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mamaspeckles · 3 months

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Hey my lovely! So there was some difficulties when working with the fic so here is a fixed version! Mama apologizes!

Velvet x Fem Reader SFW And NSFW Headcanons

CHARACTER IS 18+

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SFW

-She was undoubtedly the first to develop feelings for you. Despite being a mega star alongside her brother, you weren't initially fazed by all her glitz and glam. At first, you were in denial that a famous pop star with numerous hit sensations would be interested in someone of a lower level like you. "I like you, Y/N! I've always had!" "I know... I knew from the beginning, but why?"

-Being her loving girlfriend doesn't guarantee she'll be all soft with you. She's had a bad attitude since childhood. If she dislikes something you do, expect a glare or a warning grip on your shoulder if you're beside her.

-You and her keep your relationship subtle and private, mainly because her fans crush on her and find her attractive. She believes it's not just her music that draws them in, but also her seductive and attractive aura. Only close family knows about the two of you, and it will remain that way until she finds the perfect time to reveal your relationship to the world.

-She throws her credit card on your lap if she sees you eyeing things you want, but she subtly judges your taste in fashion, mainly because you don't wear gold like her. "Oh, you want that? Okay, put it on my card, babe."

-Velvet's only pet names for you are "babe" and "hon"; she doesn't go overboard on nicknames. However, if you manage to make her truly mad, she'll refer to you as "bro."

-Velvet definitely bought those tap and buzz couple bracelets just to bug you, and she freaks out if you aren't wearing them. One time, you were asleep at 4 in the morning, and she full-blown spams the bracelet, waking you up.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

NSFW

-velvet is a very bold girl and isn’t afraid to say straight forward things to you “Shut up and take your pants off …I want to watch you touch yourself for me.”

-Sex doesn’t affect velvet. The only problem she has is the fact that her body will be covered in sweat when she’s done- She likes showering after. If you want to join her she doesn’t mind- if you are looking forward to her giving you after she won’t do anything to help you unless you tell her what you want.

-During sex, romance isn’t the biggest part of it for her. She mostly likes it to be strictly pleasure-based. She already shows you love in wholesome manner why show it with sex?.

-Velvet LOVESSSS seeing you beg. Anything that sets a power dynamic in general. Get on your knees for her and she’ll be ready whenever you are.

-She doesn’t make too much noise. Maybe a gasp and an mini groan every once in awhile. Vocals aren’t her pride. She doesn’t see the reason to force out noises for somebody else’s mental pleasure. - she does love hearing you cry in pain though..

-She owns toys…a lot of toys. Mostly for sex with you. She strictly uses them on you if you want to.

-she has dirty thoughts of fucking you senseless with a strap on but she doesn’t act on it.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

MY HANDS HURT UGH😭I HOPE YOU LIKED THIS (please like it)

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teddybeartoji · 12 days

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mickey i need ur thoughts on jjk men (esp satoru) helping out and showing love for their partner with autism

like uuuuuuuu i was thinking abt toru keeping a pair of his sunglasses with him hust in case youre visually overwhelmed. ORRRR him teleporting you to a quieter space when he notices that theres too many complex sounds that are upsetting you.

ughhhhh like imagine one of them remembering that pressure is soothing for you and js puts their full body weight whenever you come back home from a bad day.

GUHHHH them keeping candles of your favorite scents and alwaya makes sure to keep your safe foods stocked up whenever you visit

OH NOW I'M REALLY KISSING YOU GRAY MY BELOVED!!! THIS IS SUCH A WONDERFUL LITTLE ASK WAHHH I GOT SO GIDDY

i agree with everything you said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now i know that every single one of them would do anything and everything to help you out!! but i did pick some things out that really made me think of them!!! anyway hello my fellow autistic ppl this one is for you all i love you very very much<333

satoru 100% carries extra sunglasses with him and i think he'd actually carry his black blindfold aswell. obvs he's not gonna make you wear it as you're moving through public but he'd lead you to a quiet spot and then just let you have a moment. he's either sitting you down next to him or he's holding you against his chest, protecting you from every single ray of light that could possibly make it any worse for you. bc honestly... sunglasses are sometimes just not enough for me personally. i've had my fair share of times where i just have to cover my eyes with my hands bc it just hurts so much.

we all know that satoru is a big yapper but i know he needs his quiet time too. i think he would love to just Do Nothing with you in complete silence. maybe you're both just taking a nap together, maybe you're just laying in the sun out in the park. maybe you're resting your head on his lap, maybe he's resting his on yours. it's all just about gentle touches and looks.

he loves it when you ramble and he's literally your biggest hypeman!! he's ready to spend all of his fucking money on you and any fucking equipment you could ever need. you want a new game or a new console? they're both already waiting for you at home. you want to start drawing? he has already ordered a tablet for you to practise on. you want to get into photography? he's buying you a camera and three different lenses. he wants you to be happy and he wants you to be able to do everything you could ever possibly want. he's just the sweetest guy ever i am crying rn actually:((

he's the best little autism bf btw. bc he gets it. he understand. he knows. he knows all about the light sensitivity. he knows all about the difficulty of eating "normal" foods, always munching on candy and snacks bc that's just easier. he knows about the fidgeting, he knows about the innate need to have somebody lay on top of you. he knows about the rambling and the hyperfixations. he knows about the confusing social clues and the ridiculous differences of speaking tones. he knows about the eye-contact problems - whether you're someone, who struggles to keep it or you're someone, who can't tear your eyes from everybody else just like him - he understands! he knows about being straighforward and speaking exactly what's on your mind and then being scolded for it. he knows about Not Really Understanding personal space. he truly does understand and he's ready to do anything and everything to help you cope with Life.

toji is theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee best weighted blanket and i stand by that. he's so fucking huge and he's so fucking heavy - he's perfect. he's gonna tease you about it but just a little!! you tug him by his hand and he gladly takes his place on top of you bc let's be honest... he's gonna love it, too. he's protecting you! he's taking care of you in a way that doesn't need words! he's trying his best! and if this is what you need - he is going to do it!!!

also with the light and sound sensitivity - he'd gladly pull you into his chest and cover your eyes with his big ass palm. and it would feel soo comforting wtf. the weight of it and just the fact that it's him?? fuck, i know it'd be so good. or your ears. he's placing them on your ears, muffling the overwhelming sounds while cradling you and wahh:(( he'd make you feel so safe.

suguru and shoko and parallel play. it's amazing. they will read a book while you're gaming. or suguru's painting while you're reading. or shoko's having her morning smoke and coffee while you're doing your skincare (i'm sorry i just can't get out the beautiful picture of her sitting on the little windowsill of your bathroom, a cig inbetween her fingers and a cup of coffe in her hand. no words are being spoken - it's just the sound of the birds outside, the water running and her gulping down her little espresso. thank you for listening.)

or suguru's doing his little home workout routine as you're crocheting. or it's you and shoko just laying on your shared bed scrolling on your phones in silence. could literally be whatever. they're gonna glance at you every once in a while, they're gonna ask how you're doing, how you're feeling and then they're gonna give you a tender smile and a kiss on your cheek and continue on. i'm melting just thinking about it.

suguru is obviously also going to be there for you if you have sleeping problems. he understands them all too well and he's pulling out all the stops to help you fall asleep (and himself). he's gonna make the tea one night and you'll make it the next night. it's equal. maybe you're also going to take a lovely little bath together, you'll giggle exhaustedly as you both slur out very stupid jokes and after that you'll both climb under the covers and take turns in listening to each others heartbeats and (hopefully) fall asleep.

