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thedudegirlentity · 6 months ago

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Lava

Umm, so I wrote my very first Ghost Band fan fiction haha. I'm not nervous about it at all. Nope. But umm, yeah, I cranked this out within two hours lol. I hope you like it! I'll put it below and also try to link to ao3.

also gonna tag the mutual @littlemoon-beam because I really look up to their writing it's so beautiful! Hope you don't mind me tagging you!

Dewdrop didn’t have nightmares. He classed nightmares as something that made you cry, scream and thrash about in your sleep, something that had you jolting awake like you’d been struck by lightning from a cloudless sky. No, Dew didn’t have those, his dreams were more of reminders of something; reflections.

CW: angst, body horror, hurt/comfort, Dewdrop's elemental change, romance, Aether being nasty to Rain for a little bit but it's ok they love each other, Aether being stressed, happy/content ending (whole things feels kind of sombre to me), if I missed any content warnings please let me know!

On this particular night he’d been back in the Pit. He had been warm and snuggled under something, something that was shifting around him with little tickles on his skin. There had been a light sparkling through the stuff around him and he’d had the urge to climb climb climb. His body had been sluggish and slow, not knowing how to move exactly quite yet. If he were to compare that feeling to something he knew now on the Surface, he’d compare it to dragging yourself out of layers of cosy, thick blankets after the best nap of your life. He’d crawled forward and upward and the something around him had shifted some more, slowly falling away so easily to let him into the light and the water above.

The oceans of the Pit were a very peculiar place. They were eerily still with a Siren’s hum always lulling through the currents, and he had learnt quickly to keep low to the sea bed and mind his own business. But in that moment, when he had hatched from the sand and blinked his eyes to his new world, there had been no fear or terror in sight. He was warm, and his warmth would keep him safe.

Now, hundreds of years later, Dewdrop stands in his en suite bathroom on the Surface staring at himself in the mirror. He didn't look at himself with hate or disappointment or anything like that like he knew the others sometimes thought he did. He simply observed himself and took in the details, almost marvelling at how much he’d changed since he’d first been summoned all those years ago for the Ghost Project. He remembered it like it was yesterday.

He’d been lurking around near the shallows in the Pit’s ocean, getting closer and closer to the lava that was spilling in. It was fascinating to watch how the two elements had clashed and melded with each other, hissing and humming and groaning as they met. The colours were beautiful as well. His friend, another water Ghoul had been keeping their distance from the lava, reluctant to risk getting burned or dragged down by the weight of it, yet still inching closer if just to be in arm’s reach of Dew in case they needed to drag him away at a moment’s notice.

But there had been no time for his friend to reach for him, and it wasn’t the lava that dragged him. It had been a sharp pull on his core, so sharp it had doubled him over and left him in shock, allowing his body to go pliant and easy to be pulled wherever he was going. There had been a light, brighter than he’d ever seen and a rhythmic lul of music or voices, repetitive in its chant as he was pushed and pulled and contorted in ways that should have killed him. Then, as quickly as it had happened it had ended, and he found himself on hard, cold stone, gasping and choking on air. He’d felt something warm touch his back and it stayed there even as he tried to wriggle away, quite literally a fish out of water. He’d felt a magic course through his body, wrapping around his lungs and gills like bubbles and suddenly he could breathe. He was breathing air.

That was his first introduction to the power of quintessence, courtesy of Omega. His second introduction had been a blast of energy in the face mere seconds later, courtesy of a newly summoned Aether. Aether had been a ball of chaotic, panicked energy that Dew had felt vibrating in the stone he’d lain on, and he had been so distracting he’d barely noticed that there was another Ghoul summoned with them; Ifrit. Dew had felt very, very small all of a sudden. And fascinated.

The entire ritual summoning had been a chaotic mess, a successful one, but a mess nonetheless. Aether had lost control of his magic and made several people severely dizzy, while Ifrit had jumped up to fight and then immediately fallen over, only to scramble back to his feet and repeat the cycle, spewing fire and smoke from his maw with guttural growls that did nothing to hide the fear. Dew had scurried away into a corner, away from the hands trying to calm him, before making an attempt to book it out of there on legs he didn’t know how to use. Even now it made Dewdrop giggle thinking about it.

It had taken lots of time and patience from their mentors, but the three of them had come to learn their new bodies and lives and worlds. Dew had been restricted to the infirmary as he learned to walk under Mist’s guidance, every step sturdy like a rock with his determination not to fall flat on his face. At some point Mist had started teaching him ballet, as had the other water Ghouls, River and Lake and Water. They all told him it was the best way to learn control of his body, that the combined grace and force of it was similar to that of swimming. He learned to love it, especially when he felt the pure strength of his legs when he walked on his own. Through the entirety of his recovery he asked about his friend, though, nearly begging and pleading with the others to ask the Papa in charge if he could reach down to the Pit again and bring them up to be with him. The others had asked their Papa, but the answer had been a sad, apologetic no.

When Dew had finally been strong enough, he’d been allowed to properly meet Ifrit and Aether, a decision that was quickly regretted by the older Ghouls of the Abbey. The three of them got on like a house on fire and so chaos had ensued. Pranks were being pulled, jokes were being made, shenanigans were being plotted and executed. Their reign was never-ending and they all revelled in it! Of course, they stayed strict with their learning of the instruments for the Ghost Project, a new passion for the art igniting in each of them as they practised. And soon enough it was time for their first tour. It was time for them to be presented to the world as His Dark Lord’s children.

They loved it. They loved the crowd, the music, the travelling, the band, their Papa. They loved each other. Ifrit had quickly fallen head over heels for the band’s air Ghoul, Zephyr, and Lord how the two of them had burned so quickly. It was a quiet but obsessive sort of love, something that could be so loud if you only listened for a little while. Ifrit tended to Zephyr hand and foot, often being batted away playfully, while Zephyr became a guardian angel to Ifrit, ready to strike with venom at anyone who dared belittle the fire Ghoul in any way.

As for Dewdrop and Aether, well. In the present, standing in front of his mirror, Dew turns back to look over his shoulder and through the bathroom door to see the big quintessence Ghoul snoring softly in his bed, relaxed and carefree and drooling slightly. The two of them had met and it had been instantaneous, their energies singing with each other every second they were together. It was so easy, beyond easy. It was natural. Meant to be. It was like they could read each other’s minds with how well they knew each other so quickly. The others had teased them relentlessly for how they first came together, claiming that it wasn’t romantic at all to confess feelings and lay together for the first time on the empty tour bus immediately after a ritual. But both Dew and Aether felt differently.

No, it hadn’t been soft or slow or gentle. It had been frenzied and quick and rough, the pair of them scratching and grabbing and pulling at each other with something akin– something more than desperation. It was the thought of why the hell haven’t we been this close before, why haven’t our souls met before when I know yours so well, how in the ever-loving, hellbent fuck could I go a day without knowing you inside and out.

When Ifrit and Zephyr announced they were retiring, ready to bind their souls together for eternity and just live and exist on the Surface, it came as a surprise to no one, they had all seen it coming from a mile away. What did take everyone aback was the realisation that new Ghouls would have to be summoned to take their places. The Clergy had already found two air Ghoulettes to take Zephyr’s spot in the band, the pair of them floating around in the clouds of the Pit with no idea what was being planned for them. However, the Clergy had been having increasing trouble finding a suitable fire Ghoul for the lead guitar.

It was a known fact that unlike other elemental creatures, those made of fire and brimstone were notoriously powerful and dangerous, which made them near impossible to lure in and keep under a semblance of control. Alpha had been summoned because he was older, no less dangerous mind you, but simply a calmer flame than most. Ifrit had been summoned almost by sheer luck, his youth and curiosity and willingness to just see what happens being what led him to the Surface. They were both lucky shots that happened to land, nothing more. And their new Papa was... new. Every one of them loved Copia without sway, he was kind and gentle and thoughtful and passionate about the Ghost Project, but he had also been shoved into a position he was nowhere near ready for. There was no way he’d be able to summon a fire Ghoul, at least not one that wouldn’t kill everyone on site.

The Clergy had been running out of time and they needed to summon the new Ghouls soon, otherwise the Ghost Project would have to be cancelled. It had all of them scrounging the library for any potential answers to their problem, all of them desperate to help their Papa and to remain children of the Dark Lord. And that was when Dew had found it.

Dew had poured over the summoning texts night after night, wanting to be ready or when he would take the place of mentor one day like the others did for him, but the text that he found in the library was so strange and different yet still similar enough that he could decipher it. It wasn’t a summoning, no, it was a changing. Dewdrop translated the text on his own and read through it over and over and over and over again until he had memorised it, and then he read through it again just to make sure and convince himself it was possible. That was when he took it to Aether.

As ready as Aether was to try new things and take a couple risks here and there, a contradiction to his healer status he’d earned in the infirmary that Dew always found funny, he was incredibly reluctant to let Dew go through such a life-changing endeavour, one that could very well kill him. It was their first true argument that led to tears and sobs and concerned looks from the others, having never seen the two fight before. But slowly, or quickly, neither of them quite remember, it turned into hushed whispers and promises that could never hope to be kept in mortal bodies, yet they made them anyway because Aether knew Dewdrop would walk through any fire to get to him, and Dewdrop knew Aether would pull apart any galaxy to bring him back.

And so, together, they took the Text of Elemental Changing to Papa Copia.

Due to the Clergy’s demands, Dew’s transition would take place the same day as the summoning of the new Ghouls, which put everyone on edge. Half of them thought that the Clergy wanted Copia to fail, that they’d grown tired of the Ghost Project as a whole and was just waiting for the opportunity to turn around and point fingers, claiming that Copia was no good and that it should all be abandoned. They all agreed they could not let that happen.

Before Dew stepped into his ritual circle, he told Papa of his old friend in the Pit’s ocean, one of the most graceful Ghouls he had ever met. He told of how he hoped he would see them again if the Lord allow it, and Papa understood what Dew was asking, nodding his head with a smile that said I will do my best.

And then the ritual began and Dewdrop burned.

The feeling started with a warmth in his core. A warmth that felt so familiar it confused him. It grew larger and larger and hotter and hotter until he could feel every nerve in his body, not quite hurting just yet but enough of a sensation that had him twitching. And then it kept going and it did start hurting. Dewdrop looked down at his light blue hands and watched them turn pink and then gold, and then it was flaking off like tiny leaves blowing in a nonexistent wind and revealing black underneath. The flakes of skin were variants of grey billowing around him as the ritual continued, but it was when he watched his fins shrivel up like melted plastic did he start screaming. The bioluminescence of his fins and scales hardened into a solid colour Dew didn’t know before wrinkling and shattering and peeling off his body, now useless. The gills on his ribcage and neck burned furiously and he almost threw up when he looked down at himself, seeing the flicker of flames poking out of the slits and chasing the oxygen in the air. They’d already burnt through the oxygen in his lungs.

The heat that was inside him was unbearable and the only thing that was keeping him sane in that moment was the memory of the promise he made to Aether. He couldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t. He started thinking about his friend from the ocean, the one Papa was trying his best to get back to him. If they did make it to the Surface they would need a mentor and as the last water Ghoul summoned that was Dew’s job, right? He couldn’t leave his friend.

Somehow the heat got hotter and hotter before surpassing the point of being molten. Then suddenly, Dewdrop thought of the lava in the Pit. He thought of how it had sizzled and groaned as it made its way forward, creeping sideways and downward at a leisurely pace. And the colours had been beautiful, as well. The lava was dangerous and deadly but it was also calm and serene. It destroyed like fire but moved with the grace of water. And that was when the pain made itself at home in Dewdrop’s body, except it wasn’t pain anymore. It was him. It was Dewdrop. All those hundreds of years marvelling at the heat, longing for the warmth that he had felt when waking up for the first time under the sand, and he had finally found it again, except this time in ashes.

Dewdrop raised his aching head, body trembling uncontrollably and swaying with the lack of energy. Aether had energy. He needed Aether. The ashes he was buried under fell away from around him as he forced himself to his hands and knees. When did he fall over? He needed Aether.

“D–Dewdrop?”

He looked to his side, following the voice and found himself looking into the beautiful blueish-purple eyes he thought he might never see again.

“Rain.” he murmured.

Then he collapsed and everything went dark.

Aether had told Dewdrop that he’d been in and out of consciousness for weeks before he finally woke up properly. He’d also told him that it’d been the happiest, most relief-filled moment of Aether’s entire life. The short time after waking up is still hazy to Dew, but he remembers how wet his hand had been from where Aether had been crying on it. He also remembers how he’d thrown up nothing but water for days over the side of the bed, specks of ash flying out along with it. The aftermath of the Changing is what Omega had said. A bloody nuisance is what Dewdrop had said.

The recovery was relatively quick, which surprised everyone but Dew. Within a handful of weeks he was walking around and eating solid foods, joking with some and asking how others were. He asked about Rain and the other new summons, and he didn’t miss how Aether’s face twitched into a frown for a nanosecond before the quint informed him of what had been happening. Dewdrop kept a close eye on Aether’s reactions every time he mentioned or asked about Rain, noticing how his eyes would turn downward and he’d start fiddling with the rings on his fingers. He didn’t want to dance around the subject, so after a good few days of this awkwardness he asked him straight what was going on, and that’s when Aether had started crying and begging forgiveness. For what?

Aether had hated Rain. In the beginning, anyway. Aether told Dew of how the moment he had collapsed after the Changing, Rain had lunged over his body to protect him from the strangers they now found themselves surrounded by. He explained how logically he knew Rain was scared and confused and doing everything in his power to protect the person they’d lost so many years ago, but in doing so they’d stopped Aether from getting to Dew. They’d stopped him from helping his love, his mate, his other half. And Aether had hated him for it. He’d hated how this lanky water Ghoul had been there all of five seconds and blocked him from his love, had hissed and growled and snarled at Aether to stay away or else, as if he would ever do anything other than handle Dewdrop with care. The other water Ghouls had had to step in, using their likeness to Rain to appeal to them and convince them that they were safe, that Dewdrop was safe and loved and would be taken care of. Aether expressed how those tantalising seconds in which Rain made their decision to trust the others had felt like something cruel ripping pieces of his heart, mind and soul out piece by piece.

Rain had visited Dew in the infirmary as well when he was still asleep, holding his hand and speaking words of love and worry and prayer. Aether had almost torn the water Ghoul to shreds for that, wrestling with the stupidity of what he was considering and the pure realness of what he was feeling.

Dewdrop was asleep and Aether was at war.

Aether told Dew of how he’d forced himself to think of all the stories Dew had told him about Rain, about how sweet and charming and kind and shy the water Ghoul was. He’d forced himself to swallow the words of poison he so wanted to spit at Rain, replacing them with practised care and sympathy he was used to doing as a healer for the Abbey. But then Rain had apparently seen through his mask and told him to yell at them, to scream and cry and tell them that he hated them. Rain had always been too good at reading people, Dewdrop would remember. And so Aether had. He’d spat the words that tasted like coal on his tongue and cried while he did it, his chest caving in as he’d continued to look at the water Ghoul before him, each word he spoke getting weaker and weaker until he was just crying into Dewdrop’s limp hand, blubbering apologies over and over. Rain sat through it all until Aether was whimpering, which was when they stood from their chair on the opposite side of Dew’s bed, rounded it and wrapped their long, cool arms around the bigger Ghoul who all but fell into them.

Rain had taken care of Aether that evening, sitting with him by Dew’s bed and sharing stories of his own from their time in the Pit’s ocean. Rain had told Aether some of Dew’s best moments, worst moments and embarrassing moments, the last of which Dewdrop swore he’d get payback for. The two of them had gotten to know each other and learned to like each other, but what made Aether love Rain was when the water Ghoul told him very sternly that he was to never speak to them with that level of disrespect again. Shy as Rain might be they were not to be messed with and Aether had suddenly realised how themselves and Dew had gotten on so well, and he loved it.

When Aether had finished spilling his guilty confession, Dewdrop wrapped his love in his arms and kissed his face all over, telling him how proud he was of him. Aether cried again and Dewdrop joined him, and that was the first time since transitioning that Dew was allowed out of the infirmary.

