#i had to post it now or i would have reworked it into the ground and give up
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RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I only like Serizawa’s face in this one tbh
#wawamonth#serizawa katsuya#reigen arataka#mp100#my art#i had to post it now or i would have reworked it into the ground and give up
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Punishment
Summary: Ser Erryk makes the mistake of looking for too long at you and Aemond makes sure he pays for it.
Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x fem!reader
Warnings: NSFW. Jealous/Possessive Aemond. Exhibitionism. “Just the tip”. Dry humping. Creampie.
A/N: If you recognise this is because it’s a rework of a short fic I posted a few days ago. I added a smut scene and some other minor changes. Hope you like it!
A/N2: Can be read as part 2 of “Precious Stones”, but also as a stand-alone.
Word count: 2.5k
“Ask Ser Erryk if he wishes to preserve all his limbs intact.”
“My prince?”
“You heard what I said, Cole.”
To anyone unaware of what had provoked such serious solicitation, it would seem that Prince Aemond was merely poking fun.
But Aemond does not fool around when it comes to what belongs to him.
You swallowed your wine quietly, crossing eyes with Ser Erryk Cargyll whose stare was bold enough to have your heart clench.
And it was not because you welcomed the daring attention, but because you knew Aemond wouldn’t.
Aemond Targaryen had made his claim, and anyone who dared defy him would face the consequences.
You watched as Ser Criston Cole walked towards Ser Erryk to deliver the prince’s message.
His reaction was appalling.
The young member of the Kingsguard, entrusted with protecting Prince Aegon, decided that scoffing and chuckling was an appropriate way to respond to Aemond.
How wrong he was.
Sitting beside you, Aemond shifted in his seat, eye fixed on the man in front of him. “What is so amusing, Ser Erryk?”
You thanked the Gods that the king and queen were absent from supper, but you weren’t as fortunate when it came to Aegon.
“Oh, this ought to be good,” said the young prince, relishing in the eminent conflict.
Ser Erryk dropped his smile at once. “Nothing, my prince.”
“So you laugh at nothing? That is… concerning.”
Aemond was an expert where taunting others was concerned. He would know just what to say and how to say it, in order to set anyone off, ultimately prevailing as his skill with sword matched his words.
The silence was so thick you could hear the flames flickering on the candlesticks and the wind wailing angrily outside.
“Aemond…” you began, placing one hand on his thigh.
“Give me one reason not to behead you.”
Ser Criston Cole was tense through and through. “Prince Aemond, what happ—”
“Now why would you behead Ser Erryk, dear brother?” Aegon spoke, visibly amused. “Is my safety of no concern to you?”
Oh Gods…
Helaena would have no part in this, and simply kept to herself, lowered gaze and focused on downing the food in her plate.
“Stay out of this,” Aemond said calmly, his eye never leaving Ser Erryk.
A wise person would have followed this warning, but Aegon was not wise. In fact, he was a fool who thought himself to be wise. And there was no bigger foolery.
“I shall not,” Aegon voiced his indignation. “What is his crime, brother? Staring at her?”
Cold sweat ran down the back of your neck as you felt his eyes on you.
“Prince Aemond, I meant no disrespect,” Ser Erryk said as dutifully as possible given the current situation. “I apologise.”
Aemond gripped your hand tightly. Even though he excelled at keeping his composure, he had difficulty reining in his feelings when it came to those he cared about.
Aegon huffed in annoyance, twirling the fork in between his fingers. “Ruining our meal over some wench… I mean, really, Aemond…”
At this, your lover rose to his feet, banging his fist on the wooden table, nearly spilling the glasses of wine in the process.
But his anger wasn’t aimed at Aegon and his infantile demeanor.
After all, the cause of such commotion was far simpler.
Ser Erryk had made a mistake, and now he would pay for it.
“I may have lost an eye,” he told the kingsguard, voice dripping with poison. “But you are the one who is too blind to see that there is no scenario in which you come out victorious.”
The man responsible for prince Aegon’s well-being swallowed hard, but stood his ground, not showing anything other than respect for the dragon prince.
“Prince Aemond,” Ser Criston spoke once again. “Let us all calm down. I will make sure nothing of the sort happens again.”
Aemond chuckled. “First and final warning. Next time, you will not be so fortunate should you glance in her direction again.”
The young man nodded, staying silent.
“Mother will be delighted to know you’re threatening to kill my protector because of our sister’s lady-in-waiting,” Aegon said, clearly wanting to provoke his younger brother.
Aemond snapped his head at him. “If your own protection was of any concern to you, you wouldn’t dismiss his services so you can disappear into Flea Bottom,” a smile curved his lips as Aegon’s face dropped. “Do tell mother. Tell her that my flaw is caring for those I love, as she does. See how far that will get you, dear brother.”
Aegon’s eyes shot daggers at his younger brother in silence, and you vaguely wondered why he hadn’t snapped at his words.
But then again, Aegon thrived for simpler things in life other than picking fights with someone who could best him in whatever weapon of choice they’d decide to wield: sword or words.
As such, the rest of supper remained uneventful, with Aemond keeping one hand firmly on your thigh at all times.
That sense of belonging swept you off your feet completely.
Knowing that Aemond would not hesitate to let others know how strongly he felt about you.
By the time all cups and plates were emptied, Aegon left his seat, waving one hand dismissively at Ser Erryk as he exited the dining hall, proving once more that Aemond’s words had been true.
Aemond scoffed, raising to his feet while taking your hand in his. “Shall we?”
Heat flared in your cheeks as he tightened his grip lightly on you.
Nodding, you crossed eyes with Helaena. “I shall meet you in your bedchambers, my lady.”
Her eyes dropped to the sapphire necklace you had put on and she curled her lips into a warm smile.
Aemond held your hand closely as he paced across the room, until he was standing in front of Ser Erryk.
“Seeing that my brother won’t require your services, may I make use of them?”
It was a simple inquiry and it sounded innocent enough coming from him, but the look on Ser Erryk was far more revealing.
Criston Cole shared the sentiment, stepping between both of them. “Prince Aemond, I-"
Aemond heaved an audible sigh that effectively silenced him. “Ser Criston, you forget I’m skilled with my dagger,” he said, removing the blade from its sheath, twirling it effortlessly in his fingers. “If I wished to bring harm to Ser Erryk, I would have done so before you could blink.”
The young member of the Kingsguard did not seem all that convinced, but stepped aside regardless.
A mischievous smile danced on Aemond’s lips as he sheathed the dagger.
The sudden realisation that he was up to something suddenly hit you.
Never letting go of his hold on you, the three of you paced quietly along the vast corridors of the Red Keep.
There was certainly no need for Ser Erryk’s services and, for a fleeting moment, you wondered if Aemond actually intended to harm the young man.
But your fears vanished quickly when you reached the door to his bedchambers and watched as Aemond asked him to stand guard.
Ser Erryk held a blank expression, not daring to look at you.
Your lover let go of you hand and you felt him get behind you, pressing both hands on your shoulder.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
As soon as those words left his lips you turned to face him, embarrassed washing over you. “Aemond!”
One hand slid to your neck, slowly bringing his warm fingers to angle it, exposing more skin to his touch.
“Answer the question, Ser Erryk,” he said, caressing you with his thumb. “You may look at her now.”
His face hardened before your eyes, and he swallowed hard, probably thinking it was bait.
Embarrassment eventually subsided and made way for a fluttering sensation in your stomach as Aemond’s tender caressed kept you yearning for more.
Ser Erryk eventually turned his gaze to you. “Yes, she is, my prince.”
A low chuckle escaped Aemond’s lips before pressing a soft kiss to the crook of your neck.
Your eyes immediately fluttered shut and you thanked the Gods that his hold on your shoulder was enough to ground you, for your knees momentarily faltered.
He lingered for a while before drawing back, leaving a wet spot that made you shiver. “Do you trust me?” Aemond whispered in your ear.
You shouldn’t.
You couldn’t
But you wanted to.
Just to see how far he’d go to make you his.
“Yes.”
You open your eyes only to be met with Ser Erryk’s that seemed to be fixed on you.
“Ser Erryk,” Aemond said in between scorching kisses to your skin. “Would you want to touch her?”
The young man blinked in confusion. “My prince?”
“Oh, do not misunderstand,” he said and you could feel his smile. “It is not an offer.”
The hand on your shoulder moved to your belly before he settles his forearm right under your breasts, pulling you into his embrace and sealing your heated skin of with another kiss.
“Answer it.”
Through half-closed eyes you watched Ser Erryk swallow, visibly unsure of how to react. “No, my prince.”
Aemond scoffed, pulling you even closer, until you started to feel the outline of his cock being pressed firmly against your ass. You parted your lips, unable to control your breathing as pleasure overtook your senses.
His breath fanned your neck one last time before he let go of you at once.
“Ser Erryk, you are to guard this door.”
He threw one last look at you, straightening himself.
Aemond swung the door open and pulled you in, and before you could process whatever was happening, he had you pinned against the wooden boards until the foor slammed shut.
“Aemond…”
But he would have none of your words.
Hunger and possessiveness commanded the kiss he took from you, framing your hand with his strong hands, and grunting from having his cock rubbing against you.
He tore his lips away, ruffling the fabric of your dress up your thighs. “Legs around me. Now.”
The sense of urgency in his voice jolted you, but you immediately wrapped one leg first and once he had it secured with one hand, you lifted the other, immediately bringing your core into contact with his strained cock.
Aemond immediately bucked his hips into you, purely out of reflex, and you moaned as he held your jaw with his hand, forcing you to gaze at him.
“He’s… outside… my prince,” you managed to breathe out, nearly rolling your eyes when the fabric of his pants rubbed against your throbbing clit.
“And he will know I’m the only men who is ever allowed to have you,” he said before pressing hurried kisses along your jawline. “He will hear it.”
Lust had taken over and guided your body to sway alongside his, welcoming his desperate thrusts and your own need to quench the thirst you had for this man.
Your eyes had fluttered shut when his took your lips in his, but quickly snapped open at the unmistakable sound of a blade being drawn.
Aemond had removed his eyepatch and his stare nearly took your breath away as he lifted his dagger to rest on the sapphire necklace he had gifted you.
You widened your eyes and let out a gasp once he dragged the cool metal along you skin, careful enough not to hurt you, settling it on the neckline of your dress.
“Do you trust me?” he asked for the second time that night.
You bit your lip, staring into his own sapphire. “No.”
“Allow me to change your mind.”
And with no further warning, he slide the dagger into your dress ripping it at the front, the tearing sound filling your ears.
You watched in shock as he threw the dagger to the blade to the floor.
Had Ser Erryk heard it too?
Even if he had missed it, he surely wouldn’t be able to miss the obscene noise of Aemond latching on to an exposed nipple, desperately sucking on it.
“Aemond…” you gasped, feeling your own wetness starting to coat your folds. “Aemond… Aemond…”
You kept on repeating his name like a prayer, not sure whether you were urging him or simply too lost in your own pleasure to say anything else.
He grunted as he rolled your nipple in between his teeth teasingly.
It was your time to snap your hips into his, and he immediately halted his ministrations to let out the most delicious growl you had ever heard.
“The many times I have wished to take you like this,” he whispered into your lips, rolling his clothed cock against you, one hand resting on the sapphire necklace. “You’re mine.”
A deep moan filled the room joining the rhythm sound of your body being slammed against the wooden door, certainly letting the man on the other side know the how it sounded to defy Aemond Targaryen and what he deemed as his.
“Ask him,” Aemond suddenly whispered as he fumbled with his pants.
“What…”
His hand finally managed to spring his cock free and, wasting no time, he pressed it on top of your soaked folds, applying just enough pressure until it sank in between them, relishing in your wetness.
“Tell him who you belong to,” he managed to say in between heavy pants.
As if to serve as motivation, he moved his hips to have his cock sliding up and down, the underside rubbing your clit.
“Ser Erryk…” you said, grasping his shoulders with both hands to keep the balance. “Ser Erryk…”
“Yes, my lady?”
His voice was low but firm, and you nearly let out a another breathy moan when Aemond brought his lips to your neck, sucking soundly.
“Who.. who..” your voiced died in your throat as the young prince’s cock relentlessly collected your wetness and spread it. “Who do I belong to…”
The member of the Kingsguard cleared his throat. “To… prince Aemond.”
Aemond removed his lips from your skin and planted a kiss. “Just marking you. Ser already Erryk knows you’re mine, and now others will, too.”
At this point you immediately realised you weren’t going to last much longer. Between his thick cock rubbing steadily into you and his words of lust, you knew your body wasn’t meant to withstand the unbearable level of pleasure.
You reached your peak first, crying out his name and pressing your head firmly against the door as your body rolled and your walls clenched around nothing.
Aemond pressed his forehead to the door, panting heavily into your ear. “Let me… just the tip…”
“Gods!” You sobbed as pleasured blinded your vision.
You felt him quickly shift under you, and gasped loudly once you felt him push the head of his cock into you.
Your legs quivered reflexively as he spilled profanities in High Valyrian as your walls clamped around him, rhythmically pushing him over the edge.
By the time Aemond went over the edge, you had already descended from your high, but still managed to find bliss in feeling the hot spurts of cum dripping from you.
Aemond threw his head back and his lips parted in a loud growl that you were sure would be heard across half of the Red Keep.
Both of you were left panting and by the time he had let you slide off his waist, you were able to feel the droplets of his released coating your folds and sliding down your thighs.
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Bring Me Home, Part 3
First, Previous
It’s been a while since I’ve shared anything from this fic. I’ve been working on it in the background, though. Might share something a bit longer in the upcoming week or so, even! Ended up reworking nearly everything I want to do for this fic, so it’s been a challenge.
This is the final segment from the first chapter I’ll share before posting to AO3. (There’s a lot more I haven’t shared, though.)
Fic Summary: Tim Drake and Danny Fenton come from very different backgrounds. But two things they have in common are neglectful parents and internet access. And so a friendship is born and secrets shared.
Word Count: 1.4k
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Danny’s hands shook as he held his phone. Then he cursed as it fell through his hands and clattered to the floor. He scrambled to retrieve it and his knees, rather than hit the floor, sunk through it. Eyes burning, he pushed himself up until he was kneeling on top of the floor and reached his phone again.
All of his focus was on staying solid as he dialed a number he’d memorized months ago but never saved. It rang twice and then Tim’s voice came through.
“Danny! It’s been too long since we’ve called each other! How’s it going?”
“Tim? I…” Danny’s voice caught in his throat. He hasn’t said the words yet. He tried to start again but couldn’t say a thing. Was he breathing? The phone fell through his hand again and he realized he was sinking into the floor. He choked back a sob and tried to pick up the phone, but his hands passed right through it.
He tried to take a breath, but it was shallow and shaky. He tried again and it was a little better. He focused and pushed up until he felt solid ground under his knees again. With the same determination, he picked up the phone. This time it didn’t fall.
“…ny? Danny! Are you there? What’s going on?”
“Tim?”
“Thank god, what’s happened? What’s wrong?”
His breathing was still rapid and shallow. “I… Tim, I….” He wiped away the tears he couldn’t stop.
“Danny, it’s okay. I’m here. Don’t force it. Can you breathe with me? In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four.” Tim continued to count his breaths.
It took a few repetitions, but eventually Danny was able to follow the pattern. Even if his breath still hitched every few counts. He decided to try again. “Tim, I died,” he blurted out. He pulled his knees up and rested his forehead against them; this time he didn’t fight the tears. “I’m dead. Only…not.”