shoko and sarcasm. she definitely makes a lot of sarcastic jokes and comments and she'll be a bit confused at first when you just blurt out the good-old "i don't know whether you're joking or not". but i think she'd find it super cute. she'll still occasionally make the comments but she'll make sure to check in whether you got it or not. i think she would tease but she'd do it very lightly (she definitely cackles when satoru doesn't understand sarcasm though lmao but you're her baby and she doesn't want you to feel bad). and i think she would love if you made terrible sarcastic jokes. like she would laugh until there are tears prickling in her eyes and you'd still be like ????? i don't understand and then she'd laugh even more. she's so cute.

kento is always ready to cook for you. he understands how hard it can be, how overwhelming it can be. he doesn't mind it a bit. i truly think this would be good for the both of you! he loves to cook and it's such a relaxing thing for him, and it's even better now that he knows he can see you fill your cheeks with delight. he needs you to eat well and he will make sure you do!

i also think that he's so patient with you and he'd never ever make you feel like you have to speak with him. he buys little plushies that you can turn inside-out, a pink side and a blue side - indicating how you're doing on the Speaking department that day. and these tiny interactive pins and you can express whatever you're feeling without ever speaking a word. he never pressures you in any way, always just reward you with more reassurance and a kiss to your temple.

he's ALSO the best listener. like he never talks over you. never. not even on an accident???? it's a superpower i think. he let's you talk at your own pace and he just stares at you with very soft eyes:((

wait i also think that shoko, utahime and yuki would gladly speak for you. in a sense of if you have social anxiety or you stutter or anything like that, they'd easily take up the task of ordering for you! they literally have all of your orders remembered and everything.

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vintagegeekculture · 4 months

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So even though it's kind of the Marvel line, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby didn't really quite reignite Superheroes, the Flash was around a good bit before. But nothing would have been the same without Marvel breathing new life into the genre. What state do you think comics would have been in if instead of writing the Fantastic Four Stan Lee had quit to go sell used cars? Was it inevitable someone would have paired with Jack to do it? What would comics and pop culture look like now instead?

I'm a Marvel True Believer first and foremost, but I think you're underselling how enormously successful Justice League of America was from 1960-1969. Marvel books, especially Fantastic Four (at the time, the "flagship" Marvel comic of the 1960s) regularly topped the polls as favorites for the serious fans in 60s fanzines like Alter Ego, but they were not top sellers until 1970, when Marvel acquired their own distributor. Prior to that, Marvel published their books through DC, who made sure Marvel's runs were lower. They also limited the amount of books that Marvel could print, which is why books like Tales of Suspense had two characters in them (Captain America and Iron Man shared a book). As soon as Marvel got their own distribution, they pushed DC out of the top selling lists.

Justice League of America was a huge success when it came out, for a reason that may surprise people: nostalgia. Essentially a revival of the 1940s heroes, it was a huge hit because the adult audience bought it.

It's interesting how nostalgia itself as a cultural concept with actual power is a kind of recent phenomenon. Prior to the 1980s, there were huge volumes of books aimed at old people like Hallmark's "Remember When?" books.

I do think the single greatest what-if of the Marvel Age is one you didn't mention: what if Joe Maneely had lived to work on the Marvel Universe?

Whenever Stan Lee was asked who the greatest artist he ever worked with was, his response was unexpected: Joe Maneely, a name that even some serious fans of the Silver Age may find unfamiliar. But Joe Maneely worked with Stan extensively in the 1950s in Marvel's non-superhero comics like Black Knight and Yellow Claw. He was a beautiful artist, a professional who was always punctual, and even more so, he understood and developed the "language" of comics, and had an even better relationship with Stan than Jack Kirby did, who, by all accounts, was a genius artist but was, interpersonally, a difficult, sullen wound collector who had difficulty keeping friendships (as his Captain America co-creator Joe Simon can attest; he and Jack had a "breakup" long before he ever met Stan).

Meanwhile, contrast all those interpersonal problems with the difficult to get along with Kirby, with how Joe Maneely used to draw him and Stan holding hands and walking through the park together and so on.

The downside is that Joe Maneely died at a young age, 1958, in a tragic accident where he fell between railway cars, all 3 years before Fantastic Four. He was the biggest Atlas-era Marvel artist to never work on the Marvel Universe.

A Marvel Universe with Joe Maneely as the major creative force alongside Stan Lee is a change so deep and fundamental I have no idea what it even would look like.

#marvel #dc #silver age #1960

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wanderingelvis · 1 year

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Reader has major wardrobe malfunction with her bikini bottoms in public. Reader whispers her problem to Elvis. His eyes go wide as he tries to figure out what to do about the problem. Maybe reader is trying to hold them to cover herself and elvis tries to fix them but he makes it worse and they just fall off. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t slightly enjoying the situation as he helps shield reader from others

I love this! I'm picturing Blue Hawaii Elvis for this! 🌺

🧚🏻 Masterlist 🧚🏻 word count: 1,838

pairing: elvis presley x f!reader

You and Elvis weren't dating but you both had unspoken feelings for each other. Right now, the official line was that you were just both good friends and co-workers. You were an up and coming actress, on the rise and getting more notoriety and bigger roles. You were pleased that all your hard work in the movie business had paid off but you were becoming increasingly reclusive, wary to trust a lot of people after pictures of you changing on set had leaked to gossip magazines as well as things you'd said in confidence to various people had spread like wildfire. It was the ugly side of fame, one that you hadn't really been very prepared for.

It was the ugly side that Elvis knew all too well. He too, struggled to trust many people other than his Mafia and a few other close and very personal friends. That's how you grew closer to him, anything you and Elvis spoke about was always kept between you two, even if it was just something as simple as what you were planning on having for lunch. Elvis' friendship and company was always very welcome and the chemistry between you two was palpable - even the studios and audiences had noticed it. Everyone loved you two together, the way you'd bounce off each other in a conversation, or quietly giggle together between sets or the on-screen interactions that would have audiences desperate for more. You and Elvis had been contracted by Paramount Pictures for a three-movie deal, where both of you would be the main protagonists, falling in and out of love, three times over. You didn't mind, Elvis was the biggest star on the planet and to be chosen to be his leading lady was an incredible honour. Your latest project was set in Hawaii, on tropical beaches where you and Elvis currently found yourselves, in between takes. You were dressed in a cute bikini number, bright yellow which complimented the glowing tan you had. The only difficulty of the whole get-up was the strings that kept coming undone, no matter how many times you tied them, tighter and tighter. It was about the seventh time that you fumbled about with the bikini bottoms strings, undoing them and pulling at them again. This time didn't quite work in your favour however, as the elasticine snapped back on your fingers, tearing the threads and breaking the fabric, causing the string to completely fall apart and snap.

"...Fuck." You whispered, your cheeks beginning to burn up as you tried to wrangle as much of the string as you possibly could, but the bikini bottom was snapped and there was no way you'd be able to keep it tied.

You began to chew your lip cutely, looking up and around for the only person you really trusted to help you in such a vulnerable position.

