#wrote myself into a corner (literally. lmao)

[magpiesbones]

fuck architecture and Euclidean space

[4st4rion]

could've shouted out loud

ao3 link

at the end of the game i went with karlach and wyll to avernus without realizing that would like cement things and then watched how nervous astarion was about if you're really staying together when my gf finished the game with him. so i split the difference and wrote fix-it fic for my personal fuck-up lmao

just over 2k; spoilers for the end of bg3 of course. rated mature-ish, fully gender neutral tav. it takes a while to come back from avernus and when you find him he is Pissed with you (and very hurt). comforting and some spiciness ensues

It takes longer than you expect to find Astarion again.

You, Karlach, and Wyll have been working on carving out your little corner of Avernus; it's rough work, but Karlach pulls most of the literal weight of setting up shelter for the three of you. It's not much, little more than reinforced tents, but it's better than nothing.

You finally feel like it's safe to go back and look for Astarion, and Wyll opens a portal for you that brings you right to the heart of Baldur's Gate.

It takes three days and nights of asking around before you find him. A helpful bartender at the Blushing Mermaid informs you that someone matching your description of him comes in and sits at a certain table, alone, most nights, and you go there yourself to wait for him.

And sure enough.

Sure enough, come sunset, and given an hour, he walks through the door. He doesn't notice you right away, ordering himself a bottle of wine and taking a glass from the bartender, but when your eyes finally meet, he nearly drops them both.

You smile pathetically at him.

He does not smile back.

He makes his way to the secluded table and you stand to meet him when he does. He sets the bottle and glass on the table and folds his arms, looking you up and down.

"Is this a trick?" he asks, first, looking at you with scrutiny.

Despite his closed-off posture and his attempt at a foul expression for you, he's still just as beautiful as he had been when the sun began to burn him.

You shake your head.

"No, no trick," you promise, and he tenses hearing your voice. Disguises and illusions can mimic many things, but a voice is tough, too unique to recreate for most mages and wizards.

"I'm going insane, then?" he asks sarcastically, and gestures at you to a man passing by. "Excuse me? Do you see the person in front of me?"

The man looks between you and Astarion and you can only give a little wave.

"Yes?" the man answers, and fucks off.

Astarion's frown deepens.

"So, what?" he asks, voice dripping with venom. "It's you, then?"

You swallow nervously and hope that the time apart hasn't put you back to square one.

"It's me," you confirm. "I'm sorry it took so long to find you," you apologize, but he scoffs.

"Must not have been looking very hard," he huffs. "I thought you'd —" he says, voice cracking in vulnerability, and he steels himself all over again. "I thought you'd decided I wasn't worth the trouble once you saw me in the sun," he tries again, and this time, his volume is louder. "I thought you ran off so I couldn't find you and be your burden."

You reach out, but he smacks your hand away.

"Astarion," you breathe, heartbroken. Is this it? Does he... Has he gotten used to the idea of living without you?

Is this over, now?

"Where have you been, then?" he spits, looking away from you in a huff. "You'd better have a damn good answer, or I'll kill you right here myself."

"I'd let you," you breathe, smiling just a bit — threats of harm are better than a cold shoulder. "I've been in Avernus," you say. "With Karlach. And Wyll."

His shoulders relax just slightly hearing Karlach's name.

"She's still alive?" he asks, making glancing eye contact with you to show his sincerity.

You nod.

"She can't leave the hells anymore, not yet, but she's alive," you confirm. "We've been working on a solution, and working on making a home there, for now."

He doesn't say anything, waiting. You swallow nervously.

"We were chased by devils for a tenday when we arrived, otherwise I would have been back for you sooner," you say, and pray to any gods that might listen that he understands. "And then we had to get settled, make sure no one was on our trail," you continue.

Astarion scoffs, but his eyes glimmer with unshed tears.

"You could have written," he mutters, needing to make light of the situation for his own sanity.

"I owe you a postcard," you agree, the barest smile slowly returning to your face.

He sniffles, and curses under his breath.

"I thought...?" he starts, but can't finish, hiccuping back a sob.

"I know," you try to soothe. "I'm so sorry."

This time, when you reach out, he doesn't stop you. You put your hand on his shoulder and squeeze lightly, stroking your thumb over the soft fabric he's wearing.

"I love you," you practically whisper. "I've thought of you every moment of every day since we were parted."

He doesn't answer with words — instead, he shoves himself against you, and it takes half a moment to realize he's trying for a hug, reluctant to wrap his arms around you but making the gesture anyway.

You fling your arms around him and squeeze him in tightly. He's cold, so much colder than he ever was when he was feeding from you regularly, and you realize he might not have been drinking from anything but animals again.

"I've missed you so much," you mumble against him, your head ducked against the side of his. "Astarion, I can't believe we're both here," you laugh, relieved, and he laughs too.

"I thought you might have been dead," he admits, and his voice is so, so small. "I thought I'd never see you again."

You hug him tighter.

"I'm here now," you promise.

His arms wrap around you properly now, too, and he almost starts to relax against you.

He's holding back because you're in public, but he shakes with emotion.

"Where have you been staying?" you ask, pulling back just enough to speak with him properly. "Let's get out of here and talk there."

"The Elfsong Tavern," he sniffs. He straightens himself up and quickly wipes the tears off his face, and suddenly the mask is back in place. "Let's, shall we?"

You hold his bottle of wine in one hand and his hand in the other as you walk back to the Elfsong. Neither of you speaks beyond his comment that it's a nice night out and your hum of agreement.

Once you arrive, you head upstairs. His hands shake as he pulls out his room key, and you've never seen him struggle with a lock more than now.

It finally gives way and opens, and then you're finally, finally alone together.

You set the bottle of wine on a side table, briefly turning away, and when you turn back to say So, where do we begin? he's already kissing you.

You've missed this. You've missed him, his insistent, smart, sharp mouth and his hands that pull at your waist to bring you in close and his fingers that dig into your sides like you could disappear if he ever loosened his grip.

He's crying again, tears catching on your lips and turning your kisses salty, but you don't care at all.

"Astarion," you gasp between breaths, just to hear his name on your tongue, and he drags you to his bed.

"I thought I was going to die without you," he growls, pushing you onto the mattress and crawling over you like a predator. "I was so scared, for you and for what I might do if you didn't — if I never saw you again," he admits, voice low and dangerous.

"I'm here," you reassure him, holding onto his arms and sliding your grip to ground him.

"I thought you were gone," he says, angry and scared and afraid and a thousand other things.

"Have you... Are we still...?" you start to ask, and he kisses you again.

"I've been mourning a lost love," he breathes against your lips. "Every face I've seen, I've only looked to see if it could be you, and then I've looked away," he admits. "When I saw a stranger with your stature or your hair, I'd hope, just for a moment, and then it'd be lost."

Your heart flares with love — even thinking you might have left him, abandoned him, died on him, he didn't give up hope that you might return.

"I'm so sorry," you apologize again, kissing him over and over. "I'm here now, I promise. I'd never leave you."

Rather than the coy, self-deprecating never say 'never', darling you might have heard when all this began, he hums with such pleasure it's nearly a moan, just hearing your dedication to him spoken aloud.

"I love you," you remind him, fingers tangling into his hair to keep him close. "I love you, I love you," you breathe, and with every word his breath hitches higher until he's kissing you hard, forcing you silent lest something in him break.

"I want you," he rumbles against you, and your heart soars while your insides dance with butterflies.

"You have me," you say, and you mean it. It doesn't matter if you do nothing but kiss and hold each other tightly until the sun comes up and then goes back down, you're his as much as he's yours and you're eager to remind him of that however you can.

"You're wearing too many clothes," he practically snarls, digging hands under your shirt and pulling roughly at things to loosen your breeches, and you wholeheartedly agree.

"So are you," you growl back.

You manage to get his shirt off over his head at the same time he's struggling with yours, and you sit up so he can do the same with yours.

Wriggling out of your bottoms is a little more difficult when neither of you can stand to be apart, but you both get the waistbands to your knees and that's good enough for you.

His cock is half-hard from excitement and anticipation and you're quick to reach for it, but he stops you by pinning your wrist beside your head.

"I've missed this," he purrs, squeezing your wrist in his hand. He grabs for your other wrist and you let him, allowing him to pin you fully and press his body up against yours. "I've missed feeling you struggle against me," he laughs.

You arch up against him just for fun, pressing your leg up between his and rubbing his cock against your hip.

"Is that what you want tonight?" you ask, challenging him by straining against his hands. He's weak — he hasn't fed recently, or fed enough, and you can feel him put his full weight into keeping you down.

"Oh, darling, I want everything," he hums. He kisses you again and ruts his cock against your hip on purpose this time, moaning softly into your mouth. "I want you ruined under me," he breathes. "I want you debauched on top of me. I don't want to leave this room until tomorrow night at the earliest."

You laugh against him.

"Agreed," you hum back.

He lets go of your hands in favor of holding you by your hips, and your arms wrap around his shoulders like it's where they've always belonged.

"I missed you," he sighs. "So much."

"I'm here now," you reassure him again. He nuzzles into your throat and you bare it for him, inviting him, and he shudders.

"I don't suppose I'd be allowed a bite?" he asks, trailing kisses over your pulse.

"I've missed that, too," you sigh. "Go on."

He gives your neck one more tender, open-mouthed kiss before he sinks his teeth into you, a familiar pain that you've dearly missed.

He drinks deeply. You can feel his starvation sating, his body becoming warmer and softer against yours as he melts against you.

Gods, you've missed him. You never want to be separated again.

You feel the past slipping away from you, as though you've never been apart; all that has ever existed is this, this moment, with his mouth pressed to your neck, bite-wound weeping blood onto his tongue and him swallowing as greedily as you cling to him.

He finally pulls away, the perfect amount taken that you feel light-headed but not dizzy, and he feels sated but not full — a balance the two of you perfected over your journey, and one that he's apparently still in tune with.

"Perfect," he breathes into your neck, lapping at the fang marks still slowly oozing blood. "Oh, love," he sighs.

He buries his face in your neck and breathes deep.

"You smell like Avernus," he notes, amused.

"Ugh," you agree.

"You smell like you, though," he says, muffled against your skin. "Gods, I missed that."

You take a long moment to hold each other like that, arms wrapped around each other and clinging and just breathing deeply, taking each other in.

Eventually, his cock twitches impatiently against your skin, and you laugh.

"Sorry," he mutters, pulling his face out of your neck to kiss the corner of your mouth. "I really would just like to be close, if you're not up for anything like that," he says, almost shyly.

You press your hips up against him in answer, and catch the gasp off his lips with your mouth against his.

