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sabraeal · 7 months

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Desert & Reward, Chapter 16

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2023, Day 2: Worship

Also written for @jj-carstairs for her birthday, which marks the FIRST TIME I've managed to get it out for her actual birthday, since it always falls right over obiyukiweek. Thankfully this year both her birthday request and the theme for the day overlapped nicely :3

After all his attempts to forge the Second Prince’s favorite dagger into a proper blade, Lata has managed to hammer one useful bit of information into Obi at least: protocol isn’t so much a rigid set of rules squatting between vellum margins, as old as the peerage itself, as an equation. A complicated one, the sort with letters instead of numbers and operations that take a room full of clerks the better part of a day to churn through. A system of fussy bookkeeping that would make Kazaha salivate if he was ever allowed to crack the spine on it.

He’s gleaned enough from his scattered lessons in knighthood to know that station and situation are two of its variables, but for how all that solves for precedence— well, that’s a mystery that’s best left to his betters. But what he does know is: His Majesty has a lot of it.

Not enough to declare primae noctis, the way they said the North’s High King once did— not that he suspects there’d be many complaints, should Elder Highness try to claim his due. But he's clearly got enough wiggle room to cut in for the primae dance-us or whatever the court liked to call it. No other reason for the royal mouth to take so satisfied a slant, for him to close that white gloved hand around Miss’s with such relish.

“Oh my,” His Majesty hums, those midnight eyes rounding to innocence. “I trust you will find no offense in my asking, my dear marquis?”

Obi doubts this man was innocent in the cradle, let alone now. But that's hardly His Majesty's angle. Oh no, he's more interested in Miss's attention-- or rather, directing it right to where Obi would like it least. She turns, concern etched into the space between her dainty brows. “Obi…?”

But it’s too late; Obi’s scuttled his stormy scowl to smiles and sunshine, letting only a hint of wryness break through. “None at all, Your Majesty. Simply wondering if you made it a habit to take pretty young brides on a tour around the ballroom.”

“Only when I am the one hosting their wedding,” he replies, one side of his perfect mouth tugging up into a smirk. “After all, is it not the host and the woman of highest rank who open the floor?”

If he were Master, all it would take was flutter of eyelashes and cock the head, and the royal personage would be halfway up the curtains, just from anticipation. But His Majesty is not just immune to that sort of game; he invented them. So Obi smiles wider, aiming at the only crack present in the royal armor. “I would have thought that would be your wife, sir.”

“Ah, I am afraid the blame for that lays squarely in my own court, my lord.”

Fingers perch on the back of his hand, a touch so light Obi would be tempted to call it the wind if he could not see the glove. One that is more lace than silk, baring enough skin from wrist to elbow that Mrs Carre would call it unseemly. Or at least she would if the style were not sure to sweep the next season by storm, since it is the queen consort that touts it.

“As much as I am loath to admit it...” The tilt of her head is demure, modest as would be expected of a consort, but the hand that curves over the round of her belly is not; no, that is as proud and protective as a lioness with her cubs. “At this juncture, it is recommended that I leave the dancing to much more…nimble young ladies.”

Obi covers her hand with his own, mouth slanting into his most charming smirk. “I could be nimble enough for the both of us, if milady wished.”

Her Majesty might play the retiring young queen well, but when Obi looks at her, steady and steely as her brother was on his walls, it’s not hard to remember that the ladies of the North had weathered sieges in their husbands’ stead, and waged wars in their absence.

And started more than a few of them, by the grin she smothers. “I do appreciate the offer, my lord marquis, but tongues would wag. I hardly think your wedding needs to spur on gossip.”

Any more than it already has, the twitch of her lips implies. A point he’d love to contest, at least on Miss’s behalf, but between the carefully composed timeline of their supposed courtship, and their lengthy disappearance between the ceremony and reception, they’ll be keeping the rumor mill churning well into next season. Perhaps even longer, provided no young lady made herself a hasty marriage, or a hot-headed buck put himself on the dueling piste.

Just the way His Majesty planned, if that smirk of his is anything to go by. “If my lady wife would like to cause a scandal, she need only say the word, and I would be happy to oblige.”

The offer rolls off his tongue with the ease of a born rake, but Obi’s not fool enough to miss the fierceness in his eyes, or the way his body turns toward her, like a bloom following the sun. Nor does it seem to escape Her Majesty either.

“You devotion honors me, my lord, but I think we both agree that there is no lady of higher rank than a bride on her wedding day. Now” —that sharp gaze cuts to him, smile honed to match— “it may be no grand dance, but perhaps you might escort me to my chair, my lord?”

The orchestra plucks nervously at their instruments as Her Majesty settles into her seat, waiting until her hands fold over the curve of her belly before the first bow slides over strings. His Majesty steps out, bow so graceful it could be a dance in itself, and Miss—

Well, she manages something like a curtsy. Late, of course, and begrudging every inch— deference to royals hardly comes easy to those born under Shenezard kings— but Elder Highness has long been accustomed to covering up unsightly blunders. It’s with something a little sharper than a smile that he sweeps her out onto the floor, the gold lace of her gown belling out into a shimmering spiral of starlight around her feet before she settles into his arms.

There is a brush of a hand against his sleeve, and Her Majesty’s smile meets his frown. “They make quite a pair, don’t they?”

Obi lets his gaze skirt back across the floor, watching Miss’s feet as the king of Clarines leads her through a waltz. The last soirée they attended in Lilias— a lifetime ago, it feels, though it can’t be more than nine months— she’d tripped right over his foot and nearly took out the punch. Careful, Miss, he’d hummed, struggling against a grin. They won’t ask us back if we break the good crystal.

She’d only considered the table, flushed and dewy, hair sticking to the back of her neck, and muttered, Maybe we should try again.

Lata would always harp on how a proper partner was the difference between a poor dancer and an unremarkable one— hear that Miss? Obi would sigh, he’s only asking us to be not bad— but Obi never quite believed him, not when six years of soirées and fraught night masques had only brought Miss up from active danger to potential disaster. But now, with His Majesty, she practically floats over the parquet, lighter than air, not a single stumble. And Obi—

Well, he doesn’t seethe with jealousy, not even a little. If there’s a little smolder in his chest, the barest simmer beneath his skin, well that’s just…heartburn. Got to avail himself of some of those little passed hors d’oeuvres going around.

“He knows how to handle her,” he admits, definitely not through his teeth. “You might not even have to ask them to bring the ice up, after all this.”

If Her Majesty were not the epitome of elegance and graciousness, then Obi would be half tempted to say she smirks. “She is much improved from the first time I saw you two dance. But that is not what I meant. Look.”

It’s an effort to scrape his gaze up from the floor, to let it linger over the scintillating sway of her skirt, to force it to rise up to where silk and lace give way to skin and see—

And see how her brow lies smooth, the corners of her eyes crinkled as even now she smiles. Not politely, not for show, but from joy, and she is— is—

Radiant.

“She would have made a pretty princess, wouldn’t she?” Her Majesty sighs, wistful. Obi watches Miss’s head tip back with a laugh, the long column of her neck exposed, and ah, he can’t disagree. “But not a happy one.”

Obi snaps his gaze down to stare, but the consort only smiles, watching her husband not so much dance as float across the floor. “What—?”

Miss might be the one who is the center of attention tonight, who is supposed to be the spectacle to which all noble eyes are drawn, but there’s quite a few that track the Countess of Yuris as she crosses the ballroom, dropping into a curtsy at the consort’s feet. Obi expects elbows and knees and feathers too, each inch ceded a battle Kihal refuses to be routed from, but instead—

Instead it’s so elegant she might well have been born to give them. A practiced motion, if not a sincere one. Which it isn’t, not when she straightens, head cocked, and demands, “And just what are you two whispering about?”

“What ifs.” Her Majesty’s mouth eases into a softer curve. “Could have beens.”

“You better not be having second thoughts.” If looks could kill, the one the newly-minted countess gives him would at least get him lost at sea. “Shirayuki is better than you deserve, no matter what fancy title they gussy you up with.”

Obi couldn’t agree more; even if he woke up tomorrow yoked by burden of a Your Highness, he’d still be a beggar in his mistress’s court, a interloper with no grace but what she deigned to give him. But to say so would spoil the sport; that arrogant little lift to Kihal’s chin would drop to something more earnest, her stormy eyes clearing to a gentler sea, and haah, death would be kinder than her pity.

Instead he cocks his head, an eyebrow following suite. “Now just how did you managed to sneak in here, your ladyship?”

“Sneak?” Her eyes flash, not like lightning or flame, but like a shadow cutting beneath the water. “I didn’t sneak in! I came through the door like everyone else, stupid fanfare and all!”

He hums, enjoying the way her fingers fist in flattering blue organza. “But I’d been under the impression you should be sweeping down the grand stair on Master’s arm, all eyes on you like the princess you will—?”

“Sh!” Kihal springs toward him, and oh, if they were not in front of the who’s-who of Wistal society, those hands would not be at her side. Too bad; it’s been ages since someone’s gagged him with any amount of intent. “The paperwork might be all signed and dried, but” —her voice drops down to little more than a hum above the music— “Izana thought it would be best not to announce our betrothal at a wedding that supposedly happened months ago.”

His grin stiffens, a dead thing collapsed across his face. “Well, that’s His Majesty for you. Always knows best.”

Her startled eyes try to catch his, but they’ve already skittered away, chasing after Miss’s skirts. Easy to find when the candles here set her alight, embers turning to flame as she turns in His Majesty’s arms.

“I can’t believe it.” Where Her Majesty alighted to the cushion that would serve as her throne for the evening, Kihal slumps, a round cheek dinted where it rests on her fist. “You really got her to go through with it.”

The consort’s polite smile takes a wicked edge. “You act as if it were any sort of challenge. I think you will find that Lady Shirayuki had few objections to how this particular arrangement unfolded.”

“I was hoping she’d come to her senses before paperwork got involved.” Kihal favors him with her most sour glare. “It’s bad enough I might have to listen to you as a peer, now she’s got to do it as your wife.”

“That so?” Obi leans in, letting his smile pull as wide as his patience. “You know what I heard? That—”

“Ah, is it over already?” Her Majesty sighs, so wistful he can’t help but trace her gaze out to the floor, to where the fire of Miss’s dress has banked, along with the music. “Ah, these first dances never last long enough. But at least that means you have opportunity enough to ask your wife to—”

“Too late,” he snorts, watching as Miss is flooded with partners, each more well-turned and -titled than the last. “I think my mistress’s dance card is full.”

The consort’s smile curls at a corner. “Well then, maybe if you ask Countess Yuris to oblige you, you might have the opportunity to cut in.”

He glances down at where Kihal lounges, her scowl conveying how unlikely a favor that is to be granted. But this is hardly Obi’s first time haggling at the market; he keeps his eyes fixed on her, stare as steady as his brow is arched, is that your final offer? implied.

With a sigh forceful enough to make waves, she relents. “Fine. But only because I know you’re more tolerable than an actual lord.”

It’s not until they’ve taken their places, the frantic beat of a a polka sweeping the floor, that Obi realizes: he has never danced with anyone but Miss. A natural fleetness of foot and years of learning to anticipate his mistress’s specific flavor of clumsiness has kept his toes from being bruises, but two gallops about the floor with the young countess in his arms, and—

Ah, well, she’s certainly not as graceful as the other ladies on the floor, but she doesn’t need his help. Insists on not taking it, really, nearly wresting the lead from him when he takes a hop too slow before a turn.

“I thought,” she grits out, “that a footpad would be lighter on his feet.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my lady.” He grins into the gale of her glare. “I was a thief, not a highwayman.”

And assassin, too, but he hardly thinks she’ll appreciate that detail. “Then you have even less of an excuse,” she huffs. “What did you do? Stomp around and pick pockets? Honestly.”

It’s not that Obi’s competitive. Well, he is, but that has nothing to do with the way he pulls himself straight, shoulders squaring until every inch could pass for a lord. His arm tightens around her waist, anchoring her to him, and with a smile that would make a shiver go down the spine of every guardsman in Wirant, Obi flings her into her next partner.

“Hey!” she gasps, on her return. “You could have warned me.”

“You wanted me to lead, didn’t you?” he hums, guiding them through their next bout of hops and turns. “So I led.”

There’s not a lot of extra breath to go around— the court loved to keep its waltzes lively, let alone their polkas— but she spares one to huff, “You might actually be fun, if you weren’t so obnoxious.”

He lets his mouth hook at a corner, parting for the barest flash of teeth. “Part of my charm, so I’m told.”

“Funny,” she grunts, obliging him to lift her— only a few inches, enough to guide her into the next turn. “I don’t think that’s how Zen put it.”

His grin hones sharp enough to gleam. “He wouldn’t.”

The dance separates them for a long moment; Kihal spins out with grace, footwork clean if not particularly inspired, before falling into him again, a frown marring the skin between her eyebrows.

“There’s not many of our neighbors here,” she remarks, the way the consort might on the weather or the cut of his coat. “Just the two of us.”

“And Lata,” he reminds her, grinning into her glare. Still, the observation sobers him. “A couple of nights ago our favorite traitor mentioned he didn’t see any northern lords in attendance either. Not besides Miss Kiki— and, I suppose, Sir.”

“Hisame Luigis.” It’s good to know there’s a name that can make her face darken quicker than his. “I hate to give anything he says any credence, but he’s right. I know Izana only wanted a guest list that would keep their mouths shut about the date, but…”

But if Obi were to write the list himself, there’s a bunch of friendly faces that would be here that he can’t help but notice are not.

Kihal heaves another sigh. “I can’t believe Izana’s shoving me into this whole thing with only you to back me up.”

“Oh? Is that so?” He lets his mouth hook into a grin. “That’s not what I heard.”

She blinks, passing around his back before she snaps, “What?”

“I heard…” He leans down, enjoying the way her nose wrinkles. “That you asked them to give me Conti.”

Her jaw drops. “E-excuse me?”

“His Majesty said you practically begged.”

Her cheeks flush, not the way Miss’s does, all pink and hot, but the way his does, just the subtle darkening of the flesh pulled taut across her cheekbones. “He did not.”

He didn’t, but it’s more fun to smirk as they sashay another step or two, to put a little more glee into his clap. “He told me that you made it a condition of your engagement. Because you trusted me.”

“I-I…” Oh, if he knew this was going to make her so left footed, he would have brought it up half a dozen turns ago. “I just thought you’d be an easy lord to throw over, if you made yourself too obnoxious. Can’t use any of your thief skills on a boat.”

“You know what I think?” He favors her with his smarmiest grin. “I think you like me! You might even find me tolera—”

A hand clamps down hard on his shoulder, holding him in place. Not for the first time, Obi curses Mister’s preternatural instinct when it comes to ruining his fun. “Ah, excuse me, Ki— er, my lady,” Sir says, a polite smile stretching his mouth. “But I’m afraid that I must—”

“Ooooh, are you cutting in, Sir?” Obi gasps, hand pressed to his cravat. “I knew I didn’t practice the lady’s part for nothing.”

“N-no!” Sir doesn’t scowl, but he comes close enough to give him a shiver. “I was only going to say that I was sorry I was going to have to steal you away. You’re needed elsewhere. Right now.”

“Please.” Her eyes roll, like a ship on a storm’s swell. “Don’t apologize, Sir Mitsuhide. You’re doing me a favor taking him off my hands.”

“Aw, now that’s not—”

Sir’s hand tightens on his shoulder. “I thought that might be the case. Come on, Obi, you’re needed…elsewhere.”

#obiyukiweek23 #day 2 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #desert and reward #ans #not the MOST obiyuki content in this one i'll admit but like. it's their wedding #he's pining and angsting you know it works #I keep rejiggering what this whole reception will look like because i am DYING to get to the end of it #but i'm guessing another 1-2 chapters of pining and plot #and then i get to misbehave >:3c

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winterswhite · 1 year

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One thing I've been talking about for a while that's entirely a personal gripe I have with the game is A3's event system and how draining it's gotten to play events. I had a little conversation earlier about the game's income declining over the years and I do honestly believe that and the decrease in player counts in recent events are largely because of the event system. I don't think the game's income has decreased enough for us to be worried about it shutting down though so I'm not talking about that and I don't wanna hear anything about it either. I've dealt with games shutting down before and I know the signs.

Anyway. Event system. It feels like they keep adding event types that cater to whales (PR events are super expensive, and the new Spotlight events are similar with the 2.7mil SSR+ reward and the redistributed SSR rewards from points vs ranking). The main issue I have, which as far as I'm aware I'm not alone on, is how damn hard it is to get finales in events, which is only worsened by the increased SP cap now that we have more to spend in one go after being away from the game for a bit or ranking up. In my own experience, it's easy to go 30+ minutes without getting a single finale and not everyone has the time or patience for that? I know I don't. People have other things to do and can't always be using their phones or playing games on them, and even if you just leave the game on auto while you do those other things, you'll still have to check on it for shows, and it'll still drain your phone's battery.

Other tap tap games I've played have some sort of safety net to avoid problems like that, like enstars basic guaranteeing you at least one rare live per event lesson, and while it's no longer active, On Air used to let you stack up to four event recordings at a time so if you let the game play itself for a while, you could come back and ideally at least one of those would be a 3☆ recording. Other games have similar guarantees or rate-ups or just...anything to make the event experience less of a pain. All we have in A3 is...one guaranteed show per practice, and that's, more often than not, a matinee or soiree.

On top of that, this is probably just me, but I feel like practices in A3 go really slow, both with auto and without, and the auto-cancellation of specific show types is just as slow. That makes it feel like each practice takes forever, which really doesn't help (again, I've gone 45 minutes without a finale on more than one occasion).

I'm really just complaining but...I wish they'd make some kind of tweak or improvement to the event system. They only need to change one of these things to make the event experience exponentially better, whether it's by increasing finale rates, adding a guarantee of some sort, or speeding practices up. It's...not a big request to make, I think? But it'd make things so much easier for me and a lot of others who I know struggle to play the game anymore because of how draining it is.

I know gacha companies aren't our friends, but we have jobs or school or other things in our lives to deal with and waiting half an hour for a single finale just isn't worth it in the middle of all that. It's actively harming their revenue too, so it'd really be in their best interest to change things a little. I still love A3 and I want to keep reading and translating the stories and other content because nothing can replace this story and these characters in my heart, but it'd be nice if I could be as enthusiastic about the actual gameplay aspect.

#not putting this in the main tag #bc it really is just a rant from me #but i have a lot of thoughts about this game and the event system and how it could be improved #bc i love a3 and it makes me sad that events are such a drag #i played the anniv event but that's...the only event i've played in close to a year #it's just too hard to play #but oh well #an rambles: a3!

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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 6 months

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I haven't really made a post going into my thoughts on Sonic Superstars yet but I think they're pretty brief so ig I'll do that now, full game spoilers and all that.

I think the base story mode is pretty alright, levels have nice enough theming and some fairly interesting gimmicks, the length is enough to easily replay the thing in a single sitting which I love in my 2D Sonic, the levels that make you play as a certain character are really good opportunities to let the level designers build something specifically for that character which is really nice, also a good opportunity to add some variety to a playthrough if you've not been switching characters on your own time (switching on your own time is also great btw). The pacing is pretty off though, most zones have 2 acts but some have 3 and there's a regular zone just in the middle of the game with only 1 act, it can feel downright random whether an act is gonna end in a boss fight or not, and there's even a schmup stage in there since I guess that's a thing Sonic games love now. I definitely think the stages are more hits than misses but there are absolutely zones I wish I saw more of and zones I wish I saw less of, and I really don't imagine myself looking forward to a few of them on a replay.

Really hate the boss fights, there's a few solid ideas for some of them and they're definitely the most elaborately designed boss fights in any of the classic styled games, but they take so fucking long and have such ridiculously long invincibility frames (the animation for which ends several full seconds before you can damage them again btw so that can feel cheap and impossible to meaningfully read), and other than like one or two of the Chaos Emerald abilities you can't really do anything to speed them up, which just feels lame. Conventions of game design suggests this might be better than bosses where you just spam 8 hits on them before they can even get an attack out but at least those bosses don't test my patience in a game about going fast.

I think the new special stages are okay, it's nice that they're a wholly new concept and you definitely can play skillfully and beat them super duper quickly, as well as do micro-decision making in terms of oh chase the Emerald or potentially lose time grabbig rings, it's neat, buuuuut they're just not really very fun lol. I did play bonus stages early on and they mimick the Sonic 1 special stages but the physics are so different that I couldn't get used to them. Oh well. The reward for bonus stages, as well as some special stages depending on the ring type, as well as most exploration in general, is medals, which are used to customise your character for the battle mode (this character also appears as a boss in the story mode which is actually cool as fuck since hey if you wanna give yourself a Metal Knuckles boss fight or something you can), and like they can feel decently rewarding to collect until you realise it's an absolute fucking grind to actually get enough of them to really buy anything in bulk in said character customisation thing, especially because for some reason if you buy something in there you don't just have it now, they're like limited resources, if I buy red and use it on the arms then I am now out of red, gotta grind to buy more, gotta buy red like 4 or 5 times to make my Metal Knuckles. It's lame. In general I think medals are only really rewarding if you actually intend to do multiplayer stuff, which I don't not get, but I wish they were good for single player too. I mean hey the game has character skins, why not let you get some of those with medals? Nah kill yourself dude character skins are for preordering the game or buying digital deluxe or signing up for newsletters or shit. Trip doesn't even get any. I think skins could be a pretty rewarding game system if they were implemented as such but instead it's just a "did you spend more money" check. Lame.

Uhh, Chaos Emerald powers. They're okay. I think they're a solid enough idea to add some more depth to a classic Sonic game and let it stand out from others, and they're generally still simple enough to fit what you'd expect from the design philosophies of these games. But they're also largely pretty situational, and a few of them I may as well have never even used. The game does prompt you to use the less useful one sometimes which is neat, like oh hey you designed the section with this ability in mind, let's see how it works out. And that's kinda fun. But I could take them or leave them. It seems like you can only get one Chaos Emerald per zone which I do think sucks, since it means hey here's an ability you won't get until near the end of the game and so can't really take advantage of it on your first playthrough at all, which is just a bit boring. You also can't switch abilities while using them and they're all on a countdown, so if I like accidentally use vine then I just can't use another ability I'd actually want to use until like 10 seconds later, which is a bit annoying. Super forms not being able to use the other Chaos Emerald powers also feels like a missed opportunity to make them feel really powerful. Oh well. On that note I hate Super Trip btw, she takes the form of a large dragon who just does not interact with the rest of the game in a fun way, she has her own control system that's just really cheap feeling directional flight with no physics and that moves super slowly. She can skip platforming and stuff by way of flying, but she'll also break out of automation and you need to find your way back into said automation. Just feels actively less fun and not even a satisfying power Trip (HA) for the gameplay sacrifices.

