#So not really all the way up my wheelhouse for some of it but some of it does seem really cool | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

public-trans-it · 7 months

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i would love to hear your dark spore rant. i didnt even know spore had a sequel.

Oh anon. Poor sweet anon. I’m so sorry.

So, the thing about Darkspore is…

… it was a really REALLY… mediocre game.

Like, the moment to moment gameplay was… fine. Just fine. Not incredible. But not BAD! Really, it only had two major flaws:

The first, it was buggy as hell. One particularly nasty bug was present in the games launcher, and on certain systems the game would fail to install at all. They were unable to ever fix this bug, which I speculate was a major reason the game was abandoned by the devs so quickly and lead to it being taken down from every major digital distribution site. You could still install and play it if you already bought it though! If… it actually installed for you.

Which leads us to the second flaw. It’s right there on the box.

“Internet connection required”

The game has Always Online DRM. All the levels, enemies, loot, your entire account, was all stored server side. And servers are expensive. So, when the games bugs became unwieldy and not worth fixing, and they took it offline… it became a money sink. It was a game generating ZERO revenue, but had huge server maintenance costs. So eventually, they just shut down the servers.

It is now very difficult to obtain the game, requiring you to buy one of the few unopened physical copies remaining. And even once you do have it, it is IMPOSSIBLE to play. There is a project called Resurrection Capsule in the works, some fans trying to create a private server for it. But with so much info stored server side, they basically have to recreate entire subsystems from scratch. It’s… not going very fast, and to my knowledge hasn’t been touched in over a year.

Story

The story of the game is pretty basic. A progenitor race of alien super-scientists create a new, synthetic form of DNA, called Exponential-DNA, or E-DNA. This rapidly mutates to create new life, and can be guided to create specific, specialized organisms, condensing thousands of years of evolution to a few hours. It can also be injected into existing creatures to alter them and make them more powerful. However it also linked everything affected by it into a hivemind. So it was outlawed. The creator of it decided to respond by creating a E-DNA virus, called The Darkspore, infecting himself with it, and spreading it across the galaxy and conquering it, wiping out his own race.

You play as another member of that race, who has been in hibernation for 1000 years while that was going down. Your ship AI has woken you up because it has managed to stabilize E-DNA and also keep it disconnected from the hivemind, and needs you to go kill the guy who took over the galaxy. That is how the game starts.

…

And how the story ends. There is not really any more story past that part. You get a cutscene describing each of the games 6 planets the first time you visit it, and a final “Hey you won!” cutscene after killing the final boss which ends with the cliche “implication the villain isn’t really dead” trope, and… that’s it. That’s the entire story. Not really the selling point of this game. Its not even entirely clear if it takes place in the same universe as Spore! It’s just set dressing for “Run through these 24 levels and beat everything up”

Gameplay

Darkspore was created by Maxis. This alone was HUGE. This was a team of developers who only really made lifesims like The Sims and Sim City, taking a stab at making a diablolike game.

And I GENUINELY BELIEVE every single studio out there needs to do shit like this. Designing for something so outside your wheelhouse creates SOOOOO much innovation so quickly. You get fresh new ideas injected into the genre so quickly. The final product won’t be good! You don’t have any damn experience in the genre! But it will create something unique beautiful, and god damn I wish we lived in a world where that alone was enough and devs weren’t focused on chasing profits instead.

Genesis

Genesis is just a fancy way of saying ‘Element’. There are 5 of them: Plasma (fire and lightning), Bio (plants and animals), Cyber (machines), Necro (death and fear), and Quantum (space and time) and the way they interact is… certainly a choice I guess. Each Darkspore you face has a genesis it falls into, and each of your heroes has one as well. If your Genesis matches that of the darkspore you are fighting at the moment, you take double damage and they take half damage. If they don’t match, all damage both ways is neutral.

The system itself is kinda mediocre. The biggest part of it, however, is the Variant Skills. Each Genesis has 4 unique skills tied to it that represent the common elements of that type.

Heroes

There are 25 heroes in the game, which each have one Genesis and one Class (Sentinel which are the tanks, Ravagers which are the DPS, and Tempest which are the Casters/Support)

Each hero has 4 total variants, with the first one you unlock being Alpha, and as you level up your account (heroes do not have their own levels) you eventually can purchase their Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants, with each variant having slightly different stats, and a different one of their Genesis’ 4 variant abilities.

Each hero has a unique basic attack, which USUALLY has a little extra to it. For example Sage shoots a bolt that hurts enemies it hits, but heals allies it hits. Zrin alternates between two different punches, one of which has a short duration DoT and the other of which has a 10% stun chance. Stuff like that.

They also have a passive effect that is always active while you are playing them. Collect a soul from each enemy killed for a 5% damage boost, 10% damage bonus when attacking from behind, a stacking defense buff every time you take damage, stuff like that.

Finally, a character has 2 unique abilities. One that is unique to them and can only be used while you are playing that hero, and a second ability that is everyone in the squad can use if that hero is present.

Squad Decks

Which brings me to the first rant and something I am SO AUTISTIC ABOUT (positive). SQUADS. The game had you craft Squad Decks, collections of 3 heroes that you can swap between during your missions, for a total of 883.2k squad combinations (I think my math might be off on that). Swapping between them is on a cooldown of about 10 seconds, but otherwise is don’t instantaneously and as often as you want without penalty. You always have 5 abilities active:

- The unique ability of your active hero

- The Genesis ability of your active heroes variant

- Hero 1’s Squad ability

- Hero 2’s Squad ability

- Hero 3’s squad ability

The first two abilities change out every time you swap heroes, but the last 3 are fixed. So you have 3 abilities that you always have access to, and 6 abilities that are paired up and you can swap between which pair of those abilities is active.

Your heroes do NOT share a health/energy pool, but DO share healing pickups. Any time you pick up a health or energy restoration pickup, it refills a chunk of the respective health pool of your currently active hero, and a smaller chunk of each of your inactive heroes in the squad.

So the core loop of moment to moment gameplay becomes swapping situationally between heroes both offensively and defensively, to get access to your other heroes skills and also to mitigate damage from enemies based on their genesis or control where your healing is directed.

Loot

Loot in Darkspore is fairly standard for your average Diablolike. Item drops have 4 tiers: Common (Item Level=Account Level-5), Uncommon (Item Level=Account Level), Rarified (Item Level=Account Level+5), and Purified (Item Level=Account Level+10)

Items of higher tiers have more chances to roll on a table to gain beneficial modifiers.

Each item fell into one of a few different categories: Weapon, Hands, Feet, Offensive, Defensive, or Utility.

Each hero has one of each slot, plus an additional slot based on their class. Ravagers have an extra Offense slot, Sentinels have an extra Defense slot, and Tempests have an extra Utility slot. Any hero can equip any item you gain, with the exception of Weapons that are hero specific. Some heroes also lack Hands or Feet, in which case their weapon has extra stats and can get the same modifiers as hands and feet can.

The items you equip can then be added onto the Hero in the Hero Editor. The Hero Editor is often equated to the Creature Editor in Spore, which is BULLSHIT and was a pet peeve of mine the ENTIRE DAMN TIME THE FAME WAS LIVE. This is a FALSE EQUIVALENCE. It uses the outfit editor from the Tribal/Civilization phases of Spore instead. Importantly: this means you cannot alter the overall silhouette of your hero. It will always maintain the same basic profile and animations. However you can freely place the extra parts you equip anywhere on its body, and can also place multiple copies of them.

Additionally, old parts can have their stats stripped, converting them into ‘Detail’ parts with no stats, of which you can equip 6 different parts, each of which you can include 10 copies of on your hero. So you could get some pretty cool looks from it!

However all this loot is garbage and you likely would not use most of it outside of appearance. Which brings me to…

Cash-out Loot

Usually if you mention the word ‘cash’ in any sentence involving a game published by EA, it would be a call for concern. Luckily this isn’t that! It’s just gambling! Everything is fine!

The main progression in Darkspore comes from gear, and the best gear comes from how good your ships engines are. These come from account upgrades as you level up your account, determining how many levels you can do in a row. Every time you complete a level, you are given an option: Keep going, or ‘cash out’ and get a guaranteed piece of Uncommon gear, with a 10% chance of it becoming Rarified, as well as all the gear you picked up in the level.

If you choose to keep going, you have to complete the next level. If you die, you lose ALL the gear you picked up, including that guaranteed piece. If you make it to the end, you are given another choice: Risk it all again and go on to the next level, or stop here and get your TWO pieces of guaranteed uncommon loot, which each now have a 20% chance of becoming rarified and a 5% chance of becoming purified.

You can only go another of levels equal to the number of Engine Upgrades you have earned by leveling up your account. So at first, after the second level you HAVE to cash out. As you progress you can start to do many more levels at a time, getting a dozen pieces of gear that are practically guaranteed to be the highest rank.

But of course you have to play these levels in order, and you don’t get a chance to upgrade your character with all the cool new loot you found on the way, so you can’t just jump straight into this. You have to slowly build up to being able to push yourself this much, and once you can, you have a readily available source of some of the best gear in the game.

And that ties into my absolute favorite system of Darkspore:

Catalysts

Many diablolikes have a mechanic called ‘Sockets’. The gear you equip has its own type of equipment slot, and you put gems in there that give you small bonuses. Every game does it a little differently, but it’s kind of a staple of the series.

Darkspore uses a similar system, but utilizes it VERY differently. While you are running levels, enemies will rarely drop Catalysts instead of loot. These come in 5 colors: Purple (boosts your base stats), Red (boosts offensive secondary stats like damage or attack speed), Blue (boosts defensive secondary stats like health regen or damage resistance), Green (boosts utility secondary stats like movement speed or lifesteal), and Rainbow (can contain any of the bonuses of the previous categories) They also come in two sizes: Big and Small. This determines how big the bonus from them is.

You have a 3x3 grid on your HUD that the catalysts you collect go into. You can rearrange them however you want, and if you create a line of 3 of the same color (Rainbow is a wildcard and matches with all of them), it will double the bonus of all Catalysts in that line. This stacks, meaning if you create multiple lines over a single catalyst it could get a x3, x4, or even x5 bonus if it’s the center piece of the grid and forms a line in every direction.

However, you can’t save Catalysts. You can equip it to the grid or drop it on the ground and move on. That’s it. You have to decide now. Do you keep that Big Purple you have for the big buff to your most important stat, or do you trade it for that Small Rainbow for a mediocre stat you just found that you can plug in the middle and double everything else in your grid?

“Surely that only matters early game, and once you have good catalysts you don’t swap them out that much, right?” I hear the diablolike veterans asking, because that is how socketing works in most of those games. And normally you would be right. Except for one major change: All your catalysts only last until the end of your run. When you get to the cash out screen, and choose to keep going? You keep them. But if you choose to cash out, or if you ever die, your catalysts all vanish. Every new run you have to go through and collect them again, which results in you playing your heroes in new ways and adopting new strategies based on what catalysts drop for you each run.

It’s an INCREDIBLE easy to learn system that adds SO MUCH depth and replayability to the game. I love it so incredibly much. Each mechanic flows elegantly into the the next. The catalysts help you do better runs which gets you better gear which upgrades your heroes which lets you do better runs, the entire spiral being locked into your account level to give a quantifiable metric of how far this spiral is gone. It was so good!

And now, it’s gone forever.

Man that sure was a long post. Friends have heard me go on this rant SO many times. Thank god I never got into a second mediocre game filled with novel innovations that are ultimately lost to time and can never be experienced again due to Always Online DRM making it unplayable. Can you imagine if I didn’t learn my lesson and did that a second time? Ha!

… I never did that again. Right?

… right?

…

HEX: Shards of Fate

Hex was a digital TCG legal battle with TCG elements created by Cryptozoic. It was originally put up on Kickstarter, advertised as a digital card game with both PvE and PvP modes, a unique focus on the design space opened up by being a digital game, and gameplay damn near identical to Magic: The Gathering.

The thinly veiled truth was that this game was never meant to succeed. They had hoped it would, and it would be great if it did, but I’m fairly certain that was always a secondary objective. The first objective was to get sued by Wizards of the Coast over the similarities to Magic: The Gathering.

Now, that might sound strange to an outsider, but to anyone in the industry, they are probably nodding along and going “Yeah that tracks actually.”

You see, Wizards of the Coast is… bad. Really bad. They do everything in their power to choke the life out of the industry and have resorted to a lot of questionable tactics to do so. One of these is against anyone who develops any form of trading card game. You see, WotC has a patent on booster packs, customizable decks of cards, and turning cards sideways.

Literally.

U.S. Patent No 5,662,332 (A)

It is not a coincidence that the second two biggest names in TCGs don’t involve turning your cards sideways. Konami contested that Yugioh was different enough to not violate the patent.

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Nintendo actually hired WotC to design the Pokémon TCG to NOT violate the patent in return for WotC getting to distribute the first few sets. WotC gladly accepted, distributed the game, got their cut of the sales, and as soon as that was over….

WotC responded by suing them. They settled out of court.

Every single other game out there ended up paying royalties to WotC. Because the cut of the sales to WotC was cheaper than going to court even if you won. WotC had their fingers in every pie, but was smart enough to make sure not to piss people off so much that refusal was ever a viable option.

Cryptozoic was a company that, at the time, was making several licensed TCGs. The big one that jumps out was the World of Warcraft TCG, which they were in charge of (though it was originally made by Upper Deck). Cryptozoic was begrudgingly paying royalties because having the WoWTCG license was too good and they didn’t want to give that up. Then Hearthstone happened and Cryptozoic was going to lose the WoWTCG license as it got discontinued.

So Cryptozoic set up their new game, Hex, specifically to bait WotC into suing them, so they could get the patent overturned.

See, the patent isn’t actually valid. You cannot patent a game mechanic. There are certainly aspects of the patent that ARE valid and CAN be enforced, but the parts about mechanics can’t actually be enforced. WotC uses it because people can’t contest it, but if it actually was used in court it would get overturned VERY easily, and WotC would be declawed.

So Cryptozoic created a game that was a clone of MtG, used a Kickstarter to build up a large amount of legal funds, and got sued by WotC! Yes! Exactly what they wanted!

… and then they settled out of court.

Sigh.

I guess I’ll talk about the game now.

Lore

The lore of the game was solid. Pretty typical fantasy setting. Humans and elves and sort of racist orcs (better than most other orcs I’ve seen at least) and extremely racist tribal coyote people make up the good guys. Undead, spider-orcs, dwarves, and also pretty racist samurai rabbit people make up the bad guys.

There are two types of magic in the world: Blood magic and Wild magic. Elves are adept at wild magic. Shin’hare (the rabbit people) are adept at wild magic as well. The Shin’hare tried to take over the world, forcing the Orcs, Humans, Elves, and Cyotle to ally together to drive them underground into the underworld.

There the Shin’hare met and allied with the Vennen, an all male race descended from Orcs. They were adept blood mages, and they procreated by kidnapping orcs and using them as incubators for spiders. I fucking love the Vennen. I’ll focus on them a lot in this. The Vennen taught the Shin’hare how to sacrifice their young for more power.

The two then allied with the Dwarves, a genderless race of sentient stone statues who excel at creating machinery, and who believe the world itself is a giant machine. Specifically, a weapon of mass destruction, and they are trying to set it off. They believe blowing people the fuck up to be their natural calling.

The underworld and overworld forces go back and forth a bit, with the Elves doing a large chunk of the work as the only overworld race that can use magic.

Then Hex happened. Hex is a massive meteor made up of Diamond, Emerald, and Sapphire. Hex punched clean through the world, scattering gems all across it, before stabilizing in orbit on the other side, becoming the worlds moon.

These gems were incredibly magical, allowing every race to now use magic. Diamonds were restorative, bringing life to things. Rubies were extremely destructive and burned bright and hot and quickly. Sapphire allowed finesse manipulation and control over water. These

Yes this is just the MtG color pie.

Eventually, humanity stumbled into one of their old crypts that was very close to the impact site of Hex, and found it CRAWLING with undead. They were taking the Diamonds from Hex and putting them into the eye sockets of human corpses, causing those corpses to reanimate. These were NOT actually undead, but an alien consciousness that existed within the gems that were using human corpses as a host.

The Necrotic sought a peaceful and symbiotic relationship with humanity as thanks for the use of the bodies. Humanity responded by getting really pissed off that the Necrotic were grave robbing, and went to war over it. Eventually the Necrotic retreated deep into the underworld and allied with the other races instead, eventually helping the Shin’hare with a second attack on the surface.

The lore has a lot more depth than that, but that’s the basic. I liked it a lot. The Orcs being good guys who just really liked tests of strength was a refreshing take on orcs. I liked them a lot. The extremely racist caricature that made up the Cyotle and the Shin’hare? Less so.

