#which I can manage to do. like not much else but I can get by fine

[here-for-fanart]

JINX REMEMBERS THE TIME LOOPS!

I'm probably gonna get a lot of nay sayers on this, but I don't care. I believe Jinx was fully aware of Ekko rewinding time. Here's why:

We know Jinx is medically enhanced with Shimmer. It has become fully integrated into her system, as we've seen her use it multiple times to move at super fast speeds (especially during a fight).

But it gets even better: She appears to actually glitch through time, when using it. She's THAT fast. Here's a few screenshots that show her partially glitching through time. In a few of them, she almost disappears entirely.

Now, I'm not saying she's physically travelling through time (yet). This isn't teleportation or rewinding; this is simply acceleration. But remember, Ekko himself said he was playing "with inversions on Jayce's acceleration rune", when he discovered the Z-drive. So, Jinx and Ekko's powers are connected, as they are complete opposites of what the other is doing.

So, how does Jinx manage to negate Ekko's travel backwards when she's travelling forward? Well, Shimmer is a substance made for adaptation and survivability during transitions. Hextech (which Ekko's Z-drive and her monkey bomb both use) has been known to have unpredictable results when combined with Shimmer. It's possible the shimmer in her system counteracts the Z-drive naturally, or it adapted to it to prolong Jinx's survivability during the first explosion.

The first time Ekko rewinds Jinx's explosion, she is zipped backwards just like the first time the Z-drive was used. But in the aftermath of this rewind, Jinx looks somewhat confused (indicating she has at least a noticeable case of deja vu, even if she does not fully remember the events).

One might think this is surprise in response to Ekko calling her name. But we know it's not, because she quickly dismisses his presence and goes back to blowing herself up. This is her way of saying, "Okay, my mind is doing a weird thing again but back to business."

NOTE: We don't get to see her initial reaction to the second explosion, but I think the second explosion is where she finally understood something was seriously off.

Because the next time we see her,

She's in experimentation mode. And the fact that she's watching Ekko, means she suspects he's the cause.

If you watch her micro expressions, during the third explosion, you'll see: default curiosity; a narrowing of the eyes, indicating suspicion (right before she pulls the pin); she keeps her eyes open and on Ekko during the explosion and does not blink; then when everything is set back, there's a slight widening of the eyes; her eyebrows raise; then her eyes narrow; before they dart downwards, noticing Ekko's blood and charred state.

[Before you start berating me for "reading too much into it", this is animation. Every single twitch is purposely added.]

After she sees the condition he's in, she knows this is his doing but that he can't keep it up forever. That's why she says "You're too late, Ekko" and goes again. It's too late for talking out her problems anymore. She's just gonna weedle him down, until he gives up.

But then, he says, "It's always a dance with you". Well, now, she's just curious about what the heck THAT means. So, she gives him a second to see if he'll tell her.

That's when Ekko says he's gonna sit there a minute, to see if he can talk an old friend out of blowing them up. And when it's clear he's waiting for her to say something, her mind focuses back on dying. "I'm tired of talking." But! She tries something new again. If he can stop an explosion, maybe he can't stop something else. She falls over the edge.

After this reset, we don't see her expression, but I can only imagine she's thinking through her slowly dwindling options. Then, he says, "Ya know, I learned from someone..." and suddenly, she's back to curiosity. How is Ekko doing it? Is he finally going to tell her?

"No matter what happened in the past, it's never too late to build something new". And that's when she notices the Z-drive and the monkeys. That's not Ekko's style. It's hers.

The next sentence actually doesn't make sense, grammatically, unless you follow it up with the previous sentence. "[It's not too late to build] Someone worth building it for."

And having just been given evidence that there is a good version of her, [There's no good version of me.] one who did fix things [It was something I could fix.], and who made it possible for Ekko to save her [big fat hero], she decides to try one last time.

It's curiosity that keeps her pausing over and over again. Even trapped in depression and suicidal ideation, she's still the girl with a brilliant mind and an inventive spirit.

It's my opinion that Ekko would not have been able to save Jinx, if she was not aware of the time loop situation. It was her curiosity of Ekko's new toy, combined with the realization that she helped build it, that led to her giving life another chance.

Lastly, remember when I said she's not capable of physically travelling through time yet?

Unless Warwick let go of her before the explosion, yes, yes she is. Or at least, she's come as close to it as she's physically able to. Either way, our girl is alive and on her way to a new life.

############################

[Thanks for reading, but don't take this too seriously. It was just some thoughts in my head I needed to get out.]

[balioc]

Looking at the world from a manager's perspective, you can productively model the pool of workers as being divided into a few basic groups, which are defined and characterized by their driving motivations.

Insert all the usual disclaimers for this sort of thing - this is the roughest type of rough typology. I pulled these categories out of my raw intuition, and possibly a few more would crop up with some additional thought. In reality, the boundaries of these categories are incredibly fuzzy, and almost every individual is actually going to be motivated by a complicated mix of all the relevant motivations; we're talking REALLY SIMPLE HEURISTICS here. Etc.

There have been other well-known worker typologies that share a lot in common with my thoughts here; this is mostly not novel, it's mostly meant to refine a few ideas for particular purposes.

Hustlers are motivated by concrete personal advantage. Most commonly, and most straightforwardly, they want money - as much of it as they can get. They may also be interested in fame, idiosyncratic perks, etc. They do whatever they have to do in order to get what they want.

No surprise: you see huge preponderances of these guys in fields that provide outsize concrete rewards, e.g. finance, the upper echelons of management, etc. But not every natural-born Hustler is in a position to enter a glitzy high-paying field, and in fact you find Hustlers all throughout society and all throughout the economy, finding or making hustles wherever they go.

Having Hustlers working for you is mostly pretty great. They get shit done. They can be induced to work incredibly hard - probably harder than anyone else, under most circumstances - and they'll shank their own mothers if the price is right. If you need anything really important from them, anything at all, it's just a matter of bribing them enough.

...they will also, of course, cheerfully shank you if the price is right. Hustlers aren't the only wellsprings of institutional politics and infighting, but they're the most dangerous ones; they're always potential rivals to everyone around them. Also, you need to keep the tangible rewards flowing in a steady stream in order to get anything out of them, or else they'll put most of their effort into jumping ship (one way or another).

Craftsmen are motivated by the desire to do good work in their chosen fields, for its own sake and for the sake of their treasured self-image as people who do good work.

As you'd expect, for the most part, they're excellent workers and should be prized. But they're not perfect workers. Common weaknesses and downsides include:

They tend to have their own ideas about How Things Should Get Done; they're often resistant to externally-imposed product/service requirements or process changes (and bad at implementing those things) (no matter how important or well-conceived they are), and they're very resistant to "just get it out the door, right now done is better than good."

Being driven chiefly by internal motivation is great, but sometimes it's useful to be able to push things along with external motivators, and Craftsmen are pretty resistant to those. They don't like working more or harder than they're naturally inclined to work, they mostly sneer at carrots, and sticks make them sad and unproductive.

It's important to note that, while noteworthy skill within a field correlates with having a Craftsman temperament and motivation suite - for obvious reasons - those things are not identical at all. Plenty of Craftsmen are bad at their jobs, or just average, and plenty of the best workers are most motivated by things other than the Excellence of the Work Itself.

Fanatics are a relatively rare and specialized group, whom you find mostly within a few specific sorts of culturally-valorized fields. They're motivated by a desire to be part of something Important and Good in a Broader Sense: to Save the World, or some smaller-bore version of that.

They make amazing front-line soldiers, in the sorts of institutions that have "front-line soldiers." They work super hard, and you don't even need to bribe them, you just need to keep them hopped up on inspiration.

