#mega long thread

[aeantizlkamenwati]

Final Veilguard Thoughts

I just completed Veilguard 100% platinum (though honestly it is one of the easiest platinums so not much accomplishment there). I have to say again it is not a bad GAME just bad Dragon Age. It reeks of multiplayer and loses everything that made DA unique because of it. And the epilogue is a slap in the face with their “we honor past stories and stories are about change” fourth wall bs and lack of closure. But below the cut is a massive amount of spoilers.

The TL;DR is it’s just a massive missed opportunity and a reboot.

The game up until Weisshaupt is sub par. Boring. It is like they knew the middle and end and then realized they’d have to do a beginning. And then just catered to the newbies and halfassed everything or didn’t do more than one draft. Again the repeating, the handholding the lore while also spoiling everything unnecessarily.

Ghil’s introduction is clownish. Treviso and Minrathous was just fucking blah especially compared to the later missions. It’s just a single fight. And the dialogue Ghil gets? It just makes her a joke. It’s not until Weisshaupt that you see oh she’s crazy and a goddess. It actually felt big while the stupid binary choice was just “eh pick who to fuck I guess”. Maybe if there were other choices like that, it wouldn’t feel so…thrown in there for the sake of supposed stakes.

But the first forty hours (if you are like me and refuse to do main story stuff until everything else is done) is just bad build up. I did not want to push forward until after Weisshaupt. It should NOT take half the game to actually get good. Blood of Arlathan was amazing. It actually felt like I was against a god. It was DIFFERENT than all the other running around quests the game had been up to that point.

I think it would’ve benefitted from more diversity overall. Like gameplay diversity. I think the combat especially needed more. It fucking sucks. It’s just a button masher with no thought. And every boss and big enemy is the same: shield, find the things to pop to break shield, rinse and repeat two-four more times. On storyteller difficulty it’s a joke. And every mission is just fight forward. No puzzle or interesting quests except Blood of Arlathan. Maybe Weisshaupt from the “everything is fucked” thing (it really felt like there should’ve been another REAL everything is fucked, dodging shit that fucked up Treviso/Minrathous to really introduce Ghil) The ending is a bit of a slog too but I enjoyed the cutscenes and war council stuff (again because it was different and interesting and felt like Rook actually had a reason to do it). The end boss battle was cool though not a big fan of the kaiju battles. I called the plot twists at the beginning of the game. Not sure if that's a mark for or against the writing. And the more interesting bits about regret weren’t given enough time to really sink in.

So I think it’s a pacing issue as well as a dialogue issue. I feel like they missed an opportunity to really do something with Rook’s regrets. They are just optimistic and driven all the fucking time that by the time we get trapped in the prison, that’s the first time we see Rook has self doubts and whatnot. There’s this one dialogue line that hit with the masc 1 voice, talking with Solas afterwards that’s “I liked working with you” and it just hits. Where was that emotion before? That level of feeling in the dialogue? If the game is about regrets why didn’t they lean into it??? Instead they leave it blank and deprive Rook of anything interesting, of the thing that made them UNIQUE among the DA protags.

I mean the Inquisitor could be "idk what's going on and why I'm here", but they didn't really have the option to doubt themselves. Hawke was our "everything falls apart around me and I'm just pure chaos" protag. And the Warden was the "Guess I'm in charge now, everyone deal with it" protag. Rook could've been really interesting, to show the different kinds of doubts and regrets. Maybe they are just a scared kid trying to hold it together because they've fucked up everything else in their life. Or maybe they are just pissed that they are the one stepping up. (I also think they could've added depth to the whole elf god thing. Could've also been a nice reason to "fix" the DA racism instead of pastel paint it over). They could’ve utilized the companions to show they cared about Rook that they see what they are going through.

But nope! Bland nothing you have to headcanon your way out of. And Rook is still blander than Origins because everyone knows who they are but the player. They should’ve done something about the backgrounds to set the scene for each Rook. Like resolve them in the game too, not just introductory scenes. Like Aldwir could've had a special mission where them and Strife hash it out (with probably more yelling) cause I kinda felt Strife was Rook's father figure and it would hurt to be constantly told they fucked up by him. Mercar could've had scenes with their family, talking about what it is to lead. SOMETHING to tie Rook to the story and flesh them out beyond headcanons (any developer who relies on headcanons to make their stories interesting, unless the protag is meant to be a Dovahkiin blank space, is fucking lazy, rushed or bad at their job. I don't want to be told "this is the correct Rook", I want enough personality and story to sink my teeth into and Rook is a paper thin vanilla wafer) And they are fucking contradictory? You choose the elf option for tattoos in the beginning and Rook states they were not raised Dalish. They tell Taash they were raised in a city. Then you can say you are Dalish??? And have all the knowledge of a Dalish about the culture. When canonically that’s doubtful. But nope rainbows and sunshine no problems here.

Then the companions are the biggest missed opportunity. I can forgive shitty gameplay (Andromeda) if the companions are good. And this is where the multiplayer starts really showing up. The fact that 90% of their bonding is completely missable and requires you to go into their rooms, stand there, and then just leave without a word from Rook is bullshit (and weird as fuck). Even Andromeda let you have conversations outside cutscenes.

And there’s a lack of balance between the characters. Fucking Taash has like 20 cutscene things and everyone else gets a quarter of that. Why isn’t Lucanis’ healing as important as Taash’s gender journey??? Or Bellara’s grief?? I like Taash don’t get me wrong (at least when they aren’t acting like a moody edgy teenager. That’s just bad writing) but they feel like the favorite child and everyone else is just there. Even NB Rook gets shafted for Taash’s story. I feel I know Taash and have missed everything with the other characters.

This lack of development hits mostly in the romance. Lucanis’ is nonexistent it seems with the majority of flirts doing nothing. One almost kiss and then the companion quest doesn’t change and boom can be in a relationship with nothing new added. It feels like they got the okay to do single player and went “oh shit now we have to do romance…uh just throw the same formula and they’ll be fine”. Like the companions have better chemistry with each other. Rook is just...nothing (no one can convince me they are supposed to be like Shephard because there's having a predefined character and having a blank doll that talks like it has personality) This is a step down from even fucking Origins and DA2. At least those were unique with their own plot lines and themes. At this point I’d take the cringey sex montage of Origins over this nothing burger. Those had more depth than a classic Disney film.

And who’s bright idea was it to put the kiss/make out scene right after you just found out your mentor is dead and you’ve been played with by a god (and why wasn’t that given more room to breathe??? I would feel fucking violated as fuck! But given that one of the writers once wanted you to have sex with a demon masquerading as Leliana I'm also not fucking surprised the idea of consent got thrown out the window) and watched your friend die???? How is that okay???? And didn’t one of the directors say “this is the most romantic da game to date” or something??? Seriously? You call this more romantic than having a literal Princess Bride moment with Josie? Or Dorian learning to want more that he can have more? Be for fucking real.

The lack of all of this gives me serious doubt about Mass Effect 5. I expect a full reboot like this where they just nuke everything off screen so they don’t have to deal with it and call it something like “necessary to avoid pointless one liners” again. I can think of several decisions I made that could’ve aided the South. You know like the schism between the Grey Wardens. But nope. Apparently the only things that matter are: did you want to fuck Solas (as Dorian gets one line and everyone else gets nothing), did you want fucking kill Solas, and how would you like to fucking do that. They made it where there’s only one answer that’s given the care to feel correct/complete. And even then Solas’ sudden "k I’ll bind myself" feels rushed or just cobbled together cause that ending needed more. I don’t care if it’s supposed to be vague that’s an excuse for shitty writing. I should feel like I got closure and I don’t. I just feel insulted given how little care they gave for the previous stories and how little they cared about this one apparently. I shouldn’t have to rely on fanfics to fix your damn story BioWare. Fanfics should build upon what’s there not do your job for you. They could’ve done something interesting but instead we get an indistinguishable multiplayer clone trying to masquerade as a Dragon Age with piss poor pacing, dialogue and direction.

I’m out. It felt like them killing Varric was a metaphor for them killing the older games. A nice fuck you to the player base

[iruludavare]

“ please enlighten me more about mega evolution! you’ve piqued my interest, deary.”

          "Oh, um, well..."

     Hesitation accents itself with the sound of a cup, delicate in its composition, being placed back upon its saucer. Where to begin? Where could she start? Thoughts swirl around in the depths of her mind, of so much knowledge on the subject bestowed both by personal experiences and professor Sycamore's conclusions alike. She knows both all too much, and yet not enough— never it all— on the innerworkings of Mega Evolution. One of a tiny handful of go-to people for information on the phenomenon. And yet, when asked by someone like this, it is as though the heroine has never heard of it in her life. Vanishing and yet fighting to be the first thing said.

          "I suppose the simplest way to put it is that it's one of the pinnacles of a bond between a person and an eligible pokemon. It allows them to use the power in the stone and temporarily evolve into a more powerful form."

          There is a lull in her speech, eyes flickering off to the side if only to buy herself a moment or two— to consider her next set of words with the utmost care. Goodness knows that one horrifically unethical and dangerous study has spread too much misinformation for her liking. Has the older woman heard of it, Serena wonders? Is that why she has asked someone like her to elaborate and speak on what her own eyes have witnessed and knows to be true?

          "Unfortunately, we don't know too much about how it works or why it came to be. Only that mega stones and keystones were made from the power of both Xerneas and Yveltal in the blast from the Ultimate Weapon when they were forced to power it three thousand years ago. And that a strong bond, with a shared goal in mind, is required to make it stable and beneficial for both parties."

     Hands move to rest upon the heroine's lap, fingers resting upon the fabric of a thick coat. Something grounding, but not obvious. Much like the ghost of a smile that takes to Serena's features.