On Trip though, I like her as a playable character enough. Also as an actual character in that she is very cute. But as a playable character she has a nice double jump and can stick to walls and ceilings and roll across them which is nice. Once you beat the story mode and unlock her I recommend going through it again with Trip this time. I don't recommend doing Trip's Story, which is all the worst stereotypes of classic Sonic design fully realised. Were you going too fast and couldn't see that enemy? Get hit asshole. Was there no conveyance about whether that jump is safe to make? Die asshole. Are there spikes literally fucking everywhere? Get pricked asshole. "Sonic is inherently bad because you move too fast to react to oncoming obstacles" has always been a criticism of the series I've felt was in bad faith and isn't even reflected in any of the classic titles, and yet here we are with Trip's Story doing all of it. There's just so much enemy and spike and bottomless pit spam right out the fucking gate, it doesn't feel like an actual difficulty spike either it just feels like a troll level. It is actively frustrating to go through and actively unsatisfying to beat. It's not even like that design philosophy accommodates Trip to begin with so it just feels fucking bizarre. Actually didn't mind the giant robot Fang boss fight but the insta-kill attacks are pretty lame and him getting a "I'm going to smash the stage and make the ground fall" attack at the end of the fight with very poor telegraphing is pretty cringe.

Reward for beating Trip's Story and also that you have all the Chaos Emeralds by now is Last Story, which is a Super Sonic fight against a giant purple dragon. Super Sonic final boss fights are already kinda weird in that they're usually cool as all fuck as setpieces but from a gameplay perspective make you learn a new style in the final hour which is pretty questionable, but I'd say they're usually familiar or intuitive enough to be acceptable and certainly a fair level of challenge, moreover the player usually has good control over the pacing of these fights, such that you can get actually get better at them and do them faster and with a higher finishing ring count, stuff like that. I say all this because that last part just isn't true for Superstars' Super Sonic final boss. Rings basically appear at fucking random so good luck feeling like you've got any control over the timer, which wouldn't strictly be a huge deal but the thing is the boss only has 2 attacks per phase in which you can actually deal damage to him and yet has like 6 attacks in the first place as well as things that are not attacks at all but are full animations he does just for the hell of it during which you can't damage him. And these attacks don't hurt you either since you're Super Sonic. So the boss, naturally, consists largely of waiting. Waiting through attacks there's literally no incentive to dodge until you can get to the point where you do attack him. Rinse and repeat. You won't ever feel like you're getting better, just that you're getting luckier. The boss didn't do this attack on this run. Tails flew by with rings more often. Your game didn't bug and freeze you in the death animation and render you invisible for a time this attempt. And hey, if you do fail, gotta sit through the whole like 6-8 minute fight again. It's bad. It is actively unfun. Doesn't feel cool, doesn't feel rewarding, narratively it's barely anything, for some reason Amy doesn't get to appear even though Tails and Knuckles do, it's just shit and a test of patience. Much as I don't like the bosses in the rest of the game I can at least say "well they are built for multiplayer so maybe that's why they take so long" but the final boss is a single player only gig so that defence doesn't even work. It just sucks.

I think the game looks nice enough on platforms that run it fine, unfortunately I'm on Switch. The music is either pretty good or really bad depending. I haven't played couch co-op yet but I did an online battle mode run and it's like, not the most bare-bones thing in the world but I also cannot even imagine being able to get invested into it. Greatest credit I can give it is giving us designs for Metal Tails and Metal Amy, and even throwing in a Metal Trip for the hell of it and fucking Metal NiGHTS too, badass. I'd like to see Trip again.

Maybe like, 6/10, or 6.5 or something. Doesn't really compare to any of the games it's emulating and certainly not to Mania, but it's still decent fun for the main story mode and they are trying to do new stuff. There's already rumours it'll be getting DLC, I have no strong feelings on this one way or the other. Playable Mighty and Ray wouldn't be bad though. Penis chat.

#sonic #26.10.23

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vael · 2 years

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Black Book is a near-masterpiece.

"I give it a 9.5" -- IGN

Black Book is a narrative card-battling/deck-building game based in Russian Slavic folklore. You play Vasilisa, a young woman whose lover has died. She seeks to break all seven seals of the black book in order to make a wish to bring him back, as legend tells she can. I spent 43 hours completing the game.

The Good

Black Book does a great job of presenting Slavic folklore to the player. The proper Russian words are used for many elements: the zagavor, the izba, chorts, rusalka, banya; these are words I'll remember, and it was good for the developers to stay true to the roots. I never felt like I was confused by the usage of these words, or traditions that were evident on-screen. It was clear that the developers spent a lot of time researching lore and mythology. Black Book isn't the type of game for the player to skip dialogue. You're often presented with questions and riddles that test your knowledge of the mythology, and everything they'll ask has been delivered to you prior. The book contains entries for anything you've learned, given as you learned them. I read every entry; the ones in the final chapter are some you don't want to miss.

The game is surprisingly long. I typically trust How Long To Beat and go by the completionists' reported times. I played on hard difficulty and typically took my time, exploring "every nook and cranny" as I always do. I clocked in over 8 hours more than the other completionists.

But there's good reason to replay: while you will get the same linear journey each time, the details of how you played are important. Which characters were by your side, who's alive and not, who shows up later at a bonfire; the game never lets you forget that your actions had consequences, both good and bad.

Black Book delivers. It's fair to say in gaming, I've gotten used to being unable to sock it to some jerk boss, or conceivably unconquerable foe, with the game handling their demise in some other way. In Black Book, you're always given the chance to say: nah, your deal sucks, not compromising, time to die. The player's reward is a tough boss battle that also fits thematically with the boss; all I will say is Chapter 7's bosses were some of the more memorable boss fights I've had in years. They were entirely optional and allowed me to skip a short set of trials.

The ending also delivered. I'll admit by 35 hours my interest was starting to wane, but I was absolutely hooked with the end sequence of chapter 6 and beyond.

It keeps itself fresh, introducing periodically introducing new mechanics both via new cards, and in-battle mechanics such as koldun and puzzle fights.

The Bad

Durak was a miss for me; I appreciate that they wanted to include a card game from their culture, but the rules were confusing and I found it to be more of a distraction in an already long game. It didn't have the up-front enjoyment of Witcher 3's Gwent. It actually subtracted from the experience because there are items and skills built to allow you to cheat in it.

I didn't feel connected to the lover at all. He was clearly a plot device, despite a short segment where we experience Vasilisa's pain of losing him once again, where she reaffirms her dedication to him. Honestly, I thought Alexander was a fine chap and would have liked to spend eternity with him.

Often enough, the (excellent) narrator and words on screen don't match up. You can tell the English-speaking voice actors offered some direction upon delivery of their lines. It was a bit distracting, but my understanding is the game is best played in Russian and the writing was solid enough that I could forgive it.

There's an investigation segment which could have been done better. It was slightly buggy and a little hard to follow. My pick wasn't even an option in the end, and the person I least expected was it. This was a system constraint; they just needed a better system for this chapter.

Money became irrelevant around the 4th chapter. As a completionist, it's not uncommon for me to accrue resources and become overpowered, but I felt like some end-game gold sinks would have been warranted. I was disappointed that in the final dramatic chapter, no new items were offered (that I could tell).

Damage calculation could have been done better. The game requires you to calculate accurate damage any time you're doing AoE because it sums that AoE damage. This is a common complaint with the game and I'm not sure how they released a battle-focused DLC without addressing this!

Chort management seemed annoying; I ended up going for a sinless playthrough, so I didn't have to assign them constantly, but I can imagine how annoying it would have been to do so.

All in all, I would still say it was nearly a masterpiece. It achieved what it set out to do, imperfectly in small ways, but it was everything it had to be. The Russian voice acting cast is about three times the size of the English one, and I can only assume the story was delivered better in proper Russian. I would recommend any Russian gamer to play it, and if you like the good points I described, give it a shot on sale. I personally got it through a Humble Bundle.

#black book

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pathfuckery · 1 year

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Fire Emblem Engage: Initial Impressions

So I’ve started playing Fire Emblem: Engage, and overall my initial impressions are really positive! I’m having an absolute blast, and this might be my favorite FE since Awakening, at least on first impression. It’s still not GBA FE, which will forever be the pinnacle of the series for me, but it’s damn fun. Here’s my good and bad:

The Good

The Rings and Engage Mechanics

I really enjoy Emblem Rings and Engaging. While I wouldn’t want this to be a reoccurring mechanic, that is due to not wanting every FE to have to shoehorn in connections to heroes of previous games. We saw how stupid the Babyrealms were after the popularity of Time Travel Children.

They could bring back the gameplay of the mechanic though, which is a temporary buff and attack, plus significant changes to class abilities on equip. My worry is that I might feel I’ve misbuilt my party if once I collect all 12 rings I’ve got an odd mismatch between unit type and emblem ability, but I haven’t felt that way yet. Plus, I’m not certain that it’s any worse than legendary weapons.

The Characters

So I really am enjoying the cast of characters so far. While Alear is only mid-tier, and there are no standouts for all-time favs for me yet like previous games have had (looking at you Baedelgard, Hubert, Lyn, Severa, etc...), overall I’m enjoying the cast. Some current favs are Jean, Chloe, Louis, Anna, and the Brodia Brothers.

RETURN OF THE WEAPON TRIANGLE

The weapon triangle might be the best it’s every been. I’m really glad to see it return, possibly in its best form yet. Breaking is awesome. It really makes the WT important, and it encourages good planning as well as offense. I really hope this mechanic stays!

The Gameplay and Enemies

The maps so far have been really fun, and some of the boss enemies have been great little puzzles. I really enjoy the resurrection system for boss units more than I did the mechanics for the large beast enemies in 3 Houses. I’m not a huge fan that most maps so far have been “Defeat Boss” for the objective, but I just hit my first alternate objective and I’m really hoping for more of these.

The Bad

Character Designs

While some of the characters are still really solid, this entry has some of my least favorite character designs from the entire series. They’re just too out-there and over-the-top for my tastes, and wish the designs were a little more grounded and slightly less silly. This isn’t much against personalities of any of the characters, just against the actual designs. Some of my least favorite designs so far have been Hortensia, Yunaka, and Alear.

Bond Rings

Bond Rings are a Gacha-style mechanic you can spend bond points on. They are less powerful than emblem rings, and likely will eventually be replaced by emblem rings. I’m not a fan of randomly rolling things, and feel they are just a lot of effort for very little reward.

Somniel

This is luckily better than 3Houses School, but overall still a net-negative for the game. Needing to go back to Somniel and through extra loading screens to do vital things like skill inheritance and arena battles is an annoyance that slows down the momentum of the game. What’s made worse is the need to also run around collecting items if you want to keep up with gear upgrades and such. Just make these things battle rewards and leave out the “running around the map to collect” mechanics. They add very little. I will admit that I enjoyed the first few times of seeing the battlefield from a different angle, though. Maybe that could be kept in without the need for collection, and use that to talk to characters after battle while cutting Somniel entirely.

#fe #fe engage

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eienshi09 · 2 years

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Final Final Fantasy II Thoughts

Final Fantasy II (or at least, as I've pontificated about at length, the Dawn of Souls version of it) is quite an alright game. It was an incredibly ambitious project for its time. And though its time shackled it with some unfortunate mechanics, there's still a lot of interesting things it was trying to do. After a couple of iterations, it even manages to get to a state where it does those things in a quite enjoyable way.

In my parting thoughts on Final Fantasy I, I also said that I mostly enjoyed my time with it. And I genuinely did. But I meant it in a sense of, like, this was able to fill my time and be largely inoffensive. Meanwhile, I was actually thoroughly fascinated by Final Fantasy II, for better or worse. Where its predecessor was just about adequate all around, FFII has peaks and valleys for it does, or at least tries, so much more than its predecessor.

One immediately notable improvement is simple addition of dialogue. Your party members aren't just featureless avatars anymore. They're actual characters. Well, there's still a bit of room to improve on the characterization fronts, but for the time, they've got something resembling a personality that shows through what little speech they do get. The dialogue itself is rather basic and more or less boils down to some other character telling you where to go next, but there are some details about the world or situation that they manage to squeeze in that wasn't present in FFI.

The keyword system in particular was rather interesting, and something I wish they would have utilized more. It felt kind of lacking as the game went on and you got new ones less frequently and the situation only calls for a very specific keyword. I would have liked to be able to ask someone about an older keyword and they give me their current thoughts on the matter recontextualized by the most recent in-game event. For example (and I'll try to be vague but we are talking about a 35-year-old game here), after you've gotten the Ultima spell, Hilda has nothing to say about it, despite a rather important character - especially to her, of all people - sacrificing themselves so that we could acquire it. And this might be the one exception where the game does reward you for following up with someone after major events, but if you revisit Deist to tell the woman about the fate of the last dragoon, she not only has something to say but gives you a cool sword! So it's not like they didn't think to use the keyword system to add in some extra bits of lore and worldbuilding for the player.

Narratively, the game is well-enough paced, pulpy as it is. Though again, towards the end when it's back to back to back dungeons of six and more floors, it kind of wears on you. The false climax and twist reveal and double twist was, however, actually really well done. One could see it coming but that's the point; it was built up to and hinted at throughout and then paid off with you finally reuniting with your long-lost fourth party member. I only wish we had more interactions with the Dark Knight during the story.

Systems-wise, I don't think I have much else to say that I haven't already. FFII's usage-based character progression system was the first of its kind and incredibly ambitious. It could have used a few more iterations even after the couple of iterations of the DoS port.

It'd be easy to think that II would be favorable to FFI due to its higher production values alone, but I think I would have enjoyed the original version of 1 more than the original version of II, given some of the original design choices. And even though the Dawn of Souls changes bolstered the experience of playing II so much more than it did for 1, both games share the same overall "problem" of me wishing more was done to them.

Random encounters (I promise to be brief) continues to be a thorn in trying to play any "classic" JRPG, and while it isn't especially egregious in FFII, I still maintain that they could have added in a Repel item of some kind. Actually, I may be overly harsh here. The game does at the very least add in some fast travel options for you to get around in the early-to-mid game. They're somewhat limited, but very much welcome as you're traveling back-and-forth from Altair to various points of interest. Fleeing, however, is still just as much of a hassle, perhaps more so for reasons I'll get to right now.

One area that I think FFI did better at is boss fights. II's bosses were just late and endgame enemies dropped somewhere earlier where they'll be a greater challenge. This made the endgame kind of boring as we keep seeing these old bosses turn up again and again. Worst yet, any battle where one of them show up, you can't flee from at all. It's as if the game was still treating them as boss fights or something. Weirder even is that FFII does have some unique extra hard enemies that use a "boss sprite" but they're all technically optional, being treasure chest monsters. It's just kinda strange.

Though maybe the original release of Final Fantasy II deserves its dubious reputation, there is a good game in there. Playing it now, especially playing a version that does do some work to polish it up, I really wish it got the total remake treatment that its two successors got on the DS. Or even now, I wish the Pixel Remasters had been Pixel Remakes instead and breathed new life and modern tech into these old games. It's well and good to see a game as it was in history but I think it's just as fine to see the game where iconic franchise monsters - such as the Coeurl, Adamantoise, Behemoth - came from but with the ability to easily run away from them.

#Eien Plays #final fantasy #final fantasy 2 #ff2 #jrpg #final fantasy ii #dawn of souls #long post #game review #some trivia #final fantasy 2 is the first appearance of the Chocobo!

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maniacwatchestheworld · 2 years

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Hey. Not to be aggro at you or anything because I don't think you mean any harm by it, but you might consider that it's sorta innapropriate to make a cutesy submas headcanons out of the Darius McCollum story. Like it just feels very off to me to take a real life story about a black autistic man being shuffled through the american system before finally being put away indefinately in maximum security lockup and turning it into a story about a couple of white autistic men being rewarded with careers for being good at trains. Like, there is actual human suffering and systemic racism built into that story. Again, not trying to come at you in an accusatory way. Just thought you should consider.

Actually, I completely agree with you! It's why even though I came up with the idea, I have 0 intentions of actually incorporating it into any works nor doing anything with it. If I ever do anything with Emmet and Ingo, I can assure you that this is not their backstory. For me to actually do anything with this idea, I would be unable to mentally leave Darius McCollum out of it and would feel guilty about rewriting his very unique story in such a way. For me to do anything with it would feel like I'd be whitewashing his story and downplaying just how unfortunate his whole situation is and how much the system has genuinely failed him. (From what I know about him, I wholeheartedly believe that Darius McCollum deserves better, and just HATE that the system has been set up to just thoroughly screw him over with no recourse. The solution to this problem is so OBVIOUS and the fact that they DON'T just give him just SOME sort of tangentially train-related job (with conditions, of course) INFURIATES me and really highlights how much this society of ours and the system in which we are forced to exist just hates the poor, the disabled, and the neurodivergent, ESPECIALLY if they are a person of color, and is looking for just ANY excuse to criminalize people and to fuck them over just because they can. It really goes to highlight how our justice system is ONLY interested in punishment, whether the 'criminal' deserves it to not, and not prevention, nor to ensure that crimes don't happen again. Basically, FUCK the police.)

But I still like the idea and thought that it was a funny and wanted to share it. I honestly didn't expect it to get as much attention as it has. I thought that it would maybe get like 20 notes and die out... But now that it's been spreading around and people really do seem to resonate with the idea, I don't want to punish people for not knowing the truly unfortunate situation with Darius McCollum. For myself, I don't think that I'm capable of separating this idea from Darius McCollum, and if I tried to do something with it, details form Darius McCollum's life would inevitably end up leaking in there. But for people who don't know about it, they may be able to create something entirely different and new with the idea that would exist entirely apart from his story. And if that inspires people and they do something genuinely interesting and unique with it, that would be good! I would like to see that! There are a lot of ways to do, 'serial train hijackers' that would be wholly different from Darius McCollum's story! I don't want to deprive other people of the opportunity to play with the idea, even if I feel that I can't.

Also I will admit that giving Emmet and Ingo a happy ending in this kind of idea is at least in part me expressing my frustration with Darius McCollum's situation and my wishing, wanting, and imagining a better path for him. I think that Darius McCollum should be rewarded, or at the very least not punished for his expertise in trains. I think that the MTA would only benefit from trying to find a way to hire him in some capacity. And I wish that in real life this could have a happy ending. But as it stands that can only happen in fiction. Deep sigh. And besides, it's not like train hijacking is an activity exclusive to Darius McCollum (though admittedly serial train hijacking is pretty unique). The real roots of this whole idea actually lie with Keron Thomas' story. (A while back, I was looking for train facts and Keron Thomas' story came up. I read how a 16 year old kid hijacked/illegally operated a train for several hours without getting caught and immediately thought, "Oh. That's 120% Emmet and Ingo when they were 10 or something!" I only found out that Darius McCollum is a person who exists because much more recently I was trying to figure out Keron Thomas' name.) And everything really seems to have turned out fine for Keron Thomas and his whole situation! So I think that there is a place for harmless train hijacking stories out there that aren't necessarily intrinsically tied to Darius McCollum.

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astaroth1357 · 4 years

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An MC Who Treats The Brothers Like a Kindergarten Teacher

Okay, so I know I still have requests. I will get back to them right after this, but I just saw a post that gave me this idea and I had had had to get it out!! Requests will be back after this! Thank you MRS. Green Apple (my favorite band ever) and their song Present for this fun little romp of mine. 🤭

Lucifer

He is so conflicted on this it makes him wish he drank more…

On the one hand, he HATES how patronizing they can be… but even he can't deny how much progress they’ve made in his brothers. Mammon especially.

They're all actually studying more, cleaning up after themselves, doing their chores, and being polite… it's… admittedly he having an existential crisis...

This is what he's been missing this whole time?? Sticker charts?! And come on, they're all on the Student Council for Hell's sake! How could the most powerful beings in the Devildom be won over so easily by the same tactics used on human schoolchildren!?! Have some dignity!!

For the first month he just watched them whip his brothers into shape in barely concealed horror. It was so surreal...

But at about the time the MC managed to get Mammon and Levi to stop fighting and apologize for being mean to each other, he threw in the towel. Whether he liked them or not, he conceded that the human was a blessing in disguise and left most of the discipline to them from then on.

He's never been more productive in his life and he can actually get a night or two of good sleep with no interruptions... He's taken the MC out to lunch on multiple occasions and is still trying to talk Diavolo into letting them make this a permanent arrangement. They may actually get his brothers to become well-behaved demons yet...!

Mammon

Okay so, don't get it twisted. He doesn't need their stickers, or their love, or their approval, or all that positive reinforcement or anything! He's just playing along with them okay?? Okay?!

He scoffed at the whole thing at first because, look, he's no child. He's a grown-ass demon! What were little stickers of Devildom currency supposed to do for him??

But when they told him a completed chart would earn him a shopping spree outta their pocket… Well now they were talking.

He just did it at first for the big prize, but every time he finished a task the MC would be sure to notice how hard he worked and tell him he did a good job or compliment him somehow and… well… he doesn't get that a lot...

After a while he kind of forgot about filling out the chart because he would be excited to run to them and tell them what good thing he did next. Turns out this boy was starving for any kind of approval. 😖

The first time he actually finished his chart they told him how proud they were and he almost cried... Almost. He ain't that soft, okay??

Though he does mess up still, he probably makes the most progress of the House, much to everyone's disbelief. He's also super protective of his stickers and HATES when they're taken away so none of y'all better drag him into your problems, ya hear??

Leviathan

He feels like this normie is weird even for human standards… Why do they keep offering him stickers…?

Well… They are Ruri-chan themed so he's not complaining that much.

He's not even sure where they got them from… He thought he had a pulse on every bit of merch that comes out for his favorite characters so they must had those custom ordered and that's dedication.

