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thatonebabybat · 5 months

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Being Masc & Goth

This blog usually isn't fashion-focused, but I was thinking about alt fashion and how it's sometimes a struggle to figure out how to style things in a masc way if you're interested in darkalt fashion, but you don't want to go too casual or basic with it. So I thought I'd throw together some tips, link some DIYs, and maybe throw in a few moodboards. I want to preface this with one thing: You do NOT have to adhere to traditional gender roles. Fuck anyone who tells you that you do. If you're a guy and you want to get into alt fashion don't let anyone tell you that you can't pull off a skirt or a dress or a strappy top. Literally the whole point of being alt is Doing Whatever The Hell You Want Forever. However, not everyone feels comfortable in that (I made this post because I'm transmasc and sometimes the long gothic dresses make me dysphoric), and not everyone is safe to do that ( as much as it sucks ass, if you live in a conservative area sometimes it can be genuinely dangerous for guys to wear makeup and dresses in public, and your safety should always come first), so I thought I'd lay out some tips on how to dress alt and masc from my own experience. I'm still learning so feel free to leave your own advice in the replies or reblogs! General Styling Tips: - Jackets. Jackets, jackets, jackets. Something about a big jacket always seems to give an outfit a more masc energy, and adding a cool jacket to an outfit can be a great way to elevate it and add some extra visual interest. I like black blazers, leather jackets, and black denim jackets in particular, but vests (formal menswear ones or more casual denim or leather ones) can work well too, especially in hot weather. - Any basic black pair of jeans will look 100x more alt if you loosely attach some chains to the pockets or belt loops. Also, pants with wider legs tend to look more masc than tighter fits. not sure why. Slacks can also be a really good and underrated option. - If you want to find good headwear, cool sunglasses have never failed me. You may be able to take some inspiration from Ouji fashion as well, but that's just my personal taste. - If you have a basic piece around, you can add pins, patches, safety pins, etc for a more casual look, or if you're going for something more formal, trims and lace details and embroidery can really add interest and elegance to it. (if you can't sew, you can order iron-on embroidered patches online or find them in craft stores that'll do the trick just fine.) This can take your pair of slacks or plain black blazer and turn it into a piece of formal gothic menswear you can make a staple of your wardrobe. - Find inspiration in your favorite goth artists. There's a lot of really cool goth music out there and a lot of those bands get really innovative with their looks! Figure out what you like about their style and try incorporating a few things in, it's fun! - If you have an alt wardrobe already but it just seems like something's missing or it could use some interest, try switching up the silhouettes or adding an extra layer! Seriously, don't be scared of playing with textures and sleeve shapes! I see a lot of dudes who just wear a band tee and a pair of jeans all the time, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, that can be a great look! But I think a lot of dudes just genuinely think that that's their only option and that everything else just "wasn't made for them" and that makes me a little sad. shred up some shirts and layer them, wear some bell sleeves, throw some extra safety pins or studs on, have fun! No one said masc fashion couldn't be fun. Unisex/Masc DIY Videos I Found:

youtube

... And Some Inspiration!

[These are all goth music artists, I wrote the band/artist names in small text on the images that were not already watermarked for those who are curious]

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bellshazes · 11 months

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dreaming up a syllabus for an imaginary course on metanarratives about gameplay, which i think would go something like:

unit 1: who do you think you are i am - auto-documentary & games

Vlogs and the Hyperreal, Folding Ideas

The Slow Death of Let's Play Videos, Meraki (to ~10:00)

World Record Progression: Mike Tyson, Summoning Salt

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3, hbomberguy

Life as a Bokoblin: A Zelda Nature Documentary, Monster Maze

optional: Braindump on the History of Let's Plays, slowbeef

unit 2: what like it's hard? - intro to challenge narratives

Chapter 26: Games as Narrative Play: Two Structures for Narrative Play, Rules of Play

