#this was supposed to be for the month of February but I'm always last minute for everything

[absolutemimery]

metamy dancing ^_^ 💕

[iwillneverforgiveyousunghanbin]

doctor! doctor! ♡ seok matthew, lpn ♡ the nurseـــــــــﮩ٨ـ

⋆˙⟡ zb1 doctor smut series masterlist! all parts also linked here: nurse!matthew, doctor!jiwoong/med student!gunwook, allergist!taerae, radiology tech!gyuvin/cardiologist!ricky, anesthesiologist!hao/surgeon!hanbin

⋆˙⟡ wc: 1.5k (gonna try to keep these short, but we know me...)

⋆˙⟡ reader: gn afab (no pronouns used to refer to reader)

⋆˙⟡ series summary: eight medical professionals. a sudden illness that gets progressively worse. can reader survive the l-o-v-emergency?

⋆˙⟡ the nurse summary: the male nurse at your new doctor's office is a total asshole. but he's really hot. and so are you, after what was supposed to be a routine physical takes a couple unexpected turns.

⋆˙⟡ warnings: explicit smut. 18+. minors do not interact. please read specific warnings under the cut! angst. lighttt dub-con. matt is a total meanie. little less by the end. explicit mean comments about reader's weight but it's only because he's literally an asshole. smut is fairly light-ish, but we're just getting started so let's let it simmer for now.

⋆˙⟡ l-o-v-emergency scale: ★☆☆☆☆ (1)

GUYS HEY! I'M ALIVE! who's glad? not me. anyway, i've been working in a medical setting for over 2 months now and this series was birthed bc i couldn't stop thinking about how matthew would look in a good set of athletic (specifically magenta) scrubs. okay, hopefully i don't abandon this project!! ily. always. don't forget. <3

⋆˙⟡ iwnfyshb full masterlist

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

EXPLICIT SMUT 18+ WARNINGS: fingering/heavy petting (reader receiving), dub-con kind of sort of idk better safe than sorry, matt is very mean, inappropriate use of medical equipment (?), yeah i think that's good for now.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

it’s a regular monday morning. nothing out of the ordinary at all. though it’s a bit chilly outside, the sun is shining on this lovely february day.

you’re at the doctor’s office, sitting in the waiting room for your annual physical. your primary care physician had retired at the end of last year, so you’d scheduled your first appointment with a doctor at a completely new practice. they were so new, in fact, that they didn’t really have any google reviews yet except for one that just said: went above and beyond.

and they also accept your insurance, so there’s that.

though it’s late in the year for it, you’re also hoping to get a flu shot after about eight different strains of influenza ravaged your workplace this week. but you feel very healthy. you actually feel great.

usually you’re called in a bit faster for an appointment, but today it takes about ten minutes before the door to the medical entrance finally bursts open. it slams against the wall, startling both you and the elderly woman sitting a few seats away from you.

“ah, shit, sorry,” a voice mumbles and your eyes follow to put a face to it. standing in front of you is an incredibly attractive male nurse who squints at his clipboard. “uh… (y/n)?”

you stand up quickly, putting your phone in your coat pocket and walking up to the nurse. up close, you can see his name tag says: matthew.

“sick,” matthew says quietly, pointing down the hall to a scale. “we’re gonna head over there.”

you walk with him to the scale, jumping again when the door to the waiting room slams loudly.

“ah, shit. sorry,” he says again. you step on the scale, only to hear snickering next to you a moment later.

“uh… is something funny?” you ask with a frown.

“maybe take the coat off,” matthew suggests with a smirk. “we’re wanting a weight good for humans, not for whales.”

your eyes widen in shock. not really sure how to respond, you simply take your coat off and place it on the chair next to you. matthew leans over your shoulder, encroaching a little too liberally on your personal space bubble, and huffs confusedly.

“huh. i really thought that’d help more,” he says, jotting your (extremely normal) weight down onto his clipboard and shrugging. “anyway, we’re gonna be in room 3, on your left here.”

was he being purposefully rude or was he just painfully oblivious? a little more irritated than you had expected to be during this visit, you follow your nurse into the exam room and take a seat on the exam table.

“whoah, there,” he says with a laugh as he sits down on a stool beside the medical counter. “careful not to break the table after that weigh-in.”

you’re about to ask him what his problem is when matthew suddenly rolls up the already short sleeves on his magenta scrub top, revealing big, toned biceps underneath. goddamn, he was gorgeous.

but it didn’t give him a right to make comments about your body.

“wh—… why do you keep—…” you nervously start to confront him before he interrupts.

“just gonna get a reading on the pulse oximeter,” matthew announces, grabbing your hand from your lap and sticking the device on the tip of your index finger. “cool nails.”

“thanks,” you find yourself replying quietly. you don’t think you’ve ever met a nurse who lacked bedside manner this badly.

“i’ve been giving you a hard time, but you’re sorta hot actually,” he says, matter-of-factly as he snatches your hand again suddenly to check the oximeter. his bluntness and close proximity causes your heart to involuntarily race, and he bites his lip in a conceited grin as he reads the numbers on the device. “100 bpm… something getting you excited?”

you should stand up and walk out the door right now. report him to the reception desk. you figured there had to be some setbacks to a completely new, unreviewed practice, but this was beyond acceptable. no one should be allowed to behave so unprofessionally in a medical setting.

you look him directly in the eyes. about to rip him a new one.

but holy fuck, this absolute dickhead is hot. your brain starts to feel a bit foggy just looking at him.

“are you sure you’re feeling okay today?” matthew asks, removing the oximeter and placing it on the counter. he takes a thermometer out of the pocket of his scrub top and walks over to you— casually situating himself in the gap you’d left between your legs. “i’m gonna take your temperature just in case.”

he holds the thermometer in front of your forehead for a moment, the device buzzing when it has a reading. “hm. all good here. i’m just gonna check one more spot to make sure.”

before you can ask what that means, he moves the thermometer between your legs— pressing it over your clothed core. it buzzes against your clit and you’re unable to suppress a whimper in your shock.

matthew licks his top lip as he drinks in the sound, removing the thermometer and reading the temperature. he clicks his tongue sadly. “just what i thought. you’re burning up, baby.”

“this—… this is—….” you make one last (very weak) attempt to protest this nonsense. “i mean, you really shouldn’t be—…”

“shouldn’t be what?” he asks, fingers now taking the place of the thermometer on your clothed heat. as he massages you gently, you inhale sharply at how nice his touch feels. “doing my job? i’m just getting you ready for the doctor, baby. that’s all.”

you don’t have a clue as to what that’s supposed to mean. and you’re starting to forget why you care as he hooks his fingers around your waistband. reflexively, you lift your hips for him and he pulls down your pants— discarding them on the chair next to the exam table and leaving you in just your panties on the medical paper lining.

matthew pushes them aside with his thumb before prodding at your entrance with his middle finger. “just a small pinch,” he warns as he slips it inside.

you inhale sharply as the full length of his digit fills you. he smirks again, making use of his thumb against your clit as he starts to fuck you with his finger. you begin to whine as a steady pressure forms below your stomach.

“how’s that, hm? feel good?” you nod, growing more desperate for your release. matthew laughs as he pushes another finger inside of you. you can’t help but moan, hand finding its way to grip at the neck of his scrub top. “listen to that. doc’s gonna love you. you could still stand to lose a few pounds though, not gonna lie.”

you hate this guy. you must’ve had a psychotic break at some point between the waiting room and this exam table. but something’s come over you— something almost feverish— and the desire to complain just keeps getting smaller.

“please,” you beg emphatically, fingers of your free hand wrapping around the edge of the exam table as your climax threatens to spill over. “just shut the fuck up and make me cum.”

“fuck,” he breathes, the tips of his fingers curling up into the spongey spot in your upper wall with even more vigor. “okay. okay, yeah. just don’t tell the doctor i let you cum. got it?”

“y-yeah,” you agree half-heartedly— still unsure as to what the doctor has to do with this mean, hot nurse committing a crazy hr violation on you. but you just need release. so you humor him. “whatever.”

matthew presses his thumb hard against your clit and that’s all it takes— your orgasm washing over you as you feel your juices slip down your inner thighs. “fuck, that’s hot. makes me wish i got to finish ‘em off more often.”

more often? a post-climax clarity begins to set in as you wonder what on earth this guy is talking about. but that clarity only lasts a few moments before you start to shake with a chill you swear is bone-deep.

“get up, i’m gonna clean things up quick,” matthew orders casually, changing the paper liner on the table and throwing you some moist towelettes as you stagger off your perch. “clean yourself off good, ‘kay? i really don’t wanna get in trouble for—… hey, are you okay?”

your hands are shaking as you wipe your thighs and core clean of any traces, shivering beyond your control. matthew takes the towelettes from you, chucking them in the garbage. he tilts his head at you, concern suddenly palpable in his eyes.

"you—… you don’t look so good,” he says, placing the back of his hand against your forehead. when he pulls it away, you see the skin glisten. are you sweating? but it’s so cold. matthew pulls out his thermometer again, holding it between your eyes until it pulses. he pulls it back, eyes widening as he reads the temperature. “oh shit.”

"what?” you ask, rubbing your hands against your arms to try and generate some warmth. “what’s it say?”

"um. i—… i don’t know what’s going on,” he stammers, suddenly doe-eyed and nervous. it’s the most endearing he’s been thus far. something must be terribly wrong with you. “i think it’s probably just a fluke. maybe the thermometer’s broken. right? there’s no way it could be that high. you’d be dead. i’m—… i’m just gonna go get the doctor. he’ll know what to do! probably.”

“okay,” you reply. not much more you can say, especially with your teeth chattering.

"just, uh, sit back down and… um… rest, i guess. yeah, rest should help,” matthew says, quite clearly panicking. “and i’ll send the doctor in. and just, um, remember not to tell him what i let you do. please. i’d really appreciate that. if it comes up, ya know, just…”

“lie?” you suggest, plopping down onto the exam table as you continue to shiver furiously.

“yeah! exactly. you’ve got it,” he replies, rushing toward the door. “oh and the doctor has a med student interning with him today. is it okay to have him shadow your appointment?”

“sure,” you agree without hesitation. education is one of your core values, after all. even if you suddenly have a life-threatening fever to rival a volcano.

“awesome,” matthew says, throwing open the door. he glances back at you one last time, uneasiness written all over his pretty face. “hang in there.”

the door slams shut. really loudly.

“ah, shit. sorry.”

[starchaserwrites]

@jegulus-microfic / february 18: pet / word count: 572 cw: foul language and violent behavior

James doesn't easily get annoyed, but his biggest pet peeve is people who do not say hello when they arrive at a place, so every time it's his turn to be in charge of the till at the cafe where he works, he struggles to control the twitch in his eye. When the next customer only mutters "venti iced americano, hurry" without even looking up from his phone and throws the money on the counter, he just puts on his best customer service smile and clenches his fists.

Not even five minutes have passed since the order was placed but the man in his early forties is tapping his fingers loudly on the delivery counter and alternating between staring at his watch and at James insistently. Fortunately, there aren't too many customers at this time of day, so Lily and Mary don't take too long to get the man's order ready.

"Is it too fucking hard to make a good fucking drink? I asked you for iced and this is lukewarm!" says the man in a voice loud enough to silence the café that was previously echoing with the soft conversations of customers.

Under normal circumstances James would probably have explained that all that needs to be done to make the drink colder is simply to stir it, but putting on his best smile he offers a "Oh, sorry about that. We'll redo it!" the customer is always right and that shit, right?

