#squid writes
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Random Worldbuilding Questions
Are there any foods with symbolic meanings that are eaten on special occasions (e.g. katsudon for victory, or new years oranges for luck)? How did the tradition get started?
We all know about weddings and marriage, but are there any ceremonies that symbolically / legally / magically officialize a different type of relationship in your world's culture? (Adoption, apprenticeship, friendship, etc.)
What's a rule or social norm that is widely followed in theory, but in practice everyone knows it's not a big deal and breaks it all the time?
Are there any trades or hobbies whose practitioners are stereotyped as weird or extraordinary? (E.g. the "mad hatter" trope.) Why? How true is this perception?
What are some cliches, tropes, and/or plots that commonly appear in stories written by your world's inhabitants? What were they inspired by? Why are they popular?
What is a common way to subtly insult someone in your world, without crossing into overt rudeness? Gifting an item with negative connotations? Addressing them more familiarly or formally than normal? Backhanded compliments?
If you pulled a random average Joe off the streets of your world and asked them to draw a house, what would they draw? (Shape, roof style, position and number of windows, etc.)
Is there a place in your world that nobody has ever been to - the bottom of a cave, the moon, another dimension, etc.? How do people know it exists? Why haven't they gone there? What do they believe it's like, and how right/wrong are they?
What aesthetics are considered "advanced" or "futuristic" in your world - canvas wings, shiny chrome, smooth plastic? How has this changed over time?
What's a fun fact about your world that you as the worldbuilder are dying to share, but nobody ever thinks to ask?
#squid writes#ask game#worldbuilding#random worldbuilding questions#there's not really any context i just wanted to write some wb prompts. turns out it is REALLY HARD#you can ask me for my dumbass JRPG setting but i'm not sure what i'd say for some of these really
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Can you do Gojo Satoru x reader (also his age like idk they went to schopl together) and they r dating but the reader almost dies and then treats their death mockingly as if as a joke? How would Gojo react?
Have a lovely day! 🪷
summary: death has always been a joke to you, but your boyfriend isn't very pleased with your sick sense of humor.
tw: canon typical violence, near-death experience, cussing, pre-hidden inventory arc, hurt to comfort
wc: 3.4k
a/n: your wish is my command lovely anon! sorry it took me a bit to complete! you're my first ever ask, so i hope this is what you wanted <3
satoru is currently walking through the courtyard of jujutsu tech. it's his second year as a student and his reputation as the strongest grows by the day. he feels incredibly lucky to have met his friends, such as suguru and ieiri.
but then there's you.
the bright-eyed first year who caught his attention the minute you walked through the doors of the school. shyly introducing yourself, holding out your hand shakily with a timid smile adorning your breathtaking features.
satoru was starstruck, his brain short-circuited and he forgot how to fucking breathe. it took him at least 2 whole minutes to shake your hand and give you an adequate greeting.
as you walked away with nanami and haibara, satoru couldn't help but watch as you did. your hips swaying and hands swinging freely at your sides, laughing at something haibara said. god, satoru will never forget your smile for as long as he lives.
suguru about had to unleash a curse on his best friend to get him to come back to planet earth.
from that day forward, satoru knew that he had to have you. whatever satoru gojo wants, satoru gojo gets.
after a few months of pining and romantic gestures, satoru finally convinced you to go on a date. as the date was coming to a close, he kissed you under the vibrant lights on the city streets of tokyo. the only time that he ever hesitated was when he asked you to be his partner, to be the one who loved and cared for him despite his flaws.
satoru couldn't help but kiss you again the second you said yes, completely overwhelmed with the feeling of joy.
now, six months later, your relationship has bloomed into something exquisite. you've shared many laughs, cries, and tender moments that satoru cherishes deeply in his soul.
he currently walks to see yaga, something about having a new mission for him. you're supposed to be back from your own respective mission today and satoru hopes he'll get to see you before he leaves.
satoru hears his phone ringing from his pocket, he reaches down and grabs it, eyes scanning over the caller ID.
shoko is calling...
he furrows his brows, a bit confused as to why she would be calling. shrugging it off, he presses the green answer button and holds it up to his ear.
"shoko! to what do i owe the-"
the sound of her sniffling immediately stops satoru in his tracks.
"shoko? what's going on?"
he hears her clear her throat and she sighs. gojo chews the dead skin off his bottom lip anxiously, speculating what she could say next.
"something happened to y/n. we're in the medical wing."
satoru feels his heart drop straight to his stomach, eyes growing wide at her words. he thinks he mumbles something along the lines of i'm on my way, but he's not entirely sure. the blood rushing through his ears makes his hearing sound muffled.
he half-hazzardly shoves his phone back into his pocket, taking off toward the medical wing of the school. his thoughts consumed with nothing but you.
---
when satoru arrives, he's shocked by what he sees.
there you are, lying in the white cot with your eyes closed. your skin is abnormally pale, the vibrant glow you always held has now turned dull. you're wrapped in bandages and an IV drip is connected to the top of your hand.
satoru keeps his face blank, afraid that if he shows any emotion he will break down. internally, his brain is screaming for you, what could have possibly happened to you that you're in this condition?
he always swore to you that he'd protect you, not only was that his job as one of the strongest sorcerers of the age, but also as your devoted boyfriend.
"you know i will always protect you, right my love?"
you smiled sweetly at him, eyes crinkling at the corners and nose scrunching up adorably, "of course i know that toru."
that interaction plays in his head like a broken record. he wasn't there for you.
shoko approaches him cautiously, unsure of what her friend is thinking. satoru's face is void of emotions, but she can see the turmoil swimming in his eyes, even from behind his sunglasses. his usually radiant blue eyes are now dark and frigid.
shoko reaches her hand out to touch him, but pulls it back deciding against it. she knows satoru has to be on high alert right now, so surely his infinity is on.
satoru finally looks at shoko, remorse is written all over her face. her eyes are slightly downcast and there's a frown on her lips. she looks him up and down, trying to assess what he's feeling.
he looks back to you, "what happened?" satoru mumbles out, his voice is eerily calm, but there's a waver behind it.
shoko turns her gaze to where gojo's is, the events of the mission playing over in her head. she shakes her head, willing those images to go away.
"the intel was wrong. it was supposed to be a grade 3, but it was a grade 1."
satoru stays quiet as he takes in the information. he clenches his fists in anger, how could they possibly mistake something like that? their one miscalculation leads to the light of his life on their deathbed.
shoko takes his silence as her cue to continue, "the curse threw an attack aimed at me, but y/n threw themselves in front of me. they took the blow head on."
shoko hears the shake in her own voice and feels the tears begin to gather in her waterline. she always viewed you as a younger sibling, looking out for you and having your back whenever you would need her.
