#there are already so many variants to fucking block

[theculturedmarxist]

Eugenics is still the rule of the fucking day.

"People 65-plus and people who are immunocompromised should strongly consider masking during flu, RSV, COVID season while in indoor public spaces," said Dr. Céline Gounder, a CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News. "And for everyone else — it all depends on what their risk tolerance is."

"Depends on what their risk tolerance is." Are you fucking kidding me?

CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook says he likes to use the "weather report analogy" for the general public. "What's the weather out today? If it's raining, you will probably want to bring an umbrella. If you are in an area where there is an uptick in airborne respiratory infections like COVID, flu or RSV, you may want to take extra precautions, such as wearing a high-quality mask in indoor public spaces," he said.

People should be masking up before there's a fucking "uptick." That's how you prevent a fucking "uptick". Especially considering testing isn't the metric the people in power are going by any more, but hospitalizations, which are always going to be lagging indicators. By the time the "uptick" is registered these diseases are going to have been present and active for days or even weeks.

After COVID hospitalizations climbed nearly 22% this week, the CDC is predicting further increases over the coming month as new variants spread. This replaces previous projections from the agency that admissions would "remain stable or have an uncertain trend."

Oh, cool, so things are already bad and the are predicting that things are going to get worse, but the decision is being made to not do a fucking thing about it.

In a 2021 "60 Minutes" interview, virologist Paul Duprex explained the current (and future) emergence of new variants — a concept applicable to the current situation. "Is there anything we can do to stop the virus from mutating so much?" LaPook asked Duprex at the time. "We can certainly stop it making as many mutations by stopping it infecting as many people - if we block its transmission, if we wear a mask, if we get vaccinated, if we do social distancing," Duprex said.

None of which will be happening because "Covid Is Over" and doing any of the necessary things to prevent it are voluntary at best.

After news broke about the BA.2.86 variant earlier this month, the CDC said the agency's advice on protecting yourself from COVID-19 — which includes wearing a high-quality mask among other recommendations listed on its website — "remains the same."

Oh alright let's see what the CDC recommends

In addition to basic health and hygiene practices, like handwashing, CDC recommends some prevention actions at all COVID-19 hospital admission levels, which include:

Ugh. At least its recommendations implicitly admit that covid is airborne.

Still, some experts fear it could be hard to convince Americans to don masks again even if COVID cases continue to rise. Dr. Danielle Ompad, an epidemiologist at the NYU School of Global Public Health, said "It's a bit like putting the genie back in the bottle." Still, she has personally started wearing a mask again recently in crowded places, where the risk of exposure is greater.

Huh, I wonder why it would be hard to convince people to mask up again. Who's responsible for letting the genie out of the fucking bottle? Maybe they should be taken to task for this fucking decision?

"If I were with people who aren't public health-trained, I would wear a mask, particularly in crowded situations, because I really don't have time for COVID. Mask mandates are challenging because they make people really bent out of shape out of proportion to the ask."

What people are getting "really bent out of shape" by mask mandates? Just "people" huh? No specific people at all? Okay then.

"Who wants to get sick while on vacation?" she says. "If you're going to be in a crowded public place — the subway, an airplane, a crowded theater — those are the kind of places I would at least consider wearing a mask."

Hey maybe these fucking super-spreader places shouldn't be open especially with multiple variants spreading across the country with no mask mandates in place.

Though increased cases and hospitalizations are prompting precautions, Gounder says she doesn't see another lockdown in our future. "That ship has sailed. Has sailed for years now," she said. 

"That ship" just sailed itself, huh? Another development with no cause and no active participant? Just up and sailed on its own, did it? And there's no one to sail it back? Man, that's crazy.

[crownedinmarigolds]

If the Stakebait Coterie all played D&D together what classes would they play? And who would be the DM?

O-oh my gosh thank you for the question! It's my favorite kind - dungeons and dragons + Stakebait!! Straight from the horse's mouth (@thesixthplaneteer ) it goes as such:

Dungeon Master - Sydney aka the Dusk Angel, leader of the Thinblood revolution in ATL and exasperated den mother. No telling where he got the time to run this game but maybe he needs to feel some real control in his life. He is probably always late by maximum half an hour but he's at least always prepared. His stories are always thoughtful and well-put together and he eventually gives everyone what they want.

Ranger - Ralph! Despite his IRL size he's a much better fighter at a distance so that would probably carry into his gameplay. According to thesixthplaneteer he'd be a half-orc. The least optimized person at the table but he's ALWAYS going to play the character he wants. 🥰 I imagine him cracking jokes the entire session but gets scary tactical during combat. And he brought the white claw. (Probably jokes about ERP with Khloe after the session is over... JK! Unless.)

Wizard - Khloe! The chronic overthinker and planner, she'd definitely be a clever spellcaster who would try and use her environment to her advantage because wizards have paper skin and glass bones. While she likes martial classes that's just so many numbers she's not prepared to handle. I think race-wise she might be a human variant like a Genasi! Or perhaps a gnome. Either or. Something where she can be colorful! She probably has dinner for everyone at the table and plenty of snackies. She'd take gameplay INCREDIBLY seriously but would definitely slip into silly shenanigans when prompted.

Fighter - Christian. Human fighter - completely by the numbers made in a generator character sheet. Has probably never played DND in his life but he loves hanging out without his coterie despite his grumpy demeanor so he's "toughing it out" and playing the most generic race+class combo imaginable at the DM's suggestion. He's made fun of it relentlessly by Ralph but he does a good job fighting. He's probably a stoic RP'er who only speaks minimally unless something really interests him, but he at least takes the game seriously enough so everyone still has a good time. He probably brought a giant coffee thermos because he always just got off work before a session. And actual beer because "fuck white claw, goddamnit."

Cleric - Kyle! The forever Healer both in unlife and at the table! He'd be a gorgeous elf of whom he'd already have stunning commissioned artwork of. He also has the highest Charisma at the table and probably has a stable of lovers in every port they visit. All implied of course and nothing explicit at the table. Probably spoke with the DM beforehand about a custom made God that is dubiously aligned morally... bordering on Warlock but he knows the system enough to game it properly. 🤭He and Khloe would be the ones taking the story the MOST serious, Kyle breaking character the least out of the party. Bonus Player: Nyth, Sydney's boyfriend(?) who will randomly join him some sessions to play a various pre-made NPC. He'd probably steal everyone's hearts before bailing halfway to go meet up with his bestie Noa or he'll make the session go on forever for one reason or another. He's a mess and we love him. AH so fun.... THANK YOU!

((Art by @the-art-block!!! Sydney, Nyth, Khloe, Ralph, Kyle, and Christian!))

[kookieswan]

Outlast Them All - Little Bunny

Variant!Namjoon x Journalist!Reader

Word Count: 1.2k

Genre: Outlast!AU, Horror, Psychological Horror, Angst, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Fluff?????, NSFW content (Sexual and Non-Sexual).

Warnings: Minor character death, blood/gore, foul language once again, general horror, angst, religious themes. This story will consistently tackle themes of obsessive behavior as well as psychological/general horror and many of the characters are morally gray. Please be warned.

Notes: You picked the worst choice last time and my my, how you will pay for it ☺️ Once again, your choices will heavily impact the outcome of the story. Please pick carefully lovelies ♥️

This is Part II of the Outlast Them All series. Find the series Masterlist here 💀

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Waiting around definitely isn’t going to get you anywhere in this shithole. There’s clearly a lot of messed up stuff going on in these walls, and you’re here to find out what that is, not hide from it. Glancing up at the dead man one more time, you decide to delete him from your memory and make your way toward the door.

The sound isn’t getting any quieter, so in fear of it being some sort of psycho, you creep as quietly as you can around other dead bodies and pools of blood. Thank god you decided to wear boots instead of something flimsier. Pressing your ear against the door, you listen quietly to the metallic sound.

It clanks against the wall a few more times, and then strangely enough, everything goes quiet. You wait a beat, then two, slowly pulling your camcorder back up. Cracking open the door, you slowly pan the camera out to get a peek, the lights flashing sinisterly overhead.

At first glance, you can’t see anything, the only immediate sound being the fluorescent flickers of light going in and out. Deciding to brave the storm, you push the door open with your foot and step out slowly, eyes darting back and forth.

Nothing.

You take a few quiet steps into the hallway, a sort of squelching sound following like a shadow you. Glancing down, you grimace as your eyes follow the boot tracks of blood you’ve left behind. Lovely.

Your eyes snap to the corner of the hallway as something seems to ghost by, a shadow…? No, it can’t be. A trick of the eye likely, your paranoia is growing more and more every second.

Sliding your feet against the floor quickly, you try your best to get rid of the thick liquid, knowing it could potentially trail something toward you. With what you’ve seen, you don’t want any fucking body following you around this place… Although, it might be better than the fucked up tranquility.

It’s still eerily quiet as it is, and it’s already making you severely uncomfortable. You ponder on how the lack of life is odd as you quietly make your way around the corner. Glancing down through the glass into the lobby, everything’s still seems the same as when you first checked; bodies everywhere.

You notice bookshelves blocking your path ahead, hastily pushed out of the way and falling against each other, both smeared in blood. Curling your lips, you prepare to slide through the small crack before you hear it-

“Little bunny.”

You’re ripped out from your spot, a scream tearing through your throat as a behemoth of a man drags you away from the safety of bloody pages. He holds you high in the air as you attempt to wiggle away from him, unable to see his face as it’s covered by a mop of long black hair.

Without another thought, he throws you against the thin glass barrier that protects you from the carnage of a lobby below, your body hurling toward the floor. You don’t even get to feel the impact as everything goes dark…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh, you’re still alive…!”

“Who…?” It comes out so terribly slurred that you can barely understand what you’re saying. The man blinks down at you, the robes he wears a dead giveaway to what he might be. A priest…? Here?

He squats down to get a closer look at you, eyes scanning up and down your body. He doesn’t touch, but his lips curl ever so slightly downward as he takes in your condition. You take note of his bleached hair, the roots starting to show very obviously as if he hasn’t got a touch up in a while.

“Not too terribly injured, hm? No need to worry about who I am for now, but listen to my words.” You don’t have much of a choice, your body not really functioning from what’s probably shock of being tossed through a damn window. You do flex all your appendages though, glad that you somehow managed to avoid breaking your fucking back in half.

The man glances to your side, noticing something laying next to you. He picks it up, the object being your camcorder which looks like it’s in good shape, thank fuck. He grabs your hand gently, opening your fingers and placing your evidence there, brown eyes weirdly gentle.

“You were sent to me, no? An apostle to lead me toward the light… Yes. Keep this close and be safe, for I cannot protect you here.” An apostle? This guy wants you to be his apostle? Right. Okay. Gripping at the camcorder, you just stare back quietly and try not to laugh.

The priest stands up, nodding to himself and turning away without another utterance. You turn your head to watch him walk off, a groan leaving your mouth as you slowly sit up. You pause as you brace your hand underneath you, realizing then that you’ve landed on something particularly… Soft. No. Nope. You try to ignore it as you stand and rip out your notebook from your jacket.

‘Made little progress, some big fucker decided to throw me through a window. Called me a bunny. Then another fucker that’s apparently a priest of all things decided to make me his apostle. More bodies. More blood. No answers.’

“I don’t get fucking paid enough for this shit.” You mutter to yourself as you move away quickly, not daring to glance back on the body or twelve you may have landed on. Okay, okay you need a game plan now. Staying might not be the best decision after all, not if big muscly scary men are going to be throwing you through windows.

Tapping your pocket, you pull your phone out and fucking pray for some sort of signal, anything at all. A bright ‘NO SIGNAL’ screams back at you, mocking your vary existence for being so damn stupid. You try to call 911 anyway, but nothing goes through. Just your fucking luck, huh?

Glancing up at the window you were tossed from, you squint at whatever the hall someone had written in blood. ‘PROCLAIM THR GOSPEL’. You stare quietly for a hot minute, wondering how in the fuck the crazy priest man managed to climb up there… He clearly takes his teachings very seriously.

Coughing quietly, you decide to head toward the front desk to check for some sort of key or button to unlock the entrance, anything to get out. You don’t find a key, no, instead you find a hastily scrawled out note, splatters of blood covering the paper.

‘If anyone finds this, hide. The variants have all escaped, the facility is in emergency lockdown. All the doors are locked and there’s no way out. If all else fails, check the security room on the first floor for a way out, it’s where I’m heading.’

Variants…? So every patient of the facility is roaming the halls right now. The thought makes you shudder, a million different scenarios running through your mind as you try to decide what to do. Sure, you can leave right away, but there’s still so much you could uncover… Fuck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Choose wisely ☺️

[boy-gender]

Ive been gaining a worrying amount of followers very quickly, and that already makes me a little wary, but thats okay! I want this blog to help more and more trans men and transmasc people feel they have a place to celebrate themselves and one another!

But unfortunately, lately, ive seen an increase in followers from a very specific, very insular, very niche group. Transnazis.

Now at first I didnt know what this was and assumed, as im sure many of you reading this will, that this means "im a nazi, and also transgender. I am a trans nazi." No. That's not what it means. Transnazism, one word, or any of its weird censored typing quirk variants, means "im not a nazi but i feel like i should be. I relate, somehow, to the aesthetics of the third reich." This is part of a slightly bigger but still very small group called transbigots or transharm.

I've spent the last two weeks or so since I noticed an influx of them trying to decide what to do. I'm not a huge blog by any means, but this blog is growing rapidly and has considerable reach in transmasc circles. I believe I have a duty to my followers to shield you all from the worst of the garbage that I encounter (one of the myriad reasons I dont respond to hate messages). So Ive been debating just blocking these people and not commenting on them publicly, because frankly I wish I could unknow what I know about them and I'm sorry to have to pass it on to y'all.

But seeing a small drove of them come my way and decide, somehow, that this is a place for them, that they're welcome here, or that I am somehow in solidarity with them frankly makes me sick. I have losing sleep, disrupting my schedule, missing appointments, and disordering my eating all because I am caught in a cycle of anxiety about these people being anywhere near me. I feel so viscerally uncomfortable I want to take off my own skin, and every time another one comes along or I read what they say, i can feel the physical pressure of all the vitriol i want to scream at them clogging up my throat.

To any transnazi or transbigot or what have you that may be following me who I missed, or who may want to follow me in the future, I have a direct message:

Do you huff paint out of a plastic bag? Are you breaking into zoos to get high licking rare exotic frogs? What in the FUCK is wrong with you? What fucking aesthetic of nazism could you possibly want to center your identity around- the skeletal bodies of camp survivors? The rooms of stolen teeth? The mass graves? Or do you just like a red white and black color palette? Explain it to me. I want to know exactly what I did that appeals to you so I can never do it ever again. I do not accept you. I do not welcome you. There is nothing here for you. I wish you a drastic and painful change of heart- I hope you get better, and I hope it hurts the entire time.

But while we wait for that, FUCK. OFF.

[leptonyx-constellate]

heglo. this is our plurality blog. we are a polyfragmented gateway spiritual hivemind that has DID. collectively, our pronouns are it/its, hy/hym, and ze/hir. do not use they/them for us. we also dislike being called a system thanks to being a stickler for semantics; please call us a collective, constellate, or hivemind instead. (plural is good too). we also dislike being called alters and prefer being called headmates or drones.

[IDs in alt text]

collective identities (both ones that we're looking for coining posts of and that we've already found) frequent fronter directory our DID & polyfragmentation our origins & functioning on Wolf other blogs

note: we went through OEA/RAMCOA as a young child. we only found this out relatively recently, thanks to an old programmed layer made up of almost solely littles coming back. we're still figuring it out ourselves and it is a very raw wound now that the "bandages" (amnesia) have come off. please don't ask questions or try to trigger programming. because of all of this, parts of the posts in the directory (especially "our DID & polyfragmentation" and "our origins & functioning") may no longer be accurate; we will update them when we have the time and emotional + mental fortitude to do so.

outside of the plurality stuff: we're physically disabled + a mobility aid user; we're autistic, ADHD, ASPD, NPD, AvPD, and schizophrenic. we're considered a "clinical lycanthrope", but don't believe it's a delusion. we are bodily a young adult.