          "But... I think that alone says plenty. The power of creation and destruction— life and death... the inherent beneficial nature of Mega Evolution and the risks if used improperly or without a strong bond... using their power and releasing it as Infinity Energy... in that context, it's a balanced representation of both beings."

[puhpandas]

I am brand new to spiderman and have only seen msm 2017 and both spiderverses and some scenes from andrew garfields spiderman movies so bare with me.

gregory is spiderman but named spiderboy instead. he goes to a nerd school but instead of him being science smart hes computer science/software smart. in this au hes just a bit younger than normal spiderman teen age at 14 just so he can still be at a high school

his uncle ben was Bonnie and his aunt May is Freddy

Cassie takes spider gwens place but shes different. more like msm gwen where shes just friends with spiderboy. her name is spidergirl and her and spiderboy both know eachothers secret identity and are best friends. cassie also goes to gregorys nerd school but she specializes in hardware. since this is once again mostly based off of msm Cassies dad is the jackal and evil so. she has to deal with that

Vanessa is Gregory's sister who is actively mind controlled by the dor oc of this world (once again based off of msm's mind control discs). she also has a secret identity as Vanny but as a villain and she knows somethings off but doesnt know what it is. shes gone and busy as much as Gregory is in the Fazbear household so Freddy doesn't get suspicious because both his kids are busy and it's not just one being strangely absent. in turn Gregory doesnt realize Vanessa's gone a lot because well. shes out as vanny when hes out as spiderboy, so shes also home at the same time as him. she doesnt go to any fancy school yet because shes still choosing a college. I think her specialty would be writing code?

doc oc is the mimic but like. not like a human it's still a robot. I think it would be a rogue security robot from one of the nerd schools that got so smart it upgraded itself by giving itself six limbs on its back and kept stealing tech from the schools until it made the mind control discs. it has control over vanessa and like in msm has a sinister 5: monty, chica, roxy, the dca, and vanny

theres no harry osborn counterpart BUT tony and ellis are in this au. tony works for jjj and is given the job of taking pictures of spiderboy, but his goal is really to convince them all that he should be the one writing papers and not taking photos. gregory and tony meet while Gregory is spiderboy and Gregory has the most of the classic hiding spiderman identity hijinks with him as they grow closer and bond throughout this hypothetical story lol. tony is also working to find the secret identity of spiderboy in particular since he was the first but all of the spider people in general as a personal project. in their case to add ggy flair Gregory gets the same mind control disc used on him as vanessa after a slip up with doc oc and he turns evil and attacks tony. It happens to be at the same time/after his identity is revealed to him which is sus for Gregory and makes tony confused

ellis takes miles Morales' place in this au so hes another spider guy, not sure about his name yet since I want it to be something different. he met Gregory through tony. I just think all of tonys friends being the spiders and him not having a clue and missing what's right in front of him is so funny. I also think Gregory and ellis would have so much synergy on the field like they're friends and can goof off together. I think like how peter helps miles in msm could be applied here but it's less like being Ellis' mentor but just trying to help him understand when it's time to be serious as a spider and not just quip and swing around as a friend

as a little bonus I've been thinking a lot today about the concept of spidergirl taking after a gwen and falling down an elevator shaft out of web like in andrew garfields spiderman and Gregory has to save her.... like omg

I'm fucking cooking with a fnaf spiderman au rn

[velvetsainz]

summary: [ cl16 x fem!reader ] charles is away in baku and you remind him of what he's missing. part two.

word count: 1.3k

content warnings: smut under the cut (minors dni pls!), pwp, use of explicit language, phone sex, masturbation, google-translated french (lmao), a dash of fluff, i like em dashes too much

a/n: baby's first smutlet! i've been writing for like twelve years but i've never posted to tumblr, so here's to first times! there'll def be at least a part ii to this, but i'm also hoping to write for other drivers soon(ish). also giant mega thank you to @multiseb21 + @lecrep for your support—y'all have been so incredibly sweet & i am so thankful for you!! anyways, i hope y'all like this! enjoy, loves! xx

“Chérie,” his voice crooned over the line, a soft laugh leaving your lips. “Don’t tease, mon ange—it’s already hard enough being away from you for so long.”

“Weren’t you the one who said he’d be fine just a month ago?,” you retorted, voice low.  The cards were in your hands now, and Charles was desperate.  He was a nomad lost in the desert and you were his oasis on the horizon, just the sound of your voice enough to slake his thirst.

“Yes, but then you sent me that picture and—” You hear him curse again under his breath, his fist acting as a poor substitute for the velvet heat of your walls. He swore he wasn’t going to let you leave that bed once he got his hands on you again.

Charles wasn’t entirely wrong: you were the biggest fucking tease known to mankind.  Earlier that evening you sent him a semi-absentminded photo of you fresh from the shower, steam still obscuring the best parts of the photo with a fresh white towel around your hips and one gathering your hair on top of your head.  He’d always had something about you fresh from the shower—every time he’d nearly pounce as soon as you’d pad back into the bedroom from the steamy confines of the bathroom, hair wrapped on top of your head just as it was now.  (Part of you thought it was something primal in him: you’d washed away his scent on your skin and he needed to make his territory known again, that horn dog.)  Still, he was ever the gentleman and would make the endeavor more than worth your while.

“Yeah, that was pretty bad of me, wasn’t it?,” you ceded with a knowing smirk on your lips as you sat back from your desk, closing your laptop slowly.  You’d wanted to get a little more work done after your shower, but the Monégasque wasn’t keen to let sleeping dogs lie and needed to hear your voice for himself.

“So bad, chérie,” he agreed with tone of exasperation, a heavy sigh passing through the phone, “And you’re not even here to help a–”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t help in other ways,” you were quick to remind him, the words coming from your mouth quicker than your shame would force you to bottle them up.  Heat was creeping to your cheeks, and you could feel the familiar coil of desire tightening deep in the pit of your belly.

“Are you—?”

“That’s why you called, isn’t it, baby?,” you asked only to get a stifled groan from the other side. “You wanted me to tell you how I’ve been thinking about you all day,” you continued, “how I miss your hands on my hips, your cock so deep—”

“Fucking hell,” Charles practically whines as you push yourself away from the desk now, allowing yourself to relax into the seat of the chair and your hips to ease apart despite every part of you wanting to grind them together to relieve the dull ache that rested between them.

“What would you do if I was there now, Cha?,” you asked softly, hand splayed out over the plush of your thigh, eyes glazing over as you pictured him there with you.  You wanted his hands everywhere; you couldn’t decide where you truly needed him most. Fingers curling against that hidden spot in your tight cunt, threaded through your hair and pulling your head back to rest on his shoulder, gripping your thighs so tight they’d leave bruises that he’d fuss over later—it all sounded like heaven compared to the lonely hell of your shared Monte Carlo flat.

“I want to taste you, mon cœur,” he replied shakily as his breath came faster, the sound of him fisting his cock becoming more and more prominent as time passed; he wasn’t going to last long like this, but you both already knew that—it wasn’t the point of this exercise.  “I’d have you coming on my tongue, let you taste yourself when I kiss you—putain,” the driver cursed once more as his brow furrowed.  He was leaking precum over his ironclad grip and all he wanted was to slide his fingers past your plump lips to feel the wet heat of your tongue take care of the mess.

You let out a tremulous breath over the line, one you hadn’t known you’d been holding onto so tightly until your head started swimming with need.  Your hand had drifted from its origin, rubbing lazy circles over the cotton of the panties you’d slipped into after the inciting picture.  On your top half was a worn, faded shirt of Charles that you’d taken a liking to as a nightshirt—especially when you were missing him as you were so desperately now.

“Need you in me,” you begged, the emptiness you felt so acutely coming to the forefront of your senses, “You always do such a good job filling me—my fingers don’t do you justice.”

You hear a groan on the other side of the line, the man now sitting on the edge of the bed as he tries to keep himself in check.  He wasn’t ready for this to be over so soon; you had him feeling like a teenager again, ready to spill at a moment’s notice. Granted, this wasn't anything new: there's something so intoxicating about you that destroyed whatever semblance of restraint, of control he had over his lust.

“Want you in my mouth, give me something better to do than tease you like this,” to which you received a choked merde, the man hanging on your every word as the hand between your legs abandoned its objective—you could take care of that later.  You were too caught in every little sound that passed his plush lips, listening for every little cue his body so willingly gave you.

“Want your hands in my hair, guiding me up and down your cock,” you keened for him on a whine, his breathing heavy and labored.  He was running at full speed to the cliff's edge, and you were there watching, waiting in the grass. “Want your cum on my tongue, baby,” you whined.

“Promise not to waste any, minette?,” he grunted, gritting his teeth as you hummed your assurances.  “Such a good girl f’me, yes–”

With a strained hiss and a groan he came sloppily over his hand, thankful enough that he wasn’t home in Monaco so he didn’t have to worry about cleaning up the mess he’d made. “Fuck,” he croaked, breathing heavy as he came down from the blinding high your words had catapulted him through.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t been taking care of business when duty called, but something about your voice, the thought of you there…it clutched everything into a higher gear.

“Better?,” you asked, sly smile audible to the Ferrari driver; he didn’t need to see you to know the shit-eating, satisfied smile that took over your lips.

With a tired laugh he nodded, slumping back onto the cool rumpled sheets of the hotel bed as he stared absently at the dark ceiling.  It was three in the morning in Baku, and he couldn’t sleep—the thoughts your cheeky picture had invited wouldn’t let him.

“Get some rest, tiger,” you teased him, knowing he’d have to be awake in a few short hours. You debated sending him another picture in the morning as motivation, tiding him over until you’d join him later that weekend.

“Que ferais-je sans toi, mon amour?,” he asked, sleep heavy in his voice as he rolled the right way onto the bed and running a hand through his hair.  He’d deal with the mess he’d made in the morning along with the flowers he’d send you—he really didn’t know what he’d do without you.

