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peachhcs · 5 months ago

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jealousy, jealousy

hughes!sister x will smith au (samy + will)

will does a bit of stalking on his burner account

1.7k words

here's a bit of will's groveling while talking with the guys from back home. if i had a burner account, i would also stalk my ex on it, so will's kind of real for that haha

au masterlist

will's eyes glued themselves to his phone screen. he didn't mean to click into samy's account, but one thing led to another and his fingers just typed away the password to his burner account that the girl had no idea he had so he wasn't blocked there.

he just needed to look. a check-in? what sounded better than calling it plain stalking? at least gabe and ryan weren't there to peer over the boy's shoulder and chirp on him for stalking his ex.

the boy's fingers slid through her profile. he hadn't seen it in awhile, so when he saw four new posts in her feed since the last time he looked, he was immediately tapping into them. will's gaze slid over every single photo.

samy's smile was wide and bright as she stood with hannah and their other friends. even her soccer photos captured her large smile and seeing it made will smile back. he always loved seeing her love soccer as much as she did.

the blonde scrolled until he stumbled onto a photo in one of her recent posts. the fourth picture out of the ten in the set was of samy standing very close to a guy will didn't quite recognize. his arm was wrapped around her waist and something in will pinched.

that feeling—one he had so long ago he hardly remembered it—started resurfacing the longer he stared at the photo. memories of samy's senior homecoming flashed in will's mind while he compared her date to the guy in this photo.

who the fuck was this guy? luckily, he was tagged, so will went to his account. it was public.

upon further inspection, the guy was their age, a soccer player for the men's team, and worst of all he had a similar photo of him and samy on his account too. actually, the brunette was in his feed twice.

they looked really close. too close.

will scoffed. the guy wasn't even that good looking. plus, he so wasn't samy's type. the boy clicked back into her account to inspect the rest of the photos.

for some reason he couldn't believe how happy she looked as if they didn't break up. she looked like nothing even happened, but that was how will looked too. at least he tried to.

suddenly, the boy's phone buzzed in his hand. gabe's name flashed across the screen and a smile appeared on the blonde's lips as she slid to answer the call. his friend's face quickly appeared.

"hey, did i catch you at a bad time?" gabe wondered when he connected.

"no, no. i'm in my room," the blonde chuckled.

"okay, good. ry and drew are with me too. they wanted to say hi," the dark-haired boy pointed his laptop towards the other boys who waved.

"hey smitty!"

"yooo, what's up!"

will smiled widely at their hello's, "hey, it's good to see you guys again."

"we miss you a lot here. it's not the same without our other guy," drew cut in.

"i miss you guys too. it doesn't feel the same not playing on the same team anymore," the blonde hummed a bit sadly.

that was the hardest thing about all of this. on top of going through a breakup, will's best friends weren't around to help him through it. he only saw them through a screen now.

"you start soon, right? in a week?" ryan wondered as him and drew sat behind gabe in what must've been one of their rooms or something.

"yeah, i make my debut at the game next week," will nodded, excitement filling his system at that. he's waited since he was a kid to finally take the ice as an official nhl player and knowing that day was finally a week away didn't quite feel real.

"dude, you're gonna be awesome. i wish we could be there to see it," gabe frowned a bit which made will frown again.

"i wish you guys were here, too. how's boston been? the same?"

"yeah, pretty much. tailgates, parties, practice, you know. the usual," drew commented earning small eye rolls from gabe and ryan.

"mostly practice. coach wants us working extra hard this year after last season," ryan cut in and the blonde nodded. he figured coach would get on the team harder this season after they lost the ncaa finals without scoring any points.

"what've you been doing though? are the guys cool?" gabe changed the subject.

"oh, they're great. they've been showing me around the area and i think i'll really like it," the boy nodded. he felt content and the people on the team seemed like good guys, so he knew he was in good hands.

there was just a few things missing.

"met any girls?" drew teased with a large smirk.

will's expression faltered while gabe and ryan glared in the other boy's direction. they didn't hound will as much about the whole breakup anymore, but the subject was still touchy and they knew for a fact will wasn't ready to meet other people yet.

"dude," ryan mumbled, but will still heard him through the call.

"uh, no. i haven't, but it's fine," the blonde offered a tight-lipped smile. the other three studied their friend for a moment, trying to decide if he was being truthful or not.

samy's name wasn't one that came up a lot around them anymore when will was in conversation. they knew he didn't wanna talk about her, so they tried keeping her name out of their mouths as much as possible. they never even told him she visited last weekend to see them for their first home game of the season not knowing how that'd make will feel, but gabe decided to try his luck today with the topic.

"uh, samy was up last weekend. she came and saw us for the first home game of the season," the dark-haired boy informed. he studied his friend's face for a reaction, worried that will would get mad or something.

"oh, she did?" was all will said.

"yeah, it was really nice of her. she was pretty excited for us. we took her out for dinner and everything, too," gabe smiled a bit.

"that's cool. i'm glad she..she went out," will nodded while a part of him twisted.

he knew the guys were still her friend, he just never really thought that she'd actually fly out to see them still when he wasn't there. plus, none of them even said anything to him about it last weekend. there wasn't even a story post about her being there. will knew his friends loved him, but did they really think they needed to hide whenever they were hanging out with his ex so he didn't know?

"she asked about you..or well..we started talking about you a bit and she asked about you," ryan hummed making the blonde's ears perk up.

"what did she say?"

"just asked how you were. we said you were good. settled into san jose. she said she's glad you're doing good," ryan continued. hearing all of that made will's stomach continue twisting. of course she was glad he was doing good even when he (stupidly) broke her heart.

"i haven't talked to her. i don't think she'd wanna talk to me anyway," will laughed dryly.

"i'm sure she does if she asked how you were doing. she's not that heartless, will," drew chuckled some. the blonde could only manage a weak smile in response.

"do you know if she's like..talking to anyone or anything?" will tried asking casually so it wouldn't seem like he was stalking her account and so the guys didn't know he resorted to the burner account to look her up.

"uh..not really. i think she's just going on random dates. nothing serious," gabe shrugged.

"so she is seeing people though?"

when gabe nodded will felt his heart sink. he figured she probably would, but hearing it aloud hurt even more than he thought.

"why do you ask?" ryan wondered, eyebrows raised.

"no reason. i was just curious," the blonde attempted to play off his disappointment.

"were you stalking her account?" gabe said because he knew his best friend well, even through a screen. the boy knew about the burner account because he saw it on will's phone a few months back when he caught him stalking samy's account too.

"no."

"will."

"okay, maybe i was," the blonde rolled his eyes.

"i thought she blocked you?" drew raised his eyebrow.

"she did..i was just looking on my burner account," will admitted, embarrassment coating his expression.

"oh boy," ryan muttered like he was unimpressed, yet he knew will would do something like this.

"oh, come on. give me a break. it's not stalking. i was just..checking in?"

"i think you should reach out to her. see how she is?" gabe cut in before ryan began arguing with him.

"i told you, she doesn't wanna talk to me. she said she never wanted to see me ever again, so i doubt she'd want me to randomly text her. i'm probably blocked anyway," will mumbled knowing he definitely was because he actually did try and reach out to her about a month ago. his text went green, so that was a clear indication his number was blocked on her phone.

"well, i hope you know she does wanna see you again even if she won't say it. i know she still thinks about you because she wears her charm bracelet and she's always stroking the shark charm i'm guessing you have her?" gabe raised his eyebrow.

will immediately thought back to his farewell party where he talked a bit with mrs. hughes. the envelope had sat in his pocket all day deciding if he should find samy and give it to her before deciding it was probably better to have her mom give it to her instead. he didn't even know if samy would want it, so hearing that it was on her charm bracelet was a surprise.

"i wouldn't think she doesn't want to see or talk to you too fast, will. you guys have history. you're like family. we're rooting for you guys," ryan said with a soft smile.

the hockey player hummed, swiping out of the facetime to go back to samy's instagram. after another sweep of her recent posts, he did notice the charm bracelet sitting on her wrist. all of the charms were still there, even the ones he gifted her since she's had it. a soft smile spread across will's lips when he caught sight of the shark one.

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trickycreator · 26 days ago

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Drew these a bit ago, but I thought I’d share them on here anyway :]

Random fact! I fully colored and shaded Fred’s face even knowing that I was going to cover it up.

Yippee! Yeah, Xara is not the only admin left in this au just thought I would mention that because it seems important.

About the cult thing! So, basically I’m going off of the head canon (at least- I don’t remember if it was ever confirmed in game or not-) that each admin was in charge of one of the three realms of Minecraft (Romeo the Nether, Fred the Overworld, Xara the End) and in this au while it is true that they created each realm, there was something none of them had control over which was the Void!

To summarize it very briefly, one day after messing with the End dimension, Xara hears some funky whispers coming from the Void of the End dimension. She follows them deep into the dark recesses of the Void and has a somewhat coherent conversation with the ancient entity (force of nature?) and it tells her the supposed truth about their world, existence, as well as the other admins, not to mention some secrets of its own. She listens to its every word and this somehow leads to her making a deal with the Void. The original deal was worded something along the lines of “I shall grant you the secrets of your very universe, beyond your limits of understanding. In exchange you are to spread the word of what lies beneath the world. Make them one with it.” She accepted this deal, however she didn’t expect to quite literally become one with a portion of the Void. She learned what she wanted to, yes. But at the cost of her mind. And possibly everything she ever held dear.

Anyway! I might make a funny lore post dedicated to the Void and Xara at some point, but this is all I feel like writing for now. Have a good day/night. :]

Rise the Void!

(A few doodles under the cut)

Fun fact: the doodles I did of Fred and Romeo is what I used to figure out their color palettes in my style :”]

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moonpie016 · 3 months ago

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Moon goes on a whole talking session.

*Walks in and realizes that this is becoming a frequent thing to post on here. And I'm happy about that, because I get to show what I make all the time. :]*

But now onto the drawings, and will eventually make a list on things I want to do next because that'll help me stay on track.

---

Positive stuff below the drawing.

---

It's the dudes inside my head, yay. Though they're all asleep, well two of em are. I drew this for whatever purpose it would serve, that being that my insides, while still a confused state and overall over reactive response to anything that needs rephrasing. Or just anything that happens, good, bad, whatever, that it has a way of comforting itself. It tries.

It tries to do the bare minimum of existing, even if it is tricky with having to always remember and think of more to do.

How to react appropriately, how to understand things to its full capability. How to understand others and everything more.

It's difficult, not in the way that doing things is difficult, but however that goes. These conceptualized beings of emotion have existed for some time, don't remember when but they have. But they always hadn't looked like this, obviously/lh.

But they all serve the same purpose combined or separate.

---

And, to go completely off topic, to go ramble.

Songs have whatever emotional attachment they can hold, whether important or not, it's just something that sticks. Helps.

And as you can see how much art I make, how many times I've probably listened to most of all the songs on repeat by now, what random pieces of dialogue I'll spew to write.

Chonny's music is comfort. Now it isn't just his, other artists as well. But those aren't important rn. His music in general, not just CCCC. Through whatever emotional moment months ago that made me feel lost and confused on what to do, what do I do now. I needed to find something to latch onto, if not, I'd feel..off. like I wasn't doing anything, because I wasn't doing anything. I tried to get into stuff but it wasn't working, like it needed to naturally happen instead of force myself.

The music has related to my state of mind (no pun) at certain points. And I find that comforting. Concerning? Maybe, but comforting.

Like, getting into what's popular, what new game, but that didn't work. And I'm kinda happy my brain decided to be now fixated on this man's music. Sure every time I'd like to explain or show someone, I need to specify and always show specific songs. Cus. Yeah. But now, I see people's work and stuff, and it's all so cool. And though the inconsistency of this blog is very apparent. I've enjoyed my time on here, very much. Even if I don't always actually speak to someone, because I don't really know what to say or start a conversation. (Seeds/social anxiety). I'm still happy for whatever interaction I get. I'm happy to feel included in this bizarre/pos and silly household. Idk why I'm calling it a household. Just go with it.

Even if I linger around or just post a drawing, I'm enjoying it. Some artwork may be more serious than silly. But yeah.

And to also just say whatever without rethinking is great, now I'm not going to say anything out of word. But just being silly in general with my wording. Y'know? Make odd jokes or talk excessively. (Wow).

Sum it up, I appreciate you all. Though you don't know me or I know you, it means a lot. I didn't think a joke about Heart beating up Mind would be turned into anything else, or that people would actually say anything.

This is just a happy little appreciation thing. I don't know how to end it! I just felt to write this.

So, uh yeah. :3

*Runs back into the hills*

Thanks for reading my ramble/pos.

