#the funnies make the pain hit harder and vice versa

[floorpancakes]

funny thing about me when i read fic i have a fairly low unhappy ending/angst all the way through tolerance and usually heavily curate my own reading experience but when it comes to the actual IPs and series i cannot get enough of reading depressing things and sad stories (even if it just spurs me to want to imagine those characters to be happy and doing random unserious things) . same goes for writing actually. i kinda just immediately lean into goofy humour or pain or both

[creepiecreator]

The outsiders gang at Cracker Barrel??

Darry tried to keep the guys in line. He really did. But he could only do so much when they all decided to act up at once. And unfortunately for him, they all ended up doing exactly that when they had gone out to eat for once. It wasn’t often they went anywhere besides a cheap diner or Dairy Queen, but when they all put their funds together they were able to get the cash to go out to Cracker Barrel for once. And honestly? He absolutely regretted it. From the moment they sat down it was chaos. Twobit was cracking jokes and laughing way too loud, sure. That was to be expected. Soda was too fidgety and knocked over his chair and damn near busted his hand while doing it? A pain in his ass, and a little embarrassing but that's fine. The real problems came from Dallas, like normal. He loved the guy to hell and back, he was practically his brother. But the guy really needed to learn to shut his trap when it came to harassing the waitress. Making comments that could even make hoods blush. He knew. Thanks to those three alone that they’d be thrown out any minute. Course. Then Steve had to start on his bullshit too. Of course, he did. After all, when his kid brother started up, Steve always ended up following. Or vice versa. It was like a pattern at this point. Twobit cracks a joke-sometimes admittedly an actual funny one, he laughs. Dallas tries to make life harder for the waitress, Sodapop gets fidgety with the silverware and gets into a mock play fight with said silverware with Steve. At least Ponyboy and Johnny were mostly just talking with each other…until. Of course. They weren’t. Steve ended up bumping into Pony, which resulted in Pony throwing a sarcastic statement his way which started a fight and. Well. Darry was honest to god starting to get a migraine. Things continued on for a little while longer than he had thought it would. The waitress, while clearly annoyed, must have had the temperament of a saint to put up with them for as long as she did. And Soda, at the very least, had started to settle down. He was getting hopeful that maybe things would go in the right direction, and they would end up all settling down properly so they could eat until… Johnny had tried to blow his straw wrapper at Ponyboy. It wouldn’t have been a problem had he actually hit his target. But instead it had ended up targeting the long-suffering waitress. And that, of course. Had to be the final straw. Pun not intended, though he was fairly certain that Twobit would appreciate that thought. All seven members of the group were swiftly kicked out of the restaurant, Twobit still seeming incredibly amused at the whole situation, Johnny seeming mortified and Darry was just tired. He piled them all up into the car, only to shoo Sodapop away when he tried to get into the passenger seat in the truck. “Nu uh, Soda. You’re in the back. Johnny’s up front if anyone is.” he stated simply, giving the other the look that only an overly exhausted older brother could give. “What? But he’s the one who got us kicked out!” The complaint, fortunately, wasn’t from his brother. But from Twobit, who seemed to be more curious about his decision than anything. Or maybe he was just drunk and complaining to complain. Either way. He wasn’t going to entertain the idea. “Johnny was the least problematic person there. C’mon up, kiddo.” He called, gesturing for the tiniest greaser to hop up in the front seat with him. Darry most certainly didn’t miss the little mischievous smile that crossed his features when he glanced over to Ponyboy and the others, even if it was on his face only briefly as the other came up front. He thought they were all good to hit the road when Twobit, like always, thought it was a bright idea to open his mouth. “So, are we gonna go to the diner instead?”

[noisester]

The readers might think 'oh, it'll take much more than THAT to genuinely hurt Noise! His cartoon physics are amplified by 100! With a miracle that rapscallion could still stand up after Peppino mercilessly pummeled him atop that Tower!', and they'd be--...

...Wrong. Casting aside the fact that his stupidly massive healthbar was mostly depleted at this point (and that Noisette's cartoon might goes through the roof by default), you could clearly see Noise's eyes widen in pain as he was practically gritting his teeth, his grimace gradually intensifying the harder Incognito's grip tightens. Now, Noisette's anger towards him wasn't a new phenomenon. When you're a hellion, you naturally engage in war crimes not even your girlfriend would approve of-- and that's funny! No ship can sail without the silly cartoon couple tropes, of course! 'THEO! Stop smoking comically large cigarettes!!!' and then she gets the water hose at full power... Those were the good times.

Even if he could somehow squeeze himself out of it... Incognito would still willingly chase him down to the ends of the earth; something not even Peppino had the patience-- let alone motivation to do at least more often than not.

Thus, he was left with no other choice but to endure. Endure until the end. He's not mad at you, Noisette. He gets it, he totally gets why you're upset, here. If this helps you decompress he'll allow--

...

Tears.

Tears from eyes usually brimming with delight.

He usually REVELLED in making people so furious that they cried, but-- No. No no no, she... Noisette???????????? Noisette. Y. You're breaking his heart, here! Those words hit a billion times harder than any insult Peppino-- Or anyone, for that matter, threw at him in the past. Normally this would be the part where he'd vocally grovel or get so loud his volume would break the boundaries that have kept Planet Earth stable for millennia, alas...

Theodore. Looks so utterly lost. He freezes, staring at the waterworks happen in real time. Wh. What does he do in this scenario. It's easy to give her what she wants to hear except-- he still. Doesn't. Want her to join. Despite knowing she could put a dent in him, Fake Noise would do something to her, make him witness something that could honestly break him, or vice versa.

She can't be there in that studio. The risk isn't worth it.

"Hey-- Hey," Theodore spoke with a gentleness The Noise™ did not hold for anyone else. His boyfriend instincts URGED him to pull her in for a hug and stop her tears with his cape but... Yeah. "It's alright-- We'll be alright, dear."

His voice cracks. He didn't want to lie to her. Dedication. Fear. Utter contempt. Uncertainty... It all courses through his veins at the thought of finally being in the same room as the bastard, but even the often 'ermmmmm uhhh emotions what's that' man of the angst hour knew that self-assurance was what he needed to show if he wanted to persuade her to release him. They were given everything they could possibly 'need' to 'win' this... Yet the off-chance of failure; along with its implications; were horrifying.

"I know we keep insisting on tackling this without you but--" Another voice crack. He hoped his words could reassure her. It's the least he could do, right now.

"You're neither stupid nor weak-- never say you are."

Trying to get her to stay, it is! Which is fine if it means they can get him to stall...except for the fact that, well, he's trying to ger her to stay behind. Which is the opposite of what Incognito wants! They're really, really, REALLY trying not to get angry at you for this, but you're really making it hard!

And it shows! With the way they're now gripping him in BOTH of their oversized, shaking hands, it's obvious they're not taking that answer. They are not willing to let go.

"Hazel. Ain't. Here." They practically growl the words out. "Ya both left her back at th' café, remember? Cuz she's too soft, too weak, too stupid--somethin' along those lines, right?"

They're now practically nose-to-nose with Noise (at least if their nose was visible, even from that up close. It isn't). "But in case ya didn't notice-- I ain't like that. I'm tough, I'm hardboiled, and I don't need either of ya palookas doin' any handholdin' with me!"

Tough. Hardboiled, even-- that's how Incognito describes themself.

"So ya can't just ditch me, capisce? I'm not allowin' it!"

Not soft or weak or emotional like Noisette at all.

"Either I go with ya, or n-nobody goes!"

So why is their voice shaking.

"I-It's not fair...!"

Why is her voice shaking.

"I-it's..."

"It's n-not fair..."

He-llo, Noisette; it's been a while, hasn't it? The grip on him doesn't relent, but from behind the darkness between the hat and the coat, Noise is finally able to see his girlfriend's very shiny, very wet eyes.

"W-what am I s-supposed to do if...if something happens to you guys? I can't even..." A loud sniff, a poorly stiffled sob and a frustrated stomp of her feet. "Why can you worry about me, but I can't worry about you, huh!? It's...it's not fair at all!"

No matter the person. No matter the reason. People she loves just keep disappearing out of her life and she can't do anything about it. It hurts so much. Please.

[george-fabian-weasley]

Oliver Wood - Shoot My Shot

Summary: You and Oliver Wood have been enemies since your first Quidditch game during your second year. You, being a Slytherin makes it far harder to find a liking to the Gryffindor boy, yet somehow you managed to do so. While playing a Quidditch match of Slytherin against Gryffindor, you decided to shoot your shot, literally and figuratively.

Words: 2,522 words

Warning ⚠ : Cheesy, Fluff, Only the Good Stuff, The Sexual Tension Is Real™

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

"Oi, Wood!" You shouted as you looked up. The Slytherin Quidditch Team had just arrived to the field to have a few hours of practice for an upcoming match against Gryffindor. As if they have been summoned, the Gryffindor Team had just finished their practice. Oliver Wood, the captain slash Keeper for the team looked down to see you, and snickered, “Y/L/N!”

As he flew down, he smirked at you and your team, “What’s the occasion here, lads?” You scoffed, glaring at him, “What do you think, Wood? Doing a theater play?”  

He laughed, “Now, why so tense, Y/L/N? Did someone put Puking Pastilles inside your drink?” You rolled your eyes as you folded your arms, “No, but I do remember a pair of redheads sneaking Dungbombs under my bed a couple of days ago. Any idea who they are, Wood?”

As if on cue, the Weasley twins came swooping down laughing hysterically, Oliver was obviously trying to hide a laugh by hiding his lips, “N-nope, no idea, sorry.” 

Oh, he definitely knew.

“Funny.” You sneered, when suddenly a certain small body flying around caught your attention. “Is that...?” You trailed off, squinting to look better. Oliver followed your eyes and shrugged, “Harry Potter? Yeah.” 

You gave him a look, and he understood it completely, sighing, “I know the chiseler’s a first year but McGonagall wanted him to be a Seeker. Can’t say no now, can I?” 

You shrugged back, “No matter, we’ll simply beat your arses this time at the match.” You smirked, and Oliver mirrored your expression with a scoff. “Oh yeah?” He walked closer, almost looked like he was about to kiss you.

You had a silent staring match, his eyes on you and vice versa. If anyone didn’t know better, they’d say you two were lovebirds. With a soft smirk on his lips, he inched closer to you, his nose slightly grazing your cheek.

“We’ll see about that, Y/L/N.” He whispered closely to your ear, the breeze of his breath hit your ear softly. He inched away and gave you a wink, a playful one as he walked away with the rest of his team.

You huffed in annoyance, seeing his obnoxiously fit body slowly disappearing into the ring. You won’t ever admit to anyone, not even a single soul, at how he had you so bothered.

In a good way.

You turned around to your team who witnessed the whole thing, some of them playfully smirking at you. You sneered in disgust, “What are you idiots looking at? And what the bloody hell are you waiting for? Practice!” At your command, your teammates fleeted away on their brooms to their designated places, leaving you alone on the ground.

You took a few deep breaths trying to calm your heart down, but with bloody Oliver Wood out there simply existing, you found your heart picking up its pace. You groaned in annoyance at the flustered heartbeat, yet you couldn’t sneak away the small shy smile your lips had etched on.

After practice, you returned to the Slytherin common room. You were exhausted, everything was a mess. As a beater, you used the nerve-wrecking excitement Oliver Wood caused you to have earlier for the better, by beating the Bludger as hard as you can.

One of the reasons you love Quidditch, it allows you to express your anger and frustrations, and sometimes excitement, through something else without hurting anyone else, well, involuntarily.

UGH.

The Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor will be held in two days, you have no time to fawn over Oliver Wood, no matter how handsome, or witty, or funny, or-

You slapped yourself with a nearby pillow, physically shooing away those unholy thoughts. ‘You’re the bloody captain, for Merlin’s sake! You can’t be thirsting over the captain of the opposing team!’ Your mind shouted.

Yeah, as if you didn’t know that already.

Suddenly, someone tapped you on the shoulder. You looked up from the dark green pillow to see a little boy with metallic blonde slicked back hair. 

You sighed, “If you’re here to be a part of the Quidditch team, then you know my answer-” “But if Potter can join in first-year, then I can too!” Draco Malfoy retaliated.

“Yeah, but Potter is a Gryffindor whose teacher is Minerva McGonagall, Draco. You really think Mr. Severus Snape would allow a first year to join Quidditch?” You asked him back in a tired tone. This wasn't the first time Draco had asked you to join the Quidditch team as soon as he found out Harry joined. And seems like it’s not going to be the last either. You saw his eyes darted away for a few moment to think, then he reverted them back to you sadly, “But Y/N...”

You felt pity for the boy, sometimes you felt like he feels inclined to beat Potter in everything he does. And being his older cousin doesn’t help, because you knew how severe Uncle Lucius can get around the little boy. If it weren’t for your parents, you would’ve taken Draco under your wings as your little brother already. 

“Look, Draco...” You sighed, trying your best to be understanding towards the boy, even if he gets on your nerve sometimes. “My answer is still no, but you can join in next year if you want it that terribly. Terrence Higgs is graduating and won’t be here next year, so there would be an empty spot for a Seeker. The best I can do is save you a spot.” You offered. He sighed, and grumbled a ‘fine’. 

“But if I don’t get it next year, my father will hear about this!” “Your father is my uncle, Draco. The one telling him first would be me, do you understand?” You voiced out sternly, Draco cowered immediately at your dominance. “Yes, Y/N.” He said quietly.

“Now run along, Draco. Your friends are waiting.” you softened your voice to him. He left, and you sighed. Sometimes, you needed to be stern to that boy, or else he’s going to treat everyone like his minions. 11 years old and already sound as snobbish as his father, sigh.

The next day, Slytherin and Gryffindor shared a classroom for Transfiguration class by Professor McGonagall. Unfortunately, she made everyone sit with the opposite house. And guess where she placed you?

“What’s with the long face, Y/L/N?” Oliver snickered as you moved to sit beside him. You gave him a sickly sweet smile, before frowning again, “Neither of us want to be here, so shut it.” You muttered.

“Oh no, darling, I want to be here. The one who doesn’t is you.” He chuckled as he supported his head with his arm, turning himself completely towards you. You grimaced, in spite of the increased heartbeat over the nickname, “Is this how you flirt, Wood? It’s so pathetic.”

Oliver smirked and leaned to you ridiculously close, “Oh yeah? Then why are you blushing?”

?????!!!!!!!!

You scoffed in surprise, the audacity of this lad made you speechless. And then you felt it. The heat rushing up your cheeks, making it glow red. The blush in your cheeks just widened his smirk, “If I’m being correct here, Y/N Y/L/N, you look like you like me.” He whispered and bit his bottom lip.