So when the drink is handed to him for the second time and the man literally spits the sip he took on Mary, James is ready for a confrontation.

"Are you an idiot or some kind of mentally retarded? This doesn't taste like fucking anything! You bunch of morons were dropped on your heads when you were babies. And you pair of bitches..."

Just as James is about to leap over the counter and punch this asshole, the man is pushed and cornered against the wall in the blink of an eye.

"Can you shut the fuck up?" says Regulus, one of the regulars who comes almost every day after work, shaking the man by the collar of his shirt with his ringed hands. And if James always notices how he sits at the table closest to the counter, and they constantly exchange glances it's nobody's business.

"But-"

"I don't give a shit, you've been throwing a tantrum this whole time and I won't take it anymore so get the fuck out of here this very second or I'm going to shove what's left of your coffee so deep up your ass to see if you can finally taste it." Regulus continues before pushing him against the wall one last time and letting him go.

The lovely customer starts to walk slowly towards the exit, but halfway there he turns around as if to say something.

"I promise they'll be finding your remains for the next four months if you don't walk out that door now," the silver-eyed man says before the forty-year-old can add anything else. The thing is, he says it so menacingly, like he really means it, that James feels weak in the knees.

Physical or verbal violence isn't supposed to be attractive, but this may have awakened something in James.

So please, no one judge him when a few hours later he ends up tangled in his bed from head to toe with Regulus.

[dumpywrites]

Star Crossed - Kim Taehyung / V

Prompt: Costume party comes into disaster when you mistaken your crush as your friend.

Prompt request: HERE

Genre/tags: Fluff, just feel-good sweet soft fluff, university au, strangers to lovers (?), drable-ish

Pairing: Taehyung x reader

Word count: 2.8k

a/n: I'm not a huge fate believer, never am. But I've always have a soft spot for accidental meetings type of stories :')

You never really get the rich people life. They just be throwing parties left and right, without having to think about the expenses, the mess, or even worry about invitation number. Even if you had the money to spend, party was and never will be the first choice in your mind to do so. 

But you were in university, life was supposed to be like this, right? It was supposed to be filled with stupid young people activities. And by that theory, you should not be regretting your decision on joining your friend to this random rich girl’s party. Right?

You were sure the month was February, and Halloween wasn’t supposed to come early like this. The new head of student council was obsessed with costume dressing, said she loved the oddly sexy vibe it brought. Plus, it did give her and everyone else some good excuse to dress slutty. 

While you could understand Lisa throwing this huge party to celebrate her new position, you had no idea why she would invite your friend. Apparently, they accidentally bumped into each other during lunch break and he helped her picking up her stuff. The invitation came very easily right after. You guessed being friendly with everyone was a must-do thing if you wanted to maintain your popular status.

“Your costume is very creative…” You said in a sarcastic tone, eyeing your friend up and down. 

“Hey, this was a last minute decision, alright?! I don’t have time to actually make one and this was rather cheap.” Hanbin said. 

You took a double take on your friend squid game guard costume. “This just screams lack of creativity and personality no matter how hard you try to defend it.” 

“Dude, I was struggling with my assignments!!!” He rolled his eyes as he protested. 

“You should’ve just bought a floral shorts and pink t-shirt and just be my Patrick.” You told him. 

You were in fact in a Spongebob inspired costume, with your shirt and tie, and you even got a his hat in a form of hair clip that you found online. You were pretty proud of the look you created.

“Whatever dude, let’s just go.” 

Your friend turned off the car engine and exited the vehicle, you followed. After pressing the doorbell a few times, the door opened revealing the owner of the house herself greeting you both. She was wearing a fully blinged bodysuit, and with tiny wings on her back, it seemed like she was aiming for a Victoria’s Secret inspired look. 

“Hanbin! You made it!” She squealed and clapped her hands. “Oh, you brought a friend? Hello! I’m Lisa.” She happily extended hand to you just after she closed the door. 

You mentioned your name and shook her hand. “Nice to meet you and congrats.” 

She smiled sweetly and thanked you. “I have to go back to the others, but you guys have fun! Go around and help yourselves!” And with that she waved and left. 

“Great, now what?” You looked at your friend. 

“We socialize! Maybe this way I can get more member for the dance club.” He smirked, fixing the mask that hung on his head. 

“Whatever.” You dismissed, shooing him. “Just go, I’ll be just right here, playing tetris on my phone.” 

“You’re not coming with me to mingle around? Who knows, maybe that Taehyung guy is here.” Hanbin wiggled his eyebrows. 

Your eyes widened as you gasped. “God, you’re right! He must be popular there’s no way he isn’t invited!!! Come on… now I regret on being Spongebob.” 

Taehyung was this stranger you met at the library once upon a time. His pen rolled away when he accidentally dropped it and it landed right next to your feet, just where you were sitting. He didn’t need to know that you were basically watching him from a few tables away just because of how beautiful he looked, just sitting there reading prettily. 

All you had was his name right after the awkward handshake when you gave him the pen. You were too stunned to even say your name back, which you still regretted until this very day. He did smile on his way back to his table, and even waved his hand at you before leaving, but that was all. At times like this you wished you had better self esteem.

“And you think you’ll actually have a chance with him if you’re not in this Spongebob attire?” He teased. 

“You did not just say that.” You hit your friend’s side. 

The two-story villa was enormous. You did not know what was in the punch they gave you but after a short social charge toilet break, you totally lost your friend in the crowd. How you managed to lost someone with a full pink costume was beyond you, but in your defense the light was pretty dim. 

You had been looking for almost half an hour, before you finally spotted the bright colored suit. But now questions arose. 

Why was Hanbin covering his face with the mask? You thought he was coming to socialize. Who was this guy sitting next to him, with an arm covered in full tattooed sleeve, wearing a police costume? Nonetheless you needed to go to him since you still had no luck in finding anyone to at least be your company. At times like this you wished more of your friends were the party type.

When you approached him, you saw whatever conversation they were having halted. The tattooed man looked at you with confusion in his eyes. 

“Can we go back home now? If you’re still not done socializing I can go back myself.” 

“Whoa, who are you?!” The policemen asked with wide eyes. 

You quickly gave him your name and shook his hand with a blank face, leaving the guy in awe. You turned to your friend again, who was weirdly quiet. “So?”

Your friend shrugged, there was an unfamiliar chuckle coming out from him but you figured the loud music and the fact that his mask was on were playing a part. He nodded and stood up, waved his hand at the other guy before you followed him out of the front door. He stopped right in front of the gates, standing awkwardly. 

“Are you drunk? I can drive if you can’t.”

“I never actually got your name before, but now that I have, it’s nice to meet you, I guess.” 

Now who in the fresh hell was this. That wasn’t how Hanbin sounded like. You had known the man for two years enough for you to instantly know that this was in fact not your friend who was behind the costume. 

You took a few steps back, afraid. “You’re not Hanbin…”

He took his mask off, proceeding to take your breath away along with it. Oh, this was definitely not your friend. 

“Remember me? From library?” 

You could not believe your eyes. It was none other than Taehyung himself smiling brightly at you. Did they switch costume? What on earth was going on??? Your little brain could only do so much. 

“H-How?! Oh my goodness I’m so sorry! I thought you were my friend!” You panicked. 

“It’s fine.” He chuckled. “It was getting stuffy in there anyways. You’re down for some ice cream?”

“Huh? You sure? I need to tell my friend about this…”

“I came across your friend, we had a good laugh about our poor costume choices for a solid minute before he told me he needed to get out from it cause he couldn’t stand the heat anymore, which honestly, I get it now.” He laughed. 

“He took the suit off, that makes a lot of sense now.” You sighed. 

“His mask is circle, mine’s square.” He pointed at the mask over his head and took it off to show you. “See?”

“Of course.” As if anyone would remember that detail. 

“I can replace your friend for the night?” He gave you a questioning look. 

Honestly, you would be utterly stupid to refuse this golden offer. 

“If you’re not too ashamed to walk around in public with Spongebob that is.”

“Eh, it’s cute.” 

Yeah, there was definitely something in that punch. “Thank you?” You said as you walked next to him, hoping your blush wasn’t visible. “Where are we heading?”

“Seven-eleven. Let’s just hope they won’t kick us out for looking like this.” He laughed. “So what were you reading?”

“Huh?”

“That day, at the library.” 

“Uh, don’t laugh at me.” You nervously looked away. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

“Oh wow.” He laughed instantly. 

“I told you not to laugh!” You sulked. 

“No, that’s like perfect, I couldn’t imagine a better answer.” He continued to laugh. “At least that’s a cool answer, I was just there to study for my exam.” 

“I regret telling you what book I was reading.”

“Okay, I’ll stop laughing.” He chuckled. “I’m still bummed you didn’t say your name when I told you mine that day.”

You for sure couldn’t tell him you were too mesmerized seeing him up close to say anything. “I was zoning out.”

He breathed out in relief. “I swear I thought you didn’t like me or something.” He smiled. “What were you doing at Lisa’s party anyway?”

“Hanbin was the one who got the invitation, I was just dragged along.” You shrugged. “You?”

“We just know each other I guess. She’s quite the social butterfly. I wasn’t doing anything anyways and Jungkook actually was the one who wanted to wear this costume, but boy ordered the wrong size and it was too small for him. Hence, this.” He pointed at himself. 

“What was your original costume then?” 

“Nick Wilde from Zootopia.” 

This time it was your turn to burst out laughing.  

He looked at you with a frown. “What’s so funny?”

“Don’t tell me you’re a furry.” 

“Hey, it’s just a very simple costume. All I need was some fake fox ears, plain green shirt and a tie, done!” He reasoned. 

“Whatever you say, furry.” You teased. 

“Oh my god, you’re never gonna let this go now, huh?” He complained, but couldn’t help a smile. 

Finally you arrived at a near seven-eleven. The cashier was indeed giving both of you weird looks, considering the place was empty and your costumes, especially Taehyung’s bright pink one, were quite hard to miss. Nonetheless, you got yourself a cup of slurpee and Taehyung got himself a cone of packaged ice cream. 

The whole time you were enjoying your drink, Taehyung was singing along to the random songs they played. You had to cover his mouth a few times, afraid you were actually gonna get kicked out for real just because he was singing his heart out to a Katy Perry song. You never pictured him to be this goofy weirdo judging by his model-esque appearance, but it sure was a wonderful surprise.

After finishing the snacks, both of you decided to continue the night stroll. He held out his hand to help you stand up from the bench, knowing well you could stand up by yourself easily, but again, who were you to miss such opportunity. 

“So,” he said, glancing at you with a teasing smile, “If you hadn’t mistaken me for your friend tonight, would you have talked to me?”

You hesitated, kicking a small pebble on the sidewalk. “Honestly? Probably not.”

Taehyung raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

You sighed, debating whether to tell the truth. But something about him made it easy, like he wouldn’t judge you no matter what you said. “Because I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. And when you don’t think you’ll see someone again, it’s easier to keep them as a… I don’t know, a daydream.”

He looked at you in amuse. “A daydream?”

“I had this whole version of you in my head. A mystery guy from the library.” You playfully explained with your hands.

“Am I better or worse than the version in your head?”

You bit your lip, pretending to think. “Hmm… jury’s still out.”

Taehyung put a hand over his chest dramatically. “I’m personally offended.”

You giggled, nudging him playfully. “I was so sure you were this person who just wouldn’t talk to someone like me, given the chance.” You shrugged. “I’m glad I was wrong about it.” You smiled. 