[IDs in alt text]

"block on sight" list: - "anti-endos and those willing to be friends with or regularly interact with them", shove off - fakeclaimer AND/OR think people faking plurality is a legitimate issue. this includes "i believe [endos] are plural, i just think they don't remember their trauma" and any variant - "if you believe in thought crimes--in ANY fashion--shove off" [note: this means we're proship/profic. follow your own DNI; self-identified antis get blocked on sight]. - if you're exclusionary in any way, we're the mspec alloaro transsexual male genderfaun butch gaybian the exclus are afraid of. - "systemhopping isn't real/is just introjecting another system's headmates"/"spiritual systems are actually psychological and in denial/dissociated from it". eat our fucking teeth. - if you're anti-RAMCOA systems. we may have more to say on this in the future, but for now, this is the piece we'll put forth.

Note: We reserve the right to block people who don't necessarily fall into this list; some folks may also be blocked on our main, but not on here, simply because we personally find their blogs triggering but don't want to block them from seeing this blog.

#original post - original posts made by us

#[name].txt - posts by specific headmates who are making it known that it's from them specifically

#reblog - reblogged posts #self reblog - posts made by us that we're reblogging #id hoard - for (plural) terms that we identify with #off-topic - posts not about us being plural

#on Wolf - posts (whether original or reblogged) related specifically to Wolf #on Yhine - posts (whether original or reblogged) about Yhine and how it works/how we fit into the mix #silly goofies - fun, good things that happen within us that we'd like to share #syscourse - syscourse. sometimes also tagged #tw syscourse, although that tag is usually (note: emphasis on usually; this is not a hard and fast rule) used for posts where syscourse is talked about, but is not inviting discourse #plural positivity - general positivity!

#asks - all asks #ambiguous mail - we're very bad at tone, this is for asks who we can't tell if they're intended as hate #hate mail - hate asks (probably won't post many, if any of these unless we're proving a point) #ask games - both reblogged posts for the ask games and asks for those games!

#vent - vent posts #werebeastliness - anything regarding us being a physical werebeast (note: will not ever be tagged as unreality; it is, at the very least, real for us, and tagging it as unreality would be reality checking if not just entirely false. if this makes you uncomfortable, block the tag or block us) #queerness - anything regarding our queerness #other neurodivergencies - anything about our other neurodivergencies #physdis - anything about our physical disabilities

#intro post - this post #blog upkeep - blog upkeep

---

tag list subject to change

[cashandprizes]

you... are trying to get my ass in trouble. I'm into it. Thanks for sending the ask <3

Link to the choose violence post here!

1. the character everyone gets wrong

It's probably going to be Alexis. I support women's rights and wrongs, but I think she was in a damned if you damned if you don't situation. Is she just gonna let Sam bleed out? He lived and found his soulmate, or whatever, and seems pretty damn happy all things considered. I want to die as much as the next person but... idk. Doesn't seem like there were any good choices.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

This discourse doesn't really apply to me because I'm a 100% switch on the bdsm test (yes, this is documented) and so I always love switching. And since my fave is either Guy on a good day or Regulus on a bad day, there is only the switch variant. I was never that kind of shipper, even back in my hardcore anime days.

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

This will sooooo get me in trouble. But between the "I want to break Alexis's ribcage" and the "people who don't hate [redacted] ship are [long list of words calling people evil and abusive]" and the "if you write dark content or support Erik writing darker content you don't care about people who have experienced xyz" they're all pretty bad. I will not be screenshotting even though I think there's mutual blocking going on, but just know that I'm pretty sure the only reason I didn't also get death threats a month ago was because I had already blocked that person over something else.

Oh also? I hate the idea that the fandom needs to be welcoming to minors as a whole. I love when youths are into a fandom and make friends online, because that's what I did when I got on Tumblr pretty much a decade ago! I'd just like them to do it in their space for minors while I do things in my space for adults. I'm gonna be a whore and I don't need somebody's mama scrolling through their Tumblr and trying to be mad at me when I clearly say minors DNI. I don't understand why I have to make myself kid friendly when I tag my shit and make my stance clear. Literally what it says on the tin.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I did at one point go through the Alexis tag and just block... so many fucking people for bad Alexis takes. I block A LOT of people without ages in their bio. I tend to block liberally, actually. Um, something that really annoyed me was realizing people couldn't understand don't like don't read. Instant block.

9. worst part of canon

This is a joke but I want more worldbuilding lore of how society functions. I love the lore for like the sky gods and all the old magic but I JUST WANT TO KNOW PRACTICAL SHIT. What happens when vampires go in the sun and does it change with age? How alive are vampires? Why don't my wolf shifters have knots, this is a real problem for me. How big are magical cities? How big is Shaw security? How big are most packs? Do all shifters form some sort of pack/collective group? How do empowered people get access to empowered resources or the internet or radio or tv? Do vampires piss?

I need answers.

Also. When will Erik finally write me the Avior BA using Calico's fic?

More realistically, I wasn't super satisfied with the Quinn ending which isn't a big deal, but I definitely felt like Darlin got wubified by Sam and David at the end. I'm sure some people liked them taking control, but that's the last thing I'd want. Just personality differences and also not the worst thing.

10. worst part of fanon

Why is everyone white?

I've never not been black so I'm used to this in fandom spaces at this point, but goddamn. Racism really is everywhere. Minority solidarity is more mythical than fucking unicorns.

[purewhitewolf]

📖+ stithulf successfully takes over Kaitlyn

((This has so many possibilities that I couldn't help but use two idea variants. One when all is already lost and another where it happens before. Although the latter idea is more of Stithulf with full influence over Kaitlyn rather than a complete takeover like the former.))

Kaitlyn couldn't hold it back anymore as she stared at the spilled blood of innocents. The hatred, grief, and hopelessness were just too much. She had lost everything. She was too weak to protect her families, this enemy had outmatched her mind and strength, this enemy who was even laughing over her currently limp body.

"Katherine~..." An old voice she would normally block out spoke louder than usual "You're better than this. Stop holding back, look what happens when you hold back. You lose those dearest to you... Just give into my power... We can remake this world! You can bring them all back! You can create reality the way it should be, but you need to destroy these painful realities first! Multiverse's plan be damned, you should be happy! Use our full power to rewrite these wrongs against you."

"I just... want the pain to end..." Kaitlyn's body was slowly engulfed in a thick dark goo with red eyes. "You won't feel pain anymore... Let me take the wheel. Grandpa will destroy everything that upsets you. Just...sleep." Her consciousness fades as her body rises. Immediately Stithulf cackles through Kaitlyn's body while unleashing a great power that started to shatter the entire ground beneath them all the way down to the core. The severely damaged enemy looks around wide eyed, terrified of seeing reality itself flickering in and out of existence as Kaitlyn, or rather Stithulf, stood perfectly still in a whirlwind of pure power. "Let me show you what a real Maxwell does!"

There will be nothing left but ash. The multiverse didn't stand a chance.

-----

Kaitlyn coldly shoved her lovers and friends down onto the floor before summoning dark chains and cages to keep them out of the way. "Darlings, don't interfere~ I don't want to break you before our perfect reality is created~ I am being perfectly rational! These worlds suck balls! I can make us all a new one! I just need to destroy it first."

@tweetiepea-rps

She noticed one of her darlings crying. A little petite wolf girl...Past... Kaitlyn furiously kicks her cage and screams "STOP FUCKING CRYING! IT'S SO DAMN ANNOYING! YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY WE'LL ALL BE TOGETHER! I EVEN SPARED YOUR TRUE SOULMATE FOR YOU!" After a moment of violent screaming, she shifts to a softer sweeter tone while reaching into Past's cage to tenderly yet possessively caress her cheek. "Bunpup~ There's no need to cry~ I am doing this for everyone's benefit~ No one will hurt us anymore. Azriel can be with her child, Aaron can paint all he wants, Xander won't have to overwork himself to death AND will have Michelle again, Brooke can have her dream man Shadow as a separate person this time, Colton and the wolf pack won't be outcasts anymore, Lunette will be gone FOREVER as a powerless soul in Hell with Aelous, Samuel, Nathaniel, Nicholas, and Achille. All the spirit guides will be free! Aries will no longer be tortured and have a shot at redemption! My guides can live in peace with the others and have families together! Most importantly, there will be no more pain." She snaps her fingers and summons a blue collar and outs it around Past's neck. It looked so adorable on her in Kaitlyn's eyes! "So please, no more tears~"

@thesplitinvestigator

Her gaze then falls on two more familiar disapproving glares, Sky and Kassandra. "And don't you two give me that look... I am going to make everything PERFECT. We can finally be a proper family! No more crime interruptions on family time. Sky, I can make it so that you and your two alters have separate bodies. Kassy, you will be able to play with your friends without any danger. Everything will be like Heaven for all of us. No tears! No hate! No pain! NO MORE PAIN!"

She kept repeating the word over and over whiles clawing at her own face in a fit of utter madness. "Pain, pain, PAin, PAAAAAAAAAAIN! NO MORE PAIN! I am tired of HURTING and seeing others HURT! PAIN is what stole away my chance of HAPPINESS before I met any of you. I WAS JUST A CHILD! Just...a child... with no say. A child that lost the ability to really feel any joy whatsoever even around loved ones. My love and joy were permanently damaged from all trauma and years of being used. A-Anytime I ever feel really REALLY happy, just when I think I don't have to worry about anything... I LOSE something PRECIOUS. I-I've seen all of you die over and over in other realities! I see you all get ripped away from me! Whyyyyyy...? WHY AM I NOT ALLOWED TO BE HAPPY?!! WHY DOES ANYTHING I LOVE GET TAKEN FROM ME??! What did I do to the universe to be treated this way...? Loss maybe a normal thing for every living being to go through... but why does it feel like I'm being targeted by all of reality in a 'fuck that girl in particular' way? If you all truly love and understand me...."

"W-wouldn't you want me to be happy?" She tearfully asks before all of reality distorts and is altered.

[votederpycausemufins]

The bonus stuff for Rustic House Club! It’s mainly a bonus scene, stuff about the Helsmits and Helscraft, and some screenshots of NPG’s base because i built it (mostly). but there is also something that’s connected to Summoning Family, so people who read that might want to check it out. It’s at the bottom.

(also gonna tag @petrichormeraki​ because of that fact)

Helsmits

Xannes aka Evil Xisuma - not actually a true helsmit, but the admin of the Helscraft server.

NPG - Created by Grian before the Evolution server. He acts as Grian’s hels counterpart.

Grifter aka Hels!Grian - someone even the helsmits themselves fear. Has the powers of a Listener (which are essentially Hels!Watchers) and abuses them. Was trapped in season 4 of helscraft by Prof and has yet to escape.

ProfH192 aka Hels!Doc - Resident good guy of the server who helps out where he can, mostly by stopping Xannes’ schemes. (the H192 is because H for Hels since doc had an M which could stand for Minecraft and 192 because 77 is the atomic number for Iridium and 192.22 is its atomic mass) He’s a pig hybrid instead of a creeper hybrid and also isn’t missing his right arm because he never tried spiting a god like Doc did canonically.

Base Iridium - the Helscraft form of Area 77, Base is a synonym for area, though it starts with B, and we just covered the connection with 77 and Iridium.

Perfect Sense aka Hels!Mumbo - The evil genius of the server who makes advanced redstone machinery that is always more complex than it needs to be. 

Perfect Sense and Grifter as a pair are sometimes called the evil match made in aether. Both of them apart are already bad enough, especially Grifter, but together they are so much worse.

TrueSymmetry aka Hels!False - Won the election for Emperor/Empress, though now she’s been dethroned by Sense.

WaltzWare aka Whiskey aka Hels!Tango - True’s running mate for the election. Instead of a blaze hybrid, he’s a Tempest hybrid (since they don’t have the nether and the aether has a mob called the Tempest). His nickname comes from the fact that while I saw the name WaltzWare and loved it, I also thought of Tango being from the NATO phonetic alphabet and W there is Whiskey. 

DelayVS and Phedaz aka Hels!Impulse and Hels!Zedaph - Phedaz is a name I’ve seen around and I used Delay instead of Indulge like i’ve seen people use because Delay is more of an opposite.

There is no Hels! Team Zit aka PDW or whatever you want to call it. They do not get together like their counterparts and absolutely hate each other.

Helsknight aka Hels!Wels - I don’t have anything to add for him, I’m just including him.

BadtimeswithScar aka Hels!Scar - Ran for Emperor/Empress and lost. Is a warlock who actively works with the Hels!Vex. Running mate was BTripleO1000.

BTripleO1000 aka Trip aka Hels!Bdubs - More O’s and 0’s!!!

Glodhet1085 aka Hels!Iskall - Did you know Iskall means ‘ice cold’ in Swedish? Well now you do! And Glödhet means red hot according to google translate! The 1085 is because in this universe, the 85 on Iskall’s name is because he was a hitman before Hermitcraft and killed 85 people. I don’t think I need to explain further. He either hates Calcite or loves diorite. Maybe both.

LaxSprite aka Hels!Stress - I just did a name based on finding antonyms for the two halves of Stress’ name. Though specifically Sprite is because I was recently listening to Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.

Other notes: Hels!Jevin is a magma cube. Cub is also working with the Hels!Vex ofc. Peanut is a dog and the hels!counterpart to Jellie. Rendog is probably Rencat and a were cat, or something to do with cats. IDK. When a hermit doesn’t appear for a season, the hels version is killed off. When the same hermit comes back, the hels version also returns. If anyone questions them, they just say ‘I got better!’ and leave it at that.

Helscraft aka Hels!Hermitcraft - The main world of the Hels dimension since it is populated by the hels versions of many influential minecrafters. Technically the Hels dimension should be referred to Helscraft itself, but the Helsmits stole that name and no one dares question them.

The aether replaces the nether and the end is based on the theory that’s sprung up with the introduction of the skulks and wardens that they used to rule the end but now the dragon does. Their end is filled with endermen with green eyes. Skulk instead of shulkers(they spawn in shulkerboxes), and the warden as a boss instead of the end dragon.

The overworld is sort of a mushroomy version of the normal overworld. Grass and its variants are replaced by mycelium and nylium. The trees there are also similar to the giant mushrooms that make up the crimson and warped forests, but they aren’t exactly the same. The oak variant is a sort of lightish pink wood color. Spruce is a blue tinted wood. Birch is bright white, jungle a dark green, acacia is purple, and dark oak is pure black. Water looks blood red, purplish in swamps. All the stone is some variation of deepslate and the other new stones. Deepslate for stone, dripstone blocks for granite, tuff for andesite, and calcite for diorite.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh, before you guys go, could I make one request of you Xisuma?” the admin nodded, though a little reluctantly, and then NPG leaned in to whisper to him. 

“There is something, or rather, someone in Hermitcraft that Xannes likes. Like, like likes. Maybe you could make it so he can visit, but only when I am with him?”

X listened, and then started nodding. “I believe that can be done, as long as you promise that he won’t cause too much destruction.”

“Well, I would also suggest allowing Prof too, but one of us has to stay to make sure that there’s something to come home to, especially with Sense being emperor now.”

“He’s wHAT?!” Xannes yelled, putting his helmet on. “Oh bloody fucking hell. How did he manage that.”

“Hey Xisuma! How about we leave now!” Grian quickly said, leaving both admins confused for a moment before they understood.

“I believe we can Grian.”

“Oh no! Don’t you dare leave with them! I swear if Sense ends up-”

NPG cut Xannes off. “Bye guys! I hope to talk to some of you soon!”

“Bye NPG!” Jrum waved, and then Xisuma took them back to Hermitcraft.

“So, what did you ask my brother?” Xannes asked NPG, who smiled.

“I made it so you can get to Hermitcraft, though it has a condition. I need to be with you so you don’t break anything.”

“That’s fucking stupid. Why would I want to go to Hermitcraft and not destroy stuff?”

“Because you have told Prof an I about your crush and it is obvious you really like him based on what seems to be a shrine in your closet to him.”

