#they’re like three of the best tropes all rolled into one

[areyouscaredyet]

if you don’t fw bugsnax i don’t fw u

[saeist]

my personal touya headcanons (yes i will make full on fics n drabbles with these in mind):

CHRONIC manspreader. literally takes up a whole love couch with the way he spreads his legs

can drive but gets motion sick easily so counting on him for a 2+ hour roadtrip? yeah pull over we’re switching seats

damaged hair from the constant dyeing but that won’t stop this baddie from dyeing it jet black every 2 weeks

only runs on 4 separate hours of sleep and snores like a truck. (u’ll need earplugs)

surprisingly tidy in regards to his room only because rei comes and checks their rooms and if its all messy they’ll get their asses whooped

doesn’t smoke cigarettes BUT has a box of disposables/juuls hidden in his sock drawer (GOD FORBIDS rei finds his stash)

^ in addition to that, contrary to popular belief his plug is unironically natsuo..

loves icy berry related related flavors too LMFAO

is supposed to be a junior in college on paper but since he keeps dropping and switching majors, he’s technically still a freshman

^ is currently taking chemical engineering (took business ad, computer science, finance, nursing (💀) and literally god knows what. his college majors that he dropped is between him, endeavor and god now)

since he’s competitive as fuck and is a perfectionist, took up multiple sports and extra curriculars growing up

prefers soggy cereal

drinks a lot but lightweight as fuck. after one bottle he’s out 💡 but that won’t stop him from drinking more!

knows how to braid girls hair thanks to fuyumi

cats warm up to him on the street cus he’s warm n shit

prettiest resting face but makes the ugliest faces known to man just for the sake of it (still pulls)

doesn’t approach girls, girls approach him

scares them away when he’s all like 😐🧍🏻

hooded eyelids + long eyelshes (both top and bottom)

genuinely starts tweaking when people say he got endeavor’s eyes solely bc hes a momma’s boy..

grew up being SPOILED rotten amongst his siblings so he doesn’t take no for an answer and will actually start stomping his feet

once he opens his mouth however.. everyone is gonna know he’s endeavors son fr 😓

keigo is his closest irl friend but tomura is who he considers as his best friend even if they’re only internet friends

has a basic pc set up and plays valorant fortnite and roblox religiously

shits on children especially shoto and his two friends

once babysat the three of them in exchange for concert tickets

did i mention he has an indie rock emo band he formed when he was in high school? yeah

bassist obviously but sometimes he plays drums

will scare rei out of her wits when he would just magically appear on their couch when he’s supposed to be at his university

his room is in the attic

dresses like hes going to an opium concert but rei makes him change before they leave to go to church so ultimately he dresses up like a cottagecore mf but with piercings and box dye jet black hair

almost broke natsuo’s hand when he first got his nose piercing

embodies the trope of “best friends older brother”

has a soft spot for grandmas and will help them cross the road each time

picks up shoto from school with his beat up hand me down car. literally one slam on the break away from breaking (endeavor gave it to him as his 18th birthday present)

sometimes ends up driving shoto’s friends home too if shoto insists (more like demands)

will also intentionally go through a drive-thru and the kids in the backseat are expecting him to ask them what they want but touya just gets whatever the fuck he was craving, pays and leaves

“we got food at home!” - touya to a enraged shoto

also sometimes touya is shoto’s chaperone or the “parent” that goes to those parent teacher meetings when its time for get shotos report card and will deliberately say shoto has failing grades when shoto is part of the honor roll just to again, fuck with him

shamelessly flirts with the girls natsuo brings home just to fuck with him (he gets sucker punched later that night bc at the end of the day, natsuo is bigger than that man 😭)

when all the todosibs are fighting, nobody listens to him even if he’s the eldest. they all end up ganging up on him (fuyumi doesn’t stop shit, in fact she instigates further. she don’t play)

says he hates winter and likes summer more but whenever its summer time if he could he would live inside the freezer

hates the feeling of sweating 😮‍💨

sometimes goes on days without showering only popping a lil deodorant here and there so rei forces him to shower whenever he just so happened to pass by her

cooks decent meals but shoto hates it and intentionally makes gagging noises whenever he finds out touya was in charge of cooking that night

hates doing the dishes and fools shoto into doing it for him

when he goes on dates, he steals endeavors credit card and just pays for everything. will probably even take you to nobu just to do so

attempts to blame natsuo when endeavor caught on since his card decline at the supermarket but unfortunately touya cannot lie to save his own life even if he tried

OH! talks MAD game in bed but has never touched a woman in his life.. painfully a virgin. u have to teach this man PLEASEE 🙏

likes yeat and carti

basically teenager borderline adult core

[sinsandsweetness]

Wellllllll…… I just read one Rec from someone and holy. Stepdad Rick isn’t my thing but still hot. I was thinking what if it was Shane instead. Or Daryl. Sneaking around behind Rick’s back. But ugh, Rick is so hot tho. Decisions decisions. More like Dad’s best friend maybe?

now that’s hot as hell. Idk who Dad would be but best friend trope could work for any combination possible I would think… (all of them!? 🙈 short of a orgy, I can’t see either Dixon putting up with Shane even for something like that but hey)

been thinking about this every hour since it appeared in my inbox… (Shane is my guilty pleasure fr. would let him do disgusting things to me)

I think I’m seeing your vision… lemme know what you think💗

PICK YOUR POISON

(Rick & Shane & Daryl x fem!reader)

warnings- 18+, smut, alcohol consumption, smoking, references of sex, multiple partners, the boys are kinda pervs but it’s ok cause ur legal and this is fiction <3 2.1k word count

You open the door to the garage and make your way down the stairs. Not even bothering to slip any shoes on. Your mom keeps the epoxy floors absolutely pristine, so there’s really no reason. Plus, your toenail polish is still a little tacky. Bright, bubble gum pink polish and a silver toe ring adorning your foot. The smell of liquor and smoke has filled the garage. Accompanied by the deep, rugged voices and dry laughs coming from your fathers closest friends.

“You know mom hates it when you smoke in the house.” You say all matter of fact, leaning up against the bar-tops, marble counter. You can feel your tank top strap slipping down your shoulder. But the animalistic looks coming from your dads three closest friends, force you to let it drop. To let them see.

Your father puts his cigarette out in the ash tray on the bar. Rolling his eyes at you. “Well good thing we’re in the garage then.”

You ignore his attitude.

“Mom needs you.”

“For what?”

“To drop her off at Cindy’s.”

He seems irritated. But all five of you can hear the rain. There’s no way any half decent husband should let his wife walk to her monthly book club meeting in this weather.

“Just- keep your mouth shut about the smokes. And grab everyone another drink. Make sure they don’t burn the place down while I’m gone.” You father jokes, ruffling up Daryl’s hair on his way to the door, grabbing his jacket and keys.

You wave an innocent goodbye as you watch him through the garage door windows, backing out of the driveway. Your mother in the passenger seat, smiling sweetly at you.

“Well… whatcha drinkin’?” You ask Rick, who’s sat in the middle. Glass empty, with a lone, melting ice cube clinking around in the bottom.

“Rum and coke.” He answers, licking his lips.

“Spiced?” You ask. A flirty smile playing on your face as you bite your bottom lip.

They’re all staring. Jaws clenched and breathing slowly.

You know what you’re doing. You can tell by the way they’re all looking at you. You can practically see the wheels turning in their brains.

They shouldn’t be thinking this way about their friends daughter. About their best friends little girl. Well… not so little anymore. You’d just turned 21. Hell, they were at the party. Giving you the exact same looks they’re giving you right now.

The ones they definitely shouldn’t be.

But they are.

They’re thinking about your thin, frilly, pyjama shorts, and how they can see the purple g string pulled up over your hips. How they can see your belly ring through the fabric of your tank top, and imagining what it would feel like against their lips as they kiss their way down your stomach. And you know they’re thinking about bending you over the bar counter and taking turns at fucking you until they hear the sound of your dads diesel pulling into the driveway. How you’d have to play pretend for your father, ignoring the fact that your panties are soaking through with three different men’s cum, and maybe even a mix of your own. The salty liquids threatening to drip down your inner thigh as you politely excuse yourself from the garage. Coming up with any bullshit excuse to go lay on your bed and rub your clit until you’re seeing stars. Imagining each of their faces in between your legs, spreading you open and eating you up.

You know they’re thinking it, because you are too. It’s the only thing you can think about in this moment, while pouring Rick a double spiced rum and coke. Taking a sip and then handing it him. Making sure your fingers touch.

When you turn to ask Shane what he wants, he gets up. Insisting that you won’t know how to make an old fashioned. You only just turned 21 after all. You probably haven’t even had one before.

But he’s wrong. They’re your dads favourite and you’d been making them for him since you were 16. But you didn’t tell Shane that. Instead you let him walk around the bar, come up behind you and press himself against your back. Letting a tiny gasp escape at the feeling of his, very hard, cock pressing into your bum. Pushing you even further against the counter. His chest is warm against you. And his hands are big and calloused as he guides your own, pouring the perfect amount of bitters, simple syrup and bourbon over a huge, king sized ice cube that he’d retrieved from the freezer.

Finally, taking a slice of orange, meticulously cut up and organized in little containers on the bar top. It was something your mother was always very fond of; organizing the liquors and the garnishes, ensuring that your father could host a proper poker night or barbecue. Or whatever the fuck they stayed up all night doing in their little man cave. Not knowing that you were upstairs, awake and playing with your favourite vibrator, listening to their rock music through your bedroom floor.

“And then you twist it, like this…” Shane’s lips are actually brushing your ear. And you don’t mean to, but your eyes flutter shut at the feeling. His free hand moves to your waist as he tosses the orange peel in the drink, lifting it up and bringing the cold glass to your lips.

“Try it.” He says. And though you can’t see him because he’s still behind you, you can hear the smirk in his voice.

You take a sip. A small one. Immediately scrunching your face at the two men still sitting across you. Their lips curl into an amused smile as they watch you swallow the amber liquid.

“Not my favourite.” You whisper as Shane leans back. Only for a second before he’s turned you around and trapped you once more, back to the bar this time.

“Well we did forget one thing,” He says, reaching over to a jar on the counter. Maraschino cherries. Your favourite.

“And I know how much you like these.” He teases, referring to all the cherries he caught you adding to your piña coladas at a neighbors pool party only a couple weeks ago.

He dips a single cherry in the drink. Taking it by the stem and lifting it to your mouth. You don’t hesitate in wrapping your lips around it. The bitter taste of the bourbon on the fruit doesn’t last long. A sweet, sugary syrup bleeds over your tastebuds as you bite into the cherry. And a moan manages to escape your throat. It’s quiet. You think maybe it was subtle enough to go unnoticed. But the smile on Shane’s lips and the dry laugh coming from behind you, tell you that it didn’t.

Shane is still pushed up against you, cock strained in his jeans and pressed right against your stomach. His hand gripping your hip and forcing you to stay against the counter. And the way he’s looking down at you. Fuck, the way they’re all looking at you. Watching you start to squirm under their gaze.

“It’s good.” You swallow. Trying to maintain a confident, big girl attitude. But truthfully, you just want them to peel your clothes off, and let you melt into their arms as you cum all over their cocks.

“Daryl’s drink is still empty, sweetheart.” Rick’s gravelly voice pulls you back.

“Right.”

Shane gives your hip one last squeeze before he walks back to his barstool. Next to Rick. They cheers quietly and sip on their drinks. Watching intently as you try to compose yourself.

“What’s your poison?” You turn to the last man, lighting what was probably his second or third cigarette of the night. Glancing up at you and taking a draw. Slowly inhaling and exhaling. And though your mother was not a fan, you fucking loved it. You wanted to crawl onto his lap and have him blow the smoke right between your lips as you rode his cock, letting the other two men watch and touch themselves to the sight of you getting off on another guy.

But you didn’t.

“Just a beer, sunshine.” He pushes his empty glass forward for you. You grab it and put it in the dishwasher. Grabbing a brand new, frosted mug from the freezer.

“Which one?”

“Bud’s fine.”

You grab a bottle and skillfully pour it into the mug, coming around the bar this time to hand it to him. Intentionally placing yourself between him and Rick, reaching over and setting the glass in front of him.

To no one’s surprise, you feel a warm hand on the small of your back. Rick’s fingers tracing dangerously close to the thin band of your panties.

“Those are really bad for you, y’know.”

You get bold again. Stepping onto the foot rest of Rick’s barstool, and taking a seat right on his lap. The hand on your back only helping guide you on to him. Quickly finding its way around your waist as you make yourself comfortable.

Daryl only grunts. Hiding a smile at your silly comment. He’d seen you smoke. Hell, he’d snuck out of multiple dinner parties to have one with you.

“You gonna share?” You ask.

Hesitantly he hands it over, and you take it with two fingers. Taking a long drag in and then turning to face Rick again, before you slowly exhale. Trying to focus the smoke onto his lips more than anything.

“What the hell would your father think if he could see you right now?” Shane asks, leaning back in his chair and palming the hard on, still evident in his jeans.

“Think he’d probably try and beat you’re asses.” You say. And while you’re answering Shane, your focus is solely on Rick. The scruff on his face. His bright blue eyes, taunting you and begging you to lean in. Just an inch closer so that he can catch your lips.

