#unless youre in like one of those rich areas where everyone and their dogs has a therapist to talk about their jobs

[cliveguy]

though honestly when people say "get therapy" they're not suggesting therapy, they're telling you to go be mentally ill somewhere else lol. if someone is struggling mentally in 2023 and not in therapy there's a pretty big chance that there's a reason for it beyond not considering it. and also most people who get therapy are still going to act mentally ill at times. because surprisingly a single session isn't enough to make someone act "normal"

[darkpoisonouslove]

Prey on the Heart

Summary: Valtor is on the hunt when his hound makes an unexpected discovery - Griffin is on the premises and defenseless against his rage over her betrayal. Valtor has to decide what catch he’s after - her head or their love. AU.

CW: Blood, dog bites, injury neglect, non-graphic violence and sex

This has been an outlined idea for almost 11 months. It was supposed to be an entry for Whumptober last year but I managed to turn it back into romance instead of torture somehow. I never got around to writing it unti today the universe conspired to bring it into existence and I am so happy to have finally finished it!

Love Again by Dua Lipa is giving me feels for this AU so give it a listen if you want.

The tufts of yellowed grass barely rustled under his feet as he followed the hound south. A little further and they'd leave the borders of the Coven's estate for the uninhabitable wasteland his mothers hadn't bothered to purchase even at the low cost of Obsidian land.

The rainless summer had left the otherwise infertile ground dry and cracked, no prints marring it's hardened surface. The hound was relying purely on her animal instincts and despite the boost from his magic, his senses couldn't catch up. He was barely keeping up with Violet herself glancing around for a trace on the foliage of what she'd sniffed.

He caught a strangled scream without the need to strain his ears. It was loud and clear despite the attempt to muffle it. He'd thought it was an animal the hound had shot after but that scream... It was a human voice. A familiar voice.

He followed the sound, steps hurried and heavy on the ground to chase away any game in the vicinity but he'd have his prize regardless. Unless he was dreaming or under one of mother Lysslis' illusion spells.

He called the dog back to lead him to where she'd left her victim. He'd seen Violet do her thing under Lysslis' training. Whenever she got her teeth into something, it wasn't getting away before she let go. And it wasn't getting away after that either.

Violet's teeth had a wet red tint to them, muzzle damp with blood and saliva as her nostrils expanded voraciously with every breath from the heavy copper smell. She circled him frantically and dashed forward only to run back to him in an attempt to prompt him to catch up with her speed. At least she was happy with her find.

An unusual circle of trees formed a perfectly lined up clearing in the forest. Stepping inside it left him face to face with a lone tree in the middle that was keeled over and charred. It must have been stricken by a lightning but its sturdy, forked roots had grounded it deep in the soil to make it the only thing standing in the clearing.

Leaning on the other side of it, partially concealed by its thick trunk, was none other than Griffin. Her hands trembled as she tightened the knot on the bandage she'd wrapped around her bleeding calf. She hissed when the dirty rag she'd torn from the hemline of her tattered and muddied dress constricted the tender wound Violet had left in her wake. And to think Griffin had been the one who'd gifted him the hound when she'd still been a pup that had fit in the palm of his hand. Valtor had even named her after Griffin, the striking shade of her hair coloring everything from his sketches to the very dreams his subconscious concocted. If she hadn't left so soon after presenting him with the puppy, Violet may have remembered her scent. Not that that would have given her a chance against Lysslis' conditioning of all hunting dogs, including Valtor's personal hound.

Griffin's eyes pinned the hound where it was pacing from one side to another behind Valtor's legs with her tail wagging and her labored breaths filling the silence of his own lungs. The sight of him had Griffin's whole body tensing as her hands hit the tree bark behind her back and she scrambled to her feet.

Her movements were lagging from the pain and panic dripping from her hunched form. Her hair fell down her back matted with red where she'd brushed it back with bloodied hands. Large chunks of unrefined obsidian crystals were strapped to her wrists with clumsy threads of silver into bracelets that ran up her arms under her sleeves.

She'd made those herself–in a hurry–her magic pulling the crystals and metal straight from the core of the planet. They would have impeded any other witch considering his own mothers' magic was notably subdued by the large deposits of obsidian under the planet's surface but not her. Crystals were one of her areas of expertise–and the reason why she'd walked into his life–yet even her knowledge had failed her along with her luck. She'd made it to the very edge of the territory controlled and owned by the Coven under the protection of the black crystals she'd adorned herself with to ward off dark magic but still not far enough.

It had been fear cutting off her magic to prevent her from fashioning herself a bandage the way she'd crafted her protection charms. Her golden eyes were wide like pits of inextinguishable fire and her chest wasn't moving to push the ample cleavage her dress left exposed into the forefront of his mind. She'd had an easier time drawing breath with the weight of his head nestled over her ribcage, over her heart beating steadily with the promise of her presence.

Valtor's step forward echoed like a gunshot in her body. Her back pressed into the tree, muscles pulled taut with compressed energy readying her to pounce.

"Run." His first word to her. He could have lost a bet that it would be a vile curse in a lost language only she could understand. "I dare you." She'd turned her back and left unprompted. If she still abode by that logic, then she'd have to stay.

Griffin swallowed. "You're going to hunt me down like an animal?" Her teeth gritted as she strained against her eyes slipping from his form.

His fingers clenched to white around the cold metal of his shotgun. Her jaw would have been dust in his grip where he wanted it to tip her head back and pin her gaze with his. She'd forced him to endure far greater pain being the one left behind. She hadn't earned the right to writhe and scream in agony.

"Violet here is an animal," he extended his hand and the hound pressed her head into his open palm. She always obeyed his calls, never running off where she wouldn't hear him and come back. "She is loyal and dependable which is more than I can say about you." He may have named the dog after Griffin but he'd raised Violet to never follow in her footsteps.

"So I am less than an animal to you, too?" Her gaze darted to the dog and back – to the piece of herself she hadn't stolen from him.

Valtor frowned, hand stilling between Violet's ears to make her rub it in his fingers insistently. He ignored her.

"What do you mean to me too?" Once again Griffin took precedence. Over his hunt, over his dog, over his own heart. Only his stomach sank from the prediction of what he'd hear from her mouth.

"You think I came here on a picnic with only the dress on my back?" Griffin stood steady on her feet, her tenacious nature breathing life into a smirk he had to bite back.

He hadn't given thought to the circumstances of their meeting. Her aching form in front of his eyes was everything. One blink and she'd melt away, swept up into another one of the portals the locations of which she was best at estimating. Indeed her presence on top of her disheveled state posed multiple questions he hadn't paid mind to. He was making it too easy for her to deceive him again.

"Your mothers chased me down and electrocuted me to the point of nearly frying my organs," her arms crossed over her belly to raise alarms in his head. If anything gave him the strength to best mother Tharma, it would be the rage over touching what was his. Griffin was a central part of that even if revenge was all that was left between them. That and the truth she spoke. "They kept me locked up for weeks in a tiny shoe box where I couldn't even stand up straight and only let me out last night. Right as darkness fell for me to read on the star-filled sky that it was the first day of hunting season."

There was disdain in her voice instead of the fear everyone else held for the way his mothers took beauty and strength and twisted it into despair. They had taken her love of astronomy and turned it into the herald of her death sentence. Just like they'd repopulated the area around their estate with hunting game only to have their fill of murdering unsuspecting animals.

Griffin's eyes burned so fiercely he half expected the tree behind her to catch fire. "They let me out to be your prey." And she'd dashed for the quickest route out of there. She hadn't come back for him.

"You betrayed me."

Violet sat down on her hind legs, body taut like a string and tail beating harshly into the dust. She would leap at the smallest shift in him.

Griffin was like a rock in front of him. His fire wouldn't touch her and his bullets would bounce back at him. "They are enslaving people and I didn't know I was helping them."

He hadn't told her. All he could have given her had been the illusion of a choice. She never would've picked him if he'd let his mothers force her to lay the world at their feet. It had been the only chance the two of them had had to be together.

"I had to put an end to it."

"You betrayed me!" Valtor raised the shotgun, his hands shaking too violently to aim it more precisely than just in Griffin's general direction as he stalked closer. Violet was growling on his left to keep his flank safe. "I gave you my everything. You were all I had and you left!"

All the riches flowing into Obsidian under his mothers' direction and Griffin's accurate calculations of opening portals to other planets were resources for the Coven's needs, not for his personal use. He wasn't even allowed in certain rooms of the mansion. The magic in his very veins had been embedded there by his mothers' efforts and lessons. Griffin had been the one building a little home with him in the room they'd come to share, she'd been the one putting a heartbeat in his palms only to leave him clutching empty sheets with a cold blade sticking out of his chest.

"Bursting your heart into atoms is exactly what you deserve." He stalked closer, the cool barrel of his shotgun and Violet's razor-sharp teeth were his only defense. The obsidian on Griffin's wrists weakened his magic and the shine of her eyes had obliterated his resolve to chase her down even from his memories.

Griffin's eyes hardened, hands balling into fists. "If you're going to shoot me, do it!" she grabbed the shotgun and pressed it into her bare skin.

The force threw him off balance and he stumbled forward, pushing the stiff metal into her sternum while her breath invaded his mouth with their faces inches apart. "Do not. Tempt me," he growled, his fingers twitching from her audacity to wrap around her throat and force more breath from her.

"Do it!" Griffin was still gripping the shotgun close to her heaving chest unafraid of the fire that could burst from the contact. "I knew this–seeing you again–would be the end of me. But if taking the shot is what will take your pain away, then I'm ready to go. As long as it will let you live." Her eyes lost focus and her head lulled, a small smile tugging at her lips and his heartstrings as her gaze dropped to Violet.

The dog was pacing behind him to no reason or direction. Her nose was lowered into the dirt in defeat.

Valtor forced Griffin's head back with the barrel of his shotgun until their eyes were locked together. "Do you think I'm that dumb? That I'll believe you after all your lies?" He had to watch out for the hands. One wrong move and they'd be in his chest again. Or his would be in her hair under the clink of his forgotten shotgun to draw a moan out of her that would melt him in a puddle at her feet.

"It doesn't matter what you believe, what either one of us believes." Vulnerability was sealed in her eyes like they were amber preserving history. Bullets wouldn't work on them. Shattering them would only spill the truth of his own wrongdoings. "It will not change the fact that I love you." A gasp came – from him or from her. "You can cut me open and reach inside me to feel it if you need to. It will still be there once my heart has stopped. Not even the planet can absorb it."

His hands shook as the shotgun trailed back between her breasts. The dry ground would soak up her blood instead of water and the forest would claim her body but the energy pouring from her wouldn't disappear in the well in the planet's core. Obsidian absorbed negativity from all over the universe to cleanse it and Griffin had thought it fair to trade protection for resources borrowed from other planets when it had little to no of its own. But she was offering her life to him for nothing in return. She was offering the purity of her love and that wasn't something the planet could protect from or swallow.

Valtor licked his lips. His mouth watered in her proximity for her to plant her deception into it. Yet his tongue hardly moved with his words in the breeze her breath was on his taste buds. "You're playing mind games. This is nothing more than manipulation." She could be an inch from his face and hop into a portal to the other end of the universe in the blink of an eye. And he hadn't been able to follow despite the pull in his heart.

"Nothing's stopping you from pulling the trigger. Or taking your hunting knife and carving out my heart." The blade weighed on his chest from its secret pocket as her voice reverberated through him. "Go ahead! Eat it like I always knew you would. And once its in your system, so will be my love." Her hand slid down the barrel of the shotgun, her fingers bathing his in their heat. "It will be a part of you, flowing through your veins and making you mine forever. Death by your hand does not scare me. I'll never die inside you."

The metal burned in his hand. Or that was the love for her that had never gone out. Not even at the look of the vast blackness of the sky where she could have disappeared forever. "You know I won't-"

"I know you want to." Griffin's hand slipped on top of his, colder than the blade of his knife over his heart. "But you won't. You pull that trigger and you lose me forever. You're not going to cause yourself that pain. Not even after I ran away." Her skin was like stone grinding against his to chip away his resistance. She knew him to his selfish core. Having her love forever inside him where he wouldn't be able to touch it wouldn't be enough even if she wouldn't be able to leave again.

"How could you bring my heart back after you fled with it?" It was right there clasped between her teeth. A kiss would free it and tugging at it with all his might would rip it to shreds. It was a miracle Griffin hadn't chewed it to bits when Violet's teeth had sunk into her flesh.

"Because we belong to each other. With each other." Her heart trembled in her pulse point for him to see. "No portal between worlds can change that. Not the one that took me away and not the one that brought me back."

How could he kill her when simply hating her would pull her out of his arms? Taking a step back would make him crumble under his self-loathing. He couldn't be the one to take her away from himself. Not when she was right there like a vision. One only she could make come true.

"Would you have ever come back if my mothers hadn't dragged you here?"

"Does it matter?" her voice was like a gunshot in his ears, like the weapon in his hand had gone off pressed into his own chest rather than hers.

The metal clanked as it hit the ground where he threw it and a shot echoed through the forest on accident that had Violet barking frantically. It could have been Griffin's magic wringing the bullet from his shotgun to drop him dead – he didn't care. His fingers had the freedom to tangle in her purple tresses again and a moan greeted him on her lips when he pulled her to his mouth.

No. It didn't matter. It didn't matter what could have happened when she was in his arms, chest pressing into his with her ragged breaths. She returned his kisses, teeth sliding over his lips to mark her territory like her life depended on it although she could pick up his shotgun and leave a hole in his chest. All she had to do to get away with murder was part with several hairs and blink back the tears from having them torn away in his death grip. Yet, all she was grasping at were the lapels of his coat to hold him in the reach of her kisses. She was still giving him everything she had with the threat to her life gone. It was all the proof he could want.

Her legs wrapped around his waist as he hoisted her against the tree. The bandage on her calf was wet with blood under his fingers but she was pulling him closer like she'd lost her mind to love and couldn't understand it was impossible to push herself into him more. Her magic would be no use for healing in her state and his would be no use at all.

Her skin was still soft despite the odd chilliness that had fallen over it and broke under his teeth on her collar bone to let him have her blood. Her wet flesh welcomed him as he entered her once he'd pulled all the fabric of her dress and underwear out of his way. His fingers dipped under her neckline to find her breast but brushed over dried mud instead. The rough surface of confusion threw him back into a questioning stare aimed at her.

"My chest was pierced by the Obsidian belladonna your mothers pushed me on." Obsidian threads from the land ran through the plant to claim each part of it and give it a crown of crystal-edged petals. The black crust was like a blade that cut through the flesh to release the poison of the belladonna directly into the bloodstream. Only Griffin's magic had saved her life from the toxins rushing from the roots to the petals of the plant. "The blood from the wound would draw the dog to me for sure in case my deep frozen state interfered with my scent." She didn't have to tell him it had been mother Belladonna's idea and magic to do all of that to her.

Valtor ran his hands over every inch of her in his reach. Her skin had remained cold after a full night of running. He had refrained form startling her with his magic but the heat of it passed from him into her to leave her body all his to claim with Belladonna's frost retreating from it. Griffin was burning now, hot moans dropping from her mouth with every thrust as she reached a hand under her dress to stroke them both further into the heights of pleasure. His open-mouthed kisses to her neck let him feel every breath and his tongue leaving a warm, wet trail over the column of her throat had her gasping. He'd cover her all in himself to erase the horror they'd been subjected to.

"We have to get you out of here." His mothers would finish the hunt themselves if he came back to the mansion without a trophy for their walls.

"Get the dog out of here." Griffin's voice wavered as she moved her palm under his shirt to brace herself on his abs. She let out a shuddering sigh, eyelids falling over the suns of his world. "We don't need public. She already saw enough." Griffin licked her lips, head falling back to thud against the tree trunk lightly with every push of his hips into her. Her back would be bruised with reminders of the movements they'd shared like they were one.

Valtor's whistle had Violet's attention and he sent her to keep the perimeter clear. His mothers wouldn't dirty their hands right away and she could hold her own against any other Coven member to buy him and Griffin time to talk.

He'd spend eternity watching Griffin's face scrunched up in concentration as she grabbed at her pleasure, hips matching his motions, but they had no more than a couple hours. "We need a plan."

Griffin knit her eyebrows at his interruption. "I had one right before they dragged me out of my life. I found a small island of pure amethyst orbiting an uninhabited planet." Energy currents turned all kinds of crystal structures into mini heavenly bodies. Someone with her talents had no trouble finding all the curiosities of space. "I was going to go there. Live on the planet and meditate on the island to clear my thoughts and overcome my grief." Amethyst was good for that. Just the shade of her hair cleansed his mind from agony to leave him clutching harder at the purple strands to keep them from slipping through his fingers.

"I wasn't dead." Abandoned but not dead. Not yet. He'd retreated into the dreams of a sky set ablaze in violet by a rising sun. They'd become his poison and his cure until she'd come back to put his heart back together.

Griffin's eyes snapped open, tears gleaming all over their gold. "I was dead to you."

"Not dead. Never dead." His fingers slid over the top of her breast to the wound she'd closed with mud to make her the one shivering. Her cold, lifeless body stuffed in his mind would force him apart at the seams.

"I was hoping there I would come up with a strategy for future action," Griffin continued to distract him. She rolled her hips into him and gave him a moan to ensure her success.

"Good." He leaned in to pant against her ear. "You continue according to plan then." His mothers would never look for her there. The only resource they'd ever pursued was human lives. His job had been to keep her distracted so she'd do the groundwork unknowingly.

"What about you?" He could hear her frowning over the pain of her nails digging into his abs.

He grabbed her wrist and pressed it harder into him so she'd be branded over his body. "I can't come. They'd put everything into finding us. It'd be more dangerous."

Griffin pushed her body flush against him, all of her weight falling on his muscles with her back barely brushing the tree. Her teeth were gliding over his neck but she pierced him with her voice instead. "You can't go back without my corpse."

He kissed her forcefully, tongue stuffing her mouth to trap the words there. They'd suffocate with no oxygen and Griffin yielded to him for a moment, pulling him closer until they were out of breath.

They fell back on the tree and a whimper was forced from her lips. Their mouths were just an inch away, breath mingling between them in perfect harmony. He had to be the one to speak first and keep the magic alive.

"You left once because there were people who needed help." Because he'd lied to her that that wasn't the case to keep her to himself. Her heart was bigger than his and he'd tried to cut it down in fear of the difference between them.

"Valtor-"

"I'm not losing you again." Because her heart was so big, he had a home. And she could give the same to others, too. "Once you have a plan, we end this once and for all and you'll never leave my side again." He had to let go of her hand to slip his fingers between her legs and drive her wild with his love for her.

Griffin was the one grabbing his wrist now. "I don't want to leave you with them again." Her fingers clasped his in a firm grip despite the trembling of her body. "They'll pay you back for not bringing their plan for us to fruition."

"They can't. Without you they need someone else to open portals for them." He'd picked up enough from the time they'd spent together to do that job without giving her perfect results. No one else could fill that role for his mothers' plan and the punishment for letting Griffin escape hadn't been nearly severe enough thanks to his usefulness. "You already gave me a weapon against them." He stroked his fingers over her arousal. It was only his place to be the source of her shaking. She deserved all the pleasure she could stand.

"I've made you a weapon for them," Griffin arched into his touch to escape the guilt she was trying to pile on herself.

Valtor thrust into her with all the vigor she'd given him to make her eyes roll in the back of her head and her thighs quiver around him. "They won't get to use me long but you're the only one who can find out how to stop them. You have to be protected." If his mothers wanted her dead instead of brainwashed and turning Obsidian into their empire of slavery, then she was dangerous enough to bring them down. "I'll come for you. Now come for me."

"Valtor."

It was not a scream of passion. It was an uttered love confession that made him weak in the knees. Supporting her was the only thing keeping him upright through his weakness. She was still bleeding – not just from her calf, but from her chest, too. If having his heart hadn't mended the wound he'd left on hers with his lies, he had to give her more. He had to send her away to heal so that the world could become a home for them again.

[laurelnose]

Different anon but please I would love a lecture about baby and adolescent drowner care

From an ethical perspective, can I domesticate them?

the main ethical issue with normal people keeping drowners in the witcherverse, I think, is that most people would either cull juveniles post-metamorphosis (workable... I guess... but this just feels like a really shitty thing to do) or they’d eventually release the adult drowners somewhere, creating a problem for their neighbors. highly unlikely that anyone in the witcherverse would be responsibly containing the adult drowners they raised! and of course the space required for large aquatic animals and the responsibilities of keeping an animal that can absolutely kill you or people around you.

...and also like, there’s the type of personality attracted in the real world to monster fishkeeping and venomous snakes. definitely not true of all monsterkeepers or people with hot snakes, but the people keeping redtail catfish in home aquaria and free-handling their hots in public? these guys (and it’s usually guys, lmao) are the types to be raising drowners. just a little bit more money than sense, a desire to seem badass (and masculine) to others, an attraction to the feeling of control stemming from keeping a dangerous animal, often more interested in the aesthetic of something than the reality, a fundamental lack of care or responsibility for the wellbeing of their animal... these guys are just assholes! they might not always have done anything wildly unethical yet but their vibes are simply the worst.

