#then it was like 2 rounds of PLA guys

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

i play miitopia because it's the closest ingo and emmet will ever get to the M&L rpgs

[styxwanderer]

The Wrong Fake Identity | Twisted Wonderland [pt.2]

part 1 <part 2> Part 3 Part4 part 5 part 6 part 7

˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙·̩̩̥͙＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊·̩̩̥͙˚*

The lot of you decided to eat around the garden instead, all of them exhausted from all the running, not you of course, you are safe and secure in Jack’s beefy arms and the cushion of his abs. Although the mental panic and bashing of yours had left you sleepy and mentally drained. 

“I thought they are going to give a chase! I have never ran so fast in my entire life!” The orange head said sprawled in the grass.

“I second that! Vil is definitely going to kill me!” The purple haired boy said, sprawled as well near your feet. 

“Worse, riddle is definitely going to collar us like a dog and make us sleep in the flamingo cage! Erkk! The thought of it makes me shiver!” Deuce followed.

“If— if me, the great grim have to run like that again, i think i will just give up!!”

“Leona is going to make me run laps….” Jack more composed, still holding you in his lap.

“All of us could take sanctuary in ignihyde dormitory you know! I’m sure brother will take us in happily.”

“You! I can see through your pla—“Grim shouted

“I… i…”

“I .. i can’t believe it … i betrayed waka-sama, 

I BETRAYEDD WAKA-SAMAAA ARGHHH… how could i even repay this!! I have betrayed him! I am the unworthiest pawn in existence, ARGHHH…. What is wrong with mee. I beg for your forgiveness!!!! Kuuuuhuuu… please forgive this stupid lowly crocodileeee~.”

Sebek is curled up, hand gripping his hair tightly, crying his heart out and start to degrade himself. 

“D-damn… not so loud!” Grim grumbled

“Hey.. uhm.. don’t cry.”  deuce unsure how to console the green hair guy, sitting up. 

“Uwah.. he turns out to be quite a crybaby..”

You slide out of jack’s lap and hold, much to his disappointment, and crouched down in front of Sebek.

Sebek looked up at you, cheek wet from his teary eyes and mouth quivering. 

“Whaat…?” He whimpered lowly. 

Your plan to smack his head to the ground for being loud and hurting your newly enhanced ears, vanished as your eyes dilate into a full round. Then your self control broke.

“WHA—WHAAAA.”

Followed by a numerous “AAAA!!!!”

The lot of them froze from shock at your uncharacteristic behavior.

You had licked his wet cheek and the tears that is falling in his face. In a moment the red wet face of his had become a raging red as he hold the part where you licked him. 

“HUMANN! WHA—-…..are you trying to console me?”

You had your ears covered when he shout, bow that he is talking. Your sleepy brain went on over-drive and went full cat. You went to nuzzle your head to the crook of the aligator’s neck. 

Blushing even more Sebek then hug your waist as he scoop you to his lap. “OH HOW KINDDD! ill accept this with the greatest honor!” 

The sun shining on you had made you even sleepier, so you don’t mind getting a cuddle from the aligator man. Plus his toned abs and muscle had made a great cushion for you to sleep on. 

“HEY!! THATS NO FAIRRR!!!” Epel now snapped out of his trance stood up and point at the both of you.

“ you cheating scoundrel! I also want to hold themm!!” He continued.

“Yes not fair at all!!! Why does the one doing a half assed job get it all?” Ortho followed 

“Yeahh! Why do you have to be the one holding them..” deuce asked.

“We also deserved a rewards for saving her you knoww!” Ace said

“It should’ve been me the great Grim that they hold and pamper not you guys, i am the original so shooo! Find someone else!” 

“C’mon guys.. we can take turn.” Truth be said, Jack is disappointed that it is not him that you fall asleep on, but he is trying hard to save his dignity and so he chose to act mature as begrudgingly that is.

You had gone far from reality and off to the dream world. 

The lot of them decide to spend rest of the lunch break eating their food while also passing you around.

“Heyy.. heyy .. y/n.. its time for class.”

“Hnn.. what time is it?” 

You had woken up in deuce lap. Enjoying the plush of his thighs as pillow. You slowly wake up. Then your instinct told you to lick him and so you did.

“AA.. AA.. what ..”

“Oh sorry.. i didn’t realized  what im doing” you yawn.

“No no its alright!! you could do more if you want.” He mumbled the last part so you couldn’t quite hear it. The tip of his ears are now red.

Deuce has determined, he will never wash his face again.

Thankfully no one saw that action or the whole group is going to go for a whole banter show again. 

Then it’s time to separate to different class much to epel’s, sebek’s, jack’s, and ortho’s disappointment. 

“Ah.. i wish you are in my class y/n” epel said

“I double that!”

“Hehe.. too badd so sadd..”

“They belong with us.”

“Whomp whomp.” 

The trio idiots jeered making epel and the rest, veins popped out in frustration.

“Just ya wait ya bastards!”

Surprisingly even jack is quite annoyed as he let out a low growl.

Ortho is planning some mischievous prank to follow the trio. 

Sebek is hiding his jealousy although it is very apparent on his face how annoyed it is. 

Adeuce and grim are sneering at them like they had win something. 

Sulking the rest of them go to their respective classes.

▼△▼△▼△▼△▼

Finally the last class has rolled. Adeuce and grim not reallg excited to have to share you with the other four, and the other four anticipating your presence. You better prepare to say goodbye to your privacy time.

“Oh we dont have enough mushroom for this potion. We need to get more of it.” groaned grim your lab partner.

“Ooo..! Dont worry ill take it!” 

“Really?!! Thanks a lot y/n”

“No problem!” You hopped off your seat and begun to make an exit.

Into the glasshouse you go. 

▼△▼△▼△▼△▼

“This campus is too big im getting tiredddd..”

You groaned as you open the glasshouse. You begun to make your way to the garden-shed. 

A hand suddenly grip your ankle making to fall.. into a soft cushion?

Your hissing starts to quiet down as you slowly processing who just grab you.

Before you know it you are hold captive in the embrace of the great lazy lion. 

“Ohh.. look who is here, herbivore.” 

“Leona, you scared me.”

He chuckled in response. 

“Please let me go now.” You try to wiggle out.

“Why would i do that.”

“I need to go back to class before professor crewel kills me.”

“Hahaha, don’t worry you are safe within my arm.”

“But—“ 

Before u could continue your word Leona had rubbed the spot just behind your ears shutting you up. 

All of that human instinct thrown out the window.

Revert bacc to cats

You nudge your head toward his hand as you purr. 

“You like that don’t you.” he chuckled. 

He removed his hand away from that spot, craving for more you nudge your head to the crook of his neck.

“What should i do with you. Demanding a royalty to scratch your ears tsk tsk..”

“You better stick around with me you hear, after all who can protect you better if not me.” 

He lazily said

Leona’s sleepiness begun to affect you as you begun to feel comfortable in his hold. You decide the lion hair is messy you give it a lick.

“…”

“Ohhhh… sorry... i dont know why i did that…” you snapped

Leona held the back of your head and place your head to his chest. 

“Moving on too quickly on the relationship, are we? What an impatient and impudent herbivore of mine. I should teach you properly. but for now, let’s sleep”

Yawning He placed his arms and legs caged you and his tail intertwining with your new ones. He doubted anybody would disturb the sleeping lion, but this is you he is talking about. Everybody would do anything for you. Not taking any risk he draped over a tarp to cover the both of you, learning from experience that they are a good disguise material.

After all, the hunting game would start at the end of class, it will be an easy win for him, plus nobody could blame him or call him cheating, since technically you fall down to his arm and got caged. And on the extra side he wanted to see malleus dread angry face as he saw the both of you with burning jealousy.

▼△▼△▼△▼△▼

Meanwhile in class,

“Hey grim where is y/n?” Ace approach the doodling werebeast. 

“Oh they went to get more mushroom for the project. “ 

“Since when?” Deuce continued

“Around.. an hour ago..?” 

“GRIMM!!!” The both of them exclaimed

“Whatt.. i got distracted!!”

“The class is almost over noww!”

“And they are still not here!!”

“Ehem.. little pups, why are you making a fuzz over here?”

“Eeek!!!!” Trio idiots turn around finding crewel with the whipping. 

“One.. two.. three…, where is the other pup, or should i say kitten now?” 

“Uhmm you see proff, we ran out of mushroom.” Grim swallowed his saliva

“So they left to get some..” ace half mumbled.

A large heavy sigh escaped his mouth as he hold firm of his whipping stick.

“And they haven’t returned yet is that it?” The man tone getting lower.

“Eeek!! YES SIRE!” The three of them shrieked. 

“what am i to do with you, tch i know i should’ve prioritize that adoption paper sooner.” he whispered half of the part. 

“Well you better find them sooner— “

The bell has rung and in the same exact time the door flung open to reveal Epel, Jack, Ortho, and Sebek. 

“WHERE IS Y/N ?!!” Jack barged

“Geez you can’t wait can you.” Ace groaned.

“This is importantt!!” Ortho interjects

“It’s not thatt!! Its just—.” Epel word was cut off.

“THESE PUNY HUMANS ARE MAKING A HUNTING GAME OUT OF THEM!!” Sebek shouted. 

That is it, that is the breaking point for crewel. Fuck that bird brain crow, he is going to shave him bald. And for his naughty puppy, well lets just say disciplines awaits. 

“Is that so.” Slapping his whip to his hand creating a loud sound. 

“Oh goddd look he is emitting black aura! “ Ace shooks

“We are in trouble!!” Grim stammered.

There is a collective gulp throughout the classroom. 

“Well then what are you doing? FIND THEM!” 

“Yes, sire, yes!” The lot of them immediately jumped out of the door to find you. 

Soon news that you had gone missing spread throughout NRC.

Meanwhile in Heartslabyul,

“Where could they be? I hope those insolent fools haven’t broken any rules and trapped you!”Riddle hoped before he gave orders to his soldiers ,including ace and deuce, to find you. 

Riddle had thought that it is better for you in the care of heartslabyul since both he and trey have experience dealing with a cat beastman, hecc they can even invite Che’nya to help you adjust into your life as a new cat beastman, he just hoped che’nya won’t teach you anything wierd or questionable. 

Meanwhile in Octanaville,

“ oh my what a turn of event! My angel-cat fish is missing, i shall be the one to find her first. Jade, Floyd, our perfect plan can wait, for now its time to search them.” 

“Yes Azul.”

“Yes Azul~”

Meanwhile in Scarabia,

“Eh?!! They are missing?!! I hope they just got lost in the campus! Oh how scared must they be if they’re under the hands of one of the students.”

“Not now Kalim, we need to focus on finding them.”

Meanwhile in Pomefiore,

“Rook, did you manage to target the spell onto them?”

“ Non, I’m embarrassed to say but since they were covered by jacket belonging to jack howl I am unable to track them down.”

“Tch. where can they be… Rook change of strategy, it’s time for a different kind of hunt.

“Oui, Roi du Poisson, let your wisdom guide us through.

Vil shudders on the thought that any other dorm leader had gotten his hand on you, and most certainly he hoped it is not Leona. What a lazy lion could do to affect your beauty potential, keeps him up at night. 

Meanwhile in Ignihyde,

“ what ortho, y/n is missing, and just before the hunt. My luck could never be better.” Idia moaned. 

“I’m sorry brother.” The robotic voice of ortho can be heard through his tablet.

“Thats alright, you’ve done well. Now if you could scan all the campus and i will access all camera.”

“It will take about 30 min with the school slow internet.”

“Its good enough. Now leave it to you brother. Its going to be an eazy Peezy catch. LAWL.”

“Heheheh, of course brother!”

Meanwhile in Diasomnia, 

Once the news had reached the ears of Malleus Draconia, a loud thunder light had blasted through. 

“ calm down Malleus, it’s not like the hunt is over yet.” He chuckled.

“ you’re right lilia. I need to make haste to find them. Silver, come with me lets us play this game of hunt.”

“Yes, Malleus.” Silver anticipatingly answered. 

“Khufufufufu, they can hide all they want but it will be an easy game for us” 

Meanwhile in Savannaclaw,

“Ohhh? Y/n is missing? Shishishi…Leona might’ve captured his prey on record time afterall. Oh well, less work for me and I get the spoil too, Yeahh! Lucky!” Ruggie chuckled as he can’t seem to find Leona as well. 

[words 2318]

>> to be continued<<

.·:*¨༺ ❈ ༻¨*:·.

taglist: @agaygothicmushroom @feverish-dove

[darling-i-read-it]

Protection

Dalton Lambert x fem!reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: the frat party, a guy being really creepy about flirting and mentions of roofies, descriptions of vomit (briefly), spoilers for insidious 

Author’s Note: I started and restarted this a bunch of times but couldn’t figure out a way to do it that I really liked. I hope this is okay for right now, I appreciate you guys giving me your ideas! Requested: by anon, Heya I love your Dalton Lambert fics brw Had 2 ideas and was wondering if 1. you could write a headcanon/oneshot for Dalton Lambert x Reader where she's all shy/timid when they first meet and then the whole floating away and demon attack thing happens and he wants to protect the reader and from there, their relationship escalates? 2. Smut/Slightly suggested hc for Dalton Lambert x Reader or a relationship HC for them pla You don't have to write both but just had some ideas Requested: by anon, Ello!!! Can you do a fic for Dalton Lambert x Reader where Dalton is kinda like protective if the reader please? The reader is probably round the same age if not a couple years younger and is shy and all but does warm up to him eventually I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director/creator (not my gif)

Dalton’s eyes followed you as he gazed from behind his hair. He had seen you around the building, specifically the floor he was living on. There was a living room area that no one ever actually used at the end of the hall and he had run into you there once or twice, usually in passing. He didn’t realize you had a class together until the second week of class, when he saw your face attentively listening in the back of the classroom. Your lips were pursed with concentration but were so focused on the teacher he didn't think you could see anything else. That’s why he felt so comfortable starring; he truly believed you had no idea. 

The class droned on. It was a gen ed requirement that he would google the answers to. He could sit with his sketchbook open and lightly brushing his pencil over the paper. He didn’t realize he was drawing you until he looked down. He was then made consciously aware of how he saw you. Poised, shy, timid, pretty. 

“Miss Y/L/N,” the professor said, breaking you out of your perfectly sculpted listening gaze. Your eyes went wide with what Dalton assumed was fear. “Do you know the answer?” He looked back up at the board. Some slideshow with a lot of numbers, none that made any sense to him. When had he stopped taking notes? 

You looked down at your own notes. You knew the answer but for some reason it was stuck in your throat. You cleared it, attempting to force the word out of your mouth. You had to look away before you could answer. 

“237,” you offered, voice quiet. 

The professor’s gaze was predatory. Dalton didn’t like the way he was gazing at you, like you were something to be conquered, someone to be broken down. He had never enjoyed the teachers who leached into clearly shy students. The professor nodded, moving along, giving you neither a praise or a follow up question. Your face was now glued down. He had clearly startled you out of your shell. 

