled it.

And you can too! Thanks to YouTube, Twitch, some shitty wikis and some good ones it has never been easier to identify if a game is up to your standards before buying it - you just can't do that before the game is even out, which is why Pre-Orders are such a big problem to some people (I personally don't care, because I have to think about what I'm doing with my money anyways)

So just. Think about what you're spending money on before spending money on it! Maybe try being poor and having just enough money to buy one game every three months - that taught me to do that!

But with that out of my system let me get to the other problem this game has, one I think is really fucking annoying and stupid and really the core of my grievances with the game and not just the audience....

The Ramble Section where I get to actually talk about what I thought about

To introduce the second? third? Ramble topic of the day, here are a few moments from my playthrough that we will use to illustrate my main "problem" with this game:

I, a gay man, was forced to kiss the Sexy BrothelLady for literally no reason.

When daring to have a full male party, my main pawn mentioned that he hoped I wouldn't make not having women in the party a habit. (paraphrased)

You can buy a very revealling Mage Armor in Battahl. Naturally, after reaching Battahl around 75% of Pawns I encountered were barely dressed women.

I guess to add to that, the only black skinned Pawn I ever saw was one that Capcom made. Isn't that heart-warming.

I don't even know if there are romanceable men on the level of BrothelLady (I'm too lazy to look her name up, that's what she gets for sexual assault) or Ulrika

The Yeti Monkey Ogre gets horny for female pawns which felt very weird. I don't think there's an equivalent mechanic for male characters.

The Beloved Animations are all expressedly feminine. And I love me femininity, but it says a lot about who the devs thought would more likely be beloved and who would do the loving.

There's a summoning stone that only shows you petite women (which isn't necesarily bad, but it did raise my eyebrows)

imagine FPS being the only thing between you and that oh so hallowed immersion.

I guess to put it this way: For most of its runtime, the game gets away with pretending to be Gender Agnostic. Your Beloved can be Everyone even children! There's almost no mechanical difference between genders! You could argue that there is no intended demographic in mind for this game - that everybody can play it and therefore it's made for everyone.

Until, of course, one of those things I mentioned above pops up and serves as a harsh reminder that No! At some point in development, the devs came down hard on "This game was made for heterosexual men and everyone else can just also play it."

And with some of this shit I felt gross about having to witness it and that's really the gist of it.

I remember vividly when my main pawn no homo-ed me about my All Male Party and how just utterly ugly that felt. And I know it was phrased weirdly (at least in german) so maybe it's just me, but it was vague enough that I could interpret it as him saying he needs women in the party so he had something to look at and that's an extremely wild and frankly inappropriate thing to have your blank canvas NPC Follower say out of fucking nowhere. Like, Imagine being a woman liking men and hearing that.

It's in moments like Wilhelmina's forced kiss (i remembered her name are you proud) where the only reason it happened was that the presumed player would find that shit hot. It's in Ulrika being clearly just romance option Nr.1 and I couldn't just tell her no and continue to do her quests, I had to throw her into a wall every time I saw her to the point I completely avoided her instead of talking to her. I'm pretty sure I missed quests because of that. Like, Imagine being a woman liking men trying to do these quests.

Related, there's also something in them trying to circumvent Depicting Real Racism by transposing it onto the Beastren - which I guess didn't not work, I don't have any big feelings either way, especially since the devs at least tried to keep the cast somewhat diverse; I certainly didn't find it as appalling as whatever FF16 did. But it also makes stuff like Nadinia not being an equivalent Romance option despite being on the cover of the game questionable, because now it's like... Yeah, that was a decision you made for a reason. You didn't think your presumed audience would find the cat lady hot, right? (I certainly did and I'm gay)

I also mentioned before having strong feelings about Character Creators - because I do feel they are a very, very strong tool to make your own story telling part of the game in a tangible way. And sure, I use them mainly for self-inserts, sue me, but what I'm trying to say is:

It feels crazy to have 75% of Pawns I run into be someone's waifu and they all look one certain way. Other than that people either make some joke pawn or a bad version of a popular character - but from what I've seen the waifu they can presumably goon over was certainly the biggest pawn demographic by far.

And I know that gets into "Let people have fun!" territory, but it definitely lessened mine and I'm not even one of the people this is about. It was less fun for me not just meeting somebody's unique pawn, but - well. An Army of Women Objects. Not even objectified women - these are Women born as Objects. (and yes while these women aren't real, the treatment of fictional women is still indicative of and impactful on real women - so yeah, you can objectify women even if they're fictional) A world supposed to be filled with myriad unique pawns is uniquely filled with Women Objects - and given what the Pawns are in universe, that's kind of massively fucked up and every time the Game acknowledges that - by including very revealing armor, making it easier to filter certain types of women and by telling me to recruit more women because why would you ever have an all male party??? - it just feels gross.

Again. Try imagining being a woman that dares to like men. I keep repeating it because it feels like nobody thought about this niche group of people that's just about 50% of the entire population on earth.

And I guess I can't fault the devs too much about it, for the most part I actually really like the female characters in this game (nadiniaaaaaa) and the Pawns they themselves made are pretty diverse so clearly they cared at least a little about it; I certainly didn't find what they did as appalling as whatever FF16 did. I can only side eye them for knowing that all of this would happen and kind of enabling their players to do that.

It's just sad. It's sad and it's gross and an active reminder that despite it all a majority of people still treats women, 50% of humanity, like property, deliberately or not. It stains a really enjoyable video game with interesting mechanics to think about that I really connected with - and all because capital-G Gamers and "standard" masculinity is fucking gross and yet the devs either didn't think that far or think that's fine and good and dandy.

[mangoposts]

i just have to tell someone bc i literally can’t tell anyone irl abt this(rant)

Back in july my friends and i went to dollar general for slime supplies(lol) and as i’m looking for the glue i run into this really cute boy. I thought he looked familiar and mistook him for someone else from the neighboring town and never really thought about him again.. until fast forward the 1st day of school and i notice there’s a new kid (i live in a small town 😭) i’m like wait i’ve seen this kid before. it’s the boy from the store!! I tell my friends that i think he’s cute and the next day i find his snap, i add him and notice something new on snap map

He’s my new fucking next door neighbor

I’m in denial so i look out my window and the first thing i see is him playing basketball.. I’m like no shot.

He asked if i was his neighbor at a football game and i was like well yeah. He was like cool and kept talking about wanting to egg my house

???

but then over the weekened my (now ex bff) was going through a “terrible” break up and basically ditched me to go hang out w him and group of friends and i was like wtf!!! i told u i thought he was cute!!! and she was like i’m sorry just going through something and wanted to get my mind if things ☹️(she didn’t do anything w him but i fucking hate her fake ass)

idk my friends always catch him staring at me in lunch but i’m such a pussy i can’t turn around and say something. We got seated next to eachother in a class not too long ago and we talk here and there. But what rlly did it for me was when he started hanging out with my fucking brother. like really. my brother.

His reposts r wild, shit like “i wanna tell her idk how she would react though” “i would drop everyone for this relationship” but i don’t see him hanging around any girls likes he’s been home this ENTIRE break so i’m like who tf u talking abt???!!! (pls be me) and then he changed his pfp to i❤️latinas (i am latina!!!)

In conclusion i am borderline stalking him through my window and idk what to do bc i think he’s crazy cute but i’m so shy and can’t do anything abt it!!!!help💗💗(i get to see him tmmr at school bc winter break ended😍)

BITCHHHHH GO TALK TO HIM WTF ARE U DOINGGGGGG THATS UR MAN like stop you can’t just be next to him all day and say nothing. Ur making me insane

I also think my neighbor is hot and i literally go outside to talk with him whenever he lets his dog out like don’t be shy talk to ur hot neighbor

[songs-about-girls-like-me]

chapter 9: an unidentified bug

(Author's note: le puse "Mr. G" a nuestro maestro. I was giggling so much when I came up with that. Also, I will call people "random girl/boy" when they are irrelevant. Ok, cool)

I was highlighting something in my geography textbook to make a "bright sun" (which was a graphic organiser thing) in my notebook during class. Our teacher, Mr. G, the one who had sang and danced at the disco, was obsessed with making us do "original significative sentences" or "bears" by its initials in spanish. It was a friday and the school day was almost over. I was bored and I just wanted it to be 1:30 already. We were told to use our glue stick to make a circle for the center of the sun with red ink pen. I always thought these graphic organizers were ugly as sin, and I wished we could just do mind maps or a normal summary instead. We couldn't even color it in or use different colors and my sunbeams always looked wonky.

The girls sitting with me in my team were: a girl called Queenie who was in jazz with us, Poppy, wearing a side pony with white ribbon in her hair, and another random girl classmate. Random girl and Queenie were part of the girls who teased Poppy about her bra during camp, and all three were friends and were now talking about their friday outing over Mr. G who was still talking about how to do a "Bear". I yawned and got my ruler out to make the sunbeams when Random girl and Queenie started looking secretively at each other, and I noticed they were side eyeing Poppy. I took a glance and I instantly knew. There was something walking on Poppy's perfectly gelled hair. A little insect of some sort, colored in black and some green or yellow. It was a bug I'd never seen before, at least half a centimeter big or even larger. I knew they were probably thinking it was lice, and I supposed it was a fair guess, adding up the fact that we had had "lice season" in school just before the summer holidays. But I wasn't sure, it seemed way too big. And the color made no sense and it was walking over the gelled rock hard hair, not her side bangs or the rest of her fluffy hair. I had had lice when I was in 3rd grade. Well, not lice, just nits or whatever baby lice are called. I knew they sucked but I also knew some hair washes with alcohol would terminate them in a weekend. I thought we should say something to Poppy and even to Mr. G so that she could go to the school nurse, who was the one to check on lice always. The school nurse and I shared first name and was never mean.