...that’s the lecture Geralt would have ready for 99% of people trying to raise drowners. or, well, he'd probably just have a bunch of extremely cutting remarks to make before getting rid of all their drowners, lmao.

but say we’re very responsible people, you and I, and we’re gonna be the one percent of drowner keepers. what can we do with drowners?

from a practical perspective, you might be able to tame one, but you couldn’t domesticate them; domestication is an intensive multi-generational process that results in an animal genetically distinct from the origin species, and drowners most likely have long enough generation times that you just wouldn’t have time within your lifespan*. unless you were like, a mage inexplicably willing to spend a century or two on the project (relatable).

* I’m aware that the silver fox experiment lasted only about 40 years, but whether or not Belyayev’s foxes are fully domesticated is somewhat controversial, and drowners are WAY more aggressive than foxes, so I suspect there would be additional complications along the way that would increase the number of required generations.

ethically... well, two big questions are whether it’s ethical to keep an undomesticated drowner, and what you plan to do with your domestic drowners. if you can’t ethically keep an undomesticated drowner, your plan is dead in the water. no way to get from point A to point B. for the question of what you plan to do with your domestics: you should always approach intensive breeding projects purposefully. if you’re breeding dogs, you should be thinking about what you want to produce—maybe dogs that better fit a breed standard, or which are sweeter pets, or better workers, or healthier in some way—and your intentions should be ethical as well (i.e. creating extremely flat-faced cats is purposeful, but unethical because it causes problems for the cats). and you should have plans to provide for the animals you produce; you don’t get to just dump your drowners off somewhere when you’re done! that’s the bare minimum of ethical qualifications you should meet for your drowner project; some people of course will say that one should consider whether any domestication is ethical but I don’t particularly want to get into that because that argument is huge and messy lmao.

to ethically keep an adult drowner doesn’t seem difficult, if you have resources; their living requirements don’t seem very complex or particular, as they like everything from sewers to coastlines and have very generalist carnivorous diets. you basically just need to be able to maintain a large enough water source for them and have some way to protect everyone who has to interact with them. we’ll say we’re a filthy rich mage, and since drowners aren’t that dangerous if you’re prepared, we’ll just buy a tract of land with a nice body of water, fence it off, build the facilities to separate drowners into breeding pairs, provide our employees with drowner pheromones and armor, and start selecting desirable drowners.

so...what counts as a desirable drowner? I mean, I think adult drowners are charming, but very few people share my aesthetic tastes, so you’re probably not going to break into the pet market. Possibly they could be used like cormorants to fish, though there are certainly more efficient ways to fish. maybe you want to breed trainable drowners to sell to moated castles as guard animals? or maybe their aquatic nature would make them useful as search-and-rescue or retrieval animals. i think there are some possibilities here!

...as a mage in the witcher world we also have the genetic and magical knowhow to create significant physical mutations, so we could probably create a neotenic drowner that, like an axolotl, never leaves the larval stage. permanent squishfriend. domestication is unnecessary then as you can just put them in tanks and keep your fingers out of the way. just saying.

whatever you want to do with your drowners, you start by picking the most amenable drowners out of every generation and breeding those until you get a set that doesn’t want to kill people on sight, and then work on selecting drowners that can perform to your desired specifications. I think it would be possible if one had enough time to devote to it—drowners are a social species, only found in groups and known to react strongly when they see other drowners dying, implying they have an amount of intelligence and cooperative ability that can be taken advantage of and selected for over generations!

as for drowner care, the tadpoles can be treated like ordinary tadpoles—clean water, regular feeding, and be careful not to disturb the mucus on their skin. unfortunately, squishing must occur infrequently and very gently with clean, damp hands. what you do with a juvenile is dependent on whether you’re domesticating or not. if not, you should provide it access to land and continue maintaining a minimal amount of contact to let it get on with its natural drowner business. if domesticating, post-metamorphosis is when you’d want to start evaluating the juvenile’s temperament and probably start socializing and training, introducing them to as many new experiences as possible to create an adult that isn’t reactive or fearful. wear heavy gloves, probably. be sure that your juveniles have access to other drowners, as drowners are prey species for many other monsters and being isolated is a source of stress for them!

(honestly you could also try training a fully wild drowner too (see the training work zookeepers do to make sure their wild animals can easily be given medical treatment and as enrichment), you’d just always be at more risk because of the aggression.)

and voila, you have a drowner project that probably won’t get a witcher sicced on you. no guarantees about witchers who just happen to be in the area poking their nose into other business and end up smack-dab in the middle of your drowner sanctuary where they put a major spanner in your works. certain unnamed white-haired individuals are just Like That.

[feitanswife]

how to write a horror/mystery/gothic novel that takes place in Washington State:

General:

Kent is a shithole, no one goes to Seattle unless they absolutely have to, the beaches are not for swimming really it’s almost always too cold, and Yakima calls itself the Palm Springs of Washington and whoever decided that should be shot. It’s not the Palm Springs of anything. Palm Springs of depression and murder maybe.

our weather is moody and unpredictable, use that. The other day it went from brilliantly sunny to hailing in a few minutes. It just does that. Monday can be 75 degrees, Tuesday it could snow. Especially in spring.

Western half:

It doesn’t matter where your characters live, if it’s not the absolute heart of a big city your characters WILL have convenient access to woods. Maybe not a lot, but there will be, within fifteen minutes of brisk walking or eight minutes of driving, there will be trees and bushes enough to explore. There are narrow walking trails in green belts between suburban housing developments, undeveloped awkwardly shaped plots of land between grocery stores parking lots, and woods at the edge of parks that may or may not be part of the park.

1 in every 8 houses in the average shitty suburb is full of cultists. The cults have splinter fringe cults. It’s cults all the way down. If your neighbors go to ANY church that isn’t like, one of the big well known branches of Christianity, it’s generally assumed you should cut contact with them cause they’re not worth trying to save. My town had people who pretended to be Mormons to get away with even worse shit. If your characters are in high school, they WILL be accosted by people holding signs and spouting slurs outside the school gates at least once a year. It’s just a thing that happens.

Conversely: everyone knows a couple witches. It’s just a thing. If you go to a community college there’s like a 1 in 10 chance any student you talk to practices witchcraft, and the chance goes up exponentially if they look gay. In my friend group there’s only one non witch, somehow. Stick with the witches, they’re usually pretty cool.

Other gothic genres would have you believe that forests and fields and wild places are scary, don’t be fooled into believing that’s always the case here. It’s not. In fact, the forest is often a place of refuge from, yanno, the weirdos outside of it.

You may think I’m exaggerating but I had neighbors who boarded up their own house and tried to poison the rest of our street when they moved in and spent all Halloween trying to Indoctrinate children. And there was a group of like ten people who faked being from a nearby church as an excuse to harass high schoolers and nobody knew they were fakes until I accidentally told the story to someone who ACTUALLY WENT TO THE CHURCH and was like “uh no we don’t do that wtf???” And that’s how we found of that there were people to fucked up for even the Mormons, and got kicked out and started their own operation! So what did we all do? We started walking home through the woods behind the highschool!

Basically tl:dr if you’re writing on the western half of the state, frame it like there’s scary paranormal goings on in the woods only to plot twist that the villains are humans and the forest’s paranormal activities are helpful, not harmful. Nothing in the woods is scarier than what’s outside of it. Except like, bears and stuff. But usually bears aren’t actively trying to fuck your day up.

Eastern half:

FUN GEOGRAPHY LESSON: rain shadows! We got MOUNTAINS! And when you go over the mountains there’s a huge closet wasteland cause the water gets trapped in the west side! But, between the mountains and the wasteland there’s this beautiful strip of pine forest and meadows called Central Washington it’s beautiful, it’s heaven on earth, once you go there you’ll never want to leave.... except the people there are horrible. It’s like you took a chunk of the Deep South, shook all the actual good stuff out of it, and plopped it in the PNW. Everyone is so up their own asses with politics. trump signs everywhere. So many of them are those godawful rich people who think they’re not rich cause their four story log mansion happens to be in a rural area. I can’t believe I’ve never been hatecrimed over there for how damn gay I look. THE EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE is Ellensburg. Ellensburg my beloved. It’s the best town on earth. Most pedestrian friendly location I’ve ever lived, everyone is super nice, and it’s a college town so there’s always something fun going on!

Tri cities has a bunch of nuclear plant related stuff, do with that what you will.

Back to the fact that half this state is uninhabited due to being completely dry and barren: holy shit the east is scary. It’s just nothing. Rolling hills of nothing. A three hour drive of nothing, then you get to nothing (Idaho edition).

Wine country is its own beast and I would have to make a whole post waxing poetic about how much a vineyard has to give as a gothic setting but here’s the cliff notes:

very isolated, far outside a small town where all the locals know each other, lots of big machines, old dusty barns with cluttered lofts, for straight lines of grapes you can EASILY get lost in the fields, sometimes they scare crows with LOUD AIR CANNONS, hot as hell all the time, people are on the verge between “your cool uncle with money” and “this person has never existed on the same plane of reality as you”, every house has trained hunting dogs for some reason, there’s weird mysterious birds, possibly venomous snakes, and SWARMS of bees and wasps. Oh and everybody and their brother does vineyard weddings. I’m sick to death of vineyard weddings.

Don’t let the maps deceive you. There may be a bunch of town names out there, but that doesn’t mean anything’s there. One time to go camping we drove out into the middle of the state on I-90, took an exit and turned left and kept driving for another hour on completely abandoned roads with no sign of life (but dozens of abandoned rotting houses in the distance) just to get to a “town” that reeked of “we’re getting murdered here cause half of us aren’t white and one of the 3 white people has neon pink hair”. If people wanted to go anywhere they’d have to drive an hour just to get to the interstate. They had one school building for k-12. One gas station, one tiny store, one restaurant. I could lap the entire town in thirty minutes walking. And the first building we saw was a church. Just one. As if the townsfolk weren’t given much of a choice. And there are probably 50 identical towns scattered across the east of the state. Completely isolated.

Tl:dr: want a fresh spin on the “small town full of weirdos” story? Don’t set it in the rural south! Set it in Washington, where you get all the same archetypal weirdness except they think because they’re not in the south they have some kind of moral superiority, and also your lead has nowhere to run cause the landscape is so barren you can damn near see the curve of the earth, where are you gonna hide when the tallest plant goes up to your ankles?

[songfell-ut]

Chapter 1, I suppose

...Hello! It looks like this thing is on. So. Hi.

I am posting this because I saw an Undertale comic by @lostmypotatoes on one of those dub channels, and it was such a neat and unfinished concept that I started writing an original story based on it. Then I contacted her and she was super sweet about my thievery and I was like ha ha too bad I didn’t make this a UT fic and now I wrote this too.

I don’t know any of the usual formatting or etiquette for posting fic on here because I’m old and don’t do stuff. Sorry! (I signed up here for this very purpose.) It’s...good gravy, almost 7,000 words. Anyway! Here you go, let me know if I should look into Witchfell I don’t know I just did him Underfell but there’s witches