“Think he’d win?” Rick asks, glancing down at your own lips.

“Not a chance.” You smile.

He closes the space between you, and you taste rum on the tongue that traces yours. Rick’s hand going to the back of your neck, deepening the kiss as you blindly try to put the cigarette out on the ashtray. You start to move. Trying to maneuver your position so that you’d have a leg on either side of him, straddling his very apparent bulge. But right as you start to moan against his mouth, you hear the truck pull up and park. Practically jumping off of Rick and standing in between him and Daryl’s barstools. Fixing your hair as the heat rises to your cheeks. The men chuckle at your flustered appearance. Waiting for their friend to enter through the side door of the garage.

“Hi dad.” You say, smiling politely and pulling your tank top down to cover the strip of skin visible where it had previously rode up.

“Hey, hun. Glad to see they weren’t too much trouble for ya.” You father aproaches and slaps a hand on Shane’s back. Sitting down next to him and grabbing the pack of smokes from his jacket pocket.

“Y’wannanother drink, daddy?” You ask. Daryl clears his throat. And you see Ricks eyes go wide as Shane tries to hide his smile.

“Please. Old fashioned, darling. Y’want some of that pink stuff we found last week? Bubbly… something or other. It’s in the fridge.”

You watch Shane the whole time that you make the old fashioned. Clearly showing him that you knew exactly how your dad liked it. Carefully placing the cocktail on the counter in front of them.

“Thanks doll.” Your dad says, continuing to smoke his cigarette. Reaching over the counter and handing one to Rick who lights it. Watching you the whole time. Tendrils of smoke, floating up to the ceiling of the garage. You turn around. Bending over and being sure to stay searching for the bottle of rosé about thirty seconds longer than you really needed to. You pour a glass as the men discuss what the next move was. What they should do for the night. Considering it’s still a work night, and they all have a supply run pretty early in the morning.

“You wanna play some cards, sweetie?” Your dad asks. You scrunch your nose at him, taking a nice long sip of your sparkling wine.

“What? You got somewhere better to be?” Shane teases.

You huff a semi-annoyed breath, looking around for a spare stool. Even though you already knew there were only 4. Ricks eyes glimmer as he pats his left thigh, inviting you back on.

To your surprise, your dad pays you no mind, already starting to shuffle the deck of cards as you hesitantly take your seat back on top of Rick. Loving the way his hand curls around your thighs and tugs you even further on top of him. And the the way that Shane looks a little jealous that he hadn’t offered first. And you’re especially loving the way Daryl shifts on his stool just the tiniest bit closer, so that his leg grazes yours every now and then.

“All right, here’s the rules…” You hear your dad starts to explain, already dealing you each some cards. But you don’t hear him. You don’t even look in his direction. You’re way too focused on the taste of Rick that lingers on your lips, and the way your clit is actually fucking pulsing. Begging for attention. And truthfully, your mind can’t help but wander, thinking about what might have happened if your dad had taken any longer to get back home.

part 2

-

(I’m picturing readers dad as Tobin in Alexandria. Someone like that at least. With a Carol-esque mother. But picture whoever you’d like! Just thought I’d share what I was kinda thinking…)

taglist - @rickswh0r3 @elnyrae @catt-leya @murder-jacket @miinbun @ankhmutes @eternalrose81 @cl0wnb0yyy @grimesthinker

[bookuce]

Change My Mind (Jey Uso)

SUMMARY: Josh and Alina are great friends most days. Other days they want to tear each other apart. Some days, they’re in love with each other, but neither of them will admit it.

*DISCLAIMER: This is a multi-part series. I do not own any of the characters in the writing except for the OC. The book also uses the real names of the wrestlers. Josh is Jey Uso, Jon is Jimmy Uso, Trinity is Naomi, Alina is just Alina. The book is not realistic and does not take place during real events, but some actual events could pop up in the story eventually*

PAIRING: Jey Uso x Black OC

TROPE: Friends to Lovers

WARNINGS: Language

WORD COUNT: 1,445

PART ONE

The sound of Alina’s heels clicking against the concrete floor beneath her echoed throughout the semi-empty hall. She was following chatter with a mic in hand. She was due to do an interview with Trinity about her upcoming championship match. She’d turn the corner, spotting the blue interview set down the hall. “Hey, Alina.” Greets one of the crew members as she arrives on set. She would flash them a quick smile, wiggling the top of her fingers at them.

Over in the corner, adorned in glowing green lights and neon hair, stood Trinity. She was deep in a hushed conversation with her husband Jon. “Alright, Alina is here, everyone! Places!” Exclaimed one of the producers. Alina would move to stand on a blue X tapped to the floor. Trin gives Jon a quick kiss before rushing over to her.

“Hey, Alina!” Jon sings. “How you doing?” He waves, flashing a goofy smile at her. Trinity looks over at him before looking back at Alina.

“Ignore him, please.” Trinity begs.

“It’s what I do best.” Alina sings.

Trinity glances down at the floor, making sure she’s standing on her designated X before looking back at the tall interviewer next to her. “Speaking of ignoring—.”

“Starting in five, four, three, two!” Count down the producer.

“I’m standing by with Naomi ahead of her match with Bayley tonight for the Smackdown Women’s Championship. Naomi, you’ve been on a roll the last few weeks, getting a huge win over Nia Jax last Friday that got you this opportunity tonight. What’s the strategy for tonight?” Alina asks, moving the mic towards her friend.

“The strategy is to go in focused, and be aware of my surroundings. The only reason Bayley even has that title is because of Damage Control. And that’s okay because they, just like Bayley will, can feel the glow.” Trin would skip off camera, leaving Alina to end their interview.

“Thank you, Naomi. You heard it here first, Naomi is focused and ready for her championship match with Bayley later tonight.” There was a five second pause before the producer called for the scene to end. Trinity comes back over to me, linking her arm with the interviewer’s.

“So, have you talked to Josh?” She asks, pulling them over to Jon.

“Don’t plan on it.” Alina says quickly. She’s been avoiding him since last week. He called on the hour, every hour for the first few days, but now he’s dialed it back to text messages. Her inbox says one hundred and twenty unread messages now—eighty-five of those belong to him.

“Ay, You gotta quit stressing my brother out, Uce.” Jon says, earning a gasp from Alina.

“Oh, I’m stressing him out?” She shouts. “He’s the one that chased my date off with that weak ass intimidation tactic he uses. I was fine!”

“That man was not finna last, Lina. Hell, the last one didn’t.” He says. “If anything he did you a favor.”

“Jon.” Trinity pushes his shoulder.

“Don’t Jon me. I’m right!” He points his hand out at Alina. “What was his name again? Bill?”

“William.” She says, folding her arms.

“Square ass name. See, that was destined to fail.” Alina scoffs gently, shaking her head at him. The date with William went great or so she thought. Things started to change when they came home to Josh on her doorstep. Josh and William didn’t see eye to eye immediately. “He just wants the best for you, Uce. It’s all love.” He explains. “Ain’t that right, lil bro?”

Alina’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. She turns away from her friends, only to catch Josh approaching them. His eyes were fixated on her. She slips her arm out of Trinity’s. “I gotta go.” She said, turning to walk the opposite direction as Jey. He would stop, watching as she tried to put distance between them again. Something about that pissed him off.

“Girl, if you don’t bring your ass back here.” He said, storming off after her. “Alina, you hear me talking to you!” She doesn’t respond to him, her eyes flitting around the hall. Suddenly arms snatch her up, lifting her into the air. “I’m not chasing you, damnit. We finna talk this out.” Josh would glance around him before moving into a random dark room on his left. He places her back on the floor and turns on the lights.

“I ain’t got nothing to say to you, Jey.”

“That’s not my name.” He scolds her.

“Jey!” She presses on. He sucks his teeth at her, closing the door behind him.

“Man, you something else with yourself.” He says. “What I do, hm? Since I’m always pissing you off.” Josh knew why she was upset, but he wanted to hear it from her mouth instead of everyone else's.

“Boy, I do not have time for this.” She says, moving to walk around him. He steps in her path, blocking her from going any further. “Jey, if you don’t get out my way.”

“Or what?” She steps to the right of him and he follows. “Nah, We finna have this conversation like two grown ass adults, Lina. That’s what we are right?” She gives him a stern look. “Mad at me over some boy that wasn’t gonna make the cut anyway.” She takes a step back.

“He was a great guy!”

“Shit, couldn’t be if you mad at me.” He says. “He looked like a fucking square anyway. What was his name? Bill?”

“William!” I exclaim.

“Man, same thing.”

Alina crosses her arms over her chest, moving to sit down on the couch. When Jey saw she was calming down, he moved to sit down on the coffee table in front of her. They sat there in silence for a moment. Josh watched her while she watched a wall. He knew what she wanted; an apology, but like always, she was gonna make him work for her forgiveness. “So what was his excuse?” He asks, finally breaking the silence.

She would remain silent for a few more moments before finally speaking. “He assumed you were my man and didn’t want to be in the middle of it.” Hazel eyes would glance over at the Samoan sitting in front of her. This was the third—no, fourth time a man dipped on her because of him. It was starting to get out of hand. Josh looked down at the floor at the answer. He would sniffle, the right corner of his mouth twitching as he did so. He wasn’t her man but he did wish he was. This has been a feeling of his for a few months now.

“He wasn’t the one then.” He said this to her often. She was probably tired of hearing that come from him, but it was true. None of those dudes were the one. Him on the other hand…

“I give up then.” She sighs. Josh looks up at her at the statement. “The love I require is unrealistic and I know that now so I'll stay to myself.”

“Nah, we don’t give up around here. You gonna find someone…just be patient.” He pleads quietly. He presses his fists to her bare knees. If she was to guess he was speaking for himself, she would be true. He, just like her, didn’t want to fuck up the dynamic of their friendship. If things didn’t work out, it would trickle down into their friend group and they didn’t want to make things weird for anyone; not even for themselves. “Are we good?” He asks finally. “I don’t like when you’re mad at me.”

She stares at him, pretending to be deep in thought. “I didn’t hear any apology.” She says.

“I’m sorry, Alina.” He says quickly.

“I don’t like the way—.”

“Alina.” He snaps, causing her to laugh out loud at his irritation. “You’re lucky I love you.” He says, standing to his feet. Alina would stand shortly after him, their fronts now touching. Eyes watch eyes for a moment before awkwardly venturing off in opposite directions. The interviewer would shimmy to the right, freeing herself of his suffocating energy.

“I should get going.” She says.

“Yeah, me too.”

Alina walks over to the door, her hand outstretched for the knob. She pulls the it open, catching Trinity and Jon standing near it. The couple steps back from the door, trying to make it seem like they weren’t prying.

“We were wondering where y’all went!” Trin says.

“Y’all together yet?” Jon asks, getting straight to it. That was Alina’s cue to leave the scene. She squeezes by Trin and Jon, making her way down the hall.

________________________________________________

A/N: Hi! this is my first time writing fanfic in FOREVER. Let me know what you think or if I should write more! I have a lot of cute little drafts with Roman and Jey! If you want to be added to the tag-list just let me know! ☺️

NEXT PART

[angelfic]

for the writing game: tasm!Peter Parker, fake dating, and "don't you trust me?" :)

thank you for the request, anon! it’s been ages since i wrote for my fave spidey and i’m a sucker for the fake dating trope sooo here u are <3

tasm!peter parker x reader + fake dating + “don’t you trust me?”

➺ part of my 2k milestone writing game

“Peter,” you hiss, tugging on the back of his shirt to grab his attention when he doesn’t hear you over the blaring music coming from the party downstairs. He turns around, wide eyed and slightly dishevelled. You spot a flash of red and blue in his hand as he shoves his mask into the pocket of his jeans and you gasp. “You said no Spider-Man duties tonight!”

“I know, I know!” Peter winces, not bothering to tell you to keep your voice down since the only other people on the top floor are preoccupied, either far away and making out, or locked up in the bedrooms. He knows you’ve been on his ass to relax and enjoy himself, especially after Aunt May found out about his vigilante activities and forced the two of you to go to one of your classmate’s parties. You take May’s orders very seriously. “I’ve only been out twice tonight, but I swear for the rest of the night I’m staying in.”

“Twice already?” You gape at him, shoulders slumping in disappointment since you should have been paying more attention. Your best friend can be slippery when he wants to be though. “Okay, forget it, we can have fun later. I need your help.”

“What is it?” he asks, standing up straighter and already reaching for the mask.

You roll your eyes and bat his hand away from his pocket. “I don’t need Spidey, I need you. Connor Davies from Biology won’t leave me alone.”

Peter relaxes slightly at the much lower-level threat, but frowns when he registers your words. “Tell him you have a boyfriend or something.”

“I tried,” you deadpan, thinking back on his persistence with irritation. “I said I was here with you, thinking that was vague enough, but that he’d get the hint. When that didn’t work, I said we were together and he still didn’t believe me. I lost him now, but–”

“Quick, look at me,” Peter says quietly, one hand going to your waist as the other cups your face. His eyes dart to something behind you before he meets your gaze again, determined. “I don’t quite think he got the hint. He’s coming over.”

