#GOD I HOPE THE READMORE WORKS

[majorasnightmare]

Inevitable Gerudo Headcanon Posting

i spend too much time thinking about the gerudo like genuinely theyre one of my favorite recurring tribes in the zelda series, which as we all know is a form of suffering because god forbid nintendo stop relying on racist tropes and caricatures.

keeping in line with this nintendos portrayal of the gerudo tends to either be 1) why theyre bad, and/or 2) how a culture of all women has kids. like thats an oversimplification of ALLL the problems present in the gerudos portrayal but thats a different post for another time. in general i bring this up because it means, for me as well as any others interested and invested un the gerudo, that there is a kind of generalized lack of pre botw characterization or cultural concepts to work with, esp when compared to the other tribes of hyrule. (looks pointedly at how theres no gerudo in the gerudo desert but there is a prison slash execution site where their king was held. LOOKS AT WHO SURVIVED THE PROLOGUE CUTSCENE IN WINDWAKER)

ANYWAYS. botw was really fun because, while it had plenty of its own issues with the gerudo, they were at least non hostile! so with that in mind, the headcanons and worldbuilding i write primarily apply to the wilds era gerudo, which spans the timeframe between ganondorfs reign as king to totk (suspending disbelief because that timeframe is. by all accounts. longer than recorded human history. friendly reminder ganondorf does All That before we even get sheikah wifi towers. christ.)

anyways. second verse same as the first, core assumptions and then a readmore

Some core assumptions:

The BotW branch of the timeline is chronologically set AFTER the previous timeline, ie the events of ToTKs ancient past is set AFTER the last event of the Hyrule Historia timeline. essentially they all come back together to form one line that makes up ToTKs ancient era

The biggest effect on Hyrules topography was the flooding in Wind Waker. after an unknown point, the flooding ocean receded leaving behind the ruins of ancient Hyrule. at some point after that, the zonai settled parts of it and made the buildings wed see as ruins by the time of BotW. slowly the various tribes of hyrule immigrated back

all peoples within the setting of hyrule are loosely grouped into categories called tribes. in this sense, tribe refers a collection of peoples with shared traits, without anything concretely set in stone (for example, hyrule includes the tribe of hylians, the tribe of gorons, the tribe of koroks, etc etc). the main six who show up repeatedly can be considered the sage tribes (gerudo, hylian, sheikah, rito, goron, zora), and the various types of enemies can be considered the monster tribes (the blin tribe of bokoblin, moblin, bulblin, etc)

so. starting at the beginning. near entirely headcanons

in ocarina of time, we see the spirit temple, where Nabooru awakens as a sage. this temple features a MASSIVE statue of a woman adorned with a snake and its primary mechanic centers around mirrors and reflected light. while the mirrors return, we dont really get that same kind of implied spiritual/religious focus again. so instead im going to make a mountain out of a molehill and position her as the primary spiritual figure here. im running low on name ideas tho so suggestions are much appreciated. for right now ill refer to her as the serpent goddess

the gerudo are culturally a people of function over form, practicality over whimsy, but when circumstances allow for it, are drawn like any other to arts and music and decoration. they have a long history of bloody, brutal battle, and while the war has long since ended, its kings buried and its warriors naught but ghosts, the desert remembers. its sands haunted by the bloodstains of conflict past, and echoes of ancient tragedies. the gerudo here in the era of wilds may have lost their records of their ancient history of conflict, but some aspects, preserved by the sands, have managed to survive the onslaught of time

surviving all this time is the ancient creation myth of the gerudo people. as legend tells it, long ago in the time before myth, there existed a goddess whos power was transformation. she was possessed of two forms, one a proud humanoid figure, the other a striking serpentine form twisting through the heavens with ease, her scales glittering with mirror sheen. to shift from serpent to human, she would shed her skin, and grow it back again to embrace her serpentine form anew

seven times she shed her skin, and from these shed skins rose the first gerudo, each embodying a key aspect of their sacred mother. the serpent goddess's scales are each a nascent soul of a gerudo, and when those scales are shed and fall to the land below, a new gerudo is born. likewise, when a gerudo dies, their soul returns to the scales of the serpent goddess, to await until they would descend again and reincarnate once more. the seven daughters of the serpent goddess led these gerudo as their guardians, leaders, and protectors. but, away from the seven heroines and their new people, the goddess shed her skin an eighth time. this daughter was born alone, and while her sisters embodies the strengths of spirit, flight, endurance, knowledge, motion, skill, and gentleness, the eighth was born with insatiable wanderlust. learning of this, the seven sisters cursed her name for leaving them and their people behind, and despite their shared ancestry, the eighth was forbidden to be spoken of. this suited her just fine, and the eighth was free to walk the land and learn all of its hidden paths

in time, war came to the gerudo, as it often does. though they were united, and strong, they were a small collection of people, and thus despite their proficiency were threatened nonetheless. it became clear at last that they could not stand and fight, and that to survive, they could not remain in place for long. but the enemy had pushed them deep into their home, and knew all the paths back. as hope seemed lost, as if summoned by call, the eighth sister at last wandered home. calling her seven sisters to her, she proclaimed that every hidden step was known to her, and while she lacked the power to guide them on her own, together they would escape unseen into the night, their enemy none the wiser. thus, skillfully guiding the skills of her sisters, the eighth heroine led the gerudo into safety, and the seven were humbled from their pettiness. seeking to apologize to the sister they had banished and forgotten, the seven sought to make amends, but the eighth was content merely to have a place of remembrance among them. to wander is not a sin, as long as one remembers where their home lies.

the eight heroines have long since passed and returned to their mothers scales, but the virtues they embody are cherished by the gerudo family they left behind, seeking to hold their memory close even as the years wear on

to the gerudo was bestowed the blessing of the element of Spirit, embodied by their iron wills and manifesting as crackling lightning. this spirit lightning is the gerudo's will made tangible, arcing out towards their target as an extension of their focus and sheer determination. to a gerudo, nothing is impossible until one has devoted themselves entirely to it, giving it their all, and only then may it be conceded

a long history of persecution has resulted in the gerudo being increasingly insular and isolationist. their admiration of the art of combat and how it can bring forth an individuals talents, achieving a perfect harmony between body and will as the weapon became an extension of ones limbs, was often perceived as aggression by outsiders, who would react as if to defend their own interests. the gerudo have suffered much at the hands of hyrule at large, and have pulled further and further away.

as the gerudo pulled away from hyrule, and hyrule from them, they devoted most of their attention to themselves. cooperation amongst themselves is seen as paramount to their survival, and familial affection often extends well past ones blood relations.

the gerudo value family, and loyalty, alongside independence and cooperation. everyone should have the opportunity to pursue their goals, but if someone is struggling, it is the responsibility of everyone to help. children are raised by as many people as are available, and even in the times of monarchy, the palace was less a formal dwelling place belonging to the gerudo ruler and more a public forum that the ruler simply happened to live in

most of the palaces amenities are fully public, a tradition that has carried on to riju's time. meals are communal and the kitchens open to all, and the palace has no strictly dedicated servants, merely a collection of amenities the gerudo people are free to use at will and often do so together. what this means is that there is no servant, for example, dedicated to preparing riju's meals but instead a collection of people willing to cook and willing to eat making meals riju partakes in, and this applies to most other menial tasks as well. the throne room is where the leader of the gerudo engages in their job as public servant, attending to the needs of the gerudo at large and responding to crises as they arise.

as nintendo is keen to point out, the gerudo are a people that are predominantly "all women", and thus spends plenty of time going over dialogue wherein people wonder how they have children and including a plethora of sidequests in the wilds era about acquiring partners. im ignoring all of that and instead going by lizard rules, in part because here theyre descended from a serpent dragon goddess, wherein a population of all female lizards were able to successfully maintain a stable population and have children without major issue. gerudo like ganondorf are the equivalent of a rare genetic mutation that flips some other genes on and has a different result, that really doesnt affect anything besides this one kid and doesnt have any major effects or differences in their life. two gerudo are perfectly capable of having kids together, having relationships as usual, and on the topic of "how do the gerudo have kids", thats all i really feel like exploring that topic

with an insular, isolationist culture that appeared for all intents and purposes to be all women, the gerudo were often a source of major culture shock when interacting with the other tribes of hyrule, most notably hylians

bonus hylian lore: hylians experience an even greater lack of sexual dimorphism than irl humans do, so gender presentation is near exclusively presentation based, with a heavy emphasis on clothing. showing skin is considered an act of emotional intimacy, and most hylians opt to cover as much as they can. the intensity of presentation scales upwards with their role in society, with the royal family having the most extreme form of gender presentation. gender is presented through clothing style and hair length, with ornamentation, jewelry, and piercings serving as a kind of intensifier, and hylian culture at large tends to operate on a sliding scale of masculine to feminine, with the middle androgynous zone being a weird gender spot for them

the gerudo, by contrast, never really developed a concept of masculinity versus femininity. gender pronouns in gerudo are based on personal proximity, occupation in society, and familiarity. these barely translate at all into hyrulean.

as the gerudo, by circumstance or by choice, interacted with hylians and the tribes of hyrule more and more often, some kind of understanding had to be reached with regards to translation. as relations were already terse, making an attempt to fully translate the gerudos understanding of gender to your average hylian was considered a fools errand, and thus translation was done in broad strokes, giving hylians the simplest root form of gender pronouns (and none of the increasingly specific declensions). loosely, the term vai is closer in concept to "us" and voe is closer to "not us" "foreigner" "outsider", and has taken on a connotation of " forbidden" or "taboo" (leading to wilds era gerudo secret clubs often imploying translatable Adult Puns regarding their catering to voe and the overall titillating atmosphere they tend to put on for customers). with regards to hylians, the feminine princesses and queens had more in common with the gerudo and were thus "vai", but the masculine kings and soldiers, who were often the main figures pushing aggressive efforts into conquering or otherwise absorbing the gerudo into hyrule, were "voe". this was then distributed in various guides to understanding the gerudo language as " vai" meaning "woman" and "voe" meaning man

gerudo town, as the capital of their people and general hub, has a law banning the entrance of voe. at the time if its writing, this was a fairly obvious law, because most "people who are forbidden" are forbidden from entering. as time has passed, hostilities cooled, and relations warmed, this law has been the subject of a long struggle of interpretation. it doesnt translate well into nearly any other language, and thus who counts as "voe" and "vai" is subject to endless debate. the differences in gender perception are most clearly on display with the admittance of the gorons. one might assume that the gorons, being a monogendered people who typically use masculine terms of identity and endearment in hyrulean, to thus qualify as voe, but the gorons cooperative nature, near uniform monogendered culture, and emphasis on hard work and independence has enough in common with your average gerudo that considering them as vai is a no brainer

ganondorf thus is also, clearly, considered vai. the specific pronouns he uses in his native gerudo include declensions regarding his position as royalty (one that has since gone out of use and is fairly archaic now, only really being used as a kind of neo-pronoun by current era gerudo as a rebellious self identification thing), his relation as the only child of koume and kotake, and are conjugated based on relation between the speaker and him. in the ancient era, calling ganondorf voe would be so confusing as to not even read as an insult. if one really wanted to refer to ganondorf with a tone of insult, theyd substitute the declension of familiarity with one used for strangers

ganondorf achieved his position as king the old fashioned way: a gift from his moms. ancient era gerudo practiced typical monarchy with a line of succession, and koume and kotake named him as the next royal of the gerudo as their heir. the hyruleans, seeing a masculine gerudo of royal birth, referred to him as "king", and correcting a culture of people he had little respect for was just a waste of ganondorfs time. after ganondorfs sealing, the gerudo changed to the current system of chiefs, wherein the current chief names a successor, or by default passes it onto their living heir. a system is in place to democratically install a new chief if the current one passes without naming a child their heir, or naming a successor in their place, a system drafted and then used in ganondorfs absence. riju thus inherited the mantle from her mother, but could opt instead to force a vote, or have such a vote forced on her due to her age, leading to much of her insecurity seen in BotW. this system has proven to be relatively stable, especially coupled with the continued tradition of keeping the palace an open public forum

the first chief of the gerudo was nabooru, advised by the sage of lightning we see in totk, following ganondorfs sealing

the gerudo are very familiar with the souls of the dead. poes, souls lost and aimless, wander the desert after millennia of bloodshed. thus their funerary customs have persisted, even as the folklore behind them fades in and out of memory.