Digital Design Space

As for the actual gameplay… it was MtG. Like, almost 1:1.

Like…

Seriously.

Shards work similarly to Lands, with there being 5 basic shards, Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Wild, and Blood. You can only play one Shard per turn and when you do you get 1/1 Resource. 1 resource to spend on this turn, and 1 permanent resource. You spend that resource to play a card that costs 1, and you go down to 0/1 resources. Start of your turn, you would go back up to 1/1 resource.

Pretty straight forward stuff. Resources are a card type like in MtG, but once it’s played it acts as a perpetual resource like the Mana in Hearthstone, with no need to care about where the resource is coming from.

… wait a second though, this is a MtG clone. It uses the color pie. Caring where those resources come from is KIND OF a big deal in MtG.

Which is the first really cool difference between Hex and MtG! THRESHOLD! Each time you play a shard you gain 1 threshold in that color. To play a card, you have to have at least as many threshold as are displayed below its cost. See that purple dot below Murder? That means you need 1 blood threshold to play it.

Threshold is NOT consumed when you play a card, which DRASTICALLY alters deckbuilding and how feasible multi-color decks are.

For example, in MtG, if you had 4 swamps and 1 mountain in play, and 5 cards in hand that all cost R…. You can play 1 whole card this turn.

In Hex, if you have 4 Blood and 1 Ruby, and have 5 cards that all cost 1 and have a single Ruby threshold, you can play your entire hand that turn. This made it incredibly viable to splash colors in relatively smaller amounts. It also opened up cool new design space, like cards that cost 1 but still required 3 threshold in a color. Or cards that require 1 threshold of every type to activate a bonus effect (very common among Necrotic) or… for sockets!

HEY WE ARE COMING FULL CIRCLE!

Remember how I mentioned Diablolike games having sockets, but how Darkspore didn’t use it? Well Hex DOES. There was a pair of keywords called Socketable Major and Socketable Minor. Each set, there would be 10 gems (two of each color) that rotated out for Socketable cards. Cards with Major sockets could equip any gem, while minor sockets could only equip half of them. So for example the current rotation might have the Sapphire gems be “While you have at least 1 Sapphire Threshold, this card has Flying” for its Minor gem, and “When you play this card, if you have at least 3 Sapphire Threshold, target player draws 3 cards”

You chose which gem was in each Socketable card during deckbuilding. Different copies of the same card could have different gems equipped, or you could have the same gem equipped across multiple different cards. It was basically a way to go “This card was designed to be splashed in other color decks. You pick what that other color is.”

It opened up a lot of design space! This was something Hex did VERY well. They knew they were making a MtG clone, but they weren’t beholden to the same restrictions a physical card game did, and they THRIVED in those areas.

For example, REPLICATORS GAMBIT, a one cost card that creates six copies of a troop (read: creature) that just… could not exist in MtG.

Another example of this was in my favorite archetype in Hex: Mill. Now, I’m not normally a blue player. I’m not a big fan of the ‘you don’t get to play the game’ archetype. Even mill isn’t really my thing. But the way it worked in HexTCG? God I loved it. I wish I could see my opponents faces as they reached a trembling hand out to their bloated, grotesque deck, a cruel mockery of what it once was. They had started the match with only 60 cards, but now it held twice that number. Knowing every draw was more likely to bring their own skittering death out.

…

Maybe I should back up a bit.

Vennen are, in MtG terms, tribal Blue/Black with a focus on control. Specifically an aggressive form of control. Your wincon is still ‘beat your opponent to death’, but the means by which you do it is… spiders.

Lots of Vennen cards work by still allowing your opponent to do the thing that you blocked, but it now creates Spider Eggs in their deck. Lock down a creature as it enters play with ‘Everytime this creature becomes tapped, shuffle 3 spider eggs into your deck’ or ‘Whenever an opponent draws a third card this turn add a spider egg to their deck’ or ‘When this creature is destroyed add a spider egg to your opponent’s deck’ and when they DRAW a spider egg… well… the effect of a spider egg is more or less ‘When this card enters your hand or graveyard, draw/discard another card into that zone and destroy this one. Your opponent creates a Spiderling and puts it in play. “

Spiderlings are 1/1 Unblockable creatures.

The Vennen win con is to just fill your opponent with spiders and then shred them apart once the spiders start hatching. It was a DELIGHTFUL playstyle.

PvE

Hex also features a fairly robust PvE mode with a point crawl encounter map that was quite delightful. There were cards unique to PvE, but all PvP cards were also legal in PvE. In general, all your staples came from PvP and were the same core staples everyone uses to win (they were very generous with handing out common/uncommon PvP cards in the single player mode, which in turn also made Pauper a very popular format), however you also had PvE cards which made up your win cons. PvE cards weren’t balanced as tightly, and allowed to just be dumb overpowered bullshit just because it’s fun to use dumb overpowered bullshit sometimes!

There were also equipment slots that would modify the cards in your deck, turning PvP cards into PvE cards. For example, Replicators Gambit made it so that EVERY copy of that card gained that text.

PvE started with character creation. You would create a character that was one of the 8 races, and one of 6 3 different classes. Warrior, Cleric, or Ranger. I think there was a late update that added Mage but I don’t recall too clearly, and it isn’t document online anymore as far as I can tell!

Each class had a unique talent tree that you could customize and change how you played. Your race determined what colors you could play, and your level determined how many of each rarity you could play.

I played a Vennen Cleric. Cleric’s whole thing was that you would gain Blessings, 0 cost cards that would rise in your deck each turn, and could be played to draw a card as well as additional effects based on your build. My blessings put more eggs in the enemy deck, to the surprise of no one.

As you went from encounter to encounter you would earn new cards to modify your deck, swapping decks between fights. Then there were dungeons, long laborious streaks of a dozen or so encounters, with branching paths and decisions to be made, earning you tons of new packs and equipment and experience to boost your character. One especially fun encounter was crossing a desert with a pack of… I think it was gnomes? There were 20 of them that needed rescuing. The way you rescued them was putting them in your deck, and then leaving the desert through a single combat encounter. Except they were AWFUL. Like 3 cost vanilla 1/1’s level of awful. The more you had in your deck, the harder the encounter became. It was a really nice way to portray the logistical challenge of trying to fight while protecting all these useless tagalongs.

There were plans to even introduce Raids, 3v1 PvE encounters, but they fizzled out as the game got sunset.

The game was good. REALLY good. It relished in the digital design space in a way I haven’t quite seen since then. A few games, like Legends of Runeterra, have come close, but always fall short, and that’s so sad! I DESPERATELY want to play a TCG with this level of customization again!

Luckily that was the end of it. I finally learned the error of my ways, never touched anything ‘always online’ again, and now can live a life without regrets! … except Legends of Runeterra a little bit like I mentioned above but THATS IT! There are no other always online games I have regrets about!

…

ToonTown Online

Okay no, not seriously. I’ve never played toontown. But honestly it looked kinda silly and like a shitpost in video game form. I think it would have been fun to try at some point with a few friends. Not seriously, just to screw around in for a bit.

Never going to get that chance. Just like nearly everyone reading this will never get to play two of my biggest influences that shaped how I think about game design.

Always Online DRM is an insidious beast. It doesn’t just kill games, it kills *archival*. All we have left of these games is a relatively small number of gameplay videos. I was planning on having a lot more pictures in this post of all the interface elements I was talking about as I talked about them, but there just… aren’t any good pictures of them. Even these details are based on my own memory cross referenced with a couple of wikis, and even those were sparse.

Some games can’t feasibly avoid Always Online. MMO’s are a big example. But by adding it into a game that has a single player experience involved, and not making that single player experience a standalone thing on its own, you are destroying any hope that your game will be remembered. It will fade into obscurity. There will never be a cult revival. Your work will be discarded and forgotten and it’s… so incredibly sad to see.

I jokingly titled this section being about ToonTown, but really this section is about Kingdom Hearts: Union X. It was a mediocre and disgustingly predatory gacha. It was horribly managed with horrible issues around localization and it was just… a mess. But it was part of the world of Kingdom Hearts, and it’s story was important and mattered.

The game is no longer playable, but it’s also not entirely lost. The devs created a new version of it, as a gallery to view the cutscenes. The single-player side mode, Dark Road, is also included. The devs didn’t have to do this. They could have gone the same route as Darkspore and HexTCG, and had their work be forgotten. They chose to save it. Not in full, but at least the parts the deemed important.

It also makes me wonder how much this happens in other mediums. Ludology is a pretty new field, and it rarely goes into specific games and their impact on the medium, mostly just focusing on the impacts they have on humanity, rather than the mechanics themselves as these beautiful pieces of art. And it makes me wonder how often this happens with say… film critics. Are there any indie film makers who are deep in the paint of indie films and critique of not just the films themselves, but the very techniques being used, just sitting there going “It’s so upsetting that this big studio managed to do something this beautiful and all of us in the scene recognize it’s beauty, but no one else seems to, and now it’s gone?”

… as I’m writing this I actually realize that this does happen there. It’s how I found out about what became my favorite film of all time, The Man From Earth. It’s a small film that flopped horribly in theaters, and only gained any attention by being pirated by a lot by indies who wanted to talk about it. It’s a good movie, highly recommend. Not for everyone though.

I don’t know. I’m sure I had a point with all this but… seeing it happen again and again and now with streaming services taking stuff down it’s just… I can’t help but seeing not just more and more games, but more and more of EVERY artistic medium ending up in this area. How many digital artists entire portfolios have vanished off the face of the earth because their tumblr got deactivated? How many movies are going to be gone forever when Netflix eventually goes out of business? We can’t even rely on piracy! Many old pieces of media is just lost forever. Just ask the Doctor Who fandom. They probably know more about that than anyone else at this point.

But mostly I just really wish more developers would consider what parts of their games are important, and what kind of legacy they want to leave, instead of just what will generate a short burst of profit, with no care for what happens after.

… I should start doing video essays with how long this got. It’s like some kind of text based video essay. A text essay. Those are a new thing I just invented.

#Darkspore #Spore #Those are the only two tags on this post because those are the only games I talk about don’t worry about it. it’s fine. don’t read further.#HexTCG #Hex: Shards of Fate #Kingdom Hearts: Union X #Always Online DRM #The Man From Earth #I swear to god if anyone tells me I should just play Temo on LoR I will scream #YES I KNOW AND I DO #but also LoR sucks #and also that is missing THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS RANT #the SAME THING IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA #maybe not soon #but it WILL die someday #and be gone forever #because it isn’t being preserved #Text Essay

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tkwrites · 4 months

Text

Private Lessons - Quinn Hughes x Sarah (ofc)

Photo from Pinterest

Title: Private Lessons

Author: Tory / @tkwrites

Relationship: Quinn Hughes x Sarah (OFC)

Warnings: None? If I should add any, please let me know.

Summary: As requested by @eyesthatroll, Quinn teaches Sarah to skate.

Word Count: 3,300

Comments: After taking a bit of a breather, I’m back with a requested fic. 2 months after you requested it, your wish is my command, Mari. I hope you enjoy it!

This was an interesting exercise for me to write something requested by someone else that wasn’t necessarily my own idea. I wrestled with it and got in my head a lot about it, but ultimately, I like the result I finally came to.

Thanks for your patience and support. Please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to see in their universe! I can’t guarantee I’ll write it, but I love the inspiration and challenge these requests bring!

eyesthatroll asked: tory!! i absolutely adore your writing 🥹 maybe if it’s in your wheelhouse, you could write quinn teaching sarah to skate (or them going skating together) for the first time. i think that would be very adorable 😭 it’s totally fine if that’s not in the cards for the series though, don’t feel pressured! love ya! 🫶🏽

Private Lessons

A Quinn & Sarah Snapshot

At the end of every season we have a family skate. It's on the 15th. I'd like to bring you if you can come.

Sarah knew this was a bigger deal than his crafted to be casual text was letting on. If it really was casual, he would have mentioned it before he left for the three game road trip.

She also knew dating a hockey player meant she would have to face her fear and past failure eventually. Even if a team event wasn't involved, it was such a big part of Quinns life. She wouldn't be able to avoid it forever.

Does everyone skate?

Usually yeah. Not all of the partners do, but most.

I've never skated before.

Really?

Desert flower, remember? she sent with a picture of a blooming cactus.

He laughed. There are lots of different skill levels there. People bring their kids and stuff.

Meaning what? That I'll be the only adult with training wheels?

No wheels ;)

She sent a gif of someone rolling their eyes. I'd love to go with you, but I really don't want to be the only one who doesn't know what they're doing. Could I persuade you to give me some private lessons?

I guess that depends on what you’re willing to give me. ;)

I mean, there’s not much I wouldn’t give you. What do you want?

A long pause passed in their conversation. When she finally read his response on her way home, her cheeks pinked so much, she had to put her phone in her bag for fear of giving herself away on the train.

That’s how they ended up at a mostly empty training rink the Wednesday night after he got home.

She found him waiting for her in the lobby, surrounded by a swarm of kids all jockeying for his attention. It looked like a whole little league team was getting out of practice or a game right as he arrived. They were so excited, acting as if he came in just to see them.

Sarah waited off to the side, watching him sign autographs and give advice, and talk to each of them. She was tired and hungry, but seeing Quinn in this element gave her a new side of him to admire. He was patient and kind, and invested. She remembered him telling her how he always liked to talk to kids because he remembered how much it meant to him when his favorite players were willing to stop and talk. Seeing that quite literally come full circle was a gift she hadn’t expected to see.

When he finally looked up and met her gaze, he flashed her a grin and mouthed, thank you.

Smiling in return, she nodded to an empty room off to the side before settling in with her laptop to work on her publication.

A big sigh announced his presence a while later, as Quinn slid down the wall to sit next to her on the floor. “Sorry about that,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pressing a kiss to her temple.

“It’s fine. I always have stuff to work on, and seeing you with the kids is sweet.”

“Winning me some brownie points?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Like you even need them.”

Sarah closed her laptop and turned her head so they could finally say hello properly.

He pulled her close to deepen the kiss. Even though he'd gotten back in town after midnight the night before, they hadn’t seen each other until now. He'd debated going to the aquarium after practice, but remembered they wouldn't let him back without a pass the last time he’d tried. Besides, he didn’t want to interrupt her work so close to finals.

The urge to climb into his lap was so strong, Sarah had to pull back from the kiss before she made a public spectacle of herself.

“I missed you,” he said, trailing a finger from her cheekbone to her jaw. It felt like the road trip was finally over now that she was back in his arms.

“I missed you, too.”

“I have to confess something,” Sarah blurted, nerves eating her from the inside out as he showed her how to tie her skates.

Quinn looked up from pulling her laces tight.

“I’ve been skating before.”

One of his eyebrows cocked up, “you have, have you?”

“It was terrible. It was on a first date with this guy when I was a freshman, and I’m pretty certain the only reason he suggested it was so he could get his hands on me.”

Quinn wrapped his hand around her calf and joked, “I guess it’s a good thing I’ve already had my hands on you, then.”

“You’re not mad?” she said, surprised.

“About what? That I’m not popping your ice skating cherry?”

Laughter barked out of her mouth before she explained, “no, that I lied. I mean, I didn’t really lie. We went on ice, on skates, but no real skating was involved.”

“Now I feel like you’re lying,” his voice was teasing.

“After half a wobbly, too touchy lap, I fell and broke my wrist.”

The bemused smile dropped off his lips, “oh my god, Sarah, why didn’t you tell me before?”

Her bottom jaw moved as she worried the inside of her lower lip. “I didn't know when it would come up.” she said. “I mean, if anyone can teach me to skate, you can. But that's why I wanted it to be just us first.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve broken lots of bones skating,” he said, stroking her leg.

She smiled tightly. “I bet none of those were from you falling down.”

“I don’t know, maybe? You’d have to ask my mom, but I fell plenty when I was learning, that’s really normal.”

“It just feels like one of those things that I'll never live down, you know?”

“Well, you and I are the only ones that know now.”

“Yeah and Josh Jackson and all those people at the Reno rec rink.”

“You keep in touch with everyone who was there that night?” he joked, hoping she would see how ridiculous her worry was.

A hand flew up to cover her face as she blushed. “I guess it just lives in my head every time I think about ice skating.”

“I know the feeling, but it was one time seven years ago, right? And you’ve got a better teacher, now.”

She dropped her hands so she could meet his gaze, giving him a hopeful smile.

He changed the subject. “Are these too tight? Can you move your toes?”

“Yeah. I mean, no they're not too tight.”

He smiled, stood and held out a hand, “come on. I can't promise you won't fall, but I'll do my best.”

As they walked through the tunnel to the rink, she said, “This is the weirdest feeling.”

“It can't be worse than wearing heels.”

“Have you ever worn heels?”

“Well, no,” he admitted.