And now here he stands in the present, the feeling of sand and ash on his skin as he observes himself in the mirror. Years have passed since the Changing, and he knows that he’s changed some in personality as well. As if people don’t change as they grow older anyway. He’s still mischievous and teasing, that will never change, but he knows he’s more reserved now. Stoic. It’s not down to anything bad, per se, he just feels older. He talked with Alpha and Ifrit about it at some point, when he worried something was wrong with him in a moment of anxiety, and the three of them talked it through. They talked about the different fires they all have burning within them and how they can change as the flame flickers. Dewdrop told them about the lava and they told him that he has become the lava.

Stoic and strong and sure.

Deadly and dangerous and ruthless.

Graceful and elegant and beautiful.

Dewdrop looks at his ash grey skin and the marks of his old bioluminescent scales which are now a misty white. He looks at his pitch black hair that falls down his back like a waterfall. He looks at his horns, the bases grey like his skin before fading to white. He looks at the gills on his ribs and neck, not scarred over but slitted gaps that suck in the oxygen his fire needs to grow, the same slitted gaps that let out smoke when he’s angry or pent up. Finally, he looks himself in the eye and sees the glow of the lava in the Pit’s ocean looking back. He sees that light he saw all those years ago for the first time.

Dewdrop is warm, and his warmth will keep him safe.

#ghost band fanfic #dewdrop ghoul #dewdrop ghost #aether ghoul #aether ghost #the band ghost #the band ghost fanfiction #rain ghoul

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prettycottonmouthlamia · 9 months ago

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My Thoughts on Santalla

lul bad just use Eyja instead

Are they gone? Did I bait them into trying to find the upvote button on tumblr? Good good.

Now I'm going to do a lot of work arguing Santalla from a position of general good faith and wanting to encourage others to experiment with her. That cannot be done without acknowledging that her class, the Splash or AoE Caster, is one of the worst in the entire game. They have very high DP costs, limited range, and pretty low attack speed. This results in a pretty poor DPS even for a class that's meant to manage crowds of enemies. I'm sure we can all post funny numbers about how Eyja does like 8 billion damage. Let's push past that for now. Splash Casters still have their perks. Santalla HP: 1,640 (+155 from Module) ATK: 770 (+90 from Trust) (+32 from Potential 4) (+70 from Module) DEF: 123 RES: 20 Redeployment Time: 70 seconds (-4 sec from Potential 3) DP Cost: 33 (-1 from Potentials 2 and 6) (-8 from Module) Attack Interval: 2.9 seconds Talent: After being deployed for 20 seconds, this unit gains ATK +15% and Status Resistance (+3% ATK from Potential 5) (-5 seconds and +5% ATK from Module)

Let's start with a discussion of the basics. The stats. While not super notable, she is the bulkiest of the 5-star Splash Casters, having better HP and DEF than all of them. She's a little less bulky than either Mostima or Dusk (and considerably less if its Module X Dusk, which it won't be), but this isn't a tanking class so its not a major deal.

Her offense is the key part of the show here. Her ATK with just her trust bonus is 860, which doesn't stack well against Lava's 888, Leonhardt's 863, or Skyfire's 874. Mostima's 939 and Dusk's 1,028 ATK seem to have pigeonholed Santalla into a bulky, unoffensive position.

Santalla's talent is an incredible saving grace here. It's easy to activate and will always be active when her skill is up, and the resulting 15% ATK boost puts her effective ATK at 989, making her more comparable with the 6-stars. The key here, when compared with Leonhardt's, Skyfire's, or Dusk's talents is the general ease of this talent. 20 seconds sounds like a lot, but at Mastery Level 3, her S2 has a 20 second charge time on deployment, so its downtime that's already covered.

If you were to push Santalla to her peak performance, here is how her ATK would compare to the others:

Santalla: 1,183 Lava the Purgatory: 950 Leonhardt: 1,013 (He will always have one stack of his talent due to how video games work: with 8 enemies in range his ATK is 1,351) Skyfire: 977 Mostima: 1,055 Dusk Module Y: 1,144 (Potential max of 1,556 with 18 kills) Dusk Module X: 1,142 (Potential max of 1,690 with 24 kills)

Truthfully, the raw attack stat isn't the most relevant thing on the block. But it does give a decent indicator of what exactly Santalla is working with, and the fact that she can hang with the 6-stars while off-skill is genuinely really impressive, although Leonhardt is probably a little bit better than her at that.

Also worth noting that she gets Status Resistance from her talent. This is cool. Not like, the most insane thing in the world but getting less owned by status occasionally comes up.

From this point forward, I will be discussing what I consider Santalla's base (Max Level and 100% Trust) and near max power (all the goodies, except for potential BUT you get whipped cream to use as you like), and that her talent is always active. This is to give players who maybe are a bit worried about investing her module some idea of how much it impacts her. For the latter, keep in your head that her ATK with her talent up is 1,116.

Her base DPS, assuming she is attacking an enemy with 0 RES, is 341 damage per second. With her module, this increases to 384.

Skill 1

I'm not going to go over this one in detail. No one is wowed by Swift Strike gamma. But to go over what it does to her DPS briefly: +45 ASPD is enough to reduce her attack interval to 2 seconds flat. At base, Santalla's ATK will go up to 1,376, giving her a DPS of 688, about a 102% increase. With her module, she will have an ATK of 1,534, resulting in a DPS of 767, or a 100% increase.

This makes sense. Since Santalla's talent already gives her a decent ATK buff, the improved ATK buff from her module will create a little bit more diminishing returns, and on the whole, the DPS increase is than the expected amount at 210%. On a whole, if you raise this all the way up, Santalla does double damage over 35 seconds. Probably not jumping out of your seats on that one.

Skill 2

Oh boy, this skill. This skill has a lot to cover, let's start with the description.

[Attack Range expands, Attack Interval shortens massively, and attacks now summon icicles over random areas within range. When the icicles fall, all enemies in the area are inflicted with Cold for 1 seconds and dealt 90% of Santalla's ATK as Arts damage.]

Going over it in detail: -Santalla's range expands to include the 4th row, identical to Marksmen snipers -Her attack interval is reduced by 2.4 seconds, all the way down to 0.5 seconds. This means she will attack twice a second, getting in 30 attacks over her skill duration. -Randomly is both correct and not correct. It's time to bring in diagrams.

Icicle falling is semi-random. One icicle will fall in column B (the left column), followed by an icicle in column D (the right column), and finally by an icicle in column C (the middle column). Using the diagram as a metric, you can consider it like this:

Random(B1, B2, B3, B4) THEN Random (D1, D2, D3, D4) THEN Random (C1, C2, C3, C4). (Yes, she can target her own square, this is a reminder to always double check your thinking lol) -Her icicles explode with a radius of 1.5 tiles. To explain what this looks like:

Here is an Attack on "C2". Fortunately, Santalla's effects make it really easy to visually confirm this. Even as she is slaughtering Originium Slugs.

-Cold for 1 second might initially give the impression that Santalla needs to chain together back to back hits with her skill in order to inflict and sustain freeze. This isn't true: she does however need to score a hit within the next two hits.

youtube

I would watch the first six seconds or so on 0.5x speed and count. Santalla is allowed to miss one of her hits and still keep her cold and freeze going. This is going to be really important once we talk about how her probabilities work.

-Each attack will deals damage equal to 90% of Santalla's ATK. This is a modifier applied after her attack buff from her talent, but BEFORE Res is applied. We'll be talking about her damage primarily in 0 RES situations, but this will be important later on for an example. For now, at base, Santalla's icicles will do 890 damage, and with her module they will do 1,004 damage. This is an 11.1% decrease in damage.

With all of that out of the way, phew, let's talk about the skill as a whole. This is a crowd control skill that looks to freeze enemies with multiple icicle hits. This is a pretty nice idea actually. Freeze is a really powerful source of crowd control and an enemy could theoretically be pinned down for the entire 15 second duration. Critically also, being Frozen reduces enemy RES by 15, giving Santalla some sneaky extra damage. This naturally relies on quite a bit of luck though, and enemy position is really, really important.

In particular, you might have been clever and noticed a connection between her attack pattern and how many hits she needs to land to Freeze an enemy and sustain the Frozen condition. The initial hit needs to land, and then one of the two next hits also needs to land. This means that, for any given enemy in her attack range, they need to be hit by an icicle from a different column in order to be frozen.

This also plays very weirdly with enemies outside of her attack range. Since the icicles have an explosion range of 1.5 tiles, she can hit enemies outside of her attack range, but whether she can freeze them or not is actually dependent on where exactly they are outside of her attack frame.

Geometry is fucking sick y'all.

Due to the rules of how this works, Santalla cannot actually freeze enemies outside of her attack range if they are on either side of her attack range. The only icicles that can hit those areas are all from the same column, so it's not viable. Only at the very front and directly behind her attack range are viable options, and its pretty specific both in location and which icicles have to fall. But it is technically possible.

Since we know the rules and can properly map out how each icicle will impact the map, we can do something really interesting: we can calculate a general probability as a guideline for how likely an enemy is to be frozen when in any specific tile. Do note for this I am assuming the enemy is in the center of the tile and not moving. This is a guideline, I am not smart enough to brain out every possible solution and factoring in movement is about my brain grade.

We can discount the middle tile of icicles because those won't factor in here. Assuming out helpful little enemy in C3 was hit, what are the chances that Santalla will freeze him with her next two attacks? Well the left column and the right column have three viable options out of four, so this is pretty simple to figure out. We only need one to hit, so we can include all solutions that include a positive left and right hit (56.25%), all solutions that include a positive left and negative right (18.75%), and vice versa (18.75%). The only solutions left are two negative hits (6.25%) which is out failure rate, giving us a success rate of: 93.75%!

(This is assuming all squares are weighted equally.)

Since the spread is symmetrical, we only have to test for 8 different locations. B1 and D1 are essentially the same but flipped after all.

B1/D1: Only hits in C1 and C2 are positive. This gives us a 50% chance. B2/D2: C1, C2, and C3 are positive. 75% chance. B3/B4: C2, C3, and C4 are positive. 75% chance. B4/D4: C3 and C4 are positive. 50% chance. C1: B1, B2, D1, and D2 are positive. 75% chance. C2: B1, B2, B3, D1, D2, and D3 are positive. 93.75% chance. C3: B2, B3, B4, D2, D3, and D4 are positive. 93.75% chance. C4: B3, B4, D3, and D4 are positive. 75% chance.

The cool thing about rectangles is they are symmetric both ways, which makes the actual math part of this a lot easier. In general:

The closer to the center of the attack range an enemy is, the more likely they will be frozen and remain frozen.

There's one little quirk though I forgot to mention. While icicles will fall randomly in her attack range, they will not fall in squares that are considered out of bounds such as squares occupied by a wall. I mean come on, there couldn't be a map that could be abused with, could there?

Let's say we are sick and tired of that bastard Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter, and he's parked in the center of the first row, and we park Santalla right below him.

Suddenly the top two rows are out of bounds, so when Santalla uses her skill, she will only attack six squares. What happens to the poor Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter who is sitting in C2?

Well C2's positive hits are B1, B2, D1, and D2. Those are the only squares Santalla can hit. So Santalla will perma-freeze the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter and hit him with all 30 of her attacks of her skill!

(2 * (Damage * 0.5)) + (28 * (Damage *0.65)) is the formula that will tell us how much damage the fighter will take.

At base, the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter will take: 17,074 damage. With module, the Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter will take: 19,288 damage.

We did it gang. We killed the 10,000 HP Sarkaz Guerilla Fighter because this stage gives him a hidden HP buff. Santalla is the greatest.

Well...no. Even if you can guarantee all 30 hits will lands on an enemy with 0 RES, your total skill damage comes out to 26,700 and 30,120 damage respectively. It is a genuinely pretty impressive DPS, sitting at 1,780 and 2008 respectively, but this requires not only good positioning but also very intentional knowledge of the map. There will be maps where it is simply impossible for Santalla to do this.

You might be wondering what the chances of an enemy in tiles C2 or C3 are of getting hit with all 30 attacks from Santalla's skill. Fortunately, that's very easy. We take the success rate on any attack (75%) and multiply it by itself the number of times we need. 0.75 ^ 30. That can't be that bad right?

0.018%. It's pretty low. Comparatively, you might ask, what are the chances a corner tile enemy is never hit? Well we thankfully can avoid all right-side hits, as those will never hit an enemy on the left side. 10 are automatic misses. The remaining 20 are 50/50s. 0.5 ^ 20.

0.000095%. So okay, to be entirely fair, its really unlikely you will just never hit an enemy. Santalla will generally do _some_ damage and inflict Cold. If you can deploy blockers to keep enemies from leaving her attack range, chances are she's going to do decent work.

The big problem with this skill, the reason I made all the graphics and did the probabilities and what not, is that Santalla is inconsistent. Unless you're smart and use her wisely, there's a good chance that she can not perform to what you need her to do. Figuring how much of an impact she'll have on average is frankly a level of math I'm not qualified to do, but you have to construct her greatest scenarios deliberately. She's not quite plug and play.

Conclusions

There's probably an argument that whatever you want Santalla to do, Gnosis can do better. That's likely true. He's way more consistent at locking down large crowds of enemies with freeze and maintains a pretty good sum of damage on them too. But I think Santalla is the kind of operator who while inconsistent, is going to be fun to optimize and make work. Getting Santalla to work is rather rewarding thanks to the combination of her good DPS and a powerful 14.5 second permafreeze. But you won't always be able to make that happen, and I think planning around her inconsistency will also be an important part in managing her viability.

I think its actually a really good idea to pair her with Gnosis. The massive Fragile debuff Gnosis provides happens at the very end of the damage calculation, which is quite impactful. Santalla can be comboed with other strong crowd control operators too, such as Magallan (lesbians for life), and Saria.

Plus I'm sure if you do the dumbshit buffing set-ups she can take out Patriot. Chop chop. Make it happen.

#arknights #santalla #if you ask why this is so long fuck you i figured out how to make good looking diagrams for arknights shit i deserve this

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xbalayage · 9 months ago

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A Hidden Feeling

Silvio/Reader

WC: 1,055

A/N: This is my gift for @violettduchess for @ikemenlibrary's gift exchange! I haven't been much into the fandom anymore and I apologize for that! But thank you Bryn for hosting such a fun exchange that I got to be a part of and even though I haven't written Silvio in a while, I hope this turned out okay! ❤️

You didn't expect a man on the streets of Rhodolite to pay you any mind, let alone a whole prince from another country. Now, he's offering you what he considers a “once in a lifetime” deal to be in a fake relationship with him. The circumstances were that his father was getting sick of him and needed him to find a suitable wife and produce an heir, but the woman chosen was… not at all his type. Just the same kind of woman he'd toy around with for fun and that was it. Definitely not one he'd even consider himself marrying!

“Look, we both get somethin’ out of this. Ya get my old man off my back and you get a chance to be with me.”

By his logic, it seemed only he was benefiting from this. But even through his brash behavior, you couldn't help having a massive crush on him for the longest time now, completely enamored by the man portrayed in his books about his adventures.

You both sat as a cozy little tea/diner place in Rhodolite for him to unleash his idea on you, stealing you away from both Rio and the other princes to try and convince you of this crazy scheme of his. And, you'd hate to admit it, but after sipping the delicious tea the establishment had to offer, you gave him a smile. "Sure, I can do that for you.”

The look on his face was priceless. He expected a smart comment, a sneer, your usual back talk but ... you actually agreed? If only you could take a picture to frame and hang it on your wall, you'd hate to forget the expression of complete dumbfoundedness.

" ... What's the catch? Why'd you go and just agree so easily? That's not like ya.”

Of course, he'd be confused. But you couldn't help the easy, amused chuckle that escaped, his face reddening in embarrassment. It's cute that he thought he had you pegged.

"Simple! I choose all we do today and you have to comply! Easy enough, right?" He'd shoot an uneasy glare your way but forfeit any argument. Time was of the essence and he didn't have time to try and find another noblewoman to take your place.

The day started in the gardens; the sweet floura wafted the surrounding air with its springtime presence, the sun beaming down on them like a warm hug to welcome them. They sat quietly on a bench as the breeze tickled their hair, swaying in a dance upon the wind. Some flower petals were spared from their buds to drift silently past. The simpleness helped relax your mind as you lul your eyes closed to absorb it all in. Silvio laid casually with his arm behind the bench behind you, not truly understanding the silent take of the beginning of the date but couldn't help himself to stare at you and your beauty as you sat picturesque amongst the scene before him.