“I guess we’ll never know, hm?,” you replied gently, smile melting into something softer as you fiddled with the gleaming ring on your left hand.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Denise Hearn and Vass Bednar’s “The Big Fix”

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/05/ted-rogers-is-a-dope/#galen-weston-is-even-worse

The Canadian national identity involves a lot of sneering at the US, but when it comes to oligarchy, Canada makes America look positively amateurish.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/05/ted-rogers-is-a-dope/#galen-weston-is-even-worse

Canada's monopolists may be big fish in a small pond, but holy moly are they big, compared to the size of that pond. In their new book, The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians, Denise Hearn and Vass Bednar lay bare the price-gouging, policy-corrupting ripoff machines that run the Great White North:

https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/product/the-big-fix/

From telecoms to groceries to pharmacies to the resource sector, Canada is a playground for a handful of supremely powerful men from dynastic families, who have bought their way to dominance, consuming small businesses by the hundreds and periodically merging with one another.

Hearn and Bednar tell this story and explain all the ways that Canadian firms use their market power to reduce quality, raise prices, abuse workers and starve suppliers, even as they capture the government and the regulators who are supposed to be overseeing them.

The odd thing is that Canada has been in the antitrust game for a long time: Canada passed its first antitrust law in 1889, a year before the USA got around to inaugurating its trustbusting era with the passage of the Sherman Act. But despite this early start, Canada's ultra-rich have successfully used the threat of American corporate juggernauts to defend the idea of Made-in-Canada monopolies, as homegrown King Kongs that will keep the nation safe from Yankee Godzillas.

Canada's Competition Bureau is underfunded and underpowered. In its entire history, the agency has never prevented a merger – not even once. This set the stage for Canada's dominant businesses to become many-tentacled conglomerates, like Canadian Tire, which owns Mark's Work Warehouse, Helly Hansen, SportChek, Nevada Bob's Golf, The Fitness Source, Party City, and, of course, a bank.

A surprising number of Canadian conglomerates end up turning into banks: Loblaw has a bank. So does Rogers. Why do these corrupt, price-gouging companies all go into "financial services?" As Hearn and Bednar explain, owning a bank is the key to financialization, with the company's finances disappearing into a black box that absorbs taxation attempts and liabilities like a black hole eating a solar system.

Of course, the neat packaging up of vast swathes of Canada's economy into these financialized and inscrutable mega-firms makes them awfully convenient acquisition targets for US and offshore private equity firms. When the Competition Bureau (inevitably) fails to block those acquisitions, whole chunks of the Canadian economy disappear into foreign hands.

This is a short book, but it's packed with a lot of easily digested detail about how these scams work: how monopolies use cross-subsidies (when one profitable business is used to prop up an unprofitable business in order to kill potential competitors) and market power to rip Canadians off and screw workers.

But the title of the book is The Big Fix, so it's not all doom and gloom. Hearn and Bednar note that Canadians and their elected reps are getting sick of this shit, and a bill to substantially beefed up Canadian competition law passed Parliament unanimously last year.

This is part of a wave of antitrust fever that's sweeping the world's governments, notably the US under Biden, where antitrust enforcers did more in the past four years than their predecessors accomplished over the previous 40 years.

Hearn and Bednar propose a follow-on agenda for Canadian lawmakers and bureaucrats: they call for a "whole of government" approach to dismantling Canada's monopolies, whereby each ministry would be charged with combing through its enabling legislation to find latent powers that could be mobilized against monopolies, and then using those powers.

The authors freely admit that this is an American import, modeled on Biden's July 2021 Executive Order on monopolies, which set out 72 action items for different parts of the administration, virtually all of which were accomplished:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

What the authors don't mention is that this plan was actually cooked up by a Canadian: Columbia law professor Tim Wu, who served in the White House as Biden's tech antitrust czar, and who grew up in Toronto (we've known each other since elementary school!).

Wu's plan has been field tested. It worked. It was exciting and effective. There's something weirdly fitting about finding the answer to Canada's monopoly problems coming from America, but only because a Canadian had to go there to find a receptive audience for it.

The Big Fix is a fantastic primer on the uniquely Canadian monopoly problem, a fast read that transcends being a mere economics primer or history lesson. It's a book that will fire you up, make you angry, make you determined, and explain what comes next.

[theresattrpgforthat]

@martianworder asked me about this on my Forged in the Dark post, so here we go!

Clocks

So Clocks have been a tool that have been used before and outside of Blades in the Dark, but BitD was where I think they were made really popular.

Golem Clocks designed by cmartins on Itch.io

For all intents and purposes, a Clock is just a track that you fill, but in some cases it's preferred over a track because it fills less space, and it's easy to just draw a clock on a piece of paper to help you keep track of something as you play.

A Clock can be more than just a track. It can be a countdown, a timer, or a representation of a person or faction's goals. The larger the Clock, the bigger task it is. Here are some examples of how you could use them.

A Healing project clock from Blades in the Dark.

A player could have a project Clock that they fill over the course of many sessions. Perhaps they want to research a cure for a vampire virus that is threatening a loved one. The GM would ask them to make a research roll every downtime, and how successful they are indicates how many slices they fill - effectively, how much progress they make towards finding a cure.

Rebellion and Sedition Clocks for Brinkwood: Blood of Tyrants.

A play group might use a Clock to track a common goal, such as winning over a number of anarchists to help take down a mega-corporation. If this is a campaign-long goal, you might use a series of linked clocks to represent the jailbreak you need to assist before you can win over a computer hacker, and then the massive hacking project you need to support before you can overwhelm the corpo servers.

Faction Clocks from Scum & Villainy.

A GM might use a Clock to track the work a Faction makes towards their goal. Every downtime section, they GM might roll to see how successful the Faction is, or simply tick one slice of the clock if the Faction has no reason not to be able to do what they want. If the Faction is allowed to work unimpeded by the PC's, they might eventually do something that changes the world around them, for better or worse.

Mission Clock from External Containment Bureau and Doomsday Clock from Apocalypse Keys.

Clocks might also be used as a timer, to indicate when something terrible might happen, or when the group's time is up. This might be the amount of time before a murderer next strikes, before the haunted house claims another victim, or before the world begins to end. In some games, specific points in the clock (such as halfway, or a quarter of the way through) may trigger special events that give the PC's more information, or remind the group that the pressure is really on.

Clocks for Protect the Child.

All in all, Clocks are a great visual tool to help you and your game group keep track of what's going on in the fiction, and it can also help you keep track of a number of narrative threads in a fairly condensed space. Even if they're not built into the game you're currently running or playing, I think they're a fairly easy addition, and can certainly help with bookkeeping!

[mystardustmelodyyy]

Stop Talking!!!!

Jack Schlossberg x reader | 1.2k wc

Today was a LOT ngl. But for me at least, reading the facts long form and listening to civil discourse makes everything seem a little more manageable. Take care chicas 🩵

Andddd Here is the latest work by @remotewatch HQ! Enjoy 💋

“I’m gonna get more paper towels!” you chirp to the other remaining party guests who’d stayed to clean up.

The row house was wayy bigger than it appeared, leading you down a labyrinth of halls and storage units. You feel a rush of satisfaction when you fling open a particularly heavy door to a stacked shelf of cleaning supplies. It nearly distracts you from the horrified squeak that comes out of left field. It’s none other than the man of the hour.

Jack Schlossberg, in a closet. With his pants down, watching his phone to be specific.

“What the fuck are you watching on your phone with the sound off?” Your shock at finding the guest of honor quickly turned into anger; people have been looking for him for the better part of an hour. Meanwhile, he’s frozen in shock, covering his dick. He starts to string some ‘umms’ and ‘uhhs’ together, before blurting out:

“It’s not porn, I swear!”

“Let me see, or I’m calling everyone in here.”

Jack looks at you wide-eyed (not unlike a scared baby cow, you muse) then sheepishly bends forward to hand over his phone with his pants still around his ankles.

You can’t tell which emotion is stronger- confusion or disgust, but also amusement swirling around in your stomach looking at his Twitter and all the other social media apps he’s got up. Tiktok, Instagram, Threads and Pinterest are open on swaths of hate comments.

“Your own posts? You fucking narcissist.”

“It’s not that,” Jack blinks, weighing the options in his head before continuing. His voice drops to a whisper “it’s the replies…”

You raise an eyebrow, look down at his phone, and read his reply out loud:

“I’m a literal pervert. I called my grandmother hot.. Have I totally lost it? Jesus… this kid will do anything for attention. Your grandfather would be ashamed. Seriously. Time to get a job.”

Scoffing, you stalk towards him and wave the phone with a flick of your wrist so he’s backing up into the wall.

“Is this why you’ve been posting garbage since the election?” you sneer- you’d been annoyed with him about his output already, even more so when you saw how many people still took it at face value. Not only was it mega depressing, his squandered influence felt like such a wasted opportunity. As far as you were concerned, whatever 4D chess he thought he was playing wasn’t landing.

“No!” he sputters, “I have a method, I’m writing a book..”

“Oh that is such bullshit Jack” You cut him off abruptly (which he’s definitely turned on by, judging by the twitch of his erection…) and let out an exasperated sigh before continuing, “None of this is productive. Jesus Christ, all you’re doing is stroking your ego and apparently your dick at your own birthday party… have you been commando this whole time?! You are such a fucking loser.””

“It’s laundry day…” Jack’s been sinking down this whole time but now he’s fully on the floor, hunched over and looking up at you. He tries to apologize before you lock eyes and take a beat.

“And I didn’t tell you to stop!” You snap.

