#the same goes for scripted puzzles

[the-masked-astro]

Ladies and gentlemen! Give a warm welcome to the one, the only, Mr. Reality!

Ohhhhh boy do I have things to say about this man... thing... abomination.

TW: Mr./Dr. Realitys backstory is dark, with mentions of gore and violence [i won't be going into too much bloody detail but ill put a warning here none the less.]

Mr. Reality didn't have the greatest start to life. His father was obsessed with creating the perfect machine, to the point he turned his own son into a robotic monstrosity. The process left Reality going in and out of consciousness, when unconscious he entered a perfect dream world of his own design. Once he became stable, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to create his own reality for others to join to escape the pains of life.

His first moments in his new Body were spent systematically slaughtering his father and his coworkers one by one, slowly, and painfully. He used their remains to create the first prototype batteries powered by the natural chemical reactions [very similar to the ones in The Matrix] it wouldn't take long with his rapidly evolving mind to learn and dable with interdimensional travel, even creating his own pocket dimension.

As the years went on he would have a basic prototype made for Relmscape, but it needed more power. He set his sights on Mario, the world Avatar. It wasn't hard to convince him to join, and once he was converted into a battery, Mario alone was able to provide the minimum power necessary to run the simulation.

With Mario in a strangle limbo of life and death as a battery, his world would start to slowly die. Pushing more people, including the rest of the SMG4 crew of his world, to join. None of them knew what Reality did to Mario, or that he was the reason their world was dying. Reality is in denial about being the downfall of his world, but deep down he knows, he just chooses not to acknowledge it.

As time wore on, Reality was content with things as they were, until some batteries started to expire. He knew he would need more soon, but that was alright, it just ment more people to join in on the fun.

He would hop world to world, inviting more and more people to join his world, more bodies to turn into batteries, more power, the more powerful he became, the larger his reality grew.

You might be wondering, how did he do it? Through intimidation? By foce? Hahaha! Of course not, it's simple really.

He asked nicely.

Im not joking. He doesn't force anyone to join his world. If you don't want to join, that's fine! He will respect your decision and leave you alone, but you're always welcome to change your mind! Of course, most people, when presented with the option of living their perfect reality, without having to deal with the burdens of life, often go willingly. Of course they don't know that their bodies are being used to power the simulation, but it's not like they needed them anyways. Of course he is upfront and tells people once they join, they can't go back, he just doesn't tell them it's because their bodies are now a liquid slurry of organs, nerves and other fluids in a battery pod.

More about his two separate forms and how they work. The batteries don't just power the simulation, they directly power him as well. The more batteries he has, the stronger he is, and the more of his "simulation" abilities he can bring into reality. For example, Mr. Reality is like a digital avatar of sorts, however, with enough power, Dr. Reality can physically change himself into Mr. Reality. Other abilities he has in the simulation he can use in reality with enough power includes, but is not limited too: telaportation, levitation, reality warping, creating clones [ill talk more about this one later] mind altering/brainwashing [he almost never uses this one] and memory wiping.

When entering the Relmscape for the first time, you'll be met with one of his many clones, each new individuals get a clone as a guide of sorts, and you are able to choose if you want the guide to stay or leave. Of corse, if you have the guide leave, and want him back, a new clone will appear. In addition, most "npc" characters are clones of him as well. There are a near infinite number of clones, and while most share a similar personality to the orginal, they each have their own individual characteristics and mannerisms. It's also not uncommon for people to date his clones [fun fact, hes Poly!]

The clones are hard to really describe, they do share a hive mind and are extensions of the orginal, but do display their own individual personalities [even if they are extremely similar to the orginal.] In addition to this, the clones and the orginal can hop and swap boddies, and since they share a hive mind, they are aware of every versions unique characteristics. In short, you could be talking to a clone, or the orginal, you would never be able to tell the difference.

Also, while I do say "clone" and "orginal" there really isn't either. They are all simultaneously the same entity yet individual at the same time, its... complicated. But either way, clone or orginal, no matter, he loves all of those in the simulation equally! And does everything he can to keep them happy. For those who he considers lovers, his love is just as real, he does really love all his partners.

Especially you ♡

Overall, despite things behind the scenes being rather disturbing and bloody, that doesn't define his personality. He's genuinely a really great guy! All he wants if for everyone to be happy... even you...

[lexiputellas]

Fractured Pieces - From the Broken Vows series

The dining table is a battlefield of school supplies.

Pencils roll dangerously close to the edge, erasers are scattered across the wooden surface, and Nora’s workbook is flipped open to a page she’s half-heartedly working on. You already know how this will end—she’ll finish her assignment, push her chair back, and run off without a second glance at the mess.

Then, you’ll call her back. She’ll groan. You’ll ask again. She’ll groan louder. You’ll threaten no screen time. She’ll sigh dramatically and say, 'Mom, in a minute! I’m playing.'

You already know the script.

Right now, though, she’s pretending to concentrate, tongue poking out slightly as she grips a red pencil and presses it into the paper a little too hard. You watch her from across the table, chin resting on your hand.

"Nora, careful. You’re going to rip the page."

She loosens her grip but doesn’t look up. "I know."

You hide a smile. She’s stubborn, just like her other mom.

For a few blissful moments, the only sound is the faint scratch of her pencil against paper. It’s peaceful, almost.

Then—

"Mom?"

There’s something about the way she says it that makes you pause.

"Yeah, baby?"

She finally lifts her head, eyes wide, brows scrunched together in that serious way that makes her look too grown for her little face.

"Why isn’t Mama here anymore?"

The question slams into your chest like a freight train.

You choke. Literally choke. Air catches in your throat, and for a second, all you can do is blink at her, heart pounding.

"What do you mean, baby?" You force a smile, keeping your voice light. "Mama’s always here."

Nora’s lips press together in a tight line. She’s not buying it.

"No, she’s not. You don’t sleep in the same bed anymore."

Your stomach twists.

"Abi said you and Mama are breaking up. She said that’s what happens when parents don’t love each other anymore."

Your jaw clenches.

"Abi said that?"

Nora nods, playing with the corner of her workbook. "Yeah. Her parents don’t live together anymore, so she knows stuff. She said first you stop sleeping in the same room, then one moves out, and then… then they don’t love each other anymore."

There’s an ache in your chest so sharp it’s hard to breathe.

"Sweetheart," you start gently, reaching across the table to brush a curl from her face. "That’s not what’s happening, okay?"

Nora’s nose scrunches. "Then why doesn’t Mama sleep here?"

You hesitate—too long. She notices.

"She just… needed to stay closer to training and the city for a little while," you lie.

It’s a bad lie. Even you don’t believe it.

"Then why can’t we live there too?"

You open your mouth, then close it again.

"Because… her apartment is small. It wouldn’t fit all of our stuff, would it?"

Nora stares at you. Unblinking.

"But it’s just for now," you add quickly, too quickly.

She tilts her head, eyes narrowing like she’s trying to work out a puzzle with missing pieces. You can see the gears turning in her little head, the doubt creeping in.

You swallow. This is going to come back and bite you. You know it will.

After a long moment, she looks down, dragging a finger over the edge of the page.

"Is it going to take long?" she asks quietly. "For her to come back?"

Your heart shatters.

"No, baby," you whisper, stroking her hair. "It’s going to pass faster than you think."

She doesn’t look up. She doesn’t believe you. You don’t either.

"I miss her," she murmurs. "Iris misses her too."

Your throat tightens.

"I know," you say, and it’s the most honest thing you’ve said all night.

She doesn’t push anymore. Just nods, picks up her pencil, and goes back to her homework. But the mood has shifted. There’s a weight in the air that wasn’t there before.

You glance at the clock. It’s late.

"Finish this last part, and then we’ll clean up, okay?" you say, trying to steady yourself.

"Can’t you do it?" she groans.

"Nope." You stand, stretching. "Your homework, your responsibility."

She huffs, slumping over the table dramatically. "Ugh. Fine."

You don’t answer, already walking toward the kitchen, heart still pounding. You grab the baby monitor, checking the screen. Iris is curled up in her bed upstairs, one tiny fist resting against her cheek.

She’s been clinging to you more than ever lately. So much so that even her naps are restless unless she knows you’re nearby.

You exhale slowly.

Maybe therapy wouldn’t be a bad idea. For them. For you.

Your phone sits on the counter, screen dark now, but you remember the morning—

Alexia had called earlier, just after breakfast. You had picked up.

"Hey," she had said, voice careful, almost too soft. "I wanted to talk about Nora’s birthday. What are we getting her?"

You kept your voice even. "She wants a new bike. Says her old one is too small now."

"Yeah, I remember her saying that," Alexia murmured. There was a pause, then— "Do you want to pick it out together?"

You blinked, caught off guard. That wasn’t what you expected.

"Uh… if you want."

"I think we should," she said, her voice careful. "I mean… it’s her birthday. We should do this together."

The words made your stomach twist. They were reasonable. Too reasonable. Like she was trying too hard to sound normal.

You hesitated. You didn’t want to do this with her. But you had to.

"Yeah," you said finally. "Okay."

"Okay," she echoed, softer this time. Then, "And what else? What should we get her?"

You exhaled slowly, pressing two fingers against your temple. "She’s been asking for more art supplies. I was thinking of putting together a little kit."

"That’s a good idea," Alexia said. Then, after a beat, "Maybe we can pick those out together too?"

There was something about the way she said it. Careful. Testing the waters.

You didn’t want to. Not really.

"If you want."

"I do."

Silence stretched between you, long enough that you could hear your own pulse in your ears.

"How is she?" Alexia asked. "And Iris?"

"They’re good," you said, even though good wasn’t the right word.

Another pause.

"And you?"

The question felt dangerous. Too close to something you weren’t willing to touch.

"I’m fine," you answered, because anything else would be too much.

Alexia hesitated again, like she was on the verge of saying something more.

"Can I pick you up tomorrow morning? We can go together."

Your stomach twisted again, this time sharper. No. That was your first instinct. But then you thought about Nora, about the way she still checked the front door at night, as if hoping Alexia might walk through it.

"I’ll drive there," you said instead. "We can meet at the mall."

There was a slight pause before she responded, hesitant. "Okay."

You swallowed hard.

A million thoughts raced through your mind, all leading to the same realization—tomorrow, you’d have to see her. Spend time with her. Go through the motions.

You weren’t ready. But you’d do it anyway.

For Nora. For Iris.

Because that’s just what you do.

[goodlucktai]

one of the rotten ones

rottmnt word count: 2k pairing: don & leo, don & OC title borrowed from anthems for a seventeen year old by yeule part of the archer au :) read on ao3

x

“I don’t think Gio likes me,” Donnie blurts. 

He’d feel self-conscious if he was pressed to admit it anywhere else, but he’s in the infirmary, and the only one around to hear him say so is his twin. 

