#they're - i've already said it but they're split in three parts

[moinsbienquekaworu]

I thought I'd keep my Emotional Support Fic Yearly Reread for september/october when I'll be stressed out of my mind living alone with paperwork and schoolwork to do but actually I think right now is a good time

[jetblack4realz]

lake days i - jake "hangman" seresin x reader

summary - when you and jake get stationed in your hometown, you decide to drag him with you to a lake day with your family - it taking a much different turn than expected.

!split into parts & takes place years and years before the uranium mission!

pt ii , pt iii , pt iv , pt v

warnings - none

word count - 5.7k

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the hawaii mission wasn't the first time you'd met jake seresin, but it was certainly the first time he caught your attention.

you both had been put in a position to compete for the mission, but in a surprise turn of events they just threw you both in. jake led, which he never let you forget, but your captain had decided that he needed you as a wingman, which you never let him forget. you knew his reputation and you'd seen it firsthand, but he was a surprisingly good partner to you. the mission was a success, of course, and you both finished out the last four months of assignment together. as your six months finished out, you found yourself hoping to be stationed with him again.

and you were.

admiral hensley called you both to his office when giving you new orders for the next 18 months and you couldn't help the small smile pulling at your lips. when you exited, hangman pulled you into his side with a laugh.

"excited to be my wingman again, sweetheart?" he asked.

"i think this time you'll find it's the other way around," you answered, winking as you laughed and pulled out of his grasp.

"we'll see about that," he said, smirking.

you both arrived in fort worth, texas with wide grins on your mouths.

"home sweet home," jake said. you hauled your bags onto your shoulders, striding off the runway and towards base. you began to walk towards the office, phone in your hand as you began typing in a local number.

"bronco," the man called with furrowed brows. "you not going to the bunks?"

"this is my home base," you replied. "i've got a place just a half hour out of here."

"how are you getting there?" he asked, quirking a brow with a simple smirk. "your boyfriend picking you up?"

you laughed, shaking your head. "don't got one. don't have time for one. my dad and brothers are coming, i haven't seen some of 'em in almost two years."

"glad you get to now," he told you with a surprisingly genuine smile. you nodded, smiling back.

"yeah, me too," you said. he nodded once before turning again, presumably to his room on base. "hey, hangman."

he turned, eyebrow raised in question.

"aren't you from texas too? anywhere around here?"

"odessa," he answered. he breathed a laugh. "so, no."

you watched each other for a few moments as you very openly debated something in your head. you breathed out slowly before finally just throwing it out there. "you like boating?"

your question caught him off guard. "boating?"

"yeah," you nodded. you quirked a brow, smirking slightly. "you ever been?"

"well, yeah," he nodded slowly. "like, twice."

"twice?" you exclaimed, shaking your head. "that's no good hangman. you should come with us this weekend. my family's property is just 45 minutes off of eagle mountain lake and we were gonna head over saturday. if you don't already have plans, we'd love to have you."

it was memorial day weekend, and your family always spent it on the lake. in light of your fresh transfer, your new admiral had granted you and jake both the monday off and you were definitely taking advantage of the three day weekend.

"you sure?" he asked, raising a brow. "i don't want to intrude. you haven't seen them in so long and i-"

"hangman, if you don't get to see your family, at least come see mine," you answered with a small smile. "they're very welcoming."

he debated for a few moments before huffing a breath. "you're very kind, bronco."

"so, that's a yes?" you asked, grinning. before he could answer, you began walking backwards to enter the office. "i'll take you back with me after shift friday! see you tomorrow!"

you mock-saluted him before turning on your heel and throwing open the door, slipping through it with an excited blush on your cheeks. hangman laughed to himself, shaking his head as he turned to make his way to the bunks. he couldn't believe you'd just invited him back to your family's house - but he couldn't say he wasn't glad you did.

"ready?" you asked, hand on your hip with a grin as jake approached you with his small dufflebag thrown over his shoulder. he nodded.

"as i'll ever be," he answered. "where you parked?"

you led him outside to a beat up brown subaru, pulling the driver's side door open. he quirked a brow as he examined the car, fingers running over the chipping paint.

"didn't imagine you a subaru gal, bronco," he mused, restraining a laugh. you rolled your eyes, shaking your head.

"i'm not. it's my mom's, she's letting me borrow it while i'm here," you answered.

"we gotta get you something better than that," he laughed. "for one, your mom outta want her car back and for two, i can't be seen in a - what year is it?"

"2005," you muttered.

"in a 2005, brown subaru outback," he said, clicking his tongue against his teeth thrice.

"oh, you can't be seen in it? i have to drive this thing to a naval airbase every day of my life," you laughed.

"we'll find you something better. with all this driving you're doing, you definitely need it," he told you. you rolled your eyes again.

"just get in the car, hangman," you said, slipping into the driver's side.

he laughed, tossing his bag in the backseat. "alright, alright."

the drive went smoothly, conversation with jake was never real difficult. as you pulled down a dirt road, passing under a large metal overhead sign announcing that it was the l/n residence jake watched it, a smile pulling at his lips.

"now before we get there, i've gotta warn you," you started, glancing at the man next to you. "all my brothers are in town for this and so are their wives and kids. it'll be a mad house, but it's all love i promise you. just, be prepared for a barrage of questions and kids wanting your attention."

"how many brothers do you have?" he asked.

"three older brothers - logan who's married to brynlee, barrett who's married to alice, and gideon who's thriving single, and two younger brothers - joshua who's married to kyrie, and darren who's 17 so he's single. and all in all, i think i have four, no five nieces and nephews. oh, but alice is pregnant with their first, so like five and a half," you answered, breathing in deeply after the long-winded explanation. you glanced at him with a nervous chuckle. "i told you, it's a lot."

he was smiling widely, shaking his head. "it sounds wonderful. really. i've got a big family too, just all sisters and brother-in-laws. i'm excited to have all those people around again."

your nervous smile softened and you nodded, pulling into the driveway. "i'm glad."

you both climbed out of the car, jake moving to grab his duffle from the back but you shook your head. "leave it, we'll take it back to mine after dinner."

"oh, right," he answered, forgetting entirely that you had your own place and that he was staying there, with you, alone. he trailed after you as you approached the beautiful oak front door.

you turned to him with a grin, hand gripping the door handle. "brace yourself, hangman."

with that, you threw the door open with a yell of, "honey, i'm home!" jake laughed as he watched three kids instantly attach themselves to your legs, the oldest little boy looking about five.

"oh my gosh, you guys are hug!" you exclaimed.

the little boy looked up at jake, his head cocked to the side in evident interest.

"auntie y/n, who's that?" he asked. just as you opened your mouth to answer, a teenager walked in with a teasing grin and answered for her.

"that's her boyfriend," he said in a sing-song tone. you rolled your eyes, whacking him in the shoulder.

"shut up, darren," you said. you picked up the five year old, turning to jake with a smile. "finn, this is jake. jake, this is logan's oldest, finn. he's five."

jake smiled, offering him a little wave. "hey, finn."

you gestured to a little girl at your feet. "and this is leila, finn's little sister. she's three." there was another girl next to leila. "and everleigh, also three. but, she's josh's." you whacked your little brother in the shoulder again, a wry smile on your lips as you tried to not laugh at his dramatic outburst of pain. "and my little brother, darren."

"hi," jake laughed. darren stretched a hand forward, grinning widely.

"welcome to the family," he teased as jake shook the boy's hand. jake laughed heartily.

"thanks, glad to be here."

introductions with the rest of the family continued in the dining room, the remaining two nephews sitting in their dad's lap.

"y/n!" the family chorused.

"hey guys," you grinned. you turned to let jake step forward, your brothers smirking at you as he did so. "everybody, this is jake seresin, my wingman on my last mission." he looked at you with raised brows and a breathy laugh, shaking his head slightly. you concealed your laughing with a slim grin, continuing. "he's gonna be spending the weekend with us."

your mother approached with a sweet smile on her face. "jake, how wonderful to meet you. y/n's told us so much."

"oh has she?" jake asked with a grin in your direction. he shook her hand gently, a small smile directed at the older woman.

"enough for us to be glad to have you," your dad chimed in. "we hear you're competitive. you good at water sports?"

"can't say i've tried any," jake laughed sheepishly. you exchanged grins with your brothers. you patted his arm.

"don't worry, we'll change that," you told him. you turned your attention back to your family. you took your time to point out each brother and sister-in-law, and your remaining two twin one year old nephews, brigham and beckham, who were josh's.

everyone was very welcoming towards him and he found his heart swelling at the experience of being with so much family. as they all conversed and ate, he began to realize where you had gotten all of your snark and sarcasm - he supposed that's what growing up with five brothers got you. but, as he watched the way your mother treated everyone and how your father ensured the teasing never reached a tipping point, he also began to understand how you tended to know the balances of things and always be cordial to others. it was a talent that slipped his mind some of the time, but in the presence of such kind people he made sure to do.

darren had taken an extreme liking to the 30-year-old, asking him all sorts of questions about what he flew, how he flew, what missions he'd been on (which he obviously couldn't tell him), and everything about the navy. this got finn excited too, the little one climbing on your lap just to lean over to jake to catch his attention.

"you do realize that i'm in the navy too, right?" you asked darren with a raised brow, pulling finn back to keep him from slipping off your knee as he held onto jake's arm. "everything he's done, i've done. you've never asked me before."

"you're not as cool, y/n," gideon teased you in response, darren laughing and nodding in agreement.

"i'd have to agree," jake said, winking at you as your brothers laughed.

"so, where are you from, jake?" your mom asked with a smile.

"odessa," he answered, matching her smile. "born and raised texan."

"good," your dad nodded. "your family still back there?"

"yes sir," jake said. "mom and sisters at least. dad died a few years back."

"sorry to hear that, son," your dad said, giving him a small nod.

"odessa," your mom hummed. "what did you say your last name was again, honey?"

"seresin," jake answered politely.

"your mom's maiden name?" she furthered. jake laughed, glancing at you momentarily.

"sorry, mom grew up in odessa," you told him with a short laugh, shooting your mom a look to stop interrogating him. "sure she's just trying to make connections."

"oh, it's fine," jake said. it was a common occurrence in texas. "she was a gilbert."

"gilbert," she repeated again. her eyes lit up. "alyssa gilbert?"

"yeah," he laughed. "you know her?"

"we went to high school together!" she cheered. "how about that? we're friends on facebook but haven't talked in years. i'll have to tell her i've got you over here, maybe they can come over sometime! have a barbeque, go to the lake. you got a lot of siblings, jake?"

"four sisters," he nodded, smiling at her enthusiasm.

"oh, wonderful! that would be so fun, wouldn't that be so wonderful y/n?" she asked, turning to you. from next to her alice and kyrie were about to burst into laughter, barrett winking at you. you pulled a thin smile, trying to avoid estranging jake because of your overly-enthusiastic mother.

"yeah, that'd be something, ma," you answered, returning your attention to the potato salad on your plate.

"i'm sure they'd love that," jake said, appeasing your mom.

after a few hours and several slices of pie, you were leading jake back out to your car. darren followed you to the door, grinning widely.

"drive safe!" he called as you threw yourself into your seat. "no fun allowed tonight! i mean it!"

you slammed your door shut, flipping him off through the window, though he could barely see it with the dim light in the car. jake laughed loudly, getting in his seat as darren returned inside. as soon as his door was shut you let out a breathy laugh.

"well, that was fun," you said. "i think they like you."

"i think they do too," he said with a small smile. "i really like them, y/n."

"i'm glad. they're my favorite people," you told him.

you reached around to buckle and he followed your lead as you backed out of the driveway.

"so, where's your place at?" he asked as you turned onto the dirt road, continuing further into the property.

"just a few minutes down the road," you answered. "my parents promised each of us some land if we wanted to build on it. the only one who doesn't have a place out here is gideon, he lives in houston. says he doesn't need it because he isn't planning on getting married and having a family anytime soon."

"oh," jake said, looking at you intently. "but, you've got a place out here."

"yeah, so what?"

"are you planning on a family anytime soon?"

you glanced at him, furrowing your brows slightly. "i was. saved up for my place since high school, got some of my dad's buddies to give me discounts, designed it, helped build it when i could while going to college. then, well, my plans changed. i dropped out of college and went into the navy, got shipped out two years later. my house was finished though, so i kept it."

he thought on your answer for a few moments. "you didn't answer my question."

"the answer is i don't know," you sighed, pulling into your garage. "would i like to have a family? sure. is it gonna happen for me? probably not. and hey, i have things to do, i love my job... life's okay for me."

you laughed shortly, looking back at your fellow aviator.

"what?" he asked.

"wasn't expecting to talk to you about that today. don't really tell people things like that."

"then why'd you tell me?"

"why'd you ask?"

you both paused, a small smile pulling at your lips before you turned away, pulling your door open. he followed suit, grabbing his bag and following you into the two-story farmhouse. it was beautiful, he had to admit.

"you designed this?" he asked, looking up at it while you turned the key.

"yep," you answered. "my pride and joy."

"that's such a texas thing," he laughed, following you inside. "you built your own house? if a girl i met at the bar said she built her own house i might just marry her right then and there."

"that's a weird thing to admit, seresin," you laughed, gesturing for him to follow you upstairs.

"what? i like a blue collar woman," he shrugged. he grinned widely. "they're usually way sexier too."

you rolled your eyes, sighing, "there's the hangman i know."

you approached the first door to your right, pushing it open. "this is you. there's a bathroom attached and you can keep your things in the dresser if you'd like. i'm just down the hall here."

he entered the room, tossing his bag on the white comforter. he looked around with a nod. "thanks bronco. i owe you one."

"you don't owe me anything," you said with a shake of your head. "well, except for a promise to try everything i tell you to tomorrow."

he laughed. "deal."

"you're in for it," you promised. "we need to meet at mom and dad's at 7, so be up by 6:30. i'll come and knock to make sure you're up."

"sounds good," he answered.

you smiled, nodding slowly as you stayed leaning in the doorway for a few moments. "i'll, uh, i'll see you in the morning. goodnight, jake."

"goodnight, y/n," he said. "thanks again. i'm excited."

"me too." you disappeared from his sight, the man leaning to watch you walk back to your room. he smiled slightly before turning back to his bag, beginning to unpack the few contents into the dresser next to the bed.

it was 6:35 when you finally rolled out of bed, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. you knew you had to get up, you just desperately didn't want to.

you pulled yourself out from under the covers, walking slowly to your closet. you grabbed the navy blue swimsuit you'd set out the night before: a longline bikini top that you knew would stay secure during water sports and matching high-waisted bottoms. you pulled a pair of denim shorts over, not bothering with a shirt.

you pulled open your door and then walked into the extremely bright hallway. with a hand blocking the light from your eyes, you approached jake's door, knocking slowly.

it was swung open quickly to reveal an all ready hangman, clad in dark blue swim shorts and a white tee shirt you were sure would be coming off as soon as water was in sight. that's how he was anytime you and the crew would lounge the beaches of hawaii and you were confident it wouldn't be any different here.

he eyed your swimsuit and you eyed his, both letting out short laughs.

"looks like we'll be twinning out there, darlin'," he teased. you shrugged.

"makes for cuter pictures," you answered, smirking. "grab your things, i'll be down in a sec."

he nodded and you turned back to grab your sunscreen, sunglasses, and hat before jogging down the stairs to find jake sitting on your counter.

"ready?" you asked. he nodded, hopping down and following you out the door and to your car.

when you pulled up to the house, darren was quick to comment on the swimsuit situation.

"and you say you aren't a couple," he said with a smirk.

"well, we're not. it's just a coincidence," you said with a roll of your eyes, pushing past him to get to where your dad was loading up the jetski and canopies.

"ouch," darren said with a laugh, turning his attention to jake. "she's in a bad mood."

jake shrugged. "it was just a coincidence."

he followed your lead and took some camping chairs from your mother, smiling graciously as he loaded them into the back of the truck. as you finished strapping down the jetski, logan pulled up with a beautiful white and blue surfboat.

you were shaken out of whatever mood darren's comment had put you in as you shook jake's arm and ran to where logan parked, jake following you with furrowed brows.

"jake," you said with a grandiose expression. "this is my pride and joy, my beautiful bluey."

"bluey?" he laughed. "you named your boat?"

"technically, it's our boat," logan corrected.

"right, but still," you shrugged. "a beautiful, 2014 cobalt surf boat, one of the first they've ever made. way better than the crappy mastercraft we used to have."

"what's wrong with a mastercraft?" jake asked, realizing very quickly that he was incredibly out of his element. logan laughed, shrugging.

"it's the honda of boats," he answered.

"ah," jake said, understanding as he nodded his head.