Xannes was glad his helmet hid his blush. “Uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m… I’mgonnagodealwithSensenowbye!” and the admin rushed out of the room, leaving NPG behind.

~~~~~~~~~~~

NPG’s House

~~~~~~~~~~~

For the readers of Summoning Family:

“You can’t just get rid of me! I am the emperor of this world!” Sense shouted as he held up a death ray. “Meanwhile you have nothing!”

He was given no verbal response from the person in front of him, but they did pull out an axe.

“Okay fine, you have some baseline weapons. You think I care?! I don’t. I’m just trying to figure out why someone like you would team up with an idiot like him.” Sense gestured to where NPG was standing.

“Well I’m the one who told them about the whole emperor thing, so they asked me to be their running mate!”

“They don’t need a bloody fucking running mate. They aren’t running for the throne, they’re trying to usurp me!” Sense glared at NPG, giving the other person a chance. Before Sense could raise his death ray again, the axe was swung and the blade hit. Then before Sense could even scream, shackles were placed on his wrists and ankles. Chains linking the shackles to their pair on the opposite limb. The person then removed everything on Sense’s person other than his clothes which at this point were stained red.

Sense was forced to his feet, nearly falling over again immediately as the chains were yanked. The person gave a signal to NPG who gave a quick ‘okay!’ and then they were leaving, dragging Sense behind them, taking him to who knows where.

[kanene-yaaay-o-retorno]

The Colors of my Soul(mates) [1]

[Second oneshot]

[AO3 link]

Kanene’s Notes:

Nope, I do not regret the pun. Okay, okay! I’ve plaining this AU for almost an year so I’m pretty excited to post it!! dfghjsdfrtyucfvgbhjv yaaaay!! Thank you very very much @olliedollie1204 for such a positive feedback and awesome ideas. it helped me a lot!! 

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* That fanfic has Virgil, Logan, Patton and Roman (only a brief mention of Remy) in a platonic relationship (yet), but it can be viewed as romantic, if you wish. 

* Warnings: A bit of swearing and depreciative thoughts. It’s mostly fluff and hurt/comfort, tho.

* This characters do not belongs to me. They all belongs to the amazing Thomas Sanders in his series of Sanders Sides.

* Something around 4.500 words. -w-)b.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any advice is very very welcome!

* Tô com preguiça de postar a versão em português brasileiro aaaa! Thankys for reading, my lollipops! Say to someone important how much you love them, be safe, talk with the one that you love, drink water and sleep well! Byeioo!~

                           [~*~]

What can do a creature if not, between creatures, love?  - Carlos Drummond de Andrade

  - What the fu-

 Virgil only discovered he had more than one Soulmate when he was twenty years old, more specifically the exact moment he took a wrong turn and kept going even knowing he was in the wrong way because one hour it would lead him to somewhere Virgil would recognize before his mortal being inevitably starved to death in the middle of nowhere and his eyes got dragged from the visions from thousands of futures created by his mind to a Teddy Bear Store - they seemed to replicate worse than bacteria during Valentine’s Day - and two bears from the crimson shelter suddenly dyed themselves in two milliseconds as he slightly glanced at them.

 Two of them. Virgil felt his entire face burn in hot shades of embarrassment with drops of disbelief, almost as if all the people running, stumbling, locked in their own worlds and swearing while walked in the sideway because ‘some stupid teenager decided to just stop and block their way’ could, by only looking at him, stare deep into his soul and realize the one staring astonished the store already carried in his fate another one more Soulmate at home.

One completely different in shape and form, even if also blue, however in a light, sky blue completely opposite shade from the new navy one staring him down - Virgil knew plentily their link wasn’t bonded yet, albeit he was equally sure that the person behind those black glooming teddy bear’s eyes were already judging him, - wondering why, between all the people, he was their soulmate. The other red one was very much likely crackling in his face when an employee came and pointedly turn the adult’s attention to the sign in big, graphed words clued in front of their store:

 “You dye, you buy.”

 Virgil signed, pushing his hoodie down further, wondering how much time it would take of him hitting his head on the wall to finally pass out. This option sounded much more attractive when he realized that this new ‘discovery’ about himself would cost all his month’s saves.

 He asked, to the Universe, the stars, the Earth and whoever was seeing him in that exact moment: why?

 Was it a kind of prank? A punishment from fate when, years and tears ago, Virgil lifted his chin up and dared the Universe to give him more soulmates as he locked all his uncolored – although never really free of some weak drops of paint from what one day they came to be – simply stuffed animals, - and nothing more, anymore, - away and promised he would never, ever allow himself to go all through this shit again?

 But… That had been… years ago. Almost a decade since that soft voice he got to know so well, the impulsive acts, long conversations and warm feelings.

 But…

 Time has passed, that is true. Nevertheless, deep down has he really changed?

 Virgil stared at the bag carried so close to his chest since his bare hands were sweating and shaking way too much for this task. Yes, he knew his Soulmates won’t feel anything until both of them decided to ‘give the First Step’, accepting to link their souls and fates, for the longest as it lasts. However, he didn’t want to risk it, because what if they felt? What if he in some way broke the Soulmate System when got two at the same time and now everything was messed up and they could already feel his touches even through the bag and the first impression Virgil would gave to them was ‘That anxious, weird boy and his creepy, sweaty hands’ and-

 A girl almost hit him as she passed running at his side, making his arms protectively hug further the teddy bears closer to him, arms protectively involving them, the soft touch somehow calming his tumulted thoughts. The lost man took a deep breath.

 Clear your mind. Rational thoughts. Focus on the two sides of the coin. Three people wouldn’t be able to break a millennial, unknown system, don’t matter how good he was in screwin… No, a voice that sounded suspiciously a lot like his psychologist calmly pointed, not like that. Virgil huffed, trying again. He was a magnet of problems and bad…Okay, also wrong. Neutral thoughts, focus on neutral thoughts. Come on. Come on.

 It was okay.

 They wouldn’t feel him until they gave the first step. Right, that… sounded like a start. He didn’t do anything. Now, what Virgil needed to do was go to his house, clean his bed in order to find a good place where he could put and ignore them and then he would get his headphones, listen his playlists and wonder where the fuck his life was going.

 It was okay. Everything would stay okay as long as he didn’t give the First Step.

 Virgil unconsciously hugged tighter the teddy bears, his fingers finding way and drowning themselves in the soft, cozy fur, combing them in light, soothing touches as he continued his way.

 Okay. Everything was okay.

 [~*~]

 Plurinfanto, or Multiple Souls, it’s the nomination used for the cases when a person has diverse soulmates at the same time and in a same period.

 The first known case was with Pharaoh Cleopatra when multiples of her woolen fabric started to dye themselves in various colors and shades. In Ancient Roman, it was believed that the occurrences were blessings from Venus in a sign of prosperity and abundance. Grand, longstanding parties were executed through days nonstop in order to get together those intertwined souls. When the connection broke and the colors disappeared, it meant that days of pain and foreboding were waiting forward.

 It is not known for certain the exact moment when the meaning changed, albeit researchers believe it was around the fall of the Roman Empire, when all the invasions resulted in a cultural reconstruction which led to the loss from much of their costumes.

  CLICK HERE TO DISCOVER HOW TO HAVE THE SOULMATE OF YOUR DREAMS!!!!  

 [~*~]

 The computer made a soft ‘click’ as Virgil closed it and sat on his bed, adjusting slightly his position to stare the three vivid, brilliant stuffed beings contrasting to the general dark theme of his room.

 Virgil growled, resting his back on the cold wall, the shivers calming his flowing thoughts about all the variants this whole thing had. No to mention that people change with time, leading to the souls who they “relate” to change as well, meaning that you can have someone in your life for years and then, one month, or weeks or the next day, you can wake up only to discover you and the said person don’t “match” anymore.

 And NO ONE talked about this just because it was a freak tabu to doesn’t have ‘an only one soulmate who will be with you until the end of your existence’. Oh, for fuck sake. Virgil ran his hand through his hair, wincing when he accidently pulled some tangled strands. That sounds like a line of commercial, does anyone believe that bullshit for real?

 “Hello dear, newer fellow!!” The popping thought broke his line of reasoning, jumping excitedly in his mind and automatically pulling him out of his wanders. It has a strong and full of… about everything, tune demanding attention. Virgil felt a warm kiss on his forehead, meaning one soulmate – a deep part of him turned his attention to the red colored teddy bear, - had given the First Step. The one who in some moment changed his position so now he was sitting on the floor felt his face get hot again, heart thumping strongly in his chest as his arm moved, fingers stopping inches away from the fur, questioning if he was ready to retribute the gesture.

  [~*~]

 Many history icons have reports of being Pluriers, as shown in the book ‘The Romance in the History of Those Who Wrote It’, by historian Henry Senyura. The subject is also beginning to gain more visibility after the protest from the teacher Joan A. in 2010, who got touched towards the situation of some of her pupils being forced to choose only one among their Soulmates for the six-month annual exchange, by the end of that period most of them lost or weakened their bonding due lack of communication, small changes of personality and continuous absence. She held a protest at the front of the school, stating that no one had the right to interfere in ‘matters of the heart’.

 A lot of fiction works are beginning to address the topic more frequently, as in I’m Not One, a movie directed by Devon Stan; The Seven Colors of Rainbow, a book written by Lílian Lee and the psychological analysis Life’s Watch, recently found between drafts by the famous writer Robin Green, published after their husband’s authorization, Josué Green.

 [~*~]

 Logan hummed. As it seems, this was a relatively common thing, since the concept of Soul Mates surpassed the barriers of unity and time, being ‘souls who in a way or other intertwined themselves in some part of their life. Sometimes it didn’t necessarily mean a romantic relationship, as the majority of society and media pointed, but it also didn’t hold any assurance that all of them were platonic.

 He massaged the bridge of his nose. Remy wasn’t in the dorm so everything was silent enough for him to hear his own thoughts.

  It has been a remarkable amount of years since he got his last soulmates, - except for Remy, however they both considered this occurrence as a separate incident - well, until, of course, this day. At least it was a good thing he always carried in his bag extra easy manageable stuffed animals or else maybe the System would dye one of clothes, what would be less than ideal for him in the middle of his philosophy debate. But things got even more interesting when, after his classes, as he arrived at the small, pleasantly well-organized store next to his university, one more stuffed animal colored itself right before him.

 He didn’t exactly understand why. Logan considered himself an owner of a… quite strong, strict personality, this added with his difficulty in managing his and one another emotions usually tended to bring some complex tribulations in his rela-

 Anyway, that is beside the important matter. The one laying his chin on his crossed fingers undid his pose for a bite of time in order to adjust his glasses, barely fixating his gaze on the two plushies in the desk before him, his third – Pat - resting a few centimeters away, closer to Logan’s fingers, who were barely touching. Mind running. Asking, reflecting, wondering what was the exact amount of time to be acceptable to give his First Step?

 ‘The First Step’.

 Logan never really understood from where and how that expression emerged. It didn’t come from the words’ etymology nor some semantic detour. His most concrete hypothesis consisted of the phrase being derived from old romances.

 “Did you know it used to be called the ‘First Kiss’?! But that confused a lot of people who really believed that, to be able to talk and interact with their soulmates they would have to kiss each other, like the Sleeping Beauty! I always got confused in this movie when I was a child, by the way! That ended up messing with a bunch of relationships before they even started, since a lot of peeps don’t feel comfortable enough with strangers kissing them. However, they also speeded up a bunch of them as well…” Logan blinked, his attention escaping from his previous thoughts to the light sky blue plushie of Baby Yoda, for a moment surprised with the sudden input. He felt fingers carefully holding his arms and a bit of ghost movements as Pat probably moved his representation to somewhere else, a hug and warmth engulfing the one yet absolving the new information moments later.

 “That was… enlightening.” His voice danced across the room. Even though he was completely aware they could chat telepathically, the childish act of saying the words out loud still comforted him, in a way. “Thank you for your contribution.”

 He took a deep breath and closed the tab of research on his cellphone, internally thanking from the escaping of his turmoil of thoughts, his free hand carefully combing the Baby Yoda’s head fur, almost methodic.

 “Looo, no!” The other protested with no heat in his tune, leading a toothless smile to resurface in Logan’s features. “Stop doing this. You know I end up sleeping every time!”

 “Oh no, what a tragedy.” He deadpanned, already plugging his phones and changing to a most relaxed position on his chair, his eyes traveling across the countless movies on the device before him. “In which episode did we stop?”

 “I’m going to fight you.” Pat sounded like he was pouting.

 “How so?” Logan asked, trying to hide his amusement.

 Silence followed his words.

 “Pat?”

 “What is the skeleton’s favorite instrument?”

 “Pat, don’t you fucking da-”

 “Language! It’s a xiloBONE!”

 Logan audible growled, fast in his final decision. “I’m going to drop you out the window.”

  “I’m going to hug you!” And immediately the one rolling his eyes felt himself being squished in a strong bear hug, huffing only half annoyed.

 “You are an incorrigible heathen, let me go in this exact instant.” His answer was a ‘butterfly kiss’ – as Pat was fond in calling them – on his forehead. “Urg, affection.” Yet he smiled and mirrored the act, lightly poking the other’s side.

 “We’re on episode 19.”

  [~*~]  

Roman stared the paper, his pencil’s tip stopped in the middle of the biggest petal’s flower, his eyes narrowing in the hope of a clearest way of how to convert the vague idea he had in transforming the night full of stars in a flower. No to tell he also would need to choose a good pallet of colors indication for it, later, and probably re-do all the process over and over and over until got the best result as possible. A yawn found its way from his lips and the designer stretched, getting up to drink a bit of water and rubbing his eyes, wondering if it was really worth it to make a black tea to help him through the night.

 A glimpse of color caught his attention. The navy blue teddy bear on his couch, the main inspiration of his newest tattoo. Roman wondered why it wasn’t resting in front of him while he drew. A corner of his brain, obscured by the tiredness, telling he had a previous good reason for this choice although his actual self carried absolutely no idea of why.

 Well, if he couldn’t remember it, it means the reason wasn’t THAT good, right?

 Roman held the stuffed animal, spinning with it across the room for a couple of minutes, imagining who would be the person behind it. A king, a queen, a non-binary royalty? Did they like Disney? Musicals? Sing? Would they chat for hours at first with a few words exchanged or would they take a bit to warm at each other? Was navy blue their favorite color or…

 Or…

 Navy blue.

 Oh.

 He fixed his glare on the plushie, his hands feeling and slowly drawing in the soft fur of it.

 Navy blue, huh? A humorless chuckled flew in the air. It could have no significance, it could be a world of it. It probably didn’t mean what he, for a moment, a so silly, stupid moment, wished it meant. Of course, one day this would happen, right? It was something normal, something expected. Not the magical, right out of the story books or his old daydreams, occurrence.

 This wasn’t a second chance. The Universe doesn’t give you second chances. He wasn’t the same boy from eleven years ago, holding his own costumed teddy bear crying his eyes out, hugging he – No, it – the closest as possible, wishing with all his heart and soul for the color, the voice, the thoughts, the rambling, their bickering, the forgiveness to come back again.

 No, he grew up. He moved on. He got better.

 Then why did a part of him still felt this way? Like he was about to hear the excited giggles, the soft reprimand, that lovely, deep and so truly -and sometimes boring, Roman had to admit – questions? Why would a part of him still say that he could have it all again if he just… waited long enough, hoped high enough, dreamed long enough…

 …If he was enough.

There aren’t more than seven billion colors in the world. Roman would be stupid if he really believed there was a path where he wouldn’t stumble in that so (un)fortunate well-known shade of blue again.

 Roman growled, his forehead making a loud, dry thumping sound as hit his desk. The one who should be asleep hours ago had absolutely no energy to battle against those thoughts, again. At least for now. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the teddy bear laid on the cold tabletop before him. Well, what a better way to get rid of your own means thoughts than put some stranger’s unpredictable thoughts in the middle of it? Roman slightly pushed the bunch of flowers and some warmup sketches he had out of the way, carefully carrying the representation next to him, nodding. Honestly, that was the best idea he had for a while, why did he even put the lovely thing away?

