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wedonthaveawhile · 6 months

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When she says my name.

Garreth Weasley x F!MC (18+)

Garreth finds himself entangled with the heroine of Hogwarts. As their encounters become habit, they devolve into a game of power dynamics and possession.

Warnings: Explicit sexual content, possesive!Garreth, dominant!Garrreth, public sex, dirty talk, aged-up characters, unrequited love, pining.

AO3 // Word count: 3k

Garreth picked at the splintered wood on his broom from a recent tussle with a bludger, scanning the courtyard intermittently for any trace of his Quidditch team. Their head of house had recently delivered a stern criticism about their hero complex. Apparently, each member was too focused on personal glory, neglecting the importance of working as a cohesive team.

He eventually detected a figure on a broom, although quickly realised they displayed a level of nimble grace far beyond what he'd expect from one of his lumbering teammates. Hogwarts' resident hero was evidently making a return from one of her mysterious outings.

His eyes swept the courtyard again, a scattering of students strolled across the well-kempt grass, a handful basked in the sun near the fountain, but none he recognised. Thinking about it, Garreth wondered whether he should hang around for this team-building training. It was probably wise, considering he was not only the captain but also the one who had organised the whole thing. However, they were running late, and he had spotted far more appealing company.

Before he could put much more thought into it, he swung his leg over his broomstick and began to silently trail the unsuspecting witch.

He couldn't quite pinpoint when he started noticing her disappearances. He assumed he just hadn't been paying much attention to her whereabouts prior to her inquiry regarding his more 'unobtainable' potions. His tactics hadn't evolved significantly since fifth-year when he’d charmed the newcomer into pilfering Sharp's office for supplies, but he had become far more adept at sneaking around for rare ingredients.

He agreed to assist in whatever scheme she was cooking up, on the condition she helped him obtain the key component. Partly for the benefits of having someone on the lookout for wandering faculty, but mostly because the beloved heroine of Hogwarts could do no wrong. If their covert operation were to be exposed, her involvement would mean the detention time his aunt dished out would be significantly reduced.

They needed snakeweed, which he was fairly certain was cultivated and harvested in the greenhouse. However, Professor Garlick was extremely protective of her plants, requiring their thieving to be done after curfew.

Moonlight wiggled through the twisted tendrils of the countless plants scattered throughout the greenhouse as they dispelled their disillusionment charm and got to work.

"What do you reckon all of this is?" The witch gestured towards a dense blanket covering the harvesting bench, a few neatly folded sheets at one end made it appear like some kind of makeshift bed.

"Perhaps the rumours about Garlick and Kogawa are true. Maybe we've stumbled upon their secret little sex den.” Garreth turned around and playfully wiggled his eyebrows, narrowly avoiding stumbling into a venomous tentacula lurking in the shadows.

She pulled back the cover, unveiling a project in progress—mallowsweet leaves neatly laid out, drying between the two blankets.

"You need to get your mind out of the gutter,” she scoffed, laying the covering back over the golden foliage. “Or you need to get laid.”

"It was a logical assumption," he argued, crouching beneath a table, casting a dim lumos across a collection of small plant pots. "The height of these tables are just right for it."

"Should I ask how you know that?"

She lifted herself onto the table as if testing the height for herself. Garreth smirked as he shifted the pots around with flicks of his wand.

"I’m a warm-blooded male, I'd say I'm an expert in these things."

Spotting a small propagation of snakeweed, he cast a glance over his shoulder to make sure she was keeping a watchful eye on the door. She wasn't. She was perched primly on the edge of the table, legs pressed together from knees to toes.

His eyes roamed across her body, and he realised he had never really had the opportunity to thoroughly check her out. She was like forbidden fruit, always flanked by her two Slytherin gatekeepers. It's not that he hadn't noticed she was attractive, she certainly was. Her feminine figure hinted at subtle signs of muscle earned from days spent sprinting around the castle.

His lusty gaze travelled up to her face, only to discover she had been watching him the entire time. Suppressing the flicker of embarrassment, he instead leaned into his Gryffindor bravery. He grabbed the small pot and approached her, his hips meeting her knees with an intentional bump.

"As promised," he presented her with the delicate plant, his fingers brushing against hers as he handed it over.

"That was easy," she raised the pot to catch the moonlight. Her eyes shifted from the plant to him, and her pupils bloomed. "You've earned yourself a returning customer."

"Splendid," he grinned, wondering whether this meant more after-hour hangouts, a thought that kindled his overactive imagination. "The first one's on the house, the rest might come with a price tag."

“I suppose I’ll have to start saving then. What's your price?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to make demands beyond your means,” he backtracked, worried she might think he was being serious. “Wouldn’t want to scare off my favourite customer.”

"Snagged the title of the favourite customer without parting with a single penny?” She chuckled lightly, scraping her teeth across her lower lip, “Business must be crawling."

"I prioritise quality over quantity," his eyebrow quirked as he studied her face, purposefully lingering a beat too long on her lips before flitting back to her eyes. "Now, what assets do you bring to the trading table?"

"Let me think," she reclined on her palms. "What do I bring to this specific table..." she emphasised each word with a tap of her nails against the wood, "that a warm-blooded male might find tempting?"

Heat surged through his body, and he began to regret pressing himself up against her legs, there was no way she couldn’t feel his enthusiasm swell against her knees.

“Did I mention it’s one for the price of two?”

She laughed, the sugar-sweet sound tickling his brain and the movement of her body causing her legs to part slightly.

“See, what did I tell you?" he pushed his palms against the table on either side of her thighs as he slotted himself between them. "Perfect height."

"I took your word for it. After all, you're the expert." She gave his tie a tug before running the fabric through her fingers. “Well, so you say...”

"Correct," he answered simply, because the only other words rattling around in his head was an offer to sit on his face, and he was trying really hard to play it cool.

She cocked her head to the side, “Are you going to verify that claim?”

You would have thought they were time-fated lovers, not classroom acquaintances. She had been right. He needed to get laid, and she needed some stress relief. It didn't take long before her skirt was hiked up around her waist and he was showcasing just how perfect the height of the table was. He assured her the greenhouse was soundproof due to the mandrakes, though he wasn't entirely sure if that was true. Frankly, he didn't care. Her unrestrained moaning, nails scraping across the wooden table, heels digging into his back to pull him in deeper—it made a lifetime of detention feel like a minor nuisance.

The saying goes, once is a mistake and twice is a habit, but Garreth wondered when it tipped into addiction. Whenever she was stressed—and fortunately for him, that was often—he found himself happily yanked by his tie into the nearest broom cupboard, beneath the Quidditch stands before one of his matches, by the edge of the lake under a disillusionment charm...

Maybe this time, on the balcony of the highest tower?

That's where she gracefully dismounted her broom. He followed suit, touching down behind her without a sound. Her jumper was splattered with mud down one arm, but for the most part, she was reasonably unscathed which was a rarity. She tugged it over her head to clean it with a quick charm, and he realised the stain bore a suspicious resemblance to a troll's handprint.

He knew she could handle herself, she’d been doing so for almost two years without his observations. Nevertheless, he realised he’d begun to worry about her when she was away.

He cleared his throat.

She whirled around with startled eyes and he muffled her gasp with a kiss. She squirmed for a few seconds, but her resistance crumbled as his thumbs glided up her neck, tracing delicate patterns under her ears.

He wasn't certain if she was doing the pulling or if he was doing the pushing, but somehow her back ended up crashing against the wall. Her fingers wove through his hair as his lips tore from hers and latched onto the sensitive skin of her throat.

“You scared the shit out of me,” she landed a weak thump on his bicep.

"You look like you lost a fight with a swamp," he mumbled against her skin, his hands wandering down to her hips.

"I'll have you know, I beat that swamp fair and square."

A ghost of a laugh dispersed across her neck, "I like the thought of watching you mud-wrestle. Let me come with you next time."

“Or you could come in me now?”

It was an obvious deflection tactic, but he gladly took the bait. His kisses grew forceful as he began to nip at her exposed skin.

“You better not be leaving marks, Weasley.”

He grumbled in protest against the light pink blotch he had begun to work into her throat. Something in the primal recesses of his mind itched to brand her. He wanted his lips stained on her skin, regardless of wherever or whoever she was with when she was gone.

"What if they're out of sight?" His fingers danced against her neck as he worked on undoing her tie, it fluttered to the ground before he finished asking for permission.

She withdrew her wand and uttered the incantation for a protective charm to shield their misdeeds from any potential spectators. He took that as consent, leaving a trail of wet kisses down her chest as he unbuttoned her shirt.

"Where have you been?" he probed before his teeth dug into the plump flesh above her breasts. It had been nearly nine days since their last encounter, easily their longest dry spell in the two months since their greenhouse tryst.

"None of your business," She hooked her fingers into his trousers to pull him closer, trying to find some friction.

"I want it to be.”

"Tough shit, Weasley,” her voice faltered as he hiked her skirt up around her waist.

“Garreth,” he reprimanded.

She only called him by his first name when they were fucking. He was certain she’d been deliberately conditioning him with it. If he teased her too vigorously in class all she had to do was say, "Shut it, Garreth," and he'd have to discreetly conceal his excitement for the next ten minutes. She made him dumb, plain and simple.

"You'll have to earn that," she purred, licking a trail along his neck that made his gut twist taut.

He scooped her up, spinning her around until she perched on the balcony's banister. A yelp escaped her as she teetered on the concrete edge, arms instinctively wrapping around his neck.

“I want to feel this tomorrow,” she popped open his buttons to speed up the process, “Please?"

“I've got you," he assured, feeling her pulse thunder against his chest as he positioned himself between her thighs. One hand supported her back, while the other fumbled to unclasp his belt.

It was difficult to recall how he'd ever got aroused before she came along. The way she demanded and begged all at once sent his brain spinning. "Say please again," he whispered, nipping her lower lip as he moved her soaked underwear to the side and positioned himself at her entrance. "I like it when you ask nicely."

"Pretty please?" she simpered before kissing him, her tongue eagerly seeking his.

He swallowed her moan as he pushed himself into her, she felt better than he remembered. Tight, hot, and quivering as he gave her everything he had. He loosely wrapped his fingers around her throat, and she whined against his mouth, her head tilting back as her eyes fluttered shut. He tightened his grip, her own hands scrambling at his waist to encourage him deeper.

He pulled her close by the small of her back with one arm, maintaining his grip on her neck with the other, aligning her to accommodate all of him. With each thrust, she bit down on the flesh of his shoulder as he bottomed out.

So, it was fine when she left a mark. He'd certainly remember that.

“You feel so fucking good, Garreth-”

A fractured cry fell from her lips as he pounded into her because his name had floated off her tongue like a prayer, causing something inside him to shatter, like it always did. Defining the constantly shifting dynamic between them was impossible, but it was addicting - He always found himself craving a little more than what he was getting.

“Who do you belong to?”

Garreth threaded his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, tugging her head up to look him in the eyes. She regarded him with a dizzy stare but remained silent. He began to slow down, and she instinctively bucked her hips to maintain some friction as her building orgasm began to ebb away.

“I said, who do you belong to?”

She wasn't his, they were both aware of that. This was never more than a matter of convenient timing and a means of stress relief. Nonetheless, he took pleasure in the hold he had over the most formidable witch of their generation. The witch with unwavering principles and determination. The witch who never faltered in her beliefs. The witch who was currently lying through her teeth for the pleasure of coming undone on his cock.

“You,” she whimpered, “Please, Garreth. Don’t stop, please.”

He didn't know if it was the way she was begging or the frantic desperation of her hips grinding against his, but he was teetering on the edge of his breaking point. He bit down hard on his lip, struggling to hold himself together long enough for her to reach the finish line.

"Chin up," he demanded, his breath coming in ragged pants as he reached one hand between them, rubbing a lopsided circle around her clit. “You look at me when you come."

He groaned through clenched teeth as his words caused her to instantly tighten around him, and that beautiful, hazy look fell over her face. She pulled him in by his collar, kissing him so hard it carved itself onto his brain and he released nine days of pent-up desire. He rolled his hips against hers as they both rode it out, briefly forgetting he should be gentle considering she was perched on the edge of a several hundred-foot drop.

He had believed there was nothing better than watching her unravel in his arms before seeking his own release, but he was wrong. Feeling her orgasm spasming over his shaft as he filled her up damn near killed him.

He fastened his trousers and helped her down from the stone balustrade. She smoothed down her skirt, trying to hide the fact that she was wobbling. He hoped his performance had met her expectations and he’d still be making her legs tremble tomorrow.

He peppered kisses across the blemishes he'd left on her breasts as he fastened the buttons of her shirt, trailing up to nip at the delicate spot on her neck just beneath her ear, the spot only he knew about, the spot that made her head tilt back and her vision fill with stars. He whispered an "Accio" against her skin, summoning a tie from the ground. He secured it around her throat with a playful tug before pulling her jumper over her head.

“You have to go?” he murmured between kisses, finding it bothered him less when he asked rather than when she told him.

Her chest heaved as she sighed, planting a lingering kiss on his lips before bending down to gather her things. “I have a study group. You’re welcome to join?”

He gave her a foggy smile and shook his head lightly. “I have some Quidditch thing I’m late for.”

“Alright, well…” She cast a fleeting glance at her abandoned broom on the floor. They hadn’t quite mastered the art of goodbyes yet. “Later, Weasley.”

“See you later,” he offered her a half-hearted wave, hoping she wouldn't make him wait another nine days before flying into his line of sight again.

As he watched her leave, he found himself wondering what impulse had led him to fasten his Gryffindor tie around her neck. There was the undeniable hope her irritation at his bold act would result in some passionate hate sex, but it ran deeper than that. It felt territorial. He’d been growing increasingly irritated with Sallow's lecherous stare and Gaunt's persistent attempts to cater to her every whim. They seemed to believe they held a Slytherin monopoly on her affections, all due to some unspoken event that happened over two years ago. Garreth understood her on a deeper level. She wanted someone who wouldn't procrastinate for two years, someone capable of making her scream on a greenhouse bench at two in the morning. He had a claim too, a far more substantial one.

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strawb3rry-acid · 2 months

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König Headcannon's

Just my own two sense, and personal opinions here. I apologize that some of this is quite long at times. Once I get going it's hard for me too shut up lol ♡

✿

✿ This man is a absolute nerd (lovingly), and that's a hill I'm willing to die on. Nerdy video games, card games, board games, topics, and roleplay games are all things I can see him being into. He may be a man of few words, but he'll ramble on about his nerdy hobbies, and knowledge till he feels he's being annoying. I think he's the type of person that most would see as a bit "strange" in general.

✿ I think he's very different off the job. On the field he's loud, boisterous, arrogant, unnecessarily excited, dramatic, etc. Off the field he's more quiet, kinda standoffish, and only speaks when required too. Despite that, I don't think he's an asshat, just kinda seems like one sometimes. I see him as still being fairly cordial, and I don't think he'd start anything unless someone is relentlessly pushing. He'll try to intimidate them sure, but starting a full-blown argument would draw attention too himself which is a last resort.

✿ Out in a civilian setting is when I think that the biggest change in his personality comes to light. In a military setting he's in his element. There's predictability, structure, a clear goal, etc. Thing's are very different off a military base however, especially since he can't his face behind a raggedy old t-shirt. The outside world is unpredictable, he's not in his element, is expected to behave in a certain way, and he faces consistent uneasy, judgemental stares from strangers. He watches children who are frightened from his appearance alone go to their mother's while in a grocery store, and feels horrible. His anxiety is far more noticeable then, and it tends to show in his body language (it was mentioned that he's fairly fidgety at some point), even if it's hard to pick up on in every other area.

✿ I think he relishes in the air of intimidation he gives off in a work setting, but not so much when on leave. Instead of making him feel powerful, and respected it make's him want to claw his damn eye's out. The way that people look at him makes him feel judged, paranoid, and like an outcast. In a way, he is an outcast. He can't hide behind fighting when on leave, an activity that he only finds the acceptance he craves in. He doesn't like scaring ordinary people who mean no harm, especially women and children. The fact that he scares women, and children especially eats him up inside.

✿ Speaking of that, I imagine he has a soft spot for women and children.

✿ I think he compensates for his intimidating appearance around civilians by being as polite as possible, and doing whatever he can too make himself appear less frightening as possible, while still keeping his distance. He's still pretty damn scary upon first glance though not only because of his appearance, but also because he sounds very serious even if he doesn't mean to be.

✿ He may gleefully break an enemies back over his knee, but he'll be damned if he let's a server know that his order has been mixed up. As long as it's edible, he'll eat it.

✿ "A man's heart is through his stomach." Feed this man, and he'll love you for life.

✿ I know there's been debate in the past about whether or not König's a colonel, and I'm personally on the fence about it. I like the idea of it, and find it interesting, but I'm not personally sure whether I believe it or not.