"i used my technique and healed them the best i could, but now we have to play the waiting game."
shoko turns to gojo after finishing her sentence and she becomes even more worried for him.
gojo's fists shake from how tightly he clutches down on them, his knuckles are extruding due to the force he is using. shoko can hear the grinding of his teeth with how brutally he is clenching them, any harder he might break a tooth.
before shoko can stop herself, she puts a comforting hand on his arm. she's shocked to find that his infinity is off.
shoko composes herself then, hand squeezing his arm comfortingly, "i'm so sorry gojo, i'm so so sorry."
satoru turns his eyes to her and sees the apologetic look she wears on her face. he sighs and lets go of his fists, shooting her a small smile, "it's not your fault shoko, don't blame yourself."
silence falls across the room then, the only sound being heard is the steady beeping of the heart monitor you're attached to. satoru and shoko are unable to stop staring at you, each of their hearts breaking in different ways for the state that you're in.
"i'm going to wait with them until they wake up."
gojo says nothing else as he plops himself in the uncomfortable chair next to your bedside. he grasps your hand in his, your hand is cold and it makes his insides twist.
shoko watches gojo for a moment, noting how gentle he is with you and the soft look in his eyes. she can physically see all of the love that walking behemoth holds for you.
she bows slightly and makes her way out of the room, running off to tell yaga what has happened and that gojo will not leave your side. she knows him well enough to know that he would cause an absolute shitstorm before anyone takes him away from you.
as soon as shoko leaves, satoru can't help the anxiety that eats away at him. all of the worst possible scenarios being the only thing he can think of.
he frowns deeply and uses his free hand to rub at his eyes, not wanting to shed any tears over something that may not happen.
satoru glides his thumb softly over your wrist, he's able to feel your pulse and it's weak. this causes him to sigh, taking in your figure and the injuries all over your skin.
"wake up soon my love, i'll be waiting."
---
you have no idea what time it must be when you wake up, the lighting in the room blinding you from how bright it is.
this causes you to squint your eyes, trying to get your eyes to adjust to the sudden intrusion to your vision.
when you look around you, you see that your in a room in the medical wing of the school. since becoming a sorcerer, you've grown familiar with the disgusting hospital white that paints the walls. the smell alone making you scrunch up your face with how putrid it is.
after a few minutes of observation, you feel something in your left hand.
you look in that direction and see your beautiful boyfriend satoru. he is bent forward, laying his head on the bed you also lay in with his head resting on his forearms. his eyes are closed and he's snoring softly, a stark contrast to how tightly he is gripping your hand.
you can't help the small smile that finds its way to your lips, your free hand reaching for him. you run your fingers lightly through his snow-white hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.
your movements cause him to stir, he faintly and his eyes blink open slowly.
he glances around the room briefly when his eyes finally find yours, the smile you wear is so tender that satoru believes it to be an illusion.
you try to speak to him but you start coughing violently, your throat dry from being asleep for so long.
satoru scrambles to your bedside table, grabbing the water cup and holding it to your lips.
you grasp at it and drink it quickly, your body feels as if it hasn't drank in days.
when you've finished the water, satoru plucks it from you and sets it back on the table. he faces you again and squeezes your hand, smiling at you affectionately, "welcome back, baby."
you return the loving smile and squeeze his hand back, a rasp to your voice, "hi."
satoru cradles your head, his eyes taking in every single feature on your face. his smile falters almost imperceptibly, his eyes looking directly into yours, "almost lost you there."
you wave him off, chuckling extraneously, "it's fine satoru, could've been worse."
his frown seems to deepen even more, "you almost died, baby. i don't understand how it could be worse."
you look around nonchalantly with a light expression on your face, "oh, i don't know, i could actually be dead."
satoru furrows his brows at you, pulling away from you slightly, "baby, i'm serious. you could have died."
you grin at him, honestly finding his serious behavior amusing, "it's no big deal toru."
satoru completely pulls away from you then, shocked by how your treating the situation, "no big deal? this is a big deal y/n."
you roll your eyes and snicker at him, hilarity dancing in your eyes, "no it's not satoru, it's just part of the job. although, that would not have been a cool way to go. only a grade one? come on." you groan out by the end, embarrassed that it wasn't a special grade that landed you here.
satoru is frozen in his spot, completely appalled at the way you're handling this. he thought of all the ways you would wake up, but he didn't account for this one.
sure, satoru has done incredibly reckless things, come on he's satoru gojo. he only commits those acts because he knows he has an insurance policy in place, his infinity. he's convinced the only thing that can kill him is himself.
you, however, do not have his technique.
yes, you're an incredibly powerful sorcerer, working your way up the ranks quickly. gojo believes that one day you'll sit beside him and suguru as the strongest.
but today is not that day.
you threw yourself at a walking hand grenade for fucks sake, the fact that you even survived is shocking. he's grateful to the gods that you did, but he only wishes you would take this a bit more earnestly.
satoru takes both of your hands in his, rubbing his thumbs back and forth absentmindedly.
"baby, i need you to listen to me carefully."
when he looks up at you, you're looking straight at him. you have a passive look on your face, a small smirk fixed on your lips, "satoru, i told you it's-"
satoru grip on your hands grows tighter, his eyebrows scrunching up in frustration and his eyes are full of anguish. he can't help the volume that his voice rises to, unable to hold back any longer, "no, no it's not fine! i almost fucking lost you today, and for what, because you decided to dive in front of something equivalent to a fucking missile?"
you roll your eyes at your boyfriend and yank your hands out of his grasp, your arms cross over your chest and you huff out in annoyance, the glare you send satoru cutting through your once light-hearted facade, "and what was i supposed to do? let shoko take the hit?"
satoru scoffs at that, the words spilling out of his mouth like an uncontrollable fire, "this isn't about shoko, this is about you. do you have no regard for your own life that you'd just throw it all away?"
you fire right back at him, annoyance beginning to boil in your gut and popping right out of the top, "i'm not throwing my fucking life away! shoko was about to be blown to smithereens! i accepted death when i became a sorcerer, have you?"
satoru cannot believe what he's hearing and it clearly shows on his face, his mouth morphs into a scowl and his eyes are so dark you can't even see his pupils anymore, "at least i wouldn't have wound up here, clinging to a life i obviously don't give a shit about."
the look on your face could kill anyone in a 5 mile radius, your eyes throwing daggers and your mouth shooting bullets, "maybe i should have died on that field, at least then i wouldn't have the honored one trying to dictate my life."
you're panting heavily, you can feel your body shaking with rage and you can hear the heart monitor beeping rapidly.
satoru is a different story.
his breathing is opposite of yours, it seems to have come to a halt. his pupils are blown wide and his mouth is open slightly, trying to see if he heard you correctly.
he sighs dejectedly and pinches the bridge of his nose. he's attempting to think of something to say, but he's coming up empty handed.
you hear him rustling about and turn your gaze back to him. you see him stand with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched and looking completely deflated.
he looks through you with an empty stare trying to mask the pain he's feeling, mouth pulled into a thin line, "you know what? fine. if you want to go on a suicide run, fine, do what you wish. i will have no part in it."
what he says next is like a harpoon being shot through your heart.
