#this is a pretty nice stress free thing which is really nice because I am Stressed rn lol

[kaydreamsart]

Color palette from @color-palettes

For this I set my computer to greyscale and didn't look at the colors until after I was done. It was fun! I plan on doing more!

Mirabelle with "Where The Merfolks Take You"

greyscale under cut ⤵️

[tobbotobbs]

Ghost and Soap with their little chef!husband. They tried to hide him from their work because he could get into trouble but how much can they do when he is such a lovely person that really wanted to surprise his husbands and their friends after an exhausting mission with a nice meal he cooked?

The Night Family Met Family

It was dark outside, the task force 141 had just came back from another mission. One that wasn't as exhausting as all the other missions they had been on in the last few months. Kyle was flying the chopper while Price was dpzing a little bit on the flight and John and Simon were sitting close to eachother while looking at Johnny's phone. They had been texting their sweet husband of 2 years that they were on their way back to the base right now, reassuring the worrying man that none of them, none of the other 141 boys had any bad injuries. Simon knew you it did little to calm your worries about their being, but he still told Johnny to tell you that they are alright. You always cared so much about them and the whole team, it was very sweet but also stressing you out sometimes. So telling you that they were fine except to a few cuts to calm your nerves should do till you could see them in person and check on them for your own reassurance. It wasn't long until the conversation on the phone turned from worried and thoughtful to cheesy and needy. Soap had started to text you how much you were missed in between his and Simon's arms and that it would be a hard night again, sleeping without their favourite person there next to them. Meanwhile you answered him with a lovely ,,But it's not long till we see us again my love!" and a lot of heart emojis. This made Ghost smile as he read the few words. It really wasn't long till he could hold you in his arms again. Only a few days before they all had a little time off of duty.

His thoughts were cut off by Gaz suddenly talking over the radio with them. ,,Guys we are back home! Tighten your seat belts please so we ain't having a repeat of last time I fell out of this thing", his voice was calm and a little teasing at the end, recounting on the time Ghost flew the helicopter and send Gaz flying out of it, for the second time. Price woke up from his little dozing off like he had a second sense for this, like a dad suddenly waking up when someone tries to get near the remote control while he "watched" something on tv. They all put on the seat belts and waited for the man to carefully land on the big H on the ground for helicopter. After finally getting out of the aircraft, they all made their way over to the barracks. All ready to go change and shower and then do something calmly for the rest of their free time before falling asleep. They all went into the showers nearly simultaneously and also went out again, drying themselves off and putting on the civilian clothes which mostly concluded a simple shirt and joggers or a too big hoodie from Ghost, in Johnny's case. They all were roo tired to notice that they weren't actually alone in the base. And that was something you found pretty amusing. Military men who are always on guard for anything but they simply didn't notice the lights being on in the kitchen while passing it in the hallway or the random car next to their cars. A car that belonged to none of them, not even Laswell.

They all made their way to the common room that was directly connected to the open kitchen when they suddenly noticed the strange atmosphere. ,,Wait...did one of you guys left the kitcheb lights on before we went showering?", their captain asked them curiously. ,,No sir, we all went right away through the halls, didn't even stop to take a piss", Soap answered laughing lightly. ,,Then who the hell is still up and in the god damn kitchen- and why does it smell like this person is cooking food?", Price asked, now a little annoyed that a rookie or someone was still up at this time, which it was 3 am in the morning at this point. They all shrugged at their captain and together they walked into the room. Kyle and Johnny were the first to stand in the room and look at the stranger standing in their kitchen, cooking some delicious smelling food while swinging to some scottish music none of them except for Soap understood. As Ghost entered he stopped right away. That wasn't just any music playing and any random person standing there and cooking, it was you. His and Johnny's sweet husband. You were cooking while playing soaps stupid scottish music playlist on spotify. Hearing them all enter you turned around and smiled softly at them. ,,Welcome back! I hope you don't mind, I cooked you guys something to eat! I just thought that maybe, after this long flight you lot would be a little hungry...?", you trailed of a little at the end. Getting nervous and scared at the way they were all just practically staring into your soul.

,,Who the hell are you?!", Prices voice was raised and he was ready to throw some punches if it was needed. ,,Wowowow! Uh I thought you knew- ah well it doesn't matter nlw does it? Uhm well let me introduce myself, since it seems my Husbands forgot to do so a long time ago", you carried on, seemingly a little displeased that neither Simon nor Johnny had ever talked about you to their friends. ,,I'm sorry- Husbands?", Kyle now asked completely confused. ,,Yes. Husbands. I am Y/n Riley MacTavish", you smiled, now softly again, at the two confused men in front of you. Relieved, John breathed out and turned around to his soldiers. ,,Now you muppets wanna tell me why this isn't in your files? Or didn't got mentioned anywhere. Ever. Hm?", like to scolded boys they seemed to try find the right words at Prices question. ,,Well you see, we requested Laswell to not tell anyone? Because we don't want him to get in danger so...for his own safety you could say?", Johnny found his voice first and tried to explain. Which seemed to be enough for Price. He nodded understanding and turned around again, smiling. ,,Well then let me thank you for cooking for us Sweetie. I'm sorry we didn't knoe who you were beforehand. It seemed those two muppets here care a lot about you lad", he talked in his typical fatherly voice and looked at what you had cooked for them. The whole room got more relaxed, now that Price approved of you and started putting some of the food onto a plate for himself to eat.

They all followed and started sitting and talking like the family they were. Price and Gaz were asking you a few questions about your relationship, how you guys met and since when those two idiots were married let alone in a relationship. You told them that you guys had met in scotland years ago, nearly more than a decade, because Johnny was introducing Simon to his family. Luckily enough you've been the nice cook in the diner they were all going to celebrate Johnny's and Simon's relationship. After accidentally bringing Simon the wrong food, you had scolded the waitress and went out to bring him his actual food himself. With that you had catched the brits eyes and also the scots, who wasn't ashamed to ask you out to a date with them right after that nice and very delightful dinner they had. Of course Johnny had seen the way Simon had looked at you. With longing and want. The same way he had looked at you. It was a little dance between you three for month. Always telling them that you liked them a lot, but never giving them a kiss. Not even on the cheek. You were making them go crazy with this innocent game you were playing. They knew that you dod this just to be 100% sure about everything but they couldn't deny the feeling of being played with because to be honest you had them at your mercy the second you laughed that beautiful loud laugh of yours on your second date because Simon had lost his ice cream while eating it and it fell onto his shirt. And just as they thought you were rejecting them for all, after 11 month of denying you finally kissed them both on your nearly one year anniversary. It shook them both. The two lf them were just laying on Soaps couch in his apartment in scotland when you came back from work, exhausted but happy nonetheless. Walking over to them and just giving them both a soft quick kiss on the lips before turning around and going to take a shower. And now, 10 years later, and 2 of them happily married, here you were. Finally meeting Simon's family and Johnny's second family.

Listening to this Price and Kyle smiled brightly. They were happy their friends had a family to come home to. And also such a lovely good cook as well. They spend the night talking tilm they all got tired, leaving them all going to bed. Johnny was yawning while walking hand in hand with you to Simon's and his room, Simon walking right behind them. When they got there it was quickly gotten rid of the clothes with exception for the shorts and they fell into the actual bigger bed that they had asked Price and Laswell to let them have so they could cuddle and sleep together in it. You were laying there in the middle of the bed, head on Johnny's bare chest and hugging him from the side while Simon was hugging you from behind, head in the back of your neck steadily breathing your scent in and relaxing more and more. You guys were exchanging a few love confessions till you one after one fell asleep in each others embrace. Happy to be together in each other's embrace, to be with your husbands and to be finally able to show each other love again, even if just for a short time.

Hey guys, it's been awhile! So sorry for that, have a lot going on right now sooo yeah. Here a little apology hehe

Damn I've got so much daddy issues in me I would give anything for Price to treat me like one of his idiot sons being in trouble tbh, also soapghost is just the sweetest what the hell????

Anyway, see you all next time, don't forget to reblog and have a good day <3

[chaotic-orphan]

INTOXICATING FEAR (IX)

Much Needed Alone Time

Read part one here

Continued from here

TW: overall content warning, very uncomfortable, forced self-harm, self-harm, mentions of self-harm, explicit self harm, gory self harm, blood, cuts, knives, cutting, explicit detail of blood/wounds, gross depictions of blood, torture, threats of violence, hopelessness, sadistic whumper

This one is even a bit squidgy for me at parts so take care of the warnings and of yourselves! Enjoy!

*~*~*~*~*

“Wakey wakey, Kit,” Ambrose sang. That was his only warning before a slap echoed around the room and Kit’s eyes shot open in shock. Ambrose was crouching in front of Kit, pale red lips tilted up into a half smile as Kit jerked forward. He didn’t get very far though.

Kit’s arms were kept restrained awkwardly behind him, bound tightly wrist to wrist. Kit frowned at Ambrose in question.

“Where’s Superhero?” Kit asked, voice erring on cautious. If Ambrose had managed to subdue or God forbid kidnap Superhero… or use him as his own little puppet toy plaything, then there really was no hope for either of them.

“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head about Superhero, Kit. He had to nip out on an errand which gives us some much-needed alone time,” Ambrose said, his voice too high and pleased with himself as he spoke, but his eyes… Kit swallowed the lump in his throat at the pain they promised. “Ah, there you are. There’s my scared, timid little Kit. You forgot yourself before, it’s okay. You can admit it, it’s only the two of us here after all.”

“I didn’t forget myself,” Kit snarled, bearing his teeth at Ambrose and jerking forward in the chair as far as he were able to. “I am done playing by the rules of your sick twisted games.”

Ambrose tilted his head to the side, dark eyes drinking in Kit’s threat. “Did seeing Superhero make you brave, Kit?”

“He’s going to see right through you,” Kit sneered, “and when he does, I’ll be there. Watching as he beats the—”

Ambrose jumped at Kit, one hand going to his throat while the other pressed a knife against Kit’s cheek. Ambrose wrenched Kit’s head up, so he was staring directly into Ambrose’s eyes with that cute little defiant look. Ambrose revelled at how still Kit went once Ambrose introduced the knife to his face.

“You won’t be able to watch if I pluck out those pretty little eyes, Kit, would you?” Ambrose mused. Kit shook his, trying to shake free Ambrose’s grip, but Ambrose tightened his hold and pressed the knife in deeper until Kit stopped moving. “Ah, ah, ah, Kit. Play nice or my hand might just slip.”

“Take my eyes!” Kit spat, his voice taking on a feral growl to it, as he struggled furiously in his restraints. “Take whatever the fuck you want because you will fuck up sooner or later and it’s only a matter of time until Superhero finds out who you really are! So go ahead!”

Kit craned his neck up further, pressing into the knife that Ambrose held. Daring him.

Bold.

Ambrose pulled away, dropping all contact from Kit. Kit let out a scoff as he dropped his head and rolled his shoulders.

“Yeah, thought so.”

“You know, Kit,” Ambrose said with a sigh, pressing the tip of the knife against his index finger and twirling it thoughtfully. He turned his back to Kit, walking towards the front door.

“You’re right. I didn’t really think the whole sickness thing through, if Superhero comes back and you’re still as feverish as you were, well,” Ambrose said inclining his head, with a wan smile: “he’d probably recommend a hospital or a healer… both of which I have no need of.”

Kit remained silent. He glared at Ambrose as he continued.

“So, while you were out of it, I was trying to think of a way to get Superhero off our backs and I had a little lightbulb moment, Kit,” Ambrose said, and looked over his shoulder at Kit with a grin, “you wanna know what it was?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me anyway.”

“You’re so un-fun, but I will,” said Ambrose, turning to face Kit now. “Sometimes stress manifests itself as illness, Kit.”

“Well, I am sick of you, so that makes sense,” Kit grumbled. Ambrose laughed.

“And sometimes, it manifests as mental illness.” Kit’s brows furrowed in question. Ambrose smiled. “Don’t you want to have a guess at what I mean by that?”

“Not particularly.”

Ambrose shrugged. “Good. So, we can begin then.”

Kit tensed in the chair as Ambrose walked purposefully towards him, around the chair and out of sight. Kit turned his head, but Ambrose pushed it back, so Kit was forced to stare forward.

“Hey! Hey! What’re you—”

“Oh, not so brave now, are we?” Ambrose asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.

When the cool metal pressed against Kit’s wrist he jerked forward, trying to get away but Ambrose said: “stay still,” and the sludge like command melted Kit’s brain until he was forced into immobile submission.

The metal pressed against Kit’s wrist again and to Kit’s surprise, Ambrose cut him free of the ropes or whatever was tying him to the chair. He still couldn’t move but for some reason being free didn’t exactly make Kit’s heart sing with joy. Something like dread settled at the bottom of his gut instead as Ambrose walked around the chair again.

“Now, Kit, illness… sickness, physical sickness can be treated by a healer or a doctor but mental illness? Especially from stress, perhaps… oh I don’t know, work related stress from being a hero, for example. That is treated by time away from the stressors.”