“You shouldn’t think of yourself so lowly like that. What makes you think I wouldn’t talk to you? Who even am I?!” He folded his arms. 

“That’s why you’re better than the version in my head.” You giggled. “What about me? What’s the verdict?”

“Oh, I hate it.” He nodded with big boxy grin on his face. 

“Excuse me?!” You gasped. 

“If I know this is how fun you are to be with I would’ve fought for your name that day.” 

This man really had you in his fingertips. “You can’t be serious.” You rolled your eyes, groaning but stomach filled with butterflies. 

Somehow, your random wandering led you to a small playground nestled between apartment buildings. It was empty, the swings swaying slightly in the breeze. Without thinking, you walked over and sat down on one, pushing off lightly with your feet. Taehyung sat on the swing next to you, mirroring your movements.

“When was the last time you were on a swing?” you asked, gripping the metal chains.

“Hmm… Probably when I was, like, eight? I used to think if I swung high enough, I’d be able to fly.”

You laughed. “Me too.”

Taehyung turned his head toward you, his expression softer now. “Why’d you stop?”

You hesitated, looking down at your feet as they brushed against the gravel. “I guess… I grew up. Started worrying about things that seven-year-old me never did.”

Taehyung was quiet for a moment. Then, suddenly, he jumped off his swing, landing with a small thud. He turned to face you with an excited glint in his eyes. “Okay, new challenge.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What now?”

He grinned. “Swing as high as you can. No thinking. Just feel it.”

You scoffed. “What are we, kids?”

“Yep.” he said simply, grabbing the chains of your swing and pulling it back slightly before stepping away. “Now go.”

You rolled your eyes but gave in, pushing off with your feet. At first, you were hesitant, but then the familiar rush of the wind against your skin took over. You pumped your legs harder, swinging higher and higher until the ground blurred beneath you.

And for the first time in a long time, you felt free.

Taehyung laughed beside you, his own swing matching yours. “See? Told you.”

You couldn’t stop smiling. “Okay, okay, you win. You’re still a weirdo for it though.”

“Damn right, I am.” He proudly said. 

The two of you stayed like that for a while, swinging under the dim glow of the streetlights, talking about everything and nothing. It was easy. Natural. Like you had known him forever.

Eventually, you both slowed to a stop, breathing heavily from laughing too much. Taehyung leaned back against the jungle gym, tilting his head up to look at the sky. You joined him, the night stretching endlessly above you.

“It’s weird.” you murmured after a while.

“What is?”

“How we were literally just strangers like a few hours ago.” You giggled. “And trust me I’m not this person with high social capabilities to just do… this.”

Taehyung turned his head to look at you, his expression unreadable. “It is kinda crazy, huh?”

You nodded, playing with the hem of your sleeve. “I was convinced I’d never see you again.”

“Me too.” he admitted. “And then, suddenly you were in front of me, asking me to go home with you. Never thought you were that kind of person but, we listen we don’t judge?” He laughed. 

You groaned, hiding your face in your hands. “Please don’t remind me.”

He chuckled, gently prying your hands away. Your breath hitched as his fingers lingered on yours for a second too long.

You swallowed. “Taehyung…”

“Yeah?”

You hesitated, searching his face. “This… whatever this is—”

He cut you off gently. “—is something I want to figure out.”

Your heart stopped.

He smiled, a little softer this time. “You feel the same way?”

You exhaled shakily, the tension melting away. “Totally.”

Taehyung grinned, standing up and stretching. “Then let’s do it again!”

You blinked a few times. “Do what?”

“Hang out! No parties, no mistaken identities. Just us.”

You giggled, warmth spreading through your chest. “Sounds great.”

He held out his hand, just like he had at the convenience store. Without hesitation this time, you took it.

As you walked together under the glow of the city lights, you couldn’t help but think. Maybe, just maybe, some things were meant to happen after all. 

You might need to thank your friend later for his costume choice though. 

Thank you for reading! ★

[steam-beasts]

E2 Escapades - A short TAB rewrite

It was February 9th, 1924 on the Northwestern Railway, on the Island of Sodor; a little island just off of Barrow where railways thrived.

Down at Knapford, the railway's director, Richard Topham Hatt stood at the shunting yards. He had been standing there for about 35 minutes, occasionally checking his pocket watch. He let out a sigh, tapping his foot as his patience began to wear thin, but he tried not to show it. He looked at his pocket watch again – it was nearly 8 o'clock. They said on the phone that it would be here by now.

He then heard a whistle and looked around, only to be slightly disappointed when he saw Edward puffing along the track, shunting a particularly cheeky truck. "Teapot! Teapot!" It chanted before Edward gave it a biff "That's enough" he replied firmly, eliciting a yelp from the truck, which ceased the cheeky backtalk.

As Edward was about to see to the next truck, he noticed the Fat Director standing near the track. Curious, he took a moment to reverse and switch on to the track closest to the man.

"Good morning, Sir!" Edward whistled cheerfully. The Fat Director gazed up at him with a small smile "Ah, good morning to you too, Edward. Keeping the trucks in line as usual, I see" he replied observantly. The Larger Seagull chuckled "Yes, Sir. All the usual..."

A moment of silence passed before Edward spoke up again "Erm... pardon me for seeming intrusive here, Sir. But why are you standing here in the yard?" He asked. The director let out a sigh "No, no... it's quite alright, Edward. I'm simply just waiting for the new engine to arrive" he said. Edward's eyes widened at the words "new engine".

"The new engine, Sir?" Edward repeated, raising his eyebrow "Are you referring to the one that...well...was supposed to be here last year in November?"

"Indeed...Edward, you're a hardworking engine, and I appreciate you taking time out your schedule to shunt the coaches and trucks. But i have to acquire a new shunter at some point, you know" the stout gentleman said. Edward hummed in acknowledgement "I know, Sir. It hasn't been easy around here... especially since...Glynn went missing" he said, his tone more solemn.

The Fat Director grimaced at the mention of his first engine. Glynn was an engine the Fat Director made with his own bare hands back when he was a boy. Glynn was the original No.1 of the NWR, but just after No.5 was bought, he went missing one morning. They searched and searched, but eventually had to move on. The Fat Director soon had to begin a search for a new shunter, much to Edward's disappointment.

The stout man sighed sadly "I...I know, Edward. But it's been months and we must move on. I can't always have you or James being the temporary station pilot"

"Of course, Sir, I–"

"Did you call me, Sir?" A new voice suddenly called. Just then, up along the track beside Edward came a rebuilt L&YR Class 28 tender engine

He had an extended running board, a pony truck and was painted in a sleek black with red stripes. As the tender engine came to a screeching halt beside Edward, sparks flew from his wheels causing him and the Fat Director to wince.

"Honestly, James! Stop braking so harshly!" Edward hissed, still wincing a little. James rolled his eyes "Nonsense, Edward. My brakes are as fit as a fiddle!" He proclaimed smugly.

"Edward is right, James. Your brakes may be fine, but your brake blocks are not"

James stammered "But Sir! It's not MY fault that me and my brothers were made with wooden brake blocks!" The Fat Director groaned at James's excuse. Was James wrong? No. But the director did want to make a point on replacing those wooden brake blocks with metal ones. The screeching they made was awful.

"Anyway, when will the new engine be here? I'm getting tired of shunting those coaches!" James asked, quickly changing the topic.

The Fat Director lightened up "Well, from what I've been told, the engine is on its way. That is why I am standing here, after all"

Another thought flew into Edward's funnel "What type of engine is it, Sir? You never said what is was"

The Fat Director proudly smiled "Well, I decided that this railway needs a tank engine for a change! So that's why I've ordered an E2" he explained. He once again checked his pocket watch and coughed "Ahem! I'll be back, my boys. I'm just going off to check if the E2 in question is on his way" and with that, he turned heel and walked off. It was just Edward and James now.

"Huh...an E2. Never heard of it, what about you?" Grunted James. Edward hummed thoughtfully "Hmm, I have heard of them, but I've never seen one myself. They're very big tank engines from what I've been told. A bit bigger than a Gresley locomotive"

James guffawed "Wha- bigger than Gordon?!"

"Again, from what I've been told, yes"

Edward's fireman chimed in "Don't know if getting an E2 is a good idea though. I've been at the L.B.S.C.R and E2s are pretty bad at braking and struggle at getting around corners and bends..." He said with uncertainty.

James groaned at this "Great! As if we need another engine as useless as Henry!"

Edward scowled "James, Henry's not..."

Edward quickly fell silent as a sudden shrill whistle echoed in the air. It was a whistle neither engines recognised. If Edward had a physical heart, it would've skipped a beat. Just then, around the corner came an engine that neither engines had seen before. It HAD to be the new engine.

"Hello! Is this Knapford?" The engine called. The engine was about a mile away, but the K2 couldn't help but notice how fairly young the engine sounded. The young engine was puffing towards them at a fast pace, a little too fast for his liking.

"Is that supposed to be the Fat Director's new tank engine? He's quite small if you ask me" James remarked. The tank engine was getting close, and didn't seem to be stopping. Edward's driver was observant of this "He's getting pretty close, shouldn't his driver be putting on the brakes?" He murmured. It was only when the tank engine was just metres away when panic began to arise.

"Woah, wait– why isn't he stopping?! Stop! STOP!!" James cried. Is it a good time to mention that the engine was on James's track?

"STOP!!" James yelled out, frantically trying to reverse. The tank engine finally noticed what was happening and yelped "Ah! Wait! Driver, help!" He cried to the driver, looking frantic. At this point, even Edward was backing up. The engine looked frantic, seeming to forget how his own body worked.

The Larger Seagull knew enough was enough "Oh for Lady's sake, PUT ON YOUR BRAKES, BOY!!" He shouted sharply. The young tank engine quickly did as told and the sounds of his brakes screeching pierced the air. His brakes only slowed him down by a bit, he was still going at a fast pace "I can't stop!" The engine groaned.

That was it. In that moment, Edward decided to take matters into his own wheels. Coming up behind him were switch points. He looked over at the signalman and whistled "POINTS!"

The points were swiftly changed, which resulted in Edward reversing on to the same track as James and the engine.

Edward stopped, then began going forward, towards the engine. Within moments, he and the tank engine's buffers collided. At the same time, Edward put on his brakes, and that definitely seemed like a good move. In minutes, he managed to slow the new engine to a stop.

The tank engine and Edward took a moment to gather their breath, just gazing at each other. Their respective crews climbed out their cabs to catch their own breathes, giving Edward a moment to exams the new engine's appearance.

the tank engine was unexpectedly smaller than Edward thought he'd be, even smaller than him. The tank engine had six small wheels, a short, stumpy funnel, a short, stumpy boiler and a short, stumpy dome. He was painted in a dark teal livery, with white lining and his railway's initials on his side tank, along with his number on his bunker. The tank engine gave Edward a nervous smile "Um...hello!" he said sheepishly. Edward gave him a kind smile in return "Well...hullo' to you too"

The tank engine kept his nervous smile as he backed up a little to give him space "Sorry about that, i–"

"What was THAT about? You could've crashed into me!" James suddenly yelled, switching on to the next track. The engine was taken back, guilt in his eyes "I-I'm sorry! It's just that my brakes don't work well when I go fast, and–"

"Ahem!" Someone coughed. Everyone snapped their gazes and froze when they saw the Fat Director approaching them with his two assistants "What was all the noise about? I couldn't hear the stationmaster over all the screeching!" He boomed. The three gulped anxiously. But when the Fat Director's turned his attention to the new tank engine, he immediately forgot what he was mad about "Ah, my new tank engine! I see you've finally arrived!" He said, walking over to the tank engine.

