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loliwrites · 6 months

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The One You Need | one

🎶 I spent most my life thinkin' love was out of reach, so maybe just this once, you could be the one I need, if you let me be the one you need 🎶

Pairing: neighbor!joel miller x f!reader Rating: explicit, 18+ minors dni Summary: when you move into town hellbent on keeping everyone at an arm’s length, your neighbor Joel finds his way into your life. Warnings/Tags: au, neighbor joel, age gap [reader is late 20s/early 30s, Joel is late 40s], slow burn [ish], hyper-independent reader, a bit of a misandrist mindset [boys are problems], mentions of family drama/turmoil, passing mention of death [elderly neighbor], brief non-violent use of a pocket knife, mention of stabbing [as self-defense], furniture building, reader described as female, hair long enough to tie up, no other physical descriptions, eventual smut, protective!joel, soft!joel, no use of y/n. Word Count: 4.6k Series Masterlist | part two a/n: this is my first time writing with this sort of format so pls be gentle. i’ve done my best to tag as thoroughly as possible, but if you think i’ve missed something, let me know. i have no outline for this. but i’ve got a whim and a direction and i’m going with it. **please read the warnings/tags for every part as they will be updated**

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You’d done it. Finally. No one ever thought you would, including you. And yet, here you were, lugging your sparse personal belongings out of the back of a U-Haul truck and in through the front door of your new home. And for once in your adult life, it wasn’t in some impersonal apartment building or complex. It was a house. In a town that was actually affordable, though it was further from home than you might’ve preferred. A town that was away from family, which had been the impetus, but also away from friends, which hadn’t been.

There was a perk to this being the first house you’d ever moved into. Being confined to seven hundred square feet had meant there was only so much room to fill. And it had all been cozy. But now there was a bit more space to work with. Not to say this house was large by any stretch of the imagination – it was on the smaller side of all the houses in the neighborhood – but you had rooms now. And as you loaded in different boxes and suitcases full of clothes and books, you realized how much of the space was going to be left empty. With the exception of a mattress, bed frame, dresser, a couple chairs, and bookcases, you left every other large piece of furniture behind. Couches, dining table, kitchen chairs, media console, TV… you planned on buying all of that in town. You only wanted to bring what you felt you could move yourself.

It was the season of life you were in. Young enough for people to say you had time before focusing on creating a family for yourself, but not young enough to avoid their awkward and worried glances when you told them you were only focused on your career. It was odd; never something that settled right. With each birthday, every time a candle was added, the world around you seemed less secure with your aloneness. As if you, a single female, were something of a threat to the rest of the world. Your solitude, an act of rebellion. God forbid you didn’t have a man to look after you. In your experience, boys didn’t do too good a job at much. Were they useful? Absolutely. You’d much rather delegate tasks to a boy than have to do them yourself. Mow the lawn, fix a creaky door, seal a drafty window, get you off… sure, there were any number of things a boy could do, but not only were they not necessary, you generally found you were better at any job than they were. That had been instilled in you long before you began dating.

How many times had it been proven that dad could not be held accountable for his entire emotional spectrum? And instead you, a mere child, were to be responsible for it. Though it wasn’t always bad – somewhere deep down you knew your parents had done the absolute best they knew how to do with the tools they had – but the emotion dad was never short on was anger. Thus, it was the emotion he was most comfortable expressing. And yes, you apparently were the catalyst for all of his loud expressions of anger and rage. Everything was always conditional. I’m sorry but you did this…

I love you but…

By the time dating had entered your life (which only happened post-college), let’s just say no therapist was surprised by the pattern of boys you chose to have in your life. All of them modeled the thing you were familiar with, which only served to imbed the quality you hated most about yourself. There was a tendency to accept any treatment a boy was willing to give you, without expressing needs or desires or even if there was a problem. Boundaries? Never heard of her. As far as boys were concerned, they seemed to have carte blanche over you. Your own resentment and anger would grow by the lack of your needs (which had never been verbally expressed) being met, until you’d had enough and cut them off. Every new relationship felt like a complete betrayal of yourself.

The highly independent and ‘don’t need a man’ personality quirk had strung a ribbon of apathy around your life. You liked to think of it that way. Like a Christmas bow around a present. Realizing you didn’t care about forming intimate relationships with men seemed a little less painful when given the image of a box neatly wrapped beneath a tree donning tinsel and colorful lights. It was at that point, while pondering your ribbon of apathy and clumsily shoving your mattress up the front porch steps, that a voice interrupted your progress.

“Lemme help ya’ with that, ma’am,”

The voice had arms. And those arms were simultaneously reaching for the same end of the mattress you already had hands on. Instinctively, you tugged your bed out of reach, “I got it.” But hands kept coming. They were insistent. Of course they were a man’s hands. A woman would’ve listened the first time. So with an extra strong tug and a tone that spat fire, you turned toward the owner of the hands and stood your ground, “I said, I got it!”

Dark brown eyes that almost looked black had the sun not been playing in their favor. They were soft. Gentle. Despite the fact that he’d just gotten yelled at. And those soft dark brown eyes… well they looked dumbfounded. Whether it was because of the volume of the statement or the fact that people generally didn’t turn down friendly help here in the South, he lifted his hands off the mattress and held them up innocently.

The force with which your action had been committed meant that the moment he released the bed, you went stumbling over, the entire thing thudding down on the porch. You shot him another icy glare as he slowly backed off the steps, though he remained in place and watched you crouch down to lift your mattress once again; the pad now harboring dirty stains.

“Can I help you with something in the truck?” He offered again. Unwanted persistence was a uniquely male quality.

“I don’t need your help, thanks. I got it,”

He watched for just a second longer at the image of you fumbling with the heavy mattress, barely able to keep it upright. Then he turned on his heels and went back from whence he came. Which you came to realize, when you looked over your shoulder to ensure he’d actually gone, was across the street and a few houses down. Fuck. Back in California, not too many people were neighborly but it wasn’t a point you were hoping to make. Especially not on the first day. There was a quaintness to the idea of a neighborhood full of people who liked and looked out for one another. You’d just hoped that would’ve come in the form of some old, opinionated woman sipping tea in a rocking chair on her front porch. The kind that maybe the kids were afraid of, but she was awesome. That’s when it came to mind that maybe that was the void in the neighborhood you were filling. You were to be the crotchety old woman, yelling at “those darn kids”. Fabulous.

Unfortunately (for no other reason than your own ego) you only got the mattress in through the threshold of the front door before it fell to the side and flopped back down to the floor. With a sigh and a thought that maybe it wasn’t so bad if it just lived there, you stepped over it and padded into the kitchen. Managed to place the boxes designated to the room in it, but had yet to unpack anything. You turned on the tap and tilted your head to the side, leaning in to take a sip of water directly from it. Only to find that upon turning off the tap and looking out the bay window by the sink, the man that had offered to help was visible from his yard. He wheeled out his trash and recycling bins to the curb. Resting his hands on his hips, he glanced around and took stock of the neighborhood. All seemed quiet and to his liking.

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Joel liked routine. Habit-forming had become a sort of habit. It meant he knew what his days looked like. It meant he was prepared. And after having been handed a life where being ill-prepared meant something was going wrong, there was great comfort in knowing how things were going to go day by day. Though he wasn’t rigid. He could include new things in his routine. For instance…

One morning he woke up, made his usual pot of coffee before work, and stood out on his porch. It’d be one of his only moments to slow down and actually notice the day. That’s when he noticed something new in his routine. A “For Sale” sign went up on Mrs. Wilson’s front lawn. Everyone in the neighborhood had been expecting it because, well, Mrs. Wilson had passed away. In her sleep one night. Joel thought that must’ve been the nicest way to go. And every morning, he’d go out on his porch and ponder Mrs. Wilson before carrying on with the rest of his routine. As such, he saw when it sold and went into escrow. He saw Mrs. Wilson’s son move out all of his mother’s old furniture until the place was left empty. Everything was routine.

That is, until the U-Haul showed up this morning. It was a small one and he remembered thinking there was no way that little truck contained enough furniture to fill up that house. But he brushed it off, continued with his routine, and went off to work. Though he had to admit, he was wholly curious about the new neighbor he was about to inherit.

He left his jobsite early afternoon, his truck ambling back to his house when another neighbor waved him down to stop him.

“Hey, Mr. Cole,” Joel smiled at the elderly man. Mr. Cole had been the first one to greet Joel when he’d first moved into town. Mr. Cole knew everything going on in the neighborhood, courtesy of Mrs. Cole.

“You see that gal move into Mrs. Wilson’s house?”

Joel nodded, “saw that woman move in, yeah.”

“Mighty pretty,”

Joel chuckled, “surely not as pretty as Mrs. Cole,”

“I don’t know,”

Joel laughed a little harder. “I’ll see ya’ around. Stop snoopin’.”

He’d only just arrived back home and parked his truck in the driveway when he saw you struggling with the mattress. And his mama raised him better than that so he went to offer his help. There hadn’t been a fiber in his being that thought you’d snap back like you had. That’s why he tried a second time. And when the second snap was stronger than the first, he raised his hands and backed off.

Shit. Out-of-towners were getting meaner and meaner.

He meandered to his house and only looked back once, just in time to see the mattress fall to the floor just inside the front door. He smiled to himself and continued on with his routine as much as possible. Tomorrow was trash day which meant the bins needed to be brought out. Simple enough task, just the way he liked it. He liked it even more when he spotted a glimpse of you looking at him through your kitchen window.

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You forwent unpacking anything that day. It wasn’t worth it. Nothing you pulled out would truly have a place to live until you got the furniture situation handled. And seeing as though your bed was still in the entryway, you figured there were bigger problems to handle. But just by looking at the hallway, and the thin doorways, you knew you were going to have a hell of a time bending and twisting the mattress to your will… and the architecture. Grocery shopping proved to be more time-sensitive, and once the fridge was as fully stocked as your bank account would allow, it already started to feel more like home. Which also meant, the way you’d snapped at your neighbor started to bother you more. You had to live in this person’s realm – whatever that looked like. He was your neighbor, and short of literally becoming the crotchety old woman that never left her home, there wasn’t a way for you to avoid him altogether. He seemed to have a lot of friends on the block. That’s also when you decided to suck up to your pride. To apologize to this man who really didn’t deserve an apology at all. Whatever it took to just live in peace.

The more you thought about it, the more it angered you. That was pretty par for the course. It would’ve been more odd if a man wasn’t pissing you off. It was still running through your mind as you plucked a six-pack from your fridge and crossed the street in the direction of his house. You thought about how you were going to have to plaster a phony smile on your face and make niceties to this person who you didn’t want to get to know. You just wanted to live. And you thought you’d have more time. As you ascended his porch steps, you made for the front door, zeroed in on it.

“Hey,”

The voice startled you, tripping over your own feet and stumbling, very nearly losing the six-pack of bottles to the wooden porch. You glanced over at him, and in the dim light his porch light gave off, watched him take an acoustic guitar out of his lap and set it beside his chair.

“Hi,” you mumbled and walked in his direction. “I’m your new neighbor,”

“I know. You yelled at me,”

You rolled your eyes, “I didn’t yell at you. I was just letting you know–”

“S’for me?”

You looked back down at him and noticed how he pointed at the six-pack of beer. “We got off on the wrong foot and I just want to live in peace and quiet so,” gesturing to the beer, “peace offering.” You handed the pack to him.

Joel cradled the cardboard sleeve in his lap and pulled out a bottle. “Want one?”

“No, thanks. I just came to drop them off,”

He flicked his eyes up and pulled out a second bottle. Then, setting the remaining bottles on the floor beside him, he twisted the first cap off. “S’not nice to yell at someone and then refuse their offer to share a drink,”

“I didn’t yell at you,”

“Sit down.”

And for whatever reason, you listened. In the past, had any man spoken to you like that, especially one you didn’t know from Adam, you’d’ve smacked him. But not this time. This time you sat in the chair perched next to his and awkwardly took the open beer from his hand when he passed it over to you.

The silence that ensued was tense and palpable. Neither willing to bend first. Joel kept his eyes focused on his beer bottle and you kept your focus on… him. Naturally suspicious and wary, you thought if you kept your gaze on him, you’d catch him before he did anything out of hand. But really all you noticed was the way his nose had a slight downward curve to it. And the way the graying hair at the back of his head curled along his neck. And the way his beard, also graying, came in in patches, but in the most endearing way. Wrinkles and worry lines had etched their way deep in his forehead. Crow’s feet found a home in the corners of his eyes. Both told you this was a man who had felt and lived a lot of life: the good and the bad. You thought you saw a small scar on his cheek just below his eye, but you couldn’t be sure. The man was middle-aged. His skin and hands gave the appearance he was a blue-collar, working man who’d spent his life in the beating sun.

“Get everything moved in?” He took a sip and eyed you, aware that you were nodding, but still the glance he gave you made you think he knew you were lying. Obviously you were.

“My bed is still by the front door,” you relented.

“Not where I’d recommend a bedroom be, but to each their own,”

“I can’t get it down the hallway by myself.” You tried to ignore that he seemed to light up at the admission. You? Needing his help? “It’s too narrow,”

“Want help?”

You looked at him almost incredulously. Had you treated California neighbors the way you treated them, you'd have been lucky if you didn’t find your car keyed the next day. But he was offering his help? Again?

“You’d help me after the way I yelled at you?”

He pursed his lips and shrugged. “You didn’t yell at me,” another smile flashed over his face and he looked over at you again.

You hated that it made you smile, too. Yet you waved him off. “That’s alright. I’ll figure out a way,”

Joel chuckled and shook his head, taking a pause before he downed another long sip of his beer.

“What?” You urged.

“S’nothin’,'' he shook his head again with another grin. “Know you probably could figure out a way, but… s’just that you don’t need to. Why won’t you let me help you?”

You sucked in a deep breath, “look, I’m sure you’re a nice guy…” you trailed off realizing you didn’t know his name more than referring to him to yourself as that nosy neighbor guy.

He seemed to pick up on it and pointed to himself, “Joel. Miller,”

“But I don’t need a guy to get on with life, y’know? I’m a self-sufficient woman. I don’t need to rely on anyone but myself.”

Joel finished off his beer and stood up from his chair, “acceptin’ help when it’s offered isn’t relying on anyone else. It just makes life easier.” He started down the steps and crossed over his lawn.

“Where’re you going?!”

“To move your bed!”

Leaping up from your chair, you ran after him, in quick pursuit as he neared your home. You knew it was a wreck inside. Trash and boxes everywhere. Not ready for any visitors, even ones you didn’t want there in the first place.