A different kind of challenge run: Minimalist 100% (BOTW), Wolf Link

Surviving 100 Days on Just Dirt, Mogswamp

Can You Beat DARK SOULS III with Only Firebombs, the Backlogs

Is it Possible to Beat Super Mario 3D World while permanently crouching?, Ceave Gaming

The Pacifist Challenge - Beating Hollow Knight Without Collecting Soul [CHALLENGE] - Sample

optional: How to 100% Snowpeak Ruins in under 15 minutes, bewildebeest

unit 3: nelly you don't understand, i AM the narrative - form and function

The Future of Writing about Games, Jacob Geller

Can You Beat GRIME Without Weapons?, the Backlogs

Mushroom Kingdom Championships, Ceave Gaming

My Life as a Barber in Hitman 2, MinMax (Leo Vader)

MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod, PowerPak

optional: Mega Microvideos, Matthewmatosis

the theme and structure is mostly intended to introduce at least one critical or historically contextual work followed by examples of the type of narrative in question.

in unit 1, this is the idea of "How do people talk about their own experiences in the context of YouTube and playing video games?" across three rather different kinds of documentaries. unit 2 is intended to take that lens of who is telling what tale and dial in on challenge running, where i first noticed the way some videos turn the story of overcoming a challenge into its own narrative that is distinct from but related to the narrative events of the game itself. unit 3 circles back to the bigger picture with a variety of examples that, to me, are maximally metanarrative, the emergent story of the player-narrator now functionally replacing the game's embedded narrative.

bonus unit: broken narratives

Glitch & the Grotesque at the MLA, Sylvia Korman

Watching time loop movies to escape my time loop, Leo Vader

The Stanley Parable, Dark Souls, and Intended Play, Folding Ideas

Breaking Madden, Jon Bois

The TRUTH about the Pizzaplex in FNAF: Security Breach, AstralSpiff

this one is highly underdeveloped, but i'd love to work out something more robust building on randomizer challenges that produce intentionally bizarre, semi-ironic "lore," and bois-esque endeavors to break games so hard the story itself crumbles. but that's really out of scope so i'm just including the links to things i couldn't bear to get rid of. more rambling abt the challenge runs I chose under the cut.

Challenge runs represent one of the most obvious places to start, due to being extremely plentiful and having a hook that makes a "here's how I did X thing in Y video game" format almost unavoidable. Minimalist 100% is an underrated and sweet straightforward example that I mostly include as a baseline for reporting-out style narrative; here are the facts, here's what happened, this is the thing that it is. Mogswamp's 100 Days on Just Dirt is similar in style, but the physical measuring of days is a delightful and, more importantly, external narrative device.

Now oriented, we get a taste of Ceave Gaming's narrative approach to Mario challenges with the no-crouching run, and while we still aren't at the degree of player-characters being constructed for the narrative's sake, the spirited belief in crouching sets the stage for other rhetoric in more extreme cases we'll see later.

The Backlogs' entire body of work qualifies here, but GRIME is the strongest inspiration for putting this list together. I include the DS3 firebombs run because what was initially a factual description of how his wife's use of firebombs inspired him to play differently in the original DS1 firebombs run has developed into full-blown multi-game narrative arc with the Firebomb Goddess (his wife, who also voices the character) compelling his in-game character to achieve his destined quest. Grime takes that even further,

In-Game Documentaries

I include Life as a Bokoblin mostly as a contrast to My Life as a Barber - there is a level of fictionalization and roleplay involved in the Zelda in-game documentary that highlights exactly what I want to single out when I am talking about metanarrative, the story about a story.

#peter posts #mc meta #<- close enough #also i will add some context for the rest of the docus too since the summoning salt is on here for a VERY SPECIFIC REASON

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kettlefire · 11 months

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DP x DC Angst Prompt

Inspired by the song Preacher by Roe Kapara

"This is a distress signal from Amity Park Illinois." A scared teen girl was the face to meet the staticy camera. Red hair pulled up in a messy bun, tear stains clear on her face, eyes rimmed red.

All options were running out. They had two days, two days before the hunt began. Two days before they lose everything.