That's when ... you first started to catch his eye. Granted, he's always had an eye on you from afar. From the way you held yourself to how you spoke to other people, always baring your heart on your sleeve for the world to see. How could you be so brazen and careless to show your weakest point? He didn't understand it. But, it piqued his curiosity about you. His sea ridden glaze stayed on you for the longest ... until your eyes fluttered open did he make sure his stare turned away.

Your smile was brighter than the sun on the coldest days. The nervous chuckle you expressed was like the melody to his favorite song. Your touch upon his hand to lead him away to your next location sent shivers of goosebumps along his skin and your eyes, those hinted of warm chocolate ravaged his heart unhealthy.

What ... exactly was this feeling? What was wrong with him? For now, he bottled it down.

You tugged him along to the vendor stands in town, elated to show him every little incentive Rhodolite had to offer from their foods down to the littlest of trinkets. He ... smiled at your childlike excitement for your hometown and all it had to offer. Once the distraction was over, you turned to him and noticed that handsome smile and thought, "why doesn't he smile like that more?”

Surprisingly, he held your gaze for but a moment with that smile before he realized what he'd been doing, quickly turning away with a tint of red dusted on his cheeks. He brushed the expression off to claim some excuse but you didn't mind at all. It ... seemed like he was enjoying himself.

As the day trinkled to sunset and the sky had painted itself into hues of pink and orange, the last spot you had in mind was to get into a small boat and relax on the waters; on some occasions, Rhodolite would shoot fireworks at night during some celebrations and luckily, they were going off tonight. You thought it would be a perfect end to an adventurous day.

He didn't deny the idea and continued to observe you quietly through your energetic rambles and explanations, finding himself more relaxed with you and a smile always tugging at the edge of his lips. It was then he knew as the sparkle in your eyes looked to him once more, something he'd been keeping in his heart and denying a possibility of happening, that he had ... feelings or even, love for you.

Eyes stared at one another in silence as the moments passed, neither of you daring to look away. You both felt it, huh? That warm feeling in your stomachs as your hearts raced. Silvio went on a whim and reacted. His hand carefully reached to cup your face with both of his hands, looking again into your eyes for approval before he swallowed his pride and leaned in, allowing his lips to collide with yours.

In that moment, the sounds and colors of fireworks sketched themselves across the skies, falling like fireflies around you. The kiss lasted like a lifetime, like hearts had mended into one. No words were exchanged, lips never parted and hearts never stopped racing. That's when he knew, without a doubt.

He was in love with you and everything you were.

#violettduchess #ikemenlibrary #silvio #ikepri silvio #ikemen prince silvio #silvio ricci #ikemen prince #ikepri #my fics.

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moonstruck-muses · 3 months ago

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same taste of heaven anon back again :) i have so many thoughts omg. first, your idea of the flashes of memories coming back to yn- that would make me so sick. it's so bizarre the first time that surely it must've been a weird dream that just came back to her or smth. and then she gets more and more and seems too vivid to be a dream. literally would have me throwing up bc wtf do you mean my bf drinks my blood without telling me and then makes me forget. god i would be so scared too LOL. idk if you've developed the lore this much in your head but like, would that mean yn just has blackouts in her memory? like she has no recollection of that night if the venom made her forget? oh and also, does the venom get into her blood automatically and the memory loss just happens to be a side effect? and then once jake realizes she forgets after he's like oh nice i didn't know it works like that i'm gonna keep doing it. or does he deliberately poison her to make her forget? either way he's shitty but like lmao

also i loved the fic btw so this is not hate!! but how shitty is he to literally get into a relationship with her and just keep the vampire part a secret when this man is literally IMMORTAL so like eventually she would have to choose to leave him or stay. because he wanted to tell her the entire time but just didn't. how selfish 😭

i needed to finish the plot before bed last night i imagined that the venom wasn't as strong as he thought it would be to fully make her memory go away, so it's hazy when she wake up but she has enough of it to remember and confront him. so he's like oh shit did not see this coming. and then she gets really upset and mad. like she is SO hurt, the angst is going CRAZYYYY. then she's like you're my boyfriend, how could you do this to me! how could u literally pierce my skin multiple times and drink my BLOOD and deliberately make me forget about it! how could you lie to me the whole time!!!,, i asked for the truth and you promised you would tell me how could you do this! and he's like i'm sorryryyy i was just saur scared ilysm i couldn't bear to lose you :(( and she's like yeah that's real i understand, and ilysm but jakey i do not want to be a vampire i literally do not want to live for eternity :/ i like being a human and there is no reason for me to live that long (it was getting a little personal here, like i think 90 years on earth is enough for me tyvm). and then they get sad and hug it out and wtv. i didn't know how to resolve it so i left it there lul

SWEET SWEET NONNIE!!! I almost cried when I saw this, you have no idea how much this means to me have somebody interact with my art like this <3 I hope your pillow is always cold and your blankets always fluffy.

SO the mechanics of how the mind wipe works (and with the wound disappearing with the lick) is actually a little power I borrowed from Vampire the Masquerade, which is a ttrpg I really love. There's two abilities one called Cloud Memory and the other The Forgetful Mind. Cloud Memory is simple--you simple erase a moment of the memory and the victim will be none the wiser to it as long as they don't press on the memory. Then they'll realize something is wrong. The Forgetful Mind is a little more complex, as in that one you're actually rewriting the victim's memory, and giving them false memories to replace it. I wrote Jake's little stunt as a middle ground between the two. So Y/N would wake up the next morning and she'd know they fucked and boy it must've been spectacular but she'd definitely forget the details of what exactly happened (i.e. the venom). A shitty move of Jake for sure--but alas I am a vampire apologist, and wasn't lying when I said this was self indulgent (God please send me a vampire boyfriend I can make him worse). Two things about me: I will die for Jake, and the only thing I love in this world more than Enha is vampires (as you may guess, me discovering Enha's concept was very detrimental to me. In fact my roommate laughed in my face and said "Good Luck!' when I forced him to watch the Drunk-Dazed video).

And yes sweet nonnie--not interpreting this as hate at all! As a reader, I hate being given very morally black and white characters, it takes a lot of intrigue out of a story, and doesn't give us the tension we seek. Morally grey characters (like my vampire Jake) give us two sides of the story. He's being objectively shitty, and taking away so much agency from Y/N, and yet he loves her, and doesn't know how to face the truth because he is, like you said, selfish! His fear of being alone causes him to act in a way that endangers Y/N and only worsens his case when the inevitable happens. I like to think it adds a little spice, where you can see the sweetness and we see the POV of Jake giving Y/N what she's dreamed of and more, but from his POV we see the selfishness and the monstrosity of what he's doing and the danger he puts her in every time he drinks and then wipes her mind.

And TEEHEE just giggled and kicked my feet. I love your interpretation of the ending. I think it's just so fundamentally sad if Y/N wants her mortality but that doesn't mean she'll always be able to keep Jake, and because of that Jake doesn't have a choice but to let her go. How long will they let this relationship last? People will realize he doesn't age, and what happens when she gets to an age where she doesn't feel comfortable being with him anymore? What if she wants a family and a life? So many thoughts so many possibilities! <3

#chat.txt #nonnie #I CAN YAP ABOUT THINGS FOREVER

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capcavan · 1 year ago

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It’s me again! I loved your thoughts on Jack and Sheena! I always see so little of him and it’s always “he’s a homophobic asshole who is bad at exy and jealous of Neil for getting Kevin’s attention” but I genuinely think there’s so much more to that. I feel like he did want to be a Raven and he wants to see the mighty Kevin and Riko. Now for his personal issues with Neil I think it’s something like he hates how everyone adores Neil because he believes he’s a better player who has worked SO much harder then him. He’s memorized all the Raven exercises and pushed himself harder than anyone. He deserves to be recognized. In my personal opinion (which I can’t wait to hear your ideas on him) I believe that he hasn’t gotten away from his abusers and is still actively in a situation where he has not gotten over his problems and that’s why he’s so angry all the time. He’s an amazing player and one that stuck out to Kevin Day. He is probably so excited to meet his idols and play on a team with them. Only to be disappointed at how different it is from what he pictured. Sorry for the ramble by the way!

No need to apologize I love hearing that! It's funny to see how different people give depth to the background characters. Jack is really more of a concept for fanbase. Can't really blame people for simplifying him like this we haven't really got much to work with and sometimes people just need plot device to be mad at it's nothing personal, jack really is riko just with even less screen time and even less content lul. You will have the most fun when you wont rely on others to portray him the way you enjoy developing him, characters like this are basically fandom co owned oc's so it,s better to not get too hopeful about others creating content exactly the way you like it. But I love reading stuff like that! we have one thing in common then my jack is def disappointed upon meeting the boys , but as i sad Riko was already a success story to keep things interesting Jack will sadly get opposite of that treatment in narrative. Not everyone can or want to be helped, Foxes were not happy to meet jack , dressed red and black and referring to Riko as Raven king to other man's clear discomfort. But hey .. if Riko could go through it and be tolerable then there sure is hope for Jack .. right? Jack is the worst kind of sport fan - the one who often doe snot even attend the games instead favouring meetings few streets away fights under bridges and needles violence in name of beloved teams. I think a lot of blood got spilled in name of ravens over the 39 years the team was around they just attract people like this. Jack was perfect example of it, perfectly brainwashed by nests ideas and had not even set a foot inside, Tetsuji woudl have been proud, Riko and Kevin wan to vomit. For Riko it's first time truly seeing how brainwashed by raven propaganda people could have become. Jack life was not easy, he comes form military family, his home has set of rules written on a wall both for behaviour and for looks, Jack was not allowed to wear red not allowed to paint his eyes black or dye his hair - things many raven fans did to fit in. Jack was supposed to get drafted but due to his health conditions it would never be an option which led to his father treating him like lost cause waste of space, Jack going to military was the only worth and hope the man had for this boy. It's okay Jack never cared, getting thrown out of house meant freedom and lack of attachment no need to look back He headed to Palmetto got involved with social services this way meeting Renee when she was volunteering, and then down the line wymack. yes yes it was all planned Because now he was in foxes (fuck foxes) with Riko Riko who was much shorter than on tv. Riko who was captain of ravens, the strongest and best team, the person who never allowed other to mistreat him, fierce and dangerous, Jack wanted to be just like that<3 Sadly Riko was not all that any more. And instead of breaking it it just fuelled Jacks obsession, because with good few inches over Riko he started fantasizing about overpowering him, wouldn't this put him at the top of food chain? Jack is the reason Arron does not use slurs any more Arron would never want to sound the way this guy did when referring to Arrons brother and his boyfriend. Jack is the reason Nicky profoundly apologized to Neil and ... Matt over the things he done to them in the past and started therapy with new doctor not connected to rest of them because.... because of Jack so yeah anon I will most likely not give jack redemption or even happy end Riko is my boy for that , but it's not because i dislike him or the idea of him but because i just find him more interesting this way , he need to fill the Riko shaped slot in my doll house.

#aftg #riko moriyama #all for the game #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #nicky hemmick #jack aftg

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celestie0 · 5 months ago

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HI ELLIE!!! Omg, I just started reading IHM. I was originally going to hold off until it was done (or mostly done), because I'm a serial monogamist when it comes to a series (RIGHT NOW I AM LOYAL TO KICKOFF lol), but I ended up reading IHM anyways for some reason. I LOVE IT SOOOO MUCH. I know that we're only two chapters in, but I always love and adore how much thought goes into your characters and writing. I found myself giggling the whole way through lul. One thing I noticed after chapter 2 is as much as Gojo annoys reader, he's also strangely attentive to her needs and is a complete foil to Choso. I'm sure this was supposed to be obvious, but I thought it was very sweet how he called her beautiful in the dress (the same dress that Choso didn't acknowledge her in) and how the ring he picked for her was similar to one that she had saved in her wedding mood board. I'm pretty sure it's not exactly intentional on Gojo's part (or maybe it is?? hehe), but I thought it was an interesting detail. Also, I know this is within spoiler territory, so don't feel obligated to answer this, but how angsty will it get between reader and Gojo's relationship? :,) I know that they're both still healing from personal trauma from their past relationships, so will that come into play as they develop feelings for each other? It seems that Gojo is hesitant to talk about his divorce, so would that be a factor or an obstacle that will hinder him from getting too close to reader? Can't wait for future chapters!!! <3 Thank you for spoiling us *__*

OH MY LOVE THIS IS SO SWEET N CUTE N MADE MY ENTIRE DAY!!! PLS???

omg i feel you about the serial monogamy towards one series/show at a time 🤣 except for me it’s probs just hyperfixation 💀 but i’m so happy you decided to give ihm a read 🥺💕 it means sososososo much to me n i’m really excited for the seriesss

AWW IM GONNA SOB TYSM i have put quite a bit of thought into the characters in ihm bc i really want it to be like a web? of interactions btwn them all, and i’m so glad you saw that choso is foil to gojo!! yes!! he is very attentive to her, and i think sometimes it’s intentional n other times it’s just bc they’re meant to be honestly 😭💕 we’ll see that reader too is very vigilant too despite everything she’s got going on :”) i LOVED writing the scene where he calls her beautiful in the dress, every girl deserves to be called pretty in a dress she really adores!! and yeah the ring was totally coincidental but 🤣 again i guess they’re meant to be? hahaha

yesss i think there will be quite a bit of angst between the too, mostly surrounding their ex lovers, and just in general their pasts. i kinda wanted it where reader has lived in town her whole life (childhood home) whereas gojo mysteriously moved in next door less than a year ago, so they both don’t know much about each other despite being next door neighbors. but honestly i think a lot of the angst actually comes from secondary plotlines that end up bringing reader n gojo together!! but there will still be angst between them for suuuure 😭😔 yes gojo is very hesitant to speak up ab his divorce, sorry i simply cannot write gojo without avoidant personality bc i feel like he bottles up a lot in the show too so it just felt fitting 💀😞 but for reader too, i think she kinda…doesnt care to learn much about him as of right now bc she finds him annoying lol, and then later on when she has feelings i think it’ll be too painful for her to learn ab certain things too…so yes definitely i can see how they both would avoid their feelings and instead do the thing most adults do and joke about their feelings to lighten tension or completely avoid them all together 😃😃 (or do i just need therapy loool)

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK my love :”) hope you have a wonderful day/evening/night!! much love from me <33

#in holy matriphony #ifartmangos #asks

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jays---wing · 1 year ago

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Okk so lifty x splendid are like my favorite pair . This’ll be a lot of unorganized, long, insane rambling so be warned lol. !!! I start one thought and then go after another…

I’m thinking like, I have this idea where splendid saves lifty from a fucking uh, house fire or something and visits him at the hospital and it just progresses from there. Splendid just kinda feels bad Lul

I’m still working on my own like backstories for lifty and shifty (they are my faves okay), but I personally headcanon that they had like a rough home life, grew up in poverty, and cause of his kleptomania lifty unintentionally got himself into trouble as a child and ended up losing a lot of opportunities (some of which because of shifty). he tried real hard to get jobs but his criminal history didn’t exactly help. Shifty eggs him on and he just ends up working with him. Bank robbing and petty theft weren’t what he was expecting to do with his life, but shifty dragged him into it and he can’t get a job, so oh well. And MAYBE he kinda enjoys it..

So I’m thinking, that after they hang out a lot and stuff splendid offers to help lifty get a job since he has some connections cause of his reporter job (also he’s a fucking superhero, so!) lifty is incredibly grateful , nobody has done something this nice for him before.

I’d imagine splendid would be the one to form feelings first, maybe once he starts visiting lifty. Lifty on the other hand takes longer to warm up to splendid, cause yknow, dude beats him up every other week and throws him in jail. Once they get to know each other though he gets more comfortable with him . Splendid specifically starts to sympathize with lifty after learning about him more. And they get these feelings and they’re both like “oh no I’m in love with him” and they’re conflicted cause like … well he’s a superhero and he’s a criminal. But it works out tee hee

I now have this vision, of where like they’re up on a building just looking over the city or stargazing or something, hanging out , i feel like that’d be a common thing where splendid just takes him somewhere high up and private where they can hang out. And they’re already been friends for a while and feelings are there and they confess. Who first…? Idk doesn’t matter rn.