He can’t tell if you’re serious or not, if fucking his hand will just incite more rage, but sure enough he tentatively starts jerking off again and gets a rhythm going. Soon he’s absolutely vibrating- beanie askew, pants around the ankles, no underwear, unshaved and musky, visibly scared and leaking. You continue to read the replies-

I’m so sick of him. He’s officially transitioned into a gangly annoying shit. Enough already.

Each word has you inching closer to him.

This guy’s descent into loserdom was so rapid.

Ever since that Justin Baldoni bit every joke he tries to make has felt off and desperate.

Jack whines and arches his back towards you so wantonly it snaps you into a pause.

“Oh my god, you really love this shit don’t you? You’re so GROSS.”

He knits his eyebrows together while you continue:

Loneliest, hungriest man on earth and its JFKs grandson. Could you imagine?

I made an account because I couldn’t watch from the sidelines anymore. He's acting crazy like Azealia Banks now without the finesse. Boohoo nobody is paying attention to me, hmm how do I get my daily dose of attention so i don't cry myself to sleep?? How pathetic.

It’s getting more and more embarrassing that I ever read fics about him.

He starts to repeat to you while you’re reading. His breath hitches with repetition at first, then he’s talking to himself in a trance. You immediately snap your fingers before he gets too lost.

“What did you say?”

He mumbles, still not fully coherent, “I’m a pervert and a slut..”

“Say it louder if you’re going to say it.”

“I’m a pervert and a slut!” He chokes out. You look up from the screen and keep going off of your own anger.

“You’re not saving anyone, you’re just using the Daily Mail to jerk off.”

“I’m not saving anyone, I’m just using the Daily Mail to jerk off.” He’s panting.

“People listening to you doesn’t mean you’re saying anything valuable.”

“People listening to me doesn’t mean I’m saying anything valuable.” Jack repeats in a daze, jaw going slack as his words run together.

“God, they’re right. Your grandfather would be ashamed of you”

He winces at that one but starts beating harder. You put your foot over his balls, and he reaches out for you desperately only to get his hand smacked away.

“Clean your goddamn fingernails. I don’t know why you thought you could be in charge of your own social media, all your best ideas come from women anyway.”

Pressing harder on his balls, you lean down and hiss into his ear. “You’re just a dumb slut who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Jack closes his eyes and does a weird pathetic half whine-half groan before dribbling into his hand. The sound is enough to briefly distract you from his load splattering onto your right shoe. His beanie falls off as he slumps against you.

“And now you’ve made another fucking mess!” You wipe your shoe on his wrinkled pants, still around his ankles, and turn to leave when he feebly takes your wrist with his free hand.

“Can I eat you out?” He sounds like a cat begging to be let inside.

“Excuse me?”

There are tears in his eyes and a drying string of drool stuck to one corner of his mouth. He lets out a sniffle. “Please, I just wanna do something right, please just let me make you cum.”

You gingerly extract his hand from your wrist, not even bothering to conceal your disgust. “Ew. Absolutely not.”

He manages to let go, although it seems painful for him. You grab the paper towels and walk towards the door, swinging it wide open.

“Hey guys, I found the birthday boy!” You announce cheerily “He was tweeting in a closet.”

As Jack is scrambling to pull his pants up and grab his beanie you can’t help but smirk when you catch a glimpse of a broom falling on him on your way out.

[quotabit]

 last  thing  he  remembers  was  running,  screaming  from  the  monster  he  was  supposed  to  hunt  down,  to  vanish  off  the  earth.  only  for  him  to  run  to  a  female  and  knocking  himself  out  in  the  process.  head  hurting  but  eyes  remain  closed,  softness  of  something  beneath  him  comfortable,  feeling  like  he  was  needing  that  rest  from  all  that  running  he  had  done.  very  aware  of  pair  of  eyes  staring  at  him,  feeling  like  he  was  being  studied.  hearing  a  sweet  voice,  thankfully  this  voice  not  belonging  to  a  monster,  every  word  clear  and  wanting  to  smile.  thankfully  controlling  his  features  was  easy.  head  turning  towards  where  the  voice  was  coming,  cyborg  arm  moving  and  the  nanotech  touching  something,  something  warm  ;  was  that  human  skin  ?  

 waiting  a  minute  or  two  so  he  would  finally  speak  out.  ❛  no  hospital.  ❜  he  says,  his  eyes  finally  opening  and  staring  at  the  most  beautiful  human  staring  at  him.  feline  like  eyes  widening  slightly.  ❛  um,  who  are  you  ?  ❜  thick  brows  knit  together  as  he  finally  sits  up,  looking  around  to  scan  the  room  around,  he  had  no  idea  where  he  was.  suddenly  looking  down  at  his  arm,  spreading  the  fingers,  feeling  the  stiffness  of  the  metal.  ❛  stupid  arm  not  working  correctly.  ❜  shaking  his  head  as  speaking  to  himself,  then  over  at  the  female.  ❛  what  happened  ?  did  you  carry  me  ?  ❜  suddenly  leaning  in  almost  to  the  point  his  nose  comes  to  bump  against  hers.  what  was  even  personal  space  ?  ❛  you  are  not  one  of  them  are  you  ?  ❜  eyes  narrowing  momentarily,  as  if  studying  her  eyes,  there  was  nothing  malicious  behind  there  ;  which  causes  his  eyes  to  soften  but  he  remains  close.

˖  ࣪  .  ࿐  ♡  ˚  .  jihye  coming  thru  for @quotabit !

            jihye  has  had  her  fair  share  of  bad  days,  that's  for  sure.  though  nothing  could  ever  come  close  to  the  kind  of  fortune  she's  experienced  on  that  day.  only  wanting  to  go  on  one  of  those  solo  adventures  of  hers,  she  would  have  never  expected  that  she  would  go  home  with  company  in  tow.  

staring  at  him  from  across  her  brother's  old  room-turned-spare  room,  jihye  watches  as  the  individual  continues  to  lie  on  the  soft  mattress  almost  lifelessly.  observing  his  chest  -  not  for  any  reason  but  to  ensure  that  he  was  still  breathing.  letting  out  a  sigh  of  relief  when  she  notices  him  stir  a  bit  from  his  passed-out  state.  with  this,  she  runs  over  to  the  edge  of  the  bed,  eyes  wide,  "  yah  .  .  a-are  you  awake  ?  "  finally  breaking  the  silence,  hues  still  heavily  focused  on  him,  but  now  found  herself  admiring  his  face,  having  to  slap  herself  for  even  doing  something  as  stupid  as  that.  "  aish  .  .  wake  up  .  .  should  i  have  taken  you  to  the  hospital  instead  ?  "

[tinygenderfluid]

You know what's kinda insane to me?

The fact that Ash Ketchum isn't famous in the pokemon universe, like in-universe.

You mean to tell me that a ten-year-old going region to region, meeting multiple legendaries and solving insane problems with his recognizable as fuck pikachu isn't atleast twitter famous? Not even considered a cryptic that when people say that they met him, he beat their asses in a pokebattle, then continued to also beat a legendary/an evil league/team rocket, that people online don't go: "oooh another region/world wide incident that can go on the conspiracy board, time to put new red threads between this major world-impscting event and the fact that this kid might me god."

I mean, he atleast should be famous in Kalos from the jumping-off-the-Prism-tower-fiasco alone but he also sorta stopped an artificial apocalypse set up by an evil pokemon league using an unidentified legendary and a previously long lost mega-evolution form from a starter pokemon. (It's been a while since I watched the anime, don't get on my ass).

I mean, pokemon champions are kind of considered famous because people recognise them in-universe right? Shouldn't someone online have recognised him from hanging out with so many champions alone? You mean to tell me that if some random ten-year old started showing up in news articles with famous people even if he was just in the background, no one in the entire world would make a reddit post saying 'hey look at this funny coincidence, this kid has been spotted with 5 champions or something' ????????

Buzzfeed unsolved episodes have been made about less.

I get it that he wouldn't become well known from the mewtwo incident - because mewtwo erased the memories of everyone involved if I remember correctly - but you mean to tell me no one remembered him from the three legendary kanto birds and Lugia (saved the world), Entei, Celebi, Latio and Latias and literally every other movie? Sure, say those aren't cannon. WHAT ABOUT THE TIME HE LITERALLY GOT KIDNAPPED BY A THOUGHT TO BE EXTINCT POKEMON IN THE FIRST SEASON?? THAT DINO-ASS FLYING POKEMON THAT FORCED CHARMELEON TO EVOLVE INTO CHARIZARD SO THEY COULD FIGHT IT? HE'S NOT ATLEAST INFAMOUS IN KANTO FOR THAT??

Also you can't tell me that there are a lot of ten-year old who fight in multiple major pokemon leagues in contention for the title of regional pokemon champion.

There has to atleast be one autistic 5-year old and their mother in the pokemon world who know all about Ash Ketchum because his adventures are low-key insane.

[late-to-the-party-81]

Her Alpha

AN: It’s Alpha Steve time!It feels good to be updating all my series 😀 This fits in between Surprise, Surprise and Birthday Gifts

@noseyrosey1597 asked: I’m obsessed with Alpha nomad Steve and his omega. Could you possibly do a one shot where she meets the team? Maybe she doesn’t like Tony

Endless thanks to my beta,  @endlesstwanted. Likes are loved, reblogs are golden. Mood board by me and dividers by @firefly-graphics

Join my tag list here

Bingo and Challenge fills:

@steverogersbingo  - A1 - Alpha Steve

Master list | SRB Master list | Series Master list

Summary: It’s not even been 24 hours since you and Steve were reunited, but it’s the start of the next chapter - you’re moving in with him at the Avengers Compound, which also means it’s time to meet the team. You’ve just got to hope you can keep your pregnancy hormones under control.