“Really! It’s alright.” When that didn’t stop him from advancing toward your house, you tried another path, “the bed frame’s not even put together!”

“Then I’ll put it together,” he said over his shoulder, nearly in your front yard now.

You managed to lunge forward and grab onto his jacket sleeve, effectively stopping his advance. At least for the time being. “I don’t usually let men I don’t know into my home,”

“What?”

“You know… in case they’re crazy and kill me.”

Joel furrowed his eyebrows, utterly perplexed. He tried to make heads or tails of you as a whole and was having a hell of a time trying to do so. But he shoved his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and produced from it, a pocket knife. He unfolded it, which gave you some pause, but then he quickly held it out for you to take. You did, and as soon as the small weapon left his hand, he turned and continued toward your porch.

“Hey! What am I supposed to do with this?!”

“Stab me,”

“What?!”

He ascended the porch steps and waited at your front door, where you soon joined him. “If I do something weird, and you think I’m gonna kill you in your own house, you can stab me. Full permission,”

You looked down at the knife, and then back up at Joel.

“Can you open your door?”

Gulping down nerves, “it’s unlocked.”

“Still,” Joel pressed a smile, “I’m not in the habit of letting myself into women’s homes. I’d prefer if you opened it and let me in.”

For the second time today, you found yourself doing something all because a man told you to do so and you wondered if the move was making you soft. Regardless, you reached past Joel, pressed down on the lever, and nudged the door open. It stopped short from opening all the way as it hit the edge of your mattress. Joel flicked his eyes at you, as if silently saying see, you need me.

He shimmied his way in, with you close behind, half-heartedly pointing the pocket knife in his direction. He bent over and picked the mattress up off the floor, seemingly with ease. Though you did hear his knees click when he crouched down, but due to his age, you thought better than to bring it to attention. Hell, even your knees creaked every now and again.

“I’ll go backwards and steer it. Think you can be the muscle?” He waited until you nodded and set the knife down, and gathered your hair in a messy bun on top of your head to keep it out of the way. Poised at the other end of the mattress, he lined it up for its plight down the hallway. “Alright, nice and easy,” he began to pull, feeling more frictionless movement as you began helping on the other end. It wasn’t too hard; more awkward than anything. But he guessed the mattress weighed as much as, if not more than, you, so by yourself it must’ve been like dragging dead weight around. “Easy, easy,” he murmured, tilting the mattress to the side to accommodate for the doorjamb, “that’s it. Take it slow,” he elongated the end of the word, completely focused on the side of the mattress as it brushed along the door. “We’re in,”

You helped him lean the mattress out of the way and against the wall. “Thanks for your help, Joel,” you backed up toward the door, hoping he’d follow you.

But he ignored you completely, and instead found the parts to your metal bed frame laying on the floor. He lowered himself to his knees and inspected it. “You got a Phillips head?”

“Joel…”

“S’gonna take me ten minutes. The longer you stall, the longer I’m gonna be here.”

He had a point. And a very good one at that. So you turned and all but ran down the hall, searching for the box you’d so astutely labeled as “tools”. A fear set in that the longer you were away, the more time Joel had to go through your belongings (albeit sparse). You didn’t want him getting too comfortable in your home, least of all in your bedroom. So you rushed, tore open the “tools” box, dug through it until you found the screwdriver, and then raced back down the hall as if you’d have time to catch him snooping. But as soon as you arrived back in your bedroom doorway, you didn’t find him snooping. You found him still on his knees, crawling around, laying the different parts out to make the square your bed would soon sit on.

Joel smiled when he noticed you returned, and held his hand up to take the screwdriver from you. Only when he grabbed it, his face turned to horror and he grimaced at the pink floral design on the handle. “What’s this?”

“A screwdriver,”

“It’s got flowers on it,” he protested.

“It’s cute!”

He chuckled and started putting the bed frame together. “Y’know they charged you thirty percent more because they slapped flowers on it and marketed it toward women,”

You sat on the floor beside him and watched him work. “Well if I have to be the man in my life, my tools are gonna be a little more feminine,”

Joel glanced at you momentarily. Just long enough to question your statement, but not long enough for you to really notice he’d stopped working at all. “What about the actual man in your life?”

“Don’t have one. Don’t need one. I’ve got my floral tool set to prove it,”

A hum was the only acknowledgement Joel gave to that. As if that answered all his questions.

“What?”

“You talk a lot about how you don’t need anyone. I’m gatherin’ you actually only mean you don’t need a man. Which is fine and all, but s’just that that seems kinda lonely.” He set the screwdriver down and held the next two pieces together. “You remind me of me ten years ago. Stubborn. Determined to be alone.” He moved on to the next piece, “thing is… if you don’t need anyone, it also kind of implies that you’re not needed by anyone. And what good is life if you can’t give yourself to someone in that way?”

Jaw-dropped, you gathered yourself, eyes widening. “Wow, your wife must love having you as a husband,”

He smiled and chuckled, “I don’t have a wife.”

“So what do you know about giving yourself to someone and being needed?”

Joel flashed his eyes to you. Gentle and filled with love, “I have a daughter. Sarah. She’s in college now. She’s quite literally the best thing that’s ever happened in my life,”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a father,”

“‘Cause I look so young?” He grinned and tightened one final screw. With the frame now positioned where it needed to be, he stood up and went back to your mattress. You scooted out of the way as he single-handedly maneuvered it onto the frame and adjusted it until it was just perfect. “Check it off the to-do list. Now you can get a good night’s sleep,”

You admired his work and it wasn’t lost on you that it only took him a third of the time it would’ve taken you. Before you’d even gotten through that realization, Joel had already passed you and had made his way back out to the hall, where he walked down it back toward your front door. You followed after him, remaining quiet as he picked up his pocket knife from where you’d left it and tucked it back into his pant pocket. His hand got to the doorknob and you still hadn’t spoken, so he was the one to bite the bullet.

“You know, I never got your name.”

Heat crept up your neck, trying to make a home in your cheeks, as you mentioned your name to him. He smiled and nodded but offered nothing more, so you figured it was still your turn. “Thanks for your help, Joel,”

“No problem,” he waved you off.

“Maybe if more guys were like you, I wouldn’t hate them so much,”

“Give it time. You’ll be back to yellin’ at me soon.” He opened the front door and took a step through it. “Give me a holler if you need something, you know where I live,”

“Will do,”

He started to close the door but then opened it again and poked his head through. “Make sure you lock the door this time,”

You pressed a smile and approached the door where he waited until your hand was on the knob. With one last quiet goodbye, he pulled the door shut and you followed it up by locking it. Then with little time to spare, you ran to the window in the living room to watch him walk away. He pressed his hands into his pockets and looked around. Then a smile stretched over his face and he kicked at the grass before he crossed the street and moseyed back to his house.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #the one you need #joel miller fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

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gatheringbones · 3 months

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laura s. brown, from lesbians, weight, and eating: new analyses and perspectives, from lesbian psychologies: explorations and challenges, edited by the boston lesbian psychologies collective, 1987

["Lesbian fat activists, a non-client population, seemed to be women who are comfortable with their lesbianism. My lesbian clients who are fat, although not necessarily activists, seem to be generally unconcerned about their weight and are for the most part physically active women who perceive themselves as healthy and attractive. I have noticed a relationship between healing from homophobia and reduction of negative self-concept where weight is concerned. For example, a lesbian client who entered therapy from a position of great internalized homophobia could not comfortably say the word 'lesbian' and avoided associating with other lesbians. Her weight was greater than average for her height, although within the norms for women in her family: she consciously perceived her fat as one of the indicators of her lesbianism and her undesirability as a person. Therapy focused on issues of internalized homophobia as it affected self-concept and interpersonal functioning. However, a side effect of the therapy was that this woman came to embrace her lesbianism in a more positive manner, she also began to see herself as attractive at her current weight. She changed her hairdo so that her face, which she had previously stigmatized as looking fat, and had tried to hide with her hair, would be more visible. She also purchased clothing in bright colors that she had always liked but had avoided buying for fear of bringing attention to her "fat, unattractive" body. She took up exercise, which she had loved as a girl but abandoned after puberty as her body assumed its (apparently) genetically determined larger size. She became active in the lesbian community and often commented in therapy sessions about her amazement that there were so many attractive women who were also fat. Her relationship with food also changed: she began to be more careful about what she put into her body, and paid better attention to foods that left her feeling uncomfortable and off center, rather than simply to caloric content.

Such anecdotal and clinical observations must be made cautiously because the empirical data is sparse. The trends that I and my colleagues have observed clinically when we consciously attend to the relationship between homophobia and fat oppression are suggestive. They point to some directions that lesbians and therapists, and therapists who work with lesbians, may wish to consider in working with lesbian clients around issues of food, eating, and body image and size.

It is essential for therapists to examine internalized myths of fat oppression as we apply them to ourselves and our clients. Do we, for instance, assume that fat women are fat because they are eating in an out-of-control manner? Do we assume that women who are not fat are not concerned with their weight and are eating in ways that are healthy and functional simply because the result is one of normal size? Do we accept the ego-dystonic nature of a woman's fat as proof of the need to lose weight, or do we ask the same questions that are not asked about so-called ego-dystonic homosexuality as a diagnosis? Do we secretly envy women with bulimia because "they can eat as much as they want and it never shows"? Do we fat-oppress ourselves by shaming ourselves about our own pleasure in food or by engaging in self-punitive actions such as compulsive dieting? Do we fat-oppress fat women by assuming that they want suggestions about diets, or by telling them "I feel fat, too"— pretending empathy with the real-world aspects of discrimination against fat women by virtue of our own participation in the process of fat oppression? When we hear lesbians derided as fat and ugly, do we protest that "we're not all fat," or do we examine carefully the relationship between the devaluation of fat women and the devaluation of lesbians? Until and unless the therapist examines and changes her own internalized fat oppression, she is likely to fat-oppress her clients, in either overt or covert manners.

In re-examining our fat oppressive norms, we must also make the personal connections to our internalized homophobia and from there, to the misogyny that lies at the basis of them both. A woman who nurtures herself with food, and who does so without guilt, shame, and self-hate has challenged a very basic message given women against feeling worthy of love and sustenance. A lesbian who loves herself and her love of other women and does so without guilt, shame, and self-hate breaks another such rule, that of compulsory heterosexuality. A woman who is spending time and energy on her own pleasure by feeding herself lovingly, by using the resources available to her, by taking as much space as her body grows into, is as clearly revolutionary as is the woman who loves, values, and commits her energies to the love of women. It is quite natural and healthy for women to rebel against the woman-hating inherent in both fat-oppression and homophobia. So-called "eating-disordered" women are the most obvious causalities of that battle. The struggle to be able to stay thin enough while still eating enough to satisfy hunger is often manifested in the alternative bouts of bingeing, purging, and laxative abuse found in bulimia, or in the swings between compulsive stuffing and compulsive dieting found in other women who feel too fat."]

#laura s. brown #the boston lesbian psychologies collective #lesbian literature #cw disordered eating #cw weight mention #transcribed

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heliopauseentertainments · 7 months

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Denied Repose

For Rare Pairing Fest 2023 - @tfrarepairing

Prompt Day 1 - Underworld

Continuity: IDW1

Rating: Teen

Relationship: Megatron/Ratchet

Characters: Megatron & Ratchet Warnings: Major character death, mild gore, necromancy, one-sided relationship

Summary: In which Megatron decides death is also his to control.

Crossposting: AO3 | Dreamwidth Fic under cut. See AO3 for complete notes.

“Good doctor,” Megatron started, strapping Ratchet’s limp limbs to the medical slab, not that Ratchet seemed to be in much of a mood to struggle at the moment. He wasn’t in the mood for much of anything, if Megatron were being honest. “This is one of those situations where I’ll be, in theory, asking you for your forgiveness, rather than for your permission.”

The room thrummed with high voltage electricity as it coursed through the wires and circuits of the machinery lining the walls and ceiling. Megatron did not fully grasp the physics behind it, but that didn’t matter. He had read enough of Scorponok’s notes.

The Autobots had made the mistake of leaving their fallen behind in the chaotic aftermath of battle. Megatron had never been one to let an opportunity go to waste.

Ugly welds made by inexperienced hands crossed Ratchet’s cold chest, windshield glass lingering only as shards still stuck inside of the frame. With guidance from Flatline over their commlinks, Megatron had already patched the worst of the damage to Ratchet’s body, leaving only cosmetic injuries that could be repaired. These were not vital, not yet to a functioning body.

Of all the mechs misguided enough to join the Autobots, Ratchet had always held Megatron’s personal respect. One day, he had always reasoned, perhaps Ratchet could have been convinced to see the world from the Decepticons’ perspective. He had seen the worst of what Functionism had done to the people. Megatron had even put out a standing order early on to leave the handsome medic to do his work, to not target him in battle.

This was not how he had anticipated swaying Ratchet to his cause. He had hoped to use words, wielding the powerful weapon of rhetoric. Though, perhaps, in time he could yet do that, but Ratchet would need function sensors to receive the anything that Megatron had to say.

Megatron checked the straps again, running the back of his hand along Ratchet’s forearm as though soothing an ailing friend, rather than a deceased enemy. He avoided looking at the medic’s dark, unseeing optics.

Cables, still powered down, hung from the ceiling. Megatron reached into Ratchet’s chest through the gap where the windshield had once been, clipping the cables onto his spark chamber.

He stared for a few moments at the gray, crystalline orb nestled inside. Once it had held all that Ratchet was, powering both his frame and his thoughts. Perhaps soon it would again.

Thankfully the spark itself had not sustained damage or shattered, otherwise even this last hope would have been out of reach.

Scorponok had pioneered this gargantuan machine in his quest to both understand the spark and boost Decepticon numbers. His research had been intended to both keep their strength up and pursue techniques they could leverage when Phase 7 finally arrived.

This resurrection machine, however, had been only sparsely tested due to its unsustainable energy requirements.

Should Megatron have been doing this?

Absolutely not. This was selfish, pure and simple.

What would Ratchet say when he discovered that Megatron had sidestepped the natural order of the universe for him? That was hard to say, but he would be alive to say whatever it was.

If it worked.

Reluctantly leaving Ratchet’s side, Megatron walked over to the control console to begin entering the commands to prepare the machine. Its sole task was to jump start the cold spark in Ratchet’s chest.

The console ready, Megatron initiated the sequence.

Power surged down from the ceiling through the cables and into Ratchet’s empty spark.

“I hope one day you’ll understand.”