Tim’s sharp intake of breath was the only sound he heard through the phone speaker for a few too-loud beats of his heart. His heart was still beating. He was still alive. It would be okay. It had to be okay.
“What do you mean?” asked Tim after a moment.
“I told you my parent’s portal didn’t work.”
“Yeah…?”
“Sam and Tucker wanted to see it. And Mom and Dad were depressed and haven’t been in the lab for like a week. So we went down. I… I…” The words wouldn’t come and Danny almost lost himself in the memories, but Tim started counting his breaths again. Danny listened and after a minute was able to continue.
“I entered the portal. They put the ‘on’ button inside. Who does that? But I tripped and hit the button. The portal opened up on top of me. I died. I know I did. But it didn’t take. I came back, too. Only now… I think I’m a ghost. Or part ghost. I’m human. I have to be. I still bleed and I have a heartbeat and I need to breathe. Only… not all the time. Sometimes I change. Into something else. Something not human. That doesn’t have a heartbeat or blood or…”
“Danny, are you safe? I’ll come get you. We can figure this out.”
“No! My parents love me. They forget me sometimes, but they love me. When they’re around, they ask questions and mom makes dinner and we play games and its good. They have done the most amount of research on ghosts of anyone in the world. I need the information they have.” His phone fell through his hand again. “Shit!” he cursed as he grabbed for it again. “I keep turning intangible. It makes me drop everything.”
“When did this happen?” Tim was talking slowly, his voice deliberately steady in a way Danny wasn’t used to.
“A few days ago. Sam or Tucker have been with me constantly since. But both their families needed them tonight. I seem to be mostly stable now. If I can just keep myself solid.” Danny laughed and he ignored how close it sounded to a sob. How did his life end up like this?
“The Justice League can help you. Or the Teen Titans if you would rather people closer to our age. We’ve dealt with people with powers before. We can help you learn to control them.”
“No!” It came out sharper than Danny meant it to. “My parents would find out. And they love me. They’d be fine with it. They would. But…” he trailed off. He couldn’t finish that sentence. He wouldn’t. He would not give voice to the fear that was growing in the back of his head. The one that got stronger when he remembered how his parents reacted the minute they realized the portal had started working. He pushed the memories of his mom laughing gleefully as she grabbed an ecto-gun and his dad set up the ecto-line to try and catch a ghost so they could dissect it.
“Okay, okay. No league. You said you turn intangible? What else happens? Maybe we can talk through this. Figure out ways to help you learn to control your powers. Can you send me some of your parent’s research?”
Danny’s breath came a little stronger. A plan. Tim would help him and they could make a plan. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll send you everything. I’m not at the computer now, but I’ll get it to you as soon as I can. Um. I have two forms. My normal self but also a ghost self. I can turn invisible and intangible. In my ghost form, sometimes my legs disappear and I just have a tail-cloud thing. Like Casper.” He laughed at how ridiculous this sounded. “Sam and Tuck took some pictures to document everything. I’ll try and send you those as well.”
“Thank you. That would help. Not how I imagined our face reveal…”
Danny snorted. “No. Can’t say this is what I imagined either.”
“Can you control your transformations?” It seemed Tim was getting down to business. Danny appreciated that; he needed someone to help him figure out what to do next.
“Full transformation, yeah. I seem to be able to. It’s not perfect, but I’m getting there. It’s the bleed over powers. They’re easier to control in my ghost form than my human one.”
“Bleed over powers. You mean the invisibility and intangibility?”
“Yeah. I dropped like three beakers in Chemistry lab yesterday. I’m not allowed to touch any glassware for the rest of the year.”
Tim whistled. “That’s impressive. Short term, do you have plastic at home? Cups, plates, all of it. Use that for the time being. If you drop it, no big deal.”
“We do still have some stuff from when Jazz and I were younger. Good idea.”
“Next, pay close attention to what happens when you become intangible. What’s going on around you, how are you feeling? Carry a notebook and write down everything you can think of for each instance. Teachers won’t think twice about you writing in a notebook during class, so do it as soon as you possibly can. Also write down the circumstances and feelings surrounding intentional instances. It’s only been a few days. You’ll be able to get this under control, Danny. I know you can.”
Danny took a deep breath. This time it was steadier. He had a plan. “You’re right. That’s perfect. I know Jazz has extra notebooks, I’ll get one from her. Thanks Tim.”
“Keep me updated? I want to hear from you every day. I don’t know if I trust your parents.”
“Will do. I think I’ll be getting my own laptop soon, so that’ll make it easier.”
“Good. I’m not kidding—every day, Danny. And I think we need a failsafe from your end, too. You’ve got Alfred’s number if I ever stop responding so you can get updates on me. I want someone to contact, too.” Tim’s tone brokered no disagreements, and Danny realized he was smiling sincerely for the first time since the accident.
“I… yeah. That’s a good idea. Contact Tucker. He’s always got some sort of device on him and will respond the quickest.” Danny quickly listed off Tucker’s email and phone number. “Now, can we talk about something else? I need a distraction. What’s been going on in your life?”
Danny listened as Tim talked about a mission he and Batman had gone on recently. He really had the best friends.
So now they're both on the vigilante train! God, I miss writing scenes with just 2 characters. Looking over this for a final editing pass, it's so easy when there's only two characters. Nothing else that I'm working on at the moment has fewer than seven people actively in the scene. Seven plus people with strong personalities.
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(I also like writing angst and think I'm pretty decent at it which also made this scene easier.)
Tag List
@gremlin-bot, @bonebrokebuddy, @britcision, @lady-time-lord-, @welcometosasakiworld, @akikkobara, @phoenixdemonqueen, @dolfay, @skulld3mort-1fan, @we-ezer, @markus209, @sjrose1216, @onyxlightdragon, @dragonsrequiem, @jesus-camp-the-sequel, @spidey29phangirl, @kyrianclawraith, @evilminji, @introvert-even-on-the-internet, @emergentpanda-blog, @lexdamo, @v-inari, @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit, @longlivethefallen, @undead-essence, @xye-chan, @liandrin, @seraphinedemort
#dpxdc#danny fenton#tim drake#dead tired#danny is struggling#but he's got some good friends#and tim won't let him suffer alone#danny just has to accept the help he has
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I know you said you might do this anyway, but what were the bachelorette's first impressions of the farmer? how did they all fall in love with them?
I had so many thoughts about this, and even though I cut out quite a bit—yes, it was worse than this—they’re still big. I actually had to rework the format because tumblr literally would not let me post the fucking text wall that was Maru's part, and then I couldn't have her part be formatted differently because that drove me insane. Jesus. Writing for Emily is still a little unfamiliar to me, and I think it reflects in my writing a little bit, but I hope I did her justice.
Bachelors are here.
Bulleted format. Scattered dialogue, self-doubt, and a little bit of thirst(Leah's fault, not mine), but mostly fluff. Mentions of injuries, blood, and the farmer being a reckless dumbass. Not proofread, please excuse any mistakes, my English isn’t great. Some of them include a bouquet, others do not. I stuck to canon for most of them, but I gotta be honest, sometimes my imagination is just so much more fun. Enjoy <3
Maru
Maru is extremely excited to meet you
Those farmlands have been sitting there for years, wasting away and falling apart with no one to care for them, and as a little girl she absolutely loved your grandpa
She was always interested in agriculture, and watching him work was never anything but interesting to her
She was heartbroken when he passed away, but because the farm belonged to your family after that, and there was a strict ‘no trespassing’ rule, she never got to visit
She could stand outside the gate, looking over the slowly deteriorating land, but never ever did she hop the fence
So the idea of the farmlands opening back up was a dream come true for her—the fact that someone was finally going to start caring for the land again filled her with so much joy
When she does finally meet you, that joy is confounded with curiosity
She can admit readily that she’s attracted to you, but she doesn’t get many opportunities to speak to you after the initial introductions, so it doesn’t go much deeper than that
You’re always so busy, and she doesn’t want to bother you, lest she distract you from your chores or responsibilities
But sometimes, you’ll come into town for your errands, and watching you flitting around with so much on your plate makes her hopeful for the future of the valley
She knows that your grandfather must be resting easy now, with the farm in your capable hands
Honestly, at first she thought you might fix up the farm enough to sell the land and make a dollar off of it, and then bounce
She’s relieved to know that you’re not doing that
And the more buildings you commission from Robin, the more excited she gets
There’s one time when she goes on a walk to take a break from a frustrating problem with one of her machines, and she ends up at the northern entrance of your farm
It’s greater than it ever was under your grandfather
The fields are full, there’s animal pens bursting with life, and you’re standing a little ways off, feeding your horse
You notice her, sensing her stare, and she’s terribly embarrassed at showing up without any invitation or warning—even if it was unintentional
But you grin, happy for the company, and usher her onto your property
She flicks open the gate, and the moment her feet touch the ground beyond the fence, she’s teleported back to her time as a toddler, when she would chase the chickens and watch your grandfather work
You’ve heard how close she was with him, and how much she looked up to him, so when she starts tearing up looking around the property, you lead her to your grandfather’s shrine
She kneels in front of the stone, holding her breath still in her chest to keep from sobbing
She’d never been able to visit the headstone before that moment, and seeing his name carved into the dark stone broke her heart
You give her permission to visit the farm whenever she likes, even when you’re not home, if ever she wants to visit him or take a break from everything
The farm is peaceful and beautiful, and she takes you up on the offer with a wet smile
She starts visiting frequently after that, more often when she knows you’re home, but sometimes when you’re not
One day in particular comes to mind: you’d run off to the desert for the day, for one reason or another
She spent the day pacing around the farm, and while she was watching the animals disappear into their pens as the sun crept below the mountains, there was an otherworldly whirring sound by your home
She investigated, and when she spotted you behind your farmhouse, she almost fell apart right then and there
Your body was bruised, and there were shallow cuts in your skin where your clothes were torn—most of them looked like claw marks, but there were also pieces of your clothing and hair that were dark and ashy, like you’d been singed by flames
You caught sight of her, and the relieved smile on your face was like nothing she’s ever seen before
She couldn’t stand to see the farm fall apart again—that was what she told herself, anyway, as she helped you into the farmhouse with a hand around your hip, fully supporting you as you trudged up the front steps
You collapse on the couch, too exhausted and sore to walk up the stairs to your bedroom
She does her best with what limited first aid supplies you have, and thankfully your injuries aren’t terrible, so she manages it well enough
But she’s terrified, though she knows that the likelihood of you dying on your couch is slim to none
While she’s bandaging a cut on your cheek, you realize that her hands are shaking terribly
Carefully, you reach up to hold her wrist, and she stops short
The air between you is charged with something new as you lock eyes
It clicks for her then
But she’s afraid that if it isn’t reciprocated, you’ll stop letting her visit your grandfather and the farm, so she keeps that firmly to herself when you ask if she’s alright
She reassures you that she’s fine, just a little shaken, and that she’ll feel better if you let her finish
She stays over that night, keeping an eye on you from the other couch as you sleep—just for her peace of mind
You wake up and you’re a little better, but she still walks you down to the clinic in the morning for Harvey to properly look you over and treat you
Her dad gives her a lot of shit for spending the night at your place, but she’s confident in her choice and doesn’t regret it, not with your injuries treated properly and your chipper smile flashing in the sunlight as you walk through the square a few days later
It’s a little tense with her father for a while afterward, but she’s not having any of it and is quick to shut him down whenever he tries to scold her—she might have his brains, but she got her mother’s spirit
You feel like shit for putting her through all of that though, and so you stay away from the caverns unless it’s strictly necessary
When it is necessary, you take a lot of food and warp totems with you, just in case—and staircases. Loooots of staircases
She’s grateful for that, but doesn’t know how much until a long while later
It’s not your fault—it was a misunderstanding
Her parents mentioned you on Friday after they got home from date night at Stardrop, and her whole world came crashing down
They told her that you looked terrible, and that you mentioned spending the day in the desert
she was out the door a moment later
Maru sprinted the whole way down to town square, praying you were still at the saloon, and when she busted through the door, you were perched at the bar with a pint in your hand
At the sound of someone nearly crashing through the front door, you lifted up your head, and she really wished her parents could be more specific
You do look terrible, but not because you’re in bad shape—you’ve just got a nasty sunburn and the most horrendous bags under your eyes
Everyone is staring at her, because she never goes to the saloon, but she doesn’t care
She’s so grateful that you’re okay, albeit a little tired
You recognize the look on her face, pay for your tab without bothering to finish your drink, and pull her right back out the door
You walk her home, gently explaining that no, you did not go into the caverns today, you only went to the desert to pick up things from Sandy’s shop and for some “exotic foraging,” for lack of better phrasing, and the sun just took it out of you
You don’t owe her an explanation, it’s none of her business what you get up to, she says, but you shut that down with a hard look, stopping still in the middle of the path to her home
She can’t meet your eyes for fear of you seeing right through her
Her worry, her fear, her paranoia and the wild look in her eyes when she spotted you at the bar was all too honest
There’s more there, and she’s terrified that you’ve figured it out
“You want it to be your business though, don’t you?”
She bites her lip hard, trying not to cry now that she knows she’s been found out
She nods, and then your hand is circling her wrist, and you’re pulling her into your chest
“I want it to be your business too.”
And if you feel her tears drip onto your clothed shoulder, you don’t mention it
Penny
Penny stopped in her tracks the first time she saw you
It was a few days after you’d arrived in Pelican Town, maybe the third or the fourth of Spring
She was dropping Jas off at home when she saw you chopping down trees in Cindersap with a worse-for-wear knapsack slung diagonally over your shoulders, stuffed full with wood and fiber
You were sweating, and panting, and part of her was concerned for your wellbeing, because in that moment she was sure you’d collapse right in the grass beside your ax
But then you wiped the sweat off of your forehead and felled a giant pine tree, in no time at all
She was going to stare some more, but then Jas yanked on Penny’s arm and asked her to walk her inside
Penny only barely managed to tear her gaze away from you to take Jas inside and drop her off
She’s not totally proud of it, and Marnie still teases her for it a little bit, but she rushed through dropping Jas off and was a little short with both of them in her eagerness to get back outside—but not to talk to you. Oh, no.