"if you are that willing to leave everything behind, i want no part of you either."
you feel as if the world has stopped spinning on its axis. the gravity of his words crushing you, turning you into mere atoms of a human being.
regret begins to wash over you, an apology sitting on the tip of your tongue but you can't form the words. your breaths are now coming out in short pants, your heart and lungs feel like they're being shattered from the inside.
"i love you more than my dreams would ever allow, but i still want to be able to love you and not your corpse."
you put your head in your hands, wishing that the ground would open up and swallow you whole. you dig your nails into your cranium with so much strength you think you broke skin.
you don't even know if satoru is still here, too engrossed in the thought of him leaving you.
to others, your relationship may seem like a juvenile affair, but that's not the case.
in the world of jujutsu, you see and experience a multitude of things that a teenager should never have to go through. you're sent off like soldiers to war, fighting against something that is greater than yourselves. death is simply inevitable, it's in the job description. some sorcerers thrive, while others wither away.
joking about your impending demise has been your way of coping with it. an unhealthy coping mechanism, but what else are you supposed to do? live your life too tentatively and miss out on the beauty it has to offer?
that's why you loved satoru.
he was always a ray of sunshine in your life. a shining star in your dark universe, providing light and warmth in his wake. the day he asked you to be his significant other, you were beyond happy. the delicate glances he gives you, the soft kisses he greets and leaves you with, the love that he reserves only for you.
all of these things make it easier to face the horrors every time you leave the school because you know when you come home, satoru will be waiting for you with open arms.
without him? you don't know what you would do.
realizing that not having him in your life might soon be a reality, you break down into a sob. the faucet behind your eyes turned on and not stopping anytime soon. you're wailing so loud, it's a surprise no one has come in to investigate.
you grip the ends of the gown on your body, trying to ground yourself. you finally find the ability to speak, shouting i'm sorry over and over.
you're now convinced that satoru has left, leaving you to your own devices.
you're proven wrong when a familiar pair of warm arms wrap themselves around you.
satoru pulls you into his chest and you clutch the fabric of his uniform tightly in your hands. you're sobbing so hard that you think you might be sick.
"i'm sorry satoru, i'm sorry. please don't leave, don't leave me alone."
he doesn't say anything, just continues to hold you and cradle your head, rubbing his hand up and down the expanse of your back.
"i don't want to leave everything. i love my life, especially with you in it."
your sobs have calmed down into hiccups and sniffles, the tears now trickling down your cheeks.
"i-i want to live a long life with you, where we grow old and wrinkly and hobble around with a cane."
that gets a small chuckle out of satoru, "i have to admit baby, you'd look good in a moomoo."
you hit him on the shoulder with a small laugh, but quickly revert back to your serious manner, "i'm not kidding satoru, i love you and i want to be with you on this day, until our last day."
he grabs your face in his hands and angles you so you're looking right at him, "i love you, more than anything, but baby i need you to hear me."
he presses your forehead against his, staring directly into your eyes you can feel it in your soul, "i can't love you the way i want to if you're dead. i need you to promise me that you will look after yourself, i won't always be there to keep you in check. i need you to come back to me in one piece."
you think over it for a moment, satoru wants what's best for you, and you should want that too.
you whisper softly, afraid of ruining the moment, "i promise."
you seal the promise with a kiss, running your hands through satoru's hair while he grabs you by your waist to pull you closer.
you kiss each other with a newfound passion, the love you share untethered.
"jesus christ, really?"
"it's a miracle they didn't do anything else on this bed."
you try to pull away, flustered at being caught, but gojo keeps on kissing you with fervor. of course, not without throwing his middle finger up at his friends who chuckle behind him.
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ok but you dont fucking get it. i love you and it doesnt mean what you think. its not heteronormative and its not nuclear and it cant be described in a way that has words. there arent words for it. its not queerplatonic. its not romantic. its not platonic. its none of those things. its incomprehensive. its unwordable. its not because youre my lover or my mother or my sibling or my friend its none of those things. you dont fucking understand. we fuck and we share our feelings and we abandom the status quo and part of the point is that we dont make sense. isnt it? isnt it?
i feel alterous. thats the best word for it because there isnt one thats better and i dont think there ever will be. its not about not wanting to be romantic or sexual its about being different. its about a new fucking category, a secret third thing, yes and no, what happens when you mix everything and nothing together.
its because i see love differently. ive recontextualized it, made myself to view it in a way that is outside of the general conception of love. i want to explain it to you but i just cant. i want to but i dont know how. you need to feel it. you need to know what its like to be alien
im aromantic and im asexual
#aroace#aromantic#asexual#poetry#squid writes#this is meant to be a poem#the “you” is just part of the poem#its not directed at anyone#ive just been thinking about this a lot#and what its like for me being asexual#i dont know where to look for people who experience asexuality the way i do#so sometimes i feel pretty alone#like an “other”#i dont think its bad to be other i just wish i could find the other others
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hi, it is once again time to tell you that I've reread How To Bury a Gentile and now need to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling and feel ALL kinds of feelings about it again. it's so good. i just really need to emphasize that it's just. so so good. chefs kiss etc
THANK YOU!!!! <3 I feel like it's my one tumblr achievement that seems to endure and I appreciate anytime people send me these.
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KISS band members' name meanings
((because I’m sick and apparently I didn't have enough brainrot to begin with))
Paul (Stanley): from Latin, "small/humble" (from Old English, "stony meadow")
Gene (Chaim): from Greek, "well-born, noble" (from Hebrew, "life")
Tommy/Thomas: from Aramaic, "twin"
Eric (Singer and Carr): from Old Norse, "sole ruler, autocrat" or "eternal ruler, ever powerful"
Vinnie/Vincent: from Latin, "to conquer"
Bruce: multiple origins including Scottish, English, and French; refers to woodlands and thick brush as well as Brix, Manche in Normandy, where the Clan Bruce is believed to have originated from
Peter: from Greek (translated from Aramaic), "rock/stone"
Ace: conflicting origins (including but not limited to English, Latin, and other European languages) but typically used as a nickname, like how the Space Ace does; "a person who excels at something" rizz, in this case
#kiss band#paul stanley#gene simmons#tommy thayer#eric singer#eric carr#vinnie vincent#bruce kulick#peter criss#ace frehley#squid writes
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my anon messaging is officially off.
someone is literally obsessed with me so /shrug turning it off since despite the fact that i'm half-way out the fandom and almost entirely off tumblr they pretty much cannot stop obsessing. oh well.
sorry for the few people still occasionally messaging me prompts or requests or whatevs, but i'm kinda done with the trolling for the sake of trolling when i don't even know wtf is happening around these parts anyway.