"OMG, IT MOVED!" Random girl screamed and I rolled my eyes. "OMG, OMG" Went Queenie. "What?" Poppy was looking nervous. "You have-" I started.

"You have lice!!" Said Random girl. "What??!" Poppy was terrified. She looked like she couldn't even move. The two girls moved back a meter, pushing their chairs away with their feet while still sitting down. "You- there's an insect on your hair, you should-" I really tried, but my classmates screamed and Poppy was stiff as a board and she looked like crying with her eyes closed, gripping her chair tightly as if that would help. I got a bit pissed at her friends cause I knew this could be handled better and they literally were still screaming !!?

So I stood up with all my Hermione-Granger-personality-complex that made me think I was really more capable than my classmates at times and went looking for our teacher. But Random girl stood up too and we both went to look for Mr. G and she talked loudly over me so she got to tell him about the bug however she wanted to. Then Poppy was sent to the school nurse and that was that. But it almost felt like she got “evacuated” from our classroom because of these girls’ behavior. I was annoyed at them because it would’ve been nicer to keep people's lice a bit quiet, specially if they are your friend! And we weren’t even sure if it was actual lice or a random bug! I shook my head in disapproval and rolled my eyes, going back to take a seat to finish my school work.

Then, 20 minutes later, the school day finally finished and we were lining up in the hallway with our schoolbags to head out to the yard. The tiny hallway was always chaos with all the kids from our class (we were around 80 kids), and we all would push each other making the line so messy some people would even fall to the floor. It could be kinda fun. I wasn't Hermione all the Time. Except for when you actually hurt yourself, like, someone stepping on you, or falling with an elbow all the way to the slippery cream-colored tiles, etc. Everyone was chatting really loud, and Ella, Liv and I were no exception. They asked me a bit about Poppy’s bug incident which was the hot topic of the afternoon. I said I thought it could’ve been just an insect and I wasn't sure it was lice. She still wasn't back from the nurse when I looked around, though. My friends agreed that her friends had been quite sucky.

Ella somehow knew today it was Poppy's birthday party and I had to open my eyes big for how much of a pity that was. I felt bad for her.

"Damn" said Liv making a face. We all agreed to that "damn" and then kept talking about a Disney Channel show or started playing fight or something.

"I think I won't go" in the hallway it was easy to overhear people's conversations cause we all were really close.

"Well, obviously! She's got lice. Like-- I wish I could go, Queenie, we just can't. Even if it's her birthday party! No one should go." It also wasn't as if they were trying to keep it quiet.

Queenie was lowkey dumb so I never minded her much, but Random girl seemed a bit too decided on the matter. She didn't necessarily looked happy, but she was too serious. It definitely seemed like she was taking on the opportunity to throw Poppy under the bus and shit-talk her. And she was just always finding ways to try to walk over her.

When my mom picked me and my sisters up later and asked about our days, I started talking about it, speaking about Poppy as "Poppy [Last Name]" cause I had never talked about her before. When I had a full story to tell in the car, I would sit on the edge of the car seat (I always got the middle seat) and would rest my elbows on the back of the front seats to be closer to the driver. Sometimes I even rested my chin on my hands. I don't know why I did that, maybe so I could get everyone's reaction from that point of view. My sisters and my mom thought Random girl was obviously a terrible friend, more like, she even probably hated Poppy [Last Name] and was actively being mean to her. My older sister thought Random girl was jealous cause Poppy [Last Name] was really pretty and boys liked her, unlike her who was not, and was also a bitter envious bitch. She didn't actually say "bitch" though, cause we would never curse in front of my mom. My younger sister would always provide very good reactions like "no! really?" and "omg, she didn't" or even a small gasp or a shake of the head which was always good to have as support while explaining things.

"Yeah! and now... like- She's probably not going to have a birthday party!" I said, my eyebrows raised in a worried look. I think about this and I am reminded of how young I was lol.

"Yes, probably not. Poor Poppy." Said my mom, driving us. "But you can be nice to her, Rees."

I sat back and rested my back on the seat, pulling my schoolbag close to my chest. "Yea" I nodded. The september sun was still very warm and the car air always felt horribly stale with the carpeted surfaces of the car and the day-long-worn school uniforms. I had taken off my brown ballet flats with a flick of my feet. For a second I kept thinking about that party and if anyone would show up, or who had she invited. Or whether Poppy would be sad or angry at the moment. I would try to show up, if I had been invited.

[lastoneout]

GREAT!

I want to preface this by saying I was not one of those kids who never learned about other countries. I only had PBS which exclusively played educational shows, I was obsessed with segments about travel that came up in those shows, and my ADHD ass used to spend hours in class staring at the world map on the wall instead of paying attention.

Anyway! Back when I was a little kid watching my first few Studio Ghibli movies on VHS tapes rented from god knows where I remember really liking Sheeta's voice in Castle in the Sky. I had no idea why she sounded the way she did, but I knew it wasn't an American accent because that's what all the other English VAs had and also I lived in America, but it wasn't a British accent either, but I was also like eleven and had no idea how to figure out what type of accent someone had, so I simply assumed she either Just Talked Like That(I was in speech therapy and had strong opinions about being forced to Speak "Correctly" for no reason so this was based in my mind) or had some weird niche European accent I'd never heard before. It didn't really matter, I thought her voice was beautiful and mysterious and I legit used to focus on her lines because they sounded that lovely to me.

Side note, it's incredible I didn't realize I was bisexual sooner.

So I filed that away as just something that was going on with that actress and didn't think about it again for the next *checks calendar* like fifteen years despite rewatching the movie DOZENS of times within that time period.

A few months ago I decided to rewatch Castle in the Sky again because I hadn't watched it in a while and I knew it was one of my favorites, and lo and behold!! Sheeta starts talking and I go "wow man I love her voice I really wonder what's going on with the way she talks....WAIT A FUCKING SECOND!!"

Her english VA is from New Zeland. She has a New Zeland accent. I know what that accent sounds like, I have for years, I've MET people who live there, I've also read Anna Paquin's wikipedia page and seen OTHER MOVIES SHE'S IN, but somehow I never fucking put the pieces together. Literally the most American shit I've ever done my ass is here like "what an ethereal voice I wonder why she sounds like that it really makes her feel like a princess from another world I guess she just has a special voice-" GIRL SHE'S FROM FUCKING NEW ZELAND.

I do stand by her voice being beautiful tho, I absolutely love it and her accent and I do think having her have an accent no one else in the cast does adds to the air of mystery about her. I just feel SO fucking stupid for never actually realizing what the fuck was going on. Anyway feel free to mock me for this, I deserve it.

y'all wanna hear the most American(tm) shit I've ever done

[fuckmymunson]

𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 — 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

❀ CW: Obsessive, toxic, possessive and unhealthy behaviours.

❀ Part 2.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

James was used to getting whatever he wanted. Since he was a child his parents spoiled him and showered him with attention, gifts, and praised him, he was their precious golden boy. He was the unspoken leader of the Marauders, he was the head boy of the Gryffindor house and he was the quidditch team captain.

James knew he was loved, adored, and worshiped. His narcissistic behaviors were disguised as a high ego and self-esteem. He never took a no as an answer. Every girl who had eyes fell for him, and James was obsessed with the attention. Being the center of the play was his favorite activity, maybe that's why he got along with Sirius Black, another boy who loved the attention and enjoyed having all eyes on him. Girls floated around him like pretty little butterflies and who was him to deny their coquette eyes and kissable lips? He gave them the best night of their lives, just to later brag about it and don't even bothered to look back at their way.

But this one girl, this one had im infatuared.

You were different, you were bold, and you were the only girl who dared to reject him. And the very first moment you pushed him away, he knew he had to have you no matter what. His flirting started rather harmless, which escalated into being literal harassment. At first, James thought you were playing hard to get, but rejection after rejection he finally got the message.

You hated him.

And that only made him even more fascinated with you. 

"Prongs, don't you think it's too much? She already rejected you eight times." Sirius looked at how James was (again) tracing your steps in the Marauder's map. 

"It's never too much when it's about her, Pads." James sighed, dreamily. "She's gonna be my future wife, I'm sure of it." The rest of the marauders looked at each other worried, but they were boys, after all, they didn't know how to approach him without feeling uncomfortable. 

He followed you everywhere. Stalked you, track your steps on the map at any moment of the day.  He knew every class you attended, he knew who you frequented. James knew everything he could possibly know about you. Paying extra attention to your favorite pastries, your favorite flowers, the ink you used on your quill your favorite secret spots to hang out alone. He couldn't stop himself, he was completely obsessed with every little thing about you. One of his favorite activities was to hide under the invisibility cloak and follow you around, to the girl's bathroom, to the library, to your dorm. His dreams were flooded with your image, with your smile, with your laugh. James felt every inch of his body reacting to your presence and was sure you were the love of his life. 

 James loved the way your hair brushed your face while you slept. 

Oh, he was entirely enamored with you. 

James stole some of your things from time to time, your clothes being his main and usual target. He had to hide his smile every time he heard you asking about your pair of socks, your blouse, your tie, or even your underwear that one time. James had to swallow his rage every time he heard you talking about boys who weren't him, when you talked about your first kiss, or who asked you out. No one was good enough for you, only him. Only James Potter was the only one worthy of your love. It was alright if you didn't accept it because he was going to make you change your mind. 

One way or another. 

