#of their own and had abandoned the basic concepts of the wild ones. But for some reason the farm pet rabbits seemed to know these concepts

[lepurcinus]

More about ideas for society or "culture" in xenofiction.

Cultural differences between domestic, feral and wild.

Ok, it's very common and more so in stories involving the escaped pet who meets the wild ones that the classic comments of "Useless pet dependent on humans knows nothing about life" are made many times related to pet stereotypes (and also demonizing captivity or the relationship of owners and pets, mostly when they are cats) or that when it meets a wild animal then they explains the law of mother nature or the philosophy of the jungle or something like that. But I feel that there is still a lot of unexplored ground in this concept.

Let's say if I do a story about pet dogs, stray/feral dogs and maybe some wolves. You have that pet dogs probably don't for the most part have a very complex society or religion amongst themselves due to the greater habit of interacting with their owners and the occasional neighbor dog.

Maybe dogs from shelters, kennels, police dogs or similar may share among themselves their own philosophies or further expand their pantheon of gods, maybe each breed may have among themselves their idea of why they exist if they have snub noses, long hair, slimmer bodies, etc.

But then for the most part they share the basic concept of the story of the great dog god of the stars who made all the animals and brought man to the dog to protect him from loneliness and united them forever.

Then when we talk about stray and feral dogs, then that "belief" can be maintained but with slight deformations or differences (or have your nihilistic atheist dog who lost hope, I don't know). Let's say then that in this world abandoned dogs living on the streets then think that the promise of the star dog god was broken, maybe by himself or the dog as an individual has done something wrong, then that is why these still seek to approach people and seek to "redeem" their failure. But feral dogs, having lived in generations without that contact then now their belief is that that union was betrayed and broken, hence their greater refusal to seek human affection, but still in force that little joke of an opportunity to regain it.

So if there are then wolves in the formula, they may have their star god but it may not be exactly the same as the dogs. And their view of man be more like seeing their arrival, how take everything to their children and created a warped version of them that is against them. There would also be feral dogs more accustomed to "wild" life whose belief is more wolf-like than dog-like.

Other things, enter in the cultural difference already related to the behavioral change derived from domestication. Dogs do not have the familiar pack concept of the wolf completely and their gestures are not the same or communicate the same. If we then handle a story in which the animals have their own language, then dogs do not know the language of the wolf and these in turn have developed their own language with its variants.

With other animals it would work similarly, cats that have learned to tolerate each other more, domestic rabbits that have forgotten the concept of the communal warren or to live with fear and cunning. Etc.

Other things would also result in domestic animals having things borrowed from humans, such as a greater understanding of their gestures, sounds and constructions, some words of their own that are remnants of the sounds of human words.

Perhaps adding that there are "bilingual" domestic animals that, being in contact with other animals, it would be easier for them to understand their gestures and communicate with them.

God gave me the ability to generate spontaneous ideas but the curse of feeling I can't use them well, blame him for that btw.

[directdogman]

Dogman, how do you write SO WELL!?!? I love all your characters and I need to know what/where you find inspo from...

Ha. Every writer is just someone who apes the creative processes of their inspirations. For video game writing specifically, there's two answers for me.

Toby Fox is always gonna be a huge inspiration for me. I've written plots and characters before and had to abandon ideas after realizing I'd accidentally written part of UT again. Even some of the ideas I used were undeniably inspired by UT in a subconscious way and ofc, I included several explicit references to UT in my last series. Toby's a very clever guy who likely pays very close attention to the art he consumes and tries to figure out how to maximize how much his work connects with his audience. Whatever his process is, it works.

The other answer is a lil funnier: Scott Cawthon, but specifically the legend, not the man. For context: Back in the earlier days of the FNaF fandom, people had a hyper-inflated view of Scott Cawthon's writing skills that largely came from how little of a presence he had back in those days. In the vacuum of Scott actually explaining his own process in detail, people got caught up in his genuinely creative way of hiding exposition in his games using cryptid and (then) unexpected methods, and a narrative formed (one that he's since refuted.)

While he never implied it tmk, fans broadly believed that he constructed these sweeping and complex narratives with tons of cohesive moving parts, with the games essentially acting like the mere tip of his lore iceberg. People even thought he wrote so much that he had whole games worth of lore outlined from the beginning! In the first Dawko interview he gave, he clarified that this wasn't the case and explained roughly what his process was (basically just outlining rough theme ideas + aesthetics for future titles.)

However, that legend made younger-me's mind run wild and any time I wrote a story, it became very difficult for me to not keep writing down ideas while completing the grunt work that followed me finishing my scripts. When I finished DSaF 1, I already had DSaF 2's draft written and by the time 2 was done, I had enough lore for a 3rd game on paper (and a lot more stuff that I didn't use.) By the time three was out, I had pages upon pages of unused concepts/story ideas and more or less just had to decide to call it quits or else I'd be pumping out entries forever!

That's why if you go back to those older games, there's references that directly refer to future plot-points in pretty casual/easy to miss ways. (Like Henry's mention in DSaF 1, Dave being heartless in DSaF 2, Jack being soulless in 1, and even Blackjack being Jack's soul in 2. Most of 3's major plotpoints are implied somewhere in 2 and some of 2's in 1.)

DT is much the same. By the time I finished writing it, I had fairly detailed drafts for arcs for each of the characters, some early material ended up getting completely recontextualized (and even modified in small ways to not conflict with the wider ideas I came up with.)

I get really into writing my stories/characters and I always wonder exactly how things ended up where they are, what characters think about but don't say, etc etc. This is why I have an obscene amount of Crown lore that I have very little to do with rn (since he impacted the whole world so deeply.)

This extra stuff also includes plenty of sequel material ideas, though I didn't think I'd even get a chance to use them since DT performed pretty meagerly before the big release and I was expecting to have to move onto something new. Though it turned out that Scott didn't actually write his games this way (by his own admission), it's the correct answer for what my core writing inspiration for writing game narratives is.

Hope this helps!

[scentedpepper]

Hiiii I really liked ur recent lip fic so I had a request if it interests u :) it's probably pretty basic actually

Lip x male reader where reader is basically struggling to find a decent job because they're falling behind on bills so they become over stressed/overwork by their current shit job. This being something Lip can relate to he tries to comfort them/tries to get them to relax. (Totally not self reflecting haha 🧍🏻)

Fish.

LIP GALLAGHER X MALE READER

Summary: Lip knows when you're right and when you're wrong.

Content Warnings: None

AUTHOR NOTE(S):

Hey Anon 😼

Totally doable request

Gets a little angsty there for a sec cus I can't not put angst in my fics but yk

This has got to be the mushyest thing on my page so hopefully it's alright (^-^;

Allusiveness per usual..

The self projection is so real..

I'm glad you liked my last fic and I hope you find something that works for you soon tho!!

---------------------------------------------------

Fish.

That's the smell that immediately hits Lip upon entrance into the little studio apartment you call home.

Your cat stares at him, big eyed and blinking slowly from the peeled leather sofa with a blanket draped over it to hide the tweaks and imperfections of a Craigslist bought Lazy Boy.

If the boy was none the wiser, he'd assumed your place had been ransacked, burglarized and left with nothing but items not worth taking a second glance at. Though, it wouldn't be a half bad guess given that your front door was left open and there were clothes and trash strewn about the creaky floors, some of your furniture knocked out of place or even right on its side.

But he could hear you shuffling around the bathroom, knocking something over, the clatter of it to the floor, the less than enthusiastic curse from you and an internal groan that sounded like a hog dying as you bent down to pick it up.

–He wasn't sure how he'd heard that last one.

Intuition, perhaps.

Sheer connection, even.

But he wouldn't delve too much into that concept.

Despite the reality of its contents.

A sigh escapes him, he thinks, maybe one of these days, your recklessness will get you killed. But who is he to speak?

He locks the door from the inside before abandoning his shoes at the entryway, a task you never fail to stress upon to any guest who decides to stop in your home.

The cat is now perched comfortably on the end of your mattress, yawning and stretching as he makes sense of the newcomer in his house that just so happens to be intimately close with his owner.

Lip glances at his feet as he steps into the middle of the walkway, there's holes in his socks right where his toes protrude and they'd gone through their fair share of stitching and needless patching to keep them from slipping off his feet and turning into giant floppy gray lint brushes at his ankles.

Two people, similar living situations and yet two vastly different attitudes toward it.

He tries not to focus on that particular line of thought while he tucked his hands into his front pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels until you shut the bathroom door with a slam.

You're a sight for sore eyes, hair a disheveled mess, sunken in tired eyes, wearing nothing more than boxers, a white tee halfway up your arms when you pause abruptly at the sight of him.

"Hey. “

He finally acknowledges with a little side-smirk that immediately makes you feel a way that's contradictory to every single negative emotion running wild in your head.

You look at him quizzically, pulling your head through your shirt so you could breathe through the collar and clear away some of the exhaust building up after you tugged at your own hair like a horse suffering from some sort of brain-storm induced illness.

"Door was open. " He states the obvious, just to ease the awkward silence beginning to swallow you up.

In response, your eyebrows raise, tugging at your facial features and making your frown look even more drawn, and weary as your lips, that had seen better days, curl up in such a subtle, effortless smile that Lip fails to suppress his immediate burning response.

It's an ironic smile, but it charms your features nonetheless.

“Yeah.. I-” You clear your throat all the sudden, your sentence falling off into a mumble as you grab your hair before releasing it, only succeeding at making it less than structured. Your eyes dart around the room, suddenly aware of the chaos surrounding you. “Been busy. “

You move past him with rushed steps, partially knocking into the broom leant up against the wall, it clatters to the floor loudly behind you.

Lips eyes follow your frantic movement, tracking you as you stumble past him. The broom punctuates the silence like an exclamation point and he notices your cat jumping up out of his peripheral.

He doesn't move to pick it up. Instead, he stands there, hands still in his pockets as he watches you fumble with a stack of envelopes on the counter. He sees the tremble in your fingers despite the effort to suppress it, the tips pushing deep into the thick, yellow colored paper with bold, red text emblazoned on them.

“You know, “ Lip starts, voice low and measured, “I've got a pretty good idea about what those are. “

He steps over the broom, careful not to crowd you, the air between the two of you feeling heavy and charged.

Your shoulders tense at his words, a barely perceptible flinch. For a moment, the only sound is the soft padding of your cat's paws as he slinks away.

"Yeah?" Your voice is strained, almost challenging, but there's an underlying note of relief. Of being seen.

Lip's gaze drifts from the envelopes to the deep bags under your eyes, the knit in your brow, the stain in the creases of your face, to the worn-out shoes by the door, to the empty fridge humming in the corner. He finally settles back on you, confliction in the seas of his eyes.

“Look, “ he starts, then pauses, rubbing the back of his neck. You feel him get closer to you, his warmth invading your senses at once and you have to close your eyes at it.

He takes another step, less than half, not quite touching. An invitation, not a demand.

Your fingers trace the edge of the envelope as your mind blanks, for once. The paper's supposed to be rough, you know that, but you can hardly feel it with the way your fingers have calloused with the grime and weight of construction. You battle with your instincts, not moving an inch, freezing at his non touch touch.

“I have some extra cash from–”

“No. “

It's immediate. You don't think and your body instantly makes flee from him, the sizzling of the fake fish on the stovetop re-registering in your mind.

Lip doesn't flinch, but his eyes follow you as you retreat to the stove. The sizzling fills the silence between you, a mundane sound at odds with the emotional undercurrent.

"Okay. " He says softly, his tone careful but not placating. "No money. Got it. “

He leans against the counter, giving you space but not leaving. His presence is like a gravitational pull you're fighting against.

You focus on the fish, flipping it with more force than necessary. The spatula scrapes against the pan, a harsh sound that makes you wince.

"I don't need—" You start, then stop, unsure how to finish. Charity? Help? Him? All feel like lies on your tongue.

Lip waits, his patience a contrast to your agitation. When he speaks again, his voice is low, almost confessional.

"You know, when I was at my lowest, I couldn't stand the idea of anyone helping me either. ”

There's something so melancholy in his voice, a darkness creeping into the depths of the ocean that usually swims with his gaze that draws your attention, once again, back to him and his story.

He pushed himself off the counter, coming just a little closer to you with gentle steps like he's scared to startle you into abandoning him for a second time.

"It sucked, " he goes on, "It felt like shit, it made me feel even shittier. "

Then he's behind you and he isn't reaching for you, isn't touching you and it's even more dizzying than if he just was.

You shut the burner off and slump, feeling smaller as his breath ghosts across your skin.

The fish continues to sizzle, filling up the gaps where you don't speak, almost like it's speaking for you.

He's an inferno, a personal sun, everything burns in his orbit, you're convinced.

But you don't like the heat, the tension.

So, instead, you stand straight with a grimace as you say,

"What're you here for, Lip?" You glance at the clock on your stove. "It's nearly midnight. "

His eyes trail down your neck and he says nothing.

Everything goes quiet. So quiet, that when you tilt your head away from him, you catch the cat staring blankly at the two of you with his tongue out and drool pooling on the ground beneath it.

You press your lips together as your brows, furrowed, meet the bridge of your nose with creases and wrinkles you've picked up from excessive worrying.

"Here for a hookup?" You don't face him as you say this, instead you busy yourself with retrieving a plate but fail to find a clean enough looking one amongst the pile of dishes in your sink and settle for a coffee filter instead.

"Jesus christ, Y/N. “ He leans forward so he's sure you can hear every word he says. "Stop projecting your shit onto me. "

Ouch.

Your lips purse, pulling down to a flat, disapproving line at that.

"You're an asshole. “

You place the faux fish on the makeshift plate with a slightly shaking hand and then turn to him, looking him in the eye in distraught before you're speeding past him again, to the couch to rip the blanket you've got on there back over the chipping surface before you finally land on it, slumping into the battered cushions with a huff and a deep, tired sigh that has him blinking at you.

The cat has since vacated the premises upon the third trip you made around your apartment, choosing to go do gods knows what over sitting on his owner's lap which is even more distressing than anything Lip had seen on his way over, or once he had actually stepped inside.

For a moment he stands awkwardly in the kitchen, staring at the back of your head, unable to fathom what you must be thinking, so he ponders, maybe trying to relieve some of that pressure instead.

"Why does this—" he catches his own sentence, having almost used the words "make you", and quickly removes that option from use. "How's your stress lately?" Is the question he elects to ask instead.

"Stress doesn't bother me. "

You lie, blatantly, blatantly lying.

He clicks his tongue, finally removing himself from the stagnant stance and strolling toward you.

One foot before the other, before the other, before the next and the next and the next, finally finding himself within the circle that surrounds your worn out couch.

"Come on. " Lip grunts lowly, eyeing the coffee table you're sat before that's cluttered with junk, and half gone boxes of garbage, with rags and bottles, stray pens and hair ties.

"Lip–"

"Lemme see. " He hums at the sight of an empty plate with something half burnt and some sort of vegetable fried in butter but otherwise undistinguishable. He's pretty sure he might have to scrape it off from how long it's been sitting there, hardening.

"I didn't say you could help clean my shit. " You warn him, trying to maintain a certain sort of coldness even though there was no way of disguising the way your shoulders lessened at his voice, or the way your back pushed in further in the seat.

That's okay. He liked your stubbornness more and more with each passing minute.

You kept him on his toes.

He sighs in response, mumbling out a comment he kept to himself over your unwillingness to accept some kind of help; like you were starving– dehydrated.

He kneels slowly in front of you and reaches out his hands until your body stiffens and then wilts underneath them.

For the sake of your pride and that stubborn resistance to accept any amount of comfort, or to even bring up the fact that Lip is, in some ways, your rock.

He can do that for you, he tells himself. He likes being relied on by someone.

Someone who needs him in a way you never let anyone see because you had this notion to keep it all locked away inside of you like you could be dependable, like you were all you had.

"Listen to me. " He takes the tasteless fish away from you and for a moment you look appalled and ready to snap, but then he grabs your hands from your lap and slides his fingers along your palms and the fight is gone at that instant.

Your eyes glaze, darkening the circles underneath and he can't help but tug you away from the makeshift plate, from the furniture, the piles of stuff on the ground, the stack of boxes in the corner, the scattered clothing and the woes of your life.

Before you know it, his arms are cradling you and his warmth, his body heat, his scent, it's all encompassing.

"You don't gotta be perfect, you know?"

You grit your teeth when he says this, laying limp like a baby on your half living room, half bedroom floor with your face buried against his collar as he practically lay above you, holding you.

"Stop. " You force out, then a second time and a third before you can get anything more coherent from your lips.

He quiets you each time with another and another gut wrenching statement and soon, your intensities are practically splayed out across the stained, Dollar Tree carpet.

"It's not anything I can't handle. "

"I'm sure you can– you always find a way. " He shifts a bit, but it doesn't disrupt your hold on him. "But it's okay to need help every once and awhile. It's okay. Even to ask for it. "

"Lip, I just—”

He hears the anger in your tone, and he shushes you with a coo like noise and a slight nod of his head.

"I can't find a fucking job. " You mutter a few moments later into his shoulder, where his hands had snaked up into your hair so he could run the pads of his fingers along your scalp.

He nods, sympathetic, "You'll find something. You'll figure it out. "

"What the fuck am I doing wrong?" Your fingers raise from the carpet in silent resentment as you ask this, reaching up to claw at the thin, coarse fabric adorning his chest.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You're fucking great. The problem isn't you. Okay?"

