#minecraft word crawl

[saving-word-crawls]

Minecraft Word Crawl and Challenge

By: IndoorOtaku1

I really liked making the simplistic Minecraft Challenge, but I thought maybe mixing up actually playing the game with a word crawl might be a sort of interesting experiment in perspective. How it will work is as follows: You’ll play for a specified amount of time, and have certain tasks to do that will require certain writing tasks in response after the playthrough to earn points to use in the store for things you’ll then be allowed to use later in game.

Just remember not to write during the game, but after the given amount of times with the accompanied tasks. You will start with 500 points

Store: pickaxe: 250 points per pickaxe axe: 250 points each hoe: 100 points each shovel: 100 points each sword: 200 points each Bow(25 arrows to start): 250 points each -every extra arrow is an extra 5 points. skip a task: 400 points each.

Alright! Here we go!

Event 1: The Blocky New Frontier (20 minutes of play before doing these tasks. If you want to use a tool listed in the store in game, you must buy it with points from the store first.)

You’re minding your own business when you come across a land made of blocks. Only to realize you yourself are now a blocky version of yourself. You take 5 minutes as you read a few paragraphs from a chapter for a story you’ve been working on, and notice 50 shiny points on the ground next to…is that a floating egg? You look around to see that the land of blocks is lush in grassland with plenty of oak trees and lots of chickens. The chickens glare at you the same way you stare at chicken nuggets and you back away slowly. You trip over the foot of an angered pillager! You sprint to the nearest 200 as he shoots 12 arrows worth of points at you. You catch your breath long enough to realize that you’ve come to a ravine. A few more steps and you would’ve fallen down it! Oh oh! The pillager is still coming after you, and he’s brought friends. They are showering arrows down on you! You gulp as you try and come up with a plan, maybe a three headed hydra could do something about the 100 points worth of arrows that are all aimed right for you. Unfortunately, you are no such creature, and decide to run around the ravine, sprinting to the nearest 100 as you do so, and collecting 25 points from a rather impressed wandering trader whom helps you stay invisible long enough for the pillagers to lose interest and cease chasing you. The wandering trader tries to speak with you, but his language seems to be a series of strangely guttural “Hmms”. You thank him for his help and write a whole paragraph of the story you’ve been working on while you catch your breath again. As your’re resting, the trader offers you another 50 points for one of the papers you weren’t using to write on. You write the first three sentences of your next paragraph, only to discover 13 points were hidden inside your writing journal…beneath a map that hadn’t been there before.

Tasks for this event:

5 minutes to read a couple of paragraphs from the chapter you’re working on: 50 points

Sprint to nearest 200: 12 points

Three headed Hydra: 100 points

Sprint to nearest 100: 25 points

Write a paragraph: 50 points

Write 3 sentences of next paragraph: 13 points.

Total points possible so far (including starting points): 750

~

Event 2: The Map (Play first for 15 minutes)

You decide to follow the map, thinking it will give you some clue to where you are in this new world. There is writing on it, but it is in a language you don’t understand. However, with every step you take, it seems like something new appears on the map. Magic is nothing new to you but seeing it in this world is amazing. You take 100 points for yourself as a pat on the back while you attempt to write 300 words in ten minutes. It looks like you’ll be able to use your spells in this world! Still, that isn’t going to help if you have no supplies. Thankfully, it seems like there’s a mountain village just a few miles up ahead. You take a leisurely sprint to the nearest 500 as you stroll though the meadows leading to a mountain in the distance, picking up 100 points along the way.

Tasks for this event:

Write 300 words in 10 minutes: 100 points

Sprint to the nearest 500: 100 points

Total points possible: 950

Event 3: The Mountain (Play for 10 minutes)

When you finally reach the mountain, you realize the village itself is about halfway up to the top. You sigh and start making the climb, only to realize that the glaring chicken from before has been following you. You have to turn back and write 15 sentences as you collect both eggs and 30 points dropped by the bird. All the while, it’s glaring at you. You mutter to yourself under your breath as you make your way back to the mountain with the chicken in tow, writing another 8 sentences and collecting 15 points you missed as you do. You finally start climbing up the mountain, but aren’t used to the rocky and blocky terrain compared to the more diverse texturing of your world. You take a 2 minute break as you consider what to do and reward yourself with another 15 points when you come up with an idea. The chicken tries to fly ahead of you, dropping more eggs as it does so. Unfortunately, the terrain is too tough for it as well and it instead hops onto your head. You shrug and try to shake it off. It drops 10 points worth of 5 sentences, but doesn’t budge from its new stoop.The trek is made more difficult by the chicken feet blurring your vision. Thankfully, the pair of you come across a maneuverable dirt path just as the chicken lays an egg on your head. You carefully take the egg and place it into your backpack with all the other eggs. At least you know you won’t go hungry. There’s got to be at least 80 points worth of 20 sentences mashed in there with the eggs too! Your stomach growls but imagining the look the chicken is giving you makes you think twice, zipping up the bag and deciding to eat when you get to the village. Surely there must be food there! Write for 5 minutes as you drool over 100 points worth of food.

tasks for this event:

Write 15 sentences: 30 points

Write 8 sentences: 15 points

2 minute break: 15 points

Write 5 sentences: 10 points

Write 20 sentences: 80 points.

Write for 5 minutes: 100 points

Total possible points: 1200

Event 4: An Empty Village! (Play for 5 minutes)

You finally come to a village, but it might as well be a ghost town. You don’t see anyone around any of the homes spread around its portion of the mountain. You knock on one door, but nobody answers. You step inside to find a well-made green bed and an old wooden chest. The chicken hops off of your head and makes itself comfortable atop the green bed’s pillow. You stretch and glare longingly at the chest. You write for 5 minutes while contemplating stealing from the chest. Unfortunately, the growling of your stomach is too much. You finally crack open the chest to find not only some potatoes and a bucket of milk, but also a few gold nuggets and 150 points spread out throughout it. You leave the chicken to rest, stealing food from other chests in each of the houses until you come into what looks like an alchemist’s tower. You’re not very impressed by the divets in the cobblestone flooring, but the alchemy set nearby seems barely used. You’re already a thief now, so you go ahead and put the item into your backpack’s inventory. It could help later. You walk outside, only for a strange green being to run up to you and growl as it starts flashing. Before you know what’s going on, all you can see is red around you. Then, just as quickly, you find yourself suddenly upon the patch of grass where you started your journey. Miles away from the mountain and its empty village.

Tasks for this event:

Write for 5 minutes: 150 points

Total points possible: 1350

[deadghosy]

I love your work so much imagine ben Drowned in hasbin hotel.

Them crawling out of the TV and alistor is like I don't like tv but can you mess with vox😭.

SURE!! LOL! 🦆💗If anyone wants to do a creepypasta! Reader, I will make it a fanon version cause that’s most easier since I’ve always seen the fanon side of creepypasta when I was into the fandom💗

HAZBIN HOTEL X BEN DROWNED! READER

prompt: after jumping into a tv to hide from being stabbed by Jeff…you accidentally went into a show called HAZBIN HOTEL……

Your dumbass didn’t even check what was on tv…it was just left on as you are now falling to a city in a shape of a…..pentagram?

Welll shit…you are in a hell cartoon…

Meanwhile with Jeff: “where the fuck is that short tacked bitch…” he said holding his knife tightly as his eyes glanced at the tv. “That bastard!”

MEANWHILE WITH YOU: You pointed to a service pole and started to surge through the electrical wire into some random old tv box. You pressed your hand through the tv screen and came out of it. As you came out of it a gasp was heard to see a bunch of characters…..oh boy…

After basically getting chased around the hotel and interrogated…they let you stay by Charlie’s words as she was excited to have another member to her crew at last. 

Few weeks later, they have gotten use to you. I mean Alastor still keeps an eye on you as you play games and go through electronics around the place.

Angel thinks it’s funny for you to hack Valentino’s page to make his bio say “I have a small dick.”

Vaggie makes you go out on errands until she can find you a decent duty at least. But she appreciates how you help around a lot.

Husk thinks your pretty annoying because of your gen z & gen alpha humor. I headcannon ben and you to basically be a media specialist to learn the lingo around and to understand the generation.

“Hey husk…” “hey kid…” “you’re so not alpha male…” “…the fuck?” “Sooo not slay.” “Get the fuck out my face.” *cue you doing a gremlin ass laugh*

I can see Velvette making fun of you for wearing the link fit😭 she would be confused as if you were a stinky cosplayer kid-

“GOOD HELL?! What are you wearing dear..” the female vee says as you look down to your link outfit. “What’s wrong with it? I think I look ✨f a b u l o u s✨” you said with sass

“You look horrendous. THAT’S what you look like.” Velvette says. You rolled your eyes as she snapped her fingers giving you black converses, tan brown pants, and a green hoodie. She had let you keep your link hat as you actually liked how you looked.

Maybe when you get back to slender’s mansion you can spend his card to buy an outfit like this.

I imagine Charlie or niffty trying to wipe off the blood tears of your eyes thinking you were crying as you stand there like “what is going on-🤨” most definitely the face look like this “:T”

Angel dust brought you a gaming set from a thrift shop as you smiled happily at this and started to play….only to find out it had knock off versions of the games in the human world….impta?! (GTA) PENTACRAFT?! (Minecraft) hellmon?? (Pokémon)

You immediately thrown the gaming set outside and decided to go hack Vox’s system for fun again.

I can imagine reader sending random “if you don’t like this, Lucifer is coming for you.” posts to random sinner to fuck with them.

I can DEFINITELY see Alastor asking you to go mess with Vox’s tech even if he doesn’t like those picture boxes. “Ben/Reader, my fine fellow..I got a favor to ask of you.” After he asked you to go mess with this dude named Vox. You smiled as you transported into your own tv and go to the vee tower.

You hacked into Vox’s system as he spit his coffee out to see “nya cat” on all his computers and devices as you snicker seeing Vox’s face trying to fix it. You laughed showing yourself as your bloody tears roll down your face because of laughing. “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” Vox asked angrily

“IM YOU! BUT BETTER! GET HACKED LOSER!” You said before disappearing from his system as Vox claws his desk in anger.

Alastor had a good chuckle when you told him what you did. “I never liked this picture boxes…but you my friend, are true entertainment.” After this your relationship with Alastor grew as he would pay you handsomely with snacks as you go and piss Vox off on any other day.

Valentino and Vox hate your guys to the point they want to kill you while Velvette is just chill with you as she helps you with your outfits and aesthetics.

I imagine since Ben drowned also looks like link, you have long hair like link but sometimes cut it down to bit length to not trip on it.

You give off that “new worker at McDonald’s” vibes as you would just play around instead of helping the residents😭

“Can I have keycard?” “….how about no?”

I imagine you just tapping on and off a lamp post boredly as Valentino keeps going towards it and away from. “On….off…on…off…” you liked to mess with people

You had tapped on sir Pentious’s device once and it exploded…yeah you were pretty much banned from his room and lab. But it was worth it.

You definitely wrestle with husk as husk will just try to claw out your eyes only him to just get pepper sprayed by you.

“AGG MY FUCKIN' EYES!!” “I didn’t know this shit would work on demons..”

Lucifer was definitely intrigued with your appearance as you seemed like a human. But also had a demonic appearance. So he questioned you and you just kept saying “SWAG!” He got tired of it and demanded you as the ruler of hell.

It didn’t work as you just shrug with a “:D” face and transported into a wire. Lucifer was bamboozled as he just stood there like “what just happened”

You showed niffty how to beat any person during a game as you, yourself is a hacker and can beat any game personally.

You looked at the phone that you stole from that flat faced dude as you smirked having an idea as you transported into the phone to try and go find Jeff. And lucky you did as he was sitting on the couch watching wrestling.

“Heyyy buddy.” You said looking through the tv to see Jeff. He scoffed seeing that his favorite program was ruined by your face. Jeff turned off the tv. Your face was like a pikachu shocked face. “THAT BITC-”

[alvojake]

❛ ━━━━ Gamer Boyfriend Riki

「paring」 : bf!riki x fem!reader 「word count」 : 1k

「genre」 : headcanon, fluff, semi-crack

「warning」 : skinship and kissing, I believe that's about it!

「notes」 : nana (@rikstar) started blowing up my phone with how riki deprived she was so I am here to offer gamer bf riki headcanons to help satisfy her needs for the time being 😭

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will leave one side of his headset off just in case you needed anything from him because he will always put your wants and needs over his game.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who is willing to stop whatever he’s doing if you were to call out for him, even if it was for the smallest thing, even if it meant that he had to go back to his friend who would either nag at him for throwing the match or teasing him because of how down-bad he was for you.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who keeps his desk and minifridge stocked with all of your favorite snacks and drinks because he knows how much you love to snack. Sometimes even goes as far as writing little notes to stick to the packaging just to see your cute smile whenever you grab something from the drawer and because you always press a kiss either on his cheek or the side of his neck depending on if he was in a match or not.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will try to get you to play a match with him, but will laugh when you start pouting or raging because you couldn’t figure out how the controls work and would die almost instantly after leaving the lobby. although he’s also quick to help teach you how to play, hands over yours but only after he kisses the pout off of your lips and it's replaced by a wide smile.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who always wants to have you near him at all times, like 24/7, finding comfort in your touch and presents so you tend to find yourself perched in his lap, clinging to his body like a koala while he plays.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who if you are in his lap will kiss you anywhere he can, your head, cheek, shoulder, whatever was closest at the time, whenever he goes back into the lobby and checking in on you making sure that you were okay and comfortable, but will smile like a love sick puppy if you had fallen asleep on him, your face buried in the crook of his neck.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will ditch his friends in a heartbeat if you wanted to play animal crossing with him. the two of you cuddled up on his bed, switches in hand while you decorated your shared island. he also decorated the house because you claim that ‘he’s better at it than you’.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who loves when the two of you play multiplayer games together because he enjoys watching you get so competitive, doing everything in your power to win against him. sometimes he’ll throw the game just to see your face light up in excitement when you saw that you had won, rubbing it in his face which only caused him to laugh.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will play minecraft in creative mode just so he could build you random things then will look like an excited puppy whenever you see those things when the two of you play together.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who when he rage quits will toss his headset on the desk before crawling into his bed where you’re laying and just lay down on you, head on your chest without saying a word. he will pout whenever you tease and coo at him, but will instantly melt into your touch when you run your fingers through his unkempt hair.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will try to keep his voice down if it was late at night and you were sleeping, because the last thing he wanted was to wake you up. and he didn’t like it when you scolded him so it was better to play it safe.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who gets all giddy and happy whenever he sees that you designed a character for the both of you in sims. and if you gave yourself his last name? that boy would turn into a mushy puddle in his seat.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him whenever you sit in his lap to play a game. his chin resting on your shoulder, watching everything you do with such a keen eye that he was sure he had memorized all of your ticks.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who is just the biggest simp in the world whenever you wore one of his hoodies, loving how tiny you looked in the oversized fabric, bonus points if you just woke up and were sitting in the middle of his bed with that sleepy pout on your lips and your hair was a mess.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will also thank you repeatedly whenever you would bring over his favorite boba, his eyes shining brightly when you even went as far as drawing small doodles on the cup.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will always facetime you whenever you aren’t already at his apartment, not caring that he was in the middle of a match or not, he couldn’t last a day without seeing your face or hearing your cute voice.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who lit up like a christmas tree whenever you bought the both of you matching headsets.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will always play a game with you even if he is unsure if he will like it or not, but he’s always willing to try whenever it comes to you.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will pout like a puppy whenever you giggle at him after he gets jumpscared while playing a horror game.