You shuffled as subtly as you could towards Elvis who was stood near the back of the beach, studying his script. You felt embarrassed and humiliated, but desperate, knowing you needed his help. You lightly tapped his arm, not wanting to draw anyone else's attention your way. Elvis turned, raising an eyebrow and looking at you coyly as his eyes raked up and down your bikini-clad body. You gestured for him to lean down, which he did, allowing you to step on your little tippy-toes and lean up to whisper into his ear, shyly. "My bikini, um, my bikini bottom is broken I think." You said with a wobbly, soft voice. Elvis drew back from you, seeing your hands, balled up as little fists, trying to keep the material together and in one-piece so that you wouldn't end up flashing anyone. A smirk appeared on Elvis' face, that shit-eating grin that would make you roll your eyes. Elvis took his large hand, brushing his fingers across your bare thigh to move your hands ever so slightly, so that he could inspect what was wrong. Tingles travelled through you as his hand grazed your hot skin, you swallowed as you looked down at your feet, trying to keep your composure. Elvis leaned back down to you, pushing your hair gently over your shoulder, tucking it behind the shell of your ear which sent shivers down your spine. "Baby, if you want me to take off your clothes, all ya needed t'do was ask." He whispered, cooly. You jolted back, giving him a light smack on his upper arm. "Elvis, no, I need your help!" You lightly scolded, making Elvis chuckle fondly down to you.

"M'nervous it's gonna snap, I can't shoot the next scene like this." You said quietly and Elvis instantly felt bad for messing with you, sensing how worried you were. "I'm sorry doll, I'm only teasin' ya. Now, let's see what's wrong, hey?" He said as you nodded eagerly. Elvis knelt down slightly, his eye line perfectly aligned with the side of your hip, dangerously close to your crotch. Reluctantly, you let go of your bikini bottom straps, allowing Elvis' large hands to take them from you.

He tried to you tie them back up again, but after snapping, there just wasn't enough string, causing the string to pull and pinch your soft skin, making you yelp and wince a little in pain.

"Shit, sorry honey." Elvis hushed, gently kissing the spot on your hip, smiling up at you. You couldn't help but blush and smile back. Elvis really had a number on you. He was gentle, protective and caring but he was also powerful, dominant and brash, and you were completely obsessed. You found that he was the person you'd always turn to whenever you were at work with him. You wouldn't confide in your assistant, any of the costume team that you used to be very close to, no, it was only Elvis. You'd actually spoken to him about it a bit. You'd shared your anxieties and fear of this growing fame, and only he could really relate and understand where you were coming from, and he helped. He'd promised you that he would keep all your secrets, even if he teased you about them. "Hm.." Elvis mused quietly, glancing at your bikini bottom, where a small, wet patch of arousal had formed. The intense mix of excitement and nerves must've gotten to you as Elvis noticed the slick coating the elastane material.

"What?" You asked, not yet catching onto what Elvis had spotted. "Been into the sea for a dip recently, sweet thing?" Elvis asked.

"Um, no, not since the first scene." You shook your head, a little confused. "Why?"

Elvis smirked. "Nothin' darlin', just that these lil' panties you got on would suggest otherwise." Elvis said. You're cheeks turned a deep shade of pink, realising what Elvis had meant. Your mind had just drifted as Elvis touched you innocently, you couldn't help it but by God, you were embarrassed now. "I, um, I-" You stammered, feeling like your whole body was on fire. You held your cheeks in your hands, trying to gather your composure.

Elvis rubbed your thigh soothingly in an attempt to reassure you. He wasn't stupid, he knew the effect that he had on you and he loved it. He wouldn't humiliate you though, he just loved to make you squirm and get all flustered and hot, he just wished he could do it in the privacy of his bedroom.

"S'okay honey," Elvis cooed. "Y'know, this happens to a lot of the ladies I talk to," Elvis teased you, knowing he was being an ass. "Shut up, Elvis." You giggled as he winked up at you, making you feel better.

Elvis kept fiddling with the straps, muttering profanities as the elastic would snap his fingers every now and then until he cursed a little louder and a sudden breeze could be felt across your lower area. You froze, knowing exactly what had happened. Elvis' eyes widened as he was staring straight at you, bare and exposed. Panicked, you crouched down to Elvis' level, cowering over with your legs tightly shut. Your heart was pounding as you looked around, praying that no one from set would turn around, fortunately, Elvis was shielding you as he was crouched in front of you, but if he moved, you'd be done for. "Fuck, baby, I don't know what happened, they just snapped and dropped." Elvis said.

Elvis sighed, cooing at you as he noticed the pool of tears forming in your eyes. "Oh baby, it's okay." Elvis said, trying to comfort you.

"No one can see me, Elvis, I swear, I can't risk anyone seeing me like this, please." You said, your voice cracking. Suddenly, a usually confident, composed and bubbly girl was vulnerable, nervous and desperate for Elvis' help. "Here," Elvis said, unbuttoning his shirt. Your eyes widened at his bare chest before you averted your eyes, quickly wiping the tears from your eyes.

He held the shirt open in his arms for you to crawl into, wrapping it around you lovingly, as if it were a towel and you'd just had a bath. He adjusted it ever so slightly to fit your frame and completely cover your most intimate areas. He tied a knot into the side of it, making sure that it wouldn't drop from your frame as soon as you got up.

Elvis uttered little whispers of reassurance to you as he fixed his shirt around you, trying to soothe your racing mind, praising you for staying so calm and letting him help you. His words helped, they comforted you and helped you concentrate and level your breathing. "Now, I'm goin' to pick you up and take you to my trailer, okay little lady?" Elvis said, waiting for you to nod, letting him know you were listening. "And if anyone says anythin', we're goin' to tell 'em that you twisted that little ankle of yours, okay?" "Okay." You nodded, liking the idea. "Good girl, c'mon now." Elvis said, scooping you up in his arms, bridal style with his shirt covering your modesty. "I could get used to holdin' you like this, y'know?" Elvis said, making you giggle furiously and instantly feeling better. "There's that smile I've been missin'." Elvis said fondly, starting to head towards his trailer. "EP! We're nearly ready for you!" The director yelled. "Just takin' Y/N to the nurses station, she gotta nasty twist in her ankle." Elvis called back, making you giggle again, thankful that you had Elvis. It wasn't long before the pair of you arrived back at the trailer with Elvis placing you down gently on the couch. "Thank you, Elvis." You said softly, breathing a sigh of relief, trying not to let the embarrassment of the whole event get to you too much. "Are you gonna tell anyone about this?" You asked quietly, nervous that you'd become a funny anecdote at a Memphis Mafia dinner. "Our secret, little one." Elvis said, holding out his pinky finger for you to take. "Our secret." You agreed, the both of you staring at each other, knowing that things had changed between you both now. But really, neither of you minded. Not one bit.

#elvis smut #elvis x y/n #elvis imagine #elvis #elvis presley #elvis fluff #elvis x reader #yandere elvis #50s elvis #60s elvis #70s elvis #elvis x you #elvis x oc

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transparencyboo · 3 months

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For the last two weeks or so I've been playing the Mega Drive dungeon crawler Shining in the Darkness. I've recently been going through all the various action-RPGs the system had to offer and kinda found myself lusting for more, so I expanded the scope.

Shining in the Darkness had one of those cover arts I vividly remember seeing in game stores during the 90s, I understood already back then that whatever this was would be too complicated for my feeble preschool brain, but it had a shiny glossy allure that still beckoned to me with promises of daring adventures and grand battles. Questions lingered in my head: Who is that evil bastard zapping sparks at Cavin from the Gummi Bears? Why has the king entrusted the safety of his kingdom to a meagre boy and his two misfit friends?