"I'm up for things," you grin, and he laughs against you.

"Alright," he agrees. "'Things', it is."

You give him one more long, lingering kiss before the two of you go any further, one that you'll remember years from now.

"I'm so happy you're here," he admits, and you smile against his mouth.

You are, too.

[wizardofrozz]

Learning to Trust

Ordo Skirata x reader, mention of Mereel and Kal Skirata

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings: swearing, mention of war, mostly just fluff

A/N: I got punched in the face with this idea and amazed myself with how fast I wrote it lmao hope you enjoy! ❤️

jagyc’kovid: dickhead

shabuir: motherfucker

It was peaceful. The gentle undercurrent of the water rocked the Aay’han, reminding you of a mother rocking her newborn. The co-pilot seat wasn’t the most comfortable but if you sat at an angle, your feet resting on the control panel, you could let your muscles relax enough that you could possibly nap. Your eyes followed the bright, glimmering aquatic life that swam past, watching them shimmer in the sunlight that streamed through the water. The Aay’han was floating off the coast of the capital city, waiting for Sergeant Skirata and Mereel to com for a pickup. 

You had been undercover for the Republic for…a long time, gathering intel about the manufacturing of Separatist droids. Life had been fairly normal, well as normal as it could be for a Republic spy until a certain Mandalorian and his small squad of clones came crashing through your front door. Literally. You glanced at the pilot’s chair, the corner of your lips lifting. 

Ordo was stretched out in the chair beside you, his long legs crossed at the ankles. His arms were folded over his chest, his head tipped forward until his chin nearly touched his chest. His empty Mandalorian helmet sat on the floor beside his chair and every once in a while, you could hear faint, staticky voices floating from inside. The muted shimmer of the water threw a faint glow over his face; Ordo looked peaceful, his usually tense expression slack, his eyes closed. 

He was sleeping. You muffled a chuckle against the back of your hand, carefully lowering your feet to the floor. The co-pilot chair groaned as you stood and you paused, half-standing, to dart your eyes back towards Ordo. He huffed heavily through his nose but otherwise didn’t move. 

It took a few minutes of rustling through cabinets as quietly as possible, having to stop a few times when you made too much noise before you finally found a blanket. It smelled a bit musty but it would do. You unfolded it on your back to the cockpit, smirking at Ordo’s sleeping form before you carefully draped the blanket over him. He shifted lazily, his brow wrinkling for a moment and you stood a little straighter and held your breath. Ordo’s lashes fluttered, his dark glassy eyes taking a moment to focus but they quickly lifted to where you stood over him. 

“Sorry to wake you,” you murmured with an apologetic smile. 

“Wasn’t sleepin’,” Ordo grumbled, dragging himself into a sitting position. The furrow between his brows deepened as he looked down at the blanket pooling in his lap. There was an odd look on his face, one you had seen occasionally in the time you’d spent with him. The innocent, almost confused expression always made your heart ache and it was even worse when he tilted his head back to look up at you. 

“I thought you’d be more uncomfortable,” you explained, gesturing to the blanket as you leaned against the back of his chair. Ordo nodded slowly, absently rubbing the fabric between his gloved fingers. “You can try and go back to sleep if you’d like.”

Ordo somehow looked more tense than usual for a moment, before dropping his eyes to the blanket again. “Alright.” For some reason, it surprised you; accidentally falling asleep was one thing but this showed that he trusted you enough to willingly let himself rest. 

“Hm, you must really trust me,” you teased. Ordo turned in his chair again and you were suddenly aware of how close he was, his face close enough that you could see the faint freckles on his cheeks. Ordo was always intense but the way he looked at you, bright brown eyes smoldering, made your stomach somersault. 

“I do.” He spoke softly like it was a secret but there was no uncertainty in his voice. Your breath caught when he smiled, crooked and boyish, disarmingly charming without even trying. Sometimes you wondered if he was aware of it but based on some of the more…awkward encounters you’d had with him, you were pretty sure it was natural. 

“Thank you,” you whispered, meaning it wholeheartedly. Ordo’s smile started to fade but you didn’t miss the way his eyes darted down to your mouth, his tongue poking out to wet his lips before he forced his gaze elsewhere. He cleared his throat quietly and when his eyes found yours again you caught the muted anxiety that flashed across his face. 

You had no idea where the confidence came from that had you leaning down, bringing your face even closer to his. Ordo tensed but didn’t pull away, letting the strained silence linger. A shiver zipped up your spine when he tilted his head slowly, his eyes darting between your eyes and your lips. He paused, leaving almost no space between you and him and you could feel his slow, rhythmic breathing against your chin. 

“Can I?” he asked softly. 

“Please.” 

A soft gasp filled the air when he closed the space and you weren’t sure if you made the sound or if he had. The kiss was hesitant, neither of you moving for a moment until one of his large hands closed around your bicep and you melted against him, sighing through your nose. It was clear Ordo didn’t have much experience but he didn’t seem to mind following your lead. He inhaled sharply when your tongue swept over his bottom lip but he quickly caught on, parting his lips. 

The low groan from deep in his chest made you shiver, a hand coming to cup the back of his head, your fingers threading through his soft curls. 

“Ord’ika? You read me?” You and Ordo jumped so hard at the familiar voice that your heads knocked together, each of you quickly reaching up to rub the now-aching spot. Ordo growled through clenched teeth, twisting around to punch a button on the control panel; despite the pain blooming across your forehead, you barely stifled a laugh. 

“What?” he snapped, glaring at the blue hologram that popped up. Mereel tilted his head, arching a brow but there was the hint of a smirk on his face. 

“What’d you do to your head?”

“None of your business, jagyc’kovid. What d’ya want?” 

“Pickup would be nice,” Mereel sighed with a shrug. He glanced over his shoulder with a badly hidden smirk and winked at who you assumed was Kal. 

“Send coordinates,” Ordo grumbled, ending the call without letting Mereel respond. “Shabuir.”

You giggled, biting your lip when Ordo threw a narrow-eyed look in your direction. “Come on, let’s go get them.” 

“Should leave 'em,” Ordo huffed, rubbing his forehead one last time before dropping his hands to the panel again and starting the flight sequence. The smile that spread across your face was fonder than you thought possible and you leaned down, pressing a lingering kiss on his cheek. You settled into the co-pilot chair, glancing over at him again with a smirk.  

Ordo refused to look at you but there was no denying that his cheeks were a little redder than before. 

Ragu list:

@a-single-tulip @wings-and-beskar @anxiouspineapple99 @dystopicjumpsuit @secondaryrealm @sunshinesdaydream @moonlightwarriorqueen @msmeredithrose @starrylothcat @starqueensthings @multi-fan-dom-madness @wolffegirlsunite @clonemedickix @sev-on-kamino

[n7punk]

Do you have an AU you wish you could rewrite or change the ending of?

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

I've already talked in the CotC notes about how I later had a better idea for how the final scenes of I'd Die Just to be Someone shook out with Emily, but the fic as a whole is where i want it to be. outside of that one scene, i've never had a different idea for a scene after i'd finished the fic because at that point the fic is a whole package to me and no thread can be unraveled. every scene leads to the logical conclusion of the end point. the only reason that even happened with CotC is because the series was still ongoing so it was actively being crafted, i'd just posted that chapter literally the day before i had the idea lmao.

i do sometimes like to mentally explore a completely different version of AMLAIT where catra let scorpia's moms call adora (and then mara, when adora didn't pick up because she was working a double shift and it was a hurricane) when she had her breakdown in their shop, but that version of the fic is 1) never something i would seriously consider 2) way worse than the actual fic 3) just a dramatic what if i think about sometimes. absolutely not something i was ever considering doing, but it is a divergent take on an au that i have already written so maybe it's worth mentioning.

because i was just talking about it though, i wrote myself into a corner with GUTT i never had the motivation to find a way out of. At this point, after all these years, if y'all want me to post a summary of where the rough outline was supposed to go from there i'll do it over here. i've got to just be honest with myself that i'm never going to find a way to get it back on track. i still have 7k from what was supposed to be the next installment that i never posted, but it literally leaves off mid-chapter lol. it's the only fic i've abandoned without completion and i'm hoping that number doesn't go up for a long time but it is my albatross

[freyasilverbough]

The Cave Bear and the White Wolf - First Meeting

Notes: I kinda wrote myself into a corner lmao so I’m going back to Act 1 in my wip. I also restarted Freya’s run because I wanted more Act 2 screens and the other one is honor. Also I realized that I started this story at a weird spot in the game so I just wanted to fix that. Will write more as this playthrough progresses, and as always feedback and suggestions are more than welcome.

Cw for blood, canon typical violence, mention of a severed head.

Halsin dodged as yet another stone came flying at his face. He’d been locked in this cage for days, with no food, trapped in his ursine form lest the goblins learned just who they had taken prisoner. The Archdruid of the Emerald Grove would make a fine trophy for these savages and their leaders.

He came to this place in pursuit of whispers that these “Absolute” cultists had found a way to navigate his life’s greatest regret. The shadow curse that had gripped the region surrounding Reithwin in Shar’s wicked talons for over a century. The curse that had taken his oldest friend captive.

Perhaps he’d been too hasty, joining with the human Aradin and his band. They had turned tail and abandoned him the second things went awry. He supposed an Archdruid should have known better than to trust a mercenary. Halsin had always done his best to see the good in others, no matter how many times it stabbed him in the back - sometimes literally. In all his long life, such an outlook had only truly benefitted him a handful of times, and yet his foolish optimism prevailed each time.

He hardly registered the group of strangers that marched straight up to the goblins throwing stones at him. A tiefling woman, blazing like the sun, her flaming sword strapped across her back. A smaller man with mousy brown hair, his earring marking him as one of Mystra’s wizards. A pale elf of equal stature to the other man, confidence and amusement radiating off of him, daggers sheathed at his sides and a bow slung over his shoulder. They were led by a woman with silver braids and a commanding aura, even with her relaxed swagger. She wore a circlet across her forehead that marked her as a follower of Selûne, with piercings lining her pointed ears to match, but the designation ended there. Her armor was granite-hued steel, not like the other Selûnites he’d come across over the centuries. They typically preferred to reflect their goddess with hues of blue, silver, and white, and rarely did they don a full suit of armor. Few of them were warriors, but he had seen a few paladins among the druids and Harpers he fought with a hundred years before. Rare, but not unheard of.

The woman crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip. She assessed the situation there with a discerning glare before her eyes landed on him, still in bear form, and he noticed that her eyes were the purest sapphire blue. Her gaze bore right through his fur, as if she could see into his very soul.