You rolled your eyes at his attempt of embarrassing you more. Despite your heartbeat going crazy, you won’t let him cod you. So you leaned closer, Oliver was obviously surprised and stunned, your noses were almost rather touching each other, as you whispered, “And so, what if I do? What do you do then, Oliver?”

You had never called him Oliver. You both knew that.

“Mr Wood and Ms Y/L/N,” McGonagall’s voice made you both flinch away rather quickly. “I would really appreciate if you could continue your love drama somewhere else and focus on my class, thank you.” 

“Sorry, Ma’am.” You heard Oliver mutter, as he glanced at you with rosy cheeks. You couldn’t dare to spare him another glance throughout the whole class. 

What the bloody hell was that?

Next day came like a pop, and you were getting ready to throw everything in to the match. The last Gryffindor vs Slytherin match, you had won. And you were definitely certain to repeat that once again. After putting on your uniforms and safety gear, you went outside to the pitch. The whole school was there cheering you on. The jitters from before had flown out of the window, the adrenaline was now kicking in. You flew on your broomstick to the air, all of your other teammates were already there, the other Beater in your team nodded at you, and you nod back. 

Looking to your front, Fred and George Weasley smirking nastily at you.Those two were as violent as a bloody honey badger when it comes to Quidditch, you groaned as you imagined the pain those rascals will be giving you soon. At the far back of the Gryffindor Team, was Oliver Wood, already at his post, the middle goal. As he caught your eyesight, he winked and mouthed, "Good luck." You smirked at him and just motioned your thumb across your neck, causing him to scoff.  

The whistle started, the Bludger was released, the cheers erupted, and the game has begun. 

You flew everywhere to keep the Bludger off of your teammates as your Chasers tried to goal some scores. A Gryffindor, Lee Jordan was the commentator of the day, and you could hear his shouts and comments on your every move. Knowing how distracting that could be, you tried your best to block his voice and focus on the game. With the bat in your hand, you swung the Bludger with it with full force to one of the Gryffindor Chasers, but they were saved by the twins. 

Once in a while, you would glance at Oliver, watching him catching every single quaffle and toss it back out to the field, successfully protecting his goal. You always knew Oliver Wood is a great Keeper, but Merlin, he sure did shine that day.

The game continued until the second half, time out. You flew down and drank a hella lot of water and cast a pain relief charm on your left arm. One of the Weasleys had Bludgered your arm pretty nastily, and you weren't too keen to find out whether it's broken or not. After muttering "Lenio," to the rest of your body, you flew back out. The score currently was 20 to 30, Gryffindor was leading.

Either your Seeker gets the Snitch, or your Chasers score another 2 goals to win this match.

Suddenly, you got an idea. It's a pretty terrible idea, but an idea nonetheless. What if you distract Oliver Wood so your team can shoot goals? 'That's a stupid idea, Y/N.' Your heart voiced out, but hey, either go big or go home.

So you went on with your plan once the whistle started. As you Bludgered one of the twins (consider it karma), you flew close to Oliver, who eyed you curiously. "Decided to visit me in the middle of the game, Y/L/N?" He said loudly, the cheering made it harder to converse.

"If I win this match,"  you said loudly, sort of multi-tasking as one of the Weasleys tried to Bludger you again as you beat the Bludger off with your bat. Oliver faced you, waiting for you to go on.

"If you win this match...?" "If I win this match, you owe me a date to Hogsmeade!" 

Oliver had his eyes widened, "A what?" He managed to say before swerving another quaffle out of his goalpost. Your teammates were now eye-ing you in confusion, what the bloody hell are you doing there at Gryffindor's goalpost rather than protecting your teammates?!

"A date!" You shouted. For a second, Oliver was in a blur and then cracked up a big smile, "And if you lose?" he remarked. You rolled your eyes, the small grin your lips widened significantly, "If I lose, then it's your choice!"

After that you went back to your original position, ignoring the glares of your teammates. The game went on until Harry Potter had caught the Snitch, spitting it out from his mouth.

Gryffindor won. 

As disappointed as you were that you lost, you were more disappointed over the fact that Oliver now owes you nothing. 

... Maybe your plan wasn't to distract him all along.

After the match had finished, you found yourself at the hospital wing, tending to your broken arm. Madam Pomfrey had said if it weren't for the pain relief charm, you wouldn't even be able to hold a broomstick mid-air without immense pain. The Weasleys were beside you seemingly injured as well, and you shook their hands professionally before they left. 

It's just a game. Good sportsmanship is far better than continuous winning streaks.

"Y/N." You looked up to see Oliver, standing near your hospital bed. You groaned in embarrassment, "You owe me nothing, Wood. Now go away." "Yeah, about that," Oliver was fiddling with his sleeves, his broomstick was placed between his armpit and arm. Oliver Wood looked... Nervous?

 "You said before that if you lose, then I get to decide, right?" He said, furrowing his eyebrows at you, licking his lips. You slowly nodded, already thinking of possible things he'd want you to do.

Oh no, does he want you to run around the hallway naked? Or does he want you to cast 'Riddikulus' to Snape? Or does he want you to be the Bludger puppet for the twins for a week? Or-

"You owe me a date to Hogsmeade."

W...what? 

You were now a blushing mess. Both of you.  "B-but I thought you hated me?" you asked, the heartbeat of yours was really close to a rhythm of a heavy rain. Oliver widened his eyes in shock, denying that thoroughly, "No, I don't! I actually... like you since the second year. You know, after the match?"

You remembered your first Quidditch match in your second year, that was the first time you ever laid eyes on Oliver. Both of you had broken an arm and a leg, and your beds were side by side. For 2 days, you had talked to each other like friends, but as soon as your senior came by and visited you, he prohibited you to talk to a filthy Gryffindor. Being brainwashed since young, both of you hated each other.

Well, at least you thought so.

"So... What do you say?" He asked, looking rather nervous again. You were speechless, your lips were suddenly dry, you were suddenly conscious of how you looked like at the moment. "Wait, so all those times, like at McGonagall's class and at the field, you really were flirting?" 

He grimaced in cringe, rubbing his neck and looking away, "I guess you were right about my flirting being pathetic." He laughed shyly. That made you laugh, it made you break out from that awkward phase you had just now. "But you were right, though?" You teased, tilting your head to him playfully, smiling genuinely to the boy.

"I do like you."

COMPLETE!

[synoxshots]

The Master KOTFE Adventure

My latest project has been playing through KotFE on master mode.

Why ever would you want to do that? you may ask, and I have asked myself the same thing. In short, it was a mix of having a light sided empire toon that I didn't want the autocompletes on, and the fact that he is also the best geared character I've ever had and the discipline I've had most experience playing. And I've run through KotFE quite a few times so, freshening it up I guess? 

So this is how it went. This isn't a guide - more, a record of my experiences as I went through. As ever, some things I found easy others might find hard, and (more likely, lbr) vice versa. 

The gamer:

I play a Rage Jugg, wear Descent of the Fearless set, gear level 306 with a full set of 286 augments. So - very well geared, but not fully optimised stats wise. Experience wise for this - I'd done a few chapters on vet mode before with a Guardian (Focus) and Powertech (Pyrotech) though not always at max gear (probably in the 290s when I first gave it a go), and I like trying to solo group content like vet fps (master for Red Reaper only) because I don't love myself, I guess. A smidge of ops experience. I'm reasonably competent as a player but also prone to stupid, I don't claim to be great by any means.

Chapter I

All went smoothly, died on the last fight against the BD-148 elite skytrooper - but that was just because I forgot about heroic moments existing, given that half the chapter is spent without a companion. Used my enraged defence a few times but never really felt at risk of dying. Apart from the one time when I did, obviously. Marr goes up to 28 influence automatically. Lots of mobs can be skipped as they're already engaged in fights.

Chapter II

Quite a few mobs you can skip around. Valkorion heals you though he's not a companion so no heroic moment. Last monolith did get me close to death sometimes, so there was a bit of running away so I could heal up a bit more, and making good use of defensive abilities. But no deaths on this one!

Chapter III

I died twice on this one, both were easily preventable. The first was against the Ground Assault Walker (massive droid before the bridge) and pretty much because I hadn't raised Lana's influence yet, so I upped it to 20 before starting the fight again and cleared it very quickly. Sidenote: a while back I bought a bunch of Spiced Aric Tongue from the Jawa scrap peddlers as I didn't know what else to do with all that, Lana accepts it so it's a nice quick way to up her level (Koth likes it too, a lot, which is handy). Second death was against like, a handful of skytroopers when I was shutting down the reactor and really it was mostly because I wasn't paying attention properly, though Lana died both times at this point. There's another fight where these prototype skytroopers keep swarming and I was a bit nervous because there were kolto stations there and I couldn't entirely remember how intense it got. The answer was...not intense at all and I definitely didn't need them. The final fight on this one is the two Zakuul knights but they didn't cause me any problems. All in all I'd say the deaths I've had so far have all been my own fault.

Chapter IV

This...did not go as well. And I'm not entirely sure why, just bad play on my part I think mostly, sometimes there are days when I just play like trash *shrug*. Not timing things like enraged defence, heroic moments and so on very well which meant I died a few times to wildlife - twice the larger bosses, twice mobs of normal/strong ones. Yeah... Kept upping my companion influence so all three (Lana, Koth and HK by this point) got up to 27 but I think even higher than that may be needed as they just didn't seem to be healing well. 

Chap V

I was a bit wary heading into this one, as it was one I'd run before on vet mode and remembered having trouble with the skytrooper waves. I was less geared then though, and had less companion influence doing that, having now taken everyone up to about 32. I didn't record any deaths on this though had a near miss - but I had saved my enraged defence/heroic moment and so on and hit them at the right time. Hey, I'm playing smarter! 

Chapter VI

I found this chapter easy when I'd run it on veteran not long before, but that was not the case on master. Died the first time against Oggo, that was my own fault though, although he does have one particular ability that hits very hard. Then came the Scions. Ohhh boy. The first two you face killed me, fair enough I hadn't had a chance to raise Senya's influence yet. The second two, Venat and Berusal, caused me pain. The good thing is that when fighting the pairs and you take one down, if you die the other doesn't respawn. The other good thing is that Venat and Berusal can be pulled separately, the bad news is I found this out after a few attempts. And Berusal still killed me on his own the first time. I was not having a fun time. And then you face Heskal without a companion. It takes a bit of tactics. I tried to damage him whilst he was doing Debris Storm, though still had to avoid the red circles. Turbulence gives a lot of damage, so had to hastily get out the way/interrupt it. He also stuns you which isn't fun. Valky pops up and offers you an out after the first phase, unfortunately I decided to stay true to character and not take it. Bad times were had. I went to lunch. I asked a friend to help. My internet got switched off before that could happen. I found out I was able to summon a companion...I know I'm not supposed to story wise, and I'm not sure if you can normally (there's a lot of times when companion summon buttons are greyed out due to story restrictions) or if this was only because I'd previously logged out...but suddenly the fight became a lot easier. Funny that. Sigh. Moving on...

Chapter VII

Honestly not much to say about this one, nothing that caused me trouble. A lot of it is in the open world so regular difficulty rather than scaled to master. 

Chapter VIII

This one wasn't much trouble either, did die once when stuff was on cooldown, once in the final Arcann fight. Kiting him over and hitting the conduits there is a big help as they stun him, that is probably very obvious but I've literally never bothered with them on story or vet mode. We're halfway there!

Chapter X

This one also gave me a Time. The problem I had was when you come up against Faedral and Zaamsk. My first thought was the difficulty was because I hadn't raised Kaliyo's influence (oops, but you get her on the spot and I didn't have gifts handy...or at least the ones I thought she liked she didn't actually) (this is how I found out that agent!Kaliyo and alliance!Kaliyo have different preferences, apparently this will also apply to other - but not all - returning companions). But I raised her to 28 and still kept dying. It's a bit of a nasty fight honestly, and the guide I looked at said that juggs...aren’t ideal for it. Crowd control and interrupts are very handy. I kept getting really close to getting one of them down and dying just before I could, super annoying because it's another of those where if you take one down and die, you only have to face the other one. I took a break and read the guide more closely, watched some videos, and ultimately just decided to bring someone along to avoid the pain, or maybe share in it. I still died but we got through them. The fight against Tayvor Slen, the boss fight of the chapter, took a couple of tries with two of us - the first time I got stuck in a red circle and pretty much insta-killed. There was a bit of a close call on the second attempt but it was under control really. The achievement then comes through for chapter completion, all you have to do then is get out of the Overwatch, all things rosy right? Oh how wrong they were. A bunch of Zakuul Knights came along and literally just slaughtered us, full on, one-shotting us both - it was hilarious and extremely confusing because why?? how?? Did the bonus mission to get the prisoners to escape (look out for the glowing terminal, it says 'Overwatch Prison Logs' when you hover over it) - they one-shot a few Knights but then disappeared on us too. Who knows. But we got through it.

Chapter XI

A much nicer one though still had a handful of deaths. Where you meet up with Havoc Squad there's ambush of Skytroopers, followed by a couple of walkers - and the walkers beat me. They cast circles that I just couldn't get out of in time to save my health, even with my defensives. I'm not sure if they were the type to follow you or a sort of stamp move (I should have looked at the cast bar, come to think of it) - I suspect though it was the latter and so it wouldn't be an issue on a ranged character. The fight though does continue around you if you die so you don't lose the progress you make, just use the med probe, revive and rejoin. I only took Jorgan to level 7 because that was all the gifts I had, but most of the mobs were just regular trash, typically 3 at a time, which was no worry. When you attack the base the Knights are a bit harder - there's one round the back that does stealth strikes and that's a difficult one to face. I died - the respawn to medbay actually puts you inside the part with the forcefield you're supposed to take down, and then you can't get out of it...I maintain that I did find a way past the forcefield but it doesn't work as a cheesing method. Use your med probe, otherwise it's quick travel out and re-enter your phase. The final battle is a big droid (I forgot the name of it). It spawns a bunch of smaller droids, just ignore those and go for the boss - I didn't the first time and that's why I died - I lost Jorgan, I had two Knights chasing me whilst the droid put up shields, it didn't go well - second time I did it in less than a minute whilst using a heroic moment.

Chapter XII

This one you don't have a companion for, though it's not a big deal - for the most part my main enemy, as tends to be the case on this chapter, was the map. I think the regular mobs are scaled down a bit for playing without a companion. You can pick up an animal to help you as well, which you may as well do as things just die quicker. It runs off in caves. Valkorion does take your health down a fair chunk before he gives you his beat down but it wasn't so bad. Vaylin though took quite a few attempts. You can't interrupt her so you have to be on the ball with your defensives and timing them all, which includes the shield and medpac given in your temporary bar for the chapter. Really the medpac isn't that effective so don't count on it. There's a lot of running around as she casts red circles. Probably easier with a character with more self heals. I got through it after a few efforts, after getting close a few times, though even then I was still low on health by the end.