"alright everyone, pack it up!" your mom yelled.

as everyone piled into the two trucks and one ford explorer, jake looked at you, wondering where to go.

"there's some more seats in josh's," your mom told you, but you shrugged.

"too cramped," you answered, instead stepping onto logan's back tire and sitting down in the bed of the truck. jake grinned, following quickly and plopping down next to you.

"we got some nice privacy back here," he mused, winking at you jokingly.

you laughed, rolling your eyes. "oh yeah, take advantage of it, seresin."

"i might just," he said.

when you all pulled up to the lake, you and jake hopped out of the back.

"i'm gonna drive the boat out," you told him, "as logan backs it into the water. do you wanna just get in with me?"

"sure," he agreed, walking with you a few steps until you were at the back. "need a hand?"

you were, in fact, slightly too short to be able to get on it while it was still on the trailer. you nodded. "that'd be great, actually."

he held his hands down and boosted you up as you stepped on them, the man quickly following.

"shoes off," you instructed, slipping off your sandals and throwing them under one of the seats, jake following your lead. as you stood in front of the seat, you slid the key in and gestured for logan to back it up into the water fully.

jake watched in awe as you worked the boat expertly, yelling instructions and giving hand signals to direct your brother as far back as you needed, eventually having jake jump out to unstrap the sides and give you a little push off until you were able to turn the boat and blower on and push it out yourself. as he pulled himself back in and came up behind you, he watched the way your hands worked the steering and throttle.

"impressed, hangman?" you laughed, glancing back at him. "i'm surprised - i fly planes for a living, you think i can't drive my own boat?"

"no, i'd be disappointed if you couldn't," he laughed, sitting in the passenger seat as you pulled off the ramp and started towards your previously decided beach spot. darren was on the jetski, following you from a distance.

"just wait until we really get going," you told him with a grin. "you can be impressed then."

"counting on it, darlin'," he said.

when you found your family you let logan grab the larger anchor and tie the boat to the beach as you and jake exited the boat, your shorts and his shirt coming off before you dropped in the water.

you glanced at him before slipping into the water, refusing to blush at your friend's abs. you knew he was attractive and you knew he was toned - you'd been to the beach with him before. but still, you couldn't deny that jake seresin was a sight to see.

on the flip side, he couldn't deny that you looked good. like, really good. he'd seen you in a swimsuit before too, but he always found it difficult to keep his eyes off. you were drop dead gorgeous, he'd admit that to anyone, any day of the week - except for your family, right this moment.

not that they needed to ask. they could tell. or at least, a few of them could.

"how do you spend time with him and not just fall in love?" kyrie asked you in a hushed whisper as you dropped into a camp chair next to her. you laughed.

"he's... hangman. he's just hangman. we're friends," you shrugged.

"any chance you want to be more?" brynlee asked, wiggling her brows as alice and kyrie giggled.

"oh, keep to your own lives," you said, leaning back in your chair.

"our lives are boring, we've already got our men - you're still working on yours," kyrie said.

"i think you've already found him," alice said with a small smile. she nodded to where darren was punching around with jake, jake finally shoving him into the water where the boy tripped back and soaked himself. jake laughed loudly before getting attacked from behind by finn, turning to pretend fight the boy off.

"aw, he's so sweet y/n," brynlee said, grabbing your arm with a smile, effectively shaking you out of your trance. he had been so good with your family so far, you wondered if this was how he was normally - without all the bravado required for aviation.

"yeah, i guess he is," you mumbled. you cleared your throat, looking back at your sister-in-laws. "he's usually a lot louder and cockier than this. you'll see later while we're playing around. he's a tease."

"i think you're the tease right now," kyrie laughed. "you didn't see the way he was looking at you when you were walking up to the beach. you looked hot and he knew it honey."

"no way," you said with a shake of your head. "we're just friends."

"you might've started the weekend that way," brynlee said, standing up with a teasing smile. "but you won't end it that way."

your mouth fell open in shock as she walked to logan, scooping leila up in her arms and laughing as the three year old did. you shook your head, turning your attention to the other girls.

"she's right, you know," alice said. "don't look behind you."

and so you didn't, instead watching as the grins on their faces grew and grew until someone had grabbed your chair, lifting it from behind and making you stand. you landed on your feet, turning quickly to find jake with a grin.

"what?" you asked.

"come one, your dad's decided that me and you are going first," he told you.

"on what?" you asked. he paused.

"don't know. just, come on," he said, grabbing your hand and dragging you over to where your brothers and dad had made a group.

"what am i doing?" you asked with a laugh as you approached them.

"kneeboarding," josh answered. "easy."

and "easy" is what you told jake when you were in the middle of the lake, life jackets on, with kneeboards in your hands, just finished with giving him instructions.

"yeah," he nodded. "i got this. easy."

"you got this," you agreed with a laugh.

"but, when do i pull up on it?" he asked.

"after the boat starts going but before it gets up to speed. just - i'll tell you when," you told him, earning a nod in return.

the look on jake's face as you yelled "ready!" to logan was priceless. he was focused - so focused. maybe even more focused than you'd seen him in a jet. and as logan began moving, his face only hardened that much more.

"okay, pull yourself up!" you yelled, sliding your knees onto the back of the board and shimmying your way all the way up. you strapped the velcro strap over your thighs, settling in as the boat pulled you along before looking over at jake.

his entire board was shaking as he tried to move his knees up, his hands clutching the side desperately. eventually, he managed to get up, leaning back with a sigh and finagling with the strap.

"got it?" you called.

"yeah!" he called back as he secured it. you leaned forward, hands gripping the wide handle. before you pulled it off its knob that kept you attached to the boat, you looked at jake for affirmation. he nodded, grabbing his own and watching you as you pulled yours off, leaving just your hands on the rope keeping you to the boat.

"lean back! relax!" you said over the sound of the water, laughing as he leaned back, causing his board to twist a little and his eyes to widen as he regained balance. "good!"

he looked at you with a grin, holding his hand up in the 'hell yeah' sign, or really just 'aloha' surfer sign. you laughed and did it back. you leaned to the side, skidding up next to him.

"wanna try some tricks?" you asked.

"yeah, you go first," he said, nodding at you. you grinned.

"alright, first we'll get you to go out of the wake," you told him. "you just gotta get some momentum and lean hard. don't twist your board, just lean. watch, and if i wipe out just let go, k?"

you leaned back to your side, your board catching speed and exiting the wake. you did his little hand signal back to him with a laugh, hanging out of the wake for a while. the waves were a bit choppy that day, but you decided to still attempt what you've been wanting to since you knew you were going kneeboarding.

"watch!" you yelled, but jake's eyes had been on you the whole time anyways. you moved one hand to the side of the handle before quickly leaning, flipping around and reaching around the back to grab the handle again.

your brothers whooped in the boat as you grinned, leaning back in to enter the wake.

"pretty cool, huh?" you asked.

"i bet i could do that," he said with a shrug. "easy."

"alright then, go for it," you said teasingly. you were sure he wasn't gonna get it.

but, as he leaned out and successfully got out of the wake, which was a struggle for first-timers normally, your confidence faltered. he slid his hands to the side like you did and turned sharply, then again, and suddenly he had accomplished the goal it took you three summers as a kid to achieve.

"screw you," you laughed as he came back in next to you.

"got anything else?" he asked with a smirk.

"jump the wake," you said, nodding to the side. "get some height, seresin."

"do it at the same time," he replied.

you agreed and you both broke for opposite directions. you tried to get as much speed as you could, but just as you reached the break of the wake, your board caught and you were down.

you found the surface with a cough, glaring at the boat as it turned around to come get you. a little ways away jake was holding his board, a cocky grin on his lips as he waved at you. you rolled your eyes, grabbing your board and trying to not let him see your smile as it formed.

"what was that y/n?" josh laughed as they pulled up next to you, grabbing your board.

"i'm out of practice, okay?" you answered, pulling yourself up onto the surf deck on the back. gideon grabbed jake's board as he swam over to you.

"yeah, well he's had no practice and he still got it," your brother laughed as he set the board next to yours. jake pulled himself up next to you, grinning at you.

"you okay, sweetheart?" he asked.

"you got it?" you asked with raised brows.

"i thought you said it was hard?" he asked. your eyes widened and you searched for words, causing the man next to you to bust up laughing, as well as gideon.

"who's next?" your dad asked.

"me!" darren cheered as he jumped into the water. josh laughed and followed him in. you laughed at the boys before standing, pulling off your lifejacket and hanging the dripping wet thing off the side of the boat, gesturing for jake to give you his own. when you had buckled them to the side, you offered jake a hand which he took, letting you drag him up and to the bow of the boat. you sat back on the front, facing jake as he took the seat opposite to where brynlee was laying out with full intention of tanning. you tucked your legs by his to keep out of her way, but the man didn't look bothered.

you grabbed a towel from the compartment behind you, wiping your arms and hair before tossing it to jake. he dried his chest before balling it up and leaning on it like a pillow, laying out like brynlee.

you sat there for a few moments before standing and approaching the glove box, grabbing yours and jake's hats and glasses. you walked back up, dropping his glasses in his lap and pulling his hat down backwards on his head.

he grinned at you as you sat back down, tucking your legs to the side of him again. you pulled your hat on backwards too with a teasing grin his way.

"twins, right?" you asked. he laughed as you leaned back, settling your glasses on the bridge of your nose.

afterwards, you stared at him, eyebrows furrowing after several moments. he quirked a brow at you, finally asking, "what?"

"your glasses are cooler than mine are," you told him, jokingly pouting like finn whenever you didn't give him his goldfish crackers. you both had basic black glasses on, but his were cool, classy aviators that he definitely spent more that $15 on as opposed to your walmart ones.

this caused him to smile and he leaned forward. "here, sweetheart."

he pulled your glasses off your nose as he pulled his own off, dropping yours in his lap for a moment so he could situate his 'cool' sunglasses on your face. he pulled yours on and leaned back again, patting your leg. "better?"

"much," you laughed. out of the corner of your eye, brynlee was smirking at you both, turning back to grin at her husband when neither of you would look at her.

she pulled her phone from the cupholder next to her, flipping to the camera. she waved her hand at you guys. "scoot in, i wanna get the glasses."

you rolled your eyes with a smile, scooting from your position at the front to be perpendicular to where jake was laying, the man moving to the side to let you in before leaning towards you, an arm wrapping around your torso so as to give you more room. you looked at him briefly, his wide grin with your slightly girly glasses on his face making you laugh, your smile more legitimate than it had been before as you looked at brynlee. he rested his cheek on your head after a moment, your smile unintentionally widening again.

when she lowered her phone, you leaned over to see the picture - and it actually was really cute. the only pictures you had with jake were in your flight suits or decently drunk at a pool table, so you were kinda glad to have one normal, decently cute one now. even though you were just friends, of course.

"send that to me," you told her with a smile. you slid back to your original place, pushing jake's legs out of the way to give yourself space. he rolled his eyes at you, scoffing, but you knew he was just teasing.

you pretended not to notice how jake's hand fell back onto your leg, instead just letting the wind blow your hair around with a smile as you watched your brothers get on the kneeboards. you also pretended not to notice how the entire time they did so, jake's eyes never once travelled back to them, instead resting on you.

this was gonna be one fun trip.

[katuschka]

His Sugar-Dusted Skin – Part 1

Jake Kiszka x reader 5.639 words (Part 1)

So, After some consideration, I decided to split this one in two, because a) I promised to post it this weekend and it's not finished yet, and b) it might me too long. December's been a bit chaotic and as I said before, I've been struggling a bit with this one. So let me know what you think. Any feedback is much appreciated!

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, intended for adult readers. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Also, if you're under 18, go find some other entertainment elsewhere.

Warnings (are spoilers): alcohol consumption and heavy intoxication, mentions of the death of a close person (retrospective), allusions to a potentially promiscuous behaviour, some strong language, the twins being assholes (kind of... they're still cute), Jake's happy trail, I think that's it for now...

Oh, life…

How ordinary and boring it can get when you stick to thinking that there aren’t any other options. As far as I remember, conformity never made sense to me. And as far as I remember, I was being raised and forced to embrace it. My mind surrendered for a while, but my vagrant soul just kept resisting. I never wanted to fit in. I always wanted to fly.

When I left home three years ago, I didn’t take much with me. My parents didn’t approve of my choices and the only person who would’ve supported me in my decisions was already gone. My beloved grandma. She was the disruptive force that kept me on my toes, always challenging me in the most loving way, knowing too well that it was exactly what I needed. She gave me my first guitar, too. Even though sclerosis made her homeward-bound, her dreams and fantasies always kept her wandering. I loved that. She was always there to spark my imagination and in return, I wanted to be her legs and eyes one day. When I was little, my friends used to call her fairy godmother. “Keep your sails up sweetheart, the wind is whimsical.” That’s what she used to say. “All you need is that air in your lungs and love in your heart.” 

“You must never leave me, oma,” I said to her once. “I need that love in my heart forever.”

“Someone else will fill it, darling,” she replied. “I’m only here to make sure it is open. But one day, you won’t need me anymore.”

When she died, I lost my only reason to stay there. The world was slowly getting to its feet again and it was my turn to do the same. I had dreams that simply couldn’t be fulfilled at home. My heart was aching for adventure. So I packed my bags, just like they sing in old songs, slung my guitar over my shoulder and hit the road. A vagabond chick. 

As I came to Tennessee, all I owned could fit in my barely drivable car: literally just a few dresses, my phone, my modest savings, my old six string, my treasured voice and THE recipe. Aaaah, those were the days…

Who am I kidding? It was pretty rough at first. VERY rough, to be honest. I cried many nights. But the one thing my parents had taught me was to save money, and that helped me survive the first months, when I waited tables during the day and sang my ass off after dark. 

Many people never make it. Hell, even though I’m an optimist, I have to admit that most don’t. If you’re not strong willed and immune to shit, you’re most certainly destined to fail. I’ve seen way too many extra talented and broken people on my journey, just because they were too nice or too naive. Well, I’m not naive, but I’m definitely not a cold bitch either. I think I just got lucky, because I had my guardian angel with me the whole time. When she was still walking on earth, she absolutely loved the Beatles, With a Little Help from My Friends being her favorite song. My childhood memories are filled with those songs and how she sang along, and I believe that it was her doing that eventually turned this tune into the soundtrack of my life. I met a lot of fantastic people on my arduous journey towards my goals and dreams, and that’s how I got by. 

As a token of my gratitude, I baked cookies for them. My grandma’s famous linzer cookies. THE recipe. Fast forward a few years, I still keep doing that at Christmas. Apart from the fact that my friends simply demand it, it’s also my way of keeping her alive, to make myself feel like she’s still here with me… in a way. 

Back home, the whole neighborhood loved her art of baking. Me being her only granddaughter, she literally forced me to learn how to bake those linzer cookies – her own recipe, to be precise. Every time I rolled my eyes, while making annoyed noises, blowing raspberries and just being a little asshole about it in general, she simply smiled and said that one day I’ll thank her. Why – I asked – and she responded that one day it would bring me love. “Love goes through the stomach, my dear. Look at your grandpa. See how huge it is?” And then he smiled and kissed her hair and it always made me believe her.

Except it didn’t happen. At least not yet. It – however – gave me a semblance of home that I consciously chose not to have, but sometimes missed. 

Just last year, I decided to continue with the tradition my grandma  started back at home. “Love is a reciprocal game, my dear,” she said. “You get what you give, but do not lose yourself in giving.” 

They want my sweets? Fine! But let them show me how much. They have to “earn” it. At the beginning of December, I give my friends custom-made Christmas greetings, and if they want to receive their own little box of cookies, they have to send back a card of their own making. The first time was a success, and I ended up baking sweets for eleven people. And it didn’t stop there, as it earned me nine bottles of wine, a flacon of my favorite perfume and  a ukulele. All I really wanted was a thank you, but hey! I won’t say no to wine! So I decided to do it again, and this time I received seventeen cards, including three “masterpieces” from the members of the infamous Greta Van Fleet! Yeah, that’s right. While I still feel like I’m barely making it sometimes, I move in high-ish circles. El-oh-el. 

I met Daniel first, through a mutual friend, at one of the music clubs we frequented. He was actually one of the eleven buddies that helped me restart this Christmas tradition. Later I learned that he selflessly shared his portion with the rest of the group during a rehearsal he went to right after he dropped by at my place, and that’s how I got invited to one of their semi-private dinners. Dan kindly introduced me as “Joni”, which earned me two “woos” and one ironic smirk. To be fair, I didn’t like it either. It actually made me cringe, because the woman is an unattainable role model, but it was just Daniel being himself, aka the nice guy. Bless his soul. 