a person perceives reality through their body. they know the sky is above them both by craning their neck up, and by the sensation of ground beneath them. in death, one is bodiless, and sensation becomes a confusing, directionless onslaught. it is so easy for a spirit to become lost, unable to orient themselves. the gerudos funerary rites seeks to aid these souls in their journey towards returning to the serpent goddess, as without guidance they are liable to become poes. the body after death is merely an empty receptacle, and on a practical level is a potential draw for dangerous desert scavengers seeking an easy meal. the shifting sands and hard soil makes burial difficult to impossible, so instead the gerudo burn their dead. smoke is ephemeral and thus able to be seen by spirits, and even as the wind rushes, smoke will still travel upwards towards the heavens. a spirit will linger by its body for a time, and thus cremation helps provide guidance to the dead. unable to feel the earth beneath them, the dead can follow the trails of smoke to orient themselves upwards, and dispel lingering confusion

as the body is burned both to guide the departed's soul and to ward away scavengers, the gerudo inter their belongings into gravesites instead, usually one or a small collection of items that the deceased valued or were considered emblematic of them. having a proud history of warriors, many gerudo consider their weapons extensions of themselves, and thus many gravesites will consist of a single weapon.

the sage of lightnings temple served as the primary gravesite for many gerudo, and in its heyday was decorated with love and care as befitting its role. torches burned bright in its sconces and the walls painted with care in massive sweeping murals. here in the temple, a foreigners idea of the gerudo as austere and practical would fall away, as the halls shone with warmth and color, taken from their desert home

lost souls that become poes often end up becoming consumed by their regrets and despair at their inability to find their way back to reincarnation through the serpent goddess's scales, and from there turn to rage and aggression. the sunlight glinting off of the goddess's mirror scales will blind and disorient the dead who have lost their way, as they try in vain to rely on their half forgotten senses, and thus poes eschew the day in favor of the cover of night. though incorporeal, poes move as fast as the desert winds, and try all they can to cause mischief and havoc. usually the end result of their shenanigans is light injuries and scratches, but it isn't uncommon for a waylaid traveller or adrenaline seeking youngster to suffer fatal consequences. despite this, poe hunting tends to be the go-to act of rebellion for antsy teenagers with a taste for danger. in general, one of the only things fast enough to strike a poe is a fired arrow

as the sands grew and the desert expanded, it grew more and more difficult for the steeds of the gerudo to gallop across the dunes, and they were driven further and further back until the gerudo phased out their horseback traditions entirely

and as an AU specific trivia tidbit

after ganondorf's sealing, nabooru grieved the loss of her childhood friend by constructing a dedicated tomb to house ganondorf's gravesite. even though he wouldn't die, nabooru would never live to see him again, and in traditional gerudo fashion, his gravesite is marked by his signature trident, further imbued by nabooru's blessing of lighting (in a similar fashion to urbosa's fury, despite urbosa not being a sage).

#totk headcanons #totk spoilers #loz gerudo #gerudo #ganondorf #totk au #loz headcanons #i THINK thats all the relevant ones #god i hope the readmore works. guess ill find out #BUT ALSO. GANONDORF NEOPRONOUNS REAL IN MY HEART. HES VAI. HES AN INCREDIBLY NICHE AND ARCHAIC FORM OF VAI #THAT HIGHKEY ISNT EVEN RELEVANT ANYMORE. biographies about him confuse+anger gerudo scholars because translating his pronouns is a BITCH #it also makes riju removing the voe restriction more impactful imo because its a symbol of how far the gerudo have come- #-in their relations to hyrule. because the voe rule is almost entirely like. a no hyrule thing snfnsndhdbf #so hyrule finally like! not being so much of a threat that the gerudo feel they have to stay closed off! going from oppressor to ally! #LET IT MEAN SOMETHING NINTENDO G O D #anyways. ganondorfs so gender. #nvm got the readmore to work c: #loz totk

[landoffreaksandfrogs]

cherub oc infodump

the MUSE OF VOID is named MARANEE. Her and her brother's hatch day is 7/7. She has a variety of interests, such as WRITING SAD POETRY, PHOTOGRAPHY, and the study of DEMONOLOGY. She is also an AMATEUR MAKE-UP ARTIST and KNIFE MAKER. God. She loves knives. She can make a super deadly and sharp knife out of anything if she tried hard enough.

She uses the BLACKOUT modus, wherein her items are obscured in shadow. She uses the knifeKind and mascaraKind strife specibi. Her handle is somberSoliloquey and her sign is LILITH.

-

The LORD OF LIGHT is named ASMODEE. His and his sister's hatch day is 7/7. He has a variety of interests, or at least, pretends he does, such as CLEANING, WOODCARVING, and the study of INTERGALACTIC POLITICS AND HISTORY. He's well-versed in CHERUB LORE AND CULTURE, a rare trait for the solitary species.

He uses the WHITEOUT modus, wherein all of his cards appear to be blank, so he has to rely on memory to find where they are. He uses the flailKind and penKind strife specibi. His handle is serendipitousSatellite, and his sign is SELENA.

---

they are both in the midst of a teen rebellion for cherubs.

maranee resents the future that awaits her and the chosen assignment of her traits and personality at her birth, being put in a box as a "benevolent" cherub has caused her to lash out and commit to a harsher persona, obsessed with doom and gloom and attempting to be "evil" instead. she is terrified of growing up, and of the impending loneliness that accompanies it. she hates her brother, but she cant imagine life without him either. her only friend is another girl online, one who really IS in despair, instead of just faking it...

asmodee resents the future that awaits him and the chosen assignment of his traits and personality at birth. he is a deeply philosophical young cherub and has dedicated his childhood to trying to find out what IS good and evil? to find this out, he had chosen to repress his malevolent nature, appearing on the outside as a calm, mature, and pleasant cherub, in contrast to his volatile and emotional sister. he has essentially softened himself, made himself more "palatable," at great emotional expense to himself and to his sister. he wants to just grow up already and leave their slowly dying planet, but his sister is unable to plan for the future and theyre locked in stalemate. his friend online, a commanding boy with a vicious streak, tells him of a game that can benefit all four of them...

#TEXT WALL TIME. #god i hope the readmore works properly #fancherub

[miamierre]

normal girl friday train ride home thoughts

tw for my enormous ass screenshot lol. rip

#god i hope this mobile readmore works. i'm sinning about the fellas. that's what this is. click at your own risk etc etc #in my flop era but also my Even-More-Insane-Than-Previously-Thought era. i am a woman of multidudes #tbd #i think. kdbsjdbsjdmkd #EDIT: MULTITUDES KAGDJSMSKDMD

[eyedelater]

yakuza like a dragon post

i went to a store and bought neo TWEWY, and then instead of playing that, i bought Yakuza: Like a Dragon (yakuza 7) on steam because it was on sale and started playing that. now it seems like i'll be playing this game for the rest of my natural life because the amount of stuff to do is simply limitless. so that's bad news for my copy of neo TWEWY, but good news for me?

naturally, this post is going on my anime blog because the game is originally in japanese. i have the audio set to japanese, and it's very educational. the japanese voice actors are all quite good. kasuga's voice actor is fantastic. and at first i didn't have that many thoughts worth recording about the game, but now, several have built up, and i need somewhere to put them. i should note that i've never played any other yakuza games, but i understand that they are generally well-loved by everyone… maybe? i've only ever seen tiny snippets of gameplay footage from the other yakuza games, so i have no idea what their gameplay is like. if you have to aim a gun with your joystick, i'll never play them.

good first impressions. i LOVE a minimap. i LOVE a minimap that is set to north-up and is always on. if i ever got some stupid shit like google glass to put a GUI on my everyday life, i would put a north-up minimap corresponding with my GPS location. (ok maybe i wouldn't want it tracked constantly. but still.) on my in-game minimap, kasuga is a big arrow, and his party members are little arrows, just like a duck and ducklings. i'm running around leading my little ducklings all around yokohama. because i'm trying to make kasuga the best man he can be, i usually make an effort to have him navigate the sidewalks in a polite way. i want him not to crash into other pedestrians even though he is tall and imposing and his hitbox is very wide. so i skillfully dodge between all the pedestrians to avoid making them shout. but despite my best efforts, i hear all my little ducklings behind me crashing into every pedestrian i managed to avoid. my little ducklings are so clumsy.

i did the side quest where you lead the bubble man to a clothing store. i didn't like that duckling.

the hitboxes on items and vending machines are Absolutely merciless, and because the interact button is also the run button, i keep breaking into a run and crashing around instead of picking up the item. there's just no way for kasuga to look cool when trying to interact with something.

you might not know this about me, but in my view, the best video games allow you to run fast and jump high regardless of the circumstances. so i can't deny that my heart sank when i found out that this game has no jump button whatsoever. i will do my best to see past this obvious deficit.

this game has such a good sense of humor. it's ridiculous and not overly negative despite some terrible things happening. i laughed out loud at the cheerful little tune when someone joins your party. i love the wholesomeness of kasuga just trying to be the best man he can be and become a real-life hero. the way side quests always devolve into violence and then the problem is always solved by a beatdown is too funny. the absurdity and good humor puts it on a level that is not too far from golden kamuy, in my opinion. i'm not especially far along as i write this (saeko just joined my party), but i really think this game might be a treasure. and i have to say that if i hadn't been really into golden kamuy immediately before playing this, i might not have been in the right mindset to appreciate cute ossans like this. i like the audacious decision to make your party primarily out of down-on-their-luck 40- and 50-somethings, and i love the audacious decision to have them do cute things like become best friends and earn vocational school certificates and plant little gardens. (if i apply the COCK test to this game, it passes 3 points with flying colors: completely unhinged, offends the church, kicks ass. it might be deficient on the Creatures point unless you count the catchable bugs, which barely count due to their pure normalness, or sujimon, which barely count due to their humanity.)

i've learned that these vocational school certificates don't fuck around. however, i'm determined not to cheat or look up answers. (eventually i decided to savescum, but only a little.)

i was thinking it's really hard to do anything to improve kasuga's personality, but then i finally unlocked the part-time hero quests and like 50 achievements hit at once and he became 5 times the better man instantaneously.

i love nanba. he's the best. i love his frown and his slouch. his deadpan voice is the best. i love his finishing attack that knocks him flat on his ass. i'm trying to get lots of side quests done in between main story points because i don't know when i might lose access to this map like i lost access to the kamurocho map, but i can't get emotionally closer to nanba without advancing the main story more. i need that, and that's why i'm advancing the main story. (the fact that getting closer to him is tied to story progress might indicate that he's going to be an especially long-lasting member of your party…)

nanba has the highest of whatever stat makes you go first in battle, but he seems to be the slowest of my ducklings when it comes to keeping up with running kasuga, so it happens over and over and over that kasuga aggros the enemies and then nanba is like "all right, it's my turn!!" but he's like 30 feet behind or around the corner and has to run a little while everyone waits for him.

i work with homeless people in my day job, and i think this game portrays them somewhat cruelly… i have really mixed feelings about it… like the narrative puts in effort to be like, "everyone has their own reasons for being on the street and it's not as simple as going and getting a job," which is true! and it includes the obvious fact that not having a home is a gigantic obstacle to getting a job. (hot tip: you will have trouble getting a normal job if you don't have somewhere to take showers and do laundry, because otherwise, you will stink too much for anyone to hire you. and if you have a very small income, are you going to spend it on doing laundry often enough at the laundromat, or are you going to spend it mostly on food? and are you going to spend it on thrifty foods like dry beans and pasta to boil up at your nonexistent stove, or are you going to buy more expensive fast food and gas station food that is immediately available? it all comes together into a big vicious circle that is incredibly difficult to escape without outside help, no matter how badly you want to work. yet many people fail to consider any of this and act like homeless people are some kind of mess to clean up.) but despite that, the game also implicitly and explicitly makes fun of homeless people a lot ("battle bum" and "hungry hungry homeless," "homeless guy" as a job class, nanba's bad breath attack and pigeon attack [even though i love his pigeon attack], weird implication that there's a Leader at the homeless settlement that everyone respects). and it does seem to completely ignore the fact that drugs and mental illness generally factor into homelessness in a major way. (maybe it's different in japan? i don't know a single thing about the drugs situation there. but i can't imagine the mental illness situation is too different.) i don't know. you can't expect every depiction to be perfectly respectful, especially in a very silly game like this. but i think it's not good to ignore the disrespect. this is something i'm still chewing over. all the outfits are exactly right though.

is there a mod where you can give kasuga a giant white cravat so we can acknowledge how much the color of his outfit reminds me of miles edgeworth

i noticed that sometimes kasuga has nothing in his unbuttoned shirt except his cleavage and other times there's a red scarf thing there. what's up with that? oh, is it when he transforms into a Hero and that means his outfit changes slightly, just like how nanba puts his hood up? [note added in later: yes.]

i have unlocked many things such as gardening and part-time hero quests, but i still don't have anything to do with the extremely burgeoning pile of crafting materials i have been amassing this entire time. i could build a hosue with all this shit.

