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tobi-momo · 3 years

Text

Your Cupid

a/n: hihihihihidihgl;df im finally posting again!! so sorry to take so long! also- im so so so sorry if this is bad i really wanted to post so i kninda rushed the end, and ik its long im so sorry😭 also i hope you find out soon in the fic and interpret yourself but just to let you know the title is referring to Oikawa, not Iwa.

Pairing(s): Iwaizumi Hajime x reader | Oikawa x reader (PLATONIC)

Genre: Slowburn!!! Romance, Fluff, Angst, Comfort

Warnings: Cursing, i think that's it?

Word Count: 4k

Synopsis: Being childhood best friends with Oikawa meant you weren't going to hear the end of it when it came to volleyball, when you finally agreed to become the Seijoh manager, he suddenly started to regret introducing you to his other best friend, Iwaizumi.

It wasn’t your choice, being here. You were forced to come, Tooru practically dragging you to the gym while you whine and complain, his cocky smile and fake charm trying it’s best to convince you to stop resisting. You barely know a thing about volleyball, even though always going to Tooru’s games and helping him practice when you were little, you never really caught the whole jist of the sport. He vowed to help you, to always be there when you have questions about it.

So with an elongated sigh, and a pinch to the bridge of your nose, you agree. You would become the manager of the Seijoh Volleyball Club.

~.~.~.~

The first practice you had attended consisted of balls flying, smacking aggressively on the ground; your eyes not being able to keep up with them, instead finding entertainment in the players instead. Tooru had introduced you to them, each of them holding their hand out for you to grab and shake gently before letting go and subtly wiping your hands on your uniform. He had mentioned another best friend, one that he had been trying so hard to get you to meet, wanting to complete his holy trinity. When you refused to go anywhere he would moan in defeat, collapsing on your bed while fake pouting and turning around to pretend that “y/n doesn’t love me anymore”. You would always just hit him with a pillow after that, resulting in an all out war. You had assumed the other guy refused as well, as Tooru never mentioned if his poor friend desired to meet you.

You guessed even after the ace met you for the first time the desire still never came up, his nonchalant nod and monotone greeting of his name showing proof of that, even before he turned around to walk away without a care in the world. He never took your hand, he never even looked at you; must have been too busy, throwing the ball in the air before running and leaping upwards, smacking the ball on the other side of the court, a loud grunt bleeding through his throat when he misses his target, running to and under the net to receive the ball. You watched him, pupils stuck on the way his body moved so flawlessly through the air, the way his rough, calloused hand hits the ball, making it mold around his palm and forcing it through the air without resistance, the loud slap that echoed throughout the gym when the ball made contact with the polished floors, the annoyed glare he made when the ball didn’t go where it was supposed to.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

“Y/nnnnnnn,” Tooru mewled, his fingers waving in front of your face, his fingers snapping together to grab your attention. His head turns, eyes widening dramatically when he finds what you were so distracted by.

Only regret ran through his mind at that moment.

~.~.~.~

You had attended most of Tooru’s games, but you had never really paid attention, as your eyes kept drifting towards the scoreboard and the clock, impatiently waiting for the final whistle to be blown. This game however, was different. Your attention was nailed to this game, your hair pulled back and your hands gripping the rotation sheet ever so tightly, your breath coming in hitches when the score rises, the atmosphere becoming so much more intense than you remember.

Awe was painted all over your face as you gaze at your best friend setting the ball so beautifully among the court, it flying towards the wing spiker just in time for him to strike it down on the other side of the net, gusts of wind following after- the hair of the libero on the other team fluffing up as they stare at the number four player. You watch him smirk in victory and his hands balling up in congratulating fists. The rest of his teammates whooped and cheered, patting him harshly on the back, a shared smile between him and Tooru before their knuckles joined in a tiny bump before returning to their sides.

Then, his eyes went to yours. The sweat dripping down his heated face and his heaving chest disappeared after you caught a glimpse of his green iris’. They were piercing; cutting into your brain and engraving themselves in your memory. How were you ever going to get them out of your mind?

You didn’t notice him walking towards you, his arms slightly swaying back and forth as he walked, his quiet footsteps picking up speed only a tad towards you. Then, as your mouth opens in an attempt to speak, the light of his green eyes floods your pupils when the words catch in your throat. “I- you were-”

“Y/n-chan! How’d you think of the game? Being so up close and personal like that has to make a difference from the stands, right?” Tooru’s voice bleeds straight into your hearing, interrupting your stutter. This was one thing you’d have to thank him for later.