"Sure, " You sigh, gripping onto his shoulders tighter, pulling his torso closer to you. "You say that because you think you'll hurt my feelings if you say anything else. "

"That's not true. " Lip snickers, sliding the hand back from where he was gently squeezing the back of your neck to play around with your hair instead. "If I was, we wouldn't be talking right now. You know?“

"Right. " You sniffle, a bit of a laugh bubbling up within the depths of your chest. "Because your heart belongs to anyone other than yourself? Doubt it. "

And the snark causes a giggle to erupt into the quiet of your little studio apartment.

You can smell him. His smell is like his scent mixed with coffee and sugar– for those Mondays when you want a treat, but are too lazy to walk the three blocks to the bakery for anything different than a cup of joe.

"Wow. " He snorts in return, resting his forehead against the top of your head where your nose met the tuffs of his curly, messy looking hair. "You're lucky I like you. "

"Uh huh. " A strained chuckle pushes past your lips, eyes sliding shut as your hands find his hips.

The sound of your heart beating in your ear is all you can hear as his fingers clasp around the sides of your face.

Everything is calming, cathartic. His demeanor is like honey; it runs down your bones, seeping into your open wounds and they begin to grow a bit plumper under the heat.

"Sometimes I just—" you pause, the feeling of his thumbs stroking back and forth across your jawline is too distracting for you to pay attention to the fact that you're trying to get your point across, "feel like there's something bad coming? Something coming for me, you know?"

"Yeah, " he blinks, hands gliding from your cheeks to the underside of your ears. "I know what you mean. "

His hands flatten, then run down until they find the collar of your shirt and a part of you relaxes as his fingertips stroke the outer lining of the stretched fabric.

"I get the same feeling too. " He adds, voice, so wonderfully low, rumbling from deep within his chest. "All the time. " He sighs quietly, rocking a bit.

"I'm gonna help you. " His eyes are dilated, even against the muted white ceiling light that hung above the two of you. You don't think twice to notice. “Get something going. Something solid. “

"Lip. " You choke a bit on the inside as he says this, turning your head to the right.

"I know you don't need it, but I want to. "

Against your better judgment, you take a dive and glance him right in his eyes and he doesn't falter.

It surprises you, then it doesn't.

A short sharp intake, air filling your lungs and Lip smiles. Just a sliver of skin at the edges of his lips. You take note of his change of expression immediately.

"When was the last time you had something actually good to eat?”

You narrow your gaze at him, ready to throw back an answer at his statement when he silences you by raising his hand up, index finger flying to shush you as he points at something past the two of you.

When you turn to look, you see your cat lapping his sandpaper tongue on your fish, seemingly enjoying it more than you had been.

"Been awhile for him too, apparently. "

You groan quietly, leaning back into him where the sound of his beating heart feels like music from some unknown realm your tired mind couldn't hope to understand.

"C'mon, " Lip nudges you gently.

"I'll get you something to eat. “

[changbunnies]

Outlaw (18+)

♡ Pairing: Cowboy/Outlaw!Changbin x Fem!Reader

♡ Genre: wild west au, cowboy/outlaw au, dubcon, strangers to... something? basically just filth with a little plot thrown in

♡ Word Count: 4.9k

♡ Summary: Y/N, after being displaced from her home due to outlaws, returns a year later in the hopes to reclaim some lost belongings. But the outlaw Changbin, who has claimed her old home for himself, won't let her take her things without getting something in return. edit: this now has a part 2 you can read here! <3

♡ Warnings: strong language, changbin is mean in a way that he disguises as 'nice' ??? very insincere and condescending :'), minor mention of someone being dead, changbin also remains nameless for a bulk of the fic because he is a stranger. that's about it for general warnings since this is mostly smut lmao but let me know if i missed something that should be here!

♡ Smut Warnings (contains spoilers): dubcon!! (please read responsibily and with your own discretion for what you can handle!), petnames (sugar, darlin, sweetheart, good girl, he uses "little lady" exactly once, he also calls reader dumb once), manhandling, nipple play, biting/marking, unprotected piv, some slapping and choking, a lil dacryphilia. lmk if i missed anything!

♡ Notes: i originally wasn't going to post something again this soon but i was possesed to write this after repeatedly seeing cowboy concepts from my faves :') as usual, if you're interested you can check out my fic rec and feedback blog @stray-dreams !

♡ Disclaimer: please read responsibly, and remember that this work is fiction and meant strictly for imaginative fun. the idols used in fics are more accurately faceclaims and personality outlines for imaginary characters, and should not be interpreted as factual representations of existing people.

Get in, grab the stuff you need, and get out before the sun starts to set– that’s all you have to do. You are in the remnants of your childhood home, nestled within the ghost town that is the place you grew up in. Abandoned over a year ago, when a band of cowboys came stirring trouble and driving out the locals with their exuberant drinking and penchant for violence. 

Your parents, the owners of what was once the town’s largest and most successful saloon, had unfortunate run-ins with the vile men on a daily basis, having to turn away regulars for their own safety and clean up the abundant mess left behind from the nightly roughhousing. 

It was with a heavy heart that your family left everything behind, with the hopes they could rebuild somewhere safer, out of the radius of all the outlaws and their gun fights. Your family hasn’t had the easiest go of things since then, having expended nearly all of their tucked away savings in the process of relocating and building a new home and business.

And now here you are, searching your hold home for anything that could help. You’d heard news of dust settling in the area as the infighting between local gangs were dying down, and thought now would be your best chance to return for things that had to be left behind.

You knew there was no physical money to be found, but if you were lucky there could still be trinkets left behind that would fetch a good price. Something that maybe the cowboys wouldn’t recognize as overtly valuable, but would be to a trained eye. 

"Ya lost, sugar?" a gruff voice says from behind, making you nearly jump out of your skin. Shit– how did you not hear him approach? You quickly stand and turn around, the image of a burly man in the doorway, with dark curly hair and equally dark eyes. There was no way this man approached silently– you must have just been too absorbed in your task to pay attention to outward noise.

"Not lost," you say, voice firm now that you are past the initial surprise of being discovered. You are not nearly as alarmed as one might expect you to be; you were born and raised in the saloon, helped your parents keep it running smoothly as a barmaid once you were old enough. You handled your fair share of unruly drunks and trigger happy outlaws, learning from an early age how to get men to abide by your rules. So surely you could handle this man too.

"Sure 'bout that? This ain't the kinda place a little lady like yourself goes wanderin',” the man says, crossing his arms as he leans against the doorframe. Despite the relaxed way he does it, it's clear he doesn't intend on letting you past him. If anything, he almost challenges you to– with a look that says you can certainly try to get past me, but you won’t. 

"This is my house. At least it was, until people like you drove us out," you spit out against your better judgment. You normally know better than to instigate a fight with a lawless man, usually using a disgustingly sweet tone and batting your lashes to get them to listen to you.

You should know to bite down the resentment that runs through you, even if the feeling is justified. But the way that he’s treating your home as his property makes your blood boil. "Just let me get my things, and then I'll never see you again.”

The man hums, as if considering your words, before the corner of his mouth lifts in a smirk. "I don't much care about that darlin'. It belongs to me now." The minute townsfolk like you left, this town was up for grabs for anyone who wanted it, and he and his gang gladly claimed it. Whatever you left behind, every little thing no matter how small, it’s all his now– it’s as simple as that. And you can’t take from him without paying a price. 

You glare at him, eyes full of scorn. What pisses you off the most about him is that he knows it’s his fault you lost everything you held dear, and he doesn’t care– he holds it over your head, using your belongings like a bargaining chip.

As if you’re a dog waiting to be fed a treat or a fish on his hook, completely at his mercy, unable to get what you want or need unless he’s kind enough to grant it to you. And you hate that it makes his eyes light up with a twisted delight, the smirk making you want to slap it off his face (though he’d probably just find that amusing too.) 

���Fucking asshole,’ you think to yourself. What do you do now? Grovel? Does he want you to get on your hands and knees, beg him with a desperate voice and teary eyes? ‘Oh please, mister cowboy sir, please give me my things back!’ As fucking if– you would never do that. The man lets out a laugh, as if he can read your mind and knows exactly what you think of him. 

But the thing is, he does know what you’re thinking, knows that you absolutely hate him right now. He's seen that expression on countless faces before– a fire burning in the eyes, red hot rage burning through your blood. But if there's anything he's good at, one thing he loves doing more than anything else, it's extinguishing the flames of pretty young things like you who think they can talk back to him. 

"If it makes you this upset, you can always take it up with the leader of my gang. He’s the one who ‘forced’ you out, not me," he says, a devilish smirk plastered on his face before he continues, "Oh, but he's 6 feet under now. Guess you're outta luck, huh? You're stuck with me darlin'. So let's figure this out together, hmm?" 

He steps out of the doorway, letting the previously open door slam closed behind him. You want to stand your ground, but unconsciously you take a step back, and then another, and another, until he has you cornered. Back pressed against the wall, his palm planted firmly on the wall next to your head, effectively caging you in. 

His other hand reaches for the bag hanging off your shoulder, full of your old personal effects. Valuable trinkets buried under old journals, black and white family photos and letters penned from distant relatives; all items that scream of sentimentality.

How sweet. It's too bad he's not a nicer person; maybe then he'd let you walk away with all this useless junk that he has no need for. But what would be the fun in that? 

"I can't let you just take what's mine, we both know that wouldn't be right," he says while gripping your bag tightly in his fist, as if he gives a single fuck about what's right or wrong. All this stuff belonged to you before he and his stupid outlaw buddies effectively stole it anyways!

He’s blatantly playing with you, stirring up your emotions just to revel in the reaction it grants him. "Ya gotta pay for it, sweetheart. I know you’re a good girl who knows better than that," he continues, feigning sweetness and care with his tone. 

"I don't have any money to give you," you glare, though the aggression in your eyes doesn’t match the timid way you speak. And that's the crux of why you're here– sure, you've been picking up sentimental items as you move through your old home, but you desperately need money and you came back in the hopes there'd still be something of use to you that hasn't been pilfered yet. 

"Oh, don’t you worry 'bout that. I'm not interested in money darlin'," he says as he tosses your bag to the side, no care at all for any breakables inside. His face moves an inch closer, hand reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. He watches with amused delight as the cogs turn in your head, a realization that makes your eyes widen and face flush. 

"Y-You– I–" You hate yourself for stumbling over your words, and giving more entertainment to the man in front of you. You can tell he likes the way you begin to crumble, breaking down your resolve to be resolute bit by bit. His words are accompanied by a mischievous glint in his eye that you would acquaint with playfulness if you weren’t currently being trapped against a wall by an incredibly strong, intimidating man. 

"Don't worry, sugar, I'm not a monster. I won't force you," he smiles, knowing very well what he's doing. He frames it as if it's your choice– as if he can be free of blame if you give in, as if he isn't taking advantage of your desperation to get your things back. He takes a step back, freeing you from your caged position against the wall, giving you the opportunity to flee right this second if you so choose.

But he knows you won’t. Because you’re brave, or maybe just foolishly stubborn, and you refuse to leave without what you came for. The illusion of choice he’s giving you– it’s almost sickening in its cruelty. And that stupid fucking smirk on his face should make you feel disgusted, resentful, furious, but you feel none of those things– you feel… butterflies? 

Fuck. Are you attracted to him? How fucking stupid can you get? To be attracted to a man who has such little regard for other people, who looks at you like a plaything he can discard the moment he’s bored. His words might be framed sweetly, but the message underneath is clear– you are going to give him what he wants. "Well, what do ya say, sweetheart? Wanna have some fun with me?" 

You swallow, looking at him with shaky fists and red cheeks. Are you really going to do this? Give yourself up to a stranger for things that rightfully belong to you in the first place? It goes against everything you stand for, the rational part of your brain screaming at you to just leave. What would your family say if they found out how far you degraded yourself for something so objectively small? 

But fuck it. Against your better judgment, you agree to ‘have some fun’ with the frustratingly attractive outlaw in front of you. The man smirks once more before he grabs your face under the chin with a rough hand, directing your head up towards his, kissing you with a roughness you've never experienced before. 

There’s a noise of surprise that leaves you, the moment happening so fast it makes your head spin. He squeezes your cheeks, forcing your mouth to open for him, his tongue wasting no time on entering. Unconsciously you reach out for him, desperately grasping for something to hold. You're impossibly dizzy from the feeling of his tongue making circles around yours, and you need to ground yourself, doing so by tightly clutching his shirt in your hands. 

His teeth snatch your bottom lip, tugging harshly before soothing the bite with a lick, and repeating. A whimper escapes you, though you can't tell if it's from the sting in his bites or excitement welling in your gut.

You've always been treated delicately by men before now– like you were made from porcelain, like even the smallest of bends could result in a break. And that's what you always thought you liked, so why..? Why is his treatment making your entire body shiver in delight?

He grins when he pulls away, satisfied with the dazed look in your eyes, the swollen red of your lips, the way your breathing has substantially quickened. He wants to ruin you even more– make you delirious with need for him. 

He reaches for the top of your dress now, pulling it down just enough to expose your chest to him. "Pretty," he says with a grin so attractive that it makes your stomach twist. What the fuck is this guy doing to you? You should be ashamed of yourself for finding any semblance of enjoyment from this. 

Rough, calloused hands waste no time groping the newly exposed skin. You suck in a breath, trying desperately not to let out any sounds that would grant him satisfaction. He tuts in disapproval, though he actually loves seeing you try so hard to keep the tough act going– it’s the fight to remain in control that makes it so fun, after all. 

He tweaks your nipples without remorse, pinching and pulling between his fingers, causing a yelp to escape you before you could even hope to stop it. His face lowers, and for a moment you think he’s going to resume the messy, wet kisses, but he doesn’t. Instead, his lips meet your neck, teeth grazing the skin before he decides on a spot to bite down on. 

Over and over, his teeth sink into the soft flesh of your neck, creating a constellation of bruises in their wake. It’s a reminder, you realize– a reminder of what you chose to do with the nameless outlaw, evidence of what you allowed him to do to your body, an imprint of shame and desire that will follow you for the days to come. 

The noises that leave you are his absolute favorite– pretty sounds of pleasure mixed with pain. Your hands have moved from gripping his shirt to his arms, nails breaking the surface of his skin and a pleasant sting accompanying it. He pulls away once satisfied with his work, another pleased, devious grin on his face as he admires what he’s done to your previously unmarred skin. 

He snakes his hand under your dress next, chuckling when he feels the wetness drenching your panties. "I knew I liked you," he says, tone low but smirk ever-present. Pulling away from you, he walks to the nearby sofa and sits comfortably, raising an eyebrow when you just stare instead of following him over. "C’mon over, sugar. Don’t make me wait." 

You step over slowly, doing your best to swallow down your nerves as you reapproach him. He pulls you to his lap when you’re in his reach, not wasting any time in getting you where he wants you. He lifts the bottom of your dress, bunching it up around your hips, exposing you to his view. He takes a moment to admire the way your panties cling to your skin before he swiftly pulls them to the side.

There’s a gasp from you that follows, not just because of the sudden exposure, but the distinct sound of tearing that fills the space. Did he seriously just rip your underwear? “Oops,” he says with absolutely no sincerity in his voice, “what a shame. They were so pretty, too.”

He laughs when you mutter ‘asshole’ under your breath and glare at him, endlessly amused by the way you react to him. There’s part of him that even considers making it up to you later– once he’s done with his own fun, of course. 

He moves his hand to his pants next, undoing the button and pulling down the zipper with ease, pulling his (notably large) cock out so nonchalantly that it nearly leaves you stunned. He watches you, reveling in the way your expression changes, the annoyance you held just moments ago melting into a timid desire. 

You stare at him, shy and apprehensive, but still wanting, craving him. He makes a show out of spreading the accumulated pre-cum along his length, indulging in the way your eyes follow every move his hand makes, as if completely and utterly enraptured by him. And in a way, you are; you’ve never been so captivated by a stranger in your entire life the way you are now, intoxicated by the view of the man pumping his cock in front of you.

"Ride it,” he says when he finishes preparing himself for you, “Show me how desperate you are." His light, almost playful tone frames it as a request, but you can tell it isn’t– he’s telling you to do it. And if there’s anything you’ve learned so far, it’s that you can’t resist him, even if you wanted to; you’re under his charismatic spell, with no hope of escaping.

You take a breath, steadying yourself for what's to come before you travel further up his lap. He brings a hand to the nape of your neck, in a gesture that doesn’t at all help with your nerves. How does his hand on you suddenly feel so heavy? A trembling hand reaches for his cock, lining him up with your hole, but you pause before you lower yourself on it, looking at him with clear apprehension in your eyes. 

He raises his brow when you initially pause, and for a moment you think he’s going to scold you for making him wait, but he doesn’t. Instead, he smiles, expression softening ever so slightly. “You can do it, darlin’. I know you can make it fit,” he leans closer to you as he speaks, his breath fanning your ear as he draws you in by the neck to meet him halfway, “because you’re a good girl who does everything she’s told, aren’t ya?” 

Fuck. If you weren’t positively dripping before, you definitely are now. How does he keep managing to say things that make your stomach twist and a shiver run down your spine? He leans back when you finally begin to sink down on him, hands resting behind his head as he takes in the sight of your scrunched brows and flushed cheeks. 

He's so fucking thick, easily the biggest you've ever taken, but the sting is the most delicious thing you’ve ever felt. Your breathing is ragged by the time you are fully sat on him, your thighs completely flush with his. He allows you a moment of respite, letting you adjust to the feeling of being so full of him, though you aren’t entirely sure you can get used to it. You feel every ridge, every vein, every twitch– so much so, that it makes your entire body tremble. 

And if the outlaw underneath you is being honest, he’s just as equally affected. You’re squeezing him so tight, and if this were any other time he would completely forgo watching you ride him and instead pound straight up into you. But he wants to see how much more obedient you can be, how well you’ll take his orders, how well you’ll listen to him. He wants to see you lose yourself for him, become brainless in the pursuit of pleasure.  