They told him that they'd get him a new game for every finished chart, which was nice but not necessary, he kind of just liked getting more little pictures of Ruri-chan like the collector he is. 😌

After a while, the MC started subtly theming his tasks more toward getting out of his room and being more productive... In baby steps, of course.

He'd be scared, but they were always there to praise him any time he tried. With a little bit of time, he actually started getting more confident! I mean, not a lot but hey. It's improvement.

The human even managed to get Mammon to pay him back a little bit of the money he’s owed! Well, it was literally just one night's paycheck from Hell's Kitchen but it was still more than he's seen in three centuries so he'll take it! He goes to them whenever he needs to butter up Mammon now... They’re an excellent go-between.

Satan

Ah… So the MC is well-versed in psychological manipulation… Well he refuses to fall for it.

They could offer him all the stickers they wanted, he’s going to just fall in line like his brothers! He didn't need any psychological training from them, even as the youngest he’s centuries older than they are!

But wait… are those stickers cat themed…? And is that one in a little cowboy hat??

… Touché human. He'll play nice once or twice but he doesn't need their cute stickers!

A part of him got a lot of joy out of watching Lucifer finally admit that this living nursery rhyme of a being was better at controlling his brothers than he was… Talk about a slice of humble pie, he even got it all on camera… 😏

But his brother wasn't wrong... The House has never been cleaner and everyone's grades were up, even his own. As odd as it was to say, bringing the human to the Devildom seemed to have produced a net positive all around. 🤷‍♀️

And after he discovered that the MC convinced Lucifer to let him volunteer at a human world animal shelter each time he completed a chart… Move over, Beel. He's going to finish the most charts in the House now. Just you wait.

Asmodeus

Oh honey, he knows a thing or two about punishment and reward systems. It's going to take some pretty nice prizes for him to play this game...

Which is why his stickers get followed up by kisses.

For each new sticker, he gets to pick a spot to kiss them or for them to kiss him (though they don't let him get too pervy with it)

Finish the dishes? Get a kiss on the hand. Two hour of studying? There's one for the cheek. And so on.

The others get jealous of his deal pretty quickly and start asking for kisses too but he'll throw a fit if he ever finds out. The human's kisses are HIS prize so everyone else will just have to live with it! 😠

Asmo, drama-hog that he is, is also the biggest snitch in the House. He loooves telling the MC about when his brothers mess up and should lose stickers, Mammon especially because it make him sooo pissed.

He's also in a betting war with Satan over how many days it’ll take Belphie to actually get up and do his chores for a change... The current wager is two weeks or more.

Beelzebub

Thought it was a little weird that the human seemed so obsessed with praising him and calling him a good boy but whatever.

(Little did he know they were subtly using him like a role model of everybody else but that's neither here nor there 🤷‍♀️)

He doesn't mind the sticker thing because he gets them so easily. The theme seems to be: be responsible, helpful, and not a jerk which he passes with flying colors so it’s really not a challenge for him.

It was only after they told him that they'd take him out to Hell's Kitchen with each completed chart that he really got serious about it...

If you think normal Beel is sweet, actually trying to be sweet Beel is practically an angel all over again. He even stopped stealing food from other people's plates when the MC told him he could lose stickers for it… (which means that Levi can start eating breakfast for a change, at least. 🤷‍♀️)

He's long since completed five charts and is well into his sixth. It doesn't matter what it is, if food is on the line then Beel will knock it out of the park every time. If Lucifer wasn't funding their sticker project, then he honestly would have bankrupted the MC a long time ago… 😅… 😟… 😥...

Belphegor

What the-? Did he leave his brothers for a few months and they all formed a cult or something?? Why is everyone suddenly so obsessed with stickers???

He doesn't understand the appeal at all... Do chores around the house and get a prize? What kind of game were they trying to play here?? No thanks. He'll pass.

Belphie proved pretty hard to motivate, even with prizes, so the MC had to try a different tactic…

If there's anything that can motivate Belphie, it's the promise of good sleep and cuddles. But if they made it too difficult to get and he'd just sleep by himself in pouty defiance...

So they told him that he needs to get at least two or three stickers every few days or they'll stop cuddling completely until he does.

He didn't think they were serious at first… but any time he'd try to get his arms around them, they'd sidestep or slip out of the way like they had a sixth sense or something! What kind of superhuman reflexes do you need to keep up with human anklebiters???

It took a week for him to finally relent and join the freaky sticker cult that makes up the rest of his family... He remains self-aware enough to always point out how fucking bizarre it all is... but hey. He's too lazy to do much about it, so who cares right? 🤷‍♀️

Check out my Masterlist for more!

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me belphegor #obey me beelzebub #obey me asmodeus #it just needed to happen #i have weird ideas sometimes

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clairecrive · 3 years

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"Sunshine" - Sirius Black x reader [Requested]

This is for the anon: Sirius/Remus (You pick) with reader who has problem expressing themselves, so they use stuffed animals? To elaborate they have a dog which is happy, bird which is excited, cat when lazy, frog when sad, owl when tired, and unicorn for confusion? I know it’s complicated, sorry if this was a waste of time, Wish you luck!

A/N: I end up choosing Sirius bc idk it felt more fitting. Hope you like this x

Warnings: nothing, this is pure fluff, maybe language

Word count: 1.4K ish

(let me know if you wanna be added to my taglist)

(not my gif)

"Hey sunshine, I got your frog. What's wrong?" you say when entering the boys' bedroom.

It was just after breakfast so everyone was either hurrying towards their lesson or already in class, leaving the dorms and in general the Gryffindor tower empty.

Well, almost empty considering you and your precious boyfriend were still here.

As a matter of fact, you were on your way to class when Sirius' patronus found you and handed you a frog. Knowing exactly what it meant, you turned around and hurried back down the corridors.

Now, it may sound weird for your boyfriend to send you a frog, out of all the things, but there was a reason. Neither you nor Sirius was very good at reaching out and asking for help when something happened. Since it was something you had in common, you couldn't really blame him. But, after the first month of you dating, it was causing more harm than good and you knew that it was something you needed to work on if this relationship was to go on.

So you talked about it and came up with an alternative system. One that didn't involve words and therefore made reaching out and express your feelings easier. And yes, it involved stuffed animals. Well, when you were in the same room anyway. You restored to patronus when you were not together.

If anyone thought it weird that both of you started carrying around stuffed animals, they didn't show it. Even if they did though, neither of you would have cared much since this method was actually working and had, in fact, saved your relationship.

It was also a great way to quickly check on each other. Receiving a dog, meant the other was fine, happy even, a bird would mean that something exciting had happened or the other had exciting news to share, But a frog, not that was something you dreaded receiving.

It was bad news. It meant that something happened and the other needed comfort or at the very least for their significant other to be there for them.

Hence the reason you almost ran to Sirius, doing your best to skip the step of the stairs that lead to the boys' dormitory without falling on your face.

Last time you had seen Sirius was yesterday night before heading to bed. You had slept in and therefore missed breakfast. What could have gone wrong in such a short amount of time, you wondered. You just hoped that it wasn't anything gravely serious.

The sight that welcomed you when you finally reached him was disheartening, however.

Sirius was laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn't move, nor when he heard your footsteps nor when you spoke. He just held up an open envelope for you to see and nothing else was needed. You knew what had put him in bad mood.

That goddammit psychotic abusive family of his.

Oh, how you hated them.

The idea that someone couldn't see how wonderful Sirius was and not only that but also the fact that they actively went out of their ways to send him hate and harmful letters even when he was far away and had cut any connections with them?

Fucking absurd.

Sighing, you walked to his bed and quickly stepped out of your shoes before lying next to him. "Do you want to talk about it?" you almost whispered.

Propping you heard on your hand, you gently moved away some of his curls away from his face. He was still not looking at you but he softly shook his head at your question.

Okay, you thought.

You lowered your hand to his face so that your fingers could start tracing his beautiful face. Leaving a small kiss on his temple, you reached out so that your arm was around him. Your kisses slowly moved all over his face. His other temple first, then his forehead. His nose. His cheeks. When it came to his lips, you stopped and just hovered over them.

Gently turning his face to yours, you waited for his eyes to meet yours before speaking. "They don't know the real you, my love."

If only he could see himself the way you saw him. If only he could see how false his family's words were.

"Everything they say is a blatant lie because they do not know you"- emphasis on not - "because if they did, the would agree with me."

The sadness and the hurt in his eyes were so evident that you had to fought tears back. You knew that this was something he had to face on his own and that your words were just that - words. Almost useless. But you had to do something and if there was even the tiniest chance that he'd actually listen to you then you'd try anyway.

"And you know what I think?" you smiled softly at him, your fingers trailing over his bottom lip, "I think that you're amazing. Precious even."

You were sure this was going to come back to bite you in the ass when he was feeling better. Merlin knows how Sirius' ego doesn't need to be stroked. At least, in public, that's how he behaved. But you knew him. You were lucky enough that he had let you in and showed you this side of him that no one knew existed outside his close circle.

He didn't say anything but his eyes didn't move from yours so you took it as a sign to keep going.

"There's no one out there who is so effortlessly brilliant like you are, my love." Leaning back a little from his face, you put some space between you after leaving the smallest of kisses on his lips."And I know for a fact that there is no one out there who cares about others like you do." Emphasizing with your eyes the "no one" part, you were able to coax the faintest of smiles for him.

You had noticed that your weird facial expressions amused him and apparently they worked in these situations too.

"Do you know why I call you sunshine?" You continued, a smile still on your face but your tone more solemn. You had a feeling that it was something he had wondered about since the most obvious choice would have been finding a nickname related to stars. And you knew how much Sirius was interested and fascinated by them.

"Yes, you're named after a star but I don't think it really matches your personality. See? Another proof that they don't know you at all." You lean back to sit on your feet.

"People don't notice stars unless they look up at the sky." Taking one of his hands in yours, you start playing with his fingers. "But you, my love? It would be impossible not to notice you, Sirius." Leaving a kiss on his palm, you intertwine your fingers and hold his hand close to your chest right where your heart is.

"You shine bright like the sun, making everyone around you aware of your presence. And yes, sometimes it can be annoying, but you know what?" At this, his smile grew a little knowing that what you were saying was more than true. Everyone knew that Sirius could also be spelt annoying on most days, especially during class. He got bored easily since he didn't need to study as much as everyone else to understand a concept. Thus, making it his mission to make someone do something with him that isn't studying.

"Everyone misses the sun when it's gone and never tire of it when it's there." Squeezing the hand you were holding, you hoped to have helped a little. Maybe you did, or maybe you didn't but all your efforts were rewarded when Sirius smiled at you. This time he gave you a real smile. As a consequence, yours got bigger.

Letting his hand go, you cradled his face in your hands and gently pulled him to you until your noses were touching. His hands, in turn, moved on your hips and used them to pull you to him as well so that you were now straddling him.

"Come here, you big sap." And pulled you even closer to him so that his face was now in the crook of your neck, his breath tickled your skin. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders in a tight embrace. Oh, how much you loved this boy.

"Only for you, my sunshine."

#sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black #sirius black imagine #sirius black imagines #sirius black fluff #young!sirius black #marauders era #maruaders imagine #maurauders x reader #harry potter imagines #harry potter fics #sirius black one shot

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tenspontaneite · 3 years

Text

The Ceracurist (Chapter 3/?)

Even after these past months, she wasn’t yet used to it. Another Full Moon spent alone.

(Chapter length: 10.4k. ao3 link)

---

“Did you go to the game night?” Was Ethari’s first question when she called him the next day.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, Ethari.”

He looked delighted. “Did you make friends?”

She hesitated, thinking about it. “…Well, I did beat them all at Antiquitora,” she said eventually. “And you were right, they did appreciate that.” She paused, and added “I’m probably going back, I think.”

She spent the next ten minutes having details pried out of her so warmly and kindly it hardly felt like an interrogation at all. Ethari was good at that. Finally she secured her escape via the need to leave for training, and was farewelled with considerably less fretting than usual. When the call dropped, she was about to shut down the Sunbeam module entirely, but then-

New Contact Requests, said the alert in the corner. Rayla blinked, nonplussed, and opened it, already having a decent idea of what she’d find. Sure enough, there were three new requests from codes she recognised: Kazi, Nihatasi, and Callum. She lingered there for a while, feeling bizarrely overwhelmed, then finally accepted all three of them.

She didn’t linger by the computer, after that – she had training to get to. Rayla paused at the door to perform a final once-over of her armour, then grabbed her swords and left.

---

Rayla stumbled back into her room in late afternoon, covered in about three different kinds of mud and her body aching all-over in the aftermath of prolonged exertion. She spent the next two hours with rigid discipline: cleaning herself, cleaning her armour, checking her weapons. She cooked unenthusiastically and ate, then finally felt justified in utter collapse. She landed face-first into her bed and fell asleep immediately.

Three hours later, she woke to a stirring of magic in her veins, prickling over her skin, all the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Slowly, she blinked her eyes open, and pushed herself up; every hint of soreness from training was completely gone. She turned her eyes to the window, staring at the Moon rising full and resplendent past the horizon. Something deep and instinctive in her delighted at the sight of it. But something else twisted, sharp with the pang of homesickness.

Even after these past months, she wasn’t yet used to it. Another Full Moon spent alone. She sighed, and tried not to think of the festivities that would surely be beginning back home. It was moonrise; Ethari and Runaan would be at the Circle by now. Had the dancing already started? With the Moon this high, it must have.

She stared unblinkingly out of the window, turning thoughts over and over in her head. It wasn’t right to be alone at Full Moon. It wasn’t right to spend it all indoors, either. She couldn’t do much about the first thing, but the second…

Silent, Rayla slipped outside. A few of her wingmates were out in the common room, chattering drunkenly with each other near the table. She blinked, slowly, and exhaled. When she passed, they didn’t see her; only started with surprise at the open and close of the door. She crept through the streets like a ghost, visiting each of the parks and training grounds in turn until she finally found one unoccupied: a small stand of well-kept trees, and a fountain that reflected the full body of the Moon in its burbling waters. It would do.

It was no Circle. There were no runes in the ground – nothing here that awaited the careful precision of the lunar dances, nothing that would light up at her passing. But it was better than nothing. Rayla pulled at the moonlight until she was nothing but shadows flickering in the shadows of the trees, and danced.

There were plenty of moondances that could be done alone, and she circled the fountain with all of them, one by one. A tracery of magic hummed in the air at her passing, whispers of light following her; magic summoned by her motions, without the guidance of a Circle’s shaping. Even formless and aimless, it was beautiful. So, for the pleasure of it, she spun through those motes of moonlight and held them flickering in the shadows of her skin; light and dark woven together.

When she was done, she felt…not joyous, maybe, or exhilarated, as a celebration back home might have left her. But she was satisfied. Calm, and a little less sad. With the Full Moon still high above her, its magic brimming in her veins, Rayla headed home once more.

She didn’t bother to hide herself this time, and when she came through the door and passed by the remaining wingmates still up and awake, they saw her perfectly well: skin night-dark, eyes glowing, the edges of her form blurring into the shadows. They were all of them Sunfire and Skywing, and went a little quiet as she went by them; she wondered if they’d ever seen one of her kind at Full Moon before. Somehow, she doubted it.

Finally, Rayla arrived at her door, disarmed its security, and closed it behind her. She sighed, standing for a moment in the moonlight through her window, and considered it. Sleep would be a lost cause for another few hours, probably. So, somewhat inevitably, she ended up checking the computer. Browsing the mageskein was probably the best way to kill a few hours, and it wasn’t like she had anything else to do, this time of night.

Except: her Sunbeam module was still on, humming inside its casing, and…when she looked, it had projected a few message alerts onto the screen. Hesitantly, she checked them.

One was from Ethari, wishing her a good Moon, and entreating her once again to visit a Circle for it. Somewhat belated, that. One was from Kazi, confirming the time of their rematch tomorrow, as well as the address. Nihatasi had sent another, packed with effusive praise for her gaming excellence, insistence that she return, and an offer to come by the house whenever she wanted. Rayla shook her head at that, reluctantly amused. It wasn’t as though she’d met many nomads before – not in a social setting, anyway – but so far, Nihatasi more than matched their reputation for being aggressively sociable.

The last message was from Callum, and she steadfastly pretended that she wasn’t any more interested in it than the rest. He’d cheerfully thanked her for coming to the game night, said he hoped she’d come again, and then made an inquiry about her gaming tastes. Did she play computer games? If so, which were her favourites?

With the slow, halting uncertainty of the socially awkward, Rayla responded to all of them except Ethari’s. Kazi’s was easy enough, she just had to say ‘thanks’ and ‘see you tomorrow’. The other two took more doing. To Nihatasi, she expressed her thanks, and her assurances that she intended to come to a game night again. She said nothing about the house visit. To Callum, she reiterated her intentions to return, and admitted that, yes, she did like computer games, but hadn’t had the opportunity to play many of them, for lack of the necessary modules or a computer with the right specifications.

Given the hour, she certainly didn’t expect any response, so she switched active modules to the mageskein to start browsing. News headlines on the home site vied for her attention: something about the outcome of the latest Katolis-Evenere expedition into the wastelands; the most recent public appearance of the Dragon Prince with his esteemed parents; a gossip piece about some Katolian royal’s birthday. She checked the second one for images, and sure enough, there he was: the young prince Azymondias, still tiny in comparison to his queen mother…and, in the background, a few Dragonguard standing at the ready. Rayla spotted her parents and smiled. She clicked to transfer the picture through its Sunbeam link and waited.

The other module hummed, her computer making distressed noises as it attempted juggling the inputs of Sunbeam and Mageskein at once. The unit at home wouldn’t have had any trouble, but this one…she sighed, and waited, and was eventually rewarded when her Sunbeam successfully imported the image and displayed it full-fidelity, with all the depth and nuance of lighting that a flat picture could never convey. She filed it away, and was about to switch back, when she saw the alert.

A new message. At this hour? It had to be at least two in the morning by now, surely. She checked her clock to be sure, and, yep. 2:14am. She eyed the icon with consternation, then opened it.

Callum had responded. She stared, brow furrowing as she read. Hey, glad to hear back from you! He opened, cheerfully failing to acknowledge the fact that it was currently stupidly late. The rest of it was perfectly normal too; commiserating about her lack of access to proper computing, commenting that yeah, I didn’t get to play any EX games until I moved here, and you know what WX graphics are like, and which ones did you get to play? Any I’d know about?

Rayla reread its entirety several times, mildly flummoxed. At Full Moon her emotions were all closer to the surface than usual, so there was an undeniable thread of glee in her chest about this unexpected late-night contact, but…well, she was curious. In her limited experience with the ways of other students, the only reasons a non-Moonshadow would be up this late would be ‘partying’ or ‘insomnia’. Or ‘last-minute coursework’, but that was unlikely to apply when term was already over. So: You’re up late, she wrote, without thinking about it, and sent it back without responding to any of his actual questions. She’d begun composing a belated second message, but apparently Callum was a lot speedier with typing than she was.

Haha, yeah, I kind of lost track of time. Gaming, incidentally. She thought he must be used to significantly faster systems and transfer times than she was, because that was the entirety of that message, and then he sent another one: What about you? What are you doing up?

Rayla blinked, then settled herself a little more comfortably in her chair, since it seemed like, well. Like there might be a conversation happening, here. She brought the keyboard further forward. It’s Full Moon, she responded to him, a little dryly. Her computer took its sweet time about sending the message, as usual.

Oh. It is? After a pause, during which he presumably looked out of a window or something, he said Huh. So it is. Does it keep you awake?

She paused. Kind of, she wrote, slowly, and then wasn’t quite sure how much more to divulge. Eventually, she wrote It’s kind of hard to sleep through when it’s still high. I’ll be okay in a couple hours.

That must be so cool, he answered, which seemed a weird thing to say to a statement of Moon-induced insomnia. I’ve used artefacts to cast moon-magic before, but it must feel totally different when you’ve got the arcanum. What’s it like?

Rayla stared at her screen. She recalled the implications of him being a mage student, and was suddenly brimming with curiosity. I don’t know, I’m not a mage, she wrote, and then paused. Do you cast a lot of artefact magic, or was that a one-time thing?

She probably should have just outright asked about the mage student thing, rather than trying to be cagey about it. He probably wouldn’t have minded. Except, that turned out to be unnecessary, because the next thing he wrote, as if it were perfectly natural and unsurprising, was Well, I’m doing a thaumaturgy / thaumatology masters, so I definitely cast a lot of magic, yeah. Then, while she was still gawping at that, he followed it up with Listen, do you want to call?

What? She sent back, astonished, still in the middle of trying to process the concept of a human thaumaturgy student. She couldn’t quite get her head around it. How did that even work?

It’s okay if you don’t, he clarified. But your Sunbeam seems to have kind of a lot of connection lag, so it’d probably be faster to talk, you know?

Rayla was, in fact, using a fairly old edition of the Sunbeam module, which did have to establish a new connection for every individual message it sent and received. It was what was cheapest, and the lag was just…an unavoidable side-effect. She called more often than she messaged anyway, so it was rarely relevant. Except, apparently, now. It’s two in the morning, Callum, she sent to him, bewildered.

And we’re both awake, he pointed out, as if it was perfectly reasonable to call someone you’d only met twice before in the middle of the night.

Her first instinct, fuelled by bemusement and social anxiety, was to say no. Her second instinct was quick to the scene, with some very definite opinions about interacting with Callum, even at as weird an hour as this. She hesitated, wavering.

In the end, it was a glance at the Moon through the window that decided her. Rayla was emphatically not a mystical person, but even so, there were things that were deeply culturally ingrained. And one of those things was Full Moon is community time. Family, or friends, or a wider community – it didn’t really matter, but you weren’t supposed to be alone. This…probably counted.

Yeah, okay, she typed in the end, foot tapping under the desk with a frisson of tension. But only for a bit.

He didn’t waste any time about it, just sent the call request. Rayla took a quick moment to check she hadn’t made a mess of herself dancing, realised it was something of a moot point when everything attached to her was veiled in shadows, and finally accepted the call.