#2023TFRarePairingFest #megaratch #fic #drabble #megatron #ratchet #maccadam #idw1

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betbeton · 2 years

Text

✃ Mon Amour

Sakusa Kiyoomi × Reader

Warnings - Smut (?)

18 + Minors and Ageless accounts DNI

· GN Reader ·

· Gift ·

· Beta'd ·

· A/N - this is really just me being in the l word with a 2d man. also obey me has taken up a lot of my sparse free time, but i'm back on the writing grind besties! ·

・❥・ Masterlist

Every second you spent on your knees with Sakusa Kiyoomi railing your throat was a second you praised every deity and also a second you hoped no one from the afterlife was actually watching you-. From the soft pink blush that settled on his cheeks to the tears that threatened to spill from his sinfully beautiful eyes. The borderline harsh grip he had on your head as his hips moved seemingly on their own accord. Seeking the pleasure he could only derive from the warm slick confines of your throat. Even if the position he seemed to prefer was rather awkward, when he requested you to use that sinfully tight throat you possessed to warm his cock, you would have still happily clambered onto your bed and hung your head over the side.

He did that more often than asking for you to pleasure him on your knees, which despite being able to hear his moans and soft grunts didn't afford you the luxury of being able to gaze up at his beautiful face. Your own eyes glassy and spilling tears down your stuffed cheeks. The most deviously delicious thing he tended to to when fucking your throat in this position was tugging his cock out from your greedy mouth and cumming on your tongue, then one of his strong hands would move down to clamp your mouth shut around his tip as he waited for you to swallow.

Though he had voiced on several occasions how disgusting he found the act of someone swallowing bodily fluids of any kind, he couldn't deny the spikes of heated arousal that spread through his body each time you happily swallowed his cum . . . or on the odd times he accidentally got some on your face and you would use a finger to collect it so you could greedily lick it up. He even found immense pleasure in ravishing your own arousal and gulping it down like a starved man, though he would never explicitly admit to it since he didn't want to deal with the possible teasing such and admission would incur.

At the end of the day even after you had ended up adoringly gazing at him, cheeks puffed slightly as he stuffed your mouth full of his warm thick cum, you wouldn't trade it for the world. The fact he had so willingly allowed his walls down for you and even caved in a few of your own, was enough to have you rocking against your hands as he used your mouth and throat for his own pleasure, chasing a high you knew he would gladly have dropped to his own two knees to give you.

#haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #hq smut #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #sakusa smut

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ybblue · 9 months

Text

Lowkey, I'm so glad to read the history of YB. I really enjoyed the content I was able to find of him with the game, Day 1 & 2. It was hard to find info about this game at first, so I read the wiki of course. I saw the traits of a wholesome yandere, if such a thing could exist. A yandere who wasn't violent with their target. That sounded like my jam!

(My Commissioned Art by @Two_Leaf_Cl0ver on twitter, feel free to use it for whatever!)

So I supported the Patreon cause I wanted to see how far along the game was and to play it for myself, because nothing beats personal experience.

I want to lay my thoughts out as I process why I like YB and what disappointments I've come to have with the game and maybe what I would like to have seen done instead. I'm not a game dev, so I'm coming at this without knowing everything involved in making a game.

[SPOILERS BELOW, DUH. I mean for ALL currently playable days.]

[Also HEADCANON stuff.]

(Source: Wiki, not my art, pretty sure its Fuboo's)

Day 1 is pretty sparse, but I likened it to being a demo of what to expect. Since YB said things like "I'm your boyfriend. Isn't that why you're here?", I took it to mean he was aware everyone who downloaded the game wanted him to be their boyfriend. However, maybe Y/N is sentient in their own world and is mostly like wtf is going on with this dude. It would also explain the "mixed messages" he says we are sending him when we reject his advances. I thought he might have even chosen to approach Y/N that day because he could see we, the player, were inhabiting their body.

In short, I was pretty thrilled to play a weird meta yandere dating sim. Moving forward, I am treating Y/N as an entity separate from myself. They are my (likely very unwilling) vessel, and even though I can influence how they behave, they obviously have their own will. They don't seem to know I'm possessing them either.

Day 2 has more dialogue and such, introduces the other characters, but I still find it doesn't feel like there is as much content as I would have liked. All answers that day basically led to the same way the day ends, which I find to be really weird. It makes me wonder if dev isn't sure how to do branching paths so that Day 3 can start exactly the way they need it to. Based on what I know about YB, it felt like he was in character in all routes until the very end when he just attacks. It's especially out of place when playing along with him.

As a side note, Y/N's personality has the biggest divergence in this day. If you are mean to YB on Day 1, then you are a complete asshole to everyone around you. This route is called the abuse route, I think, because YB will abuse you? However, I think of it as the abuse route because Y/N is really abusive to everyone around them and YB just sort of runs with that energy. (I am saying here: the player is influencing both Y/N and YB to be assholes, so we are basically the assholes in this route? I'm not trying to victim blame Y/N, but rather, I'm saying Y/N and YB are our victims. I would say Y/N is always our victim regardless...)

Day 3 is when shit hits the fan for the story in many ways. For Y/N, they just lost someone they knew, probably. TK or Lucy (who both seem to come off as potential love interests) or the Landlord/Don Williams (who doesn't read as a love interest at all to me, maybe I'm just oblivious as fuck) will die. Or, if you played Day 2 a certain way, a random person will be murdered.

My gripe with this is mostly that it comes so quickly, so soon, just a random murder of a major character. With how little content I feel there is in Day 2, I feel like I barely formed any attachment to TK, Lucy, or Don Williams, especially from the perspective of only having played the games.

This isn't to say they aren't great characters, because I think they are.

In fanon.

The fans have really taken these characters, the random snippets we know about them from various sources (the Tumblr and Wiki) and ran with them. Though these characters don't receive the same level of love and attention as YB, I feel like they have really enhanced any attachments people could form with their own skillful writing/observations.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't also point out how Peter comes off out of character on this day. He's pushy, demeaning, and outright abusive towards Y/N.

A part of me wonders: is he just pissed off because Y/N is in his way of getting to us, the players? Or is he actually not aware he is in a game despite what the creator said?

If he is aware he is in a game, and this is supposed to be out of character for him to behave this way, does that mean the game is forcing him to act like this?

But then he admits to grinding against Y/N at night when he sneaks in through the window. He doesn't just watch Y/N sleep, he touches them. That's not consensual for Y/N at all. I thought he was just a guy who was peeking at worst (still not great), but he actually sexually assaults Y/N. (Not to kink shame anyone, but outside of fantasy obv that is not okay.)

It really left a sore taste in my mouth. I thought this game was about a meta yandere guy who loves the player so much he is trying to take advantage of the game to talk to us through Y/N. Obviously, this is me building up my own expectation for the game, but I would have accepted any other way the game turned out as long as it was still meta and vaguely wholesome in his actions, at least with regards to him never hurting us, sexually assaulting us, or berating us.

But instead, it's just a simple "he's just Y/N's stalker" and makes no further attempts to speak to us, the players. It all just feels disappointing.

Day 4, I won't say much since the creator doesn't want much to come out about it, but I will say it gets a tad better, though its gross inside the context of Day 3.

YB returns to being a sweetie cutie pie, mostly because he finally won. Depending on how your route has been going so far, you can experience the 'erotic' part of the game. Currently, there isn't much CG to it, its a still image with smut. I'm not going to complain about it. I will point out you can tell him to stop and he will.

Which is really out of character for how he acted on Day 3. Does he respect our consent or not? Does he care about how we see him or not? Day 3 he's acting like a huge douchebag, and Day 4 he is like 'uwu okay i'll stop.' It feels inconsistent with the narrative of the game.

I'll stop discussing day 4 here.

Right now, I feel like this game is missing so much. I feel like the game relies on the player to find lore about YB on their own, rather than include it in the game. The characters don't have enough screen time for me to miss them when they are killed or absent from Day 4.

It seems we are supposed to meet a new character on Day 4 who is a friend of YB, but it seems REALLY LATE to be introducing a new character. This character has been known to die hard fans for like over a year, but we don't know ANYTHING about him aside from a short list of bullet points.

Then there is the mysterious Greta. YB's therapist or some such. Supposedly this person is encouraging Peter's behaviors. Why would they do this? What is going on? Will this character make an appearance in the game at all? If they do, why so late?

There's a chance that a completed Day 4 and 5 (aka a finished game) will tie this altogether, but unless more is added to Day 1, 2, and 3, I don't see it coming together in a satisfying way.

I'll still play the game when it's completed, and I'm staying in the fandom, because I love YB and the fan content for YB. I love the YB we have all collectively imagined, the one who is a yandere stalker, but isn't hurting us. The YB who is sweet and thoughtful, even if he's stupid enough to think stalking is okay.

Here's some fan content that I really enjoy and is what helped me build my own personal head canons about YB, the game, and what it all means:

Sugar Gives Me a Toothache (SGMATA) - This is a fanfiction on AO3 and its a masterpiece. In this, the game's Y/N is called MC, and the reader is a Y/N that stalks YB (Peter). There is so much longing, pining, sweetness, bittersweet, and just... I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Game Over - A comic both on Twitter and Tumblr. It hasn't been updated in a long time, but it's still soooo good, and the art rocks.

And just all the random comics people draw for YB. Him being goofy and stupid. Him being a lovesick puppy. Him being a dangerous animal only Y/N can tame. All the memes and jokes. All very inspiring.

I guess in short, I really love YB more than I love the game, and I think YB might end up being something that transcends his own creator and becomes something that belongs to the fans.

#yb game #yb peter #your boyfriend game #your boyfriend visual novel #yb fandom #yb thoughts #your boyfriend #shooting the shit

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sleepingdeath-light · 7 months

Text

the fall ; 18+

requested by ; anonymous (kinktober entry)

word count ; 1127

content ; sexually explicit content, implied loss of virginity, vaginal sex, referenced anal sex, vaginal fingering, oral sex (male and afab receiving), anal fingering, corruption kink

fandom ; yonderland

pairing ; voltari x non binary afab reader

read also on ; ao3

minors and ageless blogs will be blocked

When you’d first met overlord Voltari you’d been a very different person; a simple but hopeful ambassador for peace between your homeland and the territories he’d taken control of, completely untouched by all of the troubles and harshness of the world beyond the community you represented. So very optimistic and formal, wearing your best clothing and perfecting your posture to give the best impression possible, that you acted more like a caricature of what you should be rather than yourself. Completely oblivious to what dark impulses truly lingered under that long black hair and that metallic eyepatch.

Untouched, unaware, unspoiled. Oh how far you’d fallen since then…

—————

Everything you did with him, everything he did to you, would have been completely unbelievable and so out of character for the person you tried to be those short few months ago. Each new act, kink, position another subtle show of just how much you’d changed under his watchful gaze and dominant demeanour — a reminder of how far you’d gone because of him.

Before him you could never have imagined having someone’s face buried between your legs with your hands buried in their hair and their nails digging into your ass to keep you in place. In fact, just the idea of having anyone’s lips brush against your wet cunt was so unthinkable that even a passing mention would leave your skin burning and your mind blanking of thought. And, yet, with Voltari it felt completely natural — like his slender lips were made to lock around your clit and his tongue, lengthy and strong, was the perfect fit to thrust into your fluttering hole. He just made it feel right, natural even, when he whispered those honey-sweet words into your ear and slid his hands up and down your sides, urging you to give into him: to throw your thighs over his shoulders and wet his cheeks and tongue with your slick as he makes you climax over and over again with his mouth alone.

Before him you would have never even considered sleeping with anyone of his rank, yet in no time at all he’d managed to get you into his bed. Bent forwards on your hands and knees as he fucked into your spent pussy from behind, with you already on your third orgasm and practically limp against the sparse cushions he’d mercifully placed beneath you. Mouth hung completely agape and lips coated in spit as you cried out wordless, half-moaned pleas for something (though you were too far gone to know what you were truly asking for, whether that was for more or for mercy). Only able to consider the feeling of his long, velvety cock pounding into your entrance and the distant brushing of his leather overcoat against the sensitive, gooseflesh covered skin of your ass and sides.

Before him you hadn’t even known that you could pleasure a man with your mouth, the concept alone being so very foreign that the first time he’d propositioned you, all you’d been able to offer was a blank questioning stare. But now it seemed all you could think about was the feeling of his dick on your tongue, the phantom weight and that lingering salty taste haunting you always and causing your mind to drift during important meetings more often than you’d dare to admit. You’d even crawled beneath his desk on numerous occasions to pleasure him during meetings with other overlords: legs splayed outwards, his (usually gloved) hand roughly grasping the back of your neck, your hands squeezing his slender legs (always covered by those damned pants with that texture you hated) to try and keep yourself steady, your lips parted widely, and his shaft sliding between them — though, of course, he always controlled the pace and got to decide how slow or gentle he’d be with you. Practically using your mouth as an organic cock sleeve, choking you on his length to the point of tears sometimes, until he was satisfied enough to pull out and cum on either your messy face or your waiting tongue.

You’d accept it either way of course, you didn’t mind the mess and you found yourself enjoying the rougher treatment just as much as, if not even more than, anything else he did with you.

And that’s not even to mention his fascination with your ass: bending you over his boney lap and spanking it red raw whilst he used his other hand to play with your pussy (stretching you out on two fingers, and then three, whilst his thumb toyed with your aching clit), not letting you cum until you managed to count up to whatever arbitrary number he’d decided on without losing your place; sliding his hand down your back as you rode him just to massage and grope at your backside, muttering under his breath about how it looked and felt and all of the things he was going to do to you, his filthy words punctuated by grunts and the ticking of his mechanical eye patch as he stared down at your leaking cunt; roughly pinching it whenever you passed each other in public, darkly delighting in the way you’d yelp and gasp before trying to hide it behind a cough — he never really cared much for your reputation, or for anything beyond himself, so such things weren’t uncommon; spending weeks preparing you to take him in your ass, starting off with massaging the rim of muscle around it whenever he went down on you before moving on to gentle, heavily lubed, fingering, adding more digits as he went until he was finally sure that you could take him without too much risk. He was a sadist, he’d admitted that to you plenty of times (and all of the marks he left on your body were testament to that), but he didn’t want to drive you away.

No, he got far too much use out of you for that — seeming to enjoy your fall from innocence more than you did. Perhaps that’s why he pursued you in the first place, was so insistent on being alone with you and so eager to have you once your ‘pure’ status had been revealed to him.

Then again it wasn’t like you weren’t enjoying yourself as well. He’d made it perfectly clear that you could walk away at any time and he wouldn’t fault you for it — your people could always send over another ambassador — but you didn’t want that. You wanted him, wanted to be his partner, and play thing, and pet project to twist and corrupt and warp into whatever he pleased.