[damonfuckingalbarn]

Can you do the second part of thehistory of a cheating heart ? ( When you can or have time )

Oh my gosh, I actually!!! Wrote something!!!

Part one is here, if you want to refresh your memory before you read this.

“The History of a Cheating Heart” 2014 Damon x Reader (Part 2)

Pairing - 2014 Damon x Reader

Words- 1196

Warnings- No warnings, it’s all a bit sappy

My requests are open but I am SUPER slow at writing them at the minute, but still do send them over as I’m answering them on a bit of an adhoc basis at the minute.

You weren’t sure if you’d ever felt this worried about knocking on a door in your life. You couldn’t even stall and pretend you couldn’t find his house, ever since he had given you his address you’d looked it up on Google maps so many times you almost felt embarrassed.

You weren’t surprised he’d ended up living in Notting Hill, it was always one of your favourite places to visit when you were together. Though, you were surprised he still lived there after all these years, you would have thought it was starting to grow too gentrified for his liking nowadays.

You walked up the short path before inhaling deeply and knocking on the door, you knew that if you’d waited any longer you’d talk yourself out of it.

It didn’t take him long to answer the door and as soon as you saw his smile the worry that had built up inside of you, quite literally, melted away.

“Hi darling” He grinned, opening the door further to let you in before gently brushing his lips against your cheek as he greeted you “How are you?”

“I’m good thank you, how are you?” You responded as you placed your coat into his outreached hands, watching as he disappeared into a small cupboard with it.

“I’m all the better now you’re here” He called out to you, making your already red cheeks grow warmer.

You knew this was unbelievably tame flirting for Damon, in fact you were pretty sure he wouldn’t even class it as flirting, but it had been such a long time since anyone had spoken to you like that, let alone it being the man you used to be so madly in love with.

“I wasn’t completely sure what to cook, if I’m honest” He told you as he started walking through to, you presumed, the kitchen “I was going to order something but I thought that was cheating”

You laughed at his words, appreciating being behind him so you could quickly glance at the decor as best as you could. There were certain African paintings, wooden sculptures and little trinkets that just screamed Damon to you, but there were also aspects that you could have never imagined him choosing himself and you couldn’t help but wonder if they had been chosen by his last girlfriend.

“Sorry everything’s so mismatched” He laughed softly, you felt a pang of nausea when you realised you hadn’t been that discreet and he had been watching you take in your surroundings “My daughter chose a lot of the stuff and I want here to feel as homely as possible for her, even though she doesn’t always stay here”

You took a seat at the kitchen island, nodding your head as he gestured towards a bottle of wine before thinking about your next words carefully.

“Tell me about your daughter” You prompted, not being able to miss the smile that came across his face just at the thought of her.

“She’s amazing, you would love her” He gushed, sitting down next to you before taking a sip from his wine “She keeps me on my toes, I miss her when she’s not here”

Before you could comprehend what you were doing you reached across and have his hand a reassuring squeeze. You didn’t want to pressure him into saying anything but you felt like you had to know what he’d been doing all these years.

“If you don’t mind me asking Dames” you paused slightly, letting your hand rest on top of his “what happened with-“

“-Missy-“

“- sorry, what happened with Missy’s mum?”

“She erm, well she’s amazing but we just sort of realised that we were really meant to just be friends” He shared, taking a sip from his glass before glancing over at you “No matter what happened between us she gave me Missy and for that, I’ll forever be grateful to her”

“When did you break up?” You probed gently, a big part of you couldn’t help but wonder if Damon’s unfaithful habits had travelled into that relationship too.

“Officially, about 6 months after Missy was born, but we lived together for almost five years to try and make raising Missy a little bit easier” He pulled a slight face before shaking his head “But enough about that, tell me everything I’ve missed since I last saw you”

The conversation between you flowed as easily as it ever did and a part of you felt like you didn’t have almost twenty years to fill each other in on.

You couldn’t help but notice all of the small details he had clearly deliberately put around the house. You were a creature of habit and luckily for him, none of your favourites had really changed in the past years, as there was a bunch of your favourite flowers on the table, your favourite wine pouring freely and your favourite dinner being served up.

All throughout the dinner, the same question kept on spinning around in your head ‘What did he want to get out of this?��

For you there were two easy answers, a shag and a relationship. You laughed at how fickle your morals were, ready to drop to your knees the second time you’d seen him, but then he had always had that effect on you.

You shook your head to almost try and dispel all of those thoughts, you had to remind yourself that you were in his company, he was sitting right there.

“Still a day dreamer” He grinned, his hand reaching out to squeeze yours, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“Sorry Dames, I just, I just honestly can’t believe I’m sitting here” You laughed lightly before taking a sip of your wine “With you”

“That makes two of us” He dropped his eyes from yours, shaking his head slightly before making eye contact with you again “I feel so lucky that you’re here after everything I did, it almost feels like it’s too good to be true”

“Damon, it’s in the past, I’m over it and clearly you’re not the same person you used to be” You tried to reassure him, though you knew your words weren’t reaching him.

“I’m not the same person, I’ve changed for sure” You noticed how he caught his breath, almost as though he was hesitating on his next words “Though one thing that’s never changed is how I feel about you”

You suddenly felt very aware of his hand that was still resting on top of yours.

“Leaving you and treating you the way I did has been my biggest regret” He sighed, you subconsciously held onto his hand tighter “Not a day goes by where I don’t think about you and wish I could go back in time and change everything so that we would still be together now”

“Damon” You responded quietly, a part of you wondering if he could hear your heart pounding “I don’t know what to say”

“You don’t need to say anything darling” He mused, a smile growing on his lips as your eyes met “Just know that I love you, I always have done and I always will do”

[clarencethemouse]

I had another idea and I hope you don't mind but Hawk and Detri liking the same girl? After Hawk becomes Hawk I see them butting heads over something like that quite a bit lol

This was odd to figure out where to start with this. But I think things went well :)

(also, if you get the TUA reference, I literally love you)

Y/N always had Hawk’s eyes. Before and after he flipped the script, he always sought her out in the cafeteria before sitting down to spare glances her way without being noticed. He always found a way to sit a subtle two seats away if the class seating wasn’t assigned. 

They spoke several times before, but nothing more than casual passing. It was enough for him. He cherished every stolen glance and every polite wave offered his way. 

There was one problem, though. Demetri. 

He knew Demetri shared his keen liking of the girl of his interests. And he hated it. It violated some bro code to like the same girl. They couldn’t both ask her out. It was an unspoken rule. 

But it had been too long for Hawk. He had waited one too many months. Today would be the day...

Y/N sat at her lunch table, already engaged in joyous conversation with her friends. Hawk struggled to keep track of her through the crowd of the cafeteria. 

He had mapped it all out in his head. He would ditch Demetri and Miguel halfway through lunch period. Slip over to her table with two empty seats and make up some excuse about the guys at his table, something to warrant him needing to move. He would talk them up, mainly Y/N. By the end of the day, he had her number. By the end of the week, he secured a date. 

But now, as he recited it all in his head, he realized it sounded better the first time. 

What was he doing?

“If you keep undressing her with your eyes, she’s gonna catch a cold.”

Hawk narrowly turned his head to give Demetri a cold glare. “You got a problem?”

“No problem. It’s the truth, Eli.” Demetri nudged him in the side with his elbow. 

“As if you’re any better,” Hawk snapped. 

Demetri sucked in a sharp, condescending breath. “But, you see, the difference between you and I is that I know I could never stand a chance with Y/N. Neither of us.”

“Not if we don’t make a move, we don’t.”

“And I’m sure you’ll get to that soon enough.”

“I’m working my way there.” Hawk hit him on the arm. “At least she knows me. I don’t see you talking to her!”

Demetri shrugged thoughtfully. “Not yet, but we’re on the trail to being partners for Chemistry ll. I’ll be getting plenty of alone time with her over the week.”

Miguel chimed in. “Guys, can we not today?”

“I thought you didn’t stand a chance with her,” Hawk snapped, ignoring Miguel. 

“Not at this rate. But I’m about to change that.” Demetri winked. He knew he was borderline ticking his friend off, and it was fun. It was nice to know he could finally get some leverage over the guy. Recently his ego needed a major check. “It’s okay, Eli. You’ll get your shot some other time. I believe in you.”

“Bullshit!”

Hawk pushed his chair away, leaping to his feet. Demetri matched him, his hands held up with innocence. “Easy there, Eli! I’m just stating the facts.”

“Hawk, what the hell?” Miguel shouted, throwing his hands up. 

This got the majority of the cafeteria’s attention. Eyes from all directions turned to them, including those of the particular girl of their conversation. 

“Yeah. Stay away from Y/N,” Hawk warned. 

“Hawk, just calm down-”

Students around them ooh-ed and wolf whistled. A lunch lady shouted at the boys to sit down. Demetri was about to release another smart remark when his focus drifted to catch the startled eyes of their cause of argument. Y/N. 

“Shit...”

“What?”

Demetri turned his friend around by the shoulders, vaguely motioning in Y/N’s direction. Hawk swore under his breath, sitting back down. She had heard it all. What would she think of them, oh him? Just as he was working up the cool guy facade to ask her out...

“You got this one, buddy...” Demetri pat him on the shoulder. 

Hawk rolled his eyes, picking up his tray to leave. “Chicken.”

He didn’t catch it as he turned his back to dump the remaining contents of his tray, but Y/N waited until the audience’s drama simmered out to wave. 