The big problem with them is that they're mostly motivated by a feeling - the feeling of Being Righteous - and it's not easy to control where they get that feeling, in any kind of precise way. They're just as resistant to external motivators as Craftsmen are, or even more so, but they're also not being guided by an ideal of effective quality. (No, not even if their chosen cause is theoretically all about an ideal of effective quality, hem hem.) They will happily waste vast amounts of time and money doing useless things, or even counterproductive things, so long as they're engaged in tasks that hit the right psychological buttons for them. There's also a constant risk that a Fanatic will decide that his employer is unrighteous, or that one of his coworkers is unrighteous, and start an internal conflict; the risk scales in a more-than-linear fashion with the number of Fanatics you keep around.

The biggest group, unsurprisingly, is the Normies. In most fields, it is much the biggest group. Normies are motivated by the desire to be members in good standing of their communities, to have positive relationships with the people around them, and to live up to basic norms and expectations.

Managerial skills, in the traditional sense, are incredibly important with Normies. If you want them to do good work for you - and you should want that, as a manager, you've almost certainly got a whole bunch of them - not only do you have to keep them pointed in the right direction, you have to make sure that they're supporting each other. With Hustlers, you just have to throw money at them (and avoid their power plays); with Craftsmen, you just have to let them do their thing, and occasionally badger them into giving you what you need; with Fanatics, you just have to be inspirational; but with Normies, you have to lead, and construct a productive community. You have to set reasonable, achievable norms and expectations that will get you what you need.

This wouldn't be complete if I didn't talk about the Defectors. The Defectors are motivated by not working. They don't want to be there, they resent having to do their jobs, and their primary goal is to shirk as much as possible. They will, by default, put much more effort into shirking than into their assigned tasks.

Obviously, managers don't want to have to deal with them, for good reason. But they're out there, in large numbers - not always in the places and fields where you'd expect to find them - and learning to manage them is sometimes more viable than trying to get rid of them. ("Moving Heaven and Earth to find them jobs that will change their attitude" is often a good plan, although of course it's not always possible and not always worth it.)

Crucially, Defectors are not Normies. If you start with the assumption that the average baseline worker is lazy and sour, you will make some incredibly stupid decisions. There are some fields where, for structural reasons, you can expect that a very large number of your workers will be Defectors; this is a huge and complicated challenge, well beyond the scope of this post, and good luck to you if you have to handle it, but it's not the default.

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

Once you have those categories in your head, and can play with them, a number of obvious-seeming ideas present themselves. Just a couple, for now:

Most high-level executives are Hustlers, or have strong Hustler tendencies, for obvious reasons. Most of the people around them are Hustlers, or have strong Hustler tendencies. This means that they tend to overweight the Hustler outlook, by a lot, when they try to model what their workers are like. More specifically, I'd wager that a lot of them intuitively divide the world into "good workers" ( = Hustlers) and "bad workers" ( = Defectors). This will lead to a heavy overreliance on tangible rewards, a systematic shortchanging of community-building, etc. Which is in fact just what we see.

In particular - crucially - Hustlers and Defectors are the only worker types who ever become more productive under heavy stress. Hustlers actually benefit from it, because it raises the stakes of the game that they're already playing. (If you succeed, you'll be king of the world! If you fail, you'll be shark food! Go go go!) Defectors suffer terribly from stress, of course, but they can sometimes be spooked into doing their jobs as opposed to doing nothing, and sometimes that's the best/easiest way to get something out of them. But stress is terrible for everyone else. Craftsmen lose their focus. Fanatics lose their hope. It's worst of all for Normies, because they take all their cues from the vibes around them; they're productive when they learn to associate work with comfort and happiness, and when you fill their working world with frantic desperation, you just put them in a permanent cringe state.

stop trying to pit your Normies against each other in competitions for status and rewards dear God what are you stupid

To some extent, you can control your institution by controlling what types of workers you have. But only to some extent. There are only so many Hustlers and Craftsmen to go around, and if you want them, you will have to (a) be able to identify them reliably on little information [HINT: you are probably very bad at this], and (b) provide them with what they want [tangible rewards / comfortable security and interesting work]. "We are going to employ only the good special people" is feasible if you're an outfit of four workers; at a dozen, it's already become a stretch; at a few hundred, uh, pfffffffft. If you want to operate at scale, you need to be able to make Normies do good work, there is no substitute for it.

[thescarletwitchsapprentice]

Imagine: You and Rio are at the Avengers Compound for Thanksgiving and you’re in charge of baking pies….this can only lead to good things. (Rio Vidal x gn!reader)

Author’s Note: I really wanna get back into writing stuff like this. Like…I just LOVE Rio.

Now I’m wondering if I should do crossovers…like putting Anya in the Avengers universe and whatnot.

(CW: I don’t think any are applicable? Lmk if there’s one I need to put)

You still honestly don’t know how she did it.

By some miracle, your girlfriend Rio had managed to contact the Avengers and get them to invite you for Thanksgiving, or rather the day before. Sure you’d been an intern at the Compound, but it wasn’t for that long, and they likely didn’t know Rio.

And yet here you are, standing in the kitchen as Rio searches up pie recipes; while Tony is out getting some food at the last minute, Wanda, Vision, Peter, and Steve are all watching The Dick Van Dyke Show while Yelena, Nat, Pietro, and Kate are attempting—and attempting is very much stressed—Clint and Bucky how to play Cards Against Humanity; it’s honestly really funny to watch.

“Okay,” Rio huffs, breaking you out of your thoughts. “I found a recipe for a pumpkin pie.”

“What else?” you ask.

Rio blinks. “Is that not enough?”

“You’re sleeping on pecan pie,” you scoff.

“Pecan?” she asks, her face scrunching up in confusion. “Like the nut pecan?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “What else do you put in it?”

“…Fruit or pumpkin,” she exclaims in disbelief. “You put fruit or pumpkin in it. Who puts nuts in a pie?”

“I do!”

Rio huffs. “What’s next? Are you gonna tell me you put chocolate in it?”

“Yeah, actually,” Kate replies as she looks through her stack of cards. “French silk pie.”

“There’s also meat pie,” Yelena adds. “I love putting hot sauce on mine.”

Hearing this, Rio is in shock. “You put MEAT? In a PIE?”

“Yeah? Is this really such a novel concept? I mean, in Russia, there’s a pie with a filling or salmon or sturgeon, rice, hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, and dill.”

Now both of you are shocked. “What?” you both exclaim.

“Who puts fish in a pie?” you stammer.

“Russians,” Nat shrugs.

“All pie is good pie,” Steve says, “But nothing beats a classic apple pie.”

“Pecan,” you insist. “Pecan beats it.”

“That’s up for debate,” Clint says as he looks at the cards that people submitted. “Who put down ‘Object permanence’?”

“That was me,” Kate says.

“How does ‘object permanence’ fit this?”

“It’s about abstract connections,” Pietro shrugs.

As they continue the game and sitcom, you and Rio ponder what to do about the pie selection.

“Maybe we could make small pies of everyone’s favorite pie?” you suggest.

“I don’t think we have enough ingredients for that,” Bucky says.

“Or we could just make a pie with everything in it,” Rio suggests.

Silence.

“….I’ll pass,” Kate gags.

“Remind me not to leave you in charge of the pies next year,” Steve says.

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind seeing what that tastes like,” Yelena shrugs.

“I think you’re gonna end up regretting it,” Nat chuckles.

“How much of the pie dough ingredients do we have?” Wanda asks.

“….Some,” Rio answers with a shrug.

“….Not very helpful,” she sighs. “(Y/N), any ideas?”

You blink. “What she said.”

Vision seems to be calculating something, “Hmm….”

“Vis?” Wanda asks.

“If I can recall, we have precisely enough for…..three pies,” he says.

