#which is definitely Part of the obsession itself so its got me stuck in a feedback loop

[magpiefngrl]

hey! curious new writer here. which fix of yours were the easiest to write and which were the hardest? in what way?

Hello anon! Thanks for an interesting ask.

OK I'll start with the disclaimer that every fic has its difficulties as well as moments when it flows, but there have definitely been some that poured out of me with great ease than others which were a constant struggle.

The Miseducation of Draco Malfoy, my first drarry, was written at the height of my obsession and it poured out of me. I wrote like a fiend all day and would go to bed at night and reread what I wrote. I breathed that fic day and night for the weeks it took me to write it. It was also the most fun I had writing, prob because I was a complete unknown and there were zero expectations from me. Similarly, The Full Monty, written just after TMODM, was an easy fic to write. I remember I read the prompt and was immediately assaulted by images and started laughing on my own and was like, OK I need to claim this, the fic is writing itself.

Similarly but in a more tortuous way, dirtynumbangelboy poured out of me too. More tortuous because it took me ages to find the right beginning, and by then I was behind with my deadlines and got stressed. Also, I wrote it in a sort of dread of the Erised fest, because it had some amazing writers that year and I was intimidated. I remember my goal was to "at least not embarrass myself" .

But, aside from the doubts and stress, dnab itself flowed like nothing else. There are passages that I really love, even now years later, and they are exactly as they came out the first time. I did very little editing (compared to other works).

With The Boy Who Died I made a fun post on tumblr about a mdzs AU of drarry and then the idea wouldn't let me go so I had to sit and write it. Luckily it was summer and I didn't work and I could spend my days writing it. There were moments I got stumped but it mostly came out easily.

Finally, a lot of my short fics poured out of me in one go and came out almost perfectly formed. The Dare, A Perfectly Normal Reaction, and my MCD The Death You Carry are good examples.

Fics that took ages at first:

so my thing is that I have to find the right opening to begin the story, otherwise I can't proceed. I don't plan; the first scene/chapter is my plan. And sometimes I get stuck for yonks. With The Unquiet Grave I began with a Draco POV, him being a politician and Harry his bodyguard, had an interesting first scene and then---nothing. It's like I hit a wall. Zero words come. When I have this feeling, I know I need to go back and revise. Long story short, it was when I changed the POV to Harry that somehow the whole gothic mood came about and I felt the auspicious click: I got it. That's what the story is. A gothic romance. After that, it was easier.

The same thing happened with Hush, darling. I rewrote a first scene fruitlessly several times until a random bit of inspiration fell into my hands: the visual of a card game. I began with it and I let it guide me and the whole plot/stakes/cast fell into place.

Fics that needed a LOT of work and had to be dragged into existence:

The Gift is the first that comes to mind. First couple of chapters were pretty easy and then I was stumped. Writing it felt like dragging myself up a slope, step by step and also not being happy with anything, so that was fun. :/

The other is 9 ½ Days, which took actual years to finish. In that case the middle part was the hard one. I wrote the beginning fairly easily and the last chapters, the plotty ones, also flowed. But the middle. Zeus almighty. It took me years and I thought and thought and thought about it a lot. Finishing this fic was an immense relief but also a source of pride, especially because I really liked the result, and judging by the comments I get, people seem to love it too.

Thanks for an unusual ask! It was good to ponder about my fics and my writing process. The same issues seem to crop up with my original works too, and it's helpful to remind myself that I got over those issues before and I can get over them again.

[veraynes-blog]

hi! During the hollidays I went completely berserk on your tensimm fics and devored them. I never took the time to leave a comment because i was just always ravenous for the next chapter lol. I especialy love unspoken!! the concept of a willingly broken down and stuck tardis that still somewhat functions but isn't itself but still has all the infinite rooms,,,,argh!!! makes my brain go brrrrr i feel like its such rich ground for existencial horror Other than that, I'm absolutely in love with how you interprent tensimm, especially this..darker version of themelf the doctor can be if he lets himself get influenced, it really feels like yeah, this is what would happen to them. I also think you wrote the sexiest fanfic porn i ?? ever read???!! and ive been reading those for longer than i should Anyway I wanted to draw a big piece of fanart for you but other work got in my way. I still really wanted to show my appreciation for your writing hence this out of nowhere ask I wonder, what are your thoughts on 12 and missy? They're my fav version of them bc missy character's arc just!!!!gets to me, would love to have your thoughts :) Anyway i'll stop rambling on now, I hope you have a lovely day, I can't wait for whatever writing you have planned next

Oh wow, thank you so much??? 🥰 What a lovely message to log in to this morning!!

Ahhgh I'm so glad you enjoyed the fics! It's been my favourite fandom to (obsessively) take part in, which is probably why I'm not ready to let it go yet lol. I love your take on the broken TARDIS in Unspoken. Not something I actively considered at the time, but you're so right. They were living in a TARDIS shell, there's definitely something horrifying when you say it like that 😅

✨️Love✨️ when the Doctor gets an opportunity/temptation/influence to go a bit darker! You can tell in canon that it's something just below the surface, especially in Ten, and I feel like if he'd had more exposure to the Master his story could have gone a lot differently 👀

I'm always overwhelmed people even consider drawing fanart for my fics, thank you for telling me!! 🥰

And I love Twelve and Missy so much! Our first and only semi-canon confirmation of romance between them. They're also both a close second favourite in terms of versions of the Doctor and Master, for me. I would say, though, I always thought there was an air of... tragedy? That went right through their storyline. Not just the misunderstanding at the end (which to this day I find harrowing as a narrative 😔) but even the fact that Missy was so lonely and desperate to get her friend back that she was willing to change everything about herself? And the Doctor let her?? Demanded it, actually?? I dunno, she was just trying so hard in her own psychotic way, and I think Twelve wanted it to work as well, but he had such a strict and obscure moral code by that point that it all felt a little... doomed 😕

I do love them, I promise, I'm just not as good with tragedy as a genre 😅

Thank you again for the message! 😘

[sineala]

Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you  would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good. 

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference. 

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

[raisinchallah]

I can't find the post now but you saying in Strange New Worlds where Spock says "Starfleet is where I'm accepted" or something like that. Excuse me while I make my tinfoil hat but I can't shake the feeling that newer Trek shows are shifting to military propaganda or 9/11 really did move TV so far right that they have to be even more obvious and basic with their messages. Like you said, it's such a revision but also hard for me to not think "Who benefits from this"

ok this answer got a bit out of control dfjklad;jklj its going under the cut

yeah i think theres a ton of different factors and i do think its been a gradual shift starting before these new shows like i didnt actually realize until recently but voyager was produced as a network show not a syndicated show like tng and ds9 and had to answer to the executives of upn as well as paramount (tho paramount owned upn) and there was a lot more executive meddling and was part of why the show like wasnt able to have any kind of overarching story or anything tho rick berman was also super nervous about that and in many ways voyager feels like a shift towards a sort of baffling obsession with starfleet rules and obsession with starfleet for starfleets sake which i think is somewhat jarring after watching ds9 and feels like active course correction and then of course the most extreme product of the post 9/11 tv environment was enterprise also produced in a similar atmosphere with that kind of oversight and all that i think also well its been the slow march towards understanding itself as a larger franchise as well and i guess as each subsequent show is produced its like actively defining what the franchise itself is... and then theres aos which actually is pretty interesting on this front that it does portray a much more militarized starfleet and is definitely critical of that but i think perhaps has been taken by some people to be like well starfleet = good so militarized starfleet also = good and because it was so many peoples first introduction to star trek i dont actually know how that has altered fan perception and so on and now we exist in a world of more and more giant sprawling franchises that also have extremely tightly controlled content that is also wrapped up in military propaganda and i dont think star trek is ever gonna like fully going on in that direction but i do find it interesting i guess starfleet has become the defining trait of the series and must always exist i think the push to bring back the federation in discovery really is so puzzling to me but i guess just again reflects this history and i suppose u cant really call something star trek now if u dont have the little delta shaped badge on or something when i dont really feel like that has to be what it is cuz its a massive massive universe to explore i know picard this season is i guess trying to be political and comment on current events but tbh i havent watched it so i do not really know how people are assessing its handling of it and all but i do think this would be idk interesting to look into and think about and wow i just realized i strayed kinda far from your question um anyways back to the revisionism yeah i think partially it might just be trying to sand off the edges and redefine this story and show for their ongoing franchise plans and like the newer shows have very much been stuck in looking at old star trek sort of a snake eating its tail which i think will always angle towards somewhat underwhelming and kinda conservative takes idk i wonder if in many ways its trying to reflect how fans and the public percieve what star trek should be rather than like reality idk all marketing something adkl;kladfj i am trying to not be so cynical and whatever but idk its interesting ok sorry for the word wall

[practicalmagicintuitions]

Reading on HC

DISCLAIMER: If you will send me an Anon, I will answer in the same tone as your ask, opinion is written.

All information and statements made in this reading or any other post of mine are all alleged until proven to be fact and for entertainment purposes & usage only. All information stated is based on my intuition and my tarot cards. Opinion only. The readings have no intention to cause any harm to the individuals, people featured in it.

Disclaimer 2 : seems extra long reading to me, sorry for that. If there any typo sorry for that too, I wanted to post this today, so I typed like a mofo. 

Cards pulled on 15/07

What is happening now?

Devil rx Eight of Wands. 

On The Devil card, you can see the couple from the Lovers card chained together while The Devil is watching them. Those two cards are numerological counterparts ( The Lovers 6 The Devil is 15 = 1+5=6) so they have a connection but this is not limited to some romantic relationship. This card also deals with addiction, obsession, influences, control, illusion, materialism. And when the card is upright the pentagram is in the “wrong” position, it’s upside down. So when the card is reversed, the pentagram returns its correct position and becomes the protective symbol again. 

So The Devil rx means the chain falls off, it’s an opportunity to free yourself from those obsessive, addictive things which affect you. It's realising you have the power to change. But before you came to this realisation and urge to be free, you have to hit the rock bottom. I feel it’s important to say that in this question I haven’t asked about his romantic relationship, so it could mean changing a circle of friends or situations too. 

8 of wands is often called the cupid’s arrow or the falling in love card while it is more about infatuation and adrenalin rush. It’s also a fast-moving card. This card is also called the holiday love card.

So I see two possible options. One of them is he is ready to free himself from some bounding situation fast. And this freeing attempt makes him enthusiastic, cause some adrenalin rush and in this case, it means he is trying to free himself from infatuation. He wants rapid results.  The second option is that he is trying to free himself because there is another person, a third one if you like. 

HC+NV relationship now. 

Eight of Swords rx, Five of cups, The Sun rx. 

It’s very interesting to see those 3 cards together, I had to meditate on them a little bit longer.

With the 8ofSwrx I think he has a more realistic, clearer view on this relationship. I think this clarity cause great sadness and regret. (5ofC) Sun rx means the relationship is cooled down. 5ofC is a traditional bad relationship card. Not necessarily a breakup but definitely arguments and disharmony. Because this is about the relationship and because 8ofSWrx is about to break free, release, escape freedom (like the Devil rx) and the 5ofC has a breakup meaning, I think the relationship itself lost its warmth, burnt out. Maybe because the past events were too much or one of the parties is still crying over a “spilt milk” aka cannot let the past go, a past relationship perhaps. If this is about letting go of this current relationship with NV, it won’t be a lucky “escape”. It will bring sorrow, probably thinking about why this didn’t work? 

HC feelings, emotions

Judgement rx on top of it 7ofSwords

Judgment rx is about a difficult transition you are resisting or need time to adjust. It’s the refusal to hear the call. Delays, confusion, broken family units. etc. But because we have the 7ofSw on top of it ( and I mentioned before how I pay attention to the cards that fall on the others. This is only my method, maybe others don’t care but I do) I think he is seeking a way out about this situation he seemingly cannot let it go. But this card is an unsettling, shady, sneaky one. It brings dishonesty. Walking on eggshells, getting away with something, preparing for some action. Discomfort is the foundation of this card, it’s almost like you want to be truthful but cannot get what you want with honesty. This is the white lies, diplomatic approach to a situation. You know how he was compared to a politician, this is it basically. I feel this is the I cannot let go, but somehow I want to but my methods and ways won’t be honest and nice. For example when your partner is cheating you but too coward to admit it and accusing you of cheating. You fed up, break up with them, so they got what they want without being hones. That was just an example to describe the card, not the exact situation I saw here. 7ofSw is also means planning, mind games, tactics, being undercover etc. 

9ofWands, Page of Cups, Star rx, 2of Cups rx

He was defensive, he protected a young feeling which was a teen love type of emotion ( I remember I got this card ones how this relationship felt at the beginning and I think this was his card back then too) and probably this is why he feels he is stuck, he cannot let go because he was protective over this. And just left this doesn’t seem an option, not with a clear exit. (again, not whit honesty)

With the Judgment rx this again means, hard time to let it go. He feels he was committed to fight for and guard that young feeling (as we saw with his FO post ) but now he is hopeless (Star rx). He also feels he is constantly battling and this wears him out. Maybe that’s why a relationship seems to burn out. 

Pages are not just the youngest but they are the news bringers in tarot. This cup could mean gossip, being overly dramatic. To be honest I think this perfectly fits for his FO post and maybe he feels it was too much, too dramatic. On the card, the Page is offering his cups to someone and it could mean he feels he made those offers. He offered his emotions to her but the situation is hopeless. Or more likely it was a false hope. I said once in my previous reading that the most intense feeling I get from him for NV is this Page of cups, teenage love thing, which is more like the first few weeks, head over heels emotion, but this is without any real substance. 

There is no love here. 2 of cups if it’s upright is still not the love we saw on the Lovers card. It’s more like the early touchy-feely phase of a relationship which could grow to something more but it could die down too. Reversed 2ofC means trouble in a relationship even the end of it. Two people realise they are not meant to be together. 2ofC not only represents romantic relationships but friendships too. In that case, it could mean a fallout between friends. 

What I found interesting is that this could mean a codependent relationship between two people to the extent they cannot leave each other. This resonates with the Judgment rx. 2ofCrx can be a sign of a third person in the relationship or that one of the parties feels attraction outside of the relationship. 

His relationship with his family

Wheel of fortune, 2 of wands

Wheel of Fortune could be a fate, a karmic card. As I understand here that it means they as a family have a strong relationship even if the wheel is turning to negative. I don’t see this bond be destroyed by a woman (like MM did with Harry and the BRF). Rifts, arguments yes, but I don’t see this as a permanent situation. 

The 2ofW is often described as planning the future because the figure on the card is looking at a globe he is holding in his hands. Here I almost feel he is looking into the wheel. 

2 of W is decision making. Seems like a passive card without moving but you are thinking, making plans, so it’s not passive really. He knows the decision he makes will affect many. But as a relationship nor the Wheel neither the 2ofW are good cards. So I definitely sense some trouble now ( at that time of the reading) but he is in the position to change things. 

9 of Pentacles, Strength.

The imagery of those cards are very similar. Both have a very bright yellow background, on both, we have a female figure alone with an animal. 

9ofP could represent an older woman, but first I want to talk about the Strength card. This is about your inner strength, calm the beast inside you. It means your inner strength is put up on a test. 9ofP could mean that you are sacrificed many things for success. I think he temporarily sacrificed some part of his family and this is what put his strength to the test. This card also correlates with material wealth and success. I used the RSW deck for all of my HC readings but I cannot let go the feeling I have when I am using my own, personal deck which is the Druid Craft Tarot. On that card, the woman has everything financially, but still, there is boredom on her face. She is not happy, she is missing someone or something from her life. And I feel as an emotion this is very much present. He has a good status financially, seems everything is good, but still he is not happy. And this is something that could put his inner strength for a test. 

2 of pentacles rx

If this card is upright it means we are successfully juggling between 2 things. Because it’s a pentacle many times this is about 2 jobs, but as I said pentacles are about resources. 

If this card is rx it means you cannot do that anymore. You know that you have to choose between the two things. It could mean his family vs NV, or NV and another one, but could mean a poor financial decision for example with his FL house, maybe he overspent. (Tbh I think I mentioned this before somewhere that maybe he will have problems with his house)

This card also could mean a breakup. I don’t see this means a breakup from his family, I think their relationship is tested. Since this is a rx 2 it speaks about imbalance. 

This very much describes the whole reading. I felt imbalanced. I had a hard time reading certain combinations, first, this whole didn’t make sense. I am not sure how clear I was, this is definitely not my most polished reading. But then I thought I think I am picking up their imbalance. Because this whole has the “ I want to be free” feeling, but at the same time the “I cannot let it go” too. Like I want to go but there is an anchor which is holding me back. 

If we check the cards I get, we have 4 twos ( 2 of cups, wands, pentacles, Judgement), 3 of them is reversed. It means losing harmony, trying to do 2 things at the same time unsuccessfully. The illusion of companionship. You don’t have equilibrium. etc. It’s about decision making, serious ones. Two sides of a story. It also means because those are reversed that he is afraid of making a decision, he rather wants to other make those on his behalf. 

We also have 4 eights ( 8of wands, swords, The Star, The Strength). 2 of them upright, 2 of them reversed. Eight is strength. His inner strength is tested, his life gets busier. Reversed one means bondage, lack of courage.

If you want to imagine his situation, imagine a swing. Back and forth, up and down. He needs to make a decision to slow down or stop, or he will lose control and fall off. This is what he is now and this is what I picked up, while I had a hard time understanding the cards.