---

(also I totally didn’t start this a month ago and completely forget about its existence)

Robin

[thompsborn]

chapter six - i'm sinking down into my thoughts

word count: 10,460 (10,432 without chapter lyrics)

total word count: 50,241 (50,062 without chapter lyrics)

chapter song: drowning by eden

chapter lyrics:

i think i lost my mind a while ago 'cause i've been seeing some ghosts and i'd be lying if i told you i'm fine but i lie

recap + lines i felt were important enough to jot down:

the halloween chapter! yaaaaaay! this entire chapter takes place on halloween 2025 (october 31, 2025)

peter is at one of the two locations that he heard about when on patrol earlier in the week. he believes this one is connected to the Big Man in Charge of the drug counterfeiting operations that he recently heard about. he's internally making fun of how cliche the place is. he does this to try and distract himself from the fact that it being halloween means that november starts the next day, and november contains the one year anniversary of may's death and the spell being cast. he's also still not entirely sure how to act around harry after the whole mix up from earlier in the week and the class he has in about an hour is right next to harry's class and harry usually waits for him and they usually walk together.

Another reason for him to be here, he thinks—it’s better for him to focus on looking into a sketchy building that’s somehow got an unspecified connection to Big Man at one in the afternoon than to crawl in a hole and rot away like he really wants to. Or punch something repeatedly until his knuckles break. Or scream and cry and shatter anything and everything within his reach, just to make the world match the inside of his head. He’s not sure any amount of destruction could ever do justice to just how broken he really is, though.

lol ouchies

the cops shut the location down. peter has learned that Big Man is part of the ally-ship for sure, not against it. Big Man is currently all about drug counterfeiting, illegal weapon dealing, and he saw multiple mysterious shipments tucked in far corners. this specific location is a new one - "not fully stocked, barely even on the map. practically nothing."

he also overheard a conversation where it's mentioned that Big Man recently made some new friends. richard (assumedly fisk), marcus (assumedly lyman), and someone named joe, which is the only unfamiliar name on the list. that, plus the fact that he got the place busted, makes peter pretty content with how it went.

he's already late to class and elects to just skip it

harry texts peter saying that he's not the paranoid mom friend like gwen always says but that after peter going MIA he feels it's justified to be worried with peter not being in class ("and also harley texted me a really sad looking cat picture and all he said when i asked him about it was that he learned something new about you that made him sad") and then harry tells peter not to be surprised if peter takes ten years to answer him and he ends up knocking on peter's door to check on him ("i swear i'm not trying to be weird i just literally cannot rest until i'm sure that everyone is okay")

peter goes to the second location that he heard about, which is in manhattan.

he passes midtown on the way and briefly wonders what happened to the shrine that mr. harrington put up before deciding not to worry about it because the shrine was weird. this isn't important to the plot i just find it really funny.

the second location is an average office building. peter looks through the windows, relying on his senses to warn him of any danger, but it looks like a completely normal building.

"but he also seems like a completely normal person, until he starts climbing walls and swinging from synthetic spider webs, so he's trying not to let appearances fool him, though the longer he peeks around, the more he deflates"

peter honey you definitely do not seem like a completely normal person literally all three of your "kind of maybe not really but still" friends have made it clear that it was obvious you're a traumatized disaster since the second you met them but ok king go off i guess

just as peter is starting to think that this place is a bust, the window above him shatters as an arm reaches through, grabs peter by the back of his neck, and pulls him into the building.

for 24 minutes peter tries to fight this random guy ("during these twenty-four minutes, he's been slammed through six walls, found out what tile dust tastes like through the fabric of his mask and then he got thrown head first out of the building and onto the street below") before admitting to himself that this dude is way stronger than a regular person should be, able to hit peter hard enough that it makes him hunch over in pain without using any weapons rather than just getting a few hits in here and there when peter slips up or leaves an opening on accident.

"it's getting annoying, really, his whole silent act. peter would much rather have a good back and forth going right now. it makes it more entertaining, less daunting, during a fight like this. almost kind of fun." aka peter only knows how to speak sarcastic quips while in his spidey suit and this guy isn't engaging in his attempts to spark up some mid-fight banter which peter is upset about.

the guy only speaks once. it's to tell peter to shut up.

peter has to let the guy get away once he realizes that he wasn't prepared for a fight like this when exhausted, healing from many injuries, and mentally all over the place. he hates letting the dude get away but is planning to hack into nearby security cameras in order to get footage from the fight and hopefully get a clear enough image of the guy to be able to run it through a facial recognition program and maybe track down a name and record

he gets distracted by a mom and kid walking into his line of vision. mom has an iron man shirt and kid is dressed as spidey. this reminds him that it's halloween. the fact that this parent and child are dressed as him and tony makes him nauseous with grief.

harley texts peter and assures that he isn't going to treat peter any differently now that he knows peter doesn't have any family. "you're not going to suddenly be this fragile person in my head." he then says that gwen got invited to a halloween party by a girl in her class and that she's invited all three of them. him and harry are already for sure going and they wanna know if peter wants to come

peter goes back to his apartment and thinks about dedicating certain days to cleaning because he's already bringing in dirt and grime from his patrol after just cleaning it. he takes a shower and has this fun little thought that hurts my heart very much:

"When did he start hating the way existing feels?"

he sees the texts from harry and harley after getting out of the shower. when he sees that he was invited to go to the party with them, he tries to draft a text saying he's busy, that he can't go, that he has to study, but he doesn't send any of those. instead, he asks if it's too late to accept the invite. harley responds literally immediately and says it's not too late at all.

they stop at a bodega on their way to the party. gwen and peter wait outside while harry and harley go in to buy stuff. right off the bat, peter's thinking about why he said yes and thinking about all the reasons why he should go back to his apartment and go back out on patrol. he thinks about the night of the party at liz's house in homecoming and how that's the night he almost drowned. gwen asks him if he's okay and he tells her that he's fine, he's just only been to one party before and it was with people from midtown aka a bunch of nerds so this party is gonna be way different

gwen makes a comment about being excited to see people in costumes and then points out that peter isn't wearing one

he points out that none of them are and that no one said anything about this being a costume party, just a halloween party, but says that he'll make sure he does something really cool next year to make up for it. gwen says that he could pull off a disney prince costume really well, then says that she thinks he could pull almost anything off because "you have one of those faces, you know? like, sure, there are colors that look better on you, but none that look bad." then she says that thankfully they have a year until next halloween which "gives us twelve months to narrow it down and figure out the perfect costume for you."

peter locks on to the fact that she said us and asks if she thinks they're going to be friends in a year. gwen asks why they wouldn't be friends in a year. peter says that a lot can happen and they've only known each other for a couple months.

gwen says: "You know what, Peter? If I have any say in it, then you're going to be stuck with me for a long time. And I'm pretty sure those two feel the same way."

She nods towards the door of the bodega just as it swings open, as if specifying who she’s talking about despite Peter not needing the specification. He parts his lips, but presses them back together immediately, not wanting this conversation to keep happening with all three of them there. They already think his problem has to do with thinking they hate him. Questioning the length of their ‘friendship’ won’t help.

they get to the party. peter describes it as "reminiscent of every party scene in every movie he's ever seen."

lol also this line is very funny i think: "From what Harry told him, this is someone's parents house, and their parents are out of town and letting their kid take care of it while they're gone, which was clearly a bad idea from Peter's perspective, but hey, he's made worse decisions. Like actually attending the party."

his enhanced senses are fighting for their fucking life as they make their way through the house. he feels like he's choking from the bombardment of smells so he tries to breathe through his mouth. he stumbles from disorientation and instinctively reaches out to grab the back of gwen's cardigan in order to avoid getting left behind ("The irony in that is pretty sudden. It's sharp enough to sting.") this is something he used to do with ned and mj and almost anyone else that he was in decathlon with. gwen doesn't seem to mind so he holds on tighter until they reach the kitchen.

the kitchen isn't as disorienting due to a door blocking the flashing lights coming from the living room.

harry goes through their "rules" for the night, which are:

(1) stick together, at least in duos, so no one is left alone in a strangers house surrounded by people that they don't know

(2) no taking drinks from other people

(3) no going home with anyone ("exchanging numbers is fine, but i swear to god, i'm not letting one of us get murdered by someone who lures people from college parties and, like, slaughters them behind dumpsters, or whatever they do.")