“What?” you whisper, a little alarmed at how close you two are all of a sudden. “What are we going to do?”

“Don’t you trust me?” Peter asks, the corners of his mouth tilting up slightly as he raises a brow in questioning. You’re about to bring up the time when he took you for a swing around the city and accidentally let you fall three stories before catching you because a bird flew too close to his face. Then you remember the pressing matter at hand and nod that yes, you do trust Peter. “Good.”

Peter closes the distance and kisses you with a certainty that you’d never expect from him. Your lips move together like you’ve done this a million times before and you hadn’t realised how badly you wanted this until now. You barely register the footsteps going back downstairs when you grip the front of Peter’s flannel to pull him closer and he takes this as a signal to kiss you firmly, his hand gripping your waist a little tighter.

You aren’t sure if you ever plan on pulling away until the door that Peter was previously leaning against swings open, causing him to stumble as a very drunk and very giggly couple comes staggering out. You take a quick step back from Peter to let the couple through, finding it hard to make eye contact with him once they’re gone.

“You, uh, think he got the hint?” you ask, laughing nervously. Peter looks like he’s holding back a grin when he gently takes a hold of your hand to bring you closer again.

“I think he got the hint about 3 minutes ago,” Peter points out, amused. “Biology might be super awkward though.”

“Well, at least I know what to do next time,” you shrug, half of you joking. The other half wants there to be a next time.

Peter gasps in mock-offence. “Wow, is that all I am to you? Not even going to take me out to dinner first?”

“How about an ice cream date?” you ask boldly. You and Peter have gone out on late-night ice cream runs ever since he got his licence, but you’d never stuck the word date on the end.

Peter smiles openly this time, already dragging you towards the stairs and you find yourself mirroring his grin. “Ice cream date it is. You know Aunt May is gonna make you recall the entire night to her later, right?”

“Yeah, well, what’s new?” you snort, well aware of May’s intentions towards the two of you. “You better get the camera out.”

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 16 - Aquillians

Hello cosmonauts! I’ve been almost non-stop sick for three months which hasn’t been great for progress, but this can’t be delayed any further. We’re going to try to do more frequent dev diaries again; next week I’ll do a diary on Meta-Campaign mechanics and the current state of character creation, but for now, it’s time to do some lore.

So, let’s talk the biggest alien species in Torchship, our local Space Elves, the Aquillians!

Aquillian Basics

Aquillians are a diverse species of humanoids who superficially resemble, well, green-blooded elves, and they’re very much inspired by taking a few of the greatest hits of sci-fi space elves and shuffling it all up. Torchship might be a deconstruction of a lot of common sci-fi tropes, but it’s also a reconstruction embracing fun ones along the way and wearing inspiration on our sleeves.

Though pretty human-looking on the surface, like all humanoids in Torchship, they look like that because of a mysterious process of directed evolution from very different routes. Humanity’s first inkling of just how dominated Local Space is by the mysterious forces of Star Gods and K2 civilizations was discovering an alien that looked just like them, but had totally different biochemistry, internal anatomy, and evolutionary history. The ancestors of Aquillians were gliding arboreal bird-like pack hunters, sent along the path to sapience by their increasingly complex social dynamics and changing climates on their relatively small, low-gravity homeworld. Flight proved less useful in lean times than dexterous hands and the intelligence to shape the massive, tangled trees into built environments.

Evidence of this ancestry is still present in their constant-volume unidirectional respiration system and energy-conserving metabolism (and fluffy protofeather hair). This is reflected through the only universal Aquillian Trait, which is also part of our new category of Evolutionary Origins Traits; everyone gets to pick one representing the evolutionary lag of their ancestral environment. (Most) Humans now get the Persistence Predator Trait, letting humans take more Strain before experiencing Fatigue penalties.

In contrast, the Efficient Metabolism Trait of the Aquillians allows them to avoid taking Strain on dice rolls if they succeed by a large enough margin; this encourages you to double-down on your specialities and lets you perform low-stress work more or less indefinitely. This was very handy for a species whose path to sapience involved becoming the galaxy’s best tree-pruners.

Aquillians are also generally encouraged to take the various Psychic traits. The thing about psychic powers in Torchship is that while they’re not genetic, they are heritable, in that people raised by or around psychics tend to become psychics themselves. The widespread emergence of psychics is predicated on certain social conditions, but once it’s become widespread in a species it’s unlikely to fade. Thus, nearly all Aquillians possess some level of psychic potential simply because their species has been puttering around all the psychic weirdness of Local Space for so long.

Aquillians are the most widespread and populous species in Local Space by a considerable margin; they’re either the primary species or a sizeable minority in multiple states and are otherwise generally present everywhere. One could make the serious argument that Local Space is defined by being the part of the galaxy that’s Aquillian-majority, and when you come across an independent planet with faster-than-light travel and humanoid aliens, they’re probably Aquillians of some description.

The reason for this is that the Aquillians have been around a very long while, and one way or another have been in a dominant position that entire time. They’ve had FTL travel for forty thousand years, and for at least half the time an Aquillian political body has been either a great power or the undisputed regional superpower. The nature of this dominance has varied massively over time, but it most recently manifested as the Aquillian Empire.

In The Empire/Remnant

If you listen to their propaganda, the Aquillian Empire was/is Local Space’s rightful heirs, existing for forty thousand years of unbroken and absolute rule. Under the guidance of wise Emperors, they did more to preserve interstellar civilization than anyone else with their ruthless enforcement of the Exploration Taboo, their rigid hierarchy of specialised castes and subordinate species, and the wonders of a massive, high-speed web of FTL beacons. They crushed the dangerous Argent Empire, drove the upstart Zinovians from their homeworld, and brought Pax Aquillia to the stars.

In reality, the Empire only existed for about fifteen hundred years, and they just claimed the entirety of their species’ spacefaring history; with total control over the presentation of their own history, it was kind of hard to call them out. 1500 years is still really impressive, as empires go, but it wasn’t quite grand enough for the swelling egos of the ruling class. It’s a bit like saying, “As you can see, Sumer prevails!” while pointing at New York City.

The Aquillian Empire was well-known for their historic use of genetic engineering on both themselves and their enemies, which creates the setting’s taboo on genetic engineering that humans are in blatant violation of. For this reason, Aquillians in the Empire were changed considerably from the ancestral template, modified for life on heavier worlds; their capital isn’t their mineral-poor, low-gravity homeworld, which is instead a bit of a sad backwater now. This gives the Imperial Aquillians and those derived from them the Downweller Gravity Trait, which is in-between the Freefaller Trait used by human spacers and the Heavyworlder Trait of Terrans; it’s the ‘average’ trait with no real strengths or weaknesses.

It also resulted in a degree of artificial phenotypical convergence, as waves of engineering were used to aesthetically modify sections of the species in-line with current fashions. This isn’t universal, but the higher in the hierarchy you go, the more Aquillians tend to be tall, gaunt, and have desaturated skin and hair colours to match their self-reinforcing image of nobility.

The biggest consequence, however, is the clades. The Aquillian Empire’s power structure emerged from a caste structure inherited from one of their precursors, now entrenched with genetic engineering. Initially this was in the form of creating a large number of specialised subspecies for different tasks, but as the Empire grew in strength, automated more infrastructure, and acquired more and more vassals, the priority increasingly became engineering for control, outsourcing labour to client states and modifying their own population for compliance instead of productivity.

At the time the Empire fell, the many specialised groups had been condensed into three diverse Clades; the ruling Nobles, the ruthless Enforcers, and the mass of numbed Commoners, all with their own Traits.

The Clades

The Nobles, or High Aquillians, are the highest Clade, forming a kind of industrialised aristocracy inside the Empire, acting as administrators, military leaders, governors, lawmakers, and scientists. Functionally immortal, fabulously wealthy, and relatively rare, the nobility have an agreement within their own ranks to only produce new Nobles for specific purposes in order to avoid diluting power or creating succession crises. This worked out fairly well historically, but has resulted in every major faction of the currently-simmering civil war in the Divine Empire cloning their own Ideal Monarch(s) for when they overthrow the upstart Empress and seize power (after they win the actively-boiling-over civil wars against the other remnants and crush the humans, of course). Those other remnants are mostly ruled by planetary governors or admirals who have seized power, but a handful are also hard at work in Build-A-Tyrant Workshop.

Each noble is tailored to their role and raised to serve that particular purpose, so as Traits go they are pretty much completely freeform, save encouragement to take Augment and various psychic traits. There’s not a lot of them in the Union for obvious reasons, but that makes playing as one and casting aside your birthright to fight for a fairer world all the more meaningful.

(We’re also playing around with a funny Trait, whose working title is Class Traitor, to represent how even with your defection, there’s a lot of places who still respect the title… and a lot of others who really, really don’t. Renouncing your title doesn’t necessarily destroy your claim; there’s probably a lot of servants and functionaries back home wondering when you’ll get all this communism out of your system and come back to run the planet again.)

The Enforcer clade constitutes the law enforcement, colonial bureaucracy, and military officer class of the Empire, and are as much defined by their upbringing and social isolation as their genetic modification. The Enforcers are descendants of a specialised clade to create the ideal secret police, which unsurprisingly meant they soon infiltrated, dismantled, or took over every other lever of power they could get their hands on and firmly established themselves as the middle managers of society. The only reason they never successfully couped the Nobility is the fact they are categorically incapable of trusting one another.

Enforcers are biologically distinguished by a change in their neurology which rewires the way they experience empathy. While humans initially believed (to their horror) they’d encouraged a subspecies of engineered sociopaths, the truth is more complicated; Enforcers have had their mirror neurons modified to basically receive the alien equivalent of a dopamine hit from understanding the emotions and thoughts of others. Genuine empathy is very difficult when your neurochemistry rewards you for treating other people as fun little puzzles to take apart and put together; it makes them very good interrogators, investigators, and spies, but also means the closest thing to emotional attachment most of them feel is having favourite subjects. This means they historically spend the time they could have used seizing power scheming endlessly with one another instead.

To represent this, Enforcers are recommended the Reserved Trait, which modifies how you interact with Relationships and the Unity system, the Turncoat Trait (because playing as one almost inherently implies defection), and Narrow Socialisation, which lets you select two types of Relationships (in this case Rival and Nemesis) to get a target bonus in social interaction with, while hitting you with a target penalty for all others. You also typically are a Psychic Void; the deeply engrained secrecy and distrust of their artificial anti-society makes them largely invisible to psychic powers as well as making them very difficult to access.

Finally, there are the great masses of Commoners, the dispossessed masses of once-workers who increasingly existed to be ruled in the Empire, acting as an enormous reserve army of labour and potential conscripts to give bulk to the Empire and be selectively employed for economic or military violence. In between those times, the Commoners didn’t really have much to do, and to keep them manageable, they were gradually engineered to be more and more easily controlled and managed.

This involved, essentially, breaking their motivation system by genetically curtailing the natural production of neurotransmitters and replacing these systems with electromechanical implants. If the Empire didn’t need the Commoners for anything, they left them in a state of numb apathy and executive dysfunction; they could get away with just bread without circuses. If they needed labourers, soldiers, or to stop the population declining, they would just start pressing the feel stuff again button as needed to reward useful behaviour. Crude but tragically effective.

Though they believed this made their population a docile and cultureless stockpile of potential labour, the Commoners retain a complex internal culture built around their tactile telepathy, developing a sort of introspective philosophy of dualism, intellectualism, and fatalism. Unable to confront a system that had control over their own neurochemistry, common Aquillians instead developed a parallel culture which existed in their collective shared imaginations, sharing aspects of their thoughts and personalities with one another in a quiet network, with their philosophers living on in transmitted fragments alongside loved ones and comrades.

Commoners also get the Reserved Trait, for different reasons than the Enforcers but with similar effects. Plural System allows you represent transmitted personalities by essentially having Crew NPCs that fortunately don’t take up limited bunk space in your spacecraft, Stiff Upper Lip and Fearless reflects how the limits placed on them also mute strong reactions to pain and fear, and Prodigy simulates having cybernetic modifications which reward pursuing certain work.

This system survived a very long time in the Empire, and persists in its Remnants. Once you get outside them, though, it gets interesting.

In the Breakaways

The Aquillian Breakaway states are the Union-aligned or neutral bodies which broke away from the Empire during the civil conflicts which ended the Aquillian-Human War. Some of these still function more or less like the Remnant before them, but the majority are revolutionary states of some kind which have elevated Commoners to the top of the pack. You’re probably not playing an Enforcer or Noble; they, uh, aren’t too well liked there for obvious reasons.

If you play an Aquillian from one of these states, you’re probably playing a Commoner who still has the above modifications (as these states have very strong taboos against further genetic engineering they are still struggling with), but who now has their hands on the remote control for their emotions. 

This ties into one of the core principles of Torchship; you can always change your character’s Identity at any time you like, at no mechanical cost, provided you have a narrative reason. Your character’s external neurology interface is a special use of the Cultural Tool Trait which acts as that narrative reason to turn on and off many of the common Traits listed above whenever you like, as is advantageous to you. Of course, that also does mean there’s a remote control with your emotional state on speed-dial which is just lying around, taking up an equipment slot and just begging to be stolen for the sake of drama.