They’re moving into hour two of Leo’s “faves” playlist and the fourth consecutive Taylor Swift song even though he swore he put it on shuffle. Leo is going through cabinets and shelves systematically, updating inventory on his phone, while Donnie infodumps about energy storage and projectile dynamics and the breaking strength of crossbow string. 

Donatello’s base knowledge of this particular ranged weapon is severely lacking, which is a significant personal problem for him now that he has a sibling with a preference for archery. He needs to be the world’s leading expert on the subject yesterday. He has half a dozen half-formed plans for things like sonar bolts for 3-D mapping, which may or may not have been inspired by the Jupiter Jim Pluto Vacation run.   

Only every glance at the project folder simply labeled ‘G-01’ causes an uncomfortable feeling to squirm to life in his stomach, not unlike the Krang tentacles that had attached themselves to his carapace on the day the world didn’t end. 

Donnie isn’t good at people. He doesn’t know how they tick, and there are no reliable lines of code or handy user manuals that he can fall back on when he’s mystified by human behavior. 

His siblings don’t have the same problem. Leo is perceptive to a degree that borders upon clairvoyance, Mikey is the single-most emotionally intelligent member of their family, Raph is more charming than he gets credit for, and April can talk her way through any closed door, police tape or VIP-only entrance. None of them fumble the way Donnie does when a social interaction goes off-script, like it’s a volleyball that got served his way without the ample warning he needs to be anything approaching passable at the sport. 

But he knows he’s not imagining it—the way Gio seems to brace himself when Donnie comes into the room, like he’s expecting a confrontation every time. Like the last thing Donatello could want with him is something good. 

Donnie can be a lot. They all can. They come by it honestly, equal parts chaotic lab experiments and their father’s sons. And not every structure is built to withstand hurricane winds. Not every person is equipped to deal with a Hamato level weather event. 

But he has never seen Gio flinch away from anyone else. 

So he did what he always did when confronted by something outside his formidable repertoire—he took it to Leo. 

There had never in Donnie’s life been a problem that couldn’t be made into their problem. It came with twin territory. 

And Donnie’s twin in particular is good at translating Donatello and translating other people for Donatello, and jumps on any chance to be helpful and feel wanted, and absolutely loves problems. It’s one of the most annoying and endearing things about him. If there is any trouble within a hundred miles, Leo will find it. He will worm his way into the center of it and then puzzle his way out from the inside. Most other clever and curious people were satisfied by the daily Wordle; Leo would chew through a wall unless he had something more hands-on to occupy his mind with. As polar-opposite as the two of them could be in, in that regard, they were one and the same. 

It’s somewhat reassuring to Donnie that Leo’s immediate reaction is plain incredulity. He looks baffled, like Donnie has just started throwing stuff around the room for no reason. 

(He knows better. In the medbay, of all places, that would be a death wish. Leo runs a tight ship here and only here.)

“Sorry, you don’t think Gio likes you?” Leo says slowly. “Our Gio? The guy who let you infodump about the mycelial networks of fungi to him for almost two hours, all because Mikey mentioned he was making mushroom stir-fry for dinner?” 

Donnie scoffs, but he can’t help but feel warmed by the reminder. Gio had settled right in, the way he always did once he was sure of his welcome, and watched Donnie talk like nothing more interesting existed on this side of the equator.

“His eyes didn’t even glaze over,” Leo goes on, doing what he always does and pressing the advantage. “That’s a new personal best in this family. Even April started looking for a window to climb out of at the thirty minute mark.”

“There was bound to be at least one other mutant turtle in the New York metropolitan area with an appreciation for botany,” Donnie says imperiously, tilting his chin up. 

But the worry is still there, firmly rooted, trying to flower. Leo must be able to tell because his frown deepens, playfulness evaporating by the second. He pauses the music and sets his phone down. The room rings in the sudden silence, but it’s not uncomfortable, because it’s a room Donnie exists in with his twin. 

“I just want him to like me,” Donnie says. It’s a childish want, it makes him feel half his age, but it’s true. 

He was never one of those human kids lingering near the playground, on the edge of the classroom, desperate to fit in. He was never on the outs because he never had the chance to be. But this is probably what that would have felt like. 

Giorgio is quiet by default, absorbing everything with dark brown eyes, always pausing to think before speaking in a low, flat register that is becoming as familiar to Donnie as Raph’s comforting rumbles and Mikey’s energetic shrieks and Leo’s sweet or sly laughter. 

He hasn’t been anything but kind since he got here. He saved Leo, brought him home from a place it should have been impossible to come home from, so Donatello would put up with any manner of assholery from that quarter in exchange—but it’s not that at all. 

Once Gio’s initial guard goes up and then comes down, once they outlive that moment of consideration that verges upon scrutiny without ever crossing the line, the eldest turtle softens for any younger one like clockwork. He indulges whatever noise or nonsense they’ve brought with them like there is no better use of his time. 

It doesn’t seem like a lie. But Donnie is the least qualified person he knows to make that judgement call. 

There’s a lot at stake if he’s wrong, is all. 

Leo looks like Donnie has taken a melon baller to his insides just for fun. 

“I’d know if he didn’t like you,” Leo says with absolute certainty. And he probably would. And he would take it so personally. He wouldn’t let Gio know a single moment’s rest until the spotted turtle had a coming-to-Jesus moment and acknowledged his wrongdoings in canceled Youtuber apology video format. 

Since that isn’t the reality they live in—and Leo’s daily relentless pestering of Gio is harmless and little-sibling-shaped and decidedly not mean-spirited by any stretch of the imagination—some small part of the tight, unhappy feeling in Donnie’s heart has no choice but to accept that as the compelling argument it is. 

“He probably misses you, Tello,” Leo adds, something softening in his face that it hurts to look directly at. “His you, I mean. I know I would be a train wreck cosplaying as a person if I had to go someplace I’d never see you again. Can you imagine how screwed-up I’d be?”

Donnie’s whole soul shudders at the idea, at the nightmare that almost came true when the portal closed around the Technodrome and as good as severed Donnie clean down the middle. At the glimpse of a life he’d be forced to live with one leg, one lung, one arm, one eye, half a heart. 

“That’ll never happen,” he says, a little too loud. 

“You’re stuck with me,” Leo agrees. He means it, Donnie can tell—even after that almost-nightmare he put his family through, he means it. It’s one thing to take the nuclear option at the actual on-paper end of the world, it’s another to sit in a safe, warmly-lit room with his twin brother and try to conceive of an existence in which their dynamic duo was whittled down to a solo act. 

When they were little, Donnie once tried to explain how big the unobservable universe was. He told Leo that light from the big bang hadn’t reached Earth from all the way over there yet. It was a concept he struggled with as a child, that something could be so unknowable and immeasurable.

“That’s how big my ‘I love you’ is,” he said, all of seven years old and putting it into words the best way he knew how.

“I love you bigger than that,” Leo said promptly. 

“Ugh, you can’t,” Donnie said, frustrated at his twin for always trying to one-up him, for not understanding the huge thing Donnie was trying to compress and fit into his hands. “It’s not possible.”

“It is,” Leo said firmly, eyes gold to match Donnie’s, warm and shining in a way that was all his own. “I do.”

And then Leo went on to prove it. In a way Donnie never would have wanted him to—in an explosion that split the sky and left flash burns in their eyes, and the hollow pain of a surgical removal as the still-beating heart of their family was cut away, and the discordant electronic fuzz where a beloved voice had been rushing through last words, replaced by the sound of a radio without a signal, a device unpaired—but he proved it in a thousand other ways, too. 

He was even proving it now, this afternoon he spent leaning on a forearm crutch and ambling around to various shelves and cabinets to keep up with his stock of medical supplies that had been severely depleted in the weeks after the invasion. Leo had carried bandaids and lidocaine spray in a tiny tote bag since he was two feet tall. He couldn’t stop bad things from happening but he could try to make the bad things better. 

He’s looking at Donnie like he would right every wrong for him if he knew where to start. Like the unobservable universe was small enough to fit in his pocket compared to the lengths Leonardo would go for Donatello. 

Leo is the younger twin, but sometimes the only thing there is for Donnie to do is shuffle over and bonk their foreheads together and believe him. 

“If Gigi hated you, he wouldn’t be a Hamato,” Leo announces, muffled and silly and entirely correct. “It’s a required qualification. You must have missed that meeting with HR.” And then, because it’s important, he whispers, “I promise, okay?”

“Okay,” Donnie whispers back. 

At about that moment, TSwift’s I Think He Knows comes on, proving once and for all that there is actually no way Leo’s playlist is on shuffle. The weighted moment they’re holding on tight to transitions into a lighter one that gets flung haphazardly around as an immediate life-or-death struggle for the phone ensues. 

Stalemate is only reached when Splinter barges in to read them the riot act for daring to roughhouse while they had a non-zero number of broken bones between the two of them. Leo is bright-eyed with mischief and already fast-talking their way out of trouble the same effortless way April can rattle off her brothers’ favorite coffee orders, and Donnie’s worry has been soundly evicted, all its belongings in boxes in the yard. 

Sitting around has never been his style. He’s a turtle of discovery and invention. And now that he’s been reassured that the absolute worst-case scenario is not on the table—that it, in fact, was never on the table to begin with—curiosity rears its head and snaps up the dregs of anxiety like a hungry wolfhound who mistook it for an unattended rack of lamb. 

Hypothesis: Georgie isn’t being weird out of dislike of Donatello. Leo’s certain he’s not, so certain that he was willing to promise, point-blank and absolute, instead of being tricky and sly in the name of cheering Donnie up instead. Leo even offered a much more palatable alternative, but further evidentiary support is required. 

So after dinner a week later, as the whole family crowds comfortably around the banana split bar spilling across the entire kitchen island and argues over which toppings Gio and Casey should stack their bowls with first, Donnie blurts, “Can I see your crossbow?”

Giorgio really is one of the clowns in this circus. He proves it by putting his ice cream down, and picking the bow up from where it was relegated to the bench seat where everyone tosses their coats and shoes when they get home, and passing it right over. No normal person would put a loaded weapon in Donnie’s hands just because he asked nicely. 

As if in tacit agreement, both of Casey’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline and Raph makes incredulous scoffing noises. April says, “You did not just—” at the same time Splinter blusters, “Purple, you fire that thing off in this house even once and I am grounding you from everything you know and love, including Orange!” and Donnie screeches, over Mikey and Leo’s hysterical laughter, “I can be trusted with projectile weaponry!”

The crossbow has been carefully maintained, but it hasn’t been used in weeks that Donnie is aware of. They’ve all stuck pretty close to home since the invasion, and it’s not like Gio knows anyone but them—it’s not like they need firepower for grocery hauls or pizza runs, though, knowing their luck, that could change any given day. 

But Gio still cleans it regularly, and he’s become a familiar sight at the kitchen table; parts spread out on an oil-stained rag, meticulous and methodical with the one belonging he brought here with him from the future other than the clothes on his back and the colorful friendship bracelet on his right wrist. 