“Great, so we choose three kinds,” Peter says.

“But which three?” Bucky asks.

“We have to have pumpkin, no questions asked,” Rio declares.

“I’m not sitting down to eat without a pecan pie,” you say.

“Wait…how did you say the name of the nut?” Steve asks.

“PEE-cahn,” you answer.

“I think it’s supposed to be pih-CAHN,” he says.

“No, it’s a long E sound,” you argue.

“Not a chance; it’s short E.”

“Who in their right mind puts an emphasis on the SECOND syllable?”

“Pretty sure it’s PEE-can,” Kate says in confusion.

“Don’t even start,” Clint groans.

This goes on for….about five minutes until Rio finally puts it to rest.

“Forget the pronunciation. Let’s focus on the pie.”

“So….pumpkin, the nut pie, and….what else?” Peter asks as Tony walks in, carrying a turkey.

“You’re still not finished with the pies?” he asks in disbelief.

“We haven’t exactly started,” you say sheepishly. “We’re still deciding on the flavors; we have pumpkin and PEcan, but we need one more.”

Tony huffs. “I don’t know, how about you surprise us?”

Immediately the compound goes silent, Rio’s grin slowly growing.

“How about you go sit down with them, my love?” she suggests in a voice that’s way too sweet. “I can handle it from here.”

“A….are you sure?” you gulp.

“No. No, we’re NOT sure,” Clint objects.

“Just leave it to me,” Rio says.

And after a lot of insistence, and complaining from Tony, you let her.

Later that night, after the main course and sides are finished, Rio serves up the pies. None of them are labeled, though. And they all look the same. You decide to pick one at random and Rio cuts you a slice.

“Close your eyes,” she tells you as she sets down the slice. “And take a bite.”

Foolishly, you decide to put your trust in her baking and take a bite.

Almost immediately, the taste hits you; it’s fruity, savory, cruciferous….a bit of everything, especially spicy. But not in a good way.

“Rio?” you ask as Yelena takes a slice of the same pie. “What kind of pie is this?”

She shrugs. “I just kinda used a bit of everything. That’s what you put in pies, right?”

“….Did you put hot sauce in this?” Yelena asks.

Rio smirks, nodding and also handing her a bottle of hot sauce.

“Yes!” she exclaims as she practically shoots the sauce onto her pie.

Tony sighs and Rio shrugs once more. “Hey, you said to surprise you.”

[andreilscat]

"Hurry up, French Boy, Kevin is going to kill me if you get sick."

"I am quite literally running, Josten, what else do you expect me to do?" Jean said, trying to shield his face from the rain.

"I don't know," Neil seemed panicked as he fished out the phone from his pocket. "Andrew said he'll be here in five."

"How is he not tired of your shit yet is a mystery to me." Jean panted, running a hand over his face in a failed attempt to dry it.

"Yeah, yeah, you are just saying that. You are not much better than me, you know. It's not like I had to drag you to practice with us, you seemed pretty willing to go."

Jean decided to ignore him as he glanced at the approaching lights, "He's here," he said and went straight for the car, settling himself in the back seat, and pushing the few wet strands out of his eyes.

Andrew didn't look at either of them as he said, "Kevin?"

Neil made himself comfortable next to Andrew, completely drenching the front seat.

"He's with Aaron and Nicky, will be back later."

Jean stared out of the window, calm and tired, as soft music played on radio, and Andrew started the car.

***************************************************

The second they stepped into the house Jean started taking off his clothes, turning back to look at Neil, "Can I get a towel?"

Neil's brain lagged a bit as he tried to process what was happening in front of him. Sure, Jean was still in his shorts, but his hoodie and shirt were gone, leaving the bare, bruised skin on full display. His eyes fell to his waist and he imagined how it would feel under his fingers.

Andrew rolled his eyes and went out of the room.

When Neil found his voice again, without looking away he said, "You should take a shower."

"I will, later."

Before Neil could protest, Andrew was back with a towel, and a change of clothes for Jean.

"Abram," Andrew sent him a look, motioning to the bathroom.

***************************************************

The night was quiet, except for the muffled noise that was coming from the movie which served as the only source of light.

Neil walked over to the sofa only to find that Jean had already fallen asleep. They were supposed to finish the movie, and wait for Kevin, but Neil didn't complain, thanks to the sight in front of him.

Jean was sound asleep next to Andrew, holding his hand so tightly, that Andrew's knuckles were white from pressure.

"Nightmares?" Neil asked as he placed the covers over them.

"He was talking in his sleep," Andrew said, holding his other hand out to Neil, then pulling him in for a short kiss.

Neil slid under the covers next to them, and they slowly moved Jean so that his head was on Neil's lap.

Jean jolted awake, feeling his heart beating in his throat, but relaxed the moment he saw the worried look on their faces. He reached for Andrew's hand once again and Andrew let him hold it.

"It's okay, go to sleep, we'll wake you up when Kevin comes back," Andrew whispered, intertwining their fingers together.

Jean relaxed, burying his face in Neil's stomach, his other hand circling his waist.

***************************************************

Kevin unlocked the door trying not to make too much noise, then walked into the kitchen. He found Andrew leaning back against the counter, a cup of tea in his hand.

"He was asking for you."

Kevin walked over, until he was right in front of Andrew, "I left as soon as I could," he said with pleading eyes.

Soon enough, he was being pulled down into a kiss, Andrew's hands finding their way into his hair.

***************************************************

Andrew stopped in the hallway, motioning for Kevin to look at the sofa. Kevin froze in place when he saw them. It was finally happening.

Jean was sleeping almost on top of Neil, who in turn had his arms wrapped tightly around him. Kevin had never seen either of them so calm, especially when they were together.

"He has been waking up a lot, and was very panicked but Neil managed to calm him down."

***************************************************

Jean opened his eyes only to find that his face was buried in dark, auburn locks. He blinked the sleep away and started to get up, afraid of squishing the boy under him, but the second he started to move, Neil spoke.

"Going somewhere?"

"I didn't mean to wake you, sorry."

"You didn't, you can sleep more if you want," Neil said, tapping his shoulder as if to encourage Jean to lie back down.

"Aren't you just using this as an excuse to cuddle?" Jean joked, but without meaning to his gaze dropped to Neil's lips for only a second before he abruptly turned his head and started to get up again. "I think we should find Kevin and Andrew."

"Jean?" Neil called, and it was so quiet that Jean could swear he had imagined it.

"Yeah?"

"Can I kiss you?" Neil blurred out before he had the time to chicken out.

"I don't understand," Jean murmured, looking down at his own hands that were nervously playing with the hem of his hoodie.

Neil reached for them, grasping the sleeves and pulling him closer, until Jean was almost on top of him. "I'd like to kiss you," he whispered, looking up at him.

Jean let their eyes lock for a moment before giving in, he leaned in and pecked his lips softly.

A smile appeared on Neil's face as he pulled away and started prepping Jean's face with kisses. His eyes, cheeks, forehead, jaw, and the side of his mouth, before finally capturing his lips in a proper kiss.

Neil kissed him like he was made out of glass. Like he was the most precious thing in the world. Like the world itself began and ended with his mouth.

Jean pulled away with a gasp, trying to catch his breath, when Neil suddenly started giggling and pulling him into a hug.

***************************************************

"Well, it was about time," Andrew said, as he approached the bed, with Kevin following closely behind.

Jean was still trying to process what had just happened without even daring to look at Andrew. What exactly did this mean? Was he jumping to conclusions?

The tension in his shoulders eased when Andrew handed him a cup of tea, ruffling his hair as he sat next to them.

"You worry too much," he said, "Neil would never do something Kevin or I were not comfortable with."