“Then you can't say a damn thing about it. At least in heels, the ball of your foot is on the ground. With this, it's like my feet are suddenly half an inch wide.”

“You're thinking too much.”

“What am I supposed to do, not think?”

“Don't think so much,” he said, stopping at the boards and turning around. “Okay, I'm going to get on and help you on, okay?”

She nodded.

He bit back his smile at the determination on her face. “It's slippery, so be prepared.”

“Gee, thanks, Hughes,” she said, flatly. “I had no idea ice is slippery.”

He laughed. She’d never called him by his last name. Of course it would come out when she was nervous.

“I'll have you the whole time. I won't let you go until you tell me to,” he promised, reaching to help her through.

She stepped on and immediately over corrected, jerking back.

He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against him to keep them upright. “Calm down,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “I know it's a weird feeling.”

In all actuality, he didn't know. He'd been skating so long it sometimes felt easier than walking.

“Just hold on and let me pull you.”

Skating backwards, he took her on a lap. Her fingers were hooked around his elbows, so he was forced to awkwardly hold the backs of her arms.

“Can you relax? I’ve got you.”

She glanced down and felt her legs wobble. Visions of the ice rushing up to kiss her on the temple made her dizzy.

“Look at me,” he said in a voice that couldn’t be ignored.

Sarah met his eyes. The dim lights over the rink made them a sort of muddy green she’d never seen before.

“If you keep looking down, you’re going to fall,” he said. “You go toward what you look at.”

“I just want to make sure my feet are right.”

“Do you have to watch your feet when you’re walking?”

“Well, no, but this is new.”

“Sure, but once you get over the fact that you’re on the ice and used to your skates, it’ll start to feel more natural.”

“Yeah, I’ll just get over that.”

He shook his head, and moved on. “Okay, start picking your feet up like you’re walking.”

“Like I’m walking?” she repeated. “That seems really counterintuitive.”

“It’s not that different from walking, you're just gliding instead.”

She leveled him with a deadpan, sarcastic look.

She was about to ask him how she was supposed to walk when she couldn’t lift her heel or push off with the ball of her foot, when she realized arguing his syntax wasn't going to get her anywhere. This was a case where she had to swallow her pride and ask for what she needed.

“Can you break it down, like the physics of it, for me?” she asked. “It helps me to see all the steps before I do something.”

As he talked her through the mechanics of skating forward, she held onto his arm. She had so many questions he’d never considered, like how he used his edges to push off.

Skating was so automatic on his part, he didn’t even have to think about it. He’d never had to break down what he was doing like this.

Seeing how his legs worked up close and in slower motion helped her envision doing the same things herself.

“Okay, come back here.”

He moved in front of her again.

“You make that look so easy,” she said, a bit of a whine in her voice.

“Sarah,” he said, swallowing the bite in his tone, “I've been doing this for twenty years. I do this for a living. I'd hope I make It look easy. I couldn't take over writing one of your papers, or come into the aquarium and start taking care of Walter.”

“Yeah,” she said, resigned.

“I know it's frustrating that you can't pick this up right away, but no one can. You can’t read your way into skating well.”

That touched a nerve and she glared at him.

He let go of one of her hands so he could hold his up in surrender. “All I mean is that you just have to physically get used to it. How long did it take you to perfect your golf swing?”

“That’s different.”

“How is that different?”

“I started that as a kid.”

“So? You can learn things now. You learn new things all the time.”

“Yeah. It just feels so daunting. I really don’t want to look like an idiot in front of all your teammates.”

“No one will care. They’re just excited to meet you. We can come back every night I’m in town if you want. Or you can just not skate.”

That caused distress to fly over her face. “No. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” He glanced behind him out of habit, even though there was no one else on the ice. It was a clean sheet too, freshly zambonied after the pee-wee hockey game that ended right before they arrived. Perfect learning conditions.

Sarah recentered herself by pulling a breath down her spine, “this is such a big part of your life. I want to be able to participate.”

“Yeah?” he asked, a half smile lifting the right side of his mouth.

“Yeah, and like you said, I have a better teacher now.”

“Tell me about your day,” he said.

“Okay,” she answered, dubious of his intentions.

“It’ll help you to stop thinking about what your body’s doing. I think you’ll find it will sort itself out if you let it.”

He could tell she didn’t really believe him, but went ahead anyway, telling him about the little boy at the aquarium that afternoon who had insisted he’d caught an octopus as big as Walter and thrown it back the last time he and his mom had gone fishing.

“I mean, maybe he did,” she said, shrugging. “But his teacher gave me this look like, ‘don’t believe a single word he says’. I felt bad, She just looked so tired of him.”

Quinn laughed and decided not to point out that she was skating perfectly naturally now that she was out of her head about it. “What happened in class?”

“Well, even if I get a C on my comparative physiology final, I’ll still pass the class.”

“That’s huge, Sarah,” he said.

“Yeah, it's such a relief, but then, Paul dropped that he's adding a test on top of our publication. Thankfully it’s not a huge part of my grade, but still, more on the pile. He’s calling it a review, but that just means it’ll cover everything we’ve studied this term.”

“That doesn’t seem fair for him to add that at the last second.”

“Well, he can do what he wants, so,” she shrugged. “He said he thinks we need it. I think he's just being a controlling jackass.”

“Can't you report him or something?”

“For what?”

“For changing the syllabus so late.”

“Well, he's the head of the program, so I can't complain to him, plus if I went to the dean, I'm pretty certain she'd tell me ‘this is graduate school, and you should grow up.’”

Quinn winced.

“Yeah. He's just a dick because he can be. He’s the lord over this little kingdom and he wants us all to know it.”

She shook her head, “I’m sorry, we can be done talking about him.”

“You can keep complaining if you want.”

“No, it's okay. It just makes me more mad, which makes me not want to study, which only shoots me in the foot.”

“Okay,” Quinn said, “I think you’re ready for me to be next to you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you’ve been skating fine for the last five minutes.”

She looked down as if to confirm, “I have?”

“It’s not like you were standing still.”

“But you’ve been pulling me.”

“I was, but I’ve mostly just been holding your hand, keeping distance. You've been moving yourself forward.”

“Really?” Shaking her head, Sarah laughed a little to herself, “you really are a better teacher.”

He gave her a wink and spun to stand next to her.

“Keep talking,” he encouraged.

“About what?”

She didn’t know what to look at now. There were empty stands, and scratched glass, and the whole smooth sheet of ice, lines etching a curving lacey pattern around the perimeter.

“Whatever you want.”

“I don't -” glancing down, she remembered his advice and jerked up. The sudden movement caused her to promptly fall on her rear with a frustrated grunt.

Her hands fell to her sides in a gesture that said, why is this so hard for me?

“You're doing great.”

“I just fell down.”

“So? I fall all the time. You just need to learn to get back up.”

He did fall, and she was always so impressed with his ability to just pop back up and continue playing as if nothing happened.

He coached her back onto her feet, and they continued around the rink as he told her about the road trip he’d just come home from. Only five days away, but the comeback overtime loss and two wins made it a huge confidence builder.

He admitted that though some of the strain was lessened for the next month with their guaranteed spot in the finals, he still felt so much pressure to perform.

“There was this moment on Friday, though, where we were just gelling, you know, and it felt like ‘we deserve this now.’”

“Of course you deserve it. You work your ass off for that team, Quinn.”

Throwing her a thankful smile, he said, “I mean we all do it together.”

“And you’re a big reason everyone is buying in.”

“Look at you, learning hockey talk.”

“That is something I can read my way into.” she joked. “Plus your mom explained a bunch of the idioms to me.”

He laughed.

She fell twice more, but got up each time. The last time, she even managed to do it without his help.

“You’re doing great,” he praised, moving in front of her again, “you’ll be a natural in no time.”

Pulling herself to him with their clasped hands she winked, “it's because I have the best teacher.”

She was close enough now that he would just have to lean in to kiss her. He did, because he could. They were apart so much, it only made sense to take advantage when they were together.

Whenever people kissed on ice rinks in movies, Sarah was always struck with what a dumb idea it was. It seemed incredibly stupid to not pay attention to what you were doing on such a volatile surface.

In reality, when Quinn kissed her, she melted. It felt so romantic. Cold, but cozy with his warm body pressed against hers, and the confidence in knowing he wouldn’t let her fall. The only sound was the pleasant scrape of their skates on the ice.

Suddenly, everything she’d stopped herself from saying over the past few weeks came bubbling up into her mouth.

Just the night before, she’d felt on the cusp of saying something other than “I miss you,” at the end of their goodnight phone call. She had bit it back, not wanting that first time to happen over the phone. She felt like the moment had to be perfect.

Fuck that, she thought, now. She didn’t want to hold it in anymore. Plus, wasn’t this moment perfect enough?

Pulling away, she waited for him to open his eyes.

After a moment or two, Quinn realized she wasn’t teasing, and met her gaze, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothings wrong.”

Suddenly, it felt too formal. They weren’t in the Elizabethan era where one declared their feelings in some kind of a grand speech, but she couldn’t not say it. It felt too disingenuous to keep holding it in.

“I just…” she brushed her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck as she ran over a few possibilities in her mind rapid fire, dismissing them all for being too much. Honesty, it seemed, was proving to be the best policy. “I just really love you.”

Quinn could feel his eyes crinkling closed as his face melted into a goofy smile, one reserved only for family and people close to him.

It felt like something broke open in his chest, finally set free. “I love you too.”

Sarah giggled and it came out a little watery. She never expected to cry when she told him, but her body always did like to cry over big emotions.

Quinn wiped her tears away with his thumbs before tilting her face up to his.

This kiss was softer, not as hurried. Desire giving way to something deeper – less fickle, and more settled.

As they walked back to the locker room, Quinn realized, suddenly, that he'd left something unsaid. He tugged on her hand, and she turned.

“I’m really proud of you,” he said. “I know you were really nervous.”

She leaned up to kiss him. “Thank you for being a very patient teacher.”

Want more Quinn & Sarah? Check out the Snapshots Masterlist

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whiskey-tango-matcha · 4 months

Text

Three (m/m, cold)

And now, for something completely different.

Well, not completely - it's still a cold fic lol. This one is specifically for @ghostlychill who has asked for more Matt and Mark. This is basically the saga of how they ended up together, and it is certainly out of my wheelhouse because it actually has romance lmao. A pre-warning, this is plot heavy (for me) and a little sneeze light. There are a few Greyson cold sneezes, and Matt is sick for the latter half, but it's more of a romance sickfic than a true snz fic. But I hope you like it if you read it; let me know if you all want more Matt and Mark. They were honestly really fun to write, and I banged this monster of a fic out in just a few hours so the muse was musing.

Ok, done rambling. Enjoy :)

CW: Male, M/M (not sexually explicit, just kissing), colds, contagion, coughing, fevers, light mess. 4.3k words under the cut.

Three

Their first kiss was an accident.

Post-brunch. Pre-holidays. “Grab a beer?” Mark had asked as Matt stuffed his dirty chef coat into his backpack. It had become a bit of a ritual for the two of them to grab a drink after a long shift in the past few weeks; usually it was under cover of darkness, but this brunch had been particularly brutal and Matt was craving not just a beverage, but some commiseration. He shrugged, hoisted his backpack onto a shoulder.

“Sure. You’ve got first round.”

One round had quickly turned to two, then three, and before five pm hit they were drunkenly crashing their pint glasses into each other and talking much louder than the half-full pub required to be heard. Matt drained his fifth beer and looked to Mark, smiling sloppily. “One more?” he asked.

Mark pushed his hair out of his face and leaned his head into one hand, taking the other man in. “If it’ll keep you in my line of sight,” he said, emboldened by booze, “I’ll stay here all night long.”

When the bartender finally kicked them out around eight, the two men were so drunk they had to use one another as walking sticks to get down the block.

“We’re way too drunk to be on the street,” Mark laughed, putting a hand over one eye. “I’m seeing, like… quadruple.”

“That’s wild, ‘cause I can’t see at all,” Matt said, looping his arm through Mark’s. The two of them laughed and stumbled until they hit a bench near well-lit central park and flopped down.

“I can’t remember where I live,” Matt admitted, placing his head on Mark’s shoulder. Their arms had stayed looped. Mark gently placed his head atop Matt’s.

“Me either,” he said. “But… can I tell you a secret?”

Matt looked up. Nodded.

“I don’t want to go home,” Mark said, letting a slow smile spread across his face. Matt felt his cheeks flame; he let a beat pass before he smiled back.

“Me either,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Later, they wouldn’t remember who initiated it. All they would remember was when their lips pressed together, everything else melted away.

***

“Oh! Oh, shit, fuck, sorry guys I didn’t -”

“Chef, shit! Oh, fuckin’ hell -”

Greyson slammed the door to the bathroom shut, leaving Matt and Mark to stare at one another, eyes wide as saucers – the silence between them thick as the cigarette smoke that hung in the air outside that little room.

Finally, Mark broke the silence. “Um… do you think he saw anything?”

Matt couldn’t help it; he barked out a laugh. Mark slapped a hand across the other man’s mouth, making him laugh even harder. He really didn’t know what he’d been thinking following Mark in here in the first place.

Much like the stupid party they were hiding from in the bathroom, their second kiss was clearly a mistake.

The New Year’s Eve party had been Elijah’s idea, much to the surprise of literally everyone at the restaurant.

“What?” Elijah had asked when his announcement during pre-shift had been met with a stunned silence. “I thought you all loved parties!”

The servers and cooks eyed one another in a way they all hoped wasn’t completely obvious, until finally Greyson said what everyone was thinking. “Boss, yeah, everyone loves parties… except you.”

Elijah had scoffed at this. “You guys obviously don’t really know me; I love parties.”

Of course, Elijah didn’t love parties and it ended up moving from his roomy condo to Greyson’s tiny Brooklyn apartment at the last minute. Post-service on New Year’s Eve, Matt helped his boss load extra bottles of champagne, vodka, and tequila into the back of the restaurant’s van all while Greyson grumbled about Elijah.

“Fuckin’ Elijah,” Greyson said for about the fiftieth time that evening. “Why the fuck would he even mention a party if he wasn’t a thousand percent sure he wanted to ho – hh-”

Matt glanced up at his boss, who held an arm midair in anticipation. This was the real reason Greyson, who threw parties at his place at least three times a year, was pissed about having to host the work shindig: he was sick.

“Hh-! HhhITSZZH-ue!” Greyson folded over into his elbow, sniffled, and cleared his throat.

“Bless,” Matt offered, placing the rest of the alcohol into the back of the car. “Chef, I’m sure that everyone will understand if you don’t feel up to having twenty people in your apartment. There’re tons of parties right around here, why don’t you just… call it off?”

Greyson, stubborn as ever, just shook his head. “I said I’d do it. They’re already on their way.”

So Matt loaded into the van with Greyson, and Mark got in Elijah’s car with the GM while the rest of the staff hopped on the subway for the party that no one really wanted to be at. Greyson, who’d been able to keep his illness at bay for most of the shift thanks mostly to the Sudafed he kept slamming, started coming down hard the moment they began their drive to Brooklyn.

“Hh...hhITSZZH-ue! Huh-! ETSZH-ue! Fuck mbe,” Greyson muttered, using his sleeve to wipe under his nose with one hand while he drove through the busy Manhattan streets with the other.

“Um… do you want to pull over so I can drive?” Matt asked, a little more pointed than his boss was used to him being. Greyson shot his sous chef a look.

“Ndo,” he said. “I’ve got it.”

Matt was hardly a germaphobe – working in a kitchen bred that out of you pretty quickly – but he couldn’t help but cringe away with every sneeze and cough that came from his boss’s side of the car. He found himself thinking about Mark; they had plans to hang out in just a few days, plans that both of them had been forced to cancel multiple times already, and Matt could just feel Greyson’s germs making themselves at home inside his body. He really didn’t want to cancel on Mark again; he wasn’t exactly sure what they were, what he wanted them to be, or what Mark thought they were, but whatever it was, he didn’t want to fuck it up. Matt was entirely too good at fucking up a good thing.

“HRRSHH-ue!” Clearly, that one snuck up on him, because that time Greyson barely covered his mouth. Matt shrank into the door and considered pulling his shirt over his nose and mouth in a desperate attempt to keep his boss from infecting him. Greyson glanced over at Matt and coughed out a laugh.

“Sorry, kid,” he said, patting Matt’s leg, “but you’re probably already fucked.”

Eventually, they made it to Greyson’s walk-up and after what felt like an eon, they got everything inside. Elijah immediately recruited Mark to help pour champagne for everyone, and Greyson left his sous to go outside and smoke on the patio – Matt had no choice but to just start drinking.