🦑
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Oh hey I wrote this btw
Its abt Yin and Jin. Surely these silly comedic relief characters have nothing wrong wt them right haha (<- I have put them through the Horrors)
#Squid writes#Yin lmk#Jin lmk#Mk lmk#yin and jin#Lmk#I. May or may not write another fic from Jin's pov
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Harringrove Week - 2AM Conversations
(This fic is also posted on my AO3 account: here)
Late Night Conversations | Angst | Fluff | Hurt/Comfort | Literal Sleeping Together | Implied/Referenced Child Abuse | Post-Season/Series 02
Words: 4,901
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1:49 AM
It’s one of those nights, the nights where closing his eyes is the most dangerous thing he could possibly think of, the nights where every blink raises old nightmares from the dead. Everything is fine, Steve should be fine. He’s trembling.
It’s fine, though. He’s prepared. His bat, the one with the nails splitting wood like memories split through his skull on nights like tonight, is about three feet from his head. He doesn’t need it, but it’s there and he’s ready if anything were to go wrong. But it won't because he’s safe.
He’s safe he’s safe he’s safe-
Eleven closed the gate. What if it reopens?
The demodogs are dead. What if they survived?
Everyone’s safe. What if what if what if-?
So he’s safe. Everyone’s safe, and everything’s fine, and the silence of his home isn’t deafening, isn’t making him hyper aware of any creak as it settles, or any scratches or groans. A car door slams down the road, wind whistles outside his locked windows. Fingers twitch towards his lamp from where they’re twined into his bedsheets. Bedsheets that are twisted between his legs and bunched around his middle, evidencing his restlessness. Tossing and turning.
But he’s fine. Really, he’s fine. Please let him be fine, he can’t take this-
He’s so worked up that at first he thinks he’s imagined it. It’s 1:53 AM, the clock on his bedside table - the one he’s been staring at for the past seventy-two minutes straight, the one he can read through the overbearing darkness that chokes him because he’s been staring through it to the point his eyes are as adjusted as they can be - says so. No one knocks on the Harrington residence at nearly two in the morning. Hell, no one knocks on any house at two in the morning without good reason and Steve cannot think of a good reason. It’s not one of the kids because they’d have called first and, besides, there’s no reason for there to be an emergency. Everything has to be fine.
He imagined it. He’s not gotten enough sleep and he’s imagining things. Honestly, it would make a lot of sense, in the same way he knows that the shadows in the room don’t really look like the emptiness that had been in Will’s eyes when he’d been flayed. No one is outside and he really needs to sleep otherwise this will just get worse and he’ll pass out at school tomorrow. He doesn’t want that, refuses to humiliatingly wake up from a nightmare after having fallen asleep in class… again.
In fact, he’s just psyching himself up to cease his pointless surveyance of his empty room in this empty house, to stop casting glances at his clock like it will march the sun faster from its rest (oh, how he envies the sun in it’s neverending ability to give way to the silence of night when he’s stuck lying awake to the shrieking silence of his mind) any faster, when he hears it again.
The rapping on his door is more insistent this time, he can tell even from his room on practically the other side of the house. It puts him even further on edge, something he hadn’t even thought possible. Panic shoots like ice up his spine and he’s jolting upright in an instant, getting caught further in his mess of blankets.
What if it is the kids? What if they weren’t able to call him? What if they need his help?
His feet slide across his wooden floors as he bolts from his room, thundering down the stairs, half focused on where he’s going as he’s making a mental checklist of where all the possible weapons in his house are, as he figures out the optimal route to run to grab his bat and his emergency bag. He nearly falls in his hurry to get down the stairs. His breathing is uneven by the time he reaches the front door, though he’s working very hard to calm it even slightly as he reaches for the keys.
The door clicks unlocked and he opens it expecting to find the kids in trouble; to find Dustin terrified, and Max as pale as she’d been in face of the demodogs and Lucas and Mike arguing and-
And there stands Billy Hargrove.
He almost collapses in relief. Sure it’s odd that the guy is at his door, even if they’ve managed to reach something like a begrudging truce in the past weeks, and his posture is more tense than usual - and the guy is usually ready to start shit, so that’s saying something - but it’s not the kids.
Unless he’s here about Max. He pushes that thought aside harsher than all the rest.
“Hargrove?” he breathes, still feeling the fading edges of his breathless panic. And, though it’s dumb and the guy probably knows, adds; “dude, it’s - like - two in the morning.”
“Your observation astounds me,” the guy snarks, even more bitter than usual, and Steve quickly glances him over, expecting to see Billy’s stance shifting to come at him because of whatever shitty mood he’s in.
He’s not.
What Steve does notice, though, is that he’s not dressed nearly warm enough for the temperature tonight and, though he’s doing an admittedly good job at trying to suppress it, the guy is shaking. He also notices how stiff he’s holding himself. And the bruise blooming around his right eye.
A glance over his shoulder reveals his car in the driveway. Only his car. Telling him that Hargrove, who lives nowhere nearby, has walked here.
Something has happened. It might not be the alternate-dimension-face-opening-alien-trying-to-kill-them variety but something went down that means that Hargrove is now outside his house at - he glances at the clock in the hall - 2:03 AM without his car or even a jacket and at least one injury.
“Are you okay?” he asks, straightening from where he’s slumped against the doorframe, the exhaustion that had been slowly encroaching once more vanishing in the face of his trepidation.
Hargrove’s jaw ticks, eyes trained just to the side of his head.
“I just needed somewhere to go, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else.”
Somewhat baffled, Steve just nods. He guesses it made sense why the guy didn’t go to Tommy’s or another one of those guys’ places - they aren’t exactly the right kind of people to go to when you’re dealing with shit, as Steve learned the hard way during the Nancy incident. Those guys don’t really have the emotional maturity to understand when to quit the bulishit and just be a sturdy foundation. Still, though, Steve’s place? They aren’t exactly friends. Sure, Hargrove had come up to him at school and apologised - albeit with an air of 'but I don’t like you and will likely beat the shit out of you again if I need to' - and now they give each other stilted nods when they passed in the hall, or give each other a hand where needed at basketball practice, but that doesn’t really explain why Steve is familiar enough to be dubbed Solid Basis To Calm Down.
It’s kind beyond absurd, really, that Billy had practically smashed his face in three weeks ago and is now at his door for some kind of support in the ‘fuck it’s early’ hours of the morning. That doesn’t mean Steve is just going to shut the door in his face, but it does mean he just sort of stands there dumbly for a minute as Hargrove clearly grows increasingly agitated at the silence.