Really, in a way, you got more out of this than he did — or, maybe, you both got exactly what you needed from each other.

#sleepingdeath #minors dni #minors fuck off #minors don’t touch #ageless blogs dni #ageless blogs will be blocked #yonderland smut #yonderland x reader #yonderland voltari smut #yonderland voltari x reader #afab reader #afab reader smut

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dearestones · 1 year

Text

A Risky Gamble (Yandere! Monaco x Global Superpower! Reader)

Warnings: Yandere character, yandere behavior, manipulation, Monaco knocks you out.

Anonymous Request: Could I have Yandere Monaco with a darling that is a global superpower?

You were a global superpower, one who rivaled other contenders like America, China, and the empires of ages long past. Like many other nations who either held your status or coveted it, you had went to unimaginable lengths to secure your place in the world. Often times, you had to stab another Nation in the back or subdue your neighbors or dominate the market with your presence. It took time, yes, but you were satisfied with the position that you had in the world.

While most of your peers either resented you or lusted after your power—often trying to cozy up to your during meetings—there was one particular Nation you couldn’t put your finger on.

Monaco was a small Nation who was only a mere Principality. While her significance had little to no bearing on you as a global superpower, you began to realize after several coincidences and run-ins with the French Principality that she…

She liked to look at you.

It was normal to feel everyone’s eyes on you when you presented during global summits. It was also expected of your peers to shake your hand or offer greetings as a way to solidify alliances or to maintain positive relationships. However, with the young female Nation, you couldn’t help but frown in curiosity. Despite her well bred nature, polite and refined, you noticed that there was more to her than what appearances may seem.

For instance, Monaco seemed to always be there in your vicinity. It didn’t matter how early you came to a meeting or how late you would stay, you would find yourself peering at the blonde Principality. Perhaps you were just overreacting? Surely there was a reason why Monaco always seemed to be around. Why, you’ve seen her with a sheaf full of documents and when you happened to overhear what she was looking at, you discovered that it was a recent proposal and a report on how well her government was faring! Despite that alibi, you grew wary of her.

Her eyes, bright blue and almost similar to France’s, never seemed to catch your eye. You knew her eyes were blue from past observations, but you didn’t think that she ever held eye contact with you, which was a shame because you felt her staring at the back of your head or at your side profile too many times to count.

A part of you should feel somewhat irritated that Monaco was paying you too much attention, but never venturing outside of her comfort zone to actually talk to you, but you were far more important than her. You held the power of a global entity. If you fell, the rest of the civilized world could just as well be next. And Monaco? She was barely a fraction of your population or your land mass. Who was she to pose a threat or an annoyance to you?

So, it was a bit of a surprise when one day, after a meeting that pandered to the egos of a few Nations that you would rather not anger, Monaco stopped by your seat, a tentative smile on her attractive features. In her hands, she held her briefcase, no doubt filled with notes about the meeting (sparse as they may be) and a little cardboard box of what seemed to be playing cards.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted. Her lovely voice was accented gently, but her diction was clear. Her posture, as always, was perfect, but her motives… You weren’t quite sure where you stood with her in this context, but you decided to humor her.

“Good afternoon, Miss Monaco.” You withdrew from your chair and began sifting all of your papers and notes into the appropriate folders. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You were curious, but you made sure to sound professional. Because of your status as a global superpower, you had become a target for either alliances or grudges among your coworkers. Small Monaco may be, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t have connections to those who might pose a danger to you.

She smiled a little wider at you before gesturing to her deck of cards. “I hear that you don’t have plans for most of the evening! How about a quick game of cards?”

You raised a brow. Out of everything that she could have said, that was what she wanted? Alarm bells were ringing in your head. If this were any other Nation—someone bigger, someone stronger—you would have instantly said no. Any other Nation worth their salt would use this as an opportunity to gain information about your military or news civil unrest. However, you were again confronted with the reality that Monaco was a Principality who relied on stronger Nations to survive. She was a tourist attraction, not some fear monger who wished ill upon you.

What did you have to lose?

You nodded your head and sat back. “Dealer’s choice.”

Monaco dealt the cards and the both of you began to play.

At first, you played games that had international acclaim. Eventually, however, you introduced Monaco to games that the youth would play in your homeland. Some of these games were more fun than the others, you have to admit, but Monaco took to the games with both ease and fascination. You attributed it to Monaco loving card games regardless of origins, but that glint in her eyes you sometimes saw… It had returned.

You would think with several losses under her belt she would be a little less gracious, but she seemed to take it all in stride. In fact, she seemed to relish losing to you. Her eyes were adoring and her smiles soft. It was unnerving.

After so much time seeing her in the background, it was the first time you saw her eyes up close. They were as beautiful as her closest neighbor’s eyes, but you couldn’t help but feel somewhat terrified that her full, piercing gaze was solely focused on you.

After half a dozen games and more than half the wins attributed to you, the thought of leaving finally came to mind. Well, you thought about leaving more than half the time, especially after realizing that Monaco was staring at you with such a strange gaze, but this time, you fully committed to a plan.

It was simple: all you had to do was tell her that you needed to go call another Nation for a private meeting and—

“Oh my, do you mind if you can help me carry my things back to my room?” Her tone was soft, but there was a darkness lingering in her gaze. She seemed expectant, as if you would immediately agree to her request. “It’s only an elevator ride and a short walk away. I didn’t mean to take up your entire evening like this.”

She bowed her head, abashed, but you would like to think that you saw right through the act. Still, though. She was small and powerless if you were to use your full power against her.

You would walk her to her room. Fine. That was okay. Afterwards, when you would be in the safety of your own hotel room, you would be sure to surround yourself with allies so that you would never be alone with the Principality.

The trip was short like she said. Unlike the previous interaction you had where the both of you were engrossed in playing simple card games, this time, she was intent on staring at you. Monaco though herself clever, but you didn’t have to check if she was staring. You simply knew. It would take an idiot not to realize that the burning sensation in their peripheral vision wasn't their companion glaring holes into their brain.

To your relief, her hotel room was just a few feet down the hall. As Monaco swiped her room key into the handle, you bounced back and forth on the balls of your feet, eager to get out. Soon, Monaco opened the door and ushered you in.

“Just put my bag onto the desk, please.”

“Well, that was fun.” You walked towards the desk in question, bag in hand. “However, I’ll be busy the rest of the week so I won’t be able to play anymore. Perhaps we can do it some other time? With a few of your neighbors?”

“That’s okay.” Strange. When had she crept up so silently that she was directly behind you? “I’ll make time.”

Before you could turn around and leave, you heard a whooshing sound and then—

You fell forward and everything faded to black.

DISCLAIMER: I do not condone yandere behavior outside of fictional settings. Please don’t mistake the actions of fictional characters displayed in works of fiction to be considered harmless in real life.

If you want to donate a Ko-Fi, feel free https://ko-fi.com/devintrinidad.

HETALIA AXIS POWERS/WORLD SERIES MASTERLIST

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skell3 · 7 months

Text

RP Muse: Jonathan Sims

I figured I may as well start with Jon.

I enjoy playing him pre Season 5. Kind-of aware and understanding to a degree, but not yet seen the full horrors the world has to offer him, yet. I could write him at just about any timeline, and I do actually have an idea for an 'Epilogue' Jon... but I haven't written him any at all.

It's a bit long, so most of the details are under the line. This is mostly just how I imagine him in my head as I write him.

Jonathan Sims stands at about 5'4" with long, curly hair. It is dark brown with salt-and-peppered in whites and grays, especially at his temples. He wears glasses that he doesn't always need, and he has warm brown eyes. Around his pupils is a halo of glowing green, as if a light were beaming out from within. Thin, but with wide bony shoulders, he seems rather frail and could be easily mistaken as a man in his later 30's, though he is more likely to be in his late 20's, if not very early 30's.

Scars from all his encounters litter his body, including: cuts from various persons, pockmark like circles from the worms, a burnt hand from Jude Perry and fainter marks from the rubble of having been within a building as it was being blown up. None of them seem particularly out of the ordinary, other than the fact that he has so many and where he got them from. Work attire tends to be button-up shirts, sweater-vests and fitted pants. His casual wear actually tends to be looser things, like skirts and wider-leg pants. Most clothes look oversize on him, so he sort-of goes with the theme, wearing rather large sweaters in the winter and only keeping his more fitted wear for outings and job stuff. He keeps his hair pulled back into either a ponytail or a bun most of the time, so it's pretty rare for him to let it down, even at home. Jon lives in a small flat on his own, after having to move out of his prior one and all that. It's a 1 bedroom with a tiny kitchen and his living room doubles as an office. If he could keep plants alive, he would have a couple, but as it is the place is sparse in the way of furniture and personal items, most of which are still in boxes and tucked off to the side. He spends more time at the institute than at home, so there really hasn't been a lot of time to get settled in. Plus, he half expects to not be there long, just in case more stuff happens.

As an avatar of the Eye, Jon has more than glowy eyes of his own marking his connection to his Fear. His shadow sometimes also possesses eyes, usually when he is Looking at someone or something. This includes some of the shadows of his hair, especially if he's got it in a pony tail or down, which almost gives him a sort-of halo'd effect. The glow of his eyes also grow more intense, and when he's using what 'full power' he has, they go completely green and intense. Aside from all the basic information about him (I'm sure he fits a general line of how people think of Jon), I've primarily written Jon in an RP with a friend that has a sort-of open Multiverse setup. We've got the 'now' (Pre-S5) team, we've got some years ago with Gertrude and Gerry around, and an older group with Eric Delano and Michael Shelley and stuff, so. Pretty open with interacting with just about any character- The Institute is pretty weird and just about anyone could show up one day.

#tma #tma fanwork #tma fan content #Jonathan Sims #creative writing #writings #musings #muse #TMA Multiverse

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dairy-farmer · 2 years

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I love the idea of Tim being slightly immature? Like he does stuff that makes him seem younger than his age? He’s cuddly, he sucks his thumb, he plays with toys for younger kids, he watches cartoons for younger kids, etc? And Bruce sees all this and it makes him so fucking hard, not like ‘I wish it was my cock rather than his thumb in his mouth’ kind of way, but a ‘oh god he’s like a toddler and I want to fuck him because if that’ kind of way?

Also Tim ‘nursing’ from Bruce’s tits? It’s a comfort thing, he’ll suck on a Bruce’s nip, under his shirt or T-shirt often times? Tim coming up and pawing at his chest, and Bruce casually unbuttoning his shirt or lifting his T-shirt without blinking, and running his hands through Tim’s hair while he sucks away and Bruce doesn’t stop whatever he’s doing either? Even when people are there, even at WE? No one dares say a thing about this 14 year old who mostly acts like a toddler? Also when they’re in private or at the manor (even with the rest of the fam there) he’ll often start jerking. Tim off too? Pull his lil cock out and casually stroke it and gently murmur praise and encourage Kent to Tim while he squirms and bites and mins into his chest?

!!!!!!!! timmy was a little slow on the developmental side of things. and he was an only child, likely had nannies rather than daycare! he wasn't socialized with other children until he entered the school system!! which means that a lot of tim's interests are still geared towards what he enjoyed as a toddler! his parents had visits that were pretty sparse, they mainly interacted through phone calls and the occasional video! which left his nannies to be the primary supervisors and caretakers in charge of his developmental milestones.

but if the nanny is just there for the paycheck and the kid cries when his binky is taken away- well then the obvious thing to do is to just let him keep it. same with the shows and the toys. then when tim starts school. the world is so much bigger and louder and faster than his room back home.

so he falls deeper into the comfort those items bring him.

then as robin, he's gotten better. he's more mature and he can handle the larger world. he even engages with it. but he still keeps his toys, fiddles with them and plays with them. when he just can't fall asleep he sucks on his thumb. he's grown too old for a pacifier. when tim wants to kickback and be a bit mindless for a little, he'll curl around a warm, fuzzy blanket and watch shows that are supposed to help with an infant's development by stimulating their language centers.

to tim it's a comforting show, even if tim isn't listening he likes all the bright colors and soft, repetitive music and the people smiling.

bruce will stroke his sides sometimes. while tim is staring and sucking on his thumb, bruce will come in and caress tim's hair and the soft slope of his thighs.

bruce likes touching him. he likes how lax tim's body is, he likes how he can do anything to him and tim will just squirm and coo mindlessly. tim can't find the energy to even lift his head, it's like his body just locks on him.

bruce likes that. his breathing will get heavier and he'll cover tim's curled up body and whisper things like 'my sweet baby boy'.

bruce's touches feel good. especially when they snake under tim's clothes and touch him where his underwear goes.

tim can't help the whimpering cries that leave him. he just shakes and trembles, sometimes even crying as bruce strokes him while kissing his cheeks and licking into his parted mouth.

when its done and tim is shaking, his little cock held tightly in bruce's fist, bruce will tug him closer.

he'll settle tim in his lap and kiss away his tears.

tim will sniffle and rub his face into the collar of bruce's shirt, nudging it until bruce lifts a hand and undoes the first few buttons to expose his large pecs and soft nipples.

tim likes to touch bruce too. he likes to latch on and suck like he does on his thumb. he swallows as much of bruce as he can, kissing his soft lips to the skin and moaning as he closes his eyes and goes slack.

sometimes tim falls asleep like that. curled up in daddy's lap and nursing.

nothing ever comes out but it's not about that. it's about tim being wrapped in warm armss, its about his forehead getting kissed and his mouth being filled by warm tender flesh.

it's about being treated delicately and softly just like when he was a kid.

#anonymous #asks #answered asks

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funkypoacher · 2 years

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25 OTP prompts #16 "It's always been you."

Coupling of your choice 💚

When I said “there might be smut” what I actually meant was “they don’t even kiss.” But I am super happy with how this turned out. Max and Archie have more ignored, misplaced baggage than a big-name airline, and, thanks to this prompt (thankyouthankyou), it looks like The Winners of the Award for Worst Adults Adulting might actually start to heal. Someday. <.< Maybe.

Warnings for: way too much dialogue, Max being a prick, and Archie impersonating garbage. Also warnings for mentions of a sick baby and difficult childbirth and drug use and withdrawal. (this is almost 5,000 words what happened)

also i'll tag @the-lastcall because you tagged me for WIP whenever <3 this is my wip, and it'll stop wipping when I put it on ao3 eventually.

___

The Outer Worlds Maximillian DeSoto/Archie Quaice "Millie"

Humpin’ bureaucracy’s leg like a rutting canid weren’t so bad if it landed you in luxury’s lap afterward. Leastways, that’s how Archie figured, as her finger, frilled with purpleberry frosting, jammed between her lips, that savorating goodness smacked vociferously to dissipating. Yum.