"Besides, I was so sure we were obvious enough about our feelings towards you." Kevin added, taking one of Jean's hands into his own.

Jean looked each of them in the eye before pulling on Kevin's hand to get him closer.

"I almost made myself believe that I had imagined it all."

"Well, that just means we'll have to be more convincing," Kevin answered, intertwining their fingers together.

[burningcheese-merchant]

PLEASE FEED US MORE JUST AS DOWN BAD GOLDEN CHEESE. PLEASE MORE YANDERE CHEESE

Did you send two asks in a row screaming for more Accidental Yandere Golden Cheese lol. Calm down brotato, Merchant is here. Merchant sees you (and everyone else in my inbox I swear to God Almighty I will address you all eventually). Let me see what I've got in my noodle for you

Under the cut because this is fucked and gets a little extra graphic at one particular point lol

Golden Cheese actually has tried to gather the identities of those Burning Spice has murdered. What she wasn't able to glean on her own, from her own personal knowledge of other lands and peoples (i.e. noticing certain traits she knows to be endemic to certain cultures, like a hair accessory or something), she found in books and scrolls in her kingdom's library that gave her a better idea. Whatever she couldn't find in those, she found via sending cheesebirds to travel far and wide in search of any kingdoms, cities, villages, families and friend groups with confirmed missing persons. They would report back to her and, with all the knowledge she's gathered, she's able to find a name, which she then wrote onto a label and placed under the person it belonged to. She's managed to eventually give all the heads their identities/personhood back, at least to some degree. And now, knowing who these people are/were, she can get them back to their loved ones easier. Right? ...Right? (She tries not to progress beyond being proud of herself for going that extra mile, because it just leads back to "ok so why are the heads still here, why haven't you returned them". In trying to do the right thing, she ultimately just does the WRONG thing again and reinforces her preexisting guilt and shame, because... she knows exactly why she hasn't returned them...)

Golden has started... experimenting with Spice, for lack of a better term. After she was proven correct about him paying attention when she mentions someone she doesn't like and later killing that specific person for her, she starts testing him in other ways. She makes subtle suggestions about how he ought to kill people, to see how he responds in the moment and if he actually ends up doing it later. She tries to coax him into going into detail about how the killing went, just to see if and how he does so (turns out he really does like to brag about his crimes, especially to her). She tries to hint at him giving her other things besides body parts, like certain trinkets (it... sort of works. If she asks for a watch, he... brings her a severed arm with a watch attached to it still, for example). She's observing how far he'll go and in which direction he's willing to travel in at her suggestion. (...And she revels in how much power it turns out she has over him. She really does have him at her beck and call. It's lovely.)

When her friends ask her how she's been managing her Beast (they are aware that hers is still actively targeting her, but that's it), she acts as nonchalant as possible. Burning Spice is nothing. He's just a fly buzzing around her head. She handles him just fine. When they ask her how they can help, she tells them she doesn't need it, because she doesn't want them anywhere near him she really is fine. It's fine. She's fine. When they suggest going after him themselves... thank goodness she's a good actress and a quick thinker, because her very first REAL reaction was seething fury that she had to keep under control until she was alone again - but then, when she finally is, she just has another crisis of conscience, because now she has to confront the fact that she can no longer tolerate the notion of him being harmed by anyone besides herself. She used to want him dead or imprisoned by any means necessary, but now... now, she lies about his whereabouts to everyone who asks (and she always knows where he is, she snuck a tracking device onto him), because she doesn't want anyone coming near him for any reason anymore, least of all to harm him. Because only SHE can harm him now. He still comes to fight her, not just to give her things. And she obliges him, albeit begrudgingly (never mind the sick satisfaction she feels when she hurts him or takes him down. She wonders if this feeling is what he's referring to in those letters about him reveling in their battles and how he enjoys her suffering). She... she won't let that end. She won't let anyone get in the way. In his way. In THEIR way. She can handle him by herself. Everyone else can stay home. They won't take him away from her. She cannot guarantee their safety if they try.

She once idly wondered about his past. About the people he likely once had in his life. About... if he'd ever been fond of any other women. She could hardly fathom the hatred that utterly overwhelmed her senses when the thought entered her mind. So angry was she that she broke the glass of water in her hand in said anger and injured herself. So haunted by this notion did she end up, that she tried to ask him about it the next time they met (as subtly as possible; she understands the implications of asking such a thing). He just shrugged and said he didn't recall; the only woman that mattered to him was her. She hated how relieved she felt when he told her that...

...but after that day, and for a good while, he only targeted women. He kept killing adult women and bringing their heads to her, and no one else's. She quickly surmised that he might have noticed her jealousy (or at least imagined she was jealous) and immediately set out to prove his devotion to her further than before by destroying those she feels threatened by - even if the threat does not exist, for she is all he ever wanted. He never told her directly, but she figured that's what it was. And she allowed herself to believe it. Because it made her happy.

(When the women-only killing spree eventually ended, she was struck with morbid curiosity and asked him about the men he killed. Was there anything behind the ones he chose? He revealed to her that, though his targets were mostly random, he would go out of his way to kill any man that he thought she might find attractive. He was capable of feeling threatened, just like she was. It was quite the surprise... a surprise she welcomed, a surprise she found deeply amusing. Because really, what was left for her to find attractive in anyone anymore, when no one went as far as he did to earn her favor?)

She actually does find him handsome. She always has, from the beginning. It was something she considered to be a great shame; such good looks squandered on such a horrible man. But now... with her greed slowly spiraling out of control thanks to him constantly overfeeding it the way he does with his violent extremism... she's starting to dare to find that extremism handsome, too. She's slowly but surely ceasing to find any shame in the circumstance. She's starting to think he's handsome... and that's it, that's the end of the thought. He's handsome, with all of that blood coating his face and body. He's handsome, puffing his chest out and beaming with such sick pride at the handiwork he performed for her. He's handsome, in his maddened, unwavering dedication to her. He's handsome... no asterisk, no addendum, no ifs ands or buts. He's handsome. Burning Spice is handsome. It weighs on her like a stone. And it only gets heavier each time he sees him and his handsome face again.

Sometimes... just sometimes... she'll reread those letters that are particularly... steamy. There's something rather fascinating about them, in a different way than the others. They're so... uniquely visceral. She believes him when he tells her he's starving; his hunger practically lunges at her from the page, claws at her, sinks its teeth into her, sets her body alight. Pure, unashamed, blistering hot lust and sexuality, with some of that same addiction to violence mixed in (he's a sadomasochist, go figure). People have flirted with Golden before... but not like this. No one on earth has ever dared to speak to her so brazenly, not even after several pints of liquid courage. He talks about wanting to break her bed as well as she herself. He tells her how often he touches himself to the thought of her. He details exactly where he wants to put his hands. Where he wants to put his mouth. What he intends to say straight into her ears as they go, and what he wants her to say back to him. How he doesn't want to stop until they both collapse with exhaustion. Just neverending feverish rants about he wishes to destroy her in more ways than one, and how he expects her to scream and beg either way. She won't admit it, not even to herself, the thought tried to make itself known inside of her head once and she shoved it down and tried to bury it under concrete instantly, but... she's almost... intrigued. She's flattered, of course. She relishes this aspect of his insatiable appetite for her alongside all the others. (She likes being told she's pretty. He does that and then some.) But... some small part of her is... curious. Curious about... if he really would follow through on what he says he wants to do, if he really had the chance. How it would feel. How HE would feel. What the difference would really be between him overpowering her to win a fight and him overpowering her to... to...