By the time the cooks and servers made it to Greyson’s apartment, Matt was half in the bag. He floated sloppily from group to group, telling jokes and prompting everyone to take shots with him, all while keeping one eye on Mark at all times. Elijah had been keeping his liege busy; Mark was bartending, putting appetizers in the oven, picking up trash… everything except hanging out with Matt. So when he finally got to take a bathroom break, Matt threw back his tequila soda and, emboldened by liquor, followed behind him.

“Hey, it’s occ-” Mark started to say when the bathroom door opened right on his heels – but he was cut off when Matt swung him around, grabbed his face in both hands, stood on his tiptoes, and pressed his lips firmly on the other man’s.

Mark certainly wasn’t pulling away; in fact, the moment their lips touched, Mark grabbed Matt by the hips and lifted him onto Greyson’s tiny vanity to make the kiss easier on both of them. Matt pulled away for just a moment to look at Mark – his black-framed glasses were askew, his hair was wild from Matt’s hands coursing through it, and his face was flushed with lust. Matt was sure he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

“What was that for?” Mark asked, his voice low. Matt’s face cracked into a smile.

“I haven’t gotten to spend any time with you tonight,” he said, pushing Mark’s hair away from his face. “And I’m probably gonna have to cancel our plans on Monday.”

Mark’s brows knit together, confused. “Why?” he asked. “Is this, like, a fare-thee-well, this is the last time this will happen kiss situation?”

Matt laughed, shook his head. “No,” he said, cocking his head towards the door, where the party rumbled outside. “I’m, like, 99% sure Greyson infected me with his disgusting illness on the long-ass drive over here. I wouldn’t force you to hang out with me when I’m inevitably sick.” He shrugged. “So I figured I’d sneak some time with you where I could.”

Matt didn’t wait for Mark’s response about his impending doom; he just leaned in again. This time, Mark parted his lips and slid his tongue in to meet Matt’s. Matt allowed a quiet moan to escape his lips, let his hand feel its way down to Mark’s shirt, and began unbuttoning when the door flew open once more.

“Oh!”

Greyson.

***

“Chef, I am not in the mood today.”

“Oh c’mon, if I can’t poke fun at your drunken antics then what’s even the point of living? You make fun of my drunken antics all the time.”

Matt put down his knife and gave his boss a pointed look. “Yeah, maybe for like a day after they go down, but New Year’s was three days ago. Are you planning on ever letting it go?”

Greyson shrugged as he pushed onions into a deli container and snapped the lid shut. “Probably not. I mean, it’s just too good – caught red handed in my bathroom. Like, it couldn’t have happened more perfectly if I wrote it myself.”

Matt rolled his eyes; while Greyson living for his embarrassment was annoying, it was kind of the last thing on his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about Mark – after the bathroom kiss situation went down, he’d slipped out of the party and hadn’t mentioned anything about it to Matt since. Matt assumed he wanted to put it out of his head. Maybe the kiss – both of the kisses – hadn’t felt to Mark like they did to Matt. Maybe Mark was put off by how drunk Matt had been both times. Maybe he just wasn’t into him.

All Matt knew was, he desperately wanted to talk to Mark – but despite working the same hours in the same tiny restaurant, Mark had managed to avoid him like the plague.

Speaking of which.

“HTSHH-uh! Hh! Hh’ITSHH-uh! ETZSH-ue!” Matt turned away from the food to sneeze into his shoulder, then his hand, then finally his elbow. Greyson stepped over and plucked Matt’s knife out of his hand while the younger man was compromised.

“You’ll take someone’s eye out that way,” he chastised, placing the knife on Matt’s cutting board. The sous rolled his eyes, sucked in through his nose, and trudged to the sink to wash his hands.

“I don’t want to hear it from you, Chef. You’re the fucking plague rat of this restaurant,” Matt murmured, pulling a hand down his face. This was the other issue: Matt and Mark were supposed to hang out tomorrow, but just as he predicted, Matt had been gifted the cold Greyson had on New Year’s. If Mark didn’t want to talk to him when he was healthy and just a few steps away, he certainly wouldn’t be traversing the city tomorrow to hang out with Matt when he was fever-addled and snot-ridden.

“Rude,” Greyson said, continuing his prep. “But not entirely untrue. Sorry you’re sick.”

“Whatever,” Matt grumbled, his bad mood amplified by his pounding head. “Can you just drop the bathroom situation?”

Greyson bit his cheek to keep from smiling. “I can certainly try.”

Matt knew that meant ‘no’, but he’d take what he could get. He picked his knife back up to start chopping broccoli, but almost cut himself when Mark slipped into the back kitchen.

“Chef?” he asked, prompting both Greyson and Matt’s heads to shoot up. Matt’s face flamed when Greyson swiveled his head to meet his sous’ eyes with a cheeky grin – he put his head back down, pretending to focus on his work.

“Yes, Mark, how can I assist you?” Greyson asked, wiping his hands on the towel next to his cutting board. Matt felt Mark shoot a quick glance his way; his cheeks burned with the knowledge.

“Elijah is looking for you. Says he has a question about tonight’s ten-top with the prixe fix?”

Greyson rolled his eyes, but abandoned his prep for the moment. “When doesn’t Elijah have a question about a prixe fix?” he asked to no one in particular. “I’ll go talk to him. Thanks.”

The chef exited the back kitchen, leaving a sniffling Matt and a stuck-in-place Mark in his wake. Matt was the first to break the silence – unwillingly.

“Hh-! NTSHH-uh!” The sous attempted to stifle a sneeze into his palm, but only succeeded in making a mess of himself. His face reddened impossibly deeper, and he was forced to put down his knife and head for the sink.

“Bless you,” Mark said as Matt pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and blew his nose. Matt swallowed painfully, washed his hands again, and nodded.

“Thanks,” he said, clearing his throat.

They lapsed into silence once again, neither one looking at the other. “Um,” Mark said, finally, “are you -”

“I have to get this work done,” Matt interrupted, though he couldn’t explain to even himself why he wouldn’t let Mark ask if he was okay. “Have a good shift, okay?”

Mark blinked, taken aback, but nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and turned to leave the back kitchen without a word. Matt didn’t let himself watch the other man go.

***

It was like watching a train wreck.

“Matt,” Greyson called from his spot at the expo board. “Where are we at on the halibut for 63?”

Mark’s eyes darted behind the line where Matt was doubled over, coughing into the collar of his chef’s coat. The sous chef had started the evening looking very much under the weather and quite a bit worse for the wear, but now, at nine PM he looked like he was ready to keel over right there on the line. Mark bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying anything.

“Matt!” Greyson called again, and Matt stood, shakily, to place the likely-overcooked halibut onto its plate. He pushed it through the window and gave his boss a pointed look.

“The food has to cook, Chef, you gotta give mbe a minu – uh! ETSZCH-uhh!” Matt collapsed once again into his collar, righted himself quickly, and sucked in through his nose. “A mbinute,” he finished, his voice cracking.

“Halibut doesn’t take twenty minutes to cook, Chef,” Greyson snapped, snatching the plate from the line. “I expect my number-two to be able to keep ticket times under fifty minutes so the fucking restaurant doesn’t shut the fuck down.” Greyson handed three plates to Mark, who took them wordlessly and slunk out of the kitchen.

Mark dropped the food at its respective table, the guilt of not saying anything to Matt slowly eating away at him. He counted the tables left in the restaurant who still needed to eat – definitely more than he was hoping for. He really, really didn’t want to go back to the kitchen.

“Hey, Lij?” Mark said, approaching his boss at the host stand. Elijah was moving reservations from table to table on the iPad, configuring the remainder of the night.

“Hmm?” Elijah murmured, only half paying attention. Mark pursed his lips, weighing whether he should say anything.

Finally, he said, “Do you think you could ask Greyson to kind of… cool it with Matt? I mean, he seems like he’s really sick and Chef is like… totally berating him.”

Elijah raised an eyebrow and looked away from the iPad to meet Mark’s eyes. “You want me to ask Greyson to stop yelling at Matt… now? In the middle of service, when there are tables who have thirty-plus-minute ticket times?” The GM huffed out a laugh. “Man, Greyson told me about the whole bathroom situation, but I figured you guys were just drunk. I didn’t realize you were down so badly for him.”

Mark’s face flushed crimson; Elijah smirked at him, and turned back to the iPad. “Matt’s a big boy, Mark,” he said, not looking the floor manager in the eye. “He can handle Greyson yelling at him.”

“Yeah,” Mark muttered. “Okay.”

Mark trudged back to the kitchen to grab more food, the sound of Greyson’s frustrated voice hitting him before he could even step foot through the swinging doors.

“Order in! Two filets, two tofu, one halibut! Matt, I swear to God I had better see table twenty-six up in the next three seconds, Chef, it’s already at twenty-two minutes.”

“Yes, Chef,” Matt mumbled, barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

“I can’t hear you, Chef,” Greyson yelled back, tweezering herbs onto a dish.

“Yes, Che – ITZSHH-ue! HRETSZH-ue!” Matt ducked down below the line to sneeze, the sound painful and desperate. Mark could hear the crackling cough he was trying to hide all the way from where he was standing; his heart sunk. He wished like hell that he’d had the balls to say something – anything – to the other man this week. He wished he wasn’t such a fucking baby when it came to his feelings, or relationships, or standing up for himself or anyone else. He wished he was anyone but himself.

“Bless – Chef, do you need to switch spots with me?” Greyson asked, his voice finally softening at the sound of Matt’s coughing.

“Ndo, Chef,” Matt managed, standing. “I’mb fine. Twenty-six, up,” he said, slamming the plates onto the pass.

“Great,” Greyson mumbled. He garnished the plates and shoved them into Mark’s hands. “Twenty-six, go,” he said, not looking at the floor manager.

Mark nodded; he took the plates out into the dining room and dropped them; as he did, he made a promise to himself and, silently, to Matt: maybe there was nothing he could do or say during the shift to make Matt feel any better, but he would figure out a way, post-shift, to do something to help him. He would grow some balls, if it killed him.

While Elijah was still busy looking at reservations, Mark slipped into the bathroom and pulled out his phone. He put in a grocery order, to be picked up at ten the next morning. He typed out a text to Matt, scheduled it to send at the same time he would be picking up the groceries so he wouldn’t be able to wimp out and unschedule it. Then he put his phone back in his pocket, opened the door, and went to finish the shift.

***

His phone was ringing.

Matt groaned as he came to; he was covered in sweat, he could barely breathe, and he was stiff as a fucking board from passing out on his couch. Who the fuck was calling him? It was his one day off, could Greyson not leave him alone for one fucking day?

He grabbed the phone off the coffee table, ready to throw it across the room, when he realized the name on the screen wasn’t his boss’s.

Call from: Mark, Work.

Matt’s stomach jumped into his throat. The phone continued to ring while he squinted at the clock in the corner: ten twenty-three AM. Had he and Mark spoken last night? He could barely remember a fucking thing about the previous night, other than being utterly and completely miserable. The two of them definitely hadn’t spoken; he remembered giving Mark the cold should before service started, remembered the pitying look Mark had given him as Greyson screamed the restaurant down, remembered flying out the door the moment Greyson told him to go. They hadn’t spoken, their plans were obviously off, so why the hell was Mark calling him?

The call went to voicemail. Matt coughed into his elbow, a chesty sound that he really didn’t like, especially since he didn’t have health insurance. After a minute or so, another notification popped up: one new voicemail.

Curiosity got the better of him. Matt opened his phone and hit ‘play’.

“Hey, Matt, it’s um… it’s me. I know this is super weird, like I don’t know why I did it at this point weird, but, uh… I’m outside your building. I texted you, but now I’m realizing you’re probably asleep. Uh… I mean, if you get this I’m gonna, like, hang out out here for a bit. I brought soup! I can’t cook, so it’s from a deli, but I figured you might need something to eat, and you probably don’t want to cook since you’re sick. Your place is nice, by the way. Um. Okay. If you get this, cool, if not, I’ll uh… I’ll leave in a little bit. Okay. Bye.”

Matt felt his heart near-explode in his chest. Mark was sitting outside his building, with soup? What was this, a Hallmark movie?

He did it without thinking; he pulled up his text conversation with Mark and typed, hey, im awake. sorry I missed ur call. ill buzz you up :)

Mark was up the stairs in record time. He knocked, and Matt stood from the couch, forgetting until he was vertical that he was still in his work clothes from last night. Gross, he thought, but it was too late to change now – he took a few shaky steps towards the door and opened up.

Matt barely recognized Mark at first; he was only used to his floor-manager getup, button-downs and ties and slacks, his hair gelled back. Today, Mark wore jeans and a jean jacket over a Brighton University hoodie – did he go to college in England? - with black high-top converse. His curly hair was in his face, and he was carrying two full grocery bags. Mark smiled.

“Hey,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“Yea -” Matt attempted, not realizing his voice was completely shot until he tried to use it for the first time that day. His hand flew to his throat and he attempted to clear it, to no avail. “Shit, sorry, apparently I can’t talk,” he whispered.

Mark pursed his lips, obviously concerned. “That’s okay,” he said, stepping through the front door. He placed the bags on Matt’s tiny kitchen table and began pulling out supplies. “I come bearing gifts.”

There was the soup, like he said, but Mark also pulled out dayquil, and sudafed, and cough drops. He pulled out a box of tissues, bags of tea, and cough syrup – quite literally the whole nine yards. “I didn’t know what you had, so I figured I’d grab one of everything,” Mark said, embarrassed.

Matt didn’t know what to say. “Mark, I – hh! hhIGTSZH-uhh! Hh’TSHH-ue!” Matt crumpled into his elbow to sneeze, hard, and lapsed into a fit of coughing. Mark pushed the cold supplies towards him, smiling a bit.

“Bless you,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re so sick.”

Matt took a moment to blow his nose and uncapped the cough syrup. He chugged a bit, righted himself, and shrugged, embarrassed. “Not your fault,” he croaked. “Thank you for bringing all this.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Mark said, not looking into Matt’s eyes. “I’m really sorry for ignoring you the past few days, Matt. I… I mean, I don’t want to scare you off or anything but I haven’t really had, like, a real relationship in a long time. Like, a really long time.” He looked up, caught Matt’s red, watery eyes in his, and gave up the whole truth. “Like… ever.”

Matt nodded slowly, processing. “So… you don’t hate me?” he asked, the fever tossing to the wayside any filter he might have once had. Mark’s face colored; he laughed.

“I don’t hate you,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Like… I really don’t hate you. I – I mean, I really, really like you, Matt.”

It was Matt’s turn to flush bright red. “Even like this?” he asked, coughing into his fist. Mark smiled.

“Even like that.”

The two of them stood there, smiling twin goofy smiles, for a moment before Matt ducked once again into his elbow.

“Hh – ITSZHH-ue! Guhh.” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, not caring how disgusting he looked. “I, umb, I really like you too, Mbark,” he said, coughing again. “Like… probably mbore than is normal or rational.”

This time, it was Matt who was caught off-guard. Before he knew what was happening, Mark had his hands on either side of Matt’s hot face and was tipping Matt’s head up to meet his. This one was different; while the first two kisses felt hungry, dangerous, this one was soft; an invitation. A promise of a future yet to come.

Matt pulled away to catch his breath. “You’ll get sick,” he muttered, eyes closed and hands around Mark’s thin frame. Mark tipped Matt’s head up, pushed his sweaty, dishwater blond hair out of his eyes, and pressed their foreheads together.

“I know,” he said, and pressed his lips against Matt’s once again.

Their third kiss – well. That was the one they would tell everyone at the wedding about.

#whiskeyswriting #snz #sickfic #snzfic #coldfic #snez #snzblr #male cold #male snz #m/m #male ocs #contagion #mess #i'd love to hear any feedback good or bad on this one bc i haven't written romance anything in a very long time lol #and idk if this sucks or not lmaooo

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avatar-anna · 2 years

Text

Makeup Artist

summary: You’re hired as Harry’s makeup artist for Love on Tour

words: 7.1k

tw: none

Never in a million years did you think that you would be on tour with Harry Styles.

Sure, you were a celebrity makeup artist, but your wheelhouse consisted of red carpets, runways, and editorial shoots. You were familiar with Harry’s work, had even gone to one of his shows for his first album, so you knew that he and his band didn’t really do anything crazy in terms of stage makeup.

For those reasons, you said no when you first got the call. Someone knew someone that knew you, and you were suddenly in touch with the tour manager for Harry Styles. They gave you a brief description of what you would be doing on tour—mostly the band’s makeup, but Harry’s as well for two shows in New York, something about a Halloween special. Going on the road sounded fun, but the job itself didn’t feel all that fulfilling. You absolutely loved makeup, it’s why you became a makeup artist in the first place. You loved getting people dolled up in full glam, playing with colors and themes and experimenting on clients when they gave you the chance. You were more than capable of doing more natural looks, your job often called for it. But makeup was a form of expression for you, and you didn’t think that this job opportunity was going to challenge you in any way, so you politely declined.