Shifty probably wouldn’t know at first I think. Lifty would just stop coming with him on heists and whatnot. He’d only really get suspicious once lifty gets that job like “that’s weird.” Lifty doesn’t disclose it since he’s just a little ashamed cause, I’ll say it again, bro literally gets them arrested. Which I’ll mention that now, is one of the reasons it takes lifty a while to start liking splendid. Anyways, he feels like shifty is keeping him back, and they do everything together, so he’s trying to try and live the life HE actually wants. Shifty may be fine just scamming and robbing people blind, but he want to do something different. And despite splendid previously being a pain in the ass, he’s a friend, and is genuinely interested in helping him out in getting his life on track.

Shifty is a bit peeved that lifty is spending more time with splendid and distancing himself from him at first but eventually learns to accept it. He’s his little brother after all. Lifty would probably go live on his own/with splendid… he’s little worried since him and shifty have done everything together for the longest time but he’s a big boy now he can do it.

And that’s all for now , maybe some other time I’ll put this more cohesively once I think on it more 😭

#htf #happy tree friends #lifty and shifty #htf lifty #htf splendid #htf shifty #splendid x lifty #lifty x splendid #I have sooo many ideas I want to draw out too #soon. maybe.#I’m sorry this is so all over the place 😭

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camping-with-monsters · 2 years ago

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Made a peculiar discovery in Scarlet last night

So I found a random encounter shiny snom. That’s not the focus, but this is the context. I was listening to the Minecraft soundtrack and was listening to Subwoofer Lullaby while aimlessly running, so I thought “maybe I’ll name him Lullaby!”

But… uh, apparently I can’t do that!

Kind of a weird word to censor… but Subwoofer will do just fine.

But I wanted to figure out just why this was censored… I got to testing, and results of what exactly was censored immediately showed up.

Using this random Annihilape as my test subject, I found that it’s specifically the word “lull”?

Okay maybe I can, uh… get rid of an L then??

Nope! Okay, what if I get rid of the L entirely??

…Oh, okay!

So uh… in it’s simplest form, why is “Lul” censored? Genuinely, does anybody have an answer?? I know the censors might be kinda weird sometimes, but… I genuinely do not understand this one?? Any ideas?? Or is this just a “specific camerupt from BDSP cannot be transferred to Pokemon home” sort of anomaly??

#The Kiwi Speaks #???#Pokémon #pokémon scarlet and violet #Pokémon scarlet #Pokémon violet #pokémon scarvio #Pokémon nicknames #anybody know?

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sharpen-your-hatchet · 2 years ago

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Old Wounds - Chapter 7, Wenclair fic

Description: Now aged 22, Wednesday Addams is an up-and-coming author. Her time at Nevermore is well behind her, and she is alone, and that suits her just fine...But when a 'new' neighbour shows up in her apartment building, she'll truly be tested on whether her "bad habit" of caring truly has been broken. (Hint: It hasn't.)

Pairing: Wednesday Addams / Enid Sinclair

Rating: Teens & Up (subject to change in future)

Click Here For Previous Chapter

Click Here To Read This Chapter On AO3 or keep reading below!

x-x-x-x-x

The time is 10:30am.

Wednesday finds herself in the coffee bar, sat across from Enid.

Following their phone conversation, they texted briefly and Wednesday found herself opening up more to the idea of this meeting. Whilst she continues to flip back-and-forth on her desire to pursue anything to do with Enid, she knows her mind will eat away at itself until some speck of curiosity can be satiated.

As such, being in this coffee bar isn’t the worst possible thing that could be happening right now… Granted, between the stares and whispers from the staff, alongside the incessant buzz of her own brain, Wednesday is still working through what exactly she is supposed to be feeling right now.

She's never been particularly invested in processing her emotions, but apparently these last few days means she actually has to stare them in the face for once.

It's more tiresome than she will admit. Not that she'd admit to having emotions in the first place.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent too, that Enid is like an electric fence that she cannot stop herself from approaching - The electricity stings like nothing else, but her hand remains wrapped around that barbed wire regardless.

So Wednesday truly finds herself in a conundrum: to have been content with perpetual emptiness whilst awaiting a gentle lul into insanity… only to violently and unexpectedly have that void infested, like ivy taking root in an abandoned building, giving it a new lease of life.

It is disturbing to say the least… but Wednesday concludes this crowded coffee bar perhaps isn’t the place for giving herself grandiose psychological assessments.

Thus Wednesday drags herself from her thoughts, sips at her coffee, and decides it’s easier if she tries to play along. She listens to Enid speak, offering minimal replies, all the while glaring at the baristas who have been peeping at them. It seems to scare them. Good. Wednesday is at least glad her reputation still precedes her.

Enid is unaware of these silent interactions as she chatters away. Despite what the pleading on the phone had Wednesday believe, in person Enid seems brighter and bolder than Wednesday could ever remember. She seems more confident now. Whilst Wednesday still cannot abide by her cutesy pastel clothing and finds the aura of good vibes xoxo a tad overwhelming, she quietly admits to herself that it is a good thing for Enid to be sure of herself finally.

Wednesday meets Enid’s gaze again, and nods politely as Enid continues to detail her life over the last four years. There’s a few highlights that Wednesday makes note of: Various boyfriends and girlfriends, jobs, an unnecessarily extended anecdote about her first tattoo… It all seems like standard young adult life stuff with the exception of one thing. Enid is a werewolf and there hasn’t been a single mention of her family; her wolfpack.

Knowing Enid is away from her pack struck Wednesday as odd prior, but her not mentioning them at all? Something isn’t right.

And it’s not that Wednesday cares. She’s just… curious. Werewolves are fiercely loyal beings so what makes Enid so different? Wednesday intends to find out.

“- What about you, Wednesday?” Enid asks, smiling, “I’ve just talked about my life for the last 20 minutes. I wanna hear about you!”

Wednesday stares blankly at Enid. She drinks from her cup again. Part of her neglected to remember that hanging out would require her to speak about herself also.

“...What would you like to know?”

Enid gestures vaguely, “Anything! You’re Wednesday Addams, you’ve always got something either incredibly terrifying or interesting to say. Back at Nevermore, your vibes were always scary, but in a cool kinda way, y’know?”

Wednesday’s eyebrows twitch upwards slightly: A barely perceptible emote by all accounts, but perhaps one of Wednesday’s only tells when she’s experiencing anything vaguely positive… and damn it, Enid did flatter her with that one. It’s enough to make her take pause for a second and realise she might have not entirely hated it.

But with everything else she’s currently processing, Wednesday takes it for what it is. She really doesn’t want to think about it any further… but she’s perhaps made a mental note about it for later, anyway.

“Well, the last four years have been adequate.” She begins, speaking plainly, “This miserable city suits me. It bleeds the hearts of most people who live here, whilst also giving me the opportunity to bleed other things of the people who foolishly pester me during my late night walks whilst I look for writing inspiration… Also, my family is well. Pugsley’s limbs are still fully intact for now, and-”

“-What about Thing?” Enid interjects. She seems entirely unphased by Wednesday’s blasé mention of violence. A younger Enid may have felt faint at the mention, but it seems she’s grown past her hematophobic ways. How intriguing.

Wednesday takes another sip from her coffee.

“Thing is doing well. He still paints his nails.”

Enid grins at the answer, clearly delighted by the news. Wednesday offers a slight softening of her gaze in return - Another subtle expression; not a smile by any means, but the mildest appreciation that Enid still holds Thing in high regard. It’s what he deserves.

“God, sorry I interrupted you…” Enid sighs with a slight shake of her head, “Tell me more about your writing!” She requests, picking up her own drink (A large vanilla oat milk latte, with extra syrup) and taking a happy little gulp, giving Wednesday centre stage once more.

Wednesday continues, “My foray into the world of literature is something I have worked towards for many years. I have two books published and I’m working on the third. Though, I write under a pseudonym - I refuse to expose my own name to the idiocies of fandom.”

Enid nods with a knowing smile, “Smart.”

There’s a pause.

“So, what’s the pseudonym?”

Wednesday’s expression drops into a glare.

“That is for me to know, and for no one else to seek unless they wish to end up in a very painful position.”

Enid smirks. She throws her hands up in defeat.

“Alright alright, I won’t dig for deets.”

“Thank you.” Wednesday replies curtly.

It’s still a lot. The way that this is all happening.

Wednesday is feeling conflicted. Enid is painfully easy to talk to, but Wednesday still finds herself on a razor’s edge. She is unsure of whether she really should be here, humouring Enid’s desire for companionship. Wednesday knows that ultimately she is a poor companion for anyone, but between her curiosity and her thoughts that polarise themselves constantly, she is stuck between staying and leaving - And evidently opting for the former.

Then there’s all the unanswered questions that they’re yet to ask... Do they create more openings for conversations, or does it invite distrust?

Despite these considerations, Wednesday has to admit to herself, she's having a more-than-bearable-time. She won’t commit to enjoying herself (impossible, frankly), but she will privately concede it could be a lot worse.

It seems Enid notices Wednesday lost in thought. She gently waves her hand, offering a soft “Hey… everything okay over there?”

Wednesday stiffens.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“I mean, it’s totally cool if you’re feeling weird about this.” Enid says, shrugging, “I kinda am too.”

Wednesday’s eyes dart down to the table, focusing on the steam that rises from her remaining coffee. Is she really so easy to read?

“If you must know Enid, I find it difficult to believe you would want to speak to me after all these years… and frankly, I find it even more difficult to consider that I want to speak to you in return.” Wednesday states.

It comes across way colder than she intends. It’s almost vicious, and although Enid seems perplexed for a second, there’s not a single moment where she seems to think negatively about the comment. It’s as if she expected it.

“I think that’s something for us to talk about later…” She muses, “If I’m being real with you, it’s just nice to have you- I mean, to have someone familiar around.”

Wednesday keeps staring at the table.

For a moment, Enid looks as though she’s going to say something more. Her mouth hangs open before she pulls her face into a smile, losing the words to nothing more than a contented sigh. Wednesday only catches it out of the corner of her eye. When she finally looks back up at Enid, the other woman is pulling the coffee mug to her lips again, gulping down the last of her latte.

Wednesday gives a slow, thoughtful nod, and says “Yes, I suppose it will be useful knowing a competent person is around in case of danger.”

Wednesday isn’t about to say she’s glad Enid is here. She’s still figuring out if she wants Enid around at all… So, saying her presence is maybe useful is all she can offer. Wednesday trusts that Enid understands.

And seemingly, she does.

“Of course.” Comes Enid reply with an empathetic expression.

Now, Wednesday doesn’t consider herself a believer in deities… but the way that Enid’s phone suddenly starts to blow up with notifications and the consequential breaking of the strangely tense air is something Wednesday could almost thank God for. Almost.

Enid's phone is going crazy, multiple texts blipping through in a matter of seconds, followed by phone call that cancels itself only a moment later. A cry for attention, clearly.

Enid scrambles to pick up the device, rapidly brushing a finger along the screen, eyes widening by the second. She quickly types some messages out, sighing as she does.

“Shit sorry,” She mumbles, “It’s my job… It was supposed to be my day off.”

“Then they shouldn’t be contacting you.” Wednesday replies indignantly.

Enid sighs again. She drops the phone onto the table and massages her temple with her now-free hand. Wednesday finds it strange to see her so worked up.

"I think… I think I have to go." Enid says dejectedly, "I'm really sorry to cut our hangout short…"

Wednesday downs the last of her coffee.

"It's fine. I just finished anyway."

"I'll make it up to you, promise." Enid offers. She frantically gets out of her seat, pulling her jacket around her shoulders, giving Wednesday a pained look, "This is such a shitty way to end our hangout, but I will text you, okay?"

Wednesday nods.

Enid gives a sad smile, and then rushes out the door.

And just like that… Wednesday is alone again.

She lets her expression neutralise, allowing herself to finally decompress after that wealth of socialising. There's a lot running through her head, to the point she feels the need to lay down somewhere dark and dingy for a few hours; let the darkness seep back into her bones.

Wednesday studies the space that Enid occupied… and despite all the conflictory thoughts, there's part of her that strongly wishes the blonde was still there, smiling away.

And that thought alone… Is Terrifying.

#Wednesday #Wednesday Netflix #Wenclair #Wednesday Addams #Enid Sinclair #Fanfic #AO3 #Merry (late) Christmas have some fanfic #or Happy Holidays if you don't celebrate <3

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memorymessage · 3 months ago

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thoughts on brooke schofield situation BEFORE THE YOU KNOW WHAT TODAY

stream of consciousness. slightly problematic, i assume

i sympathize with being influenced by rightwing grandparents, because that was literally me when i was a self-hating queer and trans person that thought trump getting elected was perfectly okay in 2016, in a house playing fox news 24/7 because you live with closeminded old people

not for me to forgive brooke, not for me to say it's understandable or give her a pass, since she was posting racially ignorant things, like saying race had no part in the shooting of trayvon... like, even when i was under the influence of my conservative grandpa and the anti-SJW propaganda of the time, i knew that racial profiling and prejudice was a thing and played a role

however, i also know from my literal firsthand experience of being a self-hating trans person falling into the rightwing grift of ridiculing other trans people that people can genuinely change. i had to make that discovery on my own, though. i had to break out of the influences of my household and the internet and genuinely form my own thoughts through educating myself. after that, i no longer agreed with my grandpa, and would challenge him and admonish his views. you can actually change your views, even in the house you grew up in that primarily upholds opposing views

i will never understand this mindset of 'you said this once 10 years ago that contradict things you believe in now. unforgivable'—and it's like, yeah? are we really saying people's shitty political views by proxy of their upbringing means that a person can never change? i know brooke's situation is different due to being a cis, white, straight woman. but i can also attest to being within a marginalized subset of people, specifically gender and sexuality, and i still criticized other people exactly like me. the brainwashing can sometimes hit THAT deep

now with all that being said

disregard EVERYTHING

because brooke schofield thinks adin ross and trump are super cool ya. not only that, but both her and tana have said some braindead political opinions on their podcast. and i'm not talking 1-2 years ago. it's 1-2 weeks ago.

so, obviously, she really hasn't changed. or, at least, she doesn't care to take the time to truly understand why these issues are important

(edit to add, she addressed liking adin ross's trump post, though it's still annoying for her to not understand that positive engagement with these things boosts their algorithm pushes. i'd like to avoid promoting the extremely heavy-handed wave of indoctrination happening to boys aged 13-18 that we've seen in recent years, thanks! liking a post ironically is still liking the post!)

but, i guess the point of all this is that people can and do change

though the jury is still out on brooke

lul

i really don't understand this 'never forgive anyone for anything they've done' mindset. it's perfectly valid to feel that they haven't changed, or that they aren't truly sorry, or they didn't educate themselves on how their upbringing hurt other people. but that doesn't seem to be the main rhetoric going around. i more often see people saying 'well, i knew better than to be like this at 16, so fuck this person'

like, hello? i am sorry, your saintliness? good for you for never needing to breakthrough a closeminded upbringing and need to educate yourself on social issues against the grain of your surroundings? i'm glad you were never a closeted, self-hating queer person that felt they needed to conform themselves to quell hateful judgment? you took a shot at brooke and hit a wide section of progressive people with conservative upbringings.

brooke may be another issue entirely, but putting an umbrella over people with a problematic past, like 'you can never be forgiven, i knew better at this age' is???? what do you want me, and others like me, to do? go back to being a self-hating, closeted, trans-critical trans person? that's all i'm good for due to having that background?

should go without saying, but i think the conduct of the person from the time of their upbringing should absolutely hold repercussions. if you were out there blasting slurs and spewing hateful vitriol, i'm not going to stand on the podium and champion the 'people can change' rhetoric in that context. during my worst years, even i was never actively bigoted or racist. harmful with my ignorance on racism by not realizing how big of a problem it actually is? yep. harmful with my own self-critical superiority complex on trans issues? yep. even passive or ignorant harm is still harm, but it is...less intentionally nefarious.

so, i think overall the nuance of someone's past does hold weight, and actions should absolutely have consequence. and there are some things that just... can't be forgiven. that's to an individual level, too.

i love talking about gender exploration now, and i love to help people in their own journeys if i'm asked, and i love to advocate for people's right to explore themselves in their identities. but do i think that gives me an automatic forgiveness pass from people in my past i likely made feel self conscious about their identity because of my views back then? nope. i literally deserve to be hated for that.

worse, i probably made people think they could relate to me or trust me with their similar life circumstances just on the basis of being queer and trans, only to end up being a proper Blair White. like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

again, i have NO PLACE to speak on racial issues, as i have not experienced the intersectionality of bigotry that is systemic racism. i will briefly say my understanding of differences between being ignorant to racism, to being not racist, and to being anti-racist, and knowing that active racism and being ignorant to racism often contribute to the same overall attitude of unconscious or systemic racism in society. hell, even being 'not racist' contributes to it.