I went from an acquaintance with useful skills to a drinking buddy, because I’m good at that too. One of my less admirable strengths, but there are times when it comes in handy. Especially when a Johnny Depp wannabe from Middle-earth wants to outsmart you…

A year flew by and it was time to extend my offer to Sam and Josh, who made sure I wouldn’t forget them. Don’t ask me how. The video they sent me definitely had the potential to go viral. I wholeheartedly appreciate how much they trust me not to do that. 

They wouldn’t stop there, though. I had to laugh when I received their own precious hand drawn contributions. How sweet. They’re all so sweet actually… well, all except Jake. Aloof, taciturn and arrogant, that’s how he rolls. I’m pretty sure he just can’t stand me, because while he often laughs with others, he only ever laughs at me. His opinion on my baking goes hand in hand with what he thinks about my playing, preferring darker and more spicy shit, as he once put it. Well, whatever. He’s a colossal prick. 

It’s quite unfortunate that I’ve also had a colossal crush on him for quite some time now. As I said, I’m a vagabond chick, and he happens to possess all the right shit to lure me. Like a moth to a flame. And I got burned. 

See, oma? Not working. 

Well, I’m not the one to cry over guys, so I’m not going to lose my sleep over that. He can go fuck himself. (Someone else can do it. I swear he needs it.). 

Seventeen packages meant I was going to spend most of the Friday evening as well as the whole Saturday slaving in my kitchen. Thankfully, I really do enjoy doing this, so it’s simply an essential part of Christmas festivities. A good time spent with me, myself and Ella Fitzgerald. It’s still quite a lot of work though. 

Friday was just about making dough. It might seem easy, but you need to understand that in order to make enough cookies for 17 (!) people, I needed more than 5 lbs of flour, 3 lbs of butter, nearly 24 ounces of sugar, 23 egg yolks and zest from 6 lemons! I will say no more to protect the family secret, but you can see it takes a lot of effort just to put this all together. I take this very seriously. I don’t want to disappoint anyone. 

It had to be perfect. 

But alas! I couldn’t have known that one malicious and horny sprite who wanted me to spoil him with my art of baking was also going to sabotage my efforts in the most peculiar way. 

Once finished, I covered the dough with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to let it rest overnight before I hopped in the shower to wash off the sweaty sugar crust that seemed to stick to every inch of my exposed skin. It was almost midnight when I finally managed to climb in bed, pleasantly exhausted and happy, only to be woken up by a frantic doorbell noise at around two am. A normal person would just freak out in such a situation, but knowing who that might be, I was already pretty much used to it as I lived nearest to their favorite bar. Our favorite bar, to be precise. 

Over time, they came to an agreement that my tiny apartment was a perfect place for nightcaps, the only problem being that the Kiszkas were usually quite loud about it, completely ignoring the fact that I had neighbors. Thankfully, this part of town is a bit specific in a sense that the said neighbors simply didn’t give a shit, with their own lifestyle not being much different. 

This is what I wanted. Friends, late night laughs, my life filled with music and hugs and kisses and peculiar outcomes of unpredictable events that could only lead to more hugs and kisses. 

There was this one time when Josh fell asleep on my couch while the others simply sneaked away giggling and left him there, spread-eagled and snoring his uvula off. Several hours later, I was woken up by the delicious smell of buttermilk waffles, served with maple syrup and a guilty, puppy dog stare. 

Simply put, they were (almost) always welcome here. Almost…

Sober, sleepy and disoriented, I was definitely in no mood for a late night party (or an early morning one… seriously Josh, wtf!), with all the baking lying ahead of me. I didn’t even have to guess if it was really them; I could already hear them the moment my heart calmed down a bit and I stepped out of my bedroom. Determined to chase them away with a rolling pin, I answered the door angrily and was nearly knocked down by the falling Oliver Reed who obviously decided to lean against it the very moment I yanked it open. 

It’s always intrigued me how the brain works in these situations, working so fast that the time seems to slow down to an almost comical pace. I watched in slow motion how his back slid against the wood, his arms flapping in the air in a futile attempt to regain balance. I could tell at the first fleeting glance that he wasn’t fit to keep his balance standing, let alone falling, so no wonder it was a completely lost cause. Some voice at the back of my skull tried to tell me to jump aside, but I was too mesmerized by the sight. Just when his shoulder hit me clumsily in the chest and I stumbled backwards, Josh finally managed to grab Jake’s arms to keep him from knocking me down completely. My rolling pin fell on the wooden floor with a loud bang that made my neighbor’s dog bark. Jake, now aggressively pinned against the corridor wall by Josh, only added to the ear-piercing nocturnal cacophony with his loud howls: “Whoa whooooa!” 

“Shhh, shut the fuck up, Jake!” Josh hissed through his teeth before he turned his concerned stare back at me. “Y/N, sweetheart, terribly sorry hun! Didn’t mean too…” I could tell that he was tipsy as well, but it paled in comparison with the state Jake was in. I had seen him drunk many times before, with his glossy, beady eyes and unfocused stare that always made him look a bit like a teddy bear. This was new, though. He seemed absolutely plastered. 

Out of the imminent danger, but with my heart still wildly pumping adrenaline-enriched blood into my veins, I grabbed the doorframe first to support myself before I tried to make sense of what was just happening in front of me. 

They weren’t alone. Right behind Josh stood a guy whom I had seen a few times before, but I couldn’t recall his name. He looked slightly uncomfortable. “What the fuck, Josh!?!” I hissed. 

Josh immediately tried to win me over with the most sheepish smile he could muster, but his involuntarily cocked eyebrow betrayed him, which only made me more furious. “Dearest Y/N, we need your help, baby!” 

“With what? I asked incredulously. 

“I need you to take care of my asshole brother, pretty pleeeease.” 

“You what?” I goggled at him, completely taken aback by his impudent request. “Why can’t you just take him home?” Much to Jake’s annoyance, we kept discussing him and his imminent future as if he wasn’t even there, which only resulted in another outburst of his loud and incoherent babbling and our collective attempt to shush him before Josh answered.

“Because, I am not planning on going home, honey,” he whisper-shouted, hoping that I would just get it without him having to be too obvious. Yeah, I got it. It didn’t mean I was willing to help him. I looked at the guy again, who suddenly pretended to be very interested in the hallway lights. At that moment, the owner of the barking dog opened his own door to passionately inform us what we all were. I had no other choice than to hastily usher them all in.

“You can’t leave him here just like that? Are you out of your mind? Is this some kind of retribution for what he did the last time? Because it’s not funny. This is my home, and not a fucking sobering center! Just call him an uber,” I continued to protest once we were all safely inside my apartment, and that’s when Jake chimed in for the first time with something that made at least a bit of sense: “Yeah, ah-don’ wanna…,” he hiccupped before he could finish the sentence, making me even more incensed with the whole situation. He quickly tried to amend it, but it was too late. I was seething, my nostrils flaring. “...bother-er. Ah-don’ wanna bother-er! She’s…fierssshe!” he spat in Josh’s face, making him scrunch his face in disgust. 

“Well, you should have thought about not bothering people before you got so shitfaced,” Josh spat back, completely ignoring what I just said. “This is your doing.”

What? I shot a deadly stare at Josh. No, it was absolutely not Jake’s doing that they were now standing in my living room. And regardless of the fact that I had work to do – and he knew that – he also knew how I felt about Jake, and was now putting me in a very uncomfortable position. “Out! All of you!” 

I’m pretty sure I must have looked like Wrath personified, because Jake whoa’ed again and Josh seemed to finally acknowledge his misconduct. He grabbed my hands in his, suddenly looking like a meek puppy. “I’m sorry, babe. Don’t be mad, hun. I know this is too much to ask, but do this for a friend. I beg you…”

“No, I beg you Josh!” I tried to sound as calm and collected as possible through my gritted teeth, knowing that being just mad would get me nowhere. Josh was too stubborn to ever acknowledge someone else’s anger and boundaries meant nothing to him once you became his friend, which basically meant family. However, he was empathetic. “You know I have a lot of baking to do tomorrow. I’m tired. Just please, take him home.”

Josh bit his lip and he looked like he was trying to say something and NOT say it at the same time. It was late and I felt awfully tired, but the whole thing seemed a bit fishy to me. Just when Josh nodded and finally opened his mouth to respond, Jake grabbed his shoulder. “Ah need to pee, Jawshy boy,” he whined and swayed dangerously, pouting his lips at his twin brother. He was already in his teddy bear phase which meant that he indeed wasn’t fit to be sent home alone in an uber. He’d be knocked out in no time, and even if Josh went with him, he’d have a hard time just getting him out of the car. 

Josh glanced sideways at the guy, who had been pretending to be invisible the whole time, and then looked at me pleadingly again. I capitulated. “OK, take that big baby to the bathroom and I’ll fetch some blankets,” I sighed. 

Together, they helped Jake get comfy on the couch and he fell asleep before his head even touched the pillow. And me? I felt relieved when I finally closed the door behind them and everything became quiet again, disturbed only by Jake’s light snoring.

They were taking their time, so once I fixed the makeshift bed, it was just me and the guy standing in the middle of the room, waiting, and it was getting increasingly awkward with each passing second. “So, you’re Y/N,” he finally spoke.

“Yeah,” I answered curtly, confirming the obvious. “We’ve met.”

“But we weren’t properly introduced yet. I’m Martin.” I shook Martin’s hand politely without really wanting to, because I knew that if they were heading to his place instead of Josh’s, it probably meant that the chances I’d see Martin again were quite low. Yet another reason for me being annoyed. 

I poured him a large glass of water, squeezed some fresh lemon juice into it and placed it carefully on a small table right next to his head before I switched off the light, leaving just a small table lamp on, and went back to my bed, hoping to spend the rest of the night in peace and get some much needed rest. 

However, the fact that there was Jacob Kiszka, Sir, lying unconscious on my couch right outside my bedroom door, made it a bit difficult to fall back to sleep. I had never been in a situation like this and it made me feel unpleasantly agitated. I wasn’t afraid of him. I just didn’t trust my own feelings. 

I should have been angry. 

But I was not. Not exactly. Not anymore. My heart wasn’t beating wildly out of annoyance. Instead, I felt like a schoolgirl, trapped in an elevator with that annoying boy from music class who was also her crush. There were many conflicting feelings inside both my head and chest; and knowing that he probably wouldn’t remember how he ended up on my couch come morning only made it all worse. 

I finally dozed off, but morning came sooner than I wished it would, and with it a headache. It felt like just a brief moment, filled with restless dreams about me and Jake dancing on the rooftop to Golden Slumbers playing out of nowhere, with sugar snowing down at us and our hands sticky with jam. Then he smeared some on my cheek and peppered it with kisses…

When I opened my eyes, the feeling still lingered, like powdered sugar on the top of my tongue. Soft and weightless like snowflakes, yet it lay heavily on my chest. Together with the lack of rest, it made me feel almost hungover-ish. I lied unmoving for a while, listening to the silence that surrounded me and wondering whether he was still there. Maybe he already woke up earlier and quickly sneaked out after realizing where he was. 

It was unlikely, but I could hardly ever control these self-deprecating thoughts. Especially regarding men. I cursed Josh once again and decided to take a quick cold shower to wake up my senses.

It helped only just a bit. Refreshed, I opened my bedroom door carefully and peaked inside the living room. He was still there, and fast asleep. Slowly, I creeped up on him on my tiptoes, and then spent several long seconds just watching him sleep, before I started to feel like a complete lunatic. But… he looked so peaceful and almost angelic in the milky morning light, lying on his side with his hands folded under his chin, his lips parted and brows relaxed. The glass was empty, and I couldn’t help but smile involuntarily. Once there was a way to get back homeward…

Then I remembered that this was no domestic idyl. I just had a drunk rock guitarist on my couch, and – let’s be brutally honest here – once I got past that dreamy visual illusion, a strong olfactory reminder of this much more prosaic reality hit my nostrils. 

I also had several large chunks of dough in the fridge and a debilitating headache that almost made me question all my life choices.

No, it didn’t.

But all those things had to be taken care of and I had no idea how. I tried to be as quiet as a mouse at first, but after realizing that it could take at least a couple more hours before he’d wake up, maybe even half a day – the time that I couldn’t afford to waste – I took Josh’s previous advice and decided to just ignore him. 

I really needed coffee… to get the stupid dream, and the song, and all my delusions out of my head. Did I forget that he was also a big-headed asshole? Yeah, that’s the spirit. 

It turned out that my worries were groundless anyway. I could make as much noise as possible in my adjacent kitchenette and he wouldn’t even stir. The motherfucker really seemed to be losing his hearing from standing in front of those huge amplifiers and the malicious creature inside my chest chuckled at the thought. 

I took the dough out of the fridge and let it soften at room temperature while I made myself some coffee and started to get everything ready. Clanking of baking sheets, coffee grinder, squeaking cabinet doors…nothing seemed to disturb my sleeping beauty. I kept casting wary glances at him every now and then at first, but soon I got accustomed to the unusual situation and just immersed myself in my work. 

I had my very elaborate system. I could fit twenty cut pieces – meaning ten cookies – on one sheet, there was roughly enough dough for approximately thirty sheets, it takes ten minutes to bake AND I had only four sheets. You can see I had to be very systematic. Preparation is the key and every minor disturbance could be disastrous. Thankfully, I’m a master multitasker. Still, I prayed to all the known and yet to be made-up deities that nothing would happen. No more surprises, please and thank you. 

A few hours passed and the delicious aroma of lemon and vanilla started to fill the room. I was also sweating like a pig, rolling and cutting the dough in haste, always making sure I had enough sheets ready so that there would be no idle time. Focused on the task ahead, I didn’t hear him stir, and my heart jumped in my throat when I finally looked up and saw those beady eyes watching me intently. 

I tried to keep my cool, looking down again quickly. “Well, good morning,” I mumbled. It was almost midday. 

“Morning, Y/N…,” he choked out huskily and finally tried to stand up, which only resulted in him groaning in pain and slumping back immediately. Oh yeah, consequences…

“Do you remember how you got here?” I asked tentatively. 

“I wish I could say I do, but to be honest, I’ve no idea,” he breathed out with his eyes closed. “I was just hanging out with Josh and the next thing I know I’m lying on your couch at blue hour, feeling half dead.” He finally opened at least one eye, just enough to be able to see me.

I nodded and continued cutting the dough. I wasn’t going to make it any easier for him. The timer just chimed and I had to switch the sheets anyway. 

“So?” 

Did I just hear annoyance and impatience in his voice? Oh yeah, a hungover asshole is still an asshole. It shouldn’t have surprised me. “What?” I spat back over my shoulder.

“Care to explain what the fuck I’m doing here?” 

I don’t understand how he always managed to just smash all my buttons with one single blow, and once again he made me see red. I literally threw the next sheet in the oven and slammed the door shut with a loud bang before I turned around and lashed out at him. 

“Oh I wish I knew the answer. Be so kind and ask your precious brother who literally just pushed you through my door in the middle of the night, half-conscious and reeking of whisky, because he wanted to get laid. You’re welcome! Fucker…”

He blinked a few times, obviously taken aback. 

“I’m sorry Y/N.” The tone of his voice changed and for a split second I almost regretted my curtness. Almost. “Just let me call an uber and I’ll be out of here in no time,” he mumbled, checking his pocket, while I watched him struggle with secret satisfaction. That headache must have been hellish. Good. At least I wasn’t the only one. 

He suddenly frowned and started rummaging in all his pockets frantically, including the jacket haphazardly thrown over the armrest. “Where the hell is my phone… and my valet… and my fucking keys. Y/N…did you take my stuff?” 

“What? No! The last thing I’d wanna do would be to prevent you from leaving.”

We were watching each other warily, both equally confused. Then it dawned on him. “I’m gonna kill that scrawny little bastard!” Straightening up, he closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath in a futile attempt to fight off his growing nausea as well as the rage that made his nostrils flare. 

My anger dissipated in an instant… or, to be more precise, it was instantly redirected towards his twin. “I don’t understand. Why would he do that? He knows how busy I am today,” I whined. 

Jake didn’t respond. Instead, he asked for my phone. I quickly dialed Josh’s number and handed it to Jake, because the timer chimed again. 

It went straight to voicemail. 

As I was stacking freshly baked pieces on a tray placed on the small kitchen island which also served as my dining table, Jake leaned against it right opposite to me, looking absolutely miserable. “What now?” 

Am I their mother or what? I couldn’t drive him, but even if I did, he still didn’t have his keys. I couldn’t even call him an uber to Josh’s, because I knew that scrawny little bastard wasn’t there. It became obvious that Jake was stuck with me for at least another couple hours. He kept watching, obviously still waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t answer. Instead, I just sighed and grabbed the rolling pin again, aggravated with both of them and feeling like their hostage, stuck in the middle of their infantile games. The time was ticking, with my perfectly planned schedule already disrupted.