The teal tank engine put on a smile "Hello...um...Sir" he greeted the director as he looked him up and down. However, the Fat Director's happy look soon turned into a confused one "Hmm..."

James raised an eyebrow "What's happening?"

"I don't know...something must be wrong" Edward whispered, glancing at the director's puzzled look. The tank engine became worried "Is something wrong, Sir?"

"To put it bluntly, yes... i ordered an L.B.S.C.R E2 tank engine. I didn't order any modified Jintys" he said, scratching his chin. The tank engine's eyes widened "What..? But I am an E2" The engine proclaimed, becoming confused.

"Well, I can't exactly agree with you until I know that there wasn't a mix up" The Fat Director then approached the crew "Now, you two. Is he lying?"

The driver shook his head "No, Sir. He's being truthful" the Fat Director's eyes narrowed as he glanced back at the supposed E2. He still wasn't fully convinced "Does he have his blueprints with him?"

"Yes, Sir. They're in the cab"

"Go get them"

The fireman nodded and dashed towards the engine's cab. A few minutes later, he climbed back down from the cab and handed the blueprints to the director. As soon as the Fat Director got to look at the blueprints, an awkward silence fell over them all. The director's eyes narrowed, then slowly widened.

"Well, I'll be damned. You ARE the E2 I ordered..." He said incredulously "You were designed by Lawson Billinton, correct?"

"Yes, Sir! Though, I've never seen him myself" the E2 replied earnestly

Edward and James gasped softly "Oh dear...i think Sir might've been tricked again.." the K2 thought dreadfully. Edward's fireman soon jogged over to get a look himself.

"Do you mind if I take a look, Sir?" The stout gentleman grunted and gave him the paper. After a moment of looking, the fireman looked as confused as the Fat Director "That can't be right... I've seen an E2 before, this blueprint design isn't even accurate... it all looks rushed"

The Fat Director hummed thoughtfully and glanced at the E2's driver "Pardon me, but who gave you these blueprints?"

"One of the workers. They were one of the guys who built him" he replied "He was completed not too long ago. Only a few months" the driver explained. Edward and James were shocked "Goodness, he's incredibly young" Edward muttered.

"I see..." the director hummed. After a moment of thought, the Fat Director looked back up at the tank engine and smiled "I apologise for the misunderstanding, um....?" He gestured for the engine's name.

"No problem, Sir. I'm Thomas" Thomas smiled, trying to ignore what just happened. The Fat Director chuckled "Alright then, Thomas. My name is Richard Topham Hatt, but you, as you know already, are to address me as 'Sir'. Understood?" He said.

"Yes, Sir. I will"

"Very good, now...how well do you fare at shunting, Thomas?" The stout gentleman asked. Thomas beamed "I'm getting good at it, Sir"

"Alright then, sounds splendid! Now, i must get back to my office. I am a busy man, you know. I'll let Edward show you around" said the Fat Director as he wandered up to Edward "Edward, can you also teach him while you're showing him around? I think Thomas needs a bit more experience... especially around Gordon" he whispered. Edward quietly agreed "I will do my best, Sir"

Thomas watched quietly as the railway director finally disappeared from view before looking back at Edward and James, who were staring at him. He raised an eyebrow "What? Do I have soot on my face or something? Why are you two staring?"

Edward's face flushed with embarrassment as he averted his gaze "Oh, um– pardon me, Thomas. It's just that you're...well...not as big as we thought you'd be. You're small, smaller than any of us"

Thomas took offense to this and wheeshed "Puh! Sorry for not reaching your expectations. But believe it or not, I was big enough to do my job at Brighton!" He replied snarkily. He wasn't expecting to meet more arrogant big engines so soon. He switched to another track and puffed away, huffing.

Edward's eyes widened "No, wait! That's not what I meant!" Edward said as he reversed to catch up with Thomas "I just meant you're not as big as we were told you'd be. It's alright if you're small! Look at me, I'm the smallest tender engine on this railway!"

Thomas's expression softened "Well, I may be small, but I'm very hardworking!"

Edward smiled softly "I'm sure you are. My name's Edward, by the way. But the director already mentioned that, didn't he?" he chuckled. Thomas chuckled "Nice to meet you, Edward. You're a lot kinder than all the other tender engines I've met. They just boss me around as soon as they see me!"

"...and I'm James!" Greeted the other tender engine.

“It’s nice to meet you both…I was told that I was going to be a station pilot here?”

Those words made Edward recall the director’s words “Ah, yes. Thomas, come with me. I’ll show you around the yards and the station. I’ll even show you our roundhouse shed up at Tidmouth, I’m sure that’s where you’ll be sleeping” he promised. Thomas whistled eagerly to that and followed Edward as he went to get himself turned around. James watched as they did so.

From that day on, Thomas showed everyone that even the littlest engines can be Really Useful.

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

Syzygy: Some Closing Thoughts

I'm writing this at 8pm on my backyard porch, under the wavering light of a distant full moon.  Hello, moon! Please don't kidnap me. I just wanted to hang out with you for a while as I collect my final thoughts. It's a pretty cloudy night tonight, so it's not properly visible, which I suppose is the cloud cover shielding me from a terrible lunar fate. It gives a deliciously hazy atmosphere for the absolute essay I'm about to write.

Apparently, the Farmer's Almanac says that tonight's full moon is a 'Pink Moon', which sounds like it'd be a very pleasant viewing experience. I imagine pastel frangipanis spontaneously sprouting all over the moon's surface, covering every inch of its rocks and crags until the soft pink glow is visible from all the way down here on Earth. Unfortunately it's not named 'Pink Moon' because of that; there's some American environmental factors, etc.

I think it's kind of charming that there's a list of names for every possible full moon, as if the moon's putting on different masks or incarnations every time it tilts just enough that we can see its full face. I'm looking at a list of them now instead of writing these final notes like I probably should. The names are so delightful. Strawberry Moon. Sturgeon Moon. Apparently last month's full moon was Worm Moon. WORM MOON. I could go on. I won't. Let's talk about Syzygy instead.

Syzygy is... Man, where do I even start with this? Let's try the beginning. I started writing Syzygy in February of 2021, after ruminating on it for probably a few months before that, as I often do. That's three years ago, so my memories of the reasons why are a bit fuzzy, but I think I did it for two reasons: one, a desire to have a long-form meaty slowburn fic for a beloved rarepair in the tag so other people could enjoy it, and two, a fascination with the idea of fractured identity, what it means to be a Side without a Centre. The whole thing with the alternate-history steampunk swapped-around Earth came about naturally from that.

Except that's actually kind of a lie, because that's not the beginning, this began in 2020, when I wrote a pitch for a local station that was accepting radio play submissions (rejected, of course) featuring a hardboiled noir detective in a starlit city whose latest client was a tiny shiny girl asking him to solve her father's murder. And that's also a lie, because I think it really began when I tried to write an original novel in high school where the protagonist's name was Avery Allen, because I liked the way the name tripped off my lips.

My stories are always built on each other, especially stories I never get to write. They all recycle into each other in a weird blend of concepts and characters. 2021 was when I sat down and told myself I was going to write the Thomceit time loop fic, and I dove into it with aplomb. I can't recall the exact timeline of events, but at some point I underwent some truly gnarly health problems that left me unable to use my hands for extended periods of time, and so the fic that was meant to be for a Big Bang ended up... Just sitting in a folder for a while. But me and my beta managed to pull it the fuck together, and after adding some extra bits and pieces (the cutaways were a LAST MINUTE ADDITION even though I think they're some of my favorite bits in the whole thing) I started putting it all up.

Okay, there we go, that's enough of an abridged history of this thing. Let's just say: I never expected as many people to like it as it turned out, I thought that it would be a niche little fic for a rarepair, and I was honestly pretty content with that. So it was delightful to see so many people getting so into it, I have enjoyed the FUCK out of all of your comments and theories and predictions. It's been delightful when people predicted a plot point correctly, and honestly even more delightful when they predicted incorrectly. I've had such a blast.

As for the writing... Suffice to say I have many notebooks full of notes and thoughts, more than one spreadsheet to keep track of time loops and lore, and a semi-complete list of all of Virgil's tarot cards, which one day I'll probably polish and share properly, because I think the concept is neat. But that's kind of how it always goes with my writing.

Naming every inspiration for this would take forever and I'd still miss a few, but I'll just throw out a key few ones, because I gotta:

17776: What Will Football Look Like In The Future, because when I first read it I got the wrong idea and thought that Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) was short for Betelgeuse (the star), and that sparked a whole thing about living stars in my brain. Also, just the general way that the worldbuilding and absurdity is handled in that world, it scratches my brain just right.

Welcome To Night Vale. I don't think I need to explain this one.

Madeleine L'Engle's writing, particularly A Wind In The Door, particularly-particularly the bit of it where Proginoskes explains why, precisely, he has to remember and Name every star in the universe. Fucking beautiful book.

A particular Untamed/Mo Dao Zu Shi fic I read years ago and haven't been able to track down again, which also features two people stuck in a time loop who are initially unaware that they're in it together AND dying at the same time. I believe they also meet on a bus? The details are fuzzy. The worldbuilding and descriptions of that fic were so stunning to me, it had me unable to read anything for a solid few weeks, it is definitely a superior work to mine in every respect. If anyone finds it, let me know, I don't think I finished reading it and want to know how it ends.

An unpublished fic that I had the privilege to read while it was being written, that changed my brain chemistry re: the Sides unknowingly existing without Thomas. The Flowerwall Cafe originally hails from this one, too, graciously borrowed and greatly beloved.

Both Ghibli films in general AND Dianna Wynne Jones books in general, and obviously the intersection between the two, Howl's Moving Castle, which is fascinating in how both mediums handle the setting.

The Doctor Who audio drama Scherzo, which is a wild ride, and there's a major plot point revolving around the two main characters holding hands and fusing gruesomely into each other - and another involving an in-story fairy tale.

There was no huge inspiration for the clockwork city and weird steampunk carriages, apart from (perhaps) Fallen London. Certainly, the idea of a background organization that wants to kill the sun, who also happens to be a sentient being, is cribbed from the Liberation of Night.

Syzygy also happens to be packed full of many obscure references to... like... personal projects of mine, some published and some unpublished, as well as a lot of my friends and co-writers, and some really REALLY niche stuff that only I will ever properly understand. I buried a lot of myself into this story, is what I'm saying. Juice hails from a completely different project (a TTRPG with my friends, of which she is a beloved and cherished NPC), the in-universe author for Avery Allen (and Mallory Wynn too) are named for a fictional TV author I created when the writing discord was making a nonexistent fandom, Logan's dumpling recipe is my favorite recipe of all time.

I have an apartment ghost, too. I talk to it regularly.

Final thank-yous, because I want to post this very very soon, I've been typing for too long and the mosquitoes are starting to get to me. Thank you to:

Everyone on the TSS writing server who listened to me complain while I was writing it the first time round, and has subsequently listened to me complain while editing it these past two years. So many people in there are responsible for little bits and pieces - phrasings, words, nicknames, jokes - and I couldn't begin to name everyone who helped.

Saphira and the rest of the people who are currently working on making a full-cast audio drama out of this fic (???) (???!!!!??) (!!!!). It is SO baffling to me that it's happening, I'm in complete disbelief whenever we talk about it or I see the script or I get asked logistics questions, I'm terrified and thrilled to see how it turns out, what the fuck! The very existence of that project has ended up influencing a few things about this fic's endgame, too.