“What in all the sweet hells do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, her tone commanding respect and authority. Odd, that she would take the time to aid a bear in a cage. Most soldiers found the creatures of nature to be beneath them, or simply unworthy of their time.

“We’re juicin’ him up,” the goblin encouraging his assault by the children said. “Boss is thinkin’ of servin’ him to the worgs.” She chuckled, as if it was all a joke to her. Knowing the ways of goblins, it likely was a joke to her.

The silver-haired woman glared at her, before flicking her ocean eyes to the bear once more. “Enough. You’re done here.” The other two men at her back shifted nervously, as if wanting to avoid a brawl, while the tiefling woman seemed to flare brighter in anticipation.

“We don’t have time for this,” the male elf whispered to the warrior. “We shouldn’t even be here.”

“Then leave,” the woman whirled to him with a glare that Halsin had no doubt could cut glass. “See what the fuck I care.” She turned her piercing glower back to the goblins. “Let him go,” she demanded.

Convinced that he now had at least one ally against the mob of goblins that held him captive, Halsin lowered his hackles and growled. A low, menacing sound deep from his chest, one that made the goblins cower in fear. The silver-haired woman only seemed to stand taller while her companions eyed him warily. He slammed into the bars of his cage, knocking the gate down with such force it crushed the goblin female that joked about his impending demise. The woman leading the adventurers drew the longsword she previously kept sheathed across her back, but rather than striking him down, she turned on his foes.

She slammed the pommel into the heads of the goblin children as they ran past her to alert the rest of the camp, knocking them unconscious, while the male elf fired arrows at the goblins that had moved against them across the room. Each arrowhead struck true. The wizard lobbed balls of fire while the flaming tiefling woman sprinted to those leftover with an insane cackle. The silver haired woman calmly strode to the other cage, where the worgs were kept. She pulled the lever to open the door and began her battle with the beasts while her friends fought the goblins in the room. Every swipe of their claws was dodged or blocked with practiced skill, and Halsin ran to her as she battled two against one. He reached her left flank as one of the worgs bit at her while she was occupied with the other. Halsin let out a loud roar as his own maw closed around the worg’s throat.

The warrior woman shoved her sword through her enemy’s throat as the others finished with the goblins, and Halsin shed his wildshape for the first time in days. He stumbled just a bit as he adjusted to standing on two legs. The armored woman before him quirked an amused eyebrow as her companions rejoined them and started at the bear-turned-elf.

“Pardon the viscera,” he chuckled. “One should cherish all of nature’s bounty, but goblin guts are quite far down the list. You aided a bear without knowing if it would savage you? A true friend of nature, or perhaps a lunatic.”

“Who’s to say I’m not both?” The soldier said, amusement lacing her tone.

“Either way, I owe thanks. I am the druid Halsin.”

“Pleasure. I’m called Freya,” the woman said. Freya. A strong name, not one he often heard in this region. Apt, he thought, as he stared down at her. In this form, she was eye level with his chest. The shortest of her companions, but she somehow stood the tallest of them all. Something about her seemed familiar, he couldn’t put his finger on it. He knew he’d remember someone like her if they met before, her hair alone was a distinguishing feature, but he couldn’t place her.

“I’ve been to your grove,” Freya continued, disrupting his thoughts. “You should know your second in command was planning to undertake the Rite of Thorns and force the refugees out. I’m told you would disapprove of such extremes.” She eyed him carefully, as if determining whether what she’d heard about him was true. Indeed, he should have known Kagha would do something like this the instant she was handed the power of a First Druid. He silently cursed himself once more as the implications of his absence settled over him.

“Kagha…I will deal with her when I can.” Something flashed behind Freya’s eye as he spoke, something unnatural, something he’d only seen recently, when walking with Nettie…”I sense, Freya, that you have a problem you need my help with.”

“What problem?” Freya crossed her arms over her chest again and widened her stance, but Halsin meant her no harm. She had just saved him from certain death, after all.

He held up his palm, golden light pouring out of him. Halsin called upon the Oak Father as he reached into her mind with his magic. Freya stiffened, and Halsin confirmed his suspicions as he felt the presence he was looking for. He jerked his hand back as something in her mind bit him.

“That problem. Oak Father preserve you, child, you’re infected aren’t you?” His concern leaked into his tone, and his features. He was never adept at concealing his emotions, and he truly did feel sorry for the woman. She was doomed to ceremorphosis, yet she showed no signs of turning. Something was different, she didn’t bow to this “Absolute” like the other so-called True Souls did. Indeed, he sensed she didn’t bow to much of anything at all.

“I don’t need your pity, druid. Only a cure,” she snapped.

“I studied these parasites up close. I’m sorry to say, I can’t cure you, but I have the next best thing. I know where these tadpoles originate. I overheard the cultists say that they’re sending the infected to Moonrise Towers, and I’ll bet that’s where you’ll find your cure.”

“No.” Her refusal came as swift and hard as a hammer on an anvil as her fury darkened her features.

“It’s either Moonrise, or certain ceremorphosis. I’m sure of it,” Halsin kept his tone level. He had his own reasons for wanting to return to that land, but he couldn’t go alone. For the time being, their goals aligned. These adventurers needed to reach Moonrise to cure their parasites, and he needed to restore the balance there. He was so close, and yet frustratingly far.

“We’ll find another way,” she stated plainly, steel determination radiating from her like its own aura. She turned to leave, but the wizard caught her arm. A brave man, Halsin mused, for Freya looked at him like she’d run him through for daring to touch her.

“It’s worth hearing the druid out,” the human murmured to her. “What if there is no other way? We’ve come this far already, let’s not abandon the one lead we have so quickly.”

“I, personally, don’t find the idea of transforming into a tentacled monster very appetizing, my dear. To each their own, of course, but I’ll have to take the druid’s side.” The white haired elf placed a relaxed hand on his hip as he spoke.

“We face certain death if we travel there,” Freya growled. She knew of the curse, then.

“We face certain death if we don’t,” the elf shot back.

She shook the wizard off of her bicep and turned back to face Halsin. He raised his eyebrows at her and held his breath in anticipation of her verdict.

“You know what awaits us in that place, I assume?” She leveled the question at the druid with no shortage of malice.

“I do,” Halsin kept his tone flat, deciding that it was not the time to reveal his intentions with regards to the curse. “I’ve long sought to return to Moonrise, but I cannot leave here until I put everything right. I’ve no right to ask more of you, but these butchers threatened my grove. If I could ask your aid once more, I’d be free to join you on your journey to Moonrise.”

“What would you have me do?”

“There are three leaders here, eliminate them and nature will restore itself. I need you to kill the drow Minthara, the hobgoblin Dror Ragzlin, and that perversion of a priestess Gut.” Freya relaxed at his deliverance of her new mission. He gathered she held no qualms about killing, he only hoped that her violence focused on the malevolent.

“Leave it to me.”

—-----

Freya returned to him in record time, bloodied and bruised and almost singing with after-battle adrenaline. She carried the head of the hobgoblin by the hair in one hand, blood soaked sword in the other. The warrior tossed the severed head at Halsin’s feet as she approached and wiped the blade of her sword on her elbow.

“The camp is clear. You’re free to go.” Her tone was flat and dismissive as Halsin realized she meant she had cleansed this place of all its inhabitants. He raised his eyebrows at her once more in question, waiting for further explanation.

“The beasts desecrated a temple of Selûne. I purged the rot,” she remarked with a shrug.

“Who managed to hit you?” He blurted, noticing the splotch of purple that bloomed on her cheekbone under all the blood.

“Drow.” She turned on her heel as the wizard started murmuring an incantation, violet light swirling around his arms. A portal opened before the party, and she stepped through it without a care in the world. The fiery tiefling simply laughed before she followed, then the other elf. The wizard looked over his shoulder with an apologetic look.

“I’ll meet you there,” Halsin told him. The human nodded, then bounded through his portal as it closed.

Leaving Halsin to wonder about the strange warrior woman that had just catapulted into his life.

[vendetta-if]

𝓱𝓲 💖 (sorry for this asdkjfhjijhj)

im back and i have returned (to everyone's dismay) and i come bearing gifts - i have found the pages where i had my vendetta sequel mc drawn in!! 😈

here's my first doodle of rei when i was designing him - i didnt have the proper markers to colour him in but i used what markers i could get my hands on at the time lol but i did fuck up his face :( (closeup)

now i have lots of doodles i drew alongside this fullbody design of his and without further ado >:)

here are some facts i wrote about him 😊 as well as rei decorating his helmet :D though i'll write it down here if you can't read my messy ass handwriting (sorry about that hsjdhsd) »»————- ★ ————-«« FACTS ABOUT REI 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: ➭ loves all things cutesy and colourful ➭ acts and whines like an actual toddler (because it forces his family to give him attention whenever he's being an actual pain in the ass 💞) ➭ reckless af and hates when people fret over him or protect him (that's his job. 👺) ➭ unironically thinks that blood splatters on his clothes look good on him (rei doesn't care if he's seen covered in blood in public, he can make millions of excuses why it isn't blood >:D) " NO this isn't blood this is paint 😇" " tf did you think this was?? i spilled my kool aid all over my clothes 😪" just to name a few, lol ➭ would honestly sell his soul for a lifetime supply of strawberry milkshakes (this is totally not me projecting myself onto rei when it comes to taro milk tea 💀) »»————- ★ ————-««

now here's another doodle of rei using his blood manipulation powers 😋 also ignore the pencil text below LMAO

so i did mention in my first ask about rei that he loves to explode things- yeah um idk if luka and jackal would give their menace of a son explosives or a grenade launcher if they knew that this is how he'd act with them LMFAOO

i also mentioned that rei makes the best belgian waffles! (send help hes holding me at gunpoint and forcing me to say this) here's rei offering a divine dish of waffles to my vendetta mc, remedy / remi 💕💕 and look at his face! his mouth is practically watering in anticipation to gobble up the waffles! 💗💝💘💓

okay on a side note- i made some small drawings of rei in a different outfit and was actually gonna include this in the ref but i didnt like it because it looked ugly 😭 so i made a poor life decision to cut these two abominations out and now they're on my phone 💟 (closeups)

anyways now here have a drawing of rei as demoman from the hit game tf2!!11!1!11!! 😲😳

(he really looks like a dollarstore demoman lol)