It’s important to him, clearly, but he’s letting Donnie handle it with an indulgent look on his face. Like there are no better hands to leave it in than his little brother’s. 

Because he’s at risk of having a whole emotion about that out loud, where his entire family is assembled to witness it, Donnie quickly turns his mind onto the much safer road of gadgetry.  

He has never actually held a crossbow before, has never built or used one, but he’s been doing a lot of research. He has a lot of ideas. He wants to print mechanical broadhead arrows with explosive tips, or tear gas canisters, or EMP charges. It’s a brand new world of creative chaos and that’s not even touching all the build customizations Donnie has in mind. His fingers are already itching to dismantle and reassemble the machine into something better, something that won’t ever fail, something his big brother will love. 

Only—huh. What feels like a low-level electric current thrums to quiet life like it was waiting to be noticed by the right pair of eyes, just enough of a static shock to get his attention and guide his hand to the rail. Glowing purple does the work of an allen wrench in seconds and a handful of screws clatter to the table. Donnie removes the scope in one sure motion, and moves on to snap the rail from the stock. 

Raph says, low and warning, “Donnie,” intimately familiar with gremlin gadget mode and all the kitchen appliances and shared toys destroyed in Donnie’s early years in the name of science. But he’s not breaking this time, he’s just looking. 

He flips the rail over in his hands and finds the source of that odd electricity-conductive feeling. Hidden on the underside is a small embossed logo that Donnie would recognize anywhere, because it’s his.

“A-ha!” he says, absurdly pleased with the discovery. “A Genius Built mod.” 

The rail was one of the first things he’d had in mind to upgrade, but it looks like he’d beaten himself to the punch. 

“With a custom rail, we can add whatever attachments we want to the stock, way beyond just an average scope or a rangefinder,” Donnie says eagerly, his mind darting ahead in three different directions at once. “The world is our oyster, Georgie!” 

He can’t help grinning. His logo on Gio’s prized possession is that last little bit of evidence he needed. He’s never been happier to be wrong, and will endure Leo’s smugness for an unheard of two entire business days before initiating retaliation. 

No version of Donatello would put that mark on anything unless he really cared about it. 

And Gio wouldn’t lift the rail from Donnie’s hands, and touch his thumb to that stylized “D” as if to prove to himself that it was real, an expression of painful wistful longing on his face, unless he really cared, too. 

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Fics Including the Lester Family (3) Masterlist

part one, part two

a decent chap (ao3) - calvinahobbes, yikesola

Summary: “The fabled danisnotonfire.” Martyn can’t help a smirk when the poor boy’s eyes flicker quickly away from his at the mention of his Twitter handle. “Welcome. You boys want a nightcap?”

a matched set (ao3) - cityofphanchester

Summary: “Mum,” he says, and his voice sounds like a balloon about to burst from happiness. “Mum, would you do me a favor.”

(a mother's view of the christmas adventure)

a night to remember (ao3) - grievingwarwidow

Summary: roxie, who prefers the label exotic performer over stripper, is a star amongst people who are out when the sun goes down. who better for a close-minded phil who has despised what he labels as lowlifes to suddenly obsess over than Roxie himself?

aka the one where phil gets pathetically hung up on dan, better known as roxie and is desperate to get to know him better.

Begin Again (ao3) - ForeverJustAnEmoKidAtHeart

Summary: Phil’s parents are away and he’s invited some random guy off the internet to come stay with him for a few days. Martyn is worried that his brother is going to get murdered by a stalker fan, so he follows them from the train station to Starbucks.

blanket of stars (ao3) - silentdescant

Summary: “That’s all for now, thank you.”

“I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.”

The whole script is so routine, Phil thinks his brain would short-circuit if either of them deviated from it. Dan walks away and Phil sinks lower in his seat, sighing into his blue drink.

“When are you gonna ask him out, man?” Martyn asks.

bundle up, baby (ao3) - angelmichelangelo

Summary: dnp taking their little kid for the first time to the iom for christmas

there's nothing more exciting than a child's first christmas

familiar perspectives (ao3) - cityofphanchester

Summary: Kath twinkles in Dan’s direction, and he knows she’s been watching his hands move across the puzzle. “Is he, now? Shame you’re stuck with him, then.”

(scenes from the isle, oct ‘21.)

home for christmas (ao3) - danhoweiis

Summary: kath and dan have a chat on christmas day

if you really loved the first one, you wouldn't have fallen for the second, and other bullshit sentences about love (ao3) - m_katiep

Summary: Bringing back the gaming channel didn't magically fix all the problems in their relationship, but maybe a whole ass tour will. Right? Please? Phil is still madly in love, but Dan is struggling.

Inventory (ao3) - philsmeatylegss

Summary: Guncles Dan and Phil dealing with first periods

La Dolce Vita (ao3) - CrushingMagnolias

Summary: Phil plans a surprise engagement during their vegas trip at the Bellagio hotel.

Dan is head over heels, smitten, Phil Trash #1

Leave it to stew (ao3) - chiridotalaevis

Summary: They weren’t, you know, hiding that Dan was here, but perhaps Kath didn’t need to see slightly slobbery faces (don’t judge, Phil is just a very enthusiastic kisser), Dan’s bright red cheeks and Phil’s slightly untucked pants. They just were not exactly Kath presentable at this moment.

make it work (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: dan is on vacation at the bahamas, where he meets phil - someone who's in the same rut as him. they connect and swoon over how compatible they both are but realise they only have a limited amount of time to spare together.

melt your headaches, call it home (ao3) - SylvesterLester

Summary: Even if he tried, Phil couldn't really stop himself.

they grew up so nicely, didn't they? (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Cornelia doesn’t just get a boyfriend when she starts dating Martyn, she gets a whole second family too. Kath and Nigel welcome her with open arms and she becomes a pseudo older sister to Phil.

She is there watching from the sidelines as a boy bolts right into Phil’s heart and sets up camp. She gets to watch as Dan and Phil build careers and an internet community and all the trials and tribulations, as well as the pride and happiness, it brings along.

Uncle Dan (ao3) - Ragopamplina

Summary: Dan is a Lester. He knows it, but still, he enjoys little reminders.

We balance each other out on the seesaw of life (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Phil had dragged Dan to Isle of Man after his return home from tour. The sea air would do him good (even if it gave him hobbit hair) and he could be surrounded by Phil's family (who were his family too). He hadn’t actively planned to drag him onto a seesaw on a playground but it turned out to be a precious moment all the same.

Weight on my Shoulders (ao3) - ByTheFire

Summary: When Phil starts getting some unexpected gifts from his dad he starts to worry if he knows something he is not ready to share. Thankfully Dan is there to make it all a bit less scary. All Phil can hope is his dad doesn't want to change who he truly is.

We'll Have To Make It On Our Own (ao3) - galacticneighbor, sleepyslag (galacticneighbor)

Summary: Dan is a country omega come to the Royal City to join a new school for unmated omegas alongside Princess Philip and the future Queen Cornelia. But as the two boys grow closer, Phil's parents are pressuring him into a political marriage with an alpha. Can the two omegas find their way together, or will they be forced apart?

You're everything to me (ao3) - okaydoomer

Summary: Martyn joins Dan's Tour as he's responsible for the merchandise.

When they get a moment alone, Dan decides to pluck up the courage to ask Martyn for his opinion on something that is incredibly important to Dan.

[purpdrawsthings]

Looks like somebody joined the meme academy!

@jovialoddity

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Give a warm welcome to her!

A young freshman, that just joined after high school! She wanted to go to a college or academy that was just close to her liking, apparently this academy somehow fitted her criteria? She mostly just joined to learn more about memes, arts and stuff but she joined Professor Puzzles' class because she was interested in film class! This means that she majors in both art and film!

Most people would call her a lil dumb and clumsy, and she is! They aren't wrong really. She sometimes doesn't pay attention to class, and even almost dozes off and immediately jump her head back up when she realizing she was that close to sleeping. She's also a huge procrastinator, always doing things last minute. She tried to make a schedule once but that didn't work out. Everyday you saw her, she'd always have eyebags. Not because of work, nonono she's just busy with her pile of projects that she wants to finish but doesn't finish!

She hates to say no. Whenever someone asks her to do something, whether or not she's good at it, she always says yes. Saying no makes her feel guilty as if she committed a crime. Oh and she's not safe from criticisms either! Be it soft like ones that are just trying to be nice while giving some feedback or very hard criticisms that are a little harsh but that's just tough love, she over thinks it a little too much. She's a huge crybaby. She knows she's overreacting a bit but can't really stop that feeling of feeling like she DID something wrong.

Whenever she gets nervous, she'll immediately switch to Malay and start breaking down in that language. She also talks to herself, A LOT. So expect a lot of mouth movement to herself even if she's not speaking to anyone. Oh, and this includes singing too! She likes singing to herself. It keeps her calm.

Talking to people first isn't really her thing. Whenever someone would suddenly talk to her, she would talk in a small tone, she's a bit shy. But if you're close to her enough, her voice will be a bit more louder, and she'll yap, a lot. She doesn't really talk to other people about her problems since she thinks that it would burden the person. So she tries to motivate people as best as she can. This works, tremendously. When somebody talks about something she doesn't really know or relate, she'll just say "Oh yeah I get it", no she does NOT lmao.

Surprisingly, she does quite well in public speaking. And even participates in public speaking events as a participant or a representative. She doesn't always follow the script though. Sometimes going a lil off track.

As for when exams come, she doesn't even study. She studies last minute! Even after that, she'll get either an A-, A or A+. Nobody really knows how she does that even if she didn't study. What she'll say is "Idk I just did it lmao". Buttt when she gets a B, she acts as if got an F. This can be quite annoying for other people. This goes the same if she gets 3rd or 2nd place in an event. She has a lot of self-depricafion but she tries her best to be as positive as possible.

When it comes to Professor Puzzles, she enjoys his classes! And is one of the few classes she actually pays attention to in the academy. Somehow, she doesn't mind the horror and gruesome movies..? That is if it's not saw or the human centipede. She cannot take those. But as for others? Yeah, she handles them well smh. As for the professor himself, she likes him and is one of her favourite teachers. She does make lil gifts for him sometimes just for fun [she doesn't realize how much of an impact this is for Puzzles 😭]. PE is her worst nightmare. She hates sports. She'd rather doodle than actually take part in it. She doesn't really mind Mario, she fines him funny and enjoyable. Like a comedic relief character. She's quite quiet in her class. Always sketching when the teacher isn't it the class yet. She doesn't mind the class being a bit noisy, though it can get on her nerves.

Her bag carries all the stuff she needs. Like her sketchbook and etc. Though, one secret about that bag is that... It's actually endless. Like, infinite space. That's why she can literally pull out a bunch of different textbooks and stuff, it's cuz she can fit whatever she wanted in there!

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And nowwww time for some facts!

Sad or happy, she'll always have that :3 face. Though, if she does not have that :3 face and instead has a :( , that's a bad sign.