You’re moving again before he even has to tell you to do it, whimpers and moans freely leaving your lips now, much too far gone to care anymore about keeping them held back. The man’s cool exterior cracks for just a moment, head falling back as a low groan escapes his throat. He won’t say it aloud, but you’re driving him crazy– the push and pull he had with you being the most fun he’s had in ages.

"Open your mouth," he commands when he lifts his head back up and you oblige easily, much to the stranger's satisfaction and amusement. Look at you, so full of fight when he first laid eyes on you, now reduced to a cock hungry mess. Listening to him without an ounce of hesitation, completely at his mercy– he loves it. 

He rests two of his fingers on your tongue, letting them linger there for just a moment before he pushes them down your throat. You sputter and gag around them, eyes immediately watering from the intrusion. "You can take it," he tells you when he notices the tears welling in your eyes threatening to fall, "C'mon sweetheart, take what I give you." 

Saliva drips down your chin from the corners of your mouth as he effectively chokes you on his fingers, slapping you on the thigh with his other hand when you show any sign of slowing down. You just barely register his voice praising you in your ears, tears openly falling down your cheeks as you squeeze your eyes shut, forced to keep up the pace he set for you without faltering. 

He can’t help but let out a groan when he admires the view– you’re so fucking pretty when you’re crying, so breathless and ruined, all for him. He’ll give you a gift, he decides; reward you for playing your part for him so perfectly. He pulls his fingers out from your mouth, but there’s no time for you to catch your breath because he immediately brings them to your swollen clit. 

His touch is both harsh and fast, sparing you no time to allow oxygen into your lungs. A loud moan leaves you, your head falling forward and onto his chest from the combined feeling of his wet fingers on your clit and his cock reaching the deepest parts of you. "F-Fuck, please, please–" You're so close, your entire body tingling with pleasure as the knot in your stomach grows incredibly taut.

"Aww, poor thing," he coos mockingly, another slap landing on your thigh when your pace stutters, "need to cum so bad, don't you? Dumb little thing needs my help?" You nod frantically, watery eyes pleading with him. You don’t know when you became so desperate, but it’s all you can think about now. You want it, need it, more than you’ve ever needed anything. 

"Mm, beg for it," he says, the wicked grin returning in full effect and drives you completely crazy. "If you do a good job, I might help." You whine, pace once again faltering as you’re driven to the brink of release, but not quite reaching it on your own. Your thighs burn from the exertion, knees aching and body impossibly tired. 

And so, you do the one thing you said you would never do– beg for him. “P-Please, please help me, wanna cum so bad,” your voice quivers, and he grins, evidently pleased by the display of desperation. He won’t give it to you that easily, though. Because who would he be if he wasn’t at least a little mean? 

"Oh, you can do better than that, I know ya can. Try again, darlin', show me you mean it," he says, hands grabbing your hips and forcing you still now, unable to do a single thing until you tell him what he wants to hear. He smirks when you let out a frustrated cry, your hips being held firmly in place and unable to seek any sort of stimulation. “Go on, sugar. Tell me how bad you need me.” 

“Please, I’ve been so good, gave you everything you wanted, so please, please, need you so bad, please-” you’re babbling now, words leaving you shamelessly, eyes once again watering as the desperation builds overwhelmingly high. You’re clearly no longer in your right mind, because if you were you would never do this. 

The satisfaction he feels from reducing you to this is indescribable, and he’ll be sure to reward you for indulging him so sweetly. He pulls you off his lap with ease, tossing you to the side of the sofa as if you're nothing but a doll. He grabs your arm after he stands, pulling you up and subsequently bending you over the arm of the sofa as he stands behind you. 

He sinks back inside you easily, hand reaching under you and fingers playing with your clit as he pounds into you from behind. Fuck, fuck, fuck- You're vision blurs, eyes rolling back as white hot pleasure courses through your veins. His other hand holds your hip roughly, his nails digging into your skin, not slowing his pace even as you cum around him.

Your hands claw in vain at the sofa cushions, finding no purchase. Your legs quiver, eyes squeezed shut as your left with no choice to accept the overwhelming pleasure that takes over senses. Reaching his hand to your neck now, he pulls you up to him by the throat, your back now flush against his chest. Your breath hitches when he squeezes, the pressure on your neck alarmingly good. 

"Tell me your name, sugar. Who is being so good for me, hmm? Need to know," his words tickle the shell of your ear, making your brain feel impossibly muddled. It takes you a few tries to get your name out given his unrelentingly fast pace, but you manage to stammer it out for him to hear. 

Your body shudders when he repeats it in your ear, the sound of your name falling from his lips making you clench around him. “Oh, you like that, hmm?” he teases you with a short laugh, though you are too far gone to be embarrassed by it. 

“Y-Yours, want to know yours too,” you manage to say, though it’s practically a beg. For better or worse, you want to put a name to the face of the person that made a mess of you. He hums in response, and you’re not entirely sure he’ll even tell you, but he does. 

Changbin. It sounds vaguely familiar, but your brain doesn’t have the capacity to dwell on it at the moment– not with the way his cock is currently drilling into you. And in the same way that your name leaving him had an affect on you, the opposite does the same for him.

It makes him almost feral– an overwhelming desire to make you forget everything but his name, for nothing to remain in your mind but him. He loses his composure for the first time all evening, driven purely by his need to cum, with you being the sole reason for it. 

He releases his hold on your neck, letting you fall forward against the sofa. Noises no longer leave you, a pleasure so intense that all that escapes you are sharp, quick breaths. “So good, fuck, you’re so good, ‘m gonna cum-” you hear him pant out from behind you, his pace faltering for the first time as he chases his orgasm, his hold on your hips so intense it’s sure to bruise. 

You reach your high first, voice coming out in short, broken moans as your toes curl and body convulses under his hold. He pulls out at the last possible second, his cum spilling between your thighs and dripping between your legs. Your legs collapse when he lets you go, the armrest of the sofa being the only thing keeping you off the floor. You close your eyes, chest heaving as you try to regain control of your harsh breathing. 

Changbin picks you up after tucking his softening length back in his pants, adjusting your position so you are now laying on the sofa properly, back comfortably nestled against the cushions. He lets your legs rest on his lap when he sits down, a subtle grin plastered on his face while he waits for you to finally open your eyes. 

“How ya feelin’, sugar? Did ya have fun?” he asks, a smirk growing on his face to match the cocky tone in his voice. Asshole. He knows what the answer is, and he just wants to hear you admit it.

“I’m not answering that,” you scoff, and he laughs, the amused glint returning to his eyes. Back to the cat and mouse, huh? That’s perfectly fine with him; he’ll play this game with you for as long as you let him. 

Changbin stands now, grabbing the bag he tossed aside earlier from off the floor and returning it to you. If you’re being honest, you’re surprised he’s keeping his word– you hoped he would, of course, but there was no guarantee. “What’s that look for, darlin’? I told you, I’m not a monster,” he says and you roll your eyes. He may not be a monster, as he puts it, but he’s definitely still an arrogant asshole. 

“I’m headin’ up for a bath, but you’re welcome to join me if ya like,” Changbin says, and once again going against your better judgment, you find yourself genuinely considering it. You should definitely leave– get your belongings back to your family, ride far away from him and never look back, and yet.. 

“I want in first,” you say as you stand, leaving your bag behind on the sofa as you walk towards where you know the bathroom to be. “Whatever ya say, darlin’,” he grins as you once again take control back in your own hands; you won’t have it for long, but if he wants the game to be fun, he needs to let the ball be in your court sometimes. 

The game of cat and mouse can’t exist without a little give and take, so for right now, he’ll give; so that when he takes, and takes, and takes, it’ll be that much more enjoyable. Watching as you strip yourself naked to enter the tub, smiling when you fight him on whether or not he should help you wash up and find you new clothes to wear, laughing when you grumble about deciding to stay for the night. Oh, he’s really looking forward to the fun he’ll have with you from now on.

[lightningqueen11]

Got these lads some better references! Not complete ones, but they're still pretty good.

Here are the 8 Links I'm planning on including! I have general characterization concepts for all the others, but they were being kinda annoying designs. I might include em as I continue to figure out this AU, but for now here's what I got!

Our very first hero! I don't really consider the SS prequel manga canon here so Sky's the very first holder of the Hero's spirit. He's a very kind soul, protective of those he cares for and holding the endless determination and courage of any hero.

After the end of Skyward Sword, Sky's taken up a bit of an 'ambassador to the surface' type role, educating those who've come down with while Zelda spends as much time as she can with her family on Skyloft. Though the scars from his fight with Demise still twinge, Sky's happy to move forward with his life on the surface.

Minish is our youngest member, but that doesn't mean you can underestimate him. Minish is quiet, playful, and endlessly curious. He's the best spy this chain has, able to shrink down to the size of a mouse and be completely invisible to everyone but fellow children.

After saving Zelda from being encased in stone and having her light force drained, Minish simply seeks to spend his time enjoying his childhood with his best friend and learning to forge a sword as good as the four sword.

Mask is our resident angst, his life has been far too hard. Mask is mysterious, closed off, and talented. With the body of a teenager and the mind of a young adult, this lad has plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

Resuming his travels after Termina, Mask finds himself looking for somewhere to belong. He's travelled to Labrynna, Holodrum, Koradai, and yet the only place he really felt any sense of family remains in that strange war with Tune and Captain. Perhaps, someday, he'll find his way back to them.

Tune's our resident navigator! He can read and create maps and starcharts like no other, plus he knows his way around a boat. Despite the more pirat-y aesthetic, Tune's really a sweetheart. Sure, he enjoys finding abandoned treasure and sailing, but he's hardly a ruthless bounty hunter or thief. He just loves meeting people, and wants to help anywhere he can. A trait practically required for the hero life.

After his adventures, Tune's living a life of travel on the Great Sea. He has his own boat, but broadly he sails with Tetra, the two finding buried treasures from Hyrule. He's always had that itch to go somewhere, to do something, and maybe he's about to get exactly what he wants.

Wolf's a bit of a mysterious edgy man himself, but this time it's all appearances. Our resident furry is just a big huggable rancher with a protective streak when it comes to his family. He's amazing with animals, and with the help of a certain amazing nose, he can track basically anything.

I'm diverging from canon a lot here. Midna's never shattered the mirror of twilight in this universe, she's just not around in the light world because it would hurt to be anything more than a shadow there. Instead, after their adventure Wolf and her hang out frequently. Wolf's pretty content with his lot in life, he's got his family, his home, and his best friend. Really, what more could he ask for?

Unabashed favorite character alert, Four's a bit of an asshole. Like, they're very heroic and frankly, often right, but they've still got an arrogance problem. They're fiercely loyal and incredibly smart, and will take the role as supposed leader because frankly, no one else wants the title.

After returning the Four Sword with Vaati and Ganon completely obliterated, Four's gone back to their life as a knight. There's still a fierce purple ache in their chest for a certain Shadow, but the teal confidence easily shoves that to the side in favor of being the perfect warrior. Now, Four's rising through the ranks of Hyrule's guard, ready for whatever challenge comes next.

Wild fits their name very well. They're quick to explore every mountain and valley, loot every chest, and find every korok. Incredibly different from the Link from before the Calamity, they share memories but not so much experiences. Wild is the best archer in the group, even without their champion ability.

I can't quite decide whether I want Wild to be pre or post TOTK, but it doesn't make too terribly much of a difference. After his adventure he continues to explore Hyrule and the lands beyond it. He's verrryyy close with his Zelda, and the two like to do a bit of mad science with Purah every so often. He's happy with his new lease in life, but if the chance comes to explore something new? Well, Wild's definitely going to take it.

Cap's here! And he's a bit of a mess. Traumatized from his fights with Cia and Dark Link, Captain has trouble being confident in himself at all anymore. He's always been naturally confident, but ever since that first battle with Dark, Captain's been suppressing that part of himself. He's a very skilled leader and tactician, with the most experience working with a large group.

After the war Captain.. didn't really know what to do with himself. His friends had left, and there was no longer anything to fight against. He decided to dedicate himself to being a guard, but he still felt a little empty. He's never really moved on from the events of the war, but maybe soon he'll return to some old friends.

[ender1821]

my mind: man the soup group’s base really has some horizon zero dawn vibes if you think about it…wait…

me: oh. oh no.

so…i might have some soup group horizon zero dawn au thoughts…whoops

Gem

i can 100% see her being the Aloy/protagonist in this au

she’s the first one to find a focus from exploring caves left behind, later on, she gets modified headwear resembling antlers from hunting down her first grazer (the deer-like robots), which hides her focus, courtesy of Impulse

she gets outcast from her tribe for the same reasons as Aloy in the game, so basically for magically popping out of nowhere from a machine

Pearl

here’s the thing, i also had ideas for her as Aloy, but more for the machine taming (…and abandonment issues/j) aspect

she’s been abandoned and thrown out to the wild to fend for herself, leading her to finding some ancient structure ruins, in which she gets a focus and components for building the machine-overriding staff

she names the first machine she overrides, a watcher, Tilly <3

Impulse gifts her a shieldwing (basically a glider, but im thinking in this au it could be modified more to look like an elytra/moth wings)

Impulse

he’s the Rost (DONT WORRY HE DOESNT DIE ILL MAKE SURE OF IT)

he houses the two outcasts after having Gem handed to him from the tribe and finding Pearl in the wilds during a trade run

he’s more of a tinkerer though, and he uses the machine parts gathered by the other two/from trading with other wanderers to make his own contraptions and weaponry…to varying levels of success

those are like the bare bone ideas i have for now since this whole concept just popped up outta nowhere and i had to put this down somewhere, i might brainstorm the actual tribes in this (im thinking all the hermitcraft/hermitcraft adjacent smps could be the different tribes?), as well as other characters and details

for now though, this is just soup group saving the world from robot apocalypse in my head, because them >>>>>

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Meinu Henshu Dobson! The abandoned magical girl thing....

When it comes to his “original” work, such as Formera, Alex ze Pirate, Percy Phillips etc. I think that Dobson always had these two (of many) main flaws work against him.

His ideas were too generic for his own good. I am not necessarily against a “generic” idea for a story, as we live in a time where almost every tale has been told countless times or the basics and tropes of certain genres are more than well known to a lot of us. Sonic Frontiers e.g. has been called by some a “Breath of the Wild” knock off with typical Sonic game plot elements, but that doesn’t change the fact it was (at least to me) a lot of fun.

However, there is a thing as being “too generic”, which to me is when your story not only follows in the footstep of something already well known, but lacks even more personality than you would think at first. The reason why something like that can happen, is because the creator may not spend enough time to establish elements of their work, that can help make certain characters, the basic plot etc. stand out a bit. Such as personality traits, the goals of the main characters, the rules by which the world functions. And this in turn happens often, because past an initial pitch idea, they do not really flesh things out, thinking they can figure more details out down the line. In Dobson’s work this shows to me e.g. a lot in Formera, where the main character meets along the line a discount hippie version of Muten Roshi that does not play any relevance past his 5-6 pages of screentime, the leads lack personality, the idea feels a lot like a proto-Isekai (preteen magically transported to another realm) from the time BEFORE the genre became more well known in the 2010s and we don’t even get a lot of story behind the world of Formera itself. Or Percy Phillips, who really is just a knock off version of the worst traits people associated with Sherlock Holmes past 1918 and who even compares his own archenemy straight to Moriarity. Pretty much all of these works lacked a certain “spark” of individuality and were not fleshed out enough when he began to work on them. And I am not saying, that if you want to create a story, you need to know every miniscule detail already two days after you had the initial idea. Many great stories can develop some of their greatest moments along the way. But you need to have some basic concept for things as themes, main characters and tone kinda in your mind, while also not being afraid to flesh things out.

Dobson never really went through with a lot of his stuff As much as I hate a badly told story and I want certain shows/comics/books/whatever just to end, I hate the idea of an “abrupt” ending even more. Even if a story is undoubtedly shit, I kinda want to see its’ creator manage to at least bring it to a proper end story wise, instead of someone pulling the plug and leaving it at whatever point it was by then without resolving its main plot or giving answers to certain things in them. So you shouldn’t be surprised, that Dobson’s “storydriven” comics really annoy me, seeing how a lot of them were just unceremoniously put into never ending hiatus by him. Simply because they did not turn into hits that made him instantly famous online. A behavior, that to me always signified just how much Dobson cared more about himself, than the actual work and characters he created.

Because of these flaws, whenever Dobson hinted on the idea that he was going to publish something new or that he had something in mind he wanted to try out, me and many other people just rolled our eyes, knowing that it won’t likely come ever out. Or that if it did, it would be more generic than white bread with vegan butter and be over after four weeks of no one caring much for it online.

And yet, Dobson managed to surprise me and other people in 2018 when he posted that thing, showing how he was even beyond the point of having only “generic” ideas.

This post to me just recks of desperation to stay relevant, while also showing how little he understands the very thing he wants to talk about.

I will admit, I am not very familiar with the magical girl genre overall. Part of it is, because there is so much to it and that it had been in something of a flux when it comes to things such as tone and intend over the last 15+ years alone.

However, I do know the following: The magical girl genre is essentially an invention of the 20th century, that has its roots likely in the 50s and 60s. At least Osamu Tezuka’s “Princess Knight” and things like the 60s western tv show “Bewitched” seemed to have quite a bit of an impact in the 60s and 70s for people in Japan to not only create stories with female characters in the lead, but also give them magic powers to fight bad guys. Even back then the genre being in a steady flux, as some shows were selling themselves of their rather cutesy design for the heroins, had the main character just have silly but fun adventures, while others focused more on action to also attract boys, at times even creating rather “raunchy” content for the time being. Examples of all of that would be shows like Magical Princess Minky Momo, Majokko Meg-Chan and Cutey Honey.