✿ Despite that, he's still an "old man" in my eye's, and I put his age around 37-42. I more so lean towards 38. I know that his VA has mentioned that's what age range he's in, and that age range feels about right to me. (though I don't think his VA is a reliable source considering his inconsistency with information regarding König. His VA is also just a shithead as a person so there's that.)

✿ As for his height as far I know nothing has been confirmed, and the only information we have to go off of is he's "a mountain of a man", so I personally put him at 6'7-6'8ish.

✿ He says the funniest things unintentionally, but has more of a dry sense of humor. Probably too scared to make jokes most of the time in case people don't laugh, and he makes himself look like a dumbass. He will crack a few dark joke's here and there though, and is a big smart ass. Nothing beats his slight, snarky comments when he thinks no one can hear.

✿ It's particularly funny when he's insisting he's right in something, and grumbles frustrations underneath his breath when proven wrong. Take him lightly "arguing" with a partner about being right when it comes to using ingredients in a dinner recipe, then grumbling when he's proven wrong while working to fix it for example. He'll just defeatedly mumble for them to get out of the kitchen, and wait for him to finishing cooking dinner alone, or be silently a bit embarrassed now that his egos been "bruised" while his partner beams with a small pride because König's, admittedly, usually right. They just give him a quick kiss, and he's fine again.

✿ He has some good intuition. He's a very observant man, and can pick up on what type of person someone is very fast more often than not.

✿ Loyal as all hell to whatever/whoever he puts his energy towards. If it's some form of mission, he's not stopping till he feels it's handled, and thoroughly completed. If it's a person, he's throwing all his energy into maintaining a relationship with them, and making them know that they're loved. He's a very devoted man, and his loved one's will know they always have him to fall back on.

✿ Speaking of loved one's, I doubt König would fight very much with them. He's been an outcast all his life, and once he's formed a bond he's desperate too not let it slip through his finger's. He may distance himself for a moment to clear his head, but he prefers to come back, and talk thing's through. He's the type of person where you'll have him for life no matter what. He's a very loving, loyal, protective, and helpful man when it comes to those he's close to.

✿ I think he lives a fairly isolated lifestyle though not entirely intentionally. Sometimes, he likes to be alone because he doesn't have to worry about saying/doing the wrong thing, being judged, making thing's awkward, and making a fool of himself. It's just easier. Other times it's very lonely. During those times he wishes he had someone to come home to. Someone to shower with the love he has to give, and too be able to feel that same love in return. I think deep down he wants to be liked, and wishes he wasn't so damn awkward all the time.

✿ Probably fairly blunt even when he doesn't mean to be. He'll try to word thing's gently when he feels they need to be, but struggles with finding the right word's because he doesn't want to say the wrong thing's.

✿ Very, very dramatic, and we love him for that.

#cod mw2 #konig cod #konig mw2 #könig #könig call of duty #könig cod #könig mw2 #mw2 #cod mwii #cod mw3 #ghost mw2 #cod x reader #ghost cod #cod #call of duty #cod modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare

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twstfanblog · 8 months

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*~Period Drama~*

A/N: This was a funny idea I had and Now I'm gonna do another series with my Yuu OC. Note that I write most of the cast in a platonic sense with my OC because that's how their story formed. I'm fully open to doing requests with characters in a romantic sense. Word Count: 4.7K Warnings: Period mentions, allusions to sexual assault (They are assumed, nothing actually happens), She/They OC Pronouns Pairings: Azul/Reader (Poly), Jamil/Reader (Poly) Enjoy! Start (Here), Part 2 (Octavinelle), Part 3 (Heartslabyul), Part 4 (Savanaclaw), Part 4.5 (Diasomnia pt.1), Part 5 (Diasomnia pt2)

Yuu was forgetting something, she knew she was. But sitting in her pjs on a Saturday morning, an over-filled bowl of sugary cereal in hand, she couldn't be bothered to really care.

It was shaping up to be a good day too. None of the staff needed her help with anything, her friends all had their club meetings, and the kitchen was stocked with easy-to-grab snacks for Grim. the cat monster himself had even started his homework on Friday night with minimal fighting. Literally, nothing could be wrong, but she still felt uneasy. They woke up feeling weary and oddly bloated.

With an inquisitive expression, she taps her spoon against her bowl. They really hoped they weren't going to spend all day in a strange sense of deja vu…

Then she sneezed and everything made sense. Yuu blinks, moving back to pull the seam of their pj pants, looking down as they groan, "Ah, shit…"

Azul loved Saturdays, they were his biggest money-maker days. Students came to the Mostro Lounge either to get a head start on homework, grab a drink after practice or clubs, or merely have a freshly cooked meal. It also was the day he had most of his workforce available so he could spare the time to walk around campus or catch up on his own paperwork.

But, what he's trying to do was gather his courage and think up a plausible enough reason for him to go visit his date-mate. Not that he usually needed one, they were very vocal about how he was always a welcomed presence in their company.

But, Yuu had been…easily irked? Prickly? Upset. Yuu had been upset for most of the week but anyone who questioned their mood was quickly shot down. The prefect would then tensely state they weren’t mad and then questioned why people thought they were mad. Sure they had a very intense resting bitch face but who didn't at Night Raven? (He's fairly certain you needed to either be handsome or have the most terrifying resting bitch face to be admitted to this school).

So he wasn't too pressed about his date-mate's mood until Floyd said something. He had come into the back office pouting of all things, saying 'Shrimpy smelled off'. They had also punched him when the eel merman attempted to pick them up, which wasn't normal.

Jade handled his twin, trying to cull Floyd’s decreasing mood, while Azul opened a few text chats to ask if anyone had caused Yuu reason to want to kill someone. The genuine confusion and concern that answered back only made him more uneasy.

Now, on a sunny Saturday, Azul made the long journey toward Ramshackle. With an obscure board game tucked under his arm and a bag of exclusive gummy candy in hand, he was on a mission to improve his dear pearl’s mood.

Or he was until he was suddenly being dragged down the dirt road in a different direction. He yelped and shouted, trying to angle himself to see what was pulling him through the mud and sticks. The answer was Sam’s shadows, the black willowy wisps quickly yanking him into the shop and setting him on his feet. Azul looks down at his outfit, scowling at seeing the dirt and grass stains. Sevens, did he rip his slacks?

“Lil fish.”

Azul jolts, eyes wide and semi-fearful at Sam’s echoing tone. The man stood behind the counter, a number of medical supplies laying across the surface as his nails gripped at the wood. Sam’s eyes were wide, pupils pinprick as his amethyst orbs almost glowed under all the shadows. Speaking of shadows…Azul looks around the shop, feeling actual fear stir in him. The shadows were everywhere, zipping through the aisles, slithering in and out of the back room, and some were even racing out of the shop, “Uh…Yes, Sam? H-how can I be of assistance?” He didn’t stutter, he refuses to admit he stuttered.

“Do you know what a pad is?”

…

“Like…Like a notepad or-”

“NO!” Sam slams his fist onto the counter, the lights of the near-endless shop flickering wildly at the force of it. He rests his face in his hands, paying no mind to his makeup and hat that fell to the counter. Looking up, his intense stare was replaced with one of desperation, “You’re killing me here, kid. Look, if you know what a damn pad is, just tell me where to get one! I know you and the lil pup talk!”

“I swear, I have no clue what you’re talking about, sir.” Sevens, had Azul ever felt scared of Sam? He didn’t like this, why was his fellow businessman so frazzled? What kind of pad was he talking about? Why couldn’t he find it and assumed Azul would know where and what the damn thing was?

Sam groans, hands running furiously through purple-tinted lock braids. With a snap of his fingers, the wisps all stop. Either quickly entering the shop or bleeding into the shadows to hide once more, “Look just…Go see the prefect. They called me asking for sanitation pads? That’s the business name they told me anyway…That and just…a lot of pain potions.”

Azul clicked out of his confusion, growing nervous at the potions request, “I…wait are they hurt? Shouldn’t they be in the infirmary?”

“I suggested that, but they insisted they didn’t need to go, just the potions. I’m sending them over soon, Crewel is due to deliver my order in an hour or two. I’ll send him over after ya once he gets here.” Sam grumbles under his breath as Azul rushes out of the store. ‘Primadonna dog hates when I call him while he’s brewing…’

Azul pulls his phone from his pocket, sending a text to both Jade and Floyd. Yuu was in pain, they had requested something called a ‘sanitation pad’? Whatever those were. By the name he could only guess they were used for cleaning of some kind. He sent the twins a message to meet him at Ramshackle ASAP, potentially 119 status. Yuu had always joked about the Octavinelle trio being the first ones they’d call if they needed to hide a body. But, it seemed when it came time for them to actually make the call, the poor thing must have been overwhelmed. He could only think they had done it in self-defense, but the cause didn’t matter. There wasn’t going to be a body in a few hours.

Halfway through the woods to Ramshackle, he hears other footsteps hurrying to catch him. Looking over his shoulder, he raises an eyebrow at the extra amount of people, “Why are they here?”

Ace, Deuce, and Jamil all kept a quick jog behind Floyd and Jade’s long-legged walk. Floyd rolled his eyes, pointing behind him with his thumb, “I was at practice. Crabby and Sea Snake saw the text and wanna help lil Shrimpy too…”

Deuce raises a hand, "I saw them leaving the gym on my way to track practice. Yuu's my classmate and friend, it's only right I help them."

Jamil hisses under his breath, side-eyeing Azul as he sped up to walk beside him, “Plus, they’re my date-mate too, asshole…”

Rolling his eyes, Azul sighed, waving Jamil’s attitude off, “Yes, yes. We can meet with Draconia later about our timeshare lover's crimes. But for now, we need to go and assist them with the dead body I’m sure is on their property.”

Ace sighs, relaxing more as he leans back, arms folding behind his head, “Yuu finally did it, huh?”

“I mean…They can only threaten to murder someone so many times before they’d snap…” Deuce pipes up, rubbing the back of his head, almost dreading getting blood on his uniform again.

Floyd giggled, “I can’t wait to see who Shrimpy squeezed~. I bet they made it real messy!”

“Hmm…I wouldn’t put it past Yuu to kill someone via strangulation. But their MO seems to lean more toward bludgeoning.” Jade smiles to the group, eyes closing in barely hidden glee, “If anything clean up will at least be interesting if we’re just dealing with some blood splatter and a puddle!”

Ace and Deuce wince, watching Floyd, Azul, and Jamil simply nod at Jade’s examination.

The mood was instantly broken once they came into view of Ramshakle. Floyd and Jade tensed, their smiles dropping off their faces before racing toward the dorm as two teal-colored blurs. Azul shouted, only to choke on his tongue at the smell. Blood. His nose wasn’t anywhere as sensitive as Floyd's or Jade’s but even at this distance, he could smell the sharp iron smell. He jogged to catch up with his dormmates, his expression of panic causing the other three to speed up as well.

All he could smell was Yuu’s blood. Sharp and salty, but spiced and sweet because of their diet. A hint of some type of alien fragrance that no one could place and Yuu couldn’t name mixing it all together perfectly. And that was all he was smelling, not even a hint of another person’s blood.

When the rest of the group had made it to the front porch, Floyd was pounding on the door, eyebrows creased while Jade searched the bushes for the hidden key, “Shrimpy! Open up! Shrimpy!”

Jade’s fingers had just grazed the false rock when the door’s locks clicked open. Floyd swung the door so hard it nearly sent Grim into the hallway wall. The feline monster kept to the ground, eyes wide and teary with fear, “Yuu’s bleeding all over everything and they won’t tell me why!”

Deuce was the only one who had the mindset to scoop Grim into his arms, the rest of them instantly rushing up the stairs toward Yuu’s bedroom. The sound of their footsteps pounding on the floor echoing in the house, each of them calling out in panicked voices. Azul could only grow increasingly worried, the scent of blood growing stronger and stronger.

Jade slams the door open, Ace instantly diving into the bed and startling Yuu awake.

“The-The fuck- hello?”

Ace cupped their face, using what medical lessons Riddle had drilled into his head to see if they had a visible injury, “Yuu! Can you hear me? We were calling you all the way downstairs- Ay!” He tumbles off the bed when Yuu shoves him aside, dark eyes glaring down at the redhead.

“Yeah, I was sleeping. Why are all of you in my house?”

“We smelled blood shrimpy!” Floyd kneeled onto the bed, sniffing around trying to find the main source of blood. Ignoring or nipping at Yuu’s hands trying to shove his face away from her body.

Azul stepped forward, eyes roaming in barely concealed haste, “Sam sent me over. He was worried by a request you had called him about? It’s sent him positively spiraling.”

Yuu raises an eyebrow, having given up on getting Floyd off their bed and wrapping an arm around him instead, “Yeah I was about to ask. Octobaby, what truck did you get dragged behind and did you at least get the license plate?”

Whatever positive flow of atmosphere that was building ended, Floyd grasping the duvet covering them and pulling, “Shrimpy, where are you bleeding-”

A single tug was all it took for Yuu’s bottom half to be flashed. They all look in stunned silence. Fresh red blood on a series of towels under them, a smear on the inside of their bare legs. Yuu shouts but none of them respond, minds spiraling at what could have possibly happened.

“Floyd! By the Seven, I’m not wearing any pants!” Yuu snatches the blanket back, draping it over their legs with a huff. They turn to Floyd only to have their face gripped harshly. Floyd stared at them with a dead expression, his single golden eye almost glowing with the force of his anger, “Floyd?”

“Who?”

“Wha-”

“Who?”

“Floyd.” Jade’s hands come into view, pulling Floyd’s grip off of their face and his brother off the bed. Jade was no better, a pleasant smile on his face but eyes wide and void of any emotion, “It’ll do no good to pressure them into telling us. Let us let our two professionals deal with this. The two of us can brainstorm methods of...disposing of the unsavory culprit once we have a name or description.”

Yuu watched them slowly leave the room. Floyd just barely letting Jade pull him along as his expression started to finally morph into a look of anger. His fists clenched as he gritted his teeth, body so tense his movements were more shaky than his normal loose glide.

Looking beside them, Yuu catches eyes with Ace and Deuce. Ace quickly turned away, a hand covering his mouth as a single tear slid down his cheek and his shoulders shook. Deuce was no better, gripping Grim in his arms as he hiccuped softly with just barely contained sobs. He looked like he was fighting back the urge to go into 'delinquent mode'.

Jamil finally moves, a hand on each of Ace's and Deuce's shoulders, guiding them to the door. Softly pushing them out too once Jade had managed to pull Floyd out of the room, “Let us talk to them…We’ll…we’re gonna figure this out…”

Yuu watches stunned as Azul walks toward them as though he was approaching a wounded animal; softly, with just a hint of fear and pity, “Azul…What’s-?”

“It’s ok.” Jamil closed the door, still facing it so Yuu wasn’t sure if he was saying it to them or mumbling to himself, “It's…It’s ok, you’re gonna be fine…”

Azul had finally reached them and they could clearly see the unshed tears in his eyes, “It’s not your fault. This is not your fault, do you hear me?” He ran his fingers through their hair, his other hand gently cupping against her cheek as his thumb shakingly caressed their skin. He opens his mouth, closing his eyes while he sighs a shuddering sob. Gathering his wits again he opens his eyes, a fiery determination glowing in them, “We’re here for you, my pearl.”

“Wha…?” Yuu could only wrap their arms around Azul, the merman diving to embrace her in what had to be the most protective hold he could do with just his two arms. It felt safe and sturdy, like a cool blanket was wrapped around their body. While it was welcomed, Yuu only grew more confused feeling a wet spot start to form on their shoulder where Azul’s face had snuggled into, “I’m…very confused…”

“Yuu.”

If Azul wasn’t holding them, they would have jumped off the bed. Jamil stood right next to them with a blank expression. His face pulled into a mask of neutrality, but his eyes were steely, an ice-cold fire in them waiting to find a victim.

“Who. You can tell me, you can trust me. We’ll handle everything, you won't even have to look at the bastard unless you want to beat him to death yourself.” He kneels on the bed, his hand moving to touch her covered thigh before retreating, a pinched expression breaking his mask before it was back in place, “You have to tell us who did this to you, hayati.”

Did what to them?

Yuu stared at Jamil, blinking when he finally had to look away to bite his lip. He looked to be holding back tears, fully turning around to put his face in his hands to mutter under his breath. ‘How could he let this happen? Why couldn’t he have just one thing with nothing to ruin it?’ a teary sob of ‘Do they not trust him?’

“My pearl?” Azul pulls his face away from their shoulder, sniffling before he removes his glasses briefly to wipe his tears, “Do you…Would you like me to draw you a bath? This can’t be comfortable-”

“Azul!” Jamil whipped around, glaring at the merman, sparing them a worried glance before turning back to Azul and whispering heatedly, “They can’t take a bath until they get checked, you moron!”

“What’s there to check Jamil!? We can all clearly see what happened! Why put them through the extra…extra poking and defilement when we know what happened!?”

