#this game calls them storytellers though

[vtmchronicle-journal]

I’m finally done. I’ve finished all the prep-work I can possibly do without knowing the PCs yet, my map is visually appealing (to me at least), I have enough of the book’s NPCs organized (the rest won’t be relevant till later if at all so I can add those at my own pace), and I think I’ve found a music set up that actually works for me.

So I’ll just spend tonight sorting the music into categories, and then I can start looking for players. It shouldn’t be difficult, on the two wod discords I browse games always seem to find players quickly. Like yeah the time I’m free is weird cause most people are free later in the day and I’m actually free around noon but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

I’m so excited, I’m actually going to run this. It’s been literal years since I’ve run anything. Last time I ran a game for people other than family was before I transitioned cause I wanted to wait till my voice wasn’t screwy anymore. Very happy to be trying again, crossing my fingers that it goes well.

[thegracefullion]

10 Generations. 10 Different Heroines. 1 Legacy. Welcome to the Literary Heroine Legacy Challenge! I’ve been itching for a good legacy to revive my love for the Sims 4, and I haven’t found one so I wrote one myself.  I was inspired after reading Emma— the family dynamics, drama, and romance were everything I ever wanted in a Sims challenge. So I modernized the stories and adapted them to fit this game.  Special shoutout to Designergirl81, who I met through MissLollypopSims’ Discord! The generations of Anne of Avonlea and Dorothy were their brainchildren. 💗 I designed each generation to reference a famous literary heroine. This is a very story-oriented challenge but feel free to bend, tweak, and change as much as you can! Sims Challenges aren’t meant to limit your fun. 😉 TL;DR: Play your own way while letting these rules guide your storytelling! The official tag of the challenge is #TheLiteraryHeroineChallengeTS4. Have fun! Check out the rules here or keep reading!

Basic Rules

Play on any life span you want but I recommend playing on Normal life span.

You are encouraged to play with female heirs. Of course, this is optional!

You are discouraged from using money cheats. Some generations have stories that are related to their social class— so try to stay true to the story as much as you can.

You can live wherever you want unless the generation states otherwise.

Feel free to customize each generation’s race and sexual orientation

Unless specifically stated, each generation has to finish their aspiration and career.

Even if most of these books are classics, I wrote this with a more modern take on it. You don’t need any mods or CC to fit the eras’ aesthetics— but if you want to, you totally can!

⭐ means there’s a recommended mod for this!

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 1: Elizabeth Bennett 📚 Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to play you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart. 📚

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that all Sims 4 challenges must start with an heir. In this case, that’s you, which is surprising because everyone else in your life has decided that you are plain, especially when compared to your other two sisters. Lately though, you start to sense that you’ve been getting more attention from your neighbors. One particular Sim hasn’t been able to leave you and your family alone… and you don’t like them at all, not one bit. Well… maybe just a bit.

Aspiration: Successful Lineage 

Traits: Family Oriented, Hot-Headed, Bookworm OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Journalist

→ Master the Writing skill. → Live in a rundown family home passed down by your parents with two sisters until you are married. → Have a negative relationship with a neighbor. → Reject a proposal from your work boyfriend. → Build a relationship with your neighbor after you reject the proposal of your ex. → Have a scandal involving one of your sisters that your neighbor supports you through. → Fall in love and marry this neighbor then move in with him. → Have two children.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 2: Emma Woodhouse 💗  It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.  💗

Growing up, you were always the sheltered one. Your father was very protective of you, and therefore never let you out of his sight. Of course, that didn’t stop you from becoming well-loved by the entire town. You were known for throwing the best dinner parties and befriending everyone your father and mother knew. Needless to say, this got to your head a bit. You weren’t arrogant, you were confident. In everyone’s eyes, you could do no wrong. Well, everyone except your childhood best friend— who was never afraid to call you out for being a bit clueless at times. 

Aspiration: Neighborhood Confidante OR Party Animal

Traits: Self-Assured, High Maintenance, Music-Lover OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Romance Consultant or Lawyer

→ Master the Charisma and Piano skills. → Host at least 5 gold-star dinners. → Have a childhood best friend who’s a bit older than you. For example: When you’re 17 (end of teenage years), they’re already 20 (start of young adult years). * → You can’t have good friends who are your age until your childhood best friend ages up into a young adult. → Make a new friend that you treat like a “project” until you two fall out. Choose if you two will reconcile in the future. → Profess your love to your childhood best friend during a heated argument. → Marry your best friend and live with your mother and father in your childhood home until your parents die. Have one child. *It goes without saying to only get with your childhood best friend when the two sims are both young adults 🙂 No super uncomfortable age gaps, please.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 3: Scarlett O’Hara ✨ “Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back.” ✨ All your life, you grew up spoiled. Your mother and father were so in love, and you almost expected to have a story as romantic and easy as theirs. However, when your high school flame elopes quickly with someone else right after graduation, you start to spiral. No longer able to get things your way, you begin to self-sabotage and jump from relationship to relationship. Deep down you know you should stop and smarten up but frankly, my dear, you don’t give a damn.

Aspiration: Soulmate— you fail this 

Traits: Materialistic, Genius, Jealous OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: None until your divorce then become a Manual Laborer + Barista

⭐ Recommended Mods: Healthcare Redux Mod, Extreme Violence Mod

→ Don’t master any skill. → Have a high school flame who elopes with someone else. → Elope immediately with someone else. Have them die tragically.* → Marry another person quickly who you have bad compatibility with. Get negative romance with them right before they pass.* → Marry a third time. Have them catch you in a compromising moment with your high school flame, which leads to a divorce that leaves you with nothing. → End up working two part time jobs to keep your household running. → Have 4 kids with your 3 husbands (you can cheat for twins, if you want). *You decide how they die. I recommended having mods like the Healthcare Redux and Extreme Violence in your game for realistic roleplay reasons— but if he gets tragically eaten by a Cowplant that works too! 🙂

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 4: Jo March 🧾 “When the first soreness was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received.” 🧾 Growing up was not easy for you. Your childhood was incredibly unpredictable with your mother jumping from relationship-to-relationship. And when things started to stabilize emotionally, you ended up in poverty.  Luckily, you had your siblings to cling to, and a passion for writing that’s unmatched. You wrote a ton of things across different genres, except for romance which you didn’t quite understand. In fact, everyone always expected you to be a little woman, not rough or wild, but you knew in your heart that’s not what you were destined to become.

Aspiration: Best-Selling Author

Traits: Creative, Unflirty, and Ambitious OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Author

⭐ Recommended Mods: Writing Career Overhaul, SNB Banking

→ Master the Writing and Logic skills. → Be best friends with all of your siblings. → Start selling short stories as a teenager to help pay the bills. → Get a best friend in high school who professes their love to you during graduation. Turn them down. Optional: Have them marry one of your other siblings. → Move away to the city to focus on your writing. Always send 30% of your income to your mother until she dies. → Due to a tragedy in the family, adopt a child of one of your siblings.* → Win a Starlight Accolade for one of your novels. → Never marry but live a fulfilling life. *They are to be the next heir to preserve the bloodline. You can adopt more if you want.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 5: Anne Shirley 📖 “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” 📖 You were adopted by your aunt and lived a happy childhood. Despite being surrounded by family drama, you never let it dampen your spirit. You struggled with social cues and caused mayhem wherever you went— of course, that never stopped you from making your voice heard. You were, afterall, raised by someone who was never afraid to make a point. However, unlike your aunt, you always longed for romance. You always imagined big declarations of passion— but perhaps it’s time to learn that love creeps to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways.

Aspiration: Academic OR Soulmate

Traits: Romantic, Socially Awkward, and Loyal OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Education Career

⭐ Recommended Mod: Education Overhaul

→ Master the Research and Debate skill. → Have a childhood enemy that you become best friends with in high school. → Go to University and study Language and Literature. → Fall out with your best friend while in University. → Start dating someone you meet in University but break up right after graduation. → Get a job in the Education Career and write on the side. → Reconnect with your former best friend and realize you love them. → Get married to your best friend. → Retire from the Education career and become a freelance writer in your twilight years.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 6: Nancy Drew 🔍 “I don't promise to forget the mystery, but I know I'll have a marvelous time.”  🔍 Every bedtime, your mother read you stories that she and your grandmother wrote. Among all of those, it’s your grandmother’s mysteries that impacted you the most. There was something so thrilling about being a heroic, fearless woman who helped others out. Because of this, you gained a bunch of friends who loved you very deeply. With their support, you grew up as a well-known detective who can solve any case.  It was a fun life, but you eventually settled down in Henford-On-Bagley to have a family of your own.

Aspiration: Friend of the World 

Traits: Generous, Nosy, and Outgoing OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Detective OR  ⭐ Zerbu’s Simvestigations Mod

→ Master the fitness skill. → Be close friends with both your parents. → Have 2 best friends who are either your roommates (Discover University) or live in the same apartment complex as you (For Rent) for your entire YA life. → Get engaged to someone you meet on-the-job. → Before marrying your fiance, go on a trip to Selvadorada with your 2 best friends and explore the Jungle Temples. → Settle down in Henford-On-Bagley and have a farm life of your own. → Never move away once you settle in Henford-On-Bagley.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 7: Dorothy Gale 🐶 “If we walk far enough, we shall sometime come to someplace.”  🐶 Growing up you knew that there was more to the world than what was outside your own backdoor.  Afterall, your mother was a famous detective— if she went on her own adventures, why can’t you?

With her and your father’s support, you spend your young adult life traveling. You made some great friends along the way (and even some loves), but eventually you start to wonder if there is no place like home.

Aspiration: Local Aspirations— complete at least two

Beach Life

Mt. Komorebi Sightseer 

Fount of Tomarani Knowledge

Traits: Adventurous, Dog Lover, and Loves Outdoors OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Any Freelance Career 

⭐ Recommended Mods: SimNation Travel, Home Region

→ Have a dog that goes everywhere with you. → Live in 3 or more worlds during your Young Adult life. → Make 3 best friends that each teach you a valuable life lesson. → After making your three best friends, use reward points to add the following traits: Brave, Savant, and Incredibly Friendly. → As an adult, realize you miss your family and return home. → Have a long distance relationship with the father of your children.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 8: Wendy Darling 🌟 “She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. ”  🌟 You grew up waiting. First, for your father’s seasonal visits… which eventually stops when you become a teenager. Next, for the opportunity to leave Henford-on-Bagley to pursue your dreams of becoming an actress. And finally, for your first love, a man who refused to propose to you, no matter how long you waited for him to. Eventually you grew tired waiting and decided to grow up. You married a sensible man, had a child, and gave up your dreams of becoming an actress. Still, you held on to the dreams of your first love and end up reconnecting in a night of passion that leaves you pregnant with his child. Realizing that he’ll never grow up, you decide to dedicate your life to your family and husband.

Aspiration: Master Actor/Actress - you fail this or the⭐ Housewife Aspiration (after you marry)

Traits: Perfectionist, Proper, and Cheerful OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Actor/Actress

→ Master the Parenting skill. → Have a distant family dynamic with your father who never lives with you. → Join the drama club and meet your first love. Optional: He has the childish trait. → Give your first love all of your major romantic milestones. → Lose touch with your first love when you move to Del Sol Valley. → Marry a man you’d consider as sensible. Have one child with him. → Have a one time secret affair that results in another child. → Dedicate your life to your children afterwards.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 9: Alice Liddell  🐰 “It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.”  🐰

There were times you felt like you never truly belonged anywhere. While everyone at home lived and abided by your parents’ rules, your head was always in the clouds. Sensibilities and propriety were never in your vocabulary, much to the disdain of your father and the rest of your siblings. Still, you were a free spirit that could never be controlled. After moving out as a young adult, you fell in love with cooking and mixology. You also met a group of misfits who were as different as you. Every Sunday, you’d host special “tea” parties with them, that broadened your worldview and made you realize that the world gets curiouser and curiouser with each passing day.

Aspiration: Master Mixologist or Master Chef

Traits: Clumsy, Foodie, and Childish OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Culinary Career

⭐ Recommended Mods: Basemental, Grannies Cookbook, Open Love Life

→ Master the Cooking and Mixology Skills. → Have a juice/nectar hobby on the side. → Have a club with people who have weird or eccentric traits.* → Fall in love with someone with the Erratic Trait. → Host “tea” parties every Sunday in your own home. ⭐ Optional: Use the Basemental Mods and have your Sims get high on dope/drunk on alcohol during the tea parties. → Dye your hair a different, brighter color. → Live in a quirky and colorful house. → Befriend a rabbit who you talk to constantly. Name them The Mad Hatter. → ⭐ Optional: Be in a polyamorous relationship with Romantic Boundaries OR the Open Love Life Mod → Have two children. *You decide what weird and eccentric means.

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Generation 10: Countess Ellen Olenska  🎨 “The real loneliness is living among all these people who only ask one to pretend.”  🎨

You appreciated your mother’s lifestyle. You saw the world for what it could become, and not what everyone wanted it to be. However, you worried about your younger sister. You saw her innocence and wanted to protect it. When you turned into a young adult, you moved away and took your sister with you to start anew. However, life was not always easy. Straight out of teenhood, you married someone from a different city and had a tumultuous relationship with him. You separate with him and continue to care for your sister. You’re able to provide for her through your paintings, which also brought you a lot of fame. When she grew up into a Young Adult, she formed an attachment with a man that… intrigued you. She married him. This kept him in your life, but made it difficult for you to ignore your feelings. One night, you find yourself alone together, and you must make a choice: stay with him and break your sister's heart, or leave forever to give them peace. You have a price to pay either way— we can't behave like people in novels without consequence, can we?

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Traits: Gloomy, Art Lover, and Family Oriented OR choose/roll for the last trait

Career: Critic 

⭐ Recommended Mods: RPO, Wonderful Whims, Custom Relationship Bits, Soulmates

→ Master the Painting Skill. → Become a Level 3 Celebrity with your paintings. → Marry someone who isn’t your soulmate straight out of high school. Have a negative relationship with him before separating. ⭐ Optional: Only temporarily separate with him using the RPO Mod. → Be best friends with your sister. → Become soulmates with the partner of your sister without consummating the relationship. → When you’re an adult, invite your sister’s partner over, and make a choice— woohoo together and break your sister's heart, or end the emotional affair. → If you woohoo together - Tell your sister the next day and become enemies. Name your child after them. → If you end the emotional affair - Move away from your love and get back together with your ex-husband. Die without having your own children.

[thydungeongal]

There's this idea floating around the general TTRPG space that's kind of hard to put one's finger on which I think is best articulated as "the purpose of an RPG is to produce a conventionally shaped satisfying narrative," and in this context I mean RPG as not just the game as it exists in the book but the act of play itself.