When class ended, Dalton got up first. He didn't have as much to put away because he wasn’t actually paying attention. He weaved against the flow of traffic to the back of the room where you were carefully placing your things back into your bag. 

“Don’t worry about him,” he said, without thinking. He should’ve thought twice about letting you know he was watching you but the words had already escaped his mouth. “He’s a dick.” You looked up at Dalton, eyes pretty and doe like. You cleared your throat, another instance of forcing yourself to speak when no words were coming out. 

You nodded instead. 

“You live in the same building as me right? Miller Hall?” You nodded again, this time a sound coming with it. 

“Yeah. Dalton right?” Your voice was still quiet but he smiled at the reassurance that he was also noticed. 

“Yeah. Y/N?” You nodded back at him. You stood up from your chair, putting your bag over your shoulder. “Are you going back there? I don’t mean to ask in a creepy way, swear.” He chuckled nervously. “I was just heading back and was wondering if you wanted some company.” Suddenly he was the shy one. He felt like cowering under your gaze, revoking his invitation and running out the door. He tried to remember what his mom had said about making friends. All he had right now was Chris and she had other friends. He needed to branch out. Branching out could help him with his sleep issues. 

“Sure,” you said finally, voice surprisingly pleasant. “This is my last class today.” He smiled, all teeth and gums, while he moved out of the way so you could go first. 

“Me too. I took way too many early classes.” 

“Same,” you said. You walked out the door and he followed quickly behind to keep in pace with you. It was a nice fall day, leaves falling down and gathering in the grass. Weeds were overgrown, no one was lingering out in the cold. The walk back would be uneventful but peaceful. “How do you like the building?” 

“It’s fine. We live too high up for my taste.” 

“And the elevators are always broken,” you said. 

“Yes! That should be illegal when there are so many floors.” The comradery broke some tension between the two of you. Your smile lost some tension. 

“Do you have a roommate?” you questioned. 

“I did but not anymore. Her name’s Chris so we got mixed up on the gender assignments,” he explained. “You?” 

“Not currently, no. I was lucky and didn’t have anyone to start with.” You held your bag close to your side. Dalton weaved through the cobblestone walkway that had quickly become familiar to him. “The building settles a lot at night. It can get spooky by myself.” 

“I hear that,” he muttered. “I still have a nightlight.” He wasn’t sure why he had admitted that you didn’t give him any crazed reaction. 

“It can get dark,” you admitted. Your lack of judgment made him feel a little bit safer as the walk continued. He wondered how many doors down you were. He wondered if maybe you would be up for a sleepover later in your friendship, just so that neither of you get scared anymore. His mind wandered and he didn’t reel any thoughts back in as you asked him about his art. 

-

Dalton enjoyed hanging out with you. He hadn’t known a person to sit quietly with him while he worked and you worked and you both just enjoyed having someone else there. You would walk down to his room, bare feet padded on the hardwood floor, and knock on his door, with your textbooks tucked under your arm.

You got the spare bed while he sketched, playing some music quietly from his music. This is how you would spend time together. Talking when necessary but never feeling pressured to. It was easy to get lost in silence when Dalton got zoned into his work. 

Chris opened the door without knocking.

“We should go to the frat party tonight,” she announced instead of saying hello. You and Dalton looked up. You even jumped at the sudden change of atmosphere. You were nose deep in work. You had met Chris in passing and knew she was friends with Dalton. She had always been kind to you, if not a little invasive. You didn’t mind here though. 

“All of us?” you asked, voice quiet. 

“I think you need to get out of your shell. Both of you. You’re so preoccupied with things going on in your brain it seems like I can never get you to hang out like normal people.” Dalton shared a wary glance with you. 

“I don’t know Chris,” he said. 

“I do.” She took a step forward. “What’s the worst that could happen? You get drunk and have to come home? It’s boring and we leave early?” 

“Frat parties have never exactly been safe for girls,” you told her, caution laced in your voice. 

“I’ll be there,” Chris said. 

“So will I,” Dalton said, with more umph. You met his gaze. There was a glaze of protection over his eyes that made you feel better about going. It also left you with a small warm pit in your stomach, something akin to appreciation or adoration. You gave him a warm smile. 

“I don’t know guys,” you said. 

“C’mon. You have gotta get out eventually. Why not sooner rather than later?” 

Dalton gave you a look again. He was asking you with his eyes if you were okay with it. After spending some time together in silence, you had gotten used to reading each other's expressions. You shrugged. He narrowed his eyes. You opened yours wider, shaking your head in disinterest. 

“Okay no more Jedi mind talk,” Chris said. “Yes or no?” 

“We’ll go,” you said. Dalton tried to hide his surprise. 

“Sounds like we’re going then.”

-

The frat party was loud. It was so loud that you could barely hear yourself think over the people screaming at each other, stumbling over the furniture and spilling drinks onto the ground. It was slippery and unwelcoming. It was nothing you had ever actually experienced before. You tried so hard to keep yourself out of these situations so you didn’t have to be uncomfortable for an extended period of time. 

You found yourself standing closer to Dalton, as close as you had ever actually been to him. There is something special about being stuck in an unwelcoming space and becoming even closer with people you wouldn’t have otherwise been so close with. Chris pushed forward. 

You found a mostly empty doorway and gathered like you were going to make a game plan or something. 

“Let’s be nosy upstairs,” Chris said. You immediately cramped up with the thought of someone walking in on you being in their space. “We’re already here. Why not? You wanna stay down here?” Chris questioned. You could tell she was trying to be helpful. You really liked her and appreciated her excitement but was already way too far out of your comfort zone. 

“You can go. I can go find some crackers or something,” you said to Dalton. He raised his eyebrows, shaking his head. 

“I can stay with you.”

“No, no. There could be something up there that’s fun. Bring me down a present.” He shared a glance with Chris. 

“See? She’s giving you permission Dalton, let’s go.” You rolled your eyes playfully and shoved him forward a little. He looked back between the two of you but Chris was already grabbing his arm. “She’ll keep her phone on.” She dragged him by the arm upstairs. 

You turned back to the crowd. There were a few people there you recognized from class but no one you were friends with. You cleared your throat and straightened your back. You could do this. You could be a college student who goes and gets a shitty drink and lurks in the background. 

The kitchen was less packed, which you were grateful for. There were straggled, circling the kitchen island. There was a bunch of finger food that you didn’t exactly trust. You found a punch bowl, which you didn’t trust either, but grabbed a solo cup anyway. You tried to slink back, not make too much attention as you waited for Chris and Dalton to come back down. 

You walked back towards the main room where the music was being played. You bumped into others who paid you no mind. The dance floor was the best for people to watch. There were girls there with pretty makeup and interesting outfit choices. They danced, eyes closed, smiling with each other as they drank. The boys watched as well, eyes traveling further down than yours were. 

“Hey.” You turned around, not noticing at first that someone was talking to you. “You’re in my 201 math class right?” 

A boy you didn’t recognize was leaning against the wall beside you. You furrowed your eyebrows, trying to place his face. He had a dirty expression on his face that you didn’t like. He was taller than you, looking down and it felt like you were cowering. You shook your head. 

“I don’t think so.” 

“No, I think you are. With Straus?” Maybe you just didn’t pay enough attention to your fellow students in that class. You grabbed the solo cup tighter, holding it to your chest. You thought of all the stories of boys slipping things in girls drinks while they’re unaware. The haunting thought lingered. You suddenly wished Dalton was around and then was startled with how deep your connection with him was. You hadn’t known each other long but you supposed it was just something about living with no real friends in a new environment. 

“It’s a big class,” you lied. He gave an exaggerated nod. 

“Yeah tots.” He moved closer to you. You took a step back and hit the wall. You glanced up to the stairs, unable to find a familiar face. 

Upstairs, Dalton was laying underneath the bed of Nick the Dick. He could see the bathroom through his eyeline, the feet of a boy that should not be there. The puke pooled on the ground, next to his weathered shoes. Nick was standing at the mirror, saying something stupid that Dalton wasn’t listening to. His breathing was weathered. He looked at the door, wishing Chris to come save him, wishing he had brought you upstairs. 

What is that? 

What is that? 

Nick opened the door and left. He crawled out from underneath the bed feverishly and looked up, just to be met with the boy's face again. This time he puked all over Dalton whose eyes shut in surprise and disgust. He scrunched his hands together, trying to throw aside the vision. 

The door opened. Chris emerged. 

“Dalton?” He looked over at him. “Dalton? Are you okay?” He looked back up. Nothing. Nothing. He took a deep breath, eyes still wide and crazed. He got up. Chris was still talking but he pushed past her, mumbling something about how they needed to leave. He barreled down the stairs, pushing past someone as he went. 

He looked across the room. He was still reeling from whatever happened in the bathroom. All the faces looked like a blur. He searched for something familiar, needing to find the face he was looking for. 

Finally he eyes set on you. You were in the corner of the room, being boxed in by some guy he didn’t recognize. The man had an arm over your head, leaning in real close. He could see your face from behind him. 

Dalton pushed forward. He put his hand on the man's arm. You were immediately relieved to see him, even though all the color had drained from his face. 

“What’s going on?” Dalton asked.

“Nothing man.” He noticed the firm grip you had on the top of your drink. This man’s words were not slurred. He was sober and Dalton decided he was dangerous. 

“Is he bothering you?” Dalton asked, eyes going back to you. You didn’t say anything. Your voice remained dead in your throat. If you couldn't talk in the best of times, you couldn’t talk now. 

“Everythings fine,” the guy promised. 

“Let’s go,” Dalton said. He still had cold sweats running down his face. 

“Woah. We were having a conversation here.” Dalton met the guy's face. He didn’t recognize him and he knew his thought process wasn’t sound. He punched the guy anyway. 

You gasped, taking a step back. The guy stumbled back but Dalton had already grabbed your arm and pulled you back into the crowd. It was too loud and no one noticed that there was now some annoyed man trying to follow you through the party. Chris was at the front door waiting. You met her eyes. 

“What happened?” she asked, trying to keep up with Dalton’s fast paced walk. 

“Some guy was scaring her.” 

“Huh?” 

“He was being a lot,” you promised. Even as you walked back towards your building, Dalton’s iron grip was on your arm. 

“What happened before that?” Chris asked. Her voice was stern. 

“What?” you asked. 

“Don’t worry about it right now. Let’s just get back.” You glanced back at the now fading party. You couldn’t see the guy anymore. Dalton had a hard look on his face that you had never seen before. 

“We actually do need to talk about that,” Chris said. “Something happened in there.” 

“We don’t need to get into that,” he promised. He stopped in the middle of the courtyard. You glanced around the dark night. Campus was mostly silent. You saw the security cart go around the corner. 

“You punched someone!” Chris said. 

“He was bothering her!” he said. 

“But what happened to you up there!” You looked between the two of them. He took a deep breath. 

“I saw someone in the bathroom that wasn’t there. I’m having sleep issues.”

“Were you sleeping?” you asked, genuinely concerned. He shook his head. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. He turned his body toward you completely. You nodded. You wouldn’t tell if you actually were. You felt invaded and uncomfortable. The feeling lingered around like that man was hiding behind you. 

“I’m okay.” He grabbed your hand. 

“Are you sure?” You nodded. Chris looked between the two of you. 

“Positive,” you promised. “Are you okay?” He wasn’t but he didn’t say it. He knew that you and Chris would hound him and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He didn't know what he felt about anything right now. 

He nodded. 

Chris rolled her eyes. 

“Are you gonna buy that?” 

“For right now, yeah,” you said. Dalton gave you apologetic eyes. You held his hand, comfortable with it there. Chris took a deep breath. 

“Alright fine. Are you gonna be okay tonight?” He nodded, looking back at her. She nodded slowly and turned to the building. It wasn’t far now. “Maybe we all just need to go to sleep. They spiked the punch or something.” He didn’t want to mention he had nothing to drink so he stayed silent. She gestured for you two to follow her. 

Your hand remained in Dalton’s. He was holding onto it for dear life as his mind reeled. He had the sudden urge to talk to his mom but he pushed it aside. He was a grown man now. He could deal with this alone or with his friends. You took the elevator, that was gratefully working. Chris stopped off at her floor and gave you both goodnights and I’m sorries. 

Finally you were on your floor. 

“Thank you for helping me back there,” you said. You had been meaning to say it but the words kept getting stuck in your head. 

“Of course. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you,” he said. 

“Same.” You walked down to his room. He wanted to drop you off but you kept going past your room, no conversation needed. Neither of you wanted to sleep in a lonely room. He pushed open his door, the silence so loud. You sat down on the spare bed. 

“I’m gonna get changed,” he said. “You’re welcome to stay. I don’t think I wanna be alone right now.” 

“Me too.” He grabbed some clothes and walked to the bathroom. 

When he walked down the hallway he thought about how he wasn’t there for you when you needed him. He had been upstairs, scared of his own accord. Something could have happened. He slowly undressed behind a shower curtain. He could’ve stayed and asked you to leave but he didn’t. 

Whatever this was, whatever was going on in his head, he had no intention of getting you involved. 

None. Not if it meant hurting you.

[pumpkinfreak]

Plastic Man Issue #2 1941

This is a great second issue except for the racism toward the Chinese, but I'll get to that.

Plas is trying hard to get hired by the local police squad, and Murphy the Police chief is willing to let him on the force if he can break up a dope ring. The dope their referring to is opium. It's old-timey times every drug is called dope.

Plus, as Eel O'Brien, finds his old gangster friend Dopey Joe. How the police haven't thought to interrogate this man before is beyond me. It's like being a serial killer named Kill Kill McStabface. Dopey is more than happy to let Eel in on his drug smuggling ring, which requires him to travel to Canada.

Here's how the drugs are smuggled into the States.

Eel goes to Ottowa. Fun fact The City TM is only an overnight train ride away from Canada. In Ottowa Eel goes to a funeral home where opium is stashed inside a dead body. Eel traveled back to the States in a hearse with the body. He drops the body off at another funeral home, and the funeral director then passes the drugs to a woman.

The woman then passes the drugs by throwing them from her car into another car. The driver then arrives at a nondescript building and drops the opium tablets down a drainage grate outside of the building. The building is of course the opium den.

That is a seven-step process, and it's so fun to read and then the racism happens. It's painful but thankfully it only lasts for six panels and you can skip it, just know Plas captures the workers inside the den.

He then collects the other players in the ring including the woman, yes he does threaten to knock out this woman if she doesn't cooperate. I shouldn't laugh at that but I do every time. It's just funny to see Plas, not Eel, tell a woman he'll "Lay you out cold!"

It's like he hasn't figured out how to talk to people in a none gangster way. He hasn't quite worked out the chivalry part of being a hero. Then again sometimes you gotta knock a bitch out depending on the situation, and Plas is the guy to do it.

So Plas rounds up everyone and is instated as a Police officer. Yes, the man in the red leotard, with no real first name, is made an officer of the law.

They gave this man a gun

[fullmoonfireball]

PIKMIN TREASURES TOURNAMENT, ROUND 5, MATCH 1

(Notes: This is specifically the music box that plays the Pikmin 3 theme, as shown in the video below.)