“Because we need evidence!”

“What we need is a name! Or a description! I’m not even going to entertain the idea of bringing this to a court. We have plenty of manpower on campus to bury whoever did this 12 times over.”

“Excuse me, what the fuck are you guys talking about?” Yuu spoke up, eyes glancing between the two of them, “Because if you mean the bleeding, that’s pretty standard at this point.” Maybe they just…forgot they had a vagina? Boys normally didn’t react well to period talk in the first place, but this was an all-boy school and Yuu was more non-gendered than female-gendered. Maybe they just honestly forgot.

But, what they said had only made things worse, both Azul and Jamil looking at them in absolute horror. Standard. This was normal. This had happened multiple times already.

Azul starts to openly sob, wrapping himself around them in a way to keep everything else away, nuzzling his head into her neck and whimpering out apologies. Jamil covered his mouth, a look that Yuu could only call devastation on his face before he stood from the bed to pace the room. Mutters grew in volume and speed before Yuu finally realized what they thought had happened.

“Oh. OH!” They quickly pull Azul from their neck, hands pressed to both his cheeks to keep him looking into their eyes, “Sevens! Guys no! That isn’t what this is, I promise! No one hurt me like that!”

“You expect us to believe that!?” Jamil turns on them, eyes wild and red with held-back tears. He gestures to the bed, alluding to the mess of blood under the covers, “What else could this possibly be!? Why are you trying to defend them!?”

“Jamil, I’m on my period!” Yuu looked back at Azul once her words seemed to hit Jamil, “It’s just my period. No one hurt me. I’m…well, not fine. Periods are a bitch. But not that…I swear it wasn’t that.”

No one made a sound past Azul’s labored breathing, the merman’s expression slowly morphing from one of despair into confusion. Once his breathing was finally under control, he pulled Yuu’s hands from his face, a single brow raised, “Your…your period?”

“Yeah…It’s just my period.”

Jamil pulls a face, eyes looking down as his brain worked to understand what Yuu was saying, “...Like the punctuation?”

Yuu frowned, turning to Jamil, “Don’t you act fucking dumb with me.” They press a kiss to Azul’s forehead, letting him slump against their chest, not seeing the gears turning in his head, “You and your sister are basically the same petty soul shared between two bodies. You know what a period is Jamil.”

The two mages catch eyes across the room, both…so painfully confused. Azul takes his time to finally untangle from Yuu, giving a small smile and patting hesitantly at the blanket, “O-okay…A period…right?”

At Yuu’s annoyed nod, Jamil sniffs, checking that he hadn’t cried before looking over to the door, “And…Najma will know. You’re sure she will?”

“I mean basically every girl gets a period so I would think so Jamil…”

The two boys share another look, communicating in a way Yuu hadn’t learned to do with them yet before they turn back to them with those soft, weak smiles. Azul caresses their face again, saying they should go back to sleep and that someone will bring up something to eat later on. It was slow, they clearly didn’t want to leave, but they both closed the door behind them. They share another look in the hallway, nodding before moving to regroup with the others.

The contained chaos they walk in on was almost comical if the reason wasn’t so mortifying. Jade had a hand gripped on each of Floyd’s shoulders while they took up the loveseat, whispering to the taller eel as he held him back. The whispers growing in intensity as his eyes widened in manic glee every time Floyd growled and moved to pull out of his brother’s hold. Ace was leaning against the wall, anger clear on his face as his nails bit into his forearms. He was the only one who looked up when they walked into the room. Deuce sat on the couch, curled around who they could only think was Grim, his shoulders shaking with barely contained cries.

Ace speaks up first, calling everyone else’s attention to their entry, “Well? Who’s the bastard we’re hunting down?”

Jamil and Azul pause, Jamil looking to the side and sighing, “They say nothing happened-”

“They’re lying!” Grim cries from Deuce’s arms.

The spade Heartslabyul soldier sniffles, raising his head to look from over the couch, “Grim said they’ve been bleeding since this morning. From before he woke up…”

Jamil pulled out his phone, already dialing his sister, “They said Najma would know what’s going on…They were…so sure nothing…happened…”

Ace opened his mouth to yell only to be cut off at the sound of Najma picking up the line on speakerphone.

“Jamil? What’s wrong, you never call me?”

“...” Jamil gulped, gripping his phone before speaking, “Najma, I need you to be completely honest with me. Swear on your life levels of seriousness. Do you know what a period is?”

“...Like the punctuation?”

Azul bit his lip, a hand moving to cover his mouth and start to pace around the room. He walks closer to Jade and Floyd to explain, the two eels listening to his quick words in clear confusion.

“I…Najma, something happened. Is it…normal to…” He let out another sigh, almost wishing it would take his soul with it, “Is it normal to bleed…out of your vagina?”

The beat of silence almost gave Jamil hope. Maybe it was some super secret girl thing that no male was allowed to ever know about. Maybe everyone in the room would have to be killed once Najma confirmed its existence. He knows he would at least prefer that over the alternative.

“Jamil, what the fuck? No!? No, that's not normal!? Jamil who do you know that’s bleeding out of their-”

“Don’t have time, I’ll call you back once this is all settled.” He’s never hung a phone up so fast. It quickly rings again, but he just declines Najma’s call and silences his phone. Now looking around, everyone else in the room is just as confused if not more so than he and Azul were.

“...What?” Jade tilts his head to the same degree his brother does while they both study Jamil, each trying to find…something in the conversation they just heard.

Azul spoke up, leaning his elbow against the fireplace, a hand coming up to rub at his temple, “They said they were simply on their period and that this was normal. They were also very certain Najma would confirm this sentiment, claiming it was a natural thing girls did.”

Deuce sat in thought, his brain working overtime to try and piece together the information they had, “Maybe…Uh…Wait, I can ask my mom!”

“What is your mom gonna know, Deuce!?” Ace hissed, more frustrated than actually angry.

“I don’t know, she’s like...an older girl? Maybe she knows more about it than Najma would?”

“...” Jade looks toward Azul with a shrug, “It’s another source of information. We’re literally going in blind with this.” He looks down in worry, feeling Floyd relax in his arms. His brother wasn’t calm by any means, more so his mood had finally reached so low that his homicidal urges couldn’t properly latch onto it. He just kept Floyd in his arms, holding his taller brother under his arms as though he was a cat.

Deuce pulls out his phone with one hand, the other keeping a grip on Grim as the monster whines. It only took a very rings before the phone was answered again.

“Hi, Deuce! I was just about to send you a text. I found this new cafe and they make the cutest parfaits-”

“Mom, that’s cool. Send me a picture later but. Um…I got a really weird and private question to ask you-”

“Deuce, we talked about this sweetie. There’s nothing wrong with liking certain things-”

“NOT THAT, NOT THAT!” He blushes, quickly cupping his phone away from view of the others. He whispers his question into the receiver, waiting with bated breath when the other line was quiet.

“Sweetie. Am I on speaker?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“That isn’t…that isn’t something that should be happening. Is this…Deuce, is this about your friend Yuu?” At the affirmative, she continued, “I know you said they weren’t from around…anywhere really. But you boys need to tell your teachers about this. Whoever told them this was normal lied to them.”

The nervousness returns, everyone sharing a look, Deuce thanking his mom before hanging up the phone. Pass the stray sigh or muffled rambles no one spoke, each one of them was scared to voice their theories. Everything easily pointed toward…assault. But Yuu was such a level of certain that it was hard to deny the doubt that grew at the idea. There were magical ways of getting the truth out of people, they had Jade and Jamil, so it wouldn't be hard. But none of them wanted to break the trust Yuu had given to them. Not to mention the small chance that something did happen, and forcing Yuu to recount the horrible situation was cruel even by Night Raven standards if they were trying to actively suppress it.

It seemed like they sat in silence for hours before they all heard the front door slam open, footsteps quickly stepping through the hall before a signature black and white coat filled the doorway. Crewel stood with one hand on his hip, the other impatiently tapping his crop against his leg.

“Ok, what’s going on? I’ve had students running around terrified from Sam’s shadows. I go to see Sam to ask about it and he informs me that he sent you runts to check on my puppy.” Crewel looks around the room, his frown turning into a scowl before he schools his expression again, “And there's no sign of my puppy in this pack of dogs, so what’s happened?”

After a prolonged silence, Ace groaned, deciding to bite the bullet since no one else wanted to, “Yuu’s bleeding from…from their vag and won't tell us why.”

…

“...” Crewel stepped to the side, light gray eyes seeming to look past all of them while he used his crop to point down the hall, “Get out.”

“Sensei-”

“Get. Out.”

The scramble they did out of the room was like a pack of dogs released into the wild, each of them refusing to meet the glacier-level stare of their teacher as they ran past. They didn’t leave Ramshackle property, choosing to instead stand outside and wait to be fully dismissed.

Crewel took the stairs two at a time, flinging Yuu’s bedroom door open. The sound of it slamming into the wall made Yuu groan in protest. He walks to the bed and sits, a hand instantly brushing their bangs back to alert them to his presence. He couldn't tell through his gloves, but they had seemed flushed, “Puppy? Puppy, talk to me. What's happening? I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Yuu hums, just barely getting back to sleep before Crewel woke them up again. A hand pressed to their lower stomach and grumbled, “Hmmmm….Period…” “...Pup. What’s a period, explain it to me.” He keeps his hand in their hair, petting in a way to soothe both of them if needed. Period, Yuu clearly wasn’t talking about punctuation. All his mind could reach then was that period was speaking of a state of time. Meaning this was something that happened on some type of schedule.

Groaning, Yuu sits up, letting her head rest against Crewel’s shoulder, “Period, monthly bleed and all that. It’s girl stuff, you know biology, Crewel…”

Taking her in his arms, Crewel rubs at their back. Monthly…It’s at times Crewel is made painfully aware of how lacking he and the rest of Night Raven College were in knowledge about Yuu’s biology. “Yuu…That’s not a thing in Twisted Wonderland.” He can feel the moment they tense up, letting them pull back to look at him.

Yuu stares at their pseudo-father, eyes searching for some sign of the past hour being nothing but a really bad joke. Seeing none, they feel a cold realization hit, “Oh…Well, this is gonna be a real interesting time…”

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #yuu oc #twst azul #twst jamil #twst deuce #twst jade #twst floyd #azul x reader #jamil x reader #jamil x yuu #jamil x mc #azul x yuu #azul x mc

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apocalypseornaw · 7 months

Text

Wanna be Yours (Pt 2/5)

Sam Winchester x Reader

Sam's starting to develop feelings for you, the problem? He's certain you and Dean are something

@lacilou 's idea

Sam watched you out the corner of his eye. You were sitting cross legged in the middle of Dean's bed in the most recent motel the three of you had stopped at. You'd gotten this case first and had called him and Dean in for the assist. You'd ran across a rather large nest and they were dropping bodies fast.

You had vials of dead man's blood laid out around you and were sharpening machetes. Dean had went to do a quick drive by of the place the nest was held up in which left just you and Sam. The plan was simple, the three of you go in and clear them out then hit the road.

You glanced up after a moment and smiled when you caught his eye. After Hayley's death you and him had become fairly decent friends, you'd call him when you needed to talk about the heavy stuff and he'd confided some things about his own losses.

You were one of the smartest hunters he'd ever met, beautiful and sarcastic enough to rival Dean. You were sweet to those you cared about and any victims you ran across but also fierce as hell when it came down to it. He was beginning to feel things he thought had been buried with Jess, the problem? You were Dean's.

The two of you weren't overly obvious and maybe not even exclusive but the way you two were around each other? You and Dean moved as a unit on hunts, not having to speak to seemingly know what the other wa thinking, he'd say it was a thing of beauty if he wasn't jealous on some level.

He hadn't meant to develop feelings for you, he truly hadn't but it was nearly impossible being in close quarters with you and not.

---------------

You defended him at moments Dean had doubted him, when he got hurt on a hunt you'd patch him up and at bars you'd drag him out on the dance floor laughing like a mad woman when Dean would tease "C'mon Y/N! Don't break Sammy"

He would say he wished he'd met you first but considering you met Dean when you both were nineteen, that wouldn't have changed anything since that would've put him and fifteen.

--------------

He hadn't realized he'd sighed aloud until you spoke his name. He looked up again and you smiled "You good honey? Kind of need your head in the game. Me nor Dean would want anything happening to you"

He nodded "Yeah Y/N, I'm good. I promise" you didn't seem to fully believe him but nodded nonetheless "Ok, ya know you can talk to me. I might not be Dean but I do care about you too" that made him smile more genuinely "I know" before either of you could say anything the door opened and Dean can walking in "Y/N, sweetheart you know how to pick cases don't ya?"

Sam fell back while you and Dean went back and forth teasing each other about past hunts gone weird. The banter between you and his older brother was so damn easy. After a minute you let out a whistle and when he looked up you were standing a little in front of him holding his machete out handle first "Freshly sharpened Mister Winchester" "Thanks Y/N"

"Dammit" you grunted under your breath. There were a few more vamps than you or Dean had thought. "CIRCLE UP" Dean shouted. You and him knew how to move together on hunts as did him and Sam so it was becoming a natural thing for the three of you to move together. The best plan for a nest this large? Keep a tight circle and don't let any between the three of you and make heads roll.

You reached out with your left hand and felt Sam's shoulder. "Well cmon then!" A flurry of movement came next. You would place bets on the three of you over anything, any day.

---------------

Within a few heartbeats the last vamps head was separated from its body and rolling across the floor. You leaned over with your hands on your thighs looking over the carnage surrounding you, blood was smeared across your face but it wasn't yours. You did a quick visual once over of both Winchesters, clocking the bruising starting on Sam's face and Dean favoring his side because him and you both had caught a decent kick to the gut.

All in all the three of you had faired decently enough "Well boys I say we skedaddle a couple counties over and grab some motel rooms then grab some food or some alcohol" "Or both?" Dean added and you winked at him "Reading my mind again Winchester. Tell ya what? I'll race ya for the county line. Winner picks the restaurant and the bar" "On you're on!" He laughed.

Sam shook his head "We gotta clean up after this first you two" you pointed towards him "and that's why he's the Stanford boy. He remembers shit we forget about too quickly" he grinned at your words as the three of you started arranging the bodies to torch the place.

---------------

You stumbled when you grabbed a large body and nearly fell, had Sam not lurched forward to grab you before you could face plant in a puddle of blood. You braced one hand against his chest and he had an arm around your waist to steady you.

You raised an eyebrow at him before saying "Well damn Sam knew you were cute but didn't know you had the whole Disney prince sweep em off their feet thing going on" and was rewarded with a light blush gracing his cheeks before he said "It helps when the princess is slipping on vampire blood" you laughed at the quick come back "Good point"

Dean walked in the room and chuckled "Well what do we have here" Sam looked from you to Dean, his eyes widening "She slipped. I just caught her before she fell.." he made sure you were steady on your feet then quickly let go of you. He grabbed the body you slipped on and disappeared from the room before you or Dean could ask why he was acting weird.

@lacilou

@foxyjwls007

@nelachu2423

#sam winchester x reader #sam winchester x female reader #sam winchester fanfiction #spn fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #wanna be yours mini series

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yet-another-haven-of-dollya · 1 month

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Please, how do I make money fast in dol?? I've always played with cheats on cuz I'm a pussy. I've gotten better from my past no cheats on playthroughs, but still, I still would like to know from the pro, my favorite dol account. Please, tell us your ways🛐

Huh... And here I thought money is the last thing you need to worry about when you've been playing long enough on one save. Alright, I doubt anything I'm gonna say is new, but since you asked so nicely, I'll go into details with my 4 PCs and highlight their most rewarded methods.

In general, early game is always tricky since your stats are low. High Math grade and higher certain stats make things easier.

1. Lya

- She used to be a massage staff at the Spa. High enough beauty (4/6 if I remember right) or hand skill is required to work there, and high dance skill make it fairly safe. Higher promiscuity and skuldugery open chances for lewder things and more money.

- Antique hunting. At the lake. High swimming skill recommended. And down the sewer too. I only intended to grind her skuldugery, but then she started to get attached to Winter so she go hunt antique for him ever since. Then the old church yard too. Still the Ivory necklace is a no.

- Dancing jobs. Charlie's Danube street job and at the brothel. Not the strip club but the brothel. Higher skuldugery can only be grinded while encountering so yeah, she work at the brothel for a pretty long time and install the vending machine there too.

- Be a model at Niki's studio.

- Working at Sirris' adult toy shop and selling flowers at the market sometime.

- Alex farm. Invested in the Farm, make things automatic and safe, then brought things to the Harvest street for sale. It's pretty okay and leisurely too.

- The doting Hawk spouse. Yes. Sometimes she goes to the tower to relax, getting away from the dirty town. When you're with the Hawk you just have to sleep, bath, sing all day, maybe walk around the moor a bit, be pretty and wait for the goodest bord to bring things back to you and sell them to Landry later.