Callum’s room was startlingly brightly-lit when it appeared in the monitor, and it hurt her eyes a bit. She blinked rapidly, fighting the urge to squint, and glimpsed what looked like a well-appointed loft room with an unexpectedly dense population of easels. She could see at least three of them, most of which occupied by some sort of paper or canvas. She blinked, nonplussed, then steadfastly did not react when his face came into view. It moved around jarringly as he adjusted the lightcatcher, then finally settled.

He grinned at the screen, looking sleepy but in good enough humour, and said “Hey! Wow your room is dark.”

Rayla opened her mouth, closed it, then blinked. “Oh, right, your eyes,” she said, embarrassed. She generally only ever called her family, whose night vision was perfectly equal to hers. Humans, as well as most other elf races, were not nearly as well-suited for the dark. “Can you even see anything?”

“I can see your eyes,” he volunteered helpfully, looking amused. “They’re glowing. Really brightly, actually.”

“Yeah, that’s the Full Moon,” Rayla told him, already standing to go for the switch of the wall lamp over her desk. She’d never actually had cause to use it before, other than testing it when she first moved in, so the soft blue light it produced was almost wholly unfamiliar. “Is that better?” She asked, moving back to her chair.

“Well, I can actually see your room now, so-“ he started, then cut off abruptly as she settled back down in front of the lightcatcher. “Oh, wow,” he said instead as he stared at her, eyes wide.

Rayla ignored the self-conscious twinge in her stomach and frowned at him, folding her arms. “What?” she demanded.

He startled, as if only just realising what he’d said. “Oh. Um, sorry?” he attempted, weakly. “It’s just – I’ve never seen a Moonshadow elf all, er…” he waved expressively at her, contrite. “You know, Full Moon-ish?”

Oh. She eyed him, determined that he wasn’t messing with her, and relaxed a little. “What, not even in the Honour Games?” She asked, after a moment.

“Well, I mean, sometimes. But that’s usually in broad daylight, you know, and from a distance, and broadcasted.” He shrugged, a light dusting of pink rising in his cheeks, like he was embarrassed. “Kind of different to…” he nodded to her via the lightcatcher, smiling sheepishly.

“Suppose it is a tad different to a close-up Sunbeam call,” she conceded, lips twitching.

“I should’ve expected it, really, considering it’s full moon and everything,” he said ruefully. “Sorry, I’m not exactly at my brightest at two in the morning.”

Oh, that was right. It was the middle of the night. She squinted at him. “Then shouldn’t you be sleeping, instead of sunbeaming random Moonshadow elves?”

“Well, you’re up,” he said, as if this was a perfectly logical reason for him to be awake too. “And it’s not like I have to be up early.”

Lucky for him. She thought of the training and the Antiquitora rematch she had scheduled for the day, and suppressed a sigh. It was sometimes truly inconvenient to live in a mixed-race city that didn’t automatically expect the day after Full Moon (and the day of and before New Moon, of course) to be a rest day. “Wish I could say the same.”

He winced sympathetically. “Can you not cancel whatever it is?”

She opened her mouth to say no, stopped, and frowned. She hadn’t yet missed training even once. But…it wasn’t like attending every session was compulsory. And she did train three other times a week…and besides, a Sunday morning short session had never fallen on Full Moon recovery day before. “Probably, honestly,” she admitted. “My – uncle wouldn’t even tell me off for it. Moonshadow elves aren’t supposed to work the day after a Full Moon.”

“Because none of you can get to sleep the whole night?” He asked with interest, as if the cultural habits of her kind were genuinely intriguing to him. “Makes sense, I guess.”

Rayla huffed and shook her head. “Kinda. Mostly it’s because, traditionally, we’re supposed to spend moonrise to moonset with – family, or the community, or whatever. And we’re not much good for anything except collapsing once the Moon’s gone. So we all take the next day off.”

He blinked at her curiously, but if he wondered why she wasn’t currently out spending the Moon with her rightful community, he was tactful enough not to ask. “You should skip your thing, then. Whatever it is,” he determined, after a moment. “Get some actual sleep.”

“Says you,” Rayla said, wry. “You don’t even have a stupid magical reason to be up this late.”

“Does a technomantic game count as a stupid magical reason?” He grinned at her, his smile lopsided and full of humour. Her stomach did a weird flip-flop. “I mean. It is magical.”

Despite herself, she snorted. “And it is stupid,” she allowed, lips twitching. “As far as reasons to be sleep-deprived go, anyway.”

“Worth it,” he claimed, cheerfully. “I don’t have work till the afternoon anyway, so I’m fine.”

Rayla nodded at that, then a moment later actually recalled what his job was, and practically felt her face heating. Thank the Moon – literally – for her skin currently being too dark to show it.

He noticed some sort of reaction, though. Maybe her shoulders had hunched a bit. He tilted his head at her, a little rueful, and said “Yeah, er, about that. I wanted to apologise, for the others talking about it, yesterday? Couldn’t have been super comfortable.”

Abruptly hyper-aware of the weight and presence of her horns, Rayla did her best not to sink into the chair. “…It’s fine,” she muttered, embarrassed. “It’s not like you told them about it, they just guessed.”

“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t tell them about who my customers were unless my customers said something about it first,” he assured her. “Not really professional, you know? We’re supposed to be confidential about it.” Suddenly, he smiled again. “Then again, it’s not like I usually end up meeting my customers at game night, so that part tends to be easier to manage.”

“Usually?” she asked dryly, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to lift her hands and hide her face behind them.

“No, yeah, you’re definitely the first time that’s happened,” he admitted. “It was kind of a surprise.”

She thought about how she’d reacted to seeing him appear through that door yesterday. “Just a tad.”

“A good one, though!” he claimed, cheerful. “It was nice to meet you properly.”

Rayla was tempted to say something along the lines of you know, where I come from, touching up someone’s horns is considerably more than a ‘proper’ meeting, but that was too mortifying to express, and he probably knew it anyway. She couldn’t imagine anyone becoming an experienced ceracurist without learning all the assorted implications that sort of thing had. “Even though I kicked your Archdragon across the board?” She questioned eventually, when she found her voice again.

“Even though you totally kicked my butt, yeah,” he agreed readily, looking far too pleased about it. “It was a great match. You’re crazy good at that game.”

An involuntary smile pulled at her lips. “Well, Kazi’s better,” she said, pleased despite herself. “They’d have had me easily, if they weren’t playing Ocean.”

He didn’t argue with her. Clearly, he understood the game plenty well enough to know the truth of that. “Still the second-best player I’ve met,” he insisted staunchly. “Is Antiquitora one of the computer games you said you did play? You must’ve put in some serious practice time.”

Rayla snorted. “I wish. No, the only games I ever actually got to play were on a gameship, just the one time, when I was…” she frowned, trying to remember. “Thirteen, maybe? Good long while ago.”

He perked up, expression brightening. “I love gameships,” he enthused. “There’s one that comes by Gullcrest twice a year, and I swear, all the students in the entire engineering department just disappear on board until it leaves. It’s crazy.” After a moment, he admitted “Well, to be fair, I disappear on board too, so, you know. It’s not like I can judge.”

She blinked, and leaned forwards. “What clan is the ship?” She asked, with considerable interest.

“It’s a joint management. Serat-Demani,” he said, watching her knowingly.

“Moon above,” she swore, and he grinned.

“Right?” Looking exceedingly pleased with her reaction, he took that as his cue to go into extensive, exacting detail about the wonders that a fully-stocked, state-of-the-art Demani entertainment airship had to offer. She listened raptly the entire time, interjecting with questions about the rates, the facilities, the games. If it was a Demani ship, it had to have Skycrawler, surely? What was it like? Was the gameplay everything it was said to be?

In the end, Rayla didn’t think she could really be blamed for losing track of time.

Callum was in the middle of enthusiastically praising Scion of Shadow, with particular attention to its unusually enjoyable stealth mechanics, when out of nowhere a yawn cracked through his sentence. He seemed fully ready to keep on talking once it was done, but Rayla sat up a little straighter, and for the first time in a while remembered that it was the middle of the night. She consulted her Moon-sense, and then the clock, and then buried her face in her hands.

He cut off mid-sentence, inquisitive. “What?”

“Callum, it’s nearly four in the morning,” she informed him, lowering her hands to stare at the clock, consumed with a baleful sense of having been betrayed by the passage of time. “The sun’s probably not even far off rising.”

He blinked, looked to the side, then blinked again. “…Huh,” he observed, a little sheepish. “Yeah, that’s…later than I usually stay up.”

“It’s later than I usually stay up, even on Full Moons.” Technically true, for the ones she’d spent at university. At home, though…moonset was, after all, later than sunrise in summer. Full Moon celebrations usually concluded once everyone’s skin was back to normal, but not always.

Callum shot her a weird look, long and appraising, before he spoke. “You’re still all…Moon-shadowy, though.”

“That won’t stop for a while yet,” she informed him, and shook her head. “I can probably get to sleep by now, anyway. Or another hour off, at most. You…” For a moment, she inspected him, spotting the signs of tiredness in his bearing. “You won’t have that problem, I think. You look knackered.”

He offered a rueful smile. “I’ll probably pass out the second I lay down, yeah,” he admitted. “I kind of lost track of time. Again.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Well, I’ll just go now, then, so you can’t get distracted again.”

Hastily, he sat bolt upright. “But there was something I wanted to-“

“Tomorrow,” she told him, firmly. “Or…today, technically. Later, anyway. Whatever it is can wait.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then smiled sleepily at her. It looked far more endearing than it had any right to. “Well, okay then.”

Rayla nodded to him, said “Thanks,” then leaned in and shut the call down without a further word. Sunbeam’s active connection died down, Callum’s face disappearing from the screen, and she leaned back in her chair to fix the ceiling with a long-suffering stare.

On one hand, Ethari would’ve probably been delighted to hear she’d spent a couple hours of her Full Moon socialising, as a proper Moonshadow elf ought to. But on the other….Ethari could absolutely never, ever find out about this. If he knew she’d been up chatting with someone, losing track of time, for actual hours…she’d never hear the end of it. To say nothing of how he’d react if he got wind that she – that she might sort of-

“Ugh,” Rayla grumbled to herself, wiping a hand over her face.

She stared at the ceiling for a good long while, experiencing a variety of emotions that she wasn’t keen on thinking about too hard. She also spent a not inconsiderable amount of time thinking about the conversation, running it over in her head, thoughts stubbornly fixed on Callum. This was how she ended up realising that she’d never actually asked about the mage-student-thing, and she still had no idea how that worked.

“Ugh,” she said again, more emphatically, and finally left her chair. She left her room to perform some necessary ablutions in the bathroom she shared with the next room over, then returned to draw the curtains. Without the direct moonlight through her window, the magic in her skin started to stutter a little. In ten minutes or so, she’d be back to normal again…and, with luck, she might be asleep by then.

Begrudgingly, Rayla peeled herself out of her clothes and threw them haphazardly onto the floor, not even bothering to watch the magic desert them, and climbed into bed. A suboptimal amount of time later, she was asleep.

---

“Goodness, you look tired,” said Kazi, welcoming Rayla in. Rayla, for her part, was a little too exhausted to feel particularly awkward, which was nice. “Was the Full Moon particularly trying?”

Rayla’s lips twitched. At least this one knew when Full Moon was. “No more than usual,” she said dryly, bending to remove her shoes when Kazi made noises about it. “Just, you know, getting enough sleep is kind of a lost cause.”

“Oh, I know the feeling. Or at least somewhat,” they commiserated, leading her through to a small and cosy-looking living room lined with bookshelves, and then through to a somewhat larger dining room, whose table was…occupied. Very thoroughly occupied. Rayla tried not to look at it too closely until she had a chance to inspect it properly. “There was a solar flare a few years ago, and of course I and the other Sunfire elves couldn’t sleep for days. It was quite the experience! And I’m sure you know how the Skywing elves get when there’s a particularly powerful storm abound.”

She had, in fact, had occasion to see what Skywing elves looked like when they were storm-drunk. It had been funny, up until it got annoying. “Probably more of a pain for them and you, really, since none of you take anything like moondust,” she volunteered after a moment, mouth turning up with wry sympathy. She’d hate to be a Skywing and be subject to random, unpredictable bouts of their equivalent of being moonstruck. “You all get the full effect of it.”

Kazi looked a little curious at that, but didn’t ask. “Yes, I suppose so. We should be thankful our magical overload is not so consistent as it is for you. In any case-“ they gestured towards the table. “Please take a seat wherever you prefer! Would you like any stimulants?”

Rayla blinked. “…Could you repeat that?”

“Tea,” they clarified, eyes merry with humour. “Or perhaps reveillant, or coffee, by your preference. I have all three, in some measure.”

For a moment she’d wondered if she was being offered something illegal, which…looking at Kazi, she was quite sure had been on purpose. She shook her head, reluctantly amused, and said “I could try some reveillant? I’ve only had it once.”

“It is not especially common, in a Skywing city like this,” Kazi allowed, already heading in the direction of one of the doorways. They kept speaking as they disappeared through it, still perfectly audible to her ears. “But I always keep a supply. It’s the only one that tastes particularly good cold, after all, unless you are very creative with your teas.” There was the sound of a cupboard opening, and then a good bit of rummaging.

During the wait, Rayla cautiously selected a seat at the table and settled there, finally letting her increasingly wide eyes rove over the board set up across it. She was still gawping conspicuously when Kazi returned, brandishing three brown paper packets of what she assumed to be reveillant.

“Do you prefer unflavoured, citrus, or mixed berry varieties?” they inquired mildly, hiding a smile when they saw her inspecting the board.

“Er, berry?” Rayla offered, only half paying attention. She was too busy looking at the intricate detail on the hand-carved and probably hideously valuable Antiquitora board. There were no pieces on it yet, but even just the tiles…it was astonishing. All of the terrain had been dyed and varnished in different colours, with careful attention to the different biomes. It all gleamed. The ocean tiles had even been coated in some kind of resin, making them look wet. The artisan had even mimicked the effect of the edge of an underwater continental shelf seen from above, with an area of lighter ‘water’ closer to the ‘coastline’.

“Berry it is,” Kazi said, sounding quite smug. Rayla didn’t have the chance to see what their face looked like, because they’d already disappeared back into what she assumed was the kitchen. She spent the next five minutes of beverage preparation time inspecting the game board with undisguised admiration. Rayla wasn’t one to usually pay much attention to art, but…this was game related art. It was different.

“The set you brought to the game night wasn’t your one set, then,” Rayla finally commented, when Kazi reappeared. She accepted her cup with exacting care, not wanting to risk a drink spillage near a board like this. She was honestly surprised Kazi allowed drinks so close to this thing.

Kazi smiled, disproportionately small for the amount of self-satisfaction in it. “Yes, it’s my more portable set,” they said pleasantly, and took a seat across the table from her, setting down their own glass. “This one…well, I certainly do not take it out of the house.”

“I can imagine,” she expressed, uncertain whether to be jealous of the board or just plain impressed. She wouldn’t even want something this pricey. She’d constantly be worrying about damaging it somehow. But, even so…the hint of avarice remained. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“The various tile-pieces and figures are quite a sight themselves, I think,” they said, evidently extremely pleased with themself. Rayla wondered how many people they invited round for Antiquitora for the express purpose of showing off this set. “Have you decided your faction for today? Once we have that settled, we can begin setting up.”

Rayla snorted, lips turning up into a half-smirk. “Depends what you’re playing as.”

Kazi beamed back. “Do you have a preference? I am perfectly open to suggestions.”

She considered it. Allegedly, Kazi was most beastly when playing Earth or Sun. Rayla herself was best at Moon and Sky…and Sky was exceptionally poorly matched against Earth. Sun’s best counters were Earth and Ocean. Moon wasn’t great against Sun, but not terrible either. “Take Sun,” she decided, eventually. “I’ll do Moon. I want to see for myself how much you wipe the board with everyone when you get to play properly.”

If Kazi had been smiling before, they looked positively frightening now. Not that their smile had widened, or anything; they just seemed to have a way of looking disconcertingly menacing while beaming pleasantly at you. “I will do my best to arrange that,” they said, and reached for three boxes: Moon, Sun, and the tiles and dice and cards.

Setting up would have gone more quickly if not for Rayla’s interest in inspecting the various gamepieces, and Kazi’s interest in flaunting them. Most of the units, from citizens to mages, were all carved in beautifully varnished wood. The Hero and Archdragon figures, though… “Is that gemstone inlay?” Rayla asked with disbelief, inspecting her Lunar Archdragon and turning it this way and that.

“The Lunar Archdragon has mother-of-pearl inlay, in fact,” Kazi said pleasantly. “And, yes, some very small gemstones for the eyes.”

She shook her head at that, half-impressed, half in disbelief. “Where did you even get this?”

“It’s an heirloom,” they elaborated, which made sense. The only other way for someone to have a set like this would be by being ridiculously rich, or by knowing an insanely skilled craftself. “Hence why it has the standardised continent shape. It does need fairly careful maintenance, though. I paid to have some of the varnishing redone recently, for example. But for me, the joy of owning a set like this is well-worth the upkeep.”

Rayla nodded. It wasn’t her sort of thing, personally, but she understood well enough. “I bet you try to get people over to play you every chance you get,” she said, amused. “With a board like this…”

“It would be quite a shame otherwise, yes,” they agreed. “I must thank you for obliging me! This board so rarely sees a high-level game.”

She huffed, amused, and kept unpacking the gamepieces one-by-one. Kazi had to know that they were the better player. If she’d barely beaten them when they were playing Ocean and underestimating her for most of the game, she certainly wasn’t going to win now. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Eventually, when everything was set up, they rolled the starting conditions and began playing. Kazi very obviously knew what they were doing with the primary advantages of the Sun faction – agriculture, population, and military might – but Rayla was perfectly well acquainted with a proper Moon playstyle as well. She leaned into the espionage and intrigue skillset as heavily as she could manage, wreaking political strife in Kazi’s territory wherever she found an opening. When Kazi could find them, her units died; but that certainly wasn’t always.

Even so, the outcome was something of a foregone conclusion. The game lasted a while, because Rayla knew that her main defence against the Sun armies was if they couldn’t find the Moon cities, and planned accordingly…but Rayla hadn’t succeeded in assassinating the Archdragon, and hadn’t managed to get the Sun citizenry to demand a leadership duel either. So, unsurprisingly, Kazi eventually managed to field an assault that broke through the illusory barriers protecting Rayla’s stronghold, striking at her Archdragon precisely on the turn before New Moon. It died of its injuries the turn later.

Rayla considered the board carefully after that. Her best chances of winning against Sun would be crop poisoning, Archdragon assassinating, leadership disputes, or revolution. She’d managed the first and had been making decent headway on the latter two, but, in the end…it wasn’t close enough. She smiled ruefully, and said “Moon concedes.”

They nodded, having expected that, and smiled beatifically. “It was a marvellous game,” they said warmly, already reaching over to begin clearing the pieces. “Thank you very much for it.”

“I don’t know, it was a pretty solid victory for you.” Her voice was dry as she reached out to help, handling each of the intricately-carved figures with care. “You’re obviously the better player, here.”

“Yes,” they agreed, neither modestly nor boastfully, simply as the fact it was. “But nonetheless, you are certainly the best player I’ve encountered in-person in a very long time. Certainly the only one I didn’t arrange to meet with beforehand. It was a good game, no matter that you lost it.”

Rayla dipped her head, smiling a little. It wasn’t like she enjoyed losing…but she’d appreciated the challenge enough to make up for it. She’d ceased finding any sort of challenge back home a long, long time ago. “Yeah, it wasn’t bad.”

Kazi reached for another piece, paused, then eyed her consideringly. “Would you…like to discuss it?” they asked, tilting their head, watching her.

She glanced up, surprised. It was hardly an unfamiliar concept. She’d watched enough matches broadcast on Sunbeam to know how it went; when two top-tier players concluded a match, they talked about it afterwards. They discussed each other’s plays and strategies, pointed out mistakes, considered where there was room for improvement…

The only after-game discussions she’d ever had had been at Runaan’s knee, when she was still small and didn’t know the game nearly as well. It was weirdly flattering to be invited to do it now.

“…Yeah,” Rayla said, eventually, and sat back down. “I’d like that.”

Kazi beamed like the Sun they’d just used to trounce her. “Very good.”

The next half hour involved more talking than Rayla thought she’d done at a time in months…or, well, she would’ve said so, if not for last night. It was certainly a good second-place contender though, and by the end her voice was feeling a little tired from overuse. They concluded the discussion, packed away the gamepieces and board, and then were done.

“But of course, you must stay for another drink,” Kazi said, and whisked her empty glass of reveillant away. “You liked the berry infusion, yes? Excellent, I will get you another.” Good to their word, they did precisely that, and returned in short order.

Rayla did feel a little more awake, on that second glass of the reveillant. It was effective stuff; as much or more so than coffee, with (in her opinion) a considerably better taste. She was debating the merits of asking Kazi where they got it when they spoke up first.

“You’ll be returning, I hope?” they said, and it took Rayla a moment to think of what they meant.

“….Here?” she guessed. “For a rematch?”

“Well, yes, naturally.” Kazi pushed their glasses up, smiling a little. “I had assumed as much. But, no, I was referring to the game society. You’d be an excellent fit, I think.”

Rayla blinked. “Oh.” She thought of the previous night, and hunched down a little in embarrassment.

“I know it was only a very small group when you visited, but I have the impression you prefer that, anyway,” they said, neatly demonstrating that they were as unnervingly good at reading her as she’d sort of inferred. “It can get rowdier in term time – at least at the official meetings. The meet-ups at our houses are much calmer – usually just the core group.”

“Which is?” Rayla asked, a little reserved now, if only to disguise the fact that she really didn’t need convincing. She might have, after just the Friday. But after this…after yesterday…

“Myself, Callum, Nihatasi. Usually Pava, but often he spends the whole time tinkering instead of playing.” They shook their head, amused. “In term time – well, usually I’d say to expect Evairas, but he is spectacularly busy these days, so perhaps not.”

“…They sent messages,” she commented, after a moment. “Callum and Nihatasi, I mean. Pava didn’t.”

“Pava tends to forget Sunbeam exists for weeks at a time, don’t mind him,” Kazi assured her. “Nihatasi and Callum though, I’m not at all surprised. Nihatasi adores new people, and Callum…” they eyed her, just a little speculatively. “Well, I think you impressed him. Has he invited you to Tuesday, yet?”