Propaganda:

Mechanical Harp (Memory Song)

“I just really love that they play music while you carry them.”

“The implications, though. It’s like when splatoon had the image of a skeleton plaing splatoon in one of the sunken scrolls.”

“directly references the third game and one of the best songs in the series (said objectively). its existence messes up the timeline even worse once olimar starts talking about it. beautiful whimsical thing. I go onto the treasure catalogue so often JUST for this specific harp and it makes me do this”

"this is such a beautiful rendition of the song"

"PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE"

King of Bugs

“Louie betraying you and then you collecting him as a treasure is really great.”

“he [is] technically classed as a treasure lol”

“Giving his life a monetary value of 10 is SAVAGE”

“Isn’t the greatest treasure the friends we made along the way?”

“it’s just Louie and I think that’s hilarious”

“tfw you are worth as much as a leaf”

“my fav title for Louie is food thief. he is worth 10 poko. truly a terrible thang”

“The real treasure was my wife all along”

“HE IS WORTH SOSO SO MUCH MORE THAN TEN POKOS. PLEAS. PUT SOME RESPECT ON HIS NAME HES GONE THRU SO MUCH IDGAF”

“we need battle of the L’s. L Wars. cmon folks.”

“my son who is worth 10 pokos”

"guy worth 10 pokos"

"louie being worth 10 dollars is objectively fucking hilarious"

"cash that bug man in boys we got enough pokos to buy a soda"

[ickysubbyboi]

pls tell us about the 3d printing too <3 it's so lovely to see you talk about the things you like

Anon you’re making me worry about your mental sanity if you want to keep hearing me talk about these things 😭 but here we go

So overall it was more straight forward, I’d first take measurements of the 3D piece I needed so I know the dimensions. And I use a caliper (I love calipers so much) which is good to take small measurements. But not the best for anything above 30cm. So once I know the measurements I made a 3d design of the piece. I use solidworks, only because it’s what I was taught but it’s probably not the best software

After you’re done with the design I went to this place on campus that did 3d printing. Technically you needed to pay for it, but since most people are only printing like 1-2 pieces that don’t use a lot of 3d filament they didn’t charge you. Well, but I needed a little than 2 pieces..I think I got like 12-14 parts printed? And some needed like 400g of filament which is A LOT. I was basically going there every day for 2 weeks. And the dude who works there is a grumpy old dude who I thought was going to get sick of me after going there 3 days in a row

After the first week, when I was getting a big piece printed the old guy looked at me and saw the amount of filament needed and said “dude you need to chill…” he said the university cut their budget so they didn’t have as much money to buy filament. Meaning I’d need to start bringing my own, since I was using so much he said they were running out of it…So I asked my professor for some (since I was making the project for him) so he gave me like 3 rounds of 750g of PLA that he had in this dark storage room that was probably sitting around there for years.

So after that I got every printed and I think overall I used like 3kg of filament? Which is quite a bit. And it was funny how the old guy helping me out, I used to think he’d be grumpy and rude but he turned out to be so chill. But he’d probably still kill me if I go there again to print really large stuff…

Also related to 3d design, I don’t mean to flex or anything but I do have a CSWA certification 😎 (flirting)

[ccscocoapuffs]

Johnathan Byers NSFW Alphabet

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex) Johnathan is the absolute sweetest after sex. He runs a bath for you both and occasionally even lights candles for y'all in the bathroom.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s) Jonathan loves his hands. He loves being able to feel you and hold your hand in his. Johnathan loves your eyes. He thinks you have the most stunning eyes he has ever seen. He begs you to let him take close up pictures of you just so he can see your eyes.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically) Johnathan likes to cum either on your back or inside. He doesn't really like things to be to messy but he does like the look of his cum on your skin occasionally.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Johnathan carries around dirty photos of you in his bag. They make him feel like your all his.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?) Very little. We all know the only girl he's been with is Nancy. HE has some experience there but he still could learn a thing or two.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying) Missionary is his favorite. He's pretty vanilla when it comes to positioning but occasionally, he likes doggystyle for a little something different.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.) He's usually a little giggly afterwards but during the sex itself, he stays very intimate within the moment and tend to keep all attention on you.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.) He shaves he likes to keep it tamed and cleaned up.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He loves to be intimate with you and keep it romantic and soft between you guys.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He masturbates often. He prefers to do it in his room while looking at all the pictures of and him together.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Wax very light bondage

L = Location (favorite places to do the do) His room he thinks its the best place for intimacy and privacy.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going) He loves his neck to be kissed and underneath his jawline. It's an instant turn on for him

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs) Anal....he's just not down for it

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.) He prefers receiving to giving just because he doubts his skills at giving head in general. He's actually quite good at it but he doubts himself none the less.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

He likes slow and soft.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.) Johnathan doesn't really like quickies. He prefers taking his time with you and having the full experience.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.) He is okay with slightly experiment with things like, blindfolds. However, he doesn't like being super risky with things.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?) Johnathan can for about 2 rounds.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?) Johnathan owns a small vibrator that he uses both on you and himself.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease) Johnathan doesn't tease a whole lot in general. However, when you two are in private he tends to tease with neck kisses and wandering hands.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.) Johnathan is a whimperer. He tends to whimper more high pitched than he moans at all.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character) He likes to film you two.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes) Johnathan is about 6 inches

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?) Kinda low oddly enough. He likes to have sex maybe once or twice a week.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards) Pretty quickly. Johnathan likes to cuddle up to you and let you play in his hair while he falls asleep.

[cookiewoli]

★My time at Sandrock index ★

┏━━━━━━━━━━•❃°•°❀°•°❃•━━━━━━━━━━┓

Here you can see:

- Builder info and stuff

- sketch

- Sandrock's cosplay (link)

(Underlined words are link to other posts !)

┗━━━━━━━━━━•❃°•°❀°•°❃•━━━━━━━━━━┛

OC ARE MY LIFE (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

↑

Meet the Sandrock's siblings!

Both are not from Sandrock.

"Cookie", the worst builder you ever met. She aspires to become a veterinarian.

Be prepared to see her smile and laugh 24h/24 ! She's so clumsy that people run away as soon as she comes towards them.

Cassius, the muscular JoJo's guy with a frightening death stare. He's an ex-player, and can't talk without using rude words.Sometimes he forgets that he can't be shirtless in public.

Don't want to mess up with him ? Give him a lollipop or candies and you'll be safe.

↓

NEW DESIGN

❉ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤╤╤╤ ~ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤╤╤╤ ❉

Some info stuff:

- NPC dialogues of "Cookie"

- OC in symbolism (for Cookie)

- Character inspiration (for "Cookie)

- OC ask game

- Short story of Cassius before he came to Sandrock

Sunshine

a animated comic series ★

I'm working to do some others episodes, like a series of animated comic, just wait for it !

Ep OAV : Fireworks

Ep 1 : (soon)

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊

┊ ┊ ☆ ┊ ┊

┊ ☆ ☆ ★ ┊

★

And another Sandrock's animation !

Based on the song "kyoufuu all back"

╭──────────────────♡.°୭̥

╰─➤ Their Pinterest board :

Cookie Cassius

╭──────────────────♡.°୭̥

╰─➤ Spotify OC playlist:

Cookie Cassius

Relationship playlist:

Cookie and Fang Cassius and Elsie

Cookie and Cassius

↠ⁿᵉˣᵗ ˢᵒⁿᵍ ↺ ʳᵉᵖᵉᵃᵗ ⊜ ᵖᵃᵘˢᵉ

ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮

⌞ ⌟

My time at sandrock fanfic -

Moon's whisperer

The story takes place during the quest "Chasing Elsie" so it contains spoilers ! It's about her life out of Sandrock in the camp of the Monsters Researchers. During this time, she met Panah and Cassius, with whom she becomes friends, and maybe closer with one of them...

chap 1

chap 2

chap 3

chap 4

chap 5

chap 6

chap 7

chap 8

Or you can read it on AO3

❉ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤╤╤╤ ~ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤╤╤╤ ❉ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤

╰( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )つ──☆*:・ﾟ

Let's have some fun -

Stupid random sketches #1

-Introduce my brother

-Builders genderswap

Stupid random sketches #2

-Go put some clothes

-Worst crime

Random sketches #3

- Mr.bad wolf

- Jane's pla

Stupid random sketches #4

-He can't say no to her...

- DLC outfit

- Christmas prank

- How to say "I love you"

- Siblings' children and their memes

- Our memes at Sandrock round 1

Featuring 11 other builders of the community!

- Our memes at Sandrock round 2

Featuring 9 other builders

- Sandrock's advent calendar 2024

Drawing gift for people of the community!

❉ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤╤╤╤ ~ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤╤╤╤ ❉ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤

Want to see my Sandrock's cosplay?

- Fang (to be improved)

- Qi

- Qi 2

- Mi-An

- "Never gonna give you up"

- Nia

- Elsie

- Ernest

- My builder Cookie

- Our cosplay at Sandrock

(cosplay of 5 builders of the community ✨)

- THANK YOU PATHEA FOR YOUR SHARE!!

Evershine cosplay:

-Ines

-Gaudi

◦ ❖ ◦ ❁ ◦ ❖ ◦ ❁ ◦ ❖ ◦ ❁ ◦ ❖ ◦

My commission are open now!

[richardsphere]

Leverage Redemption Log: The One Mans Trash Job

Episode starts with a man and woman fishing trash out of a river, the news called back saying that while the story did fine they dont want to cover it anymore. Cuts to two men in a car, blowing up the two peoples shrimping-boat. --- Hammond runs a trash-shipping business. (i mean that btw, i think he's literally shipping trash, there is no way that one or two containers falling of a regular shipping vessel creates this widely varied and intensely damaged floating mass). Which means the follow-up is: Why is he doing that? Its not to save money. Thats not worth blowing up a boat for. Now I remember stories about how, for various reasons, some of the first things organised crime syndicates try to get their hands on when settling into a city is its waste disposal network. (easy way to get rid of a couple of bodies or a bunch of evidence, and because your company is paid by local government, you can openly associate with crooked councilmen and have them bribe you by just increasing your budget while looking legal and above-board to casual observers) Basically: I think he's with the mob in some capacity. He's got a boat, im gonna say smuggler (he dumps the trash to make space for whatever he's smuggling) --- Back at the theatre: Im right about my first assumption (hes a waste transporter, focussed on plastic.) He's a ghost on the internet though, no facebook no nothing.

So accordint to Breanna he's taking trash, shipping it to asia, dumping half along the way, then spending money to bribe local government to dump it. At that point, why isnt he just saving the money and dumping it all at sea? Why waste the money on gas and bribes. So im 90% certain that he does make the full trip, and its what he takes back that is making him the most money (smuggler, probably drugs)

He has a storage facility that is suspiciously over-insured. (you dont insure drugs, he might be smuggling art instead)

Sophie concludes along similar lines as I do. --- Back at the docks, Parker and Elliot are on evidence-gathering. There's an auction happening, and yes those are antique art-objects he's smuggling back to the US.

Breanna is disapointed that they're going after this low-level trashdumper instead of the companies that are killing the planet. Im going to be clear here: if sophie's talks about how all we can do is little babysteps is meant to foreshadow a "regular civilians should use less plastic" thing, im gonna get pissed.

--- Complication: He has forged Provenance documentation.

Sophie just recognised an item (mahjong tiles) . And i dont mean in the "she can tell when its a Kadinski" sense, but in the "I remember these, i have a personal history with this object" sense.

Hammond's personal authenticator --- Sophie and Authenticator begin code-speaking. They have a past, there is tension but he's not gonna bust her just yet. (Name is Arthur Wilde) "you were in mesopotamia 2 years ago"= He's heard of Sophie doing something in Iran/Iraq "spent my time digging out a burmese temple"=I was trying to escape prison (tone of voice=I blame sophie) after that i lose the track but in summary: Sophie's fucked this guy over at some point. "its not what it looks like, well except for conning your boss that is exactly what it looks like." Ah yeah, he was in prison because of her. Sophie is gonna try to talk him round to their side.

Sophie takes out the earpiece. --- What do you mean "steal a printer", Sure its a special filament rather then regular PLA but its just a 3d printer. If you're telling me Hardison and Breanna dont already have a functional 3d printer im gonna be angry. But apparently we stole the printer off-screen and are already at the auction with the fake ivory tiles.

Arthur is in. (giving him the big score is Sophie's attempt at redemption for getting him thrown in prison)

Harry plays the buyer, Gives the perfect excuse for a long-distance boat-trip on which such an object may just take a dip in the sea. --- Tracking the tiles, signal broke off. Sophie is gonna have to confess her past sins.

Oh we're digging into the Duchess of Hanover lore here. This is definitly setting up a plot-arc for the season... Wait there was a duke, she fell in love with the mark... is there a kid? No way that there isnt a complication where she has a kid right? (it would let her foil both Nate's relation with Sam and Harry's relationship with Becky) --- Time for the con: Get him to lead you to the tiles. (you stole from a terrorist my dude)

I like the professionalism on our mark, mid stand-off, turnign to "Athena" about wether she's willing to occupy his imminent vacancy.

Elliot and the Mark are talking business (blackmail, "pay me or i call my boss" type of deal). McSweeten gets re-mentioned. (he's still doing nice for himself)

Mark has decided that he's gonna use the stolen tiles to pay off Harry to get the terrorist he represents to kill Elliot for him. The tiles are in motion, (and im thinking that Parker followed him to them so we know where the vault is)

--- Mark returns to his home to find the official spokesman for Terrorism Incorporated sitting in his chair.

Harry has the tiles (both the fake and the real.) which means that from now on, if we ever see the "real" tiles again, assume those are fake as well. (if we can 3d print the missing tiles, no reason not to print some fakes of the real ones for a switch)

Harry has turned on Sophie (or at least thats what the mark thinks. He's still with her, this is a staged death-scene) --- Ah, get him to think he just compromised an international terrorist. Yeah this guy is gonna rat himself right into witness protection.

Elliot mentioned McSweetens name specificly to get him to go to the higherup (can we expect an OG Actor Cameo?)

Harry takes a dive to sell the Chechen as being a small fish compared to someone. And if the Chechen is a small-fry, that means our Mark would be plankton.

We havent seen Parker in a while, also that gun was in the guys office while Harry was there waiting for him. Those are blanks --- Ah right, Harry had access to his laptop for like, an entire FBI Agent Elliot-scene. Theres a lot more you can do there then just swap some bullets.

"dont even try to call for help" before stealing his phone from an ocean away... Style. --- Scene cuts to our heroes fishing trash out of the river. New boat, money for a cleaning operation. Unfortunately no cameo from McSweeten. Arthur doesnt believe Sophie's improved herself, and leaves with a foreshadowing "i know im not the only one you betrayed back then" to say, Yup we're getting a season-long arc about the Duchess Con.

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

[Games in 2023: Pokemon DLC "The Indigo Disk"]

Here it is!  Part 2 of the Scarlet and Violet DLC!  As a refresher for context: I really loved base Violet, and appreciated what Teal Mask had to offer despite it not entirely living up to expectations.  Will Indigo Disk close things out on a high note?  What is the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero?  And how much did I abuse the feature to invite your favorite characters to Blueberry Academy for my own nefarious purposes?