⪩ Gamer BF!Riki who will become a flustered mess whenever you start teasing him and complimenting him because he was wearing his glasses. even better when they’re the cute wireframe glasses that you had bought for him because you were sure that he would look cute in them, and of course he does.

@alvojake | Do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or repost any of my work

𝖉𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖗 : ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ɴᴏ ᴡᴀʏ ᴀ ᴛʀᴜᴇ ʀᴇᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴘᴜʀᴇʟʏ ꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ ꜱᴇʀɪᴏᴜꜱʟʏ.

[strawberrybuni]

“And then no one ever fucking listens to me.”

You sat on Tomura’s unmade bed as he paced back and forth in his room, ranting about this and that. You weren’t exactly sure how you two started dating. He couldn’t stand you when you first joined the league, finding you to be rather annoying. Yet now, it’s like he has separation anxiety if he’s away from you for too long. You brought peace to him, he needs you more than you’ll ever know.

“Sometimes I just wanna dust them all just so I don’t have to see those dumb fucks again.” He huffed, running a frustrated hand through his light blue locks.

You chuckled softly at his words, opening your arms invitingly. “Well let’s maybe not do that.”

Without much hesitation, he’s crawling onto the bed with you and into your open arms, resting his head on your chest. He began to slowly relax as he felt your arms around him, but then let out a slightly irritated huff, reaching to take one of your hands with his pinky raised and placing it on his head. You smiled at this, obeying his silent demand as you started to play with his hair.

It was one of his favorite things to have you do in private. You’ve been trying to work with him on dealing with his anger in ways that weren’t decaying everything within a ten foot radius. Once Tomura realized how much he likes when you play with his hair, the rest was history. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, if he wants you to do it, you better do it or else you’re not going to hear the end of it for the rest of the day.

“Well it’s not like they don’t deserve it.”

“Someone annoying you isn’t a good reason to kill them, Tomu.” He rolled his eyes with a scoff. “Well I think it is… especially Dabi.”

You almost didn’t catch his little mumble as you glance at his face that’s currently hidden in your chest. “What did Dabi do?”

“What doesn’t Dabi do? Yeah his quirk is powerful, but he’s so annoying, and rude, and the way he looks at you pisses me off.” His voice was low, his insecurities starting to show. “Tomu, are you jealous?”

He fell silent. Everyone knew that he wasn’t someone who was good at talking about his feelings. Honestly, it wasn’t just Dabi that upsets him, it was anyone. He secretly hates anyone who gets close with you, because he’s terrified that you’ll like them more than him and leave him. He knew he wasn't the best boyfriend ever, but he was trying, he really really was. He might not say it very often, but he loves you more than anything, and the thought of losing you hurts him more than most of the things he’s been through in his life.

He doesn’t want his one form of happiness to be ripped away from him.

“Well there’s nothing to be jealous of, Dabi’s cool and all I guess, but I’m not into him like that at all.” You spoke up when he didn’t say anything. “I love you, and only you.”

He continued to stay silent for a few moments. “Tell me that again.” He demanded quietly.

Smiling, you cup his face in your hands, lifting it so you can meet his gaze. You begin peppering his face with kisses, saying quick “I love you's” in between each kiss.

“Ugh! Okay! That's enough!” Tomura frowns, pushing you away from him. He might be acting like he hates your affection on the outside, but on the inside his heart is beating so fast he thinks he might have a heart attack. “Now come on, I wanna play minecraft.”

Giggling a bit as he attempts to hide the deep blush on his face, you nod. “Anything for you, Tomu.”

[r3starttt]

STREAMER! GF! ELLIE

M.list

Streamer gf! Ellie whose wall is almost filled with guitars even though she only plays with one specific and does it just for you.

“Y’all wanna see the guitars? I only use that one actually” she moved her chair to show it properly, pointing her index finger at one that was lying on the floor

“Want me to play? I haven’t done it in a while”

Streamer gf! Ellie who remembered everyone that she had a girlfriend once she went super viral (and got made fun of bcs there was no way she could even approach to any girl without getting nervous and it seemed)

Streamer gf! Ellie who made you appear on stream with her after that just to prove you were in fact real and dating her.

“For today’s stream I’m gonna show y’all my wife, be nice, but not too much” she grabbed you by the wrist, bringing you closer to the camera and only showing you from your nose down.

“I told y’all to not be so nice, why’re you even calling her mommy? What’s wrong with you people”

Streamer gf! Ellie who got insisted on doing more streams with you so she started to play with you on stream (ofcs your favorite games most times) and bringing you with her anytime she played any horror game.

Streamer gf! Ellie who started to play Minecraft with you once a week on stream (having more views those days too) because people loved the dynamic you two had for that one game specifically.

Streamer gf! Ellie who ended up showing your face by accident while trying to adjust the camera and panicked once her chat told her because she thought you’ll get mad or something

“What do you mean? No I did not-“ she started to open like ten different tabs on her computers, checking something desperately and trying to push you so you wouldn’t see the screens “what? What happened?” you asked, confused.

Ellie was panicking but the chat didn’t seem to take it so seriously so you laughed at her too, still fully confused and trying to understand whatever the screens showed. That until you saw you face on a clip “Did you just show my face?”

Her eyes shifted to you, not saying a word “El, did you? Really?” once she heard you laughing it was like the sudden tension on her body disappeared almost immediately, letting out a small laugh as well “Well everyone, meet the wifey” your hand slapped her arm, not to hard but with how dramatic she is; she pulled away from you ‘oww’

Streamer gf! Ellie who tried to make a vlog and failed because she doesn’t know how to hold the camera properly (you ended recording everything for her)

Streamer gf! Ellie who social media is full of shit posting, kitties and you (likes every edit her fans make about you)

Streamer gf! Ellie who once did a bet with you during stream and ended up getting long nails because she lost almost immediately

Streamer gf! Ellie who wears lots of “I love my girlfriend” shirts on stream

Streamer gf! Ellie who spoils you a lot and likes having small dates with you, like building legos together, doing movie marathons or going shopping. Just anything where she can spend her money on you and have a nice time together.

“Babe, wake up” you were covered in blankets, hugging a pillow and trying to cover yourself from the warm but very bright rays of sun that entered trough the open spaces in between the contains. Groaning the moment Ellie started to pat your back because that meant she was either hungry or bored and needed you up too.

“El, let me sleep… cuddle with me, Mhm?” the way she chuckled made you turn around, trying your best to open your eyes properly “I have a surprise for you” her sleepy voice elicited a smile on you “yeah?”

She got under the blankets, crawling to you until she was practically on top of you “yeah, and I don’t wanna be late” her lips pressed on your forehead, hands on your face making small circles around your cheeks with her thumbs

Streamer gf! Ellie who insists on you making your own YouTube channel or something like that because people love you a lot and you would be a very talented influencer

Streamer gf! Ellie who got excited when you first opened an account somewhere to interact more with the fans and did lots of spam about it

Streamer gf! Ellie who begged you to get a cat. She wanted the orange + black combo originally but ended up getting a gray kitty she found on the street (and it’s obsessed with it, it’s her baby) She named it either a stupid name or something game related

Streamer gf! Ellie who apologizes a lot for having to go on stream during the weekends or when you’re free and feels bad for not being able to spend more time with you

Streamer gf! Ellie who always goes to cuddle with you and the cat after every stream and asks you to tell her everything about your day

[hunnylagoon]

Take Me to War

PT2 Metaphor

Streamer! Ellie Williams x reader

Where do I pour my love if you take away my pen and paper?

Premise: You are starting to like your annoyingly loud neighbour more than you want to admit.

PT1 Here!

Warnings: Raunchy humour

The gym was busy on this particular day, I absentmindedly judged others for being at the gym at noon on a Saturday like they should have been doing something more interesting with their time until I realized I was at the gym at noon on a Saturday with no other plans for the rest of the day "And she's hot?" Abby asks me while she effortlessly benches something around 170 and I do nothing more than lean on the wall behind her.  

"She's hot," I answer, scrolling through her feed on Instagram like the weird little stalker I was. I hadn't gone full FBI, just looked her up and possibly watched some of her videos "It's kind of cool that I have an internet celebrity living next to me."

"Define cool," Abby props the bar back onto the saddles of the machine and sits up, taking a chug from her water bottle.

"She is cool," I defend "It's not that weird Minecraft roleplay that your grimy cousins watch, it's just like video games and vlogs, that kind of stuff."

Abby looks back at me, sweat drips from her blonde hairline and rests above her brow "How is that even a career?"

I shrug in response "Sponsorships and donations and shit." 

"Why do people throw so much money at streamers?"

"Parasocial relationships, I wrote an article about it last year which you said you read."

She sucks a sharp breath through her teeth "You were writing a lot of articles, hard to keep up with."

"Define a lot," I mock Abby's words. I glance at a guy in between the rows of gleaming machines, their metallic frames reflecting the obnoxious glow overhead. He had been using the leg press upside down, his neck hunched over into an almost horrifying posture, his shoulders pressing against the top plate. It might've been the most normal thing I've seen in New York.

"So are you going to ask her out?"

I wrinkle my nose, thinking about it "I met her last week, I just don't think I know her that well." Within the past week that I've met her, I've been crawling out to the fire escape every morning just so her drowsy eyes could peer into my vacant skull and in recent months I had given up on dating, like a spider, I devoured my own heart.

"That's kind of the point of dating," She lays back down on the bench press "Getting to know each other."

"I think I'm too busy to date," I tuck my phone into my pocket, crossing my arms while I watch Abby. I wasn't entirely sure that I was too busy to date but I tended to consume myself entirely and make everything far more complicated than it needed to be. I still perform autopsies on conversations I've had years ago, clinging to every word like I need them to survive.

"Why don't you wanna be happy?" She asks, furrowing her eyebrows "You're always getting in your own way, is it a tortured poet type of thing?"

My breath hitches in my throat. How I hate when she's right. The last serious relationship I had was in college and even then I had sabotaged myself, I didn't know where it came from other than a nagging feeling that I wasn't deserving of the love that had been offered up to me on a shining silver platter. "I do I'm-

"Just not ready?" Abby cuts me off, finishing my sentence so perfectly as if it had been words on a script for some boring play about a woman who hates her life and won't do anything about it.

"Yeah," I say, my voice is quiet, she's got me in a box here.

"If you're not ready to date, you might as well be friends with her," She puts the bar back onto the saddles but this time, stands up after completing her reps. "You need to get out and it seems like you get along well."

"I guess," I say and Abby raises an eyebrow "No, you're right, I need to dig myself out of the grave I've dug for myself." What added to my overly apathetic mood was the season, I was so sick of February. It felt like winter had forced mold to grow on my bones to way me down onto the dirty city pavement where careless New Yorkers would gladly stomp over my body.

"How's it going with the family?" Abby is writing something down in her notes which I assume is her number of sets and reps.

"Nothing new," I answer.

She peers at me over her phone, digging for a more solid answer "Are you still sending your parents money?"

"Yes-

"Why?" Her arms dropped to her side, her phone still in one hand "You shouldn't have to play caretaker for two people who don't care about you," As true as it was, it didn't hurt any less to hear it out of my best friend's mouth. 

"It's easier said than done, those are my parents," I'm almost overtaken by a delicate drowsiness from the thoughts of leaving behind the one connection I had to my small-town life. My parents were so careless that I would run around barefoot on the road with the neighbour's kids for hours, narrowly dodging cars that flew past us like it had been a game; everything was a game back then, when I came home to my father's drunkenness, I could hide away in the treehouse and read Harry Potter until the screaming came to a stop.

I was bonded to them like I was to the stray cats who raised me. There was no getting rid of them, we ricocheted between hatred and love like the game of catch I never got to play.  

"I'm sorry," She says though I know it is ingenuine "I shouldn't get in between your family."

Abby didn't know them the same way I did. All she knew was the bloodiness of the relationship that I had cried into her arms, she didn't know how kind the wolves were after they tore me apart. The way my father would cheer for me the loudest at my soccer games and how my mother baked for me after a fight, wasn't the apology that I yearned for but the one that was shoved down my throat.

I dug through my brain to search for a way to change the topic "I saw Owen at the market yesterday and he said he wanted you to call him."

"You're fucking kidding."

