#low plot heavy shenanigans

[kingofsummer93]

Once Cursed, Twice Shy

Part 1 of my gift to @velidewrites for @acotargiftexchange!

Summary:

Don't mix vodka and magic, they said. It will end badly, they said.

Elain's never been particularly superstitious, but when a ghost from her past comes crashing back into her life, she realizes that the old saying might have been true after all.

And that she might have (accidentally and definitely not on purpose) cursed her ex-boyfriend.

Inspired by the Ex Hex by Rachel Hawkins.

Chapter 1: A Fateful Spark, an Ill-Timed Blaze

Ao3

Ten years previously

A clap of thunder rang out over the town of Maple Glen, followed by a torrential downpour so sudden it seemed as though the sky had singled out their little village to bear the brunt of its ire.

Elain sighed, burrowing further into the couch under her nest of blankets and pillows. She envied the storm, at that moment. What she wouldn’t give to be able to dump her hurt and anger into the world for a couple hours before being reborn, fresh and dewy, her broken heart melded back together by sunshine as her memories faded like a clearing sky.

She sighed, and the storm raged on as if in answer.

“Do you ever wish you were born as something else?” she asked, swirling the dregs of her bright blue cocktail around in her glass. “Like, a bird, or a tree, or, or…”

Vassa let out a noise that was halfway between a snort and a hiccup. “There it is.”

“There is what?”

“The philosophical stage of your drunk journey. I thought we passed it two drinks ago. First we have affectionate Elain, then loud Elain, followed with a brief appearance by pensive Elain, and then-”

Elain grabbed a throw pillow and chucked it at her friend, who nearly toppled off her end of the couch as she ducked to avoid it. Perhaps they were a bit drunk.

“I mean it,” Elain pressed, draining her glass. “Trees don’t have to worry about dumb boys, or school, or finding a job. They just…” She held out her arms and lifted her head to the ceiling, wriggling her fingers around like leaves in the wind. “Hang out and bask in the sunshine.”

“Babe,” Vassa said drily, “trees get cut down and then get sawed up into building materials or burned or whatever. Dumb boys are the least of their worries.”

Perhaps it was the vodka’s fault, but for some reason this seemed incredibly sad to Elain. Her throat closed up, her eyes suddenly burning with unshed tears.

“Oh no.” Vassa flapped her hands around in a panic, her mirth gone. “Oh shit, what did I say?”

“Lucien had a tree house growing up.” The words bubbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. “He told me his oldest brother helped him build it. And then one day he went out to the forest and discovered that the section of the woods with his tree house had been cut down. Something about tree rot.”

“See,” Vassa said wisely as she refilled both their glasses from a pitcher. “And that’s why you don’t want to be a tree.”

Elain snorted, wiping the tears from her face with an already damp corner of her blanket. She’d shed so many tears in the past two days that she was shocked she hadn’t dried up like a raisin yet.

“Fuck him,” Vassa continued. “He doesn’t deserve a treehouse- or any house, for that matter. He can live on the streets for all I care.”

Elain pictured it for a moment; Lucien’s long fiery hair grown even longer from years of living as a vagabond, a scraggly beard not quite covering his devilish grin. Perhaps he’d live in the woods, in a little cave with a mattress made of leaves and moss. The image didn’t repulse her as much as it should have.

Suddenly she was enraged.

This had been her refrain for the past three days, ever since she had so unceremoniously thrown him out of her apartment. Moments of deep grief when it seemed like she’d never stop crying were followed by rage so intense it felt like her blood was on fire.

The same fire that ran through his veins, the flame that she had found so utterly irresistible.

Her gaze moved against her will, landing on the box sitting in a corner near the door. She’d been studiously avoiding it, torn between the satisfaction she’d get at throwing it out, and the desire to keep a piece of him close, if only for a little while longer.

It was irrational, but that box of stuff had somehow become a physical reminder of him, and getting rid of it would be like cutting the final thread that tethered him to her. Not to mention that a small part of her brain still hoped that he would come back, that somehow it would turn out to all be a misunderstanding.

That he would choose her, against all odds, in defiance of the path that had been laid out for him.

Perhaps even more humiliating than the rejection itself had been the deception. Because he had known- for the entirety of the summer he had spent tangled up in bed with her, whispering that she was the one, making her burn in a way she had never even dreamed possible, he had known it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last, because by the end of the summer he was due back in England, where his betrothed waited for him.

The fucker had been engaged the entire time and hadn’t bothered sharing that information with her.

But the worst thing of all had been the way she’d so thoroughly fallen for him. Every touch, every whispered word had seemed so sincere that she’d never once questioned his devotion. What a fool she’d been. Perhaps if he had been honest with her from the start she would have allowed him to fall into her bed, but not into her heart.

Or better yet, she would have steered clear of Lucien Vanserra altogether.

**

Elain could still picture the moment she’d first laid eyes on him during the Summer Solstice festival. Vassa had bullied her into setting up a kissing booth (a venture that had turned out to be quite lucrative) and they’d had a steady stream of customers all morning. Around midday the energy in the crowd had shifted, like a ripple in a pond. And then the crowd had shifted, parting like the sea.

And he had appeared. Tall, his golden skin practically glowing in the summer sun, his shoulder-length hair so vividly red she immediately knew he was a witch. No human could ever look like that. He had locked eyes with her from a distance, and it had felt to Elain like she was being set on fire.

“Who is that?” she stage-whispered to Vassa, who had just given their elementary school math teacher a wholesome peck on the cheek for the sum of five dollars.

“Who?” Vassa followed her gaze, and her eyes went wide, her hand clamping painfully around Elain’s wrist.

“Ow!”

“I think he’s one of the Vanserras,” Vassa whispered, slightly awed. “He’s got to be, look at that hair.”

A smile quirked up the corner of the handsome stranger’s mouth, and Elain wondered absurdly if he had somehow heard. The Vanserras were a powerful magical family, and nobody knew the true depth of their power. She wouldn’t be surprised if they had unnaturally powerful hearing.

“I’ve never seen him before,” Elain said, stupidly. She felt slightly dazed as she continued to stare into his eyes, as if she was physically incapable of looking away.

In truth she had never seen any of them before.

Hundreds of years ago, a man called Thelor Vanserra had founded Maple Glen and tied his magic to the village. Magic ran strong here- for those who knew where to look, that is. Tourists simply assumed they had stumbled upon a particularly charming village, where commerce always boomed and disaster never struck.

But the truly odd thing about Maple Glen was the fact that it never snowed, despite being far enough north that it should by all reason get buried under snow every winter. It was like the town was stuck in perpetual autumn, with only a few weeks of balmier weather in the spring and summer. Nobody questioned it, assuming Maple Glen simply existed in a peculiar micro-climate.

It was a wonder how far people would go to avoid seeing magic, even when it existed right under their noses.

Twice a year, on Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, a member of the Vanserra bloodline would come to town in order to regenerate the magic for the coming season before disappearing back to England. They were notoriously reclusive and haughty, and were rarely seen around town- much less strolling through a crowded festival.

“I always pictured them scrawny and inbred,” Vassa had said, surreptitiously fixing her hair.

The crooked grin on the stranger’s face widened, and Elain’s stomach dropped. He had definitely heard that.

And then he started walking towards them.

Elain froze, her stomach roiling with equal parts thrill and fear. Would he curse them? It didn’t seem likely, judging from the amusement on his face, but she squirmed nonetheless.

When he was a few paces away from their booth he paused, his eyes still fixed on her. From this close Elain could make out the color of his eyes- a warm brown, tinged russet, as if kissed by the flame his bloodline was rumored to wield. His features were sharp and elegant, his wide jaw covered with the barest hint of auburn stubble. There was a thin, crooked scar running down the left side of his face that, combined with the devilish gleam in his eyes, gave him an aura of danger. It sent a shiver down Elain’s spine, and she felt momentarily struck dumb, as if by magic.

“My lady,” he said, inclining his head. The motion made a strand of his vibrant hair fall over his face, and Elain’s fingers itched to brush it back.

Vassa giggled beside her. Elain had never, in her nineteen years of life, heard her friend make such a sound. She bit her lip hard to prevent herself from doing the same.

“If I walked through fire for you, could I get a kiss too?”

Vassa made a choked sound that sounded as though she was holding in another giggle. Elain could only stare for a moment, before realizing that she was staring at him with her mouth hanging wide open.

“I- sorry, what?”

With a casual wave of his hand a wall of flame had burst to life out of thin air. Elain jumped to her feet, scanning the crowd for signs of anyone having noticed the blatant display of magic. But oddly enough, nobody at all was looking at them. It was almost as if some force was making the crowd look away.

She glanced back at the flames just in time to see him walk through them. Surrounded by flames, with that troublesome grin on his face and his eyes twinkling with mirth, it almost seemed like she was being bewitched by the devil himself.

In the end it turned out to be not too far from the truth.

The summer romance that had followed had completely knocked her off her feet. Lucien was nothing like the boys she’d dated before. There was something charmingly old-fashioned about the way he spoke, his impeccable manners and posh accent so at odds with his serpentine tongue and devilish humour. He had felt like a drug, something decadent and rare that left her buoyant and giddy. She’d been hooked from her first taste, her fate sealed the moment he’d walked through those flames and pressed a feather-soft kiss directly to her lips. She’d let those flames consume her.

But the thing with fire, she’d learned, was that it could be doused in an instant.

Elain wondered if he ever would have said anything at all, had that vision not infiltrated her dreams. Would he simply have left her apartment and gotten on a plane back to Yorkshire without so much as a goodbye, never to be heard from again?

They had been lying in bed when the vision had swarmed her senses, limbs tangled together, a lazily swirling fan doing little to cool their heated skin. There was never any logic or reason to what triggered her visions, but something about that hazy veil between consciousness and sleep seemed to make her prone to them. One unclear reality being replaced by another, images fogging her mind so that sometimes she wasn’t sure if they were visions, dreams, or nothing at all.

But that night, as she’d laid there happy and content, blissfully uncaring about anything but the present, the future had decided to make itself known to her anyway. At first she thought she was simply drifting off into dreams of him, and she had sighed, grateful to be with him even in sleep.

Her blood had grown cold as she’d realized the Lucien in her mind was not alone, and nor was his soft smile aimed at her. There was someone else, someone with long rosewood-colored tresses and hazel eyes that shone almost golden, like a cat’s. Someone who was wearing a white dress, wrapped in the arms of the man currently in her bed.

Someone who was decidedly not her.

At first she’d chosen to ignore it. Perhaps it wasn’t a vision at all, but simply her lust-addled brain playing tricks on her. But then Lucien had announced that he needed to fly back home for a while, to take care of some business.

“I’ll be back before you notice I’m gone,” he assured her, his mouth pressed to her ear. “You won’t even miss me.”

In the span of a few seconds he had managed to rip her heart out and rip it to shreds. She’d been so stunned that at first she didn’t know how ro react.

“I’m sorry, Love,” he murmured, misunderstanding her shock as displeasure. “There’s some things with…my family, that I need to handle in person.”

Something about his choice of words had made Elain want to laugh, even as she was fighting rising tides of panic and heartbreak.

“Who is she?” had been the only words she’d been able to formulate.

Lucien stared at her in shock, the color draining from his skin until she knew for certain she hadn’t miscalculated.

Then had come the accusations, the excuses, the explanations, followed by more accusations.

He was engaged.

Betrothed had been the word he’d used, like something out of those romance novels her sister liked. He was betrothed to a stranger he’d never even met, someone he allegedly had no intention of marrying. He was going back to end it, he claimed. He wanted her, he assured.

“I didn’t want to say anything at first because I didn’t know what this thing was between us, and then when it became serious it felt like it was too late, and I didn’t know what to do, and please, Elain, just look at me…”

She had, and something about seeing him like this, his usual smooth exterior replaced by rambling words and eyes wide with panic, almost made her break. But then she’d remembered the woman in her vision, the one with such unusual colouring that she could only be a witch- and a powerful one, if she had been betrothed to a Vanserra. And most of all, she remembered the joy on Lucien’s face in that vision, the way his eyes had crinkled around the edges like they did when he was happy.

In retrospect, throwing his clothes out the window had perhaps been a tad immature, but it had been effective in getting him to shut up and leave her apartment.

**

Elain shook her head, clearing away the memories that refused to leave her alone.

“You know what,” she declared, slamming her glass on the coffee table with a clang, “let’s burn his stuff.”

Vassa whooped, jumping to her feet before Elain could second guess her decision. Fuck him. Fuck him and his beautiful fiancé (bethrothed) who no doubt had the perfect pedigree and wielded some powerful brand of magic to match the Vanserra’s. Something respectable, like elemental magic, or a knack for spell work. Not something weird and impossible to understand like her Sight.

“Fuck him,” she said again, getting to her feet. “Fuck her!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Vassa upended the box into their fireplace, lifting up a cloud of dust, ash, and various herbs from an ill-advised cleaning spell they’d tried to cast the week before. “Care to do the honors?” she asked, extending a box of matches towards Elain.

Elain took a shuddering breath as she looked at the sad little pile of ashy belongings. Clothes, a few books, thin leather straps Lucien had used to tie his hair back. Straps he’d once used to bind her wrists together as he-

Elain struck the match so aggressively that it snapped clean in half. The second one lit, the little flame seeming to mock her as it danced near the tips of her fingers.

The fire was slow to catch, smoking pathetically as it tried to crawl along the pile of fabric and books. And then it grew, until their faces warmed by the heat of the flames. Elain very pointedly ignored the fact that Lucien could summon flames ten times this size without so much as blinking.

“We curse you, Lucien Vanserra!” Vassa declared, stirring the flames with a poker.

“I hope you burn in hell,” Elain mumbled.

Vassa cackled. “He’d probably be happy there. Let him rot somewhere his flame can’t catch.”

Elain might have imagined it, but just for a moment the fire seemed to grow brighter in the hearth.

“And may his betrothed be frigid in bed!” Vassa added with another cackling laugh. Once again the flames flashed hotter, almost blue.

“And may she break his heart, just like he did mine,” Elain added sadly.

It seemed like she was speaking directly to the flames themselves, and for a second they appeared to wink in response. She blinked, and shook her head against a wave of disorientation. Merlin, she was drunk.

A flash of lightning lit up the night sky outside, followed by another rumble of thunder that made them both jump. With a mechanical groaning the lights inside the apartment blinked off, leaving them sitting there in the dark.

Vassa groaned. “Damn it, power’s out again.”

But Elain’s attention was still on the fire- or, more accurately, on the space where it should have been. In the space where moments before flames had danced merrily, there was now only a fine layer of ash, all traces of Lucien’s belongings having vanished, like the flames, into thin air.

Elain gulped. “Vassa? I think we might have done something bad.”