I hope you enjoyed it. :)

[caterpellas]

munich nights • harry styles 2

summary: touring inseparably as best friends and musicians, yours and harry’s relationship takes a cruel turn in munich.

warnings: smut (thigh riding, oral f receiving, girl on top n i think that’s it)

genre: bestfriend!harry, friends to lovers(?), angst, smut, it’s the works y’all

pt 2/3 (one is here)           word count: 6k

a/n: this is the penultimate bit now :) i’m actually super nervous to post this lol i’m a mess anyway pls enjoy 

chapter 2 playlist

you couldn’t lie, you cried yourself to sleep that night, with a movie you sort of cared about playing in the background. harry didn’t love you, and what used to be the strongest friendship in mankind had now crumbled apart and returned to a state of distant nothingness. harry didn’t love you. he didn’t have to say those words to you for you to know they were true. the realisation hit you about twenty minutes after harry left like an arrow to your chest, that was so recently covered in his ejaculate. not only were the pair of you virtually inseparable, you worked together as well and you had absolutely no idea what was going to happen now. you felt too ashamed for him and his band members to see you now after last night.

waking up in a damp patch of tears in your double bed, you try your hardest to get on with your day and forget last night. a bath felt appropriate so, just before midday, before you’d even greeted your friends yet, you ran one. the tub itself was freestanding and as deep as your head when you sat in it, the victorian taps centred in the middle. it was definitely the nicest bath you’d had in your life. you stripped off last nights clothes that you had shamelessly fallen asleep in and hoped to god the hot water of your bath would erase the images of last night, but the feeling of harry’s touch burned hotter then any water.

almost an hour later, milo, your drummer, knocked on the door of the bathroom you were still in.

“y/n? you in there? we haven’t seen you since last night before you and harry left. is everything okay?” milo’s voice reached you through the oak walls. you wanted to tell him that nothing was okay, and that you’re most important relationship ceased to exist but you couldn’t bare to tell anyone else, especially your friend and bandmate of 5 years.

“i’m all good, i’ll be out soon.” you make it downstairs another half an hour later, the need for a cup of tea driving you to the kitchen. as you reached the breakfast bar right next to the kitchen, you saw the sickening mop of brown curls that you were hoping to avoid. he turns to face you at the sound of your slippers against the tiled floor.

but instead of plain ignorance, a much more unexpected reaction finds its way to harry as he greets you, “y/n! we were beginning to think you’d drowned in that bath.”

you stood in bewilderment at harry’s attempt at a joke, wondering why he was trying you like all of last night never happened to either of you. but you picked this over cold silence so went along with it, “yeah sorry i needed to recover from the jet lag yesterday.”

it was sort of true, you were feeling the time difference and were grateful to be able to rest today. aside from plans to go out this evening, you were all going to rest up at home. which meant being in close quarters with the man you were trying so hard to avoid. making your cup of tea on the old aga kettle, your friends went back to discussing tour details, chatting about last and what was in store for the rest of the trip. you got a feeling their plans for the future weren’t going to be that plain and simple.

-

by the evening, you had all found yourselves comfortably sat around the fire outside, eating takeout from a german restaurant nearby. it was really good, and although you and harry had barely spoken more than those few words to each other things weren’t as awkward as you were dreading they’d be. usually, if things hadn’t gone the way they had, you and harry would be sat next to one another, your sides touching all the way down whilst you giggled over something harry was telling you.but as it goes, milo and olly sandwiched you between their huge bodies.

“does anyone know the name of the club we’re going to tonight?”

your ears pricked up at the mention of going to a club. you didn’t realise you were going out-out.

“panorama, i think? i put harry’s name on the guest list.”

it occurred to you that you were heavily underdressed for an exclusive nightclub. you had a good feeling they wouldn’t accept your cargo pants and grubby trainers. jumping up from the bench you run to the door, “i need to go change!”

you opted for an ever so slightly classier look and went with a small pleated skirt and a cropped cardigan. not a combo you’d usually wear, it was a little more fitted then you’d choose for yourself but you’d compromise a little to get in the club. you stuck with the dr martens purely for comfort and called it a night there. you loved your style for many reasons, but the most important one was that it was low effort. it took a maximum of 20 minutes to get ready and you took pride in that.

the group had organised to have a limo to share instead of a taxi, so harry was a little more protected from paparazzi and also to fit the size of your party. they were all waiting outside on the drive when you got downstairs and in unison, their heads turned to face you.

sarah grinned at you, “i love it.”

“very cute,” charlotte smiled as well.

you responded with a “cheers” before daring to look at harry. he was wearing a silk shirt and slacks in a baby pink colour. nothing different to harry’s usual attire but the outfit still sent a chill down your spine. well that, and the way he was looking at you. it was dark out but you could still see how electric his green eyes were as they stared directly at you. you’d been caught off guard, harry wasn’t someone you were prepared to connect with again this evening. in fact, you’d convinced yourself that you didn’t even care whether harry was going to be there or not (utter lies of course). but by the way he was looking at you, you knew this wasn’t the end and you weren’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

-

the vip section of ‘panorama’ was plush and teal coloured, with flower garlands and strip lights along the ceiling. you had a lounging area all to yourselves, with big padded benches and cushions. it was luxurious and if you weren’t so highly strung from having harry sat so near by, you’d fall asleep on it. you drunk so many cocktails by this point and your worries seemed to fade away into the loud club music.

“y/n.”

harry was sat next to you, but distantly. he was chatting to mitch before he said your name. no matter how loud the music playing was, you’d still always here his voice. turning to him, you asked, “harry?”

he’s smiling at you, like nothing has changed, “how come you haven’t danced yet this evening?”

it was a good question- you loved to dance more than you loved to perform. harry would always make fun of you, the shimmy you would do when he was playing disco in the studio and the way you always swayed along to fleetwood mac, pretending to be stevie nicks on stage. the reason you weren’t dancing is because you were far too obsessed with the closeness you had achieved with harry in your booth.

“i haven’t quite been feeling it just yet,” you teased back and you felt as though things with harry had gone back to normal, so you dared to ask, “are we good?”

harry’s boyish smile took over his face as he gave you a definite, “yes.”

“well i’m feeling more in the mood now so i’ll see you later,” you get up to exit, smoothing out the pleats in your skirt and struggle to take your eyes away from his. dreaming he’ll follow you, you make your way into the adjacent room filled to the brim with people. the song was bassy, but mellow and you could immediately feel your body moving to it. before you knew it you were almost next to the dj booth, opposite the ceiling high speakers and the song was perfect. you hadn’t felt this relaxed since yesterday’s plane journey and you let your unease pour out of your limbs as they writhed to the music. it took a few minutes to take you out of the trance and realise, although surrounded by a mass of people, you weren’t alone.

a tall figure was behind you, and without turning you knew who it was. you could smell his cologne easily- it was gucci of course and it was heavenly. not even daring to turn to him, you stayed facing away, afraid of what it meant to have him in your view. his hands, large and firm, gripped your shoulders, like he did twice yesterday, and his hot breath was against your neck.

“can i join you?”

the question itself was said innocently, this wasn’t the first time harry had asked to dance with you, and probably wasn’t the last, but it felt different to you now. god how you missed the simplicity of harry being unattainably yours as a friend. finally bracing yourself to meet his eyes from almost a foot above you, you spun, his arms falling from your shoulders to your forearms.

smiling up at the familiar face of the love of your life, you said into his ear, “of course you can dance with me.”

dancing with harry was nothing sexy or erotic but it was the most intimate you’d ever been with him, before last night. harry loved to dance almost as much as you and the best part of his whole personality was nothing other than his devil-may-care disposition. it reminded you of the times he’d twirl you while you were stood somewhere completely out of the blue, or when he’d snap his fingers along to a song and by the time you’d joined in the two of you had broken out into a full dance routine just for the sheer fun of it.

harry grabbed your small, clammy hands and pulled you into him, and then straight back out as wild cherry played through the speakers and you inaudibly laughed at his initial dance moves.

“is that all you’ve got styles?” you smirked at him before laughing at the ridiculous version of the hustle he was trying to pull off. he looked way better than you’d ever want to declare, looking fresh out of the 70s whilst funk music played to his dance moves. it suited him down to a fine art and the song was tailor made for his steps. your hips circled to the song and you remembered just how much you love it. pulling out some more unconventional dance moves you went for the peace signs over your eyes and harry’s head fell back in laughter whilst watching you.

this was it. the perfect moment you were so afraid of losing with him. you understood now that whatever yours and harry’s union was, it was far stronger than you ever gave it credit for. harry and you were back to normal again and instead of last night’s beer goggles making you far more candid then you’d like, now your feelings were crystal clear. harry was all you’d ever want.

as boney m. began to fade in now harry’s dancing had become more intense and now the pair of you were far closer then you’d ever danced together before. one of his hands made a brave attempt at looping around your waist and spinning you, making your skirt flare up in the process. usually you’d be shy and care, but only harry was paying attention to you and the thought of him have a small peak at what was under your skirt didn’t even slightly bother you. one of your arms clutches his lean bicep and you moved in unison together, only inches away from one another now.

“i love watching you dance,” harry whisper-shouted in your ear. unprepared for that statement, you stare into his eyes as they flashed in the colours of the lights. his gaze is unfocused, undecided on if it will look into your own or watch your lips, dampened from the small lick you gave them. his own lips were distracting you as well, the bottom one pulled in by his teeth, a habit he picked up when he was feeling conflicted. you wished he wasn’t such a hard man to read. the only definite you held onto right now was that he wanted to kiss you, reaffirmed when his eyes closed and his head ducked to meet your own.

“harry,” you place a hand on his exposed chest, “i can’t kiss you.”

he knew why. he knew that it crossed the boundary you weren’t meant to cross again. but much like you that didn’t want to stop him. so, despite himself, harry ignored your remark and hesitantly placed his lips on yours. the feeling of his kiss muted the sounds around you and in desperation you urged him to kiss you harder. no matter the height difference between the two of you, harry and you still felt perfectly matched. harry’s hands came into your tangled hair and gripped at the top of your neck, his lips even firmer against yours at the new angle. this was far more passionate then last night, and you were seeing harry in a whole new light. he wasn’t just your friend, an unrequited love and now a one time sexual partner but something more on par with your own emotions. harry’s zealous kiss seemed to correspond with all the feelings you had never spoken about him. but then he pulled away, leaving you empty again. you frowned at him, “why did you stop?”

he simply smiled back at you, soothing your nerves, and took your hand as he pulled you through the crowds to a curtained doorway. the room he took you to was a semi circle, the wall surrounded by a settee, and the floor was carpeted and plush with cushions and blankets. it reminded you of a harem, which made you question harry’s choice of destination. it was far quieter in here, the music now a dull bass in the background.

“why are we in here?” you looked over to harry who had already taken a seat on the sofa.

“i thought you’d want more privacy,” he grinned at you. harry’s attitude towards the whole thing was starting to irritate you instead now. why was he acting like this whole thing was so casual? did it not affect him like it did you?

“you’re kidding right? what even is this?” you scoff at him, crossing your arms across your chest. you were pissed.

harry’s brows creased in confusion, “what’s the matter?”

“what’s the matter? how can you ask me that? things are different now harry and you know it.”

he knew it. he just couldn’t find the courage to tell you that he’d wanted things to be this way for the past 2 years. it’s why he was constantly cracking jokes or messing around with you, making you smile and laugh brought him more joy then anything else in his life. it’s why he was so overwhelmed by white hot jealousy when he saw your mouth around that arsehole sound tech’s dick.

“jesus, y/n we’re friends aren’t we? why do we have to talk about that anyway, we’re having fun.”

“because harry,” you huff at him, “unlike you my feelings are a little bruised from last nights events.”

his eyes momentarily filled with guilt, “i know that was- not decent of me.”

“uh you think? i love you harry but you’re not pulling this crap on me again,” you tried to sound stern but his eyes melted you. you looked away but his hand reached for yours. this was it though. your temper had gotten the better of you and you were ready to leave him here and say goodbye to any relationship you formerly had with him. if he did anything again to you like he did last night you were sure your dignity would crumble into unfixable pieces. sighing, you finish off by telling him, “i can’t do this anymore harry.”

“i don’t want to lose you,” harry’s eyes were filled with pleading.

“you should have thought about that before i put your cock in my mouth,” you snapped at him. you hated to admit that saying out loud what you and harry had done had turned you on immensely. harry’s pupils dilated in synchronisation with yours. he played right into this.

“so you’d never do it again?” why was he asking you this?

“no. i wouldn’t.” he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of knowing what he did to you anymore. even though the sight of him with his half buttoned silk shirt, damp with sweat as he lounged on the settee, his high waisted trousers spread apart along his long legs made your legs feel like mush. your voice was so convincing that harry’s face fell and in an instant you wanted to eat your words.

“y/n, i’m sorry if i overstepped,” he stood up and wiped his hands on his trousers, “do you wanna just go back to being friends?”

there was only one right answer to that question;

“fuck no.”

you jumped harry then and there and he fell back onto the padded seat, hands strongly gripping your waist. you quickly kissed him and in shock you retreated, your eyes locking, before connecting your lips with him again. his hands move south to your hips and then to your buttocks, giving your scantily clad cheeks a squeeze. you knew from a past discussion harry was an ass man, after a few drinks together one night you were talking about likes and dislikes. it reminded you of one preference in particular. grabbing a fistful of his hair, you tugged it gently and an audible moan fell in between his lips against yours.

“fuck, y/n do that again,” he mumbled into your mouth and you responded with another pull on his curls. his hips jerked up to meet the middle of your legs and between the thin material of his trousers and nothing covering your crotch other then the thin material of your underwear, little was left to the imagination. you could feel harry’s erection growing the more your hand tangled into his hair. your bare thighs clutched tightly by harry’s hands and you could tell they were longing to hold your bare ass. with your other hand on harry’s bicep, you moved it down to his hand and guided it up along your cheek and he hummed in satisfaction.

“hey harry,” you spoke into the kiss, “you remember california?”

how could he forget- you had spent the whole day drinking on the beach and that was where you had confessed about all your likes and dislikes, giggling like little kids the whole time. who knew that several months later that secret information would become so beneficial?

“what about it?” he asked as your lips traced down his neck to his chest.

“do you remember what i told you?”

a switch flipped in harry’s head and he suddenly knew what you wanted. his thigh came between your legs and you put your weight onto it eagerly, and his hands rocked you back and forth on the cotton of his slacks. the friction was exactly what you needed and you had never been more thankful that harry had listened so intently to your confession; you loved dry humping.

harry’s gaze was on you as you continued to grind on him, and the sight was enough to turn him from semi to fully hard.

“does that feel good?” harry asked you and you were too shy to answer him, only whimpering in response, “tell me y/n.”

“it feels so good harry,” you moaned out. your pace had begun to quick as you needily searched for your release. you could feel your wetness seeping into the material against his thigh and a faint squelching noise could be heard underneath your mewls of satisfaction. your hand fell across the bridge of his nose, outlining his sharp cheekbone and rest along his neck, licking his lips as he watches you get yourself off on him.

on a normal occasion, you’d be too embarrassed to ever ride someone’s thigh, it made you the centre of their attention and that frightened you. but knowing that harry’s undivided recognition was different. you loved having his hands and eyes all over your body. not that he knew, but it was his after all. if he wanted it to, it could belong to him.

“harry,” you gasped, “i’m going to cum.”

to know he was about to witness your undoing just like you’d seen his thrilled him.

“cum for me y/n,” harry pushed your hips for you, gripping the flesh of your ass, and rolling you back and forth till you let out a sob as you came all over his thigh. your forehead fell onto harry’s shoulder as you recollected yourself. that was the first time you had ever cum just from humping. and it was on harry’s leg. the familiar blush crept up your arms to your neck and cheeks and you couldn’t bare to lift your head off of harry’s shoulder.

“y/n,” harry’s voice gently interrupted, “not to rush you or anything but my trousers really are soaked.”

his fingers slid down your thighs to help you off of his leg, your own like that of a baby deer. you weren’t expecting harry to unbuckle his belt and slip his trousers off his legs, the thick wet patch taking up a lot of the fabric.

“what are you doing?”

“well you don’t expect me to keep them on do you?”

“i sort of thought you’d just leave again.”

harry’s face flushed in shame, “i am really sorry i did that last time, y/n. it was a dick move.”

“just a little,” you give him a half smile to let him know you couldn’t stay mad at him. stood in awkward silence, your panties dripping with your cum and harry in nothing but a shirt and boxers, you didn’t know what to say. it wasn’t common  that you’d find an uncomfortable lack of words to say to harry.

finally, after one too many moments in silence, harry beckoned you with his finger, “c’mere.”

suddenly you found yourself snugly wrapped in his arms, your cheek to his chest as he held you.

“harry i-“

“don’t just yet please.”

so you stayed that way for a little longer. you realised that this could be the last chance you hold him like this, so you mentally noted every last thing about him you loved. his smell, typically of gucci, but underneath the artificial scent a more clean, personal one of clean bedding and shampoo. his arms, and how their length seemed to engulf you better than any of the softest, plushest bedding in existence. his lips that you could feel on the top of your head and how the feeling of them on your own was tattooed to you now. you knew that if you ever kissed anyone in the future it couldn’t penetrate the lasting layer of his.

he pulled away from you a few moments later, looking down over you. searching his eyes for any clues to his own thoughts from under your lashes, you found nothing. it didn’t mean you were expecting what came next.

as you started, “i understand if you don’t want to do this anymo-“

“i love you.”

the words hung in the air in stunned silence, and you were in too much of a state of shock to know how to take them. he loved you? was he saying the way he always did or did he mean he loved you the way you loved him?

“harry you don’t mean that you.. does that mean you, like, love-me-love-me?” you sounded like a teenager, your juvenile question was all you could muster up.

“i’ve always loved you y/n,”

“i know you have bu-“

“will you just let me finish please?” his fingers pressed against your lips to silence you, “you always talk without actually listening. let me a second please.

“i realised that you’ve never been my friend. don’t interrupt. you were never my friend because you were always like way more than that. friend seemed too small a word for us, you know? and then that day after i saw you and that shitty sound tech fucking in your room i was so angry and jealous and then i realised how much i wanted to be in his place. but you and me had already had such a good relationship i was worried i would ruin it by changing our dynamic. then on the night i met camila, you were so distant from me. i was upset and camila was into me so i was going to fuck her, but i couldn’t. i haven’t had sex with anyone since i saw you and-“

“his name was josh.”