And this isn't exactly a new thing: since time immemorial people have tried to force TTRPGs to produce traditional narratives for them, often to be disappointed. I also feel this was behind a lot of the discussion that emerged from the Forge and that informed the first "narrativist" RPGs (I'm only using the word here as a shorthand: I don't think the GNS taxonomy is very useful as more than a shibboleth): that at least for some TTRPGs the creation of a story was the primary goal (heck, some of them even called themselves Storytelling games), but since those games when played as written actually ended up resisting narrative convention they were on some level dysfunctional for that purpose.

There's some truth to this but also a lot of nuance: when you get down to the roots of the hobby, the purpose of a game of D&D wasn't the production of a narrative. It was to imagine a guy and put that guy in situations, as primarily a game that challenged the player. The production of a narrative was secondary and entirely emergent.

But in the eighties you basically get the first generation of players without the background from wargames, whose impressions of RPGs aren't colored by the assumption that "it's kind of like a wargame but you only control one guy." And you start getting lots of RPGs, some of which specifically try to model specific types of stories. But because the medium is still new the tools used to achieve those stories are sometimes inelegant (even though people see the potential for telling lots of stories using the medium, they are still largely letting their designs be informed by the "wargame where you only control one guy" types of game) and players and designers alike start to realize that these systems need a bit of help to nudge the games in the direction of a satisfying narrative. Games start having lots of advice not only from the point of view of the administrative point of view of refereeing a game, but also from the point of view of treating the GM as a storyteller whose purpose is to sometimes give the rules a bit of a nudge to make the story go a certain way. What you ultimately get is Vampire: the Masquerade, which while a paradigm shift for its time is still ultimately a D&D ass game that wants to be used for the sake of telling a conventional narrative, so you get a lot of explicit advice to ignore the systems when they don't produce a satisfying story.

Anyway, the point is that in some games the production of a satisfying narrative isn't a primary design goal even when the game itself tries to portray itself as such.

But what you also get is this idea that since the production of a satisfying narrative is seen as the goal of these games (even though it isn't necessarily so), if a game (as in the act of play) doesn't produce a satisfying narrative, then the game itself must be somehow dysfunctional.

A lot of people are willing to blame this on players: the GM isn't doing enough work, a good GM can tell a good story with any system, your players aren't engaging with the game properly, your players are bad if they don't see the point in telling a greater story. When the real culprit might actually be the game system itself, or rather a misalignment between the group's desired fiction and the type of fiction that the game produces. And when players end up misidentifying what is actually an issue their group has with the system as a player issue, you end up with unhappy players fighting against the type of narrative the game itself wants to tell.

I don't think an RPG is dysfunctional even if it doesn't produce a conventionally shaped, satisfying narrative, because while I do think the act of play inevitably ends up creating an emergent narrative, that emergent narrative conforming to conventions of storytelling isn't always the primary goal of play. Conversely, a game whose systems have been built to facilitate the production of a narrative that conforms to conventions of storytelling or emulates some genre well is also hella good. But regardless, there's a lot to be said for playing games the way the games themselves present themselves as.

Your traditional challenge-based dungeon game might not produce a conventionally satisfying narrative and that's okay and it's not your or any of your players' fault. The production of a conventionally satisfying narrative as an emergent function of play was never a design goal when that challenge-based dungeon game was being made.

[kurishiri]

5 facts you maybe didn’t know abt alfons bc his route is coming (no major spoilers)

at some point after entering the greetia household, he changed his way of speaking. this is especially prominent in the japanese version, when he goes from the more casual or “crude” way of speaking all the way to keigo (or “polite” language). the gap between his polite language and the actual words that comes out of his mouth is part of his humor thats especially prominent in japanese, and a may be bit lost in translation in english.

he is really good at cooking. this is shown in his profile, but he does not show off this skill often. he only shows this skill twice in the entire history of ikevil so far. once in his main story, and once in his second birthday story. so enjoy those moments when you run into them!

in the japanese version, he uses honorifics with everyone (including kate), except one person. and that person is elbie. he calls everyone by the —san honorific, including kate, and he still does even after they get into a relationship. he calls william and victor with —sama, probably because by all rights, they are his bosses. the fact he doesn’t use honorifics with elbie unless he is playing a role or feels like it, in which case he may use —sama (he seemingly switches on a whim using “lord elbert,” “lord elbie,” “elbie,” and “elbert”). the fact he doesn’t use honorifics with elbie indicates a very close relationship, as doing such (in japanese, this is known as [呼び捨て], or yobisute) with those who you’re not close to can be considered incredibly rude.

his last name, sylvatica, means forget-me-not (the flower). specifically, it comes from its scientific name, myosotis sylvatica, and it bears the symbol of remembrance, coming to symbolize various events and people, along with a symbol for alzheimer’s in some regions. since the olden times, it has also been a symbol of true, everlasting love and devotion. this is the surname alfons chose for himself sort of on a whim supposedly. it is unknown if he himself chose the name while aware of its meaning (and thus was trying to convey his wishes through it), though considering he was surrounded by forget-me-nots in a scene during elbie’s route, it may be a reflection of something deeper on the storyteller’s end.

despite his attitude and all appearances, he grows attached to others very easily. this is pretty evident in his past records with elbie, and even roger’s past records. he can’t really bring himself to separate from elbie and when he has thought about it, he initiated a game with him instead of just leaving. and also he was quite drawn to roger at one point in his life. even now, roger does have a place in his mind at least (i have the story regarding this point translated here if you’re curious, but note this is jp only content as of this post). and even with kate, it’s evident that since the beginning, he didn’t want to leave her alone. even before he realizes his own feelings, he’s pretty drawn to her and actually thinks of her as “cute,” “adorable” or “darling.” and even in other routes, especially elbie and roger’s, he seems to show at least some attraction toward kate. so don’t let his facade fool you that much!

10 things you should know before you read alfons route.

[coco-loco-nut]

I Hate It Here

Pairing: Max x Sister Reader

Summary: Max takes a stand for his sister

TW: jos verstappen, mentioned abuse, depression, mentions of death, mentions of an affair

requests open masterlist ttpd masterlist

——————

With Max gone, you were the one subject to the wrath of Jos Verstappen, especially when you stopped karting after a couple years. So while your brother was off winning grand prix after grand prix, you were continually reminded that you aren’t good enough, that you were the dud of a child.

“Maxie, tell me a story,” you call your older brother in tears one night, you don’t blame him for the fact that you are a failure. You love your older brother more than anything.

With a heavy sigh, Max dives into a made up story, like he was a poet trapped inside the body of a race car driver, except he is an awful storyteller. He does but doesn’t want to know the BS your lame excuse for a father told you.

Max is your best, and only friend, your consolation prize for surviving this far. You stopped really leaving home years ago, only leaving to go to the grocery store. Even to your job, you were just another remote employee.

Max only ever wants the best for his sister, you haven’t seen Victoria since you were so young that you don’t really even know if she actually exists, so he is all you have. Victoria doesn’t really remember you either, seeing as how you were the child of an affair. Max always tries to bring you to races as a lucky charm, but your response is always the same ‘i don’t believe in good luck, maybe next time’. It’s like you are scared to leave home, safer in the comfort of the walls you’ve only ever known.

You pull out your headphones and listen to music, tuning out the world. You hate it here, you hate your father, but you only know of one way to escape. You close your eyes and go to the little paradise in your mind. You read about something similar when you were a kid from a book Max you. It sits on your nightstand, the spine worn and frayed from years of use.

That’s similar to how Max finds you when he arrives a couple weeks later. By now he is used to finding you in that state, you spend most of your free time in your own mind.

“Y/n? Where do you go? In your mind,” Max asks, laying beside you in your bed.

“A little garden, you need a key to get in though,” you say, a little dazed.

“And how would one get a key?” He asks further, trying to keep you engaged.

“There is only one, mine,” you reply, moving to grab your headphones again. Max quickly, but gently takes them.

“Charles was asking about you. He wanted to know how you were, since he hasn’t seen you since I joined F3,” Max continues, you just look at him, an oddity in your dark room.

“Charles?” You ask and Max nods.

“My friend, you thought he had a silly accent, and thought he was cute,” Max elaborates, searching your face to see a look of recognition. You just shrug.

“We used to play games, travel back in time to different decades. You loved the 1800s,” Max says, not ready to give up.

“I was a debutante,” you whisper causing Max to smile brightly. You just shake your head, you read once that nostalgia is a minds trick. “I bet I hated it, it is always freezing in the palace,” you say, unknowingly giving Max a glimpse into the secret escapes in your mind. In your fantasies you travel everywhere even to space. Secretly you love it, but you are more than content to stay at home, even if you hate it here.

“Come to the FIA Prize Giving with me, pretend it’s one of your fantasies,” Max says, you nod your head, already away in another world where only the gentle survive.

“Max? Am I going to die?” You ask out of the blue, well out of the blue for Max. He doesn’t know how to respond before you turn back into yourself. He stands up, watching you for a minute. You stayed out of your depression a minute longer than usual, a small win for him.

“Leave your poor sister alone,” Jos says, Max just glares at him. Jos is the man who made you like this and Max will never forgive himself for it.

“Y/n is coming with me to Monaco, for good. Since you don’t care about her, I will take care of her,” Max says, prepared to stand his ground.

“Whatever, if you want to tolerate her worthlessness, that’s up to you,” Jos waves his hand, one less failure in his home.

“Don’t call her that,” Max grits his teeth. He was going to wait a couple days, but perhaps it’s necessary to expedite it here.

“Yeah, yeah, she’s your problem now,” Jos walks away. Max returns to your bedroom, getting a suitcase from your closet. Only the essentials for now, the rest can be picked up tomorrow. He packs up as much as he can in an hour before somehow convincing you to go with him to his hotel. You just stare out the window of the car as he drives, clearly uncomfortable. Max gives you the bedroom and takes the pull out couch. He immediately dials Charles.

“Max? What happened?” Charles can hear the exhaustion in Max’s voice.

“I’m bringing Y/n back to Monaco with me, she’s basically being left to rot by Jos. She’s lonely and bitter, but swears she’s fine. Y/n gets lost in her mind on purpose, there’s this fantasy land that she saves the good parts -her romanticism- in her mind. I’m losing her,” Max chokes back a sob.

“Max, what do you mean, losing her?” Charles asks, more alert.

“She doesn’t eat, she’s depressed beyond imagination, doesn’t leave the house, spends the time she isn’t working remotely in her mind. This house, our father, makes her feel worthless. If I didn’t come tonight, she might’ve died. Charles, she asked me if she was going to die,” Max has your image ingrained in his memory, a little too thin and pale.

“I just texted Maman, she will come over and visit her for a little every day, make sure she eats,” Charles says, holding back his own tears. He remembers you fondly as the little girl with pig tails, always excited to spend time with her big brother.

You struggle with the move to Monaco, one you didn’t get a say in it, likely because you spend most of the year in your mind. You have come to grow more comfortable with the woman who visits you and uses food from your brother’s fridge to feed you.

“Y/n? Feel like talking today?” she gently asks, setting the food in front of you, like she does every day. You look up, and Pascale nearly cries, seeing you start to breaks through. Your blue eyes pierce hers.

“Tell me something awful, like you are a poet trapped in the body of a finance guy,”

[karlachismylife]

Yeah, but what if you're a character in a game they like to play? A pre-existing townie in a life simulator that helps them reconnect with normal life outside deployment? The one they somehow always tend to romance in every savefile, courting you through the clumsy mechanics?

Soap would absolutely spam interactions, interrupting any of the tasks you are trying to do. What do you mean your relatonship progress starts going down after he chose "tell a flirty joke" twenty times in a row? Why are you falling out of the conversation and going to water your plants or play on the computer? Does he have to delete it out of the game for you to stop getting distracted? Hmph. If you were a real person, you would be already swooning at his jokes, that he knows for sure. C'mon, bonnie, don't leave the lot for work! If you accept his proposition to move in, you'll never need to work a day in your pixel life! He also has a fuckton of savefiles, because he wants to try every single thing the game has to offer, but turns out mastering all 158 skills and 73 careers isn't that easy in one go. He still goes after you in each and every savefile. What can he say? You're just the prettiest of them all.

Gaz has the strategy nailed down. He knows your pre-set preferences and makes sure his character caters to them (good thing you seem to be generally into him, all he needs to do is add your favourite colour to his outfit, and it suits hm too!), he can calculate the shortest route to have a romantic meter above your head in one conversation. Juggling the interactions with ease, never making the mistake to bore or upset you. He knows you'll have the best family tree in that game, and he'll make it happen. Also has quite a few savefiles, but only because he enjoys the storytelling aspect and always prepares some elaborate plot, filled with drama. Takes inspiration from the hundreds of episodes of different TV shows he manages to watch, also plays with mods to add as much flavour to the game as possible.

Price tries to court you like he would a real person. Inviting your character out, putting a lot of thought into which conversation theme choose out of what game offers, bringing you gifts. Unfortunately for him, the game isn't registering his actions as actually trying to woo you... so he just takes the gloves off and fucking cheats your relationship status. His in-game self needs a pretty partner to look after the pack of three dogs, named Ghost, Gaz and Soap respectively. He's not above cheating your babies (whether your character carries them or it's the science baby option) to be triplets. Only starts new savefiles when you both grow old and pass away in the previous one, maybe because he can't bring himself to live out your kids' lives (they should be their own little virtual people and decide for themselves), or maybe because he doesn't understand that he actually can keep playing even if his character's dead.

Ghost starts with adding himself to your family and setting your relationship status as spouses. Oh, you have some in-game pathetic weird looking prick as your pre-set partner/husband? Too bad, evicted, deleted from the game, forgotten. If he is in the mood, he won't straight up delete that poor bloke, but will set up a pool with no ladder and drown him in it or lock him in a separate room to starve. Nothing you should see, though, you'll be plenty busy drowning yourself, not in a pool, but in his affection. Doesn't spam interactions, but really enjoys just watching you go about your day and making it so that his character takes care of your needs - if you start to get hungry, he's already slamming the "call to meal" button on the giant ribs plate his in-game self just roasted. Probably has one savefile where he keeps cheating any death back.

Or are you a cute tamagochi pocket friend/pet they enjoy taking care of, because having a real pet is impossible with their lifestyle? An NPC with an everyday quest of collecting produce in a chill farm simulator? A weekly boss they lose fight to as much times as they can afford to, just to see your opening cutscene replay over and over? A companion whose personal quest they have memorized line by line, but never skip dialogue to hear your voice and look at every expression you make?

Whoever you are, what if one day something in your code changes and you suddenly start recognizing them?