...there are nights where she lays awake, drilling holes into the ceiling with her bloodshot eyes, wondering where it all went wrong. There are nights where all that succeeds in putting her to sleep are the warm, bitter tears that stream down her face when the guilt and shame grow too powerful. There are nights where she just gets up and leaves, throws herself out of her own window and flies off somewhere, anywhere, it doesn't matter - it just had to be somewhere she couldn't feel dozens of empty, lifeless eyes watching her through the walls. Judging her. Condemning her. Damning her to Hell, where she and the monster who ended their lives belonged.

...and then, there are nights where she feels... strange. Where she notices how... big her bed really is, and how small she feels laying in it. She wonders how it would feel if he was there. If she could nest in his thick, strong arms instead of thin bedsheets. How much more comfortable his chest would feel, compared to her pillow. If his hair was as soft as it looked. How he'd react if she started tracing his tattoos with her fingertips. If sharing a tender moment like that would awaken something in him. If it would somehow help him realize how wrong all of this is.

...Or maybe it would just make it worse.

Maybe she doesn't care anymore.

[tanadrin]

Duncan does a quick compare-and-contrast episode on the German Revolution, and points out that:

Kaiser Wilhelm bowed to pressure to switch out his government much faster than Tsar Nicholas

The SPD was immediately hostile to the spreading workers' and soldiers' councils in Germany--Friedrich Ebert, despite heading the SPD, is really hostile to the idea of a social revolution like occurred in Russia, and thinks the SPD can win socialist goals in a parliamentary system because of its electoral strength. (This is not absurd on its face--Russia at this point is in civil war and there are competing Red and White Terrors; the SPD is electorally strong, though the weakness of the parliamentary system Germany will get will prove to be a huge problem)

Prince Max shoves the Kaiser out the door by announcing his abdication, even before the Kaiser actually does abdicate, then immediately resigns in favor of Friedrich Ebert, the head of the SPD. In general one gets the sense that the SPD is not getting caught flat-footed by events like everybody was in the Russian revolution, but accurately anticipating or even forcing them to ensure a smooth transition of power.

In Germany the provisional government is all socialists instead of all liberals, the equivalent of the Right SRs in Russia

When a call goes out for a worker's assembly in Berlin to run the new government, and Ebert can't stop it, he leans into it and gets as many of his guys into it as possible--once again showing the Wisdom of Showing Up to Meetings. The SPD and the anti-war USPD splinter faction manage to coopt this assembly.

The radical left is explicitly trying to create a revolutionary body to overawe the provisional government a la the Petrograd Soviet, but instead of it being SRs and Mensheviks in the Soviet versus liberal Kadets in the government, the SPD/USPD is controlling the whole show. No dual power dynamic emerges.

Ebert also quickly moves to get the German military onside: in exchange for their support against attempts to implement a soviet-style system in Germany, he promises not to fuck with their autonomy.

The war ends like two days after the November Revolution starts--I think Baden is appointed head of the government on the 9th, and the armistics occurs on the 11th. There's no question of continuing the fighting--indeed, one aim the military is trying to secure is getting the civilian government to end the war, so they aren't blamed for it (despite their situation being unwinnable).

Circumstances helped a lot--and the SPD and Ebert in particular are much better at navigating the situation than anybody between February and October 1917 in Russia. It helps that the SPD is a big-tent party with a ton of support, in a more developed multiparty political system. These are the same properties that made then feckless when opposing the war, but left them in a position to take up the reins of government in 1918.

Ebert's government is good at quickly announcing a slate of popular social and political reforms, delivering on their socialist credentials; it helps that the workers' and soldiers' councils that do form are more ideologically in line with the SPD than they are with the Bolsheviks, and support the government's call for a national assembly slash constitutional convention. Unlike in Russia, this assembly is not delayed by war or anything else.

When the USDP and Spartacists/KPD break decisively with the SPD, they are kind of muddled in their aims and divided between each other, and the Spartacist Uprising breaks out basically by accident, but fails to attract much mass support. Ebert is able to use the Freikorps to suppress the uprising. More July Days than October Revolution--and Liebknecht and Luxemburg are captured by the Freikorps and murdered, which means there's no regrouping and reconsolidation for an equivalent later push.

As with the Russian Revolution, very small differences in both individual actions and general circumstances might have produced wildly different results--anything from right-wing military dictatorship to full-blown communist revolution. Still, it's hard to see the Weimar Republic as the optimal outcome, given how that's going to turn out.

[paper-possum-party-pal]

Guess Who?

It’s Timekeeper!!!

Timekeeper started off as an AI The Narrator made to keep track of settings and time after a failed attempt to create a protagonist. A form was built, but was scrapped. When TK gained sentience, he didn’t have the power to do much except mess with the clock and settings. She slowly expanded her power though through the powerful desire to fuck with The Narrator. They weren’t aware of much going on outside of their space until connecting with the computers of the parable where they became aware of Stanley. Xe gains access to the time and space between resets where Xe starts interacting with Stanley and the become partners in crime.

Stanley and TK are great buddies and their favorite activity is messing with The Narrator, made funnier by the fact The Narrator has no clue TK is even there. He does eventually find out though once TK manages to pull its scrapped form out of recycling and fix it and gets caught interacting with Stanley. Stanley and TK also often talk about their false memories and what kinds of lives they would lead in the real world. TK doesn’t really care if he gets to experience the real world, but does admit that it might be fun, and new things means new ideas means new ways to prank The Narrator.

The Narrator and TK have more of a rivalry, with TK thinking The Narrator as a stuck up buzzkill who puts too much value in perfection and meaning, while The Narrator thinks TK is annoying, irresponsible, and irreverent. They aren’t really friends, but they’re not enemies either, and will reluctantly admit when the other may have a point. They’re sort of like roommates and maybe siblings.

TK doesn’t interact with The Curator or Mariella as much, but they’re friends. TK knows how and when to bring the fun to them and they both appreciate it. They all hold more of a sibling dynamic. They all have tea together, chat, and play fight, especially TK and Mariella. The Curator is great at reigning in TK, which can be frustrating when a certain someone starts whining about someone else messing with his game.

More human form

It’s funny to me how many of us, at least initially (and even a little bit now), had a similar idea of how Timekeeper would look with a physical form. I found myself having a lot of difficulty deciding what I wanted them to look like exactly since there’s so many creative designs people have come up with. I was thinking of trying to design a very non-human form for it. One thing that does slightly bother me is that I have that last character for the proctor lineup that is very similar looking, but I’m hoping it’s just different enough so it doesn’t feel too much like I’m copy pasting the same character.

With white background

[dream-with-a-fever]

Hi! What is your favorite Hinny scene in the books?

hi!!! i LOVE this question. i have a few favourite scenes — and i also know i’m not alone in these scene choices.

the library scene in ootp is just perfection. it’s so simple and brief, but there’s something so special about it, the way harry lets his guard down around her and tells her what’s been bothering him when he hasn’t been able to do that with anyone else. i think this is also a scene that shows how good ginny is at reading harry and his emotions, and knowing what he needs, when to push and when to lay off.

the break up scene in hbp is also in my opinion one of their best. because it shows how well they both understand each other. ginny doesn’t want their relationship to end but she also knows harry, and knows he will do anything to stop this overhanging evil in their lives, feels he has a responsibility to do it. and while she hates him for it, it’s also one of the reasons she fell for him — his selflessness and courage. he also knows that she wouldn’t expect anything less of him. i’m not articulating my reasoning very well here, but i really do think this scene is a perfect example of why they work together.

the little moments where we get to see harry and ginny as a couple are also perfect like the core four sitting in the common room, ginny up against harry’s legs, setting up jokes for each other, comfortable intimacy and love.

can’t not mention the ‘lucky you’ scene too - another pivotal scene for their character development. she is the only one who isn’t scared of his volatile moods and rages, she stands up for herself and calls him out. she manages to calm him, and hold her ground all at once, and demands respect which he quickly gives to her. she is someone who can absolutely handle harry - at his best but also at his worst