---

#chonny jash #chonny jash fanart #chonnys charming chaos compendium #chonny jash heart #chonny jash mind #chonny jash soul #chonny jash oc #oc #appreciation for all of you dudes #dudes in a neutral sense #yeah :3 #this'll be something when I re-read it #dancing dancing but not actually #Moon's rambles

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eveledoze · 7 months ago

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Which tadc ship do you like more? Funnybunny or Showtime?

oh well long-post comes-

okay i did a little searching, since i often don't understand such ship names. if google doesn't lie to me, then the first one is Pomni/Jax, and the second is Pomni/Caine.

damn, I thought funnybunny was the name for Ragatha/Jax 💔💔

i don't ship Pomni/Jax but i find the pairing cute. i don't sense any special dynamic between them, Jax just makes fun of her the same way he makes fun of everyone else because he's a jerk (i say this lovingly). when i discovered that this pairing was the most popular in the fandom, i didn’t really understand why, since i wouldn’t say that there was anything particularly interesting going on between these two. I think the dynamics between Jax and Ragatha were more distinct, which I immediately noticed, they had tension and i really liked it x) but then, after thinking about it a little, i realized why Pomni/Jax is the most popular ship (I guess?? it's just my supposition) — people combined two of the most main characters, one of whom is a badass-tumblr-sexyman, and the second is an angsty ordinary person with whom people could identify themselves. anyway i just find it funny that so many people like this ship. i saved fanarts of these two a couple of times because i thought they were cute. to be honest, kitsch's (@ bunnyjesters/ nuzipilled) works probably influenced my opinion about this ship the most. arts with Pomni and Jax from kitsch is probably my favorite among all the other fanarts for this couple, i think that he well preserves their canon behavior and characters despite the fact that the pairing itself in the cartoon is non-canon, and their interactions in his art feel quite realistic for me! i love how kitsch draws them and how he uses gestures and body language to show their emotions, it's very, very cute. so yeah, i don't ship them, but i do find some of the fanart of them cute. i drew this a while ago, so have this if it will make you happy 🌸

now Kaine/Pomni...ahmmm, to be honest, i was even more surprised that this is probably the second most popular pairing in the fandom? :D apparently it really comes across often and haha, i don’t understand it... i’ve never been interested in the dynamics of student/teacher or employee/boss, in my understanding there can be no romance in their relationship, maximum platonic, family relationships, understanding each other. Kaine is very quirky and doesn't seem like he's interested in romance (i generally like Kaine/Moon, but i really think Kaine is just confused by Moon's behavior since he's not interested in her romantically x)). it's more like he treats all the guys in circus like friends, colleagues or something like that. so yeah, it's weird for me to see romantic stuff with Pomni/Caine, but like the first one, occasionally i might come across fanart with them that i think is cute. once I saw a mini-comic (don't remember the author) dedicated to that circus teaser, in the comic Caine suddenly appeared in Pomni's room. Pomni, out of fear, hits him sharply, after which he got upset and she began to apologize <з

if we talk about my fav ship, i love Ragatha/Jax! i don't remember this "name" for the pairing, but yes, that's them. dynamics like theirs are my favorite dynamic in couples, i just love it when characters can't stand each other lol. i love the tension between them and i'm afraid i paid too much attention to it while watching the pilot... oh my god, a moron, who pisses everyone off, with a good-natured girl, who wants to help everyone, but she has to deal with this asshole. i guess it's the "from hate to love" trope, right? i like that the first thing that manifests itself in such couples is negativity, they just piss each other off and cannot calm down. but after a while the annoying cools down and they begin to open up to each other. ofc i don't know Gooseworks’ plans, but you guys probably thought that Jax is actually not such a jerk as he shows himself to be, and in fact he is a deeper character, with his own traumas and trials? let's not turn this into a tragic sob story, but nevertheless, Gooseworks said "every tadc character has a reason why they behave the way they do" and i believe that we will be revealed that. it seems to me that to some extent Jax and Ragatha can complement each other. Like, you know, it’s like N helps Uzi cool down and be calm, and Uzi helps N to be confident and defend his positions. maybe Jax can show Ragata that her toxic positivity is not the best option and sometimes you need to be tough, and Ragatha can help him open up, share his problems and well...to be less jerk-like. and yes, of course i can't get it out of my head that Jax called her "dollface" while he gave the others rude nicknames haha

also i like Ragatha/Pomni, i probably don’t pay much attention to them, but they're good. there are cute interactions between them and it seems that Ragatha was better than the others in being able to approach her and become somewhat of a friend. Ragatha has this energy of a caring mother or something, so her desire to help Pomni get comfortable in the circus and direct her to positive thoughts is cute. at the same time, Pomni looks extremely confused, but Ragatha is the one she turns to because she seems the most adequate and friendly of the others. i liked to draw how they hug, but in i think that most likely Ragatha would not have allowed herself to hug someone without asking, at least she would have asked permission x) however, it seems to me that physical contact and kind words are Ragatha's way of support, so simply holding hands with her would calm Pomni down

also i like Pomni/Gangle and Gangle/Kinger and i don'tind other ships as well !!

#evele stuff #ask #ship ask #tadc #tadc ship #the amazing digital circus #ragatha x jax #jax x ragatha #pomni x ragatha #ragatha x pomni #pomni x jax #pomni x caine

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life-love-musicaltheatre · 2 years ago

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This started more as a self indulgent joke I made in the tags of @unclewaynemunson’s post that I ended up running away with.

I just really like baseball and I think Eddie would agree with me that Steve with a nail bat could convince me to do anything.

⚾️🦇⚾️🦇⚾️🦇⚾️🦇

If you were to tell Eddie Munson that within 3 months he would watch a girl die, become wanted for murder of said sweet sweet girl, steal an RV, almost die himself in a hell dimension, get carried out of said hell dimension by his high school crush, and then have his name mysteriously cleared of all charges and /those/ events led to him playing a sport for the first time in his life, he would ask who sold you the drugs you were on because it definitely wasn’t him. But somehow, there he was, in the middle of a small clearing with Steve Harrington’s chest pressing gently against his back, hands over his own while they swung a bat through the air. Eddie and Steve were both sweaty and the repetition of the motion was actually nice. Eddie felt Steve slip from behind him and he caught himself from sighing at the loss of contact.

“Alright, think you’re ready to take a swing at a moving target?”

Eddie eased into the stance they’d been practicing and closed his eyes while he drew a steadying breath.

“Throw it.”

In truth this chapter of Eddie’s life had started a week ago when Steve asked him to grab Dustin’s backpack from his trunk.

“What the fuck, Harrington!”

Steve jogged over as Eddie gestured to the contents of his car. “Oh! Yeah, that’s my bat.”

Steve said it like it was the most casual thing in the world to own a baseball bat with FUCKING NAILS sticking out of it! Eddie blinked and gestured again, more forcefully since it seemed to him Steve missed the whole point of What The Fuck Harrington-ing him. Steve rolled his eyes and chuckled as if Eddie was putting on just for Steve’s amusement. (Which to be honest, he was, but only a little bit.)

“It’s /the/ bat, Munson. Y’know, the one I took on those dog things with.” He said it with an almost shy smile like he was embarrassed to be bragging about himself.

Eddie blinked at him. Yeah, that was something Dustin had filled him in on, but he’s only heard it in snippets till then, and at no point did anyone mention the nails.

“You still drag that around in your car?” Dustin added as he grabbed his backpack from Eddie’s loosening grip.He’d thought it before, but it never ceased to absolutely floor Eddie how casually his new friends talked about near apocalyptic experiences. He shook himself a little as a hard reset before taking a deep breath and reminding himself he did in fact care about these weirdos, who were now bickering over the merits of being able to swing a bat.

“I taught Nancy how to swing it, and then I kicked that demogorgon’s ass at the Byers’! You cannot disparage the bat Henderson.”

“Oh you taught Nancy? That explains why she’s crap with melee weapons and sticks to her guns. Literally! She could blow your bat out of the water with her aim!”

Steve put his hands on his hips and leveled Dustin with a glare. “S’not my fault she found something she was better at. Plus, I bet I could teach any one of you how to swing. I was in charge of batting practice Sophomore and Junior year.”

“Then teach me.”

Both boys turned and looked at Eddie like they just remembered he was there. Eddie was even a little surprised he’d spoken up, but he was never one to back down from a challenge and with a chance to be close to Steve on the line there was no limit to the type of fool he’d make of himself.

“You sure about that?” Steve asked cautiously.

Eddie shrugged. “If it gets you two to stop giving me a headache then I’ll even let you teach me what order to run the little baggies in, Steve-o.”

Steve looked at him hard for a beat before breaking out into a huge grin. “Alright. You asked for it man.”

With that Steve slammed the trunk and the three of them went inside. Eddie should have felt nervous, but with the way Steve’s face lit up he was honestly just trying not to swoon. He looked so excited and Eddie would do anything to see Steve’s face light up like that again. So they made plans, next afternoon Steve had off work he was going to teach Eddie how to swing his nail bat.

—

The day came fast and Steve had given him specific instructions to wear pants and shoes he could run in. They met at Steve’s house and walked out into the woods; Steve carrying a navy blue bag that Eddie was sure was hiding the nail bat from prying eyes. There was a giddiness in the air between the boys as they made their way to a small clearing deep in the trees.

“Alright,” Steve clapped his hands together as he rounded on Eddie, “time for batting practice, Munson.”

He unzipped the bag and dropped it before pulling out two normal bats and a baseball.

For a split second Eddie was confused at the lack of nails and a grin on Steve’s face that could only be described as shit eating. It took him a half second longer to realize he’d been tricked by Steve Harrington into playing real, actual baseball for an entire afternoon.

Eddie’s silence stretched on a beat more and Steve’s smile faltered.

“I was-“

“Let’s hit balls.”

Steve’s worried look morphed into a smile as he hid a snort behind his hand. “I think you’re looking for ‘Let’s play ball.’”

Eddie rolled his eyes and huffed, “Whatever you say, oh Royal Knight of the field,” bowing low before taking the bat Steve was holding out to him.

“Ok, I know you’re just trying to make fun of me, but actually the Kansas City Royals won the World Series last year so that’s actually a compliment.”It was Eddie’s turn to hide a laugh as Steve idly twirled his bat in his hands—a move Eddie was sure if he tried to replicate would end up with him smacking himself in the head—as he looked Eddie up and down.

“Alright now, I want to see what we’re working with.” Eddie started feeling fidgety under Steve’s gaze. “Give me a swing.”

“Ok man, you asked for it.”

Eddie planted his feet wide and leaned over at the hips before swinging fast, almost losing his grip on the back swing. He looked up (when had he started looking down?) at Steve to see him with his brow furrowed, biting his bottom lip. Eddie winced and shrugged. “Like I said...”

“No. I mean it’s not great, by any means, but,” Steve’s brow softened, “it’s not the worst I’ve seen. And you didn’t almost hit me so you’ve got that over Nance.”

Eddie felt something in his chest brighten involuntarily. He smirked at Steve, “So you’re saying I have a shot at making the team, Harrington?”

Steve laughed and Eddie felt like his chest was visibly glowing. “You already made the cut, Eds. We just gotta whip you into playing shape now.”

And as light as Eddie felt, making Steve smile and sharing something he obviously loved so much, so began one of the sweatiest afternoons of Eddie’s life.

They started with his grip, which according to Steve wasn’t too horrible actually, but needed to be more relaxed so it didn’t affect his overall swing. Steve used his own bat to tap at Eddie, moving his feet closer together so they were shoulder width apart, raising his hands up higher and lengthening out his neck so he was actually looking up and not at his feet. All the while he gave instructions about how Eddie should position his weight over his back foot and step into the swing, lead with his hips, and don’t try to end the swing till he finishes following the movement all the way through.

Steve made him do a few more, even doing a few swings of his own so Eddie could see what he meant, but it seemed like both of them were just becoming more frustrated, till Steve ran a hand through his hair and groaned.

“Fuck it.”

Steve dropped his bat and moved behind Eddie, dropping his hands firmly to his hips and pulling them back. Eddie let his bat fall slack, stuck between telling Steve off for not warning him first and melting into his grip.

“You’re rotating too fast. You’re throwing your hips too much and you’ll get hit by the ball if you’re not careful.”

Eddie could feel Steve’s words like a cooling breeze on the back of his neck. He nodded, not trusting his voice with Steve pressed this close, right behind him.

“You have to let every part of your body flow through the swing.” Steve was pulling his hips, “Bat up Munson,” and Eddie let himself be dragged through the motion.

Back, step forward, pull through. Again. Back, step forward, pull through. All the while Steve was guiding his body through the motion, it felt hypnotic and fluid. Much better than how Eddie had been doing it before.

“Good.” Steve moved his arms up and wrapped his hands over Eddie’s. “Keep the bat up higher. You want to let it fall back a little when you wind up.”

They moved through the swing together some more—back, step forward, pull through—and Eddie felt himself sink into the motion fully for the first time that day. It’d only been a couple hours they’d been practicing but his swings were getting surer. The bat was loose in his grip but he didn’t feel like it was going to go sailing into the trees like it almost had earlier. Eddie felt a tingle of something start to well up and spread through his limbs with every swing. Steve’s body was warm behind his. He was just starting to relax into the strong arms around him when Eddie felt Steve slip from behind him and he caught himself from sighing at the loss of contact.

“Alright, think you’re ready to take a swing at a moving target?”

Steve had gone to stand in front of him, pulling the baseball out from his pocket. Eddie squared up. Weight over his back foot, knees and feet shoulder width apart, knuckles lined up and fingers loose around the bat handle. He closed his eyes, took a final breath to steady himself before looking up at Steve with a sure smile.

“Throw it.”

Steve matched his smile before jogging back a few paces and taking a stance of his own. He tossed the ball underhanded towards Eddie and he wound up, stepping forward, and swinging sure through the pitch. He only caught the edge of the ball and it soared straight up into the air before coming back down and landing a foot behind where Eddie was standing. Steve’s laugh was bright as it cut through their clearing.

“Nice! You tipped it!” Eddie was scowling at the ball but looked up as Steve continued. “Toss it back and I’ll throw you another one.”

Eddie wanted to stay pissy but it was hard when Steve was obviously having so much fun. He threw it back the same way Steve had tossed it to him and it rolled the last few feet to where he was standing. He laughed again.

“Maybe next time I’ll teach you how to throw.”

Eddie laughed back, “How about we master one feat of athleticism at a time?”

They were smiling at each other as they reset their positions. Steve nodded at Eddie before tossing the ball, only for him to tip it again, this time landing in front of him. Eddie tossed it back quickly before squaring up again.

“Come on Steve! Give me a good throw!” He called out. He was long past denying that he was enjoying himself too.

Steve threw his head back, his mirth was palpable and it made Eddie’s face flush. “All right, you asked for it.”

Steve’s stance changed. It felt more serious, standing profiled as he hiked his leg up and let a real pitch go.

Eddie still swung at it. Of course he swung at it. He felt his hips pull forward and lead his shoulders and hands through his swing, eyes wide as he saw the bat make full contact with the ball and send it flying over Steve’s head and out into the trees beyond. There was a millisecond where the world was quiet before they could faintly hear the ball hit the first few leaves as it went through the canopy and suddenly Eddie felt pride explode in his chest. Steve began cheering as Eddie took off, running where he imagined the bases to be, egged on by Steve’s laughter.

“Eddie, dude! You’re running the wrong direction!” He doubled over as Eddie made a show of going around base numbers one and two. “Fuck it! Run home, Eddie! Run home!”

Eddie rounded close enough to base three before turning and sprinting directly at Steve. He jumped at him the last few paces crashing into him with a giant hug, sending them down to the forest floor. Both of them were too happy to care, they continued holding on to each other as they celebrated.

“Safe! Touchdown, Kansas City!” Eddie crowed from half on top of Steve.

“I know, you know that’s not right.” Steve said as their laughing died down. Eddie looked down at Steve below him and felt a pull in his gut. Sweaty and still so beautiful, he let his eyes flicker down to Steve’s lips.

“Is this part of the game too?” He asked quietly.