~.~.~.~

“Wait, I’m confused, what’s that for?” You point to an arrow on your clipboard, looking up in confusion towards anyone who would listen. The captain was busy announcing whatever he wanted to the team, making them groan in annoyance and roll their eyes, Tooru only continuing with his story.

“What’s what for?” You heard from beside you, the low grumble of his voice seeping into your ears, making you jump backwards. The palms of his hands move to grip your arms firmly so as to not let you lose balance, his rough fingers wrapping around the flesh of your arm to pull you back up. He only stares, more of a glare, if you were being honest. He looked madly confused, or it may have been his resting bitch face, you don’t know. It wasn’t until you were back on your feet when you decided to speak up again, subtly avoiding eye contact by letting your eyes zip from random item to item, finding purchase on the metal clip of the plastic board you were holding.

“Uhm, I’m just confused about what play this is,” you say, your finger pointing towards the specific circle and arrow you were questioning. His head tilts downward, his eyebrows furrowing as he narrows in towards your problem, a hand on his chin.

“That’s a back row attack.”

“A what?” You question, looking up towards him for an explanation, only finding his eyes still stuck on the paper.

“A back row attack. It’s when a hitter from the back row jumps up towards the ten-foot line and hits the ball on the other side,” he abbreviates, a little hand gesture making its way through the air.

“Oh, really? How would that work? Why wouldn’t the setter just toss the ball to a front row player?” Volleyball gets more confusing everytime you think about it. He glimpsed up at you, took a short breath, then shifted his feet, like he was getting ready for a long conversation; you just stood there, waiting for him to explain a little bit more before taking a quick look around the gym, the cart of balls standing out to your line of vision. You hold a smirk, his head following your movements as you turn around to set the clipboard on the bench and walk towards the cart full of balls, picking one up and bouncing it on the floor.

A single eyebrow raises, but he still follows you to the court. “So, if I were to toss...to,” you put a finger on your chin, pondering, “back there,” you point to middle-back, taking a step towards the spot, “where would I be over here?”

He understood immediately, nodding his head as his legs made their way to you, scaling the court with narrow eyes once he halts beside you. “Well, depending on the play and the rotation, you could be anywhere on the court, so you could toss to them from pretty much any position.” His explanation sounded brief, vague. It was just enough for you to get the idea, though.

“Uh, go stand over there,” he urges, pointing to the middle back position. “Do you know how to hit a ball?” You look at him incredulously, feeling a little embarrassed to say you barely know how to do your approach.

“Not...really?” You compromise, shrugging as you backpedal to the back row position.

“Here,” he jogs up to you, handing you the ball, “take this and go to where I was just now.” You comply, heading over to that position, shifting the ball between your hands. “Give me one.”

“What?” You question him as he pulls his ankle back up towards his back, stretching his quad.

“Toss me one and watch me.” Oh.

You do as told, under-handingly tossing the ball up towards the ten foot line, studying his footwork. His form was perfect, you thought, his right foot leading his approach until he jumps into the air, practically flying flawlessly as his arm comes up behind him at a perfect angle to shoot the ball straight down one of the back corners.

The setter on the other side of the court could see the sparkle in your eyes, the glistening of awe in your face as you admire his best friend. He had a feeling you would like him once you met him, but not like this. The idea of you two suddenly being fond of each other ate away at him, like he was about to lose someone. Maybe two.

~.~.~.~

Away games were the worst. You hated sharing a small bus with smelly boys who don’t know a thing called “boundaries”. They hover over you, their arms flailing and their mouths running. You were annoyed, to say the least, trying to refrain from rolling your eyes at the boy's antics, crossing your arms to separate yourself from them. You didn’t even get the chance to sit next to Tooru, who got stuck on the inside of Kindaichi, messing around with Matsukawa and Makki.

You were uncoincidentally stuck with the captain’s best friend, Iwaizumi. You didn’t mind him of course, as he would put Tooru’s ego in place and tell everyone to shut up before you explode on them. You didn’t know if he noticed your irritation, your bugged eyes staring out the window, your head leaning against the glass. His head was also turned your way, you guessed to doze off to the moving trees outside, but you didn’t notice the way his eyes focused on your hair, subconsciously trying to count the strands while you look away, your eyelids drooping downwards ever so often.