[waywardsalt]

putting this under the cut immediately because i KNOW this is going to be extremely long

general disclaimer, its not my kind of game im not blaming the actual devs for most of this shit i understand gamedev and writing and animating and all of that shit is hard yadda yadda anyways i fucking despise totk with an acidic rage and im trying to swear off of bitching about it any further but tbh i gotta get my actual thoughts out of my system somehow.

i guess my biggest issue with totk at the moment now is just that... it feels like it's the gaming equivalent of dangling keys in from of some kids face to get their attention; it's shiny, it's got fun gmod-ass glue mechanics, you get three whole maps and... it feels very hollow and like they just wanted to make a fun game and let everything else rot while the gameplay was polished to an insane degree- and i see why it's likely getting good scores despite the story and worldbuilding and theming and literally everything but the gameplay being rough as hell, its a fucking open world game with stupid glue mechanics where you can built the shit you want and go anywhere and like.

i didn't even like ultrahand very much, so there was no chance of this game actually winning me over. more often than not ultrahand was a hassle for me to use outside of solving puzzles with it. the gameplay isn't even particularly fantastic when you take away ultrahand bullshit or the admittedly impressive recall and ascend, it's just there to prop up the stock-standard open world game exploration and combat, which is effectively the exact same with the additions of every weapon being shit and funneling you into using ultrahand-mini (fuse) and giving you the chance to create insane destructing machines, which- where does that fit in? where does the zonai garbage being crazy weapons fit in with like... the zelda feel? idk the gameplay did literally feel like botw but with different abilities. ultrahand and fuse were effectively the same thing and the abilities just had. no decent story integration you just get these weird ass abilities because the devs wanted to let the player so whatever the fuck.

i mean, just... i know there's this general idea with loz games where they come up with the gameplay gimmick first and then build everything else around it, and totk is where it's the most painfully obvious. it is extremely easy to tell that the gameplay was the first priority in creation. with the other games, the gameplay gimmicks and story mesh pretty well, and everything is about equal- but the gameplay in totk sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to the story and... everything. the story does just feel like an excuse for the different gameplay mechanics they decided to cook up.

i mean there's no real reason for why link getting rauru's arm allows him to access those powers, especially since we never see rauru or mineru use those kinds of powers, the depths and sky don't really matter outside of the dungeons in them, and the zonai tech is messily integrated just to be toys, and zelda turning into a dragon just... gives you another dragon for resources, and along with ganondorf jsut lets you have this cinematic final boss- ganondorf turns into a dragon for the sake of that cinematic boss battle, there's literally no way for him to have known what would have happened if he ate the stone. ganondorf being in the game alone is just... they added him because it's ganondorf, they don't actually go forward with making it matter that it's ganondorf, just that they had calamity ganon in botw and decided hey why not people like ganondorf let bring him back. it practically doesn't matter that he's gerudo or even a human character. he's just treated like another flatly evil monster. he's evil for the sake of it, and any other possible backstory for him is either ignored by the story or stamped out by the way the narrative wants you to view him.

i dont know exactly what happened during development but i hope to hell the final story and worldbuilding isnt what they intended to do by the end. it all feels so hollow, echoing what past zelda games have done and reusing old tropes, either not improving on any of them or not understanding why those things worked the first time. totk's story is just so flat, hardly any new characters get time to breathe and make any real impression, the ancient sages are nameless and faceless and are barely more than symbols, sonia was quite literally fridged, mineru and rauru get their moments but they don't do anything beyond what is needed to advance the immediate plot, and any new characters in the present aren't that deep either, even ganondorf is just more flat than ever even if he had the most character to his animations.

they backtracked on zelda's character growth and character in general to just shove her into that same old dedicated princess mold and the game at large is so desperate to have you groveling at her feet like the rest of hyrule with the overbearing repetition of 'look how great and nice and smart and thoughtful she is :))))' and it's so bizarre how they shove her influence into every corner of the world, including those she really shouldn't be that involved in, and it just wraps around to being like... don't think about it just listen to us. that's what the whole game feels like, don't think too hard about it and just follow what the game wants you to do and think about all of this. the stable quests all boiling down to just finding a bunch of stupid quirky little misunderstandings of things zelda had benevolently done was one of the most frustrating experiences: why even fucking BOTHER with fake zelda even being a thing in the present if nothing outside the plot is done with it, and the stable quests would have been a great opportunity.

i didn't even bother with most of the side quests after i beat the main story; i did a smattering of bigger side quests, got the memories and all of the shrines and cleared the depths and finished the story and i havent touched it since. and then i played persona 5 royal and had the best time of my life. that game was a fantastic palate cleanser after totk.

i mean.... my favorite part of totk (asides from the music) was the depths, clearing that out and spending hours getting every lightroot, and as much as a i loved the depths, in hindsight it is BULLSHIT that you get what amounts to a worthless token for getting every single lightroot. same as the reward for every korok seed- that open world bullshit of there being no real payoff to these massive collectible undertakings buts a little 'you did it :)' token. SO much of the chests and rewards in totk were absolute dogshit, it was CONSIDERABLY worse than the rewards in botw especially since the weapons are worse across the board. i played totk around the same time as a friend of mine, and even they were starting to get irritated with the shitty rewards.

similarly, it was also a pain in the ass to see how they used the amiibo armor and other references to past games- it was so shallow and hardly every worth the effort and just... why even reference the old games anyways? totk has jack shit to do with any of them, much less the game it's supposed to be a goddamn sequel to, and it was just a worthless attempt at using nostalgia and references. you can utilize past game references and nostalgia well (imo fire emblem engage did a really good job with that) and totk just tossed that shit in there bc it could and then moved on. don't even bother.

tbh totk really did stampede over everything in botw, from basically ignoring most of zelda's characterization, to scrubbing away most of the stuff about the champions or sheikah... anything (i'm so pissed by that one interview thing. 'it all disappeared bc calamity ganon disappeared' ILL BITE YOU. NOT ALL OF IT IS GONE. THEY LITERALLY DISCUSS IT IN BOTWS EPILOGUE. they built that shit in preparation for clam ganon its not like clam ganon caused it to pop up it was like a massive contingency plan for ganon why would it all disappear anyways what the hell. what the fuck. considering the sheikah's history w/ the hylian royals its so doubly fucked), and just... oh my GOD what totk does with link is so. you cannot be doing this rn.

link being a non speaking character is totally fine and has been handled great in the past and tbh botw handled him being non-speaking with limited emoting in the memories bc it gave a valid reason and suggested that lack of pressure and memories is what allows him to be more visibly emotional in the present!!! and totk is like. ah. nope. hes stone faced again. even in front of his friends and the people he cares about. even though this was explained as being basically a defense mechanism for hyrule's safety being put on his shoulders in the past and he loosens up in present botw. oh you want to see him smile? at his friend? who he's fought tooth and nail to see again? too bad its out of bounds. poor boy looks like he could be a customizable character in most cutscenes. you could swap him out with any other character in those scenes and it would not matter. the common defense abt link feeling like he doesnt matter to the story is usually like 'oh but he's doing that stuff of course it matters' you are missing the point the problem is that it feels like link. link specifically. link the character from botw. it feels like he does not matter to the story. feels like he could be swapped out with any random character so long as they have the master sword in hand.

look the music was the best part of the game but like. the usage of motifs from botw that don't actually relate to anything in totk (such as bringing back the champion's motifs when. they have LITERALLY nothing to do with almost anything in totk). the music does a good job at pulling on your heartstrings but it feels like it's doing a LOT of that specific heavy lifting in the story. very little of the actual game content backs up the soundtrack. totk does not deserve its soundtrack imo.

tbh the new sages were kinda weak, too. yunobo is infuriatingly fooled by fake zelda at every turn, tulin (best boy) has the most lazy blink-and-you'll-miss-it character 'arc' abt him learning to work with others or whatever the hell that dialogue was trying to impress upon me, sidon... look i did the water temple first (hated it) and then moved on i barely remember much about sidon, and riju is unfortunately in the blast range of what was done to the gerudo as a whole. they're fine, don't really get much time to breathe, their powers range from decently useful to just straight up a pain in the ass, (mineru is the worst sage. her mech... using that thing is one of the most unpleasant gameplay experiences ive had in what might be years) and oh god the dungeons... those fuckers are not a 'return to form' they're cheap imitations of zelda dungeons of the past.

say what you will about the divine beasts but at least i didn't feel like i was being treated like a fucking moron while going through them. totk's dungeons were insultingly easy, robbing any puzzle completing satisfaction by either just handing you the solution on a shiny silver plate or having the puzzle just be some flavor of 'go hit that switch' totk's water temple is the WORST zelda dungeon i have ever played through good god. it feels like the inverse of what majora's mask had going on; while majora's mask was on a smaller scale, the dungeons are huge undertakings of interwoven puzzles that are just... mwah i need to replay majora's mask soon. despite the game's massive scale totk's dungeons didn't take half as long as some fucking shrines. idk. every other zelda game ive played from phantom hourglass to skyward sword had considerably better dungeons than totk. fuckin- ph is easily a zelda game aimed more for younger audiences and they have more complicated dungeons than totk. fuck the story felt darker than totk. FUCK, LINEBECK ALONE WAS A MORE WELL WRITTEN AND DEVELOPED CHARACTER THAN THE WHOLE CAST OF TOTK PUT TOGETHER- my copy of phantom hourglass cost me $70 to obtain. phantom hourglass is worth that $70 to me. totk is not.

(speaking of shrines, totk's shrines were fine, it was disappointing how many of them were just. empty with just the prize. i will say, however, I fucking LOVED the shrines where you were stripped of all of your items and dropped into a unique combat situation. a perfect blend of puzzle and combat that utilized the new abilities much better than literally any other part of the game i WISH they actually used the ideas present in those shrines throughout the whole game they were so so good)

of course, theres the uncomfortable implications in the plot of hyrule in the past, the zonai being heralded as gods and then just peacefully placing themselves as higher and in authority over the other races, and then the suggestion that again in the present the other races (in some form) return to being vassals of hyrule, pretty much everything with the gerudo and the way ganondorf is treated and some aspects of his design, how the female characters are treated and viewed across the board, the messy theming, hyrules seemingly complete infatuation with zelda… a lot of this game just made me feel icky, and not in an intentional way.

it almost feels like theres a sense of disdain aimed at storytelling and worldbuilding in general, hardly anything feels new and what is new just is awkwardly superimposed on existing concepts, those existing concepts being carelessly brushed aside, the world bending- sometimes nonsensically- to fit the new ideas totk introduces. all of the disparate parts do not fit together very well and every cool new idea either falls flat after any scrutiny or stands as an unsatisfactory answer to an interesting question. its messy and i get the vibe that they (whoever has the final say on this stuff) don’t care so long as it sells. it doesnt particularly inspire hope or interest in the future of the series if the attitude towards final-draft storytelling and worldbuilding is the same as we got in that interview snippet about the sheikah technology. it feels insulting after everything we’ve seen in this series.

totk arguably is dragged down the most by its story, and i think is has the worst story of the series on account of how hollow and blatently gameplay-enabling it feels. at least in past zelda games if things went unexplained, there was enough room and evidence to speculate. the sheikah tech situation has been explained with ‘it just vanished and no one cared’ and that just feels insulting, not only to the people who wanted a real answer, but also to the game itself.

idk what else to add this game is covered in the ooze for me and i hate it and wouldnt mind never playing it again. theres so much that just doesnt make sense, straight up sucks, goes nowhere, means nothing, is shallow and pointless, is uncritical of itself and what it says, and is just… im not surprised about the lack of dlc on the basis that they dont have any more gameplay to add. the story and world is the very least important thing to totk and it fucking sucks. the gameplay doesnt even do anything for me i just fucking hate this game and its elementary school recess level complexity world and story

To my fellow totk haters (people who started off mildly annoyed with the game's flaws, who then progressed into full on rage as almost everybody else seemed to love it): What did you most dislike about the game? If you can't decide, what were the biggest problems you had? What changes would you like to make?

This can be anything from gentle constructive criticism to a full on rage induced rant; I want to hear your thoughts, whichever form they may take!

[thebrawlerina]

Hello! Hope youre having a nice dayy, may I request some Draco hcs from you?

:3

MASTER OF THE STARR PARK, RULER OF THE WORLD! SAY DRACO!

Draco HC's

Draco's start at the park was actually as a member of staff in the Ruined Castle Courtyard (Ash and Grom's arena). He was one of the staff members meant to give the various arena's and park attractions more life by playing as characters/people who lived there, and Draco's role was to play a pretend knight.

He often brought his guitar along with him to work so he can play on his breaks. One day, he played a bit too loud in a not so private area, and whoops now hes got an audience. Being himself, he just continued to play and began to adlib a song about the Ruined Castle Courtyard by taking his usual talking lines and making it a song.

The park goers absolutely loved that and upper management heard about this knight-bard. They saw a lot of potential in making him a brawler since he already amassed a bit of a fan base and promoted him to being a Brawler.

He was originally supposed to stay in the Ruined Castle Courtyard and be considered part of Ash and Grom's trio, until someone had the brilliant idea to incorporate his heavy mental affinity into another location of the park.

Because of this, the park now has new lore for these places. The Mad-Evil Manor, was the reason that the Ruined Castle Courtyard looks the way it does, thus creating a new story for fans to get invested into.

Draco is extremely extroverted. He always tries to find a way and a reason to hang out with people, even they don't have any big plans to do anything.

That being said, his favorite things to do with people is anything involving music or storytelling. He loves having little jam sessions or kareoke with people, and hes actually fond of slam poetry and of silly little writing exercises. DND will always top his favorites however.

Draco has been playing Dungeons and Dragons ever since he was a little kid. He loves playing through campaigns, but finds the most amount of joy in being the dungeon master and making other people go through plot shenanigans.

He tends to be a pretty merciful DM, unless you challenge or annoy him too much, in which case he will make your character suffer while keeping everyone else somewhat safe from the retribution.

He has plenty of characters but his favorite one is a blatant self-insert thats a Bard and Barbarian multiclass. A Bardbarian if you will.

Draco is a dice fiend and he has a LOT of fun and pretty dice. Since becoming a Brawler, hes been trying to see which ones in his collection matches his Brawler friends the most. IF he doesnt have one, he'd probably buy some more.

Yes he is trying to get an official Draco dice set to be sold in the shop. Hes having some problems convincing the managers that it would be a good merch item and in trying to pick the perfect color scheme to represent himself, but by god hes gonna do it.

Draco made his original Mad-Evil costume himself. But the higher ups want him to wear something that wouldn't fall off and break in battle so they made him some fancy proper clothes based on his design. He is very stoked about that.

Draco is very proud of his long hair and its very clean despite its messy appearance. He doesn't really know how to style it though, so thats why its all flowy and loose. The most amount of styling he does for it would probably just be tying it in a low ponytail so he can get it out of his face.

Draco has several notebooks filled with cool quotes, story ideas, and little scenes which hes collected over the years and plans to use in a new story.

He plans on writing a book. But like all writers he struggles to get his ideas on a page. Hes just way better at telling a story than writing it.

Draco is pretty friendly with Poco and they like to jam sometimes and learn about each others techniques. Draco is also willing too help pick up some of the slack on the many many performances Poco has to do, which he is grateful for.

Draco was a bit upset at first that he wouldn't be in the same group as Ash or Grom, but thinks that this new deal is way better. None of them have any beef with each other so its all good.