(4) once someone wants to leave, they all leave together, no questions asked

(5) drinking is fine as long as they don't go past their agreed upon limit and no drugs harder than weed, but only if they can get it from a trusted source to know it isn't laced with anything

(6) if the cops show up they should play dumb and say that they thought they were drinking soda but the person who gave them their drink but have put alcohol in it. harry says he can call his mom to help if that doesn't work. gwen says she can also call her dad, who is a cop.

is it obvious that harry's mom friend energy is really just the manifestation of his anxiety. have i made it clear enough yet. i mean this is definitely a good thing because having these outlines for going to a party in order to ensure everyone's safety is great but also he's very anxious all of the time especially with his friends

peter snorts as harry and gwen bicker. harley grins at him. peter decides that, while he should still be on patrol and be productive, maybe he can enjoy this. "maybe it's okay to at least try."

peter agreed to all these rules because it prioritizes keeping everyone safe. he isn't worried about himself, but he's decided that if he can't protect them by staying away from them, then he can protect them by trying to keep their outlook on the universe as positive as possible despite the downsides they've already seen because "if he doesn't pay close enough attention to them, something could go wrong and they might not look at the world with that brightness in their eyes that he lost a long time ago."

someone bumps into peter and makes him spill his drink on himself. it has some alcohol in it because he was curious if his slowed down metabolism would let him feel it, but the smell is strong enough to make him want to gag and he regrets letting harry add the alcohol when he had asked. gwen asks if harry or harley are wearing a shirt under their sweatshirts so that peter can change out of his shirt and harry says he's wearing like three layers and holds onto peter's wrist to lead the way upstairs to find a bathroom. he says he has his a t-shirt and a crewneck under his sweatshirt and lets peter pick which one he wants

peter says either of the long sleeved once in order to keep his webshooters covered, even though he adjusted their appearance to make them look more like bracelets, but he wants to keep them as hidden as possible just to be safe. harry turns out and peter asks what he's doing, and harry reminds him of the sticking together rule and says he would wait in the hallway but he's pretty sure it's so packed that he'd "get dragged away in the current"

peter thinks that that's leaning towards his level of paranoia, which he only has because of everything he's gone through, so it's a little bit worrying that harry is so anxious about it, but he opts to not ask about it and instead just goes to change, but here's the issue:

harry looked over his shoulder while responding to peter.

peter follows an instinct that he didn't realize he still has from the years he spent around ned and mj while they both knew he was spidey and how he stopped caring if they saw him change in or out of his suit because of how often they were around when he was changing

harry kind of reminds him of ned and mj. there were many times where, if peter forgot to let them know he made it back home okay and he didn't answer their messages, they would show up at his and mays apartment to make sure. "being overprotective but not necessarily overbearing, just genuinely caring and feeling the need and the want to help as much as possible, worrying about the worst and trying for the best and having walls to protect them from those unworthy but letting people behind those walls without hesitation the second they've proven themselves"

because harry reminds him of ned and mj, peter often thinks about them, even when trying not to, while around harry, and this instinct rears its head as he takes his shirt off and doesn't stop to think of the fact that he now has a shit ton of scars until it's too late

harry turns back around as soon as he processes what happened but not fast enough to avoid seeing at least some of the scars.

peter puts harry's sweatshirt on and tries to say he's done and they should head back, but harry is frozen so peter instead waits to see how he's going to react. he thinks about how harry being called a mom friend isn't just a joke. "the guy gets incredibly anxious when people he cares about give him reason to worry."

harry points out that the scars look kind of recent. peter's healing makes them look up to a year old, so peter lies and says they're almost a year old, deciding to use the anniversary of the battle at the statue of liberty so that he knows he won't forget it. harry is definitely shocked and kind of shaken. peter says sorry and harry says "it's not your fault, please don't apologize"

harry then says that he's not going to ask peter to tell him about it but he's also not going to stop peter from telling him about it if he wants to. the only question he has is if the person who caused the scars is still in peter's life and if he should be keeping an eye out for someone from peter's past that's bad news or something.

peter says no. they leave the bathroom and, despite hating the smell of alcohol, he accepts the drink that gwen offers him.

Maybe, if he drinks enough, his theory about his slowed-down metabolism not being up to par enough to actually let him feel drunk will be proven. Maybe, if he can get something out of it, the noise will just… Fade away, or something. The lights will go dark. Maybe it’ll be easier to exist in a place he always should have been able to.

he ends up kind of tipsy and is stumbling around when he grabs onto harley to avoid falling over. harley asks if peter's okay and peter asks what time it is. harley says it's 12:32 (november 1, 2025) and says that he guesses halloween is over.

peter says it's november and thinks about how he's never going to get to spend another holiday with may again, how he can't lean on ned or mj, how he has nobody.

he tells harley he doesn't like thanksgiving. he mentions a friend he had (mj) telling him why thanksgiving is a shitty holiday and that's part of why but even if it wasn't he would still hate it. harley says that peter hasn't mentioned any old friends or anything.

he says that he's curious about peter because peter is very mysterious and quiet and brooding. peter laughs his ass off and says "if my aunt ever heard you describe me as quiet and brooding, the look on her face-"

harley asks about his aunt. peter says yeah, his aunt may, but doesn't elaborate. harley says that is sounds like peter's past is a lot and peter says that's an understatement and harley says if he ever wants to talk about it, he's all ears

peter thinks that it's hard to believe that harley gwen and harry care about him so much. harley gives peter water to make his hangover the next morning less intense. peter says he's had way worse than a hangover and harley says that there are a lot of things worse than a hangover but that doesn't mean hangovers dont't suck so why make yourself suffer

at the end of the night, gwen invites them to have a sleepover at her dorm. peter thinks about how he shouldn't say yes, about how he isn't doing enough, about how may died the week before thanksgiving and it's november and he needs to do more.

he says yes anyway.

gonna make little chapter recaps while i reread what's posted of homeward bound so far. and then i am going to bust out chapter seventeen. might not finish it this weekend, but i hope to get a majority of it written. let's get into it.

starting with chapter one - i'm so tired of being afraid

word count: 7,535 (7,515 without the chapter lyrics at the start)

chapter song: six by sleeping at last

chapter lyrics:

what would it feel like to put this baggage down? if i'm being honest i'm not sure i'd know how

recap + lines i felt were important enough to jot down:

peter moves into his new apartment (december 2024)

peter needs to be alone

"when he's alone, there's no one to let down but himself."

peter looks up norman, otto, max, flint, and curt as a precaution now that he knows they turned into villains in the other worlds

norman and otto: started oscorp together during the five year gap between snaps, but have not gotten very far due to the world mourning the half of the population that's gone and also because stark industries is already a powerhouse in all the industries that oscorp is trying to step a foot into. peter deems them not a threat for now but will occasionally check on them just to be safe.

max and flint: peter is unable to find records of anyone with their names when looking them up. that's doesn't guarantee they don't exist in this world, they could have different names or something like that, but peter finds no trace of them and feels like it's safe to assume they don't exist here. he'll still check again occasionally to see if anything pops up down the line.

curt: a professor at empire state university with no signs of any of the things that happened in the other world happening to him here. again, peter will check occasionally to make sure, but overall he thinks that his world is most likely safe from these five people becoming villains like they did in the other peter's worlds.

peter looks into empire state university after looking up curt and thinks about how he'd like to go to college. it's always been part of his life plan. his life is completely different than what it was ever supposed to be and he'd need to get his GED, but he thinks about how he'd like to still go if he can make it work.

peter decides he needs to remake his suit, partially because he other suits can't be used anymore now that karen doesn't recognize him - edith doesn't recognize him anymore, either, which makes peter sad because he feels like he's lost a connection that he had with tony after tony's death - but he also wants to remake his suits because he knows the other peter's made their own from suits from scratch as well, so he thinks it's pretty fitting and thinks that it's kind of like he's building himself up from scratch and starting over for good - "...as both Peter Parker and as Spider-Man"

"and karen not knowing him feels a lot like losing another friend."

he includes peter 2 and peter 3 in his suit design to honor them and remind himself that, even if he is alone in his world, he isn't alone in the universe.

raimi spidey emblem on his chest:

and tasm spidey emblem on his back:

"when peter gets lost, or angry, or overwhelmed... he has reminders of them, interwoven into his suit, for him to brush his fingers against and think to himself, be strong, peter. do it for your brothers."

peter had an uncle ben in his world, but his uncle ben died less than two years after his parents did when he was six and a half years old. peter thinks about how his uncle ben impacted his life in a much different life than the other peter's. his uncle ben's last words shaped his morals and his outlook in life, to the point that, when tony first showed up to recruit peter for germany, he had used his own wording based on what ben said to explain why being spidey is so important to him.

"he remembers ben shrugging, remembers him smiling, remembers him saying, "if i didn't help, it'd be my fault, too." the way he said it had been so simple, so sure - a philosophy he fully and passionately believed in."

actually just this whole section feels very important to me so i'm going to copy and paste it right here:

In a way, Uncle Ben played a significant part in Peter becoming Spider-Man, but not in the same way that the Other Peter’s seemed to be influenced by their Uncle Ben’s. Peter remembers that he didn’t think much of the last words he heard his Ben say for a while, but that they seemed to click in his head around the time he was nine or ten, and suddenly they were words he wanted to live by. Doing good, and getting in the way to stop bad things, no matter how big or how small, because then it’d be his fault, too, if he didn’t.

It’s what he told Mr. Stark, back when he was still fourteen almost fifteen and the man had appeared in his apartment. When you can do the things I can, he had said—not exactly what Ben had said, no, kind of added onto by Peter, altered with the weight of Spider-Man stacked on top of the same philosophy he already lived by—but you don’t, and then the bad things happen… they happen because of you.

It’s not what the Other Peter’s talked about, though—because Ben didn’t tell Peter that great power comes with great responsibility. Aunt May told him that. But, for the Other Peter’s, it had been an Uncle that lived longer than his own did.

Then again, the Other Peter’s didn’t have the Avenger’s, and they never had Mr. Stark. Maybe it’s just different because each world isn’t supposed to be the same, and that’s all there is to it.

also may's line from right before ben died, which peter later tells harley about when telling harley the truth about his life:

“You stupid Parker men,” May had scoffed. “Way too selfless for your own good.”

peter thinks that it feels important that uncle ben had such a huge role in shaping who he is, and how the ben's of the other worlds had such a huge part in the other peter's lives as well, even if it was in vastly different ways. he then thinks about how, out of the very few things that peter was able to get out of his and may's old apartment before it was cleared out, one of them happened to be a box of uncle ben's old stuff - including, at the very top of the box, ben's old camera.

peter learns how to use ben's camera to take pictures properly in order to then take pictures of himself as spidey to sell to the daily bugle. he thinks it's amusing and ironic that the pictures he takes are used for articles that slander spidey, knowing that jjj would probably lose his shit if he knew he bought the pictures from spider-man himself.