She was much too shy to do that
But she wanted to see you one more time before you left
Unfortunately by the time she escaped Marnie’s questioning stare, and all but tumbled out of the front door in her rush, you were already packed up and gone
You didn’t go to the egg festival (you were broke, and probably forgot about it in favor of clearing your farmlands)
The next time she got to take a look at you—a proper look, this time—was at the flower dance
You were walking around the meadow, introducing yourself to some, and familiarly greeting others
And when you introduced yourself to her, she nearly forgot her own name as you shook her hand
It had been four weeks since you moved to town, and your hands were calloused from the farm work you’d been busting your ass at since you arrived
But that was the only rough part about you
Everything else was soft and kind, and the way you said her name made butterflies erupt in her stomach
And the smile you gave her afterward was so pretty
She couldn’t forget the way your eyes crinkled at the edges as you bid her good luck during the dance and went on your way
And from then on, it felt like she was seeing you everywhere
Hearing about you from the other townsfolk, catching sight of you walking through town at least twice a day, and even getting a few opportunities to talk with you herself
And then her tiff with George happened, and she swears no one had ever been so quick to defend her—she was a little starstruck when you smiled softly at her after he was gone, and reassured her that what she did was kind and good-intended
You were always smiling at her like that, heartbreakingly gentle
When she apologized for the way her mom shouted at you after trying to help clean their trailer, when you ate her poor attempt at stir-fry without complaint, and especially when you showed up during her field trip with the kids in Cindersap
Clearly just out of the fields, dirt on your knees and mud on your boots, with the most breathtaking glitter in your eyes
Your skin was flushed from exertion, and she’s never seen anyone look attractive while sweating, yet there you stood, backlit by the early afternoon sun
And watching you interact with the kids was the cherry on top
She’s always wanted a big family, but no one in Pelican Town ever seemed like a good match for her—not in the long run, anyway
But she thinks you’re kind, and safe, and you have a natural energy that makes you easy to get along with
She’s well aware that she likes you, but she’s used to things not going her way, or being taken from her, so she resigns herself to an eternity of pining after you
She tries not to fantasize too much, because it’s a little embarrassing, and it hurts a little, but sometimes she can’t help but imagine what you might look like with a child bouncing on your hip
What you’d like for breakfast—how you’d like your eggs in the morning
She thinks about what domestic life with you would be like constantly
Shortly after Robin builds Penny and Pam their house, you show up on her doorstep
You asked Robin to keep it a secret, of course, so Penny doesn’t know it was you and still doesn’t
But she invites you in, too excited to show you everything to notice the stunning array of flowers clutched tightly behind your back
She insists on showing you around, and letting you check everything out
You both step into the kitchen, and she’s gesturing grandly at the dining space, practically squealing over the hand-embroidered tablecloth Granny Evelyn gave them as a housewarming gift
She spins around. “So? What do you think?”
And that’s when you finally reveal the bouquet behind your back
“I think these might look good on the table.”
She thinks you’re being kind, or that maybe you don’t know what those bouquets are for, because there’s just no way, right?
“Oh!—I’m sure we have a vase for these somewhere, just let me—”
You stop her with a careful hand on her wrist, barely gripping just in case you’ve read it all wrong and she wants to get away from you
“Penny. Do you… know what I’m asking you?”
And she does, but she’s in disbelief. There’s no way you’d want her too, right?
And now that she thinks about it, she could’ve sworn you were interested in Haley or Abigail, because, you know, obviously they’re both really pretty, but Haley’s family has money, and Abigail’s so much cooler than her—
“If I wanted them, would I be here, giving a bouquet to you?”
After you leave—because as romantic as you are, you’re still a busy person running a farm all by yourself—she puts the flowers on the table with the dopiest grin on her face
She flops into her bed and squeals into her pillow, the fluttering in her chest so strong she swears she could float away
She has trouble falling asleep that night, too busy thinking of your smile as she stares at the ceiling fan
Abigail
She’s determined to dislike you from the get-go no wonder her and Seb are friends
When she finally sees you, during an early spring trip to Pierre’s, she takes the sudden drop in her stomach as a sign that you’re bad news
Then you beat her at the egg hunt, and she’s in a sour mood for days
she will straight up refuse to leave her room if she knows you’re in the shop
Wednesday is her favorite day of the week, because she won’t have to see you
But of course you have the audacity to show up one day when she’s only just managed to get out of helping her mom with dinner
She’s getting her ass kicked in JotPK when you knock on her bedroom door
She doesn’t know why the hell you’re bothering her, and she’s suddenly embarrassed that you caught her right as she died, but then she gets an idea
She asks you to play in the hopes that you’re terrible at it so at least she’ll finally have proof that you’re not good at everything or perfect all the time
She half-hopes you say no, but then you’re sitting down and reaching for a controller, so she’s stuck with you
You make it past the first level without dying, while she gets killed within the first thirty seconds, because of fucking course
She’s halfway through thinking up a snarky barb when her mom calls for her
You set the controller down and smile at her, and then you’re reaching into your pocket
“I came over to give this to you. I found it in the mines, and it reminded me of you.”
You hand her the most opaque, gorgeous raw amethyst she’s ever seen
She has half a mind to ask why on earth you’d think about her, but then her mother is calling her again, more urgently the second time around, and you’re walking out within seconds
She stares at the amethyst for what feels like forever that night, thinking
She doesn’t get the opportunity to properly speak to you again until a week later
It’s raining, and she’s playing her flute, just basking in the whimsy feeling of the valley
She opens her eyes after a particularly long note to find you standing a few feet off, your fishing rod in hand
The rain is soaking you to the bone, with some of your hair stuck to the delicate skin of your throat, and she short-circuits
Her gut reaction is to get defensive and ask you what you’re doing, but you handle it with grace
You ask her what she was doing, and when she says she wanted to spend time alone, the recognition on your face is palpable
You nod, adjusting the strap of your backpack on your shoulder, but she stops you, saying some bullshit about how she doesn’t mind your company
Hasn’t she minded your company since you first showed up? Why is she lying??
But the surprise and hesitance clear on your face makes her feel… not nice
So she scoots over, gesturing vaguely to the space beside her
“You’re getting soaked. Come stand under the tree.”
What progress you made with her is quickly dashed when you pull out the mini harp—because why wouldn’t you also play an instrument?
She’s always been competitive, but she doesn’t understand why she’s so desperate to have something over you
Hearing about your trips in the mines from the other townies doesn’t help
Knowing you have the freedom to go wherever you like without any overbearing, old-school parents breathing down your neck, and the fact that you’re apparently in good standing with the two adventurers up at the guild, who speak to basically no one else?
One night her self-worth is particularly bad, and she runs off to the graveyard for some peace and quiet
Her dad is getting on her ass about “acting like a lady” more than usual and it’s been driving her up the wall
It rubs her the wrong way how no one bats an eye at the things you get up to, but everyone’s always getting on her case about acting “proper”
And of course you show up that night, too
Right in the middle of her break between drills, while she’s heaving and guzzling water
You appear out of seemingly nowhere, and the shriek she lets out is so fucking embarrassing
You don’t laugh at her for that, but she does see the mirth in your eyes when she says she was practicing her swordsmanship
As if the thought of her swinging a sword around is so funny to you
She snaps something about that, but then her entire world flips on its axis when you chuckle good-naturedly and make a joke about how pissy it must make Pierre, what with his old, dated-ass values
And then you ask if she’d ever like to practice with you—“I could use a sparring partner anyway”
And obviously Pierre catches you chatting in front of the headstones and nearly pops a blood vessel, and she’s irritated that you had to see them like that, but she’s caught totally off guard when you back her up and laugh at Pierre’s expense
“I know he’s your dad and all, so no disrespect to him, but fucking hell, the stick up his ass is massive”
That lightens her mood a bit, knowing that she has at least one more person who acknowledges that her parents are overbearing sometimes
Unfortunately for your patience, it takes a long time and a few sparring sessions before everything clicks into place for her
In the thick, humid heat of summer, she finally gets you down, her wooden sword pressed just below your jugular
The golden afternoon sunlight bounces off the sweat on your face, and it makes you glow beneath her
You give her a breathless smile, with an eager and impressed shimmer in your eyes, and suddenly, she understands
Every moment since you stepped off of the bus, she’s been pining after you
Desperate to have something over you, not because she wants to be better than you, per se, but because she wants to impress you
She cuts the session short, not glancing behind her even once as she all but sprints away from the farmlands
Once she’s home, she rushes into her room and locks herself inside, her face beet-red and sweaty from the run, and from you
The amethyst you gave her so long ago sits on her night stand, mocking her with its deep purple glow
And oh, she is so fucked.
Haley
She doesn’t share in the enthusiasm everyone has about you, and she honestly doesn’t really care that you’ve moved in
She has no interest in making friends with you—you’re always covered in dirt and sweat and she thinks it’s really strange gross
After you take Emily’s side over the couch cushions, she’s pretty bratty for a bit, and is convinced you have a crush on Emily in order to side with her
But if you give it a few weeks, she accepts that maybe that’s not true, given that your interactions with Emily don’t seem more than platonic
But there’s this one time, where you’re over to drop off some cloth or something, and she’s struggling with a jar in the kitchen
You open it for her without question, and when your hands brush against each other when you hand the jar back, Haley’s skin tingles
But then Emily is there and you’re leaving, so she doesn’t bother examining it further, content to move on with her life
That plan comes crashing down rather quickly though
A few weeks later while taking pictures at the beach, she notices her wrist is uncharacteristically barren
Immediate panic swells in her chest, and she spends thirty minutes pacing over the tiny dunes looking for her great-grandmother’s bracelet, not even caring when sand spills into her shoes and starts rubbing against her skin uncomfortably
She’s close to tears, paranoid and jerking her head this way and that at the slightest glimmer in the sand
Those thirty minutes pass, and she’s not found anything, and her tears start flowing freely
“Haley?”
She spins around, and sees you
She knows how eager you are to help everyone in town—you’re helping to fix up the old community center, all of the museum’s donation placards have your name on them, and every board request outside of Pierre’s rarely goes unanswered
Besides, you’ve helped George and Shane before, and surely she’s not as grouchy as they are, so maybe you’d be willing to help her, too?
She calls you over, and you immediately rush over at her tone
The concern on your face is enough to make a wave of fresh tears push forward, but she blinks them back desperately
Your hands are on her shoulders, squeezing softly as she tries not to cry
She resigns herself to never seeing her grandmother’s bracelet again, when your hands are leaving her skin
She feels cold immediately, even with the sun beating down on her neck
But then you start walking around, hunting for her lost jewelry with a focus unlike anything she’s ever seen, and the thought of you helping her when she’s been basically nothing but unkind makes her feel awful
Her tears get a new kick to them, clogging up her chest and making her sick to her stomach, when you’re calling out from across the beach
You rush over from Elliott’s shack, and she sees her bracelet glittering between your fingers as you hold it out
“Is this it?”
She doesn’t bother with a verbal response, grabbing the bracelet tightly in her own hand and flinging her arms around your shoulders to hug you close
She doesn’t think she’s imagining the blush on your face as you help her put the bracelet back on, and the way you hold her wrist before pulling away makes her burn
After that moment, she’s always noticing things about you
The little things you do that show how much you care for other people, how kind and compassionate you are—the way you have everyone wrapped around your finger, and you don’t even know it
She knows that’s not true, though—she knows that you can tell the effect you have on people, but she’s struck dumb by the fact that you never use that against them
You’re never manipulative, never inconsiderate, never anything but good and kind and she’s so fucking insecure because she’s always been bratty and selfish and shallow and there’s no way someone like you would ever like her back—Oh.
She wants you, but doesn’t think she deserves to, given how she treats people
She’s never really been one to wallow, though, so she springs to action immediately
She goes through her closet and donates half of her wardrobe, she starts doing her part to keep the house tidy, she smiles and waves at anyone she passes in town—she’s even started hanging out with Emily, and she’s having fun
After a few weeks, she realizes that now she’s motivated more by her relationships flourishing, instead of trying to impress you
But she can tell it’s making a difference with you, too, and that’s a nice plus
Especially when you’re both standing in Marnie’s pens, taking pictures with the cows, and you’re so gentle with her after she gets bucked off
You insist on walking her home, carrying her camera equipment for her and watching her closely for any discomfort or limping
She’s never felt so cared for, and she can’t think of anything else while she’s washing the mud off of herself
But you don’t ask her out until a little while later, probably sometime in Winter 2
You go into her house, and Emily sees the bouquet first, immediately knowing what it’s for and all but shoving you in the direction of the kitchen
Haley’s standing at the counter, making herself some peppermint coffee in her sleep clothes yes i’m bitter it’s not an in game item shut up, and maybe it’s not as romantic as you wanted it to be, but she just looks so cute and cozy that you ask anyway
She says yes, of course, and she can’t stop smiling long enough to drink her coffee, even after you’re gone and the flowers are sitting proudly on her vanity
Leah
Leah’s world isn’t really affected all that much when you show up in Pelican Town
She’s excited to see what you do with the farmlands, and she wouldn’t be opposed to having another friend besides Elliott, but she’s not going to bust her ass to make friends with you
She’s got bills to pay on an artist’s salary, and her days are filled with foraging and working on her art, so she busy
But the first time she meets you is when she’s walking to the spring onion patch for some late morning foraging
When she arrives, she’s disappointed to find that you’re already there, yanking the last of the spring onions out of the ground
Most of her money goes into paying her bills, so her diet mainly consists of food she’s foraged in Cindersap or around the valley
She depends a little too heavily on the onions during spring, so if there’s someone else in the valley who forages for food besides Linus, she’s got to rework her schedule to make sure she gets enough to eat
She’s in the middle of asking what you did before moving to Pelican Town when you pull a face and start digging through your bag
And then you’re dropping five of the largest ones into her basket
She’s surprised by it, and her gut reaction is to tell you ‘oh, you didn’t have to do that, I could’ve found something else’—but you’re not having any of it
You’re waving goodbye and traipsing off towards the tower, the sun beating down and making you gleam like gold
She shakes it off and walks home, caught off guard by how readily kind you are to someone you only just met
And your kindness doesn’t stop there
Sometimes she doesn’t have time between her art projects to go look for anything in Cindersap, so you take it upon yourself to get things for her too
And the only reason you overhear her heated phone conversation with Kel is because you’re dropping off forage for her
She starts doing the same for you, when your farm really takes off
She’s blown away by how much progress you’ve made, and she’s honestly a little jealous, but she can’t find it in herself to be bitter because you’re so wonderful all the time
Someone like you deserves a nice life like that, you know?
She’s inspired by you and your kindness, so much that she carves a sculpture for you
She doesn’t realize she has feelings for you when you display her sculpture on your porch, even though the feeling in her chest is overwhelming and fluttery
The moment she pieces everything together, it’s your fault
She’s trying to reach a fruit high up in the cherry blossom tree, already breathless from her continued efforts, when you appear out of thin air and scare the living daylights out of her
She looks up at the fruit longingly, and maybe if she jumps off of the trunk she can reach a little higher—
You lift her up like she weighs nothing, smiling kindly as she looks down at you in surprise
She’s sitting on your shoulder, your hands supporting her under her boots, and she plucks the fruit from the branch with a few twists
You let her down, snorting dryly when she comments on your strength, and she quickly uses her whittling knife to carve off a piece of the fruit for you
She holds it out for you to take, but you glance down at your hands with a frown
You got dirt on them from her shoes when you lifted her up, and you’re not totally jazzed at the idea of eating mud and dirt with your fruit
She thinks maybe you’ll stick your hands in the pond to rinse them off, but nope.
She blushes furiously when you lean forward and take the fruit into your mouth, straight out of her hand
Your lips brush her fingertips, and she gasps at the contact
You swallow and smile, and then you’re shrugging your backpack on and walking away like you totally didn’t just flip her world upside down and turn it inside out
It’s all she can think about from then on, no matter what you’re talking about or how brief your interactions are
She tries her best not to let it show, but it’s hard when you’re all she can think about, and all she wants to do is kiss those god awful lips of yours
She invites you to her art show in town, and you show up all dressed up for the occasion, with a glitter in your eyes she’s never seen before
Encouraging her once again, and for fucks’ sake would you please stop looking at her like that???? She’s about to give a speech to the whole town, she’s already nervous!
The show goes well—her sculptures were all sold, and Mayor Lewis even commissioned her for a Pelican Statue to put in the town square
Life’s going better than it has in a long time; her bills will be paid, and her confidence is through the roof
You’re walking her home after the show when you daringly thread your hands together
She looks at you in surprise, transfixed by the steady blush creeping down your neck and up to the tips of your ears
She squeezes your hand, a blush of her own spreading over her face that doesn’t go away even after you drop her off
She flops into bed with a dopey grin on her face, giggling uncontrollably and kicking her feet and holy fuck, she’s in her late twenties, why is she so giddy over holding hands???