Ambrose paused to let his words properly sink into Kit’s brain. Ambrose didn’t speak again until Kit’s wide eyes met Ambrose’s with a panicked kind of hatred.

“No,” Kit said. “No! You can’t—”

“Oh, yes, Kit. Yes, I can.”

“Superhero would never… he wouldn’t—” Kit blubbered before furious eyes met Ambrose’s dark ones. “He would check on me every day—”

“Would he? A good soul like Superhero? Or would the guilt of having maybe pushed you too hard, or not having seen the signs earlier prevent him from coming regularly?”

“Wait, Ambrose. You can’t do this!”

“Oh, I can,” Ambrose chuckled.

Kit’s mouth screwed up desperately, his breathing coming out a bit faster than necessary. “But— but I won’t be as fun if you can’t fuck with me when I’m at the hero tower, and you won’t learn about anything or be able to take down the heroes from within, or— or—”

“Oh relax,” Ambrose said with a wave of his hand. “This isn’t going to be permanent, Kit. Just a long enough break away from the stressful environment of being a hero. Some good old-fashioned R&R with yours truly will set you right.”

Ambrose bit back a grin when he saw tears gather behind Kit’s eyes as he struggled to try and fight Ambrose’s compulsion.

“Please, Ambrose. Please! Anything but that, please. I’ll be good, I’ll do whatever you want. Please, I’ll stop fighting you. Please just don’t— don’t—” Kit cried, cutting himself off with a heartfelt sob, sniffing as the tears started falling down his cheeks.

Ambrose moved closer, cooing at Kit’s pathetic display of desperation. He pressed a cold hand against Kit’s cheek and brushed the tear streaks away with the coarse pad of his thumb. A sympathetic smile on his stupidly too-red lips.

“It’s okay, Kit. Everything will be fine. Come on, walk with me to the bathroom. The blood will be easier to clean off there.”

To Kit’s horror his body obeyed Ambrose’s command. Every neuron in Kit’s brain was firing at him to stop, to not go with Ambrose, to fight, to regain control over his own body – but it was all in vain.

Kit stood from the chair and followed Ambrose across his living room into his bathroom. Ambrose turned on the light, and turned to grin at Kit, holding out a hand.

“What?!” Kit barked, wiping the angry tears from his eyes.

“Well, you have two choices Kit, you either; step into the bath or hold your arms over it,” Ambrose said, leaning his lower back against the sink and crossing his long legs. “The choice is yours; it doesn’t really affect me.”

“Is it?” Kit asked, coming to stand in front of Ambrose, his heart thundering against his ears. If he could stall for time and wait for Superhero to come back, he could catch Ambrose in the act. He’d know that Kit was suffering at the hands of a fucking tyrant.

The corner of Ambrose’s lips quipped up. “Knock yourself out, Kit. Enjoy the freedom.”

“Except it’s not freedom cause either way you’re going to make me do one of them, aren’t you?”

“Well obviously,” he deadpanned. “But I can wait if you want. We can wait until your precious Superhero comes back and instead of hurting yourself you can hurt him too. Would you like that, Kit?”

“You said you wouldn’t read my mind anymore. Takes the fun out of it, have you changed your tune?”

Ambrose rolled his eyes and stood to his full height, stepping forward and knocking Kit back a step with his shoulder. Kit’s eyebrows rose in surprise as he stumbled back, forgetting that Ambrose was taller than him.

“Honestly Kit, I try,” Ambrose said with another step. Kit matched it with one backwards, still glaring up at him. “But sometimes it’s so rare that you think anything in that little noodle of yours, that the thoughts are too loud for me to ignore.”

Ambrose pressed a finger into Kit’s forehead and tipped him back another step before Kit batted his hand away.

“Real funny, Ambrose. Hah-hah!”

“I try,” Ambrose said, flashing a charming smile. “But you’re right. I have decided. In the bath is better than out.”

Without pausing Ambrose pressed his palm flat on Kit’s chest, fingers spread and shoved Kit backwards. Kit hadn’t realised how close he was to the bath, so it came as a surprise when his thigh hit the edge. He shot his hands out to steady himself too late, failing to grab hold of Ambrose and gravity had him in its claws. Ambrose getting further away as Kit fell, his head smacking off the tiles as he landed awkwardly in the tub.

“Motherfucker!” Kit cried, rubbing his head with a scowl as it pounded from the whack.

Ambrose shrugged leaning back against the sink again, arms folded across his chest. “I did give you the choice to get in the bath of your own accord. This one’s on you.”

“Maybe I want to lean over it,” Kit grumbled, fumbling to right himself. When he settled Kit glared up at Ambrose from the tub. “Well, we don’t have all day. Force me to do whatever you want; I don’t care anymore.”

“Kit,” Ambrose chided. “Don’t have that attitude, come on. Make it fun for me. Struggle a bit.”

“What’s the point? You’ll just use your powers on me and get what you want eventually. Let’s just cut through the bullshit.”

Ambrose shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Ambrose leaned off the sink and handed Kit the knife. “Kit, I want you to take the knife and roll up your sleeves and cut your wrists.”

Kit felt the blood drain from his face.

“What?” Kit whispered as his hand reached for the knife against his will. “Wait! Ambrose, you can’t want to kill me I thought—”

“Oh hush, Kit. Don’t be dramatic. Make the cuts horizontal. Not deep enough to bleed out, or need stitches, but enough to leave scars.”

Kit was rolling up his sleeves as Ambrose spoke. “Ambrose, wait please. Please! Wait! Stop! Why can’t you do this to me? You cut me! Make them believable? Please?! Ambrose please, I – I don’t want to do this.”

Ambrose crouched so he was eye level with Kit, looking into Kit’s too bright eyes that were already tearing up at the mere thought of Ambrose’s command.

“What makes you think I care about what you want, Kit?”

Kit let out a sharp hiss as the blade sliced through his skin. Kit didn’t look down. He didn’t want to see what his body was doing to itself. Instead, he stared at Ambrose as he cut and Ambrose stared at Kit, never dropping eye contact for a second. Black eyes drinking in every twinge of pain flashing across Kit’s face, savouring every morsel of emotion that bled through his features.

Kit was doing a good job of keeping his face impassive. Until the third cut. Kit sucked in a sharp breath as he banged his leg against the wall of the bath, wrenching his head up to stare at the ceiling and breathing slowly out through his mouth with a pained hum.

“Alright there, Kit?”

“Never bett— AGH! Fuck!”

This time Kit looked, and he wished he didn’t. Sticky blood surrounded his wrist, thick and dark and gloopy. Kit couldn’t even tell where the cuts were because the blood from the last cut had washed over them all, leaving streams of blood racing down Kit’s palm. Splashing down onto the snow-white acrylic bottom of the tub.

Kit was going to be sick, but there was no time as his arm mechanically moved back to slice again. Kit looked up pleadingly into Ambrose’s black eyes, looking for any sign of sympathy or empathy, finding nothing except his own pathetic reflection staring back at him. Kit bit his lip to stop crying out on the last cut before Ambrose moved.

“Okay, Kit. That arm has enough. Mo—”

“Wait,” Kit croaked, licking his lips. “Waitwaitwaitwait, wait…”

Ambrose paused, tilting his head, eyebrows arching at interruption. He didn’t punish Kit though or chastise him, so Kit took that as an opportunity to continue.

“The… the blood— my knife will slip. I need to—”

“Okay Kit,” Ambrose said softly. “We can wait while you fix yourself.”

“Thank you,” Kit breathed, dropping the knife onto the tub floor with a clatter. Kit’s hands were shaking violently as he wiped the blood on his tracksuit bottoms, biting his lip to quiet the pained whimpers.

Ambrose clicked his tongue and said, “Kit stop. You’ll ruin them. Use the water.”

Kit blinked up owlishly at Ambrose, eyes glazed over as if the thought of using the bath hadn’t occurred to him. Kit nodded dumbly and reached over to the end of the bath, turning on the cold tap. The water was freezing. Before Kit could talk himself out of it, he gritted his teeth and plunged his arm under the spray.

Kit let out a startled gasp of pain, making his other hand a fist and beating it off the side of the bath because the cuts stung under the icy water. Kit bit his lip and rubbed the sticky coagulated strings of blood from his arm and hand. He did his best to not watch them slither like snakes down the drain and instead focused on turning the tap off.

Kit looked down at his arm to see fresh bright red blood surface in his cuts. None of them too deep. Exactly what Ambrose wanted. Exactly what Ambrose commanded of him, and he obeyed like a good little puppet.

Kit pushed himself back to the middle of the bath trying to push that though from his mind. His damp tracksuit clinging awkwardly to some places as he scooted across. Kit found Ambrose’s eyes with his own as he wiped the fresh streams of blood on his tracksuit, half to dry his hands, half to fuck with Ambrose just because.

Kit grabbed the knife and got comfortable, balancing his knees against the inside of the bath, feet planted on the bottom of the tub. He cocked a brow at Ambrose, as if to say I’m waiting, and Ambrose had to laugh inwardly at the gall.

Ambrose’s lips quipped up at the simple defiance. “Okay, Kit. Now cut your other arm.”

Ambrose relished Kit’s shaking hand as he drew the knife over his skin. He wanted to record all of Kit’s micro reactions in his brain just so he can think back on this moment whenever he was feeling down. It was intoxicating.

To watch Kit’s hand tremor, his body fight against Ambrose’s power and not be able to do a single thing to stop him. He could feel Kit’s mental resistance trying to fight Ambrose’s compulsion off him as he made the second cut. Ambrose drank in his expressions, every muted wince that he tried so hard not to show Ambrose.

It was pure turmoil he put Kit in, and it was addicting. He could watch it all day, and never get bored but that was just with Kit. Most of his other victims had a weak constitution and gave in a few days into Ambrose’s mental assault, in hopes that Ambrose would get bored and let them go. Some of them stopped fighting him out of sheer weakness, but not Kit. Never Kit. How long had it been now? Weeks? Months? And Kit was still fighting him.

Even if it wasn’t fighting Ambrose’s powers mentally, it was his little looks of defiance, his unwillingness to concede even if it would make life easier on him. No… Kit was a fighter and Ambrose couldn’t get enough of it. Finally, someone to match him, to challenge him. To say no and make everything difficult just because. It was obviously an illusion, but to Kit it seemed to be some semblance of control that he could pretend to have.

His favourite part was coming up now… ah yes. After the third cut, Kit bit his lip to stop the sudden cry. A deeper cut. He brought his head up and stared Ambrose directly in the eyes, that defiance still evident through his pain filled, glassy eyes on the verge of tears. Even when he wanted Ambrose to show mercy, he refused to ask.

It felt like Christmas and Kit was a gift for Ambrose to toy with, to batter and break and fix and break again, but a toy doesn’t give you that same satisfaction. The euphoria of seeing Kit’s white knuckled grip tight around the handle of the knife as he sliced through his flesh against his will and tried to hide the pain in his expression. Or more aptly, trying and failing to hide it, made it all the sweeter.

Ambrose leaned forward. “Two more, Kit. One deep, one shallow.”

“Nn— no,” Kit whispered, his hand shaking harder now. “No…”

“Remember little Kit, what you are. You’re my little puppet. My plaything, you don’t get to say no to me. Now, deep enough to hurt but not deep enough for hospital.”

“Fuck you,” Kit whispered venomously as he sliced through his arm, deeper this time. Kit cried out loud this time, craning his neck back to glare at the ceiling and Ambrose leaned closer. Observing the strain in Kit’s neck, the veins popping out of his throat. His jaw that was clenched tight enough to grind his teeth. His voice that came out like a pathetic animal’s cry.

“FUCK! Ughh!” Kit groaned, stamping his foot against the wall of the bath again, trying to exert the pain in his arm and transfer it to the bath.

“Look at it, Kit,” Ambrose said, and Kit shook his head.

“Go fuck yourself, Ambrose.”

“Kit. I said, look at the mess you’ve made.”

Kit fought the command like he always did but eventually his head turned down against his will and his eyes fixed on the massacre of blood on his arm again. Ambrose watched as Kit visibly paled at the sight with a soft smile. Kit made another cut while he looked at his arm and then Ambrose plucked the knife from his hand. Kit glared up at him. Ambrose just grinned.

“Clean your arms with the water, then change out of those clothes and put them for the wash. I’ll get the blood out of them, Kit. Don’t worry.”

“You’re so gracious,” Kit spat. Ambrose looked over his shoulder at Kit.

“Kit, slap your cuts for me.”

Kit barely registered the command, but the sharp sting had him letting out a diminished howl through gritted teeth.

“You fucker!” Kit screamed after Ambrose, but Ambrose had already walked out of the bathroom laughing at the good of it. “I hate you!”

“I know, Kit.”

