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agirlandherkinks · 4 months

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Hypnovisor: Beta Test (TGTF, Hypno)

James had always been a tech super-fan. The newest phone, newest headphones, shiniest laptop, he had to stay abreast of and on top of the current trends. So when he read about some fancy new VR company that wanted beta testers for a headset, provided for free (minus shipping), his vision blurred and he signed up before he even considered finishing reading the ad.

Three weeks of anticipation and waiting passed until his doorbell finally rung, accompanied by the corresponding buzz of an email notification on his phone. Scrambling from his couch he flung the apartment door open, and to his mild surprise saw that the postman was nowhere in site. There was just a nondescript cardboard box labelled "Fragile", which fortunately bore none of the expected dents and scratches one would associate with the postal service and delicate freight. Practically bouncing with undignified delight, James scooped his parcel up and dashed back inside, barely remembering to lock the door behind him.

The headset looked even better than he had imagined. Sleek plastic curves surrounded a central visor that was just translucent enough to see through, meaning you could walk around safely if you turned a program's opacity down. It fit beautifully when he tried it on, more comfortable than anything he'd ever worn. Wearing it felt wonderful and... right, somehow. His only complaint was that the black headset was decorated in hot pink highlights, although it still looked futuristic enough to sooth his fragile masculinity. His roommate and best friend Erik certainly agreed, interspersing James' insightful comments with appropriate "Ooh's" and "Aah's". Waiting for the battery to charge seemed to take a thousand years, although chatting with each other about what it could do replaced their boredom with swiftly growing excitement.

Two hours later, a soft buzz from the headset in the corner signified its charge was complete. Erik cheered, his sandy-blonde hair bouncing behind him, and even James couldn't suppress a soft whoop of excitement. Erik unplugged it and handed it to James with a flourish and a bow, who accepted it with a suitable stuffy speech. His cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but he was so giddy with anticipation he felt he could match Erik's goofiness for once. The advertisement had promised unmatched realism, a luxurious fit, and cutting-edge, groundbreaking technology. Normally James would have discounted claims like that as corporate claptrap, but the headset fit so well he actually believed the rest of it.

Booting up the headset brought a perky, relaxing jingle in his ears and wall of settings text in his vision. He would have read it, but between his own excitement and Erik's infectious enthusiasm he left the settings on default and skipped to the main menu. The feedback for the buttons was amazing, it felt just like he was pressing down on them whenever he touched one! Another little jingle sounded as he confirmed his choices, and a few games and applications bubbled up into his view, imposed over a hot pink background.

"So Erik, what do you think I should try," James asked. "We've got a music player, interior design app, some sorta idle monster game, and a few RPG's." "Surely try out the RPG's man! You've gotta see that high-definition you were yammering about when we called." Erik's voice came back surprisingly muffled, as if he was speaking down a long tunnel. "Bro, I can barely hear you, the noise-cancelling on this headset's insane! It's like I'm in a world of my own!" James took a deep breath, recovering a little of his composure. "Alright, an RPG it is. Fantasy, sci-fi, or modern day?" "Go fantasy! You know we've both got a thing for elf chiiiicks. Hell, with the kind of feedback you were telling me about, you might even get to grab her" Erik's distant voice sounded playful, with a ting of desire and jealousy. And it did make James hard, at the thought of getting to look and squeeze and fondle some busty elf bitch, made entirely to his wishes~

To James' horror a quiet moan escaped his lips, accompanied by faint hysterical laughter from his friend. Brushing it off angrily, he slammed the icon for 'Silverflame: A Magical Journey' (the button felt like thick moss to his touch). Instantly a soft flute begun to play in his ears, accompanied by the gentle lull of a harp and a quiet sparkling. James felt himself relax, all the tension draining out of his body. Erik must have noticed too, because James heard his laughter die down to be replaced with a slightly concerned silence. "Don't worry man," James said, "music's just really pretty..." He trailed off with a slight giggle, but heard Erik give an affirmative just before a silky, sultry voice started to speak.

"Welcome traveler, to the beautiful world of Silverflame. An untamed paradise where strange beasts roam the land, noble adventurers go forth in search of treasure, and the most wonderful magic [James shuddered] is woven. You are the latest brave, beautiful heroine [Heroine? Shouldn't I get to choose my character's gender first?] to step foot into this land. But first, tell us a bit about who you really are."

Pink sparkles rained across the screen, superimposing his view of a vibrant meadow with a series of stats. Physique, IQ, Wisdom, and Charisma, fairly standard stuff. And next to it, a human man with a blank, slightly happy expression on his face [...did he look familiar?]. James gasped, he looked just like a real person! Erik was suitably impressed by this information, and urged him to pick some stats so he can get to the body modification. "You can always change them later man, might as well pick a couple of stats now and get a move on. Sounds like you're not gonna get to pick your gender for a while, which kinda sucks. Buuut if we're being horny about this, you might as well go for a slut scaffold so you make less changes later." James chuckled at this, remembering the build they discussed one night while both sloshed beyond belief. For this game it would be high Physique and Charisma, low IQ and Wisdom. James touched the slider for Physique, and gasped as he felt himself feel... better than he had in a long time.

Not trusting his senses any more, and worrying about Erik being exposed to whatever was happening from the other side of the headset, James brushed off his concerned questions (which he could barely hear now, past the soothing, soothing, music) and suggested he went to the toilet, since he'd been holding it in since he got here. Erik grumbled at missing out, but mercifully left. James was actively sweating from what just went through his body, but couldn't muster the energy or concentration to feel the level of panic he knew he should be. The music was just so, so calming, that fear was harder to feel than usual. The prompt told him he still had to change two more stats, so he decided to turn down Wisdom. He gasped again and his vision went blurry, and when it cleared he felt a bit, fuzzier? In the head. But it wasn't too bad, in fact it was perfectly manageable. He felt even calmer now, so maybe changing another stats would make him feel better. Why not IQ? He tapped the slider.

He groaned as an immense pressure wrapped around his brain. Thoughts, aspirations, memories felt like they were melting from his head faster than they appeared. The pressure seemed like it lasted forever, but eventually it trailed off and he was left panting in his chair. It had felt, really good? Like, tots good, even. James giggled to himself. Something was different about him, but he couldn't think what. Oh well, it'll probably come to him later. He squealed in delight as he realized he could get a step closer to the body modification page, although he looked longingly at the IQ slider. He could come back to it later, for now it was time to make his super-hot elf slut a body!

James clapped to himself with delight as a cute little melody played, a shower of sparkles spiraled [spiraled...] across the screen, and the man on the side moved to the center of the screen. "Firstly", the sultry voice said, "choose what race you want to be." That was an easy choice. He clicked on the 'Elf' button, and shivered as he felt tingles run through his body, intensifying in his ears. Reaching up to touch them, he inhaled as he felt long, pointed tips. In fact, his whole body seemed a bit slimmer. This doesn't quite feel right... he thought. Oh I know! It must be making me an elf too! Maybe we'll be in a party together! Between the strange fuzziness and the pulsating heat in his groin, James quickly flicked to the next page and made his choices. Long, silver hair, gorgeous big purple eyes, and some giant perky lips. "Combination unlocked!" the narrator exclaimed, "+1 Charisma, -1 Wisdom!" James giggled again as the mental fog settled a little tighter around his brain and naughty thoughts about cute girls and boys filled his brain. Boys? Well I guess I've never minded swinging both ways... This felt natural to him, because of course he'd always been bisexual. Next screen!

"Choose your voice young heroine," the woman commanded. James felt a little strange, like her voice was echoing around his head. And why were the sparkles still there, spinning and spinning around the screen. He felt confused, but knew he had to obey that voice. He picked the sexiest combination for his own voice; high pitched, breathy, perky. "Combination unlocked! +1 Charisma, -1 Int." He moaned as that wonderful pressure wrapped his brain and his weekend plans changed to eyeing hunks at the beach. Girls were cool and all, but men had always been more interesting to him [and their pulsing, hard...].

"Now heroine, can you tell me: Are you a girl, or a boy?" The question sent shock waves through his brain. He was a he... right? Why did it feel like there was some longing, some need to acknowledge the woman in him... her? The fog, the music, the spirals, all the feelings he had been having, James could hardly think. Maybe he should think less. Being a girl sounded fun, it's just a character after all. And he needed to be sexy. "Wonderful choice young lady! Now, are you a dominatrix, a super-switch, or a bimbo slut?" Bimbo slut~ James giggled as the words echoed in her brain. She was a bit of a slut, now that she thought about it. It felt odd to pick it, but why not for funsies? "Bimbo slut selected! Wonderful choice, just wonderful. Hold still while your stats are adjusted, and then we'll begin on giving you the perfect, sexy body you've always wanted."

The spirals filled her view and began increasing in speed. James was taken aback at first, but quickly felt oddly calm and receptive to that sultry voice.

"Physique +1, Physique +1, Physique +1." James felt wonderful, like every ache and blemish in his body had faded away.

"Wisdom -1, Wisdom -1." Thinking was fuzzy, but Jamella felt so content she didn't care.

"Charisma +1, Charisma +1, Charisma +1, Charisma +1. Charisma +1." Jamella gasped as visions of sexy men, pecs and abs and juicy, throbbing cocks filled her mind. A desperate heat filled her, and she began touching her groin against her will to try and ease it.

"IQ -1." She moaned, feeling light.

"IQ-1." Empty. She was so, wonderfully empty.

"IQ -1." This was like, so much funsies! She didn't know what was going on, but everything felt so nice~

"IQ -1. Congratulations Ella, you now have the 'Bimbo Slut' build."

Ella giggled absently. Thinking was like, so hard, and she felt like, so hard~. The fun spirals had disappeared... But the nice lady was talking to her again! With great effort, she listened in. "Now that your mental changes are complete, it's time for the physical changes!" Ella rubbed her thighs together and cheered in excitement. She couldn't wait to have more fun! "Unless you choose so now, the process will be au-to-ma-tic [...why was she using such big words?]. You can choose to take over at any time, or wait until the end and adjust as you please [...please. That word felt funny in her brain]".

"No user input detected. Body adjustment commencing."

A nice shiver went through Ella's body as she felt her headset warm against her face. Looking at the boring young man she'd begun to customize (her reflection, of course), she couldn't wait to begin! She sighed happily as waves of pretty silver hair drifted into her view and cascaded down her back. It felt especially nice against her smooth, soft skin, and she couldn't help but gently shake her head to watch it sway. A cool feeling brought her attention to her face, and the alluring amethyst eyes now set in it. Her face itself became much more elegant [but cutesy, too!], and she puckered her lips as a lovely pressure made them swell and bulge out, giving her a sexy and kissable pout [the boys'll love this look! boys~]. She felt herself shrink a few centimeters, gulping as her Adam's apple disappeared into her body. In fact, her whole body had become even more slender, with narrow shoulders, adorably small hands [pretty purple nails!], and a tiny little waist. She gasped, then clasped her hands over her mouth in delight. Her voice was so high and cutesy! She couldn't stop herself from giving out tiny, high-pitched giggles, just to hear how cute she was!

"Basic body structure altered. Adjusting outfit in preparation for primary and secondary sexual characteristics."

Ella ooh'ed appreciatively as a stream of sparkles enveloped her body. And when they disappeared, she squealed in delight! Her drab t-shirt and denim shorts were gone! In their place was a beautiful silver mini-dress that shimmered like starlight when she moved. She frowned in vexation, though. The plunging chest and shoulder-less design was very pretty, but her chest was flat! [shouldn't I have tiddies? The boys won't like me like this...] And the way it clung to her waist and hips would have been sexy, but as it was there was barely any difference between them! Her ass wasn't nearly big enough to justify how the dress cut off barely past it, and with how tight the fabric was Ella could see how achingly hard she was [wait, why do I have a cock? I'm supposed to get cock! In my mouth, in my ass, in my tight little pussy~]. It wasn't right!

"Thank you for your patience sweetie. Optimal figure calculated. Prepare for adjustment of sexual characteristics."

Ella let out a moan as a wave of heat and pleasure washed over her. With how horny she was she could barely keep her eyes open, but she knew she wanted to watch herself become the sexy little [cum] slut she was meant to be [I want it... I want to be~]. The heat settled in her hips, her ass, and her chest, and she moaned again as the changes begun.

Her nipples grew first, more than doubling in size and stiffening through the soft fabric of her dress. Tentatively touching them induced a gasp of pleasure [so nice~] and sent her rocking backwards. The motion made her giggle, because in that time she'd grown a cute pair of B-cup breasts that jiggled when she rocked. Jiggle makes me giggle. I like giggling. I like jiggling. Ella nodded thoughtfully to herself, feeling very wise. Her boobies grew to C-cups. She jiggled some more. She giggled some more.

A tightness around her hips distracted Ella from her tiddies. They were growing! She groaned as fabric and flesh tightened around them, too euphoric to feel pain. Sliding her hands from her waist to her hips made her squeal happily. She had such a sexy hourglass figure, she knew any girl worth her money would be jealous [and the boys would wanna hold me and squeeze me and fuck me raw]. Thighs thickening dramatically in response to her growth, she slapped her ass in impatience. Why won't it get bigger already!

But get bigger it did, swelling out in response to her touch. She fell forward as sheer pleasure blanketed her mind and weakened her knees. Squishing her boobies against the ground made her feel even nicer, until she was panting and moaning for somebody to help, to hit her again and make her bigger~

A slap landed on her booty, and she groaned in delight as it and her thighs swelled again. More. More! I NEED MORE! She moaned in ecstasy as blow after blow landed, making her swell and grow and grow and swell and feel so gooooood! Her tits inflated to D, then E-cups [good for the boys. I can jiggle so well for them~]. Her hips widened and thighs thickened, until she looked ridiculously large compared to her waist [ridicu... ridic... really, really sexy...] And her ass kept growing, and growing, and growing and growing and growing and growing! Tighter! Around my cock! Cock... I... oh~ Too... too... much! Too much! I'm~ I'm!

OooOOoOoOOooOoOoooOOOOOHHH~

Ella screamed in delight as she came, just cumming and cumming and cumming her tiny little brain out.

"Wisdom -1. IQ -1. Charisma +1. Charisma +1."

She was desperate, humping against the ground as the flow of cum abated from her cock. Everything she had been was flowing out of her messy stupid brain, and everything that she should be was coming in. Boys... Cock... Need fuck... Breed~ I'm such a dumb little cum slut~ She giggled to herself.

"Final adjustment required."

Ella stood up shakily, the bottom of her dress a cum-soaked mess. She squealed with delight as the mental fog settled even tighter and she felt an intense heat in her groin. She could see the tops of nipples trying to break free from her dress, and could feel the air drift over her ass, which had mostly escaped the fabric in her growth. So sexy. Hehe~ Boy can take me~ Don't even need dress off~ Thinking hard... Her ass and hips had pulled up so much fabric that her cock was visible now, deflating and still leaking from her orgasm, but she gasped in pleasure as it began rising up again. And, as she felt something long and hard brush her booty [cock? Boys? Fuck?].

A pressure like hands on her shoulders forced her to her knees, and she whimpered in desire as she felt an unseen cock touch her cheek. At the same time, something began intensely stimulating her own. She reflexively opened her mouth in a moan, but was cut off as she felt the cock shove inside [Feels~ Feels!].

All thought stopped.

Her mind was blank, full of pleasure and desire and happiness. Her cock felt good like it never had before, and the dick in her mouth tasted wonderful~ This was what Ella was made for, what she was meant to be. Feeling good, feeling sexy, feeling a pleasant emptiness that could only be filled with cock. Her haze reached a crescendo. Dimly she was aware of her own cries of ecstasy, muffled by the cock fucking her mouth and mind, as she came harder than she even had before. And as she came, her dick shrunk with each spurt until it went inside her [inside me!]. The cock withdrew from her mouth, filling her with a desperate longing. Emma moaned for her unseen hero, then gasped as she felt him once more. And blinked in surprise as the pretty meadow and her sexy reflection disappeared.

She was kneeling on the floor of an unfamiliar room. Shaking off a little of her confusion [don't need know much anyways...], she gasped as the tell-tale smell of pre-cum filled her nose. There was a man standing in front of her!

Sandy-blonde hair. Body like a surfer hunk! Naked. With a massive, sexy cock, dripping with her saliva and it's own juices. Ella moaned in desire, falling on all fours. Visibly trembling with lust, he tenderly cupped her cheek and slowly moved behind her.

Touching her with his [cock!].

Ever so gently, on the edge of her [...pussy!!!!]

He rammed inside her, and she screamed as an absolute feeling of rightness, of sexiness and pleasure and single-minded happiness rushed through her [MORE! HARDER! COCKKKK~]. Riding his dick she felt herself go into a trance, with nothing, absolutely nothing, disturbing her feelings. Ever. This was right. Ella moaned and surrendered to herself, drifting away on her lover's cock and mindless pleasure.