A distress signal, broadcasted on loop, over and over again to any frequency they can get their hands on with the limited equipment they had.

"This Friday, at 3:15am, my town is going to make an irreparable mistake."

A soft clang rang from somewhere of screen, but that didn't shift her attention.

"My town, my home, has fallen to the manipulation of a deranged woman."

A choked sound came from off screen, sounds uncomfortable close to a sob.

"Amity Park has always been disconnected from the rest of the world. A small town, in it's own small world. Things have been happening here for the past two years, and now..."

She paused, glancing off screen before wiping her face.

"Now we aren't enough to save it. We did took too long to notice the cancer that was spreading. The hysteria combined with fear of the unknown that drove out town to follow her.

My name is Jasimine Fenton, I'm here with my father Jack Fenton. My mother, Madeline Fenton, is the reason the world might be facing war."

The video footage grew worse, static starting to over take the image and the audio.

"Dad, we're losing it!"

"Sorry Jazzy-bear" The new voice clearly came from a man, even if he stayed clear of the camera view. A moment passed before it was fixed.

"We don't know how long we gave before they find us, but... My baby brother Danny Fenton is going to be brutally hunt down Friday morning.

There's no time to put all the information needed in this signal, but I'm begging anyone who sees this. Please send help.

Anyone who has spoken against the plan has been imprisoned, the only ones from the team that's fear is us."

Jazz let out a shaking breath, staring off screen for just a moment before coming back, fresh tears rimming her eyes.

"All Danny every wanted to do was protect his home, and all he got in return was pain and hatred. Please, you might not know us, but you need to know. Danny holds a high position with in the ghostly realm.

Whatever you want to call it, the ghost zone, the infinite realms, or purgatory. Doesn't matter, all you need to know of the living kill Danny, the ghosts will rage war."

A heavy thud filled the room, the camera seemed to shake at the sound. Fear filled Jazz's face.

"Dad, they-"

"It's okay Jazz, finish the recording, they can't get in yet."

Jazz nodded, moving toward the camera. She seemed to cup it in her hands and tried to speak over the loud thud that continued to penetrate the area.

"We're running out of time, I hope this reaches someone somewhere. More than anything, I hope this reaches the Justice League.

Reaches them before Friday. Before the world is in true danger. Danny is the only link to peace between worlds. Don't let a woman driven by hatred be the end."

This time instead of a thud, it sounded more like a crack. The camera shifted and a view of a large man built like a tank was caught. A strange gun in one hand, and what looked like a strange grenande in the other.

"Jazzy-Bear, there's an escape tunnel in the back. Go, I'll hold them off as long as I can."

"No! I'm not leaving you!"

"Jazz-"

"No. I don't care, I'm no use to anyone by myself. We need to stick together."

"Jasimine-"

"I'm setting the recording to loop."

"Honey-"

Loud crash broke through following another crack. Heavy footsteps followed. Voices screamed through the air.

Jazz's face filled the screen completely as gunfire could be heard.

"Please send anyone, I can't lose my baby brother too."

And just like that, the screen went black. Barely a couple seconds passed before the screen lit up again.

The video starting from the beginning. Hoping for anyone to view it.

A cry for help cycling through an endless loop until it found it's self broadcast for the League.

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theminecraftbee · 18 days

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you know what au concept i have flashed back to recently? the jimmy dating simulator hell au. which is to say: an au idea i had and i think posted about before where jimmy gets isekaied into being the protagonist of a dating simulator with all of his friends (that he flirts with/are commonly shipped with him) as the dating options and at FIRST when suddenly, all of his friends are OPENLY into him, it's great! he's preening under the attention, he's like "yes. haha. actually i AM great glad you finally noticed." and then bit by bit he's like. oh no. wait. what happened to my friends. and has an existential crisis about the world suddenly and horrendously revolving around him.