Relationship: Alpha Steve x Pregnant Omega Reader

Word count: 2.8k

CW: A/B/O, Sexual content (P in V sex, pregnancy sex, knotting), Steve’s dirty talk, smidge Angst, hormonal and aggressive Omega Reader, Pet names (Omega, sweetheart, Mama).

You woke up, an almost long forgotten feeling of contentment suffusing you, and turned within the pair of thick arms that held you. With a sigh you looked up into the face of Steve, your Alpha. You lifted your hand and smoothed a lock of his hair back from his forehead, marvelling at the sheer beauty of him. It was almost criminal, the way his long eyelashes kissed his freckled skin. A happy chirp made its way out of your throat and Steve stirred, pulling you tighter to his body. 

If it weren’t for the ache on your neck, or the echoing one between your legs, you’d still believe this was a dream. Five months had gone without you seeing each other, longer than anytime before, but now the sporadic visits were finally over. The Accords were rescinded, Steve was no longer a criminal on the run and you could truly be together. Today Steve would be taking you to where he lived, the Avengers Compound in upstate New York, and you wouldn’t have to put up with this shitty, damp apartment anymore. You’d have a nice place to live, access to a state of the art medical facility for when your pup (or pups) came, and you’d get to meet all of Steve’s friends. What a difference a day made.

You sighed again and tilted your head to press your lips against Steve’s. His eyes were still closed, but you knew he wasn’t fully asleep because he deepened the kiss almost immediately and a muscular thigh, covered in coarse hair, pushed its way between your legs. You rocked against it as he kissed you, despite the fact that it increased the ache that was there. You welcomed the mild discomfort because it meant he was really here with you.

“Morning, ‘Mega,” Steve mumbled against your lips. He rolled onto his back and pulled you with him so you were straddling his hips, his morning wood slotting against your sex. Your fingers threaded into the slightly too long hair at the nap of his neck and he let out a pleasured growl.

“Morning, Alpha,” you purred as you lightly ground down onto him. You were wet already, a combination of being back in your Alpha’s arms along with being in your second trimester - your libido had picked up and Steve couldn’t have returned at a better time.

“Ready to leave this all behind?” he asked as his large hands landed on your hips and helped you move back and forth over his length, covering it in your arousal.

“Mmm-hmm,” you confirmed. “Although I’m not ready to leave this bed yet. There’s something I wanna do first.” You lifted your body, took Steve in hand and then sunk back down, a feeling of bliss suffusing your whole being. You were glad that it hadn’t been that long since he was last inside you so that you didn’t need to go through any arduous prep.

“Oh, sweetheart. Fuck.” You very rarely took the lead like this - you blamed your hormones - and Steve’s eyes rolled back in his head. “That’s it, Mama. Ride me. Take what you need. Look so god-damn sexy, carrying my pups. If I could I fuck some more into you. Jeez.”

The power trip was making you dizzy with arousal. You wanted him to lose his mind due to his want and desire for you. He was your Alpha - your mate. You were pregnant with his pups, and now you were going to start the rest of your life together this very day.

As you rocked atop him, Steve ran a hand up your body to cup one of your breasts. His thumb flicked over your engorged nipple and you gasped at the sensation as your body clenched around his length. Your whole body was much more sensitive now.

“Steve,” you keened, and sped up your movements. “So close, Alpha. Make me come, please!” You knew he was close as well because you could feel his swelling knot teasing your entrance. 

“Your wish is my command, Omega.” His other hand dropped to your clit and he drew matching circles over it, both hands working in tandem on different parts of your body to pull you over the edge. You moaned loudly as the pleasure hit, rocking back and forth on his cock as your pussy spasmed. A second dart of pleasure hit you as Steve’s knot popped and you felt his cum fill you up. Steve’s noises of ecstacy merged with yours as your movements slowed and then finally stilled. You collapsed on top of him, breathing heavily, your bodies still joined together.

“We don’t need to pack up until this afternoon, do we?” you asked. Steve chuckled, his body jiggling yours as he did.

“You don’t need to do anything, Omega. I can sort it out while you’re having a nap.” He pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“Oh, good,” you replied and then let out a yawn. “I find myself worn out for some reason.”

“I wonder why,” Steve replied with a snort. “Now relax. Let your Alpha deal with all the mundane stuff.

As the car made its way up the long drive leading to the large, white compound, you felt your stomach flutter in anticipation. You’d never met the other Avengers, having only encountered Steve by chance just before he went on the run. It had been like one of those moments from an old movie, where your eyes had met across a crowded room. You’d approached each other warily, sensing a connection but being sensibly cautious. Then you’d each caught the scent of the other, and that had been it. It was a miracle you hadn’t just started fucking in the middle of the coffeeshop, the way your body had reacted - your inner Omega would have done so, happily. Luckily, Steve was a little bit more controlled and managed to at least wait until you’d had one dinner together before agreeing to come back to your apartment with you. 

That had been just over two years ago, and given how he’d mated you and then had to disappear, only returning for your heat or his rut, your relationship could be termed a whirlwind. Now you were going to meet his friends - his family - and announce that you were going to be having his pups in a matter of months. Your hands twisted in the fabric of your coat, and you pulled your lower lip between your teeth to chew on it.

Picking up on your anxiety, Steve pulled you tighter into his embrace and used his thumb to release your lip from its torture.

“They’re gonna love you, Omega. I promise.” His deep voice soothed you and you rested your head on his chest.

“You’re sure?” you asked quietly.

“How could they not? You’re so sweet and kind. And when they know you’re carrying my pups they’re gonna be thrilled. Happy likes you already, so you have nothing to worry about.”

You flicked your eyes up to the driver’s mirror, catching the glance of the tall, broad and cheerful Beta who’d turned up to whisk you and Steve back to the compound. Apparently he was Tony Stark's Head of Security and you’d been put straight at ease when he’d greeted you with a genuine smile and a ‘Nice to meet you, ma’am.’ You hoped the rest of the introductions would go as smoothly.

The car came to a halt, and you looked out of the tinted window in awe at the enormity of the site. 

“Here we go, Mama - home sweet home.” Steve got out of the car and then held out his hand to assist you. “Let’s head on over to the common room - the others are waiting. Happy will sort out your bags for us.”

Unused to this level of attention, you spun around to face the security specialist. “Oh, you don’t have to. I’m sure we can…”

Happy held up his hand and flashed you a grin. “It’s not a problem at all, ma’am. It’s practically a holiday compared to some of the things Mr Stark asks me to do.”

You giggled back as you wondered what on earth Iron Man had his staff doing? You’d wouldn’t ask though, getting the feeling that you’d regret knowing the answer.

With your arm tucked safely in his, Steve led you into the state of the art compound and along a maze of corridors. Each one looked the same. Your confusion and apprehension must have shown on your face.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart - you’ll learn your way around in no time, and while you’re getting there, you can just ask FRIDAY for help - she’s Tony’s AI and can help with whatever you need.” Steve lifted his head and addressed the ceiling. “Isn’t that right, FRIDAY?”

“It is, Captain. I’m here to assist in any way possible.”

You jumped as the voice came out of hidden speakers, and Steve couldn’t hide his smile.

“Is she always listening?” you whispered, pulling Steve down closer to you. The thought that there would be a computer intelligence that would be able to hear you… your cheeks started to heat at the thought.

Steve shook his head. “She does continually monitor us and the surroundings as standard, but not everything is for her computer eyes, sweetheart. We can tell her when to engage the privacy protocols.” He gripped your chin between his thumb and forefinger and leant closer. “Some things are just for me, Omega.” He let out a little growl and nipped at your lower lip, making you jump for the second time in as many minutes, although for totally different reasons. His eyes were dark and his expression held all sorts of promises, but you knew there was no time for that at this moment. Besides, the wait would just make it better.

Your mate obviously had the same idea, as he started walking again, keeping his stride short so he wasn’t dragging you along.

“So, Bucky, Nat, Wanda and Vision live on site. Sam splits his time between here and DC. Clint also splits his time. Thor has rooms here for when he’s visiting from Asgard - at least with his hammer he doesn’t have to worry about the commute time. Tony and Pepper obviously have their own place, but Tony spends a lot of time here, mainly because Pepper’s banned all his large tech and tinkering stuff from their house. Tony should be here, or at least on his way over. He said he was desperate to meet you.”

“Why does that worry me?” you jested.

“He’ll just flirt with you - that’s what Tony does. And he’ll mainly do it to wind me up.” He screwed up his face and you giggled. The idea that you’d even respond to the flirting of someone who wasn’t your Alpha was laughable.

Steve had done a good job of distracting to you, because you didn’t even think about the fact that you must be near your destination until Steve steered you through an open doorway and into a room that housed a large number of sofas, a massive TV, a kitchenette, a foosball table and seven other people.

“And here we are,” said Steve as he came to a halt, moving you in front of him with his arms clasped around your waist. “Everyone, this is my beautiful Omega. Sweetheart - this is everyone.”

You knew your eyes were bugging out of your head. You were in the presence of literal superheroes - your brain had long gotten over the fact that Steve was Captain America - and didn’t for the life of you know how you were going to adjust. 

One of them pushed away from the wall and walked towards you with a shy smile, long dark hair flopping over his brow. “Hey, Doll. I’m Bucky, it’s nice to meet you. Sorry I kept Stevie away from you for so long.”

You grinned back at him and shook his proffered hand. At this distance you could tell he was an Alpha, just like Steve. His scent wasn’t unpleasant - metal, sandalwood and fresh snow - but it didn’t speak to you like Steve’s did. His blend of spring sunshine, lemon thyme and honey called to your Omega in a way that no other Alpha’s ever had. “It’s good to meet you too. I’m looking forward to finding out all of Steve’s deep dark secrets from you.”

Bucky threw back his head and laughed, and you heard Steve mutter something under his breath that sounded like ‘I thought it was Tony I’d have to worry about’.