[joelsmochi]

honeypie - joel miller

summary: part 2 to honey (can be read as a standalone, doesn’t have much to do with the original plot!) warnings: not proofread, 18+, slight angst?, age gap (everyone is legal!!!!!), bickering/arguing, double date trope womp womp, degradation, dubcon, creampie, joel is a smidge misogynistic insecure and possessive wc: 2.6k a/n: this is mainly just some self indulgent yet rushed storytelling (so sorry, i wrote it in an hour because i was bored at work lol)! i wanna write a part 3 and actually include the beekeeping a little more but i have nooo idea how i’m gonna do it but we WILL get there one day babes!!! until then, enjoy this fluffy angsty sex 😽!!!💓

series masterlist | main masterlist

-

“If you guys are gonna bang when I’m in the house the least you could do is be quiet!” You heard Sarah shout from the other side of Joel’s bedroom door after banging on it.

Joel grimaced, his body tensing beneath you but you were almost oblivious to the complaints of your best friend. Almost.

You didn’t let up on your movements or noises whatsoever and as much as Joel loved those sweet little moans spewing from you as you humped against him, he loved his privacy much more especially when it came to his daughter.

You shook your head profusely when he attempted to get you to stop, insisting on how you were almost there.

“Soclosesoclosesoclose—just w-wait, I’m cu—fuck. Ahh, fuck, I’m cumming. Oh yes! Yesyesyesyesyes! Ohh—oh, my God—“

Joel covered your mouth with a clammy hand, feeling torn from his mixed feelings of lust and embarrassment.

Going downstairs didn’t help him feel any better either, especially when Sarah began berating you both, not that he blamed her for it.

“Call it payback for all the times I let you and your boyfriend have sex in my bed,” you retorted.

“In your bed?!” Joel mumbled to himself.

“Yeah yeah, could have at least waited until I was gone,” Sarah muttered.

“Sorry, Sar,” you hummed, “your dad is just really hot.”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Come on, man.”

“I didn’t even know you were home,” Joel complained. “You’ve been with Jared or whatever his name is all week.”

Sarah’s squinted her eyes, annoyed by the lack of care from her father. “Alex. His name is Alex dad—see, I hate this!”

“Oh, by the way, Sarah,” you said, pattering behind the kitchen counter, “wouldn’t use the open jar of honey if I were you.”

“UGH! EW! Fucking ew!”

♡

“Other than the obvious,” Sarah mumbled, “how’s my dad taking care of you?”

You wore a bright smile and looked away from your reflection momentarily. Joel was… Joel. Rough around the edges but he was a genuine person, confident in the external reality but a little insecure. Not unbearably insecure though, just enough to make you know he was trying his best.

He wasn’t the most romantic but you figured it was just from him being out of the game for so long and you knew you could train him to be more romantic if it was needed.

He didn’t push you aside or make attempts to subtly suggest you needed to leave after sex either; he’d pout real big and give you those gorgeous puppy dog eyes until you held him. He loved making you laugh.

But it definitely still felt like just sex rather than a relationship. You weren’t particularly complaining, but you weren’t bragging about it either.

“Good,” you answered.

Sarah could tell from your tone how honest it was. Good meant great, happy, damn near perfect.

“Good. I’m glad,” she said. “I was worried he’d be like one of those incels that get real creepy and pervy after thirty-five.”

“No, no, he’s great,” you reiterated. “He’s very funny. Smart. He asks me to tan in my bikini while he’s working on the hive or the yard.”

You watched from the corner of your makeup coated eye how tightly she grimaced.

“Images. In head. Don’t want them there,” she dramatized.

“I have to hear every last detail about you and Al up to where he’s shoving your cervix into your stomach. You can deal with a little sexiness from us,” you said.

“It’s just so weird,” she whined.

“Do you want me to stop seeing him?” You asked.

You had slowly began to worry about how this would affect your best friend over time, you knew it was a weird situation. You had no issue cutting Joel off if it meant Sarah got to be happy. There were other men in the world, there weren’t other Sarah’s.

“No, God! No. It’s just not as simple as I was expecting. You know?” She explained kindly.

“Totally! I’d be weirded out if you were hooking up with my dad while I was across the hall. I’m not blaming you there, or anywhere for that matter. Just know you come first.”

“Well, yeah, who else is going to wax your back hair and not judge you for it?” She teased.

You rolled your eyes at her.

“Lots of men with weird fetishes.”

♡

“Can’t believe I agreed to this,” Joel huffed.

He adjusted the waistband of his jeans making his shoulder briefly flare. You let your mind wander while Joel complained about the double date you had arranged with Sarah and Alex. You were currently waiting in the parking lot for them to arrive.

“It’ll be fun. You’ll get to meet Alex and see he is a respectable man and you and I get to pretend we’re a couple for a few hours.”

“Pretend?” Joel questioned. “W-what do you mean pretend? Are we not together?”

“Uh, no?” You said.

Joel didn’t appreciate your amused reaction and questioned you a little more.

“You never asked me to be your girlfriend— you haven’t even taken me on a date,” you explained. “Did you really think that conversation wasn’t necessary?”

“So if we’re not together then what is this?”

You sucked your teeth before simply saying, “Sex.”

Once the four of you were inside Sarah and her boyfriend felt the tension between the two of you.

You watched Joel punch in all of your names into the keypad before pressing ‘start game’.

“So Alex, what do you do for work?” Joel asked.

“Oh, well right now I’m working at a café downtown, but I’m majoring in political science to become a lawyer.”

“A lawyer?” Joel sounded impressed.

“Lawyers are great at communicating,” you antagonized. “They know what questions are… Important to ask.”

Joel rolled his eyes and motioned between you and the bowling balls. “Just go. Good God.”

“Dad, what did you do?” Sarah asked.

“Why do you assume it’s my fault?” He defended.

“Girl, what did he do?” She asked you.

Shrugging, you said, “I don’t know. Since Joel thinks he’s so great at communicating, maybe he should answer. I’m gonna go bowl.”

“Hope you gutter!” Joel shouted after you walked away. “She told me I needed to ask her to be my girlfriend.”

“You thought she was your girlfriend?!” Sarah said with wide eyes.

“Well… Yeah? Do I really need to verbally ask her that?”

“That’s why I got a strike, bitch,” you said while slapping the back of Joel’s head.

Sarah and Alex awkwardly stood up so that he could pretend to teach Sarah how to bowl properly. But the bickering between you and Joel didn’t end there.

“I thought it was obvious,” Joel told you. “I have you over all the time. We fuck. We laugh. Did I really need to ask?”

“So what would have happened if I pissed you off and you were to say ‘it’s not like you’re my girlfriend’?”

“I do not sound like that!” Joel scoffed. “And I would never do that to you, you know that. I just kinda figured you were mine, you know?”

You squinted at his unearned possession over you, feigning offense and scoffing obnoxiously.

“Yours? I’m not your property, Joel. You don’t get to claim me.”

“Oh yeah? And what are you goin’ to do about it? Fuck some other loser?”

You grinned, and immediately he regretted his words.

“That’s exactly what I’ll do,” you whispered.

Alex and Sarah sat back down and you asked if they wanted anything to eat or drink before walking away to go to the bar.

“Hi, what can I get for ya?” The boy at the counter asked.

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen, why?”

“You see the older man on lane twelve?”

He looked and then nodded.

“Well, I wanna make jealous so if you could just smile and pretend to flirt with me I’ll give you ten bucks,” you explained with a sly smirk.

“Fifteen,” he negotiated.

“Ugh, fine. Can I get two lemonades, a beer, and a water please?”

“That’s not coming out of my tip, is it?” He questioned whilst punching the order into his screen.

“It will if you don’t start looking at my boobs,” you said through your faux smile.

You leaned onto the counter and gave the employee a clear view of your cleavage, which he seemed to appreciate very much.

But Joel wasn’t only focused on the teenage boy behind the counter, he noticed the numerous men gawking at your short shorts that showed off too much of your ass with you bent over the counter the way you were.

“Dad,” Sarah’s voice brought him back to reality. “Your turn.”

By the time Joel managed to spare you had returned with everyone’s drinks and Joel didn’t give you the satisfying reaction of jealousy like you’d hoped.

Wondering if you went too far, you drank a bit of Joel’s beer to imprint a lip gloss stain for Joel to taste in between sips. Something you noticed he loved to do over the past few weeks whenever he made you coffee or tea. You never finished your drinks and Joel always lined his mouth up with your lip print to taste you every chance he got.

And as you gave him the cheap plastic cup that held his beer, you watched as he habitually sipped right where your lips had been. Occasionally licking the rim of the cup before taking his next swig.

A couple of games later, you and Sarah managed to team up against the boys and kick their asses each and every frame. They sulked while you two gloated from the ending of the final game all the way back to the cars.

“Okay, okay. We get it, girls rule, boys lose,” Alex said.

“It’s boys drool,” Sarah corrected before turning to hug her father who placed a kiss on her forehead. “Night, dad. I’m gonna stay at Alex’s.”

“Okay, babygirl. Call me tomorrow.”

“Oh, and word of advice,” Sarah whispered after you got into Joel’s car. “Girls like what boys consider pointless communication. Take her out a few times, make her feel special, and ask her to be your girlfriend. She really likes you, she’s just making you earn it.”

Joel softly smiled and nodded. “Mmkay. Thanks.”

Once he got in the car he didn’t acknowledge you in the least bit, finally free to punish you for letting those men get a free show.

“Not a word?” You nudged his arm as he drove. “You could ask me now.”

He snickered, the most noise he’s made in the last ten minutes.

“You don’t get to just fucking claim me, Joel!”

Joel sped up before pulling into a rest area.

“Come’ere,” he hoarsely demanded.

He unclipped his seatbelt and began undoing his belt and jeans.

“Don’t get all fuckin’ shy on me now, girl. Come on.”

You hesitated but unbuckled your seatbelt and climbed into his lap; he moved his seat all the way back and pushed his jeans low enough for his cock to spring up and slap his belly.

Instinctively you reached for it, but he removed your hand from his hardening length and held your wrists tightly behind your back with one hand. Using his other hand to grab your face by your cheeks he forced you to look into his cold eyes.

“Do you not want to be with me?” His voice strained as he asked that, a hint of hurt glaring in his dark eyes.

“Of course I want to be with you,” you answered.

“I don’t play games,” he said, gripping your wrists even tighter. “Don’t fucking—“ A soft smack landed upon your cheek. “Don’t fucking do what you did tonight ever again. Get on your knees.”

He slightly shoved you back as he loosened his grip on your hands and face; you submissively sank to the rough carpeted floor of the car and he wasted no time pulling your hair into a makeshift ponytail and shoving his fat dick into your wet mouth.

He tasted so fucking good, the mix of his clean flesh and salty precum like honey dripping onto your tongue. Your eyes rolled back and you moaned along his shaft as you eagerly bobbed your already hazy head up and down.

Joel’s hips rolled up in pleasure, gurgling out helpless moans as your nose rubbed the wiry hairs along the base of his shaft. Despite the aching and soreness, you loved having your throat full of Joel.

You took initiative and pushed against his hand, nonverbally telling him to make you suffer, and he shamelessly did so.

He couldn’t tell if the slick that was coating his balls was your spit or tears and he didn’t give a fuck. If you were going to show some loser teenager your tits and some loser bachelors your ass the least you could give him was some fucking remorse, right?

Joel felt powerful, in charge in ways he never experienced before. Your flooded eyes looked into his and saw how contorted his face was, so even if he was the one telling you what to do you knew you had him wrapped around your finger.

“Give me that fuckin’ throat, baby,” he moaned. “Oh, fuck! That throat is so fucking tight—mnh. God…damn baby. Feels so fucking good.”

He smacked your wet cheeks as encouragement before slowly pulling you off of his dick; you coughed at the gust of oxygen that flooded your lungs, giggling as he smacked his fat tip against your puffy mouth.

“Look at you, baby,” he whispered. “So pretty when my cock shuts that smart fuckin’ mouth a’yours up.”

“You love my fucking mouth,” you smugly said as you climbed into his lap.

“I do, but I think you forget what it’s supposed to be used for,” he whispered.

“You can stuff my mouth all you want, I’m still gonna give you a reason to use it.”

An eyebrow of his cocked up and a grin spread across his face at your confidence.

“Take your pants off,” he instructed seductively. His rough hands ran up your arms and back while you did what he said. “There you go,” he moaned when you slid down on his wet cock. “You’re such a good fucking slut for me, honey.”

“Just—just ask me, and I’ll s-say yes!” You shakily moaned as you relentlessly bounced on his dick.

Joel gripped your neck and began fucking into you from below, pushing deeper than he needed to, definitely bruising your cervix.

“You know you belong to me. All that fucking shit about claiming you and how I don’t own you, fuck was that?”

“Joe—elll, ugh!” You screamed into his chest, not sure if you were cumming or if your cunt was just overwhelmed with sensitivity. “Just ask, just ask baby I promise I’ll be good I’ll never misbehave again.”

He popped your ass and chuckled cruelly when you flinched and moaned. “Be my girlfriend, babydoll. Hmm? I want you to be my girl. You’re already my slut. Will you be my girl, babydoll?”

Your eyes gawked up at him and you couldn’t suppress the smile that tugged against your lips.

“Yes! Yes, yes, baby! Oh fuck, oh fuck!”

“Say it,” he begged. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours Joel! Fuckfuckyes I’m yours! I belong to you! I fucking belong to you!”

Joel felt the familiar deep stretch in the peak of his belly at your cries. He listened to you submit to him, let him claim you as his, ultimately marking his territory as he began to cum inside of your warm cunt.

“Thaaaat’s my good girl,” Joel growled as he fucked the last of his spend into you.

“Fuck,” you exhaled, climbing off of him. “You’re such an ass.”

He chuckled at this, the softness in his laughter coaxing a giggle from you.

“You love me,” he mumbled.

“Mmm, not quite,” you said as confidently as your tired body would allow.

“Oh, honeypie… You’ll get there soon enough.”

[tinydefector]

Swerve: traditionally, humans gift chocolates and stuffed animals, as a display of hunting prowess and ability to provide, on the fourteenth of February. This is because a deity named saint valentine is said to bless conjux pairs on this day.

-bumpinSUV

Traditions

Swerve x Human reader

Word count; 1k

Warnings: none

Heeeyyyyy Bumpin got some food for you~. Enjoy some clueless and hopeless romantic Swerve becuase I said so.

_______

Swerve stared down at the clunky plastic earth animals and chocolates clutched in his servos, completely befuddled. It had sounded like such a good plan when he came across it! But now, facing his human, uncertainty crept in. He offered an awkward chuckle. "Uh, happy February fourteenth! I know on Earth it's tradition for you guys to, uh, exchange dead animal carcasses and sweets as a romantic gesture. Something about showing you can provide, I think?" 