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

The Orphanage (plz lemme know if you want to be added or removed <;3) - @nameless-beanie @andithewhumper @annablogsposts @whumpasaurus101 @0eggdealer @rejectedbytheempty @sleepy-pearl @n3rv0usn0v4 @whumpatize-me-captain @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @sunshiline-writes @burningkittypoet @honeyed-euphrates @sacredwrath @theonewithallthefixations @acer-gaysimpstuff @m3rakii @xxgalgurlxx @princess-bubble-blossom

[frozenjokes]

a few very good days

ao3 link

Whatever Scar had been expecting when it came to puzzles or escape rooms or whatever else, this was not it. ‘This,’ being.. a lot of sitting around and thinking and overall doing nothing. Cub and Cleo had decided to start with one of the hallways; because they were more dangerous, they were also shorter, and it was a nice morale boost to complete a room quickly. Their definition of ‘quick’ was not the same as Scar’s, not in the slightest.

For the first few days Cub wasn’t feeling well, supposedly unrelated to his sculk situation, but Scar didn’t really believe that, even if Cleo insisted otherwise. Resisting every fiber of his being telling him to smother Cub was a monumental effort, but working with Cleo on the escape room helped, and Scar was relieved at least to stay close to the safe room, even if Cleo insisted that Scar not check in on Cub every five minutes.

The start of the puzzle room had been pretty interactive. Despite having the beginning clue of paying attention to the mirror in the hall, Cleo was determined to map every inch of the place, which, honestly, Scar had thought she and Cub had already done, but apparently not. Every item that might have a clue or code was documented, every number on the walls and carved into drawers, every letter, every word, every lock and passcode and blank screen. There was so much in here that Scar hadn’t noticed at a first glance; it felt like every inch of this place was stuffed full of codes and riddles and ciphers. The back of the mirror had its own numerical lock, which Cleo was certain the mirror itself would hold the answer to. That made sense.

And then Cleo got sick.

Scar hadn’t noticed anything, and was alarmed when she told him she wasn’t feeling well, but Cub was doing better, so he would be helping out. Cleo didn’t have a fever or sweats or even smell any different, and Scar was disturbed he couldn’t tell they were sick at all, even after excessive investigation. On accident, he’d woken them up multiple times during the night trying to figure out what was the matter, being told off for completely reasonable forms of affection (“If you lick the insides of my ears one more time I am going to twist out your tongue with my bare hands), but despite his best efforts, he could not detect any sort of illness. Scar was an excellent caregiver regardless, whenever Cub would let him at least.

Cub did not have as much patience for Scar’s anxiety as Cleo did, and he didn’t very much like to hear about Scar’s struggle identifying a problem. ‘Just leave her alone, she wants to be left alone,’ and yes, Scar was perfectly okay and not at all stressed about doing this, but he was just concerned he couldn’t sense any kind of issue! Is that what happened when you died and came back? Scar had no idea, and he had an awful lot of questions, though all of them were answered with a blunt ‘I don’t know,’ even when Scar had gotten suspicious and started asking things Cub absolutely knew the answer to, which, to his credit, had turned into a somewhat amusing game. Cub was very good at holding a straight face, and Scar wanted nothing more than to Break It.

They were not very productive in the day or so that Cleo was ill. In fairness, Scar and Cleo had mapped out most of the room, so he and Cub were left to start with the mirror code, which turned out to be an excruciatingly boring task of trial and error that Scar tired of quickly. Messing around with Cub, trying to pull out any other emotion than ‘:|’ was far more entertaining.

And then Cub went to check on Cleo (WITHOUT HIM 3:<), but it wasn’t long before he returned, poking his head through the door to let Scar know she was all better (YAYY :3!!!). Cub didn’t explicitly say Scar was free to reenter the safe room when he let the door close, leaving Scar alone in the hall, but Scar took this to mean he was allowed back in, bounding to the door (with perhaps less caution than necessary in a hallway filled with deadly traps, but hey, he managed to get through unscathed nonetheless).

Scar was very confused to walk in and see Cub and Cleo sitting together on Cub’s bed, a blanket draped over both their laps.. a very small blanket actually, it looked torn at the edges.. what had Cub done to his bedspread?

“Uh,” Scar mumbled, a little nervous in the wake of Cleo’s bright expression and Cub’s slightly less angry looking face. They were looking at him expectantly, and Scar had utterly no clue what to do with that. “Is.. everything okay?”

“We made you something,” Cleo began, and they looked just about to burst, though when Cub said nothing, they elbowed him hard enough in the side to double him over, “Go on!”

“Augh. My insides.”

“Cub!”

“Why do I have to speak.”

“It was your idea!”

“Don’t tell him that.”

“Why not? I think it’s very sweet.”

“Stop saying words. Forever.”

“If you don’t want me to talk then you’re going to have to.”

“Fine.” Cub looked up, a definitive if not slightly sheepish look plastered in his strained frown, “I thought you could have something to lick that wasn’t me because I hate it and you’re not allowed to do that anymore even if you want to which is annoying because I can tell you want to and it irritates me. Stop looking at me like you want to lick me. Lick this instead.”

From under the blanket, Cub pulled a small plush- cat? It looked like it was meant to be a cat despite being a little rough around the edges, but it had those small ears and a tail and it even had six legs.. gosh it totally was a cat! A little kitten! Immediately it was clear the creature was made from the fabric that used to be Cub’s blanket, and Scar couldn’t entirely see Cub’s sheets behind him, but he didn’t know what else could have been used to stuff the little plush. The face had small embroidered eyes and a little smile. Scar could have cried.

“How- How did you make this? There isn’t- I don’t remember anything sharp you could’ve-”

“I can hack away at anything. Just takes longer.” Cub interrupted him, curt. Cleo was beaming. Cub looked about ready to bite her. “Stop- both of you stop that. Stop looking like that. I didn’t even sew it up, Cleo did that, I wouldn’t be precise enough to do a good job. They’re the only reason it looks half good, they’ve got the thread just in case their face falls apart, I hardly did anything.”

Apparently Cub was not pleased with the silence, and he did bite Cleo, hard by the way she yelped, then he took the plush and whipped it at Scar, who with great alarm caught it like it was glass, staring on at Cub as he continued to hiss “And be careful with it! It’s fragile.”

“I can repair it if any of the seams come loose,” Cleo smirked, patting Cub on the back, to which he glared at her with a revulsion Scar had never seen cross his face before. Then, standing stiff, he marched to Cleo’s bed and buried himself in it. Cleo still looked radiant. “And what he won’t say is that he’s sorry for freaking out on you all those loops ago, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Cub’s great revolution to this sentiment was expressed in a valiant flailing and cursing under the covers, but other than that, he said no more.

Scar wasn’t listening. He was too enraptured in the face of his new companion, soulful and innocent and entirely perfect. He’d never loved so instantly, so strongly. A little one of his very own. Scar would treat it with utmost care.

…

The three of them fell into a pretty steady routine. Wake up, chat, eat, head to the puzzle room, fuck around for a bit, hopefully make some process, break for lunch, chat, back to the puzzle room, hit their heads against the wall when nothing was working, break for dinner, and depending on how motivated the three of them were, they’d get back to it. It was boring, a lot more boring than Scar had expected from a big escape room, but he supposed there was a reason this thing took months to complete. The humans didn’t want their prisoners to have too much fun.

But there were a few new developments with Scar’s life that made existing here a little more bearable, sometimes even nice.

It was a strange thing for him how the humans ate, always together, always talking or playing a game or doing something else, like the act of eating was sidelined by a more engaging social activity. It still made Scar a little uncomfortable; he just couldn’t shake it despite longing for their company, but that didn’t mean his new shining star needed to be excluded.

When Cub and Cleo sat down to eat, Scar left his Little with them, along with its very own serving of rations, so it might participate while Scar rested in his place near the ceiling, one eye open, relaxed, observing, but mostly drifting to a surface level doze. Cub and Cleo usually went back to the escape room before Scar woke, so he ate afterwards, content to be alone with his Little.

The humans were also consistently sleeping together now, likely due to Cub’s mangled sheets, but this was a double win for Scar, who was more than thrilled to drape himself over the both of them, Little tucked under his chest. Any surges of sudden affection were redirected to his Little, the short fur on its head always sticking up in every which way. It was great. It was almost perfect. He loved human nights now, even if they were still far too quiet.

The time just before the night was lovely as well. They had already eaten their dinner, so the three of them just lounged in the beds, sometimes spread out over the two, sometimes all in the same place, and Cleo got to telling stories.

Scar didn’t know how these stories became routine, they hadn’t been before, but it started with a distant smile, Scar asking what she was thinking about, and then,

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just thinking about home. Funny memory with my family, that’s all.”

“Tell me about it?”

“Oh, no, no, it’s fine.”

“Please?”

Cleo looked up, and Scar didn’t know if she just didn’t want to tell, or didn’t think Scar wanted to hear what she had to say, but either way she cracked, smiling as she shook her head.

“Well, near my childhood home there were all these strawberry fields, and the people that owned the land made their money by letting people pick them and bring ‘em home, y’know?”

Scar glanced away, sheepish, “I don’t.. know the field you’re talking about. We don’t have whatever the word before is.”

“Oh, it’s a fruit. It’s food that grows out of the ground.”

“Oh, alright. Continue.”

Cleo smiled, “Well, the food grows on bushes that are pretty close to the ground, so people have to bend over to pick them up. We don’t walk easily on four legs, we have bad knees.”

“Yes,” Scar agreed heartily, “I find them unnerving.”

“Me too, anyway, my mom would bring ‘her boys’ down to the food fields, and we’d all go ‘strawberry’ picking, a nice family activity, at least until her terrible little gremlin children became quite aware of what tends to happen to middle aged men who bend over to pick food with their kids.” Cleo gestured to their pants, and Scar did not understand.

“Asscrack!” Cub mumbled, and Scar gave him a quizzical look until Cleo continued.

“When you bend over, sometimes your pants slide down and bring your underwear with it. Happens to the best of us. But my brother and I, shit eating children as we were, thought this was very amusing. Honestly, it was my mother’s fault, she was the one who started it. She brought the two of us close, pointed in the most conspicuous way she could’ve possibly done it, and whispered ‘asscrack!’ We, all three of us, were in complete stitches. Inconsolable. Now, we’re little kids, we aren’t supposed to be swearing like that, so imagine my mom’s horror when she accidentally creates a new game, her two children pointing and screaming ASSCRACK every single time a poor soul bends over wearing pants way too tight. It became a competition. Who could call out the most asscracks? Had to be different people every time, no repeats, and whoever spotted the crack first and called it out got the point. My mother caved eventually, because objectively, Asscrack is an incredible game. We got our swearing pass one day a year out in those fields, hardly able to get the words out because we were laughing so hard. We were pulling down our own pants just to add our own cracks to our point totals. Complete chaos. I’d give anything to go back and do it all again,” Cleo sighed, their smile falling slightly, but Scar was utterly entranced.

He still didn’t quite understand why pants were such a big deal to humans, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the details. “Tell me more.”

Cleo snorted, “More what? Nothing else to that story.”

“More stories, then. Please.”

Cleo laughed, rolling her eyes. “You are just like a kid sometimes, you know that?” Scar didn’t care. Cleo’s smile returned, and they closed their eyes, reclining back on the bed board to think. Scar watched with bated breath, his Little tucked close to his chest and wearing a similar expression of anticipation (:3).

He wanted more. He wanted to hear all about their past, their friends, their family, the stupid things they got up to when they were young, everything, and that first night Cleo talked until the three of them fell asleep, Scar remembering distinctly a small smile on Cub’s face before consciousness faded to dark.

Sometimes Scar would attempt to contribute a story, and while he struggled sometimes to sift through the swamp of ugly memories to find something positive, Cleo was patient, and even Cub’s eyes had a shine of interest that encouraged him to continue. Scar had.. never really done this before. Rested on the soft cloud of tender memories, spoke the good into existence, let it feel real. And it did. It felt so much more real. His longing for home remained in the wake of his speeches, but there was something more hopeful there, something good, something to look forward to when he finally made it back to his planet. (Maybe it wouldn’t be long now.. two weeks had passed and even though progress was slow, it was definitely happening. Cleo predicted they were more than halfway done with the hall puzzles, and Cub had been less optimistic, but reluctantly agreed. With only five rooms and one of them almost complete, it wouldn’t be long now.)

Scar was going to call home. He was going to do it after Cub and Cleo fell asleep, when his morale was highest and when they couldn’t see him get ripped to shreds if things turned sour. Scar would have his Little. That would be enough.

While he was waiting for the humans to fall asleep he ended up dozing off himself, but that was alright, since when he woke up he knew for sure they’d both be sufficiently conked out. Indeed, they did not stir, even when he walked over them to sneak out the left hall door.

Scar’s confidence held firm until he reached the control room monitors, slowly draining away to the beat of the soft electronic buzzing. While the room was just as bright as it was during the day, the atmosphere was still gentle like the night, unsettling in some ways and peaceful in others. He hesitated when he reached the keyboard, but he was not a coward. He knew which buttons to press.