 Awake Roman was so silly, thinking that… something he couldn’t quite recall right now would be a bad idea, he pointed as snorted softly, pressing his lips on the teddy’s forehead, the quote he knew by heart flying from them in a natural flow.

 “It is not immortal, since it’s flame. But let it be infinite while it lasts.”

 A warm sensation rested on his own forehead moments later, leading the sleepy form to hum happily.

 “Is it… poetry?” Oh shit, Roman widened his eyes. His soulmate heard that?? Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Roman mentally facepalmed himself. So that was why he usually said it before the First Step!

 “Uhh, yeah. Of course. Fidelity Sonnet by Vinícius Moraes.”

 “I see. Classicism, I presume. A literature of very soundly pleasant rhymes, indeed. The first sonnet was probably created by the humanist Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it got even more known in the western literature after the works of Camões, who- ”

 “He is from Modernism, actually.” Roman didn’t know why he suddenly sounded so defensive. Logan felt a cold feeling run his body when the other’s hands let go of him, for a piece of second wondering if it was supposed for him to do the same with the red narwhal plushie on his hold.

 “A very common mistake to make due the lack of context.” He retorted, unable to formulate another answer. He had, of course, thought, balanced options and chosen the best topics to discuss with his new soulmates when they bonded. However, his fingers firmly gripped the pen, its tip tapping on the first topic written in the notebook partially forgotten in front of him, the poetry figuratively threw him out of his tracks, leading the decision to be the most impartial as possible due his… not so impartial past memories with that specific shade of red an even more difficult task than it already was.

 “Yes. Sure. Sorry, I- I’m just… very tired right now.”

 “You should go sleep, then.”

 The other snorted with the direct, immediate response. “I should, shouldn’t I? Gotta work, though.”

 Some part of Logan’s brain registered the new fact, separating and keeping it in a special place so he would remember to write it down in the new folder he bought, later.

 “I see.” … poetry? That wasn’t a hard topic to talk about. The one now nervously cleaning the very clear lenses twisted his mouth. He could talk about this for hours. No, correction: he already had previously talked about this for hours non stop.

 Logan strangely felt the urge to rub his face and scream. It has been years, - eleven years and 10 months to be precise – and exactly eight years since the one wearing glasses learned poetry because of him. Because of his constant habit of reciting Shakespeare before they would go to bed, until Logan brought himself to research and decorate all the poems he could muster, taking the task to now wake Prince – the name still carried a strong taste in his tongue – in the same way every single day. Before they realize, that becomes something between them. There were times when both didn’t talk, content in only reciting some verses and hear the other complete them. A part of Logan, that illogical and unfortunately full of feelings one wondered how their rap battles would be if they found each other right now.

 Did Prince even maintain his liking the same things he one day did? Does he still recite poetry? Does he maintain the same dreams? The same habits?  Does he even remember about him?

 Highly improbable.

 “You can call me Lo.”

 Roman slowly blinked, getting out the fog surrounding his brain to realize he was mindless staring at the pan’s boiling water, surprised the other still there. Well, it seems like he hasn't screwed terribly everything yet.

 “Lo? Like Lowrance?”

 “Even though my name does contain ‘Lo’ in it, no. It’s ‘Lo’ like Logic. I came to believe it’s a good idea the nomination after a predominant characteristic, since we can’t actively exchange our real names through the Soulmate System.”

 Roman’s breath hitched, a memory with yellow-ish edges and nostalgic smell unrolling in front of him.

 …

 ‘I think we should choose you a name with more personality in it, ya know?’ He threw himself on his bed, kicking his legs on the air before immediately scoping the plushie and laying it on his stomach. ‘Like a characteristic!’

 ‘I don’t see what is wrong with the nickname I choose.’

 ‘No, no! There is nothing wrong with it! But that could be something just between us!’ Then he gasped, picturing that, if he was inside a movie there would be a lamp shining right above his hair in this moment. ‘We could call you Ro!! You wanted to be a robot, right?’

 His soulmate growled and Roman felt a few pokes on his arm, the verbal protest doesn’t taking long before accompanying it. ‘I was three years old!’

 ‘And I’m never letting you live this down.’ He beamed, both knowing the annoyed scoff he got as response held no real heat. ‘Besides, we could even match our names!!’

 ‘That would be very counterproductive.’ Roman felt his hair being softly smoothed, a usual indication the other was losing himself in his thoughts. ‘Nicknames are supposed to help us. Having two equal names is not the most efficient thing.’

 Roman dramatically scoffed, picking the stuffed animal and half hugging it, his free hand occupying itself in making a couple of gestures to no one, since his soulmate couldn’t exactly see them. ‘It’s not about being productive, Bear! It’s about feelings!!’

 ‘And since when,’ a light poke was delivered on his belly, making him squeak and mess with the teddy bear’s hair in revenge ‘Everything isn’t feelings for you, your highness?’

 …

 “Okay,” Roman and his self past disappearing with the fading memory said, in synchrony “You shall call me by Prince, then.”

 Suddenly he felt himself falling, his hands quickly holding on the tabletop as the cold, nauseous feeling took over his stomach, more like a punch on it, his veins being filled with amounts of adrenaline for a glimpse of a second.

 “Excuse me? Warn a guy next time you decide to just drop his representation, dude! Damn.” Roman shook himself, trying to bring his body to calm down.

 “Sorry, I got… startled.” Logan gulped. The word ‘Prince’ echoing on his mind as a broken vinyl disc. What were the chances? That couldn’t be such a common nickname, right? Nor color. Nor interests. What were the chances? What could be the chances? Maybe he was just projecting, being played, tricked by a dangerous partnership between his own brain and emotions. Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions due the nostalgic feeling fogging his actions, his thoughts. Perhaps-

 “Hey, Lo? Are you there?”

 “Yes.” Logan answered, his fingertips colliding quickly with the fabric of his pants as he visualized his options. “Yes, I am.”

 “Hm. Okay, then. I’m… glad to know.”

 Silence. Logan took a wobbly breath.

 “Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back; Wherein he puts alms for oblivion; A great-size monster of ingratitudes:”

  “Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd; As fast as they are made, forgot as soon.” Roman continued without even noticing until the words danced in the air, just like the years haven’t passed.

 Then he understood.

  His heart stopped for a second, his eyes widening and his voice disappearing, as if his whole being was afraid to break the moment, the spell; as if this was a dream and a miscalculate step would make everything fade.

 “Bear?” Roman felt a light poke on his cheek.

 “Hello, Prince.”

 Roman choked a laugh, quickly crawling the teddy bear next to his chest, hugging it both firmly and yet so caring, curling around its - no, him - feeling an equal warmth involve his form as he hided his face on the soft fur, giggling and hugging, feeling so happy, so alive and right and good and he would never, ever, ever again let him go.

 “I missed you, bitch. Never scare me like this again.”

 “I… missed you, as well.” Logan tried to not let the emotion take over his tune, his hand petting the narwhal plushie softly, the words had abandoning him, as it seems. “This reunion is a… good surprise.”

 “Oh, shut up, I know you’re having a blast somewhere in that logic soul of yours, too.”

 Logan huffed, grinning. “Stop crying on my hair, your troglodyte.”

 “Make me, I dare you.”

 “Always so dramatic.” They both rolled their eyes, letting the moment be bathed in the deep waters of a comfortable silence.

 “Eleven years.”

 “We have so, so much to talk about!! Oh, my goodness gracious, I’m going to get my tea. Do you remember about that play I wrote about zombie princes and a dragon witch? You will NOT fucking believe what happened with it!”

 “Good thing I have you to explain to me then.” Roman stopped, a gigantic smile taking over his features as he closed his eyes to feel everything even more.

 “Yeah, I agree.”

 Somewhere in the world Patton and Virgil smiled during their sleep, unable to control themselves when a gigantic wave of pure joy and delight filled every corner of their hearts, coloring it on the most brilliant gleam, just like their stuffed animals resting peacefully on their grip.

[vastayan--vigilante]

People started abruptly dropping all around the cell block, getting sick. Shimmer users, exclusively - all right after taking their latest hit. Rumours about a spiked batch travelled fast; the entire cell block descended into chaos by mid-afternoon as panicked buyers tried to figure out what was happening. Dealers were dragged into the spotlight and confronted by furious mobs of desperate addicts and their friends.

No one knew the source, but clues pointed to one of the guards - a newer smuggler of product, directly tied to the dealer with the most heavily affected customer base.

Everyone wanted an antidote, a means to cancel out whatever poison they'd unknowingly taken - or to protect against it, in case their own next hit was tainted. People were trying anything they could think of. Some were still alive. Others were not.

And in the midst of it all, Scar had the unfortunate realisation that he had not yet seen Sevika today. Sevika, with her stupid Shimmer-augmented prosthetic arm.

...Motherfucker.

His suspicions had been correct.

“You’d...like that….no...listen...fucking…”

The vastaya fought the urge to recoil as his enemy-turned-grudging-ally reached out to him, struggling to speak. She looked like shit, weaker and more vulnerable than he'd ever seen her.

It would be easy to kill her, in this state. To simply sit back and do nothing, and let the spiked Shimmer do the job for him. It wasn't an undeserved fate, after all, given how much damage she had done to his streets by distributing variants of the very drug that was now killing her.

If their roles had been reversed, he had no doubt that Sevika would have done nothing. Shrugged it off, and found someone else to ally with.

But to let Sevika die was to let his only shot at escape die with her.

“Know...don't care bout me...fine...but, whatever I got….in me...you let it… Go round the prison...people gonna die.”

Huh. That was... surprisingly altruistic of her. Since when did Sevika give a shit about anyone but herself? Or maybe she was just spiteful enough to not want whoever had fucked her over to win, whatever their goal was.

"Already are," Scar informed her, with the grim detachment of someone who had become far too accustomed to seeing and hearing people dying around him. It was just another thing to compartmentalise and deal with at some unspecified point in the distant future. He couldn't afford to panic or be distressed - someone had to keep their head, and it always seemed like that someone was him.

"Trying to stop it."

The vastaya crouched down beside Sevika, drawing out a syringe from his pocket. He wasn’t a charismatic genius like Ekko, he wasn’t good at speeches or strategies or rallying people together in times of crisis - but he knew drug overdoses, and poisoning from badly mixed batches. He'd witnessed them enough times. Tried to save people. Sometimes succeeded, sometimes not. It depended on how quickly you reacted, whether you could get your hands on the right treatment, and how much the person had taken. Some damage just couldn't be reversed.

It hadn't taken that much work to rally a group of angry, scared, desperate inmates to help him break into the medical wing and raid it for activated charcoal solution. It was far from an antidote, but it at least worked well as a general emergency detox, for both poisonings and overdoses alike. He knew what it looked like, and he'd used it before. Simply acting with calm, decisive purpose had been enough to gain attention, and subsequent assistance. Would it be enough to save anyone? Scar didn't know. But grouping together to act was their best bet, given how slow the guards were being to respond to the situation (and how callously unconcerned many of them were with the suffering of inmates in the first place.) If multiple people across different cliques could be poisoned at once and left to die without intervention, or so much as an obvious reason why they had been targeted, then that sent a very ugly message that none of them were safe.

Sevika had gone concerningly still, and her breathing had dropped out to something faint and slow, but she looked to still be just about conscious, at least. How much had she had? Would his efforts be enough to drag her back from the edge?

"See if this works," Scar muttered, prepping the syringe and promptly injecting her with the activated charcoal solution. Next, he turned his attention to her metal arm.

Sevika would probably be pissed at him messing around with it, if she survived. But maybe next time she wouldn't do stupid shit that forced him to try and save her life.

Clawed hands carefully prised open the compartment that contained the arm's Shimmer supply; it looked like she inserted refill vials into an injector mechanism that was triggered to dose her. Was it set at timed intervals, or manually operated? The vastaya had no clue. So he settled for removing the vial, none-too-gently - it did not want to be removed - and pouring the contents down the drain of the sink. Whatever was in there clearly wasn't just Shimmer, and wasn't remotely safe to use.

...Thank fuck he hadn't fallen off the wagon, or he could have been collapsed and slowly dying in his cell, too. Smoking had definitely been the more sensible vice to return to, for coping with the stress of life behind bars.

"...No more prison drugs," Scar told her flatly, as he settled down cross-legged on the ground to wait and watch. If her condition started to improve, he'd know he'd acted in time.

...If not, well.

She'd be dead, and he'd be screwed.

"Fucking idiot."

@independentzaun

"If you die, I will kill you." (@vastayan--vigilante for Sevika - Prison AU)

The guards hadn’t known how to take the shimmer out of her arm, and so she’d been using it as slowly as possible not wanting to be left with just a cold lump of metal attached to her. Supplementing the high grade shimmer Sevika already had with other shimmer she could get inside the prison to make the higher grade stuff last longer had seemed like a good idea. That belief of it being a good idea had vanished when while doing pull ups in her cell Sevika had noticed her arm not working as smoothly as normal, and without thinking had triggered it to get just a bit more shimmer in her system. The high grade stuff hadn’t mixed properly with the rest, and so all she got was the low grade stuff which as it so turned out had been mixed with other things to make it stretch further. The sudden shock to her system from whatever else was mixed with the bad mix of shimmer made Sevika let go of the bars she’d been pulling herself up on, and stagger backwards for a minute before her back hit the wall. Sliding downwards her hands slapped against the wall, and then the ground as her body twitched before she fell to her side.

No one cared of course, and the guards didn’t give a fuck as they strolled past smirking as the large woman found herself helpless on the floor of her cell. One of them made a comment, not that Sevika heard it, that it seemed like this new shit would do the job and they should give it to all the worthless addicts. Maybe it’d kill them off, and they wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore or at least some of them.

Eyes almost rolled into the back of her head Sevika was barely aware of anything around her when Scar finally showed up. Lips wet with spittle her taloned hand dug into the cell floor leaving scratches as her back tensed, and she let out a keening cry like a wounded lioness before looking at Scar hearing that comment. “You’d...like that….no...listen...fucking…” Lips parting and closing she tried to reach out to him before rolling onto her back and coughing. What should have been a normal purple tinge to those blue scars was in fact a sickly yellow. “Know...dont care bout me...fine...but, whatever I got….in me...you let it…” Teeth clenching for a moment Sevika pulled in a long slow breath. “Go round the prison...people gona die.” The idea that he’d help her, or in fact have any way to help her even if he was willing didn’t occur to Sevika at all. Stomach clenching for a moment from the pain she went back onto her side before a long slow hiss escaped from her and her entire body relaxed which might have seemed like a good thing if it hadn’t been for the fact her breath slowed as well not quite stopping, but almost.

The only thing in her eyes as she stared at Scar was a dull kind of resignation.

She’d wanted to go down fighting, and expected to even.

Not helpless with someone who hated her watching.

Fucking embarrassing.

[padfootagain]

Girl Crush (XX)

Chapter 20: Fear Of Petunias

 Here we go for a new chapter!! I'm a bit late for this one, sorry, I was very busy these past few days.

I hope you like this new chapter! No warnings, it’s not angsty or anything.

Word Count: 3015

Harry couldn't wait. As he stood in the middle of the hall in the Boston Logan airport, he reckoned that he was more excited than he had ever been.

He had a good reason for it though. You were about to enter the hall.

Your plane from L.A had safely landed a few minutes ago, and he was just waiting for you to come out now. He hadn't seen you in the flesh for 4 months. And God, did he miss you…

He kept looking everywhere around him, unable to settle his gaze on just one spot. He was surrounded by families and friends of others who were on this plane with you, but he didn't pay any attention to anyone around.

He didn't notice the three young women approaching him with their phones in their hands. He was too busy leaning on his right to look over a couple that had decided to simply stay right in front of him, blocking the view of your terminal. He annoyingly tittered, trying to move to the side.

But then there was someone tugging at his sleeve, and when he turned, he knew exactly what was going on before the stranger opened her mouth to make her request.

"Sorry… could we get a picture with you?"

His heart sank in his chest. Not because he had been recognized in itself, but because it meant that he needed to be careful now. He thought he was in the clear, but perhaps someone else had recognized him. And perhaps their intentions weren't all about getting a selfie with him. It meant he couldn't give you the hug he had been dreaming about, couldn't hold you close after so many weeks spent missing you. It would have to wait.