Your dreary state was interrupted by a plastic water bottle being caught in the air, your nose coming face to face with a hand- the hand of the man sitting next to you, you infer.

“Guys, what the hell did I just say? Stop throwing shit around!” He yells towards his teammates, their playful demeanor turning pensive, their heads rotating away guiltily.

“Thanks,” you mutter, the words barely leaving your throat when he pulls away.

“No problem,” he dismisses, forcing himself to not glance up at you when he shoves the bottle in Makki’s hands.

“Hey- what the hell?” Makki whines.

“It’s yours, dumbass, take it.”

~.~.~.~

The red marker covering the white page gawked at you, showing you how you weren’t good enough for anything better. You couldn’t look at it any longer, the bottom lip of your frown quivering before you bring the inside of your elbow up to your mouth, muffling your sniffles and absorbing the steamy tears that scurry down your raw cheeks. You were better than this, what the hell is wrong with you?

Hiding in the storage closet wasn’t a good idea, The initial plan was clever, sneaking in there to calm yourself down before practice, needing to keep an optimistic mindset. That plan was ruined as soon as you broke down though, slow, and quiet but clear footsteps closing in on the door, like they were leaning their ear in to listen. Your mind hadn’t kept up with the time, as you hiccupped and sobbed even after the door was opened and light shined through the dark.

“Y/n?” You whipped your head away, refusing to look at them as you deal with your mortification. They scoot in, shutting the door until only a little line of light cracked through. “Y/n, what happened?” They sat next to you, closely you may add, dipping their head down to try and see your face. You avoid them, trying your hardest not to cry in front of them. “Don’t turn away from me, look at me,” they hush, placing their fingertips on your forearms, gently pulling them towards their direction, your head hanging down as your arms are removed from your mouth. “Look at me.”

You sniffle with exhaustion as you drag your head up, finally letting them inspect your glassy eyes, tears continuing to run down without fail. They had felt the hot liquid stream down their thumb as they wiped it away from your face, caressing your cheek as you fret.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

You shake your head.

“Do you want my help?”

You nod. And you don’t move away when you find the vice captain’s hand reaching behind your head to cradle it as you whimper in his shoulder.

~.~.~.~

Study sessions with Iwaizumi became a regular thing. Whether it was him coming to your house and staying for dinner, or it was you falling asleep on his desk, you two never stopped doing it. Even after your grades went back up, the red marker leaving your memory almost completely when you get your new tests back. He gave you a look of approval, nodding his head a single time to show his acknowledgement. He wasn’t surprised when you came up to him and tugged him into a tight embrace, his large hands coming to hold your figure like second nature. He was used to this, your excited hugs and your bursts of energy and your lack of an attention span and your bright and sunny nature. It was funny to him how much other people burn you out, like a dying fire that needs more gasoline.

The second your body hit his, a breath slipped out, creating a little chuckle that filled your ears, the cozy warmth of his chest slightly leaning into you.

“Finally! I finally did it. Proud ‘a me?” You smirk at him, feeling a little full of yourself at the moment.

“Sure, sure, yeah,” he replies, slowly shoving your body off his, your feet stumbling as you let go of him, struggling to find balance. The hands wrapped around your arms keep you firmly planted on the ground, gently letting go the moment you stop moving around. They dive straight into his pockets, his head lifting to see your cheery expression. “You did good.”

You only smile in response, opening your mouth before a hand was planted on your shoulder.

“Y/n-chan! How’d you do? I heard trusty Iwa-chan helped you study!”

“Shut up, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi grumbles.

“I did really well, thanks to trusty Iwa-chan,” you emphasize, a glare shooting your way once the sound of your voice finds Iwaizumi’s ears. He didn’t like that. Tooru giggled, his hand half-covering his mouth to ‘try’ and stifle his laugh.

“Well, I did amazing too, in case you guys wanted to know.” A cocky grin made its way through Tooru’s face.

“We didn’t.”

“That’s awesome, Tooru!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m amazing.”

“Shut up, Crappykawa,” you and Iwa both chant in unison.

“Aw, c’mon, you guys!”