Regrettably, while the chances of experiencing Spock’s Brain are low, they are never zero.

In The Union

There are quite a few Aquillians in the Star Union, making up the largest alien minority by a significant margin (larger even than the Koath). These are a mixture of refugees taken on during and after the war, immigrants flocking to a place which might be able to undo the genetic modifications done to them, war orphans who wound up in the Union through various dubious humanitarian programs or ad-hoc adoption, and the former prisoners of war of Camp Aldrin on Earth’s moon. In fits and starts, they’ve largely undone or changed the way their various genetic modifications affect them to suit their needs better.

These groups live all over the Sol system now, and many of them have integrated into the various human cultures and, in so doing, have often taken on some of the genetic alterations used by those groups (seeing as they self-select for ‘cool with some level of genetic modification’). So one of the ways you can play an Aquillian, particularly a young one who has largely or entirely grown up in the Union, is by basically making a Terran, Martian, Spacer, etc, just swapping out Persistence Predator for Efficient Metabolism. It’s increasingly common to meet Aquillians in Star Patrol with the flag of their adoptive home country on their sleeve and no more connection to the Empire than peers of their age, for good or ill.

If you’re playing somebody from Camp Aldrin (first or second generation), then it gets a little more interesting, because these Aquillians aren’t being directly assimilated into human cultures, instead creating their own experimental one in their lunar enclave, with an abolition of the clades and an attempt to create a more egalitarian society. Any older Camp Aldrin Aquillian is going to be a Turncoat and War Veteran from the Imperial military, and traits like Augments or Prosthetics are quite appropriate.

This is also where you’d most likely find former members of the Enforcer or Noble clades, taken prisoner during the war. Though Solar Patrol developed a bad habit of pushing Enforcers they captured out of airlocks during the middle period of the war, they still captured an awful lot of them, and the process of many Aquillian Breakaways forming was made a lot smoother by the Union offering asylum to Nobles in exchange for laying down their arms. These groups, who don’t usually see their genetic modifications as burdens like the Commoners do, will have an interesting time figuring out where they fit in a more egalitarian world.

In the CNFT

Outside the Empire’s successors, the largest concentration of Aquillians are found in the multicultural capitalist empire of the CNFT, where they form a plurality of the population with a historical position of social and economic dominance. This is because the CNFT’s origins; about two and a half thousand years ago they were a colony of one of the Empire’s precursors. They took advantage of changing interstellar geography (astrography?) to declare independence, forming a network of political bodies which eventually solidified into an increasingly multicultural capitalist state.

This means that the Aquillians of the CNFT are, largely, pre-genetic modification Aquillians, predating the clades. They’re visually quite distinct, with vibrant multicoloured hair, much more diverse phenotypes, and a preference for low-gravity worlds that give them back their ancestral Freefallers Trait. A lot of them are even totally unmodified Baseliners, because their ancestors were displaced off the increasingly-irrelevant Aquillian homeworld and went looking for places that suited them. Being the dominant group in the Territories, they’re also recommended Foreign Connections with their former markets, and Driven, because being a workaholic is how you survive under Space Capitalism.

There’s also various Imperial Aquillians who ended up in the CNFT as refugees, in the recent war or earlier. They’re distinctly an underclass there, with little in the way of resources or help… well, except for the Nobles, who usually arrive with shiploads of antimatter and set themselves up nicely as investors.

Others

Being so common, so widespread, and having been around so long, you’ll stumble across Aquillians of one sort or another a lot across Local Space. They’re more or less the default, the alien you should reach for if you haven’t got anything else in mind.

Aquillians form a portion of the population on a lot of former Aquillian client worlds, which aren’t really breakaways in the traditional sense but where the Aquillian settlers still form powerful political blocs. Defusing tensions caused by these arrangements is a pretty common job for Star Patrol missions operating inside the Union’s de facto space.

There’s an awful lot of Aquillian pirates out in Local Space now, given they had the largest fleet in the region by a considerable margin and the fall of the Empire saw a lot of them cut off with nothing but a very powerful warship at their disposal. Many of these pirates are privateers who still mostly work for a Remnant power to keep up the wars against the Star Union and Universal Republic, but save their patron power money by also picking off civilian convoys for profit along the way. Others are now without allegiance, just hitting whoever they can and taking shelter around sympathetic planets. Some even side with Breakaways and prey on their former Imperial comrades. It’s equally likely you’ll be fighting them, scaring them off, or helping them.

Finally, the Aquillian presence in space is so old, and their history so distorted by successive waves of authoritarian censorship and purges, that there are many, many colonies that just slipped through the cracks. You’ll very often come across planets at just about any imaginable stage of technological and social development that were settled thousands or even tens of thousands of years prior by Aquillians, and were then cut off by some long-forgotten political cataclysm and left to develop or decay on their own. Sometimes it feels like you can’t turn over a rock without finding another weird space elf.

[shona22]

Sterek fic rec: October edition (2024) 🐺 ⚓

Each month, I'll be sharing some of my favorite fics (and I'll make sure to backup and download them for safekeeping). Please note that I have a soft spot for darker themes, so warnings and tags will be plentiful - reader discretion advised!

Want specific recs? Feel free to send me an ask with your preferred tropes or genres, and I'll do my best to find some from my bookmarks. 

Pay by the hour, but don't leave so soon by JettieBettie 

"This is the last time," he tells her, heading toward the door.

"That’s what you always say. But I end up wearing his face for you again and again.”

Note: an incredibly hot pwp. I won't spoil much, but it does have an amazing Stiles voice regardless of being so short. 

___

Step towards me, step away by Areiton 

The truth is, he’s been more than a little bit in love with Derek Hale for a long time.

Note: A compelling exploration of an unconventional relationship. Complex characters, angst, and favourite tropes (Derek angsting over age gap, Kate comparisons) lead to a satisfying ending. Worth the read!

___

I found you hidden in plain sight (why'd I take so long?) by Gorgeousgreymatter 

Stiles is pretty sure he’s hallucinating. He’s got to be. There’s no other plausible explanation, he thinks, as he sits on the sidelines of the lacrosse field and feels the cold, hard bench underneath him, the roar of the crowd at his back like the worst white noise machine in the world.

There’s no other reason why he sees it, the hulking, black figure of a wolf peering at him from the treeline behind the bleachers. Its eyes flare in the glaring glow of the stadium lights, but they’re the wrong color, he thinks: blood-moon red instead of cobalt blue, but the familiarity of it all makes his stomach roll and clench.

Note: Gods. Another one my favourite trope, where Derek gets his alpha spark back because of Stiles. The line, the one which had me gnawing my pillow at 3AM:

“Jesus, Stiles. You never stopped being mine, did you?”

___

Somebody that I used to know by Percybyssheshelly

Stiles and Derek have been together for months.

The trouble is, they weren't yesterday.

Note: short, but packs a punch. If you're having a bad day and want some relatively short angst with happy ending fics, this one's for you. 

___

We live (not as we wish to) as we can by Endrversed

“I’m not a closet case,” Derek repeats, teeth gritted.

“Oh, yeah?” Stiles taunts, daring Derek with his eyes. “You coulda fooled me.”

“I’m not – gay.”

Derek spits that word out. Stiles snorts, no humour in it.

“Sure. You’re totally straight, dude. You just get all up in my personal space every time we’re alone. Stare at my lips any time you think no one’s looking. Well, I’m looking, Derek, and I know what you want. I know what you really want is to bend me over and fuck me.”

Derek is a closeted frat boy, and Stiles gets under his skin. Enemies to fuckbuds to <3

Note: Heed the tags. After DBC, I've been craving closeted frat boy Derek with the perfect Stiles voice. This one delivers. Endversed's mastery seals the deal.

___

UST (an unfortunate series of tropes) 

Stiles and Derek sitting in a tree, M-A-R-R-I-E-D.

Wait, what?

Or: Stiles thought he and Derek were finally getting to be bros, and then Deaton had to go and ruin everything with his stupid spell.

Note: Amazing Stiles voice + mature Derek. Re-read worthy! Accidental soul bonding and more - my ultimate tropes. 10/10, left craving more.

___

Stronger in numbers by bloodwrites

Stiles doesn't want to be the Alpha's mate, he doesn't want to be locked up for his own protection, and he's damn sure he doesn't want to be dealing with blood and werewolf parts on a weekly basis, but somehow that's what his life has become.

That's not going to change, unless he can convince Derek to trust Scott and the hunters, because it's the only way they're going to chase the Alpha Pack out of town.

Of course, that only solves two out of three.

Note: please heed ALL the tags. Also, remember, Derek’s somewhat of a certified jerk in this. And yet, somehow, that's the fic’s appeal. It honestly has the feels of a classic 2010-2014 fics, and that makes me eat it up even more. Also, it's HOT. 

___

Werewolf love songs, vol 1 by aggybird. 

Peter decides to use the power of Barry Manilow's music to make Stiles and Derek fall in love.

Meanwhile, there are monsters and stuff, and Stiles and Derek are stupid.

Note: amazing fic very close to my heart. I love meddling uncle Peter, and the gradual progression of their relationship. It's also such a classic early sterek fic, and like the other ones, I'm always starving for it. It's funny and incredible with Stiles’ voice. 

___

Rapture, sweet rapture (won't you put your hands on me) by queerly_it_is

Somewhere in the stringy mesh of his overactive brain cells, Stiles is sure there must be memories of what it was like to not have a totally possessive creeper with a leather fixation for an adopted brother.

Note: please heed the warnings. It's pseudo-incest! 

[all-about-kyu]

Summary: After a long day at the hospital, all Jaemin needs is cuddles from his babies. Pairing: cashmere lop!Jaemin x fem human!reader Tropes: hybrid au Genre: fluff, slice of life Rating: PG Warnings: storms, pregnancy, mentions of hospitals/surgeries Word Count: 822

Neo Hybridverse Masterlist || Cashmere Lop!Jaemin Masterlist

It’s late. It’s really late at night. You’re doing your best to soothe all three of your children back to sleep. A typical summer storm is rolling through your part of the city, and none of them are quite keen on the idea of sleeping right now. You’re beyond exhausted, though. Being eight months pregnant while wrangling a seven-year-old and two five-year-olds is not how you wish to be spending your night.

“Momma, I don’t like the storm. It’s hurting my ears.” Miyoung comments, pressing her hands over her fluffy ears.

“I know, love.” you try to soothe, “Hopefully, Daddy’ll be home soon, and he can help scare the storm away.”

Seojun is the least bothered by the weather. If anything, he’s doing his best to help you. He brought Chaewon her favorite stuffed animal (which he had hidden from her) in hopes that it would help calm his twin down. He bounced around the bedroom, trying to distract his sisters from the storm. All of his attempts to help failed, of course, and he ended up getting spooked by the storm as well.

A loud clap of thunder sounded through the air, and all three of them clung to your sides in bed, trying to hide from the raging storm. Miyoung lets out a squeal and hides her face against your chest. Despite her fear, she giggles when the baby kicks in her direction. You don’t even realize your husband has returned home until the bedroom door pops open, and all three of your kids barrel toward him.

“Hello, my kits.” he giggles, “Why aren’t you sleeping?” he asks while squatting down to their level.

“I was sleeping, but Chae woke me up.” Seojun grunts.

“LIAR! HE WAS SCARED OF THE STORM FIR-” Chaewon starts her tangent but then jumps into her dad’s arms as thunder claps again.

Jaemin picks up all three of them. Miyoung on his back with one twin in each arm. He playfully tosses them on the bed, listening to the chorus of giggles that they let out. You smile at their playful nature despite how late at night it is. With a hand resting on your belly, you watch the interaction contently. Seojun’s grey ears flop back and forth each time Jaemin tickles him. Miyoung and Chaewon, with their soft brown ears try to escape the tickle monster that is their dad. Everything feels so warm and happy.

“I gotta go get changed real quick. These clothes smell like the yucky hospital.” Jaemin explains, “I’ll be right back to cuddle with you five.”

“Five?” you question with a giggle.

Jaemin leans over and kisses you softly, earning disgusted noises from your kids, “Five.” he confirms, placing a hand on your belly.

“Technically, she’s not here yet, so it’s more like a two-for-one situation.”

“Only a few more weeks.”

With that comment, Jaemin disappears into your closet to change into something much cleaner and more comfortable. After a twelve-hour shift as a pediatric surgeon, he absolutely needs to decompress. Cuddling with his babies and wife is exactly what he needs to do. When he comes back into the room, he sees Miyoung already curled up beside you, half asleep. The twins are still pretty hyper, but you’ll always blame that on how high-energy he is too. Before he can process what the two five-year-olds are planning, they’re each clung to one of his legs. Seojun is wrapped around his left leg while Chaewon is on his right. Jaemin drags his feet along the hardwood flooring trying to get to the bed. Both twins giggle excitedly as he does so. The moment he reaches the bed, they both detach and jump up onto the plush mattress. Jaemin climbs into the bed beside you. All three of the kids relax finally. Miyoung is already snoring lightly against your shoulder while the twins wind down finally.

“Pheromones?” you question. Jaemin nods, “How was work today?”