Chapter XIII

Yeah, this one was no trouble really, and that was with Gault at only level 4 influence. If things get hairy whack a bit more on him, there's no real mechanics to pose problems. As ever, good practice to stay out of circles on the boss fight, you have Vette there as well so a bit of extra damage going and yeah. Nothing to worry about.

Chapter XIV

Another that was nice and simple, I didn't even have any gifts to give Torian so was wandering around with him on level 1. Just a matter of timing defensives and heroic moments in that case. Lots is open world, too. Final boss fight was no problem at all.

Chapter XV

Reading guides for this put the fear of god into me, so I was pleasantly surprised to find it better than expected. The bosses were the toughest parts. The first is the Skytrooper Constructor, that one does spawn adds after a while as well. It killed me a couple of times but really I'm not sure what the best strategy was so I just went for the classic, burn it as fast as I possibly can and making use of heroic moment/defensives as well. The GEMINI droid at the end had me worried. That took 3 attempts (maybe 4, I think it was just 3 though), one of those my heroic moment was still on cooldown and Senya died quickly on it too. It was really just about managing defensives effectively as well, running away when she has the red cone in front of you, using the heroic moment for extra speedy damage. It was a close call in the end but my enraged defence came off cooldown at the perfect moment, thank you Grit Teeth. I wouldn't say this was an easy chapter by any means so quite proud of myself for getting through it on my own! The other thing I would say is watch out for the lasers - they don't do lots of damage on story mode, but on master they one-shot you if you get caught in them! The other various traps I probably got through easier than I have on the lower difficulties which may just be a testament to this being like, my fifth complete kotfe run at this stage haha.

Chapter XVI

The final chapter...and the one I was the most scared of. Took Lana up to lvl 50 in preparation...she duly died early on in the first boss anyway. KJ-931 is the first boss - I say first boss, there's still a high rank enemy immediately before that I died to a few times anyway and needed a heroic moment to beat. First attempt against KJ I actually came really close. Stay out of the aoes - there's a white circle and a yellow cone, as well as a big red laser thing where you have to rush to the corner and if you can - micromanage Lana well enough that she doesn't get caught up in them too. So I learnt that I am not good at micromanaging companions like that. Take the turrets rather than the shields, definitely - apparently the shields also have limited use, the turrets pull aggro as well as giving you damage so they're very handy. Sometimes on this fight I got one-shotted very quickly, others I managed to hold on a bit - but it was the first attempt that was my best run until I actually did it. Honestly I can't say what the trick was to finally getting it right...just a lot of blind panic and luck. Second boss is Dara Nadal - I found it easier to just go for the intense burn on her - put down the turrets, use a heroic moment, set Lana to damage as well and burn. Still took a few attempts on her but each time I was getting very close so I knew I would get there.

And then came Arcann. Ooooh boy. I'd been reading guides and watching videos in preparation but there's still a lot to keep on top of. I decided to use the Marr & Satele Special Saber rather than my usual one - having the benefit of being able to run around quickly was handy, and the other ability reflects damage from his saber attack. This took many attempts - some that went very quickly, some that got him to his final phase. Rather than going into specifics I'm going to link to this video as it probably explains what to do best (it’s handy for all the bosses). You really have to watch for the moment he gets to ~25% and stands in one spot - if you aren't able to do the shield whacky he will kill you straight up. My first time running towards him with the shield in that very last phase I died on the way up. It took me a long time and a lot on repair bills but this is another one I was very proud of for getting through on my own as there were times I didn't think I would.

General stuff:

I would say doing this is not for the light-hearted but it’s certainly possible! Apart from one chapter where I grabbed a friend I got through them all on my own

Some classes fair better in certain chapters than others. I went with my Jugg all the way through, but if you have the characters geared and you know them well enough - and you're doing this for the cheevos rather than going through the storyline - you're likely better off mixing and matching as you go. There were many occasions I wished I had range.

You will die to trash mobs. It is a fact of life. It feels embarrassing in the early chapters, you come to accept this and move on.

Companion influence helps a lot. Koth, Lana, and Senya all like delicacies (especially Koth, that man can eat) - you can grab these from the Jawa vendors in the cartel bazaar on fleet.

Med droids are also a booming industry thanks to the amount I've spent on repairs in the course of this.

There are more mechanics compared to story mode, and some that exist in story mode that you just notice more on master. But apparently the difference between vet and master is just artificial - more health and hitting harder. 

Going Commando is another good resource for their experiences playing through.

[hes-writer]

One Of My Own (2)

 Summary: Harry falls out of love

Warnings: angst

Word Count: 4.5k

She brushed it off but thoughts and conclusions bounce through her head the entire dinner. She couldn’t help but compare herself to Daniela again like she did when she was younger. The make-up she’d applied felt heavier as she looked at Daniela’s natural looking face, emphasizing that she didn’t need to do much to look beautiful. She wore a pale blue dress as well, almost white with the lighting whereas Y/N decided to wear an eggplant colored dress that she now realizes doesn’t match Harry’s dress shirt combo.

It was an accidental coincidence, it’s not like they planned it, she thought.

“I don’t know it’s just odd,” Y/N stated to her friend, Lucy.

“What’s weird again?”

Harry and Daniela had been spending a ton of time together ever since she got back. At first, Y/N was glad that they found each other pleasant. Even though worries constantly filled her mind because of her sister’s actions, her trust in Harry couldn’t be swayed and she eventually overcame the insecurity that bubbled up inside her from the previous years.

“They’ve been spending a lot of time together,”

“Isn’t that good?” Lucy responded, raising an eyebrow at her.

It would’ve been good if they told her directly or a couple days before they actually hung out. Just this morning, she awoke to Harry fresh out of the shower with a towel wrapped lowly across his waist. His tan skin was drizzled with droplets of water and his hair was shaggy from the shampoo and conditioner. Her groggy voice projected as much as she could in the early hours of the morning to ask where he was headed off to. It was a Saturday and both of them happened to have a day off on that week. She planned to have a lazy day with him with their limbs entangled and a blanket draped over their bodies while they snuggled.

—

“Gonna go out with Dani to see this band at Chance,” He said as he opened the top drawer to pull out a pair of boxer briefs.

Y/N was instantly alarmed at the mention of her sister’s name. Chance was a café that Y/N found out about while scrolling through Instagram tags near her vicinity. It had a vintage vibe to it and played live music every day. The acts were switched and she had wanted to go ever since her discovery, but Harry’s schedule never matched up to hers.

“You’re going out with my sister?”

He paused, pulling a t-shirt over his head, “Yes. Is that a problem?”

She shook her head no, burrowing her face into the thick sheets of her duvet. The pillow beneath her felt like a brick and her head felt heavy.

--

“I guess. They don't invite me most of the time,”

“They don’t?”

“No, it’s like they’re the best of friends? I dunno, they even have their own little inside jokes,”

Lucy looked at her in alarm, “You don’t think he’s ..”

Y/N only bit her lip in remorse for thinking such vile things about Harry.

—-

Days passed and Harry had forgotten to pick Y/N up after her class again. It wasn’t a problem the first time it happened, but then it occurred again and it was currently the fifth time in eight days that Y/N was left leaning against the side of the building. It was raining mundanely, but it was enough to make someone sick if they stayed out long enough, and she was squishing herself as much as possible to fit under the small roof above her.

“Come on, H. Pick up,” Y/N lifted the phone to her ear, the weight of her tote bag dragging her forearm downwards but she persisted.

The line rings four times before the call ends and she was sent to voicemail. Y/N furrowed her eyebrows because she couldn’t believe that Harry had purposely rejected her call.

“What the heck?” she muttered.

The rain poured harder and she could see last of the people from her class getting picked up by their rides or boarding the public bus by the street corner. Y/N contemplated whether to run to catch up to the bus. From her peripherals, she sees Harry’s car speeding towards her.

It stopped right beside the sidewalk and Y/N speed-walked through the short distance between the roof and the car—refusing to get anymore wetter than she was. She grabbed the handle to the back seat so that she could drop off her bag before situating herself in the front with him. To her surprise she sees Daniela’s head of hair rested against the headrest. She climbed onto the back turning on the seat warmer first before strapping the safety belt across her body.

“Daniela?” She questioned.

“Hey Y/N, sorry we’re late,” Her sister apologized. “Harry here was just so clumsy that he—“

“Wha- Dani! You said you’d keep that between us,” Harry interrupted, arms lifting to lightly punch Daniela’s shoulder.

Y/N couldn’t help but let her eyes drift between the two of them.

——

It started off with the most minute things, everyday errands that Harry and Y/N used to do together like run to the grocery store to pick up eggs or a quick trip to the hardware because one of them were in need of batteries or a new set of light bulbs. These trips were their thing—it made them feel unique and separated from other people because it wasn’t usually what you would do with another person. But Harry and Y/N did them, it made the bond between them stronger to share something so domestic.

Until it wasn’t them anymore; it was Harry, Y/N, and Daniela because she needed milk one morning and he had invited her to come with them and somehow–it turned into a trio thing. When Y/N was scheduled for an early morning shift, she had to miss out on the grocery trip and she felt bad that she was missing out on it, especially since it was one of the bigger loads–as in, they needed to restock their pantry. But Harry barely batted an eyelash towards her, stating that Daniela could come and join him. Soon enough, those trips turned into Harry and Daniela hang out sessions because “Oh, Y/N. I don’t think you’ll want to come because she wants to go visit another store after” according to Harry.

It wouldn’t be a surprise either for Y/N to come home and find Daniela sitting at Y/N’s usual seat on the dinner table (beside Harry) while they chatted and ate their dinner. They didn’t even notice her presence for the first minute and a half because they were too busy laughing at yet another inside joke that stayed between their knowledge.

“Oh hi Y/N, there are some leftovers in the fridge for you,” Harry had greeted and continued in with the conversation. Her sister merely gave a wave before focusing her attention on Harry.

On other days, Y/N would come home to an empty apartment. The lights would be turned off and not a single sign prevailed that Harry had been around recently. There were no notes, no texts, no calls, and Y/N was actually getting worried about the lack of response. She stayed situated on the couch nibbling on her fingernails as a nervous habit while she sipped on chamomile tea in hopes to calm worries. When the doorknob jiggled, Y/N never ran as fast to the door as she did only to see Harry slap his palm on the door, pushing it widely as the hinges would and almost hits Y/N’s face. He stumbled over his own feet while his other arm was wrapped around Daniela who was equally as drunk. They both giggled at seemingly nothing but Y/N felt left out.

——

It was rare for Harry and Y/N to have time alone—like tonight— so she wanted to make the best out of it. She’d planned a whole evening of activities between them, some more enjoyable to Y/N than it was for him and vice versa. She felt that they’d lost effective communication to each other and she wanted to rekindle the spark that had extinguished.

The first one was to make dinner. It was a domestic activity that enabled them to see each other as a possible life-long partner and so far, Y/N was satisfied with this. The second was to eat it and speak about the events that have happened in recent weeks. Y/N was ashamed to say that she wasn’t as updated on Harry’s life as usual because she’d become a lot busier at work, especially at this time of the year. She wanted him to rant if needed to, complain if he felt like it, and share if he was comfortable enough to tell every little thing that he was feeling or had experienced prior because she’d missed his raspy voice lulling her ears. Y/N prided herself on being a great listener and Harry was someone who could talk for hours on end. It was a match.

Then, they’d move over to the couch where Harry would probably swift through the Netflix recommendations to find a new movie to watch, but they always knew that he couldn’t resist clicking back on his favorite movies. Y/N would cuddle into his chest, his knobby knees knocking against her own, while one of their arms would slowly become numb from being pressed against each other tightly. Both of them hated the pain and Harry had shyly admitted that she was—as cheesy as it sounds—’worth the pain’. When the days events catch up to their bodies, sometimes Y/N was the only one left to stare at the TV with tears in her eyes as the credits scroll upwards the screen while Harry leaned his head against his neck, resting at the back of the couch and his mouth wide open with a little drool dribbling down the corner of his mouth. He’d snore sometimes too.

Did it happen? No.

Why? As Harry had answered, “Sorry Y/N, I can’t come. Dani wanted to watch this new rom-com at the cinema tonight,”

And that was the moment she realized that her sister was doing it again. She was taking away what is rightfully Y/N’s and like every guy she’d ever been with, Harry was being persuaded by some sort of magic charm away from Y/N and towards he sister. It was funny how Daniela always succeeded and Y/N always let her. It’s not like she wanted to—if she had the guts, Y/N would totally scramble to grasp what she had. However, she was a strong believer in having only one chance. That chance proved whether it was worth it or not; if it meant something or it didn’t. She believed that once a person started drifting away from her, then it was either they would eventually disappear from her life, or they’d somehow realize what was happening and crawl their way back to her. So far, every experience Y/N had gone through always concluded with the person leaving her—maybe it was the same for Harry.

———

Y/N was too nice sometimes. Harry gave her an earful plentiful times when she became too generous and offered to take a shift for her friend who—as he declared— ‘doesn’t even like you’.

And this is an example of Y/N’s soft heart.

What if Daniela and Harry were the ones meant to be together and she was just the test to exemplify their true feelings? What if Harry and Daniela were meant to find each other through her? She had gone through the same thought process with Leo and the others, and now she was doing it with Harry. It was repetitive, of course. But what if this time was really it? Y/N couldn’t let her selfish needs get in the way of her sister's ticket to happiness. Sure, she’d probably be left broken and dusting but Y/N couldn’t stand seeing her brother, Carlos, weeping or Daniela sobbing over a lost love even if it was her lost love first.

That’s exactly what it was—a lost love. It wasn’t Y/N that felt her feelings deteriorating, no. The love she felt for Harry was stronger than before, sturdier than yesterday and she undoubtedly believed that he was the perfect one for her. Except, Y/N could also sense that Harry’s feelings for her were swirling down the drain and into an alternate dimension which meant that it was only growing for Daniela. It was for her sister.

Y/N had a hard time wrapping her head around it at first because that was just fucked up. What kind of boyfriend leaves their current girlfriend for their girlfriend's goddamn sister? It was humiliating and embarrassing since Y/N couldn’t imagine seeing a day without him—and she certainly wouldn’t have to envision it because she was sure that Harry would certainly come to their family dinners not as Y/N’s plus one, but her sisters’.

------

Harry had never met Y/N’s parents but he’s heard a plentiful amount about them. It was the same situation with Y/N’s parents, although, they had no idea that Y/N was dating somebody for good months now. It was a topic that just hadn’t come up in conversations, especially since the subject of relationships were a bit rough on the family, granted of the upcoming divorce that will ultimately split the household.