anyway i have been thinking about that again. i'm still not sure how i'd write it without either being A) too mean to the concept of dating games (which is to say, i don't really play them, and i worry i would come across as an outsider making fun of them because of that more than 'i love video game existential horror') or B) being too mean to the idea of like... fanon and shipping (two things i am Fine With, to be clear, i just love the idea of 'you are forced to meet a warped reflection of someone you love, and they have become warped around you'.) but it's also SUCH A GOOD PREMISE and if i can figure out how to make it work i'd love to. (or love to see someone else make it work if that happened.)

anyway all of this is to say: i know in the original post i joked about jimmy figuring it out because grian's too nice to him. but you know what, dating games absolutely have the tsundere one. i think it would be interesting if jimmy figured it out because scott was too nice to him. because like... in a lot of ways, THAT ONE would be the right kind of warped for jimmy to go. wait. this isn't someone fucking with me for the bit. .......why isn't this that.

all of this is ALSO to say: undecided on whether i like this premise as pretty fully horror (only jimmy knows something is wrong) or i choose someone who i think is like, wholly unattracted to jimmy even in fanon (and also honestly to make it work, basically wholly unconnected to him in the plot) to make stuck as the One Other Guy who knows something is wrong. if i had to do that i am thinking real hard and landing on. maybe cleo? that might just be me being a cleo guy but i think honestly cleo or like, ren might be the most effective ones for that slot.

all of this is ALSO ALSO to say: so like do we make this just a "jimmy has to live his life like this" horror or add the "time loop to get all the routes!" flavor of horror to it. so many options,

#trafficshipping #empireshipping #........once again i use the shipping tags because they're probably NECESSARY but also i'm not sure i'd call this premise a ship premise ;-#in fact i'd say it's #it's kind of the opposite. of a ship premise. despite relying implicitly on. the idea of. anyway.#MAN IF I COULD JUST FIGURE OUT HOW TO /PLOT THIS OUT/ IT'D BE SUCH A COOL PREMISE TOO.#or maybe finally use it as the excuse to learn renpy lol (<- will not do this)

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leog4u · 1 month

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Game Design and Porn Pt. 1

or, How To Fuck Up The Best Intrinsic Reward Ever

Hi, I'm Leo G, veteran pervert. One time while chatting in a server exclusively made of porn artists, I brought up the game design of a porn game I enjoyed. One of them laughed, saying "Who cares, it's just a porn game?" Being unwell, I never let this go. Since then, I have played many adult games and took each one as serious products made by professionals. Fast forward to today, and the demo for my porn game, Joker's Trip, is nearing completion. I also have some sci-fi erotica you should check out.

So you wanna make a porn game. You heard they make money, and hey what’s more fun than making a video game AND porn? But you don’t know where to begin! Well don’t worry, Leo’s got you covered. We’re gonna walk through the line of thinking you should have when designing your porn game. There's gonna be at least three parts to this, with part 1 focusing on how to reward your player.

Define "porn game" for me, Leo.

There are porn games, and then games with porn in them. A porn game is a game where you won’t last 5 minutes, where everything exists solely to meet and, subsequently, fuck. A game with porn in it is a game where everything exists for the purpose of the game, and also, you fuck. Fate Stay Night, for example, is a VN with a story that just so happens to have some CGs where the protagonist rails Saber, but is mainly about Shirou and the Holy Grail War. Much like how I would call Castlevania a game with horror in it, but not a horror game.

Porn games are a lot like horror games. They both get a bad rap for being cheap to make, appealing to base instincts, and generally being low quality. They're also both not actual genres of games, but genres of content. Think about it, if I asked you what a horror game is, you'd say a game that's scary. But what's the actual game part? The unfortunate answer would most likely be "walking sim," but there are a lot of examples that are FPSes, puzzles, driving sims, platformers, deck builders, the list goes on.

The most common genres of game I see for porn games these days are by far RPG Maker RPGs and VNs. I won’t be talking about VNs because they’re closer to writing than game design, which isn’t a flaw but a feature. What used to be everywhere, in days of old, were breakout games, where the more bricks and levels were cleared, the more of the sexy image would be revealed in the background. Other arcadey type deals like shoot ‘em ups and mahjong were also around, and had a similar “strip ‘em down until you have sex” gameplay loop.