“Actually, not horrible. Two successful surgeries for those little ones I told you about the other day. Then a lot of planning for tomorrow and those surgeries. I’m actually really worried about-”

“Let’s talk about that when we don’t have three kids in our bed.” you interrupt. “Let’s just cuddle for now. We all need it.”

Your husband nods and starts gently stroking Chaewon and Seojun’s ears, lulling them to sleep. The storm starts to calm down outside, and you find yourself leaning your head onto your husband’s shoulder. Miyoung is fast asleep on your left, Chaewon on your right, between you and Jaemin. Seojun is contently curled up on Jaemin’s chest. Moments like these will always be treasured to you. No matter how long they are or how far in the past they may become.

“I love you.” Jaemin mumbles sleepily, “Thank you for giving me these four miracles.”

“I love you too, bunny. Get some rest. It’s been a long day for you.”

COPYRIGHT STARLITMARK 2023© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — reposting/modifying any fic or piece of original writing posted on this blog is not allowed. Translations are not permitted. 

Networks: @kwritersworld​ @k-vanity​

Tag List: @raibebe​ @jaehunnyy​ @umbralhelwolf​ @wooyoungmybelovedhusband​

[cog5]

An Audience with The King

I don’t even talk about kings in this post, but the North Keep has been added to my mega-dungeon, and there’s a throne room in there. That’s nine out of 12 locations, just three more areas to go and all my #dungeon23 work will be compiled into a single document. Feeling good about things, just need to keep up this pace.

The North Keep is a central location, where some very heavy encounters can intersect. Let’s dig in.

On the west side of the area, we have a pool of amphibious parasites who use human hosts as incubators to metamorphose into their final form. When I first wrote the draft for this encounter last year, I felt like it was one of my best, so I was really happy to return to it again. An “Alien” trope in a lot of ways, for sure, but I was digging my spin on it. 

The atmosphere of the bathhouse area is creepy in both the map image and the writing. It was nice to lean into some classic horror elements, which I have not really used in the mega-dungeon so far. At least not to this degree.

I think this work over the past year (and then some) has made me really think about pacing and encounter variety. There are definitely some recurring themes and encounters in my mega-dungeon. And in the past, with smaller dungeons/adventures, I tended to focus on asking myself if the themes and encounters were cohesive, if they felt like they belonged together. 

But now I’m thinking, does making things cohesive also risk making them boring? Or predictable? Is there enough variety in the themes and encounters to keep things interesting for the players? 

Even just editing this bathhouse/parasite encounter has made me really appreciate the “spike” that can occur here, where something truly different can happen. I’m thinking players will enjoy that, too. Something I’m going to be thinking about the next time I write, for sure. Structured, cohesive themes, and whether or not I’m building in opportunities to break out of that structure when needed. 

Ok, so that’s the west side. On to the east side, the dining hall. I’ve had this idea in the back of my mind for a while, for a “wizard party” encounter. In most adventures, players usually deal with one main antagonist. “Evil Wizard” is a classic, of course. But what if, unbeknownst to the players, that the evil wizard happened to be throwing a dinner party with all their evil wizard friends? The players have been expecting to find one evil wizard, but now they’ve run into four, each with different personalities and abilities. And they’re not going to take too kindly to the interruption. That’s the premise of the east dining hall encounter. I’ve mixed it up with six arcane egomaniacs to add to your guest list.

There’s a lot more in the North Keep, the page count is higher than any other area so far. There’s a big boss battle that opens up access to the next floor, a vault full of treasure (basically a mini-dungeon on its own), and a big ol’ chunk of background for the setting, that explains how things got to this point (if you’re into that kind of thing). It’s nice to get all of this out of my head and onto a page, finally. The first draft was almost like creating 365 dots. Now I’ve had a chance to connect a lot of those dots.

---

What Have I Been Reading?

The Choir By Mobile Hut (Evlyn Moreau, Lett Morrison, Casey Jones, Roxanne B.)

Picked this up at the beginning of the month. I’ve been a fan of Evlyn Moreau’s work for a long time and she always manages to work with an amazing crew of collaborators. This is a short,  solid, adventure for Mörk Borg with a touch of investigation and a unique “spooky house” to punctuate the session. Lots of little twists and turns, and a good cast of NPCs with clear connections for the players to bump into.

A clever highlight for me was an encounter mechanic that states: After an encounter, the player character who was the most passive receives a Blood Forest Vision. And then there is a table of unique visions to roll on.

Really loved this, beyond the fact that the visions give the players a glimpse into what’s coming their way, it also gives a more laid back player a special moment that they can play out however they want.

I definitely recommend this one if you’re looking for a short adventure. Even if you don’t use it for Mörk Borg, I’m sure it could be easily adapted.

[faeratil]

Because I have no one in person that I can rant to about my thoughts on Cinderella and the Four Knights (2016), you guys get to hear my thoughts.

First, I put this show on because I had just finished Tomorrow (2022), and I needed something sappy and full of cliché tropes to help distract me from the emotional trauma. I did my best from episode 1 to try and guess who was endgame for Eun Ha-Won based on all of the stereotypes and the way the interactions between her and the Kang cousins were written, and I feel like my original thoughts would’ve been a better ending.

Also with the way that the characters were written, they really should’ve called it Cinderella and the Three Knights because the fourth “knight” wasn’t even really written to be a Love Interest in spite of him being one of the best characters (until stuff happens with his mother and then it’s like being disappointed by your longtime crush and wanting to smack some sense into them).

My thoughts on the characters, though:

Eun Ha-Won

I love her. She deserves the world. She is an absolute ball of sunshine in spite of all the shit she’s had to deal with and continues to deal with straight through to the final meeting she has with Chairman Kang. I think she’s gorgeous, and I hate that she thinks she’s not pretty just because of how the Kang cousins treat her vs Park Hye-Ji. She honestly could’ve made it through the whole show without a Love Interest and I would’ve liked that more than the actual ending. She’s strong physically, mentally, and emotionally. She’s very smart and wants to use what she knows to teach others. She’s so very devoted to family in spite of how her stepmom and stepsister treat her, and even more so how her dad treated her. I would’ve tried to woo her myself if I had been in the show.

Kang Ji-Woon

The bad boy/bully type, the enemies-to-lovers trope, the stalker’s enabler. This man constantly looks like a crying wet puppy, but not in a cute way. He tries to look so sad and pitiful, and he’s an asshole from the get go. From the very start where he rolls his eyes and tries to give Ha-Won his watch when she asks him to apologize for not buying all the food he asked her to prepare at the convenience store, and then scoffs and immediately assumes she’d do anything for money (without considering the fact that she’s dead broke and needs money to survive). You think maybe there’s a redemption when he gives her a bouquet of white roses on the memorial day (I forget what the actual name of that day is called) of her mom’s death. And then you see him being a whiny puppy stuck to the second female lead, enabling her stalker tendencies and hating everyone who doesn’t immediately make Hye-Ji happy. He hates Hyun-Min so much that he also decides to pursue Ha-Won just to make him miserable when he thinks they’re engaged, not even caring about how it might make Ha-Won feel. He keeps doing sweet and caring things that make you think “oh she’s finally breaking down his tough exterior”, and then he just turns around and is an asshole again. He abandoned both Ha-Won AND Hye-Ji on the side of the road on separate occasions and then thought just saying “oh sorry” would fix it. I get that his backstory is sad, and I get that Chairman Kang fucked him over and basically forced him to accept the fact that he’s family, but it’s no excuse for the way he treats everyone else. Also, man needs to learn how to comb his hair and maybe take some allergy medication so his eyes stop watering and his nose isn’t always red.

Kang Seo-Woo

The unrequited love, the pop-star, the male best friend trope. I love him, and I hate that the writers barely gave him a chance. He tried so hard so many times to tell Ha-Won that he liked her. He did so many things to care for her, wrote love songs about her, used his status as a pop-star to help draw crowds away from Ha-Won when she was getting bullied by the girls who thought she was Chairman Kang’s mistress, was a genuinely kind person to everyone including Ha-Won’s best friend, and tried so many times to confess. I wish the writers would’ve taken just a couple more lines to have him say “no, Ha-Won, I’m not writing a love song right now, I’m telling you how I genuinely feel about you” and actually given her a chance to consider him. He saw how much Ha-Won hated the spotlight she got while everyone thought she was engaged to Hyun-Min, and he let pictures of himself in a girls uniform go viral just to stop more pictures of Ha-Won from leaking to the press. At any moment, he could’ve just done with Hyun-Min did and asked Ha-Won to play along with the rumors of them dating, but he actually considered Ha-Won’s feelings (glaring at you, Ji-Woon) and lied about his own feelings to protect her. If I had to choose between the Kang cousins, I would choose Seo-Woo.

Kang Hyun-Min

The spoiled rich kid, the playboy, the fake fiancé, the one afraid to actually love, the object of the stalker’s affection. I wish he had been endgame. They set it up so well in the beginning for him to be endgame. You could tell from the moment he saw Ha-Won beat up the assholes at the bar/party for not paying for the pizza delivery, he was developing feelings. He could’ve easily gone back on his bet with his friends and asked any other girl to go to Chairman Kang’s wedding with him, but he chose to go after Ha-Won, and even went all the way to the convenience store just to try and get her attention. His shock at hearing about BOGO deals with the ice cream was honestly cute, and he was kind enough to sit down with Ha-Won and enjoy the ice cream in spite of being raised directly under Chairman Kang (who makes it very clear what he thinks of anyone who isn’t rich), and he’s actually nice to her. At the beginning he still has that playboy attitude, but even after offering her money to be his date (and being turned down, good job Ha-Won for holding true to your values), he still tries. He picks her up for the wedding, opens the door for her, treats her the way a gentleman should treat a lady (win for chivalry!), and gives her a chance to feel as beautiful as she is. He also is very up front and adamant with Hye-Ji that he wants nothing to do with her, but she keeps showing up and trying to make him feel guilty for not still liking her after having a crush on her when they were NINE YEARS OLD, and it’s been 10 years (she bugs the hell out of me but we’ll get to her). Hyun-Min also is thinking of Ha-Won when he asks Chairman Kang and Secretary Lee to keep it secret from the other Kang cousins that Ha-Won isn’t his real fiancé, because he trusts that they wouldn’t try to pull anything on someone who was already in a relationship (fuck you Ji-Woon for taking that personally and making Ha-Won uncomfortable and confused). He keeps Ha-Won company so she won’t be alone, he goes along with her missions until his pride gets in the way, he buys her a whole wardrobe of clothes because she keeps wearing the same tracksuit for god knows how many episodes and just genuinely tries to make her feel comfortable and taken care of so she can focus on the things she actually needs to do instead of just surviving. I wish that he had seen Ha-Won when she got dolled up in that black and blue dress, he would’ve fallen for her all over again. Unfortunately, the writers decided that the “childhood lovers/first love” trope was more important for Hyun-Min and Hye-Ji, and they had him go back to her even though she was being a stalker after he repeatedly said no. Also hella power move that the heir to the Haneul group in his early 20s would go stand before a board of directors and his grandpa’s wife to save his grandpa’s company after being a slacker playboy up until he met Ha-Won. I love him. I wish he had ended up with Ha-Won. Fuck the writers for putting him with his stalker.

Lee Yoon-Sung

The “fourth knight”, the secretary to the chairman, the by the book character. They never even gave him a chance to be considered a Love Interest, so it kept bothering me that they called it “…Four Knights” and then only made 3 of them potential LIs. He is the most efficient and down to earth of all the guys, he does his job exceedingly well, he respects the absolute hell out of Ha-Won and tries his best to make the Kang cousins respect her as well, he’s a master of tae-kwon-do, he’s deeply loyal to the chairman until a bigger issue comes up, and he’s a very obvious fan favorite. I was very disappointed that the writers made him side with Madame Ji even for the time that he did because he had been so against treating her as his mother after she abandoned him with an abusive drunk father 12 years prior, but I am glad his loyalty to the chairman won out. Also very happy that they included him in their friend group at the end, my man needs to learn to relax (but not with alcohol… my emetophobia did not appreciate the end of the drunk dinner…).

Park Hye-Ji

The second female lead. I cannot stand her. I hate that the writers even included her past the first couple episodes, and I hate even more than they ended up letting her win with Hyun-Min. She’s a very “woe is me” character who acts like she’s entitled to everyone’s attention, especially Hyun-Min’s, just because he gave her a ring when they were 9 and her family got along with the Kang family before her brother died. This girl spends 10 years pining over Hyun-Min after she has not seen or heard from him AT ALL in those 10 years, shows up at his house unannounced when he returns to Korea from studying abroad, constantly shows up wherever he is in public and just looks at him all sad and pathetic like he belongs to her and is cheating on her, she’s been told by him numerous times in basically every episode that he does not want her around and that she should give up even to the point where Hyun-Min has to threaten to never acknowledge her again, she hates Ha-Won for being close to Hyun-Min and then later Ji-Woon, she jumps from guy to guy after Hyun-Min’s threat starting with Ji-Woon because she knows it’ll piss off Hyun-Min the most, she assumes anyone who is nice to her must be in love with her and feels personally attacked and betrayed when they’re like “no I’m just a nice person, I don’t have feelings for you”, blames Hyun-Min for her being so sad and depressed when she’s the one who can’t just fucking get over him from when THEY WERE CHILDREN, constantly tries to make moves and get close to Hyun-Min on the trip and after she moves into Haneul House, and then turns around and is like “I never want to see you again” when Hyun-Min tries to treat her more kindly and tries to explain why he was being such a dick to her. And yet they end up together. Because “childhood love/first love” was more important to the writers than the fact that they made the second female lead a self absorbed entitled stalker. The only thing that comes to mind that puts her in a good light was when she let Ha-Won spend the night, but even that was reluctant and she only started being nice after Ha-Won admitted that the engagement was fake. She should’ve just taken the fashion scholarship to Paris and finally gotten out of the Kang’s lives. If she was alone in a foreign country she might actually learn to rely on herself instead of always expecting Hyun-Min or Ji-Woon to come running.

