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marlynnofmany · 2 years ago

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Talking Sports

“And then I found out we weren’t the only species to invent football!” I said to Wio as she opened food packets. Normally I would have enjoyed watching the way someone with tentacles unwraps things, but I was focused on my story. “I mean, I know it’s a very simple concept, but that was incredibly strange to turn the corner and see a bunch of beefy dinosaur-looking people tackling the quarterback.”

“I’m sure,” Wio said, popping the lid off a jar. “Is this one of the ‘gimme the ball’ games, or ‘get rid of the ball’ games?”

“Um.” I paused to think. “I guess you can categorize them like that, can’t you? Never thought about it. It’s a ‘gimme the ball.’”

“Are those the more common type?” Wio pushed my own lunch tray towards me, which I’d forgotten about.

“Thanks. Maybe?” I poked through the stack of individually-wrapped human foods as I thought. These were from another mystery box of Earth stuff from our last supply run. I started with the turkey jerky. “There’s a lot of sports to keep track of. Fighting to keep the ball is football — and rugby, which is similar — soccer, where you just use your feet; basketball, where you have to keep bouncing the ball; hockey, where you smack it across the ground with a stick… Oh, and lacrosse, where you throw it with a stick that has a net on it. And I’m probably forgetting a ton.”

“Mm,” Wio said conversationally. She scooped up a mouthful of stinky fish paste with the Strongarm version of a spoon, which had a handle shaped like a jumbo tongue depressor. She didn’t bother grabbing it, just sticking her suction cups to the underside. “That’s six. What about games where the goal is to chuck the ball into the sun?”

I talked over a bite of jerky. “There’s probably not as many, at least if you’re strict about the definition. In baseball you’d definitely be a star if you hit the ball into orbit, but the others tend to have a specific place where you want the ball to go. That can be the other side of the court, like tennis, volleyball, or badminton — or even ping-pong — but then there’s golf, where it looks like you’re trying to whack the ball as far as possible, but really you’re aiming for a tiny hole at the end of the field.”

“Six again,” Wio commented. “Or just one, depending on definitions.”

“I know I’m forgetting some,” I said. “What else is there where you throw the ball as far as possible? I mean, there’s competitive javelin throwing, but that’s not the same kind of game. One person at a time going for the highest score, instead of two teams playing against each other at the same time. With javelins, that would just be actual warfare, and then you’d be aiming at people anyway, not going for distance.”

Wio finished the fish paste. “You do seem to have a lot of team games,” she said. “I’m used to more of that ‘highest score’ kind.”

“Yeah?” I asked, intrigued. “What kind of sports do Strongarms have?”

“Well, we do have some that are cooperative,” she admitted. “At least where I’m from. A lot of races, some with an object to carry and a goal. Sometimes the object is a teammate. And there are a few varieties of wrestling, some with limitations or challenging locations.”

“That sounds fun. Challenging how?” I reached for more jerky, and realized the package was empty. I moved on to a squeeze-tube of applesauce.

“Oh, there’s a bunch of options,” Wio said, waving a tentacle. “People are always coming up with more. My favorite is probably the balancing on top of a pole one.”

“Cool.” The applesauce was nice and cinnamon-y. “Do you have a least favorite?”

“In a box,” she said immediately. “That one is stupid and hard.”

“I bet!” I said.

Wio began peeling what looked like a blue-and-green onion. “But anyway, most of the competitions are solo challenges. Lots of puzzles. And many of the ones with multiple people acting at once are just a way of saving time so we don’t have to wait to see who’s best at the puzzle.”

“Do you do any climbing?” I asked. “Obstacle courses?”

“Oh sure,” she said. “Some of the races are vertical. And there’s a whole category of seeing who can wriggle through odd-shaped openings the fastest.”

I watched her peel the thing, which had far more layers than I’d expected. “Sounds like the only games with a ball to move around are the races. Some of them.”

Wio paused and stared at the wall with a thoughtful expression on her octopuslike face. “I’m probably forgetting some too, but nothing’s coming to mind. There are things with floating objects, but those are more swimming challenges, not focusing on the objects themselves.”

“Pity,” I said as she finally ate the core of the onion, which was the size of a grape. “Ball games can be a lot of fun.”

“I believe you,” she said in the tone of someone not particularly motivated to do anything about it. Then she started eating the blue onion skins like potato chips.

“Have you ever tried one?” I pressed. “Even a simple thing like catch or keep-away?”

“I don’t know what either of those are, but I can guess.” She said, crunching away.

“What about…” I searched through my food options for an orange or a walnut or something. I found a tuna can. “Table hockey! Here, set the trays on the bench; I just want to show you real quick.”

I didn’t really expect her to agree, but she shoved the last of the crunchy things in her mouth and moved the remainder of her lunch. This table wasn’t very wide, hardly a proper playing field, but that would make it easier for a rookie. I set my tray on the bench seat next to me and explained the rules. “We just whack it towards each other and try not to let it fall off our side of the table. If you get it off my side, you get a point. Got it?”

“And the other sides are no one’s point, right?”

“Right. If we want to make it harder, we can say you lose a point for hitting it off there, but no need.”

“All right.” She splayed an unfair number of tentacles across her side of the table. “Let’s do it.”

I shoved the can at a reasonable speed, only to have her thwap it back at me hard enough to hurt when I caught it. I laughed. “Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?”

Wio smiled with her weird little alien mouth. “Was that meant to be difficult?”

“Oh, it is on.”

Thus began a riotous game of table tuna, which ended up making such a ruckus of laughter and whacks against the cabinets that Eggskin came in from the kitchen to see what was going on.

Wio waved three tentacles at them. “We’re playing an Earth sport!”

“I see,” they said, turning their scaly head in a clear inspection for damage to the cabinets. “I trust you’ll be eating the contents of that can, now that you’ve thoroughly dented it.”

“Sure, sure,” I said, turning the can over. “Oh, this is starting to leak, isn’t it?”

“And I trust you’ll be cleaning up your own mess?”

“Yep. Sorry.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Eggskin swept away with all the dignity of an elder who’d caught the kids getting into trouble. I had no idea how old they were, but they definitely had grandparent vibes sometimes.

Luckily the can had only dripped a little, and was easy to wipe up. Wio and I were soon back with lunches in front of us. I was looking for crackers to put the tuna on when Wio spoke up.

“You should try a Strongarm game now.”

I looked up. “I suppose that’s fair. Do you have one in mind?”

She held up a white jar with multiple seams and no obvious lid. “A classic puzzle is opening something without looking. Like this youth-proof seal.”

“Okay,” I said, holding out a hand for it. “I’ll give it a shot.”

Instead of handing it to me, she grinned wider. “You can’t just sit there, of course. You should lie down on your back. And open it under the bench behind you.”

“Whaaat,” I said. “You are making that up.”

She was outright giggling now. “This is literally a child’s game to see if they’re old enough to open containers on their own.”

“Fine.” I got as comfortable as I could on the hard bench, and she handed me the jar. I held it under the bench, and immediately regretted my choices. “Ow. This game was designed for someone who has tentacles instead of shoulder joints.”

Wio’s voice oozed amusement. “Surely you can handle a child’s puzzle? Come on, I’ll open this one at the same time. See if you can beat me.”