My deadline had passed with no issue and I was finally blessing myself with a day where I wasn't chained to my desk. I could finally let my poor bloodshot eyes rest and for once I didn't have to drown them in eyedrops.

I was freshly out of the shower when I heard a knock at my door, Margot yelling at me to answer it. I slipped into a matching pyjama set that Abby gave me on my birthday, hurrying as fast as I could to the door. Margot's consistent screaming did nothing to aid this. 

Ellie was the last person I expected to see on the other side of the door but there she was. I couldn't help the smile that cracked onto my face "Am I the one being loud now?"

She grins at me "No-it's just that my chat has been begging for you to come back all week and I was wondering if you maybe wanted to do a stream with me?"

I looked down at what I was wearing and suddenly felt like the scrouge, all I was missing was a nightcap and a taper candle. "Can I change first?"

"Go ahead but I think this is one of your best looks."

"Really?" I raise an eyebrow "You have poor judgement since you've never seen me in anything other than pyjamas."

"We should probably fix that then."

"I guess we should." I smile. I decided against changing, it wasn't like I was going out, just heading to my friend's apartment that was three feet away.

"Say as much or as little as you want," She opens the door to let me in "I owe you big time," Ellie says this like I don't want excuses to spend time for her. Like I haven't been freezing my ass off every day just to talk to her when she watches the city wake up as she prepares to rest her head. 

Ellie's apartment is more lively than the last time I visited, she's adapted some plants that are already beginning to wilt "Have these been getting any sunlight?" 

She furrows her eyebrows "No? They're fake."

"Ellie," I stifle a laugh "I'm like ninety percent sure that fake plants don't wilt."

"Nuh-uh," She walks toward one just rubs its wilting leaf between her thumb and index, it begins to crumble in her hand and she sucks a sharp breath through her teeth "I guess they are real," Ellie pokes a finger into the bone dry soil and wipes the dirt onto her pants "How much do you know about plants?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess more than you."

 She nods "Sounds about right," Ellie walks over to her sink to fill a Game of Thrones mug with water before circling back to water her plants "Drink up little buddies."

"looks like you need some sunlight too," I watch her attempt to revive the dying plants and 

"Yeah," She keeps hyper-focused on the plants but she cracks a small grin, I could've sworn her smile burnt down the library of Alexandria "I think I'm turning into a vampire."

"The sparkly kind?"

Ellie shakes her head as she stands back up to put the mug on the kitchen island "Like the guy from Sesame Street."

I wrinkle my nose "Yeah, you're looking kind of purple."

"Damn, I was worried you would notice," She smiles again as she opens the door to her office, the purple LED lights are still running but the overhead light is turned on and washes away the colour.

The second I step into the room, Ellie rushes ahead of me and almost jumps to grab the folding chair. She sits herself down and pats her fancy gaming chair for me to sit in it. "Guys, she came!" 

I stare at her, eyes wide, jaw slack. "Ellie."

"What?"

"Do you hear yourself?"

She takes a minute to think about it before nodding her head, I could see the exact moment it clicked "No, I hear it," She addresses the camera "Not like that guys but I don't know what she did with her day, not our business though."

Ellie looks at me like she's waiting for approval of her chosen words. After a moment's reflection, I answer dryly "Thanks." 

"Sorry for taking so long, I had to water some plants," She watches the chat bar scroll by, squinting before she leans back in her chair, hand running through her hair "No, that's not code for sex."

"Could be," I shrug.

"They wanna know what your name is."

"Top secret."

"Okay," She reads some more comments from the chat "Can you tell them what you do for work?"

"I'm a ghostwriter," I say, giving a little thumbs up. I saw myself in the monitor and wanted to throw my hands at myself for being so awkward.

"Spooky," Ellie smiles "She writes about people instead of interacting with them, that's why she's socially inept." She reaches for her soundboard and presses a button, sounding a prerecorded effect of a crowd cheering and laughing.

"She's never had a girl in her apartment, that's why she can't flirt." I counter as she throws her hands up, I can tell she's about to retort with something before I cut her off "So what were you doing before you kidnapped me?"

"Guys, I didn't kidnap her, she willingly walked in here without the use of excessive force and I have had many a girl in this apartment," Ellie tells the chat before clicking something on her screen "So, they send in videos and we have to not laugh, which isn't hard because they aren't very funny." 

"You're not funny either but they watch you," I tease, Ellie fights a smile trying to uphold our image of back and-forth pocking and prodding at one another.

"Laugh three times and you're out."

"Of the apartment?"

"No, you just laugh three times and you lose."

"What do I get if I don't lose?"

"Fuck, I dunno," She furrows her eyebrows, searching the room for something. Her eyes land on a small silver tin, she snatches it up into the palm of her pale hand and sits back down "You get my dill dough."

"I'm sorry!?" My head snaps to look at her "Are you sure you aren't a cam girl?"

"No," She pauses "No, I mean no it's not what you think, yes," Ellie backtracks again "I mean I am sure I'm not a cam girl, not that that I'm not sure I'm not a cam girl, because I'm not," She looks like she's sure of what she said like it made perfect sense "Not a cam girl."

"You're not-not a cam girl?" I ask, pointing out the double negative "So you are a cam girl?"

"No," Ellie runs a hand down her face "Can you guys please tell her that I'm not a cam girl?"

Dcknb4llz:She's a cam girl

Nataliadepressed:I just subbed to her only fans!

Mclovin_fury26:She just wants to show you her dill dough 😕

Yayayalorde:I wish she was a cam girl 

The3nd_isn3ar:Ellie pls stop joking about it and become a cam girl already 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Ewmarryme:hahaha Ellie ur so funny now get serious and make an onlyfans

"Anyways," Ellie ignores the chat as they clearly aren't helping her case "This is my dill dough," She shows me the small tin she picked up, there's a picture of a pickle on the front. Over the translucent lid, it surely enough says 'Dill Dough! pickle scented'. It was just green silly putty with an oddly incredulous name.

"I weirdly want that," I answer.

"If you win, it's yours." She tucks it away into the pocket of her sweatpants "Mods, let's get this moving."

We sit through about fifteen minutes of videos; mainly people getting hurt, occasionally one of some type of animal. Nothing funny enough to make either of us laugh except for one of a man falling through a glass table which gets a little chuckle out of Ellie who denies it. 

Another video began playing, it was Ellie in this exact spot, screaming during a game of Fortnite. It looks like it's from the first time she showed me her odd job choice. In the distance, you can hear a knock on the door and this is when I'm sure it's from the day I had been thinking of. Ellie pulls her headphones off and looks at her camera "Shit, I think that's my hot neighbour again."

I slap a hand over my mouth and turn to see Ellie who's looking disappointed at her chat, shaking her head at the camera. "Whoever sent that is fake as fuck."

"So you think I'm hot?"

"Pfft, no, dude, you're ugly as fuck," Ellie makes an overexaggerated confused face like she has no idea what I'm talking about "I was talking about my other neighbour."

Kaylnncourting:Ellie y r u fumbling so bad???????

Overdam00n:You guys were right for saying she doesn't get 🐱🐱🐱🐱

Sestwouth:bruh she's ruining it for herself

Connerstollit:WHY DID SHE SAY THAT 

Cruel_summer:What is wrong with Ellie? Genuinely

F0gg4t:If El doesn't want her, I do

Aliinnnnnaaaaa:First girl she's ever met and she's ruining it

Randelwthehandle:Ugly as fuck??????? who says that 😭😭

Dcknb4llz:wow nice cover up Ellie

Marie_739:Bro Im gonna start calling the girls I like ugly as fuck

"Mr. Quigley?" I ask to which Ellie nods immediately "You think the eighty-seven-year-old veteran who is missing a foot and has swallowed four of his teeth is hot?"

"Yeah," She says, immediately regretting the hole she was digging herself into "I have a thing for older men."

"I don't think you have a thing for men at all, actually."

Her eyes go wide, Ellie opens her mouth to say something and she leans forward in her chair so fast that she falls out and smacks her head on the desk, folding over and onto the ground. I have the biggest smile on my face as I reach for her soundboard and press the cheering crowd effect.  I'm laughing too hard to offer her help, clutching my stomach and keeling over so my head is out of frame. Ellie gets up, and puts herself back in the folding chair pointing at the camera "Do not clip that."

Almost seconds after she says that a video gets sent in of her smacking her head on the desk in slow motion while I burst out laughing and now I'm cackling even harder. You can even hear her yelp in slow motion and she sounds like the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park "You guys are way funnier than Ellie," I say, addressing whoever was watching the stream. 

Another video pops on the screen right after the last one ends, it's Ellie again. She screams at something on her computer and you can hear me bang on the wall on the other side. Ellie goes quiet immediately going back to her game and muttering "She's so hot guys."

"I think my mods hate me," Ellie shakes her head.

"Thank you mods!" I smile at the camera.

A little clip of Ellie back at her desk pops up, she's wearing a Garfield shirt. This time she isn't playing anything, she just sits in front of the camera with that familiar lopsided smile "Guys, how do I trick my neighbour into going out with me?"

There's another video, it's a longer one with the caption 'Ellie Williams calling her neighbour hot compilation' Ellie's eyes go wide and she clicks off the video immediately, the camera goes to us full screen. "That's enough of that."

I pull my phone out and type in the caption of the unfinished video into YouTube, it comes up right away and I click on it. Ellie clicks around on her computer, unaware of my viewing until she hears her voice, echoing in low quality from my phone. She reaches for my phone but I pull it closer to myself. 

I'm dead set on finishing the video until something on the other side of the door, catches my eye. It rushes past the small crack in the slightly ajar door and instinctively, I drop my phone with a slight jolt "What the fuck is that?"

Ellie takes this opportunity to snatch my phone and place it face down on the desk, out of my reach. "That's just Kitty." She pushes herself out of the folding chair and steps out of the room. She walks back in carrying what looks to be a mound of cotton balls, looking a little closer, I realize it's a rabbit. He looks more fluff than flesh.

"What the fuck," My mouth falls open in awe "Can I hold it?" She places him in my lap "He just walks around your apartment?"

She nods "He's litter trained so he just kinda hangs out." 

I pet him, he's soft as a million feathers, and he looks like a mascot for a paper towel company "You are the only person I know that would name their bunny Kitty."

Ellie tries to wipe off the mass amounts of rabbit fur on her, it seems the more she tries to get it off, the more firmly it refuses to budge. "This is a good time to show you guys this new shirt that Dina ordered for me," Ellie stands up walking off camera. She has a couple of Amazon boxes stacked on her couch, she reaches into one of them and pulls out a T-shirt. Ellie turns towards the wall so her back is facing me, she pulls her hoodie off over her head.

All I can see is the back of her sports bra but I force my eyes to go wide "Guys, Ellie Williams has a tramp stamp that says cum dumpster," I lie and the chat goes wild and I grab my phone off her desk as she turns around in her Five Nights at Freddie's tee with a 'Seriously?' face. I take a picture of her with the flash on "I'll sell this rare image of Ellie for six hundred dollars on eBay."

Ellie walks back over to the desk with a stack of Amazon boxes "Every donation goes toward my tattoo removal," She jokes, digging around in the boxes. "I'm a little over your videos, you bunch of snitches so I think it's about time I finally open these up." 

I look in the boxes too, leaning over slightly, being very careful of Kitty where he sits in my lap. I see something and pull it out to hand to Ellie "You should try this one."

"World's hottest gummy bear," She reads the package "Why is there only one? What if I want another?" Ellie yanks the gummy bear, squishing it between her fingers. It looks like Red-40 personified. 

Melanie_felony:She's setting her up lmao

Dcknb4llz:Nobody say anything pls I rlly wanna see this

Elliewsidechick:YALL SHES TOO WHITE FOR THIS STOP

She eats the gummy bear in one bite. As she begins to chew it, she seems absolutely unfazed and partially confused about why it was labelled 'World's Hottest Gummy Bear' A moment later she begins to cough, balling her hand up into a fist and pounding on her chest. Ellie's little cough quickly turns into a deep wheeze.

Ellie lets out a scream, her face going red as she slams her hand onto her desk with watering eyes. I could see visible sweat on her face as she dry heaved, it only took thirty seconds until she sprinted out of the room.

"Oh my god," I watch her run out of the room while I give Kitty a little pet between his ears, he's so still I almost think he's taxidermy. "Guys, I think we killed her." You can hear her vaguely screaming and gagging from the kitchen "So what did everyone do today?"

Thelastgreatamericandynasty:wrote a fanfic about you and Ellie

Dcknb4llz:I got jumped at waffle house 

"Yikes, sorry to hear that." I suck a breath through my teeth "Tell me what I should know about Ellie." Her name feels so right on my tongue.

Jesse_chang:She's a virgin

D4aughter_:OMG HI JESSE

A_birthday_card:The only s3x she's ever had was in Minecraft

Whathasshegot:She has a crush on you 

Touching_theyouth:She's lactose intolerant 

Dcknb4llz:She sold me ketamine in an ally 

Gusty_queefqueen:She homophonic 

Torxhmydreams2:Pretty sure that’s two words that have the same pronunciation but different meaning

Gusty_queefqueen:Bruh it means she doesn’t like gay people

Heytheredelilah7:She has a boyfriend

When Ellie comes back she's filled her Game of Thrones mug with milk and has a bag of shredded mozzarella cheese. She reads the chat "Can you guys be cool for once?"

"They're cooler than you."

"Very funny," Ellie eats a handful of mozzarella before she digs back in the boxes "What's next?" There's one box huge envelope that looks like it has a slip of cardboard in it. Ellie tears the corner open with her teeth and rips the rest of the top off with her hands. She pulls the content out of it, throwing the envelope over the computer for it to land on the ground. Just as suspected there was cardboard in it, not just a slip but it unfolded into a cardboard cut out of Ellie, she looked to be a younger teenager in it, giving an awkward little peace sign and showing her green braces off with a huge smile.

"Aww, you actually look cute in that."