“Let me at least help you,” he looked at me hopefully with those puppy eyes they both shared. Fuckers. Seriously. Quirks of the mischievous nature that at one point decided that one of them wasn’t enough. 

“I think you should take a shower first.”

It was a deliberate jab, and I expected him to retort back just like he always did. I did NOT expect him to widen his eyes in genuine horror. “Is it that bad?” 

I didn’t dare answer that question but my face betrayed me when I looked at him sideways and bit my lip. He grabbed the collar of his shirt and took one tentative whiff. “Oh my god, it is. I think I need more than a shower, actually. I smell as if I slept in a puddle of beer.” 

I immediately regretted that I let him sleep on my couch, but he looked completely bashful and embarrassed and my previous unwillingness to continue helping him was already in shambles.

“Ok,” I sighed and put down the cookie cutter. “Come with me. I have some spare sweatpants. Thankfully, my ass is just as big as yours, but it might be a bit too tight around the waist…”

“Excuse me?” he protested, but otherwise obediently followed me into my bedroom. 

“You’re right. My mistake. Yours is bigger,” I chuckled at my own joke while rummaging in my drawer, before throwing him a pair of my favorite grey sweatpants, an old, oversize flannel shirt and a clean towel. “Everything else you might need is in the bathroom. The washing machine’s down in the basement.” 

“Thank you. Uummm…do you, perhaps, have a spare toothbrush? For friends... and such?” He smiled cheekily, testing my patience once again. But to be fair, he couldn’t have known that there was a shortage of “and such” people ever since I met him, because I just wasn’t interested in anyone else for a while now. 

“Yeah, there’s a couple of them in the purple cabi… oh fuck!” I quickly excused myself, alarmed by the smell of something burning, because I forgot to set the timer…

Too busy trying to stave off the impending disaster in my kitchen, I barely noticed him sneaking around me on his way down to the basement. So, when he knocked on the door a moment later and I answered it, the sight in front of me threw me completely off-guard. Being no stranger to Jake’s exposed chest, there was a strange sense of novelty in seeing him in my own unbuttoned shirt. Paul started singing inside my head again, but only until my eyes involuntarily slid further down, putting the song to an abrupt stop, just like a torn magnetic tape.

I was right about the waist being too tight, which meant he had it pulled down well below his navel, and seeing his happy trail made me scream internally. 

And to top it all off, he still had the towel wrapped around his head. 

I was not prepared for the feral reaction he suddenly elicited deep inside my body, and I’m sure he noticed, judging by the cocky half-smile that followed. I quickly turned away before I would compromise myself further. 

“I made you some coffee,” I nodded towards the steaming cup waiting for him on the counter, while still not daring to look directly at him again. “... and there are some popsicles in the freezer.”

“Thank yo… popsicles?!?” I might as well have suggested cotton candy, judging by the look he gave me, making me feel like an idiot,  so I quickly explained: “Yeah, they’re perfect when you wanna get rid of a hangover. Orange’s my favorite.” I still felt like an idiot. 

“I’m feeling better now.” His tone was kind and friendly, for which I was grateful, and I could hear him smiling, with my eyes still fixed on the small yellow circles in front of me. “I think I’m getting a bit hungry, though.”

“I’m not cooking anything now, Jake!” I placed the last little yellow circle on the sheet with care, before I started kneading another chunk of dough frantically.

“No, I didn’t mea…”

“There’s instant ramen on the top shelf.”

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Yeah, whatever.”

“What are YOU going to eat, Y/N?”

“I don’t have time for such luxuries right now…”

“Y/N!” He was leaning against the counter desk right in front of me again. I hadn’t even noticed him sneaking so close again, so his sudden exclamation made me jump. “You have to eat something. Look, your hands are shaking.” 

Yeah, no shit. But I’m not exactly hungry. There was a huge lump in my stomach, making it quite full. I was getting lost in the sea of my conflicting feelings again when all of the sudden, he put an abrupt stop to it like a fierce wave that sent me crashing on the shore, as he lifted my chin up gently with his index and middle finger. “Look at me, Y/N. I am going to fix us a quick lunch, ok?” 

“Ok…,” I peeped meekly. 

Jake just nodded, bound his damp, uncombed hair in a makeshift low bun with the band he always wore on one his fingers just in case, and started rummaging in my fridge. “Allrighty then! What do we have here…,” he crooned cheerfully.

And just like that, Paul was back… lalalalala.

To be continued...

@thewritingbeforesunrise @fleet-of-fiction @writingcold @lvnterninthenight @its-interesting-van-kleep   @takenbythemadness   @edgingthedarkness @myownparadise96 @gvfstuddedmajesty @jazzyfigz @sanguinebats @josh-iamyour-mama @lyndz2names @wetkleenex-gvf @peaceloveunitygvf @cheersdannyx2 @fleetingjake @lizzys-sunflower @emojakekiszka @gvfmarge @Dayumclarizzel @lipstickittty @clownstarr @gretasfallingsky @musicislove3389 @i-love-gvf @psychedelectable @allof--mylove @sacredsparrow @hearts-hunger

[rainbowolfe]

Famine

Chaos | Pestilence | Conquest | Death

Finally... it is here.... delivered while I was asleep. The song's actually pretty good too.

Famine... and Pestilence, you say. Right after my theory about how Heket and Kallamar favor each other. They are two domains that go hand in hand, after all. Famine breeds disease.

Once again, a summary of the tarot cards first. Heket's cards are: The Bomb, The Arachnid, The Burning Dead, All Seeing Sun, The Hearts I, Telescope, The Hearts II, The Lovers II, and The Deal.

HEKET'S THE FUCKING LOVER?

I——This changes everything. Stop the fucking presses, I would've never guessed in a million years that she was supposed to be one of the Lovers. When she said she sacrificed, she was not fucking around.

Just another summary for now, but I'm having thoughts. Big thoughts.

-A connection to Paean, the Fleece of Fervour's Favor, Hathor, and maybe also Forneus.

-She's potentially missing "a pound of her flesh". In a theoretical sense, she's missing half her heart. One of her loved ones. ((Leshy))

-Either witnessed or was the cause of the wrongful death of a God, resulting in punishment (that eternal night mentioned in Chaos) for all.

-She belongs to the entity represented by the Leviathan Cross.

-Either she is the jealous Lover, and her partner is afraid of her. OR an actual spider is, and she's afraid of them. There are three options, and they're all purple.

-Something happened. Something big. Which leads directly into "The Deal" which most definitely connects back to Leshy dying/almost dying. She traded her owner/master for another.

On to the song!!

I thought the song was oddly repetitive, but thinking on it for a bit... I think that might be the point.

Because no matter what she did or said, the outcome was the same. All the pain, all the sacrifice, it was repeatedly not worth it. "Every vessel is the same." The content of what's said doesn't hold much substance* because it's more about how the content's being used.

Heket's story is a cycle of violence, vengeance, and misfortune that she can't break. (That or it's the irony of how she now has to experience what she subjected others to)

Speak no evil, as we bind the chains Cut my throat bloody, rags hide the pain. Each and every vessel ends the same. Broken, bleeding, underneath the blade.

I believe this part specifically is Heket speaking. The majority of the lines on this track are someone speaking directly to this entity. So Heket can either be this beginning voice or the speaker for the rest of the song. But she can't be both.

And the direct reference to a bloody, slit throat wrapped in rags makes it most likely that this is Heket. It would also be rather fitting for Heket's story to be spoken by a third party, because she can't speak. (And even when given the ability to speak, she chooses not to share)

Anywho.

I've always had the suspicion that Heket and Kallamar were vessels before they were Gods (to act as an opposite to Leshy and Shamura, who would've started as Gods because the being attached to their Crown was already dead). So this line about the fate of vessels interests me.

It could be taken as a throwaway line about the Bishops brutalizing Red Crown vessels, but "underneath the blade" is a pretty explicit reference to sacrifice. Which wasn't something done to the past Red Crown vessels. They would just be killed. And since they never completed their tasks, TOWW wouldn't sacrifice them either.

Another thing. The order of events is presented in reverse. Heket losing her voice comes after binding the chains. Binding the chains came after her throat being slit. Etc, etc. So it can't be talking about the vessels TOWW sent after his exile.

I would think this means Heket was a sacrifice turned vessel. Or a vessel about to face the inevitability of her position, depending on how you split that sentence up.

The one you serve can't help you now You slay my kin; I can't allow You will suffer. To this I vow The crops will wither as I drag you down

*Here's where that asterisk comes into play. Listening to it the first few dozen times, it sounds like Famine is just recounting the events of the game from Heket's POV. Which I thought was weird, because Leshy's song covers the past and alludes to greater events.

But what if these lyrics are about the past? And it's just that history is repeating itself.

This verse would suggest that someone seeks revenge on Heket after she kills their family. And oh boy, did they make good on their promise to make her suffer.

Heket was Damned and/or cursed in a way the others weren't.

Famine and Pestilence Will be your punishment And now your end awaits From which you can't repent

Just like in Chaos, this part is the Yellow Crown speaking through its wearer. First the original bearer, to Heket (and company). Then Heket, to Lamb (and company) but now the words are distorted and glitched.

Corrupted, if you will.

Though it would also be funny if this is meant to mean that Heket and Kallamar themselves are someone's punishment by way of existing.

Make your peace. Creature. You will not leave this temple Make your peace, creature. You will join your kin in slaughter.

Again referencing Chaos, this would be the actual embodiment of Famine speaking. The Old God attached to this Crown. Which, we don't have a name for like the other ones, but they do exist. The one who's corpse is apart of Spore Grotto ((and might not actually be dead in a way that matters)).

At some point in the timeline, Leshy is on the brink of death, saved only by the intervention of others. If Heket killed someone's family, then the logical conclusion would be that they kill her family back. Leshy's on his way out, and they intend to take Heket out next.

Of course they, uh, lose.

This might even be why this section loops and skips so much. They died. That's what the Bishops were doing in Purgatory. Experiencing the same final battle over and over and over again to the point of confusion. Even when they realized what they were doing wasn't real, they physically couldn't stop.

But for all that, there's no clear cut answer to who is speaking to Heket. Someone she wronged. Someone she defeated and forced to join her cult. Someone she's attacking under the instruction/will of someone else.

I underestimated The strength of your resolve Condemned to join the flock and follow And live out all my days in sorrow

Shot in the dark. It could be the Fanatic. They were tortured into submission; Heket is known for her brutality. There was exactly one God they cared about enough to call by name, and she was killed by one of the Bishops. Fanatic was so sure of their own resolve, that even they were surprised by how quickly they broke. And Fanatic's pilgrimage brought them to the Old God in Spore Grotto.

It's pretty heavily implied (imo) that they didn't kill Fanatic, so it would make sense that they were made to join the Old Faith as a Follower. Shamura was interested in their cooperation in the first place. And Fanatic certainly wasn't happy about the loss of their Crown, to put it lightly, whether or not they were recruited.

There is, additionally, the implication that whoever this is was a God of Death.

The crops will wither as I drag you down

Down to Hell. Down to the underworld. Down to the next life. The Realm Beyond. Wherever down is, it's related to the Death domain.

It could be Turua, who literally drags sacrifices down to... somewhere. And who also resides in "the depths".

It could even be Ala, who's real-world counterpart is responsible for both the judgment of the dead and the earth(soil). So the crops would certainly wither if she decreed it.

Pain prompts punishment.

[tai-janai]

Reunite

Path 12: An End

(Chapter Select)

At the bottom of the stairs is the basement. Smooth stone walls and cobble flooring. A lone, barred window that lets in bright white light.

The Other sits at the other end. It does not wear a metal chain around its neck. Held tightly in its hands is a pristine blade. His form has changed somewhat; he looks softer than you remember, and a cape is wrapped around his shoulders.

It looks at you, and its eyes soften. Its lips turn upward for a sad, relieved smile. It is happy to see you. After everything the Echo said, you still feel like he is a part of You.

The Hero:

Hey...

His voice is weak. He tilts his head and watches you approach, but he does not move.

"Did you hear any of that?"

Something flashes in his eyes, like he hasn't figured out if he did or not. Then he scratches the back of his neck.

The Hero:

Yeah, I... The, uh, sound travels pretty well into here.

You sit on the floor in front of him. He seems a bit flustered.

The Hero:

I-it was... a lot of information. I'm not really sure... how to take it.

"How did you get here?"

The Hero:

Oh. I... got really worried after you got taken away by a pair of hands, so I kind of... followed you. It wasn't that hard, I know your psyche pretty well by now. But before this place was anything, I'd already been split from you. Then, I was put down here for... some time. I don't know, time is really weird here. It felt like forever but I know it wasn't.

He looks down at the blade in his hands.

The Hero:

And this thing was here. It's always supposed to be, right? One of those, uh, rules?

"What about the Others?"

The Hero:

Well, I finally reached the end of the last world, so they're probably all together. Knowing them, they're all probably looking for me. I'm only here, though, after I left that last world, there's no part of me left with them at this point. Not 'til I leave this one, too.

The Hero:

That world... At the end, you had been taken over by something, were you? The thing that wanted those Beings dead... The Princess?

You remember the way your body did not feel like yours. The way your mind conflicted with itself, wanting the Being dead, because it was meant to kill you. You remember that fear of death.

The Hero:

Are you okay?

You look into his eyes. Your eyes. His eyes.

"Do you know what you were supposed to be?"

The Hero:

Ah... The Long Quiet, He called it. If you're asking if I was ever that, I don't really know. Your memories are all I have, and all we know is that we woke up in a cabin.

"Did you know you were supposed to slay the Princess? And by connection, me?"

It laughs a little.

The Hero:

I only barely knew there was a Princess, mate. I had no idea what we were or what we were supposed to do. My only sense of purpose came when we saw that first Being, anxious and trapped. We felt bad for it, even if it was terrifying and hated us.

The Hero:

The... idea of killing you feels weird. You're so... me. But I've been doing it this whole time. It's something I was made for, like some... inevitability. It feels obvious until I take the second to think about it.

Its eyes trace the edge of the blade.

"What comes next?"

He thinks. His face contorts in frustration.

The Hero:

I... I never felt like the one making the choices here. He said I am choice, but I don't know how to make any, myself.

The Hero:

He made it sound like three options. I have qualms about each.

The Hero:

I could slay you, the way I was always supposed to. Death and change would be gone, and all of the other guys will get their happily forever after in the places they are now. Or ... We fix ourselves back up to being... what, everything? A god? And then... things will just... keep going?

"And the third option...?"

The Hero:

I stay here with you, and we don't do anything, forever. The cabin crumbles and it'll be just us. And... I'll never see the others again. Nobody will join back together, but, they'll eventually die. I, uh... don't think the guy upstairs would like that too much, though... Um. I... I don't know if I like that one, either. But it is... an option.

You think about these choices. Everything about them scares you.

"Do you have a preference?"

He looks to the side, flustered, and a hint of a smile he's trying to hide. He gestures vaguely at you.

The Hero:

Well, I'm not gonna lie, I-I liked being, y'know, Us.

With a pause, his gaze turns downward.

The Hero:

But I liked being with Them, too.

The Hero:

And... I hate to say this, but they would not like being anything but what they are now. Like, they love you, they really do, they're unbelievably grateful for everything you've done for them- But I... It wouldn't be... what they wanted.

He shrugs and leans his head to the side.

The Hero:

You could do it anyway, though, I guess. They probably wouldn't be able to do much once we're all in one piece.

He looks into your eyes, and his feathers droop.

The Hero:

After everything, would it still be freedom? Your choice, limiting theirs...?

"Why are you making me decide? I thought that wasn't my role."

The Hero:

I don't know? I didn't make the rules here. I'll go along with whatever you come up with. I mean, I am choice, right? The thing that gives you the options...? Not the one making the decisions.

"You clearly have a preference, and it's the one that means I get slain."

The Hero:

It's not like I want you to die. Just, out of everything so far, I don't want what we've given them to go away.

He sighs. You know be is conflicted. He fidgets with the hilt of the blade. He really is more them than he is you. But, you don't blame him.

"I'm scared. I don't know what being a god would be like."

The Hero:

I don't know, either, but this is it. The big ultimatum.

Decisions. You were never made for decisions.

You can die along with Death, and let the others be happy in what remains of the construct for all of eternity.

You can go against the others' wishes and reunite the way the Echo offered, with Death eradicated.

Or you can stay here alone with the Other, keeping him with you forever, while the worlds and the shattered fragments continue on, dying and reforming.

[mskenway97]

Hello! Is it okay to request, a oneshot of TFA Blitzwing x (f!) Human Reader?