The next to step forward was a petite, but lethal looking red-head. You knew from news reports that this was the Black Widow - or Natasha. “Hi, I’m Nat. I’m glad that this idiot finally managed to find someone to put up with him.”

You sniggered behind your hand as Steve let out a cry of mock anger. Hearing all of the banter made your heart soar. It really was like meeting Steve’s family. 

He introduced you around to the others, and you subtly scented them as they got close. Nat had a strange scent - like a cross between an Alpha and a Beta, and you didn’t know what to make of it. Sam and Thor were both Alphas, Clint was a Beta, Wanda an Omega, and Vision was just Null, being an artificial construct.

Your inner Omega was slightly concerned by Wanda for a few moments, until you realised that she and Steve obviously had a big brother-little sister vibe going on and you relaxed.

“Now,” said Steve, “the only person left to meet is…”

There was a crashing and clattering noise from the hallway, and then another man appeared - there was no mistaking who it was.

“...Tony.” Steve finished.

Tony swaggered into the room, walking up to you and Steve.

“Hey Capsicle, sorry I’m late.” He clapped his hand jovially on Steve’s shoulder and grinned.

Before you even knew what you were doing, you’d pulled away from Steve, grasped Tony’s wrist, and pulled it away so he was no longer touching your Alpha. Your upper lip curled and a snarl left your mouth.

“My mate,” you spat at the surprised Omega.

The room fell silent and you felt nine pairs of eyes focussed on you, but your hindbrain was in control, protecting your growing family from this interloper.

“Umm, sweetheart?” Steve placed his hand on your back between your shoulder blades. “Are you alright?”

You growled, eyes still focussed on Tony, who had much more of your Alpha’s scent lingering to him than you were happy with.

“My Alpha,” you bit out, stepping up into Tony’s personal space. “Mine.”

“Okay…” Tony breathed out, slowly removing your hand from him and taking a few steps back, looking you up and down as if he was trying to see what was under your coat. “So, ummm, I think congratulations are in order! I’m guessing that’s what’s set you off.”

From the corner of your eye, you saw Vision cock his head and heard him whisper to Wanda. “I think I’ve missed something, dearest.”

“She’s pregnant and she sees Tony as a threat,” Wanda whispered back.

Tony coughed awkwardly and drew your attention back to him.

“I can assure you that I’m not after Ste - your Alpha. I have an Alpha of my own. See.” He pulled down the collar of his shirt, showing you his mating scar.

Your eyes narrowed as you peered at him. “You smell of my Alpha.” The accusatory tone was obvious, and you could feel Steve shifting awkwardly behind you.

“Well, we do spend a lot of time together. We’re friends. I was helping him yesterday - trying to find you.”

You snarled again and Tony’s eyes went wide, as though he thought you might leap forward and try to rip his throat out with your teeth. Your inner Omega was considering it.

“B-But,” Tony continued, “I smell of my own Alpha - Pepper - more. Here…” he held his wrist out towards you, and cautiously you leant forward and sniffed. Tony smelled of oil, coffee and amber. Steve’s scent lingered on him, but it was almost drowned out by another set of notes - vanilla, jasmine and lemon.

“Hhmmph.” You grunted out a non-committal noise, but backed up towards Steve again, taking hold of his arm and aggressively scenting at his wrist - publicly claiming him -, never letting your gaze leave Tony.

“Sweetheart? Omega? Would you like to go to our apartment now and have a little rest?” Steve spoke tentatively, as though you were a bomb set on a hair trigger.

“Not rest. Knot.” you retorted before grabbing his hand and dragging him out of the room. “FRIDAY - which way to Captain Rogers’ apartment?”

The Avengers watched you go, and then looked at each other as soon as you were out of view.

“Well,” said Tony as he breathed out heavily. “I might have to keep my distance from Cap for the next few months.” 

Nat chuckled. “Might be best, especially if you want to keep your larynx intact.”

Tony brought his hand up to cup his own throat, lips twisting wryly. “Yeah. At least we know one thing - she’s not gonna let Rogers walk all over her.”

Tag list: @km-ffluv, @wheezy-stucky, @kmc1989, @kombatfather1796, @christywrites, @alexakeyloveloki, @wolfsmom1, @doasyoudesireandlive, @goldylions

[old-lorarri]

❨ main f1 masterlist | football masterlist ❩

𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐗 𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐎𝐍

𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐃 → alex albon x fem! influencer! reader

the rumoured crush of central cee opts for the track rather than the stage

𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐔𝐑 𝐋𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐂

𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 → arthur leclerc x fem! gf! childhood friend! reader

in which his brother takes pleasure I talking about the embarrassing stories that formed his fairytale love story

𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐊

𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐒𝐄 → clem novalak x fem! singer! reader

out of nowhere, everyone's favourite chaotic singer drops a song and soft launches a new boo and the internet goes wild

𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑 → clem novalak x fem! selfcare! youtuber! reader

everyones fav self care girly makes everyones heart melt as they watch her and her boyfriend support each other endlessly

𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐍 𝐎𝐂𝐎𝐍

𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐘 𝐆𝐖𝐄𝐍 → esteban ocon x fem! actress! reader

everyone’s fav gwen playing actress revels her obsession with f1 and turns a couple heads in the process

𝐅𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐎 𝐐𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐃 → fabio quartararo x band! bassist! bestfriend! reader

everyones fav best friend duo haven't been seen together in 2 moths leaving people wondering what went down between them

𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈

𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐙𝐀 → frederik vesti x fem! girlfriend! law student! reader

taking a break from being a busy law student frederik’s girlfriend decides to take a quick trip to monza

𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎

𝟏+𝟏=𝟒? → fernando alonso x fem! wife! reader

a sudden pregnancy revel leave the internet shocked and exited to see there fav couple become parents

𝐌𝐘 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 → fernando alonso x fem! zhou! redbull! f1 driver! reader

3 in a row and your boyfriend couldn't be prouder and he not shy to express that to you in public

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄'𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐁𝐎 → fernando alonso x fem! mega-famous! pop star! reader

everyone's fav Y/N stan fernanado is at it again lingering in fan pages and being everyone's fav himbo

𝐆𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐄 𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐋

𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐎𝐖 → george russell x fem! actress! reader

after breaking up with her toxic boyfriend Y/N shows people that she doesn't need anyone - and end up finding someone?

𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 (𝐈𝐋)𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐋 → george russell x fem! tsunoda! lawyer! reader

laws are meant to be followed?, and Y/N and George do follow them, loosely, but it's okay one of them is a lawyer for a reason

𝐉𝐀𝐂��� 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐇𝐀𝐍

𝐒𝐇𝐘 𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 → jack doohan x fem! gf! reader

jack's gf is the definition of sunshine and he takes his role as the sunshine protector very seriously

𝐉𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐍

𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 → jenson button x fem! supermodle! wife! reader

this is the story of how to two biggest whores of the early 200's fell in love with each other despite everyone saying they wouldn't last

𝐖𝐇𝐎'𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 → jenson button x fem! wife! red bull! engineer! reader

how can you forget your sexist driver? Jenson and his wife call them out a remind them where they stand

𝐊𝐈𝐌𝐈 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐊𝐊𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐍

𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒 → kimi räikkönen x fem! redbull! f1 driver! reader

in which a twitter thread discusses the original enemies to lovers couple of the f1 world and how there rivalry turned into a beautiful love story

𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 → kimi räikkönen x fem! wife! reader

a compilation of moments from everyone ‘no fuck to give’ couple that people still reference till this day

𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎��𝐋

𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐍𝐄𝐏𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 → lance stroll x fem! korean! chaebol! reader

after lances infamous bicycle accident he is put in the care of his best friend and the internet watches them fall in love

𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐖𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐊 → lance stroll x fem! aston martin! f1 driver! reader

a nasty crash leaves Y/N in the hospital and everyone worried and it also brings to light a long kept secret

𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐌 𝐋𝐀𝐖𝐒𝐎𝐍

𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐒 → liam lawson x fem! gf! reader

an accidental instagram post leads to a variety of reactions and plenty of funny moments

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐋𝐓 𝐒𝐎𝐅𝐓 𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐇 → liam lawson x fem! childhood best friend! reader

childhood bestfriends take each others phones and that leads to a turn of events

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆

𝐇𝐄 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐒 → marcus armstrong x fem! gf! reader

the announcement is here it's official everyone's fav couple are gonna be parents and there other children (there followers) can't wait

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐖𝐄𝐁𝐁𝐄𝐑

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐃? → mark webber x fem! retiring! red bull! f1 driver! reader

old rival teammates reunited over a book written my one of them and feelings and memories of the past are brought up how will this turn out? | part 2

𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐃? → mark webber x fem! retiring! red bull! f1 driver! reader

with a divorce officially singed and mark now single people are even more exited to see where the relationship of the former teammates will go | part 1

𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍

#𝟏 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐑 → ollie bearman x fem! gf! student! reader

ollie's girlfriend has a love for stuffed animals, so he get her one every time he can - but he will always be her favourite bear

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄… → ollie bearman x male! actor! reader

a f2 driver with a crush on an actor will do anything to be noticed which leave fan's desperate for them to get together already | part 2

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐘 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄… → ollie bearman x male! actor! reader

a pr realtionship causes some confusion but never fear ollie messy af bearman is here to fix the problem | part 1

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 → ollie bearman x fem! entrepreneur! reader

having a rich entrepreneur gf leaves so many jealous and envious of oliver and tbh same

𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 → ollie bearman x fem! gf! podcast host! reader

everyone’s fav crack head couple one a f2 driver the other a podcast host and together they are perfect

𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐒! 𝐖𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐍𝐄 → ollie bearman x fem! singer! reader

everyone's fav heartbreak singer is back! but her nineteenth birthday leave people in shock

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐎 𝐎'𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃

𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏 𝐎𝐅𝐅 𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇 → pato o'ward x fem! pakistani! gf! reader

pato fights for his life under his girlfriends lastest Instagram post and letting the people know that she is taken

𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐒𝐋𝐘

𝐅𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 → pierre gasly x fem! french/korean! singer reader

the film of the century, about the love story of the most iconic couples to ever grace the internet is about to be reassessed

𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 → pierre gasly x fem! photographer! reader

a famous photographer new series "my feeling for you" has everyone talking about who could her secret muse could be | part 2

𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐑𝐄 → pierre gasly x fem! photographer! reader

the witch hunt continues as the internet detectives close in on the new muses identity | part 1

𝐒𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐕𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄

𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐄 & 𝐘𝐎𝐔 → sebastian vettel x fem! wife! writer! director! reader

the film of the century, about the love story of the most iconic couples to ever grace the internet is about to be reassessed

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 → sebastian vettel x fem! wife! motogp! reader

it's been a year without everyone's fav motorsports couple and people are still in morning but everyone is happy that they are living there best life together

𝐙𝐇𝐎𝐔 𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐔

𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐀 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄 → zhou guanyu x fem! japanese! architect! reader

finally completing the house of her dreams people are conceived her and her close friend yuki are going to tie the knot soon - they couldn't be more wrong

𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊, 𝐈 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐄𝐅𝐓 → zhou guanyu x fem! ex kpop idol! songwriter! producer! reader

false accusations leave to a member of the k-pop group parting ways and goes into hiding only to find out she never really left

[solidaritygaming-fanblog]

So. Toy Jimmy. When ever he gets injured, he gets a rip that needs to be manually stitched up. He doesn't know how to sew. God Joel. He made all the stupid toys by hand. He is VERY good at sewing.

The first thing Jim does after they make up is go "also. Um. I know you do a lot of sewing... and you're probably really good at it.. and I don't know how to sew..." this drags on for a bit because he doesnt know how to ask for help and the whole while Joel can just feel he's about to see the most disgusting shitty fucked stitching he's ever seen (he's completely right). Anyway he sees Jimmy's awful job of fixing a cut on his arm and goes "hmm okay I'll have to seam rip it but I can fix this up easy! You don't have any others that need immediate attention though right?" And Jimmy is quiet for a few seconds until he goes, "... I need to take my shirt off. Don't be weird, okay?" Bro has a BUNCH of these fucked up stitches over rips on his chest and arms. Joel is crashing out and it all seems like there's a shred of "okay this is still kinda fine" left here until Jimmy goes weakly "you should see my back". Joel walks around him. THERE ARE THESE FUCKING MASSIVE TEARS ARE SAFTEY PINNED TOGETHER BECAUSE HE CANT REACH THEM TO STICH THEM UP EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIT. Joel crashes out even harder and immediately is like "right I am fixing this RIGHT NOW and you are getting sewing lessons afterwards because what the fuck". And then gay shit (wound tending) happens bleehhhh :P probably getting all these stitches pulled out is very uncomfortable for Jim so he's trying not to cry or move the whole time. And Joel is very locked in and eventually (after a botched seam rip stretches one of the tears a bit more) decides to distract Jimmy by explaining different types of thread, needles, stitches, and knots to him. He also gives him something to bite down with the added benefit of Jimmy not being able to complain about this sewing info dump.

And after this, whenever Jimmy gets hurt he just shoots Joel a text like "heyyyy guess who got shot by a skeleton again". And Joel has to come over and fix him up because yknow. They're friends and it's good to have healthy interactions. Plus Jimmy does need to learn to sew so it's a good learning opportunity. The first time Jimmy successfully manages to sew himself up he immediately runs to Joel and they are both very excited. Even after Jimmy becomes mostly self sufficient (except for some spots he can't reach and pain levels fucking up his motor skills) they still hang out a bunch.

Perhaps at some point Jimmy gets a massive cut over his face and barely makes it on his own to the lore and law building near spawn. It takes so long for him to type a misspelling ridden message to Joel asking him show up. Eventually the door swings open and he manages to get out some almost utter nonsense before passing out. Meanwhile Joel is incredibly confused and scared because ????? What???? The fuck???? Anyway he locks in and stitches Jimmy's face up and waits with him until he wakes up (Jimmy doesn't remember Joel showing up, or a lot from after he got the injury). Tee hee

Ultra mega fucked up mode is a few of his stitches staying in Jim's skin after esmp2 ends. So Joel and him try to figure out why this happened (spit balling stupid ideas while Joel is pulling stitches out and absent-mindedly patting gauze and sterilization stuff on the small wounds the stitching leaves behind). Just grhrvjdvrhev

[kawaiijohn]

Good morning. Where do I even start today- trying to keep up with disaster relief is tough since a lot of my normal sources are without power or incredibly focused on doing the actual recovery.

I guess I'll start with one of the sources I get a lot of breaking news from and what he said yesterday:

Ryan Hall is a YouTube weatherman with an incredible team that delivers free weather broadcasting through his YouTube lives during major events. He's from east Kentucky and is very invested in Appalachia weather recovery and awareness. The man's a local and he's part of the reason I'm even aware of the risks heavy rains can bring in this region of the states.

And this post from the national weather service office in Greenville - Spartanburg SC, that serves a wide area around it;

"this is one (forecast) we wanted to get wrong. this is the worst event in our office's history."

This thread concludes: media was sent to Florida and so a lot of people don't quite know what's going on in appalachia- if you can I suggest reading this person's entire thread, which is too long for me to type or try to post on here and keep it readable, so try the second link under here for an unrolled thread that'll be easier for screen readers;

Minor update from yesterday's post: the governor of Tennessee finally fucking declared a state of emergency after his shitty day of prayer and fasting announcement. It took him like six hours to get off his ass and do it.

The power is still majorly out as of this morning in a vast area of the states. As you can see, a majority is in Appalachia, central Georgia, and the Florida big bend. Florida, I know for a fact, has tons of electrical technicians working to restore power and cell service.

This map really highlights the state divide from eastern Tennessee/Kentucky and the Carolinas too.

Despite the doom and gloom, a few things are starting to get better.

Quite a few dams managed to hold, and some roads in west NC are more passable, but there are so many people reporting that it was taking them upwards of seven hours to get out of Asheville, which is a major city.

Below has a few pics and statements about the state of roads late last night/early today.

The end of this tweet says "this is an absolute mega disaster for Western NC on the order of hurricane Katrina."

With how long the recovery might actually take, I'm certainly hoping it's handled better. One of the responses on this thread mentions no military presence/help as of 20 hours ago, but this has since changed with the national guard finally deploying in some areas.

Overall, fooding hit historical levels in a lot of states, with Atlanta GA even declaring a flash flood emergency at one point, which is the highest risk level of a flash flood warning - it means "get out and get up high NOW"

Rescue and recovery operations are on the way.

Local groups, storm chasers, and organizations are on the way. The national guard is deploying and helicopters are coming from volunteers and the military alike in the most affected areas.

Chris Hall, a storm chaser who works with a lot of organizations, has been driving around doing things like setting up starlink access in Asheville and helping serve hot food with a Florida based disaster recovery group since Friday.

Hell he even posted this, which if you know the waffle house index, is a little neat to see- for context, fema will look at waffle house closures in areas hit by natural disasters to gage preliminarily relief need.

Waffle houses are infamous for never closing. So for a limited menu to be served, it means this spot in GA was still hit pretty hard.

If you want to and can, here is one place with local donation resources for west NC

And different organizations and weather community types to help that are boots on the ground type volunteers with a bit more of a national focus;

If you are good at adding alt text or doing text description for screen readers, please help me with these posts. It is incredibly hard to do those sorts of things on mobile due to my own limitations.

Please be safe.

[grayintogreen]

HELLO FELLOW NEIN AGAIN ENJOYERS. And happy Tombtakers Loredrop Day. Today I bring you a preview of a long term event coming this summer.

Are you sad that all the enticing lore dropped in CR2 episode "Fleeting Memories" might as well be an eternity away from bearing fruit? Did you think Cree was a fun NPC and wanted more of her? Are you a fan of fix-it fanfic that barely fixes anything and in fact just makes everything a little bit worse?

Well, I have something you might enjoy!

In honor of Nein Again reaching episode 26 on the day of LitMoR's fourth anniversary, I'm going to be running a weekly "bookclub" for the series to run parallel with Nein Again starting July 29th. You can find the full schedule for the entire duology, plus side stories and intermissions here (more dates to be added depending on where I get with the third mega novel and yet it's still going to take less time to get through than Nein Again). It runs exactly like Nein Again, only its a really long fanfic.

And you may be asking yourself? Uh, what's LitMoR? And I'm GLAD YOU ASKED.

life in the margins of redemption is a post-episode 26 canon divergent series I started writing four years ago after the end of Campaign Two to satiate my incredible need to retell the story but slightly to the left, keeping dead characters alive, making certain plot threads and themes more prevalent, and exploring some elements from the campaign that I thought were underdeveloped simply because those just weren't the things the cast wanted to focus on (and that is valid- this is in no way me going HERE'S MY BETTER VERSION OF CANON, it's a love letter to wanting more of these characters). At 1.6 million words and the main two stories of the duology remaining in the top three longest fics in the CR tag even after all these years, it is an absolute chonker and I'm still adding to it. It's a story that is very close to my heart and I thought it would be fun for people to either re-read or discover it while taking it in in bite-size chunks as you watch how it diverges from canon and goes off in wild new directions.

Below the cut is an FAQ ranging from what you can expect to the story to how the book club will be run if you'd like to participate. If there are any other questions, please don't hesitate to send me an ask! I look forward to seeing how this goes. Hopefully it'll be fun for the people who would love an excuse to reread and for new readers alike.

WHY ARE YOU DOING IT?