“Nah,” Steve’s smile practically sparkled up at him, “but I can still probably show you a thing or two.”

“You’re on.” Eddie grinned as he closed the gap between them and gave Steve a soft kiss.

He felt Steve’s hands come up and gently thread through his hair, not to deepen but to hold. They lazily let their lips slide over each other’s, Eddie more than happy to stay in their little clearing for the rest of the day, till Steve broke the kiss with a giggle.

“Y’know, again, I know you were joking but Kansas City’s also got a football team and-“

“You know what Steve? Let’s just stick with baseball for now.”

⚾️🦇⚾️🦇⚾️🦇⚾️🦇

Please let me know what you think. I personally think there needs to be more fics about Eddie getting into Steve’s hobbies too. I love the ones where Steve learns he’s amazing at DnD but please, we also need the reverse because there’s really something so homoerotic about the rituals we have for men to touch other men. 😂

I’ll probably refine this a little more and throw it up on my Ao3 in the morning, if you wanna read it there. In the mean time thank you so much for reading. Ok I love you buh-bye. 💕

*edit: since I finished this at like 3 am I didn’t really give it a thorough read through for spelling and grammar errors. Little bits have been edited. Hope this makes it read a little better!

#Steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things 4 #fic #my fic #my words #stranger things fic #baseball #Kansas City Royals mention #I just really like baseball you guys #and also I selfishly want Steve to be a Royals fan #honestly he should be a chief’s fan too #he’d love Patrick Mahomes

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lilsispro · 14 days ago

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Idk if people made W2H OCs cuz everywhere i look there like not there except for DeviantArt and 1 tumbler post (which omg I LOVE THEIR OC!! AAA SUCH A COOL CONCEPT! It was a post by @cactusdraw) which actually suprised me how little of OC are in this fandom considering the fact that it was ard the time everyone crazed abt making OCs to put into their fandom (COUGH COUGH ME COUGH COUGH.) Sooo, i figured that uhhhh i would post my OC i made a year ago that i never had the confidence to show to anyone except for my friends, they said it was a good idea to post it! That was in May- now its October 😭, so ive FINALLY built the courage to post it after 5ish months of thinking abt it, i bring to u..

Burger

Yes yes yes ik goofy name, but i like it :3 (random note but, i hate how big i drew her neck 😭 i remember trying to fix it but it looked werid so i just left it 😭)

Alright, now for lore drop for her ig!

Burger was a 16-17 year old attending Black Sheep high school, (think thats the high schools canon name-) one day she was found dead, she then went to heaven, not to long after became a fallen angel and was sent down to hell (idk if fallen angels exist- i need to ask Erica but i know shes busy but i really wanna ask in her message box in her blog 😭.) Then you know got a job to haunt people to get people down there so when hell is fully renovated it can go as one would expect.

Very basic very simple, but thats not really detailed, heres ghe detailed version bellow here instead of the basic structure: (Warning mentions of abuse, violent acts, and underage drinking)

Burger grew up in a not so stable household to say, parents were restricting, abusive, unfair, all the bad lables for crappy parents who basically to say failed at their job as a parent. So she mainly grew alone in her room learning guitar (base), and how to cook for herself and bake. She joined a band thats known around school for being cheap and decent. She also had a crush on a former band mate named Hidey. Since their band is known they have some form of social reputation around there, say in the middle of the social status of the school reputation system. One faithful day they got a commission to play at Zacks GFs party (im gonna assume he has one since hes a jock) for a few hours, they accepted. When Burger got home that day she went to go head out but then had a argument with her dad and got her guitar smashed. She ran out the house mad asf and used a near by phone booth to call her friend to get a spare guitar for her, they get the guitar and hwad to the party. They perform a few songs, everyone's happy, they get offered to stay so thru do so they dont seem rude. As Burger partied, Zacks GF dragged her to her room to speak privately, they get in the room, have a few drinks of wine after raiding the liquor cabinet a while back in the party, Zacks GF started to act a little of and before burger could say anything abt it, she gets pinned down onto the bed and gets her head slashed off. Turns out, Zacks GF had red punch looking similar to wine while she had wine,and also turns out Zacks GF hated her guts for one reason. A middle school crush on Zack. The most stupidest reason to have a grudge or kill someone over. So then she got to heaven and got a job as a guardian angel, sucked at that not even showing up to her job and instead did sinful like acts in heaven without knowing and got sent to hell becoming a fallen angel and getting a job to haunt a girl named Maria (which my friends OC) and drive her to suicide.

SO MUCH WORD OMG! But thats the detailish version of it! Maria is my friends OC like i said, she told me i could put her in so yeah. Also they dont have the best bond, simialr to socks and jons but instead of one being a joyful teasing demon, burger is a sarcastic ass, and Maria is a depressed teenager that annoyed by her demon. So basically Jonathan and Jonathan. They have some sentimental moments (AND GAY ASS MOMENTS) where they get a little connection to each other. Burgers has 2 canon connections to 2 canon characters, one with jon which is just rivals and same with sock. She basically hates their guts and constantly tries to persuaded Maria to mess with jon but failes horribly. Essentially shes a mix of Jon, Jojo, and sock in th slightest ways with the simialr characteristics/traits and the general way of acting.

Omg thats so much words i feel so bad for writing this much but ima end it off here! Also, other drawings of her

I wanna start drawing her again cuz i got the idea to put her ina a heather chandeliers costume for fun but i cant draw her hair the same way i did a while back. If i find the original drawing of her ill edit the post and pu it in! For now cya!!!

#w2h #w2h2 #w2h film #welcome to hell film #w2h fanart #w2h OC

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wazzappp · 8 months ago

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I drew. a lot for this. Also heads up for non RE mutuals this is going to be. confusing for you. I'm going to do my best to annotate and provide context but you are in for a wild ride.

Anyway long ass lore post for how Lisa and Robbie go from fighting to working together in this AU.

In the RE8 cannon all of the Dimitrescu daughters are made at the same time but for the sake of ✨the situations✨ I am going to change that. Lisa lived the longest as a human before being assimilated into the mold with a Cadou (infecting extension of the Megamycite). Technically her 'sisters' are older than her, as they were assimilated a while ago. Lisa has been a member of house Dimitrescu for about 2 years now. This puts her in this. Weird middle child zone. She wants to make her 'family' proud but she's also aware that what makes them proud isn't really the most achievable thing in the world (expecially with Bela to contend with. Older sibling overachiever to the maximum). She's got a certain degree of distance from them and sometimes wonders if she wasn't better off before all of this. Her memories are fuzzy but still there for the most part. She cant remember faces or names but she remembers feelings and situations. She doesen't remember families being like this (she wants OUT).

Chasing prey brought in is fairly standard for her. It's some of the only entertainment she gets. So when she catches Robbie exploring around the castle she has no idea that he's special in any way. He's just some new guy she gets to mess with before eating and DAMN he's FUN. If she didn't know any better she could almost think that he has experience being chased around (he does. he very much so does. all of RE7's worth). What she ALSO doesn't know is that Mother Miranda (big bad. Different from Lady Dimitrescu, who she refers to as 'mother') is planning on using Gabe (who is replacing baby Rose in this) to try and resurrect her dead kid with a 'perfect vessel' and this requires. uh. disassembly (in the base RE8 gameplay the reason Ethan goes to each house is because uhhhhhhhh his infant daughter has been dismembered and stored in jars and he needs to collect them so he can put her back together.... yeah). Robbie intervenes before this can get going and is instead going house to house because if he wants to get out of this stupid fuckass villiage he needs to collect the key components to unlock the gate keeping him in here (i need him to have a reason. to kill everyone. its important to me ok).

When Lisa finds out this random, but fun guy, she's been chasing who she thought was JUST SOME NORMAL GUY killed one of her sisters she mentally goes 'Oh. OH. THERES A CHANCE FOR ME TO GET OUT OF HERE'. That in conjunction with discovering Mother Miranda is planning on FULLY DISMEMBERING A CHILD she uh. Makes some decisions.

What you have to understand about her plans of matricide is that neither Lady Dimitrescu or her sisters can actually really fully die. Sure, their bodies are gone, but their consciousness is stored in the hive mind and they can reform later after gathering their strength. If she has to put her kinda shitty found family in time out for the sake of getting herself out of here + keeping her newly revived conscience clean she's absolutely going to do it.

(fuckin. backgrounds. dialogue. fuck. why can things not just take place inside of the void. DUKE MY BELOVED WE LOVE AND RESPECT DUKE IN THIS HOUSE HES A REAL ONE fuck now I got it in my head that he keeps trying to play matchmaker for them and i need to. go draw that because its too funny not to.)

Lisas plan involves this lab I had her mention in the comic above. It's where Robbie needs to go to synthesize more poison for the dagger of deaths flowers, and SUPPOSEDLY where a medicine that might allow her to go outside again might be (enemies of Lisas type become SIGNIFICANTLY weaker in the cold. She could try to bundle up but its still really not a good idea). She would love to go there herself, but it's in an area of the castle thats exposed to the cold of the outdoors.

The Two of them make a fairly decent team and Lisa finds herself having a LOT more fun hunting with someone else than she does on her own. They balance each other out pretty well; Robbie works primarily with guns so he can watch Lisas back while she's up close wrecking any grunts they run into. It's also pretty helpful having someone who can turn into a swarm of flies for puzzle solving purposes.

After all this Robbies trust for her increases SIGNIFICANTLY. He's still not really sure about her, but she's moved out of the 'active threat' classification into the 'kinda helpful' zone.

Lisa's plan has three ways it could go:

They all fail miserably and get sent to mental and physical time out in the megamycite.

They win and get to go free but either the medicine isn't there or it doesen't work. In which case she's just planning on getting as many coats as possible and Try-or-Die-ing it.

The medicine is there and she actually gets to roam free

Luckily for her, the medicine IS there, it DOES work, and Robbies sense of honor / noticing her usefulness (its hard to wage a one man war on an entire community of mutants ok you cant blame him for appreciating having some ACTUAL HELP for once) all align for the best possible scenario.

The cold does still affect her; her healing isn't as quick as it usually is and her increased strength / speed is a bit reduced, but she can go!! outside!!

She decided to stick with Robbie in getting out of the village as a whole. She doesen't really know what the world outside is like but anything has to be better than here (plus if she stays here she's probably getting shoved into the Megamycite by Mother Miranda PERMENANTLY and that just. wont do).

Also yes Lisa being with Robbie for the rest of his adventures means that she is there for Heisenbergs 'proposal'. She uh. Does not like that much.

this all made. more sense in my head I hope it at least makes a little sense out loud.

#Ive been trying to write this out for 3 hours now. how do fic writers do this shit. HOW.#moose i thought i understood your 'brainworms of a different type'. i was w r o n g #my art #ghost rider re7 au #lisa (ghost rider)#robbie reyes #gabe reyes #sketch #RE!lisa

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unhinged-summer-fun · 1 month ago

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common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 14

Pairing: Osha Aniseya x Qimir "The Stranger" Warnings: It's fite nite y'all.

A/N: Dividers by meeee. Also, to celebrate the end of Act 1, this is a two-part drop. I will work as fast as I can to ensure the post is up to snuff, but if you cannot click the link to Chapter 15 at the bottom, try refreshing the page or looking at the series masterlist!

series masterlist

chapter 14: pre-game

Osha tied off the apron around her waist and did a few ankle stretches to prepare for her short shift at the bar. She was about to call it good and clock in a few minutes early when Medora entered the break room.

“Hiii Osha!” she sang, bubbly as ever. She’d been on every shift Osha had so far and had shown her the ropes a little better than Kana had. Anything you need, I’ve got you. It’s quite the boy’s club down here and up there, so we gotta stick together and look out for one another.

“Hi, Medora,” Osha said, enraptured by her coworker’s chaotic entrance. Medora spilled the contents of her purse across the table and pored over it while she spoke.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here; thought you’d be part of the crowd.” She briefly abandoned her search to hang up her jacket. “Alright, where the crap is it…”

“No, Kana tempted me with that double time.”

“Always does—HA!” She held a tube of lipgloss aloft in victory. “Thank god, I spent all day worried.”

“What’s that?”

“My secret weapon. Pretty servers get pretty tips.”

“That seems…” Terrible. Misogynistic. Probably true. “Logical.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s awful, but I like money.” Medora juggled a few cosmetics in one hand as she held up a small mirror in the other. Osha caught her eye in the tiny reflection, and Medora gave a once-over. “You look nice. I’m assuming you aren’t dolled up for cash tips?”

Osha flustered. “Oh, uh. I’ve been trying to wear more makeup. In general. You know. Tips.” But that wasn’t the real reason. After dance night, and then after she’d left some on his coffee cup (This for me? Yeah, that’s for me.), Osha fully believed in the power of wearing lipstick around Qimir. Perhaps wishful thinking got her into this mess, but the compliment from Medora made her feel less… silly.

“Well, regardless of who you’re dressing up for, that color looks amazing on you.”

“I’m not—”

“You can dress up for yourself, you know.” She raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “I do it all the time.” She winked at Osha. “In fact, I’m doing it right now.”

Osha smiled, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. She took another seat and watched Medora work while she chattered about her day.

It reminded Osha of her mama, many many years ago. Every few mornings, she would take the time to sit at her vanity and painstakingly twist each loc and braid into a new intricate hairstyle that suited her fancy.

She knew, in retrospect, that this time was a precious commodity to her mother—just a few minutes of quiet that Osha tried her best to preserve, though her sister did not seem to notice. Mae had asked a million questions—about the process, about the history of the styles, about any and everything. But her mama was always happy to be around her daughters, answering each question with patience and respect. She also made sure to smile at Osha, reminding her that she remembered she was there.

It was rare, after losing her, to be remembered at all when she was quiet.

“Would you—um.” Osha hated this. She hated vulnerability, especially around people she hardly knew.

“What’s up?” Medora drew her riot of curly hair back into a high ponytail, then let it back down when it didn’t please her.

“My sister and I didn’t really grow up around—well, we lost our—she was actually kind of popular at school so she—I have no idea what I’m doing, really.” She was grateful Medora was the only one bearing witness to her idiocy. I could always leave town if this conversation blows up in my face. Start over. Live in the woods. Take a fake name. But first, one more shot at courage: “I never learned how to do any of that. We weren’t around many women who were dressed up.”