The initial receiver looked surprised to see him; maybe it was late back home? Regardless, they were cordial, and there was only a brief waiting period before a familiar face was staring back at him from his own clan’s console board.

Scar meant to speak, but standing face to face with someone he knew, cared for, even when they hardly spoke beyond a passing greeting.. his tongue dried. Skizz did not need to be prompted.

“What’s poppin’ homie buddeh, how you doing, man? It’s been a while, we’ve been thinking about’cha.”

Scar opened his mouth. No words came out of it. The only warning of what was to come was an itch at the back of his throat, a swelling in his chest, and then he sobbed, sobbed like he’d never cried before in his entire life. Scar had been sad, he’d known the ache of depression and boredom that clawed harder than the looming hunger, he’d broken down at the loss of his mother, and he’d known pain of broken limbs, sickness, frailty that threatened his fragile sense of usefulness, but this..

Right now, he did not cry for grief or anger or loss. He did not cry for loneliness, and maybe he did cry for homesickness, but tonight, inconsolably sobbing at a bright screen, he cried because they were thinking about him. They were thinking about him, and the cat that had answered the phone had been happy to see him. Scar had not dared be so hopeful.

Skizz pressed his large forehead to the camera, and Scar heard the horns that curled around his ears clink against the screen, “It’s alright. It’s okay, Scar, it’s going to be okay.”

Scar couldn’t help himself from clambering up on the desk and keyboard, he could have killed himself with carelessness like this, but he didn’t care, he needed to get to the camera mounted above the monitor, he needed to be close. He pushed his forehead to it and it was warm, almost like a body.

“I miss you. I miss being there. I think about it every day, every day I want to be back home. We- I’m working on it. It won’t be long now, but I just miss it- being home, I just want to be back home.”

“You’ve got it, buddy. I know you’ll make it work.”

Scar laughed, just a little bit, shaking his head, “I don’t know if we know each other well enough to be saying stuff like that..”

“Naww, if I know a thing about you, Scar, it’s that you’re a mighty whirlwind of a guy. You can break through. You’re a stubborn son of a bitch, you won’t stop until you’ve done it.”

Scar backed up from the camera to see that Skizz had already returned to his place in frame, bright eyed and vibrant as he was; maybe Scar should spend more time around Skizz; he hadn’t before because of Impulse, Scar being mildly intimidated by him, but maybe it would be worth putting forth more of an effort to befriend the both of them. Some of Skizz’s optimism might rub off on him.

Scar hopped down from the desk, giving his ruffled shoulders a few embarrassed licks, “I don’t think I have a choice, truthfully.”

“Yeah,” Skizz looked thoughtful, tail flicking genially, “But you’ll do it all the same. What can I do for you, Scar? Looking for anyone?”

“Pearl,” Scar spoke faster than he’d intended, tripping over the one word, “Is Pearl around?”

Skizz raised an eyebrow, and Scar knew why. Anyone would have expected Mumbo, but Scar wasn’t quite ready to see him yet, hoping he’d be away. Besides, Scar and Pearl weren’t.. on the best of terms. It didn’t matter. Scar was still sniffling, and Skizz didn’t try to question him.

“I’ll call down, one second,” Skizz muted his and Scar’s connection, and Scar saw Skizz sit up on his haunches, using all four of his paws to dial and hold the phone; Scar wondered if Skizz was covering a shift for Impulse; it didn’t make sense otherwise why he wasn’t using a phone fit for paws without thumbs. Skizz didn’t seem to have an issue either way, brightening when someone on the other end picked up, looking like chatting with the cat on the other line made him the happiest man in the world. He was always like that, really. Skizz had a talent for making you feel valued, he was one of the nicest cats in the clan, that was for sure. He was a big guy, a retired mercenary with the scars to prove it, but even then, there wasn’t a jaded bone in his body. Scar wished he could be like that one day.

“She's on her way, happy to be here too, doesn’t happen very often that she has an excuse to blind the whole comms team in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, is it late? Sorry, the humans track time differently-”

“Nonsense, nonsense, come now, Scar, you know Pearl’s on an inverted clock anyway, yeesh, if I had a sleep schedule like her I’d be in the ground!” The both of them laughed softly, Skizz doing Scar a massive favor by carrying the rest of the conversation with mild small talk. Scar didn’t want to talk very much about what was going on in his own life, and it was an incredible relief to close his eyes and listen to the comings and goings of his own clan, even if he wasn’t truly there.

There was no mistaking Pearl’s arrival, the dim lights of the room being blown out by the light from her eyes and fur, literal light, Pearl was only slightly larger than the smallest cats on Scar’s planet, but you wouldn’t know it, mostly because when her eyes were open, you could hardly look her in the face at all. Multiple cats groaned in the face of the sudden light and Skizz snickered, mixing warmly with Pearl’s recognizable cackle. The brightness was far more bearable when Pearl closed her eyes, the moths and various other creatures nestled in her fur fluttering, but ultimately not moving.

“Do me a favor, won’t you Skizz?” Pearl mumbled through a dark blindfold hanging out the side of her mouth.

“Anytime, Pearlo,” Skizz took the blindfold gently, his paws dwarfing her face as he awkwardly pushed the light canceling cloth over her face, the both of them giggling at the clumsiness of their own paws. Scar was amused to see small dapples of light poking out from the many holes made by accidental claw marks, probably from all the struggling to get the thing on in the first place. Scar was glad he had thumbs.

When the commotion was over, Pearl turned to the camera, and even though the smile on her face remained, she was less animated as she greeted him, “Hello, Scar. Good to see you.”

Scar faltered slightly, unsure if she could actually see him through the blindfold or not; she didn’t wear it often, it was hard to remember. Kind of a stupid design if she couldn’t see though, that wouldn’t much much sense-

“Scar?”

“Oh- Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Skizz looked between the two of them, lowering his head, “I’ll leave you two to it. Call if you need anything.” Scar watched with mild terror as Skizz got to his paws, padding away into the back hall.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Pearl’s voice was light, but Scar could hear the strain- oh, she must be able to see through the blindfold then, okay.

“Ah- Sorry. I’m just.. I’m a little bit scrambled.”

“Don’t need to apologize, mate, I don’t have anywhere else to be. If I can ask, though, why me? Feels like it’s been ages since we’ve really talked.”

Scar bit his tongue at the impulse to apologize. “I’ve just been thinking about you. We’ve been- the humans and I, I mean.. We do a lot of talking. There’s not much else to do other than talk. And I was thinking about you, the both of us when we were younger, y’know? We weren’t- I mean, we weren’t anything close or anything.. just the same age in the same place, but.. I don’t know. I miss.. I feel like I didn’t.. I appreciate you. I appreciate you, and I wanted you to know.”

It was hard to read Pearl’s expression when half of her face was covered; Scar wished she didn’t have to wear that stupid blindfold, but he supposed if the light from her eyes shone directly into the camera, he wouldn’t be able to see her either.

“That’s sweet, Scar,” Pearl mumbled, and he saw a small smile there, but it was bittersweet, and Scar fought the storm of anguished rejection that threatened to burst through the gates of his composure, “I miss it too, sometimes. It was easier then, easier to goof around and get in trouble and not care so much. I was afraid to lose that. And you were in such a hurry to grow up.”

“I know,” Scar’s whiskers twitched, ear drooping, “It was hard with my health.. I knew I’d get set back. If I wasn’t working harder than everyone else then I wouldn’t be fit to fly as early as I needed to.”

“You didn’t have to go to space the day you turned of age.”

“I did.”

“I guess I’ll never understand that about you,” Pearl sighed, and Scar was relieved, at least until she continued, “I just wish you didn’t have to change. You weren’t just in a hurry to grow up, you had to leave everyone else behind in order to do it.”

“I didn’t-”

“You did, Scar. That’s why it’s so difficult to be around you sometimes, because you just don’t.. I don’t know. It’s nice to know you cared, it really is, because I didn’t really know. I believe you didn’t see it that way, that you didn’t actually think the only cats good enough for you were the soldiers you looked up to, but that’s how I took it. That’s how I felt.” Pearl quieted, but when Scar didn’t have the words to answer, she lowered her head. “But yeah, I miss it too. I know things were never really easy, but I do miss it. I hope you’re doing well.”

“I’d like to make it up to you. I really- I am sorry. I was.. I can’t fix it, I can tell you why, but I can’t fix it, and I’m sorry. I want to make it up to you. I’ve thought a lot of things for a lot of years that weren’t true, but I.. I’ve had a lot of time to look back, and when I’ve been doing that, thinking about it all, so much of my childhood I got to spend being a child.. that was you. And I owe you so much for that, I just wish I could’ve realized it sooner.”

Pearl shook her head. “Nothing to be done, Scar. Nothing to be done. All of that was so many years ago, I’ve moved on, and even though all this is.. It’s nice to hear, but it’s over now. When you’re home we can share a groom; I wouldn’t mind reconnecting with you. No use holding grudges from when we were kids; no use holding grudges at all in my opinion. We have enough to be unhappy about, don’t we? If you want to do anything for me, then let it go. I’d be happy with that.”

“Okay,” Scar fought to keep his voice steady. He wasn’t sure how he’d do that, but if that’s what Pearl wanted from him, he would try. He would try. “I’d like that. I really would. I don’t- Wastes, sharing a groom sounds like the best thing in the world to me right now.”

“Humans don’t groom each other like we do?”

“They don’t groom each other at all.”

“What? No wonder they’re so miserable! I’ve heard they’re quite poor company, I’m sorry for that.”

“Oh, no, they’re not so ba-“

“Scar!” Mumbo ripped into the comms room, scaring the life out of everyone present on what was previously a quiet night, even Pearl’s tail puffing to double its size while Scar couldn’t do anything but stare in bewildered shock at the screen. Several catfolk let loose a couple of nasty hisses, to which Mumbo shrunk back with a meek apology before squirreling towards Pearl, not that he greeted her in the slightest.

“Scar, goodness Scar, you’re alright, are you? Did you get away from them? How long has it been, oh, and you’ve been stuck with those- those maniacs- and it’s my fault! Scar, I’m sorry. I never should have said those things that I said to you, it was stupid, and I had no idea- Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Scar gaped stupidly. “..What? I don’t- what?”

“They killed you!”

“I.. The humans? Yeah, they.. quite a few times they’ve killed me. The ship in it of itself is kind of a death trap. You’re designed to die. I don’t like it, but that’s where I’m at.. Trying not to get desensitized to it is the hardest part, honestly, but I’ve been shot in the head so many times it hardly phases me anymore. If I have to die, that’s how I prefer to go. Cub has crafted a few more.. creative ways of killing me.. Well, technically I wasn’t the one he was trying to kill, but accidents happen, and honestly, so long as there’s blood I think he’s happy.”

Mumbo couldn’t have looked more horrified if a human came in through the hall door and shot Scar dead right then.

“There has to be something we can do. We have to get you out of there, we need- There must be something that’ll keep those humans from treating you like a shooting range dummy!”

Scar scratched the back of his head, discomfort making his tail twitch, “It’s not so bad, Mumbo. Most of the time they’re doing it to reset the loop, which we have to do to find a proper layout for the puzzles. They’re doing me a favor, honestly.. if they didn’t shoot me, I’d have to do it myself and I.. I just can’t.”

“You shouldn’t have to! It looks to me like they kill you just for fun!”

Scar pursed his lips. “Well.”

“Well?”

“Cub does. Sometimes. It’s been a while though! And Cub promised to be nicer- I don’t know if that means he’ll stop, but at least right now he can’t! We’re working on the puzzles, and if we solve it, we get to go home early! I know it feels like a long way away, but we have five puzzles to solve, and we’re already more than halfway through the first one! I’m going to go home, Mumbo.”

But Mumbo growled in response, only stopping when Scar shrank under the noise, Mumbo’s long ears drooping and eyes growing softer. “I’m going to make this right, Scar, I’m going to do my best to- which one is Cub?”

“I- He’s the one with the dark hair and the lab coat. All the baggy clothes, really. But it’s fine, Mumbo, I think we’re starting to get along-“

“It’s not fine!” Mumbo wailed, getting a few dirty looks from the other cats in the room, “Nothing about this is fine, Scar! I’ll set off to the central comms center tomorrow, I’ll make them put me in contact with the humans and if they don’t listen then I’ll get Grian to do it! He doesn’t have the authority either, but he could bring them to tears at least, he’ll do it for me. I’ll tell them to get that Cub human under control- and the other one too, I don’t care if they’re nicer, they knew exactly what they were doing when they looked directly at me and pulled the damned trigger-“ Mumbo’s voice hiked upwards in staccato notes, and Scar couldn’t do much more than blink as he struggled to process what Mumbo had said.

“Did.. Did Cleo call you?”

Mumbo stared at Scar as if he was a ghost, “Not exactly but- but I- I called you. It’s been ages, I don’t know exactly when but you- you weren’t there and they.. you don’t remember?”

“No!?”

“Oh dear,” Pearl mumbled, and a couple other cats glanced away, like everyone in the room knew what had happened while Scar was still in the dark.