Well, it turns out that big bad guy is called Dark Sol, the bane of all game difficulty discourse, and the reason the king has enlisted three poor kids is because there is no one else to rely on after your daddy went missing. Everyone else just sorta gives up along the way.

My initial conclusion of this game was to commend my young self for the striking assessment, my five year old self would never get anywhere in this game between the English text, abstracted navigation and number crunching battle mechanics. Shining in the Darkness is a bona fide classic dungeon gauntlet endurance simulator, where you traverse vanishing point block tunnels and encounter enemies. I've played one or two games like this before, like the original Phantasy Star, but this time a new desire struck me. I wanted to draw maps. Maybe I'm just getting older and more patient, leading me to wilfully ignore easily available resources online.

By my recollection, this is the first time I've dedicated myself to playing a game like this. Usually I just resort to my sense of direction, which I've gathered seems to at least be above average, since anytime I go anywhere with anyone I always end up playing shepherd so they don't get lost. Worst case scenario I'll just fall back to mapping efforts by online heroes from years past. For Shining in the Darkness I persisted blindly about halfway through until I admitted to myself charting a map of the labyrinthine caves would be a lot easier. Luckily, the game allows you to spend 1 MP to see a chunk of where you've walked, meaning I could get neatly organized segments to copy by hand.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this endeavour was how much of the game experience was expressed through this map project. I spent just as much time slaying beasts as I did counting tiles and filling them out with my pencil. It became a natural counterbalance that provided vital pacing to the game mechanics. Walking, fighting, charting. In turn, through the principle of learning by doing, I gained a more intimate familiarity with the environments by just replicating them out on a sheet of paper. I found that while the map helped, I actually didn't need it much for backtracking because my drawings had helped me remember the layouts of the corridors anyway.

I guess the lesson learned is that while old design sensibilities may appear to be arcane and cumbersome when easier solutions exists, the obfuscation is part of the fun. The game hands me an intentionally hard to navigate world, shows me that it's fully capable of displaying maps of it, but still asks me to provide that dimension myself. Through doing this, I discover that drawing maps is both surprisingly enjoyable and cognitively stimulating. I realize that had I downloaded some pre-packaged maps online and used as my bible, Shining in the Darkness would've been a vastly different experience, one of monotonous meandering through endless fights while confidently striding along the known path.

Perhaps that's why the game was called Shining and the Darkness in Japan, it doesn't flow as well as the western title, but at the same time it poetically reflects this act of discovery. I am Shining, the game provides the Darkness, we work together, we must unify to become whole.

As for Dark Sol, he turned into a big monster boy and was vanquished by a spunky cartographer child and her two cohorts. The unknown has been made known and the kingdom is once more saved.

/Kiki

#shining in the darkness #shining force #sega #mega drive

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amnesique · 10 months

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Hi sweetheart, can you write more about nicholas leister? maybe something very romantic and fluff

i'll always love you — nicholas leister

you begged nick so many times to watch a romantic movie with you, that many times that in the end he agreed. and now you were both on his bed watching the movie projected on the wall while you let your head fall on his shoulder.

but nick's comments did not hesitate to appear.

"how come they're already singing?" he sighs into your hair, reaching his hand behind your back to hug you closer to him. "it's just the beginning of the movie!" he continued dramatically. "we don't even know who the main characters are!"

you whispered to him to shut up and watch the movie and he barely resisted to keep his mouth shut, regretting letting you pick a musical.

less than a few minutes later you heard him comment something about the traffic that had been in the movie and you nudged him lightly with your elbow, chuckling, making him chuckle in turn, before he shut up again.

when the characters start singing again, he rests his head on yours, ready to give up all his patience, whispering, "does they really need to sing every god damn time?"

you ignored him and paid attention to the movie. and because he was bored, he started absently drawing circles in your palms, making you smile a subtle smile.

further on in the film, after nick had fallen asleep for a short time. and when he woke up, the characters were having a heated discussion, being at the table.

"did they really start arguing over nothing?” he whispered to you, now somewhat attentive to the screen, and you approved with a nod.

"i wouldn't have said that," nick finds himself saying, in a very serious tone, and you start giggling. you knew that he always did his best to support you in everything, and for him to have said anything negative about your dream was impossible. he would always be your biggest supporter.

"i know, love," you whispered back, letting your head fall back onto his shoulder and he rested his head on top of yours, wrapping his arms tighter around your waist.

seeing the characters bicker over nothing, when they could have very easily communicated and worked it out, annoyed nick. "can we watch something else?" he murmurs like a disgruntled child into your hair. "we had agreed to a romance movie, not this kind of a drama."

"it is a romance movie!" you said with a smile on your face and turn around to face him as you found his insistence adorable.

he raised his eyebrows and pointed at the screen where there was a montage of how badly the characters were doing without each other. "is that what you call a romance movie?"

"it's realistic!"

"yeah sure. then people like that really need some communication courses." he countered, rolling his eyes, annoyed at the movie.

you giggled softly as you leaned forward, with difficulty because of his arms around you, and paused the movie, and then you turned back to him to take his face in your hands and place a quick kiss on his lips.

you pulled back and looked at him with a smile on your face, admiring how handsome he was and feeling lucky that he was yours. "then what movie would you like us to watch?" you asked him.

he tried for a few seconds to think, but then a playful grin appeared on his lips.

"what?"

he grinned, placing his hands on either side of your waist to lift you a bit above and move you so that you could wrap your legs around the both sides of his body. "maybe we should make a movie," he suggested.

you weighed the situation for a few moments and smiled, biting slightly your bottom lip involuntarily, "ok," you agreed. "let's make a movie."

#culpa mia #my fault #nicholas leister #nicholas leister x reader #nicholas leister x y/n #nicholas leister fluff #nicholas leister fanfic #nick leister #nick leister x reader #nick leister x y/n #nick leister fluff #nick leister fanfic #culpa mia fanfic #culpa mia movie #my fault movie

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slytherinshua · 7 months

Text

ONLY YOURS

genre. fluff. newlyweds. warnings. kissing. pairing. husband!soobin x fem!reader. wc. 698. a/n. i want it to be winter so badly omg. also everyone needs to thank me for switching this angst fic (yeah, it was gonna be angst) to fluff at the last minute.

December 24th, 2011.

9:02 am.

“Race you up the hill!” Soobin giggled, already picking up speed to get to the top of the snow covered sledding hill.

“Wait up!” Your high pitched voice shouted, racing after him, tumbling over your own two booted feet seconds later with a shriek. You rolled down the snowy hill, giggling. You could hear Soobin’s laughter drawing closer. He peered over into your view.

“Idiot.” He whispered, the biggest smile on his face, a dimple popping out on his cheek.

“Idiot, yourself!” You threw some snow at him as he tried to help you up. While he tried to make sure you hadn’t hurt yourself, you took the opportunity to get a head start. “Last one up’s a rotten egg!” You shouted back to him.

“Hey!”

“Soobin! Y/n! Hot cocoa’s ready when you’re done playing!” Soobin’s mom called out from a distance. Your mom laughed and continued to record the moment on the video camera.

Pause.

Rewind.

Play.

“Race you up the-”

Pause.