It’s embarrassing, but no one is here with her anyway, so who cares?
You like her too.
You like her too.
Emily
She’s practically foaming at the mouth to meet you LMFAO
She had a dream about a new farmer moving into Pelican Town a month before you even quit at Joja
So when the townspeople found out you claimed your grandfather’s farm, Emily was truthfully, impatient as hell
She tried to keep her mind busy so it didn’t occupy her every day, but it got harder to do the closer it got to your arrival date
And she swore there was something different in the air when you stepped off the bus
The egg festival was the first time she spoke to you, and she’s sure it must be destiny that you spoke to her first out of everyone in the square
Right off the bat she knew there was something different about you
The way you carried yourself, and how you looked at the world around you
There was wonder there, like you had only just started living
She got the opportunity to know why when you visited the saloon one night
It was slow, and she was busying herself by wiping out a few wine glasses when you walked in, fresh out of the mines
You looked worse for wear, but when she asked if you were alright, your mood was overwhelmingly positive
Exploring the mines was easier than working at Joja at least—or so you claimed
Given how often she hears about people feeling stuck and stagnant, she’s glad at least one person in Pelican Town is taking charge of their life and trying to be happy
But the longer you’re in the valley, the better everyone’s lives seem to be going
Pam has her job back again, the minecarts are working, and then the community center is up and running—all thanks to you
She finally understands why she was having dreams before you ever showed up when the Joja Mart closes down and gets remodeled into a gorgeous movie theater a few weeks later
Everywhere you go good fortune seems to follow—the trees sway toward you, the water calms in your presence, and the wind blows a little gentler, and now the community is finally rid of that terrible corporation’s presence
When she finally realizes that she likes you, there’s no catalyst—no special moment or anything
You’re not even there when it clicks
She’s in her room, sewing a new dress for Haley for Feast of the Winter Star Christmas, and her train of thought wanders to you
She thinks of the dreams, of your influence over the townspeople, over the flora and fauna, and she knows that it was destiny for you to move to Pelican Town and fix everything
But then she sets that aside, and thinks about you
Just you
The way you look after a day out in your fields, the sound of your laugh, the dedication you show in everything you do, and the compassion and thoughtfulness of your actions
Even when you’re not fixing up the town, or dropping off gifts to some townie or another, you’re a bright spot in the middle of the gloom—the eye of the storm
You’re safe, and she gets teared up thinking about you
She likes you so much
She’s immediately abandoning the dress in favor of busting out her tarot cards, because now she has to know for sure
Is it a waste of time? Is it for her to decide? Is it destiny?
She doesn’t know, and she needs to find out before it drives her insane, and then The Lovers and Two of Cups fall out of her deck
She’s confident that the universe is pointing her in your direction, and she’s not going to ignore those signs any longer
She’s on her way to Pierre’s, coin purse in hand and jingling with the gold she needs to seal her future with you, when you run smack into each other outside of her house
You both stumble, but while you right yourself without issue, she falls backward
You catch her just in time and drag her back to her feet, apologizing profusely for knocking her down, and seeing you in front of her with your arms carefully looped around her waist, well
She confesses on the spot
It’s awkward, she’s stuttering the whole time, and you’re wide eyed in surprise as she stumbles over her words
Eventually she trails off, her cheeks as red as her dress, when you smile softly, and hold up a bouquet
She didn’t even notice it in your hands, but seeing it now, how could she have possibly missed it?????
A little bummed that you bought the bouquet first, but then again, this is the universe we’re talking about, she can’t complain about its methods
Certainly not when you’re carefully kissing her cheek and placing the flowers in her hands
#maru#leah#emily#haley#abigail#penny#sdv bachelorettes#sdv#stardew valley#blurbs#asks#requests#anon#headcanons#stardew valley headcanons#long post#lmfao catch me in a puddle on the floor because this took so long to get out
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Bite to Bruise - 36
This work is mine and I do not give consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted without my permission. I am sharing chapters as I work on this story but it is copyrighted material that I plan to rework and publish when completed.
story tags: modern-fantasy mashup, werewolves, witches, monsters, romance, learning to trust, hurt/comfort, blood, violence, explicit sex, explicit language
The earlier parts can be found under the tag or over on patreon. <3
BITE TO BRUISE - CHAPTER 36.
She stumbled into her valley, reaching her ruined cottage. She had never wanted him to find it, even in her nightmares this was never where Baron caught up to her.
His laughter echoed between the trees behind her.
She ran for the side of the house, but he was already there, grinning at her. Fresh blood clung to his cheek, smeared from the mess of a bite he’d taken, while more blood stained his torn shirt and smeared his skin where he had been the one bitten in his short stint in the battle.
“No. You’re not getting away now. To think, you were this close the whole time…” Baron said, looking over his shoulder at the deep shadows of the forest. “Do you know how many of your kind we lost to the woods? They went where we couldn’t follow. I would think they died there, but every so often one comes back out. Tell me, Wilhelm… is that what drew you here? Were you just too afraid to take that leap and go past the river?”
Wren trembled but stood her ground, finally taking a long look at him. He was exactly as she remembered. And why wouldn’t he be? He was unaging. Undying. Nothing she could do could change that. “My name is Wren.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, it is this time. Forgive me, but you don’t quite look yourself. You’ve been hiding well.”
Her mouth twitched, tears overflowing. She swallowed down reason. Blackwell had been right about that—there was no reasoning with him. Logic would not help her now. “How many times have we done this?”
His eyebrow lifted, head tipping curiously. “You know?”
“How many times have you murdered me?”
His lips twitched, flashing teeth. “How many of my blood did you kill? We’re not even yet. A lifetime for a lifetime…and their lives were supposed to be endless.”
“How many wolves did you kill first?”
He tsked between teeth and she shivered, remembering that mouth on her hand and how easily his teeth had snapped through her finger. “Hardly comparable. You were going to leave me. I did what anyone would have.” He raised a hand. “We’ve gone over this before. Your reasoning and begging will do nothing to change my mind.”
She dragged shaky breaths but nodded in agreement, hearing the roots under her feet wake up after their frosty sleep. “Okay. Then let’s skip that part.”
Baron blinked in surprise, lips parting to say something that was lost in the air when the ground pulled open and tried to swallow him.
He moved fast, somehow climbing the moving soil and rocks as they churned underfoot. He almost lost his footing, knee-deep for a second before snarling and pushing himself faster, climbing high and coming for her.
She had to give up the ground when he swiped for her throat, pulling power in and pushing it out to shove him back, rolling him into a tree.
The black of her magic on her fingers crawled past the low cut of her leather gloves, spreading over the backs of her hands and deep into her palms. She pulled the gloves off and almost remembered clearly a time when her arms and legs had been completely black, screaming testament to how much power she had turned into craft in their world.
A previous life.
Lifetimes.
She had been trapped in this cycle of pain and death with him for so many short agonizing lifetimes but she kept coming back. It wasn’t that she was too scared to cross the river. She wasn’t ready to go. She had lived so many lives but not that one she wanted—not the one he stole.
Her palms hummed with power and when Kish pushed himself to his feet, she saw him doing it a hundred times in her memory. He wore a hundred different outfits, in different places, in different times. Sometimes he was snarling and sometimes he was laughing.
Here and now, he grinned furiously. “You haven’t done this in ages, Wilhelm.”
“That’s not my name,” she reminded, feeling her wolf break through the tree line into the woods, cutting a line straight for her.
She had fought wars in old lives, performed miracles, risen islands from the sea, and sunk cities into the ground. She was nameless and endless. Who the fuck was this shade to stop her from having what she wanted? Who was he to kill her?
Kish snarled and stalked toward her, ready for her attack this time, his cunning eyes studying her carefully. It was a game they had played many times just the two of them.
Behind her, the slush and snow parted, creating a track through the trees to that shadow with teeth.
She didn’t back up. She didn’t run. She waited as her nightmare stepped closer and closer, reaching for her, those fingers close to her cheek. In his dark eyes, she saw her reflection and only then realized she had dropped the glamour of Bellamy. That forever broken face looked back at her and for the first time she saw it clearly—the latest face in a line of faces that had all been hers, just as Bellamy was hers. She smiled when Kish froze, realizing his mistake too late. In his eyes, she saw one shadow burst out of the others behind her, reflected in his pupil. “My name is Wren,” she told him and then stepped to the side as the giant fenrir barreled into his chest, teeth snapping over his face.
#
Baron almost had his hands on his witch when they slid to the side and the wolf slammed into him. Darkness edged in teeth blotted out the world, enamel digging into the sides of his head and bearing him to the ground.
Baron laughed inside that beast’s mouth. “Again? What is it with you and these dogs?” he called to Wilhelm, his voice echoing in a chamber of flesh and teeth.
The fenrir jerked side to side, as though he might be able to rip Baron’s head from his shoulders. His spine snapped like a whip, breaking only to crack and heal instantly. A heavy paw pressed into his chest, trying to pin him while those jaws continued to dig in and pull.
Baron snarled against the warm, wet breath of a wolf, finally grabbing fistfuls of that body over his. Fenrir were a strange texture, between smoke and fur, but there was muscle underneath. They broke and bled and died like everything else living in the world. He pushed and the dog pulled, his spine breaking and healing again. The pain felt like fireworks in his spine, going off between vertebrae.
He clawed, digging fingers into skin and then pushed his head deeper into that maw rather than trying to pull free. He bit at the dog’s tongue, his teeth much smaller and sharper than the beast pinning him. His mouth welled with that foul blood, earthy and bitter, and… familiar?
With a growl the fenrir threw him, releasing him from his teeth and sending him through a tree and into another.
The cracking and falling of those trees echoed out in all directions, snow and ice hurling into the air between them.
Baron was quick to his feet, swaying for a moment and touching the blood on his lips. The wolf’s blood. He knew this particular flavor. He knew… His gaze snapped up to the fenrir prowling in front of him, furious yellow eyes fixed on him. “No… That’s not how your kind work.”
The past and the present blurred before his eyes. He stood in both places, in this dark and wet forest at the end of winter and at the base of a mountain in summer. The same fenrir. The same blood. The same valiant effort thrown against him. “I killed you,” Kish remembered, staggering a step back as the ground seemed to shift underfoot with those clarifying memories. “I killed your pack. I killed your whole line. He was going to leave with you. He was going to… No. No! You don’t come back! Fenrir don’t come back!” he yelled, voice louder than the falling trees.
Something hit him hard from behind, cleaving flesh and muscle and breaking bone to nestle deep in his back. One of his legs gave out, dropping him to his knees, but he twisted to try to get a look at this new attacker.
Wilhelm stood over him. “You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do, Kish.”
Before he could reply or snarl, before he could even reach back to grasp at the offending weapon in his back, something cold and biting squirmed from it to his shoulder. It sliced through his clothes and skin, digging deep and coiling like a snake made of razors.
Kish doubled forward, mouth agape in a scream that he couldn’t get out of his lungs as that midnight magic surged across his skin, the iron curse digging deep to leech his blood. Shade blood, as rich as they came, first to the vein of his midnight. He clawed at it, at himself, trying to stop it from taking the last he had of his maker.
The scent of it filled his lungs and in his blind panic, his first thought was that his midnight was injured. Solse’s blood was a cloud in the air around him. His second thought was the memory of walking into that dining room to discover all his dead kin—slain by that witch he had once loved.
The curse twisted up his chest and wrapped around his throat. He stretched his neck, clawing at the living metal, forced to look up at Wilhelm.
He felt cold. His body was slow to heal where the long serpentine body of the curse had ripped him open, the metal undulating as it drank more of his blood.
“It won’t be enough,” Wilhelm whispered to the wolf, watching him.
Kish’s hands were shredded from the fruitless effort to pull the curse off of himself, but he tried to smile. No. This curse would not be enough to stop him. Someone would find him or his body would decay and the curse would go inert. Time was always on his side. Always.
“What are you doing?” the wolf asked. Kish had not realized he’d changed forms until then, his voice thick with worry.
Kish swayed on his knees and might have fallen over if the witch had not taken his face in her hands. She held him gently, like they were lovers again, and looked down on him with those eyes—the same eyes in a new face—always those eyes. Kish had held the newborn Wilhelm many times. The eyes never changed, even when everything else did. Those eyes could see through time and behind veils. Kish had carved them out a dozen times. They tasted like power.
“I can’t kill you,” Wilhelm admitted with a woman’s voice. “But I think I can make you forget. Forget me, forget everyone I ever was, forget the wolves, and forget your dead.”
His body convulsed, panic lancing his body deeper than any curse. He tried to scream out but the iron spell around his throat wouldn’t give him the air. Without his blood, his body was weak, and her power pulsed through his skull, violating and rooting around to dig out pieces of him.
#
His face was cold in her hands and the fear and rage in his eyes more gratifying than she’d ever want to admit. As soon as she started pressing into his mind, digging around for the trails of herself, she realized her magic had been here already. Without realizing it, she had been trying to make him forget her, her magic lashing out on instinct during all those deaths. It felt confused and frightened, making her want to pull away and hide from this monster.
Ever pressed against her back, bolstering her up and watching her enemy like he might throw off that curse and strike out at them again.
She couldn’t run from monsters and she couldn’t kill this one, but she could kill the part of him that knew her.
She learned about all her lives through his memories. Instead of being told the stories of her past by another witch she had to see it—see what he had done and feel the madness of revenge take hold of him. She burned them out of his mind as she went, deeper and deeper. It felt like she was eating those memories, devouring them like a snake in the vast jungle of Kish’s life.
It was tempting to take more—to take everything. His hunger urged her on.
Eat more.
Eat it all.
Take everything until the great Kish, first blood of Solse, was nothing but a newborn drooling on himself.
It was a trick. She could do it. She could take it all, but it would cost her. Vengeance always had a price and was sometimes worth paying. She remembered falling in love and the agony of that loss. Her only regret was that she hadn’t been able to bury Kish back then along with his court. There was no regret for that vengeance, not even for all the lifetimes of pain it cost her, because it all brought her back to where she wanted to be—to Ever. It was all part of a plan and she wasn’t going to lose her chance this time.
She had waited. She had returned lifetime after lifetime, even when most of her kind had stopped, because she was waiting for this moment—for this life.
Vengeance had a price that was sometimes worth paying, but not this time. If she wanted to end it, she would have to be justice—cold and exact.
She reached the last bit of his memory of her, far beyond the first offense. The moment Kish and Wilhelm first met. His spirit writhed, trying to hang onto that last piece.
“I know you will hear about this from others,” she told him, magic thick in her voice and the black ink staining her fingers welling up past her wrists to her forearms. “I know you will see the paper trail of our history, but without the passion, what do you care? I am no one to you. Just a waste of your time. You are Kish, first blood of the midnight Solse and governor of her court until her return. What am I? Nothing but a poisonous weed, Kish. Leave me be and I am nothing, come for me and I will destroy you. That is all you have to remember about me. That is all you will ever know. When you think too long about me, when you hear my name, you will smell your midnight’s blood in the air and feel that curse around your neck.”
He gurgled, the iron spell squirming to leech more from a fountain that would never dry. His body convulsed and his eyes rolled back.
Wren let him go, the air cracking when she broke the connection to his mind and let his body fall back onto the icy ground.
She sagged, knowing that Ever wouldn’t let her fall with him.