2. Lyah

- Being Avery escort. Yeah help very much in the early game. He still keep her company sometime now.

- Steal things from people. He make the most out of his Devil tf to get into encounter, steal, then tell people to stop. Work like a champ. His skuldugery went up fastest out of all 4 PCs.

- Bartender at Strip Club. He works there for fun and to look out for Darryl, but sometimes encounter happen. So it still counts. Vending machine still installed at the Brothel.

- Chef. The ultimate way to make money. Even without Cow tf he still make a LOT out of it, being devoid of purity and lactating mean he has lots of bodily fluids to spare. Just a few hours of "work" and remember to save some for his wife, and the money is insane.

3. Kariya

- Doing odd jobs in the street. Usually to get into encounters.

- Working at the Agency.

- Seducing someone randomly at the Pub, the Farm, at nights,... You name it.

- Get up early and pick the locks of every house or building before they open for the day.

- Playing cards with Wren. Every-single-day. They often just continue untill the lewd part happen. That's their fav part anw. And running around butt-naked with Wren too.

- Dancing and Private shows at the Brothel. Mostly for fun but their money primarily comes from these activities. Briar's most fav worker for sure.

4. "Nyan"

- Working at the Dog Pound and Sam's Cafe (waiter only)

- Doing odd jobs in the street for Housekeeping skill, sometime pick locks and steal from Danube street.

- Temple monthly allowance. Even at max Grace it's not much, but still better than nothing.

- Charlie's dancing job. Charlie offered the safe job, but Nyan often asked for the more dangerous one. Jordan asked him to investigate anyway.

- Antique hunting in the lake, etc... Nyan is still in the build, so he mostly stick with his older siblings safer choices.

Okay, there, I think that's basically things I can recall for now. Also since all my PCs are Robin protectors, they mainly stick to safer paths and don't go away from the Orphanage for too long unless they can't help it. So huge chance there are many more ways to make bigger bucks that I'm not aware of yet. Still, hope this helps!

#dollya ask #dol pc #I'll add more if I remember them now pls excuse me I'll be back with my work

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hardlyinteresting · 3 months

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I have no idea if this make sense but I saw a tiktok clip today of Kylie Kelce who's married to the football player Jason Kelce and she was joking about how well her husband can read the field and the game but he can't find his keys when they're probably in his own pocket sooooo I was thinking about hotch being an expert profiler but losing stuff all over the house and reader knowing exactly where everything is

The funniest thing is that I absolutely DO know exactly what you're talking about because I'm fairly certain I sent that TikTok to my friend yesterday. (If I can find it I will link it at the bottom here for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about)

Shamefully, I did not immediately connect that energy to Hotch, but I'm so glad you did! You're absolutely correct.

Aaron Hotchner can tell when someone is lying. He can read body language and pick apart people's phrasing. He can predict the future actions of a serial killer and catch them. He's an expert marksman with sniper training. He can scan a room for hostages and targets in seconds flat. His instincts are well honed, and after so many years of profiling, and staring down some of the worst people on the face of the planet, it all comes second nature to him now.

But, Aaron Hotchner can hardly ever find his keys. Sometimes he leaves them in his pocket. Sometimes he tosses them down on his desk in his home office. More often than not they end up on the kitchen counter when he steps into the room to greet you or Jack. But regardless or where they end up he's almost always on a scavenger hunt for them in the morning. When he's lucky, you're his saving grace; clearing your throat behind him to catch his attention, a travel mug of coffee in one hand, his keys dangling off your index finger on the other.

I also think in the same vein as this thought, as organized as Aaron is, I don't think any of his organization systems would make sense to many people other than him. At work he has his filing cabinets and everything is alphabetized (though I think he'd prefer it if everything was sorted by year, and then alphabetically). At work he adheres to a standard, completes tasks, and paperwork especially, the way he was trained to. But at home he's free to sort his files, and his books as he pleases. His office is still extremely organized but it's more intuitive, there's no real structure to explain but he could tell you from another room exactly where a specific book is. His home office is a peak inside his brain.

He still can't find his damn keys though.

The TikTok

Send more requests!

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner imagine #criminal minds fic #hotch x reader #response

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thedrarrylibrarian · 10 months

Note

Hey!Can you please recommend me some fanfictions where harry sees draco's sectumsempra scars and feels absolutley guilty?

It need not be the main focus of the story,but one good scene about it would do!

Thanks.

Hello, hello! Your holds have arrived!

I loved your ask, and appreciated the openness of it, as I think not being limited to completely Sectumsempra focused fics allowed me to pick some extra great fics! In general, for this list, the shorter the fic, the more focused on the Sectumsempra scene/scars it is. Hope you enjoy!

Sectumsempra Scars

That Won't Erase It by @triggerlil (539 words, rated M)

Two men, a multitude of scars, one intimate moment.

I'm Sorry (it doesn't matter) by @carpemermaidtales (words 637, rated M)

Harry trailed off and pressed a kiss to Malfoy’s temple. “I’m still sorry, all the same. I wish that hadn’t happened. I wish you weren’t scarred from it. I guess now I know why you always insist on showering at home instead of in the training centre.”

“Well, that, and the facilities are appalling,” Malfoy muttered acidly.

Harry froze. He hadn’t realised Malfoy was awake.

Sectumsempra Scars by @drarrily-we-row-along (1,055 words, rated T)

Harry woke up first the following morning. He’d shifted, rolling toward Draco and opening his eyes; he wasn’t prepared for the sight that met him.

The normally flawless skin of Draco’s chest and abdomen was covered with raised scars, scars that intersected and crossed all the way up to his neck, one trailing as high as his cheek.

And for a minute, Harry tried to piece together what could have happened in his bed overnight.

life's like an hourglass glued to the table by @phoebe-delia (1,455 words, rated T)

I really don't know how it got like this.

That's not true, yes I do. Of course, I do. I was there, near the middle of it all; not the epicenter, not the periphery, but somewhere within the nebulous part in-between. I was close enough to be scathed, to be one of the supporting characters—though I'm fairly certain my support was the problem—but I was neither protagonist nor antagonist.

Phoenix in the Fire by @fw00shy (1,466 words, rated E)

Their first time was an accident. "Sex pollen," Draco claims, though everyone knows it was too much Ogden's after Puddlemere beat the Tornados 240-230.

"He's like a vengeful sex demon after he's lost," Harry confesses in the privacy of Hermione's kitchen. "A lustful, bitter jackhammer."

Sun Stroke by @peachpety (3,854 words, rated E)

Draco, Harry, and a handful of friends take a summer holiday at the beach. With the help of a sultry sea setting, encouraging friends, and a fisherman’s jumper, Harry and Draco's mutual attraction swells and things get hot on a salty summer night.

Erase the Shame by @fleetofshippyships-archive (6,763 words, rated E)

An Inter-House unity party is the last thing Draco wants to go to. It's not long into a game of Truth or Dare when he is reminded why.

But maybe his dare is worth it after all.

In The Company of Serpents by @corvuscrowned (24,954 words, rated E)

There’s something wrong with the serpents at the Greengrass Ophidiarium. Luckily, a certain Parselmouth just might be able to help.

Oh, Sinnerman by @lou-isfake (40,068 words, rated E)

“I’m serious, Potter,” Malfoy said quietly. “That was some real bad luck you had, being there last night. They will come after you, and they will kill you—after torturing you for information on my whereabouts.” He pocketed Harry’s wand, but held on to his knife, twirling it between his fingers. Harry was distracted by its movement, the reflections of the bright, dawning sun on polished silver. “I’m not happy about it, either, but you’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”

He watched Malfoy’s face for a long time, in a staring contest he wasn’t sure he’d signed up for. Stuck with Malfoy, for the foreseeable future, on the run from a massive crime syndicate that had infiltrated the Ministry and was out for their blood.

It was all very familiar, except for the Malfoy part.

Everything is Relative to You by @thehoneybeet (43,111 words, rated E)

Potter was supposed to have lived. Draco is certain of this. That Potter would no longer walk the earth was tantamount to the sun moving west to east across the sky. If only he could have stopped this from happening, if he’d have known…

It comes to him as ideas often did: too late.

Or, Harry dreams of his past lives, and Draco is in every one.

Not From Kindred Stock by @p1013 (45,779 words, rated E)

"Potter!" Draco calls again, but this time he pauses at the sound of his voice. "Potter?"

Something is very wrong.

Because now that he's gained a little of his equilibrium back and the room is no longer spinning, Draco has a sinking realisation that his voice doesn't sound rough or gravelly, but rather different. Different like his vision and the feel of his body around his bones and the bloody goddammned fucking clothes on his—shagging Salazar, God fuck, this isn't his body.

Among Ancient Pines by @graymatters (73,981 words, rated M)

Every day, Draco Malfoy tries. With every fiber of his being he tries. But he doesn’t much think about what he’s trying for.

In his final term of Healer training, Draco is unfortunate enough to find himself on a plane, the only means of traveling to a small, magical town in rural Alaska. Years of hard work have culminated in an opportunity to work with an experimental wandmaker to study the intersection of Healing and wand theory. When Draco arrives, he doesn't find the wandmaker, but does find his apprentice, who happens to have ridiculously messy hair, a lightning bolt scar, and a definitely-not-charming smile. But Draco isn’t going to let Harry Potter get in the way of him becoming a successful medical researcher, even if Potter is stubborn, hot-tempered, reckless, surprisingly gentle, has bizarre taste in music, and likes to leave his shirts unbuttoned. How hard could the next few months be?

A fic about challenging assumptions, discovering self-worth, the silver lining in failing to meet expectations, and finding friendship, love, and purpose in a small Alaskan town that’s steeped in magic.

in the dark by @toxik-angel (81,213 words, rated M)

Draco Malfoy may not have a Manor or money or status or a family or friends, but he has his looks, and goes into the glamorous modeling field.

And listen. Listen. No one can blame Harry for being obsessed with him all over again.

Bolts by @lqtraintracks (114,500 words, rated E)

Harry joins the Hogwarts staff as the new History of Magic Professor, while Draco has already been teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts for the past year. When Samantha, a first year, is being bullied one day and throws a made-up Truth curse at her harasser, only to accidentally hit Harry instead, Harry becomes cursed to tell the truth, and not only that, he has to regularly tell it to Draco Malfoy. Samantha is clearly gifted, maybe the most powerful witch or wizard to ever come through Hogwarts, and yet she has no idea how to take the curse off. As they work to remove it—and also teach Samantha how to control a power that's becoming more dangerous by the day—will Harry's truths become too much to handle? And will whatever’s going on with Draco just make everything exponentially worse?

❤️ As always, if you find a fic you enjoy, please remember to leave the author a kudos or a comment! ❤️

Lots of Love and Happy Reading!

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afewproblems · 1 year

Text

Part Four: Final Part Four Mean!Eddie Misunderstandings Au

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Read in full on Ao3

Thank you to everyone that cheered me on @samcoxramblings for your kind words on every post! @flowercrowngods and @barbariansteves for your helpful advice and @zerokrox-blog for your original prompt waaaaay back in February, I'm sorry this took so long but I hope you finally get the comfort you wished for!

***

The kids demand two weeks to prepare for their Hellfire session, insisting that they need this time to debrief Eddie and come up with their game plan, which is fine by Steve.

It also gives him two weeks to decompress from his last interaction with the kid's Dungeon Master, and time to try and untangle exactly how he feels about the whole situation.

It was nice for things to start moving back towards something resembling normal. The kids seemed happier, even going so far as to begin splitting their time between Eddie and Steve once again. Asking for rides to the hobby shop in Indi from their resident metal-head rather than Steve. It was nice to finally have a little bit more time to himself again.

Even Robin, who had previously been steadfast in her Anti-Eddie stance, had suddenly grown rather tight-lipped about the whole thing.

She had even offered to accompany Steve on his errands for the day they scheduled their Hellfire meeting, citing that she was always up for a grocery run and he may need help bringing everything in.

Which, in hindsight, should have been Steve’s first clue that something strange was going on.

“So, you ready?” Robin hums as they walk up and down the canned food aisle of Marsh Market, “you can still back out you know?”

Steve smiles and grabs a box of onion soup mix, he’s fairly certain he has some sour cream at home to make a dip of some sort, much easier than the last snack he tried to prepare for the group.

“Yeah, Robs, I know, I think it should be fine,” he crosses off the soup mix on his list and turns the cart around the empty aisle to head towards the produce section, “the kids are already setting up now so the only thing I need to do is be there,” he shrugs and stops in front of the humming displays.

Steve waits until the misting stops before reaching for a bag of mini carrots and tossing them into the cart.

“Can’t believe you trust Henderson to have a key, I can’t believe you hold us at the same level of trust!” Robin grumbles under her breath as she picks up a granny smith from one of the bins and rubs it on the rolled up sleeves of her navy blazer; it’s just slightly too big for her, most likely stolen from her dad’s closet.

Steve rolls his eyes and continues pushing the cart around the produce area, "careful Birdy, you roll those up anymore you're actually going to turn into Don Johnson".

"I should be so lucky," she snarks back as she catches up to him by the celery.

She tosses the apple back and forth between her hands, nearly dropping it twice before placing the produce into the cart under Steve’s unimpressed gaze.

She starts snapping her fingers and shuffling her feet as they continue walking up and down the aisles, going through their list bit by bit. Steve finds himself watching his friend’s nervous fidgeting with curious eyes, it was just a grocery trip, there shouldn’t be anything to really make her act like this, right?

He takes a quick glance around at some of the employees stocking the aisles, in case Vickie or some other pretty classmate of Robin’s is wandering around.

But, they’re alone.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything else?” Robin asks, as Steve folds up the list and turns the cart towards the check out tills.

She tips the small watch she’s wearing up to her face, her eyes flit back and forth between Steve and the watch as she chews on her bottom lip, which is more than a little odd.

The kids are already at the house and Eddie and the rest of the Hellfire gang won’t be arriving for at least another hour, they have plenty of time?

Robin steps away from the cart and throws her thumb over her shoulder at the chip aisle, “you do realize that you’re going to have like ten teenagers at your house right? You think veggies and dip is enough?”

“I’m ordering pizza later, I think this is fine?” Steve says slowly, gesturing at the cart, confusion and suspicion saturate his words as his eyes narrow at his friend.

“Robin,” Steve murmurs, walking the cart closer towards her, “what's going on?”

“Nothing, why would you --nothing!” She stutters as her freckled face pales slightly.

Steve smirks, Robin is probably the worst liar he’s ever met, and it's always endearing whenever she tries.

The last time she had lied to Steve, it had been about the mascara wand she had dropped onto the passenger seat, staining the leather just slightly, and smearing the black makeup all over the floor covers.

Robin had panicked and insisted that had been there before she had sat down.

Steve had been sitting in the car with her at the time.

He knew a Robin lie when he saw it, but he also knew it wouldn’t take long for her to crack.

“Okay!”

There it is.

“Listen,” Robin hisses sharply, she steps closer until she’s nearly whispering in his ear in the empty chip aisle, “I’m stalling you okay?”

“Probably not something you should be telling the person you’re stalling but okay?” Steve snorts as he leans onto the cart handle, “also, this was the worst place to go to stall us, it's two in the afternoon on a Wednesday, no one else is here”.

“I know!” Robin groans, letting her face fall into her open hands, she slowly lifts her face once more and lets her fingers drag across her forehead and cheeks, pulling at the skin, “I should have said no, I wanted to say no, but they used Will--”

Steve nods, “and you can’t say no to Will, yeah I gotcha”.

The words register after a beat.

“Wait, backup, the kids put you up to this? The unsupervised shitheads in my house right now?”

Robin nods, her blue eyes wide and the barest of smirks still covered by her hands.

“Oh christ,” Steve mutters under his breath, “do I even want to know?”

Robin drops her hands away from her face and scowls for a second before sighing, “I would absolutely love to tell you,” she shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling, “better yet, I’d love to just take you to Indi for the day, forget about this completely, but those God Damn kids know exactly what to say,” she looks at him once more in barely concealed exasperation, “how do they always know what to say?”

“How angry do I need to be, on a scale of like one to ten?”

Robin stares at him consideringly, her eyes scanning his face, “I mean, if I were you, it would be at like, a hundred,” she says eventually, “but since it’s you?”

“Maybe a four”.

Steve nods and drums his hands on the cart handles, blowing out a long slow breath as he makes his decision, “how much more time do they need?”

Robin looks at her watch again and smiles this time, “Well this bought them another five-ish minutes, so maybe another half hour?”

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a crumpled five dollar bill, “come on, I’ll getcha a coffee or something?”

“Wait, do I even need these snacks? Robin?”

Robin was wrong, this at least warranted a five for the groceries alone.

***

The drive back is uneventful, Steve did end up going though check out, rationalizing that, no matter what, he needed some veggies for the rest of the week so there were worse things he could have spent the money on.