But he didn't let any of this show, and instead, offered a kind smile to his fan.

"Of course, you can."

He chatted with the three fans for a few minutes, all grins and charm despite the many glances he stole towards the terminal. How long before you came out now?

A few travellers were already walking out of the hall, greeted by their friends and families, or sometimes walking fast towards the exit on their own. But you were nowhere to be seen still.

But then he caught a glimpse of your hair and…

His lips curled into a bright grin that he couldn't have stopped if he had tried. He didn't even attempt to refrain the gesture though, his heart was beating too fast for that, and through his clouded mind it seemed that he couldn't form a single thought.

Your grin matched his as you spotted him in the expecting crowd as well, but you also noticed the three women turned towards him, and you knew exactly what was going on. Your smile faltered, and you looked down at your feet, your steps slowing down.

You heaved a sigh, aiming your footsteps for the exit instead of Harry.

"It's not nice to ignore your best friend, especially when he's come all the way to the airport to pick you up."

Harry was beside you, and you looked up at him with surprise. You would have thought that he would have avoided you until you were both out of the airport because he was clearly being watched now. You could feel the three women's eyes fixed on you. But instead, he had hurried to join you, and was now offering you a bright smile while taking your luggage from your hand.

"You seemed busy over there," you replied, a little out of breath as you stared into his green eyes.

Four months, that was way too long a time to not see these eyes...

"Yeah… better keep the hug for later, or we might start crazy rumours. Still, I'm so happy to see you."

"Me too, Harry. I've missed you."

He heaved a sigh, looking over his shoulder to check if people were staring at him still.

"I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry I can't greet you properly."

"You're here, that's a proper welcome to me."

You exchanged a pair of stupid smiles as you walked to his car. But he had barely driven out of the airport that he was pulling over, checking that the little road he had taken was empty.

"Get out," he ordered, making you frown.

"What?"

"Just… humour me."

You rolled your eyes, wondering what the hell could be happening now. With Harry, you had to be prepared for anything.

As soon as you were both out of the car, he gestured to you to come closer, and with one last quick glance around, he wrapped his arms around you in the tightest hug you had ever received.

It took you less than a second to reciprocate the gesture, resting your cheek on his shoulder.

"Now…. Much better," he smiled. "God… I've missed you so much, Y/N."

Your hold on his white T-shirt tightened as your emotions became overwhelming. Everything was too intense after months spent missing every of these details. His scent, his low voice, his warmth against you, his strong arms around you, the gentle hold of his hands on the back of your head and your back, the feeling of his chest expanding and collapsing with every breath he took and exhaled…

You didn't even notice as tears formed in your eyes until it was too late to stop them.

"I've missed you too, Harry. It's crazy how I've missed you."

You remained standing there, by the side of the road, holding on each other tightly for a while, none of you willing to break your embrace. And at first, it was simply because you didn't want to show the other that you were both on the verge of tears. But after a while, it was simply because, after all this time, you simply didn't want to let go.

It felt… unreal.

Travelling with Harry felt surreal. Like you were living through something so different to anything you had ever experienced.

It was an everlasting rush that never seemed to slow down. It felt like you were hurrying from a point to the other all day long, and you wondered how the band could handle such haste for so long, but then you reckoned that they had become used to the craziness of it all.

The shows you went to on the eastern coast of the US were amazing. The responsive crowd, and the lights, and the talented musicians, and Harry radiating energy and light from the stage... You had the same thought every single time you saw him perform: he truly was ment to perform. He owned the stage. And every show was amazing and made your chest almost burst with how proud you were of him and his band.

After the last show at Madison Square Garden, you went out for a drink with the whole crew. A little celebration after Harry's performances on the legendary stage. And you might have been drinking just a tiny bit too much, which Harry and his friends found hilarious.

You were busy discussing bra sizes and whining about how uncomfortable pieces of clothing they were with Sarah. Mitch was pretty drunk as well, his head resting on the table as he looked at the two of you, while Harry chatted with Adam and Clare.

"And I bought one with lace the other day and it ended up being so scratchy!" you complained. "It's underwear! Why is it scratchy!"

"It can be," Sarah sternly nodded, before taking a sip of her cocktail, her eyes a little glassy by now.

"We should free our boobs," you declared, putting down your drink with too much strength, causing Harry to turn to you with a startled glance.

"Open a petition!" Sarah agreed, her words slurred with alcohol.

"I'm gonna!" you swore. "I'll open a pet... petitious... petition... Free tits for all!"

Harry burst into laughter by your side, while Mitch turned into a giggling ball on his seat.

It was a merry and silly evening spent with your friends you had missed while they travelled across the world, and felt happier and freer than you had in a long time.

You were interrupted though when your phone rang. You brought the screen too close to read the name of the person calling you, and you sighed when you read Gareth's name.

"It's my boyyyyyyfriend!" you mumbled in a high-pitched voice. "He must be worried. He's always worried about everything. It's tiring."

You answered anyway, and Harry hated himself for the way he listened closely to your conversation. But you were drunk, and seemed to want to ramble about how great Sarah was rather than answer your boyfriend's questions. And after a couple of minutes, you handed your phone to Harry.

"He wants to talk to you. Should I get jealous?" you asked with narrowed eyes.

"Absolutely. I secretly want to seduce your boyfriend, I'm surprised you haven't noticed yet," he joked, unable to refrain the smile that formed on his lips while he took your phone from you.

"Hello, Gareth, darling," Harry went on, making you pinch his arm. "What can I do for you tonight?"

"Hi, Harry. Is Y/N okay over there?"

"Yeah, she's just a bit drunk. We all went out for a drink together. Don't worry, we'll call a cab to go back to the hotel together. I'll make sure she gets home safely."

"Are you drunk too?"

"I'm not as far gone as she is. I'll take care of her, don't worry."

"Alright, thanks," Gareth mumbled although he didn't sound very grateful, more like irritated.

"So... good night..."

"Actually, Harry, I wasn't calling just to check on her. Have you taken a look at any social media today?"

"Huh? Not really, was pretty busy. Why?"

"Check. Now."

Harry heaved an annoyed sigh, wondering what on Earth had gotten into your boyfriend, so he reached for his phone.

He only then noticed the eight calls from Jeffrey. With a frown, he opened one of the links in his manager's text, not bothering reading the actual messages.

His hold on both phones tightened the second the picture appeared on screen.

It was you and Harry hugging. He recognized the moment in the blink of an eye. It was simply the hug from the airport. You were standing by the car, holding onto each other. The headline was obviously a variant of 'Harry Styles and his new girlfriend'.

"Have you seen the picture now," Gareth asked in the phone.

"Yeah..."

"Should I get in the next plane and break your fucking jaw?"

Harry raised a surprised eyebrow, but chose to ignore the remark.

"We were just hugging after I picked her up from the airport. Nothing more."

"Really?"

Harry checked if you were listening to his conversation, but you were back to talking to Sarah and Mitch and weren't paying any attention to your phone anymore. So Harry felt like he was free to speak his mind and take care of the situation on his own.

"Of course. Don't you trust her?" he asked your boyfriend in a low tone.

"I do..."

"Then you should know that nothing else happened. We were happy to see each other, but I got recognized in the airport, so we drove for a few minutes to find a quiet place to properly great each other. We just hugged, man. Nothing wrong with that."

"It doesn't look so innocent..."

"It's a paparazzi peak published on the internet. The point is to create rumours. Nothing happened, and nothing will happen. We're just friends. And if you really knew Y/N as well as you claim to, you wouldn't worry the way you do now. I get that it's annoying, and upsetting even, but don't put the blame on her when all Y/N did was giving me a hug."

"Look, to be honest, it's not just this incident. I don't like how close the two of you are sometimes..."

"Please, tell her that. Tell her these exact words, just so you can get dumped," Harry replied in an acidic tone.

Gareth heaved a sigh.

"All I'm saying is that I want it to be clear in your head that she is my girlfriend. And she won't be anything but a friend to you. Are we clear on that point?"

Harry clenched his jaw, his hold on your phone tightening even more until he wondered if he could actually break the device.

As if he needed a reminder of that...

"We're clear."

"Good. Get her home now. I'll call her tomorrow morning."

Before Harry could reply, Gareth had hung up.

He handed you your phone back without a word. You were drunk, there was no need to bother you with these paparazzi pictures now. You were laughing with Sarah and Mitch, and his anger was soothed the second he looked at your smile.

It could wait till morning.

"Ouch... my head..."

You whined, letting yourself drop onto the chair by Harry's side in his large hotel room. The smell of food was making you nauseous, but you were hungry nonetheless.

Your friend silently handed you a glass of water and some painkillers, for which you thanked him before drinking the whole glass in one go.

"Why did you let me drink so much last night?" you asked him with a pout.

"I did try to stop you, but you can be awfully stubborn when you truly want to, you know?"

"How are the others? How are you?"

"I didn't drink as much as you lot!" Harry laughed. "Someone had to be the responsible one of the group. But everybody's alright. Mitch and Sarah are still asleep, I'll wake them up in a bit. We can have breakfast first."

When he ordered breakfast that morning, Harry didn't even think when he asked the portions to be made for two. He knew you would walk into his room as soon as you were awake, even if you were still in your blue pyjamas. Yawning and tired and rubbing your eyes in a lazy attempt to chase sleep away, your hair a mess and your voice hoarse and a little weak. He knew exactly what this morning would be like, and he was absolutely right. You always did that whenever the two of you went somewhere together. And he loved it, now more than ever. It gave him the illusion, for a moment, that you had woken up in his room too.

But that morning, he had another worry in his mind that eclipsed the domestic moment he longed to steal.

He had spent the last thirty minutes checking these pictures of you and him. It was just a hug, but even he had to admit that depending on the angle of the camera, someone might believe that you had been kissing. There was no way you would avoid the pictures forever, and he reckoned that it was best if he was the one bringing you the news. And the more he let time fly by, the higher the risk of you finding about it on your own. He reckoned that was worse.

So he took a deep breath, and leaned against the table towards you while you poured himself some coffee.

"Y/N... We need to talk about something."

"What's wrong?" you asked, blowing on the hot beverage.

"I... first, I'm... I want to apologize. I'm so sorry about what happened, and I... I completely understand if you get mad because of it."

Your expression turned into a concerned frown.

"What's going on?" you asked again, your tone more urgent this time.

Harry heaved a sigh, took a deep breath before diving.

"I... A few pictures have leaked on the internet of... us. Like... When we were hugging the other day, after I picked you up at the airport."

Your eyes fell to your knees.

"Oh," was the only sound you let out.

"I'm sorry. It's all over the place already. And... I'm sure you can guess the headlines that go with them, even if it was just a hug."

You nodded, but remained silent.

"I... I'm sorry. That's why Gareth called last night and asked to talk to me, you remember? I... I hope you won't get in trouble..."

"It was just a hug, Harry, we did nothing wrong."

"I know. But I've seen the pics, and... I'll admit that the angles have been perfectly chosen to question if we were hugging or kissing."

You heaved a tired sigh.

"I'm not surprised."

"I'm sorry."

But you shook your head, placing your cup back onto the table, and for a moment, Harry expected you to get angry. He looked down at his hands in a sheepish manner, but the scolding he was ready for never came.

"It's not your fault, Harry. We were careful, and those assholes... it's their fault, not yours."

"I should have waited for us to really be alone."

"It's not your fault. Stop apologizing."

"You're not mad?" he asked in a hopeful voice, looking up at you again.

"At you? Of course not. I would very much like to shout at whoever took these pics, but... it's not your fault. Don't worry about it. It'll be forgotten soon enough anyway, right?"

"I... I'm not so sure about that..."

"Anyway... it's not your fault. Don't feel guilty about it, okay?"

He heaved a sigh.

"I think Gareth is pretty mad."

"Let me take care of my boyfriend. We'll be alright, don't worry about that."

You could read Harry's worry written all over his face, so you reached for his hand, a reassuring smile on your lips.

"Don't worry, Harry. I'm not angry at you. It's not your fault. I'll talk with Gareth, and we'll all be just fine."

"You shouldn't have to go through this because of me," he stated, his voice deeper than usual.

"I signed up for this when I became your best friend. It's alright."

"So... we're good, right?"

You gave him yet another smile.

"Yeah, Harry. We're good."

*********************************

Tag list :   @ponycake27​ @horsesreign​ @xinyourdreamsx @jbluevelvet​@notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss​ @stuckupstucky​@snek-shit​ @suchatinyinfinity​@i-padfootblack-things​  @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi@jigsawlover10​ @emyyjemyy​ @addictedtofictionalcharacters @staringmoony​@madamrogers @cronias13 @stylesfics-xx @mellamolayla @mariaenchanted

[sazorak]

Every Game I Played in 2020, Ranked

2020. Boy, what a garbo year huh? Didn't actually play that many games this year all-in-all. Happens! My backlog is getting pretty big, but I just find it hard to focus on games when I could be working on something. Or put off working on something, as it may happen to be at times.

My arbitrary decision from years ago to only attach a numbered ranking to same-year releases is getting increasingly silly, especially given my propensity to wait on playing games until I’m in the right mood, but whatever. That order matters than the dumb numerical numbering anyway.

2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

Later Alligator – 2019 – Steam – ★★

The style of this game is very cute, and the jokes are funny enough. But… ok, look, I’m not one to be precious about what is or isn’t a game. But this really isn’t a game. It’s a series of disconnected, unrelated challenges clipped from Atari Free Mini Game Collection 100, wrapped in a very non-interactive adventure-game. It’s cute, it’s kind of sweet, but it’s dull. Dull dull dull. There’s a pointless, mandatory sliding block puzzle early on that infuriated me by its mere existence. Them giving the ability to skip it because “wow you’re bad at this huh”, which, while accurate, also just sold the whole point meaningless of the “““interactive experience”””.

Also: when a huge part of your game is WOW WE ANIMATED EVERYONE REALLY GOOD, text boxes that reveal word-by-word, far away from the animations that occur when said characters talk? Kind of stinks!

8. Carrion – 2020 – Steam – ★★

What Carrion does well— the whole “You’re controlling The Thing and just rippin’ people apart!” shtick— is really neat. They made that bootleg The Thing animate real-ass good.

The actual game as a whole though? Kind of garbage. Imagine a Metroidvania with zero actual exploration, where every opportunity you have to venture off the path instead results in immediate railroading with constant, utterly inexplicable one-way pipes. It’s not that it’s linear, it’s that it actively slaps you when you attempt to explore. It’s very frustrating! Add the fact that the tentacle-monster-shtick makes challenging to actually, y’know, move around and control all your bits…  the only reason I finished the game was due to foreknowledge of its extreme brevity.

I think if the game were more open and less obsessed with constantly handing out upgrades, as well as having less of a focus on pure combat, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays – 2019 – Steam – ★★

It is well documented at this point that I am both an active Gundam fan, and as well as an on-again-off-again tactical RPG aficionado. A SD Gundam game appearing on Steam with a good English translation and localization is… exciting, to say the least. That said, I have never had much context for this game series beyond the basic facts that the combat tended to be pretty well animated CG, and that it’s vaguely similar to Super Robot Wars. Turns out… it’s really different from SRW? I dunno how the rest of the series fairs, but Cross Rays is weird as hell.

For one, there’s zero tutorialization at all. None. Almost all of what I’m going to explain here is me figuring stuff out by trial and error, or by reading junk online. Gundam is insanely popular, you’d think they’d be interested in explaining how it all works, but… nope. Even Super Robot Wars has multi-level introductory bits for new folks to show them the rope these days.

So: Cross Rays is a tactical RPG where you can playthrough the storyline of various Gundam AUs. You can play through them in any order. These playthroughs are fairly literal translations of the stories. You take control of the lead mecha from those series, fight enemy mobile suits that show up in SRW-like tactical RPG combat, until all reinforcements cease. Pretty straight forward. There are occasionally mission variants like “prevent enemies from reaching X” or “prevent enemies from destroying Y”, but even those can be just reduced to “kill everything very quickly please.”