[rhinocio]

ROTTMNT Fanfic Recommendations

Light

You Coveted This Prison by CaveDwellers (April / Donatello - Comedy / Character Study - WIP) THE April O'Neil character study. One part excruciating (for reader and supporting cast) slow burn romance, one part introspection on being true to oneself. Rated M but only for one chapter, which can be skipped. Riddled with laugh-out-loud comedy shenanigans and heartachingly tender intimacy. Hot takes all over the place because the author wrote this with very little fandom involvement, and intentionaly chose to be contrarian in as many ways as possible. April takes down her arch-rival! Raph locks her in a freezer! Casey Junior's keeping secrets! Donatello's wall of horrible fake sciencey souveniers keeps growing and it may or may not be a sign of affection -- he's going to crunch the numbers on that. An absolute blast of a fic, cannot recommend enough.

★

Tried To Grow Up Good by Sroloc_Elbisivni (No romantic focus - Character Study - Complete)

THE Casey Jones post-movie character study. Love is stored in the found family. Casey is an accidental felon. He and Cassandra are siblings now. Anatawa hitorijaNAI let's get the entire two timeline fam in here for a reunion so I can sob myself silly. Perfection. This author's constantly pumping out new fics, and often updating multiple at a time; I've read through and greatly enjoyed Tomato Maze (there is so much serotonin in the knowledge that these idiot turtle boys will do anything for watermelon), Sorrow Is An Autumn Heart (Leo/Usagi but make it a slowburn thriller-drama set in historical Japan), and The Passionate Pools of Salamandria (a post-movie Raph/Mona bodice-ripper with an amnesiac protagonist and a B-plot where the rest of the family fight space to find their missing brother). Honestly this author has the WILDEST takes and everything they write is fascinating.

★

Give Me Something That’ll Haunt Me When You’re Not Around by Taizi (Leonardo / Yuichi - Drama / Romance - Complete)

If you've decided you're finally gonna take a dive into the leosagi crossover ship and see what all the fuss is about, do it with this fic. The author has a strong grasp on how to make a character study about characters first and relationships second, and in doing so has crafted one of THE most tender romance stories I've ever read. Starts as a character study on Yuichi Usagi and the yokai perspective on the Kraang invasion, branches into an exploration of PTSD and what it means to recover, and ends with a friends-to-lovers quickburn that says, "because of you I'm learning to love myself." Leo gets a therapy dinosaur. Yuichi gets out of his head. The character nuance and showing-not-telling is godtier. Healing starts with telling the alien invaders to go fuck themselves. Do not pass this fic up, I promise you it's worth the read. It legitimately made me cry.

★

The Old College Try by Theashemarie (No romantic focus - Action / Drama - WIP)

Donatello cloaks himself human to go to college, and drags his twin brother along. This fic masquerades as a fun, comedy-heavy action adventure story, but under the surface is a really fascinating introspection on what it means to hide your true self in order to fit in. The queer subtext is off the charts! Leo babysits Baxter Stockboy. Mikey gets eaten by a bird. One of the grad certificates is definitely going to be made out to to the wrong Hamato entirely. This fic features an autistic writer writing an autistic character, and their personal experience shines through in the excellent way Donnie's awkwardness and affection are balanced. This author knows nuance; I also highly recommend The Hibernator (apocalyptic timeline and Raph's dead........ wink) and Very Thoughtful (a Donnie-centric low empathy study).

★

Aftermath by Bronte (No romantic focus - Drama - Complete)

The boys deal with the aftermath of the movie events in whatever ways they can. Donnie gets into pina coladas. Leo harasses his brother. Look at these disaster twins bonding! There's a flippancy to all the angst that keeps these lighthearted and love-focused without skipping the rough details. I'm literally never going to recover from the belly bongos scene and will probably end up making art about it. Fantastic read, made me viscerally emotional.

★

At The Bottom Of A Duck-Shaped Crater by CaveDwellers (April / Donatello - Drama / Comedy - Complete) One part worldbuilding for the apocalyptic timeline and one part heartfelt comedy from the perspective of Miyamoto Usagi. Leonardo adopts a babysitter. Casey Junior saves the war effort from collapsing under a dick-measuring competition. April may or may not be about to kill a man. CaveDwellers is among my favourite writers for several reasons, but this fic really highlights her strength in blending several different kinds of relationships in one story and building a plot that delivers achey-breaky sentiments without having to structure everything around romance. (We're also developing projects together; keep an eye out for the "next in series" button at the bottom of the AO3 page for soft apocalyptic stories of a similar nature!)

★

Superfight by Swordfright (No romantic focus - Drama / Comedy - Complete)

An easy-reading one shot! Leo comes to terms with being a teenager, Donnie calls his disability out for what it is, and everybody plays Superfight the card game. The author writes in a very Douglas Adams-y style, resulting in a wheezing-on-the-floor-funny reading experience. If you're burnt out on fandom angst and need a pick-me-up, this is 900% the fic for you. It got me cry-laughing with just the quick refresher glance I gave it to put this recommendation together.

★

Now That's What I Call A Vacation! by WayWardWatson (No romantic focus (?) - Adventure / Crossover - WIP)

This fic's a multi-feature! It's one part infodump about Japan's culture and tourist hotspots, one part study on what it means to cloak your identity to fit into the world, and one part surprise crossover with Usagi Yojimbo. I am OBSESSED with this author's takes on Splinter as a character; several chapters are dedicated to exploring his fixation on being "human again" and trying to juggle the life he once had as a star with the life he now has as a parent of mutants. Primarily this is a feel good adventure story about the Hamato brothers getting in touch with their heritage, but it comes in swinging with several different action/adventure plot points and drama beats to keep a reader invested. Legitimately have no idea where the author's taking things, which makes me all the more excited for the ride!

★

One Step Forward, Fall Forever Back by GriffinStone (No romantic focus - Action / Mystery - Complete)

This fic is one of those slight universe alteration stories that takes a one-off thought and runs with it: what if Casey Junior died on his way through the time rift, spawned into the past as a ghost, and Leo was the only person who could see him? Promise the execution is way less daunting than it sounds -- events move along at a breezy pace and characters never spend very long lamenting the whole dead boy situation. The final battle alone is so chocked full of found family ride-or-die energy between the two protagonists that it's worth the rest of the adventure playing out pretty similarly to the movie. Definitely a treat for those of you who are big on Leo-Casey interactions.

★

A Mixed Bag by MusingWordsmith (No romantic focus - Action / Comedy - WIP)

What if I told you there was a fic where the turtles of every major tv show TMNT iteration shonen anime-style battled their way through challenges in mixed teams of four in order to defeat a team of evil overlords who may or may not know what they're doing re: evillness? Trust me when I say this story is fun -- it blends comedy and drama flawlessly, and the author totally committed to the bit in keeping each version of the turtles loyal to the genre of their individual canons. The 1987 turtles are breaking the fourth wall. The Rise kids are absolute supersoliders. 2003 Michelangelo somehow ended up as the babysitter of his particular faction and is kind of having a crisis about it. I am so beyond impressed at how well this author distinguishes each character and keeps who's who from getting too confusing, which is a common issue in TMNT crossovers. Reading this fic feels like watching literally any version of the show as a kid on a Saturday morning. It is a blast.

Medium

Young Root, Old Rock by SiryyGrey (No romantic focus - Action / Thriller - WIP)  

Shortly after the Kraang invasion a mysterious file of an unreadable format shows up on Donnie's computer, and he's driven by an intense curiosity to decipher exactly what it is and means. This author goes HARD on creating tense, muscle-tensing atmosphere, which is balanced out by extremely tender character interaction. Casey knows something he's not letting on. Donnie makes himself a robo-brain. Leo blows up his brother. You ever wanted an adventure with the blorbos that was also an ARG? Cryptic messages are sprinkled throughout the chapters for readers to decipher. Mind the tags but absolutely do not pass this fic up!

★

No Rest For The Weary by Nekotsuki (No romantic focus - Action / Adventure - WIP)

Ever thought "hey what if the movie just kept going and we found out what happened to those other kraang"? Hello and let me introduce you to THE post-movie out of frying pan and into the fire fic. I have it on good authority that this author was a big name in the 2003 TMNT fic scene, and I suspect for good reason -- this story perfectly blends heart-pounding action with A+ belly laughs and solid found family energy. Donnie hacks cute animal emails and narcs on the enemy. April fights zombies back to back with Barold Draxum of downstairs neighbour fame. Raph gets tranquilizer-darted by his brother for being too emotional. 100/10 wild ride, cannot recommend highly enough.

★

I May Be Invisible, But I Still Look Good by Dandy (No romantic focus - Adventure / Thriller - WIP)

Several TMNT AU competitions have made this fic a household name, and for good reason -- the author's come onto the scene with a bold, fun plot premise: after a battle gone wrong, Leo finds himself alive but unable to be perceived via sight, sound, or touch. Naturally, his family assumes he's dead. While it starts on the angstier side, this story's got a lot of heart and shoves tenderness into every possible crevice; the longer it goes on, the more tears are swapped out for laughter, and anguished dialogue-heavy interaction trades place with high-octane action. Worth sticking with!

★

Creation, Haunted And Holy by Greenglowsgold (No romantic focus - Drama / Thriller - Complete)

I lied about the romance it's Donnie x Technodrome with a twist. This fic reads like fascinating poetry, and does right by its source material by taking one of the fandom's favourite angst catalysts and turning it into a demonstration of the strength of love. Looking for something wildly different? GGG's got you. Would also highly recommend their outside-POV slice of life fic Midtown Mutants!

Dark

The Lemonade Leak by TurtleSoupSwimmer (No romantic focus - Horror / Thriller - WIP)

How do you explain to your family that your twin brother's possessed when you have no evidence, aren't sure if said brother is still alive somewhere inside the zombie, and revealing you know something's wrong could get everybody killed? There is no describing how completely feral I've gone for this fic - the author's technique of starting chapters with small, raw, seemingly unrelated scenes that segue into the current plot and enhance the tone or underlying message of the story is just incredible. They've given the turtles a fascinating mutation feature that adds layers of intrigue to the plot. The character interaction is heckin' tender, we got a nice scoop of self-worth issues from Leo to deal with, and the scary scenes are grip-your-phone-and-stop-blinking scary. The author promises a happy ending but that doesn't make Lemonade Leak any less of an incredibly tense ride. This is a fic I jump on the second I get the AO3 email notification.

★

The Smoking Gun: A ROTTMNT Tactical AU by AlienMadame22 (Donatello / April - Action / Adventure - Complete)

Agent Bishop of the EPF stole four turtle mutants away from their father as children and raised them as militia; dad's gotten back in contact and intends to break them free. This author absolutely took off running with the tactical AU prompt that various visual artists started up, grabbed a handful of canon concepts to mess around with, and mcguyvered together a wild ride of a story that continues to catch me off guard. Strap in for a fic riddled with emotional complexity and character nuance, and come prepared to cry. Fear not the ship tag, as the fic is primarily non-romance-focused and the ship elements are handled in an interesting, convoluted way that works to further the plot and add comedic value. Smoking Gun is a refreshing new concept in a very busy fandom tag and I have been eating it up like candy.

★

The Dawning of the Hour (Series) by Faiakishi (No romantic focus - Horror / Drama - WIP)

Donnie is captured and brainwashed by a pre-Vegeta-arc'd Baron Draxum, who subsequently starts parenting the kid out of guilt while using his talents to fuel the canonical Mutate All Humans takeover plot. It's been often called the Donatello version of Like Father Like Son, but that does its storytelling a disservice - this series goes much deeper in the psychological and physical horror direction, has an underlying political intrigue plot, and spends a generous amount of time with the secondary cast (plus a few excellent OCs) in order to really ramp up the intensity of the premise's whole situation. The first story is very whump-heavy, but does a lot of setup for fic two: The Drax-Daddening, which gives Donnie a friend in Cassandra Jones and finds more space for affection and comedy. The author's ramped up the sources of conflict several times over in the first few chapters of the series' second fic, making rescue by the Hamato feel ever more impossible. Despite being a very complex and interesting read (grey-morality my beloved) I cannot stress enough how VERY not for kids this fic is, so proceed with extreme caution!

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic Free Riders (Xbox 360)

They made hoverboards fun and exciting, then the fans made it actually playable.

After Zero Gravity, Sonic Team were apparently not done with the Riders series. Not done using it for motion control experiments, that is. The next and final instalment was a launch title for Microsoft's ill-fated Kinect motion sensor accessory. This camera apparatus could track a player's full body and so you needed a large, empty area to play your games in, which has never been practical for me. So I considered this game essentially lost media as far as I was concerned, until I recently learned about a mod that reworked the game for traditional controllers that I could use on an emulator. The updated version of this patch was buggy but the original release worked a treat and I was finally able to experience this title.

Compared to previous entries, the plot is very low-stakes. Eggman is hosting another racing tournament in disguise, shenanigans ensue. The cutscenes are merely static character portraits, the dialogue nothing but banter and posturing with the framing device of Omochao reporting on the racing for a TV broadcast. But the strength this has over prior Riders games is including a broader range of the cast, with Teams Rose and Dark being involved and playable in their own story modes in addition to the usual Heroes and Babylon stories. Well, Team Dark is missing Omega and substitutes a random eggbot who is more than it appears in perhaps the only notable story development. And Team Rose is Amy, Cream, and... Vector... so Team Sonic Racing wasn't the first to randomly force him in to fill out another team, or to have a weird addition to Team Rose.

As for the racing, from what I could tell from the tutorial, there's a lot of actions you need to be able to do. It seemed complex and the pace of gameplay quite fast for something you control just with various body motions to an unresponsive IR sensor grid. In other words, compared to Zero Gravity it didn't feel as compromised by the control scheme, and translated reasonably well to a controller, so it's a shame they never officially offered that as an option. The game reviewed terribly at the time on the basis of its controls, but with a pad in hand I had a fun time. Sure it was easy most of the way through, but by the very last stages it did even offer a decent challenge.

There's no drifting, but a heavy turn assist helps with cornering. There's a boost function that drains your air meter, as well as a "lean forward (tilt control stick up) to go faster" mechanic. Stunts are done in Zero Gravity style, by jumping at the right time off a ramp, although you can spin to do a better trick (not supported in the original mod release). Arm flailing is a factor, where you can lean to grab rings that are just off the course, throw items that skew a little more Mario Kart in their effects while still being unique, rub steam or splatter off your screen, or grab poles to swing around and take shortcuts. As a power character you can punch to destroy obstacles, and flight characters have to have arms outstretched to remain airborne when necessary. It sounds exhausting but all these functions are mapped pretty well to a controller in the mod, and I got to grips with them quickly. And while it may sound overloaded with gimmicks, I thought it was a better balance than the previous games of keeping up your pace while doing them, or being ignorable entirely.

It may sound like I'm being contrary but this quickly became my favourite of the Riders games. Because it expects you to be flolloping around, it's so much more forgiving and I found I wasn't constantly struggling against the game and its demands. It integrates a mission-like structure into the campaign so most of the time you're doing various objectives and single-lap runs of the courses in story mode, which moves things along at a quick pace. It also looks gorgeous, the environments varied and ultra-colourful, helped of course by being in HD for the first time. The tracks have fun setpieces like toboggan or minecart sections, jumping onto rooftops, or surfing while being pulled by a dolphin.