Hong Ja-Yeoung

Seo-Woo’s biggest fan, Ha-Won’s best friend, an absolute cupcake of a character. I want her to be my best friend. It did annoy me that at the beginning of the trip, she left Ha-Won to do stuff alone just because Seo-Woo wasn’t joining them, but my girl has Ha-Won’s back in every other situation. She was even willing to support Ha-Won and Seo-Woo when the scandal article was published saying that they were engaged when they weren’t. She also was determined enough to get close to her favorite pop-star that she came up with a plan to help him escape his fan girls by wearing her school uniform, and she managed to sneak some photos of him crossdressing as well that he later used to help Ha-Won. She’s been there for Ha-Won through everything and did whatever she could to help even though she herself didn’t have much. I am so happy for her that she gets to be part of Seo-Woo’s management team in the end.

Chairman Kang

Classist asshole who values highly skilled and charismatic employees, but continues to treat them like trash if they stop acting like employees. For him, money buys everything including people, and he has almost completely forgotten what it’s like to actually care about someone until Ji-Woon is on his knees in tears begging him to give his blessings to him and Ha-Won, bringing up how the chairman made his mom leave his dad to remind him of the horrible mistake he made in the past. Chairman Kang talks all the time about wanting the Kang cousins to act as a family, but doesn’t even act like a grandpa to them. He acts like a dictator by threatening to cut them off from everyone and everything if they don’t do exactly what he says. He has good instinct not to trust Madame Ji towards the end, but you would think after 4 failed marriages he would have some way of blocking any future wives from trying to take over the company. I’m glad he finally gave Ha-Won his blessing, but just the wrong cousin.

That being said! In spite of the endgame love interest and the stalker, the interactions were pretty cute and it was entertaining. It was much needed after watching Tomorrow. I’m going to acknowledge that canon has Ha-Won with Ji-Woon, but in my mind I will always pair Ha-Won with Hyun-Min or Seo-Woo, and believe that Hye-Ji would actually go away (and STAY away) after Hyun-Min rejected her at the wedding.

[marvelmusing]

I have had three questions rolling in my head: 1. does (not what) Billy Russo listen to music? He gives me ‘I have a gym playlist at my home gym’ but music is too distracting otherwise vibes. 2. Twin!AU: What type of gals does Jonny like compared to Billy and what’s it like to date either of them? 3. (Random head canons about Sasha, Logan, or Billiam? Or all three?)

1. Billy & Music

Billy definitely likes some background noise when he’s working out. It’s the only time that silence really bothers him. He kinda tunes it out when he’s focused on what he’s doing so as long as it’s not too loud or high pitched he’s listening to anything.

I feel like if he’s doing a date at home with you he’ll put on some background music just because he likes the idea of it, but will end up turning it off or down very low so that he can focus properly on the conversation.

He hums in the shower when he’s in a really good mood, but won’t listen to music there, and he doesn’t play music when he drives. Driving is one of his joys in life, so when he does it he likes to focus on the car.

2. Twin!AU

When it comes to what kind of partner they want, Billy and Jonny are almost opposites.

My first thought was the grumpy/sunshine trope - Billy wants a sunshine and Jonny likes a grumpy.

Whilst mysterious and aloof might intrigue Billy, he’s not going to be interested in figuring you out, and his trust issues will stop him from catching any feelings.

Whereas Jonny enjoys spending time pursuing someone. He loves confidence. Anyone who walks into a room and creates an instant presence is bound to get his attention.

Billy usually flirts with people who are Jonny’s type - confidant, sure of themselves, equally as flirty - because he knows he won’t catch feelings for them. He’s secretly drawn towards anyone who’s a little softer.

If you’re open and show him kindness, Billy will be falling so hard so fast.

Jonny’s partner will clash with Billy sometimes because they’re both so similar, whereas Billy’s partner will be best friends with Jonny instantly. Whichever one you’re dating, they will both want to protect you and ensure that you’re okay.

3. Headcanons for my boys

Aleksander

Aleksander loves scented candles. In his humble opinion, they’re one of the greatest things ever to be invented. He makes an offhand comment about how much he likes your perfume, and you casually gift him a candle based on the scent. That candle burns constantly by his side as he works at his desk. Whenever he writes you, and only you, a letter he uses the wax from that candle to seal the envelope shut.

Billy

Billy gets really intense hay-fever for about two weeks in springtime and it’s absolute hell for him. Literally no remedies work, he just has to push through it because he knows it will be over soon enough. But, when you’re dating and you see him with watery eyes and a rosy nose rubbed raw from tissues, you end up doting on him to the point in which he milks his state of wellness for a few extra days.

Logan

Logan is secretly very sentimental. Like he will keep tickets and receipts and photos from your dates and write down songs that are important to you both. He doesn’t have a perfect memory, so he likes to keep hold of things so that he can remember the good times you have together and those things act as tangible proof to remind himself that you think he’s worth all this effort.

[secondgenerationnerd]

Cool stuff about the twins! :D can you do the same with Johnny boy?

Ooooo absolutely! (And if anyone wants to request Jai’s reaction to the amount of smut his sister reads, I’ll happily write it 😂😂😂)

While he admires his father, he chafes at people only looking at him as “Superman’s Son” or “Clark’s boy”. He has tiny acts of rebellion—his hair is usually messier than his father’s, he doesn’t shave that often, he prefers fiction/nonfiction writing to journalism, etc. Again, he loves his father, he just doesn’t want to be his clone.

The Omega Boys play DND every Wednesday night, as a way to relax and hang out. One campaign, Jon played a Hick Elf, complete with a thick accent. He proceeded to flirt with Mar’i in the accent and made her blush.

Also helped Milagro in her “Noir” shoot

Not shown, Mar’i shamelessly checking out his butt

He genuinely forgets he doesn’t need glasses sometimes. Milagro, who I headcannon wears contacts but none of them knew, had to wear her spare glasses. They look almost identical to Jon’s. They’d set them near each other after a training session. Milagro put Jon’s on and immediately walked into a wall. Jon put hers on and got an instant migraine.

He absolutely adores his nephews and nieces. He’s Uncle Jojo and spoils them rotten

I think he finds comfort in cooking and baking. Like Omega usually rotates responsibilities, but Jon volunteers to do most of it anyway.

All the omega boys have a “non-sexual slutty” moment the girls can’t stop thinking about. For Jon, it’s him in the middle of kneading bread, glasses sliding down his nose, shirt sleeves rolled up his forearms, singing alone to the radio. I will not be taking questions or complaints at this time.

Jon truly loves his brothers. Like are they annoying as hell? Yes. Does he want to punch them half the time? Absolutely. Would he kill anyone who hurt them? Without question.

While he’s definitely the most powerful on the team, I do think he would rely on that power to help in a fight. This is in comparison to Mar’i, who was raised around several martial art masters.

Literally started calling Mar’i his wife when they were like 17. They’d been dating about three years and she thinks it’s absolutely, ridiculously adorable.

Realized he was bisexual because of Matty West, his first “guy kiss” being Jack (since Jack has kissed Mar’i for dances). He thought he had it handled okay. Then made the mistake of telling Lian, when their families were over, that there’s no question she could ask in front of his parents he wouldn’t answer or they wouldn’t have figured out. Lian’s response? “You cant date Mar’i anymore. Who on this team are you dating instead and why?” Boy froze in pure bi panic

Anytime an animal is staying in omega tower, they’re given the best food.

He enjoys working on his grandparents farm, helping Pa as he ages, but he wouldn’t want to have a huge farm himself.

You know the trope of “girlfriend’s father HATES her boyfriend”? Yeah, Dick refers to Jon as “My Future Son-in-law” to everyone. Like Dickie knows they’re end game lol

Jon and Kathy Brandon love to tease each other about being little kids, running around the farms, pushing each other into the mud. Jon also helps to do chores around her and Maya’s house. When it’s firewood time, Mar’i and Maya pull up chairs to watch them work. Shamelessly I should add

Very very very much soft dom energy. Like he’s usually good with listening or letting people assume, but there’s a side of him that comes out that MAKES people listen

He and Colin always find away to tease Damian about how whipped he is for Irey.

Damian: hey, be safe

Irey: I will *speeds off*

Jon: *dramatic whisper* be safe

Colin: *fake swoon* I’ll be so safe

Disrespect him, he’ll shrug it off. Disrespect his teammates or friends? Y’all are gonna have a “conversation”. Disrespect his family? No words, on sight. Disrespect his WIFE? He will actually kill you.

I don’t know how or why, but at some point, Comics Jon and his boyfriend, Jay Nakamura, appear in omega tower. Jay and Mar’i? Instant best friends determined to sass their boyfriends

He’s the kinda guy who will get you a drink and just sit with you when shit goes down, until you’re ready to talk.

[genevievemd]

Forever Winter

Book: Open Heart: Second Year Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Genevieve McClure) Word Count: 1491 Rating: T Category: hurt/comfort, Ethan POV Trope(s): 

Summary: After the attack a month prior, Ethan worries when Genevieve doesn’t embrace the holidays like she usually does. 

Warnings: mentions of character death

A/N: A little angsty Christmas/winter fic for you. In OPH: Sara’s Version, the assassination attempt happens in the beginning of November and Gen returns to work the beginning of December. So the holidays fall right in the middle of her still dealing with it all. 

Title is from a Taylor Swift song. I am who I am guys. Also another entry for @choicesficwriterscreations​ holiday event

He watches her closely, though he makes the attempt to ensure none of the gossiping bufoons surrounding them notice. She’s like a zombie, here but just barely. Her normally bright green eyes, that could rival the Christmas lights now twinkling throughout the city, have faded. 

He knows why, of course, its her first official week back since the attack a month ago. And while Ethan wasn’t on board with the idea of her returning this quickly, it wasn’t quite his place to voice his concerns. 

Regardless of the change in their relationship or the fact that she had slept at his place the night before. Nevermind the two weeks she stayed with him after the funerals. 

He wasn’t her boyfriend, yet, and so he’d keep his concerns to himself until she asks for them. 

But that won’t stop him from keeping a watchful eye on his rookie. Make sure she makes it through her day the best she can. 

Genevieve finally emerges from the patient room she’d been in. He had a perfect view from the nurses station, and watches her smile fade and her entire body deflate the second she’s standing across from him at the circular desk. 

She is so out of character that its truly starting to worry him for than he already was. This time last year, she was sporting a Santa hat almost everyday, hummed a holiday tune down the halls, and never failed to call him a scrooge or grinch every chance she got. 

Gen loved Christmas and to see her still so lost in her pain, unable to embrace the season she so loves broke his heart. 

He was the stoic and cynical one in their partnership, she was supposed to be his sunny and energetic counterpart. 

Ethan looks down at his watch, no longer concerned with the chart he was meant to be reading. His mind now focused on finding a way to bring a smile and some peace to his very own Cindy-Lou Who.

It seemed the fates were on his side, because it was a quarter to three, and the perfect time to get her away from the chaos around them. 

He silently hands a nurse the patient file and moves around the desk. Gen looks up briefly, her smile in greeting not reaching her eyes. 

“How are you doing, G?” 

“I’m alive.” She shrugs, signing her name with a sigh. 

“Go grab your coat.” 

“Why?” Her face scrunches inn confusion and he can’t help but chuckle at how adorable she looks.

“Because its 30 degrees outside, Rookie.” 

“I know that.” She rolls her eyes, “I meant, why do I need my coat, Dr. Smartass.” 

“We’re going out for a bit.” 

“Really?” 

For the first time all day, the brightness and color returns to her face. And its then he knows he’s making the right decision in his efforts to protect her. 

“Yes. Just a walk, does that sound alright?”

“It sounds perfect.” She hesitates form a millisecond, before her hand reaches for his own. One of her fingers delicately hooking onto his pinky. “Thank you.” 

“Always, G.” 

No more than ten minutes later, they’re walking side by side in the park not far from the hospital.

They’ve ben silent for the majority of those minutes, though Ethan has a million questions he wants to ask. But he knows better than to pry when she isn’t ready to talk. 

Especially now, with her anxiety at an all time high and her brain injured with PTSD. 

“Can I…” Her voice is small, hesitant. Stopping in her tracks to look up at him. “I know we made the rule, or decision, or whatever to keep us a secret for now, but can you – will you hold my hand? We’re far enough from work and I –” 

He cuts off her sentence, not with words, but with his hand. Firmly grasping hers, gloved fingers of each intertwining. 