This will contain spoilers for base SV, Teal Mask, AND Indigo Disk!  If you want a tl;dr: Indigo Disk gives you LOADS of fun (and challenging) stuff to do, and despite its story plays things safer than I was personally expecting after the resolution of the base game, I’m still glad I bought the DLC.

Accessing the Indigo Disk content requires beating both The Way Home and The Teal Mask.  This is full-on postgame material, and the levels of the Pokémon you’ll find and fight reflect that, ranging from high 60s on lesser trainers up into the early 80s on the final story foes.  Not to mention all trainer battles here are Double Battles, which adds a significant new wrinkle to how fights are approached.  This is Serious Business.  We also get new TMs, new clothing and accessory options, and more Pokémon!  I felt like there were fewer options unlocked by the Indigo Style Card than the Teal one, but I really liked what was there, plus there are quite a few other options found through other means.  As for Pokémon, the new Blueberry Dex is slightly larger than the Kitakami Dex, and only overlaps with Paldea by around 60 Pokémon as opposed to Kitakami’s Dex being only half new.  Lots of Pokémon are back, including several that are on the Switch for the first time—if I recall correctly, the only ones still left out are Patrat/Watchog, the Elemental Monkeys and their evolutions, and Furfrou.  We’ve also got Dex entries for Walking Wake and Iron Leaves now, which is especially nice alongside the introduction of new Paradox Pokémon rounding out both of those Legendary trios.  As for other new Pokémon, we’ve got new evolutions for Duraludon and Dipplin (surprisingly), DLC mascot Terapagos, and…a new Mythical?!  Huh.  Kinda thought we were done with those to be honest.  I haven’t looked too much into it, but it seems like this guy will actually trigger a sequence of events, which we haven’t seen since…Victini?  Do we count BDSP, or PLA?  Whatever, I’m excited!  There are also old Legendaries to catch; I’d say they’re more accessible than Dynamax Adventures, but the list isn’t quite as comprehensive. (Also they’re all shiny locked.) And, as advertised, every single starter from Generations I through VIII can be caught in the wild here!  …After grinding enough points to purchase an upgrade.  More on that later.

The new map is a special facility called the Terarium, contained within Blueberry Academy in the Unova region.  It’s sort of an artificial nature preserve, divided into four different biomes each full of various species of Pokémon, bigger than Kitakami but not as massive as Paldea itself.  Feels like just the right size!  Each biome is fairly meaty in its own right, with lots of interesting landscapes to explore and some well-designed caves to boot.  One in particular is a reimagining of Chargestone Cave, and it does not disappoint!  The music changes a bit depending on the biome but stays recognizable, mixing in some Unovan inspiration with slight hints of Area Zero to reflect the influence of Terastal energy in the facility.  Oh, and the Flying Taxi on the loading screen is carried by Skarmory this time!  It’s a nice place, a wonderful setting for a miniature Pokémon adventure.

So, the story.  You’re escorted to Blueberry Academy by its Director, Cyrano—I like the guy, reminds me of Cabanela from Ghost Trick, and I LOVE his Honedge scarf! (Sadly, the Honedge line is not in this game.) You explore, meet the school’s self-styled Elite Four, and reunite with Carmine and Kieran, the later of whom has completed his evolution to Jerk Rival and become the academy’s Champion.  The previous Champion, uh, “arranges” for you to challenge the Elite Four for the right to fight the Champ, and we’re off.  The BBE4 can be fought in any order, though they do have listed ranks to suggest a sequence; I wouldn’t be surprised if this was in response to fan reaction over the lack of communication of boss levels back in Paldea.  Each is holed up in a different biome with a different “trial” for you to pass before they’ll fight you.  Not a single one was easy, though I struggled the least with Crispin, true to his #5 rank.  Lacey was the one who gave me the most trouble, though.  They’re all likable characters in their own way, though if I had to pick a favorite…probably Amarys?  Anyway, after beating them you get a shot at Kieran, which was another extremely close call for me, but I managed to pull through!  It was a satisfying little boss rush.

Things then abruptly shift when Briar finally reappears, gathering a small group of students for an emergency scouting expedition into Area Zero, approved by Geeta herself.  It ends up just being you, Briar, Carmine, and Kieran, which…yeah, that makes sense.  Though having Geeta and Rika suddenly show up made me hope a little.  Kieran’s only coming because he thinks catching a Legendary Pokémon of his own will let him finally beat the player, but as this scenario progresses he starts to act a bit more like his old self.  The scenario in question involves returning to the Zero Lab, finding a secret path leading even deeper, and diving into Area Zero’s Underdepths.  Remember how sick it was seeing Area Zero for the first time?  The Underdepths are like, twice as sick.  It’s great.  As is standard fare, you need to defeat a few Pokémon to open gates forward, but what makes these Pokémon interesting is that they’re all Tera Pokémon with the brand new Stellar Tera Type, a type which contains the powers of ALL types.  Stellar-type Terastallization does not change the Pokémon’s defensive Type interactions, only offensive, giving a boost to one move of each type per battle.  So, you use a powered-up Rock move?  Further uses of that and any other Rock move are standard-power.  It’s an interesting way to build upon Terastallization’s versatility, and when used in Tera Raids, it just boosts every single move the Pokémon uses while Terastallized, which I imagine will be immensely helpful if one were to grind Raids for any reason.  Very interesting, and this gauntlet gives you ample opportunity to acquaint yourself with it before you get ahold of it yourself.

At the very end of the Underdepths, your party finds none other than Terapagos…who Kieran chucks a Master Ball at.  Uh, okay, cool.  You then have a boss battle against Terapagos in its Terastal Form, the one with the flat shell made of pentagonal plates, which is way smaller than I imagined it being.  I dunno, I thought it’d be more on the scale of like…Kyogre?  In any case, this round is easy, and Kieran and Briar are both confused and decide to Terastallize Terapagos and see if that unleashes its full power.  It does.  Terapagos takes on its final form, the one Heath depicted in the Violet Book…also weirdly small.  Maybe twice as tall as a person?  Not planet-sized.  I mean, I didn’t think we’d actually get to catch a planet-sized Pokémon, but…y’know.  This is Stellar Form Terapagos, which has an augmented Stellar Tera Type that boosts every move even outside of Raids, and it’s no slouch: it was a close match, but my level 100 Ceruledge with Bitter Blade and Leftovers was able to conquer it, especially with help from Carmine at first and Kieran at the end.  What’s interesting is that this round has multiple phases, with Terapagos taking away your Terastallization to create a barrier several times and changing its defensive Type for good measure.  After a long, hard fight, you’re able to catch Terapagos (it broke out of Kieran’s Master Ball), and as you return to Blueberry Academy, Kieran apologizes and asks if you can still be friends.  Roll credits.

The idea of Kieran, a character who snaps in his obsessive pursuit of strength, is sound in theory.  However, I feel like it was lacking in punch.  The key factor is almost certainly just time: Teal Mask speedruns the formation of Kieran and the protag’s friendship and then immediately shows it fall apart, with little to no time to let it sink in and actually matter to the player.  I stuck to the “Kieran is my friend” angle throughout Indio Disk, but it did feel like an act, and when he says he looked up to you for so long (like, an entire day!) it rang somewhat hollow.  That being said, I do rather like the way he stamps down his sense of failure to help you in the final round against Terapagos.  I guess I like Kieran about as well as I like a good chunk of Pokémon characters at least.  He can’t compete with Arven, though.  Oh and Briar doesn’t go nuts or turn evil or anything, she’s just excitable I guess.

I wasn’t entirely satisfied regarding Terapagos and Area Zero either: there wasn’t a clear definitive answer to any questions that had been raised.  Upon rewatching the ending and the postgame scene at the Crystal Pool, I think what we’re meant to take away is that Terapagos has been sleeping deep in the Earth for a long time, and the impact that formed Area Zero caused its power to leak out.  It is able to manipulate spacetime to some extent: Turo says that his time machine specifically pulls Pokémon from other timelines, which seems to be the truth about Paradox Pokémon.  How this enables advanced robotics and AI, I still don’t quite know, nor does it explain why Paradox Pokémon existed in Area Zero before the time machine was built.  But, it seems that Terapagos did not in fact come to Earth on a meteor, and there’s no particular reason for its abilities to terraform its environment, transform itself and other Pokémon, and bend time.  Which is…kind of a bummer, honestly.  The Way Home took Pokémon out of its comfort zone in a great way, and the Team Star Bosses and Arven were all written surprisingly well; to go from that high point to a standard, lukewarm story about finding and catching a powerful new Legendary…I can’t help but be a bit disappointed.  I hate the idea of getting mad at something for not conforming to my own expectations, so I’ve been trying to consider different angles and find one that leans the most in the story’s favor…but, maybe it’s fair that my expectations were where they were?  I don’t know.  I’m curious to find out how other players feel.

Oh, one other story-ish thing: if you’ve completed the Bloodmoon Beast scenario, Perrin shows up in the Terarium!  Apparently she’s just been hired to take photos for Blueberry Academy’s promotional material; she has another cool thing to show you, but tells you to catch 200 Pokémon in the Terarium first, justified in that she’ll follow you and take pictures for said promos.  I like that there’s a reason this time, her just saying “catch mons first” in Kitakami was fine, I could accept it as a video game thing, but it was very transparently that and I appreciate the effort to dress it up here.  Once you’ve caught enough Pokémon, she’ll show you two photos of strange, unidentified Pokémon in the familiar setting of Area Zero: two new Paradox Pokémon, obviously version-exclusive.  You need to search Area Zero for the locations in the photos, where the Paradoxes are standing there just waiting to be caught.  Unfortunately, there’s only one of each, complicating the process of trading them to complete the Dex…which is a little odd.  You can catch multiple specimens of every other Paradox—they even gave you a second Koraidon/Miraidon!  Personally I’m hoping these will be in Raids later like Wake and Leaves, because I really, really want to train a Gouging Fire…

Anyway, it wasn’t until I completed the story that I really began to interact with the other major feature at Blueberry Academy: the League Club.  I took an initial glance at it and decided to save up my BP (which stands for “Blueberry Points” now), but at this point I had no goal other than to grind for it.  You obtain BP primarily (near exclusively) through completing Blueberry Quests, abbreviated to BBQs, which is terrible but also hilarious.  Whenever you’re in the Terarium, you can bring up a menu that shows your current BP and a list of 3 active BBQs; these include things like “catch a Pokémon,” “take a picture of a Pokémon in X biome,” “pick up X items off the ground,” and such.  When you complete one, you are automatically rewarded BP and get a new BBQ to refill the list.  After completing 10 BBQs, you are additionally given a fourth, special quest for a larger amount of BP, which tend to involve things like picnics and Raids.  There’s a lot to like about this system: it provides constant rewards for microachievements similar to the research tasks in PLA, always giving you a few directions to follow if you so choose, and are much more digestible here.  One thing arises that frustrates me, however, that being repetition.  BBQs are chosen randomly, so if it’s not already on your list, it’s fair game no matter how many times you’ve already seen it today.  There have been several times where I’ve completed task A, to see it replaced by task B, to complete task B, only to see it replaced by task A again.  The first day of doing BBQs I was told to photograph swimming Pokémon at least a dozen times in a few short hours. (And let’s not forget that these photos clog up you Switch album.) I also dread seeing the “make a TM” quest, because in the entire Terarium there is exactly 1 TM Machine and I don’t always want to drop whatever I’m doing to head over to it.  The sandwich-making missions also feel like a hassle, but I’m not the biggest fan of the picnics as is, that one’s definitely just me.  I’ve also seen people say they really enjoyed grinding BBQs, so maybe this entire irritation is just a personal problem.

But once you have your BP, what can you spend it on?  Well, in addition to being used in the school store and cafeteria, there’s a computer in the League Club Room where you can access a list of requests for donations from other clubs, all of which come with a reward.  Essentially you’re paying to unlock or improve features, ranging from throwing styles to camera settings to League Club Room design.  What caught my eye immediately, however, were the options to “improve biodiversity” in each of the biomes.  This is how you unlock the previous gen starter Pokémon as wild encounters.  It costs 3000 BP per biome, with BBQs only very rarely giving you more than 100.  Admittedly it’s not as bad as I initially feared, but since these are more or less required to get enough Dex entries to satisfy Perrin, I would recommend saving up as a priority.  I feel like I should’ve expected at least one more hoop to jump through to get wild starters, but it isn’t really a huge deal.  Small price to pay for unlimited babies.  Additionally, after catching Terapagos you unlock the ability to invite characters from Paldea to visit Blueberry Academy!  The eight Gym Leaders are available right away, but you can also unlock the teachers from your old school, the Elite Four, and even Geeta.  Your guests will hang out in the League Club Room for a bit, and you can speak with them (or the members of the BBE4) to have rematches, get some items, and trade Pokémon with them; sometimes they’ll even have interactions amongst themselves.  I’m a huge fan of this feature: rematches were limited in the base game, and this amends the situation while expanding upon the bonding sequences that gave Uva/Naranja a lot of its charm.  The first one I focused on was Raifort, of course; naturally she hates being in a place as new-fangled as Blueberry Academy, but now you owe her a favor, and she keeps giving you bribes to further butter you up to become her puppet.  She’s great.  She also talks about the Abyssal Ruins, that’s a callback I’m quite pleased with. (Conversations about going swimming in Unova…my gosh, she really is Cynthiacore…)

Catching Terapagos also unlocks a few more things.  Briar calls you to her classroom and explains that your Tera Orb has been upgraded from being exposed to the intense Terastal energy in the Underdepths, enabling you to Terastallize in consecutive battles without ever charging it.  Oh.  Cool!  This gives you the chance to play around with the feature a lot more, and won’t intrude on the online experience at all since you can still only Terastallize once per battle.  And, as teased in the trailers, you can speak with Amarys to upgrade Miraidon to fly freely anywhere.  Forget that crappy glide, you can soar across all of Paldea from high above Glaseado’s peak!  You know that impassable rock wall in the northeast?  I flew all the way up that!  You can perch on the edge, but an invisible wall keeps you from going any further, BUT that’s okay because just being able to get up there is so cool!  I will say, the controls not inverting the Y-axis is weird and unintuitive, but that’s something I can cope with.  The game really sets you free, and it’s so, so great to experience.

Indigo Disk is extremely fun, extremely rewarding, and gives you plenty of new reasons to keep playing SV going forward.  The story is serviceable, a notable downgrade from where SV ended but inoffensive on its own.  Pokémon does tend to be lopsided that way, doesn’t it?  Nevertheless, SV almost immediately became one of my favorite games in the series, and now that we have both waves of DLC, I’m confident in thinking I’ll remain fond of it for a good long while.

It should be noted that an “Epilogue” to the DLC has been announced for January.  The files are there already; I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, but I’ve seen enough to know this won’t be anything large scale.  We’re NOT getting a secret third wave of DLC here.  But it does seem like this will involve the new Mythical Pokémon, potentially clear up some lingering questions about Kitakami, and expand upon a certain feature of Indigo Disk, so I’m looking forward to it.  Hard to say if I’ll type up a full collection of thoughts for it, but one thing I am fairly certain of is that it’s going to be a fun time.