Okay, so what’s an intrinsic reward?

There’s intrinsic rewards, and there're extrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards, generally, are the number go up rewards. Things that make your character stronger, or give you more resources to buy new gear or whatever. Intrinsic rewards in games can cover a large swathe of things. It can be the feeling of satisfaction of completing a puzzle, a piece of lore or world building, or a new dialogue option with a character you want to fuck.

I like fucking characters, are we talking about porn now?

Yes! I’m of the opinion that you literally can’t make a better intrinsic reward than pornography. On top of setting the tone for the entirety of the game., at its best it can add to a story, add to someone’s character development, or be a beautiful piece of art to look at. AND you can jack off to it! Unfortunately, that’s at its best. Let’s talk about how porn is delivered in a theoretical RPG porn game. (As a head’s up, there will be talk of “bad end” scenes, but this is under the assumption that the player is the one consenting.)

So you’re playing an RPG and get into a fight. Maybe you were underleveled or too cumbrained to remember to buy healing potions. Then your HP goes to zero, and instead of going back to the title screen, you’re getting fucked by orcs. That’s right, let’s talk about Game Over CGs.

You get to watch porn when you lose?

To someone making a porn game with a battle system, this delivery method makes sense. The characters in this world are driven primarily by lust, this is just the obvious conclusion. And it doesn’t even have to be non-consensual! Games like Future Fragments show that it can be presented as a sexy inconvenience rather than anything uncomfortable for the player or our hero. Game Over CGs even have the benefit of softening the blow of defeat, by giving the player a chance to reflect on their defeat and jerk off. Even better if losing a fight isn’t lost progress, but rather a bump in the road. However, there’s a problem here. The player is a dog, and we’re rewarding bad behavior.

The porn is an intrinsic reward, so why are we giving it to the player for losing? Incentivizing losing on purpose isn’t just bad game design, but a waste of time. And to that end, a lot of porn games try to give solutions to this. One being a kill button on the keyboard or a skill that instantly KOs our hero to get to the lose screen faster. What might seem like a convenience is really just expediting failure.

What it says is that the gameplay doesn’t actually matter. You’re just here for the porn, right? In that case there’s plenty of places I can go to see a chick with huge knockers get railed by an orc, with the added bonus of not having to play forgettable and mid turn based combat!

Another solution I’ve seen is the game outright telling you, “hey don’t bother killing yourself to see the porn. Once you beat the game all of the scenes you missed will be unlocked!” At first this seems like a reasonable way to go about it, but it comes with another problem: your game better be fucking good to make me play through the entire thing before getting to see cock. Like I said earlier, porn at its best can reveal things about the world and drive character development. I uh. Just beat the game. I don’t care anymore. Showing me a scene that’s taken out of context by a factor of 5 hours or more isn’t what I’d call great game design or story telling. It’s also too little, too late.

What if we made the porn actual rewards?

Now we’re getting somewhere! Let’s make the reward…a reward! What if, every time the player beats a level, we get some porn? If we tie the CG to beating the boss, we’ll be tying the reward to game progression. That’s good right? So now, on top of the extrinsic rewards you’d normally get for beating a boss (a lot of EXP, better gear, opened areas) we also get that sweet dopamine rush of pornography! So we’re good, right?

There’s 1142 words left in this post, so I’m assuming no.

Well. It’s a start. It has the problem of predictability. If not handled properly, it comes off as lazy. As a game designer, one of your goals is to not constantly remind your player that they’re playing a video game. Get through the level, get porn. It feels a little too “mouse in a maze looking for cheese” for my taste. And much like the game over method, if the actual game itself is mid, the player will start to question if the reward is worth it, and might be afflicted with the worst condition a player could receive: boredom.