“Better?” Ethan smiles softly, before leaning down to kiss her forehead. 

“Yes. That also helped.” 

“Good.” 

They continue on their walk around the park, noting the kids building snowmen and the glistening, snow covered trees. Offering each other stories of their childhood winters, and how funny it is that they grew up only a state apart. 

Dancing around the topic that is at the forefront of their minds. 

They’ve both been plagued with nightmares, intrusive thoughts of how it could have all ended differently, and the fear of being out of each other’s sight. 

And of course, for her, being back at the very place where she almost died, with no way to avoid the room it all happened in. 

The fear they both still feel is almost more biting than the December chill. Because unlike the weather, this cold doesn’t leave after it snakes its way under your skin. It lingers there, travels through your blood until you’re a walking icicle of fear. 

“How long do you think it will take for me to feel safe at work again?” Her voice trembles, her eyes welling with tears.

“Unfortunately, G, I don’t have the answer to that question. I wish I did.” 

“Me, too. Can I tell you something else?” 

“Always.” 

“I really want to celebrate Christmas but it feels wrong to. Because it’s –” Genevieve stops walking again, sniffling back tears. “It’s not fair. I get to be here and celebrate with people I love, while the people that loved Danny and Bobby won’t get to ever again. How can I be happy when they’re dead. It feels wrong, cruel.” 

“Genevieve,” He whispers her name, face twisted in shock and pain. 

He pulls her into his arms, holding her tightly to his chest as her petite from shakes from crying. 

“You’re right, that it’s unfair, but that doesn’t mean we stop living. The world, unfortunately, is a cruel place and sometimes there’s nothing we can do to change it. But, what we can do is push through it. Neither Danny nor Bobby would want you to stop living. G, you’re allowed to celebrate Christmas and be happy.” 

“How come I lived and they didn’t?” 

She sounds so broken, and it kills him. Unable to stop his own eyes from shedding a few tears. 

“Because your story isn’t finished.” 

“You don’t believe in fate or destinies.” Gen sniffles, and pulls away slightly. Just enough to meet his eyes. Her own red rimmed and puffy. 

“You’re right, I don’t, but you do.” He reaches up with one hand to wipe the tears off her frost-bitten cheeks. “You won’t feel like this forever, Gen. That is something I do know and believe.” 

“So, I can be happy about Christmas without people thinking I’m the worst person ever?” 

“Yes, and no one would ever think that to begin with.” 

“Okay.” She snuggles back into him. Her arms wrapping tightly around his waist. 

They stand there for a few minutes, doing nothing more than breathing and holding each other close. 

“I have one more question.” Gen mumbles after another moment, still nestled in the shelter he provides. 

“What is it?” 

“Well, actually, it’s two. Can I come over after work and stay the night again? And then if I can, will you watch my favorite holiday movie with me?” 

Ethan smiles, “It’s a yes to both, sweetheart.” 

The pet name falls from his lips before his mind registers what he’s said and the panic sets in the moment the realization hits. They haven’t done pet names yet, hell they weren’t even really dating yet and to so carelessly through that name out there could have nuclear implications. 

Cautiously, Ethan looks down at the woman in his arms, afraid of what he’ll find. But he sees nothing but a smile. The first real one she’s had in a long time. 

“Thank you, for everything. I don’t know if I’d be able to get through this without you.” 

“You would, you’re stronger than you realize. But, I am glad that I can be here for you.” 

Deciding to continue to lead with his heart, Ethan leans down to gingerly press his lips to hers. The chill melting away the second they meet. Gen stands on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around his neck, while he pulls her closer and wraps his own around her waist. 

They share a slew of kisses, before pulling away. Both smiling brightly at each other. 

“We should head back.” Ethan breaks their embrace, but stays in contact. Taking ahold of her hand once more. 

“Just don’t call me ‘sweetheart’ in the hallway.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, G.” He winks at her, which causes her to giggle. The sound to pure it mends a piece of his heart. 

“Sure.” 

They share one more smile before beginning their journey bac to the hospital. All while Ethan hopes he’s given her the respite she needed and the confidence to embrace the holidays she loves without guilt. 

Which she deserves more than anything.

A/N: I might have one or two more holiday fics for you guys, but we’ll see how it goes. 

Happy Holidays, peanuts! 

(Tagging separately to appease the tumbroke gods. )

[crawsley]

AAAAH okay if you’re taking prompts: a/b/o but make them lesbians? Unexpected heat or some other classic trope :) Any pairing you want

In the vein of that fic ana wrote, here’s “I came over to hook up with someone and their roommate’s scent made me go into heat early”

It’s hot at Mason’s house, Trevor notices. Is noticing. Whatever, she’s horny and really fucking hot under the collar about it, is that such a problem? So they’ve only been making out on Mason’s couch for twenty minutes, so what? Mason’s a really good kisser and her big hands on Trevor’s hips are making her want to swoon. They smell really good but there’s something else, a vague scent that’s faint enough to linger at linger at the back of Trevor‘s mind. She doesn’t know where the smell is coming from, but it’s getting her as worked up as the making out. As it is, she’s already wet enough that she’s soaked through her underwear. And she can feel Mason’s dick pressing against her too.

They haven’t done more so far than exchange pictures, but Trevor knows it’s big. And she’s hoping that Mason is going to be as good with it as she expects from the way Mason is casually manhandling her. That always bodes well.

Currently she’s in Mason‘s lap, her hands on Mason’s shoulders and Mason’s hands on her ass. Well, one of them is on her ass, the other is up Trevor‘s shirt, casually fondling her tits and, oh. Reaching up to pull her bra down so her tits come spilling out and Mason can get a better feel of Trevor’s nipples. She hasn’t asked if she could do that, hadn’t asked for anything past the cursory conversation at the beginning of the encounter to establish, like, ground rules. Trevor doesn’t always want to not be in charge, but when she does it really hits, and Mason is doing her best to make all the thoughts float out of Trevor’s head.

Mason’s other hand drifts under Trevor’s skirt, just toying with the elastic of her underwear. It’s a tease, but it still makes Trevor shiver all over. Seriously, she���s going to leave a wet patch on Masons bulge if they don’t get a the ball rolling.

”Will you fuck me already,” Trevor pants, grinding down on Mason’s dick harder than ever. She feels like she’s gonna go crazy right now if she can’t get that inside her. “Please, I like, really really need it.”

Mason laughs quietly, and says into Trevor’s ear, “You want it that bad? You’re so desperate for it that you’d beg for it from an alpha you hardly know? Not even in my bedroom, right out here on the couch where my roommate could see us?”

She tucks her fingers under Trevor’s underwear more, just tracing the lips of her pussy, making Trevor quiver. It’s so hot but Trevor only wants Mason’s fingers in one place right now, so she reaches down and grabs Masons hand and gently guides it to her hole, pressing the tips of two of Mason’s fingers to where she’s empty and dripping.

Mason inhales sharply, but she’s quick on the uptake and doesn’t hesitate to push two fingers inside right away. Her hands are big enough that it forces Trevor wide, her poor little pussy stretching too much too fast, but they’re both impatient. It feels so good.

Trevor whines. She lets her face drop to Mason’s neck and inhales, letting Mason’s scent cloud her mind. Even through the haze though it feels like something’s missing? It’s crazy, she’s never felt this empty before, not even ramping up to a heat like she is now.

Trevor gets her heats every three months regular, down to the day usually. She always gets horny even the week before, so usually she saves her hookups with alphas for then, when it isn’t quite so risky as fucking raw during heat.

And it’s weird, she should have ten days between now and the start of her preheat even, something about Mason—

The front door clicks open, startling Trevor more than Mason, though Mason looks caught, like a deer in the headlights.

“Jamie must be back early,” Mason hisses, holding still like if she doesn’t move her roommate won’t see her knuckle deep in omega pussy.

“You said she wouldn’t be back till late!” Trevor fires back, also not doing anything to cover herself where her tits are falling out of her shirt and her skirt’s barely covering her ass.

“Well she clearly isn’t—“ Mason says, just in time for the roommate to walk around the corner, saying, “Mase, you home? Did you have someone over, it smells—“

But the roommate cuts herself off, eyes going wide as she takes in the scene.

Mason’s hastily pulling her fingers out from inside Trevor and Trevor’s coughing and pulling her shirt down. They can’t really pretend this isn’t exactly what it looks like.

“Uh,” The roommate says, seemingly lost for words. She’s cute too, when Trevor cranes her neck around to look at her. About the same height as Trevor and still wrapped up in layers of winter clothes. She’s paused in the middle of unwinding a scarf from around her neck. Her eyes are wide, and even as Trevor watches, she can see the pupils dilate as Jamie’s nostrils flare. There’s just no pretending that they weren’t about two minutes away from fucking right on the couch.

Mason musters all her strength and says, “Hey Jamie. This is Trevor. We were just, uh, hanging out,” She finishes lamely.

Jamie’s eyes are jumping from Trevor’s bare legs to her tits in her shirt to both of their visibly kiss bitten lips. And then unerringly to where Trevor’s sitting in Mason’s lap, directly on top of her dick.

“Hey,” She says back cautiously, and finishes unwinding the scarf from around her neck, undoing her coat too, and that’s when everything goes to shit, because that’s the smell Trevor’s been missing through this whole encounter, and suddenly the fire in her belly isn’t banked, it’s roaring ten feet high and rising.

She’s going into heat for real.

“Oh shit,” she hears Mason say as she starts grinding desperately on her cock, trying to get it inside her through her clothes, her eyes never leaving Jamie’s shocked blue ones. “She’s going into heat.”

“She’s in heat?” Jamie says, freezing again where she’d been hanging up her coat and wrestling her boots off. “What the hell Mase, you didn’t tell me that you were seeing someone, let alone helping someone through—“

“I’m not though!” Mason yelps, partially in indignation and partially because Trevor’s trying to claw open her jeans, to put that big dick inside her. She needs it so bad it’s all she can think about. Well, that, and the other alpha standing across the room. “I barely know her, this is the first time we’ve even met! She told me her heat wasn’t for a few weeks!!”

Jamie seems struck dumb by that fact and Trevor takes advantage of the silence to whine loudly as she paws at Mason’s zipper. She isn’t actually shoving her off, but she is holding it shut so she can’t get at Mason’s cock.

Ah, well. There’s another cock in this room and it’s coming from an alpha who smells so good it’s making Trevor’s mouth water.

So she crawls off Mason’s lap and goes to her knees in front of Jamie. Jamie’s only wearing sweats so it’s way easier to get her cock out, and before either of them can say anything Trevor’s sunk throat deep on it.

Her eyes only roll back in her head a little. It feels so good to be full even if her poor little pussy is so empty it hurts. She gets about teen blissful seconds of cock in her throat before Jamie’s ripping her off with one hand in Trevor’s hair.

She scrambles, trying to get it back in her mouth, but Jamie holds her firmly enough that all Trevor can do is whine and stick out her tongue, just tracing the tip along the head of Jamie’s dick.

“What the hell,” Mason’s saying, but Jamie shakes Trevor by the hair and says, “Trevor, listen to me.”

There’s enough command in her voice that Trevor actually does, her thoughts sharpening and moving away from dick momentarily.

“What’s up,” Trevor mumbles, looking up at Jamie above her. Her cheeks are even more flushed than before and she’s breathing through her mouth. She’s already sweaty, like she’d just come from the gym or something, and these thoughts aren’t helping at all so she tunes back in when Jamie says, “Are you in heat?”

“Shouldn’t be but like, yeah. It feels like it,” Trevor says, trying not to squirm in place. She’s so wet.

“Do you want us to take you home? I can drive you,” Jamie says, though Mason snorts, dubious . She’s right though, with Jamie and Trevor in a car together they’d probably break a million laws just from Trevor giving Jamie road head.

Also, then she wouldn’t have Mason’s cock to sit on, too.

When she expresses this to Jamie , she looks a little shellshocked and like she wants to argue but like. If Trevor’s already trapped in heat in a house with two hot alpha dykes, she’s gonna make the fucking most of it. It doesn’t matter if she isn’t been “responsible”. This is literally what pornos are based on. She’s not missing out.

“And you’re on birth control right?” Jamie asks, and that stops Trevor short.

“Uhh,” she says , blankly. “I mean, my pills are at home?”

She leaves the words ringing in the air as both alphas’ attention sharpens on her. She swallows, mouth suddenly dry.

Unspoken is the very real possibility of one or both of them breeding her for real, not just a fantasy.

Trevor shivers all over and it’s like she can’t help herself. She doesn’t even say anything, for once in her life, just leans back and away from Jamie, on the living room carpet, and folds from her knees onto all fours, and then presses her cheek to the carpet. Her hips are arched back and her skirt is barely covering her ass, let alone her pussy, which is so wet and swollen Trevor can feel it pulsing between her legs.

She looks over her shoulder, first at Jamie, then at Mason, who both look shellshocked now. The smell of alpha arousal is permeating the room too, mixing with her scent to make her legs want to fall open.

So she lets them, presents for her two alphas right there in their living room, and, looking at them through her lashes says, “Breed me?”