With tizzied taste buds, Archie finished the Rizzo’s pastry split-lickity. She rode a sugar-high back to her room, biding time at one of the large windows on the way, lingering long enough to look out at Byzantium’s streets. There wasn’t much action, and it made Archie smirk.

The Halcyon Holdings Corporate Board had been born anew, slapped on the bottom, and told to get crackin’. Surprisingly, it was doing better than simply hollering. Rounding-up and rebranding every available scientist with a new, iron-seared vision of the future, the Board was allocating resources according to some ‘grand plan’, though such verbiage was verily avoided for its religious lean. Most of the Board’s big-hats rather side-eyed faith these days, which ruffled the OSI’s red-faced clergy in the middle of ameliorating a fresh regime with their stale ways.

As Archie heard it, one particular up-the-chain colony director was none-too-shrewdly shooing the Bishop’s attempts at confabulation, and it was this said director’s sparse agreeability which had him sent on such long furloughs about the colony. These furloughs never seemed for-long-enough, though. His relationship with Archimedes Quaice was gasoline-doused and pitch-sticky. Primed to explode at even the mention of sparkage, its fuse—his fuse—was quite the clipped one.

Short-fused Maximillian DeSoto was there now, actually. Max was in her room. It hadn’t been expected.

Less expected than his presence, of course, was Max stooping over her kid.

“Should you even be on that bum leg?” Archie strode across her room, speeding towards the man who gripped the bassinet with one hand, while the other white-knuckled the polished curve of his cane.

Upon turning towards her, Max’s expression weren’t any measure of practiced, sternly inscrutability. If anything, he’d decided new position was supported by such perks as dismissing them Scientician pillars of stoicism entirely. That, or it was his loss of faith. Either/or, he looked like he’d come to fight.

“No more than you should be leaving the child alone,” Max answered headedly, stepping back to afford her room.

Peeping the bassinet’s payload to reaffirm the child’s sound sleeping, Archie managed to shrug.

“Just went down the hall for food. Wasn’t gone longer than a few minutes.”

Walking to the parlor of her open-concept quarters, the woman lit a Wentworth cigarette, humming gratified for the taste. Tossing its squat pack on a table, she slumped into the velvet divan, eyeing someone she hadn’t put peepers on in near-bouts a fortnight.

Much hadn’t been said, then. Actually, they hadn’t spoken at all. Her baby had been born—Archie could hardly recollect it, save an impression of agony—but, afterwards, weaving in and out with her wavering subconscious, was something she flatteringly settled on calling his braided-in concern. Archie remembered Max saying something to Ellie Fenhill while gripping her arm… The wrinkles on his hands had been exaggerated to craggy cliffs due to whatever brain-bending pain-placater they’d had her hooked to… And then Archie remembered Max had gone.

Two weeks(ish) had shilly-shallied passed since then. The days’ long hours had filled with barrels of befuddlings. Halcyon’s upheaval aside, Max DeSoto was now very the head honcho. Captaining the Unreliable’s rag-tag bag of Board-certified unemployables, Maximillian and Co. had stormed the prison-planet Tartarus, saved the scientist Phineas Welles, bargained with big-cheese Sophia Akande, and come-out the other side smiling (sorta).

Halcyon had been headed for a dust-up, no bones there, but Max had the healthsome prestige which came with causing such a revivifying ruckus, and that… It was something to chaw at, certainly. Archie was at his mercy as much as anyone. That, as a kindness, was questionable.

“You could have called for something. Someone would have brought you food.” Today, Max was cold and flippant.

“Don’t like anyone waiting on me. You know that.” Meanwhile, Archie was aiming for lax.

Such divided and negative dialectical mathematics didn’t so much suggest a positive sum.

Gripping his cane, it weren’t quite the feeble front it ought’ve been. No one could seem frail when they stood to the height that Maximillian DeSoto did, or when they looked down from it, which he’d always enjoyed.

“No, I know,” he answered thinly. “Just as you won’t wait for anyone else. With the child to look after, that’s going to have to change.”

Taking a drag of her cigarette, Archie leaned forwards, ashing into the expensive marble tray. She also leaned towards a new avenue of chit-chat. “Expecting you’ll want me back at work soon. It’s why you brought me here, after all.” She glanced at him after another puff. “You’d said you might have me looking at McDevitt’s work? Seein’ about bettering the hydroponics?” Taking another cigarette-hit, Archie smiled nostalgically, nattering about how she’d “put so many of those rigs together back on Earth before the lay-offs, could probably do it in my sleep, now.”

“That was the plan, originally,” confirmed Max, “but we’ve since located a few soil engineers who are making great strides. For now, you can focus on the child. As I understand from Miss Fenhill, its health is still rather poor.”

Archie nodded slowly. “Child-rearing. Got it.” It wasn’t the responsibility she was skeptical of: it was how long they’d let her do it. Taking care of her own weren’t much the contribution in a colony going full-speed towards desperately-required efficiency.

“For all the trouble it took in wrangling me here,” Archie noted, “might we’ll’ve left me on Monarch if that’s all I’m to do.”

Max’s head tilted. “Is that where you wish to be? On Monarch?”

Archie considered the fiction in her casual pose; the inaccuracy of her disinterested tone; the falsehood in her furtive eyes. All she put forth suggested detachment as his presence, but her heart were beating manic like a madman at the door. So Archie tried, for a second, at honesty.

“Maybe.” She huffed. “No. Not really. Monarch is…”

… A cesspit.

Max’s rounded eyes coldly waylaid their surprise. “No? I would think you’d want the child’s father involved in raising her.”

“There’s hardly any raisin’ her now,” Archie replied. “There’s just waitin’ to see if she lives through the month.”

“But you would rather be with Bryant,” Max said—he didn’t ask—this was simply confirmation of his suspicions.

Archie shrugged.

The sneer that spread across Max’s face seemed like a smile gone sour—as though a happiness had gotten into something bitter and went terribly, sadly wrong.

Wishing not to wander that avenue of conversation—wanting, in fact, to copiously cold-shoulder anything that so riled Maximillian DeSoto—Archie stood. She offered him a cigarette. Bending forward slight, Max allowed her to place one between his lips, as though some kind of catered-to, fine and lofty Board executive, which he was.

Which is he, Archie thought, fumbling with the lighter.

Lighting the stick stuck between his lips, she tried not to stare there. “So. How’s the colony, Mr. Director-of-Colony-Assets-and-Acclimation? Quite the fance-and-pomp title you’re flashing these days.”

Taking a deep drag, Max’s eyes closed. “It could be worse.” Exhaling, he tsked frustratedly under his breath. “Phft. Hardly. As the title suggests, acclimating Halcyon’s citizens has been one of the larger responsibilities. I’d thought it’d be the more difficult one. But, as it turns out, all their lack of intelligence does not translate to a scarcity in faith.” He rolled the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “The citizens of Halcyon are steadfast, and they’ll turn whichever way the OSI dictates, no matter its stark contrast to their precepts from the day before. Fools,” he spat, alongside an exhale of smoke.

“It’s the assets, then, that are sticking your craw?”

Max nodded, side-eyeing, as usual, her low-brow verbiage. “Yes. Byzantium’s stocks aren’t so impressive when set against system-wide projections for the next five years. Even if we took every able body In Halcyon and converted them to laborours, we still may run out of food. If we took every scientist and threw them at the problem—which we have—we still may not be able to properly terraform the system.” Worked near to throes with the bothersome subject matter, Max began pacing, his cane tapping the marble floor and cigarette casting an ashen trail. “The Adjutant has been pushing for partial institution of the Lifetime Employment Program. And Welles’ pessimism when it comes to old-Board rhetoric has him blind to the fact that the program may save us in the long-run.”

“The Lifetime Employment Program… That was the scheme to freeze folks, wasn’t it?”

As his pacing brought him back around, Max noted, “that’s right—you left us after we secured the dimethyl sulfoxide.” Stopping his step, this curbing of agitated action complemented a curiously apologetic tone. “I know it seems like a step back,” he said tiredly. “We fought the Board to stop such callous, clear-cut measures—”

“No, no,” Archie interrupted, smiling softly. “I trust you. If it’s all so dire, I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure it’s what needs to be done.”

She thought to check her time-peice for the sake of clocking their moment of understanding. It were, historically, always a rather spectacular second: when Max looked her over and saw no judgment, and Archie, ever the moralist, appreciated his pragmatism which could be remarkably kind-hearted.

With some kind of ice broken, small-talk rose through the cracks. They sat at the couches, Archie pouring two glasses of Spectrum Vodka, and over the rims of their watered-drinks they discussed what few shared interests they had, namely what the Unreliable’s former crew were up to, and, finally, the fates of any small towns that they were both aware of, Archie’s geographical knowledge of the system not exactly robust by any means.

Like many stuck slumming in Law-forsaken back-waters, their conversation rested in Edgewater, eventually. Defying their brackish ties with the town, however, it wasn’t so salty a topic.

“Half the problem was parts, is my understanding.” Max took another gargle from his glass. “I’ve asked not to be bothered with such insignificant minutiae, but it seems everything crosses my desk, regardless of what I say.” He huffed. “Anyways. Stellar Bay’s cannery has been largely disassembled, with its parts destined for Edgewater. We debated its usefulness as a functioning unit on its own, but ultimately we’re going to continue the evacuations of Monarch that the Board couldn’t be bothered with.”

“Where you sending them?” Archie asked, drink-cozy on her spot on the couch.

“Wherever the workers are needed,” Max answered. “There’s even a fair few of your Iconoclasts set to become useful members of society here on Terra 2. Zora Blackwood is in Edgewater now, in fact, overseeing reformations. It’s likely she’ll remain there as Outpost Administrator for some time.”

“Zora jumped ship?” Prodding at this crap-tacular reality, Archie perceived, rather painfully, that the rum had hassled her head to aching.

Wincing, she peered at Max.

“Have you not spoken with Bryant at all?” he wondered.

Reaching forward, Archie forsook her drink far and away on the coffee table, soured to it. “No. I keep meaning to. Supposing I oughta radio him, or write him. He should know it happened, at any rate.”

Max offered, sans any stab of concern, “he does.”

Archie swallowed, drowning in what care he lacked. “What?”

“Your recovery following the birth was difficult and I thought he should know,” Max explained, boredly inspecting his drink. “In case anything should happen. In case the child should need to be relocated.”

Archie spun without influence. She had a whole roll-call of favored pharmaceuticals, and, while booze might’n been sitched swell at the bottom, she weren’t a light-weight, either. Archie could hold her hooch. Archie could hold her drink a damn-sight better than what Max was now throwing at her by the beefing barrel-full.

“You talked to him.”

“I did,” Max confirmed.

“You talked to him,” Archie repeated, sprat-angsting as though stuck in a corner.

“Yes,” Max repeated, words heavier than lead. “I spoke with Bryant. He said congratulations were in order. He seems to be under the impression that the child is mine.”

The plush, pillowy couch cushions ‘neath her noggin didn’t comfort. They only rooted her to the spot, though they did, at least, hold her head where her neck couldn’t. What Archie would’ve given for a flash of Focusitol, or Level Head, to clear-out the brain-fog, but she’d been cut off. It were the drugs, after all, that made the birthing so dangerous in the first place.

Due to stress and thanks to lifestyle-choices, Archie’s then-recently increased cocktail of daily opiates had fairly fucked her system. Requiring a C-section, an immediate detox of her body followed on doctor’s orders. It wasn’t the birth that nearly ended her: it was the withdrawal. Archie had been tied to the hospital bed, and covered in her own sick, for days. At the end of it, she didn’t feel like herself.

She still didn’t.

“As much as I dislike the man,” Max said, hoisting himself up from the couch, “what you’ve done is cruel.”

Archie’s voice stuck on the notion. “Cruel?”

“Yes,” Max snapped, “cruel. Of course it’s cruel to keep the truth of the child’s breeding from the father!”

“But don’t you…?” Mustering the merest smidge of grit, Archie swallowed and begged him, implored him, “but don’t you think it’s kinder than the burden of it?”

“You think it’s a burden?” Max wondered, too stunned, now, to sound angry.

“Could be,” Archie answered quietly, shrinking into herself.

Max was awestruck: smucked where he stood by something he’d apparently been thinking on lengthily, yet the conclusion he’d previously come to had been short.

“Is that why you told Bryant the child was mine? To absolve him of the responsibility?”

“Maybe,” Archie shrugged. “Maybe I just don’t know who the father really is.” They both winced distastefully in turn, and Archie, sighing sourly at herself, recanted. “No, sorry, that’s me bein’ smart. I know who the daddy is, Max. And… the truth all out? I know I didn’t want him clinging to me outta some high-minded sense of obligation.”

“Do you honestly believe Bryant has a high-minded bone in his body?” Max, too, made an off-handed sound of displeasure, though it was hardly aimed at himself. “What am I talking about, the fool is stoned almost 24-7. If not on medicinals then certainly on his own hog-wash.”

“I know you don’t like him, but Graham…” Archie’s shoulders fell. “If he knew the child was his? He wouldn’t’ve let me leave Monarch without a fight. Shoulda heard the things he said. About fatherhood, and the universe understanding itself through progeny, and… and the like.” Archie bit her lip. “Point is, I don’t want…” She closed her eyes. ”I don’t want to be walkin’ all over anyone’s right to livin’ as they like because they think they oughta be fatherin’.”

“Ah, yes. Your ‘generosity’ regarding personal liberties. The same benevolence that kept you from killing marauders is now, miraculously, absolving you of telling the truth in regards to this child.” Max 180-ied to irate from sarcastically-tickled in no seconds at all. “Void take the Pillars, but they are certainly right to say that emotions are a base reaction in comparison to reason.”

“You think I’m being emotional?” Archie asked, grinning for the hypocrisy. “You’re the one riling.”

Max stood taller, then. Both hands resting on his cane lessened to just the one; his shoulders straightened with the grace of someone far too happy to be correct.

Taking a step closer to the couches, Max towered over her.

“Doctor Fenhill explained that, despite the child’s frail state, she was not born prematurely. Given the new time-table… I know it’s mine.”

Archie’s gaze fell to her lap. “That’s not true.”

“Archie,” Max warned.

Eyes turning upwards, Archie’s mouth fell ajar, but no words fumbled passed her lips. Jaw working to get anything out, as though she were an animal choking on a bone, yet still Archie could emit nothing but a moan that sorried, slowly, into low, desperate sobbing.