When the other guy finally meets his eye, a venomous frown in place, Steve finally snaps out of it.
“Uh - right,” he manages, rather eloquently. “Sure, dude. Come in, I guess.”
Hargrove keeps on glaring at him, but eventually does so, kicking off his shoes at the door when instructed. After shutting the door behind him, Steve becomes uncomfortably aware of how the chill from outside has crept into his house and once again realises that shit, right, Hargrove has been outside in a sleeveless shirt in the middle of the night in winter. He must be utterly freezing, so, benevolent as he is - reverting back into babysitter mode - Steve wanders into his kitchen, hearing the padding of Hargrove’s feet following him after only a second of hesitation, and sets about making hot chocolate. He’d have made coffee but he figures he probably shouldn’t dampen the chances of him getting any rest tonight any further and that shit had, like, a lot of caffeine.
“I’m going to hazard a guess and say you don’t want to talk about it?” Steve says, aiming for nonchalant as he nudges Hargrove’s mug towards him across the counter.
Hargrove doesn’t answer, just shoots him another withering glare that makes the phantom feeling of knuckles ghost against his face. Steve, though, just grits his teeth and pushes on - he’d done enough of being a hot-headed prick with the whole Jonathan-Nancy incident, this as him turning over a new leaf. He isn’t gonna be that asshole anymore.
“Okay, gotcha - but, just for the record, I think maybe you should-”
“Save it, Harrington-”
“Yeah, yeah,” he continues, rolling his eyes, pretending away the flash of fear those hostile eyes manage to rise in his chest, hands raised in a placating show of surrender. He’s not gonna push it, he’s just gonna lend the guy one of the guest rooms, get his good samaritan points and move on with his own shit. He doesn’t need Hargrove’s on top of his own. “Whatever, Hargrove. You’ve got your secrets? Cool, whatever. Everyone’s got them, and everyone’s got a right to them-”
Even if they don’t want them. Barbara Holland’s face flashes through his head and he has to shoulder through the familiar wave of guilt-induced nausea.
“I just gotta know, since you’re crashing here: do you need to talk to the police and are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No. And fuck you, that’s none of your business.”
“Jesus, fuck, fine,” Steve groans. “Just- Are you hurt bad?”
Hargrove seems to hesitate, frowning at him as if Steve has done something particularly perplexing and isn’t just trying to make sure the guy doesn’t - like - need a doctor or something.
“I’ve had worse. I’m fine.”
Steve nods, finally raising his mug to his lips.
“Cool,” he says after taking a swallow, eyes flicking to where Hargrove has his hands cupping his own mug, pressing as much of his skin to the ceramic as possible. “Well, I have a couple guest rooms upstairs so you’re free to pick whichever. I can lend you something to sleep in, if you’d be more comfortable, and there are plenty of extra blankets in the airing cupboard.”
Hargrove places his mug down, narrowing sceptical eyes in Steve’s direction.
“What the hell are you getting out of this, Harrington? If you think you can hold this over me, then you’re very much mistaken. You tell a single person and your ass is grass, you hear me?”
“Geez, dude,” Steve huffs, head falling backwards in exasperation. He is way too tired for this crap. Why doesn’t he just kick Hargrove’s unstable ass out of his house and be done with it?
…Right, turning over a new leaf. Plus, the guy has been almost tolerable recently, either that or Steve is just so desensitised to the woes of a normal highschool student now that life has thoroughly fucked him over. And there’s also the fact that those things could be out there, and Steve won’t be responsible for another death, for another empty coffin, for empty space in life.
“Look, I won’t tell anyone.” When Hargrove looks doubtful - and dangerously so - Steve impulsively, and he’ll blame this on his exhaustion-fogged mind, tacks on; “You wanna make this an even thing? I’ll tell you some embarrassing shit - that way we’ve got dirt on each other here and it’s mutually beneficial that we keep our mouths shut.”
“Go on then, pretty boy,” Hargrove challenges.
“I can’t sleep most nights.”
His eyes flicker down towards his own mug before he drags them back to meet Hargrove’s stunned blues. He needs this to be a serious moment. He hasn’t talked to anyone like this, about this. He’s supposed to be strong Steve, hero babysitter, not a teenager who honestly feels like he’s too young for this shit, who feels like he’s inches away from falling apart most days. Maybe that’s why he offered this up so easily; maybe he needs to talk about this.
“I can barely even shut my eyes because I get so scared. That’s why I fall asleep at school.”
“What, you scared of the dark, Harrington?”
“No-”
Snarling. Opening faces. Rows of teeth. The people he cares about in danger.
“I’m scared of things I think about in the dark.”
Hargrove sobers, eyes softening ever so slightly.
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. Now we’ve got dirt on each other, so neither of us can spill, right?”
A pause.
“Right. So, where are these guest rooms, pretty boy?”
—
It’s just as quiet in his house. Steve used to try and hold parties as frequently as possible as a way to masque the absence of his parents, to forget how lonely this big house could be. Now he has the Party over whenever he can, both because he likes them and it drives away the silence and the thoughts that come with it. Dustin sleeps over sometimes, and that helps a little, but they sleep in the same room. With Hargrove in the next room, it feels like he’s just as alone as before.
There’s no other breathing, no other presence, nothing to trick his mind into thinking he’s safe enough to sleep, that if something were to happen, someone would have his back. He hates it. He feels like it should be a comfort, but there’s nothing.
It makes him want to get up, make his way into the other room, just so he wouldn’t be so alone. It feels too cruel that someone is so close and yet so far. It makes him restless, more so than usual. It makes him want to screw it all and just go. In fact, he’s just sitting up when-
There’s a knock, and then his door swings open.
His clock reads 2:24 AM.
“Harrington,” Hargrove greets in a whisper.
“You good, Hargrove?”
“I just- … I can’t sleep either.”
Steve huffs out a laugh. It’s oddly reliving to not be alone in that. They may have different monsters, but maybe they can be there for each other in this moment.
He sits up and scooches over in his bed.
“Come sit with me,” he tells him, gesturing the guy over with a tilt of his head.
Half a step. Hesitation. Crossing the room in quick strides.
The silence is tense. Charged. Not like they’re going to snap at each other, or fight again. No, there’s a… it’s almost a buzzing in the air. Like they’re both waiting for the other to break the silence, like they’re both searching for words. In these hazy early hours, alone together in the dark of Steve’s bedroom, waiting to cross that final barrier before finding comfort in each other, Steve thinks they’re the most vulnerable they’ve ever been. He certainly is, at least. And it’s terrifying. It’s almost freeing, almost like floating above it all.
Hargrove brakes the tension first, eyes flickering around until they land at the base of Steve’s bed and, right, yeah, the-
“Why’s this under your bed?” the guy asks, crouching down to pull it out from its hiding place.