Everyone who's commented extensively, commented entire academic analyses, commented numbered lists, commented laconically, left a single emoji in the comments, left kudos, bookmarked it, sent me asks on Tumblr, given me thumbs-ups on Discord, or even just silently read the fic without interacting at all. Your witness brings my words to existence. Love you love you love you.

And Len, who lives in my brain and my body and my heart and my throat, and who is honestly singlehandedly responsible for dragging this fic out of the depths of Google Docs and into the arms of AO3. They've already said I don't need to thank them, but come on, I totally do. Len is the best beta, and puts up with all sorts of deranged nonsense from me, because I have an unhinged writing process where I don't think about anything before I put it down on the page, and I use way too many connecting-dashes and not enough semicolons. Kisses kisses kisses. Thanks for doing this with me, and I can't wait to do it again.

Myself. I managed to write this and I managed to finish it. That makes me a pretty cool person, all things considered. I'm glad I did this.

What next? I've got to rest. Well, I need to get some things done... and then rest. I've been juggling a hellish amount of projects for a while now, and now Syzygy's finally cleared from my plate, I'm going to try to let the others get cleared too so I can take some time and be less stressed. The Locked Tomb AU will be ongoing, as I get through final edits of chapters, so keep an eye out for that - if you're interested in a fic that's rather less starry and shiny, but very much Thomceit and death themes, check it out  - and then....... Well, whatever comes next, whenever I have the energy to do it. I adore writing in this fandom. I'll be back with something weird soon enough.

Ad astra, baby! It's been a blast.

- Min (2024)

[amadeusgame]

Development Sidequest: The Mystery Game Jam

Back in February, I planned out my next several months to help stay on track for Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~Waltz to release this Fall. I had a good chunk of work planned for April:

Mechanics - prototype + implement all "Must-Have" new mechanics for the full game

Background Art - finish 1-2 new backgrounds (to avoid screwing up my wrists again drawing all of them at the last minute) (also because I learned that how I draw the backgrounds impacts how I write the scenes)

Sprite Art - finish 1-2 new sprites

Music - fully flesh out a placeholder track for 1-2 BGM pieces

Narrative - write first draft of all scenes through a certain point in the game (naturally these scenes will change when it comes time to implement, that's just how this goes)

Marketing - prepare + announce 100 Wishlists celebration; make + publish press kit

Which is a lot, but doable if I'm working at it consistently. I'm only working part-time, and Amadeus is  my "real" job, so to speak. Right?

Wellllllllll...... there's this little thing called the Mystery Game Jam.

Suffice it to say that I did not accomplish all of the above, but I DID write an entire mystery game. More below. Stay updated here: linktr.ee/amadeusgame

I heard about the jam, and thought back to my previous devlog where I discussed at length how doing other random projects when I was "supposed" to be working on Amadeus has been so valuable for me. I also felt that it would be wise to get more mystery writing experience doing something low-stakes and small-scope, to pull away from this single massive project for a bit and just work on the craft of writing. It would help me learn more about my own process. Also, it would be fun!

So I got a group of people together and gave myself the role of writing our game. I've had a ton of help brainstorming, solving plot issues, and generally improving things thanks to my teammates; the whole process has been collaborative (which is what makes game jams fun). However, I've been responsible for actually writing all of it.

As a result Amadeus had to get put on the backburner, because it turns out that brainstorming + outlining + coordinating + finalizing + writing-with-full-implementation-directions, a complete mystery story- that doesn't have a thousand plotholes- in a month, is a ton of work. Fun work! But a lot of it. As a result, what I actually accomplished from my April to-do list for Amadeus is closer to...

Prototyped "save/load" mechanic

Implemented mechanic that can create pauses mid-text-appearance for dramatic effect

Researched and sketched 1 new point-and-click background

Have sketches for 2 BGM pieces (but both need to be more fleshed out to be usable as placeholders)

Outlined draft of narrative for 1 new scene in the intro (but needs a lot more detail/workshopping)

Planned 100 Wishlists celebration (but didn't get everything ready to announce)

Made draft + format of press kit

Which is, honestly, still a decent chunk! I'll have to do some work readjusting next month's to-do list to account for the fact I'm a little behind, but it's reassuring to see that even in a month where most of my energy was dedicated to a side project, I still got a lot done.

This is where the portion of the devlog directly relevant to the game Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee draws to a close. That 100 wishlists celebration announcement will be coming next month, along with a separate announcement. Lots of news coming in May!

As always, all relevant links here: https://linktr.ee/amadeusgame - I will also add our Mystery Jam game here for a bit when it comes out, so you all have something new to play! Check back after May 5, 10PM Pacific!

For the remainder of this log, I want to discuss the process of writing our Mystery Jam game. I have learned so much from it and it's been an incredibly rewarding (if, at times, difficult) process. Collaborations are such a completely different beast from solo projects.

Mystery Game Jam Retrospective

It's a bit strange to write a retrospective when the game jam isn't actually over yet, but my role is mostly finished and I've handed it off to our implementation guy who is hard at work. You're doing great, S1x. Keep it up!

I've done a ton of game jams in the past, but they were always weekend-long jams and I was always just doing audio for them. I've never done a month-long jam before, and I've never taken on a primary role that wasn't as a musician. This was a lot of firsts for me.

I truly believe that game jams don't teach you as much about game development as they teach you about project management. To actually finish a game, so many things have to happen that are all interdependent, and you have to figure out what to do first and who to talk to at what stage so it all somehow comes together on a super-strict deadline. This interdependency is even more apparent for mystery games, where it's fully expected that the player will be paying attention to clues all across text, visuals, and interface. You can't give a completely finalized asset list to artists until you know exactly what every aspect of your mystery will be, otherwise you'll end up forcing your icon artist to re-draw the same asset a bunch of times to match the tweaks you made to the story.

So the biggest obstacle in making this game was that we didn't reach the "details of mystery are completely finalized" stage until over halfway through the month, mostly because I kept putting it off (I'd overwhelmed myself by giving myself all this and also Amadeus homework). We also had to coordinate across time zones and work schedules which introduced additional delays. We got to that point eventually though! Notably, once I had figured out some important things...

This is a collaboration. I was trying to do too much big braining on my own at times when what I really needed to do was schedule a voice call with teammates and bounce ideas. Talking things out with our background artist in particular helped a lot with getting past some hurdles that were really not working.

I am not a writer who can design a mystery puzzle in a vacuum and then add characters as set dressing on top. Once I realized I was stuck, I decided to just start writing out the prologue scene to get a feel for the characters and setting; this forced me to create unique characters who had a reason to be there, and those reasons gave me ideas for the mystery. It turns out that designing a puzzle is a lot like solving a puzzle: if one angle isn't working, take a break and try another angle. You'll learn more about the puzzle, how it works, and eventually all that knowledge will come together and you'll figure it out.

This is a game jam game. This is (probably) not going to be anyone's magnum opus. This is going to be a very fun silly knockoff Ace Attorney game with a robot detective. I'm generally good at keeping a chill attitude for weekend-long game jams, but because we had a month I was taking it way too seriously at first.

Most importantly... it's not reasonable to write an entire new mystery from start to end in a month while also doing a ton of work on Amadeus and working part-time. So I eventually told myself it was OK to ignore everything else except work and the game jam for a while, and focus on this.

(...I also spent about 20 hours obsessively working on my Very Spoilery Ghost Trick ROMhack when I was overwhelmed, as a sort of escape. It was obvious that my brain was refusing to work on the game jam so I just let it do what it wanted for a few days. Sometimes the ADHD wins.)

Reaching that key point-- the point where all of the details were finalized and everyone knew exactly what needed to get done-- was a huge milestone. But even after that, I still had to actually write the words for all of it. Writing in the sense of "mapping out the major plot beats and details of the mystery," and writing in the sense of "actually writing, line-by-line, the text of the game along with implementation instructions" are completely different skillsets. I already knew this from my experience working on Amadeus, but I had to re-learn it here.

Fortunately, by the time I was sitting down writing words, our musician had written some total bangers for the game and I was able to listen to those to really set the tone for what I was writing. If a certain dialogue box cues the "totally-not-objection" theme, then the energy for those next few dialogue entries should be VERY high energy. Listening to that theme while writing made sure it matched! And once our player character artist had designed the MC, I was able to find that character's "voice" much more easily to match the energy of that character. The work of other teammates helped inspire me to do my own work, and have more fun doing it.

I really like doing these collaborations because it's fun to make something completely different than what I would make alone. I also like collaborating because there are certain changes I'm forced to make to my workflow in order to make life easier for my teammates. It forces me to be more organized. I have to do more pre-planning so I'm not forcing artists to revise their work 20 times, and so the implementation engineer only has to implement once with a few exceptions, and can easily swap out placeholder assets when those come in. Thinking ahead like this is a really good habit to get into in general! Even as a solo dev if I learn to make my own life easier in this way I will save myself the headache.

Will I learn that lesson? Most definitely not. But hopefully I'll take something away from this. For example, the awesome beautiful spreadsheet I made to format my scripts for implementation:

(I'm still not the easiest person to work with, though. I'm kind of bossy. While I do try to at least not be every artist's worst nightmare, it's definitely in everyone's best interest that my big major long-term project is a solo work.)

I'm excited to see how it all comes together in the very end. I'm excited to see what people think of it. Where, on the spectrum of "too obvious" to "moon logic," am I landing on average? Just how weird is the pacing of reveals? These are questions that a non-game-jam game would be able to answer in a playtesting/beta phase, but this is a game jam game, so you get what you get. Making it has been really fun. Look forward to it when it comes out! It will be posted by S1xplus, our implementation engineer. It should end up on my itch page as well.

Look out for ROBOT DETECTIVE: THE CASE OF THE AUTOMURDERATED INTERN (working title)!!

[zeldahime]

Highway to Pail Day 23

[Day 1] [Prev] [Next] @do-it-with-style-events

February 23: Bitter coffee.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Don't think about Lindsey.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Don't check your phone; you already know what's in those texts and you have to get through the rest of the day.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Is it four yet? Can't start closing up til four. (Maybe we'll get some of those mid-afternoon business types, then. Stay open til six, rake in a few more sales.)

"Give me death," a joker tells Rhiannon for the fifteenth time today, and you want to pour this espresso over his head. No, waste of good coffee; you want to pour the pot of decaf over his head.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Running through oat milk faster than you did last month, seems like. Gonna have to pick some up from the shops to get through to the next delivery. Is it worth a trip to the restaurant supply on Shaftesbury?

Set. Pull. Pour.

No, god, if you have to go all the way over to Saftesbury you'll be a full half-hour. Lindsey'll go mental.

Lindsey's already going mental though, if the buzzing in your pocket is anything to go by. Might as well.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Certainly isn't four yet but it must be getting on to eleven, and haven't seen hide nor hair of Stevie yet have you? If they're late again you'll have to be big mean boss lady, and it's not like that's not what you are anyway, but you really do need someone 'round in the afternoons who shows up when they're supposed to. Rhi needs to go eat while it's slow and you need a second pair of hands at the bar during the lunch rush.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Skinny latte—oh! From across the road. She always seems to be having a hard time of it lately, poor lamb. Nobody really buys records anymore, do they, not since CDs were invented anyway. Wonder how she's managed to stay in business so long....

Set. Pull. Pour.

There's Stevie, thank god, maybe Rhi can get a bite before the lunch crowd starts in earnest.

"Just set your bag behind the bar and get on the register, we'll figure out your clock later. Rhiannon, food, insulin, go." Rhi looks relieved. It must be even later than you thought.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Just check the time. All you have to look at is the time. Don't worry about the notifications. You don't have to look at those. Just the time. You can check the time without thinking about—fuck, Lindsey's pissed.