Of course there are exceptions. In puzzle or arcade type games where you don’t get extrinsic rewards, giving the player porn as another form of reward per level or whatever is perfectly reasonable (though it does have the issue of being predictable.) This is a perfectly good way of doing it if your game is short, or if the game is, y’know, good and fun to play. Bad Color’s game, Heroine Conquest, is a level based puzzle game with porn as the reward, but only when you do good. Combining the actual challenge of mastering the game, with a genuinely unique game loop makes for a feeling of accomplishment when beating a level. Pair that up with a sex cutscene, and the dopamine rush will hit.

So! Let’s combine giving the player a power trip, with a less rigid structure for giving the player porn. Instead of tying the porn to purely progression gates, let’s tie it to the progression.

Plot milestones

In Third Crisis, sex scenes are peppered throughout the regular game’s plot, starting with some lesbian bondage before introducing the protagonist, who goes through a tutorial before having their own horny encounters. It’s not just given when you win or lose, but is a natural part of the game. Beating bosses, losing to enemies, and exploring dialogue options in sidequests all lead to unlocking new CGs.

Now what’s nice about that, is that the sex isn’t placed somewhere extremely predictable. It isn’t just a reward for beating The Boss Of Forest Zone, Now Go To Ice Zone And Beat The Ice Boss For More Cock. Because that’s the biggest issue of predictable rewards, you know you’re not getting anything until that checkpoint, which will make the player weigh whether or not it’s even worth continuing. This is fine, again, for an arcade type game, not an RPG or adventure game. By sprinkling sex throughout the plot itself, the player will not only want to progress, but their curiosity will have them wondering “what else is out there?”

Rewarding exploration

By putting sex scenes behind optional side quests or encounters, the dog that is the player will scour every single corner of the map, and leave no pixel unturned. Personally, that’s more exciting to me than what you’ll get in the main progression route. In Future Fragments the player can find their rival Faye in sexual situations if they explore the map enough. These are completely optional, and don’t give any direct rewards like more HP or an item, but they’re by far what motivates me to explore the maps as thoroughly as possible, more so than the plot macguffins the game is named after!

So now the player is excited. Sex can happen anywhere. Maybe that daunting off road path with stronger monsters isn’t just hiding a secret, but a sexy secret! They’ll be more likely to venture down those optional paths you painstakingly made.

If we’re using sex in game overs, boss fights, and just randos, why not put it everywhere?

So now I want to talk about the concept of a “sex stat”. It’s not a bad idea! Say, the higher the player’s sex stat is, the more opportunities you unlock for fucking. It could even be tied to the player character’s personality, and affect the story! Instead of using a sword and shield, they’ll end any conflict with sass and sex. They open their eyes to the horny world around them and stop being a hero, and instead become a succubus, and the ending is a massive cum filled orgy.

That sounds excessive

Yeah, it does, doesn’t it.

I’m not a fan of “corruption” systems in porn games. Corruption as a kink is totally fine, and having it be a part of the story lets you incorporate more sexuality into the plot. But as I alluded to, it snowballs pretty fast (and I’m not talking about spitting in someone’s mouth). It ends up being like a cheat code, where you’re bypassing parts of the game for no cost. It stops being a reward, it stops being unexpected, and it stops it from being sexy.

Wait, what? Stops being sexy? What’s not sexy about a succubus orgy?

Alright, listen, we gotta rein it in for a minute. This isn’t so much about game design as it is about writing erotica, but if you have a world where everyone’s fucking and sucking 24/7, there’s no contrast to make what would normally be a hot taboo a hot taboo. If everybody’s naked, nobody’s naked. The aforementioned snowball effect of a corruption system can be seen if you play literally any game that has one. It won’t take long to not have to engage with any combat or adventuring system if you can just press the “Submit to the big dick warlock” button and watch porn to progress.

Which, now that I said that, is exactly the problem. Imagine any other rpg you’ve ever played. Now imagine if every encounter and dialogue option had an option to just watch a short cutscene to skip the encounter. That would suck ass, right? Literally no difference here.

It would. Hey, I’m sort of lost now.

Don’t worry, we’re wrapping this up.