But here’s the thing: while there is a story progression, the characters in the story itself actually have no character progression. These characters and mecha are actually considered guests, despite it being ostensibly their story. Instead, you are able to field “permanent” mecha and pilots of your own choosing, which do have progressions. There is no plot justification for this or anything like it. The game does not recognize that it’s weird that during Iron-Blooded Orphans intro where nobody knows what a Gundam even is, you can have 25 Gundams show up at once and just fire lasers at everything. That’s because this game is actually about repeatedly grinding the same set of missions over and over.

Pilots are recruited by completing certain in-mission requirements. Mecha are acquired by either by getting enough kills with the progression-less “guest” mecha, combining mecha you already have gashopon-style, completing certain quests, or by leveling up mecha and then “evolving them”. This is the actual core of the game.

SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays is basically Disgaea, it turns out? You’re grinding story missions at various difficulty levels in order to complete missions, try to recruit specific pilots, equip them with stats and levels to make them stronger, and then hitting mecha together in a sort of quasi-SMT fusion system until you get all the powerful mobile suits you desire.

The combat itself is kind of… bland? There’s a lot of systems, but they mostly seem in service of making an already easy game easier, or burning through tedium. There are four different difficulty modes, because there’s not actually that many different missions you can play through. The expectation is you’ll just work your way through every story beat while ramping the difficulty up over time to where the “guest” mecha would not be able to handle on their own. In fact, letting the story mecha act out the story beats is actually bad after a point, unless you’re still trying to get those lead mobile suits, or if you’re trying to complete some mission requirement in order to recruit Named Wing Grunt Pilot #246.

There is something to the notion of “I want to get N and N and N and N on a team, piloting weird but powerful mobile suits, and just solo every Gundam AU in a row,” but the whole premise seems kind of against purpose. Why bother recreating story beats at all, then? It’s not like the game even acknowledges any of that going on.

If the point is that I’m supposed to be, like in other grind-heavy tactical RPGs, breaking the systems to my own end in order to proceed… why not make the missions you play challenges focused towards that? The story progression literally only exists to facilitate the mission-based unlock conditions, which makes all the energy put into making them JUST LIKE THE ANIME really damn pointless.  

I like tactical RPGs, I like breaking RPG systems so as to beat hard challenges (I beat all the insanely hard extra bosses in FFXII for crying out loud), I looooove Gundam. I should like this. But I don’t really have the “god, I NEED TO FILL THIS LIST” gene that some folks have… except as an excuse to continue to engage in gameplay I enjoy. The gameplay here seems in service of the collection, rather than the way around.

7. Pokemon Sword: The Isle of Armor – 2020 – ★★★

Pokemon’s first foray into actually doing DLC is… a mixed bag. As a positive, they’ve improved the Wild Area concept I liked from the main game, and even brought back buddy Pokemon walking behind you. That’s neat. On the other hand: the actual progression in it is completable in like an hour, it doesn’t scale with you, so you’re bound to be over leveled for it, and all the raid stuff, while still conceptually neat, is just as flawed as in the base game. And so, you’re just left with even more new Pokemon to RNG grind on to continue to catch-them-all. Nah, I’m good.

Astral Chain – 2019 – Switch – ★★★

Platinum knows how to make good character action games. They’ve made a bunch of them. Bayonetta, Nier: Automata, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. They also know how to make some kind of mediocre character action games. Transformers: Devastation, Wonderful 101, their various shovelware character action games like Korra. Astral Chain falls somewhere in the middle, I guess?

Astral Chain has all the production of their good games. It has some stylish, cool action. It has a neat core mechanical idea, in that it’s essentially a two-character action game where you control both characters at once. It has a lot of the old mechanics from some of their best games brought in; witch-time last second dodging from Bayonetta, Nier’s shooting-and-slashing combination, the Zandatsu mechanic from Metal Gear Rising, even Wonderful 101’s multi-unit shenanigans. The setting is different, and there’s some neat world flavor all in all.

But, of all games I’ve played over the past few years, Astral Chain made me more vividly angry than any other. It’s not that it’s too hard— far from it, really, I found its combat incredibly mashy. No, the problem is that it has so many shitty mechanics slathered on that it become a chore to get to the “good bits”.

Why would you put forced stealth sequences in your character action game, especially when your movement controls are not suited for it?

Why the HELL would you put platforming sections in your character action game, constantly, especially when your stupid ghost buddy can accidentally yank you off the edge, your auto-combos can just throw you off the edge, or literally anything can knock you off the edge and make you lose life?

Why would you put so many constant excuses into the world to force me use the digital sensor in the game, that also makes it miserable to walk around while using it?

WHO THE LIVING FUCK THINKS THESE SHITTY BOX BALANCING MINI-GAMES ARE FUN???

These games are supposed to encourage me to perfect everything, right? Why keep putting fucking fights you need to complete in order to get an S rank behind backtracking, or Legions I don’t have yet? That isn’t adding replayability, that’s just wasting my time. There are even in-level missions that have fail conditions that you never even know about. Surprise!!! A lot of them involve chasing after guys and catching them with your chain, which is really obnoxious to do!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The story is just Bad Evangelion, straight up. Every story beat from Evangelion is here, executed worse. They also make your character have a twin just so they can have a character who can talk and feel emotions, because your boring-ass protagonist is stuck being an emotionless audience cipher. Cool!!!

Tetris Effect – 2018 – Origin – ★★★

It’s drugs Tetris. I personally don’t use, or have synesthesia for that matter. I imagine this game is better if you do. It’s an enjoyable enough experience but it feels incredibly slight for what I was expecting from it, or even compared to something like Lumines, which has tons of replayability by way of its difficulty. Tetris just isn’t that hard, unless you’re forcing yourself to do weird shit to get points. I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO T-SPIN. Never.

Castlevania Anniversary Collection – 2019 – Steam – ★★★

Kind of an unremarkable Castlevania collection. Neat that it has an official translation of Kid Dracula in there, but also… look, I prefer Metroidvania Castlevanias, OK?

6. Spelunky 2 – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

I’m not entirely sure why this doesn’t click for me where Spelunky 1 did. More annoying intro levels? Too many fiddly requirements for different ending-progression? Gameplay additions that just make things more annoying? Spelunky 1 was hard, but there was a kind straight-forwardness to it, even with its weird secrets, that made it much easier to grok and continue banging your head against. I’m just not having as much fun with this. Difficulty should be challenging, not a hassle.

5. Stellaris: Federations – 2020 – Steam – ★★★

This is the year that Stellaris just broke for me.

Federations itself is a good DLC; it adds some really interesting mechanics tied to various types of multi-national unions (the titular federations, as well as the Space UN), as well as the addition of unique “origins” that allow you to further specialize your gameplay. The origins in particular are a great addition that allows more specialization and roleplay.

I’m just tired of the sheer amount of busywork Stellaris forces you to do. Every DLC adds more junk you need to keep an eye on, and the fact that the AI doesn’t even bother with it (compensating with copious economy boosts in order to keep up) makes the whole thing frustrating. It’s like playing fetch with yourself; you just get tired of chasing after your own ball after a point.

I have to wonder if they’re pivoting towards a notional Stellaris 2 at this point? Might not be a bad idea for them, though it is weird with all they talked up adding more origins when Federations came out.  

4. GranBlue Fantasy Versus – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★

This is probably the fighting game I got most into over the past few years. There’s just this nice, almost Street Fighter-esque ease of execution to the controls, and that Arc Systems Works 3D-as-2D style continues to just do work. I don’t give a single shit about GranBlue Fantasy (frankly, I think I’d enjoy this game more if it wasn’t attached to a property) but the characters are fun enough to play and look at.

The big problem here is two things: no crossplay, and no rollback netcode. In the span of a month, this game became a total ghost town on PC, and it doesn’t sound like PS4 faired that much better. 

Ring Fit Adventure – 2019 – Switch – ★★★★

I’ve fallen on-and-off this game all year. At its heart: it works, it’s a fun exercise game. I don’t think it really feels like a “game” (in the sense that I’m not really coming to it for riveting gameplay or anything) as much as just a guided exercise experience, but… that’s fine? The in-game story is kind of flat, but funny in the fact of it existing at all. Buff Nicol Bolas and all.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen – 2017 – Steam – ★★★★

XCOM2: War of the Chosen is a great answer to what XCOM2 struggled with. As I discussed back in 2016 (Jesus Christ), XCOM2 tried to push against player’s worst instincts by incentivizing them to keep being aggressive through a whole bunch of timers— which, kind of just weren’t fun given how much accidentally walking into an ambush could “ruin” dozens of hours of play. War of the Chosen dials that back in some intelligent ways, by instead making the encounter designs themselves, as well as much more grab-and-bail mission types, encourage players to push ahead instead. Smart!

The addition of the Chosen makes the game feel more alive, and they really do make missions harder— particularly early on. But they’ve somehow accidentally fell into the hole, where XCOM just… isn’t that hard? Early on it’s challenging, particularly with the resource restrictions and all. But they keep giving you more and more options (that aren’t especially meaningful choices) that make your team more and more powerful, without increasing the strength of the enemy as time goes on. By the five-hour mark, you basically know if you’re going to steam roll the game or not.

The amount of additional character and variety in the gameplay is great, I just wish it had a more challenging difficulty curve. Maybe make the meta-layer of when enemies show up more targeted to where players are at. If a player is doing well, ramp up the difficulty, if they’re struggling, pull it back a bit. I should always feel like I’m just barely keeping ahead with XCOM, not like I’m bored. And by the end of War of the Chosen, I was kind of getting bored, really. Oh well.

3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2020 – Switch – ★★★★

This is probably the video game that I spent the most time with hours-wise this year. I’m not entirely sure why? It’s a nice evolution of New Leaf, in that the crafting, environment shaping, and general quality-of-life improvements made are quite nice. There’s clearly been some thought on how people play these games, and ways to make the experience less frustrating.

… and yet, they kept so much tedium in the game. Like yes, the schedule stretching is the point, I get it. As someone who for some reason decided not to play with the clock, I only just recently finished the fish, fossils, and insects for the museum. But there’s just so many weird, little things that just make it hard to keep coming back to it. It’s like… to what end? When I’ve unlocked everything, and basically seen the entirety of the item list at this point, and the holiday events all being the game meaningless collectathons…. Why? I’m not going to try completing the collection; the museum stuff is about my limit, really (and even the paintings I can probably pass on).

I guess even an idealized, digital representation of a quasi-domestic life has the spiritual emptiness of consumerism-for-consumerism sake. Thanks???

Hypnospace Outlaw – 2019 – Steam – ★★★★

I grew up on the internet of the early 00s. I had an AngelFire website, mostly consisting of shitty sprite webcomics and hosted Gundam pics. I remember when Google wasn’t really a thing and you would heavily rely on website compilation sites like the Anime Web Turnpike in order to find anything of value online. It was weird, it was wild. It was exciting!

The internet seemed so different back then. There was a ton of garbage online, but also, like… there was a sense of optimism to it. Folks were shitty, there was plenty of bad stuff online, but it felt so disconnected from the fabric of the physicality of real-life that it was at the same time a perfect escape.

I was young when I first got “online”, something like 12. I remember having this notion that the internet was going to be this great equalizer, that it had infinite potential to change how people behave and interact. Boy, huh.

Hypnospace Outlaw is essentially a splendid alternate universe GeoCities recreation, where you’re a volunteer moderator of a grouping of websites on HypnOS, an internet-analog you access while you are sleep. At the surface level, it’s mostly about poking around the weird alternate-historical version of the internet they created, full of kids feuding, bizarre historical divergences, and plenty of amazing bespoke weirdness. All of this is great; there’s an incredible amount of content that’s just great to poke at, listen to, and explore.

Below the surface, there’s also a rolling plotline about the ethics of this industry-owned platform, those who run it, and the way corporations handle new technology, new platforms, and emerging digital societies. There’s a late game turn that’s pretty damn affecting. And as someone who has moderator his share of internet forums in his time, trying to balance ‘do it for the community’ and what your ostensible ‘bosses’ require of you, it was kind of a weird throwback in more ways than one.

Minecraft – 2011 – PC – ★★★★★

Turns out, Minecraft is really as good still who knew??? Started playing a bunch more of it this year due to Giant Bomb deciding to do so, and yeah: still good!

2. Hades – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again— Supergiant makes damn good games. I’d been holding off on checking out Hades until its full release due to my tendency to burn out on games easily, and I’m glad I waited. Hades is a fantastic rogue-lite experience. The way it makes narrative progression part of the reiterative, randomized rogue-lite structure is just perfect.

It’s got all the usual Supergiant bullet points. Great characters, voice acting, narration, and music. In terms of gameplay, it’s probably their least ambitious game— playing something like a cousin to their original game, Bastion— but it’s also been polished to a mirror sheen. It just feels really damn good to play, over and over and over.

That being said, the second (final?) ending feels kind of…. Tacked on? It’s fine as a goal to go for while continuing to do the game’s relationship mechanics for additional story bits, but it ends up feeling kind of unfulfilling compared to the payoff of the first one.

1. Crusader Kings III – 2020 – Steam – ★★★★★

I never could get into Crusader Kings II. Despite my interest, the sheer mechanical heft and unintuitive interface made the game a wall that I just couldn’t get over. I’m sure if I’d dedicated myself I probably could have learned it, but… ehhhhhh.

Crusader Kings III, on the other hand, has a good tutorial, a cleaned-up UI, and a very helpful highlight and tooltip system that make it much easier to understand how to actually play the game through resources inside the game itself. And, as it turns out: I rather love this game.

I mean, conceptually it’s an easy sell, isn’t it? Historical politics is something I enjoy broadly. I liked Stellaris but wish it had more narrative, roleplaying elements. They outright say that “winning” isn’t really the point of the game. Instead, it’s more about emergent storytelling and playing with the different systems and seeing what you can do with it.

My current game has had me taking the Haesteinn dynasty from its Viking origins into England, forming a London-seated Northern Sea Empire that encompasses all of Britannia, Iceland, Holland, Norway, and Denmark. I am currently working on hegemonizing Norse religious control over enough Asatru holy sites to finally reform the religion, such that more unified feudalization can occur. To that end, my current ruler’s predecessor invaded West Francia and conquered the whole of its territory, substantially reducing the foothold of Catholicism in mainland Europe… which seems to have kicked the hornet’s nest, given the Crusade I’m going to need to contend with next time I boot up the game.

Of course, a complicating matter is that my current ruler— the Emperor of the North Sea, King of Ireland and the Danelaw, liege of the King of Denmark, was elected from the extended Haesteinn family via Thing, the Scandinavian council of his erstwhile vassals. Where the previous emperor, the one who manufactured the invasion of Francia, was quite religious and beloved for his adherence to the old ways, I discovered as I took over as his successor that he really, really is into just boning down across Europe. We’re talking constantly attempting to seduce neighboring Queens and Princesses. His vassals are not thrilled with this. They also don’t care for his propensity for torturing people to death, constantly.

I had no real say in this; attempting to stay on top of a dynasty is kind of like riding a bucking-bronco, so many things are only tenuously under your control that some weird shit can happen. This is especially true when you use the systems that make it easier to maintain the coherency of your domain. The Norse religion encouraging concubinage results in you having a lot of kids, which means there’s a lot of domain partition going on (someday, primogeniture, someday). Naturally, using Thing election reduces that, but also makes you sometimes end up having to play Emperor Stabbo-Fucko because they thought he was the best candidate at the time. Hell, I thought he was the best candidate at the time until I discovered just how many people he’d be laying with on the low. But you just have to roll with it.

The way the game forces you to play ball with character traits is great. Doing things that match with the character’s traits makes them lose stress. Doing things against their character increases stress. Too much stress can force you to make the character take up vices (which can make them suffer health or opinion maluses, as well as altering their aptitudes), or even die outright. And sometimes those vices and attitudes can be boons, given they open up opportunities for different character interactions.