classifying other humans as sujimon is interesting. it's true that if you're out in the real world you may come across someone and it's like, "have i seen this person before? no… i've just seen another of the exact same Type of Guy." i myself am of a certain Type that old people mistake for their niece. of course, it's kind of bizarre and messed up to classify sujimon as if they're something other than human. but it is funny. (and in this case, the "mon" isn't short for monster but rather for mono 者, which can be a word describing humans.)

some of these cutscenes are incredibly long. i like to listen carefully to the japanese lines as if it were a listening exercise. based on my listenings, i would say they did a good job with the translation, though it's clear they decided to lean very much in the direction of "getting the connotations across and making it sound good in english" and away from "translating literally exactly what they are saying." because of my personal taste, i tend to be a stickler for leaning toward the latter (with allowances for making it sound good in english), but that's just a matter of poetic license. there are some lines i would have translated quite differently, but that's only a result of my own oversized ego. overall, they did a better job than i could have. obviously. i also noticed in the cutscenes that there are often unnaturally long pauses between the lines but that you can make them shorter if you press the A button? maybe to give you, the viewer, time to process? seems weird though. [note added in later: i think that was my computer struggling to load the cutscene. so instead of having huge loading times in between cutscenes, they have little tiny loading times in between all the dialogue? seems like something like that. this is the most demanding game i've ever tried to run on this computer.]

adachi is constantly saying, "koshi ga haru ze." i think it's "haru," but i'm not sure. "koshi" means "hips," and he's an old guy, so it's probably something about his hips aching. but i can't quite figure out the verb. is it haru as in "to stretch or strain?" i guess that would make sense. or is it a different verb and i'm mishearing? my auditory processing is somewhat notoriously poor. anyway, whatever he's actually saying, i kinda want adachi to shut the fuck up about his hips.

i basically never play games where the characters are meant to be photorealistically rendered. there is not one such game that i have played through to the end. i just prefer cartoonier stuff for various reasons, not the least of which is the uncanny valley of almost-realistically rendered human faces. this game definitely, absolutely has that uncanny valley factor, but i can overlook it. it's refreshing to see character designs that are just people.

i can't believe there's DLC for this game. how could i possibly ever run out of stuff to do. how could i possibly ever run out of stuff to do (a second time for emphasis)

crashing into people on a real-life sidewalk "sorry ma'am, my hitbox is just-- oOF, excuse me, i'm so sorry, it's my hitbox--"

i'm not pumped for this business management minigame. i saved right after we set things up with nick ogata and then stopped playing for the day. i'm too exhausted today to try it… i hope there's an easy way to do the necessary part and then i can forget about it because it doesn't seem fun… can't i just pawn this off on nick ogata right away? by the way, i had to check if nick ogata's name used the same kanji as That ogata, and it does. so i guess it's a name that exists and has the "tail" kanji in it for real, rather than noda-sensei unusually spelling an existing name with a "tail" kanji for hyakunosuke because he's a cat.

they had a moment of minor fanservice after everyone took a bath and saeko was sitting with her cleavage out. but then in the same scene was kasuga's entire boobs. that's balance.* no one can make complaints on any side there. maybe the complaint is that we didn't see nanba's. though i'm quite sure his torso would be unexceptional. but that's why i want to see. look, this is not for my sexual gratification. i just think it's funny how showing a man's entire boobs is totally allowed, and i want to see. (golden kamuy got me used to being allowed to see.)

(*is it?)

i don't want to see adachi's boobs.

i was like "it's so hard to find bugs :( they only spawn on a tree once every 5 hours of play" but then i went to hamakita park and ran around in a field catching bug after bug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

do these various chinatown bun vendors know that their prized proprietary recipes are so similar to each other's offerings that their buns stack together in my inventory

playing in fullscreen, having various thoughts, but this .txt is behind the fullscreen so i can't click away to it. finish playing for the night. forget everything i was going to write.

i historically spend most of my computer time in the web browser without minimizing and may go weeks without looking at my desktop. but when i do rarely play a PC game, i open it by going to my desktop where i have plonked the game's icon. so lately, i'm seeing my desktop much more often. my desktop background is that color page of tsukishima and koito from volume 24, and lately i see it every day. my boys are here to ground me with their serious looks.

right before we got access to the romance workshop, it was like, "this is a great way to repurpose our old items instead of shelling out huge amounts of cash on new ones!" but i have to shell out monster amounts of cash to upgrade the workshop.

one of these days i have to give nanba a new job. i think kasuga will remain a hero, and i don't know about the others, but nanba needs a job other than homeless guy because he needs a new outfit. maybe he'll have more good attacks too. his flame breath is a little frustrating because it's really hard to get him and the enemies in the right position so that it hits more than one enemy. when i feel like i have them in a good position for his flame breath, he decides on his own to run 20 feet closer so that he can only hit one enemy after all.

i want to appreciate the game for all it has to offer, but i'm not very interested in learning how to play all these real-life card games and mahjong. i mean, i know how to play blackjack. knew. it's somewhere in there. i've tried the darts, baseball, and golf minigames. they're fun enough. haven't downloaded the slots minigames. but i don't really want to play cards.

ichiban calls saeko "sacchan (さっちゃん)," but they romanized it as sa-chan. that's fair, given that "sac" is an english word that we don't especially like. and romanizing "sacchan" as the also-phonetically-accurate "satchan" would mean the T appears out of nowhere, so it's not a good option in this case.

i'm SO glad this game doesn't run on real time or abbreviated time or any semblance of realistic passage of time (unlike persona 4). i don't have to ration my side quests or relationship growth based on how much time is left in the day (unlike in persona 4). i won't miss out on important things because i ran out of time or accidentally missed a deadline for that particular date (unlike in persona 4).

my dear nanba killed me once. he can save me, and he can kill me, but only the saving matters to the narrative; no matter how many times he kills me, it is erased. that is his conundrum as a character in a video game with a predetermined plot. anyway, i bought him an expensive weapon, and he killed me with it. it was already somewhat late at night in real life when it happened, so after that, i spent the rest of my time before bed upgrading my weapons and grinding a little in preparation to kill my dear nanba. the game didn't want me running all around ijincho in between fighting the wrecking ball and fighting nanba, so it disabled the taxi service, but i can't be stopped. i ran all the way across town and back to get vegetables so the master could make me some bentos. and i came across hiro's missing cat at hamakita park, so i got a million yen to upgrade my weapons and armor. and now, the next day, after thinking about it all day, it is just about time to kill nanba. but he'll be okay, and then he'll rejoin my party where he belongs.

i killed nanba very easily. i didn't need to use any of the master's bentos. nanba was okay, but he still didn't come back to my party yet. but that's okay. he'll keep gaining XP in the background, and in the mean time, we have a new little duckling. i really wish joon-gi had some attacks that affected the whole crowd of enemies, since he has the highest agility or dexterity or whatever makes him attack first, and when you attack first, the enemies haven't had a chance to spread out yet, so that's when you want to do a broad attack… maybe if he levels up a bit…

i've been watching someone play paper mario lately, and i keep thinking, i wish i could put my party members in my pocket so i don't have to worry about my 2 or 3 incredibly clumsy ducklings constantly crashing into everyone and everything and me as i navigate the crowded city.

nanba came back sooner than i thought. he didn't even have time to get a new outfit like i thought he might. but i guess when you're a level x homeless guy as your job, you can't just get a new outfit even if you meet your brother off-camera and solve your emotional difficulties. also, when nanba came back, sacchan got put in my pocket! so they can be put in my pocket while i run around! but then they won't help me fight.

when i first started playing, i thought the danger level indicators were like the wantedness indicators in GTA, like that's how hard the police are going after you and it's based on how many crimes you commit. but it turns out that there are no consequences and in fact many rewards for beating up endless chinpiras in broad daylight.

joon-gi's voice actor is quite good. i enjoy his polite speech. and despite his calm demeanor, when he attacks, he often lets out a very powerful TSERYAAAA!!!! that feels kind of uncharacteristic but very amusing

i got sick of trying to be nice walking on the sidewalks. now everywhere i go is a chorus of UWOs and KYAs and WOTTOs. it's not my fault my hitbox is wide and my ducklings are so bad at pathfinding. when i break into a run, they also break into a run and loop around to run directly in front of me from a 90 degree angle. i keep getting t-boned by my own ducklings. and then they make a complaining noise.

i'm gonna go to isezaki ijincho just to visit the several large SEGA-branded arcades that definitely exist there in the real world. oh wait, this area itself doesn't quite exist in the real world. i guess that makes sense.

i maxed out my relationship with nanba. i was very annoyed that there was the whole thing of "oops now we have to actually give nanba a surprise party because he's expecting it and he's excited about it!" and then we maxed out his hearts without actually having a surprise party. give me a break. when is he gonna get his goddamn surprise party. he told you that he always wanted one since he was a kid. that girl coming in and lying to him was not a surprise party; it was a misguided gesture that half landed, half flopped. WHERE is nanba yu's surprise party!!!!!!!

han joon-gi finally got an attack that hits many enemies and it's sooo useful. it's also an insane move that would definitely wreak havoc and cause chaos in real life. probably not even an american would risk double-handgun sweeping crossfire on a busy street like that. he does it indoors, too.

(sweating) kasuga ichiban is going to be a MUCH better person than i am by the end of this…

it's fun to have zhao in the party. he sure has a lot of martial arts moves. his painted nails are cute. i like him, but his little mustache is the kind i hate. also is it just me or was there just a little more sexual tension between him and kasuga than expected? when they're having heart-to-hearts at the bar, i mean. well, if i got behind any ship in this game, it would be kasuga/nanba, i suppose.

i don't like the shareholder meeting minigame or the business management minigame as a whole. feels like a swing and a miss to me. i mean, i can tell love went into it. it just doesn't feel intuitive, for one thing… it doesn't seem fun. it is kinda funny how the pacified shareholders settle into a state of dreamy nodding and clapping.

none of the ladies ichiban can woo seem especially interesting as characters. i guess sumire is the best one. maybe you have to be into women for that aspect to land with you. maybe i'll try wooing one or two of them a little more to see if we get any interesting cutscenes or anything. also iroha doesn't care to hear any followup about how i found the secret weapons dealer we were talking about. what's up with that? or am i somehow failing to tell her properly?

with the part-time hero quests, i have to fight x number of a certain kind of enemy, but they have to be new kills since that particular quest appeared. it's frustrating to have to go find 10 more of whatever kind of guy i've already killed 80 of. anyway, they're fellow humans so these aren't kills; they're One-Piece-style defeats, where you get the shit knocked out of you so bad that you change your outlook on life and stop being a sujimon.

i got to the sotenbori arena, and some of the rules are like, "no switching party members during battle!" buddy i didn't even know i could do that.

i wonder if new game+ will be significantly harder or something. as it stands, the game isn't hard enough for me to need to use advanced tactics like swapping out party members during a fight. either way, i've never been much of a new game+ person, preferring to have as much fun as possible the first time playing. i mean, i'm not especially good at video games in the first place, and i haven't played that many games all the way to the end. i think the only games i've new game plussed were okami and hollow knight. except i don't remember if hollow knight actually has a new game+ or if i just played it a second time.

i know just from my tumblr dashboard that majima and saejima are important characters from other yakuza games. i could also kinda tell from the loving way they were depicted and how they had their own special fight music. i loved how they had an unavoidable tag-team attack. i beat every floor in the battle arena, most of them twice, before the fight with majima and saejima, and they still almost murdered us. if i hadn't called in the masochist poundmate to make us nigh-invulnerable, i probably would have lost to them. and it cracked me up that they were added to poundmates just like that.

more weapons should be upgradeable. it doesn't make sense that there are just a few. and you can't even tell from the start which ones you will be able to upgrade. and you can't tell in advance how far you will be able to upgrade them or when you'll hit a dead end. [note added in later: i finally looked it up and found out that there's basically 1 upgradeable weapon per class that will be upgraded into that class's most powerful weapon. but i was unable to glean that just by playing the game.]

is the joke with the empty cough drop tins supposed to be about how, in real life, you know rationally that empty tins like that are essentially worthless, but you can't shake the feeling that they could be useful, so you hold on to them? because if that's the joke it's really funny. i have one such tin right in front of me on my desk. they just seem so potentially useful. of course they're useful if you want to store little stuff. but there's a limit to how much little stuff anyone really needs to store in old tins. and i think almost everyone has reached that limit and doesn't need any tins.

i kind of wish there were more interesting jobs for sacchan... instead of only Very Distinctly Feminine jobs. i dunno. strong binary gender roles in this game.

i'm kind of feeling like i need to finish up this game before may 12th-ish because at that time i will inevitably shift my focus to the new zelda game. but i doubt i'll make a post about that game. i've never had enough thoughts about the story in a zelda game to take notes about it, not in my life. yet i've played almost every one of them.

if it's one of the special fights where kasuga takes his shirt off first, then he's also shirtless in the specials and tag team animations. that's love.

we had a fun fight with kiryu, who i know is the protagonist of at least one other yakuza game. (are all the other guys protagonists too? majima doesn't seem like a protagonist, though.) kiryu's tattoo strikes me as significantly cooler than ichiban's. and when they're standing right next to each other, their outfits clearly mirror one another.

i've played for 100 hours and i'm almost out of things to say about this game, as i've gotten used to all the fun and exciting things and now they just seem normal. if i ever play a game less exciting than this, i'll fall asleep. i'm on chapter 14. i wonder if i'll get any side quests ever again. no new ones have shown up in a while. and none of the side quests have been as funny as the one about the public urinator where you come across the 4 guys standing at the edge of the river. that might have been the peak.

for the past several weeks, i've been busy and very tired and distracted reading the works of junji ito, so i haven't played as much of this game as i had intended to, and now my plan to finish playing this before the new zelda game comes out has been thrown out the window because the new zelda game came out today and i preordered it so i have it and it's right here!!!!!!!!! so do i want to not play the game on its opening day and risk spoilers, which i have heretofore avoided? or do i want to set yakuza aside to play the new zelda game? and poor neo TWEWY gets pushed even further aside. considering how long breath of the wild kept me busy, i can't see far enough into the future to know when i'll get around to neo TWEWY.

but after writing that paragraph, without consciously making a choice, i started reading more junji ito stories, even though i'm not in love with his stuff… i just have a compulsion to read all of it… so i can finish the other text post i'm working on…

...