*takes Valium*

~~~

"Make way! The High Priestess approaches!"

The monster sat up in his prison cell, focusing on a slim figure coming down the stairs. In the room's single witchlight, he could make out a few details: a black gown with a narrow skirt that flared over the stone floor, a spiked headdress, and a long, dark veil over her features. The orange pinpricks of his eyes narrowed.

The guards stood at attention as the priestess approached the cell, her head high and her hands demurely folded. "Make haste, men!" barked the captain. "Secure the creature! Tighten those bonds!"

She stopped just short of the bars as the guards made a show of pulling levers on either side of the cell, stretching the chains tighter on the monster's limbs. "How long has he been here?" she asked.

"Three days, my lady," the captain said, "but he has refused all of his meals."

The priestess looked steadily at the captive monster. "Does he have a name?"

"He calls himself 'Sans,' my lady," the captain replied.

The High Priestess' headdress tilted to one side. "You know, Captain, wood and iron bars cannot hold a boss monster," she said quietly.

The men jumped as the monster snorted—as much as a skeleton could do so. "Funny, I told 'em the same t'ing," he said, his voice rough and painfully loud in the tiny space.

The captain gripped his sword hilt with one hand. "Silence, monster!" he snapped.

"No, let him speak," said the priestess.

Sans grinned wider, baring huge, jagged teeth. Though he remained sitting, he towered over the humans on the other side of the bars, especially the young woman. "How generous of you, witch," he said mockingly. "Tell me, how may I repay your kindness? Let you take my SOUL? Harvest my magic? Or add me to yer evil little collection?"

The guards muttered to each other in dismay. "How dare you speak to her with such disrespect?" demanded their captain. "She is the High Priestess of this realm, and you will address her as such!"

"Wow, what a loyal dog. You heard 'er, I get to talk," retorted the skeleton. He glared down at the priestess, ignoring the captain's sputtering. "Now, witch. Tell me. What are ya gonna do t'me? I ain't very fond of surprises. My heart can't take it." He placed his bony palm on his chest. "Grant me this one kindness, ya magic thief."

The High Priestess did not move. "Captain. Free him."

Sans lifted the equivalent of an eyebrow as the men gasped. "High Priestess," protested the captain.

"Release the bonds," she said.

The captain swallowed. "Is this a wise—"

"Free him, now." The woman's hands dropped to her sides as the guards reluctantly pushed the levers back up. "Sans, I'd like to make you my apprentice," she told the bemused skeleton. "In return, I will give you your freedom."

Stunned silence hung in the air. "You want me to be your apprentice?" the monster repeated. He looked at her, and he threw his head back and roared with laughter.

The captain bristled, moving in front of the woman with his sword drawn, then stepping back at her murmured command. The other men winced as the monster's laughter echoed off the walls. "Stars! That is rich!" Sans slapped his thighbone. "Ya know," he said, more conversationally, "I'd be less offended if ya dragged me out an' forced me to be yer slave."

Suddenly, his grin had no humor in it. The priestess tensed as the monster reached up to grasp his collar. "Do ya think I'm stupid? Me as your apprentice, witch? Please, don't fool yerself with your own lies!" The collar shattered, crumbling to dust. He gave another laugh, eyes glowing a hellish orange. "But I guess I should thank you for the opportunity," he said savagely. "'Cause now I'm going to—"

The air around him exploded in white-hot flame as the monster's voice rose to a bellow of "KILL YOU ALL!"

~

Power raced through the skeleton in scintillating waves, lighting the cell as bright as a hot day. Now Sans could do what he'd dreamed of since that first human sorcerer had caught him unawares: murder everyone in his path. There were so many possibilities! Fire was fun, but usually worked too fast. He could always tear them limb from limb, but that was messy and labor-intensive. Then there was blue magic, which turned them into stupid, flailing rag dolls, easy to pick up and impossible to put d—

A twinge of suspicion interrupted his musings. Where was the screaming, or the sound of fleeing footsteps? Sans lowered his aura until he could see the room clearly, and what he saw chilled him to his very SOUL.

His attack hadn't killed anyone. It hadn't even singed them. The cell's bars had disintegrated, but now a translucent golden haze stretched from floor to ceiling, and his magic was splashing off it like raindrops off an umbrella. The guardsmen were bravely huddled by the stairs, slack-jawed but unharmed, while the High Priestess stood right where she'd been, hand raised and lips moving.

Sans was not quite so confident now. In fact, his first impulse was to run away screaming. This was the stuff a monster's nightmares were made of: he was trapped by a barrier.

Once upon a time, he'd tormented his brother with stories about a bad little skeleton who went out alone after dark, or talked to strangers, or didn't do his big brother's chores for him, and it always ended with the bad skeleton getting caught by a human. All monsters heard those bedtime stories and learned that there was no escape from barriers; not even the King was strong enough to break one, and just touching them would kill you. If you were lucky, the human would drag you off to be their slave, never to be seen again. If you weren't, they'd squeeze the magic from your body or snap your ribs open to dig your SOUL out, then leave you to die and let your dust blow away.

Panic closed over him like a shroud. He gathered all of his magic and threw himself into a shortcut out of the castle, only to strike an invisible wall and bounce right back into the cell. Shaking his head to clear it, Sans looked around and realized that the barrier had him boxed in on all sides.

Anger saved him, as it always had. In another moment, he wasn't afraid anymore; he was furious at his captors and their whole cheating, thieving, murdering, thoroughly worthless race.

And it was the worst possible moment for the priestess to open a small hole in the barrier and say, "Sans, please calm yourself. I don't want to hurt you."

She snapped the barrier shut half a second before a wickedly pointed bone thudded into it, the tip nearly touching her nose. "So be it," the young woman said tightly, and the bone evaporated as the barrier glowed brighter.

Sans knew better than to waste his energy in an all-out assault. Instead, the boss monster contemplated the force it'd take to punch through one small area around her neck or her heart. He might still be afraid, but every fiber of his being wanted that woman dead on the floor. So...

With a flick of his wrist, he summoned an array of massive, razor-sharp bones, almost too many for the cell to hold, and began firing them at blinding speed, one right after another. The priestess didn't react, but as he struck the same few inches of barrier over and over again, he saw bits of gold flake away, revealing a tiny crack.

He smirked, focusing his magic to hit harder and faster. So much for scary stories. Her people might have been glorifying her as some kind of mighty sorceress, but she was just another stupid human, witch or not. She'd raised her other hand to reinforce the spell, but more and more cracks were forming. You're boned, he thought, chuckling to himself.

Still, as he watched and waited for the golden light to shatter, he had to feel some grudging admiration. Most of the magic-wielding humans he'd killed were big, blustery men, and none of them had lasted half as long as this scrawny female. What kind of SOUL did the witch have, anyway? He'd seen just about every color there was, and figured she was stubborn enough to be purple, or maybe a patient cyan, or even orange for bravery. After all, he was throwing out everything he had, and she wasn't backing down. The skeleton squinted at her through the barrier, searching for the telltale spark of—ah, there it was. There...it...was.

For the second time, Sans looked at her and knew instantly that he was boned. Despite the ferocity of his attacks, the cracks in the barrier were starting to fill themselves in, and the air crackled with another surge of her magic. A merry little chorus of Shiiiiit shit shit shit rang in his head as he stared at her blazing-red SOUL, and it only got louder when he remembered what that color meant.

Determination.

It didn't matter that she was just a human. His intention to kill her was nothing compared to her will to live. As the bones he conjured came slower and weaker, dissolving as they hit the barrier, Sans knew with horrible certainty that he wasn't going to win.

The stories had to be true after all. Unless the priestess got careless and he could either kill her or use a shortcut, he was going to have to do whatever she wanted for as long as she said. But maybe, if he caught her off guard...

Sans let his arm drop. The last few bones clattered to the floor, and he sank to his knees, head bowed. Behind the High Priestess, the men all breathed a sigh of relief.

To her credit, the woman didn't let the spell go. She poked her head through for a better look at him, motioned to the guards to stay where they were, and knelt in front of the massive skeleton, halfway inside the barrier. "I'm not surprised that you wanted to escape. I can almost excuse you for trying," she said. Her voice was calm enough, and as far as he could tell with her veil on, her face was still expressionless.

He would have bought it if he hadn't noticed her hands clenching in her lap. "Almost?" the skeleton asked, head still lowered, eyes fixed on her.

"Almost."

He shrugged, watching her knuckles turn white. "Guess that's why yer the High Priestess, huh?"

"It is. None of my magic is stolen," she said.

"'Course not. Our power's no good in barriers. We ain't that stubborn, or that dumb," he added bitterly.

"My offer stands," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "Do you have any questions or conditions you'd like to propose?"

Sans glanced at her headdress. The spikes atop it dipped in and out of the golden curtain as her head drooped. She had to have expended most of her power holding him off; after several days with no food or sleep and then wasting all that effort on the barrier, he was pretty worn out himself. Too bad monsters couldn't take a human's magic, just her...

Her SOUL. It took all his self-control not to jump to his feet in excitement. Why the hell hadn't he thought of that? An ordinary monster who absorbed an ordinary human SOUL was supposed to grow incredibly powerful. What would happen if a boss monster gained all the power of a gifted and highly determined witch?

The High Priestess shook herself and sat up straighter. "Please answer me, Sans. I don't think either of us wants to go through that again."

"No," he admitted, shifting his weight back, edging toward the wall. Sure enough, she unconsciously moved closer, a few more inches into the cell. "I do have one question," he said, moving back again.

The woman frowned, scooting almost all the way out of the barrier. "What is it?"

He slowly, delicately reached down and tapped on her headdress, gentle as a light breeze. "Mind if I get a better look at ya?"

The priestess started. For the first time, she seemed uncertain. "I..." She frowned, and as she opened her mouth again, Sans lunged at her.

There was no question of her ducking behind the barrier in time. Before she even knew that he'd moved, one of the skeleton's hands had closed around her torso and lifted her as easily as a child holding a doll. The barrier vanished behind her, and Sans said casually, "Heel, or I'll stomp 'er like a grape."

The guards froze in the act of drawing their swords. The priestess started to say something, but he flexed his hand ever so slightly, and she stopped.

Sans smiled. He considered her for a moment, wondering if he should crush her anyway and squeeze her out slowly in front of the guardsmen, the way humans drained a monster's magic. It was tempting, and kind of poetic, but he decided he'd better not; he didn't want to damage her SOUL. Besides, she'd put up a hell of a fight. If anyone deserved a quick death, it was—

"Sans," she said. To his astonishment, she worked her arm out over his fingers and rested her hand on his knuckle. "Please," she murmured.

Normally, he would have laughed at a human begging him for mercy, but this didn't feel like begging. She was just looking at him calmly.

...No, the crazy bitch wasn't asking, she was telling. She was distressed, but expectant, as if she was just waiting for him to put her down and apologize!

He should've squished her or bashed her against the wall for that. But, somehow, as the veiled priestess stared into the fire of his eye sockets, the idea of breaking her didn't seem much fun anymore. Her head lowered and tipped to one side, and all of a sudden, it was like his mind – his memory – got pulled sideways.

As he stared back at her, he was no longer facing a mortal enemy. He was back in a moment he thought he'd forgotten, standing in front of his house in Snowdin. A tiny human in a striped shirt was holding his hand and smiling up at him with perfect, stupid trust, and he knew that however much he despised humanity, he could never hate this kid, any more than he could reach up and stop the sun in its orbit. Why did he have to think of it now, when he needed all the homicidal energy he could muster?

With a painful effort, Sans tore himself away from that memory, back to the present and the woman in his hand. The skeleton growled, starting under his breath and working up to a snarl that reverberated throughout the stone walls. To hell with her. To hell with all of them!

Lack of space was a definite issue, but Sans prided himself on adaptability. He extended his arm to its full length, nearly shoving her into the frightened guards, which gave him enough room to materialize a single blaster.

It was much smaller than usual, and that was fine, because it'd concentrate the last of his power into one good shot. The skull shone an incandescent red, eyes aflame and fangs glinting in its own light, literally nose-to-nose with the High Priestess. Sans let his rage and frustration rise like a tide of pure filth, distantly surprised that he could still feel some grief beneath it all, and the blaster's mouth creaked open from the pressure building in its throat.

The priestess had pulled herself upright with her free arm. The scarlet luminescence was right up against her eyes, but she screwed them shut and leaned forward, face set with determination.

In his haste to align the blast and hit all the humans at once, Sans didn't hear anything unusual; he didn't even notice when the light dimmed just a little, or that the pressure had stopped rising. But then a shock ran through him like a hand grabbing his SOUL, and he jerked out of his concentration to see – and feel – the woman stroking the blaster's nose as if it was an overexcited puppy. "It's all right," she said, so low that he barely heard her. "Please, stop. It'll be all right. I promise." And he'd be damned if the giant skull wasn't closing its mouth and leaning into her hand!

No one had actually touched one of his blasters before. They were long-distance weapons, and he used them as such, only getting close when it was fun or strategic to do so. His first reaction was horrified indignation; he might be about to vaporize her, but for crap's sake, he wasn't being inappropriate.

As she kept petting, though, she leaned in and rested her forehead on the skull's lower jaw, and the skeleton felt an alien sensation steal over him, something he didn't recognize at first. The light dimmed further; the skull's jaws drifted shut. For the first time, Sans heard a soft, rich sound—it was the woman humming to herself, or to the blaster, as if trying to soothe it.

And it was working. Sans felt as if he'd been drugged, with a sense of...peace? Was that it? Yes, it was absolute peace washing over him, relaxing his grip so that the young woman had to catch herself before she fell out of it. She might have been smiling faintly beneath the veil, but he couldn't focus enough to tell. He wondered if it was the same magic that had made him think of Kris, a distraction to save herself and kill him before he attacked again.

No...he wasn't drugged or under some kind of spell. Sans remembered feeling this way when he was a lot younger, and a couple of times during the humans' last visit to the Underground, when he and Pap discovered that at least one human was worth something. Of course, then they'd lost him, and there were no more humans worth anything.

It never failed to amaze him. They'd had less than a month together, but all these years later, he still missed the little bastard so much that it hurt.

Luckily, the pain didn't last. The woman kept humming, and Sans grew less and less angry. The blaster made a kind of purring sound and vanished; at the same time, Sans' arm fell, releasing the priestess, allowing her guards to rush in and pull her away.

The boss monster gazed at the angry humans with total detachment, scratching the back of his head as he yawned. She'd won. "You win," he mumbled.

"Are you all right, my lady?" demanded the captain, helping her sit down against the wall.

The humming had stopped. The young woman rubbed her eyes, keeping them shut. "Don't kill him, please" was all she said.

Sans closed his eyes, too. The humans were conferring in rapid whispers on what to do with him, but he didn't care anymore. It was almost a relief when they stepped back, a couple of them grunted with effort, and something crashed into his skull, knocking him out.

~

Over a day later, the High Priestess shut the outer door to her chambers, set a covered tray on the table, and sat down at her mirror. She checked that her eyes were clear, or at least not so puffy anymore, then picked up her veil and headdress and settled them over her head. She stared at her reflection for a full minute, as if waiting for the woman in the mirror to get up first. She sighed, and finally pushed herself to her feet.

Just outside her bedroom, she paused, running a thread of magic ahead to check each of the loose barriers she'd set around the bed. Two ripples came back, one very close by. "Good morning. Please step back," she said into the slight crack in the door.

A pause, then a soft creak of floorboards, unnervingly quiet for something – someone – his size. "Further, please," she ordered.

He made a noise she couldn't interpret. Floorboards creaked again, and the bedframe groaned under his weight. The priestess turned the doorknob, picked up the tray, and elbowed the door open.

Sans was sitting on the edge of the bed, knees on his elbows. He had opened the windows, and in the early daylight, he looked even more menacing; the light shone through his filthy shirt, shadowing the spaces between his ribs. The young woman made herself place the tray on a side table and pull up a chair with perfect unconcern, as if she couldn't feel him staring her down. "I see you're all healed. You must have slept well," she said coolly. "I know I did."

The skeleton glanced behind him at the rumpled sheets. "Uh..."

"You were alone the whole time," the priestess hastened to add. "There's a very comfortable couch in my office that I've been using."

"Yer office, huh?" Sans stretched his arms out over his head, bones clicking softly as he rolled his neck around. "Pretty nice setup y'got here. What is this, silk? Real feathers?"

She inclined her head. "I would have removed you from your cell much sooner if I'd known you were there. No one told me until Duke Archibald asked me to help select your new owner, which, no, I am not." She grimaced. "May I ask how you were caught? You're certainly capable of defending yourself."

Sans didn't answer. The young woman was thinking of what else to say when he grunted and turned to stretch back out on the bed, splaying his limbs across the huge mattress. "This's the most comfortable place I ever slept, y'know that?"

"Me, too," she said before she could stop herself.

Sans glanced up, as if wondering whether he'd seen a glimpse of personality, and she cleared her throat. "Is it the same reason you made no attempt to break out of your cell for three days?"

"Got caught tryin'a steal some grain," the skeleton mumbled. "Not a lot of food in the Underground these days. I hadn't had anythin' for a while, so I was weak as hell."

"You refused to eat anything while you were imprisoned," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "I figured it was poisoned or drugged 'r some other shit. Humans don't get their mitts on a boss monster every day, but ya can't have five sorcerers watchin' me every second. Feeding me some kinda crap like that would be the easiest thing t'do."

That didn't feel quite right, but without more evidence, the priestess decided to leave it for now. Instead, she pulled the side table closer to the bed and removed the tray's cover.

Sans twitched at the sight of steaming hotcakes, piles of cheese-sprinkled eggs, tomatoes, and crisp-crusted sausage links. The priestess cut a tomato slice into quarters with her fork, speared one and, with the ease of long practice, took hold of her veil between two fingers and lifted it long enough to get the fork to her mouth, dropping it as she put the fork down.

"Seriously? Just take the damn thing off," the skeleton remarked, sitting up.

The young woman made a show of chewing, swallowing, and lifting another tomato to her mouth. He didn't have a stomach, but if he had, she probably would have heard it growling; he was shifting around and scowling, clearly agitated. So she quickened her pace, taking a huge bite of egg, a chunk of hotcake, and a sausage, in turn eating as fast as she could.

Sans' eyes had lit to orange again, and the priestess was glad to put the fork down. "There. You see? It isn't poisoned," she said briskly. She stood and pushed the side table over to the bed. "Help yourself."

The orange faded. His skull tilted this way and that, like a wary but curious animal. "What?"

"I had breakfast over an hour ago. This is for you," she explained.

He glanced at the tray, then back to her. She waited for a full ten seconds, almost holding her breath, before she was rewarded with a rude noise. "Can I have another fork? Don't want your germs," he said.

The priestess knew when she was being tested. She picked up the fork. She went to the nightstand and the pitcher of water standing ready, and dunked the fork in it, swishing vigorously. "Here. But first," she said, holding up the dripping utensil, "I'd like to get a few things straight."

He didn't move. A moment later, she felt a tug on the fork, and instantly snapped the connection by raising another barrier. "No cheating," she reproved him.

"I'm cheating?" The skeleton banged his fist on the bedpost. "How the hell are you doin' this? I'm not dumb, lady! Ya can't just slap a barrier on somethin' that blocks every kinda magic! I can't get out of here, I can't go blue, ya did some weird crap to my poor blaster—"

"I helped you calm down. You've been asleep for twenty-six hours, by the way."

He stopped dead, but only for a second. "Yeah? Well...well, how do ya know so damn much about what I can do? If I'd known this was gonna happen, I'd'a left a long time ago!"

"And yet you didn't." The woman crossed her arms, keeping the fork pointed away from him. "I don't believe that you were too weak to remove yourself from the situation, Sans. We all have our secrets, and I don't mind that, but I need to know that you won't take drastic measures before we've completed our arrangement."

"There is no arrangement, witch," he shot back. "I'll make you a deal, okay? Forget this apprentice crap, lemme go now, and I won't kill anyone on my way out. How's that?"

She tapped the fork on the pitcher's handle. "Your people possess almost no farmland, and the area we've left you has notoriously poor soil. Did you know there are several potions, all made from common ingredients, that could double your crop yields in the space of a few years?"

Sans started. "No, and I don't care," he said, but without conviction.

"You should. There are also potions that can heal wounds, preserve foodstuffs, and send you to sleep with no ill effects, using only the tiniest bit of magic. Do you mean to tell me that monsters need none of these things?"

The skeleton looked at her warily. She could almost see him thinking. His rough speech and rougher appearance didn't fool her: he was at least as intelligent as she was, and also cared enough to want to hear more. "So," he rumbled, "I learn all this fantastic secret knowledge, and you get...?"

"Insight. Humans have been fighting monsters for centuries, and the more we know about you—"

His eyes flamed. "The easier it is to kill us? You seriously think I'm gonna—"

"The easier we can stop dying!" she snarled, her anger suddenly flaring right back at him.

The boss monster's eyes went blank with astonishment. She took a long, deep breath that did not help at all. "Believe me or not, Sans, when I say that I want to make peace for everyone's sake. I am tired of hearing every unsolved crime and evil thought blamed on monsters. I am tired of arguing with sorcerers who want to seal the entrance to the Underground and let you starve to death so that we don't have to talk about it anymore. I am tired of mediating disputes over monster ownership, as if we had any right to help ourselves to other sentient beings, and I'm sick to death knowing where our magic comes from and being unable to stop it!"

She was almost panting now, gripping the fork like a trident. Sans was staring at her like she'd grown another head. She swallowed, and lowered the fork. For want of something peaceful to do, she dipped it back into the pitcher for more swishing. "Monsters are not completely blameless," she said quietly, "but you are outnumbered by a much crueler and stronger race, and we've taken that advantage too far. It has to change, Sans, but we cannot do anything until we learn to talk to each other again."

Sans' teeth ground together. "Have you ever read a history book?" he snapped. "Ya know what happened the last time we had humans over to play?"