THE KISS IN GINNY’S ROOM. that scene is just pure romance. it’s this pining and longing for connection, this moment of closeness they’ve both been yearning for that is prematurely ripped from them (ffs ron) and this sort of tragic goodbye kiss, don’t-forget-me kiss, please-come-back-to-me-in-one-piece kiss, a kiss to remind them what they’re fighting for. ginny’s emotional maturity in this scene is gorgeous. and poor harry just wants to be a teenager in love for five more seconds…like ouch

honourable mentions: ginny sassing harry during quidditch practises, all the little interactions during the summer of hbp where harry starts to see how hilarious and wonderful ginny is, their married couple bickering energy before and during the battle at the department of mysteries, when they’re setting the table at the burrow talking, the little kisses and casual displays of intimacy (kissing each other goodnight…..???:?) i could go on and on and on.

it’ll never be ENOUGH! which is precisely why i enjoy canon-compliant works of them so much, because we deserved to see so much more. stay tuned for my half blood prince missing moments one shot <3

[balrogballs]

hello, i'm balrogballs, who has regretted this username since the second i chose it. i post mostly LotR/Silm content ✨

I write, illustrate, and shitpost — under the cut is a list of some of my work, and a little bit more about me.

about me: i'm 27, mostly based in the UK atm but grew up and schooled overseas. i'm also a novelist irl (literary-ecological fiction), currently working on book 2.

as my day job, i work as a humanitarian advocate and travel quite frequently - so i have extended times on here and extended times off here. if I haven't responded to a message/tag for a few days, it's probably because i have no internet access and the blog is running off a queue.

pronouns: she/her

fandoms: LotR, The Silmarillion. I haven't seen RoP yet but I do enjoy seeing stuff from it on my dashboard! I enjoy a ton of other stuff too, such as obscure German detective novels, and weird conservation projects.

what you can expect to find here: the blog is called balrogballs, not balrogbrains, so just a note that i really don’t take myself very seriously and you’re probably not going to find much Serious Fandom Discourse. i do have my moments however!

generally though, the gulf between my writing and my personality has been described as “like meeting mr bean and finding out he wrote the iliad”, so take that as you will! re: 18+ content, i repeat, the blog is called balrogballs not balrogbaby, and i essentially use the word DILF like a punctuation mark, so again do with that as you will.

interactions: feel free to open a chat or send me an ask, check out my asks tag as well!

writing: here's my AO3 account. i write almost exclusively for lotr/silm ✨

here's some fics I'm proud of:

the sword tree: Maedhros and Celebrìan 'teaming up' to open a rewilding sanctuary in Valinor to help traumatised ring war returnees. environmentalism, pacifism, and hope in the face of helplessness.

cast in stone: a fic about memory gaps, found family, and holes in the archive. imagine that "who tells your story" line from hamilton except it's 35k words long and starring Maglor, Maedhros, Elrond, Estel and Legolas.

i enjoy exploring decolonial/ecological themes in my writing but i try not to be insufferable and most of my works have some degree of absurdism/humour. i also have a oneshots series called Elrond Peredhel and his Feral Children, a fun romp tackling parenthood in LotR, in which every child of Rivendell is fucking unhinged because their dad is a card-carrying weird little freak ✨🌞

art:

you can find my art tag here! I mostly do graphic novel style "illustrations", because I don't know how to draw anything else 🌞

I saw your work posted on ____, was that you?

Absolutely not — I use no social media aside from this and AO3 (technically I have an "official" account, but that's managed by a publicist and has no elves). I've had a couple of stories reposted onto Wattpad/FFN before — that is not me, so please ping me a link if you come across anything I've written that's not either on here or on AO3 as TimelessUtterances.

(If you came from the “i had to explain to my publishers why i wrote fanfiction about elrond giving lindir the battering ram treatment before they greenlit my first novel” post, no the goddamn fic isn’t still up). However, I do often get questions re writing/publishing from people who read said post, and I’m always very happy to answer these or hook you up with lists of resources, so feel free to ask anything on that front!

[tino-i-guess]

Need some opinions/help

TLDR; In October, in a somewhat impulsive decision, I started worshipping Athena and Hermes. I am having doubts and feelings of inadequacy due to not being as invested as some other people. Does all of this mean I should leave the religion or stop for the time being?

I am quite new to hellenic polytheism. I've always had an interest in polytheistic religions, occasionally doing some research but never really doing it heavily. I knew the very very basics of hellenic polytheism, since a friend of mine practices. In the beginning of October, I had a slight breakdown. I have been struggling with school a lot and was feeling completely lost and abandoned by most people in my life, so I did what looking back on it was a rush decision. I made an altar for Athena and prayed (more like begged, I'll be honest) for some kind of help. I made a small offering based on what I knew and that was that. It wasn't a completely unexpected decision, since I had been thinking about it for a while.

Well, it worked. I did quite well on my upcoming test and felt calmer in general. I decided to make a small altar for Hermes too and do more research. For the past few months, I have thus been trying to do as much research as I can, pray and make offerings based on what I know the best I can. However, recently I've been having some doubts.

I feel out of my depth and overwhelmed. I've never been religious, nor has my family ever been religious. Every time I try to research more, I feel overwhelmed and tear up with all the new facts and seeming rules. Things are contradicting each other and I have no one to check with because my friend is also pretty new and we're not very close. I feel as if I'm constantly messing up. A lot of the practices relies on instinct and reading between the lines. I have anxiety and I'm autistic so these two places are my weaknesses, in some cases even impossible for me without direct guidance. I'm confused on so many concepts that everybody else seems to find obvious.

I feel inadequate. Everybody I have seen talking about the religion seems really fully into it and devoted to it (something that I think is amazing and wonderful) but I feel like that cannot be applied to me. I feel like I somehow don't believe/love the Gods as much as others. I don't want religion to take up a big part of my life, at least not as I am currently. Additionally, I don't have much free time or energy in general, so I am not able to make offerings and pray properly every day. I also struggle with intrusive thoughts, which makes prayer and worship extra hard. However, I do love the Gods and the thought of taking down their altars and just stopping makes my heart squeeze. But then again, I don't feel as close to them as a lot of people I have seen, tho that might be a time issue. Part of me is definitely stopping me from getting closer to them by constantly saying how ridiculous I look trying to 'bond' with them. I want religion to be a casual facet of my life, to be able to make a weekly offering and pray once a day maybe without much worry or anxiety, to learn about the religion and Gods more and more.

I feel upset and stressed about this whole situation. I don't want to stop but part of me feels like I am being constantly disrespectful. A small part of me also feels like I have somehow offended Athena specifically. I also am hesitating stepping back, lest I upset kharis, if somehow I've managed to establish it with my flaky track record. I want honest, hard opinions and advice. Am I simply not cut out for this? Is this just a beginners rut sort of deal I need to power through? Did anybody else feel like this? How did you deal with it?

I am sorry if anything is unclear. Writing this made me quite emotional and my thoughts are all over the place. If I haven't mentioned a crucial detail or something, please ask and I'll happily respond and give more details on some things. Thank you in advance, χαίρε.

[seventeenlovesthree]

Since it's my personal mission to make everybody watch the Digimon Adventure Tri Stage Play, I dug up one of my favourite interviews again. I owe the producer my life, because he simply managed to create the best piece of Digimon Adventure media since Adventure itself (in my opinion almost as amazing as Our War Game and that MEANS something). However, I saw a few people being confused about a few things, so I wanted to clarify:

"Wait, is the Stage Play just Tri's story but done on stage?"

Nope, it does take place during the Tri era (between the third and fourth movie to be exact), but it is an original (side) story that can be watched without having any knowledge of Tri or Tri's plot.