I grunted, twisting at yet another part that didn’t twist. Today’s lunchtime had turned out so educational. “I guarantee you I cannot.”

~~~

Inspired by this post, and also partly by the octopus skill at opening jars.

Ongoing backstory for the main character of this book. More to come!

#my writing #the Token Human #humans are weird #haso #hfy #eidw #sports #humans are space orcs #sports classification

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sixhours · 11 months ago

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One Day at a Time - Chapter 5 - Labor

Series Chapter Index | Read on AO3 | Complete

Rating: Explicit, 18+, here be smut Series tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel Miller x f!OFC, Joel & Ellie, mostly follows canon, SMUT, gratuitous smut, dubious consent (drunk sex), unplanned pregnancy, fluff, references to past miscarriages, angst, hurt/comfort, romance, age gap (~21 years), childbirth, fluffy baby stuff, I've probably forgotten some so please let me know <3

Charlie and Joel find a new routine, stumbling around each other in the early days–passing each other in the hall with stilted greetings, overly polite glances, two lone wolves sharing a den.

The hardest part of having her around is her insistence on doing things . He finds the laundry hamper in his bathroom empty, the dishes washed and put away in the cupboard, the floor swept and the bookshelves dusted.

“You don’t need to clean up after me,” he grumbles after finding a bunch of his shirts folded and pressed and stacked neatly on the bed in Ellie’s old room. “Didn’t ask you here to be a maid.”

“I have to do something,” she says from her place on the couch. “They have me on reduced hours. All I do is water plants and sort donations, and there are only so many books to read. At this rate, I’ll be halfway through the library by the time the kid is born.”

“That’s the point. You’re s’posed to rest,” he says.

“I haven’t bled in three weeks,” she says. “The kid’s fine. I’m fine. A load of laundry isn’t going to kill us.”

He winces. “Don’t say it like that. And I can do my own damn laundry.”

In a vain attempt to get her to stay put, he brings home stacks of DVDs from the library and makes movies a nightly routine. If nothing else, it keeps her off her feet for a couple of hours, and he already knows they have similar tastes. Sometimes Ellie joins them, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, and their weird little arrangement feels almost familial.

On one such night, Charlie is fast asleep when the movie credits roll. Ellie bowed out halfway through, claiming she couldn’t take the cheesy dialogue for one more second.

Charlie’s head is propped on a pillow next to Joel’s thigh, and he resists the urge to push an errant strand of silver hair out of her eyes. Instead, he draws a fingertip down her cheek until she stirs.

“You missed the best part,” he murmurs. “And you’re droolin’.”

“Mmm.”

She wipes a hand across her mouth and blinks up at him. It’s a long, lingering look that has him brushing the hair from her eyes after all, eager to have an excuse to touch her, if only for a second.

He realizes with a dull sense of shame that he wants to gather her in his arms and carry her to bed. The liquor that put them here may have acted as a lubricant, but at a different time, under different circumstances, he would have tried to get her to bed regardless.

The thought is pushed roughly aside as he stands slowly, stiffly, stretching through the low-level ache in his back, ignoring the creak in his knees.

He puts out a hand to help her up and she takes it, using it as leverage to hoist herself off the too-soft couch, overcoming her unfamiliar extra weight. Her hand lingers in his once she’s up, just a second too long, and he feels that familiar spark of heat low in his spine.

He fakes a cough and takes his hand away, grateful she can’t see the flush creeping up his neck in the low light.

“C’mon…let’s get you to bed.”

He plods up the stairs behind her, purposefully looking at his feet instead of the sway of her hips ahead of him.

“G’night, Joel,” she yawns, lingering in the doorway to his bedroom.

Christ, even her yawn is cute.

“Night,” he grates out, ducking into the spare room and closing the door behind him. He’ll wait until she’s settled, then he’ll go to the bathroom down the hall and take his second shower of the day, because there’s no fucking way he can jerk off in Ellie’s old room.

It’s different from what Joel remembers. There is no attempt to outfit a nursery, no crib or cradle to put together, no paint swatches smoothed onto the walls. There is no discussion of names, of gender, of a future beyond the current day; just a nightly mark in his pocket calendar, one more day in a long countdown. He doesn’t know if it’s a shared fear of losing the pregnancy or of making it too real; probably both.

Instead, they refer to the baby as a fruit, based on the list in the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” book that someone, probably Maria, dropped on their doorstep.

“How’s…is it Avocado?” he asks, returning home from patrol. Tommy must have pulled some strings with the council because he’s been put on daytime shifts only, no overnights, and nothing longer than six hours.

“I think it’s Pepper now. No…wait,” Charlie frowns, reaching for the book and flipping to a dog-eared page. “We’re up to Sweet Potato.”

He wrinkles his nose. “How is that a fruit?”

“I dunno, but it’s making me want fries.”

He does his best to stifle the urge to follow her around and pester her to eat, to drink, to relax, but tonight the question slips out before he can stop it.

“You hungry? Did you eat?”

“I was joking,” she sighs, and he catches the tail-end of an eye roll. “But no, I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Heard it’s pizza night at the caf. Prob’ly still have the good stuff if we go now. No mushrooms.”

“Sounds like heartburn waiting to happen,” she smiles. “But sure.”

They walk to the cafeteria together, a diversion from routine. Except for their nightly movie dates, they keep separate schedules, more like roommates than future parents.

”So, uh, you didn’t tell me before. How’s ‘Sweet Potato’?”

“Active,” she says, rubbing her stomach. “At least I think it’s the kid. Could be gas.”

He snorts a laugh. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It feels like…bubbles. Like fizzy bubbles, popping,” she says.

He nods. “You’re, uh, what, twenty weeks? Halfway.”

“You’re keeping track,” she says appraisingly.

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Her lips quirk in a smile. “I’m not.”

He’s managed to keep his head down and avoid the rumors, but he feels eyes on them when they enter the cafeteria together; the old man and the reclusive widow. It’s almost enough to make him turn around, but her hand is suddenly warm in his, steadying him.

“Maybe we should give them something to talk about,” she whispers, arching an eyebrow.

“Pretty sure this is ‘something’ enough,” he says, gently poking at her stomach with the edge of his tray.

They find a table in the corner, someplace Joel can keep his back to the wall and glare at anyone who offers more than a sideways glance. Normally the caf’s pizza is good, but tonight it tastes like cheese-covered cardboard. He’s head down, focused on cutting up his food into little squares when a familiar voice pipes up.

“Hey, lovebirds!”

He looks up to find Ellie standing at their table, holding her tray and grinning.

“Not gonna interrupt your date, just wanted to say ‘hi.’ I’m eating with Cat and Dina,” she nods to the other side of the room.

“S’not a–”

“Have fun,” she chirps. Then she’s gone.

“Sorry,” he mutters, pushing his food around on his plate. “She’s…a lot.”

“How’s she dealing with all this?” Charlie asks, gesturing between them.

“Same way she deals with everythin’,” he snorts. “Bein’ a wiseass.”

Charlie looks over her shoulder to where Ellie is now laughing with her friends.

“How’d she end up with you, anyway? You’re a bit of an unlikely pair.”

“Made a promise to a friend,” he says roughly. “Then she…stuck.”

“The unwitting father,” she says, smiling a little, then frowns. “I used to wonder what kind of mother I’d be…before this. Now I just hope we make it out of this pregnancy alive.”

“You will,” he says quickly because he can’t bring himself to imagine the alternative. “And you’ll do fine. The first years, it’s mostly just about keepin’ ‘em alive…stop ‘em from doing stupid shit.”

He’s watching Ellie as he says this.

“Then you love ‘em and hope for the best,” he says softly. “Not much else to it.”

“Sounds like you speak from experience,” Charlie says curiously, and a pit of anxiety burrows deeper into his stomach. Sometimes he forgets she doesn’t know about Sarah.

“I took care of Tommy,” he explains, flushing. “Our folks weren’t, uh, around much. It was just me an’ him for a long time.”

She nods. She’s finished her pizza and he’s still moving his around on his plate. He pushes his tray over to her.

“Here. M’not hungry.”

“You sure?”

He nods, and she takes the tray and picks up one of the tiny pizza squares he’s carved out, popping it in her mouth.

“Well, she seems pretty happy, all things considered,” she says, chewing thoughtfully. “You must be doing something right.”

He winces, thinking of Ellie’s dead weight in his arms and the despair in her eyes when he couldn’t tell her the truth.

“M’not so sure about that.”

The moan drifts across the hall, and Joel is out of bed and at her door in an instant. He’s only half dressed, hasn’t even put a T-shirt on. Ellie hasn’t had one of her nightmares in months, but he’s operating on pure instinct, something drilled into him from the time Sarah was a baby. It’s a honed reflex; he does it without waking, without thinking.

He stops at the threshold, blinking away the sleep before he can knock on the door to his bedroom.

His bedroom. Ellie sleeps in the garage. Charlie is here now, not Ellie.

Another low moan, a gasp…a sigh.

His face gets hot as he realizes what’s happening. He stands frozen in the hall, her breathing carrying through the door. Panting, another moan. Arousal sends a tight knot of heat to his groin.

Fuck.

He turns on his heel, eager to put space between them, to give her some privacy, but his foot lands on the squeakiest floorboard, the one he’s been telling himself he needs to nail down before someone trips on the damn thing, and the sound is unmistakable and deafening.

All sounds from his bedroom cease with a tiny gasp.

Shit shit shit.

He’s fixed in place. There’s the sound of her soft footsteps on the other side of the door, the creak of the knob as it opens.

“Joel?”

He turns around, fists clenching at his sides. “Sorry…I thought you were, uh…sick.”

She’s watching him intently, silver eyes burning into his in a way that takes his voice. She’s dressed in a thin tank top and underwear, the fabric clinging to her skin, dewy with sweat from the heat of the summer, or from…other things.

His brain goes fuzzy.

The lacy edge of the tank top barely covers her, swollen as she is, breasts and belly normally covered by an oversized button-down. His eyes are drawn to the naked swell of her abdomen over the crease of her thigh.

Then she’s reaching toward him, and he catches her wrist before her palm makes contact with his bare chest, but just barely. The heat radiates off her and he feels every single degree of temperature.

“I…should go,” he murmurs, but his throat has gone dry and it comes out as a croak.

“Joel–”

He’s still holding her wrist when she moves toward him and presses her face to the center of his breastbone, her breath like a blessing on his skin. He can’t stop her, can’t turn her away, even as his hand holds her wrist steady and apart, the rest of her slides against him. Her forehead presses at the spot under his chin.

It’s so slow–so painfully, breathtakingly slow, this connection.

“We–” is all he can get out when he feels her lips on his chest, an open-mouthed kiss to his pec, and he shudders. Her tongue peeks out, lapping once at the tender skin, tasting him.

His other hand cups the back of her bare neck, intending to pull her away, but he’s entranced by the softness at her nape, the warmth of the skin, the way the muscles and bones shift under his palm. She has deftly extracted her wrist from his grip and is holding the hand that was meant to keep her at bay, fingers laced together and tucked between their bodies like a secret.

She tips her head back, waiting for the last vestiges of his control to break. It’s her eyes that do it, silver and shining with want…and sadness.

I’m here, I’m here, you can have this.

Oh, he really should turn away.

He kisses her like it’s the first time because he can’t remember the first time; only that it put them here. Maybe it hadn’t been the alcohol after all, because he’s lost himself to the first sip of her mouth. She tastes like chocolate, sweet and rich and deep, and he is so achingly hungry when she licks the taste of herself into him.

She’s pulling him, or maybe he’s pushing her, guiding her to the bed. His bed. Where she’d been touching herself not moments before–

He groans and separates himself from her just as she sinks onto the mattress.

“I need…I need a minute,” he gasps. He feels insane, primal, out of control. He needs this to just slow down and give him half a second to think, but he can’t fucking think because the blood is no longer answering to the part of his body that controls decision-making.

Charlie gets to her knees on the bed, swaying a little as she adjusts to her burgeoning center of gravity. “You asked how you could help. This is how. You can be with me.”

“Is that…really what you want?”

She blinks at him, slow and measured. Her voice shakes. “I want…I want to forget, just for a little bit. I want to…pretend.”

“I’m old enough t’be your father,” he grits out, even as he’s drawn to her, even as his hand finds hers and closes the distance. He watches their fingers entwine as if enchanted, her narrower ones sliding between his thick ones, the clutch of her nails skipping across the ridges of his palm.

“But you’re not my father,” she says evenly.

“The midwife said no–”

“It’s fine,” she soothes, placing his hand on her waist. She’s so fucking close and she smells like sex.

“Please.”

The catch in her voice dissolves what’s left of his restraint and his arm slips around her more fully, pulling her into him, his hand finding the soft skin under her tank top. He holds her close, feeling the thrum of his pulse at his throat when she kisses him there, licking at the scruff of his beard.

Then she’s urging him onto the bed, straddling his hips with her own, draping herself over him, her skin melting against his like warm honey. He feels feverish with want, with need, so lost in the sensations he’s denied himself for months that he might as well be drunk for all the control he has.