#Bite to Bruise#werewolf romance#werewolf x witch#modern fantasy world#<3#romance#own world#own work#dominimoonbeam#clover down
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♡ raindrops | jay ♡
you should be working, but being in his arms are simply so much more appealing.
♡ jay x gn!reader | wc. 775
♡ genres/tropes: fluff fluff and more marshmallow fluff
♡ mentions of/warnings: none
♡ a/n: iirc i had this posted on an old blog that has since been deleted; it was originally for changbin from skz; i rewrote/reworked this more than i normally would a redo/repost; enjoy <3
♡ a/n: also, thank you for 70+ followers! ♥
Raindrops hit the windows with distinct plinks, a pattering that instantly runs down to the sill in rivulets. The edges of the window pane fog with a difference in temperature–too hot and humid outside, too cool and crisp inside. The rain had been in and out–some days sunny, some days like this.
And today, you’ve decided the weather is too much to deal with–too humid, too hot, and too rainy. With the fan lazily swirling overhead, you keep a blanket loose around your shoulders as you sit on the couch and work, laptop open to a half-started, half-finished essay. You can easily get this finished within the next hour.
Except, you don’t recall falling asleep. It certainly wasn’t your intention, yet here you are. Your laptop, somehow, made it safely to the coffee table, clock-like screensaver staring back at you. You’re lying on your side, the throw blanket a crumpled mess around you. The room is a haze of post-dream vision, scattered with the pattering sound of rain, and your mind is slow to return to reality as the world around you sharpens back into focus.
The arm slung over your waist grounds you, however, pulling you further from your forgotten dreamland, and the breath against your neck, smooth and steady, leaves your skin softly ablaze.
You need to get up and do things—that’s what you were originally doing, what you’re supposed to be doing. There’s homework to finish, after all—summer classes didn’t finish themselves and degrees didn’t earn themselves. The plates from dinner are still by the sink. There are emails you have yet to reply to. But the arm around you tightens as you try to leave.
“Let me go.” It’s borderline a whine, and you both know it. The rain continues as night falls across the city, taking the ambient sunlight with it.
You feel Jay shake his head, tickling the nape of your neck ever slightly as his hair brush against your skin. “Nope,” he murmurs, as if that’s the most obvious answer. “Don’t wanna.”
“But I have things to do?” You try to push against the arm around your waist, pry yourself out, but to no avail. It’s as if every time you struggle to escape, his hold tightens. It’s frustrating and endearing. “There’s deadlines and due dates and—”
"And nothing’s due until Friday?" Jay pushes himself up to see over your shoulder. You silent curse for keeping him so involved. Of course he remembers. “And it’s what day right now?”
You turn to avert your gaze as you mutter, “Wednesday…” with a serious pout on your lips.
“So it stands to reason that there’s time?” A hand comes up to poke your nose. “You can relax and stay here, in my arms, with no problem.”
You manage to lightly elbow his side as he sinks back into his spot, and Jay fakes an injury to humor you, his own fake pout on his lips. “I hate it when you’re right,” you complain, lowkey whining again.
But you loved being with Jay, even if it unhealthily played into your procrastination habits or kept you up past your bedtime sometimes. Time with him was better than any other time, no matter what you were doing. He had a seemingly magical ability to make you happy (and you didn’t know it, but you had the same effect on him, too). His presence helped make things more manageable—the sad times or the happy times, and everything in between.
Jay also knew how to give the best cuddles and snuggles, like, ever. Of all time. He would like to say it’s all the gym time, and you like to say it’s simply your presence that’s so inspiring. Either way, spending time in his arms, warm and safe, was extra nice.
“You love me,” he murmurs, again like it’s the most obvious thing. He presses a gentle kiss to the edge of your jaw before nestling back into the crook of your neck once again. It makes you shiver and sigh with content.
This is so much better than any essay or the dishes.
“I do love you, Jay,” you reply, It makes your heart race just as it did when you first said it.
You hear him sigh, just as content as yours, and feel him relax around your frame, arm hooking snugly into your waist. It’s silent for a while, aside from the raindrops and the city noise around you. Then, Jay speaks, quiet and deliberate, just for you. His words fill you with a sparkly kind of warmth that you wish you could bottle up and keep forever. “I love you, too.”
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PSA (Sorry that it's so long)
As everyone knows, today (at least in the time of me making this post) is May 5th, aka Greenie's bday. That being said, she recently had her purpose reworked to where she actually travels into decaying AUs and she would pollinate flowers and what not to restore the outdoor environments of these worlds at least. In some cases, where the damage is really bad, she'd temporarily have to root herself into the ground and go into her sentient greenhouse building form. That being said, her object head form and her puppet form still has butterfly wings. I decided that she's still based on a greenhouse as well, that being said, press keep reading so that I can get to the PSA.
In honor of Greenie existing for approximately one year, I have decided that starting today, I will hold a contest for her new design, just make sure to include the features about her that I mention below. And don't worry, you guys will have longer than a day, you'll have precisely a week at least, so like next Sunday. Her object head form will likely be the new pfp, so the winner of that would have their drawing of object head Greenie as the new pfp, and they'd be credited in the new pinned post, of course. The winner of building form Greenie would have their picture of that as the background, again, with credit. Also just to let you guys know, you don't HAVE to do a full body pic, just the neck and head, and if you want to, the chest works if you can't do the rest for her object head form. Now onto the features that I would like included:
~Object Head form~
-Her head is in the shape of a normal Home, but it is made of glass and wood, basically looking like a greenhouse material wise
-Which means, most of her body is windows, so her eyes wouldn't have windows over them, but they'd still be where normal Home's windows are if that makes sense
-Basically, reference the current pfp if you're stuck, but maybe make the reds, blues, and yellows more pastel looking
-As I said above, she has butterfly wings on her back, you may decide what butterfly the wings represent although if you are curious: in her original concept, she had pink glass wing butterfly wings
-She wears some sort of dress with vines on it, vines are also growing up her neck a little
-The goop on her body is clear colored, so like whiteish-gray or something idk how ya'll would do that but it forms her complete lower body, even the hands
~Building form~
-Basically, a bigger version of her head on the ground
-This form of her's is covered with a lot of vines usually
-No wings in building form, this form isn't able to move really
#greenie rework#greenie the home#greenhouse home#welcome home au#welcome home multiverse#greenie drawing contest
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Another thing about this hybe drama 👀.... I was thinking how was it affecting the idols and I realised as much i o would like to say svt is not affected at all is false 😭
Like I'm 100% sure the boys are gonna get soo over worked now
Like did u see how hybe didn't promote them at all 👀 and we had to do all the work!!!
I feel like it was all to try and divert the attention from the banning hybe songs movement. Cuz when we saw that hybe was lacking, we took the matter into our own hands. Like a lot of ppl stopped the movement. Because of tht move I think svt got a bit of extra streams, can also be termed as pity streams👀 because I'm 100% sure if they hadn't got the mistreatment it wouldn't have made us mad and made us stream them more
Next the concerts and all. Its jam packed !!!
The boys have no time to breathe 😭
I think all the groups under hybe is suffering especially the pop ones😭😭
Like if we don't count enhypen cuz they are overseas for concerts and lesserafim cuz of the 'cant sing' scandal.
Everyone else is getting dragged 😭
RM had to release and album he can't even promote, bonedo are trying to divert the attention of their fandom so is txt, like everyone is in shambles
I hate this, as much as I hated pledis, it was never this bad with them 😭😭😭 I hope hybe burns down to ground and leaves the poor poor souls of its artists alone 😭
-✨
I have been waiting for someone to bring the HYBE issue up in my inbox lol.....
I have my own "theory" as to why PLEDIS was even acquired by HYBE in the first place and it's a very obvious reason - especially at a business standpoint.
PLEDIS was acquired simply to "kill" the "competition". Take that information as you will. But we all know what I mean. SVT has a demographic in a country outside of Korea that is known to be VERY hard to break through. A country which HYBE artists do not have. I can go on and on as to why svt isn't promoted in the west as well.... but that topic may be a little iffy to post about.
I do have to say though, and this is by no means defending HYBE or PLEDIS, but this is in conjunction to my theory as to why PLEDIS was acquired in the first place: Seventeen has told us over and over again that they have a lot of say in their schedule. They are working non-stop but it's also under their approval. The contract has been reworked and I have no doubt that this time it's under their own terms. That being said I also do believe that HYBE doesn't care for promoting Seventeen in the west the same way they do with their other groups because well... that wasn't the reason as to why they were acquired.
I hate HYBE very much as the rest of svt stans and I hope they burn to the ground..... I feel terrible for all the groups under HYBE .... esp the backlash LSFM and NJ are receiving. It literally all boils down to selfish money hungry execs.
(As for RM I do genuinely think he released his album for the fans in by no means for streams or money but he loves music and he loves ARMY so he did it as kind of like... hey, I'm away but here's something from me)
#didn't mean to get all serious lol#spamasks#i have a lot more to say but i will.... stop here for now
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Alright so, in part because I see my tempest post gaining some traction, I want to talk for a second about Wizard101's aoe meta.
Nono come back, I see you walking away already, this isn't just going to be a rah aoe bad aoe meta bad post. There are way too many pieces of content about this issue that don't actually make any points and just say the issue is there. We know the issue is there, we all feel it, that's why a shitpost where I spent 5 minutes manually typing out the word tempest (that's right, not a single word was copy pasted) is doing so well right now.
Part 1 - Why hasn't anything been done?
I'm going to say it right off the bat, I don't think a lot of us really tend to think about how much of a nightmare aoe must be to balance. In the current state of the game, aoe is basically necessary for quality of life. This raises what seems like one of the biggest dilemmas in balancing history though- there is no middle ground for these spells. The only point in which these spells would be nerfed enough for the community to not spam is if these spells were made practically unusable. Because of the unique amount of time battles take in a turn based mmo vs literally any other mmo, using single target spells can feel like it takes forever, and is wildly inefficient. Other games with more traditional gameplay loops can make up for aoe's effeciency by having it in a middle ground, but because we have long turn based instances rather than open world quick fights as our main battles, if the aoe is in a "middle ground" we will still spam it as if it's op. There isn't a pure balancing fix to the aoe problem. In order to fix the aoe spells from a game design perspective, a system is going have to be added, changed, or the entire gameplay loop get reworked. Needless to say, that's probably not happening, and I can't really blame KI on that one.
Part 2 - What's the problem?
Alright, so we've established that, for the forseeable future, an aoe dominated metagame is here to stay. However, aoe makes up an incredibly small portion of the vast array of spells we can obtain. Not even just wiping off single target spells from the table, for efficiency's sake, the main aoe spells used are ones we obtain relatively early on in the game. This branches into two very heavily interwoven problems I've seen a lot of people reblogging the original tempest spam bring up.
2a:
This aoe domination greatly thwarts gameplay diversity. That's the main appeal of the post that started this all, really. It becomes a chore to play the game after a while when all it boils down to is the same exact gameplay loop you have been using for years, with no change despite the addition of more and more spells into your repetoire. It becomes tiring, and it makes the obtainment of new spells lose a lot of excitement, getting not only in the way of fun gameplay but also in the way of core progession mechanics. Other games can avoid this issue becoming too large, as the traditional MMO combat style puts you in more control of your character and adds another layer of enjoyment to be had through that. In Wizard101 I have to take drawn out turns to do combat, where in traditional MMOs you have a chance at getting a bit of a rush from the more involved, faster paced button spams. Now, from here, you can bring up the fact that card games have been around for ages and have been able to avoid gameplay loop issues like this for a good chunk of that time, and I will meet you with a
????? Card games have had balancing issues for ages and many people struggle to get into and stay in the hobby, they've got their own thing going on
But yes, I will agree that despite having their own problems, card games can generally avoid the issue of gameplay loop growing too large through being PVP. That's right, all of you Wizard101 PVP mains out there, congratulations, you've managed to avoid this problem! I'm sure Wizard101 PVP has its own problems though. Regardless, let's get into what PVP brings to the gameplay loop table. As opposed to PVE where you face a semi-predictable AI, in PVP you will be put against another real person, formulating new strategies, using a deck you might not know about, and using spells in a more random/unpredictable pattern. PVP has the benefit of novelty, forcing you to strategize differently across your battles, and to think hard about your opponent's next move every time.
I'm not claiming PVE doesn't have anything like this! Just that in the core gameplay of an MMO, which typically consists of a lot of general mob battles, this battle novelty typically isn't all too present.
2b:
We're missing out on a lot of cool spells! Animations, art, sound design, game design, etc, all of that work poured into these spells and we're just tossing them on the ground like that scene from Toy Story! This sentiment was lost in reblogs as I put it in the tags of the tempest post, but I LOVE storm! The ocean themes, general water themes, and of course actual storm themes hit their mark incredibly well for me! And I feel the same about every other school, as well! Tempest was merely an easy vessel for this message, as it's the most stereotypically spammed aoe. As I said before though, when all you're using is the same spell, a certain excitement surrounding the game leaves. I feel we have gone from seeing new spells and going "That's so cool, I can't wait to use it!" to seeing them and going "That's so cool, I wish I had a chance to use it!".
Part 3 - Why is this a problem? (E.g. why not just use whatever spell you want?)
You, balance wizard reading this: when's the last time you've heard something to the tune of "just blade me"? How did that make you feel? Did that extend to other parts of your gameplay? To expand on this, anyone who isn't fire or storm, has Wolf Stormblade ever told you that you can't hit? That you deal no damage? Told to just support or pass? Even fire wizards are sometimes subject to this!
The chances are, a lot of people don't realize how much of an effect the community has on their gameplay. I've even encountered this as early as Unicorn Way, but people care about the meta. You're going to play with people, and a lot of this playerbase can tend to treat their own word as law, and so you will have the meta drilled into you. Hell, sometimes their "meta" is less efficient or just straight up worse than your plan. Putting that aside though, opinions turn into "facts", they then circulate, and then you have been pressured to play a specific way. Before I continue, I'd like us to remind ourselves that this is NOT League of Legends, and that at its core this is an all-ages game in a humorous fantasy setting, and that some of us might be taking PVE gameplay a little too seriously. That being said, I get it though! Circling back to an earlier point, this gameplay loop can be absolutely numbing! Of course after 80 battles against Malistaire just trying to get that one drop you want everyone around you to play with maximum efficiency! It's impossible to always keep in mind that some people might be trying to experience these parts of the game you might have already experienced as much as you can! And in a way, it makes sense, why would we roughly double our already extended battle times through not playing aoe? Metas get popular because they work. They work extremely well. Under Wizard101's current combat system, which is a large part of why I love Wizard101, single target spells are rarely a better option, and instead cost me multiple more minutes in my day.
The next suggestion would usually be to solo, however:
A: Not all content can be soloed, you WILL have to encounter another player at some point, and it will usually be in a setting where these types of players congregate most.
B: Even if more challenging content CAN be soloed, you have to play extremely to the meta, defeating the point of soloing here.
C: This is an MMO. A core part of it is inherently community and other players. Why am I only allowed to have fun while lonely?
Unless you come upon a rare chance and find the perfect group of people, you can't consistently play Wizard101 the way you want. And the problem is much larger than the aoe spells.
So, we have acknowledged we all understand the problem and have feelings one way or another about it. We have described why nothing has been done about it, and what the problem really is. We've gone into the community pressures, incentive to self, and damage to gameplay options regarding aoe and a greater meta. I've also done my best to show that this problem runs deeper and is harder to avoid than you may think. So, what's my big suggested change for Wizard101 and KI to fix this problem?