“What did they do!?”

“I-“ Mumbo started, stuttering and stumbling, “I just wanted to talk to you! I didn’t- I didn’t like how things went down, it was unfair to you, I just-“

“Mumbo, what happened?”

“You- They were waiting for you. By both of those doors. When you came inside the Cub human grabbed you and you- you looked right at me and your- your head, Scar, your head. He looked right at me, just covered in your blood, you couldn’t have even fought back. He shot you- I don’t even know how many times he shot you, your body was just convulsing- And then the other human came out of nowhere, and they killed Cub, right in the head, just like he’d done to you, and they looked at me. Scar, they looked at me before they shot themself, and they didn’t even die right away. I was just staring, staring at the three of you for I don’t even know how long. Until the screen went black. The call disconnected. I can’t stop seeing your face, the way you looked at me, like you saw me, and you knew you were going to die.”

Scar gaped. He couldn’t close his stupid mouth, he couldn’t hardly think- Mumbo had called back, he’d tried to reach Scar, and neither of them had said a word.

Scar was going to FUCKING KILL THEM.

“I’ll call you back. I don’t know when, but soon.” Scar was barely holding himself together, composure as thin as the line of his lips. He set his Little down on the keyboard; it didn’t need to see this. Mumbo didn’t either, Scar knew he wouldn’t want to, though he’d gladly perform a show for every cat available to watch him rip them limb from limb.

Scar didn’t remember how to hang up, but whether or not Mumbo did so was not his problem. Muscle memory brought him back to the humans safely.

They did not wake up when Scar tore the blankets away with a hiss, but they were certainly up when he yanked them out of bed by their ankles, backs and faces smashing against the floor, the both of them jumping dazedly to their hands only to be kicked back down.

“Scar-?”

“Take a guess who I just got off the phone with,” Scar snarled, angrier still when clarity failed to reach Cleo’s eyes; he expected something like this from Cub, he did not expect it from them. He wound back and kicked her, hard enough to break a rib though he didn’t hear anything crack. She groaned, breath stolen.

“Was no one going to say anything? Mumbo called, and NEITHER of you thought to tell me? You lied!”

“Oh,” Cub grunted, rolling over onto his arms, “That’s what this is about? Couldn’t have waited until the morning?”

“Shut up!” Scar raked his claws across Cub’s face, then again, then a third time, but it wasn’t enough, Cub wasn’t in enough pain, so Scar kicked him as well, nailing him hard enough in the stomach to roll him on his back. “Shut up! Just- Shut up!”

“Scar, come on,” Cleo wheezed, breath coming heavy, “We didn’t know what he wanted. You were so upset, we didn’t want anyone thinking they could just call to yell at you any time, especially when we’re the ones who have to endure the aftermath.”

“Oh, is that it.” Scar whirled on them, tail lashing so violently that he wouldn’t be surprised if it whipped right out of the socket, “I’m just such a burden on the two of you that you couldn’t tell me when my damn friends want to talk to me!”

“Yeah,” Cub huffed, “You were a fucking pain in the ass.” Cub stopped talking when Scar stomped on his back with both legs.

“We all have our lows,” Cleo grunted, “And they’re not always easy on the other people. It happens. You don’t like when we kill each other, and we don’t like it when you- were the way that you were. But we dealt with it because we had to, and we did what we needed to do to keep it from getting worse.”

“Is that all I am to you?” Scar snarled, “A fucking inconvenience?”

“No, Scar,” Cleo sighed harshly, she was annoyed at him! She was annoyed, Cleo- Scar didn’t even hear the rest, he swiped at their face in an uncoordinated hurt, only grazing their nose, but his claws caught on something, pulled, Scar wincing back at the unexpected resistance. “Fuck- fucking- Damn it, Scar!”

He’d torn something, the stitches maybe, there was no blood, but something else, lighter and viscous and something was very wrong with their skin, but as quickly as Scar was frightened by it, he did not care, whirling around and storming out of the room. He went to collect his Little; the monitors were dark and he was grateful. He didn’t want to see anyone right now. But the control room got too much traffic, he didn’t want to be here, so he went back to his own reset room, settling on the top of the shelf with the judgemental statues, and sniffled dust.

If either of the humans came looking for him, they probably wouldn’t find him up here. He didn’t want to be found.

It didn’t matter. They never came looking.

That hurt more.

[rowiewritesstuff]

Hello, may I ask for an Earthspark or TFP match-up, please?

My height is 5'3 (160cm). Im nonbinary and asexual, and I use any pronouns. I have brown, curly, short hair and green eyes. My skin is very pale, and I usually look pretty tired. I wear black clothes. Im a pretty calm and level-headed person. I really enjoy deep conservation, music, dancing, reading, and stargazing. I can read pretty much anything. I really like learning new things. Im sarcastic, and I like to tease my friends. I am extremely loyal to my friends, and I show my affection for them through gifts, quality time, and doing them favors. I tend to talk a lot about topics that I am interested in. I usually stay calm when people panic, (even if I'm screaming on the inside). Im trying to be as open-minded as possible to everyone, as long as they are doing the same thing to me. I love animals, especially raccoons. I think they are just adorable (I also have a cat and two dogs).

I have a pear-shaped body, but I'm also a little bit chubby. I have some scars on my arms and legs (mostly because I scratch my wounds when I'm stressed). Im anemic, which means that I get tired easily. Im also lactose intolerant. I often have random pains, but I don't know why. I also have an anxiety disorder (I bite my nails and lips a lot because of it). I would rather spend time indoors than outdoors, but I will not pass up an opportunity for a picnic :3.

I dislike loud noises and crowded places. I can't speak in front of a large group of people, and I have trouble making eye contact. I also hate when someone is bullied. I like spending time with someone when we both just do our stuff in one room. Im a pretty awkward person at first, but if I get close to you, I become more talkative and funny. People always tell me that when they first saw me, they thought I was intimidating. I often hum some music while doing something.

I think thats all. I apologize if this is chaotic. I never wrote a request. I hope it's not too much. Feel free to not write anything at all if you can't come up with anything <3.

Have a nice day and remember to take care of yourself!

Yandere TFP Megatron

Megatron is a cruel decepticon with a distaste for organics, so when he grabbed you into his servo he went to crush you right before Prime’s optics. He grinned viciously down at you, and your dead stare made him pause. Even the bravest of his kind looked more fearful than you. 

Before he could even form a coherent thought, he had transformed around you and flown away. When he got back to the Nemesis he was angry with himself- but he didn’t realize that as he threw you to Knockout, ordering him to watch you.

While you were scared, you did like the quiet of this place. It was almost soothing. 

Knockout peered down curiously at you. At your obvious exhaustion, he commented. “If I didn’t know better about your fleshies, I’d say you’re half dead.”

You stared back up at him, not quite making eye contact. He noticed your avoidance, but said nothing as he scoffed and went back to working. 

Megatron questioned himself as to why he brought you along, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He ended up sitting you on a table in his room while he worked. You were mostly quiet, but your curiosity showed as you looked at his computer. 

His booming voice asked what you were doing, and you covered your ears. Megatron wasn’t sure why he did it, but he lowered his voice and spoke again. “What are you looking at?” 

“....your screen. Sorry.” You bit your nails nervously. Megatron turned away, silent. 

It was weeks before he sat you on his shoulder. He didn’t speak, clearly unsure of how to communicate with you. For the first time in millions of years, he was truly unsure of himself. 

When he did start talking to you, it was to teach you about his gladiatorial days. He spoke of how he started the revolution, and how he fought against the corruption of the senate. 

Eventually you felt comfortable enough to ask questions with him, but you felt nothing but pity. He had been through so much. However, you also felt conflicted- the Autobots are your friends, but you feel like this war has no point anymore other than for Decepticons to get some sort of revenge. 

You slowly began to chip away at Megatron’s cold spark, and he cared for you- even if he didn’t show it well. He loved the way you hummed softly your favorite songs, and how content you were to merely sit on his shoulder. 

Megatron would often bring you to large forests so you could enjoy the nature he found you enjoyed. 

One day, when Megatron was on a comm with Soundwave discussing something, you decided to take off. You wanted to be back with the autobots- not to say that you even hated Megatron after everything you had learned. You ran through the forest, getting turned around almost instantly. 

Almost immediately, you were snatched up into the servos of a very furious mech. Megatron had a deep scowl on his face. 

“After I bestowed all of the knowledge I had upon you, did you really think I’d let you go?” Megaton squeezed you painfully tight. “Don’t worry, worm. I won’t make the same mistake with you twice.”

Megatron, secretly heartbroken that you’d try to leave after creating a bond, locked you in a cage hanging in his room- with no way to escape his clutches. You would never be allowed out unless Megatron was with you. His trust would be hard to earn back- maybe even take your lifetime.

[fatuismooches]

IT IS ME, the muzzle anon, hello again

after almost 1 year in hospital, im starting uni this year finally :]

being sick really reminds you how nice it is to be healthy, so while I was thinking about dottore and fragile reader I just had thought that reader probably had days where they felt like they were dying as they were laying on their bed. They already have an unknown disease that makes them weak and then a sudden fatigue hits them one morning and they can't even open their eyes, can barely move their hands, their whole body trembling and such- I would be very dramatic when I am sick, literally crying and thinking, "Yep, this is the end."

so imagine going, "I think this is the day I die..." to Il Dottore, tHE DOCTOR.

Dottore just goes, "No. 🤨"

To be honest it probably isn't the end it just their body trying to fight the sickness but reader just immediately starts writing their last will and testament.

"For Boattore, I left my drawings, for Zandy, the plushies I have, for Clowntore, I-"

Then the next day reader is okay, and like, "😐"

(As okay as they can be at least)

So Dottore and the other segments are repeating everything reader said to tease them now.

(Yeah they love reader, yes they were worried, but now that they are okay they are allowed to make fun of them)

swoosh

have a nice day <3

MUZZLE ANON... i just want you to know the muzzling Dottore brain rot still lives in my head rent-free. And congratulations on starting uni! That's such a huge step and I wish you the best, I'm very proud of you and hope you'll do amazing ❤️

Mhm, fragile reader definitely had bad days like that. The pain can be so bad and all you can do is lay helpless, unable to do anything besides wait for it to pass. Even when it's not physical pain, sometimes you simply don't even have the motivation to get up. It's just... really bad sometimes and you can't even predict when it comes, so it just hits you out of nowhere. And every time, you can't help but stress out and worry about what will happen next. Will the pain pass over? How long will it stay? These relentless headaches, aches, and sores? When can you finally get back to normal and go about your life? It seems like an eternity from now, and you can't help but wonder what will happen until then...

The first time you say that he nearly drops the vial he's holding. Did he miscalculate your pain? Is it more grave than he thought? He's going through all his notes again and asking you a bunch of questions rapidly. Until he realizes you're just (mostly) joking and being extra paranoid. His response is always to not be so nonsensical as he sighs every time. You're not going to die while he's around, he says matter of factly. Writing your will is... sort of a morbid kind of amusement for you. Yeah, ignoring the fact that you're planning for your own death, it's kind of fun to decide which segment will receive a little piece of you. There's a section for each of them with a mini-essay. Ahem, just don't let little Zandy know about this because you don't want to deal with a crying child blubbering about how you're going to leave him. And YEAH i imagine fragile reader says some pretty funny and weird things when they're sleeping or half-conscious. Segments are definitely listening in and write down everything you say to bring up later 😭

[laura1633]

Charles officially introducing Max as his boyfie to his family... im sorry i just read a fic that goes like that and it's so soft i think i died

Aww I love soft Lestappen. I am sure Charles' family would be happy with Max, he seems like really good boyfriend material 🥰 I imagine Arthur and Lorenzo would be amused because they've heard Charles talking about his rivalry with Max for so long and now he is on his arm and they are being all soft with each other.

Just throwing out this tiny little random drabble (not exactly about Charles introducing Max to his family but more about him wanting to introduce Max) :

“What do you think of this shirt?” Charles holds a navy shirt up in front of him so Max can take a look. It’s one he’s worn a few times before, nice and simple. 

“Blue?” Max grins, “Of course it is perfect” 

“Really?” Charles frowns as he takes another look at the shirt in his hands, “Maybe I should pick something else” 

“You look good in anything” Max hums as he lays sprawled out on the bed watching Charles fuss around, “so I don’t know why you are so stressed” 

“I’m not stressed” Charles mumbles, it’s meant to come off as care free but even to his own ears it sounds rather defensive, “I just want to at least look good” 

“At least?” 

“Nothing” Charles shakes his head and goes back to the wardrobe. He’s pretty settled on the navy blue but it gives him chance to try and compose himself. He knows he shouldn’t really be so het up about having to go to another family occasion alone. He’s done it enough times. It's not even that big a deal, some distance cousin's engagement party. It’s selfish to want to have Max with him but he so wants to be one of those loved up couples that spend the evening making lovey eyes at their significant other. 