“y/n i really couldn’t give a fuck what his name was. but anyway last night that prick wouldn’t leave you alone and i had to do something, and i wasn’t planning on taking things where they went but by the time you’d brought up my tattoos i was in too deep. i hate that i left you last night. i wanted to say all of this then, but i was too scared. so i left and hoped things would go back to normal between us. but our normal is nothing compared to what we had last night.”

overwhelmed, you sat down on the settee, leaning back to accommodate all of this information.

“so you want to be with me?” you asked him, still not believing it for yourself.

harry beamed at you, “i know, crazy right?”

“i just- i,” you stuttered over your lack of words.

“you don’t have to feel the same why i just figured it was best to be honest.”

you couldn’t help it, but you snorted at him, “you’re kidding right? i have not wanted anything more in my entire life.“

harry knelt down in front of you, and from this height you to were level. you could see eye to eye as equals now. his lips came to your forehead and softly kissed you there, your eyes fluttering closed. it was contentment to know he was finally yours. moving even closer to you, harry moved your legs aside and came between them and you had to prevent him from getting too close so your still-damp panties didn’t come into contact with his expensive shirt.

“you know,” you could feel harry’s lips turn upwards into a smirk on your forehead, “this means you don’t have to feel quite as worried about me fucking you anymore. i’m yours now, y/n.”

he lowered onto the back of his heals, taking his head to the level of your breasts, and he moved back a bit to take in the sight of you. you had to have been a mess, your black eyeliner probably smudged and your hair knotted around your head. your legs were still wide apart, giving harry the greatest opportunity to see under your little tartan skirt.

his pupils widen at the sight, “i can’t believe i’ve never seen you in a skirt like this before. you look so cute in it. it gives me great opportunity to do this,” his hands slid up your thighs slowly and surely, eventually coming down so that they were on the inside of your legs, just before your crotch. you were at his mercy at this angle, and he used it to his advantage. his long fingers brushed up against your clothed core and you whimpered at the sensitivity.

“are you still sore from earlier?”

you nodded and swallowed the nervous lump in your throat. his fingers moved up towards your hips, bumping your clit in the process and grabbed the sides of your tight underwear. pulling them down your legs, he got to see your pussy for the very first time. mouth practically salivating at the sight of your already wet lips, he began kissing along the insides of your legs, working inwards from the knee. he stopped at the edge of your thighs, teasing you with no touch. you hips were writhing at the need for contact and he pinned your thighs down, restricting you.

“i want to undress you first.”

his nimble fingers make quick work of the tiny buttons on your cardigan and it only just occurred to you that you’re not wearing a bra underneath. your bare sternum is exposed and you can tell harry is surprised to find you completely naked behind the cardi. slipping it off your shoulders, your perky breasts are finally unleashed for harry’s viewing.

“we never fucked,” you blurred out.

“what do you mean?”

“me and josh never had sex. i haven’t actually had sex in about two years.”

harry’s jaw sunk slightly at your confession, “but- how haven’t you?”

you felt embarrassed by this. no one ever compared to harry so why would you waste your time on them? you mostly only fooled around with josh because you needed a distraction from harry’s constant sex appeal.

“well josh and me never actually got around to it since he left the crew and aside from him there hasn’t been anyone else.”

you couldn’t believe you were saying this to him right after he’d undressed you, the air con hardening your nipples. harry couldn’t really concentrate on what you were saying, especially when his name was mentioned and your breasts were on full display to him. ignoring your rambling, harry’s mouth came down onto your right nipple, circling it with his tongue and ending your words with a gasp. your nipples were more sensitive then you’d initially realised, or maybe it was just because it was harry’s mouth encapsulating them, but the sensation felt like enough to make you cum from that alone.

“harry, i,” you sighed out breathily. sentences weren’t able to be formed presently, it was all too much. not for harry though, who had no qualms about saying, “i want to fuck you in nothing but that little skirt.”

you tried to press your thighs together, his words jolted down to your clit and you needed some kind of release. harry’s mouth went back to your boobs and down the valley in the middle, licking down it, to your pierced belly button and finally his head disappeared under your skirt. you instinctively placed your feet up on either side of the sofa to spread your pussy even further for his access.

his tongue mercilessly licked up from your taint to your clit and you bucked in delight.  the muscle of his tongue pressed hard against the sensitive ball of nerves in quick movements, lapping at it rhythmically. you couldn’t control the volume of your moans now, cussing incoherently to him. but it wasn’t enough, you needed harry fully.

pulling his hair, you were so close to cumming but you couldn’t let it happen yet, not till he’d been inside you.

“harry stop,” you manage to get out, “i need you in me.”

he drew back as soon as you spoke and you leant forward to unbutton his shirt, but you lost your balance as you go forward, falling on top of him onto the cushioned floor. you both burst into giggles at your clumsiness, it was something that you joked about a lot together. you hadn’t loved anyone more then you loved harry right now, his chuckles like music to your ears as you lay on him nearly naked, his curls sat on his forehead.

“i love you,” harry told you, his hand cupping your cheek from below.

“i love you too,” leaning to kiss him, you moved your hand down and gripped his erection, forcing a moan from his lips, “now make love to me.”

he wasted no time in finishing off unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, and you ground your hips into his erection, forcing a groan from his lips. you were so close to feeling harry inside you, only boxers in the way of you two. you sat back and slipped them off his hips. before you got a chance to line him up with your walls, harry interrupted you, “are you in birth control?”

“yes,” you blushed. he smirked at you as he grabbed his hard cock in his hand and positioned it with you. you sunk down ont his cock, sighing is feel yourself being filled. you had craved this feeling for far too long, and harry filled you so well.

“fuck, y/n,” harry’s eyes closed when you engulfed him fully. adjusting, you began to bob up and down on his dick slowly, getting used to the foreign sensation. it stung a little bit as you hadn’t been filled in so long, but the need for harry numbed any of the pain. harry’s sweaty hands came up to cup your breasts, playing with your nipples as you began to quicken your pace.

“how do i feel inside you? does it feel good?”

you could only nod back, his cock hitting your g spot so well from this angle. as you began to speed up, your tits bounced delectably in front of harry’s face and he had to take over dominance, slamming his hips up to meet your own. his erection pounded into you, your mouth eliciting depraved whines. your skirt was swinging around your barely clothed ass and giving harry only sneaky glimpses of how the two of you were connected.

with harry’s hips moving more erratically, you could tell he was close.

you leant your mouth into his ear to whisper, “i want you to cum inside me.”

that was enough to tip harry over the edge, and so you could both finish together he reached his thumb under your skirt and thumbed your clit, sending your body into a heavenly orgasm. harry unloaded into your walls as you clenched around him, the both of you finishing in unison. flopping down onto his chest, he left his cock in you, both too fucked out to move yet. when he had softened, he slipped out of you, making you wince at the feeling.

“so,” you said into harry’s chest, “does that mean you’re mine now?”

his hand rubbed the small of your back, “i’m yours.”

[jenomark]

DECEMBER

➔Pairing: Doyoung x Reader (Female) | Jaehyun x Reader (Female) ➔Other Members/ Characters: -.- ➔Genre: Plot (ft. smut, romance, angst, fluff etc.) ➔Warnings: Vaginal penetration, cheating, angst etc. ➔Word count: 3,317

➔Summary: You are dating handsome and lovable Jaehyun. You stay at his apartment all of the time, along with his roommate Doyoung. Doyoung has feelings for you, which he doesn’t quite understand. What begins as an innocent crush changes the lives of all three people over the course of seven months.

AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER

-Sorry it’s so late!! January & February will be up sometime soon! 💚

  The very first time you had crossed over that threshold, it was to embrace Jaehyun. With your first date jitters, you nearly collapsed into his arms, tripping over your own feet in his doorway. Luckily, he found the idea of you quite charming, even if he had to stop you from breaking your nose on the first date.

  Your old work friend had set you and Jaehyun up on a blind date. You almost didn’t show up, using every excuse under the sun as to why you couldn’t go. Truthfully, you weren’t ready to be in a working relationship with anyone, especially not a blind date. Upon seeing him and letting him, quite literally, sweep you off of your feet, you were happy you went through with it.

  Your first impression of Jaehyun was that he was drop dead gorgeous. You could hardly speak eloquently around him, but that didn’t matter, because you liked the way he led the conversation. He wasn’t perfect, but he made up for the things you lacked. He was a little clumsy, just like you, which gave you a breath of relief. You were almost too happy when he accidently knocked his beer glass off of the table with a switch of his elbow, his pretty face flush with the embarrassment that seemed to follow you all your life. He made you feel you were not alone, which might have been the very reason you held onto him. He was everything you needed at the time: a fun, beautiful distraction. 

 Though you were no longer friends with the people who set you up, you decided to keep Jaehyun as yours. His job was stable, the sex was great, and he was someone you felt you could pass the time with. Though the relationship itself lacked a lot, it felt like the right thing to jump headfirst into. You weren’t expecting much, honestly. Liking the feeling of falling for someone was enough for you, and you hoped it would be enough for him.

  You definitely weren’t expecting to grow so attached to crossing the same threshold time and time again. You spent more time with him than you had with any of your exes from past relationships. You were having sex with Jaehyun on a daily basis, staying the next morning's at his apartment, digging through his snack cabinets and avoiding his hermit-like roommate. You were someone’s girlfriend. You liked the way it felt having a place to come back to when you were feeling lost, to watch movies in, and to take a shower using all the hot water. It felt a little bit like coming home, which made you realize how much you had been craving closeness with someone.

  It only took you a few months to realize that the person you had been coming home to wasn’t exactly Jaehyun. It might have been clear from early on that Jaehyun wasn’t as right of a fit for you as you had originally thought, that you both stuck together because it was easier, and the sex was enough to entertain the idea of more. They say ignorance is bliss, after all. You both got something out of the relationship, so it was much harder to break-up for good. So, you kept it going, and because you kept it going, you started falling in love with someone else.

 The truth was always much harder spoken than not.

 You couldn’t stop finding the humor in everything. Doyoung set you down after kicking in his bedroom door, his eyes searching your face for acceptance. The sound of the door opening and hitting the opposite wall replayed in your mind, the clumsiness of the situation warming your heart. You could hear it echo a thousand times, each time seeming more comical than the last. You cupped your hand to your face, tilted your head back and let yourself laugh until you were hot in the face and near tears. 

“What is funny?” he asked, though he was on the brink of laughter, too.

“I don’t even know.” you said. “I just have this uncontrollable need to laugh. I’m really nervous. I think I love you.” 

 You laughed loudly, nearly bending over because your stomach hurt so much. When you felt a stab in your side, you pressed your hand to it and unfolded your body until you were standing straight. You tried keeping your face stoic, but you were failing miserably. Doyoung was staring at you, not completely sure what planet you were from.

“Let’s just fucking do this.” you said.

 You crossed the gap between you, letting your body knock into his, and you kissed him. You were still giggling a little, but as Doyoung’s kisses turned more serious, you swallowed it. You grabbed the back of his neck and felt the edges of his rain soaked hair tickle your fingers.  The passion struck you both again, coming full-force like it had never left. 

  You started rubbing the front of his pants, hoping to rouse him. Doyoung took your hand and clasped it with his, bringing it away. You wanted to feel his bare skin on yours, so you tried removing his shirt, but Doyoung grabbed your other hand and brought it away. You stood holding hands and kissing, Doyoung leading you.

“Let me touch you. “ you said, trying to pull away from his grip.

  When you yanked your hands away, there was no trace of laughter on your lips anymore. You felt like you were staring into his soul when you looked into his eyes. You stood facing him, your decisions hanging between you, weightless and certain. 

   Doyoung stood still as you placed your fingers against his chest. You moved them underneath his shirt, his skin warm to the touch. You felt him, as if he were going to disappear after a few minutes, the spell having been broken. When you were finished, Doyoung’s hand was waiting for you. You placed your hand inside of his and let him hold it. You led him to his own bed, sitting down on it and stretching your body across it. 

 The light in the room was dim and romantic. Though things started off with a bang, you and Doyoung were moving slowly. You made out with him, with his body on top of yours, and your hands scratching up his back. You couldn’t stop getting excited whenever you touched a new part of him. All of the sensations were firing off signals in your brain at once, the serotonin making you come alive. All of the memories of your lives together were replaying over and over again. There weren't  any thoughts spared for Jaehyun. It was just you and Doyoung, building up to the layers of clothes between you. 

  Doyoung pulled his shirt over his head. From there, it felt like time had unfrozen. At last, you were together. You were intentionally in his bed, your fingers feeling for his belt buckle, and his hand making a home against your hip. He was looking at you, his eyes not shying away from yours. His lips were on your neck, his lower body pressing against yours. You opened your legs and invited him inside.

 “I love you.” Doyoung whispered before putting his lips to your lower belly.

 He lifted your shirt over your head. He stripped you naked, stopped only to look down at your body in all its glory. You wished you could get inside of his head to find out what he was thinking, to see if you were everything he wanted. Kicking off his pants, Doyoung knelt down on top of you and pushed the hair from your face. You could feel the old laughter wanting to tear itself up your throat, and you accepted it as happiness wanting to bubble out.

“I love you.” Doyoung said. “And it’s madness.”

 He slipped inside of you. Doyoung was gentle with your body, moving slow, and holding your head to make sure he didn’t hurt you. You wanted him all over you, but you loved the way it felt to be wrapped up in his arms safely, not knowing what type of future you’d both have from that moment forward. You felt like you were free falling.

 You couldn’t catch your breath. Feeling Doyoung fill you up was overwhelming. You wrapped your legs around him to bring him closer. You bit down on his ear for a second before releasing it from your teeth and moaning loudly. You let him tease your body with his tongue before moving inside of you again, the Doyoung of the past being laid to rest inside of his sheets. 

   You had never cheated on anyone before. You didn’t know it was possible for you to be with someone and entertain the idea of someone else. You weren’t that kind of girl, or, you weren’t that kind of girl, in the beginning. 

  When you first met Doyoung, he mostly kept to himself. Hooking up with Jaehyun meant sneaking around when Doyoung wasn’t home. You think the excitement of it all was the foundation of your budding relationship with Jaehyun. It was all simply too fun to give up. When Doyoung was home, he hardly came out of his bedroom the first few weeks. You thought it was his idea of being independent or keeping a low profile, or maybe it was a respect thing, but you’d never met a man that was so conspicuous. Whenever Doyoung moved, your eyes followed, like you knew he wanted them to. It became a bit of a game to meet him when you stepped out of Jaehyun’s bedroom, to see how far he would go to not look at you. And even though you were sure he hated your guts for interrupting his perfect existence, you couldn’t stop yourself from the obsession of getting him to like you, to talk to you, ot to want to be around you.

 The first time Jaehyun tried breaking up with you, when you had talked to Doyoung in the kitchen and you had linked your pinky with his, was the very first time you had really felt anything for another person that extended past “Fun”. Most of your relationships were just full of ideas of what you and the other person could be, how good they appeared on paper,  and what was worth keeping and what was worth throwing away. With Doyoung, he had laid everything out on the table in a way that made you feel seen. After awhile, you realized that you didn’t care that much about Jaehyun breaking up with you, but you were more worried about losing Doyoung.

 It was wrong. You knew it was wrong in every way your brain tried to spin it around. You had fantasies about fate, little red strings tying your fingers to his. You were falling in love with what was meant to be, and what means you would go to in order to find the truest form of that love. You thought of many excuses that felt like bad writing in the movies. If it was so wrong, why did it feel so right? Why would life choose to throw him into the mix without it meaning anything? All of those things spun around and around in your mind until you started to believe them, and gradually, until they were all too powerful to ignore.

  It was wrong. It is wrong. It will always be wrong. Jaehyun might not have been a storybook perfect love, but he was human, and he treated you better than people thought. And yet, kissing Doyoung couldn’t help you remember what was morally correct, or what kind of situation you were really in. You made the choice to kiss him. You could have made the choice to stop, but you knew you never would. December would come and go, the sex being even better than you imagined, and January would knock you on your ass.

    In the back of your mind, as you tried to grapple with your decisions, all you could hear was the bang of Doyoung’s door.

  The mistletoe hung from the doorway, like a scene in a foreign movie. You let Jaehyun pass under it first while you stood back a little, hoping that no one would notice neither of you wanted to be caught underneath it together. You looked up at the green mistletoe, its red ribbon falling apart, and you thought it was a perfect metaphor for your current situation. As you passed under it, Jaehyun’s mother's voice chimed in, her idea of romanticism beginning and ending with her son and his girlfriend of nearly half a year.

“You must kiss!” she said, clapping her hands together. “It’s Christmas! Jaehyun, don’t stop loving your girlfriend because we’re around.”

  Jaehyun’s family never felt like yours. As they all stared at you, you realized how badly you’d always wanted to reach that part of him, the part that made him who he was. They were nice people who treated you kindly, but you were still a stranger that didn’t belong in their family quite yet. You blamed it on Jaehyun’s inability to take your relationship seriously enough to introduce you to his mother sooner, but got rid of those thoughts as soon as you remembered what you had done to him. It was an odd feeling being in such a personal space during a holiday without feeling like your existing relationship was the whole truth.

  Quickly, only to please his mother, Jaehyun took your elbow and pulled you underneath the doorway. He kissed your cheek lightly, his eyes never meeting yours. He let your elbow go and walked further into the kitchen, leaving you behind. The Christmas party continued, his family tearing their eyes from you and going back to whatever they had been doing.