“I always sleep with a baseball bat under the bed.”
“This has nails in it,” Hargrove deadpans and Steve winces; yeah, he can’t really explain that without sounding mad.
“It comforts me, jackass,” he huffs.
Hargrove seems to pause.
“You been through some shit, huh, Harrington?”
“You could say that,” he whispers, turning his face away as, humiliatingly, he feels tears sting in the back of his eyes.
Hargrove hums, and Steve sees the bat - which Hargrove seemingly forgets, or just doesn’t care, has nails - get tossed absently onto the bed. Then the bed dips, accommodating a new weight.
“Keep talking to me,” Hargrove whispers. It feels like a request, demand and plea all at once - a feat only Hargrove could accomplish.
“About what?” he asks, head falling back against his headboard because he just can’t look at Hargrove right now - he can’t. Just in case the guy asks what he’s been through. He can’t handle looking at the guy's face while he lies to him. He can’t handle lying at all, but it’s better than the alternative, better than opening that wound. Besides, he’s not allowed to talk about it. But he’s so desperate to have it out of his own head that he might, he just might. It would take barely a push and he’d spill his guts, wounded heart bleeding feebly in Hargrove’s cruel grasp.
“Anything. We’ll keep it even - we’ve both got dirt on each other, right? And I can’t fucking sleep, and you’ve already told me you won’t.”
Steve hums noncommittally.
“What d’you wanna know?” he asks the ceiling.
“...How old were you when you lost your virginity?”
“Gross,” Steve tells him, matter-of-fact. But, hey, he did open himself up for questions from Billy Hargrove, so what did he expect? “I don’t know- when I was fifteen?”
When he looks down, he finds Billy already grinning at him.
“Which bitch at that school can claim the honour?”
Steve wrinkles his nose.
“That’s two questions, that’s hardly an even trade.”
Hargrove scoffs, lowers himself onto his side on Steve’s bed so that he has to tilt his head in what looks to be an uncomfortable position, and makes a grand gesture.
“Ask away, then, pretty boy.”
Steve huffs, moving until he’s lying on his side, feet at the headboard, laying the opposite way to Hargrove whose feet are by the foot of the bed. He has to curl in on himself so that his face is even with Hargrove’s, who has his own legs half hanging off the end. He mirrors Hargrove, leaning on his elbow until they’re actually able to talk without the guy straining his neck.
“Do you really hate it here? ‘Cause you bitch about Hawkins constantly.”
Hargrove gives him an unimpressed look. “You think I wanted to move away from the beach, with my friends, where I could at least visit my mom, to this shitty town?”
Steve winces.
“Yeah, fair point. But I didn’t ask if you hated the move. I mean, I don’t love it here particularly but…”
He shrugs.
“Hawkins is boring. Fine for the town it is, I guess. Everyone at the school is easy to impress at least. Except you.”
Steve frowns.
“I’m not that tough to crack. I’m friends with a bunch of thirteen-year-olds, for God’s sake.”
Billy scoffs.
“Never been a fan of me.”
“Dude,” Steve laughs incredulously. “You purposely tried to press my buttons.”
“Yeah. And?” Hargrove glares at him. “You brushed me off from the start. At the Halloween party, at basketball practice…”
Steve cringes, flopping back until he’s staring up at the ceiling. This is getting dangerously close to confidential shit.
“I… had a lot going on. You’re impressive in basketball, dude, really. I just… shit was happening and I was not in the mood to care about shitty highschool drama.”
Hargrove is silent for a long moment.
The bed creaks. Hargrove lays down on his back too. Steve imagines him and Billy tracing the same patterns across the ceiling with their eyes. Unknowingly paralleling the other. Different and separate, so similar.
“I get that,” the guy says finally. “I’ve got baggage, too.”
“We all do, it seems,” Steve sighs. “The kids, Nancy, Jonathan, us. So much shit in this damn town, shit the adults just… don’t see, or do anything about.”
Hargrove hums.
“And my parents are never fucking here, so I’m taking care of myself, and making sure the dickheads I’ve unwittingly adopted don’t choke on their dice playing Dungeons and Dimwits, or whatever. It’d be nice if I could just be allowed to be a kid while I still have the chance.”
“Cheers to that,” Hargrove whispers, voice rough like gravel.
There’s another pause, a pause where Steve starts to think, shit, he overshared. He’s practically lined himself up to give Hargrove ammunition against him for the rest of school. Which would suck. But then Hargrove is whispering to him again, voice melting away that screaming silence in his room, silence that lets his own mind lash at himself.
“It was my dad.”
“Hm?”
“My face. It was him.”
Steve sucks in a sharp breath, rolling onto his side to look at him. Hargrove won’t meet his eye, still staring unseeingly up, up, up-
“Has he done it before?”
“Yeah. It used to be worse, before he married Susan. I think he toned it down for her, but it’s getting worse again.”
“Does he-” Steve has to swallow past the thickness of terror in his throat. “Max, does he-?”
Hargrove cuts him off with a humourless laugh.
“He wouldn’t. She’s his brilliant wife’s perfect little daughter. So it’s fine. No need to worry. Your little friend is fine, just her asshole step-brother-”
“No, Billy,” Steve says, reaching out unthinkingly, fingers pressing into Billy’s shoulder, gentle but there.
Blue eyes snap over to look at him, head whipping, startled, to the side. So dark in the dim light.
“No. It’s not okay, I didn’t- shit - I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Don’t stress over it, pretty boy-”
“No. If he does it again, you come straight here, okay? Fuck, we should just go to Hopper-”
“No. I don’t- I can’t-”
“Okay. Okay. We won’t. But you come straight the fuck here, okay? Shit, dude, I’m sorry.”
“Fuck off, Harrington,” he snarls. “I don’t want your pity-”
“Well, tough, asshole, because I’m not leaving you alone with that. I can hardly handle it when my dad yells at me whenever the fuck he actually decides to remember he has a son; I can’t imagine how- I’m not just gonna-” he cuts off, sighing. “And just… call me Steve, yeah?”
“Fine, Steve. This means it's your turn to share something big, right? So what else is there to King Steve?”
He cringes at the name.
“Still pining over that bitch Wheeler?”
“No,” he glares. “Nancy’s just my friend. I was for a while but… I’m getting over it. I’m pretty much over it.”
“Sights set on anyone else?”
“No.”
“What, no girls pretty enough for you?”
“It’s not that, I just-”
“No guys pretty enough for you?” Billy continues, tone cruelly teasing.
Steve’s words die on his tongue. He freezes. Says nothing.
Hargrove notices, eyes widening.
Face burning, Steve turns over, back to the guy. He can’t look at him. Shit. Why didn’t he just say no? It isn’t like he likes him, he can just admit that the guy is good looking. In an objective sense. He-
Shit!