(reference used):

now if you have been on the internet during its baby phase im sure you may understand the reference i used for this doodle 🤭

yknow looking back at this downgraded rip off drawing of the original this is actually a shit drawing LMAO (how tf do you draw flames and smoke pls help 💔) now one thing i like to headcanon about rei is that whenever he starts to get frustrated or is having a hard time with carrying out an assassination he decides to do fuck all and blow everything up with literally anything flammable he could find because no target survives being blown to oblivion! (which happens more often than you think...) i like to think while this is an easy way out for rei, it is an absolute nightmare and a headache for the rest of his family 😌 (they probably would have to deal with unwanted attention because rei doesn't give a shit about keeping a low profile and people may tie him to the Morozovs 🤗 they also may struggle to come up with cover stories as these arson incidents become more frequent - because rei is the type of person who values quantity over quality, where he challenges himself to complete multiple assassinations so he can receive praise from his family 😂🤪 and it also doesn't help that he would rather cut corners and take the easy way out when it comes to his work) luka and jackal: " these fires are getting out of hand, we can't keep doing this... " fucking rei: " DAD 1 AND DAD 2!! LOOK!! THATS ME!! THAT BURNING BUILDING, I DID THAT!! :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD " (reference used):

now moving on to a somewhat ironic drawing, here's a doodle of rei in a raincoat vibing in the rain ✨(aside from overalls, rei loves to wear raincoats - and would rather wear them instead of wintercoats when it's cold LOL) rei is the type of person to prioritize fashion than comfort :(

now here's a crappy drawing of cousin bonding time (rei and remedy) tbh i dont really like this scribble lol - this is just filler because i hated empty patches in my paper 🤡

now, a word from our sponsor; rei himself!! he is presenting his aforementioned homemade waffles in greater detail :) and now, cue the advertisement that totally is not completely false and not just rei's delusional and stubborn ramblings on that he creates the best waffles and that waffle makers are inferior to him ☺️

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Rei's amazing homemade Belgian waffles! ♥ (𝑀𝒶𝒹𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒶 𝓌𝒶𝒻𝒻𝓁𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓀𝑒𝓇!) ♥ 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗴𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲! (𝙎𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙝) ♥ ♥ 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲, 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘀 (𝙏𝙤𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙘, 𝙣𝙤 𝙬𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙡𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 >:( ) ♥ ♥ 𝗖𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝗮𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝗿𝘂𝗽 >:) (𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡!) ♥ ♥ 𝟷𝟶/𝟷𝟶 𝚏𝚕𝚊𝚟𝚘𝚞𝚛! (𝙍𝙚𝙞'𝙨 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙖𝙙𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙡𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜! :) ) ♥

i feel like im trying too hard to be funny here, lmao 🤡💀 anyways, here are the full pages of all of the drawings :D

alright so thats finally all i have - if i somehow get my motivation to draw or do literally anything productive ill start working on my vendetta mc's (remedy) ref sheet 👹 (im sorry for this cesspool of cringe again btw LMAO)

Rei sounds so chaotic and kinda sweet at the same time 😆

Also, I love the lil headcanon about the waffle. You can bet that big bro will boast about how his lil brother can make really good waffles to his friends whenever he hang out or has breakfast with them 🥺

Thank you for sharing all these lovely drawings and headcanons about your upcoming sequel MC 🥰

[sunnyupsidedown]

Thoughts On: The Sunshine Court

by Nora Sakavic [goodreads]

Aka, if I didn't put myself on a social media blackout, these would have been my live tweets. Spoilers below.

Gosh. What if Jeremy starts to hate Kevin for not doing 'enough' to help Jean. That’d probably hurt him so bad lmao Though I don't really thing Jeremy gives off those vibes. He's too sunny.

Also, now I’m thinking of Jeremy being a very normal kid with a normal background completely unprepared to help someone with absolutely massive amounts of trauma. Like. This kid being like, look at my normal jock life and then suddenly is exposed to the dark underbelly of organized crime.

Like. With Andrew and Neil, Neil was already familiar and Andrew at least is familiar with how bad law enforcement is so it’s all a non-issue. Jeremy though… what’s his story???

Jean over here probably texting with T9 on a flip phone

Which fox uses T9, which one taps the number until it gets to the letter they want, and which one has a phone with a keyboard?

Have I mentioned that I love Renee? I feel like she’s often seen as an uwu good girl Christian. But like. She’s so badass. I think she said it herself that she’s a bad person doing her best to be good and you really get that with the “smile that doesn’t reach her eyes”. Fucking love her.

Okay the uni president thing is actually kind of funny. Because I work in an athletic department and it reminds me of when the president requested access to the team practice schedules so I was in charge of setting up an account in our messaging app with the instructions to grant him access but with absolutely no power to do anything else

Do you think Renee will put "Destabilized Evermore leading to its eventual downfall" on her resume when she applies to the Peace Corps? I know this is not how it works but....

We’re going to see the reaction to Riko’s death from Jean’s POV!!! I wrote a ficlet about this!! It’s gonna be so cool to see what really happens!!

Wtf Jean’s 19?!?!

I'm saying this like everything that happened to him wouldn't have been just as horrifying if he were Kevin's age. But like. WTF??? He's Neil's age!!

LMAO everyone wants to choke Kevin out

“You were injured in a scrimmage” DAMN. I did not expect that from Abby. She's so done with Jean's evasions

I was being kind of mean to Kevin earlier and now I’m going to cry. He was just doing his best too :( what can you do when you’ve been raised in the system?

Kevin, Neil, and Jean are in the idiot exy trio

It’s so fascinating to know that this was the version where Jean lived because you can see the parts where his life could have ended. Like if Abby left the pills. If Jean made it back to Evermore. If Wymack didn’t threaten Tetsuji.

The way that they’re (Neil is) playing 5D exy mafia chess is so extra 😭

Everyone really looking to Neil for their courage. Neil was brave so I can be brave (or at least follow him). What would Neil do?

Do you think the other exy coaches know exy was built on blood? Or at least that Evermore was?

Jean and Kevin in the corner at the party full of Ravens: They don’t know the extent of Riko’s violence

I’m starting to realize that Jean is a lover... [Redacted: This is getting it's own post because I have feelings about this.]

JEREMY!! HELLO!! I DON'T KNOW YOU. ARE YOU DEPRESSING TOO?

Jeremy is so normal. This is going to be so good. He’s literally going to be like “why did you say it like that? You know that’s fucked up right?” Call it like it is my dude!!

How the hell did they get the seniors on board with a smaller line up? They’re giving up a chance at a championship run... Ah.

Oh. He’s rich?? Jeremy is rich? With a butler? Is he secretly going to be tied to the west coast mafia? And taking Jean on will create a bond between east and west?

OH HE’S POLITICIAN RICH. Damn. You know there's blood money somewhere

Are you telling me that the sunshine court is a nickname between Kevin and Jean (and maybe some others? I don't remember if it was ever mentioned in the other books) for USC? And it’s typically called the Gold Court? Cause if so, they’re soooo starved

Do you think Jean knows (or remembers) how to use money? Since he’s been locked up in the Nest for so long? How many social norms has he forgotten? How awkward is he going to be relearning them?

Oh god. Jean found out from Jeremy! Holy shit I was not expecting that. Damn. Also. He's alone :(

Renee and Jean 😭

I’m so glad they talked about redshirting. I was SO confused why they could go five years when the rule is 5 years to compete 4 seasons.

Radiology equipment in their exy stadium?? Man I forget how rich some schools are

Watch Jean break out in hives the moment he gets on clothes that are outside the monochrome color scheme

Oooo Jeremy, show me your spine. I want to see him mad. I want to see him lose control.

And then I forgot I was taking notes because I was too absorbed. When is the next book supposed to come out again?

[serverusslaype]

(This isn't an ask, I just wanted to remain anonymous.)

Hey, I just wanted to say that your writing is so moving to me and I'm very glad that you're back! The way you write is so captivating and it's like I'm right there in the moment, so big kudos to you :] Honestly, anyone sensible understands that we all need a break sometimes and there aren't really limits when it comes to needing time to get back on the horse. I'm sorry you were struggling for so long, but I can assure you that I, along with a couple other friends, just kept re-reading your beautiful work and anyone who took your hiatus the wrong way can step on a nail. I haven't read the newest chapter yet but I'm definitely nervous about it, considering what happened in Ch. 14 lmao. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to create this AU in the first place, it's truly been an emotional rollercoaster (in the best way) and I hope you're doing well; take all the time you need for the chapters, we'll devour whatever you feed us regardless of how much time passes in between chapters 🤭

hello, :)

this message made me emotional and i don't know why, probably because it was incredibly empathetic and i am but a sensitive, soppy soul, so thank you for taking the time to write this out. <3 i know it's been so long since i've posted (april i think?), i sort of go through phases of like 'YES NEED TO WRITE' and then something like 'ahh fuck, need to write, but don't know what or how to-', and it just like.. suuucks. honestly how do authors pump out whole ass trilogies in such a short period.. but either way i feel like i'm sort of, potentially,, back into a writing mood? testing the waters atm. i don't want to just write something just to get it out, you know what i mean? i want it to actually be... of somewhat good quality, so i try and only write when i want to, mentally?

and no, thank you!!! for even giving my ideas a chance, like i deadass just woke up one day and messily wrote that first chapter because it just slipped into my head and this all sort of got out of control LOL, but in all honesty, i love it, but sure-- there are some things i wish to/want to change but it will just take a verryyy long time and i will for sure lose motivation and just.. end up scrapping the whole thing so i'm forcing myself to not do that. and i'll probably end up wanting to go back to how it first was anyway haha. but again thank you so much for reading and supporting this and me, i appreciate and love you, so much. the internet can be such a daunting and scary place but in the corner of it all, there's you guys <3.

ok before i literally start crying imma head out. <3

(thank you again honestly i was not expecting these kinds of messages when logging back on :') )

i hope you have a fantastic day, anonymous, and everyone else that did read all of this gobbidigook above ^ <3

-mari x

[adirtnap]

special interest time! (this is a part of the Get @brisling To Like Jazz project because i hope narrativizing it makes it more fun lmao, but i'll post it for u all too)

our friend richard earlier showed me jazz musician Bill Evans' album Conversations With Myself

listen to this first. to the piano the entire time, even when charlie rouse is playing good saxophone. sometimes the pianist gets up and watches. just until the end of the piano solo. (the drum solo is cool and the bass solo is ELITE but)

(also, that was my favorite jazz recording ever.)

then, this, for only a sec at the beginning. this is how the song goes actually

finally this!

it feels like Song Criticism. I mean criticism in the way that Anton Ego means it when he eats the rat's ratatouille.

bill evans plays like this. he plays beautifully

he was the pianist on the most important jazz record, Kind of Blue.

he was a flautist and plays piano like it's a woodwind. it's soft and technical and so so beautiful.

thelonious monk plays like you've just heard. he is a weird-ass pianist. he plays… wholly uniquely? it's ragtime based i hear. he may have invented bebop (the most popular and enduring jazz idiom). even if that's not the whole truth, he's why jazz uses 9th chords so much. he used to hang out at a bar with charlie parker and dizzy gillespie and he was better than any other pianist that would come to try and play. he's probably the most-covered jazz musician because he wrote so many good songs. his music is also Singular, and people hated it. miles davis (the famousest) was KNOWN for hating his playing. you can hear on bags' groove, miles told him to never play (the pianist's role is harmony under the solo) while miles was playing.

every time someone else plays a monk song, it's kind of apologetic. like, well yeah it's a beautiful composition, but i wish it weren't so bizarre with those weird plunky notes and wholetone scales. we're just going to play the melody, because THAT'S beautiful. it always feels a little like theft.