  The weird feeling between you and Jaehyun had been happening for a week or so. It had nothing to do with Doyoung and everything to do with the fights you were both having. Jaehyun said you weren’t appreciative of how hard he was working in his personal life, and you were annoyed he paid attention to you so little that he had no idea you were a part of that life, too. Your days consisted of watching Jaehyun storm off into the night after a fight, you crying alone in his room, and then letting Doyoung rub your back until you fell asleep. Then, the next day would reset and all of the mystery resentment would start again.

  Doyoung, during all of this, was patient. He didn’t push you towards breaking up with Jaehyun for good, even though you felt he had every right to, and even though it’s the course you both knew you wanted to take. He didn’t involve himself in the petty arguments between you and Jaehyun, he just made his presence known in case you needed him. He was supportive for someone who had to watch his roommate and the girl he was in love with give each other brisk kisses some days and shoot daggers at each other the next.

    You leaned against the kitchen counter and waited for Jaehyun to talk to you, to show you that he knew you were there. You thought coming to the party would make you feel better mentally. The Christmas holiday was always your favorite, but you had gotten into an argument in the car on the way over, and the jollyness of the season had been sucked out of your soul.

“I don’t know what we’re doing anymore.” Jaehyun had said in the car, as soon as you pulled up in front of his parents house.

 You watched his fingers grip the steering wheel before you spoke. “If you want to break up with me, just do it.”

  You wanted him to be the one to say it, to break it off because you knew you were too cowardly to do it. Your mind was made up. You wanted Doyoung, but you were dealing with the guilt of adding him to your life and subtracting Jaehyun. You didn’t want Jaehyun or Doyoung to lose their friendship either, so you kept yourself in the misery of waiting for someone else to make the first move. It was a terrible habit to have. 

    Jaehyun shook his head, as if he were shaking out bad thoughts. You could see snow flurries hit the windshield and melt against the heat of the glass. They kept your own thoughts at bay, though they were frantic. There was a time when the image of sitting in front of Jaehyun’s family home at Christmas would have pleased you. Now, it made you feel sick to the stomach, especially when you remembered that Doyoung had nowhere to go for Christmas. You tried not to picture him sitting home at alone, bundled up in his soft blue robe, his lips so pouty and kissable.

    You blinked away the memory of an hour ago from your head and focused on where you stood in the kitchen. There should be no moments but the present. Jaehyun’s dad was kind and offered you a plate of food, which you accepted but didn’t eat. His aunts and cousins tried their best to invite you into their conversations, but you felt like you could never relate to any of them. After going through the motions of trying to enjoy Jaehyun’s family’s Christmas traditions and ignoring the sadness invading your brain, you asked if Jaehyun would take you back home.

“Now?” he asked.

“I don’t feel well.” you lied.

“I want to stay for another hour.” he said, his voice rising. “I haven’t seen my family together in a long time.”

  You put your hand on his arm and tried to portray that you were apologetic, but you just felt desperate. Your eyes were glassy, like you might cry. You didn’t want to guilt him into making a decision, that wasn’t your motive, but you couldn’t help feeling emotional.

Jaehyun sighed. “I’ll get my jacket. I guess I can drive you home and come back.”

  You decided to wait on the front steps alone while he got his jacket, the snow flurries landing in your eyelashes. When Jaehyun came back outside, you could tell that he was thinking of something to say. You could feel what was about to happen, so you braced yourself against the coldness Jaehyun had a habit of releasing when he felt backed into a corner.

“You’re not happy with me.” he said. “And I’m not happy with you.”

  You could feel a little sting in your chest when he said those words out loud, because the truth always hurts. The girl you used to be was clinging hard to the idea that maybe Jaehyun was where you were supposed to be, that maybe he could take those words back. There was no part of you that wanted him, but you couldn’t keep yourself away from the What Ifs. They clouded your mind and often made you feel confused.  

Jaehyun continued, “I don’t want to say things that will hurt your feelings on Christmas, so I will keep it short. We’re not good together. You’re not the person I see myself with in the future. You’re nothing like what I imagined. I don’t even know why I held onto you for this long. It feels...cruel. I think we’re a little too codependent.”

   The tears that fell were both natural to your emotional state and to the cold biting at your cheeks. You listened to him, your eyes not knowing where on his handsome face they should focus. When you spoke up to tell Jaehyun you agreed with him, he cut you off.

“- I cheated on you.” he said. “I cheated on you that night I went to the bar without you.”

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Fandom Thoughts

First thing I want to say is this post is just me speculating and expressing my thought on things. I’m sure many people will disagree with me or have a different interpretation and that’s ok. I could be totally way off base with everything I say but like I said this is just my interpretation of and my thoughts on things, also just want to say that I mean no disrespect to anyone or anyone’s fandom so yeah.  

So we all know that B*ghead is the largest fandom and the most popular ship. There’s no lying about that. I think it became so popular out of a combination of things, I think Cole’s popularity from his time on the Disney channel did bring across a lot of fans. I mean I could be totally wrong about this but I do feel like alot of the B*ghead fans were originally Cole fans. I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch Riverdale when it first aired, it was about 6 episodes in when my sister told me it was a good show about a murder mystery and that I’d never guess who was on it? Cody from suite life. I myself originally started watching the show because I was curious about the fact that Cole was on it and then stuck around because I got invested in the mystery and because from that very first episode I was hooked by Barchie and saw so much potential with them. I do think another contributing factor to the B*ghead ship’s popularity was the fact that the actors themselves became a couple and so people weren’t just invested in the ship but in the actors’ relationship too. I also do think that the fandom was very ‘loud’ on social media and there was alot of engagement. All of that combined with the fact that they did have some cute scenes together I think was the perfect storm to creating a popular ship.  

However V*rchie doesn’t actually seem that popular to me. In fact from what I can tell its a much smaller fandom and I would argue that after B*ghead the most popular ship out of the three is Barchie. Barchie has always won out in fan polls against v*rchie and I feel like I see more comments from the Barchie fandom than I do the V*rchie fandom. To me it has always been more of a B*ghead vs Barchie thing than a V*rchie vs Barchie thing. It always felt more like V*rchie got support because it kept Archie out of the way of B*ghead. In fact I see quite alot of support for Veggie and for Archosie and alot of people admit that they liked those parings over V*rchie. I myself loved Veggie together far more than V*rchie and I didn’t mind Archosie I thought they were cute, I didn’t like them as much as I did Veggie but I still thought they had some really nice moments together. I think after Betty, I liked Archie with Josie best. 

But here’s another thing to bear in mind. Whilst Riverdale and its ships are popular online and get alot of chatter on social media and has its fandoms which are very vocal on social media, there is also the general audience. These are the people who just watch the show every week, they don’t talk about it on social media, they don’t look up interviews and obsess over every little crumb of info the writers put out trying to figure out what might happen in the next episode. They are the silent part of the audience, I suppose you could call them. And I would say that this part of the audience far outnumbers the part that are involved in the fandom side of the show. Of course its very difficult to really know what this side of the audience really thinks of the show because they aren’t out on social media telling people what they think. The best way is to know what they think is to look at the ratings and the netflix streams. 

I mean I know that the ratings don’t really matter a whole lot when it comes to whether or not the network will renew a show and that streams mean more nowadays anyway. But in my opinion I do think the ratings can still give you an idea on how interested the audience is in the show. The way I see it is that if I am really excited by a show, I spend all week looking forward to the next episode and you can bet your ass that when that show’s next episode airs I am sitting down in front of that tv and watching it live if I can, because I don’t want to wait a second longer than I have to when I want to see it. With this season all the Barchies know that the most live viewed episodes of the season were 5x05 and 5x06, the two episodes that were promoted with Barchie. The lowest two episodes not just for this season but in the shows history were 5x08 and 5x09. These were the two episodes that had the V*rchie and B*ghead content. 

I also discovered this website flixpatrol that tracks the top tens on Netflix in various countries each day of the week. You can also look up specific shows to see where in the top ten they come each day of the week and I think I found something interesting. Now obviously because its week by week I could only really get information for episode 9.  

So what can this information tell us. Well episode 9 aired on the 24th and appeared on Netflix in alot of countries on the 25th. This chart shows where in the top 10 Riverdale fell this week, I’ve outlined those two dates in red. A dash indicates that it didn’t appear in the top ten that day. Now we can see that Riverdale most definitely does better on Netflix than it does in the live views and is consistently in the top ten in most countries. However, as I said, I did notice something. On the days it appears on Netflix we can see  that in most countries it doesn’t appear in the top ten and in the countries it does it is very low on the list coming in at mostly, 8,9 or 10. To me this suggests, like with the live ratings, that people just aren’t rushing to watch it. Some of this can be explained by the fact that it airs on a week night and it does fall high on the list on the Saturday after it airs on Netflix which could suggest that people are waiting until the weekend to watch it. But again, maybe its just me, but when I really want to watch a show, when I am really excited by a show, I will stay up late or I will get up early to watch it. I mean when 5x05 and 5x06 aired I was up early on the Thursday morning refreshing my Netflix page over and over waiting for the episode to become available because I was that excited to watch the episode.

*Edit: I’ve learnt that I have read this chart completely wrong as there is a one day lag, so the ratings on the 26th show that people were tuning in on the 25th which is the day it becomes available on Netflix in those countries. So ignore everything I just said in the paragraph above. I am going to keep the chart in for those who are interested in those numbers though. But yeah apologies for that.*   

To me this doesn’t really line up with the whole B*ghead is the most popular ship. I mean with B*ghead being the most popular ship then this last episode should be the most watched and I’ll admit I was a little surprised that it didn’t have more views. So why is that, we know B*ghead is popular so why aren’t we seeing it in the views. Well I think the answer is whilst they are popular, whilst it has a large fandom, its not popular or big enough to save the show by itself. And to be clear this is just my opinion which I’ve based on what I’ve seen people saying on social media and in YouTube reactions and reviews and from this data from the amount of people tuning into the show. But I think as much as many people like B*ghead, more people dislike/ are bored of V*rchie, are bored of the repetitive plotlines, are getting frustrated with the nonsensical plots. I think it has just gotten to the point where the things they don’t like about the show, or the things they’ve become bored with, far outweigh any appeal one ship might have. Basically I just get this overwhelming sense that people have lost any excitement they felt at this show. And this goes beyond any ships, whilst I do think alot of people tune in because of ships, there is more factoring into it than just that. I feel like all the excitement that came with the time jump and with seeing something new with Barchie and seeing something new with them being adults and dealing with adult themes, has worn off. It happened so fast too. I mean after episode 8 aired it was like a dementor had come along and sucked all the happiness out of the fandom. All of that energy that had existed before was just gone in the space of 45 mins. 

But here’s my question. I did notice a little bit of that energy come back when the promo for ep 10 was released and it showed that shot of Jabitha together. Again I do think that alot of people like this idea of Jabitha together or at least are intrigued by it. Although I know there are quite a few B*ghead fans who think the romance is unnecessary. But again I think this interest in Jabitha is because it is something new and therefore it is something interesting. I’ve also seen some Veggie fans creeping out of the woodwork over the last few weeks. So what I am wondering is if the show decided to go the route of Barchie, Veggie, Jabitha, Choni and Kangs would that generate enough buzz and would all those smaller fandoms together be enough to revive the show a bit. Especially if they couple those ships with some interesting new storylines to go with them as well as keeping the interactions between characters varied. I mean I am not expecting the views to suddenly jump up massively back to what they used to be in like season 2 but I do wonder if it would be enough to breathe life back into the fandom again.   

[chaifootsteps]

Ok so,, I've been wanting to ask--and im not too sure on how familiar you with this--how do you think Blitz's ADHD affects his relationship with Striker?? Im sure you probably saw the one ask I sent to vizowrites that they posted on their story, but Im not too sure on how familiar you are with the headcannon/cannon (not too sure if its confirmed or not) about Blitz's ADHD. (Also I'm not too sure how familiar you are with ADHD itself, and if not that's alright!)

Anyways, we know Blitz has a hard time with rejection (such as when Loona yelled at him in the Spring Broken episode). We also know he is impulsive and lacks self control. Blitz also has obsessions/hyperfixations such as on horses (these are all ADHD traits). I can imagine Striker himself isn't too edcuated on the topic himself, but once he learns that Blitz has ADHD, he does a shit ton of research to learn more about it so he can better understand Blitz. But, ADHD is known to put a negative toll on one's relationship, whether it be bluntness, rejection sensitivity, strong emotional outbursts, etc.

So back to what I was saying before, how do you think Blitz's neurodivergency affects his relationship with Striker? (If needed you could always do a quick google search if you want to know more about ADHD, or you could even DM me cause I have it myself and know a lot about it)

Sorry that was a lot! I hope you don't mind me coming at you with this 😅

Hoo, boy, Blitz and ADHD...well, for starters, I can definitely buy the theory of him having it because it would explain a lot. Blitz seems like he's probably got a couple of things going on, none of them ever formally diagnosed except for maybe when he was a very little kid, but he’s not stupid, he knows how people react to him and he knows how people look at him.

Maybe I’m projecting a little here, but I think his choice to not put a name to any of his neurodivergencies is a deliberate one. Once you’re that person with X, that’s what you become forever. It’s how the world will label you. Blitz has enough trouble with labels he can’t help that he’ll never be able to escape as long as he lives. 

(And let’s face it, Blitz slings around the r-word. That says something right there.)

I also think Striker’s probably got at least one neurodivergency of his own -- in my little headcanon land he’s got PTSD -- and like Blitz, isn’t interested in thinking about it too deeply...their general approaches to life don’t exactly say “Hey, let’s find a sensible balance of therapy and medication to help deal with this.” I do think they probably look up each other’s issues as time goes on, try to understand each other a little bit better, to put a name to all of it.

But I think for the most part, they just...are what they are. Blitz can’t focus, can’t handle rejection, is impulsive, obsesses over things and people, and loads up on caffeine to make up for the dopamine he lacks function. That’s how he was when Striker met him and as far as either of them are concerned, it doesn’t matter which aspects of him are symptoms of something and which ones are just part of his personality. 

All that matters to him is that Striker stuck around.

[tigerdrop]

okay kind of obsessed with the body swap art tho. idk why i just like benrey getting to bully gordon with his own body, his own voice, and i like gordon trying to navigate whatever weird shit benrey’s got going on. gordon not being able to figure out or control whatever organs in benrey’s throat produce sweet voice so it’s just spewing whatever emotions he’s feeling at random (including Horny? uh oh. can’t hide that as easily as a surprise boner can you gordon?)

this ask kicked me into actually thinking about it and your brain is so huge. massive. i lost control

last night i was struggling to articulate thoughts for the body swap thing but this is kickstarting me. i. really love bodyswap stuff........(sighing) i am yet again having to confront the fact that i latched onto an embarrassing number of Things after having first read about them in [REDACTED]. truly hate being alive

so like......potions. you can get into a whole lot of weird stuff with potions. truly loving that darnolds 5-minute existence gives me an excuse to think of the stupidest horny potions scenarios

and why in the fuck wouldnt he have a bodyswap potion just chillin in his lab. why wouldnt benrey crack that bad boy open and take a sip while darnolds bitching at him "dont you touch any of those goddamn potions. im not gonna tell you which ones which so if you die, you die"

gordon claps benrey on the back afterwards like "well, thats a risk im perfectly happy for him to take" but uh oh you fucking buffoon. the touch is what activates it. and shit just starts spinning and schlorping in his mind and he nearly falls over clutching the lab bench next to him and when he cracks his eyes back open, hes........shorter. and everybodys asking if somebodys okay but that somebody isnt him and hes kind of miffed about that

and then gordons head turns and he sees Himself being steadied on his feet by tommy and darnold and hes like.......guys? guys. hello! and the sound of benreys voice coming out of him with that irritated and loud timbre makes everybody turn to face him........b/c that is so insanely weird coming from him

im like way into the idea of benreys, like, Eye Darkness Thing transferring to gordons face when their bodies are swapped, too. its just his malevolent energies manifesting physically no matter what body hes in

Wait god wait. Like. Benrey in Gordon's body and he gets horny for some reason and has to live Gordon's fucking pained life of the suit edging the hell outta him- Bc now Gordon can actually fucking jerk off for the the first time in days. No edging bullshit from the hev suit

benreys newfound appreciation for why gordons such a bitch all the time

RRRRRRRRRRR gordon able to go wild beating his meat that night finally but right before he does he stops because hes looking down at. 8)!