However, it wasn’t until the first anime adaptation of Sailor Moon hit the airwaves in 1992, that the Magical Girl genre became a worldwide phenomenon.

Now to be fair, Sailor Moon did not invent all common tropes already associated with the genre (such as magical sidekicks, characters, aging up when turning into their hero personas, tomboyish designs, action, the power of friendship or love motivating others to stop the bad guys…) but it did popularize the “monster of the week” structure, the concept of a team of heroines fighting together instead of just one lead character, the increasing escalation of conflict within a specific story arc and so on for a general audience. Making the anime a smash hit, that others decided to copy. Some of them doing so successfully while also establishing their own identity along the way (such as the Pretty Cure franchise), while others… not so much.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is total GARBAGE!

Overall, the magical genre has been separated in 4 major camps as of now: a. the classical genre of cute girls fighting against evil and having silly adventures or fighting the monster of the week, mostly functioning as coming of age stories (such as Card Captor Sakura)

b. The more action oriented approach as codified by something like Pretty Cure and in the west would e.g. be determined by She-Ra or Ladybug to some degree

c. The “parody”, often times playing with expectations for comedic results (Magical Girl Ore)

d. The “deconstruction” like “Magica Madoka”. Shows and stories that look at the otherwise positively presented concept of a magical girl story and will turn it around by focusing on existential horror, the grim reality of young girls and kids forced to fight against evil or are just plain violent shlock that tries to present itself as “more meaningful” than it actually is. And btw, I do not hate darker takes on rather light subjects, but I just think the medium of anime had been kinda overrun by it in the last 10 years.

Again, I myself am not really following the genre that much. I watched Sailor Moon when I was younger, I heard of some of those deconstructions over the years (but have no intend of really watching them) and frankly, I may give PrettyCure a bit of a second try after watching at least a cute anniversary movie of the show recently at a convention.

But even if it is not entirely my cup of tea, I do get to some degree how they work. What makes them popular with the audience, the tones that work and don’t, what tropes to expect from a certain show at times depending on which camp it is from etc.

As such, I also get that if you want to make a story within the genre, you need to have a bit more in mind to it than just “It’s about magical girls fighting evil”

Cause there are a shitton of ways how this can be done.

It is like saying “I want to make an American like superhero story”, ignoring the fact that this does not specify enough what you are aiming for. Like, do you want it to be in tone more like a golden age comic, a child friendly cartoon or a modern comic? Is your main character going to have inherit superpowers or gain them? Does he or she even have powers or are they relying on gadgets? Are their villains normal people, superpowered freaks or cosmic horrors? What the heck do you want to go for!

This is a question, that is more than justified in this post.

Cause here is the deal: aside of it having a talking animal companion, transformation sequences and a school setting to it (which in itself is a mild surprise, considering Dobson’s hatred for institutions of education) he has literally not thought about anything. And even what he has isn’t just barebones, it is bone scratches.

“My story shall be set in a school”. Great. What kind of school? Elementary? High School? College? Waldorf School? Private Academy? Is the main character supposed to be an actress going to a film school and uses her education and acting skills to at times trick the monsters during fights?

Talking animal companion… so, regular animal that gets the power to talk via magic by accident like Spike the Dog in the Equestria Girls specials, or was it already born with the ability?

But it is the part where he asks the people reading that post “but what about weapons, magical items, vilains etc.?” that really drives me nuts, even just as some idiot who at times pitches ideas for fanfictions. Because this right there? This is what Dobson, as the creator of the story, should truly come up with. The “meat” on the bone” so to speak. The thing separating his work from the rest.

The reason I say that, is the following: To me, every story is build on the following “pillars”: Premise, (basic) World Building, character, progression.

Premise being what the story is about, summed up in like one or two sentences. Character defining who the main leads are and what basic personality traits and goal define them, world building determining e.g. in what time period the plot is set, important locations and so on, while progression shows us where the plot is heading post the initial starting point. These pillars also work in a constant tandem with each other, meaning e.g. that with the plot progression, characters can change in personality, that the world building and premise becomes more complex etc.

And the thing is, based on this post alone, I have no idea what it is Dobson wants to sell to us. He doesn’t give us a name for a lead character, he doesn’t give us a basic premise and the fact he hasn’t thought even the most basic idea for villains and weapons makes it more than obvious, that he has no “world building” ideas either. His “pitch” for a story is less than a note made on a napkin.

See, you can love or hate Sailor Moon and Ladybug as much as you want (I know I have not really a positive opinion on the later) but even if they’ve made shit up along the way, they knew what they were or are going for.

With Sailor Moon e.g. it is easily established, that the main character named Usagi is a clumsy, rather whinny school girl living in Tokyo, who has the power to turn into Sailor Moon, a guardian of the light who has to save earth from Queen Beryl of the Dark Kingdom. The idea of her fellow senshis having powers mostly based around elements, while being named after planets of our solar system is also established quickly as a theme, as is e.g. that the villains are named after minerals. And no, I am not making a Steven Universe joke now.

Action to save the world against the power of darkness by trusting in your friends.... Meanwhile for Ladybug, the story is set in Paris conflict is centered around Ladybug and CatNoir fighting Hawkmoth, who wants their Miraculouses to change reality with a wish. The respective powers of the heroes and villains are established quickly, as is the main “civilian” conflict of Marinette having a crush on Adrien, both not knowing that the other is part of the hero theme. All while the “action” is centered on Hawkmoth creating new monsters of the week by corrupting civilians, who need to be freed of an Akuma, while in Sailor Moon the monsters were either already existing demonic minions of the bad guy, artificially created via objects or civilians who had been corrupted without the villain having to monologue first or waiting for them to be in a bad mood.

...vs romance. Though to be fair, the movie does a way better job at making me care for these two thirsty preteens than five seasons of Thomas Astruc's thing

But Dobson’s post… it lacks everything hinting on him having even a broad idea of what he wants to do.

Just to dissect the post even further:

First paragraph, Dobson says he wants to make a short magical girl series. Define short. The average Pretty Cure season needs around 52 episodes to wrap up its plot, Magica Madoka did the same in 12 episodes and one movie (edit: I know it was thre movies, but two of them are just compilation movies, so that doesn’t count much in my opinion). Sailor Moon’s first major story arc in anime consisted of 41 episodes, Miraculous meanwhile needed over 130 episodes and two specials to finally wrap up the abysmal Hawkmoth “arc”.

Already, if you don’t want to overwork yourself with the idea, you are better off actually setting up parameters yourself, instead of asking others what they think you should do. Not to forget, up until that point in time, Dobson had not really created much for years. SYAC comics aside, he was only doing work on rather awkward Ladybug fan comics and worked in “secret” on Cabin’s Rest. So the expectations he could even do with that idea was lower than his Patreon income. And to be frank, even “short” magical girl stories I know like Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne or Card Captor Sakura needed around 7-12 volumes of like 200+ pages per volume to wrap their stories up. Dobson meanwhile had not once in his life published even a third volume to any of his stuff.

Second paragraph, essentially asking for others to come up with the ideas. I mean sure, he rather asks for average trope a reader wants to see instead of others to automatically give him all the character designs etc. But it is still a bad move.

As stated earlier, there are different camps of magical girl series, so it can be already hard to define what counts as “average”. I mean, it all depends on how far the creator, rather than the audience wants to go. Magica Madoka is a completely different Behemoth than Sailor Moon, and Sailor Moon itself, despite its own repetative elements was still darker than lets say Ladybug is. I mean, at least Sailor Moon did not romanticize abusive parents and characters, the main lead was not a crepy stalker and characters could die in it.

Third paragraph, as stated further above, confirming he has no idea what to even go for. Cause if he had even the slightest idea, he may already have in mind something for the villains and heroes, that would fit in the “mood” of the story he wants to tell.

Fuck me, he can’t even think of basic powers. Like okay, don’t just outright look at Ladybug and copy the powersets there. But come on. Just open up a Pokemon gaming guide while blindfolded, put your finger on any random page describing a move and then make that move a superpower. All you have to do then is think of a scenario in which whatever power it is, even if it is otherwise a sucker, would work. Even if it is just for the sake of comedic effect. 

Like honestly, some idea I have: How about a team of magical girls that have powers correlating to figures of Greek mythology. Give one the ability to foresee the future like the great Cassandra, give one character the powers of Demeter, meaning she can summon plants, another one is a great Hunter like Artemis, one is a wise leader who can up with great strategies like Athena…

Dang, I think I just came up with way more of an “original” idea than Dobson.

And let’s be real here: Thinking up basic shit is at times not that hard. It is finetuning those ideas, that is.

How can anyone working in the creative fields, a person who actually went to college to study animation and how to draw comic, have failed to catch up on such basic concepts behind storytelling? I know kindergarden kids who are able to catch up on it, just by having watched more than one cartoon over their young life.

Then again, THIS right here is the advice he has given once in term of how to "write" a story.

Terry Pratchett's ghost: What a wanker!

And finally, anything and all suggestions are welcome? Yeah, I press X for doubt here.

After all, Dobson was never really what I would consider the most open person to anything that was not really within his comfort zone. So I think that if anyone had for example suggested him to create a gay male character as a villain or supporting character or that he should have taken a page from something like the Magical Girl Raising Project, he would have likely just blocked that person and thrown a fit about how people have corrupted something as pure and innocent as the magical girl genre.

In doing so ignoring, that he had done the same with his rather creepy Ladybug fancomics

You know... for KIDS!

In addition to that, there is also to be considered, that if he had listened to too many ideas and suggestions, he would have been unable to really create something decent anyway. You know, too many cooks, throwing in everything and the kitchen sink… that sort of logic.

But let us be real here: This “thing” whatever it was supposed to be in Dobson’s head, was never going to materialize anyway. After all, when was the last time up till then, that Dobson actually bothered to create something “new” all by himself, instead of simply doing a fan comic or using SYAC as platform to whine how bad nerds are? Plus, considering the timeframe he started to post it (around the same time he started making Ladybug comic strips that got popular on tumblr and instagramm, though at times not by his own doing), it is obvious he only tried to jump on the bandwagon that was Miraculous Ladybug. His “favorite” little cartoon at the time, that ironically has earned a lot of criticism over the recent years, to the point people reevaluate how good of a magical girl show it really is compared to either the classics or new stuff coming out.

The bottom line is, Dobson tried to generate some sort of hype for something he wanted to do, without even having a basic idea of what it was supposed to be, that he wanted to create. And in posting this, the only thing he really did was show to the rest of the world, that as a cartoonist, he didn’t even grasp something so basic, My little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the Owl House actually got it.

Kneel before your queens!

Well, that is a lot. However, I do not want to end just on a “bitter” note with this entry. Instead, I want to ask some of you, to prove to me that you may be a little more imaginative than Dobson, by perhaps posting to me some ideas you may have for a magical girl inspired story or character. Not even something too complicated, just whatever you think would be fun, dark, interesting and so on. I promise, I am not going to steal your ideas for my own gain. All I want to see, is if the rest of the world there has a few more ideas, than a professional cartoonist.

And in turn, I think I will try and flesh my own “pitch” from a few paragraphes above out a bit, if you like.

[shkika]

even though the og idea was for them to be traveling alone in their own separate au's, the thought of the iterator scugs all traveling together is just so funny because of the extaordinary circumstances. like...the solution is supposed to be completely random, right? one in an infinite number of possibilities type shit. practically impossible to find.

then seven of them find it by pure chance, ascend, and ALL of them manage to claw their way out of the void. absolutely wild. i wonder if they would even be aware of each other other's previous identities because they're completely different people now and like, what are the chances? unless they can just tell because of echo shenanigans lol.

(sorry if this is long! your interpretation of saint and these scugs live rent free in my head because the concept is just so cool!)

The intetion was that yeah, becauss the solution is basically impossibly hard to find! And also the process of clawing your way out in general is quite specific to Sliver for reasons and so is the way she deals with the situation.

But I find the au incredibly fun so screw logic! Fun is what writing and characters are all about. Yeah let’s have them all together! Insane chances! I think it provides a really interesting and wacky scenario.

I don’t think they’d recognize each other at first, but it wouldn’t take too long to realize something is off with how intelligent/different they act. And I think especially Martyr and Prodigy would reunite first. Those siblings have something special about them and I think they’d be a travelling pair first. And perhaps they’d stumble on everyone else together until the entire local group + Saint end up together.

They’d have a very sweet dynamic in my head. Like old friends that haven’t had the time to talk in a long time. They’ve been alone for so long and now as a group they’re no longer lonely and abandoned.

[hplovecraftmuseum]

Through the Gates of the Silver Key was one of the most complex and intricately composed of all of Lovecraft's fictional creations. The idea for the story was pushed on Lovecraft by fellow writer and friend E. Hoffmann Price. Price had always been enthused with Lovecraft's story THE SILVER KEY and wanted HPL to write a sequel to it. Lovecraft was not anxious to comply. His fictional alter-ego character, Randolph Carter, hero of several previous "Dreamland" tales was basically a completed concept for Lovecraft. Carter was featured in HPL's more fanciful and less horrific tales. These stories, particularly THE DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH, were written by Lovecraft in his somewhat derivative 'Dunsanian Style'. By that of course we are talking about the style of the great fantasy writer, Lord Dundany of Great Britain. Though Dunsany and Poe were the greatest influences on Lovecraft's fiction, he was hoping to move into a harder, more serious, and more purely horrific mode when THE SILVER KEY and 'DREAM QUEST' were completed. Still, Price badgered Lovecraft to create a sequel that would more definitely resolve the Randolph Carter character's fate. Lovecraft put the project off for as long as he could. Price sent him a rough outline of his own idea for the story. I read this rough draft at the John Hay Library in Providence years ago. And when I say it was 'rough' it's an understatement! Lovecraft changed all but 50 words of the Price outline. Despite his dissatisfaction with the project from the beginning, HPL went on to create one of the most complex and esoteric tales of his whole creative life. THROUGH THE GATES OF THE SILVER KEY has probably been overlooked because of its very complexity. Lovecraft pretty much abandoned his Dunsanian style for the tale and instead delves into all manner of Far Eastern and Theosophist ideas throwing in reincarnation, astral projection, cosmic Archetypes, and esoteric Buddhism, to boot. Even his own YOG-SOTHOTH makes a reimagined appearance as a sort of ultimate cosmic brain in which all creative minds in the universe are tiny cells. Yeah, it gets wild! A difficult read for anybody, THROUGH THE GATES OF THE SILVER KEY will probably never be anyone's favorite among Lovecraft's tales. Lovecraft himself was unhappy with the finished product, and when Price tried to encourage HPL to write a sequel to this sequel, Lovecraft begged out of the idea. Now though Randolph Carter is generally thought to be an obvious alter ego for Lovecraft another character in Through the Gates of the Silver Key is introduced that fits the bill as well. This man, Mr. Ward Phillips, is a "mystic" from Providence, RI who was also a friend of Randolph Carter - Carter is from Boston Mass. At one point Lovecraft writes: "As de Marigny paused, old Mr. Phillips spoke in a hash, shrill voice." Now Lovecraft himself was known for his high- pitched, almost falsetto tone of speech. Lovecraft made a wax recording of his own voice at one point and was so disdainful of the playback that the wax recording was "accidentally" dropped. The device shattered into pieces! (Exhibit 578)

[sexynetra]

Did someone ask for a WIP Wednesday?

(No, nobody did but I'm posting one anyways :) )

---------

“Are you ready to go? Anyone you want to say goodbye to first?”

She shook her head again, setting the bottle down on the counter. “No, I think… I think the cool air will do me some good.”

The adrenaline of the situation had kept her semi-functional, but now that her body realized it was safe, the liquor she had consumed with reckless abandon was coming back to bite her. And she still couldn’t stop herself from staring.

“I think it might too, Marsh. You’ve been swaying since we got to the kitchen… how much did you have to drink anyways?”

Marcia shrugged, carding a hand through the now-wild curls she’d so carefully styled all afternoon. “Dunno. I stopped counting after a while.”

Anetra crinkled her nose and Marcia almost missed what she said because the action was so cute, so delicate, and innocent in a way she didn’t really associate with the girl.

“Um. Sorry. Can you say that again?” She stuttered with a blush, her lower lip finding its way back between her teeth.

“I said I don’t envy you the hangover you’re gonna have tomorrow. I have some Advil back in our room that you can take,” Anetra offered as she moved to put her hand to Marcia’s back, leading her back toward the door. “You’re gonna freeze out there in that. Did you bring a jacket?” she asked with a frown, grabbing her own jacket off the coat rack with her free hand.

Marcia nodded, reaching for her own coat. She glanced enviously at Anetra, whose jacket looked thick and warm and high quality, compared to the thin flimsy one she had gotten for this costume. It looked cute but it wasn’t going to keep her very warm on the walk.

Anetra looked over at Marcia, brows furrowed slightly as she watched her. Marcia had her jacket in her arms but was making no move to put it on, eyes locked on the coat Anetra had just shrugged onto her own shoulders.

It took Anetra a second to understand. She shrugged her jacket off with a sigh. “You can wear mine. We’re basically the same size anyways.” 

She draped the warm leather over Marcia’s shoulders, carefully extricating the other jacket from her grip to throw over her arm so Marcia wouldn’t have to hold it. The leather was soft and worn, clearly well-loved. It felt like butter against her skin and smelled like a mixture of weed and something that she was pretty sure was jasmine. It shouldn’t have smelled as good as it did. She nuzzled against the fabric, pulling it tighter around herself before looking up, giving Anetra a warm smile.