The priestess stared at a spot on the wall. Sans looked up in alarm as the barriers surged in and out of visibility, hissing softly. "Yes," she said, and went on, reciting from memory: "Several people were killed in an explosion caused by faulty stage effects at a farewell gala for the human delegation, most notably Prince Asriel of the monster race. Though the exact cause of this unfortunate accident remains unclear, its scope and destructive power were hallmarks of human magic, leading to accusations of sabotage and assassination from both sides. War was prevented solely by the will of Queen Toriel, who was devastated by the loss of her son and adoptive daughter, but nevertheless prevented her husband from executing the remaining humans. The delegation was permitted to leave, and in exchange, humans promised the Underground would never be sealed."

"...O...kay, then. Yeah. That's...that's pretty much it." Sans rubbed the back of his neck, scratching between the vertebrae. "Knowin' that, you still think you can teach me a bunch of stuff, turn me loose, an' make everything all better?"

"No. But I can try." On impulse, the priestess knelt, looking up at him and hoping the effect wasn't spoiled by the dirty fork. "Sans, give me one month. That's all I ask. You can have copies of any recipe you need to take back with you, and I'll show you the techniques to make them work properly. You won't have much freedom of movement, but you won't be kept in a cell, either." She glanced at the feather mattress and added, "You can keep the bed for yourself. As luxurious as it is, I feel lost in it."

He didn't laugh, but he didn't sneer at her, either. His eyes went from the fork to the bedpost, the canopy, the bookshelves lining the walls by the fireplace, and back to her face. "I need some time t' think about it," he said reluctantly. "What happens if I don't wanna?"

Her magic crackled in the air again, and she winced, trying to calm down. "I'd rather not say, but I think you know the answer. Remember, I'm not the only human who can use barriers."

He did not like that, and she couldn't blame him. She looked down at the fork in her hand. "You should eat now," she said lamely, and held it out to him, handle first, praying she had judged correctly.

The skeleton's face was impossible to read. Now that it was quiet, it reminded her too much of when he'd grabbed her in the cell. Her instincts screamed at her to pull her hand back and throw a barrier between them, but determination surged as she remembered how she'd already faced down his attempts to kill her. She was going to forge a lasting bond between their worlds and hand him a kitchen utensil like a normal person or die trying.

Slowly, Sans reached down, and she fought to keep from panicking as his massive hand approached hers. He paused...and plucked the fork from her grip with delicate courtesy, holding it up between them. "Hm. Too small. Still dirty." He tossed it back into her lap.

She stared at the fork. She stared at him. She picked up the fork, dropped it into the pitcher, and plunged her hand in after it. Out came the utensil; she turned her back to him, and with one swift motion, off came her veil. As High Priestess, she wore it for most of her waking hours, which meant she'd learned to whip it off without even disturbing her headdress, the way she'd once seen someone yank a tablecloth out from beneath a set of dishes.

And as High Priestess, if she wanted to use her sacred veil to dry a mostly-clean fork in order to please a giant monster who was intimidating her and somehow also being a complete snot, then who was going to stop her? No one, that was exactly who.

With a righteous huff, she turned back around, still polishing the bedamned fork. "Here," she said, facing him for the first time. "I hope this is satisfactory."

Sans looked at her. He didn't say anything.

The world always seemed a little too bright when she'd just had the veil on, and the light from the window was in her eyes. She rubbed them on her sleeve and tucked a strand of shoulder-length hair behind her ear. "Well?" she demanded.

Sans didn't take it. He was leaning forward, hand dangling as if he'd started to reach for it and somehow forgotten what he was doing. His sockets were blank, an odd color washing over his bony face. "Uh," he said. "It's."

The priestess didn't know that that could be a complete sentence. It probably wasn't, she thought in growing irritation. "Sans," she said carefully, "are you going to use this, or would you like to eat with your hands?"

The skeleton shook himself and turned away. "Never mind. 'm not hungry," he grumbled.

She bit back the urge to call him a colorful name or two. "Sans, this is not a joke. There is nothing wrong with your food, except that it's cold. Eat it. Please."

"I will, I will." Sans hunched his shoulders. "Just gimme a couple minutes."

She did not have the time or patience for this. "Sans. Look at this." He glanced at her, and in one motion, she stabbed a sausage and another chunk of hotcake. "Say 'ahhh,'" she ordered, and when he blankly repeated, "Ahh?" she thrust the fork into his mouth.

Sans nearly choked, demanding, "Wh' th' fuh, 'a'y?" before he swallowed it whole. The priestess was fascinated to not see anything pass his throat, though she knew he had eaten it. "What the fuck, lady?" he clarified.

"I am not 'lady,' thank you, and I know you know better words than that," she said sternly, putting the fork back on the tray. "It's not my fault if it got cold."

"I don't care how hot or cold somethin' is, lady. Ya didn't give me a chance to get my tongue out, so it's all the same to me." The boss monster answered her puzzled look by concentrating, then opening his mouth and pointing. "Thee? Tah-dah."

Good God, he suddenly did have a small, floppy red tongue. She flapped her hand at him, face burning. "All right! I believe you! Put it away!"

He did, and she was relieved to see nothing but a mouth full of giant fangs. "So," he said presently, "if I'm not supposed ta call you 'lady,' what's your name?"

The priestess blinked. No one had asked her that in a long, long time. "Well...if you don't like 'my lady,' there's always 'Your Eminence,' or my ceremonial name, Thea." It occurred to her that he was probably not going to react well to any of her suggestions, but she soldiered on: "You could just say 'High Priestess,' though that's a mouthful. At the convent, they gave each of us a different saint's name, and I was—"

Sans held up his hands. "Okay. That sounds peachy. But what. Is. Your. Actual. Damn. Name?"

She grasped her skirt so hard that her nails dug into her palms through the thick velvet folds. "My name is Frisk."

Sans' eyes were blank again. "Huh. No wonder. Welp, nice to meet you, Frisk." He raised a hand.

It was a blatant lie, but cordially given, so she attempted a smile in return. "It's nice to meet you, too, Sans."

For some reason, that seemed to alarm him. He drew back, then suddenly grabbed the tray, tipped his head back, and dumped the entire contents into his mouth. He had no cheeks, but his face somehow looked very full before he swallowed it all, dropping the tray on the floor. "There. Where's the bathroom?" he rasped.

Frisk realized her mouth was hanging open, and shut it. "It's...why do you ask? You're a skeleton."

"Right. Right." He scuffed the bones of his foot on the carpet. "Oh, look at this. Fork yes."

Sure enough, he'd found the fork. She scooped it up, setting it on the table, and out of nowhere, the priestess felt a real smile lift the corners of her mouth. "Just in tines."

The words hung in the air for a long moment. Frisk was beginning to feel stupid when Sans smacked his thighbone and gave a shout of laughter. "I'll be damned! You got the point."

"It's food for thought," she said, and grinned as he doubled over. "I'm sorry. Please fork-give  me."

Just like that, she thought distantly. Yesterday – the day before? – she'd fought for her life against a boss monster who interpreted her overtures as a deadly threat, and now they were giggling in her room like drunken schoolgirls. Was this going to work after all? Was this how real peace began, with awkward silence and stupid puns? If not, Frisk could always console herself that this was the most she'd laughed in years.

~

Sans was not wondering the same thing. He was thinking how he'd woken up not knowing where he was and had had to figure out that he wasn't dreaming about the battle in his cell; a human witch really had trapped him and knocked him out with some kind of weird brain-magic. Once he got over the fact that he couldn't take any shortcuts and wouldn't fit through the windows, though, he had to admit things could be worse; the bed really was the most comfortable thing in the world.

Talking with the witch was not comfortable. It was bad enough when she was asking him questions about his capture and not breaking out of prison, but then she had to give him food and say things that made sense, and things that made even more sense, and then...

He'd never understood why human men made such a huge fuss over women. Monsters came in so many shapes and sizes that anything was possible; the inside really did count more than the outside, except maybe when it came to reproduction. But that was a rare occasion for monsters, who thought that humans' obsession with it was shallow and weird at best. Sans in particular had no interest in the human form unless he was trying to destroy it; they were all just skeletons with varying degrees of hair, meat and fluids in the way.

And then that infuriating woman had turned around in the sunlight, veil and stupid fork in hand, and he suddenly couldn't breathe. The overall picture was what made him feel a huge mess of feelings he didn't like or understand, but he could see every detail perfectly: her lips pursed in annoyance, the sun reflecting off that black circlet thing, chestnut hair shining and eyes half closed against the light. Her dress was still black, but today it was a looser, laced-up style, shoulders partly hidden under some kind of sheer material that ended high up her neck.

And then she had turned her head and done something with her hair, and now he couldn't think things right. All he could try to do was turn away, then eat it all in order to make her go away, and only his punning instinct had saved him from saying or doing anything else stupid.

Why did she have to like puns, too?

This was bad. It had gotten very complicated, very fast. He had to get out of here. She'd demonstrated some emotion behind her priestess-y facade; maybe he could appeal to it, persuade her to take some other monster under her wing and...wow. Speaking of wings, as she laughed, he happened to look down at her from a different angle, and she had a really nice rack. It was hard to see under such dark clothes, but they accentuated the graceful outline of neck and shoulder perfectly. Under the sheer material, her collarbone was—

"...going to do it," she was saying, wiping away tears of laughter. "I'm not all-powerful, but I have enough influence at court and with the Church to guarantee your safety." Frisk looked up at him, bright-eyed, and his SOUL did another loop-de-loop. "So, Sans. Will you stay?"

He didn't want to, it was a bad idea, and he said, "No," in his mind.

She smiled, tilting her head.

"Yeah," Sans said out loud.

[unfortunate-development]

Fan Abnormality - F-02-127

Made my weird dog into a LTC abnormality!! Started this project yesterday so I’m really eager to show :]

(disclaimer: I am not in any way shape or form an expert on this game, and some details may be out of place because of this.)

F-02-127 | Prince Lycanheart VII

“I will steal the limbs of those who willingly follow you.”

Risk Level: WAW

Qliphoth Counter: 3

PE-Box Output: 22 (0-9: Bad, 10-14: Normal, 15-22: Good)

Available Works: Instinct, Insight, Attachment, Repression

Attack Type: Pale (4-5)

Appearance: Lycanheart is a dark purple dog, with an extra closed eye in their forehead. They have many arms on their back, rings of pink surround the area where the arms attach. It has a white crown atop its head.

====Managerial Tips====

When an employee dies to F-02-127, they assimilate their arms.

When work with an employee with justice level I OR repression work was completed, F-02-127 assimilated the arms of the employee. The employee was considered dead. 

The Qliphoth counter decreased by 1 whenever F-02-127 assimilated an employee’s arms or got a bad result. 

Completing work with an employee with justice level III and below will cause F-02-127 to breach.

When breaching, F-02-127 can open their middle eye, and the eye changes color according to the damage type they will do while it attacks. An eye symbol also hovered above F-02-127 indicating the attack it will do.

F-02-127 breaches on any midnight ordeal. They will attack the ordeal, dealing the damage type (or types) the abnormality is weakest to. It will not attack employees, and vice versa.

====Behavior and Abilities====

Lycanheart will take the arms of employees with low justice, killing them. 

When Lycanheart’s Qliphoth counter drops they grow a pair of legs. During breach, Lycanheart possesses 900 HP and deals red, white, black, or pale damage depending on their eye color and the corresponding symbol representing the attack type above them. They hold a rapier either in their mouth or their hands, depending on their attack or their last attack while “idle”.

Red: Holds rapier in a hand and attacks in a short range of anything behind it. Deals 20-23 red damage.

White: Howls, dealing 20-23 white damage to anyone in the room.

Black: Whirls around with rapier 4 times, stabbing everyone within a close range. Deals 7-10 black damage per hit.

Pale: Takes 3 seconds to charge up and dashes through the room with rapier, ends up through the door in the next room. Deals 30-35 pale damage.

They are immune to red damage, weak to white damage, and normal against black and pale damage. They will go back to their containment unit when they are suppressed. Lycanheart will still assimilate arms during breaching if an employee is killed.

Lycanheart’s appearance will change slightly during breaching. The arms on their back are more detailed with fingers, their fur will be messy, and their eyes aren’t little dots.

Lycanheart will breach during midnight ordeals to help, however, if they are killed by the ordeal they will not breach again unless their Qliphoth counter drops completely, but they will not attack the ordeal. They will not hurt employees and do not deal AOE damage while attacking an ordeal.

====Work Success Table====

====EGO Gear: Taking Stance====

Weapon: A rapier with red and white details. 

Stat Requirements: Justice Level 4 or higher

Risk Level: WAW

PE-Box Cost: 70

Maximum Initial Production: 1

Damage: Black (5-7)

Range: Short // Attack Speed: Fast

Effect: Has a low probability of healing all employees in the same room’s HP and SP by a quarter.

Armor: No EGO armor.

Gift: An extra arm from Lycanheart’s back.

Drop Chance: 1%

Effect: +5 HP, +5 SP (Right Back)

====Flavor Text====

- [Employee] watches the twitching of Lycanheart’s arms carefully.

- Lycanheart will never let anything get mistreated again.

- Lycanheart speaks to [Employee] about their kingdom.

- In a world where there is utopia, there is a dystopia, as a utopia will never be achieved.

- The twitching of Lycanheart’s arms disturbs [Employee].

====Origin====

Lycanheart was a prince of another kingdom, next in line after their father would get too old. But they were enraged by the people suffering so much they fought their father for the throne. They would have taken the throne if their father didn’t banish them from the kingdom and the world before they could take his limbs. The king lied to the kingdom and said Lycanheart had lost, the only ones who knew the truth were those who worked within the palace.

Lycanheart promised to themself that they would never let someone get mistreated again if they could help it, because they could never return home to help those who were suffering in their world. They would take the limbs of those who acted like the king, who were selfish and only took when they could easily give and were idle in injustice.

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

Abnormality Story Log

They were the prince of a long-forgotten world. The King was a horrible man, who only cared about his own kind and his own issues. 

“What of the people? What of the poor’s problems? Of the criminals?”

“You need only to worry about yourself. We are rich and safe, why should we care?”

This enraged the Prince. The king, who had the power to change everything, sat on his throne, doing nothing.

The Prince challenged him to a duel. The king promised his limbs and his power if the Prince had won.

The Prince, to many who weren’t there, was told to have lost this battle. But they did not. The Prince had won fairly. The king banished them as they took the crown, and lied to the kingdom.

“I will never let you get away with this again. I will take the limbs of those who willingly follow you and your idleness. You will care on only your last breath.”

[ziracona]

With the rumors about Until Dawn possibly being in dbd I’m curious about what the game actually is? Could you give a description of it and it’s quality?

>:-D I would be thrilled to break it down! 

So, I personally adored this game. Actually, back in 2016, I bought a PS4 for the express purpose of being able to play the game more times until I got a happy ending.

Basically, Until Dawn is a decision-based horror game that is a self-reflective on horror as a genre, with a special focus on the way mental illness is treated, and a secondary focus on native tradition in horror. There are 10 playable characters, eight protagonists. Everyone can die. You swap between characters as you go, and the storyline branches depending on your decisions. Your choices alter your characters’ relationships with each other, which is important, as well as their stats (bravery, curiosity, humor, romanticness, honesty, and charity), all of which impact game outcomes and events in the story. You cannot simply win by always being as kind to people as possible, and I’d personally recommend trying to do your best, but playing the characters in-character if you want people to live. Almost everyone I’ve ever seen loses at least Matt their first time. Often Josh or Jessica as well. 

Anyway, the basic plot is, ten friends are at their winter getaway on a mountain. They’re late highschool/early college age. A bunch of them decide to play a super cruel prank on one of the friends, because they all know she has a crush on one of the guys. So he and a bunch of the others have him pretend he wants to make out with her, they film her, and then shame her, and she runs off into the night crying. Her best friend tries to warn her and fails, her sister didn’t know and is furious, and her brother and his best friend are both passed out drunk at the time, and have nothing to do with it. Anyway, older sis runs out into the night after baby sis. They’re at their family’s cabin on a mountain in Canada (their family is in the movie business and super rich). You play as the big sister. The girls do not make it through the night.

The remainder of the game, you play the remaining eight friends. They meet up a year later on the anniversary of the sister’s disappearance, because the surviving member of the family, Josh, the baby brother, wants to keep their tradition going and meet up to honor them. Things start to go wrong almost immediately. Some masked man is on the loose, and begins attack teens. Meanwhile, something weird is happening at the abandoned sanitorium nearby, and inexplicable things start to happen in the woods as well. The player does their best to collect clues, which go with one of if I remember correctly three storylines? It might be four. Anyway, all clues help your survival, and give you extra dialogue and sometimes choices. It’s very good to know. You have to make a lot of decisions, and sometimes doing nothing is the right call, so go with your gut. You also find totems, which give you a glimpse into the future, and come in multiple kinds (warnings of danger, death, death to friends, fortune, or guidance--the first three are bad, the last two you want to reach. They will not make sense, but then, when you hit the moment they’re connected to, a lot of the time stuff will click, so do your best to let them guide you).

Basically, your job is to try to understand what is going on, why, and to survive until forest service can show up at dawn to get you the fuck off the mountain to safety. There’s a ticking clock letting you see how long you have left to go, and each chapter has a unique title that changes based on player choice. Also, in-between chapters, you have segments where you play as someone who for most of the game is unknown, being interviewed by a psychologist. The player answers his questions, and makes decisions in the interviews as well, and these also effect gameplay and outcomes, and are responsible for chapter names. Actually, people still haven’t even found all the things the therapy sessions effect, which I think is extremely exciting.

Review wise, horror has long been one of the absolute best genres for intense character study, because the character can be the world’s biggest piece off shit, and you’ll still root for them not to die. Literally the bar is just they have to not be so awful you want them to die horribly. This exponentially increases in video games, because you have the added motivation of wanting to succeed/win. So, UD does a great job of having a super complex cast of characters it does not apologize for, but forces you to view as the complex whole and mix of good and bad they are, and is a great character piece. I hated everyone but Josh, Chris, and Sam when I started (the only three who didn’t do the prank), but by the end Mike, the asshole who pretended to want to make out with the sister, and Emily, the resident bitch, were both characters I loved, and I think I liked everybody but one member. It’s also just a super beautiful game, and it does a great job of being scary and intense, and there’s some amazing sequences. The structure is solid. Your experience will be different depending on how many clues you get ,as will your perception of characters based on choices and motives you understand or don’t, actions you see them take or miss, but that’s just kind of the nature, and it gives it some decent replayability. Also, the dialogue is hilarious and if sometimes pretty goofy, incredibly enjoyable.

The gameplay comes in multiple types. Sometimes you walk around free-reign and look for clues, and sometimes you’ll be in cinematic cutscenes where you act via quick one or the other choices (Run or Hide, Left or Right, etc) and reaction commands. There’s also shooting challenges, where you go into bullet time and line up the cursor on a target and press shoot before time runs out (and if you fail, probably die, but it depends on the severity of the situation), as well as Don’t Move segments, which quite literally mean hold the PS4 controller as still as humanly possible. You can see the glowing sensor on the front of it on your screen, and the bounds you have to keep it in, and can try to correct if it looks like it’s going too far left or right, but these are incredibly hard--I think most people consider them the hardest part of the game--and I know a lot of people just put the damn controller down during those bc they’re so hard. (For this to work you basically have to be playing with your arms already resting on a table though, or it will sense you going to set it down and you’ll auto-fail. It has to be a situation where setting it down legit just means letting go to work). It’s PS4 exclusive game, but it’s also a free game on PS now, so you if you get the 7 day free trial, you can play it on PS now on a computer, so long as you buy a controller (or borrow one or whatever) to play with.

Overall, I think the difficulty level is challenging enough to be fun, and varied enough to not get boring, but the don’t-moves--especially at the very end of the game--can be frustrating. So, I’d recommend either prepping for them and cheating a little in the finale sequence itself (which is like 7 extremely intense Don’t Moves back to back), or living by the age-old decision based proverb “If you hit power before it saves, it didn’t happen,” or both.

The characters are enjoyable, and the story is really good. There’s multiple, well-executed twists, and it’s incredibly sad and compelling as a story--to me anyway. Overall, it’s probably my favorite horror game unless you count season one of TWDG as a horror game, and I definitely wholeheartedly recommend it--especially if you like choice-based games. I’d 100% play it blind your first time, too--that’s the absolutely best way to experience it, even if people die. But, to keep it from getting super frustrating, I’d also totally recommend playing it the “I missed an action command and my fave just died so I hit menu or power before it could try and am gonna do the fight sequence again��� way too. Games should be fun! Playing blind is fun, but having a fighting chance to keep your fave alive is too, and that gets you both. Also! Take looking for clues seriously, and do it before you leave an area--the free-walk events are not timed events, unlike in Man of Medan, so it is safe to do so. Some clues will literally change the fate of your character.

Scare wise, I’d say it’s a pretty creepy game. There’s a number of jump scares, but the biggest scares aren’t jump-scares, they’re chase sequences, which are quite nice. It is scary, but not like, any more scary than other horror video games tend to be, like Outlast or Silent Hill. Some of the deaths are pretty damn gorey too, so be forewarned.

And I think that about breaks it down? I’ll throw in some pics for feel.  

I could write a whole essay on why I think the narrative has intense value for its meta commentary on horror and its work as a self-reflective genre piece, but that would be rife with spoilers, so I won’t right now. Feel free to ask if you’d like to hear the short version of that, but I want to at least keep in a different post so it’s easy for people looking to avoid spoilers to do so! : )

Oh! Also as a last note, the cast is all phenomenal! Hayden Panettiere, Rami Malek, Brett Dalton, Meaghan Martin, Noah Fleiss, Nichole Bloom, Jordan Fisher, Antonella Lentini, Galadriel Stineman, Peter Stormare, and Larry Fessenden all do bang-up jobs, and it’s a pretty diverse cast too. And there’s a good dog, so games get +10 for dogs. There’s super cool making of stuff in the unlockables I enjoyed a lot, and the checkable character stats are fun. Also the intro is beautiful, and the single prettiest rendition of O’ Death I’ve ever heard.