Rayla blinked with consternation. “Invited me to what on Tuesday?”

“Game meeting, at the house,” they clarified. “It’s hardly an official thing, but it’s often Callum’s house that has everyone over. He hasn’t invited you over, yet? Well, he will. I am quite sure of it.”

For a long moment, she looked into her glass and the dark red liquid therein, pondering it as if it held all the answers for how she was supposed to respond. “If you say so,” she said, finally, and lifted her glass to drink.

“I do,” Kazi claimed serenely, and gracefully changed the topic to (naturally) more about Antiquitora. By the time Rayla finished her drink, she’d learned that Kazi played broadcast games online fairly regularly, under a handle that she recognised; she’d watched a good few of their games before.

“Is there a story behind that skein-name?” she asked, undeniably curious now that she was acquainted with the elf behind it. “’Finguistician’.”

Kazi laughed, like she’d surprised them. “Oh, that,” they said, mirthfully. “It’s something of an in-joke. You see, I have my doctorate in Linguistics – specifically, in non-verbal linguistics. Various sign languages, Draconic Corpus, and so on. I made a joke once, when I was still an undergraduate in a sign-language module, that the course should be called finguistics, given, well,” they waggled their fingers at her.

She snorted, amused. “Did it catch on?”

“Sadly, no. But I do call my sign language classes for the public ‘finguistics’, and no one can stop me, because I am the teacher.” They giggled a little to themself. “Perhaps in time it will become a more widely-used term. I would like that; it would be very amusing. In any case, that is where the handle comes from.”

Rayla thought, for a moment, about a moment from the game night: Kazi and Callum had used some sort of sign language with each other for a second, hadn’t they? She considered asking about it, wondering what his background in that was. Did he take any of Kazi’s lessons, or had he learned some other way?

In the end, she bit her tongue and said nothing. After a little more idle conversation, she eventually made her leave, farewelled at the door by her cheerful host. Without the game to bolster her, she swiftly began to really feel her exhaustion. Stimulants or not, she was so tired that a headache was starting to pound luridly behind her eyes, almost enough to make them water.

She headed home intending to collapse back into bed and nap – if the lingering effects of the drinks allowed her to, anyway. Which was why she was considerably displeased to arrive back to find her wing busy and full of noise and various elves milling about. The halls were crowded. She was about to say “What the fuck”, or perhaps “Shut up, do you know how bad my headache is right now”, but before she had the chance one of the closest elves (some wingmate she didn’t know the name of) spotted her and shouted down the hall “It’s her, she’s here, she’s not dead!”

All eyes went to her, and an immediate chattering started up. Rayla stared, utterly nonplussed, fighting the urge to pull on the Moon and take advantage of a state of near-invisibility to just retreat to her nice, privacy-sealed bedroom. The noise cancellation ought to take care of this racket.

After a few seconds, a face she actually had a name for pushed forwards. It was Stavian, a Skywing elf from her bellatorium, still in armour from training. “Rayla,” he said, sounding very relieved. “Thank goodness, we were about to call for an official search!”

Rayla had no idea what was happening. “What in Xadia’s name is going on here?” she demanded, finally, and her irate tone seemed to remind him that he (for some reason) customarily seemed to be quite intimidated by her. He shrank back a little, and as he did, a few of the rest of the Honour Games team started to appear.

“You didn’t show up for training!” he said, defensively. “And from anyone else that wouldn’t be much of a big deal, but you’ve never missed a day before. And then when we went to check on you afterwards you weren’t here.”

“And none of your wingmates knew where you were,” added one of her teammates: Fiera, a particularly tiny Skywing mage with hair and feathers dyed a distinctive lilac colour.

Rayla stared for a few more seconds, then wiped a hand over her face. “It was Full Moon,” she said, very slowly, her patience already somewhere on level with the floor. “I didn’t get to sleep till around five; of course I wasn’t going to go to morning training.” She ignored the fact that, if not for Callum, she absolutely would have. He’d been right; it was completely reasonable to miss training on a Full Moon rest day, and if they had a problem with that they could bite her.

The vast collective of people assembled in the halls all looked very embarrassed, suddenly. And honestly, they should be. Moonshadow elves were definitely uncommon in Gullcrest, but surely someone should have known it was Full Moon, and made the obvious conclusions. “Oh,” said Fiera, weakly. Her wings drooped a little. “That…makes sense.”

Now looking very abashed, Stavian echoed “Oh.” The crowd of assorted wingmates and guests, probably attracted by the initial hubbub, started to grumble and dissipate.

Rayla sighed, and rubbed at her eyes, attempting to scrounge some sort of positive emotion from beneath her absolute crankiness at being confronted with a noisy group of people when she was this sleep-deprived. “Look,” she attempted, tiredly, “It’s…nice you were worried. I didn’t realise anyone would be looking for me.” She searched for something appropriate to say. “I’ll…put a note on my door, if something like this comes up again?”

Her teammates, four of whom had shown up, nodded contritely. “Sorry for bothering you on a rest day,” offered another of them, starting to shove the others towards the door. “We’ll see you for training tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, I’ll be there,” Rayla looked longingly down the hallway, where her bed awaited. “I don’t exactly make a habit of missing training, you know.”

“Yeah, you’re very – dedicated,” Fiera said, in the tones of someone trying to be diplomatic, still being ushered doorwards. “Have a good rest day!” she called, right before the rest of them filed out and the wing became something approaching quiet again.

Too tired and too grumpy to have much emotional response to the whole thing, Rayla turned and headed down her hallway without a further word. The wing was still bustling, and it was more of a relief than usual to close her door on it; the privacy runes hummed lethargically as they activated, but the noise level outside cut off sharply enough that for once she didn’t mind their quality too much. They mostly did their job, and that was all she really needed.

It turned out that the effect of the reveillant couldn’t really complete with post-Full-Moon sleep deprivation; Rayla crawled into bed and fell asleep more or less instantly.

She woke some hours later, stirring at the sound of some computer module or other humming as it reactivated from idling. It wasn’t loud by any means, but she was quite sensitive to new or changing sounds in her vicinity, so it was enough. She blinked her eyes open, rubbing grit from their edges, and stumbled out of bed with a glance at the clock along the way. Moon-sense said it was late afternoon; the clock was a bit more specific about it, and said 6.33pm. The sky outside was still blue and light, but in that summer-evening way, where the sun had fallen low enough to cast long shadows between the city buildings. It was still bright enough to make her tired to look at.

There were new messages on her Sunbeam.

Rayla dropped into her desk chair and eyed the icon tiredly, uncertain if she was awake or rested enough to deal with any further social contact today. In the end she decided there probably wasn’t any harm in checking them, so…she looked. Kazi had thanked her for the game, and sent her some sort of invitation to make an account on…what looked to be the skeinsite that hosted the high-level Antiquitora broadcasts. She wasn’t sure what the purpose of that was, and didn’t have her head on sufficiently to figure it out, so she left it for later. Ethari had asked how her Full Moon had been. And…

She sighed, not sure whether to be pleased or embarrassed, because: Callum had left messages, too. Fairly recently, actually.

They read Hope you got to sleep okay, and how are you feeling? There was no mention of whatever he’d supposedly wanted to mention before the call ended, so he’d probably forgotten, or…something.

She debated whether or not to reply now. She found she was a little wary of…something. She wasn’t quite sure what. Making a fool of herself, maybe? She’d already spent nearly two very late-night hours sunbeaming him, and…that was already…well.

In the end, Rayla spent about five minutes trying to wrestle some semblance of reason past her sleep-mired brain, finally concluding that she was probably unlikely to come across as an infatuated idiot by responding to a couple of messages. Then, slowly, she picked at the keys to write back: Kind of knackered, but okay. While that one was processing, she hesitantly sent another: Just woke up from a nap. I think it helped?

She left the computer to visit the bathroom, tidying up her hair and washing her face with cold water. It did little to make her feel more alert, or to remove the weird muggy haze of exhaustion from her head, but it was better than nothing. She contemplated getting something to eat, but knew she wasn’t going to be up to cooking tonight. She went for one of her bottles of emergency moonberry elixir instead, which were so full of nutrients they probably counted as some kind of soup.

That in hand, she returned to her computer….and, somehow, wasn’t surprised to find that Callum had already replied. Was he just constantly glued to his computer, or what?

Well, at least it’s apparently traditional to be tired after full moon, I guess? He’d written, light-heartedly. At least you got a nap! Although it’s kind of late. Won’t you have trouble getting to sleep later?

Rayla shuffled forwards in her chair to respond. Nah. There’s a neat trick you can use to get to sleep at night if you’re a Moonshadow elf, and if it’s not Full Moon. Just need to shine a bright light in my face and I’ll be good. She hadn’t had to use it in a while, but she knew where the thing was: on her windowsill, to soak up sunlight during the day. It’d do the job just fine.

The pause in response seemed to be longer than connection lag would account for. That’s so weird, and cool, he marvelled, eventually. I just looked it up. They call them sun lamps?

Yep. Flash of sunlight in a dark place gets us sleepy pretty much every time. Moonshadow elves tended to be mostly diurnal by practice, but naturally, they all had the wiring for a nocturnal lifestyle. Bright sunlight in the eyes after being in the dark would usually trigger tiredness, even in elves perfectly used to going about in the daytime. Sun lamps were extraordinarily simple as far as enchanted objects went, but extraordinarily useful for Moonshadow elves with weird schedules.

What about if someone turns a light on in a dark room? He asked, apparently fascinated.

Nah. Has to be sunlight. It’s pretty specific.

That’s so cool, he reiterated, from that bizarre well of enthusiasm he seemed to have for banal magical elements of everyday life. Rayla waited to see if he’d write anything more, and after a moment, realised she’d started smiling. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Eventually, he did send something else: I’d ask if you wanted to call again, but you should probably, you know, be getting actual sleep.

What Rayla intended to write then was something along the lines of, ‘yes, you’re entirely correct, I need to sleep for like twelve hours if I’m not going to be a useless wreck for training tomorrow’.

Instead, what she ending up sending was keep it half an hour or less, and you’re probably fine.

I’ll set a timer :) he typed, complete with smiley, which was something she’d never actually encountered outside of the mageskein before. And then he called her.

“How’s the light level?” she asked him, when the call resolved. It wasn’t yet far into sunset, so she thought there ought to be sufficient lighting in her room to see by, but who really knew with humans. She certainly didn’t know how bad their eyes were.

In his own room, Callum was bathed in the warm glow of the light through his windows, shaded the same pink-orange that she was. He was smiling, even as he pretended to squint exaggeratedly at her room. “Yeah, I can just about see,” he said, obviously teasing. “It’s not dark yet.” A pause, and he took a moment to look her over a little more directly. He was a little more concerned when he added “Are you sure it’s okay to be calling? You really do look tired.”

“I think I’ll survive half an hour, Callum,” she told him wryly, and one corner of his lips twitched upwards.

“Yeah, fair enough.” He hesitated for a moment, like he was summoning his nerve for something. “Listen – I wanted to ask before, yesterday, but – there’s going to be a sort of casual gaming night? At my house? On Tuesday. The others will be there. And my housemates, er, obviously.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry if it’s short notice, but – do you want to come?”

Rayla stared at him, half bemused by the offer itself, half at his apparent nervousness. “Kazi said you were going to invite me,” she said, a little too nonplussed to offer any more intelligent response. “I guess they were right.”

He blinked. “You’ve been talking to Kazi?” A pause. “No, wait, what am I saying, of course you’ve been talking to Kazi. There’s no way they’d let someone who beat them at Antiquitora get away.”

“We had a rematch today, actually,” Rayla admitted, lips twitching. “I let them take Sun. Naturally they destroyed me.”

“Ow,” Callum said, with feeling. “I’ve been on the receiving end of Kazi playing Sun before. It’s…” he searched for the words. “Really something.”

She smiled, remembering it. With a few hours separating her from the game, she realised she’d enjoyed the experience more than she’d anticipated. The discussion in particular had been welcome. “I’m just glad to be able to play someone new, honestly,” she confided. “Though it’d be nice to do it again when I’ve actually slept.” A second later, she remembered he’d had an almost equally dubious bedtime, and inspected him critically. He looked surprisingly okay, actually. A little tired, but not like he’d been up most of the night. “Did you sleep in late, or what?” She asked then, a little amused. “You don’t actually look tired.”

He laughed sheepishly. “Yeah, I didn’t wake up till around lunchtime,” he admitted. “I had to go to work after that, though.”

Rayla paused, still very unsure of how to respond to mentions of his work. “And…was that okay?” She asked at last, uncertainly.

“Yeah, actually. I had a pattern etching appointment, and those are some of my favourites,” he said, brightening. “This one wanted one of my new designs, too. It turned out great!”

She’d seen something about that on the posters in the waiting room, she thought. “That’d be the…buzzing patterns into the horns?” She asked, faintly.

“Mmhm. I use sort of a really small thin version of an electric buffer, and work the etching in that way,” he agreed. “I draw the design on first and follow the lines, and then after you can either just polish it up and leave it, or like, fill with metal or something. It takes a while, but, you know, that’s kind of just how art works.” He shrugged. “It looks great, anyway.”

Rayla thought of her looming appointment, maybe a week or so away, and found she was entirely unprepared for thinking about that. “You…seem to kind of do the art thing a lot?” she hazarded, as a distraction, nodding to the nearest easel. “Painting?”

He turned to look, then grinned back at her. “Yeah! I mean, art is…well, I probably draw more than I game, and that’s really saying something. I do all sorts, kinda. I’ll have to show you some of my sketchbooks sometime.” That seemed to remind him of the question she still hadn’t answered, and he abruptly looked nervous again. “So. Er. Um. About Tuesday…?”

She tried, very hard, to keep an even expression. “Er,” she managed, and then finally: “…Yeah. Sounds good? I’ll…be there.” Wherever ‘there’ was. She did have the address written down, but hadn’t actually tried to figure out where it was in the city yet.

Callum straightened up, brightening. “Really? That’s great!” A second later, he amended “It’ll be really nice to have someone new over! We’ll have food and stuff, too.”

She paused at that. “Should I bring anything?” Hospitality expectations tended to be very different depending on culture, so it merited the question.

“Nah. Well, if you want, you can bring snacks or food, but you don’t need to. We have loads.” A second later, he added ruefully “Kassa has some…pretty strong opinions about how fully-stocked a kitchen should be.”

“That’s one of your housemates?” she remembered.

“Yeah! Actually, I lived with Kassa and her mom for a few years before. They sort of hosted me, when I was…well, when I first came to Gullcrest.” He amended his sentence half-way through, as if realising he was about to say too much. She was intensely curious about that. “This house is her family property, too, so we don’t have to pay much on it. We moved in when Kassa started her undergrad.”

She blinked, filing that information away. This had something to do with the mystery of him doing a mage’s masters at the age of eighteen, she was sure of it, but… “What about your other housemates?”

“Nihatasi moved in because we had room and she was a friend,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Soren…” he hesitated. “Well, he’s a childhood friend of mine,” he settled on eventually. “So he came to study here, and he took the last spare room.”

Rayla eyed him, but didn’t question him on the obvious secrets clamouring behind his words. “Looks a lot roomier than usual student wings, at least,” she commented finally. “These rooms are pretty cramped. And the runework is pretty worn-down. My door makes this horrible droning noise every time the wards come on.”

He made an ‘oof’ sound. “I’ve visited student wings before. They’re…well, they’re okay. Definitely prefer this house though.” He eyed her curiously. “Is yours at least one of the ones where you get one bathroom between two people? Because I knew someone who only had one bathroom for twelve, and it was terrible.”

“That sounds disgusting,” she said, making a face. She could hardly imagine how terrible that would be, with how some of her wingmates were. “I’m so glad that’s not me.”

“So glad,” he agreed, and before she knew it, they were off on a weirdly engrossing conversation about the merits of student living compared to home life. He was pretty evasive about it, but she got the impression he’d been used to a fairly fancy home before he came to Gullcrest, and he’d been astonished at what student wings were like.

Rayla was in the middle of describing how chaotic move-in day had been, with so many elves hauling all their boxes of things in at once, when a shrill ringing started up from over Callum’s voicecatcher. He reached hastily to the side and disabled some sort of egg timer that had gone off, settling back into view with a sheepish smile.

“That was the timer,” he said, apologetically.

Half an hour, already. It was a little disconcerting how quickly it’d gone by. “I’d better try to turn in for an early night, then,” she offered, weirdly reluctant to hang up.

He hesitated a fair bit, too. “Probably a good idea,” he agreed, wry. “We can talk again later?” His tone went questioning, at that. A little hopeful.

Rayla resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. “…Yeah, sure,” she sighed, more and more exasperated with herself for just how much she wanted to talk to him.

Callum smiled again, the edges of him lit up from the light of the falling sun. “Later, then,” he said, and hesitated once again. Then he reached out, and the call disconnected. Sunbeam minimised to its idling overlay around the edges of her screen, the background of Silvergrove scenery back to the fore.

She sighed, and leaned back in her chair. Ruefully, she spend a while reflecting on exactly how in trouble she was. Then she did as a responsible elf on their Full Moon rest day ought, and went to attempt an early night.

She managed it almost as soon as it was dark enough for her magic rune-rock to work. Thank Xadia for sun lamps, honestly.

---

End chapter.

Yeah so this is basically completely unbetaed, even by me, because I’ve been frantically trying to churn out a complete chapter this week in time for the Modern AU day of rayllum month. There will be typos, there will be clunky sentences, that’s just what you get for a rush job. I’ll return to it and do some editing in the morning.

Re: the Antiquitora. ‘Would you like to discuss the game’ *hikago fandom origins vibes intensify*

Worldbuilding notes for this chapter:

Moondances: specific ritual dances made to react with the runic Circles that Moonshadow elves use. The dancing is used as a form of spellcraft, to cast enchantments or strengthen the magic of a community. The Full Moon dances in Silvergrove for example are integral for keeping its magical defences running. (piaj)

EX and WX: East Xadian and West Xadia. A more modern and correct term for the human and elf/dragon sides of the continent, respectively.

Artefact magic: primal magic cast with a power source other than your own arcanum. E.g. a primal stone, a moon opal.

Thaumaturgy: the practice of magic casting.

Thaumatology: the study of magic.

Lightcatcher: magic camera, basically.

Voicecatcher: magic microphone, basically.

Honour Games: a fun sport :) more on this later.

Technomancy/technomantic: alternate proper term for magical engineering.

Antiquitora notes: while the game has been steadily gaining complexity over time, the game at its fundamentals is very old, and quite traditional. It’s considered a respectable strategy game, and Runaan certainly would have approved of Rayla showing an interest in it when she was younger. Modern variants tend to adopt features and ‘house rules’ that don’t strictly conform to traditional standards, though.

East Xadian computer games: though boasting dramatically better visuals and audio than human technology is currently capable of, the limitations of elven computing mean that computer games are extremely expensive, and difficult to integrate into lesser systems. Most elves will never be able to run the best gaming modules at home.

Nomad Gameships: Brevili nomads are well known for their magical engineering, and produce some of the most advanced technomantic games there are. Owing to the limited number of elves who can actually afford to buy them, they get creative with the marketing: many clans field airships whose sole purpose is travelling around as a sort of mobile arcade, landing at various destinations for a set amount of time, during which customers can pay for access to the many assorted games they have on offer. Demani, as the clan that (a good long while ago) invented the airship in the first place, boasts the most impressive facilities on their ships.

Skycrawler: a game so advanced and finicky that its developers haven’t yet figured out how to get it to run on less advanced systems than the gameships’ computers. There are a handful like these, usually the newest and most technomantically complex titles, and their release on gameships usually serves as something of a ‘beta’ build while they refine the technology for more accessible use. Imunaviga was one of these, and was very recently released for public purchase.

Imunaviga: as several commenters guessed, this is indeed a Subnautica expy. Rayla is not at all keen on the idea of playing it. I spent probably too much time working out the worldbuilding and plot for the elf AU version of this game. It was a lot of fun though.

Scion of Shadow: a well-regarded game with a Moonshadow elf protagonist, involving a lot of stealth gameplay, a highly-lauded storyline, and in-setting ‘fantasy’ elements; i.e. they’d be considered fantasy in this fantasy setting.

Magical overload states: Natural events that cause high levels of ambient primal magic can induce some very unusual effects in beings with the relevant arcana. Terms include ‘moonstruck’ for Moonshadow elves, ‘sunstruck’ for Sunfire, and ‘storm-drunk’ for Skywing. (piaj)

Moondust: a magic-dampening drug taken in different dosages based on the phase of the moon, to dampen the effect of the lunar cycle on Moonshadow elves’ bodies and minds. Not all Moonshadow elves take it, but most do. (piaj)

Reveillant: Sunfire elf beverage made from the dried berries of a shrub with stimulant properties. Some preparations are very strong and are restricted, but preparations from the berries are mild and very popular. (piaj)

Draconic Corpus: a sort of full-body sign language spoken by dragons incapable of complex vocal speech. Given this accounts for the majority of dragons, it’s generally useful to understand some of, even if bipeds are generally incapable of speaking it properly. (piaj)

#rayllum #rayllummonth #tdp callum #tdp rayla #college AU #modern AU #the ceracurist

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thatgamefromthatad · 3 years

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Mobile Life Simulators, Ranked (Part 1)

I downloaded a whole ton of mobile life simulator games over the past couple weeks and I realized it wouldn’t be plausible to rank all of them in one go so I’m breaking it up into parts with more similar games grouped together (can’t say when the next part will be made but I’m definitely planning on doing more at some point). Thank you to @creativeghost51 for recommending I cover the Sims games and other life sims!

It’s hard to define what ties these Part 1 games together (as opposed to some other groups like idle life sims and text-based life sims) but I guess the biggest similarity would be that all of these games involve your sim characters living in a home where they can freely walk around, and can interact with objects and each other. With the exception of Virtual Families Lite you can also decorate, customize and expand your home.

Something I noticed about all of these games is that you don’t really have as much freedom to experiment and build your own storylines and such as you do with, for example, the Sims computer games. While the games aren’t completely linear and there is a variety of things you can do in each of these games, they don’t really have the same sandbox quality that I think about when I think about the Sims. Which is understandable - these games are free to play and they’re made to be played mostly on people’s phones so they are expectedly more on the casual side. But I just wanted to point that out in case anyone was looking for something like the Sims to play on their phones or tablets. I haven’t really seen a mobile game in existence yet that is going to give you that same life sim sandbox experience.