You couldn’t hold back the endeared giggle that left your mouth at the paused frame. It was a low quality video given when it was taken, but Soobin had the biggest smile on his face, and you melted just looking at him.

“Babe, where are you? I finished putting away the kitchen equipment. Should we do the bedroom next?” Your husband of 3 days called from downstairs.

“I’ve already started on the boxes!! Come look at this.” You shouted back, smiling as you rewinded the video again.

“This is why it always takes twice as long for you to clean anything.” Soobin commented quietly, walking into the empty bedroom to join you on the floor.

You had both managed to set up the bedframe with some difficulty deciphering the model pictures on the instruction, but that was the only thing currently set up in the bedroom. You had tried to do it the night before, but had ultimately been too tired and had crashed on mattresses on the floor next to each other.

There were many things you were getting used to now that you had moved out of your parents house and into your new home with Soobin. You had grossly underestimated how long it might take to actually unpack everything.

You were glad that your honeymoon trip wasn’t scheduled immediately after the wedding. You still had 3 days to get the house ready so you wouldn’t have to worry about it when you returned.

“I found my mom’s old video-log.” You showed him the camera eagerly, pressing play on the grainy video once again. “Look at your cheeks!” You cooed.

“What? How do you still have this?” Soobin giggled, “You were taller than me.”

“That was a short lived era, you giant.”

“Being tall lets me hug you easily.” He pointed out, demonstrating by wrapping his right arm around you.

“But you complain about your neck hurting when you kiss me.” You reminded him.

“I should take the chance now while we’re both at the same level.” He smiled, leaning in slightly for you to kiss him. You laughed before obliging, placing a gentle kiss on his lips.

“We need to finish the bedroom before dinner.” You said, placing the old video camera back in the box. Soobin groaned at the reminder. He had been working on the downstairs all day, unpacking and organising everything.

“Can’t we just take a little break?” He suggested, using the arm he had wrapped around you to pull you down to the lie on the floor, your head resting on his chest.

“We can’t put this off for much longer, baby. We need to sleep on a proper bed tonight.”

“Just 10 minutes, okay?” He had already closed his eyes, relaxing completely into the floor. He rubbed his hand back and forth across your back, hoping to get you to relax as well.

“Fine. Just 10 minutes to cuddle with my husband.” You kissed his cheek and Soobin smiled at that. He was your husband. Only yours. And though he had only tied the knot 3 days ago, he felt as if he had been yours since he was little.

↳ txt taglist: @kangtaehyunzzz,, @yeonjuns-redhair,, @90steele,, @ddeonudepressions,, @skz-minchan-enthusiast,, @delcakoo,, @wolfmoonmusic,, @98-0603,, @weird-bookworm,, @edensgardenn

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savethegrishaverse · 29 days

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Here is the Transcript to the Questions Answered by Eric Heisserer!

Recently, we were very fortunate that Shadow and Bone showrunner Eric Heisserer agreed to answer some fan questions! Below is the transcript of the screenshots that have been previously shared—not an entirely new interview. The transcript in this format should be much more accessible and convenient, particularly for anyone using a screen reader.

To make it easier to read through Eric’s responses, we’ve nested his answers below coordinating questions.

Okay, taking these one at a time -- because some of these will have very long answers, and I may have to return at later intervals to answer them: (note: questions will be in bold)

"I'd like to know if there's a way to liberate the pre-written scripts if Netflix doesn't plan on using them" - Asked by Christian Thalmann, the creator of the Fjerdan language.

"There is a way to liberate the Crows scripts from Netflix, yes, and in fact that would be part of the buyout for another streamer when acquiring the rights to Leigh's novels. It would be a package deal."

"In my view, "The Crows" have the potential to revitalize the Grishaverse. Unlike "Shadow And Bone," this new show could rely less on elaborate visual effects and offer a fresh narrative angle. Heist-themed shows are currently in high demand, adding to its appeal. Am I mistaken in thinking that our focus should primarily be on "The Crows"? The likelihood of "Shadow And Bone" returning seems slim, but l've always believed that "The Crows" had a greater chance of success." - asked by fellow fan Joleen

The focus on the Crows is helpful in two ways -- first, those scripts are written, which lets us get a running start at production, and second, just from casual analysis of book sales, it's far more popular worldwide than other Grishaverse titles. So it will be a bigger draw for viewers.

The trap though is the cost. It's more grounded than S&B, sure, but the Ice Court is a unique location that either requires a really costly set build, or set extensions and VFX work to make it look authentic, which means nearly every shot of the heist once our crew gets there could be a VFX shot.

My guess is the budget would be on par with S2 of S&B.

"If/when the spinoff is back (finger crossed) was there anything he had planned that would completely surprised, for good reasons obviously, the audience. And we should hold our breath for that twist/turn?" - asked by fellow fan Rti

Yes, there is a surprise or two in the Crows spinoff season, but overall it's as close to the novel as we could make it. And Leigh's novel is such an amazing story with natural cliffhangers that work as episode "out" moments, etc. I think the biggest move we made was to feature every single Crow's backstory to go with their episode. So that was fun/sad/exciting.

"What was the difficulties you mentioned about filming Season 2 in that Reddit comment? Don't want to sound negative but what went wrong?!" - asked by fellow fan Mitra

S2 kept throwing challenges at us, and it started long before we got to production. Like months earlier, when we learned the location we used for the Little Palace in S1 was closed to us due to the pandemic. So right there we lost out on a ton of S&S scenes, because it wouldn't be a match. But we also had written a compelling side arc for Ivan and Fedyor in S2, these two Grisha trapped on either side of the civil war. Each of them played a big role in the story, but Simon (Ivan) had a feature film that overlapped with our schedule and couldn't move, which meant we lost him. So Daegan worked to revise the season keeping Fedyor and leaving Ivan as most likely dead from the end of S1. He was Kirigan's right-hand man for the season. But poor Julian caught COVID just when we were to shoot out most of his scenes, and after trying to make the schedule work, we had to come to the brutal truth that there wasn't a way to keep Fedyor in the story. Our only option was to bring him in at like episode 8, which would've been too little, too late.

COVID continued to be a monster all through production, requiring us to juggle schedules and miss out on days, and it was madness for the cast, who had to pivot with almost no notice whenever someone was ill and quarantined. This isn't unique to our show of course -- it happened with everyone. It's just a challenge.

Beyond that, we had been given the go to write a special standalone story, The Demon in the Wood. This would have been released on its own around Christmas, like a BBC special but for Netflix, and would help bridge seasons 1 and 2 by showing a little of what Kirigan was doing before we see him in 52, and also provide more character context, etc. Christina Strain wrote that and did great work adapting Leigh's short story. But it never went the distance.

There was a lot more to 52 as well, scenes and side stories and little interactions that were lost due to budget or time restrictions. Again, not unique to our show, but agonizing all the same, since what you get is not what we had written, or in some cases even shot.

I'm incredibly proud of the cast and the team, and Daegan did the heaviest lifting while I was off finishing the Crows writing room. But we had a lot more thrown at us.

"How long was the sizzle reel ready to go but he had to keep it secret?" - Asked by members of the Discord Team

That sizzle reel was put together about four months before the second season dropped.