So what did we learn? We learned game over CGs have a critical design flaw that shouldn’t be relied on. We learned that predictable rewards can lead to boredom. We learned to keep sex as a reward and not devalue it.

To summarize, here’s a neat trick to know where to put your porn scenes.

”Would I put an Xbox Live achievement here?”

It’s that easy. “Lose to Goblins for the first time,” that’s an achievement. “Beat orc commander,” that’s an achievement. “Find Hubert the Magical Dickhead,” that’s an achievement. Using that as a guideline is foolproof. Almost.

This sounds like it’d take a lot of resources

It sure does! But don’t worry. I’ll cover that in the next post talking all about how to deal with the resource management of a porn game.

(Shoutout to Taylor, my guy for editing!)

#Leo Gab #game design #game dev

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shares-a-vest · 1 year

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Everybody knows Eddie has a way with nicknames. Everyone gets a pet name from Eddie to the point he basically never says anyone's real name.

And Steve gets an array of them. More than anyone else. Sweetheart. Sugarplum. Stevie. Multiple pet names all strung together in quick succession. Very rarely he's Harrington. That one is typically reserved for when Eddie is being a total bitch and they are fighting. King Steve, of course. He still doesn't love it, but at least now it is said with affection instead of sarcasm and contempt.

Meanwhile, Steve's over here simply calling his boyfriend Eds. Okay, maybe he said 'babe' one time in the presence of Lucas, Mike and Dustin and he's never heard the end of it.

It's kinda lame and he rather die than explain it to anyone (or have anyone else hear it), but Steve sees Eddie as his Prince. It's a pet name Eddie hasn't used, which is surprising considering there is a side DND character who is a Prince that bares embarrassingly detailed physical similarities to Steve.

Eddie is the Prince who came and swept him off his feet when he was at his loneliest.

Again, kinda lame. And pathetic.

Unfortunately, Steve blurts out said name in the least romantic setting possible: the back storeroom of Family Video.

They're in the back looking for the copy of Top Gun Steve had stashed away for them to take home. The waitlist was a month long and Keith enforced a strict 'no employees on the waitlist' policy, even though he definitely took a copy for himself.

"Holy shit," Eddie says, staring at the VHS cover of Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis.

Steve hands it over. "I reserved it under the fake account Rob and I have."

It was basically his only option considering Keith's flimsy rule and Eddie being banned from the store a few years back. Thank God they didn't have security cameras or else Steve would have been fired a hundred times over by now.

"Whoa," Eddie says with the wide-eyed wonder of a kid, holding the VHS in his hands like it is the most precious and delicate thing in the world.

"Anything for my Prince," Steve coos, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

He pulls back, staring. Oh god. He really just said that out loud.

Eddie blinks, clearly taking a moment to compute (or willing to tear his eyes away from ogling the back cover image of Val Kilmer). He quirks a brow, turning to look at Steve, a sly smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and accentuated by the scar that runs along the left side of his jaw.

"So that makes you the damsel in distress?" he says more than asks, glee in his eyes.

Shit, Steve really hadn't thought of it that way. Trust him to come up with a pet name that immediately made him vulnerable to teasing.

Before he can think of what to say, Eddie is scooping him up bridal-style. He promptly loops his arms around Eddie's neck when he feels his legs teetering on the spot at the cramped and awkward angle, wedged between Keith's desk and a shelving unit.

"Don't worry, Princess!" Eddie declares in dramatic fashion. "The Prince is here to save you from your dungeon and that wretched oaf."

He laughs hysterically as he sways Steve about.

"Stop!" Steve laughs, kicking and sending a stack of VHSs toppling to the ground.

"I shan't!" Eddie yells, his voice echoing through the small space. "Not until I have you in the safety of my bed chambers!"

"This wasn't supposed to happen!" Steve giggles as Eddie swings him around, sending more tapes flying.

#i'm baaack with my silly steddie nonsense #it's been a time this past week fam so i've just been miserably lurking/reblogging the first thing on my dash #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #lilys ficlets #steddie ficlet #steddie headcanon #family video 📼

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