Anyway, here’s the ranking rubric for these games (I’ll go into more detail about all of these scores under the read more):

***

1. Home Street

Developer: Supersolid Ltd

Release Date: Oct. 10, 2017

I was actually really surprised by this game - while it is more marketed as a home design game than a life sim it has a lot of similarities to games like The Sims Mobile; you have a character you can customize and dress up in a wide variety of outfits, you can interact with and build relationships with other characters/players (although only friendships, not romantic relationships, and you can’t have kids) and you do hobby-like activities such as painting and cooking.

While there aren’t personality traits or careers in this game, you save up “ideas”corresponding to different emotions or attributes, which function as crafting materials to go toward your hobbies. Through your hobbies/crafting abilities you can complete jobs for other characters, like selling them vegetables from your garden or giving them something you’ve cooked.

🏡 Character Design: 3/4 (while the ability to customize your character’s facial features and such isn’t as advanced here as it is in The Sims Mobile, it still has a wider range of options than The Sims FreePlay and I prefer the art style of Home Street compared to FreePlay; there’s also a wide range of outfits and accessories and you can set different outfits for different activities)

🏡 Home Design: 4/4 (although you’ll probably notice from my screenshots that I’m not exactly a home design aficionado, I found placing decorations, walls and floors etc in this game to be a smoother and easier process than in any of the other games and I like the art style of the objects as well. There’s a good range of items, including ones your character can interact with in different ways, and I like having the various hobby workstations embedded into the home where you can place them wherever works best for you, which is also how it is in the Sims games. There’s a lot of potential for someone who’s more adept at home design than me to create really fun themed rooms and whatnot)

🏡 Gameplay: 9/10 (I really loved the gameplay concept in this game more than in any of the other games, I love leveling up to get new workstations and crafting items to fulfill tasks for other characters. The task concept kind of reminds me of Animal Crossing in a way. While the main screen can be a little busy at times, overall the game is really easy to navigate and does a good job of guiding you with goals and tasks without making it feel like you’re restricted to only following those exact tasks. The characters and dialog are also charming and make you feel like you’re progressing through a story as you level up)

🏡 Playtime vs. Wait Time (without paying to speed up tasks): 4/4 (while you do need to wait for your hobbies/crafting tasks to complete, they don’t really take that long and you can save time if you craft things ahead of time; also there are a lot of things you can do while you’re waiting. The wait times might get longer as you get further in the game but I played for about two weeks and so far I haven’t felt really stalled at any point)

🏡 Total: 20/22

2. The Sims Mobile

Developer: Electronic Arts

Release Date: March 6, 2018

I was also pleasantly surprised by this game, since I had played The Sims FreePlay years ago and didn’t really like it, but this one I liked a lot more and had quite a bit of fun with. As I mentioned before, it doesn’t have the same sandbox quality as the computer Sims games, but the character customization is the best out of all the life sims I played and there’s such an enormous catalog of different clothing and home design items to choose from, there are definitely a lot of fun possibilities.

There’s a fairly wide range of things to do although I did feel a little more confined to the tasks the game set out for me - for example I went with the careers that I had objectives for rather than picking careers I’d really want my character to have, plus you need to wait until you level up to unlock careers so you have less freedom in that aspect.

🦙 Character Design: 4/4 (This game actually uses sliding scales to customize different facial features and body types and such, and although it isn’t as advanced as in the computer games it is much more advanced than I’d expect for a casual mobile game and makes it a lot easier to make the characters look how you actually want them to. The catalog of things to dress your sims up in is also enormous and there’s a fun special fashion feature that creates unique clothes that boosts your stats for certain activities, which is why there are hearts floating around my sim in the screenshot. Oh and there’s a social feature to give other people’s sims stickers based on their outfits, which makes dressing up your sim more fun and exciting)

🦙 Home Design: 3/4 (The home design here is pretty fun and there is a wide range of items, and I also like how there’s a score that goes up as you add more items and complete furniture collections. However I personally found the controls for placing a moving things a little wonkier than in Home Street and FreePlay, i.e. I kept moving things on accident or couldn’t get things to easily snap where I wanted them to, and the collections and goals did make me feel a little confined to selecting certain objects or adding things I didn’t need to fulfill the goals rather than going with my own style, although I suppose you could just ignore the goals if you wanted to)

🦙 Gameplay: 7/10 (This game is fun although it can get quite repetitive since one of the main things you’ll be doing is “events,” which mostly involves just tapping things or waiting a certain amount of time for the tasks to complete themselves. The “events” in this game kind of reminded me of the tasks in the Kim Kardashian game which I also played years ago lol. However there are things to do besides events and the events do have a little more to them than just tapping; when I say tapping I mean tapping task options that sometimes have quirky, funny names and there are also “risky” tasks that have bigger rewards but a certain chance of succeeding or failing etc. There are little bits of dialogue as you progress through your career, relationship and hobby chapters and there are also seasonal/limited time activities you can do that add more fun and variety and chances for rewards. However I still wish there was a little more variety and flare to the “events” aspect, which made up the bulk of my playtime)

🦙 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 4/4 (Like in Home Street, there is waiting involved if you’re waiting for events to complete and you run out of energy to do the tasks that speed them up, but you can choose whether to have a longer event or a shorter event and you can also have one sim be running an event while doing something else with the other sim. I was able to choose shorter event times if I wanted to stick around for a bit and then run a longer event when I was logging off for a while so I could reap the rewards when I came back. The amount of time you can spend playing continuously here is much better than a lot of other mobile games that involve an energy system)

🦙 Total: 18/22

3. Virtual Families 3

Developer: LDW Software, LLC

Release Date: Sept. 17, 2020

(Note: Please disregard how barren my home looks here, this was the last game I started playing so I didn’t progress very far but I feel I can still base my scores on what I’ve played so far and what I can see available that I just haven’t unlocked/can’t afford yet)

The Virtual Families games are all pretty similar to each other to be honest, but the most recent version is definitely the most fleshed out and the least ugly. There are more things to do, more variety in the sim designs (here they’re called “adoptees”) and there are actually nonwhite characters which I’m pretty sure there weren’t any or were barely any in the last two games. You still can’t customize your adoptees though, just flip through the options to pick the ones you like the most.

I kind of struggled with the Virtual Families games because they run on real time and my adoptees would end up severely neglected when I just didn’t have time to play, but there is an option to pause when you’re away, I just didn’t want to and wanted the game to progress naturally.

What I do really like about Virtual Families is that the adoptees have minds of their own and you can kind of watch them lives their lives and imagine little personalities for them. It’s a lot more casual than the other games and you probably have the most freedom here to do whatever you want although there are not as many things to do.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Character Design: 2/4 (You can’t customize your own characters but there’s more variety here in the randomized designs and the art isn’t as ugly and janky as in the previous two Virtual Families games)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Home Design: 2/4 (Home design isn’t as big of a thing in the Virtual Families games but there is a decent variety in furniture and objects to put in your house and you could probably have some fun with it if you’re creative. The art style isn’t that great though)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👧 Gameplay: 7/10 (Like I said, what I like is watching the little adoptees go about their lives or dropping them around to pick up the debris on the floor to look for collectibles. In this game there are also a lot of little funny random events like getting random phone calls or being given random choices to make that can have positive or negative outcomes. Occasionally you’ll be given problems to solve like needing to repair or hire someone to repair something, or once I lost the TV remote and had to look around my house for it then send someone to retrieve it. It makes the experience more varied and engaging and makes you feel more involved in progressing)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 3/4 (You can pretty much play indefinitely watching your adoptees except that can get boring especially if they’re just eating or sleeping. My adoptees kept getting really tired and I would just send them to sleep and exit out, then when I came back they would be out of bed and still extremely tired lol. But once they did get enough sleep I got to spend more time with them until they had to do something else boring like work or eat)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Total: 14/22

4. The Sims Freeplay

Developer: Electronic Arts

Release Date: Dec. 15, 2011

This game was pretty disappointing when I played it years and years ago hoping to be able to play the Sims while on the go, and it’s still pretty disappointing now even though I have more understanding of why they can’t put the actual full Sims game on my phone, especially not for free.

The most disappointing thing about this game is not just the long wait times, which are annoying on their own, but the constant ads that pop up any time you do a task that’s more than like 3 minutes. Some of these ads aren’t even skippable. This made it pretty much unplayable for me up to a point, until I figured out how to strategize to do the shortest tasks possible, and until a limited time special event thing came up that gave me something else to do without having to constantly wait or dodge ads.

That being said, this game does have the unique charm of being a lot more similar to the classic Sims computer games, with a similar art style and even the same or similar music and sound effects. If you have patience (or if you pay to play) I can see this being a lot more satisfying and I’ve seen people do really cool things on this game as far as building storylines around their sims and building really impressive houses. But I don’t think this game really works as a casual free-to-play game, it’s much too frustrating and monotonous for the average player.

💚 Character Design: 2/4 (limited options for facial features and not as many options for clothing as The Sims Mobile, plus the low-poly look is not very appealing; I know it’s an older game but since it’s still being maintained I’d think they would have upgraded it a little and added more variety over the last 10 years)

💚 Home Design: 4/4 (editing your home in this game feels a lot like in the Sims 3 and like I said I’ve seen people build awesome mansions in this game so I think this is definitely one of the best aspects of the game)

💚 Gameplay: 5/10 (I was going to give it a worse score given the insufferable, unskippable pop-up ads but I did give it credit for the limited time/seasonal events which are easier to play uninterrupted and add some variety to the game, at least the one I played did. I was able to find this game somewhat tolerable also by only doing the shortest tasks possible to avoid ads and then exiting out whenever an ad popped so I could just come back a little later, although the need to do that was also annoying in itself)

(Note/Edit: A very nice anon pointed out that you can avoid ads in games that don’t need a constant internet connection by turning off your wifi/internet while playing, and this seemed to work with FreePlay as long as you are connected to the main game before you turn off internet! You won’t be able to do everything in the game but you can still play in the main world with your Sims in their houses and do longer tasks without getting an ad pop-up if you temporarily disable internet on your device. I’m not going to fully change the score and ranking since I don’t think that’s how the game was intended to be played and needing to turn off wifi to play is kind of inconvenience in itself but the game definitely is definitely more like a 6/10 or 7/10 if you do this.)

💚 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 2/4 (Absolutely would have given it a 1/4 but the event saved it from that, you can play for longer stretches of time when there’s an event, but of course that only applies to playing the event and not the main game)

💚 Total: 13/22

5. Virtual Families 2

Developer: LDW Software, LLC

Release Date: Dec. 6, 2012

All of the Virtual Families games are pretty similar overall so I won’t go into a lot of detail for these last two but basically Virtual Families 2 has more variety in things to do than the first Virtual Families, especially in terms of home design and things to unlock throughout the game. It also has a slight visuals upgrade, although the character designs are still pretty janky for something that came out in the 2010s imo.

Also this game has a bug where if you do something the tutorial was supposed to teach you before the tutorial is over, you’re forever stuck in tutorial mode unless you completely start over, just a heads up.

👨‍👩‍👧 Character Design: 1/4 (While the janky character designs do kind of give it a retro charm for me this game really didn’t come out all THAT long ago and the designs and animations are pretty wonky. I know Last Day of Work/LDW isn’t an enormous company like EA or anything but from what I understand they had relatively good amount of success in the early casual mobile games sphere, and since this is a sequel I’d expect a little more of a visuals upgrade than this but that’s just me)

👨‍👩‍👧 Home Design: 2/4 (Same deal as Virtual Families 3, more furniture options and opportunity to expand your home but art style is lacking and doesn’t feel like a central aspect of the game)

👨‍👩‍👧 Gameplay: 6/10 (Just a little less varied than VF3 and a little more than VF1)

👨‍👩‍👧 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 3/4 (Same exact deal as VF3)

👨‍👩‍👧 Total: 12/22

6. Virtual Families Lite

Developer: LDW Software, LLC

Release Date: June 3, 2009

Phew, you know a game is old when it has “Lite” in the title. This is one of the first smartphone games I EVER played (though when I first played it I didn’t have a smartphone, just a 1st gen iPod Touch); in fact, I’m not 100% sure, but this might actually be the first smartphone game I ever played, and I do remember it fondly. I want to make it clear that I’m rating it now on the experience of playing it today in 2021 relative to the other mobile games I’ve played and reviewed, being that the purpose of this blog is to hopefully give people an idea of what games they’d like to play, and hyping up a 12-year-old game as though it holds up more than it does for nostalgia’s sake doesn’t fulfill that purpose imo.

That said, this game does hold up fairly well, but definitely pales in comparison to its sequels and other options now available. This game is still worth playing if all you want is to have a little virtual family to check in on from time to time and don’t really want to do much else. Otherwise it doesn’t offer anything that its sequels doesn’t save for its nostalgic charm and uniquely terrifying art style.

👩‍👦Character Design: 1/4 (Same as VF2 but uglier)

👩‍👦Home Design: 1/4 (The house already has everything in it and you can’t rearrange anything, which is convenient but boring. You can upgrade your work stations though)

👩‍👦Gameplay: 5/10 (Same as VF2 but a little less variety)

👩‍👦 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 3/4 (Same deal as the other two, although watching your family is arguably more boring when there are less things to do, but it’s also more convenient when you already have all the furniture and appliances you need right off the bat so it balances)

👩‍👦Total: 10/22

If you got here to the end, even if you just skimmed through, thank you so much for reading 😍 Follow me for more mobile game reviews, articles and commentary 🥳

#life sims #sims #the sims mobile #the sims freeplay #sims mobile #home street #virtual families #life simulation games #home design games #games ranked #full review

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jakey-beefed-it · 3 years

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Sometimes it feels a bit like I’m the only person who actually *likes* D&D.

Some background. I used to play D&D (3rd through 4th mostly) with some folks, and while a couple of them were at least sort of willing to roll with things, the others were rather... focused on tearing apart the mechanics, criticizing everything that wasn’t as fine-tuned as a swiss watch.

My philosophy has always been like, it’s an imperfect game, sure, it’s made by mortal beings, that’s what the DM is for- when the rules break down or are unsatisfying, the DM is there to say ‘fuck it’ and do whatever best serves the group and story. Sure, other games are better at this aspect or that, but I have always liked the gestalt of D&D. It’s a fun game. I like it and want to play it. Obviously lots of other people feel the same way- 5th edition in particular is hugely popular to the point of being basically mainstream, which is fucking *wild* to a guy who started off playing 2nd edition in like 1992.

My old group also played a lot of Exalted, and I also ran a heavily modified Rifts game for them. Heavily modified because when I specifically started a Rifts campaign to blow off some steam and just play a mindless game with terrible mechanics I could handwave away as needed, one of my players literally roped me into coming up with developing an elaborate system based on 2nd Edition Exalted that would work for telling Rifts stories and playing with Rifts archetypes while avoiding the whole... Rifts rules fiasco. Which, okay, fair, if you guys are going to actually take your characters seriously then fuck it I’ll roll with making the mechanics less stupid, it’s a lot more work than I expected but I’m pleased you’re enjoying yourselves enough to care that the mechanics suck. (and Rifts mechanics absolutely suck- they were kinda bad compared to other games when it came out in 1988, and it’s never updated).

Two of those players eventually went on to literally run a reasonably successful podcast where they analyze and eviscerate tabletop RPG mechanics, so like, you get what their priorities are and why they’re quite different from mine. I recently asked one of them if he was interested in joining my 5th edition D&D game when it was undergoing a massive overhaul, and he basically said ‘I’m potentially interested if you run a game that isn’t D&D.’. Okay, not everyone likes D&D, and it’s a big time commitment, and I wouldn’t ask anyone to hold their nose and do something they don’t enjoy for the sake of hanging out with the best friend of 20 years before he moved away five years ago who you hardly ever talk to anymore, but I would resent it a bit that you didn’t even consider that.:p

Back on topic somewhat, more recently I’ve played in and run a couple games with a new group for the past couple years- more or less the same batch of people in both games. But then both games kinda exploded a few months apart for varying reasons, but one of the big underlying reasons was that at least a couple of the players were feeling it was more of an obligation than any fun. I get it, that sucks, and them departing the game, while sad, makes sense, and there’s no ill-will there. I only wish they’d been a little more outspoken about their reservations earlier, but people have anxiety, and I get that too.

I pulled my own game back together, recruited two new players to round out a party for the two remaining players, and have continued for what I considered to be a pretty successful forty-one sessions so far. There have been some rough spots, but I’ve done my best to be attentive and responsive and help to iron them out before any resentment could grow.

It kinda... hasn’t worked out so well. And at least part of the reason is that I’m not entirely sure most of my players are even really enjoying D&D. I do my level best to make sure they have fun, are challenged without being roadblocked, have rewarding impact on the setting and characters, etc. But even so, almost every session, somebody (and who it is varies) has a massive issue with something that’s making them feel awful about the game such that I’m not sure they’re going to continue, or even if they should for the sake of their own mental health.

For good or ill, anyone I play D&D with becomes a Friend in my mind pretty quickly, and that means I value their health way higher than my own fun and am much happier to see them admit there’s an issue they can’t overcome and they need to bounce than to struggle with worrying over whether they’re doing themselves active harm by continuing. I love my dumb characters, but I love my friends more, you know?

I bring this up now because as precarious as things have been for a while, they’re really starting to wobble, such that I’m not at all sure either my own game or the one I’m a player in are going to continue. Mostly due to people having issues with the game itself. Which, as I stated earlier, is very odd to me given my own approach, but okay, I get it, it’s not for everyone and I understand if you genuinely don’t like the game. And if that’s so, you should really probably not be playing it, right?

Somewhere out there are D&D groups who meet pretty regularly, have a good time, enjoy each others’ company and the shared story, and maybe even the game itself. There are lots of them, if the popularity of 5th is anything to judge by. Some weeks it feels like I’m running one of them, or playing in one of them. Some weeks it really doesn’t.

#Jake runs Dungeons and Dragons #Jake plays Dungeons and Dragons #boring personal bullshit

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expensiveglasses · 3 years

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Charming chapter 6

Summary: Prince Jungkook was as infuriating as he was beautiful. In line to one day be king, he requested your guidance in the ways of his people. In turn he will make you laugh, give your family fine gifts, and become an invaluable friend. Unfortunately, he will also make you fall in love with him. But the most unfortunate thing of all was his betrothal…to Snow White

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Fluff, Fantasy, Angst, Snow white/au

Rating: NC-17

Word Count: 4590

Warnings: This is the chapter the warnings have been about. It’s a heavier chapter in the second half dealing with “death” and attempted suicide. Nothing is graphically described, but if you are sensitive to that subject matter, you may want to avoid the last few paragraphs.

Trigger warnings are TW: Major character “death” TW: Thoughts of suicide TW: Attempted suicide.

. .

A month had passed since Else’s wedding and the summer was slowly coming to an end. It made it easier to do chores when the air was cooler; more pleasant to sit outside and do the washing. Though you’d mostly neglected that for the last few weeks.

You hadn’t seen your friend as much since her marriage and so you’d spent even more time with the dwarfs and Snow in their cottage. The prince joined most nights, bringing food and humor with him. You’d quickly learned he was a master of terrible jokes and couldn’t help but like him all the more for it.

This morning your mother had sent you in search of berries. She claimed to want to make preserves, but you were wise enough to know she just wanted to go see a friend and gossip. You didn’t mind so much as you chose to dawdle around the edge of the forest, plucking blueberries from bushes and placing them in your basket.

You saw the prince making his way towards you long before he reached you. The sight of him made your insides feel funny, like little wings sweeping delicately against your ribcage and you bent down to survey a raspberry bush, plucking eagerly at the juicy red fruit.

“Good morning.” The prince greeted as he reached your side and you stood straight to gaze up at him.

“Good morning, Jungkook. You’re out very early today; normally I don’t see you until evening.”

“I finished my lessons early today.” He grinned, something mischievous in his twinkling eyes, and you felt that perhaps he’d snuck out before actually finishing his training.

“I hope you won’t get a tongue lashing for this.” You teased, moving further up the path towards a strawberry bush and plucking one to try. “Mmm, they’re amazing right now. Would you like to try one?”

You moved to take another bite of yours, but the prince was faster, grabbing your wrist and pulling the berry towards his mouth, allowing plump lips to encircle the rest of the berry and separate it from its calyx.

For a moment, everything stilled, your heart thumping wildly in your chest as his fingers remained delicately around your wrist. His gaze was wild; heated on yours as he stepped towards you. Heart racing, you let the end of the strawberry fall from your finger tips and onto the ground.

“Sweet.” He murmured, licking the juice from the corner of his mouth and your vision was pulled toward the sight before you quickly looked away.

The prince paused before stepping back, staring down at the strawberry bush and into your own basket. “You’re picking berries this morning? May I help?”

“Yes, of course.” You nodded, turning back to the strawberry bush and plucking fresh fruit to drop into your basket. “There’s more in the forest.” You signaled, beginning to walk and he followed after you.

“What were you studying today?” You asked as you began to pick from new bushes. Jungkook stood nearby, loading his hand with blueberries.

“Foreign politics and language specifically. These are topics that I studied in school as well, but my father wants me polished in the policies of our own kingdom, of course.”

“Are foreign policies of other lands so different from our own?” You asked, walking closer to him so he could drop the berries in his hands into your basket.

“It depends on the country.” He mused, crouching low to pick from more difficult spots. “The ones nearby are very similar, but across waters it begins to diversify greatly. Of course, all people are human at their core, intrinsically the same if we’re all torn down to the beginnings, but traditions and belief systems vary. It’s good to have a working knowledge of any land we may come to have dealings with.”

“Ah, the duties of a king.” You smiled softly as he stood to his full height beside you. The prince drifted closer to you as you weaved your way deeper into the forest. Close enough that you could feel the graze of his sleeve against yours, smell the fresh saffron against his tunic.

“Duty, I find, is a very inconvenient thing.” He looked at you and you pondered his words curiously.

“What do you mean?” You inquired gently, slowing your pace to match his.