"I would love to know his perspective on the impact of streaming on storytelling. Would we have had to launch a campaign like this 10-15 years ago for a show like this? What are the main pain points when it comes to streaming models & telling unique, diverse stories?" - asked by fellow fan Acorn_Bri

Streaming is a challenge to serialized storytelling in that it looks at 'content often with a different agenda and uses metrics that can take a creative issue and exacerbate it. Like in broadcast, if viewership and thus ad revenue has slightly declined, the show will need to find a way to make their 22 or 13 episodes on a proportionally smaller budget. What is not done is reduce episode order. But if a streaming series underperforms or doesn't meet expectations, and the streamer doesn't cancel it outright, the go-to budget reduction idea is to reduce episode order for the next season.

When you just have 8 episodes and continue to deal with notes to compress, pace up, or omit for what you'd scripted for a longer season, reducing further to six or four episodes is exhausting.

This happens due to a slide in autonomy from what the showrunner position had been. What the chatter on the picket lines revealed to us is that most showrunners today don't get to see their own show's budget, and thus don't get the freedom to make budgetary decisions that could better protect the story they're telling. More and more, showrunners not at a legacy network aren't the final say or at times even involved in hiring key roles. I don't have any ideas that aren't already in a contract language, I just see how the job on this side has gotten harder and there isn't much of a way for us to make it easier for each other like we could with having writers on set or in post production, because the streaming model has made that impossible.

—

Once again, we would like to give a big thank you to everyone who asked their questions, and an even BIGGER thank you to Eric Heisserer for answering them!

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enkvyu · 8 months

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the world cries snow.

gojo lifts his foot out from the ground once more. the effort it takes is minimal but piled up repeatedly, the sorcerer only becomes more and more aware of how time consuming it really was.

this was no time to play around in the snow, he needed to find elsa.

“elsa!” he screams, but the fierce winds sweep away his desperate cries. he doubts she could even hear him, if he himself struggled to pick out his voice against the howls of winter.

but hope is a cruel thing, and his voice is torn and repaired over and over with his technique as he searches for elsa with her name.

he contemplates soaring the skies in search of her but erases it quickly from his mind. whilst it would be easier, his six eyes could distinguish her against the backdrop of a blizzard without difficulty, he worries if the sight of him might scare her away.

he had to be careful, he couldn't risk losing another friend due to his ignorance.

gojo trudges onwards, eyes seeking a familiar figure. he pushes aside a cluster of branches and comes face-to-face with a clearing in the forest.

as if fate had relented and granted his wish, his heart leaps with relief then drops in worry at what lay before him.

elsa kneels in the centre, hunched over the edge of a crystal-clear lake.

the beauty of the lake is lost on gojo as his eyes trains on her fragile body, trembling softly.

because the cold never really bothers her anyway, gojo doubts it was the chilly winds that shook her shoulders so.

"elsa." gojo says again, closing in. he watches as her body freezes at his voice, looking over her shoulder to meet his eye.

an electric current runs between them before elsa picks herself up hastily. "gojo! what are you doing here?"

a jolt of pain stabs through gojo's heart as he watches her wipe away half-frozen tears. "i came after you."

"you shouldn't be here." elsa laughs, but there isn't a trace of humour in the otherwise beautiful sound. "i bring danger wherever i go, you won't be safe with me. please, if you care about yourself or even me at all, please just leave me alone."

"wait, you have to listen to me, elsa."

"no! you listen to me, gojo. can't you see what i've done? haven't you seen how many people are in pain because of me? everyone looks at me like i'm a witch." then, quietly. "maybe i am one. but even then, my biggest fear is that you'll come to fear me."

"we can fix this." gojo persists, taking another step after the other. he doesn't miss the last part of her mumbling and hope warms the tip of his ears. "come back with me and we can show them that you aren't a threat."

"i can't."

"you can. it wasn't your fault."

"only you think that."

"and together we can make them all change their mind."

elsa hugs her arms closer. "it's hopeless. they won't believe me."

"i believe you."

"you aren't enough!" she snaps, whipping her head around to glare at him. "the look in their eyes told me enough, gojo. they don't want me there because i'm a hazard. and it's fine, really! i belong here anyway, in the snowy forest."

gojo balls his fists at his side. it pained him to think she didn't understand that she belonged with him. didn’t she feel their connection, the ignition when he draws too close, a sign that they were two kindled flames? together, they were destined to walk side-to-side.

so he tells her. "you belong with me."

elsa's eyes widen, and warmth colours her face. she opens her mouth to deny his words when she finally realises how close he had gotten. a rush of unidentifiable emotions encases her heart and the snowstorm rushing around them picks up in velocity.

"stop it, gojo! don't come any closer."

shit, gojo thinks. he should have been more subtle. still, he wasn't about to let this opportunity go to waste.

his hair dances furiously in the wild wind, and ice pelts his uniform over and over, pushing him back. his blindfold is taken by the gales, but he lets it happen. he gives up on coaxing, and takes big, demanding steps forward.

elsa tries to take a step back but the lake stops her.

"please, gojo." she cries and it really is such a beautiful sound, even when shaking with grief. perhaps he really was in danger, and elsa was a siren luring him in for a feast. even then, gojo believes he would walk right towards her as he was doing now, eyes and heart wide open for whatever she wishes.

he had long been enthralled into her trap.

elsa buries her head into her arms, palms pressed against her ears in an attempt to deafen her rebellious thoughts. "i can't hurt you too!" she pleads, withdrawing into herself.

if she hurt even the person who she held most dear, then what was she good for? though their separation would be a wound that never heals, a scab picked at time and time again, she thinks it might be better than this.

a hand grasps her arm and it's warm.

she looks up, eyes wet with unshed tears and finds herself staring into gojo's blue eyes. the shade of blue is startling and for a second, elsa relishes in the calm.

“you could never hurt me.” he promises and his voice is the only thing she can hear in the snow. with her heart beating in her ear, heat rushing to her cheeks, the blizzard around them seems to quieten.

a single tear rolls down her cheek. "how?"

gojo lifts his other hand and gently takes a hold of her’s. slowly, as if afraid she'll run away, gojo brings their interlocked hands up between them. then, he lets go.

panic surges through elsa. she had delusioned herself into thinking that without gojo, she would be okay. this selfless decision of hers was for the greater good, even though her heart throbbed in protest, she had pushed through regardless.

but when push comes to shove, elsa feels the empty hole that gojo's absence would leave, and realises she simply could not be without him.

she reaches forward with a start, then pauses.

her fingers stop centimetres away from his.

"see?" gojo says, a small smile blessing his face. "you can't hurt me because i'm the strongest."

"this is..."

"infinity. a convergence of infinite series so that anything that approaches is slowed down and never reaches." he turns off his technique and closes the gap, interlocking their fingers once more. "basically it means you could never hurt me, elsa. not in this lifetime and not even in the next."

hope is a cruel thing. it overwhelms elsa in seconds and she presses into the hold. the cruel emotion makes her gaze slow as she looks up at him. "then, that means, you're safe around me?"

"even if you did hurt me, did you think i would run away? i couldn't be away from you even if i tried."

“but i pushed you away! do you… do you still even want to be with me?”

the whistling snow picks up again, but it's a slow, dreamy pace that the ice takes on as it encircles the two.

“my place is with you.” he confesses.

"what are you saying? you better not be saying this just to calm me down."