YES EXACTLY....... gordon freeman humbled by the sight of benreys huge meat. except its his meat now 

at first he only feels mildly weird about jacking it when hes not even in his own body right now but hes been edged for days now and hes just thinking "if i can just get this out of the way now, ill be clear-headed for however fucking long im stuck in black mesa. maybe this is why ive been so goddamn stupid lately. yeah"

but then he gets some time and space to himself at long last and unzips and the shock of seeing benreys huge uncut dick instead of his own brings him back to reality like "?oh my god what the fuck am i doing"

embarrassment! guilt! but also hes still fuckin horny and eventually curiosity wins out. whats the harm, right. its not like he has to say anything about it. and gordon freeman is (mostly) heterosexual and hes never been this up close and personal with a foreskin before and hes just......curious. scientifically

maybe hes even.......locked himself inside one of the company restrooms while hes at it. just to make sure hes got privacy. and there is a mirror right there........  he was gonna just bust one out and leave as fast as he can but now hes curious

starts. thumbing the hem of his shirt under benreys vest. starts lifting it up experimentally just to see where all that hair leads. out of curiosity. and seeing the curve of benreys stomach peek out in the mirror makes him hiccup on sweet voice inadvertently 

weirdly enough theres a part of him thats both relieved and disappointed that hes never seen that color before

he never envisioned that seeing benrey like this would be a turn-on but like......with that vest and that helmet on he just looks like some kind of fuckin roundish rectangle shape. but now gordons intimately familiar with how his body feels to move around in......what hes gotta look like underneath all that armor and ill-fitting work clothes......and the hornier he gets the stupider he gets

takes off the helmet.......just to test the waters. if somebody manages to bust in, thats not so weird to explain. and hes surprised by the shock of black hair he finds under there. he doesnt know what he was expecting....but honestly, benrey looks, like, kind of nice like that. more like a person

im slightly obsessed with the idea of benrey just not even registering as a Real Guy, physically, to gordon, one that he could possibly be attracted to, until hes out of his work uniform.......like hes more of an icon of a person than anything up until that point. pure signifier. no substance

like......you know......the equivalent of how benreys HL model registers to 99% of people watching the series. sure, thats not necessarily anything youd register as "hot", most likely, but then u peel that away and its like........Oh

the model is the icon and the representation of the icon is the real

and gordon runs a hand thru benreys hair and tries out one of those shitty little smirks benrey likes to use on him and the effect is.......dizzying. is that him? is that what benrey really looks like to him?? he feels fuckin salacious doing this

he can even.........get his face up close to the mirror and really look at those teeth

run his tongue over them experimentally.......feel their sharp edges.......and, no, theyre not sharp like a knife, but they are definitely pointy. and surprisingly well-kept......hes never seen benrey brush his teeth before but clearly he must. theyre so smooth and slick under his fingertips

and then he flushes and drops his hand b/c hes getting some weird fucking thoughts right now........but looking back up at himself in the mirror and seeing benreys face all wide-eyed and red makes the issue worse

oh, you really like seeing him look like that, dont you. and gordons pissed b/c this isnt even his fucking brain but its still whispering the exact same neurotic, self-defeating shit at him that hes trying very hard to tamp down

and then he starts getting a little crazier. taking off the vest. he can explain that, no problem. its just kind of hot. heavy. he needed a breather! its normal. just in here to splash some water on his face and cool down, nothing wrong with that. but that just makes benreys shirt all the easier to access.......and he tugs the hem of it just a little higher and looks at himself in the mirror and runs a thumb over the curve of his stomach, where the hair is thickest, and he shivers

gordon freeman is deeply normal and would never get off to the sight of a guy with arms the size of his head tentatively dragging the hem of his shirt up, just for gordon to look at him closer

hands shaking from nerves as he decides to loosen his tie and start unbuttoning and he sees more and more hair-dusted skin and muscle and fat and a thin sheen of sweat reveal itself

> i could see gordon trying to tense and flex the muscles a bit just because hes normal

HE IS, AND HE WOULD

he doesnt know when "being horny b/c hes been pent up and edged for days and he just needs to get his rocks off real quick so he can be normal again" turned into "being horny b/c the way benrey looks under his uniform is scary good to him" but if he thinks about that too hard hes gonna have a panic attack

tells himself that its all just because he hasnt been able to get off. thats why hes thinking this shit. hell stop thinking it once he nuts

> hey this is a quick aside but yknwo how he talks to himself in third person sometimes? what if he does and then kinda does a mental double take at how his name sounds coming out of benreys mouth, with his voice. ok thats it goodbye

oh ym god thats making me go insane. doing it by accident and then.........saying it again. on purpose. just to hear benreys voice doing it

getting one knee hitched up onto the sink and leaning forward with his arm braced against the mirror and his forehead leaning on his arm and tugging benreys dick (no, idiot, thats your dick right now, stop thinking about it) and tentatively groaning out his own name and it comes out so hoarse and desperate that it punches him straight in the gut (too bad, hes thinking about it, he cant not think about it, not with the way he looks and sounds right now)

> remember in the series when benrey called him gordon one (1) time and he noticed immediately and was like..i think thats the first time youve called me by my name.

he looks so fucked out and slutty in that mirror that it almost makes him pass out

eyes darting like hes trying to commit every single detail of how he looks right now to memory (b/c he is. he fucking is. he wants to make benrey look like this so fucking bad. just for him. wreck him and get him flushed and sweaty and panting and moaning gordons name and jesus christ, okay, thats where his brains taking him. okay. cool)

hes dizzying himself thinking about it. he knows benreys hot for him by this point, theoretically. assuming his weird come-ons werent just jokes. benrey would probably let him do this to him. benrey would probably want him to touch his dick. gordon thinks about how good it might feel for his own hand to be on benreys dick and he cant get himself solidly into one headspace or another - hes gordon, hes benrey, he wants to touch, he wants to be touched, he wants to feel his own hand on this dick (and god, maybe he could. maybe he could ask. wouldnt that be crazy.)

benrey in gordons suit and gordons body and gordons face leaning over him, b/c fuck, he really is tall compared to benrey, hes figured that one out awful quick. and gordons (his) hand on his (benreys) dick and stroking him and leering down at him with those dark, dark eyes that dont even really look like his eyes, anymore, not with the way theyre shaded over, and hearing his (benreys) (his) voice moaning out his (gordons) (definitely gordons) name and all the little "pleases" and "thank yous" that he cant stop letting out b/c benreys voice was made for it, made to beg and whine and ask so nicely, and his heads spinning as he comes all over the fucking mirror and sink

> i wonder if this could be combine with the ideas that parts of the self or like mind is still a bit left behind if that makes sense, like with benrey also wanting this that part of the reason gordon wants to say those things

"do you want to fuck him or do you want to be him?" well my good bitch, perhaps you can have a little of both. welcome to my personal hell

hes never come so hard in his fucking life and the noise that rips out of him when he does, finally, after days of being jerked around (ha ha) makes his ears burn with shame

now if you really wanna go crazy. imagine that benreys up and walking around this whole time b/c being edged by his stupid broken suit is making it impossible for him to sleep, and he hears........all of this. stops and presses himself flat agains tthe wall to listen

he cant actually get into the bathroom to scare the shit out of gordon/offer to join in/etc, b/c this stupid flesh body of gordons cant even noclip, but he can press his ear to the door and. listen. and he can flush all the way down to his chest when he hears gordon in there, moaning out his own name with benreys voice

so thats what gordon wants him to do, huh. thats what hes thinking about.

poor benrey, tho. he gets to experience just a lick of the endless fucking suffering that gordon goes thru every single day just by being alive, and "the HEV suit trying and failing to suck him off to completion while his dick twitches against the hard metal of the interior every time gordon groans in there" is just one small part of it

anyway . see ya. my final message

[jacks-jester]

Mine.

[Jerome Valeska x Reader]

Words: 2,136

Warnings: Extreme aggression, someone gets the shit beat out of them, murder, toxic jealousy traits

Requested? Yes / No

Summary: After your childhood best friend and long time crush is broken out of Arkham alongside you, and a few other inmates, you have to adapt under Theos watchful eyes. What will happen when one of the female escapees becomes a little to close to Jerome for your comfort?

A/N~ Thank you for the request! Anon I’m definitely am willing to write smut for Jerome, I’ll just need a bit of time to sort it out since I haven’t dabbled in smut quite yet. I’ll definitely keep that other request in mind though!

Autumn leaves, the type that crunch underneath your feet in the most satisfying way, their fiery colors blinding your vision yet so beautiful you can’t look away. Thats what always came to mind when you thought of your best friend Jerome Valeska - the spunky, albeit a bit psychotic, ginger, carnie kid. You and Jerome had both grown up traveling with Haly’s Circus, the two of you becoming friends the moment you met each other. Your parents were acrobats, you and your mother specializing in Lyra aerial work. You and Jerome could always be found causing mischief around the carnival grounds: loosening a few safety net ropes, loosening the board for the knife throwers Wheel of Death, sharpening the sword swallowers knives a bit too sharp.

You were kids, and kids liked causing trouble, you and Jerome both craved attention. So often were your parents the center of attention, it was rare they’d pay you any mind at all aside from aerial practice. You hated your parents, maybe the hatred was undeserved but nobody could deny that they were neglectful to say the least. Jerome on the other hand, he had every right to be livid with his mother. She was a whore, a drunk, and abused Jerome to no end, even letting her brother get it on the action occasionally - Jerome's uncle preferring scalding soups and oils to the hitting Lila normally took up when harming Jerome. You and Jerome never separated form each other, always there for each other through thick and thin.

When news broke of Jerome's arrest, you went totally, and completely ape shit, blinded with rage at the fact Lila and several others could get away with abusing Jerome and yet Jerome, when he defended himself, was arrested and charged. It was in that moment you decided you were without a doubt going to burn this corrupt, and wretched city to the ground one day, no matter the cost. You later on got apprehended after word broke that you assisted Jerome in hiding the body and were planning on helping him dispose of it. You didn’t know he was going to do it, but when you found out what took place you were anything but mad, instantly assisting Jerome in the clean up. Apparently conspiring to hide a murder and sticking up for a “madman” gave you a one way ticket to Arkham Asylum in this city. 

You and Jerome hadn’t been locked up for long when the break out happened, blue gas being the last thing you remember from the asylum. You and seven other inmates were broken out that day, though only seven of you made it through Theos “orientation”, if you could even call it that. Jerome and you had adapted the quickest out of the group, the two of you bouncing off the walls at the newly found freedoms Theo had given to you. Overall you didn’t mind the other inmates, aside from one of them, she was the only other inmate you and Jerome's age. Her real name was Dixie Smith, about as bland as you can get, she gave herself the nickname of Trix however. 

Imagine the most arrogant and obnoxious person you could imagine, the obsessive and clingy type, like a leech that just continued to fester and  thrive off your energy until you were nothing but a sorry shell of the person you once were. That was Dixie, you called her Dixie purposefully to get on her nerves, Jerome even joining your petty little game of annoying the annoyer. Dixie was in Arkham for the murder of her tutor, apparently she’d gotten fed up with her math work and stabbed the teacher with her compass needle. She was a stuck up, rich, daddy's girl who was supposed to spend a two weeks in Arkham with the help of Daddy's money. She was just in these for a rebellious spurt, wanting to prove she wasn’t like every other millionaires daughter apparently. You couldn’t stand her.

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It was the day of the Maniax media debut, Jerome painting the teams name on the outfits of a few shipyard employees and tossing them off I roof. The images on the news were incredible, the police were all over the case but weren’t getting anywhere near the team. Only four of the members went out to finish the media stunt, Jerome being among those four. You and the to other girls stayed at Theos instead, Dixie whining continuously the entire time the group of boys were gone. She kept going on about how she missed ‘Her Jerome’, though she was sorely mistaken if she believed that to be true. 

It was a few hours before they returned, having to be careful to escape any stray police officers. Jerome as always was grinning like, well... like a maniac when he came back, instantly taking a seat at the head of the large dining table, his legs and arms sprawled in a relaxed posture. You were about to approach him with some clever quip when you were shoved out of the way by a hyperactive cockroach of a girl, Dixie immediately making her way over to Jerome and plopping herself down in his lap, her arms wrapping over his shoulders. 

You could feel you blood boiling as she sweet talking to him, though you were disappointed he wasn’t shoving her off or at least detesting her actions. However, what caused you to snap wasn’t Dixie, oh no, it was Jerome. Rather than continuing your inside joke of calling Dixie by her name, he said something that made you wish he’d just said he nickname. “Long time no see Trixie. Miss me much dollface?” You could feel your vision go green with jealousy as you entered autopilot, your body moving on its own accord. You stormed over to where they were sitting, your hand gripping Dixies obnoxious braid and roughly pulling her off Jerome and to the ground.

Jerome didn’t move, his lips only quirking into a smirk as he watched the scene unfold before him, amusement sparkling in his intense gaze. Dixie shouted in surprise, a yelp of pain emitting from her mouth as her hair was tugged on. “What the fuck was that for you fucking bitch?!” Dixie looked at you with rage in her eyes, outraged at the thought someone would dare lay a hand on her. You shrugged, glaring her down, “Is the princess hurt? Daddy isn’t gunna buy you out of this one ‘dollface’.” You spit the pet name out with venom and disgust, as if it were poison on your tongue. “Next time think a second before touching things that aren’t yours, that must be hard for you though.”

Dixies eyes made eye contact with y/n, embarrassment and frustration clear within them. “Bite me.” Y/n only chuckled in response, “Is that all you’ve got princess?” Dixie let out a scream of annoyance, flipping out a concealed blade and holding it out to y/n in a threatening matter. “Try me.” Y/n looked Dixie up and down for a moment before impishly grinning, “Alright.” Without a moments hesitation, y/n darted towards Dixie, carefully dodging each unplanned swing the cockroach made. Dixies skills with weapons were honestly laughable, devastatingly uncoordinated in comparison to the carnie knife throwers y/n had grown up around. Y/n ducked as Dixie swung wildly at her, y/n bringing their leg out which caused Dixie to tumble to the ground, the obnoxious girls knife gliding across the floor and away from her. 

Y/n quickly found herself perched atop Dixie, straddling the smaller girls waist as she began laying blow after blow on the tanned girls skin. Welts almost instantly formed as y/n layed it on her, blood seeping out of Dixies clearly broken nose and busted lip. The girl underneath y/n was now screaming and sobbing at this point as her face became nearly unrecognizable. Only with Theo stepping in did y/n climb off of Dixie, stepping to stand beside Theo as the beat up girl tried to stand trying to run off without a word. Y/n decided to have one last jab as the girls back was turned, attempting to retreat to her room. Y/n leant down and picked up Dixies discarded knife, “You forgot something princess.” With that y/n put her knife throwing practice to use, the knife quickly flying across the room and embedding itself in Dixies side.

Y/n watched as Theo let out a small hum of amusement as Dixie collapsed on the staircase. Theo slowly made his was over to Dixie, quickly picking up on the fact she was still conscious. “My apologies Ms. Morgan but you’ve confirmed me and Tabitha's fears, you’re not cut out to be a part of our... operation. And you know to much which unfortunately leaves us with only one choice.” Without so much as another word, the delirious and sobbing girl was dragged out of the room by Tabitha. Greenwood began capping slowly from the opposite side of the room, “Nice work, I call dibs on her when Tabitha's done. Its been a while since I’ve had fresh meat, pork hasn’t been up to par lately.” Despite the joking tone of Greenwoods words, you knew he was serious and cringed a bit. 

Your eyes flick to Jerome for a moment before looking away, instead opting to go to your room. You were only stopped a way down the hall, familiar arms wrapping around your waist from behind and spinning you around. “Gunna just ignore me after I was gone all day?” Y/n turned and glared lightly before continuing their walk, Jerome catching up to walk alongside you. “Ahhh.. the silent treatment, I only know one cure for that.” Without another word, Jerome flipped you around to face him, his lips immediately clashing against yours. It wasn't the first time you and Jerome had kissed, just in the past it was teenage curiosity induced by stolen alcohol or simply out of boredom. The way his lips moved passionately against yours, his teeth gently nipping out your bottom lip was different than the innocent kisses from before. 

You pulled away slowly, your e/c eyes meeting his dark brown, nearly ebony eyes. You caught your breath, both from the kiss and the intensity in which he was now staring at you with. His signature smirk decorated his face as he looked down at you, “ That was quite a show you put on out there doll.” You and Jerome always had a strange friendship, walking a fine line between best friends and romantic. He had always called you doll or dollface, knowing it flustered you, which you supposed is why you had snapped when you heard him mutter the pet name to Dixie. You didn’t respond, only turned away in annoyance and embarrassment.

 His fingers found their way under your chin, guiding you to turn and look at him. “I like when you're possessive, you always have this fire burning behind your eyes when you get mad. What's was it you said to Dixie?” Jerome feigned mock confusion and thoughtfulness for a second to annoy you. He clicked his tongue as it ‘came to him’, “Think a second before touching things that aren’t yours’ wasn’t that it?” You glared up at him as he continued jesting at you, his eyes aflame with mischievous amusement. You rolled your eyes lightly, only reconnecting with his when he spoke up again. “Doesn’t sound to bad does it? We could probably be the most badass, freakish power couple there ever was. I can see it in the headlines now: J and Dollface: Homicidal maniacs murder thousands.” You knew he was joking around but couldn't help the butterflies that fluttered around your stomach at the implication of you two being an item.

You let out a soft sigh and looked away, your arms crossed across your chest, “Don’t joke about that stuff J.” He quirked an eyebrow at you before his smirk returned, “What if it weren’t a joke, then what dollface? I only messed with here to get a rise out of you, get your attention.” You looked at him with confusion, trying to see if he was telling the truth or not. “What do you say dollface?” You didn't say anything, instead opting to pull him into another deep kiss, his hand immediately finding your waist. It seemed like you were kissing for an eternity before you pulled away, your foreheads pressed against each other, your lips staying only a few inches part. Jerome squeezed your waist lightly, pulling you flush against him. You flushed lightly as his next word came out a low, raspy growl, “Mine.”

You couldn’t help the smile that quickly made its way to your face, only replying with one word in return, “Mine.”

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[I’m gunna try to time my rights from now on.]

Time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Not grammar reviewed yet so apologies for any typos. 

[scary-mostaccioli]

OKAY I HAVE A WHOLESOME REQUEST BC MY MIND IS REELING: After your “NPC that’s easiest to romance” post it hit me with a thought™️. Dating Simulator AU for the creeps? What are their characters types and how does romancing them go, etc. you can only write for one or two, and pick whoever you want! I just thought it might be cute — 🌊

»okokok fuck yes this is my SHIT. So this may be a little messy haha

Also i am so fucking sorry this is so long. I got excited but I did cut out some sO. -Honey

Dating sim AU

I'd imagine the dating sim would start off all fancy and routes start out with a branching path where you have the options of like: »Proxy« »Freelancer« »Mansion«

But you can't really tell which option is which.

Youll end up with one of the three branches and be kinda stuck with the characters and then you can pick the character off through there.

Proxies (Includes Hecate-)

So we got the types: Crackhead, Reserved, Standoffish/Ass, and Mildly Infuriating™

The branching story revolves around who the MC gets shoved off on when on a mission (which is dictated by previous dialogue options).