He’d known… Void, how long? As they’d sipped tipples, all friendly, he’d held, in his palm, this accuracy she wanted kept from everybody. And here was the killing-blow from a man who loved to land his punches, her fate still crumpled in his hands.

“Max, I…”

She cried garbled half-excuses, and confused explanations, none of it shaping into any language-based lick-of-sense. The only thing she could properly manage, truly, was her anguish, which sputtered and gobbed between thick, heavy tears.

“I can’t believe this,” Max spat. “You’re pathetic, you know that? Caught in a lie, and all you can do is blubber like a child.

“Max!” Archie gasped as though slapped.

“Do you hate me so much?” Max demanded, pacing once more. “To go to such lengths—to lie like this? Do you know I hold your life in my hands?”

Dizzy with regret, turned-about and tousled, Archie was finally able to tether herself to this—to something he’d said she knew to be a lie.

“I don’t hate you,” she whimpered. “I don’t, I swear…”

“What is it, then?” Max asked. “You’re afraid of me?”

There’s something to be said for history—for having lived through it, and to see it coming ‘round again. In a moment of clarity, Archie was able to eye-ball Max unwaveringly, remembering the lengths he went to in apology after hurting her during the fray with Reginald Chaney. He’d regretted, often times, startling her with his tempers. Moreover, Max’s self-superiority loathed to see him wrong, and his present acrimony clearly came from assuming just this: that he’d thought Archie had forgiven him, and, as it turned out she never had.

But she had, damn it. There weren’t no sin of Max’s that she couldn’t stand. She’d lied out of fear, but it wasn’t outta fear of him.

“No, Maximillian,” Archie said, voice warbling under the weight of her conviction. “I am not afraid of you.” She softened. “But I am afraid to be around you.”

Max scoffed. “Same thing.”

“No—no it rutting isn’t!” She yelled, voice echoing off the walls.

Calming herself, Archie craved that mellow, yellow, sunshine-n-posies dulcet of various drugs and doses that had often seen her through parley with Max. But she was on her own—it was just her skin against Max’s, with the question being whose was thicker?

“It’s not the same,” Archie repeated. “Being around you makes me think of everything I walked away from when I left the Unreliable. Don’t mean the others so much, good as they are. Or the free meals. But us… We could’ve…” Archie sighed. “And I walked away because I was afraid of what Welles had us doing.” She whittled a serene smile out of her certainty. “I’m not cut-out for captaining. Nor for crew-work, neither. Not even fit for kitchen-duty. And I didn’t want to be a burden.” Archie straightened her posture, mirroring Max’s iron-rod spine. “I don’t want to be a burden now,” she clarified. “It’s why I… It’s why I’ve said what I’ve said to those I’ve said it to.”

The ending dregs of Max’s fury burned away to a subdued expression.

“Sorry as I am for what you and I missed,” Archie promised, “I didn’t fit with what you were doin’. It was better for everyone that I left.”

Max’s gaze meandered over her, taking measurements, making notes. It weren’t like he was seeing her anew, or appreciating the familiar. Maybe it were just something for his eyeballs to do while his brain blistered with what she’d said.

“That isn’t true,” he said at length.

Max gripped his cane with a hand that suddenly wanted of colour. Most of him blanched; most of him seemed old, matching the bend of his back which suddenly curved as he walked away in inches.

He came to a stop, having not shuffled much distance. But he was far from the man of moments before, young for all his fury.

“I had lost my faith,” Max said, his back still to her. ”It was the only thing making sense of this Void-blasted joke we call existence. You were supposed to be the thing that kept me together after. You and your endless answers; you and your inexhaustible alternatives to anything I’d ever preached, or stood for. But you didn’t. You left when I needed you. And I’ve been blaming you ever since. For things…” Max sighed deeply. ”For problems of my own making, I suppose.”

Archie walked over, lighting along so quiet she didn’t even harken her own step. She’d always figured they were hum-dingers of a distraction for each other: something to paw at—something to love until the lie of it got too heavy, and they could vent it out the airlock alongside other such vain, idle vocab as ‘let’s be together’ or ‘forever’. Things didn’t last in the universe—reason schooled them so. And even if Archie weren’t religious, she still respected facts.

But here they were: at the end of it. After the end of their relationship. And still Max was admitting to sentiments past a best-before date. It meant they’d been truthsome: anything he’d said, or singed across her skin in tenderness, hadn’t been some pretty, pearly prose to get him what he’d wanted, in the moment. He’d cared for her—the real deal—which meant any clinging, after the baby, wouldn’t have been for propriety’s sake.

This Archie realized quite regretfully. Still, she smiled as he turned to face her.

“Perhaps it’s simply that I prefer to find you vexing,” Max theorized. Reaching out to cup her cheek, his thumb rubbed her skin, keeping to habit. “Perhaps the anger allows me some distance from what I truly feel.”

“In the time I’ve known you,” Archie said, “you’ve only ever been angry. About everything. Bein’ placed with the plebeians in Edgewater; about your past, and your parents. Now you’re pissed at the church, which I must say is a very nice shade on you.” She grinned at his tersed brow. “Plus you’re pissed at me. If it ain’t anger, Maximillian, what else have you got?”

“And if it isn’t fear masquerading as sympathy,” Max replied smoothly, “what have you got?”

Archie grinned cheekily. “I can have both.” Moving closer, she came flush against Max’s chest, one hand resting on his as it gripped his cane. “I can be afraid of what I feel, too,” she breathed across Max’s neck.

The lights in the room were low. They deepened the hazel of his eyes to brown—just brown, warm and dark. Roving for that scent of creams, cosmetics, and lovely soap, Archie inhaled with shaking breath, aware that Max was not so easily moved as her.

“We’ve been here before,” he warned. “And our… discourse only goes so far.”

“Yeah, but it’s seen us to some pretty swell places,” Archie said wryly. “Your anger…” Her hand flattened against his lower stomach, her fingers inching down. “My sympathies.”

“Nng.” Max’s eyes snapped shut, mustering strength-of-will. Head tilting, he told them both, “that isn’t good enough—not anymore,” before pulling away and hoofing for the door, his stride quick, healthy, and confident.

“If you wish to return to Monarch, you may,” he said, pausing to look at her, as she shivered where she stood. “If you want me to stay away, I will.” Turning, he added over his shoulder, quietly, “something has to give, Archimedes.”

Archie ran to him. Wrapping her arms around his middle, she held Max, in the hopes he wouldn’t, in turn, hold her accountable for all her griefs. “There’s something to be said about predictability, ain’t there?” She demanded desperately. “The planets boot it around the sun time and time again. So can’t we come back to this?” She held him a little harder.

Both of Max’s hands gripped his cane, his body swaying despite the hold she had on it.

“Not if it leads to another argument. Not if it leads to my hurting you. Or your lying to me.” He tensed. “I’ve been

lied to enough in my life as it is.”

Ice crept through her veins, following the blood flow to a heart which cracked. An imprudent nature caused blame to aim towards the church, first, but, yes, Archie remembered soon those lies of her own forging.

Pulling away, she went to where she might take Max’s face in both palms. Opening her mouth to speak, Max looked away, knowing, most like, what were to come. Archie had always been a woman free with her affection, though frugal with the truth, and there sat their great difference: in the matter of diction.

Their definitions varied, as their personal dictionaries were not written from the same stock.

“Max, look at me,” Archie said. He wouldn’t. He did allow himself, however, to rest his face in her hands, eyes closed warily.

“I want to say it and mean it,” Archie swore, appreciating his lashes. “And I want to say it and not do something two seconds on the after that makes it seem empty.”

“Are you trying to say that you’re sorry?” Max asked, blearily eyeing her. “Or are you trying to say that you”—he huffed doubtfully—“love me?”

“I don’t know,” Archie admitted, preferring pretty stupidity to falsifying. It was their definitions of love that had never been the same. “I’m saying… Max, I’m trying to say that…”

With nowhere else to set her sights, her gaze drifted towards the bassinet. Something—she didn’t know what—struck her, and sucked her into this fanciful image where it might be the three of them.

“It’s you.” Archie turned back to him. “It’s always been you.”

Max nodded. It was new—it was an acceptance he didn’t seem obligated to explain. Or perhaps Archie no longer felt needs to interpret. Without a swig of Level Head (or its slower-acting, longer-lasting tablet form), her mind favored wading through what was rather than swimming through scant specifics, comparing every damn thing in her life, or Max’s, to some personal, historical tragedy.

Max nodded—and he accepted. And that was all it need be. But Archie still had no idea what he thought of the baby.

“She’s really very quiet, isn’t she?” Max wondered, startling Archie from her not-thoughts, their bodies continuing to press together. He’d followed their conversation to its inevitable, swaddled conclusion.

“Way I understand it, that might not be such a good thing.” Archie noticed a few new white hairs at his temple. “You want to hold her?”

Max’s chest swelled. Yet, still, it paled to the way his hand clutched at his cane, this being but the barest of examples of how his body now frustrated his wishes. His shame was transparent, as was his dread.

“I’ll bring her to you,” Archie offered, touching his cheek.

As Max sat on the couch, cradling the child shifting with listless life, Archie watched, lighting a cigarette that she stubbed out within seconds. This was as automatic as it had been when she’d struck the match; her body was going through the motions, as her mind absorbed utterly in the scene before her. Max weren’t an expert in baby-holding; he weren’t so savvy in supporting the delicate, neither. But he made do.

More likely than not, it was his darling stupefaction gettin’ both of them through it, of course. Because Max was gobsmacked.

Archie was about to formally start fretting—she catered no inklings towards Max’s notions regarding kids-raising, nor even where they stood in regards to each other—however, Max looked to Archie with such gentle intentions that fretting fell far on the backburner.

“She needs a name, Archimedes,” Max informed her. His certitude was comical.

“Oh, I’ve been calling her Millie,” Archie replied. She added, just as casually, “after her daddy.”

Max’s eyes rounded; his posture stiffened; his jaw dropped a smidgeon. Not because of the admission; not because someone was calling him a father, for Archie was hum-dingin’ sure that Ellie Fenhill hadn’t employed any such jargon when spilling those exceptionally fragile beans.

No, it weren’t that he was furnishing the DeSoto family-tree with more foliage that struck him. What surprised Max was that anyone would find him so grand as to cherish this child with his name.

“After her father?”

Archie nodded, giggling at the joy in his voice. As Max went back to looking at the little girl in his hands, Archie repeated, grinning, “yeah. After her father.”

#the outer worlds #tow fanfic #archimedes quaice #maximillian desoto #i lost steam in the last quarter not gonna lie #and i'm too tired to edit #also i hate that banner because his face is fucking hard but i think archie turned out cute #also i've already started re-writing the end skdksfjker

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good-prog · 1 year

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ff8 review

Main campaign date: 2023/02/17-02/27 Playtime (in game) to roll credits: 30 hrs (No Steam playtime this time; artificially inflated that metric by accidentally leaving the launcher open after closing the game.)

I think the best I can say is that Final Fantasy 8 was okay, I guess? I'm probably not part of the target audience, though I imagine the story and characters would have resonated as a teenager [redacted] years ago. Once I figured out it wasn't for me, I just sat back and tried to enjoy what I could. The stakes that the party faces throughout the story are on par with what it feels like to be a young person. The only difference is that in their world, that those crises are truly life threatening or world ending, intensified by the struggles of school, relationships, and lack of guidance from adults in the face of those challenges.

Spoiler warning for all aspects of the game.

characters/story

Despite the drama of the opening cutscene and duel between Squall and Seifer, the game started off relatively slow compared to most other FF titles. The first hour showed off the school setting and encouraged the player to read way too much tutorial text.

Initially, the Garden students in the party felt pretty interchangeable due to their lack of character development and similar character design. This issue was further exacerbated by the junction switch function, which allowed all magic and GFs junctioned to be immediately swapped with another character's. Their similarly rectangular character designs didn't help either. (I understand that they were going for realism--hence the lack of deformed character sprites--and you can hand wave their shared social background, but it's pretty bland nonetheless?) Throughout the story each party member did have their stand out moments, though they were sparse. For example, Irvine starts out as a flirty and somewhat un-serious sniper. He chokes during the assassination attempt on Edea, but his hesitance (and familiarity with the female members of the party) gets clarified during the GF memory loss reveal at the start of disk 3.

I felt a bit uncomfortable at some points with how violent the society depicted in FF8 was. Sure, the age of majority might be younger in their society, but they're also being raised as child soldiers? And yet, Edea (while possessed by Ultimecia) manages to order a missile bombing on an entire school of these children (and pit two such schools against each other--putting cadets/actual children at risk!), without any sort of objection from society at large or the schools themselves. A common comment I made through the first two disks was "do they not teach critical thinking at this school?" I guess one could argue for the main party being trained as unquestioning mercenaries, but I don't think their goal to become leaders because of the "fate" Cid envisioned for them was particularly compelling.

Side note on Cid: he keeps urging the party along, but seems to think that his prior preparation by creating Balamb Garden and training them is sufficient; surely he could have taken a more active advisory role along the way besides just throwing Squall into his position.

on Squall's char arc: I liked the asides and getting to hear his thoughts, as well as the option of different dialogue options (though they ultimately did not impact the story). He starts off being incredibly introverted, likely due to his traumatic childhood, but learns to become a leader that relies on others for help, on top of developing a romance with Rinoa, ultimately becoming her knight and promising to keep her in check should she lose control of her powers.

Seifer: Like the rest of the cast, his personality doesn't seem to change much from his childhood to the present. (could attribute to childhood trauma, I guess) Maybe I was lucky with my junctions, but he was a pushover every time the party faced him, rather than a true rival. (Well, it was a 3 v 1 battle, so…) I found it interesting that he recovers his memories of the orphanage around the same time the party does (either told by Edea/Ultimecia, or managed to do it in a different way). Nice that he, too, gets a happy ending (fishing with his buddies, Fujin and Raijin)—but doesn't get much redemption, either.

Laguna and his friends/comrades Kiros and Ward were an interesting diversion from the main plot, giving hints of the world's historical geopolitics to the player as well as context for when the player revisits those locations in the present. He seems to perpetually fail upward, and despite becoming the leader of the most powerful, technologically advanced nation on the planet, still puts the responsibility of defeating Ultimecia on Squall's party, though he sends them off with some encouragement about the power of friendship.

Ellone seemed to be more of a plot device than an actual character. She was a perpetual damsel in distress; Laguna, then Cid and Edea, then Squall were constantly chasing after her to ensure her safety, with the party only hearing about her in relation to other people. She initially sends Squall into Laguna's consciousness in a fruitless attempt to give her adoptive mother, Raine, a better death (or prevent it altogether). She also inadvertently helps Laguna and friends via infusion of Squall's power. She finally understands that she can't change the past, though she can (by proxy) experience it for herself.

plot/story?

