#some parts are so needlessly complicated

[bigfatbimbo]

Take a Bite

1.5k words,, Bill Cipher x Reader

summary — Bill and the reader have sex, which has proven to be very difficult seeing as he isn’t doing anything, and, of course, things are never easy with that insufferable brat.

warnings — SMUT, bill being annoying and toxic, dom!reader, sub!Bill, heavy pain kink, bill’s human form, the fat fuck not the twink

a/n — Admittedly, this fic only happened because I never see Bill sub in fanfics and i’m very interested in what the dynamic would be. You’d be like… domming with a risk of death.

“Well, slick,” Bill leaned back and gestured up and down his body, “Give it your all.”

Amusement was thick in his voice, along with bubbling giddiness. He fumbled with the seams on his pants, not out of nervousness, but as if he had forgotten how to take them off and was looking for some kind of zipper. One, admittedly, that he would not find on slacks. 

“Wow, human clothes are just as bad as the fleshbags. So needlessly complicated,” He sounded on the verge of a laughing fit, “Oh, and toots? Before you dig in, remember to leave marks. I wanna see how durable this thing is.” 

His amusement was not matched on your part. The situation invoked dull curiosity at best, in your opinion. The idea of harboring a wanted criminal, ex-overlord, god-like demon in your house challenged your idea of a good time. Having sex with that demon was even harder to swallow.

Then again, any situation with bill warranted an ungodly amount of stress. 

“Whatcha’ thinking about over there, sweet-cheeks?”

You smiled at that; of the few advantages you have, being in gravity falls for weirdmageddon proved to be one of them. You know of his powers, and with that, vague guesses on how to prevent them.

Tinfoil-lined bobbie pins were one of them. A guess, granted, but a good one at that. Really, not that complicated when you recall every alien movie you’ve ever watched. 

“Upset you can’t tell?” 

He laughed, “Upset for you, maybe. Trust me, it’d be so much easier for both of us if I could just read your thoughts. I’m already your roommate, how much closer could we ge- Ah.”

You brushed his pants crotch, and began to unbutton. For all his mightiness, the guy couldn’t work pants. “Careful, human body’s are touchy.” 

“Touchy,” He repeated, “Tell me about.” 

Getting his pants off was a task harder than it should have been, no thanks to Bill, who seemed to have taken to just lying there, occasionally flicking you, and then himself. 

When you finally peeled all of his clothes off, you warned him to brace himself, to which he ignored you. On top of that, the entire time Bill had been talking, droning on about ‘the last time he’d been in a human body.’

You wondered vaguely if he’d ever done this with someone else. In the time he’d been at your house he’d mentioned some ‘sixer’ ex-thing-ish of his. But you doubt he’d done anything with him.

As he’d mentioned, he hadn’t perfected his human form until very recently. Perfected is a strong word, he was pudgy and short, remanisent of a human peanut. And his teeth were terrible. 

Either way, you’d gotten him ready, and began your work. Laying a light finger on the tip of his dick, and running it down the base of his length, you got Bills first reaction: a short sniff.

Recovering fast, he adjusted his seat, “Yeah, tick tock, toots. This better be good.” 

It was his idea, you thought, but continued. Your fingers wrapped around the entirety of his cock and you began to stroke it. 

A sigh left Bills mouth, “Oh, this does have a kick to it. Maybe you’re not so bad, after all.”

Over the course of the next few minutes, you’d grow angrier and angrier. Although you were clearing making him feel good, he’d never shut his snide mouth for two seconds. 

“Jesus, slow down, pal— I just perfected this flesh-bag, at this rate your gonna break something—“ 

You didn’t realize how much your hand sped up. You thought for a moment, before completely stopping. Bill looked taken aback.

“Hey! what’s the—“

Without warning you grabbed his dick with full force and squeezed. He yelped, before giggling at the hurt.

This made you more mad, “God, do you ever shut up? I wish you’d lost your voice when you lost Gravity Falls.”

He stopped giggling. “I’d watch what you say, if I was you, kid.”

You threw your head back and laughed, running your hand slowly up his dick and then slamming back to the base of his cock. Finally, a reaction other than knowing bliss: anger. Weakness.

“Oh dear god, rearrange the features of my face then, Billy. See if I give a shit when you don’t have a place to live.”

His face turned red with rage, and he recoiled at the mention of your upperhand. And then, finally, at the slowing of your hand, a small, wavering whimper. 

You both caught it, and he was quick to put a hand of his mouth, “Sensitive human bodies - Hey, don’t look at me like that, that was not my fault.”

“God, you’re such a brat.”

“Oh please, what are you gonna do about it?” And he was completely serious.

Without much hesitation, you took the moment as an opportunity to abruptly sink yourself onto his dick. He sucked in a breath but you didn’t give him much time to do anything else.

“Ah- Now we’re talki—“ You slapped him hard across the face, and grabbed his cheeks with your hand, squishing them together, mockingly. Stifled laughter from Bill. 

“This is the form you spent all that time perfecting? I can barely feel anything. It’s worthless!” You sped up riding him, loosening your face to give the illusion you were bored, “You’re worthless.” 

His eyebrows arched down and his eyes widened, “I can kill you with a snap of my fingers! You think I need this sex— You think I need this hous— ah, ah—“

The unknown pleasure was getting to him, making his brain foggier than usual, and it was showing. Human senses were a key factor in your ability to keep the high-ground. Just as long as it felt good enough, he wouldn’t go back to his original form and… well. 

You wondered vaguely if you were actually going to be in mortal parole after this. But then again, the look on his face was almost euphoric, despite the anger. Thankfully, Bill was selfish, he’d probably chase the high again

You sighed, “Oh, you do need this house, Billy. Where else would you go? Everyone else in town has already forgotten about you, and your little maniac friends are no where to be seen.”

You sped up once more as your hands danced up his body, and continued, “With this whole out-of-sight-out-of-mind routine, i’m giving you something you won’t be getting anywhere else: attention.”

“You— Ah, curse this feeble human body! I’ll make your life a living hell-“ He whined, actually whined. 

Slamming yourself down on him, he cried out and then scowled. You raked your nails down his chest, deep enough to bleed, drawing out a  giggle from Bill as he felt the littlest bit of blood start to pool.

“You’re lucky this meatbag is— ah— funny enough—“ He was cut off with a gargle as a your hand sharply wrapped around his throat, and squeezed tight. 

“It’s not luck, i’m good at what I do, Billy. Not that you would know what that’s like, you pathetic shitbag,” although that insult wasn’t particularly true, you didn’t give him a chance to snap back, and instead put your other hand on his neck as well. 

You rode him with more speed than ever now. His eyes fluttered open and shut slowly, and he leaned into your hands. 

His face flushed, but a dreamy smile spread to the edges of his face as you made sure to leave bruise marks on his throat, still slamming against him. 

Although, you didn’t want to actually break him, so when his face began to turn purple, you let go. He gasped for air and let out a raspy, crazed giggle that went on for too long, and ending in a moan.

“I’m— “ Bills eyebrows furrowed, as if he was trying to decipher what the amusing thing the human body had planned next, “Somethings— somethings happening.”

His voice was broken, neck bruised, cheek red with a slap mark, eyes foggy, and chest bleeding from your nails. 

Before you dig in, remember to leave marks. I wanna see how durable this thing is.

Clearly you’d kept your end of the deal, and from what you’ve gathered it was time for the finale. You chased your own climax now as well, even though, admittedly, you hadn’t been thinking about it the whole session.

Annoying as it was that Bill still managed to make something all about him —and he definitely knew, mind reading or not— you still kept up your pace. 

“You’re close?” 

He smiled blissfully, and nodded.

What the hell. You smiled, “Good boy.”

His reaction was… startling. He leaned his head back, let out a small half-whine half-laugh, and arched off the bed. Finally, he released.

[unnerving-presence]

Hello! I absolutely love your writing it's so much fun. Could I please request any three killers of your choosing who has the reader, s/o or not either way would still be funny, over their shoulder and on the way to a hook and they just yell out "Can I get a please before you treat me like a common whore?"

i feel bad whenever i get asked to choose the killers because then i will most definitely just make them the killers i’m interested in at the moment 😭

𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹

Chucky:

Gives you a big laugh and argues that you already are a whore (affectionate) and that he doesn’t need to say please to begin with. It cancels out. PEMDAS or something..

He doesn’t take most of what you say super seriously anyways and quickly puts you on a hook, telling you he’ll take you on a nice date after all this. He’ll figure something out.

“You still pretty much called me a whore” “Yeah, yeah. You know I would never mean it that way, sweetheart”

Next time you’re in a trial with him he’ll mockingly ask you if he has to say please before doing anything involving killing you.

He still has yet to set up that date..

Pyramid Head:

Given what he represents he partially wants to take you up on that offer. That much is clear when his usual hand on your ass holds you tighter to his shoulder ever so slightly while he carries you. He’s genuinely thinking about it, something he doesn’t really do when you try to bargain with him during trials.

Give him a couple hooks and he might make a decision.. or just stare at you for a second as his way of telling you that you won’t be getting an answer. He’s needlessly complicated at times..

..Which is why you would’ve never expected him to listen to you a couple days later. however long that is in The Entity’s realm. To be fair, your trials lately have been laughably short and he knows you’d probably appreciate some not so TLC before he puts you on a meat hook.

Tarhos Kovács:

He didn’t think of you as some of the ‘workers’ he would see in Italy but he supposes he occasionally treats you as one in the heat of intimacy. Clearly you speak jokingly, but he finds the proposition amusing nonetheless.

He’ll scoff at your words in which he’s met with your fists relentlessly beating on his armored back, doing virtually nothing to him. He feels you should know by now that no matter how attractive he thinks you are that he won’t treat you differently during trials but he knows you won’t really be giving up on your acts of resistance any time soon. It’s a bit cute to see you try anyways. Makes him chuckle.

Don’t worry, he treats you much better outside of trials. At least he actually listens to your complaints.. but instead of putting you on a meat hook he tends to solve your incessant yapping with exactly what you asked for in the first place, minus the ‘saying please’ part..

[thankskenpenders]

Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

Is Beth just always active and like projected or can she turn off the projector and just be a voice inside Kaita's head? Could she go a step further and just not even exist in the physical world and be gooberin around in Kaita's OS or something? Could she villain arc and just possess her?

I have a problem btw

unfortunately you asked a simple question so now you get the needlessly complicated answer

Kaita's artificial brain is designed in such a fashion that'd be hard for Beth to just hack like a normal computer. Her frontal lobe works on artificial neurons that create thoughts, behaviors, and impulses that are then regulated by another component that works like the brain stem and cerebellum. Effectively, every part of her could technically work as a prosthetic version of its organic counterpart, including the brain, so you'd need to know how to "hack" human impulses in order to even begin to say, overwrite who she is.

However, the wolf also has a more mundane smartphone chip installed on her that her brain can directly use at the speed of thought that allows her to interface with other devices, and is easy to replace or upgrade without messing with the brain itself. Think like a simple computer with linux or a stripped down Android OS that your brain is hooked up to that it can mess with in any way it wants, to make calls or save memes or something, while the phone can't do anything to the brain besides sending signals to the optic and audio feeds.

Beth likewise is an AI designed to only exist physically as a chip on her own phone. This phone is installed on Kaita in a similar fashion to the wolf's own on-board smartphone, through which Kaita can talk privately to Beth and see the AI do stupid shit on her HUD. Like, a more bitchy Cortana. Beth doesn't like wasting power or always being seen, so she usually only peeks out when she feels like it in the first place. She very often is just a voice or, if she's feeling nonverbal, a series of dialogue boxes Kaita sees as notifications from her phone's OS.

In terms of possession, there's technically a workaround; her hardlight body can produce electrical signals, and if she was really desperate and persistent could sort of jam her projected form onto Kaita's brain stem that way, but it'd be very very taxing to pull off unless Kaita for some reason allows Beth to do it, usually only as an agreed upon emergency measure if the wolf is incapacitated/deeply unconscious.