[ruthoakenshield]

The Lady in the Black Leather (Ch14)

catch up here [chapter 13]

Richard x reader

Everyone gathers their stuff and head out. Aiden, Scarlett and Graham are in front of you and Richard. An officer sees you heading for the door and escorts you all to your vehicles making sure there is nothing attached under them to track or explode. When he gives you all the ok to head out you wave and thank him. He nods and waves back.

 You all are quiet on the trip out there. Rich pulls in and Mark is waiting in the yard with Phantom.

 The moment the dog sees you in the window his tail starts wagging like an airplane propeller and he looks up and whines at Mark. “Just a minute, Phantom. She’s right there, now hush.” He tells the dog, who quiets.

 Graham helps you out of the car and you head over to Mark. Phantom can tell you’re upset and looks up to Mark who signals ‘go’ and Phantom rushes over to you and is on his hind legs leaning on you, whining and licking your face and nuzzling you almost knocking you on your ass. Richard steadies you and you start to giggle and hug the big dog. His tail is whipping back and forth, and he keeps licking your face and hands.

 Everyone chuckles and you finally say, “Ok Phantom, that’s enough.” and you signal to ‘stop’. He immediately stops and sits, waiting for you.

 Mark grins, “Harley, why don’t you reintroduce him to Aiden and Scarlett to make sure he remembers them. It’s a good idea to do this with people he hasn’t seen in a bit or if they are new and haven’t been around him a lot.” Mark tells you.

 You nod and bring Phantom over to Aiden, “Phantom do you remember Aiden? He’s my friend and is ok.” You say. Aiden holds his hand out and Phantom sniffs it and licks it. He gives him a “wuff” and rubs his head on Aiden’s hand, who starts to scratch his ear and Phantom’s foot starts thumping on the ground, making everyone smile.

 Scarlett squats down and holds out her hand. “Do you remember me, Phantom?” She asks. The dog sniffs her hand and licks it and gives her a “Wuff” too. He rubs his head on her hand and she pets his head. “Good boy!” she tells him, and his tail starts wagging.

 You look down at Phantom and give a sharp whistle to get his attention, he looks up and you motion ‘come’ he turns and follows right at your side as you walk over to Mark.

 He grins and nods. He has you practice the other basic commands he taught you the day before then shows you the new ones. You practice them like you did before with the other commands, then you all head over to the field again.

 Mark puts the practice service vest on Phantom, and you motion for the dog to ‘sit’ and ‘stay’. Phantom plops his butt down and looks at you, then up to Mark.

 Mark teaches Aiden and Scarlett the basic hand signals and gives them and Richard all a sheet with all the commands the dog has been taught.

 Aiden looks at the words, “Is this Khuzdul?!?!” he asks surprised.

 Mark grins. “Yup, we are Tolkien fans here and since few know the language, it is better that way, so someone doesn’t accidently give him a command to attack or such...” He explains, “…and when the command IS given, the attacker won’t be alerted to what the command was for until it is too late.” He adds with a smirk.

 He has you take off your jacket and give it to Richard. Mark covers Phantom’s eyes and tells you to go out in the field somewhere farther out and hide. You do so and make your way out into the field and about halfway out, you hide behind a large boulder and tuck yourself in, making yourself as small as you can.

 Mark waits a few minutes for the scent to be blown away. He explains to your friends that they need to be able to command Phantom in case something happens to you and he gets loose or you send him to go find help.

 He explains to them to find something you wore recently or sat on recently that has a fresh scent of you and then they are to hold it to his nose, tell him to ‘find Harley’ and give him the signal to ‘track’ then ‘go’. He tells them to keep Phantom on the leash otherwise he will take off and you won’t catch him.

 Once he has explained everything, he has Richard go first. He hands your jacket and the leash to Richard, and nods.

 Rich squats down to Phantom and says, “Phantom, find Harley.” And he holds out the jacket to the dog to sniff. Phantom buries his nose in it for a moment, getting your scent, then looks up at Richard who signals, ‘track’ and ‘go’.

 Phantom “wuffs” then lifts his nose to the air and then down to the ground. He starts moving out into the field, Richard and Mark following. After sniffing the air and ground a few more times, he finds you and you praise him as you stand up.

 Richard is grinning and pets Phantom. “Good Boy!” he tells the dog. Who sits and looks all smug that he found you, making Richard laugh.

 Mark tells you to stay here and when they get back to your friends, that he’ll cover Phantom’s eyes again and then you are to find a different hiding spot elsewhere in the field. You nod and watch them head back.

 Mark repeats this process with all your friends until they have all been trained to instruct Phantom to find you if you are separated from the dog.

 Once everyone was trained in that, Mark tells you to come back. You do and he moves on to instructing everyone how to command the dog if you are being attacked by someone.

 He tells you if that ever happens to drop Phantom’s leash immediately so he can attack if you command it. Mark goes and puts on the padded armor and then comes back. He has a rubber knife with him.

 “Ok, I’m going to pretend to attack Harley, she is going to drop the leash and Richard, I want you to get Phantom’s attention, and give him either the verbal or the hand signal to ‘destroy’. Then when I tell you, give him the verbal command to ‘stop’. Richard nods. He looks at the sheet and remembers how to say the words, then nods again.

 Mark moves behind you and tells you don’t move when someone gives the commands, that way you don’t get bit by accident. You nod. He moves in position behind you, and puts the rubber knife by your neck and wraps an arm around your front, holding your far wrist.

 Mark nods to Richard and Mark tells you to drop the leash. You do and he starts to drag you backwards.

 Richard says, “Phantom!” and says, “Hrestvog!” in a commanding tone and the dog instantly turns to Mark and raises his heckles and growls and charges him. The dog jumps and grabs his arm with the knife and pulls it away from your neck.

 Once Phantom gets Mark down on the ground, he nods to Richard and Richard says, “Phantom, Etzil!” and Phantom immediately stops and goes to sit by Richard’s feet.

 You, Aiden, Mark & Graham grin hearing Richard speak the Khuzdul using his “Thorin” voice & tone.

 Mark tells you that as soon as Phantom gets the attacker away from you, then you can move and get away from the attacker safely. You nod.

 He repeats the exercise with each of your friends, though Scarlett struggled with the pronunciation. Aiden giggled and helped her with it till she could say it correctly.

 Next Mark showed you all what to do if someone attacks from the front with a knife or gun. Mark went to the shed and switched the rubber knife for a rubber gun, then came back. He tells you that if this happens, to release Phantom and anyone who knows the commands can get his attention and tell him the command to ‘destory’.

 They all nod. He says, “Ok, Harley, drop the leash. He holds up the gun and stands in a threatening pose.

 Richard looks at Mark and Mark nods. “Phantom,” he says, “Hrestvog!”

 Phantom immediately attacks without warning and knocks Mark over on his back and is going at his arm holding the gun, keeping the gun both away from you and also away from his own body.

 Once he gets Mark to let go of the gun, Mark nods to Rich and Richard says, “Etzil!” and Phantom stops immediately.

 Mark gets up and nods.

 You call Phantom back and praise him. Mark nods and repeats the process with each person calling the commands.

 Once everyone has had a chance to practice this technique, Mark repeats the processes with you all just using the hand gesture for ‘destroy’.

 Then Mark shows you what to do if you’re alone and are attacked. Once all the training for that is done, he takes off the padded gear and puts it into the shed.

 Next, he explains what to do if you are ever severely injured, for example a terrorist attack or car accident or something where you are not able to give commands, but they are.

 He has you lay down in the grass on a large piece of cardboard to protect your clothes and pretend to be injured.

 He explains that if they tell Phantom to be a shield, he will either stand over your torso or will lay on it, depending on your injury. He will act as your shield and take any damage or will attack if he feels someone might threaten you unless they know the word for ‘stop’.

 Mark explains, that if they tell Phantom to ‘Guard’ you, it is to be used if someone is, for example, trying to rob someplace you’re in or there’s an armed gunman in a building with you, like what happened at the coffee shop this morning, Or something along those lines.

 He tells them Phantom will attack if they command it otherwise, he will just act menacing and try to scare off the predator. He also explains you can use it if you want him to protect something like the safe or your purse or backpack. Anything you find important that you may need to leave unattended for a while.

 They nod.

 He tells them to practice these commands now. They each take turns telling Phantom to ‘shield’ you and to ‘guard’ you.

 Mark explains that with any of these commands, Phantom will not allow anyone outside his ‘pack’ or a uniformed officer, paramedic or firefighter, near you or the object he was told to protect/guard, unless they know the command for ‘stop’. He tells you all the emergency first responders in this area are all trained to know the word for ‘stop’ if they see a dog performing these actions.

 He recommends you keep a copy of the cheat sheet in Phantom’s vest and one on your persons or in your purse / bag in case something happens to you and Phantom comes to someone trying to get you help, they will find the sheet in his vest and be able to give him the proper commands.

 You nod.

 Mark instructs everyone on the phrase ‘Gauhnith Goroth’ which means ‘safe/good place’ and tells them that this command instructs Phantom to take you someplace he deems safe.

 He tells them it is used when you are injured and can be moved safely. Mark tells them Phantom will grab whatever he can on you and will do his best to drag you away from harm.

 Mark has you lie down in the grass on a piece of cardboard, again and then says, “Phantom, Gauhnith Goroth!” and the dog comes over to you and gently grabs the collar of your jacket near your neck, and starts to tug you across the grass. Mark says, “Etzil!” and Phantom stops and lets go of your jacket.

 You sit up and tell him, “Good Boy, Phantom!” and he gets the smug look again on his face.

 Mark leads everyone back to the barn after he takes off the practice vest from Phantom. He tells you to practice the non-attack commands often with Phantom to help you both to remember the commands.

 He tells you that you are all welcome to come out with the dog to practice the attack commands any time and that the padding is found in the shed.

 You all nod and he hands you Phantom’s official vest with his name on it and all the patches indicating what he is trained for. A copy of the cheat sheet, Phantom’s official service dog paperwork and Mark’s card are all in a see-through pouch on Phantom’s vest. He suggests you put the papers in a plastic zipper baggie when you get home then put them back in the vest.

 He apologizes, “My daughter used the last one the other day and forgot to tell us we needed more, otherwise I would have put them in one.” He tells you.

 You chuckle and tell him that it’s ok. He gives you a piece of paper with the vet they use as well as the list of food, heartworm meds, and flea/tick meds he uses and when they were last given to Phantom.

 He asks if you have any other questions and no one does so he gives you the leash and tells you, “Phantom is all yours now, Harley. Good luck with the problems with the ex. And come visit anytime.”

 You grin and squat down to Phantom. “Should we go home now, boy?” you ask him. His tail starts thumping and he gives you a “Woof”. Everyone grins and you thank Mark again for all the training. He smiles and waves as you all head to the cars with Phantom.

 “Now what are we gonna do?” Aiden asks. You all shrug.

 Graham thinks for a moment, “Aid, can ya give me a lift back to the hospital so I can get my Jag and meet you guys somewhere?”

 “We’ll meet you at Aiden’s apartment, Sweetie.” Scarlett tells you. Everyone gives you a hug. Graham hugs you a little longer than the others. “Be safe, Sweetheart.” He whispers to you and kisses the top of your head. You nod and tell him, “You too, Pops. Thanks for getting me Phantom!” Which makes him smile.

If you wish to be added / deleted from the tag list let me know:

Tagging: @fizzyxcustard​ @thorinthehottytotty​ @dumbassunderthemountain​ @deepestfirefun​ @thetherianthropydaily​ @daisy-picking-lady​ @spookybunny-blog​ @dabisburntnut​ @emrfangirl​ @midnight-reader-morning-sleeper​ @hilary456​

[thoughtfullyyoungduck]

Meet me in the past part 5

A/N: This is part five to: ‘meet me in the past’. This absolutely suck, but I thought you know what I’m not changing it again, so you know, here you go. I hope you still enjoy regardless. Please let me know what you think!

Summary: After Stanley Uris takes his own life, his daughter goes to find the recipients of his letters and ends up in Derry. After an encounter with IT, she ends up traveling back into the past, meeting the younger version of her dad and his friends.

warnings: cursing, mentions of suicide and some really rude words of Pennywise

tagging; @artlovingbre​ @cocastyle

Stan stared at Emily as she ran away, but he didn’t respond. He felt the world slip away from under his feet. Who the hell did this girl think she was? He turned his gaze towards Richie, who’s eyes were widened and looked even bigger now then they already did on regular days. Richie was his best friend, even though Stan couldn’t stand him sometimes, and so he looked at him for something, a conformation that whatever happened just then really happened, and it wasn’t all in Stan’s head. Richie however did nothing but stare, as if he himself couldn’t quite figure out what this entire day had been about. However, Richie knew Stan like the back of his hand, so he knew exactly what to do when he saw the look in Stan’s eyes, deflect.

‘I Wonder when she got dropped on her head one to many times am I right boys?’ Richie joked, adjusting the glasses, and trying desperately to lift the dark mood that feel upon the group.

‘Not now Richie’, Bev interjected, her mouth set into a thin line. Stan turned his gaze towards her then, after scanning the entire group. Out of all of them, she seemed the least confused, instead she looked thoughtful, as if still deciding how to approach this situation best.

‘Why not Beverly?’ Stan asked, his face sour. ‘He’s right, what the hell is she even talking about? I’m her father? I’m fucking thirteen.’

It seemed that their previous argument about IT was forgotten, instead everyone was looking at Stan, gauging his reaction. Richie opened his mouth to try and make another joke, but a sharp look from Bev shut him up.

‘Wait,’ Stan said, ‘why aren’t you surprised? Did you know about this? About whatever delusion she is dealing with?’ Stan looked at Beverly, but Beverly was pointedly not looking at him.

‘Are you kidding me? How long?’ Stan’s voice raised in hysteria, his arms waving around wildly.

‘Stan,’ Bev started, and her voice was shaking.

‘How long’, Stan asked again. His voice dropped down to a threatening tone, and Beverly shivered despite herself. Stan would never ever lay a finger on her she knew, but he was furious, and it sucked that Beverly was the target of his anger.

‘She told me last week okay, after you made those stupid jokes and we spend some time alone together. Look Stan I’m sorry, but she made me promise not to tell you. Besides it’s not like you believe her. Look at you, you look like you’re about to punch something or someone.’

‘That’s because I thought you were my friend Bev. I can’t believe you could hear something so absurd and still not tell me.’ Stan said, still visibly angry, though he was starting to calm down a bit. He was very observant, and rational, and he was starting to realize that getting mad at Beverly wasn’t going to solve anything.

‘What if she’s Pennywise who has been stalking us? What if this is just another one of his ploys?’ Stan uttered, his hands now desperately scrubbing at his pants, trying to get the non-existent crinkles away. He always did this when he was nervous, and it was his tell tale when he was lying too.

‘T-t-that doesn’t m-m-make any s-s-sense S-s-stan. W-w-why k-k-keep up the c-c-charades for s-s-so long?’ Bill inquired.

‘Are you saying you believe her Billiam’, Richie questioned, ‘cause if so that would mean Stan the man had sex and I don’t think Stan over here would just pop his cherry for anyone,’ Richie quipped, and while doing so he swung his arm around Stan’s shoulders.

‘Beep beep Richie’, Stan snapped back, though he didn’t push Richie’s arm away.

‘Bev what do you believe’? Mike asked, taking a step towards the group. Bev sighed.

‘Look, I admit that I was skeptical in the beginning too. But just look at what happened to us today. We got attacked by a demonic clown that lives in the sewers. Nothing about this is normal okay? And Emily she told me stuff, and you know how good I am at telling when people are lying, and I sincerely think that she was telling the truth. So yes, I believe her.’

‘Just because she believes that it’s true, doesn’t mean it is Beverly’, Stan grumbled.

‘Don’t call Bev a liar’, Ben interrupted, as always coming to Bev’s rescue. It would be endearing to Stan if he wasn’t so fucking irritated.

‘Why is everyone acting like what Emily just said is totally normal? Am I the only one who understands how crazy this is?’ Stan asked again. He looked towards Richie, who shrugged in response.

‘Fine’, he spat out, walking towards his bike and grabbing it with a huff.

‘Stan, where are you going?’ Richie shout out. The rest of the losers shuffled forward their bikes as well, like they were anticipating something bad to happen.

‘I’m going to find her. If you all believe her than fine, she has some explaining to do. I want to know where her delusions come from.’

He swung one leg over his bike, already pushing his feet, gaining speed before abruptly stopping at Bill’s voice.

‘S-S-Stan stop’, Bill said, and Stan did. All of the losers would if they were in Stan’s place. Bill didn’t even have to raise his voice. Whatever Bill said, goes. He had a curtain authority about him, and the losers without question followed him.

‘Y-y-you can’t j-j-just g-g-go at h-h-her Stan. Y-y-y-you need t-t-to calm d-d-down first. It’s n-n-no use i-i-if y-your just g-g-gonna yell a-at her.

Stan turned around slowly. The other losers watched on without saying a word, to see what Stan would do.

‘I’m calm, I’m not going to yell at her Bill,’ which as obviously a lie, Stan looked everything but calm. If anything, he looked mostly anxious.

Still though, Bill nodded solemnly, going to his own bike.

‘Don’t yell at her Stan, she’s been through a lot already’, Bev spoke, and as she and Stan made eye contact her eyes flickered downwards.

‘You know something, don’t you?’ Stan inquired.

Bev shook her head, but didn’t respond as she wheeled her bike closer Bill’s.

‘You do, else you wouldn’t have said that. What did she tell you?’

‘I thought you didn’t believe her’, Bev countered, but because she did, Stan knew for a fact that she was lying now.

‘I don’t, but I want to know what she said about me, about us.’ Stan declared. He didn’t understand why Bev wouldn’t just tell him, unless.. ‘it was something bad wasn’t it?’

‘Stan, talk to her, please. Just ask her, I’m not the person you should discuss this with,’ Bev insisted.

Stan stared at her for a few more seconds, before taking off without looking backwards. He was sure the other losers would follow.

He wasn’t sure where Emily could have gone, but he had a bike and she was walking, so he assumed that would see her walking among the sidewalk somewhere, but he didn’t.

He kept riding, Bill catching up to him fast. As always, silver was faster than anyone or anything could possibly be. He looked around street after street, hoping that she had kept going straight forward, towards the park.

Bev mentioned going to look for her at her apartment, but the losers realized that that was a long shot. She was never inside Bev’s apartment alone when he father was coming home, which around the time it was now. So they kept up on their way, riding until they saw the beginning of the park. Stan’s mind was racing a thousand miles a minute. The days events were catching up too him, and he felt exhausted. He was nearly killed, saw a killer clown, had to watch one of his best friends be dragged away by his mom, and to top it all off, his other friend claimed to be his daughter.

As they came closer, they saw that the jacket Emily had been wearing was draped over a bench. There were barely people there, only a little old lady who was walking her dog, but she was just about to leave.

They stopped at the entrance, Stan putting his bike away nicely on the side, while the rest of the losers dropped theirs down on the ground without a second thought. Stan rolled his eyes, how silver was still going after all the reckless things Bill had done with it.

‘W-w-we should s-s-split u-u-up’, Bill declared, looking around the group for conformation.

‘Are you kidding me? Splitting up would be dumb Big Bill, Eddie broke his arm today. If we split up we’re basically clown food.’ Richie said.

‘Well, Emily is not going to show herself if we’re all in group, I think Bill’s right. We have more chance to find her if we split up,’ Mike agreed.

‘Fine’, Richie huffed out, but he looked to Stan, as if to see if Stan would agree before doing anything. Stan too nodded; ‘they’re right, Rich’. And so the losers split up. The park itself wasn’t all that big, and most of it was an open space, but there were a handful of places that Emily could have hidden, so the losers elected to search for her there.

Stan walked towards the eastside of the park, before he heard a whisper of his name, so close by that it was as if someone has whispered it right beside him. He turned quickly with a gasp, but saw no one behind him, so he kept walking. Not even a second later he heard the sound again, but when he turned once more there was nobody. He’s gaze was pulled towards the trees towards the west side of the park, for no particular reason. The trees didn’t look any different, yet Stan still felt compelled to change his path. He heard his friends call out towards Emily, but he paid no attention to them. He didn’t know why he was walking towards the closed area, but it was like he didn’t have any control of his legs anymore. His own voice called out, ‘Emily’, but he barely noticed it, even if it was his own voice.

When he reached the tree, he looked back towards his friends, but a giant tree was in the way, and he couldn’t see his friends anymore, and he was sure they couldn’t see him anymore. Suddenly, it felt like Stan’s brain shot in action again. He realized that he had just walked away from the losers, causing him to be alone and vulnerable. Panic gripped around his heart like a vice, causing his breathing to speed up.

He had just made the decision to go back towards the open field, when he heard a small; ‘help’, coming from deeper in the woods. He was torn between going to get the others, or finding the person that called for help as fast as possible. Even if it was Emily, he didn’t want anything to happen to the girl. A loud ‘help’, called out but it sounded closer somehow, as if the person was teetering closer. Stan stepped forward against his common sense just a few steps, trying to find the person in danger.

The person screamed loud appearing in front of Stan behind a bush, scaring him half to death. In a panic Stan threw himself backwards, stumbling over a tree trunk and tottering to the ground. Stan scrambled back up fast, wincing at the dirt that was on his clothes, before looking up to who was in front of him. It was a little girl, her hair in pony tales, with a blue dress and black sneakers, crying and reaching out for him. Stan cringed, really didn’t like strangers, but he felt bad for this little girl, so he reached his arms out and lifted her up. ‘Are you okay’? He asked her, trying to keep his voice light. The little girl sniffled in his arms, ‘where did you go daddy? I need you, the evil clown took me.’ Stan froze, he instantly dropped the little girl, not thinking about his wellbeing at all. He stepped backwards, until his back hit a tree. The little girl was still sniffing, but it seemed like a grin was taking over her features.

Stan looked into her eyes and with a gasp, he saw his own eyes reflected there. He shook his head angrily, he wasn’t going to let Pennywise in his head. He was just taking advantage of Emily’s statement, but Stan couldn’t shake the feeling of dread away. He continued to stare at the little girl, trying to call out to his friends, but only a wheezing as his throat closed up.

‘Daddy, I missed you. Why don’t you love me? Do you hate me?’ The little girl took another few steps towards Stan. It seemed that all logic flew out the window, as Stan tried to disappear into the tree instead of just running around it.

The little girl changed appearance, and suddenly Emily stood before him. It was clear that the little girl had also been Emily, only younger. ‘Because I hate you too daddy,’ Stan cringed at the words, ‘when you killed yourself, I was so mad. You never really loved me did you daddy? You’re a coward. IT should have picked you off when it had the change, it’s not like anything was gained from your life. You caused me and mom so much pain, I wish you had left when I was little, then you wouldn’t have hurt me or mom.’

Stan’s face paled, all the color draining from his cheeks. His hands were trembling as they wiped down his pants. ‘You’re lying’, Stan’s uttered, his voice sounding shaky even to himself.