He nuzzles at one breast, cups the other, dark-tipped and heavy in his palm. She arches and whimpers when his thumb grazes a nipple, keens when he licks and licks and sucks it into his mouth, feels the pebbled skin tighten under his tongue.

She sits up on her knees, urges his boxers down over him before he fully realizes what she’s doing. He tries to still her with a hand to her hip.

“I don’t wanna hurt–”

“You won’t,” she says, and then she’s pulling her underwear aside and sinking on his length with a gasp and a whimper, fingers gripping his chest to steady herself as she rocks against him, taking him inside with slow, careful thrusts. A groan wrenches itself from his throat and he has to stop himself from thrusting up into her.

“There, there,” she whimpers, finding the right angle, pressing against him, rolling her hips until his cock is stroking and hitting that spot over and over. It doesn’t take long until she’s panting, whimpering, please, please, yes there, please, as she uses his body to climb higher.

He’s murmuring now, soft words of encouragement and praise and nonsense at her throat, her neck, wherever his mouth can reach. He doesn’t stop even when she kisses him, rumbling into her mouth, laying the words against her tongue with his own like an offering, yes, baby, just like that, so good, take it, take it, I got you, take it.

She comes with a final roll of her hips, pressing him inside her as deep as she can and grinding against him with a wail. He feels the pulse and flutter of her contractions around him, her eyes clamped shut, blunt nails digging into his shoulders. Her lip quivers and she lets out what sounds like a sob.

She slides off him with a whimper, tucking into the crook of his arm.

“Just…a sec,” she breathes.

He’s dizzy with her scent, her touch, still not entirely sure how they got here…again. But now her fingers are skating over his stomach and down, taking him in her hand and stroking him, watching his face.

“You don’t…have to,” he grits out, rolling to face her and edging backward to give her space. But she’s shimmying out of her underwear and hooking her leg over his hips, pulling him closer. She reaches between them to stroke his cock through her folds, then urges him inside with a sigh.

Pleasure sinks its hot tendrils into him as she rocks against him, her face pressed to his chest, soft panting at his collarbone. His free hand roams the landscape of her body, the hard swell of her womb pressed into the softness of his stomach, the weight of her breast in his hand.

He feels her fingers at the base of his cock, slicking herself, and his hand follows, covering hers.

“Show me,” he whispers.

She does, and he picks up her rhythm, swirling the pad of his finger around her swollen clit, yes yes, like that, more . He’s surprised when she comes again almost immediately, so sensitive, clamping tight and nipping at his clavicle. She grips his hip and grinds against him, forcing him to fuck her through it until he’s cresting.

“Gonna…soon…” he pants, trying to pull out, but she locks her leg tighter around him.

“Inside,” she whispers, grabbing at his jaw and pulling his mouth to hers.

He groans, pulling back to see her face. “You sure?”

“S’the worst that can happen?”

She looks down at them, at the swell just above where their bodies are joined, and then tilts her chin up and grins, a coy, fucked-out smirk that makes his cock ache and kick and throb inside her.

“Oh…oh fuck ,” he whispers, and then he’s pouring into her.

Her hand is splayed on his cheek when he comes to, her eyes closed, nose pressed to his jaw.

“Y’okay?”

“Mmm,” she sighs, a tiny, breathy little thing. She’s already half asleep.

“Should I—“

“Stay,” she murmurs, leg still locked around him.

He does.

#fanfic #joel miller #the last of us hbo #the last of us #fic recs #pregnancy #babyfic #baby #smut

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goblincow · 2 months ago

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Dragonmeet was a blast.

Everyone's lovely. Got to chat with Luke Gearing for ages (whose shoes I tiptoe in on the daily, Melsonia's Fever Swamp was the second TTRPG book I ever bought) and with Melsonia's Andrew Walter (The Weird That Befell Drigbolton was the first TTRPG book I ever bought and we've been emailing for 4 years while working on TPPAPPOP) and so many other really brilliant folks.

I got to finally meet @anarcutie (we don't just exist on the internet isn't that wild) and a bunch of other usernames I've been orbiting for years, and catch up with all the ones I met for the first time last year.

It's such a brilliant indie ttrpg space full of really enthusiastic knowledge sharing and advice, being in the real world is just magical, but I'm also conscious that many people don't have access to a space like that and I want to bring back some of the nuggets of wisdom I gleaned.

I took *so many* notes to write up, probably in my newsletter but as I type I'm thinking about reaching out to the other tumblr users who attended and maybe we can figure out how to do a little shared write up of talks or panels we want to share lessons from?

My big takeaway though: making Indie TTRPGs and getting them into people's hands is so doable!

You *can* make games in a way that works for you, publishers/distributors/retailers all want you to polish and show off your weirdest stuff, there are people who want to support you and figure out what you need to make it happen, and they've all long since accepted that it's DIY for life.

Whatever shape the write up takes it'll also be shared in this space once it's done, and if that sounds remotely interesting to you it's definitely worth hopping in there if you're not already (it's quite lively but not overwhelming):

Other notes from dragonmeet:

The uniform of game designers is overwhelmingly a pair of vans or docs and I reckon if we collectively say it with enough gusto we can absolutely file our nice shoes as business expenses.

Additionally, there is a massive oversaturation of Joshes, Chrises and Matts so I propose that anyone entering the scene with those names needs to change at least one letter (not including me tho I'm last in under my own non-arbitrary cutoff don't worry about it).

And check out these goodies. I traded for most of the small stuff & Melsonia insisted on shoving the entire stack of books at the back into my bag (they're good people but my shoulders disagree).

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg dev

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itsbenedict · 5 months ago

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From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings | 4/18 | 3/3

You enter the CURVE HOUSE, which turns out to not actually be there. Instead, you realize you can USE VOUCHER to get food- and you're in dire need of sustenance. The hallucinations are starting to get dire- the lower your hunger, the more wildly inadvisable options like EMOTIONAL PETER or A HOTTEST VADER will occur to you, like annoying television ads. Beware THIS UNRIGHTEOUS TV!

Problem is, you're pretty sure this Siren's Arraignment place is one of the two ghost ships out at sea, which is a ways (3 ways, specifically) away. If you tried going on foot and swimming, you'd starve to death the instant you got there.

Luckily- and Adea has a number of questions about DIGITAL ANTHROPOMORPHISM that Walter is not equipped to answer- you are both bird people, somehow. And since you're all the way up in the steampunk spires, you have some height you can use to glide to your destination without exerting yourselves too much.

You find, conveniently, a big sign at the back of one of the two ghost ships reading STACK OVÉRFLOW CAFÉ VOLTWORKS, which saves you a lot of perilous searching around while surrounded by ghosts.

Problem is: the café is infested with ghosts.

That, and... to use a voucher, you need to kind of, hand it to café staff? And order stuff? But you're trapped in a deserted otherworld where no one except the two of you and miscellaneous incomprehensible glitch-monsters appears to exist. This voucher might be of some use in the real world, but... uh. You're not sure how to spend it, here.

...There are shelves behind the bar covered in bottles of various drinks, though. And... a few golden butterflies, drifting throughout the room. What should you do? Apart from the FILIAL TWINS and NETTLE SPECIMEN, many mirages present themselves to your hunger-addled minds (many of them unhelpful or unsafe):

The cheeriest goth whose sox you once tried to steal is holding a celebration of the things those socks go up to: a GOTH THIGHS FEST, appreciated by the truly cultured.

There's a bunch of silverware you could steal and use to eat something, but it's SHEATHED SILVER, which could be hard to remove and use.

You just flew in from the steampunk spires, and boy are your arms tired! Not a joke. Because you're birds. You're tired and there's some FORMAL PERCHES set aside for you to rest on. Fancy!

There was a lightningbolt on the Café Voltworks sign outside, but ELECTRIC BOLT LEFT US, and it seems to have disappeared. Where'd it go?

Adea, Walter's partner and friend and overall pal, seems to be on one knee to recuperate from the flight. Since HAWK PAL KNELT, why not the dove pal?

Some of the ghosts are swordfish who're swinging their noses at each other, like martial arts weapons. Should you join in on their NOSE KARATE GAMES?

Hey, there's some food! It's just one single nacho, but it's prepackaged and unopened, so the SEALED NACHO is probably still good. You could split it, maybe?

Continued

#lost in hearts #back from funeral and mostly recovered from being sick and back in the saddle #careful with this one! lot of bad options here #since you're starving and all.

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effervescentbee · 1 year ago

Text

More punkflower rambles because the panic still hasn't set in

So miles likes to draw his crushes, right? He'll fill his sketchbooks with just that person and draw them on walls while doing graffiti, but what if him drawing his crushes didn't end at that?

We've all drawn on a school paper or in our notebooks at least once, just absentmindedly doodling while the teacher talks and stuff. So, what if miles drew Hobie on his assignments in class?

What if, before he met Hobie and still had a crush on Gwen she would be the person who he constantly drew on his assignments. His teachers would recognize her since she briefly went to the school and in the teachers lounge they would sometimes bring it up

They'd be like "you know that miles kids? Yeah, the one that draws Gwen all the time" and it was just common knowledge between the teachers that it wasn't possible to grade an assignment of his without seeing a Gwen drawing

Then miles disappears for a few days while the whole spot thing is happening and when he gets back he has a mountain of work to catch up on. By this time he doesn't have a crush on Gwen anymore so when he turns all his work in it's without any Gwen drawings

The teachers are a bit shocked by this but ignore it and assume it's because he had so much work and couldn't afford to waste a single second

Then a days go by and the lack of Gwen drawing is really bizarre to them. They talk about it a bit in the teachers lounge but they don't do much cause it isn't their place to be interrogating him about his love life

Then miles begins drawing Hobie on his school work. The teachers are again shocked and once again talk a bit about it. It quickly becomes the new normal to see drawings on Hobie everywhere on his assignments

One day there would be a 'new student' roaming the halls. The teachers see him the first day he arrives and don't pay any attention to him because he isn't in any of their classes

They get suspicious when they realize that they see this kid inconsistently and they've never seen him go into a class, they only see him at lunch hanging out with Miles or in the halls

They then realize that he's the guy miles has been drawing and that he's not supposed to be at the school at all.

Once they realize this that they can't just let them wander into the school whenever he wants because safety issues and stuff so every week there's a chase for Hobie by the security guards

Miles of course gets interrogated about this cause he obviously knows Hobie but he refuses to say anything and insists he doesn't know him

Then one day security catch Hobie and bring miles into the office and interrogate them again but they both deny knowing each other

The principal then pulls out a box full of miles classwork that has drawings of Hobie and so they're caught

And Hobie is shocked and forever teases miles about that and miles is threatened by the school with detention and a call home if they catch Hobie at school again

Ngl I wrote all that just because the idea of the principal placing a stack of papers with a bunch of Hobie drawing Infront of miles and Hobie is so funny to me

I went into this with only the goal of incorporating that part and Ive just been going on and on about the first thing that pops into my mind and this probably makes no sense

#miles molares #punkflower #hobie brown #hobie x miles #miles x hobie

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fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction · 4 months ago

Text

Memory of Mementos

“Y’know, you’re supposed to at least look like you’re having fun playing these games,” Cassie sighed, juggling the wooden ball in her hand as she gauged her next toss. Her eyes glanced furtively over at Gregory, mouth twitching into a matching frown when the grim scowl remained on the boy’s face. “When’d you get so sour over this? You used to get a kick out of beating my scores,” she added. He remained silent, folding his tickets into a stack, and Cassie sighed again. “This is about those weird prizes, isn’t it?” she asked quietly.

“I got an old security camera tablet, Mr. Schmidt’s name tag from when he worked for Freddy’s a long time ago, and the hard drive for a Chica that doesn’t have Afton’s personality programming but has fingerprints of the same kind of coding that’s in Freddy,” Gregory grumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Cassie to hear but not travel further than the two of them. “I don’t know what’s going on, but that stupid puppet thing keeps giving me this old stuff, or at least pointing to where to go to get it, and there’s gotta be a reason for it, right?” He looked over at her, an uncertainty in his eyes that made his frown look all the grimmer.