"Does the story take place in the real or in the Digital World?"

That would actually be a spoiler and since there is no easy answer to this, I'm gonna say you have to watch it for yourself.

"Are the characters like in the original or like in Tri?"

That's the fun part - of course there are glimpses and pieces of the Tri characterizations, but the producer really did his very best to adapt the characters faithfully and as respectfully from the original source material as much as he could and I think you can feel that:

"To be honest, the generational timing was a little off for me, so I had never seen Digimon before. After I received the request for the stage play, I watched all of it, including the original TV series and the movie series, but I didn’t expect that I’d be crying so many times. It was a story of human growth and Digimon evolution being deeply intertwined, and I watched as that growth and evolution was overlaid with so many other things. Maybe it was because I watched it as an adult, but I was able to see it from all sorts of perspectives in regards to “people growing”. (...) While I’ve worked with other people’s stories and made plays out of them several times, it was usually in the sense of taking the original work’s story and repurposing it for the stage format. But for this one, even though I’m borrowing the original series’s characters, the story is being written from scratch, and it’s my first time writing words for characters that were created by other people. It was a high level of difficulty, and I still feel it even now. Also, it made me wonder how the scriptwriters for the anime must have done this. They were also writing the same characters in the same world, while sharing that job with tons of other people. It’s amazing that they were able to do that. But, naturally, it wasn’t just full of difficult and painful things, but once the story properly got going, I got to hear the lines I was writing in the voices of the characters from the original series, and getting to savor those kinds of moments was very fun. Someone like me, who works in the theatre field, gets to take over the job of writing the lines of characters made by others. And then I have Toei check over it, and we get even closer to the mark. So in other words, we bring these characters to life by sharing them between everyone. And especially in the case of Digimon, it was an interesting experience in that there wasn’t just one writer or director, but rather that everyone had their own version of Taichi and Yamato, and the dialogue was born from between all of that.

"Anything else I need to know?"

If you are able to see past some cringe, don't mind nostalgia baiting and are okay with a few... Questionable scenes in regards to the main antagonist (which you will definitely know if you've watched the original Adventure series), you will enjoy this.

Also, personally, I'd say this is the order of plot relevance of each human character, so if your favourite characters are in the top half of the list (and even if they're not), you are likely to have fun:

Taichi

Jyou

Koushirou

Yamato

Mimi

Hikari

Sora

Takeru

[lilyblackdrawside]

Played for four hours without pause, reached the ashes in Waltz and got the red orb in Ba after I checked out every area a little bit and explored Numat after their queen told me there'd be machines cause I have a Dispeller but that was a terrible idea. Haven't gone north yet.... for some reason. All the other areas had been quite rough to start with after finishing the castle, but after a little grinding and with the help of some magic it was manageable after not too long. It felt nice to dip into each area a little and find a dungeon that suits me.

Something that felt weird in the Waltz Tower is that the air flow devices would refresh my flight meter even when turned off, so I probably never had to actually switch them on. Definitely don't have to for just ascending the tower. (Though this might've also just been because of Mailbird improving my flight gauge.)

My party's a Mailbird, Armsmaster, Mirror Mage and Dispeller and they're all doing pretty well. Armsmaster does good damage, but is a bit slow - obviously very equipment reliant, which is pretty expensive for now. I really like that they can equip all gear and between that, their Weapon Arts and books, it seems like you can make them into any kind of fighter! I'm looking to get stuff to use them as a healer. Though their mp is a bit low, I think it'll work.

Mailbird is doing well as just kind of a basic frontliner with their good hp and defense. High speed and accuracy are also very welcome. Their buff skills are a bit fiddly, since they lower their own stats to buff others but in turn the buffs are pretty good.

Dispeller is really frail compared to everyone else, but they're a mage so that's not unusual. I gave them some books for basic elemental magic, but the anti-Anima and Construct spells are really strong and it's usually obvious when an enemy applies for them. Especially Construct. They are notably suffering from a terrible HIT stat, which doesn't seem to be an issue when fighting Anima or Constructs, either because those don't have much EVA or because the special spells are specially accurate.

Mirror Mage's innate spell retaliation feels really good. I still have to figure out how to make the most out of their two basic spells, but gave them some regular magic too so they're playing a very tanky mage role for now. Gigantic hp growth, which makes sense for the role but is still funny to see.

The sprites and environments look really nice! The other classes also seem interesting, so I'll definitely do another run of it once I'm done.

Harpy Game ... 2! [the first one is a decade old and is terminally unfinished]

Features:

Create a party from 12 distinct classes!

Use books to learn additional skills! Be careful - there's only a single copy to find for most of them!

Fly over gaps! Soar over water! But be careful - you're only airborne as long as your Flight Gauge lasts, and once it's empty, you'll fall.

Go through four areas in any order! There may even be benefits to ducking into a later area, if only for a short while…

Uses a lot more default OHR features than some of my prior projects

Also uses a lot of music that I'd need to change out before asking for money for this

[14dayswithyou]

tell ren to turn his location on👉👈

I saw one of the posts of how ren does get jealous of pets being loved over him and alll that so now I have the thought of the one meme of ‘ah yes, me, my partner and their [enter normal pet size] foot [pet]’

I don’t have anything else, it did pop into my head though and I thought I’d share with the class.

⌞♥⌝ ItsNotVivy on Twitter actually made that exact meme with Ren a looong time ago!!

[deoidesign]

.

[onlyasimp4nobody]

[familiarlyfrigid]

Chapter 2 is posted!

Click the ao3 link or read below:

ㅤ Alastor woke up in his room, blinking in confusion as he registered where he was, because he remembered falling asleep on the sofa. Lucifer had been sitting on the other end, and he vaguely remembered talking to him. No one else was around, so did that mean that… Lucifer carried him to bed? He sat up and rubbed his head as a surge of pain reminded him that he still felt terrible. His head hurt, his throat hurt, his body ached, and his mind was foggy, though it wasn’t as bad as it had been the previous night.

He also remembered having some strange dreams—letting Lucifer pet his ears, leaning his head on the King’s shoulder, cuddling with him so closely as if he was holding Alastor tight to protect him from harm. He shivered, though it wasn’t out of repulsion towards the thought, and pulled a blanket around himself, deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to stay in bed for a few more minutes. While he wasn’t entirely against the idea of being more affectionate towards Lucifer, physical touch wasn’t really his way of showing endearment. Besides, Alastor was a very private person—he couldn’t get too friendly without inviting questions that he didn’t want to answer. He told himself that he just wasn’t thinking straight. His feverish dreams didn’t mean anything.

It was just a dream, right?

He took a deep, rattling breath, which he regretted as he started coughing. He sat at the edge of the bed, slowly standing up and preparing himself for the wave of dizziness he knew was coming. He managed to get dressed, but that was all he had the energy for. Running his hands through his messy hair in an attempt to straighten it, he looked at himself in the mirror and made himself look as presentable as he could, forcing his ears to point up and making his toothy grin almost look real. As tempting as it was to stay in bed all day, it would be awfully boring, so he headed downstairs to the kitchen. The walk was much longer than usual—actually, he normally just teleported instead. He cursed the constant fatigue that weighed him down as he forced his legs to carry him.

Alastor forced himself to eat a little and take some medicine, which prevented Charlie from fussing over him too much. Most of the others had already been up for a few hours. Not Lucifer, though; he was just coming downstairs to get some coffee. He didn’t say anything to Alastor. In fact, the King almost seemed to be avoiding him, only briefing telling Charlie once again that she shouldn’t worry about the sick demon. Maybe he felt awkward about last night, too?