Nothing. That's right, all this for me to suggest nothing. Unless a lot of random reworks somehow magically make things better, this isn't changing. I don't even necessarily want the reworks, either. This problem is just here. I guess the only actually meaningful call to action would be please, regardless of whether it's Wizard101, some other game, or even just life in general, be mindful of the experiences of others. You may be beating that boss for the 80th time today, but this might be a teammate's first encounter with it. You may be jaded and want to do things as fast as possible, but try your best to remind yourself not to take the sparkle out of the eyes of someone enjoying themselves. Remember- you always matter, and whether or not that's going to be positive or negative is in your hands.
Maybe our game gets better, maybe we get better, or maybe some secret third option happens. It doesn't even matter too much to me, despite this lengthy post. I just wanted to get my thoughts on this issue out there.
#wizard101#it took me 3 days to write this#motivation faded in and out#really though I saw the reaction to the tempest post and immediately wanted to get this out there#i think no matter what happens opening this dialogue is important#Wizard101#morganthe#malistaire#cyrus drake#halston balestrom#heehee that's a frog :)#i love his dapper suit#he's so swag !!!#w101#kingsisle#KI
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So, I don’t post my writing ever, but Cass and the whole series has been inspiring. The last part of Donatello’s chapter spiked interest for this one-shot.
Taking place between CJ running for his things, and coming back to see Uncle Tello in the bath, thoughts overwhelm Tello and make him question everything they’re about to accomplish.....maybe.
Potentially slightly ooc for Uncle Tello, but it’s my first go. All credit for story line goes to @somerandomdudelmao
TW: little angsty, (it gets better) anxiety
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
D is for Denial
Uncle Tello woke up in his enormous room with disheveled blankets and a somehow missing mask. He groaned and reached down in an attempt to feel his adoptive nephew. Poor kid passed out midway through his brilliant revival rant last night after being so convincing that sleep wasn’t needed. His hand fell into pure blanket and he glanced over his shoulder to confirm Casey’s absence.
Rolling over onto the empty blankets, Don muttered to himself, “Where could that kid have gone at this hour of the day?” A sigh escaped his throat as his arm draped over his face. “Maybe ran off to figure out how he found me? …That was a big piece of our puzzle we’re missing.” He dropped his arm above his head, making a mental note that his mask had been found there. Eyes carefully looked over his surroundings. The colors are so vibrant here. Plants were somewhat familiar and thriving. When was the last time he felt rays of sun coming down onto him? The warmth brought a feeling of safety, like there was…hope?
Donnie sat up with a desperate ‘huff’, suddenly extremely aware of what was being planned for his brothers to be revived. Sure, he had done this once before. Sure, he documented the process to a ‘T’ so it could be repeated by almost anyone (including Leo). Sure, Casey Junior was here to help, but something wasn’t sitting right. Something felt wrong about this. Dee’s brows furrowed and his knees came instinctively to his chest.
“What the hell is this?” he questioned himself. “W-we know- I know what needs to be done for this…” Thoughts began flooding his brain like a tsunami. ”Denial”
“What if these calculations only work for Raph?” “Denial”
“W-what if we can’t find all the materials?” “Denial”
“What if this doesn’t work in this timeline?” “Denial”
“What happens if something goes wrong?” “….”
“Why in the hell am I only thinking of worst-case scenarios?”
“I don’t know, maybe DENIAL?”
Casey’s words from their last conversation silenced his constant questioning. Were any of their combined efforts even worth it? Could this unprecedented experiment even be replicated? Could the Great Donatello…have been wrong? Air had been cut off from his lungs this whole time, like a wall of future regret and past anguish made a home in his throat. Thoughts set fire to his mind- he couldn’t stand losing his brothers a second time, let alone by his own hand. Tears threatened their way into the genius’ eyes, whether from lack of air, or the overwhelming feelings creeping in didn’t matter. Something clicked as the salty water began to creep down his face- he was alive.
The breath that came after this realization acted like a fire extinguisher to his burning thoughts.
‘Why wouldn’t it work here?’ a smirk formed on his face as His Brilliance got back to work. ‘It has to, the physics would be the same-mostly-. Calculations can be reworked for any situation. Materials can be bought, made,...or stolen. And replications?’ He looked at his own hands as his legs lowered to the ground.
“I’m my own proof this is gonna work”
Blinking the remaining water from his vision, Donnie looked back up at the light now pouring in from above. He knew, in some heart-string-pulling way, that for the time being, he was going to need to be the strength, razz, and face-man of the Hamato’s until he and Casey could bring his respective brothers back. Don gave a signature “scoff” to himself.
“A man of science being ruled by emotion…how embarrassing. The results are here.” A smile replaced the smirk that had been sitting on his face. A small shiver ran down his back. Guess the light can only give so much heat….
Donnie grabbed his mask and robe earnestly and marched his way to the bathroom. “If I’m gonna be thorough, I’m gonna be thorough, comfortably.” With the door partly closed, warm water began to run in hopes the heat would well replace that of the sun.
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#cass apocalyptic series#uncle tello#casey junior#rottmnt#save rottmnt#rise of the tmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#future donatello
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Hi…uhhh….it’s…been a god awful while-
Okay so, no I’m not back, I shouldn’t even be posting this right now actually. But the reason I’m doing this is because i just needed to give out a proper update on what’s going on and the future of this blog. Please don’t see this as me OFFICIALLY returning, this is just an update I need to get out. Please don’t make me regret this…
So…where have I been? I got grounded back in February of this year, not going to elaborate on why, and I got my stuff back in June but was told I couldn’t post anything on social media. I was really concerned about my friends online at the time, so i got put into therapy to try and get over everything during my absence. I’m currently working on a video for YouTube and TikTok as well, but because i made the video right away in June and still haven’t been allowed to post since, I’m going to have to rework it since some of the audio is outdated. A lot has happened while I was gone. Again, not going to say why, it’s personal stuff, no I wasn’t like assaulted or any of that crap. It was mental.
So now I want to explain…this blog….I want a fresh start for this AU entirely. Why? I listed them on Wattpad a few weeks ago, but to recap, it was a bunch of reasons, mainly drama. This blog has been constantly been involved in drama with others and my dumbass self would use this blog to antagonize one of them, which is something I regret. This blog also just…kept changing as the story went on to the point I couldn’t keep up with it myself. I also hate that this blog doesn’t even feel like a THSC blog anymore, rather an original story. And the most valid of them all……..cringe. I’ve also given up on remaking the first chapter, I only got the first 20 pages done and lost motivation.
I feel like I should do a fresh start with this blog because this AU in general has had many issues with drama and things I regret. I’ve lost friends because of this and made many dumb decisions as this blog went on. Though my biggest question is what I should do with this blog exactly.
I’m considering either deleting this blog entirely or delete the old posts and post new stuff whenever I come back. I’ll leave that for you guys to decide.
From the bottom of my heart, I’m absolutely sorry for my absence and everything. I blame my dumbass for all of this, yes things are inevitable but everything that happened is on me. The drama, my disappearance from the face of the Earth, and other stuff. Please decide what I should do with this blog, I really want to restart this AU but don’t know what to do with the blog as a whole.
I love all of you guys, you guys are the reason I’m even still going. *hugs*
As to when i will be back, I have no idea, but I will do everything I can to get back to posting again.
Thank you
-IciLaraStudios
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this is my Bill Miles rant.
this is it. this is what you're about to read, yipee hurray! i'm about to rawdog this pustule of a man on a table, and i'm dissecting why he's such a tentative yet counterproductive evolutionary reaction to a shitty situation that ends up causing more problems than it fixes. yknow, like a pustule.
this is gonna be long and rough (honestly the innuendos just write themselves don't they), about 3.7k words long to be precise. this thing needed headings ffs. so take your time with it is what i’m saying xvx
also if you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out my previous Daniel and Lucy posts for further context as i'll bring back stuff from them in here. call it a series what the heck.
now, onto the Billiam
I could do a whole thing here where i explain and contextualize where he's coming from, and how the way he's worked for the brotherhood and later raised his son ultimately made sense from his point of view, etc etc. but i think we're all familiar with that exercise. 'Understandable' doesn't make it right or even smart, and anyone with some understanding of generational trauma and dealing with an emotionally stunted parent already knows the drill here. I'm not gonna break any new ground delving into it so i won't bother. We got bigger fish to fry here.
I will establish though, Bill is a man of action, few words and even fewer expression of emotions. I can draw a direct parallel to the Levantine brotherhood and their strict hierarchy and the ultimate authority of their grandmaster. Not mentor mind you, that's a title for later in the brotherhood's history. Al Mualim is the master, the leader, the head of the order, and his word is law and the tenets and maxim are sacred. If he tells you you should die for his will, then you will do it and gladly, because you're serving the brotherhood's higher purpose. I'm not here to argue the morals and ethics of that, just saying it like it is.
Bill may not be as strict as all that, in fact he's very much not and he couldn't if he tried (and i gotta say, i don't think he would try), but he certainly reflects that resolute certainty in the brotherhood's beliefs and what is needed to face their enemy. The templars are everywhere, they have their grasp in everything, and so you must be willing to give everything to push them back.
In his eyes, all the hardships that he put Desmond through in his youth were necessities. For the brotherhood, they are at war, and as such he saw it as an act of love and care to prepare Desmond for the worst. But he was so lost in a world of casualties and soldiers that he forgets all too often that people are, people.
Soldiers are human beings first and foremost, and to strip them of humanity may be argued as a necessity of war but it strips the brotherhood of its most fundamental goals. Human lives, human worth, humanity itself, are worth preserving and protecting in all its forms, that's the freedom they fight for. It's messy and complicated but it's beautiful and it's to be celebrated, not suppressed. To deny humanity for the sake of neat and clean order and hierarchy is what the templars want, and you can't fight that by becoming it. You fight it by opposing it. That's why Al Mualim turned, and that's why Altair had to kill him and rework the brotherhood from the ground up, even if he hadn't been twisted by the Apple. And that's why I wanna draw out the parallel between Al Mualim to Bill first.
BILL HAD A FARM EEAH EEAH YOH
In AC1 we're served a narrative that the templars and the brotherhood are not so different and they both want the same thing, "peace, in all things", but they have opposing views on how to achieve it and that's where their conflcit lies. Simple enough premise, and they do a pretty good job of showing how those two militaristic orders view the world and how to achieve their goals, and in what form those orders now exist in the modern world. Back then it made sense for the Farm to be an isolationist cult, it was a perfect mirror for the isolated Masyaf fortress and their secretive nature, but as the narrative developed in the next games, that contextualization just grew more and more flawed. The brotherhood had grown, branched out, coexisted in various time periods and cultural contexts, and it no longer made sense for them to be a remote cultish commune in the middle of nowhere.
Which leads me to believe that it was pretty much Bill's idea from the start. If you'll allow me to extrapolate some character beats, it's no secret that he's got a deep respect for the brotherhood, and I'd assume that includes Altair and Ezio given how their mentorship stirred the entire brotherhood into new eras. They are legendary figures in their history, they got statues of them in the brotherhood headquarters, it's really not subtle.
As such, one can see him trying his best to lean on their teachings, if not try to emulate them a bit. He's secretive, resolute, stubborn, all qualities we see of Altair and Ezio in the Animus and were likely exagerated over the centuries. In The Fall (comic), we see that the brotherhood had a whole secret library worth of knowledge before it was ransacked during the Great Purge, and it's not too far to assume that Bill spent some time digging through those archives in his youth. He was born in the brotherhood after all.
Grueling training, blind trust in your betters and the creed, secretiveness, emotional distance. All things we see in both the Farm and the Levantine brotherhood, a holdover from the smaller scope of AC1 that leads me to think this was a bit of Bill's bout of hero worshipping to maybe recreate the conditions that created the assassins of old. We don't know what the rest of the brotherhood thought of the Farm exactly, i can't find or recall any particular bit of lore that addresses it except from an outside perspective; all we get is Desmond's own comments on his experience based on his memories in ACR. Even when he speaks of it to others, they give no opinion of their own on the matter.
Bill might be so focused on the environment that created an assassin like Altair, that he forgets that the man then went over to rework the brotherhood to keep what happened to him from happening again. He fostered curiosity and understanding in his order, leading to many changes that carried on through the ages to the modern day. It was Altair learning to question and doubt his master, the man he'd follow blindly and without question once, that led to the survival and growth of the order. In fact, Altair puts his trust blindly in his assassins to protect him when he goes to confront Abbas, to keep him safe and help restore the order once again. Not the other way around. And when he saw that same curiosity and doubts in his son, he sought to stamp it out instead of seeing it for what it was.
Desmond left not just because he was terrified (his words not mine) of the training, the harshness, and the bland food. If we're being honest, he's found that in spades in the outside world too. No, he left because the Farm asked for blind trust and respect that was not shown to him in return. When he asked questions, they ignored or waved him away, and so as they dismissed his interest in truly understanding what was being taught, he gave them the same.
I'll give credit where it's due, he does apologize and offers a truce to Desmond. Grated, he doesn't get much of a chance to show how much he's changed exactly, especially in the minutiae of daily life with the team, and it's a rather wishy-washy apology overall. But it's something and more than most people get in real life. Desmond is gracious enough to take it and even does his best to give him a chance, which is more than most anyone would, and that says more about him than Bill.
Regardless, I want to chalk up this apology as rushed writing rather than Bill being actively manipulative by saying what Desmond would like to hear. I don't want to give the writers credit for writing some 4D chess mind game powers onto him. I'm not even a fan of the "two Bills on Lucy's emails" thing, that's just poor retcon to fit the "Lucy is a templar" plotline.
the tangent - YOU GOT MAIL
Speaking of, i wanna get into that for a moment. As far as i could dig up, we had no confirmation of why Lucy had to die besides fan theories, and then the ACR dlc dropped. It was further commented on AC3 and most importantly, several retcons that included Lucy being a sneaky templar were released in the Initiates web project. That included much of the Project Siren lore, reactions to her death among the templars, her leaving the memory core for Vidic's goons to find, and of course the retcon that she was in contact with two separate Williams. All this to say, we can't say for sure if the writers knew how they wanted to handle her cliffhanger death in ACB even when ACB itself came out. So this?
That was meant to be our introduction to Bill's character. Those are the words of a man who sent a 16yo girl into the world to fully fend for herself on her own against a corporation so powerful it's almost impossible to comprehend. And now that she's back among the community that dropped her into such a grueling situation, this is his reaction to her showing care and concern for another human being, who by the way is his own son?? Holding up all that she's suffered through over her head like compassion would invalidate all that?? I sincerely lack the words.
Well, actually Desmond said it best.
Right then, Bill really isn't better than them. He's just another cold calculating asshole who's so set on a nebulous future victory that he refuses to see the lives he's trampling on to get there. He's done it to Lucy, to Clay, to Desmond, and even to Shaun and Rebecca to an extent, and they are just the ones we know of. The Great Purge is no excuse for this behavior, that's not the time to grow apart, but closer and show sympathy and kindness to his fellow assassins. Some distant war general figure moving faceless pieces on the board is the last thing they want right then, or might even need.
We can see in this one email just how dire the situation is with how Rebecca even refuses to put a subject on the email. Opening up and being vulnerable is something to be done in quiet and secret, almost like it's a burden to show how much things are affecting you, and that's so messed up. Even in the army, you can see gallows humor and dark jokes to cope with the horrors soldiers go through, but we don't even get that amongst the team. When you approach Lucy as Desmond, it's often him showing her kindness and comfort and reassuring her through her doubts and fears, and she doesn't hesitate to share them with him and I think it has a lot to do with how they are both apart from Bill's influence. Lucy has her own cans of worms to deal with, but between her and Desmond, there's a measure of closeness and trust you don't see with the others.