(beautiful song, but i dislike it)

BUT bill evans is taking the song on its own terms! he's using the song to say, listen to THIS SONG. (and also to say, look at what a sick pianist i am)

after the intro, he does the melody in a monk impression first. on one hand it's a flex to play like monk, but on the other it's weird to do, it's weird to hear a song that exists in everyone's imagination as melody-and-chord-symbols played like its composer would play it. and he kind of… unravels it

he plays a minor third and you're like, aw shit that's a monk quote! and then he plays it again and you're like oh that is. literally just the blues. (this is the blues:

) and then you think, i have learned something about why thelonious monk plays like that.

there's a section where he just does normal bebop chord comps and a normal walking bassline, like he's pretending to be a backing band. that too is monk.

it's commentary and contextualization, but even better is the bill-evansisms there too, the things far too soft and too thin for monk to ever play. the guy yes-ands the song, he sharpens corners that famouser musicians (miles. chick corea) try to polish down.

anyway, it's a good song. (you don't gotta read all of that though)

[malcolm-reeds-pineapple]

@frostysfrenzy made the audience inside my head very happy by tagging me in this anyway picture me like this for the duration of this post (I am miss piggy)

Writer interview ✨💖

About me

When did you start writing?

I was was 10 and a deranged little girl so my best friend and I cowrote what I considered to be the most ambitious crossover of all time: a Star Wars/The Beatles/Bleach/Monk/WKRP/The Partridge Family/Corner Gas fanfiction trilogy. It was utterly bananas and at the time of writing we considered it to be our magnum opus. It wasn’t and I believe we destroyed all but one of the “books” when we were about 12 when she visited. I know that one still exists cuz I have it and my brother and I read it when we need a laugh.

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

I almost exclusively read nonfiction. I’d love to do that, but I don’t have the attention span. That being said, I am working on a collection of memoirs from my particularly wild youth.

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

I try to be my own person, but my dad tells me my voice is similar to Hunter S Thompson at times in my personal pieces. I can see it.

can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Currently it’s my bed and my phone/laptop, but I prefer sitting at a desk with a notebook nearby for quick notes. I’ve tried to digitize the secondary note paper, but I’m so boomer pilled apparently that I want to have the physical paper beside me just because I like the flexibility of being able to sketch out mind maps and timelines for lore.

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Watch a show and pick a guy to obsess over for til college

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

Yeah absolutely! I’ve lived in a lot of places and been in a lot of circumstances, so that definitely bleeds into my work. I tend to write what I know, so it’s not uncommon for me to base characters, scenes or scenarios on real people, places and scenarios I’ve encountered.

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

Yes and yes lmao my recurring themes I find are found family, loneliness, and the moral grey areas in crime and punishment. When I first noticed these recurring themes, I was definitely surprised, but in a way, noticing these themes has really made me learn a lot about myself and how much of my past truly looms over me. Then again, now that I’ve recognised this about myself, I find that I’m able to process everything better.

Characters

would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

His name is Nathan, he is a sad, scrungly wet cat of a man found behind a dumpster that has been surviving off of scraps and spite for many years. He’s unlikeable, constantly feeling sorry for himself, peaked in high school and has very few redeeming qualities. My favourite thing to do with him is put him in mental agony, physical peril and moral conundrums. He’s a cop who, through his own foolishness, hates his life and self destructs. He is constantly taking his problems out on his coworkers because he has no real friends and has cut most of his contact with his family. However, he goes through a lot of character development where his morals are being constantly called into question and he discovers the power of friendship and not being unbelievably fucking unpleasant. I hate him so so much that I love writing him.

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Definitely Scout and Dan considering I based them entirely on myself and my brother. I literally wrote them in so my brother would listen to me talk about my writing and he won’t do that unless he’s in it. Their full names are Scout Trouble MacKenzie and Atticus Danger MacKenzie and they’re fully aware of how bizarre those names are. Dan goes by Dan because he likes watching the light fade from people’s eyes when he says Dan isn’t short for Daniel and is in fact short for Danger. They’re chaotic gremlins who are considered to be not well socialized and developmentally arrested at 16. Both of them are noted by other characters to be staggeringly bizarre and incomprehensible as they communicate entirely with inside jokes and meme references. They bicker like small children, especially when the topic of their old GameCube is brought up as the ownership of Monkey Ball is still a point of contention as one of them received it for Christmas in 2004, but they can’t remember which one was the actual recipient.

which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

Josh, easily. My man is unemployed, stinky, and refuses to mature beyond an edgy teen. He doesn’t even do his own laundry. His vibes are so pungent that he makes my crops wither and causes the foxes to eat my chickens. I hate him. He really is the Josh of all time. Close second would be Kaylee but that’s just because she would stress me out too much.

Tell me about the process of coming up with your characters?

It depends on the day. Most of the time it’s utility driven, so as an example, for one of my WIPs I needed a librarian character, so, as I often do for background characters, I kind of just thought of the librarians I’ve known all my life, culminated them into one character and called it a day. Then, phase two was me ending up really liking the character and developing her more as I wrote her. Eventually it got to a point where I gave her a husband and a son and she’s now a recurring character. Effectively I am both the DM and the Party and every time I make up a detail about a background character, I end up really liking them and it snowballs. I have, on a few occasions, sat down with the express intention of making a character, and sometimes it works, but if you ask me details about both Theodore (carefully crafted over a few days) and Freddie The Information Guy (Background character I developed by accident), I’d be able to tell you a lot more about Freddie.

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

Again, going back to writing what I know, I always end up writing AFAB characters as being extremely tight with their dad’s. I don’t know, man, aside from that, the poor fuckers all just get a delightful little spoonful of my personal trauma as a treat.

How do you picture your characters?

As little dolls that I pick up and play with. They are my littlest pet shops and I am a 7 year old girl who wants to watch the world burn.

My writing:

what’s your reason for writing?

I have to write otherwise the characters just spin around my head like that fish in the funky town (low quality) video. I need to get them out of their enclosure and onto the page so I can know peace. On a more serious note, I write a lot as a way to process my thoughts. I’m a journal girly which I started doing when I was in the throes of alcoholism with undiagnosed BPD and ADHD. Whenever something bad happened, my gut reaction was to buy a bottle of bourbon and drink it like it was a race. Once I started journaling, I was able to replace that instinct of needing to drink with needing to write. Nowadays, I’m on occasional drinker and constant writer which I’m very proud of.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

Any and all for the most part. I’m always a fan of people liking The Characters and telling me that, but I acknowledge that no one cares as much about your OCs as you do, so I’m content with it being an uncommon but very welcome compliment.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Isolated and weird, the type to fly a kite in the middle of the night, too bizarre to be welcome in polite society so I live in a farmhouse of the edge of nowhere and Exist. Hopefully they think of me as the personification of those unhinged author’s notes in fics.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Probably dialogue? I dunno, it’s definitely not the plot, because my characters are all just on side quests, if there’s a unifying plot than it’s accidental.

What have you been told is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

Character development/creation and dialogue.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Illegible garbâge that is so self-indulgent and convoluted that it should not be perceived by anyone but me. However, that does not stop me from burdening my friends and readers with it. Their enjoyment of my writing is collateral damage of my creativity.

If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?

Yes, I’d be even more nuts if I didn’t write. Besides, I really am my own target demographic, so hell yeah.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

I write for myself so hardcore that I’m surprised when other people like any part of it. As previously mentioned, if other people like what I write, that is incidental and not part of my grander mission of making things that make me happy. That being said, I do consider one opinion sometimes when I write, and that is the opinion of my brother and what will make him laugh.

Anyway, I’m gonna tag @swaggysagiewagie @sarcasticsciencefictionwriter @prismatica-the-strange and anyone who wants to do it hehehe also no pressure to do it

Blank version can be found at the bottom of the linked post :)

[creabirds]

📚 🔪❄️🪲

ty for asking love!

📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app? 

i put my weights/sets into my workout plan for the gym lol

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

i don't research that often because i prefer to just make shit up lmfao. i think the last thing was hotels in new york city?

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

my dream plots i write myself lmao, though i sometimes ramble about ships i don't write, like landoscar ideas, or total fluffy/romance wips that i have no patience to write myself (or would ruin by adding porn) - and i will always trust @wanderingblindly to execute them perfectly.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

i would literally spoil so much so i won't but you can have this:

He gets in the tub.

The water is comfortingly warm, lapping softly up to his chest as he sinks in. It stands free in the room, on a low platform, cradled in a bay-window. Briefly, he wonders whether anybody from the surrounding buildings can see inside.

Even with the heat, he finds his muscles tense, his entire body taut as if waiting to jump. He feels out of his element, no longer in control of the situation. He cannot possibly imagine what it is that Max will do next, the reason he wanted him to get in the water.

He hears something scraping against the floor, and feels Max settle right behind his head, presumably sitting on a bench or the stool that has previously adorned the corner by the window.

His mind is whirring.

“Max, what-” he begins, not able to hold himself back. He flinches when Max’s hands settle on his shoulders.

“You do not ever stop talking, do you?” he asks. Charles’ cheeks flush with indignation. His confusion is replaced with annoyance, though there is a certain flicker of excitement in the depths of his belly. He has not been under somebody else’s control, not really, in so long.

And after all, it has always been the dizzying cocktail of adrenaline, fear, of danger, and power that excites him. He tips his head back, catching a glimpse of Max’ solemn face.

“Make me shut up, then,” he spits out. Max’s mouth twitches, momentarily morphing into the shadow of a smirk.

“Very well,” he says, and then, pushes Charles underwater.

[fixfoxnox]

I’m so sad that sito is coming to an end :((( but also happy! You’re almost free!!! For how much you wrote for us and how often you updated I am astounded you didn’t develop any burnout or hate for cod or for us!!!! We really do appreciate you and the writing you give us.