The picture above basically only happens because Kaita trusts Beth not to do something stupid. She's probably a bit mentally tired from something, and is letting Beth take control so she can "rest" a little. It only takes a little bit of mental effort on Kaita's part to eject Beth, but Beth lacks a physical body and sometimes Kaita feels a bit bad for the AI, so she lets her have some fun if it also means getting someone else to do a few menial tasks for her for once.

EDIT: forgot to mention; had koboldfactory's drawing of Beth in mind for drawing this one. Beth's design can often be asymmetrical and experimental but I really liked the mix of the sleeved and sleeveless look she came up with

[beesmygod]

dark souls lore: velka, goddess of sin, and that stupid plot against the stupid gods (5k words)

*written to entertain both hardcore fans and fandom rubberneckers

i made the mistake of thinking about dark souls lore the other day after choosing to make myself mad about the remaster again, but in the worst possible way. soulsborne fans know to fear and run from anyone who starts talking about this unseen character known only through item descriptions: velka, goddess of sin. if you start talking about velka you’re too far gone in the souls sauce and about to spout some of the most unhinged nonsense ever uttered by a human on the entire history of the planet. velka and the highly secretive “plot against the gods” are quietly mentioned in less than 10 item descriptions. no character utters her name or speaks of the rebellion she participated in, she and her comrades do not appear in the game…probably. its complicated.

her inclusion initially reads as a throw-away means of world-building; much like the now infamous line about the “clone wars” in “star wars: a new hope” that was needlessly fleshed out into a trilogy that haunts us even to this day, the item descriptions serve to establish that you have entered a world overflowing with heroes and history that you were not privy to nor took part in. these events are such a basic foundation of lordran history that no one mentions it because it would be inorganic and narratively heavy-handed. its like if we walked around talking about when lincoln was shot on a day to day basis just in case anyone wasn’t up to speed.

anyway, this thought process started after i realized how fucking weird it is that a giant crow transports you from undead asylum to firelink shrine…why would it do that??? like, yes, obviously it’s a gameplay contrivance in order to get you from point A to point B with a cinematic, fantastical flair, i understand that. i also understand that velka herself is a gameplay contrivance with story written around it to soften the landing, but unfortunately, dark souls is a thread that unravels quickly when you pick at it, revealing shocking narrative cohesion underneath. if you’re completely insane, that is.

we will do this in a journalistic manner: who, what, when, where, why. but first, it requires a lot of dark souls history/lore context. it’s a lot. stick with me.

---

(READ MORE)

this is so much info. this also contains gay dragon theory and somehow argues that it's supported by text. why not. please enjoy this unbelievable amount of words regarding a non-entity who does not exist meaningfully in any of the three games.

[aetherghouls]

ghostsoap coffee shop au where Soap has been down bad for the past 2 years since he started working at the coffee shop and first saw the hot tattoo artist working across the street, but he had never made any moves because 1. he doesn't even know if Ghost is interested in men (or anyone, really) and 2. the guy seems too reserved to enjoy someone throwing themself at him, so instead, he just settled for small talk every time, trying to make Simon warm up to him slowly. They became friends, of course, no one could resist Johnny and his charm, even if the Brit always denied it and stayed rough around the edges. And then a new barista comes into the picture, a gorgeous one. They were all over Ghost the second they saw him.

To say that his blood was boiling every time he saw that would be an understatement, a big one. There was nothing in those moments he hated more and if looks could kill, the new barista would be long dead. Too bad it didn't work. Too bad Soap, instead of just telling Ghost he liked him, watched the way the new one was flirting with Simon so openly and the tattoo artist was playing into it.

Johnny had became so fucking grumpy after a week of that, everyone noticed, especially Ghost, because he was on the recieving end of it. And if there was one thing Johnny could do, it was being passive aggressive while mad.

Don't be fooled though, he wasn't unprofessional, but he definitely cut the small talk, turned down Ghost every time he tried to chat, gods, he even made up tasks to do just do he didn't have to be around Ghost and the new guy if they had a shift together and the artist came around. Everyone noticed.

Gaz tried asking, of course, the good friend he is. He knew Johnny fancied Simon, so the sudden change of hearts was unexpected until he saw the new barista with Ghost. It all made sense suddenly.

That's how Kyle came up with a way to force Johnny to finally talk to Simon.

To be fair, it wasn't hard, convincing his friend. The hardest part was making him admit that he was jealous, then it all went smoothly. Soap was of course, still grumpy and still angry with Ghost for not putting two and two together, but Kyle, gods bless this man's soul for putting up with it all, could be really persuasive.

And that's how, through a needlessly complicated and twisted plan that could have been executed in many more simple ways, Simon finally took a hint as to why his favourite barista was mad at him, and – of course – he did his best to make up for it. Not openly, he wasn't some soppy teenage boy that would turn into a puddle when someone he fancied was angry. It was just simply not him to act that way. So, instead, he left little gifts for Soap, nothing overly elaborate, he'd, for example, buy something to eat with his coffee, things he knew Jonny enjoyed and leave them for the Scot, instead of taking them, always brushing it off as "not having enough time to eat" when he finished his drinks.

It took a good month for John MacTavish to get over it, over thirty days of Simon doing little things for him so the barista would go back to his previous self. Him and Ghost may and may not have gone out after that, too, but that's a story for another day.

I wrote this at work mostly lmao (I don't even work at a coffee shop) (don't eat me it's the first writing I've posted properly in years) (you won't see me here for months after this 🫶)

it's embarrassing to post anything on Tumblr so if this flops I'm deleting my account and burying myself 3 feet under

[kikyoupdates]

Tears of a Villainess ⭑˚🗡️⭑ 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠

yandere!ocs x reader

yandere, reverse harem, isekai, original characters x fem!reader, slowburn, slowburn yandere

Reincarnation isn't as great as it sounds, especially when you've been reborn as none other than the villainess. Fated to die if you stand in the heroine's way, you immediately resolve to distance yourself from the plot. As long as you have nothing to do with any of the relevant characters, surely, you'll be able to avoid an untimely death. But in a horrible turn of events, the heroine ends up wanting to get close to you. Are you really doomed to meet the villainess' tragic end? Or is there an even more sinister fate that awaits you?

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“...pardon me. I think I must be hearing things,” Alistair frowns. “For a moment, it almost sounded like you said you wanted to break off our engagement. But that can’t have possibly been it, so if you wouldn’t mind repeating yourself—” 

“No, you didn’t mishear me.” 

“What?” 

“I’m saying you heard correctly. I don’t want to get married to you. The engagement is over.” 

You watch as Alistair’s jaw drops open yet again, and meanwhile, your mother lets out the single most offended gasp you’ve ever heard in your entire life. With the way she’s reacting right now, you would think that she’s the one being broken up with. 

Anyways, it doesn’t matter. Everyone is free to be as outraged as they want. Your decision is final.

“[N-Name],” your mother splutters weakly. She somehow looks like she’s aged a whole decade, simply by being part of this conversation. “Don’t… don’t be ridiculous. If this is supposed to be some kind of joke, it’s not funny, young lady. Apologize to your fiancé for your rudeness.”

“But he’s not my fiancé anymore,” you say simply. “I just broke up with him.” 

“[Name]!” 

She presses a palm to her forehead and proceeds to fall rather ungraciously onto the nearest chair. She grips the arms of the chair and gasps for breath, as if she’s holding on for dear life. Really, the whole thing is needlessly overdramatic. She’s acting like she just got diagnosed with an incurable disease or something. 

Alistair approaches her hesitantly. “Countess [Last Name], are you quite alright? Should I send for help?” 

“N-No, I’m fine,” she replies, visibly gaunt. “I just… need a moment to collect myself. I’m still convinced my foolish daughter must be playing a trick on the both of us. Truly, I don’t know what came over her. She’s never done anything like this before.”

You wish you could say you feel guilty about scaring your own mother half to death, but does she really need to overreact to this extent? It’s not like Alistair’s the only fish in the sea. You can just marry someone else, for crying out loud. 

“Come on, then,” your mother urges. She looks up at you in desperation. “Take back what you said, [Name]. If you apologize profusely, I’m sure Alistair will forgive you. He’s a patient, charitable man, and you’re extremely fortunate to have him.”

You turn back towards Alistair. It’s true that he’s a good guy. You know as much from playing his route and having seen how kindly he treated the heroine. That’s exactly why this decision is the best one for the both of you. He’ll get to enjoy his fated romance without a villainess fiancée complicating things. He may not realize it right now, but you’re doing him a big favor. 

Still. I guess being broken up with all of a sudden can’t feel good. I should try and soften the blow.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, and your mother audibly exhales. Her reaction is premature, however, because you have no intention of saying what she wants you to.

Instead, you double down. 

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to marry you,” you continue. “And it’s really nothing personal. I thought about it, and I’m not physically attracted to you at all. You seem like a very nice guy, and I respect you on a personal level. But your face just isn’t doing anything for me, and I can’t keep pretending. It just won’t ever work out between us. Sorry about this.” 

Alistair’s jaw drops open for the third time, and your mother lets out a horrified scream before openly wailing into the palms of her hands. 

“What?” you gape. “What did I say that was so wrong?” 

Needless to say, you were lying just then. Alistair is extremely attractive, but you wanted to spare his feelings and not make him feel like you dislike him as a person. It’s not like you could ever tell him the actual reason. He’ll never understand why you’re so desperate to get away from him. But once he meets the heroine and falls for her, it won’t even matter.

Alistair blinks, looking more exhausted by the second. “So… the reason you want to end our engagement… is because you don’t like how I look?” 

“Pretty much,” you nod. “See? Now you’re getting it.” 

Your mother keeps on wailing, and it only seems to be getting louder by the second. Jeez, this family is home to so many drama queens. No wonder the villainess turned out to be such a massive pain. 

“I see.” Alistair presses his lips together. He’s clearly trying to remain civil, but it must be difficult, considering you’ve all but spat in his face. “I didn’t realize you had such specific demands when it came to your future husband. I apologize for not meeting your standards. I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to change your mind?” 

“It’s an insurmountable issue, I’m afraid. Let’s just agree to cut our losses here and move on.” 

Alistair scrunches up his nose, struggling to hide his irritation. You don’t really blame him for it. Odds are he won’t want to speak to you ever again after this, but that’s exactly what you’re after. The more distance he keeps from you, the better your chances of survival. Having this hottie loathe your guts is a small price to pay for not dying.

“Very well, then. I should return home and tell my parents the news. They won’t be too pleased to hear it, but if you’re not willing to proceed with the engagement, I must respect your wishes. Good day, [Name].” 

Alistair bows, and even though your mother tries begging him to stay in between every choked-out sob, soon enough, he’s gone. 

Just like that, you’ve successfully avoided your very first death flag.

You’ve got to admit, it feels pretty good. 

“[Name]!” your mother screams. She’s apparently recovered enough of her strength to stand up from the chair, and is now glaring daggers at you. In fact, she looks like she might even be out for blood. “What in the world… is the meaning of this? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

You slowly back away from her. “Um. I just ended a relationship that was doomed to fail?” 

“[Name]!” 

“Eek! Don’t hurt me!” 

You rip off your heels and start running down the hallway. Since she doesn’t have the nerve to abandon decorum and sprint after you, she opts to stand by the doorway and yell out her feelings. 

“Just wait until your father finds out about this!” she cries out. “Do you hear me? You’re in big trouble, young lady! You can’t even begin to fathom the storm that’s headed your way!” 

She keeps screaming and screaming, but the further you run, the more her voice fades into the distance. There are countless servants and other household staff that are watching the whole spectacle unfold, no doubt wondering what the hell is going on. It’s only your first day as a villainess, and you’ve already managed to become the center of attention.

Still. You successfully broke off your engagement and saved yourself from certain death. All things considered, you’d say you’re doing pretty well so far.

“[Name]!” 

…you might end up being killed by your mother instead, though.

It doesn’t take long for word of your antics to spread throughout the manor. 

Not that it really surprises you, after all the havoc you wreaked. You figured that breaking off your engagement with Alistair wouldn’t be without its fair share of trouble, but you didn’t expect your mother to react so viscerally. It was like an episode straight out of a reality TV show.