[eddies-puppet]

𝙇𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙄𝙣 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙚 | 𝙎𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙍𝙚𝙞𝙙

Chapter 3: Bring In The Reinforcements

Warnings: None

Word count: 722

Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

————————————————————————————

Becca was the first to arrive at the BAU the following morning. This wasn't a huge surprise, as when she'd left the bar late last night, Emily had been on her way to the bar for more shots.

She'd managed to get a little sleep, but her damn body was still on London time and by five AM she got fed up of staring at the ceiling of her hotel room and had decided to get up.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and headed to the round table room, settling into the sofa at the back of the room, her legs pulled up beneath her. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she flicked absentmindedly through her social media while she sipped at her hot coffee, smiling at a photo of her sister and two-year-old nephew.

"Morning Becca." She looked up to see Matt had arrived, cradling his own coffee in his hands.

"Hey! How's the head?" She smiled.

"Not too bad thanks. I tend to know my limits more than the rest of them. Probably has something to do with dealing with five children with a hangover," he chuckled, sitting down at the table. "I'd expect some sore heads from the girls though!"

"Volume down please Mr Simmons," Garcia said, her voice gravelly, her eyes hidden behind bright pink rimmed sunglasses as she made her way to the table.

"Someone is feeling a little delicate," Luke chuckled as he sat down beside Matt.

The rest of the team trickled in over the next few minutes, with the exception of Emily. The eight of them huddled around the table whilst they waited for her, Tara giving Becca a recap of Garcia and Emily dancing on a table at the end of the night.

About ten minutes had passed before Emily arrived, silently taking a seat between JJ and Dave.

"Sorry I'm late," she said. "I've just got off a call with the detective who worked the L.A. murders. Tara and Luke, I'd like you to go and meet with him. Also try and spend a little time with any witnesses. We need to gather as much intel as we can. Reid, I'd like you to start working on the geographical profile. Becca will be able to help with the London cases," Spencer nodded, his soft eyes locking with Becca's across the table as she smiled at him.

"Matt, JJ, can you head into D.C. and meet with Detective Castro? She's expecting you." Matt nodded. "The director's made it very clear he wants this case solved, and he wanted it done yesterday, so I've called in some reinforcements." The team looked at her expectedly, not noticing the movement in the doorway.

"Hey," came a deep voice, causing everyone's heads to snap to the doorway.

"Oh my god," Garcia shrieked, running as fast as her heels would carry her before throwing her arms around the man's shoulders. "It's you! It's really you! You smell like hope, and happiness!"

"Hey baby girl," Derek laughed as he wrapped his arm around Garcia's waist, fist-bumping Luke with his other hand.

"Anybody want a hug from me?" Came a voice from behind Derek, another man stepping into view.

"Hotch," JJ grinned, jumping from her seat and walking towards him, hugging him tight. Becca watched on as the group greeted the two men, smiling as she saw the happiness on their faces. After a few minutes, they all regrouped around the table.

"Becca, let me introduce Derek Morgan and Aaron Hotchner. They both worked on the original murders, so I'm hoping that their knowledge of the case will help us. Guys, this is Dr Rebecca Harding. I worked with her at Interpol, and she worked on the London murders." The three nodded to each other in greeting. "Derek and Hotch are both here as a favour, so let's look after them," Emily smiled.

"May I suggest a little soiree at casa di Rossi tomorrow evening, once Tara and Luke are back from the city of angels?" Dave suggested.

"I mean, it wouldn't be the BAU without a visit to casa di Rossi," Hotch smiled, winking at Dave. The rest of the team nodded enthusiastically.

"Becca, how about you, do you have plans?" Dave asked.

"No, no plans. That sounds really nice, thank you," she smiled.

[ending-the-cycle-ask]

11 !

Okay, top six favorite Pokémon! This was kinda hard, cause I like a good amount of Pokémon, but I’ve never really organized them into a set list—-

1. Snorlax! Absolute favorite, no questions asked, I love him so so much, big lads, absolute units, I always try to get one on my team—- I have two plushies and intend on getting one of those giant Snorlax beanbags at some point, that’s the dream—-

2. Munchlax :) Same reasons I love Snorlax, but now he’s baby-fied—-

3. Bulbasaur! He’s small, he waddles around, he’s a dinosaur and I love dinosaurs, there’s nothing not to love about him.

4. Clefairy! It’s so cute and round, they do little dances, I just wanna pick one up and give it a hug so bad—-

5. Falinks! They’re just tiny little boys, their feet squeak, I adore them—- Also tied for 5th is Sneasel, PLA has given me a brand new appreciation for the little guys—-

6. Salandit! I love their design—- I’d actually maybe shiny hunt for one, if it didn’t have to be female to evolve, cause knowing my awful luck, I’d get a shiny male :’) Also tied for 6th is the Volcarona line, I love me a good moth—-

-Mod Mello 💎

[ampintherain]

My Baby Love

*GIF NOT MY OWN- creds to theothersideoffantasy*

Owen Patrick Joyner x reader request!!!

Maybe the reader is part of the JATP cast and once at a gathering the cast starts teasing the reader about who she’d date among the boys. She gives her opinion on each boy but Owen gets upset when she says she wouldn’t date him because he’s a baby (even though she’s only 2 years older). She knows it’s stupid but it’s the only excuse she can find to fight her feelings. Everyone notices how oblivious they both are so at every occasion they keep mentioning how a great couple they’d make ? At the beginning Owen and the reader stay close but eventually the reader becomes more and more flustered and tries to distance herself to suppress her feelings. At the end they just have a heart to heart convo and kiss ? I need major fluff 😂

Requested By: @shimmeringfrenchie

I LOVED THIS REQUEST! I hope I can create the story you want💜

When I got the call to be in season 2 of Julie and the Phantoms, I never once imagined that it would end up like this- me falling for someone two years younger than me, I had never been attracted to someone younger than me before, I always went with older guys it was just something that I had always done so when I met Owen, I thought that he’d end up being like a little brother to me and that was what I had hoped. 

“Hey Y/n!” I heard Charlie call my name as I was leaving the lot, I turned around to see the brunette running towards me with Owen close by, my heart began to race as I saw the blue eyes belonging to the gorgeous boy, 

“H-hey” I stuttered, clearing my throat before regaining my confidence, “wassup?” I questioned, looking between the two boys, catching Owen staring at me, I smiled and tore my gaze away, focusing my attention back onto Charlie, 

“Well, Owen and I are having some of the cast over tonight for takeout and we were wondering if you wanted to come? Savannah really wants you there” the brunette asked, I nodded happily,

“Well, if Sav wants me there, I guess I have no choice” I joked, just as Savannah walked past us, tucking me into her side

“That is very true, I wouldn’t want to endure a night with the cast without my best friend being there!” Savannah smiled. I had developed a very close friendship with Savannah within a week of filming, the first day of bootcamp she had showed me around and always made sure I was alright, we later realised that we had very similar interests and decided to move in together for the filming of the season and the friendship stemmed from there, she was most definitely my best friend and the truest friend that I had ever had. 

“Fine, I’ll be there. What time?” I questioned, looking back over at the boys as Savannah squealed happily beside me,

“Does 7 sound good?” Owen asked, I looked up at him and my breath caught in my throat- he was single-handedly the most attractive person I had ever laid my eyes on and it was almost painful how much I liked him.

“Yep, sounds perfect. I’ll see you then” I smiled, waving the boys goodbye before walking off with Savannah, we wandered through the parking lot before reaching my car, we both hopped in and Savannah took a hold of the aux cord, playing her created playlist of all of Justin Bieber’s hits. 

The time to leave for Charlie and Owen’s place soon came round, I changed into a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie before slipping on my Converse and heading to the door with Sav. “Should we walk or no?” I asked, Savannah shrugged her shoulders, soon going for the option of walking considering the boys didn’t live that far away from us and it was a nice evening in Vancouver, “so, you and Owen?” Savannah questioned after a short silence, my heart rate quickened at the mention of his name, I turned to her with a confused look etched across my face, 

“What?” I laughed, as we entered the boys’ apartment building and making our way up to their apartment, “I have no idea what you’re talking about�� I rolled my eyes, knocking on the door lightly, the door swung open, revealing Owen smiling his award-winning smile, pushing his hair back from his face before stepping to the side, “hey O” I smile, 

“Hey Petal” he said, giving me my usual nickname before pulling me in for a hug, I wrapped my arms around his waist and gave him a tight squeeze, “Hey Sav” Owen continued, letting go of me and giving Savannah a quick hug, I walked further into the apartment seeing Madi, Charlie and Jeremy all sat in the den chatting away, 

“Hey Losers” I joked, sitting next to Madi, she pulled me in for a tight side hug, pulling away just as quickly before crossing her legs and settling further into the coach. Savannah swiftly joined the group alongside Owen, sitting beside me whilst Owen sat next to Jeremy.

We had been at the boys’ apartment for around an hour or two, just eating pizza and chatting, “oh guys!” Savannah spoke excitedly, shuffling in her seat comfortably, 

“oh what?!” Charlie mimicked Sav’s excitement causing her to glare at him

“We should play Honest” she suggested, looking over at everyone’s confused faces towards the game suggestion “Honest? You guys, it’s self explanatory, it’s like the best game. You ask someone a question and they have to answer honestly.” she shrugged, I turned to the girl sat beside me, raising a singular eyebrow, “Y/n/n, it’s the best game. Honestly. Come on, please guys” she whined, 

“I think it’ll be fun” Madison smiled enthusiastically, as always, bringing the mood up and tempting the group into the activity that Savannah had suggested, Charlie, Owen, Jeremy and I chorused a small ‘fine’ causing Savannah to squeal with excitement, reaching over my head to give Madi a high-five. 

“Okay okay, I’ll go first... Madi, what’s the worst thing about filming?” Sav questioned, Madi thought about it for a second or two, her eyebrows furrowed as she chewed lightly on her lip,

“I’d say the super early mornings and really really late nights, I’m definitely not used to this new sleep schedule... um... Jeremy, what’s your favourite thing about Carolynn?” Madison smiled, “I only ask because I love seeing your face when you talk about her... it’s so cute!” Jeremy blushed and looked down at the floor for a small moment,

“Okay, I have a lot of favourite things about Carolynn but, one of the things I love most about her is her heart, she has the kindest soul, she cares about everyone she knows so deeply and she is really willing to do anything for the people she loves, she puts other people’s needs before her own and I just think it’s the most beautiful thing” Jeremy gushed, causing the girls and I to ‘aw’ at him, he was totally loved up and it was something that I could only ever wish for, 

“I wish someone spoke about me like that” I said, Jeremy smiled at me before asking Savannah which show she preferred to film- Julie and the Phantoms or Knight Squad to which she answered Julie and the Phantoms, giving the reasons of being able to sing and dance and she also mentioned how she loved the closeness of the cast, saying that we were more like a family. 

“Okay... Y/n, who would you date out of the boys- y’know out of Owen, Booboo, and Charlie” Savannah questioned, refusing to mention Jeremy as we all know that he would never have been an option based on the pure fact that Carolynn was his soulmate, 

“Right... well,  I’d say, probably Charlie because as much as I love Boo, he’s more of an annoying brother and I’d just find it weird if we dated and Owen’s a little baby” I explained, 

“Oh some I’m only your option because of process of elimination, great. Thanks y/n/n” Charlie joked, I rolled my eyes at him and looked over at Owen, I watched as his eyes lowered and his mouth turned down, he quickly faked a yawn before standing up off the couch and stretching, yawning again,

“Right, well I’m gonna head to bed, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Night” he said shortly, promptly leaving the den and making his way to his bedroom, he quickly stole another glance at me before shaking his head and entering his room. After that, the rest of us slowly started to disperse, Madi left first, then Jeremy and then Sav and I. 

I crawled into bed and stared up at my ceiling, I couldn’t fight off the feeling that I had really upset Owen, it must’ve been me, I mean he was fine all night- he was engaged, laughing, cracking his stupid jokes and then everything changed once I said that he was a baby... I didn’t really feel like that, I mean, I liked him. A lot, it’s just that I’ve never really gone for younger guys before, I always dated much older guys. But there was just something about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, something about him had me hooked and I couldn’t figure out whether it was a nuisance or something that I wanted to happen, all I knew is that however I was feeling, it was something beyond my control. 

I just didn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t say that I was a control freak but I definitely didn’t enjoy not being able to have any type of control of what was happening in my life, I always planned on dating and marrying someone a few years older than me as that is what my mum did, my grandma did, and my great grandma. I don’t have any understanding on why I wanted to do the same as them, maybe it was because of my desperate need to impress the women in my family. They’re all successful and they always used to build up this pressure on me to be the perfect woman, I had no room for mistakes. So my falling for Owen, was not in the plan, something out of my control and quite frankly, it was driving me insane. 

For the next few days, I tried to talk to Owen but no matter how hard I tried, it seemed that he was trying even harder to avoid me at all costs. “I don’t know why you would say that...” Charlie said as he sat beside me at the lunch hall, “it’s obvious you both like each other” I furrowed my eyebrows and looked at the boy, scoffing

“Yeah, right” I said, rolling my eyes and picking at my food, essentially just pushing it around the plate aimlessly, a silence fell over the two of us as I peered up to see Charlie staring at me with a look on his face as if it say ‘are you serious?’ 

“Y/n/n... you do like him. I don’t care what you have to say and how much you’re going to deny it. You like him” he shrugged just as Savannah sat across from us

“What are you guys talking about?” She asked breathlessly as she had just finished her dancing scene, I gave her an obvious look that she immediately picked up on “ohhh, Owen?” she questioned as I nodded slowly

“I was just telling our friend here, that she likes Owen and that it’s so obvious that she does” the Canadian explained blatantly, to which Savannah agreed, informing me that it was written all over my face whenever I saw Owen, or even whenever his name was briefly mentioned.

“You’re just caught up on the fact that you want to be like your mum and date older guys. The heart wants what is wants Sweetie, and your heart just so happens to want a 20 year old with lucious blonde hair.” Savannah joked, I rolled my eyes and stood up from the table, 

“I refuse to stay here any longer with you guys just talking absolutely nonsense” I replied, shortly. I looked at the two people I was previously sat with before gathering my food and quickly throwing it away as I walked past the bin. I walked out of the small lunch hall and made my way to my trailer.

“Uh.. hey y/n. Wait up” I heard a familiar voice call, Owen. I turned around and smiled up at him nervously. We hadn’t spoken in days, only having fictional conversations as our characters but after that? Strangers. “Can... can we talk?” he questioned, rubbing the back of his neck. I nodded, unable to form any kind of functioning sentence, I silently ushered him into my trailer, closing the door behind me. Owen sat on my small loveseat and patted the spot next to him which I reluctantly took.