Alastor soon moved to the parlor and sat in his armchair, wondering what to do with his time. There was no way Charlie would let him get any work done, though he didn’t really feel like trying in the first place. Everyone got to busying themselves for the day, leaving him by himself until Lucifer came over and leaned against the side of the chair. “So, how are you doing? Are you sure you should be up and about?”

He huffed as his ears drooped, and Lucifer couldn’t help but think that he looked cute that way. Static crackled in the air, mirroring the painful buzzing in his head. “Do you really expect me to stay in bed all day? The least I can do is keep tabs on everyone while I rest.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the pressure pounding behind his eyes, and groaned, “My head is still killing me…”

“Do you want me to scratch behind your ears again?” the other asked with a playful smile.

Again? Alastor’s eyes widened, his thoughts slowly untangling as the veil clouding his memory started to lift. “What?”

His expression grew a little more sheepish, like he’d just been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. “You said it helped last night.”

Oh, he didn’t imagine it. The memory was beginning to come back to him now—he actually did fall asleep with Lucifer practically cradling him in his wings, out in the open where anyone could have seen them. His flushed face went an even brighter red, and the room suddenly felt too hot. “No one else saw us, correct?”

“Everyone else was asleep. I woke up at some point in the morning and brought you to your room before anyone saw.”

“Good,” he said with a sniffle, his voice ragged and stuffy. He gazed up at the other man, who was looking at him expectantly, a shameless smile across his face.

“Well? You haven’t answered my question.”

Alastor glanced across the room to the bar, where Husk and Angel Dust were talking. They seemed too engrossed in their conversation to run the risk of disrupting him. Was he really doing this? Letting himself be so dependent on someone for comfort as soon as he was in a vulnerable state? He could always deny it later on, he thought, say that he was still a little delirious and that none of it meant anything. He’d just lie his way out of admitting that Lucifer made him feel comfortable. Deciding that they were alone enough, he sighed, “You may touch my ears.”

Lucifer moved over to the sofa and sat down. “Come and lay down.”

He got up and sat at the other end, then stretched out across the entire length of the sofa. His feet dangled over the edge of the armrest, his head in the Devil’s lap. He felt hands move through his hair, pointed nails gently scratching at his scalp. It was strange, the way he only allowed certain people to touch him like this. Maybe it was some animalistic instinct he was allowing himself to give in to. Lucifer ran his hand over the length of the demon’s ears in slow, relaxing motions. His other hand brushed over Alastor’s forehead—still slightly warmer than normal. All of the sinner’s apprehension slowly melted away, lost to the soothing touch and persistent fatigue pulling him away from his thoughts. The white noise in his mind started to quiet down as he relaxed. He supposed that he could allow himself to lay there for a little while, even if it meant being ridiculed later by the others, and closed his eyes with a genuine smile.

I crave cute caretaking fics, so I’m writing one. This one can be interpreted as platonic or romantic radioapple!

Chapter 2 will come… eventually.

ㅤ Sitting on the sofa in the hotel’s lobby, Lucifer was only partially paying attention to what was on the TV. He soon found himself leaning against the armrest and closing his eyes, gradually drifting to sleep. It was late—a little after one in the morning—and the hotel was unnaturally quiet. Everyone else was asleep—except for Alastor, who was laying on the other end of the sofa and was evidently awake, stretching his legs out and shoving one hoof into Lucifer’s side in the process. He shifted, then pulled the blanket draped over him tighter around himself and curled up in the exact same position he was in before. He’d been repeating that same routine all night.

Lucifer was annoyed at being woken up, but he couldn’t bring himself to be angry at the poor deer. He knew he had to feel like shit to be so restless when he’d been so tired during the day. He had denied being sick for most of the day, even though it was obvious from the sound of his voice and the look of exhaustion behind his forced smile. His energy eventually ran out, much to his chagrin, and he’d been lying on the couch since that evening. His ears were flopped to the sides, his cheeks and nose were flushed red, and the dark circles under his eyes were more prominent than usual. Lucifer offered to look after him for the night, telling Charlie that he didn’t want her worrying about him. While that was true, it wasn’t the real reason he was so insistent. He wanted to be the one to care for Alastor and spend some time with him, but he didn’t want to outright say it. Everyone knew that the two were getting along, but they weren’t very open about just how much time they’d been spending together.

Alastor sat up a little, supporting himself with one arm, and started coughing harshly into his fist. It left his breathing ragged and faintly rattling in his chest as he blearily opened his eyes. He squinted at the TV for a moment before shielding his eyes with a static-filled groan. “Why are you watching this?” he mumbled, his voice hoarse and his words slightly slurred.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought some background noise would help.”

“There are better sources of background noise, you know,” he said, sounding only half awake. He closed his eyes, keeping them covered by his hand. “Turn that off. It’s too bright.”

Lucifer sat up and reached for the remote, switching the TV off. He looked at Alastor, who shifted to be sitting up with his arms wrapped around his knees and was shivering, and furrowed his brow. He really should’ve gone to bed a long time ago. “Do you want me to take you to your room?” Surely his bed was more comfortable than the couch, yet he shook his head in response. Instead, he slid closer to the King and leaned his head against his shoulder. Lucifer’s eyes widened in surprise, a flutter of excitement in his chest at just how close he was. Alastor never initiated any sort of physical affection and, as far as he knew, wasn’t comfortable enough around him to allow for much physical contact between them. He wasn’t sure whether he should be glad that the sinner wanted to be so close to him, or worried because that was so unlike him. Either way, he seemed to relax a little, and letting him rest was the most important thing right then.

He decided to push his luck a little further, and raised a hand to gently run his fingers through the other man’s hair. He watched Alastor’s reaction carefully, ready to back off if he showed any signs of discomfort. But he didn’t. He simply closed his eyes and nestled his head against the Devil’s neck, overly-warm body slumped against his. His hair was soft, albeit tangled and slightly damp with sweat. The hand in his hair moved to one of his large, fluffy ears, slowly stroking his crimson fur. He made no attempt to move, letting his ears be petted and his head gently scratched, like the others did to Keekee. After a few minutes, the deer demon opened his eyes. There was a buzz of static in the air as he lifted his head, then suddenly sneezed, one of his ears swatting Lucifer in the face as they flicked back against his head. Alastor sniffled, then leaned against him again with a groan.

“Watch where you aim those things,” he said with no actual malice in his voice, flicking the tip of one ear. He pushed the shivering demon off of himself, keeping one hand on his shoulder to steady him because it seemed like he was barely awake. Since he decided that he was not leaving the couch, he was at least going to make himself comfortable. With a wave of his hand, Lucifer’s clothes were swapped with pajamas. Sanguine feathers spread at his sides as one pair of wings sprouted from his back. He laid down, then guided Alastor to lay with his head resting on his chest. His wings wrapped around the other, draping over the blanket that was already covering him.

Lucifer went back to stroking him behind the ears with an amused smile. A powerful Overlord like him, being treated like a harmless pet. “I never would’ve thought that you could be so clingy. You like being scratched behind the ears?” It felt a little wrong of him to enjoy this so much, but when would he get a chance to be this affectionate with him again?

“It distracts me from this headache…” he slurred out, coughing a few times. His voice sounded like it was coming from a cheap, malfunctioning speaker.

“Does cuddling with me help, too?”

There was a short pause. “Yes.” The admittance was so casual that Lucifer couldn’t help but chuckle. There was no way he would ever confess something like that if he wasn’t so out of it. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if Alastor fully knew what he was saying.

“I think you’re just delirious.”

“Maybe…” His voice trailed off like he was starting to fall asleep, so Lucifer stayed quiet. He laid awake for a while, listening to the sinner’s static-filled breathing and intermittent coughing. Then, he slowly drifted to sleep as well, his wings still comfortingly wrapped around the other.