You thought that was the end of that, and went about the rest of your day. It wasn’t until a week later that you received another phone call from the same unknown number that you finally took the job.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you take this job,” the tour manager said. “H is really impressed with your work, and he doesn’t want anyone else.”

H? You thought. Was it rude of you to assume that Harry Styles didn’t have any involvement in the choosing of his makeup artist? You knew that he’d been dipping into different parts of the beauty industry lately, but you still thought that this was something that his team would take care of.

“I don’t know, this just isn’t something I would normally do,” you said, feeling bad for rejecting the tour manager for a second time. You hoped he wouldn’t be in any trouble with their boss.

“What’s your normal rate?” they asked.

“Excuse me?” It wasn’t an uncommon question, you just weren’t expecting that level of desperation from the tour manager.

“How much do you typically charge? We’ll double it. Or come up with a price that covers the whole tour. You would be a very valued member of our team.”

Double? The tour manager didn’t even know how much you charged clients, yet they were already promising to double it. Perhaps it was a tad selfish of you, but now that more money was on the table, you were considering it. You loved makeup as an art form, but you still had bills to pay. “Uh…Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Great,” the manager said, and you could almost see the weight being lifted off their shoulders. “How fast can you get Covid tested and on a plane to Las Vegas?”

They wanted you to start now? “Well, most of my kit is fully stocked, but I still need to get some things together. And I have to pack, obviously. I’d say…two, maybe three days?”

“We need you here by tomorrow night,” the manager said, making your eyes widen. How did this become so last minute? “Okay…Okay, I’ve got it. I will have someone take care of getting whatever you need for your kit, you just pack and do whatever you can to get here as soon as possible. We’re going all over the country, so be prepared for all types of weather. And make sure…”

You listened carefully as the tour manager rattled off a bunch of details about the tour—more of what was expected from you, when you needed to be there, how to get to the venue, where to stay. You realized that this was going to be a long phone call, so you muted yourself and began packing, pulling out your large suitcase and carefully putting what you thought you would need in it while listening to the tour manager go over things like Covid restrictions and signing an NDA and other technical stuff.

When they were done, they asked you what you needed, you quickly unmuted yourself and rattled off brand names and brush types and the exact amount of sponges you would need. Normally, you would use the same set of brushes on a client and wash them thoroughly, but since you would be doing the same people’s makeup for a few months, you thought it would be more efficient if each person had their own tools and products so nothing would get cross contaminated or thrown out constantly. “I’ll pay for everything once I get there,” you said, but the tour manager brushed you off and said not to worry about it.

The phone call ended, and in the quiet of your bedroom, you were able to really think about everything that just happened. “Holy shit,” you breathed, sitting down on your bed in a daze.

Touring was…interesting to say the least. Everyone you spoke to was incredibly kind and respectful, and never for one moment did you feel like an outsider or like you didn’t belong. After the first few shows, you knew almost everyone by name, and even had people to sit with for meals before the show.

You needed to call your friend. You were going on tour with Harry Styles.

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

And as you predicted, the work itself was fairly easy. You just had to do the girl band members’ makeup before each show. Nothing too elaborate, just enough powder and blending to make sure they weren’t too oily onstage. You felt like you were scamming everyone, seeing as you were being paid double for doing less than what you normally did, but you hadn’t had any complaints yet, so you kept your head down, did your job, then went back to the bus just before the show started.

For the first couple shows, you stayed and watched the whole concert, excited to be on the road for a famous singer. But you quickly realized that tour bus life wasn’t for you and didn’t get much sleep when it was moving and with so many other people making a lot of noise, so you got your rest for a couple of hours while everyone else was still at the venue.

A month into the tour, though, and you were itching to do more than just foundation, powder, and a little blush. You wanted to do more, and your head was constantly filled with ideas on how you could spice up the band’s makeup. It wouldn’t be for anyone but yourself, but you could do the girls’ makeup in your sleep by now, and you needed to switch things up a little, otherwise this would be a very long tour.

“Can I try something different tonight?” you asked one night. You were sitting with Ny’oh, one of the guitarists. She had the most eccentric style out of the three girls when she wasn’t onstage, so you figured you’d start with her in the hopes that she would be more receptive to something different.

“Course, babe. What did you have in mind?”

The two of you quickly finished up dinner and went to the band dressing room. You got Ny’oh settled in her makeup chair and got her normal routine out of the way, smiling to yourself as you started to prep the skin just beneath her eyes.

“I can tell you’ve been wanting to do this for some time,” she joked, her eyes looking upward as you patted eyeshadow into her skin.

“I saw this trend when I was while I was scrolling on my phone on the bus the other day. I tried it out for myself and really liked it, so I thought I would see what you guys thought.”

You were always looking to others for inspiration. The beauty of the internet was that you could share tips and learn new techniques to try out in the future. This one that had eyeshadow focused on the bottom half of your eye rather than the eyelid was extremely intriguing to you. One of the nights where you were on your own on the tour bus, you got your personal makeup kit out and began practicing. It looked amazing, and you thought it would be so cool if you matched the girls’ makeup to the suit color Harry was wearing that night. And after listening to his music live a few times, you realized that Harry’s music was very vibrant and lively. You thought you could match the essence of his music through the makeup you did for the girls.

“You should’ve said something sooner,” Ny’oh said, grinning when you handed her the mirror to see the finished product. Tonight, Harry would be wearing a pink number, so you dabbed a soft pink on Ny’oh, added some pink highlight to her cheeks, finished it off with a little mascara, and she was done. She looked soft, ethereal, exactly what you were trying to go for when you started.

“So you like it then? It’s not too much?”

From then on, you were doing something different each night to match whatever Harry was wearing. All three girls were receptive to the idea, and even had you take pictures of the finished look to post online. It was fun to hang out with them before the show, and soon enough you were hanging out with them all the time, exploring new cities together and shopping until it was eventually time to head to the venue.

For the first time ever, you felt like a part of a group. As a freelance makeup artist, you mostly went from one job to the next. You were rehired by the same people often, but before this job, you’d become a little lonely. You lived by yourself, you didn’t have a pet, and you didn’t speak to your family much anymore. It was just you and your one friend, though she had a pretty busy schedule of her own. You thought you were okay with that, but the longer you were on tour, you realized that you’d just conditioned yourself to be fine, and now you were craving companionship more than ever.

Still, you were so used to your alone time that sometimes you needed it. So while everyone was out to lunch in Atlanta, you were on the tour bus, watching TV on your phone. That is, until there was a knock on the bus door.

Confused, you went over to open it and see who it was. You were on one of the crew buses, and anyone on it would’ve just come in rather than knock. But when you opened the door, your eyes widened. This was no crew member.

“Hi.” You didn’t know what else to say. You technically worked for him and had been traveling the country together for almost two months now, but you’d never actually spoken to Harry.

“Hi, I’m Harry,” he said, pink flooding his cheeks when he realized you probably already knew that.

Sparing him any more embarrassment, you stuck your hand out for him to shake. “I don’t believe we’ve formally met. I’m Y/n.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” He took your hand and shook it, his hand warm and soft, but a little callused too.

You expected Harry to say more, but he didn’t, just continued to stand awkwardly outside your tour bus. You realized then that he’d run out of things to say, and you wondered if he was always this shy. “Did you need something? Everyone went out for lunch and to explore, so they won’t be back until later.”

“No, no, I was looking for you actually,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“Of course! Sorry, where are my manners? I should’ve let you in sooner.”

“It’s no problem.”

You stepped aside to let him in and tried not to gawk. When people met celebrities, they always said things like, “they were taller in person” or something along those lines. You’d never really had a moment like that until now. He didn’t tower over you by any means, but you did have to tilt your head up the tiniest bit to meet his eyes.

The layout of his tour bus must’ve been similar to yours because Harry knew to go to the back of the bus so you could both sit on the couch together. He sat down, crossed his leg, uncrossed it, then placed the other leg on top of his knee. You thought he was just shy, but now you were starting to think he was nervous. I’m not that intimidating, am I?, you thought, wondering how to not come off that way if you were intimidating him.

“I’m sorry for not coming to see you sooner. I usually try to meet everyone at the start of tour, but I feel like anytime I look for you, you’re never around.”

Now it was your turn to blush. “Sorry about that. I usually come back here when I’m finished getting everyone ready for the show.”

“I’m that bad, am I?” he asked, cringing a little.

You blanched, not realizing he was only kidding until it was too late. “Of course not! I’m so sorry if I gave you that impression. I just don’t sleep well when everyone else is in here, so I try to sleep when the bus is empty. I can stay tonight, though. I promise it’s not what you—”

“Y/n,” Harry said gently. “It’s fine. I was only teasing you.”

“Oh.” Well now you were really embarrassed, but you tried to recover. “So, um, was there something I could help you with, or were you just stopping by to say hello?”

Harry took the change of subject in stride. “Well, yes, I wanted to meet you properly, but I also wanted to ask,” he said, pausing like he didn’t want to continue. You knew that look, though. You’d seen it on a lot of guy clients.

“Do you want me to do your makeup?”

“Erm, yes. I don’t know why, but touring just gives me these dark circles,” he said, touching the soft skin beneath his eye. “I don’t know why that was so hard for me to admit. I’ve worn makeup before.”

You shrugged. “It’s not uncommon. A lot of guys are weird about it. But you’ve come to the right place.”

Getting up from the couch, you ran over to where you kept your kit. You hadn’t had to use the stuff you had set aside for Harry yet, but you still kept it close by each night just in case. Going back over to him, you told him to close his eyes and got to work.

It was completely silent, but it wasn’t awkward. Harry seemed to understand that you needed the quiet to focus. With a brush, you put the tiniest amount of color corrector where he needed it and applied a little concealer over it. His dark circles weren’t as bad as he made them out to be and only needed a little touching up. When you told him he could open his eyes, he did so, a lot quicker than you’d anticipated. Now you were practically nose to nose and looking at each other right in the eye.

You sat back immediately, putting away your brushes and the makeup you used on him. Pulling out a mirror, you handed it to him so he could see your handiwork. “It’s like they never existed,” you joked.

Harry inspected himself in the mirror, looking from side to side as if a different angle would magically reveal what you’d covered up. Seemingly satisfied, he set the mirror down. “Thank you.”

“Of course. It’s what I’m here for,” you said, taking the mirror from him and putting it back in your kit.

It occurred to you then that now that he was all taken care of, he would probably want to leave. Only he didn’t stand up. Looking him over, you thought he probably didn’t know how to politely excuse himself. It also occurred to you that he didn’t go out with everyone else to explore Atlanta. Because he couldn’t or because he didn’t want to? You wondered.

Taking a chance, you said, “I, um, I was watching TV in my bunk, but I could play it out here, if you wanted to stay for a while?”

You felt like an idiot the second the words were out of your mouth, but before you could take them back, Harry smiled at you and made himself comfortable on the couch. “I think I’d like that.”

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

Halloween was going to be your favorite night, there was no doubt in your mind about it.

The whole band was dressing up for two Halloween shows, and instead of just doing makeup for Ny’oh, Sarah, and Elin, you got to do the boys’ too. Because of that, you had to start earlier than you normally would, but you didn’t mind. Any excuse to break out your more colorful palettes and blushes was more than worth it to you. And everyone hung around while you worked, too, making it a party of sorts. Stella, the hair stylist, and a nail artist was in the band’s dressing room working with you while everyone was listening to music and talking over each other and having a good time. It was the first time you’d hung out with the whole band before, and you had to admit that they were all very sweet. Not that you ever doubted that, you figured that anyone who worked for Harry was probably nice, and you were proved right.

Speaking of Harry, he had yet to come by to get his makeup done, even though you’d been informed that he would be getting his makeup done tonight and tomorrow. You were curious as to what he was currently up to, but you tried not to think about it so you could focus on finishing Pauli’s makeup. After that afternoon where he watched TV on your tour bus, you saw a little bit more of Harry. He made a point of coming to see you, whether that was on your tour bus, a dressing room, craft services, or somewhere else. And he sat down in the makeup chair before shows too. Nothing major, just covering up his dark circles like you’d done on the tour bus and a little something to even out his skin. It gave him a nice glow too, something you pointed out to him the first time you finished his look. Each interaction was always brief, but you thought it was sweet that he went out of his way to see you when he probably had such a busy schedule.

As you were wrapping Mitch’s makeup—he was the only one that didn’t seem totally thrilled about having his makeup done, so you kept it very minimal, putting a little black on his nose to match the lion costume he was supposed to wear—Harry walked in. Too focused on fixing up Mitch’s brows after you convinced him you wouldn’t do much more than that, you didn’t notice him come in, but he noticed you. He wanted to immediately go over to where you were working, at the very least to see how you managed to get Mitch into a makeup chair, but he was sidetracked by Sarah and Elin.

“See? Not so bad,” you said to Mitch, handing him a mirror. You worried he wouldn’t like it, but he seemed satisfied with your minimal work. Thanking you, he walked back over to where everyone else was while you cleaned up your station.

“Who’s next?” you called, turning around to see who was free and who wasn’t. It was then that you saw Harry, and your smile was instant when you saw his hand partially raised. “Oh. Hey, Harry. Come have a seat.”

He sat down in the chair, and you got his designated brushes out, immediately getting started on prepping his skin. “How are you?” he asked, his eyes closed while you brushed moisturizer on his skin.

“Good. How are you?”

You spoke to Harry quietly while you did his makeup, starting with a light base and covering his dark circles like you always did. His voice was soft as he spoke, almost like he didn’t want to disturb your work. He wouldn’t have either way, but like most things he did, you found his awareness of your job very sweet.

“So, I have your base done, is there anything specific that you wanted, or?”

You knew that the theme for tonight was Wizard of Oz and that Harry was dressing up as Dorothy, but aside from that, you had no instruction. Harry opened his eyes and blinked at you. “Nothing…Nothing too intense, I guess? I don’t know, I trust you.”

He was trying to be nice, but he didn’t really give you much to go on. But Harry said he trusted you, so you went on instinct and got started. As promised, you didn’t do anything too intense—a little blush, but strong enough that it would be seen onstage, a little highlight on his cheeks and the tip of his nose, and mascara, though that part made you nervous.

“It might feel a little funny, but try not to touch your eyes, okay?” you said. You used the gentlest formula you had, but you had a feeling it still might bother him, seeing as he’d never worn it previously. You wouldn’t have done it, but you really thought it completed the look, so you just put two coats on and called it a day. “I’ll help you take it all off afterwards. Just come by my bus again.”

“You’re not going to stay?” Harry asked, a small frown on his face.

“I like to catch up on sleep, you know that,” you said. He tried not to look hurt, but you could see it on his face. Before you could think about it, you said, “But I can stay tonight. I want to see how my work turned out.”

You knew you were going to be exhausted tomorrow, but seeing Harry’s face light up was worth it

“I’d like to thank my makeup artist tonight for doing such a wonderful job. She came up with and did all the makeup last night and tonight. She did a wonderful job, don’t you think?”

Harry rested his chin in his hands and grinned so that everyone could see your handiwork. The crowd cheered, and you were suddenly thankful that Harry convinced you to stay and watch his show for a second time. No one of course knew that you were the one who’d done his and the rest of the band’s makeup, but it felt nice to be recognized and praised for your work all the same.

After last night, Harry had more of an idea of what he liked and didn’t like. “Yes to the blush, no to the eye stuff,” he said when he sat down in your chair again. You agreed with him. After the mascara got in his eye while he was onstage, you decided that you would try something else. This time around, you added a slight pink to his cheeks and just above his eyebrows, his skin glowy and flawless as always. Then, as a play on his costume, you glued four pearls to his face: two above his eyebrows and two on his cheeks.

In comparison to his band’s makeup, Harry’s wasn’t as elaborate or over the top, something you had lots of fun coming up with with each person (Mitch even let you play around with some stick on stars too). But in your mind, the makeup was simple so as not to overpower Harry’s costume, which had ruffles and tulle and lace all the way up to his neck. Last night in his Dorothy costume, he’d shouted, “I look cute!”, as he pranced around the stage, but you preferred tonight’s ensemble.

After the show, you went back to the band’s dressing room and began laying out everything needed to remove the stars and pastel colors from their faces. You stifled a yawn, checking the watch on your wrist. In theory, it wasn’t very late, but you hadn’t gotten much sleep in the last few days, and it was starting to catch up with you.

Ny’oh was the first one to enter the dressing room, and also caught you yawning. “You should go back to the bus, get some rest,” she said, walking over to where you were still standing.

“Are you sure? I was going to help everyone get everything off—”

“It’s fine, babe, I know my way around makeup remover. I can help the boys. That’s who you were worried about, right?”