And it's 11:13. Stevie's almost an hour late. You should've called them forty minutes ago.

Set. Pull. Pour.

And you didn't have to check the time, because in comes Mr Fell, 11:15 for his tea and biscuits. You could set your watch by Mr Fell's tea and biscuits, though not by anything else about him. Weirdest opening hours you've ever seen. You grabbed the new white peony tea, just came in from that bloke in Chiswick, and set it by the register for Stevie to show Fell.

Set. Pull. Pour.

Lindsey should know better than to think you've got any interest in that Chiswick guy. Right? You don't even like tea. Chiswick isn't your type. There's no way that conversation on the phone was flirtatious. It was all business. It was about tea vending for Christ's sake. Lindsey's got to be reading into things.

Set. Pull. Pour.

....Right?

Author's note: It was so hard not using any pronouns for Lindsey! I had to keep reworking sentences to make sure it didn't read too awkwardly. This is also my first time writing in 2nd person in a very long time. I think I'm happy with that decision; it helps the stream-of-consciousness feeling.

[rikki-roses]

Fluffy February Day 10: Care

SWTOR

Time Period: Early Chapter 3 of Consular storyline

I think Nadia is "supposed" to be older, like 21-ish, but honestly I headcanon her as closer to Ashara's age based on how she acts and how her father treats her, and I think Ashara is about 16? Definitely picture an older sister/younger sister dynamic between her and my Consular, bordering on a mother/daughter dynamic; Setra's 25/26 here.

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

Setra and the boys gathered around Nadia, trying desperately to provide comfort to her after the death of her father, all four of them woefully unprepared to care for a grieving orphaned teenager. While Setra could formally make Nadia her Padawan as per Nadia's father's last wish, ensuring the girl would be cared for and still have a Responsible Adult in her life, it didn't provide solace in the moment. And Setra certainly hadn't expected it to come about like this, the months of them training in secret notwithstanding.

In the end, they situated Nadia on the couch in the ship lounge, keeping a steady stream of tea (Zenith promptly tried to mix it with brandy - "that's what we do when we're grieving the loss of someone in the Balmorran Resistance, and 17 is totally old enough for alcohol" - but Setra quickly put a stop to that) at her elbow and practically burying her in lap blankets and stuffed animals. The remaining diplomats, for their part, provided comforting words to her but otherwise stayed out of Setra and her crew's way.

When Nadia hadn't moved from the couch after several hours, leaving her lunch untouched, Setra gingerly perched on the edge of the couch next to her. Nadia looked up at her, eyes welling up with tears, and leaned into Setra hard as she wrapped her arms around the older woman's neck, weeping into her shoulder.

For the briefest second, Setra froze; she was not used to providing comfort like this - normally, when she dealt with someone experiencing high emotions, it was anger or fear, not sadness. But her Jedi training came through, and she wrapped her arms around the girl, pulling her close.

Relax. No different than comforting Kiki when we were children, before...

She closed her eyes and gently swayed the two of them, reaching out to her Padawan through the Force, letting her presence in the Force wrap around the girl's. Nadia gratefully seized upon the offered connection, steadying her breathing to match Setra's. She pulled away after several minutes, sniffling; Setra handed her a handkerchief, brushing the hair out of Nadia's eyes.

"There's my girl. Do you think you can try eating?"

Nadia's lower lip trembled, but she nodded and grabbed the untouched plate. Nadia picked at the food, offering bites to Setra, who in turn politely declined. Setra herself had eaten little, but she didn't want the girl to worry or get distracted. Not that she had an appetite after the recent events, anyways. Nadia got through a good chunk of her food before finally speaking."

"When...when are we going to Tython? Does the Council know yet that I'm your Padawan?"

Setra took a long moment to respond. "Master Syo knows I was planning on training you regardless of what your father had wanted, but he and the others know yet what happened, or that you're officially my Padawan now. We can go to Tython and tell them in person whenever you're ready, but I didn't want to rush you so soon."

"Will they be angry?"

Setra quickly shook her head. "No, no; this isn't the first time a Jedi has taken a Padawan in these conditions. Master Kaeden on the Council might complain since I technically didn't get Council approval beforehand, but he'll be an outlier. He's...more rigid about the rules. And again, Master Syo is on our side."

Nadia bobbed her head, mimicking how Setra often nodded. "Can...can you read one of your texts to me, tonight? Daddy always read to me before bed."

"Of course, sweet girl. We can make for Tython tomorrow, if you think you're ready?"

Nadia bobbed her head again, and Setra felt a weight lift that she hadn't realized was there. She looked up and saw the four men hovering in the doorway; she gave them a thumbs up, and they left to prepare the ship to leave.

Setra hadn't expected to have to care for a Padawan so soon, but if the Force willed it, she would follow.

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

People I'd Like to Know Better

aaaa I'm flattered, ty for the tag @obsessedwhyyes!! I haven't done one of these in forever! <3

Last Song: This incredible Armenian Old McDonald song now lives permanently rent-free in my head thanks to instagram reels. But otherwise it was Madison Beer - 15 Minutes

Favourite Colour: I've never been able to decide between Pink, Purple, or Blue (bisexual flag hii)

Currently Watching: My partner & I have been rewatching Daria during dinner every night, and that's been fun. But otherwise I haven't really been watching a series, just various true crime or investigative documentaries have been on while I work

Last Movie: I watched Back to Black on an airplane earlier this month. It was definitely dramatized events but it wasn't bad, and I'm a sucker for music biopics.

Sweet/spicy/savoury?: spicy, always spicy. I don't do "spicy just for the sake of spicy" or to prove a point though, it has to be enjoyable. So, somewhere below ghost pepper haha

Current Obsession: Look at my blog and take a guess lol. It's Astarion, it's always Astarion, I could talk about him all day, look at him all day, listen to him all day, think about him all day, etc lol. It's bad, I've been down bad for the fictional vampire since I started BG3 in February and I don't see that stopping anytime soon

Last Thing I Googled: "where to sit red rocks reddit” self explanatory but it's cause I'm going to a concert there for the first time next month while I'm in Denver for work. Supposed to be gorgeous

No Pressure Tags: tagging some moots but no pressure ofc @manypathstotread @ewy-na @sosolovesapplesauce @dragon--sage @krazykitsune & anyone who saw this on your dash that wants to do it, pretend i tagged you shhhh

[allandoflimbo]

Take It Back: His Story (6)

Sequel to Take It Back

Previous Chapter

Summary: You and Bucky. It was supposed to be a happy ever after. Your story, home, and love was near perfect. After all, you had worked so hard and suffered so much to be where you finally were. But behind the scenes, Bucky had been dealing with more baggage from the past than he had been willing to publicly share. Steve was always the second best when it came to him and Bucky. From Nat, to you, and maybe now, even someone else. It’s been seven years since Ashlyn cheated on Bucky, but nine since she first fell in love with him. Two years after their public divorce and after starting therapy, she holds onto a dangerous mixture of jealousy and strength. With new friendships and new love on her side, she knows she should let Bucky go. But should is so hard to do when she loved as hard as she did.

WARNING:

This story will contain sex; oral, m/f penetration, anal sex, dry sex, rough sex, shower sex, masturbation, mutual masturbation, porn watching, and soft sex. Very strong language, strong adult content, use of drugs/alcohol, sensitive topics like marriage trouble, illnesses (both terminal and mental), one incident of almost non-con, college frat parties shenanigans, and emotional angst.

Rating: Rated R.  18+ ONLY. 🔞 no minors.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Masterpage for Take It Back: His Story

Nat's voice catches Steve's attention. He looks over his shoulder to see her standing there in the middle of the sidewalk.

She looked gorgeous. Her blonde hair was blunt and short on her shoulders, and she wore a strikingly red lipstick. Her dress matched her lips.

There was black cardigan over her shoulders.

It takes him a second to pull himself together and to meet her eyes. When they do, he swallows hard. She had been looking at him the same way, apparently.

"Hey. I guess we did." He says.

"Might as well walk the rest of the way together." She says with a smile.

"Might as well." He gives her a smile back and pokes out his elbow for her to take.

She politely does, without hesitation.

They walk silently towards the restaurant, her short heels hitting against the pavement rhythmically.

"I hope she's nice."

"I'm sure she is." Steve responds.

"It's nice seeing you again, Nat."

"You too, Stevie."

"Are you sure they're coming?" Ashlyn asks impatiently, already disliking how the weather was starting to warm up. It was February.

Christmas was only two months ago.

She looks around the street, appreciating the restaurant Bucky chose. He always had great taste in locality and food. They were in the village at some little place; Market Place. For it being the last week of February, a whopping sixty degrees was unusual, but it looked like the entire state of New York decided to take advantage of it.

There was a lot of people and she wondered if it was a smart idea for them to get a table outside.

She could barely hear Bucky over the other tables near them that were also talking.

"Yes!" He chuckles, "They should be here soon. Come on, what are you getting?" He motions with his head towards the menu in her hands.

"I'm not sure yet. Probably something simple like penne vodka."

"That sounds good." She hums and continues to eye the menu for a few more seconds, "There they are!" Bucky says enthusiastically, eyes glue over Ashlyn's shoulder.

Steve and Nat greet Bucky with a hug and then turn towards Ashlyn.

Ashlyn stands with a smile.

They greet her with a gentle handshake.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ashlyn." "Natasha." "Ashlyn." "Steve. Nice to meet you."

Bucky gestures to the two chairs that were across from each other on the small square table.

"You guys can sit. We've only ordered our drinks. I got you two a water to start."

"That's actually fine with me." Nat responds.

"Me too. Thanks, Buck." Steve says.

It doesn't take them longer than two minutes to decide on what they want.

Nat places her menu down and turns to Ashlyn.

"So do you live in the city?"

"No, I live about an hour out. Upstate."

"Cool. I'm assuming you were visiting and that's how Bucky met you."

Ashlyn nods and smiles.

"Yes, we met on the street."

"A little risky, don't you think?" Steve asks playfully.

Ashlyn chuckles.

"Yeah, but he didn't look like your average serial killer so I went through with it."

"How could I not? She was wearing a Darth Vader t-shirt." Bucky mumbles before taking a sip of his water from the glass.

"You a star wars fan?" Steve asks, amused and impressed. He narrows his eyes at her and moves in slightly closer to her as if in a challenging stance, "Who's your favorite character and why?"

She perks a brown and him and smirks.

"Anakin. Because he's not perfect."

Bucky smiles at her answer.

"There you go," she tells Steve before turning back to Ashlyn, "What do you do for work?"

"I work at a Diner. I'm a waitress."

"Is it like those fifties style ones?"

"Kinda." Ashlyn says with a shrug, "it's fine. I know I need a better job, but I did it for the hours. I try to stay home as much as I can because of my sister."

Nat gives her a humbling look as her eyes soften.

She looks between her and Bucky, and she knows this that they have going on, will be good for him. It was unmistakable, as Ashlyn raised a brow at Bucky across the table followed by a smirk, that she cared deeply about him.

They all eat until they're stuffed, sharing a glass of wine midway through dinner. By the end of it, they are all ready for bed. Steve and Nat hug them both goodbye and then go their separate way.

Bucky turns to Ashlyn with a twinkle in his eye.

"You want to come to my place for a bit? We can just sit and talk."

Ashlyn wants to, but she knows she needs to get going. It was already getting late. But not just that, she was beginning to feel overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. She knew being by Bucky's side through them would be the best for her, but it was late.