#hypnosis #tgtf #brain drain #breast expansion #hip expansion #ass expansion #hypnok1nk #bimboification #expansion #ally's kinks

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captainmera · 4 months

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Okay.👏

I need your thoughts on whatever the hell Belos/Philip had going on with the palismen.

Thoughts, theories, or clues I've missed as to WHY he does that??? Because I think he did it before Evelyn shot/cursed him, if his blue eyes are anything to go by.

ALSO, IF YOU HAVE THOUGHTS ON THE MASK'S SYMBOLISM. PLEASE SHARE.

Idk if it's because I'm not American that I scratch my head at it, but I've searched high and low and can't find anything it might refer to, other than the typical skin**lker iconography of a monster looking deer.

There wasn't really stuff like this (that I could find) in any pequot tribes either that might've inspired Caleb's first mask for Philip.

In their playtime as children in the memories, Caleb was the witch, and Pip wore the mask as a hunter. But I can't for the life of me figure out why.

I've also been rewatcing the movie THE VVITCH that came out in 2015. Since it's a folk horror movie taking place in a Puritan new england setting, the brother that dies gets lured by a witch in the forest, and his name is Caleb. It's a pretty grotesque horror, so I thought maybe Dana was inspired by it. But I can't find anything there either that might thread insight, other than maybe that she saw the movie and liked the name Caleb and that's it.

I think the mask might just be..... because the crew thought it looked cool. LoL.

I'm... trying here. 😂 and you guys are really clever. Help a guy out yeah?

Åh yes, watch me step into the Caleb hole in the Hunter road and get stuck in the Wittebane mystery. IT APPEALS TO MY FANDOM CONSPIRACY BRAIN.

Help. 🙏

#toh #the owl house #caleb wittebane #phillip wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #toh discussion #toh theories

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five-rivers · 4 months

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Daedalus

@regular-dog Hello! I am your holiday truce gifter this year! I hope you enjoy this labyrinth-themed fic. Happy New Year!

Only three years in, and it was already impossible to tell how big Amity Park was. Normal methods of surveying didn’t work. Physical maps were either always right or always wrong, and sometimes both at once. Driving across the city at a constant speed didn’t help, either. The outgoing trip and the return trip never seemed to match, and there simply weren’t enough one-way streets in Amity Park for that to be the answer to the problem.

Asking the residents didn’t help, either. They couldn’t even agree on how big the city they lived in was. Some of them acted like Amity Park was the second coming of Chicago, others expressed confusion when Amity Park was referred to as anything but a small town.

(The census data was almost worse.)

But no matter what version of Amity a particular resident believed they lived in, there were always similarities. There was always Casper High, and its Ravens, and every student went there, and learned from Mr. Lancer, and heard the rumors about Sydney Poindexter. There was always the Nasty Burger, and Valerie Gray working one of the many distasteful jobs that the place had to offer. There was always Amity Park Park, confusingly named and full of even more confusing paths, whether it was a city park or a county park, or something else altogether.

There was always Fentonworks, rising tall and strange from a small, ordinary neighborhood.

There was a heaviness there, around that particular building. A weight that drew in other things, that twisted. It was the heart of a labyrinth of streets, of old roads and new, of forest paths and disused hiking trails. It was the heart of Amity Park.

And it should be said that, at the heart of any labyrinth, there was a monster.

And it should be said that, at the threshold of every labyrinth, there was a princess.

And it should be said that the one thing that every labyrinth waits for is a hero.

Samantha Manson wound golden string around her fingers, thinking. It glowed faintly in the dark of her room, like the thinnest, purest beam of sunlight cast through morning mist and a thick canopy of leaves overhead.

However, her eyes didn’t linger on it. Instead, she looked out the window over her– garden– conservatory– greenhouse– private park– the place where she went to grow plants, and be among them, that may or may not have changed in nature and size while she was looking. Which may or may not have had many natures and sizes.

She closed her eyes. Insight was useful, as vital as the blood in her veins and the lightning in her nerves, but it had its drawbacks.

When she opened them again, a hedge maze stood dark and tempting beneath the light of a moon that should not be full and should not be there and had never been that big, in any case. The lights of Amity- rising high with skyscrapers or low to the ground and scattered among farmhouses– laid beyond it.

In her hands, the string hummed, as if it had been held taught and plucked. A single, clear note filled the air.

“Do you think it will work?” she asked.

There shouldn’t have been anyone in her room, and there wasn’t. But her nearest neighbors could be five miles from the walls of her home or five feet, and she rarely spoke to them. The distance between friends was greater, but also infinitely less.

Tucker looked up from his computer, which sat at his desk, in his own room, in his own house, the light from the moon shining in from the window behind him. His glasses reflected the pale, bluish light of his computer screen. The wheels of his desk chair rolled across the carpet of his room - so different from hers - with a squeak.

“You’re not getting cold feet now,” he said. It wasn’t so much a question as an exclamation.

Sam sniffed. “Of course not. But I’m not the one taking the biggest risk, am I?”

There was a third room. This one dark and starry. The glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to every available surface were normal. The patterns they were in were not. Nor were the eyes that stared out from beneath star-spangled bedsheets. Nor was the moon, gleaming from windows stationed on either side of the bed.

“I’m not sure if it actually matters if it works,” said the owner of those eyes, blinking slowly. “I mean, if it works the way it’s supposed to work. We’ll just go back to plan A if it doesn’t.”

“No offense, Danny, but plan A sucked,” said Tucker.

“How am I not supposed to take offense to that?” whined Danny. “Plan A is fine. It’s a normal plan. I know my city.” The last was said with a casual but deep possessiveness.

“Plan A wasn’t even really a plan,” said Sam. “Your plan was to just fly in and find them, never mind all the other things that are happening.”

“That’s not so different from this plan,” protested Danny. “It’s basically the same. It’s just the how that’s different.”

“Pretty big how, though,” said Tucker. “And I thought you liked this plan.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Danny. “I’m just saying, I’m just saying that even if it doesn’t work, we won’t be any worse off than we were at the beginning, before, you know. The research.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of his window.

Somehow, Sam knew that he was, in fact, pointing at the stack of thick books sitting on her desk. Only, instead of pointing at them across the there-not-there division between their rooms, he was pointing in their true direction, across the streets and forests of Amity Park.

The covers of the books shouldn’t have been legible in the darkness. Sam could read them anyway. Greek mythology. Sympathetic magic. Recurrence. Narrative causality. Daedalus, Icarus, Theseus, Ariadne, Asterion.

Four days ago, New Athens High School had sent a bus bearing the fourteen members of their track team and their coach to a meet in Elmerton. On the way back, the driver had made a wrong turn, knifing straight through the heart of Amity. The bus, the driver, and the coach had come out the other side. No one knew what had happened to the track team.

Danny had spent three of those days looking for them. Amity Park had spent those same three days winding itself more tightly than the ball of string sitting on Sam’s desk. Whether it was downtown, or the forest, or the suburbs, the part of Amity New Athens’ bus had passed through was a maze.

A labyrinth.

They’d thrown themselves into research, then, begging for information from their allies. Or, rather, from Danny’s allies. Most of them, with the exception of Dora, were there for him more than for the rest of them. Pandora was the one who had finally noticed the connections, the links with old stories, the resonance.

There was a labyrinth. There were sacrifices. Other roles–

“Or, if you don’t want to leave it, you could send Tucker in,” said Danny, shrugging slightly. “If it doesn’t work with just me. You know.”

Sam’s fingers slipped.

Sam was the obvious choice for the role of princess. Danny was the obvious choice for the role of hero.

He should have been, anyway.

“Hence why I’m asking if you think it’ll work,” said Sam, sharply.

“I hope it’ll work.”

Sam huffed. “Not what I’m asking.”

“It won’t hurt to try.”

“It might,” said Sam. “The monster dies at the end of the story. The princess is abandoned. Even Theseus doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“And we aren’t those characters. It isn’t as if Tucker is going to cut my head off.” Again, Danny waved in Tucker’s true direction, rather than across the emptiness of his room. “We’re the ones making the decisions. We’re just using the stories for– For narrative clout. Or however you described it.”

“Danny…”

“It’ll be fine. I mean,” he looked up at her with those too-bright eyes, the rest of his face black with shadows, “if you’re having second thoughts, it’s fine. We can try something else.”

“I’m not having second thoughts.” Sam began to unwind the string from around her fingers, wrapping it around the rest of the ball. The maze outside her window had become a winding garden path, and the neighbors were once again nearby.

Tucker cleared his throat. “First thing in the morning, then? We ride at dawn and all that?”

“Before dawn would probably be better, honestly,” said Sam.

Danny sighed. “I’ll set my alarm clock.”

It might have been neater to enter the maze in Sam’s backyard, or to start from the spiraling center that was Fentonworks, but that wasn’t where the bus had disappeared. The bus had disappeared going through downtown Amity Park.

Well. Insofar as the bus had disappeared in any particular location. And insofar as Amity Park had a downtown.

The lack of permanence of place made discussing things like this somewhat difficult.

Still. At the moment, there was a downtown. A historical shopping district, as a matter of fact. As he walked down the sidewalk in the crisp, gray, predawn light, Danny could feel beneath his feet a hum. The shopping district here was the mainstreet of small town Amity, even as skyscrapers loomed overhead, and the layers felt real enough for Danny to reach out and rub them between his fingers.

(They weren’t really, but they felt like it.)

He stopped in front of an alley that smelled of cinnamon and sea salt. Here, the layers parted, and you could slip between them, into the interstices and forbidden places of Amity Park.

“Is this the place?” asked Tucker.

“Yeah,” said Danny. “I think so.” He motioned them to the mouth of the alley, where they’d be covered by shadows and next to unnoticeable by those who were firmly in any one version of Amity Park. “Sam?”

She teased out the end of the golden string and cast it towards Danny. As it flew through the air, it twisted and knotted itself before falling over Danny’s head. The loops shrunk around his neck, creating a narrow golden collar.

Danny raised his hand to touch it and made a face. “It’s tight,” he said.

“Sorry,” said Sam, glaring at the ball of string as if it had betrayed her. “I don’t–”

“It’s fine,” said Danny, waving it off. “Just unexpected.”

“Right,” said Tucker, stepping forward. “Your sword, Theseus.” He handed Danny a Fenton invention that had a passing resemblance to a lightsaber.

Danny rolled his eyes and took the small cylinder. “Thanks. But don’t call me that.”

“Hey, that’s the story we’re trying to tell.”

“We’ll give it a tug if we run out of string,” said Sam.

“Mm,” said Danny. “Well. Might have to give it more than one. Don’t let me drag you in.”

Sam snorted. “What, like you drag us into everything else?”

“Seriously. Just let me go if I start pulling too hard.”

“No way,” said Tucker. “We’ll just tie you onto some building or something.”

“I have been known to bring down buildings.”

“Well, don’t,” said Sam.

“Wow. No sympathy here, I see.”

“Nope,” said Sam and Tucker together.

“Now go save the tourists,” said Sam, pushing him forward.

“They’re not really tourists,” said Danny. But even so, he stepped across the line and into the gap.

Into the labyrinth.

The in-between spaces of Amity Park did not immediately look like they were the in-between spaces of Amity. Danny sometimes liked to imagine that they were what Amity Park used to look like, before it became a dozen different, mutually exclusive places. That had to be impossible, though. There was too much, too many different things, afterimages and fantasies and illusions.

People walked on the streets, and cars drove, but they were transparent, projections from the layers of Amity immediately bordering this space. Sometimes, they walked through each other, not noticing at all.

Danny still flinched when it looked like cars were about to run into one another, and let out a breath of relief when they instead seemed to phase through each other.

So he walked.

He walked, and as he walked, the road began to change. He began to change. Facades paled. Grecian columns reached up the sides of skyscrapers and ranch homes. Brick turned to marble. Danny’s t-shirt and jeans slowly, gently, became a chiton and chlamys, trimmed in red. The Fenton Saber became a sword of green-tinted bronze, strapped to a belt around his waist. His shoes became sandals, laced up to his knees.

It wasn’t the first time Danny had worn clothing like this. He did visit Pandora. But he’d never worn it in Amity Park. It was a little embarrassing. The ancient Greeks’ idea of underwear was… lacking, in Danny’s opinion. But it wasn’t as if anyone here could see him.

The act of walking here also felt strange, and Danny couldn’t understand why this was needed. Not really. Not the act, not the ritual. By virtue of his nature, he could duck in and out of anywhere in Amity whenever he wanted. Mostly. At least, he could find places to duck in and out whenever he wanted.

He should have been able to find the missing students without any problem.

But he hadn’t.

And he still wasn’t finding them. There was no pull. No indication of what direction he should go, what direction he could find them in.

Danny sighed, and the sky above boiled with stars.

He looked up, not having expected that, then shrugged and continued to walk. Things here were strange.

There were words on the walls, now, carved into the marble alongside window displays for cell phones and stationary. Ἀστερίων, Ἀριάδνη, Θησεύς. He traced Ἀριάδνη with his fingers. It sparked gold, the same color as the string around Danny’s neck.

And then the string flexed. Pulled. Spooled forward, winding into a ball in front of Danny. A short thread was thrown off of the rapidly spinning ball and settled on Danny’s head before solidifying into something heavy and cold.

(Elsewhere, the end of the string tears itself out of Sam’s hand, disappearing into the rift between.)

“Oh,” said Danny. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, and mentally apologized to his friends for worrying them. “Theseus was from Athens. Ariadne wasn’t just rich, she had authority over Crete. We had the roles wrong.”

(Not that Danny really wanted authority over Amity Park. That… just wasn’t his thing. He didn’t want to be in charge. He just wanted to protect.)

But this meant… He needed to find one of the New Athens kids and get them to be Theseus.

He didn’t want to do that. He was here to rescue them, not to force them to rescue themselves. And… iIf he could find one of them, couldn’t he find the others? Finding them was the problem he’d started with. If he could find them, he could bring them out.

He stumbled as the section of string wrapped around his throat tightened. That actually hurt!

Then it loosened and Danny took a deep breath.

Narrative weight, right. They were already trying this story. Changing it or aborting it halfway would have consequences. Ones that Danny didn’t want to deal with.

He swallowed. He couldn’t help but remember that in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, many people, many Athenians, had died before Theseus had finally defeated the Minotaur. When it was Danny in the role of Theseus, that hadn’t been a concern. He was certain he could fight any monster, any ghost in the role of the Minotaur.

But some random kid from New Athens? One who had probably never seen a ghost, and who had been stuck here for days?

That… that he wasn’t at all confident about.

Sam had been right to be wary of the risks. It was different, when someone else was facing them.

He rolled the ball between his hands, feeling it over. Power thrummed between his fingers, brighter and sharper than before. A thin stripe of gold ran down the sidewalk, twisting over on itself and turning away from the main street.

Danny sighed, and started to follow.

Danica was starting to panic.

One moment, she’d been on the bus, falling asleep after a difficult meet despite how risky it was to fall asleep anywhere near Georgie and his so-called ‘artistic impulses.’ The next thing she knew, she was waking up on a sidewalk in some kind of nightmare city. A nightmare city full of things that looked almost like people but were transparent and walked right through her as if she weren’t there.

She didn’t know how long she’d been here, trying to figure out how she’d gotten here, where the bus was, where everything else was, but it felt like hours, at least. She was starting to get hungry.

She was starting to wonder if she’d gone crazy. Or if this was what it was like to be dead. And that was before the buildings started to melt into weird, semi-Greek-Revival messes.

It was weird here, and she hated it. She wanted to go home. She wanted her mom. She wanted to quit the track team and never have to deal with anything like this ever again.

“Hello?” called a soft voice.

She whipped around. Up until now, this place had been eerily quiet.

Standing just a few feet from her was a boy, one who could have stepped out of a history textbook. He was wearing something like a cape, and a Greek-style tunic, white trimmed in red. Tangled in his hair was a thin, golden circlet. But the strangest thing about him was the ball of glowing golden string in his hand. One end of it was wrapped around his neck.

“You–!” said Danica, suddenly more furious than frightened. “Did you bring me here? Why?”

The boy shook his head. “I didn’t bring you here. Actually, I’m hoping to help you get out. You and the rest of your teammates.”

“They– They’re here, too? And the coach–?”

“No, just your teammates,” said the boy. He made a face. “You guys kind of… Ran into a story.”

“A what?” demanded Danica, incredulous. She’d also, incidentally, started to back away from the boy.

“A story. Have you heard of Theseus and the Minotaur?”

“What if I don't want to do this?” asked the girl, after Danny had finished explaining. “What if I can’t do this?”

Danny stared at her, a bit baffled. The thing about being a ghost, even half a ghost, the thing about thinking like a ghost… Sometimes it was hard to wrap his head around other perspectives. Especially when his friends, the only people he really talked to, were just as eager to jump in and help as he was.

He hadn't wanted to make anyone risk themselves. He wanted to bring them to safety without that. He also hadn't expected that anyone would just… not want to help.