She disregards me "Chat, interrogate Dina about this and report back."

"Dina?" I ask "Is that your girlfriend?"

"Nah," Ellie props up the cardboard cut-out and places it behind us, right in the middle to watch over us "She's my enemy as of right now."

"What did she do?"

"Send this shit," She eats some more mozzarella, holding the bag out to offer me some, to which I decline. Ellie shrugs it off and eats another handful, washing it down with a long chug of milk and putting it on the desk. She grabs a t-shirt, he eyes go wide and she pushes it against her chest so I can't see. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, ma'am," I watch a smile spread across her face as she turns the shirt around to show me a graphic of her on it. In the picture, her face is close up to the camera covered in a white powder (presumably flour). "Oh, wow!" I feign shock.

"I know!" She holds it out toward me "It's yours, you deserve it."

"Wow," I draw the word out, taking the shirt from Ellie "This is really great, I was always hoping I would get a shirt of you covered in flour." Sarcasm drips from tone but I accept the gift regardless.

"I know!" Ellie grins brightly "You should put it on now."

"That's fine, I think I'll save it for our date," I tease.

She perks up just the slightest "Ooo, when's that?"

"The second this stream ends."

"On that note," Ellie looks at the camera "Thank you guys for hopping on tonight and thank you to my neighbour who came here without putting up a fuss," Ellie clicks around on the screen a little bit before addressing them again "Alright, go bug Dina now."

With that the stream comes to a close, the blinking light on the camera turns off, and Ellie and I are left alone with ourselves and Kitty.

“So,” Ellie thumps her foot up and down repeatedly like those anxious kids in high school. “Do you maybe wanna get coffee tomorrow?”

“I don’t drink coffee but I’ll pretend to so I have an excuse to hangout with you.”

A smile splits onto Ellie’s face “Phew, I hate coffee I just thought it was an adult way to ask you out.”

A/N: This is super short but I’ll make up for it in the next part, thanks for reading! We got some angst on the way 👀

Perm tag-list: @veeveeisgay @whenlostinthedarkness @gold-dustwomxn @ellslvr

Series tag-list: @diddiqueen @camillecrellin @fullmachinegirl @eveshyper @lmaoo-spiderman @camicocom1a @elliessweetheart @melanie-watermelon @lanafresitas

[zeltqz]

hop on

pairing. bf!eren x fem!reader

word count. 1.9k

summary. you ask eren to use his controller to play a game with your friend, but he lets his jealousy get the better of him when he finds out you're playing with another boy.

tags. videogames, oral (f), exhibitionism (connie and jean are on the phone when it happens), jealous!eren

authors note. the video game trope is cool but i wanted to switch it up and make the reader the one playing the video game now 😁😎

taglist. @meuw02 @foreshadxw @neptunes1nterweb @mishueb @yourrfavzxri @

“What’re you plotting?” Eren asks as you slide yourself into his lap, nuzzling your head into his neck. He wraps his arms around you and kisses the top of your head as you sigh dramatically.

“I’m not plotting anything… can I not show you affection?” Eren can practically hear the pout in your voice.

“I mean, you can. It’s just suspicious.” He gently grabs your face, bringing it out of his neck and looks you in your eyes. “You want something, don’t you?”

“No…” you say, but he doesn’t believe you. He stares you down with those intimidatingly green eyes of his until you crack. “Okay fine. I needed to ask to borrow something.”

“Borrow whatever you want, baby.”

Your face lit up as you sat upright, almost knocking his chin with your head with how quick you moved. “Really?!” He nods. “Wow, that was easier than I thought. Thank youuu.” You grab onto his face, planting kisses on his cheeks, nose and lips. 

Before he can kiss you back properly, you slide off his lap, leaning over his body to search his bedside drawer. “Now, where is it…”

“Where’s what?” He watches you slap around his messy drawer with an amused face.

“Your controller,” you mumble, continuing to dig through his belongings.

“Oh hell nah, you’re not using that.” He grabs your ankle and tugs you backwards. 

You snap your head to look at him, offended. “What? Why!? You said I could borrow whatever I want!”

“Well anything but that. You don’t mess around with my games, sorry babe.” He reaches to boop your nose but you slap his hand away, frowning. “It’s not personal. I don’t let anybody touch it. Even when Armin comes over, he has to bring his own shit.”

“I’m not  just anybody though,” you argue back. “Why can’t I use it?”

“Why do you even need it? Since when do you play video games?”

“Since fucking forever! My friend wants to play Minecraft with me and my phone is too laggy. Please baby,” you beg, grabbing his hands and pressing soft kisses on his knuckles to try to make him change his mind.

“Could you do that on my dick instead?” he challenges, a juvenile smirk on his face as he watches you slowly stop kissing his knuckles to glare up at him. 

You groan and move to lay on his bed, staring at his moving ceiling fan as you think of ways to persuade him. Eren climbs over you and you have half a mind to kick him off. The sheer satisfaction of watching him hit the floor is tempting, but you need to get on his good side. Eren leans down and tries to kiss you, but you move your face the other way. 

It’s adorable how confused and hurt he looks, so he bends down to kiss you again, only for you to move the opposite way. “Wow, so this is what we’re doing now, huh?”

You continue ignoring him, flicking your eyes everywhere but his face. 

“Okay, fuck. Fine, here.” He reaches under his bed and pulls out his controller. Your eyes light up as he hands it to you. “Treat it like that’s your kid. I don’t play around when it comes to that.”

“I will I will, thank you.” You plant a wet kiss onto his cheek, smiling as he grumbles and wipes it off. 

“Come here.” He pats his lap and you crawl onto his lap, between his legs, as he turns on his TV, signing into his PS account so you can play your game.

“Can I use your headphones too?” You ask him, watching his face turn deadpan as he looks at you.

“Don’t ask for too much now.”

You roll your eyes. “Fine. The controller is good.” Whilst he’s setting everything up, you pull out your phone and click on Jean’s contact. As you’re texting him, asking if he’s ready to play, Eren gives your sides a squeeze and bends down to speak into your ear. “All done setting up.”

You whisper a thank you before grabbing your headphones and plugging them into your phone. Eren drowns out the sound of your voice as you keep playing, choosing between watching you waltz around the open world or texting his group chat. Time passed by and you switched your position on the bed, now laying flat on your stomach, giving Eren a full view of your body.

A shiver runs across his body and he craves your warmth, so he taps the back of your thigh once to get your attention. 

“Hold on, gimme a sec,” you say to Jean, muting the call, then turning to face Eren. “What’s wrong?”

“C’mere,” he pats his lap and you smile, pausing the game as you wiggle your way back onto his lap, your back pressed flush against his chest and you tilt your head to the side so Eren can rest his face on your neck. 

You continue talking and playing with Jean. Since you’re this close to him, Eren can hear the voice through the headset, then hears the familiar snorting loud laughter. He grabs the headphones and puts it in his ear, hearing Jean talking. 

“Why the fuck are you playing with Jean?” He asks you, fighting back the urge to hang up the phone.

“Wha—because he wanted to play with me?” You blink at him, confused. “Is that a problem?”

Eren pouts once he notices you aren’t catching the hint. It’s common knowledge the distaste Eren and Jean both have for each other; whenever they’re in the same room, they both have to physically restrain from calling the other names. Seeing you laughing and playing video games with Jean makes Eren want to just snatch his controller back and leave Jean to suffer alone. 

“Hello?” Jean questions from the other end of the line, wondering why you’ve been quiet all of a sudden. 

“Eren, if it makes you feel better, Connie is coming online any moment now. So I’m technically not just playing with Jean.” 

“Whatever, yeah.” He grumbles, letting you go back to playing. The entire time you play, he’s watching Jean’s character on screen move. His fingers tighten against your waist every time he sees Jean’s Steve run up too close to you, whenever he hands you an item, whenever he practically does anything. 

He shifts his eyes to you, eyes focused on the screen as you build a better house and Eren licks his lips, wondering how he can distract your attention from Jean to him. 

His hand slowly starts sliding downwards, subtle enough for you to not notice, until it reaches the waistband of your sweatpants. You’re too distracted to notice him untying the knot, then slipping further downwards. 

“Wait, gimme a second,” you speak into the phone, then turn to face your boyfriend. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing.” Eren shrugs nonchalantly, licking his lips as his rough fingers glide along your panties. 

You swallow hard to fight back a moan. “Are you trying to make me—” you lowered your voice and spoke away from your microphone. “If you want to have sex just tell me, I’ll hang up.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” Eren manoeuvres your face back to facing the TV. You clear your throat, fingers shaking slightly against the controller as you feel his fingers peel away your panties, rubbing along your slit.

Your breath hitches when he teases the tips of his fingers inside your hole, dipping it inside just enough for you to feel something, but not enough to make you feel satisfied. Since you couldn’t use your words, you sent him a pleading look with your eyes, hoping he’ll get the hint. 

Eren only smiled before dipping his finger inside bit by bit. Your breathing was shaky and you spread your legs more to give him a better angle. He pumps his finger in and out of you at a leisurely pace, wanting nothing more than to hear you lose control of your voice and hear you moan into the mic. 

Unfortunately for him though, this wasn’t enough to gather that much of a reaction from you. He noticed how good you were at containing your voice, clearing your throat whenever a soft whimper would leave your lips. He pulls his fingers out and lifted you up and off his lap, putting you back onto the bed, then crawled in front of you, settling himself between your legs.

Your eyes went wide as you tried to close your legs, but he kept them open with both hands, tugging you forward until you were laying down. Your yelp caught the attention of Jean and Connie, asking you if you’re alright, but you were too busy focusing on the way Eren’s tongue laved its way inside your body. His lips sealed around your clit and your back arched off the bed, legs desperately trying to close in on themselves, only to wrap around Eren’s head as it moved up and down, licking and sucking your pussy like it was his favourite meal. 

“Oh my god… Eren—I—” You forgot your mic was still on and removed your headphones, tossing them against the bed as you reached downwards, grabbing his hair and tugging at it. “Fuck, that feels so good.”

He hums into your pussy, the vibration making you squirm uncontrollably against the sheets as you reach your peak. His tongue flicks at your clit, stimulating it in circles until you are panting heavily, on the verge of ripping his hair out and coming on his face. His name was like a prayer on your tongue with the way you were chanting it, biting your lip in a failed attempt to control your sounds.

He parts your folds with two fingers, licking up and down until you were overstimulated and had to beg him to stop. He sat upright, licking his lips, looking satisfied and smug as ever. His hands braced themselves beside your head and he bent down to kiss you. You let him slide his tongue against yours in your mouth, moaning around the vessel as his hips rolled downwards, meeting yours. 

On the TV, the sound of zombies growling catches your attention, and you peek past his lean body to see. It’s nighttime and the mobs are out. Panicking, you push him off you and grab your abandoned headphones from the bed, putting them back on your ears, ready to get back to playing as if nothing happened. 

“You both are DISGUSTING.” Connie’s voice groans into the mic, making you freeze as you forgot to mute the mic. His voice was loud enough for Eren to hear through the headphones. Eren erupted into laughter, grabbing your headphones to speak in them.

“Don’t be upset because you can’t get any.”

Connie spluttered gibberish and you hid your face in your hands, shaking your head, utterly embarrassed. Eren kisses your forehead and grabs your face, giving you another long wet kiss, loud enough for Connie to hear and groan again, telling you both to get a room. Jean was quiet the entire time. 

“I’m never playing games with you again, sick fucks.” Jean grumbles eventually, making Eren cackle again, even louder than before. 

“It’s okay, I can take it from here,” Eren mumbles against your lips and gathers you back onto his lap, taking control of the controller as you process the embarrassment alone. “You two, hop on Val now. It’s my turn.”

[try-set-me-on-fire]

Tagged by @eddiebabygirldiaz for seven sentence Sunday! Here’s uhhhhh more than that from a buddietommy vacation threesome fic-

The day is hot enough that Buck is curled up like a bug on the dock between them. He’d stayed in the water longer than Tommy or Eddie had, and had swum out further than either of them, so when he’d crawled back up onto the old wood planks he’d chugged an entire water bottle and promptly passed out. Eddie glances down at his bare torso, just starting to get a little pink.

“Should probably get sunscreen on him again.”

Tommy snorts as he leans backwards, stretching out to grab the spray can. “And you’re worried you’ve forgotten how to be a dad.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie says as Buck, still asleep, makes a similar sound when Tommy mists him all over with cold sunscreen. “It’s been months, man, that’s so long for a kid, who knows what he’s even into now-”

“Minecraft, right?” Tommy says as he smooths his hand over a few places the sunscreen pooled on his boyfriend’s back. “Wasn’t he on a video call with you and Buck about it for like three hours on Friday? Something about- uh- command blocks?”

Eddie is mildly impressed Tommy remembers the word — maybe — because he certainly doesn’t. Buck had only been slightly better at following along than he had as they’d squinted at the probably impressive pixels on the laptop screen. “I don’t know, I just feel like…” Every morning, still, he wakes up and thinks he needs to get Chris’ breakfast started. Whole parts of his being are wired around taking care of his kid, but since he’s been gone Eddie has been trying — in fits and starts and most of the time guiltily — to figure out what the rest of him is for. It’s part of what got him into the whole mess in the first place, chasing after the dreams of a 19 year old who got those dreams from his parents. A nice wife (but they never liked her, did they) and a good job (but firefighting is too dangerous, isn’t it) and a picket fence (one closer to home, Eddie, you’ve gone too far away.) So he owed it to Chris, owed it to himself, to figure out what the fuck he actually wants, so he doesn’t keep twisting himself into knots and taking out everyone around him when the line breaks. He’s not sure he’s any closer to whatever that is — other than it’s unlikely to include a wife of any kind — but in the time he’s taken trying, what if other things got lost in the upheaval? “I keep thinking I’ll just- not remember to do something. Forget how field trip permissions slips work, or not know what shoe size he wears, or- I don’t know. Anything. I won’t pack his lunch and it won’t be the end of the world but he’ll be hungry that day.”