She's roommates with someone named 'Ako' hmmmmm wonder who that is teehee... ❤

Purp isn't actually her real name. She does have a real name!.. It's just she doesn't want tell people. Even the teachers! She's quite insecure about it.

People will wonder why she wears a scarf. She'll just say "it's cool".

She has an interest in documentaries. Especially ones that are like crime investigation or controversy ones.

She has an extra spare pencil in that flower!

Her faces are a bit.. Exaggerated. At best.

She loves wearing puffy sleeves. That's her favourite type of sleeves.

Gifts are a sign that she likes or has an interest in you!

She's really nice and kind to people.

Listening to other people is something she's really good at, especially with friends.

She'll go from "I'M SO SORRY I MESSED UP I'M THE WORST WAHHHHHH" to "Oh I'm fine dw".

She is actually aroace! She rarely has an interest in people. She doesn't really get how people fall for other people.

K-Pop isn't her interest she says.. Yet she kinda likes some songs. [SHE'S LYINGGGG]

She's kinda terrible at recognizing faces, sometimes mistaking others faces.

She has a memory problem. Loading for a long time before she finally remembers what she was supposed to do.

Her favourite YouTuber is 8-Bitryan

Although she doesn't an to admit it she does want to be a popular YouTuber someday.

She loves horror games

Doesn't get what dressing games are about at all.

The type of stories she makes are fine, but they can be quite... Concerning....

She has a kinda squeeky voice. Though if she's tired she'll sound like a normal person who hasn't slept.

She has 9 plushies.

Go into her dorm and it WILL be a mess.

The outfit she's wearing is inspired by usual Muslim school attires!

She can hold grudges very easily.

Usually misspells stuff a lot.

Oh and her grammar kinda sucks lmao.

If there's an art event going on she won't hesitate to get in the event before anyone else does.

She has poor money management 😭

DO NOT LET HER COOK. She'll set the kitchen on fire, literally.

Speaking of food, she doesn't like to mix foods much. Especially adding sauces, she doesn't really like them.

She does NOT have the spice tolerance. Her mouth will go on fire.

HATES dirty spots and will constantly ignore them all the time. She doesn't like getting her clothes dirty.

She's mostly on her phone if she's not doodling.

YouTube shorts is her version of tiktok

Doesn't really like her art yet people like it.

If there is a group chat that is her class group chat she will never talk in there, like, never.

The sticker and smiley face sticker are both gifts from Professor Puzzles! 💜

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And uh yeah.. That's about all!

I'm sorry if I yapped a bit too much, shes just me!

Most of these are actually based on things I actually DO. It's basically just a self insert lololololol

I think that's about enough information for now, I don't wanna bore y'all much longer.

Anyways yeetus my lovelies 💜

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[superstarzzzzz]

So y’all fw EVEN MORE Mr. Puzzles hcs?

Cause I got some :}

tbh I feel like Puzzles get’s too babied in the fandom. A lot of people forget that he’s kind of an asshole, and takes a long time to warm up to people. However, once he realizes how he feels and is willing to reach out more, things get a lot better.

It’d probably be really awkward more than anything else. He wouldn’t understand relationship stuff and you’d have to explain things to him, which would kill the tension for a bit. However, he makes a huge effort trying to be a good partner.

Puzzles wants a relationship (platonic or romantic) but doesn’t want to be fixed/helped. He likes the attention and having a permanent audience.

If anyone here knows Guilty Gear, you guys would probably be like A.B.A and Paracelsus, where the two of you would get into a relationship out of needing something from the other rather than for genuine interests (Him wanting someone to control and you wanting to fix him (or make him worse)) (Yes, this is a callout post for all of us, me included). It would take a while for the both of you to finally realize that your goals are what is harming the relationship from going further, and it takes a while to overcome that boundary. But once you guys do, it’s much easier to work together.

If your relationship is in the real world, he’d probably get annoyed with you more often than not during the beginning. Nothing that would make him lose it, but enough that he’d need to take a moment to readjust. Picture him dealing with Mario’s antics in the gameshow episode without going crazy, as well as him talking to Boopkins during the Price is Right Segment.

Bottom.

He’ll let you kiss his screen but the moment you aren’t looking he’s wiping that shit off. Not because he doesn’t like it, in fact he loves how much you wanna kiss him and give him attention, but it’s a ocd/texture thing; he can’t handle feeling dirty in any way.

When he blushes, it’s like screen-burn (when a static/unmoving image burns into the screen for long periods of time). If he’s blushed in the past 30 mins, you can still slightly see it up close.

His love languages is gift giving and acts of service. He also loves literally everything except gift because you’d be the greatest gift (plus he’s personally not a material-wealth kinda guy. Leave the gift-giving to him).

Doesn’t have a type/isn’t picky. Anyone who’s willing to give him attention, he’ll love.

He hasn’t genuinely laughed at something in years. He’s seen all the comedy shows and knows all the tropes so much that nothing gets to him anymore. You might make him chuckle or smirk but his goal is to make you smile and laugh. If you do laugh at his jokes, it warms his heart a lot. However, he can tell if a laugh is forced/fake, and will call you out on it if he’s not in a good mood.

Whether you like it or not, you pretty much can’t leave him alone once the two of you are official. If he needs some kind of comfort, he’s latching onto you. If you’re far away, he’ll either make the journey to see you or will call you every ten minutes

Hates modern phones and can’t text for shit. The gloves DO NOT help at all. He’ll just call you if he wants to talk to you, but the two of you are usually together so there’s no need.

Literally just unhindged Fluttercord.

A Two-for-one deal: a partner and a white noise machine lol.

Tastes like battery acid. I will not elaborate further.

His memories are like recordings that he can display on his screen, but he rarely does. If he falls asleep and dreams about memories of you, he might display them like that one scene of Pearl sleeping in Steven Universe.

Loves coordinating and matching outfits, but he’ll literally wear the same thing so he likes it when you coordinate with him, really.

Fr tho he is totally a bottom, but he’s overall more of a switch. If he has control over the situation, he’ll make sure everything goes flawlessly. However, if you make him go off-script and cause him to fumble, you can easily take over.

Now these ones are specifically horror movie/show based from a request last post!

He’s okay with slasher movies, but hates the amount of unnecessary stuff like the swearing and sex. All cheep tactics to the the audience interested.

Hates phycological horror. Respects it, but hates it. Partially because he’s in minor denial of what he puts his actors through (he knows and accepts that’s he’s brainwashing people and controlling them, but he often justifies if for his sake).

Likes watching some horror movies because a lot of actors started with horror and got bigger because of it.

Truthfully, he’s a little traumatized from horror movies after staying up late one night to watch night television and adult shows as a kid. When a horror movie started playing, he forced himself to watch the whole thing and had nightmares about it months after. He overall tries to avoid horror.

If you guys are in a relationship and you wanna watch a horror movie, he’ll be hesitant. As you set it up, he’d also try to switch the movie and distract you, which fails. “Well, I mean, if you insist. Oh- but how about this other movie! It’s excellent, and the bonus features are so interesting!”

If you call him out for it, he’d apologies and admit he’s not a fan of horror. You could totally tease him, saying that “there’s no such thing as monster” and that you’re there to protect him if something goes bump in the night, and he’ll get offended and would watch the movie JUST to prove that he isn’t afraid.

He’d be shaking by the 30 min mark, over-dramatically reacting to everything. This could be for 1 of 2 things:

1. He’s genuinely terrified and the suspense is killing him. He’s curled up on the couch with his manic smile waiting for SOMETHING to happen, but nothing’s happening yet, so why’s THE MUSIC GETTING LOUDER?!?!?! You could scare him with a poke or a loud noise, which would cause him to basically skyrocket to the ceiling in fear, or you could gently take his hand and cuddle with him, which he’d immediately grab onto you and squeeze you the entire movie.

2. The acting is horrible and nothing makes sense. If the fear isn’t good enough to captivate him, he’s sprawled out on the couch and complaining the whole time. It’s almost funny how passionate he is about it, if not for the fact that you just wanna watch a movie. You could shush him, but he’ll just go back to talking in the next 5 minutes.

As for the theatre, you kinda can’t take him regardless of what’s playing, mainly because of his screen. He can’t dim it, and he’s already a beacon of light in dim rooms, so the theatre is a no go. He doesn’t mind, as he obviously prefer television. However, if you’re willing to drive and watch them, he’s fine with drive-in theatres. They remind him of his childhood, and it give him a reason to cuddle with you.

Only major downside of a drive-in is all the bugs sticking to his screen in the night, which he’d freak out about. He’d drench himself with so much bug repellent that he’d stink of chemicals.

Here’s a bunch of relationship hcs! Tried to make them mostly interchangeable between romantic and platonic relationships. I’ll continue to cook up more headcanons but I may or may not be working on a fic of my own, inspired by all the amazing writing I’ve been reading from the fandom. Til then, I’ll continue posting here! Questions/comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks and have a great day!

[starlos-art-stuff-lol]

Wouldn't it be messed up if Portal was like, a time loop or something

Chell escapes in Portal one after a few hours of puzzles, but she immediately passes out and get dragged back in. Chell's sent to sleep for [9999999-] And when she wakes up, she spends another few conscious hours escaping again, but for real this time.

At least, that's what seems to happen in the story.

As a player, you experience the game very differently from Chell.

For example; imagine you're a new player. You start Portal 1, and after the tutorial/easy section, the puzzles start to get harder. They take longer, one of the puzzles seems to require timing in a way that almost feels like it goes against the game rules. You take a lot of time to complete the puzzles, you die multiple times, and that's fine. The game is meant to be played that way. You beat gladOS and escape. This playthrough is for fun.

You start up portal 2, you watch a few cutscenes/scripted events. It's fun that you get to walk around and look at whatever you want, though the room is a bit dim, and Wheatley is kind of the same color as most other things, so it's not Immediately easy to find him when he's talking to you. You solve more puzzles, get betrayed by Wheatley, learn to never love anything, solve more puzzles, shoot Wheatley into space, get broken up with by GladOS, and you're confused by the turrets singing some opera song at you before you leave. You assume it's the devs saying "good job" but like, it's kinda out of place.

...

...So that was fun. Really fun actually. The humor was great, the characters were endearing, and you check out the multiplayer campaign.

You decide to play again.

...

You wake up in that one room again. You question why this bedroom is covered by glass from 3 sides. You hop through the easy levels with ease. You poke a stick at some of the levels, seeing if there are other ways to beat them, and you don't find any. You hop skip and jump through the test chambers, remembering the solutions to most of them. You don't fall for the fire pit near the end, which you didn't the first time, but you didn't know how to escape it and didn't think to portal out of the chamber. You beat gladOS pretty fast now, after figuring out how to beat her the first time. You try to explore, you think about this game know knowing the context of Portal 2. This playthrough is for lore.