The reveal that GF use causes memory loss seemed too convenient, but in the context of the game's outlandish plot, not unrealistic? Regardless, Irvine staying silent about it for an entire disk seemed odd; you'd think he'd at least make a comment about Edea/Matron during the assassination beyond just chickening out.

Time compression: I guess it works? It taps into some primal fear of time passing/memory loss/eventual death, and subsequently being forgotten. Even if the delivery was haphazard at times, I feel like some of the themes definitely resonated with me, particularly with respect to memory loss.

I feel like some of my peers fear getting older. A friend talked about traveling to Korea for leisure (but also to get plastic surgery). There's anything inherently wrong with wanting to look or feel younger or healthier or more like oneself; it's just that there's some denial embedded in it all. My own parents, too, talk about their own mortality, especially since their peers are getting old and sick and dying; those things are a guarantee—"when it's too late". We arguably don't know how to talk to each other in the present—their most common sentence starter is "remember when-?" as if I would remember the way I was as a child.

Beyond natural decay, in undergrad I dealt with poor mental health, and large parts of that time of my life are just gone. It's been several years, and I've healed from it enough to forget my own forgetfulness. Even now, I sometimes thumb through old journal entries going "oh, I guess that happened." (Potential knowledge gaps with respect to my professional career aside, I'm disappointed that I forgot the good times that I had and the friendships I made amidst everything going on.)

I don't really have an answer to these things beyond "oh, it just is what it is." The quite cliche'd sayings about living in the present are probably right, after all. The best I—and FF8's party—can do is to be confident about oneself in the here and now and keep moving forward.

gameplay

I didn't really mesh with the gameplay, either. Because of the game's reputation and my own miserly RPG-playing tendencies, I was afraid to level or spend magic unless absolutely necessary (e.g., for healing/recovery, and even GF abilities replaced those over time). I stuck to drawing from and carding enemies, refining the materials from cards, and junctioning that magic to stats. However, I was hesitant to refine materials, in case they became useful for weapon upgrades, or in case I got better refinement abilities (e.g., maybe I could use a wizard stone for Curaga instead of Firaga). I know that the "proper" way to amass magic for junctioning is farming Triple Triad, but I only played a couple games before deciding to do it the more grindy way. (I've played my share of Triple Triad in FF14, but I'm honestly not that big of a fan.)

Early in the game, I found that GF spam was quite effective, since it did significantly more damage than the party's attacks. For example, while escaping from X-ATM092 during the SeeD exam, the party had to do about 1.5k damage each time—doable with about 3 GF summons but much longer with standard attacks that did double-digit damage. After the party had improved stats, though, I didn't feel like sitting through the entire GF animation each time and instead favored standard physical attacks.

Until disk 3, I carded/drew from enemies as convenient, but I didn't go out of the way to farm. Boss battles dragged on a bit, but with decent junctions (e.g., sleep to ST-Atk-J on human enemies) nothing was too challenging. I was a bit worried about my subpar gameplay going into the endgame, though. After obtaining the Ragnarok, I spent an hour hopping around the Islands Closest to Heaven and Hell mindlessly drawing spells for stat upgrades. I also farmed cactuars for AP to max out all of my GFs' abilities.

My endgame build involved junctioning triple (one of the higher, but not the highest stat modifier) to each of my character's Str stats and using the standard physical attack each turn. Since there are only 2 GFs that naturally learn Str-J, I overwrote a third's Magic ability with the same so that all three characters could benefit. For bosses, my strategy was casting meltdown to increase the potency of physical attacks, then using the two other characters in the party as support for Squall's LB spam (keeping everyone healed/buffed and Squall buffed with Aura, attacking normally when it was safe to do so).

One of my gameplay highlights occurred while trying to get Bahamut as a GF. I didn't think to buff everyone with shell, so after a nasty megaflare, only Squall was left standing. Angelo was the MVP, though: he revived Rinoa, and the next turn used wishing star (dealing almost 80k damage!) to defeat the boss. (That was the first and last time I've seen him use that limit break; the party needs to be practically dead for that to occur.)

Ultimecia's Castle was definitely a highlight as well. I liked how it sealed off all abilities (besides the standard attack) to start, and defeating each boss enabled the party to unlock one new ability. In between each boss were little puzzles that involved both the main and secondary parties. Even if my main strategy was standard attack spam, I had to think a bit more about junctioning beyond using the "Auto" junction function. For example, one of the bosses attacks with high level thunder magic; by junctioning lightning to Elem-Def-J, those attacks could be minimized (or even used to heal). For the final boss fight, I managed to die to Griever's Shockwave Pulsar a couple times before playing it super safe and keeping all the characters topped off and shelled.

music highlights

FF8 has my favorite soundtrack of the FF games I've played so far, likely because of its use in the FF14 Eden raids. (When I first set foot outside Balamb Garden and heard "Blue Fields", I was transported back to The Empty. Similarly, when I heard Don't Be Afraid, my first reaction was "oh, that's Cloud of Darkness!") The Eden's Promise tier was where I learned to raid and also where I made most of the friends I play and raid with now, so I have a lot of fond memories associated with the music.

misc

In addition to the music, I had a couple "Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme" moments while playing the game. Voidwalker (E2) is reminiscent of Adel's fight, where Sorceress Adel junctions Rinoa, physically connecting her to her chest and siphoning hp from her each turn. As referenced in FF14's Oracle of Darkness fight, Ultimecia casts Hell's Judgement (reducing party HP to 1) as her opening move in her final form. An astute Twitter user also pointed out parallels in the ending cutscenes.

Side note: I appreciate how various fan translations of Ultimecia's speeches further elaborate on how Griever was created, as well as her motives.

conclusion/next steps

There's a lot of creativity that can go into the junction/magic system and "break" the game. For example, once Rinoa becomes a sorceress, she gains "Angel Wing" as a limit break, which is effectively a berserk magic form that has her cast offensive spells from her inventory repeatedly without depleting those stocks. So, should she only have Ultima and Meteor stocked, the AI will favor Meteor (the "weaker" spell), allowing her to do ridiculous amounts of multi-hit damage every turn. I certainly know more for a second playthrough, but I don't think I'd want to play through again anytime soon.

I'll probably just uninstall for now; with my current stats, I don't think I'll have a fruitful time tackling the Ultima or Omega weapons. Plus, if I want to play Triple Triad (with better QOL) I can always do that in FF14. I'm glad I got to experience the game, though, and draw my own conclusions about the story.

#text #ff8 #my review #closed tab

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esotericerise · 2 years

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𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐚 에스파 <𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒>

Music taste is subjective and my opinions are my own! You do not have to agree with anything that I say.

“따라와 (bow down); 지켜봐 (my skill); 놀랄걸 (say wow); we coming!“

Less chromatic and cohesive than Savage, the Girls EP still licks the plate clean.

01. GIRLS ☆

I love GIRLS. I think that in terms of aespa’s artistic direction, it is safer than Savage and Next Level, which is fine. Next Level played with structures of songs in commercial music and Savage explored the overlap and the struggle between the nature and mechanical, as well as an interesting look into pressure in music. With strong verses backed by darker vocal tones, Girls is delicious, from start to finish. I particularly enjoy the brass-esque part of the instrumental and the ad-libs are reminiscent of Kick It by NCT 127. Karina takes all of her lines and truly devours them in this song. The chorus is extremely catchy. The only thing that I would say is negative is the rap is kind of awkward in places and, lyrically, some parts are juvenile (mainly “With my friends”) or gramatically correct yet confusing to an English speaker. (”Real MY world” is correct in the lore, but listening to it without prior knowledge makes it seem like they don’t understand syntax.) I also find the dance break instrumental a little grating; sometimes I feel like aespa would benefit from releasing “short” versions of their songs with cut dance break instrumental sections.

02. 도깨비불 (Illusion)

Nothing has ever really opened a song quite like “You’re so yummy, yummy, yummy; in my tummy, tummy. tummy.“ Their careful rhythmic speak-sing over a relatively sparse techno-instrumental gives way to Karina’s rich pre-chorus, sans the futuristic synth from before. Illusion, like Savage, plays with the light and “natural“ versus heavy and metallic. While I personally prefer a full, melodic chorus, the one in Illusion is still crafted well. My favorite section is the group speak/rap in the second verse. One thing I will say about the lyrics of this song is that it suffers heavily from the “Last word in the line is in English“ syndrome. I do enjoy Illusion, though. However, it is not title track material! I suppose that the lyrics could’ve been changed to pertain to the lore but it does not have the “je ne sais quoi” of aespa’s flagship songs. It is a perfectly good promotional b-side.

03. Lingo

Immediately: harmonica. This was the country I was fearing after I saw on twitter that there was an offical statement about the genre of songs on the Girls EP. I don’t hate it but I also am too confused to love it. Melodically, I enjoy the vocal lines. The instrumental is very strong and overpowering in places and I feel overstimulated. This definitely checks the experimental b-side box. If I played the album start to finish, I think that I wouldn’t skip this song, but I also wouldn’t reach for it.

04. Life’s Too Short

I checked the translated lyrics on Genius for this song, specifically to see if there was a considerable difference in the English and Korean versions. Needless to say, I can tell which was written first. However, when listening, the Korean version is much more palatable, because the lyrics aren’t as straightforward about their message. I enjoy this song in Korean because I am not forced to understand what they’re saying. It’s also got a catchy melody and I have hummed it various times at work before because it just gets stuck in your head. Back on my previous point, you don’t have to go very far to see the flack that aespa gets online for being a successful group of pretty girls who sing and dance. The English lyrics though, are immature at best, and distasteful at worst. Would I rather they get hated for having a song that pushes their achievements and makes them sound vain or a song with these lyrics? Hard question that I’ll probably never answer.

05. ICU 쉬어가도 돼

Title is on the struggle bus... I first read “ICU” and interpreted it as the Intensive Care Unit... not the literal I - SEE - YOU. At least INVU didn’t reference something else. I wasn’t expecting something this acoustic but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it because I did, gospel church music sound and all! Their voices blend very well together and I like that very much. Vocally, aespa are able to hold their own (I say this because there is not a forced rap section; Giselle used to be in a choir and Karina... listen to Girls and you’ll know what I mean: she can SING). The downside is that it is very cookie-cutter, concert encore, vanilla.

Did I enjoy it more than Savage? No. Is it as cohesive as Savage was? Also no. The vision was not as clear or as omnipresent as it was in Savage. From first listen, everything had been marked with the aespa futuristic KWANGYA sound, regardless of the pacing or musical content of the song. Did I enjoy the Girls EP nonetheless? Yes. For a numerical rating, if I exclude the LTS English version, the EP gets an 8/10. If I do not exclude LTS English Version, it gets a 7/10. Girls as a title track, I am between that 9/10 and that perfect score, but I think I’ll go lower because of the fact that it is not as aespa as it could be, if that makes sense. For the next comeback, I’m hoping for more present musical themes and also a full album... but we shall see what SM Ent. has planned.

#esotericerise #aespa #에스파 #aespa girls #karina #winter aespa #giselle #ningning #카리나 #지젤 #윈터 #닝닝

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thepixelpenguin · 12 days

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EXOGARDEN LOG #3

Hi! Now is a bad time to be picking up extra hobbies, but my brain doesn't seem to care. Still, I found some time for this one, too. My Minecraft mock-ups are fully realised now, but I'm not sure about uploading them. They probably won't make a lot of sense without knowing what each block represents, and they do kind of spoil the whole game. Nice scenery though. Heck, maybe I'll just post one of them...

But for now, some more plants!

🌼Webbed Flytrap🌼

Fallaranea muscipula

Home planet: Zion

A maroon and yellow flower with a spider-like construct framing its petals, with a gooey nectar web stretched between. If it detects a small creature, the legs close in on its prey, trapping it for gradual digestion. The legs of the flower use a hydraulic system to keep the pressure high enough to trap the creature.

Although this would've fit quite neatly into the jungles of Elysium, that place was getting populated enough as it was, and a carnivorous spiderweb made for a much more Zion-esque idea than the Fractal Fern. I had to have at least one carnivorous plant, and having one based on a carnivorous animal AND a common piece of set dressing seemed only natural. It makes for quite a believable image!

🌼Hopper Grower🌼

Petrophilium bisemutium

Home planet: Ketumati

A simple leafy plant with a pink inflorescence, smooth leaves, and a metallic sheen. The flowerhead is peculiar: the sepal is flexible and colourful, but there are no actual petals. At the base of its stem is a large bismuth crystal which grows around it. The plant doesn't grow in existing crystals, but rather excretes excess bismuth absorbed from the rocks it grows on.

Yes, bismuth crystals really do look like that: they're my favourite for a reason! I knew I had to include it in a world themed around chemistry and general ethereal vibes. Oh, it's a fun one. It dances into the realm of fantasy a little more than the others, but that's part of the art. The faux flowerhead here makes it seem a little more inorganic than most, but it's not at all alien. It turns out flower morphology can be VERY deceptive. Some petals aren't really petals, some flowers aren't even really flowers, it's a mess! Tulips are an odd example: half the petals are actual petals, but the outer petals are just barely distinguishable sepals. Also daisies are a hundred flowers in one? I need a break from flowers...

🌳Furball Tree🌳

Laevidendron eriophyllum

Home planet: Eden

A usually short and sparse tree with little whorls of leaves that have a very soft texture. These leaves grow in separated round clusters on the surprisingly smooth branches. The tree also sprouts fluffy lilac blossoms but only on the side facing downwind

What, you didn't think flowers were the only thing I had to offer, did you?! I'm trying to group my drawings by the category of plant, so expect to see some more trees and grasses as time goes on. This is the first tree you see in the game, hence it earning the privilege of "Tree" in its name. I've never repeated a word in the common names, just to show the sheer diversity of plants there are, and to make it easier to specify them! It does require rather awkward constructions like "Hopper Grower", but hey, I like the half-rhyme and double-entendre.

Anyway, the Furball Tree. I wanted something friendly and whimsical, but a little more realistic than Dr Seuss! I hope you can see what I'm going for: it's like natural topiary. It looks quite sparse in my drawings, but it is supposed to be able to fit in a garden, after all. They probably get no taller than 5 metres. The blossom is just for extra prettiness, a perfect match with the Foreign Flyer, and it makes for quite a handy impromptu compass, incidentally.