The silence is awkward this time around. It drags on for hours, years, centuries. Steve just wishes he could pull the covers out from where they’re bunched beneath them, pull them over his head and pretend this all away, like he would when he imagined monsters when he was younger. But monsters are real, and this moment is irreversible. No covers will save him from this. Steve doesn’t get to be a kid.
He stares at the clock. 2:45AM
“I mean it.”
Hargrove’s voice is quiet, barely even a whisper this time around
“Mean what?” He snaps, trying not to hyperventilate. He doesn’t really care what Hargrove has to say. He just wants this moment over, wants this night to have never happened.
“When I call you pretty boy. I mean it.”
His breath catches.
“You’re fucking gorgeous, and I hate that I like you like that, so I try to make it an insult. But I mean it.”
Slowly, hesitantly, as if waiting for Billy’s seemingly calm act to shatter and the harassment to ensue, he rolls over.
Billy’s face is serious, slightly flushed.
“Shit,” he breathed out, utterly stunned. “Seriously?”
He nods.
“Fuck.”
It’s almost a laugh, relieved, disbelieving, slightly… slightly happy. Shit. And now Billy keeps looking at him like that and Steve just- he wants-
The buzzing becomes a crackling. Electricity before a storm.
Oh, fuck. He wants to kiss Billy Hargrove.
He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. The guy is still a dick, still half-smashed his face in, like, a month back. He hasn’t really changed, it’s just that Steve has context now. And he’s not alone in his empty house. And Billy is so fucking attractive with those curls and those damn blue eyes and he’s thought Steve is pretty all this time.
Steve needs to put space between them before he does something really stupid, like follow through on that impulse.
So he pushes up onto his elbow again, and Billy mirrors him. They're probably on the same page. Surely they’re on the same page. They should stop this.
Their faces have ended up closer than before and they both freeze, barely propped up. Billy moves. Steve tilts his head.
And they’re kissing.
Shit, they’re actually kissing. And it’s - fuck - it’s good. Billy’s hand comes up to cup his jaw, tilt his head for a better angle, thumb caressing just under his ear and- Yeah, Steve is gone. Just gone. No lights on upstairs except for the one blaring red alarm for ‘OH MY GOD, I’M KISSING BILLY HARGROVE AND IT’S AMAZING’.
It’s not even rough, like Steve had expected. There’s no battling for dominance, or biting, or tongue. They’re just… kissing. It’s not chaste but it’s sweet. It’s gentle and feels so fucking special, and Steve has never felt less alone cause Billy has him right now - and that thought is so bizarre that Steve can’t help but grin into the kiss, to start laughing slightly.
Billy pulls back, and Steve’s heart aches at the distance between them and, shit, he hasn’t felt like that since Nancy. Really? One kiss and he’s all in? But it’s hard to be mad because Billy is just looking at him with so much awe and wonder like Steve is something precious, like it’s unthinkable that he’s won this, and Steve melts.
He lets himself fall back fully onto the mattress except for one hand that he raises to trace Billy’s face with featherlight touches. His eyebrows, his nose, the shape of his lips, the bruise under his eye. And Billy’s eyes shine, and, crap, he’s tearing up.
“Oh, crap,” Steve rushes out, dropping his hand, rising onto his elbows. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”
“No- just- fuck-” Billy flops down next to him and Steve lowers himself back down, eyes scanning Billy’s face nervously. “I’m fine. Please, keep doing that.”
“Doing..?”
“Touching me like that.”
And Steve’s heart breaks because hasn’t Billy been treated like that before? He should have been. He should have been, and it makes Steve unthinkably angry that he hasn’t, so of course he will. He leans in and presses his lips to his forehead, between his brows, his temple, his cheeks, his jaw - all gentle kisses, as soft as he can manage, and Billy lets out a disbelieving huff of breath.
“Shit,” he says, like everything has just fallen into place. Like he gets something now, something that he’d missed before somehow.
And Steve brushes a curl back from Billy’s face. And then he’s leaning in and pressing his lips to Billy’s and it’s awkward, all noses butting chins because they’re still laying opposite ways, but it’s still, somehow, monumental.
When he goes to pull away, Billy’s fingers wind into his hair and guide him back for a marginally less awkward, longer kiss. He learns the taste of Billy’s lips, and that when he pauses to press a kiss to the corner of his smile he’ll sigh happily. It’s so fucking sweet. Sweeter than anything with Nancy had ever been, and it’s like this is the final thing that makes that persistent little ache at her absence flicker out. He doesn’t want Nancy, he wants this.
When, finally, they let each other actually pull away, they’re both smiling, eyes closed for a moment before they open and meet, leaning up to look into them better.
“That’s one hell of a goodnight kiss,” Steve tells him and Billy huffs out a disbelieving, startled, amused laugh.
“I don’t get you, pretty boy. But sleep with me?”
Steve nods, grinning so wide it makes his cheeks ache. He scrambles up, kicks that damn bat off the bed, ignoring the mildly concerning thump it makes against his bedroom floor, and realigns himself with Billy. For a moment, he just pauses to look at him because he doesn’t have to feel guilty about it now, and then he curls himself against Billy’s side, head on his shoulder as the guy’s arm curls around him and pulls him closer.
That night is the first in a long time that monsters don’t prowl behind his closed eyes, just blue eyes and the comfort of another’s breathing by his ear.
#harringroveweek#stranger things#harringrove#steve harrington#billy hargrove#fanfiction#fanart#squid writes#squid draws
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while i’m still on my other Russingon fic, lemme present you with Another Thing i’m working on, where i obsess over Fingon’s ice trauma, which we do NOT talk about enough
Set after Maedhros’ rescue, in the Nolofinwean camp.
No one realised what was happening until the heat could be felt through the thick canvas. The blaze shone through the walls. When they pulled open the tent flaps, the braziers were reaching high enough to lick at the roof.
They pulled Findekáno away from the fire. His arms spilled jetsam and flotsam of camp life–paper scraps, bits of rope, unanswered missives, a shirt waiting to be mended. The firewood basket was empty. He had already fed a jewelry box and half of a chair to the flames: the chair had been unbroken when last they left him.
“Tie the flaps open,” Nerwen ordered. “The smoke needs out.”
Nelyafinwe was insensible on the bed, his large form smothered beneath not just every blanket in the tent but half of the rugs as well. The unsightly remains of his hair were blood-dark with sweat. Nerwen had him moved closer to the entrance, where he might breathe the fresh air.
Findekáno appeared entirely oblivious to the reasons of the sudden commotion.
“He can’t go cold,” he repeated in response to every question directed at him. Nerwen frowned at the raised fuzz on his woolen shirt: he kept rubbing his hands over his arms so incessantly that he had roughened the surface of the fibres.