"I can come over Saturday and we can stay at your place. I actually need to get going. I have a lot going on right now, and I'm tired."

Bucky frowns at that.

"Is everything okay?"

"It's fine. Just tired." She leans forward and places a soft kiss on his lips, "I promise. Saturday."

"Okay. Saturday it is."

On the train ride home to her house, she tries to keep her emotion in check as much as she can. She doesn't know why she always does this to herself.

The minute everything starts looking up and being good, she brings herself down intentionally. She couldn't control the shift in her emotions. Not entirely.

She was happy. Very happy. She was in love.

But she was also furious at herself and at her life.

Why couldn't she have been living this life ten years ago? Or when her parents were alive?

The memories of her parents engulf her, and just like that she's in another trance all together. She doesn't stop the lump that forms in her throat or the tears that fill her eyes.

She had every reason to be happy. She hated herself for beginning to feel uncontrollably sad.

She wished her parents saw her this happy.

She ignores Bucky texts until she gets home, afraid she would give him an attitude that he didn't deserve.

She needed a bubble bath and more wine.

She knows you're already asleep by the time she gets home. The whole house is dark except for the porch light. She opens the door and kicks off her shoes as quietly as she can. She makes her way to her bedroom and sits on the side of the bed.

Earlier than evening she had been high on the moon, ready to concur whatever it was she needed to with Bucky. She had planned to spend the evening with him, and then just like that, she didn't want to anymore.

She felt tired.

She decided to opt out for more wine and instead makes her way into the kitchen and pours herself another glass of water. She takes it with her lexapro and gets ready for bed.

She knew she needed to stop doing this to herself.

Now in her PJ's, she looks around her room; the room she grew up in. She feels a sense of melancholy hit her, realizing that in just two months she'd be leaving it behind. She was going to miss the memories the walls held. But at the same time, it reminded her of the bad. She remembers coming home from school and crying her eyes out. She remembers the scream that left her soul when she found out about the accident.

It was time for a new slate; new beginnings.

Her phone dings. She pulls it out of her bag and squints at her screen.

Bucky

Some of us are going to Montauk eight weeks from now. It should be warmer by then. You down?

She takes in a deep breath.

Sounds good

Next Chapter

@rebloggingmyrecs​ @kjdara​ @angstsebfan @lethallyprotected​ @lilfuturescars​ @ccmarvelxx​ @thesneakylittleminx​ @empress-of-riva @death-unbecomes-you​ @sonicisnotsober​ @sebsgirl71479 @prettywhenicry4​ @dhoruwolfie​

[lifeinahole27]

I promise I'm alive

Eventually, I'm gonna sit down and write out where I've been for the last six months. I owe a huge apology to @grimmswan for never finishing her Christmas fic, first and foremost. And mostly I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still around. Here's the Sparknotes:

Last June, I got passed over for a promotion to AGM at the hotel I was working at. I was promoted instead to "Front Office Manager" and finally got to move to a daytime schedule after we found a new auditor to replace me.

On September 1, I had to fire my first employee ever - that same auditor that I was so excited to replace me - and so that was a fun experience. It meant that I was back to splitting audit duties with the other guy.

We tried to get one of the other desk agents to learn audit. The first attempt did not go well. He was supposed to cover during the weekend of my brother's wedding when I was off work and I genuinely don't remember how we worked the schedule for that now, but I know it was tenuous for a minute.

That same guy that didn't do well on the audit quit via text message the week of Thanksgiving, when the General Manager was on vacation, essentially fucking the rest of us for the rest of the week. He was my best friend at the job. I have not spoken to him since.

At Christmastime, the AGM essentially yelled at me as if I was a child for correcting her on something that she was doing improperly. Her mindset was that she had been working (at another property) for 15 years so she knew how to do her job and there's more than 1 way to do something and I needed to accept that. (Fun sidenote: I had been at that property for almost 4 years and she was doing something wrong. That's the fun thing about different properties. What works at one may not work the same at another.)

After that incident, I was job hunting. I finally got to go to a Christmas luncheon at this hotel (I was always working audit in the years before, so I had never gone before) but I was so miserable the entire time I was there but did a great job acting.

I was forced to work until 12:30am on NYE because my manager was convinced it was going to be a busy day. As I had worked NYE twice before and J had worked it once, we knew it was not going to be busy enough for two people. But still I was forced to work the one day I hate working (thanks to SA memories) and that was the final straw for me.

On January 4, I got a call from the company I had applied to at the recommendation of one of my previous GMs from my old hotel. A few days later, I did a pre-interview/info session with the Talent Manager. Two days after that, I did my interview with a group of managers. And on January 10, I handed in my notice to the hotel.

January 30, I left the hotel at 7:15am, no longer employed by it.

On February 6, I flew out to Denver and spent a week with a BFF I made in the CS community. We had a writers' retreat while I housesat for my sister while she was on vacation. I flew home on February 13 and got my company issued computers set up.

I started the new employment on February 14. My entire upstairs is almost completely renovated after three months of working on it after 7 years of depression. I have quit smoking. I am slowly getting my writing mojo back. My GP and therapist are both astonished at how happy I am.

In the months since I left, I have fully realized that I was essentially being abused at my last job. I was just so driven by my goals there that I was willing to excuse all of the bullshit in hopes of making it in my career. I asked for my vacation time a couple months ago and no one guilt-tripped me because I'm going on vacation in June. I told them I would be happy to take my laptop and work while I'm there and they told me to not even think about it. To go have fun and enjoy my vacation.

I don't know what all of this means for my CS writing. I don't know if that will come back. I would like to. I would love to finish some projects that are half-written. I would love to do another year of cards and finish that not-so-secret santa fic for @grimmswan. I just have to be a little more patient with myself and see what happens.

Okay, that wasn't as short as I expected it to be, because I guess it was a lot. Anyway, hi everyone. This is the happiest I've been since 2015. I'm happy to be back. <3

[ocean-anchored]

Continued... February 4, 2024

Friday Ed was sick so we didn't go for lunch which is ok. I napped which I needed & I went for food & then the rougnecks game with mom. Finally caught up, it had been over a month since i had seen her which has been too long. We talked a lot & caught up on a lot. We had some good conversations too, not all superficial stuff. We talked a bit about dating & the "slow burn" vs the love bombing etc & how I'm trying to regulate my feelings after everything. I told her briefly about Zack, my birthday, & stuff that happened & I think she really realized then how bad it was. Those things bond us closer having both dealing with that & both being an HSP. That's why I think steven & meliss don't feel super close with her because they don't share those sides so it really does create a different level of relationship. It was good to catch up, I really missed her & the roughnecks was fun. Saturday morning I went for breakfast with Amber & then yoga. As always - my real gem of a best friend. We walked through the book store & we picked our next book to read which is great. Jeremiah had called during breakfast & asked me to pick up Theo. I had my whole day planned out which I supposed it worked for the better but still, frustrating that he only ever talks to me when he needs me to take care of Theo.. I've been really trying not to be bitter about it but it's super sad that we don't talk outside of Theo or my gaming group chat which I was even hesitant on inviting him. of course I did though so I picked up theo after yoga. He was obviously in a lot of pain from his chipped tooth so that sucks. But i ordered groceries & cleaned up which gave me time. Kamber & tyson came over with their puppies which I was so excited to finally meet them. They're SO cute. Pretty shy & timid but so so cute, it's probably good I didn't get one but I'm glad they came over. Like two hours before, Shane had once again dropped out. I was so mad in the moment. I'm still upset, more just so frustrated at how it all has turned out. It's like looking at the whole thing & back the last few months, he's canceled on a handful of things & it's been pretty last minute, then on the other things it's all been him telling me essentially at the time of the plans that he's going to be super late. I totally understood that his son comes first & he was tired from work etc but it was just so frustrating that i look back on all of this & it's always the times that I'm planning stuff especially as a group it keeps happening. Never when he's the one that plans something, or a game or anything, it's only ever when it's mine. Like the second games night he totally bailed, back when I was with zack still, but he bailed a couple hours into the night after no communication. Then the one after, it was like an hour & a half into the games night I asked where he was & he had gone out for drinks with his coworkers... I know there's been another time between & then when we were supposed to watch the hockey game he bailed on that night too cause he was going to work instead. Then the following week he horribly communicated yet again that he was going to be nearly 2 hours late to amber & naythans for games, then he bails the week after on my games night this weekend.. like it's so pathetic & I just can't rely on him. He's been inviting himself to my thought of going to seattle for the knights game which is annoying as fuck cause I didn't invite him either but it's stuff like this that just makes me remember that no, there's no relying on anyone.

[crazy8diary]

The last few days have been better than the days before... Enjoying my home and time to myself... Glad to see family and friends and know I need to socialize but want to better prepare myself for what's in my near future...

I want to impress people women mainly by making them laugh and giving them my thoughts experiences and heart 💝 wrapped all up as a gift

Privacy is important to me and I don't want to distance myself from interaction with others for mental reasons... I do well joking with these people... Maybe it helps me maybe it makes me look like a fool but idc because I'm just being my true self and showing out is my way of flirting 😜

I may find reasons to message some women that I make take interest in on different sites but mostly waiting to answer messages because I know some women are lonely looking for a man that's right for them at the time...

I just want someone to step in and help...

I would step into someones life but very weary of the consequences that could come from that and I don't go to party's, bars, strip clubs, tha club or any of that bs because I'm trying to make it till tomorrow my friend...

Afraid of most human get togethers or large gatherings but if I know everyone I get along fine.

Been watching my regular line up of shows on few channels... Ready for smackdown and wanting to start watching raw again when I get Hulu and wifi here at my home in February I hope.

I've got to get my birth certificate, new ID, resend for my EBT card because it's damaged and taped...

Still need to look up how to sell on ebay and get my shit together... Those delicious peppers should sell themselves if I have enough and I'm sure I will... Not look to take up to much dirt and wanting to keep my property looking good...

Supposed to have someone bring some bricks and start cooking food outside like a grill... A make shift cooking station... Definitely doing steaks and ribs and probably veggies and beef cobbobs... Would love to cook breakfast on a fire or by heat lol.

Life is good and only getting better ...

I'm in a good place in my life and I don't want it to end... My whole life has built up to this and I don't want to see myself unhappy especially after all that's happening and happened with family and friends... I'm always happy and that matters most to me besides my pets and what my family thinks of me and others too... Won't a good portfolio and not a poor one ...

I ate at Jersey Mike's and have to say their spicy big kahuna Philly cheese steak was hot right out the oven and delicious as a mf... Mnnnn... I may go back and try to find some spicy chicken sandwichs or get the big kahuna again... Damn it was huge and delicious man...

I will always love the way I care for myself... I do better than I ever have and I'm proud of myself and hope I can look back proudly on my adult life as an old man and love each sec, minute, half hour, hour, 12 hours, day, night week, month, year, decades and life

Log #5 I believe...

(A beautiful life)

Thank you for all the views

[skysometric]

dev commentary time – and yes, these get commentary too! secret coins didn't exist at all in the original plan for Retrush, even after i added the remixes. they were only added this year, as one last bit of "scope creep" during the final push to finish Retrush… probably around February? so two or three months tops before its release in April.

at the time i was thinking about the red coin remixes and what the scope and purpose of 100%ing the mappack would be. i did the math in my head, and if there's 16 levels with 8 red coins, that means there's 96 red coins total, right? what if there were 4 more coins hidden in previous levels to bring the total up to 100? that'd be an easy way to count what 100% means!