Medora just smiled. It filled Osha’s heart with something warm, like the memory of a Sunday morning in a place that no longer existed. “I got you,” Medora said.

Within a few giggling seconds, she had put Osha’s hair in a new style she was no longer hiding behind. This will show off your neck and cheeks—you have a beautiful smile, don’t keep it from the world. She went back and freed a few locs from her bangs—now this will make you alluring. And it’ll hide any eyeliner sins in a pinch. You have such beautiful hair. Just shake your hair a little and it’s like a baby with keys to anybody looking.

It was so simple in retrospect. So much impact, just out of reach because of all she’d lost. Medora clapped happily when Osha looked utterly stunned by the change. “You’re going to get tipped, baby!”

It was an incredible feeling. She’d had the same style since she was a child—easy to maintain, comfortable, familiar. Mae had grown her hair out a few times, but in recent years had gone back to matching Osha. It made the misidentifying in the gym a much more frequent occurrence.

Changing things up made her feel like an entirely different person.

Kana poked his head into the break room, holding a disgusting-looking bucket hat at his side. “What are you two giggling about?”

“You, of course.”

He rolled his eyes. “C’mon, we’re doing the draw. Would you grab them for me, please?”

Medora began plucking the time cards out of their slots and handing them to Osha. She found the common thread: these were the time cards of those on shift tonight. When she left several behind, including Kana, Osha, and herself, Osha went to reach for them and was stopped.

“I grabbed all I need.”

“But yours and—”

“Oh, I don’t go in the draw. Neither do you.”

“Huh?”

“You’ll see.”

She led the way to the kitchens, where everyone circled around Kana and his stupid hat. He collected the time cards in the hat and shook them around. “Okay, hey! Shut up! Drumroll, please. Tonight’s tuh-ripple pay bouncer is…” He plucked a card from the rest. The impromptu clatter ceased. “Dante!”

The gathered mass responded with a mix of cheers and groans, reminding Osha of watching her first fight at Unknown Planet. As ever, this place baffled her as much as it made her smile.

Kana returned the timecards to Medora with a soft thanks before leaving for front-of-house. She explained what just happened as Osha helped put the cards back in their places.

“Here’s Eltara’s, you’re closer—have you guessed what all that was about?”

“Bouncer duty?”

“Yup.”

“Triple pay?”

“Yup.”

Osha slid the card into a slot neatly labeled ELTARA LOHARNE. “Why’d you leave some behind? I thought Kana would be in it, at least.”

“Kana got the honors last month. Your name stays in the hat until you get picked, and after that, it stays out of the hat until everyone’s gone once. Then they’re all put back in again. Triple time has the capacity to wreak havoc on workplace relations.” She scribbled a little red star in the corner of Dante’s time card, then pointed out the same mark on Kana’s. “So we don’t mix ‘em up.”

“But my name didn’t go in.” Did they think Osha couldn’t do it?

“You haven’t won a fight in the cage… yet. Once you do, you’re in.”

Osha hoped that once she won a fight, she would be in every fight night after, like Qimir. But she hadn’t gone up against anybody for years now, and there was no telling if she’d even win that first match.

“That might be a while,” Osha sighed. “He seems to be overly cautious with my training.” She tapped Qimir’s slot, sitting just above hers. He’d gotten a normal label, Q LOHARNE. Kana had thought putting an OSHA COMPLIANT sticker on hers instead was hilarious.

“I mean, you don’t gotta be nominated by Q. Kana would nominate you if you asked him. Anybody who saw that spar a few days ago would nominate you—that was badass.”

“You saw that?” Osha cringed a little.

“Hell yeah, I did!” Medora laughed and finished her stack of cards. “I’d be so jazzed if I saw you on bouncer duty. I’d just sit and wait for you to toss some huge idiot down the stairs.”

“Thank you?”

“But it’s not just about capability. It’s about respect. If you have a win, especially an uncontested win, gen-pop will listen. The more wins under your belt, the more clout you collect, the less of a hard time they’ll give you. It’s math.”

Osha noticed there was no red star on Medora’s timecard.

“Why aren’t you in the pool?”

Medora’s smile was sad, a faraway quality to her eyes. “I train, but I don’t want to fight. Not every Loharne is made for the cage.”

Qimir had said there were Loharnes all over the city—orphaned children that carried the name into maturity. Nearly half of all the names on the rack were Loharnes—Q and Kana, who were already known to her, but seeing MEDORA LOHARNE near the bottom was a bit of a surprise, given that she wasn’t as reserved in her emotions as Qimir and Kana sometimes were. Osha remembered being numb to most of her feelings for the first year following her mothers’ deaths. Some days, she didn’t think she’d grow out of it.

“I understand that,” Osha said softly. “But I don’t even know why I’m disappointed. I’m sure it’ll be ages before I’m ready.”

“Only you can decide when you’re ready to face something. Having someone you trust to back you up when you do decide is encouraging, though.”

That was news. “Huh?”

“The nomination system.” Medora tucked a few things in the pockets of her apron. “Depends how you look at it, I guess. Take the heart out of it, and it’s just like… co-signing on a loan. At first, it was almost an indemnity clause, considering what it took to implement the system in the first place. That was a bit of a nightmare—the whole Lance thing.” Her face went a little stony at the mention.

“Lance?”

Medora quirked her head to the side. “The guy who attacked Idise ten years ago? I’m surprised Q hasn’t told you. It was and—well, still is big news here.”

“Oh!” Osha flustered. “I—he told me about it, I just didn’t know the guy’s name.” Even so, she didn’t know there was so much gossip she was missing out on.

“Yeah. Like I said. Nightmare. But anyway, if you’re a romantic, the nomination thing is so swoon-worthy. Back when it started, I heard people talk about how it represented this culmination of a relationship with someone at the gym—you spend so much time training with somebody that you form a special connection. Then they say you’re ready. Not only that, but they’re ready—to tie their reputation to yours when you get in the ring. Maybe I’ve just read too many bodice-rippers, but where else do you sign your name next to someone like that but a marriage certificate?”

Osha tried her best not to walk straight into a wall, and failed. Medora didn’t comment, too wrapped up in her diatribe.

“Then again, the whole thing could be a comedy—in the way that comedy is just tragedy plus time. You do all that, you subscribe to the ideology, someone vouches for you—and then you get your shit rocked in a nomination match? Now that’s embarrassing. The person who vouched for you gets remembered for your fuckup. Until a new embarrassment takes your place, that is. See? Tragedy plus time equals comedy.”

Osha still couldn’t bring herself to laugh about it. But Medora certainly wasn’t joking.

Kana released her from her shift about ten minutes after the crowd went upstairs. She bypassed the public staircase (where Dante dutifully stood his post) and headed directly to the dressing rooms to change, knowing at least one fighter would let her in.

Her path brought her face to face with another person headed in the other direction. He was handsome, in an I-got-my-nose-job-from-a-fist kind of way. Osha didn’t recognize him, but Unknown Planet was an all-hours joint. They could have differing schedules.

He didn’t recognize her either, asking, “Are you and I fighting tonight?” He gave her a slow once-over. He was about three times her size, but Medora’s enthusiastic vision of Osha tossing some huge idiot down a flight of stairs kept her from feeling intimidated or creeped out. She took no offense, knowing the brash culture of Unknown Planet was a fact of life. In some ways, she liked it.

She noticed the green balaclava in his hands. Brawler.

“Not tonight, buddy.”

“Aw, we’re buddies? I’d love to be friends, thank you.”

Osha laughed. Years of intensely repressed connection at the Temple had set her up for failure when it came to flirting (and, honestly, friendship), but Unknown Planet didn’t care for formality. In fact, they were at times brazen enough to hit on her in the brief seconds Qimir stepped away during their sessions. It was almost a game, how long can I flirt with Osha before her scary dog gets back and glares me to death. As superficial and vapid as it was, it made her feel wanted. Accepted. Welcomed.

And it drove Qimir insane when she engaged with it.

“Sure. Let’s be friends, Sour Patch.”

He looked delighted, but a new voice cut in with a razor’s edge—right on cue.

“Osha.”

Hello, my strange, scary dog.

Qimir stood on the upper landing of the stairs, looking more than ready to charge the man in front of her if she gave the signal.

“I was just headed up,” she assured him. She turned to the fighter before her. “I’ll just slip by you, thanks!”

Sour Patch let his hand brush her lower back, and she threw an exaggerated scowl over her shoulder. “See you around, buddy,” he said playfully, pocketing his mask and entering the gym level.

Qimir’s expression was overwhelmingly displeased when she arrived on the landing. “Are you alright? Did he try anything?”

He looked her over without trying to hide it, assessing her in hopes of finding the tiniest justification to pound Sour Patch into a fine paste.

“Of course I’m alright. He’s harmless.”

“He’s a brawler.”

“You’re a brawler.”

He pouted at the comparison.

“C’mon, I wanna change before the fights start.”

This time, when a hand came to rest on her lower back, she didn’t scowl. At the zing of sensation that rippled up her spine, Osha stood up straighter, preening at the attention. Qimir walked side by side with her, holding his ground even as other masquerade fighters were made to squeeze against the wall as they passed by. Like schools of fish yielding to a great white shark.

Beyond the black door, everything quieted. The usual pulse of we’re alone bled through her awareness as it always did when the world was shut away from them. Instead of getting caught in the moment, she did what she came here to do—change her clothes.

“How was your first shift?” Qimir asked.

She unbuttoned her black blouse, fighting the demons telling her to go out in the dressing room and do this. “It was fine.”

“I’m glad.” She could hear him fiddling with KT tape in the other room, the plasticky slide of release film dropping in a familiar pattern as he smoothed tape over his thumb, his—

She remembered, once, coming back from the showers at the pool to find him lined up in front of the mirror in the studio, shorts tugged way high one hip as he smoothed two lengths of gray tape from his inner thigh up to the crease of his hip. Hip flexor acting up, he’d said. Osha hadn’t been able to think straight through her whole cooldown.

She wondered if it was acting up tonight.

“N-nearly ran out of pockets for tips.”

“I’m not surprised,” he chuckled. Pretty servers get pretty tips, Medora had said. Osha tried not to read so deeply into three words as to pull a compliment out of thin air. It felt so incredibly silly of her to think, but there was still a small voice in her head asking does he think I’m pretty?

They chatted a little more, but there was an undertone in his voice that harkened back to when he picked her up earlier that evening.

Is everything alright?

When she saw him in the parking lot, she was hit by a wave of tension. Everything Indara told her that afternoon weighed her down and almost froze her feet in place. Crimes. Private investigator. Gangs. She wanted to tell him what was going on, wanted to do anything to let him know her sympathies had deepened, strengthened from a current to a riptide.

I can tell something’s the matter.

It wasn’t like Osha was in the practice of hiding her emotions from him. Sometimes, he knew her moods better than she did. But this time, she’d been very aware of her anxiety.

We don’t have time to get into it, but trust that I’ll be okay, Qimir.

He’d left it at that, but had been a little quiet during the drive to the bar.

And now he seemed to want to ask again.

“I got to witness the bouncer draw,” she said lamely.

She knew Qimir would never ambush her in here, but even in the relative privacy the bathroom provided, she felt like someone—something—was watching her.

Her voice trailed off from what she was saying when she noticed the Smiley mask draped on the little sink. Without him wearing it, the mask felt a little more sinister. A memory whispered why.

We wear masks and take fake names to prevent the guilt from killing us. Beneath the mask… There is no honor or glory in winning that mask. And the only people who know that are the ones who win it, the ones who have to wear the mask.

She didn’t know what came over her when she reached out to touch it for the first time. She ran a fingertip over the embroidered silver teeth that slashed through the black. Some were jagged and broken, some were whole. Some were over large, others miniscule and precise. It was an uncanny grin, more teeth than should be there—stretching almost ear-to-ear.

She discovered that there was more hiding in the dark fabric than she thought: parts of the material which had been frayed or ripped in the past were stitched back together in a patchwork manner she hadn’t been able to see before. She looked closer at one of the gnarled lines of black thread on the back of the hood, stretching almost ornamentally from one side to the other, in a thick snarl that resembled a familiar scar—

“Try it on.”

Osha yelped, jumping out of her skin.

“Fucking shit, Qimir!” she yelled. “What?”

He looked deeply amused by her antics, leaning on one side of the doorframe. “You should try it on,” he repeated calmly.

She frowned down at the mask clutched in her fist. “Are you trying to give me conjunctivitis or something?”

“Do I look like I have pink eye?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

The little eye-holes stared back at her from her hands, and she had to admit, she was tempted.

“Can you even see in this?” she asked.

“Not really. None of us can. It’s like a sensory deprivation experience.”

“What’s the point of that?” she scoffed. “Seems counterintuitive—the most exciting fight of the night, the eight wildest fighters, and they’re all blinded.”

“If we could see each other perfectly, the fight would be over too quickly. Like this, it’s just you…” he shuffled closer, trapping her against the sink while looking down at the mask in her hands. “And what you bring with you.”

She attempted to dodge out of the verbal corner he’d backed her into. The physical corner, however, she made no attempt to leave. “Someone told me you never let a fight get over eight minutes in the cage.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think about that when I’m in there, wearing that.”

“What do you think about, then?”

“Try it on and find out.” That was the third time he’d told her to.

“Fine.” She turned to the mirror, making sure to be careful with Medora’s efforts as she pulled the mask over her head. To her surprise, the mask wasn’t scratchy or unpleasant. It hugged every part of her face, none of the fabric sagging or bunching up uncomfortably. It took her some finagling to get the eyes in the right spot, but when she looked up at her reflection…

She’d seen her face more than most. Mirrors were one thing, but when another person wore the same face as you, it made you more aware of how you looked.

Her eyes looked different in the mask. Accepting that the person staring back at her was herself felt like swallowing a hot stone. It was intense and it was strange, but the longer she held her own gaze, the more she understood why the other fighters felt capable of violence. Behind such flimsy anonymity, consequences seemed far away.

Turning her head this way and that, she tested the peripheral vision afforded to her. There was very, very little.

“Yeah, you’re right, I can’t see sh—oh.” She made to turn around, but came in contact with an immovable wall at her back.

Qimir looked utterly enchanted by the sight of her in his mask, eyes going between her reflection and what was before him. One of his hands caged her against the small sink, and the other went up to hold her chin, moving her this way and that. The silver embroidery caught and fled from the light like fish scales in a river. One tooth would disappear as she turned her head left, only to reappear when she turned back. His thumb brushed over the edge of the smile, just below her cheekbone.