"i'm not." gojo takes their connected hand to his lips and place a kiss to the back of her hand. "i love you elsa. always and forever."

that day, arendellian citizens would witness a sudden clearing of the sky and a lifting of the snow, clouds drifting apart and fading away to reveal the blue skies, a shade as blue as gojo's eyes.

tiktok has done numbers to my brain. dedicating this one to alice my biggest hater bc she has yet to see the vision :3 word dump + not proofread LOL

#jujutsu kaisen #what do i even tag this as #jjk #gojo satoru #gojo x elsa #elsa #jjk x disney princesses #gojo x reader #gojo x you

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liteee · 11 months

Note

Do you have any tips? Just asking because I really want to get better at my own art, and I wanna ask a more experienced artist what advice they have.

The biggest tip I have for art is definitely to use references! Be it just a way an artist shades, a way they draw legs, or a specific outfit, I would always save a work for later viewing if it sparks something in me.

Though- specifically for refencing styles: It's a good idea to kind of know what you want your style to be. I've personally had difficulty before where I'm combining a style that uses soft shading with another that uses cell shading.

#ask #it's a very basic answer but i can try to help more if a more specific question is asked!

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rockanroller · 8 months

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i wanna see you look at blitz turnaround sheet tbh :3 his design is one of the more interesting and better ones from either show, and my only real issue is the eyes on his gloves, his ripped up suit cape thing, and his feet being literal high heel boots. like if he takes his shoes off, his feet are high heeled shaped. octavia actually has the same problem! thats not related but just another iconic vivziepop design trait i hate personally lol

ty for askin, i understand your thoughts. from what i've seen so far, blitzo's the one that seems the most clean/consistent. but i still found inconsistencies that bothered me when i looked closer.

disclaimers; --this will be an analysis of the character model's consistency, not their general design. --model sheets can feature intentional stylization for a character whether or not it makes real-world sense, so something that feels like an inconsistency to me might not to someone else. i certainly wouldn't give two shits if someone disagreed with how i stylized something unless i felt they had a good point. --obv we can't know for sure but we can assume the animators have gotten along ok enough with what they've been given, and/or they might have better more exact guides by now on the production, as the turnaround i'm analyzing is from around 2019.

at the end of the day this is just for fun. if you agree with some things i say here, awesome, but please don't treat my opinions as facts. all that said, this is my personal analysis.

let's go top to bottom starting with the horns.

onto the head...

another disclaimer is that i understand squash & stretch is a thing, personally i feel if you are going to show how a character's face squashes and stretches it should be on a separate sheet like for expressions because putting it on a turnaround makes it look as if the face looks vastly different at different angles, it creates confusion. onto the torso area...

onto the coat...

onto the tail... (mainly issues with inconsistent markings)

one of my biggest issues with having detailed designs like this for hand-drawn animation is if you do not organize them well then you/your team will have difficulty drawing them consistently. i would expect to see inconsistencies like these between scenes or between differing animators bc that is just something that happens... but for them to be on *the* turnaround is frustrating to me bc imo a turnaround should act as your baseline so your team can draw your character as consistently as possible. but if you're handing them an inconsistent turnaround you're more likely to wind up with even more, possibly worse, errors/inconsistencies. if that's something you don't mind in your animations, more power to you. and with that i'll close this analysis off on some inconsistencies that i felt were more personal grievances.

and that's that! this, again, is my personal critique of an image from 2019 that i'm doing bc it's like a fun study for me. it is not meant to be an attack. ty for giving me this suggestion anon.

#vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #spindlehorse critical #anon ask #analysis

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mxtxfanatic · 1 year

Text

He spat, “What gives you the right? Wei WuXian, what gives you the fucking right?”...

...“How much has my family given for you? I’m his son. I’m the heir of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect. But all those years, I was never enough next to you. Their love, their dedication, even their life! The lives of my father, mother, older sister, and even Jin ZiXuan! Because of you, all that’s left now is an orphaned Jin Ling!”

–Chapt. 102: “A Hatred For Life” Part 5, boat-full-of-lotus-pods

I find this part so interesting because Jiang Cheng is really asking what gave Wei Wuxian “the right” to have been an unreservedly kind and giving person to him while he spent all but 9 years of his life hating Wei Wuxian just for existing. Wei Wuxian is the root of all his life troubles, according to Jiang Cheng, so the moment it’s revealed that actually, Wei Wuxian is the root of Jiang Cheng having received everything he ever wanted in life, therefore making his failures his own personal fault, he can’t handle it. Even at this point when he knows that everything that went wrong was directly his fault, it “must” be the gods laughing at him to have turned him into the world’s biggest laughing stock behind his back while he strutted around like he was hot shit.

“And then look what happened? You went to shelter some outsider, haha! From the Wen Sect, of all people. How many years did you eat their food and drink their water?! You betrayed us in an instant without any hesitation! What do you think my family is to you?! Endless good deeds, you’ve done them all, whilst every fuck-up was always because you had no choice! You ‘had no choice’! What difficulties can’t you explain?! What hardship must you hide?! Hardship?! You don’t tell me anything, you treat me like a moron!!!

He’s really trying to tally up every “good” thing his family has ever done for Wei Wuxian ever (conveniently leaving out the bad) in order to justify his acceptance of the golden core, desperately attempting to nullify an act of ultimate selflessness by throwing minor kindnesses at it and hoping they stick enough to cover it. He can’t even list his own good deeds, because he knows he has none. And he still falls short because he knows that nothing anyone has ever down for Wei Wuxian could amount to Wei Wuxian willingly giving his own golden core up. This is a debt he can literally never draw close to repaying, but he’s already at a deficit because he decided to repay such an act with treachery.

“What gives you the right to make me feel bad?” Idk, Jiang Cheng, I think that’s just where most people store their morals and sense of decency, something you’ve lacked for so long you can’t even appropriately recognize them, anymore.

#human reads mdzs: take 2 #human metas mxtx

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slashmagpie · 6 months

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Blood & Snow

Pt. I

Directory: {Pt. II} {Pt. III} {Pt. IV} {Pt. V} {Pt. VI} {Pt. VII} {AO3}

Welcome to my @hermithorrorweek fic! I spent a while trying to figure out seven different fic concepts based on the prompt, and kept coming up blank, up until I decided to combine them all and write a single fic, with each prompt being the theme for a different chapter. Blood & Snow is the result, and at the time of posting it is not quite complete, but I'm excited to share it with you nonetheless. I'm hoping to post a chapter once per day, but later chapters may be delayed depending on how long it takes me to get them written. Some of this builds off concepts I played with in some of my earlier Decked Out 2 ficlets, which you can find in my writing tag. TWs for this chapter include: non-consensual body modification*, unreality*, panic attacks

I. GAME MECHANICS

Game design is simple, really.

Well, no, it’s difficult—but the principles behind it are simple. Make it fun. Make it challenging. Make it rewarding.

Decked Out 2 is a game.