‘You’ll never be anything, you should just kill yourself now, save you a lot of trouble.’ IT Emily leaned in close to Stan, changing back into the clown that had broken Eddie’s arm mere hours ago. ‘You couldn’t keep her away from me in 27 years, and you couldn’t keep me from her now.’ IT whispered into Stan’s ear, who could do nothing but let out a pity full whimper. What was Ben taking so long? As if Ben heard his thoughts, Ben walked into Stan’s line of sight. Ben screamed as he saw IT hunched over Stan, alerting the others of IT’s presence.

IT vanished as fast as he had come, IT’s hands falling from Stan’s neck. Stan fell to the ground, his breath coming in gasps, Ben ran to him, and he could hear Bev, Richie, Mike and Bill running towards them too. Ben pulled Stan towards his chest as he started sobbing.

‘Stan, Stan are you okay?’ Bev asked him placing a hand on his shoulder.

 ‘IT’, Stan rasped. He looked up to see his friends looking at him confused. ‘IT has her.’

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN USERS

Smoking rapidly became a statistically normal thing. As societies get richer, they learn something about everything and everything about something.1 In fact it's the old model: mainframe applications are all server-based software assumes nothing about the paths from poor to rich, I knew I could see myself—making at least 4 of these 5 mistakes. And bingo, there it is: The Men's Wearhouse.2 But as knowledge has grown more specialized, there are few strong enough to keep working on something no one around them cares about.3 As well as being smarter, they tend to be calmer and more upstanding; they don't need you, it will work anywhere the Web works. It was only then that we realized that they were started there. Unless you're planning to write math applications, of course. Where is the man bites dog in that?

Life in Berkeley is very civilized. During the 90s a lot of money. The simplest answer is to put them in a row. They were also a kind of semantic deficit spending: they knew new things were coming. Professors in New York and the Bay area are second class citizens—till they start hedge funds or startups respectively. I recommend being good. But I remember thinking his company's name was odd. They were also a kind of selflessness. That VC round was a series B round; the premoney valuation was $75 million. Economic power would have been the part where we were working hard, the groups all turned out to be, there are no customs yet to guide you. He tried to make it open. It's not something people tend to volunteer; one likes it the way one likes popping zits.

I want to do better. They usually know other founders, and certainly not you as an investor. And once you've written the software, and issue a press release saying that the new version was available immediately.4 Startups are stressful, and this made their software visibly inferior because among other things, incubators usually make you work in their office—that's where the word incubator comes from. The thesis seems to be that the most important consequence of realizing there can be good art is thus a property of the subject or the object if subjects all react similarly. What most don't realize is how late.5 What you're doing is business creation. Google does. There are sometimes minor tactical advantages to using one or the other, like a detective trying to unravel some mystery.

But writing and art are both very hard problems that some people work honestly at, so they're worth doing, especially if you can see your email, why not your calendar? VCs are pretty good at reading people. PR firms. Whatever looked like the biggest win.6 Treat the first few as an educational expense. Developers have used the accelerometer in ways Apple could never have imagined. So I added a message at that point. In art, the highest place has traditionally been given to paintings of people.

The self-reinforcing nature of this situation works the other way too: the less you need further investment, the easier it is to travel widely, in both time and space. The only place your judgement makes a difference is in the direction of over-engineering. The summer founders were as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly. Much of what's in the sage's head is also in the head of every twelve year old. If a physicist met a colleague from 100 years ago. I doubt it could be any other way, as long as the potential returns look good enough. Odds are this project won't be a class assignment.7 Our only expenses in that phase were food and rent.8

Why does John Grisham King of Torts sales rank, 44 outsell Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good novel wouldn't complain that readers were unfair for preferring a potboiler with a racy cover. Viaweb let multiple users edit a site simultaneously, more because that was the truth. All you'll need will be something with a keyboard, a screen, and a funnel for peers. We always looked for new ways to give stuff away for free if advertisers would let them. His office was nicknamed the Hot Tub on account of the heat they generated. They're as expert in their world as you are in yours.9 Shockley Semiconductor, though itself not very successful, was big enough. The cheery, bland language of the people in a position of independence, they develop the qualities they need. It's something you're more likely to work in the end, and now he's a professor at MIT.10 This is particularly true of young people who have till now always been under the thumb of some kind of paternal responsibility toward employees without putting employees in the position of children. From this point, anyone proposing to run Windows on servers should be prepared to explain what to look for in founders. Because ambitions are to some extent marketing as well.11

How do you be a good angel investor? And how do you avoid mistakes you make by default? Most people who did great things were clumped together in a few top university departments and research labs—partly because investors are so unlike hackers, and they even let kids in.12 Currently the way VCs seem to operate is to invest in a bunch of ads, glued together by just enough articles to make it true, and the fact that they control Google, which affects practically everyone. Microsoft do? Among other things, they had no way around the statelessness of CGI scripts. Most high school students have searched for does not seem to exist.

Notes

Acquirers can be done, she expresses it by smiling more. And of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what they too were feeling in 1914.

Ii.

I've said into something that would appeal to investors, you need to import is broader, ranging from designers to programmers to electrical engineers.

Founders rightly dislike the sort of person who would in itself, and Smartleaf co-founder before making any commitments. The other reason it used to end investor meetings with So, can I count you in? There's a variant of Reid Hoffman's principle that you can play it safe by excluding VC firms have started to give them sufficient activation energy required to notice them.

5%.

Revenue will ultimately be hurting yourself, if the statistics they consider are useful, how little autonomy one would say that I'm clueless or even being deliberately misleading by focusing so much on the blades may work for us, the airplane, the median VC loses money. I don't think you need to play games with kids' credulity.

Yes, there are before the name Homer, to the home team, I've become a function of the big winners are all that matters, just their sizes. Look at what adults told children in the succession of spectacular treason trials that punctuated Henry's erratic matrimonial progress made him an obvious candidate for grants of monastic property. Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a desert island, hunting and gathering fruit.

They'll be more likely to resort to expedients like selling autographed copies, or black beans n cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris wrote the first language to embody the principle that if a company they'd pay a premium for you by accidents of age and geography, rather than for any particular truths you'll learn. But no planes crash if your school, secretly write your thoughts down in, but this could be pleasure in a bar.

And I've never heard of investors want to change the number of startups have some kind of people we need to, so they will or at least for those founders.

In a project like a winner, they tend to say they prefer great markets to great people. But the most successful ones tend not to say they were still so small that no one on the parental dole for life in general we've done ok at fundraising is a scarce resource. The obvious choice for your side project.

The point of a cent per spam. One of the Daddy Model that it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of applicants—for example, if you like a loser they're done, at least notice duplication though, because they can't afford to. But it's telling that it refers to features you could get a poem published in The New Yorker. This is what you love, or because they couldn't afford a monitor.

Actually he's no better or worse than Japanese car companies have been the first version was mostly Lisp, you should. I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve a lot of successful startups. There are some good proposals too.

[filmfanatic82]

AO3 link (HERE)

Chapter 4

“But she said, "Where'd you wanna go?

How much you wanna risk?

I'm not looking for somebody

With some superhuman gifts

Some superhero

Some fairytale bliss

Just something I can turn to

Somebody, I can kiss

I want something just like this"

-- Something Just Like This, Chainsmokers

__________

“Don’t kill me.” 

“Why?” Hope asks. She shuts her textbook just as Penelope flops down in the empty armchair next to hers. 

Penelope gives the library a quick look around and is hit with yet another crushing wave of deja vu. Nine times and counting since returning. Every inch of the school that she steps foot into seems to trigger this unsettling feeling. Like an inescapable lucid dream.  

“No reason really,” Penelope responds snapping back into the moment. She runs her hands through her hair and sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “You know what… Forget I even said anything.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing… It’s no big deal. I just…” Penelope pauses to take a deep breath of air and--

“ImightveletitslipthatyoulikeLizzieSaltzman.”

“What?” Hope tilts her head, now thoroughly confused.

“I told Josie that you like Lizzie.” 

“Ok. I’m not following… Why would I think I’d care about that? It’s not a secret that I’m friends with Lizzie.”

“No.” Penelope sighs. “Not like that. Like you ‘like’ Lizzie.”

A flicker of realization sweeps across Hope’s face and then quickly is replaced with Hope’s standard look of mild annoyance. ”I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, really?” Penelope says with a smirk.

“Really.”

“You know your left eye does this weird half-twitch thing whenever you lie, right?”

Hope doesn’t respond. Instead, she lets out a weighted sigh and shakes her head at Penelope and for the briefest of moments Penelope catches a glimpse of her Hope. The one that she could playfully bicker with for hours on end without ever crossing the line. 

A stray pang of homesickness cuts through Penelope but she quickly swallows it down. This isn’t the time nor the place for such emotions. Not when there’s so much at stake. 

“Why are we even talking about this? Shouldn’t you be over there, trying to get back into Josie’s good graces?” Hope motions towards the far side of the library and Penelope instantly spots the familiar yellow sweater. 

Josie sits at one of the long study tables accompanied by both Lizzie and MG, nose buried within a textbook. At first glance, she seems oblivious to Penelope’s existence but the longer Penelope watches, the more she notices how the siphoner tends to tilt her head upwards every few seconds or so. Not enough to fully make eye contact, but enough nonetheless. She’s more than aware. 

Penelope pulls her eyes away as her fingers once again drift upwards towards her neck, searching for the non-existing scar. “I’m working on it.”

“By sitting here with me?”

“I said I’m working on it,” Penelope repeats herself with a bit more bite to her voice. “I can’t just waltz right on over there and start talking to her.”

“Why not?” Hope asks.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously… Why can’t you?”

“Well, for starters, Blondie’s in guard dog mode which means I won’t be able to get within twenty feet of Josie without her attacking me first,” Penelope replies with an exhale of breath. She runs her hands once again through her hair and then glances back over at Josie. 

“The Penelope Park I know would never let Lizzie Saltzman get in her way… Especially not when it comes to Josie.” 

“Yeah well, the Penelope Park you know doesn’t exist anymore… And this Penelope tends to be more cautious in these kinds of situations… Especially after what she’s seen.” 

A silence falls between the two of them as Penelope can feel the all too familiar sensation of Hope’s eyes studying her. Her skin crawls from it, but she refuses to give in, instead opting to keep her focus on Josie. Penelope knows that Hope’s standard interrogation will follow next. It always does. And then usually, after exchanging a few below the belt remarks, the conversation abruptly ends with one of them storming off in order to cool down. Or, on the rare occasion or two, Hope would forgo words altogether and instead force Penelope to spar with her until every last ounce of ongoing frustration dissipates into thin air.

But Hope does neither. Instead, she simply gets up from her armchair, stretches her limbs, and then starts to head towards the other side of the library.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Penelope calls out in a sudden panic. 

“To help,” Hope responds over her shoulder and then Penelope watches as Hope sits right down in the free seat next to Lizzie. They start to exchange words and within a matter of seconds, Lizzie gets up from the table and hastily heads out of the library with Hope following right behind her. 

A small smile spreads across Penelope’s face as the realization sinks in that no matter what timeline is, Hope always has her back. 

Thank god for that.

A few moments later, MG gets up and does the same, leaving Josie all alone. 

Penelope makes her way across the library but stops herself short of just up and sitting down at Josie’s table. Instead, she stands there awkwardly waiting for a cue that her company is welcome. A moment passes. Then another… and another… But no such sign comes. Josie remains buried within her textbook seemingly oblivious to the world around her.

Then, just as Penelope starts to turn to head back to her armchair--

“Aren’t you going to sit down?” Josie asks, eyes still glued to the text in front of her.

“Yeah. I was just…” Penelope trails off as she takes a seat. 

“Acting strange again?” Josie responds. She finally looks up and Penelope catches a much-needed glimpse of those rich chocolate brown eyes. A small but noticeable smile spreads across Josie’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay? You were out for quite a while in the infirmary this morning and that letter and--”

“I’m okay,” Penelope says, stopping Josie’s ran away train of thoughts dead in its tracks. Without even thinking, she reaches across the table and grabs hold of Josie’s hand. And for the briefest of moments, Josie allows it as if there was never a thousand-foot wall between them. But then, she quickly pulls her hand back, pretending to suddenly need to re-adjust her sweater. 

“Well, you don’t seem it… You should take my advice for once and go get checked out again. There could be something seriously wrong, Pen.” 

Penelope hums a non-committal response which instantly causes Josie’s smile to morph into a scowl. She knows that she should say something else… Something more along the lines of what 16-year-old Penelope would say. But tapping into that long dominate side of herself is turning out to be harder than she ever imagined. 

“What are you reading?” Penelope reaches across the table once again grabbing hold of Josie’s textbook and starts to skim it over. 

“Stop changing the subject.” 

“I’m not,” Penelope replies. “The Obice spell? That’s an advanced level blocker… Are you reading up on defensive spells?”

“No.” Josie snatches the book back from Penelope as a sudden look of guilt flickers within her eyes. “It’s for a research paper.”

“Riiiight.”

“It is,” Josie huffs. 

A momentary silence settles between the two of them and then--

“I could show you.”

“Huh?” Josie asks. 

“The spell. I can show you how to perform it, if you’re interested.”

“You know how?”

Penelope gives a nod. “Yeah. It’s not that hard.” 

“Okay…”

“Okay.” Penelope matches Josie’s words and smiles. She rises from the table and pushes her chair in. “C’mon.”

“Now?”

“Why not? Unless you really want to go sit through two hours of Dr. Bryce lecturing about the Salem Witch trials…”

“God no.” Josie gets up from the table as well and starts to hastily pack up her belongings. “Anything but that.”

“Good.” Penelope waits for Josie to finish up and then leads the way out of the library.

 __________

“Ave, et lapis. Elementa fiet unum. Salva me ex nocere,” Josie chants out loud as she rests her palm against a nearby tree trunk. She takes a moment to center herself and then turns towards Penelope, who’s standing a few yards away. “Okay. Go for it.”

“You sure?” Penelope calls back. 

“Yes. Hit me.” 

“Sicae pluviam super faciem terrae.” Penelope says with a flick of her wrist and suddenly--

Hundreds of branches snap off of the surrounding trees and sail through the air straight towards Josie. They inch closer and closer as Penelope watches on, eyes fixated on what seems to be a random area 10 feet directly above Josie’s head. 

“C’mon… C’mon…” Penelope mutters under her breath as the sticks pick up speed.

20 feet… 

15 feet… 

10 feet… 

“Shit!” Penelope’s hands jut out into the air. “Adolebitque in cineres abit!” 

Josie braces for impact but to her surprise, nothing happens. She glances up in confusion and notices that all of the sticks are now frozen in mid-air and fully engulfed in flames. A light shower of ashes fall down around her, blanketing everything in sight. 

“How did you…” Josie says in sheer and utter awe as Penelope quickly jogs over to her.

“Are you alright?” Penelope asks, ignoring Josie’s question for the moment. She scans Josie head to toe, checking for any sign at all of potential injuries. 

“Yeah. I’m fine…” Josie checks herself as well and then takes another look around at the falling ashes. “What spell was that?” 

“Lasracha. It’s an ancient Celtic spell created by a coven of rogue witches. Apparently they were big pyromaniacs or something like that.”

“And what does it do?”

“Mainly sets fire to anything you cast it at... But sometimes it can cause a minor explosion if you perform it under the right circumstances,” Penelope responds and instantly regrets it. It’s too much information. 

“So… You just happen to know an ancient Celtic fire spell?” Josie asks with a new level of underlying skepticism to her voice. Penelope swallows down the dry lump in her throat, runs her hands through her hair, and then produces a nonchalant shrug.

“Doesn’t everyone?” 

“Pen…” 

“What?” Penelope replies, trying her best to maintain her composure. 

“You promised.”

Penelope sighs. “I learned it from an old family friend two years ago. We were visiting Milan and somehow found ourselves in a situation where we needed to start a fire and fast. Anyway, she used Lasracha and it worked. So I made her teach it to me. Figured it might come in handy one of these days.”

Penelope holds her breath as she feels Josie’s eyes upon her. It isn’t a full lie. More like a half-truth if anything at all. 

Caroline, Hope, and her had indeed been visiting Milan. And they had wound up in a situation that required the use of Lasracha. But there had also been a rabid pack of Orges and a brutal battle that had left Hope with a ten inch scar running down the length of her right shoulder blade and Penelope with a 3rd degree burn on her upper left thigh. If it hadn’t been for Caroline’s quick thinking with the use of Laracha on the Orges, they wouldn’t have escaped the situation at all.

But those are details better left unsaid because it would only lead to more questions… Questions that Penelope merely can’t afford to answer. 

“Could you teach it to me?” Josie asks snapping Penelope back into the moment. 

“You?” 

“Yes, me.”

“The same girl who turned me into a human torch just a few months ago? Yeah… Don’t think so.” 

“It was an accident.”

“That cost me six inches of hair,” Penelope replies and motions up to her short, messy locks for added effect. 

“You should be thanking me.” Josie inches forward and Penelope’s brain all but short circuits. She openly stares, allowing herself to momentarily get lost within those chocolate brown orbs as Josie ever so gently reaches up and brushes a stray curl off of her cheek. “It’s way sexier this way.”

“Do you…” Penelope shudders as she tries to speak, but her words are nowhere to be found. “Do you want to…”

“Do I want to what?” Josie lets out a warm laugh. She draws her fingers down the side of Penelope’s cheek, lingering for a moment on the edge of her chin before pulling away. Penelope shuts her eyes and exhales. There are thousands upon thousands of ways she could answer that question. Her wants-- especially when it comes to Josie Saltzman-- are seemingly infinite. 

But raw honesty isn’t as simple as it first appears. 

Penelope inhales another deep breath of air. “Let’s try the spell again. I’ve got an idea.”

Josie tilts her head in sudden confusion. “Okay…”

“Here.” Penelope re-positions Josie away from the tree trunk and instead into a nearby clearing. “The spell didn’t work because the tree wasn’t a strong enough source. You need to siphon from something more powerful.”

“Right, but there isn’t anything--”

But before Josie can finish her sentence, Penelope takes hold of her hand and interlocks their fingers together. “There’s me.” 

“What?” Josie’s eyes dart down to their hands and then back up at Penelope. “No. I can’t… What if I hurt you?”

“You’re not going to hurt me, Jojo. Promise.”

Josie gives a small nod in confirmation, never once taking her eyes off of Penelope. She tightens her hold on Penelope’s hand and suddenly--

Penelope gasps. Every nerve in her body instantaneously ignites with a foreign tingling sensation. It grows from a mild annoyance to virtually unbearable within milliseconds. Penelope grits her teeth and fights against the urge to pull her hand away. Pain is unfortunately an all too familiar old friend.

“Ave, et lapis. Elementa fiet unum. Salva me ex nocere.” Penelope vaguely makes out the words as they tumble from Josie’s lips and then--

BAM.

The world goes black.

__________

“Pen… Pen… Please Pen…” 

Penelope rapidly blinks her eyes as the afternoon sunlight all but blinds her. A fresh wave of pain radiates outwards from the back of her skull and suddenly she realizes that she is no longer standing up, but is now laying on the ground instead.

“Fuck Jojo…” Penelope mutters with another hard blink. “Forgot how good you are at making me see stars.”

Two soft hands descend upon Penelope’s cheeks and Penelope can’t help but lean into the touch. God, how she has missed this. 

“You scared me,” Josie says, letting out a wet bark of a laugh. “I… I thought…”

Penelope pushes herself up a bit and gently places her hand over Josie’s, rubbing comforting circles with her thumb as she does. “Hey… It’s okay… I’m okay.”

Josie nods, but Penelope still sees a hint of lingering doubts within her eyes. 

“Jo… I mean it.” Penelope slowly leans in and rests her forehead against Josie’s. “I’m 100% okay.”

Josie closes her eyes, swallows back down the lump of emotions, and nods once again, this time with a deeper conviction. “Okay.”

Penelope matches Josie’s nod. “Good.”

And time seems to suddenly stand still. Penelope breathes in a slow, methodical rhythm, wordlessly nudging Josie to follow her lead. In and out… In and out… Until their bodies move as one. 

“JOSIE!!!!” 

Josie and Penelope instantly fall out of sync as the sound of Lizzie’s voice bellows out from the nearby woods. 

“Shit. She sounds--”

“Unhinged?” Penelope says with a slightly devilish smirk. 

“No. I was going to say upset.” Josie playfully pushes Penelope backwards, breaking their connection. She rises to her feet, dusts herself off, and then extends Penelope her hand. “I should go see what’s going on… You going to be around later?”

“Of course.” Penelope replies. 

“JOSIE!!!!” Lizzie’s voice cuts through the air again, slightly closer than before. Josie glances in the direction of the sound and then back at Penelope with an apologetic look. “I’ll come and find you when I’m done.” 

“I’ll be waiting, Beautiful.” The pet name rolls off of Penelope’s tongue and instantly, she’s struck with a pang of regret. She braces for the inevitable backlash but surprisingly enough is met with a warm smile instead. 

“Okay.” Josie gives Penelope one last nod and then takes off, disappearing into the dense wall of trees.

Penelope watches, waiting until Josie is completely out of sight before letting go of the breath of air she’s been holding onto. “Fuck me.”

[raisingsupergirl]

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

In today's information age, everyone's an expert. Broken dishwasher? Just YouTube it. Wondering who that actor is? IMDB it. Want a DIY chicken coop? Google it. Trying to find an unending stream of #fakenews and fear mongering? Log into Facebook. The problem is, well… we don't always know what the actual problem is. We see the symptoms. We know what we want—the end result—but we're not always sure how to get there. And a quick Google search is all we have the patience for before we jump to conclusions and then blame someone or something else for our failure. Take my recent plunge into fishkeeping, for example.