Robin had bought him a coffee from the gas station down the road. There wasn't enough creamer in the world to make that palatable so he leaves it in the cup holder while driving back. Even with a hot chocolate Robin hasn't fared much better.

"Okay, well that's the worst five dollars ever spent," she groans after taking a sip. Robin wrinkles her nose and sets the cup in the other empty holder beside Steve’s before sneaking a quick look at her watch once more, “worth it though,” she says with a small smile.

It slides off her face after a moment when she realizes that they’ve turned down her street, “Steve?”

He looks between her and the road, tilting his head as she touches his elbow gently.

“You can just come over you know, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to and that includes letting people force you to--” Robin snaps her mouth shut with an audible click of her teeth.

She shakes her head and takes her hand back, “sorry, I promised not to say anything”.

Steve pulls over onto the Buckley’s driveway and finally turns to face Robin as much as the driver's seat will allow.

“Still sure about this whole thing only warranting a four?” he asks softly as a bubble of anxiety begins to expand from his stomach and into his chest, as though he’s absorbed her nervous energy over the course of the afternoon.

Robin shrugs, “I don’t know, but,” her blue eyes bounce back and forth between his own, “just don’t let them make you make a decision you’re not ready for,” she chews her lip again, “no one gets to push you around but me”.

Steve laughs as Robin leans out of her seat to give him a quick, but firm, hug before she opens the door and steps outside. As soon as she’s out of the car, Steve wishes he had asked her to stay, to come with him and hold his hand through the unknown. The bereft, hollow feeling from before returns in full force as she walks up to her front door.

She turns around and holds up her thumb and pinky as she lifts her hands to her face, mouthing, ‘Call me later,’ as she waves with her other hand.

She stays outside as Steve slowly reverses, hesitating on the street for just a moment as Robin walks backwards the rest of the way to her door, she moves her hands, motioning for him to get going.

Steve nods once and takes a deep breath as he shifts into drive and heads down the street.

It’s just the kids, he tells himself, how bad can it be?

***

By the time Steve pulls into his driveway, he’s nearly turned around to retrieve Robin and insist that she come with him at least five times. Even now as he pulls the emergency brake for the slight incline of the Harrington driveway, he considers starting the car again and leaving.

The last time he felt this anxious to be home was after graduation, after he’d been rejected from every school he’d applied to and knew there was no getting around that conversation with his dad.

That conversation had ended with the crack in the table, a hastily completed Scoops application, and his parents leaving for three months.

If it hadn’t happened he wouldn’t have met Robin, so at least there had been a silver lining on that occasion.

He’s not sure if there will be one this time.

Steve gets out of the car before opening the back door to grab the paper grocery bag from the store, he leaves the full coffee and hot chocolate cups with a grimace and makes a mental note to throw them out later before locking the car door.

Steve slowly makes his way to the steps, balancing the bag on his hip as he rifles through his pants pocket for his house key.

He looks around the street and spots Eddie’s van parked a few houses down. Great.

Steve knew that Eddie and the others would be showing up around now, even before Robin went ahead and spilled the beans about whatever it was the kids were secretly doing, but he had still hoped for a moment to just breathe before he had to face the inevitable.

Steve takes a deep breath and grabs the door handle, scoffing as it opens immediately. He makes a second mental note to scold Dustin for leaving the door unlocked for just anyone to come in --especially since the rest of Hellfire was already here apparently.

“Hey assholes, the snacks are here,” Steve calls out as he steps over the threshold, tossing his own keys into the dish on the side table.

He kicks the door closed and locks the deadbolt with a roll of his eyes, “and I do include myself with that statement,” he adds under his breath with a smirk.

Steve slides off his shoes and pauses, looking around the foyer.

It’s quiet.

Where there is normally an abundance of yelling and laughter, of the kids arguing amongst themselves, or Eddie’s usual dramatic storytelling, there’s nothing.

Steve walks into the kitchen and puts the bag onto the counter, “guys?” he calls out again, only to be met with silence.

Steve makes his way into the dining room through the swing door and stops in his tracks.

The table is gone.

“What the fuck?” he hears himself whisper as he walks into the middle of the space, nearly into the hanging light in the center of the room --he’d never noticed just how low it was, what with the table that was normally there to stop him from walking directly into it.

“What the fuck?” Steve hisses again, his heart starts to race as he steps around the light and spots the open sliding door to the backyard.

“If you little fuckers decided to move my grandmother’s table when there is a perfectly good patio table out there, I swear to Christ--”

But the kids aren’t outside either.

Eddie freezes as Steve walks around the corner of the house, he’s standing next to the dining table with a piece of sandpaper in his hands.

“Steve,” Eddie squawks in surprise, quickly hiding the sandpaper behind his back, “hey!”

Steve’s not entirely sure just what he’s looking at as he takes another step further into the yard. Eddie’s normally black ripped jeans are covered in a fine layer of dust, his wild curls have been pulled back into a messy ponytail away from his face, and an open container of wood filler sits beside him on the concrete patio.

Steve takes another four steps until he’s close enough to touch the wooden surface, his mouth hanging open as he takes it all in.

The surface of the table has been sanded down in its entirety, removing the beautiful deep cherry varnish, but the crack in the center has been mended, some kind of slightly darker putty has sealed the gaping wound that had marred the surface.

“Can you,” Eddie’s voice shakes, drawing Steve’s attention once more, “can you please say something, I can’t tell if you’re mad or what?”

“You fixed it,” Steve whispers, his eyes fixed on the table, he reaches to run a shaking hand over the surface.

“Careful,” Eddie says softly, grabbing Steve’s hand before it can touch the center with long sure fingers, “that still needs about an hour or so to cure”.

Steve looks from the table to his hand, still cradled in Eddie’s own, before looking up to see two big brown eyes staring into his own.

“I don’t understand,” the words come out in a whisper as Steve swallows around the sudden lump in his throat, “why?”

“Well,” Eddie murmurs as he squeezes Steve’s hand once before threading their fingers together and dragging Steve towards one of the pool loungers in the grass.

Eddie sits down and pulls Steve with him to sit, he feels a deep flush begin to wash over his neck and the tips of his ears, it's impossible to hide in the bright sunlight this time --not that he’d even be able to with Eddie’s firm grip on Steve’s hand.

“Those kids of yours are pretty genius,” Eddie says slowly, deliberately, his gaze never wavering from Steve’s face, “and they love you so fucking much man”.

Eddie clears his throat and rubs his thumb over Steve’s knuckles, “and there seems to be some confusion about how I actually feel about you, so allow me to uh, lay it all on the,” he gestures with his free hand towards the dining table and smirks, “well you know”.

Steve feels his heart leaping out of his chest, he can’t sit here, listen to this, he’s heard it before, it isn’t real.

Steve moves to stand up from the lounger but Eddie is faster as he manages to grab Steve’s other hand, holding him in place.

“Eddie--”

“You said no one had ever bothered before,” Eddie barrels on, speaking so quickly that Steve hardly understands at first. He squeezes Steve’s hands lightly again, the skin warmed metal from Eddie’s rings press into the palms of Steve’s hands.

“No one’s ever tried to fix it, have they?” Eddie breathes out as his eyes flit back and forth, searching Steve’s own, “would you let me try?”

For a moment, Steve lets himself just sit with the words.

Lets himself indulge in the soft, almost reverent way that Eddie asks. He lets the warmth of Eddie’s hands tether him to something resembling hope.

Before he shakes his head.

“You don’t know what you’re saying Eddie,” Steve growls, but the words lack any true bite.

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” Eddie insists, he gets up from beside Steve and kneels in the grass in front of him, “but I don’t think you do, I think we’ve been talking past each recently Steve, and it took speaking to a bunch of people --way smarter than me, to realize it. So here it is--”

“Don’t,” Steve shouts at the same time that Eddie whispers, “I like you,” and for a moment neither moves.

Steve slowly takes his hands out of Eddie's now slack grip.

He lowers one hand down to the edge of the pool lounger, gripping it so harshly that his knuckles slowly fade to white, while the other he brings up to cover Eddie’s mouth.

“Don’t say something you can’t take back,” Steve says softly.

Eddie just stares for a beat, his forehead pinched in a terrible frown, before he reaches up to cup Steve’s cheek and gently removes the hand covering his mouth. He smiles softly and lets his thumb gently run over the crest of Steve’s cheekbone.

“Good thing I don’t want to take it back,” Eddie insists, he slides the hand on Steve’s cheek down to hold his chin firmly between two fingers.

“Steve,” Eddie lifts himself up so he’s balancing on the balls of his feet, just high enough that they are at eye level now, “I spent a very long time holding onto things that weren’t even remotely true, and they made me act like an asshole, I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that sweetheart”.

“What if you change your mind, what if I--”

“Steve, what the fuck could you do at this point that would shock me?" Eddie says with a derisive laugh, he lets go of Steve's face to press his hand briefly to his own chest.

"I’m a drug dealing, satan worshiping, murderer who almost ate it in another dimension from killer demon bats".

Eddie grins as he peppers his speech with air quotes but the edges of it are jagged, and the good humour doesn't quite reach his eyes.

Steve breathes out sharply through his nose and shakes his head, “I get angry sometimes, I say things I don't mean, I…"

He sees himself surrounded by ceramic shards again, crying as he sweeps up his own mess, and shudders.

It's enough for Eddie to nod, and shuffle closer still.

"Pot," Eddie says softly as he pokes Steve in the sternum with this pointer finger and then brings it around to point at his own face, "kettle".

Steve chews his bottom lip as his thoughts swirl together and fly apart, disjointed and frenetic, "I just," he swallows around a harsh lump that begins to form in his throat, "I don't want you to think that I'm something that I'm not”.

Steve closes his eyes, missing the way that Eddie freezes at the words, but he can’t stop now --he has to get this all out or he’ll never be able to.

"That I've changed, that I'm this thing you've built up, for your sake, because let me tell you, it's pretty heartbreaking when everything you hoped was real turns out to be all in your head".

Steve opens his eyes as Eddie makes a sound like he’s been punched in the gut.

He’s still kneeling in front of Steve, even closer now, almost close enough that Steve can count the light dusting of freckles on his nose, and it feels like his heart will burst at any moment.

Fuck it.

"I've been halfway in love with you since you woke up from the hospital," Steve blurts out, “only to find out that you didn't feel even remotely the same about me, this whole time,” he breathes in shallowly as Eddie pales.

"I don't think I could take it if that happened again Eds,” Steve continues as he drops his gaze to his knees, “I think it would crush me".

"That's why I don't want you to say something you can't take--"

The words die on his lips as Eddie grabs his face and kisses him.

It’s harsh and clumsy, their teeth clack as Eddie loses his balance, pushing himself into Steve. They fall over the lounger, Steve’s shoulders and lower back hit the metal frame hard, forcing a muffled groan out as Eddie falls on top of him with his own faint, ‘oof’.

Eddie tries to raise himself up by his hands before falling even further as one of his hands slips through the rubber slats of the chair and he crashes into Steve's stomach.

Eddie babbles a string of incomprehensible apologies as he frees his trapped hand and manages to gently straddle Steve. Eddie hovers over him and lifts his hands to cup Steve's face.

“Shit baby, are you okay? Fuck, that’s not how I wanted that to go at all, I’m so shit at this”.

“Can we, can you get off and then we can get off the stupid chair?” Steve wheezes as he tries to catch his breath and shift his weight away from the metal still pressed into his back, “lets go inside, we can..talk about this”.

Eddie curses under his breath, his expression nervous, and moves his legs off of Steve and the chair before holding a hand out to help Steve to his feet.

Steve rubs his back as he leads the pair back inside through the sliding glass door, not daring to turn around and face Eddie.

He feels his own mortified flush spread across his chest and neck and winces; this is probably the most he’s blushed in years all in the span of a single afternoon.

He kissed me, he kissed me, he kissed me, plays on a seemingly endless loop in Steve’s head as he walks into the house, he can’t help the wide smile that blooms over his face --despite the other, darker thought that whispers in his ear, be careful, be careful, be careful.

Steve takes them through the empty dining room and into the living room before dropping onto the couch with another low groan. He looks up as he realizes that Eddie is no longer beside him.

Eddie stands in the entryway to the living room, he’s holding a thick handful of hair over his mouth and watching Steve carefully.

“Can’t talk with you all the way over there,” Steve huffs.

He tries for a smile but the effect is lost as Eddie continues to stand and stare at him, looking as though he could bolt from the house at any moment.

“Please come here Eds,” Steve tries again, his voice small. He takes a deep breath, if Eddie can be brave so can you, he thinks as he holds out his hand.

Eddie hesitates for just a moment more, his eyes flick beyond Steve to the hallway linked to the foyer and back, it’s so quick Steve nearly misses it.

Still, he keeps his hand steady, holding it aloft.

Eventually Eddie takes a tentative step, then another, slowly moving forward until his fingers brush Steve’s own. He takes a seat next to Steve on the plush gray couch but doesn’t relax as Steve turns his body to face him. Eddie tenses even further as Steve gives his hand a gentle squeeze.

He opens his mouth to start but Eddie beats him to it.

“I’m so sorry Steve,” Eddie whispers, his voice strained and thin as he takes his hand back, “I just fucking attacked you? Jesus, I," he cuts himself off, whatever he had been about to say trapped behind the teeth that dig into his bottom lip.

"I mean," Steve mumbles, hating the hunched line of Eddie's shoulders, "I tell you I've been in love with you for months and you kiss me, that makes sense to me?"

"Stop doing that," Eddie bites out as he stands up, slapping his hands on his knees to launch himself away from the couch.

He paces the living room, not looking at Steve and getting progressively more agitated as he walks.

"I apologize and then you turn it around on yourself, why do you do that? Just let me apologize!"

Eddie halts suddenly as he straightens and faces Steve, it's as though a lightbulb has blinked on in the ether as Eddie speaks his next words slowly and carefully, "stop letting me off the hook Steve, be honest with me".

"I have been honest with you," Steve tries but Eddie shakes his head.

"Nope, you've told me some of your stuff today, but not why you keep downplaying everything, why you're not just telling me you're upset, it's like you're censoring the stuff you think I don't want to hear, come on”.

"My stuff," Steve mutters under his breath as a hot flicker of irritation licks at his ribcage.

"Yes," Eddie says, throwing his hands into his hair in frustration.

"Everybody censors themselves Eddie, you think I tell the kids everything? That I've told Robin everything?"

At this Eddie blanches, surprise etched over his forehead as his eyebrows climb into his wispy bangs.

"But Robin--"

"Knows enough, but not everything,"Steve scoffs as he crosses his arms over his stomach, "and she doesn't need to".

Robin may know his parents are hardly around, she may have formed her own opinions, assumptions about what she thinks is going on; but Steve has gotten very good at hiding these things -especially over the years.

Pulling out the King Steve persona, make them laugh, make them mad, watch this hand while the other pulls the wool over their eyes.

"Then tell me," Eddie says softly, but there is a challenge to his words.

He shifts his stance slightly, putting more weight on his left leg as he cocks his hip out to the side, "shock me Harrington".

Steve shifts on the couch, feeling pinned under Eddie's gaze, before swiping a tired hand over his face and dropping it into his lap.

"That crack in the table happened just before I graduated," Steve says softly, his head tipped down so the words tumble into his knees.

He ignores the sharp intake of breath from Eddie, not daring to look up as he continues, "my uh, my dad opened the rejection letter from Vincennes, that one had just been delivered that morning I think".

Steve breathes out slowly and picks at a hangnail on his left thumb, he hasn't ever spoken about this to anyone, he's never really managed to talk about his home life growing up without side stepping things.

There had been moments where Steve thinks Tommy and Carol might have had their suspicions, but they never asked and Steve wasn't in a position to talk about it.

"I think that was at the beginning of June, so, so his logical conclusion was to uh, go looking for the other letters, the ones I must have received already".

Steve barks out a laugh, but the sound rings out hollow in the large living room, he startles slightly as the couch dips down next to him as Eddie sits, close enough that his knees are brushing Steve's own.

He doesn't say anything, but it's enough for Steve to breathe out and keep going.

"And he found them, my dad, in the shoebox I kept in the back of my closet".

"I don't know why I had even kept them," Steve shakes his head, "I should have thrown them away".

Steve absently traces a faint white line across his temple, staring past his knees into the patterns of the ornate area rug, "I got home from school and he had the letters waiting for me".

"He laid them all out on the dining table," Steve sweeps his hands out, setting the scene in his head, "like you see in those detective movies right? He just needed some string to connect them all to me".

Steve shivers and closes his eyes, the words still echoing fresh in his mind, the hot spittle that hit his face as his father cornered him against the wall still makes him flinch if he thinks about it too hard.

"He asked when I was planning to tell him about the rejections, and I couldn't give him an answer," he reaches up and pinches his nose, just once, blinking a few times as he wills away the gathering moisture.