Anyways, you’re still trying to come to terms with this new body and new life of yours, but one thing you’ve quickly realized is that the servants here are super chatty. The second there’s any hot new gossip, they dive right into it. They’re rather careless about their surroundings, considering they work for a mean villainess who could easily punish them for their insolence. It’s a good thing you’re not the real [Name]. She would have probably put them through hell by now.

But you digress. The main topic today is, of course, the fact that you broke off your engagement and nearly gave your mother a heart attack. 

“Can you believe what Lady [Name] did? I heard the countess’ soul just about left her body!” 

“It was so sudden, too. Completely without warning.” 

“Wasn’t she always gushing about how much she liked him up until now? What could have possibly changed?”

“Our lady is a fickle sort, after all. Still, it is surprising. I’ve been hearing talks that she hasn’t quite been herself since this morning. Perhaps it’s true that some strange malady has taken up residence in her body…” 

Well, now that’s a little rude. You would hardly call yourself a malady. Although you most certainly have taken up residence in this body. The villainess that they loved to hate is now a thing of the past, but you’re willing to bet that they’ll appreciate this change.  

For one thing, you’re perfectly happy to overlook their gossip. It’s actually kind of fun to know that so many people are talking about you. This surge in popularity is somewhat exhilarating. 

Well, either way, you aren’t too concerned about it. You’ve already decided to take the steps towards restoring your reputation and prove to everyone that you’re a good person. You refuse to allow yourself to be labeled as the villainess, because you already know how that story goes. 

You’ve been locked in your room reading for the past little while. You were expecting your mother to storm in earlier and yell at you some more, but based on all the gossip you’ve heard from the servants, she has apparently fallen ill from shock and is lying in her bed. Seriously, such a drama queen.

Just as you’re about to turn a page and start a new chapter in the ridiculously cheesy romance novel you’re reading, someone knocks on the door.

“...Lady [Name]? May I enter?” 

“Hm? Oh, sure. Go ahead,” you beckon. 

The door opens, and you are once again faced with the nervous little maid from before. She seems to be just as apprehensive as always, the poor thing. The real [Name] must have been awful to her, if she’s close to bursting into tears every time she lays eyes on you. 

“Hey,” you greet, setting your book aside and smiling pleasantly. “How can I help you?” 

“P-Pardon the interruption, but I thought… you might want to know that your father has just returned to the estate,” she stammers. “I realize this isn’t my place, but given how your mother reacted earlier, I… I just thought I should tell you.” 

Aww. She came all this way to speak to you—something that clearly terrifies her—just to give you a heads-up? Even though the real villainess clearly didn’t treat her well, she’s still acting in your best interests and looking out for you. You’re technically not even the head of the household. Officially, she should answer to your father, first and foremost. But she still went out of her way to let you know, even if she could get in trouble for it. 

You’ve officially made up your mind. This cute little maid deserves the entire world, and you’re going to make sure she knows it. 

“Thank you for telling me,” you smile. 

She meets your gaze, only for a moment, then nods skittishly before looking away again.

“What’s your name again?” you ask. “I’m sorry if you’ve told me before, but I’ve forgotten. I think I should do a better job of remembering from now on. I’m hoping it will help people feel more comfortable around me.” 

“You want… to know my name?” 

She’s visibly taken aback, no doubt because the previous owner of this body never expressed any interest in treating the people that worked for her, like, well… like actual people.

But you’re not the same crappy villainess she’s used to. You’re determined to change your fate in every possible way, and to that end, acting like a decent human being sounds like a pretty good place to start. 

You nod encouragingly. “Yes, your name. I’d like to know, so that I remember what to call you from now on. It would really help me out. I’m going to try to remember everyone else’s names too. It might take a little while, but I’ll certainly do my best.” 

She can’t stop herself from gaping at you, which again, you can’t really blame her for. But despite her visibly wariness, she still musters up the courage to respond. 

“F-Fiona,” she replies. “My name is Fiona. But I-I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, so it's okay if you forget!” 

She’s the very first person whose name you’ve gotten to know since waking up in this world, so it’s safe to say that you won’t be forgetting anytime soon. 

You clasp your hands together and grin. “Perfect! Thank you for sharing that with me, Fiona. I hope this will help us feel closer from now on. And don’t hesitate to tell me if you’re ever uncomfortable. I’ve resolved to make a change recently, and part of that involves ensuring that the people who work for me feel at ease.” 

Fiona keeps on gaping at you. She must be struggling to wrap her head around all this. You can practically see the gears turning inside her head.

Well, you feel much better now. It’ll obviously take a while for Fiona to start trusting you, and that goes for the rest of the household staff as well, but you’re willing to put in the effort and make a change. 

“Anyways, Fiona,” you carry on, lifting up the book you were just reading, “have you read this, by any chance? If so, I was wondering what your thoughts on it were. To me, it just seems way too clichéd—” 

“[Name]!” 

Ah. That must be your father. Well, then. This is as good a time as any, you suppose. 

You set the book down and smile. “I guess that discussion will have to wait until later. Sorry for troubling you right off the bat, but do you think you could help me make a rope out of all those blankets so I can climb out of the window and run away?” 

Fiona blinks several times in quick succession, but unfortunately, she isn’t able to react in time. 

Your father bursts into the room moments later. 

Is there any chance he’s going to be chill about this?  

“[Name]!” he cries out again. “What’s this nonsense I hear about you breaking off your engagement while I was out?!” 

Hm. Honestly, it’s still too early to tell. He might not even be that mad. 

“I’m extremely mad right now!” 

Fuck. 

Your father’s arrival immediately signals for Fiona to leave. Even though she was nice enough to warn you ahead of time, there’s nothing she can do to help you at this point. Hopefully she’ll keep you in her prayers, at least. 

Fiona closes the door behind her, and you slowly stand up from the bed, taking the time to gauge your father’s expression. His nostrils are flaring as he yells at you—definitely not a good sign. You also don’t know exactly what kind of relationship the villainess had with her parents. You know that she was spoiled, but it’s clear that this engagement between you and Alistair is something they consider very important. Batting your eyelashes probably won’t get you off the hook.

But you may as well try it, just to be sure. 

“I’m sorry, father,” you say, mustering up your most convincing puppy eyes. “I just… I just didn’t want to be with him. I realized it and had to put an end to that engagement. The thought of having to marry him was too much to bear.” 

Your father narrows his eyes. “Really? Alistair Calderwood? The very same man that you were absolutely thrilled about when I first announced that our families were discussing a potential engagement?”

…huh. Right. Now that you think about it, the villainess did like Alistair quite a good deal, which is why she completely lost her shit when he fell for the heroine instead. 

Your case isn’t looking too strong. 

“Th-That was then, this is now,” you stubbornly deny. “I’ve learned a lot about myself in this time, and I now understand that we’re simply incompatible. I want to marry someone that I’m truly passionate about. I just can’t force myself to go along with this anymore.” 

“But you were speaking highly of him just the other day,” your father insists, clearly exasperated. “Last night, when I told you that he would be visiting today, I recall that you said, ‘Oh, how fun! I’ll be sure to pick out one of my finest dresses tonight!’’’

Balls. He’s really not making this easy for you, huh? 

“I was really struggling,” you nod somberly. “I kept pretending that I was happy to be with him, even though I had already decided long ago that my heart was closed off. I’m afraid he’s fallen out of favor with me, father. There’s nothing he can do to win me back anymore.” 

Your father proceeds to just stare at you for a while. You’re not sure whether he’s buying it or not. Hopefully your parents are as gullible as you’d like them to be.

“...I’ve had enough of this farce.” 

Okay, so maybe not that gullible. Duly noted. 

“We’ve always let you do as you pleased,” he grits out, clenching his fists in frustration. “I don’t concern myself with what you get up to in your personal time, so long as you do the bare minimum of what’s expected of you. And we had already agreed that you would marry someone we deemed acceptable. Alistair Calderwood is the most promising candidate you’ve ever had. And you want to squander this opportunity purely on a whim?” 

“It’s not like I’ll go unwed,” you protest. “I’ll happily marry someone else. I’m sure I can find another man that’s equally as respectable and impressive. I just don’t want it to be Alistair—” 

“Silence. Do not speak unless I tell you to speak.” 

He glares at you with an intensity you didn’t even know was possible. You involuntarily gulp and take several steps back. You’ve been so caught up in the excitement of a new life that you’d briefly forgotten what kind of setting this is. Here, young women such as yourself are basically treated like property by their own families. You live in luxury, but only under the condition that you marry into a reputable family and further elevate your parents’ status. 

Part of you had been hoping that the villainess could get away with this sort of behavior, but it seems as though she too is just a pawn in a much bigger game. 

“You’ve made a royal mess of things,” your father scowls. “And now it falls on me to fix it. I’m not sure if the Calderwood family will forgive this transgression, but you had better hope they will. Otherwise, you’re going to regret it.” 

He doesn’t elaborate on how you’ll be regretting it, and before you can ask what exactly he has in mind, he storms out of the room. 

You purse your lips. “Okay, so that probably could have gone better.”

While you were being yelled at and lowkey threatened by your father, Alistair was facing his fair share of discomfort as well.

“She did what?” 

“She called off the engagement,” Alistair repeats. His parents are every bit as incredulous as he was expecting. Well, he couldn’t quite believe the news when he heard it either. It was completely out of nowhere.

Alistair’s father, Duke Calderwood, lets out a sigh and massages his temples. “Are you quite certain that’s what she meant? Remember, I told you before. [Name] can be rather frivolous at times. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was yet another one of her mood swings.” 

“Considering she repeated it over and over again, I’d say there’s no doubt she was serious about it,” Alistair grimaces. “She… insulted my appearance. She said she wasn’t attracted to me and couldn’t imagine us being together.” 

“Why, that’s nonsense!” his mother gasps. “You’re such a handsome young man!” 

“All due respect, mother, that’s not the issue here. I had no idea how to handle such a sudden rejection, and I must admit that I’m at a complete loss.” 

Duke Calderwood shakes his head. “Like I said, she’s frivolous. But it doesn’t change the fact that she utterly disrespected you. I can’t believe her family would allow such behavior. It calls their legitimacy into question.” 

“Does it even matter anymore? She clearly has no intention of being with me. Her mother desperately tried to convince her otherwise, but she refused to even consider it. I don’t expect that she’ll have yet another change of heart. Besides, I would be humiliated to have to take her back after how she spoke to me.” 

“Right. It’s a frustrating turn of events, but we can’t forgive such an oversight. Perhaps, with the right token of apology…” 

“Father,” Alistair glares. “I don’t want to be with her anymore either. She treated me like dirt.” 

“Yes, yes. But, well, the arrangement we had made with [Name]’s family was quite favorable to us. It’s just a shame things had to end this way,” the duke sighs.

Alistair turns away from him. “If it’s all the same, I’d like to be alone for a little while. Regardless of how [Name]’s family chooses to handle this, I have no intention of taking her back. I hope you can understand.” 

He walks off before waiting to hear how his parents respond. It doesn’t concern him anymore. Frankly speaking, he didn’t want to get married to you in the first place. He’s heard the rumors. He knows that you have a rather infamous reputation, and that you act selfishly with no regard to those around you. He never wanted someone like that as his bride-to-be, but he went along with it to be a good son and make his family proud. In a way, this whole thing is a blessing in disguise. He’s no longer bound to you. 

Which is why it’s so strange. His chest should feel ten times lighter now that he doesn’t have to deal with you anymore. Whoever his next fiancée is will surely be a much better option. 

Perhaps it’s the sting of rejection. The bitterness that comes with being scorned so readily. The way you looked at him back there… it was like you couldn’t wait to be done with him. He’s never experienced such utter disinterest before. 

“What a waste of time,” Alistair mutters under his breath. No, it’s better this way. Some temporary frustration is nothing compared to how much he would have suffered if he was stuck having to marry you. 

He didn’t care about you to begin with, so there’s no reason he should care about you now. 

Lost in thought, Alistair bumps into someone as he turns the corner. 

“...ah. My bad, my bad. I should have been more careful.” 