~.~.~.~

“I have to admit something, Y/n,” Tooru blurts in your room while he sits on your bed, his head hanging low while his fingers trace the thread patterns of your blanket. You spin your chair to face him, the atmosphere brought down when you see his quiet expression. Oikawa Tooru was never quiet.

“I thought letting you two meet was a good idea, I wanted us to be the power trio,” he strained a chuckle. “I just didn’t know that you two would become more than friends.” Your eyes expand, your breath immediately slowed and your movements coming to a full stop.

‘What do you mean by that, Tooru?”

“You know what I mean,” he waves you off dismissively. “I see the way you look at him, Y/n. I see the way he looks at you. I’m like the biggest third wheel in the world.”

You were confused, shocked. Was what was coming out of his mouth true? Did you really have different feelings about him than anyone else? Did he have them for you?

“I was mad, at first.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Like, really mad. I didn’t want you guys to have all that lovey-dovey stuff together when I’m right here, you know,” he gestures to himself; your head tilts in understanding, nodding. “I guess you could say I was jealous. It just irked me that you two never wanted to meet and then when you do you immediately fall head over heels for each other, completely ignoring the fact that I was the one to bring you two together.” He didn’t feel left out, like he did before, though. He had watched you two for a while, realizing that you two need him just as much as he needs you and you two need each other. He felt as if this was really who he belonged with. You guys.

You just stared at him, the cogs in your brain trying their best to process his words, your fingers coming together into a fidget. Your wide eyes landed on his, and although his pupils were nailed to the bed, you could see the sadness that didn’t belong. His eyebrows were furrowed in a way that made him look like he was worried, regretful, yet his lips stayed thinned together as his hair dangled in front of him. You could tell he was trying really hard to say this. Even if it was The Oikawa Tooru, he wasn’t invincible.

You try to recall all the times you’ve met with Iwaizumi, all the conversations you had, all the tiny contact you made when your fingers had mistaken each other’s arm or fingers for the textbook, all the times he caught your lingering gaze, but refused to let it go, the times he caught up with you after practice, slightly jogging towards you and stopping once he reaches the same spot as you- you naturally having to speed up every once in a while as his legs were much longer than yours.

“You’re right,” you mumble, your words coming out slow and smooth, your eyes focusing back on him from the blurry space you just dropped yourself in. His eyes have a double-take on your face, moving back and forth from the blanket to your face of realization. “I do like him more than a friend. And it’s because of you.” His back stretches upwards, sitting up straight. “So, thank you, Tooru.” It was now his turn to be utterly stunned- thank...you? “I’m glad you convinced me to join the volleyball club, to meet Iwaizumi, to allow us to have these experiences together, thank you.”

What could he say? “Your welcome”? It seemed unfit for the situation, he figured. So instead of plastering on a confident smirk and showing his “Great King”, he exhales deeply, looking straight into the holes in your eyes. “Just don’t break his heart, yeah?”

You nod in assurance, returning a determined eye. “I can do that.”

~.~.~.~

The next few weeks passed slowly, like the clock gave an extra two minutes with every second that went by. You had barely seen him, as he walked away from you every time he noticed your presence. He refused to look at you, the back of his head being the only thing to face you during practice. Why was he avoiding you?

“Iwa.” He doesn’t look up at you from putting a ball back in the cart, shutting his eyes before turning around. He stops when your hand grasps his arm, pulling him into a stop. He tugs his arm back, your grip hardening on his flesh, your sharp glare not letting him leave. “Iwaizumi.”

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose while screwing his eyes shut. “What.”

“Why have you been avoiding me?” You bring your hand up in the air with question.

“Why have I been what?”

“You heard me. Now answer me.” Your tone was strict, firm. It annoyed the hell out of him that it made him want to confess.

“I haven’t been doing shit. Stop following me like a lost puppy,” he growls, side eyeing you.

“Excuse me?” Your head bucks back, surprised. With one last tug, his arm is out of your reach as he walks away with his dark demeanor.

Then, he was gone.

~.~.~.~

You had spent a couple days thinking about it. How the conversations were so short, how he just completely dismissed you. Tooru watched you two go back and forth between bickering, you usually being the one to start the conversation before he tells you to fuck off. He was curious as well. You mean, that’s what you assumed from the conversation they were having in the gym before practice, ceasing your stroll when you hear their voices echo throughout the room, your body hiding behind the door so they wouldn’t notice.