“Well, I suppose… I suppose you could follow me until I found one of your classmates who could?” he said. “Although… I’m not sure if we can do that with this story. It might be that I have to find someone alone and then they find everyone… In which case you’d just have to wait for them. Speaking of which, how long has this been for you? On the outside, it’s been a few days, but you look a little too good for that.”

“I– What? Days? I haven’t been here for days.”

“Not from your perspective, maybe. Time is weird. Even without all this…” He waved his hand, trying to indicate ghost weirdness in general. “... stuff, even with just the things we can look at scientifically, it’s still relative. Right now, you’re basically in a dimensional pocket. Pocket dimension? Whatever. The point is, is time running at different rates really that strange, comparatively? At least, it made it so that you didn’t starve before me and my friends were able to figure this out.” He raised the ball of golden string, ignoring how the movement pulled on his neck. “Right?”

The girl gave him a ‘why are you using science-fiction terms in what is clearly a fantasy scenario’ look. At least, that’s how Danny chose to interpret it.

He sighed. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Danica,” she said, then looked angry at herself and shrugged. “Or Dani, I guess.”

“Huh, small world,” said Danny. “That’s my sister’s name, too.” Not to mention his. Maybe Theseus’s story wasn’t the only one being echoed, with a coincidence like that.

The girl continued to stare at him, this time with a ‘why the heck are you bringing that up while I’m having a crisis’ look. Probably. Danny tended to make a similar expression from time to time. Usually when the ghosts he fought started having lovers’ quarrels in the middle of a fight.

“So,” he said, awkwardly. “You can come with me, of course, just to… test out what will happen?”

“Oh!” said Danica, suddenly. “Just– Just give me that!” She held out her hands for the ball of string.

Danny beamed, and passed it to her. It glowed even brighter.

“Now what?” she asked, staring at it nervously.

“Now, you need this,” Danny said, taking off the sword and holding it out to her, hilt first. “And then you search for your friends, and when you find them…” He pinched a length of the string between the finger and thumb of her free hand. “You follow this back out.”

Danica was much more reluctant to take the sword than the string. But that was fine. One of the two was for holding things together, the other was for taking things apart. Danny knew which was easier, and which he was more comfortable with.

“That's it. Remember, it's just the members of your track team, okay? The coach and the bus driver got out.”

“Okay,” said Danica. She took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay. I can do this.”

Danny nodded encouragingly. “Yes,” he said, “definitely.”

Danny stepped out of the in-between, back into the alley he'd left Sam and Tucker in. Except, it wasn't an alley anymore, but a thin dirt path between hedges.

He was immediately tackled.

“We thought we'd lost you!” said Sam. Then she pulled back and examined him closely before looking pointedly behind him. “Where're the track kids?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Well. In the story, Theseus is from Athens, remember?”

Sam groaned. “They're having to do it themselves?”

“Yeah. A girl named Danica. Dani. Believe it or not.”

“Wow,” said Tucker. “Really?”

“Really.”

Danny turned to look behind him, tracing the string where it twisted away from reality and into not-space.

Tucker sighed. “This is going to take a while, isn't it?”

It took Danica surprisingly little time to find her teammates. For all the time she’d spent wandering on her own, after she’d accepted the sword and the string, she’d located everyone in what felt like an hour. Some of them were even in groups!

The problem was, she found too many of them.

“Mm,” said Danny, still worried. “Probably. I hope she doesn’t have to fight anything.”

There had been fourteen of them. She knew there had been fourteen of them, because the coach and the driver had both done headcounts, because of the number of people they were allowed to field in each event at this particular meet, and because she remembered that someone had been sick. But there were, including her, fifteen kids now huddled in something that aesthetically hovered in-between the Parthenon and a shopping mall.

She couldn’t remember who had been sick. No one could. But everyone wanted to convince her that it wasn’t them.

Probably because she was the one with the sword.

“I think that if there was anything, it would have gone after Danny when he was searching earlier, right?” asked Sam.

“Maybe,” said Danny. “Unless it was scared of me. I am pretty powerful.”

“And if Danny’s Ariadne in this, he was Ariadne at the beginning,” pointed out Tucker. “The story was already going. Ariadne never fought the Minotaur.”

“Astarion,” said Danny.

“Huh?”

“That’s the Minotaur’s actual name,” said Sam. She frowned slightly. “He was Ariadne’s half-brother, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, slowly. “He was, wasn’t he?”

“Listen,” said Danica, trying to mask the shake in her voice, “I’m sorry, but– But based on everything, you aren’t who you say you are.”

There was nothing she could do about how badly the sword was shaking.

“I am!” said the girl, who couldn’t be there, because Eliza had taken the one place in the 100 meter, and Jaylynn did the javelin, and Lachandra had done the high jump, and no one remembered her competing at all. “I really am, I promise!”

It was convincing, her act. But it had to be an act, it really did.

“Dani,” said Lachandra, “is it really that important? I mean, if we take her with us? We just want to get out.”

“But she could eat us,” said Kevin, who was a bit of a mythology buff on top of being a track nerd. “She could– If this is the Minotaur story– She’ll try to kill us and then–”

“I won’t!” shouted the girl. Her eyes– For a moment, they changed color. Red. Her teeth were sharp, too.

Danica gritted her teeth and swung the sword down.

Danny caught her wrist, panting. He’d followed the string back.

“Wait,” he said, breathless. “Wait.”

“Where–” said Danica, jerking back. “Why–?”

Danny turned towards the ‘Minotaur.’ “Hi,” he said, trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. “You’re one of Vlad’s aren’t you?”

Their face shimmered for a moment, and then– It was like looking into a mirror. This wasn’t Dani - his Dani, Danielle - but a boy with red eyes. He wore a chiton like Danny’s, but he looked starved, pale, terrified.

He nodded.

“There is,” said Danny, cautiously, “another story about escaping from the labyrinth. How would you like to be Daedalus?”

“What was that?” hissed Danica, as they walked away from… whatever that was. “Why are you here, now, leading us out, when you couldn’t before?”

“Story is different now,” said Danny, tightly. “And I was leading you out before. Just with the string.”

“What if you get lost?” asked Kevin.

Danny grinned at him. “I won’t. He isn’t trying to keep you in anymore.”

“Who isn’t?” asked Danica.

“Daedalus. Him. He just wanted out, I think. Sorry for– I’m sorry about all of this,” said Danny. “I didn’t want to get other people involved in Amity Park stuff, and I especially didn’t want to get you involved in family stuff, but…” He shrugged, then caught sight of an out. It looked, from this side, like a slightly darker than expected gap between stately white pillars. “Here we go! And I think this one is next to the police station, too, so just, you know. Check yourselves in.”

“Just like that?” asked Danica.

“Just like that,” said Danny. “I will need those back, though.” He nodded at the string and sword.

“Right,” said Danica. She shoved both at him. “I can’t believe– I would have kill that– Whatever– Whoever–” She stopped, looking very much like she wanted to cry.

“I’m sorry,” said Danny again, softly. “But it is over now.”

The New Athens kids walked into the gap and vanished.

The string dissolved into golden, glittering light and then settled in his hands as a pair of equally golden wings. Danny laughed.

“Okay,” he said. He turned, bouncing a little. “I get the picture. I think we can avoid the Icarus problem, being ghosts and all.”

#danny phantom #holiday truce #holiday truce 2023

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punishereditz · 11 days

Text

The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia

Pairing: Jack Reacher x f!reader

Warnings: 18 Plus only! Minors DNI! DO NOT COPY! THIS STORY CONTAINS HEAVY SUBJECTS! Mentions of murder. Mentions of trafficking. (Not detailed.) Smut. Unprotected sex. P in V. Oral. (F receiving) Dirty talk. Size kink. Praise kink. Scratching. Creampie.

AN: Reba, you are my queen

Word count: 2.5k

Summary: Well, don't trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer. 'Cause the judge in the town's got bloodstains on his hands

The station was silent expect for the small grunt you let out as you stretched. It was going on 11 pm, everyone had done left expect for you and Reacher. He was determined to keep working. This case was eating him alive. When a man he was stationed with years ago randomly shows up dead, he knew he had to look into it. The more he looked though, he learned just how complicated this whole thing was. The mayor. The judge. Lawyers. Officers. The preacher. All dead in a spam of a couple months. Why were all the men with high power in the town suddenly dying? He couldn't figure it out.

"Where's the files on the preacher?" Reacher asked as he stood with a soft sigh.

"Over at Scott's desk." You answered and looked back down to your papers. With a nod from Reacher, he walked across the room over to the chief's desk. Rustling through the papers before he found what he was looking for. He started to make his way back to your office, but as he walked down the hall, he came to a sudden stop. Taking a step back, he looked at the framed photo on the wall.

A picture of the mayor cutting a ribbon. Then his eyes drifted to the woman standing next to him. She looked familiar. Reacher couldn't figure out where he has seen her though. That's when his eyes moved to the background of the photo. A small child standing behind the mayor. It hit him like a ton of bricks. It was you. The child in the photo having the same scar as you that lines from your eyebrow to your hairline. You're the mayor's daughter? Reacher thought. It was all clicking in his mind. You were the one responsible for this. But... something still wasn't right. He was putting all the pieces together, but there was still a piece missing.

What was your motive? Why did you do it? Questions flooded Reacher's mind as he walked back into your office. Returning to his seat. His eyes lingering on you before he looked to the files. He didn't know what to do yet. He considered locking you in the cell right now, but he didn't have enough proof. And if you really are the one who did all this... will he be able to put you away? He's been in the town for almost a month now working with you and the station. He's grown partial to you. Captivated by you, even. There was something about you... your fierceness... your pretty eyes. It had Reacher longing. And he wasn't the only one feeling this way. You knew the second he walked into town he would be the death of you. That captivating smile and bluntness would get you into trouble. Once you got insight into how Reacher works, you knew he would figure you out. That he would know it was you.

And as you looked at him sitting across from you, you know that he knows now. It finally clicked for him. You're honestly shocked it took him this long. But now that he knows, you're not sure what to do. You thought about just telling him, but what would he do? How would he react? Would it hurt him? You couldn't stand the thought. The thought of him seeing you as a monster. You weren't sure why you cared so much about Reacher's opinion; you didn't care what anyone else thought of you. So why care about he thinks? You were hesitant and you hated it. As the night went on, neither of you said anything. But you both knew. You both thought about what to do.

Reacher tossed and turned in his hotel room. Completely restless. He was trying to find that missing piece, but he couldn't. Why? That was the question that played in his mind on repeat. He didn't know why. Why would you do it? It was starting to bother him too badly. With a sigh, he got out of bed, and he threw on his clothes. Walking out into the cold, rainy night. Walking to your house at 3 am. He didn't care how late it was or the fact that it was pouring down. He had to know. So, he marched up the steps and he banged on the door. The line between your eyebrows growing as you got out of bed and went to the door. When you opened it, the crease between your eyebrows deepened.

"Reacher? What are doing?" You slowly looked him up and down. His jeans a shade darker from the wetness, his shirt glued to him. His muscles showing through it. His hair dripping and his chin quivering. Fuck. He looked so good.

"Why did you do it?" He simply asked and you weren't the only one staring. Reacher's eyes glued to the oversized t-shirt, the outline of your nipples visible and the boxers that were barely visible. Fuck. You looked good.

"What?"

"Why did you do it?" He said more firmly.

"Did you walk here? You're going to end up sick." You moved to the side to let him in.

"Don't change the subject. Why did you do it?"

You sighed and stopped. Looking down. Not prepared for this conversation.

"I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure it out." Now Reacher was confused.

"You knew I was going to find out?" You simply nodded and handed him a couple towels and a blanket.

"Yeah. Surprised you didn't realize sooner." You started to make a pot of coffee and Reacher hummed. Thinking.

"Why?" He asked again. You took a deep breath. Trying to prepare yourself.

"The mayor... he was my stepdad and when I was a kid... he used to do terrible things to my sister." You paused. "When I got older, I learned that half the men in town, especially my stepfather, were trafficking kids." Reacher's eyes widen as he realized.

"I tried to take it to court numerous times, but because the judge and lawyers were in on it, it didn't matter how much evidence and proof I had, they always dismissed it." Reacher nodded as he listened to you closely. It all made sense now.

"So..., that's why I did it, and I'll do it again." You broke the silence and you slide a cup of coffee over to him before you rested your hands on the counter and looked down.

Reacher took notice of it, and he stood up. Taking the quick step over to you. He gently placed his hand under your chin and tilted your head up so that you would look at him. "Is there anyone left?"

"Yeah... the chief. I think he's starting to suspect it's me." You spoke softly and held back a gasp as Reacher was suddenly so close and his cold hand was still holding your chin.

"Alright. We can take care of him tomorrow." He simply said and he let go of your chin. He still stood close though.

"What?" You grew confused and he simply repeated his words.

"We'll take care of him tomorrow."

You went to speak, but nothing came out. You went to argue with him and tell him that it's none of his business and he shouldn't get deeper into this than he already is, but you knew you couldn't fight him on this. He's too stubborn. He'll help rather you like it or not, so you don't push.

Instead, your eyes travel over his body. At his still soaking wet clothes that are stuck to him. Your eyes going to his muscles and lingering there. You realized you were staring and snapped yourself out of it. "I think I might have some clothes that will fit you. You can shower and get warmed up." You leaned off of the counter and started to walk down the hall. A smirk growing on his lips as he caught you staring. His eyes going to ass as you walked away. Then he quickly followed and watched as you searched for the clothes.

Now his turn to stare. His eyes stuck on your ass. His mind wondering off, but you quickly pulled him back to reality. "Here. These should work." You held them out to him, and he accepted them with a small smile and a soft thank you. He went into the bathroom and got into the shower. The scolding water hitting him. The tension in his muscles easing. His eyes fell closed and he let the water sooth him. When he opened his eyes, he looked down at his hard cock. With a groan of frustration, he let his head fall back. His mind continuing to wonder back to you. But not because of the case. Oh no. His mind kept going back to the image of you in those boxers. The outline of your breast in that shirt. You looked absolutely gorgeous to him. He wanted to jerk those clothes right off of you, but he knew he needed to hold back his thoughts. Although he wanted to bend you over the counter, he still felt the need to stay professional.

Even after solving everything, and being able to have you now, he still feels he should keep the relationship at a businesslike level. But you? You pace around your living room wondering if you should you just go join him in the shower or not. Over the past couple weeks, you've caught yourself staring and your thoughts wrapped up in a dirty fantasy about him. And after seeing him show up at your door in the rain and handle your confession so well, you can't stop the desire that is growing stronger. You let a frustrated groan out and you walked down the hall. You went to knock on the door, but before you could, the door was being opened and you were greeted by a shirtless Reacher. That's it.

You leaned up and captured him in a deep, heated kiss full of desperation. His body quickly relaxing and his strong arms wrapping around you. Lifting you up and carrying you back to your bedroom. His tongue gently brushing against your lips as he tried to deepen the kiss as he sat you down. Grabbing your shirt and pulling it over your head. His hands going to your breast. Gently massaging them. He laid you down on the bed. Kissing down your neck. His lips grazzing over your breast as he kissed your stomach. Kissing each and every scar, freckle and mark he could find until he stopped at your hips. Grabbing your boxers and pulling them down.

Greeted by your wet cunt. He hummed in amusement. "This wet already?" He teased and spoke in a confident tone. Then before you could say anything, he wrapped his lips around your clit. Gently sucking on it. A sharp gasp leaving your mouth as his tongue circled around it. Your slow breaths turning into heavy pants as his tongue kept working your clit. His movements slow and gentle. Making a chill run down your spine, your back arching and your legs shaking. His mouth on your sensitive clit felt so good. He was working you like no one else has before. Bringing you a pleasure you had no idea you could feel. It had you shaking. It had you wanting more. You needed more. Despite how good it felt and how you didn't want it to end, you grabbed his hair and pulled his face up. Moving your legs off of his shoulders and pulling him up so he stands in front of you. You raised up and started to kiss his abs. Your mouth traveling down to his v line. Gently kissing him.

You gripped his sweatpants and pulled them down. When his cock was free, you had to hold back a gasp. He chuckled at the shocked expression that you couldn't hide. "Will... it fit?" You said shyly and Reacher grabbed you by the chin. Pulling you up. "You can take it." He whispered in your ear, and he laid down on the bed. Pulling you down on top him. He gently kissed you. A kiss of reassurances. He carefully rubbed his cock through your folds. Putting the head at your entrance. Then he moved his hand away. Wanting you to take this at your own time. You slowly pushed down on his cock. Gasping as your walls stretched around him.