…well, no, my math was WAY off. 16 levels × 8 red coins = 128 total red coins, not 96. even so, the idea of adding four secret coins stuck around, as it matches up with hiding one per world. that would add some last minute replayability!

but do i need last minute replayability? you may remember back to previous commentaries where i discussed the consequences of adding remixes and a fourth world to the scope of the mappack… notably that they're a big reason Retrush took nine years to release. why would i let myself add even more to it?? what if adding secret coins made it take even longer???

the reason i allowed myself to do this was as follows:

i'm not making any new levels or even changing their layouts. i'm just adding secret challenges, which is more of a technical thing.

i'm only doing four secret challenges. i'm not doubling the amount of content or whatever.

it's a well-formed vision. i know exactly where i want to hide them, and exactly what the reward should be.

so i allowed it, and got to work on adding the secret coins. i decided that it should be an open progression; the game doesn't tell you where to find the "mural room" with the secret coin hints until the credits roll after the final remix, but there are several ways to find it early (like clearing the last remix first). if you do find it early, the murals aren't revealed until you clear all of that world's remixes. all of this uses systems that i was already leveraging to track cleared remixes, so it had minimal technical cost.

if you get here early, the mural is obscured.

my choices for the challenges themselves were twofold: one, they should all require portals. two, they should be challenge runs that a clever player might think of on their own. i didn't always accomplish the latter, but the former is how we arrive at the first secret coin challenge: clear Nectarine Nocturne without using the pre-placed portals.

it was really hard to word the hint in a way that people would understand intuitively, without knowing what a "pre-placed portal" is. i'm still not quite sure i hit the mark.

this challenge was mostly inspired by a realization i had while finishing the level layout: you could portal around almost all of the pre-placed portals, except one – the pipe jump. at the time, i was not adding secret coins, but i did open up the top with a flashing neon light to let players go over it for potential speedrunning purposes. who knows, maybe someone would find out that going over the top is somehow faster than using the portals! i have no idea if it's faster or not, i was just… leaving the door open, so to speak.

before the secret coins existed, the dot on top of the wall was supposed to be a hint that you could go over it.

of course, once i added the secret coins, i made the challenge require going over. but the fact that this route wasn't initially designed for a secret challenge… means it's accidentally the toughest part!

the pipe on the ceiling was added near the end of development.

on our first playtest, my partner @harmonyfriends didn't realize you could just scale the wall using portals. why would that be possible? you can't do that in Portal! so i added an extra pipe for players to be able to infinite freefall and then fly over the wall, which is a much more momentum-based solution reminiscent of actual Portal puzzles… though it's pretty hard to land somewhere safe when you come back down!

but this is also the only part of the level where you have to skip two pre-placed portals, and the time is incredibly tight. first you have to figure out a way over the wall, then you have to do it in a timely enough manner to get past the second part! it's a lot to do with just 40 Mario seconds on the clock (16 real seconds), and i really wish i had bumped it up to 50 for release.

what it looks like to scale the wall... as well as the rest of the section.

for the most part, the rest of the challenge is SUPER fun and well-balanced! but it might be the hardest challenge of them all just for this one section, and that makes it extra annoying that this is the first secret coin. not a great impression!! oh well, if i ever make a 2.0 release i can easily bump up the time here.

one last thing i want to mention is how this challenge works under the hood; Mari0 has an event-based scripting system that i used to track challenges, but there's no way to tell if the player has entered a portal using this system. instead, every single portal has a region trigger inside of it… which was really hard to balance. where does it count as entering the portal? what if you put your own portal on the back side of a pre-placed one? the whole solution is really brittle… and i'm always afraid that someone is gonna get all the way to the end and not see the secret coin.

note the tiny orange rectangle in the middle-left of the pipe.

the good news is, everyone i've watched has succeeded! even when i was afraid the system would fail on me. that probably means it's fine, right?

Secret Coin 1 (Nectarine Nocturne) | Retrush

You thought we were done? Guess again – I hid one last secret after the credits roll! The first mural asks us to clear this stage without using its pre-placed portals… a daunting task!

[agustdiv1ne]

candy hearts — TEASER

♡ READ HERE ♡

pairing: choi yeonjun x reader

genre: childhood best friends to lovers au, fluff, angst

wc: tbd (projected to be 10k+)

summary: spending valentine's day with your best friend had become a sort of tradition for ever since you were seven years old. despite the twists and turns in your friendship as both of you grew up, the one thing that never changed was the box of candy hearts that he placed in your hands every year.

warnings: tbd, none in this snippet

TEASER

tuesday, february 14th; age 12

you leaned your head against your palm as you zoned out in your last period class. science had never been your favorite subject, even less so given that your teacher had been informally dubbed the school's wack job. 

as the day had dragged on, you realized that the holiday wasn't as widely celebrated in middle school. the so-called 'special' day was reserved solely for the few couples on campus, most of which had been dating for only a couple weeks. you bet most would be broken up by next month, the typical cycle for immature, hormone-riddled relationships. 

but back to your science class.

you felt your eyes nearly roll into your skull as your teacher excitedly explained the concept of genetics and punnet squares. what a riveting topic to listen to for an hour on valentine's day. however, you couldn't focus on his boisterous ramblings when your mind was chock-full of bitter thoughts of how your best friend had decided that he couldn't be seen with you at school. 

okay, maybe not back to your science class. you were too distracted, too bothered, to concentrate.

because while yeonjun had promised to not leave you behind in middle school, it grew exceedingly obvious, as the year went on, that he had lied straight to your face. this holiday was only a painful reminder of that fact.

you couldn't entirely blame him, though, the vast sea of middle school causing you to slowly drift apart from each other as you both tried to find where you fit in. he had made new friends easily, the shy boy you once knew emerged from his shell, countless peers recognizing him for his impressive talents in baseball, in dance, in singing, the list could go on. he was good at everything that he tried his hand at, and by the middle of seventh grade, he had become the campus' golden boy. even the eighth graders knew him!

this came with a cost, however, and that was leaving you, his best friend of five years, behind (for the most part, at least).

you had found your own friends, of course. you had to, or else you would have been deemed a loner, and no one wants to be a loner in middle school. it was uncomfortable, having to talk to people you had never interacted with beforehand. despite this, you had found yourself a little group through your art class: yeri, chaeyoung, and yuqi. they had welcomed you into their trio easily. though it felt weird to have friends other than yeonjun for the first time, you were happy. well, uh, besides the whole yeonjun thing.

with only one class with him, it was easy to not speak to each other during school. your hangouts were now confined to after school, when he wasn't surrounded by his new friends and could make time for you. you never tried to talk to him about it, scared that he'd twist your words and it would destroy what semblance of friendship that remained between you. honestly, you wished that you could go back to elementary school, when things were easier, when you could talk to him at school without worrying about the consequences of doing so. 

yet you knew it wasn't that easy. this wasn't elementary school anymore.

your eyes subconsciously trailed over to the boy in question. you were supposed to hang out with him after school, but there was always that one insecurity that rattled around your mind:

what if this was the year that he finally blew you off? for good? 

you shook your head, going back to the worksheet your teacher had passed out as you were distracted by your thoughts. punnet squares, okay. one parent with a dominant and recessive gene, one parent with two recessive genes. now fill in the squares…

"hey, y/n."

your head shot up from at the sound of his voice. eyes wide at the fact that he was speaking to you at school. it had been months since he had last done so.

"oh, hi yeonjun. what did you need?" you sent him a tight smile, not that he noticed. twelve year-old boys were never most observant.

he placed a box of candy hearts, the same thing he gifted you every year, on top of your desk. it was blank, no message or name in sight.

"i wanted to give you this before i forgot and it got crushed in my backpack." his voice quietened, almost as if he didn't want anyone to hear what he had to say next, "we're still hanging out after school, right? like we always do?"

you nodded, and he shot you a small smile, "great, thanks."

he walked away. as soon as he sat back down in his seat, his friends were punching at his shoulder, teasing him, asking him if he was dating you. you could hear it all from where you were sitting, but you wished you couldn't after what he said next.

"me? with her? no way, we're just friends. i could never see her like that."

you never truly realized how much he truly meant to you until you no longer hung out until after school, but this? this hurt. it made your chest ache when you saw his borderline disgusted face at the insinuation that you were dating each other. what was so bad about you for him to have that reaction? was it your hair, your face, your acne? you found yourself mentally paging through every possible flaw you saw in yourself until the bell rang, signalling the end of school. 

yuqi walked up to you at the front of campus, immediately spotting the forlorn look on your face, "hey, you good?"

"uh, yeah, i guess. listen, i have to go meet up with yeonjun. catch you later?" you asked.

"yeonjun, huh? are you sure you're not dating him?" she smirked, and you rolled your eyes, your mood worsening even more.

"we're just friends," you spat, turning away from her, "he'd never like me like that, anyway. i have no chance with him. i'll see you later, yuqi."

the further you walked, the worse you felt about how you spoke to yuqi. she didn't deserve to deal with the brunt of your wrath, it was uncalled for. you wanted to run back to school and apologize, but you were sure she had already been picked up.

you'd have to make it up to her tomorrow.

as you neared the supermarket a few blocks down the street from school, you could see yeonjun waiting near the entrance, his foot tapping against the sidewalk impatiently. his bike sat next to him, which explained how he arrived much earlier than you.

"took you long enough," he teased as you approached, but you didn't answer, only sending him a half-hearted smile in return. his grin fell, eyebrows now furrowed. oh, now he noticed how you were feeling? typical. "you okay?"

that was the second time you had been asked that now. you wanted to say no, you definitely were not okay, that it hurt to hear him say those words earlier, that it hurt that you couldn't even talk to him during school. you wanted to tell him that you felt abandoned, you wanted to tell him that he broke the promise he made a year ago, that ever since the first day of seventh grade you felt left behind. you wanted to ask him why he even bothered hanging out with you when he couldn't bother even speaking to you at school.

but you didn't.

instead, you plastered an artificial smile on your face, trying to make your voice sound a little more energetic than you felt, "yeah! i guess i'm just tired. science wasn't exactly fun today, y'know?"

"tell me about it," he laughed as he walked beside you, easily accepting your excuse without prying. you wished that he would have pried. "he's the weirdest teacher i've ever had, i can't believe he hasn't been fired yet."

"right?" you replied as you walked down the aisle full of candy. you picked out one of the overpriced boxes of heart-shaped chocolates before walking up to the register. you tried to hand some of your money to the lady helping you, but yeonjun swatted your hand away.

"nuh-uh, you're not paying for this," he argued.

"but-"

"no."

you visibly deflated, scrunching your nose at him in distaste. he simply grinned at you in response.

"ah, young love," the cashier sighed as she took yeonjun's money. your heart clenched, thanking her before you two walked outside again, the air cool against your skin, the sun glaring into your eyes, the weather the complete opposite of your mood. you glanced over at yeonjun. you wondered why he hadn't protested when she said that. you didn't ask.

his hand found yours, dragging you around the corner behind the building. your heart raced, skin heating up slightly at the contact. your reaction couldn't have meant anything. no, you couldn't like him like that. you were friends, nothing more, nothing less.

as you sat next to each other behind the supermarket, unwrapping and eating the chocolate that he had bought you just a few minutes ago, you realized that you really couldn't deny it anymore: you were in love with choi yeonjun, your best friend, and you couldn't do anything about it.

hope y'all are excited :) if you would like to be tagged when the full fic is posted, please send me an ask!

→ © to agustdiv1ne. do not copy, repost, steal, and/or translate.