“Maybe you’re supposed to give it to Afton Robotics? Or Fazbear Entertainment?” Cassie suggested with a shrug, rolling her ball and watching it coast over the felt lane and fly up into a hole for another fifty points to her score. Still short compared to Gregory’s; the tickets printed out in a long ribbon. “All that stuff was from the Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza that used to be here, but got sealed up behind that wall or was hidden in the Egg Baby. You’re an Afton, so maybe you’re supposed to give that stuff to your family’s company?” she finished and collected her tickets, counting them up with a grin. A little bit more and she’d be able to afford the custom Circus Baby lunchbox set. It’d be a great collectable to add to her dad’s collection. Once he came home, he’d be happy to see something new to collect.

“I dunno. That doesn’t feel like what I’m meant to do with ‘em,” Gregory replied, folding his arms over his chest as he watched her fold her tickets up like he usually did. “If these are supposed to go to Fazbear Entertainment, why were they hidden like this? Sealed up behind that wall or stashed inside the Egg Baby? Miss Corbett says she bought a bunch of the stuff in here from some weird catalogues that came from her pizzeria start up package, so she probably doesn’t know about the puppet thing and the Egg Baby acting like this.”

The two of them left the skee-ball games to let another group of kids have their turn, walking towards the prize counter to see what they’d be able to get. Cassie let her gaze wander over to the Egg Baby as they passed it, watching as a boy and his mother fed a few tickets into a slot on the animatronic. The eyes swept back and forth as usual and didn’t change at all, even as the smaller Egg Baby in its stomach slid out and popped open the red ball it held to display an assortment of plastic toys and clear goodie bags full of sweets.

She hummed and then looked ahead to the security puppet. It was present at the counter, lifted up from its box to be taller as it held out a hand to collect tickets from a teenager to trade for a prize. The teen pointed out the large foam dart rifle and the puppet closed its hand over the tickets before turning in place to stretch an arm to near impossible lengths to grab the rifle and bring it down. With the exchange complete, the teen walked off with a happy grin and the puppet descended into the box to deposit the tickets before resuming its position at the counter.

“Nobody else gets that weird treatment with their trades,” Cassie pointed out with a blink of realization, “What makes you so special? Is it because you’re an Afton?”

Gregory clicked his tongue in irritation as they reached the counter. “Better not be cuz of that,” he groused and rubbed his head when Cassie gave him a questioning look, “Uh, I’ll tell you later.”

They reached the counter and the security puppet looked first at Cassie and her tickets. She quickly shoved them into her pocket and the puppet turned its attention to Gregory. She held her breath, watching curiously as Gregory held up his folded stack of tickets. The puppet held out its hand to accept them, spindly fingers carefully closing over them once Gregory placed them in its palm. It stood still for a moment, then descended into the box to tuck them away.

“It didn’t wait for you to point at anything from the prizes? It waits for everyone else,” Cassie muttered, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

“Yeah, it does that every time,” Gregory agreed with a nod, “First time it happened, you thought I broke it, remember?” His eyes narrowed a bit. “It kinda seems like it was thinking about what to give me. Like there’s a pre-programmed list of ‘prizes’ it’s supposed to give me specifically,” he remarked.

“But you’ve never been here before that field trip, right?” Cassie asked in confusion, “And Circus Baby’s Pizza and Parties got these animatronics ages ago.. so how did they get programmed to react to you back then when you never met them?”

Gregory scowled, eyes darting back and forth as he turned that over in his head. “That’s.. a really good question,” he agreed slowly.

The puppet had risen from its box again, staring at Gregory until the two kids turned their attentions back to it. Only then did it raise a hand to point at the far wall of the pizzeria, or rather the large vent grille that Gregory had crawled through last time the puppet had pointed into the distance.

“Fuck my life, you want me to go over there?! Again?!” he complained, throwing up his hands in exasperation, “Nobody cleans over there! It’s full of dust and crap. Do you want me to pick up an allergy or something?!”

“Oh, so that’s why you disappeared on me,” Cassie sighed, adjusting her backpack straps, “I remember you vanishing for a while and scaring me half to death. Guess we’ll have to search the other side of the wall for something?” Gregory gave her a pained expression before groaning in frustration, turning on his heel, and stomping off. She quickly chased after him, determined to follow where he went so he wouldn’t disappear on her again.

She wasn’t going to lose yet another person just because they left her sight for too long...

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

The grate on the other end of the tunnel shook a few times from repeated kicks before finally popping off to hit the tile floor. The familiar faint alarm rang in haunting tones as Gregory crawled out, nose wrinkling at the different appearance of the derelict pizzeria, then turned to hold out his hand, helping Cassie out of the vent. She pulled herself to her feet with his grip steadying her. Once she was clear, she looked around herself in awe, eyes wide as she took in the dingy blue-grey walls and grimy checkered tile, flimsy streamers hanging from the ceiling still as death. Rather than lead her deeper down the maze-like tunnel to the other section of the pizzeria, Gregory chose to break through a closer vent entrance but hadn’t expected a drastically different look to the place.

“So this is the old Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza from the far past?” she asked in a hushed tone, as though unwilling to break the silence. Gregory nodded, eyes darting over to see the pale blue mist gathering nearby to form the ghostly figure that had followed him around the first time he was here. “It feels.. cold.”

“Yeah, creepy, huh? Also head’s up, the old fart’s here to pester us about trespassing or whatever,” he announced, folding his arms over his chest and squinting at Six approaching them with a flat glare.

“Who?” Cassie asked in confusion, looking around them as she shifted closer to Gregory’s side, “Where?”

“Newsflash, dipshit,” Six declared, stopping in front of the kids and planting his hands on his hips, “She’s not Remnant-fucked like us. Can’t see me or hear me, so try not to look crazy in front of your little girlfriend.”

“Uh, sorry, lame prank attempt,” Gregory stammered out, face reddening as he glared back at the spirit, who only gave him a smug smirk for a split second before his expression went back to a mix of neutral and ‘done with this shit’. “So, apparently this was the old Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza where Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Fitzgerald used to work before it all got shut down.”

“Why’d it get shut down? People love Freddy’s Pizza places!” Cassie exclaimed in surprise before blinking and then narrowing her eyes, “And no pranking in creepy places! It’s not even Halloween!”

“Yeah, they stop loving a place once they catch on that a bunch of kids that went missing all at the same time there turned up dead and mashed to bits inside the animatronics,” Six drawled sarcastically and shrugged, “Place went through a lotta carpet and bleach. Probably why that Pizzaplex shithole has mostly tile and metal flooring; easier to clean the blood off.”

“Uh, too many meat pretzels?” Gregory filled in, walking away hurriedly to start searching.

“They had those back then?” Cassie questioned with a confused expression, following him while Six rolled his eyes, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked after them both, “What a weird reason to close a place down.”

Cassie checked her phone as Gregory led her down a long hall, flashlight in hand to help him navigate them both around fallen debris from years of neglect. Every now and then she would lift it up to take a photo of their surroundings, peering into the dark party rooms as they passed them. He would pause in their walk to let her take the photos and shine his flashlight into the party rooms for her to better see.

Through it all the security guard spirit stood by them, silent after his initial disgruntled greeting. His expression remained mostly blank, unreadable save for the odd sadness in his eyes that Gregory could still pick up. It almost made him feel bad for bothering the guy by coming back to this side of Circus Baby’s Pizza and Parties, but something was going on that nobody knew about -again, because clearly nobody had any clue that kids and employees were fucking vanishing at the Pizzaplex thanks to Vanny’s weird experiments until he got loose and wrecked the place- and he had to follow up on it.

“Dad would’ve loved seeing some of this,” Cassie said suddenly, pulling Gregory’s attention to her. She had gone into one of the party rooms, holding a faded paper mask shaped like a rabbit’s face. She looked up at Gregory with a wobbly smile. “Bonnie was Dad’s favorite. Has a whole collection of Bonnie merch that he had stashed away but didn’t stop him from getting more collectables if he could find any,” she added and sighed, setting the mask down carefully on a party table. “He’s already got a vintage Bonnie mask, but.. y’know.”

“I’m sorry,” Gregory murmured, gut twisting as he thought back to those disappeared employees. He still had no idea if Cassie’s dad was one of them, a victim that Vanny had made Sydney get rid of when the Pizzaplex staff got replaced by animatronic versions. Maybe there was a chance of him being alive if he took a sick day? But then where would he be that he couldn’t come back home?

“I wonder if Fazbear Entertainment knows anything,” Cassie muttered with a suspicious tone in her voice, “since Mr. Fitzgerald said he had something of a deal with the company over his dad’s time working for them. Maybe it’s the same with my dad.” She pulled away from the table and shook herself off. “We’re here to find what the puppet sent us here to get for you. So let’s get going,” she decided firmly, “We can look into my dad when we get something to start with.”

Gregory nodded, unsure what else to say. If there were answers to be found, it wouldn’t be easy to find them and it was a pretty good chance they wouldn’t like what those answers would be. Cassie gave him another smile, a more confident one, and headed back out of the party room. He followed her out, glancing up at Six who had just leaned against a wall waiting for them to be done.

“You have any idea what I’m supposed to find this time?” he asked quietly, walking after Cassie while the spirit fell into step beside him.

“Since you’re heading this way.. I have a pretty good idea what the next thing is,” Six replied and sighed tiredly, “For what it’s worth.. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Gregory asked warily, but the spirit didn’t answer, just tugged the brim of his hat down to hide his eyes in the shadow.

At the end of the hall was a large entrance that gave a clear view of what looked like a security office. Gregory frowned in brief confusion; there was already a security office for the pizzeria, a smaller one with doors on the sides that could be closed. What’s with this one that only had a front entryway that was so wide open? He raised the flashlight to look up at the ceiling as he and Cassie approached the office. Other than the cracking, damaged tile there wasn’t anything to indicate a door that could come down to seal off the room from the rest of the building.

That made him feel far more anxious than the other security office.

“This place looks like a wreck,” Cassie remarked with a huff, walking in and picking her way past knocked over cardboard boxes and old posters that were strewn across the floor. “Didn’t anyone ever clean up in here?” She leaned over to look into large open vents in the sides of the office, taking more photos with her phone, the flash of the camera app lighting up the insides of the vents in bursts.

“There’s this guy who looks after this place who said that it got raided a long time ago, so the mess is probably from that,” Gregory offered, stepping up after Cassie lost interest in the vent. He kicked a cardboard box full of dusty streamers and party hats in front of the opening and felt a little more settled. He’d already done the same for the other vent so now both entrances were blocked. What else was he supposed to do?

“Hey, check out these lockers!” Cassie said excitedly, pointing at the dull and rusted metal containers lined up along the back wall behind the oddly bare desk. Gregory glanced over at Six for a moment, the spirit leaning against the entrance to the office and still silent, just watching them, before going over to join the girl wiping at the labels of the lockers where she could reach. “This one belonged to Mr. Fitzgerald,” she told him in a hushed voice, eyes bright with curiosity as she pointed at a locker.

“Wonder if he left anything in there?” Gregory asked and jiggled the latch to see if it would open. There wasn’t a lock like on some of the other lockers, and although it was hard to move from rust, the latch eventually gave way. The door swung open slowly and with a harsh scraping, metal dust flaking and breaking away from the hinges. Both kids looked in eagerly, curious to what may be inside.

The shelf in the locker had a sort of mask made from what appeared to be the actual head of an old Freddy Fazbear, the face and cheeks covered in aged fur fabric, straps screwed into place and held together by a cheap buckle. Next to it was a soft blue cap with the words ‘Night Shift’ printed onto it cheaply in black block lettering. A spare night shift uniform hung directly under it, matching soft blue shirt and navy blue slacks neatly pressed and faded in color from the dust that covered them. On the floor of the locker was an open first aid kit, many of its supplies missing, likely used, and a few spilled out. Some bandages fluttered out when the door opened, brand characters smiling on the wrappers from where they landed on the office floor.

“Wh-what kinda job did Mr. Fitzgerald have to be using up so much medical stuff when he was here?” Cassie asked warily, staring down at the kit with her brow furrowed. She looked up as Gregory reached out to pull the shirt forward for a better look at it.

“Short sleeves,” he remarked quietly. Cassie gave him a questioning look and his expression grew pinched. “You ever see Mr. Fitzgerald wear short sleeves now?”