"everything seems to be trial and error these days - life was never a certainty before, but now it's pretty clearly up in the air and he's left scrambling to try and figure it out, approaching every corner completely blind to what he'll find when he turns it - but that's alright, because he's got the brain of a scientist and trial and error could just be another term for experiment, so it works out well."

that ^ quote is a nice tie in to the tony flashback that happens in chapter 16, where tony calls peter an observer and says that peter is always gathering information and how peter looks more than most people do because peter likes to be prepared and likes to understand.

peter spends new years eve alone (new years, 2024) and watches the fireworks while thinking about the other peter's not being alone before going back to patrol.

peter gets his first Big Injury since ending up completely on his own. he has no one to call and he has no super pain killers like the ones tony had made for him before tony died. the injury starts at his left hip, goes over his ribs, stops at the center of his chest. it was done with a knife. peter has to stitch himself up. it's the first time he's ever done stitches on himself.

he passes out after finishing the stitches and wakes up almost a full day later. thinks about his healing and how his enhancements are definitely being negatively impacted by his lackluster eating habits - he's broke as fuck and also doesn't have much of an appetite due to being traumatized and depressed.

"part of him wonders how drastic a change it really is - wonders if, maybe, the scars will stop fading away. for some reason, that's the thought that makes him feel sick to his stomach."

fun fact: this injury is the one that peter tells harley about in chapter 15 when harley is asking about some of peter's scars.

and that's the end of chapter one! these little recaps are entirely for my own benefit - the only reason i'm posting them is because giving myself the expectation and responsibility of posting them will make me actually commit to recapping every chapter, which will make working on chapter seventeen a lot fucking easier and will make it so i'm able to finish chapter seventeen a lot fucking faster.

i will be reblogging with the chapter two recap shortly

[clericofsune]

How to Play as Raven in Pathfinder 2e

I’ve only recently started looking into Pathfinder 2e almost entirely on a random whim, and was surprised to learn just how malleable and adaptive the building process could be. So, for those who play Pathfinder 2e, I figured I’d return to beat a dead horse and talk about how to play my all-time favorite superhero in this game. Keep in mind, I’m a lot newer to Pathfinder than I am to Dungeons and Dragons, so I might make a mistake or two along the way.

ANCESTRY HUMAN ANCESTRY, TIEFLING HERITAGE DEMON LINEAGE

In Pathfinder, race comes in two stages. Ancestry is your main “race”, while Heritage defines the kind of that sort of creature that you are. Tieflings in Pathfinder are only a Versatile Heritage, allowing someone to be a Dwarf Tiefling, an Elf Tiefling, or a Skeleton Tiefling. Raven’s mother, Arella, is a Human, so we’ll say Raven has Human Ancestry and Tiefling Heritage. Characters get Ancestry Feats as they level up, so Raven gets to choose from Human and Tiefling options. Furthermore, Tieflings have a number of Lineage feats that are entirely optional, but must be taken at level 1. Raven does not have to take these feats if she does not want to. Raven can have a lineage descended from Devils, Demons, Daemons, Rakshasa, Velstrac, or Qlippoth. Of these, Trigon maps the closest to a Demon, so we’ll say that if Raven wants to take Lineage feats, she should take the Pitborn and Demon Magic feats that mark her as having Demon Lineage if she so chooses.

BACKGROUND

For her background, a few stood out. When I build characters, I try not to only think of what’s the best choice, but to lay out my entire thought process to let people make their own conclusions and tweak my builds to suit their own preferences. In Pathfinder 2nd Edition, Backgrounds give +1 to 2 stats, one of which must be between one of two options. For instance, the Scholar background makes you take either INT or WIS, plus a second of your choosing, so you could choose INT and DEX or WIS and CHA. Most also usually give you training in 2 skills, and one extra feat is attached to the background that you choose.

CHOSEN ONE (Rare): Raven is the Chosen One of Trigon’s prophecy. Any feature with the (Uncommon) or (Rare) marker is not “core rules”, and therefore should be discussed with your DM as to its applicability. STATS: STR or CHA SKILLS: one related to your prophecy, Lore: Fortune-Telling FEAT: Prophecy’s Pawn (unique)

CULTIST: Arella was literally in Trigon’s cult. That’s how she came to be Raven’s mother. So, by proxy, one could make the same conclusions about Raven. STATS: INT or CHA SKILLS: Occultism, Lore: Cult of Trigon FEAT: Schooled in Secrets

MAGICAL EXPERIMENT (Rare): We only want the Enhanced Senses feature. Tieflings already get Low-Light vision, so Enhanced Senses gives Raven Dark Vision and Thoughtsense, letting her see in the dark and sense things with her mind. STATS: CON SKILLS: Occultism, Lore: Academia FEAT: Enhanced Senses (unique)

OCCULT LIBRARIAN: They collect creepy tomes about esoteric mysteries ancient magics, and forbidden lore. Sounds like Raven. STATS: INT or WIS SKILLS: Occultism, Lore: Academia FEAT: Schooled in Secrets

SCHOLAR: You studied magical lore, becoming trained in either Arcana, Occultism, or Religion. STATS: INT or WIS SKILLS: (Arcana, Occultism, Nature, or Religion), Lore: Academia FEAT: Assurance

STUDENT OF MAGIC: This is just another variation of Scholar and Occult Librarian, just with a different free feat. STATS: INT or WIS SKILLS: (Arcana, Occultism, Nature, or Religion), Lore: Academia FEAT: Recognize Spell

CLASS OPTIONS

I’ve built Raven in Dungeons and Dragons before, but Pathfinder uses different classes and has different subclasses as well. It’s also worth pointing out that a lot of the time, “subclasses” are rather bare-bones. Most of the build comes from the many varieties of feats you get access to. Feats are linked to classes, ancestry, and skills, meaning that these elements are more important when building Raven, whereas DnD 5e puts more of the emphasis on the subclass. Meanwhile, Pathfinder 2e seems to treat subclasses more like additional flavor rather than the crux of the build. Some subclasses, like Sorcerers and Clerics come with a few set spells or features, while others are largely indistinguishable. The only real difference between an Abjuration wizard and an Enchantment wizard is that they add one 1st level spell of their school to their spell list, and get a subclass unique spell that’s not cast with spell slots, but rather, with focus points. Furthermore, different gods can give different spells, meaning that what deity Raven worships as a Cleric is just as important as which domain she chooses. Even as a Knowledge Domain Cleric, there’s a difference between worshiping Pharasma, Raumya, and Mephistopheles. The Cleric Spells came from the god you chose, while the Domain Spells came from the Domain you chose.

CLERIC MAGIC DOMAIN (Nethys)

Divine Ability: Wisdom or Intelligence Divine Font: Harm or Heal Divine Skill: Arcana Favored Weapon: Staff Cleric Spells: Magic Missile, Magic Mouth, Levitate, Blink, Prying Eye, Wall of Force, Warp Mind, Maze, Disjunction Domain Spells: Magic’s Vessel, Mystic Beacon

Across the official deities, while I’ve only given it a cursory glance being relatively new to Pathfinder’s lore, I believe that Nethys is the most fitting deity for Raven to worship, a god of Knowledge, Magic, Protection, and Glyph Domains. While the Darkness Domain is fitting for her shadow magic, none of the official deities seemed to really feel like they fit Raven.

PSYCHIC THE DISTANT GRASP (Occult Spell List) EMOTIONAL ACCEPTANCE 

Standard Psi Cantrips: Mage Hand, Telekinetic Projectile Unique Psi Cantrips: Telekinetic Rend, Vector Screen, Dancing Blade Granted Spells: Kinetic Ram, Telekinetic Maneuver, Levitate, Fly, Telekinetic Haul, Poltergeist’s Fury, Telekinetic Bombardment, Falling Sky, Implosion

Psychics are interesting because they effectively get two subclasses. The Conscious Mind is the main subclass, giving them granted spells and unique features, while the Subconscious Mind determines their casting stat and gives one Psyche Action. The Conscious Mind subclass I chose is The Distant Grasp, the subclass which prioritizes Telekinetic abilities. The Subconscious Mind subclass Emotional Acceptance focuses their power through control over their emotions. More than that, they can empathically bolster the emotional state of their party, revitalizing their confidence, healing their wounds, and protecting them from mental harm. Emotional Acceptance causes Raven to cast with Charisma.  For the purposes of this build, I will be using this class for Raven.

SORCERER DEMONIC BLOODLINE (Divine Spell List)

Bloodline Skills: Intimidation, Religion Granted Spells: Acid Splash, Fear, Enlarge, Slow, Divine Wrath, Abyssal Plague, Disintegrate, Divine Decree, Divine Aura, Implosion Bloodline Spells: Glutton’s Jaw, Swamp of Sloth, Abyssal Wrath

By DnD rules, Trigon is closer to acting like a Demon than a Devil. He’s not charming or manipulative in the way that a Devil would be. He is a raw force of nature, like a Demon. The unique Bloodline Spells being tied to three of the Deadly Sins is also appropriate, given that in the comics, Raven is the Sin of Pride, while she has 6 brothers who each represents the other 6 deadly sins.

SHADOW BLOODLINE (Occult Spell List)

Bloodline Skills: Occultism, Stealth Granted Spells: Chill Touch, Grim Tendrils, Darkness, Chilling Darkness, Phantasmal Killer, Shadow Siphon, Collective Transposition, Duplicate Foe, Disappearance, Weird Bloodline Spells: Dim the Light, Steal Shadow, Consuming Darkness

Raven’s powers come from her bloodline, but while that power does come from Trigon’s demonic powers, her actual powers and abilities always skewed more shadow and darkness than fire and brimstone, which makes the Shadow Bloodline rather fitting as it ties Raven’s lineage to the Plane of Shadow.