“Thank you. You’re secretly really sweet, aren’t you?”

Anetra smiled back, ducking her head a little. “I didn’t realize I was keeping it a secret.”

“You totally are. You play the tough guy with the brooding silence and the smoking and the sexy scar on your eye. But it’s all a lie and you’re not actually tough. You’re soft,” Marcia announced decidedly. It wasn’t necessarily that she thought Anetra wasn’t tough or intimidating. After all, she vividly remembered how dangerous Anetra had looked the one time she made her angry. But she was certainly second-guessing her concept of Anetra as mean and aloof. After all, how mean could a girl who had literally given her the jacket off of her back be?

“I think I can be tough and soft… wait, did you say my scar is sexy?” She cut her own comment off, face twisting in a funny way Marcia didn’t recognize. If it were on anyone other than Anetra, she would say it looked shy. She had colored in the scar when she did her makeup, a far cry from the usual attempts to make it blend in as much as possible. Marcia wasn’t sure exactly why she had decided to do that, but she thought it made her look like an action hero, some sort of brave knight or powerful spy. It made Anetra even more striking, to Marcia at least.

“That’s surprisingly nice to hear. I’ve always hated it,” she said quietly as she pulled open the door, smiling back at Marcia. “Now let’s go, I’m sick of being in this apartment right now.” 

Even drunk, Marcia could tell Anetra was trying to cut off the conversation, which only piqued her curiosity, but she obediently stepped through the doorway, shoving her hands in the pockets of Anetra’s jacket and looking up at the night sky.

[dicebound]

RPG Spotlight

✨ A game I wish more people were talking about.

Free From the Yoke Is a Slavic Fantasy TTRPG by UFO Press based on their other game, Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2nd Edition. The players takes on roles of Houses as well as Characters in that house, dealing with the aftermath of a revolution in which they regained their independence from the Empire. I recently purchased this game and have been diving deep into its rule book and I am terribly impressed with it. It seems like the most comprehensive system for collaboratively building a world with your players and playing both the small and big players in its political sphere. It only has one actually play series and a single review on Youtube. I need more people to know this game! 🌱 An unreleased game I’m looking forward to. I recently backed Dolmenwood by Necrotic Gnome on Kickstarter after seeing it talked about here on Tumblr and covered by QuestingBeast on his Youtube Channel. It's a beautiful OSR Style Fairy Tale RPG inspired by Celtic and Irish Folklore. The artwork is absolutely stunning and the setting has been lovely crafted for over 10 years. Its got highly detailed, useful information to run a game in its world and I literally cannot wait to get my hands on the full version. You can get the free Quick Start here. 🌠 A game with a mechanic I love. I recently got ahold of Household by Two Little Mice when it was on sale on DrivethruRPG and I have been engrossed in reading the books cover to cover. I've already covered it on this blog, but it's basically a High Fantasy Setting about little fairies living in an abandoned house complete with tiny cities, saddle mice, and spider hunters. After reading the Core Rulebook, I discovered a quite lovely aspect of their Aces mechanic. Aces are metacurrency players get and their tied to the four suites (Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, Clubs) as well as a Joker. The Aces can be spent to do things like get an additional die to your dice pool for a check, remove a condition, get a another use out of a once-per-session move etc. The Joker is all that and more with one aspect I found very fascinating. It can be spent by another player to prevent someone else's character from Bowing Out. Bowing Out removes a character from the story for a while and can be as serious as dying depending on the fiction. The Idea of a Meta Currency used to prevent character "death" that can only be used for others was really fascinating to me and I'm looking forward to seeing it in play.

You can get the pay-what-you-want Quick Start rules here. 📖 My favorite class or playbook from a game. We played Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games for the first time a while back, using the critically acclaimed Sailors on the Starless Sea adventure. It was my first time encountering the concept of the 0th-level funnel, in which you each player controls 3 or even 4 no-class no-powers peasants, such as farmers, chicken chasers, and cheese makers, and tries to take their 1st level in adventurer without dying. We had 15 characters overall and lost all but 3 of them by the end and it was a BLAST. So, I'm gonna say 0th Level Classless is my favorite class from a game and I'd like to see more system implement this. I was begging to play more DCC by the end. Free Quick Start Rules here. 🌺 A game with stunning layout or visual design. Frontier Scum by Games Omnivorous is the first thing that came to mind. It was the 2023 Silver Ennie Winner for Best Layout & Design and it absolutely deserved it. Frontier Scum is an Acid Punk Weird West Rules-Light Western TTRPG inspired by Mork Borg. It is an absolute blast to play with wild and weird characters but the book's layout is absolutely stunning. It really looks like a diegetic chapbook from the setting complete with odd ads and interesting locals laid out in a similar fashion to an old-timey newspaper. It is an overall treat to look at.

💡 A game that inspired my own creative process. I tend not to play an RPG if it doesn't creatively inspire me, but I'm going to call out Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition by Cubicle 7 as it is the system my group is currently playing as we work through the Evil Within Campaign. Starter Set Here. I was very inspired by this game's "Class" system, in which you're very likely to start off as a Rat Catcher or a Servant but slowly work you way into being a Knight of the White Wolf or a Duelist. It feels like the best of both worlds between classes as jobs and classes as feature grab-bags. I desperately want to see this type of profession system implemented into an more OSR style game or a PbtA Game, or even base DnD, the longshot that it may be. It inspired me to start conceiving how I might make such a thing a reality and really consider which games I plan to run might benefit from said system.

🔥 A game designer whose whole design corpus I admire.

City of Mist by Son of Oak Games is just an all around impressively design game and piece of narrative fiction. The core idea is that all the players are living in a world covered by the mist, which obscures the supernatural happenings of the world. Additionally, they're all vessels for legendary stories and powers, walking around and influence by the tales. We're talking a journalist rift of Don Quixote, a guttersnipe rift of Little Red Riding Hood, a Mob Boss rift of Hades, etc. Their Theme Book, Logos vs Mythos, and Power Tags system is so versatile that you could build literally anything with it and get a mechanically balanced, narrative focused and interesting character. It can be a bit difficult to get your head around it at first, but once you do you'll likely find City of Mist as revelatory as I did. Free Quick Start Rules Here. 🔮 One of my favorite memories playing a game.

After a decade of playing all sorts of TTRPGs its so hard to call out a single memory. I'll call out a more recently one, that occurred Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu 7e system in which we played the one-shot adventure the Lightless Beacon. Quick Start Rules Here.

My Character was Horse Driver and Trick Shooter by Trade in an Wild West Show (look it up, it's a real thing). She was also a Catholic. Myself and another PC were being chased by fish men after they'd swarmed and killed our other companion. We had no way off the island, but saw a boat in the distance rowing towards us. When we signaled for help, it was then that it tried to turn around. I was very nervous about shooting an innocent person and it was only after my GM assured me that the rower was also a fishman that I proclaimed, in character, "Wait, You aren't made in the image of God!" and shot the fishman dead where he sat. We all broke out in raucous laughter and we still quote the phrase from time to time.

[macaroni-rascal]

Hey it is I, your fashionista nonny of yore, I'm still around and kicking, I just had some life stuff happen (my dad somehow fell down at the cottage, broke his hip and needed surgery, and he's not even an elegant pair girl with full turnout, so, like... the audacity!? Anyway, he's on the mend). It was probably for the best that I couldn't be on here after NHK because I swear to fucking god... I literally couldn't watch the other disciplines until quite a bit later, I was so angry. It was basically confirmation for me that P/C are coming back, because why else would MF be hustling so hard to get this team medals now? Because she knows it'll be impossible later, and P/C is literally the team that made her the political force she is today, so... My condolences to the Italians and whichever hapless Montreal teams suffer the wrath of vindictive panels at upcoming events. I can already tell the GPF placements are gonna be a shitshow.

I've been watching shit here and there, including this Bosphorus Cup aka the longest event of my life but hey - at least we got a free stream, and I felt the need to shout out that one team with the full frizzy hair and the jean jacket over the sparkly red dress on the girl for a Tina program and the guy in a Canadian tuxedo, A+ packaging while still presumably on a budget, I wish other teams would take a page out of their book, these kids understood the assignment! On the flip side, as much as I feel for them, I wish S/F would see the writing on the wall and spare themselves the heartache, they came all the way out here just to not get minimums and their new fed apparently doesn't even have the budget to send a coach out with them, so what's the point? Both Firus brothers married up, isn't that enough? So what if one of them doesn't make it to the Olympics? Judges from other small feds will kill them to prop up their own teams just because there are limited spots for Milan, this switch isn't the magic bullet they've been hoping for. (Also word on the street is Ted and Mama Firus can't stand each other, so that may have influenced their decision as well).

Also at the NRW Trophy there was a Hungarian team with a Depeche Mode FD that was an absolute mood and while the concept perhaps was not executed to its utmost potential, it had this cape-y dress that gave off such witchy vibes and the girl had a Glenn Close-ness about her that was just fabulous, highly recommend. I haven't watched the Challenge FDs yet but the persistent underscoring of Paul Mac's technically superior teams is infuriating. If Skate Canada knew what's good for them, they'd be pushing Korneva/MacDonald for the junior title now with Lewis/McMillan out, not Random Burnaby Team #154 that won't go anywhere, but they've been making some truly boneheaded decisions or none at all lately, so I've abandoned all hope. They're sleepwalking into an ice dance drought post-2030 and they'll depend on importing teams, it feels like, and it won't be just because of kids quitting because of the economy. Kieran has some of the crispest, most textbook turns out there, and it's so cute that he's being coached by his sister, she's done a phenomenal job. The best moment was when Ted and B/B realized the mics weren't on and then afterwards the auto-subs transcribed Nadiia as Daddy, 11/10 Skate Canada stream fail moment, no notes. Anyway, rant over, hope you're doing well and I'm glad you're being wooed by your boo so delightfully, they seem to be a gem! 💗

FASIONISTA NONNY! So good to hear from you!

I'm sorry to hear about your dad. (Wild he chose not to at least try for a triple throw...) I hope he's doing well. I'm sending you and your dad some warm fuzzies!

NHK was a time and a half, that's for sure. I've repressed some of it, so who really even knows what happened? P/C were also seen in a video training with the French ballet, so that's another good?bad? sign that they will be returning. Le sigh. I'm gonna repress this too. What were we talking about?

As for the Bosphorous Cup, love a commitment to a theme, and I'm biased, but also love a Canadian tuxedo. S/F is just...so....I actually just sat here with my hand over my face shaking my head for about 20 seconds. That's what they are. If they can make it to the Olympics and live their dream, all the power to them, and if they don't...woof.

I didn't even know there was another competition happening, Fashionista Nonny, you give me all the good deets! Glenn Close-skater girl sounds very iconic, love her already. I have no confidence in Skate Canada, and I never did. If I ever see Mike Slipchuck in a dark alley, he better run.

Also, thank you! My partner is a freaking sweetheart and I adore them a lot.

All the best to you and yours, Fashionista Nonny! Your message was a wonderful treat, as always.

[punslingingslasher]

Tokyo Debunker AU

Mun will admit this was one of the possibilities that spurred the creation of the blog in the first place. (As well as loving playing him in the game, of course.)

Surprisingly little needed to be adjusted for this AU.

Sho Minazuki was part of an experiment run by a scientist working for the Anomalous Institute, trying to figure out how to basically manufacture ghouls in an effort to effectively create their own superpowered army to deal with anomalies. The test subjects ranged in age from 6 to 17 at the time, with tiny orphan Sho as one the youngest of the whole group.

But effectively children were exposed to demon summonings, and a number of them didn't survive or never developed into ghouls as a result of the experiments. Sho survived but he became....strange, and didn't seem to express any sort of stigma. He was the closest they had to a success but he didn't seem to be a ghoul either.

Or they assumed.

He was shoved into the back of the lab, either neglected or mistreated and ignored by the scientist even as he attempted to put up a cover for his projects. He'd neglected to mention to the Institute the age range of his test subjects, after all. The lab lay abandoned, Sho neglected and left alone with his thoughts and his rage....

but not really. The scientist in question died during the Clash and the Institute uncovered his lab where they found a teenager with glowing eyes. The boy is definitely a ghoul, and he bore the tattoos and ID tags of one of the experiments.

"Sho...Minazuki?" "Are you here to harm this boy? If you are, I'll cut you down without a second thought, just as I did the others."

He spent almost a year in holding at the Institute but being in holding hasn't suited him. After much negotiation he has been released to the custody of Darkwick under conditional limitations regarding his class schedule and availability as a field agent, so to speak.

Darkwick ID!

Sho Minazuki Year: 1st (Honorary) House: Vagastrom Status: Ghoul Stigma: Eris Artifact: Twin Blade of Hubris

-Student is to be considered dangerous, as he is unaccustomed to social interaction and prone to violent outbursts. He is primarily kept sedated by "The Other Guy" and appreciates physical activities, especially fighting, the most. Keep busy with physical labor. Emotional strength is weak. Loves bad puns.

-Blades are capable of causing incredible harm but only if both parties agree to it. Otherwise it will only cause as much harm as is expected. (Choosing to disbelieve in the damage will negate physical damage but not pain.)

-Stigma seems to....swap to "The Other Guy"? Staff is uncertain but it does not lend student any extra abilities of his own.

Minazuki Sho Year: 1st (wait what) House: Vagastrom (who is this card for) Status: Ghoul Stigma: Basoro Artifact: Twin Blades of Hubris

-The Other Guy is the only thing the student refers to this personality as. He is calm, cold, and precision based where Sho is wild and impulsive. He claims his only goal is to protect "that boy". Very disconnected from humanity, focused only on his stated goal.

-Stigma seems to paralyze anyone he can make eye contact with. Effects last until he swaps away back to Sho, or until it is no longer possible to make eye contact.

Staff is uncertain as to how The Other Guy became a ghoul in his own right if becoming a ghoul created him in the first place. He will not provide any answers and Sho Minazuki doesn't seem to understand the concept at all.

He has been placed in Vagastrom with full access to exercise equipment and The Pit to keep this student occupied. His class schedule is full, given as he does not seem to have been properly educated during his time at the abandoned facility. The Institute has tried to fill in the basics of his education and he has taken to the information well...he just doesn't seem to care about any of it. He would like to find his "father" and the Institute is still uncertain how to broach the subject of the man's death with Minazuki.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Did you have a backstory on why Wish was pretending in the first place? Like was it a case of them having amnesia and going idk what's happening so I'm going to just blend in and hope for the best, or was it something else? Did Laventon know they weren't human, since he's the one who found them? I have so many questions, this concept is very cool

so this was my first and almost entirely blind playthrough (as in, i didn't know anything abt the game going in besides the stuff had been officially published ahead of time) so there wasn't like a super clear idea at the start of wish's situation since i. literally didn't know enough about the game world to make it super involved. but the idea was always that due to Circumstances, including getting abandoned by/cast out of their pack, they couldn't survive in the wild, and had decided to hide in jubilife as a human instead. when laventon found them, they were already in disguise, so he had no idea.

going back now though i think maybe the thing i would make it is that they got trapped in a space-time distortion, like one of the little ones you find ingame, and that's how they got yoinked to prelude beach, where they just panic disguised as a human to avoid getting immediately attacked. that, OR, since prelude beach is sort of famous in jubilife for being very safe and pokemon-free, they ended up in the fieldlands via distortion but then ran to the beach to hide from other pokemon. and they always lived in one of the coldest and most remote places in the icelands, so they really had no idea how to navigate the rest of hisui, in addition to knowing only the very haziest basics about the humans of the region, or sinnoh, or the rift, etc etc. i think they were already sort of on their own before that tho, bc like i said earlier, abandonment issues.

tho laventon didn't know exactly that they were a zorua, wish was always regarded as being very weird. they had white hair and gold eyes, basically never took off their mask, and were also mute and mostly communicated via nods/headshakes (zorua illusions are never very good at speaking, and wish doesn't really know how.) plus being very shy around new people, and weirdly good with and fearless of pokemon (being able to communicate with them, and having a team for backup in case of negotiations going south helps with a lot with confidence.) so it is maybe not surprising they garnered some suspicion.

[space-blue]

What’s one writing weakness you want to work on?

From your ask game~

That's a great question. Fanfic is something that has both solved an issue I had and created a new one.

OK whatever, story time. Buckle up, it's TMI time.

I basically came to writing in a very wild fever dream time of my life. I was going fucking insane in Australia being worked to the bone for no wage by a cuckoo lady working in horse training. I read the Black Dagger Brotherhood, like 6 of the books back to back (I wasn't doing well, mentally, ya know). I had Interstellar (yes the film) still in the back of my mind. It was a very impactful film for me, and I wanted to tell stories that would make a difference for people. Give to someone even 1/10 the emotions I'd gone through with that film. So I sat down and in my crazed moment of bush life slavery, I penned down 15k of a completely useless first draft for my big epic novel.

It's a post-apocalyptic solar punk story about a minuscule community of immortal beings. I STILL think it's a great story idea and world, maybe I can go back to it when I'm more mature as a writer xD

ANYWAY I moved to a different job (better and worse at the same time, still in horse training), read The Collector by Fowles and basically broke in hives, that book was so insane. Like, I couldn't get into The Exorcist because The Collector was still on my mind! Urgh. I was on a roller coaster and losing my grip on reality, shovelling horse shit while listening to Benedict Cumberbatch reading Kafka's Metamorphosis on repeat… (that's right baby, that's how yours truly got into writing. Mental breakdown, Cumberbatch and lots of horse shit) and in an attempt to rescue my fraying sanity, I joined a forum of sci-fi and fantasy writers!