[wishitweresummer]

Yknow an underrated tk trope that I love and need more of? The fell through the floor and is now trapped

YES and the best version of that is when it is two people teasing the one that is trapped. One underneath and one up top. Luckily, we have some amazing triples in our fandom. Two of my fav…

~~Dream Team and Karlnapity~~

Okay so, first question. Who’s falling through the floor?

Dream Team

I gotta say George. Gogy was doing something dumb. He probably deserves the tickles he’s about to be receiving if we are all honest with each other.

He was picking on Sapnap and they started rough housing, then…George is suddenly caught halfway between the upstairs and downstairs. In sync they scream “DREAAAAM!!!!” for help. (Helpless without him.) ((I love them))

His voice is heard from downstairs. “George?”.

Karlnapity

It’s gonna be Karl. He’s so tall and spindly imagine his legs kicking out in panic gahh.

They’re all together when Karl’s foot finds a weakspot in the wood and he crashes through. Quackity takes off down the stairs to possibly catch him. (A ridiculous thought for the small small man…but we all know he would catch him anyway.)

Who is going to start the tickling?

Dream Team

Sapnap is quickly remembering every time George has ever teased him and been a menace, and it’s a lot. After a quick little check to make sure he isn’t in pain and is truly trapped, Sapnap sticks his fingers right into George’s worst spot, his armpits.

Dream was going to try to be helpful, he really was! Sapnap is definitely going to get the ball rolling with the tickles and once Dream hears his precious Gogy shrieking and laughing away he goes into trance. He needs to hear more. Nowwww.

Karlnapity

Karl is kind of screwed here. The very second he realizes he is trapped he knows he’s about to have the muffin tickled out of him. I headcannon these three to always have tickling fresh on the mind.

Sapnap, just like how he would with the Dream Team, goes for the kill right away. He grabs Karl right where his neck meets his shoulders, where he’s his absolute weakest.

And as soon as Quackity realized Karl was not in pain he found the situation cripplingly funny. He holds on to one of Karl’s squirmy legs and just doubles over in his insane chaotic laughter. (A terrifying noise to hear when you are trapped.) When he hears Karl’s reaction to Sapnap’s shenanigans he joins in very playfully. Once he calms down, he starts grabbing at Karl’s jumpy hips and waist.

Tickly reactions~

Dream Team

Poor George just goes feral. His arms are trapped close to his body and he has absolutely no hope of stopping Sapnap’s evil fingers from wedging into his underarms. His cute little head just drops back and he his cackling like a maniac. He kicks his legs desperately.

Dream coo’s at the precious laughter. Somehow, George’s insaaaane cackling is one of the things he finds most endearing about him. He grabs hold of one of the frantic legs and latches onto the thigh, squeezing some horrified screaming out of the trapped boy.

George is so unbelievably helpless and had no expectation of the tickles before they came so he is just a mess. Red faced. Begging desperately. It’s humiliating, but he can’t handle it at all and he knows the only way he is getting out of here is getting Dream to feel sympathy for him. And he can’t even see Dream!

All he can see through his watery eyes is this horribly smug and determined look on Sapnap’s face. Sapnap switches to tickling at his chest and collarbone and George is so sure he won’t survive. He can hardly scrunch up and is basically just stuck there taking it. Sapnap is close too, it’s all so flustering.

Down where he can’t see, Dream’s stupid giant hands are wrapped around his little legs and he can nottttt stand it.

“Please!” “Guys I can’t!” “FUCK!!” “Dream I’m going to die!” “You have to stoppp!!” “FUUUCK!”

He curses out Sapnap’s whole life and begs Dream with such embarrassing pleads he knows be will never live it down.

Karlnapity

Karl has complicated feelings for tickling.

When he sees that look in Sapnap’s eyes he flushes. When he hears Quackity’s laughter somewhere beneath him he squirms. Butterflies crop up in his stomach and he whimpers.

“Sap come on not there!!!”

He’s just a little helpless squealing noodle while Sapnap takes his need to torture out on him for a little. Massaging his shoulders riiiiight where it makes Karl convulse. Karl let’s out the most precious little wail when Quackity collects himself and starts tickling him, too.

Sapnap gets down and switches to teasing his love. He kisses and plays with Karl’s blushing ears. It’s horribly cute.

Quackity is out of view so the tickling is a bit worse down below. Karl feels playful grabs and squeezes darting around his midsection. Firm at his hips and gentle at his sides.

It could be worse. Karl knows firsthand what they are both capable of. But, they keep the tickles at a playful and teasing level. It kills him anyway. The focused attention of his fiancés always does. Somehow, they always know what they are doing.

Karl’s giggles are precious and hysterical. His hands are trapped down at his sides and they clap open and shut helplessly. He dies under the affection of his fiancés. Quackity knows just where to grab, that evil evil man. Sapnap’s flustering lips tease at his warm ears and drive him up a wall.

—Sleepy thank you thank you!!! I had so much fun writing this, I hope you like it! Guys pls tell me what you think!!

[kyndaris]

The Nature of a Thing

Ever since I was young, there were two things that captured my imagination. The first were stories that mostly revolved around the hero’s journey. It could be from books or games, but the idea of saving the world always encouraged me to be the best version of myself. The second, of course, was mythology. Greek, Norse and Egyptian were the main three that caught my eye. I was obsessed about stories revolving the gods, demi-gods and whatever shenanigans they might have gotten themselves into. Many of these are already known by the wider world and through emphasis in popular culture: the drunken adventures of Loki and Thor, the murder of Osiris by the envious Seth, or Heracles and his twelve labours.

What I didn’t realise was that many of the character I looked up to played into very stereotypical archetypes. After attending selective high school and learning about tropes in high school, as well as watching copious amounts of video essays on YouTube, I like to think I’m now a dab hand at pointing at a character on screen and rattling off their attributes. This is, after all, their ‘nature.’ It doesn’t matter if they’re reluctant heroes at the start or attractive anti-heroes, in the end, the end of their story was dictated by them. And the journey that they go on has very predictable beats. The self-doubt that creeps in, the mentor that steps in to bolster their confidence...

Tell me, how many of you, dear readers, can hear the word ‘Japanese role-playing game (JRPG)’ and not know that the game will have the main protagonist start off in some small rural village doing something as innocent as rescuing a cat up in a tree before slaying the cruel god of the world right as the credits roll?

Form and settings can change, but the nature remains the same.

And this is the very thing that is explored in God of War: Ragnarok. One that is excellently brought to light when Kratos and Freya visit the Nords and realise that prophesy is merely the understanding of the moving parts of the world.

But we’ll get back to that later.

Years have passed since the events of the first game. Atreus has grown up into a curious teenager, eager to find his own place in the world and chafing at the direction his father sees for him. True, he doesn’t always make the right decision, but he’s learning. Kratos, on the other hand, feels like he’s been stuck in a rut since the revelations at Jotunheim. He has seen the patterns and fears for the safety of his son. During the long years of Fimbulwinter, he has prepared his son to live without him but, it is clear as the game progresses, Kratos is also scared of leaving his son alone. A typical parent fear, if you think about it, when children have grown up and want to leave the nest.

Honestly, I hadn’t expected Kratos to be such a protective parent when it came to his son, having seen his rage dictate most of his actions in the Greek era of games and his more stoic and standoffish approach in the first game. But while he does make the occasional misstep, it’s clear that Kratos loves his son dearly and wants only the very best for Atreus. 

Besides, you have to also love the fact that Mimir also essentially serves as a second father to Atreus. What with his stories and the occasional pearls of wisdom that he drops. A far different approach to what Kratos brings to the table.

And so, from a simple hunting trip out in Midgard, where they are attacked by a still vengeful Freya, Kratos and Atreus are soon roped into a quest to stop the end of days: Ragnarok and rail against fate. Or, at least, that’s what they initially assume. As the game goes on, and prophecies are unveiled, their quest becomes one to stop the machinations of Odin, the All-Father. In comparison to the first game, it’s a bit more complex with a lot of moving parts. In fact, rather than keeping the game solely focused on Kratos, the game also puts gameplay focus on Atreus as he tries to find a way to keep his father safe and forge his own path.

It all plays well with the theme of letting go of one’s preconceptions. And, when it comes to parenting, allowing your children the agency to make their own choices and mistakes rather than dictating them at every turn. Something Kratos initially struggles with but learns to accept after his trip with the Norns.

And, just like last time, there are no cuts when it comes to the camera. While this did make transitions between scenes more difficult to manage, somehow the team of Santa Monica managed to pull it off. Even if it was a little awkward at times - such as with the dream sequences, and the change in perspective from Kratos to Atreus and vice versa. I mean, let’s be honest, I couldn’t have been the only one that thought Atreus placing his knife on a barrel, only for Kratos to pick up the exact same knife was a little strange, right? Nor did I much like how the walls and bedding had to be placed behind Kratos as he transitioned from a dream with Faye to being back in his soft bed. 

It was like seeing the magic behind the scenes rather than being pulled into the story.

Still, I have to commend Santa Monica for committing to their artistic vision. Even as I was frustrated at the fact that half the time, the camera was solely focused on Kratos and his reactions whilst other character flitted in and out of the scenes from behind or entered just out of view of the camera. What’s worse was that there were no footsteps or acknowledgement of the other character until they stepped into view.

I know Kratos is unflappable but he merely grunted when Hildisvini came up from behind in Muspelheim to say that he was taking Mimir with him to Niflheim.

This might have been an issue in the combat but thankfully companions are able to provide ample warning, allowing for frequent blind dodging on my part, as well as the occasional use of the block button. From a combat perspective, I did feel like the Ragnarok was a lot more fluid than the previous game. It helps that Kratos begins the game equipped with both the Blades of Chaos and the Leviathan Axe. But the Spartan Rage ability was also a lot more versatile. Yes, Kratos can still unleash it to pummel an enemy into oblivion and regain health but he is also able to simply use it solely to heal and in an all-out attack.

Unfortunately, during the intervening years of Fimbulwinter, Kratos also somehow lost the armour he previous had and the skills he had acquired over the course of the last game. Why? Who knows. But hit skill tree was woefully empty and all my maxed out armour pieces were missing. Kratos did provide a semi-explanation but I don’t feel like it was adequate.

So many hours...wasted...

Still, I felt like the sets in Ragnarok were better able to cater to my play style. In fact, it’s probably the only reason why I was able to nab the platinum for this game. Yes, you read that correctly, dear reader. Another platinum has been claimed! And that was because this game was much more forgivable than its predecessor. You gotta love armour perks that heal you!

The one other thing that irked me about the game was how wooden characters would be when it wasn’t a cutscene. During my treks through Yggdrasil or the other realms, Kratos, Mimir, Freya and Atreus would occasionally banter. But when I looked back at my companions, the dead-eye stare I received back was perturbing to say the least.

Other than that, I very much enjoyed my time with Ragnarok and the story it wanted to tell. As well as the philosophy many of our protagonists had in terms of fate and prophecy. After all, this wasn’t so much a battle about free will and determinism so much as it was the choices one makes can dictate the path we walk in a bid to ‘be better.’ 

And while Kratos, Atreus and Freya understood that assignment, Odin - who was adamant about knowing what the future might bring so he could change it to his benefits and be in control - was ultimately unable to acknowledge that he could make a choice to end the vicious cycle he found himself in. During the final battle, he highlighted that fact with his dialogue, exclaiming that he “didn’t have a a choice.” Funny how the person who wants the most control is always the one that seems to have the least of it or claims that his failures are not the result of their own actions but those that had been put upon them.

After all, he didn’t have to kill Thor.

He could have chosen to give up his quest for knowledge and lived a happy life with his sons.

Could have stepped down from being the All-Father.

But he chose none of these alternatives.

So, I suppose if there’s one good thing about Odin, it’s the fact that he’s tenacious. And really really really good at deflecting personal fault and blame.

Music-wise, the game was excellent. Bear McCreary is talented at creating evocative pieces that sell the story beats. Did it deserve to win the Game Award for Best Music? Honestly, I’m going to have to say that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was robbed. 

What about Best Narrative? To be fair, A Plague Tale Requiem’s ending pulled at my heartstrings more. That was a story about a girl and her brother trying to live out their best lives and hoping to find a cure to his condition. The problems they faced might not have been supernatural Gods but their battle was so much more personal and heartfelt - and more in line with the 2018 version of God of War. 

Still, God of War Ragnarok is still up there as one of the best games that came out in 2022. And when you play quite a bit of the smaller titles, rather than just big budget releases, that dig into elements of the human condition, 2022 was a pretty good year for video game releases.

Overall, I’m sad that we didn’t get the story of Loki turning into a horse to distract a stallion and coming back after 9 months with the 8-legged Sleipnir, but I’ll take what I can get. I do hope that if there is another God of War game, it’ll follow Atreus and see his wanderings across the realms of myth and legends. Hopefully we, the players, can join him as he looks to uncover more hidden giants. Preferably in Celtic folkore. It would certainly be a better choice than Egypt - a mythology that’s already been done to death in popular culture.

That, or the franchise can take us somewhere completely different.

Can you imagine: Kratos against Sun Wukong? I wonder how that might work. 

P.S. LOVED that Deborah Ann Woll was in this. I didn't quite recognise her voice but seeing Faye's model, I was like: isn't that? AND I WAS RIGHT!