Her look of confusion stayed in place for a while until a faintly horrified one took its place. “What happened here?!” she asked in a hushed scream, backing away from the locker. A creaking sounded overhead and Cassie looked up at the ceiling in fear.

“Cassie, it’s okay. This was all in the past! We’re good, we’re safe!” Gregory told her, glancing over at Six in hopes that he wasn’t lying through his teeth. The spirit nodded and he relaxed only a little. The open doorway was still making the hair on the back of his neck stand.

“Why would he need so much first aid on the night shift?!” she demanded to know, fists planted on her hips, “All he had to do was just watch cameras, right?!” Gregory shrugged, eyes wide. Maybe he hadn’t been joking about the whole ‘five nights of dealing with killer animatronics’ too. Freddy had to give him a lot of first aid during that night long ago. “Let’s just get what you need to find and go; it really is creepy in here,” Cassie whimpered, hugging herself and glancing up at the ceiling again.

“Sure,” Gregory agreed and looked at the contents of the locker again. It was so strange to see a uniform that Mr. Fitzgerald used to wear when he was young. So small...

Nothing really popped out at him as something to take, so Gregory carefully closed the locker door, listening to the latch lock in place. It sounded strangely final, like it wouldn’t feel right to open it again, ever. He smoothed his hand over the locker, palm pressed to the metal, then finally left it to look at another one.

Wait, why did Mr. Schmidt have a locker on this side too? “He had two lockers? What the heck?” Gregory questioned, tapping at the nameplate on the locker beside Mr. Fitzgerald’s one. He didn’t take Cassie as far down that main hall as he went last time, so maybe it was because the pizzeria was actually big enough that it needed two security offices? The Pizzaplex had so many more for each section of the place so that sort of made sense. Mr. Schmidt would be the more senior security guard so he’d have a locker in both offices first; maybe Mr. Fitzgerald only managed to get the one before the place shut down?

“You got an old security tablet and Mr. Schmidt’s name tag,” Cassie puzzled out as she rubbed her chin, “Maybe the puppet wants you to collect things that belonged to him?” Her mouth twisted to one side in confusion. “But why him? What’s the big deal about this one guard that isn’t even around anymore? Is Fazbear Entertainment that interested in the guy’s stuff?”

“Maybe he had dirt on the company and this was a way of hiding that dirt so Fazbear Entertainment couldn’t make it disappear? Mr. Fitzgerald said that he had evidence about some stuff involving his dad and the company that they didn’t want showing up in court, so I guess Mr. Schmidt had some other stuff for his own reasons,” Gregory offered with a shrug, jiggling the latch of the locker. Just like the one for Mr. Fitzgerald, it was rusty and hard to move but it eventually gave way, opening slowly with harsh scraping as Gregory fought against the aged hinges. Cassie peeked in over his shoulder as he stared at the contents in blank confusion.

There wasn’t much inside the locker beside small spatterings of rusty-brown stains on the shelf and floor, a strong smell of iron drifting around. An old fashioned camera rested on the locker floor as well, a point and shoot type that could print out its own photos to develop over time. Gregory had the FazCam back home that could do the same if he bothered to get the stuff for it. He had been mostly interested in the flash it could produce to stun animatronics back in the Pizzaplex.

“Is that.. blood?” Cassie whispered, her voice carrying a note of dread, “Why’s there blood in his locker?”

The camera wasn’t colorful or fun-looking at all. It was very plain and boring, brown and gray, the brand name sticker long faded and unreadable.

“So is the camera the thing you’re supposed to take?” Cassie asked hesitantly, “Gregory?”

A piece of white tape was pasted along the side near the bottom of the camera, the name ‘Mike’ scrawled on it in black marker. If any photos had been taken with it, they weren’t in the locker anymore.

He reached in and carefully picked up the camera, a numbness settling over him. Muscle memory took over as he lifted the viewing lens to his eye, turned, and pointed the other lens at Cassie. She gave him a concerned look as he pressed the button and took a picture. The flash wasn’t as bright or blinding, and the photo slid out the bottom to be taken as he lowered the camera from his face.

“Gregory?” Cassie asked softly, the concern still in her expression, “Why are you crying?”

How many people disappeared over the length of time he was stuck in the Pizzaplex’s lab? (How many people were swept under the rug after a failed night?) So many kids taken from families and killed. (So many guards snatched away from their families on a whim.) And here he was, the one who got away and built a family from the pieces he pulled from the Pizzaplex. (And there he was, the only survivor for the longest time, ever the one to walk out in the morning.)

Gregory raised a hand to his head, a dull ache throbbing behind his eyes as he blinked tears away. “It hurts,” he murmured distantly and Cassie immediately started digging into her backpack for spare headache medicine. With her distracted by that, he slid his gaze over to Six. The spirit just looked back at him with a forlorn expression, glancing down at the camera in his hands briefly.

“Guilt is painful,” Six told him solemnly, arms folded over his chest, hands gripping his sleeves tightly. Bandages were wrapped around his fingers, a detail Gregory had never noticed before. “The fact I still exist means it never stopped bein’ painful.” He smiled weakly. “But you already knew that, didn’t ya?”

“Here,” Cassie said, holding out a bottle of water and a pair of capsules in her hands, “This should help.” Gregory accepted the bottle and medication, taking them in silence while she took the camera from him and studied it carefully. “This is definitely the real deal. My mom used to have a camera like this. Grandma has photo albums full of pictures she took with it. What kind of photos did Mr. Schmidt take and where did they all go?” she wondered aloud.

Gregory rubbed his face dry with the back of one hand, the half empty bottle of water held tight in his grip. An instant photo camera, a pair of lockers bare of any photos, many lockers with nameplates scratched up or removed, and that look of guilt on Six’s face. Maybe Fazbear Entertainment had a habit of making people disappear long before the Pizzaplex was built? And yet both Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Schmidt walked away from everything in one piece, so why was he being directed to collect Mr. Schmidt’s things? He sniffled, rolling the bottle in both hands as he looked up at the other lockers.

“I think.. I think he was taking pictures of everyone that ever came to work here,” he said out loud and looked over at Cassie as she gingerly tucked the camera into her backpack for safekeeping.

“Well, yeah, that makes sense,” she agreed, reaching out to help him up as they prepared to leave the office, “There’s a big wall of photos at the supermarket for Employees of the Month, so they probably had something like that here.”

“Maybe,” Gregory said uneasily and finished off the bottle of water before dropping the plastic container into the office trash can. More crumpled paper cups jostled with the movement, old trash welcoming new.

The two kids began their walk back to the connecting vent, passing through the open entrance together as Six pushed away from the wall to follow alongside them. “I just don’t get it. Why do you wanna stay?” the spirit mused aloud, cocking his head aside when Gregory glared at him over his shoulder. “The hell you gettin’ mad at me for?” Six asked with a frown, “You’re the one walkin’ off with Mike’s relics. I need those for power, ya lil shit.” Gregory stuck out his tongue in response and Six just rolled his eyes in exasperation.

Shoulda known better than to be asking questions when he couldn’t answer. He was the one who told Gregory not to look crazy in front of Cassie, so why was he getting huffy that he couldn’t answer normally?

When they reached the opening for the ventilation tunnel, Gregory offered for Cassie to go through first. “I’m gonna try and put the cover back on behind us,” he claimed weakly, holding up the bent grille, “I’ll catch up in a bit, don’t worry!”

“Alright, but if you don’t show up over at Circus Baby’s in ten minutes, I’m telling your mom,” Cassie threatened, then crawled into the tunnel and disappeared into the shadows, soft thumps fading away as the faint alarms went off once more.

“As for you,” Gregory went on, turning to scowl at Six as he tossed the grille aside, “what the hell is your problem?! I’m trying to get some answers and you’re being a pain in the ass!”

“Takes one to know one,” Six shot back, hands on his hips as he glared back down at the boy, “And if you want my advice, kid, you’d be better off not huntin’ for more pieces.” The guilt flashed across his face for a moment before the scowl took its place again. “Leave this sorta shit to the Guards. Ya have a family that’s lookin’ out for ya and ya got a whole life ahead of ya. It’s not easy gettin’ away from Aftons or Fazfuck, but you did it. Don’t risk getting caught up in this shit again,” he urged.

“Fat load of good that did; none of them did anything until Sydney got kidnapped and by then me and Vanessa lost everything about ourselves!” Gregory snapped, one hand splayed over his chest, “My memories are gone! My Remnant’s been fucked to hell and back! Hers too! I dunno why that stupid puppet started giving me that guy’s old stuff, but if he had something that could shut down Fazbear Entertainment for good, then I’m gonna keep collecting it until I get those answers!”

“He had something the Aftons wanted, alright,” Six said scornfully, “And it sure as hell wasn’t any ‘dirt’ on their fucking company. If you thought they were already bad now, killing so many people over the years for their bullshit experiments, you’re definitely not gonna like how fucked everyone will be if they get hold of The Strength to Survive and The Warmth of Life. Do me a favor and stay the hell away from it all!”

“I’m gettin’ those answers and there ain’t shit you can do to stop me,” Gregory huffed, preparing to get into the vent himself, “Whatever those things are that Vanny wants, I’ll just get them first and fuck up her plans again.” He ignored the harsh bark of laughter from the spirit as he started crawling away, hoping to make it back to Circus Baby’s before Cassie made good on her threat.

She was way scarier when mad than Six could ever be.

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

“You cut it close~,” Cassie sang out with a teasing smile as Gregory tumbled out of the vent and rubbed his head.

“Sorry, I tried to get the cover back on and I guess I bent it out of shape too much,” he told her with a sheepish laugh, getting to his feet. She hummed, squinting at him suspiciously before shrugging.

“Yeah, you are weirdly strong for your size,” she agreed and pointed towards the games corner, “So now that we have the camera, do we take it over to the security puppet like you did last time?” He nodded, walking beside her as they made their way across the pizzeria to the games room and prize counter.

Gregory glanced around to track where everyone was in the dining area. Circus Baby was performing on stage, holding her hands up to make a heart shape for the kids cheering up at her while she danced. Miss Corbett was walking from table to table, checking in on families and her waitstaff to make sure everything was going well. Alex was hanging out near the door that led to the back offices and rooms, scanning the room sternly until he spotted Gregory. He raised a hand in greeting and Gregory waved back to reassure the guy that everything was fine and there was no need to investigate him messing around with the ventilation tunnel.

They reached the counter and waited their turn behind a group of teens who spent their pool of tickets on a badminton set and water pistols. Once they hurried off in a cloud of giggles, Gregory and Cassie stepped up with her digging the camera out of her backpack while he gave the puppet his usual glare of annoyance. She pulled it free and held it up, but the puppet made no movement, only stared down at Gregory unblinkingly.

“Why’s it not working?” Cassie asked in confusion, looking between the puppet and the camera, “Did we get the wrong thing?”

Gregory frowned, pulling his attention to her, then to the camera. Why wasn’t the puppet reacting? This was definitely something from Mr. Schmidt; Six said so. The puppet reacted to the nametag, so why...?

He blinked, looking at the camera in Cassie’s hands again. “Huh,” he muttered. Did it only matter if he was the one holding the stuff? “Here, give me the camera,” he said, “Let’s see if it works if I show it the camera.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Cassie said in a dubious tone, turning the camera over to him, “The puppet acts weird for you only, so why not be double weird when it’s not you? Where the heck did the owner of this place buy this thing from anyway?”

Gregory shrugged, taking the camera in his hands and then holding it up for the puppet to see. He tried not to think about the way his skin crawled holding it, a wrongness in the way he was treating the thing. Was there even a certain way he should? It was just a camera, why was it such a big deal?

The puppet immediately reacted once it saw the camera in Gregory’s hands, raising a finger to point at the Egg Baby again. He glared in frustration, huffing as he turned to walk over to the animatronic.

“Huh, so same as last time,” Cassie said thoughtfully, “The puppet and the Egg Baby.. they’re both programmed to react to Mr. Schmidt’s things, but only if you’re the one holding those things. So there’s a connection between you, Mr. Schmidt, and the person who programmed these animatronics, right?” She squinted her eyes at him as Gregory shrugged again, a faintly disturbed expression on his face.

“If there is one, I don’t remember what it is. Amnesia sure is convenient like that,” he griped, “The guy only had two kids, Mr. Fitzgerald and this old lady named Faith, and they didn’t recognize me as anybody different.” Gregory blinked as he remembered the sad look on the old woman’s face as she hummed a song that had put him so on edge he didn’t know if he was going to run away screaming or start throwing things at anything that moved near him. “..I think,” he amended uncertainly, “A lot of the grown ups connected to Mr. Schmidt are just weird, but I guess that’s cuz of all the crap they had to deal with.”