Emperor Stab-and-Fuck-Kingdom is perhaps the most relaxed person alive, it turns out, because his sadism makes him really enjoy sacrificing infidels, which makes the gods happy. It also freaks the fuck out of all of his vassals, so they’re a good supplicant mix of both appreciative of my religious sentiments and also utterly terrified of my skull piles. Some especially brave vassals occasionally try to assassinate me, but my lovers keep jumping in front of the knife and saving my life mid-coitus. Iiiiiit happens! :D  

The game can be incredibly fun to just watch, as it becomes emergently weird. Georgia right now is incredibly Jewish in game. I’m not sure how that happened; I guess someone made a random Jewish guy into a vassal, who somehow moved up enough in the world to make it a movement? The Byzantine princes elected a Coptic as Emperor, which over the course of the decade resulted in very accelerated balkanization as Byzantium just lost its shit. The Middle East and notional HRE haven’t really unified in a meaningful way, so I’m curious how things are going to go if/when the Mongols unify and roll-on in.

It’s one of those “Just one more thing” games that can completely devour time. I have more than a few times checked the clock mid-game to see that it’s 4AM and that I’ve totally ruined my sleep schedule in the process of play. Oooooops.

I highly recommend checking it out if you’re curious; the introductory, pre-release video series Paradox put out showing off the game does a pretty good job of showing the core gameplay loop and also how weird it can get.

[viostormcaller]

Thinking about it, it kinda sucks just how little new horizons has.

Like... I love the game to pieces and maybe this is just bc im in a shitty mood (which i am) but like... god this is gonna be long and ranty and I'm sorry in advance that mobile tumblr doesnt have the read more feature

For starters, holidays are all scheduled on the company's terms, meaning in 7+ years or so there will be no more in-game holidays because by then they'll probably be thinking about/getting ready to release the next installment of the series on whatever console is out at the time and they won't want to update new horizons anymore. And adding onto this, you need the internet to download the updates. What happens to the players who don't have internet?? Can they just never experience the holidays like bunny day and toy day and turkey day? That takes a HUGE part of the fun of the series out right off the bat. Sometimes making everything rely on the internet is a bad idea. Idk if anyone can like tell me if having no internet means you can't take part in the holidays, but like... god if that's true thats really sad.

They recently took out the hybrid flower and big fish islands, which makes no sense whatsoever why they would do that to a game that has so little, but ok?? It's not like that feature was hindering the gameplay any

There's a lot of furniture but Not a Lot of Furniture, you get me? They took out EVERY set except the classic set (renamed "antique") that you can buy for an insanely high price, and the log and wooden block sets that you can craft, but other that that it's all unrelated items that aren't part of any set, aside from the cute set and diner and throwback sets which as far as I can remember are the only other sets you can buy in the game. No alpine, no ranch, no minimalist, no princess or gracie, no modern or sleek, none of that. And 90% of all the buy-only furniture in the game is just the color variants. You can't even customize them! And it's hard as fuck to find the color variants you want, much less for completing a furniture set

And speaking of which, your starting villagers don't get their default house interiors. Your first three + your two starters from the tutorial days have the same generic layouts. You NEVER see what their houses are supposed to look like, and even if you give them the wallpaper and flooring they're supposed to have (if you figure that out online somewhere), their house doesn't change (I tested this with Sherb and was kinda disappointed).

And stuff is so EXPENSIVE. I know it adds a challenge but my final loan was NEVER 1 mil+ bells in New Leaf. And you can't even expand the extra first floor rooms you get. I'm literally getting less for WAY more. The biggest rooms you get are the basement and upstairs rooms. The first floor rooms aside from the main room really don't have a lot of space and with the different furniture they DO offer, I don't have a lot of room to put things in. But it's not like I can even afford it anyway -- just a freaking air conditioner was 63,000 bells. In New Leaf it was 2500. That's a MASSIVE jump. And the kitchen items are so freaking expensive, as well.

And speaking of houses, for someone who was literally in the real estate industry in the last game, tom nook adds very few house exterior options. And the even more shitty thing is that a lot of the colors straight up don't match. They couldn't even add a plain white roof.

God and the fucking DIY recipes. I know I've said this before on my other tumblr but the RNG for this game is the worst I've ever fucking seen. There is no reason why, two months into the game, I can be given a recipe for a simple DIY bench, which EVERYONE LEARNS IN THE TUTORIAL. Who the fuck am I giving it to?! No one, because literally every player knows it already, and you can't gift diy recipes to villagers! And I keep getting repeats of recipes. My villagers give me fruit DIYs all the time, it's so rare for me to get any new ones. And two days in a row I've gotten the recipe for the deer head mount thing from the same villager. New recipes should 100% take the priority before repeats. This game is slow paced, sure, but that's just frustrating. It doesn't make me excited to learn more recipes, it makes me feel like I'm never gonna learn any new ones because I'll get the same fruit DIYs for a week straight.

And speaking of which, you can't put trees, bushes, or flowers in your storage, which to me makes literally no sense. I can fit a giant ass fountain in my storage but I can't put a flower plant? Really? And speaking of storage, for a game that added 300 whole slots for mail instead of the usual 10, I will never understand why they decided to halve the amount of items a player can order a day from the nook shopping, AND make it so that it takes a whole day to get there instead of making deliveries at 9 am and 5 pm like in New Leaf.

And the fact that they made it so hard to get non native fruit and flowers and shit??? Like they at LEAST added Lief so flowers aren't as much of an issue anymore, but you actually have to travel to other people's islands just to get all the fruits?? I know you have to do the same thing in New Leaf but the reason why this is an issue for me is because you have to pay for online access, meaning most of those nook miles for planting all the fruits are locked behind a paywall unless your villagers can gift them to you. And your mom, when you first start the game, has a chance of giving you the one fruit that's on the non-native fruit mystery island, meaning you'll only get ONE new fruit and not two separate ones (for example, my sis got pears from mom but her non native fruit islands have cherries i believe. I got pears from mom and my fruit islands also have pears. Doesnt help that that's the one fruit i hate lmao). They also took OUT a bunch of fruits, like mangoes, durians, lemons, bananas, lychees, persimmons...

And the fact that your nook miles rewards are ISLAND LOCKED. That is the WORST SHIT. Not everyone has the ability to play with others, bc no internet or no money for the subscription every month. Not everyone WANTS to play with others bc maybe they get social anxiety (like me, which is why i havent asked for things that are impossible for me to get even though i want them for my island or house), or maybe they simply just don't want to. But the fact that each island has their own color variants of the same goddamn rewards that CANNOT BE CHANGED makes me so upset. I do not want nor should I have to rely on others to get the items I want because my game doesn't have my preferred color variations. And it's not like I'm far enough in the game to have anything worth trading for said items, nor do I have the bells.

And Isabelle does next to fucking nothing and I'm really irked about how they made her character in this game. Yeah she's cute, but that's ALL she is. She became more ditzy than anything else. She doesn't let you know about visitors in the town or the plaza or if a bridge or incline was built bc of a completed donation goal. Like really useful info to know would be if Flick or CJ is in town or who is selling stuff in the plaza. Flavor text is nice but if that's all you say 24/7 it loses its charm. In New Leaf she was helpful and hardworking and super focused and on top of things. Idk why they changed that aspect of her. I know her role in New Horizons isn't as big as it was in New Leaf, but still.

And then there's glitches that STILL haven't been patched (as far as I know anyway), like the game-breaking villager corruption glitch (which you'd think nintendo would have made a priority but they're too busy removing other features it seems) or the house exterior glitch.

And it's bad enough that your game saves to your fucking system a la Fantasy Life. But even WORSE, no one can have separate islands on one console. It's not enough to own two copies of New Horizons. Each player has to own one copy of the game and a whole new Switch just so they can play on their own islands. Parents can't usually afford that (aka $360 for each kid give or take) so for a game marketed towards kids, I don't know why they thought that was a smart move (well, I DO know, and that's because money, but still). And to top it all off, cloud saves are not supported normally. If you lose your game or your switch and aren't subscribed to nintendo online, well, it looks like all your progress is gone! And there's nothing you can do about it. And they directly claimed that they did this just so people can't manipulate the game because it's supposed to be played in real time. But people can still fucking time travel by setting the system's clock! They achieved nothing except to make the players frustrated!!! If you make a game you need to accept that the player is going to play how THEY want to. You shouldn't try to make everyone conform to the way YOU want them to play. That just makes you a controlling asshole and the game loses a lot of its fun.

This game was 60 bucks and they took so long to make it and we ended up with less than we got in New Leaf. The main thing they gave us was a shit ton more clothing items (which I really like). Like I said, I love this game to pieces and it's actually one of my favorite games right now. There's so much I love about it -- I certainly don't hate it or anything. But this game has SO MANY flaws, a lot of which are needless. And I think the kid in me just misses the days where you can pay for a game and get the whole game right away. No updates in tiny batches, no content locked behind paywalls, no day one patches, no reliance on internet connection and multiplayer... mainstream companies have all gone really downhill with that shit and it just disappoints me to no end. But because Nintendo is kid-oriented, I think that's where it hurts the most. It was supposed to be accessible, family friendly fun like back during the days of the Wii and the DS. But companies get so wrapped up in competing with each other and trying to make the most money that they forget about all that. I dunno. It just sucks.

If you read all this, god damn I'm surprised XD I got super ranty and I apologize. But I'm in a sad mood and I after learning about features they've taken out I just had to get all this off my chest. It's been weighing on me since the game released, especially since for months prior this game was all I could think about and I was really looking forward to it. It just let me down in a lot of ways, I guess.

[gendercraft]

Outlast: Revisited [Chapter Five: Miles]

Read on ao3

Synopsis: I’m rewriting Outlast where the first game and Whistleblower are combined, Miles and Waylon are more connected, and also they kiss

Trigger warnings: Sexual assault plus everything already in the game; eye gore

Miles woke to a bright white light and a throbbing head. His limbs were heavy, his eyes burning. He groaned as he forced a hand up to rub at his eyes. 

Sitting up, he swung his legs over the bed and dropped his hands. His upper arms ached horribly. He was in a holding cell with padded floors and walls, bare besides the bed. The walls were covered in red writing that smelled of iron. 

Panic jolted through him. My notebook. He patted around his pockets frantically until he found it with a relieved sigh. 

 The priest brought me here to show me something. Thinks I’m going to be a witness for whatever batshit crazy he’s trying to sell me. This DR. WERNICKE they mention on the walls is at the center of whatever went wrong here. But he died more than ten years ago. “Rest in Peace,” says the blood. 

 He pressed on the knobless door. It didn’t budge. Fuck. He hated to draw attention to himself, but how the hell was he supposed to get out? He pounded on the padding. It barely made a sound. Fuck. 

Was it sound proof, too? Only one way to find out. 

“HEY! HELLO! CAN SOMEONE LET ME OUT OF HERE?” 

Rustling, then a Variant appeared at the door. He disappeared. The door clicked and drifted open. 

Miles hesitated. He peeked a head out, glancing around. He was on the upper floor of a cell block, most of it dilapidated. It missed large spots of flooring, some cells were deteriorated, the walls were caked in dust and dirt and vomit. Below, a patient knocked their forehead against a cement pillar, the blood squicking and spurting. 

CLANG! Miles jumped, his heart startling like a livewire. 

“Back! Get back!” A Variant rattled the grated wall separating the two halves of the upper floor, eyes on Miles, lit on fire with rage. “Get the fuck away from me! Don’t you look at me, don’t you dare look at me!” 

Miles inched backwards. He swallowed. I’m here to help, he thought about saying. My name is Miles Upshur. I’m an investigative reporter. Can I ask you some questions? 

But the man wouldn’t be able to answer his questions. He wasn’t there anymore. 

“Sleep no more,” he growled. “Space. Alone. Leave me alone.” 

Miles left him alone. 

He had to find his way out of the cell blocks. He poked around, looking for any doors that would lead anywhere, but the upper floor was a mess of delirious patients and carnage. No way out. 

About to descend the staircase, a voice behind the grated wall sent chills through Miles’ bones. 

“Who’s this?” They purred. 

Two naked men stood behind the grate, holding machetes. They looked remarkably similar—twins? 

“Maybe Father Martin’s man,” the one on the right cooed. 

“Maybe.” 

“He looks… nervous. I would like to kill him.” 

The one on the left nodded. “As would I.” 

“The preacher asked us not to,” the one on the right said uncertainly. 

“It would be… impolite. Not here.” 

“We give him a running start?” 

Miles was about to run, alright. If it weren’t for the grate between them, he would’ve already been far away from there. 

The one on the left grinned. “There’s an idea.” 

“And when we kill him, we kill him slow.” 

“Such patience. I want his tongue, and his liver.” 

Miles’ tongue turned to jelly in his mouth. 

Do they want to fucking eat me? 

“They are yours.” 

Miles hurried down the staircase to the first floor. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” The man who knocked his head against the pillar, he sounded dead. 

Miles raised his camera. “Can I ask you some questions about how you’ve been treated here?” 

The man moved on. 

Miles lowered his camera. 

He found a man in a wheelchair that made Miles’ entire body want to disappear. How to explain what had been done to this man? His right arm and leg were engorged, red and purple, disfigured. Acid burns? No, not quite. His skin was like leather, every bit of it, not something from tanning too much but like it had been replaced. There were lines all over, stitched seams. And his voice… Miles couldn’t imagine the pain he was in. 

He raised his camera. “Can I ask you some questions about how you’ve been treated here?” 

“Don’t trust them,” the man rasped. He stumbled over his words, like he had to physically force them through his mouth. “They’ll tell you it’s science but it’s not. They were… waiting for us. Billy understood. They’ve always been here.” 

Miles swallowed. “Who’s Billy? Who was waiting for you?” 

The man shook his head and looked away. Miles lowered his camera. 

As he was trying doors, a man appeared behind a locked one. Miles’ eyes watered. The man looked to be wearing a mask, the same sewn leather, but his mouth was completely covered shut, his teeth poking out like decorations. Miles hated himself for not being able to look. 

He found a crack in the wall that allowed him to the second floor. He stepped onto a crate and leapt up to grip the edge of the floor, then hauled himself upwards. 

“...still. Just hold… still!” 

Crack! Miles tensed, his blood running cold. He brought up his camera and flicked on the nightvision. Behind a barricade of turned over beds, a man laid on the ground, a still body beneath his thrusting hips. The body’s head was cracked open, its eyes lifeless. Miles coughed and gagged, doubling over and nearly throwing up as the man’s moans filled his head. 

The Variant scrambled to his feet and covered himself. “Agh! Goddamnit! What the fuck is the matter with you?!” The Variant yelled. “You weren’t invited to this, you goddamned sicko! What, you like to watch? It’s sick. You’re sick!” 

Miles stumbled away and rounded a corner. He was in the administrative part of the prison block now. He slid down against a grated wall and pulled out his notebook, barely holding in his vomit. 

 Fuck this place. Seriously, just fuck this place. Dying keeps moving lower on the list of the worst things that could happen to me here. 

 He lowered his notebook. 

His stomach lurched. Leaning over, he emptied his stomach onto the ground. It burned on the way up, choked through his throat and nose. He coughed and gagged and whimpered, then stumbled to his feet, then threw up again. 

He staggered through the hall but the only way forward was through the upper floor of the prison block—on the other side of where he was before. As he stood where the twins had stood, his stomach lurched again. His throat was dry as fuck, and his head was pounding. He suddenly wished he had held it down, thought to bring water, anything. 

Trying to coat his tongue in saliva, he headed down the hall. By the green light of a decontamination chamber card reader, blood was written on the walls: God always provides a way; follow the blood. A streak of blood dragged on the floor, into the chamber. 

Was it too much to hope this would lead him to the exit? He didn’t know what else to do. He had to try. 

The blood trails led him through the asylum to an upper floor, where a Variant walked back and forth against the wall, fingers running over the bloody words there. 

“‘Down the drain,’” he whispered. “‘With the blood,’ he said, Only way out is down. ‘Down the drain, down the drain.’” 

Miles inched out of the stairwell and into the hall. To the left, he found a printed out email. 