"There you go... that's it. Good girl." Reacher groaned as he watched as your cunt slowly took all of him. His hands holding your ass. You sat there for a moment to adjust to him, then you lifted your hips. Dropping back down. He bit his lip to hold his noise back. You noticed and pulled his lip out from his teeth, and he softly whimpered. "Don't start holding back from me now." He whimpered again when he heard your dirty words and felt your walls clenching around him. His eyes going down to your breast as they bounced with your bouncing hips on his cock. Your movements getting a steady pace that makes you and Reacher breathless. Yours and his moans growing louder and louder. He couldn't help himself when he let his hands move all over your body. Moving along your sides, your breast, your neck, your hair, over your back and down to your ass.

Gripping it. Helping guide you on his cock. As he admired you, he looked up at your closed eyes. Your head back in pleasure and your hands moving up your own body and squeezing your breast. He completely lost all bit of control he had left. He put an arm around you and with a swift move, he moved your body under him. Getting on top of you. He thrusted deep into you. The breath being pulled right out of your lungs. You dug your fingers into his shoulders and a loud moan slipped from your lips. Your eyes rolling into the back of your head as he thrusted deeply into you. It was passionate. It was sweet. It was slow. He made each thrust into you mean something. He made sure with each thrust that you knew how he cared for you. How long he wanted this. His groans getting louder and his thrust getting harder and faster. Your walls clenching around him and your nails dragging down his back as the new speed felt sensational.

You didn't even know he could make you feel even better, but he does. Your climax was on the edge. Struggling to hold it back. His climax creeping up on him as well. The volume in his groans increasing as he felt your climax release onto him. Driving him into his climax. Filling your cunt up with his seed. The results of yours and his pleasure dripping down onto the bed. The two of taking a moment to catch your breath. Once you did though, he gave you a grin and thrusted into you again. Round after round. He made you feel the best pleasure of your entire life all into the morning. The sun setting and lighting the room. His arms wrapped around your small body. Holding you close to him before you two have to finish what you started. The reason he came into this town. The reason he was brought to you.

#Spotify #jack reacher #jack reacher x reader #jack reacher smut #reacher #reacher x reader #reacher fanfiction #reacher smut #alan ritchson #x reader #smut #smut fanfiction #fanfics #fan fiction

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ponderingmoonlight · 3 days

Text

Chapter 3: Window of Opportunity

Pairing: Gojo x fem! reader

Warnings: language, Gojo being well Gojo, domestic violence, thank y'all for sharing your experience with me, it helped me so much understanding childhood trauma and made me transform it into this fic <3

Synopsis: Being the daughter of the Zenin clan made it your mission to defeat him. Him, Satoru Gojo, the honored one. Him, who makes your life a living hell. Him, who begins to get so much more than your curse...

Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Romance, Hurt to Comfort

<- Previous Chapter l Next Chapter ->

„Oh, did you say something? I can’t understand you when you’re crying like a baby”, you purr as the eyes of the man who writhes in front of you like a little worm fill with tears of sheer fear.

Your grin grows wider and wider, satisfaction filling you to the brim. Maybe that mission isn’t so bad after all when you’re finally able to use your special abilities again.

While you are a skilled combat fighter, the director strictly forbids you to use Phobia Projection against another member of Jujutsu High since your former classmate almost hung himself because of it. You roll your eyes out of instinct.

As if it was his fault that his mind is so damn weak.

“I know he tried to kill us a few seconds ago. But don’t you think you’re going a little too harsh on him, (y/n)?”, Geto questions while manspreading the whole couch and eying you up and down.

“I’m not harsh on him. He’s seeing his own fears, I have nothing to do with that”, you defend yourself with a casual shoulder shrug.

How is it your fault that this guy acts like a baby? You let yourself sink next to Geto, watch from afar how the little bug continues to cry out in agony.

Unfortunately, your powers don’t allow you an insight into what your opponents go through. Is his worst fear a spider, a monster, or even worse…a human? Too bad there’s no way to find out since they never tell you afterwards. Maybe you’ll be able to torture it out of him. With a little bit of cutting and a whole lot of punching-

“P-please, make it stop!”, he yells out over and over.

The violent ringing of Geto’s phone rips you out of your chuckling and more than entertaining thoughts with an annoyed groan. Urgh, who the hell is interrupting that wonderful moment?

“Did you beat him already? I hope the dirty Zenin brat wasn’t in the way.”

You don’t have to look at the screen to know who’s calling, pulse rising to the rooftop. It’s him, the white-haired douchebag. Much to your liking, Geto decided it would be best if you accompany him instead of Gojo. But even if you’re not forced to be next to him physically right now, you’re still doing this mission together. Which means that he’s always there – like herpes.

“Spare your stinky breath. We were done before you decided to-“

“HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME!”

“Can you shut the fuck up? I’m having a serious call with a douchebag right now”, you bark at the man rolling on the floor.

“You’re an evil witch”, Gojo comments dryly on the other side of the phone.

“Evil, huh? Well, at least I’m not as dumb as-“

“Can you two just stop? We have him here as well as the vessel. I’ll send you the location. Don’t cause trouble.”

“Tell that this little-“

Oh right, the plasma vessel. You eye the girl lying opposite of you up and down, her dark hair falling into her closed eyes like a curtain. Must be rough, knowing your only reason walking on this planet is the stinging fact that a part of you will get killed within the next years.

How is she different from you, though?

You, with your family pressuring you into pouring your heart and soul into training, who never accepted you despite your heart work. You, who lost a part of herself in the process of forcing the best version of (y/n) onto you. You, who slowly but surely turned into a frightening resemblance of her family’s shadow, crossing a path she never imagined she’d land on as a kid. You sacrificed your smile, your dignity, your heart for the mission to become better than Gojo Satoru.

Aren’t you just like her?

“Hey, are you good?”

The sheer feeling of Geto’s warm hand resting against your shoulder rips you out of your daydreaming immediately.

“I’m not that Gojo weakling. You don’t need to watch over me”, you reply dryly, gifting him with the deadliest side-eye you have in store.

Well, maybe not the deadliest. That gaze is reserved for Naoya and Gojo only.

“Is there a reason apart from Satoru being a member of the Gojo clan why you hate him? I never understood what’s the deal between both of you.

You can’t help but tilt your head to the side, mind going blank for a second. Now that you think of it…Is there really a reason apart from the fact that your family taught you to hate him for your huge dislike? When you two first saw each other that one evening, he was nothing but a nice boy your age through your innocent eyes. A boy with a quite charming smile, who always had a cheeky reply in store. A boy with a strict family himself. Yes, you actually had a lot in common. And to some point, you began to like him in the few minutes you talked to each other.

Until you came back home and realized who exactly you were talking to.

“You did what?”, your father hissed through gritted teeth.

Another ruthless slap. Blood spilled to the ground, discoloured everything around you crimson. Eyes widen and teary, lips trembling when his flat palm crushed into your face again.

Over and over.

Again and again.

Until you weren’t able to feel your face anymore, eyes so swollen that your vision faded.

“Let me remind you of wrong little thing.”

He grabbed you by the hair Gojo complimented just a few minutes ago roughly and yanked you into the air.

“You are nothing, the biggest disappointment in my whole life. If it was for me, you’d be dead already. But because of your other lousy family members, you get the chance to surpass that Gojo brat. And you?”

Another slap, your feet tangled in the air like a wind chime.

“You actually befriend him. You disgust me, (y/n). And you always will. You’ll never bring honor to your family.”

“He’s himself, that’s enough”, you press out.

“What do we have here, dreaming about me, (y/n)?”

Speaking of the devil. Before you’re even able to accept his existence in the same room, he stands in front of you and grins you down.

That fucker, the reason for your suffering, for the fact that your family doesn’t accept you…

Your hand reacts faster than the rest of your body. A ruthless slap sends Satoru Gojo straight back to reality, echoes through the room without mercy. Your palm begins to burn like hell while your uneven breath hangs in the thick air between both of you.

“What was that, huh?”

He roams closer, his redden skin showing your act of violence way too clearly.

“Who the hell do you think you are, little bitch?”

Your throat begins to tighten uncomfortably, the veins in your arms throbbing in an all too familiar way.

Hatred. You feel nothing but hatred.

“You’d deserve even more than that, asshole”, you bite back.

He’s so close that you’re able to sense the heat radiating from his body and how his breath wanders over your face. You feel like burning alive, so unusual aroused that it’s hard to keep a straight face. Did he always look at you with his lips slightly parted, his eyes glowing like they normally do in serious fights? You are trapped between both of his arms, roasted by his heat, defeated by the way he looks down at you without saying another word.

What is that? And most importantly, do you want it to stop?

You can’t decide for yourself. In the split of a second you find yourself surrounded by broken glass, free fall down from the 15th floor.

Fuck, who’s responsible for this? Did Gojo go this far, would he actually throw you out of a skyscraper just to get rid of you? He might be the biggest asshole walking on this planet, but he’d never do something so damn basic. No, it has to be someone who is chasing after the star plasma vessel, someone who kept an eye on you this entire time.

Well, who’s responsible for this mess isn’t your biggest problem. At the moment, you are on your rapid way to crash into the ground, your guts feeling as if they’ll spill out of your mouth any given minute. And even though you’re able to inhibit the impact, this will still hurt like hell.

Do you have another way out of here, though? Getting hurt is better than crying for anyone’s help, after all. You close your eyes, embrace yourself for multiple broken bones and a wave of pain as soon as you hit the ground.

But it never happens.

“Aren’t so brave anymore, huh? If you only had told me that I would have to throw you out of a sky-high window to get you to shut up, brat.”

Just to let y'all know, I'm still over here giggling like an idiot over the title of that chapter hehehehe

Tags: @whereismysane @risuola @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @livmarauder @sapphireandange

@madaqueue @chilichopsticks @sugurulefttesticle @boba-is-a-soup @jennapancake

@kentocalls @mrshlf @byakuya61085 @polarbvnny @rzcnlb

@m0k0k0

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sleeplesssmoll · 17 days

Text

New HC: How Vertin became such a nimble gremlin. Also bonus Puppnetto.

I was hoping to have some insight on how Vertin fights or something. Apparently she never liked the Foundation's routine training. Tbh, she doesn't seem to be competive in any sense either.

For example, let's say the Foundation has a Critter wrangling competition. Vertin won't win because she's busy helping others catch the Critters. Even if she's not bad at it, her scores will suck compared to the others. While they may gather more Critters as a team, its only one Critter per person and Vertin may let her ally have it because she doesn't care or they strike a deal to share the reward.

I imagine that the Foundation tried to use exercise as punishment sometimes, like running laps, push-ups, dispatching Critters etc. Vertin will do it, but she has that deadpan look and isn't really upset by it, so that pisses off the instructor who'd make her do more physical labor/exercise just cause she didn't "learn her lesson" or because of her "attitude."

But they accidentally created the agile monster we know today who dodges bullets and can fight enemies while carrying people. The training paid off and the instructors can't stand it so they start assigning her more arcanum relevant work. Yes she needs it, but it's also something they know she'll struggle with. That's where Puppnetto steps in and starts tutoring her.

Brain rot induced HC: The Kitten and the Puppy

We know Vertin isn't only agile, she's very stealthy and does a lot of sneaking. It drives the instructors mad because they can't catch her when she's being a menace.

So they decide to sic their top dog on her.

Sonetto is a better at Arcanum, physically stronger, and she's good at tracking things down like a bloodhound. Problem solved.

Except it's not.

Sonetto is stronger, but Vertin is faster and better at predicting movements. Both of them have high endurance because of their training. In other words, it's a very complicated and drawn out game of cat and mouse.

Sonetto's Arcanum is useless if she can't hit her target (trying to stun, not injure of course). Vertin will also climb up ledges and trees where Sonetto can't reach. Sonetto will try to climb, but she doesn't have as much experience since she's used to taking things head on. However, eventually she does "catch" Vertin which is when Vertin gets bored or doesn't want Sonetto to get hurt climbing after her so she relents. Puppy shouldn't be climing trees!

The two will return hand in hand so Vertin doesn’t escape. Puppnetto isn't happy about it since it's really Vertin letting herself be caught and also wants Vertin to behave so she won't get punished.

Meanwhile, Vertin doesn’t seem to mind holding hands all the way to the office. She's used to consequences, so she chooses to focus on enjoying their walk together instead.

#reverse 1999 #vertin #sonetto #reverse 1999 hc

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ahlovelightaflame · 9 months

Text

The Kids Will Talk ~ *Jeon Wonwoo*

Summary: Your sister has always told you: stay away from the mafia. And as the Big Boss herself, she can do that. But you can’t help yourself from falling in love with Wonwoo. And it just so happens, Wonwoo loves you too. He just doesn’t know who your sister is...

Pairing: Jeon Wonwoo X Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluffy Oneshot

Word Count: 2326

Warning: Swearing, annoying kids, overprotective sister

Mafia Masterlist

A/N: FINALLY! This monster of a series is over! Thank the Lord and every other deity out there!

Wonwoo is no stranger to secrets. His biggest one is the fact he is a part of the mafia, which he finds surprisingly easy to conceal. His students don’t care all that much about his time outside of the classroom, and when they do, he has plenty of other stories he can tell them to satiate their curiosity.

However, he has another very big secret that he finds much harder to conceal.

Everyday, Wonwoo visits the library. He has two reasons for doing this. One: because he loves reading and can finish a decent-size book in only a couple days. Two: he’s head over heels in love with the librarian. That is the big secret he’s having such a hard time trying to conceal. Especially his students, who are far more perceptive than he gives them credit for.

As class was just getting out, Wonwoo gathered all of the necessary items he needed for his planning period. He was going to work on grading some essays in the library. Or he might look through some of the books to see what else he could read. Really, anything to see the librarian again.

Of course, one of his students paused him at his door. “Hey, Mr. Jeon? Can we talk about my grade?”

He tried to hide his wince. “Can we talk about it after school today, Jiheon?”

She was about to argue when she stopped herself. “Wait, are you on your way to the library? Are you going to see your girlfriend?”

This time he allowed a scowl to slip onto his face as he shouldered past her. “Goodbye, Jiheon. I’ll see you in class later today.”

However, Jiheon was nothing if not persistent. With a shit-eating grin on her face, she followed him. “You are, aren’t you? That’s so cute! You know, most of the student body ships you two. Oh! Can we get a picture of the two of you for the yearbook? We can write a whole section about your relationship! It’ll be perfect!”

“Don’t you have someone else you can bother with about yearbook stuff?” He questioned, trying to pick up the pace.

She shrugged. “I mean, I probably need to run the idea around Saerom, but it’s good to have the picture in case she approves it.”

“How about this: get the idea approved by all of the yearbook staff and then we can talk, okay?”

Nodding, she exclaimed, “I can do that! Mark my words, Mr. Jeon, you will be in the yearbook this year, one way or another.”

As she skipped off to find the rest of the yearbook staff, Wonwoo rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “Yeah right.”

It was then he realized he was right in front of the library.

Pushing aside the butterflies swarming in his stomach, he stepped inside and found you instantly, like it was fate.

As soon as the two of you made eye contact, you smiled and waved. He returned your wave, feeling his cheeks heat up. However he was here to work, not stare at you for forty-five minutes. So he made his way to one of the tables and set up everything he needed to work on before his next class.

There was one thing Wonwoo knew about high school student essays: they were either really insightful or really confusing. And the first essay he started reading was completely off-the-walls crazy. Someone didn’t do the assigned reading. This was going to be a long planning period.

“Having fun?”

Wonwoo practically jumped in his seat. You were standing over him, smiling so bright and warm. He felt his heart stop for a good minute before he finally spoke to you.

“Well, you know how high schoolers are with essays.”

You laughed and he couldn’t help but laugh with you. Your laughter has always been contagious to him. “Yeah. I remember struggling with essays back when I was in high school. You’re better than me at least, subjecting yourself to that. I just have to deal with overdue books and computer problems.”

“I feel like that would be worse.” He grimaced.

Again, you laughed and shrugged. “I suppose. I think we can both agree that this profession is a hard one.”

He nodded. “I can agree with that.”

“Well, if you need anything, you know where to find me.” You winked before turning to leave. You then stopped and exclaimed, “Oh! I almost forgot! That book you wanted me to hold for you came back. I just need to check to make sure there’s no damage and I’ll check it out for you. It’ll be on your desk before the end of the day.”

“Thank you, Y/n.” He nodded. “I really appreciate it.”

“Of course. You’re very welcome.”

And with that, you scurried off. He couldn’t help but watch you leave before remembering why he was there. With a sigh and bright red cheeks, he went back to reading and grading essays.

You, on the other hand, were trying to hide behind the library desk as you fanned your face. Was it always so hot in here or was it just Wonwoo? You shook your head. No! You shouldn’t be thinking that! Of course it was because Wonwoo was here! You’ve had the biggest crush on him ever since he started teaching!

Normally, you would act on your feelings and tell him right away. However, you were forbidden from doing so. See, your big sister is the Big Boss of the mafia here in town. And her number one rule was to stay away from her business. You understood where she was coming from. It was for your protection and you were okay with staying away from any blood and gore she saw on a daily basis.

But it wasn’t fair when she recruited such hotties like Wonwoo!