Toby/Hecate are likely the ones that most people go for because they have the most entertaining options. Toby'd be teasing masky and your three options would be like »"...Do you mind being less annoying?"« | »"Can you guys just...not."« | »"Oooooooh shit-"« | »*Snarky agreeing remark*«

Toby's the easiest to romance (of the proxies) if you choose all the obviously for him options.

Though he'll call you a useless dumbass with a laugh the best way to get to his heart is pure snarky comments back to him.

Toby's route revolves around laughing at his jokes and supporting his injuries along with making jokes with him and encouraging him to think about his past-- even if he cant remember it.

Bad ending is Toby stabbing the MC in the back after he wasn't able to kill his target and they got away (Due to MC in the first place)

Normal ending is default proxy ending. They return to the cabin with no discernible chance in relationship as the MC is still treated like a pet.

Good ending has them returning to the cabin and Toby begging to 'keep them' while pointing to MC. He'll insist hes joking and the end of the route as it ends with a cliche kiss scene.

So Hoodie right. Hoodie is the second easiest to romance.

He's the reserved type that scoffs at the antics from the corner, though he doesn't say much in protest of things.

If the MC gets shoved off on him it would be a lot of silent movements as the MC and him get stuck in a deadly situation. He ends up saving her and in the midst of her thanking him he'd say his first words she'd hear him say, "You're welcome...now stop thanking me."

The MC would likely have a lot of chances to encourage him to talk. The correct dialogue options are harder compared to Toby's as bugging him too far can actually fuck you over.

The route culminates in them both getting lost at night time abd being forced to talk and watch the stars.

Bad ending can only happen in the middle of the story. MC gets killed by threat.

Normal ending is default proxy ending.

Good ending results in Hoodie returning to the Cabin with MC, being clearly more possessive of them as he doesn't allow anyone to touch them. and make sure they're ok.

Masky is on the harder scale to romance.

His options aren't entirely clear... sometimes he needs humor other times he doesn't.

He seems like a normal tsundere™ but its more of a route where you actually have to pick options that end up earning his respect.

Getting on his route isn't hard, but the route itself is.

Badgering him about his past is not the way to go. It would fuck up any player...but not mentioning it at all fucks stuff up too.

Somehow, in his route he'd have an episode, that would be the climax.

Picking right options to get out of that situation and earning his respect before talking about his past and why this shit is happening as he takes off his mask to smoke under the cover of a ditch is where the crisp dialogue happens. Also tells you your gucci.

Bad ending actually results in masky's death.

Normal ending is default proxy ending.

Good ending is ~relationship~

Hecate's route is just as popular as Toby's but...it makes no fucking sense half the time. Most players would fail her route and sit in confusion.

She develops through both lost memories and humor. Finding the balance between when to be serious with her and when to continue joking is the key, though it is quite hard.

Her route would revolve around a murder. The MC is already spooked she's with a ghost, set aside the murder.

The hardest part of the route is sometimes the MC must actually be mean to Hecate to get a point across.

Hecate would remember something, which is when the route would take the bug turn and you know you're on the right track if you succeed.

The good ending is Hecate genuinely caring for the MC. This is shown through protecting them, making sure they’re okay, and caring for their wellbeing as well as how they feel.

Normal ending is Hecate acting somewhat nicer, but it’s more on the borderline of a neutral and platonic feeling toward the MC.

Bad ending is Hecate killing the MC in order to regain another memory of her past.

Freelancer

Achieving the freelancer route requires the MC to escape the mansion, so it's kind of the secret routes (Though Ill only put Janes here so this post doesn't kill everyone)

Upon meeting Jane the MC would beg her to help them yadda yadda.

The route would mostly be Jane attempting to get the MC to safety out of the woods as they run from all the creeps and proxies.

As Jane's route is a secret route, the responses are more difficult

You would learn about Jane's interests in finding Jeff (You'd def have the option as an MC to mention seeing Jeff in the mansion or not.)

The route would definitely end with a partnership in attempting to find the mansion and complete Jane's goal.

The bad end would just be Jane watching as the MC gets killed.

The normal ending is Jane getting the MC out of the woods and they never see each other again

This route would have loads and loads of fluff.

'Pure screeching about how cute the route' is kind of route. Though the tension and likely jumpscares often break that.

Mansion

The mansion is where you originally arrive, so its the easiest to want go stay. (Ill only do Jeff and BEN here)

Ben's route is medium difficulty, but is straightforward if you know what youre doing. Dont feed into his narcissism and play games with him (you have to beat him at a minigane to complete it, though).

His good ending is through doing those actions, and results in him protecting the MC.

His normal ending is the default ending for the mansion. The MC gets thrown out when whatever is keeping her in there leaves.

The bad ending happens by feeding into his narcissism. He traps the MC in a game to be his personal play toy. He develops an intense obsession with her.

Jeff's route is just pure pain.

The dialogue options are super specific. You cannot mess up with one answer or you're done.

He doesn't seem to have a set personality to go along with. He makes fun of the MC he fucks with the MC, he pretends to care about them-- and its really hard to know which is which.

The bad ending for him is just murder. The only thing the MC can hear as they bleed out is Jeff going, "Oh shit...I dont think I was supposed--"

Normal is default.

Good is Jeff insisting the MC doesn't leave. There's no real romance throughout his route, but he insists that the MC should stay in the mansion, for no sensical reason.

[demons-fanatic]

The Choir: Chloral Madmen or Misguided Fools?

Spoilers for Bloodborne below for the entire post:

So, for my first lore post here, I wanted to keep it within the season. Believe it or not, the Choir is quite a scary prospect of Yharnam when you look at it in depth. First of all, what is the job of the Choir? As their set states outright: “Members of the Choir are both the highest-ranking clerics of the Healing Church, and scholars who continue the work that began at Byrgenwerth.“ This means the choir continues in Eldritch Knowledge and the pursuit of ascension in the path of Master Willem and not Laurence. The origin of the Choir is also explicitly stated with the Orphanage Key: “Key to the Orphanage, birthplace of the Choir. The Orphanage, shadowed by the Grand Cathedral, was a place of scholarship and experimentation, where young orphans became potent unseen thinkers for the Healing Church. The Choir, that would later split from the Healing Church, was a creation of the Orphanage.“ This explicitly tells us that the Choir are just Orphans who grew up and were taught to essentially experiment on people their whole lives, along with a lot of Eldritch Knowledge. If you’re wondering where the rest of the Choir is well, presumably they’re in the third floor of the Upper Cathedral Ward main building. It’s a fact that some of them are there, given that singing can be heard, arias specifically. These aria’s are supposed to be religious-like thing, given by the Rosmarinus’ description: “A special weapon used by the Choir, high-ranking members of the Healing Church. Sprays a cloud of sacred mist, created by using blood-imbued Quicksilver Bullets as a special medium. Arias are heard wherever sacred mist is seen, proving that the mist is a heavenly blessing.

‘Oh, fair maiden, why is it that you weep?’”  It is seen as something of the heavens, the heavens being something the Choir, or really the church believe in. These heavens might be the Nightmare realms in the other planes of existence. The mist is made from Quicksilver Bullets, aka Mercury and Mercury in Bloodborne deserves its own post but it’s essentially Mercury gas, in which Oedon loves Mercury. The last line “Oh, fair maiden, why is it that you weep?” this maiden is the Great One below in the cave, but we’ll get to her later. Now, what do the Choir do? Well, they experiment on people to, as Fauxsefka puts it “Surpassing our own stupidity.” these experiments create Kin. These experiments are the Celestial Emissaries. And why are they called “Emissaries” well, it’s presumable they are used to contact Great Ones. How do we know this? Well, they drop communion. The boss does anyways. Meaning that they have contacted a higher truth. All the places we find communion, minus +5 vials, is in relation to some sort of religious place/person. Where communion has or could take place. 

The Choir also is said to now be separated from the Healing Church itself and with this they have just become a separate name. They are still apart of it, just not the Healing Church conglomerate. This means that the Choir gets their “patients” from the Church who of course, just kidnap Yharnamites. Another faction that has separated from the church is the School of Mensis, who preform a similar function to the choir, but they do not experiment on people in the same way, their wish is though, is to reach Kos and end the Curse of Hunters. The Choir is very suspicious of the School, sending a spy, Edgar to the school in hopes of sharing secrets, though, due to the Mensis ritual, he got stuck in the Nightmare Realm. The choir’s suspicions aren’t for naught though, Mensis is doing something and killed an entire village to try and create an artificial Great One, which worked half-way.

Another aspect of the Choir to note is their clothing. Which the cap is the most interesting part. “Attire of the Choir, high-ranking members of the Healing Church. Members of the Choir are both the highest-ranking clerics of the Healing Church, and scholars who continue the work that began at Byrgenwerth. Together with the left behind Great One, they look to the skies, in search of astral signs, that may lead them to the rediscovery of true greatness.“ This states that the Choir outfits are inspired by Willem, why they choose not to see is a common concept. It’s not rare in Yharnam to cover ones eyes so that you can gain eyes on the inside and ascend. Their attire looks very special and like Choir wear, nothing special there but it is apart of the Choir.

Another interesting part of the Choir is their tools. Their tools include: Rosmarinus, Choir Bell, A Call Beyond and Augur of Ebrietas. Minus the Rosmarinus, they are all Arcane items. Meaning they are understood by few, but they also incorporate, for the lack of a better word, magic in their use. The Choir Bell is based on a larger bell that can send a sound across multiple planes of existence. This one just uses its sound to raise vigor/heal someone. A Call Beyond was created when the Healing Church failed to contact the greater Cosmos using Phantasms, but instead summoned a small exploding star. Finally, the Augur of Ebrietas uses a similar tactic to A Call Beyond. It uses a phantasm but it uses it to partially summon Ebrietas, using one of her tentacles to shoot out of ones hand. All of these weapons use the cosmos and are the latter two are considered secrets, for good reason. They do use it in combat, Yurie, Fauxsefka and Edgar all use it. Along with Micolash(Who would’ve been apart of the Choir but split in Mensis). 

Another thing the Choir is continuously said to do is look at the sky or mention how the sky is one with the Cosmos. This, of course, is also something they most likely took from Willem as when we find him in Byrgenwerth, he is literally staring at the sky forever. Doing this seemingly does do something as Willem is growing some sort of Fungus on his neck which isn’t natural. He’s also lost his ability to speak in a normal human tongue. Though, the Choir either haven’t done it long enough or as expected, have just used other methods to achieve this. Of course, the experiments are these ways. Once you understand that in this world that these Gods exist, you’re either afraid or in awe. How the people of Bloodborne even figured out you can transcend is beyond me, but. They figured it out and now they wish to do so. Multiple ways of doing it have been shown in the game whether it be drinking God Blood, Water, Eating Organs or becoming too Enlightened. And all of this, as we know are connected to Aliens. Beings from Space. There is a reason the Moon Presence is called the Moon Presence after all, did she come from the Moon? Who knows, but she always descends from it, meaning she is not from Earth and comes from space. Not to mention some aspects of the Choir magic as listen above are well, space related. Stars. Yes, it is strange they just realized that the sky leads into space but it helps in the fact they most definitely worship the moon a lot. Hell, they even have statues of the Moon Presence.

These can be found in Lumenflower Gardens and most definitely suggest that the Choir worship or really appreciate her in which one makes sense over the other. With this, and other descriptions, the Choir are really obsessed with the Moon, in the same theme of the Lumenflower Gardens, the flowers open in full Moonlight. We also know the church has always participated in rituals with a Great One, mostly the Moon. So this obsession with space, Great Ones, it’s all religious. It’s sacred, holy, divine, etc... This isn’t surprising of course, all Great Ones are considered Gods. The Choir themselves have a connection to one of these Gods, Ebrietas.

Now, since we are talking about the Choir and Isz and Ebrietas are apart of the Choir, I will 1. Talk about them as if they are the same(Isz less so) and 2. Go into full detail about them. 

First off we have Isz, a land that the Choir themselves consider to be in touch with the Cosmos. It is a land that is filled with Moon Larvae(Most likely where most of the ones in Upper Cathedral Ward come from) Celestial Emissaries and other Kin. It’s infested with a blue hue and arcane tree roots. This of course, going along with the themes of Bloodborne proves that well, all of this has already played out. Isz has already done what the Choir has done, the Choir is just repeating Isz. There’s even a human(or Pthumerian; Iszian?) who has become a Great One, but we’ll get to her later. But yes, this is just proof everything is repeating, like Loran and Yharnam. It is also notable that Isz houses most Great Ones we see as bosses, which brings to effect 1. These Chalices are Pocket Dimensions, Rom has no place being here. 2. These Chalices are existing so the Great Ones shall keep their forms stored so they cannot die, they can revert back to their other form and regenerate so to speak and then come back. Isz just seems to possibly be the main hub for that. Regardless, that is Isz. And relation to the Choir, well, they found the chalice and explored it and then came into contact with Ebrietas.

Now we have Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos. She is called a Great One in many places, but is she? Well, it’s confusing. All true Great Ones bleed red, like Humans. But, all Kin bleed White, Mercury. But, what does Ebrietas bleed? Red and White. What does Rom bleed? Red and White. What is Rom? A Human who has transformed into a failed Great One. From the previous paragraph, we established cycles in Bloodborne. This isn’t a joke or false, this is true. Think about it; Loran, Old Yharnam and now Yharnam all were infected by the Beast Plague. It happens again and again. Isz and now the Choir, it’s happening again and again. The Fishing Hamlet and now Mensis with Mergo, again and again. If this isn’t proof, well, I don’t know what to tell you. This is even more explicit than Dark Souls. Anyways, along with this would be another failed attempt at a Great One, right? Well, of course, why couldn’t it? Ebrietas is like Rom, she can cast her own magic and looks like a Great One. Anyways, take that theory with what you will. So, what does Ebrietas do in our current story? Well, she was found in Isz by the Choir. It’s said she was left behind, if you believe my theory you’ll know why. She’s not like the others, she cannot ascend to other planes like the others can because she’s not full, so to speak. So, she was found and luckily for the Choir, she wanted to coexist with humans. Why she does isn’t known but, she soon became a thing for the Choir to study, but presumably they did nothing bad to her and even gained a good relationship with her. She stays in a cave below the Grand Cathedral, called the “Altar of Despair” and currently she’s weeping over a dead corpse of a giant Spider. 

And, this is where I deviate from current lore to cut content, well. See, that Giant Spider is Rom. It’s honestly, should I say an extremely bad mess up, like really, really bad. Because in current game, it makes no sense. This giant spider that looks like Rom is here but it’s not really Rom? And you can reverse Annalise’s death here? What? Well, if you want to know, it’s Rom and the Altar used to be below Byrgenwerth, Rom would fall and then Ebrietas would be sad her “sister” is dead. There’s also a cutscene associated with her corpse, but nevertheless, there we go. You might be asking, “Why is this important” well, there’s no good explanation for it other than to explain why it’s there when the area was being developed.

But that’s the end of the rant, so the Choir are children who have been raised to experiment on people and elevate humanity. Of course, they aren’t the only ones who do so but they definitely are making progress. If you read all the way through, thank you! Feedback and RB’s are appreciated!

[takaraphoenix]

Grey’s Anatomy: Review

Took me four months, but I have successfully watched all 16 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy - and what there is of season 17. Figured it deserves some words.

HOLY SHIT I LOVE THIS SHOW? SO MUCH?

(To set the appropriate mood for this and give you a TL;DR.)

That being said to open it up, it is most definitely not flawless. So let’s start there. For me, the one big flaw it has is really the writers’ cuckolding kink. So. Much. Cheating. And - worse than the cheating plots - the cheating apologism. They echo the exact same sentiment so often, that cheating is only one mistake and humans make mistakes. That’s... at one point, that stops being a plot device and starts to be very telling about the writer, to be quite frank.

That being said, let’s roll out the positive. And let’s kick it off with something that relates to all the cheating; so many forced love-triangles, but they usually don’t include toxic rivalries. It’d be so easy to have the men throw punches over the women or the women pull hair and scratch each other’s eyes... so many other rom-drama shows do it already, after all. But, honestly, the two lose ends on the love V (because these things ain’t triangles) usually have such a good dynamic with each other, ranging from civil to friendships to deep mentor ships - Meredith and Addison, Mark and Jackson, Cristina and Teddy? Seeing these dynamics, quite frankly, makes having to sit through a love-triangle-nonsense actually more than bearable.

The most impressive thing about the show is, to me, the amount of rep on it. I mean sure, the main lead is white and I’d estimate half the overall cast are white, but even from the get go - in 2005 - the ratio of white actors versus actors of color in the main cast was five to four. And they’re not background or side characters - I mean, two of them are, aside from Meredith, the only ones to still be around on season 17. They all have their own plotlines, their own relationships and troubles and struggles. It’s not just the Meredith show, not by far.

And beyond that, the queer rep on this show is... honestly mindblowing? I mean, seriously?

They introduced their first queer character in season 2, in 2005, when other procedual dramas that aired then in large parts just... never... added queer characters. And sure! Joe was only a recurring character and not a main character, but he was recurring for six seasons, he recurred a lot, he got established, he and his husband partook in the plot. And, again, this was just the beginning, back in 2005.

They’ve since then steadily broadened their horizon and become more inclusive.

Recurring and main character wise, we’ve had 5 lesbians, 5 bisexual women, 4 gay men and 2 trans characters over these 17 seasons. That’s a very solid list, honestly. If I look at other shows, again especially procedual dramas that are still largely aimed at a more conservative audience, the fact that we’ve had actual queer storylines in every single season since season 2? That’s amazing.

Even more so on the one-off characters, to be quite honest. Just... casually, this patient has two moms, this man is visited by his husband, here the child of the patient is nonbinary, look this patient is in a polyamorous relationship. Sure, those are only the one-off episodical characters, but you have no idea how much that matters too.