…i finished the other text post i was working on. time to play on.

ICHIBAN SURVIVED AN EXPLOSION AND SHOWED UP WITH ONE (1) BANDAID AND A SMILE ON HIS FACE!!! THAT WAS THE BEST. i'm reinvigorated.

i was like, "ok we're in the final chapter. let's finish this up (with love and care) and be done with it." but we're back in kamurocho, which i have not thoroughly explored. what can i do but comb every street and alley for mcguffins?! it's only fair! to the developers who put so much loving detail in the game! and while i'm at it, i should upgrade all my weapons so much more! it's telling me to prepare for the final battle! i have to prepare by upgrading everyone's weapons a lot! and in order to do that, i need lots of money! so i'll play the last 10 levels of the sotenbori battle arena 5 times! and then i'll taxi back and forth between the materials cart in the park and romance workshop and make everyone's weapons OP! and then i'll forget what i was doing! and then i'll learn that ichiban has to be a foreman in order to unlock various things! and then i'll get ichiban to foreman level 21 so he won't be so weak! and then i'll learn that ichiban doesn't actually need to remain a foreman to have the demolish ability so i'll switch him back to hero! and then i'll learn about the three secret shops and go unlock them with my demolish ability! and then i'll buy a bunch of gold safe keys from the secret shops! and then i'll look up a list of gold safes! and the list unexpectedly tells me what's in the safes, and i don't really need any of it! so then i'll decide i don't need to open gold safes and forget what i was doing! IT'S HARD TO FINISH THE GAME!!!

the tendo fight, which took forever, didn't give me even half as much XP as the invested vagrant.

i didn't expect nick ogata to stick his neck out like an MVP and grill masato at the press conference like that. mostly unrelated note: i really like masato's aoki ryou politician voice. it's very cute. it's a 100% perfect match for his aoki ryou face.

i'm fighting masato. i love how he's got his swaggery chinpira body language animations but he intersperses it with glasses adjustments. genius touch. i was loving this battle with him. i didn't want it to end, but i didn't want to artifically prolong it by using health items. so i just punched him a lot and then it was over.

...

arakawa masato has passed away. now we're in the epilogue. time is running out for them to give nanba a birthday party before the game ends all the way.

…

okay the game ended and i can't complain about it. even if they failed to give nanba a birthday party. it was good.

ah, the story was good… the confrontation between ichiban and masato at the lockers was a strong ending scene… they wrapped it up neatly. ichiban finally got through to him. even though i know that when masato said he never liked ichiban, he wasn't lying, either. but it's like ichiban said: they have a connection, like brothers. i'm just glad masato didn't kill himself. i'm surprised kume souta didn't show up in the epilogue. i guess we can safely assume he's in prison.

i started this post by extolling the fact that this game has endless things to do. but although i did really enjoy doing most of those things, in the end, i feel like it had a significant detrimental effect on the momentum of the story. by stretching out the gameplay between story segments, the earlier story developments came to feel very distant, and by the end, i didn't feel as close to nanba and saeko and the others as i did earlier in the game… i got too used to everything, got too absorbed in grinding, became obsessed with tying up loose ends, started taking things for granted. the magic faded. how much of that is my fault for getting distracted from the story, and how much is the game's fault for distracting me from its own story? i can't tell.

probably the best way to play this game would be to rampage through the main story as enthusiastically as you can, then go back to unearth and subsequently tie up every loose end on a new game+.

despite all that, i will say conclusively that the game is good and i recommend it wholeheartedly. the combat system is very satisfying. i love the omnipresent, excessive, dramatic particle effects. the animations are great. the voices are great. it's so fun to run around the extremely detailed city and go eat realistic foods at restaurants and have fights for no reason. the story is a strong backbone for the game. and i'm glad you aren't penalized for leaving certain loose ends untied… like the business management minigame, which i neglected until the very end. i know i could have unlocked a new party member through that minigame. it just didn't seem worth it. maybe i'll watch a bunch of youtube videos of all the things i missed. and maybe i'll revisit the game for my new game+ someday.

#yakuza: like a dragon #yakuza 7 #yakuza 7 spoilers #yes this post spoils the whole game. #i had a busy weekend compulsively finishing my 2 long posts about what i've been doing for the past 3 months #i remember a long time ago readmores didn't work on mobile. god i hope they fixed that. for y'all's sake. #thinking about the nature of writing lately. AI can write things but it can't write based on an uncontrollable urge to write. so i win?

[lyriumsings]

Besties and Lyrics for Octavia please, if you'd like! ~ @whowhatifs

Thank you for the ask!!

Besties: What’s their friendship with Rowan like? What are some things only he knows about them?

I think Octavia’s friendship with Rowan has actually changed a lot over the years. In the earlier days (pre Seven breakup lol) I think it was…shallower? For lack of a better term. Still very close and tight knit but very typical annoying sibling type dynamic. They very much saw Rowan as more of “Seven’s best guy friend”, as in Rowan felt slightly more like Seven’s friend than theirs sometimes. (Also this is just Octavia’s perception of their friendship I headcanon that Octavia is actually quite close with all of the band they just kind of underestimate how much people care about them to be honest.)

Now, after the breakup I think they got a lot closer. That’s when it kind of clicked for her how much Rowan (and everyone) valued their friendship. I would say Octavia got especially close to Rowan just because of how close they both were to Seven. And complains to Iris and Devyn felt like raining on their parade somehow?? They ended up having lots of serious talks about things they never had before and just really mourned that loss of friendship together. And not going to lie the idea of Octavia x Rowan as a full on romance given enough time would not be out of the question; BUT that being said I don’t think Octavia would ever be able to honestly say whether or not Rowan was a….second choice. If Octavia ever had to directly confront the fallout of that between them, Seven, and Rowan,,,,the guilt oof.

There is actually quite a few things that the band + Orion specifically know that Seven doesn’t know both because Octavia hadn’t told Seven yet when they were speaking and didn’t get to because they weren’t. But specifically Rowan? Rowan knows exactly what happened the night Octavia left their parents home for good (it was not good). And he knows more of the ins and outs of Octavia’s relationship with their last partner, Dean, who they dated on and off for about 8 months in the second year post Seven split. This was also very not good, without getting too into detail both involved “varying degrees” of domestic violence both physical and emotional.

Outside of like that lmao Rowan is actually the only other person outside of Seven allowed to look at their song book. He is the only person at all that’s seen their very, very messy lyrics about Seven post break up and some particularly sad ones about their mental health and their Aunt Lydia (who she was very close to and passed when they were a teen) Octavia is not really built to be alone, so after Seven it felt very natural that that void be filled on a friendship level. Obviously, nobody is replaceable but at the same time life goes on and people need people. Especially Octavia. They have a need for outside input and someone to bounce their thoughts off of and share their feelings to.

Lyrics: What are some songs you associate with your character? Any specific lyrics that really scream your character?

Since this is already so long lemme link their spotify playlist fksjdjd all of these songs are VERY Octavia and I headcanon them as canon songs for her and the band. But top five incase you don’t wanna listen to this mammoth of a playlist i keep adding to is:

1. Lonesome and Mad by Under the Rug

“I feel like I wanna go home but I am home.” On sooooo many levels.

2. Gilded Lily by Cults “Always the fool with the slowest heart”

3. Cigarettes and Feelings by The Haunt “i always fall for the things that will hurt me” Homegirl wouldn’t know a red flag if it announced itself and red is their favorite color anyway so baby what it do lmaoooo

4. Vices by Mothica honestly just the whole song tbh djsjd

5. Panic Attack by Liza Anne “I never learned to pull myself Out of my own damn head Shoulders caved in to protect All of my insides from falling out”

#god i fucking hope this readmore works #answered #ask #oc: octavia blackwater #infamous if #infamous as meme #thANK YOU SM!! #anon #i cant even remember what the forth was lol

[alolannraichuu]

Drinking wine at 7:45 in the morning,,,that's just how it's going these days

#rangernetmission.txt #God i hope my readmores are working again

[brilliantpride]

LOSTBELT 6: AVALON LE FAE.

i didn’t really feel like writing out a ton of drabbles for this really long really cool lostbelt so instead, i have. Lots of notes of what yako’s up to during the lostbelt. christ ive been working on this for a year and a half, my god

PREPARATION —

   There are three weeks between Heian-kyo and Avalon le Fae. Under the assumption they were to be sent to South America next, Yako spends much of this time stocking up on materials she creates, like healing scrolls and ether shots; practicing her defensive spells, wards, and purification spells; and refreshing her survival skills for wilderness exploration. But, oops, it's Britain actually, good luck.

ARRIVAL — 45 DAYS REMAINING

   Upon arriving in the Lostbelt, Yako is separated from the rest of Chaldea and drawn into the Nameless Forest, whereupon she is taken in by Shub (who had been enjoying the breath of fresh air the Lostbelt gave her) as a knight of the forest, still bearing her holy sword on her hip. She spends many days there, slaughtering invasive Mors that attack the edge of Shub’s forest, before she is rescued by Connla and Kama, who remind her of her true identity. She challenges Shub’s intentions, but as always, the god is inscrutable, and Yako is eventually let out of the woods without a fight.

   Asked what the nature of the forest is, Connla answers it’s a forest which takes away names and lets those within it wander until they die or are killed, permanently lose themselves and go mad, or are taken in by the village in the center - where he found himself when he woke up. He tells Yako that he had been searching for her since he remembered there was someone important he was missing. Kama had been wandering nameless through the woods when Connla found them and restored their memories, as well. There has been no sign of Cú, who would experience the most tampering by this Lostbelt due to the nature of his legends.

   Reunited, Connla, Kama, and Yako set out to find Chaldea and Cú.

AWAKENING — 14 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 31 DAYS REMAINING

   Yako begins her search for Chaldea in a nearby town, but opts to keep their name out of her mouth, in case enemy forces are searching for them. She leaves a note at an inn on the notice board, “To 48, From 43”, reading, “I’m safe, but I need to find my hound. I have my arrows and knife with me. We’ll meet up soon, don’t worry!”

   While traveling in search of Cú, Yako, Connla, and Kama have many adventures, from rescuing travelers from Mors or bandits, to recovering treasures from destroyed villages for displaced fairies, meeting strange ladies who live in lakes, slaying vicious wild beasts attacking farmers, or freeing humans trapped in fairy-made prisons. Yako makes a name for herself among the humans of this land, who wonder if she might be their very own ‘Child of Prophecy’; she rejects this notion out of hand, not because she isn’t confident in her skill, but because she rejects prophecy and destiny, and that whatever prophecy there might be about her, she wouldn’t hear about it.

   While on her travels, Yako encounters Beryl infrequently, having dialogue about what it means to live life on your own terms and the nature of goodness and heroism. He attempts to mock her, but Yako is firm in her beliefs, though she adds complexity to her understanding of herself, and solidifies her answer about what being a hero means for her. Beryl seems annoyed by these answers, and draws Mors to attack her, but she and her Servants are able to put down the threat. He leaves a hint about an impending calamity at Norwich and departs before Yako can deal the finishing blow.

THE CALAMITY OF NORWICH — 26 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 19 DAYS REMAINING

   Drawn by the sound of ringing bells, Yako makes her way towards Norwich, armed with Fairy-made armor and a strengthened Calesvol. Here, she meets up again with Ritsu and da Vinci as they help evacuate citizens to shelters, and then Mash as a Calamity rises from the depths of the sea.