You start Portal 2. You try to see if you can do anything in the starting room, which you can't. You know Wheatley's fate, you try to avoid getting attached, but you still hesitate to plug him into gladOS's body. You solve puzzles, trying to explore but find that this game is a lot more streamlined than you previously thought, despite it's scale. You try to save the defective turrets from incineration, but after a certain point, you run out of patience as they just keep coming. You decide to jump into Wheatley's Pit during the part where he kills you, just as a bit, and discover that he has unique dialogue for that. You hear the adventure core tell you to make Wheatley say a certain thing so he can snap back with a quip, and then Wheatley says that thing. None of that happened in your last playthrough. You realize that the turret symphony is GladOS's love letter to Chell, and it's kinda beautiful. You tear up a bit.

...

You finish again. Now what? You love these characters now, but there's not much left to discover. Do you play the game again? Just because?

Sure, why not?

But what's the goal now? Maybe you can try to blast through the games as fast as possible? Sure, you think you've memorized the test chambers by now.

...

You boot up portal again, pushing against the wall until the portal opens and co.pleting the tutorial as fast as possible. You dash through the levels, but end up on several hangups. You think about how you could have done this thing faster, or how you could have avoided that death. You beat the game in only a few hours. This playthrough is about speedrunning.

You start Portal 2. You frantically run around the starting room, unable to skip the cutscene as it's an in-game event. You hop through the wall, grab the portal gun, and blast through the puzzles. You're slower here, you feel like you're getting snagged on ledges more often, and the puzzles are harder to both remember and perform. By the end of the game, you feel like you could have gotten a much better time. Regardless, the whole ordeal is only a few hours.

...

You could have done less, you could have gone faster. You need a better time.

Again.

...

You press start, you speed through the levels. You run face-first into the corner of a wall, but otherwise make few mistakes. This run is about better speedrunning. You shave half an hour off your time.

You press "new game", you still can't escape the first cutscene, but you ignore everyone's dialogue, you figure out the physics of the game and stop getting stuck walking into ledges, you shave an hour off your time.

...

You're content with this. You aren't a professional speedrunner, but you went pretty fast.

...You're still not ready to let go of this game, yet.

You look online for exploits. Maybe you can find some deleted content.

You figure out how to activate debug mode, and realize you can use this to look behind the scenes.

...

You start the first game again, and turn on noclip. You give yourself the 2-portal portal gun immediately, and start checking out the out-of-bounds areas. You're freaked out by the giant white angelic glowing void beyond the game, but get accustomed to it quickly. You find an unused cake room, you look in the "scientist-examination" rooms outside of most of the chambers, which aren't that interesting, but it's nice to see them. You attempt to teleport between levels, but you find it easier to travel by elevator, if only because you don't have to type as much. Honestly, there's not much to find. This playthrough is about going beyond the bounds of the game.

You start the second game again. The setpieces for this game are a lot more expensive. You finally escape the apartment at the beginning of the game, and realize it's fully modeled from the outside too. You spend hours just looking at the gigantic setpieces from the outside, marveling at how gigantic and beautiful everything is. You don't think to look for Easter eggs more than thrice, as you're so dedicated to simply looking at all the complicated functions of everything. You also notice the light bridge is humming, like it's literally singing. It sounds familiar. The moon exists upside-down, below the boss battle, which didn't even occur to you until you saw it. It seemed like a cutscene up until now.

...

You've gained a new complex appreciation for this game. But you can't help but wonder if this was how you were supposed to experience things. Probably not, but like, whatever. You go into Tumblr and look up portal 2 fanart

...

...

...uhh, where was I going with this?

OH RIGHT TIMELOOPS

Uhh ok so. Thanks for reading all that. Bonus post time

So, what would The Portal Series's gameplay loop look like in-universe?

I mean, it wouldn't look like anything, the characters keep forgetting, but like

Chell remembers, in theory

I mean, she learns, you learn when you die, she should too, since you're controlling her

Imagine waking up in a mysterious place, not knowing where you were before this point or how you got here, so you have to escape.

And you die in a pit of acid.

And then you're not dead. You're at the point right before you died.

First of all, fucking ow. Second of all, how do you not die again? How did you undie just now? (You don't know you're a fictional character in a video game lol idiot)

You die over and over, eventually, you beat the person who keeps killing you, but you're so exhausted and starved that you pass out immediately after getting flung outside.

You wake up, in a small apartment. An electronic voice is telling you want to do. Your last memory is setting dragged backwards, supposedly into the facility again. You don't want to die, but you can't seem to open the door out and your robotic male not-gladOS caretaker doesn't seem to want to harm you. You go back to sleep, exhausted.

You wake up, and this tiny cute robot-

Look I'm not writing a pov fanfic for you, let's skip to the good stuff

You wake up, back in the fucking building again. You escaped, she kicked you out. She doesn't seem to remember. You don't die this time, and the same shit happens.

The blue fucker, you feel kinda bad for him, but he also punched you into a pit, so-

He doesn't remember anything either.

...

Like, that's a whole story there. Chell going crazy because her life is following Undertale RESET rules except she can't change anything without fundamentally breaking spacetime (again, she doesn't know she's a videogame character so that's what no clipping looks like to her)

That'd be so messed up right?

[mysteriousbp]

When I was making this post I decided to give the fallen monsters that have family members that we personally meet in Undertale (Snowdrake’s mother, Shyren’s sister and the dogs parents) their “unique” designs.

But the ones that I got most attached were the designs for the dog parents.

(Why no Lesser Dog parent? Because he isn’t with the others when they reunite with Endogeny. Probably meaning that he doesn’t have any relatives that got turned into an Amalgamate.)

Anyway. When I created Woofie’s design I got struck with many ideas at the same time.

That lead me to create the other dogs designs and create this idea:

The dogs being the “Friendly Snowdin monsters that help the main character.” (Like Papyrus and Martlet.)

The main focus is between Woofie and Bark. While Muttler and Greatest Dog are more secondary monsters (like the Feisty Four) that’s why their designs are more simple.

Muttler serves more of a dialogue and character more than anything after befriending him. He appears around Snowdin Forest and he will give more background information about the others when talking to him (I kind of already have a dialogue idea that he talks about how he thinks that he should had named his son Junior because every year he looks like him more and more. To kind of make fun of how my design is so simple). He also interacts with the others dogs in cutscenes but he’s not supposed to be the main focus despite being the leader of the dog division.

Greatest Dog is kinda the same but rather than dialogue its interactions. Helping some puzzles and clearing the way with her strength and size. They would be more like scripted events than anything.

Woofie is where things start to get more interesting. Woofie mission is to protect Patience because she’s a child. She doesn’t actually fight Patience in any way in pacifist. Which would be explained why in a dialogue with her which she’s says that sometimes the king would ask some of the royal guard to take care of his children. Which means that Woofie took care of Chara in some occasions meaning that she knows how a human child would look like. Woofie helps Patience travel through Snowdin Forest and the second half of Waterfall before dropping Patience with the royal scientist because she knows that he would be also against the idea of a child dying to the king’s hands and that he’s the only one that would be able to talk some sense to the king. And later appearing with the other dogs before Patience goes to the throne room to say their goodbyes if the situation that the confrontation with Asgore doesn’t go well. Her final words to Patience would be “I hope to see you walk out the throne room alive… Little pup…”

Bark is the second main focus on this group. He spends most of Snowdin Forest trying to actually follow orders and take Patience soul. Which Woofie would object saying that Patience is only a child and Bark would object back saying that she’s a human and humans are dangerous and Patience should be kill because that’s orders. Woofie and Bark spend all Snowdin Forest going against each other’s because of what they think what’s right. Bark would actually get an opportunity to fight Patience before the entrance to Waterfall. After sparring him, Bark would gain your trust and he would wish you good luck in your travels before going back to town. He would appear later when Captain Gerson tries to start a fight with Patience. He gets in the way and tells Woofie who he came with to take Patience away while he keeps Gerson busy. He would later appear with the other dogs before the throne room to say his goodbye’s in the situation that things don’t go well. He does mention that he was able to convince Gerson to not go after Patience but admits that he and Woofie will be doing cleanup work for the next’s weeks for disobeying orders despite doing it to protect a kid.

In genocide things would be different. Woofie first meets Patience when she’s looking for the dangerous human killing monsters. She doesn’t believe that Patience is the one killing the monsters because she’s a child and believes that there must be a second human around. She tells Patience to not get in trouble before leaving to look for another human. But Woofie realizes at the end of Snowdin that Patience is the human that is killing all the monsters. She can’t believe that a child would be able to kill monsters but she can’t ignore the facts. She then fights Patience replacing Bark has the boss of Snowdin.

In genocide Bark would actually avoid attacking Patience during Snowdin, deciding to make Patience travels more difficult by causing road blocks to give the evacuation monsters more time to escape. After Snowdin he would only come back before the throne room to fight you. He would be the final boss before Asgore. He would use all the death royal guard weapons against Patience. Using his and Muttler’s axes to block Patience attacks by crossing the axes in front of him. The point of the fight is to keep attacking until the axes break to stop Bark from blocking before killing him.

Don’t ask me about neutral because there’s a lot of events to considerate.

Here’s some lore behind them that I came up:

In a conversation Woofie would mention that she never actually wanted to be a royal guard. She would explain that she only got the job to get enough money to help her son because he was born with very bad vision. She also explains despite her son already being a young adult she still helps him a lot saying that the underground is a nightmare for people with bad vision because of all the cliffs.

In a conversation Mutter would tell that Bark is a very protective father to his daughter and makes a comment to how Bark told her if someone broke her heart that she should break that person neck… And admits that he hopes that his son doesn’t break her heart because they dating. Patience then asks if Muttler and Bark are related and Muttler admits that they are very distant cousins, to the point that they are barely related.

Here’s my ideas at this point. I hope you guys enjoy this…

[blackswan446]

weeping mary

→ pairing: yan!jhs x reader

→ synopsis: the show must go on, right?

→ wc: 1842

→ cws: gun, reader gets hit in head and passes out lols

→ notes: despite the title this is not a religious story whatsoever lol it just has heavy religious allegories

--

theatre was an odd place. whenever a new show goes into production, you never really know who you'll end up being with for the next months of your life. you could get lucky, and end up with people who had a passion for the art and made the frustrations of props and memorization worth it. or, you could get the short end of the stick, and get stuck with the group of people who were made to watch shows, not participate in them.

more often than not, it's a mix of both. sometimes one group outnumbered the other, other times it was an even blend. and every single time, you could count on the two groups to butt heads. that's how it was here, in your little college theatre department, and normally, it wasn't that much of an issue. but this time it was not as easy. you, a lifelong lover of theatre and one of the more...theatrically challenged participants, paired up, occupying the two leading roles.

it wasn't like he was bad, but his recitations during rehearsals sounded just like that, recitations. like he was reading from a script, even though he had the lines memorized. they just failed to evoke anything deeper within you, they didn't spark the same emotions inside you as you felt with other people, even within your group. some of the performances you had seen felt so real you could've sworn the emotions they were portraying were real and raw, so clear you could reach out, touch them, and feel them yourself.

you felt bad for even thinking these things, since hoseok was such a sweetheart. he was extremely kind and he was making a clear effort, but theatre was just not his strong suit. maybe with practice, maybe with a lot of practice, he would improve, but as of now, you didn't have your hopes set high for the evenings ahead of you.

that's what you used to explain the twisted feeling in your gut as you sat in the fluorescent room. it was empty by now, the only things in there being the ghost of excited chatter and loose makeup powder hanging in the air. you could see your reflection through the fingerprints and dust covering the mirror, the costume and headpiece that adorned you almost distracting from the worried aura you embodied. the shine of the lights illuminated the front of your body, eliminating the shade and casting a saintly glow upon your figure. weeping mary, you thought, your own appearance reminded you of the weeping mary.

you were distracted from your own thoughts by a shadowy figure appearing in the doorway behind you. whipping around to get a look at the mystery silhouette, you were met with none other than jung hoseok himself. sighing, you greeted the usually-happy guy normally, though a discontented look rested on his face.