“Iwa-chan, we talked about this, she just wants to be your friend, stop being so mean to her!”

“Whatever.”

“Iwaizumi, I’m serious. Stop being so cold to her,” the captain’s voice changes, his playful attitude gone in a swift motion, replaced with a scowl when Iwaizumi’s wide eyes find him. “What did she do to make you like this, huh? Such a meanie, Iwa-chan.”

“I’m not,” the number four defends, looking Oikawa up and down before taking a step back.

“Oh, I think you are,” he taunts, “you too were getting along so beautifully, it looked like. What happened? Scared?” He smirks.

“Of what?” Iwa’s eyes twitched, his face flushed.

“Of her not liking you back.”

The ace stammers, his mouth not knowing what words to spit out as he looks his best friend in the face.

He was serious, wasn’t he.

Iwa stood there, gaping at Oikawa’s satisfied expression while stumbling on his words, trying to find the best one to respond with. But he couldn’t. There was nothing he could say at this moment that would change the way Oikawa thinks, because Iwa knows he’s right. He knows.

~.~.~.~

You were frozen in place, your heart seemed to stop working, you couldn’t tell. Your nerves had stuttered a couple times- you weren’t sure you were even alive at this point. The hand that placed itself on your mouth had fallen to your side, leaving your silent gasps less silent now. Thankfully, they hadn’t heard you, but once you rushed inside with purpose and resolution, the gym door slamming shut, their heads had whipped your way.

“You’re telling me you liked me this whole time?!” You shout to him, walking closer and closer until you arrive right in front of him. His eyes stayed glued to you, confusion stirring back and forth throughout his whole system. He was scared. “Is that why you’ve been a dick to me?”

“I didn’t-”

“Now, now, Iwa-chan, let her talk.”

“Tooru,” you lour, “stop talking.”

“I’ve liked you since I saw that jump serve you did at my first practice, and you’re telling me that you like me too? Even though you’ve been avoiding me and pushing me away and telling me to leave you alone and-”

“You what?”

“What? I like you? Yes! I do! Now can you finally stop acting like an asshole?”

Silence.

“Uh…”

“He means yes, Y/n,” Tooru cuts in while patting the vice captain on the shoulder, laughing it off.

You take a deep breath, running a hand through your hair as you sigh. “Okay,” you exhale, “well, then...are we? Do you-”

“Mhm! He would love to,” Oikawa answers again.

You look at Tooru once more, biting your lip to hide your smile before nodding once towards him.

Thank you, Tooru.

im so sorry for this mess oh my god

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REQUESTS: OPEN

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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if Wolverine is on every team, would he be an agent of the Shadow in an X-Men/Shadow crossover?

It's interesting to think about The Shadow existing in the same world as mutants, because the premise of The Shadow's agents is that they are people defined as "from all walks of life", working their talents to the same cause, which would definitely include mutants. At the same time, The Shadow would be forced to oppose mutants who threaten innocents, and most likely with mutants on his side, which is a recipe for trouble. One of the major problems with the X-Men is that they are constantly forced to share a universe with a setting that's not set up to accomodate mutants on a large scale, which cripples a lot of their potential, but I think the premise of "The Shadow exists in the same world as mutants" invites a lot more possibilites than just crossing The Shadow with the X-Men specifically.

Where does he fall on the Xavier-Magneto dychotomy? Is it acceptable for him to even be involved in mutant struggles if he's not a mutant himself? How do other mutants react to him? Obviously he cannot be stopped from giving a shit and helping them, but what happens when they don't want his help? What if he is a mutant? Technically speaking, the movie version of The Shadow and Margo already are mutants, since they were born with psychic powers and we never get any explanation for it.

Regarding Logan specifically: Would Wolverine be an agent? If there's any X-Man who's likely to have met and known The Shadow prior to his entry in a story, it's Wolverine. Usually it falls to Xavier or the resident telepath to give exposition on a new character, but The Shadow's older than all of them and you can bet that, in a world where telepathy exists, he would have figured a way to protect his thoughts from them, if he's not an outright telepath himself or something other. Would Wolverine be an acquaintance of The Shadow? Likely. Would they have worked together at some point? Probably, because Wolverine's worked for literally everyone. Would Wolverine be an Agent of The Shadow? I'd say no.