With a small groan, you buried your face in your arms. What you wouldn’t give to be able to confess to him. Maybe he’d feel the same way and you two would date, fall in love, get married, live a long, happy, fulfilled life together, and be buried side-by-side. That would be perfect, in your opinion. But no. You had to stay away.

As if she was reading your mind, your phone started ringing, with the ID saying it was your sister. Letting out a long, slow breath, you answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey! How’s my favorite little sister?”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m your only little sister. And I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Curse you and your perceptiveness.” You sighed. “It’s nothing.”

She tsked. “No, no, no. You don’t get to use that excuse on me. Tell me what’s up.”

“You’re just going to get mad at me.” You muttered.

There was a stretch of silence before you heard her sigh. “It’s Wonwoo, isn't it?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you made him off-limits!”

“It’s for your protection!” She shot back. “I do a lot of bad, bad, bad things. I don’t want you also getting tangled up in it. What would our family say? What would your friends say? I know it’s not fair and I understand you can’t change your feelings for him, but could you try liking someone else?”

You sighed this time. “You know I can’t. I’ve tried. I’ve gone on so many dates and no guy has ever made me feel the same way as Wonwoo. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just destined to be alone.”

“Hey, don’t say that. We’ll figure it out.” She tried to reassure you, which didn’t work as well as she may have thought. “Look, I can talk to him tonight. See if he wants out. If he does, you’re more than welcome to pursue him. Will that help?”

Your shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I’ll try it anyway.” She replied. “Hey, don’t worry about it. We’ll figure this out. I promise. We are sisters after all and we can do anything.”

“Right. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

“Bye.”

You sighed once again as you ended the call. She just didn’t get it. Her boyfriend was in the mafia with her, so she didn’t have to worry about his protection. And your sister always mothered you more than your own mother did. Sure she worried a lot, but you were an adult now, dammit. You could make your own choices and decisions.

An idea sparked inside you. Yeah, you could make your own choices now. And you were going to, today, right after school.

As the school day came to a close, Wonwoo sighed and leaned back in his desk chair. Another day, another dollar. However that dollar came from doing mental gymnastics with his students who were hellbent on making his life dramatic. If it wasn’t excuses about late work, it was dumb questions that only teenagers would dream of asking. If it wasn’t that, it was about his crush on you, which he was never prepared to answer.

Wonwoo glanced over at the bag with the book you brought while he was out on his other planning period. He wished he was there to see you. He would have thanked you and gotten to talk to you again. He had been so busy lately, he hadn’t had a good chance to properly talk to you in a long time. But it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Any chance he could, he tried to seek you out. Though more often than not, it didn’t work out.

With another sigh, he gathered his things for his trip back to the mansion. He’d have work to do when he got there. It was best not to keep the Boss waiting. And besides, he’d probably forget about his feelings for you for a little while as he worked. That would be for the best, he thought.

As he headed to his motorcycle, Wonwoo was surprised to find you standing there, fiddling with your bag. What were you still doing here? Didn’t you have to get home?

He called out to you. “Hey. What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”

You shook your head. “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, okay.” He nodded.

“Wonwoo, I’ve been thinking.” You started, still trying to find the right words to express what you wanted to say. “We’ve known each other for quite awhile and I’d say we’re pretty good friends are we not?”

He nodded again. “Yes, I’d say so.”

“But I was thinking. Maybe, maybe the students are right. Maybe we are more than friends and we just don’t know it yet.” You averted your eye contact after saying that and your hands twitched with anxiety.

Wonwoo felt himself blush at your words. More than friends? Did you really think that? Or was the peer pressure from the kids getting to you? He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. He was starting to get annoyed by their constant nagging for him to ask you out already. But he didn’t like the idea that they may be bothering you. Perhaps he really did care for you more than he originally anticipated.

“Do you,” He started, feeling rather shy himself. “Do you, um, do you think we should be more than friends?”

Instantly, a torrent of words slipped past your lips. “Yes! I mean yes, I think we should. I really do care an awful lot about you Wonwoo and I see you in a different light than what friends should. What I mean is, well, to put it in juvenile terms, I like-like you. I think you’re an excellent teacher, a wonderful listener, and a compassionate person. I also think you’re very strong both mentally and physically. I would very much like to be more than friends with you, if you feel the same way.”

Wonwoo’s blush only darkened. He couldn’t believe his own words. After crushing on you for so long, it was so weird hearing you actually confess. And why was he frozen? Why wasn’t he saying anything? Why wasn’t he telling you exactly how he felt?

Shaking himself, he answered. “I think we should be more than friends too. I like-like you as well, Y/n. I really, really, really do.”

You let out a sigh and he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, that’s good to hear. However, there’s just one more problem we have to face.”

“And that is?”

“My sister is your boss.”

Wonwoo’s jaw dropped to the floor.

“What?”

You let out an embarrassed giggle. “Yeah, so I’ve known you’ve been in the mafia ever since you joined. I’ve, uh, known about you longer than you’ve known about me. I guess that’s kind of weird, huh?”

He let out a small huff, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Yeah, a little. But I don't mind all that much.”

“Well, the real issue is my sister doesn’t want me to date any of her crew. So our relationship is forbidden in her eyes.” You explained. “I talked to her today and she said she was willing to give you an out. But if you don’t want to leave your friends, we can work around this. It’ll be okay. I know we can figure something out.”

“A forbidden romance?” He mumbled and his smile grew. “I kind of like the sound of that. It sounds like something right out of a novel.”

You laughed. “I suppose so. But are you sure you’re okay with that?”

He nodded and put an arm around your shoulder to pull you in close. Resting his head on top of yours, he said. “Don’t worry about it too much. If she finds out, we’ll figure it out from there. For now, I’m just glad I can finally call you mine.”

“And I can call you mine.” You sighed. “And now I have a date for my sister’s wedding.”

“Wait. She proposed to Seungcheol already?!”

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felassan · 1 year

Text

Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -

"I imagine that the only way that broodmothers would remain in the game [DA:O] would be in a remaster. In a remake I'm sure they would make changes, I would be very surprised if they didn't. But in a remaster you can get away with a lot more. I think they would change their appearance. Also, there's been an effort to unify the look of the darkspawn a lot more, so." "You're never gonna see broodmothers, probably in any form, in the mainline games, definitely not in the form that they're in in DA:O. I don't think you'll ever see a broodmother again. I guarantee that you're not seeing broodmothers in any future Dragon Age thing. I would be very confident in that statement."

Chat commented "Male Desire demons on the other hand" and Mark replied that there is a concept art out there for male Desire demons.

Chat asked "If we won't get Broodmothers, do you think we'll get the original Archdemon design? The Tentacle Monster one?". Mark replied "Probably not the tentacle version for an Archdemon. I could see that being created as another monster or high level boss, but probably not as Archdemon because the, sort've, dragon as being part of an Archdemon is too intertwined in the lore at this point."

Chat commented "I just hope the Mythal death in DA:I was a fakeout". Mark said, "One thing with Mythal is that, Kate Mulgrew, as her stock has risen and fallen, her price has gone all over the place, so 'is Mythal gonna show up?' decisions will be partially based upon if she's priced herself out of the market or not. Though I think she actually was sad, based on the DA:I stuff, so maybe she'd be willing to do it on a little bit of a lower price. But I actually don't know, because is Orange Is the New Black still on the air? Her price may have come down again." "I mean definitely you can see, sometimes characters disappearing is because the voice actor became a pain to work with, or became expensive, those are definitely factors, no question."

Later on this topic chat asked "Would you say Laura Bailey is still in the affordable VA space? I know she's become a mega popular/busy thanks to CR, but she's always been VA first afaik." Mark replied "Depends, you can always sort've write less for them, if you can do it in one session you can kind've afford anybody, it's a question of how much they're gonna show up."

Chat asked "Do you agree with the criticism some people have that DA lore focuses too much on elves?" Mark said "Yeah, kind've, I think it sort've, it's not on purposes, the elves, they just kind've end up sneaking into everything it seems like. I think there's a recognition of the elves kind've being too present." "I don't think elves are going to disappear, I just think that they don't necessarily need to, one of the things that sort've constantly happened is that the stories ended up presenting the elves as, they keep sort've having them make just the worst decisions. So I suspect there's a goal to maybe make them not do that and then that would allow them to sort've rebalance with everyone else. It's also harder to get, dwarves kind've require a, they're either harder to integrate in, because they're off [over there], they're not just in a forest, you gotta go into a hole to talk to them, so they kind've always are gonna be less present unless you're doing something in the Deep Roads or Orzammar."

"It's always hard to kill off the protagonist. Always gonna get people who are against that but y'know [shrug]. I can certainly see the argument for killing off the Inquisitor in Trespasser".

Chat asked "Would it be more likely that we would be able to get answers to the more deep-fan stuff like The Calling etc by assuming those would be in DLC and not the main game of DA:D?" Mark replied "I don't imagine that there's gonna be a ton of, it's possible that you're gonna see that sort've stuff in DLC but I don't know what the live service plan is gonna be for DA:D to be honest because that was definitely, has been in flux over the course of DA:D, that's for sure."

[source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

[when party camp is ambushed by darkspawn] "That's one of the few times that we actually pay that off"

[during Leliana's party camp song] "Very impressive cinematic design. It shows off the age of the models in the close ups, but the long shots are really great." "They're desperately trying to get the lipsyncing to match and failing"

Chat asked "Any insight as to why class design was made so much stricter in DAII and DA:I? DA:O had dual wield warriors, rogues with swords, etc." Mark replied "In DAII and DA:I I think we were trying to make the roles more clear. DA:O is basically DnD with no clerics and the serial numbers filed off"

In later DA games they suppressed visual effects (like glowing auras from active skills) during conversations. "Probably for the best because I'm also having... weird glowing stuff coming off of me"

[when Dagna in Orzammar talks about a bunch of nerdy magic lore] Chat asked "When you made this part about dwarfs and lyrium, had you then made enough lore to know how it all worked? aka how the Descent in DA:I would play out? Not story, but lorewise." Mark replied "The lore, like the magic sources in DA:O are kind've a mess so there is, there's been an effort since DA:O to kind've draw them back together. There was an understanding of why dwarves didn't have magic in DA:O, so kind've." Chat followed up "'Like theres four sources [of magic]: Fade, Blood, Lyrium, Blight?" and Mark said "Yeah, that's sort've the problem. You've got lyrium, you've got the Fade, you've got the Blight, you've got blood magic, you've also got some other, sort've genericized stuff where it's not explained. So from my perspective you kind've wanna collapse that down. You either want magic to just generally be from everything, which a lot of settings do, or you want it to have a somewhat unified source or sources, so you can see that there's like, things have been slowly drawn into a more common metaphysical explanation over the last two games."

Chat asked "I'm not sure when you came on to the DA:O project, but do you know which of the origins was the last to be added? Were any kind of 'last minute afterthoughts'?" Mark said "The actual truth is we cut an origin. There was an origin for the Avvar as well that got cut, so there was supposed to be two elves, two dwarves, two humans and then mage, but we cut the Avvar for time." "I actually really like the idea of us having implemented at least one faction where you come up with the Treaties and they're like 'good to go, just let us get our stuff'. That could've been the Avvar, as well"

"I think that lyrium will eventually drive a dwarf mad. I think that's established canon." "I would say that just because lyrium drives you mad doesn't mean that dwarves would stop using it. It only slightly drives you mad. Certainly there are lots of examples in [irl] history of people continuing to use things that are very bad for them because they're convenient or cheap."

"I've always wondered about dwarves, I mean you're burning big fires in the middle of a cave, and everyone's living together, it does seem like you're gonna run out of breathable air pretty quickly"

Chat asked "Were you involved much in the class design aspect of the game?" and Mark said "With DA:O? Not too much. When I took over, the game was largely design-locked. There was content still being created but most of the game design was done well before I took over"

Mass Effect 1's combat was aspiring to be something it was failing to reach

Chat mentioned that Citadel was a fan service/love letter DLC. Mark said "Citadel in ME is definitely, you're absolutely right, it's definitely a 'please stop being mad at us' piece of DLC." "I don't even know if it hit its profitability goals"

"The asari in ME didn't succeed at being a parody of the 'green space babes' trope. ME races are like Star Trek races, they're all defined by a relatively small number of characteristics. If they're attempting to be parodies of those kinds of races in something like Star Trek they are not succeeding at doing that. It's hard to imagine that you're succeeding at making a commentary about it when you're basically just doing the same thing. If you're using the codexes to talk about how well executed they are then it's not coming through in the main game, if that's what's required."

[source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #mass effect

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robotnik-mun · 5 months

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Once again, it is time for that rare moment where I talk about Deltarune instead of Sonic stuff. And today, I've decided to talk about one of the many mysteries of the setting.

Namely... what did Asgore DO?

One of the constants kept over from Undertale in Deltarune was the sad reality that Asgore is still divorced from Toriel, and their post-divorce relationship is... less than ideal, with Asgore desperately trying to get back into Toriel's good graces and Toriel being none-too-thrilled about it. And its pretty clear that whatever happened in the divorce, it's taken a pretty bad toll on Asgore. It's implied he doesn't have visitation rights, and no longer lives in the same house as Tori, instead living in his flower shop. And his present state of living is just... almost too depressing for words.

So yeah, things are not looking great for ol' Asgore. But that does beg the question- what happened THIS time? Recall that in Undertale, Toriel's hostility to Asgore was predicated on both him murdering six children as well as basically getting everyone's hopes up for who-knows-how-long rather than taking one soul and going straight to business after escaping the Underground. How justified she is is going to be the subject of endless debate, now and forever, but at the core of things in Undertale its pretty clear that this hostility comes from some VERY grim circumstances.

Given the more comparatively mundane nature of Hometown and the Light World, its pretty clear that whatever circumstances led to Toriel and Asgore divorcing couldn't be anywhere near as horrible as what happened in Undertale. There's no fantastic circumstance here- Monsters live on the surface as humans do (that we know of), and while Asgore is not exactly held in high regard by Hometown these days, he none the less leads a free, if somewhat depressing life.

So again, what happened here? Why is it that Asgore is still divorced?

As it stands, with everything else, we only got two chapters to go by, and as such we need to work with a LOT of contextual clues to try and piece together even a vague idea of how things reached this point.

And believe it or not, one the key bits of insight we have? Is none other than Rudy Holiday.

Rudy is established as having been friends with Toriel and Asgore in college, and is all but stated to have been Asgore's best man at their wedding, and even in the present is still close to the both of them even though they are no longer together. Out of all the people we talk to in Hometown, Rudy is the one with the most positive stuff to say about Asgore, and Asgore recipricates this by visiting Rudy in the hospital daily, with new flowers for each visit. And while we don't witness it for ourselves, it is revealed that Toriel ALSO visits Rudy and is implicitly close to him as well, with Rudy even suspecting that Kris' visit was done at Toriel's prompting (and sadly probably WOULD be if we weren't using them as a meat-puppet).

This might not seem like such a big deal, but I feel it reveals something very crucial about what might have happened, if only in the abstract. It tells me that whatever happened? While it was serious enough to prompt the divorce and cause Toriel to no longer love Asgore, it WASN'T bad enough that Rudy doesn't think ill of Asgore, or enough to cause Toriel to no longer wish to associate with Asgore or Rudy with her. He bears no malice to anyone in the Dreemurr family, and this is an important detail, because it would seem extremely improbable that things between the three of them would be this hunky-dory if Asgore really did do something legitimately terrible.

Which, admittedly, isn't impossible... but it does feel unlikely, under the circumstances we presently see.

Given the way Dark Worlds reflect something of Lightners, some have suggested that maybe the Card Kingdom just as easily reflects something of Kris as it does Susie. While King mirrors Susie's earlier statements, one cannot help but notice that King is an enormous, pseudo-mammalian king with a hefty build, almost like a warped mirror of Asgore. And that comparison becomes all the more concerning when you consider how, as we go on, its revealed that Kris was once a very mischievous little kid... one can imagine that, perhaps, Kris was very much like Lancer, once upon a time. And if that's the case, then maybe it’s not a coincidence that King threatened both Lancer AND Kris directly.

It's a tempting thought... and oh, the warped implications it would carry, given that in Chapter Two its revealed that King wasn't going to go through with his threat and actually CARES about Lancer, despite earlier evidence to the contrary? Now THAT would imply some ugly-ass things about Kris' thoughts and feelings about their father. Or Susie's, if you believe the Card Kingdom is primarily 'meant' for her. It does make an eerie amount of sense, does it not?

Only... not quite. It’s tempting to think Asgore might have done something to Kris in a moment of weakness, but honestly? I really, really doubt it. Because let's face it, if Asgore had hurt or done something out line with Kris? It's incredibly doubtful that Toriel would ever allow Kris to get anywhere NEAR Asgore, and Rudy likewise would probably have little to do with Asgore over something like that. Oh, sure, friends will stick with friends, but that feels like something not even Rudy could overlook. And then there's the whole 'Eggs-Husband' incident...