   While Mash deploys her shield to hold off the Calamity, and Ritsu engages their Command Seals to empower her, Yako makes use of a limited deployment of Calesvol; as she’s unable to unleash all of the seals in Fairy Britain, she can’t use the sword’s god-slaying abilities, but its blade is able to cut away at the grasping hands of the Norwich Calamity. They’re able to vanquish the Calamity, saving the town of Norwich, and subverting one of the Prophecies.

   Just after their victory, Mash is forcibly transferred away from Norwich using Morgan’s Water Mirror, and Habetrot joins Ritsu’s expedition until the pair are reunited. Yako learns about the prophecy and Artoria’s role in it, but declines joining Ritsu’s team to meet Morgan; her current priority is finding Cú. With an anxious but resolved heart, her party departs Norwich, certain they’ll meet again soon.

CÚ-SÍDHE — 28 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 17 DAYS REMAINING

   “Those who hear the howl of the cú sídhe must turn and run, or be overtaken by terror.”

   Yako hears a rumor. At night, one can hear howling from the Lake District; those who hear it are doomed to die. Investigating the rumor, Yako's party ends up near Orkney, evading Knocknarea's territory to find themselves in a misty patch of woods. There, they end up at the spearpoint of a young man dressed in warrior's clothes, a wild white hound by his side...

   In these woods, Yako’s party solves the mystery of the cú sídhe, recovers Cú’s memories and sword, and make their way back on the road armed with new knowledge about the nature of fairies in this Lostbelt, and the legend of a giant beast whose body makes up the island. Cú finally reaches his third Ascension, and Yako makes a promise that she’ll let him save her—that she won’t be too proud to call on him for help when she needs it.

--- END OF PART 1 ---

ON THE ROAD AGAIN — 30 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 15 DAYS REMAINING

   While Ritsu has an audience with Queen Morgan, Yako’s gang investigate the myths surrounding the Child of Prophecy, and old, forgotten stories, trying to find out more about the giant beast. Though the fairies in towns have little to say, there are fairies living in out-of-the-way homes outside of Morgan’s notice, where they speak freely of their antipathy for her and her ‘existence tax’. Occasionally, Beryl will reappear to cause problems for Yako, and she insists he drop himself down the Great Pit as soon as possible.

   Residing in Londinium, the last outpost of humans in Fairy Britain, Yako and Cú learn more about the plight of humanity in this land of fairies: though Yako is familiar with their maltreatment at the hands of the upper-class fairies, she’s less familiar with the general state of humans here. They aid the Londinium guard in exterminating Mors near its borders and help repair the ramparts in exchange for food and board.

   Ritsu, Artoria, and company arrive just a few days after Yako’s party does. Reunited with Chaldea, Yako shares her findings, learns more about the state of Chaldea’s mission, and spends time getting to know Artoria. From hereon, Yako rejoins the group as they plan to retake Norwich.

AFTER THE FIRST BELL — 32 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 13 DAYS REMAINING

   Yako talks with the fairies often during these days, trying to get to know them, their goals, and their dreams, though her questioning yields little result. Oberon avoids conversation about himself, not that Yako notices under his smooth-talking spell. She admires his careful and clever nature, is fascinated by his stories, and enjoys learning more about his past and the fairies of Wales. Artoria is not very comfortable around Yako, which she would later find out is due to Artoria's own fear of fire - Yako's primary elemental magecraft. At least she gets along with Gareth and Muramasa...

   At Londinium, the Fang Clan are beaten back, but reports come in that the Queen's army is marching on Wales - where Oberon's forest is. The crew head out with all haste, Yako using magecraft to hasten Red Hare's speed, but arrive too late; the forest burns. They split up to cover more ground; Yako tries to find survivors, but sees only ashes, corpses, and soldiers in need of a thrashing. It's all she can do to put out fires with sprays of water runecraft, but eventually Kama drags her out of the forest, Yako and the boys coughing violently and gasping for breath. Yako wants to go back in, but Kama makes her use her healing scrolls on herself, Connla, and Cú before they die from smoke inhalation.

   At the edge of the burning forest, Fairy Knight Gawain greets them with an ultimatum: Submit now, or die. Artoria, Ritsu's party, and a surprise Muramasa beat Gawain back while Percival, Gareth, and Yako's Servants fend off soldiers. After Gawain is weakened, Artoria reveals her true name: Barghest, the Black Dog. The battle rages into the night, ending in Barghest's defeat and retreat. Yako stands with Percival and Gareth against the just-arrived Fairy Knight Lancelot, who leaves the scene after clashing with Percival. The forest fire has died down, leaving the charred remains of Wales behind.

   Oberon, though... "...Would you give me some time alone? It's going to take some time to say goodbye to each and every one of them."

   Back in Salisbury, Artoria is greeted with a hero's welcome. The group plan for their defense of Londinium and retaking of Norwich, but Yako wanders outside in the early morning air, trying to decide her own next move. Of course she ought to stay with Ritsu and bolster the team, but could she do more good helping them cover more ground? Or staying with the rebel army, helping them fend off threats?... Ahh, no matter which way she figures it, she doesn't want to be far from the action after all. If only they could make tracks in finding Mash. It's really worrying...

AFTER THE SECOND BELL — 34 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 11 DAYS REMAINING

   The second bell is rung, from high atop Salisbury, adding yet another victory to Artoria's belt. The group departs for Londinium, bustling with new recruits from Norwich. Peperoncino has made the effort to show up in person and lay out the situation for Yako, Ritsu, and da Vinci: that the Lostbelt has surpassed 'a possible point in history', instead rapidly becoming a world with the same strength of existence as Proper Human History. Rather than a "Lostbelt", it's a "Lost World". The denizens of this world, being proper existences themselves, wouldn't disappear if the Lostbelt disappeared... and being fairies, born of the earth, could move outside of Avalon, unlike the humans of the Lostbelt.

   "...It means there's a possible future together."

   With this news, Artoria reaffirms her desire to save the fairies of Britain and follow the path of the Child of Prophecy. Yako mulls things over after Pepe leaves. If there's a way to save everyone... why aren't they searching for it? Could they have done anything differently to save the people of the past Lostbelts, while still saving their own world...? And why aren't humans a part of the world to be saved?

   "...Say, Ritsu. Should we have been looking for... a different option?" She rubs her neck. "—Sorry, forget I said that. It's not like we have a lot of options here in the first place. I just..." she says, glancing up at the dusk-blue sky, "...Before, I was frustrated I couldn't do anything... and now, I'm frustrated that what I do isn't enough. There's no way to save everyone. I'm not that optimistic. But I just feel like we're missing information. I wish... I wish we weren't stumbling around in the dark. I wish we knew what else we could do..."

   The attack on Londinium comes quickly as night falls. Woodwose's army strikes fast and viciously, but are driven back by Percival and Gareth; Yako and Ritsu hold the fort as best as they can. Percival activates his spear, revealing it as the Lance of Selection - blowing Woodwose into the lake, and claiming victory.

THE BALL — 39 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 6 DAYS REMAINING

   Ritsu and Artoria receive an invitation to a ball held by Murian in Gloucester. After being properly outfitted by Habetrot, the group make tracks into the city. Yako, having no invitation and not being chosen as a +1, decides to spend her time looking around the city and spending time in Pepe's shop, where she asks about the nature of humans inside the Lost World while they take her measurements. (In the meantime, her team enjoy a trip out on the town on their own, to reconvene later.) Yako expresses her concerns to Pepe, who chastises her for coming this far only to get cold feet. Yako leaves the store with new formalwear and mulls around the gardens outside the castle, waiting for news (and, if Ritsu knows her well enough, some decent food.)

   ...It's boring. What if... The walls look easy enough to climb. There's windowsills here, some facade work there... Before Yako can tell herself if it's a bad idea, she's scaling the wall, no denizens below her to look. She hoists herself into a balcony overlooking the garden... to come face-to-face with the fallen Fairy Knight Gawain - no, Barghest, wearing a fine evening gown. Oops. "You... You're the companion of that human boy. You look like a fairy, but there's something off about you." Barghest grips Yako's shoulder, keeping her in place. Haha. Oops. Hahaha. Danger. "It's almost like you're also..." Just then, the doors open, and she meets Ritsu's gaze, then Artoria's, then da Vinci and Muramasa; they all shoot her an exasperated stare. She gives a peace sign back. Teehee. After some chatting and explaining the circumstances, da Vinci invites Barghest to try to leave for the outside world with the fairies she wants to protect; Barghest invites the group to her manor in Manchester before departing.

   The group sneak around to the bell tower, and Yako infiltrates the party to enjoy some of the banquet before it's gone. After having her fill of chocolates, cake, cheeses, and steak, Yako hears a rumbling above her, faintly... Sneaking past some doors using lockpicking spells learned from her Caster, she makes her way to what seems to be a huge stage and theater seating, with fairies in masks... Not feeling like getting chased around today, Yako hides behind a curtain and watches the fight between Artoria and Fairy Knight Tristan in hiding. (Though she could swear when Beryl waved at the crowd, he glanced her way and smiled... Eugh.) It isn't long before the third bell is ringing for Artoria's victory, and Yako decides to make a speedy exit from the scene.

TO ORKNEY AND BACK — 40 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 5 DAYS REMAINING

   Detouring on their way to Orkney, the gang stops by Barghest's mansion in Manchester. Yako stays behind, saying, "I'll get too angry if I have to look at her face again. I heard the death cries of the fairies in Wales. Even if they don't die for good, they're still..." She roams the town some, picking up rumors, getting into fights, and writing down her thoughts and observations. After the detour, the team make for Orkney, where they see the destroyed remains of this Lostbelt's Tree. Habetrot gives them a brief overview of the history of the Queen's Calendar, which Yako tries to listen to but loses interest halfway through. Later, while making camp, Habetrot shares an even older history, telling the story of 'six fairies, an endless sea, and Cernunnos.'

   While in the Mirror Clan's territory, they drive away Koyanskaya's Mors Dragon, learn Fairy Knight Lancelot's true identity Melusine, and are led by a man taking the guise of Yako's old Caster - Sage Grim, he calls himself - to the bell's location, where they put down the lingering regrets of Tonelico and her Black Knight... and find Mash, who had been sealed away for, apparently, thousands of years. After sorting out the timeline, they ring the bell at Orkney, sort things out with Knocknarea in Edinburgh, and make their way to Oxford.

   Baobhan-Sith attacks Ritsu and co., in the process trapping Artoria, Ritsu, and Yako in the "Garden of Lost Will". Yako wanders scenes from her past, facing her anxieties and fears—wandering a bleached-white Earth alone, after everything she'd done to bring her future back. Endlessly wandering, no friend or foe in sight, only white sand under her feet and blue sky overhead, she starts to give into the despair in her heart when the illusion shatters, dragging her back to reality - to the underground prison of New Darlington.

THINGS GO DOWNHILL — 43 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 2 DAYS REMAINING

   Peperon, Mash, and Yako's Servants free Artoria, Ritsu, and Yako from the prison, and things get very bad, very fast. Peperoncino takes on hundreds of humans infected with Mors, receiving the full brunt of their curses; Beryl attacks, fatally wounding Peperon, but taking the brunt of the Mors curse and a severe wound, then fleeing; and the church above their heads crumbles - Yako blows a hole in the wall to escape out of.  Ritsu and Yako are reunited with da Vinci and get back on the road toward Oxford, where they ring another bell. The Queen's army attacks Londinium, and it's ugly; they lose Gareth and every resident and soldier living in Londinium, even though they eke out a small victory. The nothern army bolsters Londinium's lost ranks, Artoria tolls the final bell, and the armies prepare for the siege on Camelot.

   Yako wrestles with her feelings that evening, and the despairing future she saw in the Garden. Admitting to herself that there are things she still fears, and that the future is a huge unknown, she wonders if she and Ritsu haven't just sealed a terrible fate for themselves... to say nothing of everyone they've lost along the way. She doesn't dare bring it up to Mash, da Vinci, or Ritsu, or even her own Servants, out of fear of seeming like she's lost her nerve. Whatever the future looks like, they have a present to protect.

TIME LIMIT — 45 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL — 0 DAYS REMAINING

   The day has arrived to lay siege to Camelot. Yako joins the main party and splits off in the upper districts to reconvene at the castle through different entrances. Yako fights past guards, arriving at the throne room in time to fend off attacks against Ritsu's weakened party, though her sword still won't let her attack Morgan directly. She doesn't need to, though; a proclamation from Aurora permeates the city naming Morgan the false Queen and perpetrator of the Calamities, and the fairies of Camelot turn against Morgan, ripping her to shreds. A bell tolls. Its sound is distorted, anything but victorious.