(edit to add, after seeing all of brooke's tweets, it's EXTREMELY obvious that she was "actively racist" and not "ignorant to racism")

but anyway, yeah. it is not my place. i will defer to those it personally affects. the only thing i can truly speak on is my personal experience in being trans—a former trans-critical trans person. in no way am i saying that racism and transphobia have 1:1 comparable social impacts, either.

so...

problematic pasts, politically influenced upbringings, the varying degrees of offensive behaviors, individual growth, interpersonal forgiveness vs generalized forgiveness

it's all extremely nuanced

but brooke...

yeah

this is like 98% not applicable to her (and even more not applicable after seeing the sheer amount of racism she engaged in)

i guess i just wanted to talk about the holier-than-thou rhetoric around her

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rewiredthethirdblog · 4 months ago

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Comment by LordGalen on Reddit

Miz makes me laugh. That's it. That's all he's done and all I need from him, honestly. Watching his streams is like hanging out with an extroverted friend who does all the talking and keeps the whole friend group entertained. I can throw out my lame jokes in chat and if it's good somebody'll notice, but if it sucks, it just disappears and nobody cares, because Miz is center-stage taking up all the attention. I tend to be the main focus in my own friend groups, so it's nice to not be that in chat.

I hope Miz reads this thread. He's apparently not been in a good mental spot and that's understandable. I hope he knows that **a lot** of us never thought badly of him and never believed he was capable of the things people have said about him. All he does is make me laugh, but he does it *so fucking well* that it's priceless. Well, not exactly priceless.... it's worth $5 a month LUL

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rose-and-rose · 5 months ago

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Day 0/Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is rose, and i have just finished watching the movie IF, when i was watching this i thought of something, im a lonely person.

I'm also a person with severe anxiety

AND im also a person with severe social anxiety.

So as i was watching i came up with an idea "why do children have imaginary friends and not adults? adulthood is so hard because there is so much to worry about, so, why don't we have IFs?" and thus it began

From this point on, with this blog, I will begin to experiment with my mind, over time i will be creating a visualization of my fursona, and i will do more than that, i will slowly provide her with her own sort of identity, yes this will be experimenting with tulpamancy as well, and eventaully she will be capabale of moving on her own and thinking alongside me.

why would i do such a stupid thing? you may be asking, and in response let me just list off struggles i have.

I have (i believe) a slow metabolism, this means that i eat a small ammount of food, say one meal, and i gain more weight than the average person, to combat this, earlier this year i planned to go to a gym, even getting to the point of getting a gym membership and yet when i did, i never used it, i constantly wanted to, but i just got too scared.

I will go to movies in the cinema and sit down, i enjoy viewing movies in the cinema, but when i sit down, my nerves start racking and i start to get paranoid.

in classes im often quiet, i get asked questions by classmates and all i do is give simple answeres, yesterday i was supposed to go out with some of them because it was the last day, i got too scared to.

now let me show how it would go if my experiment is a safe succses

I get a gym membership and im excited, i wake up on a day i plan and i start getting nervous, i start picturing the gym and fear strikes me, but then i feel arms wrap around me and soft words being spoken into my ear as i see soft bunny fur appear and i start calming down.

I go to the movies and sit down, nerves start wrecking and then i feel a soft fuzzy hand lower onto mine and soft words spoken into my ear.

a classmate asks me a question about myself and right as i feel myself getting close to giving a terrible answer, i hear a soft voice guide me through what i really want to say.

see the appeal now? and if anything goes wrong, no biggie, im going to constantly keep the idea that the identity is capable of bending to my will, this idealogy will allow me to have final say in anything she does.

the point of fact is that this isn't hypnosis that controls my wants, this isn't hypnosis at all even.

i say this due to bambi sleep, i have previously had problems with this hypnosis series, and this is because it luls you into a false sense of security, you go into trance, which you want and it tells you that you start getting relaxed, which you want, and they slwoly start stripping you away, which you feel like you want, and then when it's done, you don't not want anything they suggest.

This is why i will be relying entirely on my own mind, i know what i want and my want cannot be taken from me as i am not being stripped away.

As days progress i will be explaining in depth what my method is and the progress i have made, every day will be posted before i start going to sleep, at midnight exactly everyday.

#IF experiment #Rose and rose #psychology #Experiment Record

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seahdalune · 10 months ago

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dream.

my dream started at a building. it was small at first, but then it grew in a non-linear way later in the dream... (most likely because of dream shenanigans) when i was at the first floor, the building was the size of the book store at our neighborhood, with several stories. i was also with my parents. when i was at the first floor, and there were lots of movie posters (which were all The Emoji Movie??) and books..... but they were translated into Chinese in the poorest manner possible. it was like those "putting ___ through a translator 10000 times until everything sounds weird" videos. i could even see the english text under the chinese one, that showed me, a non-chinese understander, how bad the translation was. people in my dream even exclaimed how bad the translation was.... was it the sinophobic part of my brain, intruding into my dreams? at some point we went upstairs. the second floor was a large building, and also an art exhibition. the celing were tall, and a lot of people were there. at some point, my mom wanted to take a picture of me and my dad in front of an art exhibit. problem was, it took too long, and a line started to form behind my mom. i had to shout at mom to get a move on.... even though she only took two pictures. a stranger somehow ringed my phone, and told me he was grateful for.... something? i decided to interpret the mumbling to have something to do with me shouting at my mom. dad decided to go to the parking lot to get our car. me and mom took an elevator to go to a different floor and pick something up that she needed. the third floor was an empty-ish mall. not as empty as liminal space, empty like a "closing-time mall", which was exactly what it was. it was 9:30pm at this point, so mom was in a hurry to get what she wanted. i decided to wander off in the other areas of the mall, towards where the Playstation stuff were visible. if there was a Playstation, surely there were some Nintendo stuff. i didn't find that out, but i found something way cooler. there was some kind of popup store that sold Guardian of the Video Game merch, and there was merch of Publi! obviously i wanted to buy it, but i only had like 50000 won on me, so i had to pick carefully.... but i was too careful on that part, because i ended up getting a call from my dad while i was deciding if i should get a bucket hat or a key chain. he told me to come to my mom immediately, that they were looking for me, and demanded me that i explain why i didn't pick up my phone (it didn't ring for me). i got a panic attack at the store, and thought i was gonna piss my pants... oh wait, i do need to piss for real. it was 10:40am, wake up sleepy head.

i actually woke up at 9:30am, but i went right back to bed, because unless it was actually something important (like school) i usually never listen to my alarm, lul.

#dreamerdalune

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thetantiger · 11 months ago

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exactly one said person said maybe so I'm doing it lul

This was written prompted by my rp group of friends, so if anybody wants to ask any questions about these OCs or for any context feel free to!

Lowkey put my heart and soul into this so I feel like I should share it somewhere other than my discord server, lol. This was copy-pasted from google docs and written originally for discord's formatting so if you see any asterisks I missed (*) in here, just know it's meant to be italicized.

Warnings for mentions of sexual abuse and drug use.

WORD COUNT: 11,450

James ran Andro’s words through his head over and over again like a broken record. Your outpost is Tiao’s inn. There is activity in Pandaria you need to investigate. You will not report back to Acherus for two days. He knew it was bullshit. He was ninety-percent-sure Tiao knew it was bullshit. But who was he to argue with a Knight that was senior to him?

You sly bitch, he thought silently, half-hoping the malice that accompanied it was strong enough to telepathically reach Andro, and half-thanking him with all the gratefulness he had left.

“Well, here we are,” Tiao announced with his hands on his hips, striding confidently through the inn’s front entrance. James slinked in after him as Puli and Bruuk looked back up at them. Did Puli just clean glasses all day or?

“Damn, Tiao,” Bruuk commented. “You brought the lad home for the night?”

“It’s not like that,” Tiao replied quickly. “He’s stationed here at the inn to investigate necromantic activity in Pandaria.”

Puli blinked a few times. “Necromantic activity. …In Pandaria. ….Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.”

“I dunno, man,” James answered, shrugging with defeat. “Ask Andro.”

“Well, while we’re all sleeping, James needs a place to stay. I can pay for his room if needbe,” Tiao offered, leaning with one hand on the bar and looking at Puli expectantly.

James was about to interject and offer to pay for it himself before Puli made a hissing noise through his fangs and winced. “Oooh.. Er- Tiao, my dear friend,” the Pandaren began. “It’s.. rather late in the night and.. All our rooms are full. So the only place he could reasonably stay is-”

“Your room!” Bruuk interrupted with a loud cackle, pointing at Tiao and then slapping his knee.

Tiao’s face went pale. His cool demeanor dropped in an instant. He still stayed leaning nonchalantly on the counter, but his entire form visibly tensed as he just sort of stared at Puli in disbelief.

Puli offered Tiao a sympathetic yet amused smirk, the graying fur on the end of his muzzle ruffling with the rest of his face. “Sorry, Tiao. But the rooms are all rented out.”

Tiao cleared his throat and nodded, moving a muscle for the first time in at least half a minute. “Right. Uh- we can make that work. James?”

It was James’s turn to freeze up--literally. As soon as the Brewmaster’s gaze hit him he tensed, too, hearing the small yet distinct sound of frost creeping over bits of his clothes. *Calm DOWN!* He urged the ice within himself, as if panicking would help. “Uh- yeah, sure. For sure.”

“Welp,” Bruuk said after he’d caught his breath, slapping his hands on his thighs and standing up, waltzing towards the stairs. “I’m goin’ to bed. Have fun!”

Tiao glared at him for those last two words, which Bruuk responded to with a grin before disappearing upstairs.

“I’m going to be finishing up out here with cleaning,” Puli murmured, twitching his whiskers and watching as James’s new puppy, Samwise, roamed the floor, and evidently didn’t seem the least bit worried about it. “You two should probably get some rest as well, no?”

“I suppose,” James nearly groaned. He didn’t dislike spending time with Tiao at all--quite the opposite, actually--but people being able to read through him like he was transparent was uncomfortable to say the least. He was used to caring for other people. He wasn’t used to other people caring for him. More worrying was the fact Tiao seemed to care for him--he spent time indulging him in his interests, actively paid attention to him of all people during conversations, and even matched him beat for beat--so could he see through the facade, too? Was it really that easy? “Eh.. lead the way.”

Tiao sort of tipped his hat to Puli and rekindled his confident body language, striding up the stairs and James following him self-consciously, wondering if the Pandaren innkeeper’s eyes were on him. The Brewmaster’s room was not far; in fact, it was the first door on the left. Past a creaky bamboo door was a sizable room with all sorts of books and scrolls and clothes strewn about, but not in a way that gave off the vibe it was dirty, but cozy rather. There were also several kegs of who-knows-what in each corner. “Er- sorry for the mess,” Tiao muttered. “I wasn’t expecting any company.”

“That’s alright,” James replied. “I like to think I’m not judgemental.” In truth, the state of the room was the last thing on his mind. He was much more worried about frosting over the lovely carpet out of sheer fear. There were so many implications in a setting like this.

“Well.. do.. you want the bed?” Tiao asked, blinking at him.

“Huh-? Oh, no, I don’t need to sleep-”

“Well *I know,*” the monk interjected. “But have you, like.. laid in a bed in a while? Relaxed at all?”

“I don’t need rest,” James insisted.

“Your body might not, but your mind does. I can sleep on the floor, James,” Tiao replied, seeming rather determined.

“It’s *your* bed,” the Knight argued. “Look- here.” He suddenly grabbed Tiao by the shoulders and forcefully planted him on the edge of the bed, then let go and sat next to him, crossing his arms. “....If you insist I rest.. then I will, but only on the terms that you get to sleep in your own bed, too.” Tiao stared at him uninterrupted for a while, while James looked away sheepishly, begging the ramping ice inside him to fade back to normal. Why am I so worked up over this?!

Finally, like a saving grace, Tiao spoke, healing the gushing wound the awkward silence was trying to tear open. “...Alright then,” he muttered casually, taking off his hat and placing it next to the bed and then laying back, sighing and folding his hands over his own abdomen. James supposed he should properly lay down, too, and did so, the size of the bed forcing his side to press against Tiao’s. James hadn’t been nearly this close to a living person in a while, and he was remarkably warm.

“I’m.. sorry if I’m.. cold,” James uttered.

“Oh, it’s alright,” Tiao said with a chuckle, at least turning to smile at him. James was beginning to quite enjoy that smile. “I usually sleep with my windows open and all my sheets off anyway, and hardly any clothes.” The awkward laugh that followed showed he may have regretted stating the later part of that sentence, but James certainly didn’t regret picturing it for a moment.

“You were right, by the way,” James murmured, shifting a bit. “I haven’t laid down in.. months, probably. If not years. I see no point.”

“Laying down in a bed for hours is not just for the body, James. It’s for the soul just as much,” the Brewmaster noted.

James looked up at the ceiling. “Well, I.. I had lots to do. I had somebody to go looking for.”

Tiao paused for a moment and then shifted as well, turning to his side and propping his head up on his hand, his elbow planted on his pillow, and peering at the Knight. “If you’ve got stories, I’ve got ears.”

James smiled at him. “I was looking for my little brother Randolph for the longest time,” he answered. “We.. were separated when I died. We lived in Pyrewood Village, just outside the Greymane Wall, and were ultimately locked out when the damn thing was finalized. When the Worgen invaded, we.. survived off of whatever I could gather. I learned to stab rabbits at a very young age. And make knives--for the purpose of stabbing rabbits.”

Tiao blinked at him worriedly. “What about your parents?”

James sighed and turned away again thoughtfully. “Left when I was five. Randolph was born when I was four. They just.. abandoned us one day. Never really cared for me or fed me or dressed me, and when Randy was born I changed his diapers. I gave him his bottle. I bathed and held him and put him to bed, because I knew if I didn’t, nobody else would.” He fidgeted with his feet a little. “So I taught him to hunt rabbits, too. I guess I shoulda taught him to fight.”

“What happened?” Tiao asked.

“...The Forsaken,” James replied. “We were able to evade the Worgen, but the Forsaken were hellbent on purging any and all life that still remained out there before finally breaking into Gilneas. They found us. Tracked us down like bloodhounds. I had a makeshift sword I found on an old weapon rack and I knew what I had to do. I was twenty-three, Randy was nineteen. He may not be that much younger than me but he’s still my tiny little brother in my eyes and always will be. He didn’t know how to fight, either. So I told him to run, and he did as he always does. He listened to me.”

The man next to him furrowed his brow in worry. “...They killed you,” he said softly.

“They did. But.. I was okay with that in the moment.” Every specific swing of that shoddy broadsword rang out in James’s head as he remembered it clashing with the perfected metal of the Forsaken troops he was battling. “Every single move.. Every step.. Every attack and parry. It was one more second I bought for my brother. So I fought with everything I had. If I could just buy him a little more time.. by living a little bit longer..” Suddenly, he felt very aware of the still-open gash in his chest.

“You knew you were going to die,” Tiao whispered, as if in shock.

James shook his head. “There was absolutely no chance for me, Tiao. But there was for Randolph. And knowing he survived is my biggest accomplishment.” He smiled bittersweetly. “When the Ebon Blade raised me and I told them the tale of my death, they dubbed me ‘Wolfheart.’ Partly for being Gilnean, and partly for how hard I fought.”

The Brewmaster didn’t respond for a moment. He laid on his back once more, processing the information. For a moment, James worried if he’d made the atmosphere too heavy, before he finally said whatever was on his mind. “...I wish I was as brave as you.”

James sat up now, looking at him with confusion. “I- what? How could you say that? I’ve heard wonderful things about you from Frost.”

“Meh,” Tiao replied nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve been a coward before.”

“So has everyone,” James argued.

“I-” Tiao averted his gaze for a moment. “...I know. But.. I’ve been a bigger coward.”

James laid back down again and peered at him. “Then tell me.”