Harry and Y/N took a couple of days off from school and work to travel back to Y/N’s hometown to spend time with her family. Daniela had left the city a few days earlier because she had to speak to their parents to finalize their decision. Y/N was relieved at that news because it meant that Harry’s undivided attention would be focused solely on her during the ride back home. They hadn’t had a lot of time together recently and Y/N really didn’t want to blame anyone but she’s currently pointing her finger at her sister for charming her way into her boyfriend’s pretty head, and somehow relaying that his own girlfriend should become second priority.

However, all hopes of delving back to what they used to be were flushed down the drain. Y/N was a cuddler, Harry was too-- so it wasn’t a surprise when the two of them settled on their seats ready for the train ride to begin its journey, and for Y/N to lay her head on Harry’s shoulder or chest. What shocked her was that he didn’t return any of her actions, he had shifted uncomfortably on his behind and pretended to stretch his limbs as if he had been in the same position for a long while--- he just really didn’t want Y/N laying on him. She stared at him for a few seconds, brows furrowed and lips settled in a downwards curve.

The second move Y/N approached was more subtle. She fiddled with her own hands, eyeing Harry’s tattooed ones that rested softly on his jean-covered thigh. His lids were closed, eyelashes idly resting on his supple cheeks. His nose twitched ever so often like a bunny rabbit. Y/N feebly let her hand move to trace his, feeling the bones and muscles twitch underneath her touch. When she was sure that he was deeply asleep and wasn’t going to pull away, she turned his hand over so that his palm was against her own. She let a sigh softly escape her lips when her fingers tangled with his own, feeling a spark shoot through her body.

They must’ve stayed like that for at least forty-five minutes and she was awoken by an abrupt thump and suddenly, her hand was left isolated away from Harry. She forced her eyes to peel open to see what had just occurred and is met face to face with Harry’s which sported a disappointed mask.  She tilted her head to the side in confusion; what could he be possibly angry about? He shook his head at her like a parent scolding their child and feels inferior to him. Y/N tried to lay her head on the meat of his shoulder again; he tensed, muscles contracting and she swore he stopped breathing for a nanosecond. He relaxed, however, and it made Y/N exhale gently. He adjusted his arm so that she was resting on his chest, his arm wrapping around her body in a grip that even she could tell was hesitant and took some reckoning for him to decide if that was what he wanted to do.

As much as she wanted to and should be comfortable right now, her mind was buzzing with thoughts even though her body rested pliantly on Harry. She couldn’t help but feel pain in her head as if someone was jostling her brain back and forth to shake out all of the ideas that could possibly explain why he was acting so odd. Detached was probably the most accurate word she could muster up. He was there physically but it was as if every emotional attachment that used to tie him to her was cut off from the source. He was a man that acted on a schema, a man that moved based on how he thinks he should be acting, not because he cared for whatever it was--- but because he had to. He had to at least try that he was still somewhat interested in Y/N when in fact, his passion for her has whisked away in pieces, declining with time and he could definitely feel guilt have its way at him.

Y/N could sense the end coming even though her heels were digging in the ground to try to stop it as much as she could, or maybe slow the process down a bit because she wanted a bit more time with Harry. Just a little bit more of being loved, being wanted, and having someone to call her own. In the back of her mind, a whisper mocked her every day, warning that she should leave before he does because then at least she’ll have a bit of control of the situation. But her subconscious won’t let her-- she loves Harry too much to let him go on a whim, but apparently not enough to fight for him. If he truly did love her like he-so-graciously spoke, he should eventually find his way back to her. Right?

But Y/N was in a state of denial, wanting to prolong every kiss they shared, every embrace that lifted her heavy heart, every moment he spoke while he was still hers; she wanted it to stretch so thinly until it breaks because then she will know that it wasn’t meant to be. Their love was one-sided and she was the one that sailed it through the hard and good times. At least for now, she could pretend that he was only confused and befuddled with a choice that he had to make.

And it definitely took a toll on Y/N when she let a bit of truth nip at her being, that her sister was taking pieces of Harry away and he was willingly breaking off parts of him to give to her. Needless to say, she was disgusted with the thought and she almost regurgitated when it first slipped her mind. It was repulsive and so so embarrassing for her. Did they even think of her when they decided to sneak around? Probably not.

The love was fading fast on Harry’s side and although a sensible part of him relates to Y/N’s pain, he couldn’t coerce himself to be one with her fully-- as in yes, he feels bad but he couldn’t blame himself. Is it right for him to say it’s hers? Maybe she just couldn’t satisfy him emotionally, maybe Daniella’s advanced two years of experience was what Harry was searching for. Maybe the sisters’ were just so alike from each other that he mistook feelings for Y/N as infatuation for Daniela. Maybe he’d be satisfied with either one of them because of their similarity in personas but he decided to go with Daniela because she had that extra oomph that Y/N had been lacking all of her life. The potential loss of Harry and Y/N’s relationship definitely affected her more than him. He was aware of that and he knew that she had realized it earlier.

----

Right now, as the pair exit the train station and Harry’s arm shoots up to holler for a taxi cab, Y/N couldn’t help but let her eyes linger on every part of him as if it was the last time she’ll ever get the chance to do so. The moment they step foot into the house was a daunting thought that maybe that was the precise moment where she truly losses him as her own. The time he will walk into their family, not as Y/N’s but entering the life that he and Daniella will share while Y/N watched from the dining table.

And maybe Harry, too, could sense the fear radiating off of Y/N’s body. They always had some way of being connected and whenever she was cold, he would shiver too. The hairs on his neck stand at full attention at the realization and he also couldn’t help but stare at his past love while she glanced out the cab window emotionlessly.  Her face was reflected off the transparent glass of the window, the droplets of rain skidding down the surface but he could see a lone tear fall down the side of her cheek. Harry swallowed heavily, blinking a bit to clear his thoughts and takes her hands between his. The action surprised Y/N, he could tell by the way her left hand flattened her fingertips to her temples to swipe the tears away, a sniffle added into the mix before she turned to face him with her head down. He knew that it was an effort for him not to see her red-rimmed eyes. He could feel a twitch from her hand as if she wanted to pull away from the shock, but she stayed, unmoving.

His thumb rubbed circles on hers, a habit that she had introduced to him and something that he found so endearing that he eventually adopted the mannerism as his own. It was a calming gesture that she did to steady his heartbeat, and now he was using it against her to protect her from upcoming events that he himself is aware of.

---

The cab breaks to a halt and the moment they shared was over. Harry reached over to take his wallet out of his coat pocket and Y/N couldn’t help but grip it a little tighter. He faced her to be met with eyes pleading against his own as if to say ‘please, just a little longer’, but it was a request that he couldn’t fulfill. He pulled his hand back to his body, letting hers lay limply like she had been drained the life out of.

Their bags were held in their hands, standing at the little pathway to the front door. The cab’s engine volume decreased until it eventually couldn’t be heard by their ears. It was silent between them and who could forget the fact that it was pouring rain. Y/N couldn’t find it in herself to care if she caught a cold from the freezing water, watching Harry jog over to the porch to shield himself. All the while he thought that she was following his footsteps only to turn around and find Y/N walking slowly, dragging her feet, wanting to stretch the time they had alone until she was forced to give it up.

She reached him with a slouched body. Harry felt his heart cracking just a little bit at the sight. He couldn’t tell the difference between her tears and the rain but he knew that she was in pain. His hand grabbed her chin softly to tilt her eyes to meet his, lips drawing closer to each other to encapture it in a lasting kiss. His pillowy soft lips touch her own freezing ones and she could feel every emotion he felt pour into the single action. The regret, remorse, and empathy flowing from him to her body; he was sorry. He was sorry that it had to be this way, this was the end of them. It was ironic since he was meeting her parents for the first time, and usually, it would be to announce the beginning of their relationship, but Harry and Y/N always set themselves apart from the crowd.

Her frigid hands situate themselves just under his chin and he was jolted out of the kiss. Their eyes flutter open and Harry was searching her own for a sign of forgiveness but all he could see was a barren window that reflected his face back to him. The eyes truly were the windows to the soul because no matter how many times Harry blinked in hopes for Y/N’s eyes to change in emotion, it was always him that he saw. And maybe it was because Y/N thought of him as her soulmate; someone that would be with her till the end of time. To love, to hold, and to cherish.

Y/N thought that falling out of love was like losing a part of her that she knew so well. It was a piece of her that was once illuminated, a part of her that she identified with--Harry was the one that melded his own to hers and they were one. Love was valuable and lord knows what she went through to find one that she thought she could settle with.

His finger pressed the doorbell and not seconds later did the door open in welcome. Both of them shuffled inside, dripping from the rain. It was in slow motion. Her mother’s concern face embedding itself temporarily before she scurried upstairs to grab her a towel. Her father shaking Harry’s hand before brushing Y/N’s wet hair out of the way to ‘see the face that I missed so much’. He could see Carlos waving at her with a wide grin but it slowly faded once he saw that her sister wasn’t returning the action. And then, he could see Daniella enter the doorway with a wide smile and a twinkle in her eyes, barely paying attention to Y/N.

Her heart was aching and the knife studded on her chest twisted and turned while her stomach clenched in repulsion. It was obvious in the way they acted around each other as if they’ve been a couple in love; it was disheartening but at the same time, interesting. Y/N was left to long for him, hoping that someday he’ll return back to her. Hoping that he’ll beg on his knees with his hands clasped together as his voice pleads for her to please don’t give up on him because he loves her and he could physically feel his heart being ripped into shreds when she shakes her head. But right now, Y/N was the one low on the ground, crumbling from the pressure and pain being weighed on her. She was the one begging Harry to not leave her.

But maybe she said it too quietly--too helplessly-- because he couldn’t hear her and he continued walking away from his love to go to one of her own.

----

that’s wack

@ynm1505 @kissme-hs @agoddamnmango @littledreamybeth @kettxo @champagnehaarry @illumestyles @harryspirate @miscll-fangirl @toolazymyguy @fangirl-moment-x @ashkuuuu @urlindah @elizasjuice @styleswritin @meet-me-in-the-harry

[santoteez]

The Dormant Beast - Jongho (1)

Part: 1 of ?

Idol: Jongho of ATEEZ

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Friends to Lovers

Word Count: 2,071

Warnings: Slight prejudice and bullying (non-racial and it’s not bodyshame either) MC is Black Female, Mentions of murder

Crescent walked through the halls, ignoring the snickers and looks of disgust from the other students. It wasn’t because of the curves of her body. It wasn’t even her melanin-rich skin that caused this reaction. No, this world wasn’t plagued with body shaming or racism. But, there was prejudice. And it was due to a lack of aura.

Where Crescent lives, each and every person has their aura. An animalistic force that overtakes the body on command. Humanity was supposed to devolve from humanoids back into apes, in reverse of how we allegedly came to be. Whether or not that’s true is up for debate. What is for sure, is that somewhere along the line, technology and science mixed into the biological DNA of the human race, and rather than reverting into animals, they became animalistic humans. The closest thing to a hybrid, but not quite centaurs or mermaids.

Everyone has their aura develop sometime in elementary or middle school, and most have perfected it by senior year. Crescent’s sister, Eclipse, had the aura of a cheetah. It allowed her to move faster than any land animal aura, and gave her bright, gold eyes and a slender frame. Her parents were both hyenas, making them manipulative and, contrary to popular belief, rather violent and predatory towards others. They were very boisterous; their voices sometimes being heard from miles away. Even Jongho, Crescent’s best friend, had an aura. He was a gorilla, making him incredibly strong and highly intelligent. His incredible strength and broad build made him the most popular in the school, as well as the strongest. Just like real gorillas, though, Jongho was a big softie and rarely showed his true strength. Sometimes you would forget he had the ability to rip you limb from limb and destroy the entire school without breaking a sweat.

Then, there was Crescent. From the beginning, Crescent knew something was wrong. When all her friends were running and flying to school, she was taking the bus. When there were battles for dominance during recess, she cowered in the library. It all came down to one day, she was challenged by Desire, the strongest girl in school, to a battle.

“Come on, Crescent. Everyone knows you’re just hiding your aura. You never want to show it. You probably think you’re too good for battle. Show us what you got.”

“Desire. I already told you I FORFEIT my battle. You already won. Why do you keep seeking me out?”

“Because I know you’re just mocking me by not fighting me. You probably think I won’t win because of whatever aura you have. In order to win, I must assert dominance. So get in position.” She said, channeling her aura. The astral projection of a howling wolf appeared in the air, and she adopted a dominant stance.

Crescent, on the other hand, just stood there. What was she to do?

“If you won’t power up willingly, I’ll have to beat it out of you.” Desire ran, pouncing on Crescent. She pinned her down, bearing her sharp teeth.

Crescent, aware of how damaging a wolf bite can be, shut her eyes tightly and braced herself for the pain.

It never came, though. Crescent opened her eyes to see Jongho with Desire in hand. He was holding her up off the ground by her neck, but not in a chokehold way. The group that had formed to view the fight between the girls had dispersed into the corners, scared of what Jongho might do, but still nosey enough to watch.

“She said she didn’t want to fight you three times, didn’t she? That’s surely going against the rules if you attack her anyway, right Crescent?” He smiled at the much shorter girl, who had yet to get up.

Jongho set Desire down, reaching out a hand to help Crescent up. Once Crescent was on her feet, Jongho spoke. “Crescent, maybe it would help if you just showed your aura? You already forfeited, so it wouldn’t lead to a battle, but it might help to ease some of the ambiguity.” He shrugged.

For the first time since realizing it, Crescent burst into tears. “I don’t show my aura…because I don’t have one!”

Gasps were heard all up and down the corridor.

“That’s impossible!” Desire shouted. “If you’re something weak, like a mouse or something, just say it. But don’t say you have no aura.”

Crescent sighed. “I’m telling the truth. I’m not a mouse, or a cheetah, or even a hyena. I’m just human. No aura.” She said, sobbing harder.

Jongho embraced her, pulling her close and rubbing her back. “What are you all still staring at? There’s no fight. Get to class!” His voice boomed against the walls, causing the crowd to scurry, even Desire.

“Hey, it’s okay. Maybe you’re just a late bloomer? I know some people that didn’t get their aura until high school! Or maybe it’s a medical thing! Whatever it is, I’ll help you figure it out. We’ll find your aura, together.”

That was four years ago. They were best friends ever since. No matter what rituals or remedies Jongho and Crescent tried, they couldn’t figure out what was up with her aura. Doctor after doctor told her there was nothing wrong with her, she was just auraless. There were cases of something hindering an aura, such as a lean animal in a curvy body, or vice versa. But none of that applied to Crescent. They tried potions made by the black cat auras, but after a food poisoning scare, they decided not to continue down that path.