You nodded. “Yeah. Can you just remind them to wash their face and moisturize too? I left some masks out, but I doubt they’ll use them.”

Ny’oh promised that she would take care of everything, ushering you out of the dressing room with a wave of her hands. “I got it, now go. Get some sleep.”

Thanking her, you grabbed the rest of your things and left in a hurry. If you got back to the bus before everyone else, you might be able to fall and stay asleep for a few hours before the snoring and the sleep talking began.

The next two days were mostly traveling with a couple breaks thrown in, so you kept to yourself mostly, hanging out with the rest of the people on the bus occasionally and sleeping when you could. You found traveling days to be your least favorite, as there was very little opportunity to truly be alone, but you managed. When you finally arrived at your next destination, everyone was more than eager to get off the bus and stretch their legs. You did too, but your exhaustion from lack of sleep outweighed your desire to leave the bus, so once everyone was gone, you cuddled up into your bunk, ready to shut out the rest of the world for as long as possible.

It didn’t last long, not nearly as long as you’d hoped, because you were woken up by knocks on the bus door. For a moment, you stayed in your bunk, wondering if it was entirely too rude to not answer whoever was at the door and just hope they eventually went away, but you finally got up.

A sense of deja vu flooded you as you saw Harry on the other side again. His hair was held back with a small black clip, a smile on his face as he looked up at you. The smile dimmed slightly though when he looked you over. “You were sleeping, weren’t you?”

You were, but you didn’t want him to feel bad. “It’s okay.”

“I’m really sorry. I can come back later if—”

“What’s in your hand?”

Harry looked down to where you were looking. Scratching the back of his neck sheepishly, he said, “I asked around and Stella said you didn’t get off the bus with everyone else, and I figured you hadn’t eaten, so…”

“So…you brought me lunch?”

“Yeah, I—I didn’t want you to not eat all day, so I thought I would bring you something, and I wanted to thank you properly.”

“Thank me properly? For what?”

“For all your help in New York,” he said, swaying from foot to foot.

You tilted your head at him curiously. “It’s my job, Harry. There’s no need to thank me.

“H,” he said suddenly. “Everyone, um, everyone calls me H.”

“Oh. H,” you said, trying it out for yourself, missing the smile that grew on Harry’s face when you did so. “Well, like I said, you don’t have to thank me. I was just doing my job.”

“I mean, just because it’s your job doesn’t mean I can’t thank you, but I guess I also wanted to thank you for even coming on tour. I know you declined the first time and that this isn’t the kind of job you would normally take on, so, thank you.”

You were surprised by his confession, surprised that he seemed to know more about you than you did about him. You vaguely recalled his tour manager saying that Harry insisted that you were the makeup artist that was hired for tour, but you hadn’t thought about it much since.

“Of course. I’ve had a lot of fun,” you said. Then, because you couldn’t help yourself, you asked, “So, why did you want to hire me? I was surprised to get a second call from your tour manager. You could’ve easily gone with someone else.”

Harry’s cheeks flushed a deep scarlet, looking more bashful than you’d ever seen him. “I don’t think you remember, but we’ve met before.”

“We have?” You were pretty sure you would’ve remembered meeting a guy as remarkable as him, famous or not.

“Kind of. Indirectly. I—I saw you?” he said, though it sounded more like a question. “Oh Christ, I sound like I’ve stalked you now, that’s not it at all. You, um, you were Lizzo’s makeup artist at a music festival kind of thing. You said hello and asked if I needed anything, but I could barely say yes or no before you were called away to do something else.”

After Harry’s confession, you racked your brain, trying to remember the instance in question. You remembered the event, one of those big radio shows, and you remembered doing Lizzo’s makeup. That night was such a blur, though. Someone else’s makeup artist was sick with the flu and didn’t show up, so you offered to help out. If you had asked Harry if he needed anything, it was probably because you’d been asking multiple people that same question all night.

“I remember that night,” you said, feeling guilty that you couldn’t recall your very brief encounter.

“I remembered you,” he said with more confidence than you’d ever heard him speak. Hearing him say that made your face flush, but that only made him smile more. “I asked Lizzo who you were, which definitely raised some eyebrows, but she told me your name, and after asking around a little more, I knew I at least wanted to hire you to go on tour, but then, you know…”

“Covid,” you said, nodding.

“Covid,” he agreed. “Almost two years later and here we are. I hope that doesn’t freak you out. I didn’t hire you with any ulterior motives or anything. I really do admire your work and thought you would be a valuable member of our team, and I think I was right.”

It was certainly a lot to take in, but Harry was being so earnest, you almost didn’t have a choice but to believe him. You tried not to let him saying, “I remembered you,” get to your head, but it was slowly becoming the only thing you could think about.

“No ulterior motives, huh?” you asked, leaning against the side of the bus door.

Harry shook his head. “Nope.”

“So you bring all your crew members lunch?”

“Um,” he looked down at the takeout in his hands.

It quickly dawned on you that flirting with your boss probably wasn’t the best idea. There was still a lot of the tour left, and this…whatever was happening right now was probably more trouble than it was worth. Were you attracted to Harry? Sure, but you found lots of people attractive, that didn’t mean you acted on that attraction. So before he could come up with an answer that would probably be trouble for the both of you, you said, “I’m kidding. Friends?”

Harry looked at you for a few moments, and you couldn’t tell what it meant. Finally, though, he agreed and said, “Friends.”

You let him in the tour bus and led him to the back so you could sit down and watch your show. It only occurred to you now that you hadn’t watched another episode since you watched it with Harry.

As you walked to the couches, you couldn’t be sure, but you swore Harry muttered, “We’ll see about that.”

Now what the hell did he mean by that?

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

It was the last night of the tour, a night you were both dreading and looking forward to for weeks. You’d had a lot of fun, and made friends that you were confident enough to say would last. There were memories you would carry with you forever, and you could only describe being on tour with Harry and his band the experience of a lifetime. Still, you were partly relieved because while touring was fun, it was very long, and living out of a tour bus wasn’t your favorite. Sleeping came easier after investing in ear plugs and a white noise app on your phone, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t miss the comfort of your own bed.

And then there was Harry.

The two of you had grown quite close over the last couple months, so close that Ny’oh would wiggle her eyebrows at you whenever he came looking for you in the band’s dressing room. That alone was embarrassing, but it was when you tried to convince her that nothing was happening and Harry merely draped an arm around your shoulder and kissed the top of your head that had you flushing from head to toe.

Since that afternoon in your tour bus, Harry shamelessly flirted with you. Anytime he convinced you to stay for the concert instead of going back to the tour bus, he’d wink at you on stage and look you in the eye when he sang certain lines, and during your stop in Seattle, he brought you a bouquet of flowers from Pike’s Place.

Harry’s affection was overwhelming to say the least. You’d never had anyone work as hard as he did to get you to go out with them, but like clockwork every night before he had to go onstage, he would ask, “You free tonight?”, to which you would reply with a shake of your head. At first, he would only ask you out when no one was around, but as the tour progressed, he said it in front of anyone who was around.

He was never deterred by your rejection, in fact, it only made him double down and try harder. It got to the point where everyone knew that Harry had a thing for the makeup artist. You thought that that would make you some kind of a pariah among the rest of the crew, but it didn’t. Some would tease, but it was never in a malicious way. And Harry’s band only encouraged him.

“Why do you never say yes? You obviously like him too,” Elin asked as you did her makeup one night.

You shrugged, blending her crease color until you came up with an answer. “He’s my boss. I’m pretty sure that’s like the number one rule about work. You don’t date your co-workers, and you definitely don’t date your boss.”

That was the main point, but you were pretty sure you, and especially Harry, liked the game of cat and mouse you’d been playing most of the tour. You knew that he knew you liked him, so he just took whatever you gave him in stride, ready to try again the next day.

“Y/n,” she said, opening her eyes to look at you skeptically. “Mitch and Sarah are literally married and have a baby. Things are a little different here than working in an office.”

Elin had a point there, one that you couldn’t ignore. If you weren’t resting on the tour bus or hanging out with Harry, you were often babysitting for Mitch and Sarah. Odds were, if someone needed to find you, all you had to do was figure out where the baby was, and you would be there too. Which only made Harry even more attracted to you, not that he would ever tell you that.

Still, even if Mitch and Sarah made it work, that made them more of an exception than the rule.

“What happens when it’s all over, Elin?” you asked suddenly

“What do you mean?”

“After the tour ends, I go back to LA and find my next job, and he goes…Well, I don’t know where he goes, but I think the atmosphere here heightens everything. I’m worried it won’t be the same when everything goes back to normal.”

Elin just smiled at you like she knew something you didn’t, but you couldn’t bring yourself to ask her more about it, so you finished her makeup in silence.

Now the final tour date had arrived, and butterflies were running rampant in your belly. You weren’t avoiding Harry, but you also weren’t hanging out where you normally would just before the show started. You were with the baby, walking up and down a random hallway trying to get him to fall asleep. You would never admit it to Mitch or Sarah, but part of you offered to watch him tonight so that you would have a buffer between you and Harry.

“Am I being silly, bub?” you cooed at the baby in your arms. He didn’t answer, just gurgled at you happily. “He’s a good guy, a great one even. He’s kind, he seems to genuinely care, he likes the things I like, he—”

“He’s wildly attractive, worships the ground you walk on, is great in bed.”

You jolted, clutching the baby tighter to your chest. “Jesus, H, you scared me.”

He was leaning against one side hallway, no telling how long he’d been standing there and listening to you talk about him. Almost like you couldn’t help it, you looked him up and down. The gold vest was too good, showing off just the right amount of skin and accentuating his tattoos perfectly. And Harry knew it too. He was waiting for you when you met your eyes again, grinning at you devilishly.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were hiding from me,” he said, stepping closer to you.

“Not hiding. No, I’m just trying to get him to fall asleep,” you said, gesturing to the baby you were holding.

He took another step closer. “So, you’ll get to watch the show tonight, then?”

“Of course. It’s the last one, I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great,” Harry said, his grin wide and bright. “Afterwards, I was thinking maybe we could just—”

You waited for him to finish, but he didn’t. You figured he was going to ask you out like he normally did, but something about him seemed different this time around. He looked more nervous, less sure of himself. “Just?” you asked, hoping a prompting would help him.

“Talk,” he said, almost blurted. “I think about doing so many things with you, but at the end of the day, I just want to sit and talk to you for hours. Whether that’s in a hotel room, or a house, or a tour bus, or your makeup chair. I want to talk until we know everything about each other. You—You’ve brushed me off every time I’ve asked you, and I was okay with it because I knew I would have another chance, but now it’s the last night of the tour, and I don’t know what I’d do if you said no again.”

“Harry—” you tried to say, but he kept going.

“No, please let me finish. I know you think that we wouldn’t work away from all this,” he said, gesturing vaguely to the venue. “But, I like you so much. I don’t think you understand how much joy just seeing you every day brings me. So no more games, no more chasing you down and hoping you’ll say yes. I think you’re amazing and beautiful and are the most genuine person I’ve ever met. Please say you’ll wait for me after the show so we can talk.”

You were rendered speechless. Obviously you knew Harry liked you, but you didn’t know how deeply. Sure he flirted and sought you out on off days to hang out with you, but you were so focused on keeping your own feelings in check, you didn’t stop and think about what actually being with him might look like.

Looking at him now, you saw his green eyes pleading with yours. You’d never seen him so desperate before. “I, um, I’d really like that.”

Harry’s expression was one of disbelief. “Yeah?”

Nodding, you confessed, “Saying no to you almost every night is exhausting. It probably doesn’t make sense, but I was protecting myself in case—”

“I do understand, of course I do,” he said. Reaching forward, he gingerly took your chin in his hand. “But I have a break after this tour, and I just want to see where this goes.”

“Me too, and I have the feeling you’re about to kiss me, but it just doesn’t seem right while holding someone else’s baby.”

Harry’s eyes broke away from yours and looked down to where you were still holding Mich and Sarah’s little bundle of joy. He grinned, seeming to agree with you. “That’s fair, but don’t run off right after the show, alright? I want you to be the first person I see when I come backstage.”

“Deal.”

You and Harry didn’t kiss in the hallway, but you let him take your free hand in his as you made your way back to where everyone else was. Both of you were giddy with excitement, looking forward to the end of the show.

“Fucking finally!”

Looking up, you saw Pauli and Ny’oh standing by a bunch of equipment. Having seen your joined hands, Ny’oh shouted, getting the attention of everyone else milling around and prepping for the show.

“Oh my God,” you groaned, embarrassed beyond belief. You tried to slip your hand out of Harry’s, but he held onto you tighter.

The rest of the night was a blur, and by the time Harry was blowing kisses and making his way offstage, you were practically vibrating with excitement. He jogged off the way he normally did, shedding his gold vest and handing it off to someone as he went, but he only had eyes for one person.

You were waiting for him at the end of the tunnel, and having seen you, Harry picked up his speed. When he was finally in front of you, you grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall. “I think you’re amazing and beautiful and one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met too,” you said, just before pulling him down so his lips met yours.

#harry styles #harry styles blurb #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #harry styles fluff #harry styles oneshot #harry styles x you

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auspicioustidings · 6 months

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JUST READ SAVAGE AND IT REALLY DID SOMETHING TO ME OH MY GOD. 🫣🫣

I love all your writing but this!! THIS!! This touched some weird part in my brain I didn't know existed.

I'm sorry if I'm just mindlessly mumbling here but I really don't know how to praise something normally. I just have so many emotions about this piece?? Regular words won't cut it, they can't describe how I feel.

Gotta go to sleep fantasizing about possible plot's and continuations........ Because here's so much potential!! I love medieval settings because of angst and drama opportunities and this one is just absolutely perfect!! All trauma and uncertainty reader would have to experience because of Soap's and Ghost's behaviors is just sooo tasty!! 5 Michelin stars dish right here. 🫶🏻🫶🏻

Just thanks for writing it!! It really made my night.

AHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH! I know I keep saying it, but heavy smut is truly not my wheelhouse, so posting this was a nerve-wracking experience.

I don't think I'll ever write a full continuation, but happy to bounce off of ideas if y'all have any :)

Luckily me and Noel were discussing what we think would happen after, so I've summarised those ideas below the cut!

CW: non-con

Think what would happen is Simon gets you back, is violent in punishing you then turns gentle and loving to brainwash you into adoring him (much like Johnny just did). Curiously though he also keeps you near the border not very well guarded instead of moving you further in country. Cue these two men who hate each other stealing you for the other, punishing you for being with them and then moving onto making you fall in love with them. It's confusing, it's awful, they are trying to one up one another by leaving permanent marks (Johnny bites you so hard it scars) or putting permanent jewellery on you (Simon is watching the necklace and bracelets get permanently connected by the smith and is getting hard just thinking about how the fucking animal up North will react seeing that).

They both say mean, degrading shit to you as if you are the one always going to the other man and speading your legs and not being kidnapped and forced. Simon out of the two is scarier in his threats, tells you (this bit is fully Noel and it made me see stars):

"Maybe I ought to just throw you back to that MacTavish, like the filth that you are." Fucking spits out the name like it's a curse alone, never losing his brutal rhythm pounding into you. "Fuckin' tart, I can feel you getting tighter just mentioning that bastard rogue. Don't you forget, you belong to me."

Things change when you are crossing the border one day. This game has been going on so long that sometimes they just let you go yourself. You run into a small unit of soldiers from France and they take you. Johnny and Simon both think you are with the other, so it isn't until Johnny shows up pounding on Simon's door because he wants you back and he's hidden you too well that they realise neither has seen you for a month.

They rescue you of course but you are so broken (when they find you, you are so happy to see them and they realise you think that you are dying and this is a vision) that both of them abandon their posts and whisk you off to a peaceful country somewhere to heal. They don't have one mean word to say to you, they're never violent with how they touch you.

Your little home they build is filled with kids soon enough and it's this lovely, soft life. Then the kids are all sent off to boarding school and they revert back to the good old days of fucking you into the dirt and then sending you back to the other to see what creative ways they can be rougher <3

#mhairidrabbles #anytime Noel has ever entertained one of my ideas it actually takes a year off of my life how fucking good her ideas are #mhairianswers

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gffa · 3 months

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What’s your opinion on Star Wars: Padawan by Kiersten White, and Master and Apprentice by Claudia Grey? I’m considering getting into the books and really want to read stuff about Obi-wan as an apprentice.