Tommy leans back on his palms and looks across at him, quiet and thoughtful for a few moments in that way he has, like he’s thinking through every possible response before he speaks. He is, maybe; he’d confessed to Eddie that he’d spoken too quickly when he was younger, is embarrassed about a lot of the dumb shit he’d said, so he tries to take his time with his words now. “Eddie. You took us up here this weekend to check and make sure this place is accessible to take your kid to this summer. And- I get that’s a big thing, a big gesture, and maybe you’re worried about messing up the small stuff, but… You’ve still got his favorite kind of jelly in the fridge that nobody else eats. You love him, and he knows that. You’re gonna do fine.” He shrugs. “And he’s almost fourteen, if you forget to hand him lunch he’s gonna let you know.”

Eddie huffs a small laugh. “Yeah, I guess he will.” He groans a little, shaking his head. “Fourteen years old, that’s fucking crazy. I don’t feel old enough for that to be true.”

Tommy rolls his neck so it audibly cracks. “Yeah, yeah, you whippersnapper.”

Eddie grins at him. “You feeling the exercise, old man? Need to go lay down?” He cackles and leans away as Tommy grabs the can and sprays a burst of sunscreen at him.

Between them Buck grunts at the commotion, and rolls towards Eddie. He presses his face into the meat of his bare side above his trunks, and wraps his long arms around his torso. Eddie glances up at Tommy, who just looks fondly amused. “Uh. Wrong guy, there, bud.”

Buck stills, and then pulls back a little to squint up at him. Eddie’s not particularly ticklish, but something like goosebump are shivering across the skin of his stomach where Buck’s forearm rests against him. He has to actively try not to shudder as Buck pulls back and rolls the other way, Eddie watching hypnotized as he gives Tommy the same treatment. Buck presses a little kiss onto Tommy’s hip, in the spot he had just been cuddled into on Eddie, and Eddie’s mouth goes dry.

Tommy lets out a little breath, and Eddie doesn’t think he’ll be able to use the sun as an excuse for how pink he’s gotten as his eyes snap up to the other man’s face. Except- he’d been expecting a raised eyebrow, a flat mouth, some visual indicator of disapproval, that this is one step Buckandeddie too far, that all the rest of their codependent lives have been fine, a platonic kind of care built over years of being there for each other through the worst of the worst, but now the uncomfortable answer to what Eddie wants, the uncomfortable answer he’s been trying to avoid because it's something he cannot have, has been found out and the messy insides of him will have once again ruined something good. But what he finds is a tiny little smile and heavy eyes that-

Well, they don’t look disapproving in the slightest.

“You guys hungry?” Buck mutters, words muffled by Tommy’s skin. “We should go start the grill.”

Tommy’s little smile gets wide and lazy, eyes still stuck on Eddie. “I could eat,” he says.

Tagging @iinryer @shitouttabuck @butchdiaz @chronicowboy @homerforsure @rewritetheending @bigfootsmom if you have anything you want to share!

[dreamwatch]

Computer Love

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest

Day #22 - Prompt: Alternate Universe | Word Count: 995 | Rating: T | CW: None | POV: Steve | Pairing: pre-Steddie| Tags: IT Crowd AU, banter, my attempt at humour,

Ok, I wasn't going to write for today, but I was sitting on a work call and it made me think of the IT Crowd and that made me think of our beloved idiots. And honestly, I've been writing so much angst I thought I should try and redress the balance!

Steve wasn’t exactly over the moon about working for his dad, but one failed retail job after another and a few unpaid bills is all it took to have him crawling back to Harrington Senior. He didn’t want to be an office gopher, or work in the mail room, not at his age, but he’d suck it up.

Head of IT. His dad was making him Head of IT.

So far he’s told two friends. Robin, who stared at him like he had two heads before saying “Is he joking? Is it— is it like an April Fools thing?” And Dustin who was even less polite:

“What the fuck do you know about information technology?”

“Is that what it stands for?”

“Jesus Christ, Steve.”

He heads to the bank of elevators looking for his department. Harrington Industries is spread over twenty floors. He wonders if he’ll get a corner office. God the views… 

Steve runs his fingers down the list until he finds IT. Basement. No view then. Shit.

He exits the elevator into a dingy hallway, discarded PCs and printers stacked everywhere, and trips over a cable almost immediately.

Finally he finds his department. And… well…

Fuck.

Yeah. It’s all making sense now.

It looks like a frat house. There are two guys on a ratty couch playing video games, and another two at desks; one mop top making cat memes, and an admittedly cute guy with long hair with his feet up on his desk. There are phones ringing and no one seems bothered by them, until eventually Long Hair lets out an exasperated sigh and picks up.

“IT Support, have you tried turning it off and on again? Uh huh. Yeah it’s the button on the front of the… yup, big grey button… can’t miss it… you know what, let me send someone up. What’s your floor? Uh huh, and name? Melanie. Melanie in Marketing. Well, I’m going to be sending my best guy up—“

And, finally someone has noticed he’s there.

“Uh, he’s on his way, bye.” Long Hair drops the phone. “Guys, we have company.”

“Hi, I’m Steve,” he says, smiling at the four faces now firmly fixed on him. “I’m your new boss.”

“Not for long,” snarks one of the guys on the couch.

“Matty, be nice!” says Long Hair, and god he has beautiful eyes. Shit, fuck, no, don’t go there. “I’m Eddie, that’s Matt, who is just about to head up to Melanie on four—“

“Oh for fu—“

“—That’s Jeff sitting next to him,” Jeff raises a hand, “and this is Gareth.” Gareth just scowls at him.

Steve finally gets a good look at them all. Ratty band shirts and sneakers, ripped jeans, totally unprofessional, they look like they’re in a band not an office. He’s going to be making some serious changes around here.

“Well it’s good to meet you all,” he says and finally catches sight of a small office. He points at it, “Take it this is mine.”

“Sure is,” says Eddie. “We didn’t know exactly when you were coming so you’re not set up yet, but Jeff will get that done this afternoon for you.”

“Why this afternoon?”

Jeff stares at him like he has two heads. “It’s Minecraft Monday.”

“Yeah, I have no idea what that is.”

Eddie laughs. “It’s fine, I’ll come in a few minutes get you hooked up. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable. Boss.” 

His office is small and cluttered with more junk, and definitely no window. God, this sucks. 

There’s a knock at the door and he turns to find Eddie leaning against the door frame, arms crossed against his chest. 

“How d’ya like the place?”

Steve runs his hand through his hair, pushing it back off his face.

“Uh, yeah, it’s, you know…”

“A shit hole?”

“Yeah, a shit hole.”

“I take it Donny didn’t exactly fill you in on the details.”

Steve drops into the torn office chair. “Not really,” he sighs. “He has a habit of that.”

Eddie straightens up. “You’ve worked with him before?”

He laughs. “Better than that. He’s my dad.”

“Oh shit.”

Gareth barges in. “Wait, Donny the Dick is your Dad?”

“Donny the— hey, that’s—he’s the guy that pays your salary, a little respect.”

“Pretty sure that’s Karen in finance.”

“What…? You know, never mind. Point is, this department is a mess and there’s going to be some changes around here. Starting with the way you answer the phones, you can’t just tell people to turn the computers on and off—“

“—off and on,” Jeff cuts in.

“Whatever, you can’t do it. You need to ask what’s wrong.”

Eddie laughs. “I mean, we could, but the answer would still be to turn your PC off and on again so…”

Jeff and Gareth nod along like those stupid plastic toys. God, is it too late to go back to Family Video?

“Well, that’s as maybe, but for now you’re… ah, dismissed.”

He doesn’t miss Eddie’s amused smirk, as he gestures for his troops to leave. But then he’s perching himself on the edge of the desk, leaning into Steve’s space, those big brown eyes pinning him in his seat.

“So, just between us, you don’t actually know anything about IT, do you?”

“I mean… I know… uh, like mice, you know and uh… oh!” Steve snaps his fingers and points, triumphantly. “HTNL!”

Eddie’s biting his lip, god he has beautiful lips. “It’s HTML, but you were close. Do you do a lot of coding, Steve?”

He flops back in the chair, defeated. “Up until last week I was working in Family Video.”

“In their IT department?”

“No, in their ‘this is due back in two days department.’” He groans. “What the fuck am I going to do?”

Eddie laughs. “Don’t sweat it, you’ve got a lot more going for you than the last guy.”

“I have?”

“Oh yeah. At least you’re pretty,” he says with a wink.

Yeah, Steve’s totally screwed.

[twstthing]

[Bake Bread] 1/2

Minecraft Single Player! Yuu AU

Summary: Yuu baked(?) bread for Azul.

Part 2/2

Yuu has insanely fast-growing wheat on their farm located at Ramshackle grounds. Azul has been so, so shifty about wanting to own the property, but he has continuously and fabulously failed at acquiring it.

But what kind of business man is Azul to give up on such an opportunity? Wheat can take up to 2/3rds of the year to grow, but the wheat this abnormal student plants takes approximately 1 and a half days to be completely grown! Not only that, it is beautifully, so beautifully consistent in its quality.

Yes, sure, there are PLENTY of magic agriculture brands that sell amazingly consistent produce, but this wheat? This wheat is terrifyingly accurate to the industry standard. Azul had to confirm to his two associates that no, he was in fact not tripping balls ("You are MALDING over overrated grass, Azul. You sound just like Jade.")

Just to confirm that he wasn't insane, he had gotten his hands on some legally obtained samples of the wheat (He politely asked for a bundle of wheat from Yuu with a contract where he promised to not commercialize nor generate defamation/slander associated with Yuurmom because of the wheat.) and had Jade take it to his Science Club to study it.

Even according to that Heartsyabul Clover, he was thoroughly impressed at the remarkably consistent quality of the wheat.

Trey had kindly indulged Jade's questions about the wheat, explaining one of the most business-booming, profit-generating, game-breaking facts about this produce

This wheat does not expire.

It doesn't expire? Are you kidding? No preservatives, no drying processes, no water rot, none? None at all?

As Clover explains, "Uhh, yeah. It doesn't go bad even when carried around for months. Yuu gifted me some, but I don't exactly know how to process wheat into flour, so it's been sitting in the pantry for some time now. I've been wanting to put it to use though, so this week I'll be meeting with Deuce, Epel, and Jack to help me process it."

So yeah, Azul is definitely NOT crazy for losing his mind over this farm that Yuu has going on. If he can have Yuu make a contract with him to exclusively sell their harvests to Mostro Lounge, he'd be booming! Fast crops, no preservatives, no need to watch for shelf life, do you even understand what kind of miracle crop this student has?!

When Azul comes knocking at Yuu's door once more, he is greeted with the expected presence of the Ramshackle Housewarden, but also a basket of... Flatly stacked pixelated bread?

"Why, Yuu, I wasn't aware you enjoy my company so much!"

"Come in. Bread, eat."

Azul is slightly surprised by the sudden hospitality, but accepts it to see if he can further his advances in getting his hands on those crops.

Upon being seated in the common room, Yuu takes one of the breads from the basket and begins to eat it in their really loud and strange way. Crumbs are flying everywhere, yet not one speck actually makes it onto the couch or floor. Azul wishes he could forget the way Yuu tried to eat the food at Mostro Lounge for the first time.

Jade sets the plate down, and gives a simple smile, "Please enjoy your food." Deuce and Ace usher various forms of a curt "Thanks." before digging in, but Yuu continues to stare at the plate in front of them. Ace raises an eyebrow, but before he got to make a snarky comment, Yuu grabs their Sirloin Steak with Mushroom Sauce and Stir-Fried Vegetables with their bare hand and proceeds to begin ripping at it.

Ripping is not a strong enough word to describe their eating process, Yuu's mouth was barely open yet there were steak shreds and mushroom sauce flying everywhere. The two little card soldiers were trying to fend themselves from the food splatter onslaught, Jade was collapsed to his knees trying to hold in his laughter, Floyd dropped the food he was supposed to serve in opt of releasing howling laughter, and Azul felt like crawling into a ditch.

.. Maybe this was a more prominent memory for Azul than he initially thought.

But! Azul has persisted through worse, really strange eating mannerisms do not compare to the Leech's impulsive personalities. Therefore, this is nothing.

"So, Housewarden, how do you fare? I can see that this place has recently been cleaned well, was that your doing?"

The sounds of disconcertingly loud bread munching fill the room for a solid 4 seconds. Yuu is staring straight at Azul, and Azul stares back. Azul dully notes that their pupils are square-shaped. He's aware of slit eyes and horizontally slit eyes, as evidenced by goat beastfolk, but he's unsure if a person with square pupils is simply born like that or had an extreme cosmetic surgery.

Yuu audibly gulps and burps after finishing their loaf, the bread vanishing from their hand with the blink of an eye.

There are a lot of things running through Azul's mind right now, but his goal was not forgotten. Get closer with Yuu, get that wheat, make business boom. Thus, he slightly extends his hand out to the basket of pixelated bread that is stacked upon each other like cards, "Mind if I have some?"

Yuu nods, so Azul reaches out with his gloved hand to take one of the reasonably sized hard-as-rock pixelated loaves of bread.

He goes in with two hands to rip the bread in half, but finds that it is rock solid. Of course it is. It is a physical slab of a pixelated graphic of a loaf of bread. Azul feels a bit stupid. ("Of course you are, normie! You should've expected that!")

Despite the failed first attempt, Azul tries to rip at it once more with more force. Fingertips pressed into the slab, he pulls his arms away from each other horizontally in a final attempt.

rrrip

Rip? Azul looks at the now split pieces of bread in his hands, and the previous rock-solid pixelated graphic has turned into actual bread.

Azul blinks. He looks at the basket of bread, and the pixel graphic was still there stacked neatly. Bringing his arms back, he observes the bread in his hands that looks to be an ordinary, warm, freshly baked loaf of bread that bore no resemblance to what he initially held in his hands prior to tearing it.