“Uh... so what’s up?” I questioned, spluttering slightly, I placed my hands in my lap, closing them and fiddling with my thumbs- a habit I picked up in middle school, whenever I was asked a question by one of my teachers, I would twiddle my thumbs over each other in a circular motion, I wasn’t too sure whether it was something to do with my anxiety or it had links to my thinking process and to this day, I’m still unaware of what it roots to but I have never been able to wean myself off of it. 

“Did you mean what you said...” the blonde boy questioned me, “y’know, about how you wouldn’t date me because I’m a baby?” I glanced up at him quickly before diverting my attention to the plain wall in front of me. I inhaled sharply when I felt Owen’s slightly calloused hand make contact with my cheek, he held on to my face lightly as he brought my eyes to meet his own “because I’m not a baby Y/n, I’m just two years younger than you, it’s not like you were in high school when I was born. You were two. I’m not a baby” he reiterated, I nodded and sighed

“Yeah O, I know... I don’t know why I said it. I regretted it the second it left my mouth. Look, ever since I was younger, I was surrounded by women who all married men older than them and my mum always told me that that is how it should be, but it doesn’t feel like that with me... yeah I’ve dated olderguys but-” I cut myself off, worried that if I let all my emotions out to Owen, he wouldn’t reciprocate and I would officially ruin the entire friendship alongside the whole cast dynamic because there would be this awkward tension between Owen and I but just times by a million. 

“But what?” he pushed, his thumb running along my cheek causing me to instinctively close my eyes at the blissful feeling it was giving me, the simple touch melted away all of my anxieties “actually wait” he spoke, causing my eyes to shoot open, the anxieties to come rushing back in, I glanced up at him and furrowed my brows together “Y/n, I like you. A lot, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about anybody before. Hearing you call me a baby made me feel like you would never see me in that way, and it’s fine. Totally fine. If you don’t feel the same way but I just feel like I need to tell you everything I feel. Y/n, when I see you, everyone else just fades away. I physically can’t picture my life without you in it in any way, even if we just stay friends. I need you with me, you calm me down... so yeah” Owen said, the confidence in himself slowly fading as he continued to ramble, watching my face to see if I expressed any indication other than confusion, I slowly reached up and took a hold of his hand bringing it down in my lap and enclosing it with both of my hands.

“Owen, I like you too... that’s what I was going to say. I’ve dated a few older guys and they just never made me feel the way you do. Owen, you make me laugh so much, you make me feel protected and always cared for and I have never experienced that. Growing up, I had this pressure put on me by my mum, grandma and even my great grandmother, they all used to tell me that ‘dating older men is the way it should be’ and that’s all I thought of, I never thought that a younger guy would come along and sweep me off my feet but you did Owen Patrick Joyner, you really did and I can’t keep denying my feelings for you to everyone and especially to myself.” I breathed out, looking up at Owen with tears welling in my eyes just threatening to spill, Owen abruptly yet gently grabbed my face pulling me in close to him, his lips ghosted over my own as he let out a shaky breath

“You’re all I’ve ever wanted” he said before he pressed his lips to mine in a passionate kiss, I could feel butterflies erupt in my stomach at the feeling of his soft lips on mine, one of his hands moved from the side of my face to the base of my neck, pulling me in closer and deepening to kiss, my hands traced up his arms and draped themselves over his shoulders, toying with the ends of his hair. 

This. This felt right, this was how it was supposed to feel. Electrifying, loving and passionate. I never thought I’d fall for someone younger but here he was, Owen. My baby love. 

[darling-i-read-it]

Heya

I love your Dalton Lambert fics brw

Had 2 ideas and was wondering if

1. you could write a headcanon/oneshot for Dalton Lambert x Reader where she's all shy/timid when they first meet and then the whole floating away and demon attack thing happens and he wants to protect the reader and from there, their relationship escalates?

2. Smut/Slightly suggested hc for Dalton Lambert x Reader or a relationship HC for them pla

You don't have to write both but just had some ideas

Other ask: Ello!!! Can you do a fic for Dalton Lambert x Reader where Dalton is kinda like protective if the reader please?

The reader is probably round the same age if not a couple years younger and is shy and all but does warm up to him eventually

HELLO both of you, I thought these ideas were kind of similar so i wanted to answer both of these asks at the same time and combine them to do the first request up there if you guys don't mind! a protective dalton seems to be popular and i am willing to oblige <3

[higherxoplaces]

The Universe Put Us Here for a Reason- Part 1/2

I don’t think I ever really enjoyed clubs. The loud music and hoarding strangers always had me leaving with a headache. But there was always a fear of missing out that whispered behind every objection. It's what motivated me to sit at my vanity in front of the hundreds of products that crowded the surface. It’s what made me change my outfit ten times and carried me to sit in the front seat. I sang, danced and drank thinking that it would make me miss the comfort of my bed less. But when I saw how much fun my friends had, I stayed. What kept me from running was the pure joy radiating from the people who I loved most. Sawyer, Sebastian and I all had a full course load with jobs and if partying is what got them through their stressful weeks, who was I to stop them.

Sawyer had pulled Sebastian on the dance floor. Sawyer glowed under the colored lights as she swayed her hips to the beat of the bass. She was happy any time she wasn’t forced to wear the stiff collared uniform enforced at the restaurant she waitressed at. Sawyer always took pride in expressing herself outwardly and gained confidence when wearing heels and a mini skirt. Sebastian followed her lead, trying his best not to spill their drinks. He was finishing his first beer and his sobriety showed in his slightly stiff movements. Sebastian stood tall with deeply tanned olive skin and full dark brown hair. Anyone of the females here would have gladly occupied his time but instead he chose Sawyer.

I stayed on the sidelines. Finding myself perched on a barstool as I kept an eye on my friends. I never drank as much as everyone else. Not because I had any strong beliefs against alcohol I just didn’t like being hungover in the morning. I kept myself entertained by people watching. I like watching the shifts in the crowd as the music changes. I sipped on a vodka cranberry that was more juice than anything else. My attention was stolen by two girls in hysterics coming out of the bathroom. I was trying to see the guy they were pointing and yelling at when Sawyer snuck up on me. She ambushed me from the side, nearly knocking me off the stool as her arm wrapped around my waist. She was panting with a smile on her face and glassy eyes. Sebastian was on her heels and sidled up to my other side. 

“Mars,” Sawyer whined, her head coming to rest on my shoulder, “Why are you sitting here all alone?” 

Sebastian had his arms crossed while he leaned back on the bartop. His olive skin glowed and the blacklights made his pearly white teeth glow blue. Sebastian had started to feel the effects of the room’s growing humidity as he fought with damp curls to stay in place and out of his eyes. “You’re not hot right now?” He asked. 

I had to crane my neck to look up at Sebastian. “Thankfully no. It’s not too bad over here. This spot is perfect for people watching, might just take up residency here for the rest of the night.”

Sawyer huffed, the alcohol on her breath made me crinkle my nose. She lifted her head, still keeping her hold on me. “Oh no you’re not. I wanted us to jam out together. And who else is going to sing all of the throwback songs with me.” 

“Sebastian can dance with you,” I volunteered, “He might not know all the words but he can make sure you don't start a mosh pit.”

Sebastian shook his head, “Nope can’t do it by myself. I’m going to need back up.” 

“Marzipan,” Sawyer’s eyes widened, blue and round, when she used her nickname for me, “Please I need my favorite dance partner.” 

I patted her arm, the best comfort I could provide in our awkward position. “If this is you trying to guilt trip me into dancing, know that it’s not going to work.” 

“I already know I have to get you inebriated for you to dance. Please, you act like we haven’t been friends for the last five years.” Sawyer rolled her eyes. 

I groaned, “But I already got comfortable.” 

Sebastian hummed in amusement at Sawyer and I bickering. “She’s not going to let up Mars. Chronic Believers are supposed to have a set tonight.” 

I should have known why Sawyer had insisted on coming to this specific club. Phazed was an older establishment that profited on it’s tradition alone. The alcohol was cheap and there were a lot of people we knew here but the overall atmosphere was so overwhelming. I would have preferred the bonfire that we had been invited to. Chronic Believers helped me understand what felt like the endless sea of people that seemed to fill in the already packed space.They were a band that held most of their celebrity status on campus but still earned a decent online following. Their sets were entertaining from the few I could actually pay attention to. Most times the roaring audiences drowned out the songs. The only time I’d seen their faces were quick glances as I scrolled through social media. 

“Fine,” I agreed and hopped off the stool. Sawyer detached herself from me to cheer and even clap. “But you're coming with me. Both of you.”

Without objection she followed, only stopping to refill her cup before we made our way to the side door. Sebastian let us lead him, never complaining as Sawyer and I pulled him by either hand. We had to bob and weave to avoid dancing bodies and scattered chairs and tables. The outside air had an early fall chill. I wished I hadn’t left my cardigan in Sebastian’s car but it wasn’t cold enough to deter me from finding a secluded spot at the back of the designated smoking area. Having come here so often I knew rounding the corner if the building brought you to a pocketed corner where a cluster of bushes separated the space from the back employee parking lot. It was away from the stench of the dumpsters and not a lot of people knew about it. Lucky for us we were the only ones back there at the time. The music turned to distant thumps and the only voices we heard were whispers in the wind. We dropped down to sit on the concrete bench provided, the freezing stone seeped a chill to my thighs and backside through my jeans. I couldn’t help but admire the sleepless streets of the city. In the daylight it held a quaint charm but now it was littered with cigarette buts and red solo cups. Sawyer was unbothered by the change of temperature with the alcohol warming her from inside. Sebastian in contrast had goosebumps forming on his forearms. 

Sawyer produced a disposable vape pen and cell phone from her cleavage. WIth her first pull we were surrounded by a strawberry scented cloud. The street lamps provided us enough light that I could make out the varying expressions of my friends, but still far enough away to keep the gnats and mosquitoes from bothering us. Sebastian sipped from Sawyers cup, frowning at the burn of the vodka. Sawyer had a lazy smile and leaned back on one arm. The spot wasn’t ideal but it was a nice break to the constant stimulation of the club. 

“So are we all in agreement that tonight was much needed?” Sebastian asked, his voice breaking the comfortable silence that had settled. Sawyer hummed in agreement and cocked her head to the side in the same wonderment. 

I had been lighting one of the pre rolled joints I kept handy at all times, almost choking on the thick smoke when I tried to laugh. “After a long week you look forward to watered down drinks and cold alleys,” I managed to choke out between ragged breaths. The musky scent didn’t mix well with the strawberry smell. “We could have had fun and been a lot warmer if we had stayed at my place. I would have even cooked.”   

Sebastian hummed with a shrug of his shoulders. Sawyer huffed, her eyes rolling, “We can stay in any night. Tonight offered us an opportunity so we are taking it.”

“Listen to Sawyer, Mars. There might be something to her fate written in the stars spiel. Maybe her crystals told her something magical is going to happen tonight.” Sebastian quipped as he took the joint I offered him. 

I was starting to feel my body relax and welcomed the haziness that clouded my brain. The stillness of the nighttime might have been unnerving to others but it brought comfort to me. 

“I’m not trying to make a psychic prediction, I'm just saying everything happens for a reason.” Sawyer said, making herself giggle. 

“Or,” I countered with nudge to Sawyer, “You know that you're pretty enough for the frat boys to buy your drinks all night.” We all laughed now. Sebastian going into a coughing fit, wheezing to catch his breath. 

Sawyer threw her head back, her silver septum ring flashing in the yellow light. “Oh no,” She said suddenly, her face twisting an undisguisable expression, “I laughed too hard and now I have to pee. Damn you vodka.” Her declaration only made us laugh harder until Sawyer squeaked and crossed her legs.

“Go to the bathroom,” I told her, trying to put some authority in my voice. A fleeting attempt as I still couldn’t hold back laughter. 

She sighed, her fringe bangs fluttering against her forehead. “Hold on,” She said with reluctance. In one swift motion Sawyer had plucked the joint from between Sebastian’s lips while managing to rattle her cup enough and the red liquid sloshed over the sides. After two consecutive lung fulling pulls she gave it back to him. Sawyer pulled herself up, taking a moment to fix her skirt. Turning to me said, smoke spilling with her words, “I totally respect that you don’t like alcohol but I’m feeling pretty good right now.”

I rolled my eyes and used one hand to poke her hip. “Go to the bathroom,” I reminded her. 

Sawyer swatted me away while she was inhaling from her vape pen. “I’m going. Stop being so pushy.” 

I reached for the joint, Sebastian placed it between my middle and index finger. He was standing up and dusting off the seat of his pants. “I’ll go and make sure she doesn’t get lost. Are you good here.” 

“Yeah I’ll finish this and meet you guys in there.” I said 

Sawyer looped her arm through Sebastian with a theatrical salute. “Randevu in ten minutes,” She confirmed, “Then we will be dancing our pants off.” I knew I could deter her from her plans. I knew one way or another Sawyer would have me in the middle of the dance floor with her even if it meant dragging me by my hair. When I didnt respond immediately she held out a ring adorned hand and said, “Pinky promise.” 

Begrudgingly I hooked my pinky on hers in the wordless promise. Sawyer, pleased with me, turned on the balls of her feet and bounced away. Sebastian fell into step Sawyer as they made their way back inside and I was thoroughly impressed that Sawyer was able to keep her balance in the six inch heels that she wore. 

“I’m gonna time you,” Sebastian called over his shoulder, “And text me if you need anything.” I gave him a thumbs up, not feeling like yelling after having to for the past two hours with the blaring music. Even in the limited light I could see Sawyer lifting the red cup and finishing what was left in her cup.

As their silhouettes disappeared into the darkness I was left in silence and I was not bothered by it. I pulled out my cell phone, starting a cycle of scrolling through Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, really only paying attention to every other post. The trill of the nocturnal birds kept me company as the minutes ticked by. The will to focus on the screen lessened as the high set in. The words and pictures started to blur together and gave me a headache. I abandoned my phone on the empty space of the bench and closed my eyes, allowing myself to lean in to the high. Until the chirp of my phone cut through the peace. A text message from Sawyer, why I expected something different is a question for another day. What I couldn’t predict was the series of text that came after, one right after another.

OMG I am going to start screaming any minute!!! 

Chronic Believers have entered the building

Our friend Seb apparently knows one of the guys helping out with merch and got free tshirts

I’m not gonna lie but I kinda took advantage and got one in every design

I immediately sat up ready to take off sprinting to the club and shut the whole establishment down before reading the second text. The playfulness of it told me that she wasn’t about to end up on the internet for the next viral drunk girl fight. However with Sawyer, that didn’t eliminate the suspicion that she was up to something. A beat of silence passed before the next text message came in. It was her need for theatrics and dramatic timing. As a film student Sawyer often translated her skills into other aspects of her life. Then a picture popped onto the screen. The bright flash lit up Sawyer’s face and she wore the biggest smile I have ever seen her have. In her arms She held her loot of t-shirts and looked as if she was on her way to the laundromat with the amount she had. 

My joint died as I waited for Sawyers  ext. I set my phone back down in the grass beside me and went to work relighting it.  When I didn’t answer right away Sawyer texted again. I didn't pick up my phone until I had a steady burn and the tip of the joint glowed red. The newest text message made me laugh out loud. 