Hi! Keep in mind that this is just one fan's opinions on the books, but I can definitely tell you what I thought of both, as an Obi-Wan fan: Padawan: This is easily my favorite Star Wars book in quite awhile. It can't dethrone Revenge of the Sith novelization as my favorite all-time book, but it's currently in second place and it was exactly what I wanted. It was an Obi-Wan adventure where he's such a good kid, one who loves so deeply, but in a very Jedi way, has amazing details about the Jedi woven into it, and was a fun adventure. It might be on the softer side for some (especially if you're expecting Jedi Apprentice style angsty shenanigans, but honestly I'm of the opinion that Obi-Wan's childhood was gentler than that, this fit much better for me), but it was right in my wheelhouse. Master and Apprentice: I had a ton to say about this book, which was a long struggle to reconcile what Qui-Gon would say versus what he would do. Ultimately, if I looked at Qui-Gon as a good person, but often an unreliable narrator and not perfect (which he shouldn't have to be!!!) who genuinely fucked up a lot, who said one thing and did another, who lectured others but didn't do anything about a problem himself, who never really seemed to talk to Obi-Wan despite that they'd been a duo for 4+ years by now, etc., then it it was a great Qui-Gon book. But I don't think anyone should read it just for Obi-Wan content, despite the way its billed it's much more a Qui-Gon book than anything, it's about his relationship with Obi-Wan and Dooku, for all that Obi-Wan has scenes from his point of view. Mileages vary, but I wound up having nothing to say about Obi-Wan in this book, so I caution getting it just for him. (You can always check to see if your library has it and snag it that way! Or, possibly, you may see it totally differently from me!)

#lumi.txt #star wars #novels

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emry-stars-art · 10 months

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Just read the whole 'how Andreil pans out' ask and all I'm saying is that I love the idea of Andrew Courting Abram and Abram just absolutely misses that it's what is happening. Part of it is just a cultural difference, Evermore and Palmetto have different courting cultures perhaps?

Another part is that Andrew really does not act all THAT different. He's giving Abram gifts but like Andrew is always giving Abram stuff? It's not new? Yeah they had dinner together but that's just like what they......do?

Another another part is just Abram not even considering himself as someone worthy to be with Prince Andrew like that. He wasn't worthy before and after Evermore and everything I could imagine he feels even less like a person let alone a person who deserves Andrew's positive regard.

IDK I just love the idea of Abram at some point like 6 months into Andrew trying to court him seeing that behavior somewhere else, being told that's how nobility in Palmetto court others, and going to Andrew like "Have you, perchance, been trying to court me?"

Andrew setting his glass aside and looking up from where he's seated, "For 6 moons Abram, glad you've finally noticed." - @jtl-fics

jtl I. Wish. You could have seen my face as I read this, this is so hilarious and heartbreaking and lovely all in one and I’m in LOVE okay i love this so much. And we can totally make it work ahhhhh

Like yes! Yeah! Andrew’s already a gift giver, it’s just what he does as far as Abram’s concerned, and they spend so much time together that dinner isn’t strange those are perfect points. Like to the court it’s starting to become obvious - maybe in the kinds of gifts Andrew gives, or some other small things that are new, yes, but Abram has always taken these things in stride and usually his lack of judgement when Andrew tries new things or changes in little ways is a huge relief but not this time Abram PLEASE

Finally Andrew just bites the bullet and goes for a gesture that’s way more out of character and harder to mistake, which might look something like this (and thank you @leedee013 for tags about them giving each other flowers that I LOVED):

And Abram can’t really form his thoughts into words because like you said; he doesn’t think he should be allowed something like that, there’s no way he’s ever EVER going to assume that Andrew is trying to confess or clue him in to a courting like this, even if it’s in his head now

But then Lady Reynolds sees Abram later heading back to the castle/wherever he stays carrying this bouquet of carnations (fascination), narcissus (honesty/truth) and acacia (hidden love) (let’s not look too closely into these flower meanings lol, i picked the first ones I found and I’ll field all further questions with ‘artistic liberty’ 🫶) and they’re pretty close friends by now so she’s immediately like “oh my GODS Abram who gave that to you”

And Abram quietly says “the prince”

And Allison’s won like three separate bets between various other people of the court and she’s elated

But maybe she takes pity on him when she realizes exactly how clueless Abram is, so she does her best to explain everything and finally, Abram begins to allow the possibility that maybe Andrew is doing all this on purpose. But he would really rather like to be certain.

And of course I had to draw your little exchange but I did it from memory so apologies for the changes in dialogue but I love it:

ANYWAY from there, when it’s cleared up, it’s just them being dumb and sweet and grasping at straws for how to be in love and natural about it (because they’re both very private people and a good number of average/expected acts of courtship aren’t necessarily in their wheelhouse) 😭🥹 and not to add yet more hurt/comfort but Andrew is so so determined to figure out a way to assure and reassure Abram that he knows what he’s doing, yes Abram is worth it, yes he’s doing these things because he wants to. If he didn’t want to he wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. And I’ll bring it back around by using my previously mentioned artistic liberty to say that yes Prince Andrew loves having his hands held/kissed (just by Abram naturally) and Abram figures this out and absolutely uses it against him. They love each other your honor

Okay anyway thank you for the ask, I’m SO lucky to have such brilliant people in my inbox 🥰

#STG I WAS SMILING SO BIG WHEN I READ IT THROUGH #yeah they probably would have very different traditions! I like that a lot!#so it’d be even funnier when Abram finally calms down and relaxes into it #and yeah they can do flowers that works fine #but he probably accidentally/as a last effort tries some traditions from his native kingdom #they’re trying so hard but it’s a little lost in translation #ships passing in the night #they’re hopeless and I love them #GOD KEVIN WOULD HAVE TO DO THE TRANSLATION OF THE DIFFERENT CUSTOMS #He wants out of it so bad but there’s literally no one else to ask 😂😭#idk if either of them would ever deign to involve or ask Kevin but now I’m laughing #anyway I need to stop or I’ll never shut up about this #thank you this is great #fan art #my art #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #allison reynolds #royal au #asks #chibi

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linka-from-captain-planet · 19 days

Text

Rating BG3 Ladies Oral Game

By popular (1 anon) demand. With a bonus segment, Does She Eat Ass?

Ratings based on vibes and also facts opinions (controversial: not everyone can be a sex god).

all the main and supporting women + my background babes: Florrick, Talli, Alfira, Lakrissa, Araj, Nocturne, Skoona, Adrielle, Z'rell, Nine-Fingers, and special guest star Philomeen

*Sex is like pizza, so average results are in fact still pretty good. Only 2, 1, and 0/10 are truly trash head. So a 5 or 6 is still a compliment!*

Lae'zel: 10/10. Her appetite is voracious. Her will is steel, and her tongue is silver. As a lifelong try-hard, Lae'zel can't settle for anything less than stellar, and eating out is no exception. She can be a bit too clinical with it at the start, but once her heart is freed from its stone prison, her sensuality comes pouring out her lips and tongue.

Shadowheart: 9/10. This is her wheelhouse. This is what she's been up to for the last 30 years. She loses a point because her brand of teasing and/or being coy occasionally doesn't translate; there's a difference between a slow burn and letting a lover go cold, and she can slip up sometimes and forget she's pleasuring, not torturing. But overall? Who knew such a delicate touch could make you come apart like that.

Karlach: 11/10. She's a natural, and she's ravenous. For touch. For affection. To please, to be good. She tunes all the way in. No notes. She's all up in and/or on that thang, front, back, side to side, not a drop left when she's done with it. The most finesse? No, but a hammer doesn't need frills and lace to knock in a nail.

Minthara: 12/10. Even better than her stroke game. It feeds her ego like no other, and what feeds Minthara's ego is also good for her lover. Dominant even when giving head, and she puts that nose and chin to werk. You're done when she's done, not the other way around. Eats 110% of it, leaves no crumbs.

Jaheira: 6/10. Frankly, Jaheira is just not that horny and so, while her skills are well-honed, she just doesn't have that killer instinct to catapult her into higher tiers. She's too busy to spend two hours between someone's legs, so she aims to get it done nice and quick, but thorough. She's no quitter, after all, and her dedication to the goal is unshakeable.

Isobel: 8/10. A little too much of a tease for anyone who's not an edging enthusiast, but she puts her money where her mouth is. She's incredibly in-tuned with a partner, so once she's zoned in, she's got it locked down. Her focus is unbreakable. Doesn't have the most stamina, but she more than knows how to make up for it. You don't need hours and hours for Isobel to take you apart.

Aylin: 7/10 or 100/10 IF her face is being sat on. My controversial take for this post. But I think that while Aylin's tongue is GOATed and she loves pleasing her partner, it's just an act that isn't enough for her. She wants to touch, feel, suck, lick, caress, tease it all, not just a fraction of her beloved. Her hands and tongue wander. She flits around, sampling it all. Keeping her in that one place, on-task, can require some input from her partner, so they can't quite relax all the way and melt under her. This is where the face-sitting specification comes in. Surrounded so, held down (even by someone MUCH smaller), being taken as much as she gives--------- that's where she really shines.

Mizora: -100/10. Again... get real.

Orin: 5/10. She is a rolling stone. She is a whimsical sort. Eating out requires focus that she certainly has, but can she employ it on a dependable enough basis? She can also get too artful with it. Sometimes A->B is the right path and you don't need to murder someone and stash their corpse in an abandoned one-room house inbetween licks, ya know?

Florrick: 9/10. Look at that profile. That nose. That chin. Those lips. Observe her delusional confidence, her endless fidelity, her relentless pursuit of her goals. Did you feel that tremble? It was your [preferred genital word]. She comes home from a long day of bossing people around and serving the greater good, ready to pamper someone, to serve herself, and she's hungry. Her only downside is that she can be a bit efficient with it; it takes her time to warm up emotionally, and not treat you like just another item on her to-do list.

Talli: 8/10. Happy to be of service, always. A very thorough, straightforward, good-game-giving mouth. Lacks creativity, but completely consistent, reliable, and (if desired) romantic.

Alfira: 8/10. A little clumsy, a little distractible, but you can't beat the dedication. Amazing breath-holding capacity. Unlike some other be-fanged women, she loves her teeth and knows how to deploy them. She keeps ya guessing, which does have a few negatives, but overall? More than makes up for her complete lack of stroke game.

Lakrissa: 6/10. She talks a big bigger game than she actually has, surprisingly. She's a little too restless, a little too fidgety. She likes to use more of her body than she can while going down, so it's kind or boring for her tbh. She likes the taste and the emotional/mental experience for herself, more than she likes actually doing it. But for her love? Anything. She'll sit down there for hours if need be.

Araj: 2/10. The future Matron Mother of the Restored House Oblodra does not get on her knees. You try to tell her that there are many other options, but she doesn't listen. Only goes down when she's trying to steal your secretions for her alchemy. It's not worth it.

Nocturne: 7/10. Like Shadowheart, she had to be entertaining herself somehow for all the decades in the cloister so her skills are above average. But she's a little more submissive, and tends to pigeonhole herself; she can't quite pull off a toppy tongue sesh. If she's not on her knees, she doesn't quite know how to do it. Certified biter, interested in the intersection between pleasure and pain.

Skoona: 7/10. A little self-conscious of her tusks, but she's always found the act romantic and fulfilling. Likes to hold hands during.

Adrielle: 3/10. She's a little self-conscious, a little too intimidated. A little too desperate to be good. In one's own head is the worst place to be when trying to go down on someone, and that's where she is. Will get you there, but hardly a world-shaking experience.

Z'rell: 1 Billion/10. Look, it's still not for YOU, but in case you were wondering: at least 17 someones out there are getting it ATE. Front, back, side to side, axes that don't even exist in our plane. You're missing out. Pathetic.

Nine-Fingers: 7/10. Makes your legs shake, but can be a little too intense. She can come on too strong. She can make it feel like a competition, or like there's something else on her mind that's not you. Keeping her engaged is a You problem, but if you can? Very good.

Philomeen: ?/10. She does not go down, ever; she's made that mistake before long ago (making the hoes think she cares about them) and she's nawt gonna make it again!!

In addition: Does she eat ass?

Eats ass completely unprompted: Lae'zel, Minthara, Orin, Z'rell Offers to eat ass: Shadowheart, Karlach, Aylin, Florrick, Nocturne Eats ass if asked: Jaheira, Isobel, Lakrissa, Nine-Fingers Considers it, but decides eating ass isn't for her: Alfira, Talli, Skoona Definitely doesn't eat ass: Mizora, Araj, Adrielle, Philomeen

#nsft #overall these skew high bc these women mostly all have that “neurotic repressed freak” vibe that lends itself to throatGOAT status #also more alcohol was involved in this one and that's prob apparent

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suzukiblu · 6 months

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Further adventures in "kidnapping your soulmate for fun and profit" for @twird96.

"You did good with that guy who wrecked the street," Tim says, putting on Smiling Normal Civilian Face #2, which is a little more reserved than #4. Superboy turns red again.

"Technically I also wrecked the street," he says, looking embarrassed.

"It was already a wreck when you got there," Tim snorts. Property doesn't mean shit next to people. "And this way nobody died or got hurt too bad."

"You helped with that part," Superboy says, still red-faced. "Made it a lot easier to keep everybody safe with somebody who was thinking straight about getting them all out of the way, like I said. It's hard to, uh–concentrate on that many at once, you know?"

"Keeping track of where all the civilians are has to be a pain in a fight," Tim agrees, though he tries to make it sound more like he's following Superboy's logic than already fully aware of the vitality of situational awareness from his own vigilante gig. Superboy blinks, cocking his head.

"Oh–no, that part's easy," he says. "I can feel everybody. It's just, uh . . . actively spreading my TTK out that much? I gotta concentrate a lot harder. So it's just way easier when nobody's in the line of fire."

Tim . . . pauses. Tilts his head. He is, technically, aware of how Superboy's tactile telekinesis works, but that sounded like . . .

"Sorry," he says. "You had everybody there in your TTK field?"

"Mostly," Superboy says. "Like I said, it's hard to concentrate on that many people, especially if they're running around in a panic."

"Why would you split your focus like that?" Tim asks, a little mystified. Though he guesses this explains how Superboy noticed what he was doing without ever actually looking at him, come to think. "Doesn't it weaken your powers?"

"Well, yeah, but that dude was blowing up the whole street, man," Superboy says, making a face. "Somebody could've gotten shrapneled or something."

It occurs to Tim, slowly, that the amount of injured civilians really wasn't as high as it should've been, and in fact most of the injuries he did see had most likely been caused in the initial attack. So that means . . .

Oh.

. . . huh.

"Huh," he says. "I didn't realize that was something you could do."

"I try not to advertise it," Superboy says sheepishly. "So, uh, bad guys won't start going after civilians harder when I'm fighting 'em. Or pick crowded areas to pick fights in."

"I was under the impression that you advertised most of what your powers can do," Tim says wryly, though again, he did get that impression from stolen files and cheap magazines.

"Well, yeah," Superboy says with an awkward shrug. "Otherwise people don't think I'm doing anything. Like, that I'm just punching stuff or whatever. Uh, so–how long are you in town for, then?"

"Just for the day," Tim says while making further mental re-evaluations of his soulmate. And it's an admittedly terrible cover, but–"I'm flying back to Gotham on a redeye. I just dropped in to get some time to myself, but I've got school on Monday and a paper to write for it. You know how it is."

"Not so much, man, I don't do that," Superboy says, and Tim . . . pauses, again.

"You don't . . . what, go to school?" he asks.

"Naw," Superboy says. "On account of supervillains attack it when I do."

"So you're home-schooled?" Tim assumes, trying not to cringe at the idea of Rex Leech teaching Superboy math or economics or anything even vaguely in that wheelhouse. That cannot possibly end well.

"Naw," Superboy repeats with another shrug. "Got superhero shit to do. And also, like, brand deals to do. Not really my thing anyway."

. . . Tim is reminded, again, that Superboy is not in fact legally a person and is therefore not in any way protected by labor laws, and Rex Leech and every single dodgy opportunist he's been selling Superboy's likeness to probably knows that. Not even the laws intended for civilians or metahumans or minors or animals would apply, in fact.

Fuck.

The next six months of this kidnapping plot are going to be an agonizing wait, Tim's already realizing.

Fuuuuuck.

#timkon #tim drake #kon el #dc robin #superboy #rinfic #twird96 #wip: kidnapping your soulmate for fun and profit

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nethhiri · 2 months

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Marooned: Chapter 14

Kid x FemReader x Killer

Warnings: binge drinking

Party time. Excellent!

The deck was full of Kid Pirates well on their way to getting drunk. You waited until you could hear laughing and bickering and shouting before making your appearance. One, because you didn't want to be the first one there, waiting awkwardly, and two, because this type of thing was out of your wheelhouse. Parties, sure, you've enjoyed plenty of parties, but being celebrated and being the center of attention in a dress, no less, was something entirely different. If it was in a different setting, like a crew that was your own, conceivably you wouldn't feel so uncomfortable. You were grateful that the purpose of this was to also celebrate Killer's recovery. Maybe he would overshadow you, he certainly did in stature anyway.