Reader that has a split or multiple personalities. they aren't involved with any bots/cons situations yet Reader is a close friend with Autobot's human friend/kid

Okay anon sorry if it took me a long time to show this request, I wanted to do some research when creating this request for you, I hope it is what you are looking for ^^

Tfa Blitzwing x Fem!human!reader

Change of side

Words: 990

Warning: kidnapping, multiple personalities, pet play, soft squeezes

Y/N had always been Sari's babysitter since the robots arrived in Detroit her work had diminished due to the problem of being near them could cause her to become the target.

Besides Y/N preferred to be involved as little as possible of them, just in case some of their personalities came out…. Y/N's treatment wasn't finished yet, she was lucky that taking care of Sari didn't have any problems, but the last few times those voices didn't leave her alone.

When her head allowed it she talked to Sari whenever she could until one day the little girl had told her to meet the autobots in person. Then she was already scared that one of their personalities would emerge… She feared for the craziest ones…. But it was hard to say no to an 8-year-old girl who had good debating manners and saying please all the time.

Y/N set off for the place Sari had told him about, an abandoned warehouse, it looked like a good place for some giant beings to hide. Y/N had a feeling that something was following her.

"Let it show itself" said a voice in her head.

"We are not helpless" said another voice.

Y/N walked faster to find another more secluded place to feel her mind was focused on a target but she was getting more and more scattered.

"Think about the techniques the therapist told you" thought Y/N as she tried to focus on something else.

-Y/N! - shouted someone causing her to shift her focus to see Sari approaching her with a smirk.

-Hey, how's my little girl… Sari? - Y/N said while giving her a hug.

"Sari?" he said again in his mind.

"Who is this little girl?" he said again different.

-Y/N? Are you ok? - asked the red-haired girl worriedly, Y/N shook her head as she nodded.

-Yes, yes everything is fine… You told me those cool robots are nearby, didn't you?

-Well they're my best friends, you'll like them, I think you'd fit in with Prowl you've always liked the calm and quiet or maybe with ratchet you two grunts are the same.

"That's not true!" said all the voices at once.

-I don't grunt all the time - said Y/N as he folded his arms making Sari laugh a little.

-Come on you'll like them in no time… Wait," said Sari as she led Y/N to another place.

Y/N was confused as she saw a jet transform into a tank near the area. Sari was stunned, she led Y/N to another part. I saw that the girl was a bit scared when she saw that vehicle.

"Is it one of your friends?" said a voice in her mind.

"we are running away it doesn't look like it" thought another voice.

-Sari, what's going on? - Y/N asked quietly as Sari saw her pick up the phone to see the tank chasing after them.

-It's Blitzwing, one of the bad guys I told you about! I've alerted the autobots to come as soon as possible… But don't worry, I have this," said Sari taking out the key.

"A key?" thought all the voices in her head.

Before Sari could do anything Y/N acted on another action of her head. Y/N had to get Sari out of here any way he could, before he saw the tank he had transformed into a robot where he shot to block their path with debris.

-Well, well… We got the autobots' mascot - said blitzwing in a happier voice.

-Plus we'll know his location in no time," said Blitzwing with a different face and a different voice.

-Eh? Sari, what's wrong with this guy? - asked Y/N confused.

-Let's say this guy has three personalities in one weird one don't you think? I will never tell you where my friends are! - said Sari as Blitzwing started to approach them.

"What do we do?"

"You should call the police."

"We'll be late."

"The girl is important."

"Be the hero."

Then you finally let go of the voices so that the giant being would focus on Y/N.

Hey, you piece of metal! You sure don't get me," said Y/N, leaving Sari surprised.

Blitzwing's face changed to an angry red one - How dare you piece of meat! You think you can hurt me? - said Blitzwing but he felt that Y/N was throwing stones at him all the time making him leave Sari and focus on Y/N.

Y/N ran as far as she could but was quickly caught by the jet-transformed robot that caught her in its servos.

-Now who caught you? - blitzwing said with a cold face.

Y/N smiled seeing that Sari had just escaped - I won, you idiot - said laughing making the bot squeeze her a little bit hurting her.

-You won't be laughing so hard after I crushed you! - said blitzwing while changing to another face.

-We can have fun with it! - said the funny face.

Not having time to react Y/N was taken to the Decepticons by Blitzwing, they smashed her phone and took her to a cell. One thing the Decepticons noticed was that she behaved differently every day: one day she was scared, another she was angry and another she was angry….

No one approached her thinking you were defective, except Blitzwing who found y/n more and more interesting.

She liked to watch you fight some and others you stayed so tame.

She kept you in her lap while she had you tied up. As he petted you, if he returned to Cybertron he would keep you all to himself.

He liked her changes, he felt y/n were moving.

-Easy, be a good girl and you'll get some more food," Blitzwing said as Y/N calmed down.

If he was starting to like this human, he would keep her forever.

[kirain]

What's your least favorite thing about bg3? Mine's the inventory system. 😒

Okay, side rant before I answer! 😆

I actually really like the inventory system, but I've heard a lot of people say they hate it because it's too open with very little direction, and I know that can be a nightmare for a lot of people. In fact, a good friend of mine nearly lost his mind over it, so I showed him how I organise things and he said it helped. Maybe my method can help other players, too.

When I start up a game, I take a companion's alchemy pouch and camp supply pack (usually Shadowheart's, because I use her the least) and add it to my Travellers Chest. If you don't want your companion to be without those items, don't worry. They'll either pick up new ones on their own or you'll find some extra ones you can give them later. Plus, they don't really need them. I never let my companions pick up food or ingredients, or really much of anything without sending it straight to me. Otherwise I know I'll forget they have it. I also add two additional backpacks to my Tav's inventory.

Then, every three or four times I visit camp, I empty my alchemy pouch and camp supply pack into the ones I stored in the chest. Make sure you extract all of your ingredients before doing this (unless you're getting mushrooms of Omeluum, in which case make sure you give those to him before extracting any ingredients or they'll be destroyed, possibly locking you out of the quest). The moving process can be sped up by opening a pack and clicking "take all", then sorting your inventory by "latest". With the items now in your personal inventory, all you have to do is open the packs in the chest, hit "multiselect", and click each item one by one until you can store everything you desire. This sounds monotonous, I know, but it's honestly really fast, and you'll get into a habit if you do it enough times.

Now, in addition to the alchemy pouch and camp supply pack, I also add two different style backpacks, a crude chest, a gilded chest, and a heavy chest to the traveller's chest. Since I bought the deluxe version of the game, I also have the peculiar clothing chest, but if you don't have one, I would suggest grabbing another gilded chest with a different design. Most of these things you can find on your way to or in the Grove, except the crude chest, which you can find in the goblin camp or in Auntie Ethel's teahouse. But you don't have to be insane like me, you can just use another heavy chest or whatever. I organise them like so: backpack 1—dyes, backpack 2—potions, crude chest—weapons, gilded chest—quest items, heavy chest—miscellaneous shit I can't bring my hoarder self to part with, peculiar clothing chest—clothing/kits.

The two backpacks I carry are used for scrolls and explosives/important items I can use to pass checks or teleport, etc. Arrows I usually split between Lae'zel, Karlach, and Astarion, since they have no magic abilities. Though when I played as a fighter, I also kept those with the explosives. That said, since I'm already giving advice, I highly, highly suggest you give most of your arrows to Karlach, as her blows don't seem to be quite as powerful as Lae'zel's, and Astarion can pull off some pretty hard-hitting ranged sneak attacks. I'd also suggest giving Astarion the Shadow of Menzoberranzan, a helmet you can find in the treasure room in the Myconid Colony. It's invisibility is a great boon to any of his rogue builds.

Other than that, the only items that go directly into my traveller's chest are the big boy explosives (barrels, Wulbren's bomb, etc.) since they're too heavy and I usually send them straight there from the wild. I also put Dribbles' body parts in there, because they're annoying and I hate them, but they don't stay for very long.

As for my least favourite aspect of BG3, I'd say it's the companion management, but it looks like they fixed it with the latest patch! I loathed having to manually dismiss everyone just to swap them out with someone else, then run to that person's tent to add them to my party. I also hated having to add a companion to my party just so I could give them a ring or piece of armour. I'm so glad they fixed it. Thank you, Larian! ❤

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

I didn't want to bring negativity on my last post about face lyrics but while watching I was reminded of this:

I just can't believe the nerve.

The way they try to paint a narrative of sadness and struggle and misery around Jimin's work, when literally everything we've been seeing about it has been nothing short of exhilarating. He struggled what any normal, flesh-and-bone artist goes through while working on something they really care about, but it didn't hurt him. He wasn't hurting. He wanted to talk about the things he felt and his heartache during the pandemic because he wanted to, not because it was a responsibility.

I don't know where these kind of people were when face was announced and later, released; but pjms barely talked about records or numbers. Some even thought those "goals" that army make for each comeback were too high, and that we should aim lower. People were just geniunely excited for music made by Jimin.

The same can't be said for other group of fans who, from the beginning, had the only and sole goal of "breaking records" and trying to fabricate a successful career for another member by force of remixes and versions.

There's something sinister in turning the support that people were/are trying to give Jimin into selfishness and things that have nothing to do with Jimin.

Either way, let's entertain the idea for a second and say it's about selfishness. Then, why Jimin or people who support him can't be selfish? Why is Jimin always the one who has to compromise and not be selfish?

Why can Jungkook be selfish, just take take take and take, but Jimin should be the one to put part of his life on hold or be relegated to the back of the stage?

If having equal opportunities and having fair support from the company means being selfish, then fuck yeah Jimin should be selfish. Who else is going to be selfish for him?

Or is Jungkook going to say "don't restock my CDs because none of my bandmates CDs were restocked"? Is he going to be selfless and say "split the combined versions of my songs because that's what happened to my bandmates too"? Is selflessness even expected from Jungkook or his fans?

Why weren't Jungkook's fans asked to not be selfish and buy only the same amount of remixes as everyone else got, and stream only one version of the song the same as everyone got? Why weren't Jungkook and his fans asked to not be selfish and stop supporting Jungkook? Why weren't they called selfish for asking more remixes of a song that already had 10 remixes?

This fandom is so used to Jimin being the only one compromising everything always, the only one who should put his life on hold so he can sit back and watch at the rest moving on. They're used to treating Jimin like his best trait is being there for others.

And I will talk about jikookers specifically like I've always done because merely three or four months ago I saw them praying and begging Jimin would do stuff for JK that Jungkook has never done for Jimin. I've seen them begging and praying that Jimin didn't enlist after FACE, not because they might miss him or because they worry about his health or want more music from him, but because they wanted him to be Jungkook's cheerleader during his debut. Even though during Jimin's debut Jungkook was selfish enough to never show up for Jimin. He was selfish enough that the only time he "supported" Jimin in person was the time he happened to be at hybe's so he could use their gym, and Jimin happened to be rehearsing there. But of course, it's only Jimin who's not allowed to be selfish.

[marshmallowprotection]

Mystic Messenger 7th Summer Event Analysis

Anyway, you're all here because you want me to talk about what I speculate is going to happen when the photo drops because it will be the 17th when the image is revealed and that means we're going to start seeing it in the early hours of the 16th over here on this side of the planet.

So there is a little bit for me to talk about but not too much because there is not too many details going on but there is enough that I can speculate this or that.

Unknown is in the center of the image so he is the focal point. I am not upset about that because like I said earlier, I didn't expect to see him on the title screen ever again apart from being a cute little chibi. There is a difference between seeing him in the stylized chibi artwork and seeing him in the flesh if that makes sense.

I am about to change my icon on Discord so fast to be Unknown that it's not even funny.

When I noticed that he was clearly holding a guitar, the first thing that came to mind was that merch photo that I shared because it seems as though it is the same purple on the guitar. It is either a very deep red or that hot purple color. I tried to color sample what I could for the surface area of the guitar and it appears to be more pink than purple but you can expect given the fact that Saeran has magenta hearts.

I do miss what he was coded with purple since that is my favorite color but I've come to love pink as my second favorite color thanks to him as a character. See, that color started to appear more and more with Jumin since Jumin's hearts are purple, but it's always interesting to think about how some merch had Unknown with purple and then Jumin with blue back in the day.

I don't think anything is different about his outfit since he appears to be wearing his tank top and jacket, the only thing that stood out to me that was even remotely different was the fact that I couldn't tell if it was a red stripe on his pants.

He has a stripe on his pants but I don't know for sure if it was used here or not. They don't always draw him with his pants showing and when they do, sometimes it can be hit or miss if they add in that little detail. His boots aren't in this photo so I don't get to make a cowboy joke, unfortunately.

The zippers in his jacket aren't always drawn, either, so that is one thing that will never be consistent when it comes to art like this.

That's really all I can tell about him from what we're shown which is why I can't really say all that much about him except for the fact that he is giving lead singer of an emo band. I can't believe we came full circle and we get to appreciate him being the one that invites you to join his emo band. I, for one, I'm ready to join his band and I already have the set list. I'm ready for it.

As someone whose favorite band is Fall Out Boy, of course, I'm ready for it.

Cheritz will sometimes label things with Ray or Unknown, but we'll all know who it is once we scroll down and see who's in the photo. That's just a thing that happens but it bothers me. Ray is not Unknown, but sometimes he's been referred to as such in merch or media, and I do think Unknown was referred to as Ray a few times in the past and it always throws me off. Names matter!

I like when they're labeled appropriately!

I do think the little Twitter event we recently had for the anniversary when they showed us GE Saeran as Unknown, it was meant to be an Easter egg to prepare us for this specific picture.

Anyway, what really threw me off about this picture when I was trying to review it was the fact that it appears to be split into three parts. It would... be easy to assume that Unknown is on the stage with V but that doesn't appear to be the case.

I speculate in this situation that the picture is cut into three parts.

V is in the audience or he's trying to get into the music festival. Rika is trying to advertise with elixir with everything she has in her arsenal. Unknown is on stage doing his best to do what his Savior told him to do. They each have their own corner to play and that's interesting to see. I don't know what I expected when I saw Mint Eye Idol Group... and I still don't know what we'll see tomorrow.

Did you guys know that Monster energy will get musicians to drink branded cans that just have water inside to better sell the product to people? Yeah, that's the only thing I could think of when I saw this... and well, now all of you are going to be aware of it for the rest of your life.

Monster is already bad enough for you, and I don't think you want to hydrate with elixir at a concert.

At the very least, if you wanted to go on a trip, you're definitely going to go on a trip if you drink enough of that.

Because of the way the image is juxtaposed, I think Rika is off center stage or in the crowd trying to sell the product. I don't know where she is but it can't be on stage with him just because of the way the image is.

Which is what led me to believe that V couldn't be on stage with him because of his posture and the poster behind him. I don't know what the composition of this photo is going to be but from what I've already seen here in this blurry promo image, I think it's going to be really visually interesting.

Another thing I noticed when I was looking over the photo was the fact that I couldn't tell what V was wearing. There's a part of me that wondered if he was trying to fit into the crowd by wearing his believer robes. But, I don't know for sure. The color looks dark enough to be that, the only thing I could think of once I had that thought was one simple question:

What if it is band merchandise for Unknown?

There's another part of me that wonders if V is trying to hand out flyers because Rika told him to. Which again leads me to wonder who designed the soda can and the flyers because it certainly wasn't Rika. When she designed something for Mint Eye it is done in a stylized manner that does not lead itself to inviting somebody to join her.

I mean, I don't think you're going to join her when you see her idea of recruiting someone and it's this:

In universe, she thinks she is a great designer but everyone around her knows the only thing that she can make is what happens when you learn how to use clip art for the first time and you go overboard. I love it. I really do. It speaks to me. I think she's great at this style but ask yourself this question, Would you join a cult if this was the only flyer for it?

If something in universe looks good design-wise it's because she made Unknown, Suit Saeran, or Ray do it. I mean, yeah, can those designs be simple? Yeah, but they get the job done. I mean, look at those photos! I feel like I'm being led to Mint Eye, THE CULT, when these photos are given to me.

TLDR;

[mdhwrites]

I've seen a fair share of posts speculating about what Amphibia would be like if, instead of having strictly Anne as the main character, it made Anne, Sasha and Marcy all main characters. Specifically, the Calamity Trio being given equal screentime.

I've loved pondering over this myself, and I was wondering what you think would change if Amphibia was written this way. I know you said more screentime for Marcy in season one would be pointless, given her lack of a supporting cast or growth as a person, but what if the writers could make it work? e.g. Marcy making actual bonds with the newts in Newtopia and getting over some of her issues (while of course not getting over her biggest issue, that being her fear of losing her friends, until season three)

Do you think Amphibia would be better or worse for being the story of the Calamity Trio rather than the story of Anne? How much of what was set in stone in the original canon would have to be changed to make a more purposeful story? Sorry, this is kind of a handful of questions, I just get carried away thinking about this stuff.