Tiao’s eyes snapped back to face him. He stared again, processing what just came out of his mouth. James swore that sometimes he looked like a kicked dog. “...I’m not sure if you’d think the same of me if I did.”

“I promise, if you tell me you kicked over, like, an old lady using a walker or something for absolutely no reason, I’d probably still stick around,” James replied with a snicker.

Tiao just returned it with a sad gaze, seeming to debate something internally, before abruptly getting out of the bed. James panicked for a moment--did he say something wrong?--until the brown-haired man made his way to an old drawer and opened it, pulling out a bright crimson cloth. “...*This,* James,” he muttered, “...is a Defias mask.”

James stared at him dumbfounded. How.. old was Tiao again? Fourty-three? The Brotherhood was active beginning about.. what, twenty years ago? By Goldrinn, he’s telling the truth.

“I worked as a Stonemason to help rebuild Stormwind after the Second War,” Tiao began, examining the red bandana in his hand with disdain. “We were not paid appropriately for our work due to the manipulation of Lady Prestor. When the riot happened that killed Tiffin Wrynn.. we had to flee. Varian was not a patient king.” He took a moment for a breath, then continued on. “Furthermore, Westfall was not given the funds it needed. The taste for blood rose in our group and we became the Brotherhood. If people didn’t comply with us, they..”

James’s eyes narrowed in concern as the man before him, so confident and proud and stable, began to physically tremble.

“...I remember a man that had three children,” Tiao murmured softer than a feather, clenching the red cloth in his hand as it slowly balled into a fist. “But he also had money, so I was told, and no interest in associating with the Brotherhood. …I remember the fear.. I- I remember the fear in his eyes.” Regaining himself, he said with full confidence and yet full guilt at the same time, looking James in the eye. “I slit his throat with a machete. I watched the life leave his eyes. That is why I am a coward, James. He had four copper in his pockets.”

James’s jaw hung slightly open. What disturbed him was not the image of a father of three dying for four copper via a machete to the neck, strangely enough. No--he had seen worse in his time as a Death Knight. What did disturb him, however, was the sheer and unbridled pain in Tiao’s gaze, the agony of which he clenched his old Defias mask, the ache in his limbs as they tensed while he waited for a response. James did not have one just yet--he had more questions instead. “....Tell me.. about Tucker.”

Tiao’s defenses were shot down again and he nearly took a step back. “W-What?”

“Tell me,” James insisted. He knew exactly where he was going with this. “...about Tucker.”

After a moment, Tiao humored him, setting the cloth back in the drawer without the care to fold it and closing it away. “Tucker was a goddamned monster,” he sneered. “He is the only other person to walk Azeroth--besides the others in the Brotherhood--that knew I was with the Defias.. other than my mentor Sheefu, whom I’ve opened up to since he’s begun mentoring me. Not even Frost or Shadow has ever known. Not Puli, or Bruuk, or anyone. Because my first experience with telling anybody was Tucker, and he took advantage of that.”

James stared him down. “He abused you.”

Tiao shook his head. “He abused Shadow and Frost.”

“Yes,” James interjected. “But he abused you too. Just in a different and subtler way.”

Tiao didn’t respond directly. “I.. was.. yelled at occasionally. And told to mind my business, and to stay in my place. Otherwise.. who else would take me in for employment? How else would I survive? What if it got out? So I stayed quiet. I didn’t do or say anything except comfort Shadow and Fauna when I could. Get them a water.. Let them cry on me.. I- I felt.. trapped. And yet I did nothing.”

“Until you didn’t,” James corrected.

“...I guess,” Tiao replied, looking away. “I heard so many things I wish I could erase. I heard so many cracking voices and pleas. I heard..” He nearly broke down right then and there but gritted his teeth instead, visibly fighting tears. “I had to hear the two most important women in my life beg for their safety. Beg him to stop. Or even worse, be so fucking high off whatever shit he drugged them with they couldn’t find the emotion to even care he was there at all. So fucking numb.. You know- you know that’s an actual thing?” His voice shook as he gestured wildly. “You know Shadow actually went numb down there for a few years? Did you know that? Do you know that’s how fucking horrible that place was?”

“*Tiao,*”

“I wanted it to stop so bad,” he practically sobbed, clenching the sides of his head. “I- I went up to him and I screamed at him. I threatened to hurt him. And I hate fighting people. And- and he fired me. And I was homeless and out of a job, just like that. He went through with it. I was-.. helpless again.” He wiped his eyes on his arm. “And that’s when I fled to Ironforge.. and found Bruuk. And we started working together and then moved here. That’s.. that’s how it’s been since.”

“So what I’m hearing,” James began, “is you were indoctrinated at a young age--what, late teens?--into a radical terrorist group known to be violent to people who tried to avoid its grasp, were forced to commit crimes to survive that you now regret, fled because your heart told you it was wrong and were then financially and emotionally preyed upon by some make-pretend pimp in an inn, who used his power over you to force you to turn a blind eye to what Shadow and Frost were going through--which they have never blamed you for in the slightest, by the way--and then in another act of courage you actively sacrifice your wellbeing to stand up to him. Is that right? Is that what I’m getting?” His eyes practically bore into Tiao. “Because the person I’m facing right now is no coward. I’m looking at the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

Tiao continued his trend of staring for a moment to process hard-hitting words, his brew-colored eyes watery with stinging tears before he sobbed hard and absolutely let loose, literally collapsing into James’s arms. James didn’t hesitate. He held him tight, wrapping his arms around him and resting his head against the other man’s shoulder, letting him sink into him. Tiao reciprocated the hug. His embrace was warm and peaceful despite the hot tears leaking onto James’s chest and the heartbreaking noises of despair.

“It’s okay, Tiao,” James whispered, stroking along his back slowly. “It’s okay. I promise.”

The monk’s body heaved as he cried, his hands clutching onto the back of James’s baggy hoodie as he attempted to gather himself. “I- s-ss.. t-thank you,” he worked out in-between choked noises, and James just nodded.

“You’re no monster, Tiao, far from it,” he reassured. “Bravery is not the lack of fear. Bravery is doing the right thing in the face of fear.”

“I-I’ve.. never told anyone except- except T-Tucker and Sh-Sheefu this before,” Tiao admitted. “I c-couldn’t even tell Khoreeld.”

James blinked. “Who’s Khoreeld?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tiao replied. “He and I just- didn’t work out.” He pulled back, sniffling, and trying to wipe away his tears as he faced James again, before he offered to simply wipe them for him with his thumb, the water turning to gentle snowflakes as he shooed it away from the man’s face. *God,* he wanted to kiss him. “I’m not- upset about that. I just mean- I.. I trust you.”

James couldn’t help but smile. For once, he didn’t look away from his gaze. Instead, he met it. “I trust you, too.”

He could’ve sworn for a split second Tiao was beginning to lean into him again. He could’ve sworn for a second one of them moved ever so slightly. He might’ve been daydreaming. He might’ve hoped for Tiao to wrap his arms around him again and tumble backwards into the bed James was still sitting on the edge of--but instead, Tiao turned and coughed, instinctively bringing up his hand to his mouth. The cough sounded rather violent and actually quite concerning. He hadn’t been alive for a long time, but he knew it wasn’t good when you sounded like that.

“Tiao? You okay?” James asked, concern seasoning his voice.

“Eackh- yyyup-” Tiao replied brokenly. “I’m- so sorry- hold on.” He abruptly left James there, causing the Death Knight to sorely miss the warmth of his presence, and rummaged around near his nightstand for a bucket, which he then dropped to his knees on the floor with and then promptly puked into. That was a blow to James’s ego, to say the least.

“Oh- I-” James’s hand hovered worriedly. “Tiao, are you okay-”

“Yyup,” Tiao repeated before heaving once more into the bucket.

“I- oh my god, okay-” James looked around frantically. He wasn’t really sure what to do. What did he appreciate when he was throwing up? Well- he hadn’t had long hair in a while, but when he was little he did, and, with memory serving him, he jumped into action. With one hand gathering Tiao’s hair to hold back for him, he noted he also used to quite appreciate a cold washcloth. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it’d do, he figured as he pressed his other palm to Tiao’s forehead and let it grow just slightly colder. Tiao seemed comforted at least, because he slowed down and after a moment stopped throwing up all-together.

“I’m- really sorry,” Tiao muttered weakly. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“That’s okay, I understand,” James replied, before noticing something odd about the contents of the bucket. It wasn’t vomit, which was the first thing that caught him completely off-guard. It *was* flower petals, which was the second, and third was that it was black and ice-blue gradient petals that had actually just ejected themselves out of Tiao’s body.

*Lichblooms.*

James turned to Tiao. “...Have you been.. flavoring my food with your puke-blooms?”

“N- NO!” Tiao replied panickedly, and James almost laughed. “I- It’s seriously the herbs Sanlas gathered for me for Winter’s Veil, I promise! I-If I run out, I’d go to Icecrown to get more, I swear-”

“I believe you!” James replied with a snicker. “I promise. So- is this the flower disease you were talking about?”

“...Yes,” he replied hesitantly. “I.. suppose it’s returned.”

“Well let’s make sure you’re taken care of, then. Come here.” James promptly helped Tiao lift himself up off the floor and back onto the bed, laying him as he was earlier and then sliding in next to him, purposefully ramping up the cold in his body to help soothe Tiao. He remembered the feeling of being insufferably hot whilst puking, and knew his chill could help. He supposed it did, because, as time passed, Tiao began to emit a soft yet rhythmic noise James also hadn’t experienced in a while--snoring. The Knight smiled, just glad he could be of help to the monk and that he was sleeping soundly, and awaited for morning whilst staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling, as wide awake as he’d been since he’d been raised.

----

Tiao’s eyes opened to rays of sun beaming softly into his room. He felt comfortable--more comfortable than he’d felt in a while--and then suddenly noticed the soothing cold presence at his back. A distinct pale arm was draped over his waist and he nearly jumped. Instead, he sort of slowly turned to face James, whose eyes shot open, and Tiao remembered the man wasn’t able to actually sleep in the first place.

“Oh,” James murmured with a smile, his voice impossibly deeper, likely from just being able to relax his muscles for a while and simply hadn’t spoken in several hours. “Good morning.”

Tiao felt the blood rush to his face. “Mornin’,” he muttered in surprise, his voice also slowly warming up. “I- did we..?”

“Huh? Did we what?” James just blinked at him.

Tiao scrounged around in his memory helplessly. He felt as though if something sexual did happen between him and James, it would’ve been the first thing cropping into his mind when he woke up. “Er.. cuddle-?” He asked instead.

James smiled again. “You were feeling sick last night. I.. thought the cold would help.”

The cold did help, actually, and yet didn’t at the same time. Puking up flowers certainly felt nauseating, but James’s presence was exactly why the flowers were a problem. Or, at least, that was his working theory. With Khoreeld, he was puking up the petals of black dahlia flowers, but now he’s been hanging with James and feeling a certain pull towards the death knight, and now of a sudden none other than Lichblooms are growing inside him. He knew exactly what the change in flowers meant. “I-.. yes, it did, actually. Thank you.”

James dipped his head and slowly withdrew his arm from Tiao, which the Brewmaster tried not to frown at. “I’m not sure what time it is, but the sun has been up for a bit.”

Tiao grunted in acknowledgement and turned away, clumsily feeling for his SotF watch on his nightstand and clipping it on. About noon. “God.. I fell asleep in my clothes. I think I cried so hard I tired myself out last night. I need to change.”

“I.. oh, shit, I don’t have any other clothes,” James muttered, putting his hands on his pockets and looking around as if he’d forgotten his wallet instead. “Andro just said the mission thing so suddenly and I guess I didn’t get a chance to pack anything.”

“That’s okay. My clothes might be a bit big on you, but you can borrow some,” Tiao offered without even thinking about it as he stood up from the bed.

James immediately cracked another smile at him. God, he was getting addicted to that smile. “I- yeah, that’d be great. Thank you.”

“No problem,” Tiao replied, walking over and rummaging through his clothes drawer, noticing the absence of the bandana and remembering he just sort of dropped it on the floor as he broke down. Usually, every morning when he opened this drawer, it was there folded up in the corner to torment him. Staring him down just as he stared back at it and remembered all the people he’d robbed and cheated and some he even killed. To remind him to never revert to such a cowardly state.. but, even if its current relocation to the foot of Tiao’s bed was accidental, it did feel oddly healing in a way. Like he’d gotten it off his chest for good. Maybe he could open up to Puli next.

Tiao tossed James a t-shirt and sweatpants and the Knight caught them with ease. “Is, uh.. there a bathroom here I can change in?”

Tiao nodded, pointing towards the door. “Right across the hall from here.”

“Sweet,” James replied, getting up and slinking out the door. “Thanks. I’ll be in the lobby.” He shut the door behind him and Tiao suddenly felt.. alone. Crushingly alone. The silence and the slow warming of the room as James left was suffocating. He’d only be separated from him for a few minutes, so why did it feel like hours?

Tiao tried to dismiss it and got dressed himself, grabbing his hat off his nightstand on the way out and smiling proudly at Sheefu’s signature on it as he put it on and headed downstairs, messaging Frost on the way down. James had beaten him there, sitting on the floor playing with Samwise, who was yipping excitedly. Bruuk was drinking a morning coffee and reading a newspaper and Puli, of course, was preparing for customers, as he literally always was.

“Sometimes I wonder if you even sleep, Puli,” Tiao remarked.

Puli smiled with amusement and patted his own, rather pudgy Pandaren belly. “You think I’d be this beautiful if I did not sleep?”

Tiao could name a few people that didn’t sleep and were quite beautiful.

“You got any bits of meat I can feed this lil’ guy?” James piped up.

“Oh, certainly!” Puli promptly turned and opened a cooler, rummaging through it before handing Tiao an indistinct slab of meat. “Yak!”

Tiao shrugged and tossed it to Samwise, who immediately began to tear at it.

“That dog waited down here in the lobby loyally for ya’,” Bruuk commented.

“Because he’s such a good boy!” James replied, petting the puppy enthusiastically as it munched at its food. “Aren’t you? Yes you are!”

Tiao grinned. He loved the way James’s voice changed when talking to animals. He could tell he was a huge dog person, and simply adored anything small and cute. Feeling an herbal itch in the back of his throat, he coughed lightly into his hand.

Bruuk raised a suspicious brow at him. “What? Ye got a cold again?”

Tiao glanced to see if James was looking--he was not, he was enraptured by the puppy--and then made a shushing motion to Bruuk, who snickered.

Puli sighed and shook his head like an exhausted father.

“I was thinking about taking Sammy here on a walk,” James said. “Wanna come with me, Tiao?”

“Oh!” Tiao sort of looked around, surprised, and then specifically glanced at Puli. He was supposed to get back to work today.

Puli smiled. “We can handle the setup.”

“Sounds like yer free,” Bruuk interjected.

“Sweet!” James jumped up. “Let’s go! Do we.. have a rope around here?”

“If you were able to carry him around the Shrine and sit him down and everything, James, I don’t think Samwise even needs a leash,” Tiao replied.

“Eh, fair point. Sammy!” James gasped excitedly. “Do you wanna go on a.. WALK?”

Samwise looked at him blankly.

“Eh- he’ll learn what that word means,” James supposed, and beckoned Tiao over. “Come on! You know the place.”

Tiao nervously gave Bruuk and Puli another glance. Both of them were grinning at him. Grumbling in embarrassment he followed James and Samwise out the door, striding through Binan Village casually. The village was almost entirely populated by Pan’s family members, and you could see it in their faces and in the colors of their pelts. They all waved at Tiao. Since moving here, he and Bruuk practically became part of the family. That’s just how these small Pandaren towns worked. Samwise excitedly ran up and greeted every single one of them, which James had to chuckle and apologize for. None of the Pandaren minded. If anything, they were happy to pet Samwise.

They followed the stream as they left the village, striding along the smoothly flowing water as vast expanses of snowy peaks stretched out before them on the horizon. The only exception was the gap between them facing somewhat towards the Jade Forest and somewhat towards the sea, displaying a beautiful backdrop of blue skies and soft clouds. Samwise, at least, was having a blast. Sniffing and peeing on everything he could find.

“It’s beautiful out here,” James remarked, his tone full of wonder. “I hardly see sights like these.”

“It’s incredibly peaceful,” Tiao agreed. “I’m grateful to live in Pandaria.”