Call my parents and tell them i wont be home for Christmas because I have decided to dedicate my life full time to be a groupie lol  

I was thankful for Sawyer's company even if it was through text messages. While I could do without the claustrophobia and the pounding in my ears that never failed to carry in to the morning, Sawyer and Sebastian were the only thing that made it tolerable. And that could be said for life as well. 

I dont think admissions gives out refunds on tuition 

Also I dont think a touring bus is as glamorous as you think it is 

The three little dots appeared in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. I waited for Sawyer's response as I continued to take drags from the considerably shrinking joint. My face was starting to get warm and my lips felt numb. I felt as though I could float away like an unattended balloon. The buzzing in my brain was like a white noise machine, soothing but pushing most of my thoughts to the four corners for another time. My phone dinged again, startling me in my stupor. 

Also I need you to hurry up because I need you to make sure im still cute incase I see Gibby

I wished I knew which one Gibby was, as much as Sawyer expressed her love for Chronic Believers on a daily basis I was guilty forgetting a lot of the specifics. The guilty only subsided when Sebastian was around and had ro get clarification as well. 

Is gibby the base player or the drummer 

I just ask that you tell Sebastian to record it if you have to resort to Blair Wood’s patented bend and snap

If it somehow worked out that Sawyer would get her chance the live out her fantasy of meeting, and surely charming, Chronic Believers it would also be the closest she has come to meeting a celebrity. It was even funnier to imagine Sebastian, standing stoic as ever as Sawyer lost her composer. So I refused to sabotage her excitement. I prayed that Sebastian would at least translate for her, knowing Sawyer got tongue tied when excited. I typed out my next message double checking for spelling error, not trusting that my first attempt would be mistake free as my motor skills felt like they lagged. 

The drummer duh

Sawyer sent a laughing face emoji followed by a fingers crossed emoji. I tapped out of Sawyer’s message thread and clicked in to Sebastian’s. The clacking of my nails on the glass screen seemed louder than ever in the still air. 

Almost done outside. Meet you guys by the bar? 

Sebastian’s text was almost instantaneous. 

Will do. Let me know if you need us? 

I sent a thumbs up and locked my phone, letting it fall into my lap. I relished in what could be my last peaceful moments of the night. My eyes closed and I fell into an impromptu meditation. One arm supported my weight as I leaned back and stretched my legs out. I focused on the muted sounds, letting them ground me in the moment. The scraping of tumbling leaves, a car horn on the main road a few streets over and footsteps. Then I recognize the distinct thump of the heavy industrial door leading into the club swing shut. When I opened my eyes I expected to see a stumbling couple in search of privacy. Instead I saw a lone figure rounding the corner. 

When they passed under the street light I saw it was a guy. His focus was on his cell phone as he walked. He didn’t notice me until I sat up. Both my hands got busy, forcing me to balance the joints between my teeth. One unlocked my phone and pulled up Sebastian’s contact option as the other unhooked my mace from it’s place on my belt loop. 

“I didn't mean to scare you,” The stranger spoke first, “I thought I was the only one who knew this spot.”

I hid the mace in my palm, he still had potential to not be creepy. Raising an eyebrow I took the joint from my mouth holding it with two fingers behind my phone. “It’s okay. I don't usually see anyone back here either. Unless they are going behind the dumpster.” 

He chuckled, breathy and sinful. “Oh the infamous dumpster. Nothing sexier than spiders and trash.”

Maybe it was the weed or maybe it was the way he dropped his already deep voice an octave to make spiders and trash sound salacious. Either way I awarded him a smile. “Well it sounds like you know from experience,” I teased. 

“Never been, but I have enough friends to hear the stories.” He took a few steps forward. Not enough to ring any alarm bells but close enough to let me know he was engaged in the conversation. I could now make out his strong features that casted jagged shadows on his dark jacket. He had a face that seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn't place it to a specific name. 

“I’m Hudson,” He introduced himself. It fit him. Hudson was tall with wide shoulders and a lean build. His dark hair was styled just messy enough to be on purpose. Along with a denim jacket he wore black distressed jeans and a black t-shirt underneath. His outfit was clean and well fitted, however the classic high top vans he wore had seen better days. The tattered laces and scuff marks told stories of past adventures. 

I disarmed the trigger of mace but still kept it in hand as I began to gather my things. “I didn’t mean to monopolize the only quiet hiding spot,” I said bracing my feet so I could push myself up. 

Hudson put a hand up to stopping me. “No stay. Don’t feel like I’m running you out,” He said before quickly adding, “I mean if you want to of course. Besides this might be the only quietude you have for a while.” 

“Are you hiding from the chaos too?” I asked, recognizing the need for clarity when everything around you felt like a riot. 

“Hiding is a strong word,” His eyes flickered to the ground before returning to mine with the rest of his answer, “I’m having a conversation with a pretty girl.” 

I would have never admitted it out loud but I was blushing, grateful for the cover of darkness. “Well who am I to stop you.” I hoped my voice was even and projected a false confidence. Hudson didn’t seem to notice as he didn’t hesitate to collapse on the bench next to me. My taser was returned to my belt loop and I reminded myself of the quick release latch that it hung off of. I offered what was left of the joint. “I promise that it’s not laced.” 

A beat passed before Hudson accepted, his smile growing wider when he did. Never taking his eyes from me Hudson brought it to his lips and took a generous inhale. On the exhale he coughed a few times but not the chest rattling ones I had expected. He grinned as he tilted his head back to watch the smoke dissipate above us. “Wow, that was smoother than I thought.” 

“The weed or the fact that your lung almost collapsed.” Hudson laughed and offered the joint back. I shook my head and said, “I’m good for now. You are more than welcome to kill it.” 

We sat in a comfortable silence as Hudson took pulls. I unlocked my phone to find two text messages from Sawyer. 

Did you get eaten by a coyote? What is taking you so long

Text me you are okay. I need my dancing partner

Than one from Sebastian. 

Are you doing okay? Sawyer is ready to send out a search party and will be very upset if she loses her ‘front row’ spot

I responded to both of them in the group chat that included all three of us. 

I’m good, just got caught up talking to a guy 

I sent the message then turned to Hudson. He spoke first catching slightly off guard. “Is gibby the base player or the drummer I just ask that you tell Sebastian to record it if you have to resort to Blair Wood’s patented bend and snapIf it somehow worked out that Sawyer would get her chance the live out her fantasy of meeting, and surely charming, Chronic Believers it would also be the closest she has come to meeting a celebrity. It was even funnier to imagine Sebastian, standing stoic as ever as Sawyer lost her composer. So I refused to sabotage her excitement. I prayed that Sebastian would at least translate for her, knowing Sawyer got tongue tied when excited. I typed out my next message double checking for spelling error, not trusting that my first attempt would be mistake free as my motor skills felt like they lagged. 

The drummer duh

Should I only refer to you as ‘pretty girl' or can I know your name?” 

“I think it’s only fair,” I paused, the light from my phone screen glowed in the space between us, “But only if you do me a weird favor.” 

Hudson only continued to grin almost as if he was on the verge of laughter, “I will only participate in your weird favor if you take my jacket. You look like you need it more than me.” 

Before I could object Hudson was already shrugging off his jacket and I was surrounded by the warm denim. The exchange was quick as Hudson held the joint with his lips, the tip red and crackling.  He draped his jacket over my shoulders and retreated back to a friendly distance. Hudson’s cologne clung to the fabric. I used the jacket as an improvised cloak. The scent was sharp and fresh yet warming. 

“So what is the weird favor?” Hudson asked. Even sitting down, Hudson was taller than me. I found myself lifting my chin so I could study him. Fear ached in my stomach at the thought that this might be the only time I would have to spend with Hudson. I memorized the small things like how his jaw clenched to hold back a giggle that threatened to bubble out. Or how he would lick his lips each time the wind would pick up. I couldn’t tell if his eyes were green or brown but I could imagine them warm and inviting in the right lighting. Again he laughed, a sound I would not mind hearing on repeat. “I’m starting to worry what this favor is.” Hudson’s eyebrows raised in question. 

That’s when I noticed that I had been staring. Wide eyes and slacked jawed, I was proud of myself for not literally drooling. I lagged at myself, the sound breathy and forgin to my own ears. “Sorry, I completely blanked,” I was painfully aware how my voice faltered. I was also newly conscious of how my hair had been slowly escaping the confines of hair tie and fell at odd angles. “It’s not too weird,” I promised, “Would you mind taking a picture with me. It’s for my friends, in case you are a serial killer.” 

Hudson didn’t flinch. He gave a heart melting smile, one that was lopsided and toothy but full of charm. “How should I pose?”

“Here,” I said shifting closer to him, “Behind me is okay, nothing too crazy.” 

“Is it cool if I put my arm around you,” Hudson asked, leaning forward. 

THe butterflies that erupted in my stomach surprised me. There had been plenty of guys who had put their arm around me, a gesture innocent enough. However none had ever asked. Yet here was Hudson, patiently waiting for my permission. And when I did he gently draped his arm over my shoulders, letting me relax back into his embrace. I held up my cell phone, angling it so our faces were center. We shifted until what we saw on the screen wasn’t so blatantly awkward. I found myself completely comfortable in Hudson’s embrace. His chest was flush to my back with his forearm secured across my chest. I was surrounded by the warmth that radiated off of Hudson. 

“Ready?” The question came in a squeak. 

“Hold on,” Hudson turned his head, bringing the joint to his lips and taking one last long pull before the glowing tip faded. I felt his chest expand, balloon for a moment then compress. Not once did he loosen his hold. On the exhale he crushed the butt under his sneaker. “Ready,” Hudson confirmed as he settled back. 

I gave a countdown before clicking the button and the shutter went off, blinding me as the flash pierced the darkness. Hudson ducked his head down to inspect the picture and awed. I agreed with his praise. You would have never guessed we’d only met less than ten minutes ago. Both Hudson and I wore stupefied grins. “Wow we look good together.” I blurted out and immediately regretted it. 

Hudson chuckled and took his arm back. He didn’t fully pull away from me. In the absence of his arm, Hudson still stayed close. I missed the warmth that he surrounded me with, even with the jacket I wanted Hudson’s embrace again. 

“I was thinking the same thing. But-” His pause was punctuated by a wagging finger, “We can talk about how cute we are together later. You still have to hold up your end of the deal.” 

I was typing out a quick message to go with the picture while I was listening to Hudson. When the message was sent, before I could lock my phone, Sawyer's message appeared underneath mine. It was a series of drooling emojis. I felt a surge of confidence from her support. 

“What about the mystery?” I asked when I put my phone down.  

Hudson shrugged and a sitcom worthy sigh pushed passed his full lips. “By all means uphold the mystery but I think it might get a little old if I call you honey the whole night.”

I wouldn’t have minded at all. The word sounded like it was made for his voice. “I’m sure you can think of other pet names,” I joked with the hope that it would deflect how flustered I truly was.

“Yeah there’s baby, sweetheart, sugar and darling,” He listed off on his fingers, “But I’m not really a fan of those. I hope this isn’t our only meeting for the night and it might not be effective if I’m looking for you and I shout one of those into a crowd of people.”

“So you’re a man of efficiency. I can appreciate that,” I paused watching Hudson’s brows raise, my teasing intriguing him. “For efficiency's sake of course, I’m Mars.” 

“Mars,” He repeated back as if testing the sound on his lips. The question was obvious in the way he tilted his head. 

I laughed, used to the questions that followed every introduction. “My mom is an astrologer. Certified hippy and fortune teller.” 

“The planet of energy, action of desire. Do you live up to your name?” 

I raised my eyebrows in genuine surprise. “Impressive. Was it Seventeen Magazine or Cosmo?”

Hudson rolled his eyes, “In my defense my sister had a monthly description to both and I’m an Aries.”  

“You know they just recycle horoscopes right?” 

Hudson mimed himself being stabbed in the heart. “Why would you tell me that. How will I know to watch out for great financial opportunities each month?” 

I laughed at his dramatics, “Oh I’m sure their on staff astrologist isn’t just another overworked intern using a computer generated tarot card application they found on Google. Have you ever had a genuine tarot reading?” 

“Well there was this one time when I went to New Orleans with my friends and-” Hudson was interrupted by the chorus of a song from Papa Roach. He apologized and fished his phone from his back packet. There was a second of hesitation, his eyes bouncing from me back to the phone before he pressed talk and brought it to his ear. Hudson didn’t bother with a greeting to who ever was on the other line. He listened for a few seconds before saying, “I know, I just got distracted. I’ll head back now,” A pause, then he smiled looking back at me, “A good distraction I promise.” I could hear what sounded like a round of cheering on the other side. “Everything ready? Alright cool. I’ll be there in five.” 

Hudson hung up the phone and returned it to his pocket. A pout tuned down the corners of his mouth. Before he could explain I stopped him, “It’s okay. We’re at a party, can’t sit in a frat house lawn forever. But I will hold you to your early promise of finding me later.” 

“Scouts honor,” Hudson promised, holding up a three finger salute, “If Mars doesn’t work then I will be shouting Honey all night.” 

I giggled a girlish sound I wasn’t used to. “It’ll be like Cinderella, except instead of a glass slipper it’ll be a pet name.” 

We fell into a comfortable silence. I was well aware of Hudson’s gaze on me. So desperately I wanted to tell him to forget the party and just stay in the solace of darkness with me. But we were truly only strangers with our own priorities for the night. As supportive Sawyer could be when it came to her friends' love lives I still made a promise to her well before Hudson stumbled for my attention. 

“I heard that the Chronic Believers are playing the club tonight so it’s probably gonna get crazy in there,” I said, an attempt at stalling, “Don’t get sucked into the pit.” 

Hudson sat up a little straighter and grinned a little wider. “Do you go to Chronic believers’ shows often, like a fan.” 

I shrugged, “Not really, their whining emo boy band style isn’t for me. I come to a lot of their gigs for my best friend Sawyer. She’s the real fan. Most of the time I get pushed to the back -” It was my turn to be interrupted. The ringing was the familiar beeps that signaled Sawyer  was calling. I tugged my phone from where it was tucked under my thigh. If I had the option to decline her call without the risk of Sawyer immediately going into a panic, I would have. So I apologized as best as I could to Hudson, before sliding the accept button. Hudson was far from bothered, nodding to me with understanding.

I was greeted with the static of booming speakers and Sawyer shrieking before it dissolved into a giggle. “Sounds like you’re having fun,” I questioned. 

“Do you know how much I love you right now,” She said, the vodka obviously taking its toll on her speech. Between her slurring and the party raging around her I could barely understand Sawyer when she asked, “I could totally kiss you right now. Wait, Are you with Hudson, can he hear me?” 

I giggled and stole a peek in Hudson’s direction. He busied his hands with a stray piece of thread but his chuckle gave away his poor attempt to hide a curious ear. “You're yelling into the phone so yeah he can hear you, keep it PG-13.” 

“Well, I proud of you and dont fuck it up.” Her voice faded for a second like she was covering the speaker, then another loud giggle. “Don’t worry about going to the bar, make your way to the front we’re right in front of the stage. I’ll have a fresh drink waiting for you when you get back.” 