#my fic#russingon#wip#i'm so sorry fingon#there will be woolly socks tho#hang in there#tolkien fic#squid writes#fingon
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I know that "Let them eat cake" is a mistranslation on top of a misrepresentation, that it is propaganda marinated in prejudice and cooked low and slow until rage slipped right off the bone and honed a blade of Righteous, indignant fury that sliced through necks guilty, ignorant, and innocent like they were all nothing but buttercream frosting.
I know this.
But sometimes I think about how it is cheaper for parents to buy McDonalds than it is to bake bread, about how using your hands to grow vegetables in your own dirt is a luxury and how frozen french fries and pizza are the only vegetables some children eat all week.
I think about how much corn is refined into syrup and how much good grain is dumped in livestock troughs and how many stomachs go hungry outside of grocery stores with locks and cameras on their garbage bins and I think of homes without clean water mere miles away from the greatest source of fresh water in the world.
I think about how much cheaper it is to buy a pack of cupcakes than it is to buy a loaf of good bread, about the price of gas compared to the price of Doordash, about rainbow mascots on cereals that get their proteins from marshmallows but are cheaper than a carton of eggs from healthy birds.
I am told to think of the children, and it smells stale. I wonder if they can sense it, taste the fuzz on their tongues, feel the sudden, wretching horror of looking into the crevices your teeth left in your food and finding the rich alien blue of strong mold.
I know hypocrisy tastes like buttercream, but I wonder how long it will be until everyone can taste it.
#squid writes#poetry#brought to you by: Why The Fuck Does Fruit Cost That Much#don't fucking talk to me about 'seasons' I know how the weather works#that doesn't make the average cost of groceries in america any less bullshit#this is not just an american issue but I get my groceries in america#I'm just Angry and Wrote This about it I know I like my words and it shows and it would sound better spoken instead of written#but this is all that I've got#so have a chunk of my heart#I struggled and it's not perfect but I like the beginning so here it is
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Sorry it took me so long to answer!! I've been kinda busy and I wanted to write a sweet scene in my wip so here ya go
But she didn’t trade her imaginary friend in for real friends spoken to in the hallways, at soccer practice, in notes quietly passed between desks, in binary lines of text messages. The Creator stayed.
Sure, the Creator wasn’t destructive or harmful. But it still puzzled people.
She would turn to her side, where no one was, and talk to an invisible person. She would hold entire conversations with this being, laughing and talking like she’d known them her entire life.
And maybe she had.
It was the girl’s first week of high school. She was seated a row behind a girl with a soft green hijab, the color of the trees and of wild crabgrass, the color of the rolling plains and of the soft floor of the forest, dappled with sunlight filtered through the trees; it was the color of high school sweethearts and of love at first sight. The girl wore a long-sleeved shirt striped black and white, with a baggy T-shirt proclaiming her love for the Lord of the Rings, and a long pink maxi skirt almost reaching her ankles, jeans tucked into her boots poking out from beneath. Her head was bowed, staring at her notebook as she doodled the image of a fairy girl perched on a branch.
The girl’s now bright pink locs brushed against her cheek as she turned to face me. “Creator, can you let me talk to her? She’s kinda cute,” she whispered, smiling.
I smiled back.
“Of course, Delilah.”
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rewrote most of the humans page on the Empyria lore site. even this bonkers JRPG world is not free from stupid rumours
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i like him
#the best way to cool off from writing or coding or work is to draw your terrible squid friend#baldur's gate 3#the emperor bg3#bg3#mindflayer#dnd#illithid#bg3 spoilers
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born to
forced to
#AAAAAAAAAAAAA#I HATE IT HERE!!!#eddie learns the ocean#writing scientific essays is going to be my end#magnapinna squid#marine biology
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As fun as it is when people write the Emperor as someone who has his shit together and functions as An Excellent Specimen of a Mindflayer, this alien mastermind who can act like a mentor for illiThav, I have a fondness for the Emperor as like
this absolute wreck of a person.
Mindflayers are supposed to stay with their colony for like 20+ years to learn All The Things Mindflayer and we know Ansur stole him away long before that (I think he said 12 or 13 years). And then put him through what was meant to be cult deprogramming, but probably was just an unfortunate mixture of torture (mental isolation and I can see a measure of starvation added to it) and instilling every insecurity known to man. Guilting the squid not to act squiddy wasn't very effective on the long run, but it sure must have been traumatizing - might even be the reason why the Emperor made such a decisive cut between his old and new identity. We don't know how long Ansur tried before he gave up, but probably quite a few years, dragon sounded like the stubborn sort.
So we have 1. possibly not fully socialized/introduced to the culture in its fullest and 2. some years of being forced to act as close to his old human personality as possible to placate Ansur. 3. continued social isolation where he only interacts with humanoid races, often indirectly at that.
So I like the idea that as the result of all of that he's not really pretending when we meet him properly, he's Just Like That. Not the part about being on top of things, gods know people wrote stories about how he talked his way out of all sorts of nonsense with pure bullshit, he could probably sell beachfront property in the Hells if he tried. Just, his personality and mannerisms as an ungodly mixture halfway between illithid and human, he's just the weirdest squid. Not human anymore, no, but acting and thinking overall too human compared to other mindflayers and he might not even be fully aware of it because he's been isolated from his kind for the last several hundred years. Even post-Absolute he might not know how weird he is, I somehow can't see the elderbrain reintegrating him into the colony when he's clearly defective. Say thank you to Gortash for being curious about his business rival or the Emperor would be past tense.
Anyway, I really like Weird Squid Emperor and I want to put him in a room with Omeluum so nerd squid can take notes and be amazed at this trashfire of an illithid, I think that would be a cool scene actually.
#baldur's gate 3#balduran#the emperor#bg3#sorry about the random rant this squid moved into my brain and refuses to leave#it's a problem I'm writing a longfic about it
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i like to play minecraft on peaceful survival bc im essentially using it like a building sim where i can find materials to build cool houses/cities out of. i have a few games where i play normal survival minecraft though, and they always throw me off bc im still using it as a building sim except it takes me twice as long because this time i have to kill all these fucking skeletons on the way to get dye for glazed terracotta
#the closest lake with squid is next to a big overhang but i need the ink sacs#IM STILL USING IT LIKE A BUILDING SIM BUT NOW I NEED TO SLEEP AT NIGHT AND IT TAKE TWICE AS LONG#noome recommend me other games that are more designed for building i dont want those i want minecraft#ican terraform the entire location to me specifications#i can dig a huge hole i can take down the mountain i built on the side of i can explore and build in the deepslate caves#i can do anything including writing funny messages into the sky and paving over a ravine to make a second secret city underneath#minecraft#shark talks
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