She wondered if he could feel the heat in her face as easily as she felt the heat in his hands.

“When I fight,” he said softly, hypnotized, “I use all senses available to me. My eyes aren’t the best on their own, but your eyes can deceive you. We must not trust them.” Osha felt a curl of unease twist around the curl of desire strengthening in her core. She knew that line, she’d heard it before—“To become so reliant on what you can see will betray you when what you didn’t see becomes the real danger.”

His hand came around to cover her mouth, pausing a moment as he hid the smile from view before he dragged his fingers back across every inch of that smile. “I can tell where they are just by breathing. Fear has a taste, a scent, and they all fear me.”

It tickled as he brushed a thumb over her ear, the fabric making a soft, crushing noise against it that made her shiver. “I listen for them, through the screams of the crowd. Some breathe so loud I could hit them in the dark.”

His hand moved back to cover her mouth, then drifted downward, over her chin and under her jaw to wrap lightly around her neck—then he rested his hand over her pounding heart. “Another reason to control your breathing—to hide from me.”

She almost moaned as his hand brushed the side of her breast on its way to take her hand, moving it to press against her belly. He brought his lips down beside her ear. “The sense of feeling is tied closely to intuition. You have to know your body and its impulses in order to feel where things are in relation to you. When you understand the signals your body gives you, it will tell you everything you need to know.” He paused to ensure her eyes were on his.

They looked almost obscene like this in the mirror, his body curled around hers, trapping her like prey. “Especially the pain,” he whispered, lips drifting to where the mask ended in the crook of her neck. “The pain tells you how to survive, if you listen to it. If you feel it, if you taste it.”

The white-hot slide of his tongue over Osha’s bare shoulder pulled a weak whimper from her, and just as quickly as it had come, he left, lifting his head again and drawing backwards. His parting words were, “I don’t think about anything when I wear this. I feel everything.”

He let go of her, leaving her slightly sagging against the sink. Looking over her shoulder at him, his expression told her he would not apologize for invading her space like that, for touching her so—so… possessively. Tonight, he was at his rawest self, primal in a way few men could truly become.

He wanted her, no doubt about it. And she wanted him, but… first, a touch of shyness.

She broke his gaze to peel off the mask, fixing her hair as she chattered through her nerves. She noticed him sliding the mask off the sink, pocketing it without a word. “I bet my first time in the ring, I’ll just black out and forget everything you ever taught me.”

He smiled slowly when he met her eyes again, content as a cat in a sunbeam. “I’ll make sure your first time is—”

The rabble in the gym crept to an unignorable volume beyond the dressing room. Osha looked in the direction of the noise, heart in her throat. Qimir looked like he really wanted to finish speaking, but she asked, “Do you wanna go watch? You could… talk strategy with me? Or talk shit?”

She saw him stuff down whatever the feral animal in him wanted to do, punctuated by a smile. “You have a point. After all, you’ll be in the one-on-ones before you get invited to the masquerade.”

“Oh my god I think I just got the joke.”

“What joke?” he said.

“The masquerade brawl that ends at midnight? And you need to have an invitation to dance?”

“We’re not dancing in there—”

“It’s a turn of phrase, oh my god. Let’s go.”

The balcony was surprisingly sturdy—nothing rattled or shook beneath their feet as they strutted past the other masquerade fighters watching the current match.

It was difficult to understand what was going on until Qimir explained to her: the two men fighting were tasked with repeatedly throwing one another onto the mat using the exact same form every time. Qimir had her answers ready before she even asked a question.

“Decision-determined matches are rare here. They aren’t run or scored like what you’re used to.”

“Who are the judges?” she asked, peering into the crowd for any sign of an officiant’s table. “Where are the judges?”

Qimir pointed to a dark, mirrored window set in the brick wall on the opposite side. She’d never noticed it before, but now the gaze of the black, gaping maw on high seemed inescapable. “I’m sure you have questions about the organizers, but not even I have those answers.”

“The match organizers are also the fight judges?”

He shrugged as if saying, why shouldn’t they be? “This fight is an endurance test. Keep your form perfect for every throw, and hopefully, you outlast your opponent.”

“Sounds like it would go on forever.”

“You think you could perfectly throw a 200-pound guy over your shoulder the same way with the same force, forever? After also being slammed to the mat ten seconds prior?”

Thwack! One of the fighters shook their head in a daze. The one who just threw them down helped them up.

Qimir had a point. Damn it. She hated it when he had a point. “Fine. Just seems boring.”

“It’s one of the more impressive feats of strength. This is similar to my nomination match.”

“How long ago was that?”

“It’ll be… 10 years next month, on the new moon.” That’s more than a hundred fight nights. How many has he—

Thwack! Groan. Stand up. Cheer.

As the other fighter prepared to throw again, Osha nudged his shoulder with hers. “Who nominated you?”

A muscle feathered in his jaw, and though he went still and didn’t look away from the fight, she could tell he wasn’t really looking at it. “Idise.”

Back when it started, I heard people talk about how it represented this culmination of a relationship at the gym—you spend so much time training with somebody that you form a special connection.

Acidic jealousy burned in Osha’s mouth. It was ten years ago. Chill.

“I didn’t know you two knew each other that long.”

“She’s known me since before I joined.”

Where else do you sign your name next to someone like that but a—

“Dang. Long time.”

The conversation lulled a little, and Osha tried not to feel like the fighter getting slammed into the mat. She had to get a fucking grip. “Well, the point is to win the match, so how do I win? If I was in the ring, right now, how do I win?” she babbled.

He watched another few throws before shaking off his fugue to speak. He pointed out flaws in their stances—they were actually losing energy just from standing still. From that point, he talked about kinetic momentum and adrenaline-fueled motion. “If you let yourself walk around even a few steps between throws, your heart rate will be in the perfect place to remain focused and physically ready—mustering your energy from baseline each time kills your stamina.”

It wasn’t what she expected to hear. She’d expected him to say something about finding an opponent’s weakness and drilling down into it every time. To treat every round like it was the last round. But, she realized with a jolt, that was just how the Temple trained them.

Qimir’s advice, by comparison, urged her to stay in the moment and ground herself in reality, not imagine herself at the finish line. There is no finish line. There’s just the road in front of you.

Another few fights passed before Osha recognized an event from last month: two opponents and one knife dropped between them like a hockey puck.

“Crowds love this one,” Qimir chuckled. “Shit, I love this one.” He looked at her from the corner of his eyes. “What would you do?”

“I don’t even know how to hold a knife. I couldn’t give a right answer if I wanted to.”

“I wasn’t asking you so you’d tell me the right answer. I know you don’t have any weapons training—but you’re still a fighter, Osha. You’re allowed to weigh in on things you don’t know about—more than that, I want you to. It’s one of the most effective ways we learn. By guessing.”

“You mean you want me to fuck around and find out.”

He rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

Osha hummed and leaned her arms on the railing to peer closer at the intense exchange. The fighter without the knife had both hands free to pull the other fighter into a complicated kneeling grapple.

“Well… from one perspective, getting to the knife’s a speed contest, so you’d have to know something about your opponent’s footwork relative to your own. Are you faster, or are you not?”

He hummed, encouraging her to go on. She paused as the armed fighter lost his grip, sending the knife skittering toward the fence.

“You could just ignore the weapon entirely,” she mused. “Draw blood another way.”

“The rules state that if there’s a weapon in the cage and victory is decided by first blood, the blood must be drawn by that weapon.”

Hm. She watched the pair scramble for the knife, as if hearing Qimir’s input from on high.

“Well. Uh. Another perspective is…” the same fighter from before took control of the knife. “Knowing someone’s strengths as well as their weaknesses.”

“You intend to spy on your opponents before their matches?” he said dryly.

“No, I mean—shut up.” She grumbled and pouted. “If it was me in there against you, you would know I would be more harm to myself if I had the knife in my hands. I could defeat myself for you.”

“Believe it or not, the organizers won’t put a weapon in your hands that you’re not familiar with. Nor would they put you up against someone that surpasses your ability enough to make you seem like a novice. The fights are balanced, so it’s a challenge to win, but not impossible.”

That complicated things. “But I’m right. You can still turn someone’s perceived strength into a weakness to get them to bleed.”

“Everybody has a weakness,” he ceded. “But seeing opponents as a stack of strengths and weaknesses holding a knife doesn’t change the fact that they can still hurt you. What did I say about fear and danger?”

“Denying your fear doesn’t erase the danger. It only makes it harder to survive.”

“Good girl. Now watch—”

How could she, when he spoke to her like that so casually?

He gave her a play-by-play from his point of view. “And that’s a victory right there.”

“What? The fight’s not over.”

“Believe in the power of the armbar.”

The unarmed fighter had pulled the other into a hold, the knife just inches from his face. The grappled fighter tried to twirl the knife in his trapped hand, blade flashing in the light. But the other moved quickly, squeezing his wrist and jerking his whole body to get him to jab himself in the forearm.

The bell rang, and though it was too far for Osha to see it, the roar of the crowd signaled that first blood had been shed. She applauded, feeling like a guest at the side of an emperor, watching gladiators bleed for his imperial amusement.

“The most important thing to remember in these match-ups is that battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won. You have to choose to win before you ever step in the ring.”

“What’s that, a little bit of hard-earned violence-based wisdom?” she said teasingly.

“Walt Whitman.”

A startled, overly loud laugh escaped her, turning a few heads in their direction. Osha hid her face against his shoulder, trying to stifle her giggles but failing. She wasn’t entirely sure, but the gentle touch on her head felt like a kiss.

She certainly hoped it was.

“You don’t need to worry about what will happen before the match starts. Things can go a hundred thousand ways once the bell rings, and only some of them will go right—even fewer will go as planned.” He raised a hand to trace over her bare back, distracted by the cut of her shirt. It was similar to the one she’d worn to dance night, so his fascination felt warranted. He let his hand fall flat on the small of her back, a warm weight she could have purred at.

“You make it sound like someone with no training can enter the ring and win by a mile just by improvising.”

“Yes and no,” he shrugged. “If you recognize when the winds shift in each moment, you can make almost anything work to your advantage.” He turned to face her, his face gone a little serious. “I’m not training you to make you into a trophy machine, Osha. I’m training you to make the best decisions for any moment, but only when you choose to fight.”

It was surprisingly tender. The conviction in his posture spoke volumes to the degree he believed that. It was strange to see vulnerability in his eyes, especially after the heat in them from earlier. When she asked herself why he felt so strongly about her choice to fight, Indara’s voice rang in her head.

She only fostered him so she could take him to tournaments and competitions across the state.

Qimir was clearly about to ask what she was thinking, but a new (well, new-ish) voice interrupted him.

“There you are, buddy!”

Fuck.

Osha sighed, grimacing in a way she hoped could be misinterpreted as a smile. She turned away from the suddenly stone-faced Qimir. “Hey there, Sour Patch.”

“Watching the matches? Save some interest for the last one of the night, would ya?”

“Oh, I’ll try.”

Qimir was a block of ice behind her. His warmth, so reliable and steady, had chilled unexpectedly. The hand on her lower back curled into a fist around a handful of her shirt—there was no way he’d done that consciously. She’d seen Qimir get cold like this before when speaking to some of the other fighters in the gym, but never to this degree. It was plain to see it for what it was:

Possessiveness.

“So you’ve been to one of these before…”

Sour Patch did not, at all, take the rebuffs Osha threw back at him. The wall of silence behind her felt solid enough to—

Hm.

Just to make things interesting, she let herself lean against Qimir. The hand at her waist felt like a goddamn claw.

“No, I actually haven’t seen The Godfather. Haven’t had the inclination. Ever.”

The claw squeezed. She could imagine him whispering, attagirl.

“Oh my god, you’re absolutely missing out. Why don’t you come over and we can—”

The creature behind her scoffed. She rested a hand on the claw, tracing her fingertips over his knuckles.

“I’m pretty on the hook for literally the rest of forever, sorry,” Osha told Sour Patch with an overly kind smile.

Perhaps the smile was too much, because he said, “So Wednesday night, are you free?”

Qimir inhaled like a bull about to charge, nearly disengaging his hold on her to engage his fist into the other guy’s face. Osha moved fast. Her hand shot out, patting the oblivious man’s bicep in an objectively condescending way. “Maybe if you win tonight,” she said, hiding her fangs behind a pretty smile.

Sour Patch lit up, and the beast behind her relaxed. His hand snaked around her middle, tracing a thumb over her piercing. He was oozing satisfaction. Sour Patch has no idea what he’s getting into.

“Well, get ready for a three-part marathon, then!” To her delight, Sour Patch turned around and walked away—probably for the best.

Qimir whirled Osha around like a goddamn top. He wore the same heated look from earlier when she tried on his mask. Heat flared in her core. Her eyes went to his mouth, where he bit his lower lip in consideration—or perhaps the last vestige of self-control. What thoughts hid behind those eyes?

“Maybe if he wins tonight?” he repeated slowly, an eyebrow rising with incredulity.

“I think it’s fair,” she said, heart racing. She couldn’t remember how to slow her pulse down—couldn’t remember even with a knife to her throat. His hands on her made it hard to think, let alone breathe.

“Fair,” he chuckled. “Did I give you the impression that I was a fair person?”

“Yes.”

His eyes flashed a little. It reminded her how a predator’s eyes would glow at night. “You should rethink that.”

“I won’t.”

His jaw flexed. “Last chance.”

“No.”

“And what if I win tonight?”

“I didn’t know you wanted to watch The Godfather with me so badly.”

“You’ve no idea the things I want to do with you, Osha. Nor how badly I want them.”

They were standing so close. The shouting and cheering of the crowd below went quiet under the thundering of her heart, and even the lights went a little sparkly and out of focu—

She needed to breathe.

Her ragged inhale sounded like she’d surfaced after nearly drowning. Felt like it, too. Qimir’s face flickered in surprise but melted into a much more pleased expression. “You should go down to the cage, Osha,” he purred.

“Why?”

Because he can’t control what he’ll do next if you stay.

He didn’t have to say it for her to know it.

It wasn’t a dismissal, but his command certainly dictated she should go. Before she did, Osha surged forward to wrap her arms around him. “Good luck.”

He stiffened, and Osha held him tighter. After a few seconds, he returned the embrace and thanked her quietly.