 From: n.wolfram@murkoffcorp.us.com 

To: h.granat@murkoffcorp.us.com

Subject: Patient Art Program / PATIENT “FATHER” MARTIN ARCHIMBAUD 

 Helen— 

Dr. Zeichner gave me your info to contact regarding the cancelation of the arts program. My patient, Martin Archimbaud, has made enormous strides in his therapy on account of his finger painting. Just in the week since cancelling the arts program, his schizoaffective assertions of some “higher calling” have accelerated enormously. Please, just let the man finger paint. The few dollars you’re saving on temper paint is more than swallowed by the cost of Clozapine. I can’t imagine the logic at play here, unless Murkoff WANTS our patients to become more disengaged from reality. 

 Please advise. 

Dr. Neil Wolfram 

 Miles sighed. At this point, it was just blatant that Murkoff wanted to cause nothing but harm to these patients. He found a highlighter in his pocket and lit up the last sentence, then shoved the file with the others. 

As the blood instructed, he hopped down the large hole in the floor, landing on the lower level. There was a door behind him and an open grate ahead, the hall leading to the left. The blood led into another decontamination chamber, which was locked. He’d have to find the security room. He turned around and headed to the door, peeking inside. 

It had three cells, one of them holding a Variant and the other two open, with a desk in the corner. 

The files in his pockets rustled as he moved. A heaviness washed over him as one thought stood out against the panicked haze: just how many of the authors of these documents were dead now? Which of their guts splattered the walls? 

His eyes widened. 

Was the whistleblower still in the building? 

He hated the thought that someone who clearly cared about these patients could be trapped here, maybe dead. But if they were here, they were exploring just like he was, searching for an exit. 

Miles pulled out his notebook and pen and hesitated. He tapped along the page for a moment as he thought. 

 WHISTLEBLOWER, 

I hope this reaches you. My name is Miles Upshur. I’ve gotten enough evidence. As per Father Martin’s request, I’m following the blood in hopes of finding the exit. My car is right out front and I’ll wait for you until sunrise. 

Be careful of Chris Walker. 

 He folded the paper so the only thing that showed was WHISTLEBLOWER and prayed he’d find it. It was a long shot. 

But maybe. 

“They weren’t experiments.” 

Miles straightened up. He pulled out his camera and turned to face the Variant in the cell. 

“They were… rituals,” he whispered. “A conjuring.”

Miles waited, but he didn’t continue. He hesitated, then went back to exploring the room. There wasn’t much else, the open cell to the right housing a bed and the bigger one on the left housing a row of lockers. He preemptively checked one to make sure it opened and there was room for him inside. He left the room and headed down the hall. 

“Just shut up and let me think for a MINUTE!” Smack, smack, smack. Skin on concrete, something splattering, cracking. “Quiet! Quiet!” 

Miles swallowed. He held his camcorder to his chest and crept forward. He passed by a window into an observation room, where a Variant stood holding a pipe, covered in blood. Red splattered the window. 

“I’d like you to stay quiet,” he said calmly. 

Miles nodded. 

He slipped past without a problem, his heart racing. He headed down to the security room, but once he opened the door, a Variant charged him. Miles whipped around and sprinted down the hall, all the way back to the room with the cells. He slammed the door behind him. As the Variant crashed into the door over and over again, barely holding onto its hinges, he crammed himself into the locker and waited. 

The man barged inside. He slunk around the room while Miles covered his mouth and nose. The Variant crept closer to the lockers. 

Please don’t open it. Please don’t find it. 

The handle creaked. 

“He’s not in here,” a voice rasped. He recognized it. They were rituals. A conjuring. “He was earlier, but not now.” 

The Variant grumbled. The handle slowly creaked back into place. “I’ll find him.” 

He left. A few moments later, a door opened and shut. Miles’ hands were almost shaking too bad to open the door and stumble out. 

“Thank you,” he gasped. 

The Variant, the man, stared at him with dead eyes. He was hunched over, fingers wrapped tight around the bars. “Find the whistleblower. Help us.” 

Miles nodded. Light on his feet, he ran back to the security room and slammed on the button. He sprinted all the way back to the decontamination chamber. ‘Follow the blood,’ the glass said. He crept down the decrepit halls until another familiar voice carried through. 

“We gave him a chance.” 

“That we did.” 

Miles peeked around the corner. The twins stood behind a grated door. Where the lock should be was empty—they could walk right over to him with those machetes. 

He looked around for any other way forward. There were windows into the Male Ward, but past that, it was just the hall. 

He grit his teeth and inched towards the door. Don’t open it. Don’t open it. 

“I’d say we were more than fair,” Leftie purred. 

“Paragons of patience.” 

“Job-like in the suppression of our desires.” 

“But now.” 

“Now.” 

“Now we indulge.” 

“Yes.” 

Rightie reached for the grate. 

“His tongue and his liver.” 

Miles reached an open window. They were basically nose to nose, the only thing separating them the metal. They could slide the machete through the slats and skewer Miles. 

“Yours.” 

Miles leapt out the window, and the Male Ward came rushing up to meet him.

[reluctantly-plus-ultra]

Rei

Totally random thought here, but can we consider how absolutely crazy the LOV plot could’ve been if they’d taken in Rei? Like, total crack theory, but there are so many fun ways that could’ve been spun.

-It all just starts off with them trying to take out the new number one hero, and nobody’s really sure who mentioned that Endeavor’s wife had been hospitalized (not exactly common knowledge), but it seems like a pretty easy way to take a hostage and lure him in

-Dabi’s kinda pushing against it, but that’s not super shocking as he’s always been a pretty grey-area villain, and if any one of them are likely to have doubts about kidnapping mentally unstable women and putting them in potentially life-threatening situations, of course it’s this crispy dude

-So they take some time planning this whole thing out, and when the time comes around to actually pull it off, it works without a hitch. In and out, nobody notices a thing- particularly not Rei’s caretakers who can’t tell the difference between the real Rei Todoroki and one of Twice’s clones (which is saddening in and of itself)

-They all get back to the base and are putting on this whole evil production, trying to really play up their front and frighten their captive a little bit, but part-way through Shigaraki’s speech about how she’s going to be the bait that helps bring down Endeavor, Rei just...Cuts him off?

-Everyone’s kind of a little taken aback, because nobody does that unless they have a death wish, but here’s this frail wraith of a woman looking completely undaunted while literally tied to a chair, helpless and surrounded by villains

- And she looks their leader dead in the eye and tells him that if they’re looking to take down Enji, there are better ways of doing it 

-LITTLE DID THEY KNOW they kidnapped a literal powerbank of info on their number one target, yes, but they also kidnapped a broken woman who has a story to tell, an army of skeletons in her closet, and more than a few grudges to settle.

-And so, this is how the League of Villains become the first group to hear the truth of what went on behind closed doors in the prestigious Todoroki household, and the facts churn more than one stomach. After all, they might be villains, but for the most part they’re not total monsters, and not a single one of them present can deny that the whole situation is ten variants of fucked up.

-If Dabi had to leave for a cigarette or two when Rei started talking about her children, well, that was his own business.

-When the whole tale is said and done, it doesn’t take long for the league to come to the consensus that hell, if Rei wants to join their cause and crush her husband’s career, they’re not in any position to stop her. They were on the hunt for new recruits anyway, this is really just a win-win situation.

-Things are different with her around; Rei might be part of the cause, but she’s not a true villain like the rest of them. She sets the ground-rules pretty early on; what she doesn’t and doesn’t agree with, what she will and won’t help accomplish. None of them really argue it, because it’s not like they can truly force her to become an evil-doer, and in some ways, it’s nice having a motherly figure around and knowing she wasn’t cleaning blood off the knives in the kitchen earlier.

-And with time, she does gradually become the den mother of sorts, in an odd, peculiar way. It was to be expected, as many of the LOV lacked parental figures, and Rei had a hole in her heart where her children had been stripped. That doesn’t make it any less strange to walk in on Rei patiently braiding Toga’s hair while the teen chatters on about boys and blood like the two subjects were interchangeable, but Rei missed the opportunity to have bonding time like this with Fuyumi, and she’ll be damned if she passes it up again.

-Eventually, this compassion spreads throughout the other members of the league, though, and it’s evident in all kinds of little ways. Compress is meticulous about finding her pretty objects and flowers every time they go out, something to brighten the woman’s day, especially after years of staring at the same four walls. Twice is particularly good at finding new rom-coms for him and Rei to binge when time allows for it. She and Kurogiri know how to make everyone’s individual favourite kinds of tea (and stronger drinks as well, with the exception of Toga)

-She sews Shigaraki a pair of gauntlets that cover one finger and leave the rest of his hand exposed so he can touch things and not have to worry about destroying them, and ooh boy, emotions are high that day.

-They often give her “progress reports” about how Shouto’s doing too, tell her about how strong he’s getting and what new tricks he’s learned from whenever they encounter her son in combat situations. Nothing will ever top the time that Twice came back with three missing teeth and a broken nose, and proudly told Rei Todoroki about how well Shouto could roundhouse kick

-Is it weird to be keeping a special eye on up-and-coming heroes, and be proud when they kick your ass? Probably. Most of them don’t care though, because that’s Rei’s son, look at the little squirt go-

-Poor Todoroki becomes doubly confused when a few of the LOV visibly perk up whenever he uses his ice, which makes no fucking sense, and you can guarantee that he and Midoriya theorize the hell out of it like the true conspiracy theorists they are.

-Dabi’s relationship with Rei is oddly strained, and nobody seems to understand how the typically mild woman manages to put their sarcastic edgelord into extreme defense mode. It’s remarkable to him that none of them have made the connections between Rei’s son Touya and the fire-wielder who they see every damned day, but he can’t tell if it’s worse or better that Rei herself hasn’t seemed to pick up on it either.

-and hAWKS, DEAR LORD HAVE MERCY HAWKS

-Of course, upon doing his undercover work in the league, he’d expected to come across a few surprises, but finally convincing Dabi to let him meet the league and immediately running straight into Endeavor’s wife was not anywhere on the list. It’s something he knows he should be reporting to the Commission as soon as he’s clear, but there’s just... Something not right about how this is sitting, and it causes him to wait things out a little bit.

-And then, upon getting to know her, and finding Rei to be surprisingly sweet and kind for the people she was affiliated with, some red flags were bound to go up. Like, he was confused as hell to begin with even seeing her in the League, but seeing her there and knowing that she’s helping take down Endeavor without being a complete nutcase? Not a good sign.

-So when he too finally gets the whole story, it completely rattles the entire world he stands on. Everything he’s thought of this man he’s looked up to his whole life, everything he thought he was surefooted in putting his faith in, has been completely shattered. It’s devastating and horrible, and a really hard pill to swallow.

-But beyond that, and despite whatever airs he puts on, Hawks is one smart chickadee and it takes him all of 2.36 seconds to figure out that the brooding 20-something-year-old with a vendetta against this same man and a fire quirk too powerful for his own good is none other than Rei’s son Touya without a doubt. He doesn’t blame himself for missing it before, but knowing Dabi and knowing the whole story of what went down suddenly brings things into a whole new perspective, and it unfortunately makes a lot of sense.

-Eventually, after about a month or so and neither Dabi nor Rei seeming to make any move to reconnect, Hawks intervenes a little, pulling Rei aside to nudge her towards the struggling young man. It’s a surprise to find out that she’s known all along, has known since the day they took her from the hospital, and she first laid eyes on him. “He’s different, older,” She says with a small smile, patting the winged hero’s arm, “But I’d recognize my son anywhere.”

-Hawks chooses not to mention how Endeavor had faced Touya in person and not even come close to the same conclusion, but the knowledge of the thing still simmers in his gut.

-She says she’s waiting for him to come to her and tell her himself, but Dabi’s a stubborn little shit, so when things get a bit too overwhelming for the fire-user one night and Hawks has to bring an absolutely drunk-off-his-rocker Touya Todoroki back to the league or risk him passing out in a gutter somewhere, he takes him straight to Rei. He’s a mess, has been for the last three hours since he first broke into Hawks’ apartment just after midnight and began info-dumping his story to him then and there, scuffed knuckles and bleeding scars indicating that he’s already had some trouble earlier in the night.

-Of course, Dabi isn’t in the mood to chat and takes one look at Rei before trying to walk right back out the door. But the strain is becoming too much for Hawks too, and it’s time to lay some old demons to rest.

-It’s a little uncomfortable, being a bystander to their reunion, but Hawks can’t honestly trust that Dabi won’t flee if he’s not blocking the way and tracking him down again would be an absolute pain in the ass. So instead, he tries his best to be a mute fly on the wall as Rei approaches her rigid prodigal son, and gently raises one hand up to his cheek, using the sleeve of her sweater to carefully wipe away the blood trails.

-”I knew a boy just like you once.”

-Hawks can’t deny that his heart breaks a little as Rei tells this unmoving statue of a man about her Touya, how kind and gentle and loving he was, how he played so well with his younger siblings, and always put them first. How much she loved him, how much they all did, how she’d treasured his crayon drawings and cried in secret when he burned, and the slowly crumbling look on Dabi’s face is something he never wants to see again.

-”What happened to him?” Dabi asks, voice wavering, and it’s devastating that he’s still trying so hard to keep that mask on, to hide behind a scarred face and dyed hair like he doesn’t already know who he is, like he wasn’t admitting it all in Hawk’s living room an hour beforehand, pacing a hole through the carpet.

-“Nothing that was his fault,” Rei answers quietly, finally letting the unshed tears roll down her cheeks, even as she smiles, “I’m just glad to see he’s still alive.”

-It takes half a second for both of them to be embracing in a crumpled heap on the floor of the warehouse, and damn it, even Hawks is crying when he hears Dabi call Rei “Mom” for the first time in twelve fucking years, both of them sobbing, though the tears aren’t all sad. There’s a relieved look on Rei’s face as she combs through Dabi’s hair soothingly, saying his name over and over again until it finally doesn’t feel strange to associate it with the broken man Hawks has come to know.

-Things are better from then on. Explaining this revelation to the rest of the league the next morning was… Something, but Dabi’s smiles come easier after that night, and Hawks is learning to appreciate how simple it can be to make him laugh. There’s a light in his eyes that wasn’t there before, and while Hawks knows he shouldn’t be making these kinds of promises, not with the orders he’s under, he swears he won’t let it flicker out again. Damned hero instincts and all that.

Honestly, I have a lot more ideas to run with this prompt, but I don’t want to make this unbearably long- let me know if y’all are interested in a part two!

[sunnymegatron]

Who's with me in feeling bummed? I'm not surprised things are going bad again. But it feels so defeating, especially so soon. I haven't stopped wearing my mask out despite being vaxxed nor will I. But I'm also going to be ending the little bit I've relaxed, like going out to public places (still masked) outside of absolute necessity or even going to mid sized vaxxed/unmasked gatherings (of which I've only done one but there'll be no more). If I lived in a more vaxed area I might feel differently but there's too many unvaxed in Vegas & our numbers are spiking quickly ☹️ (Also, pls don't science deny in my comments. I'll delete/block. You're free to do that on your own page) *********** Text reads: After 14/15 months of total quarantine, I went to 1 small vaccinated unmasked private gathering & to 1 public one (I kept my mask on) in the last month. I was looking forward to maybe doing that a few more times over the summer (I'm still uneasy). But now with the Delta variant + the Delta plus variant & no official word about my vaccine's (J&J) efficacy w/ these new strains, the little bit of anxiety that eased with the progress we've seemed to have made over the last couple months is back with a vengeance. I already figured that in the fall things could go bad & we'd have another wave. I felt that was likely. But I thought I'd have a lil more time to enjoy an occasional slice of normalcy thru summer & appreciate my slightly lowered anxiety. But with medical professionals I trust concerned abt J&J + these new strains + no clearance to get another shot by the powers that be (I'd just go get another mRNA shot to boost the J&J viral vector if I could at this point), and the WHO saying for vaxxed peeps to mask back up-- it's depressing. Sad the prospect getting out & doing stuff feels so risky again, sad that more death & BS is coming, (it's kind of like watching a slow-motion train wreck you knew was going to happen but could do nothing about). Yes, it makes me feel more justified in turning down travel/in-person events for the rest of 2021. But SHIT, this uncertainty is just fucking exhausting. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQt-mIYJwo5/?utm_medium=tumblr