Free Riders kind of fulfilled the promise of what I wanted the series to be, for the first time. Fast-paced and bombastic, not overly punishing or bland. It's such a shame that that lively energy had to be locked behind an impractical peripheral gimmick. The assets were all there for a potential conversion or fourth instalment that takes the strengths but makes it play like a normal video game that people can actually play... but alas. As is often the case in the Sonic series, it was up to the fans to fix what Sega had broken, and I'm very thankful to Rei-SanTH for doing so in this case (please fix not being able to turn right on v1.1!).

[weaper-reaper]

Eventuality Pt.1

2, 3+4, 5, 6

Hey shawties its me again, back with my FIRST Konig fic. Very terrible German shenanigans will ensue so be warned. I’m here to feed the small community that is the Konig baby girls. New format, this fic is written with an MC (I know huge surprise, but just consider it a reader-insert.) MC uses She/Her pronouns, I’m sorry. Feminine anatomy and all that.

CW: Medical Inaccuracies, German translation Inaccuracies, Military Inaccuracies, you get the point, Fluff, Plot heavy, Eventual smut, Established background, Updating tags with each chapter, Konig x Reader, Konig x OFC, Maybe Johnny “Soap” Mctavish x reader, unless?, COD Franchise, MWII, Call of Duty characters, Captian Pierce, loosely mentioned

“Fucking stupid… piece of shit.. god-“ the sticker label fell through my fingers and I knocked an entire stack of papers over trying to grab it. “Damnit.” I sighed. How I ever made it as a nurse, much less working as an ICU nurse in military bases is lost on me. A chuckle at the doorway pulled me from my self loathing.

“Captain!” I quickly stood from my crouched position over the floor, and brought my arm up in a salute.

“Please no need,” he started, “I’ve just come with your next assignment.”

I could feel my face twist together with confusion. Next assignment?

“I’m stationed here until the sixteenth, sir.”

“I’m afraid we can’t send anyone else.”

I almost scoffed- and motioned my arms out. Here I am, surrounded by my own mess, and I’m the best person for the job?

He read me easily and tipped his head towards me in recognition, “Do you have any dependents waiting for you back home, soldier?”

I shook my head. No, I didn’t. And everyone knew it too.

Since I turned twenty, my entire life had been dedicated to school and military life. Even before then, as a child my dad uprooted us from place to place. Mission to mission. That’s how we always lived, so I tried my best to not get too hung up on any one particular place. Ultimately following in his footsteps and enlisting the moment I became of age. It’s like everywhere I went I had a label on my back that said ‘My dad was KIA, and I’ll serve until I am too.’

I’d made no real friends since I landed here anyway, so packing up and leaving now or in a week wouldn’t really make much of a difference in the end.

“Right sir, I’ll be packed within the hour.” I turned my back to him with a nod and scooped the rest of the spoiled papers in my arms.

“Good on you nurse,” He praised and it did little to settle the nerves that always followed being sent to a new unknown place. “Heli leaves at eighteen hundred.”

By helicopter? That’s a new one at least.

An hour later I stood at the edge of the heli pad packed to the brim- watching the black mass fade in from the far west of the sky, the sun glaring almost mockingly above it. As if the helicopter was a manifestation of my unescaped impending doom. A missile honed directly to me.

The duffle bag I shouldered grew heavier as it landed, attempting to root me to the spot. I was handed a pair of gray headphones and shoved up onto the machine. I pressed the hanging mic up to my lip and strapped in behind the pilot, facing outwards towards the doors of the tiny metal thing. A large window curved from my side directly overhead. There was only really enough room for the three of us and what little equipment I was allowed to bring. Although I was promised I could take inventory and order any additional nessecities, honestly I wouldn’t know where to really start.

“Evening boys.” I greeted, and was met with only nods in response. Great.

The blades hadn’t even been given a moment to slow down before we hauled off the ground and into the air- dust cropped up and swirled around us until we were almost level with the low hanging clouds. They were as dark and gray as the machine we flew. The metal blades thumped about as loud as my heart, and I did my best to settle into my seat, deciding to focus on the shrinking base below.

I eyed my bags tied tightly against the net on the walls, hoping I didn’t forget anything. My entire life was practically stuffed into those two bags- one being 80% emergency medical equipment said a lot I think. The photo bound tightly in the breast pocket of my vest burned hot- I itched to take it out but didn’t trust my fingers enough not to drop it right out into the air.

I sighed and threw my head back, maybe I could get some rest in at least.

____________

“T-3 Minutes until landing.” Chatter in my ears over the radio roused me from my head. I hadn’t been able to sleep- given I just spent the last two hours strapped in a fucking helicopter, but I was able to daydream and rest a bit.

The sky had turned a pretty gradient of orange and pink as we neared the new base. Light beamed through the breaks in the clouds. We were in the desert from what I could tell, dunes resided on either side of the starch brown compound below, almost letting it blend in completely with the scenery. If we weren’t directly above it, I don’t think it’d be too noticeable from anywhere on the ground.

Save the fact that I knew we were facing east, I had no clear idea where we even were. Hopefully I’ll be briefed upon landing.

I tore off the straps of my harness when the heli touched ground, and tossed the headset on the seat as I left- making sure to grab both of my bags before jumping down. My cropped hair bit against my face as the blades continued to whir above me.

Two men approached the edge of the pad, the tip of their boots not having even touched the yellow caution paint before the helicopter lifted itself up into the air again. I watched for a moment as it buzzed over us and into the darkening clouds.

“Private nurse Mack?” One of the men shouted and I turned to face them, pushing a hard look onto my face, the grip I had on my straps tightened significantly. I could see my knuckles turn white from the pressure. Okay new base, don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up. My own personal mantra replayed in my head as we took long strides towards each other.

“Evening gentlemen.” I raised my voice, as if it made me sound anymore sure. “Heard you boys needed some help.” I motioned to the large red medic badge on my shoulder.

“Aye, I’ll be the first to admit it, that we do.” The shorter one with the Scottish accent rang out, though they both stood impeding over my own frame.

“We’ve got ourselves into a bit of a predicament.” The other man began, he was slightly larger then the first, with scruffy facial hair and a worn cap that’s definitely seen better days.

“Captain Price,” He motioned to the other man beside him- the one that addressed me first. “That’s Soap.”

I nodded and fell into step between them when they turned, following as they headed into the large sandy building. We stepped through a series of doors before we ended up in what looked like a makeshift infirmary- a handful of cots lined the walls with no real space between any of them. More importantly men atop the dirty and stained beds, some even sat on the floor nearest the entrance.

“Forgive us if we skip the formalities, lass.” The scot voiced, Soap. “‘Y’have yer kit with ya?”

I swung my unessacey shit off first- the bag filled with uniform briefs and clothes mostly, lost in whatever corner of the room that was unaccompanied. Unstrapping my suture kit I approached the closest bed to me.

“What the hell happened here?” I almost shouted over the groaning and muttering that filled the room. A quick glance told me around ten or so men filled out the little space. The man sprawled across the bed in front of me clutched at his bicep. Blood seeping through the wet rag he held against the wound as dripped down his fingers.

Soap approached my side and watched as I snapped on some rubber gloves from the bag attached to my waistband belt.

“Joint mission, we were regrouping with members of KORTAC when they were ambushed.” Price stated- a practiced calm behind his words. He said it as if it were any normal Wednesday night.

I gave him a curt nod and tried not to panic much, but being thrown into a room full of wounded men within only minutes of landing at a new base I didn’t even know existed this morning- it’s safe to say my nerves were beginning to get fried. I took a deep breath, the details aren’t really that important. I was here to help, so I’d focus on doing just that.

“Thankfully there were no casualties, just a small group of bloody nobodies.” Soap pulled over a trash bin from behind him and set it near me, I gave him a quick smile as thanks. He had a kind look on his face, a small scar rested below his bottom lip and his shaved Mohawk didn’t really do him much justice, but he didn’t seem that intimidating in this light. Should fate grant me a longer stay here- I don’t think I’d mind getting to know him a bit more.

Shifting my focus from Soap, I pulled back the bloody rag from the man on the cot’s shoulder and tossed it into the bin. Then wiped his arm down with a sterile alcohol pad. A gangly gash sat red and bright against his pale skin, a bullet must have torn straight through his uniform. “Just an ugly graze soldier, you’ll be alright.”

He grunted and rolled onto his side so I could treat him better, so I pulled out a disposable suture kit from my bag and got to work. Doing my best to remember to prioritize, I glanced between Price- who moved back to the entrance of the room, seemingly not wanting to get involved, and Soap still at my side.

“Life-altering patients first,” I shouted to the room, “If you can move- help the injured onto beds, and if you’re not bleeding to death go start a line in the hall.”

It took a good minute and a hard glare from Soap for the men to start moving, but soon there were only three others in the room with us. Though he stayed longer than Price, and did his best to assist me with two particularly nasty stab wounds; he decided to call it.

“That’s all I got in me nurse, hell’s bells, I can’t imagine how you’d do this all day.” He said as he left. I thanked him for his help but ultimately was more grateful that he left me alone with my work- his general presence was intimidating enough, I didn’t want to screw up on the first day under his supervision. So with another deep breath I eventually saw everyone who was involved in the ambush, and crashed against the steel table in the back of the room. Eyes closed the moment my head hit my arms, gloves still on and everything.

It wasn’t until a good minute or so that I rose back up and took a look around the room again. A mess greeted me, as per usual. My fingers ached and my shoulders screamed at me, but I spent the next hour piling dirty linens and rags into one corner, and moping up what I could of dried blood and mud into another. What I wouldn’t give for a warm bath right about now. Though I’ve had worse days in the ICU for sure, this one definitely got close to topping the cake. I was even more thankful for Soap’s help after the fact. Maybe I could sneak him an extra MRE next time we came across each other as thanks.

If he was the only one who’d stayed to assist, I wondered if they had anyone here at base who was properly medically trained. Given I’m not a licensed doctor or anything, but who was the last person in charge of their medical needs? Or rather.. what happened to them if they did have one?

The entrance to the door creaked open behind me, and I pulled myself from my thoughts, leaning on the mop handle for extra support. My eyes were drooping from exhaustion, and it took them a moment to focus.

“You are cleaning?” A soft voice spoke, something I did not expect to hear from the man who graced the doorway. His frame was hunched over slightly, a hand under the hood that hung over his face, two piercing blue eyes stuck out starch against the torn holes that stared directly through me.

It took a second for me to realize the voice belonged to him, and not some other stranger hidden behind his large figure.

“Uh, yeah.” I sighed, “Someone’s got to, right?”

He had no response and instead stared blankly at me through his mask like a statue- unmoving.

“Uhm.” I began again, “Do you need medical assistance?” I tried to say as calmly and invitingly as I could. Though I couldn’t see his face, by his body language alone it seemed as if he would turn and leave with any wrong movement.

He stayed as he was and watched me while drained the dirty bucket and put the mop back into the closet I originally found them from.

“I thought perhaps I could do it myself, but..” he trailed off and guestured up to his face with a point from his elbow.

I put on a fresh pair of gloves and sat on the edge of an empty cot.

“Do what yourself?”

He took a step forward and glanced from me back to the door. Letting a little ‘uhh’ cross his lips. Ultimately settling on twisting the deadlock shut on the door. My heart leaped in my chest and I instinctively stood and inched my way back to the steel desk.

He caught on quickly and immediately held both of his hands up in front of him, slightly crouching as to appear less intimidating.

“Ah please, I just do not want anyone to see.” He waved a hand in front of his face and tangled his fingers at the bottom of the cloth that hung over his entire head- held up only by the helmet he wore. With another wary look towards the door- as if someone would burst in at any moment- he lifted the mask just enough for me to see a long stripe of red from the tip of his jaw down to his collarbone, disappearing under the collar of his shirt.

My mouth went dry as our eyes met again.

Okay, Mr.Mountian of a man just needs some help. That’s all. I let a wary glance of my own settle over the lock on the door before turning to grab a first aid kit and some more sanitary wipes. My back was to him, but I nodded my head over to a cot- “Have a seat.”

After grabbing what I needed onto a tray and rolling it over, I stood infront of him. Even as he sat we were practically eye to eye still. I cleared my throat, trying to calm my nerves from under the uneasiness of his stare. It felt like he noticed every twitch of my fingers and any little movement I made, any inch of exustion I had disappearing with a rush of adrenaline from being locked in a room with a six-foot-something man.

He lifted his mask again just enough so I could clearly see the wound we were working with. It wasn’t very deep- and It looked like he tried to superglue it shut himself, but there were still spots where I could see the blood bead up through. His jaw had some stubble on it, like he hadn’t shaved in a week or so.

“It’s cleaner then some of the cuts I’ve seen today.” I spoke, doing my best to ease the tension that settled thickly over the two of us. The tiny room felt somehow smaller under his gaze. His body and presence took up so much space that it was nearly suffocating.

He only hummed in response. I dabbed some alcohol on a cotton pad and wiped it against his face as gently as I could, if it hurt he did a good job of hiding the pain. Only the back of his jaw clenched when he grinded his teeth together, eyes now anywhere but mine.

I placed my other hand against the other cheek, angling his head towards me a bit more and he stiffened underneath me. His body going as rigid as the cold metal gear he wore.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled and I could see his eyes twitch over to my face.

“If it hurts I mean.”

“I- I am alright.” His lips were chapped and his teeth clacked harshly against each other when he snapped his mouth shut again, as if he regretted speaking.

There was a beat of silence before I spoke again, “What’s your name? I’m Mack, though everyone seems to just call me Nurse.” I chuckled dryly.

His eyes didn’t leave my face this time, and I began to sweat under his watch. I sounded like an idiot to even myself. He just came here to get patched up, why do I ever bother with the small talk. I’d most likely be gone or replaced within the month anyway. He hissed under a particularly sensitive spot at the base of his neck and I immediately apologized, reaching for a clean cotton swab.

“König. That is what they call me.” His accent was thicker this time he spoke, gently cursing in some German dialect when the cut started to bleed again from all my prodding.

“Well König,” I repeated, “you did a good job of cleaning this up yourself.” The grip on his mask loosened and fell below his lips as he settled on the cot a bit more comfortably, and I praised myself for my smooth patient talk. It didn’t take me very long to finish wiping him down and stop any bleeding, I made quick work of setting a bandage over the deeper parts of his cut. Only a slight bit stayed exposed on the parts where the skin moved too much for me to cover it properly.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take another look when we change the bandages again. Just to make sure it doesn’t reopen, but I don’t think you’ll need any stitches.” He dropped the cloth and let it settle down over his face and neck fully again, eyes boring directly through mine as I spoke.

He nodded with me, “Yes. Then I will see you tomorrow morning.”

He rose up into his towering form again and made his way over to the door- snapping it unlocked once more.

“Sure.” I agreed, tossing the bloody cotton pads into the bin. “Tomorrow morning könig.” And the door clicked shut behind him before I could even turn to watch him leave.

The uneasy feeling continued to sit at the bottom of my stomach as I picked up my bags again. Their weight was ten times heavier as I left the small room and wandered back out into the main hallway. In all honesty I didn’t even know if I would be here in the morning, though it was apparent after today that this little band of soldiers needed some official medical assistance. Wether or not I was the best person for that job.. well who’s to really say.

Soap was in the hall as I left, leaning lazily against the opposite wall from the door. I turned to pull it close and met his eyes. He had more color to his face now then he did a few hours ago, maybe he was squeamish around blood? No, there’s no way.