I've been told numerous times by people that LitMoR looks interesting, but is ultimately very daunting and intimidating. By promoting a book club, I hope that maybe those people who have wanted to read it will find it easier to do so. Also a lot of people who have read it thought it would be cool to do.

WHAT WILL WE BE DOING?

Whatever you like! You can read the assigned chapter and go "that's nice" and never do anything else. You can leave a comment on AO3! You can join my Discord and talk about it with other people. You can talk about it on tumblr. You can not do any that at all and instead do some secret additional thing. It's really up to you how you engage with it. I just ask that you be polite about it. It's all in fun.

WHAT IF I DON’T LIKE IT?

Back button. I really don't expect this to be a huge thing- it's just something that I'm proud of and want to share it with others and if there's a way to share it that makes it easier on people to read, that's great! But I will not be coming to your house and demanding you give me my flowers. I just ask, again, that you be nice. If it's not for you, it's not for you.

WHAT CHARACTERS DOES THIS FOCUS ON?

This is an ensemble story, so while there are significant narrative beats dedicated to Molly, Cree, and eventually Lucien, every character is given a chance to shine and have their own subplots and arcs. A lot of arcs still play out as they did in canon, but under radically different circumstances and in new ways and some characters whose personal growth wasn't focused on as much even get some additional layers.

WHAT IS THE SHIPPING/ROMANCE VIBE LIKE?

My rule of thumb is that if you absolutely despise any of the ships listed, this series isn't for you, but if you're indifferent at worst, you'll probably be okay, because the shipping is on par with how canon treats it- i.e. it's part of some characters' arcs, but it does not derail the plot nor does the romance override other relationships. Everyone is still intensely weird about one another, regardless of whether or not they are kissing.

EXPLAIN THE RATING

The rating is for violence, gore, intense situations, and a lot of mindfuckery, but I wouldn't say any of it is atypical of what you would see in canon. The tags represent anything that comes up more than once, but if something is specific to a chapter, I will usually put it in the author's notes.

WHAT TAGS SHOULD I USE IF I WANT TO POST ABOUT IT?

LitMoR, LitMoR bookclub or life in the margins of redemption are good tags to use! I would avoid using canon CR tags unless you're just really into them for organizational purposes so to not to annoy people who aren't here for this. I'm trying to make this as fun and hassle-free for all sides of the line. I will only be using the CR tags for this post and the starting post and every subsequent bookclub post after will be tagged with the series name or "LitMoR bookclub" to keep things tidy and not annoying so you can either follow me or the LitMoR bookclub tag for updates.

WILL THIS SPOIL FUTURE EPISODES?

If you are aware of things that are coming up narratively even if you don't know the details, then you should be okay, because for the first few weeks OUADYA will follow pretty close to canon before it wildly diverges and doesn't pick up canon events until much, much later. If you want ZERO spoilers ever, then you might wanna sit it out, because while it does take lore in a different direction and does operate under its own thing, it will likely spoil a lot of things for you.

I have heard that it's possible to enjoy the fic if you haven't seen the full campaign if you don't care about utterly spoiling yourself! If you decide to stop watching after episode 26 for... reasons, it is actually fully able to be enjoyed with just that context.

HOW CANON COMPLIANT IS THIS?

It does not consider TNEOL or Molly and Caduceus's Origins comics canon (the first story was written before any of them came out), and does, again, take things in wildly different directions and has intense, deep, and maybe not exactly what was intended by Matt and the cast, lore, on top of occasionally throwing out certain spell rules that get in the way of good storytelling (like Doric's infinite wildshapes in the Dungeons & Dragon movie). I do have it on good authority that my characterization is pretty damn accurate, but you'd have to ask the frequent readers to weigh in on that.

Also shockingly, I have accidentally predicted a lot of canon events, which is very funny.

[strawberryicemoon]

My biggest theory for Horizons right now is that we're going to get a revelations about Roy's parents at some point. Particularly about their current status, which I believe to be dead.

I don't have any real evidence for this, but I do think it would work well narratively.

I never found the explanation of his parents absence satisfying. There felt like there were unanswered questions. While the Pokémon world has long been established to be a world where the threshold for parental neglect is a lot higher than the real world, and parents working away from home is incredibly normalized, his parents just leaving for years on end while their kid is still small seems a bit past that. Especially with how much Horizons is leaning into these kids being cared for by adults. So while I can absolutely believe that really is all to the story, that Roy's parents really are just away at sea. I also would not be surprised if there was more to it. I hope there is more to it.

Mega Voltage seems to be giving Roy a bit more of the spotlight so I think bigger focus on his situation, including his feelings on his parents absence WOULD be appropriate, especially as it relates to Friede's "death".

We know that part of how Roy handled Friede's death was mimicking him even harder than before. His vest reminiscent of Friede's jacket, his Mega Evolution mantra mimicking Friede's Terastalization mantra (both using a form of the world "koeru" or "exceed"), when Roy's Terastalization mantra had been unrelated, and the fact that he's the one who has taken Pikachu I think really shows how Roy has coped with Friede's death. Living in a way that invokes Friede's memory, trying to live up to his legacy. Even in ways that Roy wouldn't know about, such as shouting "Found you" at Liko on the school roof speaks to how Roy is trying to fill those shoes.

But also notably, Roy's singing seems to be an actual song now. At least, the song he sang to calm down the wild Pokémon. And even more notably, was the song he sang with his parents. Even in his gym battle with Ryme he didn't sing the songs actual lyrics. But (and I may be misremembering) this is the first time that song has been sang properly since we learned of it in episode 62. So for him to start singing the song, with words his parents used to sing feels like he's channeling their memory in a much more open way as well. He sang it on the island as a kid, but not after he left it.

I also think it would make for an interesting way for Skeledirge's ghost type to come into play, if even in a minor way. The way the kids stories match their partners has been impeccable. Liko's Sprigatito being a capricious cat to foil Liko's own uncertainties and indecisiveness before Liko grew more driven and ruthless, and also Hattena being a healer, who tends to beat her enemies into submission really shows Liko's nature as a kindhearted girl whose capable of being quite firm in her beliefs, and can be even ruthless in her determination to get what she wants despite starting out as someone who struggled to stand up for herself. Wattrel's own inability to get past its fears to do something it was quite capable of in stark contrast to Roy's tendency to overestimate his abilities. Fuecoco not only matching Roy in admiration of Friede and Charizard, and in love of song, but perhaps in a connection to past souls?

As for how I think they'll die, I think it'll probably be a simple lost at sea, but if they REALLY wanted to go hard maybe his parents death was related to something Exceed/Explorers did. Give Roy an even more personal connection to this story, though I don't think he necessarily needs one. But we still don't really have much explanation for why Friede and Roy's grandfather know each other, so that also seems like a plot thread that could get revisited. I hope we overall just get a bit more Roy lore.

[soulprompts]

what kinds of responses did u get abt the rpc being better or worse in the past??? i'm curious

hi my love! excellent question, i'm going to summarise the comments as best i can, because by-and-large they all seem to be saying the same thing (which makes things easier, surely!)

essentially there's a distinct lack of interaction going on lately. some theories were offered, but there's no real way to prove them, so it's easier to say that the current difficulties in the rpc are stemming from recent stresses (the pandemic and politics being two massive causes, from my own conversations) and the fact that we're all growing into becoming this new generation of adults with educations and careers and lives behind the screens.

as such, the result for tumblr is that more and more of us are struggling to be here as much as we once were. and while this wasn't said by anyone on the post, i'd like to put forward my own perspective. i recently did a lot of job jumping. and i'm currently in a job that starts early and finishes up at around 3PM. lovely, right? not quite. i moved in with some family nearer to the job, and i find it very difficult to write with them around. i want to! but sometimes, between people, time, energy, inspiration, distractions... writing isn't so easy lately. sometimes i have so many ideas in my head at work, and i scribble them into my notebook, and i get home, and suddenly i just don't want those ideas anymore.

some people came forward and suggested that we live in an age where our attention spans have shrunk. and that's also a fascinating perspective, and one i think i agree with. everything is shrunk down now. videos are shorter, tv seasons are down to eight episodes (a THIRD of what we had growing up) and people act like a two hour long movie is going to need bathroom breaks installed into them. sometimes we might start a reply, and half-way through we just... lose momentum. we don't want that angst now, we want some fluff!

however.

the results of the post were all fascinating and very helpful, and i recommend that you all read them just to have that piece of insight. but i think, maybe, sometimes we get in our own way. of course we're not around as much. during the pandemic, people developed new hobbies. we found new methods of release. sometimes, after work, i like to pull over at a nearby lake and walk the trails surrounding it. or i might go to a drive-thru and just listen to music while drinking an ice-cold pepsi max. i love writing. we all love writing. but in a sense, and this will sound entirely stupid, but in a sense, perhaps the pandemic was something that allowed us a chance to redefine stress relief. it's been five years now, and we're already forgetting. i found myself getting genuinely upset with myself last night because i couldn't answer a prompt in my inbox. and then i got even more upset because i wanted to reblog another prompt! but maybe that's the problem. maybe the biggest issue in the rpc right now, is that we're all locked in this self-imposed cycle of pressure and stress.

i looked back over my old email notifs from tumblr last week. and i saw all the threads i wrote back five years ago, maybe even ten years ago. and my writing was so good back then, you know? like you could TELL i was happy and excited to be writing! the only difference is that i wasn't treating it like a job. i wasn't punishing myself over a lack of interaction. writing is a gift, and we forget that sometimes. writing is also a hobby. and we ALWAYS forget that. we should try to remember it again, i think. we shouldn't be writing while we're unhappy.

anyway this got mega long nonnie, i'm very sorry for the length, but i love you and i'm glad that you're here! unclench your jaw, shake out your arms, and i hope the weekend is as loving as you deserve!