“You know, you need to work on that,” she said once they pulled away.

He chuckled. “What?”

“Receiving hugs.”

His eyes sparkled with good humor. “Well, I might need to find a trainer if that’s the case.”

“I dunno, my schedule could be booked.”

“To the rest of forever?” he teased.

She shrugged and turned to walk away.

“If I win tonight,” he said, catching her wrist. “Maybe I can get a free trial pass?” He tilted his head to the side, ignoring the world around them.

Osha wrapped her hand around his bicep, one finger at a time, before she squeezed, digging her nails in just as he’d held her in his claws. She didn’t stop there. She leaned in so her lips brushed his ear as she whispered, “Win first. Then we can discuss the spoils.”

She didn’t stick around to see the look in his eyes, but she could feel it long after she joined the crowd.

Kana found her in the crush of bodies.

“You are gonna get squished, girl,” he laughed. He escorted her closer to the cage and assumed the duties of an immovable human wall behind her.

“Thank you!” she said cheerfully.

They chatted a little between matches. “How’s training going? Q train you on any weapons yet?”

“Nah, not yet. We’ve only sparred a few times, but not at full strength or speed. I gotta say, though… those look fun.”

The fighters in the ring clashed their broadswords together in a shower of sparks that fired up the crowd. They wore full-cage helmets, half-plate armor, and steel gauntlets. This was the last fight before the finale, and the energy was palpable, the scent of blood and sweat permeating the air.

Kana laughed, big and booming. “I’m sure you’d kick ass regardless of familiarity with the weapon, and that’s a hill I’d kill anybody on.”

He had such a way with words.

“…thank you, Kana.”

“I also guarantee you’ll be invited to the brawl just because everyone wants to see what he’ll do.”

She frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, what he’ll do when you and Idise get in front of him at the same time.”

“Idise?” she said hollowly.

—you spend so much time training with somebody that you form a special—

“Did he not tell you? Q and Idise are pretty close outside’a here.” Kana looked concerned at whatever Osha was doing with her face, but he continued. “I’ve known him longer than anyone else here, but she’s been with him through some hard shit. A few people think Q and Idise were seeing each other on and off for a few years.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Think that they were together.”

She was trying to keep the jealousy snarling in her chest from leaping out her mouth. Osha had the urge to run back upstairs and leave a hundred purple kiss marks marking him as her—

“No. Q’s a lonely guy, and I think he prefers it like that. Him and Idise… I can’t tell for certain because they don’t really hang out, but I’m pretty sure whatever they got going on, it’s strictly on the platonic side. Things have been different recently.” He dared to wink at her, either willfully or unintentionally oblivious to her thunderous mood. “Since you came ‘round, and even before then.”

“Like what?”

“Well. Few months back, this perfect storm starts brewing. Q dropped the fuck off the map the same time the fuckin’ Lance guy was let back in the gym.”

“Let back in?” she squawked. One of the swordfighters staggered back into the cage, rattling the whole circumference with the impact.

Kana nodded. “He said he was robbed of his nomination match and wanted a second chance to prove himself. Everyone here saw straight through that shit. Fucker just wanted to get back at Idise for embarrassing him. We all did our best to ignore him, and nobody said shit to his face, but shit was dicey; a lotta people questioned the PTB for allowing him back on the premises, let alone in the fights.

“But they did allow it. He signs up. His match night comes. He’s not fighting Idise, of course, but he wins. Q shows up in the last round after a month of silence and wins his eighth brawl in a row. Some people say they saw him talking with Idise later on, but he disappeared right after that. Bunch’a people started rumors about it.”

“What’d they say?”

“Well, someone asked Idise where he’d been, and she got all defensive about it, wouldn’t say. My guess is she didn’t know, and had gone to ask because she was worried about him. We all were.”

He’d been pretty wound-tight for a while, and it seemed like he needed that break two-ish months ago. We were all pretty worried when he took it so abruptly.

“Now, shit gets even dicier with the PTB. Not only do they invite Lance to the brawl, they invite Idise. Nobody’s heard from Q. Isn’t answering calls or texts. I don’t even think he replied to the invite email, don’t think he even looked at it. Lance and Idise avoid each other like the plague in the gym. And no, winning did not warm any of us to him.”

Osha jumped a little at the clang from a sword hitting a solid chest plate.

“Night comes. They call everyone in for the brawl, rah rah, Lance gets called—he was Dizzykid when it happened—it goes fucking silent in here. They call Idise in, coulda blown the fuckin roof off. Everybody expected Idise to go round two with this motherfucker, just put him back in his place same as before. I’d say ninety percent of the bets were on that. And do you know what happened when Smiley walked in?”

“What?” Osha said, mouth a bit dry. She wasn’t even pretending to look at the fight anymore.

“He looked at Idise in the cage and turned to Wise, asking, the fuck is she doing in here? Wise just smiled at him, then he pointed at Lance. Smiley asks again, what’s he doing here? And Wise just smiiiiles. Like he knew what was about to go down.”

Historically, those fighters are more likely to snap when provoked.

“—and let me tell you, it was brutal. The match starts, and within two minutes, Smiley is beating Lance’s face down to the first circle of hell. At the first drag-out, his work was done.

“Heard later that Q sent him to the hospital in the same condition Idise did ten years back—practically the same injuries. Did it in less than half the time it took her.”

Story ends with this guy getting sent to the hospital—all fucked up. Busted skull, broken wrists, nearly lost his eye…

“He disappeared again after that fight. I woulda too, if I left a guy looking like that.”

Not just entering the cage. The terrible things I’ve done to leave it.

“Is that why the yellow mask looks all…”

“Disgusting? Yeah. That thing was more red than yellow that night. They wash ‘em, but I doubt that stain will come out anytime soon. I thought they should just get a new one, but my influence ends at the top of the stairs, here.”

“What happened after?”

One of the swordsmen sent the other tumbling to the mat. The crowd roared as the downed fighter rolled left and right to avoid two-handed overhead strikes.

“Well, now that Lance was handled, everyone re-focused on where the hell Q went. Short of sending out Idise to go find him, we all tried to find out. But then… he just shows up one night, pretty girl in tow. Orders her hot soup and a hot toddy.” Kana winked at her just as the bell rang for the end of the match.

They applauded politely and spoke a little more freely now that they were in between matches. “That was the first anyone had seen of him outside the fights. Believe me, you were quite the gossip item. Especially when he started coming back to the gym, training again. Still wasn’t really talking to anybody, though.

“And then you showed up at the fights, and his whole deal changed when he started bringing you around. Follows you around like a puppy. Never seen him like that before.”

Osha could have sworn it was the other way around.

Before she could ask a single thing, a hush fell. The reverent silence that crashed over the crowd was the same as the one she felt a month ago. The masquerade is about to begin.

CHAPTER 15

#common grounds #osha x qimir #oshamir #oshamir fanfiction #star wars fanfiction #unhingery #the acolyte #the acolyte fanfiction

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thefirstknife · 1 year ago

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Alright the new Veil Log is so fucking insane. I am completely not normal right now. Personal video because DLV hasn't uploaded yet, transcript from me as well:

Chioma: Chioma Esi, research log: Lakshmi-2. Osiris: What?! Chioma: Maya's... I don't even know what to say. I'd recused myself from further experiments. Told her to take some time off. She refused. And she... the minute I wasn't there, she started hauling the braindead Exos out of cold storage. Hooking them up to the veil interface. She burned through dozens of them. Reversed the entire machine's design. Used a chorus of braindead Exos to funnel data down to the conductor seat, projecting a mental imprint. Hers. I... I didn't know Lakshmi-2, but Maya did. And now she's... she's made this thing. It speaks with her voice. Has some of her memories. The way it looks at me... It's like it knows something I don't. Nimbus: Osiris, do you recognise that name? "Lakshmi"? Osiris: Yes... and no. Lakshmi-2 was an Exo and once-leader of a faction on Earth known as the Future War Cult. She died over a year ago. But she never once made mention of any of this. Of Neomuna, of... Maya. Did she know? Did she remember? This is all as much of a revelation to me as it is to you. It throws everything she did while in the Last City into question. Nimbus: I mean, with... if she was a copy of Dr. Sundaresh, then... is she really dead? Osiris: I don't know. For now, I must deliver a rather uncomfortable report to Ikora.

I genuinely don't know where to begin. I am absolutely losing my mind about this to such a degree, this is personally my favourite reveal in the recent years in Destiny.

Lakshmi-2 is a copy of Maya Sundaresh. She was made by Maya, hooking up braindead Exos to the Veil and using the power to create a "mental imprint" of herself and implanting it into one of the braindead Exos, that of Lakshmi-2. Lakshmi's voice is Maya's voice and she had some of Maya's memories. Lakshmi is essentially a version of Maya, with a copy of Maya's consciousness made with the Veil.

Lakshmi-2 becoming a leader of the Future War Cult is just Maya going back to her roots; Maya MADE the FWC. Lakshmi's obsession with the Device and looking into it is just Maya's obsession with the Veil. I am so shocked right now because I've spoken about the possible connection between the FWC Device and the Veil in April. Before any of this new data. What the hell. I'm pretty sure this is how Maya heard herself name the Veil; by looking through the Veil, she could connect with her other consciousness. I initially thought it might be with her simulated selfes; that might still also be correct, but in this specific case she may have heard herself, as Lakshmi, while exploring the Device. In the post I linked above, I specifically drew the connection because of a lore tab from vanilla D1 which I noted is probably just some old stuff, but that there's a possibility this old stuff is deliberately being made relevant again:

At 11:33 she reported the sensation we have called "The Opening Of The Veil." The Device recorded temporal displacement of her consciousness to the order of six degrees.

This seemed just like something that may look like more than it is, but with the knowledge that Lakshmi-2 was on Earth, back in charge of the FWC and running more experiements... Yeah. This has to be relevant. It has to.

Lakshmi ofc never spoke of Neomuna so it's unclear if she had those memories or if maybe they were removed when she was sent to Earth. Also when did she come back to Earth? Had to have been early enough to experience the destruction of Old London. Possibly in a team with Stargazer when Stargazer went to Earth to delete the records of Neomuna?

Either way, I'm gonna be insane about this for a long time. So much potential here for so much stuff. Really interesting that Nimbus asked if she's really dead; what if we could interact with Maya again, somewhere, somehow? Her copies are everywhere, after all. Not just as Lakshmi and possibly more, but also her Vex copies.

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 spoilers #veil log #maya #lakshmi-2 #chioma #osiris #genuinely sitting in front of my monitor in stunned silence

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vampstel · 5 months ago

Text

Okay, I’m just gonna rip the bandage off. Here’s a long post I wrote a while ago after seeing a comic about someone’s experiences with asexuality.

This is a vent/rant so beware!! Warning for suggestive stuff since you know, this is sexuality talk :P

I’ve been openly asexual for a pretty long time now. It’s not something I talk about very often; I tend to just say it in passing and move on since I get this indescribable “ick” feeling due to the acephobia I’ve received in the past (and because I’ve been sexualized against my own will in the past as well).

I’m trying my best to get rid of that “ick” feeling but after recent events, I feel like I’ve gone back to square one. AKA: I feel humiliated about my sexuality and think it’s invalid.

I’m aceflux, meaning my asexuality can fluctuate but not by much. I may be demiromantic as well but I’m still unsure of that.

Personally, I usually feel very apathetic when it comes to sensual things. Sometimes, that apathy can turn into repulsion; Very extreme repulsion that can make me nauseous. Overall, I just don’t feel sexual attraction and when I do, it’s very minor and at some points… I wouldn’t even consider it sexual attraction? Hell, I don’t even understand what sexual attraction is and why/what people generally find sexually gratifying. Sexual shit flies over my head all the time unless it’s 100% obvious in my eyes.

But anyway… I’m a very aesthetic heavy guy, you could say. It’s really hard to describe it but when I see people, specifically men, I feel attracted to them in a tertiary sense. I like the concept of affection. The thought of being in a close relationship makes me happy. I find men pleasing to the eye and just have a connection with them that can’t be explained. It’s not exactly romantic, nor is it exactly sexual or even platonic. It’s like a secret 4th thing, basically.

That’s all fine and dandy. I’ve accepted that part of my sexuality but what I’ve been very miffed about is openly and unabashedly expressing my attraction (or whatever it is) with men in my art. Which hasn’t happened in years. I’ve been proud of being gay but recently I just feel… Unsafe?

As you know, I draw men a lot. Usually gender nonconforming men, femboys, and muscular men. I sometimes draw art that can be suggestive due to the clothes being revealing, but I do not get sexual gratification from it and it distresses me immensely when people say I do. Hence why I freaked the fuck out about the uh… incident on Twitter that shall not be named.

I know I said I’m fine. That I’ve moved past the whole “people thinking I’m addicted to porn” thing and I have. I think?— After all, it doesn’t make me upset anymore remembering it. However, I won’t deny that the situation has reopened some wounds that’ll take a long time to heal again which sucks.

I’m the problem here, not any other external source. At least right now 💀

I just keep feeling invalid about who I am. Sometimes, I find myself drawing art I like (and think is tame) and suddenly think “…Maybe this is too much. This is fetishizing.” or “I should probably scrape this completely. It might be sexual since I drew a beefy guy in a dress.”

And since I’m blind to sexual and even suggestive things, I get confused and upset. What am I allowed to depict in my art that makes people understand I’m not a faker or have a ‘broken sexuality’? How do I become the “ideal depiction of an asexual guy” that’ll appease myself and the internet? Do I show my character’s skin? Do I hide their assets and make them less curvy or muscular?

And what labels or jokes am I allowed to say that won’t have me or anyone else thinking “Oh yeah this guy’s a fucking freak and should be deplatformed”?

I don’t care what people think of me, usually. I don’t care if people hate me. But nowadays I feel unsafe even in the safe spaces I’ve made for myself and that’s what hurts.

I know and accept that there will always be people who think I’m a freak. There will always be people who think I’m not actually asexual and I’m just saying that to get away with making mildly suggestive content. But the issue is, I’m starting to think I’m a freak by proxy and since I’m repulsed about anything sexual, I’m becoming repulsed about myself and my work.

It’s taken years for me to get comfortable with my unordinary attraction to men. It’s taken even longer for me to get used to the basic parts of the human body and showing off skin IRL and in art without feeling nauseous. And now it feels like I’m trying to get all that progress back again. Just because my dumb brain thinks I’m “broken” after being harassed online a month or so ago.