... God that was painful. Like, kudos to Toby Fox, I don't think I've EVER felt that kind of secondhand embarrassment from a piece of media ever. It really was just a masterpiece of utter and complete failure. Still, it's important in helping to frame where everyone stands in this divorce, because while Toriel does try to get away from Asgore as fast as possible after his disastrous attempt at punnery (and who could blame her?), she none the less is willing to hear him out when he wants to talk about Asriel's return (possibly about the divorce itself).

It's important to note that, again, context is key here. Earlier in Chapter 1 its established that Asgore keeps sending Toriel flowers, which inevitably wind up in the trash, and likewise she rebuffs his deeply ill-conceived attempt to re-connect with her at Sans' store. But from what we see so far, it may not necessarily be that Toriel hates Asgore, so much that he refuses to get a clue about where they stand and persists in these self-sabotaging attempts to curry her favor. While the problem might be rooted in whatever happened in the past, it’s pretty clear that a BIG part of that is due to Asgore's present behavior. How do we know this? Because she still hears him out when he ISN'T trying to get into her good graces.

I feel that if Asgore had done something to Kris, or done something REALLY bad? Then he wouldn't even get that much. As it stands we don't know enough to say for sure, and all we can do is look at how people act and try and come up with some idea of things, but I'm willing to bet that while Asgore made some kind of serious misstep? He didn't do something unforgivable... just something severe enough that it would justify Toriel leaving him, with his refusal to let go simply making things that much worse over time given that its clear Tori CAN be civil with him. He just makes it difficult due to his overbearing and embarassing behavior... again, we can only infer things, but I do feel like a large part of Toriel's hostility stems from Asgore's inability to back off more than anything else, even the events that caused the divorce.

I can of course, be wrong, about all of this. We have only two chapters and nothing else to go by. But there is one last piece of this puzzle that I think offers an even better insight into why things happened as they happened- the reveal that Asgore used to be the chief of Homedown's police department, and that he was made to step down under unknown circumstances, hence why Undyne, a rookie, is now Hometown's police chief. We don't know what happened yet, but whatever did happen? Kris doesn't like to read about it, keeping Us from seeing what happened. It could be because they don't want us prying into their family's business just in general, but there's also a really good chance that it may be simple guilt that keeps them from reading the rest of that article.

And from here, we can paint a pretty compelling picture of what may have happened. As we know, Dess Holiday, Rudy's oldest daughter and Asriel's childhood best friend, went missing under mysterious circumstances. Dess' mother is mayor of Hometown, and its strongly hinted that whatever happened, DEss is now trapped somewhere in the Dark World (or worse), and other hints seem to indicate that Kris might in fact be aware of this, and its hinted that this event may have occurred near the mysterious bunker in the forest that Kris is explicitly afraid of. More interestingly, schoolmates Snowy and Monster Kid seem to be aware of this fact as well, which brings some interesting implications of itself.

Either way, with these details we can imagine a very probable chain of events for how things went down- Kris and Dess did something or the other at the Bunker, which led to Dess possibly being whisked away to the Dark World. Asgore, as police chief, is tasked with finding Dess. His inability to find Dess leads to him being fired by her mother, the mayor, and this would probably lead to the personal troubles at home that would lead to him eventually being divorced from Toriel and living on his own. This seems to be the general consensus among fan-interpretations, and honestly? It seems pretty probable that this, or something like this, is how the divorce went down... and maybe why Kris is the way Kris is, in the present.

There is however an interesting little wrinkle in this formula, though out of everything I mentioned, this one is possibly the longest shot. Earlier in the game when we explore Asgore's store, we find a very terse note from his landlord telling him point blank that he has a month to pay the rent, even suggesting he start selling the flowers rather than giving them away. All that we know about this landlord is that their first initial is "C". So, where does the long shot come in? There is a possibility that "C" is none other than Mayor Holiday, Rudy's wife and Dess' mother, and previously Asgore's boss. What evidence do we have to suggest this? Mayor Holiday is described as being very good at her job while also not being great with people, and is evidently very driven and intimidating, so much so that Noelle is actively afraid of her. The way the note is written is not very formal, nor is it very sociable either... and there are more than a few Christmas related terms that start with "C". A lot of the fandom seems to have settled on "Carol".

Again, this could be a long shot, one built entirely by conjecture. But if this "C" is indeed mayor holiday? That's where the wrinkle comes in. Because if Mayor Holiday is willing to give Asgore a business and overlook past failures to pay the rent, then it may be that his leaving the force wasn't JUST because of his failing to find Dess... or rather, if Mayor Holiday had any part of it, it actually wasn't out of personal anger at him failing to find her daughter. If "C" is Mayor Holiday, then in this context it means that whatever (probably negative) feelings she has towards Asgore, they're not enough to stop her from trying to help him get back on his feet. You might argue that if she IS involved in his flower shop venture it might be more due to Rudy than her, but then if Rudy has this much sway over her, she wouldn't have fired Asgore for not being able to find Dess.

Granted, there's always the 'Dying Wish' factor, though we don't know how long Rudy's been sick...

But still- firing someone for a personal reason would be a VERY bad breach of ethics, and from what we've seen (or haven't) of the mayor so far is that whatever her personality flaws, she isn't actually corrupt or anything. Hometown is so peaceful and orderly that the police force isn't really regarded as necessary! Quite the accomplishment... and firing Asgore for personally failing her would be the kind of conflict of interest that could jeopardize those accomplishments, understandable as it might be in this instance.

So, what would this imply for Asgore and his leaving the force? I believe that while Dess vanishing was the catalyst for everything, it wasn't the direct cause of Asgore losing everything. I imagine that failing to find Dess for an undetermined amount of time weighed heavily on Asgore, given that this is his best friend's daughter, a daughter who is the best friend of Asriel at that.

My hypothesis, as such? Is that Asgore's failing to find Dess slowly ate away at him, and that this caused things at home to get tense, before his eventual desperation led him to do something he shouldn't have, thus leading to him being removed from the force, and leading to further troubles at home, culminating in him saying or doing SOMETHING that led Toriel to divorce him.

I don't have any authority to definitively suggest what it might have been. But I DO feel confident that if Dess' disappearance had anything to do with Asgore's dismissal from the force? It wasn't as simple as the mayor being angry with him and removing him due to that anger, but because of something Asgore himself did in reaction to his own failure at finding Dess, and that this in turn led to whatever would happen to cause his divorce from Toriel. I believe this, because while Asgore has fallen on very hard times, the worst of what he's going through is due to his own poor choices that we can see, and however pitiful his current state, he isn't alienated/exiled from the people in his life. And if he had done something REALLY bad? I don't think that would be the case.

Of course, I can be wrong. Heck, I probably am. We only got two games to go by, and as such virtually everything I say is ultimately just conjecture, some a bit more supported by game text, and some less. But whatever the reality is? I'm VERY confident that Asgore didn't do anything evil... but it was still enough to cost him everything. Given the themes going on in the light world, it'd make sense that rather than anything big or dramatic, the truth just turned out to be something simple, unglamorous, and quietly sad.

Just like in real life, a lot of the time.

#Deltarune #Asgore Dreemurr #Dess Holiday #Kris Dreemurr #Mayor Holiday #Rudy Holiday #Toriel

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jq37 · 3 months

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 2

Bad News Parade

Welcome back to the Night Yorb Fight y’all! Like a true finale, this is a monster sized fight split into two parts. When we last left off, Fig had just reached out to some strange power to keep the Hangvan from flipping as they inched closer to their fleeing foe. But the Night Yorb was also about to enter a portal and fulfill its win condition! Let’s go back to bullets for the second half of this fight:

Adaine uses Bigby’s Hand (flavored to look like Riz’s ringed Mage Hand) to grab the Night Yorb and halt its movement, making Gorgug’s job a lot easier and doing some damage as well.

Gorgug (with help from Adaine’s SECOND nat 1 portent) reels in the Night Yorb so it’s on top of them, but not yet bloodied so the sigilists can’t quite trap it yet.

Kristed does a little extra damage with Toll The Dead, getting it right over the line to bloodied and then hits everyone except for Fig with a Mass Healing Word.

Adaine goes down (despite the fact that she has Mirror Image up) and Fig once again keeps her from falling off the roof. Her Bigby’s Hand disappears but it's done its job.

Brennan says that the Night Yorb is very close to the portal and they essentially have one turn to defeat it or it’ll escape. Crunch time!

Riz succeeds in hitting a rock with his grappling gun with the goal of tying it to the van and getting it to stop gunning it but does a subpar job at tying the other end to the Hangvan so the tether is weak. Fabian gives an overwrought goodbye to Ecaf before jumping out of the van to try and reinforce the tie and he GETS RUN OVER AGAIN with a Nat 1. He has a PLUS THIRTEEN to athletics and this has happened TWICE IN ONE FIGHT. Amazing. He takes 22 damage but the Hangman picks him up again.

The Night Yorb does a windstorm attack that Riz avoids but everyone else takes damage from. Adaine is unconscious so she gets a death save fail automatically. Fig and Adaine are thrown from the top of the van (Gorgug stays up). Kristen loses Circle of Power and Bless. Ecaf shatters (though Fabian doesn’t see cause he’s outside). Boggy and Baby disappear.

To make matters worse, the Yorbies chant the Night Yorb’s name and heal it to above bloodied again.

Fabian goes down due to some Yorbie attacks but stays in the saddle of the Hangvan.

Riz, because he can’t stop, tries to do a hard turn and fails, but manages to roll high enough to keep the van from flipping. BUT, Brenan says he can elect to fail if he wants so he does, reasoning that it might hurt the Night Yorb AND make it easier for sigilists to access the sigil on top of the van. And hey, the Night Yorb is gonna escape in one turn anyway. Might as well go for broke.

With the van flipped, Kristen takes enough damage to go down. Only Fig, Gorgug, and Riz are still up.

However, even with resistance, the Night Yorb takes enough damage that it is bloodied again!

Gorgug tries to do the sigil and fails. Fig tries next and gets a Nat 20 against the Night Yorb’s Nat 1! More importantly, her deception beats Gorgug’s insight so she’s able to do it subtly enough to make Gorgug think HE did it. (Riz sees what really happened but Fig swears him to secrecy) Truly the greatest wizard of our age.

The Night Yorb is defeated and turns into a sick mural on the top of the Hangvan that glows in the dark (thanks production crew!) The sun has returned! Photosynthesis is back baby!

That feels like it should be the end of the fight, right? But no. What follows is a like 20 minute slog where Brennan makes them pick off the remaining Yorbies as they bake in the oppressive heat of the desert. They really want the Night Yorb to be a load bearing baddie whose minions disappear once he’s gone but nope. They have to do the tedious dirty work. They might not be able to fast forward through it, but I can:

Everyone down is brought back up.

Gorgug rolls a Nat 20 investigation about Balthazar and so I guess his shadow or soul or whatever is in the van mural now too? Sure.

Cassandra has texted Fig “Is Kristen mad at me?” 20 times in a row.

They try and get a Yorbie to just give up and they’ll get him a job at Basrar’s but even with a 38 persuasion he doesn’t take the deal and Fabian stabs him to death. Too bad dude. You coulda been the next Jawbone!

Cassandra asks Kristen how the battle went but Kristen ignores her.

Two guys pop out of nowhere to continue fighting them and Murph loses his mind. This isn’t plot relevant but Murph broke down so hard I can’t not mention it. So tactical, so late.

You really get the sense of exhaustion that all the kids feel in having to continue to fight long after their hearts are no longer in it (except for Riz, who’s having a blast). Everyone describes how they’re doing physically and it is NOT good. Fabian has full tire marks on him from being run over (TWICE). Once cleanup is over, they talk about what they would have done for the summer if they hadn’t been forced on this Night Yorb quest. Adaine wanted to get a job–now she’ll have no pocket money for the semester. Fabian was accepted to a great dance camp but obviously he couldn’t go. Gorgug wanted to work on the van. But Riz is excited that they got to spend the summer together. (Which, aww buddy).

The job is done but they now have 48 hours to book it back to Solace if they don’t wanna miss the first day. It’s a pretty frantic road trip experience, where someone has to be driving at all times and everyone is surviving on gas station snacks.

They finally make it back to Elmville with only a couple of hours to spare and they’re met with memories from their first adventure ever. The place where they found the first palimpsest and the garage where they spied on Johnny Spells. Across from the garage is a diner and they decided to step in and get some real food, even though they’re so close to home. Daisy Cubby is their waitress and she greets them cheerily and congratulates them for completing their quest before bringing them all various dishes that feature ice cream and cottage cheese heavily.

One detail I neglected to mention: after the fight, Fabian asked where Ecaf was and, to spare him the heartbreak of her shattering, they lied and said she was a turncoat the whole time. As they’re about to split up, Fabian, forlorn, asks if she said anything about him before she left and they all hype him up with, “You were too good for her bro,” nonsense in a coordinated friend lie that Fabian totally buys. He leaves the conversation VERY hyped and feeling himself like he wasn’t mooning over a MIRROR yesterday.

(Also, plot twist, as soon as he’s gone, they realize that they can actually mend the mirror, which bring Ecaf back who absolutely didn’t actually betray them. They all agree that it’s better that Fabain ISN’T kissing a mirror though so they just stick her in Adaine’s jacket with the attitude of ‘Yikes! Hope that doesn’t bite us in the butt later!’ Then they all pinky promise to never tell Fabian.)

And now, let’s head into a beloved Fantasy High tradition: splitting up and seeing what’s going on at everyone’s individual houses! Fabian gets home first so let’s start with him.

Fabian

Fabian gets to Seacaster manor and finds that he’s made it home just in time to see off his mom and Gilear who are headed off on a month long vacation. Apparently, Gilear finally proposed and, in a twist a fortune (that’s so suspicious that we’re gonna talk about it later) he won a several months long cruise. They’re going to roll that into a longer vacation so Fabin is going to have the fun of the manor while they’re gone. Fabian, to his credit, is emotionally mature to say, “Good on you, Gilear” about the proposal instead of having a fit about being related to him, but, though he tries to hide it, it’s clear that he’s pretty bummed that he came all the way home just for a quick goodbye and an empty house. Not even his mom’s announcement that because he turned 18 on the road, some of his trust funds have become available to him making him even more flush with cash does anything to make him feel any better.

HIlariel gives Fabian a business card in case he wants to talk to his trust fund manager. Then, she leaves in a flurry of cheek kisses and Fabian is left alone in his cavernous mansion. Brennan drives home the point by making him roll to find his fridge and some glasses so he can pour himself a glass of milk.

Also, I said he was alone but, technically he’s not. In addition to the mound of regular presents left in his room, there’s also some pirates in some parallels who will sing Happy Birthday to him when he opens them. And they’re paid for for the whole year. There really is a subscription service for everything now, huh?

Riz

Next up is Riz who Gorgug drops off at Strongtower Luxury Apartments.Riz finds that his mom has fallen asleep reading legal books because she is NOT a cop anymore and Brennan REALLY needs you to know that. Riz sees that she has a yarn board going and when she wakes up (happy to see him of course) she tells him she’s been working on a case defending one of the organizers of the Frosty Fair Folk Festival (a kind of sylvan music festival) from embezzlement.

But she wants to talk about him! She likes the new look and says it reminds her of his dad. And Riz is very excited to tell her about the end of the battle and the two guys who popped out (so tactical, so late). Unfortunately, Sklonda is forced to dip into uncomfortable family conversation mode. Even though she fought really hard, she’s not gonna be able to keep her police pension. That’s gonna make college or any other post-Aguefort plans tricky for Riz. He might have to beef up his applications with sports or extracurriculars or something.

Riz, ever the problem solver, tells Sklonda not to worry because, actually, he thrives under pressure. In fact, figuring this out isn’t even the hard part. The hard part is that he has to figure out which college ALL of his friends can get into because he has to look out for everybody and he and Adaine have great grades but everyone else, woof. Sklonda has the vibe of a parent whose kid is so sweet and so about to be hit by a dose of reality, but she encourages him to get ready because Junior Year is crunch time. It almost feels like that warning is for us too.

Instead of going to bed, Riz starts working on his own yarn board: college admissions edition.

Gorgug

After dropping off Riz, Gorgug makes it to the tree where his parents (whose new character card hilariously have they/them pronouns because they’re a matching set) greet him, congratulate him, and ask about the mission.

They’re so excited to have a new little (well, big) Artificer in the house (since he’s gonna officially start taking Artificer classes this semester in addition to Barb classes) and are very impressed with the solar lasso he made. They immediately know all the technical workings behind it and Gorgug, who has more practical skill and intuition than technical knowhow, self-deprecates that he just did his best.

Like all the homecomings so far, there’s a tinge of sadness: apparently Zelda’s dad dropped by with a box of Gorgug’s stuff. Seems they’re not a thing anymore though she says hey and he says hey back so it’s cordial if awkward. But, let’s be real, they were super awkward when they were together too.