Now in junior year, Crescent and Jongho decided to put their aura search on hold as they prepared for college applications and senior year.

Crescent opened her locker, sliding out the way immediately as a bucket of water fell out, which would’ve drenched her if it wasn’t for her quick reflexes. Chuckles and snickers were heard around her as she stepped into the water to stand in front of her locker.

Grabbing her books, she paused to look at the picture in her locker. It was her and Jongho from the previous Valentine’s Day. Every girl in the school was asked out to the town fair that day, except Crescent. Despite her reputation, she was still hopeful someone would be nice to her, just for that day. She was laying in bed, tears seeping into her pillow when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find Jongho with a bouquet of sunflowers, knowing she hated roses.

“Were you seriously crying? Geez, didn’t think I had to formally ask you to the fair. Thought it was obvious I’d take you.” He said, stepping into the house. “I’ll wait for you in the living room. There’s no way you’d want to go out looking like that.” He said, referring to her pajamas and puffy eyes. They headed for the fair after Crescent changed, getting on the rides and playing the games. Jongho beat the ball toss, despite the glass bottles being glued together (because of obvious reasons) and won Crescent a huge teddy bear with a red ribbon. He asked the booth owner to take their picture with the prize and, lo and behold, that’s how the picture came to exist. Crescent cuddling into Jongho’s arm with the teddy bear in between and the two of them with bright smiles.

It was that night that Crescent realized her feelings for Jongho. At first, she thought it was hero worship, a feeling caused by Jongho saving her from Desire. But that night, under the city lights, spending the entire evening together, she realized it was something deeper.

She sighed. It’s not like it could ever happen. Someone with such a powerful aura as Jongho’s wouldn’t be caught with someone of a low aura, let alone someone as auraless as Crescent. Jongho had proven to her time and time again that he didn’t really care for the hierarchy, but Crescent knew better than to hope that high.

Suddenly, her locker was slammed closed by Desire and her minions.

“Crescent! Good morning!” She said in an overly sweet tone that was anything but.

“No aura, still. No fashion sense either.” She said, glancing down at the girl’s sneakers and overalls. “With no aura, you’re not much of a looker, you know.”

“Even with all the Chanel and Prada in the world, you’d look down on me.” Crescent said, matter of factly.

“That’s a fact!” Desire said, bumping shoulders with Crescent just as Jongho turned the corner.

“Jongho, my love! How are you? I missed you all weekend!” She said, draping her arm over Jongho’s pathetically.

“Missed me enough to come harass Crescent again?” He asked.

“What? No, no, no! I just came to tell her that her overalls are so chic! 90s are in right now, you know. I should get myself a pair!”

“Maybe you should, I get them from Levi’s.” Crescent smiled.

“Maybe I will.” Desire said, clenching her teeth.

“I’ll be looking forward to seeing you in them. They’d suit you.” Jongho lied.

“Really? I’ll look into it!” Desire said, walking away. “Great now I have to wear those things? Do you think they would go with my heels? Why does he always hang out with the challenged one anyway?” She asked her minions as they walked away.

Jongho and Crescent burst into laughter when she turned the corner.

“Like she’d ever wear overalls,” Crescent said.

“I hope she does, it’d be funny to see her pretend to be comfortable,” Jongho replied. “How was the weekend, Cres?”

“Pretty good, I sparred with Eclipse again. I was sore yesterday but I’m feeling better.”

Ever since they realized she was auraless, Eclipse took it upon herself to train Crescent in hand to hand combat, teaching her how to block and dodge hits as well as serve them. Crescent hated it at first, but it turned out to be beneficial at times when people turned to her as a punching bag. They never expected her to fight back.

Jongho nodded. “That’s good. It’s important you can defend yourself, especially when I’m not around. I don’t want anyone messing with you.”

“I’m fine, Jongho. I can handle myself.”

“I know, doesn’t mean I’m not gonna have your back.” He said, swinging his arm around her shoulders as they walked into class.

“Good Morning Strongville Campus! This is Desire with your morning announcements.” The girl screeched through the P.A. system, causing Crescent to roll her eyes.

“Crescent, I know you’re rolling your eyes. Don’t.” Crescent looked up at the speaker, mouthing ‘How?’ “Anyways, I’d like to start off with a moment of silence for Strongville High alum Hyunjae Kim, who was brutally murdered by The Void, making him the 7th victim to succumb to the unknown assailant. The moment of silence will start now, please refrain from speaking until you hear my voice.”

Crescent’s mind wandered to the victims of The Void. Those with strong auras have been slain one by one over the course of three months. Those who were in the area of the murder have reported a lightless darkness around the time of death, causing the media to aptly name the faceless suspect ‘The Void.’

“Thank you for participating. In other news-”

“Hyunjae might’ve moved out of town, but he still lived pretty close. Do you think The Void will pop up here?” Crescent asked Jongho.

“No idea. Some say he’s looking for the OmniAura. The one that possesses the aura of the entire animal kingdom. The One True Ruler.”

“Do you really think someone that possesses that much power exists?” She asked incredulously.

“No one really thought someone who possessed NO power existed, and yet here you are. I say anything’s possible.” Jongho shrugged.” Hey, did you hear back from those colleges? What did they say?”

She sighed. “The same as the rest. That they’ve never encountered a spiritually challenged person, meaning auraless. They thanked me for applying and said they’d keep in touch when they researched how to better accommodate the auraless.”

Jongho squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”

Crescent smiled, despite being worried about something entirely different. She stared out the window. What did The Void want? Is there really an OmniAura? If he was seeking out all the strong auras, how long would it be until he came for Jongho?

Stephie back at it again with the fanfics! I posted earlier today too, I’m on a ROLL. I took a mini and unannounced hiatus, but I’m back to stay! I realized how much it was stressing me out not to write, but ya girl got a new job and was finding it hard to adjust and time manage. So bear with me while I get back into the groove.

[miraculousmumma]

The Real Me - A Miraculous Oneshot

So, I finished it quicker than I thought!  Here’s the entire thing in all its glory, if you can call it that!

The Real Me

The entire class looked on in silence.  Lessons for the week were done, everyone was packing up and talking about their plans, which was when Adrien got out of his seat, turned to Marinette, and said the words that had them all now staring at the interaction.

‘So, would you go out with me?’

It was like a match on the smallest tennis court, eyes darting between the two of them as they waited for her reply.  This was the culmination of all these years of Marinette crushing and Adrien being oblivious to both that and his own feelings.  This was the big moment.

Marinette continued packing her bag without even glancing up at him.  It was only when Alya yelped; ‘Girl!’; at her that she took a breath, looked up at Adrien without a single emotion on her face, and simply stated; ‘No thanks.  I’m good.’  And, without saying another word, she sidestepped around him, shouldering her bag as she went, leaving the entire class even more speechless than they had been.

Adrien was well aware of all eyes on him and, once the shock passed, he gave a laugh of pure embarrassment.  ‘I actually should have expected that.’  And with no other explanation, he headed out of the door at the closest he could get to a run without actually doing so.

‘Marinette!’

Marinette ignored the call from behind her as she walked rapidly towards the crosswalk to her home.  She wasn’t in the mood to listen to his excuses or his apologies.  She wasn’t in the mood for him to beg her to hear him out.  She just wasn’t in the mood for Adrien Agreste whatsoever.

‘Marinette, come on!’

She could tell he was closer, definitely going at a faster pace than her, but that was fine.  If he caught up with her she would give him what for, even though she had hoped to avoid him for just a couple of days.

‘Bugaboo, please.’  He caught up with her, sensibly keeping his hands to himself, but she spun on him just the same, giving him a blue-eyed glare that he was far more used to seeing surrounded by red and black spots.

‘Please nothing!’  She snapped.  ‘I have been pining over you for the last three years and suddenly, when you find out the truth, now you want to know me as more than just a friend?  No.  This is not going to happen.  At least, not the way you want it to!’

Adrien could only watch wide-eyed and open-mouthed as she rebuffed him yet again.  She was mad at him, he knew she was, but he honestly thought asking her out in front of their class would work.  That it would prove to her how serious about he was both in and out of their suits.  Boy, was he wrong.

While he struggled for an answer, Marinette was finished, and she turned her back on him, taking the final few steps into the patisserie behind her before slamming the door and leaning on it heavily.

‘Rough day at school, sweetie?’  Sabine asked from where she was serving a customer.

Marinette sighed as she pushed away from the door and dragged herself past the counter, towards the door through to their apartment.  ‘No, school was fine.’

‘Do you want a snack?’

‘Sure.’  She grabbed two cookies off a tray and disappeared through the door.

‘Sounds like a boy problem.’  The customer said knowingly.

‘I don’t know.’  Sabine frowned.  ‘That kind of look is normally a Bourgeois problem.’

Marinette dropped her bag on the floor of her room and flopped face down on her chaise, flipping off her shoes in the process.  Pulling the cushions into her face she screamed, angry at herself for having let this get to her.

When they discovered one another’s identities they were both shocked, closely followed by Adrien being delighted and Marinette being, well, pretty insulted actually.  It hit her harder than she could ever have imagined, finding out that Adrien was Chat Noir, that he had flirted with her so heavily when in costume, but out of it?  Out of it, she had been placed so firmly in the friendzone that it quickly warped into the ‘just-a-friend-zone’, which was somehow worse.  And now they knew he suddenly wanted to date her?  That hurt, plain and simple.  He wanted Ladybug, not Marinette, never mind that they were the same person.  He wanted just a small part of her and had always rejected the rest of her.  She didn’t want to be his no matter what.  She wanted to be his because he loved every facet of her.  To accept his request would lead to a lie, and she didn’t want that.

‘You know, Tikki,’ came her muffled voice, ‘if he had fallen for me as me and then this had been revealed then we wouldn’t have had any of these problems.  The fact I’m Ladybug would just have been one hell of a bonus!  The same for him!  I genuinely like Chat Noir, not just hero worship like most of Paris do, but because I trust him with my life, and vice versa.  The flirting bothered me a bit at first, but it soon just became a part of who he was.  I would have been over the moon to learn Adrien was Chat Noir, it feels right that it’s him, but his sudden change in his affection towards me doesn’t!  It feels forced, as though now I’m finally worthy of crawling out of the pit of just a friend and into his arms.  Well, no.  It’ll take more than that to win me over.  I don’t know what, but something.’

‘I understand your point.’  Tikki assured her from where she floated by her head.  ‘But you have to consider that asking you in both of your civilian guises is his way of showing you that he likes you both.’

‘It doesn’t feel like it.’  She grumbled before sitting up and positioning herself crosslegged, passing a cookie to Tikki.  ‘It feels like to make things official he’s trying to prove a point, that he’ll put up with me being Marinette if it means he gets to be with me as Ladybug.’  She folded her arms frustratedly.

‘That’s not what I did it for.’

Marinette squealed in surprise at the third voice in the room, her arms flailing so hard she fell off the chaise and onto the floor behind it.  Looking towards her skylight to the roof she saw the unmistakable face of Chat Noir, upside down and peering at her apologetically.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’  He smiled slightly.

‘No, out, bad kitty!’  She yelled as she stumbled to her feet.  ‘I will spray you with water, hit you with a broom, whatever it takes to get you out of here!!!’

‘The only thing that will get me out of here is you listening to me.’  He said as firmly as he could with his throat tight with nerves and his voice trembling.

‘Then I guess you’re going to be here a long time.  Make yourself at home!’  She waved her arm at him and his smile widened, dropping down onto her bed and heading towards the ladder, in time to see her pulling at the hatch to leave her room.

‘Wait, wait, wait!’  He flipped over the side of the bed and landed on the door surprisingly lightly for how suddenly he did so.  ‘Please, hear me out, Marinette.  Please.  Then if you’re not satisfied you can throw me out yourself.’

She folded her arms and glared at him.  ‘There’s nothing you can say that will convince me, so prepare yourself for the definitive proof about cats landing on their feet.’

‘Okay.’  He huffed out a breath as he steeled his nerves.  ‘I don’t just want you because you’re Ladybug, and I’m sorry if that’s how it came across.’

‘How did you think that would ever be a good idea?’  She stared at him in disbelief.  ‘You ask me out as soon as you find out I’m actually the person you have been flirting with for all these years?  It makes me feel about an inch tall.  There’s so much misplaced affection when you’re a hero that I thought you might understand!  I want someone who sees me for me!’

‘I do see you for you!’

‘No!  You know who I am, both sides of me, but one side was never good enough for you, the side you should have seen.’

‘That works both ways, you know?’  He said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

She shifted her feet uncomfortably and unfolded her arms.  ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re allowed to be yourself, you know who you are at home.  You’re you.  But I can’t do that.  I can’t be me outside of the mask.  I have to be perfect.’  Marinette’s gut clenched as she saw the pain in his eyes but she couldn’t think of anything to say, so he continued  ‘The perfect model, the perfect student, the perfect son.  I put this mask on and all bets are off.  I’m free.  I can run, I can laugh, no one cares what Chat Noir does, because he’s funny, and dashing, and carefree.  All the things I’m not.  So before you start accusing me of only loving one part of you…’

Chat fell silent when Marinette’s hands pressed against his cheeks the second before she kissed him.  Her lips were a soft and gentle touch but they may as well have been on fire, the way they affected him.  As well as being an efficient silencer they made his body roar with excitement, his head buzzing even as she broke the kiss and lowered her hands to his chest.

‘Maybe we’re both idiots in that respect.’  She said in a hushed tone.  ‘Maybe we both need to take the time to learn about both sides of us.’

‘Can we…’  Chat cleared his throat, surprised by how husky his voice sounded, ‘can we do that as a couple?’

‘I don’t see why not.’  She gave him a warm smile, one she had never been able to offer him without it turning goofy and her cheeks red.

‘This is going to take some explaining at school.’

She shrugged.  ‘Maybe we just show up tomorrow holding hands and don’t mention it.  Let their imaginations have this one.’

‘You always have the best plans, Marinette.’

‘I do try.’  She agreed, closing her eyes as his lips approached hers.

[hanako-theories]

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

EXPLICIT SUICIDE SCENE WARNING!

Word count: 2238

Originally posted to AO3 under username Little-coffins, AO3 link:

Summary: In that moment, this moment, its his fault. He always forgave Tsukasa, said so to his face and Tsuchigomori-sensei and to the bathroom mirror in the night after wandering hands and fear filled paralysis.

It was a knee jerk response.

Fear overrode his senses, leaving him with an overwhelming feeling of panic and terror, taking the reigns by force, the feeling of cool steel pressed against his jugular, kissing deeply enough to split fragile skin and spill metallic molasses.

The pain from the cuts in his joints burned bright and red hot, the broken nose sprouting deep black bruises around his eyes like growing weeds, deepening and darking across the dips in between his nose like black paint slathered across his face.