I could write so much more but this is so long already. I think I may as well just make this topic a special rant video for Pride month. I’m not sure though.

I don’t know how to end this post, especially on a positive note, but just know that I’m trying real hard to get back to being unabashedly me.

I’m probably going to exercise using the labels I use more often to get more accustomed to them without anyone (myself included) thinking “he’s a weirdo!!”. I’m also just gonna up the gender nonconformity themes in my art as well. Shit’s been rough but I’m still hanging and coping with the help of my OCs :3

If you’re asexual, or just struggling with accepting yourself in general. Just know you’re valid. You’re cool. I know that’s a stereotypical thing to say but I mean it. Don’t let your stupid head think you’re a freak. Don’t be like me, is what I’m saying LOL

It’s bad and unhealthy. It’s easier said than done but so long as you slowly build up self acceptance, you’re doing great. And you shouldn’t let people tear you down.

#꒰ v’s rambling ꒱#Sorry this is so fucking long omg #I’ve just been seeing an influx of LGBT discourse that I don’t like to see and it’s just #spurred me into venting 😭#I’ll probably delete this later #Especially if like no one responds cause that shits mad awkward LMAO #but yeah I just wanted to be open about stuff #Cause while I kinda dgaf anymore there’s still lingering effects of that situation #I feel repulsed about myself and I hate it

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mrs-monaghan · 1 year ago

Note

Hi! I'm new around here (but not new to jikook) and I saw your recent posts where you linked to, among other things, a post where you talked about the 2016 jinmin vlive where they were watching jk on celebrity romance. And I just wanted to say thank you for bringing that up! I think that vlive is wildly underrated. It tells us so much about jikook's relationship at the time. It really showcases how jikook weren't at same place emotionally in the beginning (and how insecure that made jimin) and how their relationship was possibly mostly physical back then. Jk definitely had a lot to work through. I'm sure he was already in love with jm, but had a hard time expressing it. But all's well what ends well, right? :) Very highly recommend that every jikooker watch that vlive if you haven't already!

Okay. First of all, if I have to link this post one more time I'm gonna start side eyeing y'all. I thought I was a pervert till I met y'all. I'm watching you 🧐🧐

He he hee! The video anon is talking about.

youtube

Its like 11 minutes guys. Watch it. You've been in the toilet for longer than that. Don't even 🙄 just watch it.

Anon I think you have put it perfectly. Actually. The last part where I reference on my post about JK not showing Jimin any emotions, I think that caused alot of fighting. Like alot. I joked about JK hitting and quitting but really that's how it comes off. The xes part was good. Probably really good. But after that JK would go back to treating Jimin like he did everyone else. Jimin knew he wasn't just anyone else. They had something going on and he wanted JK to act like it.

I saw something on twitter a long, long time ago so I cannot find it. And its now a blur in my head. But OP was alluding to JK playing video games and ignoring Jimin after xes. I don't recall how OP drew to this conclusion, but it was from something Jimin said. Something about JK and video games. Not sure. Like, we all know when it comes to Jikook its all about reading between the lines.

I remember seeing that and seeing where OP was coming from but I dont remember the context which is a tad frustrating rn. Anygays, it obviously took a while for JK to start acting like Jimin needed him to. Feelings wise anyway.

I am happy Jimin did not give up because look where they are now. (I'm sure the Jungkonda had something to do with it 😂😂) JK basically worships the group Mimi walks on.

We heard it from the man himself so we know it's true, right? He's stubborn, he's hard to handle, and I bet Jimin knows all of it first hand. 🤭🤭

Okay so for some strange reason, your ask made me think about this tweet; (Don't ask me why. My mind is a weird place)

Before anybody freaks out, I would like to advice that u take this with a grain of salt. My friends and I tried to find where/when this could have possibly happened but we couldn't. And we really tried guys, because.... WHAT!?!?!?! Why would Jin say something like this that basically outs Jikook? Right?

But then I think about how BTS used to word vomit alot in the early days so I haven't completely disregarded it. So hopefully one of u have heard of this because I would love to see it. Honestly. It's fucking wild. Like.... it's insane 🤯

That being said, 😁😁😁 the correct members are involved when u really think about it. Right? Like these are the right members for this strange scenario 🤭

We know this is how Jin used to wake JK up. Jin even demonstrated that one time exactly how he used to do it by touching JK's nipples. (I can't with the Tannies sometimes. Honestly 🤦🏽‍♀️) From the huge amount of Jikook nipple play (inside this post is another post about this) we can safely deduce that JK's nipples are sensitive. So to me, yeah? To me it makes sense that a sleepy JK thought it was Jimin touching him. IF this is true and it did happen, the maths adds up. Just saying....

Lord have mercy 🤣😂😂

#if jikook isn't real then neither am i #jikook is real #ask shaz #bts ask #jikook #jimin and jungkook #kookmin #minkook #jimin #park jimin #jeon jungkook #jungkook #bts #jikook theories #jikook theory

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sage-is-in-fact-very-tired · 11 months ago

Text

these should all have one place, instead of being a whole lot of rbs and individual posts, so.

Sage, during the season break earlier this year, compiled a list of (nearly) every wacked thing (and every little thing said that was *definitely* (probably) a character thing and not a cc!sherb/irl!sherb thing) during the streams between the break! Notes in parentheses beginning with 'future sage' were written like. ten minutes ago while I was looking back at these. anyway-

everything is under the cut bc this shit *long*

《▪︎▪︎》

[ALL FROM SHERBERT STREAM "Talking about the finale! and pirate fest!"]

- Yellow light background

- Blue Eye

- Beginnings of blood under said blue eye

- Blue eye/Blood is opposite to C!Sherbert's. (So, rather than being on the right, it's on the left)

- Faint-Faint Scar akin to C!Sherbert's one from S1

- Talking about potions/making potions IRL

- Referring to C!Sherbert's desk as "My Desk"

- Facecam border changed, Now White and Yellow

- Saying that they didn't do anything to the portal

- Trying to remember what the portal + Haley looked like

- "I'm pretty sure this is the same thing that showed up when I was at Haley's grave when I ran away, But I don't really remember."

- "I wasn't really looking at pants"

- "No idea what was going on with shoes, didn't really look."

- "I'm pretty sure you're on my screen," didn't quite exactly catch what they said, but they then asked if we could have been objects, or something along the lines- (Did conform that we *were* on the screen. And not in fact objects.)

- "What shoes were you wearing?" Sherbert to Haley, Haley then asking "Where?", Sherbert then going "When you came out if the portal?"

- Sherbert acting as though this is the first/one of the first time their hearing Syndicate ("I don't know why I know this song so well")

- Seemingly forgeting that they did a cover of Syndicate ("You did a cover of it. Oh, Yeah! I did.")

- "No I'm pretty sure that's a Q," not knowing how we got a bleeding eye from that

《▪︎▪︎》

[ALL FROM CENTROSS' STREAM "Mermaid times!!!!!"]

- Blood is more obvious, further down their face (More akin to C!Sherbert's blood drips than they were earlier, only more faint and smaller)

- "you still have blood on your face" "Yeah it's kinda been there, not gonna lie" "it just doesn't leave" (Centross and Sherb talking about the blood. While not necessarily a wack thing - we know its bleeding - its definitely a little thing to point out)

- "I don't remember most things, actually," Centross then tells them how weird that is, and how he feels to constantly re-tell them things. ("It's weird, It's like I have to re-tell you everything")

- "I went to school, it was weird, wasn't used to that one."

- "Rae put us in box," when questioned on 'Rae' (Because Centross was on Mer, So it would've been Theo), "Yeah, Rae." (Rather set on it being Rae and not Theo.)

- (Don't know when this Happened) Chat asked about Sherbert's Blue Eye and what was up with it, and Centross then responded "What do you mean? That's their normal eye."

《▪︎▪︎》

[ALL FROM HEYHAY STREAM "Fable SMP Build Tour!!"]

- During when Heyhay is showing off the burned old Ominous Bane base, Sherbert (In chat) say "yeah I burned it after everything" which. once again talking about C!Sherbert in the first person as though they *are* C!Sherbert

- When Heyhay shows off Perix's lab, Sherbert (In chat, again) says "oh so thats what those looked like," referring to the big brewing stands. this is despite the fact that Rae drew C!Sherbert a picture of them, and gave it to C!Sherbert. (Tho, Could be in reference to the materials.) [A very in character thing to say.]

- In response to a question about that (I couldn't watch the stream live, to look at chat, and heyhay doesn't put the chat up, so I don't know what the question was-), Sherbert responds, "well i never went to the alchemy lab so-" again, despite Rae drawing them a picture and givving it to them (Again, could ve in reference to material) [Also again, Very in-character thing to say. Using 'I' in reference to C!Sherbert.]

《▪︎▪︎》

[ALL FROM SHERBERT STREAM "IT'S CRAB TIME"]

- Blood seems to have decreased since Centross' stream where it was further down. Either that or it's extra-extra faint and was just more noticeable in Centross' stream.

- The faint Scar that was there previously is no longer there

- Few Minutes In, right when they open minecaft, The Background light changes from yellow to green. (Presumably connected to the fact that Krit's not bleeding eye is Green and/or the Rave room)

- Among us are not yellow and purple, Now Orange and Green (Also corresponding to Krit's eye colors)

- Kirt acknowledging things IRL. Specifically the Among Us, and saying how 'They've always been those colors' [Put In this list because while *in* character (I think. They seemed in character) they most definitely acknowledged things IRL]

- After they leave Minecraft, Light changes back to yellow.

《▪︎▪︎》

[ALL FROM SHERBERT STREAM "WE'RE GOING TO THE NETHER"]

- Blood still really faint, but going a little further down their face that last stream (Though, it is to be noted that it is not as far down as in Centross' stream the other day)

- Among us are orange and white (? Could be light blue. very hard to tell with the lighting)

- The maniquine that holds C!Sherbert's coat, goggles, and scarf (the one that hangs on their belt) is now infront of CC!Sherbert's Non-Binary flag.

- Few Minutes In, once they open minecaft, the light in the background changes to purple. (Seems to be the usual (before the whole irl lore stuff) shade)

- "I geuss I cosplayed me a bit ago-"

- They care a lot about *this* hardcore world (Could Jist be Hardcore Lore, Could Be CCC! Lore. Don't know which one.)

- A Jack Stauber song started playing (C!Sherbert canonically only listens to Jack Stauber)

- Syndicate started playing after, They got excited about it

- *Another* Jack Stauber song. (Outside of this, Music seems to be going through its normal rotation)

- A fucking 'nother one- (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- ...Another one. We are on. #4 I do believe. (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- "Why do I know this music-?" (They say, lipsinking and dancing like they *know* the music)

- ....#5 now. (Another Jack Stauber song started playing. Though this one was significantly shorter than the rest.)

- A soul shrine showed up in hardcore, when going to look at it, the Nether star had a message in Quixian presumably connecting to the whole IRL lore stuff going on (Tranlation - ⏁⏅ṽ⏇⏅ ⍉⍔⍉ ⍒⌭√ ⌭⍭, UHZKH GLG BRX RJ, (Shift 4 Backward) REWHE DID YOU OG, WHERE DID YOU GO)

- *Another* (#6) Jack Stauber song started playing (It also ran shorter)

- Another (#7) Jack Stauber song started playing (Whole song plays through)

- Another (#8) Jack Stauber song started playing (Whole thing plays through)

- After they close minecaft, light changes back to yellow/white

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "FABLE SMP S2 CAST QNA!"]

- Their Pride flags swapped (They're on the opposite sides)

- Sherbert doesn't introduce their character ('I'm Sherbert and I use They/Them pronouns' when questioned, 'Nothing else')

- Characters glitching on the couch (Haley glitching to late s2, and Chaos glitching to a ghost) [Stays that way for the rest of the stream.]

- "A bunch of you started drawing me with wing ears cause I want to be birb." (Once again referring to C!Sherbert in the first person.)

- Everytime Sherbert's answered so far, it's gone back an forth between 3rd and 1st person.

- "It's a weird memory feeling" (And then Centross going "Yeah?")

- When they said their favorite god was Quixis, their light started to change rainbow. They did go back to white/yellow after.

- "Uh. Me." (Seemed very unsure, did not elaborate.)

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "MESSING AROUND IN THE 1.20 SNAPSHOT!"]

-Blood is still faint, but further down their face

- Maniquine (The one with C!Sherbert's fit) is gone from frame

- They open minecaft, light doesn't change

- Among Us are white and red

- Wack Music #1 (A Jack Stauber song started playing)

- Wack Music #2 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- Wack Music #3 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- "It's *my* music, nice." (The only music C!Sherbert listens to is Jack Stauber. Presumably this is why CCC!Sherbert refers to it as "My Music," once again referring to C!Sherbert in first person.)

- Searching up "NETH", really quietly they went, "Netherum?"

- Wack Music #4 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- "I love these songs, they're my songs. I listen to them all the time."

- "Which look most like my converse?" (Refering to C!Sherbert's Yellow/Purple converse as 'my converse')

- "I can make my armor at some point" (Referring to C!Sherbert's armor in 1st person)

- Wack Music #5 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- Wack Music #6 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- Sherbert going "Don't take this as Canon" when trying to remember their wings name. (Implying the rest of this whole bit *is*)

- Wack Music #7 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- "I won't lie, my favorite flower is a blue orchid, but it may change to this."

- Wack Music #8 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing)

- Wack Song #9 (Another Jack Stauber song started playing. This one ran shorter.)

- "Rae is gonna- Rae is gonna ascend." (Talking about the new bookshelves.)

- "Rae is gonna love these. I gotta make him some whenever I- whenever I see him again." (Again, talking about the new bookshelves.)

- "I've never speedrun before." "I've only been to the end once." "I have no idea what I'm doing."

- "It's been a long time since I've had to, I dunno, start over."

- "It's been about a year or so." (Season 2 of Fable went on for about a year before the finale.)

- "I don’t know I’ve never done this before"

- "I guess I killed the dragon that one time but I don’t know."

- "I am birb, I got my little wing ears and everything"

- "Yeah, I'll be used to the thunder, I'm not worried about that."

- "'Funky eyes,' I already have a funky eye, i cant handle more."

- "I am not used to being in a new world, kinda forgot this was a thing."

- "I guess if Momboo’s not here then it won’t rain, huh."