“Hey.” He greeted.

“Hey yourself.” I joined his side, “Thanks for your help earlier, by the way.”

“‘Course newbie.” He turned to face the end of the hallway and waved for me to follow.

“Newbie? What happened to Private nurse Mack.”

“Too long. Plus everyone’s the new guy at one point.”

I hummed in response, and he lead me back out through the main entrance.

“Cafeteria’s through there- always stocked so feel free to eat whenever. Sleeping barracks are this way.” It was dark outside now, and the clouds still hung so thickly over the sky I couldn’t see any stars. Out only light from the few floodlights that were scattered randomly around the compound.

“So when do I get a cool nickname? Or will it be lame too.”

“Lame?”

“Soap?” I countered.

“Johnny.” He corrected.

“No you’re right, Soap sounds cooler.” He scoffed and I bit my lip to force the smile down. At least someone here could make good banter.

“You’ll fit in well here newbie.” He redirected us towards another sand colored building. I recognized a couple of the men I treated earlier hanging around the front entrance. It looked like there was only one door in. Their eyes watched us as we passed through, a couple whispers making their way around in groups.

“Don’t mind ‘em.” Soap had leaned over to mutter in my ear, his warm breath cascaded down my neck and I hadn’t realized how cold it’d gotten in the dark. I hummed again- not trusting my voice to speak any coherent words.

“This is you.” He pointed to a steel door sat at the very back of a long hallway. The numbers ‘21’ written in bold white letters above it. He could read the uneasiness that found it’s way over my face, and I hated how simple a read I was. Maybe I should don a balaclava like everyone else around here. “Something the matter, bonnie?”

“Oh, no.” I turned to him and hadn’t realized how close he really was in the dark and cramped hall. I could almost smell his aftershave, he probably dipped on me earlier to shower, though I couldn’t really blame him. I must’ve looked like a mess currently, so after a shower myself I was headed straight to bed.

“Honestly it’s just been a while since I’d stayed in coed housing.” The door opened with a creak, but I was relieved to see only one twin sized cot. At the least I wouldn’t be rooming with anybody.

He nodded in understanding, “Well if you run into any issues, I’m just over there.” He jutted his thumb back to a door labeled ‘19’.

“20 up are mostly empty anyway, those are the overflow rooms.” He paused and glanced around the hallway at all the doors. “Though with the men from KORTAC dirtying our plates, I’m afraid ‘tis fuller than usual.”

I let out what must’ve been my hundredth sigh for the day and nodded.

“Thanks Soap, again I appreciate it.” The bright dorky smile that adorned his face helped ease my nerves. I stepped over the threshold of the room and turned back to him, one hand on the edge of the door. He leaned against the frame casually, hands in his pockets.

“It’s nothing. Sleep well, lass.” He turned to leave.

“Oh hey,” he stopped me once more just before I shut the door. “If you’re feeling up to it a couple of the lads and I are going for a run in the morning- ‘round 0400 or so.”

He shrugged, “Could be a good bonding experience, or y’know maybe we’ll think up a cooler nickname then Nurse.”

“Cooler than Soap?”

“Extremely.”

I chuckled and let the door close as he turned again, watching him disappear down the hall.

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad finding a reason to stay in one spot for a bit longer after all.

_________

AYOO look I know what this looks like… but It’s NOT a Soap fic I SWEAR. I just adore my babygirl so much you know I had to do it to em. Unless you guys are into a multi-ship fanfic centered around the same MC? Lemme know what you think.

Also crossposted on Ao3 under ‘WeaperReaper’

Anyway more Konig content in the next part, pinkey promise.

[bam-monsterhospital]

(Image is watson speaking to sherlock on the topic of the assassination plot sherlock is investigating doesn’t actually exist: “No. Well... only that you have a remarkable faculty for deduction, and pattern recognition.  And that, perhaps, if ill-applied...”)

(Image of sherlock in acquiescence: “I see things that are not there.”)

god it’s so refreshing to have smart characters written by smart writers.

the awareness that sherlock’s style of investigation hinges on making leaps and bounds, very educated guesses but still guesses all the same, and then highlighting the fallibility of this character’s m.o. not only avoids the standard ‘genius as personality type’ trap that lazy and idiotic writers fall into, but also humanizes him. and having john point it out in a way that sounds like tired lived experience and gently confronting sherlock about it like this puts both of these characters on equal footing. john watson is a smart man, a doctor, and should be more than able to keep up with whatever quick sharpness sherlock doles out.  and in this game, he certainly does.

(image of sherlock responding to watson later in the conversation: “So it seems.  Forgive me.  Without something to occupy my mind, I turn into an entirely different animal.”)

Also, sherlock hyperfixates!  It’s made blaringly clear in the previous game and this one, with multiple characters drawing attention to it.  those who know him (mycroft, watson, etc) are aware of it, he’s aware of it, and the heavy neurodivergent coding as well as the focus on mental health and illness in the holmes family fits well with this character; it makes the character’s original idiosyncrasies make all the more sense while also not demonizing mental illness/neurodivergence.   (chapter one spoilers below)

sherlock’s mother didn’t die due to her ‘madness’, she died because she wasn’t receiving proper care for her condition.  sherlock says he fears becoming like his mother (going “mad”), but he actually is terrified of the loss of self she suffered; terrified of having no control as someone else pulls the strings to utterly dissolve you as a person.  He witnessed a creative, genius woman deteriorate into something utterly devoid of the person he knew, and the trauma surrounding this (having experienced it in his childhood) and a particular incident continues to plague him. John Watson is suffering from survivor’s guilt and trauma from the war he served in.  He self-deprecates because of it, and in “The Awakened” game there are hints he is mentally at an all-time low, where later he states his friendship with sherlock and the shenanigans they get up to make him “feel alive” again.

What these characters have lived through and how their minds react to the world because of it are integral parts of these versions of the characters and not something to just get over or ‘fix’.  i don’t have to go in to how showing heroes living with mental health issues like this normalizes and puts it into a positive light, do i?

also they’re great friends and great for each other and support each other and reaffirm each other ajfksdlafsa.  good duo.

[icedbeverageenjoyer]

Am I the only one who struggles with writing slice of life? Like, sometimes you have to add low-stakes shenanigans to let the story breathe, but for me this is the hardest part of writing.

I can write a hundred scenes with complex symbolism, heavy plot implications and character study, but I can't write them going to the store?

It could be that I'm socially illiterate and I genuinely have no idea how friends act around each other, but I have seen enough friendships in media to get an idea on how to do it. Does anyone else have that problem? And how do you guys write your slice of life chapters? Anything is appreciated!

[shipcestuous]

All of Us Villains (*who are also related) (submission)

My friend recently lent me the “All of Us Villains” duology, and I can’t not recommend it to you all, not just for the great plot twists and the incredibly written and very morally gray characters, but for both non-canon and canon shipping. (This submission really belongs on both blogs, since it covers both non-canon sibling ships and canon distant relative ships. Also, this submission will contain heavy spoilers, just a warning.)

So the premise of the series is that, once every generation, seven historic families each send a champion into a death tournament, where the winner and their family get control over the most powerful magic for the next generation. This has been going on for centuries now, and it’s absolutely a curse: they have to submit a champion each time; if they all refuse to compete, all seven competitors die, so there’s no getting out of it that way. But this time, some of the champions get it into their heads to break the curse… one way or another.

This is already a neat premise, and I’m sure the idea of seven families already has your ears perking up. But what if I told you that it’s mentioned a couple times that, because of the weight of this curse, a lot of local normies don’t want to get involved… so there’s been a fair bit of intermarrying between the families over the centuries. For example, one of the MCs has a sister who marries out of one family and into another at the start of the first book, to avoid the risk of being named a champion. Then, two of the chosen champions are first cousins (more on them later).

This means that any pairing between members of these families in the series would be a distant cousins ship. Our canon ships: Alistair/Isobel, Alistair/Gavin, and Briony/Finley. More on them later, but first, I promised you guys some sibling ships.

I wanted to start out with the most prominent one and, to me, the most shippable: Alistair Lowe and his only sibling Hendry. This ship will both warm and break your heart. They’re a year apart and delightfully close. Even if Alistair has tried to fashion himself into the perfect villain as the rest of the family wants (to dubious success), his favorite person is indisputably his sweet big brother, and Hendry adores Al just the same.

Unfortunately, their family sucks. No, I mean they’re the worst. Their family wins the tournament about 2/3 of the time, and it turns out there’s a reason for that. Each generation, one Lowe is sacrificed to craft a very powerful spell to give to that generation’s champion. Neither brother knew about this, until the rest of the family murdered Hendry behind Alistair’s back. His grief is visceral and devastating, and he blames himself even if he shouldn’t.

But! Due to some shenanigans, Hendry is unintentionally resurrected—but his life force is tied to the tournament. So Al, who was previously on the side of “let’s break the tournament and end the curse,” suddenly has so much incentive to keep it intact, because if he wins, he believes he and his brother can have a happy ending.

Note that, also on team “let’s break the tournament,” is Isobel—the girl he’s had a flirtation with for the whole first book. (Also a distant cousin, considering how the families all intermarry. Again, we’ll cover their story in greater detail later.)

Using a mind reading spell on Alistair, Isobel sees “something much bigger, draped across all his other thoughts like a shroud. His grief. All he’d wanted since the tournament began was his brother back. What he felt for her was a mere candle flame beside that longing, that uncertainty, that hopelessness. It didn’t matter if the tournament was breaking or not, if Isobel loved him or not. No one could take Alistair’s brother from him a second time. He would rather die with Hendry than lose him again.”

I just love when a character places their sibling above anyone else, love interests included. It’s obviously so tragic, especially since it’s this moment that splits Alistair and Isobel apart for good (and causes Al to be cursed), but Alistair’s love for his brother is so fierce and so humanizing. Despite his attempts to be a monster, more often than not it’s Hendry who tethers him to his humanity.

For much of the second book, Alistair struggles to find a way for himself and Hendry to both survive, even though both seem fated to die (Hendry since he’s kind of a weird ghost, Alistair because of the aforementioned curse). Hendry realizes far sooner that he isn’t going to make it, but Alistair clings to hope. There’s moments like this that absolutely ruin me:

Hendry swallowed. “I want you to win because I want you to survive. But what if you win the tournament, and I’m gone anyway?”

“That won’t happen,” Alistair snapped, his voice betraying his panic.

“Al, you don’t know—”

“I do. Because when I win, the high magick will belong to the Lowes. And that’s…” For the second time, he banished the phantom sound of his mother’s scream. “That’s just us now.”

Hendry squeezed Alistair’s hand tightly. He smiled one of his real sunlight smiles, and Alistair could almost imagine that the tournament was far behind them, that they’d already escaped Ilvernath together, just like they’d always dreamed.

A note about the “mother’s scream” part—at the end of the first book, Alistair and Hendry kill the adults of their family who conspired to murder Hendry. Very valid, honestly.

Anyway, Alistair continues to reiterate that Isobel never mattered to him as much as Hendry does—and neither does Gavin, another competitor who Al catches feelings for after he teams up with the brothers to cure all their respective curses. (Also, we love that Alistair is canonically bi, because it makes shipping him and Hendry even easier.)

Unfortunately, the more time that passes, the more Hendry is fading, and he finally forces Alistair to realize that. Hendry decides that, if he’s going to fade either way, he at least wants to go out on his own terms, and find a way to cure Alistair’s curse in the process. Basically, he sacrifices his life to craft a spell—in a sort of mirror-yet-opposite of how his family sacrificed him to begin with—that’s intended to heal Alistair. I cried a lot, but it was sadly inevitable from the start.

Even then, Alistair carries his brother’s memory with him. As I mentioned, Hendry is like a tether to the best parts of Alistair, and Al often thinks of his brother when he has to choose between the right thing or being the monster his family made of him.

Next: less prominent, but still important, we have Briony and her younger sister Innes. There’s about a year or two between them, and they were abandoned by their grieving mother when they were toddlers, passed from relative to relative amidst their glory-seeking family. Briony thinks to herself that her “only real home [is] her sister.” They’re very close.

However, Briony has always believed she’d be their family’s champion, and when Innes is chosen instead—due to government interference in the selection—it drives a wedge between them. Briony fears that her sister isn’t strong enough to survive the tournament, and when she sees an opportunity to take Innes’s place, she does it.

This isn’t an “I volunteer as tribute” situation. No, she has to take the champion ring off Innes’s finger. Except the ring won’t come off. So Briony knocks her sister out with a spell and cuts off her pinkie finger. Cool motive, still brutal.

It’s also called into question over the duology: exactly how much of that action was “I want to save my sister,” how much was “I want to put a stop to these tournaments,” and how much was “I want to be the hero and get the glory?” Even Briony herself isn’t sure, and honestly, it’s that ambiguity that makes her a fascinating character. I like to think a lot of it was love for Innes, even if some of it was the other stuff for sure.

Obviously, Innes resents her for this—also valid. She attacks Briony the next time they meet, but the sisters eventually make up. Innes still has (understandable) difficult feelings about what happened, but she and Briony end up on the same side in an attempt to end the tournament curse for good.

Tragically, Briony sacrifices her life in the process, wanting to do something good to atone for the wrongs she did, including to her sister. It’s also noteworthy that, when she’s sacrificing her life energy to break the last part of the tournament, she place she cuts herself is her finger—almost an echo of how she cut off Innes’s finger. It’s a choice that says a lot about where her mind is.

Innes is, of course, distraught when she learns about her sister. Forget about her finger, forget about the brief time of friction between them—Briony was her sister, her home, and that matters way more than whatever came between them. This ship devastates me to no end.

And finally, another and far less prominent bro/bro ship: Gavin and his brother Fergus. We don’t see a lot of Gavin’s brother in the first book—he’s about four years younger, and he’s their mom’s favorite, so Gavin resents/envies him a bit. After all, Gavin has always been marked for death by his family, because the Grieve family has never won a tournament. The brothers aren’t especially close, and in fact they’re antagonistic if anything. I didn’t feel too strongly about them until the sequel.

Gavin returns to his house, thinking nobody is home, and runs into Fergus. He learns Fergus has been keeping dossiers on each of the champions, including Gavin. It’s full of quotes and pictures from the media reporting on the tournament, and there’s even a clipping of a fan calling him the “ultimate underdog.”

Gavin is shocked and touched that Fergus has been paying attention to him, because none of his family ever seemed to care. And then he learns that Fergus—like Innes—is part of a resistance, where some of the younger members of the families are trying to help end the tournament.

In the end—after the magic dust settles—Gavin gets an offer to travel with Alistair (who’s now his boyfriend), who’s going to see the world like he and Hendry always wanted. Gavin also dislikes their hometown. However, he decides it’s more important to take guardianship of Fergus, and Fergus wants to stay there. Guardianship of the boy could’ve gone to their sister, but Fergus really wanted to stay with Gavin, and Gavin is willing to stay in town a few years longer if it’s for his brother’s sake.

And of course Alistair is understanding, because he knows better than anyone the bond between brothers.

Now, on to the cousins! First, we have our first cousins and champions: Elionor and Carbry. These two aren’t POV characters like Alistair, Isobel, Briony, and Gavin are, so we don’t see too much of their inner workings, sadly. Carbry is the youngest champion at fifteen, and his cousin Elionor is a year or two older. He’s more timid and sensitive, while she’s clever and… okay, kind of a bitch. But not to him. She’s very protective of him, and the two are allies for their whole time in the tournament.