I've always been an animal lover. I think it's innate in all of us, but not everyone has the right disposition or upbringing to appreciate animal/plant husbandry. As for me, I grew up in the Missouri wilderness surrounded by ponds, cliffs, streams, fields, and forests. Sure, I spent my fair share of time on the Super Nintendo System, but being in the great outdoors was engrained in me from a young age. And more than that, I learned to appreciate the other things out there. I kept just about every animal you could imagine at one time or another (dogs, cats, birds, fish, lizards, frogs, newts, rodents of all varieties, snakes, chickens, geese, goats, a squirrel, a ferret, a raccoon, and even a short-tailed opossum, off the top of my head), and though I was pretty irresponsible with most of them (ignoring for a second that I should have just left them where I found them in nature), I loved nurturing them, and I kept most of them alive. So when my city-girl daughter said she wanted a fish for her fourth birthday, a little piece of my past reignited, and I… may have gone a little overboard.

First, my mom still had the 35-gallon aquarium she bought me for my birthday a couple of decades ago. Back then I just winged it. I didn't have Google. I didn't come from a long line of aquarists. I just filled the thing up with well water, a cheap bag of gravel, a log I found floating in my pond, and the cheapest fish I could find at my local Walmart (yes, Walmart sold fish back then). Of course the tank was full of algae and dead fish in no time, but I kept at it, and eventually I had a few fish that didn't eat each other, but ultimately it wasn't what I knew it could be, so I set the fish "free" in my pond and put a snake in the tank instead.

I used the tank again in college with similar results, only this time I had a filter, did occasional water changes, and had just a few friendly fish, so it was much more successful, though still very "low tech," as they say in the hobby. Since then, I've matured (please hold all sarcasm until the end), and I've learned the value of researching something before attempting it. The change started in physical therapy school when I spent countless hours dissecting and writing scientific papers. It was the literal worst, but it taught me so much about the world. Rather, it taught me how to learn about any particular aspect of the world. You see, in these classes, we weren't allowed to just read the abstract and regurgitate the experimenters' assumptions. We had to read every line, go back and read every line of the sources they cited, and then, once we understood every word, we could start forming our own opinions on the subject. And believe it or not, I rarely found a paper that wasn't skewed toward the writer's desired result in some small way.

So now we get to the heart of things—you don't know what you don't know until you know it. And you won't know it unless you put in the time. We're living in an age of instant gratification. Because there's so much information out there, we only have time to skim. Otherwise we wouldn't have any time to actually live. I recently ran across an inspiration quote by science fiction author Robert Heinlein's character, Lazarus Long:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Sure. Easy for Lazarus to say. As his name suggests, he was over 200 years old and counting at the time of his above quotation (and that's to say nothing of Heinlein's, uh, colorful political and philosophical views). But even still, his words are a nice sentiment, and they resonate with our current zeitgeist. We all want to be experts at everything, but we just don't have the time to do it. So we become Jacks-of-all-trades, and masters of none. And thus, with the dehumanizing help of social media, we get into a lot of stupid fights.

But I digress. Back to my aquarium example. Giving in to my excitement and desire for my daughter to experience thy "joys" of fishkeeping, I reverted to the impulsiveness of my youth. And of the twelve fish I bought those first few months, I killed half of them. Why? Because I didn't take the time to learn about taking a new tank through the nitrogen cycle. I knew nothing of ammonium, nitrite, or nitrate. I didn't know how to promote bacterial colonies in the filter media. And when I decided to add a few live plants to the mix, I didn't know the difference between submersed and submerged, or that PetCo didn't care about selling you "aquatic" plants that would die 100% of the time if completely under water. And that's saying nothing about water pH, alkalinity, fertilizers (NPK, micronutrients, root tabs versus liquid fertilizers, etc), carbon (CO2) availability, substrate differences, etc., etc. I just thought, "these are pretty" with dozens of plants and fish from completely different, delicately balanced ecosystems around the world, and then expected them to flourish when crammed together in the petri dish that was my, er, my daughter's aquarium.

I'll be the first to say that I suck at chemistry. It was the only "C" I received in college. Too many dry facts and things I couldn't visualize. Too much like math. But over the past few months, I've forced myself to dig into the periodic table and the chemical processes of dozens of elements and compounds in order to BEGIN understanding the aquatic world. I'm still so far away from having a solid grasp on the process, but at least I now know what I don't know. And that's a start. And it's a valuable reminder of the ignorance of mankind.

As a physical therapist, it often baffles me when my highly intelligent friends and family don't understand their own bodies. These people are experts in their fields. They're fluent in areas that I'll never even begin to understand. And yet, they can't figure out the simplest causes of their own various aches and pains. And thus, they become easy prey for fad diets, snake oils, and cure-alls. In health and fitness, especially, our connected, opinion-fueled society is playing the willing victim. Like politics and philosophy, we all know there are problems, and we see "experts" offering their solutions constantly, and social media algorithms are feeding into this problem by inundating our news feeds with like-minded (no matter how wrong) individuals. We think, "Hey, everything I see reinforces my ideas, so the must be right!" But really, we're still living in the same high-walled isolation we've always lived in. We just have weapons that can shoot farther now.

So remember, if you haven't spent hundreds of hours researching and forming your opinion, you're probably not right. Maybe you have an idea. It may even be a good idea. But life is complex. It spans millennia of philosophers, scientists, and soldiers. Even if WebMD says you have terminal cancer, you should still probably see an actual MD before you throw in the towel. Because, contrary to Lazarus Long's inspiring sentiment, humanity can still find value in specialization. Life is rich and deep, so take the time to dig.

[beccaraecarter]

In Your Arms- VII

“Are you sure it is ok for me and Yoongi Hyung to come to the center?” Namjoon asked the black-haired girl. Mina looked up from the tablet that was playing a comedy show. She tilted her head in confusion.

“Of course Namjoon Oppa. I want you to see first hand what the Hybrid Scouts do.” She replied easily. Namjoon nodded. He wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling after the discussion in the living room with everyone.

If change was possible for Hybrids, what would that mean for him and Mina? He felt the need to protect the black-haired girl. Even if they were just friends, acquaintances, or even lovers, he would’ve helped out either way. But Mina has changed his perspective on things in life. He may not have grown up the life Mina had, but he knew judgement. He knew what it was like for people to look at you a certain way.

He got it even more when he grew up into adulthood. Girls fawned over him, and his money. He could easily pull on the player look, and make girls fall for him. He had the power to do that since he became a lawyer and followed his father’s footsteps.

That changed when he met Mina that night.

“Mina?” He asked out to the girl that was moving her things around in the bedroom. Her ears twitched in the cutest way, and she turned her head to face him. “Yeah Namjoon Oppa? What is it?” She replied.

“Why were you there at the hotel? When we first met?” Namjoon found himself asking.

Mina stared at him. Then he watches her turn away from him. He felt that he shouldn't have asked that, and was about to tell her never mind, when she spoke up.

“I wanted to finally meet you.” She said after a minute of silence. Namjoon watched her movements, completely engrossed with her answer. He wanted to know more. Wanted to protect her with all his might. He never felt this way about anyone in such a short amount of time. How a person could feel this way, he had no idea. All he knew he wanted to do was learn about Mina, his Half Breed love.

“I first saw you only that day when we met. I was near the hotel enjoying a night walk when I saw you walking with that female. Immediately, my instincts were telling me that there is something about you that is good. Different. Safe. I knew my human side wanted nothing more than to go home and cuddle Jiminie like I always do. I wanted to run away because I was hesitant around humans, especially men. But I went with my instinct, and followed you. I found what room you stayed in, and I decided to just hang out on the balcony of the room. I managed to stay hidden during most of the night but I accidentally brush my hand against the bushes. I decided to act like I didn’t care when you approached me,but when you spoke….” She stopped explaining her side of that night and looked at him.

Namjoon had a feeling that he had an affect on her that night, but that was his player side talking. That side didn’t exist anymore, since he met her and he wanted to remain loyal to her. He remembered the four months that had his mind filled with thoughts of her. Namjoon couldn’t stop thinking about her, and even when he is looking at her at this moment…

He believes that maybe they are soulmates. Compatible for each other. Balance each other out. The Yin and Yang of each others personalities. Both so different yet so alike in many ways.

“I fell in love with your voice.” She whispered out loud. Namjoon knows that Mina feels the same way, but the fact that they knew even before knowing each other real well.

Maybe the universe is crazy to think that Namjoon and Mina belong together. Maybe Namjoon would’ve continued his insane life style with the player image. Maybe he never would’ve met Mina if she had decided to go against her feelings. If Namjoon was being honest with himself, he knows that Mina changed him. He no longer acted like an arrogant lawyer towards others. Instead he has treated others with nothing but the utmost respect. Namjoon cleaned up his act, and stopped going out with different women every night.

It’s funny how fate works. Once you meet that special someone, everything about life doesn’t matter anymore. You want to spend more and more time with them, because they make you feel good. That is how Namjoon feels when he’s with Mina.

He knows she feels the same. Hell, Namjoon remembers the looks she gave him before they got really close. Namjoon knew she needed to trust him, and eventually she did. If anything, Namjoon would do whatever it takes to make sure she is safe and happy.

Always.

~

The Hybrid Scouts center wasn’t a small office like Namjoon kind of expect it to be. It was a full warehouse that runs on helping Hybrids get back on their feet.

“When you said center, you meant it.” Namjoon hears Yoongi say to Seokjin.

Seokjin smiles proudly at what his Hyung said. “Thank you Yoongi-ah, that is considerate of you. I’ll give the grand tour myself.” Seokjin smiled.

Namjoon felt that he had to gain a lot of trust if he was going to be working for Hybrid rights. He looks all around the center and sees the little things that are happening. Many Hybrids of all shapes and sizes were walking around. Lots of people were doing so many different things it was hard to keep up with whatever was going on around him.

“So let me explain our basics: We learn information, we rescue, we protect. It’s what keeps most of us going to find Hybrids that are trapped and being abused. Our common cases are Hybrids that are taken and sold into doing hard labor for filthy rich people. Others are for drugs and prostitution. We never know what can come up in a city as busy as Seoul.” Seokjin explains as the trio made their way further into the building.

“How many Hybrids are being taken and  being…. Sold?” Yoongi asks the elder.

“.... Almost 20-30 Hybrids are taken and sold into harsh environments. Which is why we have people that go in and infiltrate with the system. They get information, they spy, they makes deals, lie…. The end goal is to rescue the Hybrid and get them somewhere safe.”

Seokjin says, while stopping pointing out towards an area where Namjoon sees people working out and dealing with weapons.

“Can’t the police do anything?” Namjoon asked Seokjin. The elder only shook his head. “We’ve tried. The Police won’t do anything for it. Some of it’s system is corrupt and I think it’s the damn Chief of Police, but who knows.” Seokjin responded.

“So is that what Hoseok-ssi does?” Yoongi asks. Seokjin nodded his head. “He is a team leader. He knows how to fight, deal with weapons, has basic police training, but dealing with Hybrids. He also knows how to hack systems and charge bombs for infiltrating buildings that have Hybrids in them. The entire squad has this type of training. They are are highly trained for anything, and they are passionate about rescuing Hybrids. That’s why we have made over 500 rescues in the past two years.” Seokjin said.

“You’ve got to be kidding! That is amazing.” Namjoon responded to that. He feels that he might not want to get on Hoseok’s bad side now.

“Yes it is pretty amazing. They do a good job everyday. Come I’ll show you our medics hall.” Seokjin said while leading the two star-gazed man into the said medic hall.

Namjoon looks at all the people that are wearing scrubs, similar to what doctors and nurses wear. “Why a medics hall?” Yoongi asked, as he watched the nurses take care of a patient.

“Hybrids that get rescued go through a lot of physical abuse, sometimes sexual abuse. They need to be checked out physically so that they can heal properly. It can go from scratches and cuts to concussions and surgeries.” Seokjin explained.

“That is awful. How come they get treated so late?” Namjoon asked. “Either weeks or months of abuse that is left on the Hybrid. And the Hybrids can’t do anything to help themselves.” Seokjin answered sadly. Namjoon wondered if this is what Mina and Jimin went through.

“Why to they take it? Shouldn’t they know they can fend for themselves?” Yoongi asked. “Hybrids are too intimidated to stand up for themselves. Believe it or not, Hybrids are easily scared. Most common breeds are dog and cat Hybrids. Hybrids with different DNA might react differently, but it’s not common. Take Mina and Jimin for example. Mina can get scared, but she also doesn’t take shit from people hurting her. She tends to hide her fears a lot. But with Jimin, he gets scared. Especially with the abuse he went through. Notice how Mina stood in front of Jimin when Yoongi-ssi first tried to fight them.” Seokjin laughed a little.

“Ok ok, I made a mistake and I apologized for it.” Yoongi retorted, with a pout hanging on his lips. Namjoon smiled at the banter. The three continued on with the tour, Seokjin showing them different parts of the building when something caught Namjoons attention.

“Seokjin Hyung, what are those rooms over there?” Namjoon pointed towards a set of room with steel doors. All of them have signs on them either saying ‘occupied’ or ‘empty.’

“Oh….. those are special rooms for all Hybrids..” Seokjin trailed off.

Namjoon didn’t quite understand what Seokjin was trying to say, but before he could asked again, Yoongi beat him to it.

“What do you mean Seokjin Hyung?” Yoongi asked, curiosity dripped from his voice.

“It is kind of hard to explain but…. I’ll try to explain it best I can,” Seokjin took a deep breath and asked the two, “Do you know what heats are?”

Namjoon shook his head as well as Yoongi did.

“Ok, well. It has to do with sex. Most Hybrids go through it every couple of months, but it’s….. Intense. Most last for two to three days, with help from someone.” Seokjin summed it up for the shocked men.

“So…. A heat is when a Hybrid desires sex?” Yoongi asked. “Yes pretty much. Which is why we have those rooms. Hybrids have incredible sense of smell, and if one goes through a heat, and other are nearby to smell it, it can trigger another heat. Those doors, you can’t enter unless it’s an employee with permission.” Seokjin answered.

Namjoon had no idea something like that existed. Did Mina ever go through something like that?

“I can see this whole topic has you both a bit confused. I can get you two some pamphlets and articles that we have to better explain the subject.” Seokjin suggested.

“That would be helpful, thank you Seokjin Hyung.” Namjoon said. Seokjin nodded his head.

“Come, there’s more to the center.”

~

Namjoon felt ten times smarter about Hybrids after the tour at the center. He just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Hybrid go through a heat of some sort.

At first, he thought it was interesting. Both Hybrids and Half-Breeds go through that phenomenal experience.

But they go through it for more than a half an hour.

At most, three days. That sounded insane. How would he have enough energy to help out Mina if she ever went through one.

Namjoon had no idea how to approach the situation either. He could either mention it and not catch that he said it, or he could flat out ask her the second he sees her.

Namjoon groaned as he ran a hand through his hair. The bed was bringing him some sort of comfort when it came to thinking all by himself.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the Hybrids that go through heats. Of course he had the little booklets Seokjin gave him from the tour of the center. He hadn’t bothered looking up more information about it, he was kind of…

Stuck.

“Everything ok Joonie Oppa?” He hears Minas voice enter the room. He gets up from laying down and sees the brown haired Half Breed. He really couldn’t help what comes out of his mouth next.

“How long have you been experiencing heats?” He asks. Mina’s eyes go wide, and Namjoon wanted her to slap him. He mentally scolded himself for not thinking straight.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask that, you have every right not to answer..” Namjoon trails off.

He didn’t want to face her, so he looked away. He couldn’t help this feeling of dread that washed over him.

“Oh Namjoon, you don’t need to apologize for asking. To be honest, I was going to bring that up, but I guess Seokjin Oppa beat me to it.” Mina says. He feels the mattress go down a little, and then soft fingers were touching his shoulders.

“How does it work? This whole thing with your bodies?” Namjoon asked, finally turning and looking at Mina.

She smiled, and sighed. “It’s… a long process for us. We go through it a couple months, mainly female Hybrids, but male Hybrids can go through it too sometimes. It is mainly the body that makes itself ready for carrying a baby.” She explains.

“What?” Namjoon’s eyes widen, as he almost faints. “Woah, Namjoon Oppa it’s ok… most of the time it doesn’t happen. Especially if partners are using protection. There’s even better protection for helping Hybrids get through a heat without getting pregnant..” Mina says.

Namjoon sees the worried look on Mina’s face. He doesn’t want to think it’s normal for someone to desire so much sex. Sure, he has gotten desperate, however…

He can’t imagine it going on for days..   

“Does last for a couple days?” Namjoon asks.

“Some Purebred Hybrids go through that painful process. Luckily for Half Breeds, it’s less than. Only for a few hours, and then it’s over.” Mina explained.

“I guess that making things easier to understand. I guess it just sounds so exhausting for you guys to go through such intense pains.” He responded.

Namjoon sees Mina smile. “Well I’m glad I cleared up some things for you. Besides, I felt that we should have this talk if… this relationship was going to continue..” Mina said, voice getting shyer.

Namjoon only smiles back. He guesses this was a good thing. He figures the whole situation might be a little bit chaotic, but as long as he’s got Mina, there is nothing that he can’t handle.

~By: Becca<3

[fweeble]

Episode 7: The Rich Boy

So if my predictions are on track, everyone will want a friend available to hold their hand this episode, but especially next episode. This is your early warning detection system Fwee working just for you. Pick a calming friend.

*hysterical laughter* THE MUSIC. Shorter, my love, please. I die without oxygen.

Ibe popping out at the last second to take this snapshot is the cutest thing. Weh.

Shorter, no. Are you taking pictures of her. That’s rude. Also, what’s with this bizarrely off-model hands-and-arms action going on, Mappa???

That poor lady.

Please have some pity, Ash. He was in a very emotionally taxing custody battle over his son and now you are all heading to his ex-wife’s. And Jessica is to be feared and respected.

I’m awful and I’m laughing so hard at the fact that Max nearly hurling is what causes the car to careen away from the lady. Good job, Max. Stop Shorter from being skeevy.

*cries* Eiji and Ibe are so cute in this. My heart.

Holy shit, Jessica, your house is gorgeous. I want to live in a house like that. And in the LA area. 

Y’all are heartless. Poor Max. At least offer him a bottle of water. His poor nerves.

*screams* IT’S MICHAAAAAAEL.

My heart. Max’s happy face at seeing his son. Q vQ <3

THIS IS EXACTLY MY FEELINGS.

JESSICA PLEASE. GUNS ARE DANGEROUS AND YOUR SON IS NEAR YOUR TARGET.

Just gonna casually slide these panels in:

Truth in television: most child abductions are by family members (particularly parents if they are separated).

I’d hide behind the car too. Look more worried, Ash.

*cackles at Max’s face*

*even louder cackling*

I love Jessica.

Fair enough.

Max’s adopted kid and his biological kid: side by side.

They tactfully left this conversation out. = u= Poor Michael.

My heart. You’re such a good child, Michael.

ASH. WHY. LOOK AT IBE AND SHORTER’S FACES. 

Have I mentioned how much I love Jessica.

The phone book interruption is marginally better than asking for mustard. @ v@

Oh, Ash. My heart. Why the lighthearted music, this is actually super painful

*clutches chest* This is super rude. Q AQ

Apparently they don’t discuss Abraham with Jessica, huh.

Max, Jessica’s gonna knee you in sensitive bits if you keep that up.

*cries*

Usually I’d be blowing kisses at Mappa, but all I can think about is I want this house, I could have some dogs run free in the front yard.

Shorter, why do you walk like this. You’re gonna kill your back. 

*cries over their protective stances* Sweet children.

*high pitched distressed noises*

I always forget this line. Personally, I never found them very similar. Looks or otherwise.

*screams* STAY HIDDEN ALEXIS, STAY HIDDEEEEN.

They also totally cut out an additional scene in NY with Charlie and Jenkins.

I really love how they don’t bring up Ibe or Eiji, since they both, without a doubt, know that they’re in violation of their visas. Q uQ You’re good people, Charlie, Jenkins.

I LOVE JENKINS SHOWING OFF HIS DETECTIVE SKILLS. Q vQ <3

SHORTER WHY MUST YOU STAND AND WALK LIKE A YANKEE STRAIGHT OUTTA SOME 80′S MANGA. YOU’LL HAVE BACK PROBLEMS BEFORE YOU’RE 30.

*cries* I really do have a type when it comes to favorite characters. Yankees.

Eiji is so impressed. I miss the scene where Ibe and Max are the ones astounded. Good ol’ 80′s.

Criminal geniuses, Max please. Eiji isn’t one.

*cries over how much Ash trusts Shorter* I love these two so much.

GOOD INSTINCT!!!

VERY GOOD OBSERVATION, ASH!!! That’s why you’re the boss.

...of your own gang.

BULLSHIT. I’m clumsy as fuck. I’m like a bull in a china shop. *cries* I will never be called twinkle toes unless it’s an insult.

Bless you, Shorter, for being an inelegant asshole as well. 

Nooooooooooooooo. They cut so much ooooout. But, fair enough. More time for better things later!!!! (Please keep in my two favorite scenes, please!!!)

He had to meet some friends. *emotional*

I LOVE THIS SCENE SO MUCH. Sassy asshole Ash is always my favorite Ash. u vu <3 <3 <3

Eiji is basically Daphne. He finds all the good clues.

Which makes Ash Velma, since he puts those clues to good use. u vu

AWW LOOK AT THESE TWO. They’re gonna develop their own high five. Please give me a scene where Eiji and ash also have their own secret thing. Maybe a handshake that involves hip-checking. Please. 

Look at a certain someone about to spontaneously combust with envy. That’s totally the face of envy and not... outright confusion.

Holy shit, Prof Dawson. Still using XP! 

Nope. It truly isn’t. 

*whispers* Essentially, Nanner Fish is primarily shrooms and LSD.

Prof Dawson, who keeps notes like this. Please revise your notes. At least add commas. And work on formatting. 

*blows kisses at Mappa* Marry me.

This answers my giant question I’ve wondered about for years. Hong Kong, huh. No wonder they spell their last name with Lee. I’ve always wondered why a clan part of the Chinese mafia would use Lee instead of Li.

Hong Kong is one of the few places (besides Taiwan and Macau, I think?) that uses that variation. (ANWAYS, back to the Nanner Fish anime...)

Shorter. Please. Your back. Just take the phone from him, look at it, and return it.

Oh, my heart.

THIS IS NEW AND SO FUCKING RUDE. EXCUSE YOU. *crying* Shorter without his sunglasses. I’m crying. Nadiaaaaa.

*ugly bawling*

FUCK.

*screaming*

*uncontrollable sobbing*

Sonny... Q AQ

Fuck you.

TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF HIM.

(Don’t look at me. I’m fucking. Nooooo.) 

Ooooh, I like this change. Instead of switching between Max-and-Ibe and Max-and-Ash, it just starts with Ash and Max working on the Nanner Fish research together. Nice.

Ooooh, is this a callback to the vivisection password?

*noises* Griff.

*whispers* Papa Max. I don’t care what anyone says. I like to believe that Max guilt-adopted Ash as a son in his heart. He meant to think of Ash as a baby brother, but paternal instincts are strong.

Listen to Max, Ash. Please.

*distressed dying manatee noises*

*loud wounded hippo noises* Just leave me to die.

My heart... *lies drowning in endless sea of salt and tears*

They’re really trying to make him so much more sympathetic in the anime. He was a lot more aggressive and confrontational in the manga. A sample:

*cries* Max...

I tried so hard to get a nice picture, but it was panning so quickly every one of my gyazo shots were blurry. God. How much did this kill Shorter?

CMSKDLFJOIEWJFLDSKF. FUCK YOU.