I know, your boss is not exactly the person you might want to pour your heart out to, but come on! How powerful and rallying would it be to see your leader across the room and feel comfortable and safe enough to just sit together and talk?? It can't be overstated how much it matters that any movement that places itself against the current system must prove itself as... different from that system. It's the literal bare minimum here. If you say you care about humanity but you won't care for the humanity of your members, then... what are you even doing?
tangent done - BACK TO THE BIG PICTURE
I wanna take a quick step back for a bit. AC3 portrays Bill as a man who sees his actions as justified, who sees that his ends justify the means. It leads us down a doomed horseshoe theory that coupled with the deeply complicated historical time in the ancestral plotline, makes for a very murky and confusing narrative. The more you look at it, the less clear or discernible the themes get. It raises a lot of complex points but never closes or even shows where they are going with them.
Now, horseshoe theory is an erroneous concept that has been critiqued to hell and back, and to use it as a way to tie the modern and ancestral timelines in an attempt to create a "'we're all the same" theme is... the worst possible way to go about it. Doubly so when it’s often appropriated by right-wing pundits to vilify their political opponents. You can't make the protagonists ponder on how to hold hands and sing kumbaya with a death cult to avoid Armageddon while the writers are going "bUt ThEy ArE bAd ToO" because of one guy (who you're also attempting to redeem) who deems the inherent human need for connection as "being too weak". Even that is enough of a mess, but add to it the whole deconstruction of the war of independence and the sheer horror that the colonies were for the indigenous people back then and all the way up to this day... Where are the writers even going here??
We get more conversations about how allying with the templars is not a possibility than any proper address on Lucy or the entire situation that led to her turning, much less who's to blame, how can they avoid this in the future, how the protagonists even feel about all this. Just excuses for why it had to happen, there was no other way, let’s move along now, nothing to see here. In AC2 and ACB we got some neat and tidy convos that made sense to be bite-sized, concise little bits of characterization and presenting themes and concepts for the worldbuilding. But in AC3, we get convos that could have been entire cutscenes, whole dialogues amongst the characters to reckon with all that's been happening. Instead we waste cutscene time with fucking Juno and the Isu failed attempts that don't fucking matter to the story they should be focused on telling.
Which is why I want to talk about Haytham.
THE HUMAN PROBLEM
I bring him up because AC3 clearly wants to parallel his and Connor's relationship with Bill's and Desmond's. Which, personally i think it gives off the feeling that it's supposed to be a "hey it could be worse" at Desmond. I think we can agree that's a sucky attitude to have towards anyone who's suffered family trauma like Desmond did, and it also kind of diminishes the weight of the colonial era storyline. But since the game wants to talk about it, then let's talk about it.
Haytham is one more indoctrinated assassin-to-templar character, which is it's own mirror to Daniel and Lucy, but this is not about them. Haytham is cold, pragmatic, relentless and so calculating. He was warmer and kinder when he was younger, even a rather gray character, but all that is lost the longer he spends as the templar grandmaster. He did care for Connor in his own way and wanted to bring him to their side if only so that he wouldn't have to kill him, but if it came to it, he would have as we see in the game multiple times.
And as far as the game is concerned, that's also Bill. They are both two men who got worn down into their respective roles and lost sight of what's truly important. Except, we don't know that. We see it with Haytham plain as day in the prologue, but we don't know how Bill was in his younger years. We know about a few missions he took that involved the Animus project, but besides that we don't know what kind of man or even child he was. We don't even know what his dynamic with other people is, how he is with his wife, does he have family? Siblings, parents, cousins, anything? Does he even care? What about friends and colleagues? Hell, we don't even know what he's like in action, the Cairo mission happens off-screen and Desmond handles their escape with the Apple. All we see of him in AC3 is how he's an emotionally stunted bossy guy, and anything else is told, never shown.
Haytham however, gets a prologue and several missions in-game, and even a whole side novel from his point of view.
As such, I'm reluctant to extrapolate the kind of man Bill is based off of Haytham alone, because again they not only exist in very different times and contexts, but there's a severe imbalance in screentime. What I can do however, is compare their "ending" as it were.
Haytham dies by the hands of his own son. He had the chance to put his ego aside and listen to his son, maybe put his cards on the table and explain the misunderstanding about the attack on Connor's village, but he didn't. He decided to hold that information until it was the most convenient to him, and then try to use it to manipulate Connor into switching sides. He refused to put aside the grandmaster role and step up as a father, or even as a man who cared about someone else's feelings. Whatever his feelings for Ziio and his son, they came second to the templars and their goals, and that was his death sentence. To his dying breath, he held true to that mentality.
Bill however, despite apologizing, hasn't shown much of the work to change. He and the brotherhood remains stagnant and withering, and in the face of the person he's hurt the most and is still alive to make amends to, he remains distant and reticent. All the efforts to connect and deepen whatever there is between them needs to come from Desmond, and every attempt to reach out to the outside gets shut down. It's Desmond refusing to give up on him that saves his ass even! Given the state of their relationship, that fucking SUCKS.
It shouldn't be up to Desmond to fix what Bill wrecked back at the Farm, and portraying otherwise, like Desmond is the one who messed everything up, is ass backwards. The brotherhood and Bill should be bending into knots to convince him to stay and that things aren't as they were once, but Desmond decided to stay long before. Because one the templars suck, two Desmond got the proof he always had asked for as a child and three, Lucy showed him kindness and understanding. One might even go so far as to say that it was living Altair's own rebirth period is what reassured those questions he had and gave him true understanding, but Lucy gave him hope in a hopeless situation.
That's powerful not just as a narrative point but as a theme for the assassins as a whole. The games continue to portray the brotherhood as a beacon of hope against the oppression and tyranny of the templars (even for the modern days through the glyph puzzles in AC2 and ACB) but Bill, the face of the brotherhood as the de-facto mentor, is himself as a tyrant.
One would expect AC3 to show him either follow Haytham's fate or change himself to avoid it, but we're denied that kind of development. Even in the Initiates web project and subsequent games, Bill's change is kind of handwaved. He lost the will to fight and vanished but then he saw the desecration of his son he barely showed to give much of a shit for, and now he's back and Mentor again? He's awkward and trying to be approachable in Origins but he's still rather overconfident and posturing too much for his own good.
(I mean, sitting within range of Layla's blade before she's even out of the Animus? Bold fucker.)
If they truly wanted to grapple with Bill and his place and role in the story they spun us, which I assume they do since he's the one who does the intro to the AC3 game, then they should have DONE THAT. Make him face the consequences of his choices and actions, and make the team hold him responsible for it. Make him soften and change, not just give us a pitiable hug and a meek little "Son..." just before Desmond sacrifices himself. Seriously, what gives?
One of the biggest failures in AC3 is their horrid sense of narrative prioritizing with the modern timeline. They tried to close too many threads at once with not nearly enough screentime, and wasted time on needless fluff. But most importantly, I think that the games after ACB have a human problem, in that they refuse to acknowledge the humanity in the modern timeline.
Bill could have been an incredible display of change, that the templars aren't the superior mentality that can turn anyone who spends long enough around them like some brain-corroding virus. Show that the brotherhood still has a chance and that no one is above humbling themselves or beyond bettering themselves, and most of all that the brotherhood can indeed bring hope in a hopeless situation, and community and understanding can make a difference. And since they are so touchy about murder all of a sudden, also show that the assassins are capable of doing more than just killing people.
But we don’t. We don’t get any of that. We’re once again denied of any development that would make any kind of statement that would shift the status quo and make them pay attention to the modern timeline and what they’re doing with it. And worst of all, we're denied any development that would bring us closer emotionally to these characters and make us ponder our place in the world and in history. Cus god forbid the series that has “history as its playground” learn anything from it.
#assassin's creed#william miles#bill miles#ubisoft bullshit#ac meta#ac3#pardal rambles#i wrote this in a fucking fervor wtf#adhd took the wheels ahaha
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Bite to Bruise - 28
This work is mine and I do not give consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted without my permission. I am sharing chapters as I work on this story but it is copyrighted material that I plan to rework and publish when completed.
story tags: modern-fantasy mashup, werewolves, witches, monsters, romance, learning to trust, hurt/comfort, blood, violence, explicit sex, explicit language
The earlier parts can be found under the tag or over on patreon. <3
BITE TO BRUISE - CHAPTER 28.
Bellamy sat on the floor, legs crossed and fingers tracing loops on the doorframe.
She didn’t realize she was humming at first. It wasn’t really her. It was the echo of something in the craft. The first time she had portalled had been an accident, an act of desperation, that took her from the arms of danger and dropped her in the autumn cold of the woods.
She still remembered that deep loneliness and betrayal woven into pain and bloodshed. She had pressed her little cheek to the icy ground, looking for solace. The roots and dirt sang to her, soothing, coming out as a hum in her own throat.
It took her years to learn to portal at will, to turn that reflex into a reliable ability.
Ever sat on the floor of the room with her, his back to the wall and his eyes on her every move. He had asked how she did what she did, and she had tried to explain. It came out a lot like a bird trying to explain flying, though. There was no science to it that they knew. They flew because they had wings and it was either that or fall.
She wove magic because it was in her to do it, and it was either that or die. The magic had to come out and her ability grew stronger with every use. It wasn’t a well that could be tapped. It was her. Like muscle. Use it or lose it. Lose it and die.
“Will you need to work on it from the other side?” he asked.
Bellamy nodded. “Soon.” She took her hand away from the frame and sighed. She could see the spellcraft on the door, but she knew he couldn’t. She wasn’t sure anyone but another witch could see it. Maybe the midnights and the sunrisen? Maybe not. Midnights had been known to have their own magic, something even stranger than hers. But there had never been any stories about sunrisen magic, not as craft anyway. It was hard not to call their abilities magic, though. They flew, after all. Some with wings of feathers and some with wings of light, and they were known to wield weapons just as intangible to other hands. What was that, if not a sort of magic?
She sighed and turned to look at her wolf. He was waiting for her gaze, like he had known it was coming his way—or maybe he had just been watching her all that time.
“I had an idea,” Bellamy said.
Ever raised an eyebrow, his mouth quirking with a smile.
Bellamy rolled onto her knees and crawled that short distance to him, resettling in his lap, facing him.
The quirk was a full smile now, his arms around her waist. “If your idea is to fuck in my brother’s room, I think I’m finally going to disappoint you…”
Bellamy laughed, her arms curling around the back of his neck. “No. I was thinking we could try warding some of the houses against shades, so they can’t get inside. Of course, there are obvious risks…”
“Such as?”
Bellamy frowned. “Well, if they have the time, they might just knock the house down or burn it… No ward would stop them from being able to do that and once the certain beams were broken, the ward would fall.”
Ever frowned. That was a risk, but at least it would come with a warning, as opposed to shades simply walking into their homes. “Why didn’t you ward your cottage against them, if it’s something you can do?” She clearly hadn’t, since Soren had tossed the little place looking for Piper.
Bellamy ran her fingertips along the back of his neck. “I’d need shade blood to create a ward like that. …A lot of shade blood, actually.”
Ever’s hands reflexively squeezed her hips, but his yellow eyes considered it.
“We can dig up Soren when the ground thaws, if you’re willing to try making the wards for us, that is.”
Soren. She resisted the urge to rub at the side of her neck. The bruising from his bites were almost gone, but the cuts were still healing. She didn’t like the idea of releasing him from his grave even if it was just to bleed him for a while before putting him back. He knew what she was. If he got loose…
“We don’t have to do it,” Ever said, somehow reading her worry on her face. And then he grinned, wolfish. “Or we could find a new shade. From the sound of things, it shouldn’t be hard to get our hands on another one.”
Bellamy wrinkled her nose. Blackwell and Primrose. Ever had told her about the call and his current situation with Florian Blackwell.
Florian had been the same shade looking for that box with the midnight curse on it, the one leaving deep scars curling up her arm. Bellamy wished she had been nosier as a seeker of lost things… It might help to know now what had been inside that damned box.
If she wasn’t such a coward, could she do more than just ward houses for Ever? If she wasn’t so scared of the shades realizing what she was and where she was, could she protect them? Had she ever been able to do anything more than run?
Ever fingered her hair back from her face, stroking her scalp. “Come back,” he whispered.
She blinked, meeting those deep yellow eyes and realizing that she’d been too deep in thought.
He smiled gently. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere,” she lied.
He touched her neck and dragged a thumb across her jaw. “If the shades come again, you can portal, right? You can go to that house of yours on the sea.”
She stared at him. Was he really giving her permission to run? To abandon him when the next threat came?
Of course, he was.
The real question was, when had she stopped wanting to run?
He cupped her cheek, like she was precious. “Drop the glamour for me?” he asked so softly.
For a second, she thought she’d misheard him. “Why?”
He sighed, his other hand still on her hip, his thumb rolling circled against her skin not unlike the circles she’d been tracing into her spell. Was her wolf a witch, enchanting her? It felt like it sometimes. “I want to kiss you.”
Bellamy grinned. “Then kiss me. These lips are better.”
The last hints of his smile faded.
She leaned back to look at his whole face, his whole expression. That crease was in his brow—the one he got when he was worried or overthinking something. “This glamour doesn’t cost me anything to hold up,” she said. It wasn’t entirely true but it wasn’t a complete lie either. It didn’t cost her much. She had built it off herself so long ago that it was second nature to hold it up. It was more than a mask. It was her to some extent. “It’s not a falsehood or a stolen face,” she tried to explain. It wasn’t like when she had pretended to be Piper.
Ever watched her carefully, nodding slowly. He still had a hand to the side of her face, fingertips ghosting against skin. “And I love it. This face, this skin, this body you made. They are beautiful and they are you, Bellamy. But you made this to survive, right? To hide?”
She unlaced her arms from around his neck, sitting taller in his lap. Her hands settled against his chest, not completely retracting from him. She could lie. It wasn’t like he would call her on it. But what was the point if she did? She had created Bellamy to give herself a safe way to interact with the world—a way to hide Wren. And now? Wren was still her, that broken face and scarred body was hers, always. She had still worn it when she was alone. But it had become a secret, something to hide.
“You don’t have to,” Ever said, watching her think with those cunning fenrir eyes.
“I know that,” she snapped, but it was toothless.
His hand settled against the side of her neck, as if covering that healed bite with his palm. He wouldn’t even be able to feel the scabs with her glamour up.
“You’ve seen it,” Bellamy countered. He had seen her true form more than anyone else in her adult life.
“You,” he corrected gently. “I’ve seen you.”
“So why do you want to look again? If you’re worried about the wounds, they’re mostly healed. I told you—”
“I want to kiss you.”
She stared at him, his eyes and then his mouth and then back to his eyes.
That quirk of a smile pulled at the corner of his lips.
She smirked back. “Well, I promise, this mouth is better for that.”
His almost-smile fell. “Why?”
The icy wind outside battered the wall and rattled the window in its frame.
“You don’t have to share Wren with me,” Ever said. “But I want you to know you can. I’ve seen you, witch.” He touched her mouth, fingertip stroking her bottom lip over a scar he could not possibly feel through this glamour down to where it ended on her chin. Had he memorized it from those moments he’d seen her true face? “You are devastating in every form you take.”
Devastating.