I swear the first thing I'm gonna do when I get off this ship is buy pants. Sort of a tomboy growing up, you weren't drawn to wearing more feminine things and it felt foreign wearing a dress. You didn't have anything against it, in fact, you felt gorgeous, like a princess even, but pants were way more practical than dresses, especially in this line of work. You couldn't really complain though. You literally asked for this. Maybe I shouldn't have.

"C'mon, Mini." The boar happily trotted out behind you, ready to receive table scraps. You took in the sight on deck: barrels and crates turned into chairs and makeshift tables, along with some real tables and chairs, seemingly reserved for the higher ranked pirates, banners with their Jolly Roger strung up, extra torches, overflowing kegs, and happy, tipsy pirates: some were arm wrestling, some were playing cards, others were telling stories of battles past, a few were somehow already passed out. The men arm wrestling intrigued your competitive side, but you thought better of showing off your strength, if you still had it. Your eyes scanned through the crew until they saw Quincy's unruly, orange mane. Your heeled boot took one step in their direction before your ears perked up, hearing one of the men arm wrestling jab another by saying he couldn't even beat 'that woman'. All the sudden, your foot pivoted on its own.

The heels thunked against the wood of the deck as you walked with purpose towards the group and sat in front of the man who made the jab, throwing your elbow on the barrel-made-table. "Let's see you beat me then." You wiggled your fingers.

The man scoffed, then grinned and licked his lips. "Fine. If I win then you have to untie the top of your dress."

You rolled your eyes. "Wow, as if I couldn't guess." There was a pause as you thought. "If I win he gets to walk you around the deck like a dog," you said pointing to the guy who was previously insulted. They stared at you before bursting into fits of howling laughter, barking and making jokes at your challenger's expense. "See you have to be creative or it's not fun."

The blond man across from you, who you learned, from the jeers of his crewmates, was called Pomp. He put his hand in yours and rested his elbow on the table. His hand eclipsed yours, though not nearly as much as Kid's would. Not that you wanted your hand entwined with Kid's, definitely not. At the signal, your hands pushed against each other, fighting for a dominant hold. Your Y/E/C eyes bored into his. Part of you wished Quincy hadn't covered your scars so much, you weren't intimidating like this. What you didn't know was that you were intimidating like this, in a different way. Pomp's face was bright red with exertion, beads of sweat stated to break out on his brow, the back of his hand reaching ever closer to the table. You could see his mind struggling to understand how you were stronger than he was. "Start barking, bitch." His hand thunked against the table.

"No way." Pomp was more shocked than mad.

A blue haired man slapped him on the back, "Get on all fours, my friend."

"Fuck you, Reck."

You started to get up, intending to go sit with the girls, like you originally planned. However, your mind was changed when several of the men scrambled to get in the seat across from you, arguing over who got to try next. And that's how you ended up with: a human footstool, someone's gold tooth, a never-empty beer mug, a knife, a shoulder massage, some fucking pants, and Dive running some kind of betting ring. You were actually having fun. Quincy, Emma, and Dive had come over to see what was going on. At first, you bantered amongst yourselves, then some of the men joined in, and pretty soon you were all laughing together, except Pomp, who was barking, much to everyone's delight. You took a long drink of your beer, about to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, but stopping when you remembered you had lipstick on. It would be quite a sight to have dark lipstick smeared across your face.

"Where's my beer boy?" You tapped the butt of the mug on the wood. "I'm half-empty," you tsked.

One of the rookies scuttled over to grab it for a refill. "S-sorry, Ma'am."

Before he could turn, you grabbed his cheek in a pinch, "That's Ca-," you coughed. "That's Doc to you." Maybe I should cool I on the booze. It was easy to fall into your old ways, even easier now that you felt like yourself in this painted-on skin Quincy gave you. You almost slipped up. A heavy hand clapping you on the shoulder made you jump, releasing the boy. You looked up from your seat, expecting to see the Red Menace, instead looking into a blue and white helmet. "Did you want a try? Step right up. Test your strength." You grinned up at him cheekily.

He ignored that. "Captain wants you."

You leaned around him to see Kid's amber eyes staring at you. "When does he not?" You swore you heard Emma cough-whisper "captain-fucker" under her breath, the other girls snickering.

His hand moved down to grip your arm, firmly but gentle, and pulled you up from your seat.

"Fine. Fine. I'm coming." You snatched up your winnings, tucking the knife behind you under your belt and the tooth in the front. And, of course, grabbing your stein. You followed Killer to their table, where Kid, Heat, Wire, and a few others sat. Mini was too busy to follow, her in the background letting pirates see if they could throw apples directly into her mouth from across the ship. Killer went back to where he was sitting, leaving no more remaining seats. You already knew where this was going. Kid smirked and patted his lap. "I'll stand." You moved to stand behind Heat, who you felt the most comfortable with.

The captain scowled at you. "I'm not askin." When you still didn't move, he bribed, "Do ya want yer shit back?"

You begrudgingly moved toward him. "Gun, too."

"Whatever, doll."

He grabbed your waist and roughly pulled you down to his lap, a huff leaving you as you were brought back had against his firm chest. Your beer spilled over the edge of the mug and over your hand in the jostling movement. You set it down, and much to the chagrin of everyone, flung the dripping excess off your hand in their direction prior to wiping your hand on Kid's pant leg. He made a noise of displeasure. "What? I'm borrowing this," you plucked at the red fabric clinging to your body. "I don't want to spill beer on it."

"You look very nice in that color, Doc." Heat complimented.

"Thank you, Heat. At least someone on this ship knows how to treat a lady." You smiled in his direction before taking a drink.

The chest under you shook and your eardrums rattled as Kid's booming laugh rang out, "Oh ya put on a dress and a wee bit of makeup and all tha sudden yer a lay-dee," he drew out the last word in a mocking way.

That...kinda stung. A bubble of anger rose to the surface of your mind. Without fail, Kid had to ruin your good mood. Biting your tongue, you resisted the urge to lay into him. If you went too far in front of his top officers, you would be on his bad side. "What am I then?" You raised your eyebrow and glared at him, fully expecting him to say something crude.

He slapped a hand down on your leg and squeezed. "A pirate, ya dumbass."

Killer seemed almost as surprised as you that Kid said something not-mean, though hard to tell through the mask. You scooted his hand towards your knee, though he kept putting it back further up your thigh, so you gave up. They started talking about their plans for when they reached the next island and other things you hardly cared about. Taking the knife out of your belt, you spun it around idly on the table. It had been digging into your back. You kept drinking and chose to use this time to observe the crew. Killer looked like he had the same idea. You couldn't see where exactly his eyes were looking, however his mask was facing you. Your suspicion was all but confirmed when you turned to look directly at him and he looked away. You were about to ask him if he needed something when several plates were set down on the table, each with a different entree. All looked equally heavenly.

After several rounds of plates, including dessert, and drinks, everyone was full to the point of being uncomfortable. Except Mini, who was lapping up all the spilled beer, and you, who was staring down the last bite of chocolate cake on Killer's plate. Kid had shifted you from one leg to the other when his leg fell asleep, and you were now closer to Killer. He cleared his throat, "Do you... want the rest?" It took you a second to stumble through your inebriated fog before you realized he was talking to you. You nodded. He looked for a utensil to pick it up with, and when he failed he shrugged and picked it up with his hand. He held it out to put into your hand. Without a second thought, you leaned over, holding onto Kid's neck, and ate it straight from his fingers, licking them off and leaving a ring of lipstick around them as you came back up with a popping sound, giggling. The accidental innuendo was not lost on him, as red spread down his neck from underneath his helmet.

Kid tucked his head next to you on the side opposite Killer and spoke lowly into your ear, "Careful, Rotten. I'm not ready ta share ya yet."

"Fuck off. I just wanted cake." You chugged the rest of the beer in your mug, not caring that some dripped down the corner of your mouth, and turned around on his lap to face him. "And I'll fuck whoever I want." You grabbed either side of his vest and pulled him towards you, sloppily making out with him, tongues twisting, both tasting like beer, lipstick colors slowly blending together, unconsciously grinding against his thigh.

Kid pulled away. "Yer even more fun drunk." He took in your lust-filled eyes, now noticing that you replaced the log-pose he had taken. Some memory fluttered in the back of his mind when he took in your face like this. It was smothered by the filthy thoughts racing in his mind. It wouldn't be the first time he fucked someone in plain view.

Something you hadn't taken into consideration was that you hadn't had a drink in years. Your tolerance was that of a teenager sneaking booze from their parent's liquor cabinet. You would pass out soon, you could feel it, but first you felt your stomach flop. Oh no. You pushed Kid away as he went to kiss you again and covered your mouth, fighting wobbly legs to get off Kid and get to the banister.

Kid was about to protest you pushing him. Then he saw how green you looked. He pushed you off him and turned you in the right direction.

You made it to the railing in time to hurl over the side of the ship, having the wherewithal to move your hair out of the way. Your full body weight leaned on the railing as you puked up everything you ate in the reverse order. You cursed yourself for being this stupid. You don't know how many times you threw up before a warm hand rested on your back, patting it gently, while another one gathered your hair away from your face.

"Let it all out, darlin." It reminded Killer of his younger days with Kid. "It's okay." He was very familiar with the drunk-friend-babysitter role. He felt guilty for his part in helping get you wasted, constantly getting someone to fill your glass. He and Kid thought if you were drunk, maybe you would let some identifying information slip.

You grabbed around for his shirt so he couldn't leave you. "Killer, don't let me fall in." You hiccuped. "I can't swim."

Maybe it paid off after all, he thought.

#yes the title is why I was thinking of Wayne's world and drew that pic #I want Killer to baby me irl #massacre soldier killer x reader #eustass kid #massacre soldier killer #kid x reader x killer #killer x reader #eustass kid x reader #one piece #marooned #x reader

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writegoblin · 10 months

Text

I have been severely craving my boy. No no, not Michael. Boseph uwu

Look at him. Unf.

Anyways.

Bo Sinclair Headcanons!

SFW

- You ended up in Ambrose because your car alignment decided it had enough of these off road shenanigans.

- Your reasons for being out that way, for story purposes, are running from your old life. All your old family and friends are shitty so you an conveniently disappear bc smthn smthn deus ex machina

- HOW you find out about your car alignment is another story. Let's just say, tumbling in a car is much more painful than it looks. What's worse is landing in a roadkill pit. Yeah boy. You know what time it is B)

- Lester almost shit himself when you came from over the highway. He thought you were dead and was going to call Vincent when you punched out the front seat. That's hot. Alright stranger, you're coming with me!

- He tries to clean you up and get your name. Takes you back to his place because he doesn't want to catch the twins off guard. But the day you spend there is lovely.

- You get the Ambrose and immediately shits off. Long story short, you become something of a live in maid. They can't kill you because it would be a lot of hassle on their end (another deus ex. You're related to a cop or something idk), and they COULD turn this situation around. Get use out of you.

- Bo likes how witty you are. You don't like to be bossed around which is clearly why you ran away from home (what are you, 10?)

- At first he's very callous to you and makes no effort to understand you. As far as he's concerned, you're another spoiled out of towner, just impeding on he and his brother's strange get rich scheme (more on that later. I'll explain in end notes.)

- What's worse is you're argumentative. Whenever he asks you to do something (read: yells at you), you always gotta talk back. You say funny stuff sometimes but it's annoying mostly. Vincent enjoys it much more than he does.

- You make nice with Vinny first. When you aren't forced to do chores, he lets you help him with the wax. Bo sees this and eventually realizes that while you are certainly mouthy, you are human with like hobbies and shit.

- He's a chef he's a gourmand

- He cooks for he and Vincent because Vincent, due to some brain damage, has a weird palette. So anything he makes either has way too much seasoning, or it tastes like cardboard. Bo on the other hand, grew up running around the streets of Baton Rogue with his friends after school. He KNOWS how to cook good.

- He's also good at first aid. The actual surgery and medical stuff is Vincent's wheelhouse but once you broke your arm trying to fix some shutters he told you to fix. He felt bad so he very gingerly fixed your arm. It healed really nicely but you'll never forget the way those blue eyes of his were so warm when he looked at you, touching the bend in your forearm and his voice, gentle as the day you first met went, "does it hurt?"

- Yeah but you looking at me like that bout to get me pregnant hurts worse sir

- As a boyfriend he's only jealous/protective around tourists. But as a dude in a town with a population of technically 3.5 if you count Lester's visits, he gets it. He does not mind his twin ogling you. He does not mind sharing EVENTUALLY. At first, he's very apprehensive.

- Bo's love language is physical touch. Even nonsexual touch is nice. He likes laying his head in your lap while yall watch TV and you rake your nails through his scalp gently.

- When he gets night terrors he likes to hold onto you in the dark like hope. He puts his face in your chest and he's almost like a little kid for a second. You have no choice but to coddle aw noooo aw man can't believe I have this hot sexy guy in my lap crying ohbhughghh

- If you're pear shaped? He loves your hips. Man, woman, ethereal creature, it don't matter. He was born an ass man he'll die an ass man.

- If you like star gazing, he'll listen to you rattle off about constellations. He likes listening to people ramble about unique special interests because it gives him a little taste of variety in his quiet life.

NSFW

- big. Thick. Cut.

- leftward pitch and he loves doing mating presses.

- much more inclined to rough sex (obviously)

- I do know he likely and unfortunately assaulted those ladies on the wall but in my HCs I like to think it was CNC instead. What stops him from doing the same here is you're too loud and mouthy, so the attraction is initially not there.

- As you soften up because of Vin though, and start opening up and smiling and being cute, he can't help but let his mind roam sometimes.

- Loves fantasizing you in different little costumes to dress up in. A visitor once visited and she was a cam girl! In your size! So lucky!

- please were garter belts this man will not be normal

- Loves intercurral. To punish you if he catches you masturbating, he'll fuck your thighs until he cuts, leaving you all hot and bothered.

- The basement does not come into equation until after the first time. And the first time is more of a gentle, romantic moment of vulnerability.

- Your first time was during a thunderstorm and you were telling him about your past and how so many people hurt you. Abused you. He felt so connected to you. You always held back your anger and he let you express it by throwing stuff and by the end of it you were a sobbing and screaming and laughing mess and he was standing in the debris and he saw himself and he reached out and kissed you in an attempt to ammend himself.

- When he made love to you that night, he decided your ass is never moving out sorry lol

- Exhibitionist. Likes to take you to Baton Rogue for little dates and fucks you in alleys and parks. The most exciting was a drive in theater he took you to where you gave him head. He fucked you in the wooded area outside after.

- PRIESTKINKPRIESTKINK

- Hahaha okay but what if you confessed and he fucked u in the confessional would that be crazy or what

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have a few HOW headcanons actually!

- the boys do the whole house of Wax thing in an attempt to get rich. Bo decided "oh I guess I could be mayor but hm no money here" and he rubbed two cells together and was like "WHAT IF WE MADE AN ATTRACTION THAT WAS THE BESTEST."

- tricked Vin into it cause "they're carrying Mom's legacy :(((( she'd love this trust me we're gonna expand the house into a town it'll be great."

- Lester's there cause he loves his brother's and is also admittedly a bit crazy himself. He's definitely tied a few people up and intimidated people, but that's not his usual job. He's too baby.

- Canonically, where Ambrose is located, it would be a roughly 30 min drive (or 2 hours I forgor lol) to Baton Rogue! So fun fact. They're Baton boys uwu

- I think even though Bo is a good cook, gumbo is Lester's wheelhouse cause he's just got that swagger to him. Like if I met Lester and he was like "do u want me to make you gumbo" I'd say yes, no hesitation.

#bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair #slasher fics #slasher headcanons #slasher x reader

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you-remind-me-of-the-babe · 4 months

Text

Another lovely year in this wonderful fandom. Here’s a little recap of how my year went:

My Writing:

Depth of Reason - Mature - 70k

How to Avoid a Scandal - Teen - 43k

Episode 3: The Diplomat, A Star Trek Redemption story - Teen - 13.5k

This list is much shorter than my list of fics written in 2022, but my fics last year were much shorter. Also, this word count is deceptive, because I wrote about 22k of Depth of Reason last year and about 20k of How to Avoid a Scandal last year as well. But! My writing goals this year were to finish these two WIPs and not take on any other projects until they were finished and I very nearly did that! Took on two projects (and more below), but I still finished these before the year finished, so pretty good!

Total words:

About 83k. Last year was more like 120k.

Other works:

Podfic of Petrichor - Teen - 34 minutes

Themes:

Finishing long works apparently! One was for my 2022 COBB and the other for my 2022 CORB. Even though these were started last year, they are the longest things I wrote since my first fic (49k) back in the second half of 2021.

Also, trying new things! Writing sci-if and recording a podfic felt very outside my wheelhouse at the time, but ultimately, I’m glad I went for it.