"I didn't raise you to be this way Steven, like some fucking ungrateful coward --look at me when I'm God Damn talking to you!" Richard seethes as he slams the flat of his palm into the center of the table, his Harvard class ring splitting the wood as it connects with a loud crack.

Richard doesn't look down, his hand slides to one of the letters, snatching it from the surface as he steps around the table, towards Steve, in three sure strides. He backs his son towards the wall, looming over Steve as he shoves the paper into his face in one hand while the other grips the collar of Steve's T-Shirt.

"What will people think, huh, our only son didn't get into college, Hagan got in for chrissakes," his dad shakes him once, forcing Steve's head to connect with the wall, "what am I supposed to tell people Steven, what are we going to tell your poor mother?"

"I thought that Wheeler girl was supposed to be smart, tutor you or something," Richard scoffs as he finally lets go of Steve's shirt collar, "or did she finally come to her senses?"

Steve sneers before he can stop himself, "I didn't think you were even around enough to see that dad--"

The blow comes swiftly, catching him across the temple, his father's class ring comes out to play once again as a hot burst of pain blooms across the entire left side of his face from the backhand.

"Don't you ever speak to me that way again, you want to be a big man Steven? Just see what happens".

Steve blinks once, coming back to himself, "my dad, um, he has a problem with anger, with uh, expressing it I guess".

"But that isn't what this is about," Steve whispers, and this time he can't keep the wobble from his voice as he speaks.

"I'm afraid, I'm just like him, that I could do what he did if I got upset enough, and you," he breathes out sharply but the sounds more like a sob than anything else, "you want me to be honest?"

Steve finally lifts his eyes up to meet Eddie's own. Eddie, who looks as though he wants to melt into the floor, his shoulders tense and his own eyes seem suspiciously shiny as they stare back at Steve.

"Why couldn't you be honest with me, huh?" Steve whispers, "from the beginning?"

A tear breaks the surface, tracing down Steve's cheek. He manages to catch it roughly with the back of his hand before reaching up to press the heels of both his hands into his eyes --as though the pressure could stop the building deluge he knows is inevitable.

"I was so angry with you when you told me that you hadn't meant what you said in the Upside Down," Steve manages to speak through the tightening of his throat as he drops his hands back down into his lap, "that I smashed a plate in my kitchen after you left, I don't, I don't know what happened".

His breath quickens suddenly and every other word comes out as a gasp, "but it's like my worst fucking fears h-have come true and I don't, I don't know what to do, I don't, I--"

"Oh sweetheart," Eddie says softly as he reaches for Steve, pulling him into his arms with gentle fingers, "oh, I gotcha".

Steve lets himself be moved, for his head to be tipped into the crook of Eddie's neck and his body tucked into Eddie's chest.

Steve tries to slow down his breathing, to stop the shuddering of his chest as he fights the tears.

"It's okay," Eddie tries but Steve shakes his head.

"It's not," he bites out, the words taper off into a whine, "it's not--"

"Okay, you're right, it's not," Eddie says so softly Steve nearly misses it.

"I'm so, so, sorry Steve," Eddie murmurs into Steve's hair, holding him tighter as Steve finally gives in and lets himself cry.

He's not sure how long they sit for, eventually Steve feels a steady hand card through his hair while the other strokes down his arms, he feels the tension in his shoulders begin to melt away and the tears slow to a gentle trickle.

"I'm an idiot," Eddie huffs out, the breath flutters Steve's hair, making him twitch at the sensation.

Steve reaches up and wipes at his face with tired hands. The skin feels warm to the touch and puffy around his eyes and his nose which refuses to stop running, he must look like an absolute sight right now, he thinks to himself with a grimace.

"You're not an idiot," he manages to croak, but Eddie's already shaking his head sharply, turning himself to look at Steve.

"Oh believe me, I've fucked up before, pretty spectacularly, but this takes the goddamn cake sweetheart".

"And you're right," Eddie says slowly, carefully, "I shouldn't be harping on about you hiding how you feel when I'm the reason why we're in this mess".

Eddie chews his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth before pulling away from Steve entirely as he reaches up to cup Steve's face between his hands.

"I'm sorry for not being honest with you Stevie, and I will spend every day trying to make it up to you if you let me?"

Steve looks at Eddie, really looks at him.

He takes in the drooped curve of his shoulders, the subtle pink of the tip of his nose and the glassy sheen in his brown eyes. The way his chest has stopped rising and he drops his hands away from Steve the longer he openly stares at the metal-head, the way Eddie anxiously spins and spins and spins the rings on his hands the longer he waits.

It’s an easy decision to reach out and place his own hand on Eddies own, to halt the frantic movements with a gentle squeeze.

“So,” Steve says, grinning as Eddie finally looks up at him once more, "on a scale of helping to chauffeur the kids to finishing fixing the table, what kind of making it up to me are we talking about?"

The smile Eddie gives him is nearly blinding as he launches himself at Steve, gathering him up in his arms. His hair smells like sawdust and there's the barest hint of some kind of cologne that Steve can't place.

Eddie leans back into the couch cushions, laughingly wetly and taking Steve with him. The sound makes his chest ache as Steve realizes just how much he’s missed Eddie’s laughter. He buries his face in Eddie's neck as they cuddle into one another, letting themselves sit with nothing but the sound of the occasional car driving down the street outside or the humming of grasshoppers through the screen door to the backyard.

"For what it's worth," Eddie huffs, breaking the quiet, a hint of dimples revealing themselves as he smiles, "I've never met the guy, but from the sounds of it, you are the farthest thing from being like 'Ol Dick Harrington".

Steve says nothing but feels something in his chest finally unclench for the first time in weeks.

"Besides, there's nothing like a good plate smash every now and again Stevie," Eddie hums as he runs his thumb over the crest of Steve's cheekbone again.

"That's what Robin said," Steve mumbles, as he leans further into Eddie with a smile, "she came over that night, after".

"A wise and terrifying woman," Eddie says sagely, "who I hope to never piss off again".

He stops suddenly and looks up at Steve, a nervous pinch to his brow as he plays with a loose curl hanging in front of his face, "I'm glad you guys have each other," Eddie says slowly, letting his thumb stroke Steve's hand absently, "that you have people in your corner and--”

Eddie swallows, his eyes darting back and forth between Steve's eyes as he finally seems to steel himself.

"I hope you'll let me be one of those people".

This nervous, quiet Eddie, is so strange to take in, but then again Steve's also never been on the receiving end of so many apologies all at once, it's just shy of being overwhelming at this point.

"Oh come off it Eddie," Steve huffs with a roll of his eyes, "you had me the moment I saw that fucking table outside and you tried to hide the sandpaper behind your back --real smooth by the way".

The way Eddie stares at him in surprise and that same look of awe from before, tells Steve that was the right thing to say.

Eddie barks out a wet laugh and squeezes him tighter, tipping his face to nuzzle Steve's ear, "I missed you teasing me".

"That was the worst part about all of this," he shudders once and drops his head to Steve's shoulder, "I thought I lost my friend, but I have you back".

"Yeah, you have me Eds," Steve says softly.

Steve rests against Eddie, uncaring that the position is growing more uncomfortable as the arm tucked closest to the metal-head falls asleep. Eddie holds him with such gentle reverence that Steve feels as though he may just burst from happiness at any moment.

Everything he's wanted for months, has finally fallen into place.

It's quiet for another moment. Steve plays with one of Eddie's hands, running his fingers over the calluses from playing guitar and the eclectic rings decorating his knuckles.

Eddie clears his throat after a beat, swallowing once, “so uh, earlier….that wasn’t exactly how I pictured our first kiss you know?"

Steve feels a small grin slowly bloom, he's not quite facing Eddie the way they're sitting, so he can play coy a little longer.

“You’ve pictured it huh?”

Eddie snorts “Oh yeah, you have no idea, there’s usually more tongue involved and less chipped teeth”.

Steve nods, letting them sit for a moment longer, letting himself be chased for once.

Eddie pulls back slightly, leaving his arms loosely wrapped around Steve, “think we could uh, try again?”

“Will you mean it as much as you did the first time?” Steve says with a smile as he rubs his lip with his thumb and flushed cheeks.

“You liked that huh, always knew you were a freak like me Harrington,” Eddie barks out, his eyes shining with mirth as he leans closer to run the tip of his nose down Steve's before nuzzling them together, "wanna make some good memories in this house Stevie?"

“Only if you’re with me Eds,” Steve whispers against Eddie’s lips as he slowly leans in.

Steve’s heart races, anticipation flooding his veins and filling his chest with a giddy realization that he finally, finally, gets to have this.

That he knows Eddie finally, finally, feels the same way.

He’ll call Robin later, let her know about Hellfire’s plan, the apology, and maybe even the truth about everything he’d kept hidden away for so long. The old hurts soothed and the lid of the box in his mind permanently open now, the lid wrenched off its hinges so as to never close again. Maybe he could let people in, to let them know him.

For now, Steve lets himself be lowered onto the couch, lets Eddie's hands roam freely, over Steve's shoulders, his neck --letting his fingers gently brush the long scar from the Demobat tail, before lifting one hand to cup his cheek while the other climbs into Steve hair, threading his fingers through it and giving the locks an experimental tug.

Steve's hands make their way up Eddie's back, under his shirt, tracing over the raised scars on his sides. Eddie shoots Steve a wicked grin, his eyes crinkle at the sides as he lets his weight gently fall over Steve, catching himself with his hands on the couch cushions on either side of Steve's face, effectively caging him in.

Eddie moves slowly, deliberately, it's not nearly as brutal as the first time but Eddie kisses like a wildman starved, licking into Steve's mouth and grazing his bottom lip with harsh teeth.

It feels like Steve is being consumed, slowly, carefully.

It's overwhelming in the best way. The feeling of his soft lips against Steve’s own, the harsh stubble that rubs against Steve’s chin. The smell of weed, and sawdust, and cologne invades his nose.

Eddie pulls back briefly before leaning down again to place a soft kiss against Steve’s lips.

“How's that for a second kiss?” he asks with a raised eyebrow and a wide smirk pulling at his slightly puffy lips.

Steve scoffs and tugs at Eddie’s shirt collar, “I dunno, maybe we need to check again?”

Eddie’s laughter rings out loud and long in the Harrington living room, as he leans down again and hugs Steve tightly.

For the first time in a long time, Steve feels himself relax.

He lets the weight of Eddie press him into the cushions and releases a long contented breath, the Harrington house, finally feeling warmer than it has in a long time.

I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed working on it! This was the first fic of this length that I was still actively writing as I was updating that I've actually completed and I'm pretty damn happy about that! I was so worried about abandoning this guy and I'm glad I was able to finish it, hopefully it has come to a satisfying conclusion <3

Taglist: @zerokrox-blog @samcoxramblings @thosemessyvibes @liketheocean @vampireinthesun @themostunoriginalpersonever @merricatty @hyperfixationgoddess @hippieg1rl420 @mysticcrownshipper @estrellami-1 @clumsiluni @messrs-weasley @the-obsessed-nerdist

#platonic stobin #mean!eddie wip #finally finished this big boy #eddie munson has a bad dad #protective wayne munson #the party #will byers can and will weaponize those eyes of his #I broke my promise about how long this would take #angst with a happy ending #steddie #getting together #afewproblems writes #afewproblemswrites #steve harrington has a bad dad #implied referenced child abuse both verbal and physical #its only a small section but its not great #hurt steve harrington #slaps steves chest 'this boy can hold so much trauma'

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soulmatesinc-if · 1 month

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Going around asking all my favourite IFs this-

My friend (who has written one and a half IFs so far) told me that she balances all the routes very carefully. If one choice reduces one stat and increases two others, then the other choice also does the same, though it might not be the same stats. She does this for most choices. She believes it's the only way to not have a route that's perfect or seems like the canon path.

I'm just starting writing an IF, but this does not seem to be working for me. Maybe I just need to add more stats?

Either way, do you agree with this? How do you balance your routes within the game?

First of all, congratulations on starting! Writing an IF is so much fun, although a bit strenuous at times 😅 I'd break down your question(s) into sub-topics and share my thoughts on the matter. This is just my personal take on the peculiarities of this media though!

The number of stats. There is no set amount of stats to track, there is no minimum and no maximum, and your game can play just as well with 3 as it does with 10. Some IF games track more than others. In some games, the personality of MC is defined through numerous characteristics, in others, it is whatever powers they have. Or a mixture of both. Finding what works for you is essential. Less is more, imo, especially if you're just starting off and even more especially if you feel like they're starting to drag you down. Be mindful of which parameters you decide to track and why. Are you adding it because the players expect their X to be tracked, or do you know what this stat will be doing in your game, what outcomes it will affect? When you plan, try to see if there is overlap in what your stats signify and merge them if it's possible. Notice if perhaps it's always all the same one/two stats that are giving you trouble.

Best/canon route. An IF game is about player choice, so care should absolutely be taken about what these choices mean. In my opinion, the devil is in the game design. You can set broad thresholds for achieving certain actions and missed stat increase opportunities would seem less punishing. Or you can insert opportunities into the failure outcomes: have an extra scene that improves a relationship, reveals a plot point, or allows MC an emotional moment of introspection. This, of course, assumes that no path explicitly punishes the reader for picking a certain choice you, as a writer, have put in there: no hardcore railroading, no breaking the fourth wall to tell them it was unreasonable to pick that, etc. Having a clear path from the beginning of your story to the end is good, but there need to be sides to it that can be revealed if you step off it. I believe this will reduce the pressure on the player to follow a specific path, chasing those perceived "best" stats. E.g. you don't have to be the fastest runner if being some kind of runner will give you an engaging and fun/emotional playthrough.

Stat balancing. You have mentioned that careful control of the stat changes while writing doesn't seem to be working for you. I can share what I found works best for me, and that is to accept it will change. The game is in the WIP stage, so I simply take it for granted that the values and stats I am adjusting now are probably fairly coarse, and sometimes I later rethink the relationship between the option and which stats it should modify and by how much. As I write along, things will adapt and fine-comb editing will take place. I also don't think every single choice should change some stat, sometimes it's just about letting the player connect with their MC and the game, and that is just fine.

Just a few words to how I approach balancing it in Soulmates Inc.: I prefer the path of content. You may have noticed that your MC doesn't have to rely on the soul-link powers. And while using them may be fun, your MC's refusal to use them (a clear penalty to the value of the corresponding stats) may either be a stance on free will, their love for a challenge, a creative approach to their work, or even an uneasy feeling about the whole soul-matching enterprise. This will show up in the game at times as options and conversations exclusive to that path.

I hope this helps you a bit, even if merely to give you a perspective. Always remember to have fun with the project, and I wish you that smooth creative sailing, anon!

#soulmatesinc if #asks #interactive fiction

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cornyonmains · 9 months

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I am SO getting the vibe from Mew's character that he and Top are going to wind up in the 'they deserve each other' category by the end of the series.

Firstly, anyone who thinks Mew didn't 100% plan on backing out last minute on Top has not figured out the game that's being played here, because that was part of Mew's screening process. He wanted to see how Top would respond, he also wanted to bait him in so he could accomplish two things, the first is the it gives Top time to get to know him, and the second is it gives Mew time to figure out Top. See, Mew likes stories, he understands cause and effect. He understands Top's archetype in the gay hierarchy almost immediately, and knows he needs time to figure out which buttons to push. And he does.

Mew picks up fairly quickly that Top likes the dichotomy being created between them, the lothario meets boy next door, it's very storybook, it's what he understands. It's what he plays into, but not so much so that he becomes a parody, because he knows Top's intrigued by how self-possessed and sure of himself he is as well. He's also likely aware of how well-positioned he is to occupy a place in Top's life, because Top comes from a family with money, he's in his final year of college, and the reality of that is when Top does decide on someone to take home to meet the parents, it's not going to be someone like Boston. It was never going to be someone like Boston. It's going to be someone like Mew with his perfect grades, flawless social reputation, and easy-listening music. Mew knows how this game is played.

Except, he really doesn't. And that's where shit will inevitably get toxic. No amount of reading or manipulation is going to prepare him for what happens when he catches feelings, and Top manages to wrestle some of the control Mew has back. He's going to be completely in over his head when control is lost, and emotions come into play. Because emotions are what Top understands. Because he'll know exactly how to use Ray and Boston to drive a wedge between them, and get Mew to himself. And at the end of the day, Mew's sensitivity will probably see him choose Top over Boston and Ray, because he's not going to be able to shake the attachments that form after sleeping with him easily.

And let me tell you something, Boston and Ray are sure to be far from the only problems. If this is as true to the queer community as I think it's going to be, we're talking about a small community. One where certain figures are considered like... the top tier. Two well-known and desired figures in the community coming together like the next Bennifer? Oh that's gonna make waves that extend well beyond Boston and Ray. We're talking about a community where locking down certain people is front page news. We have our "It" girls, same as straight folks.