She shivered. Yes. She felt devastating. How did he make that sound good?
Bellamy stood up and stepped back.
His arms unraveled from her, never even trying to stop her from breaking contact.
His head rolled back against the wall to look up at her standing over him like it was the most natural thing.
She swallowed down her hesitations and held out her hand for him.
He took it and rose to his feet, letting her lead him out of Sunny’s old bedroom and down the hall, to his.
It was easier to drop the glamour with her back to him, to lose height between steps, her legs shorter and paler, his shirt suddenly larger on her body.
She tried not to look down at herself—tried not to think about it—but it was impossible. She was cataloguing the ruin of her body as he might not be seeing it.
That deep scar down her thigh, puckering skin and ending at her knee. She’d gotten into a scrap when she was a teen with some rays and fallen hard, portaling in a panic only to come out the other end tumbling down a rocky hillside. She’d gotten the cut from the rocks, not the rays. If she’d held her ground rather than run away, she might have saved herself from that one. Or she might have died… Hard to say in hindsight.
His thumb stroked the back of her knuckles, one less finger in his hand.
Most of her scars had stories attached, good ones, wild ones. She had seen most of the world and gotten in trouble just about everywhere she went. She was a seeker, after all. She found lost things, sometimes lost people. Her favorite hunts had been for intangible things, songs and words lost by immortals. She had a card for just about every library with public access and a few private ones too. But she’d never told anyone any of those stories.
They walked into his bedroom and he kicked the door shut with a soft click, his fingers gently touching her hair and sending a wave of chills down her spine. Why did it feel different? It was the same hair, just black now and flatter.
He had seen her before, but a part of her still hesitated to face him.
Her face had been a secret since she was a child.
It was hers. Precious only to her. Her body was covered in the receipts of a secret life. Bellamy had no scars because nothing could hurt her—nothing could ever really touch her. But Wren? Wren had felt everything. Wren remembered everything. Wren had been broken over and over, often healing wrong. Her cheekbone was misshapen and the bridge of her nose had a crook. She’d been young then and hadn’t known to try to set anything straight. She’d been too scared to touch those breaks, afraid of the pain.
With a sigh, she let go of his hand, dragging it through her hair like there was any way to change this moment. He had asked. He had wanted to see her. If he rejected her now… Well, she would do what she was great at. She would run. But even in her own mind, behind the walls of denial, she knew there would be a heartbreak she could never outrun.
She turned around, like it was nothing, like she wasn’t a coward, and he wasn’t gorgeous staring down at her ruined form. Wren. Devastation was right.
She crossed one arm under her smaller breasts, grabbing hold of her other arm above the bandages. They weren’t as thick as they had been just a few days ago. The deep cuts from the iron curse were healing well. She’d leave off the bandage in a few days to let those scabs finish healing in open air.
The shirt she wore hung off one boney shoulder.
Ever didn’t turn his attention immediately to the healing wound on her neck like he had the last time she let him see through her glamour. This wasn’t the same. This wasn’t about making sure she was patched up. She hadn’t realized until his gaze started freely roaming her skin, that he had tried not to before.
A couple times she thought for sure he’d ask about a scar and was surprised to realize how much she wanted to tell him those stories. Adventures and close calls. No one had ever caught or caged her, not since Baron and she hadn’t known she was caged then.
Her skin rose and tingled everywhere his gaze went.
He brought his hand up slowly to her face, fingertips pushing aside black hair and his thumb gently tracing the misshapen bone in her nose and then the other in her cheek. He had seen these when they were fresh. She had gotten them in the struggle with Baron, or maybe in the aftermath when she brought down the ceiling. It was a haze of panic, betrayal, and pain to her now. And then that same thumb returned to her mouth, ghosting over the thick scar there in her bottom lip down to her chin.
Wren turned her face up, not down. She parted her lips and drew a breath to answer that unspoken question about where, when, and how.
Ever leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t the slow lean and linger where he’d wait for her to close the distance and kiss him like he’d done so many times before. It wasn’t a quiet offer or a tentative reassurance. He kissed her like he’d been searching for her and afraid he’d never find her.
It tasted like desperation, breathing life into a part of her she didn’t know was dying.
She grabbed at his shoulders, practically pulling herself up him. His arms were there, quick to wrap around and lift her against him. Nothing significant had changed about how he touched her. There was no unease or new caution. They kissed like they hadn’t been doing exactly this every day since the snowfall began, like they’d both been deprived for too long.
In a few steps, he was dropping forward with her onto the bed, her arms still around the back of his neck when she landed on the mattress. He sucked and licked at the scar in her lip before finally breaking the kiss to pull her shirt up and off of her, leaving her in nothing but a pair of underwear on his bed beneath him.
He pushed her back flat, those yellow eyes darting over her skin.
Ever leaned down, pressing his face to her sternum, between her small breasts, and dragged in a deep breath like he was trying to fill his lungs with her. The mattress on either side of her groaned with the phantom of his wolf, a low rumble in his chest and vibrating from his mouth into her skin as he dragged his lips lower.
She realized he was scenting her without that layer of the glamour over her, masking her.
Wren shivered at that new and intoxicating sense of exposure.
He groaned against her stomach and curled fingers into her underwear, dragging them off her. He licked that deep scar in her thigh, and then ghosted teeth across her hip, making her gasp and squirm, one hand shooting down to burying digits in his hair.
Before she could ask a question she damn well knew the answer to, he had his face between her thighs and his tongue inside her.
The witch arched, eyes closing and fingers twisting in his hair.
He pushed his tongue deeper and rumbled another eager growl, making her shudder.
#Bite to Bruise#werewolf romance#monster romance#werewolf x witch#modern fantasy world#own world#own characters#dominimoonbeam#<3#clover down#romance
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How to School Me Better: Universal Changes
This will be the first in a series of blog posts about me reflecting on my schooling experience. Each of them will be posted under the "school" tag on my tumblr.
I graduated college two years ago. I haven’t been back in school since then, though I do plan to return about a year from now. My overall school experience was, I’d say, pretty decent. I was certainly not without many personal struggles, whether it was academically or socially, though. Many of my teachers were great and really did the best with what they had. There were a few teachers I had who I didn’t think were good teachers and who failed to really reach me. Regardless, the public American education system is an absolute mess and I think it needs to be fundamentally reworked from the ground up. I don’t think I can find that many people, including current teachers, who would completely disagree with that sentiment. So what I am going to do here is brainstorm ways in which I think said system could be reworked, though more to the point, I am going to list ways in which I think specific subjects could have been taught to me in ways where they actually would have stuck and have been meaningful to me. Now that I am an adult, I have recognized that I definitely don’t have a dislike for learning-in fact, I think most people like learning in some form or fashion-but the way a lot of subjects were handled in the classes I took was in a way that was not very conducive to actual learning. It’s actually pretty wild, thinking back at it, how the people who design these curriculums thought that they were. I don’t mean the individual teachers I had here, for the most part at least. There was a large looming force over most of the courses I took, whether it was standardized testing or having to do grades in a specific way for the school. So these are more systemic suggestions than they are levied at any specific teachers I had, though certain teaching styles and philosophies worked better with me than others.
Universal changes
More federal funding across the board
Smaller student-to-teacher ratio
The abolishment of homework
More recess/unstructured break time for all grade levels
No standardized testing
No self-contained special ed classes for *anyone*. Actually meaningfully include students with disabilities.
Shorter school days in general, though doing this without also shortening the work day for most jobs would not be optimal
Minimize traditional testing in general
Apply a strength-based approach to how mastery of the subjects are assessed
A lot of these are things already done at private schools and via homeschooling. Which is great! However, most families cannot afford these things. I don’t know that mine could’ve. Private schools and homeschooling are at best, band-aids on the current system we have, and at worst are shelters from the real world for parents who want to mold their children into their particular image of them. Tutoring also definitely helped me, but again, it’s a band-aid. Private schools also tend to have horrific things happen in them because they’re not beholden to the same rules as public schools, though they can also be great for that same reason. Regardless, those are not going to help the most people as opposed to more systemic changes. Other obligations can get in the way of homework if one is involved with extracurricular activities. Now yes, there’s the “school comes first, extracurriculars second” doctrine but I really don’t think it’s that simple.
Extracurriculars are supposed to enhance your learning in some way, and may even utilize skills you learn in classes. Why not leverage that more instead of expecting someone to not break under the pressure of having to juggle so many things at once? There seems to always be the underpinning argument of “this is how the real world works, Better Get Used To It” when it comes to this stuff. Yes, having to juggle obligations is part of adulthood. However, a lot of the time, even then, I feel like it doesn’t quite have to be that way. If this is what I needed to get used to, then why should I be excited to grow up at all? There’s also a point to be made about how a lot of what we even learn in school isn’t stuff we use in everyday life, though I think one way to fix that is to simply apply what we learn to real life more often.
Strengths-based approach is a term often used in disability services, though I think in a lot of ways, it is applicable to learning as a whole. Some of the very best teachers I had used this approach. They were the ones who really valued growth and connection. The ones who didn’t simply feel like authority figures, the ones who didn’t care as much about the extrinsic value, but rather the ones who actually took time to meet students where they are, and make them recognize that they inherently have strengths that can be utilized effectively. They make the class feel legitimately connected, and the only people who may feel left out simply weren’t interested in the first place. I can tell the difference that makes for a classroom environment. A great example of this was a class I took two semesters in a row, which was for a storytelling ensemble known as Tellers. One thing I really liked about Tellers was that everyone had their own thing they brought to the table. There wasn’t really a sense of, “oh, this guy is better than the other guy”. The director really has a way of making each performance feel special and becoming of the individual’s skillset. Does that mean nobody in tellers is better or worse than another or that all performances are equally good? No. What it does mean, is that there wasn’t a race to the top. There was simply being the best you. Bringing your best foot forward. Not creating a hierarchy or a sense of competition doesn’t mean nobody gets praised in a classroom. It means everyone’s unique talents and strengths are well recognized. What makes a teacher truly exceptional is the ability to fully realize that.
Next, I want to go by individual subjects, since I had my own share of strengths and weaknesses in each of them. Generally speaking, I struggled the most with STEM subjects. I think some of this has to do with how my brain is wired. I’m definitely not a very logical point a-point b thinker. However, I also don’t at all think I am incapable of learning these things. Most, probably nearly all, of my former teachers and professors would likely agree that I was capable of learning what they taught me and I generally would absorb it pretty well. What I struggled with were the assignments themselves, and keeping up with the pace at which the content was taught. The most common ways most subjects were taught didn’t work for me. Some of what didn’t work about how these subjects were taught also affected how well I did in literature and humanities courses too, even though those were usually my stronger subjects. Since I don't want to put everything into one giant, long blog post, I am going to split these up into parts. Next time I will be discussing math, but for now, I would like to know what you think about what I have discussed so far, as well as your own personal experiences, should you feel comfortable sharing.
TL;DR: My schooling experience came with a myriad of challenges. Many of these were because of my disabilities as well as how the system is not properly designed for people like me, and is inherently flawed in general. There are many systemic changes that should be made that can improve the overall experience for everyone, students and teachers alike. There are also specific changes that could made which would benefit students like me.
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Hi there!
I noticed you mentioned wanting to hire people to help with game dev if you had the means. Would you by any chance be willing to accept volunteers who want to help bring your beautiful vision to life? I really like all the work you’ve done, and would love to contribute in whatever way you need.
If not, I may ride on the coattails of Spanish translator anon and work on a French version. I read Les Fleurs du Mal in high school, so I could put that to good use :P. This is, of course, only if you’re cool with it.
Thanks for everything!
Hi there!
This is a very sweet ask and I appreciate it immensely. It feels good to have people like the things I do and want to take part in them. I am naturally a little weary of volunteer work on any project I'm running at the moment- I don't believe in unpaid labor, and I currently don't have any plans drawn up for compensation in terms of royalties should the game make any kind of money, nor do I have the overhead to pay for work up front. It doesn't feel fair to accept labor for free and then turn around and sell the completed version of the game, either. I don't want to end up in a situation where my poor financial management skills and the uncertain value of the game, if any, culminates in hurt feelings or unjust practices.
That being said it feels like the most responsible thing for me to do, as a poor creator who ultimately would like to sell my work, is to create the game independently. I may one day be able to pay people for their work in later games, but for now it just doesn't seem possible to do fairly.
What I will accept for free, JUST FOR NOW- is translations for the demo, primarily as an accessibility tool. In the full, paid version of the game, I will attempt to hire translators and compensate them for their services if I generate enough from it to afford to do so. That being said, I can't afford all of my food, rent, and healthcare expenses most months right now. It might be a while before I'm able to make that happen in a way that feels responsible and fair while addressing my own needs.
Potential demo translators, I would also urge you to WAIT to work on translations until I post the updated game demo. Date of release is still pending, but I want to re-release the demo before I'm finished with the full game because I have reworked a lot of it and I don't believe the currently available demo represents the concept I have for the final game anymore.
I want to earnestly thank everyone who has been following my work and been so patient as I have faced so many incredibly challenging life circumstances and taught myself game development from the ground up. I have been incredibly fortunate to have the understanding support that I do. Thank you.
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I desperately need to hear about 9! (and maybe 3 if you're feeling generous?)
YES i love talking about hangster
so #9 is a fic set a few years in the future where bradley and jake have been hooking up for the better part of a year when bradley is sent on a mission and asks jake to house sit for him. then bradley goes MIA and jake goes a little insane and spends a few weeks fixing up bradleys house (and like most everyone in that fandom, he’s living in his childhood home) and slowly, all the daggers (plus maverick, obviously) show up to remind him he has friends who care about him.
the way that this is currently 32k and just languishing in my wip folder omg 😅
and a snippet from that one because why not:
“You’re a real piece of shit, you know.” Phoenix calls up at him from the ground.
Jake glances down from the top of the ladder, one hand practically elbow-deep in the muck filling Rooster’s gutters. “Oh, I know.”
“My best friend is missing and I just wanted to talk to someone who knows how it feels.”
“Your husband already pulling away, Phoenix?” He jokes. “Never thought that day would come,” he tacks on, recognizing that maybe the joke was too harsh.
She shakes her head. “Bob loves him, but it’s not the same.”
“Bob probably gets it better than I do, Nat,” Jake says, grinning wickedly at her. “I’m just the boytoy.”
“I think you love him,” she says bluntly. “You don’t have to admit it to me. You don’t have to admit it to anyone. But the very least you could do for him is make sure his best friend doesn’t fall apart without him.”
That hits him right in the fucking chest.
She’s right.
All the shit Jake is doing to the house, and what he should be doing is taking care of Bradley’s people. Fuck. He should call Mav.
(yes i am always spreading the bobnix agenda even if i still haven’t published a single fic in that fandom)
as for #3… yeah it’s a bonus chapter to even if it’s just pretend haha. when i was writing it, i was a day late posting the epilogue because i felt like i had to rewrite it, so im reworking the original epilogue and ill eventually post it, i swear!
there’s… not a ton of it to choose from, i reworked a lot of it into what was published and most of what’s left is just an outline, but here’s a little!!
Things are slightly different now, at least. Henry wears a pink tie with his charcoal suit, the rainbow pin stuck proudly to his lapel, and Alex leaves his collar open so Henry can be distracted by that divot at the base of his throat. And they're allowed to say the word "love" this time, and Henry gets to touch him when he needs reassurance, so while it's at least better than their last interview, it's still far from ideal.
thanks for asking about these two!! i love them both so much.
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