"You ever eat bread before?"

Azul nearly whips his head up to look at Yuu, who's unconcerning gaze never left him.

Pushing up his glasses, Azul speaks, "I assure you I know of bread, Housewarden. I was simply wondering.."

There are a lot of questions Azul wants to ask, those related and unrelated to the current situation, but he pulls through and selects a question that would give him more insight to the Housewarden's stranger properties.

"I was thinking about how you made this. It's still fresh and warm after all. I didn't know the oven in here was operable, no offense to you and your skilled craftsmanship."

Yuu shrugs, "Just 3 wheat, bread made."

Azul blinks.

"Do you mean 3 pounds of wheat? That's quite a lot of crop to process."

"No. 3 wheat makes 1 bread."

Azul Ashengrotto is one of the youngest genius businessmen to enter the world. His thorough work and sound words carry his reputation as smoothly as sea currents, letting all know of his benevolence and charm. However, such skill was not born from nothing. The young man had persisted through harder times, fought his way to the top, wrangling only the best of deals and people to keep his position rising, an experienced businessman as he is no stranger to challenge.

However, interacting with this abnormal Housewarden has somehow managed to shake the reality and logic of such a esteemed man more than thrice.

".. Do you mind explaining what that means, Housewarden? I feel that you might be referring to a unit of measurement from your home, which I'm unfortunately not familiar with."

Continued in Part 2

[errorryx]

unraveling — part three, season ten

read on ao3 | read part one | hermitcraft, 2.9k words

this is the third and final part of my fic for MCYTblr AUFest! once again, if you haven't read the first part, please check it out for more info about this AU. enjoy this infodump about plant-based fibers disguised as a minecraft fanfiction!

—

Ever since Pearl began expanding her original starter base, she’s been working on some kind of big secret project.

It probably has something to do with her choice of theme this season. Or maybe it's an even bigger, more spectacular redstone machine than the already very impressive Dyeduction. Whatever it is, Pearl’s determined to keep it a secret, which means Gem is even more determined to figure it out.

She watches Pearl from a distance, using her spyglass. Pearl’s base is developing into a labyrinth of different structures, with so many entrances and passageways wedged into tight corners, each building blending together into a larger whole. It’s getting big enough that Gem can get lost in it. She gets turned around even from afar, watching Pearl enter a building and emerge somewhere completely different a few minutes later.

This morning, Pearl seems to be harvesting some of the many different plants around her base. She clips back the fast-growing vines that crawl up the sides of her buildings, wades through dense fields of flowers to uproot entire plants, and even collects bark from the bushes and trees. Gem can’t imagine what she’s doing with it all, and she’s even more confused to see Pearl deposit her harvest into a large pool and leave it there.

After a while, Pearl spreads her elytra and rockets off in the direction of the shopping district. Gem takes the opportunity to poke around her base and investigate directly. She stops at the pool first, which has a small channel out to the river, not quite wide enough for a boat to pass through.

When Gem steps into the pool, the water only comes up to her knees. The bottom is full of different stems and leaves, weighed down by rocks to keep it from floating up to the top. Nearby is a small hut filled with shelves and shelves of the same plants in various stages of drying.

Gem has been toying with the idea of a proper scientific investigation for a while now, and clearly Pearl is the perfect subject. She takes a recording device out of her pocket and begins to describe her surroundings.

“This is Dr. GeminiTay in the field, reporting on my observations at PearlescentMoon’s base. Recently, I've observed several anomalies in Pearl’s behavior, and I came to the conclusion that I must analyze her natural habitat for hints as to what may be causing this…deviation.” Gem nods, proud of herself. She sounds so professional! “It appears that Pearl has been soaking plants in water, then letting them dry. The purpose of this behavior is as of yet unknown.”

Nearby the pool and the shed full of drying plants is a building that Gem knows has been here for a while, but she doesn’t think she’s ever been inside. The top floor is full of more plants in the next stage of the process, whatever process that is. One one side is a pile of fully dried plant material, and on the other side is a heaping pile of fibers and several chests stuffed to the brim with very tiny wood shavings.

Gem relays this information as best she can into the recording device, then takes a staircase down to the basement, which is much larger than the room above. The center of the room is taken up by several large spinning wheels, each hooked up to a redstone device that Gem doesn’t even bother to try and make sense of. Presumably they help automate the process, though they all seem to be shut off right now. Gem is tempted to flick one of the levers to see what happens, but she’s not Grian. She has more self-control than that.

Though, it would be really funny if she broke something.

Gem peeks outside to make sure Pearl isn’t back yet, before running back to switch the lever on, giggling to herself. The wheel starts spinning, but since there’s no fibers or threads on the spool, nothing else interesting happens. She’s disappointed, but also relieved that she didn’t break anything. She flicks the lever back off and moves on.

Pearl has hung several picture frames around the room, but instead of artwork, the frames contain embroidery projects. The largest of them reads live laugh love in familiar cursive lettering, surrounded by a border of leafy vines. Most of the others are textless, with designs of different plants and flowers.

A large table on the left side of the room is covered in dozens of small scraps of handmade fabric. Some are of higher quality than others. None of them look like the sort of crochet pattern that Gem’s used to seeing on Pearl’s body. Pearl must be trying to branch out with her projects, and these are some of her first attempts. There’s another embroidery project hanging right above the table, the only other one with any text, which reads, Start small.

Beside the table is an ordinary loom, and next to it, a larger, more intricate version constructed out of several different types of wood. Normal looms are only used for banners, but Pearl’s handmade loom seems to be built for broader purposes. On the other side of the loom, in the back corner of the room, is an iron door without any visible way to open it.

At this point, Gem can safely assume that she's found the room where Pearl keeps her mystery project. Clearly it's some kind of fiber art—or several different kinds at once, from the look of it. But all the things she's seen so far are just pieces of the puzzle, and she still can’t figure out what Pearl’s making.

Her only remaining option is to see what’s behind the locked door.

Now, Gem could easily go home and construct her own lever to open the door, or just break through the wall herself, but that’s no fun. She’d much rather figure out how to use this secret door the right way. Knowing Pearl, it’s not a special kind of lock that only she has the key to, but some kind of thematically relevant puzzle that anyone can figure out if they try.

So Gem tries. For a good long time, she looks around the room for hints. She stops in front of the table of scraps, looking at the embroidered message. Start small. It doesn’t quite fit with Pearl’s sense of interior decoration. The live laugh love one is clearly a joke, a reference to last season, but there’s nothing about Start small that holds any sort of meaning to Gem.

Unless it’s meant as a clue.

In a moment of inspiration, Gem stands on her tiptoes, reaching over the table to take the frame down from the wall. She looks over to the door, but it hasn’t moved. When she flips the frame around, she can see the messy backside of the stitching, plus a hand-written note from Pearl, reading, smaller than that.

Definitely a clue, then. Gem switches on her recording device and begins to narrate. 

“The wild Pearl is known for her cleverness,” she tells her imaginary peer-review science board. “One of the defining behaviors of a Pearl is to set up puzzles for her friends. It’s important to provide her with enrichment by participating, which is why I’m doing this, of course. Not because I’m nosy.”

She paces up and down the room, the reassuring rhythm of her footsteps against the floor helping to clear her mind. That is, until she steps down on a block that makes a strange metallic clanking sound.

Gem may not know much about redstone, but she knows a hidden hopper when she hears one. The spot where she’s standing is just a few blocks away from the door. All she has to do now is figure out what to throw into it.

“Pearls are practical creatures,” Gem says. “This Pearl would not choose something rare or difficult to access as the key to a door she uses all the time. It’ll probably be something inside this room.”

Start small. Smaller than that. The answer’s sitting right in front of her. Pearl doesn’t start a crochet project by jumping into it blindly and hoping for the best. She plans it out beforehand, making patterns and testing out stitches. All of the different test swatches on this table are her way of starting small, practicing for the big project she’s making.

Gem grabs one of the scraps of fabric, dropping it on the floor above the hopper. The door opens with a loud clank, and she enters the room, holding her breath in anticipation.

She’s not expecting Pearl to actually be inside. She knows for a fact that she saw Pearl fly off, though admittedly there was plenty of time for Pearl to sneak back into this room while Gem was wandering around her base. But the surprise of Pearl’s presence pales in comparison to the shock of what she’s making.

Pearl is hunched over a player-sized figure made up of many different kinds of fabric, lying on top of a large worktable. Only one of its arms are attached, the other sitting right beside the empty shoulder, and both legs end just below the knee, still unfinished. Most of the fabrics look coarser than the soft wool yarn that Gem is used to, but there’s no mistaking who it’s supposed to be.

“Oh. My. Gosh.” Gem blinks several times, unable to believe what she’s seeing. “Pearl, are you multiplying?”

Pearl laughs, sitting back and looking up at her. “Do you like it?”

Gem takes a few steps closer, taking it all in. The new Pearl’s plastic button eyes have been replaced with wooden ones, and her hair is a mixture of several different textures and shades of brown. She’s wearing a white postal jacket like the one Pearl’s wearing now, but this one is made out of a more refined version of some of the swatches in the previous room.

When Gem commissions new outfits to fit her themes, she doesn’t spend much time thinking about the work that goes into it behind the scenes. She just pays their exorbitant prices and assumes they must have worked very hard. Now, having seen all the steps in Pearl’s process, she’s baffled as to how her clothesmakers are able to deliver their finished products so quickly, or how Pearl herself has gotten so much done without anyone noticing.

“It’s beautiful, Pearl. It’s so detailed.” Gem can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t feel like an understatement. “Have you been working on this all season?”

“Only since I decided on my solarpunk theme,” Pearl says. “It shouldn’t take me much longer. I’ve processed most of the fibers that I need already, and that’s the slowest part.”

“I have so many questions,” Gem says. It’s a little disconcerting to see this new version of Pearl in an unfinished state, looking so much like Pearl does now, but lifeless and incomplete.

“I can explain it to you if you want!” Pearl looks excited at the prospect. “There’s a lot of steps, but if you break it down it’s actually pretty simple—”

“Have you been hanging out with Mumbo recently?” Gem asks. “None of what you’re doing is simple, Pearl. This is very complicated!”

“Already had a peek around my base, did you?” Pearl tuts in mock disappointment.

“It’s only fair! You don’t get to complain after what you did to my base with all those pickle messages.”

“Ah, well.” Pearl shrugs. “You may have a point.”

“What is it for, anyway?” Gem can’t help but notice that Pearl isn’t making these modifications to herself, but to an entirely different entity. “Why do you need another you?”

“Gem!” Pearl laughs at her. “You got all the way to this point and you still haven’t figured it out?”

“What do you—Oh. Wait.” Gem blinks. “Are you—you’re building yourself a replacement body?”

“There you go,” Pearl says. “We got there eventually.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Gem says. “How do you get yourself into a whole different body? Can you turn back after you’re done? If you can just go around switching bodies, what’s stopping you from being a—a pig, or a sheep or something?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Pearl says, waving her hand dismissively. “I just, y’know…” She pauses, frowning. “Well, I—hm, okay. I’m not sure, actually.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I don’t know how it works,” Pearl says. “It just sort of happens. Like how everyone gets new outfits to stick through respawn.”

“That’s normal, though. Everyone does it!”

“Yeah, but how?”

Gem opens her mouth, then closes it again. She doesn’t know. How does she not know?

She feels a little dizzy from how fast her thoughts are racing. Gem pulls up a chair and plops herself down, trying to get her thoughts in order.

In this world, and in every world since she spawned, there have been rules. They vary from place to place, and they can be changed, too—even bent or broken. Gem knows people who break the rules—some of the most infamous rulebreakers in the world reside on this very server with her—but she’s never counted Pearl among that number.

And, now that she thinks about it, that seems like an oversight on her part. Gem has known Pearl for longer than most of the other Hermits, and she can’t remember ever questioning how Pearl came to exist in this form, this version of herself that Gem’s always known.

Gem has never broken the rules, or at least, she’s never knowingly attempted to do so. She’s happy where she is, building and mining and fighting the normal way, seeking out challenges from within the confines of what’s supposed to be possible. She’s amazed by the accomplishments of her reality-bending friends, but that sort of thing has never interested her.

Now, standing on the edge of what seems to be a rule-breaking realization, Gem wonders if this is how they felt—Etho, or Cleo, or Doc, or Pearl, apparently—any of the Hermits that ever asked the right questions, or put the pieces together, or stumbled upon a loophole in the rulebook.

She clings to the fabric of her lab coat in wonder. What kind of force tethers this silly costume she’s wearing to her own body? Why does it stay with her even after death? How does any of this make sense?

Is everything just a—

“See, you can't question these things,” Pearl says, bursting through her train of thought. “Or it all falls apart.”

“Falls apart?” Gem asks, alarmed. “What does that mean? That sounds bad. Is it bad? Have I broken the world?”

“No! No, of course not, don’t worry.” Pearl rests a soft hand on Gem’s shoulder. “Well, maybe a little bit, but it’s fine. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Gem puts her head in her hands, taking a deep breath. It helps, a little. “This is—a lot, Pearl.”

“Here, let me show you something.” Pearl holds up a swatch of fabric, which Gem is reasonably confident in identifying as crochet, though she doesn’t know the specific stitch. “It’s like this. The fabric holds itself together just fine if you leave it alone, but when you pull on the edges…” She does just that, and the first row collapses on itself, then the next, then the next. “Things start to go a bit wonky. But…” She pulls out a crochet hook and starts stitching, rebuilding the row she’d just unraveled. “You can make them right again, if you learn how. It can go back to normal. Or, well, normal enough.”

“But what about people who don’t want it to be normal?” Gem asks. “How do they deal with it?”

“You’ll have to ask them about it,” Pearl says. “That’s not how I do things. I prefer to patch the holes I find rather than explore what’s inside them.”

Gem leans her head against Pearl’s shoulder. “This really hurts my brain.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Gem. I didn’t mean to push you into this.”