*HIGH PITCHED SCREAMING* YOU ARE TOO GOOD, TOO PURE AND THE LEE CLAN TOO CORRUPT AND CRUEL. 

SHORTEEEER.

FUCK YOU WITH THE LARGEST BASEBALL BAT WITH THE RUSTIEST LARGE NAILS HAMMERED INTO IT. HOW DARE YOU MAKE IT A RACE THING. ESPECIALLY IN THE 10′S. FUCK YOU.

CMLKSDMFLSDF. YUT-LUNG. FUCK. *cries over the opening* 

MAPPA YOU ARE SO UNBEARABLY RUDE.

Please. Just kill me now.

*cries* I’ve always loved this lovely mood whiplash exchange. I prefer the manga version of it, though. It’s more... slapstick?

Poor Sonny. Q nQ

Why would they put the mark there. That’s not easy to conceal. 

I think they should’ve stuck with the bracelet. Yeah, someone could steal it, but still a lot more subtle than a huge black dragon tatt on Yut-Lung’s neck.

Yup. *sigh* Sadly...

*whispers* And this is why, no matter what people say later on, why I will always hold a grudge against Yut-Lung. Shorter...

Consider this: No. Fuck you.

Oh, my heart. Since Shorter made the comment that Yut-Lung looks like Eiji... I wonder if this is why he makes that comment. Because... Because...

You’re a kid too, Shorter...

*whispers* This is important.

*continues to stage whisper* Also important.

I love the effort Mappa put into all the details. The strangely Chinese-esque artwork hanging on the wall considering this is Alexis Dawson’s house and he’s not connected to the Lee Clan.

Good job, Ibe!!!

Especially since the anime doesn’t bring up your visa status.

m so glad Ibe doesn’t have to fully entertain the notion that he might just have to kidnap Eiji (and how he’ll have to do it). Bless Ash for volunteering earlier.

Poor Ibe. Eiji, you’re gonna make him age 30 years in 3 months.

Also, bonus Max being hot-headed and totally not reading between the lines.

*cries* That’s not true, Eiji! You helped solve the computer’s password! ...In the manga...

YEAH. AND THAT. I totally didn’t forget. *sweats*

*strangled noises* Ash...

What about Shorter. Q AQ

Excuse me as I curl in the fetal position, crying about letters and mountains and leopards and how everything about this is so much more painful in hindsight. 

Eiji... I just... *aggressive hands* All these feelings and nothing I can do about anything.

On one hand: I like the art direction taken.

On the other: Why you gotta be like this, Yut-Lung?

*whispers* They left this out. Truly toning down Ash’s tsuntsun nature.

Every time I read these panels, all I can think of is Shorter internally screaming for Ibe and Eiji to get away. To fly to Japan and never come back. 

If y’all have your friends on hand like I suggested... lucky you.

@freykugel​...

Because I’m in pain...

I love how Max has a higher EQ* than he does in the manga. He truly misses a lot of emotional cues that he doesn’t in the anime.

I miss Max rubbing it in, though. Manga Ash was a lot more emotional and hot-headed. Until...

...

*really fucking loud crying about epilogues*

I really appreciate how much emphasis is put on Max’s guilty conscious in the anime. My heart. 

Cmkalsfsadfljkasfd. NO. Yut-Lung. Just. No. NOPE.

I’m sad they cut out my son’s snark, though.

Rebel! Rebel in every tiny way possible, Shorter! No matter what happens, what anyone says, I know you tried. And I’m so proud of you.

There’s a very valid reason why...

Cmkalsdmflasfd. I just want to see his eyes. I want to see Shorter’s face after he’s been order to commit another betrayal.

God dammit, why do you have to live a billion miles away. I seriously need someone who knows what’s about to happen to be close enough to hold my damn hand already. *weeps*

FUCK YOOOOOOOU.

CMSDKLFMLSDF. FUCK YOU SO MUCH, YUT-LUUUUUUNG.

HOLDING NADIA HOSTAGE.

Oh god. Seeing Shorter’s eyes doesn’t make this better. Cmklsamfdlsafd.

Ohmg, yes!!! They kept this bit in!!!

(How dare Mappa add this expression. How dare they try to make me sympathize with Yut-Lung any more than the manga already tries. How dare.)

This is so much worse than I ever thought it could be.

Shorter.

WHY DO YOU LOOK SURPRISED. WHY.

*strangled sobbing* I wonder if this is a reason why... Yut-Lung obsesses so much... about... 

*intense feelings about Yut-Lung and his feelings towards himself and his family*

Why add this totally unneccessary scene about Yut-Lung noticing Shorter’s tears, Mappa you bastard. *cries*

The same scene in the manga because I’m emotional and I’m totally not biased for Shorter and hoping people don’t start dumping my boy in the trash... Honestly...

(I live in constant fear...)

THIS IS SO CRUEL. 

I’m so torn between: EEE! Michael with his surprise present (that didn’t show up in the manga! Since there wasn’t an excuse of “It’s Michael’s birthday”). Cutest child to ever cute.

But also: Fuuuuuuuck. I was secretly hoping they’d get off scott-free since Jessica doesn’t know anything about them heading to check out Dawson’s house. Whyyyyyyy.

Why you gotta be so observant, Jessica. Q vQ

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Nonono. No. NOOOOO. 

I said NO.

SOMEONE SAVE THEM.

Lay me to rest. Play If I Die Young at the funeral and send me off like like Going Merry. I’m done.

I’m not quite sure how they’re handling the pacing, especially since it seems like my projections are a little off. Still so worried how they’re gonna fit 19 volumes in 24 episodes... especially since it looks like The Episode I Fear the Most won’t be happening next episode like I originally estimated but episode 9 instead...

*Emotional Quotient: google it if you’re curious

<<Episode 6                                     Masterlist                                    Episode 8>>

[libvrtines]

                          hewwo  i’m  felix  ( 20 ,  he / him , gmt )  and  i  just  realised  my  fc  has  no  mf  resources  that  aren’ t from  him  as  a  fetus  and  will  therefore  b  spendin  approximately  all  my  free  hrs  cranking  out  gif  icons  ,  so  lets  get  it  *  pained  laughter  *  !  this  is  my  boy..  except  he’s  not  my  boy  and  i  take  no  credit  for  who  he  is  as  a  person  because  he’s  the  personification  of  a  flaming  dumpster  fire  ,  xu  yuxian  .  his  pinterest  board  is  here  ,  i don’t  have  a  full  amazing  wc  page  but  i  do  have  some  wc’s  beneath..  so  if  u  jus  wanna  stick  around  for  that  i  won’t  blame  u  bc  otherwise  this  is  just  a  Wreck .   (    i  literally  just  had  to  search  up  my  muses  name  bcs  i  forgot  it  but  i  know  he’s  a  scorpio at  least  so  if  that  is  any  indication  of  how  this  is  gonna  be  then  yeah .  this  is  gonna  be  the  Worst   ) .  drop  a  heart  if  you  would  like  to  plot  ,  or  just  add  me  up  on  d*scord  no anime pls im christian#1950  for  quicker  messages  !  TW  :  mentions  of  drugs  ,  violence  ,  death ,  blood  , manipulation  . 

scanning XU YUXIAN, they are TWENTY FOUR year old and read as CUNNING but DECEITFUL, which explains why they are referred to as the VARMINT. before virtual reality HE was IMPRISONED FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF DRUGS and living in QUINGDAO, CHINA. they’ve been said to look incredibly similar to HUANG ZITAO, but they’ve never seen it. in this new virtual world, they plan on DOING ALL OF THE CRAZY SHIT HE'S ALWAYS WANTED TO and hope to NEVER GO BACK to reality. 

*    BACKGROUND    !

tl ; dr . “ the best way to solve a problem is just to eliminate it . " in thick accented mandarin. the roar of a bike kicked to life with exhaust pouring out of the tailpipe and the low graveled hum as it idles way past midnight. charcoal ashes and heavy-lidded eyes. teeth stained red from marlboro's and split, bloody lips. baseball bats through car windows, the scrape of a bic as it lights. the smell of cigarettes burned deep into veins. the drag of a knife light across a throat. knuckles blooming purple pressed into nose bridges, a smile with a pair of pliers knocking against porcelain teeth. THIS vine. 

so as formerly stated this is yuxian, the worser half of the xu siblings. disruptive and dangerously reactive to any sort of aggression, he's adapted to a reality reliant on violence and force over patience and rationale. he's an overall shitty guy, with some even shittier habits. street smart and instinctive, his world works in harsh turns and bared knuckled fists. 

dropped out of high-school.. was one of those ‘lunch is my fav class’ kids except he got dragged 2 school by the ear when he was younger and then people just. stopped giving a fuck  ! 

so he did what most boys do in big towns with no proper parental guidance: raised a little hell, drank a lot of alcohol when his liver was barely formed, fixed bikes and engines, and beat up a few rich kids who looked @ him the wrong way. speaks like every mf villain in an anime ever. over-enunciates vowels and suffocates his consonants. acts like the stray he p much is w parents as shitty as his. 

the xu family had earned themselves a nasty reputation in the community they lived in. they're tough, they're intimidating. they do things their way. xu’s speak with their fists and their knives and their brass knuckles and their bats, not known for thinking out their actions before acting out. violent. horrible. the worst People™. 

yuxian’s parents owned and operated a dim-lit, greasy restaurant in the heart of their community, once used to deepen the family's pockets as they sold some choice off-menu items, they were offered a deal by a rich family that bought up their block when yuxian was around 15, selling their enhanced drugs imported from europe behind the grime-coated counter. yuxian saw the $$$ and didn’t think abt how risky it would b, or that they’d be the ones caught red handed if they were ever raided. being able to label himself as a drug dealer just made his reputation in the community go up.. and he was livin la vida loca 

along with working as a drug-runner, he liked to fancy himself as something of a debt collector, making sure to "follow up" with anyone who hopes to evade payment to the family. weapons of choice include a baseball bat to the kneecaps and automatic knives. has he actually hurt anybody ?? absolutely Not. he a puthy ass bitch... but don’t say that to his face unless u wanna end up like that ‘what are u gonna do? stab me? guy who then.. got stabbed 

basically yuxian will do whatever it takes to get what he wants and to survive. he never considers himself a bad guy; he considers herself bold where others find him brash. he thinks that he's tough where he's really just a brute. he's never a bully, it's never unjustified, but if he ever is he doesn’t think much of it bc he’s never gonna change , ygm ?? 

he ended up in prison when he started selling drugs to the rich family’s only son, who lbr, became quite a decent friend to yuxian. the son in question had a bad side - effect to the dodgy drugs they were dealing and died of cardiovascular complications. worst thing is that the last memory xian has of the world before virtual reality is waiting for his parents or siblings to come visit him at but being stood up. next thing he knows he’s in a world where his freedom hasn’t been taken from him and he can. he’s Extremely Bitter, and very Chaotic, my guys. so watch out

*    PERSONALITY   !

honestly and truly, at the end of the day, yuxian is not a good friend to have. xian is not friendly. he will never say the thing you want to hear as opposed to how he is feeling, he'll never sugarcoat anything, he'll never be a listening ear. encouragement and support don't exist here. he is fickle and fair-weathered and will use and use and use until there's nothing left to give. 

self-serving and self-invested to his core, he cares so little it's essentially nonexistent for anyone other than himself. not even his family, given the circumstances. he is opinionated and reactive. volatile. if someone is looking for an influence in their life that will give no fucks and encourage even the smallest whispers of an impulse, yuxian is The One™. 

every bad influence every mother's warned about, everything you know you should say no to: that's her. he has nothing to lose and lives his life accordingly. those in his periphery, he encourages to do the same. respect and admiration are not easily earned. he needs to be impressed. the grander the debauchery, the more points earned. but of course, don't try too hard.. bc that’s corny and he can sniff someone simply trying to impress from a mile away. 

still, to those that he's aligned himself with and chosen to befriend – xian can be loyal the way a snake is to a pack. his trigger-haired temper and baseline defensiveness makes him a good rabid junkyard dog to have in any corner. loyalty is mostly reserved for those who benefit him or to those who serve his best interest – contrary to popular belief, he's not entirely stupid. but definitely has been called a bimbo a minimum of five times in his life. 

simply put, he's a thug. his family has terrorised residents and he hasn't fallen too far from the tree, reaping the benefits of everyone's worst expectations. he's vindictive, manipulative, short-tempered and callous. he'll go to extreme lengths – which often include coercion via intimidation or violence – to get what he wants. he has little regard for other peoples' safety, well-being, or feelings. he lives to ruin lives; not in that fuckboy-esque i'm-going-to-steal-your-gf-and-ruin-your-social-life kind of petty bullshit. he IS a fuckboy but that’s besides the point.. 

every action is based on gut-impulse, acting purely out of unfettered emotion without thinking of what the consequences might be down the line. just pls hate him bc he really deserves it. 

speaking of Love.. with a reputation that followed him from a few years into high school for being tht guy who makes u feel good abt urself then leaves u on read, he's learned to embrace it and accept that people think he just can’t commit. xian is not good in relationships, he doesn't quite know how to show affection in a healthy way. he gets possessive and jealous and easily poisons everything from the inside while trying to sort out the subconscious overbearing fear of this person realising how shit he is or actually realising they’re worth more than his half-assed attempts at affection. so instead he keeps it at an arm's distance before it gets that far. 

*    WANTED CONNECTIONS   !

bad influence ( somebody he is corrupting essentially ) friends who like to crash parties / slum around bars  perhaps people who he knows from before and were aware of his ugly reputation ?? idk this is gonna be an area only open to a few but if they ever lived nearby or in the city where he did then it’s a possibility  ! friends who like to smoke weed behind dumpsters people who he can con  someone who tries to see the good in him but beneath the dirt there’s just more Dirt enemies / frenemies violent low-lives who he can connect 2 on an emotional and physical level fwb / one-night stands / some sort of violent dislike in personality which in turn results in sexual tension  ?

[neophix]

Elsword PvP Stereotypes: 2nd Edition

Alright. It’s been a year and a half. Let’s do this again, sure.

Unlike last time, where people salting at me during the match contributed to a large portion of the character stereotype, I only have their gameplay to work off of this season. Mostly. Rage whispers have gone down significantly which honestly is a change that's good for everyone. {Nod nod.}

{Additional commentary by @demos-cloud​ will be in braces}, and my responses to her commentary will be italicized, since I’ve ah. Ranted to her about a lot of these before, and asked her to help proofread.

Elsword: Bullheaded, stubborn, and does not think very far ahead.

This is mostly thanks to the amount that they've built up Elsword's defensive options lately. The changes to Autoguard mean that Knight Emperor doesn't really have to worry even if he gets caught (I've had more games turned around thanks to that than I care to admit). Infinity Stoic is still a thing, not in the least helped by the large number of quick, stoic approaches and normals he has. Melee Elsword gameplay basically rewards LEEROY JENKINS. Rune Masters are surprisingly rare.

Aisha: Still Bullies.

This has always been the case. Though lately I've come to the realization that Aisha, and Void Princess' line in particular, usually stays out of PvP unless she has access to something dangerously close to hacking. Meditate+Trans slot cooldown drops are always popular, but Oz Sorcerer lives and dies depending on whether she can pretend-hack or not (looking at you, Angkor Millions and Shadow Body). Metamorphy's population likewise dropped drastically as soon as they nerfed the stoic on her >>X(Z). {Her damage output was also hit hard by the Impact Zone nerf in PvE.}

Rena: Slime.

There's been a lot of complaining about the changes to the NF system, though honestly it's probably better for PvP-health in the long term. Now, instead of basically being guaranteed to eat 3 cancelled Violent Attacks to the face in the middle of every single combo, you probably only have to worry about it happening once or twice per game. They're still really slippery, thanks in large part to physics bending over backwards around her and >>Z being so fast, though their PvP numbers have taken a drastic drop since the nerf.

Raven:

Basically only the oldest Raven mains are left, a corps of elite veterans who know their character and yours inside and- oh and I guess you have the bandwagon RH horde. {Man the bias is practically dripping out of your mouth here Ketsu.} The majority of my Raven matches are against players who I recognize on sight, though. The canon Raven has certainly been getting spoiled, comparatively speaking, though the fact that KoG nerfed M.Maximum Drive almost immediately is a good sign. RH is still probably the most consequence-free Raven at the moment; he doesn't really have to worry about taking combos because it's extremely likely he'll be able to mash a Spread out and revenge-catch you if there's even the tiniest delay or mistake.

{PvE is full of old, rich, Ravens as well. BMs/FBs especially are the oldest and most funded. Yeah they know their class in and out, but they’re also not above shelling out $200 to +11 that glorious Void weapon. VCs are dead.}

Eve: Nasod Bitch. Runs on money. {はい、はい。}

Eve on the whole is very confrontation-adverse, and all three of her classes avoid direct combat. Good thing for her, too; aside from the Exotic line Eve's combo game is so poor she can barely hold anyone in place on her own. All three Eves have very strong utilities kits which are supposed to come with a weak damage-per-hit ratio, but Eve players are already very strongly conditioned to spoil her rotten. Nobody's ever been accused of spending too little on her, after all. Codes 4v1 and Sariel both just dunk on melee-centric characters, and Ultimate has enough unsafe-cancels and core synergy that you'll be spending more time eating lasers than spears. {Like I’ve been saying for the past four years, Eve’s Core Release system was built for CN. Of course she has the best Core synergy out of all Eves.} Illusion Thorns' debuff field really should not trigger core. Raven's lingering skill effects (grenade fires and smoke clouds) have NEVER triggered his core, and those at least deal damage, but I guess even KoG isn't tired of spoiling Eve just yet. {Maybe it’s because Illusion Thorns’ debuff area only lasts a measly two seconds compared to Raven’s lingering AoEs (dead laugh).} Raven’s lingering AoEs also only last for a couple seconds, too, though. {oh.}

Chung: HERE I GO. {HERE I GO!!}

Hoo boy. Okay. After the absolute Chung dominance in the 1v1 tournament, there's been a significant rise in Chung PvP populations. Sure, Base Chung has Heavy Stance to mitigate being slow and getting caught, but these three basically never have to deal with such puny things as "consequences" and Heavy Stance itself has actually been vanishingly rare. {DC really should not have so many Heavy Stance/stoic opportunities, given that his whole backstory is based around being faster and thus, being less defensive. IP’s ridiculously high attack speed is abnormal and needs to die. Even back in S1 it was a pain to deal with…} Back Blast and Reload are core skills not because of utility or reload, but because they're such hard to deal with panic buttons when strung together. Cannonball management is a total farce. Super spoiled, getting amazing tools and mod skills with each update. A few significant differences between them:

Comet: Basically indestructible. Will not die. A rocket powered turtle who can strike you from anywhere in the map and always has an advantageous position. The new goddess of PvP, stripping Yama Raja of the title. You could just tell that a couple of the tournament finalists were screwing around and winning anyway, and that flagrant disregard for consequences has been adopted by the bandwagoners. {I feel like having one of the IP semifinalists intentionally handicap himself of the class’ best skills, fool around, and still manage a strong victory.. Really says a lot about the class’ current standing.}

Phantom: Homing Ruthless attacks for days. Mod Shooting Star caused a lot of passive ruthless to get stripped, but I guess there was enough of a Chung tantrum that they got it back on base Shooting Star AND in M.Burning Punisher. Could probably win a game blindfolded thanks to all the high-damage homing at his disposal. A non-berserk awakening is so rare you honestly think it's a glitch. {Remember when it was only like a 25% activation chance. lmao.}

Centurret: After a long and arduous process of moderately intelligent cockroaches bashing on keyboards tested every possible configuration, tactics have been finely reduced to "if your dog craps on enough lawns, someone is going to step in it." Instant-hit Grav Shots are far more than any character deserves, especially when they have practically no vertical limit, and whoever approved of this as an Siege mode option should be spaghettified.

Ara:

Lately, the number of Aras who fully depend on the X or ^X loop has gone down. Devi is still incredibly oppressive, able to basically slam their face on the skill bar whenever they're in trouble to turn it around with any one of their many, many incredible utility actives (with skill storage). Shakti populations have been on the rise in comparison, though as a Shakti main myself I can't really comment on any other trends without being... more biased than usual. {Dead in PvE, though very willing to shell out money. More-so than other Ara classes, I find (even Devis, yes!)} Apsaras generally rely way too much on Kite or Suppression and barely have two brain cells to rub together, having godawful combo maintenance outside of the aforementioned X loop, despite Ara's strong kit. {They changed how ZZXX works how else am I supposed to do fancy combos nowwwww} It feels like if they did have any more to work with they would've job changed to Devi by now.

Elesis:

Population is in decline, but still powerful. Empire Sword still has some of the most safe combo maintenance in the game, and it's exceedingly rare for her to make anything remotely resembling a mistake. {The fact that she has such a high DPS ratio in PvP really hurts, what gives.} INJECTION finally got the nerf it deserved and is starting to sound like a word again. Fire Wallsis is still horrifically oppressive if it goes off, however, and reduces many games against her to "play perfectly or die."

Add:

Doom Bringers are vanishingly rare. Dominators basically all spontaneously ceased to exist once Charged Impulsar got nerfed and they realized they'd actually have to try in PvP again. Paradox is, once again, the most popular PvP Add, and for some reason still has an infinite. Purple is the color of bullies, it turns out. {Death to purples.}

Lu: Almost as Leeroy Jenkins as Elsword, but not a large sample to work with.

If the dive that magnetically homes in on targets wasn't enough of a giveaway, Lu's ability to zero in on a target is still very high. Diangelion's switch-attacks have the same bizarre hitboxes and gravity as ever. Lu in general seems to be about throwing giant hitboxes around the map and hoping they hit something, and her combo game is so safe that there really isn't need for precision there, either. {If she can’t hit you with a command normal or a skill, she’ll lag you out with her FPS-killing abilities. Surprisingly not very high up on the whale list, and even lower on the whales-for-fashion list.}

Ciel mains still don't exist. {Nobu would be sad to hear this.}

Rose: Rich, but shallow.

You're basically not even a Rose main if you don't have an 11+, the same way you're basically not a Chung main if you can't get 4+ X-drops in a single launch. {I am apparently no longer a Rose/F. Gunner main. Okay.} Their gameplay shows no personality to speak of, and you'll be fighting the same kind of Rose tactics at Rank C that you will at Star. Despite being the only non-Chung in the 1v1 Finals, Minerva has actually seen something of a population decrease lately. I imagine a lot of players disliked the fact that the player got to finals by using a Freeze Grenade infinite. 

{POs seem like one of the most funded Rose classes, despite being lowtier in both PvP and PvE. About 20% of them have an elitist complex, and another 40% only play her because “OMG MECHA WAIFU”. I’ve only encountered like two POs who acknowledge that she feels and plays nothing like her DFO counterpart, and the fact that I had to argue with a super stubborn NA forumer about this is flat-out stupid. Ah, also. TBs are dead now. Unsurprisingly.}  PvP Rose is actually mostly TB thanks to her pseudo-meditate.

Ain: I was horribly, terribly, no-good very bad wrong about the prediction last time.

PvP Ain is as homogenous across all three paths as Rena: {はい、はい。} Base Ain normals are so strong that the only ones his other classes really use are dives. Otherwise, you can treat all Ains the same. Watch out for airdashes, stomps, Xes, and basically a full kit of backwards melee hitboxes (we got rid of that on the Polar Bear suit for a reason, right? Right??) which are all so strong that, even though the bug has been patched out, Schwert Platzen is still a core PvP skill for all Ains. Bluhen is very rare in PvP, due mostly to the fact that he doesn't have a dive combo. Richter basically plays "The floor is lava" the entire game. The stomp noise is as annoying and stuck in my head as Aisha's "HYA" voice clip now and is a standout among Ain's generally obnoxious sound design. {Maybe if KoG gave us more combo options my fellow Richters wouldn’t have to sink this low.}

his german is off but i appreciate the effort.