If you need your writing break after the monster that is sito, we understand. If anything, I’m excited for what you’ll write next! I’m obsessed with your writing style, I will eat literally anything you give us lmao, thank you for the whiplash from the newest chapter of sito imma cry in the corner now lolol

I certainly may take it a little slow after SiTO ends lol, I'll probably focus on drabbles for a bit and take some time before starting any major projects again

Also I could never hate you guys! Even though it has been a lot, I've really enjoyed writing everything and putting it all together for you guys (and myself lol)

💙💙💙

[pink-booty-butts]

🥮 🍘 🍙 (also ur great thank u for ur time)

Omg anon thank you so much for responding!! And omg you're the sweetest!! You're great too anon!! I bet you're amazing and wonderful!! <33

🥮 Do you have any writing milestones you're working toward?

Ooh this is such a great question!! When I first started writing fanfiction for this blog, my goal was to post one fic a week. I've definitely slacked on that, especially since I got discouraged a while ago and haven't written in a hot minute (i'm so sorry guys!!). But one of my goals is to hopefully get back to that! I'm going to attempt to ease back into that so I don't burn myself out, but watch me post like 5 billion fics over spring break lmao

One of my other goals, I suppose this is more short term, is to hopefully post a fic for each of the boys I haven't written for once I finish the requests in my inbox! I'm hoping maybe this will make things more interesting for you guys, or maybe encourage a bit more interaction? Not to sound like an attention whore but highkey I LOVE talking to you guys cos you're all awesome!! So I'm really hoping if I add more variety to my content, you guys will enjoy it more and maybe feel more comfortable saying stuff!

🍘 Is there a fic or idea for a fic that you've abandoned?

Yeah definitely!! I wouldn't say they're abandoned necessarily because I do intend to go back and finish all of them at some point, but currently I have like 3 Ariel fics in my WIP folder where I kinda wrote myself into a corner and I abandoned them because I didn't know how to keep the story going haha. I also have one for Jamie and a chronically ill reader which I wrote before Lying in Laundry, but at the time I thought it was a little awkwardly written so I ended up scrapping it and writing that fic instead. After re-reading it honestly I think it's not that bad and I kinda wanna post it, but I probably need to change some bits I ended up using in Lying in Laundry so they're more different!

As for fic ideas, probably the only one that comes to mind is one on my ideas list about the Reader sending Jamie articles about having a massive dick (lmao hear me out before you judge me!!). That idea was born from seeing articles that literally had titles like "my dick is too big and it ruined my life". There's also a tv special on Channel 4 called "my massive cock" and it's about guys who have dicks that are too big and it causes problems like finding a job and that kind of stuff (i actually haven't watched it, but tbh i probably will to get inspo for this fic lmao).

I still really wanna write something for it because I think it'd be hilarious, but I probably need to think of a bit more substance/a scenario to add to it because as it stands right now it'd probably be a super short fic if I wrote it haha. Also in the Baynton Babes server we always talk about how Jamie has the biggest dick so it seems really fitting for him :p

🍙 Is there a fic you wish had gotten more attention?

I answered this one here! But I would say the fic in the #2 spot is probably Lying in Laundry.

I assume it could be because that fic was too similar to some of the other Jamie fics I've written. I mentioned this in the other post answering these questions but I do try to re-read my fics to avoid this. I think when I was writing this one and re-reading the others I was worried it was too similar/boring, so that's probably part of why it didn't do so great haha

Also I think it probably didn't get that much attention because mentioning "chronically ill reader" in the title probably turned some people off haha. I knew that would probably happen even before I posted it, but I did try to make the reader's chronic illness not a major focal point (i think it's mentioned like once and that's it haha) so it would still be relatable to those without one so it lowkey hurt my feelings lmao </3

But I'm chronically ill and I know there's a few other people in this fandom who are as well, so even if they don't get as much attention as my other fics I will probably still post chronically ill reader fics every now and then because it's important to me for the chronic illness gang to get some representation, even if it's just on my little baby corner of the internet :p

Thank you again for your questions anon!! I appreciate you!! <3

[blurglesmurfklaine]

ok ok I love drag me headfirst (fearless) so I've picked from there. and i adore this scene with you know REVELATIONS and such. sorry that this was probably a little while ago to think about.

“Dance with me?” Blaine asks, grin bright and beaming. 

Hell, Blaine could ask him to jump off a bridge, and as long as Blaine’s hand was in his, he’d do it. Kurt can’t stop the corner of his mouth from twitching, and then Blaine is full on grinning, reeling him in and tugging him close.

You lift my feet off the ground, spin me aroundYou make me crazier, crazierFeels like I'm falling and IAm lost in your eyes, you make me crazier, crazier, crazier

Every passing second, it’s getting more and more difficult for Kurt to ignore the pounding in his chest, or the buzzing, almost shakiness in his arms as he wraps them up around Blaine’s neck.

“Can I kiss you again?”

“Huh?” Kurt says, voice a little out of breath and dazed.

“I feel like Taylor has some songs about kissing at parties. You know, full experience, and all.”

Kurt finds himself nodding, although he certainly can’t think of any off the top of his head. Truth be told, he can’t think at all when Blaine is pressed up against him like this.

His eyes dart to Blaine’s lips and then his eyes, scouring his face for any sense of hesitance but find none. Then, Blaine pulls them together, and Kurt’s mind goes blank, all he can think about is the gentle push and pull of his best friend’s mouth on his.

The moment Blaine pulls away and slowly opens his eyes is the moment Kurt realizes something he can never tell: he’s hopelessly in love with Blaine.

“Shit,” Kurt whispers.

Blaine knits his eyebrows together. “What?”

Kurt just shakes his head and pulls Blaine in, until their lips are touching once more. Blaine moves a hand to the back of Kurt’s neck and pulls him closer, as if they aren’t close enough already, as if he can’t get enough of Kurt, breathing him in. 

AHHHHHH THANK YOU! I actually loved writing Drag Me Headfirst because it might be THE most self indulgent thing i have EVER created ajshahshs

The DVD Commentary:

I knew I wanted to use “Crazier” even though it’s not technically on the fearless album because it IS a waltz which gives it that “sway”-y feel to it and I was like “oh yeah they can SLOWDANCE TO THIS”

God they are so stupid. They are just. Absolute fucking idiots and I know I’m the one who wrote them that way but at what cost???? Blaine is literally smiling like an IDIOT, finding an excuse to dance with you, and asking to kiss you and you’re just like “damn I wish he liked me” what kind of fuckery????? Honestly though I can’t even say anything because I’m the same way—I cannot take a hint for SHIT and I think a lot of people can’t either so I was like. Let’s lean into that. See what it looks like from an outside perspective. Ladies: we’re idiots your honor

THE “Oh.” MOMENT—in a friends to lovers AU, I am a HUUUUGE slut for that italicized Oh. moment!! bc like they’ve been besties forever so what makes it FINALLY click? I think it’s always gotta be something really stupidly fucking obvious (a kiss in this case) or something really subtle (like in HS when Tao buys Elle’s drink after she transfers).

But then oh no we’re not done fellas because as anyone who has ever had a crush on anyone ever can tell you—ITS THE PITS. The mortifying ordeal of being known and all that jazz! So I like to lean into that mortification and a thing I really enjoy writing is when a character is like “Omg I love them. FUCK.” because like yes I love love and I think it’s fantastic but the scariest thing about realizing you have something precious is realizing you could LOSE it so that’s where Kurt’s “Shit.” comes from lmao

And then my favorite moment in this scene is actually right after that when Kurt shakes his head because AS I was writing it I literally made myself cry with laughter at my own stupid jokes because I said: “NOW WE DONT HAVE TIME TO UNPACK ALL OF THAT” aloud to an empty room which is Normal Behavior of course.

I just really enjoy the progression of “Wow Blaine is such a good friend for kissing me. Oh, fuck, I’m in love. Nevermind, we’re going to ignore this.” I think in the moment it comes off as romantic and maybe even a little bit angsty, but honestly the whole thing is based off the humor and ridiculousness of it all which I guess you can’t have one without the other!

Thanks so much for sending this in jas!! It was so much fun! :D 💞💞

[sagehaubitze]

Here's my con report from Southeast Leatherfest, which very much has the vibes of us all posting con reports from fur cons in 2006 on livejournal (there's like three of you who might be interested in reading it but that's cool). It's definitely uhh.. a little emotionally sensitive, I'm just copy/pasting what I wrote on facebook which is locked down to a very small circle of friends, but I'm trying to make myself be a little more open with these experiences.

((also content warning because there's a selfie of me in leather short shorts, and a shot of my eyeball with a fuckload of broken blood vessels, just a heads up))

SELF was really good, I'm alive and back home in mostly one piece. This is gonna be word vomit because my brain is mashed potatoes.

I was INCREDIBLY apprehensive about going, people have tried to get me to go for years and I've refused. In the end, the weekend gave me a itty bitty tiny sliver of hope that the leather I experienced while growing up is still out there, and that I'll feel like I belong somewhere again one day. Like... I know The Eagle isn't ever going to be the same as it was when I was a teenager, everything evolves and changes. I know Convergent isn't coming back and we may never have anything like that in Huntsville again. I know some of those days are gone. But I found little places and corners of the convention and certain people where it was like.. an echo of those emotions and that energy. We were all at the Barking Leather booth for something every single day, and a couple of those days I had to stand there and force myself to not burst into tears; it felt like HOME. Talking to them, and getting to exchange knowledge and discuss OLD old gay leather, and having the just.. inkling of recognition of "oh the weird kid is doing the old weird shit that current leather culture has moved past".. I just.. I don't know. I finally didn't feel out of place. It felt like when I was figuring myself out at The Eagle as a kid again, knowing I had support *to* figure myself out, except this time I'm a lot further along.

You gotta realize I am so avoidant of anything "leather" anymore because shit has been so fucking bad around Alabama for so, so long. I had my formative experiences as a teenager that were loving and accepting even as a TEENAGE GIRL in a gay leather space, and when I branched out to leather in the kink community/communities around north/central AL, literally all there was, and pretty much still is, are groups of old straight white people who took an integral pillar of queer history, turned it into a religion, and told gays to fuck off. It was made extremely clear that I was *absolutely* not welcome, both pre and post transitioning. And then trying to go back to my roots in desperation, I'd go back to The Eagle after I had started transitioning and I didn't feel welcome there anymore either because it was the time of toxic masculinity moral panic/grossness over "feminine energy" in gay male spaces (like... girl lmao, what about all the faggot energy??? because that's all I'm bringing). It has been an extremely hard nearly 20 years of this shit.