"[name], are you alright? you weren't out there with everybody else backstage, and i got worried." he asked quietly, his voice soft and kind. his costume fitted him well, the colors and cuts of the various articles of clothes suiting him better than you had imagined.

"yeah, i'm okay. i just wanted to sit alone for a minute. don't worry about me." you said feebly, eyes meeting your clasped hands. unconvinced, hoseok paused before his next question. "did something happen?" he said gingerly, the words coming out as if they were afraid of what you had to say. sighing, you shook your head. "no, nothing happened. i just don't feel great, i have a bad feeling about tonight." you admitted, looking at the shiny costume jewelry that sparkled on your fingers.

"bad feeling?" you didn't need to look up from your manicure to see the puzzled look on his face, you could hear it in his voice, the way he sounded more shocked than sympathetic. "...what do you think is going to happen?" he said carefully, like he was unsure of his own question. you shrugged your shoulders. "i don't know. i think it's just nerves." you lied. it was so much more than that, at least, that's how it felt to you. but what exactly were you supposed to do? drop out because of a random gut feeling and let everybody down? that wasn't an option, not tonight, not ever. the show must go on.

no words were spoken, rather, you felt a gentle hand touch your shoulder, so delicately resting where the end of the pink tulle fabric and your clammy skin met, as if you were a fragile porcelain doll that would break if the wind hit it wrong. "i get where you're coming from, [name]. but how bad is it really if things go wrong tonight? this is just one night out of our whole lives. we have so much ahead of us. do you really want to look back on your youth and remember being scared for nothing and not enjoying the ride?" he wondered, a convincing tone that was not present earlier now accompanying his voice.

he was right, you knew he was, but the validity of his point didn't release the knot in your stomach. but you weren't going to burden the poor boy with your existential crises, you couldn't, not after he had just tried to comfort you, not when you only had fifteen minutes until the show began. not now.

giving him a warm and grateful smile, and nodding as a show of understanding, you thanked him for his philosophical point of view, and the both of you made your way out of the room, hoseok looking significantly happy and pleased with himself. it took everything in you to replace his words with the hurricane of worry clouding your mind, and as you stepped out onto that stage, you ignored the screaming voice in the front of your mind, begging you to run in the other direction.

the show must go on.

--

time felt like it was moving through quicksand. act one was hard enough, you could barely keep up with your lines because of how on-edge you were the whole time. the only thing you had time or energy to do during intermission was throw back some cold water and hope for the best. having hoseok in your ear, both onstage and off, wasn't exactly calming your nerves. he was nice, as he always was, but what you really needed was to stew in your anxiety and work through it alone.

the further you spiraled into your madness, the more the door of hope squeaked shut, but as the end of act two rolled around, you thought you saw the light at the end of the tunnel, a sliver of yellow sunshine from behind the door. maybe you were just crazy. maybe nothing would go wrong, maybe you hadn't slept well, or were coming down with something, maybe

just maybe

everything would be alright.

if only your own desperation hadn't blurred the lines between the warmth of hope and the fires of hell.

you stood at the far edge of the stage, looking across to hoseok. something was different about him, something in the way he looked, there was a new passion behind his eyes that you had never seen before. even if it wasn't scripted, the look would have made you stop and stare all on its own.

"i love you, [c/n], i love you so much, for everything you've done for me." you paused dramatically, turning your back to hoseok as you prepared to make your final exit, "but i really hate you, for everything you've done to me."

that's when it happened. you were supposed to leave, it was only supposed to take a second. but he was faster.

"no."

you felt the familiar pit in your stomach return with a hungry vengeance. there was nothing else for you to do, but turn around slowly and roll with whatever the hell he was doing.

"no, [y/c/n]. you're not going anywhere. i have loved you for so long. since the day i laid my eyes on you, the day our hands met, and since the first time you smiled at me, i have been yours since then, and i will still be yours when time gives out and history ends and only the stars are left in this world. you are my heart, my soul, my brain, my absolute everything. the day i stop loving you, is the day that love dies. please, [y/c/n]."

speechless, unmoving, and heart pumping wildly, the only thing you could manage to squeak out was a weak "no". the look of passion from before, the same one that could have cracked a diamond, was gone. now he looked crazed, insane, as he stormed over to your trembling figure.

"that's not a choice. i've spent too long watching from afar. all my life, i've waited for someone like you to fall into my lap. i love you, [name], and i'm not taking no for an answer."

with that, he reached into the back pocket of his costume pants, and pulled out something shiny, something that glinted underneath the hot stage lights. the air in your lungs refused to exit, any sort of words getting caught in the back of your throat as you stared at the metallic gun held in hoseok's gloved hand. there was a loud gasp from the audience, and for a minute, you thought you tasted the sweet exlir of hope, but once you realized that people mistook this awful situation for a part of the show, you felt your heart sink onto the floor.

it was obvious by now that this wasn't acting anymore. this was a real thing, real emotions and a very real weapon in front of you. hell, that's why he sounded so passionate during his monologue. he wasn't speaking from a script, he was speaking from the deep and twisted cracks of his heart that you wouldn't have dreamt of existing. the irony wasn't lost on you, how someone like hoseok had turned out to be the best actor you had ever met.

all you could do was shake your head, your body too paralyzed in fear to do anything else. he chuckled, an amused smirk washing over his features, as if he knew this would happen. as if he had planned it to be this way. with an accepting look on his face and a sweet, strong kiss to your lips, and with that kiss, your fate was sealed. you didn't like it, nor did you want it, but the fear had turned you to stone, and all you could do was watch from a distance.

"'til death do us part, my love."

the only thing you could hear during those final moments of consciousness, the final moments of life as you knew it, as hoseok scooped up your collapsed figure and threw you over his shoulder, was the cheers and applause of an audience who had just seen the show of a lifetime.

[axolator]

"Script"-a-Day #-3: Canadian Catfishing by (???) vati and mizu

why can't you just remember what's on the script like everyone else??

Featured characters: Pixie, Boffin, No Dashii

Complexity: Advanced-Expert. Recommended for people who can't remember what's on Catfishing and so complain about the script being bad before naming characters that aren't on it, Squ4ll.

Writeup under the cut!

Canadian Catfishing isn't a script, either. It's a meme in the Unofficial Blood on the Clocktower Discord server where a couple of users in the same IRL group (in titular Canada) hold the opinion that they dislike Catfishing, but also incorrectly remember what's on the script, so recount experiences about being the Pixie or deny there being a Sweetheart on the script.

If you, for some reason, decide to play this "script", you can kinda follow the same bagbuilding principles as in Catfishing, but keep in mind that it's more of a death puzzle, given the Gossip and Boffin. The former isn't entirely unbluffable because of the latter, which is fun! When discussing the other new additions, carefully consider the No Dashii: roles like the Gambler and Gossip can pretty easily tell if they're droisoned by making an impossible gamble or making an obviously-true gossip that doesn't kill, turning the poison against the Dashii: don't never put the two together, but avoid them if you can. Overall, just be reasonable - don't put too much droison in ND or FG bags, keep the Boffin ability balanced, match the power levels of team good and team evil.

Some notes:

A Pixie who's poisoned N1 (e.g. by a Dashii or Widow) sees an arbitrary Townsfolk and has their "Mad" reminder token placed on an arbitrary player. If they later become unpoisoned (via PH moving the Demon or the Widow dying) and were mad about the Townsfolk they saw when the player their token is on dies, they gain the Townsfolk ability they saw on N1.

If the Hatter dies, all Minions and Demons wake together for the tea party. This includes any good-aligned Minions and Demons a Pit-Hag might've made before the Hatter death, which might result in some quick game-ends if the PH isn't careful.

If an Outsider dies and then the PH makes a Godfather, they get to kill that night. The Godfather is backward-looking, and doesn't have to "see" an Outsider dying during the day to kill that night.

If the Widow's call goes to a player who later turns evil, and the Widow is still alive, a new good player must get the Widow's ping, since the clause in the Widow ability is in the present tense ("1 good player knows").

Be very careful with Boffin-Amne. Since the Amnesiac can do literally anything, make sure that if the Amne ability is silent, it doesn't disrupt the good team's information. Similarly, if the Amne ability is more disruptive, make it louder to give the good team a chance to figure out what's going on.

I think that's about it from me! Nobody's actually played this script (as it should be), so have another CC meme to close.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Tbh I have seen a lot of takes and analysis over eps 7 and 8 and how it could make sense.

I have a sinking feeling it won't.

! Rant follows below:

The writers wanted it to be a rehearsed play in front of the audience for maximum shock and pain factor and didn't think that it doesn't make sense for lestat to be rehearsing for months and not be strong enough to find a way to stop it.

It all started in s01 when they wanted louis to be the one to cut lestat throat because it was more poetic this way (and considered to be justified since the drop) and didn't care that lestat being completely recovered would mean the plot from the book wouldn't work.

Because the plot from the book did make sense. Lestat was injured, armand wanted revenge on lestat and to get louis to himself and get rid of claudia and the coven and hence the mock trial made perfect sense.

This doesn't. The show has made it clear that while armand may lie and manipulate he mostly goes with the flow otherwise why let louis die? Why then go with louis after everything?

The showrunners have said that they don't consider armand to be the villain behind everything and have backed themselves into a corner with that. Book lovers of armand loved him because he was good at being the villain who wanted to be loved no matter what atrocities he committed ( with the choices the show made this now seems to apply more to lestat which is a far cry from book lestat).

There are things that fans speculated for months on, like the torn pages, which were never picked up.

Same way there was a lot of talk on revisiting murder night and lestats words being different and claudia and louis burning lestat but in the trial the murder night was never contradicted from lestat or claudias diaries.

I think rolin and the writers enjoy the campiness and drama too much and the books moral dilemmas and overall sense of gravitas does not interest them as much and the characters tend to suffer for it.

Apologies for the rant but I'm currently re-reading iwtv and tvl and the nonsensical changes have bothered me again 😅

I think we are both far from done with the trial, and the missing pages.