“You needed this sort of getaway,” James continued, looking at him now. “After the shit you’ve been through.”

Tiao smiled. He was glad James felt as though he had done his best in those events, but Tiao couldn’t bring himself to be convinced of it. “I suppose.”

“I mostly hang around Acherus, which is near Dalaran. The wartorn shores the Legion left behind combined with the aesthetic of the Ebon Blade gets.. dull,” James admitted, shrugging.

“I thought you liked a dark look?” Tiao asked.

“Some color is nice once in a while, too!” James laughed. “I mean-- oh, hey, you have your hat on again.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah.” Tiao beamed proudly. He adored this hat. “I take it off when I sleep and such.”

“‘And such?’” The Knight echoed with a raised brow. “What, the hat doesn’t stay on during sex?”

…..Tiao stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded.

“...It’s a joke,” James clarified quickly.

“Oh.”

“...”

“...Well- no, it does not,” Tiao finally answered with an awkward chuckle. “I treasure this hat a lot. Sheefu Misaki has been kind of like an idol for me for a lot of my life, ever since I started getting into the monk arts. The fact he’s training me now to be a Grandmaster is.. well, no less than a miracle.”

“You deserve it,” James replied. “You have a hell of a heart.”

Tiao looked away sheepishly, smiling and feeling his own face redden again. “Well- I wouldn’t say *that,*”

“I’m serious!” James nudged him encouragingly. It was now Tiao was beginning to actually look at his clothes on James, and it tugged at his soul more than he expected it to. They were *slightly* big on him, but it made him even cuter, in Tiao’s eyes. There was just something about the other man in *his* shirt. “You mean the best for people, and you try to protect people,” James continued. “You’re a supporter. Sheefu picked a good successor.”

Tiao couldn’t help but feel impossibly warm and fuzzy inside, feeling the flowery itch in his throat again. “I-.. thank you..”

James blinked at him, and, to Tiao’s absolute shock, brought up a cold hand to his face, cupping the side of his chin and looking at him. Tiao felt himself tense and repressed a cough, trying desperately not to ruin the moment again. “...You’re really red,” the Knight remarked.

Tiao didn’t have the chance for a response even if he could think of one. Samwise barked excitedly at them and then promptly started tugging at Tiao’s shoelaces with his teeth.

“Ope- Sam! Don’t do that!” James crouched down in front of Tiao ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and shooed the puppy away from his laces. “No chewing on shoes!”

Tiao took the time to cough up a few petals into his hand and promptly discard them in the wind.

“Anyway- the hat,” James reiterated as he stood up straight once again, Samwise deciding to dig furiously into the ground after a bug instead. “You feel more.. real when you’re not wearing it. I mean, it looks fantastic on you and compliments you perfectly- but what I’m saying is I feel like you’re more honest with yourself when you’re hatless. Or maybe it’s your hair,” he said, looking away. “I don’t know.”

Tiao blinked. “I.. do tend to take off the hat when I feel as though I don’t deserve it,” he murmured.

“Well you do,” James said with a smile. “I dunno.. maybe it’s just that I’m seeing more of your face.”

The Brewmaster couldn’t help but grin impossibly wide, feeling flustered as James just looked at him like he wasn’t even remotely bothered. How did he keep himself so cool at all times?! “I- well-.. thank you.” He self-consciously felt the rim of his hat. “I really appreciate that. I treasure this thing. You.. look.. really good, too. Like, all the time.”

James chuckled, and Tiao could’ve sworn he felt a surge of cold air around the man. “Thanks.” And then, out of nowhere, his watch lit up, and James took a moment to inspect it. “Oh, my brother’s calling me. Hold on.”

Tiao nodded and stepped back.

Watching James talk was an entertaining sight. He held the watch up to his ear and put his free hand on his hip--causing Tiao’s eyes to trail a bit, admittedly--as he was turned away from him and had walked a few feet further into the grass. “Hey, what’s up? …Yeah, I’m in Kun-Lai, why? Who told you? …Okay, well- …. Yes, I’m hanging out with Tiao.” Here, James’s voice got a little quieter, but Tiao could hear him regardless. “...Yeah, no, he’s great, really. He’s really kind and sweet and funny.” And then his voice raised again. “Oh, shut UP! …Don’t give me that shit, Randy, I swear to god- …Oh for fuck’s sake, shut the hell up. Okay, yeah. Okay, love you too. Alright, bye.”

James snickered and walked back over to Tiao, who smirked. “Little brother giving you shit?”

James chuckled. “Always.”

“Sounds about right,” Tiao replied. “You said you practically raised him? You get passionate when talking about your brother, tell me about him.”

“Oh. Well..” James seemed thoughtful for a moment. “He’s my whole reason for living. And.. unliving, I suppose. When our parents left us, it was hard. I practically only survived just so someone could take care of him. …I didn’t really have a childhood, to be honest.” He fidgeted with his watch, clasping it back onto his wrist. “I hunt and fought and scavenged.. for him. When I started realizing I was trans he didn’t even realize it was a big deal for me--but like, in a good way. I remember I was fifteen when I said it to him, and he was eleven, and he looked at me with his big ol’ eyes and he said, ‘oh, okay, you’re my brother now!’ And it’s just been that since.” James smiled fondly. “I found old fallen branches and scraped and carved them with a rusty knife into all sorts of things. Toys. Toys for him so he wasn’t bored. Any food went to him first. Sometimes I went days without eating and just told him I wasn’t hungry. I don’t know if he ever noticed.”

Tiao couldn’t help but feel deeply impressed. This man’s undying devotion to his brother was downright honorable. They seemed to have a sort of impeccable bond, hardly without any cracks. It was obvious they’d been through hell together, and even now when they spoke, you wouldn’t be able to tell they’d been apart since the Cataclysm. “Your parents.. how did that affect you?”

“Heavily,” James replied solemnly. “Randy doesn’t even remember them, and that breaks my heart a little. But.. it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t. They’re not worth his time nor mine.” He scowled and put his hands into his own pockets, looking at the ground. “They’re worthless. Pieces of scum that were never ready to have children. I don’t know if I was a mistake. I don’t know if Randy was a mistake. But what I do know is that he’s not a mistake to me, he’s a blessing. There were times I certainly resented him for even existing, because I didn’t get the same peace he did--but I know it was never ever his fault. But anyway- yeah, they never cared about me. Hardly ever fed me or even looked at me, and I knew when Randolph came along it was just going to get worse. I don’t know how anyone has the heart to leave a one-year-old behind.” He shook his head. “The other people in Pyrewood helped us when they could, especially Raymond and her parents. Ray and Randolph were best friends growing up, and then Ray’s family moved into Gilneas. Don’t know how. I think it was that rebel business Michael got himself into.” He sighed. “Shame he turned out the way he did.”

Tiao blinked at him. “You knew Ray.”

“When she was real little,” James said with a smile, making a gesture around the height of his knee. “She was a bossy little girl, I’ll tell you that much.”

Tiao chuckled. “I suppose the leadership carried on.”

James seemed to be thinking back on fond memories. “She knew what she want and when she wanted it, that was for sure.”

“And Randolph?”

“Oh, Randolph did whatever she wanted.” He smirked in amusement. “He was usually a follower. I.. think when I died, it- it messed him up.” James’s cheerful demeanor at past events fell into a somber one. “He’s lonelier now, you can tell. Bitter. And Ray’s death certainly didn’t help. I know that Tree has helped him a lot--god, he talks to me about them all the time. But I can’t help but feel there’s.. damage there. Not with Tree I mean, but just Randolph in general. He’s damaged.”

Tiao frowned. “You did all you could.”

James sighed. “I searched for him for so long. Every day and night, any free-time I got between work at the Ebon Blade. I used music as an outlet.” He then smiled again. “By the way, you’re an incredible singer.”

“Oh- thank you,” Tiao replied. “I quite enjoy music myself. I’m self-taught on a lot of things.” He looked to the side, back from where they came. “We should probably be heading back. I’ve let Puli and Bruuk work by themselves for too long.”

James chuckled. “I suppose so. But hey, you were going under surgery, right? Puli made the right decision in giving you a break. Even if you super enjoy bartending. Which- by the way, since the flowers are back, do you have to get surgery again?”

Tiao stared at him for a moment. He knew James didn’t know what the flowers actually meant but just the thought of forcefully cutting them out petrified him. He hadn’t told James how he felt yet, and he wasn’t about to skip out on that opportunity, even if it was terrifying. He’d just have to live with the flowers until he was ready. “I-.. er- no. It.. didn’t work last time, so I doubt it’ll work a second time,” he lied.

“Oh, true,” James said. “Well- I suppose you’re right. We should head back. Come on, Samwise!”

Samwise barked happily and followed faithfully at James’s heel as he began to walk back in the direction of the inn. Tiao followed just as loyally.

By the time they were back, a few customers had begun to populate the inn. Tiao had a quick exchange with James that he needed to work and help out Bruuk and Puli, and James agreed with a nod of his head, going up into Tiao’s room and finding a book as the monk suggested, then returning to the lobby of the inn and lounging in the corner as Samwise slept in his lap. Tiao meanwhile was moving through the area behind the counter as smoothly as water. He always felt comfortable in this space, whisking between his two coworkers as he poured and mixed and iced and garnished, knowing every single pattern of every single drink and much more like the back of his hand. Knowing exactly what color and shade they should be, exactly how every drink should look, and dumping it if it wasn’t up to his own standard. Every customer--mostly Pandaren that he already knew--smiled with satisfaction at the sights of their drinks. He was refined at this and confident in it. He almost never let a customer down--and even when he did, it was usually an unreasonable request from someone he didn’t recognize, like how the lights sucked or how this random patron didn’t believe ‘foreigners’ should be working here, which he supposed they meant him and Bruuk. Either way, Puli usually dismissed these people with little issue. The locals were kind and welcoming, especially those that consisted of Pan’s family, and most unfamiliar customers that were just passing through were usually polite and jovial as well.

“Hey, James!” Tiao called from across the room, and noted that the death knight was already staring at him anyway. He supposed it was just a coincidence. “Want a drink? I’ve got Lichbloom left.”

“You should see if that works on other Knights,” Puli remarked quietly. “That’s a business venture if it does.”

Tiao grinned at him. “You got it, boss.”

“Uh, yeah,” James replied, setting the book down after dog-earing the page--which made Tiao cringe--and striding over. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually had alcohol before though. Never had the chance.”

“Really?” Tiao asked. “Well shit.”

“Give ‘em some Badlands bourbon!” Bruuk shouted.

“Don’t you think we should start off with something weaker?” Tiao retorted.

“Plum wine,” Puli argued.

“How about-” Tiao examined their supply. “Some snowfall lager?”

James shrugged. “Sure. I don’t know any of this stuff, so.”

Tiao beamed and opened the keg next to him, pouring some into a mug for James and then adding some crushed ice while simultaneously closing the spout on the keg. He swished it around a bit, added the crushed Lichbloom and then slid it across the counter at him as it foamed, the drink stopping right between James’s hands. James blinked at it if he was surprised it didn’t spill. The Brewmaster grinned to himself proudly. It was a showmanship type thing, too.

The Knight hesitantly picked up the glass and blinked at the other man as he took a sip, then looked to the side thoughtfully as he processed it. His eyes lit up as he processed taste again. You could see it in his face that he hadn’t tasted anything in over a decade, except for yesterday. “...It’s good,” he decided, taking another, bolder sip. “I like it.”

Tiao pumped his fist triumphantly. The rest of the night went much of the same, with James going real slow on drinking anything at all (Tiao supposed it made sense, since the man physically couldn’t feel thirsty) and Tiao and Bruuk serving the calm pace of customers rolling in with a smile as Puli managed the back of the inn. Samwise slept like an angel, and before Tiao even knew it the first day of James staying here was over. The last customer walked out with a happy wave of their paw--a light brown and white distant cousin of Pan’s, because of course they were--and the four sort of stood around looking at each other.

“Closing time again,” Puli remarked. “You boys get to bed. There’s only a few dishes out here.”

Tiao frowned. He felt like Puli was doing too much as of late.

“Welllp- don’t have ta’ tell me twice!” Bruuk announced in complete contradiction, hopping over the bar and waltzing out, marching up the stairs and dusting himself off.

Tiao chuckled. “Are you sure, Pul-”

“For the love of Niuzao, yes, Tiao,” Puli replied, grinning. “I mean it, by the Celestials. *Go.*”

Tiao sighed and then dipped his hat, whisking around the counter as James got up from his seat at the bar, the book completely forgotten. “Y’think Samwise will be okay out here again?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d actually rather take him into the room, if you’re okay with him on your bed.”

“Sure!” Tiao answered. “Sammy!” He whistled at the dog.

Samwise’s ears perked, one of them upright like a samoyed’s is supposed to be, and the other one folded over itself in a puppyish sort of way. He then ran up to James and Tiao happily and clumsily, and James scooped him up with a smile and carried him up the stairs with Tiao not far behind.

By the time they were in Tiao’s room again the dog squirmed in James’s arms, eager to be set down and explore, which the Knight then allowed by setting him down again. Tiao sighed and put his hat on his nightstand again, collapsing onto the bed just as he had before.

“Feeling better regarding the flowers?” James asked, laying next to him almost too naturally.

Tiao smiled at him. “It comes in waves,” he replied honestly. It did seem to just sort of crop up whenever it saw fit.

“Ah, well-” James was about to speak before rustles and growls of effort sounded from the foot of the bed as Samwise was clamoring up it, somehow--and then promptly ran up Tiao and James’s bodies and plopped down right between them, thumping his tail and looking up at them with big blue eyes.

“Awwww,” Tiao cooed, petting Samwise. “He’s just a little stinker, oh my goodness.”

“It’s okay if he lies here?” James asked.

“Of course. How could I say no to this wittle puppy face?” Tiao replied, pinching Samwise’s cheeks, which the puppy responded to by trying to playfully bite his fingers. He chuckled and turned over on his side again, feeling the dog and James both reposition themselves in turn. “Goodnight, James.”

“Goodnight, Tiao,” James replied, and Tiao drifted to sleep faster than usual. Maybe it’s because James was next to him.

----

When Tiao began to stir again, James smiled. He quite enjoyed laying next to him all night, but he enjoyed Tiao when he was awake and talking more. Samwise, inspecting the half-asleep man, climbed over his shoulder and began to lick his ear.

“Ope- wh- hey, stop that,” Tiao chuckled, pushing Samwise away, which the puppy responded to by yipping and trying to go back for his ear. Tiao laughed and put Samwise on James instead. “He’s your dog, tell him no.”

“He’s taken quite the liking to you, too,” James replied with a smile, enjoying the change in Tiao’s voice when he woke up. It made him shudder. Pushing that thought away and turning his attention to Samwise again, he booped the puppy on the nose. “No ear licks.”

Samwise licked the tip of James’s finger instead.

Tiao sat up and stretched. “Nghh.. suppose it’s time to get up again.” James would be lying if he said he wasn’t staring at the man as he stretched, taking note of the way Tiao’s shirt raised up a little as he lifted his arms. Sadly, it didn’t last long as Tiao got up from the bed and started rummaging through his clothes drawer again.

James raised a hand. “Could I borr-”

“Yup,” Tiao replied, hitting James in the face with a loosely thrown shirt as he sat up.

“Ack! *Dick,*” James chuckled, and Tiao snickered back at him as he threw him a pair of pants, too. He noted he’d have to change when he went back to Acherus tonight.

…Acherus. It hit him like a train. That was just the last night he got to spend lying around with Tiao in his room, and now tonight he’d have to go back to Acherus and resume his Ebon Blade duties. That.. stung. He didn’t want to be away from Tiao, not now or ever. Had he made the best of these two days? Was it going by too soon? It sure felt like it.

“Tiao,” James spoke up. “...I have to leave tonight.”

Tiao sort of looked at him. James wasn’t sure, but it looked like it broke him, too. “...Oh. Right. As of this evening, your mission is over.”

*Unfortunately,* James thought to himself.

“Well- have you noticed any necromantic activity in Pandaria?” Tiao joked.

“None except for me,” James remarked, standing up as Samwise did the same to follow him.

Tiao chuckled lightly. “Well- I can certainly keep in contact with you through the watch, and we can hang out when we’re both free,” he offered.