I haven't been so excited for a piece of queer media since Queer As Folk, and I mean it wasn't actually good. It was Russell T Davies using fan-fiction tropes to get good looking guys to act out his thinly veiled sex fetishes, while throwing queer women the most boring bone of all time. Only Friends is both sexy and infinitely more watchable and it's only been a single episode. I'm ready to commit to six seasons and a movie of these messy whores.

#only friends #ofts #only friends the series #forcebook #topmew #sandray #nickboston #FirstKhao #MarkNeo #thai bl #bl drama

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total-drama-brainrot · 2 months

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out of the three (four? if you wanna include ridonculous race) noah appeared in, which one do you think noah could have won if he cared about the competition

hot take; none of them.

he did care about the competition (at least somewhat) in the first season and it was objectively his worst. in island, he was too blinded by his own hubris to consider the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, isolating himself in a socially driven competition. he was standoffish and rude, which would've been fine if he hadn't outright directed negative attention to himself with his comments AND refusal to participate in the dodgeball challenge, and he offered little in terms of both teamwork and team utility anyway. so being voted out early was a given, and a much needed wake-up call for him.

he didn't compete in season 2, but if he did i doubt he'd make it to the finale. i'd like to say he'd make it pretty far into action- both because action has a lot more technology and media references, which noah could play to his advantage as both an established nerd and a canonical hacker (though these aspects of him are mostly delegated to his biographies/interviews outsode of the show itself), and because we know he does learn from his mistakes in season 1 so he'd try to be a better teammate (like he does in season 3). but i truly and honestly don't think he'd stand a chance against powerhouses like courtney and duncan, or have even a smidge of beth and owen's in-competiton social game/likability, so he'd eventually be voted out.

and in season 3, as much as i disagree with the amazons winning the challenge, getting rid of noah there and then was the right play from a narrative standpoint. because, at the end of the day, he's a filler character. he doesn't have any engaging plotlines of his own to warrant keeping him around, and his only real use from a writing standpoint is to make snide comments and witty one-liners; when the remaining cast all have at least one subplot going for them, and you need to 'thin the herd', you get rid of the deadweight characters first.

by world tour, i believe he's only competing for the sake of it, and he doesn't really care about winning or losing; if anything i'd say he only went along with the celebrity manhunt bus chase because he was supposed to stay with chris/the total drama crew, and since he was fired from being chris' assistant he didn't have anything better to do (he's always been a passive character, so going along with the crowd for curiosities sake is very much something he would do).

but if he did care?

i think he'd make it to early merge. a noah who cares about the competition would try to take down alejandro for the sake of his own survivability (after all, how long is it going to be until team victory is gone and alejandro turns on his own teammates as his next targets?) thus making himself plot relevant enough to keep around- maybe even allying himself with heather to do so. but alejandro, whilst not as smart as noah, is far more savvy and capable than him, and their 'rivalry' would end in noah being voted out.

or maybe he'd embrace his villain-coding (watch island again and tell me he isn't villain-coded. he does a "mwu-ha-ha" laugh and says "excellent." he's so campy bond antagonist coded in island) and ally himself with alejandro to garuntee his survivability, helping him weed out the competition as a right-hand man. eventually, alejandro would discard noah- either because noah would refuse to help him eliminate owen, or because they'd make their way far enough into the competition that noah becomes less of an ally and more of a threat and have him eliminated accordingly. because noah might be the villain, but alejandro's the archvillain.

that, and i think the finalists of each season are already the best picks from their rosters. i wouldn't change any of them to give one sarcastic twink the chance of winning.

(i haven't seen ridonculous race but i'm fairly certain caring about the competition is part of his character arc in it? he comes in guns blasing and then gets sidetracked by being smitten with emma, at least that's my understanding of it. so nothing would change there.)

#listen i love noah but he doesn't deserve a win #this loser only takes Ls sorry i don't make the rules (yes i do)#total drama #td noah #ophe's hot takes #character analysis #replies #typed this on my phone so sorry for any grammar/spelling errors 😥

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fantasyfantasygames · 2 months

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This Town Is Creepy

This Town Is Creepy, esmerelda99, 2022

Somewhere in New England, a small town hides its terrible secrets. The rivers surrounding the town, crossed by rickety bridges, exude fog every morning and evening. The forest is both thick and bare of leaves. No phone lines run there, and cell reception is one bar at best. The locals won't talk to you except to warn you away from the once place you're all here to visit. Odds of you getting out alive? Come on, what do you think?

This Town Is Creepy is designed for one-shots and short-run games, five sessions at most. Character creation is a set of pick-lists: age, education level, hobby, phobia, mode of transportation, etc. Some of these (like phobia and transport) are just color, though they obviously impact how things are going to play out. Others affect your rolls. Additional lists help the GM build the town, explain how you all know each other (or don't), and

The system is designed to generate a fairly high number of extreme results, though not to the extent that Caltrop Core is. You normally roll two dice and throw out the highest one. Up to three items from your pick-lists can add dice, and up to two can throw out high results. You use the highest remaining die. A final roll of 1 or 2 is a critical failure, 3s and 4s are regular failures, 5s are successes, and 6s are critical successes. Regular results can add dice on future rolls or create penalties; critical results finish conflicts immediately. It's a very simple system.

One of the designer's hobbies is woodblock printing, and she put it to excellent use in the game's art. Those bare trees and rickety bridges are perfectly represented in black ink and red watercolor wash. There's a great piece showing the town cemetery, complete with crypts. You're never really sure whether a person in the art is stylized or actually a monster.

The combination of lots of crits and a creepy surrounding give you two basic types of game. One option, the one that the game is supposedly written for, is that you don't roll very often and everything is uncertain. The other option, which I am certain my group would end up with, is Scooby Do. Esmerelda99 was well-aware of this. I know that only because, in a brief interview she gave about the game, she said: "Every time I run it at a con it turns into that really old cartoon with the dog."

In the end I'm not sure whether This Town Is Creepy is a very smart person putting together a game that secretly runs exactly how she intended, or a very smart person accidentally making a game that runs the exact opposite way from how she wanted. The great part is that you can run it either way, and if your group is down for it you're still going to have a good time.

Esmerelda99's account on itch got hacked, and now the damn thing is spewing bitcoin nonsense non-stop. Don't download anything from there. It's more frightening than anything in any game I've ever run.

#ttrpg #imaginary #indie ttrpg #rpg #review #horror #but not like toooo horror

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albywritesfiction · 4 months

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Aro anon here! Dw, I've never felt that you as the author was pushing us to hate Ædan for not loving MC back. I think you've done fairly well, sort of, holding court(?) and showcasing asks without pushing any particular viewpoints.

Important addendum to my thoughts: I personally don't mind being uncomfy! like, not in this instance. Some fiction should be uncomfortable, especially attempting to delve into certain topics. It might be the only way to do it with honestly. It's worth it to read about the raw reactions Ædan gets. I don't want to police people's feelings on the matter - I think that's weird when we're talking fiction. Or worse, for any anons to be less honest going forward! But i do want to encourage self-examination, and give my own honest, first-reaction perspective to consider

I appreciate that you aren't planning to glorify sentiments like that, but i do hope you won't shy away from it altogether. Like, romance is messy, it can cause a lot of "ugly" feelings, and u should get to write the messiest version possible in a romance game 😂 where else to explore this? It'd be different if i was giving advice to a friend about a guy, but this is a story. Pls dw about making MC have "correct" feelings. Indulging in being vengeful, petty, or utterly enamoured with Ædan in the complete opposite direction from before could be really fun! MC being angry at Ædan specifically for not loving MC back is normal, and I think it'd make sense as an option in-game. But it'd be best, I think, to have varied reaction to this in-game. I think it'd be an interesting bit of characterization too, seeing who'd support MC unilaterally in this and who'd give more push-back against an MC who thinks like this.

e.g i think people already want the option to shove their happy relationship with Ædrick/Cyffrin in Ædan's face. There could definitely be a "if you'd picked me, you could've been this happy too 😒" bend to it 😂 so many possible reactions from everyone involved to be had:

Is Ædan actually jealous? What if not? I feel like he already knows his life would've been exponentially easier if he was in love with MC, but he had a decade and still couldn't force it. He knows what he'd feel like in a relationship with MC - utterly miserable. Maybe he'd just be happy that MC has found the happiness he feels with Helene in Ædrick/Cyffrin and say so. Would a Vengeance!MC be incensed about that?? What if Ædan was jealous and regreful! Would MC be pleased with that? Just openly gleeful? How do Ædrick/Cyffrin feel about being used for this so transparently? Or about an MC that's still so focused on Ædan, has such strong reactions to Ædan's opinions, even in a relationship with them?

Messy messy messy 🤗

Hi aro Anon! I was really glad to receive this from you as soon as I had posted my response to your ask, and I'm sorry it's taken me quite a while to respond to this one 😓

It's quite a relief to hear that I don't seem to be biased towards any one version of things. I've been kind of worried about deciding what things should I put a reasonable limit on so that ATE doesn't become too overwhelming to work on while balancing it with the interactivity and branching narratives that I want to delve into, so I'm glad to hear that it doesn't sound like ATE's turning into more of a kinetic rather than interactive novel just yet 😅

I'm glad to hear that you're open-minded about reading, even for works that may go beyond your comfort zone. I especially like how you, in your own words, "want to encourage self-examination, and give my own honest, first-reaction perspective to consider."

I also greatly appreciate all the insights and thoughts you've shared, especially about romance in fiction, the variation in responses to the entire mess Ædan created, and the potential spaghetti of emotions that the cast may experience 🤭

I've reread your ask more times that I can count since I received it all the way back in November 2023 in my attempt to write a sufficient response, and each time I did, I've felt grateful that you took the time to write such a detailed, insightful, and reassuring ask, so I'd like to thank you for sending in this ask, aro Anon, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!

#after the end #ate-if #ate-if asks #ate: mc #ate: ædan #ate: ædric #ate: cyfrin

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transmutationisms · 1 year

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this isn’t rly a coherent point just a thought but i feel like the succession audience anon might be getting at the fact that the sociopolitical commentary of the show is lost as its audience increases? imo jesse’s political commentary is very clear but i also have my commie goggles on. but i know for a fact that the show is was not written nor marketed the way i’m consuming it. maybe jesse leans that way a bit but like he’s obviously descriptive and not prescriptive in his art so there’s that, and the constraints of tv are that it has to have broad enough appeal so you can’t be shoving your politics down the people’s throats necessarily. i think it is marketed to the brooklynite class you’re describing and i think they don’t fully get it and i also think as more people watch the more its themes are ignored in favor of stuff like omg who’d make the best successor, despite that not being what the show is about at all (also jesse has told us from day one who would make the “best” successor). idk like the people who get excited abt kendall becoming ceo you know? like omg it’s a win for him! like… are we watching the same show

ok i agree with a lot of this, and i am certainly also a known user of commie goggles lol. i think the fundamental limitation with the show is, like you said, that it's more interested in a descriptive mode than a prescriptive one, which means at its best it can nail character development and political satire, but it isn't really trying to offer any coherent alternative worldview. the portrayal of logan's gender / body politics is not flattering and doesn't flinch away from either the interpersonal trauma he inflicts on those around him or the broader political harm done by liberal capitalism; the show has also always been fairly sharp i think on the fascistic tendencies of capitalism and the way the latter turns into the former—again, shown both through logan's ideology of domination, social darwinist thinking, valorising certain types of bodies, etc, and through waystar's engagement with politics and politicians. however, i'd agree that this is all motivated by a description of the characters' worldviews and by satire of them, and we would probably see more of the cracks in the writers' and showrunners' politics if they tried to put forth some kind of more active alternative political platform.

that said, the fact that people miss these aspects of the show says as much to me about the political consciousness of viewers as it does about the intentionality of the writing. people with certain beliefs about masculinity are always going to watch 'fight club' and think tyler durden rules, no matter how effectively the critique is or isn't being made. similarly, people who think capitalism is a good or necessary system and doesn't derive value from fascism, or that succeeding in business is a matter of skill and mystical genius powers rather than a game of luck and accreting wealth, are always going to watch 'succession' and think that logan rules, or that the point is to identify the person who 'deserves' to take over waystar, or that capitalist electoral politics is a noble exercise in rhetoric that has simply been corrupted by a few evil apples, or what the fuck ever.

like, i'm not saying the writing is perfect or denying that it hits a wall in terms of actual radicalism. but i do think there are certain critiques the writers consistently and clearly make, often specifically via satire, that large swathes of the audience simply don't pick up on because they're approaching the text through their liberal capitalist ideological lens. you can see this, for example, in the journosphere's takes on the cruises storyline, which by and large completely failed to engage with the broader critique of capitalism as inherently producing death, exploiting bodies, and specifically preying on those deemed other or marginal—namely sex workers, migrants, women, etc. these points were very clearly made in the show and the meliorist viewpoint very clearly satirised (eg, in 'argestes'). ultimately, though, you can't rescue viewers from their own liberalism and you can't make them read the text from beyond those parameters. it's an issue of political consciousness, and although it can certainly be exacerbated by bad or milquetoast writing, even an explicitly radical piece of art will be interpreted through that liberal lens by people who are liberals (anyone remember the reviews of 'sorry to bother you'?)

i also would add that, in my opinion, this season has actually been more willing to overtly engage with the political threads than season 3. viewers can no longer hide behind the idea that the problem starts and ends with logan as an individual. matsson and his people have consistently been characterised as staking their own worth on their supposed biological superiority, with specific references to athletic ability, bodily strength, élite education that forms a class barrier, and the general idea of racial and genetic superiority ("nasdaq master race," "shallow end of the gene pool"). i'm aware there are many viewers, including on tumblr, who are not stringing these things together and seeing an overall discourse on capitalist eugenics and racism—but i do actually think that the satire here is being laid out pretty clearly in front of our faces. is this a show interested in exploring imaginative political alternatives? no, and you could convincingly argue on that basis that its fundamental stance is more self-satisfied snark than anything resembling actual leftist politics. i think, though, that this would be pretty evenly true since day 1, and that, at its best, the writing does hit on some key aspects of how capitalist spectacle functions, the power abuses it creates and enables, and how these things are inherent to capitalism writ large rather than being a unique pathology of the roys or waystar.

ultimately i love to see art that is actually communist / leftist in nature, is interested in alternatives to capitalism and ways out of our current political economic arrangement, etc. 'succession' is not that, clearly. part of the reason i do shit like blog about it is because it used to annoy me so much that no one was connecting certain more radical dots (like the obvious path from the show's historicised thinking -> a critique of capitalism as contingent) that are implied or allowed-for by the writing but never unpacked or explicated. so, often what interests me in the show is at least as much the lacunae left in the writing as the things it explicitly says. again, commie goggles. i also would tentatively agree with you that it's primarily marketed to people who are basically liberal and milquetoast, for reasons of profit motive, although again i honestly take in so little television advertising that i don't have much that's cogent to say about this angle of things lol.

i'm certainly not lying to myself that this show is any kind of radical statement of communist party values—i just also think that there are points of actually interesting satirical critique that the writers are very deliberate about, and that the guardian-new yorker-industrial complex is pretty much inherently going to miss these points or ignore them, for reasons that don't necessarily reflect one way or the other on the actual quality of the writing.

anyway, it was maybe goofy to write this out like an hour before the election episode airs, but these are certainly questions i will continue rotating after i see it lol.

#blood sacrifice

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chirpsythismorning · 1 year

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You can't expect people to take you seriously if you're not providing any proof? If Will and El are twins and Joyce and Hopper are their bio parents, why don't any of them know about it and why haven't there been any hints about it? I'm not even trying to be rude here I just haven't seen any evidence. Let alone strong evidence

I've gotten a few confused asks about this theory and how it just doesn't make any sense..?

I'm not saying that I completely understand the ins and outs of how it works, in fact I'm still completely immersed in theorizing and not being certain of anything! Quite frankly, I don't understand it (how time works/the rules of the game), though I think that's necessary because otherwise everyone and their mother would have guessed this surprise by now if it was any more obvious than it already is.

I also just feel kind of bad about spoiling what could possibly be going down, especially bc this would clearly be a series long surprise.

I've been theorizing for months now with @shippingfangirl013 about this. It started with us sharing thoughts about Twelvegate and just sort of piecing together s4 lab scenes and then eventually going back to the beginning to see what we might have missed from this new lens, that being the possibility that Will is Twelve. And that's when we realized A LOT of stuff has been overlooked from the very beginning, which provides not only answers to certain questions we had, but also brings forth even more questions that we wouldn't have come up with, had we not looked back further into the details in the first place.