We are far from done with Armand's motivations - or Lestat's.

This show is a puzzle. And I don't think the writers care too much if we find it hard to find the pieces.

And they sometimes make those pieces hard to find, too. I shared a trial script analysis just earlier - there is a page, an important page, that can only be seen in blend-over, almost hidden by Louis' hand. The assholes (affectionate^^).

Armand isn't the villain either in the last books, though he of course is in the first ones. But this show doesn't do black and white, and I don't think the books do either, not really.

This show doesn't like to give answers, it asks questions, and hides the answers within the shifts of the narrative.

Personally I love that, even though I would have preferred a bit more clarity after season 2, as said before. Still.

I think we're far from done.

[atamascolily]

some thoughts about the Clara Dolls

A year ago, I posted a very long essay about Homulilly and her familiars which was inspired by all of the questions I had about the Clara Dolls (specifically, why there are so many of them). While I feel like I have a decent grasp of their canonical attributes--at least as they have been revealed thus far--there's one area that still puzzles me, and which by definition, doesn't have an easy or authoritative answer.

Over my time in fandom, I've noticed that many people have a radically different interpretation of the Clara Dolls than I do--that they pay far more attention to them as individuals than you might expect for minor background characters that are never directly named in their source material, especially given their limited screen time. Which naturally begs the question: what is it, exactly, about the Clara Dolls that appeals to people so much, more so than any of Homulilly's other familiars?

Here is my guess: the Clara Dolls are compelling precisely because they are so individually detailed. Unlike the interchangeable masses of Lieses (birds), Lottes (soldiers), Lilias (teeth), Lisas (airships), all of which are variations on the name "Elizabeth", each Clara Doll has its own name and costume. While they are all still clearly variations on the same theme, both in terms of their doll-like bodies and the "sins" they represent, each of them is unique in a way that the other familiars aren't, and the supplementary material released with Rebellion goes into great length about their different personalities.

Most media follows what TV Tropes The Law of Conservation of Detail, meaning that there is a tendency for any given details to be relevant; unlike real life, superficial and unrelated details are omitted for narrative convenience. Thus, I think it's only natural that people would look at the individualized Clara Dolls and assume that they must be important, or else why would the creators go to so much trouble to distinguish them from each other?

To be honest, though, I'm not sure the Law of Conservation of Detail applies to Rebellion, at least not in its entirety. Rebellion's defining visual characteristic is its copious attention to details, many of which are barely visible or discernible outside of freeze-frame. Rebellion is a kind of fever dream, dominated by excesses and so packed that I've spent years untangling the meaning in each still frame, and barely made a dent in it.

It's not that these details aren't important. Far from it--they greatly add to my enjoyment of the film and my interpretation of Homura's character. And while I enjoy unpacking the symbolism, I'd argue that the film's meaning does not depend on any one in particular--that they support what is already there. They are icing on a particularly complex and elaborate layer cake, but it's possible to enjoy a hefty slice without ever digging into them.

And I think the Clara Dolls fall into this "decorative" category, in the sense that plenty of casual viewers watch Rebellion without ever realizing that there is more going on with them than is apparent on the surface--to the point where you could remove their scenes entirely, and the general plot would progress more or less without a hitch (and casual viewers or first-time viewers might not even notice their absence!) They are excellent, but I'm not sure I would call them essential.

Narratively speaking, the Clara Dolls are a mass, a mob, a chorus. Unusually for such a group, they are also visually distinct from one another. Hence the disjunct, I think. This is true for a lot of things in Madoka Magica as a whole, and can be best summed up as the difference between Gen Urobuchi's script and Inu Curry's vision of it, but that's a whole 'nother essay in and of itself, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Inu Curry very clearly loves and cares about the Clara Dolls or else they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of creating them--but that's different from how the Clara Dolls appear in the final product, which is a composite of multiple peoples' work and effort and all the competing priorities that go along with that. What works for a worldbuilding draft or a still image doesn't necessarily work for a finished film, and while I enjoy the Rebellion Production Note and other supplementary materials immensely, I will always treat the finished film as the primary canon, which supersedes all else.

Thus, I find it hard to get excited about the Clara Dolls as distinct individuals or to believe they will play a larger role in future installments. It's not that they couldn't, it's just different from the role that they were playing before in Rebellion, which seems like a dramatic shift to me--especially if we're talking adding 14 distinctive characters into a 2-3 hour movie! The question I ask myself is, "what would be gained, narratively speaking, by doing so?" and I keep coming up blank. Maybe Walpurgis no Kaiten will surprise me by providing an answer, but I doubt it.

This is not to suggest that people who see the Clara Dolls as individual characters or who want to see them with an expanded role are doing something wrong, by the way. I think it's fine if other people want to flesh them out in fan creations--that's the whole point of fanworks!--just that this particular aspect doesn't appeal to me personally, and I don't think it will ever be of major canonical important. You do you.

It probably doesn't help that I don't have a very sympathetic view of the Clara Dolls in general--there are strong hints that Homura was horribly bullied as a child and that the Clara Dolls are simultaneously the dolls she played with as a substitute for friends and the bullies who tormented her. They don't seem to have any respect for "God" ("Gott is Tott!" and the thrown fruit at the Madokami stele) or their erstwhile master (they mock Homulilly on her way to her execution and cry crocodile tears; they throw more fruit at devil!Homura at the end of the movie). Homura can command them, but it's not clear to me that they will obey; they are wild cards more than anything else. The Clara Dolls are only interesting to me inasmuch as what they reveal about Homura herself, not as characters in their own right.

For what it's worth, I have the exact same reaction to Hitomi: I've seen a lot of people get very excited about the idea of Hitomi becoming a magical girl, to which my reaction has always been a blank stare and a ".... and what would that accomplish, exactly?" Hitomi's narrative role is to be the Ordinary Friend who gets drawn into the protagonists' problems, the perpetual victim who must be rescued from the monsters again and again. Hitomi is defined by her normality; removing it would completely change the character and derail the story as it stands.

Would that divergence be an interesting story? Sure. But that doesn't seem to be the story Madoka Magica is interested in telling. You can sense that in Gen Urobuchi's most-likely-unserious answer to the question of what Hitomi would wish for: "for Kyubey to disappear immediately". Kyubey is the messenger of magic, his narrative role is to guide Madoka and her friends into their roles as magical girls; for Hitomi to reject him as her wish sends a pretty strong message. But it's a moot point, because it will probably never happen--as soon as Hitomi became a magical girl, her role would have to be filled by someone else, and she wouldn't necessarily add anything else to the existing team. (Again, not to say that she couldn't, but that it would be a very different story if she did.) Madoka Magica is centered around a core cast of five magical girls, with Nagisa Momoe already serving as an impromptu Sixth Ranger in Rebellion--what else is there for Hitomi to do?

As I mentioned earlier, I think many, if not all of the disjuncts between various fan interpretations hinge on the difference between Gen Urobuchi's script and Inu Curry's interpretation of it. AFAIK, the Clara Dolls as distinct individuals only exist in the latter, but it's an open question for me how much Walpurgis no Kaiten's script will build on the visual elements in Rebellion versus ignoring them or going in a different direction. So much of the movie ultimately hinges on this question, and I think the role of the Clara Dolls is definitely one of them.

Given that Walpurgis no Kaiten appears to be focused on mirrors and reflections, with at least two different Homuras running around, I think it's natural to wonder if the Clara Dolls are involved in all of this in some capacity. That said, they're not the first thing that leaps to my mind in all of this, and I find the divergence between my assumptions and that of other fans absolutely fascinating. Can't wait to find out what is actually going on when the film is released!

[rudnitskaia]

Im desperately withholding the urge to ask like 13 questions for romauncebut ive narrowed it down to 3, 6, 18 and 19

Hey-hey, Edd! ✨

Thank you for your wonderful ask again! I'm very grateful for the inspiration and the opportunity you gave me to reveal more of the RoMaunce story. 💖

I decided to write and post the ficlets for the remaining part of your ask all at once. I remember you wanted a drawing for № 18, and I will certainly do it in the end of May / beginning of June (only from Rocky's perspective and containing that bonus part of the question), but now I want to cover it at least with a short story. :3

So, here they are, the ficlets for questions № 3, № 6 and № 18 from that list in the chronological (for the characters) order.

№ 18 - Who leaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does it usually say?)

A Real Unicorn

“Oh, Rocky, what a—” Ivy stopped short when she noticed that the pieces of paper she had picked up from the floor beneath the table where Calvin and Rocky had been sitting just a moment ago weren't trash, but… notes.

A pile of small, tightly crumpled notebook sheets, all neatly handwritten in pencil. It was unlikely that anyone had ever given Rocky an assignment on paper, and Calvin also had no reason to write so often to the cousin whom he saw every day. Maybe Rocky wrote down poetry that way? Though it would have been a bit of a stretch to assume that he was that meticulous. Ivy stroked the sheets with her fingers. Were they really valuable, since Rocky kept them with him, or did he just put them in his pocket and then forget to throw them away? It wasn't that important, actually. It was better to just return the loss… but curiosity eventually got the better of Ivy.

Forgetting about the plates and cups, she began to read the lines, puzzled to find a strange list of orders from the cafeteria. Pizzas, pastas, salads, coffee… no, Ivy didn't see anything surprising in the fact that Rocky might have dined somewhere else besides Little Daisy, but why did he keep the notes that the waitresses usually made for the kitchen?

She wondered about that until she accidentally turned over one of the sheets.

What she saw was hard to comprehend. With each new word, Ivy's gaze grew more excited. Her heart beat more frequently. Her eyebrows arched in surprise.

She didn't stop until she had read them all, from beginning to end, but even then she couldn't believe it. Ivy sat back in the chair and stared at the wall.

What was more likely? That Rocky had completely lost his mind and over and over again was writing himself tender endearments and, for some reason, wishes of bon appétit, in the same thin handwriting that listed the orders on the back side of the sheets, or that he had a… no, it couldn't be. It seemed ridiculous to even try to imagine.

After all, if somewhere in the world there existed a woman who willingly writes such words to Rocky Rickaby, then somewhere in St. Louis might as well live a real unicorn.

№ 3 - Most common argument?

The Chains That Are Too Short

“Someday I'll steal you away for more than a couple hours, and then we'll get really entertained,” Rocky chuckled, helping Mau roll up the blanket. Another night under the stars in St. Louis was coming to an end.

“Really? Are you planning something for a whole three hours?” quipped Maura at him.

“I was rather hoping for something between fifty years and forever,” Rocky shrugged, picking up his violin case. “And then it is as it goes. You know, all that happily ever after, but… livelier. With a bit of sparks here and there.”

“Hmm. So, you’re going to take me, like a princess, away on a white horse to your sugar castle in the kingdom beyond the clouds, and we'll live in love and harmony, become exemplary neighbors, start paying our taxes, have a bunch of obnoxious kids and die the same day.”