They were a super lovely community and they don't know they basically kept my mind together. But one of them pointed out they do a monthly writing short story competition. Original SFF works, 1.5k words max. I didn't know if I could even do short stories, I was so new! But then an idea manifested while shovelling more shit, and I wrote my first short story in one sitting, while heating tatter tots on a camping stove. Ah, to be young again.

So yeah, that was a big event. I abandoned my crazy novel and got deep into that monthly competition for about 6 years straight!!! I became great at coming up with a concept for a short story, and I think despite my recent tendency to write much longer chapters, I still keep a lean prose from those days.

And yet, this amazing monthly competition robbed me of every last bit of confidence that I could pull off a multi chapter story. My early fugue state was gone. With some experience now under my belt, I tried to return to my draft, digitised a lot of it… And never managed to even wrap up a complete first chapter, let alone get started on the second one!

Time and time again I'd love a short story I wrote for a month, begin to expend ~15k of extra scenes and snippets and notes… and give it up. I wasn't managing my pantser nature well. Each time I planned a story out I lost interest.

So for the longest time I thought I was doomed. Then I started writing fanfic in 2020, and the words just… came out. Each chapter was serial, written like its own short story, with no idea what would come next. And it worked!

Sadly, I have yet to finish either of my (65k and 80k) long fics (and I will, soon, for the Arcane one!!!) but the fact I got so far at all was amazing to me.

My longest completed story is an honourable 28k!

So yass, I broke the spell! But I still want to write long stories of my own. I want to write about my immortals in their solar punk world. I want to write my two women crossing the border between realms shaped by their respective deities. I want to write about a war in our solar system that has led to the creation and use of homunculus, and how humans struggle with them, a la Blade Runner/Westworld. I wanna write about Death-Eyes Lone, who has the shitty super power of being able to blink into the eyesight/PoV of dead people around her. I want to finish that short story about a dude who wakes up every morning with a new and different phobia, and has to save a friend on the day he has a phobia of doors.

And I find that I still am not quite there. I still struggle with writing material. And even if I could finish an 80k+ fanfic, it doesn't mean this could translate to my own fiction.

Fanfic has seriously addicted me to reader feedback. Some chapters, I was only going on strong because people were excited for the content. Some fics I abandoned because nobody seemed to care. I've gotten so much better and written SO MUCH more than I normally do, since I joined AO3. But not original fiction.

I know I have to get better at going multi chapter and then going BACK on my work, edit knowing what's to come now that the work is finished. This isn't something I ever need to do, or is practical at all, on AO3. I do go back to my old fics and fic the formatting, typo, and spruce up my prose… But in a real novel, getting to the end would be getting to the end of FIRST DRAFT, and I find this terrifying, given how incapable of caring for finished works my mind is.

TL;DR : I need to work on writing even if I don't feel like it. Returning to works for which the spark is gone, and being more diligent and studious in the way I complete them.

I'm afraid I won't manage tbh, and I sometimes gets in a funk over the lack of apparent control I have over my writer brain. I envy people who are driven. Even driven to obsession. People who can focus on a work for however many years it takes to shape it up and get it out. People for whom jobs and hobbies are no-brainers because they latch on and never let go.

I'm a jack of all trades, master of none, when it comes to hobbies, and in a weird way it also applies to my fleeting interest for stories. I don't like it and want to work on improving it.

From these asks!

[drabbles-of-writing]

Coming Home

AO3

third owl fight attack! This one’s prompt was “Hunter and Luz being siblings”, and I kinda ran with it

Summary: Saying that Hunter was worried for Luz would be an overstatement. He wasn't worried, he was just...vaguely curious. He knew that she'd take some time in the human realm, to be with her mother, but...well, it'd been almost two weeks, and nobody had heard a single thing from her. So, really, breaking and entering was an entirely reasonable reaction.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Now, Hunter knew, on some level, that Luz would be in the human realm for a while.

To be fair, he hadn’t had much time to think about it, what with  everything  going on. There was the Grimwalker revelation, which was also a kind-of clone revelation, and Luz offering an outstretched hand, and sitting on the ground in the human realm with the portal flickering and pulsing angrily, the dust settling as he held his uncles broken mask in his hands--

He’d been more than a little preoccupied, to say the least.

And Luz had gone through the portal the second it had all finally calmed, when there was nothing left to fight, with goodbyes he couldn’t remember. He wasn’t sure exactly when, everything had gone pretty numb by that point.

He just knew that after the first two days, when he was finally dragged out of his miserable wallowing in ditches by a very exasperated palisman and Owl Lady, Luz wasn’t there.

The others noticed her absence and the slight hole she left, he knew they did, but they never really commented on it. What with Bonesborough falling apart in a literal and metaphorical sense, everyone was kinda busy trying to patch all of it up. Like dealing with that one demon who kept talking about ancient magic, who was apparently the small rat demon's dad. And making sure Kikimora stopped escaping prison for five minutes. And dealing with the other Coven Heads. And apparently there was some people  mad  that the old wild witch ways were coming back--

Nobody really had the  time  to wonder about Luz off in the human realm, seeing her mother again.

And for the first week, he  didn’t  worry. He had an existential crisis and bothersome witches to avoid like the plague. His days were spent distracting himself by making everyone's lives miserable, since they kept insisting on holding him captive in the Owl House instead of letting him decompose in the woods for some reason. And honestly, Luz knew  way  too many people, because he’d stopped bothering to keep track of everyone by the fourth hour of being in that house. 

After he realized trying to run for it or annoying everyone into kicking him out wouldn’t work, he mostly hid in the dark corners where nobody would see him for hours at a time. Used to be for days, but apparently the Owl Lady was just as nocturnal as him, and they’d run into each other early in the morning when trying to grab a snack.

He had Rascal for company, at least. Say what you will about the little guy, but he was as loyal as he was stubborn.

But, after the first week, Hunter was starting to  really  notice a severe lack of annoying humans running around.

Apparently, so was the others, because he was noticing a few of them beginning to get a little antsy. He would’ve brushed it off, but he could hear a distinct influx of mutterings that sounded like ‘Luz’ and ‘portal’ and ‘human realm’ from his hiding places, when they thought no one else was around.

It was almost halfway through the second week before he knew it, and that was  far  too long for Luz to be away without so much as a note. 

And she was  probably  fine, he reasoned. But Luz being away without even a call was suspicious enough,  two  was downright concerning.

By then, Hunter was somewhat starting to recognize the faces that filtered in and out of the Owl House, and he began to plan. 

Somehow, he managed to wait until he saw a girl with familiar purple hair step in through the doorway, speaking words he didn’t bother to listen to as she sat on the couch he was hiding under. 

Rascal had, of course, chosen to perch himself on the head of a chair across the room, where barely anyone would care to notice him.

She was talking to some small illusionist he saw earlier (he may recognize faces, but names were a whole other matter. He’d never had to memorize names unless they were important to Belos, and if they weren’t, they were irrelevant. He should probably work on remembering their names), something about buildings and repairs or something, it wasn’t his problem. When the illusionist stepped away, off towards the kitchen to grab something, Hunter decided to poke his head out from underneath the couch.

“So what's the word on-- ow!”  He yelped, jerking back under the couch when he got a foot kicked into his nose.

“Titan,  don’t  do  that, you prick!” Amity snapped, inching a little further to the left as Hunter peeked out only one eye from under the couch this time, giving his best spiteful glare. “Why are you even  down  there?”

“Because nobody bothers me,” Hunter growled, holding his nose as he began to wiggle out. “Everyone’s so  clingy  in this house, it’s maddening.”

“Do you actually mean clingy, or are you referring to basic kindness?” Amity raised a brow, narrowing her eyes as he stood and brushed himself off from the dust bunnies that gathered under the couch.

“Irrelevant. Why hasn’t the human returned yet?” He demanded, leaning against the arm of the couch as Amity sat at the other end, giving a reasonable distance between them.

“Luz?” Amity blinked, clearly taken aback by the question.

“Yes, is there another, different human that you have to bring up every five minutes I should know about?” Hunter snapped, and got a curled lip and bared teeth from Amity in response.

“What, getting bored of the rest of us?” Amity snarked, crossing her arms. 

“Don’t flatter yourself, barely any of you were entertaining to begin with.” Hunter huffed. “Now do you know why the human is avoiding us or not?”

“Avoiding?” Amity frowned. “Luz’s not  avoiding  us, she’s just visiting her mom.”

“With radio silence for almost two weeks,” Hunter said, doing his best to stamp down his impatience. 

He  really  would have rathered asking the Owl Lady about this, but he’d learned from the last time he tried that she’d twist any conversation regarding Luz to be about him, so the next logical best bet would have to be her incessant, chattery, girlfriend. Titan, Luz had the weirdest tastes.

“She’s been away from her mom for four months.” Amity said, rolling her eyes like this was some concept he wasn't understanding. “She’s not gonna see her for a day and then come right back.”

“But still!” Hunter threw his hands in the air, ignoring Rascal’s minorly concerned chirp from across the room. “You think someone like  Luz  would go without contact for almost  two weeks?  She would’ve at least popped in to say hello, or go on some ramble about what’s going on in the human realm. She’d feel guilty about leaving you guys to repair everything on your own by the second hour.”

“It’s just...taking her a minute,” Amity said, and that was the first small crack in her resolve he saw. Had she not seen him at his lowest the first time they spoke, he would’ve been proud of the fact he could chip away at her far easier than she could at him. “Luz wouldn’t avoid anyone out of the  blue,  that’s not like her.”

And he  knew  she was right on that, as infuriating it was to admit it. Luz wouldn’t  abandon  people, she’d be more likely to keel over on the spot from spontaneously growing a bile sac. And perhaps a part of him  was  being a little over dramatic, but there was just this little twist in his chest that curled tighter when he considered going back to hiding in empty rooms and letting everything continue on,  waiting  to see if anything would change rather than  making  it change.

“Besides,” Amity continued. “As Luz’s girlfriend, I think that I would  know  if--”

“Oh  Titan,  just  forget it.”  Hunter groaned, tugging on his ears as he stepped away from the couch. “Whatever, you’re useless about this, anyway. If  you  don’t know when she’s coming back, and the  Owl Lady  doesn’t know, then nobody will.”

Amity stayed silent for a moment as Hunter stormed off towards the doorway that led to the staircase, Rascal flying off his perch to land on his shoulder with soft, almost melodic chirrups.

He contemplated if he could steal something from one of the spare rooms up there. Everyone was fluctuating between them the last few days, but they often left their stuff in there for him to take. It was fun watching them get so riled up about their missing junk.

“We,” Amity started, and Hunter paused in the doorway, one ear pricked. “We were planning on going into the human realm,” She admitted, voice quiet. “If we didn’t hear anything from Luz by the end of this week.”

Hunter turned around then, noting Amity had one hand bunched up on her leg, fisting the hem of her shirt and rubbing her fingers between it in a nervous tick. She avoided his gaze, and he saw, for just the briefest of moments, the uncertainty spilling off of her, possibly having been doing so for far longer than when he’d noticed the same signs from everyone else.

“Well,” He said, and she looked up at him then, and the vulnerability was gone in a snap, replaced by a curious, slightly accusatory, expression. It unnerved him how familiar it looked. “By all means, don’t go telling  me  about your super secret rescue missions, not like  I’d  want to join.” He muttered.

“Count it a blessing that I told you at all,” Amity hissed, ears flicking back. “Maybe if you promise to be nice, we’ll let you come along.” She taunted.

“Maybe if you people hadn’t  kidnapped  me, I wouldn’t be causing so many  problems.”  Hunter growled back through gritted teeth, breaking eye contact for only a moment when Rascal lightly bit and tugged on his ear, trying to urge him away.

“Like you need an excuse--”

“Uh, am-am I interrupting?”

The two turned their heads, realizing that the small illusionist, he’d figure out the kids name later, was standing in the living room again, a box of juice in his hands as his eyes flicked between them.

“No, Golden Boy was just leaving.” Amity waved him off, leaning back against the couch.

“You weren’t even clever with that one, Blight.” Hunter sneered, rolling his eyes as he turned to leave.

“Wittebane.”

“Call me that again and I’m ripping your teeth out.” Hunter threatened, pointing a finger at her as he backed out of the room.

“No name,” Amity amended, sticking her tongue out at him.

“You are on  thin ice.”

 ,

That night, Hunter was opening the window in Luz’s old room.

His escape attempts had never really worked before, the weird tube demon in the front door took his job of keeping him contained  very  seriously. Everyone else just liked watching the show and tapping in when needed.

However, he  also  knew, from the mutterings that Luz had told him in those few snatches of time in the days that they had talked before everything went wrong (or right, depending on who you asked), that she’d snuck out through her window  multiple  times without the demon realizing. Apparently she had bribed him once or twice, and now he barely reacted to the sound of her window opening, sort of like a reflex.

He’d meant to use it for his next escape attempt, just to see if it’d work for him, to run for the hills if it worked, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He’d be  damned  if they left him out of nabbing Luz from the human realm.

So Hunter tugged his cloak tighter across his shoulders, despite it being torn in many places, he had yet to rid it completely, and slowly opened Luz’s window.

He waited, tense, Rascal just as silent from within his hood. When there wasn’t the sound of a piercing voice after a few seconds, he cautiously poked his head out.

Nothing.

Either the bird really  had  grown to have no reaction to Luz’s window opening, or he was just as tired as everyone else. Or off eating bugs, that was plausible.

He slowly edged out, only having a moment to peer down at the ground below until he swung out of the window, hands gripping the windowsill as he edged himself down.

He hung in the air for a moment before releasing the windowsill, dropping to the ground below in a crouch. The perks of the Emperor’s Coven were few and far between, but hey, living there had made him an  expert  at being quiet.

He darted around the Owl House, crouching so as to avoid being seen through the first-floor windows, because there was always  someone  awake, no matter the hour. The portal to the human realm had been moved not too far away, but far enough that it couldn’t be, you know, automatically seen by anyone approaching the building.

He spared one last glance towards the house before he booked it off towards the woods, already mentally cursing himself for wearing a  white cloak  in the middle of the night. Why did he think that was a good idea,  why  did he think that was a good idea--

He made it to the cover of trees, somehow, without anyone sounding the alarm. He ducked behind a tree, catching his breath for a moment as he waited for shouting to arise.

Upon realizing he was in the clear, he pumped a fist in the air with a soft  “yes!”  and got an encouraging whistle from Rascal, who he gave a quick scratch on the head to.

He then hurried a bit further into the trees, soon faced with branches, vines, and bushes all stretched out across the beginning of a slope before him.

He reached out, grabbing one of the vines and yanking it aside, revealing the structure of the portal to the human realm, its soft humming mostly muffled by everything covering it. He ran his hand down the exterior of it for a second before pushing more vines aside, allowing a small enough space for him to crawl through.

He’d been to the human realm before, technically. Belos’s wrath had only just begun to reach into the human realm before he had managed to be stopped, and Hunter had a few moments out there, feeling the grass and seeing the trees. They really  were  green, and he couldn’t help but see it all and know with certainty that there was no magic within any of it. Hollow. It was a feeling he was familiar with.

But this time was different, and he inhaled for a moment before giving Rascal what he hoped was his best determined look.

“Alright,” He said. “Let’s see what’s been keeping her.”

 ,

He spent about half an hour in the woods of the human realm until he managed to find Luz’s house.

She’d never really said  where  she lived, just that it was the closest house to the forest. Nothing about directions, so he spent his time wandering about trying to find a house that wasn’t falling apart.

Rascal gave up and eventually flew off at some point, returning about five minutes later, chittering loudly and pulling on his hood. Hunter knew better to argue, and had followed until he came across a house that actually looked  lived  in, as opposed to the one he’d appeared in.

“If you led me to a random person's house, I  will  throw you into the sea.” Hunter warned, only getting a cheery whistle in return as he walked around the house.

He eventually found a window on the first floor, and pushing on it, was delighted to find that it was unlocked. He opened it, hoisting himself inside as Rascal darted in.

He realized the window was right over a kitchen sink, and lightly stepped a foot onto the counter beside it. He slowly swung himself inside, not even bothering to shut the window behind him as he dropped to the floor. He might need that escape route later.

Rascal was off exploring without a second thought, so he allowed himself to stalk throughout the kitchen, eyes flickering over photos and magnets stuck to the fridge. He saw ones that looked like letters, colors, and even saw a photo of a woman and a young, crazy-looking child.

He peeked around corners as he darted through the house, cracking open doors before continuing through hallways. One of the doors he opened  looked  like a bedroom, but he saw something with a scaly tail poking out, so he let that room be. The human realm was bound to have its own oddities.

The other bedroom he saw did have a person sleeping in it, but she didn’t look like Luz, much too old, so he quietly shut that door again and tried a different one.

He opened the last one, at the end of the hallway, already preparing to snap back that Rascal had brought him to the  wrong house,  when he took in the bedroom.

He only needed to see it for half a second to see the immediate resemblance to the mess that was Luz’s room in the Owl House. He slipped inside, leaving the door open just a crack in case Rascal showed up.

He crouched, eyeing the posters along the walls, shelves full of random junk, books strewn across the room. The figure sleeping in the bed was practically twisted backwards, blankets already halfway on the floor. He approached it, slowly standing up as he loomed over them, searching their face.

“Oh thank the Titan,” Hunter breathed, stepping back as he pressed a hand to his chest. That was Luz, for sure.

She stirred, slightly, hand twitching as she mumbled incoherently in her sleep. At least she wasn’t actually kidnapped or something, he reasoned.

“Hey, human,” He said, a little louder, but enough that he hoped the others down the hallway wouldn’t hear, shoving at her shoulder. “Wakey wakey.”