“It’s okay,” Gem says. “The fact that I made it through two and a half seasons of Hermitcraft before getting here is probably pretty impressive, right?”

“It’s not for everybody,” Pearl says. “Like Grian, for example.”

“Grian?”

“He noped out of it even harder than I did, you know. Did it so well that I’m not sure he even remembers anymore. I don’t want to bring it up with him, because if he did forget, I think he meant for it to be that way.”

“Huh. I had no idea.” Gem lets out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if I want to go his route or not. Or your route, or some other route. I feel like I know way less about the world than I did this morning.”

“You should probably talk to someone other than me about it,” Pearl suggests. “It’s different for everyone. But whatever you do, it should be your own way, not someone else’s.”

“My own way.” Gem smiles. “I like the sound of that, whatever it is.”

“Don’t stress yourself out over it,” Pearl warns her. “I know the way you are. Take your time, Gem. You have basically forever to figure it out.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try.” Gem wraps her arms around Pearl. “Thank you, Pearl.”

“For what?”

“For explaining stuff,” Gem says. “For being my friend. For being so cuddly, too. You are so soft.”

“Aw, you’re welcome.” Pearl hugs her back. “Would you be mad if I got less soft, though?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gem says. “I love every version of you.”

Pearl laughs softly. “I love every version of you too.”

—

if you read this all the way through and enjoyed, please consider reblogging!

<Previous part

[brasideios]

Fanfic Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @aeide 🤍 fairly sure I did this a while back, but I have time so why not 😊

1. How many fics do you have on AO3? 19

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 481662

3. What fandoms do you write for? Have written for: AC Syndicate, AC Odyssey, AC Valhalla, Stardew Valley, Hades (game), Pyre, Ancient History RPF, and am tinkering with maybe something Minecraft. Maybe.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Snatched Moments (163) The Warmth of Home (122) Another Turn Around the Wheel (116) Unfinished Business (71) and the Good Spartan (53).

5. Do you respond to comments? Usually - unless someone replies to every chapter in quick succession, (and especially if the comments are only emojis) - then I tend to just reply to those that I have something worth responding with; or with the emojis situation, just the final one.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Rising to the Surface. No doubt about it. Or maybe the Good Spartan. That seems to get a lot of ‘this ended me’ type comments so yeah.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Most of my fics have some variation of a happy ending. I think the one I’m writing now (Another Life) will be the most definitively happy though.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really, no. Disappointment that they’re unfinished from time to time, but not hate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yeah, mlm mostly. Very mild, vanilla really.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I’ve never written one. Just not my bag.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I’m aware of, unless you count AI scraping, in which case, almost certainly, probably all of them, up to and including all my original work.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic? No. I don’t do collaborative writing. Again, just not my bag.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? I don’t have one. I’m a multishipper to my core, because it’s too fun putting characters together with different partners to see what the relationship brings out of them to go all-in on one pairing.

15. What’s a fic you’d like to finish but don’t think you ever will? Still Crawling Kingsnake. I love it but there’s just no ending. Not even a shadow of one.

16. What are your writing strengths? Fighting the urge to be self-deprecating here - I like to think I do a good job with dialogue and building a character. I feel less doubtful about that than the rest, anyway.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic? If I knew one, I’d do it. I read lots of things with this feature so why not. I would be certain to provide a translation for readers though (side-eyeing academic papers).

19. First fandom you wrote for? AC Odyssey.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? The Good Spartan or Shadow-Twin. I think they’re both decent, just in different ways. I also like Another Life so far, tentatively hopeful that it’ll be worth reading when it’s done.

Probably everyone has already been tagged, so sorry if I’m doubling up or you’ve done this recently and I missed it. Just a few with no pressure @findusinaweek @ainulindaelynn @krankittoeleven @softest-punk

[wishitweresummer]

Dream’s IRL Minecraft Manhunt (Dream x GeorgeNotFound x Sapnap)

Word Count: 1792

Music

     The music yanks Dream from his sleep harder than anything ever had in his life. 'Manhunt?', he thinks groggily. It wasn't like it was crazy loud, it's just it always put this sense of urgency into him. One that told him to run. Jump. Get away from his friends as fast as possible. Wait...

     Dream sat up to find George and Sapnap standing at the foot of his bed, smiling devilishly. Sapnap was holding back snickers at his dramatic reaction to the music. Dream looked over to see George's phone sitting next to him on his nightstand playing their Minecraft Manhunt playlist. 'Shit.'. Ice crawled up his spine.

     They had all talked about doing a real life Minecraft Manhunt in real life a few times, but hadn't gotten any of the details together just yet. With the looks on George and Sapnap's faces he was already piecing together why. They must have been working on the idea together without him. He strained his neck around a bit until he found what he was looking for; one of their tripods set up in the corner with a camera pointed at the scene. His attention was pulled back with George's usual tease.

"Oh Dreaaaam!", he trilled.

     Dream burst from the bed without a second thought and scrambled out of the room with a yelp.

"Get him!!!", Sapnap cried out. Dream flinched. This was way scarier than in Minecraft. Plus, Dream wasn't 100% sure what they would do if they caught him, but he knew it wouldn't be killing him so he had a sneaking suspicion. He tore through the living room, groaning out loudly as he spotted more cameras to capture his embarrassing fleeing. He prayed they weren't streaming.

"You guys suck!!", he yelled, skidding around a corner. He screamed as he felt a bony hand grab at his arm, but was able to duck away. "NO!", he yelled. Real fear striking in his heart.

     Dream could already tell he was going to be bad at this. No nimble Minecraft character to parkour across blocks. No inventory to dig through to find the best materials to meme them with. He barely escaped their grasps over and over again as he looped through the kitchen and back out into the hallway.

     Dream heard Sapnap's loud warrior cry before he felt him. He only had a second to brace before he felt Sapnap's arms wrap around his middle and they went tumbling down together. It definitely hurt when they went rolling across the hardwood floor in the hallway, but it wasn't the first time either of them had tackled the other down like this. They both couldn't help but giggle crazily despite the dull pain.

"We got him!!!", George cried out in victory.

"Yeah yeah you got me.", Dream laughed, trying to wrestle Sapnap's arms off of him. Sapnap wouldn't budge.

"Now we kill you.", George smirked. Dream's mouth opened up to reply with some joke, but it died in his throat with a squeal.

"Don't!!", Dream whined, twisting now in Sapnap's arms while the younger started to tickle his sides. “Sapnap!!!”. He tried to hold back any more embarassing sounds, but squealed even louder when Sapnap grabbed his stomach. He quickly broke down into laughter.

     George joined the fun and helped Sapnap wrangle Dream into a better position. The hunters were ecstatic. Dream was much stronger than both of them so they couldn't usually pin him unless they worked together, and they usually didn't work together that well. Now, as a team, they were able to pin down every one of Dream's limbs.

"Oh Dreaaan.", George teased again, softer this time. Dream giggled hysterically, soft gasp-y wheezes already breaking through.

"Please, don't do this!!! There's cameras!!!", Dream squirmed helplessly.

     Dream's arms were above his head being pinned down by Sapnap's legs and George was straddling his waist. It crossed his mind that this is probably the most he's ever been held down. He writhed in the vulnerability. Sapnap started crawling his hands down Dream's arms towards his armpits and he instantly thrashed and burst into loud laughter.

"Ahah yeah!", George cheered and dug into his stomach, drawing a wheeze out of him.

"P-please!", he struggled to get the word out.

"We caught you! And now we get to tickle you for one hour!", Sapnap wiggled a finger each into both of Dream's armpits. Dream gasped harshly.

"What!! Whaat!! Whaaat!!", he hollered like he usually did, but it sounded crazed between all his laughter. George and Sapnap giggled happily. "You're lying!!", Dream twisted and yelled. George rapid-fire poked into his sensitive stomach and Dream shrieked, shaking with a loud stutter-y laugh. "George please!!", he squeaked.

     He knew George was cruel and there was no chance his pleading would break through, but he couldn't help himself. Why wouldn't he get off his tummy!!!

"George you're so evil.", Sapnap laughed while grabbing softly at the skin under Dream's armpits, keeping him jumping. George beamed back at him proudly, forming claws with his hands and shaking them into Dream's stomach. "Holy shit.", Sapnap muttered, his own stomach swirling with soft butterflies at George’s strategy. Dream's breath hitched and he fell silent, thrashing his body and kicking desperately at the floor behind George. After a few seconds his wail finally tore out of him and he stunned the other boys with his laughter. It was laced with wheezes and hiccups, and absolutely beautiful. It hurt the hunter’s ears. It probably clipped the audio for the video.

     George gazed down fondly at the squirming mess beneath him, not slowing down or letting up at all as he just watched Dream lose his shit. Dream's cheeks burned brightly and soon there were wet streaks down each of them. He was trying to turn his face away from the camera pointed at him, but with the laughter booming out of him so chaotically he was failing pretty badly. Sapnap grinned and moved his hands from his own tickling to instead hold Dream's head in fear he would knock himself out on the hardwood floor.

     While it was definitely mean and Dream wasn't used to being tickled this badly, the boys weren't really feeling all that bad for him. Dream had tickled George within an inch of his life just two days prior for basically no reason. He was bigger than the other two and never seemed to have much mercy himself. Besides. His laugh was pretty and his blushing face was adorable. And the views of course.

     George pulled his hands away suddenly and Dream cried out. The boys laughed and coo'ed.

"What? You didn't want it to stop?", George teased.

"Nooo please pleaaase, let me breathe, I’m going to pass out!", Dream begged pathetically. He whimpered and then gasped for air dramatically. Sapnap and George made eye-contact. Dream was playing it up for the camera.

"Quit that.", Sapnap grinned, ruffling Dream's curls with an eye-roll.

"You're such an idiot.", George giggled.

"Guys, they are always so so mean to me.", Dream looked over at the camera in the corner, pouting. The other two burst out laughing.

"Stop farming 'awws'!!! You just can't take what you dish out!", Sapnap said and reached down, tickling roughly at Dream's ribcage.

"Stahp!", Dream squawked, breaking back down into a hopeless-sounding laugh. His legs kicked at the ground.

"It's a video, not a stream. So I'll just cut out whatever makes me and Sap look bad.", George informed him smugly.

"You're...g-gonna...edit!?...yeah...right!", Dream worked hard to get the joke out through his wheezing, but he regretted it in sorely.

"Dream, are you fucking crazy?", Sapnap gasped at his words, looking up to see George's little evil smile. "Gogy really is gonna kill you now bro oh my god!!!", Sapnap laughed and pulled his hands off of his ribs. He adjusted his position on Dream's arms and then cradled his head gently.

     George made a big show of rolling up Dream's shirt and pointing at it for the camera. He wiggled his fingers, pointed at Dream's face, and then slid his finger across the air in front of his own throat. Loud and clear: Dream's Death Spot.

"George you're such an idiot.", Dream said quietly, flushing embarrassedly at the miming. He relaxed his head in Sapnap's hands and made puppy dog eyes up at his best friend.

'Oof, those ones are real.', Sapnap thought, playing with Dream's curls softly. "You dug your own grave buddy. We were about to be done, too.", Sapnap shook his head and trailed his eyes back up to see what George was up to. 'Oh shit.'.

     Dream knew by Sapnap's face what was about to happen and he squeezed his eyes shut. He felt George's grin press into his stomach first and he flinched. He squealed as George gripped his bare sides and then screamed as he started blowing raspberries all around his bare tummy. Sapnap held his head safely as Dream had no choice but to lose himself completely into his laughter. Jumping and shrieking at every new ticklish blow. He broke into all kinds of new laughs he knew fans would clip into 'New Dream laugh unlocked!' videos.

     George eased up after a minute or two and used Dream's shirt to wipe away the wetness on his jumpy stomach. Dream went limp against the floor as George stood up.

"I hate you guys.", he murmured. They could still faintly hear the Manhunt music playing from Dream’s room.

     George hopped in front of the camera and clapped his hands together.

"So, Dream lost the first one! Five thousand likes and we'll do this to him again tomorrow with a third hunter!", George cheesed. Dream and Sapnap laughed at the ridiculous number.

"There's no way in hell this is happening to me again before it happens to one of you two.", Dream laughed. He shook his head and finally sat up after Sapnap released him. He stretched his arms as both the boys looked at him. He wondered who he should team up with to get the other one first.

"No, we are gonna get BadBoyHalo or Antfrost here to help us chase you down and tickle you til you cry.", George crossed his arms across his cbest. Sapnap laughed and got up, helping Dream up, too.

"You got George in such a bitchy mood, dude.".

     They all laughed despite themselves and filmed a real outro. Dream was a little pink-cheeked, but he was a good sport like always and commented on how well the other two were able to catch him and pin him. They all knew how unfair the set up had been, but Dream can't help himself.

The hunters won!

(Art made by @kazenomegaminowanpisu )

[running2reanimation]

Home

The road home is paved with fire and brimstone.

—

He’d not realized home far away the children’s nether portal was from his own. The journey started in exhausted silence soon gave way to complaints from his young travelling companion.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” King winced at how harsh it sounded. The truth was King needed Purple to come because the child was the only thing keeping him moving forward instead of down. But that was something that couldn’t be said aloud.

“I want to! I just wish it was easier, that’s all,” Purple’s assertion faded into a mumble and King could see the boy start to pull into himself.

“Don’t we all?” King sighed, placing a hand on Purple’s shoulder before pressing on, the silence returning with a new bit of tension from words unspoken.

As they neared the bastion King came to the realization that the last leg of this journey was about to become much harder. Without his staff, or Purple’s elytra reaching the portal was going to be quite the climb.

He paused a moment, calculating the most efficient way up without supplies, or if it was even possible to do it without them.

Purple took this opportunity to sit down and rub his feet, “How can you keep going like this? I thought old people were supposed to be tired all the time?”

“I can’t stop. If I did I would never be able to get going again. I’ll stop when it’s over,” But King knew it would never be over, “and I am tired all the time.”