“Okay I promise, five minutes.” I said. She made a vague threat before telling me she loves me and hung up. Turning my full attention back to Hudson. “I think we have to stop stalling and go back in.”

He groaned and it melted into a laugh, “I figured, just didn’t want to.” Hudson stood up and stretched, his shirt raising to expose solid muscles underneath. I made one last check that I had all of my belongings before taking Hudson’s extended hand. He pulled me up, assuring I was steady with a gentle hand on my hip. 

“Maybe if we walk slow we can have another minute or two?” I said when my feet felt heavy taking the first steps.

“I’ll go as slow as you want me to,” Hudson said, offering me his elbow for me to hold on to. I gave no second thought to placing my hand on his bicep, the rigid muscles flexing under the thin cotton of his shirt. I was  thankful for the continued warmth that Hudson provided as the wind picked up. We walked in a comfortable silence for most of the way back to the house. The rest of the world slowly came back into existence as the voices from other patrons came out the door, bringing the pulsating soundtrack with them as the door swung open. Hudson and I stepped out of the way to allow them to pass. His arm flexing protectively around mine as he paused to look down at me.“How long are you staying after the set?” 

“Not really sure,” I told him, “I usually just go with whatever my friends decide to do.” 

“Well I plan on keeping my promise to find you. So maybe you might be able to convince them not to leave right away.” 

“I’ll see what I can do. Some say I have a talent for persuasion,” We  separated from each other but like a pull of gravity Hudson and I stood face to face with barely two inched between us. He leaned against the brick wall with one shoulder, his hand balled in the front pocket of his jeans. Hudson’s eyes moving to my mouth as I bit my bottom lip did not go unnoticed by me. I rode the wave of confidence that flipped in my stomach.  “But if you can’t find me with all the dancing drunk people. Take my number.”

Hudson’s eyebrows shot up and for a passing moment I braced myself for rejection. It was quickly soothed by Hudson grin growing even wider. “Would you believe me if I told you I was trying to work up the courage to ask you. I thought I missed my chance after we took the picture.” 

I laughed at the fact that we were both adults and still held onto the same consternation that highschoolers did. Hudson produced his cell phone and handed it to me in a matter of seconds, the dial pad at the ready. “You should have just asked,” I spoke while I keyed in my phone number, “I was here thinking that once we went back in we would lose each other for the rest of the night.” 

When I handed his phone back Hudson typed out a message to me and I felt the notification buzz before he had it back in his jeans pocket. With his attention back on me I realized how much more I could clearly see of him in the new light. His hair was a deep brown and had a softness that made me want to run my hands through it. But what captivated my attention was the faintest of scars that connected from his top lip to just under his left nostril. So badly did I want to reach and trace the thin pink line. 

“I hope you know I mean it Mars,” Hudson spoke, full lips still curled into a half smile, “I want to see you again.” 

Before I could express my absolute delight in his statement a whistle cut through the humming noise of whispered conversations. Hudson recognized the sound immediately, his eyes rolling and he mouthed an apology to me before spinning me back around. 

The guy was coming towards us in a light jog and held an expression of annoyance. As he came up the side street I realized he looked identical to Hudson, save for the fluorescent green hair and paler skin. “We have been looking for you for the past thirty minutes, where the hell have you been. Smoking a cigarette doesn’t that fucking long.” 

Hudon sighed and stepped aside so the guy with the green hair could see me. “J this is Mars, Mars this is my brother Julian.” 

Julian’s head tilted down, eyeing Hudson’s jacket still around my shoulders. The annoyance melted instantly and Julian’s eyes lit up in intriguement. “Well Mars you fit my criteria as a plausible distraction. I wish I could leave you kids to,” He paused, his lips puckered as if trying to find the words to say, “Further distraction but my brother and I have an entire club to entertain.” 

Hudson groaned, and I could only imagine them as children egging each other on. “No worries, I was just giving Hudson his jacket back.” 

Julian moved between Hudson and I turning his back so he was facing the heavy metal door. He didn't have to be facing us to know Julian had been grinning as he spoke. “Not blaming you at all,” A pause, just long enough for Julian to pull the door open, “Just the way your jeans are fitting you tonight.” 

Hudson shoved at his brother’s shoulder eliciting a boisterous laugh from Julian. Hudson was less than amused, “J, just go inside, I'll be there in a second.” 

“You said that last time. At least get her your number.” Julian teased. 

Hudson bit back the retort. Instead raising the middle finger to his  brother’s retreating back. The hiss of the Pneumatic controls above the door punctuated Julian’s retreat. “He’s an asshole. I promise it’s a personality thing and not a trait passed through genes.” 

I smiled, genuinely amused with Hudson’s brief regression to boyhood. “Here,” I said shrugging off the jacket, “I promise not to hold it against you or him.” 

“Hey if your still cold-” Hudson spoke with fidgeting hands. 

I interrupted him with a shake of my head, “Hudson you’re stalling. I’m going to keep my end of the deal and stay after the set so you can keep up your end. Besides, both my friends and you friends are looking for us. I have to let Sawyer know that I didn’t fall down a well or got kidnapped. You don't need to give up your jacket for insurance.” 

Hudson made a face that I could only describe as awe but he was quick to replace it with a smile that made my heart race. “Pinky promise so I know it’s real.

My first reaction was to laugh, not remembering the last time I had made a pinky promise with someone other than Sawyer. Her firm belief that breaking one would result in a missing appendage. But I was brought to an abrupt silence when Hudson extended his in the closing space between us. My eyes moved past the black painted nail and locked on to the black line work that curled under his cuff. I silently cursed the cooling temperatures that October brought.

“I’m not kidding. I need reassurance. Say what you want about a pink-”  He was expecting to have to win me over. He was surprised, adding a sparkle in his eyes. They were brown, I noted. 

“I don’t break my promises. It’s kind of offending that I would give the impression of a person that would,” I chewed my lip to hide the smile. 

Hudson tucked one of my rogue curls behind my ear, static ignited where the pads of his fingers grazed my cheek. “I’m holding you to it.”

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Eight

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

I accidentally messed up the numbering on part Seven’s link to post six, so if you missed post six (or yesterday’s part seven), the numbering up there is correct.

Wherein we get back out into the galaxy, explore, help some people, and kill some others!

So now that we have Liara, it’s time to really dig into the galaxy.  We have a few people we talked to on the CItadel who need help, and maybe we’ll stumble into a few more things along the way.

First of all, let’s check out the galaxy map...

Hey wait a sec, what’s this?

Petra Nebula!?  Oh hey, another new addition by the ME1 Recalibrated mod.

Gorgeous map, only one system available.

Heeeey we recognize this place, we’ll get to go there in.... two games!

Can’t land there (or anywhere in the system) but it’s cool that it exists! There are a couple of other neat little things in the system I didn’t screenshot so that you can have a cool new experience yourself if you decide to use the mod on your next playthrough.

What I really miss from ME3, by the way, is the % markers which note when you’ve fully explored a system or if there’s more stuff to find there.

Anyway, my PLAN had been to take a screenshot of each planet or spacecraft before I entered it to help orient the playthrough better, and then the non-screenshotting couple of hours happened, so we lost some of that along the way, sorry.  

Still, let’s see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into.

I love this planet.  The lava juuuuust below the surface, peeking out.  Just some of the coolest terrain in the game.

What a great view, let’s get a little clo--

OOPS.

I meant to do that.

Wide open spaces with no fears of a thresher maw living in the lava! ...I hope?

Ah, here’s our objective, a distress signal being sent from this location, let’s see if we can help...

FUCKING GETH AMBUSH.

Aw yeah, jumping over those explosives like a pro!

...most of the time.

Well this planet was a bust.  Let’s see if we can actually help someone.

Another planet, scanned a few things, not sure what we’re doing here but hey, I found a lone building!

Ah yes, a prefab which is totally different from all the prefabs we’ll enter because the creates are stacked in a different configuration.

Honestly they should have put one of these prefabs in ME3 for Old Times Sake. (The ones that actually look like homes/labs/whatever make so much more sense.)

Annnd we’re being attacked.  Not sure why, but here we go!

Awww yeah, Throw!  And Ash and Kaidan managing to be useful I think?

Except they let a guy slip by us, but luckily there’s a convenient explosive nearby.  That got ‘em.

OK back to facing forward OH FUCK A KROGAN.

Kaidan’s biotics and my shotgun, a favorite combination.  Now stay down!

Sweet, level up!

And that fight’s over, time to explore this pla...

Whew, thanks Kaidan.

This guy thought he could sneak past me.  Well me, my shotgun and my 20 shield strength sure showed him.

ME1 combat is so... messy though.  I mean, I honestly still enjoy it, but I’m in the camp that agrees combat gets better every game, Andromeda included.  Of course, I just REALLY LOVE Vanguarding in ME3... charging into a group of enemies, hitting Nova, spamming charge again praying that I’ll find a good target to charge to in time.  ME1 combat is basically all just... spam abilities from cover and hope your companions are doing something useful.  Being a Vanguard is more about style over substance in ME here.  I mean you do get some really useful abilities, but your shotgun isn’t that much use unless things get too close.

Which, you know, they do pretty often.

Anyway, remember... I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!

FUCK I hadn’t been back to the Citadel to pick up Nassana Dantius’ quest yet.  Let’s just reload the quicksave from outside and we’ll... come back and do this the right way later and see the entire quest.

I do this more often than I care to admit.

Also no screenshot for this but... I also found Wrex’s personal quest planet and recognized it only when I saw the building, since it’s in a pretty memorable location.  Still, grabbed everything else off the planet so it’ll be quick when it’s time to go back and do that quest.

Well let’s go back to poking around the galaxy.

Message coming in.  Patching it through.

Ah, yeah, hey Hackett.  What’s that?  You’ve got some dirty work you need me to do for you?  Cool, be right there.

Before the ME2 DLC Arrival came out, Hackett was one of Mass Effect’s biggest mysteries.  Who is this guy?  Why is he telling us to do things?  Does he have some secret agenda?  Why is he so sketchy?  Our Shepards seemed to trust him but WOW he sure did send us on some touchy missions.  Speculation was all over the place on what he looked like and what he was really doing.

Turns out, he’s just a pretty cool guy who wants you to take on all the secret spy missions the Alliance doesn’t want to take credit for.

I wish I’d saved it, but just a week or two ago I saw a pretty great post circulating about Hackett.  He IS the guy that’s going to make sure a job gets done, even if he’s not going to do it himself.  He’s the back-room Admiral with the squeaky clean image up front.  He’s the Gus Fring of the Alliance.

Also getting Lance Riddick to voice him was great.  Just a real authoritative, steady guy who you actually want to trust.  

And it turns out he looks basically exactly like most people thought, but maybe with a few more scars. (I mean, he really looks a lot like Lance Riddick, tbh)  But we don’t know that yet.  For now, let the mystery be.

Time to actually go help someone.

Ah yeah, Chairman Burns, we do negotiate with terrorists, in this case.  But they needed negotiating with.

Maxing out the Paragon-meter is worth it for moments like this.  These guys have probably suffered and it’s no surprise that no one has really listened.  Sounds like a lot about the galaxy hasn’t changed since we got out there.

This is also an excellent moment for Kaidan.

Being able to let Kaidan reason with them is fantastic.  Although he probably ultimately doesn’t make a difference mechanics wise, it’d be nice if maybe the check is easier if he’s here.  I don’t know.  But Kaidan knows, even if he’s one of the “lucky” ones who “only” gets migraines.  

One of the grossest posts I’ve seen about Kaidan are people who argue she shouldn’t be on the team because of his implants and since he has a “disability”.  Or that it’s “kinder” to sacrifice him on Virmire.  That’s some real gross ablism you’ve got there.  

Anyway, I love being able to keep this situation under control. Burns actually comes through if you do, even if those guys probably go to prison for awhile for terrorism.  Better than being dead.

Time for... another planet!

Again, didn’t take a screencap of this one but... there’s a missing survey team? I must have picked this quest up in the elevators, because normally you get it on Noveria.  Anyway,  Let’s go find them on Trebin, I’m sure they just can’t broadcast anymore or something.  It’s cool

FUCK. SHIT SHIT SHIT.  FUCK!!!

I probably could have actually used Warp or Throw or even Barrier there but... too late now!  We lived!

I was all ready to blame this on Cerberus, but creepily, there’s no explanation for who huskified them or why.   I’m still going to blame Cerberus, seems like something they’d do.

Well, time to move on.

Honestly, I can’t believe anyone who says ME1 isn’t beautiful.

And driving the Mako is FUN in places like this!

Oh there’s a camp up ahead, we’re here to find the remaining crew of a crashed ship for our new friend in the Citadel Tower.  

Again, no footage/screenshot but eventually you find where the mercenaries tracked down Willem (the brother) and killed them.  Shit.  We were too late.  I actually tear up sometimes telling Garoth that his brother died.  They held out for awhile, too, but we were too late.

It would have been nice if, say, if the very first thing we did after leaving the Citadel was to come here, we could have saved him, but I guess this quest is another way of Bioware telling us that sometimes, there’s just nothing you can do to change things.

One more quest this update, then we’re stopping back off at the Citadel next.

Presrop, one of the most well-known of the sidequest planets. (OKok, technically it’s a moon.)

One of my favorite landing sequences, just because the stars make it so... dramatic.

I mean DAMN.

Klendagon's most striking feature is, of course, the Great Rift valley that stretches across the southern hemisphere. What is most fascinating about the Rift is that it does not appear to be natural. The geological record suggests it is the result of a "glancing blow" by a mass accelerator round of unimaginable destructive power. This occurred some thirty-seven million years ago.

It took a solid three minutes of Flycam flying to get that closeup shot, btw.  I actually flew all the way in the first time I came here, and didn’t take screenshots.  Took about six minutes.  The updated texture is impressive.

Well, Hackett sent us here, let’s deal with Major Kyle.

Being nice and non-threatening gets you into places.

I’ll admit, before I came in here, I decided to cheat in enough paragon points to max out Paragon already.  For me personally, I’m trying to make sure this is an “ultimate” playthrough, a save file I can just use over and over from here on out.  I want everything to import into ME3 the first time around with all the plot flags set how I want them without messing with Gibbed’s Savegame Editor, so making sure I can convince everyone how I want them to is important.  So hey, Major Kyle, stand down.

I don’t think I’ve ever played as a Ruthless Shepard in ME1, or if I have, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten how it goes.  But he was the commanding officer at the battle of Torfan, and your CO if you’re Ruthless.  He’s also a reminder of how serious PTSD can be, and what it can do to a person.  

I also love this tidbit from the Wiki, which I didn’t know since I’d never done these particular choices before:

(In Mass Effect 2)  If Martin Burns was not saved in 2183, a news report on the Citadel will announce that Kyle is trying to form an all-biotic community as the reparations were not given to L2 biotics and they have become even more alienated from galactic society.

I really liked that if you reason with him, he doesn’t give you any trouble and turns himself in like he says.

Hey, this negotiation thing is easy when you’re the best person in the galaxy at it!!