In short, what kind of story would Amphibia be if the Calamity Trio were all main characters? And if it could be just as good or better than canon, how do you think that could work?

So this kind of like anytime someone asks for a major change to TOH's plot and why I assume the S3 we got is at least structurally the same to any sort of S3 we would have gotten for TOH (and why it's BS that a full S3 would have fixed the show). Writers, at least good ones, don't make decisions randomly. Who they decide to focus on, how they focus on them, the roles certain characters take, etc. like that is all important to how a story functions at a basic level. That doesn't mean we can't make unintentional mistakes or have unintended choices by how we frame things but that any truly major shift like this presents a very, VERY real problem.

Is this still recognizably the story that was being told in the first place?

This is why people have asked me how I might rewrite TOH to try and fix its split identity issue but I can't. Not in good faith at least. The split identity is still part of the story's identity and that combination of elements is still part of what people enjoy about the work. It was still a choice that makes the foundation of the work. Deciding to spread the focus is a lot like this for Amphibia.

The story is of a big city girl not just getting teleported to a different world but as different as is potentially possible. Not only are these not humans but they're farm folk. There is no way for Anne to properly have a foothold amongst them to begin with and that's part of why she has so much to learn from them and why it takes so much for her to connect with them properly. The contrast, both in magical and grounded ways, is part of what makes Wartwood work so much better as a setting than Newtopia where it's a little too close to what Anne is used to and you can feel that in the tales being told. Some of the wonder and friction is missing, especially as Anne treats it more as a comfortable place to be.

And comfort is a major driving force behind both Sasha and Marcy's places in the narrative. Marcy is still in the big city and actually gets a level of prestige and respect that she's never had before. She is quite literally friends with the most powerful man in Amphibia. Meanwhile, Sasha spends a while in a cell but she can roll out the red carpet for Anne because the toads ADORE HER. They may be less refined than the plebeians she's used to manipulating but they're still dumb and give into base desires, both traits she can exploit, just like she did with Anne.

These are stories that can be told mind you... But they're also the stories we got already. Marcy's flashbacks still give a good grasp on how easy of a time she had it in Newtopia. Sasha's two episodes in S1 are quite literally all we need to understand who she is, why she was able to take power so effectively and sell us on her being someone who's really good at manipulating others, especially the lazy and hedonistic. They could be expanded but...

With Sasha, anyone giving her friction actually starts harming Anne's character. The more unstoppable we think she is as a manipulator, the more we are allowed to fill in the minor gaps in our knowledge with Anne's beliefs, the more she comes across as a genuinely dangerous antagonist. The more we believe that she can control an army of toads, change things with their regime and be the one who knows how to potentially pull Anne back into her worst habits. That she could take what was earned and with one hard yank make it all come tumbling down. More time with her would very easily become detrimental. As a note: This is why big bads don't often get a lot of episodes where they're doing things, instead of their cronies, because the more they're challenged, the weaker they look.

So that's one character who's story being expanded can very easily damage the very foundation of the MC's character arc while also cheapening that character's skill set, what about Marcy? She is a bit more complicated. See, she is actually far less harmed by more time with her as she has plenty that she can learn and the like as a person... But Newtopia doesn't want a person. They want a mind. And not just the Core. Even Olivia makes it clear that she only treasures Marcy for her mind. The other advisors are friendly with her but not friends. They just... don't care about her.

Worse yet is that from the perspective of Marcy as a main character, Newtopia is a TERRIBLE setting for the sort of stories that Amphibia excels at or tries to tell. She is literally friends with the King. She is smarter than almost anyone else in the city and not pushed to really interact with its populace, just the city itself. She also shouldn't be actively seeking its populace because Marcy is not a people person. She wants Wartwood to like her because they like Anne and she doesn't want to be a weird outside compared to Anne there. She is still liked in Wartwood though so without someone ushering her out the door... What is Marcy doing?

And I can come up with things. I could tell you that the way to make Sasha's story work with more time is show different forms of her manipulation as she gains a band of loyal toads. You can give Marcy a non-royal friend who's interested in the oddity and come on, don't you want to see the non-shiny parts of Newtopia and Amphibia? But that's adding more and more to their stories while taking away from the core.

Because suddenly, you have one girl in their element just flexing on everyone around her while another big city girl is... In another big city. You are now spending much less time on the big city girl coming appreciate different, substantially different viewpoints, realize their way of life is just as valid as her lazy way of life, growing and changing into a better person who genuinely values those around her instead of just wanting someone who lets her have fun and do as little else as possible, etc. like that.

For the sake of the trio... You're losing Amphibia.

That is a big sticking point for me and why I still refuse to call Sasha and Marcy main characters. They're important supporting characters, don't get me wrong, but the story is about Anne and Amphibia. Anne and Wartwood. The choices to spend the VAST majority of our time with her and these settings is not an accident. It's not like Matt chose to just devalue the other two main characters. They were used incredibly effectively, they do a lot to help highlight Anne and her growth and act as milestones for it effectively, and Sasha has a LARGE impact on who Anne is at the beginning of the story.

But it doesn't make them main characters because this isn't their story and there is no way to tell the story of Amphibia with them as the main characters. Focusing purely on the friendship and needing to repair it, or destroy it, is likely going to reinforce different themes, or at least different elements of the themes. After all, you can still talk about change but paradoxically, focusing in on the trio like this, even if it means spending more time in different parts of Amphibia, excludes the community element that is so important to Amphibia. After all, now you're splitting focus between three communities and focusing the story on the arcs of these three human girls. That's going to require a lot less time fleshing out these side characters. Diminishes the impact any of them can have on any character. The Plantars do a lot for Anne after all but we understand that it is WARTWOOD that changes her, not just the Plantars. Would we get that if you now had to split the focus this much?

Also, we lose Reunion in any way it is right now because with Marcy taking a more prevalent role, S1 HAS to end with a confrontation of all three. The first time they meet together. To leave any one out would be to diminish their role. Marcy isn't as important, especially to Anne's character, as Sasha is in the version we got so it's fine for her not to be present for Reunion. But... How do you handle Sasha's arc if all three have to come back together at once?

And to justify having brought up TOH earlier, how likely does all of this start a split personality problem for Amphibia? With Anne as the focus, you only get a handful of episodes that aren't genuinely Amphibia. Capital letter Amphibia. You know know what to expect and you know what sort of story is going to happen and that creates a nice, fun, comfortable status quote you can enjoy from week to week. Now imagine if Marcy's writing is still weaker like it was in the show, or the toads fail to be compelling because in order to keep Sasha as the antagonist of the group, they keep just setting themselves up to be knocked over by her and by the third time, it's getting kind of boring? Suddenly, one third of the show is causing friction with someone, especially since all three, due to DRASTICALLY different settings, would cause inherently very different storytelling just because the sorts of issues are so different. This is part of why the vibe of S3B is so different because finally we are not at peace, we are at war. Even the shifts from a guard tower that exploits people, a big city where the MC is treated as effective royalty, and a small farm town is enough to cause some amount of friction to happen between settings.

I'm not saying that this story is literally impossible to tell well but... Man, it'd be INCREDIBLY hard. And, of course, it still wouldn't be Amphibia. It would look like Amphibia, some of the notes would sound like Amphibia, but it would just be a very, VERY different story.

Because like TOH found out after Yesterday's Lie, you can't just change who your character fundamentally is without MAJOR consequences to your storytelling. Splitting your main character three ways is going to yield similarly discordant results without writing the entire thing from the ground up.

But it's not the same story and as I LOVE the story we got, I would say trying to force Amphibia into this mold would only make it worse, if I could compare it at all.

======+++++======

This is by no means a comprehensive list btw of all that would potentially be lost, need to be changed, etc. like that so as to even make this sort of shift for Amphibia work. Like someone in my Discord when I mentioned this ask brought up how the impact of Sasha coming into Anne's life and the tension of Reunion would kind of be lost if we already know Sasha fairly well. It is... Complicated to put it mildly.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past.

I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead.

If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[eriisaam]

I saw your tags on that Cassette Beasts post, and you seem pretty knowledgeable on monster collecting games! Do you have any recommendations for someone who hasn’t ventured far outside the Pokemon umbrella? I’m excited to try Cassette Beasts, and I loved Moonstone Island and Ooblets which had monster collecting elements, and I don’t know if Slime Rancher counts as a monster collector but I LOVE Slime Rancher. Past that and Pokemon, I don’t know much about the monster collecting/taming genre, but I’d like to explore it more!

Yeah! I got some! And I'd argue Slime Rancher absolutely counts! I will also add too that Cassette Beasts, Ooblets and Slime Rancher are already great picks in themselves in the genre. (Though as you are already familiar with them, I'll skip them below, but they're definitely great games.)

Granted, I will preface that while I watched a lot of these games either in terms of Gym Leader Ed's coverage, people poking it, or release trailers and screenshots, I've been limited on time to play them in depth enough to talk about the gameplay or story aspects (with a handful of exceptions), but I'll try my best to help as much as I can! Ed, however, does go into more depth of games, follows news on dev updates (especially games still in development or early access), and sometimes he's done LPs of them outright, and he may still be best to get a more informed opinion on some of these, especially ones I hadn't been able to play myself.

The best part about the genre, especially lately, is that it's gotten more broad in terms of how the games play, how you collect and/or handle the monsters, and what other game they are inspired by and/or play similarly to (and whether or not said game is Pokemon). There's as many games that are the "yay, two cakes!" of Pokemon, just as there's many games who have monster-collecting elements but the gameplay is vastly far removed from it, so my recommendations will be split based on those criteria.

(It's also a pretty beefy list, so I'll put it under a read more)

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In terms of "yay, two cakes!" games (or games that play as close as possible to Pokemon):

===

The Nexomon series

Visually and gameplay-wise, Nexomon has a lot in common with the DS era of the pokemon games in sprite style, and Pokemon in general in combat. The series are turn-based battling with nexomon you catch and evolve, gym-leader-adjacents you battle, and stories directly tied to their legendary nexomon along the same vibe as earlier Pokemon game plots. Both games tend to frequently go on sale (and moreso on the switch) and while the second game improved a lot in some quality of life changes from the first game, the plot is a direct continuation of the first game and thus will spoil and/or assume you've already beaten the first game. There's also a third one in the works slated to take on an open world direction and full 3d instead.

===

Disc Creatures

Like Nexomon, Disc Creatures draws inspiration from a specific generation of Pokemon, but this time the gameboy and gameboy color era. Arguably, it looks and plays like a midway point between the VERY early pokemon games, as well as the Telefang games (better infamously known as the base games which were poorly translated and transformed into what we most-likely know them as Pokemon Diamond (not DPPlt) and Jade). You battle not only with a team of three creatures, but like Telefang, all of them take part in battle simultaneously (rather than a 1V1 fight). (Though unlike Telefang, you don't have to call them or wait on their arrival likewise). Although battles otherwise play out similarly like both respective games (turn-based move-picking battle), the creatures work on individual skill trees based on species.

===

Coromon

Coromon draws a lot of inspiration from pokemon, but takes a more 'spiritual sucessor' approach, rather than base it on any specific gen, and has a unique 2d pixel art style likewise. The gameplay sticks to the familiar battling style of you doing turn-based battles with your coromon, tame and train and evolve said mons, and not only find 'shiny' equivalents, but there's actually two (the base form is called 'standard' while the two other forms are 'potent' and 'perfect'), in addition to certain species also having skins (and said skins also differing slightly to still retain the distinct appearance of the base coromon being standard/potent/perfect, rather than obscure it). A key difference, however, is that in addition to the health of your coromon, you also need to pay attention to their stamina, which is adjacent to PP in pokemon, but universal across all moves, rather than individually-move-tied.

===

Monster Crown

I'll give this cautious optimistic recommendation though I'll explain why so in a moment. In the same way Coromon is more 'spiritual successor' than 'on the nose' like Nexomon in the GBA-DS era of Pokemon, Monster Crown is the same equivalent to Disc Creatures of being more 'spiritual successor' than (sort of) 'on the nose' to the GB-GBC era games like Disc Creatures. Also like how Disc Creatures isn't as closely tied to Pokemon like Nexomon or Coromon, and deviating in its own style or mixing it with Telefang otherwise, Monster Crown has an art style a bit closer to the GBC zelda games (and distinct from it even then), and a much different presentation for otherwise keeping to the 1v1 turn-based battle style familiar from Pokemon. That being said, I say 'cautiously optimistic' as while the devs seem to not only still be in semi-active works updating the game (but especially the PC version), the game does reportedly suffer from a lot of bugs, and I'm made aware too there's reports that the switch version of the game isn't as kept up-to-date on updates nearly as frequently as the PC/Steam version.

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In terms of games similar to pokemon, but with not-so-pokemon-esque mon designs:

===

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition

What were previously the first and second individual games of the Cyber Sleuth series had been combined to package both games in one file (that you can select either/or on bootup) in this version. Compared to a lot of the other Digimon games (some of which I'll bring down further below, just for now, put a pin on that), Cyber Sleuth (both games) feature a turn-based battle format that is a bit more along the lines of Pokemon's, give or take that you battle with three digimon in a party, and some moves vary between targetting one, or targetting multiple targets at once (so if you're familiar with 3v3 pokemon battles ala the 3DS era, this is very reminiscent of that). If you can forgive Digimon having monster designs swerving all manner of ways between 'cute like pokemon' to 'what the fuck is that thing?' to 'Is that a literal pile of shit?!' all the way up to either someone's fursona or 'that's a whole ass person', Digimon Cyber Sleuth is just comfortable enough not to be too wildly far off from how a Pokemon game plays, but also having its own distinct identity in how it handles battles and raising up your Digimon. One key takeaway, however, is that a digimon has a far wider branching path of evolution forms compared to Pokemon, and not all digimon may appear as 'connected' as like a pokemon's evolution family. That being said, even in-game, the game does hold your hand in giving you a hint of which digimon you can evolve (or digivolve rather) your current digimon into (and tells you outright what that digimon is, if you've already obtained one before), and outright tells you the conditions of how to evolve what into what-else.

===

Yo-Kai Watch series

Specifically, I played the first game, and will primarily describe that, but rather unfortunately as the first game was originally on the 3DS, and other than its (also 3DS) sequels, the series had a sharp phase-out of localized releases since then and are only somewhat floating the idea in the Switch era of going back to attempting localized releases again (and I'm not sure if they ever followed through or not). Nevertheless, Yo-Kai Watch is a series far and well more adored in Japan than internationally (it's right up there with Pokemon, Sanrio, and one of its inspos in Doraemon), and it takes what you're familiar with in both the Pokemon style of turn-based battling and the above mentioned Digimon approach, and makes it way more interactable and turn it on its head. For starters, you battle with a team of six yokai, but ALL OF THEM are utilized in battle, with three active at once, and the three others in the backrow. It heavily makes use of the touch screen, so rather than just click commands and make things go brr, the yokai will automatically attack whoever they feel like (although you can pin a specific target, and they'll all redirect to attack that target exclusively instead), but on top of that, while your yokai run on auto-pilot, you instead play a series of mini-games during battle where you can do, among other things: Heal your yokai of a status effect, rotate your yokai set so you can rotate which of your six is currently actively battle, and which ones retreat to the backrow (for you to tend to uninterrupted), use items pretty much on the fly like your typical pokemon heal items, or supercharge your yokai so they'll get to their supers quicker, the effects of which vary between yokai species. On top of that, many yokai evolve into different species, but many others can be fused together to make different species instead, and you primarily collect and swap out yokai in the form of medals you earn when befriending them post-battle (either by chance or scripted-gift otherwise). Yokai also vary on synergy in teambuilding, so if you have certain yokai combos active on the same (active) team, they may gain additional buffs from it.

If you can look past many of the yokai being... uh...

...interestingly designed... the story, the atmosphere, and the yokai and the way they react to the world and each other is incredibly 'sucked into a saturday morning cartoon' vibed and super engaged out of a lot of the monster taming/collecting games.

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In terms of games with creatures similar to Pokemon, but are based on different genres of games:

===

Palworld

Hear me out.

I know a lot of people have misgivings with this game. Some are warranted (there's certain mons a bit too on-the-nose to pokemon), but there's many, many other points that are bad-faith reaches at best (of the "person who thinks Renamon is a rip-off of Vulpix" variety), or outright wrong and long since debunked. I could (and had many times in the past) gone at length about many of these bad-faith points, but for the sake of not derailing the point here, that is best set for a different post entirely.