His swollen wrist panged at every movement made by either of them. His shirt pushed up beneath his arm pits exposing his chest, thin red lines drawn intricately across the sensitive flesh, oozing liquid pain as Tsukasa's hand slid gently, lovingly from his collar bone down to his navel, fingertips dancing across the throbbing flesh. The fingers dipping into his v-line to smooth his sullied fingers over the previously unbloodied skin that'd still remained beneath his waist band.

It'd been pure fear pulsing through his body, only thinking about the blade easing into his sensitive throat little by little, his hysterics only further worsening the problem.

Arms pinned by the elbows beneath Tsukasa's knees, further tearing flesh as the joint ground into the kitchen tile beneath them painfully, no matter the struggling and yanking of his arms, no reprieve was found from the pressure bearing down on his arms.

The feeling of Tsukasa's hand caressing his face, rubbing at his lip and ripping his head backwards as the thumb slipped inside his mouth, wedging it open and yanking at his cheek. His face, an exact copy of his own peering down at him with utter fascination and adoration as his fingers dipped further into his mouth, pressing his down and rubbing at the soft muscle that flexed weakly in protest beneath the intrusion.

He could taste bile at the back of his throat.

It bit further, he struggled harder, harder, harder--

An arms free.

Striking blindly, he caught Tsukasa in the throat sending him backwards towards the tiles sputtering knife clattering across the tiles, smooth white tile stained red, alabaster material reflecting the moon through the window, blue light catching the sharp edges of the cold steel, making it glimmer like it wasn't a menace, a danger, right there in front of him, away from Tsukasa, away from Tsukasa awayfromtsukasa--

With him.

Clutched in two hands, shaking from bloodloss and adrenaline, eyes unseeing and swollen nearly shut, he struck downwards with the blade, sinking it into something soft and cushiony and-- is this how Tsukasa felt the carving flesh of the neighborhood strays? Flaying them, still alive and screaming with such terror and agony as he himself watched on in mute horror as he dug his little hands into the dying animals guts and tugged them free the squish between his fingers to laugh and squeal 'hey Amane! Their so squishy and soft! Warm too! Do you think humans are like this on the inside too?'

When he drew the blade back out and stared downwards, he saw what he thought was often his reflection. Blood, warm and sticky, soaking his gut and running across the tile floor, his own face. Tsukasa's face. Their face.

(Him and Tsukasa are the same. The same person. Tsukasa lives through him and he lives through Tsukasa. The same.)

He watched their face, watched the expression on his reflection and how odd it was that it didn't reflect his own (his? There was no him, only them.)

trepidation, his own fear and regret and mortification and the apologies pushing out of his throat at speeds almost inaudible and the shaking in his hands because he never expected to be the one with the knife. It was always Tsukasa, only Tsukasa.

He watched the expression on his doppelgangers face, watched how delighted he seemed despite the turn of events, the way he ran his bloody fingerd across his lips the blood was so warm and smiled and said 'I love you Amane' like it was a prayer and not a death sentence, a shackle on his foot that'd been weighing him down since he was eight years old.

He watched the life slip his fingers like sand, no matter the tight hug nor the hysteric begging for him to just wake up Tsukasa he never moved, eyes half lidded and glassy and looking at him with a gaze he'd seen in the mirror before but not on Tsukasa, never Tsukasa.

In that moment, knife discarded to the side in his scramble to help his brother he recalled something. A phrase, he'd heard it from Tsuchigomori-sensei in class before, a class he'd only been half paying attention to, finding more interest in staring out of the window at the small funny looking tree out on campus when he'd caught the tail end of the lesson.

'Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Its Latin and an admission of fault--'

That applies right now, he thought mildly, eye dialated as he stared at Tsukasa, a chill beginning to cling to his body despite his attempts to warm him, like his body heat alone will bring him back to life.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Through my fault.

In that moment, this moment, its his fault. He always forgave Tsukasa, said so to his face and Tsuchigomori-sensei and to the bathroom mirror in the night after wandering hands and fear filled paralysis.

He always forgave him.

He promised to always forgive him, yet he broke that promise today, crumpled it up and shoved it down Tsukasa's throat because hes such a bad brother I'm so sorry Tsukasa I didnt mean it I love you too.

In this moment mea culpa, mea maxima culpa applies because his a liar, a murderer and betrayer. He's the reason they were in pain if you were just a better brother, took care of Tsukasa better like your supposed to he wouldn't be dead underneath you with all the cold blood congealing like metallic jelly under your knees.

In this moment, more then any other, Amane wants Tsukasa. Tsukasa's presence hadn't brought him comfort since they were in elementary, and yet he is what he needs right now, the prickly affection like a double ended blade, nails digging in too deep or hands travelling where they shouldn't.

Things that'd never brought him any solace, comfort, and yet he yearns for those violent touches in this moment, to distract to the yawning emptiness and cold breeze wafting in from the open window.

Tsukasa stinging love was still that, love.

Their love was not perfect, neither were they, Tsukasa and Amane, Amane and Tsukasa, them. The same person. They loved each other, Tsukasa loved him because he couldn't love himself, with his secluded attitude and weakness and he's so cowardly and Tsukasa's still under him and not moving-- why isn't he moving? He's always moving, never stops, not even when he sleeps, Tsukasa never stops moving so why is he--

He needs Tsukasa. Tsukasa's gone now, somewhere he isn't which is unfathomable because he goes where Tsukasa goes and vice versa. Not being with Tsukasa-- he needs him.

He needs to be with Tsukasa now.

Hooking his arms under his mirrors elbows, he pulls him upwards as he stumbles to his feet, footing nonexistent from the slippery coppery flood smearing further across the floor, shuffling forward dragging him as gently as possible towards the bathroom, watching with a roiling stomach at the way the blood smears across the ground beneath him as if red paint dragged across ceramic, bright and noticable against the pale moonlight shining down on them.

Not bothering to flick the light switch on, Amane gently released Tsukasa upon the bath mat, pushing the shower curtain aside to leave the bathtub open and available.

Setting the blade upon the bathtubs edge, he stepped one foot in and pulled Tsukasa back up, trying to maneuver him into the tub, struggling with the dead weight, strength never being his most blessed area.

Finally succeeding in tugging his twin into the tub, he lay him on his side before settling in on his own, sitting up and staring down at him, dull fingernails digging into the flesh of his  palm as he felt bile rise in his throat. Peering down for another moments, knees pulled to his chest as he continued to dig his nails into any available flesh of his own he could get his hands on, he reached for the blade to his left.

With shaking hands, slippery from blood, he poised the utensil lengthwise at his wrist, not quite allowing the tip to touched his flesh. Jaw clenching and eyes burning, he gasped in a sharp breath, nearly choking on saliva as he tried to breath through his hysterics. Pressing forwards he shook fiercely as the blade finally made contact, bottom lip wobbling and chin dimpling, he watched red liquid ooze to the surface and slowly slide down his wrist, hitting the tub with a soft 'blop'. Eyes clenching, just barely open, he tensed his hand wielding the knife, pressing down as hard as he shaking muscles would condone and drug downwards, reaching his elbow with a wail, dropping the knife like it burned him and pulling his hand tight to his chest as he wept. Head resting between his knees, un-slit arm wrapped tightly around the one pressed to his chest applying as much pressure as possible for some reprieve from the pain, swaying lightly as he did, eyes unseeing from tears.

Soft heartbroken noises escaped him, pathetic whimpers of apologies, 'I'm sorry', 'I didn't mean to', prayers to God himself for forgiveness for the sin he had committed and the other he was about to.

(Would God answer? Would him and Tsukasa go to the same place, or would they be separated? Tsukasa to heaven and him to hell...)

He was beginning to feel a bit woozy and panic was setting further in, intense boats so sudden and heavy his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head and his teeth caught his lip in a death grip.

(One cut only? You cut Tsukasa once, you deserve double the pain. You caused him pain, you hurt--)

With a loud weep, he shakily released his bloody arm, looking down at the deep gash and the split muscle, wiry and thin and so painfully visible, however weak the hand was, he managed somehow to still grasp the blade lightly, blades edge clacking into the side of the tub from the force of his trembling, making him flinch as he choked.

Extending his opposite arm, he slowly placed the tip at his wrist, watching blood bead up at the surface level cuts he gave himself from his hands shaking. Trying to apply more firmness, he pressed downwards and pulled fast inwards, visions going spotty with stars, eyes still open yet unseeing. Waiting for the black speckles to clear, he noticed with a cry he'd only cut a quarter of his wrist before the blade had swerved and left the rest unharmed. With a defeated noise, he repositioned the blade where he'd left off and paused, trying to breath in as steadily as possible to recuperate, rubbing his face onto his shoulder sleeve, before setting forward.

The blade dug back into the flesh, piercing it with a sharp pain and dragging downwards, keeping slow and steady even as the blackness ate away at his vision and left him blind, making sure to accurately follow his arm downwards.

Dropping the blade, vision swimming and head filled with cotton, he fell backwards, head cracking against the shower head, dull pain exploding across his skull as he curled inwards, weakly fisting Tsukasa's sullied shirt and pushing his face into his chest, gasping as he gave a high pitched keen.

Pressed as close as possible, he cried, eyes clenched closed so hard it hurt, fingers spasming lightly tangled in the fabric. The proximity despite the body being cold brought him comfort.

(It was Tsukasa. The only person who can both make and fill the holes he punched through Amane.)

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

Was this retribution? Was it enough? Was his life enough? His in return for Tsukasa, could God give his duplicate his life back in return for his own?

His head filled eleven further with cotton, the fish bowl nature of the little noise he could he around him and the numbing of his fingers didn't make him feel any better.

Could he absolve himself of this guilt, give back to Tsukasa in return for the promise he broke? Could he make it better by joining him?

His breathing slowed face feeling limp as he nuzzled closer to the cold body next to him.

Tsukasa always wanted to stay together, right? They were going to be together.

He felt chills run up and down his body as he relaxed, the pain across his flesh fading into the background.

Through my faults, I'll absolve myself in the eyes of God and in he who I love. My brother is me and I am my brother, one in the same, our love knows no bounds between this world and the next. We sin in the lord's eye yet we seek redemption, such a thing I shall achieve.

He drifted to sleep, with the wish of seeing him again.

[roaminginspiration]

A Special Treat

Thank you to @christinecenon for this lovely prompt. :)

Based on Steve’s line “I’d offer to cook you dinner but you seem miserable enough”. Throwback to that time Steve attempted to cook Natasha dinner. 

Natasha sighs, lying down in the large couch of the lounge room, as she stares at the moonlight brush across the white ceiling. It is another quiet lonely evening, following yet another quiet lonely day.

The facility resembles an abandoned warehouse since Steve moved out two weeks ago. After the painful two-year anniversary of the Snap, he couldn’t take more of this daily reminder of his powerlessness and their failure. So he left for Liberty Island.

He asked her to come with him of course, but she couldn’t. As sinister as the facility had become, she couldn’t simply leave it — and the memory of the many souls who had walked in it — behind. She knows death better than he does. She has known loss all her life — she can cope living here.

The atmosphere has become heavier since he left, though. Of course, he sends daily texts and drops by for mundane matters from time to time — but never for more than half an hour before he is caught again by the tenacious sorrow which haunts the rooms — and then he is gone again.

She cannot blame him. Things have been hard for all of them. Tony moved on with Pepper to make the most of the second chance he’d been given; Rhodey, being a soldier, couldn’t resist the call of duty…across the globe; and she stayed here to supervise everyone. Because someone had to stay to do it, and it seemed fitting for it to be here. She is the strong one, the one who can shush her grief and swallow it down.

The only hope that keeps her going is to be the first face Clint will get to see when he is finally ready to come back home.

So she works her ass off until this day…well, when there are things that need to be done.

When there isn’t, then she just waits here, barely existing.

She reaches for the tennis ball and throws it up in her, watches it soar into the air and fall back into her open palm. She throws it higher and higher, making sure it stops just a few inches away from the ceiling. If it hits the ceiling, then the ball will jolt away and she will lose control of it.

She can’t lose control of a stupid tennis ball.

It is the last thing she can boast of having under control.

The ball soars higher and higher, and hits the bones of her hand harder every time it falls back down. Her palm is growing sore but it does not matter. Feeling this insignificant pain makes her alive, feeling so lonely is fine; it makes her luckier than half of the Universe.

She swallows hard as her eyes begin to fill up with water. She’s lost count of the night she cried herself to sleep.

It amazes her she still has a stock of tears after the countless she has shed. Who would have thought a Russian assassin could cry so much? She didn’t, until the past two years. Until the past two weeks.

God, she wants to scream but she’s never been taught to express her anger. Not with her voice at least.

The tennis ball almost grazes the ceiling and begins its descent. A thick arm suddenly appears in her line of sight and the hand strongly catches the ball above her head.

“Am I interrupting?” his familiar voice echoes across the silent room.

Natasha looks higher up. Steve bends over and puts his hands down his pockets.

She presses her fingers over her eyes to brush the tears away. But he saw them already — he is just too courteous to make any comment on it.

“Well,” she says, sniffing softly. “Well, after this, I was going to go read a book. So yeah please call and book an appointment next time.”

She jumps out of the couch.

“Steinbeck?” he asks. He knows she liked his books.

She smirks. “Orwell,” she answers.

He nods. “Sounds quite fitting,” he answers.

She walks over to the TV to switch it off. She keeps it mute most of the time, but the sight of fleeting images soothes her, maintains some bleak illusion of normalcy.

“What are you doing here so late?” she asks.

“I had some business to do in town and thought I would make a stop.”

“Missing the warm coziness of hearth?” she jokes humorlessly.

His shoulders move slightly. “Missing the company of an old friend.”

They both pause as she looks at him. His hands are still deep in his pocket. He is wearing dark blue jeans with a casual long-sleeved black shirt and a camel leather jacket. He looks okay, putting aside the visible dark circles under his eyes. She suspects hers look just the same.

The corner of her mouth goes up a little and she snorts. Well, he should have thought about that before moving out.

She won’t tell him, though. She knows he already blames himself for leaving her behind.

“Your old friend is fine,” she says as she goes to slap the cushions into shape to tidy up the couch. “We’ve been tracking some small terrorist group in South Africa. Rhodey is taking care of it.”

“Good,” he comments coolly. “But that’s not what I came here for.”

Right, he retired. It became unbearable for him to pretend what they were doing still meant something. Not after losing to Thanos, the one mission they could not afford to fail.

Natasha feebly leans over to readjust the cushions, and she feels his hand softly hold her arm.

“You’ve been eating well?” he asks with a concerned look. She glances above his shoulder and sees her reflection in the mirror on the back wall. She looks pale.