“Tell me what’s wrong and maybe I can make it better” 

Charles closes his eyes and melts back against Max’s body as the Dutchman hops off the bed and wraps his arms around his waist. 

Max has come so far. So, so far. And it really is beautiful to see. The Dutchman is more at ease with who he is now. He’s not afraid of being open with Charles. Not afraid to kiss Charles. To touch Charles. To love Charles.

But in secret. 

Which is fine. Charles knows it’s fine. He doesn’t need everyone to see their love in order to know it exists. He experiences it, he feels it, he lives it. It’s just - 

“Nothing” Charles smiles. If there is one thing he isn’t going to do it’s push, “I am just not in the mood for a party, I would prefer to be with you” 

“You don’t have to stay long” Max leans into Charles’ neck and kisses up the length of it slowly, “I’ll be here waiting when you get back.” 

“I know” Charles tilts his head to the side so Max can slot in easier, “It’s … yeah… it will be fine. I am just going to have a shower. The sooner I get there the sooner I can be home.”

Charles makes sure to give Max a kiss before wiggling out of his arms and scooting through to the shower.

It really is all fine. Charles will go to the party, people will tease him about being perpetually single and then he will leave and fall into bed with Max who will make him forget about everything else. 

The Monegasque makes quick work of showering and changing. The navy blue shirt gets put on and it looks fine. It doesn’t really matter what he looks like anyway, most eyes will be on the happy couple.

“I went for the white so we don’t match” Max grins as Charles walks into living room and sees his boyfriend smoothing down the creases of his shirt, “Do I look okay?”

“Where are you going?” Charles’ heart is racing but he’s not sure if he’s getting ahead of himself. 

“To an engagement party” Max takes a deep breath and lets the tension out of his shoulders, “As long as you want me to come” 

“You want to come with me?” Charles still feels like he’s missing something. 

“I want to come with you” Max steps close enough to circle his arms around Charles’ waist, “I don’t want you to be yourself” Max leans in and presses his lips against Charles’

“You don’t have to come” Charles feels choked up all of a sudden, “My family will all be there and my ..”

“Friends. I know” Max soothes his hands up Charles’ arms, “I think it is about time I met them all. Don’t you think?”

Charles nods, not quite trusting his voice if he were to talk right now. His heart is fluttering and there are butterflies in his stomach. 

“I’m ready. I promise” Max interlaces his hand with Charle's, “Come on, if we don’t go soon there won’t be enough time to show me off to everyone”

Max grabs Charles' coat and helps the Monegasque into it before grabbing his own and leading Charles out of the apartment.

Charles can't stop grinning as Max keeps their hands clasped together. The Monegasque's fingers tingle with excitement as it hits him that they really are holding hands in public for the first time ever.

[abby-howard]

Hi! I've been following your comics for a long time and just saw that you squatted over 200 lbs! Congratulations!!

I want to ask this with the best of intentions and good faith. Would you still consider yourself fat? I recently started weightlift training myself and there's this annoying fatphobic part of my brain that is always present whenever i start any type of exercise that says "oh, will this be the thing that makes me loss my belly?" And it usually gets drowned out by the learned body positivity telling me not to make that a goal and there's nothing wrong with my fat.

Tysm! And that is a very good question, thank you for reaching out.

I would definitely still consider myself fat-- I work out 3-5 times a week and have for years, and my legs are pretty muscular, which is nice! But I am a chunky person, and it's pretty clear to me at this point that even if I drown in anxiety every time I eat a piece of bread, that's not going to change XD

That acceptance has definitely shifted the way I think about the gym/working out for the better. My goals are no longer focused on maximizing calorie output, setting the gym up as a punishment for having the body I have, which would always send me into anxiety spirals about going. Instead, I wanted to make the gym a regular (non-stressful) part of my life, because I realized maintaining a baseline of fitness-- at whatever size I am-- is important to helping me remain independent and able to do the work I'm passionate about as I age.

I feel like this change in my relationship with the gym has been one of the more important changes in my life-- treating working out as something more like doing the dishes than some kind of major shift into a new, thinner chapter of my life. I figure that I probably have many years ahead of me, and with how much I value my independence, I want to make sure I can stay mobile and pain-free for as long as I can (so I can keep making comics).

That of course doesn't mean I'll never get sick, or that ppl who do get sick just didn't do enough squats or deserve to be stigmatized for it! But osteoporosis has cropped up in my family before, and lifting helps increase bone density, as well as building a good foundation of stabilizing muscles if anything ever goes wrong. It's helped get rid of back pain and improve my posture, and while I'm sure there's a technique component at play, I feel like I have lifting to thank for my wrist strength-- drawing all those tiny lines somehow hasn't destroyed my wrist, and is always easier when I'm consistently deadlifting!

And, of course, there's the confidence that comes with picking up a big heavy thing and putting it back down. I feel proud that I have a body that can do that, which is something I have never felt before, even with everything I know about body positivity. When I first started lifting I also had those little thoughts about how it might impact my waistline-- I think it's something that's so deeply ingrained in fat people to prioritize that it's really hard to shut off. But it eventually did stop, replaced with an honest desire to explore my body's ability to pick up heavy thing off ground. An exploration of my body's strengths instead of a punishment for its perceived faults.

I hope this was helpful and didn't just sound like an ad for powerlifting XD

[deusexmachinawitch]

Day #8, #9 & #10 Slade Subliminal Self Challenge

Subs Listened: Problem Solving Potion, Evolution, I Am, Obelisk, Pillar, Nomad.

Time Listened: Short loops of around 15-20 minutes each sub. I did end up listening to "Pillar" overnight by accident one of the days.

Other methods: Robotic affirmations, visualization. Didn't listen to any other subs, just some meditation tapes. I did some self-care and decided to indulge in LoAss content videos for two days tho.

Today’s results:

(Day #8)

-Got a haircut for free, I look gorgeous.

-People buying me a lot of things for me out of the blue so I would look nice, including press-on nails.

-Got free dinner.

-Actually the day was really nice and peaceful at home and work, which is pretty rare especially at work so I am really happy and calm.

(Day #9)

-Got free clothes.

-Got free lunch.

-Someone that I really care actually told me they got me a surprise gift and that I'll see it next week, so I should look forward to it.

-That same person caring for my opinion and being grateful for my help and care towards them.

-Suddenly having custom-made catering in a networking event that we didn't expect to have actual catering in.

-My team getting prioritized in an work event that we didn't expect to get advantages with. This really increased my team's morale and everyone seems really happy and working better.

-Someone who's known to be a really hard person to deal with but with a lot of influence saying that they really respect me and that I have their support. Apparently, they were magically related to someone I've been caring so deeply and helping them with their dreams (I taught them about LoAss) and because they feel much better than ever before since LoAss, this person is really grateful and wants to help me in everything they can. LoAss does really work in magical ways, even creating links in people I would NEVER imagine they would actually be related in some way.

(Day #10)

-People highly loving me and respecting me after taking a step forward myself and taking a hard decision without hesitation. Everyone started following me and praising me.

-Actually having half of the day off and being able to relax. Another calm day at work, I really needed to manifest this good vibe at work.

-Someone hinting a gift for me. Lately I'm getting a lot of random gifts from people I wasn't expecting.

-Getting hired by someone I wanted to be hired with.

-SP being nice after a stressful rough patch he had.

-A highly respected person actually going after me for advice and comfort after a bad experience with a person in our field.

-------------------------------------------------

Lately my life is finally calming down even though it is one of the most stressful moments at my work since something big is happening for us.

I am loving the gifts and the tranquility, I guess I do love being spoiled. I want to still be spoiled and live an effortless life forever.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

nine weeks down, six to go! 60% of the way there! i worked ummm 23.5 hours unless i fucked up my quick math because i haven't actually put any of my sessions into my time tracking app since monday... a slower week partly because three weekend students rescheduled for sometime this week due to long weekend lans, and partly because, well, you know, other stuff occupying my mind. and, with that in mind, given the Things that were Going On, i personally think we all did great just to make it here, don't you?

one of my kids is testing tomorrow and may or may not be stopping tutoring after that; another two are testing this week and definitely continuing (one of them i am VERY stressed about score-wise and the other i think will eventually be fine by her december test date). there's an SAT student potentially in the pipeline which would be nice in terms of getting me through the winter lull but i haven't heard an update on whether it's happening in a few days. it did recently dawn on me that of students in my fall crop who definitely will or depending on scores may be continuing into january, four of them are weekend students... don't love that but what can you do.

i didn't get to five blurbs for TSJ week, but three is better than none; i didn't quite finish flowers in the attic but i'm pretty close and going to cozy up with it after i log off. i hit four workouts and then last night slept by absolute shit with an earlier-than-usual start and got my period so today's upper body day didn't happen and i will, sigh, not finish the program by thanksgiving, but i will in fact finish it. we got some outside kitchen help and have been mostly pretty good about maintaining it. i did ALL my laundry on my day off tutoring saturday (fourth day without tutoring since september 15th!) for the first time... a while... and perhaps i will at some point even finish putting it away. i didn't really work much on my room beyond that but that alone is a pretty decent improvement. no free store this week but i went to the movies with friends a few nights ago (heretic, a very fun time) and to book club today (flowers in the attic as mentioned before, an absolutely bonkers insane novel), and zoomed with d., i have sichuan plans with a friend this week. i kind of didn't want to hang with a certain group first thing post-election but, guess what, [redacted] flaked, lol. i told myself i had through today to remain hooked up by IV to the Takes machine re: election and i have now closed all my phone tabs and cleared my history, which is a tip i recommend for a light non-extreme digital detox because it forces you to type the URL of anywhere you want to go rather than getting it autofilled, which is the kind of friction i need on this matter, lol.

this week, oh who knows. keep on keeping on, work out, text back [g] whom i have been meaning to text back for two months, keep getting the work done, ideally end the week with the room a little better than it is now and the kitchen about as good as it was... let's say two days ago. lol. my later monday student cancelled for tomorrow and i am thinking i will use the extra time to treat myself to go see the apprentice as a treat, which i realize may sound deranged but do you know the more i think about it the more i think it would actually have been more stressful to watch it before we knew how things would turn out? six more weeks, and week three is thanksgiving, which will provide at least a one-day respite, and week five will already be lighter, and week six will be easier still! the finish line is perhaps not in sight but is right around the bend!

[utilitycaster]

I feel like a lot of people are projecting their own feelings towards what Taliesin did onto the cast as they seemed to me more stressed than necessarily angry at Taliesin but I don't actually play DnD so I thought I might ask you if what Taliesin did really was extreme enough to have actually made the cast as other playerd mad. I've just seen the claim that the cast is mad at x before, with Sam having scanlan leave or Bowlgate or Liam handing over the beacon and then the cast weren't actually mad at all.

Hi anon,

So just a blanket statement for the various questions I have received: until like, Wednesday, today was supposed to be a work from home day, as I often try to make my Fridays; I was pulled in to help an injured coworker briefly this morning, which I understand and which was relatively painless and would have left me free to work from home after 10 am, which is entirely reasonable. I then was sent to a last minute additional site and it turned out they were completely unprepared; this wasted about two and a half hours of my time and I'm now, understandably, extremely annoyed. This may bleed into my responses, though by and large I'm going to specify if I'm annoyed at you or not. Anyway, anon, I'm not annoyed at you at all and any "you" I say below is addressed to the fandom on the whole; this is a valid question.

Yeah the cast is mad. Yeah that's valid; as Matt pointed out there were extensive warnings specifically indicating that this would be a bad idea for Ashton to do. The cast is attached to each other's characters! They were, in fact, mad about Scanlan leaving and Tary showing up, because they care about Scanlan and that was an intense scene; Liam genuinely thought Sam was leaving the show. They were mad about this! They are also, probably going to get over it pretty quickly, or be "mad" about it in the way that your friends still roast you in the group chat over a typo years later. This isn't really even a D&D thing other than that Matt had Evontra'vir and Allura repeatedly say "you might fucking shatter." It's an anger born of concern that Ashton might have been permanently killed. But they weren't, and even if they were, it's fine. (The cast was not remotely mad about bowlgate though; see following paragraph.)

Which brings me to my next point. I have really only checked the blogs of people I follow because of aforementioned work problems and have barely glanced at the tag, and this is in conversation not just with this episode and that discourse and me being pissed off over real-world personal inconveniences, but also the larger discussion of "must stories have conflict?" and the fact that all the people who until quite recently insisted that actually Bells Hells are ROCK SOLID TIGHTLY BONDED and shat repeatedly on the astute point that Bells Hells are actually very surface level pleasant and don't ever discuss their issues have done a 180 that they will never acknowledge. Anyway:

It's extremely normal to be mad at people you care about, and to have arguments with them, and in fact it's likely more unhealthy to not have disagreements and get mad ever, and some of you sound like you've never been outside or had any friends. Like really that's it in the end. Actually believing Marisha and Liam were mad at each other? Friendless behavior. It's completely fine to wonder if this anger was valid, but like, honestly, people get mad over dumb shit every day and the point is that even if it's a stupid thing for the cast to be mad at (obviously, I think it's fine), be fucking normal and recognize that friends can be mad over dumb shit or valid shit and talk through it. Like. Some of you have no conflict resolution skills because you see all forms of confrontation as inherently evil and couldn't be me. I get in fights all the time and I get out of them and it's great. I am glad I no longer live in the midwest but god I cut swathes through problems there because I had zero investment in being Minnesota Nice when I was angry. Somehow this has turned into life advice, which is not what I thought it would be, but anyway. It's okay to be mad at your friends and expressing it in the way the cast did is super normal and they will probably all go out for drinks; as a person who has never chilled once in her entire life, I think we should all chill.