Rubbing the back of his neck, Swerve hoped he hadn't misunderstood. Or offended them! Primus, why was organic culture so weird? "So, uh, I thought maybe you'd like these gifts. Even though mice probably aren't a big hunting prize for humans." He cringed internally. At how embarrassed he was. "S-so, what do you think? Did I get the tradition right? Or should I just forget the whole—"

They give Swerve a slight look as they cut him off. "Swerve, why would you need to hunt?, plus it's July if my callander is right " They ask while looking at the stuff Swerve had set up, it looked as if he was trying to organise a date for them, it was a rather cute little set up more so than past people they had ever dated before, Their words fall silent as they take in the scene. 

Wincing internally, Swerve fidgeted under their searching gaze. Frag, this was even worse than he'd feared. "Well, ya know, I did some reading that Earth Valentines is about showing you can provide for a mate. And I know I ain't got much to offer organics, but I wanted to try!" He held out the gifts in his massive metal hands, practically trembling. 

"I know it ain't exactly a feast or nothin'. But I saw these toys and thought, maybe they'd pass for some small game? And the chocolate's real! Well, not made of real chocolate, more like synthechoc. But it's what I could get you!" 

Slumping with a sigh, Swerve knew he must look utterly foolish. But they deserved his honesty. "Look, I just wanna show ya I care, okay? Even if I'm lousy at Earth courting."

"My courting..." they go quiet for a moment before starting to giggle which turns into laughter. "Swerve Honey, Valentine's day, is in February. It's a day to spend with loved ones and enjoy each other's company, sometimes trade gifts to special people, which most are fake flowers and sweets" they continue to giggle softly. "What did you think was handsome?" They ask with a smile.

"O-oh." Swerve felt his plating heat as their laughter sank in, truly mortified. He should've just stuck to energon pouring and storytelling, left the Earth traditions well alone! "I, uh, may have misunderstood some cultural exchange files," he admitted bashfully. "Thought it was about proving yourself as a good provider! You know, strong and capable." 

He scuffed his pede sheepishly. "Maybe shoulda just asked you straight out, huh? Instead of all this." Swerve gestured ruefully at the mess of toys and candy. They smile and grab his servos. 

A warm glow flooded his Spark at their smile, though. Maybe he hadn't fragged it up totally. "So, uh, does that mean...you'd still consider spending time with me? We could watch a flick, share some high grade—" He cycled a vent, fans whirring. "I just wanna make you happy, anyhow I can. Without any mouse-hunting required."

They laugh lightly as they move towards him. "Swerve, please it's OK, calm down" they call out while waiting for him to sit down so they can at least touch his faceplate. "Yes you probably should have come to me to ask about it, but now I'm more interested in who told you about Valentine's day." they hum while pressing a kiss to his nasal ridge. 

Swerve's vents stuttered as their lips brushed his plating in a gentle kiss. "W-well, you know how it is - a mech hears stuff in the bar sometimes," he replied shyly, fans whirring as they caressed his face. "I think maybe Rung was telling Rodimus about Earth traditions, and overheard Whirl say something about hunting prowess being important for it." 

He groaned, covering his optics. "Frag, I should've known better than to trust second-hand cultural osmosis from that glitchheads, i justed wanted to do something special for you." Lowering his hand, Swerve gazed down at them hopefully. "Sorry about the mess, forgive my clumsy courting attempt? There's still a whole stash of synthechoc with your designation on it." 

He's still sheepish as they laugh at him, their hand trying to keep it in and not embarrass Swerve more. " Maybe you could, um, give me some proper pointers? About Earth holidays and such? I'd really like to get it right next time." They give him another soft kiss which he melts into.

 "Think we might have to talk about human holidays, and Swerve I don't expect you to have to follow human stuff. You know that right?" They ask softly tracing his face.

Swerve leaned happily into their gentle touch, systems buzzing with joy. "I know, I know. Don't gotta do human things if they don't make sense," he conceded affectionately. 

"It's just..." He vented softly, captured by their smile. "I wanna understand where you come from, y'know? Be able to celebrate the special days that are important to you. Share in your culture."

His fans hitched as their fingers traced the seams of his faceplates. How did they always make him feel so calm yet alive all at once? "So maybe lessons would help this fool bot out, huh?" Swerve ventured shyly. He nuzzled into their hand with a lovesick sigh. "I just want to be able to spend time with you doin things that are important, that's really all I want, sweetspark. To be wherever you are."

 "Alright, how about we set up your hab and watch some vids.?" They inquire with a sly smile on their face.

Swerve perked up, any trace of embarrassment melting away in his eagerness. His engine gave a happy rev, hope blooming in his spark. Clapping his servos together, he bounced on his pedes like an excited sparkling. "Oh frag yes, I'll fire up the holoprojector right away!" 

In an instant he had them swept into his arms, cradling them gently against his chassis as he strode off toward his berth. The gifts were forgotten in his joyful haste. "You're gon' teach me everything, sweetspark! Holidays, customs, what all those weird organic dishes are!" He nuzzled their cheek fondly as he walked.

________

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[lauren-ce]

"A Nightmare at Green Lake" is a Queer Coming-Out Story

[This essay has a PDF version; the images are crisper there]

I'm probably nine months late to this particular party, but I just finished the excellent Reverse: 1999 event "A Nightmare at Green Lake" and wanted to make a case for reading it as a story about coming out, focusing on Blonney and her repressed sexuality. It's a love letter to horror films, and a love letter to girls that love girls. Crucially, it is more the latter than the former; Green Lake is a coming-out story that uses the horror film trappings as a storytelling device, not a hard and fast rule. Spoilers for the entire event.

(All my screenshots are taken from this video, which does a wonderful job capturing the entire event.)

The inciting incident in Green Lake began years before. Jennifer visits the camp regularly as a child, writing horror stories in her diary and reading them to Jessica, who loves them. Then, Jennifer suddenly has to move away, and thus, the Incident takes place.

Blonney/Jennifer threw her diary into the lake when she was forced to leave, drowning three things:

1). Her horror stories and love of horror

2). Her acceptance of her identity as an Arcanist

3). Her gay-ass self

She joins human society despite being Different and tries to blend in. She changes her name to Blonney, feigns an interest in fashion, and conforms to social norms. "Monstrous and forbidden" becomes a theme in this event which describes horror, but it also describes queer identity (this will be important later). Blonney discards her identity, drowning it in the lake.

Now allow me the rest of this rambling essay to make a point for that third thing (and to make the case that "loving horror" and "being an Arcanist" is the same thing as "being gay"). Throughout the first half of the event, we see Blonney consistently reject her love of horror movies. She calls them cliche and stupid, easy to make and low-class. Despite secretly loving them, she's built up a persona that isn't allowed to like horror.

Yet she takes an awful lot of offense to criticism of her script. . .

Anne, a recent hire to replace a sick member of Blonney's film crew (who is secretly Jessica in disguise), is mistreated by Blonney for being a naive, small-town country bumpkin that doesn't know anything. Within the movie that Blonney is shooting, Anne is typecast as the "Virgin": Christian, unassuming, sheltered, in contrast to Blonney's "Blondie": indulgent, vain, etc.

Oops, are the characters in the fake movie they're shooting maybe perhaps based on their real-world counterparts???

A contrast is drawn between the two by Blonney and the narrative at first. Throughout the rest of the event, the distance between them and their character archetypes will crumble. The important thing to remember is that Anne/Jessica is a representation of everything Blonney has rejected about herself.

As actual horror-movie type events begin to happen to the group, the characters are genre-savvy enough to realize they're in a horror story. The culprit, though this isn't revealed until later, is Anne/Jessica. She's an Arcanist and has been using her shapeshifting abilities to make a horror movie happen to the group. Ironically, the group looks to Anne as the "Last Girl", the pure and unsullied one that will survive the night.

In actuality, this is a false flag. Since Anne is Jessica is the Monster, she can't be the Last Girl.

The Last Girl is actually Blonney:

I spoiled it already, but the viewer doesn't learn until the halfway point that Blonney is actually from the area, having grown up and making frequent visits. This is why she sees herself in Anne, a gay girl from a small town. Game recognize game, gay recognize gay. Blonney uses a fake name for a fake identity. Jessica sees her actual self, and calls her Jennifer. This isn't a deadnaming, Anne/Jessica sees Blonney as she truly is deep down. Though Blonney doesn't realize it, Anne cuts her to her core, which directly leads to her mistreatment.

Anne's peculiar interactions with Blonney are some of the first hints we get of the true narrative: Why is Anne so nice to her, despite the way she's treated? And more importantly, how would Anne, a newcomer to Blonney's film crew, know Blonney's real name/true identity? Blonney certainly never would've told her, she rejects her own identity, after all. This is a big nod to the true workings of the plot. Anne knows more than what she lets on. Why does Blonney not realize that Anne knows more than she should? Because Blonney is actively trying to reject that part of her—she's blind to it. If she were to acknowledge that Anne knows her true self, then the story would already be over.

On top of rejecting her love of horror, Blonney also rejects her identity as an Arcanist. This identity alienates her from her friends—they consider her a peer up until the horror story begins happening to them. The very second it is no longer convenient, they reject her as one of them and other her. The only member of her original film crew that doesn't reject her for being an Arcanist is, you guessed it, Anne.

However much you despise us, many brilliant playwrights are Queer. I mean—"Arcanists".

Horror events continue happening: a butcher chases around members of the group and monsters attack others. Vertin (R1999's main character), along with Horrorpedia, Sonetto, and Tooth Fairy, provide support, killing monsters and moving the plot along. In many of the monsters the groups find notes, pieces of paper that begin to tell a story—stories within the story. Using their knowledge of horror tropes, the main characters stay alive while Blonney's human film crew seemingly perishes at the hands of the various monster assailants.

After one such attack, Tooth Fairy (an Arcanist), gives first aid to Blonney. During the scene the two have a small argument. Tooth Fairy refuses to use Arcanist medicine to treat Blonney, because Blonney sees herself as a human. This gives Blonney a chance at some introspection, her first time opening up during this event.

Even Blonney's blood knows the truth she's suppressed.

All this happens while Tooth Fairy treats her wounds. Interesting that they're on her inner thigh, hmmm? A MILFy doctor rendering first aid to a girl's inner thighs while explaining that she's rejecting her own identity? I'm sure there's nothing to read into here.

As the plot progresses, Anne repeatedly risks her life to save Blonney. She leaps from a car to save her from a monster, and she later kills the butcher that's been chasing them. This earns her Blonney's trust, which leads to the big, plot-turning confession. At the halfway mark, Blonney is able to sit down with Anne/Jessica and confides in her.

A gay awakening ensues: Blonney feels down about her loss of identity, wanting to reclaim her love of horror. Her facade, she explains, is just that. Blonney threw away her identity as a horror-loving Arcanist in an effort to integrate with society. This conversation takes place after a danger has just been defeated, yet is one of the emotional climaxes. Blonney begins to want to accept her true identity. Throughout, Jessica repeatedly praises Blonney, telling her how amazing and wonderful she is, all the while the two cuddle on a couch.

*Does a gay little hair flip after holding hands. "You can be rougher with me, you know."

To her horror, the rest of the group hears. They had this discussion in the same room, after all, but in contrast to Blonney's old friend group, her new friends support her wholeheartedly. Then, Tooth Fairy hands Blonney the symbol of her self-actualization: her diary, which she'd found in the attic (yes, the same diary that had been thrown into the lake!!! Blonney has now retrieved her diary, her love of horror, and her identity as an Arcanist, all the things she threw away as a child.

Blonney retrieves her diary, which represents suppressed homosexuality through multiple metaphors, and achieves self-actualization thanks to her supportive friend group and a girl with a massive crush on her. The Monstrous and Forbidden are now part of her. Now the gay things really step up.

What happens next is a direct result of Blonney coming to terms with her queerness: a woman in a wedding dress shows up and attempts to marry her.

Monstrous and Forbidden, all in one package.

The woman is a zombie (because we're working with horror tropes, yeah?) but the message couldn't be more clear. Blonney has opened up to Anne/Jessica about loving horror (being queer). Now Blonney must face what that means. Consider: the corpse bride searches for her beloved (literally another bride, this could not be more fucking clear). Who is to play bride to the corpse bride? It's Blonney! The corpse bride forces Blonney down and puts a wedding ring onto her finger. The narrative has allowed Blonney to come out—now it will test her resolve.

The corpse bride is a mixed bag of metaphors. Textually, the corpse bride is a character from the horror story written in Blonney's diary. She was killed by her husband and searches for him so she can place the wedding ring back on his finger. Metatextually, the bride represents Jessica: Blonney abandoned her, effectively "killing" her. Now the scorned bride searches for her lost love.

To sum up: Jessica=Corpse Bride:

1). She searches for her lost love every night (Jessica misses Blonney)

2). She wears a hempen collar (brides don't wear collars, but Jessica does)

Blonney rises to the challenge, she defeats the corpse bride with her newfound arcanist powers, and the group pieces together the clues that the bodies carry. Her new friends are proud of her!

Horrorpedia (annoying fuckwad that he is) nicely sums up the message: by embracing their identities, they can fight back.

All the horror story clues lead to the dead body in the water. "But wait," you say, "Green Lake doesn't feature a dead body in the water." Wrong! Blonney was dead all along, remember? The corpse is Blonney's diary! Her dead body is the horror-loving gay self she killed when she threw her diary into the lake to reject her identity!

More plot happens; the story reaches a climax with Blonney using her magic to aid the group's escape from a lighthouse. On the same shore that Blonney first told Jessica all her horror stories, the same shore she killed her identity on, they confront Jessica, now revealed as the Monster. This whole plotline is the result of Blonney rejecting her identity; now is the time to make everything right.

Jessica is proud of Blonney becoming her true self. However, she's also tired of waiting for her. She's tired of being alone. Jessica offers Blonney a life of bliss: a soft bed of moss for them to share, the sweetest forest fruits, and monsters to keep her company.

When Blonney refuses to live at Green Lake forever with her, it's taken as a rejection. A fight ensues—Blonney and her group win, but the emotional arc of the story has yet to resolve.

Blonney has a chance to reject her queer identity once more. She both does and doesn't. Blonney accepts the monstrous and forbidden by accepting Jessica, a literal monster, and her queerness, the Forbidden. She rejects the monstrous and forbidden by asking Jessica to come with her, to rejoin society, to hide their identities as Arcanists (queer) and live together. Jessica rejects this. She will not be closeted. (The fear she feels at being outed as an arcanist is very similar to the fear of being outed as queer in a hostile society, eh?) This of course puts Blonney under duress—how can the story end happily?

Vertin comes in with a grenade of an offer: Jessica can come stay in the St. Pavlov Institute with her and learn to coexist with people like her. She can live with people that don't see her as weird, despite being monstrous (queer), an Arcanist (queer), and a lover of horror (queer). Vertin hasn't done much up to this point outside of moving the plot along and fighting monsters; this is her time to shine, and she shines like the lesbian lodestar we know her to be. Her conversation with Jessica is tinged with language that could easily be read as romantic, but Vertin isn't here to steal anyone's girl, she's here to offer a happy ending for everyone that guarantees the goal of each party is fulfilled. Vertin's presence is what allows this story to ultimately break free from its horror trappings. Her third option is not a compromise; it is the ending we wanted.