Alistair scowls, already irritable because of the way his day started off. The person he’s just run into certainly doesn’t help. It’s a familiar face, but not one he’s particularly fond of.

“Hello, Rowan,” Alistair greets half-heartedly, adjusting the collar of his jacket in place. “I didn’t realize you were visiting today.” 

Rowan offers a languid smile. “Yes, well, my father had business in the area, so I thought I’d stop by.” 

“Is uncle doing well?” 

“As well as he can be. No different than usual, I suppose.”

“I see. That’s good to hear.” Alistair awkwardly clears his throat. “Anyways. I’m not feeling too well at the moment, so you’ll have to excuse me for not sticking around. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

He pushes past Rowan as quickly as he can, making no effort to hide his discomfort. Rowan knows it all too well. He’s used to his interactions with his cousin being brief, superficial, and painfully tense. Not that he minds. And besides, there’s something of far greater concern right now.

“Did I hear that right?” Rowan blinks. “Alistair’s fiancée… broke up with him?”

He happened to overhear while he was walking down the hallway, and he could hardly believe his own ears. To think that the engagement Alistair’s parents were so looking forward to would be completely destroyed, in the blink of an eye. It’s just so… so…

Hilarious.

“Pfft—!” 

Rowan covers his mouth with the palm of his hand, struggling to keep from laughing aloud. It’s just too good to be true. It’s the best news he’s gotten in a long time. 

“Ah, incredible,” Rowan chuckles. He wipes a hand across his eyes, which have already begun to tear up from amusement. “That woman, [Name]. She sounds like a fucking riot. Perhaps I ought to meet her for myself.” 

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[randybutternubber]

More goo kid and worker drawings for the like… one other person who remembers them. If you wanna see my first post and drawings of them plus HCs (they’re better than these I swear), you can go through the goo kid tag on my blog. And also one shadow kid snuck in

@mjrdm

I guess I’ll sprinkle in a few more HCS

In the third picture I basically just drew my idea of why the goo kid looks like a burnt up hairball covered in tar. They were chased by a worker(s) into part of the factory that had large vats of that weird goo liquid. The worker ended up attacking them, tearing one of their overall straps, and with no other choice, they took the plunge and proceeded to get lost in the sauce. Quite literally.

The goo isnt something that they can just wash off, especially since they kept putting it back on as a way to blend in with the workers. It’s kind of a part of them now.

The goo ended up blinding them in one eye when they initially fell into the vat

I guess warning for more dark HCs, although I feel like they all align with the darker content in LN

The goo is made up of whatever the workers don’t use from the body of a child, oil, tar, melted plastic and other things that you probably don’t want to be smeared on your body. After a worker kills a kid, they essentially strip their body for parts like fabric, metal or plastic from buttons, teeth, etc. basically any sort of material they can use. Most fabrics and other materials that the workers can’t use are sent up in a dumbwaiter to the chained lady so that she can hopefully find a use for them. Most of the organic parts of the kid can’t be used, so they burn them in a furnace that’s very similar to the one in the maw. It likely has a hand in powering the factory as well. The ash is then processed with some other materials to create the goo. This goo plus some other bullshit or something is how workers are made.

Something something pink sauce McDonald’s

If you actually look at the factory/stone giant as a whole, a lot of it doesn’t actually make sense or should work logically. There are a lot of machines that just shit out their products into god knows where and a lot of them are just needlessly complicated

The reason why goo kid adjusted so well to life in the factory is that they were taken to the nowhere at a relatively young age. The incident with the vat happened shortly after they arrived. They basically grew up among the workers, and while they aren’t really friendly towards them, they aren’t outright aggressive unless they mess with the machines. They probably see them as a defective worker or something.

All workers have mouths, but not all of them have permanently exposed teeth

Workers are VERY fast and able to react quickly, especially to light, but they do still sometimes get limbs torn off by the machine. All workers are ambidextrous, as in they do not have a dominant hand and can use both with an equal amount of skill, so they usually just use their other hand, but since they sometimes use two tools at once, they might use their mouth to carry it or tie it to whatever is left of their arm. The goo can stick to it, but they will usually tear off part of their overalls (most commonly the leg parts/cuffs which is why a lot of workers have torn short overalls) until it grows back.

Goo kid got most of their food from the upper levels of the stone giant- just eating whatever was thrown down into the trash

Workers do eat- but not for sustenance. They use their stomachs as just a place to store stuff. it’s mainly because not all of them have tool belts or pockets, so they might swallow down some nuts (don’t) or bolts or other small objects so they can regurgitate them while working.

Most workers start out decked in the same or very similar clothing (overalls, tool belt, hammer, wrench, etc) but they like to steal from each other, plus it’s a factory setting, and it’s very common for them to get their clothes ripped. Workers do occasionally get new clothing, and while they are somewhat of a hive mind, they do vary in personality, especially when away from others. Some workers also differ visually. They can have all different lengths of hair, unless it’s ridiculously long and gets stuck, which usually isn’t a problem though as the goo mats their hair. Different overalls are usually because the person who makes them, (chained lady or the really weird doll with the sewing machine) sometimes use different materials or different styles

Workers are highly flammable, but do not react if set on fire unless the fire is damaging a machine. Unlike shadow kids who are very scared of fire, workers really just don’t care. It doesn’t hurt them like light does.

Workers are a bit larger than most LN children, it’s just that goo kid is small because he’s younger/just short which might give the appearance in the images of them being a lot bigger

Goo kid wears worker’s overalls but they’re sinched since they’re quite short

Workers can climb on all fours on sheer drops while facing downwards since their feet can twist the other way, similar to a few kinds of cats who can also do this

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/764427137329577984/there-is-something-confusing-to-me-about-older?source=share

Literally why. Why would they not all just use one set of pronouns? Anon, this is pretentious as shit. At ABSOLUTE MOST you could justify two sets of pronouns but like. C'mon. This is needlessly complicated for the sake of it.

If I saw this shit in a book in the wild I would instantly put it down. This is so artificial and stupid. There's a reason why the real world doesn't do this. It's tedious. It's clunky. And it is peak catgender nyan/nyanself 20 year old college student who wears cat ears in public trash. Please put the anthropology books down. Go outside. Touch grass. Talk to someone. Stop embarrassing yourself.

Maybe when everyone cringes you're the one doing something cringeworthy. OTNF is too nice to say it, but we're all thinking it.

--

Harsh, dude.

I think it's perfectly possible that a skilled enough writer could sell this concept.

I do, however, think people sometimes get so wrapped up in research that they fail to return to the actual human element. Anthropology isn't an issue, but anthro books and a desire for neat categories might be.

Some languages have truckloads of pronouns, as the other anon noted, but they tend to be used by or for the same person in different contexts. My impression is that most of the third gender roles throughout history have used male or female pronouns even in cases where they're a fairly mainstream part of a community. A tidy division into four sets of gendered pronouns feels like someone's created system to me and not like something that would arise organically.

[tulipsforyourlips]

✧˖°. i found you ✧˖°. (7)

|| the sandman x dead boy detectives ||

SUMMARY: You run the dead boys detective agency along with your two best friends. And somehow two ghosts and a living girl make it work. Until you dream one night, of dream himself.

PAIRING: dream of the endless x fem!reader

WC: 3.6K

WARNINGS: heavy angst, violence, heavy depictions of gore!! proceed only if you have the stomach for it!

PART 7 ✧˖°.

You were wrapping the take out noodles around your fork, for some minutes now. There was no space for food inside you, your guts were packed. With agonizing feelings. And the worst of them- unrequited feelings. You dropped your head on the table. 

"Insult. Preposterous scandalous insult. If I could eat, I would never ever insult noodles like that." Charles entered the living room.

He sat down beside you on the floor with a sigh. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong." You titled your head in his direction, still resting it on the marble surface.

He brought his face needlessly closer. "Yeah?"

"You know mate there is this notion you have never heard of-it's called personal space and you're seriously invading it right now." You pushed his face back.

"Come on, tell me." He poked your leg with his under the table.

"Charles I," you pressed the heels of your hands against your eyes.

"I think I am in love." You brought your hands down and looked into his eyes.

"Haz you're my best friend-" Huh "-and I love you, I do but-"

"Not with you! You buffoon!" You smacked his shoulder.

His mouth formed an 'O'. "Of course I knew that," he said while massaging his shoulder. "That hurt by the way."

"Good." You threw your head on the couch behind you.

"Who is the unlucky man?"

"You don't know him."

"Wait is this the guy you keep ditching us for?"

"No-yes and I don't ditch you for him you overdramatic arse."

"Whatever. Are you sure you are in love?" He asked. "It's not just some infatuation?"

"No Charles it isn't a stupid crush. I feel my trachea physically contract when I am near him. Like someone has just seized it, leaving behind thumbprints-his thumbprints."

"I did not get a word of that."

You rolled your eyes.

"Is he hot?" He smirked.

You went over the memories of his flawless face, each detail on it so intricately stored in your mind.

"He's beautiful."

"Damn, you are fucked mate."

You were fucked.

"What's going on?" Edwin joined you both.

"Hazel is in love."

"Wha-"

"No!" You shrieked. "I think. I don't know."

"The mystery date?" Edwin pulled a chair and spun it so that his torso was against the back of it.

"Yeah."

"Haven't you known him for a month maybe?"

"It feels like an eternity," you said. "Why me?" You wailed.

"Happens to the best of us soldier." Charles patted your back.

"Does he..love you back?" Edwin inquired.

"Guys love is too strong a word! And no."

"Has he told you that?"

You narrowed your eyes at Edwin. "No." Before he could take apart your reply and divulge into its interpretations, you rebuffed, "he can't. It's not possible. It's complicated. Just that he can't. And please, can we stop talking about this. Don't you two have any better things to do than piss me off."

"No. Hazel in love is a whole new facet for me to explore."

"Say love one more time and I will skin you alive," you threatened.

"Loooooove," Charles sang.

"This is precisely why I was planning to just sulk by myself alone and swallow down my feelings. Fuck healthy coping mechanisms." You pushed the table back and began standing up when Charles pulled you down.

"You would have exploded."

"Like I am practicing sainthood right now," you fumed as you thrashed against his arms.

"So how old is he?" Edwin queried.

"You people are insufferable. Are you building a freaking facebook page for him?"

"Hey how did you know?" Charles was sniffing the bowl of noodles.

You hit him on the head. "Can you even smell it?"

"It's the effort that counts mate and stop bloody hitting me!" He yelped.

"Stop being you!"

"Guys guys stop it! Hazel how old is he?"

"Quite old," you sighed.

"Like grandpa old-"

"Ew Charles. Well," He was technically more than that.

Edwin's eyes widened. "I was aware you were into older men but?"

"Come on he can't be older than us," Charles grinned.

Yeah about that...

"What is he? Jesus?" Edwin questioned.

"Yeah mate like she just casually fell in love with a god."

Oh boy they were treading dangerously close.

As they began speculating which greek gods they would fuck, marry or kill, you felt your eyelids droop down and you succumbed to the sweet call of sleep.

You stood over the dreaming waters, a wind blowing your hair awry. You lowered your body and your fingers grazed the surface of the glittering water, causing a tremor of ripple. You felt the energy seething in the water body, intangible but somehow compellingly real. And you let it's force pull you into the unfathomable depths of the sea. The impact was cold against your mortal skin, but not as jarring as it should have been for a human. Perhaps it was practice, perhaps it was your weird abilities. Here you could even breathe underwater without flooding your lungs. A trail of light erupted inside the water, guiding you to your destinations. You slackened your muscles and allowed it to steer your body to the dream awaiting you. Like it had been for the past few days. You fell into the dream. Riveting darkness engulfed you. Something was off. A putrid smell wafted through the air which was devoid of any warmth. You opened your arms wide, trying to gain an estimation of your surroundings. Your hands braced against something. A wall? You tried to feel the coarse rugged wall with your fingers but they came away slicky. Gross.

"Hello?" You called out into the apparent void and heard your voice echo against the sickening enclosure of wherever the fuck you had stumbled onto. 