Luz mumbled in her sleep again, one eye barely cracking open before she turned over and tried to bury further under her covers.

Hunter grabbed her leg poking out from the blankets and yanked her off.

Luz’s yelp was cut off as he smothered the blankets over her, pausing as she fumbled around trying to get it off, ears pricked as he waited to see if anyone had heard.

“I’m  awake,  Vee, I’m  awake--”  Luz pulled the blanket off her head, her glare almost immediately replaced with shock.

“Hey,” Hunter grinned, flashing fangs. ���Miss me?”

“Hunter?”  Luz exclaimed, before immediately covering her mouth with her hands, eyes darting towards her door like she expected someone to be there.

“Oh don’t sound  so  surprised.” Hunter scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You oughta step up your game if you think you can escape me in another dimension.”

“What are you  doing  here?” Luz whisper-yelled, scrambling to her feet as she looked wildly around her room. “Did-did the  others  come?” She asked, giving him such a scared look he was a little put off by it.

“No? I mean, they  will  be, I just got ahead of the curve.” Hunter shrugged off her odd reactions. “Made sure I got to you before they did, didn’t feel like being left behind on the ‘let’s drag Luz back kicking and screaming’ plan.”

“Oh no, oh no,” Luz shook her head, one hand on her head as she began to pace. “Are-are the others  looking  for me?”

“Will be by the end of this week,” Hunter said, watching her curiously. “Why? This a bad time or something?”

“Yes! Yes, this is a  terrible  time!” Luz exclaimed, barely managing to keep her voice down as she whirled towards him.

“Did you get grounded?” Hunter narrowed his eyes. “Because if so, let me just say, I know about fifteen different ways to lessen the extent of the grounding, and twice as many ways to sneak out, this place isn’t even all that fortified--”

“No! Well, I mean, I kind of am,” Luz winced. “But that’s not--you can’t--you need to  go.”  Luz said, gesturing back towards the door. “You can’t be here.”

“Do you need a body disposed of? Because I also know a lot of ways to--”

“I’m touched, but no.” Luz gave him a withering look. “Don’t even wanna know why you know that. You have to  leave.”  She insisted, beginning to shove him towards the door.

“Aw, but I came all this way to see you,” Hunter whined in a dramatic tease, slowly leaning back, therefore putting more strain on Luz as she tried to push him out. “You don’t want to see me?”

“Believe me, I’m  very  happy to see you’re okay,” Luz assured through gritted teeth, offering the smallest of smiles. “And I’ll bother you later. But now is  not the time.”

Rascal took that moment to poke in through the crack in the doorway, landing on a shelf and eyeing the two with what felt like judgement. Hunter promptly dropped all his weight on Luz, nearly crushing her. 

“Damn,” He whistled when Luz’s knees refused to buckle. “You got some muscle hiding under those skinny bones?”

“That, and you weigh as much as a half-filled sack of lumpy potatoes.” Luz muttered, already pushing back up to her full height as she took Hunter with her.

“You’re  impossible.”  Hunter huffed, standing back up onto his feet and snickering as Luz stumbled with the lack of weight. “Seriously, what’s the hold up? Are you getting bored with us already?”

“No,  first of all, I’d never do that.” Luz pointed a finger at him. “And I’m offended you thought I ever would be.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.”

“It’s not. And second of all,  I’m  serious, you  cannot be here.”  Luz stressed, grabbing his shoulders, a movement that instinctively caused him to flinch, just the tiniest bit. “If my  mom  sees you here, she’s going to  freak--”

“Luz?” A groggy voice called, and Luz stiffened so quickly with such  terror  crossing her face that Hunter tensed as well. “Creí haber escuchado algo, are you--?”

Hunter saw the door to Luz’s room open, and immediately threw an arm out in front of Luz, giving a quick whistle that Rascal had learned to recognize by now. In a flash, he was holding his staff in his other hand, Luz pushed behind him as he pointed his staff towards the figure in the doorway, ears pressed back and fangs bared in a low, warning growl.

The person froze, eyes going wide, one hand still clutching the door handle.

He recognized it as the older woman he saw in one of the bedrooms, hair still mussied from sleep, the glasses on her face smudged from someone having grabbed them clumsily. The sleep had vanished from her eyes the moment she saw him, a faintly glowing staff pointed only a foot away from her.

“Hunter, Hunter, no, stop!” Luz was quick to grab Hunter’s arm after barely a second of tense silence, shoving the staff down. “She’s my mom, she’s safe!”

Hunter paused at that. Granted, his experience with biological family (as biological as Belos could be) wasn’t the best, but he had heard a few stories, here and there, about Luz’s mom. And Luz would go into a Slitherbeast den for anyone who asked nicely, but hey, he still thought that if someone was willing to fight  Emperor Belos  for them, they had to be something special.

“Oh, sorry.” He said, all hostility evaporating as he drew his staff back, holding it at his side. “Reflexes.”

“Luz,” The woman said, slowly, and Hunter was so instantly reminded of when the adults dealing with him were trying so hard to not lose their shit that he halfway raised his arm to shield Luz again. “Por qué hay un chico extraño en tu habitación?”

“Puedo explicarlo!” Luz was quick to exclaim, clutching Hunter’s arm, and he looked blankly between them. He’d heard of other languages in the Isles before, often ones spoken by demons, but this was a new one on him.

“Oh estoy segura de que lo harás!” The woman snapped back, hands on her hips now, not bothering to keep her voice low. 

“What’s she saying?” Hunter whispered to Luz, eyes still darting between the two. “Is this a ‘we’re about to start fighting’ situation or a ‘you’re grounded for life’ situation?”

“No te puedo creer.” Luz's mom grumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Okay, so, uh,” Luz clasped her hands together. “I promise, mami, this is  not  what it looks like.”

“What does it look like?” Hunter blinked, giving Luz a concerned expression now. “It doesn't look like I’m a robber, right? Because this place has nothing  near  worth stealing.”

“Please stop talking,” Luz hissed out of the corner of her mouth, never taking her eyes off her mother. “Mami, this is, uh,” She faltered for a moment. “This is Hunter.”

Her mother cracked open an eye from where she was rubbing the bridge of her nose, sending such a seething glare that both kids shuttered. 

“You know what,” Hunter said, letting Rascal transform out of a staff and back into his usual self, letting the bird land on his shoulder as he clapped his hands together. “I can see that you're busy, so I think I’ll just be--why is she staring at me like that?”

The woman was staring at him now, well, Rascal, eyes locked on the cardinal on his shoulder like it had suddenly grown five heads. He flicked an ear in confusion, turning to Luz to ask what her mom’s problem was, only to see Luz immediately face-palm.

“Estoy atascado con un idiota,” Luz mumbled under her breath, and Hunter could pretty easily guess what the last word had meant, and bristled at it.

“Hey--”

“Okay,  so, Hunter,” Luz kept her hands pressed together, using them both to point towards him. “Thank you for the visit, really, but I think we’re done here.”

“We,”  Luz’s mom finally managed to speak, and Luz cringed with a sheepish smile. “Are going to have a  talk.”  She growled, though it lacked any of the reverberating sounds an actual growl would have. He always wondered how humans ever got the last  hit  of their point across without growls or clicks or hisses. He realized now that tone had a  lot  to do with it.

“And that includes  you,  young man.” The woman added, turning her glare towards Hunter, and he wouldn’t be ashamed to admit he wilted a bit under it. She could’ve disintegrated Kikimora on the spot with a look like that.

“Yes, ma’am.” Hunter ducked his head, and ignored the quiet snickers from Luz that she quickly tried to smother.

The woman stepped to the side, allowing the two of them to shuffle out of the room. Luz went out first, giving Hunter an expression that was somehow both  ‘sorry’  and  ‘I told you so’  and  boy  did he want to punch it.

Hunter hurried out after her, one hand cupped over Rascal protectively, unable to fight back the urge to hide him from everyone and everything new, that he’d be broken in half the second anyone got close.

As he passed her, he knew she was staring at him with a far sharper gaze than she had Luz. He glanced out the corner of his eye, and she was staring at his ears, at Rascal, and just as he stepped into the hallway, her eyes narrowed in on the scar along the side of his face.

He’d had people stare at his scars before, it wasn’t new. Scars weren’t uncommon in the Boiling Isles, but ones as big and prominent as his were generally expected of witches far older than him, far more known for their battles and their victories.

He growled in the back of his throat, briefly twitching his lip to flash a fang. It was near-instinctive at this point, a quiet reminder of who he was, of who shadowed over him, and that it was impolite to stare, to mind your own business.

Luz’s mom jerked back at it, a far stronger reaction than the ones he was used to getting. He was used to a quick aversion of the eyes, hurrying to turn their heads the other way, a simple glance to elsewhere in the room. She stared at him with even more apprehension and worry than before, like she was confronted with a wild animal in her home.

His ears pressed down and he hurried off down the hallway, almost stepping on Luz’s heels from how close he walked behind her.

He noticed an eye peeking out of a room up ahead, and Luz gave a weak, almost teasing, salute to whoever was inside. He saw a flash of scales and what might've been a pitying look until they slipped out of view.

Luz stood off to the side as she exited the hallway, and Hunter stood next to her. He gave her a questioning look, one she nearly missed from how much she was staring at her feet. He nudged her shoulder, gaining her attention, and Luz gave a weak, nervous smile.

Alright, so he was  definitely  missing something here with his woman.

“Kitchen table,” Luz’s mom said, pointing, and the two obeyed. Hunter had no real reason to, he knew this. She was human, he could just leave, and she wouldn’t be able to stop him. But she was important to Luz, clearly, and he knew, tragically, that he’d feel guilty if he left Luz alone.

Luz sat in one of the chairs at the round table, and Hunter took the one next to her. Her mother eyed them for a moment before taking the one across from them.

“Can I just say, that I did  not  invite Hunter here--”

“Oh, so  that’s  how it's gonna be?” Hunter whirled his head to her. “Throwing  me  under the bus? Sorry I wanted to  check in.”

“I am telling it  as the truth.”  Luz insisted, glaring at him. “Would you rather I tell her that I purposefully invited you here at,” She turned towards the wall, squinting at a clock hanging there. “Two twenty-three? Why did you come here so  late?”  She demanded.

“Technically, it’s early.” Hunter corrected. 

“I’m actually going to punch your teeth out.”

Rascal cheeped from his shoulder, and Hunter nodded sagely like he had said something. Rascal  could  talk to him, of course, in words that only he could hear, but he often didn’t. And the best part was that he could never prove to anyone that Rascal wasn’t shit-talking them.

“Enough,  both of you  . ” Luz’s mother said firmly, hands placed on the table that had them both straightening to attention. “Luz,” She turned to her daughter, rubbing her temple with one hand as she gestured with the other towards Hunter. “Explain him, please.”

“Like, life story, or why he’s here, or what he is, or--”

“Just  please  tell me he’s not from where I think he’s from.”

“Oh,” Luz glanced between Hunter and her mother, gears turning in her head. “He’s...not?”

“Dios ayúdame,” Her mother groaned.

“You told me to say he wasn’t! Actually,” Luz frowned as she turned to Hunter.  “Do  you count as someone from the demon realm, biologically? I don’t know how that whole, er, Grimwalker thing worked, like are you a direct clone, or--”

“I’m gonna stop you right there, because I’ve been avoiding dealing with that whole situation for the past two weeks, and I’m not about to start now.” Hunter raised a hand to cut her off.

“You…” Luz narrowed her eyes at him. “You need a therapist, dude.”

“You’re the fifth person to say that in the last week.”

“Why,”  Luz’s mother cut in again, silencing their conversation. “Is there a  demon boy  in my house?”

“I’m a witch,” Hunter corrected.

“Don’t you count as, like,  half  a--”

“What did I  just  say, Luz?”

“Right,” Luz snapped her mouth shut. “Uh, so, I’m assuming he broke in--”

Hunter groaned, gripping his head in his hands as he slouched over the table. Rascal chittered gently as he hopped off his shoulder and onto the table, nudging his arm.

“--but he wasn’t going to cause any trouble!” Luz added quickly, seeing her mothers expression continue to sour. “He just-he wanted to make sure I was alright.”

The woman eyed the two of them for a moment, and Hunter refused to look up and meet her gaze.

“Hunter, is it?” The woman said slowly, cautious, suspicious, but not accusatory. 

“Yes, ma’am.” Hunter sighed, relenting to lift his head, messy hair hanging in his face.

“How old are you, exactly?”

“Mami…”

“Sixteen, ma’am.” He mumbled, resting his cheek in his hand.

“And…” She hesitated for a moment.  “How  old is that in witch years…?”

“...sixteen?” Hunter gave her a perplexed look.

“They age the same as us.” Luz assured, and her mother seemed to relax just a bit.

“Gracias a Dios por eso,” Her mother mumbled. “Alright, and how did you get in?”

“Window,” He tilted his head off towards the one in question, still open over the sink.

“Of course,” The woman muttered under her breath. “The  one  time I didn’t lock it. Okay, now what is  that?”  She gestured towards Rascal on his shoulder, and he raised his hand to let the palisman hop onto his hand.

“My palisman,” He said, settling the bird down on the table, but keeping him a far enough distance from Luz’s mom that she wouldn’t be able to grab him. “I call him Rascal. Which reminds me,” He nudged Luz’s shoulder. “Where do you keep those seeds you have for your palisman? She keeps screaming at everyone and the Owl Lady doesn’t know how to make her shut up.”

“Is she okay?” Luz straightened.

“Yeah, little jays fine, she’s just being a pain in the ass.” Hunter grimaced.

“Watch your language, young man.” Luz’s mom leveled a finger at him, and he eyed it for a moment. “Now what do you mean ‘Luz’s pailsman?’ What in the  world  is a palisman?”

“Oh, uh, nothing! Nothing important, really. Just, like, staff things.” Luz said quickly, and Hunter and Rascal shared a look. Luz loved her palisman, as bratty as she was. And he knew from experience that Luz didn’t think of palismans as ‘nothing important.’

He drew a hand around Rascal and scooted him a little closer towards himself.

“Okay, okay,” Luz’s mother inhaled a steadying breath, as though to keep her cool. “And you are breaking into my house, early in the morning, to see my daughter.”

“Really just to make sure she didn’t, like, get kidnapped on the way up here.” Hunter shrugged. “Everyone's worried about her, so I took one for the team, and all that.”

“Everyone?” Her mother frowned.

“Her...friends?” Hunter gave Luz a sideways look, and she avoided his gaze.

“Mija, you have friends in the  demon realm?”  Luz’s mom balked, with the tone of someone who didn’t quite believe it, who almost felt as though they were being tricked.

“I told you a bit about them…” Luz mumbled, shifting uncomfortably.

“You,” Her mother chuckled, shaking her head, the first sign of anything lighter than what they’d had so far. “You really can’t help but be friendly to everyone, huh?” 

“It’s how she got stuck with me, it’s a real problem.” Hunter said, and got an elbow jabbed into him for his troubles, wheezing as he clutched his side. 

“Well, you certainly are an...interesting acquaintance,” Her mother said slowly, eyeing him, and he barely resisted the urge to briefly flash sharpened teeth when her gaze lingered on the scar across his face again. “And you showed up, by breaking in...just to check in on Luz?”

“Yeah?” Hunter managed to cough out, cracking open an eye to give the woman a confused look compared to her suspicious, searching one. “Why else?”

“...alright.” She said, and her gaze went back to her daughter. “I wasn’t aware that there would be... situations  where the demon realm followed you  back.”

“Neither did I, really.” Luz was quick to assure, hands raised.  “Hunter  of all people being worried about me is the most confusing and touching thing that’s happened so far.”

“I was not  worried.”  Hunter whirled to her. “I only came here because everyone  else  was, and they were going to leave me out of the rescue party.”

“Rescue party?” Luz’s mother startled, and he should really learn her name.

“Aha, he doesn't mean that.” Luz waved her hands quickly. 

“I do?” Hunter narrowed his eyes. “The others were planning on busting out of the portal to come find you by the end of this week. I didn’t want to be left out, so I broke in ahead of time.”

“There are demons coming  here?”  The woman exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

“Pretty sure the little rat dog is the only demon coming along.” Hunter corrected. “The others are witches.”

“You  know  his name is King.” Luz grumbled.

“Yeah, but it's way more fun to call him a rat.”

“Luz, cariño, are we going to have  more  witches breaking in?” Her mother stressed, stepping away from the table and already beginning to pace.

“Not-not when Hunter gets back to them!” Luz said, also standing. “He can tell them to hold off, that I’m fine, and all that.”

“And deal with them getting all pissy I broke out?” Hunter demanded, scooping Rascal up in his hands as he, too, stood.  “Hell  no, either they hear from me with you there, or I don’t tell them shit.”

“Watch it,” Luz’s mother warned him again, this time only giving a quick glare. “And Luz is  not  going back there.”

“Then you have two to twenty witches, plus one demon, knocking on your door.” Hunter shrugged. “What’s the big deal?”

“Luz, what did you get  into  while you were in the demon realm?” Her mother groaned, rubbing her temples.

“I mean, you didn’t ask a  lot... ” Luz tried, hovering about two feet from her mom.

“You have two to  twenty  magical demon people ready to break into our home to make sure you’re okay,” Her mother said, turning towards her daughter. “You didn’t...you didn’t tell me you had  friends  there.”

“I feel like I just said this,” Hunter squinted. “I told you Luz has friends in the Boiling Isles, isn’t that expected? She makes friends with  everyone.”

Luz rubbed her arm and looked down at the ground, and her mother’s mouth twitched downwards for a brief moment. He felt like he was missing something.