And what an ending it is! It's happy and good in every possible way it could be. The happiness of the ending is a large part of why I call this a coming-out story primarily rather than a horror tale. A slasher film like the ones this event draws inspiration from would see Blonney (the true Final Girl) as the only survivor of her group, still running from the monster and her own self. Instead, all her friends survive, having been held captive in Jessica's den. Blonney comes into her own; she and Jessica reconcile—we get the gay end!

Blonney leaves to finish college as a self-actualized queer woman; Jessica acheives her wish of never being alone and joins the institute to gain an education herself. I have no doubt that they will reunite, and soon: the entire plot of R1999 is Vertin recruiting every arcanist she can to ensure their safety from the Storm. Blonney's future leads directly to St. Pavlov. (For further supporting evidence, see her voice line about taking Jessica for a walk! Even before Blonney graduates, they get to be togetherrrrrrrrrrr!)

Even if you don't play R1999, please please check out this event. It has a lot to say, and it's one of my favorite things I've read all year. The soundtrack fucking whips, and it goes far in helping balm the weeping wound of the tragic yuri that is Vertin/Schneider.

Again, give some love to the video that made this document possible.

I've rambled long enough, so I'll let Tooth Fairy wrap this up with a bow: Love Wins

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

You're at Hellfire Club with the worst period pains, the pains have been growing steadily worse all day. Eddie notices and does what he can to help you feel better.

Purely self indulgent because I've had bad pains for the last few days and this was highly therapeutic to write 💞💞

Warnings; none, just fluffy, sweet Eddie 🥺 💞

My requests are open 💞

💌🖤

You looked forward to Hellfire every week. Not okay because it was run by your boyfriend Eddie and it was the first Hellfire since all the shit from Spring Break.

In that time you and Eddie had grown really close and began dating, bonded together by being Upside Down survivors (for Eddie it was a close call) and already friends due to your involvement in Hellfire Club.

Now that Hellfire Club was back in session, Steve had generously offered to play host and Eddie excitedly spent a full week planning the campaign.

"I can't wait to show you what I have planned sweetheart" It's nice to see him so hyped up and you were looking forward to the campaign as much as he was.

Unfortunately, the morning of the campaign you woke up with a major headache, the kind of headache that hurt your eyes, bright lights were the devil and made your head pound even more. You groan at the pain in your stomach and ache that grows steadily worse and makes it impossible to go back to sleep.

Shit, you should have realised that your period was due today, for the last few days you had felt nauseated and that slow build-up of pain in your stomach signalled they were coming.

Despite feeling like shit you power through the day, go to work at Family Video, Eddie joins you on your break which coincides with his break at the auto repair shop he has started working in.

He's a godsend because if you had to listen to one more bratty kid or know it all cinephile you're sure your head might explode.

"You okay princess? You're quieter than usual" Eddie asks and you nod, cuddle into his arms and let the smell of cigarettes and cologne - Eddie's scent, calm you down. He soothingly rubs his hand up and down your back, and presses light kisses into your hair.

"Mmm, just tired. Looking forward to tonight though" the concerned look on Eddie's face turns into unbridled excitement as he teases and hints about the new campaign.

If Eddie knew how bad you were feeling then he might actually cancel tonight and you weren't having that. Hellfire had been anticipating this and Eddie was in his element, so you would just grin and bear it.

💌

Everything was set up and ready to go at Steve's, you were feeling worse than you were earlier. The headache from this morning was back with a vengeance and the cramps were in full swing, you ignore them as best as you can as Eddie begins the D&D session.

Just watching him in his element as DM is incredible, he's so talented at storytelling and has all the participants on the edge of their seats. Even Steve who had no interest in the game was hung on Eddie's every word.

This session was a long one and the cheers and shouts around you were making your headache even worse, it was hard to concentrate on the campaign even though you desperately wanted to.

You're so wrapped up in hiding your pain and trying to cling onto what's happening in the adventure that you don't notice Eddie's eyes stray to you on occasion, worry evident in his big brown eyes.

He's not stupid. He knows when something is wrong with his princess, you're not very talkative and have been clingy today, wanting more cuddles than usual (not that Eddie is complaining about that)

It's all telltale signs that you're upset or coming down with something. Eddie is sure he's done nothing to upset you (one tearful look or pout from you was Eddie's weakness) so it must be the latter option.

He's on the edge of ending the campaign early just so he can take you home and help you feel better, his worry helped by the fact that you keep trying to hide the fact that you're in pain. One hand is gripping the table and he sees the flash of agony on your features.

"The merry band of adventurers found themselves in a cave of wonder. But something evil was with them in this cave, ready to strike at the first opportunity" Eddie's voice deepens as he reaches the finale.

"Will the Wise was the first to sense the change in the air but before he could alert the others a screeching sound filled the cave... and that is the end of the campaign this week" Predictably he's met with the cries of the others.

"That's bullshit dude, utter bullshit" Dustin snaps and he shrugs. "More to look forward to next week Henderson" he ruffles Dustin's hair who grumbles under his breath but nods mulishly.

Eddie makes his way over to you and you give him a small smile, "That wasn't the end of the campaign Eddie" you sigh clearly seeing through his ruse.

"My girl is sick, don't think I haven't noticed you trying to pretend you're fine'' you open your mouth to argue but he's having none of it, "Yeah you are princess and I know that's not true. We're going home and you are going to rest" The fight goes out of you and you agree.

"Okay, I still feel bad about the campaign ending early" he waves off your concern. He cut it down by like five minutes tops and he's not having you feeling guilty about it.

"What's got you feeling so bad baby?" he narrowed his eyes trying to figure out if it was a cold or a stomach bug, was it your time of the month already? He counts the days and frowns when you confirm that it is.

"Bad cramps, headache" you mutter sleepily and he groans, he hates seeing you in pain, and knows your periods have been pretty bad for the last few months.

Luckily Eddie has supplies in his trailer for these occasions. sanitary products, a heated pad, painkillers, chocolate and your favourite movie. Everything to help make you feel better. He guides you to his van and vows to make you feel better.

❤️

It isn't even that long later that you're settled up in Eddie's bed with a heat pad on your stomach, he's made sure you took some pain meds and they've began to take effect.

Eddie's arms wrap around you and you nuzzle into his, his hands soothingly rubbing your stomach, between that at the pain meds you're feeling much better.

Just being in Eddie's arms, the cool metal of his rings was lovely and the light way he massaged your stomach was bliss.

He leaves only for a little while to make mac and cheese and even though you're not really hungry you eat it all and share your favourite chocolate with Eddie for afters.

The best thing about the night is when Eddie picks up his guitar and begins to play your favourite song, even though it's not heavy metal he still spent the time learning how to play it for you.

It begins to lull you to sleep and just as you're almost in a slumber Eddie presses gentle kisses to your hair.

"Sleep well my princess"

💞🖤💌

[revoevokukil]

Ciri's Trilogy

Ever since The Witcher 3 was published, concurrently with which I first read A. Sapkowski’s works, I have wanted a trilogy of games about Ciri. Any fanfiction would do, including CDPR’s one. Fanfiction, because I believe Sapkowski wanted to leave Ciri’s future open to the imagination of everyone. It’s part of her charm—she gives hope that anything at all can happen. Hence, in all honesty, I just wanted to continue imagining her story: beyond the end of Lady of the Lake, beyond the end of The Witcher 3. I want to read more about Ciri. Period. Consequently, I am now elated, but also terrified.

I don’t take issue with Ciri, the witcher, I take issue with Ciri having gone through the Trial of the Grasses. I hope CD Projekt Red will change their minds about this, or at very least makes it work differently on Ciri—the Child of Destiny—than on other witchers. For starters because, as Geralt notes in Sword of Destiny, the witchers believe the Child of Destiny would not need the Trials. Ciri is special. She is a mutant carrying the blood of elves, mutated in conjunction with the human genome. Elder Blood, witcher-trained, magic-capable, princess, heir of an Emperor & descendant of another such beyond the stars, prophesised mother to another even more powerful mutant saviour, if not a saviour of elves herself. She is extraordinary; she does what witchers do despite of it all, despite not getting or needing the mutations.

’What can you know about saving the world, silly? You’re but a witcher.’

But now she is just… also one?

The sceptic in me says the only reason they went for Trials for Ciri was to keep it close to how the gameplay holds up. To have a "witcher-eyed", female protagonist upholding their brand. So it could be about potions and signs additionally to what Ciri would have had by default → oils + magic + Elder Blood. I would like for them to give us witcher Ciri, but book-Ciri - a witcher girl setting off after monsters while remaining herself, with her own struggles and unique perspective on the universe. This here feels more like a PR move, and I don’t like it in the grand scheme of things; even while seeing a rough and capable Ciri tickles my heart in a special way. There were other ways to gamify her abilities; they are giving her magic use anyway, after all. It feels a little cheap. In fact, I can see how Elder Blood—Ciri’s uniqueness—is precisely how CDPR can handwave away the Trials, but isn’t the “cosmetic” aspect of it exactly the point? It makes the decision hollow, a ploy, but if you were to give this decision depth then you would run the risk of overstacking your protagonist and forgoing the spirit in which her character was conceived and relates to witchers and the world.[^1]

Moving on. This was the only part that I did not like and, as ever, there are ways of writing yourself out of this. (I dearly hope they have writers who love book Ciri.)

A few years have passed since the end of The Witcher 3 when The Witcher 4 begins. Witcher Ciri wants to be the hero. She has always wanted to do the right thing; she is always picking sides. She is young, she is idealistic, and she is furious. It’s what seems to unite the Ciri in The Witcher 4 with her at the end of The Witcher 3.

"She's almost obsessed with the way she lives. There are some moments where you have to go with your heart instead of always going with the calculated calls. And this is what I love in Ciri. She's less calculating, following her heart, her passion, her gut feel.” - Source

In both the published and draft endings to The Witcher 3, Ciri chooses potentially fatal, self-sacrificial “rituals” for the greater good. She chooses; you, the player, cannot do anything about it. (In the drafts you could, but it turned out to be a bad decision.) In the trailer though, it seems like Ciri is almost running away from herself, or something else, by the way she dives into this life. This intrigues and has storytelling potential - getting what you have always wanted is one of the most dangerous things in the world.

The world and people keep disappointing her, however, and, as the monster used in the trailer not very covertly insinuates: “fate cannot be changed”, "you weren't supposed to come back.” In this sense it almost feels like The Witcher 3 should have been Ciri’s story from the very beginning, because they are revisiting important beats from it and, after only a few years, are likely to handle loose threads. Ciri’s struggle is with having been born to exceptionality, to a destiny larger than life, yet desperately trying to make it smaller for the sake of her soul.

The insinuation made about Ciri’s life through Mioni—the peasant girl offered in sacrifice to a local “God” for the greater good of the community—is not subtle. This is Ciri fighting off the echo of her own story, trying to change such fates in principle. For Mioni, if not for herself. Saving her from being ritually sacrificed—as in prophecies. The monster she faces, by the way, preys on trauma. No subtlety here, whatsoever.

“At first glance, it seems that it is just the flower that is floating on top of the water,” says Kalemba of a cleansing sequence in a bathtub. “But the fun fact is that this is a very Slavic kind of flower. This is a special flower that people in the medieval era were using in special moments to defeat evil. It is very symbolic. Every single frame here is very meaningful.” - Source

But the world and people keep disappointing; Ciri's good deed goes unrewarded, and Mioni dies anyway. Because in principle the Mechanism is set up in a certain way and it is running and it is not easy to grind it to a halt without casualties. How much then is Ciri ready to sacrifice if she is wont to pick a side and fight no matter what? Such questions, I intuit, may become relevant later in her trilogy, but the seeds are sown. Because frankly, in the trailer, Ciri comes off as in The Tower of the Swallow: she has figured out philosophy. It’s a little naive and lacking in experience, seeing the world narrowly, focusing on her truth. It’s very youthful. It’s also—curiously enough—backtracking from the end of The Witcher 3.

What happened in-between The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 4, and, overall, the books and the games? I predict that in Ciri's first solo they may be doing a parallel in the spirit of Lady of the Lake’s ending - Ciri running away from herself/past/failure while attempting to build a new life. It's relatively safe, it's solid. Additionally, in CDPR's original concept for The Witcher 3's "witcher ending," Ciri was meant to experience a profound disillusionment with the witcher's path. After facing the harsh realities of the profession, she would abandon it entirely, choosing instead to traverse the universe in search of ways to atone for running from her destiny—a destiny that demanded she use her extraordinary powers for the greater good of many beings across different realms. It’s possible a double-bottom is hiding in plain sight.

I hope they will explore a truly morally ambiguous Ciri, letting her be messy and problematic rather than simply heroic. I hope they address her past experiences with nuance, not shying away from the ugliness. I hope they let her get drunk in her obsession with the witcher life for a while, break hearts, slowly begin stitching her own back together perhaps. I hope they navigate into the heart of her magic, touch the painful humanity within without forgetting that she has an origin story already, and dare to explore her as Her.

Footnotes

[^1]: I am also sure they go through with the plot where facing the White Frost has locked or seemingly robbed her of her Elder Blood abilities, for better or worse. And since this is going to be a trilogy I will further bet she will get those abilities back as the stakes for her climb higher and higher toward the end game. The other pathway would be that she starts out as having it all, so to speak, and ends up with nothing at all (but we did not see her blink here, I think, so I doubt this); finally "normal." At whatever cost. Narratively in a computer game, for a character who is the Grail, THE person who could do it all, this sort of shuffling makes sense. You can keep the gameplay fresh.

[konigbabe]

heavenly sin

Pairing: RE4!Leon Kennedy x fem!reader

Word count: 3.4k

Tags/warnings: smut (pure unfiltered filth, no plot); voice kink; p-in-v sex; unprotected sex; female gendered anatomy; female masturbation; fingering; cunnilingus; established relationship; no y/n; references to Christianity and ferocity; extensive wordplay

Summary: It's been known that Leon is one kinky bastard.

A/N: Written as part of my A to Z kinks game. N is for narratophilia aka being aroused by sexual storytelling.

Tried something a little bit different to explore my knowledge of English. A wordplay of sorts (I basically threw random words together in hopes that it'd make some sense). Bon Appetit.

masterlist • navigation • faq • AO3 • ko-fi

“You enjoying yourself?” As Leon discards his gloves, casting them aside like insignificant relics, you feel the pillow crumple beneath his weight. A testament to the force of his being. The air feels sizzling hot, thick with heat and suffocating in its intensity. “If I knew my words would get you so riled up,” his other hand cups your breast, thumb circling the erected nipple and watching as goosebumps rise over the sensitive skin, “I’d do this much sooner.”