The rancid odour that hung in its air did not aid in pacifying your nerves. You carefully started walking, trying to locate the dream's inhabitant and reach the end of wherever you were when a  clank sounded from where your feet had accidentally kicked something. Before you could discern it, a torch shone in the far distance. A muddled sense of relief poured into your nerves.

"Is anyone there?" You called into the darkness and began approaching the source of light which was gradually making its way towards you.

As you neared the silhouette, it began taking the form of a person. Then you stopped in your tracks, the momentary relief freezing into blocks of fear. A beast of a man holding a sconce alit with fire stared at you with eyes reflecting its light along with an untamed hunger for bloodlust. And then he smiled, displaying all of his crooked yellowed teeth. You took a step back, then another and ran for your life. But luck adored you and you tripped and fell face first onto the ground. Ouch. Your tongue tasted copper as blood oozed from your lips. The left side of your face that was in direct contact with the grimy ground throbbed and you were sure you had managed to bruise that too. You lifted yourself up on your hands weight which stung with meek cuts. The man's footsteps grew louder. And as they did, the light of the raving fire fell on the object you had first hit your leg against and now tripped on. A corpse, multiple corpses, half of them dwindled down to a revolting cluster of skeletons while the other half were decaying their way towards their comrades littered around your own breathing body which could soon add to the pile. Could you die in dreams? You could definitely get hurt. Oh my god you could definitely die. You wanted to empty your guts. Instead you ran. How were you in a nightmare and whose bloody conscious were you in? Who dreamt of walls slick with blood and cannibals or whichever friendly profession the guy practiced roaming within them?

"Dream," your voice pleaded as you exhausted your lungs' limits. You spared a glance back, he was still pursuing you. "Dream! Help me!"

No answer. 

He couldn't hear you. You knew that. You had tried it the second time you had entered someone else's dream- cursing and taunting him as a healthy way to vent your anger at your failed attempts. You had to escape this place. But how? The only way you knew was the opening of a portal after the dream had bent to your will. And there was no way you could get that despising man to trust you. Your legs ached but the nearing shadow on the ground had you disregard it. A portal appeared out of nowhere in front of you and the inertia of your run had you dive straight into it. Pitch black swallowed you again, this time absent of the smell of rotten corpses as you plummeted, to your death. No, not your death. You landed on stable ground in pure darkness. And a light bulb switched on. A mob of zombies were circled around you. Sharp acute fear sliced through your insides. Then the light fused out. Pitch black. When it switched on again, the bloodthirsty creatures were impossibly near you. Shabby vile hands wrapped around your throat. Another pair around your forearm. And another. The army of zombies was on you, nails digging into your flesh, drawing blood.

"Dream please," you futilely begged.

No answer.

Just as your mind was supplying you with images of the dead boy detectives at your tombstone, a portal opened underneath you and gravity pulled you down yet again. Your feet slammed against a polished floor. You found yourself in a diner. Nobody seemed to take in your pathetic presence as you stood studying the scenes playing in front of you. A waitress named Jenny took a happy couple's order. A young man dressed up for a job interview sat on the counter. A woman was calling up her girlfriend after a nasty fight. In the kitchen someone chopped up tomatoes. An odd man sat in a booth in a corner, observing the people all around with an unsettling glint in his eye. A red glow illuminated his face which seemed to come from an object clutched in his hand. Conversations played out everywhere. The scenes segued into the next seamlessly. Something about this figment felt less a dream and more like a memory. But that did nothing to melt the blocks of fear still floating around in your blood, given the fiery streak of nightmares you were on. It's as if you were witnessing the worst of humanity. Your skin bore bleeding gashes as proof. You watched the now mismatched couples make out with each other. And when you blinked, you were alone. It was as though the people had vaporized into thin air. Apprehension tingled your spine. Three people flickered into existence to your right like the lights flickering overhead. The job interviewee was huddled over the CEO's husband. He pulled away a little and a gasp of horror left your mouth. A gaping slash decorated his neck as blood streamed from it, seeping into his clothes and onto the floor. Bile arose in your throat.

"What did you do?" The wife squeaked.

"I didn't mean to-" The young man started explaining when he dissolved into nothingness like the rest.

You wanted to get out of here. What kind of fucked up memory was this?

Two figures materialized in the back, in the kitchen. The waitress was burning papers into a fire while the chopping guy from before was cutting up more vegetables. You warily approached the window segregating the customer side and you wished you hadn't. It wasn't just papers the woman was burning but her own hands and you fought the urge to scream at the charred skin of the woman which was peeling off her hands, exposing the tissues and bones inside. Her friend wasn't bringing his knife down on tomatoes but with a grimace, you saw on his own fingers. Blood spluttered onto the chopping board, a few droplets etching on his face. You grabbed the counter behind you as you shivered due to the gruesome sight you had just experienced. You grinded your teeth in order to not throw up right there and then. In the next second, they were both gone. You revolved your head around, scanning for any sort of escape from the ceaseless series of nightmares you had locked yourself in. You started towards the door, when Jenny appeared in your way with two screwdrivers in her hand. And to your utter harrowing horror, thrusted their spiky ends into her eyes. Your stomach unfurled into a sickening frenzy that gripped every organ of your being and you shuddered. You closed your eyes. Tears slid down your face, mixing the taste of copper and seawater on your tongue. Everything hurt.

"Dream I want to get out," you croaked to yourself, fingers trembling.

No answer.

When you opened them again, all the individuals from before were leering at you. Drenched in blood- gushing out of necks, dripping down from hammered and sliced hands, accompanied by bloodied slits for eyes.

"Dream please, I need you," you whispered, tears falling down in a torrent. 

Blood splattered everywhere as they made their way to you. The door was just behind you. But you were frozen in your spot, dread weighing your body down. They spread around, closing in from every direction. You took a step back and your back collided with something solid. You closed your eyelids, waiting to be impaled on a knife or a screwdriver when a familiar hand draped around your waist.

"I got you," Dream's sweet voice said in your ears.

And in a heartbeat, the horrendous scene was replaced by his throne room. He released his hold on you and without his hands keeping you upright, your knees buckled and you fell to the floor.

Bottling down any sob that could dare leak through, you asked, blinking away tears, "what happened back there?"

"You accidentally ventured into the worst the Dreaming has to offer," he explained while scrutinizing your injuries.

"I did not venture Dream. I got sucked into it," you bit out.

The Endless lowered himself to where you were crouched on the floor. You must be looking a complete and hapless fiasco, lips and skin torn, blood desecrating your features, incongruous in the Dreaming castle. 

"Hazel I never thought those could even be accessible to you. Some nightmares yes, but none that terrorizing. Something must have-"

"You knew?" You looked up at him. "You knew that I could stumble into a nightmare any of the days you sent me there?"

"It-it never happened before, with Hope-"

"I am not Hope!" you snapped. "I almost died Dream, more than once." Your voice shook involuntarily.

"I wouldn't have let you," he said firmly. "I heard you."

He did? All the names you had called him and the jokes you had made of his 'conceited arse' passed through your mind. But the spur of embarrassment mellowed down as rage took its hold back on you.

His fingers skimmed across the underside of your eye where a scar was engraving into it.

"Don't touch me." You swatted his hand away.

A momentary hurt flashed in his eyes.

"Oh please like I am not doing you a favour. You act as if my touch burns you." You tried to get up but a swell of dizziness swept over you and you would have fallen again if Dream hadn't caught you against him. And as quickly, he let go of his hands.

"You promised,"

Dream flinched at your words.

"You promised it would be fine. Nothing about that was fine."

Dream went still. You turned back, away from the glass panes. The crystal colours reminded you of the apron Jenny was wearing and the image of the waitress jabbing the metal ends into her eyes, surfaced from wherever it had been imprinted in your mind for the remainder of your life.

"I can't do this anymore Dream. I am sorry."

A yank pulled you out of your sleep and your eyes fluttered open in the waking world. Every muscle in your anatomy was sore.

"Come on you tosser up!" Charles barged into your room.

You dragged your sheets over your head, shielding your sorry state from his gaze.

"Get up mate!" He whined. "I come as a bearer of absolutely brills news. We have, drumroll please," he rapped his hands on the bedstand, "another sea monster creating havoc!"

"I am not feeling really well today. I don't think I will be able to accompany you," you said from under your covers and Charles groped them, about to toss them aside.

"Bugger off! It could be a nasty infection, you will catch it."

"Ghost's don't get sick idiot."

"Charles please I am a mess right now, go without me," you pleaded.

"Ugh fine. Rot in bed for all I care." And he went away.

So you proceeded to rot in bed all day, staring at the wall, regretting your existence, you know, the usual. After a while, as the sun became dimmer, you got out of your bed with grueling effort, scrambled on a hoodie to conceal your bruised face and body incase the boys got back and went to the study. You began combing through thick volumes of parasite trivia to distract your mind from replaying the events of last night. Even the knowledge of your confrontation with Dream sparked a pain that hurt more than any physical wounds on your self. You browsed through the shelves and your fingers hovered over a book that peeked your interest. You pulled it out and immediately dropped it onto the floor at the swooshing sound from the mirror.

"Fuck, you scared me," you told a reappeared Edwin.

"I had no intention to," he apologized. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," you lied.

Charles was next through the mirror.

"How was the case?"

"Ugly," he said. "Did you know about the night nurse?" He scrunched his face.

"The what?" Your bafflement was genuine.

"She's this transcendental being working in some afterlife department locating missing boys-missing dead boys and allotting them their fixed places in the afterlife," Edwin spoke up.

"Yeah she's a bitch basically. Tried to separate Edwin and me here." He put up his hands in disbelief. "The gall. She can try." He balled up his fist into a punch. "I won't let her take you back to hell," he told Edwin.

Edwin smiled softly and squeezed his hand. "I know Charles."

"This doesn't make sense. Death isn't even after you," you blurted out and realized your mistake.

"What do you mean?" Both their ears perked up.

"I don't think that she is." You moved away from them and secured the hood around your head. You kept the study barely lit for the aesthetics and you applauded yourself for that whimsy decision.

"Well believe it or not the world doesn't adjust itself to what Hazel thinks and what Hazel feels," Charles blabbered.

Except it did.

"Yeah, I know. I am going to bed, see you later." You picked up the book you had dropped earlier and walked away.

"You sleep more than a corpse these days you know?"

You stopped in the doorway as the skeletons and remains of people from one of the nightmares entered your vision, a fate you were about to join.

"That isn't  funny," you deadpanned as you turned around.

"Dude chill it was a joke. Why so serious? Trouble with your boyfriend?" He snickered.

"Everything is not a bloody joke Charles!" You hurled your book at him and he ducked just in time from having a permanent dent on his head.

"What the fuck mate?"

"Hazel," Edwin chastised.

You pressed your fingers against your temples. "I am sorry."

You rushed out of the study, mad at everyone and yourself. Footsteps followed behind.

"Edwin please don't."

You winced as he grabbed your forearm. He noticed your reaction and pulled your sleeve up. You jerked free from his grip but he had already seen the claw marks carved in your skin.

"What was that?"

You shied away from his inspecting glare. He warily approached you, afraid he might set you off again. But as you retreated back, your hood fell back and light illuminated your battered face.

Edwin sucked in a breath. "What the fuck happened to your face?" His voice was upsettingly calm. You had never heard him curse once in the 4 years you had known him.

He clenched his teeth when you didn't respond. "Hazel, I asked you a question."

"I tripped." That was partially true.

"You tripped?" He asked incredulously. "What is happening to you?"

"Everything is fine Edwin! Absolutely brilliant. There is nothing you need to worry about."

"How can we not?" He cried. "We care for you!" He brought his voice down several octaves.  "We want to help you."

"You can't okay!" You yelled at him.

"Let us try." His eyes were locked on yours. "Please."

Your eyes grew watery. You plopped down on the couch near you. Edwin sat himself next to you.

"What is going on Hazel?" He gently probed.

You pursed your lips to stop yourself from crying. "Nothing." You shook your head.

"Come here."