“I’ve been busy,” she lies. After he left, she realized there was no point in cooking for just a person. Her diet has consisted of snacks at random times of the day, if at all.

“You’ve had dinner yet?” he asks.

She turns to look at him. Her stoic expression stands as an answer. Steve frowns.

He takes off his leather jacket and drops it on the edge of the couch.

“I’m cooking you dinner,” he says decisively.

“I’m not really angry,” she begins.

“Nat. That is not open for discussion.”

He heads over to the kitchen and she follows him reluctantly. Steve walks around the island and opens the bottoms shelves. She goes to sit on one of the high stools by the island, right across from him.

She watches him take a cooking pot out and pick up utensils.

She puts her elbow on the marble surface and props her chin against her knuckles. The sight of him diligently gathering all the ingredients is amusing — and yeah, perhaps a little sexy.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” she says.

He rolls up his sleeves and turns on the faucet to wash his hands.

“Well, I used to be a single man living in an apartment in D.C. when I worked for SHIELD,” he turns around and smiles. “I had to feed.”

She bends forward on the island and reaches across.

“Aren’t you going to wear this?” she teases with a smirk, showing him the bright red apron hanging in her hand.

“I’ll pass,” he answers.

He starts peeling carrots and slicing them up.

She grabs the glass of wine he poured her a few minutes before. She sips the red wine, feeling the warm trail the liquid leaves onto her tongue and down her throat.

“Do you need a hand?” she asks.

Steve looks sternly focused on his slicing. She finds it amusing. It reminds her of all those evenings watching MasterChef because it was the only channel working in the lousy motel they stayed in for a week during their first year in the run.

“No. No. I got this,” he answers confidently.

She can see he is trying hard to give her a treat. It is quite cute to watch.

“So, peanuts are the only thing I should avoid, right?” he muses aloud.

“Uh?” she lowers her glass of wine.

Steve takes his eyes off the cutting board. “You know, your allergy to peanuts.”

She leans on both elbows.

“Oh, I only meant allergic figuratively. I don’t like peanuts in any shape or form. The day you see me eat peanut butter will mean I am in the gutter.”

“Noted.” He answers then carries on to slice up the tomatoes.

Forty minutes later, the preparation has been heating up in the oven for half of that time. Steve is washing up the dishes with a towel on his shoulder.

Funnily, she has never seen him so domestic. They’ve eaten a thousand times before but most of the time, it was swallowing down a sandwich over a map or while discussing work. Then after killing Thanos, eating just became a formality; he’d often walk into the kitchen right when she had finished, or vice versa.

It’s funny they would have to have waited for him to have moved out for them to have their first proper meal in eight years. Steve knows she likes though: she noticed he had made sure to only include ingredients she liked. He had even added spices because she liked her food spicy — he didn’t.

Steve is now leaning on the other edge of the island, pouring himself a glass of wine.

The room has grown pleasantly warm because of the oven, and it feels homey.

“No, you didn’t,” she exclaims with half a smile.

Steve smirks. “It’s the truth. A few seconds earlier and he would have walked in on me coming out of the shower.”

They hadn’t talked about Sam in a while. But it somewhat feels right to bring him up tonight. Talking about some of the boisterous moments of their past runaway life sounds anecdotic in the current context.

“And you were naked?” she asks.

“That’s how I tend to take my showers, yeah.”

She tilts her head and rolls her eyes. She doesn’t notice but he is staring intently at her — he finds it cute when she does that thing with her head.

“And he was naked, too?”

“Almost. I shouted just when his pants were coming off.”

“So you saw….little Sam?” she asks. Her face lights up excitedly — perhaps it’s the wine.

Steve nods with a pout.

She puts his hand on his bare forearm. “Why did you never tell me before?” He glances down at it.

“Sam swore me to secrecy.”

She raises her thumb to her mouth and bites it. “Aren’t you a gentleman?”

He rolls his eyes and looks away. Is he blushing? He blames it on the wine.

A strange smell slowly rises into the kitchen. Both their heads spin towards the oven: a dark smoke is slipping through the crack.

“Oh, no,” Steve calls. He puts his glass down and rushes to open the oven. It frees a black cloud of smoke.

He can’t remember where he put the glove but he has to save Natasha’s dinner. He kneels down and reaches for the mold.

“Damn it,” he shouts as he puts it down on the marble surface then jerks his hand away.

Natasha rushes up to him.

“Did you burn yourself?” she asks.

“I’m ok, I’m ok.”

She looks at his hand and sees the swollen redness on his palm. She holds it gently, turns on the faucet and puts his hand under the running water.

“Looks like you earned yourself a brand new band-aid, Steve.”

He sighs heavily as he realizes he has just ruined everything.

A couple of minutes later, he is sitting on the stool next to her, his forearm is lying down on the kitchen island, while she is gently rubbing cream on his burn. She begins to wrap a bandage around his hand.

He can barely hide his frustration. She is chuckling.

“I feel ridiculous,” he eventually voices out loud.

“Oh please, you’re certainly not the first man to burn himself while cooking,” she comments soothingly although with an apparent smile, meticulously wrapping up his hand.

“You were not supposed to look after me, tonight. It was my turn…for once,” he says softly. “I wanted to cheer you up.”

“Well, you did. I hadn’t laughed in a while,” she confesses.

He smiles. “Well, at least I did this right.”

Next, he brings their two plates. Her belly is kind of growling in anticipation. The sight of a hot, ok-looking meal, arouses her long-lost appetite.

He watches expectantly as she takes the fork and pricks a piece. She slightly wets her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue before opening her mouth.

It tastes…terrible. Steve’s eyes are fixed on her.

“It’s…interesting,” she says considerately.

He grabs his fork and tries the food too.

“It’s disgusting and I apologize,” he chimes in far more realistically.

“It’s not,” she assures. “I’ve had worse.”

She covers her mouth with the back of her hand and looks at him with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it this way.”

She bursts into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. He rolls his eyes then her gaiety affects him, too. He starts laughing as well. Their hearty laughter rings out in the facility, a sound those rooms have not heard in a while.

Or maybe it is nervous. Maybe it is the sound of despair when it has hit rock bottom without any way up. Maybe they’re laughing because it has been a while since they allowed themselves to. Or maybe it’s the wine.

“I thought you were cooking in your apartment in DC.”

“Well, I mostly ordered pizza or Chinese.”

He promises himself he’ll never cook her anything again. That is for her own good.

They both put the fork down and talk till the meal turns cold. They could feed it to the birds but they’re not sure birds deserve such a punishment.

“How’s your hand?” she asks. He looks at his bandaged hand and closes his fist a little.

She brushes her fingertips over the immaculate fabric.

“Thank you for coming tonight,” she says. “I could use the company of an old friend.”

He looks intently into her eyes. Those eyes he has found a liking into staring into the past years.

She knows that. He’s told her how he felt before but she answered she couldn’t. She could not commit to whatever he wanted to start between them.

Perhaps it’s why he left. He needed to start over but she turned down his offer.

She moves to the edge of her stool to get closer to him. It feels good.

Her face is getting dangerously close to his.

“What do you want Steve?” she asks.

“You know what I want,” he answers.

She nods softly. “I once asked you who you wanted me to be and you said you wanted a friend.”

He closes his eyes. He remembers that conversation. A conversation that he cherishes but has grown to abhor over the years.

“I know. But I want more, now.”

Her lips, reddened with the wine, brush against his like a soft caress.

“I can’t give you more than that,” she answers. It would be wrong to start over when so many others lost that chance two years ago.

“It’s not enough,” he answers. “I want all of you.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“You mean my body?” she challenges him with a cocky smirk.

But he is looking at her deeply. “Body and soul.”

Her body slightly jerks away in reaction. “I lost my soul lives ago,” she says. “There is nothing left from it.”

He lifts his bandaged hand up to her face. “I bed to disagree. I see it every time I look into your eyes.”

She shakes her up slightly. “That remains to be proven.”

“Nat, I respect your decision.”

“But you won’t take me to bed tonight and pretend nothing happened tomorrow.”

“No,” he says chastely. “But I want to keep kissing you.”

She looks up at him.

“And tomorrow will be back to normal.”

He purses his lips together. It is not what he wants but it still something he is willing to take. He is ready to pay that price if it means spending a special moment with her tonight — as small a compensation as it is.

He nods, taking her deal. He’ll just have to disappear for a few weeks, to mourn this ‘almost’.

Nat leans in again and he kisses her on tenderly, taking the treat she is giving him.

[tyrannysaurusfloof]

Living Together AU - Speak Out

I swear all my ideas for this come just before I’m going to bed lmao

- As “punishment” for something Dark and Anti did, Mark suggests they make them play Speak Out, since it was funny when he played it with Ethan and Tyler, but the mouth pieces are painful.

- Jack questions the sanity of this because it’s almost like they’re punishing themselves, but after seeing Anti and Dark with the mouth pieces in he understands.

- Originally they do it in teams of Dark/Mark and Anti/Jack, with one of the pair going first and the other pair trying to guess what is being said.

- That doesn’t work, since Dark is extremely good at guessing Mark and vice versa and the same with Jack and Anti, so they switch it up.

- Dark and Jack become a team, and Anti and Mark become a team and hilarity ensues.

- When Dark gets mad his shell cracking makes it even harder for him to be understood by Jack. For Mark, who seems to constantly understand him, this is hilarious.

- Anti gets excited when Mark actually guesses right, which makes him glitch more and makes him harder to understand. Jack finds this funny, and it doesn’t help that Mark will give a stupid answer and make Anti laugh which only makes it worse.

- They all soon decide that playing as teams is not good, so one person speaks and the other three compete to guess what’s being said.

- Jack is difficult to understand because he still talks quite quickly even with the mouth piece in, and his accent makes it slightly difficult (I have played this game with someone with an Irish accent similar and my god they were hard to understand xD might just be me)

- Anti accidently glitches the mouth piece into his gum, and Dark has to pull it out. There’s blood, but neither ego really cares and they carry on playing while Mark gets towels.

- Dark’s shell cracks so violently once when Anti whispers something in his ear that he bites through the mouth piece, cracking it clean in two.

- Mark and Jack begin to think this was a bad idea when that happens, but they don’t stop playing.

- Anti brings up the loser got shot with tennis balls in Mark’s video and he wants to do that. He doesn’t realise he’s actually losing so it’s going to be him getting shot.

- He’s 100% shot by Dark, who uses more spray than Mark suggests.

- Anti shoots him back, but misses, luckily, since the balls leave a big dent in the wall, and probably would have broken something.

- Mark and Jack hide the game while they’re playing around with the tennis cannon because they’re a little concerned about how competitive Anti and Dark are getting towards the end.

- Someone (Dark) gets hit in the face with a ball.

- Another someone (Anti) gets a ball to the face pretty much straight after.

- Mark and Jack confiscate the tennis cannon.

- What was supposed to be a “punishment” ended up being pretty funny and made a funny video which will never see the light of day, but provides entertainment for them when they want it.

- Anti finds the cannon before he and Jack return to Brighton, and he steals it.

- 100% glitches out of things to fire tennis balls at Dark.

- Chica loves it.

[symbianosgames]

Making a game that's genuinely funny is no joke. Try to do it in VR, and you've what seems like a recipe for massive headaches.

You've also got the ingredients for Rhombus of Ruin, Double Fine's first VR game and the first game it's shipped using Unreal Engine 4. The story of how Rhombus came to be -- and the things Double Fine learned in making it -- is worth studying.

Out this week for PlayStation VR headsets, Rhombus of Ruin is also Double Fine's first proper sequel to Psychonauts, the 2005 3D platformer that became a cult classic and, over a decade later, still had a fan community large enough to help crowdfund a sequel last year. Rhombus of Ruin tells a short interstitial story between the two Psychonauts, and in the course of working on it the folks at Double Fine seem to have developed an appreciation for VR game development.

"I think now that we're done with it I was kind of like, 'Oh it was kind of fun making a VR game,'" Double Fine chief Tim Schafer said recently, speaking to Gamasutra alongside Rhombus of Ruin lead Chad Dawson. "VR games are pretty cool."

Here's an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Now that Double Fine has its first VR game out, are you at all concerned about the number of headsets that are in the marketplace?

Tim Schafer: Well, when it first came out, I was not one of those people who were like, VR is the future. Everything's going to be VR. I was kind of like, wait-and-see. I don't know if that's where I want all my gaming, as a player. I don't know if I want to come home and see my kids in headsets -- my kid.

  "There's a million little things that the team learned, like I learned that it's not as fun to look behind you as I thought it was going to be. It's such a pain!"

But we did want to try something. "We'll make a VR game." And this opportunity came up to do one for Playstation and we were already talking about doing Psychonauts 2 and I wasn't going to tell -- in between Psychonauts 1 and 2 there was going to be this rescue mission that they're just going to be laughing about when they got home, "Ah, that was a great rescue mission, wasn't it?" I kind of want to tell that story but it's a small little, secret mission. Well, what if that's the VR game? And it just started making sense. That's why we did it and we were never planning on -- we didn't know where the markets by the time we launched. We just wanted to see what we could do with it.

Talking about the VR market, you know, it's not something we...You hope it grows. We're not banking everything on it. Even though we're a small company, we're pretty nimble and we can do multiple projects at once. We're doing like four projects, and this is one of them.

I was more skeptical at the beginning of it, but after we made the game and seen what the team has done with it and playing it, it's like, "VR is pretty cool." It proved it out to me, not just as a tech demo or an experience but as a game and as a place to go. You can do comedy in it and you can do emotional stuff, it's just a very active of empathizing with the character by jumping into their minds for a little bit which was a minor thing you did in Psychonauts 1, but it's the main mechanic of Rhombus of Ruin. I thought it was interesting and so I was like, "VR's pretty cool."

But I feel like it's still just one tool in the game toolset, if you will. I don't know if all games will be VR, but that's because there's a whole bunch of things that we haven't found a way to do in it yet, and there's a whole bunch of new things that we learned about making the game that you can do, so it's just going to be different.

Yeah, I want to actually ask about that, I know -- I mean, I think I know, this is the first time you guys have done UE4, right?

Chad Dawson: Yeah, it's our first time.

Do you feel like doing more? Is this an opportunity to warm up and get a feel for UE4 before you do it on a project?

Dawson: I think so. Psychonauts 2.

Schafer: Yeah, Psychonauts 2 is in Unreal too.

Wow, that's very retro.

Schafer: What? Do we not call it Unreal anymore?

I heard "Unreal Engine 2" and I was like...

Schafer: Yeah, we're doing it in Unreal Engine 2. That's the best one. I think everyone agrees that was the best one.

Definitely.

Schafer: No, it was the right choice for us to start using Unreal, and Rhombus was the smaller of the two projects, so it taught us a lot and we learned a lot on it and Chad's been on the technological cutting edge of that experiment.