[maniacalgenius]

10.23.24, 10.24.24

wednesday and thursday recap!!

🧬 made it to genetics this wednesday morning*

🧬 did pop quiz in genetics. got 3/3 points (she sets them up with unlimited attempts and correct questions disappear on the next attempt) and later she added 4 bonus points because everyone in the class managed to do it properly!!

🧬 continued work on module 7.1 biochem notes. almost done with this slide deck!

🧬 made it to genetics lab wednesday afternoon*

🧬 stayed up until 2 am working on genetics lab report with lab partner**

🧬 finished module 7.1 biochem notes! only one more slide deck for week 7 and it has about half as many slides as this first one i’ve now finished. still Slowly But Surely Catching Up

*we’ve reached the point where these are huge wins

**i fell asleep before actually submitting so i think some points off are in my future 🤣 before going to bed i also was supposed to do micro pre-labs and micro lab report due at 11 am thursday but those didn’t happen either so i ended up submitting some really crappy assignments later that morning. i explain all of this because i don’t want to just talk about positive things and sweep the non-victories under the rug—i have not yet achieved academic weapon status and that journey is what this blog is here to document!

🌺 got SO MUCH SLEEP tuesday night!

🌺 took all (two) of my pills wednesday morning and—bonus points—vitamins!

🌺 think i did manage to take the most important pill and my vitamins thursday morning

🌺 grabbed two kind bars on the way out of the door wednesday morning and a slice of banana bread this morning instead of completely skipping breakfast

🌺 ate lunch both days!

🌺 took four long walks across campus (when i say long that’s usually 15+ minutes)

🧚 dr sandwich had to help run this event wednesday afternoon and it was open to students so i stopped by and got some free food! (and lunchbox, two stress balls, a metal mug, a sticker, and a towel!! quite the haul!!) and of course i got to see dr sandwich.

🧚 sat in the nice chem lab building again for a few hours in between said event and genetics lab wednesday and i ran into a girl from the Bible study friend group! she and i yapped for at least an hour which was super nice and healing cause we don’t know each other *super* well and we ended up exchanging a lot of our most significant respective lore!!

🧚 thursday morning it was revealed to me a (relatively) small but still really important and cool way God has worked in my life the past couple years! He is so SO good! 😊 i am so so blessed.

🧚 best friend and i went out dancing thursday night with some of the other people from the friend group which was pretty fun! (and i got to dance with the guy i’m a little 🥰 for which was 🤭)

1. there were two therapy dogs at the event wednesday! meet stella! i asked if i could take a picture of her for my study blog and one of the guys chaperoning the dogs was like sure and he asked me if it was on insta and i said “no, tumblr” and he goes “tumblr, wow!! is it 2014 already??” 💀🤣

2. Very Foggy when i left my apartment wednesday! lowkey was pretty nice

*huge yawn* until next time!!

xx 

[polyamorousmood]

hi! i'd love to get some sympathy/advice/etc from other ppl about this. so long story short my girlfriend (wonderful amazing great i am so happy with her) has a boyfriend, and i at first their rs was meant to be ephemeral, but then things changed and they realized they could make a longform commitment work out, so they tried! problem is, during the trial run, the guy realized poly wasnt working for him and he failed to communicate this well, so it caused a situation where he was very much just fishing for my partner to get in a closed rs with him. when she expressed how hurtful and wrong that was, he apologized and changed his behavior and after some more various ups and downs we've now settled into a pretty good situation where he's giving polyamory a serious try and seems sincerely committed to making it good! i trust my gf wholeheartedly and i want nothing but the best for them both, and for that brief period of time where it was ok we even had 3person dates and really special interactions, so i came to sincerely like guy a decent bit and i am cautiously but sincerely optimistic. however, by having to admit shit to himself, he's now of the mind that he'd like a much more segmented-off rs with my partner, which is fine, but also the resentment he felt towards not being able to have my gf all to himself made him lose his positive feelings towards me and now he expresses a (his words) 'goodwilled indifference' and we havent even Talked since he tried to effectively ultimatum my gf out of being poly. and that is just SO hurtful when i know i did absolutely nothing wrong to warrant the loss of what i felt was a genuinely precious and positive connection, and like, the first time ive had the chance to have a metamour! like as someone who really cares about learning how to admit fault i really cannot stress enough how much i didnt do jack shit here i was just vibing and trying to be nice and now it's just this sad thing i have to deal with. i know it has everything to do with his own preferences and insecurities and nothing to do with me, but i still feel a big child-like sense of betrayal and injustice and it makes me want to be mean and bitter and defensive ("well if you dont give a shit about me and wanna pretend i don't exist, then im gonna do the same! how do you like that, huh?" type beat). i know those feelings are to be worked with and worked through instead of acted upon, but it's still hard :-( i dont really miss *him*, really, i just miss not being in a polycule that has a member who struggles so much with polyamory. and though i trust her deeply, i am still sad and worried that this is a precarious situation that can end up hurting my partner and hampering her ability to feel free and happy in polyamory, which only adds to my mistrusting of the guy. anyone else in a similar situation, havin' to work with a poly-newbie metamour or something similar? im not crazy for getting bad vibes, despite my best hopes for them? thank you either way, i dont know enough poly people irl and ive been bursting with this shit for a bit so it helps even to just ramble it out

Yeah, I've been in similar places. Just putting the read more immediately because I don't have a good pithy introduction. But uh, TL;DRI guess? 🤷‍♀️: its totally fair for you to struggle with some negative feelings. But you are still in it together (even if he's pretending you don't exist) and the only way to the other side is through.

Its shitty, its exhausting, its infuriating. And it's all the more frustrating that you like... don't even WANT to be mad at him cause he DID apologize and now he IS trying to change the shitty parts, so you WANT to encourage that. Feels very

And it puts your mutual partner in the tough spot of having to balance⚖️ things between you two if he's unwilling to talk to you. And like, you're stuck waiting for him to come around, you can't even really DO anything, its all on HIM to prove he's not going to be an asshole forever.

And you kinda resent him for causing this much trouble basically all on his own! And then thinking he can still get all the good shit after stirring the pot! Like he tried to break you up and now you have to be the bigger person?? What kinda bullshit--

Fucking. Sucks.

I do have some advice, though as with most things, its not magic 🪄

🤬Be mad for a little bit! Allow yourself to feel it. You're not gonna wallow 🐖there, but let it hit you full force how much you dislike being in this bullshit situation. Maybe have a cry about it or throw some darts at his picture 🎯. Then, and only then,

Set it aside. Set the anger aside in your mind, set the situation aside in your discussions. Say "yup, sucks. Moving on..." and enjoy the good parts of your life.

As part of that, remember polyamory is a big ask for people who've never done it before. Him even just politely ignoring you is likely, in his mind, him compromising on everything he's believed in for years and the fundamentals of what his life will look like. That's a big deal. It's hard to do after there was previously a higher standard set, but try to give him some credit for that anyway. (Again. You are probably going to have to Be Mad first to be able to do this. That's okay. Don't skip ahead.)

I don't think having approximately the same attitude back is necessarily a bad strategy. Maybe don't do it with the petulance you presented in the ask 😝 but if you're able to just gently, non-judgmentally accept neutrality as a mode of operating with him... might save you a lot of trouble honestly🤷. Warmth is great and all, but I think it runs the risk of you burning out and feeling greater resentment down the line if it stays one sided (but you know yourself better than I do, so if you can handle it, power to you).

Know your feelings about this really well. Know what you're good with 👍, know what bothers you but you're willing to do for the good of the polycule😖, and know what really upsets you👎. Is this something you can make work long term? What changes would you need to have it work long term (including progress from him, accommodations from your partner, etc)?

Consider confronting him directly. You'll know better if that's actually a good idea in this situation than I will, but consider it. It may help you move past things to air your feelings, it may help him understand you better and vice versa, and it may lay the groundwork for a more functional relationship down the line. I must admit bias here. It is VERY important to me that things can be relaxed with my metas. The idea of refusing to engage with me feels like they're refusing to engage with the very concept of polyamory, and I that cannot work in my life - like, I run a poly blog you can guess how I value polyamory 😂 If you can be comfortable with something closer to parallel polyamory, this may be unnecessary.

And of course, through all of this, you have to talk to your partner. All of it. If you have a tendency to martyr yourself so as not to stress your partner out, overpower that tendency for this one. You are NOT doing your partner any favors by doing bottling it up. 🍾

For example, earlier I said your partner is going to have to balance things between you and your meta. It may be tempting to think you can spare her some of that by shrinking your feelings and needs, so maybe you'll just bite your tongue. However, she has to do the work anyway, and forcing her to work with incomplete information actually makes the balancing that much harder. While you shouldn't harp on them about it, she should know where you're at in all this. You owe your partner the ability to make informed decisions, and your happiness and ability to sustain a certain set-up is going to be an important factor to them! Tell them your misgivings, tell them if its going to take you some time to forgive him his bullshit, tell them if you are okay with something in the short term but don't know if you can spring it long term, tell them if you need a break from thinking about the whole damn situation. (And of course, as always, tell your partner when something feels good or is going well 😊)

It can be recovered. It will require patience. Hang in there. 🤗 I admire your commitment to figuring it out, and it sounds like you have a splendid partner who is just as committed to making it workable. I'm rooting for you all 💙💖🖤

[halfetirosie]

🥥🤤🍖 Damn it, now I'm hungry... 🍖🤤🥥

(Exercise 14 - 16 React-os!)

1) Ah, yes, a man a few words... 😅

I mean, to be fair, I assume Quincy has only ever participated in purely physical contests, so he might not know that he's supposed to elaborate?

---I'm not the only one that read that a "magikarp" for a second, right??

Rei must still be suffering from the Pokemon Curse--first I misread his real name as "Jolteon," and now this! 😅😅😅

2) EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW!!!!! 🤢🤢🤢

YOOOOO WTF?!?!?! (⊙ ᗣ ⊙)

I assume that this must be similar to how people will eat octopus tentacles, which still move after death? BUT I WOULDN'T EAT THOSE EITHER!!!! Dead things should stay dead!!!!!----And I think my gag reflex would jump into overdrive if my food starting moving around in my mouth!!!!!!

Poor Eiden is fighting for his life here, stretching as far as he can to find something nice to say about this meal from HELL!!!!!

3) Vegetarian surprise!

(I thought the veggies would be a side-dish or a component of the meal, not the entire meal.)

At first I thought, "What do you mean by 'the limits of nutrition'? Is there such a thing as too much nutrition???"

But then I remembered that, YES, that is a very real thing! Consuming too much of a certain vitamin/mineral in a short time frame can actually be super dangerous to your health!

(I only remembered this because of a video essay I saw a while ago about a corrupt company in...I think South Korea??...whose upper executive would sometimes force employees to take huge amounts of vitamins, which made them get diarrhea/puke. It's fucked up.)

4) NEVER IN MY LIFE HAS THE EMOTIONAL_PIANO.MP3 BEEN SO TERRIFYING!!!!

Kuya continuing to reach new levels of evil; weaponizing Garu and Yaku's goodwill and cuteness against Eiden!!! 😈

Foxy Grandpa for sure put some of his weird-ass magic on the meal, like that tea that causes hiccups. 100%.

🤦‍♀️ Yup, it figures. That was a bit too obvious...

But fuck, Garu's sincerity here is too muchhhhh!!! How has he gotten this far and still trust Kuya's bullshit????

5) HELL YEAH, IT'S THE WORKAHOLIC DREAM TEAM!!!

I said it before but I'll say it again; these dudes are coordinated as fuck!!! They're giving such a damn professional presentation of their dish without missing a beat---like they rehearsed it!!! (Honestly, I bet they did.)

LOOK AT HIS SMUG GRIN!!!!

HE'S TOO GODDAMN CUTE!!!! ♡♡♡♡♡

6) Edmond, my love, I hate to break it to you, but...

....there is NO WAY IN HELL that anyone else will want to consume that "special honey sauce." ♡♡♡

....Scratch that---I don't think they'd even be capable of consuming that sauce at all!

If he can smell the sauce from a distance, then WHAT IN GOD'S NAME is in that sauce????

IS IT JUST HONEY WITH EVEN MORE SUGAR ADDED INTO IT???

....Don't answer that. I'm getting a cavity just think about it....