He put his arm around you and at the touch, the dam of your emotions busted open and you crumbled into his embrace, soiling his shirt with your tears. He stroked your hair as you sobbed into his chest, emptying all of the pent up frustration and hurt and loss until you were numb, incapable of feeling anything. Oh Dream, what are you doing to me?

SERIES MASTERLIST ✧˖°.

[enlitment]

Asking for a friend...

What, if anything, would you interpret into La Nouvelle Heloise being an 18th century man's favourite book?

No this is not about any history blorbo why do you ask...

Oh boy... I have only read some passages from it, because romance is not really my genre and I have a distinct feeling that the history which surrounds it is thousand times more interesting than the book itself.

That said, I'll combine all my useless JJ knowledge to give the best possible answer I can!

First of all, it cannot be overstated how massively popular it was when it came out, so it's actually kind of a mainstream choice (some people apparently paid an hourly fee just to rent the damn book)! It mainly struck a cord with women readers, but plenty of men read it as well. And cried over it (one guy even claimed he cried so hard it cured his cold somehow).

I know this will probably sound like an insane comparison, but I kind of think of it as an 18th-century equivalent of Fifty Shades? Both in terms of popularity and it being rather risqué, just less overtly so. For instance, there is definitely a Ménage à trois element to the story that will be very familiar to any poor, unfortunate reader of Rousseau's own Confessions...

My diagnosis? You reached for LNH if you wanted to read something that was actually quite raunchy, but which was so carefully wrapped in sentimental pathos with JJ's weird moral lessons sprinkled on top that it gave you plenty of plausible deniability (unlike, let's say, Bijoux or something more overt).

Definitely not a story about some horny Swiss idiots making their lives needlessly complicated. You could practically feel the virtue radiating from every page and penetrating your very soul! Ah, what bliss!

tl;dr: 1. a pretty mainstream choice for the time 2. as much as it pains me to say it JJ is unfortunately a damn good writer capable of throwing you on an emotional roller-coaster in just a few pages - so a part of me gets the appeal? 3. a sort-of-smut for people who would likely have hang-ups about reading actual smut or at least admitting to it (this would likely apply to a lot of people in the 1700s)

If you haven't read the chapter Readers Respond to Rousseau: The Fabrication of Romantic Sensitivity in Robert Darnton's The Great Cat Massacre please please do, it's amazing, it's funny, it's one of the best things I've read this year! It also involves some primary sources, most of which are - I'm sorry to say - fan mail to JJ.

On the other hand, if you're a man who's read Confessions six times, there's a high chance you might just be a bit of a sub... <- no, you appreciate the truth and virtue above all, obviously!

[painted-bees]

I went looking for a list of OC questions that had a majority of things I hadn't answered yet wrt the hi-note trio, and found this lil' one abt "love and relationships" lmao I'm not gonna make anyone submit a number in my ask box for it, it's only 15 questions. I'll just answer them all for Margie and Raf under the cut.

1) How does your character view the idea of romantic love? Raf's got a complicated relationship with it. He's a very romantic person, and wants desperately to believe in the whole "true love "thing-- to believe that someone could love him just because it was predestined for them to do so, or because of some hard coding in their DNA or whatever--and that it'd work the same way for him, too. Just effortless, unquestionable, natural and unbreakable love. But that doesn't exist, it's a fantasy. People don't get into relationships unless there's something tangible in it for them--and then it's a tug-o-war of compromises and capitulations, and it's impossible to imagine anyone ever being truly happy and comfortable under the weight of an obligation as undefinable as 'love'. And so, he figures he'll be lucky if he can find someone he can tolerate, who can tolerate him--who might, once in a while, give him the euphoric feeling of being valued as a person rather than as an asset. And hopefully, those moments can outweigh the inevitable fights and disagreements, and all the emotional damages that arrive in those situations. As for Margie, there's no clear distinction between romantic love and platonic love for her, much of the time. She loves her friends all very intensely, and she loves her romantic partners in very much the same way! Her expressions of love do not change much between friends and lovers--and maybe for this reason, people who take the plunge into being a committed romantic partner with her find her to be somewhat underwhelming. There is very little difference between Margie as a friend and Margie as a romantic partner. There is very little difference between her definitions of these two things. Arguably, she's a very loving--but not a very romantic--person. She doesn't believe in soulmates or true love or any of these things, either. It feels too limiting. It puts so much unnecessary pressure on a single person and needlessly mystifies something that really shouldn't be all that strange or complicated.

2) What was your character's first heartbreak, and how did it influence their approach to relationships? Raf's first heartbreak, romantically...hm. He had a few friends who grew up with him, most of whom were also part of the junior classical music circuit; some of whom he kept in contact with even as his career pivoted away from the classical niche and into pop performance. I think perhaps there was one lass who he might have returned to Monaco for rather than fucking off to Juilliard--if she had returned his affections. He had confessed to her over the phone, just after being announced as a semi-finalist for a large, televised popular music competition. She asked him to call her again after the competition was over, when he was gonna come home. He didn't make it as a finalist, and she never answered his calls then after. So he followed his initial plans and absconded to Juilliard with a different friend who he awkwardly...briefly fell in with romantically instead. Who knows why she never answered his calls, but Raf has no doubt attributes the fact that he didn't make it as a finalist to the reason why she stopped talking to him. That was kinda the first and last time he made the first 'move' for a romantic relationship, and has since taken a much more disinterested, aloof approach...as with most things, really. Margie's first heartbreak was in grade five! She had a huge crush on a boy one grade above her, and mentioned it within earshot of one of her classmates from the 'popular' clique. Those girls got really excited for her and offered to help set her up on a date with him, got him to come over and ask her out during recess, and when she provided a very overenthusiastic, "yes!", Margie found that she had only been set up as the butt of a very hilarious joke between the lot of them. In that same interaction, the lad coined a new name for her, "FleaGirl", and it stuck all the way until she graduated highschool. It's still one of those embarrassing moments that crop up in her brain during the Midnight Carousel of Shame that keeps her awake during restless nights. As a teen, she started flirting with people as a joke, cuz that's her affection could really be–and she delighted in weirding people out with the overfamiliarity she performed. It felt nice though, when the other person would volley back and try to out-skeeze her. She still doesn't know how to flirt in earnest, and will always make a joke out of her affections. It's always kinda up to the other person to respond sincerely if they're actually interested in her.

3) Does your character believe in soulmates, and why or why not? HAH woops, I accidentally answered this in the first question lmao

4) What traits does your character find most attractive in others? Raf values honesty and genuine expression. He really...really loves joyful, unironic cringe. Like, there's something really attractive to him about a person who can let their guard down in order to fully enjoy something. He's really attracted to people who seem impervious to expectation and can cut through what he perceives as the superficial, performative gestures of day to day interactions. Sometimes that takes the form of a counter cultural "I don't care what they think of me" rebellious personality. Sometimes it takes the form of, well...[[gestures at Margie]]. Also, he'd never admit this, but Raf is attracted to messes that he can clean up. Margie is attracted to nice hair, cute smiles, and warm kindness. Unprovoked kindness towards her is the fastest way to make her fall in love with you. The other is casual, affectionate physical touch. She is not immune to a well groomed sense of style and easy confidence, either. If someone is well dressed with nice hair, a straight, open posture, and a warm smile--that's an attractive looking person to her.

5) What does your character fear most in a relationship? For Raf, it's expending his usefulness and being discarded. In every relationship, he's waiting for that one chance to prove that he can't give, or be, or provide what his partner was hoping to get out of him. Or maybe they finally get what they were after and don't need to keep suffering the act of 'loving' him anymore. Or maybe something better will come along and make him redundant. He's always waiting for that other shoe to drop. His biggest fear is just learning that his partner was only pretending to love him, so as to pacify him while they extract from him whatever it is they wanted. For Margie, she's terrified of overstaying her welcome. She feels like as soon as she gets into a relationship a timer starts ticking down where, every day, she starts becoming a little less cute, a little less fun, a little more annoying, a little more difficult to live with. She's identified herself as a kind of 'manic pixie dream girl' that people initially enjoy because she's weird and quirky and playful. But the more time they spend with her, the less fun those things are. She never stops being weird and quirky and playful. There's no point where she is able to get serious and organise herself, and behave like a normal adult. No one wants to live with that for very long.

6) How does your character handle jealousy or insecurity in relationships? Margie has no jealousy. She's straight up chill to let her partners have other relationships or flings or whatever so long as they don’t lie to her about it. And she’s extremely trusting about this. Her insecurity about her own lack of desirability probably played a huge part in developing this polyamorous stance, but she genuinely does feel very comfortable and secure in it. Raf [[gritted teeth]] deals with it. Not very well, in previous relationships. Poorly, in fact. The very uncommitted, open ‘friends with benefits’ relationship he had with Margie for a while before he eventually admitted to himself that he really needs her to stay in his life–has done a lot of weird psychological lifting for him. There’s a really strong precedent for Margie to be honest with him about the nature of all her relationships. On top of this, she doesn’t have locks on her phone, she makes him hold her phone most of the time. She doesn’t care if he reads her messages or checks her emails [he Does Not Do This, if only for the exercise in restraint]. If he’s having the Weird Paranoia about Margie, the thought that “well, she’d let me go through her messages right now if I asked” is enough to leverage himself with. Sometimes he does ask, and she’s just like “sure, w/e”--and he pacifies himself on that without feeding the impulse further. And so, the paranoia usually picks a far more fruitful subject to latch onto.

7) What past relationship still impacts your character's current life?

  Raf is still comparing and contrasting his current relationship with Margie to his previous relationship with Lacey…and has been learning a lot about himself through the differences. Lace was arguably his only other “real”/serious relationship before Margie, and it was such an absolute trainwreck. But it’s also just what he assumed relationships were Like. Nowadays, he kinda dreads ever meeting with Lacey again because most of what he has learned is that he absolutely could have, should have treated her better, and she deserves an apology.

 Margie still thinks about her ex girlfriends in Montreal. She just really misses them a lot…She’d love to rekindle those friendships, and thinks there might still be a chance to do so, some day.

8) How does your character show love and affection?

  While Raf hates to have things expected of him, treating and gift-giving is genuinely his biggest show of affection. It stops the moment he feels like he’s being taken for granted, or as soon as he gets even the faintest whiff of entitlement. He doesn’t take kindly to being “hinted” at any more than he appreciates being straightforwardly asked for gifts or favours. It’s the fastest way to get him to withdraw. But If he gifts things and he feels like the gesture is genuinely unexpected and appreciated–it’s almost kind of a bond-strengthening exercise in of itself. He enjoys being helpful and feeling needed and appreciated, he just pathologically hates being taken advantage of or used. So–like…a lot of love and trust goes into the act of Raf giving something. It puts him in a vulnerable position, because the way the gesture is received will forever colour his perception of the relationship and can really…make or break it for him–beyond reasoning or any logical recourse.

 Margie shows her love and affection with physical closeness and careful patience. If there is someone she exceptionally loves and loves being around, she takes a lot of extra measures to make sure she doesn’t overwhelm them with her presence and she tries to really reign in how she acts around them so as to not be unpalatable. But she’ll drop her head on their shoulder or throw her legs across their lap. She’ll hold onto their arm while walking, and lean against them in casual settings. She just wants to exist in the same space, and reciprocated touch is a comforting reassurance that they do, as well.

9) What significant change has your character experienced in their understanding of love?

 The biggest thing Raf has so far learned is that love isn’t a tug-o-war of compromises and capitulations after all. If you love someone, you genuinely want them to feel safe and happy and secure, and so you’ll give things up and change your behaviour willingly for their sake with very little sense of loss about it. They’ll do the same for you, and neither will keep score about who gave up what, or who was willing to do the most work for the relationship. In the end, it’s not about him vs her or who gets to live ‘better off’ in the arrangement–but it’s a matter of collaborating to build a comfortable, happy environment together. One’s happiness is the other’s happiness. Not a competition, not a game of carefully measured concessions. A better whole.

  Margie has learned that she has a lot more to offer in a relationship than she thought; that emotional labour is an enormous contribution to a partner who is able to appropriately value it. Just because it comes easy to her doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Her love and affection is not a joke; it has meaning, it has worth. It’s worth a whole lot. 