- "Always thunder is a lie. I geuss Momboos not here to do that, so I guess that's fine."

- "We gotta go to the moon again."(Refering to the time they played portal. (Portal!Sherbert))

- "'Turn yourself into a warden,' Uh, that's trauma."

- "I guess we're going to the moon again. I wasn't on the moon for a very long time last time, but i definitely was up there." (Portal!Sherbert)

- Sherbert seems a tad stressed (While trying to get to the moon.)

- "Last time I was here I was just kinda getting rid of a robot." (Portal!Sherbert)

- "Well I guess the dude I left up here is doing pretty good for himself." (Portal!Sherbert)

- "Honestly not the weirdest thing that has happened to me. I wont lie, I've had way weirder things happen to me. Objectively. "

- "Giant warden? But this is just going to give me trauma."

- "I got to go to the moon again." (Portal!Sherbert)

- Goes to sleep at the end, same way they end lore.

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "THIS GAME MIGHT MAKE ME CRY"]

- Blood a little further down their face

- Blood around their eye a little darker

- Scar (C!Sherbert's scar) is back

- When asked what crimes they commited, they listed some thing that C!Sherbert did.

- "Jerold where are you? I thought you left me too..." (..so many things. So many things about that sentence.)

- "At least this box is grey, i think I would be a lot worse if I was in another one of the black boxes." "'No obby.' Yeah, exactly."

- "How long is my sentence I’m not necessarily saying I want to get out."

- "I've spent time in boxes before."

- "Might rip up my clothes a little, but it's okay."

- "At least I have something to do in prison this time."

- "You know. This isn't - This isn't to far off from my communicatior.."

- "'Are things talking to right now?' I mean, sure, yeah. I'm in a prison, not sure how else you would be talking to me."

- "'Charles did it,' Yeah, probably."

- They sound nervous. Very akin to how C!Sherbert sounded when they got put in the prison

- Light Blue and Green/Lime Among us.

- "You don’t have to spend your money on games, I’m okay."

- "I've done this before."

- "Do I get out ever?"

- "Atleast not in the ones I've been in, isn't there supposed to be an outside area?"

- "I'd like to get out I probably have some people I'd like to see, maybe… Maybe…"

-"'You remember the prison?' Yeah I remember a lot of things."

-"I'm pretty sure I have people waiting for me on the outside."

-"'Time seems to go slower when in prison,' Yeah. Something like that."

-"Is that an eye? Ugh….Illuminati confirmed."

- "I'm sure they don't want my eye."

- "'What's you eye doing?' Bleeding like always."

- "You know, my communicatior didn't have games."

- "Me and a significant amount of objects that can speak-"

- "I've done things in the past, but I'm pretty sure in the past - 8 days, not the ones in here, i havent done anything that warrents prison." (The finale was 8 days ago.)

- "'Another almost happy ending.' Yeah."

- When Sherb closes the game, they sorta do their thing they do at the end of lore. (You know what I'm talking about-)

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "ADVENTURE FOR THE LIL CRAB GUY"]

- Blood seems a tad darker

- Scar (C!Sherbert's) is still there

- Among Us are Red and Orange (Differing from the last time they were on Mer - Which was Orange and Green.)

- They opened minecaft and the light changed to lime green

- "'What happened to the purple and yellow Among uss?' These are the Among Us? This is what they've always been."

- Krit finds an emerald with Quixian written on it, Translates to 'MAYBE THIS ONE?' (Ψ⦚⍔⏚⏅ ṽ⌗⌘⏄ ⍕⍔⌮ - FILTH ZAOP ULV - YBEMA STHI NEO - MAYBE THIS ONE) Presumably Quixis attempting to figure out where Sherbert went after they went through the portal. (Though, if they are in charge of the Rave-Room, presumably they do know where the portals go, and would know that they didn't go through the one to Mer after tye Fable one went out.)

- Centross walks into their room, They have a little crab-claw thingy. They click it. A lot, and Sherb goes 'It's like me, Ahhh-' (Acknowledging things IRL while also in character.)

- "'Little Itty Bitty Bell,'" Yeah, for the Bits!" (Acknowledging things IRL things in character.)

- They close minecaft, Lights change back to yellow.

- MER SMP thumbnail for this stream - The Quixian on the thumbnail is different than what it is in the vod, it Translates to "HELP ME REACH THEM" (⍭⍹Ψ⌆ ⏇⌆ ⌗Ψ⏄⌆⍅ ⌆⏇⌭Ψ - JNFC KC AFPCY CKRF - LPHE ME CHREA EMTH - HELP ME REACH THEM)

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "FABLE SMP AMONG US: The Threequel")

- On Plush Shelf - Among Us swaped with purple blob, Techno and Jshlatt swapped, and Techno then swapped with Cubone

- Scar (C!Sherbert's) is gone (Again)

- Light changed to a green-Blue, Teal, Cyan if you will. (Not the same as the Mer green)

- 'Among Us' code cover Changes, Translates to 'ARE YOU HERE?' (⍋⍱⌬ ⏚√⍹ ⍋⍉⍋⌬ - DZQ TXN DGDQ - EAR UYO EHER - ARE YOU HERE? (1/2 Right)

- 'Among Us' code cover changes back

- "It's been a while since I've just gotten to do this."

- "That's inevitable. In every world and this one."

- "Even though she's.. back. When did she back?"

- "'Your name is Sherbert, Right?' No, It's a.. Nickname that I got."

- Light changes back after they close Among us.

- The Among Us are Orange and White

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "FISH FRIENDS"]

- Blood is further down

- "It's gonna be a *me* CMV." (Refering to C!Sherbert in first person.)

- Lights changed to green when they opened minecaft

- They have to restart minecaft and light changes back to Yellow

- Lights do eventually turn back to green after they open minecaft

- They close Minecaft light goes back to Yellow

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "GIANT CHICKENS, my worst nightmare"]

- Blood Is darker and further down

- Scar (C!Sherbert's) is back

- Light does not change as they open the game

- Among us are Red and White

- "Waking up places, Going through stuff, Kinda my bit."

- "Hey Charles, you wanna talk to me in an odd dream sequence again and really show everybody why I hate you so much?" (Excuse me. What.) (okay no future sage here, i feel like we need to acknowledge this??????)

- "He has a higher kill count than me, guys. Sure my kill count is only one.."

- "I don't think he's gone."

- Charles is not in the basket, now on the desk.

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "FABLE SMP SURVIVAL GAMES"]

- Blood Is slightly further down (A little paler than prev. stream.)

- Scar (C!Sherbert's) is there but extra faint

- They open Minecaft, Light change to pink (Event Skin eye is pink, this is an event. Hence the pink.)

- They IRL stretch (future sage here. what??)

- While the were drowning, They say "..here again.." really quietly. (Raft!Sherb)

- "I've spent a lot of time practicing for things like this." (GMS!Sherb???????)

- Wack Music #1

- Wack Music #2

- Wack Music #3

- "This is my first time here though.." (Refering to the Mansion. Which is a direct contradictory to canon.)

- Wack Music #4

- Wack Music #5

- "What's this music playing? This is not my fighting music."

- Wack Music #5

- "It's nice to finally win one of these for once, competing in enough anyway."

- While downing (Again) they go, "I've been here before." (Raft!Sherb)

- Near the end of their drowning, They go, "Bye ship." But they look very confused after. (Raft!Sherb)

- Wack Music #6 (Not Jack Stauber, But it is the sad lore music.)

- Wack Music #7

- After they shot and killed Haley in dodge bolt, they go, "In every world. In this one and the next."

- Wack Music #8

- "No idea where the next one of these will be, but hey."

- "Nice to win one for once."

- They close minecaft, Lights change back to yellow

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "DRAWING MORE SHERBS!"]

- Blood is Darker

- Scar (C!Sherbert's) is gone again

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "HARDCORE TIME!"]

- Music is not usual music (On starting screen)

- Eyes are now Purple and Yellow, but now in a C!Sherbert way, Purple eye was the blue one

- Other eye, was brown, now yellow, is also beginning to bleed

- Scar (C!Sherbert's) is there again

- Charles in background is now Yellow Among us

- Red and Green Among us

- Crab rave not Crab rave

- Chuck is not Chuck. He is Ralph. (Who is a Turtle. Not a Crab)

- Quixis writing on note on desk, Translates to "I THINK I GOT TO YOU" (⍉ ⍔⦚⌭Ψ⍉ ⍉ ⭗⌭⍾ ⌭⭗ ⭗⍩⍬ - G LIRFG G MRE RM MSW - I NKTHI I OTG TO OUY - I THINK I GOT TO YOU)

- Blanket on chair is Light Yellow and Light Blue (Not Normal Yellow and Purple)

- Open Minecaft, Light changes to light purple (Not usual purple)

- "I feel weird." "I feel like I'm wrong."

- "I don't feel like I'm supposed to be here."

- IRL touches purple bleeding eye, gives a weird look

- "Something's wrong. Somethings wrong today."

- "He doesn't belong here, then again-"

- They stretch for a moment, Light momentarily changes yellow.

- Song time, Lights change back to yellow

- "Guess this is where I can die, just one and done."

- They go back to playing Minecaft, Light changes back to purple

- Ears are switched around (White and Black in front, Yellow and purple in back.)

- "'Just like normal?' Yeah just like normal."

- "I have... I don't know what I've been doing."

- Wack Music probably not #1

- "I was sleeping. Maybe. When's the last time I slept?" Quieter, "It doesn't matter."

- "Ahh, My brain feel fuzzy."

- Wack Music #2 (Probably.)

- "'Well what happened before you woke up might contribute to how you feel, What is the last thing you remember before you wake up?' Um. What was- I was finishing the- I went to the- And then I- I- was like.. crying.." (Context wise, No idea, but. In Sherb's most recent C!Sherbert tiktok, They were crying. I assume this is in reference to that.) (future sage again, i think about that tiktok *often*)

- "Yo, I wanna see, I think it is neat when you are.. me.." (Refering to C!Sherbert in first person)

- Wack Song #3 (Probably.)

- "This is my Music." Light changes to yellow as they say that, changes back to purple just as quickly

- "I'm doing okay. Ish. Maybe."

- "That's Ominous." They pause, light changes to yellow, once again changes right back

- They spot the DER, "..Rae.." (technically a HC!sherbert thing. Putting it here for ease. Also because sad.)

- Wack Music #4 (Probably.)

- "I see you guys cosplaying me. Is cool." (Refering to C!Sherbert in first person.)

- "I wanna learn a couple languages, Cause it's hard to figure out what things are saying sometimes."

- "'What languages do you wanna learn?' Well there's a lot of them I don't understand."

- Wack Music #5 (Probably)

- "'Is everything okay Sherbert? I DONT KNOW!"

- They then do a small rant about how they feel weird and not right.

- "Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.."

- "My outfit for stream tomorrow." (Refering to C!Sherbert in first person, refering to C!Sherbert's outfit as their own.)

- "Every once and while we get some of my music" (Refering to C!Sherbert in first person.)

- "It's doesn't feel like hardcore."

- "Is that I no longer have a Fire Res potion on my belt." (C!Sherbert has a potion belt. I don't believe HC!Sherbert does.)

- Another Music time, Light changes to Yellow

- They go back to Minecaft, Light goes back to Purple

- Wack Music #6 (Probably)

- "I should try them in a potion, that's one of the few things i haven't done."

- "They've only caused damage in the past." (Refering to the Blue Mushrooms)

- "And also what happened with the. With the. The. With the potion."

- Wack Music #7 (Probably)

- During singing to said wack music, light changed to yellow. They change back to purple after.

- Wack Music #8 (Probably)

- While dancing along to said wack music, light changes to yellow, it stays like that even after the music changes

- "'Opinions on frogs?' I had so many- I had so many... I haven't even been to a swamp." Lights change back to purple

- Wack Music #9 (Probably)

- "'We need a doctor, Oh!' but we don't have one!"

- "'I just might drive me crazy~'"

- "I think it makes sense to put the potions underneath."

- They touch both eyes, specifically the blood, pulling their hands away to give them a look. They don't acknowledge it.

- "I'm okay. I'm okay, really." Pause, before the light goes yellow. It quickly changes back.

- "I am not supposed to be here." Light changes yellow. "But I am. But I'm not supposed to be here." Light does not change back.

- Wack Music #10 (Probably)

- "I'm gonna go to sleep. I'll see you. I'll see you." Pause, after yhey close minecaft, "I'll see you tomorrow. I'll see you tomorrow. I think."

- "I'll see you tomorrow. Bye." They do a little salute before spinning in their chair. They stare at their desk, presumably the note there, for a moment before turning back and ending stream.

《▪︎▪︎》

[FROM SHERBERT STREAM "The Beginning of the End."]

(future sage for note - this was a noting down what happened and what was back to normal and stuff, bc it technically concluded the break, so.)

- Starting stream frame different, On of the Rave room portals, looks to me brown

- Adding to that, Music is different, similar to the music used in rave room cut scenes

- With that, The Camara is slowly zooming out from the Portal (Quixis is there???)

- Border around the facecam is back to normal (Yellow and Purple)

- Light is back to Purple

- Flags are back to normal

- Eye is not bleeding

- "But like, Everything was like way more detailed." "Things could be round."

- They've rubbed at their eye a couple times

- They've also scratched at where C!Sherbert's scar would be

- Lights are switching color between Purple and Pink (Fading. (Just noticed that.))

- Among us are Yellow and Purple

- "Haley was like there. And Centross-"

- "I do not think Centross would ever chose to live with, especially after everything we've done to each other."

- "Sever reset make me cry." (Is that why they were crying in that one Fable tiktok??) (future sage again, please i want to know what the fuck that tiktok was about i think about it way to often-)

- "'No advancements?' Because I’ve done this all already? It’s a world reset not me."

- Kitty Quake ears are back to normal

- "'Are you still in Character..' Yeah, I'm still me!"

《▪︎▪︎》

#i uh #yeah this is what sage did with their time during the season break- /silly guy #anyway yeah i figured i should compile these into a post #preemptively i did not spell check any of this nor did i like. change it after i wrote it down #all of this was in the moment and people need to see my incoherence-#yeah #yeah.#i dont have a reasonable explanation for doing this other than 'i felt like this was important-'#anyway sage is normal and im thinking about many things on this list-#icarus morningstar #quixis #sherbertquake56 #fable smp #fsmp #a tag to help find my own posts

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