WITCH NIGHT PATRON (Occult Spell List)

Patron Skill: Occultism Hex Cantrip: Shroud of Night Granted Spell: Sleep

The Witch is basically Pathfinder’s version of Warlocks. Instead of selling your soul, it’s more about forming a mystical connection to the universe and drawing power from a natural source in a way that’s different from a druid. Night Witches hear their patron in the shadows and darkness, and feel the magic of the universe flowing through the darkened night sky. The secrets the shadows tell them teach them how to command the powers of shadow, murk, and darkness. Witches also get a familiar, letting Raven have a Raven for her familiar. Though the Shadowcaster Archetype, Raven could have a Shadow Familiar that takes the form of a Raven.

WIZARD (Arcane Spell List) SCHOOL OF ENCHATMENT IMPROVED FAMILIAR ATTUNEMENT

Like Psychics, Wizards effectively get two subclasses: Their Arcane School and their Arcane Thesis. One determines which school of magic is their focus, and the  other determines what their magical research focuses on. School of Enchantment doesn’t give much, much like with the Subconscious Mind with the Psychic. It’s rather bare bones, providing only really two features, while the Thesis provides the real meat of the build. Given the importance of Raven’s spectral raven, I figured that a stronger bond with her familiar was the most appropriate.

ARCHETYPES

In Pathfinder, one does not multiclass. If you start as a Wizard, you will build a Wizard all the way to level 20. But, you can augment your build by taking an Archetype, allowing you to pick up predetermined features from another class, or completely unique Archetypes. As such, one can make a Rogue with a Trickery Cleric Archetype, Druid with a Ranger Archetype, or an Illusion Wizard with an Assassin Archetype. It’s also worth mentioning that a character can take multiple archetypes at once. You can play a Bard that takes the Cleric archetype to pick up the Trickery Domain, while also picking up the Assassin archetype as well. It’s mostly about balancing the feats you want to take, because archetype feats level with your main class. Furthermore, taking an Archetype feat at 8th level won’t stop you from picking up a 10th level class feat, and vise-versa, you could ignore your 6th level archetype feat and still pick up your 10th level archetype feat if that’s the only one you want. So, Raven could class-wise be a Shadow Sorcerer, while also taking the Psychic Archetype if you so choose. It’s also worth mentioning that some DMs let you take class features AND archetype features on level up, which helps alleviate the Sophie’s Choice at certain levels, though this is very much a house rule, and not a guaranteed rule. Speak with your DM before taking an Archetype because if you want so many class features, you may not have room for Archetype features at all. I ran into this issue myself while doing a demo build of Raven. I liked too many of her Psychic class features, and ended up with no room to fit in any Archetypes, though I did want to include them.

CLASS ARCHETYPES

Cleric

Psychic

Sorcerer

Witch

Wizard

UNIQUE ARCHETYPES

*Familiar: Raven does not get a familiar as a Psychic. If Raven wants a Familiar, she will have to take the Shadowcaster Dedication feat, and then the Familiar Feat, both from the Shadowcaster Archetype.

CATHARTIC MAGE (Uncommon) Raven gains further power from tapping into her emotions. Anger is the most appropriate, as that is the main emotion Raven needs to keep under control. Each strong emotion can give Raven specific spells, she can focus to trigger emotions at will, and empathically extend her emotions to her allies. 

FAMILIAR MASTER Raven’s familiar is more adept than most. She can improve the abilities of her familiar, cast spells through her Familiar’s location, boost team moral with her familiar, her familiar can outgrow needing a corporeal body, and it can receive even more benefits than it got through an earlier feat.

LIVING VESSEL Raven has been made the vessel for Trigon’s powers. Causes Raven’s appearance to change and allows her to manifest demonic claws, drain the lifeforce out of enemies, infect others with her demonic possession, and taking on a more fiendish form.

SHADOWCASTER (Uncommon) This archetype lets Raven learn a number of shadow-related spells, have a familiar no matter her class, and do a variety of shadowy magical things. She expands her spell list to include more shadow magic, gains shadow-related domain spells, can further enhance her shadow form familiar, and becomes better at stealth through mastery over shadow.

SPELLMASTER (Uncommon) Raven becomes a master of her spellcraft. She can transform into a raven herself, ward against enemy spells, absorb magic, and gains a more powerful counterspell.

SKILLS

In Pathfinder 2e, Skills are not simply Proficiency and Expertise. Rather, they come in Four Stages: Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary. As you level up, you gain Skill Increases that let you raise 1 skill of your choice to the next highest rank, though some increases can only be done after reaching a certain level, thus keeping you from having Legendary Stealth by level 9. These Skill increases occur at levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19. So, Raven can choose to focus on making a few skills legendary, or she could instead prioritize having more skills at the Expert and Master range by not evolving any to Legendary. It’s entirely up to the player. However, these are the skills I would most highly recommend for Raven:

Arcana: Knowledge of the mystical, enchantments, and arcane magic Deception: Ability to Lie convincingly Diplomacy: Ability to Negotiate easily Intimidation: Ability to Coerce easily Lore: A knowledge skill for one exact topic, can have several at once Medicine: Knowledge of healing, physiology, and medical treatments Occultism: Knowledge of ghosts, cults, legends, and Occult magic Religion: Knowledge of Celestials, Fiends, Deities, and Divine magic Society: Knowledge of customs, manners, and history Stealth: Ability to move undetected easily

FEATS

There are a variety of feats in Pathfinder 2e that really shape how a character plays. Keep in mind that this post is a Guideline, not a rule book. For the purposes of this post, I won’t be including any Archetype feats because when I built Raven, I ended up only taking base Class feats from her Psychic Class, so that’s what I’m going to prioritize. If you want to make your own changes, just swap out the feats you don’t like. To simplify things, I’m just going to lay out her feats as they become available by level. For this list, I’m going to build as though Raven has taken the Magical Experiment background simply because the added Darkvision and Thoughtsense frees up room for more feats I want Raven to take, though Raven can gain Darkvision as a level 1 Tiefling feat, and Thoughtsense from Level 8 onward as a Psychic Class feat. I filled a lot of the late game skill and general feats with Assurance, a 1st level feat that just assures that Raven rolls well on skills she’s trained in. Because each skill has unique feats that unlock depending on how high you’ve trained them, I didn’t want to load up my guideline build post with a bunch of feats that only fit the way I would play as Raven. The only one that’s truly “mandatory” for the build is Occultism, as it’s connected to a few features, and is also the skill associated with her spellcasting. So, many of the Assurance feats are merely placeholders for high level skills depending on the skills you chose to invest further attention toward.

Level 1 Ancestry Feat: Pitborn Skill: Athletics Additional Feat: Assurance (Occultism)

Level 2 Class Feat: Psi Burst Skill Feat: Root Magic

Level 3 General Feat: Toughness

Level 4 Class Feat: Thoughtform Summoning Skill Feat: Recognize Spell

Level 5 Ancestry Feat: Fiendish Resilience

Level 6  Class Feat: Violent Unleash Skill Feat: Schooled in Secrets

Level 7 General Feat: Disturbing Knowledge

Level 8 Class Feat: Dark Persona’s Presence Skill Feat: Bizarre Magic

Level 9 Ancestry Feat: Light from Darkness Once-Per-Day Spells: Paranoia, Shatter

Level 10 Class Feat: Emotional Surge Skill Feat: Assurance (Arcana)

Level 11 General Feat: Ancestral Paragon Ancestry Feat*: Fiendish Lore

Level 12 Class Feat: Psi Catastrophe Skill Feat: Assurance (Lore: Fiendish Plane)

Level 13 Ancestry Feat: Summon Fiendish Kin

Level 14 Class Feat: Conscious Spell Specialization Skill Feat: Assurance (Religion)

Level 15 General Feat: Multilingual

Level 16 Class Feat: Constant Levitation Skill Feat: Assurance (Diplomacy)

Level 17 Ancestry Feat: Final Form

Level 18 Class Feat: Target of Psychic Ire Skill Feat: Assurance (Society)

Level 19 General Feat: Diehard

Level 20 Class Feat: Become Thought Skill Feat: Assurance (Intimidation)

SPELL LIST

Psychics, like Bards and Sorcerers, are what the community calls Spontaneous Spellcasters, which means their spells work the most like spellcasting in DnD 5e. Once Raven knows a spell, she can cast it at will assuming she has the right spell slot for that spell. However, in order for Raven to cast a 1st level spell at a higher level, she must learn the spell again at that level, so if she wants to cast Fireball at 9th level, she has to learn 9th level Fireball. For this spell list, I will be listing every spell on the Occult spell list at it’s initial level that I feel fits her. I will be ignoring the spells she already gets from her Conscious Mind. This is more of a spell list to pick from what you like, and of course, if you want to have a spell upcasted, don’t forget to have Raven relearn the spell at a higher level. Some spells are from supplementary material, and thus are marked with an Asterisk.