To be more precise, it’s a long-running, deck-building, dungeon-crawling game. It’s competitive. It has rewards—bragging rights, for one. Trophies, for another. If you win, you can get crowns, and buy things to make you more powerful, to make the game more fun. You get frost embers, which are used to build the deck, and—

Clank is Decked Out’s central mechanic. Trigger a shrieker, generate clank. Easy as that. Taking your artefact will also generate clank, because it angers the spirits of the dungeon. That’s another important thing about game design: atmosphere. Design. Having something that feels cohesive. So—no, max clank isn’t quite as dangerous as it should be, but very few mobs would work to replace the vex, because, well, they’re not the spirits of the dungeon, and—

Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. It used to be thirty, but that lined up with card draws, and the sound cues were hard to keep track of. So. Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. Hazard makes the dungeon more dangerous to traverse, by closing doors, raising pathways, and otherwise making certain routes more dangerous or downright impossible to cross. People underestimate hazard at first, but quickly find out that hazard kills. When clank maxes out, that turns into hazard too, because max clank wasn’t dangerous enough by itself, because the vexes aren’t doing their damn jobs—

There were two older systems that got replaced. Not a lot of people know that. Focus could be built up, would synergise with other cards, but it was just—it wasn’t working. It got reworked. No one would miss it. Delve was a difficulty setting, but it was dumb, just press a button to choose your difficulty, that works way better, and—

Game design is simple, really.

Decked Out is not a game.

Had it ever been a game? In its first iteration, back in season seven, had it hungered the way it does now? Had it slept, slumbering beneath the earth, soaking in blood that would slowly, slowly bring it to life? When the idea had wormed its way into Tango’s head, a sequel—had that been his own thought? Does it matter if it was?

He’d certainly thought it was. Began drafting up plans, re-evaluating what he’d done in the past and putting better spins on them. Decked Out 2 would be huge, would be the biggest project he’d ever worked on, but it wouldn’t take that long. Surely.

…Thirteen months later, Decked Out 2 opened its doors.

Thirteen months. It had started as a hole, as many things do. A hole, a build, a plan, a citadel—Tango had thrown himself into it like he would with any huge project. And at first it had been—it had been a project. A build, a game. A giant hole filled with promise. A castle built in a week. Just Hermitcraft things. The usual.

When had it started? When he’d dug, and dug, for hours and hours upon end? When he’d carved jagged-looking scars into the landscape and dragged the citadel up from them? When he’d started building level one? When he’d begun assembling the redstone? When the ravagers and wardens began to roam its halls? When did Decked Out come alive?

…Had it always been alive?

Okay, better question: when did—

A frozen shard is placed into the barrel. The door lights up, sounds play. The door opens. The hermit—Joe?—begins to take off their armour and items and set up the game. A difficulty button is pressed. A shulker is placed into its slot. The cards begin to filter through the system. A minecart ride, and a pressure plate—

Decked Out turns on.

The Dungeon watches carefully, hungrily. A shrieker triggers. A hazard door closes. The game is running, the game is alive, the game is always alive—

The Dungeon Master floats, untethered, bodiless, watching, speaking, unheard, unseen. His body stands in the dark, empty, eyes sightless and lungs unbreathing. Why would he need to breathe? Dungeons don’t need to breathe, after all. Games don’t need to breathe. And Decked Out isn’t a game, not really, but it still works on principles of game design, and none of those principles require the game to breathe.

So the Dungeon watches, and the Dungeon Master watches, and Joe runs straight into the blood-stained horns of a ravager, and—

And—

Tango tries to blink. To breathe. A hazard door slams open and closed. The wires are crossed, that’s not—he needs to go—an attempt to step forward dispenses a stack of frost embers into the dungeon. They’re not supposed to do that. That’s a bug, he needs to fix—

He needs his hands—

Stone walls aren’t fingers, but they flex all the same, groaning under the strain—

There’s an itching in his legs. Skulk creeps up the walls. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t—

It’s dark. A warden sniffs. A shrieker howls. Stone becomes sinew becomes skulk becomes shadow becomes smoke becomes a soul. The Dungeon Master wrenches open his sightless eyes, and the Dungeon sees—

(Buildings aren’t meant to have panic attacks. Neither are dungeons. Nor games. But Decked Out is not a game, never really has been, and Tango—)

Joe and Hypno stare in bafflement at the flickering availability metre outside of the dungeon. “Tango, fix your game!” Hypno cries, and—

Ha.

Here’s a better question: when did Tango become Decked Out?

#magpie feather quill #hermitcraft #fanfiction #hermithorrorweek2023 #the *s next to the trigger warnings are because those are the closest words i can think of to describe what is happening #but they're like. not totally right?#i think that if you have issues with ncbm or unreality then you should be careful engaging with this chapter #but i wouldn't say that this chapter necessarily contains ncbm or unreality #idk. it's weird.#also i will update the directory links when i post new chapters lmao

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gracehosborn · 20 days

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WIP Questions Tag

Thank you so much @sunset-a-story for the tag!

Going to answer for The American Icarus: Volume I for this one. May do another for Ink of Destruction later, we’ll see.

What was the first part of your WIP that you created?

I had originally written the first part of a prologue on a whim set the night before Hamilton’s duel with Burr (back when I thought having this story be in one novel was a feasible idea). But a few minutes later I scrapped this because I thought a prologue was stupid. Years later I have gone back and added a prologue, but now it’s in the form of a fictional letter to the reader wherein Alexander explains why he’s sitting down to write his “memoirs”.

If your story was a TV show, what would the intro song be?

I would actually love to have an original piece be composed. I just think that would be more fitting. In an ideal world, I’d love for the task to go to Lindsey Sterling.

Who are your favourite character(s) and why?

As most everyone in Volume I of TAI (and the rest of the series for that matter) are based off of real people, I’ll just be super predictable and say here that I of course find Hamilton super interesting. The man was complex, and getting to explore these complexities through a first-person narrative has been super fun. I get to be in his head and play around with all the gritty details in crafting motivations and stringing real events together into narrative form through his actions.

What other pieces of media could share a fan base with your WIP?

TURN: Washington’s Spies, Hamilton, potentially 1776, though I could see this being wide reaching.

What has been your biggest struggle while writing your WIP?

Oh God. The research, for starters (due in large part to my spite compelling me to go above and beyond what’s necessary), but being a history major who wants to specialize in early American history as it is, I find the struggle here to be more overwhelming than actually difficult. In terms of an actual difficulty, that would be the writing itself. As ironic as that sounds. Having TAI be framed as Hamilton sitting down 200 odd years after his death to write his memoirs means that I have to emulate Hamilton’s actual writing style and oof that’s hard. Also, Alexander Hamilton was very extroverted and I am simply Not That so dialogue is a pain in my ass. 😭

Are there any animals in your story?

Yep! Lots of horses will feature in TAI Volume I. And eventually some dogs (owned by generals Washington, Lee, Howe, and the Baron von Steuben).

How do your characters get around?

This is the 18th century. Everyone’s only options are: ride a horse, get a carriage or coach, procure a boat if on water, or walk. Lots of walking and riding feature here.

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I’ve been stuck on this one chapter for months that closes out Alexander’s time studying at King’s College as he decides to drop out to put all his focus towards the artillery company he has been granted command of. I’m super excited to get into Alexander’s time as an artillery captain but man this chapter. It’s the dialogue that’s holding me hostage I fear.

What aspects of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

Oh definitely the premise. If that doesn’t draw people’s attention, I’ll be super shocked. Another aspect I can think of would be the time that the novel spends on the American Revolution in a way that’s vivid and detailed. Beyond that, I’ll just say that name recognition is a powerful thing.

Tagging with no pressure: @kaylinalexanderbooks @meerawrites @thestarsfightagainstusmyfriend @almaprincess66 @rwwinton and anyone else who wants to jump on in.

#tag games #the american icarus #TAI #alexander hamilton #writers on tumblr #writing community #historical fiction #amwriting #amrev

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