10) What sacrifices has your character made for love, and were they worth it?

  Raf has to sacrifice his entire sense of safety and wellbeing every time he commits to a relationship. And, just this once, it’s been worth it.

  For each person that Margie has pursued as a romantic partner, she has sacrificed a friendship and definitely mourns each one. Raf is the first time she’s not had to sacrifice anything.

11) How does your character's cultural or familial background influence their views on marriage and relationships?

  Oh man lmao Raf’s Monegasque billionaire family dynasty…his parents genuinely really really love each other, but he has had very limited exposure to that. I don’t think he has ever seen them hug or hold hands, they stand very attractively next to each other and exude an imposing aura that commands respect. So…his idea of what marriage and relationships should look like is severely lacking. “Absolutely No PDA” has definitely stuck with him though.

  Margie’s from a lower income northern Ontario blue collar family with a dad who probably still makes “ol’ ball and chain” jokes about his wife, and a mom who does all the cleaning and cooking and doesn’t really get to enjoy her hobbies outside of the house. Actually, in a small way, this has probably contributed to Margie’s lack of enthusiasm towards getting married. She doesn’t wanna be anyone’s ball and chain, she doesn’t want to cook and clean, she doesn’t want kids. She’s written herself off as being absolutely unfit for marriage. She thinks she’d be an abysmal wife lmao

12) Does your character have a relationship that everyone else misunderstands?

No lmao everyone around them understood Raf and Margie’s relationship better than they did themselves for a long while lmao.

13) How does your character handle rejection or unrequited love?

  Raf has only really had to deal with this once, and he got pretty spiteful mad about it at the time. He also holds a mean grudge just…generally…so I do not think he’d be excited to ever meet her again.

 After the initial emotional gut-punch, Margie suffers a lot of shame and embarrassment and gets really depressed and quiet for a few days until something new and shiny comes along to divert her attention away. Anytime she randomly remembers a rejection though, she gets to re-experience it all again for a brief moment lmao stings.

14) What lesson about love is your character still trying to learn?

  Raf is still trying to really honestly believe that it can be this easy. He’s still waiting to hear what the catch is.

  Margie still has to fully internalise that the people who love her don’t find her annoying and will never tire of her–and that she doesn’t have to apologise for existing as a person with wants and needs

15) How has your character's professional life affected their romantic relationships?

  For Raf, it has severely limited his options–he refuses to date fans, past and present. If they recognize him as a public figure, but aren’t from a similar economic background as him, it’s basically a write-off in his mind. Eligible peers are hard to find…

 For Margie, it’s uh…homelessness definitely complicates things. All of her relationships prior to Raf were plagued with financial stress…and that can probably be cited as a major reason as to why most of her relationships fell apart.

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 4, Part 4/4 (p. 1865-1988)

Read the previous post here.

Oh boy it's the final stretch for this Act. I want to take a moment to express my appreciation for all the new followers I've gained over the course of this reread. I have 60 now, which is incredible. Thank you all!

With that said, this post will contain some... sticky subject matter. I wonder how many of you will choose to dip after this.

[CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of incest starts below the second image]

Oh my fuck it's the ectobiology section. Out of all the convoluted and frivolous mechanics in Homestuck, this one might be the worst in my opinion. Worse than the adventure game jokes cribbed from Problem Sleuth, worse than the punch card alchemy and other ponderous Sburb mechanics... I'd say it's worse than the time travel shit, but this is actually more of a subset of that. So yeah, time travel continues to be the worst thing about Homestuck, and shit like this and the bunny subplot are prime examples of that. But my ire is fully directed at ectobiology at this moment.

The stuff I mentioned before at least has a purpose; they parody needlessly complicated video game mechanics. But ectobiology doesn't have a purpose. It's not funny, nor does it serve the story in a meaningful or even interesting way. So why does it exist? Is it to drive home the point that these select individuals are the "chosen ones" by Sburb? If I had to hazard a guess what Hussie meant by that...

Earth is a vile place and must be destroyed, so sayeth Sburb. Everything living on it is flawed by extension, so its chosen destroyers must be fully disconnected human society and the planet itself. These destroyers have been plucked from the aether and reconstituted from bullshit plot slime in a faraway part of time and space, ensuring that they are unquestionably divorced from anything from Earth, and therefore pure.

Now that I type all that out, it's no wonder none of the kids were all that shaken up about bringing about the apocalypse. Considering that they're essentially game constructs with no actual ties to humanity, it really throws away any sort of conflict and sense of sacrifice brought about by destroying the planet. All the innocents who perished in the meteor showers? Eh, fuck them! They were all NPCs anyway. All hail the slime people!

Okay, I'm sure this wasn't Hussie's actual intent, but if there's no grander symbolism at play, what else is there? None of this adds anything to the plot. The fact that the main cast are non-humans is never touched upon and the whole thing reads as superfluous sci-fi garbage. The only significance the meteors carrying the babies had was that John's Nanna died from a meteor strike. But it was already suggested way earlier that she died because she was crushed by the Colonel Sassacre book.

That was a perfectly serviceable, slightly comedic death befitting of a family of jokesters. There's no need to escalate it and involve a giant meteor.

One other thing I take umbrage with: because the cast were all birthed from the same slurry, this means that Dave and Rose are now """related""". They aren't related by blood, no, but by slime. Which, in the eyes of Hussie and the fandom at large, means the same thing, I guess. Even though they never grew up as siblings, lived separate lives in different parts of the country, and only met online as strangers before developing a (very flirtatiously charged) friendship, the fandom treats them as if they're flesh and blood brother and sister. It boggles my mind. Why is this being treated as legitimate? Did Hussie plan all along to take the two characters with the best chemistry only to pull a Luke and Leia on us? Why would he write them like that if this was his endgame? Does he just have an incest fetish?

I wouldn't doubt it because themes of incest are actually quite pervasive within Homestuck. And that's without even mentioning how Hussie developed an alien race that fundamentally relies on incest to reproduce. Ectobiology creates several relationships, incidental or otherwise, that tie nearly the entire main cast in a complicated web of pseudo-familial dynamics. Like John is actually the kids' progenitor/father because he's the one who brought them all into existence. So even if he isn't related to Rose or Dave by genes or slime, he still gave birth to them in a sense.

I've even seen people say that since Betty Crocker/The Condesce was Nanna's adopted mother, that makes the Egbert/Crocker/Harley/English family tree "related" to the Peixes trolls, so any ship with that combination is "incest." What if I told you that Feferi is related to all the other trolls via bullshit slime mechanics as well? I guess that makes Johnkat incest too. And if John is Dave's father... gasp! Davekat is also incest!? It's over folks, burn everything down.

Anyway, I don't acknowledge Rose and Dave as biological siblings because I don't treat being born from a vat of slime as the same as being birthed from the same womb. That would be treating ectobiology as valid and sensible, which I refuse to do. I don't want to lend Hussie's fixation on incest any amount of approval. All I know is that the trolls are made of the same stupid plot sludge and nobody cares if you ship them. There are no humans and trolls: only slime constructs. Either everyone is related or none of them are. You can't have both.

In the end, none of this matters. The world would be a much happier place if we all collectively agreed to forget ectobiology's existence. If this ruffles your feathers, just block me. Don't come at me because I'll just ignore you.

So Grandpa Harley had time-traveled forward to the future and into Sburb before returning to the past, living out his life on Earth, and dying. Fucking okay I guess!

At least this answers the question I had that yes, Mom Lalonde knew what she was doing before entering the game because Grandpa told her everything. Same with Bro and Dad, it seems.

Ah yes, Dad x Mom. A relationship that ends nearly as soon as it begins. Let's put this right alongside the Exile love triangle and DaveTav in the "relationships that are teased but never manifest into anything meaningful" pile.

"Ackshually, everyone was born from a vat of slime on a distant meteor and sent back to Earth to live out their lives!" - the ramblings of an utter lunatic.

Like god fucking forbid the kids be normal people placed in extraordinary circumstances.

The babies all gravitate to the things they'll have a connection to in the future. Nanna gets her son's hat, Bro gets Cal, etc. Dave clings to Maplehoof, which doesn't seem like a clear connection. Except... that's Rose's horse, isn't it? Ohhh. It all makes sense now. 😏

This exchange is a top 10 Karkat moment for sure.

The supposed saviors that will revive the human race aren't even human, they're slime creatures! Beyond the fact that none of them are human, the Superman analogy falls flat because none of these kids are humanity's protectors. They're just following the whims of a game that ultimately does not give a fuck about any of them.

I need "JOHN EGBERT, YOU HAVE ASSASSINATED MY PATIENCE." emblazoned on a banner or something.

Also Karkat calls Superman a "Caucasian alien" and he also refers to a genie as an "Earth Arabian" in an earlier log.

He really knows a lot about different human ethnic groups, for some reason.

I think about "you always call jail the slammer when you are extra angry" on a somewhat regular basis.

Sassacre is killed, but since he was a human, his death is inconsequential. Grandpa, a slime homunculus just like Nanna, is given new life, which is a cause for celebration. This whole sequence is quite morbid with Sassacre's bloody corpse just hanging out in the frame.

But wait, if Nanna and Grandpa are adopted siblings, and John and Jade are their "genetic children"... augh, never mind! This is what I mean when I say ectobiology produces all kinds of unfortunate relationships. I don't want to think about any of this pseudo-incest anymore. How are there people who make it their whole online careers to dissect this garbage so they can harass people about this shit? Don't they get tired? It's giving me a headache.

Rose is even referred to as John's "daughter" in the title of this flash. I'm not just blowing smoke when I say that John is everyone dad. That's literally what just happened.

Now that we're finally done with this segment, I'll cap it off with this: Nothing of value was added with the inclusion of ectobiology. I know I've been throwing around the phrase "waste of time" in these posts, but this bit of worldbuilding is unequivocally, without a doubt, the biggest fucking waste of time in this entire comic.

Woof. Shall we move on?

While Davesprite and Terezi sort of reconciled in their conversation and formed a bit of a bond, Dave doesn't receive her nearly as amicably. Why is she doing the "1S TH1S YOU" joke with Dave when that was a bit she did with Davesprite?

Oh right, because she thinks that same relationship will carry over to "real Dave". She sees them as the same person just like everyone else. Lovely.

Dave thinks he can burn Terezi by repeatedly insulting her blindness, even though it's clear that it doesn't bother her at all. This is really weak, especially when compared to his log with Tavros where he forced Tavros to block him.

Terezi seems to have completely given up on John and now wants to be annoying and nasty to Dave instead. She has officially been downgraded from minor antagonist to obnoxious interloper.

Tavros could only ever enjoy himself when he could escape to Prospit, be mobile, and most importantly fly. Nobody ever wants to talk about how Tavros has a lot of avoidance issues, how he always shrinks away from action and confrontation, and how he copes with adversity through escapism (both in a figurative sense through his interest in fantasy, and in a literal sense when he dreams on Prospit). A big part of his character comes from Peter Pan, the archetype of childlike escapism! IDK man, it sucks to see people reduce him to this lovable, pure-hearted woobie while ignoring the key part of his character.

Just like with Davesprite, Terezi just needed to send the right drawing for Dave's opinion of her to flip. Fantastic conflict resolution right there.

[S] Descend is the End of Act flash for Act 4. It might be the most ambitious flash up to this point. Lots of guest artists contributed here, and it's at this point where Homestuck really begins to feel like a much more collaborative project instead of solely Hussie's work. I don't mean to discredit the music team when I say that, because they've been around since the start, but this feels more substantial since Homestuck is a primarily visual work.

Anyway, Bro slices a meteor in half to save Dave's life, and later has his rocket board transport Dave into the game safely. Chalk that up to his list of noble deeds to try and balance out his dastardly ones.

Jack fucks shit up indiscriminately, so why does he spare WV? Feels a little out of character for him.

The brief Jack and Bro fight is pretty sweet. I'm not a shonen guy, but I'm getting that same sort of energy from this. Knowing that Bro probably knew all about the kinds of monsters he'd have to fight in Sburb, he has probably been training for something like this for most of his life. Had Jack not gotten god powers, Bro probably could've wasted him.