7) Awwww, look at them all pampering Garu!!!

Rei might deny it, but he really does live up to his nickname of "Big Bro Rei!" It's adorable!!!

⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

8) Peepaw Kuya back at it again with his sensitive palate! 😂😂😂

And Olivine is seriously too nice!!!

9) OH SHIT!!!!

🚨🚨🚨PEACEFUL YAKU/DANTE INTERACTION!!! 🚨🚨🚨

WHERE DANTE ISN'T ACCIDENTALLY MAKING YAKUMO GET STRESSED OR CRY!!!!

Is this the first chill interaction we've seen of these two so far, or am I not remembering a different one? Whatever---

All the Yaku/Dante shippers rejoice!!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Shoutout again to From the Earth, Necatar, which lives in my head rent-free!

10) Not gonna lie, I'm pretty disappointed that we didn't get to witness Quincy grill...

I guess Dante's too proud to give up his role as Grill Master; instead Quincy's in charge of "crackin open a cold one with the boys!"

....Unrelated, but I'm not the only one that expected Quincy to break open the coconuts with his bare hands, right?

11) HELL YEAH, MY BELOVED "PESKY LITTLE FIEND" WON THIS ROUND!!!!

I mean, I knew he would, but the confirmation feel nice. :D

12) !!! Oh??? 😮

Have we ever seen Karu's face look that scared before??? I feel like we haven't, or it's at least been a while!

13) Their bickering is as charming as ever---

It's a little hard to tell, since Danteis up to his Tsundere Bullshit™ and hell-bent on victory, but I'm pretty sure he's having the time of his life right now.

In fact, I think Dante's competitiveness is a sure-sign of that. Getting caught up in a silly contest is his way of having fun, you know?

It's like when he kept competing with Edmond at the festival games during Chase the Rainbow. He gets himself immersed/invested in something inconsequential, and has a good-ass time!!!

(˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

14) Honestly, this part completely went over my head at first... 😅

I honestly don't know if Eiden's response was enough to confirm that he's secretly on Dante's team. Hell, I haven't even been theorizing about what Eiden's team might be or what his secret conditions are.

Usually I might've been trying to figure it out, but I feel like we've been given absolutely no clues in the story so far...Also, I have been hella busy lately---that's why my reaction posts have been slower lately---so I'm quite low on brain juice.

Idk man! This event is just so laid back, I don't feel the need to try so hard to figure it out. 🤷‍♀️

I'm just here to have a good time!

ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

🍖 End of report! 🍖

[iridium-quality-salad]

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles

[ID: Banner of the game Yonder. It shows an illustrated scene of a farm. In the foreground, a brown-haired player character and a small red fox are napping next to a big fluffy brown animal with huge horns. In the background are two wooden animal pens with red roofs and a pair of the same horned animal, on adult and a young one. The sky is blue and the grass green and dotted with flowers. The game logo is mostly golden, with the O being an illustration of big blue round sails. End ID]

I want to put this whole review under the fact that I bought this game on sale for less than 5 Euro. There will be a lot of bitching, and many things I would not accept with the non-sale price, but it was cheaper than a pizza and kept me busy for over 25 hours (though I admit, I am not the fastest, so I think <20h is realistic).

In Yonder, you are trying to find out about your past when your ship sinks and you end up stranded on an island threatened by the murk - some kind of dark fog blocking areas. Only you can see and befriend the small creatures called sprites which you need to clear the murk, progress the story, and finally discover the (very surprising! :o not) truth about your past.

On your way to do so, you have to gather resources, barter for goods, tame animals, catch fish, and discover secrets.

[ID: Screenshot of the game. The player character is overlooking a vast landscape with a huge mountain in the far background, surrounded by a pink forest. Trees closer to the player are green instead, and the landscape sports many cliffs and an ocean on the right side of the picutre. The sky is mostly blue, with a few pinkish-white clouds. Some kind of whale-shaped animal is floating in the distance between the clouds. End ID]

The positives:

Save whenever, good autosaves, multiple save slots.

Customize character with hair and eye colors, but also body shapes! Yay.

Lots of clothes to discover as well.

Cute animals to tame <3

If you have 2 of the same animal on a farm, there will be a third, baby version, it's so adorable.

Very relaxed, stress free gameplay. No combat, no death, drowning ports you back up on land.

The quest log is very detailed and works as a marker on the map, too.

Tons of things to discover, and very clear progression indicators.

I really liked the lighting in this game. Beautiful sunrises <3

Two modes of fast travel - from farm to farm for a (small) cost, and from one sage stone to any of the others once their quest is cleared.

Big inventory, early unlocked stash.

Some beautiful, diverse biomes.

Keyboard controls can be rebound.

Plays perfectly on the steam deck.

[ID: Another screenshot. The player character is gliding over a purple forest while hanging onto a rainbow colored umbrella. Underneath the character is a settlement with purple buildings, what looks to be an observatory and a giant planet model. The landscape in the distance is covered in fog and tinted with warm sunlight. End ID]

The neutral:

Short, lackluster story. This is not a game I bought for the story.

Farming is very basic. There's 4 different crops, a couple different animals to tame, and you can plant trees, which only give you the same wood you can find all over the place. It's not a farming game, though, so whatever.

The foxes are adorable but don't give anything unique. Some produce items that are harder to get, which is nice.

The game is a bit inconsistent whether a quest will use up your items or not. All the clothes you have to find for the scarecrow you get to keep, while other items get used up.

Hell, you can BUY tools, even though you get every single on for free and they cannot break, get lost, or get dropped. Why tf? I played the whole game having 2 sickles, unable to get rid of one of them.

Crafting is an over complicated, horrible UI, convoluted mess. Why is this in neutral?

Because you can buy pretty much everything. You can break rocks for days and then spend several minutes crafting ever increasing intermediate steps to get a bunch of stone pillars and arches - or you return for a few days and just buy them.

There is no money, so you barter with goods matching prices, which is a bit annoying. I ended up paying everything with potatoes and grass.

With a bit of patience and luck, you can even buy every fish, and it counts for the fishing collection, which, thank you, fishing is annoying.

Very short ingame calendar; a year is 30 days, so each season only lasts 7-8 days.

[ID: A screenshot of the game's crafting menu. It shows available recipes for the profession Constructor, with things such as stone arches and pillars, farm buildings made from stone, various metal ingots, and a set of profession specific clothes. End ID]

The negatives:

(Aka things that made me want to throw my deck at the wall.)

Jumping sucks. If you're standing wrong against a rock, jumping will make you jump back instead of up, which might lead to you falling off things. Luckily, very little jumping is actually required.

You can't select a hairstyle when creating the char, you find them all over the place. Default hair is ugly af. If I hadn't found a cute one pretty soon, it would have been WAY less fun staring at an ugly blob of polygons for 20 hours.

Similarly, you get some basic hair colors and can unlock super fancy ones in the game. Now why is this negative? Because not all default colors exist as shampoo, and I was so happy to find a perfect hair color when making my char, which I would have never gotten back, so I couldn't use any shampoo :(

The. Sounds. This game has some of the most grating, repetitive, ear-bleeding sounds I have ever had the displeasure of encountering in a game. Usually, I would turn off sounds nothing much lost, but:

The. Cats. There is a quest to find 55 cats in this game, and the only way to find them is to have sounds on, because they mew very loudly when you get close - or, I guess, seeing a blob of tiny pixels hidden away between rocks and trees 55 times.

Speaking of the cats. Some of them only appear at certain times, like winter, spring and summer nights, or even summer sunrise. In my opinion, this makes finding them without the wiki tedious; perhaps possible, definitely not worth it.

The only good point about the cats is that there's more cats in the game than you need, so there is a chance you find enough of one breed on your own.

Day/night cycle from 6am-6pm and vice versa, with no way to skip time. Which means for half of the game time, it's annoyingly dark. Makes it extremely hard to see anything, hey, at least you get a lantern. Which bugged once leaving me with a pitch black screen. Its just not fun. It would have been fine if nights weren't 12 hours long.

I would have turned my screen brighter, but days are extremely bright in comparison - even after turning down bloom.

Thunderstorms, especially at night. They just flash the whole screen white in irregular intervals, it's horrible. Once or twice, I had to put the deck down and wait until they were over. Luckily, they were rare.

[ID: A screenshot of the game, showing the player character in front of one of the sage stones; a giant face made out of stone, mouth wide open, mouth and eyes glowing brightly. It's sitting on an uphill slope on a snowy mountain with a huge cliff face to the left. End ID]

There were a few minor bugs; the aforementioned missing lamp during one night, I somehow completed a quest twice and got two badges, and the UI for board quests if you talk to the quest giver NPC without the items present is so bad I consider it a bug. Nothing gamebreaking.

Why do I still recommend it? Well, it was fun. Mostly. It was a real "couldn't put it down" game for a week or two, just one more quest, one more creature. It was less fun to have the game running for 2 real life hours waiting for next winter because I was missing one single cat and had nothing else left to do.

It's also a game I will happily uninstall and never touch again now that I 100% it, which, honestly, is nice, I have enough games to return to. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a way to hide the interface for better screenshots (though you can try to catch the split second before opening inventory or compass.)

If you like low-stakes, cozy games, this one might be for you - but on sale. If you're sensitive to flashing lights, beware of the thunderstorms.

[bestworstcase]

Hello! You've mentioned being a NanoWrimo veteran, and I was wondering if you had any advice for planning out your writing for the month? I was going to do an outline beforehand to prepare, but I'm not sure if that's authentic to the NanoWrimo spirit.

i am i’ve been doing nano most years with wildly variable success since i was fourteen. my best advice is:

start writing now.

not your actual nanowrimo project necessarily and not the 1.6k and change daily you’d need to ‘win’ but start writing every day right now. if i’m going into november from a dry spell i like to start with a daily goal of minimum 100-200 words for a week and then at the end of the week, set a new goal of a few hundred more than daily average. rinse repeat until you’re in the habit of writing a decent chunk every day. THE POINT OF THIS is to avoid hitting the “”two week wall“” which is a thing that happens because writing 1.6k+ words in a day is pretty easy but writing 1.6k+ words per day every day for a month is really hard if you don’t, you know. train for it.

you will get the most value out of nanowrimo if you think about it as a writing marathon. it’s difficult because it takes a level of endurance and discipline that you probably do not have unless you’re already a prolific daily writer.

outlining is in the spirit of nanowrimo and has always been part of the culture; some people outline extensively (‘planners’) some don’t (‘pantsers,’ as in writing by the seat of your pants), many fall somewhere in the middle. the only hard rule if you want the, like, pure nanowrimo experience as it was originally conceived is: don’t start writing the actual story until 12:01 AM on november first. you can have anything from zero plan to minutely detailed scene-by-scene notes for the entire novel locked and loaded, but on day one you open a blank document and start writing.

another thing i’d really recommend is trying to write over that 1.6k daily baseline. an extra 340 words per day for five days will net you a free day and those are nice to have in case you hit a day where you can’t write for whatever reason. it’s a lot less stressful to bank up extra words ahead of time than to miss a day or two and have to catch up.

if you don’t already have a process for turning off your inner editor, start trying to figure one out now. the temptation to delete and rewrite a paragraph dozens of times will bite you if you indulge it. try things like hiding your text so you can’t read it (set font and page to the same color, or use wingdings), try sprinting apps like write or die, stuff like that. you are trying to complete a rough draft. it’s okay for it to be rough.

lastly, use the time between now and november to figure out warm ups that work for you. these are quick, simple writing exercises separate from your wip that you do before every writing session. here are some that i like:

set a timer for five minutes and write continuously, stream of conscious, without stopping until the time’s up.

set a timer for five minutes and write a loose synopsis or ramble about the scene you plan to write: what happens, who’s in it, what subplots is it advancing, what pieces of foreshadowing or set up do you need to work in, what’s the emotional tone, etc.

pick an object in the room. spend five minutes describing it in exhaustive but simple detail. think “this cup is a tall red cylinder. it’s made of glass. there’s about a half-inch of clear glass at the bottom. the red is bright and saturated, firetruck red. it’s sitting on my desk with sunlight falling through it, casting a red shadow. there’s water in it with three ice cubes. the cup is about six inches tall.” <- you want a stream-of-conscious list of observations, basically.

use a random [name/setting/plot] generator and write 2-4 paragraphs of something stupid based on the output. just the silliest or most overwrought or edgiest grimdark or saccharine bullshit you can spew out.

take the last five hundred or so words of your last writing session. read them over. open a blank document and transcribe them word-for-word (or nearly, if you can change a word here and there without breaking stride). the idea is not to edit, but to write out a decent chunk of words quickly, without thinking much about what those words are. (i like to do another warmup and then this one and then just keep going when i hit the end of the chunk i’m transcribing.)

the idea is to preempt writer’s block by giving yourself 10-15 minutes of no thoughts head empty rapid-fire word vomit to get your brain on track and ready to go. warming up before your writing sessions will dramatically reduce the frequency of sudden creative paralysis when you sit down to write.