It started as a joke, a fleeting spark in the sea of banter. Leon’s flirtatious nature entwined in perfect harmony with his tender heart.

Fresh out of the shower, your heart longed for the man whose sudden departures have become routine. A standard in your life.

The sun made its final descent below the horizon, the sky painted in shades of amber and gold – the bedroom awash in a warm and inviting glow, as if every object was kissed by the sun's final rays. The light filtered through the sheer curtains, creating patterns on the floor that danced like flickering flames.

And in the midst of it all, Leon's call came through, cutting through the stillness.

The conversation began innocently. Calling to let you know he’ll be home soon. It was as though his tenderness was butterfly's wings, fluttering in your chest and making your heart skip a beat.

His sincere words slowly spilt over into something else. Something more. Something promising.

It’s now that the phone lies next to your ear, and Leon's voice, like a silk ribbon, unwinds into your consciousness, stirring a deep and primal desire within you. Building the anticipation need inside you.

“After that, I’d bent you over the table. You’d already be naked and dripping,” Leon’s voice a song of Solomon, “but I’d be far from done with you.”

A gasp, soft and quiet, escapes your parted lips. Every fibre of your body, every cell is set on fire. The setting sun casting flames over your naked skin of yours. Flesh burning. Body wrapped in a cocoon of passionate flames – your palm pressing against the sensitive nub, the pressure light as a feather. Slow, languid strokes of your fingers follow Leon’s words.

Muscles tightening as the pressure keeps adding with each sentence. Slow and steady. With a pace of a gentle stream. Dipping one finger deep inside your slick walls, only to stop when you reach fully inside.

A stream of docile moans flows from your throat.

“Just to feel you take my cock. Hear those gorgeous gasps as you beg me to give it to you,” hand gripping the messed-up sheets underneath you, squeezing tight as you add another finger, curling them upwards.

“Rough, just how you like it. Pretty sure we’d break the table,” Leon’s words are accompanied by a light chuckle, hiding much more sinister and vivid ideas inside his head.

The way his name rolls off your tongue makes him cuss. Your voice carries the weight of longing, desire, and devotion. Making Leon wish to finally be home.

“Fuck. Could spend all day between those lovely legs of yours.” Leon’s voice descends to a low murmur, tinged with raw, feral hunger.

With a touch as tender as a butterfly’s wing, thumb circling the aching nub of nerves; it ignites a wildfire of ecstasy within your body. As you lightly graze your opening, feeling the softness of your slick walls, a delicate gasp escapes your mouth, akin to a prayer of submission to this moment of pure passion and pleasure.

“Just to taste that pretty pussy of yours on my tongue.”

Leon's voice pours into the phone, rich and sinful. You hear the front door open with a soft creak, the sound echoing through your body. He's finally home, his presence filling your senses with a heady aroma of musk and lust, a tantalizing potion that you can't resist.

He gazes at you with eyes like storm clouds brewing with desire. The air is thick with the scent of sex and your yearning, hanging in the dimly lit bedroom, resembling a heavy fog. You keep your gaze locked with his, transfixed as Leon strides in, his figure outlined by the glow of light seeping in from the hallway.

You don’t stop–

–instead, your fingers delve deeper. Nails grazing the tender walls, the slight discomfort only adding to the pleasure. Like a deer caught in headlines, your eyes stay on his.

The sound of your slickness echoes in the room as you thrust in and out, unconsciously matching the rhythm of Leon's steps – left in, right out, left in, right out – a dance of carnal desire.

And just like that, he stands on the side of the bed.

Leon’s eyes gleam with a fierce intensity. A perfect blend of predatory sensuality and effortless ease. With the grace of a pather; clad in a black henley shirt, the first two buttons undone, exposing the slight curve of his clavicles. It molds to his chiseled form as though it was a second skin, making Leon exude a primal magnetism that draws you closer to your high.

Spellbound by the scene in front of him – by you; fingers deep inside, eyes glazed over with orgasmic ecstasy as your work yourself to your high.

The air is thick with the sweet scent of your desire, a heady aroma that fills his senses with an overwhelming urge to indulge in your rapture.

He steps closer, placing one knee on the bed. The mattress creaks under his weight, but his gaze never leaves yours. It's as if you're the only person in the world that matters to him right now. The heat emanating from his body is palpable, and you feel your heart race as his presence commands the room.

“You enjoying yourself?”

His tone is low. A seductive purr sends a wave of electricity through your veins. Hot like molten lava. Dripping like honey, sweet and luscious. They linger in the air, coating everything around you with a sticky warmth.

His name leaves your lips in a deep sigh. Soft walls squeeze your fingers.

As he discards his fingerless gloves, casting them aside like insignificant relics, you feel the pillow crumple beneath his weight. A testament to the force of his being. The air feels sizzling hot, thick with heat and suffocating in its intensity.

Leon’s arm flexes, the sinewy muscles bulging when put to work. Your eyes lock onto his, drinking in the raw masculinity and primal allure of his being. A contented moan escapes your lips, an instinctive reaction to the overwhelming sensuality of the moment.

“If I knew my words would get you so riled up,” his other hand cups your breast, thumb circling the erected nipple and watching as goosebumps rise over the sensitive skin, “I’d do this much sooner.”

His towering form casts a shadow over you as he leans closer. Lips so close you can almost taste the desire that emanated from him. The heat of his breath dances across your skin, making your senses swirl in a dizzying haze of lust; igniting a fire that burns with the intensity of Samson's strength.

“Wanna gimme a kiss?” he whispers, his lips almost brushing against yours. You’re still able to feel the soft graze of the plump skin atop of yours, sending a fluttering sensation to your heart.

You can't help but feel intoxicated by his voice, each word rolling off his tongue with a silky smoothness that sends shivers down your spine. It's almost like he's casting a spell, using his voice as a weapon to ensnare you in his grasp. And you willingly surrender, caught in the web of his honeyed words; like Delilah, powerless to his will, swept away by the power of his seduction.

Lips grazing his, you push your face upwards to be closer. The kiss is both gentle and fierce; a tantalizing dance of lips and tongues that leaves you breathless and wanting more. The taste of him a mix of mint and spice. You stop the movement of your wrist between your legs. Stilling, feeling the wet squeeze around your fingers, your mind becomes a blank canvas, a vast expanse of nothingness.

The taste of him lingers on your tongue as he pulls away. Thick fingers wrapping around your wrist, he nudges your fingers out of you. A displeased grunt leaves your lips at the sudden emptiness. Only to have your breath stop; watching as Leon brings your hand, fingers visibly sticky with your juices, tongue swirling around the tip of your index finger before taking two of the fingers in his mouth. It’s as if he’s tasting the forbidden fruit, savoring the flavor of your arousal like the sweetest nectar.

Feeling the wet tip of his tongue swirl around your fingers, you can’t help but let out a soft moan. The rough texture brushes over the pads of your fingers. Licking every drop of you off of your fingers, leaving them clean before he licks his own lips.

“Missed that taste.”

His eyes never leave yours, dark and intense with desire as he slowly releases your hand.

“Missed you almost that much too.”

His words wash over you like a warm embrace, seeping into your pores and settling deep within your bones. As his body moves over yours, his hands glide across the burning expanse of your skin, tracing patterns of passion that leave you breathless in anticipation. The soft touch of his lips on your navel sends ripples of pleasure through your body, each sensation building on the last until you're gasping for air.

Leon sinks to his knees at the end of the bed; his movements smooth and graceful. Years of never-ending training left him in full control of every muscle. Arms sliding underneath your knees, he holds you firmly as he grips your hips with unyielding strength.

A single tug. Confident in its prosecution. He brings you to the edge of the bed, your glistening cunt hovering in front of his face. The sight of him there, between your legs, both captivating and overwhelming.

The wet tip of his tongue peaks from within his kiss-bruised lips.

Before you know it, you’re completely undone. A mess. Leon's tongue turns your body into a temple of pleasure; his movements sinuous and calculated. With each flick and swirl of his tongue, he's coaxing you to heights of ecstasy.

His tongue traces every inch of your throbbing cunt, flicking and teasing your clit as you squirm beneath him, one hand grasping his soft hair while the other squeezes your breast. His fingers, thick and rough, plunge deep inside of you, finding all the right spots to drive you wild. Each thrust of his hand sends jolts of pleasure through your body, making you moan and writhe with need.

"Such a fucking filthy little thing," he growls against your skin, the heat of his breath making you shiver. He devours you with his mouth and hands, taking you to the brink of ecstasy and back again; fingers scissoring and pumping, working you over until you're a quivering mess of desire.

The blunt pressure of the tips of his fingers pressing mildly against your inner walls sending pinnacles of bliss across your body until you’re mewling at the sharp pleasure that ripples down your spine.

You claw at the sheets, unable to control the waves of sensation that crash over you.

And then, with a final, shuddering gasp, you let yourself go, your body convulsing in waves of pure pleasure. Ecstasy; Leon’s name a sweetened melody on the tip of your tongue.

He stands up afterwards, a towering figure before your eyes. Your aching legs fall from his shoulders onto the bed. Leon looms over you, appearing almost god-like, a divine being sent to ravage you with its passion.

Disposing of his shirt, you lay on the bed motionless, senses on high and in anticipation as you watch the man strip. With every article of clothing that comes off, Leon’s body reveals itself in all its glory. Shoulders and chest sculptured, shaped by years of intense training. Someone who’s worked hard to achieve such a physique. Rippling muscles that flex with every movement he makes. His arms thick with veins and biceps that bulge with raw strength, capable of holding you up effortlessly. You can see every ridge of his abs, each one chiseled to perfection.

“Enjoyin’ the view?” he rasps after ridding himself of the last article while you shamelessly stare at Leon’s sheer size and the strength of him.

“Very much,” you breathe out when he crawls on top of you.

His cock rests atop your stomach, heavy and pulsing with need; leaking as he marks you in his precum. Yet, neither of you moves. Unbothered, you remain locked in his gaze before his lips capture yours in a short passionate kiss. Drawn together by the irresistible pull of gravity, your lips meet in a collision of desire and longing.

Legs wrapping high around his waist, his hand leaves the side of your neck and travels the side of your body, igniting a trail of heat as it goes. Leon strokes the length of your thigh, only stopping when his fingers rest under your knee momentarily. Then you feel the blunt tip press against your aching cunt. The anticipation inside you unravels like a tightly wound spool, releasing a flood of sensations that spreads throughout your body.

“Ready?” he breathes out; his warm breath tickles your skin as his lips brush against yours once again.

The silky texture of his hair brush against your fingertips. Legs tightening around his upper body, you pull him closer to you. “Yeah.”

The pressure against your throbbing cunt intensifies as Leon presses forward. The crown of his cock splits you open with ease, enveloping him. Welcoming him eagerly in your wet heat. As if he belongs there.

Leon’s touch’s electric, sending shivers down your spine as he claims you with each bite and kiss. His teeth graze your chin, softly nibbling at the skin as he lets out a guttural grunt. Keeping one hand on the side of your neck, possessive and tender, surely to feel the rapid pulse of your jugular vein, he hooks his thumb underneath your jaw and pushes upwards.

When your head is tilted upwards enough to his satisfaction, his lips latch on the front of your neck. Small, quick bites decorate the stretched skin. Followed by a wet kiss, he sucks on the skin. Vulnerable and exposed.

Moans cascade from your lips, an ode to his cock splitting you apart slowly. A divine intrusion into your depths, filling you.

He stills when he’s buried balls deep inside of you; bottoms out in your quivering walls, slick with post-orgasmic arousal.

The feeling of fullness, of being completely filled, is almost too much to bear. Your breath hitches in your throat, body trembling with pleasure as it strains to accommodate him; to make enough space to take him in.

Your eyes flatter shut as he waits, face nuzzling into the crook of your neck while his hand cups the underside of your breast with his thumb teasing your nipple in a leisurely manner.

A moment of content falls between you. Bodies molded together; two halves of a whole.

After a few seconds, you press the sole of your feet into his skin, feeling the taunt muscle contract underneath you.

A subtle but unmistakable gesture. A wordless plea for more.

A fuck me of sorts.

Your body speaks volumes, a language he's learned to decipher. And with a low growl, he responds to your invitation. A low roll of his hips. A test of your readiness. It becomes a measured beat that tests your strength, the pressure of his cock firmly pressed against the walls of your cervix.

It has you sent into a harmonious frenzy.

Leon continues with the rhythm. Relishing in the tight squeeze of your cunt, in the way you sing for him, his name a sacred hymn on your lips. Your body responds eagerly to his touch, every nerve ending on fire as pleasure courses through you.

His hands sear a blazing trail on your burning flesh. Every touch feels as if he’s branding you, etching himself onto your skin.

The wetness of his lips causes goosebumps to raise on your skin. Moving like a reverent prayer. Worship of your body as his tongue swipes over your sensitive nipples.

Your name escapes his lips and is met with a low moan.

Tantalizing and peaceful.

Leon’s unhurried movements slowly transform into something more. Rough and hasty. Teeth nibbling at your jawline, feeling the bone underneath the skin, your nails bite into the tight muscle of his shoulder blades. Surely to leave indents that will bloom into bruises and marks. Your back arch, offering yourself up to him as you focus on meeting his thrusts.

As his hand wanders down the length of your body, his fingers dance along the curves of your waist and hips before grazing the globes of your ass; giving it a rough squeeze before wrapping his fingers under your knee and pulling away from your neck.

Meanwhile, his other hand braces his body weight by your face. Leon’s fingers entwine around your ankle. Pushing your leg up and over his shoulder, you moan over the painful stretch of your hamstring as he gazes at you.

He moves with a frenzied urgency. Lowering himself to rest on his elbows, his fingers find their way to your clit.

The way he flicks over the sensitive nub elicits a series of moans and cries from you only to be silenced by his lips crashing onto yours.

The kiss is wet and messy. Hungry. Both of you eager to take and dominate, his tongue dancing with yours in a frenzied manner.

It's like he's a man possessed, lost in the rhythm of his movements and the feel of your body beneath him. You writhe and moan, lost in a haze of sensation and desire as he takes you higher towards that ultimate release. That sweet orgasm. Every motion is a symphony, a perfect blend of power and finesse, as he explores the contours of your body with a deep hunger.

Mind becoming blurry, your senses are consumed by the raw, primal desire Leon elicits with his thrusts. Moving to brace himself better, it feels impossible when you feel the blunt pressure hit even deeper than before. Gasping, you move your hips, trying to take him as deep as possible.

The smell of sweat and sex fills the air, and you can hear the sound of skin slapping against the skin as Leon moves with increasing speed and intensity. His determination to tear you apart only grows each time your hips meet, sending bolts of electricity throughout your every cell. His thumb flicks over your clit, applying pressure and circling the aching bud until you’re quivering underneath the mass of a man above you. Inside you.