Palworld, contrary to what many would say, is not actually as joined-at-the-hip close to Pokemon as it seems, outside of the clear inspiration behind some of the design or design-direction thereof of the monsters (and for that matter clearly was inspired by other monster taming games such as Monster Rancher, which I'll discuss lower down, or even cutesy-aesthetic creatures in general like Story of Season's livestock or 90s anime design styles like My Neighbor Totoro). The monster designs aside, they actually lean more in familiarity sense of 'fakemon fangame romhack of a pokemon game' in style direction than 'just pokemon but recolored', and the more you surround yourself in pals, the more you get used to them just in a general sense.

The gameplay is actually much closer to Ark or open world explore-and-build games along the lines (some being similar to a lot of 3d farming or town-building games even), give or take a Breath-of-the-Wild coat of paint. (Worth noting, while a massively beefy game, it's also half the size of Ark proper.) You're pretty much turned loose into a massive open world, one that's surprisingly seamlessly interconnected that you can see far off with a depth a lot like Minecraft in some ways, and you can do whatever the hell you want from there: The world's your oyster. Although it does provide things for you to do (namely the gym-leader equivalent of the Battle Tower Leaders to face off, or certain landmarks that are also achievement-tied), you can do whatever you want with the pals you run into, and gradually craft your way into better and sturdier buildings, unlock more broader items, weapons, and upgraded variants, and get strong enough to challenge more varieties of pals. Although pals don't evolve (similar to Monster Rancher), some species do have different alt variants (usually a different color and element and with a different suffix), and all of them have a chance to have a 'lucky' variant spawn, where they'll glitter, make an audible noise (like Legends Arceus but more prolonged rather than sudden and brief), and they'll always have the Lucky trait, which gives them additional buffs. The pals each individually have different moves they learn either naturally or when given items, up to four traits (good, bad, or neutral) which can be passed down via breeding, and all of them specialize in a variety of different ways, so a pal not fit for battle might have a more utility use. I should also point out that contrary to its sales pitch or popular belief, cruelty is NOT the only option, and is actually far more beneficial (and in your face) about keeping your pals healthy, well tended to and cared for, and them eagerly rushing over to help you any time you try to work on something and then cheering for you after. Resources you would've also gotten in the 'crueler ways' can also be gotten peacefully simply by catching them.

===

Monster Sanctuary

Monster Sanctuary is a Metroidvania style game in terms of mobility around the map and how certain monsters play with it via field moves, but when otherwise caught in the battles themselves, it has a similar turn-based strategy of monsters taking turns trading picked moves and see what happens. Each battle works on a graded system where, ideally, when you complete a battle as quickly as possible with a lot of combos, you get a better grade, and in turn, better item yields for said grade. Instead of capturing monsters, you instead have a chance for a monster you fought to drop their egg, and said egg can be instantly hatched into your own copy of that monster. Each and every monster has a skill tree that can unlock different things from new moves, upgrades to preexisting moves, stat buffs, or certain effects applied to their moves in addition to any inherent abilities they may have. On top of that, certain monsters might have field moves that are useful for navigating your way through the map, including monsters who can activate certain levers, monsters who can hover/fly over gaps, monsters who can help you reach certain heights, and so on and so forth. Monster teams are also key, as carefully-built teams with good synergy can make huge combos, and consistently give you the best drops.

===

Digimon World series

Like I said above, Digimon dabbled on quite a number of games in its clumsy growing pains of finding its own identity. Its initial roots, Digimon World, has a lot in common with its original background as a Tamagotchi spin-off series prior to the anime Digimon Adventures being thereafter (incorrectly) labeled as a "Pokemon rip-off", and thereafter spiraling the Digimon franchise in all manner of weird directions (either loosely related to World like World Champions, semi-similar with Digimon World Dawn and Dusk, all the way up to the above Cyber Sleuth being entirely its own thing). The entirety of the World series (of which include entries like Next Order on steam) has you raise your digimon by assigning them into different facilities and/or training areas, usually, and these facilities can vary between either increasing more traditionally-used-for-battle stats (like their health, or their attack and defense), to outright increasing or decreasing their affinities (elements, in a way, which factor into evolution a lot). Compared to the above Cyber Sleuth where you have more control of when a digimon digivolves, into what, and outright tells you the requirements, World (but especially earlier games, or versions that lean heavily into V-Tamers, another series similar to the World series and is more identical to its Tamagotchi ancestor), leans into you getting more of a surprise when digimon grow dynamically and evolve on their own, based on various factors like whether or not you won/lost a certain number of battles, care mistakes or lack thereof, certain stats being at or above/below a certain point, or their highest affinity at the time, much like how Tamagotchi did. While I can't speak for how Next Order plays (between closer to World, closer to Cyber Sleuth, or a more balanced and in-control combination), the earlier you go back in the series, the closer it is to Tamagotchi's variant style.

===

Digimon Survive

And then there's this game which throws Digimon into a whole other secret third gameplay option. Digimon Survive is part visual novel, and part tactical RPG, so rather than be like a battle style ala Pokemon like Cyber Sleuth, or be a monster care sim like World, it leans heavily on being more like Fire Emblem in gameplay style, and takes everything about the way the digimon partners bond with their human tamers in the anime series, and takes it for a very dark ride instead. This time, instead of be a monster you raise into a gradual and widely-branching tree like Cyber Sleuth, or carefully meter your stats and care styles like World, not only will some digimon be unlocked either when certain criteria are met, or when you beat certain levels, but some digimon evolutions are exclusive to the different branches of the main storyline itself.

===

Monster Hunter Stories

Although the mainline games play very differently, and are more monster slaying than monster taming (with one almost-example, we'll get to that below), Monster Hunter Stories and its sequel take on a different approach of you raising and taming effectively smaller pet variants of the bosses of the mainline games, to use not only as riding mounts, but battle partners in a turn-based battle style RPG. You usually have an active party of three who take turns attacking each, and takes a much more different mood and atmosphere approach compared to the mainline games as a whole. Its worth noting, however, that although Steam does include both games, the switch version also offers amiibo support otherwise.

===

Beastie Bay DX and Pocket Stables

I include these two games in the same note because both of them are made by Kairosoft and are two games of a loooong laundry list of themes Kairosoft explores. Both are pretty tiny, pretty chill and casual games (emphasis on casual), so while some might say it might be a bit too casual as to be boring, they're both very "play on your phone to pass time/run in the background" chill raising games that don't have a lot of the stress as a lot of the above games. Beastie Bay DX is a more focused monster-raising game, while Pocket Stables is a horse derby game with pet raising elements. Similar to a lot of Kairosoft's games, they usually have a tycoon approach to a lot of their different game themes, these two included, as you focus on building or placing facilities or buildings in an open space to various effects, sometimes comboing nearby buildings for added boosted effects, and gradually improving your creatures through where you send them out, what facilities you build, item use, and more.

-------

In terms of games with monster collection and/or training aspects, but not as a main focus:

===

Rune Factory series

By and large the Rune Factory series is a farming game first, along the lines of its siblings in Harvest Moon and/or Story of Seasons. But instead of buying and raising livestock, the livestock are monsters you fight, and depending on the game, so are some of the love interests. You have the ability to fight various monsters and different bosses, and the monsters may vary on various properties, be it to passively generate a certain craft resource (like a lot of the standard livestock in the mainline series), as mounts you can ride for faster transport, as powerful party members for battle, or as helpers who can automate the process of assisting you with chores throughout your farm. This is in addition to the townsfolk themselves, as some of the games (particularly the later ones) also can have you recruit different villagers in addition to the monsters.

===

Monster Hunter Rise

As mentioned above with Monster Hunter Stories, while the mainline games are more about hunting monsters like live prey or active threats, Rise is a slight exception in that it not only continues the trend of past and current games of allowing you to recruit the cat-looking palicoes (or felynes, they go by a few names throughout the series...) which can assist you with various different properties depending on their professions, but also the palimutes, large, rideable dogs who can help you travel faster and jump up certain landmarks. Both assist you in battle, but both have different pros and cons to them, and you might run into in-game generated ones who you can further collect to have more variety in different ones with different professions and coat colors/styles.

===

Meowjiro

Meowjiro is a fairly humble and down-to-earth pixel art game where your primary focus is being a convenience store cashier and employee. By day, you perform various different tasks and try to keep up with the store, including cleaning trash and water puddles, the evidence of a certain shiba inu's crimes, restock shelves when they get emptied, heat up food, prepare soft serves, and of course, ring up customers as they come in.

The mon-collecting aspect comes in the reason you work the grueling life of a one-man army konbini store owner: Your cat(s). At the end of the day, you come home to tiny pixelated cats, who always start off as kittens, and whom you can evolve into a variety of ways based on what you feed them. In addition, you can also spend your hard earned cash on different furniture to decorate your home, or certain perks to make the store job less grueling.

(That being said, as stressful and high-paced as the game is, failing a task only causes a minor pay deduction, not anything super punishing, so it's stressful, but not as stressful as a meaner game could've been.)

===

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle

Hear me out.

Yes, it's a platformer game (or shooter game, or treasure-hunt game, depends on the level), and on the surface, it looks nothing like a mon game, nor plays like one.

However, the reason why it's mentioned here is moreso for a side game included in the game: The chao gardens.

SA2:B is a game that weaves both the main game and side game of Chao Gardens together pretty snuggly. You're provided 2 free chao in your default neutral garden, plus 2 more free eggs whenever you unlock the other two gardens after certain criteria are met. Chao are pure pet-raising, rather than strictly mon-levelling-and-raising, but they have a VERY dynamic approach in not just how they evolve, but the gradual ways they change depending on quite the variety of factors. These can include, but not limited to: The color and style of the egg they came out of (or combo of parents if bred), what animals you gave them (which you can collect animals and chaos drives in the main game to then give to these chao), what fruit you feed them (especially certain bought ones, not just the home-grown ones), and even which character you played as when tending to them all matter. They not only can evolve based on an alignment system, but also later dramatically evolve based on stat combinations you raised them on and which of their stats were the most pronounced. You can further also utilize them in either chao races, or chao karate (though the latter is semi-random in comparison to a typical mon battle game).

-------

Honorable Mention

===

Monster Rancher series (and spinoff Kaiju Master)

An older series along the age of if not predating Pokemon and Digimon, Monster Rancher have mons who (most of the time) don't evolve, are pretty brutally punishing in how to unlock certain secrets or raise and train the best fighting-capable monster who can win all tournaments, and while its a very unique stand-out compared to Pokemon and Digimon, it's a pretty harsh game in terms of difficulty to get used to and jump in compared to the others. That being said, it's also time and again surprisingly detailed about the sheer depth in variety of alts for a given monster, how their genetics work in fusions (and fusions are a pretty detailed feature in this), and its signature quirk that makes it stand out is that the monster you get (when not buying whatever's in the store) are all randomized based on things you feed the game. The first few games can draw all manner of monsters based on what CDs you insert (the steam remake gets around this by merely letting you straight up look up what CD you want, be it game or audio CD otherwise, and gets around it through that), while later games carry on the spirit of the same gimmick ala the key words you type up, or drawings you put into it. The game is not exactly the friendliest in terms of difficulty, but if you aren't scared off by the challenge, nor how dopey a lot of the monster designs are, its worth a mention in its own right.

=======

As much as I was tempted to include other mentions, primarily games not released yet that's coming soon or in the works, I think I blew this post up with way too much words huh orz

[destinygoldenstar]

Disventure Camp Character Impressions *Compilation* (Part 6)

<< Part 5

***

Who threw their vote on Alec then?

*thinks about it*

Jake, why'd you do that? There's no reason.

"I might be thinking about turning on the heroes, you know?"

I feel like one of them is going next episode. From an idol, like I said. But hey, at least they worked things out and they're happy now and they can work through each other's baggage together.

"Screw you VR Simulator! We're not going to Mexico! We're going to CHINA! And we're eating dumplings!"

Oh they're actually strategizing. Okay.

"Hey, we're outnumbered, maybe voting off Grett wasn't a good idea... even if there wasn't any way we could've saved her."

"We must find a way to divide them."

Get them to split the votes on you two maybe?

"Hey, you shouldn't vote me! Vote Alec! He's the bigger threat!"

Then Alec can tell another person the same thing!

And if you ARE gonna convince Ellie to vote with you (somehow), that's 3-2-1, and BOOM. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

...I keep saying I'm bad at this game, but think about it.

"This game is much more than grudges or friendships."

"Meanwhile, we're planning to toy with one of your friend's grudges and friendships."

"Fine. I'll think about it."

"But if I'm gonna flip, I'm don't have to hurt them personally. I have more dignity than to stoop that low!"

"Looks like the Disventure Camp gods are not having a good night."

Are you talking about me? Cause I didn't do that this time.

What happens if it's a tie?

ACTUALLY THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE IF THEY'RE FORCING ELLIE TO FLIP

"Well shit, they both have immunity. Guess I HAVE to flip to save myself. Sorry guys."

THAT makes sense.

"I've been trying to knock over this stupid vase for five minutes!"

You sound like me in math class fr.

"I've been trying to solve this math problem for THREE HOURS."

"I found the clue to the location of an immunity totem. It should be right here."

NO WHY WOULD YOU TELL HER THAT-

Okay he doesn't know of her thinking about flipping, to be fair. But still.

"I sure hope no one STEALS this idol or anything!" (Tom)

They're gonna steal it.

Ellie's gonna tell Fiore & Alec, "Hey guys, I know how to save you guys. Tom has an idol. Steal it from him and use it for the council." (Ellie)

That's definitely a plan!

"I trust that Ellie won't throw her own game with her silly friendship with Jake."

Watch her actually do that and own up to this.

"Yeah, um... so I REGRET what I did. And I would rather us be friends and win this together than split apart and become a monster like Fiore."

*coughs laughter*

Okay you can't make that up.

"Tom's a scumbag."

"I got breakfast!!" 💗😄

"Jake, those fish are poisonous! He's trying to KILL YOU!"

If Ellie ONLY said "Tom cheated on you lol" and that was all it took, then YES, YOU'D HAVE A POINT.

"He's been lying to you, and you're worried about keeping your promises? He's cheating on you Jake. It seems like he's been cheating for a long time."

🔥"Lemme just uh, casually ignite some more fuel to this fire. Hey Jake, remember when you got cheated on in the past? Remember how much that HURT you and DEVASTATED you? Doesn't it HURT BEYOND BELIEF?! DON'T YOU WANT TO BUILD YOUR WALLS AND NEVER TALK TO ANOTHER GUY AGAIN?!?!"🔥

"I'm an idiot!"

"You're not Jake."

"I'm just gaslighting you to BE an idiot."

"It's about Jake and all the drama surrounding him."

What are you doing? I thought you were gonna keep your mouth shut.

What's your plan? You WANT Tom to realize you're using Jake?

"Oh wait, shit! It wasn't Jake's fault this time! Welp, guess our alliance is back!"

But they already voted, so... goddammit...

"Times running out Tom. What'll it be?"

Don't play it Tom.

They're tricking you. Don't play it.

Though that's kinda bad on his end, cause that'd be him saying "Nah, fuck you Jake. Go to the bus and drive it to hell."

"Do you have any idea what you did? You got Tom mad at me AND you voted him out!"

"Do you think I get some sick pleasure from this?"

"Maybe you do!"

"I feel terrible, Jake."

"Oh don't pull that crap with me!"

"You can't just say 'I'm sowwy' and expect me to forgive you for something that HURT ME THAT BADLY."

...

Flash back to every time Jake said sowwy and didn't get forgiven.

BUT despite the hypocrisy, I'm still on his side in this argument. I'm sorry. He has every right to be pissed.

Miriam's just walking by completely out of this XD

"Eh I'm chilling. Where's my coffee? Elders can drink coffee, right? I'm just chilling and making white noise out of this."

"And none of it is targeted at me!"

...

HOW?!?!?!

HOW IS NO ONE AFTER YOU?!?!?!?!

HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!?!?!?!

YOU SHOULD HAVE THE BIGGEST TARGET ON YOUR BACK!!!!!

YOU MADE THE PLAN. YOU BETRAYED SEVERAL PEOPLE. YOU CAUSED THIS FIGHT. YOU DECIEVED EVERYONE IN THAT ELIMINATION.

HOW IS NO ONE AFTER YOU?! THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

"Don't you get it Golden? I'm the villain! Therefore I'm completely excused for everything I've done!"

SURE. EXCUSE THE BEHAVIOR OF THE ONE PERSON WHO ORCHESTRATED THE WHOLE THING.

SURE.

Oh, BYE ELLIE XD

Is this cause I gave Jake slay pass?

I know HE didn't do this, but uh...

"You know, Golden told me to get revenge on Ellie, well here you go."

I DIDN'T MEAN KILL HER.

"There's a scorpion here."