The Egg Baby’s eyes swept back and forth as usual until the two kids approached, the camera still in Gregory’s hands. It halted its gaze, locked onto Gregory’s face to run the familiar scanning sweep, then dropped the light down to the camera to do the same. The same soft whirring began to sound from the Egg Baby’s belly and the kids stepped back to give space for the smaller baby to push out the red capsule and pop open the lid.

“Are you gonna get another piece of old tech again?” Cassie asked dryly, blinking as the lid clicked open to reveal another heavy hard drive resting on the cushion.

“Two,” Gregory said quietly, reaching down to pick it up and mindful of the old cables wrapping around its case protectively.

“Guess that answers that question,” Cassie sighed, “What even is in these things? Did you check that first one you got some time back?”

“Yeah, animatronic programming,” he replied, looking between the two old pieces of technology in his arms, “I guess this one will have more. Huh. Mr. Schmidt was supposed to watch over the original Freddy Fazbear and friends when he worked at Freddy’s, so am I supposed to rebuild them with these?”

“Uh, how? You’re just a kid,” Cassie pointed out as they left the prize area to go back to their booth and wait for their respective guardians to pick them up, “I mean, yeah, you’re an Afton, but that really doesn’t make up for being a kid with, like, no money and also little.”

“Hey, I’m taller than you!” Gregory protested weakly, pouting as she just scoffed and gave him a teasing smirk.

“Barely,” she countered and sat back in the booth, pulling out her phone to text her grandmother, “Anyway, if those drives are of the original Freddy and friends, then do they belong to Afton Robotics? Since they bought Fredbear’s Diner and all their properties, like the old animatronics, y’know?”

“Mine now. Finders, keepers and all that shit,” Gregory told her with a tired grin. Vanessa and Sydney would be showing up since he only could stay at Circus Baby’s for a few hours to hang out with Cassie while they scouted the Pizzaplex for a good entry point. Freddy wanted to join them when they did the break-in, volunteering to help disable the other Glamrocks so that Vanessa and Sydney could get their chips using their higher level security badges. Mr. Fitzgerald wanted him and his friends to join in to get to whatever servers were in the building for more information about Afton’s plans, so they were probably going to have to figure out how to work around and with each other.

Meanwhile, Gregory was just trying to wrap his head around all these secrets and things that seemed to be tangling around him when all he wanted to do was just be happy with his family and maybe fix what he broke to make up for it.

“Might as well work on homework until my grandma and your mom shows up,” Cassie decided, pulling out a workbook from her backpack, “Did you bring yours?” She frowned at Gregory’s guilty expression, giving him a lidded glare back. “And then you wonder why our homeroom teacher is always on your case,” she sighed.

---------

In the safety of his own room, with Freddy looking over his shoulder with a strangely solemn air, Gregory connected the drive to his own computer, a refurbished setup Alex gave him to use for his coding practice so he’d stop borrowing the burner laptop. Animatronic programming filled the screen as he dug through the files, picking out names and identifying markers.

“Bonnie,” he read aloud, looking up at the sharp gasp Freddy uttered. The animatronic bear looked heartbroken, ears drooping as his newly rounded shoulders dropped, making him look wilted.

“Ah, Bonnie, a name I dearly hold of someone I miss very, very much,” he murmured in a low voice, “I confess that I hope our search of the Pizzaplex to rescue the Glamrocks would also lead us to find out what happened to Glamrock Bonnie.”

“No harm in trying, I guess,” Gregory offered with a small smile. It would be nice to find Freddy’s friend. Anytime he mentioned rabbits or looked at something that was related to the rabbit painted on the upper level of the atrium, Freddy always looked miserable. Glamrock Bonnie must have meant something special to him. He turned back to the screen and studied the lines of code carefully, frowning a little at the familiar writing.

He knew these commands somehow, this buried coding that was nested in deep and seemed to be gripping onto the software like a parasite. And above that was another set of programming blocks that was organized in a particular pattern, a different syntax from the base personality, the weird additions that were like Freddy’s code, and a broken security patch that seemed to be controlled by that parasitic code. It was all the same as what was in the drive for Chica.

“I’m gonna have to do a lot of fixing to bring these guys back,” Gregory sighed. More sleepless nights then.

He flexed his fingers to loosen them up, then bent to work.

#fanfiction #bits and pieces #fnaf gregory #fnaf cassie #parlourverse au

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salemruinseverything · 7 months ago

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Hi salem :3 how does one go abt making Kandi (like what do I buy/how do I do it)

OKAY preemptively putting this under a readmore. BUT

so all you really need is pony beads and string. i personally recommend a cloth-wrapped elastic string because they're easy to tie + hard to break but basically anything stretchy will work. the absolute most basic and beginner-friendly kandi you can make is a single- just put enough beads on the string to fit around your wrist/ankle/neck [depending on where you want to wear it] and tie it off, and bam. you have made kandi. singles are a good way to get used to the very basics of making kandi, and if just pony beads feels a little boring you can add letter beads to spell stuff out, or charms to add a little bit of extra decoration! here's some examples of singles ive made btw i will take any chance to show off my kandi

probably about a step up from that is kandi stars which i will be using this pinterest tutorial to show you how to do because i cannot figure out how to describe that in a way that makes sense

i make them to take to concerts and give to people its super fun :3 you can also thread one of the beads on the tip of the points into a kandi single to attach it! its a little clunky but i personally think clunky charms are fun. i cant find a picture of it rn but i saw someone once with a kandi single that said "whip it good" with an empty can of whipits attached to it and while that is honestly one of the very few drugs i do not condone i still think that was cute as fuck

once youve gotten comfortable with those, you can move on to making cuffs! [or start making cuffs immediately honestly because that's how i started but honestly i would recommend you not do that because it took me five tries to make a single cuff.] there are two common stitches for cuffs- peyote stitch [make a loop and then go back around putting a bead on the string, skipping over a bead, and then sticking the thread back in so that the two beads stick on top of each other], which is less flexible but easier to make more detailed patterns in, and x stitch [basically the same as kandi stars but bigger and taller, making a kind of x-shaped look], which is more flexible and better for the base of big complicated cuffs. the easiest, though, is a ladder cuff. i would show you abother pinterest tutorial for this one but i couldn't find one. but the tl;dr is that you make a row of beads and then stick the thread in from both sides. and then do it a bunch so it stacks

here's some video tutorials for peyote stitch & x stitch

anything more complicated than that i cannot help you with but 1. this is a good start 2. youtube has tutorials for everything

glhf!!!!!!!!!!! 💛💛💛💛

#salem answers a question #my friends!!

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starlady-baby · 1 year ago

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Juke Jeudi time! This time you get a double feature. Art and a story! Enjoy.

Ever since the stamps went away and Julie was able to hug her boys, things were going good in the Molina house. Although nobody knew how or why it happened, none of them complained about it. The boys could still spend time with their favorite alive person (because they still weren’t sure exactly what they were) and happy that they could still spend time with each other.

It was one of those days where things were more quiet than normal. Reggie was hanging out with Ray and Carlos, Alex was probably with Willie somewhere, and Luke was in the studio, working on a new song he and Julie had started. He hadn’t come up with any lyrics, but he’d started plucking out some notes on his guitar that fit with the melody they came up with.

Eventually all his ideas had been spilled out and he left the pages on the piano. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but Julie must be home from school now, right? He shrugged and poofed himself up to her room, hoping she’d be there.

She startled with a jump and rolled her eyes. She tried to look angry but Luke saw right through it.

“How did you even know I’d be here yet?” She asked, barely having set her backpack down by her bed.

“It was just a hunch.” He shrugged. “Whaddya say we go work on that new song?” He asked, a grin forming at the end of his lips.

“I would love to, but I just got slammed with a bunch of homework for tomorrow.” Julie sighed heavily. “And you remember what my dad said. I’ve got to focus on school first.”

“School can wait, Jules. You always get it done anyway, right?”

Once again she rolled her eyes. “Yes, but that’s not the point right now. I need to crank out some of this stuff before we go into the studio.”

Luke rolled his eyes and pouted. “C’mon… you’re sure you can’t just take a little break before working on your boring school work?”

“Yes, Luke, I’m sure. It won’t take long, okay? I promise we’ll work on it after.”

He was still pouting but nodded and sighed. “Fine. I guess we can do that.”

Julie smiled at him and grabbed one of her books out of her backpack. “You’re still more than welcome to join me. I don’t mind the company.” She said, that smile of hers turning into a smirk.

“Oh, why thank you.” He smirked back and sat on her bed.

After Julie grabbed the book, (some Shakespeare play that Luke had unfortunately recognized from his own high school days) she sat up on the bed as well. She propped herself up against the head of her bed, her pillows behind her back, and started to read.

Luke sighed quietly to himself, not so patiently waiting for when the two of them could go out to the studio. He knew that this is what she needed to do though. He knew Mr. Molina meant it when he said Julie needed to focus on school, otherwise their so-called “plug” would be pulled. And as much as he wanted to work on the song, waiting for her to finish her homework so they could still make music together was worth all his time.

Eventually Julie was about halfway done with her reading, which took shorter than Luke thought it would. She set her book down momentarily and decided to stretch.

“Jeez, I should’ve sat at my desk. That board against my back is not comfortable.” She mumbled, raising her arms up.

Luke nodded. “I can’t imagine it would be. At least the pillows help though.”

“I suppose. Thankfully I don’t have much more to read, though.”

“And then we can go work on our song.” Luke said as he grinned.

“And then we can go work on our song.” Julie laughed, grabbing her book again. This time though, instead of resting against the board and her stack of pillows, she leaned up against Luke.

His eyes widened a bit and then his grin turned to a soft smile. “Sounds like a plan, boss.”

Julie laughed quietly and returned to her book. As her eyes went over the pages and the words form sentences in her head, she eventually found herself under Luke’s arm, her head not too far away from his.

He looked down at her, happy to have her in his arms. So glad he can finally hold her and be around her without being afraid that they’d never be able to touch. That they could never hold hands. That this little relationship of theirs couldn’t go anywhere. Now he felt like he didn’t need to worry about that anymore.

Her eyes glanced up and she saw his soft hazel eyes staring into her own. They looked at each other for a second, taking in each other’s beauty, until they both leaned closer and their lips locked together.

After they pulled away, Luke grinned.

“I think this little relationship of ours just got a bit more interesting.”

#happy juke jeudi!#juke jeudi #jukebox #juke #julie and the phantoms #jatp #luke patterson #julie molina #julie x luke #luke jatp #julie jatp #my fanart #my fanfic too I guess-#I’ve never really posted my writing anywhere before #so I hope ya’ll like it #this was fun nonetheless #yay juke!

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the-everqueen · 8 months ago

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5 - Corinthian, Rose Walker, Desire of the Endless

9 - Donald Pierce, Ty Shaw, Steve Murphy

5 - go on a six hour road trip with (no car radio, you choose who drives), sit next to on a six hour plane flight, sit across from on a six hour train journey mm...once i placed the Corinthian i felt good about deciding the other two. CLEARLY gotta get in a car with the Corinthian. will that road trip end with me dead? yeah, probably. BUT i think he'd have a fun phone playlist. also he'd be the one driving, most likely, not because i can't but because i assume he'd have a much cooler car than i ever will. ideal road trip partner, imho. Jed obviously had a fun time!

Rose for the flight. i HATE flying, esp. "long flights" (for me, that's anything 4+ hours), i usually get red-eyes when possible so i can sleep. so i trust that either Rose and i could politely do our own things for most of the flight (also we're both on the petite end - VERY handy because, uh, sorry to her but she will be in the middle seat because i always get a window seat but at least we won't be cramped like every time i end up sitting next to a dude who's 6 ft and miserable). OR we could talk about books/whatever she's writing. i'd happily rubber duck for Rose Walker. if the flight is 6 hours, are we going to the UK? i'd have a bunch of questions for her if she's going for family history stuff, so long as she's cool with that.

Desire for the train. this is mostly because i assume any sort of extended trip with Desire involves sex and i'd be less squicked out about that in a train bathroom vs a plane bathroom. i do NOT trust Desire's taste in music, so no car playlist privileges. we'd have fun gossiping about the other passengers. if this is a six hour train trip through some part of the U.S., they'd be a fun distraction from All Of The Farmland (inevitable).