The sound of his grunts and moans blends into a symphony of pleasure, each note building up the tension within you. You feel like a volcano on the brink of eruption, bubbling with molten passion until it finally snaps. Erupts.

A tidal wave of pleasure washes over you. Sweeping you in a vortex of delight. A thousand stars explode in your mind, each one brighter than the last, painting your vision with vibrant colors. Your body convulses, spasming in rhythm with the waves of pleasure that ripple through you.

Gasps leave your lips. Desperate for air, you cling to Leon, whose thrusts never wavered. Whose fingers continue to tease your clit, now throbbing and exploding with sensitivity. His eyes lock on yours, lips parted with low moans escaping from between before you bring his face down to you, swallowing each cry of pleasure but eventually, he pulls away.

You watch as Leon’s eyes snap shut, brows furrowing in pleasure as he stills. His full length buried inside of your spasming cunt, filling you up with his cum.

Your body’s spent. Yet your mind’s still reeling from the sheer intensity as Leon remains buried inside; his breath ragged and uneven before he pulls out with measured slowness, teasing your oversensitive clit with a gentle tap. You shudder at the sensation of him trickling out of you.

“Hi.”

The simple word leaves your mouth in a breathless whisper. A mere welcome that was meant to be addressed when he first entered your home instead of now. A warmth spreads through your body, settling low in your belly as you take in the sight of him; the way his blond hair falls across his forehead, resembling a halo of an angel. Cheeks tinted in light pink and lips curved into a small smile as he looks at you.

“Hi.”

[bonefall]

It's a shame Tree is so poorly used because playing Clangen made me think about how much drama a mediator could cause even if they have good intentions. Like trying to get two cats to get along but only making their relationship worse or committing a big political faux pass with a rival clan when they need their support at the brink of war. Conflict through diplomacy can be fun if you commit to building tension and consequences with it.

Do you think mediators will eventually become a thing in all the BB!Clans?

Mediators are a great game mechanic in Clangen. Absolutely fantastic design choice, giving you better influence over the relationships between cats in a game all about managing relationships between cats. The people who came up with that one should be kissed on the mouths.

I'm not sure how much I'd get out of them as a storytelling element for BB, though.

It's not a complete no-- Clangen's mediators are pretty close to that "Therapy" rework I floated. Making their role more about interpersonal conflict, giving advice, helping individual cats work through their issues.

At the same time though, I find that the sense of community is so much stronger when that isn't someone's "job," but just something someone in the Clan can relate to.

Jaypaw could have had some sessions with a hypothetical therapist to confront his internalized ableism-- but isn't it more interesting for him to realize that by calling himself worthless for his disability, he's directly insulting his mentor Longtail too? And that Longtail will invoke his Battle Cat right to FIGHT for his honor?

They could consult elders, find a surprising connection in a Clanmate they'd never paid attention to, reignite an old friendship they thought they lost forever. There already feels like so many possibilities, and all of them feel more intriguing than "goes to the designated therapy guy."

If there's anyone like a political diplomat in BB though, it feels like it should evolve from Merchants. Ive got some stuff about trading and bartering in the works, and I think there's more space for interesting ideas there.

[maleyanderecafe]

Death by Fire (Visual Novel)

Created by: V0dka

Genre: Horror/Romance

Death by Fire has some nice art, and an interesting concept though there isn't too much as of now considering it's a demo. The main character, Arson not only has a cool name but a cool design with a half mask. If you are interested in this game, you can find more out at @deathbyfirevn.

The story starts out with the MC waking up. They seem really tired and grumbling as their boss has called them. They decide to go buy some groceries, being served by a nice cashier. As they go up the stairs to their apartment, they come across some graffiti welcoming them home before getting knocked out. Upon waking up, they find that they are tied to a chair, with an animated TV show playing in the background. Someone states that it was a show that the MC liked when they were younger and as the MC looks at him, they see a man with a mask and some blood on his face. They can either ask about the blood or why he kidnapped them.

If the MC asks about why they did this, they will seem disappointed that they don't remember him, even though the MC has absolutely no recollection of him. Whereas if the MC talks about he blood, he will state that he cut the limbs off of a man who was trailing outside of their house. He will then state that he is taking care of the MC now, all of their eating, drinking etc. He will then ask if we like the TV show that is playing.

If we say yes, he will be happy whereas if we say no, then he will seem disappointed as we used to like this show in the past.

After which, he will attempt to loosen the ropes where we can either attack him or stay obedient. Attacking him will lead to knocking him over, however he will be able to grab hold of their ankle. He is unhappy, stating how happy he was when he first was able to see them again after so long, however, in displeased by the results. Staying obedient will lead to him introducing himself as Arson and him stating that he will have to buy somethings tomorrow before the MC falls asleep.

So as I said, fairly short. The story mostly follows the MC being annoyed before being otherwise kidnapped by Arson, though we do get to learn more about him through his appearance and his relationship with the MC. Arson seems to have known the MC from the past, though we don't know how or why, and based on his appearance probably had some injuries to the left side of his face, probably due to fire (considering his name is Arson and the title of this game). We also see that he has bandages on his arms so it's possible that he might self harm or that those too are injuries from said fire. Based on the cartoon that he plays, it's likely that Arson and the MC met when they were really small, so it's likely one of those childhood friends that the MC no longer remembers. I am curious about how Arson was able to kidnap the MC in the first place, since at least in our point of view we simply get knocked out before waking up to being tied to a chair. Still, it seems like the game will either be attempting to escape or enjoying the life of Arson taking care of us while being tied to a chair, either of which will likely lead to some interesting backstory between the two.

I will say that the art is very pretty, I like the design of Arson since there is a lot of intrigue to what happened to him from his mask to his mostly expressionless face to the bandages of his arms. He does a lot of good character design storytelling just from his design considering we don't know that much about whats happening in the game yet. The clerk also seems like she might be an important character (though it might just be that she's the only other character we've seen so far).

Over all though, a pretty short game, though an interesting premise. As I've said there's currently not much on it, but hopefully it becomes a fun game for everyone to play in the future.

[wosoimagines]

Celebrations - Vivianne Miedema/Reader

prompt: Arsenal celebrates Viv finally making her return from her ACL injury.

warnings: none

words: 4587

(Y/N) POV

I grinned as I wrapped my arms around Viv’s waist as I picked her up to spin her around. Viv scoffed in my arms before I put her down. She shook her head at me as I only followed behind her.

“Come on, Viv! Be excited! You’re back!” I cheered. Viv only rolled her eyes. “Come on, darling. It’s been three hundred and eleven days. You’re allowed to get excited and celebrate coming back.”

“We’ll celebrate when I actually get subbed onto the pitch,” Viv said.

I shrugged at that. I knew that Viv had been nervous about coming back, but I had been there every step of the way to assure her that she was going to be okay. I had missed getting to play with Viv for so long now and I knew that Jonas was going to sub her on even if it was just for a few minutes.

I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t keep my excitement in. Katie was right there with me. Not that it surprised any of us since Katie was consider the president of Viv’s fan club.

Honestly, I was just really looking for when Viv would finally get to start again. I couldn’t wait to play with her in the starting eleven again.

“Schatje,” Viv called out. I paused my animated retelling of my most recent trip home to turn to Viv. I grinned when Viv motioned in front of her. “Come sit.”

I abandoned my storytelling as I made my way over to where Viv was before I felt her running her hands through my hair so that she could pull it up for me. It was a small thing we had started after Viv realized how nervous I got before games during my first season with Arsenal.

It wasn’t long before Katie came to sit in front of me so that the two of us could talk about how excited we were for our national team camps that would be coming up. Everyone would be flying out the next morning to get to their respective camps.

While I couldn’t wait to go home and see all my national teammates, I was a bit bummed out that Viv wouldn’t be able to come watch my games this time around as she would finally be back with the Dutch National Team. Viv had assured me that she would still make time to watch my matches though as I promised to watch hers as well.

“What are you most excited for, (Y/N)?”

“Tobin and Christen said they’d come out to catch the second game since it’s in San Diego,” I said with a grin.

It was no secret that Tobin and Christen had taken me under their wing when I joined the national team. My Arsenal teammates had been surprised though when I had finally convinced Tobin to join Arsenal and they had seen just how close the two of us were. But I hadn’t had much of a chance to see the two while preparing for the World Cup and helping Viv rehab, all the while both Tobin and Christen were dealing with their own injuries.

“You must miss them, huh?” Katie asked as she nudged my foot with her own. “All of your national teammates?”

My situation was a bit different from everyone else’s on the team, it seemed. Pretty much everyone else at Arsenal had someone from the same country as them on the team. Or they at least knew someone who was playing the WSL that they knew from their national team.

Lindsey was my closest teammate and even then, she was in France. Well, I guess that I did have Catarina Macario and Mia Fishel both were still so new to the team that I wasn’t that close to either of them. I was closer to Jessie Flemming than I was to either of them.

“Yeah, I really do miss them,” I nodded. I hadn’t been called up for our September friendlies after I had been publicly critical of Vlatko and the USSF for keeping him around for so long, but the federation knew that they would only be able to keep me off the team for a short amount of time before there was clear outcry to have me back. “Besides, Becky’s going to be back in camp, so we’ll finally get Captain America back on the field. Maybe we’ll get her to finally score too.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Katie said.

Viv pressed a kiss to the top of my head before she moved from where she was sitting. I let Katie help me up before the two of us had headed out to get lined up since we were both starting today.

While we were waiting in the tunnel I couldn’t help as I kept bouncing on my heels. This should be a good game for us after all. Plus, we had a celebration dinner planned for after the game for Viv’s return.

The second the whistle blew to start the match I knew that it was going to be a rough one. Not that it completely surprised me, Bristol hadn’t won a match yet this year and no one ever wanted to start the season off with four losses so they would try their hardest to stop that from happening. That meant targeting Alessia and staying on my back as well.

Honestly, it was a pretty smart tactic. Alessia’s temper could almost rival Katie’s and that was saying something. If they could draw Alessia into getting a yellow, or even a red, it would shift the game.

There was just one major detail that Bristol was forgetting.

We’ve got McCabe.

Katie scored a banger in the seventh minute giving us the advantage that we had all expected to have.

But it was just two minutes later that the advantage came crashing down.

I had made a run for the ball but struggled to get my balance as I had taken a small shove from one of the Bristol players that sent me crashing to the ground. I had heard the dreaded pop our recent ACL squad at Arsenal had described as I hit the ground. I was immediately clutching at my knee even as play continued around me.

Katie was the first one to realize that I was actually hurt as I hadn’t gotten up yet. She was quick to fight to get the ball back before kicking it out so that the play would stop. She was also the first one over to me.

“Please, tell me it’s your ankle,” Katie said as she knelt on the ground next to me. I clenched my teeth as I shook my head. “(Y/N), please tell me it’s something other than your knee.”

“I’d love to,” I said, causing Katie to let out a sigh of relief. It was always worrying, no matter what color jersey a player wore, when they went down because it seemed like a majority of injuries these days were ACL injuries. “But it’s definitely my knee.”

“Okay,” Katie nodded. I saw her briefly turn to signal for a sub so I could go off. “It’s gonna be okay. Maybe it isn’t that bad.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I wasn’t surprised by our other teammates coming to check on me or how Kim also stayed close.

“Just a sprain, yeah?” Katie suggested. I glanced up to see that Kim didn’t look super confident in that possibility. “Or just a hyperextended knee? So long as you didn’t hear a pop there’s a chance it isn’t your ACL. Did you hear a pop?”

My eyes caught where Viv was standing on the sideline. I couldn’t let her stand there and worry about me. Not when we were supposed to celebrate her return.

The trainers were close enough to us that they were able to hear our conversation.

“I didn’t hear a pop or feel one,” I assured Katie. I knew that Irish woman would be angry with me when the news did come out because I was already certain that it was my ACL, but I refused to be the reason that Viv’s night was ruined. “I’m sure these guys will take good care of me and have me back on the field in no time.”

Katie nodded as the trainers moved next to me. Kim grabbed ahold of Katie’s arm to pull her up.

“Come on, Katie,” Kim softly coaxed the Irish woman. “(Y/N) will be all right. Let’s get out of the way and let the trainers do their thing.”

Katie hesitated but I smiled at her and nodded so she went with Kim while I let the trainers help roll me over. I brought my hand to cover up my mouth so that no one would be able to read my lips.

“It definitely popped,” I admitted behind my hand. The trainers froze at that because I had just told Katie that it didn’t. “Don’t tell the team. I don’t want to ruin Viv’s night with my own torn ACL.”

“You sure?”

“I heard it and felt it pop. It’s definitely torn.”

The trainers nodded before they moved to load me on the stretcher. I knew that it was something that had become precautionary with all the severe knee injuries so many players had been through recently.

They carried me off the field, but I let them stop so that Viv could check on me once we reached the tunnel, so it was a bit more private. I sent her a soft smile as she crouched so that she was at my height as she cupped my face.

“Your knee?” Viv asked.

“I doubt it’s that serious. It doesn’t feel that bad, I promise,” I assured her. I couldn’t help how the guilt gnawed at me as I said the words because I knew that she would be upset and worried when she did find out that my ACL was torn. “They’re just taking me out on the stretcher as a precaution. I’ll be back from the hospital for dinner. Right, guys?”

There was a course of yeses from the trainers.

Viv sighed as she nodded her head before pressing a kiss to my forehead.

“I’ll see you later, Schatje.”

“Hey,” I said as I reached out and grabbed a hold of her wrist when she went to walk away. I grinded my teeth together at the aching pain that came from my knee at the slight movement. Viv bit her lip at my reaction. “I’m going to fine, okay? Tonight’s about you. I know that Jonas is going to get you on the field, and I know that it isn’t going to be how we planned it with both of us being on the field, but, Viv, you deserve to be back out there. Enjoy that, yeah?”

Viv slowly nodded her head, and I gave her one last small smile before I kissed the back of her hand and let her go.

“No one tells Jonas until after the team has gone out,” I said once Viv was out of hearing range.

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

“You okay, kid?”

“I’m fine.”

Becky had been the first to call me. I had seen all the texts that my national teammates had sent me, but Becky was the one I had answered first. I was hesitant to text Tobin or Christen back. I knew that they would call me as soon as they knew I was out of the hospital, but I didn’t know how long I would last talking with them on the phone before I broke down.

Tobin and Christen weren’t just my team moms. They were my safety net. They had been the ones I went to when my anxiety about playing started to get to me. They were the ones who had convinced me to finally ask Viv out and they had been there through the hardest times in my life. But this was one of the worst setbacks I had, and it was at the worst time with the Olympics only nine months away.

I didn’t even know how long I would make it before asking Tobin and Christen to fly over to help me out while Viv was away at camp. I knew that they would do it too, but I couldn’t help but feel guilty for even thinking about asking them when they both had so much on their own plates already.