Dawson: We built up over the years, starting with Brutal Legend, an engine that we used for a decade. On Brutal Legend we developed in-house an engine that we used for about twenty games that we put out over the past ten years, but it's starting to get a little long in the tooth.

Schafer: You have to pay a lot to maintain an engine.

Dawson: Particularly as we started trying to release our games on every platform that exists. The tech cost of maintaining it were getting a bit crazy, so it was really our first attempt at trying to look at using another engine and it's been great so far. It's a learning curve. Any team will tell you starting out with Unreal and a new engine, there's a lot to learn, but it's really worked out pretty well.

What did you learn from going over to UE4? Was it easier in some ways? Was it harder in some ways?

Dawson: A lot of studios have kind of built up their own tech, so, particularly for programming, there's a little bit of that, "We built it" vs. "They built it" kind of feeling. Because you built up your own tech, you own it and you know it inside and out.

Schafer: And the artists working on it worked around whatever was wrong. Any package has things that are good and bad about it, but you kind of work around it and you grow new limbs to operate the machinery and it changes you.

Dawson: Anytime you start using someone else's engine, they came from a different set of philosophies and part of your game is to get inside their head as developers and say, "How does Epic think? How do they approach a problem?" Once you can kind of figure out their philosophy you can get your code working.

But you initially start out building it like you would've before, and you clash. It clashes and it breaks and everything crashes and you don't know why. So usually that's the first year or so. It's tricky because you're also trying to -- You know we're trying to get the game done during that same year.

Schafer: Yeah, we couldn't have built an engine from scratch in that time. This allowed us to just get in there and start prototyping and playing with stuff really fast.

Dawson: And Epic has done a good job of making VR work with it, so some of that aspect of just getting the VR hardware to work with it, they take on a little bit of that which we would've had to take it on for our own engine. So it was a good chance to look at that.

Has is significantly changed the Double Fine workflow to be working with an external tech company?

Dawson: It has! With a lot of our stuff, it's similar. Our artists still work in Maya. We also integrated a different sound engine for our audio engineers. Programmers are still in Visual Studio, so a lot of the aspects are the same.

Getting the art in the right format to get it into the game, that's a whole different -- That pipeline is different. It has a bunch of gotchas and a bunch of things you have to learn. Things where you're just like, "Don't do that," or, "Do it this way," or, "Get everything named the right way or in the right folders." It's all those little things that add up that can make learning a new engine a little bit trickier.

Once you get them down, you can really start being productive and it feels like we're at a point now that's really great for our Psychonauts 2 team kicking it off to have this experience in this project. Got through a lot of the initial hurdles to be able to come in and hit the ground running with that project, so to speak.

So what have you learned in the last few months on Rhombus of Ruin?

Dawson: We've done more late playtesting where a player actually can play most of the game start to finish. You don't really get to that point in the game until the end. But you always hope that their experience in the beginning will translate into their mastery and skill at the end. it's nice to see people getting to the end. I think an addendum would be try to get that beginning to the end in some form as early as you can. Don't save your last level until the end of the project, try to get it in in some form because it's important to do iteration.

Yeah, I was just talking to Brian Fargo about that, where if someone gave him 12 months to make a game and he could have 9 to build and 3 to test or vice versa, he'd way rather have 9 to test because the game gets much better if you get the whole thing together and iterate on it.

Dawson: Some of that depends on the type of game you're making.

Schafer: I'm already stressed out by just having 12 months to make a game. That's a short time!

Dawson: With this game, it has been one of our shorter cycles. For Tim, it's probably one of the shortest games you've ever written for, to get dialogue done.

Obviously a dialogue-driven game, getting it all in early is even more important; you can record scratch recording and get it in, but that's not the same as having the real voice actors' voices in. Their timing and delivery is different. For humor, timing and delivery can be huge. Just the pacing of a joke. To get that in, and have time to go back and revise it or add an extra line, you always want as much time as you can.

It's nice to have a few years as opposed to a few months. If you're making a game in a new genre -- VR is still new for everybody working in it there is a lot of that iteration. If you're making the same game you made before, as much of that as you kind of know works in that genre, but in VR there's new stuff everyday. You gotta know what works in VR and what doesn't. We relearn things every few months.

Yeah, I'm trying to not allow myself to ask the easy question of, "What did you learn about VR from working on this project?" It's a good question, but Chad you already answered it in your VRDC talk. Tim, you didn't give a VRDC talk. What did you learn about VR?

Schafer: Well the thing is that working with Chad, I wrote an initial bunch of dialogue based on how I write dialogue usually. And Chad was pointing out -- you know, in an adventure game, you say like, "Use hammer on nail," that sentence is in your head. Then when he [the in-game character] is like, "Mmm, I don't want to hit that," it makes sense.

But in a VR game, you're like holding the hammer and you look at the nail, and then you look away and then he's like, "I don't want to hit that," and you're like, "No, I'm looking at -- what are you talking about?" Like there are so many times that you didn't know what the character was talking about and he's like, "I don't want to do that here." And you're like, "What? Here? Where?" Or he's like, "Ooh, that looks interesting." You have to really be specific about like, "I don't want to hit that nail with that hammer." That's more of an interesting dialogue in VR change.

Dawson: You have to focus on attention so much more.

Schafer: You can't depend on the player seeing what you're talking about at any given moment.

Dawson: In a point and click adventure, you're dragging an object on something and you release and the mouse pointer's still there. And like Tim said, you know, "I used the hammer on the door," and that's in your head still when the character responds with dialogue.

Schafer: The metaphor for a gaze in an adventure game or any sort of game with a cursor is the cursor. Imagine that cursor as it passed over things just triggered everything and all these interrupts were happening all these dialogues were smashing into each other. That's what the early versions of the game was like, because you'd look at something and the game would immediately be like, "That's a neat pillow," and a lot of dialogue was clobbering each other. That was the main thing, the change in the dialogue.

So how did you go about making that stuff not terrible?

Schafer: Chad would be like, you've got to rewrite this to mention the hammer and the nail.

Dawson: There was a little bit of that. It was tough because we were kind of reaching the end of the project, but the more people running through, we went through a bunch of lines and kind of rewrote it and said try to get the verb and the noun -- the object and the verb, because the player will forget what button they pressed.

"Did I just hit pyro or did I just hit telekinesis? You just said 'I can't do that.' What did I just try to do?" The player would lose context as well. So as much as you can kind of reinforce that is good. But then also how much does dialogue stop other dialogue. If the character's in the middle of saying something, halfway through the sentence, and then you poke something else, does he stop that sentence and start talking about the new one?

Initially, we thought yes, because you want feedback on that new thing, but as a first-person character it makes you feel like you're kind of strange. Like you're scatterbrained. That's a nice way to term it. You feel like you're crazy because your character keeps stepping on stuff, "Wait, what was I saying?"

So a lot of the lines, we've transitioned more to let you finish what you were saying before because we found that even though you're trying to interact with something new, you'll keep trying that after this dialogue stops. You won't forget about that and think it does nothing. You'll actually try it again.

For most players when they get frustrated, they just start hitting buttons. It's just a player style -- some players are very patient adventure game players who click and kind of sit back and wait for everything to finish before they click again, but most people want to see cool stuff happen around them, so they're trying to make a mess and toss stuff around. We wanted it to work for both, but we were surprised at how many players approached the game from more of that bombastic "click on everything, hit the buttons as fast as I can" style of play. Probably, at least half do. For them, if a character is just spattering around on what he's saying that didn't really sound very good, so we shifted it.

Schafer: My initial dialogue I was writing for a player, he was just kind of gazing around thinking about each thing as he moved around, but I had to rewrite all of that.

There's a million little things that the team learned, like I learned that it's not as fun to look behind you as I thought it was going to be. It's such a pain! 

  "I remember when we first wired it up, you're so close to her flapping mouth, it's like, 'Wow, I feel like I'm in her mouth. We need to back up a little bit.'"

Instead, putting a lot more things in front of you is important. I learned how much more intense all of the NPC interactions are in VR than normal. Like when Mia's bending down looking in your eyes, you move your head around she follows your eyes around, it can be more intense than in a third-person game. And even a first-person game. It's my eyes! She's looking at my eyes. When I move my head, she's following my eyes around. It's very intense.

Like playing the Batman game. When Batman looks at you it's a little weird because he's kind of scary-looking and he's right in your face. Whenever Batman looks at you you're like, "Aaah!" You've got to be careful with how you stare down people in a VR game. It's easy to accidentally scare people, so you have to use it in choice spots, where it's really funny.

Dawson: That opportunity for compassion, for empathy and identifying with a character. When you see the character look at you in the eye and you try to look down, seeing that losing your gaze and looking down, they're kind of sad or something, people would kind of lean in and it's sort of a social response, character gets too close to you, like Tim said when Batman is in your face that's a response as well.

Schafer: I like the Batman game, but it was intense to have an evil-looking guy looking at me in the mask.

Dawson: But even in the beginning of our game where Mia is kind of leaning down to talk to you, I think a character that has to lean down to talk to you applies to their sense of they're an adult and you're a kid. That type of relationship.

Schafer: It used to feel like you were inside her mouth. I remember when we first wired it up, you're so close to her flapping mouth, it's like, "Wow, I feel like I'm in her mouth. We need to back up a little bit."

Dawson We did have to put textures inside of her mouth because you can see in her mouth when she's talking. initially that wasn't very good detail. Just black in the back of her mouth and everybody was like, that's creepy. Like you pick up details like that.

I'm still impressed that you would texture the back of her mouth. Did you get like a uvula in there too?

Dawson: Yeah. Some of the characters -- all of the characters are really strange looking characters if you take them out of the context of the game. Like, Coach is a potato head kind of guy. And Lili's eyes are so wide, they're like wider than her mouth. A lot of those we didn't really pick up on being so strange until we got up close to them.

So one of our challenges I think on the art team -- I think they did a great job with it -- was to not make that look scary. Make it still look like the characters from before, but up to modern technology with fidelity as much as we can. Get it to run at a high frame rate, that's also tricky too with VR, that you're always faced off with that challenge of VR can look good, but if you start dropping frames, that can make people sick as well.

Oh, that didn't happen at all for me: I felt like really everybody was huge, because I felt like Raz was my actual size, so all of a sudden everyone in the airplane is huge. Mia is like eight and a half feet tall.

Dawson: I think with any sort of change in character perspective, there's a bit of that adapting. But if you can get the player to where they get used to it, feels like they're in the world, past that initial shock, you're doing good. But it's hard, there's so many cues that can throw you off. There's so many things that are subtle that takes a person out of the experience.

We had a crazy thing where people would put headphones on the wrong way because most people don't think when they put their headphones on that left has to go on left, not right. But in VR that makes a huge difference, because you'll hear a sound cue over here, but it sounds like it's over here. And you look and the person is over here and that gets in your head, it kind of takes you out of it a little bit. Something that was weird about that game, articulating that is what people have a hard time doing because it's kind of if you're self conscious about those things.

It's neat though, I've talked to sound designers who are super psyched because they're like, "Okay, now if I'm making a VR game, I have perfect positional audio because I know exactly where you are in the VR space and where your ears are."

Dawson: It is neat. Psychonauts is interesting too because we have characters in the world talking to you, but then also talking to you telepathically in your head. So if someone talks to you in your head, where is it in your head?

Is Mia kind of here in your head [gesturing to the left] and Coach here [gesturing right] and Sasha here[gesturing upwards]?

You have a lot of opportunities for that, and obviously playing music is interesting as well because you sort of want there to be music in the background, but it's not coming out of a speaker on the wall, so where is it coming from? We use music for some of our puzzles.

Has this really been Double Fine's fastest game project?

Schafer: As far as dev cycle? No, we've done Kinect Party. I think that was really

Dawson: And some of our mobile titles were shorter, back in the day.

Schafer: Shortest dialogue time maybe? What is the total dev now after all this?

Dawson: Total time, about a year and a half.

Schafer: Counting all the prototyping?

Dawson: Well, we started in late summer.

Schafer: Yeah our smaller games are usually like two years. No wait, Costume Quest was a year. It's all over the place.

If you had to give one piece of advice after this project is wrapped to another dev in VR, what would it be?

Dawson: I would say try to put some characters in your game. The compelling aspect of interacting with a character is huge and hasn't been explored a whole lot. I think there's a whole lot more to find there. But a lot of game design ideas are more mechanics-based.

Schafer: Yeah, or just in a space.

Dawson: Because it's tricky to do a character, it can get uncanny valley. It's hard to approach, but I think the opportunity's there. I want to see more developers do stuff with characters.

Schafer: I'll say, just because you don't get sick playing your game doesn't mean everybody else won't get sick playing your games. You've got to test it with a lot of different people.

Did you guys get sick playing your game?

Schafer: No, because we strap you to a chair the whole time.

I was going to say, it wasn't always that way, didn't you used to move --

Schafer: No -- Did you move around?

Dawson: Earlier prototypes we had guards patrolling and you'd go in their head and they'd still be walking and you'd just be in their head. But suddenly they would turn and you wouldn't turn and -- Like Tim was saying he didn't initially know what was going to be in the Rhombus of Ruin. That sort of whole area didn't come out until way through development when we were given a better sense of where we were going to put all this stuff in the space.

So initially we knew someone was captured so it would be kind of a prison torture area sort of thing. So we had a lot of guards and you'd go in their brain and they'd keep walking and you know, move your camera for you and they'd be on a patrol path and they would turn, but that would make you sick really fast. As soon as your character turns without you expecting, then suddenly you're looking out the back of their head. We quickly learned, "Okay maybe this isn't so good." But we dove in head first trying stuff and I remember there were days where I just was like, "I can't put on the VR headset any more today." 

Schafer: So we structured the game so it has these breaking points, like you can play it in chunks and stop.

Dawson: Yeah, it definitely got better, but I think a lot of it was our design kind of finding -- Tim's had the philosophy of, "Let's make it a comfortable game." If something is making people uncomfortable, then let's find a way to contextualized a reason not to do that or to change the space around. We'll put another character in front of you and you can look through his viewpoint rather than having to find the guy behind you because we only put two characters in the level. Add another one and give him a different viewpoint. That was our guiding design along the way of let's try to make it comfortable.

Are you at all interested in continuing to explore VR development? Are you excited after this?

Schafer: I think now that we're done with it I was kind of like, "Oh it was kind of fun making a VR game. VR games are pretty cool."

Dawson: Yeah it definitely got us excited about what's out there. When it's your first time doing something you're always lucky to even get it done. You're happy if it doesn't totally fail. But it gives you excitement. You keep going back. If I could've told myself a year and a half ago what I know now, I would've done something cooler. So there's definitely a lot of stuff to explore.