“Always to be bound to one’s duty, never to allow the heart to decide.”

You paused a moment. “And what does the heart wish for?” You whispered, looking up at him. He’d come to a stop and you stilled as well, turning to face him.

“I think you know.” He returned just as softly. The weight of his words was heavy to bear; it brought with it a joy you’d felt was impossible. You had hoped he would say something like that; that he’d been feeling what you were feeling. You were flush with warmth at the admission.

“But your heart cannot have its desires?”

He smiled sadly, eyes softening as he looked at you. “Duty, you see. It seems it bends for no one.”

“I wish it would.” You admit timidly and he sighed, taking your hand carefully in his own.

“As do I.”

“Snow says we mustn’t worry now, after all, the future continues and we do not know what it holds.” You smiled, feigning an optimism you didn’t really feel. If even a prince could not choose for himself, why should you feel things could be any different for you?

At least you knew you weren’t the only one wishing.

“Should we go see her?” Jungkook smiled and you nodded. He released your hand and you strode ahead of him, leading him further into the forest and eventually into the clearing that held the dwarf’s cottage.

Snow was not alone when you arrived; however, and the two of you stood startled in the doorway as you took notice of her with a young man by the hearth of the fire. They looked up at the two of you as the door swung open and Snow smiled, coming to pull you into a hug.

“You’ve come!” She cried happily. “I was so hoping you would. I wanted to introduce you both to my friend, Diterich. He’s the one I told you of, who saved me.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, your majesty.” Diterich said, bowing low. “Ma’am.” He said, inclining his head towards you and you smiled in return.

He was a handsome young man, dark, shaggy blonde hair and bright green eyes. He was well built and had a bow strapped to his back; you wondered if that was his profession. He was certainly not close to Snow in rank, but he held himself as though he were made for something more than his station in life and you liked that quiet confidence. You supposed Snow did too, based on the way she looked at him.

Love sick. It made your heart ache for her and you looked carefully over at Jungkook. Destiny had not been kind to any of you.

“I’ve heard of your kindness to my friend.” Jungkook said, “When everything is well again, you should be rewarded.”

Diterich shook his head, staring down at Snow, the same look of love she’d bestowed on him, and smiled. “With all due respect, your majesty, I didn’t do it for reward.”

“I like you all the better for it.” Jungkook smiled. “How did you come to find her, though?”

“Snow sent me a communication through letter. One of the dwarfs found me in Snow’s kingdom, at her direction, and delivered it personally. I am indebted to him. It has given me much comfort to see her safe and well. I am only sorry I could not bring her some of her clothes.”

Snow waved his comment away. “It is a small inconvenience. Besides, I am far happier to have your company than to have all my dresses back. All three of you. Will you be staying for supper?”

She looked to both Jungkook and yourself and you smiled with a shrug. “It’s still so early in the day so it’s hard to say, but I imagine I’ll be able to spare some time this evening.”

“I should hope so! By the way, did you happen to notice if there are any gooseberry bushes nearby? I want to make a pie tomorrow.”

You nodded, pointing out the window. “Yes, in fact, there are some just before the tree line. Over there.”

“Wonderful!” Snow cried, clapping her hands together. “Then tomorrow you can expect some pie.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.” You said.

“Snow has said you’ve been friends since childhood.” Jungkook said suddenly, “but I never did ask how the two of you had met.”

He inspected them with the same interest you had and you wondered if he could see what you could. The prince was intelligent, so you imagined the shared looks of longing had not been missed. Diterich looked to Snow before answering.

“We met as children. My father was a huntsman in their court and I was raised to take his place. As children, we would play in the castle together. We got into trouble a lot,” he grinned, “a princess wasn’t meant to be wrestling with a common boy. Kindred spirits, my mother would say. When my father passed, I took his place as a huntsman in the royal court. Youngest in Vildüngan history.”

His chest puffed as he said it and you smiled. “Your family must be very proud.”

He nodded, expression dropping suddenly. “My mother and sister are all I have left. They’re in hiding, though. As am I. The queen found out about the pig’s heart and ordered my head. It’s why I came here; to warn Snow.”

You looked to the princess in alarm, but she smiled at you with all the serenity of one whose life isn’t in perpetual danger. “She doesn’t know I’m here.” Snow assured, squeezing your arm. “All is well.”

“We need to start thinking of ways to get you back to your kingdom. You’re its rightful heir!” Jungkook insisted and she tutted, moving away from the hearth of the fire and towards the kitchen to keep her hands busy.

“It will all work out somehow, I have faith.” She replied flippantly and Jungkook looked angry.

“Why won’t you take this seriously?” He chastised. “She wants you dead and is actively seeking your heart. Let my father help, we can do something; go against her.”

“No.” She insisted, turning sharply to look at him. “I don’t want anyone else to be pulled into this. No one need inconvenience or injure themselves on my behalf. I’m already uneasy with how many people are involved; how many lives are directly affected because of this…I won’t have anymore.”

“But,” Jungkook began once more but was silenced as she frowned at him.

“I said no, Jungkook.”

The prince sighed, rubbing at his forehead in frustration. “Fine, I can’t make you take your safety more seriously. I must return home.” He bowed before turning towards the door and you looked from Snow back to Jungkook before following him out into the clearing, basket full of berries swinging from your arm.

“Jungkook!” You called, rushing to his side. He didn’t slow so you walked with him through the forest in silence. Just as the trees were thinning, Jungkook slowed his pace, sighing loudly.

“I’m afraid I won’t be seeing you again until the day after next.” At your questioning look, he proceeded. “My father and I are expecting foreign dignitaries this evening and we will play host until tomorrow evening as well. I won’t have time to spare while they’re here.”

“Duty, as you say.” You smiled. He returned your soft smile, nodding and reaching for your hand.

“I will be seeing you.” He said, leaving a soft kiss on the back of your hand before making his way back up to the castle. . .

Your mother was in the garden when you returned, cutting cucumbers from their stalks. She looked up as you came through the gate, waving you over.

“Why did it take so long to pick berries?” Your mother asked with a frown, taking the basket from your arms.

“I went to say hello to the dwarfs while I was in the area.” You said, bending down beside her and helping to dig up carrots at her direction.

“You’re there too often these days; what business does a young woman have visiting 7 old men so often? Aren’t they in the mines at this time of day anyway?”

You sighed, brushing hair from your face as you dropped a couple carrots into the basket beside your mother. “Well, now that Else is married I don’t always have anyone to visit.”

Your mother frowned. “Perhaps you should think of getting married soon.” She said and you looked up at her startled.

“Get married? It’s not that easy, mother. I’m not even being courted.”

She gave you a look, eyes shifting over to the house. “If you gave a little more effort where prudent, perhaps that wouldn’t be a problem.”

You sighed, shaking your head and pulling another carrot from the dirt. “I’m not in love with Peter.” You whispered.

Your mother laughed, wiping her hands on her skirt. “Love? We don’t have that luxury, my dear. You know that.” She stood, hands extended for the basket full of vegetables and you handed it up to her before standing and grabbing your own basket with berries. “I expect you here all day tomorrow. You’ve been neglecting your duties and it’s time you start preparing to run a house of your own. Time waits for no one, you know.”

She walked into the house and you watched after her, chewing on your bottom lip as you willed the tears of frustration back. You wiped your hands on the apron over your dress before walking into the house and out of the sun.

Peter and your father were in the corner, both working with new fabrics. Peter looked up at you, offering you a small smile before returning to his work and you sighed softly to yourself. Why couldn’t you just love him? . .

Your hands were sore. You’d been at the river all morning with your mother washing linen. It had been your job to beat the linen with a poss-stick as your mother insisted that’s what youth was for. You wondered if you’d ever be able to move again. What good was youth if it was wasted away on chores?

Hands feeling like they might just fall off, you wrung out the last of the fabrics before dropping it in your basket and heaving this onto your hip. Your mother chatted aimlessly as you walked from the riverside and around the edge of the forest towards your home.

You cast your eyes up towards the castle as it came into view around the bend of the trees and wondered idly what Jungkook was doing today. You knew he was entertaining foreign dignitaries, of course, but you couldn’t even imagine what that entailed. Perhaps they were holed up in some room discussing trade.

“Can you imagine living there?” Your mother asked, taking note of your gaze. You sighed, looking from her and back to the castle.

“Only in our dreams, mother.”

She hummed, shifting her own laundry basket in her arms. “If we lived in a place like that, I imagine we could have someone else tend to our washing. Our cooking, too. What must their food be like, hmm?”

You chuckled, kicking a pebble across the dirt path. “I suppose we’ll never know. Grand, I imagine, though. Warm potatoes and bread, sweet dessert’s whenever we ask for them. I would eat everything and die happy if I were them.”

“Thanks to the prince, we can have some share in their prosperity.” Your mother commented and you could see her looking at you from the corner of her eye. “He’s been very generous, as of late.”

You nodded; eyes trained on the dirt path beneath your feet. “Yes, he has been very kind.”

“He was never so kind when he was a boy. I wonder at the change.” She remarked and you wondered if she suspected more than she let on. She’d never seen the two of you together; aside from when he and his father had visited your home a few months ago.

“Perhaps he had a very good education.” You said as the roof of your home came into view. “Rumor has it he went to a school for training.”

“Rumor, you say?” She asked and you nodded, pushing through the gate in front of your house.

Conversation stopped then as the two of you went about hanging the laundry from the lines and working in the garden. Peter and your father were working on mending clothing in the home, so you didn’t feel like discussing the king and his son in their presence. It seemed your mother was also of the same mind set.

As the sun waned and the evening became cooler, Peter left your home with goodbyes and well wishes. You were only just finishing supper when the wind outside began to howl. Your father peaked his head outside the door and you watched as you ladled stew into bowls.

“A storm is approaching.” He commented softly. “I must make sure the animals are secured.” He left the home to the small stable behind your house and you listened as the wind whistled loudly from outside the walls.

“We’ve not had rain in a while.” Your mother said, helping you to bring the food to the small table. “It will be good for the crops.”

The storm raged loudly through the night, rain pounding against the timber frame of your home. It was difficult to sleep with all the noise; thunder and lightning bursting loudly across the sky. You could hear your father snoring from the small room next to yours and it soon lulled you into a fitful sleep. . .

Mornings after a storm were your favorite. The calm as opposition to the fierce raging of wind the night before a reminder that brighter days always followed the rain. You’d managed to convince your mother to allow you to check on the dwarfs this morning. You imagined they were mostly protected from the elements in their place among the trees. Even so.

After a quick breakfast of pottage, you dressed and made your way towards the forest. The sun was already sitting comfortably in the sky, illuminating the crystal blue sky and you listened happily to the sounds of birds singing as you walked through the fields.

You found, to your surprise, the prince already waiting by the forests edge. He sat upon a boulder; legs draped out in front of him as he pulled blades of grass apart as distraction. He looked up as your footsteps roused his attention, smile spreading across his lips.

“Y/N.” He beamed, standing and coming to meet you.

“I’m surprised to see you so early!” You exclaimed. “Won’t your father be missing you?”

“Actually, he and our guests drank well into the evening. They will be spending the next few hours recovering in bed.” He said with a roguish grin and you chuckled, making your way into the forest.

The prince followed quickly. “Did you not drink yourself, your majesty?” You teased and he smiled at you.

“I did, but only a little. I knew I wanted to use the opportunity to see you.”

You looked away with a small chuckle, smoothing hair away from your face.

“Well, here I am.” You smiled. Before you could continue, there was a heavy rustling in the trees and both you and Jungkook stopped, watching with unease as something came crashing through the branches.

To your surprise; it was the dwarfs who came rushing into sight and they stopped suddenly, panting before you.

“Y/N, your majesty!” Doc gasped, clutching at his rounded belly as he took deep steadying breaths. The panic in his tone was palpable and your back straightened in alarm.

“What’s wrong?” You asked. Jungkook seemed just as tense from their unusual greeting and you waited with baited breath for your friends to continue.

“It’s Snow.” Doc finally said and your alarm rose.

“What of her?” The prince asked sharply and all eyes turned to him. The dwarfs were still breathing heavily from their run; disrupting the usual quiet of the forest.

“Your majesty!” Sleepy blubbered, hardly able to contain himself. “Snow has died.”

“What?!” You gasped, eyes swiveling desperately to each face, each as stricken as the next.

“How?!” The prince demanded and Doc was quick to try and calm the atmosphere.

“She has not died.” He pacified. Your chest was so tight you thought it might burst. How could someone possibly die and not die all at the same time? “She’s been put under a spell; a sleeping spell.”

“I don’t understand.” Jungkook said tersely. You’d never seen him look so distraught.

“Allow me to explain.” Doc continued, “An old hag came to the cottage when we were away. She had a basket of apples. I’m unsure how, but Snow came to acquire one.”

“It was poisoned and that foolish girl took a bite.” Grumpy cried furiously.

Doc tried once more to continue, but Happy spoke first. “We chased the hag, but it was difficult in the storm. Chased her up the mountain but she slipped and fell off. It was the queen, your majesty. It was her stepmother.”

“Did you capture her?” Jungkook asked angrily, back ramrod straight as he paced back and forth. “Did you tie her up to be tried for her crimes?”

“No need,” Bashful said, shaking his head. “The queen is dead. She died from the fall.”

“What of Snow?” You rasped, “where is she?”

“That’s why we were coming for you, your majesty.” Doc said once again. “It was old magic the queen used; ancient. Unless she can find true loves kiss, she’ll remain asleep forever. We can take you to her.”

“True loves kiss?” Jungkook asked, voice cracking in his grief.

The dwarfs nodded. “It’s the only cure.” Sneezy bemoaned. “That’s why we came to find you, your majesty.”

“Me?” Jungkook asked, looking to you and back to the dwarfs.

They looked to you; gazes filled with pity before Doc spoke once more. “You are her betrothed, your majesty. If not you, then who?”

The pain in your chest was severe. Fracturing from the loss of a friend; ripping apart as the prospect of losing the one man you truly loved loomed like a shadow over you.

“What do I have to do?” He whispered and you looked up at him.

“True loves kiss.” Dopey murmured, eyes shifting over to you sadly and then back to the prince.

It was silent for what felt like eternity, the gravity of the situation sinking in and you felt buried under the weight of it; the forest floor waiting to accept you. The prince looked to you, tears already in his eyes, but your own vision of him quickly blurred.

“I have to try.” Jungkook choked and you could feel your heart break a little more, “she’s one of my closest friends. I can’t sit back and do nothing; I couldn’t live with myself. I have to try.”

“I understand.” You murmured. “What if you’re able to wake her?”

Jungkook paused, his eyelashes fluttering closed, a line drawing between his eyes. “Let’s not think about it right now. I have to go.” He gave you one last glance before darting further into the forest with the dwarfs and out of sight. Was it possible to die from a broken heart? You were sure the question had been asked before…you were also sure the answer was yes. Your heart ached in a way you’d never imagined it could.

The love of your life was running to the side of another woman, and though you knew his reasoning was righteous and sound, you ached for the inevitable outcome. A prince was meant to be with a princess. This was no fairy tale, not for you, at least. You can’t always have what you want.

But as you stood there in the grass, surrounded by your broken dreams, you mourned what you could never have had. Even if Snow had not eaten the apple, even had she not been born at all, you would never have been given your heart’s desire; your class was decided before you were born and you would do well to remember it.

When Snow awoke, as she inevitably would, you would be left to watch them marry. Worse still, your father would likely be commissioned to make Jungkook’s wedding clothes and you would be expected to help. That was a bitter truth you could not swallow. To carry the wedding clothing of the man you were desperately in love with…only for him to wear them with someone else.

You could not do it.

Your feet began to take you before your mind could catch up. The dwarves’ home, tucked delicately between the trees and the stream. The lighting surrounding the cottage was dim despite the morning hour, the house dark in the absence of the once warm lighting; filled with the dwarfs and Snow’s laughter and song.

Now it felt as empty as your heart. The evening turned chilly, the storm from yesterday taking with it the sun from the late summer and you shivered at the thresh hold, lifting your hand carefully to push against the door.

With a soft creak, the door swung open and you glanced inside. In their haste, everything had been left exactly as it was. An uncooked gooseberry pie sat on the counter top, flour strewn across. The fire in the fire place had long gone out. And there, by the table, an apple with one bite.

You stood in the door way a moment, staring down at the beautiful red skin of the nearly pristine apple. Contemplating. You could not bear to face a future without him in it.

With three quick strides, you picked up the apple and ran from the house, seeking out the privacy the trees afforded you. Not far from the home, in a particularly dense part of the forest, you stood staring down at the beautiful, red fruit.

A choice, so simple yet so difficult. One bite; you knew that’s all it would take…but was it really worth it? The light was fading fast this deep in the forest and you shivered, looking around in the darkness.

You thought of Jungkook again, of his handsome, smiling face. His kind and gentle heart, his loyalty and good nature. Was he with Snow White now? Had she already woken up? He was no longer your Jungkook; forever the kingdoms Jungkook and your heart wept.

You wouldn’t even be missed.

Staring down at the apple you closed your eyes, breathing slowly out of your nose before bringing it to your lips and taking a bite. It was bitter, acidic, and it burned. You coughed, dropping the apple to the ground and fell to your knees, spluttering, eyes watering as your tongue swelled and you felt your blood turn to ice in your veins.

Everything hurt, your limbs felt like they were made of fire, burning, burning, burning and then black.

Here’s the second to last chapter! The 7th is already finished and in editing. I hope you loved this chapter as much as I loved writing it and I can’t wait to hear from you! <3

#jungkook scenarios #jungkook fanfic #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #bts jungguk #bts jeon jungkook #jeon jungkook

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self-loving-vampire · 3 years

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Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992)

Ultima 7 was pretty much my introduction to RPGs, and I could not have asked for a better pair of games to ignite a lifelong passion into that genre. There is a real reason why this is still considered one of the best RPGs ever made.

While Ultima 7 is often discussed as a singular entity, it is actually two separate full-length games with one expansion each. For this post I will focus on the first one, Ultima VII: The Black Gate, as well as its expansion: Forge of Virtue.

I recommend playing the game using Exult, which adds some quality of life features (such as a feeding hotkey and a “use all keys” hotkey) as well as the option to use higher quality audio packs, implement bug fixes, and change the font into something easier on the eyes.

Summary

The protagonist of the Ultima series is “the Avatar”, a blank slate isekai protagonist from our world who has previously travelled to the world of Britannia several times and saved it from many threats, also becoming the shining paragon of the virtues meant to guide its people.

In this game, you once again cross the portal to Britannia to save it from a new and mysterious extradimensional threat. As soon as you arrive, you immediately discover two things:

1- A violent ritualistic murder has just taken place.

2- There is suspicious new organization called “The Fellowship” gaining adherents throughout the land.

It is up to you to investigate these developments.

Freedom

In terms of freedom, the Black Gate has plenty overall but there are areas where it is not quite there.

Once you can manage to get the password to get out of the locked-down town of Trinsic you are free to go nearly anywhere in the game right away and have multiple means of transportation to accomplish this, such as moongates or ships.

And there are some very real rewards to exploring like this as well, such as various treasure caches and other interesting findings.

The world is actually very small by modern standards, especially when settlements occupy so much of it, but both the towns and the wilderness areas are dense with content.

Notably, the game also allows you to perform various activities. From stealing to making a honest living by baking bread (which is something you can do thanks to how interactive the environment is) or gathering eggs at a farm.

Where it falls short is in terms of having multiple possible solutions for quests. Generally there is only one correct option for how to complete them.

That said, there is a bad ending you might be able to find in addition to the canonical good ending.

Character Creation/Customization

This is one of the big minuses of the game. While you can select your name and gender (and with Exult also have a wider selection of portraits) that is about it for character creation.

All characters will start with the same stats and there are no character classes. You can develop your stats through training and specialize through your choice of equipment, but by the end of the Forge of Virtue expansion you will have maxed stats and the best weapon in the game (a sword) regardless, and you will definitely need to cast a few spells to progress the main quest as well.

This can make every playthrough feel much like the last, as there isn’t that much of a way to vary how your character develops or what abilities they’ll end up having. You will always be a master of absolutely everything in the end unless you go out of your way to avoid doing the Forge of Virtue expansion.

Story/Setting

While the game is a bit too obvious and heavy-handed about its villains, there are still many interesting storylines in the game that deal with mature subjects that remain relevant today, such as cults, drug abuse, workplace exploitation, and xenophobia.

However, the setting as a whole is greater than any individual storyline taking place within. With the exception of most guards and bandits, every single NPC in the game is an individual with a name, schedule, living space, and defined personality. This was not the norm in 1992 and even today there’s not many games that really implement this well. The world is also very detailed in terms of things like the services available to you, the general interactivity of the game world, and the sheer amount of things that populate every corner of it.

The initial murder is not only a strong hook for investigation but also a shocking scene in its own right. The Guardian also proves to have a significant presence as a villain, using a mental link to remotely taunt you based on the context of what is happening. For example, if your companions die he may offer you some exaggerated, mocking pity.

Immersion

There is something very interesting and comfortable about just watching the various inhabitants of a town just go about their daily lives. They work during the day, eat at certain times (either at home or at one of the many taverns in the land), and sleep at night. They don’t just strangely repeat one single action during the day either, they may do things like open windows when the weather is nice or turn candles and streetlamps on at night.

In terms of immersion, Ultima 7 is my primary example of a game that does an excellent job of it even if there’s some weirdness going on with the setting. Even after having played so many more games throughout my life, only a few are on the same level as either part of Ultima 7 when it comes to immersion.

Gameplay

There are three broad aspects to the gameplay here that I want to discuss.

The first is combat. It is actually simple enough that you can call it almost entirely automatic. You simply enable combat mode by pressing C and your party will automatically go and fight nearby hostile enemies based on whatever combat orders you have selected for them (by default, attacking the closest enemy).

This is certainly better than having an outright bad or annoying combat system as the whole process is simple and painless, but I still wish there was more depth to it. Your stats, and especially your equipment, still play a role but other than things like pausing to use items or cast spells the whole process is very uninvolved.

I kind of wish there was more depth to it, but at least the other two areas of the gameplay are reasonably good.

The next aspect of gameplay is dialogue, which uses dialogue trees for the first time in the series. Previously, it required typing in keywords, which are retained but as dialogue options you can just click on rather than remember and type.