SELF was good not just because of those little feelings of home, but it was a good opportunity to realize the shit I went through isn't a blanket situation across the board. There *are* better places. There's people out there who don't shit on my kinks or experiences and are actually supportive. And there's stuff like... contests have never been my thing, but seeing the people who are chosen to represent *you* and the leather community at large, is very cool. I got to talk to Alpha Pup Savage for a minute, he's International Mr. Leather 2024 now, and just getting to feel someone out with a title like that, getting their message and a feel for them as a person, is super neat. He was an awesome guy, and he wanted a picture of me in all my rooster gear lmao.

Seeing the history was very neat too, the good and the bad. The leather quilt was there in full and that was awesome. With so much pushback from the generation younger than me on kink at pride and trying to appear as respectable puritan "traditional" member of western society to people who are going to hate and oppress you anyway..... making the history visible is extremely important. I wish more people would take a deep dive into our history and give due respect. The resources are out there, the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago is phenomenal (I wish they'd hurry up and get their online catalogue up and running again lol), like... hell they're a contingent beneficiary in my will. We have GOT to preserve our history and make it visible and known, else the ones who hate us will take the opportunity to rewrite it to demonize us (more than they already do).

Anyway... the weekend was great beyond all that, it was a lot of fun just getting to spend quality time with people I care about, and meeting new people that actually managed to pass the vibe check because I am very standoffish and jaded nowadays. I finally bought a leather uniform shirt, and I was peer pressured (how awful) into getting leather short shorts, which my thighs were too powerful for the first pair, that's a whole other story. All I've got for now are hotel room selfies of them, but that definitely encapsulates the con experience, which.. I've been missing that too. After so many years of fur cons, this had a lot of the good aspects of those and it just felt *right* again. It was good, all around. I am fucking exhausted though.

Oh yeah and bonus pic of my eyeball, I have two black eyes and a ton of broken blood vessels from getting choked out (first time my eye has ever done this from it), this is the most badass my eye has ever looked. I posted a pic of it on fet last night but this one is from today with a cool half circle of blood around the iris, it owns.

[hwats-the-big-idea]

My autistic ass has been up to some crazy shit these past few days. I started playing planet zoo and not even a week into the game the computer goes caput. Frame rate on every single game is absolutely horrendous, games don't even load past a single frame for 20 mins, and there's no internet to the computer yet (we just bought a dongle and are waiting on the delivery) so we can't fix it at all rn. Well, my hyperfixation just couldn't handle this absolute nonsense, if I couldn't play the game (I literally stay up for 2 days at a time playing nonstop lmao) I'd invest my time elsewhere. With a new dlc right around the corner and the games end on the horizon, I wrote a huge post on what dlcs I think pz needs before it finishes. I've been researching animals and pz for days, I'm happy to have some new animal facts under the belt now as well. Well, I went to post it to reddit and I just... can't. I get an unknown error. It's in reddit character limits but maybe the specific sub limits characters. Well I would've posted it and split it in half with the second half in the comments but I can only post dlc wishlist on Wednesday uk time 😭 by the time I finished everything it was already 4 am across the pond.

I really, really just want to document my crazy autistic ramblings and surmise my opinion as the most correct one as always lol, so I'm gonna post my post here and hopefully I'll be able to figure it out next Wednesday. I don't see a strong pz community here in tumblr so I'll probably be talking to myself but what else is new? Here goes. Is a long one, bois. Sorry the format is unpleasant here:

Here I list every dlc I think I’d want/would do good for the game before it ends. I go into 2025 with my wishlist just because I don’t think the game can really fully finish by 2024 even though I’ve seen some speculation we might just be getting one more year of dlcs. I’ve gone on to wrap up this year, speculate for 2024, as well as 2025.

This will be a long post, an opinion piece over predictions of what I genuinely think will come, and I’ll discuss my reasons why I chose everything after I list the dlcs. I’ve taken inspiration from wishlists, what bigger names in the community have been predicting, and just what I hope to see come to the game. In my speculations I focus mostly on diversity, uniqueness in looks and mechanics, as well as what we need from rigs for mods. I’ve tried to be as inclusive as I could in my selections so I hope there’s people who will enjoy what I’ve come up with! I’ve also only recently started playing the game so I don’t understand it in as intimate a way as long time players may and I’m probably overlooking some scenery items, so take my scenery speculation with a grain of salt. I’d love to hear opinions on it all.

…

2023 dlc wrap ups

Temperate scenery pack

-Sea otter (headliner)

-European red squirrel

-Tanuki

-Collared peccary or European wild boar

Exhibit

-Chipmunk walkthrough exhibit.

Tundra animal pack

-Pacific walrus (headliner)

-Wolverine

-Musk ox

-Arctic hare

-Southern rockhopper penguin

-Tundra swan, snow goose, Canada goose, or duck (harlequin, mandarin, wood, or mallard)

-American white pelican

Exhibit

-Pika, chinchilla, or white winter dwarf hamster

…

2024 dlcs

Taiga scenery pack

-Pallas cat (headliner)

-Golden takin

-Fisher cat, stoat, or European pine marten

-Yellow bellied marmot/alpine marmot

(Alternate species:

-North American porcupine

-American black bear)

Exhibit

-Japanese rhinoceros beetle

Islands animal pack

-Tasmanian devil (headliner)

-Japanese giant salamander

-Cuban crocodile

-Malayan civet/Asian palm civet

-Fairy penguin

-Goodfellow’s/matschie’s tree kangaroo

-American flamingo

(Alternate species:

-Coconut crab

-Coquerel’s sifaka

-Sumatran rhinoceros

-Marine iguana)

Exhibit

-Tenrec

Scrublands scenery pack

-Saiga antelope (headliner)

-Gerenuk

-Alligator snapping turtle

-Roadrunner or burrowing owl

(Alternate species:

-Banded mongoose)

Exhibit

-desert tortoise or thorny devil

Rainforests animal pack

-Olive/hamadryas baboon (headliner)

-Coati mundi

-Bush dog

-Sloth bear

-Common squirrel monkey or black handed spider monkey,

-Golden lion/emperor tamarin

-Muntjac

Exhibit

-Leaf cutter ants, thorny stick insect, or giant prickly stick insect

…

2025 dlcs to wrap up the game with

To preface 2025 would see dlcs that have huge game changing mechanics, it’s definitely just personal desires since it’d be a tall order for the year, but these are all things that so many people have really been asking for and I think are are things that we would all rather enjoy for the game before it ends. We wouldn’t be seeing very many animals in any of the packs (not like we have for the terrestrial animals), but with the right selections it would allow modders to really expand the library after the games end.

Barnyard scenery pack

-American Pygmy goat or boer goat (headliner)

-Jacob sheep

-Miniature donkey or Shetland pony

-Vietnamese pot bellied pig

Exhibit: touch pools

-Southern stingray or cownose stingray

-White spotted bamboo shark or brown banded bamboo shark

-Ochre sea star (or other sea star)

-Aggregating anemone or slate pencil urchin

-Atlantic horseshoe crab

Ground bird animal pack

-Secretary bird (headliner)

-Darwin’s rhea

-Shoebill

-Marabou stork

-Roseate spoonbill

-Southern ground hornbill

-Kiwi or kakapo

Exhibit: cage exhibits

-Golden pheasant

-Raggiana bird of paradise

-Ocellated turkey

-Scarlet ibis

-Victorian crowned pigeon

Aquariums animal and scenery pack

-Bottlenose dolphin (headliner)

-West Indian manatees

-Beluga

-Manta ray

-Loggerhead sea turtle

-Hammerhead shark

-Black sea bass or black grouper

Exhibit: aquarium exhibits

-Yellow seahorse

-Compass jellyfish

-Giant pacific octopus

-Moray eel

-Tropical fish (clownfish, blue hippo tang, moorish idol, etc)

Aviary animal and scenery pack

-Scarlet macaw, blue and yellow macaw, hyacinth macaw morphs (headliner)

-Bald eagle or California condor

-Toco toucan

-Barn owl or great horned owl

-Laughing kookaburra

-Puffin

-Blue jay

Exhibit: walkthrough bird exhibit

-Sun conure

-Rainbow lorikeet

-Parakeet

-Sulfur crested cockatoo

-Ecuadorian amazon parrot

…

These are all the packs that I have come up with that I think would be good enough to end planet zoo by the end of 2025. They don’t include anywhere near all the animals that we ultimately desire as a community but I think that the species are diverse enough to be able to mod most anything we want in. I’ll go on and talk about each pack individually now and why I chose what I did/what I think each pack would include.

…

Temperate

A lot of people think that temperate and tundra will be the next inclusions, so they’re where I went with my speculation. For the temperate pack I’ve made it a scenery pack since that will be next if the scenery-animal pack trend continues. For this pack I’ve included a few animals I think are necessary for the game. First I’ve included the sea otter, an animal we could never see through mods, and one people want to see. I’ve also included the tanuki, I think it’s an animal that a lot of people would just enjoy having in the game. I also have the collared peccary or European wild boar, honestly either of them, or some other pig, would work in this spot, we just need more pigs in the game. And I have the European red squirrel, it’s found in some zoos, and would just be an interesting animal and rig in the game. I also have a chipmunk walkthrough exhibit, an idea from J-Double U, which I think would just flesh out walkthrough exhibits. We’d see bats, butterflies, birds (hopefully), and with this one a mammal so I thought it was a good inclusion. For scenery I think it’d be very nice to see some rustic wood cabin/camping sort of aesthetics. I’m an Oregonian myself so the Oregon zoo is dear to me, and I’d love some scenery that just says “temperate rainforest”. I’ve also just recently started playing the game so maybe I just haven’t had the chance to see every single piece we have yet, but I would love for some more diversity in our wood options, especially in sizes and shapes it all comes in. I’d also like some foliage like blackberries and furze/gorse bushes, California poppies, as well as flexi color wildflowers. As well, I know we lack trees that have a real canopy, I think some canopy trees would be really nice here. I think we could see some other scenery options, but I’d just love lots of stuff themed around a cooler climate. I think we also need some new stone pieces, bricks, and just simple flexi color building materials. I loved what we got in the tropical pack, I’d like to see some of that sort of stuff themed around a temperate climate as well and even more basic in its building capacity. … Tundra For the tundra pack I’ve included the walrus, a very much needed animal in the game, as well as some requests such as the wolverine and the musk ox. I’ve also included the arctic hare because we really could use a lagomorph of some sort. I’ve also included the rockhopper penguin because I think it’s one of the penguin types we’re lacking in diversity, and with frontier’s new animal modeling the yellow feathers would come out great on them. I’ve included the American white pelican, but really any pelican could find their way in this spot. I know the Australian pelican is the community’s desire but the American white fits the tundra theme better. Honestly though whichever pelican finds their place here we’d see the others through mods. It also was just a hard decision in general on the other water fowl. We need swans, geese, and ducks in the game and we don’t have any good rigs for them. I don’t think even the pelican rig would suffice. Honestly if it could be done by frontier I’d love to see at least both one duck and one goose in this pack, but ultimately for moddings sake I think either or would work out just fine. Really I think it’d just be a matter of which frontier personally would want to include, but I’ve dropped my choices down here. For the exhibit animal I’ve included a few options for mammals, I’d love to see more mammalian diversity in the exhibits. I think any of the choices here would be a good option really. I think chinchillas would really stand out but they’re also a somewhat common pet animal so it might be nice to see one of the other too as well.