9 - watch a soap opera with, go to a play with, watch your favourite movie with soap opera goes to Pierce. that bitch loves a good telenovela, i'm sure. we could make it a weekly thing. he's got theories about where Vanessa's arc is going, i've got the latest chisme on his coworkers. win-win.

Steve Murphy is so...old-fashioned, in some respects, that i'd want to go to a play with him. OBVIOUSLY it would be something queer (maybe we just go all out and see "Angels in America"). unlike Pierce, he doesn't gab the entire time, and he buys me a drink at intermission. he's quiet and profoundly, visibly uncomfortable the entire time. afterward we go to the nearest diner and he makes awkward comments on the parts he thinks were done well. i eat a stack of pancakes and stare at him.

(even more ideal than a play...a musical. i DO think Steve Murphy would low-key enjoy a musical, even if he pretended it was silly. what musical would i take Steve to? the 2023 revival of "Merrily We Roll" or maybe a Dave Malloy thing)

i'm trying to decide what my favorite movie is in this context but regardless it goes to Ty Shaw. if it's something overwhelmingly sincere, like LOTR, he's definitely already seen it and goes into the rewatch with sweet enthusiasm. if it's something in the vein of "made just for me, horse," i.e. The Social Network or Challengers, then we end up having really intense sex somewhere around Act 2. either way, he brings beer/popcorn and i either bake cookies or smuggle a bunch of candy into the local theater.

send me a number and three names

#ask games #Ty Shaw = ideal bf/date/fwb #Rose being next to me on a plane is a real extension of trust and love #i want Coco's classic car from the Collectors arc more than ANYTHING (except a '64/2014 Camero)#i don't think his music taste is GOOD per se but it's FUN and we'd be doing carpool karaoke #(''horse...Desire can OBVIOUSLY sing'' which is why we're NOT doing car karaoke together duh)#evenmyhivemindisempty #sandman #donald pierce #ty shaw #steve murphy

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l1brarian1999 · 13 days ago

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Warframe Modding - The Warframes themselves

Modding a Warframe is a decidedly more complex affair than the weapons, as this is actually where there's some kind of build variety based on player choice rather than 'ideal build' to extra the most value out of a weapon.

Generally, its a case of balancing your suvival stats, your ability stats, and then adjusting as necessary from there.

The great joy of Warframe is of course that you can build whatever you want and you don't owe anyone shit.

If you want you really can make a build that is entirely parkour mods so you can run super fast, if that's what you need the build to do. You'll die a fair bit if you take that parkour build into Steel Path, but it might end up being the best build for low level mission clearing for loot and such you're planning to sell.

You can stack nothing but health, armour, shields, and regen if you know you're not gonna be using abilities and just your weapons. (the age old Inaros strategy.)

Or maybe you drop every survival mod and go full tilt on damage, DPS, and killing enemies. I know one salty little shitfuck who does exactly that. (You know who you are)

And ultimately, only you can pick. However, if there's certain content you want to do - like Steel Path - then there's certain build tricks you need to know.

So let's cover a few key points to keep in mind when building:

Staying Alive - Hah, hah, stayin' alive. Man I'm old now. Anyway, yeah you can't do shit if you're dead. I personally always start with 'how am I going to keep myself alive' (there's another reference for the Queen fans) because everything else is secondary to that. Am I stacking Health and Armour, am I loading up on shields and damage resistance, am I just going to run so fast they can't shoot me, stuff like that. So generally, unless I am very confident I can kill before I die, I will stack two kinds of 'survival'. So maybe a little additive armour and some crowd control. Maybe a big chunk of shields and Quick Thinking juuuuust in case.

Note, try to avoid relying on Quick Thinking. It allows you to use your Energy pool, as 'emergency health' but when it does this, you are more vulnerable to staggers. This is very bad, it is not something you should rely on outside of a few cases since its very, very easy to get stunlocked to death. It has its uses, but they are few and far between.

Thresholds - When building a Warframe, certain abilities have caps. Like armour stripping, you don't need to strip more 100% armour, so there's a certain threshold of power strength you're building for. Keeping these thresholds in mind can save you space, or you might go over them anyway because the stat will have other uses. E.g. I might build Ash for only 143% power strength so Seeking Shuriken will strip all armour, if that's the only thing I'm using. Whereas, if I'm building to focus more on Bladestorm, I might stack as much power strength as I can.

Energy - Warframe becomes a very boring game without Abilities to cast, so getting a source of energy is important. To the extent that I might even recommend that once you get some tradable plat, buying the mod Energy Nexus is a really good investment. Energy Nexus gives you a decent 3 points of Energy a Second, but you only unlock the place to farm it after a bunch of Main Story quests. So by buying it (or getting a friend to gift you one) you get a lot of energy earlier into the game than you reasonably should but oh man. I'll probably do a whole post on Energy sources.

"General" vs "Specialised" builds - I generally have one build I use for day to day running, and then sometimes build specific things for funsies or maybe for a specific mission. A 'pick up and play' build if you will. Knowing the difference between them and when to use them, how to build them, can make things a lot more focused. Some builds are built entirely around a single ability - I've got an Atlas build that has ability Efficiency stacked up alongside Energy Regen (see above) so I can infinitely spam his 1st Ability, Rockslide - its a punch, but with a rock. Over. And over. And over again. Its stupid, by design.

#Warframe #warframe advice #warframe modding

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elacular-kink · 6 months ago

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Poly-techhic 1.5 (No hiccups)

As so frequently happens when I attempt to write self-indulgent smut, I've wound up writing a bunch of hiccupless character stuff as well. What I've written so far feels fairly important to the "story" (such as it is), though, so I'll be posting it as well. Here's a scene where Kiran talks to Olivia (and eventually Maya) about Susanna and tries to learn more about her.

TW: Anxiety, Self-deprecation, BDSM (alluded to)

"U-um, hello Olivia."

"Hi, Kiran. What do you want to know about Susanna?"

I straightened my back out and shrunk in on myself all at once, no matter how obviously contradictory those ideas were. And my stupid hands just wouldn't stop flapping. In the glances I took at her face Olivia didn't look angry or upset. She didn't really look anything. And she never seemed to really look anything, though it wasn't like I'd know if she did. "I-I'm sorry, I don't want to treat you like some kind of—"

"It's fine." She shrugged. "I'm not offended. I know that you like her." Well. Susan had said that Olivia was perceptive. "And I'm the person who knows her best, so it makes sense to ask. I can't promise I'll always answer, but you'll probably get more out of me than her."

"I...it wasn't just about her," I said as if that made me less of an ass. "I was...I wanted to know...wh...what would you say your relationship is with Susan? Er, Susanna?"

Olivia arched her eyebrows. "It's weird to hear someone other than me call her that."

"Sh-should I not?"

"I dunno. Never asked why she never corrected people. Maybe I should. But I call her that and it's fine, so I don't think it's a problem. If it is, though, she'll tell you. But as for your question..." After a moment of thought, Olivia stacked one of the common area's cube-shaped chairs on top of another, making a small cubby which she folded herself into. Since moving the chairs seemed to be fine, I pulled over my own cube to sit in front of her. "Mmm. Whenever people ask Susanna that question, she just says 'It's complicated.' I don't think it is, but it definitely takes more words to explain than most relationships. Susanna's been my best friend since preschool, but she doesn't think that part counts because we didn't go to elementary or middle school together. I think that's dumb." Susan's perspective on that made more sense to me, but I wasn't going to bring that up. "You think she's the right one, don't you?"

"A-aah—!" How did she do that? What did my face do? What were my hands doing now? Wasn't she supposed to be autistic like me? How did she do that?!

"That's fine," she was shrugging again. "Most people feel that way. And it's hard to explain why I'm right without context you probably don't have. And by probably I mean almost certainly. I can't give it to you, by the way. It's Susanna's context, so I don't share it without her permission. No matter how stupid that is. It's simpler to say that if I didn't know her in pre-k I wouldn't have known I should know her in high school. So it's really important. And I never had a better friend than her between pre-k and high school, so she was my best friend the whole time."

"I...think I can understand that logic. I see where you're coming from at least." She smiled at me. Or at least I thought she did. I wasn't certain. But it looked like a smile. "So you would say that you're best friends?"

Olivia nodded. "Susanna would probably say that too, and it's the simplest way to get most of the point across. It doesn't really cover everything though." She uncrossed her legs and started kicking them against the base of the chair. "I'm aromantic. I've never really felt the stuff that other people feel. But I still love people. I love Susanna, and I think I want to spend the rest of my life with her." My face must have done something because her voice got the tiniest bit softer when she spoke again. "Don't worry. I don't want to be the only person she spends her life with. Kind of the opposite. Going to school without her sucked, so because of that, I didn't realize that it was still really lonely with just the two of us. We've both got other friends now. I like that for both of us. But it doesn't change that she's somebody really special to me."

There was an absolutely unjustifiable envy in my chest, but I could feel the warmth underneath it. The fact that she felt no need to monopolize Susan was definitely making feeling happy for them easier. "It sounds like you have a really wonderful friendship."

She crossed her legs again, rocking back and forth on her tailbone. "Yeah. We do."

I wondered if I could ever have had a friend like that. All the preparatory academies I went to focused very heavily on academia, and what few other students there were we were encouraged never to socialize with. They were nothing but future competition. But even if I had been in a normal school environment, if someone as cool and handsome and funny as Susan only had one true friend, what hope could there have possibly been for me?

"And we also have sex." I yanked my eyes up and caught Olivia's by accident. Before I looked away, though, I got enough of a glimpse of her face to see she was grinning widely. Not just the small smile I thought that I might have seen, but something definitely real. "I always like saving that part for last. It's really funny to watch people react to it."

"I-I'm sorry!" I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for, but I absolutely meant it.

"Don't be, I'm having fun." She was still smiling when she said that. "We're still not girlfriends, because we're not dating. And I wouldn't want to be. I can be girlfriends with Maya, though. It means something different for her than it would for Susanna."

"I...suppose that someone whose relationship dynamics are as...unique as Maya's would inevitably result in unusual relationships between her and those around her."

"I was already weird, but yeah."

"So..." I swallowed. "Given that the two of you are...involved with Maya, would it be safe to, um...I mean, I wouldn't want to presume or, um, intrude upon—"

"No, Susanna and I aren't exclusive. I like her having sex with other people." Olivia paused and rubbed her chin. "I guess I can't say that for certain. I've only got one data point. But I'm pretty sure I'd be happy with you fucking her too." I could feel myself flapping and hear my mouth making noises, and I covered my face as hard as I could to try and make both stop. It sort of worked. "Hey. I know that saying this doesn't actually help, but you don't have to be afraid of her. Susanna will tell you if she doesn't like something. That's one of the things I like a lot about her."

I peeked out from between my fingers. "Sh...she said that too. But a lot of people say that they'll say, then they don't."

"Yeah, that's not her. Susanna's better at saying she doesn't like shit than anyone else I've met." Olivia heaved a sigh and started rocking back and forth again. "It's saying things she does like that's the problem."

"Well, I suppose I can understand that. We have one thing in common."

"You do, yeah. You're better at it than she is, though."

"What?" I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. "I...I can't be better at that than her. I can't be better at anything than her."

Olivia hummed. "Programming, chemistry, engineering, math, economics..."

"Y-you know that that's different."

She hummed again. "Sitting in skirts. Not getting in fights. Not getting in trouble in general..."

"I can't be better at socializing than her. Or communicating. I'm...I'm very bad at those."

"There's a lot that's wrong with what you just said, but I don't feel like getting into it right now." Olivia kept rocking back and forth, her eyes pointed up at the chair-ceiling of her cubby. "I haven't known you for very long, but I feel like if you like something, you're able to say that out loud before getting to the point of a complete emotional meltdown."

I blinked. "Has...has that actually happened?" Imagining calm, cool Susan having a "complete emotional meltdown"...the idea just didn't compute in my head.