“Are all of your friends like him?” Her mother said after a moment, gesturing with a hand off towards Hunter.

“I resent what that implies,” Hunter huffed, ears pressed down as he tucked Rascal between his neck and cloak.

“I mean, personality wise? No, he’s the biggest brat of them all.” Luz assured, and Hunter visibly took offence. “Well, Matt was  also  a brat, but he’s a friend of a friend, and I think he’s calmer now.”

“They  are  annoying, though.” Hunter piped up, and prided on barely reacting under Luz’s seething glare.

“Well they can’t come  here,  your first friend has already caused enough trouble.” Her mother said firmly, and Hunter rolled his eyes at that.

“Please, breaking and entering is tame for me.” Hunter scoffed, and got an even more worried, and possibly judging, look from the woman.

“You're not helping.” Luz whispered, immediately turning back to her mother. “I’m sure we can figure this whole thing out. I can probably get Hunter to tell them to calm them down without me having to go back, Rascal can bully him into it, he likes me.”

“That’s a  low blow,  human!” Hunter hissed, a low, drawn-out sound that had the woman tensing and Luz only rolling her eyes. “I do so much for you, and  this  is the thanks I get?” He ignored Rascal’s gleeful chitters that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“We’re  even  on that front and you  know it.” 

“Debatable,”

“This is  serious,  Luz.” Her mother said, and Luz’s mouth clicked shut. “Christ,” She sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d made  friends  in the demon realm?”

“You didn’t ask…?” Luz said slowly.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Hunter said, leaning against the island counter. “I drag Luz back, she hangs for a day or two to calm everyone down, and she comes right back to have quality family time, or whatever you guys call it, until you’re all finished.”

“Absolutely not,” Her mother said instantly. “Luz will not go anywhere  near  that portal.”

“It’s not gonna blow up, it’s stable.” Hunter raised a brow, not noticing Luz freezing up. 

“Luz is  not  going back to that demon realm,” She insisted, and he was sure she would be growling if she could. “Listen, could you please just tell the other witches to stay back? I don’t want any trouble from that realm coming through here.”

“Ouch,” Hunter said dryly, twitching an ear as he crossed his arms. “Why’s this got you in a tizzy? I came here to bring back Luz anyway, why is this an issue?”

Luz and her mother met eyes for a brief second, and Hunter knew then he was missing something, because it felt like a conversation passed between their eyes and Luz ducked her head again, ashamed.

“Luz,” Her mother spoke in soft tones, though she was rubbing at her face. “You didn’t tell your  friends--”

“I was going to--”

“Luz, honey, you can’t  omit details  from people--”

“I know, I swear I was just busy trying to see you--”

Hunter set Rascal down on the island counter and gestured towards him. The palisman fluffed his wings before proceeding to peck incessantly on the counter, making a loud clinking noise. It got both humans mingling words to come to a stop as they both turned towards him.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt, but I’m still here.” Hunter said, scratching his bird's head to get him to cease once he had their full attention. “What am I missing?” He asked, pointing between the two.

“I apologize Luz hadn’t informed you earlier,” Her mother started, and Luz gripped her arms and looked away from them both, shoulders hunched. “But she won’t be going back to the demon realm.”

He stared. He blinked once, twice. He could see Rascal staring too, just barely in his line of sight.

“Come again?”

“Luz had been trapped there for so long,” Her mother went on. “And-and she was surrounded by  demons  and rain that scalded skin and-and Vee told me of Emperor’s and experiments,” 

Hunter flinched at that, ears pressing flat as he turned his head to the side.

“It’s clearly not a safe place,” She continued, and her eyes dropped to his notched ear. “And...there’s much to catch up on, to talk about.” She said, in a polite tone that told him not to press that particular matter. “Surely, you can explain this to them?”

Hunter stayed silent for a moment, aware of Luz peeking at him with guilt across her features. He didn’t meet it, he knew he’d get more riled up if he did.

“Yeah, so,” Hunter said calmly, clasping his hands together. “That’s  not  happening.” 

“Excuse me?” Her mother reeled back a bit.

“Listen, Miss...what are your last names again?” He asked Luz, though he still didn’t let himself fully look at her.

“Noceda,” She said, sounding confused now.

“Ms. Noceda,” He continued. “I can speak from personal experience when I tell you that the Emperor and any experiments he had are  far  beyond gone,” He said, bitterness dripping from his words. “And I--  we  have your daughter to thank for that.”

Her mother startled for a moment, opening her mouth to speak, but he plowed on.

“Half the things that made the Isles dangerous, including the very reason your daughter was late coming home, are either burnt to a crisp or in the ground.” He said, holding her gaze. “And I can tell you this, with one hundred percent sincerity, that if I go back and tell Luz’s friends that she won’t ever be coming back, you’ll have witches and demons in numbers nearing the thirties knocking on your front door.” 

“Is that a threat?” The woman managed to get out first. 

“With all due respect, Ms. Noceda, it’s a promise.” 

“Thank you,  Hunter.” Luz was suddenly at his side, seizing his arm in a grip that felt like he was losing circulation. “That’s  enough,”  She said, giving him a warning look. “I think she gets the message.”

“Luz, what in the world is he talking about?” Her mother asked, eyes back to her child.

“It-it’s a long story, but he’s right about the Emperor!” Luz added quickly. “He’s...he’s gone, and-and I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“He won’t.” Hunter said, and left it at that.

“Luz, cariño, I’m sure we could work something out with your friends.” Her mother assured. “I’m glad a man like Vee had described is gone, but I’m sure they would understand.”

“That her mom won’t let her come back?” Hunter scoffed, and Luz tugged forcefully on his arm.

“Hunter,”  She hissed, and he looked at her then, and saw the fear practically  radiating  off her. He wondered if it was something she’d picked up from Amity or vice versa, to be brimming with emotions, but leaving them largely unnoticed until someone actually  focused.

“Look, I…” Luz hesitated for a moment. “I  promised  that I’d stay with her…” She mumbled, and the last piece clicked in his mind.

Luz had promised she’d stay, to a likely terrified mother, and Luz was never one to skimp out on promises. She either kept them or agonized over trying. And it’d make sense why she wouldn’t want to tell anyone, she promised she’d  leave forever,  and no plans or compromises from the residents of the Owl House could sate a mother worried for her daughter. 

Also made sense why she wanted him to leave. Her mom did  not  seem to like the place, and him being there had to be somewhat breaking the little ‘promise’ of interacting with someone from the demon realm at all.

“Oh,” He said, instead of all that, ears pricking slightly. 

“I’m sorry to have it all sprung on you without warning,” He heard her mother saying, though he wasn’t looking at her much in that moment, but she sounded genuine. “But the demon realm doesn’t necessarily seem to be...the  safest  of places.”

“It’s not,” Hunter confirmed, slowly straightening to face the woman again. “But hey,” He shrugged, feeling Luz letting up her grip on his arm. “It’s home.”

Her eyes dropped to his scar again, just for a moment, and he didn’t bother to hide his eye roll this time.

“Trust me, I’m an outlier in how deadly the place  actually  is.” He muttered. “These,” He gestured broadly to his face, not quite feeling the satisfaction he assumed he’d feel when he saw her wince. “Were caused by something  outside  the Boiling Isles, something that never should have been there in the first place. He’s gone now.” He rumbled a growl. “We made sure of it.”

She looked apologetic, and he’d give her that. But she shook her head with a sigh all the same.

“I’m sorry, truly, but Luz and I agreed, it’s not safe. I’m glad she could make friends there, I really am,” She said, and he wondered what kind of friends Luz had had in the past, because she said the word ‘friends’ like it could have five different meanings. “But it’s not safe for her.”

“And?” Hunter threw a hand out in a broad gesture. “It was never completely safe, no place is. You gonna look me in the eyes and tell me Luz would never sneak back out? I’m giving her another week at best.”

“Hunter!”

“Look, I’m  really  just trying to wrap this whole complication up,” Hunter sighed unsympathetically, aware of Rascal chirping and head-butting his arm. “Unfortunately, I  know  you, and I know you’d rather wallow in a chasm for eternity than never go back to the Isles. And as entertaining as watching a whole drama unfold would be when your mom would eventually find out, I  really  don't want to deal with that headache.” He grumbled.

Luz looked to her mother then, and her mother looked back. Luz’s hand was still clutched in his sleeve, watching her mother worriedly as she met her confused gaze.

“Luz?” Her mother said slowly, and Luz fiddled with Hunter’s sleeve.

“Mami, I...look, I didn’t...my friends, they...I don’t…”

“Hi, sorry, can-can I butt-in?”

The three whirled around, Hunter automatically putting an arm in front of Luz and taking a step back at the sight.

A basilisk lay in the doorway to the kitchen, tail curled somewhere out of sight. It was a young one, about the size of Luz. That’d work, he’d taken on bigger before, not like he had any magic for a basilisk to steal--

“Vee,” Luz’s mother breathed. “What are you doing up?”

And of  course  she was someone they knew. Amazing, wonderful, he loved being out of the loop that there was a  basilisk  casually within the house, that wasn’t unnerving at all.

“You guys aren’t very quiet,” The basilisk--Vee--shrugged as she slithered in, and Hunter took another step back, his arm in front of Luz causing her to be pushed back as well. “Hey there, uh, new guy.” She offered a small, shy wave to Hunter, and he eyed her before hesitantly returning it.

“Vee, I think you should go back to bed, we were discussing--”

“I know, I heard.” Vee brushed off Luz’s mom. “I actually have an idea for, y’know, this predicament. No offence, but I can't really sleep with you guys arguing.” She said, the wringing of her clawed hands the only sign she was nervous, stopping only when she was between them, with Luz and Hunter on one side, Ms. Noceda on the other.

“Should I be worried about this?” Hunter whispered to Luz.

“Nah, she’s cool.” Luz whispered back.

“What if, and hear me out...we all sleep on this,” Vee said, palms pressed together. “We think it over during the night, and when it's actually  light  out, we talk about Luz wanting to go back to the Isles and the rules that would have to be put in place. And also nobody breaks in.” She tacked on quickly.

“So you  do  want to go back?” Luz’s mother turned to her, and he saw the hurt and shock in her eyes.

“I…” Luz looked like she had a ‘no,’ at the back of her throat, and he truly did believe she would’ve said all her mom wanted to say. But he nudged her side, and she looked up at him, and clearly he was doing  something  with his face, because the empty assurances died out.

“Y-yeah, I do.” She mumbled, looking back to her mom. “I...really,  really  want to see them again, back in their realm.”

And he avoided looking at Ms. Noceda’s face, because the shock and pain increased significantly.

“Well, I, for one,” He said, ducking around Luz. “Agree with the lizard's plan. Sleep on it, talk in the morning with Ms. Noceda, yadda yadda, all that fun stuff.”

“Camila is fine,” The woman murmured, sounding a little dazed.

“Lizard?”  Vee hissed, tongue flickering out as she narrowed her eyes on him.

“Right, sorry, snake fits better.” Hunter said before he could stop himself.

“You have permission to beat him up.” Luz said casually, ignoring Hunter’s indignant shout of “traitor!”

“I, yes, yes,” Luz’s mother--Camila--sighed, stepping back and bracing herself against the kitchen counter. “Tonight has been...a hectic one. It’s far too late to be talking about things like this.”

“Does this mean I can go?” Hunter asked, pointing with his thumb behind him. “Preferably without alerting everyone that I snuck out?”

“I don’t know  how  you got past Hooty,” Luz sighed, tilting her head and beginning to walk towards the front door with a quick, affirming glance with her mother that both had barely managed to make, Hunter immediately following.

“I escaped through your window.” Hunter said simply, and he noted Camila looking up slightly at that, until Vee approached her, murmuring in soft words he knew better than to try and eavesdrop on.

“Of course you did,” Luz grumbled, opening the front door and practically shoving Hunter outside. 

“Alright, alright, I get it, I’m leaving--”

Luz stepped out onto the front porch with him, leaving the front door open just a crack, enough so that she could be seen through it, and in turn could see Camila and Vee talking back by the kitchen.

“Am I going to get a personal lecture?” Hunter asked cautiously, crossing his arms as his ears flicked down. “Look, in my defense, you didn’t exactly explain a lot of things to  me--”

Luz lunged, and he stepped back and raised his hands defensively. Instead of a mean left hook he was expecting, he got arms wrapped around his sides, squeezing the air out of him.

Hunter wheezed, and would’ve doubled over if Luz wasn’t in the way. She didn’t let up on her hug, and after a moment of trying to get his thoughts in order, he slowly drew his arms around Luz, chin tucked against her head pressed into his chest.

“I’m glad you're okay,” Luz muffled into his shirt, and Hunter may have clung on a little tighter, aware of Rascal watching this all from his shoulder.

“Feel like you said this already.” He managed to get out.

“I know, I just wanted you to know I meant it.”

And if Hunter tilted his head down to press his face into Luz’s hair then, she didn’t say anything.

“Good to see you still kickin’, too.” He mumbled. 

“Miss me?” Luz teased, throwing his words back at him as she pulled her head back slightly, and Hunter quickly did the same to look down at her.

“Hardly,” He huffed, clearing his throat to hide how it cracked halfway through. “I just didn’t want everyone leaving me out of all the fun.”

“Uh huh,” Luz raised a brow. “So you just  happened  to drop by to make sure I was alright on the one night you  actually  managed to escape the Owl House without being caught?”

“...listen--”

Luz laughed, and Hunter sputtered over his words. He growled and pushed her back and off him, knowing his face was flushing as he turned away and crossed his arms. Luz’s laughter didn’t stop at that, and Rascal sounded like he was laughing, too.

His ears drooped down and he half-heartedly bared teeth, in what may have been an attempt to hide a smile.

“You’re such a massive pain, you know that?” He growled. 

“I do,” Luz grinned, laughter calming down to giggles. “I learned from the best.”

“That, you did. That Owl Lady couldn’t be more overbearing if she tried.” Hunter muttered.

“She’s got a bit of an empty nest syndrome, you get used to it.” Luz lightly nudged his shoulder. “It’s her way of welcoming you to the family.”

And he didn’t even have the time to process  that  whole sentence, because Rascal was fluttering onto Luz’s shoulder, cheeping as Luz raised a hand to scratch at his head.

“Make sure they know not to worry too much, okay?” She continued, looking up at him. “I’ll try and sort this out.”

“Does that mean you’re coming back soon?” Hunter paused, tilting his head. And maybe there was a tone of hopefulness in his tone, maybe.

Luz hesitated for a moment, frowning slightly in thought. She looked back towards the front door, though he couldn’t see if Camila or Vee were anywhere near it, what with the angle being off and Luz blocking most of it. He wondered if they could hear their conversation.

“I think so,” She said, quieter this time as she turned back to him with a small smile. “I... hope  so.”

“So do I, they’ll be insufferable without you.” Hunter teased. “Have fun thinking up how to explain to them your apparent promise.”

“Don’t remind me,” Luz groaned, throwing her head back. “Look, it was a panicked situation, and I didn’t want her any more scared than she--”

“Save it,” Hunter said, not unkindly, raising a hand to silence her. “I’ve made worse spur-of-the-moment decisions. Contrary to popular belief, I know you well enough that you’d never stay away for long. You have a habit of being a people-pleaser.”

Luz relaxed, and raised her hand to let Rascal hop onto it. She offered him back to Hunter, and he took the bird into his hands.

“Still, I’m sorry.” She said, wringing her hands together. “For all of this.”

“If all goes well, you’ll get to tell them that yourself.” He said, and attempted a smile.

“Hopefully,” Luz said, glancing back towards the door. “So, that means you’re willing to tell them what happened?” She asked, a pleading note to her voice.

“As in, I tell them that I broke out of the Owl House in the middle of the night, escaped to the human realm, found you when I  knew  they were going to do the same thing, and then came back to the demon realm  without  you, just to tell them you’ll  probably  be back soon, but I don’t know when?” Hunter said, ears lowering more and more as he spoke, raising a brow.

“...yes?” Luz tried, hands clasped behind her back as she looked up at him with wide, puppy-dog eyes.

“...I don’t know  why  I put up with you.” Hunter groaned, relenting as his shoulders slumped, letting Rascal fly up onto his shoulder.

“Because you care about me,” Luz teased in a singsong tone, her relief immediate.

“Unfortunately,” He muttered unthinkingly, before the words processed in his head. He tensed right after, eyes locked on the wall behind Luz.

She looked surprised for about half a second before she practically  lit up,  beaming excitedly at him.

“Anyway,”  He said quickly, voice higher than normal,  knowing  he was flushed up to his ears. “I should be off before your mom gets even more pissed at me.” He said, sharply turning on his heel.

Rascal was most definitely laughing at him now, and he pulled up his hood before shoving the bird into it, silencing him. He leapt down the stairs leading up to the porch, instead of walking down them like a normal person.

“Well, in her defense, you  did  break in.” Luz reminded, though there was a certain giddiness to her tone as she watched him leave.

“Like you  haven’t  done it!” Hunter scoffed behind him, beginning to hurry back towards the forest, head ducked low.

“Yes, but we don’t need to  tell  her that!” Luz hissed, voice notably quieter as she fearfully glanced back. 

“No promises!” He called back, a grin forming as he picked up the pace. “Call it compensation for throwing me to the wolves!”

“Wh--Hunter!” Luz squawked indignantly.

He turned on his heel for just a moment, giving Luz a mocking salute before ducking between the trees of the forest, cackling as Luz’s calls of “don’t you  dare!”  faded behind him.

“Alright, Rascal, prepare yourself.” He said, hearing his palisman chitter from within his hood, with a hint of annoyance to it. “We’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”