"More reason to dip."

"I'm gonna DIE." (Alec)

"See you in hell." (Ellie)

"Do you think we're gonna trust you?"

"Cause uh, I think I learned something from last time!"

"I may or may not have threatened the hotel receptionists so they would tell me the truth."

Oh my god Gabby, I love you XD

"I did all your spy work for you! You're welcome! Torture always works!"

(No it doesn't)

"I should call child protective services on you, you know?!"

Is that directed at Miriam or me cause I'm routing for Miriam to hurt you?

Would love to see that in court.

"Did you attempt murder on Mr. Jake... whatever his last name is?"

"Um, I'm a kid your honor."

"I'm going to take that as a yes."

Ellie looks so done.

"UGH, consequences for my actions SUCK."

"Bruh? Why you pissed? I only took advantage of you, triggered some PTSD, betrayed your trust, lied to you, and ruined your relationship for my own personal benefit to win money. You ask me, you being pissed at me IS TOTALLY UNCALLED FOR."

"I WAS THE PLAYING THE GAME. THEREFORE, IT DOESN'T COUNT."

I imagine they were there for hours of Jake just nonstop ranting.

"I hope you know, Ellie, I am PISSED at you. And Golden told me that she wants me to give you karma. Well here it is! I WILL NOT SHUT UP FOR THE REST OF THE TRIP."

Continued In Part 7 >>

[we-cross-universe-king-relate]

my adventures with Justice League part 3.0

As I've said before this is a headcanon of who I think would appear in my adventures with Superman how they would appear and what they would appear like as I've said it will also focus on the themes of young adults and their maximum age limit will be 22 to 23.

The next person is not a member of the Justice League but has some relation to them. The next person is: Iris West

This version of iris is already a reporter and is dating Barry. she is sent on an assignment too metropolis to investigate Superman, supergirl and flash. Before heading to metropolis she goes on one more date with Barry before telling him that it'll be a while before he sees her due to her assignment to metropolis. When Iris gets to metropolis right away she sees Superman, Supergirl and flash (even though he's Central cities defender) in the heat of a battle with a bad guy.

After the battle Iris approaches them but when she asked for an interview with them they immediately bolt. Even though she told him that she would be in metropolis Barry was completely shocked to see that Iris was in metropolis and going to the site of a really dangerous fight.

Later on Iris runs into Barry, Clark, Kara Jimmy and Lois. She surprised to see Barry in metropolis because he never said anything about going which causes him to get all awkward once the awkwardness passes very introduces Iris to Clark Kara Jimmy and Lois he also mentions that she's his girlfriend.

After introductions Iris gets to the point by talking to Clark, Jimmy and Lois about what they know of Superman, Supergirl and flash but none of them give any information to her which makes her stick to the group because Barry is there.

Her time in the group gives her time to get to know everyone

Iris and Clark get along very well she appreciates his boy scout demeanor and good-hearted personality.

Iris and Kara get along well too and Iris buys ice cream or Kara making Kara like Iris all the more.

Iris and Lois have a sort of friendly rivalry type of friendship due to both of them being reporters and due to both of them even looking into the stories of Superman Supergirl and flash causing the two of them to get really competitive with one another.

Iris heard about Jimmy's flame bird stream but didn't take it seriously until after the Superman fight with the giant Kaiju so at first she doesn't take him seriously but afterwards she starts taking him seriously given how his flame bird stream and how he's the leader of the flame bird division of the daily planet she shows him a lot of respect.

Iris and Barry are girlfriend and boyfriend so they're very lovey dovey with one another but compared to Lois and Clark the two of them are a little more prone to making out even in public with more hand holding than the two of them.

The best way to describe Iris in a group of friends is the "person with a lot of passion and drive for what they do but is more responsible about it."

Another bad guy attacked causing all six Iris, Barry, Clark, Kara, Jimmy and Lois to split up with three in one direction and three in the other. Clark Kara and Barry go after the bad guy attacking while, because Iris still doesn't know that flash is Barry, Iris gets Jimmy and Lois to help her look for Barry Clark and Kara. However the fight makes its way towards Iris, Jimmy and Lois with Clark, Kara and Barry following from behind but unluckily the bad guy finds Iris and uses her as his hostage causing all three Superman, Supergirl and flash to stop.

Knowing that they needed to be the bad guy Iris decides to bite said bad guys hand to free her from his or her grip but doing so causes the bad guy to snap and slap her away which sends Barry into a bit of a rage full speed punching the bad guy even yelling "no one touches my Iris!" Through the pain Iris hears what flash says and is surprised because of what he said that's when she decides to put two and two together.

After the fight Clark, Kara and Barry get back into their civilian clothing and find lois Jimmy and Iris. When they get back with each other Iris immediately goes to Barry and hugs him even saying that she was worried about him but this turns out to be a small ploy to get close enough to open his shirt and find his flash suit underneath.

This causes Barry to freak out and try to explain but before he could say anything Iris puts two more pieces together and even calls out Clark and Kara on being Superman and Supergirl. While Clark is better at maintaining his identity Kara is not so good and even doesn't even try to deny that she is Supergirl which in turn proves Iris right when she says Clark is Superman.

Before anyone could explain Iris simply laughs but it's mostly directed towards Barry because she had a feeling he was hiding something from her and as it turned out she was right. The sudden burst of laughter really cut everyone off and Barry mostly. Once Iris settled down she let Barry and everyone explain Barry even asks her when she started to suspect he was flash Iris simply responds that she didn't know he was the flash just that he was hiding something from her she had no idea that Barry was flash.

Realizing the secret she discovered even though her assignment was to find information on Superman, Supergirl and flash, Iris decides to keep the secret and writes a report without exposing them.

After everything Iris decides to go back to Central City and is joined by Barry but she exchanges her contact information with Clark, Kara, Lois and Jimmy so they can be in touch and after everything Iris becomes the 7th member of their group.

[bleaksqueak]

I would read an entire book about the magic system and study in Solivaga… i love intense worldbuilding. Do sigils retain/transmit energy or intent through a shape or letter system? Neither, and simply have to be unique and enchanted by the Magi making the sigil?? Or is that more the concept behind Loci… Maia can use sigils, but cannot make her own? Does the attunement of the caster affect the sigil?

None of these are specific questions, I just love the amount of detail in everything. (But if you want to answer anything… I would not stop you 👀

On the other hand if you’ve answered any of this before ignore me)

So I've been wanting to answer this one since the day you sent it, but between my backwards sleep schedule and being busy, I just hadn't had a moment to or the brain power to... yet, today I am here. Sigils absolutely retain the energy and intent spent to make them. You might notice in Chapter 2 when Prof. GB gifts Maia the imbued sigil, even when dormant, it's radiating *her* aetheric signature's color and energy. When activated, the Trapper's Thrall retains the aetheric signature of the magi who originally cast it. Maia remarks later that it's always ever been borrowed magic-- because, to her, especially, it has. She's never seen her own magic's signature, but she's seen, through these pre-cast imbues, the magic of others. Madame Zoe, the owner of the Apothecary (and knickknacks) shop that Maia works at, sells imbued sigils that she (and Maia's coworker, who we'll meet in another chapter) make. There's other shops around town where they can be purchased, including specialty shops that sell them for convenience, younger/elderly magi, and as general disability aids for those who need them. Their most common usage is simply that of convenience-- a sigil cast has already had that aether spent, stored, and replenished for the magi who made it, saving the need to expend further aether in the now for someone who needs to catch some pests or who wants to have their floors swept up and cleaned. Cooling down, heating up, a spare light, pain relief-- even party tricks, ready made sigils are great usage for convenience. As for how they're made-- The spells all have a precise shape language that builds their foundation. The trapper's thrall I did three stages for in chapter 2 -- the precise geometric perfection of the spell in its official state, I did Madame Zoe's handwritten version, and then I did Prof. Gwennebat's.

You can see them here... the slight differences between the two quickly hand written ones, and the perfected model. The spell in its entirety is written in the sigil itself, and the more complex the spell, the more dynamic the working parts of the geometric language that comprises it. Madame Zoe is older and never became an eidolon, but her work is enough to catch some Mice or Gallynappers (you know, crane flies!) like Maia said. Gwennebat is, however, an eidolic expert in her field, and her shorthand writ for this spell reflects a stronger sense of knowing exactly what must be and where. Each spell must maintain the exact necessity of the language to summon it, but new ones can be made (Granted, this isn't exactly an easy task, and a great deal of the most commonly used spells used by magi within the veil were all coined by a single, well documented scholar from the time before "the worlds were split", as Prof Rasputin put it.). It's a very pictographic writing system with individual sigils themselves feeling more akin to a writing system like kanji, but it's not advised to string a bunch of sigils together to form a cheeky sentence. That's how buildings get evacuated at worst, and angry neighbours at best. As for Maia, before I end this-- Maia can use any sigil so long as she has her vial. Her vial may not be attuned, and it may be magically weak as all nascent aether is, but the vial casing itself and the housed nascent aether still behaves as the catalysts of will. So long as Maia provides these things and enters the mental state required to connect to and summon from the pre-cast sigil, she doesn't need words of invocation, the spell will activate. She carries a fairly large stack of varied, commonly needed sigils with her at all times in her bag. Those imbued on slips of parchment are sadly single usage, so she needs to restock fairly often... luckily, Madame Zoe is fairly generous with her and gives them to her free in exchange for a little bit of extra work around the shop.

[tir-na-dean-au]

Tir na Déan AU

Probably going to get seen by like three people, but, oh well, I feel like yelling into the void about a MCYT (mostly Hermitcraft and Empires SMPs) AU I may or may not eventually write, with loads and loads of Celtic mythology references 'cause I'm a nerd and proud of it.

So, most people are probably familiar with the idea of a "fae realm", but if you aren't, here's a short rundown:

There are multiple "worlds" or "realms" in almost every mythology. The Nine Worlds in Nordic, Tir na nOg in Irish Celtic, Olympus and Hades in Greek, and so on. These realms or worlds often exist parallel to our own, to the "mortal" plane, and to any other plane of existence. This is a very basic explanation, for an absolutely fascinating subject.

In this AU, I grabbed the idea of the Celtic Otherworld (Tir na nOg) being split into various "courts" (or, rather, worlds!), and booked it like a child with five cookies stuffed in her mouth.

So, me being a mythology nerd, and also a Hermitcraft fan with way too much time on my hands and way too many AU ideas, thought up the idea of the "Tir na Déan", or "Land of the Craftspeople" (because, y'know. Craft. Minecraft).

Effectively, each server in the MCYT is a different "court" of Tir na Déan, with smaller groups within each. I.E., in Tir na Impirí (Empires SMP), everyone who lives in Tir na Impirí is part of the Caisleán na Impirí, while someone who lives in Sanctuary, for example, is part of the Caisleán na Impirí and the Caisleán na Sagrario, as Sanctuary is just one small part of Tir na Impirí.

(I really hope this makes some sense.)

But! It's about to get more complicated!

See, there is, of course, more than one realm. There's Tir na Déan, as I've already explained; there's the mortal plane (which I've yet to name); and there's the land of the dead, which is largely irrelevant so far (and also currently unnamed. You can tell where my focus has been since I came up with this idea. Fae are much more interesting than us mere mortals). There's also a few others, but they're loosely connected to the main three and not currently important.

Now, while Tir na Déan is effectively in a permanent state of sword & sorcery/steampunk (because iron is a big no), the mortal plane continues to change and advance, up to the current day. The worlds do still interact, though not as frequently as they once did; they kinda view each other as "fairy tales" for the most part, stories told to children to make them eat their vegetables or go to bed on time, on both sides. The fae are just as scared of humans as humans are of fae. See, the humans have tales of fae eating people and stealing children, and the fae have tales of humans slaughtering trooping faeries and torturing their own out of fear of changelings (which are, in most parts of Tir na Déan, completely illegal. Symbolically. Like how it's illegal to build on a fairy mound in Ireland). Humans scare fae, and fae scare humans, just as people who are different often do.

But, of course, there are places the worlds collide. Places, on the mortal plane, like Brú na Bóinne (an Irish sidhe-mound), where the Veil between the worlds is said to be thinner and allow magic to seep through. In Tir na Déan, these places are where magic is weak, because it's magic that keeps the Veil intact. Opposites, once again, as faerie and man are want to be.

Now, because there are places where the worlds touch through the Veil, there are always going to be people who know about the other side.

Hence, we finally reach the Hermitcraft portion of this post, after... six hundred and twenty-five words. Welp. I'm more long-winded than I thought.

So, the Hermits are their own court, made up of fae who, for some reason, want a court but don't have one. There are characters who, like Grian, bounced from court to court, never really belonging anywhere until he found this chaotic court of madmen. There are others who, like Scar, were forcibly removed from their court for a variety of reasons, or, like Cub, chose to leave it. There's people from different worlds, like Cleo who came from the land of the dead, or Joe who was born on the mortal plane and just left. There's loads of different reasons they've become Hermits, or, as their court is known, members of the Caisleán na Díthreabhach, the Court of the Hermit.

(Definitely a stylistic choice, and not the fact that I can't figure out Irish plurals yet. Nope. Definitely not.)

So, the Caisleán na Díthreabhach are effectively cryptids, even to the fae. They're known as either the Caisleán na Díthreabhach, or the Caisleán na Strainséir (Court of the Outsider); they just kinda show up places, solve conflicts, and leave. Which, in my opinion, is very Hermitlike.

They appeared in the Caisleán na Brionn. And now there is no Caisleán na Brionn, just a few survivors who spoke of magic like they'd never seen before, and of friends and family who left with them. Some of them returned. Some of them didn't.

(Court of Dreams. Most of you probably get what happened.)

But they're also known to humans, too. Sort of.

Their court is built right on the border between the mortal and the fae lands, the place where the Veil is weakest.

Ohio.

To the fae onlooker, it looks like an imposing fortress. To the human onlooker, it's just a town with a really weird vibe. And yeah, there's loads of cryptid sightings in the area, but that surely isn't related to this strange little town that freaks everyone out, and whose inhabitants all give off really Uncanny Valley vibes. Surely. That's a stupid thought.

But there are also those who know. Humans who know that this weird Ohioan town is the place to go to find themselves on the other side. Fae who know that the Caisleán na Díthreabhach is a way out.

And it is. If you know where to go.

But even those who know would not dare do them harm.

After all, He Who Keeps The Void is their king. After all, He Who Walks With Spirits holds his banner aloft. After all, They Who Watch will warn him. After all, He Who Fears Not Iron crafts their blades. After all, She Who Death Cowers Before rallies his armies. After all, He Who Is Fear stands at his right and He Who Turns Winter Red at his left.

After all, the Hermits will fight.

And they will win.

[hollywoodsargeant]

Hello again, UK reader here

I'm sorry but A RED CARPET FOR PROM?????

When I had my Y11 prom (which i guess is kinda like junior prom) we had on some boat on a river and there was like no food/drink or anything and it was kind of crap but the boat was cool. But the senior prom is just on our school hall which is kinda old and falling apart and it just makes me realise how different American school is.

Like I know it was different already but on this scale it's just so insane everything you guys do is just so much bigger. The football (im still tripping balls on how big of a deal that is, if you were to wear something with your bf's name on it you'd get bullied immediately) and the prom is just so so mad to me.

Screaming because a new chapter of course i would scream but now i am living in nervous fear of chapter 12 after what was said. Incredible once again!! 🩵💙

YEAH. i know for a fact not every school does that and my high school was weird for it but it amused me at the time and it amuses me now so i figured oscar and logan's high school would do it too... i've talked to my friends about it and yeah none of their high schools did that. but it was very much like. you had to walk that red carpet to get into the venue (maybe if you were late you would've skipped it idk) and it was the most horrible system to get that fucking index card with your name on it bc it was literally three people standing around a parking lot with different sectionf of the alphabet but that's like. a fuck ton of cards. and you'd stand there and wait for them to pick through and find yours while they're also looking for 12 other people's IT WAS A LOT but it's part of the experience methinks

my prom was in like a. i actually don't know what it is. i think it is just an event venue. but somebody's dad owned it so the school would host prom there every year they still do it there... but a lot of my friends were like. oh we had prom at our school. like on the football field or in the gym. but mine was off and there was a dramatic red carpet and it was. well. dramatic

but yeah american high school sure is a thing. if i'm not mistaken? i think we make a bigger deal out of high school graduation too? like oh. that's actually why i'm scared of chapter 12 lol nothing bad really happens there's just a lot i want to put in it so i fear how long it's going to end up being... sure i could split it into two chapters but as seen with the length of chapter 9 i am stubborn and i refuse. so i will just continue to be afraid of it

in the meantime though. chapter 11. i alr have some scenes written for it so we're starting strong