CONSCIOUS MIND SPELLS (The Distant Grasp) Standard Psi Cantrips: Mage Hand, Telekinetic Projectile Unique Psi Cantrips: Telekinetic Rend, Vector Screen, Dancing Blade Granted Spells: Kinetic Ram, Telekinetic Maneuver, Levitate, Fly, Telekinetic Haul, Poltergeist’s Fury, Telekinetic Bombardment, Falling Sky, Implosion

CANTRIPS Detect Magic, Message, Phase Bolt, Prestidigitation, Read Aura, Sigil, Shield, Warp Step

1ST LEVEL Charm, Fear, Floating Disk, Grim Tendrils, Ill Omen, Lock, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Mending, Mindlink, Object Reading, Penumbral Shroud, Pet Cache, Phantom Pain, Protection, Sanctuary, Sleep, Soothe, Spirit Link, Thoughtful Gift

2ND LEVEL Blur, Calm Emotions, Comprehend Language, Darkness, Darkvision, Dispel Magic, Empathic Link, Impart Empathy*, Knock, Mind Games, Paranoia, Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Reduce Energy, Restoration, Restore Senses, Spectral Hand, Swallow Light*, Umbral Extraction, Vicious Jealousy*

3RD LEVEL Agonizing Despair, Circle of Protection, Dream Message, Enthrall, Familiar’s Face, Locate, Mind Reading, Shadow Projectile, Shadow Spy, Wall of Darkness*

4TH LEVEL Dimension Door, Discern Lies, Gaseous Form, Globe of Invulnerability, Necrotic Radiation*, Rebounding Barrier, Resilient Sphere, Spell Immunity, Suggestion, Telepathy, 

5TH LEVEL Banishment, Black Tentacles, Crushing Despair, Death Ward, Forceful Hand, Glimmer of Charm*, Invoke Spirits, Mind Probe, Repelling Pulse, Sending, Shadow Blast, Shadow Siphon, Shadow Walk, Synaptic Pulse, Telepathic Bond, 

6TH LEVEL Collective Transposition, Phantasmal Calamity, Scintilating Safeguard, Teleport, Wall of Force

7TH LEVEL Energy Aegis, Force Cage, Plane Shift, Possession, Shadow Raid, Tempest of Shades, Visions of Danger, Warp Mind

8TH LEVEL Devour Life*, Discern Location, Dream Council, Hypnopompic Terrors, 

9TH LEVEL Telepathic Demand, Unspeakable Shadow, Weird

10TH LEVEL Gate, Shadow Army, Time Stop

Given how new I am to Pathfinder 2e, I may have made some mistakes, overlooked something important, or missed something crucial to her build, but for what’s here, I think we managed to fit in a lot of who Raven is. As a tiefling, she’s able to summon demons and take on a demonic form. As a Psychic, she’s got great access to telekinetic powers, permanent levitation at level 16, and focusing her mind is a key component to her play style. The occult spell list makes it possible for her to use a wide variety of shadow magic, and even emotion magic to let Raven make good use of her empathy powers as well as her emotional manipulation powers that she uses more in the comics. Overall, I’m very pleased with how Raven came out here. Let me know if you guys liked this. Maybe I’ll do more Pathfinder builds in the future.

[uncouth-the-fifth]

congrats on the new followers! what about 108 + 126 with dami and wife!reader?

108. "If you leave the house wearing that, then the second you come over I'm bending you over the bed," and 126. "Y-you're not...w-wearing anything under that, are you?" with Damian Wayne.

ty! i feel like damian would marry someone able to keep up with his sass while throwing some of their own back at him, so a bit of a bratty reader for you <3 i also exposed my slight daddy kink so don’t hate me 🔫

You were trying to goad him. Unfortunately for Damian's ego, it was working.

He watched you twist around in front of the mirror, enjoying the shape of your figure in your new clothes. It'd taken hours of convincing (and a couple threats), but Damian finally coaxed you to let him take you on a shopping trip. Wayne Enterprises had granted him a raise for work that was completely his own. The only way Damian wanted to celebrate was by spoiling another thing that completely belonged to him. He'd worked hard to be his own man in the past few years, and today he'd seen the fruits of his labor. His beautiful wife was happy because of something he'd orchestrated. Damian's reputation was great, and not because of his name or his titles. He lounged by the fireplace in your bedroom, twice as smug as usual.

"Really, Damian, thank you," you told him, sounding bashful. "You could've spent that money on anything, but you spent it on me."

He watched you slip out of one of the party dresses you'd picked out for yourself, the light of the fire throwing soft shadows along your nude body. Damian openly stared, but without (much) sexual intent - just pride. Pride and love. This was his wife, and she enchanted him with every step. You pulled the fabric around your hips until it dropped around your ankles, and Damian's cock twitched in his pants.

He clicked his tongue. "TT." Damian lifted the rim of his teacup to his lips, rumbling, "You needed clothes."

To seduce me with, Damian thought, eyes wandering. You found something comfy to change into and hopped into it right in front of Damian, snugly snapping the waistband of some sweatpants around your middle and dropping a loose shirt over your nude chest. He made a pleased sound in the back of his throat, and you turned back to him with a smile.

“I was thinking about running to pick up some stuff for a night in. Popcorn, desert, that kind of thing.” You danced around the back of his chair and draped your arms over his shoulders, kissing sweetly at the side of his face. “Maybe we could watch a movie together.”

Damian pressed his lips together, eyes squinted with displeasure. “Now?” He grunted.

“Yes, now, Damian.”

You released him to perch on the arm of his chair, making it all too easy for Damian to hook an arm around your waist and drop you down into his lap. A deeper warmth blazed across your face at his blatantly possessive scowl. “But you’re not wearing anything under that.”

“Oh, c’mon,” you roll your eyes, “it’s hot out and who’s really going to see? Some cashier who won’t give me a second glance?”

Damian set down his cup and flushed his hands around your ribs, mapping upward and brushing your breasts beneath the fabric. You were pulled into his body until his chest was snug against your back, dropping a gasp from your lips.

Petulantly, Damian dragged his mouth down your neck and mumbled, “Someone other than me. That is who will see.”

He didn’t actually mean it. Damian, after years of years of being treated like an object himself, was well aware that you both were entitled to control of your bodies. He was playing, which made it even cuter. The whole “you belong to me thing” was sexy, and was made sexier when it was something you could both flick on and off at will. At the moment... you did not want him to shut it off. You wanted to be his, wanted him to take you.

To tease him, you set your hands on the armrests and started to push out of his hold. Damian let you, but if his hands didn’t pull you back, the power in his voice certainly did. 

“If you try to leave the house in those clothes,” he warned, “I’m throwing you on the bed and bending you over my knee.”

“Ooh,” you fake-shivered, “I’m so scared—”

In an instant, Damian’s hips were thrust forward into your ass, and your wrists were snapped together and pulled closer to him in one harsh tug. You yelped in strained surprise, which Damian met with a smooth chuckle.

“Hmm,” he purred. “It appears all the coddling I’ve done today has made you bratty, Mrs. Wayne. I think I’ll give you a spanking either way, if you plan to be in such an indulgent mood. Are you going to test me further, Y/N?”

You glared at him, but holding in your excitement was too hard. A grin pinched your cheeks. “Kiss my ass, Damian—”

Twice as fast as before, you were whipped onto your belly and your sweatpants were torn down your legs, exposing your ass once more to the humid air. His hand viciously struck your left cheek, and the dual sensation of the sting and your pussy throbbing wrenched a whine from your throat. Being pushed across his thighs like that had shoved your shirt up and over your tits. Volcanic lust burned deep in your gut - in less than a second, he’d ripped back the curtain to reveal the slut beneath. You struggle to balance, recklessly bracing your palms on the floor. The slap on its own was orgasmic, but coupled with Damian’s anger and the debauched scene - your pliant body greedily lapping up his punishments - you were effectively soaked.

Like this was every other day for him, Damian leaned over you and took a refined sip of his tea.

“I hate you,” you mewled.

Damian snorted. “That wedding ring on your finger tells me otherwise. Now, count to ten. Naughty girls get ten spankings.”

His voice dripped with blistering enjoyment, and you knew that the villainous delight Damian was spending on you now was the last sadism from his assassin days. Damian wasn’t evil anymore, but this was the one time of day where your heart would skip a beat on the subject - if there was ever a moment he’d start plotting to take over the world, it was probably this one. Needless to say, it was fucking delectable.

“Ready?” He purred.

You closed your eyes, snapped your teeth around the bunched fabric of your own shirt, and nodded your head - probably with hearts blazing in your vision.

Damian reeled back his hand and delivered a blow worthy of a world-class assassin. You felt your own ass jiggle, literally jiggle, from the weight of the hit. You poured a shuddering shout into your homemade gag, “O-One!”

Again and again, Damian rounded on you. He’d punished you enough times to perfect the process, so his hits were periodic, but with enough time in between to let you gather your bearings, and yet still short enough to make your ass burn just how you adored. You sent a mental thank you to whoever had given him that beautiful brain, because Damian was quick to deduce what you wanted. If the sound you made was a little too soft, the next slap would come harder, ringing through the room in loud, solid notes. His hand must sting. He must like it, since he kept going with such revelry.

After the tenth, your toes were curled in and wounded tightly to your under-thighs, which were crossed, desperately clenching for any stimulation you could get. Delighted tears slipped from your eyes. Finally, you spat out your shirt and said with aching lips, “D-do you forgive me, daddy?”

Another vicious slap, this time on the left. Damian’s voice was sharp. “What did I tell you about calling me that, pet? Go on. Tell me precisely what I said.”

“I-if I called you that... I...” you squeezed your eyes shut, “m’ only supposed to say it when I really want to be fucked... when I want you ‘t make me forget my own name...n’ I do.” You sucked in a breath, “I took my spankings so well, Damian... please?”

He sipped his tea. He thought on it, turning the idea around in his mind. You could feel his thumb stroking your behind, no doubt admiring how red it was because of him.

“Ten more,” Damian said, his smile downright crocodilian, “and perhaps I’ll consider it.”