She has a bunch of posts that are severely underrated in regards to this whole theory, so I urge you all to check those out:

Twelvegate Theory: Drowning in the Quarry and Will & El (Part 1)

Twelve Actor Resemblance to Young Will Byers

Stranger Things S5 Conglomerate Twelvegate Theory (Part 1)

Conglomerate ST S5 Theory Parallels

Also be sure to keep an eye out because she has some really big brain analysis in the works that you dont want to miss. I can honestly say she plays a big role in why I feel fairly confident about this theory, because I myself didn't really believe it at first. But now, after everything I've seen, it's kind of hard not to.

Even if you don't like this the idea of this theory or just simply don't believe the evidence presented that you've seen thus far, at the very least looking at this could expand your ability to look further at other details on the show and even pick up on evidence of your own. I find that more often than not, knowing about the existence of certain overlooked details allows you to find even more overlooked details that others missed.

For the sake of your doubtful ask, and for anyone else who isn't even considering this theory because it seems too far fetched, I'm going to share some of my favorite unhinged evidence for whatever the hell gate we're calling this...

But first, here is some basic context for the chaos that follows.

Something important to note, is that we don't meet Hopper, El or the Byers the night that Will went missing. We only met Will and the party. Instead they saved the rest of the main character's introductions (his family, mind you) for the following day, after Will had gone missing. This also means they saved their introductions for AFTER the big power outage that happened that night right before he disappeared.

I find this interesting because this choice allowed them to make those introductions feel arguably 'starting point'/reset-like (like in a video game).

You'll also note there is a 'Pizza One' box in that first scene when the party is in Mike's basement playing their campaign, moments before that power outage. This could have been a hint that the very start of the pilot episode at the Wheelers may very well be the OG timeline, that we've been straying from ever since. And so let's say hypothetically, if we had met Hopper, El and the Byers BEFORE that power outage, whose to say their lives wouldn't have looked slightly different...?

The first time we are introduced to Hopper is in the scene directly after the opening credits, which was right after the scene of Will disappearing in the shed. Hopper is sleeping on the couch in his trailer, wearing both his daughter's blue bracelet and his watch. We also get 3 references to keys in this scene (a 2 ft long key decal in the literal opening shot). And if that's not enough, what follows is Hopper getting ready for work, putting a yellow pen in his pocket near a painting of an owl, before grabbing his keys and walking out the door.

The first time we are introduced to Joyce (the Byers), follows directly after the scene with Hopper, where Joyce just so happens to be looking everywhere for her keys, Where the hell are they?, followed by finding them on the couch, despite already looking there previously with no luck (interesting Hopper was sleeping on the couch with Willel symbols on his wrists only moments before this hmm). We then get a shot of Joyce showing concern over Will not eating breakfast, followed by scolding Jonathan for forgetting to wake Will up, adding I've told you this a thousand times, before she walks past an owl on the wall in the hallway and opens the door to another owl on the wall in Will's (unoccupied) room...

Let me just say, for the sake of this fictional family, I hope to god they haven't been through this thousands of times. Though I fear they might have. At least more than once...

There are a lot, A LOT of scenes that go down like this. As the show progresses, we get a lot of references to time passing and confusion and impatience and it almost feels like they themselves know deep down this isn't their first rodeo, and yet they're still playing along bc how exactly can one question their reality?.

The problem right now for me, is that I don't understand the rules of the game. How does time work? What even is the goal of the game (to win, I presume?)? Maybe Vecna's having to keep reseting the time loop, to get the results he wants, and over time he's getting closer and closer to the results he wants, but it will ultimately (predictably) lead to him failing once and for all in the final season, when all is inevitably revealed?

Hypothetically, if this is all some game/pocket universe Vecna has thrown our core characters into, essentially surrounding them with 'fakers', then how do we know what is/isn't real? Or I guess whether or not we're in a timeline/loop either closest to, or furthest away from the original timeline? That's why it's hard for me to go further in terms of definitively piecing everything together time wise. Not only that, but we also don't even know for sure what Vecna wants from Will and El, truly.

But I do think that a lot of the answers to the truth are hidden in plain sight.

If you're genuinely curious, I encourage you to rewatch the show for yourself to see if you can pick up on things! Be sure to keep an eye out for keys and owls in particular. Also, El's flashbacks of Mama/the rainbow room might prove to be important... like, literally slowing down and pausing and screenshooting every single frame level important...

Who knows, you might even stumble upon a completely different undiscovered theory in the process!

On that note, here is just a slice of my favorite evidence in regards to this theory, that will hopefully open your mind to the possibility:

When Hopper asks about Lonnie's whereabouts, Joyce insists TRUST ME HE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. They made sure to keep the keys on the wall OUT of the frame in those shots referencing Lonnie by name specifically. However, when the conversation circles back to Will, and then follows after with Joyce telling Hopper to find her son, the keys are once again visible in both of their shots.

This scene right here is pretty epic. We all interpret Hopper's investigative skills throughout the series as him just being good at his job. But I would argue this scene in particular gives off very intense deja vu. It's as if Hopper knows where to look, because he's done this before. It's as if he's getting a gut feeling in certain areas that actually could be close to the truth, because this is his thousandth time doing this (Jesus, for their sake, I hope that's not the case).

Still, Hopper showcases a lot of unbelievable detective work throughout the show, and I think it could very well be hinting at him drifting in and out of awareness over the fact that he has done this before, which allows him to make such incredible guesses that lead him to the answer sooner than he would have in any normal situation (and yet, never too close...)

Has this always been here? That's what Hopper asks about a dent in the wall. We interpret it as maybe Hopper trying to figure out if this could be connected to Will's disappearance. But what if it's more than that? What if it hasn't always been there? What if this is a glitch in the matrix of sorts, and he noticed that glitch, bc this isn't his first time doing this? (Also peep the owl that shows up at the very last second in the shot directly below, with Joyce and Hopper in the frame, just as he gets the urge to check the backyard...)

This scene... This fucking scene ya'll. It just doesn't make any sense. This is one of several scenes throughout the show that have so many unanswered questions. I think it's because something else is going on that weren't not supposed to understand yet. That shot with Hopper encased in a rainbow is cool and probably means something... Hopper intensely walking into the frame as he steps towards the shed, with the upside down horseshoe above the door also probably means something...

Hopper literally walks up straight to where Will was in the shed the night previous, bc he's just that good of a detective. Yeah, okay... Suddenly the light overhead is blinking dramatically, only to switch off completely, which leads Hopper's eyes to catch this makeshift fort in the corner of the shed. Before he even gets a good look at what he's seeing, he's interrupted by Callahan, pulling him out of his deja vu state, followed by the light switching back on instantly, as if the occurrence was all in his head.

This also happens a lot, where our main characters are being interrupted by other characters, only seconds before they were close to solving something. And I just find that interesting...

This one is kind of peak comedy because, all it's doing on the surface is implying that Joyce and Hopper have a romantic history, but it also sneakily involves Will in the joke, as evidence that they have been intimate... The Chief and her, they've screwed before huh? ...WILL! That a 'yeah' or did they...

To be honest, I was really doubtful about Joyce and Hopper being El and Will's biological parents at first, even despite believing twelvegate and the possibility of them being twins. And this doubt mostly came from the scenes we get with Terry aka El's 'Mama'.

Initially, I had convinced myself it would be too sad, considering how much backstory we got about Terry. But @shippingfangirl013 made me realize that there is something very off about these scenes with Terry, that I think kind of went over all of our heads.

First of all, Mama is essentially the equivalent to the name Papa, and so we should start by unpacking that. Why didn't the writers have El distance herself from that exact association she links to Brenner, by just having her call Terry 'mom' like most kids call their mother? It doesn't seem that serious on the surface, but again this is a choice the writers made... Maybe it's because they wanted the audience to subconsciously associate those two with each other (Papa/Mama)? Also peep Jim giving Will Byers vibes, all lit up by the sun like Jesus (or I guess... God?) below!

The main thing I want to talk about though, is that despite Terry's vegetative state, she's still managing to give us hints about how she feels and what she thinks, with very subtle micro-expressions.

When she meets Hopper and Joyce in s1, Terry looks completely unsurprised. You could say she looks the same all of the time, because of her vegetative state, and while I mostly agree, there are some outliers in the mix.

When Joyce mentions El being her daughter, what we get is a reaction shot of Terry dramatically closing her eyes for an extended period of time, almost like she's experiencing frustration over them woefully misunderstanding the truth behind what's going on.

And I think that's kind of the whole point of the vegetative state here, that perhaps if Terry could say what she wanted to say, it would give away the truth that has been hidden all along, AKA Joyce and Hopper are El and Will's true parents. When Joyce then mentions her missing son, showing Terry a picture of him, this woman LITERALLY turns her head to the right, looking straight up annoyed... Why? Why would she do that unless this is her ?/? time meeting them, hearing this same old silly charade?..

But then here... THIS moment when Hopper asks about Brenner and Terry's relationship with him, that's when it gets interesting. Terry doesn't look exhausted over their ignorance anymore like she seemed to be in the moments previous. Now, she's back to her stare of nothing, and yet seeing this in contrast to her micro-expressions, almost adds a new layer to what this could possibly mean... Perhaps this could be hinting that Hopper is a lot closer to the truth than he realizes, warranting a knowing look from Terry, with her almost impressed, thinking Damn Jim, maybe you'll figure it out this time and I can finally be released from this hell...

This might seem like a reach to assume Brenner and Terry had any sort of relation beyond her being a lab volunteer, but something I think you might be interested in knowing, is that Terry has a little collection of Bonsai tree books beside her chair... Bonsai... does that remind you of anyone...? (If you check out those posts by @shippingfangirl013, you might know what i'm referring to...)

The fact that Hopper even mentions Brenner and Terry's presumed connection to him is just one other example of Hopper subconsciously picking up on things he discovered in previous loops that are close to the TRUE truth, allowing him to narrow things down quicker this time around, without needing to take all the steps to get to that point.

An owl behind both Joyce and Hopper here, while they talk about what allegedly happened to Terry and her daughter Jane.

And there you have it folks, the acknowledgment that the truth could have been covered up, the moment Hopper stands in front of the owl artwork (literally covering it up). Owls, which have been tied more than anyone else to Hopper, Joyce, Will and El (tying them together?).? Also the crib between them... Nothing to see here.

This one is pretty self explanatory. We even get a parallel to this in s4 with El AND Will, though next time they'll confirm Hopper's role in the equation. So, be ready for that...

These scenes are so important to this theory because despite them all being separated (who knows how many times now), they have this epic finale of coming together. We get these really heartfelt scenes with El and Joyce and Hopper, Will and El, and then Will and Joyce and Hopper, and it's all very emotional and just so much deeper knowing that the truth could be that they're all tied to each other more than we (or even them) realize.

11 & 12 between the two hands on the clock, in a moment that parallels X-Men and also the lab massacre (which presumably had both 11 and 12 in attendance...). Mike calling out to El emotionally the moment that Joyce and Hopper are reunited with Will. My heart can't take it!!!

Someone actually noticed this shot of Hopper recently, I can't remember who! But it made me want to go back to see what shot is right before it. And low and behold, it follows directly after a shot of the Byers family reuniting. Kind of interesting they made the choice to have this shot right afterwards, of Hopper sitting next to Ted (aka a dad), while looking lost in thought as he stressfully bites his nails, with his arm sporting his daughter's blue bracelet...

Not suspicious at all. That creepy shadow behind Owens as he makes an almost knowing comment about Joyce and Hopper being 'Mom and Pop', followed by Hopper looking like he's missing something...

And for this scene to follow shortly after? Hopper literally acknowledging Owens whose waving at him politely, and yet choosing to not wave back at him?... He KNOWS something is off, but he just can't quite put his finger on it...

As you probably know, most of the scenes with the birthday mug in Mike's basement involve either El (in s1) or Will (in s2-3), which is interesting considering the other few notable birthday references we get in the show, including this really cryptic sequence above, involve Joyce and Hopper...

Now, if you still didn't believe me about Terry's behavior being off, I think this piece of evidence might help support our claims a little bit more for you to consider. Because, why, WHY when El approaches Terry in the void and says I'm home, is Terry's response No..? Why would that even make any sense? Why would El's biological mom say No to her missing daughter implying that she is her family? Unless, she's not of course...?

Something interesting about the flashbacks that Terry shows El, is that they're very sporadic and hard to understand. Not only that, but we STILL get callbacks to these memories heavily even in s4, which tells me there is still something there that has yet to be picked up on, by both the audience and El herself, which is why they keep resurfacing in different forms. My favorite moment out of the s2 flashbacks though is probably this moment where it looks like a baby is born, only for Brenner to look back, like there's more to come (another baby?? TWINS?). But this type of twin imagery, only gets stronger in s3-4...

After 2 seasons of building up this meeting of these two characters who have been mirroring each other since the very beginning, here we are... Also, why even hold back for so long in introducing them? Maybe because them finally interacting properly is going to cause some things to resurface... And you definitely don't want to overlook these shots of Hopper and Joyce in Melvald's with two baby's in between them, followed by a shot of keys... Hmmmm.

Remember when I said to pay attention to the Terry/Lab flashbacks El experiences over the seasons?

Well this particular flashback below comes from 3x06: E Plurbius Unum aka the episode that was originally titled The Birthday, might prove to be important...

Jonathan and Will in a scene prior to El's flashback, has them situated interestingly between this Lucky Charms box and this Spill & Spell game, which is then followed by this scene with El experiencing flashbacks... And...

Rainbow? Lucky (Upside down horse shoe...) Enter flashback

I'm not going to be able to show each frame of this flashback, because in total there are over 30 different quick images shown and repeated...

And so, If you want to find out why this is the strongest piece of evidence for Willel twins in my opinion (brought to you by @shippingfangirl013's big brain), go back and rewatch to see how many times they show the image of baby El and young El in the rainbow room... Also take note of how shots of Kali (008) are interspersed consistently within this flashback, aka a character that is known for having powers to make people invisible, and to also make people see things that aren't actually happening...

Here's that parallel I mentioned earlier making a return, but instead tying El (and arguably Will) to Hopper being their biological father. Also peep El's bracelet and Will's watch being prominent in a lot of their shots together throughout s4, now that they share the screen a lot more.

The Wright Bros...

No, but seriously, Willel's bracelet and watch mirroring each other often in their scenes together, and by association also paralleling Hopper wearing one of each, dramatically showcased in his introduction to the series, can be something so personal to me...

THEY'RE TWINS YOUR HONOR!

This one really goes off. A car passes by a couple times during this flashback El has (IN S4), causing a shadow to cast behind Will, almost creating this duplicate-like effect... This is literally happening while El is having a flashback to her 'birth mother', while staring at a family (with their faces warn out/blurred) on a billboard, with an arrow pointing towards where Will, aka her twin, is standing to the right of her...

This one below has gotta be my favorite though. And it's because I literally remember watching this scene the first time and being confused?

Tbh, that's when you know something is more complex than it appears. Whenever something feels off within the context provided in the moment, it's probably because there's something deeper going on and there are multiple meanings at play. This means they're using this small moment as an opportunity to provide dual meaning in plain sight, that we wont understand the dual meaning of until later on down the line.

Are you ready..

Hmmm. I wonder what this could possibly be alluding to? Could it perhaps be the writers hinting at Hopper unintentionally projecting his own situation onto Dmitri? Is it possible who Hopper believes to be his child (daughter... son(s?)?) and his (ex)wife, are not actually who he and everyone thinks they are...?

Well. There you have it! These are just some of the many, many hints hiding in the details that point to the possibility of the Byers actually all being, Hoppers...?

For now, this is just a theory! So even though it's cool and there is a serious amount of evidence pointing to it, it will most definitely continue to transform and look different over time, the more we look deeper and discover more. Nothing is set in stone, for now it's all just theories and speculation.

Again, if you're curious about what else there is out there in regards to this theory and other possibilities surrounding it, please follow and check out @shippingfangirl013 posts! She was way more on board with this theory than me in the beginning and arguably still is, because I do still experience occasional doubt about it, for sure.! And so without her I would not have come to half of these conclusions! I look forward to you guys seeing other stuff she's discovered bc seriously... Her poor storage ya'll.

And also, if you're interested in the time-loop aspect specifically in regards to this, I encourage you to check out two recent posts I did about this. Part I actually starts with those first scenes introducing Hopper and the Byers and how other scenes later in the show parallel it. VERY VERY cool stuff, and tbh if you've made it this far, I think you'll be intrigued...

Time Loop Fuckery in Stranger Things Part I

Time Loop Fuckery in Stranger Things Part II

#byler #stranger things #twelvegate #willel wondertwins #willel literal twins #joyce + hopper = willel twins #also apologizes to the duffers #i do feel bad about letting their surprises be talked about IF this actually ends up being canon in the final season...#then again when s5 promo starts rolling around #people are already going to be speculating if there is evidence in promo #i know bylers will be especially bc we have so many theories already that anything pointing to them blatantly going forward #will have us literally jumping on the walls and blasting about how obvious it is #and atp i think the ga will catch on regardless of us sharing these easter eggs...#again tho #just a theory!!

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