I know I’m repeating myself with this, but especially when compared to other procedual dramas, where the characters are often only queer when it’s important to the plot. He got beaten up and ended up in the hospital because he was gay. She got killed because she was trans. They’re motivational and important to the plot (and also usually used to victimize the characters).

The fact that this show, even 10+ years ago already, just... included queerness as part of our reality, included it casually, positively and repeatedly - really, it’s not just like it’s one episode per season like it’s some obligation, it happens a lot? For no actual needed plot reason, she just has a wife and she’s just happily married to her wife and that’s it, because queer people exist.

And I just, I struggle to express how much this casual rep means to me? And how it becomes even more amazing if you consider how long ago it started? And if you add to it the steady prominent recurring/main character rep?

Sure, it’s not perfect - the majority of their characters of color are black; it’s not overly diverse when it comes to what characters of color it included, it took forever to include the second Asian character and the first Muslim character and it could feature a broader variety of ethnicities, just like it could offer a broader variety of queer experiences, I mean it took them forever to introduce the first mlm main character and they have yet to include a bisexual man, I’d also just love to see an ace character or a polyamorous character, to paint a contrast to the sex-obsession and cheating plotlines - but... it’s doing more than many others and I do think it deserves praise for that and it keeps improving. They didn’t just add Erica and Callie as the first wlw couple and then stuck to only having two queer ladies on screen at the same time and never more, just constantly replacing Callie’s girlfriend. They kept adding more, they keep adding more.

Now, on to my absolute favorite thing about this show.

Because, let’s make one thing clear, I hate cheating and under other circumstances the amount of cheating on this show would have driven me off it ten seasons ago. But despite all of the very forced romance drama and sex obsessed allos on the show, that is not the show’s main focus.

This was never mainly about the romance. It’s always been about the platonic relationships first and foremost. Romances changed and broke up and got complicated, but what prospered were the friendships and found family relationships.

Cristina and Meredith are the defining relationship of this show. They are... friendship portrayed in a way I have never seen friendship portrayed before. The writing on their dynamic is just amazing.

And when Cristina leaves the show, the shift to Meredith-Alex and to the sister-dynamic between Meredith, Maggie and Amelia really works.

Personally, after watching the show, I’ve come to divide it into three arcs, each with a Part A and a Part B.

The first arc of the show - spanning seasons 1 to 5 - are about Meredith, Cristina, George, Izzie and Alex. And they explore the dynamic between those five and the individual relationships between them all, so very well. This was really found family done right.

Arc 2 is what I dubbed the rebranding arc - seasons 6 to 10. In Part A (s6 to s8), we got the focus on the Mercy West merger, ending in the horrific plane crash. While Part B is what I call the outfall, season 9 dealing with the outfall from the plane crash and season 10 being all about that Meredith-Cristina outfall.

I love Arc 1 a whole lot, it’s really good. I think Arc 2 is good too, especially the plane crash and its outfall were very gripping and well done, but I do think that this middle part earns the dub as rebranding because it feels like the show itself is trying to find its footing, trying to figure out a direction after MAGIC graduated into residents (and, inevitably, fell apart with the death of George and the departure of Izzie). It’s a bit unfocused on where it wants to go and I still loathe the big misunderstanding nonsense of season 10 (but am glad that Meredith and Cristina rekindled before Cristina’s departure).

Arc 3 is the sisters arc, where the Meredith-Maggie-Amelia dynamic rules, with a more uneven split between A and B, because A spans seasons 11 to 16 for me and is lovingly dubbed the Merlex arc by me, while B is just... season 17; the corona pandemic is really shifting the tone and focus and it coincides with the departure of Alex.

I’m more mixed on it than I am on the other two. For me, Cristina and Meredith just are the heart and soul of the show, so despite just how brilliantly they handled that all, I still miss them (though I greatly appreciate the fact that she still regularly comes up through phone calls, texts, etc). I greatly disliked Alex’s departure (which is a rant of its own).

On the overall, I would actually rank them in order - the first five seasons were my favorite, followed by the awkward middle because it still added brilliant things to it regardless, and despite coming in last, I do also love the second half of the show with the sisters in the focus.

I do admit that I had high hopes that Jo would become Meredith’s new person in season 17, considering the tremendous growth their relationship had - especially considering how Meredith crawled into Jo’s bed and was the one to coax what had happened with her mother out of her; that was “my person” behavior, quite frankly, and I also thought that Alex’s departure might bring them closer. I truly did not like Alex’s parting words to Meredith that she’s always been her own person.

Well, duh. Meredith Grey is an absolute badass. Which, also a thing I love a lot about this show. She is so incredibly strong and brilliant and takes care of herself.

But the point of her having her person was never that she needed someone else to stand in for her; it was to have someone around whom she didn’t have to be that strong. Someone she could come to to be weak around, someone to have her back when everything became too much. You just... can’t do that for yourself. So that sentiment was just incredible rubbish and I will be very mad if they truly have her embrace that nonsense, because she deserves someone like that.

Lastly, let’s talk romantic relationships. Very broadly, I assure you - I wouldn’t even have the patience to tackle them all, I mean seriously everyone has had sex on this show, or so it feels (no but seriously, the amount of overlapping ships on this show is ridiculous).

The only note I do have on that is that... nothing lasts forever. Quite frankly, the most “endgame” ships on this show are Richard/Catherine and Ben/Miranda (which, bless them, those two are literally my favorite of the canon ships). Everything else is just... fair game? They change, they break up, even if you absolutely hate a ship - don’t worry, it’s gonna end soon.

And occasionally, that... is even more rewarding than seeing a couple you do like get together? I mean, honestly, watching a ship you dislike for x reasons and then having them break up on screen and a character actually listing x reasons to the other’s face? Very carthatic.

I also have to mention the adoption positivity; Meredith and Derek adopt a child, not as a last resort after all else has failed, but simply because they fell in love with that little girl, Ben and Bailey took in Joey, because they have big hearts. So often, adoption is only shown as that very, very last option after you wasted thousands of dollars on all other biological options and then it is like a tragic compromise or something. Seeing them just... fall in love with this baby and adopt her and love her is so refreshing?

This show is just... really, really good? The writing is brilliant. I mean, this show made me laugh more than some comedies have? It’s funny, poignant and... not overly dramatic? I mean, of course it’s dramatic - it’s a drama. But it’s more... grounded. Even with some outstandingly extreme things happening, it is still very down to Earth, compared to other dramas that feel the need to go higher and more bizarre each season. It’s incredibly consistent, it includes so much rep and actual plotlines for every character, it really draws out relationships - familiar, platonic, romantic - in such great details.

I just really love this show.

[bltngames]

SAGE 2020: Fan Games

I’d hoped to have this article out a little bit sooner, but I overestimated how long it would take to write about some of these games. Whoops! Like I said when I outlined the posting “schedule” on the first day, we’re playing it fast and loose, so this is just what you get.

Today is the day I talk about fan games! And even though SAGE has “Sonic” right there in the acronym, it’s always hosted fan games from all types, so today we’ve got Mega Man, Mario, Rayman, and even fan games of fan games, if you can believe it.

Sonic Pinball Panic!

Pinball is one of those things where I’ve always been obsessed with it, but never very good at it. And now, with access to digital pinball collections like Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX, I don’t actually find myself playing as much pinball as I thought I would when I was 14 years old. Still, I find myself fascinated by a good pinball table, and this honestly caught me off guard. This could very easily be an official DLC release for one of those aforementioned pinball collections and I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash (in fact, if you ask me, this is better than Pinball FX, which has always had weird ball physics). This looks, sounds, and functions exactly like a real pinball table should. My complaints are minor: for starters, the table feels kind of easy. I’ve never been a pinball wizard, but I was losing balls left and right here and it still took a good 15 minutes before I finally got a game over. Score accumulation is also pretty slow; most pinball tables will dump millions and millions of points on you, but here, it felt like a struggle just to reach the 379k I finished with. Both contribute to the fact that the table feels a little flat, like it’s missing a spark to really put it over the top. And, third, it would be nice if it had controller support. The keyboard works just fine, here (it’s just pinball, after all) but I find that the triggers on a controller feel really good with pinball flippers, and mapping the plunger to the right stick is great, too. This is a Unity game, so I wouldn’t think it’d be that hard to hook it up to the controller mapper. Still, I came away impressed.

Mega Man: Perfect Blue

There are two things out there that always give me pause: fan-made Doom level packs, and Mega Man fan games. Fan made gaming content generally has problems when it comes to difficulty balancing anyway, but these games have earned a certain reputation for their difficulty, which creates a problem when you have content made by fans, for fans. This insularity means these things are usually way too hard for what I would consider “normal” people (read: casual fans and outsiders). Add on to the fact that I’d even say that there are official Mega Man games with bad difficulty balancing, and you have a recipe for frustration. Sadly, this is how I’d characterize Perfect Blue: though this introductory level isn’t impossibly hard, it’s definitely pushing that edge where it’s not very accommodating to someone who hasn’t played and finished every Classic Mega Man game ever made. It almost immediately throws you into scenarios where you have jumps you can barely reach, insta-kill spikes, and enemies that not only actively dodge your shots, but invincible enemies that launch counter attack homing missiles. And then it starts making you juggle all of this stuff, together, at the same time. None of this is insurmountable as long as you’re paying attention, but as a very casual Mega Man fan, it’s an unfriendly first impression and makes me worried about what the rest of the game is going to be like as the challenge naturally ramps up. For those hardcore Mega Man fans among you, the rest of this is solid, at least. The presentation and controls are excellent, and the new sprites are beautiful. It’s a game I’d love to enjoy when it’s done… but I’m assuming I’ll be left out in the cold. A shame, really, because there’s so much promise here.

Sonic and the Mayhem Master

There’s a lot to like about this game, but there’s a part of me that really wonders if this should even be considered a Sonic fan game. Mayhem Master’s depictions of Sonic and Amy Rose are atypical to put it mildly. Here, Sonic seems to be a bookish nerd of sorts, a sidekick to Amy Rose, who has been turned into a burnt out, cigar-smoking detective. Most of the game plays out as half an adventure game, half an RPG, where you roam around the world talking to NPCs and gather clues while being assaulted by random battles. The battle system is super off-the-wall, too, perhaps taking inspirations from games like Mario & Luigi and Undertale. This means that battles aren’t passive -- you spend most of each fight dodging or nullifying incoming attacks with simplistic action-based commands. It’s weird, and different, and occasionally even a little bit overwhelming. That’s kind of the whole game, really. It’s the sort of thing that really doesn’t feel like a Sonic game at all, but it also doesn’t feel bad. The artwork is very charming, I’m interested in seeing the characters develop, and there’s plenty of worldbuilding and mystery. Would this still be as intriguing if you removed the Sonic connection, even if it’s so threadbare? That’s a hard question to answer. I know that some of my interest in this game is seeing how it spins more familiar Sonic elements into something that’s completely different. Worth checking out, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else.

Sonic and the Dreamcatcher

This is a fairly brilliant little game with two unfortunate quirks. If you didn’t know, the special stages in the original Sonic the Hedgehog were inspired by an arcade game of the era called Cameltry, published by Taito in 1989. Now, Sonic’s special stages were different enough from Cameltry that it wasn’t a case of Sega outright stealing the gameplay, but there’s a clear lineage there, and it only becomes clearer when you compare the special stages in Sonic 4 Episode 1 to Cameltry (spoilers: in that game, they’re nearly identical). Dreamcatcher is also from this lineage, but is infinitely more charming than either Sonic 4 and maybe even Cameltry itself. The idea is that you must collect a specific number of blue spheres in order to reveal the Chaos Emerald, after which you have a limited amount of time to find and collect it. It’s very simple, but the presentation really sells the game’s charm. It’s just a game that looks good and sounds good, with an interesting premise executed very well. Also, you get a dedicated “& Knuckles” button to spawn infinite Knuckles to help you collect blue spheres and bash enemies. Being able to have unlimited numbers of these guys sounds like it would break the game, but once that countdown clock begins, the last thing you need is 20+ echidnas clogging up the route back to the emerald. The first quirk this game suffers from is that there’s only two levels. Parts of this have a very “game jam made in a weekend” vibe to it despite the rock-solid music, sound, and gameplay, and only having two levels contributes to that. Hopefully more are coming in the future. The other quirk? You can’t actually download this game -- it’s embedded in a webpage. I’m sure this is to make it easy to play on any platform with a web browser (phones, PCs, etc.) but I find myself greatly desiring a hard copy of this game that can live on my computer forever.

Sonic Galactic

Now here’s just a good old fashioned Sonic fan game. Though it clearly takes inspiration from Sonic Mania’s aesthetics in some places, it’s clearly doing its own thing, featuring not just the core cast of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, but also Fang the Sniper, and even a brand new character named Tunnel the Mole. Unlike a lot of Sonic fan games at SAGE, this appears to be using something besides Clickteam Fusion, Game Maker, or Unity. Here, it’s the “Hatch Game Engine,” whatever that is. Whatever the case may be, the game runs very well and is basically indistinguishable from just playing Sonic Mania. Visuals are sharp, music’s good, the two included boss fights are surprisingly fun to fight -- everything seems to be in order. As a result, there’s not really a lot to say. This is just a good, fun game. Anything else I’d say would come off sounding like nitpicks. For example, there’s no way to set graphics options yet, so the game is stuck in 2x Windowed mode. Fang and Tunnel are cute additions, but I wonder how much utility they have as characters. Unless I missed something, Fang’s pop gun is mainly for a weak double-jump ability, and Tunnel’s ability to dig and ricochet off floors, walls and ceilings is cool, but it doesn’t have quite the universal utility of Tails’ flight or Knuckles climbing and gliding. It’ll be interesting to see how or maybe even if their abilities have a chance to grow into something special. Anyway, like I said, those are nitpicks, so try to give this a shot if you can.

Sonic Robo-Blast!

Remasters seem to be a bit of a theme this SAGE, between Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit, Sonic 2 SMS, Sonic 1 Revisited, but this is perhaps the most surprising of them all: a loving remaster of the original Sonic Robo-Blast. SRB1 was perhaps one of the first true “landmark” fan games, given that it was basically a whole entire game that people could play. It's not a stretch to say that SRB1 probably helped kickstart the fan gaming community that still survives to this day -- I certainly owe my involvement in the community to seeing SRB1 for the first time. The problem is, as historically significant as the game might be, it’s nearly impossible to go back to nowadays -- it’s much, much too dated to be any fun. This remaster completely re-envisions SRB1 as a regular Sonic game, while also pulling in gameplay elements from Sonic Robo-Blast 2. It’s a bit of a time paradox mindwarp, but it helps give it a bit more personality than just making a bog-standard 2D Sonic. It works, aided by the fact the sprites, music and overall presentation are fantastic. The only downside is the Act 2 boss, which commits the cardinal sin of taking away player agency and making you wait around far too much. Here’s hoping this gets finished, because it’s definitely on my radar now.

Super Mario Flashback

This has been floating around for a few years now and I’m glad to see it’s finally starting to get some more substantial content as it moves towards becoming an actual game. That being said, this is also one of those games that’s kind of hard to talk about because it’s just… really polished. The art is incredible, it controls exactly like a Mario game, and there’s already a decent mixture of ideas at play in the demo. Anything else I’d say would sound like nitpicking -- like, for example, the backseat game designer in me wonders if maybe the game is prioritizing aesthetics a little too much. This is a wonderfully animated game, absolutely gorgeous, but some actions, like the butt-stomp and the wall kick, feel a bit sluggish, and I think it’s because they show off fancy animations. Even if it’s a split second, waiting for Mario to attach to a wall to kick off of it feels slow. Really, though, that’s an insignificant complaint. This demo is still well worth checking out.

Sonic Advance 4 Advanced

This game seems like a greatest-hits of Dimps best ideas, spanning the first Sonic Advance all the way to Sonic Rush. There’s just one problem: the game seems broken. Now, my desktop PC is starting to show its age. I built it four and a half years ago, and though it can handle game like Gears of War 5 on high settings at 60fps, slowly, newer games seem to be leaving it behind. That being said, I don’t think a game like Sonic Advance 4 here should be running at what appears to be half its intended speed. It also originally launched in a teeny-tiny window (we’re talking, like, smaller than a postage stamp) and even though the options menu has a toggle for full screen mode, it doesn’t want to work. Something about this game under the hood seems to be struggling very, very, VERY hard. It’s a shame, because if this actually played at the proper speed, it seems like it might actually be an alright game, if a bit complex and busy.

Sonic 2 SMS Remake

Here’s a game I was all buckled in expecting to enjoy. Like it says on the tin, this is a remake of Sonic 2 for the Master System (and Game Gear), but with wide screen visuals and huge expansions to the mechanics, roster of playable characters, and levels. On the outside it seems really impressive, and to a certain degree it is, but something about the controls feel a little off. Sonic’s heavier here than he is on the Master System, perhaps to simulate “real” Sonic physics a little more accurately, but you can also pretty much stop on a dime, and the combination of the two feels awkward. The camera also needs a lot of work, as it’s basic at best and does a poor job of letting you see what’s below (to the dev if you’re reading this: there’s actually video tutorials out there on how 2D scrolling cameras work, it might be worth looking a couple of them up). It also leans into some of the tech limitations of the Master System, like how you aren’t given any rings for boss fights (and even hiding the HUD, a move done to save on resources for the large enemy sprites). I could be picky on a bunch of other little stuff, too, like how the flight mechanics feel, but there are other games to play at SAGE and I’ve got at least two more articles to write. Needless to say, this is a solid (impressive, even) foundation but it’s missing a lot of late-stage polish to clean up the tiny little rough edges.