“How bad is it?”

I froze at the question. I, logically, knew that Becky would be the one they’d have call me to get information about my injury since she was our team captain, and we were in between coaches at the moment.

“My ACL is torn,” I admitted. I ran a hand over my face as I stayed in the car that was sitting outside the restaurant. Kim had stuck around to wait for me to get back to London Coloney with a couple of trainers. I had assured her that I was fine and that I just had to call Becky to give her an update so she could tell our national team. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do about surgery. Viv’s supposed to head to her own national camp tomorrow. But the longer I put it off, the longer I’ll have no idea what my timetable to return would look like.”

“Okay, you talk it over with Viv and get a gameplan with the medical staff at Arsenal and keep me updated.”

I knew that would be the next step. I sighed as I looked at the restaurant entrance. I wasn’t going to ruin Viv’s celebration so our talk would have to wait until after dinner. It really was unfortunate that we had to have such a quick turnaround between our game tonight and the national camps that everyone was leaving for tomorrow.

“Hey, Becky?” I called out before she could hang up the phone. “I know the federation wants you to report back to them tonight, but do you think it can wait until tomorrow?”

“Kid, they need to know as soon as possible.”

“I know, but it was Viv’s first game back from her ACL. I didn’t let her know how bad it was when they took me off. I didn’t tell her that I heard the pop,” I explained. Viv deserved to be able to celebrate this without having to worry about me. “I just want her to be able to celebrate finally getting back on the field for a game. I’m going to tell her tonight, but I want to be the one to do it. Not the team breaking the news.”

“Okay, but I call them at eight o’clock tonight,” Becky relented. I nodded in relief even though she couldn’t see me. “That’s like four hours. So, you make sure you tell her before then.”

“I will. I promise.”

We wrapped up our conversation as I made her promise to let the rest of the girls know that I missed all of them and I was upset that I wouldn’t be there to see them but that I trusted that they would win without me.

I took a moment to compose myself before I grabbed the crutches from the back of the car to head into the restaurant. I was slower to get back to the private room where the others already were. I could see the worry in my teammates faces when they saw the crutches. But my eyes met with Viv’s as I ignored our teammates.

Viv’s eyes darted down to the knee that I had hurt as she immediately started to fidget with the rings on her fingers. I started to make my way toward her before I took a seat next to her. Once I had the crutches leaned against the wall that was behind us, I grabbed ahold of her hand.

“It’s fine. Just hyperextended,” I assured her. Viv’s shoulders dropped in relief. “Doc said to get rest and the trainers will reevaluate next week to see how it’s looking. I’ll be back on the field in no time. I promise.”

Viv smiled at that as she gave my hand a tight squeeze. The guilt hit me hard as I watched the worry disappear from Viv’s eyes. I knew it was cruel to give her this false hope, but I didn’t want to ruin this for her.

“Great! That means you’ll be back with us in no time!” Katie cheered. I shook my head as Viv and I both turned to look at her. “Just too bad you won’t be going to national camp now.”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t need to think about that right now. Especially because it still hadn’t really hit just yet that I was going to be missing out on seeing some of my best friends for the second camp in a row.

“Just wait, McCabe. Once Beth, Viv, and I all get back on the field, it’ll be your spot that I take, and you’ll be the one riding the bench.”

Katie gasped at that before she pretended that I had actually hurt her. I couldn’t help but smile as Viv laughed at Katie.

As our night moved along, I found myself forgetting about the injury I had just sustained and instead lost myself in the celebration. It wasn’t even anything big we did for Viv. We didn’t even focus too much attention on her, but Viv honestly did love being around the rest of the team.

While she hadn’t been completely separated from the team during her injury and rehab, she had missed getting to spend as much time as she was used to with the rest of the team. I had also been careful to limit how much either of us committed to team bonding nights, especially when it was game nights knowing that as much as she pretended to hate the games, Viv was one of the most competitive people I knew, and she would have been upset by the number of games she couldn’t join in.

It was nice to see her enjoying herself with the rest of the team.

Aside from being the newest one on the team to be injured, today was amazing. Even as dinner was winding down and some of our teammates started to make their leave. Katie assuring both Viv and I that she was covering our meals tonight as the president of Viv’s fan club.

Of course, we could only go for so long though before something had to go wrong when our squad was around.

I hadn’t even been paying attention to the Aussies who were messing around next to the table that Viv and I were still sitting at as we both quietly talked to each other. I knew that the two of us would be making our leave soon as Viv was obviously worn out from the day.

I moved to slide out of my seat, but that proved to be the wrong thing to do because as soon as I had turned so that I could maneuver my way to my feet, Kyra had taken off to get away from Caitlin who was trying to chase her. Which meant that both of them collided with my recently injured knee.

I gasped as I tried to hold back the tears while I turned back in my seat to keep it from being ran into again. I was very away of how all of the attention had been turned to me.

The aching pain that I had been able to ignore all night was back and it was ten times worse now. It was so bad that I couldn’t even process the apologies coming from Kyra and Caitlin. Viv was quick to move around the table so that she could be on the side I was trying to get out from as she waited for the pain to subside.

“Did they give you anything for the pain?” Viv asked.

I shook my head before I fished out the prescription from my jacket pocket.

“I have a prescription, but I’ll have to get it from the pharmacy tomorrow.”

Viv took the prescription from me. I was also a bit surprised to find that she had shooed the others away so that we were in the room by ourselves.

“Why would they give you a prescription if you just hyperextended your knee?”

I sighed at the question. I really didn’t want to do this here. I would do it at home, but not here where anyone could hear us.

“(Y/N), they wouldn’t give this to you if you hyperextended your knee. Especially not a prescription for this much,” Viv pointed out. I knew that she had figured it out. Viv looked up at me as I felt my shoulder slump forward. I was already over this injury, and I had only had it for about five hours. “Why would they write you a prescription?”

“Not here, Viv.”

“Yes, here.”

“No. I’m not doing this here,” I said. Viv scoffed as she looked away from me. “We can talk about it as soon as we get home where it’ll be a private talk, but I’m not going to do this in public.”

Viv huffed as she stayed crouched in front of me for a moment before helping me up and situated with my crutches. Our walk outside was a silent one until we actually reached outside. Once we were outside, I found myself saying goodbye to our teammates and assuring both Kyra and Caitlin that I would be fine.

Viv stayed by my side as we made our way to the car. She even helped me get into the car. Something that we had mastered when she tore ACL, but it was a little awkward now. Both of us were used to doing the other’s role.

Viv stayed silent the whole ride back to our apartment. This morning’s playlist to get us both excited about the match we had today was the only thing keeping us from complete silence inside the car.

Even when we got home, Viv stayed quiet. She had gotten both of our bags out without a sound and followed me into the building. Her watching me struggle with the door for a moment before she held it open all the way so that I could get in without having to worry if the door was going to close on me or not. She stayed behind me as we made our way into the building.

I wasn’t sure if she refused to move in front of me just so she wouldn’t have to face me or if it was just because she was afraid that I’d fall and she thought she had a better chance at catching me if she was behind me.

Our trip from the elevator to our apartment took longer than normal as I was getting used to the crutches and couldn’t move as fast as Viv had eventually been able to. But once we were inside of our apartment, I moved to sit on the couch. I was fully prepared to sleep on the couch as well if she was mad enough at me. After all she was the one that would be going to a national camp tomorrow, so she’d need a better rest than me.

“I was going to tell you,” I assured her as she took a seat on the couch once our bags were put up. “I promise I was.”

“And did you plan on telling me before or after I left for camp?”

“I’m not a complete asshole, Viv. I was going to tell you as soon as we got home. But I knew what tonight meant for you. Three hundred and eleven days and you finally got back on the field. You deserved to celebrate with your friends. I wasn’t just going to let you skip that to baby me when I’m fine.”

“You tore your ACL! I don’t think you get what that’s like! Take it from some‒”

“I know! I know,” I cut her off. I couldn’t stop the tears that were threatening to fall as it was all finally catching up to me. “I’ll be out for at least six months, but it will more than likely be closer to nine before I can get on the field again. I’ll probably miss the Olympics because if it takes me nine months to come back then there’s no way I’ll be in form to go to the Olympics. And I’ll probably have more bad days than good ones.”

“When are you having surgery?”

“I don’t know, Viv. It just happened tonight. I’ll probably go talk to the team medics and a doctor tomorrow to figure out a plan.”

“I’ll call Jonker and let him know that I won’t be at camp.”

“No. No!” I moved forward to snatch her phone away from her. Viv tried to reach for it, but I moved back as far as I could. “You’re not doing that! You’re going to camp. I’m not letting you ruin everything you’ve worked for because of me.”

“You were there for me! Why can’t I be there for you?”

“I’m not saying that you can’t be. But you’re not putting your own career on hold because I have to have a surgery.”

“Then what about while I’m gone? It a lot harder to take care of yourself when you’re on crutches than you think.”

I sighed as I pinched the bridge of my nose. We were getting nowhere with this.

“Beth and Leah and Laura are all still going to be here. None of them were called up,” I pointed out. I hadn’t really thought about asking any of them if they’d be okay to help me out. “I can always ask them to help me. I’m sure that Tobin or Christen wouldn’t mind flying over to help me out for a couple of days.”

“I want to be able to take care of you like you took care of me,” Viv admitted as she moved closer to me. I sighed as I threaded a hand in her hair. “It’s scary and I would have never gotten through my own injury without you. I want us to be able to play together again and that means that you’ve got to get through this, but it’s hard and so emotionally draining.”

“And you are the one that’s going to get me through it,” I said. Viv perked up a little at that. “But I’m not going to let you sacrifice your own career because of mine. Especially not when you just got yours back. So, you’re going to camp.”

“But what about your surgery?”

I sighed as I moved my hand to play with the baby hairs at the nape of her neck. It knew that Viv always calmed down when I did that.

“I’ll wait to schedule it until you’re back from camp. And I’ll make sure that it won’t clash with the Manchester City game,” I assured Viv. Viv sighed before nodding in agreement. “Besides, between the girls who weren’t called up and our medical team, I’ll be well taken care of while you’re gone. And I’ll be sure to talk to you every day.”

“And if it ever feels like you’re drowning, you’ll tell me so that I can be there to pull you up like you did for me, right?”

“Right.”

[maplebellsmods]

Here are the two new updates for the Senior trip and Expanded Storytelling Rel Bits mod.

Senior Trip

Mod's official post page for more info

The senior trip experience is now more detailed. Instead of your Sim voting and immediately going to the senior location, they will have to go through a few additional steps.

Sim World Names

Furthermore, I have added the option to go on the trip with Sims from existing worlds in the game, rather than worlds that do not "exist" in the game. You can choose which file you want to download.

Pre-Senior Trip Meeting

The new features that I have added, Pre-Senior Trip Meetings, are meant to enhance the immersive experience. Your sim will be more actively involved in making the Senior Trip happen.

Before going on the trip, your sim will need to attend three senior trip meetings. I designed this to be flexible, allowing players with shorter lifespans to time the meetings as they prefer. For example, if someone has Seasons installed, they could attend meetings weekly, corresponding to the seasons (summer, fall, winter), and then go on the trip in spring. This is just one example of how you can use the mod.

After the first senior trip meeting, your sim will need to vote on a location. If you've used this mod before, you're familiar with the process. You will vote, and a few hours later, you will receive a notification about the chosen location.

After the first meeting, you will be able to attend your second one. During the second meeting, you will vote on the fundraiser that your sim and their peers will be organizing. Your sim will leave the meeting, and a few hours later, they will receive a notification.

Wait until you receive a call from the student. You will notice that there will still be the option to go to the 2nd meeting, ignore it though. Once you receive the you will immediately be able to attend the fundraiser, but be careful, it may flop.

Fundraisers

Once you receive a call about the fundraiser, you have a few options. For Movie Night and Game Night, you can purchase games, which will greatly contribute to the success of the fundraiser.

Additionally, you can make a post about the fundraiser. If you have enough followers or a high enough charisma level, your post may go viral, significantly boosting the fundraiser's success.

If your class chose the bake sale, you can even bake goods and bring them to the event. It will bring joy to everyone, and if your baked goods are excellent, the chances of a successful bake sale will be much higher.

(After you finish baking the food all you have to do is put it in your inventory before going to the fundraiser)

Final Step

After the fundraiser, your sim will be able to go on their final pre-senior trip meeting. This meeting is just a debrief of how the fundraiser went. After the meeting, you will be able to go on the senior trip.

The next steps are covered in my official senior trip post, but it's pretty straightforward.

Milestone

Finally, if you have Growing Together your teen sim will now get a milestone after they come back from the trip

Expanded Storytelling Rel Bits

Mod's official post page for more info

I have made updates that will make this mod feel a bit more immersive. I have also fixed the llama icon that would show up instead of the actual photos.

Milestones (Optional, Growing Together Required)

If you have Growing Together you should keep the optional milestone package files. Once you set relationship bits a milestone will be unlocked in relation to the relationship bit.

👇

Break-Up Removes Some Relationship Bits

Now if your sims break up some of the relationship bits will now be removed.

Here are the ones that will be removed if your sims do have these relationship bits:

Long Distance Relationship

Star Crossed Lovers

Flirty Friends

Romantic Wanderers

Puppy Love

Contextual buffs after certain interactions

Depending on certain interaction and relationship bit status your sims may get contextual buffs.

For example here a some buffs that your sims may get after getting into a relationship:

Relationships bit context buffs showed in the photo above left to right (High School Sweethearts, Flirty Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Puppy Love)

Buffs that your sim may receive after getting engaged:

Note: The "(From New Relationship)" text is a placeholder. I kept it there solely for the purpose of the buff photos, but each text in-game will correspond to the appropriate situation

Relationships bit context buffs showed in the photo above left to right (Childhood Sweethearts, Adventure Partners, Romantic Wanders, Long-Distance Relationship, Star-Crossed Lovers, Summer Romance)

Buffs that your sim may receive after woohooing:

Note: The "(From New Relationship)" text is a placeholder. I kept it there solely for the purpose of the buff photos, but each text in-game will correspond to the appropriate situation

Relationships bit context buffs showed in the photo above left to right (Flirty Friends, Love-Hate Relationship, Flirty Friends x2, Love-Hate Relationship, Long-Distance Relationship, x2)

Buffs that your sim may receive after breaking up:

Note: The "(From New Relationship)" text is a placeholder. I kept it there solely for the purpose of the buff photos, but each text in-game will correspond to the appropriate situation

Relationships bit context buffs showed in the photo above left to right (Puppy Love, Long-Distance Relationship, Star-Crossed Lovers, Love-Hate Relationship)

Set Relationship Bits using the Relationship Panel

You can now set the relationship bits using the relationship panel. It will still be in the same location, but now the sim does not have to be present for you to be able to set the bits.

Public August 5th

Download Here