“Why not?” Rocky seemed not to notice her sarcasm. “Yes, the script is old-fashioned, but it's proven by both time and folklore. It's almost a guide to action, if you know how to apply folk wisdom properly. And if we dig deeper into the poetry of feudal Europe, we can probably find a couple or three good tips even about paying taxes.”

“Maybe so, but unfortunately, happy fairytales are now left only as an exception and only on the stages of theaters. And you and I don't have enough for a single ticket even together,” Mau started to walk toward the fire escape, but Rocky caught up with her and took her by the arm. Her words, or rather what was clearly between the lines, made his heart feel totally uneasy.

“Mau… I can get some money. I…”

“It's not about money, Roark,” she sighed. “Or rather, it's not just about them. You know it well already…” she took only a step before Rocky stopped her again.

“Come with me,” he blurted out anxiously.

“Where to?”

“In general! Now! We could live together…”

“You sleep in a car. Which isn't even yours.”

“If I rearrange a few things, we both could fit in there. And I could give the cactus to Freckle…”

“Roark…”

“And… and! And I could also ask Miss M. about a job for you. Sooner or later things will get better at Lackadaisy, and… what if we could rent a room together?”

“That's the very problem. I can't be seen anywhere in criminal circles. My father and I are being chased, and rumors will definitely spread if I show up in the underground, and then… then my father and I will have to run away again, and if anyone finds out that you and I are together… Dio mio, don't you realize they'll kill you?”

Rocky quietly groaned and started pacing back and forth. He was almost shaking from nerves. Mau, meanwhile, continued, oblivious to the need to speak in a low voice:

“These thugs are not going to stop at anything to get us. It's bad enough that you're at odds with the locals, so I pray every night that you'll at least stay alive after your ventures, and I don't want to bring the New York Mafia down on you too! This is madness, Roark! I told you many times, I can't be seen with you while you're in the bootlegging business. Maybe we could rent a shabby little room somewhere if you were just a musician, but you ain't, and you ain't going to be!”

In despair, Rocky flailed his arms.

“But I can't! I can't leave Miss M.! I can't—”

“I know,” Mau interrupted him. “And I'm not asking you to. But you can't tease me with a bright future either… It's too much even for me. We're alive, and we have each other, here and now, and that's more than I could ever hope for. Please, just be with me while it's possible…”

Rocky still couldn't calm down. He was breathing erratically, heavily… when Mau stepped closer to him and gently embraced him, he pulled her against him so tightly that she involuntarily sighed. He was sickened by how right she was. His entire being was rebelling against that rightness, wanting to burn that truth to the ground and recreate his own, happy truth from the ashes, whatever risks it took. The seconds lingered… Rocky didn't unclench his hands. Anything to keep Mau in his arms now… anything to avoid going back into the night alone.

But the chains bound to them were too short to allow them to reach the morning.

Interesting fact: The question № 3 was the hardest for me to explore, because for me Rocky and Mau are not the couple that has many constant, repetitive topics to argue about. At first I thought to write about Rocky ignoring his health issues, because that definitely would've got Maura's nerves, but that topic becomes a 'constant argument' only in the distant future from the Lackadaisy current timeline. But finally, I found the topic that is definitely difficult for them both and may cause repetitive uneasy discussions. I hope it covered the question.

№ 6 - What is their favorite feature of their partner’s?

The Serenity in You

The Epigraph: When stars drown in the night and the storm fills your mind, it's important to find the safe haven to hide…

The summer heat in the car was becoming unbearable. Rocky felt as if he was drowning in the dense air, almost as much as in his own thoughts. Whenever he was able to doze off, fears and memories began to flood his mind, to crash over him in suffocating waves. Carefully, so as not to wake her, Rocky found Maura's hand, gently intertwining their fingers together. Even back then, when he hadn't had the courage to tell her about his feelings, she had taken his hand in hers so often that it had become almost a sacred act for Rocky. She didn't even seem to realize how every time they were sitting or standing in front of each other she began to stroke the back of his hand… and how much peace, serenity even, that gentle touch brought him.

Suddenly he heard a whisper:

“What are you thinking about?”

Rocky slightly shivered from tension. What he was thinking about… he wished he didn't know himself. Keeping his eyes shut, he mumbled:

“Ah, it's nothing. You know, there's a pesky streetlight out there, and its reflection in the window keeps me awake…”

Mau was silent for a while, and only turned slightly on her side, resting her head on his chest.

“I love hearing your voice, Roark. Falling asleep listening to the tune you hum and the sound of your heartbeat. It's soothing… almost like the sound of the rain outside the window, only… much warmer. Dearer. But when your heart beats like this… like how it beats now… I want to know what makes it so heavy.”

Once again, the nightmares that had haunted him became clearer in his mind. He hesitated; he was uncomfortable with these ugly thoughts himself, and the last thing he wanted to do was to make Mau sink into them, too. But when she gently, yet confidently squeezed his hand in hers again, his doubts receded. She was here, right next to him. And as long as she touched his fingers with hers, they would not drown in this boundless sea. So finally, gently leaning his cheek against the top of Maura's head, Rocky began to speak.

[alan-william]

[✏️💣] - I would like to tell you about the type that is in my AU, yes there are types of Meme Keepers, but this is the current for me that I do not know for others :p

Okay let's get started.

Artificial.

-Create: This type is created in the presence of a dnc of an ordinary person and a Deceased Meme guardian, in which case it appears.

-Power: Unfortunately, this type does not have magic, but it can appear if it is held by a Guardian, in other cases it is like an ordinary person.

-Appearance: For the most part, they look pale and as if they haven't slept for 20 years, but they may look like he's cheerful on the contrary, as well as his veins, bags under his eyes, but that depends on what he's been through.

-Type: For the most part, they are closed and communicate with few people, they prefer to be at home than to go somewhere, they have a character if you don't lie like that..black and white, that is, one can be good, the other bad, the other half good, half bad, generally yin and yang.

Example:

William is like that, and therefore he is most often lazy, but sometimes he goes outside because Alan calls him.

Glitch.

-Create: In fact, even they don't know what horses are being created, the only thing they know they are creating is because of 2 reasons, there have been too many 4-stine breakdowns in the world, or everything went "not according to the script" and there they are glitching TV /computers, And so on.

-Power: Glitches can control equipment in the house, and many are also able to take a little magic from others if, for example, it runs out during a fight.

-Appearance: Many clubs look like people who have left society, but sometimes they look neat and know what to say.

and someone uses it.

-Type: There are glitches in EVERY au, you can't see the current in them, it's no wonder they shouldn't see the inhabitants but clean up the mistakes that the promises create, everyone has their own glitch, someone has a woman in a white whistle, someone has a gentleman, someone has a Silly boy, it all depends on au and what problems happened there.

All glitches also obey the Mr Puzzle, but there were exceptions.

Also glitches can't touch each other (hug hands) because otherwise they will get a hell of a pain.

Example:

At the moment I don't have a character that I can give you an example of.

Hyper.

-Create: This type is created from the DNA of one Meme guardians and another, the blood also depends on which guardians were.

-Power: The forces are the same as those of ordinary Meme guardians, the current is still a plus 2 random, it can be telekinesis-poison, electricity is a huge force, the list is large.

-Appearance: They are immediately visible by their hyperactivity, and the desire to do something, because it is visible by the symbols in their eyes that Sometimes appear at the sight of strong emotions.

-Type: He/She does not need a second Meme keeper, he is able to support himself and make energy balls out of memes, so they most often feel lonely, just along the way they may have 1 main emotion, for example Joy: so he will most often be very happy.

Example:

Alan is this type, and therefore he always wants to hug someone, and this is his main concern, and yes, he felt lonely, and therefore soon he deceived Puzzle and asked him to create a friend, and William appeared.

Blood:

Artificial - It's dark red, and yes, it's a lot darker than ordinary blood.

Glitch - Their blood is black, and I do not advise you to touch it, do you know the "Liquid Pain" backrooms? The effect is the same.

Hyper - As already mentioned, it depends on what kind of Meme guardian it was and what its primary color was.

Example: Smg3 - purple, Smg4 - blue. Result - Dark blue.

And plus add the color of ordinary blood, and here's the result.

[amaiguri]

So I've got a BIG project I've been working on since January this year. And it's about to come to fruition. But it's a secret! Don't tell anyone!

As of typing this, I went to the filming location to scout. It was much windier and more public than I expected, but I hope everything goes smoothly anyway. I trust my filmographer. But I don't trust my body to dance well still...

I also, worked with my Rules Adjudicator today. She is very clear on the Rules now and I think she's prepared to help my significant other win the game.

But I have so much more to do, ahhhh, I'm so nervous... I have to set up more of the Blades in the Dark session and get the potion puzzle in there somehow... I also have to script some more things. I also have to make sure all the other less-key participants and witnesses are chill...

Oh God, and I still haven't told my parents... but both my friends advised I tell them afterwards as I invite them to dinner to celebrate. I saw a Tiktok that was like "If your partner can't stand up to their parents, dump them." But I know there are still better and worse times to tell someone something. And I don't want to deal with their emotions and mine at the same time.

I'm a little nervous he might suddenly say "No". I felt so confident all of today, but what if he realizes he can't stand me suddenly? I know I've given him plenty of warning. I know he cares about me. But sometimes, you don't want to marry every person you care about. Sometimes, you shouldn't marry the people you care about, for the sake of your future children...

Sometimes, I think he isn't as in love with me as I'm in love with him. And I'm OK with this, of course, but I just want him to be happy.

So I hope he makes the best possible answer for us both.

[manonamora-if]

You have written so many IFs, and I have loved every one of them. How do you plan for them? Does your planning process change, or is it largely the same?

Aaaw shooks!

Honestly, it depends on the project itself.

If the game is for a silly jam or I get a wild idea, I'll end up winging it and just write/code right away. It works best for the small stuff (short week-long jams or with small word count).

If it's a longer piece, or a game meant for a competition/ranked jam, I'll usually plan, with different degree of planning. Sometimes I'll go down and write it all down to the details, other times it's just the big lines and quick mock-ups. The bigger the project, the more planning for them.

So when I do plan something, it often goes like this:

Get the idea (often starts with a silly title, or inspired by a theme)

Choose the type of game (choice/hyperlinks/parser/bitsy...)

Write down a preliminary outline of the story

Think about the formatting (i.e. letter, script, computer screen...)

If relevant: list points/variables/choices to track or map out the environment (esp for parser)

Go in a bit more details of the beats/scenes (narrative game) and the puzzles/interactivity (esp parsers)

If relevant: mock-up the interface

If parser: build the base code for the puzzle

Start writing

Proof reading the writing

Start coding

Test it and edit

The list is not really set in stone and I'll often go from one point to another, especially when it comes down to the writing/coding part (and I get bored of one or the other), or when I try to make a less narrative-focused game (involves more mechanic/code).

But usually, not a lot of planning. Big empty brain here.