For one, even if he did work as an agent once, he's clearly had his hands full in the last decades, and there's hardly a point to having an agent you can't call on because he's busy fighting supervillains or gambling in Madripoor or mentoring kids and whatnot. Wolverine has the whole "lone wolf loose cannon doesn't play by the rules flips you off with one claw" routine down pat, plus the Berserker Rage making him put those around him in serious danger, all of which are incredibly poor traits for a Shadow agent, especially since The Shadow cannot have Wolverine work with another agent lest he bring danger to them (and Logan's a magnet for danger). The main thing The Shadow demands upfront everytime he enlists an agent, no matter what he's promising them, is absolute obedience. They obviously are expected to think and act for themselves and act according to their best judgment (and sometimes that judgment saves The Shadow in situations he hadn't accounted for), and they are all given the choice to refuse and back out, but The Shadow's word is final. He cannot abide distractions when lives are at stake, and Wolverine cannot promise that.

I mentioned before that The Shadow does not employ agents for assassin missions and that they are not supposed to be killing or even shooting anyone outside of gunfights, and Wolverine's whole catchphrase and job description is murder. If they worked together, it would not be with Wolverine as an agent. I don't see Wolverine accepting being a full-time agent, and I don't see The Shadow wanting him to be one. Instead, he'd be something akin to The Shadow's other allies that work with him or for him on occasion but otherwise have separate lives, like Myra Reldon and Yat Soon. Ultimately, there's a bit too much overlap between The Shadow and Wolverine for him to be an Agent.

Generally speaking, while the agents come in many different types and they should be as diverse a group of characters as possible, I'd say the number one rule that should go into making an Agent of The Shadow is that they must be good, heroic characters who contrast The Shadow in some way. The light to his darkness, the presence to his absence, the POV that grounds us so he can be cool and distant, the solid, likeable friends you can always trust to carry a story when he's off slinking through the dark in a thousand faces, and all that. So really it would be preferable to go with X-Men characters that are farther from the darker anti-hero side of the equation. Some of my suggestions would be: Jubilee, because I always really liked her energy and style and she seems woefully underutilized, and she would be a great character to not just contrast The Shadow in some of the most literal ways possible but also Wolverine should they team up. Or Colossus, who's got a very lovable simplicity, is probably the most straightforward superhero in Marvel after Cap, always makes a great contrast with edgier characters like Wolverine, and whose delightful portrayal in Deadpool was by far the greatest thing about that film, and who's already got seeds for a crossover considering he's canonically related to Rasputin, someone The Shadow personally knew.

Dazzler, who provides a more literal contrast than Jubilee in design and powers, and probably would be the last person anyone would expect to secretly be an agent of The Shadow, which makes her perfect for it. And Nightcrawler, who's got exactly the kind of personality and powerset that would make him perfect as an agent, perfect for working with the agents, and who I'd argue is, even more so than Wolverine, the closest thing to a genuine Pulp Hero currently among the X-Men, and who is just begging, begging, to get to star in his own separate franchise separate from the X-Men where he gets to go on realm-hopping Bugs Bunny swashbuckling adventures with a cast of misfits picked along the way. Put him in a Castlevania-esque game or something, I can't think of anything (at least, anything SFW) that would make the legions of Kurt fangirls happier than if he got to ditch the X-Men baggage and just shine solo more often, he's an incredible character and a very good bean who deserves very nice things, and he'd be my number one pick for partnering with The Shadow on this crossover.

#replies tag #comic books #pulp heroes #the shadow #x-men #wolverine #jubilee #dazzler #colossus #kurt wagner #nightcrawler #i can't stop thinking about how well michiru yamane's sotn score goes with nightcrawler #especially the groovier songs #we deserve more nightcrawler solo adventures

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immortal-teacher · 3 years

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Albert Einstein said "Everything is energy and that's all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics"

Most people don't realize that sounds, shapes, colors and words are all connected through various frequency vibrations. Play a chord and there is a corresponding geometrical shape that is in place, and a color associated with that frequency and vibration! Sacred Geometry, sound, chakras

I have figured out how to make anything reality and how the universe works after experimenting with a variety of affirmations and i will explain with knowledge from many teachers that I have figured out the details and proven myself with experiments, memories, scientific explanations and more.