Rayman Redemption

I tell this story every so often, but it was about three quarters of the way through Rayman 2 on the Sega Dreamcast when it struck me, suddenly: I love this game. I was being chased by a pirate ship through some rickety bridges and even though I was dying over and over and over again, I realized I had been enjoying Rayman 2 enough that I might put it in my top ten Dreamcast games. But that was 2002, and the years haven’t been so kind to ol’ Rayman. From the strangely celebrity-infused Rayman 3, to the tragedy of Rayman 4 (eventually becoming Raving Rabbids) to the endless, careless ports of Rayman 2 to every platform under the sun, one gets the impression Ubisoft maybe didn’t know what to do with Rayman. Especially now, when most of Ubisoft’s games are some form of online live service or cookie cutter open world experience (or increasingly both). But the fans know what they want. Rayman Redemption takes the original 1995 Rayman game and lovingly gives it a fresh coat of paint. The results are akin to what Taxman and Stealth did for Sonic CD in 2011, with wide screen visuals, improved controls, touched up level design, but gameplay that still feels faithful and accurate to the original experience. Except that Sega charged money for that, and here, fans have released this for free. Ubisoft’s loss, I guess. I didn’t play Rayman 1 until well after I’d finished Rayman 2, and I’ll admit, I kind of bounced off of it back then. It felt slow, and awkward, and when the difficulty ramped up, it got very hard, very quickly. Now, admittedly, I’ve only put about 30 minutes into Redemption here, but just the addition of a run button is incredibly welcome, and the retooled level design and powerup mechanics helps the game feel way less obtuse overall. It’s just a cleaner, tighter, more accessible and more polished version of Rayman.

Stay tuned for the next article: Indie games.

[unrestedjade]

Mermay Kuwameshi nonsense

Damn, the month’s half over already! I’m rereading Pet Shop of Horrors, rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho, and coincidentally obsessed with Kuwabara/Urameshi. So! Half-assed crossover time. Maybe Count D has a second location in Japan?

 Kazuma wasn't sure how long the pet shop had been there on the edge of Chinatown. It looked like it had been in that storefront for years, but he couldn't remember seeing it until a few months ago. Maybe he'd just missed it, but he didn't think so. He liked animals. If the place had been there the whole time, he'd have gone inside at least once, just to check it out.

He also wasn't sure why he hadn't checked it out. He tended to pick up his pace when he passed by, trying to put space between himself and the shop for no reason his rational mind could come up with. It was just a pet shop. Yet for some reason it hit him the wrong way, sending a cold shiver up his spine whenever he neared it.

Today he was feeling it again, the unpleasant tickle crawling through his nervous system urging him to go, walk faster, get away. It was getting irritating, to tell the truth. Was it haunted, or something? A haunted pet shop? That could be a thing, right?

Regardless, Kazuma wasn't about to have his rep endangered by a place that sold goldfish and bunnies. Today he was gonna go in there. He'd settle these creepy-crawlies once and for all, and get his walk home from school back to normal.

Yep. He was gonna walk inside in just a minute. Just a few seconds. Gonna walk right in!

Boy, it was darker in there than a pet shop really should be, wasn't it?

Growling at himself in annoyance, Kazuma forced himself to step forward. It was just a pet shop, for god's sake.

It was dark inside, for sure. Heavy curtains draped over the windows and walls cut not just the light from outside, but the noise, too. Kazuma could hear the sounds of traffic and activity outside, but it seemed so far away, like the inside of the shop was in its own little world. Weak lamplight played across the deep red drapery, the corners of the room vanishing into shadow.

The shop had all the expected stuff. Bird cages with canaries and parakeets. Cages for the rabbits and puppies and...ferrets? Did pet shops have ferrets? This one did, apparently. What was weird was the rest of the furnishings. Aside from the animal cages, there was a kind of seating area-- a sofa, a couple chairs, a fancy coffee table. The place looked more like a fortune teller's place, or a brothel out of one of his sister's romance novels that he definitely didn't sneak to read and then skip over half the pages because he got too embarrassed. Covering the smell of animals was the heavy scent of incense.

There was no sign of the shopkeeper that Kazuma could see. Was this place actually open?

A hallway led farther back. Way farther back, with fancy, painted doors leading off to the left and right every few meters. The place was a lot bigger than it looked from the front. Kazuma called out a tentative hello, in case someone mistook him for a thief, or something. God, he hoped this place wasn't actually a front for a brothel, or he'd be so mortified he might die on the spot.

Someone answered him. "Hello?"

Kazuma jumped at the sound of a male voice, and felt immediately foolish. Of course someone else was in here! The door was open, wasn't it? Following the voice, Kazuma found himself in a side room filled with fish tanks on heavy iron racks. Though he'd sworn he heard someone speak, there didn't appear to be anyone in here. Just the tanks.

There was no lighting in the room other than the lamps on the fish tank hoods. They cast greenish, shifting light across the floor, the ceiling, and Kazuma himself. The light flickered, making the whole room look as though it were submerged underwater. Most of the tanks were occupied. A few contained what looked like koi, others held angelfish, guppies, or fighting fish. A few others held fish Kazuma couldn't identify other than they were ugly and off-putting, with mouths crammed too full of teeth and oily black scales. Some fish seemed to change somehow when he looked away from them, shifting and melting at the corner of his eye.

There was one enormous tank running the length of one wall. The glass was overgrown with algae, shading the water emerald green. Something moved inside. Something big, pacing the length of the tank back and forth. Was it a shark? It seemed large enough-- a little longer than Kazuma was tall.

"Who are you?"

There was the voice again! Kazuma looked for the speaker, and nearly leaped out of his skin when a guy popped his head over the side of the enormous tank.

"Wh-what are you doing in there?" It was a stupid question, maybe. But what else were you supposed to say to a guy who suddenly yelled at you from a fish tank?

The guy pushed a mess of dark, wet hair from his eyes. He looked about Kazuma's age. A part-timer? "What are you doing in here, stupid?"

Kazuma's temper flared, but the question was a fair one. He was the one who'd decided to poke around. "No one was out front, so I thought I'd look around." Maybe this was a back room only employees were supposed to be in, but it wasn't Kazuma's fault that this shop was run so sloppy. There wasn't even a sign posted. If the place was open, then the shopkeeper should be where customers could see them!

"Heh." The guy leaned his bare arms on the rim of the tank. Scum from the tank stuck to his forearm. It looked like it was a real mess in there. "Not much to see, is there? This place sucks."

"It kinda does," Kazuma agreed. He ventured a little closer, looking for the shape of the huge fish through the murky glass and not finding it. Wasn't this guy worried about it biting him? "What are you doing in there, cleaning? It looks like shit."

The guy laughed. "Tell me about it! Nah," he said, grinning. His teeth looked weird, like they were sharper than they ought to be. Or probably they were just crooked. "If the owner wants it clean, he can do it himself. Not like I'm getting paid to be a maid."

Okay, now Kazuma was really confused. Did the guy work here or not? If not, what the hell was he doing splashing around in a fish tank?

"You here to buy something?" The guy's smile wilted, like it wasn't an expression he was real used to making and he couldn't keep it up long.

Kazuma shook his head. "Just curious," he said. He didn't mention the creepy feeling he got every time he walked by this place. Or the fact that the tickle up his spine hadn't gone away yet. If anything, it was getting stronger, harder to brush aside.

The guy seemed to perk up a little at that, which was weird if he was an employee after all. Shouldn't he want Kazuma to buy something?

"What's the weather like today?"

Kazuma blinked. That was a weird question. "Uh...sunny? Why don't you go outside and look?"

"Can't," the guy said simply, leaning his chin on his arms.

"Your boss that much of a slave driver?" Kazuma asked, frowning. "Won't let you walk outside for a minute? There aren't even any customers in here right now."

The guy smiled again, briefly, and his teeth definitely weren't normal. Kazuma stared without meaning to. Had he filed them down? Why were they...pointy?

"Hey," the guy said. "What's your name?"

"Kazuma Kuwabara," Kazuma said. "Do you go to school here? I haven't seen you around before."

"Nope," the guy said, shaking his head. His wet hair sloshed along the surface of the water. It was really long, for a guy. Or a girl, for that matter. "Name's Yusuke. You got somewhere to be, Kazuma Kuwabara, or can you stick around for a few? I'm bored as shit in here."

Kazuma had homework to do, in fact, but it wasn't like that had ever been a pressing concern. It wasn't every day he met someone new, much less someone who seemed kinda cool. Sarayashiki wasn't a school people wanted to transfer their kids into. "I guess," he said, still looking out for any sign of that big fish. Had it hidden somewhere in the tank?

"You scared of water, or something? You don't gotta stand all the way over there," Yusuke said, chuckling. There was a swishing sound, like he was kicking his legs under the water.

Kazuma wasn't scared of water. He just had a weird feeling about the fish in that tank, that was all. Still, it wasn't like it was gonna launch itself over the side at him, right? This wasn't a Jaws movie. If Yusuke was safe where he was, Kazuma could get closer. So he did, moving to lean on the glass. The tank came up to his chest, and the glass was seriously thick, almost the width of his palm. It must have weighed a ton. He peered into the water, but it was just more murky green. He could make out what he thought might be sea grass or something, and a few chunks of driftwood for decoration, but no fish.

"What are you looking for?"

"There's a big fish in here, so..." Kazuma trailed off, finally taking a look at Yusuke up close. His teeth really were sharp, it wasn't a trick of the light. Serrated, like steak knives. The dim, shifting light from the tank lamps glinted too well off slimy skin, and with his arms raised Kazuma could see three long gashes following the curve of his ribs. They weren't bleeding, just flexing in time with his breaths. His long hair fanned out behind him in the water. Beneath the surface, where Yusuke's body was shrouded in murky green, a massive tail swayed lazily back and forth.

Yusuke watched Kazuma's eyes widen, smirking. "Find that fish yet?" A tail fin as wide as Yusuke's shoulders gently broke the surface of the water, gray and sleek. Softly, it slapped back down, splashing some water on Kazuma's uniform jacket.

Kazuma could give a shit about the jacket right now. "Um," he said, blinking while his brain tried frantically to catch up with his eyes. "Are you...a mermaid?" It felt stupid to say it out loud.

He felt even stupider when Yusuke burst into loud laughter. "What? I'm not a mermaid, you idiot!"

Kazuma could feel his face redden. Great. He'd met this guy all of five minutes ago and he was never gonna live this down. He knew he'd never let it go if someone said something off-the-wall crazy like that to him. Mermaid? If he was lucky, Yusuke would just assume he was drunk and not terminally stupid.

After a minute, Yusuke got a hold of himself, reaching up to dab tears from the corners of his eyes. "I'm a merman. Genius."

"Whatever, I was just joking anyw- wait, what?"

Yusuke pushed back a little from the glass, pointing one clawed finger at his own chest. "You see any boobs? I'm a guy."

Kazuma sputtered. "I know you're a guy, stupid!" Alright, he was gonna wake up in the middle of math class any second now. This shit had officially gotten too weird to be real. 

"Seemed pretty confused to me," Yusuke said, with a smirk and a shrug.

"Are you really half fish under there?" Kazuma didn't have space in his brain to get too mad about accusations of being dumb right now. He was too transfixed by the dark shape of Yusuke's tail moving under the water. Was it a trick? A...a costume, or something? They had to do that for mermaids in movies, right? There was no way it was real. Even if Kazuma's Bizarre Crap Warning Tickle was now a full-body shiver.

"I'm all me, not half fish. But whatever." Yusuke shifted his grip on the rim of the tank, pulling himself closer to Kazuma. "You want a better look?"

Kazuma nodded brainlessly, and had a half second of utter confusion as Yusuke gripped his shoulders. Then he was pulled forward, down into the water, a cold shock slapping him in the face and a moment of vertigo as his feet left the floor.

It didn't occur to him to hold his breath. In unconscious panic, he tried to take a breath, choking on cold water instead. Yusuke floated just below him, his laugh ringing through the tank, surrounding Kazuma in mocking sound. Sure enough, tan skin gave way to two-tone gray just below his waist, a large tail bumping against Kazuma's thrashing legs. It looked pretty damn real from here.

Yusuke's grip on Kazuma kept him from reaching the surface, only a few inches overhead but still too far. Panicked from lack of air, Kazuma lashed out, landing an awkward punch square on Yusuke's nose. The merman's head snapped back, his hair tracing the arc of his movement, but he didn't let go.

"Aw, quit freaking out, will ya?" Yusuke's voice filled the tank as he shook his head to clear it. A trickle of blood drifted from his nostril to dissipate in the water. "Thought you said you weren't scared?" He pulled Kazuma closer, like he was gonna take a chomp out of him. Kazuma froze, bracing for teeth, but Yusuke only pressed their lips together.

Kazuma knew he wasn't getting any air, but at once the water stopped burning in his lungs. He could breathe, somehow. Which was a lot to process on top of his first kiss and also maybe drowning, and also this guy was a goddamn mermaid. Too close to focus on properly, Yusuke's eyes glittered with mischief.

A hand grabbed the back of Kazuma's collar. He was hauled from the water, coughing and sputtering. He dragged air back into his lungs, though it almost felt too harsh. Too dry. The man who'd saved him helped him clamber over the rim of the tank to collapse to his hands and knees on the floor.

"I'm sorry," the man said, voice smooth and lilting as Kazuma heaved up more tank water. "You'll need to stay well back from the displays. Some of the animals are dangerous."

Water streaming from his hair and every stitch of his clothing, Kazuma blinked up at his rescuer. The shop owner was a tall Chinese guy, dressed in fancy silk robes and wearing...was that red lipstick?

"Did you have an appointment?" the owner said, polite and distant, like he hadn't just saved Kazuma from drowning or getting eaten or whatever had been going on. Casually, he flicked water from the sleeve of his robe and pushed a lock of his straight, black hair behind one ear with manicured nails. "I'm afraid you'll have to come back another time if not. I'm quite busy at the moment."

"It's your own fault for leaving me stuck in here with nothing to do," Yusuke chimed in, looking at Kazuma over the edge of the tank once more. He smiled like he'd just gotten away with something, or like he'd just told a real groaner of a joke. Kazuma stared back at him, unsure how to feel. 

The owner shot Yusuke an exasperated look that seemed to say 'I'll deal with you later.' His eyes were different colors, one dark and one light. Kazuma had been too surprised by the lipstick to notice at first. The guy was like a creepy, pet-shop-owning David Bowie. His presence filled the room. With slight surprise (because most of his sense of surprise had already been taken up by Yusuke) Kazuma realized he was kinda scared of this guy.

"How come," Kazuma rasped, throat aching. "How come you got a mermaid in a damn pet shop?"

The owner turned his attention back to Kazuma, frowning down at him. "That's a very rare and very aggressive species of shark from the Japan Sea. You shouldn't have approached the tank so carelessly."

Knees shaking, Kazuma pushed himself to his feet. "Bullshit," he said, wringing out his jacket. "I may not be the smartest guy around, but I know that's not a fish. Fish ain't people. That's a damn mermaid."

"It's merman," Yusuke grumbled. "Dumbass. Get it right." He was still staring at Kazuma as if he were the only thing worth worrying about in the whole room. It was a little intense, but Kazuma found himself staring right back. Now that he wasn't under the water, he wasn't scared anymore. Not that he'd been that scared! It was surprising, that was all! Anyone would have been just as put off as he was!

The owner took a small step back, putting distance between the spreading puddle of dirty water and what looked like very expensive shoes. "I see." He studied Yusuke for a moment, thoughtful. "Have you ever kept saltwater species before, young man?" he said, addressing Kazuma. "The initial setup can be somewhat onerous, but it's quite rewarding. Many people find that watching fish swim helps alleviate stress."

True enough, Kazuma hadn't been stressed about school or anything else when he'd been pulled into the tank, except for getting eaten or drowned. Real soothing. More importantly... "You're trying to sell him?"

"This is a pet shop," the man said, as though Kazuma were five years old and also incredibly slow. "The shark seems to have taken a liking to you, or there wouldn't have been much left of you for me to pull from the water. What do you say?" He stroked his chin, completely at ease with this insane situation. "We can discuss a fair price, along with a care guide and contract you'll need to abide by, of course."

For some reason, the idea of someone buying Yusuke outright was even more unbelievable than the whole being-a-mermaid thing. "You can't just sell him! He's a person!"

Yusuke leaned out over the edge of the tank, a curtain of black hair dripping onto the floor. "Aw, c'mon! Don't be a cheapskate! Just get me outta here before I go outta my mind. It's boring!" He was leaning so far out, one hand clutching the edge of the tank while the other reached to tug on Kazuma's sleeve. His gills were already starting to wheeze awkwardly in the dry air.

"And what am I supposed to do?" Kazuma shot back. "Carry you home and hide you in the bathtub? You're huge, man!" It was stupid anyway. Even if Kazuma had a whole swimming pool at home, it wasn't right to keep Yusuke locked up like that. If mermaids were real-- which apparently they were, and Kazuma wasn't going to be over that for a long time-- then they should be in the ocean, right? Of course Yusuke was miserable in this stupid little tank in a room with no windows, and no one to talk to! He wasn't some goldfish, or something!

The man smiled, small but genuine. He turned to Yusuke, gently shoving him back to the water when it looked like he was about to overbalance and fall from the tank. "It seems your mind is set on this one?"

"Yeah, this guy's an idiot, but he's alright." Sulking, Yusuke lowered himself in the water, wetting his gills. "Anybody else you shove at me is getting eaten, got that?"

"And just like that," the man said, with a helpless gesture, "the decision is made for me. As you can see, this particular specimen is something of a liability, so I'm willing to offer you a favorable deal to take it off my hands."

Kazuma had just about enough money in his wallet for a sandwich from the convenience store. He knew he wasn't gonna be able to cough up the cash to get Yusuke out of here. Still, he couldn't walk away. Yusuke's eyes were burning a hole through him.

"It's gonna have to be a hell of a deal, mister," Kazuma said, finally dragging his eyes from Yusuke to look at the shop owner. "I don't even have a job, and I'm pretty broke."

The shop owner only smiled. "I'm sure we can reach an agreement."