===

Oh, I promised you a Minecraft world, didn't I? Well, I can't think of an easier way to do it, so... here.

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/eden-evergreen-green-exogarden/

You might recognise the Furball Tree and Foreign Flyer, but the rest of the plants I've yet to reveal, of course. Still, it's quite a nice example of things to come. I hope with every passing post, you can see there's more depth to this than I can possibly hope to convey with a few drawings in my spare time... oh well.

#exogarden #devlog #art #digital art

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glassmarcus · 2 months

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Super Mario Bros 6

Naked and absolute disclosure here, Super Mario Bros 3 is my favorite side scrolling platformer and will always be my favorite side scrolling platformer. It is a load bearing game that my taste are built on top of. It's the first platformer that truly clicked with me. It is the gold standard for which I compare all games within the genre to. The jump arc, the momentum, the stage length, the density, the secrets, the art, the music. If a platformer doesn't land in the same ball park of quality in these areas, I'm going to want to play Super Mario Bros 3 again instead. Especially if it’s another Mario game. And it's not like I think it's a perfect game. OK, I actually do think that, but I understand that human beings are flawed and may not be able to comprehend its brilliance like I am able to. I know that there are theoretically things that it has been surpassed in, but in practice it has never felt that way. I’ve been playing 2D Mario games my whole life and never have I had the thought "Oh yea, this is better than Mario 3".

Super Mario World is not better than Mario 3. The movement is a bit too loose, the way power ups work is ass backwards, some of the more dull levels go on a bit too long, the spin jump being a separate button is an abject affront to nature, level motifs are sparse, and the game is kinda ugly looking. The game introduced a bunch of stuff I appreciate. The interconnected world map is brilliant and really pushes the exploration elements of the series with its use of secret exits. And it may seem like a small thing, but I adore being able to throw objects upwards. At the end of the day though, I'd rather just play Mario 3.

Super Mario Land 2 is not better than Mario 3. Again, the movement is too loose for me, Mario’s Sprite takes up a 5th of the screen real estate, and like all Game Boy Mario games, the OST pile drives its leitmotif into a cemetery of dead horses. Please Game Boy Mario games, I’m begging for you to have more than one song. It's a good song, but I'd rather there be 5 new songs than variants of the same thing Ad infinitum. The Non-linearity and the creative stage motifs are unparalleled among 2D Mario, but I'd still rather play Mario 3.

The New Super Mario Bros games are not better than Mario 3. Yes all of them. And it really just comes down to how bland those games are. They all have the same general look and vibe which I find to be the least interesting these games get aesthetically. I even prefer World visually over these games just because it's not milquetoast. The level design is solid in basically all of these games but they don't introduce much new ironically. I like the move set additions like the ground pound, wall jump, and mid air spin, but there's a reason I lump them all together. They could have called it Super Mario Bros 5 Episode 1-4 and the titles would make way more sense. Nothing stands out, so I'd rather just play Mario 3.

So recently I played Super Mario Bros Wonder. On a surface level, nothing seems amiss when playing this one. The visuals are different for the first time in 20 years. Every action has soulful flourish and the animations have weight and personality to them. There is a distinct color palette associated with this game and every level is brimming with visual ambition. Most importantly, you can play as Daisy which strongly distinguishes it from every existing Mario game. The game also controls exactly how a modern Mario game should. You have the same kit you had in New Super Mario Bros Wii, but you have the ability to move at a fast pace with minimal actions that decimate your momentum. Not once have I shamefully blamed the physics of this game for my shortcomings. It's that tight and fine tuned.

On a deeper level though, Wonder has a lot going on under the hood that solidifies it as one of the more impressive Mario titles. The level design is probably what stands out the most about Mario Wonder to me. Each stage is solidly design and slowly introduces its concepts and builds upon them throughout in fair and reasonable ways. This is what's expected of Mario games. Every Mario games since the first New Super Mario Bros has been like this. There's not much to take issue with, but also not much to sink your teeth into. That's to be expected when your levels are designed so carefully that they end up always playing it safe. I think what's been missing from Mario games for a while is flavor. Mario games are always nutritious, but they have no spice. I play them, and then shortly forget about them and don't desire to return, they are simply sustenance. I played New Super Mario Bros 2, liked it enough, and immediately wiped my brain of all data related to it. And I get why these games are made this way. I'm never frustrated by anything or dreading a specific part of these games, while there are some stages in others that I ignore if possible. But I still enjoy the more volatile titles because they take those wide swings and have more personality. I need my Mario games to have an unhinged idea every now and again.

From the soil that is the sturdy foundation of 2D Mario, sprouts the Wonder Flower, and with it, a garden of brilliant and deranged concepts for levels. Mario Wonder isn't about just completing levels, it's about collecting Wonder Seeds. It's more a kin to 3D Mario games where collectibles are used to unlock levels. Wonder Seeds are Power Stars, Shine Sprites, Moons, Cat shines etc. You find these seeds by completing objectives. This means not just beating the level or finding the secret exit, but also completing the Wonder Flower variation of the level. The Wonder Flower is a usually hidden object that distorts the current stage into a Salvador Dali Dreamscape. When this flower is in play, the framework the game is built within becomes far more malleable. The geography around you shifts and comes to life. The character you play as completely warps in how they function. Even the camera angle of this 2D sidescroller isn't safe from this floral menace. The Wonder Flower is a game changer and makes every level more interesting. And the fact that it's optional really leans into the replayability of the game. The Wonder Flower sort of turns the level into a B-side alternate version. Sometimes the Wonder Flower mechanic can be annoying or maybe get in the way of exploring a certain aspect of the level. So there are times where you won't want to activate it. I appreciate branching level structure being handled in this way. It feels more natural to come back to a level to see the Wonder version or Standard Version rather than just have hidden extra level planted inside.

Wonder is a game that gives you options in how you approach clearing a level and it extends beyond the decision to use the Wonder Flower or not. Far more options are available for how you move your character rather than how the level shifts. Throughout the game you will unlock and purchase badges that you can select before each level. This acts as a sort of load out you use per stage, similar to how you'd select a power from your inventory on Mario 3. Each badge modifies your movement in ways that can drastically change how you approach level design. There are badges that increase your speed that will aid you in clearing levels faster. Glides and double jumps to help in platforming. There are badges that are only really useful in certain situations like the one that gives you the ability to dash underwater. There are badges that aren't functionally super useful but are just fun to use like the grappling hook one. Baby badges that act as an easy mode; Unhinged badges that act as a hard mode. Badges spice up gameplay in a way that is unprecedented, and it's strange how it's unprecedented because this is not a complex or high concept idea. In fact I wish they went further with it. There are some difficult levels in the back half of the game that require expert badge use, but I would have liked to see more levels that were hard, but didn't require badge use. This makes the choice you have in badge selection feel like it matters more because your choice likely led to your victory rather than what it was in my play through: rigid challenge with no room for freedom, or easy levels where the badges were just a bonus.

Despite the level design being solid, it might be the one major mark I have against the game. They feel so meticulously designed that there's not a lot of freedom in what you do despite there being freedom in how you do it. Previously titles were linear for sure and had their fair share of secrets along the way, but those secrets were better spread out due there being more height. Linear only indicates the direction the level takes. It's doesn't have to be shaped like a thin line. Mario 3 and Mario World had more rectangular levels where you could explore high up areas at your leisure. Not just when the level allows it. This is because both of these games gave you ways to fly in some capacity. Mario 3 had the Raccoon power up while Mario World had the Super Cape. There's no power up like that in Wonder that needs accounting for its vertical mobility.

Don't get it twisted. All of these new power ups are winners. The elephant power is visually the most fun power up in the series and its utility leads to some fun puzzles. The bubble power up is offensively devastating and I can imagine bubble jumping being some high level skill within speed runs. The drill is the power up that takes full advantage of the more cramped level design and because if it, this game has hands down the best cave stages in the series. These are all welcome additions, but they don't replace the vertical exploration I found myself missing after I finished my playthrough.

I feel like if that vertical element was in place, this would likely be an all time favorite platformer for me. But it's missing that and a bit more. I feel like despite this being the most different Mario in years, there are some instances where it could have gone the extra mile. It's cool how secret exits and a roamable world are in play, but most of the exits don't lead to sequence breaking short cuts and the extra world being a measly 10 levels is super deflating. Another world of levels between piss easy and ball crushing difficulty would be more than welcome. But we never get that. The Wonder Flower modifications make levels more interesting, but the same motifs as always are being used here. The story being included is a nice change of pace, but it would be a nicer change if it was good. Wonder does a lot of things to impress, but doesn't really feel like its the best Mario game in any category. Except the final boss fight which elevates the franchise in that regard.

So in conclusion, it's pretty good. One of the best 2D Mario games overall. I'd rather play Mario 3 though.

#super mario bros wonder

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alternamarian · 1 year

Text

12 — The Road to The Temple

retrace

And so I was face to face once again with the girl, sitting opposite her in the carriage (which likewise was furnished with little else than gray blinds on the windows.) However, I was not alone with her, as I had been when we were enclosed in the foliage. The crowd had not yet dispersed: they were still waving at her through the carriage windows, and she was fully engaged in returning their attentions. Several of them handed her blossoms, among other tokens; we were still near the school when someone tossed in a ripe yellow fruit. I knew it was ripe because it hit the side of my head. But since the rind was thick, it did not burst. That did mean, though, that it was hard and heavy, and I rubbed my head as I placed the fruit on the girl's lap.

“Those things are quite sweet,” I told her. “And they're not easy to gather, so they're considered a special treat.”

The first girl picked it up and held it close to her cheek. “Thank you!” she said to the people. “You are all very kind.”

And the people cheered as the carriage rolled along.

When we got on to the wider road, the driver urged the beast to a faster trot, and the girl was finally able to lean back in her seat. She took a breath, and shut her eyes for an instant. Then she began to carefully put the gifts into her bag.

I wished to take up at once where our conversation had left off. Then I hesitated. She seemed to be busying herself with arranging the contents of her bag. I supposed she wanted to be quiet, and I did not blame her, after dealing with the onslaught of the crowds. So I also leaned back into the seat.

The dull blue seats had some cushioning, but I still was unable to suppress a wince. My injuries rather seemed to be worsening than subsiding.

We were passing by farming fields, so I had much to focus on while the first girl was still occupied. Most of the fields were sparse at best, and not a few were quite empty. I saw farmers slogging over the flat ground, with the haze bearing down on their backs. One farmer sat down on a stump, sighing, clutching a bundle of bare stalks. And as I sat in the (comparative) coolness of the canopied carriage, I observed him take off his hat, and wipe his arm across his creased forehead.

I could find no signs of improvement in his bleak fortunes.

The girl's voice roused me from my rumination.

“You look very serious,” she remarked, with that strained tone of forced casualness. Her mouth twitched somewhat. “What are you thinking about?” She was making a considerable effort, putting up an appearance of nonchalance. She almost succeeded.

[She succeeded more than the prey ever could.]

“I don't think the storm helped with the crops at all.”

The girl turned towards the window. “Well, that was only a while ago,” she replied. “You can't expect an immediate change.”

“No,” I agreed. “But the farmers need an immediate change. The whole village needs an immediate change.”

“And the rest of the world.”

“Yes.”

“How fortunate, then, that we are heading for the temple,” said the girl. “Why don't you come in with me, and make a petition? On behalf of the village, on behalf of the world?” she asked. “Will you not make an offering to the great ones?”

I faced the girl directly as I swayed in my seat. “No,” I said.

She smirked. “I thought so.”

And I looked out the window once again, the carriage clattering on the road.

So my wish to resume our conversation was unfulfilled. What little we said to each other were desultory niceties; the sort of bland chatter that repelled me. And I could not avoid it; the topic and manner of our discourse was chosen and propelled by the other person with me: the primary student, the favored daughter of the village. She also happened to own the carriage we were in.

“Would you like some of this fruit?” she inquired.

I muffled a sigh. “That was a gift to you. I doubt the people will be pleased if they saw me eating it.”

“But you must be hungry.”

I hesitated, but I was too tired and frustrated to think of a polite diversion. So I simply said “Yes.” I may also have spoken more bluntly than I had intended.

“Well. We can have some food when we get home.” I looked at her, and she said, “I can't conjure up a feast right now, unfortunately.”

I shook my head. “There's no need to apologize for that.”

There was a fleeting silence. Then she said, “I could learn to.”

“Don't.”

Her green eyes glinted. “Is that a request or a command?”

I bit my lip and suppressed a growl. Then I said, as quietly as I could, “It's a plea.”

She began to say something, but the carriage stopped abruptly, and we heard the driver calling to us from his seat outside. “We've at the temple, young miss.”

We stared at each other, not saying anything. Then the girl took her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

Quickly I reached out and touched her arm. “Don't,” I pleaded urgently. “You don't need to do this. Stay, stay in here, and let's go to your house.”

For an instant, the girl seemed to hesitate. I pressed my fingers to her wrist, softly, but with no less urgency. And then the driver appeared by the windows. He drew back the latch, and held the door open.

It worked like a spell. The girl withdrew her arm without a word, and stepped out.

[She avoided making one of the worst mistakes she could have made.]

I sat back and shut my eyes, my hands clenching into fists. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to cry, or start yelling. I felt a tear drift out from under my lids, and so perhaps I was about the cry. I was a very little girl, after all.

I opened my eyes. The carriage suddenly seemed very stifling.

I looked over to the other side. I could just see some overgrowth through the window. The haze was relentless, but the leaves were rustling gently. Then I slid across the seat, opened the doors, and let myself out.

The breeze wafted over my face, and I took one deep breath after another. Apparently I had been feeling more smothered than I had thought. The wind brushed away my tears and reinvigorated my mind.

I saw the overgrowth on the ground, lining the side of the road before me. Moreover, I saw where the road split into two. The other path curved around a particularly thick patch of grass, leading away from the village.

I had never been so close to that path before. If I moved forward just a bit more, I would be on my way into the wide, unfamiliar world, where so many stories happened. I felt the pricking through my limbs, and the coldness on my neck and down my back, soothing the pains inflicted by our teacher's rod. I took one step closer to the path.

“Child, don't go wandering away.”

I stopped. But I did not turn around.

“Hurry, child, you don't know what will snatch you from behind the overgrowth.”

That was true. I did not know what could be waiting for me beyond the curve. And I wanted to find out. I shivered with the thrill of curiosity.

“Come on now child, get back here where it's safe.”

Those words closed tightly around my chest. I thought that, if I did as he told, I may as well put a clamp on my own foot.

But am I not a dutiful child?

[Not in the slightest.]

I turned around.

realize

#a preying sort of offering

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