No doubt he looked it, with his wild tangled hair and dark bags and tattered clothes. He could feel the growing ache and started to climb. Purple groaned but followed obediently.

They were making good progress; King could even see the portal in the distance without having to squint too much. He heard Purple make a slight noise of anticipation as the child clearly noticed it too.

And then Purple took of running ahead, before leaping into the air and plummeting straight down.

Fortunately, King caught on to what was about to happen and was right behind Purple, grabbing onto their ankle with one hand and the ledge with the other.

He felt the pain he’d been ignoring screaming as he pulled Purple back up before crawling up himself.

King almost tore into the boy for his recklessness but Purple was already doing an excellent job without King’s help, “Stupid! Stupid! You know you don’t have your elytra! Why else would we be walking, dipstick!?”

King felt his heart twist; whoever taught Purple to think like that would have hell to pay if King ever found them.

He stood - his body’s protests once again being ignored - and offered his hand to help Purple up, “You made a mistake. We are both tired and not thinking straight.”

Purple nodded and mumbled, “I’m pretty sure I’m never thinking straight.”

That earned a bark of laughter from King and they pressed on.

When they finally reached the portal Purple once again charged ahead and by the time King caught up they had already collapsed into the Minecraft bed that had been part of the parkour trap’s testing phase.

Which meant the only available bed was his own, and if wanted to reach it he was going to have to climb the ladder.

He stood in front of it for a long time - and may actually have fallen asleep leaning on it briefly - before reaching up with shaking hands to grasp the first rung and began his very stiff, slow ascent.

As soon as he reached the top he splayed out on the floor and was so tempted to just stop there. Every muscle was pleading for him to, but he was so close.

With something between a wheeze and a groan - and a very ominous crack from his back - he got to his feet once again. He paused for a moment to look out the curtain less window and admired the sunset before making the last few steps to his bed.

He woke with a muffled scream - he didn’t remember the nightmare but he could take a few guesses as to what it may have contained.

It was still dark, if he had to guess it was probably very early morning, around four or five. He still ached but it was bearable again, which meant it was time to make breakfast.

He opened his fridge and winced at how barren it was. A few eggs, probably rotten by now, a third of a carton of definitely expired milk and a bit of salted butter that he wasn’t confident about either. At least the bottle of jam still seemed fine.

The freezer had nothing but microwave dinners, something quick and easy to prep and eat while he worked.

And he was out of coffee and sugar.

Fortunately, there was a 24-hour convenience store within walking distance - a great place to pick up supplies when you’ve lost track of time working on…

He stared at the living room wall before bringing his arm across the chalk drawing he’d drawn and redrawn over the years. He smudged it but he could still clearly make out the reinforced art. It wouldn’t be so easy to wipe away.

He grabbed one of the papers off the wall, flipping it over and writing on the back ‘Gone grocery shopping, be back soon, stay out of trouble - King’ and stuck it to the bottom of the trap door.

A sudden fear gripped him; what if Purple left while he’d been sleeping? He almost dropped down the ladder to make sure Purple was still there but he reined that impulse in before giving way to full-blown panic. Why would Purple have come all this way only to leave?

No. He was going to grab his grocery bag and go and that’s just what he did.

The walk to the store was chilly and quiet save for the occasional predawn birdsong and other than the aches it was pleasant.

The automatic door slid open and the cashier greeted him, and King glanced back at her in recognition.

The cashier, Aqua, was Gold’s best friend growing up and Aqua’s parents were convinced that the two of them would get married someday. King was never as convinced about that.

She’d wanted to go to university in the city, what was she still doing here?

He approached the counter with his armload of basics - he was thinking of making French toast - and Aqua - whose eyes had definitely been on him the whole time he’d been going through the store - gave him a concerned look as she rang him through.

She clearly debated with herself before asking, “Mr. King… Are you… alright?”

“…I’m getting there.”

[oliveyeen]

are mcyt aus still a thing? idk i wanted to draw out this scene real bad so, here ya go.

this is from an au of mine that mixes empires, origins, and dream smp (since i like the idea of smps and rps of minecraft being part of the universe/world). part of it follows shrub (from empires) as she is raised by phila n mumza, becoming wilbur n tommy’s adoptive sister. i’ll ramble about the lore behind this scene so feel free to read below:

in this scene, xornoth has become well known and has been fully corrupted by shad. in my au, shad n irene are one of the important deities in the pantheon, and created the stag brothers; aeor and exor. so in the name of shad and to also free him, xornoth has begun his conquest to collect all the artifacts to release him. unfortunately he has his eyes on finding the prized artifact of the wolf mother, and so destroys every gnome village to search for it. shrub is very young at this time, and so her and her mother run as the bells warn for xornoth’s arrival. in the midst of the chaos, shrub’s father is separated from her and her mom as the gnomes try to run towards the nether portal; which takes them to the elven kingdom, rivendell. shrub and her mother run from the oncoming swarm of piglins. fearing for the worse, shrub’s mother hides shrub inside a dead log and tells her to “never come out of there. until your father comes back, you must stay here and remain quiet...!” after hugging, her mother yells for the piglins to chase her. shrub hears the roaring flames, snorts from the piglins, and the screams of her people. calling for help. all she can do is weep quietly as her home is burned to the ground...

a week passes, and phil n mumza discovered the burndown village. they’re horrified by what they see, and while mumza searches for any survivors, phil knows who caused such a crime... phil leaves to find any supplies needed for their journey. while gathering some, he hears something. thinking it was the wind, he continued. he heard it again. he stopped and listened carefully...

and he heard it again. he followed it towards a dead log. when he peaked inside, he was shocked by what he saw: a small cub, covered in dirt and moss, shivering. he never considered the fact that children, hell families were among the casualties of the village. to witness such devastation would traumatize anyone.  once the cub acknowledged him, it only proved his point as she jumped and stared at him with eyes widened. he softened his gaze, and spoke in a gentle voice:

“hey, it’s okay. i’m not gonna hurt you.”

hearing those words seemed to calm the kid. phil continued to softly speak to her in the hopes of getting her out of the log. when he heard mumza, he shushed her and motioned her to the log. once seeing inside, she too softly told to the kid that everything is okay and that it’s safe to come out. while hesitant, shrub carefully crawled to the two and sat, shivering at their feet. phil lifted her in his arms, and for a moment he felt shrub heavily sigh and went into a deep sleep. in that moment, she knew she was safe.

-

PHEW CREATIVE WRITING!! my writing is bad and there’s probs a lot of mistakes, but i hope it gets the scene across well enough! i have more lore regarding my mcyt au, so i’ll probably come back and share more. thank u for reading my weird thoughts LOL.

[frostfall-matches]

[ matchmaking... ]

@shxtodxroki : [ match report ready ]

✦ Kirishima Eijiro

-> [ Kirishima largely fits what you value in partners. ] He’s self-assured but not overconfident, tactfully honest, very loyal, and affectionate. He lives life in a very unrestrained way and makes it a point to be true to himself. You very much know what you’re getting into with him, because he’s so unabashedly himself - and that can be such a reassuring thought, especially for someone prone to bouts of anxiety. You’re not going to be second guessing every single interaction with him, wondering if he says one thing but means something completely different. And, as a bonus: he is more than willing to get rid of bugs for you! Tends to capture them and bring them outside… but sometimes they might end up squished if they startle him.

-> [ His social nature really helps ease your initial shyness. ] Sure, things might be a tad awkward at first because conversations with strangers are still difficult, and you might want to crawl in a hole and die a little if you think you’ve said something stupid - but Kirishima is just so nice that you ultimately don’t worry about it too terribly much. Another perk is that he’s not the too-pushy and too-obnoxious type of social. He has no qualms about approaching people, but he’s not overbearing and is really good at meeting someone’s energy. As much as he enjoys clicking quickly with other social types, he also finds it really rewarding connecting with people who are on the shy side like you. Your jokes - no matter if they’re lame or witty - were easily the biggest reward for him once you opened up.

-> [ He is completely smitten with how sweet and kind you are. ] Kirishima really values empathy, determination, and inner strength; helping others is incredibly important to him and is one of his biggest passions in life. It’s much of why he’s gunning to become a hero, after all, and it’s only natural for him to seek out a partner who embodies those traits to some degree. There are plenty of times that you don’t even think you’re doing anything special, but Kirishima’s heart is practically bursting with how much of a sweetheart you’re being. On a more amusing note, he thinks it’s absolutely endearing that you insist on watching or reading things that get you completely teary-eyed, and he always comforts you with a giggle. As for physical features, Kirishima seriously loves your pink hair and your cute, feminine sense of style. He always looks forward to seeing your choice of fun earrings for the day!

-> [ Enjoys playing games with you here and there. ] Like you, he’s not the biggest gamer ever; but it’s definitely a fun way to pass the time if there’s nothing else going on and he feels like kicking back and relaxing on a given day. When picking games out for himself, he’s more likely to pick first person shooters and fighting games (things that are flashy and fast-paced, things his buddies would probably play). However, he ends up becoming SO obsessed with the cozy games you often tend to play like Minecraft and Stardew, especially if you’re able to play co-op together. Being able to cozy up on a couch with you under a throw blanket or two, the coffee table set up with an array snacks and beverages, all while playing something engaging but relaxing is such a dream.

-> [ Kirishima can be SO physically affectionate. ] You will have no doubt in your mind that this guy adores you, and that giving you hugs and kisses is one of his favorite pastimes. He has no qualms about initiating affection (though he is actually a bit shy when the relationship is new!), and is the type to think it’s endearingly sweet when you’re also a bit shy to initiate. He very much seems the type to show his love through acts of service, as well. Kirishima wants to be your hero, even if it is just you and him at home together. Funnily enough, he doesn’t realize how much you really cherish his sweet, eager words whenever he encourages you - but you’ll have no shortage of encouragement and compliments from this sweetheart.

-> [ He understands your worries, though he tends not to sweat the details himself. ] While very expressive, his emotions are pretty darn stable, both in dire situations and day-to-day life. However, he absolutely understands what it’s like to feel your insecurities weighing down on you - he is so incredibly empathetic and does what he can to reassure you and offer distractions when needed. Kirishima is a really good partner in the sense that you’re able to really open up and ask for his opinion and thoughts on situations that might be troubling you. He doesn’t think he comes up with the smartest or most creative solutions to problems, but he’s an amazing sounding board and really takes the situation, including your own strengths and weaknesses, into serious consideration.

-> [ Given your aversion to conflict, Kirishima will be your knight in shining armor. ] He’s always regretted those moments where he froze up in the face of adversity, and he’s not going to let it happen again if he can help it. Especially when it comes to someone who is near and dear to him. And it doesn’t even have to be serious. He’ll still go to bat for you even if it’s more of a “she asked for no pickles” situation. Not that he would ever dare to consider taking away your agency - he might step in without thinking sometimes, but tries his best to keep an eye on your expressions before he inserts himself into the situation - he just wants to take some of the burden off your shoulders.

-> [ Kirishima thinks you would make an amazing teacher! ] Whether it’s sociology or ELA or any other subject you’d consider going into - he knows how smart you are and how hard you work. He thinks you’re so smart and dedicated, and your patience and understanding will definitely work well for your preferred career. He thinks your passion for learning subjects you’re interested in and sharing that knowledge with others is so, so attractive. Amusingly, Kirishima isn’t the best at school and studying (and he knows it!) - he won’t want to pester you, but if you ever offered to help him study… he’d be eternally grateful. Bakugo might know his stuff, but Kirishima would much prefer your methods to his.

-> [ Super excited about any gifts you give him. ] He tends to be the type that reserves gifts for more important occasions, so he’s very pleasantly surprised to learn that you like to leave him little gifts here and there just because you feel like it. Doesn’t matter if it’s something big and fancy or small and simple, he adores each and every thing you gift him (although… sometimes he feels that silly guilt when someone gives you something so amazing that you feel you don’t deserve it). Kirishima totally lights up if you give a gift to him in person, and he gets the biggest, cheesiest grin on his face when you leave one on his desk or in his bag for him to find later.

-> [ Treats your collections with such respect, whatever your collections happen to be. ] It’s really funny because he’ll just stop and admire them when he passes by them, and sometimes you catch him oh-so-carefully dusting the shelves off if you haven’t gotten around to tending on some of your more decorative collections. You definitely have a collection of plushies that he’s insisted on winning you during your dates at theme parks or arcades, but those are definitely taken care of well by you and they tend to shift spots in your space depending on if you cart one of them around with you for a while.

-> [ He squirms whenever you two sit down to watch a horror film. ] If you tell him that you guys could quit watching or switch to a different movie, he firmly shakes his head and refuses. Kirishima knows you’re fond of horror as a genre (something he was surprised about at first - but then when he thinks about it more, he wonders why so many sweet types love horror so much). He knows that you’ve been wanting to watch a particular film for a while, or there’s some new release you’re looking forward to, and he is going to do this with you. Just… don’t say anything if you notice him tucking himself against your side as the movie progresses, or if you feel how tightly he holds you later while you two cuddle while winding down after the movie.

Song for your relationship -> The Last of the Real Ones (Fall Out Boy)

runner-up…

Toga Himiko -> You are one of the cutest, sweetest things she’s ever seen. Your pink hair would immediately catch her attention, right along with your more feminine, cutesy style. Though, as innocent and sweet as Toga may appear at first glance (with those buns and bright grin), you can’t help but have this initial hesitation when interacting with her because you know that she’s more than what she seems. For better or worse, though, you’re the type to genuinely extend your hand and heart to her - because despite her flaws and her actions, she’s still a person deserving of care and attention as anyone else. Toga loves taking care of you and also likes being spoiled by you in return, and she tends to be a pretty clingy partner. Assuming the two of you are able to be out and about without drawing too much attention together, she would absolutely adore the sweet, romantic dates that you tend to enjoy like picnics and getting coffee and a snack before heading out on a scenic walk.