Sadly, Carbry dies about halfway through the first book, which enrages Elionor. Her death at the end of the first book is partially brought about because she wants revenge, which—I don’t like her attacking our main characters, but I completely understand. And even if it ended sadly, it’s sweet how they never turned their backs on each other even in a death tournament.

Next, our canon ships, starting with Briony and Finley. The two used to date before the tournament began, and broke up when she once said she’d be able to kill him if it came down to it in the tournament. Understandably, he was hurt. However, the two of them end up becoming allies again partway through the first book. Even after Carbry’s death—Briony killed him in self-defense—Finley still manages to trust her again.

So much time together also rekindles the spark between them, and they end up getting back together. Despite the odds, they hope that the tournament can be broken in a way where everyone gets to survive. Tragically, I already mentioned that Briony sacrifices her life to make that future happen for everyone else. Obviously, Finley is heartbroken. Both my Briony ships are inevitably tragic, but their relationship was supportive and sweet.

Next, Alistair and Isobel. (Our boy Alistair really does attract tragic romances, huh?) Just because Al values his brother above everybody else doesn’t mean that these two didn’t have great chemistry. It started out with the media labeling them as rivals and Isobel trying to manipulate him so she could stay alive, because she knew he was attracted to her. However, she caught feelings right back, and they saved each other’s lives multiple times over. She—like Hendry—made him feel like less of a monster, and also their banter was delightful.

But of course, then Hendry returned from the dead. In the ensuing battle between a lot of people, Alistair accidentally hit Isobel with a curse that nearly killed her. And even if he was sorry, Isobel recognized that Alistair’s loyalties would lie with Hendry above anyone else. Isobel was determined to break the tournament at any cost… so she’s the one who cursed Alistair, with a kiss. It was a death curse designed to slowly advance with the more wrongs a person committed (and remember, it got cured eventually, so it’s fine). It hurt her a lot to curse him, because she truly did like him, but she still thought it was for the best.

After that, they were very much exes (not that they were officially together before—the curse kiss was actually their first and last kiss—but the Vibes were there and they both knew it). But eventually, they were able to reconcile when the surviving champions teamed up. They reflect that they both made monsters of each other—and it’s unclear if they’ll ever be able to be friends again post-tournament, with such fraught history, but I like to hope so, because I really enjoyed their dynamic.

(It’s also noteworthy that the guy that Isobel vaguely ends up with shares some similarities with Alistair. I can polyship and I will.)

And then Alistair’s endgame relationship with Gavin. Admittedly, I got quite invested in Al and Isobel, so it took me a while to warm up to this one, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t great in their own right. From the beginning, Gavin sees Alistair as his biggest enemy and the one to beat—after all, Alistair’s family usually wins these tournaments, while Gavin’s family never has. But he also has a huge hate-crush on Alistair, even if it takes him a while to realize it.

In the second book, they become allies, because Gavin is also cursed, and he and the Lowe brothers are trying to solve all their problems. Initially, Gavin is hoping to leech off Hendry’s magic to prolong his own life (which of course infuriates Alistair when he finds out, and he nearly kills Gavin for it), but he starts to really care about both brothers. And, tying back into my Alistair/Hendry agenda, it’s Hendry who encourages Al to open up more to Gavin, and who encourages Gavin to see the good in Alistair. Literally the relationship wouldn’t have happened without Hendry, and it does carry a subtext of “take care of my brother after I’m not able to anymore.”

And as I mentioned, after the climax of the story, they both end up still dating but going their separate paths to do what their brother wants/wanted. Alistair traveling like he and Hendry wanted, and Gavin staying at home because it’s what’s best for Fergus. It’s like being a brother is one of the traits that binds them together and they can understand each other better because of it. We love to see relationships where they understand that family is just as important, if not more.

So that’s a breakdown of the shipcest relationships in All of Us Villains! Apologies for the length. I actually pared it down a lot, but there are so many relationships and details to talk about. I can’t recommend this story enough.

Just a random aside but there's a trial in Isobel's family mausoleum and basically the way to solve it is she has to kiss a skeleton (which can only be one of her dead relatives considering where they are) on the mouth. not as eyebrow-raising as some other stuff I talked about but still

–

Thank you for such a detailed write-up! The book has a really interesting premise and you already know that we love to see all of these family relationships and “houses” style society with many cousins. The sibling relationships in this sound so rich. 

[domokunrainbowkinz]

sorry for manhwa-posting guys it's not gonna stop

u kno wat I may as well give my thoughts on some of the ones I read:

semantic error - classic, everyone knows it, despite me being lukewarm about it it has some moments that made me go WAOUUGGHH.....nice, low-stakes fun read but if u hate miscommunication u r gonna have a bad time. the art is Very good though.

concubine walkthrough - EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS NOW!!!!! villainess transmigration story with chinese-style court politics, discussions about AI, VR, reality vs dream, and a plot twist at the end that makes you go AOUUGHGBGB!!!!! it made me ugly cry twice!!! READ IT NOW!!!!!!

lost in the cloud - currently ongoing, I stayed up till 7am reading this one. it starts off light and then hits u with The Trauma hammer and reveals its true colours (2 dudes dealing with The Horrors and being absolutely not normal about it). it deals with very heavy topics like bullying, SA, CSA, abusive parents, like these kids cannot catch a break. the characters are really well written and believable, their interactions are so raw and painful at times. I am obsessed. I need them to be happy or im going to cry. it really isn't for the faint of heart, I'm not one to be fazed by heavy topics in fiction but I felt so anxious during some chapters, like the way the scenes are depicted and drawn are so visceral. I also gotta say the art is BANGING.

dreaming of the dokkaebi (18+) - currently ongoing, VERY promising so far. I am a hoe for modern-day supernatural romance, especially when there's reincarnation shenanigans involved. there's a lot going on between the 2 leads and I love the incorporation of korean mythology and exorcism in the worldbuilding aouuggh...literally my cup of tea.

how to refuse the route - lighthearted low-stakes otome isekai where the protagonist is trying his absolute darnedest to NOT romance any of the characters (he is failing). It's pretty unserious fun, and I also love the ML in this one. pls give me more fucked up little guys. the story is starting to go in an interesting direction tho and I'm curious to see how it ends.

the guild member next door - very light unserious fun, basically what if ur online friend/crush that u met in a game is ur neighbour, but you never met irl so u don't know that?? it goes hard on the in-game mechanics and spends a lot of time building up the in-game friendship before starting to delve into the irl relationship. it's a slow burn and brother I am here for it.

netkama punch - this situation is something you'd read on aita reddit and think to yourself "there's something definitely wrong with both of you and I hope you don't involve anyone else in whatever the fuck is going on between you 2". it's so wacky and funny, definitely not one to take super seriously.

love in orbit (18+) - I originally read this bc there's a tall hot alien mommy in it, but the actual story is actually quite sweet. I also love the way the artist draws bodies in this one, for once the proportions don't make go "brother eughh". it's pretty light and low-stakes, but I was surprised by the discussions on loneliness and parental neglect/abuse that were a throughline in this series. the sex scenes are 🔥🔥

tears on a withered flower (18+) - still pretty early in serialization but I'm already so interested in where this is going homegirl needs to throw her entire husband out!!! an illustration of how an abusive relationship can wear a person down and eat away at them. seriously I hope she and her new man beat the shit out of her husband.

[sophisticated-creepy]

          The friends spent the next several moments cleaning up the parlor before continuing on their quest of exploring the Manor House for ghosts. With all that had transpired during the attempted séance with Lazare, and Modesta’s tarot reading, they approached the remainder of their investigation with caution. The energy in the house wasn’t threatening, per se, but the air seemed to crackle with a pent up need to release a burst of paranormal activity. It just needed a catalyst to give it the spark and ignite. As a group, they traversed into the underground rooms of the basement, exploring the reserved private party space, trying their best to capture disembodied voices and dancing skeletons. Eventually, their steps brought them outside, where they took advantage of roaming the grounds under the protective gaze of the silver moon peeking out between billowing thunderclouds. A summer’s storm brewed in the distance, the occasional glimmers of lightning leap frogging from cloud to cloud as the cooler air of the storm front fueled a steady breeze to finger through the treetops with a hint of rain scenting the wind.

          They congregated under the old, wooden gazeebo, where a spontaneous play broke out amongst them to perform an impromptu rendition of an amalgamation of fairytales both traditional and newly made up before the watchful eye of Jack’s camcorder lens. He balanced the device on the railing so he, too, could participate in the drama-filled shenanigans of playacting. He jumped into the role of bard, sing-songing his lines effortlessly, Raphael obviously playing the hero knight in shining armor, while Modesta adopted the role of town baker, Lazare, the dastardly woodsman-thief, and Lola donning the guise of duchess. Laughing almost the entire time, they muddled through their “plot” of rescuing the town baker, who had been kidnapped by the woodsman-thief to thwart the duchess’s birthday, for without a baker, there would be no cake, the play then culminating in a swordfight to the death between knight and thief with some sticks they found lying around, whereupon the duchess’s birthday was saved thanks to the power of teamwork and creative ingenuity of the silliest kind.

          Lightning flashed more frequently, and a low growl of thunder was their cue to pack up and head indoors for the remainder of the night. Despite being a haunted house in the path of an oncoming thunderstorm, the rooms felt peaceful, the previous underlying thickness of energy having abated, and the close-knit cluster of friends agreed it was time for bed. Once everyone said their goodnights, they headed towards the grand staircase, but Lola lagged behind to lean in the doorway of the main parlor, observing in the stillness the stately room where the Gray Lady met her passing. A warm arm encircled her shoulders, Raphael’s presence comforting and unhurried, patiently waiting until Lola was ready to retire upstairs. After a heavy sigh, she waved goodnight into the empty room, and hooking her arm around Raphael’s waist, the two of them walked in step towards their bedchamber.

          They showered, the two squeezing into the intimate glass cubicle to quickly wash the day’s events off of each other before the storm grew closer, but it was inevitable to start sharing sweet kisses, each press of their lips lingering longer and longer as the shower continued. Eventually, Lola darted out first, wrapping herself in one of the white, fluffy spa robes hanging on the back of the bathroom door provided by the Manor House, and tossed Raphael his own robe as he stepped out of the shower enclosure after her. The two went about their nighttime routines, Lola finishing first to wait for her love in bed. She stretched herself out on top of the plush, gilded comforter with a pleasant sigh. Absentmindedly, she held out her left hand, admiring her engagement ring around her finger, the other hand twisting the band side to side, catching sparkles in the dim room lighting.

          The jewelry was a fourteen karat white gold vintage inspired twisted band set with diamond accent stones, brandishing a cushion cut amethyst at its center. The ring was stunning, to say the least, and an unexpected surprise when Raphael proposed to her with it, the item far more beautiful than she had ever dreamed of receiving. It was too beautiful, too precious to remove from its black velvet box, but the amount of love emanating from the ring, as well as the man offering it to her, eclipsed the imagined tender fragility of the thin metal, and when Raphael placed the ring upon her finger, it felt as if the jewelry had always belonged there from the start.

          “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

          Lola turned her head at Raphael’s voice to see him leaning against the threshold doorframe of the bathroom, the terrycloth of his robe tied at his waist barely containing his broader form. He was smiling, his expression one of contentment as he had been observing her upon the bed. “Perish the thought,” she scoffed, going back to admire her ring.

          “What has you in such deep contemplations?” he asked, walking over to the bed. He sat down at the end on Lola’s side, picking up her legs so her feet rested across his lap, and began to massage one foot, feeling her body melt as he worked the muscles along her arch.

          “Did you notice what Annie called us while giving the tour?” Lola asked. When Raphael shook his head, she continued. “She called us Mr. and Mrs. Glenbrook. That’s the first time anyone has called me that, and we’re not even married yet.”

          “And how does it make you feel to be called my wife?” he asked, a smile slanting his mouth in a handsome grin.

          “Excited,” she replied easily. “Terrified,” she added after a pause. “Happy,” she continued. “Delighted…but nauseous, like I’m going to throw up a bucket full of butterflies.”

          “I didn’t know the idea of becoming my wife had your stomach in such knots,” he laughed, the sound warm and intoxicating.

          “In a good way,” she stressed, laughing with him. “I think I’m just feeling all the feels, and I know it’s technically only a ‘title’, but it’s a pretty big title. What if…I’m not…good enough?”

          “You are more than enough,” he punctuated, leveling her with a look that meant she should know better than to say something so ridiculous.

          “I’m serious. What if we get married, and it turns out I’m horrible?”

          “You have nothing to worry about, as you are already an excellent wife.”

          “We’re not married, you can’t know that,” she countered.

          “Dandelion, how would you describe the role of a wife?” Raphael asked, switching to massage her other foot.

          “Someone who’s loving, attentive, a good partner and communicator, as well as listener,” she answered, ticking off her mental checklist on her fingers.

          “You’re already all of those things and more. Firstly, you have my absolute trust. You’re kind and generous with your mind and heart. You challenge me to be the best version of myself without me feeling judged or belittled, and that’s not even beginning to scratch the surface of your many bewitching attributes in how we work together in this partnership. I have, with every confidence, no doubt that you will not only fit the ‘title’ of wife, but flourish as the already exquisite woman that you are.”

          Lola wiped unshed tears pooling in the corners of her eyes, his loving words reassuring her heart and soothing her soul. “Thank you for believing in me, Honey Love. I will be a good wife for you, and for the record, you’ll make for a pretty spectacular husband yourself, even with your cheesy albeit endearing one-liners.”

          “Naturally,” he preened, “for what good is a husband if he’s not filled with cheese? Now, no more frowns.” He lightly waggled his fingers against the sole of the foot he held, and the appendage was gone before he had the chance to acknowledge the force of her pillow smacking him across his face, the blow sending him sprawling flat on his back over the mattress. His wrists were pinned next by the sides of his head as Lola’s weight settled on top of him as she straddled his waist. Turnabout was fair play, in her mind, and if he was going to be cruel and attack her weakest spot, then she had every right to go after one of his.

          “Thou art a wretched, saucy fellow,” Lola growled as she hovered above Raphael. “Prepare for a taste of thine own medicine.” Her words were all the more satisfying as she watched the expression of his smug, cocksure arrogance shift into terror.

          “Now, Lola, wait just a minute---.”

          But she didn’t wait, she lunged, and buried her nose to snuffle and snarfle like a pig hunting for truffles against his ear. Her tufts of breath and light nibbles around the soft skin sent Raphael into a laughing frenzy, unable to control the dam of his mirthful outburst as the unbearably ticklish sensations of her lips short circuited his senses.

          “Lola!” he guffawed heartily. “Dammit I yield! I yield!”

          She relented in her attack, pulling away from his ear to plant a loving kiss upon his cheek before settling back on his hips, victorious. She released his wrists, resting her hands on the broad plane of his chest that was flushed and slightly heaving from the recent bout of play. He laid beneath her, catching his breath, his hair disheveled and robe splayed open. His eyes sparkled from his laughter, his smile wide and relaxed, and Lola’s heart cocooned in warmth as she remained observing the man with whom even the stars themselves could not compare. A glint of light twinkled in the corner of her left eye, and she reflexively flicked her eyes towards her engagement ring.