While the keywords are not really written as natural language most of the time (requiring some imagination to determine the specifics of your dialogue), the system is very easy to use regardless. It definitely lacks depth compared to something like Fallout: New Vegas, but so do most games.

The third and most notable thing is the way you interact with the world in general. It is both extremely simple and very immersive at the same time.

Ultima 7 is a game that can be played entirely with the mouse (though keyboard hotkeys make everything much more comfortable). You can right click a space to walk there, you can left click something to identify what it is, and you can use double left click to interact.

For example, double left click over an NPC to talk to them (or attack them, if combat mode is enabled), double left click a door to open it, double left click a loaf of bread to feed it to someone, and so on.

But there is more. By holding your click over an item and dragging it, you can move it. This has various applications beyond just being how you pick things up and add them to your inventory. For example, sometimes objects may be hidden beneath other objects, or objects may need to be placed in a specific location.

There are some downsides to this system. Particularly, the issue that keeping your inventory organized can be time-consuming when it has to be done by manually dragging objects around, and this can also make looting relatively slow.

Despite this, I think this kind of interaction system has a lot of potential. It just has some clunky aspects to be ironed out.

Aesthetics

Ultima 7 was very good-looking for its time, and although modern players will not be very impressed by how it looks or sounds, it still remains easily legible in a way that some other old games are not. That, and the ability to identify anything with just a left click, makes this a very easy game to make out at the very least.

Some of the music of this game is very distinctive too, and will likely stay with you after a full playthrough.

In terms of style, the Black Gate does have a bit of an identity while still having a very familiar medieval fantasy setting with things like trolls, animated skeletons, dragons, and liches. While there are aspects that help the setting distinguish itself a bit, they are relatively subtle.

If I had to describe the feeling of playing this, I’d call it “open and laid back”. While the main quest deals with a looming threat to the entire world, the game does not follow this overly closely at first, letting you deal with it at your own pace and without having your exploration options limited by the story.

In fact, when I was young I often just ignored that and went to live in a creepy ruin in the swamp.

(Don’t expect many pictures in these reviews, but have one of my “childhood home.”)

I’d say that Ultima 7′s second part (Serpent Isle) has a much stronger and also darker and more isolating atmosphere overall and that has a lot of appeal to me in particular, but the Black Gate is definitely more open and less linear, and I also appreciate that.

Accessibility

It pleases me to say that Ultima 7 remains extremely easy to pick up and play. Even setting up Exult is not complicated in the least.

The gameplay is intuitive and simple, the UI is minimal, stats are basic (and not even that important), and the combat is automatic. I expect that this is not only the easiest point of entry into the Ultima series as a whole but also likely even easier to get into than many modern RPGs!

It does have some aspects that may be a bit clunky, like all the inventory-related dragging, but it’s definitely not obscure or complicated even to someone who has not read the manual (though I’d still recommend doing that). I literally played this game as a tiny child who could barely read or understand English and still got really into it.

The one thing I’d like to point out is that the game uses a type of copy protection where at a couple of story points (including an extremely early one to leave the first town) you will be asked some questions that require using the manual and external map to answer. You can just google the answers for these.

Conclusion

As I write more of these reviews there will be many games that are interesting, but deeply flawed. Games that are worth trying out but maybe not finishing, as well as games that had interesting ideas but that I can’t entirely recommend due to serious problems that will easily put people off.

But I do not think the Black Gate is such a game. I can easily recommend it with no qualifiers despite the fact that it is almost 30 years old. This is really a game that all RPG fans should at the very least try for a few hours, and not only for its historical significance. It is genuinely a good game worthy of its praise.

I will review its sequel, Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle, next.

#vampire reviews rpgs #ultima 7 #the black gate

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seokiie · 4 years

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𝘉𝘛𝘚' 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶

A/N: ok so these reactions are really long lmfao (shortened for your scrolling pleasure) they're more like drabbles than reactions and I deadass think I got the definition of flirt wrong cuz these are way more sexual than they should be;; also can we talk abt how well Hobi’s gif matches the reaction ok bye

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Namjoon:

Namjoon was not the jealous type and you knew that. But you could tell he was getting a little more annoyed and frustrated than usual. At first, you weren't quite sure what was getting his panties in a twist. Then you realized how much time Taehyung was spending around you.

It was a dinner party and Taehyung had offered to accompany you while you mingled with the sophisticated guests. Who were you to decline? Of course, you didn't think much of it when he puts his arm around you and pulls you close to his body. He was warm and he smelt so, so good. Like... like a sweet, hunky, ginger smell, or maybe even warm milk.

More than once while you were talking to people, someone would compliment how the two of you looked good together. He'd always cut you off with a laugh when you were about to correct them. You didn't think too much about that either.

Or when another group was giving a formal speech on stage. You'd sat between Taehyung and Namjoon. You were so focused on the heartwarming speech that you barely noticed when Tae's hand found a spot to rest on your upper thigh. Right above where your fitted dress stopped. You also failed to notice the way Namjoon was giving you the death stare.

What happened later that evening seemed to push Namjoon over the edge, you think.

You'd gotten fairly tipsy, thanks to Taehyung. You learned that he'd picked up a new hobby in drinking wine. He wanted you to try his favorite flavors and god, does that man have taste. You weren't too drunk. You could still walk and think relatively straight. But by this point, you were ready to go home.

"Taehyungiiie, wheres Namjoon? I need- I think its time for me to go home." Your hand rests on his shoulder as you get up from your seat.

"I haven't seen him since the speech. He's probably busy. Do you want me to take you back to the dorm? I don't want you traveling alone tonight." You nod and he wraps his arm around your waist, his hand feeling hot where it rests.

Tae's just about to lead you to the exit when you hear a familiar voice call your name. You turn around immediately. Its Namjoon. At the sight of him, you're released from Taehyungs grasp and you sprint to him as fast as you can in wedges.

"Where were you two going?" He sounds passive but there's a slight hint of hostility in his voice.

"_____ couldn't find you and she wanted to go home. But you're here now so you should take care of her." You can't quite tell if Taehyungs smile is real or fake. Before you can even evaluate it, he's walking back to the party with his hands in his pockets.

You also don't think too much about that. That is, until Namjoon has you back at the dorm and he's pushing you against the wall before the lights are even on.

"Were you doing that on purpose? Huh? Because I don't get jealous you decided to test my patience?" You can't see how close he is, but you can sure feel it. The wine in your system only making the situation feel hotter than it actually is.

"Since you decided to torment me this evening, how about I torment you for the rest of the night and make sure you can't walk tomorrow?"

Jin:

As you had never been to an after-party before, you had clung to Jin like your life depended on it. And considering you didn't know anyone there (besides the other six members), you had felt especially lost when Jin excused himself to the bathroom, leaving you to wander around the nicely decorated venue.

"_____?" At the moment you were sitting alone at the little bar area, but the sound of your name makes you turn around.

"What're you doing drinking alone? Hyung left you?" It was Hoseok. Somehow, you were thankful to finally see someone you knew.

"He's in the bathroom right now. He doesn't like it when I drink too much so I'm trying to down as many shots before he gets back." You give him a smile.

"I'm sure he wouldn't want you disobeying him like this. How about dancing with me instead of trying to get as drunk as possible?" You don't get the chance to respond before he's taking the shot glass from your hand and dragging you to the dance floor by your wrist.

Usually, you'd be too flustered to dance in front of so many people much less with the likes of Hobi, but the alcohol had just loosened you up just enough to match his rhythm.

"You dance better than I thought, _____." His breath is hot against your neck as he murmurs into your ear, trying to talk over the heavy bass. His hands leave traces of heat on your hips while he pulls you close.

Rocking against Hoseok, you lose track of time and forget that Jin must be out of the bathroom by now. In your defense, Hobi was a really good dancer. Like, really good. The way he guided your hips against his caused heat to stir in your lower abdomen. The shots you'd taken a few songs prior made your body move with a sudden fluidity.

At some point within the sixth or seventh song, you found that maybe you were getting a little too worked up. The feeling of Hoseok's cock rubbing against you through his finely tailored dress pants made your insides rearrange more and more the longer you danced against him. If you didn't excuse yourself right now, you were gonna do something you'd regret.

Jin watches you from afar, a smirk playing at his lips. He watches as you pull away from Hoseok and he knows that look on your face. That parted lip, clouded eyed expression. It's a face he's seen so many times on so many occasions. When you start to walk towards the bathroom, he follows suit.

The bathroom is quite a distance away. The hallway leading to it is long and reminds you of something straight out a horror movie. While lost in thought, you don't notice the presence approaching you from behind, said presence then grabbing your arm and pushing your back firmly against the wall. A surprised grunt turns into a moan when his thigh presses against your heat through the sheer dress you're wearing.

"You looked like you had fun dancing with Hoseok." It's Jin. You turn your head to the side, not wanting to meet his furious eyes.

You open your mouth to respond but the words are caught in your throat. Jin's got you trapped, a hand on either side of the wall next to you. Anticipation and guilt washed throughout your body as he gets closer, his lips brushing against your ear as he spoke.

"I don't care who you dance with, drink with, have sex with. But remember who you always come home to, babygirl."

Jimin:

Jimin had been rather cold to you recently. Of course, he had a very busy schedule and you knew that, but you wished he'd at least return your texts. Luckily, one Friday out of every month, Namjoon invited you over to the dorm for movie night. You took this opportunity to get back at Jimin.

Since there were so many people for such a small area, you usually took a cramped seat on top of Jimin's lap on the one person sofa. But today, you decided to take a seat on Namjoon's lap instead. He was sitting the closest from Jimin and you wanted to make sure he heard everything.

When you finally settle down amidst Namjoon's thighs, you can feel not only Namjoon's eyes but Jimin's as well, their confused stares boring through you.

"Uh, don't you usually-" You cut Namjoon's words off with a 'shhh, it's starting' and he gives a nervous glance to Jimin.

You're laughing at a particularly funny part when Namjoon's hands squeeze your waist, asking for your attention. You turn your head to look at him in response.

"_____, don't move so much when you laugh." He says it quietly so no one can hear him besides you.

"Am I blocking the screen too much? Sorry." You turn back to the TV and shift your hips back slightly, milking a vulgar growl from somewhere deep in his throat. You hear it, and feel it and you know Jimin hears it too with the way his head snaps to his right.

You don't look at him but you can feel the way Jimin stares into the side of your face. The look he's giving you makes you nervous, but you push farther. Knowing Jimin's eyes are still on you, you let your head roll back and rest on Joon's shoulder. It's an awfully seductive move and you hear Jimin scoff beside you and turn back to look at the TV.

The movie is about to end when Jimin speaks up for the first time all night.

"We're out of popcorn. _____, can you come with me to get more." It's not a question, but an order. An order that has you scrambling to your feet and following closely behind him. He leads you into the empty kitchen, completely silent while he puts another bag of popcorn into the microwave. The tension is enough to set your nerves on fire. When there's a familiar popping sound coming from the microwave, Jimin finally starts to talk.

"Listen, baby. I know exactly what you're trying to do, and you'll need to try a lot harder." He crosses his arms, leaning on the kitchen counter and looking at you, eyes darker than they once were.

"I know I've been distant lately." He stalks towards you like he's about to pounce on his prey. "Since I have a break this weekend, I was planning on rewarding you for being so patient."

"But I think punishment suites you much, much better."

Yoongi:

"Have you seen Yoongi?" You were sitting in the dorms living room scrolling through your phone when you notice Jungkook enter from down the hall.

He turns to look at you before responding. "No. What's up?"

"He's supposed to give me one of his signature back massages but I can't find him." You stuff your phone in your pocket and cross your arms, looking at the only other person in the room with a raised eyebrow.

"You shouldn't be sitting here by yourself and he might not be back for a while. If you come to my room, I'll give you a back massage ten times better than anything Yoongi could do." He grants a warm smile and your aching shoulders compel you to accept his offer.

It feels innocent enough, the way Jungkook has you laying face down on his bed as he straddles your lower body. His thumbs press into your tense muscles and almost immediately you feel your body relax into the bedsheets.

"Woahh..." You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding. "That's, wow, that's really good, Jungkook. Fuck."

"Aah, seriously? To be completely honest, I didn't think I'd be qualified to give you such a good massage-" His fingers press down hard and when your body cracks, a sigh of relief and pleasure slips past your tongue. "-but hearing you moaning below me has really changed my mind."

You're not sure whether you should laugh or embrace the way your body tingles at those words.

"Does this feel good? Here?" Your bones crack again as he presses his fingers harder into your skin and you let out a particularly loud plaint that's muffled by the bedsheets.

"Wah, I'm definitely going to remember the sounds you're making for later tonight. Music to my ears." You actually do laugh this time, tilting your head to the side so you weren't being suffocated by the sheets.

The longer Jungkook is working on your back and shoulders, the more relaxed you feel and the louder you get. It's only when the bedroom door opens that the fingers making you feel so good stop moving.

"Thought I heard your voice, _____." Yoongi is leaning in the doorway, eyes taking in the sight in front of him. "What exactly is going on here?"

Both you and Jungkook stay quiet, knowing just how bad the situation looks. When one of you are about to pipe up, Yoongi interrupts.

"Nevermind. I don't even want to know." He walks towards the both of you. "Jungkook. Out."

Jungkook gives a staggered and confused look to you then back to Yoongi before sliding off your body.

"Did this hyung just kick me out of my own room? Ah, seriously." The maknae curses under his breath before shutting the door behind him.

When the two of you are finally alone, Yoongi sits on the edge of the bed and turns his head to look at you.

"You couldn't wait until I got home? You're a bad girl." He has a smirk on his lips and it eases your worry of him being angry.

"My back was hurting. You wouldn't text me back so I assumed you wouldn't be home till late." You start to sit up so you can get more adjacent to the man next to you, but his hand moves to your shoulder, slowly pushing you back down as he crawls over you.

"So you had Jungkook take care of you?" You don't move out of pure anticipation and he laughs, tilting your chin up.

"You know none of the other members can make you feel as good as I can, baby. So why bother running to them instead? To be honest, it looks like I need to teach you some manners."

Hoseok:

You had just come back from the mall with a couple of your friends when Hoseok called you over to the dorm to help with cooking. You didn't have a need to change out of your current outfit, a cropped hoodie and high waisted shorts, but now that you were in the kitchen next to Yoongi and had four guys staring at you, you wished you changed into something more modest.

The outfit wasn't necessarily revealing but you'd be lying if you said it didn't make your ass look delicious.

"The food looks especially good tonight, right Kookie?" Jimin, Jungkook, and Taehyung had all taken seats at the kitchen island, eyes lingering on you as you and Yoongi worked alongside each other to make his special ramen.

"Mmm, it does, Jimin. I want a piece so bad." The maknae practically growls and you turn around to offer the three men a plastic smile.

"If you want to eat 'so bad', you oughta be patient." Tae glances behind you before grinning widely.

"______, how are we suppose to eat soon when you keep distracting the chef?" He points to something behind you and when you turn you see Yoongi giving you bedroom eyes.

"You too?!" You hit Yoongi with a spatula you had in your hand and he quickly offers a not so sincere apology through chuckles.

As if on queue, Hoseok appears from down the hallway. He must've been in his studio.

"Yah! What're you all staring at. Do you have any idea how to treat a woman?" Hobi scolds the younger members, his facial expression not 100% serious. You give a laugh and finish up with cooking.

When the food is finished, you wash your hands and excuse yourself to the bathroom down the hall, leaving everyone else to set the table and serve the food.

You're just about to wash up and leave when someone barges in, shutting and locking the door behind themselves.

"Hobi? What're you doing?" The bathroom isn't particularly big. When you turn around to face him, he picks up by your thighs and places you on the counter beside the sink.

"I could ask you the same thing. When you're dressed like that, I just wanna make sure the boys don't get any ideas." He plays with the button on your shorts before dragging the zipper down and shimmying the tight garments down your thighs. When those wicked shorts that Hoseok loved but hated with a passion were discarded onto the bathroom floor, he leaves a trail of kisses up your inner thigh, biting ever so slightly and intending to leave marks for everyone to see.

"Ah, you-you'll miss dinner." You sigh as Hoseok's tongue gets dangerously close to your heat, the only thing stopping him being the thin panties you'd worn today.

"My dinners right here, baby." He looks up at you with desire and want in his eyes.

"I'm not sure if you've caught on, but I'm going to edge you on this counter till you're screaming my name and everyone in this dorm knows who you belong to."

Jungkook:

"Aish, I don't deserve these compliments. I could've done better on stage today." Jimin looks at his reflection through the camera and brushes his fingers through his hair. Jimin was currently on v-live. He had requested you stay by his side for the duration of the live, something about your company being able to calm his nerves. You accepted, of course. But you opted to stay just barely out of frame, so the millions of viewers could only hear your voice.

"Jiminie! Don't say that. You did well!" You pat him on the shoulder and after he responds with a toothy grin.

"You know just what to say to cheer me up, _____." You can feel the way Jimin stares daggers through the side of your head when the words leave his mouth.

God, you pray he's not pulling this shit again.

You don't have a hard time ignoring the unrelenting glances, but when his hand finds its way to your thigh, slowly caressing the area before giving you a light squeeze, yeah. That's when it gets hard to ignore.

Jimin's hand stays on your thigh, kneading your bare skin like it was some sort of stress ball. You're so lucky you can barely be seen on screen, the way you were fidgeting under his grasp was a dead give away.

"______, can you read out some questions for me to answer?" You give a terse nod before realizing no one can see you.

"Yes, ah-" At that moment, you feel Jimins hand drifting towards your inner thigh, gripping you gently and pulling your leg towards him. The action advertently opens your legs and it nearly makes you choke on your spit.

"Yeah, I-I'll read a few questions for, uh, for you."

Jungkook hated this, hated jimin (although he did say that a lot). He knew Jimin had the tendency to flirt heavily with the people around him. It was a well-established joke but doing this sort of thing in front of fans? Wasn't this a little too far?

He'd only wanted to tune in for a few minutes of the v-live before going to bed, but ended up staying a bit longer when he noticed what was going on behind the scenes.

The way Jimin was staring at something outside the frame, the arm moving just barely out of the camera view and the way you couldn't get your sentences out without stuttering over a gasp.

Suddenly, he was regretting letting you help Jimin with his v-live and he intended to fix his very clear mistake.

Jimin was telling a childhood story when there's a knock at the door. He interrupts himself to say 'it's open' then clapping happily at the sight of Jungkook entering.

"I'm not staying." Jungkook glances at Jimin before his eyes settle on you. "Can I borrow _____ for a second?"

With the way the younger boy is looking down at you, you know you've seriously fucked up

"Sure, I'm almost done anyway. Oh, and Kookie..." Jungkook's already taken your hand and is leading you out of the room when Jimin speaks up once more.

"...don't be too rough on her, I was just teasing." Jungkook scowls at the hyung before closing the door roughly behind himself.

You want to ask him what the issue is but you don't even get the chance to open your mouth before the younger boy is pushing you flush against Jimin's closed studio door. When your back makes contact with the door, there's a loud bang and you're pretty sure Jungkook pushed you hard enough to make the whole wall shake.

"Here? Ah, Kookie, no-" His mouth is on your neck, sucking gently as his hand slips past the waistband of your shorts. This wasn't exactly the best place to have sex. Right outside Jimin's door was the hallway which led to the other members' studios.

"Seems like Jimin worked you up quite a bit, _____." You're embarrassed at how wet the situation makes you and the way Jungkook's fingers are teasing your clit doesn't help one bit.

"We can't, h-holy shit, we can't do this here. Some-someone'll hear." You can barely think straight, your body wrapped up in pleasure as Jungkook slowly fucks you with two of his fingers.

When he responds, his voice is in your ear, an indescribable feeling in his tone that you've never heard before.

"Since you wanna be a slut on Jimin's live, how about I fuck the life out of you against his door for everyone to hear?"

Taehyung:

The vocal line was doing an interview while you, Namjoon, Hoseok, and Yoongi watched behind the scenes.

You'd been helping by passing out water bottles to the staff but since they were about to wrap up with recording, you and the three other men were watching from the sidelines. At some point during the last thirty minutes, Yoongi's arm had found its way around your waist, his hand playing with the belt loops on your jeans.

"Wait, wait, wait. Can we stop for a minute?" The interviewer stops speaking and everyone's focus turns to the PD who was talking. "Taehyung, you look really mad, can you fix your facial expression, please?"

The rest of the vocal line would laugh and you would, too, not knowing that Tae's fierce expression was your fault.

"My bad." You swear you see his eyes flicker to you, a grimace on his face before his facial features soften up. Odd.

As the recording comes to an end, Yoongi's still playing with your belt loops the only difference is his pointer and middle finger slip past your waistband, his thumb rubbing circles into the area of skin covered by your shirt. You're not gonna lie, the way he's touching you seems innocent enough but it does far more than just distract you. You don't even notice when he leans over to whisper something in your ear.

"Do you see Jungkooks face?" He had a grin playing at his lips and when you turn to see what he's talking about you break into laughter.

"Why does he look like that? He looks like he's being possessed." Yoongi laughs along with you.

Taehyung sees it all and he's everything but happy. Seeing the way Yoongi's fingers easily made their way to your bare hips; the same hips he's left beautiful marks and bruises on for you to admire the next morning, made him so mad. When the interview is finally, finally over, he sees you separate from Yoongi, but not without the both of you giggling about whatever the fuck. He watches as you enter the staff lounge, probably to fetch something the writers or PDs needed. He decides to follow you.

The first thing he sees when he enters the staff lounge is you at the snack area eating various cheeses and chocolates. To be honest, he wouldn't expect any less from you.

"Ah, Taehyungie. You scared me. Do you want some cheese?" Someone comes up behind you and wraps their arms around you. You know those arms when you feel them. It's your precious Tae.

"No cheese." He takes the toothpick from your hand and places it back down on the fancy silver platter. "You did something bad to me, _____. So bad."

You tilt your head slightly, wordlessly asking what he means. At the sight of your exposed skin, he presses kisses up your shoulder and you let out a relaxed sigh.

"Yoongi." He pauses, slowly making his way to your neck.

"I was, and still am, trying to be calm. But the way he was looking at you, touching you... Why aren't you as angry as I am?"

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