--- END OF PART 2 ---

CALAMITY — 49-50 DAYS AFTER ARRIVAL

   Although it's Chaldea's victory, Holmes urges the gang to prepare for the worst, as there are too many untied loose ends. Castoria elects Knocknarea to be crowned Queen, but Knocknarea is betrayed at the coronation and killed - and the killing spreads to the armies outside. Coral accuses the Chaldea party of poisoning and killing Knocknarea, and sends Melusine to attack them; the party barely manages to escape, and the seat of Queen is left empty. Many fairies are turning into Mors. There's no doubt about it: the Great Calamity has begun in earnest, and the Lostbelt is collapsing. Upon returning to the Storm Border, instrument estimates put the Collapse at 2 days, and the Calamity is arising from the Great Pit.

   Their new directives: Stop the Collapse, and retrieve the Divine Construct Rhongomyniad. They have just a few hours to rest, heal up, restock, and head back out for another battle. Yako uses the materials stash to bolster her Servants' skills, and puts away her various acquisitions from the Lostbelt into a storage container in her room, ensuring the clothes she obtained from Peperoncino will not be harmed.

   The world outside is burning; corpses litter the cities. The temperature in the air is in the thousands of degrees. At Camelot, a giant creature covered in curses has emerged from the Great Pit, and crushes Camelot in its wake with massive curse hands. Koyanskaya's tails fend off the hands, but she soon disappears, cryptic as ever, and the Storm Border barely escapes from Camelot, unable to retrieve Rhongomyniad. If the Calamities aren't stopped here and escape to PHH, they'll incinerate the world. Everything seems lost... until Merlin's friendly face hijacks the screens, illuminating the means for their victory.

   It rests on Artoria's shoulders. She, Ritsu, Yako, Mash, and Muramasa—and only them, he adds—will make their way through Albion's corpse to the Inner Sea of the Planet, and Artoria will complete her true mission. On their way, they fight against the will of Albion, learn the truth of Avalon le Fae and the Insect of the Abyss, and arrive to a paradise unmarred by sin. Yako wonders if she ought to stay at the entrance, but Mash drags her along with the party. It's an utterly beautiful sight that etches itself in Yako's heart; she cries, grateful she had the chance to see something this stirring.

   They fight against Artoria's memories, guiding her through the seasons until she reaches the Place of Selection. Once she arrives, she will become the Holy Sword, stabilize Human Order, and the Lostbelt will fade. The storm inside her heart is vicious, manifesting as the ugly truths she encountered along her journey. At the end, there is no 'Spring' memory awaiting her; no happy memories to call her own. She runs ahead. Yako hangs back, wondering what she ought to say. Muramasa implores them to leave it to him. Merlin, in the meantime, explains the process of Artoria's conversion; Yako becomes angry, then sullen, wondering why she should have to take on such a burden.

   Artoria comes back. Muramasa doesn't. It's not hard to put two and two together. They obtain the Essence of the Holy Sword, the 'Star' that has been born upon the planet. Yako can even feel Calesvol crying out in joy. With Artoria's new skills and the Holy Sword Essence in hand, Merlin sends them to two hours before the Collapse, to defeat Cernunnos before it becomes unstoppable.  —Of course, they have to contend with two other Calamities first. They split their forces: while Yako and Percival deal with the Red Calamity, Albion, Ritsu and Mash handle the Black Calamity, the Black Dog. Yako is finally able to turn her sword against Albion, but Percival is the one to strike its heart.

   Both Calamities suppressed, Yako moves to rejoin Ritsu and Mash, who are exhausted from their own battle. She senses bad energy and creates a weak Bounded Field around them using Seimei's techniques, stopping Beryl in his tracks. While Mash and Ritsu are weakened, Yako fights Beryl with her Servants' and Douman's support, burdening him with curses. Even though her sword won't let itself be turned against Fairies, Yako's absolute conviction in her ideals lets her overrule Calesvol's restrictions, turning it into the Sword of Conviction—and letting her cut Beryl Gut's head from his body. The sword breaks in half, corrupted. Yako watches Beryl's blood soil her boots and leggings. An evil born from a heart like hers, but unlike her in every way, shaped by his choices and the choices of others on him... Silently, she prays that he finds a new start in whatever world lies beyond.

   In fighting Cernunnos, Yako, swordless, stays behind to bolster Caster Cú's magical energy through her old contract's pathways as he deploys his sanctuary spells and absorbs Cernunnos's curses. It's a long and tough battle; Yako holds firm, deploying purification spells to shave off even just a few curses. "After you saved me, all I wanted... was a chance to tell you," she says, fighting through her exhaustion, "what a hero you were to me. How much I looked up to you. ...How much I still do. Your Saber says he looks up to me, too, and I don't know how to feel. I realized that you were just bullshitting things most of the time, trying to act like a little bit like a mentor. Well... Maybe I can be for you what you were for me. Pay it forward. Or back. Even if you don't remember any of this, I feel like it has meaning. It has to. So... thank you for everything. I'll carry on your legacy, whether you like it or not. I'll always wear these Command Spells with pride."

   The twelve spears are deployed, exposing Cernunnos's core; Ritsu and Mash at last deploy the Black Barrel, destroying Cernunnos. Caster Cú, his duty done, offers a few words of encouragement before departing.

A DREAM —

   Oberon reveals his true nature: the Insect of the Abyss, the Pit that will swallow Britain whole, Pretender-class Oberon-Vortigern. The Collapse is still on cue, with a vast fog devouring Fairy Britain. Everything, everything, falls into the void, endlessly falling. Yako falls into a nightmare she can't wake up from, though its contents are hazy. A beautiful star appears in the fog, drawing her out of her nightmare, and waking her up on the surface of the Storm Border just in time to face Oberon-Vortigern with the rest of Chaldea.

   As the battle ends, Yako falls into a dream once more. It's hazy and indistinct, but smells like flowers and sweets. The storm has parted, and she's greeted with twilit colors and a figure clad in white. "That sword has done well, but being pushed past one's limitations is different for those who are created than those who are born. You shouldn't be so rough on your allies, Yako! Hahaha. Now, heed my words: Take this child to the edge of the Inner Sea, and from there, make an offering..."

EPILOGUE —

   At this point, the journey in Britain is over. Chaldea’s mission is completed, and the Lostbelt will disappear soon. Yako, in the last few hours of the Lostbelt’s existence, makes a pilgrimage to return the sundered Calesvol to the Lady of the Lake at the edge of Avalon. Vivian, seeing its damaged state, purifies and repairs the blade using Yako’s own Origin—her soul—as the bridging material. The blade’s silver shines as mana streaks across its blade, and its gems change color to the brilliant crimson dye of her soul. Vivian kisses her forehead, chasing away the weariness in her body. “Fare you well, Chaldean,” she bids, “and may you find victory.” With that, she disappears at the Lostbelt’s edge. Yako returns to the Shadow Border, ready to depart for home.

HOMECOMING —

   After LB6, Yako finds herself adrift back at Chaldea. Following a grand adventure, she struggles a bit to fall back into the rhythms of everyday life. She retreats to the simulation room as she does in her melancholies, often losing herself to fantasies and memories. After a few months, she’s able to find comfort in Chaldea life again, though often seems wistful and can get lost in daydreams. She's developed a new sense of herself with an unshakable certainty. Rather than someone desperately trying to attain an unreachable ideal, Yako seems much more sure of herself, and her playfulness has less neuroticism to it. She seems like she’s finally grown up.

   Her swordplay improves with guidance from Merlin, Lancelot, and Bedivere, and Calesvol’s new evolution lets her imbue the blade with magical effects more easily, giving her an edge against opponents with low magical resistances and against monsters whose forms are composed of magic. It feels as though a mass of her magic circuits have become concentrated in the blade itself, like a part of her body. She can summon it to her side with a thought, letting herself use new and riskier techniques in her swordplay and magic use, but if it becomes damaged, she feels it as keenly as if it were a part of her body. Even her Magic Circuits have been given a boost in quality, letting her use magic and transfer energy to her Servants with far more ease than before. It even seems like the sword is regenerating the part of her magic circuits healed from irresponsible magic use before, though it's slow going.

   With the sixth Lostbelt behind her and the final stretch in sight, Yako resumes her training in earnest. There is an end in sight, and they will see home again. They have to. They must. And yet, a bit of doubt eats away at her: What if the world... is bleached for good? What if there's no 'tomorrow' after today?... All she can do is hope that there is a sunrise waiting for them after it all.

#t: lbvi. #journal. #i had to swap back to the old post editor to be able to post this at all #dear god i hope the readmore works. sorry everyone

[dykecassidy]

For the fic meme, 6 and 11?

sobs and fucking wails i rb that meme yesterday and got these exact questions then but ill give a second pass bc new day new thots

6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list?

OKAY so if i dont start Something for a fic then its not on the list (i forget it) SO i have a little bit written of a hookhausen fic i am. so keen to flesh out. ive put them on the back burner. but its kayfabe, one of danhausens powers is shapeshifting. look heres what i have.

"What do you like?" Danhausen purred.

"What do I like?" Hook repeated. He just wanted to fool around, not play twenty questions.

"Yes— your type, I think humans say? Your preference?" He tilted his head like a curious dog.

Hook floundered for a moment. "I don't— I like you, if that's what you're asking."

Danhausen leaned away, rolled his eyes. "danhausen knew that. youre right here!" he glanced away, lips moving as if he was talking to himself. "what danhausen is saying," he started, "is he can change his body to be whatever hook likes, whatever might make him happiest."

hooks eyes widened, kid in a candy store. "you can shape-shift?!" he asked.

danhausen wiggled his hand, so-so, pulled a little grimace. "more or less, yes. danhausens whole body changing, he can do that for a minute, maybe two. a body part, much easier, danhausen could last," he shrugged, leaned back, let his legs fall apart, "all night, perhaps."

hook swallowed, understanding everything perfectly now. 

AND THATS IT

11. Would you like to try any new fanfic genres or tropes this year?

i want to do more Fantastical stuff. some sex pollen. some inexplicable body swapping. MAYBE ILL DO ANOTHER MULTI-CHAPTER FIC. WHO KNOWS.

#god i hope that readmore works.

[ulfrsmal]

TW animal cruelty

you know this author has never spent any time among horses when he says that cutting the ears off the warhorses will make them immune to getting spooked by sounds......... I know this is a fantasy book but come the fuck on. I refuse. I refuse!!!!

#i hope the readmore works bc the app is finnicky #and crashed on me THRICE #anyway the book is: #gunmetal gods #by zamil akhtar #it has a helluva lot more TW but this is the only one that truly bothered me #because i didn't know it happened before i started the book #wynne rambles #books #edit: this is a FICTIONAL book

[1ight]

hi i hope this is okay to ask u but what does it mean to add a discrete note to the donation transaction ? when im able to donate i never know what to write there so i just put donation or something :$

hi! no worries at all — i super appreciate u checking in & i’m always happy to answer Qs ^__^ i did request that ppl supporting my fundraiser use discretion if adding a transaction note.

short answer: AFAIK, there are a few small ways to increase accessibility for the recipient, so they can actually get to the donated funds without encountering various troubles from the payment platform. one helpful habit is to leave a transaction note — although avoiding reference to donation / mutual aid / etc & details, staying nonspecific. personally, i tend to drop an abstract emoji or three ☀️🌈💓 sometimes, “lots of love!” or “thanks for the help!” etc

long answer: explanation & other tips are under the cut. pls note: truthfully, i don’t have firsthand insight on the “best” practices for donation accessibility. still, i hope this answers your question! thanks again xo

…. 👉👈 also, anyone can check/share my current pinned post, if you can help kick off aiding my dear friend with a survival emergency 💛

a few accessibility tips to my knowledge:

if using PP, send funds thru the Friends+Family option unless otherwise specified, so the recipient doesn’t need to pay a fee or even reject the transaction.

add a note to lend authenticity. a transaction may be one among many. unjust account suspension / freezing of funds is often justified by a company thru “fraudulent” notes or influx of payments. ADDITIONALLY,

keep the note nonspecific. avoid key words like donation / mutual aid / obvious references. withholding details not only lowers chances of getting flagged, it also helps protect a person’s privacy, just in case another party can see their transactions & it puts them at risk. like i said, i don’t know what’s ideal, but i tend to drop an abstract emoji or three 🌹❣️‼️ sometimes, “lots of love!” or “thanks for the help!” etc

ignore names. it’s polite & safe. besides, there’s no reason for a donor to use/keep/reference that information.

in your heart, wish them well !!! 💛 thanks for reading.