…

Taiga

The taiga pack was a hard choice, but for the sake of the game and rigs it has to offer I’ve opted for the mustelids and the marmot over the black bear and the porcupine. Since we already have both a porcupine rig and lots of options for a bear rig these animals will easily find their way into the game through mods at its end so I chose the animals I think would offer something more unique to the game. I chose the fisher, pine marten, or stoat here because we really could use a more traditional weasel in the game imo. The Pallas cat is a popular request, so it was a necessary inclusion. I’ve chosen the Japanese rhinoceros beetle as the exhibit animal but because I absolutely love these insects and would want to see them in the game. I think that scenery pieces could represent some part of Eurasia, like Russia or Italy, I imagine we could use some bold, round shapes, with a large selection of rounded building pieces. I think it’d be nice to include some more cold climate pieces especially ones that represent a modern culture and without any Christmas theming to it.

…

Islands

For the islands pack it was a bit of a tossup on certain species. I’m most partial to this pack myself since it includes some of my own highly requested animals: the Tasmanian devil, the Japanese giant salamander, and the Cuban crocodile. The t devil is definitely a very, very requested animal. I also think the giant salamander and Cuban crocodile just also provide something unique we haven’t really seen in the game. For the salamander its a massive amphibian that I’d just love to build for in game, and the crocodile is a smaller croc that would have higher land requirements and a bit of a running-esc animation which I both unique for the game. I’ve included the fairy penguin since they’re such a beautiful bird, probably my favorite penguin, and we just don’t have any very tiny penguins like it in the game. There’s been many requests for various penguins, but I think for the majority of them we could easily find them through mods, the fairy penguin is something more unique in its regard. I’ve also included the tree kangaroo, a request from some, and a civet, which I think both bring a unique arboreal lifestyle to the game. I think having unique animals like them, plus their rigs, in the game is important for it at this point. I think my most controversial inclusion would probably be the American flamingo esp since we can see it through mods and all of the alternative animals I have seen as requests by the community, but personally I think it’s just a crime to the game we don’t have a pink flamingo. They’re what I’m familiar with in zoos and absolutely my preference for flamingos over the greater flamingo. Though I think the coquerel’s sifaka and coconut crab are very interesting animals that would give unique mods to the game. Honestly the flamingo or any of the alternative animals would fill this spot well. I’ve included the tenrec as the exhibit animal because it’s very unique and would provide some mammalian diversity to the exhibits. I think there are so many other good choices here, but personally I’d love to see a mammal.

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Scrublands

I’d love to see a scrublands theme come to the game personally. Here I’ve included the saiga antelope and the gerenuk, both ungulates, but I think both are very unique ungulate forms and I’d still like to see the diversity with them. I think they’d both provide something interesting to the game and animals fun to build for, especially the gerenuk with its browsing. I think we could even see a browsing enrichment item inspired by the gerenuk come to the game as well to really get a sight at their rearing. I’ve included as well either the roadrunner or the burrowing owl, both unique ground birds I think that would be very fun for the game. Personally I’d prefer to build something for the roadrunner, but I think that burrowing owls might be more iconic and more requested, so I’ve included them both as an option here. Lastly I’ve included the alligator snapping turtle in this lineup. It’s a huge reptile, one I think the game could definitely use for our zoo building, and just so peculiar looking. I think it’d really be a statement animal that I’d love to build for. For the exhibit I’ve picked the desert tortoise or the thorny devil, I’d like to see others. For the scenery I definitely want to see scrublands scenery. We have desert and grass themes items already, but I’ve been living in Texas for just over a year now and I’m enamored by just how beautiful it is here and I don’t think the game really captures just enough scrub/grass/swamp aesthetic. I’d be looking for scenery pieces that really feel like a swampy boat ride through the scrublands, I find foliage like the Texas madrone and the saw palmetto beautiful and definitely could be included in a scrublands pack. Outside of those two I think just any plants you generally find in scrublands, swamps, plains/prairies, pampas, etc would be good. I think with the grasslands pack being an animal pack the scrublands being a scenery pack would bring in lots of new foliage. People also often are sinking trees down into the ground to represent small bush plants, I think with a scrublands pack we could see lots of foliage that can represent what people are doing with trees as actual bushes. I think we could also get more rocks in this pack, rocks that represent the beauty of a place like Utah, and/or some rocks in flexicolor.

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Rainforest

For the rainforest animal pack I included the muntjac. I know the dik dik is a more highly requested animal but it’s a scrublands animal while the muntjac is a rainforest animal. I also have the alternative of the southern pudu, I’m just most partial to the muntjac personally (I find their scent glands to be so fascinating looking). I also wanted to include either the Chinese water deer or the Siberian musk deer, but I think with the muntjac we would easily see mods for all of these animals honestly. I think any of them could find their place in the slot I allocated for the muntjac. I included lots of primates in this pack, a baboon of some kind is a very requested animal, and personally I just don’t feel like we have enough small primates in the game. The capuchin just isn’t enough for me, so I’ve included another monkey of some kind (squirrel or spider I think would be good choices, though we could see potentially another option), as well as a tamarin. I think both of these animals would just look great in a pz zoo and provide what I think is needed diversity to the primates. I’ve also included the sloth bear here. Honestly it was hard to include just one bear in all of my pack ideas here because sloth bears, black bears, and spectacled bears are all highly requested animals. Really I think any of them could find their way here, especially since rainforests aren’t just limited to tropical jungles and can be temperate forests, but I did limit myself to just one bear choice since we ultimately will have the rigs for more bears to find their way into the game through mods I saw them as a less important inclusion for that reason. Lastly I’ve included in this pack the coati since we really ought to have a coati in the game, as well as the bush dog. They aren’t common in zoos but South America has some of the most unique canids and people just don’t know about them, I think including one (outside of the popular maned wolf) would provide a unique learning opportunity on these amazing animals, plus it’d just be so cool to have a semi aquatic packing canid in the game I’d love to see it. For the exhibit animal I chose leaf cutter ants, though I can see they may be difficult to do because of their size, though I do think leaf bits would help that. If they just aren’t feasible I’ve included a couple stick insect options since I’d also love to see these animals in the game. I chose to make the rainforest pack an animal pack since we already have lots of jungle-like scenery in the game, I wanted to give the scenery spotlight to some other biomes, especially since the tropical pack recently was a scenery pack.

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The next four packs are definitely tall order packs. They’d bring big changes to the game, but I think changes that we as a community would like to see. They’re all highly requested pack themes, and I think that the new mechanics would breathe new life into the game. They’d really let it live for a long time after its completed.

Barnyard

This barnyard pack brings to the game a petting zoo mechanic, as well as barn themed set pieces and some small aquarium set pieces to set up for the aquarium pack itself and to include in the touch pools. I chose a goat, a sheep, a donkey/pony, and a pig over animals like rabbits, chickens, or guinea pigs because I think it’d be much easier to do just a “crouch and pet” animation. Smaller animals would need a much larger change to mechanics so my animal choices are all medium sized. I’ve also included touch pools. I think they would be a great inclusion to the game, and I think fit in the “petting zoo” theme as well. I’ve included some stingrays and sharks which the touch tanks at Stingray Cove in the Denver zoo really inspired me. Really I think that touch pools could be incorporated in a few ways. They could include some construction pieces to make a few touch tanks of different sizes, maybe some dedicated concrete and glass pieces to build them that can contain water like the barriers. The other animal species I’ve included in the touch pools are sea stars, a horseshoe grab, and an anemone or sea urchin, which are all pretty common animals in touch pools. I think similarly to the barnyard animal petting animation, the touch tanks could use the same or similar animation. I think the scenery for this pack would definitely be a lot of barn/farm and touch pool aesthetics.

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Ground birds

Here I’ve included lots of ground bird species that people want to see. Not much to say, I think they’re all pretty common requests, and fulfill the community’s desire for more ground birds. The unique mechanics for this pack come from the new form of exhibits, and exhibit rehaul. I think everyone wants a little bit more out of exhibits, be it changing their sizes, shapes, or more in depth editing for them. The exhibits for the birds in this pack come as cages which would house the exhibit bird species. It was a long time ago and I don’t remember where it was, but I walked down a long alley with all kinds of birds in it and I’d really want to capture that kind of feeling with this. I’ve included a few exhibit bird species here, I don’t think these species would fly, but honestly that’s frontier’s ultimate decision.

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Aquariums

This pack brings the long desired aquariums to the game, and I chose a selection of animals that I think would all provide unique mods to the game. I’d talk about the mechanics for this, but I think that Rudi Rennkamel summarizes it much better, I’ll link that video at the end of this post. In short, I think they would work similarly to the touch pools, just on a much larger scale. This pack would bring a lot of new pieces all themed around aquariums and provide us with everything we’d need for building a small aquarium zoo. Again, Rudi talks about this much more in depth.

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Aviary

The last pack we’ll see come to planet zoo is the aviary pack, which will bring flying birds to wrap up the game. I’ve chosen a selection of birds that would bring a variety of rigs to the game, which is why I’ve included a bird like the blue jay. I think that most of the birds listed here are pretty common requests from the community, and any others we’d want to see I think can come from mods. This pack also brings a walkthrough exhibit for birds with many species of parrot, something that everybody wants to see. I think this pack also would bring new building pieces to make aviaries, and similar to the aquariums, we would need to make a suitable habitat first before we could fill it with the animals. I think we’d see lots of bird enrichment items, glass, netting, wiring, in many shapes such as round, triangular, pentagon, and hexagon, anything that we’d need to make a suitable aviary for the flying birds.

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The end I think after the aviary pack we will see a few free updates to the game. Updates to fix bugs in the last year of dlcs, updates to animal models and behavior, mechanics, the works. I think 2026 would be a year of tlc for the game and just getting it prepped to be finished for good. Sorry this post was so long, I just had some fun with my speculations here.

The videos:

https://youtu.be/bOqNfDyenjo?si=nRFbOk5B36_BONQ5

https://youtu.be/iKIZSIvbJ6E?si=r00teDq4EDIvnavP