I like to think that Rose's merging with her doomed self is what causes her to act so destructive and nihilistic from this point on. She wants to destroy the game that killed her.

So okay... when Dave and Rose gave John their bunnies for his present, both of them clearly put a lot of thought in their gifts. Dave gifted him a piece of merch from his favorite movie. Rose restored an old heirloom using John's previous gift to her. Jade assembled "a fun and completely ridiculous thing" that has no sentimental meaning and only carries a vague sense of importance.

Does she just not know what he likes? This is less a gesture of friendship and more of her blindly fulfilling the whims of Sburb. I really struggle to see how Jade fits in this friend group dynamic. She's like the weird kid that the others let hang around out of pity.

Waow! After all that buildup with the box mystery, the bunny and Jack are going to have a showdown! Finally we can see what all the fuss is about and why this bunny is so important.

... Or Jack can just fly away and they never fight at all. Cool Hussie. It's so cool how you spent several pages devoted to this plot point only to let it fizzle out like this. Incredible writing.

How much time do you think elapsed between Grandpa bringing Dream!Jade's corpse aboard his airship and gutting, cleaning, stuffing, and mounting her? He probably did it all after he flew off, but I like to imagine him doing this all before that while Mom and Dad just stood around awkwardly waiting for him to finish.

Act 4 had its ups and its downs. A lot of downs. The ups also felt a little bittersweet because for every intriguing story hook like the Exile love triangle, Dave's relationship with Tavros, Rose and her mother, or anything involving Davesprite and doomed Rose, they all amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Homestuck truly is a collection of fun ideas all unfortunately cobbled together by someone who doesn't know how to properly execute them in a story. The colorful art and the kickass music can only serve to cover up the flaws so much before the veneer peels and you see the ugly cracks underneath. I wish we lived in a world where Andrew "writing is easy" Hussie had an editor to salvage the good stuff and throw shit like ectobiology into the garbage.

If it sounds like I'm wrapping things up, think again. This journey isn't over yet. It's time for Act 5! People like to joke about how you should skip all the way to that one, but after everything I've read so far... I wouldn't blame anyone if they did.

Read the next post here.

[thewritergremlin-rae]

A Drunken Goodnight

Pairing: Brock Rumlow x new SHIELD Agent!Reader Rating: M Words: 618 Content: 2nd person, pre-WS so Hydra!Brock but pretending to be SHIELD, age gap (reader is 21+, Brock is 40+), power dynamics, tipsy reader, implied manipulation, unreliable narrator Summary: You have a few celebration drinks in honour of you joining SHIELD. A few too many, so your kind of mentor, Brock Rumlow, lets you crash at his place.

Banner by cafekitsune

His large hands cup your cheeks and you sway a little, feeling light headed. 

You can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or his warm, rough hands. “Congratulations, agent,” he hums, grinning and pretending like he can’t see how open and desperate your expression is. “But I think it’s time to get outta here.” 

He picks you up easily, your legs and arms wrapping around him as his hand rests on the delicious curve of your ass. But you don’t think anything of it, even when Brock needlessly adjusts your position, fingers brushing the seam of your jeans. 

Brock gets you into his car with no problems, you wonderfully pliant and happy to follow his instructions. 

You might have drifted off for the drive home because it seems like in only the blink of an eye the car has come to a stop in an enclosed parking lot. “I worry about leaving ya alone like this so you can have my room, I’ll sleep on the couch.” He breezes past any protests by hauling you out of his car and into his side as you stumble a few steps. 

His apartment is warm as he gets you through the door and helps you lean against the wall. You hastily grab his shoulder when he’s crouching and carefully removing your tired feet from the heels you decided to try out for the night. When he looks up at you from between your legs, heat rushes to your cheeks and you might think it had some kind of purpose but your brain is slow and Brock is on his feet again, kicking his own shoes off as he leads you to his room.

You sit on the bed with a soft thump as your legs realise they can finally give up their task for the night. Brock is flicking through his wardrobe and turns to toss a loose t-shirt and shorts. “Hope these are good enough for our new agent,” he teases with a grin and you nod with a soft laugh. “You think you can get changed by yourself, sweetheart?”

More heat tingles against your cheeks as you nod and put the flung clothes to one side. You barely wait for him to turn away before you’re pulling off your favourite top. It catches on your yawn and you giggle again, managing to free yourself with a few grunts. 

“That sounded pretty tough, you sure you don’t need my help?”

“No - no I’m good!” You assure him in a determined voice that is way too loud for the two feet he’s stood away from you but his chuckle is amused and you get his spare t-shirt on much more easily. Next are the shorts but given that your legs gave up about a minute ago, you flop back on the bed unceremoniously and lift your hips to get the jeans over your ass and kicked off the rest of the way. His shorts go on with one more jut of your hips to pull them in place and this time you stay laid back on the bed. “I did it!” You declare - like you just solved complicated algebra. 

Rumlow laughs as he turns, giving you a playful eyeroll to hide the way he drinks you in. “Real cute, agent. You gonna get under those covers or do I gotta tuck you in?” 

Your embarrassment fuels you as you scramble back and manage to get under the duvet, pulling it back down to cover you. Only to find Brock leaning over you, so dangerously close you think he might kiss you.

He brushes a kiss to your forehead and wishes you goodnight, knowing he leaves you a frustrated and tipsy mess.

Want to be tagged in future parts or future Loki fic? Go here

[silverskye13]

I'm wondering what kind of thought process you have for choosing which character get which brackets for their thinking? cause I think the ones you chose fit rly well, especially the {} for wels and [] for helsknight, for some reason they feel very correct

Mostly just vibes, tbh!

Tanguish got (parenthesis) because it's what is grammatically correct [you probably notice I put my personal thoughts in brackets. It was really hard to break that while writing the fic, and if I go awhile between chapters, I will fall back into bad habits and put all thoughts in brackets again, whoops.] His inner thoughts in parenthesis are primarily observations tied to his emotions. He doesn't really think thoughts, he feels thoughts.

Examples:

(The hermits never know what they’re doing, but this isn’t something Tanguish knows. Sometimes he wonders about it, but he hasn’t quite figured it out yet.)

(But he wasn't lying, and he wasn’t a knight, and this shouldn’t matter, it really shouldn’t.)

When I decided I wanted to have other POVs in the fic, I kind of had to case what parenthesis I had left at my disposal. Unless I wanna get silly with it, for the most part, all that's remaining is [], {}, <>, ||, and maybe /\ if I wanna play around a little.

Helsknight has very rigid and straightforward inner thoughts. I wanted to keep most of his internal monologue to tactical information.

Examples:

[Enchanted netherite, because of course it was. He could recognize enough of the symbols to know it was an efficient workman's tool, but sharpness felled people just as well as trees.]

[Control the situation. Put distance between Tanguish and the danger. Keep the Demon busy long enough for escape.]

For that, the brackets make the most sense. He's thinking rigid truths and commands. It also feels close to his personality? I guess? A bit hard to explain, but to me, every action he takes is framed in something. He has rigid codes that he measures himself by, like he's constantly bookend-ed. He breaks those bookends when he's angry, and it's a physical wall that brings him pain when he breaks it. He needs [solid, rigid] visuals for that bookend-ing. Brackets were best.

Welsknight then, I wanted to be visually similar to Helsknight, in which case {} would work well, and their distinctive shapes made me think of something,,, I dunno,,, fancier is a bad word. But the curly brackets are a little needlessly complicated. That complication has a use in coding, but on a standard keyboard, for writing purposes, its unnecessary. I like what it implies about how everything with Wels in the story is gilded, covered in unnatural perfection and holiness. Wels's [mostly unseen] issues in the fic are that he has a problem with ideals. Helsknight is the gritty, grimdark reality of what being a perfect knight is, with all its internal battling for perfection, and all its self-sacrificial, borderline suicidal heroism. Welsknight, however, is the projected ideal of what a knight should be, the glitz, glamour and chivalry. He is light that is blinding, but ultimately harmful, ungrounded. His is the idea of a crusade, not because it is right or just, but because thats what knights are supposed to do, and this is the nearest evil to hand. Something superfluously curly works nicely for his thoughts.

Tango gets the <> for his thoughts, both because I like how pointed and analytical it is [carrots are used for coding and tags in html], how well it meshes with him as a game developer and programmer, and also because it looks a lot like his problem of lancing through things. He is a little spear of a guy. He sees a thing he wants -- or wants to avoid -- and he leaps for it. He ignores Tanguish's warnings, because they're uncomfortable, and there is a different reality he would rather deal with right now, thank you. Sharp little thoughts for Tango.

[Jazzhands!] So, yeah!

[nyxsealia]

When I was 17 and trying to figure out what the heck my sexuality was, the main, if not only, piece of advice I found online, even when I directly asked people, was to go out and experiment sexually with various people and see what gender I enjoyed sex with most. And years later, that still seems to be the advice most of us give when someone is trying to figure out their sexuality. And there's nothing wrong with doing that, and if that's what helped you, great. But I do think there's issues with this being the most prevalent advice.

There are a lot of reasons someone may not want to do this, various personal or religious reasons, comfort levels, a lack of interest in sex, not experiencing much or any sexual attraction, or simply being too young for this to be applicable.

I found the advice unhelpful for many of the reasons I just mentioned, and it left me feeling lost on how I was supposed to find out what my orientation was. It also left me with thoughts like how can I be a part of queer culture if I don't want to experiment sexually or be sexually active? Even looking at articles with advice on dating as a queer woman I saw bullet points like "It's okay to have sex on the first date!" there was so much emphasis on how it's okay to have very active sex lives that it left me feeling like if I didn't want that, I'd never be able to have relationships because there'd be an expectation of sex right off the bat. Don't get me wrong, sex positivity is important and we shouldn't shame people for their sex lives. But I feel like we don't don't talk about not being into that kind of thing enough.

I also didn't know at the time that I was asexual, and while I'm sex neutral and open to the idea of sex with a trusted partner, I don't have any desire to seek out sexual relationships. Not experiencing sexual attraction made figuring out my attraction a thousand times harder. I still don't know if I'm bi/pan or lesbian. I do refer to myself as gay or lesbian in some instances, but sometimes I say queer or just shrug and say "I like girls" or "I'm not straight" and some days I'm okay with the vagueness of that, but other days I feel the stress and pressure of having to pick an identity in order to have a community to belong to and be accepted. That stress and pressure doesn't get better when all the advice I can find on the subject just tells me to have sex and that'll clear everything up.

We put a lot of focus on finding out exactly "what" you are. And I don't think sex is the best way to do that. Lots of people have varying interest in sexual or physical intimacy, not just queers. My cishet friend told me she got a boyfriend but she wasn't entirely sure if what she was feeling was romantic, and that the idea of kissing made her uncomfortable. She doesn't identify as ace or aro, and she shouldn't have to. People can have a lack of interest in these things without a lack of attraction.

Another issue with this advice is that sexual and romantic attraction doesn't always line up for everyone. You may enjoy sex with all genders, but find you only have a desire to date one. So sexual experimenting wouldn't necessarily answer the question for you. Orientation is really complicated. I did mostly consider myself lesbian, but I occasionally find men aesthetically attractive, and I'm honestly starting to wonder if I'm actually bi but still feel uncomfortable using the term.

All this needlessly long and ramble-y text to say, this advice is simply useless to a lot of people. And while I can't speak personally for this part, I'd bet at least some people who enjoy sexual experimentation still weren't sure of their orientation at the end of it. This advice shouldn't be presented as the one size fits all solution.

If you're uncomfortable or uninterested in figuring out your identity this way, there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with not knowing. You don't have to know right now, or ever if you'd prefer that. It's okay to use vague terms. It's also okay to use whatever label feels closest even if it's not perfect. And remember, you're not locked into anything. You can always change labels.

There is no right way to determine your orientation. Everyone discovers themself in different ways and at different ages. It's not a race or a checklist. The most important thing is to be kind and patient with yourself and whatever you do to figure yourself out, be safe.