#answered #anonymous #i’m sorry for the length… i hope this is correct & helpful. ty! #also god i hope the readmore works lmfaooo

[pirates-and-posies]

fucking freak lol I cant believe you lied to us plz just kys bestie 😍

YOU ARE BY NO MEANS BETTER THAN ME SENDING ANON HATE LMFAO.

See I didn't want to respond to this but honestly I'm exhausted with this bullshit.

Just to let you know, I don't have to tell you my personal trauma to justify ANY of the content I consume, create, or surround myself with! It's none of your fucking business, and I never lied to you or them. I knew y'all for 2 whole fucking years, and the fact you motherfuckers jump on me over sharing the writing I create after I WARNED and you PESTERED ME FOR DESPITE THIS is absurd. A vent fic you knew was personal, and you actively wanted it so you could throw me out. Hilarious how much you care for me.

I'm done with fake people, and I'm done with others having the audacity to try and tell me I'm wrong for existing as safely as possible. You're not my fucking psychiatrist and you're by no means knowledgeable enough to tell me whether I'm right or wrong; just look at you, telling me to off myself when you care oh so much for victims.

You and your cult-like mindset are the reason you can't keep friends for long. You ostracized Hailee for telling the truth, and you ostracized me for also telling you and your little friends that mentally ill people deserve positive resources to vent.

We're considered your friends until we do or say something you disagree with. Funny how that works.

Hell, if 2022 is gonna be the year I OF ALL PEOPLE continue to lose friends over trivial shit, then I don't mind. Especially when it's a grown ass person trying to tell me to off myself.

Thanks for nothing, Kev. Glad to know I stayed up with you night after night making sure you didn't cry because your mom took away your fucking switch and you sat there like a bitch saying she abuses you. Even your own fucking sister told me about how shitty you treat everyone around you, and how you refuse to get help for whatever the fuck is going on. Honest to god less internet would fucking benefit you, you spineless cunt. You're 23. Get off your ass, grow the fuck up, and act like it.

Good riddance, and tell your posse that if they want to try and pull anything, they can do what they so desire. I'm done with internet drama, and I'm done with this disgusting fandom.

I'm tired of being nice and letting pussies walk all over me. You can't even come to my face and talk to me about your issues. The least you could do is stay quiet like you always have.

I don't owe a single person on this fucking planet a thing. Nothing about me is anybodies business, not my age, name, anything. I usually keep my Discord and Tumblr separate for a reason, because immature fucks like you will try to follow me around and cause problems. I shouldn't have to hide myself to find peace. So I'm no longer going to do that, and I'm no longer gonna tolerate people who clearly find my presence a problem.

Oh btw I would never take my life if somebody told me to. I live just to piss people like you off. I have too much pride in my own stubbornness for that, no matter how much I hate myself. Keep shitting bricks over it 💙

#personal #tw: rant #Idfk man I'm sorry to anybody who comes across this I can't put it in a readmore because it doesn't work after I edit it #I'm pissed off and tired #To Kev if you're reading this I hope you know I am going to continue breathing and doing what I do best #Never shutting the fuck up and never stopping my disgusting grueling god awful shenanigans #I am no longer being nice to people. #That's the final straw lmao I'm done being the bigger person #Everytime I do I end up being used and walked over and dropped #This isn't fucking highschool lmfao I'm not meeting anybody at the park anymore #Leave me the fuck alone or learn to keep your mouth shut #Uhh if anybody is feeling nosey and wants to talk abt what's going on idm #But preferably in dms I shouldn't keep clogging my blog with this shit anymore #Actually yeah hey Kev if you're still reading after this point why don't you come talk to me ik you're so self absorbed you keep refreshing #Your little friends can keep their eyes out too it's fine! Just don't send me anons #Send me a DM cmon #So fuckin done lol

[medium-rare-bimbo]

Piss kink with billy Hargrove

Mean billy x crybaby reader

♡Masterlist♡

MINORS DNI

May contain Dubcon, humiliation, piss obviously

༺*:ﾟ･✧･:*:ﾟ･♡ readmore ♡･ﾟ:*:･✧･ﾟ:*༻

♡ you were driving back from a party one town over, you hadnt drank much alcohol sticking to your giant cup of whatever fruity drink you had, constantly refilling it so you hand your hands full

♡ you had needed to pee a couple of houses back but was sure you could hold it, however when billy was constantly hitting the bumps in the road causing your bladder to jolt making the ache worse

♡ half way down a deserted road you were pressing your thighs together with so much force that you were frozen still to the seat whimpering every time the car shifted

♡ billy wasnt and idiot, not in the slightest, he knew the clenching of your thighs wasnt from arousal he was good, but he wasnt that good. He purposefully swerved for the bumps and holes in the road as soon as he saw the furrow of your brow and the squeezing of you legs indicating that you needed to pee

♡ you would occasionally glance at him hoping he would ask what was wrong so you wouldnt have to blurt out your needs, working up the confidence to speak, with watering eyes and heated cheeks you pathetically whispered out "billy I need to pee..."

♡ "What d'ya say? couldn't hear you" knowing full well he did of course he wasnt going to admit that to you, seeing you wiggle in discomfort was so much better then letting you say things without being embarrassed

- "i-.. I need to pee.."

♡ he barked out a mocking laugh "you need to pee? Really? Why didnt you do before we left? I told you to go before we got in the car"

"I-I tried to go but I couldnt-"

"You tried? So you didnt go? God women- you're gonna have to hold it I'm not pulling over theres no bathrooms until we get back to Hawkins -"

"But billy I need to go now! I'm not gonna be able to hold it for that long"

♡ your voice was shaking and your lips were wobbling as your tears started to fall as you tried to convince him to find somewhere to let you relieve yourself

"Wh-what if I pee myself-"

♡ he grabbed you by the neck at tilted your face with gritted teeth he growled out

"You piss on my seat I'm leaving you out here to fend for yourself ya hear me?"

"No billy please! I just want to pee please dont leave me"

♡ at this point you were sobbing your full bladder and thoughts of Billy abandoning you in the middle of a road where hardly anyone came by was becoming too much. He suddenly stopped the car, pulling over to the side of the road getting out and storming his way over to your side and opening the car door before removing your seat belt and pulling you out.

♡ "if you want to piss so badly do it now"

"W-what-"

"You heard me, you either piss now or do it in the car"

"But its embarrassing Billy- I- i dont want to pee on the floor-"

♡ your tears increased as you spoke, your voice sounding like a whiny crybaby. Billy grabbed your shoulders and pushed you down so you were squatting

"Piss."

"I need to take of my underwear a-and my shoes- t-they'll get all wet and gross-"

" jesus you're so high maintenance" He pushed you on your back pulling your shoes off, throwing them into the car "Just pull them to the side for God sake, you wanted to piss so bad, now piss"

♡ he sat in your seat staring down at you as you looked up at him sobbing mess with your hand between your thighs pushing your underwear to the side giving him a small glance at your cunt, The other holding on to his car while you tried to balance yourself

"Billy.. cant go if you're watching i-'is dirty"

"Suck it up You either go now or never"

♡ you let out a whimper and looked away to humiliated for him to see your face however his eyes were no where near your face rather glued to your pussy as it started to release the thing you've been desperately holding In

♡ your pussy fluttered as you finally got release you whined and whimpered as you hear him let out a groan, the liquid spreading over the floor and soaking into the ground aswell as your socks you tried to shuffle out the way to avoid it but your efforts were useless as you almost fell back into your mess (which billy chuckled at)

♡ a car drove passed making you squeal with embarrassment, your chest stuttering as you tried to calm yourself praying they didnt see you. what felt like an eternity you finally finished you gave a few squirts of piss trying to get all of it out, some of it dribbling down your thighs. You looked up at him, you hadnt stopped crying since he pulled you out of the car, he looked down at you, his hand resting on his bulge.

"What? You went now get in the car but take your socks off I'm not having your piss covered feet in my car"

"I- I need a napkin billy I'm all gross"

♡ he rolled his eyes smirking down af you before leaning down

"Too bad, shouldnt have used all of the ones we had to do your make up"

His condescending tone making you cry even more as you asked him to try and find something

♡ he huffed and pulled you to your feet peeling off your socks and making you lie back on the seat

"Billy what are you doing-"

"Shut up"

♡ he pulled your underwear back to the side and put his mouth over you now soaked pussy he cleaned up the remnants of your piss making sure you were all "clean" so you wouldnt complain. The only noises heard were your sniffles, whimpers and Billy's slurping.

♡ he sat up and slapped your thigh before wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he pulled you into a kiss which you tried to back out off, disgusted,  but unfortunately for you he kept you in place. He shut your door and got back into the car, the silence was overwhelming and you werent sure how to respond or act after experiencing what you just did.

"Just so you know I'm going to ruin that ass when we get home, we're going to be home late because of you"

#billy hargrove x reader #stranger things x reader #billy hargrove smut #billy x reader #tw: piss kink

[minimujina]

ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴇʟᴘ

scara drabble turned emotional, not clickbait🔥had to put a readmore cause it got long, i didnt fkn plan this

thinking violently about taking care of scara’s wounds even though he’s not human and they’re literally going to fix themselves (let’s just. go with that. since idk how his body actually works LMFAOO). and he doesn’t even have the heart to tell you the first time you see him lightly injured—he tries to, really, but he can hardly get a word in with how firmly you insist on patching him up. he can’t find it in himself to interject with the real reason he’d be fine without your help, because good god you’re just so stubborn—and normally he wouldn’t give a lick about something as trivial as the feelings of a sentimental human, but there’s a part of him that finds it.. sweet, the way you care so much. even though it’s actually for no reason. even though this “purpose” you’ve found—following him around to take care of him when he gets hurt—is actually pointless in a way. even though he could spare both you and him extra work by telling you.

he just cant find it in himself to be the one to deflate you. he could deflate anyone, anyone at all—but not you. never you. somehow, you’re special. there is something about you that makes insults catch in his throat and ugly comments die before they even become a wisp of a thought.

your earnest gaze as you rush for him when his porcelain skin has been blemished—that, in particular, feels strangely familiar to him, but he does not know why. and your unabashed naivety irks him in a way, but it’s also one of the sole reasons he could not possibly ruin the moments between you two where you are touching him so gently and so lovingly, the only sounds being being the rustling of bandages and the chirping of insects, his leg bouncing violently and stomach playing jumprope at the feeling of your soft fingers ghosting over his artificial skin and his artificial wounds. your palms are sweaty as you work and your breathing is a bit loud, but he could not possibly care about anything less. things that would piss him off if done by anyone else—existing, for example, or any of the former mentioned “imperfections”—could pass very easily if the person was you.

and then there’s the selfish part of him, the part that can’t tell you because he would then be forced to forfeit those special moments of intimacy he had not experienced the likes of since his first breath of life. he wants you so selfishly; he sees no reason to squish your good, false faith while losing you in the process. that’s just a lose-lose scenario. what would he gain in return—a real relationship? pah. with relationships come suffering, and the fact that it is all entirely out of his control makes his empty chest convulse a bit.

he figured it’s alright to live a little white, harmless lie. it meant he could be close to you, it meant he could keep you around without being blatantly obvious about his affection (read: he could beat around the bush for as long as possible). he could avoid his feelings while still reaping the benefit of your presence.

but oh, trust me, it will certainly bite him in the ass eventually. he can’t run forever. you’ll get tired; you’ll think he’s sick of you. that he hates you. that he doesn’t want you around—he doesn’t need you.

and it’s true, actually, that he doesn’t need you.

however, there is a point to be made about relationships out of need versus relationships out of choice.

wouldn’t it be such a beautiful thing for him to finally stop pretending he only has you around because of necessity? if he makes it known that no, this is a choice that i am making—i am choosing to love you—his chest will be left wide open in all its empty glory, where there is no heart, but instead a vulnerable child. he’d be left with nothing but the hope that you will respond with grace, and that terrifies him.

and no, he is certainly not sick of you, nor does he hate you. he wants nothing more than you, than your presence. he wants everything to do with you. he wants you more than anything he’s ever wanted in his miserable, pathetic life, if it could even be called a life.

but does he need you? no.

and you know what’s so fascinating? he has not needed you all this time, and yet he’s kept you around. isn’t that interesting?

he chose you from the beginning with the guise of necessity. he pretended that it was because he needed it, needed you, needed your help—because somehow the idea that it was a choice made entirely of his own volition, for literally no reason other than he liked you, is absolutely mortifying. the last time he made such a choice, it destroyed him.

how is he supposed to justify keeping you around if he doesn’t even have a reason for it other than the butterflies in his artificial stomach? how can he justify it with his mere feelings?

his feelings make him weak. his feelings are the reason he was cast away in the first place.

it’s so much easier to pretend he’s detached. but detachment means he will only ever feel your artificial touch on his artificial skin, and nothing more. your well-intentioned hands on his fake skin, on his fake wounds. the porcelain cracks are spreading quickly, and he will do nothing about it.