          “Are we going to change?” she asked, her voice quiet and tender.

          “Probably,” he answered, equally soft to match her tone.

          “I mean, is this going to change?” Her fingers lightly traced the edge of his chest exposed from the loosened robe. “When we’re married, are we going to eventually drift away from these games and affections?”

          Raphael’s hands came to rest on Lola’s thighs, his thumbs disappearing under the hem of terrycloth bunched up around her legs. “We are going to change,” he said, “but not in the way you’re thinking. If anything, we’re going to find even more ways to be weird. Our relationship is going to grow and evolve the more we grow and evolve to accommodate all the new ways you’ll cause mischief and mayhem and loopholes and schemes.”

          “I’m not all trouble,” she laughed.

          “It’s one of the many reasons why I want you to be my wife, because of your troublemaking talents.”

          “You’re not so innocent yourself, mister. I’ve known you to be a scallywag on occasion,” she teased, prodding his chest playfully.

          “A ‘scallywag’,” he repeated. “I wasn’t aware I had such a devious reputation." His hands moved higher up her legs, completely, now, disappearing under the folds of her robe. She gasped, shifting forward as his palms filled with the roundness of her backside. “However, you are correct. I have plenty of schemes hidden up my sleeves.” He moved his palms in soothing circles on each cheek, and she shivered.

          “Yes, but your schemes involve me more often than not usually underneath you,” she said with a roll of her eyes, the back of her mind having trouble deciding if the sensual attention to her butt was threatening or promising based on his statement.

          “And I plan on spending the rest of our lives crafting more clever and mischievous ways to find you so,” he pledged. His hands stilled when she reached behind her, stopping his ministrations, and he quirked an eyebrow in question.

          “Thank you,” she said, and leaned down, kissing him soundly.

          “I love you,” he announced as their lips parted. “Past, Present, and Future, I love you.”

          “I love you,” she declared against his lips, falling forward to kiss him again. Their mouths worked against each other’s passionately, Lola giving appreciative little moans of encouragement as his hands resumed to knead her ass before trailing his fingers in tingling, heated tracks up and down the backs of her thighs. She had to brace herself against the mattress as he yanked the sash of her robe open, pushing herself up with her hands falling to either side of his head, breaking their kiss and creating a curtain around him of her hair and now fully opened robe. She was completely exposed to him, and he savored every angle and curve and dip of her body, his eyes drinking in her supple form. He swallowed; hard.

          “You’re going to want to grab onto the headboard,” he spoke, his voice laced with gravelly lust, eyes deepening into a darkened sapphire the longer he stared at her hovering above him on all fours.

          Lost in a fog-cloud of hazy, amorous feelings, she soon found herself clutching the top of the sturdy, decorative wooden headboard, her knees still straddling Raphael’s waist, his own body sitting propped up against the soft plethora of satin pillows. She wasn’t sure how he moved them into this new position so quickly, but she didn’t care, as once again his distracting lips landed on her mouth. She moved her hands to grasp his shoulders, wanting to feel him, but he stopped her, guiding her hands back to the headboard.

          “Keep them there,” he said, his lips brushing along her jaw and neck. She nodded in understanding, and he purred. “That’s my girl.”

          “Oh, Jesus,” she gasped as his praise caressed her heart. He commanded in a way that wasn’t commanding, his guiding confidence unraveling her into a sopping puddle of pure bliss. Her head fell back, exposing the vulnerable surface of her neck, and he descended upon her, making sure to favor the fluttering pulse point in feathery kisses, his hands, all the while, exploring, teasing, whispering over tender places. He took his time, treasuring every sound and shivering tremble he coaxed out of her, savoring each pleasurable jolt of electricity that caused her breath to hitch. Her arms began to shake, and he rubbed her elbows as a subtle reminder to keep them from locking up, and she sighed, relaxing when his lips returned to hers.

          The weight of the terrycloth combined with the mingling of their tongues was causing her body to overheat, and she huffed out her frustrations, gruffly mumbling “too hot” as she released the headboard to rid her body of the too cloying fabric, never breaking stride with Raphael as he helped to remove the affronting material. A deluge of rain could be heard pattering the roof as the storm unleashed its fury, the hard staccato of water hitting the windowpanes matching the timing of her wildly beating heart, a crack of thunder rattling her bones as well as the timbers and framework of the house. She embraced him, her hands diving into his hair, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck, flushing herself against him with every plane and curve molding harmoniously together of their bodies.

          “Hands, Dandelion, hands,” Raphael reminded, breaking their kiss to utter his request as he unraveled her arms, again guiding her hands towards the headboard.

          “You’re killing me, Honey Love,” she groaned, taking hold of the bedroom furniture. She shrewdly lowered her hips, slinking down his body to make contact with what she craved, but a light tweak on her backside caused her spine to straighten, a startled yelp of surprise escaping as she reared up high onto her knees.

          “Patience,” he chuckled. “I’m not done honoring your birthday.” Before she could retort, he placed his hands on her waist, holding her steady, and leaned forward to move his lips against her throat. “Happy birthday to you,” he began to softly sing. His heated breath fell over her neck, the vibrations to the low acoustics of his song creating goosebumps to explode and pebble over her skin, her mind frizzling when the kisses at her neck shifted to touch her collar bones to then graze in a devoted, revered gentleness over the tops of her breasts. His nose trailed down her sternum, inhaling her natural scent as he scooted down the mattress, following an imaginary line leading straight to her bellybutton.

          “Happy birthday to you,” he continued the song. His tongue dipped into the hollow of her navel and she nearly fainted from the touch, a strangled, rattling noise of pleasure sounding from the back of her throat as her head fell back from the sensations dancing along the tender skin. Her fingers ached with how hard she clutched the headboard, her body flinching from each delicate swipe of his tongue.

          “Happy birthday, my sweet, delicious Lola,” he sang, descending lower. Teeth nibbled her hip bone, and she could have leapt out of her skin. She was delirious, her head swimming as tiny, electric tickles skittered over every nerve ending, her body hyper aware of her lover’s intended final destination. He lingered too long at her hips, and although the attention wasn’t unappreciated, she feared she was going to collapse if he didn’t proceed.

          “Raphael…please,” she begged, the torturous anticipation of when his lips would move next leaving her breathless, teetering on the verge of her wit’s end.

          He grinned, unable to deny his love of anything. He dragged his fingers down the sides of her waist to grasp her firmly at her hips while peppering her panty line with tantalizing, breathy kisses, easing himself farther down the mattress, concluding his song.

          “Happy birthday to you.”

          All at once, she was flying, surrendering to the dreamy, euphoric weightlessness her soul yearned for, disconnecting from all earthly attachments, her body singing the ancient and sacred song of the angels. A warmth familiar as home bloomed from her chest, crawling up her neck to flush prettily upon her upturned face as every fiber of her body thrummed and pulsated with the language of the universe. Stars erupted behind her eyes in a multitude of cosmic colors as she skyrocketed higher and higher, leaving the world behind, and upon shattering through the clouds of an ethereal dimension, realized heaven had never looked so beautiful.

~*~*~*~*~*~

H-eeey, everybody! Hope you all enjoyed a glimpse into these two lovers' world. Normally, I write closed door/fade to black scenes when it comes to mutually consenting adult special fun time activities, at least, for the public, but I wanted to prop the door open just a little bit.

Plus, we've had a lot of spooky chapters back-to-back, so it was fun breaking up the pace a little bit. More spooky happenings are on the way, so keep an eye out for more of this tale!

Thanks as always for being awesome, and until next time, happy reading!

~Melissa

[misscrawfords]

Hi, I am going to start watching k dramas, so could you recommend some good ones? Which ones do you like best?

Ooh an excellent life choice, if I may say so!

Honestly, what I'd recommend would depend on what you enjoy. My personal tastes are for:

romcoms very low angst

romances with deeper characters, a bit more realistic

thriller/spy stories, usually light-hearted, romantic subplot

fantasy, romantic subplot

For gateway kdramas, I'd recommend:

What's Wrong With Secretary Kim (romcom, a classic)

Hometown Cha Cha Cha (romcom, a few angsty moments)

Crash Landing on You (romcom... ish... angsty!)

Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (romcom with adorable female superhero and serial killer subplot)

If you like predominantly romances, I'd recommend in addition:

Her Private Life (Park Min Young (also in Secretary Kim) is basically a romcom goddess - HPL is v similar to Secretary Kim)

Because This Is My First Life (surprisingly relatable and thoughtful take on contract marriage trope)

Romance is a Bonus Book (less well known as some but just so charming if you like books and bookish people)

Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung (not usually a fan of historical kdramas and this is light on the romcom and heavy on the palace drama but it's genuinely interesting)

Our Beloved Summer (second chances romance, slow burn)

Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo (cute university sports romcom

Business Proposal (only watch when you are well-versed in romcoms - it's hilarious because it makes fun of all the tropes)

No Gain, No Love (still airing but doing something similar to Business Proposal but a bit more subtlely)

Dali and the Cocky Prince (had some flaws and some painful moments for the FL but overall excellent)

Love Next Door (still airing and I had to stop watching because it suddenly got serious and I need to know it ends happily before I force myself through the difficult episodes but really excellent up to that point - so I'm hopeful)

If you like your romcom with a twist:

Healer (another PMY drama, lots of rom but also main plot is a thriller - really excellent)

Marry My Husband (look, I just love PMY... time travel and revenge plot and swoon-worthy rom with plenty of com)

Vincenzo (the Ultimate kdrama for me - I adore it; mafia, revenge, hilarity, romcom- got everything)

My Roommate is a Gumiho (kind of forgettable tbh but I really enjoyed it a lot at the time - fantasy romcom)

Crash Course in Romance (romcom between middle aged people, crash course in the messed up Korean education system and a serial killer - IDK what is going on with this drama but overall it worked?)

Terius Behind Me/My Beloved Terius (a rather obscure one but A+ if you like spy comedy shenanigans with subtle romance)

The King: Eternal Monarch (mixed reception for this fantasy parallel universes romance but I had a Good Time)

And finally, standing all out on its own:

Alchemy of Souls Parts One and Two: just brilliant. Pure epic fantasy. I want 10 seasons in this universe and the novelisations. Should be bigger than Harry Potter.

Something to bear in mind is that most kdramas are 16 episodes and around episode 11... bad things tend to happen! Sudden illness/death/betrayal/breakup/white truck of doom... And while some of them deal with this well, others... don't. Usually it's worth getting over the hump episodes but I have to admit I have a lot of unfinished kdramas. I do keep meaning to finish them... but then another one comes along and I start that instead!

I also recommend getting onto MyDramaList to get recommendations and read reviews and find new dramas to watch as well as keep track of your watching. My list is here.

Enjoy! :D

[catsafarithewriter]

Day 1: Musicals/Music

A/N: Day 1 of the bday bash, let's give it up for day 1 of the bday bash! This was a very late addition to my line up, and was fueled entirely by the image of Baron performing Be Our Guest from Disney's Beauty and the Beast (with Toto as the voice of reason). So this is a BatB AU, but one where Baron is a cursed bystander, not the Beast, and is set at the Be Our Guest part of the plot. Enjoy!

x

It had been nearly five years since the curse had struck, and Toto Morrigan had almost become fond of his corvid form in the intervening time.

This was just as well, since the chances of the curse being broken was dwindling by the day, thanks to the feline-shaped spanner in the works which was Baron. Toto hadn't known much about Baron Humbert von Gikkingen pre-curse, except that he had been a minor noble with a unintentionally charming smile and an affinity for light magic.

Unfortunately, the curse hadn't dimmed either. (Although Toto himself had stopped being distracted by That Damn Smile about two minutes into regularly having to deal with Baron's shenanigans, it still tended to catch the unwary by butterfly-accompanied surprise.)

"I'm surprised by you, Toto," the aforementioned noble said, in the kind of tone that made it quite clear 'surprised' was gentleman speak for 'disappointed'. The look would have been a smit more impressive had he not been a foot-tall cat in a morning suit. "Here we have Haru, a young woman in need of a meal, and you are hesitant to help?"

"It's not the meal part I object to," Toto said. "Rather it's the execution of it I worry for." He shuffled his wings in an attempt to disperse his frustration. "Need I remind you that if any of us wish to be human again, then we need this young woman to fall madly in love with Prince Lune?"

"It'll be somewhat difficult for her to fall madly in love with anyone if she starves to death first."

"One missed meal is not going to starve her;  could we please skip the dramatics?"

"Hunger rarely makes one amenable to romantic advances."

"Fine. Fine." Toto scowled as much as his beak would allow. It was one of the few privileges of humanity he regularly missed. That, and opposable thumbs. "But for all our sakes, keep it low-key, please–"

"Of course." Baron grinned. "But what's a meal without a little music?" And he swung into the dining room with a tap of his cane before Toto could stop him. Toto glimpsed a flash of Baron's light magic just as the door fell shut between them.

Distantly, he heard music rising up, and wondered how far in advance Baron had prepared this nonsense.

Deciding that he'd probably at least see what the damage was, he slipped into the room just as a trio of feline acrobatics (he was fairly certain they had originally been a couple of stable lads and the head groom) flip in time to the music, the light show shimmering through a glass stained window and bathing the room in mesmerising, geometric colours. Their guest looked suitably starry-eyed.

Unfortunately, it was aimed solely at Baron. 

Heavy padded paws, which Toto had come to know well since the curse, stepped up behind him. "You do realise we need her to fall for the prince, right?" Muta grunted.

Toto dignified that with an unintelligible grumble.

"Right. Good to know." There was a dubious pause. "Did ya think to tell him that?"

"I tried," Toto said.

"And?"

"I think he was too excited to perform his light show in front of a new audience." Toto watched as a mime appeared, a sphinx cat who had been responsible for the palace's paperwork until everyone in said palace had been transformed into various beasts. "Just how long has he been organising all this?"

"All of ten minutes, I think."

Toto looked back at his companion, and it was then he discovered Muta was wearing a magician's cape. "Oh no, not you too."

"What?"

"I would've thought you'd have more sense than to get tied up in all of this."

Muta snorted. "Well, that's a filthy lie. We both know your expectations for me are way lower than that."

Despite everything, Toto gave a quickly-curtailed caw. "True, but still – how is any of this going to help Prince Lune break the spell?"

Muta shrugged. "Maybe this ain't about breaking the spell. It's been a weird five years–"

"Four and eleven months," Toto amended, because that extra month meant all the differnce when it came to the curse's deadline.

"Fine. Four and eleven months, and folk need to blow off some steam. Show off. Have some fun. You do know what fun is, birdbrain?"

"I'm fairly certain my sense of humour was taken with the curse," Toto said dryly, but he felt a ghost of a smile his beak wouldn't allow.

"Oh, so you did have one? I'm shocked." Muta straightened as Baron motioned to him with a subtle gesture of the head. "Eh, that's my cue. Don't forget to clap at the end," he said, and winked as he swept forward to take centre stage.