"At least twice. I'm doing my best to make sure it doesn't happen again, but at the end of the day, that's not really up to me. As much as I'd love to cut the Gordian Knot of her weird anxiety with the knife of just saying shit, that wouldn't be fair to her. I'd be breaking a promise, and I don't do that. And if she never does it herself, she'll never grow. She's gotten better at it since both of those times, though, so maybe she just needs to break the calcium around her brain before she can actually change her mind?" Olivia shrugged. "I don't get it."

I didn't get it either. And I couldn't picture it.

...but I did have information I could get about it. I started forming a corkboard and strings in my mind. What had Olivia said so far?

She and Susan have an intense and loving relationship built up over years

This is not romantic, but it is sexual.

Queerplatonic? Can a relationship be platonic if it's explicitly sexual?

Etymology is frustrating.

This relationship started in pre-k and was re-established in high school after years of separation.

Olivia considered Susan her best friend the entire time they were apart.

There's missing context as to why Olivia feels this initial meeting was important.

It's "Susanna's context"

So something private about Susan?

Olivia likes the idea of Susan having relationships with other people, including romantic and sexual ones.

Or at least she assumes so? From how she spoke about having "only one data point", it seems that the only other person Susan's been sexual with is Maya.

Susan is incapable of sharing her desires

She is extremely capable of communicating her dislikes.

She can't share her desires without "a complete emotional meltdown"

This has happened twice that Olivia is aware of.

After both of these, she says she became better at sharing her desires.

I saw a potential connection and tied a mental red string between 11 and 15. Two emotional breakdowns, two sexual partners. And given that she'd spent so much time in catholic school...by my limited understanding of catholicism, the idea of her having possible hang-ups over sex made a lot of sense.

But then, wasn't she just as prone to sexual humor as Maya was? And seemingly just as comfortable in their queer, polyamorous relationship? Besides that, Olivia had spent some time in the same school system (albeit very little), and she'd demonstrated absolutely no shame or anxiety around sexual topics. Her openness was actually...frankly, a little intimidating. The matter-of-fact discussion of pegging that she and Maya had had in the middle of one of their rugby team's cool-down stretches still haunted my memory and feelings of awkwardness.

...now that I considered that openness though...

"Olivia, may I—" My voice cracked and I looked around, halfway panicked. Nobody else was currently in the common area, though. Not that I could see. "...m-may I ask another question? About Susan?" She shrugged. "I..." I took a deep breath, trying my best to not let my brain light on fire. "W-would Susan's potential...c-context have anything to do with...sexual or romantic relationships?" For a long while, Olivia was silent, and I couldn't bring myself to look at her face. "Y-you don't have to answer!"

"I know. I'm just thinking." Her calm tone let me glance up to look at her, and her face seemed as flat as ever, though she had begun her rocking again. "I'm not sure what kind of way I should answer this question. And me not being sure about that probably communicates something on its own. But then again, we're both autistic, so maybe not. I dunno. Feel free to play with your phone or do something else, I may need to think for a while."

I took out my phone and pretended to be doing something on it. I didn't actually have any games, nor did I have anything I particularly wanted to look up online or people I wanted to text.

...did I?

I looked at the chat app that the women's rugby team communicated with. Susan's profile was there...it was right there.

Could I just ask her?

No. No. I couldn't. Absolutely not. No way. Never.

...but I did have another potential source.

It took me a while to find her since she constantly changed her name and profile picture, but eventually, I managed to find the woman who, to my continued confusion and elation, I was technically dating??? After taking a few deep breaths, I started typing to her.

Kiran (Kiki): Hello, Maya. ...I hope. If this isn't Maya, I'm very sorry.

All 7s slut machine: Nah you got me! Sup Kiki!

Kiran (Kiki): Ah! Good. Well, I happened to have some free time right now, and I've been having a conversation with Olivia.

All 7s slut machine: Hows that work Do you two just Magical brain vibes back and forth at each other?

Kiran (Kiki): ...neither of us is nonverbal, Maya.

All 7s slut machine: I mean Liv is sometimes but not for 'tism reasons. Anyway What were you two fine ladies talking about?

Kiran (Kiki): It's a bit rude, but I was asking her about Susan.

All 7s slut machine: LMAO that checks out Susies never gonna tell you shit about herself unless she doesnt have a choice. So good thinking going with Liv. Whatcha learnin?

Kiran (Kiki): Well, I have a better understanding of Olivia and Susan's relationship now.

All 7s slut machine: Shit really? Explain that to me sometime Not now tho keep going.

Kiran (Kiki): I've also learned about Susan's difficulty communicating her wants.

All 7s slut machine: Yeah she fuckin sucks at that. She made my dumb drunk ass have to sort some of the weirdest shit out just so I could get her to come out of the bathroom so I could fuck her.

Kiran (Kiki): I'm sorry?

All 7s slut machine: Long fuckin story. Probably can't tell you yet. Do you have "The Context"? Except imagine it in like Bigass government letters. THE CONTEXT. Then play scary music or smth

Kiran (Kiki): I'm fairly certain I don't. Would this be the same context that Olivia alluded to regarding their friendship?

All 7s slut machine: THATS THE BITCH

Kiran (Kiki): So may I presume that you actually do know the context?

All 7s slut machine: lol yea And I would fuckin love to tell you about it Kiki I really fuckin would But if I did Susie might actually kill me And by kill me I mean break up with me Whichd like Kill my heart But my heart would go on like Celine Dion Zombie heart. Isnt that a movie? I swear thats a movie.

"I think I've decided." I looked up and saw Olivia sitting up straight again, and I quickly pocketed my phone, turning the sound down to avoid the repeated notifications being sent by Maya. "Yeah. The context has to do with sexual stuff. Good guess. I'm telling you because I'm pretty sure that me even having to think about it was already basically a yes. But I think I'm gonna shut up about it for now, because that's probably more information than she'd want me to ever give."

"I-I'm sorry!"

"You shouldn't be. You didn't do anything wrong." Olivia got up, deconstructing her chair cubby and stretching herself out. "I'm tired of talking, so I'm heading back to my dorm. You can text me if you want, but I probably won't reply for a few hours. See you, Kiran."

"Um...y-yes, bye." I couldn't believe the casual way Olivia said that. Just ejecting herself from a conversation like that...I was horrified and a little offended, but I was also very jealous. And I knew her well enough at this point to not take it personally.

After a moment, I remembered the other conversation I had been having and took my phone back out, seeing a double-digit number of notifications.

All 7s slut machine: Man fuck film critics dude "Trite and formulaic" fuck you! Movies got fuckin zombies in love what more could you want. 34% on rotten tomatoes my ass.

Kiran (Kiki): Um, Maya?

All 7s slut machine: wut Oh shit Ive been ranting Uh What were we talkin about?

Kiran (Kiki): Susan?

All 7s slut machine: RIGHT Susie and her stupid fuckin CONTEXT Okay I cant tell you shit cause Susies dumb and weird about it But I can chuck some hints your way. Liv wants Susie to actually fuckin say it herself but that aint gonna happen so you gotta go detective on this shit.

Kiran (Kiki): You seem really confident that she won't.

All 7s slut machine: I mean she might iunno But shes definitely not gonna do it fuckin fast So Heres some hints.

Kiran (Kiki): Wait!

All 7s slut machine: ???

The correct thing to do here would have been to tell Maya I didn't want any "hints". Even if that wasn't a violation of the letter of Susan's privacy requests, it would certainly violate the spirit.

So telling her to stop would be the right thing to do.

...

Kiran (Kiki): Could you put them under spoilers? I'm Not sure if I want them or not.

All 7s slut machine: lol sure thing cutie God knows you got a bad girl in there wanting to break free. So lemme help you out with a liddle temptation.

"Bad girl", "temptation"...Maya really knew how to make a girl blush.

All 7s slut machine: okay three hints comin right up First ones the least specific second is kinda third is most Have fun sherlock 1. ██████ ███████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ████ 2. █████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ████ ██ ██████ 3. ███ █████████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ██████ ████

I stared at those three redacted "hints". Why why why did I think this was a good idea? What was I going to do? How could I possibly resist this sort of temptation?

I couldn't help it. I clicked on the first.

1. Susies CONTEXT is actually cute as fuck

...that wasn't particularly helpful. Maya thought a lot of things were "cute as fuck". If they were all as unhelpful as that, then maybe I didn't have to feel so bad about checking them. So I tapped number two.

2. Youve seen me tease her with it before

That wasn't any help either! The way Maya's mind worked was even more of an enigma than most.

...wait, "with" it? Not "about" it or "for" it? So this context was something that could be...wielded? Used? In some way weaponized against Susan? What would one tease someone with? I could feel my face getting redder as I considered the possibilities. A feather, a light touch, a kiss, a whisper, a breath, anything that could potentially be found arousing.

Arousing...was the secret something that Susan found arousing?

That would be relevant to sexual relationships. It would absolutely be something that Maya would refer to as "cute". But would it fit into where Olivia had said she couldn't share it? God, I wished that I had taken notes.

I hovered over the third spoiler. Did I dare?

...no.

No. I didn't.

...but I did dare something else.

Kiran (Kiki): I've looked at the first two hints.

All 7s slut machine: Eyyyy bad girl! Maybe I oughta give you a spanking huh?

PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC FLUSTER FLUSTER FLUSTER REDIRECT CONVERSATION IMMEDIATELY

Kiran (Kiki): SO ANYWAY

All 7s slut machine: lmao

Kiran (Kiki): With regards to hint #2, would it be a safe assumption that if you've teased her with it before, you're likely to do so again in the future?

All 7s slut machine: You fuckin know it cutie Probably cant say when im doin it though I know you got the tism but you might have to pull a Liv and figure shit out from the way people react to shit.

Kiran (Kiki): That's Difficult. But with the information I've gathered, at least I have an idea of what to look out for.

All 7s slut machine: w/your bigass brain youll get it in no time

Kiran (Kiki): I appreciate your vote of confidence, though I certainly don't share it. ...If I'm not able to figure it out, though, that's That's alright. I'll trust Susie to eventually tell me. Olivia thinks she'd be able to, and she's known her the longest, so I'll trust her judgment.

All 7s slut machine: good call lol Man I gotta take all four of you out sometime. That'd be bitchin. Maybe try and get some embarrassing stories out of Liv. Get Susie chuckin more bread rolls my way. They taste better when a hot girl throws em at you.

Kiran (Kiki): I'll take your word for it.

I closed my phone and sighed, looking up at the ceiling. The lights were so bright. They always seemed to be.

...it occurred to me that the lights were feeling so bright because it had gone dark outside. That...

That wasn't good.

I mean, it wasn't as if this town was particularly dangerous with regard to crime, petty vandalism and underage drinking notwithstanding. And it was a weeknight, so there was no reason that I should be worried at all about the possibility of walking home in the dark. It was irrational. Stupid.

Childish.

For some reason, Olivia's voice rang in my head: I feel like if you like something, you're able to say that out loud before getting to the point of a complete emotional meltdown.

I tried to picture Susan having a "complete emotional meltdown" again. It still didn't work.

I could absolutely picture myself doing so. And it didn't seem like it would take much to set it off. But it wouldn't happen because I couldn't say what I liked. It would happen because...

...because I couldn't say what I didn't like.

Not like Susan could.

I swallowed back a lump in my throat and opened the chatting app again, moving to the server for the Women's rugby team.

# general

Kiran (Kiki): Hello. I'm currently in the common area of Dedication Hall. I've stayed longer than I intended to, so If it's not any trouble Would one of you be available to walk to my housing with me?

God, what a ridiculous thing to ask. I covered my face and felt so stupid, and when notifications started going off, I braced myself before I read them.

# general

Blindside bitch: FS FS, I got u sis. B there in 5.

This ass warms benches: Dammit, Chloe beat me to it!

Blindside bitch: everyone beats u 2 everything slowass lol

This ass warms benches: You want water next game or not, motherfucker?

Senioritis made manifest: Don't fucking text and run, Chloe. You're not helping anyone if you slam headfirst into a lamppost.

Susie Q(ueer): I'll head over too just in case she tramples some freshie and gets arrested.

All 7s slut machine: Sure thats why youll head over lol

Susie Q(ueer): Go back to Vegas, slut machine.

Piper: Speaking of Vegas, over/under on Chloe's head v lamppost?

Token heterosexual: I'm putting money on Chloe's head! It's denser than whatever modern infrastructure is made of.

Blindside bitch: Fuck all u bitches! (xcept u Kiki ur the best ilu <3<3<3)

Even though I was reading the chat, I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. I believed it both a little more and a little less when I heard the smacking of sneakers against the pavement outside. "Hey! Hey Kiki!" I heard Chloe's voice. "Get out here and tell those bitches I didn't run into shit!"

The fact that an intimidating woman who tackled people (and possibly a much shorter intimidating woman who was also the coolest person I could imagine) was outside and willing to...happy to walk me home...

My stupid hands wouldn't stop flapping as I walked out the door.

#my writing #Poly-techhic #Non-hiccup writing #(Or at least no actual hiccups in it)

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