the saddest part about all of it is the fact that he thinks he has to justify his feelings to anyone at all. he does not know what it means to do anything without immediately thinking about how to explain it should someone question him.

what he needs is not you. what he needs is to stop treating you like you’re a ghost from his past who will echo the aches and pains of all the people who hurt him. he can choose you in his mind, but if he holds you at an arm’s distance and does nothing about that choice, it will then mean nothing.

what he needs is to stop wishing he could have you without exposing himself in the process.

if he is to have you, he will be vulnerable with you. there is no choice in that matter. but what he does not understand is that such vulnerability is not dangerous if it’s you he’s with.

so that’s the one thing that you can do to help him—you must not only tell him, but show him, that you are not going to leave him at the drop of a hat if he is anything more than apathetic. that’s it. your only job will be to show him you are safe. that’s all you can do.

and then you must wait for him to believe you.

it’s not your job to fix him. and he can’t sit around and wait for someone to be his savior, the yin to his yang, the angel who will purify his sin. you cannot be any of that. nobody can.

but what you can be is his safe place, his heart, his joy, his lover. you can be—you are—the only one who is able to receive his angst and transform it into understanding. you can choose to love him, not because you need him, but because you want him, amidst all of his angst and suffering.

so that’s his job—realizing it’s possible that you could ever choose him, not of need, but of want, despite everything about him that is less than desirable. despite how difficult it will be. he already knows he’s chosen you, that’s not the hard part—he doesn’t have difficulty believing the lovability of others. the hard part is believing the lovability of himself.

and even when he finally accepts that you want him, even after he tells you the reason he does not need you to fix his injuries, you are still there to lovingly wrap a cloth around his fake, weeping skin.

he does not need you, and yet you remain, because you’ve made your choice—it doesn’t matter whether he needs you or not. he will have you because you chose to give yourself to him.

you will take care of his body not because you need to, but because you want to. you will love him simply because you can.

it’ll take him some time to understand that, but he’ll get there, i promise. please do be patient.

#scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #genshin impact #scara x reader #scaramouche drabble #wanderer imagine #genshin drabble #scaramouche x you #mujimade

[cokowiii]

Im heavy with the CW cause i did VERY MUCH SO GET CARRIED AWAY!!!(GOD I HOPE THE READMORE ACTUALLY WORKS)

I mixed the wrong hyperfixations...

Previous----Next(uhhhhh)

#Just Another Day #Cw blood #cw eyestrain #cw body horror #cw unsettling content #please lemme know any more cw i need to add #rottmnt #sketch #doodle #drawing #tmnt #save rottmnt #unpause rottmnt #digital drawing #digital art #comic #bad future #Yuichi #April O'niel #Baron Draxum #Calimari #rottmnt oc

[reunioninn]

"Rescue!" Translation finished!

so i got just a liiitle distracted, but ive finally finished a translation of an entire chapter from the Guilty Gear XX Anthology Vol. 2 (Bros Comics) manga!

featuring anji, baiken, chipp, and robo ky (and a tiny bit of faust)!

it's 12 pages long, so ill be putting it under a readmore.

also my cleanup skills aren't the best. these raws were a bit of a pain to work with since the pages are a bit yellowed. hope it's not too bad.

enjoy!

i did my very best to make sure my translations were as faithful to the source and the characters' personalities as possible, but it's not perfect... still, im happy that its finished :)

also god translating "japanese" despite knowing the context feels SO racist. cries

#my translations #guilty gear #baiken #anji mito #chipp zanuff #robo ky #idk if i should tag faust he only appears in like two panels LMAO

[enam3l]

I just want to see how Eddie would react to reader using the safe word and how he would feel

eep thank you for being my first request and my first smut attempt! i hope it's okay and you like it, i kinda got carried away

2k words / SMUT! / tw: idk like a teeny daddy kink and panic attacks

Eddie hated being called a freak, it had followed him for years. Maybe it wasn't said to him anymore since he'd left high school but he couldn't shake the memory. It was a tagline that belittled and dismissed his passions and interests. A punishment for being anything other than an all American cookie cutter athlete like Jason fucking Carver or a Tom Cruise-esque heartthrob like Steve, who now was one of Eddie's best friends but still... Eddie couldn't help but think Steve's hair was fair more ridiculous than his own long curls.

Being called a freak sucked... until you said it. At the beginning of your relationship as you began to intimately discover each other's deepest desires, after hearing Eddie whimper the word 'Mommy' as you straddled him, you put your soft lips to his ear and whispered the words 'Oh you really are a freak aren't you Eddie Munson?'

:readmore:

For the first time his heart did not sink at the words. This time his dick twitched. Because this time being a freak was okay. Because now you were a freak too. Now long into your relationship and more in tune with each other's bodies than you were your own there wasn't much the two of you hadn't tried.

The day had dragged on, spending your day being belittled and cross examined by men without your skill set but a salary nearly double yours. Everyday you were grateful to find a job doing something you loved but you couldn't deny that you were exhausted of being in a male dominated environment. You always struggled to feel comfortable around men until you met Eddie, he was the exception. His soft and beautiful heart disguised under his hard grunge exterior. Sometimes you joked he was the human personification of a dark chocolate with a caramel centre. He pretended to hate that comment despite your sweet words making him feel gooey inside, further proving your point. But your colleagues weren't like Eddie. They wore tailored suits to cover their icy cores which no matter how hard you worked, you could never chip away at.

After hearing a prolonged period of shuffling and jangling from beyond the front door, Eddie finally opened it. He had expected to find your there, what he hadn't expected was you looking up at him, small, tired and wide eyed. Your bag abandoned on the floor, it's contents turned inside out in an attempt to find your keys. At his beautiful face, warm and kind, your bottom lip began to tremble.

Gasping at his forlorn love, he was quick to gather you in his big arms

'Baby! Baby, my baby girl, what is wrong?!'

You snuffled your face into his neck, hands clawing at his sides to bring him closer even though it wasn't physically possible. You needed his scent to overtake you.

'Just really really glad t'be home, with you Eds'

He knew there was more, he always did but it was better not to press right now. Between delicate kisses to your temple and calming strokes along your spine he whispered

'Yeah baby, it's okay, you're home now. We're home. Come on, let me take you in.’

He guided your legs around his waist and carried you over the threshold, using one foot to shuffle along your abandoned belongings. It took you a little while into your relationship for you to admit you loved letting him baby you, having previously never let yourself become so vulnerable under the touch of a man. And my god was Eddie thrilled, upon meeting you, a primal urge to protect and worship you filled him. It was something he never felt with anyone before.

Eddie carried you through your home and once you were in the bedroom he gently placed you on the bed. Immediately your hands reached out to desperately grab for him again.

'Are we being my needy baby girl tonight? That's okay love, whatever you want'

He knew the score and was already halfway climbing onto the bed, always unable to resist your sad eyes especially. His head barely hit the pillow before you're buried back into his side and pathetically pawing at his t-shirt

'What do you need baby, I can't help if you don't say?'

Your fingers had breached his clothes and were now working up his stomach.

'You' you finally admit, your voice muffled from your face being pressed into him.

'Me?'

'Yeah Ed, need you to be inside me.'

Eddie chuckles at your need for intimacy but simultaneously he can't believe how much you love him, he never will.

'Anything for you,' he admits as he raises up to undress himself and then carefully do the same to you, freeing your body of your work clothes.

The second the last item of clothing is shed you latch onto him, desperate to feel your bodies together. Your mouth sucks at his neck as your hands roam his biceps and the little trail of hair from his navel to groin.

Eddie groans, blissed out by your need for him. He roles over, slotting between your thighs which you instinctually spread. He rests propped up on his arms so he can look at your face. He sees the need in your slightly teary eyes and is encouraged by your hands on his ass pulling him towards you.

He guides his thick cock through your folds, coating himself in your sweet wetness. It's hard for him not to melt at the way you whimper and eagerly nod him on to enter you. Finally he slowly slides in. His dick gently stretching you and filling the emptiness you'd felt all day. Seeing the bliss spread over your features and the way your expression instantly softened feeling him inside you, Eddie coos

'Oh my sweet girl. This is what you needed, huh? Needed daddy to look after you. S'okay you know there's no where I'd rather be.'

And it's true, you'd both often wished your bodies could merge as one. Constantly desiring a level of closeness not physically possible.

He peppers your face in gentle kisses as he begins to move. Each worry from the day squashed by each thrust of his hips. It's slow and intimate and everything you need. Your lips find each other, frantic to taste the other. As your kisses grow more desperate, Eddie's thrusts speed up in time. The only noise in the apartment is your wetness each time your bodies join. The way he fills you is both comforting and overwhelming and your kisses are broken up as moans escape your lips. Allowing yourself to be totally overtaken by the sensation of him pushing deep inside you.

Eddie can never believe the effect he's able to have on you, especially in such intimate and passionate sex. You make him feel loved and desired in a way he didn't know was possible.

His hand moves to your neck, wanting to angle your head so he just watch your beautiful face react to each pump as you both grow closer.

And even though his grasp around your neck is gentle, he's barely applying pressure, for the first time his hands around your throat did not feel comforting. He is barely restricting your oxygen but it still feels too tight and doesn't fill you with a giddy sensation like usual. The closing in of your vision to just your boyfriends face didn't feel beautiful either. For the first time it all felt suffocating, as if the walls were closing in and every gap was stuffed with cotton wool, not a corner to wiggle to.

Sex with Eddie was always fun, intimate and beautiful and yes sometimes a little weird but suddenly it was terrifying. Before your brain could even compute just what the problem was, your throat rasped out a word you'd never uttered before 'Melon!' Your safe word. You decided upon it after both agreeing it was the worst flavour for anything.

Eddie froze then quickly shot up and practically ran over to the other side of the room. Terrified at the thought he had been scaring or hurting you. But what terrified him more was he truly had no idea what was wrong, this hadn't been one of your more experimental moments. It was raw and passionate and love filled.

His face fell as he saw you recoil into yourself and your face which seconds ago had been the image of content was now crumpling. Tears trickling down your face as you looked up at him. Eddie couldn't help but well up at the sight of your distress. You both stared at each other, distraught and confused.

Slowly he walked back over to the bed, careful not to scare you. Fuck, the thought of you, of all people being scared of him was truly his worst nightmare.

'Sweetheart... I'm so so sorry. Are you okay? Can you talk?'

You blink a few tears away and nod. Your hand reaches back out to him as you shuffle on the bed, indicating for Eddie to get back in. He felt his racing heart gradually slow down knowing you still wanted him near.

Pulling up the quilt and getting under, he nudges you to do the same.

He stutters 'Can... can I touch you?'

Your heart breaks hearing how nervous he is, you feel awful for saying it, worse for still not being able to conjure the words as to why. Reaching out to hold him, you both settle into each other's arms.

'I'm sorry I scared you Eddie, I don't know what happened I just -' a sigh escapes your mouth as you try to process.

His little kisses across the crown of your head help calm you and you feel the pieces of your emotions fit together. Sitting up and taking his hands in yours, you look at him. With a sniffle you finally admit 'Work... it's been horrible Eds. I'm so tired of them. I'm so tired of feeling like the smallest person in the room. These men standing over me, talking down to me...'

He listens so intently, absorbing every word you say, his thumbs brushing back and forth over your fingers.

'It's just when you put your hand on my neck... god you weren't even choking me but it's like my brain decided it to freak out. And suddenly everything was too much? I felt like I was spiralling, like I couldn't breathe or escape. It was scary. I've never felt like that before. Like everything came crashing down at once.'

Eddie nods, he knows exactly what you mean and he's so glad you're not hurt and he's so glad you're not scared of him. 'Oh my baby. I think you had a panic attack? I've seen Will have them before. It's like your brain was already overwhelmed and on edge and there's just one thing that can tip you over and your body just reacts.'

You let out what feels like your first real breath in several minutes now you know what it was. A small smile starts to form as you think how lucky you are to have a boyfriend as empathetic as him. 'Oh... that makes sense. I guess just everything has built up inside me and that's how it decided to release.'

Eddie's hand reaches up to your cheek, his thumb stroking you softly, 'But promise me, baby, promise you'll say if I was hurting you? Are you sure it was okay, I definitely wasn't choking you?’

Pulling yourself into his lap, you take his hand and link your pinkies together, 'I promise you my pretty boy. I'd tell you and truly, you weren't hurting me. It was just this once, I swear, I won't break if you touch me.'

You both stay wrapped up in each other's arms under the quilt as the sky outside grows darker. No pressure to speak or move. Both of you feeling at home with the other. Knowing there's not one place in the world you feel more comfortable in than within each other's embrace.

#enam3l x eddie #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson headcanons #Eddie munson blurb #eddie munson x afab reader