“Yeah,” the Knight replied softly. He couldn’t help but still feel sore over it. “Well- I should.. change.”

“Yup,” Tiao replied, nodding towards the door. “I can take Samwise down.”

Samwise was busy sniffing a random sock, so James left, whisking into the bathroom and wearing the second pair of clothes Tiao gave him. He felt warmer in them. He wished he could smell.

On his way downstairs, James actually bumped into Bruuk--literally. He ran into the man. “Oh-!” Bruuk said as he stumbled a little. “My bad, boy!”

“Oh, no, that was my bad, sorry,” James replied, and then blinked a few times. “...Also, I’m thirty eight?”

Bruuk grinned. “Yer a boy in Dwarven years. Say- let me talk at’cha a lil’,” he beckoned with his hand, leading James down the hallway. James followed, but he certainly felt unusual. He didn’t exactly want to cuddle the entire inn crew.

Instead, the Dwarf led him out to a simple balcony, overlooking the village and lighting a cigar he apparently had on him.

“Yanno,” Bruuk began, taking a drag off of it. “That boy’s infatuated wit’ya.”

“Who? Tiao?” James asked, and he wasn’t sure why. Because, like-- duh.

“Eyyup,” Bruuk answered. “The way he looks at’ya, I only ever seen him look at one other person like that. D’he tell ya’ about a ‘Khoreeld?’”

James blinked down at him. “He mentioned it in passing.”

“Aye. He was really into that sonnovabitch incubus. I saw it happen ‘fore my own eyes.” He took another puff of the cigar.

“Why are you telling me this?” James asked.

“Because,” Bruuk replied, looking at him with fiery eyes. “That demon slut cheated on ‘em. And Tiao looked at that boy like a goddamn lost puppy, I’ll tell you what. And then, Khoreeld started driftin’ further an’ further outta his grasp because he didn’t care about ‘em, and just like that Tiao found out he was fuckin’ other dudes.” He waved his cigar at James. “And now he’s head over heels for ya’. Now listen--that boy down ‘ere’s too precious to go through heartbreak again. So if somethin’ goes wrong and I found out you hurt the lad, I will personally come an’ kick yer fuckin’ ass.”

James stared at him, dumbfounded. Bruuk was one of Tiao’s best friends, and he probably knew him well. For Bruuk to outrightly say Tiao was certainly into him.. James felt ecstatic, despite the Dwarf’s threats. “He.. feels the same?”

Bruuk sort of stared at him, as if he previously hadn’t gotten a read on James’s feelings and was just winging this shit, and then grinned at him, dipping his head. “Aye.”

“And- Khoreeld..” James processed the information, gripping the edge of the balcony tightly. “I.. don’t know how anybody could have the heart to do that to Tiao.”

“I dunno either,” Bruuk remarked. “Oh- and that flower thing?”

James paused. “Yeah?”

Bruuk grinned. “Don’t tell the lad I told ya’ this, for fuck’s sake--he’ll work up a whole fit--but the flowers ain’t just magical. They’re emotional.” Bruuk looked out towards the village again. “They represent repressed romantic feelin’s. It started when Khoreeld and him broke up and he went to that Wisteria lady. He was coughin’ up black petals then. Now he’s coughin’ up blue ones. And it’s not Khoreeld he blabs to me about.”

James stared at him again. There was no room for doubt now.. Bruuk was right. Tiao was coughing up Lichblooms, and it *did* always feel like an odd coincidence.. Nodding and swallowing hard, he replied, “..Alright. Thank you, Bruuk. I mean it.”

“Ain’t no problem,” Bruuk replied, tapping his cigar. “Just don’t break the lad’s heart and we’ll be fine. Now, leave me te’ smoke. I’m sure he’s waitin’ on ya’.”

James nodded again and turned to leave, making his way back down the hall and striding down the stairs. He felt himself getting colder with sheer excitement. Tiao liked him back. It was official. The next question was.. what now?

As he entered the inn’s lobby he saw that Tiao and Puli had been in some sort of deep conversation. Tiao’s eyes seemed a little red and his hat was off, and he smiled at James as he entered before putting it back on. Puli gave him an encouraging pat on the back and headed towards the counter.

“You good?” James asked as he approached the monk.

Tiao nodded. “Mhm. Just.. deciding to open up to more people.”

James smiled at him. “I’m glad. You deserve it.”

Tiao grinned and looked away as his face reddened again, and James smirked in deep satisfaction. *Oh, yeah. It’s all coming together.*

“We’ve got quite the busy night tonight,” Puli spoke up. “It’s Saturday. Every night on this day of the week we make it fancy in here, and travelers from all over swing by. It gets crowded, so if you want some time together, best make it count before the sun goes down.”

Tiao turned to James. “Well- there is a spot I wanna show you.”

That one sentence tumbled into a series of events involving Tiao borrowing a small riverboat from the local dockmaster, James realizing anything that wobbles as he steps into it is something that he *does not like,* and a deep, dark tunnel named The Ancient Passage.

“This place is the source of all the rivers in Pandaria. Well- all except one,” Tiao said as he rowed them forward. “The saurok here shouldn’t bother us if we’re just rowing through. This has been a trade passage between Kun-Lai and the Valley of Four Winds for centuries.”

“It’s incredible,” James replied in a wonder-filled whisper, watching the light of the lantern at the end of their boat glisten off the cave walls.

“Oh, just wait until you see this. *This* place is called--” Tiao waved a hand dramatically. “--The Secret Aerie.”

They exited the passage into a wide, shallow pond, with large fireflies buzzing about and soft moss growing on the rocks around the water. Tiao docked the boat on the shore near a flimsy-looking staircase. “Don’t tell me we’re going *up there,*” James muttered, his eyes trailing the stairs into a skinny bridge along the mountains.

“What?” Tiao chuckled. “Afraid of heights?”

“No!” James retorted. “I just don’t like things that don’t look like they could hold my weight.”

Tiao snickered. “If it didn’t function, the Pandaren wouldn’t be using it,” he replied. “‘If you slam your head against a rock and do not gain wisdom, maybe you should lose the rock.’ Besides, we’re not going up there. We are on good terms with the Hawkmasters, but they are a secretive bunch.”

James raised a brow at him. “‘The Hawkmasters?’” He echoed.

“Hawk trainers for the Shado-Pan,” Tiao replied. “Not much is known about them. I think it’s similar to an Order of the Cloud Serpent type deal.” The monk gracefully stepped out of the boat, offering James a helping hand and a soft smile. James felt the cold rise in him slightly as he took his hand, wobbly stepping out of the boat and making a few noises of alarm. “It’s okay!” Tiao chuckled. “I’ve got you. Worst that happens is you eat shit in the mud.”

“Or crack my skull open on one of these rocks and die a second time,” James catastrophized, getting his other foot out and planting it on the ground, sighing with relief.

Tiao snickered, taking his hand from James. The loss of his warm hand intertwined with his own stung. “Well- this is the place. I come here to meditate quite often.”

“Yeah? I thought you trained at Sheefu’s Monastery?” James asked.

“I certainly do,” Tiao answered with a proud grin. “To be a Grandmaster, under the best trainer in all the land. But this place is for when I just want to get away and be by myself for a moment. I think here.”

James smirked. “You seem cocky about your training.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Tiao put his hands on his own hips and puffed out his chest proudly. “I learned to fight in the Brotherhood, but gained honor when I began pursuing becoming a monk. I have even fought for the Faithful. I pride myself on my combat abilities.”

“Yeah?” James met Tiao’s gaze. “Did you forget why I am called ‘Wolfheart?’”

Tiao cracked a mischievous smile. “Is that a challenge?”

“Do you feel challenged?” He was antagonizing the man at this point, but Tiao always picked up what he was putting down. He loved that about him.

There was a pause, and then, in one swift movement, Tiao grabbed a hold of James’s arm and quickly held it behind his back, sweeping his legs at the same time before the Knight even had a chance to react. The monk’s free hand went to his shoulder to lessen the thud of James hitting the dirt face-down, but functioned as to hold him there while he squirmed, his wrist firmly locked at his lower back by Tiao’s grip.

James was.. impressed to say the least, quickly feeling the ice within him build drastically. He had to get Tiao off of him--not only for his ego’s sake but also so that he didn’t notice the ramping cold. “Nyeh- get- off me!” James rolled, having the strength to overtake Tiao pinning him just enough to slam his body into the other man’s leg, causing him to lose his footing and drop to his knees on top of him. Tiao reacted just as fast, planting his hands on the ground so as to not completely eat shit, but James also reacted, his hands instinctively going for the monk’s hips so he didn’t collapse on top of him.

…

Oh dear god, somebody save me.

And then there he was, Tiao just on top of him like this, hands at either side of James’s head just as surprised at the positioning as he was. The tone of his tan face deepened fast, red heat tinting the man’s cheeks as he turned away, fumbling for his hat that had fallen off in the process. “Er- s- sorry,” Tiao muttered.

“It’s okay,” James replied with a light, awkward chuckle, noting that his hands were STILL ON TIAO’S HIPS and then quickly removing them, but still not sure what to do with them, so they just sort of hovered instead.

Answering his prayer in a cruel manner, James and Tiao’s heads turned to the sound of the water stirring as Bruuk, gods bless him, rowed casually into the scene on a boat of his own. “Oi lads, Puli needs you back at the- oh shit, did I interrupt somethin’?”

“Oh- n-no! No, no not at all!” Tiao quickly stood up on his knees, putting his hat on and adjusting it with a forced smile and then getting to his feet, offering James a hand up. James accepted it dejectedly, brushing the dirt off of himself.

Bruuk seemed suspicious. “....Riiiiight, so- anyway, if you two are done fuckin’-”

“*Bruuk,*” Tiao growled in a warning tone. James resisted a laugh.

“-then Puli needs you two back at the inn. Or at least Tiao. James doesn't work here,” Bruuk said with a shrug.

James smiled. “It’s a good hangout.”

“Well- Bruuk is right. I’ve let Puli carry more weight than he should long enough.” Tiao looked at James. “Do you need help getting back in the boat again?”

“Damn, Tiao!” Bruuk cackled. “He can’t even walk now?”

“Shut *up,* Bruuk!”

James chuckled. “I’ll- uh- be fine,” he murmured, but leaned on Tiao as he climbed into the riverboat anyway. Tiao followed him and gave Bruuk a nod, the three rowing back to Binan.

Now, when Puli claimed to make it fancy in the inn for Saturday nights, he didn’t expect anything like what he saw when he walked in. Absolutely no lanterns, but there *were* colored lights that seemed to be of gnomish origin, highlighting the room in neon hues. From what he could see, the back counter was all stocked and ready for many more customers than James had seen walk in since he’d arrived here. The Pandaren sure knew how to party, he supposed.

“Saturday nights,” Tiao said with a grin. “My favorite.”

“‘Cause of the lights, or the customers?” James asked.

Tiao smirked at him. “Because I get the most tips on these nights.”

James laughed, and as the other three men began to organize themselves, James retreated back to his seat from yesterday and picked up his book again, smiling as Samwise curled at his feet. Truthfully, he paid no mind to his book. Instead he watched Tiao work, watching as his body wove about skillfully. They were right about the amount of customers--at a certain point, the inn was ridiculously packed. James had to squeeze himself through a good amount of people to bring Samwise upstairs so that nobody stepped on him, and then once he was in Tiao’s room, circled back downstairs to the bar and waited for Tiao to tend to him, which didn’t take long.

“Heyyyyy, welcome to the- oh, hey James!” Tiao greeted as he slid over. “Need somethin’?”

James grinned. “Surprise me.”

Tiao shrugged, an amused smirk on his face, as he reached for an indistinct bottle and began to pour. “How ya’ feelin’?”

“Oh, fine. Just figured I should sit here for a while,” James replied with a smile.

“Fine by me,” Tiao replied, sliding him his drink. “Lagrave stout. Tell me if you like it.” As a female Pandaren beckoned him over, he nodded to James and left, tending to her now. “Cotton, my lady! What can I get for you?”

James quietly sipped his drink as he watched the two interact. The Pandaren had gray and white spotted fur and pink highlights with a rosy gaze to match, and eyed Tiao up quite obviously. James gritted his teeth. At least the drink was good.

Tiao seemed to play into Cotton’s current interest in him, leaning in and cracking jokes with that charming smile of his and even commented that she looked good before returning to James.

James gave him a skeptical look. “Do you flirt with all your customers?”

Tiao looked around and leaned in real close, the breath on his ear almost making him forget Cotton’s presence entirely. “Only the ones that tip well,” he replied, and then pulled away and laughed.

James smiled, feeling a little relieved. “Yeah? How much do I have to pay you, then?” he dared.

Tiao’s face reddened but he didn’t freeze up this time. “I don’t know, how much tip you got?” he shot back even bolder.

James grinned ear to ear. “*As much as you need.*”

Before Tiao could respond, the female Pandaren waved at him again as if trying to call him over. “Uhm- excuse meeee!” she called obnoxiously. “I need a handsome man to refill my drink!”

As if on cue, Bruuk popped up instead, leaning against the counter and beaming at Cotton. “What can I get ya’, lass?”

Cotton eyed up Bruuk before smiling at him dreamily. “Oh, you’ll do~.”

James decided to look away from whatever-the-hell they had going on and return his attention to Tiao. “Drink’s good, by the way.”

“Yeah? Dried fruit and chocolate flavored,” Tiao replied. “Think you might like rich flavors.”

“Tiao-” James’s mind was elsewhere from his drink. “Could I ask you something?”

Tiao blinked at him. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“...Do you-.. remember that drink offer, at the astrology exhibit?” James asked. “...What if I took you out somewhere? Other than.. here. Tuesday maybe?”

Tiao stared at him, that distinct look of dumbfounded fluster taking over his expression again. “I-.. I would- I would love to, James, but Tuesday I have wor-”

“It just so happens that day’s opened up for you” Puli interjected, causing Tiao to turn to him. “It’ll be slow then. You can take a day off.”

They were interrupted once more. James’s watch lit up with a notification from Frost. The preview on it spoke of the Ebon Blade requesting his presence, and his icy heart dropped. It was over. His two days were up.

Tiao frowned at him as if he was able to read it, too. “...You have to go?”

James nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“I’ll meet you outside in five,” Tiao replied. “Wait for me before you go.”

James dipped his head in agreement and let Tiao get back to work for a moment, picking himself up off the seat and making his way out the back entrance of the inn. He’d pick up Samwise in the morning, since the pup couldn’t go into Acherus. He stood against the wooden outer wall, bouncing his foot as his knee crossed over the other waiting patiently for the monk. Tiao did not disappoint, for his bright crimson hat and his cheery demeanor showed up around the corner, closing the door behind him.

“Hey,” Tiao said. “I- Puli confirmed he’s letting me take off Tuesday. I’d love to go somewhere with you.”

James smiled. “I’m glad. Any ideas?”

“I’ve already been thinking about it,” the monk admitted with a chuckle. “There’s a roller skating rink in Stormwind. I can pay for my own entry.”

“I don’t mind either way,” James replied. “You’ve.. been thinking about it?”

“Yeah, I-” Tiao turned and coughed into his hand, and James noticed a few petals falling from it as he wiped them away. “I’m sorry. I need to get back in there, we’re slammed.”

James frowned. “I.. need to get back to Acherus. I’ll pick up Sam in the morning, yeah?”

Tiao smiled. “Yeah. He’s a good cuddle buddy anyhow.”

“Well, uh.. I’ll let you.. get back to your work,” James muttered, gesturing to the door. “I’ll see you around.”

Tiao waved. It looked as if he had something left to say. James ached. He wanted him to say it so bad. James wanted to say it. But it caught in his throat. “Yeah.. I’ll- I’ll see you.”

Tiao disappeared behind the door. Just like that.

James stood outside on the back porch for a few minutes, staring blankly at the door listening to the bustle inside. He had to go now. He had to go back to Acherus and be separate from him. It shouldn’t affect him like this but it did. He felt so close.. He was almost there. He almost said something.

But he didn’t. He didn’t say it. He’d have to say it some other time.

He turned and opened a Death Gate back home.

I made a 20-page fic for two ocs of mine that has zero context with it but it’s gay and there’s a puppy. Should I post it here

#world of warcraft #wow oc #shipping #writing #lgbtq #hanhaki #tw abuse #tw sa mention #tw alcohol #tw drugs

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