Begrudgingly, Toto stuck around to witness the rest of the show, and he began to realise it was perhaps more impromptu than he'd initially believed. The song played by the two-bit orchestra (instruments and players rusty, but passable) was, now Toto put his ear to it, simply a traditional waltz sped up, with Baron apparently possessing some very impressive ad-libbing skills when it came to lyrics. Each performer was given their time to shine, and fared better than Toto would have expected in fitting their respective skill to the music. (Even if Muta's surprisingly adept sleight-of-paw left Toto wondering if he'd ever applied it to pickpocketing.)

And when the music finally wound down and Baron left the scene with a final flare of light and a bow, Haru was smiling for the first time since she'd arrived at the cursed palace.

Baron found Toto with an ease which implied he'd been aware of the crow's presence for a while. "There, you see?" Baron said. He looked far too pleased with himself. "No problems. I don't think Lune even noticed, and our guest is finally looking more at home here. There's hope for breaking the curse yet."

It was times like this which Toto missed having the ability to shake someone by the shoulders. He thought of the charming grin Baron had thrown Haru's way and her ensuing flushed cheeks, and then he decided such thoughts weren't conductive to things like his blood pressure or Baron's life expectancy.

It was just as well that Toto liked his avian form, he thought, because it didn't look like Haru was going to be breaking the curse any time soon.

[daisywords]

wip intro: The Long, Long Way to Kaminatra

An unlikely duo is conscripted to escort a princess with a target on her head to her coronation in a foreign city

hijinks ensue, the plot does some twists, etc. etc.

Adult/general, alt-world low-magic fantasy, light on the romance, heavy on the adventure and shenanigans

Featuring (from left to right):

Sahl: the weirdest human alive

Edrio: our tour guide through the narrative. Literally just some guy going through a really weird time

Zafiyah: the princess; more to her than meets the eye

First scene under the cut:

Chapter 1: A Stranger in the Dark

Edrio jerked awake to the clang of the cell door. He threw his hands up to shield his eyes from the blinding light, the shackles on his wrists sliding down his arms. 

So this was it then. They had come for him at last. He got to his feet, determined to at least die with dignity. He would face death, look it in the eyes. He squinted through the torchlight to make out the faces of the guards. There were two of them. Oddly, they supported another figure between them, a pathetic, wet rag doll of a person who dangled limply from their grasp. Without a glance at Edrio, the guards threw their cargo into the cell and slammed the door. 

Edrio nearly called after them, but stopped himself. If they weren’t here to escort him to his execution, he certainly wasn’t going to invite them to reconsider. As the guards disappeared around a corner, the last remnants of torchlight faded, and he was left completely in the dark. 

He edged away from the door, skirting the perimeter of the cramped cell to avoid stepping on the new inhabitant. He eased down the wall, pulling his knees in tight. There was no sound from the other side of the cell, not even of breathing. He held his own breath to be sure, but still, nothing. 

Maybe it was some kind of sadistic ritual, throwing a corpse in with a condemned man for his last night alive? To remind him that he, too, would soon be a corpse? As if he could forget. 

Well, if that was their game, he wouldn’t play it. He stretched out his legs, adjusting his chain to get as comfortable as he could. He couldn’t see the corpse, so he simply would not let it bother him. He would show no fear. When death was inevitable, fear was purposeless anyway. 

Edrio had nearly dozed off again when the corpse emitted a low groan. Oh. Not a corpse then. “Hello?” he whispered. 

There was no answer. 

“All you alright?” he volunteered out loud, voice cracking from lack of use. 

Silence from his guest. Edrio sighed and scooted over, feeling over rough stone floor until his hands found cloth. 

The stranger was wet through, but not dripping, as if they had gotten soaked several hours ago and hadn’t had the opportunity to dry. He patted the bundle of rags, finding the shape of a bony knee. He found his way up to the torso, feeling for any obvious wounds. The stranger groaned again. The voice sounded male, from what he could tell. 

Edrio felt his way up to the stranger’s neck, which seemed uninjured, and up to his head. Without warning, teeth snapped at his fingers. Edrio jerked back with a yell, his flailing hands rattling his chain. He brought his bitten fingers to his own mouth and tasted blood—the bite had broken the skin. 

“What was that for?” he snapped. The stranger only hissed and snapped his teeth. 

Edrio retreated, deciding that if the stranger was well enough to bite, he would probably survive the night. And he didn’t seem to be mortally wounded, from what Edrio could tell in total darkness. 

He sucked his bleeding fingers, wishing he had something to disinfect the wound. Not that it mattered. A beheading would do him in much faster than an infected bite. 

Unless they weren’t going to bother with a beheading. Maybe the stranger was rabid. 

“Do you understand Garalá?” he asked. 

Nothing. 

“Ursesh?” he tried. 

The stranger mumbled something faintly. 

“Do you speak Ursesh?” Edrio asked in his clumsy Ursesh. 

“Get away from me,” the stranger spat. That was a yes. 

“Can’t, I’m afraid,” Edrio replied, rattling his chain for emphasis. 

The stranger said nothing. A distant rattling rang from somewhere further down the hall. In the days Edrio had been here, he had become accustomed to the mystery prisoner who would stir up a racket whenever it seemed to strike his fancy, every few hours or so. One had to pass the time somehow. 

After the cacophony of rattling chains and echoing, monkey-like screeches had subsided, Edrio listened again for the stranger, but could hear nothing. It was eerie, knowing that someone else was there in the dark, but sensing only emptiness. He felt prickly, as if the stranger were watching him, even though he knew he would be equally blind. 

“What are you in for?” Edrio ventured. 

The stranger spewed a long stream of words in Ursesh, most of which Edrio was unfamiliar with, and all of which were clearly foul. 

Edrio sighed. Just his luck to receive a companion to break the utter monotony of his last days, only for him to be as close to a feral dog as it was possible for a human to be. He rested his head on his knees and tried to fall asleep. But for someone whom he could neither see nor hear, the stranger was awfully hard to ignore. 

[rk800-is-hot-change-my-mind]

Dirty Tease

Relationship: Gavin Reed/Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+, MINORS DNI)

Content Warnings: nonbinary afab reader (terms used are center, clit, pussy, opening, and tits), teasing, grinding, vaginal fingering, edging, very brief exhibitionism, degradation, choking, piss kink, urolagnia, gavin reed's piss kink, masturbation, aftercare, bath sex, plot what plot/porn without plot, fluff if you squint

Summary: Gavin’s had enough of your teasing, so it’s time for him to disrespect you like you’ve been disrespecting him.

A/N: This was my first time writing a fic! I’ve been meaning to add to the tragically low amount of dbh piss kink works for a while now. Do keep in mind that this is a piss fic, and if that’s not your cup of tea you don’t have to read it :)

Word Count: 1,631

AO3

The shifting of your mattress roused you from your already-light rest. As you soaked in the warmth of your boyfriend to your back, his arms loosely encircling your waist, you felt him gently rocking his hips into yours just light enough that it was clear he was still asleep. When you felt his hardness rubbing against your ass, combined with his low unconscious groaning, you knew you were doomed. So you did what anyone else would do, and carefully moved his right hand from your waist down to your center, pressing it against you. Once he was in the ideal position for your intentions, you began to rut into his fingers, which in turn caused you to grind your ass back against his dick.

Naturally, all this movement soon woke him up (and to be honest, it was a wonder you got this far with him sleeping). In response, he started laying kisses and light bite marks down your neck as he rocked into you with a renewed vigor. When he noticed where you had put his right hand, he dipped it into your sopping-wet boxer-briefs, gathering your pre and using it to circle your clit with his thumb while fucking into you with his fingers.

With incredibly unfortunate timing, your alarm clock sounded right before you could tip over the precipice of your orgasm, effectively edging you as Gavin climbed out of bed to get ready for work despite the pleading look you threw over your shoulder. After being cut off like that, all he and you could do was take a cold shower and change your underwear respectively before going on your less-than-merry way to the precinct.

---

You and Gavin had a mutual understanding that masturbating without each other’s company wasn’t nearly as satisfying as when you were together (whether one watched the other, one got the other off, or both parties helped each other), and therefore was forbidden for the sake of higher pleasure. In an effort to “convince” Gavin to find some manner of satisfaction without breaking the rules, you spent the entire day teasing him with calculated touches and motions. Things like putting your hand on the small of his back as you passed and intentionally dropping things just for an excuse to bend over in front of him.

The stunt that really seemed to set him off was after he called you over to help with a filing issue. In your defense, you did start to help him with his dilemma, but the problem lied with your inability to keep your hands to yourself once you had pulled up a chair for yourself. It started out innocently enough, just a hand on his knee as you sat beside him, but over the next few minutes this seemingly innocuous action turned into your hand slowly running up his thigh, gravitating inward until you had your hand on his crotch as you palmed him through his jeans. If the tent in said jeans and his barely contained groans were anything to go by, you had reached your goal of working him up, only to go back to your desk with a sway in your hips, leaving him hot and heavy and the filing issue long forgotten.

---

Towards the end of the day, you decided to grab a coffee from the break room to ensure you were awake enough for whatever shenanigans (you hoped) would ensue after work. As you were fixing your coffee, you felt Gavin’s warm body pressing up against you from behind, pinning your hips to the counter and pushing his pelvis against you with a clear problem pressing into your ass.

“Gavin, there’s a time and a place…”

“And anyone could walk in at any time?” he cut you off lowly, leaning over your shoulder to whisper in your ear, “That didn't seem to bother you earlier when you were showing off those tight-ass pants, emphasis on ‘ass.’” As he spoke, one of the hands holding your hips slid down the front of those pants and grasped your crotch, completely enveloping your pussy while grinding over your clit with the heel of his hand. “What I don’t think you understand is that there are consequences to your actions, and the goddamn second we get home I’m gonna teach you some fucking manners.”

As quick as he was there, he was gone. When you felt the cold wetness in your boxer-briefs, you realized it was going to be a long couple of hours before your shift ended. In spite of this, your excitement was immeasurable; your plan had worked like a charm. 

---

I definitely deserve this, you thought as Gavin slammed your apartment door, pushing you against the nearest wall by the throat. You tried to swallow your nerves, but his hold on you was too strong for it to be of any use.

“Are you really such a fucking slut that you had to tease me all fucking day,” he snarled. You nodded as best you could in response, only for him to tighten his grip and stare you down. “Well, since you’re so desperate for my cock, get on your fucking knees.” As soon as he released you, you were gasping for the air he had stolen from your lungs.

Once you’d obediently kneeled before him, you heard the tell-tale clinking of Gavin’s belt and looked up to see him unbuttoning his jeans. Expecting to be ordered to suck him off (the usual punishment), you reached to pull him out of his boxers, but he slapped your hand away.

“I’ve been waiting all day for this, saving my bladder just to teach you a well-needed lesson,” he drawled, pulling out his half-hard dick and directing it at you. At a moment’s notice, you felt a warmth spreading across your chest as his piss hit you, soaking into your white camisole and revealing your lace bralette.

A thankfulness for choosing a bra without pads that morning floated in the back of your mind as you let out a pleasured sigh while the pale-yellow fluid ran down your body in rivets, soaking through your jeans and pooling around you on the floor. The smell of your boyfriend’s essence hit your nose and you inhaled deeply, somehow more aroused than put-off by the intoxicating aroma. You found yourself sopping wet in more ways than one, aching for release as his stream tapered off and came to a stop disappointingly soon. If you thought he was finished with you, you were sorely mistaken. Gavin shook off the last few drops before stroking himself to full hardness, letting out a deep moan as he finally found relief from the aroused hell you had dragged him into. (A bit dramatic, but what about him isn’t?)

“God, you look so pathetic soaked in my piss, like the dirty tease you are. Do you actually like this? Did you get what you wanted? Fuck, you’re disgusting, but you’re mine to mark and do as I please with, and I’ll prove that to you as many times as necessary for you to learn your lesson,” Gavin groaned out. You could just barely see the tops of his thighs flexing, signaling for you to close your eyes right as he came all over your tits and face. “Stay there,” he ordered before retrieving his polaroid camera and a couple of towels, taking a photo of you in the state he had left you.

He then helped you up off the floor, wrapping one towel around your waist to catch as much of the dripping mess he had made as possible, and putting the other down on the floor where you had sat in order to soak up as much of the puddle beneath you as he could.

---

After leading you to your shared bathroom, Gavin had you sit on the edge of the large bathtub as he drew you a hot bath, kissing you on your untainted forehead in reassurance. While waiting for the tub to fill, he set about mopping up any drips you had left behind and whatever wasn’t soaked up by the towel on the floor of your foyer, making sure to plug in some seasonal air fresheners to mask any odors not removed by the cleaner he used.

About 15 minutes had passed when he came back to you, finding you stripped and soaking in the bathtub. You scooted forward, giving him enough room to sit snugly behind you. Gavin held you close as he took a soapy washcloth to you, massaging until your skin was no longer tacky and you smelled of roses.

“You’ve been so good for me, sweetheart. Do you want your reward now, or would you like to rest first?” he cooed.

“Now, please,” you responded. In turn, Gavin squeezed a generous helping of the silicone lube left by the bathtub onto his hand, bringing it down to where you wanted him most. He circled your clit before pumping his middle and ring fingers into your opening, always curling them on their way out to hit your sweet spot. After a mere few minutes, you had an earth-shattering orgasm that left you twitching in his arms even after he had removed his hand from your pussy.

“I love you so much, honey,” he murmured into your ear.

“I love you too,” you responded in kind. Gavin took it upon himself to get out first, warming the separate shower to rinse the bath water off of the two of you and clean you once more with a new washcloth. After you had both dried off, you decided to forego clothes and just lie together under the puffy covers of your shared bed for a nice cuddle session, falling into a contented sleep.

A/N: If you understand the reference to roses, I love you (shout-out to pseud for inadvertently giving me the confidence to write this) <3

Please feel free to comment, I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts!

[swordsmans]

i wanna know about this medieval/fantasy au! i’m nosy

it's! pretty scattered and i'm basically trying to work around the one scene in the fight club that will not leave my head, and there are a couple of competing versions, which basically how this whole outline format works. i just... dump everything out and then pick and choose what pieces i like best.

so, there's a version where zoro is a cursed sword demon disguised as a human who was summoned once but could not find his way back to hell, keeps killing every subsequent swordsman who tries to wield his sword, and then is like "fuck it i'll do it myself". in this version he wipes the floor with everyone in the fight club/tournament, accidentally reveals his demon form or w/e and luffy is basically like "i'll free you if you hang with me" and zoro's like "clearly i have no choice. clearly there are no other options" and agrees to be his bodyguard/right hand/something-something. this version revolves around luffy being On The Run for various reasons, and involves mihawk as another (higher) sword demon or smth serving the Big Bad

then there's a version where zoro is just A Guy, maybe already a low-ranking recruit in the royal guard, and luffy is already a prince but sneaks out to do unprincely things (of course). fight club scene happens (instead of a ~demon thing~ they just think zoro cheated or smth), luffy is like "yes, excellent" demands that zoro become his personal guard because he would totally let him get away with shit (and he's kinda cool). this version is more lighthearted/less macro plot heavy, and mostly involves miscellaneous shenanigans in this weird nondescript au. mihawk is (maybe?) captain of the guard, nami is always 0.2 seconds away from committing regicide, and mostly it's all just comedy with light plot flavor sprinkled in.

they're very different ideas for the same au which is why this document is just Soup lol