There’s some other news. The Folk Festival that Riz’s mom mentioned is being held near Gorgug’s birthday and the Thistlesprings are hosting it at the tree. And also, some thick envelopes have come from school that they haven’t opened because they’ve been waiting for Gorgug to get home. Gorgug has had a long day though so they decide to open them together tomorrow.

Adaine, Fig, and Kristen

The girls all live together at Mordred Manor so we’ll do them all together. When they get home, Sandra Lynn, Jawbone, Ragh, his mom Lydia, and Zayn are all there to greet the party with a hastily made birthday cake since they missed celebrating birthdays while on the road. The girls are emotional and grateful and so so tired so they decide the plan is cake and then bed because school is in like four hours. They’re told they can skip if they want and the idea is appealing to Fig and Kristen but not Adaine who actually likes the first day of school. So it’s probably not surprising when Jawbone pulls Fig and Kristen into a sidebar to say that they’re dangerously close to being expelled. Fig doesn’t go to any of her classes and Kristen straight up let her god DIE. The school doesn’t even know that she picked up a third god because she never registered Cass!

Kristen says that she feels kinda unmoored and like she’s just jumping from life preserver to life preserver and Fig says that if she goes to any class more than twice she basically loses interest. Jawbone is super supportive and says that if school isn’t for them, they can totally just drop out, but that they need to figure out what it is they want.

They ask if saving the world doesn’t count for a few class credits and Jawbone says that they could probably talk Aguefort into that but, continuing the parade of nasty surprises, Aguefort isn’t going to be their principal this year because he’s going on vacation with Ayda and won’t be back until the end of the school year. Specifically, they’re time traveling to the past and not only does Ayda hate that she has to go, she thinks it’s super dumb that they can’t just return to the moment they left. She’s right (even though Aguesfort insists it doesn't work that way--this is clearly beef Brennan personally has with time travel media). They’re specifically going to study the “time quangle”, a weird, magical, chronomancy phenomenon that makes time go screwy. Is this a simple hand wave for continuity blips between seasons or a stealth plot point that will help us later? Only time will tell!

Fig actually knew about this trip, but she thought she’d get back with enough time to say goodbye to Ayda at least–rest assured, they’re still together (which we already knew due to what I assume is Fig’s Armor of Agathys being flavored to Armor of Ayda and her activating it in the fight by saying ‘My Girlfriend says hello!”). And Ayda is as sweet as ever. Though she’s not in the episode proper, she left a message for Fig in the past that manifested as trilobite fossils in the present day manor’s lawn: Miss you. Love you. XOXO Ayda. Cute!

But the cuteness is followed by even MORE bad news! Adaine is still broke because her mom is technically still alive so she has no access to her inheritance. Fig’s in deep debt with her record label because she never delivered her second album and also she had to cancel her tour because of adventuring. She has a deadline to deliver the next album by the new year and she doesn’t have that much written. And on top of THAT, devils have been looking for her because, if you recall, she’s technically an archdevil which isn’t just a cool title. It’s a job with responsibilities she hasn’t been fulfilling.

But everyone is exhausted. They can deal with everything in the morning. Kristen asks if she can do a career test with Jawbone the next day because she doesn’t really vibe with school but she doesn’t know what else to do and he of course agrees.

Kristen then meets up with Ragh who just got back from helping Tracker with her whole missionary trip where she’s been rehabbing the moon goddess’s image to be less high elf haughty and more down to earth. He’s being potentially scouted by some bloodrush teams (go Ragh!). More big picture interesting though, he wants to know if Tracker can reach out to her. And here, we get confirmation of what, imo, has been pretty apparent since Kristen’s new character art dropped: Tracker and Kristen are broken up. Ragh has some insider info from traveling with her and is willing to share but Kristen is too overwhelmed to hear it right now. Here’s her plan: Tomorrow, she’ll take a career test with Jawbone and figure out her whole life, the day after that Ragh will tell her what he knows about Tracker, and THEN he can tell Tracker she can reach out. Ragh seems skeptical at the efficiency of that timetable, but he agrees.

Adaine goes up to her room and finds it empty aside from Zayn who tells her that Aelwyn moved out over the summer. All traces of her sister aren’t gone however because the walls have been painted with beautiful abjurative runes and there’s a present and a note left for her. The present is lembas bread cake pops–a Falinel favorite–and a key to her new apartment in Clearbook (their old neighborhood). The note says that Adaine is welcome at her apartment at any time, provided she texts ahead, and that she should enjoy the nemesis ward, which is what the runes are. Apparently, they’re a spell bad guys usually do to be like, “No one can touch my nemesis but me!” It doesn’t allow anyone to attack the person it’s cast on unless they first defeat the caster. In this case, the clear message is, “Even if I’m not there, no one can touch you without coming through me.” Aww! A long way from, “My bitch of a sister.” Adaine says Aelwyn always had a sense of humor before zonking out.

Fig goes to her bed and cuddles with the rock message from Ayda (ow) but she’s soon disturbed as her stomach once again gurgles painfully (double ow). She’s reminded of the strange magic she used during the fight and seeks out her mom for guidance. She tells Sandra Lynn that she’s worried she might have made a deal with a devil and asks if there’s a devil of acid reflux. Sandra Lynn is a little confused but then notices that Fig has spilled something on her shirt–cottage cheese from the diner. Fig remembers her very dairy heavy post-midnight meal and figures that’s why she feels sick. Her mom gives her a quick supportive pep talk about how she was also kind of a hellion as a teen and then Fig goes to bed…or she tries. As soon as she goes down the stairs, she steps directly into a bucket of cement (left there because of home renovations) and rips her fishnet stocking from Doreen! Bummer! And unlucky. So suspiciously unlucky that we’ll talk about it later.

And we close off with Kristen who’s making a classic teen mistake: Checking an ex’s social media post-breakup. Tracker is, by all accounts, doing fantastic. Her latest post has 40k likes. She has double the followers from last time Kristen checked. Whoever is handling her socials is doing a GREAT job making her look cool as she does miracles and fights monsters. And, there’s even a picture of her with a beautiful elven maiden sitting on her lap while she speaks. Her movement, the Wolfsong revival, is the most exciting thing to happen to the stodgy elven city in ages.

Cassandra asks how their social media is doing and the answer is not great. The only followers are Craig (Cass’s one non-Kisten convert), a bot, and most but not all of the other Bad Kids (Fabian opted out).

Cassandra tells Kristen that it’s OK and she understands that she’s been going through a lot–but as she says this she’s wincing and speaking in a very pained way. Cass suddenly gasps in pain and Kristen sees “a little ribbon of red and something sharp move through her body.” Kristen is concerned but even with a 28 Insight roll, all she gets is that “Something hurt her”. Ominous!

But the goddess doesn’t even mention it. “It's okay,” she says softly. “You know, I might only have... I might only have two followers, but it's better than Yes!, right?" She vanishes, and Kristen falls asleep. Personally, I think that would haunt me the rest of the night but I’ve never fought a Night Yorb and then had to drive for 48 straight hours so hey, what do I know?

Detention

All of the Bad Kids (Minus Fabian) for Banishing Ecaf to Adaine’s Jacket and Lying to Fabian

Listen, just because they’re here, doesn’t mean I don’t get why they did it, lol.

Honor Roll

Ayda for Sending Fig A Fossilized Love Letter

She may not be in the episode physically, but she’s MVP status while stuck on vacation with her dad. So sweet!

Random Thoughts

It is so funny how casual everyone in Elmville is about the sun having been fully gone for several months. Like, same shit as usual. But also this is the SECOND time that these SPECIFIC kids have messed w/ the sun so like, it really is business as usual.

I skipped over this in the recap but Moggy the Doggy absolutely eviscerates one of the Yorbies while Adaine is down. Cute and vicious! Just like Adaine.

One thing about Brennan is that he WILL mention unions at the drop of a hat.

Ally’s “Hey Girlie” as Kristen tries to put the mirror in Adaine’s pocket and also get it out will haunt me forever.

Fascinated about what airport security looks like in this world. Is a sword at your side just chill?

Is Cathilda in the manor with Fabian or is he fully alone? She never came up so I’m wondering if she’s been taken away as well.

Everyone but Riz got a beloved NPCs taken away from easy access (Aelwyn is still pretty accessible to be fair, but across town is less accessible than in the bunk bed over you). Obviously, this fits the theme of this season and paves the way for introducing new NPCs. But of course because we’re here to go full Pepe Silvia, I have to at least wonder if it could possibly be part of an in-game plot to isolate the bad kids. My brain says that it’s not because these are all very normal reasons to have people leave your life (except maybe the cruise which is kinda wild). But anything’s possible and I’ve been wrong before. So just want that on the record.

Ditto about the Time Quangle. It very easily could just be a way to smooth over the continuity of something that wasn’t supposed to be longer than one season initially. That’s what would make the most sense. However, I watched The Good Place like everyone else. I’ve missed clues because of assuming weirdness was just due to conventions of the genre. So I’ll be on Quangle-Watch as well.

That Folk Festival came up twice–once with Sklonda and once with the Thistlesprings–so I’m curious to see where that goes. First eps usually set up a ton of the major conflicts for the season so anything mentioned twice is something to remember.

Brennan also mentions the trust business card twice which makes me wonder if there’s something important there. Wouldn’t be the first time important banking was a theme in this show.

OK, so Gilear and Fig switched luck for sure, right? When her mom said she spilled something on her shirt I immediately was like oh no. The Gilearification of Fig. That seems to be the effect but what would be the cause? Some kind of equivalent exchange for twisting fate? A demon who likes fucking with people? It would be one thing if she was just being Gilearified, but Gilear is getting lucky too. First the cruise then the 10% off the taxi to the airport? We don’t have a ton of dots to connect yet, but I’m watching this storyline with interest. Is this the storyline enticing enough for Emily to play Fig again? Also, assuming I’m right about what’s happening, I bet Fig is gonna be lowkey happy Ayda isn’t around to watch this happen.

Zelda/Gorgug break up. Well, at least Sam is happy wherever she is. This one wasn’t as obvious as the Kristen/Tracker breakup but I can’t say I’m shocked. In The Seven, Zelda gets her GED so it would make sense that they’d be wary to go long distance. (Of course, the timeline of that is wonky but, just gonna assume that’s being handwaved by the quangle for now).

Lol at Fig throwing Kristen under the bus (“I feel like Kristen's in a lot worse shape than I am.”) during the talk with Jawbone.

Also Fig saying she’s taken “two fistfuls” of Barbarian classes. Emily, the things that exit your mouth. Chef’s kiss.

Aelwyn Abernant my beloved. OK, you know I have Aelwyn thoughts. Here they are in no particular order:

The Nemesis Ward is such a great detail. So sweet. So dramatic and performative. So Aelwyn. (And, mechanically, fantastic reason to see her again…)

Middle school teacher? She’s a middle school teacher? That’s insane on multiple levels. First of all, just on the face of it: Bitchiest person you know working with small children. Incredible. Did Jawbone just say, “Idk working at a school fixed my entire life so maybe try that?” Second of all, it’s crazy she has a job AT ALL. Did she even graduate high school? Also, I know she’s not mind broken anymore because she reset her brain but even vanilla Aelwyn needs SO MUCH therapy before she should be doing any job, let alone one with kids. And it’s only been like what? A couple of months? Does she have any teaching certifications? Does Elmville just like their school personnel rough around the edges? She’s like 19 and a war criminal. I know Antiope’s sister is a teacher there too and also pretty young but she’s not a *war criminal*. Is she nice to the kids? If so, is she nice-nice or mean-nice? What is the vibe? Brennan PLEASE let us see what Aelwyn in a classroom setting looks like I’m begging you.

Five cats? Aelwyn. Five of them? Are they all just regular ass rescue cats? Is one of them her familiar? Do you really want Adaine to text ahead because you might have guests or is it so you can Prestidigitation away the mess from your FIVE CATS.

OK, Aelwyn thoughts over…for now.

I know that just because you have money it doesn’t mean all your friends’ money issues are suddenly your responsibility but it really seems to me like Fabian could solve a lot of problems for Riz and Adaine very casually.

For a hot second, I was a little surprised that Gorgug had a toothbrush at Zelda’s house but then I remembered how laissez faire her parents are to the point of *wanting* her to do “rebellious” teen things. So that fully checks out lol.

These players are more patient than me because you wouldn’t catch me opening letters later or asking about Tracker later. If you dangle info in front of me, I want it NOW, in-character exhaustion be damned.

Speaking of Tracker: Wild speculation time. What if the reason Tracker wants to talk to Kristen isn’t about Kristen so much as is it about Cass? Because their goddesses are sisters, right? Maybe now that Galicaea has presumably mellowed a bit from having an influx of non-traditional high elf followers, she’s curious about what’s up with her baby sister.

Love the “Happy birthday/Happy death day,” exchange between Adaine and Zayn. I really hope we get more of him this season!

Fig ripping that hairnet fishnet stocking that she’d had since like, episode 2 or 3 really feels like an indication of the, “Everything’s changing this season,” vibes Brennan is putting out.

Brennan phrases the thing that hurt Cassandra as, “a little ribbon of red” which wouldn’t be notable except for the fact that the last time ribbons came up in this show is was because Kristen did something so iconically stupid and thoughtless that she almost died (Ribbon Dance as an attempt to fly, never forget). I wonder if this is another dumb bit to serious symbol situation, like with Riz and Baron. If you want to symbolize Kristen’s thoughtless actions having consequences that are harmful, that’s one way to do it.

In the promo for next week, Kristen says that Cass is a “hard sell” because of her domains but I honestly thing a goddess of doubt and mystery would be really popular if marketed correctly (or like, literally at all). There are straight up evil gods with big followings. I think you could pretty easily drum up support for the mysterious Hot Topic goddess even if she’s not giving easy answers. And like, she’s so eager for one on one interactions. Like idk Kristen, I feel like this has less to do with Cass than you.

I wanted to share this wild piece of information about Kipperlily Copperkettle who I am immediately obsessed with and am now more obsessed with now that I know this.

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card

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onlyancunin · 1 month

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Baldur's Gate 3 for dummies

I just read the reaction to my post about ascended/non-ascended Astarion, which goes as follows:

this makes me 1. want the game even more 2. want to write about this… manipulative vile man canonically being manipulative and vile and slowly transforming into this monster (i don’t know any lore of his, his back story, nor anything about the game. only what this tag shows me. but one thing for sure is that people are arguing about his ‘ascended form’) (i lost my train of thought el oh el) — @tiyoin

And I thought of maybe compiling something of a BG3 for dummies sort of post. Because believe me, it is not an easy game to just jump in and hope for the best.

Starting from my own perspective, as a person who currently has 600+ h of gameplay - this is my story:

I bought the game for Astarion after spoiling to myself most of his storyline. I was pretty hesitant as I don't really consider myself to be smart enough to play these kinds of game, but decided to give it a shot nonetheless. By "these games" I mean turn-based strategic combat set in DnD rules - it's just not my forte, as people with 8 out of 20 Intelligence points tend to say.

So it was a struggle in the beginning. My friend advised me to look into general DnD combat rules and this is what I learned:

High ground is always good, unless you're a melee (barbarian/fighter/melee-focused paladin), then just throw whatever you can or get down to their level and hit them repeatedly with your best weapon

Good classes for starting are fighter, barbarian, rogue (I came to BG from Dragon Age, where I usually played as rogue). Monk is the most karate-ish bananas one.

My personal fav class to play as as a Certified Dumbassᵀᴹ is warlock (Eldritch Blast can get you through the game all the way, don't ask me how I know ).

Race matters only sometimes, so pick the one you like (as a nocturnal creature myself, I usually go for drow). Tiefling and drows get the more racist treatment, with drow getting some perks here and there.

You can always respec later, so don't panic.

You can play the way you want, bu the game is built to give you unique and/or funny experience even when your dice rolls are low. Do what you're comfortable with, but don't strive for "winning". I'd argue that while there are some morally good or bad choices, there's no winning or losing the game.

And all in all remember who you're doing this for:

If anyone has any insight, tips, tricks, advice, feel free to add!

P.S. The game has no right to be this funny in the most unexpected of ways, just FYI.

#maybe it helps someone maybe it doesnt #i just wish I knew these before I got myself into the mess of my first run lol #just have fun #it's there to be had I promise #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #astarion #baldurs gate astarion #astarion ancunin #bg3 astarion #baldurs gate #dnd #dungeons and dragons

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earphone-jacks · 8 months

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My Hero Academia Class 1-A Music Headcanons

I've been catching up on the manga and thinking a lot about Jiro making a collaborative playlist to help her really connect with her classmates lately. Anyway,

Deku listens to soundtracks, like bombastic instrumentals from old superhero movies, and I like to think he enjoys some fantasy adventures too. He also likes J-rock, including some openings and endings from the anime. He's pretty open to recommendations no matter the genre, but generally prefers more mellow stuff to help him relax and study or just unwind after a long day, and tends to listen to the same small handful of his favourite songs anyway.

Bakugo listens to heavy metal, particularly extreme metal. He loves the blast beat drumming and harsh vocals. A lot of the lyrics are incomprehensible upon listening, but if you took the time to look some of them up, they'd give more insight to his more vulnerable side that he's too prideful to show. I also like the idea of him having a softer private playlist that nobody lives to speak of.

Ochako didn't really seek out new music on her own before high school and formed her taste mostly from the radio or recommendations from friends. She has a lot of fun going through the playlist and she's happy to listen to anything from bubbly J-pop to heavy metal. I think she'd be a big fan of Babymetal.

Iida also likes instrumentals for studying, but more classical, and with faster tempos that he can take his morning runs to as well, like allegro. Something like hardcore techno would be funny, maybe some sport anthems, and a few more mellow rock songs that he picked up from his brother for when he needs to cool down.

Todoroki was very isolated and had a really limited musical library before high school. He'd also just listen to some classical, traditional Japanese music, or whatever was on the radio, if anything at all. He later gravitates to edgy alternative rock, or anything with relatable lyrics that help him vent his emotions. I think he could use that.

Tokoyami likes goth, modern classical, anything mellow, dark and ethereal-sounding with poetic lyrics. His music is oddly calming and haunting at the same time. He doesn't like anything too loud or harsh-sounding, partially because it can excite Dark Shadow too much.

Tsuyu and Koda both listen to cozy movie soundtracks, like from Disney or Ghibli, folk, lo-fi, ambient nature sounds, anything grounding and soothing, or "cottagecore".

Momo listens to classical, traditional pop, or modern music with elements of either, like baroque/chamber pop.

Jiro is already confirmed to have a preference for rock, probably alternative rock, and punk. I'd like to think some metal as well, but she'll listen to almost any genre and has impeccable taste in everything. She was largely influenced by her parents, and maybe grandparents, so her library spans a few decades as well.

Mina and Toru both listen to upbeat J-pop, and I like to think one of them introduced the others to Little Glee Monster. Maybe some sappy or wistful love songs more in private. Mina also likes 70s pop, disco and hip-hop, the kind of music that just compells you to dance and sing at the top of your lungs, maybe some psychedelic space rock and sci-fi horror soundtracks.

Kirishima is also confirmed to like 80s rock, like Eikichi Yazawa and Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi. I'd also think he likes stuff from as far back as the 50/60s as well, since Yazawa is the closest thing to Elvis from Japan that I know of, and that he picks up some more modern hard rock and metal mostly from Bakugo and Tetsutetsu as well.

Kaminari and Mineta both listen to J-pop, mostly from female idols that they think are cute. Besides that, Kaminari likes pop rock/punk and a lot of English music, and seems to have formed a lot of his taste from whatever was popular on the radio or social media with the occasional unexpected banger. He also had a dubstep, Vocaloid and hyperpop phase.

Sero is almost as adventurous as Jiro with music. He has a talent for finding underrated indie bands, and songs in a few different languages as well.

Aoyama also listens to some classical, but more opera, as well as French pop, some disco and house that he can vogue to. It's mostly upbeat but there's some sad-sounding songs in there as well that the others can't translate.

Shoji doesn't have much to contribute, being a minimalist, but he generally likes the more mellow indie stuff. He can get overstimulated easily.

Sato and Ojiro both like upbeat stuff, and enjoy music more as background noise for training, or baking in Sato's case. I also think Sato would enjoy the girls' bubbly pop music, and Ojiro would like some traditional stuff. Idk man they're nothing characters

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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year

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Villain: The Birdwatchers

In a moment before a major turning point of the campaign, the party encounter a group of sinister figures standing on a hill observing a great murmuration of birds, massed in their thousands and winding through the sky like some colossal thing with life unto itself. One figure, shrouded, watches the swarm with a concentration that borders on mania, while the other two, armoured, begrudgingly turn to the party and regard them with a distant wariness. The party have intruded on something sacred, and while they’re warned not to interrupt the oracle at her work, they’re extended a stark invitation to stay and find out what the future holds.

Adventure Hooks:

These foreboding strangers are agents of an order that follows the Flock of Famine, a monstrously powerful celestial of disaster and dissolution that appears in time of great turmoil to make hopeless situations worse. The priests of this order practice a form of divination called Ornithomancy, which gleans insight into the future from the movement of birds. While this art is practised in many cultures, the nameless order study the Flock in order to divine the woes of the land and how they could be turned to the order’s benefit, as well as what the monstrosity wishes for them to do in order to help it achieve a full manifestation. They’re more than happy to share the information with the party if it’ll help push them towards rash or destructive ends.

The Order’s agents appear during a crisis, whether it be a brewing civil war, a spreading blight, or in the wake of an ongoing disaster, acting as advisors to whatever pretty tyrant promises to make the situation worse. Which means when the party confront this foe, they must also face off against a prophetically inspired anti-paladin bodyguard throwing around wasting curses left and right. Imagine their surprise then when after knocking the villain from their throne, a very similar knight shows up and pledges service to them, offering them insights on how to best exploit future events.

Looking to redevelop land long left fallow, a farmer is perplexed when her plow keeps bringing up fingersized shards of silvery metal, and has come into town to ask around if anyone ( say a group of well respected heroes) might know anything about it. These shards were infact the fragments of a holy weapon sent by the god of harvest and agriculture (Pelor, Yondalla, karametra ) Foreseeing the threat posed by an emerging Flock of Famine. To actually get the weapon, the party will have to aid the farmer in tilling her land, putting in the sort of work that they might’ve thought they were above being high-flying adventurers and all.

Edit: Also thanks so much to the ever amazing Jessjackdaw for their monster stats/ideas.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #Monster #Bestiary #mid level #high level #plains #field #Village #villain #celestial #pelor #the dawnfather #dare #BossFight #oracle

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paperbackribs · 6 months

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The Gift (12 of 15)

previous: Chapter 11 Midnight Movie (NSFW) next: Chapter 13 It's Pretty (NSFW)

Last chapter, Steve succumbed to temptation after being under Eddie's heated gaze while watching Rocky Horror and then again later as he Sees what Eddie gets up to in bed. This chapter, Steve has some sobering realisations about the extent of his feelings.

Chapter 12 The Path Chosen

Eddie’s dodging him, Steve’s sure of it. He’s barely seen the other guy for over two weeks now except for picking up the kids from Hellfire and waving across the school parking lot when he drops Robin off in the morning. Their friendship, Steve thinks glumly, has been reduced to concrete and exhaust fumes because he couldn’t keep his hand off his dick.

“I fucked it up,” he confesses to Robin. She has her French homework spread out on his kitchen island. She likes the length of space and how high she can sit, she says about using it.

At the moment, Robin is carefully spreading mustard to match the exact square of her sandwich slice before adding the ham and cheese in its precise order. Steve has argued that there’s no order; top is bottom, and bottom is top, but Robin insists that she knows what it is, even if she can’t quite describe it.

“How’d you fuck what up,” she asks, inexplicably smoothing out the ham’s creases.

“Movie night. I had a... moment with Eddie. And I did something that I shouldn’t’ve.”

If he hadn't been such a horndog then maybe he wouldn't have weirded Eddie out and would still be able to see the other guy, wouldn't feel his absence like some terribly empty wound.

Because Steve has missed Eddie something fierce. Family Video has been one long dull exercise in earning minimum wage, he hasn't been able to elbow Eddie at a double entendre on movie night, nor been able to catch his laughing eyes when Steve asks whether the kids won their D&D game or when he refers to a gargoyle as the garage guy.

He's missed that little zip of Eddie's attention in a way that makes his nerves feel deadened and dull. Steve hasn't been able to tell Eddie about his day and listen to him reframe it into the most ridiculous story. Or watch Eddie shine with that inner light he has when describing the next riddle or monster or trap of his campaign or the absent look on his face as he hums the same tune over and over, trying to lock down the right notes.

All Steve wants is to look across the room and see the armour of his outfit, the charm of his performance, and Eddie's handsome face with its myriad of teasing expressions.

Steve caved to a moment of temptation and, in doing so, lost one of his best friends in a single night. Well done, he sarcastically congratulates himself on his unexpected overachievement.

Robin interrupts his self-flagellation, “Is this when you were practically humping the couch pillow?” She takes a big bite out of her sandwich, savage despite the care she’d put into its construction.

Steve’s mouth gapes open. “You saw that?” He exclaims.

Robin smirks, “Where’d you think that sneeze came from? I’m all for you two getting together, but I don’t want to actually see you fucking. I practically had to hose off the pheromones when I got home.”

“Oh my god,” he moans into his hands. “Eddie’s going to think I’m the creepiest creep to ever creep across Hawkins.” All that time trying to not act like he had a secret insight into Eddie's private world all gone down the shitter because he is a horny perv.

“I don’t know why you’re so bothered,” she shrugs. “You weren’t the only stink I was showering off that night.”

Steve peeks out between his fingers. “Yeah,” he asks, hope rising in him: Robin doesn't lie, not even to make him feel better.

She snorts before finishing off the last bite. “The guy practically caged you in before the movie started and then he eye fucked you the entire film. I got why you were having your way with that poor innocent pillow; I just didn’t want to be a spectator in the Horny Olympics you two had going.”

A bubbling feeling of cautious confidence rises in Steve’s chest: maybe he had all this wrong and Eddie wasn't avoiding him. No, he stops himself, Eddie is definitely avoiding him but maybe it's not for the reason he thinks. Like when he'd misunderstood the intention behind Eddie's questions early on, thinking that Eddie was wary of the power Steve held when he was actually asking about why Steve would risk his life for him.

Eddie shares with him a lot more than Steve had ever thought would be possible at the beginning of their friendship. He thinks that the connection has given him more of an insight into Eddie's life beyond literally seeing through his eye. It's helped Steve to ask questions he's not thought to ask, and, in turn, he's come to know Eddie's tells beyond the flamboyant performance he often uses as a shield.

That's been the problem, Steve decides, he's allowed Eddie to dodge him. Steve should have pinned him down and demanded to know what Eddie's been thinking at least a week back when he'd known for sure that he was avoiding him. If the other guy had felt even a glimmer of the attraction that Steve feels for Eddie, then maybe he has a chance at something beyond their platonic relationship. Something based on the solid foundation of their friendship with the possibility for so much more.

He chews at his cheek as he acknowledges the other, uneasy feeling alongside that ballooning of hope in his chest. If he wants honesty from Eddie, then he needs to be honest as well. He needs to tell Eddie about the connection and what Steve has been Seeing. A necessary conversation before he can even think about trying to persuade Eddie to try and flesh out this pull between them.

“Besides the eye thing I need to tell him how I feel," he tells Robin decisively. "I can't let him slip away because I didn't sack up and tell him that I want him in my life. As more than a friend," Steve clarifies.

“Yeah, dingus. That’s a given," she rolls her eyes but her tone is not unkind. "Now are you going to go get your man?”

Steve sticks his middle finger up at her over his shoulder as he rushes out to the bimmer. He’s pretty sure Eddie’s probably home on a Wednesday night and Robin has her own set of keys so she can lock up when she leaves. Or stay, he doesn’t care. He might just appreciate her sleeping over tonight if it all goes to shit.

The sliver of the new moon is rising in the darkening sky and it seems to Steve that it pulls him in the direction towards Forrest Hills. An encouraging glint like a sharp needle waiting for Steve to thread and weave an unmapped pattern.

Just as he had created a new path in saving Eddie, Steve experiences the blossoming conviction that his next actions will determine the unrolling tapestry of his future, that he can choose his next steps and, in doing so, challenge destiny. A path created by Steve's self-determination rather than some fixed map he needs to blindly follow.

The sudden understanding that what happens next is in some part a consequence of his actions and in other parts up to Eddie's subsequent reaction leaves his hands sweaty on the steering wheel as he pulls up in front of Eddie’s trailer. Noting with relief that Wayne’s red pick-up isn’t here but Eddie’s white van is. Pulled haphazardly to the side, Steve sees with fond exasperation.

How can Eddie be so loud and messy in some ways and so self-contained in others? The hope that had kept him buoyed through the drive dips again at the thought. Robin may have been just picking up on the loud Eddie, some hormone-driven horniness that naturally seeps in within any range of Tim Curry in fishnet stockings. And maybe what was going on inside Eddie has nothing to do with Steve, nothing to want to do with him if he takes the past couple of weeks to heart.

“Stevie, is that you?”

He whips his head up at Eddie’s voice, who is opening the trailer door even as he calls out Steve’s name.

He wiggles his fingers back in greeting. Eddie simply raises his eyebrows questioningly.

He just needs to push off the wall, Steve reminds himself. Otherwise, he and Eddie will continue to tread water and he’ll get nowhere. Or worse, he won’t have Eddie in any capacity as a friend or otherwise.

With a steadying breath, he gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him to walk up to Eddie, hands in the back of his jeans pockets.

“Hey,” he says simply, looking up at Eddie who’s above him on the doorstep. Hoping that he's not about to be turned away before he even gets the chance to make this better.

Eddie looks down at him pensively, before stepping back and holding open the screen door. Steve accepts the invitation and follows him in, clenching his jaw as he automatically glances up at the corner ceiling where brown plywood is barricaded against the apricot-painted wallboard.

It really wasn’t that long ago that they were falling in and out of that thing, terror thick in his throat, scared that he was going to lose Dustin or Robin or Nancy. Terrified that he didn’t have eyes on Max and the rest of the team to keep them safe but trying to trust in their bravery and ingenuity.

And then there was Eddie, who he’d only started to get to know. Who he’d already come to like quite a bit, Steve realises belatedly.

The impact of the poorly chosen road would have on Dustin had weighed heavily on Steve’s mind when he’d decided to do what he could to thread his own path for Eddie’s fate, but he had also been thinking of Eddie himself.

Eddie, who was great with the kids, keeping Dustin’s smile bright while reigning him in from stupid choices like trying to join them on Lover’s Lake. A guy courageous enough to reflect on and admit to feelings of jealousy and admiration in the midst of an eerie forest. A man who looked so frustrated with himself and scared, speaking of his actions as if he were a coward yet repeatedly diving into dangerous waters, metaphorically and literally.

The wonder on Eddie's face as he looked up at the Upside Down sparkles had left Steve breathless. The play of light above them a dull comparison to the shimmering delight in Eddie's wide chocolate eyes, squeezing at Steve's heart and making it impossible for him to look away.

Steve hadn’t been able to comprehend the idea of letting Eddie go, of never seeing his bright eyes and charming dimples and had decided he could easily sacrifice his body and spirit to ensure he’d see Eddie leaning in towards him once more, an irreverent comment on the tip of his tongue and an invitation in the corner of his eyes.

He had wanted Eddie long before the connection, Steve realises with a racing heart.

It wasn’t much more than that yet, just a glimmer of desire from a flirtation in the worst of all moments to be thinking about his love life. Something far more paler than what he feels now, but the cornerstone of it nonetheless. He had seen to the core of Eddie, his kindness and courage and soul and wanted to know him even more so.

Christ, he’s been such an idiot this entire time.

Steve runs a hand over his face, stunned by the depths of how clueless he’d allowed himself to be. When had he become such a coward?

He’s been like one of those stupid fucking frogs that continues to sit in the cooking pot as the water heats, boiled over before he knows it. Cooked and done and ready for serving. His feelings building and layering on top of each other until his mind and heart were willingly woven into a complex tapestry built for Eddie, and Eddie alone.

Why hadn’t he allowed himself to at least try to have more with him before this became a muddled mess?

Steve stands at the centre of Eddie's home, his racing heart beating wildly in his throat, sure that Eddie is not going to want to have anything to do with him once he understands just how deeply Steve’s been invading his privacy. The uncanny part of him continuing to force himself into Eddie’s private world and Eddie will be sure that he can never trust Steve again.

But it has to be done, no matter Eddie's final decision.

Resigned to getting this conversation over, Steve drops his hands and looks over at the other man.

Eddie’s shifting nervously in his jean shorts and socks. His hair stuck up at one end as if he’d been napping and he has on that No Remorse shirt again, but Steve isn’t distracted by the sensuality of Eddie this time. Rather, he’s wondering how he willingly looked past the depth of his feelings for him this entire time.

He hadn’t needed to see Eddie getting his rocks off to know that he is captivating, but he had needed it to shake loose whatever self-denial he had been determined to hold onto. To realise that his preoccupation with knowing about Eddie's thoughts and feelings and opinions or dreaming of ways to secure his attention were not because of a simple platonic regard. Rather, it was all a reflection of the deep, abiding well of a familiar and exquisite emotion.

“What a fucking idiot,” Steve mutters to himself.

“What?” Eddie frowns.

“Shit, no,” Steve hurridly holds out his palms. “Not you, me. Can we talk?”

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