So everything is Frequency and Vibration or nonphysical and physical, We are all co-creators who create frequencies that create and control the material and physical world. We operate and think on frequency, including belief systems are frequencies and that controls our vibration.

Vibration is our body and the frequencies that we operate and think on control the type of thoughts we can have, how we feel, how we interact with all life and everything around us including gaining new abilities, becoming immortal or anything it seems anything is possible once you say or listen to an affirmation, subliminal, mantra, frequency or believe something long enough

then it will come true eventually. The Mastermind Principle explains how opposing frequencies cannot exist in the same area. For example during hypnosis people have proven how if i say my finger is burning hot then it will burn your skin as i get closer and start to blister.

Somebody has put down all his weight on a knife on his neck then got hit full force with a sledgehammer on his back but it did not pierce his skin because his belief/frequency

that he operates on. The frequencies also cause hallucinations based on beliefs, for example i thought people i date would reply fast so when i first got a phone in 7th grade i would message people and past girlfriends and reply fast because i didn't have many chores to do and of course really wanted to talk to my now ex girlfriend so while waiting for a reply from her, i would get vibrations from my

phone just like i got a message but when i checked then i see no messages or notifications and this went on like a hundred times until 10th grade when i got a new girlfriend(ex girlfriend) that explained why it took so long to reply, which is because she does many chores for her family, she didn't have Brothers and sisters around her age to help out.

So i first started learning about how the universe works after 5 years of searching to cure my shyness, depression and slight anger issues, along the way i did some searching into empathic abilities, how to live forever and more through many teachers mostly on google and Youtube, nothing really worked until i found this

video by "YouAreCreators" Youtube channel called "The secrets of frequency and vibration" packed full of cool experiments including how the nine solfeggio frequencies cured 16 out of 16 terminally ill cancer patients

within 70 days which i hear is the worst kind of cancer. So i started both the nine solfeggio frequencies and i am affirmations both free on YouTube at the same time, after listening to them for 2 and a half weeks then i started

waking up with this extremely blissful feeling, super energized, feeling great, thinking faster and more clearly, form more complex thoughts, process information faster, i work at top speed all day like an adrenaline rush and

it seems i have infinite energy but i stopped listening temporarily thinking it would last forever but then the great feelings gradually went away after 72 hours.

Some of my experiments that helped me discover how the universe works include listening and or saying affirmations

like "i am connected to the source, i am a part of god, i am a piece of the creator, i am wise, i am walking brilliance, i am total understanding, i am infinite wisdom, i am genius, i am over joyed, i am educated, i am infinite, i am wise council, i am energetic, i am boundless, i am brilliant, I am Happy, i am Healthy, i am invincible, i am immortal, i am loving, i am caring, kind, strong" and many more

in other people's affirmations then they all came true and when i asked questions in my head then five different times i got answers it seemed i could have never thought of.

I have even tried subliminals for faster reflexes and think fast like a human computer then started catching everything that i bumped off the shelf when trying to work faster including 3 items i dropped at the same time so i lowered my body slightly and hugged them like i could

see them falling in slow motion.

Dr. Joe Dispenza says learning makes new connections in the brain, so the more that you can repeat what you have learned, the more you are installing the neurological hardware in the brain in preparation for the experience then

when you feel the experience and emotion then your teaching your body chemically what you have intellectually understood, then the body understands better than the mind after enough practice. He said our job

is to go from philosopher to initiate to master, from knowledge to experience to wisdom, from mind to body to soul, from thinking to doing to being, from learning it with your head to practicing it with your hands and knowing it by heart.

How you think and feel changes your state of being, (end of the quote) because you think the pill or surgery will heal you then it doesn't matter if it is a sugar pill or fake surgery, it will work, that is the famous placebo effect. I read that most people get results between 21 to 85 days of any daily affirmation, frequency, subliminal, mantra etc then after 3 months of daily practice then it will be permanent.

After saying i am immortal and i am invincible for about a month and a half then i turned around and accidentally fell what seemed to be the fastest fall ever at work because the floor was really slick then i felt no pain at all and didn't even get hurt and i kept track for a month after just

in case if i needed to report it.

After saying that i do not need food to survive, i do not need food to thrive about 50 times daily for 3 days then those 3 days i ate 50%-75% less food because i felt full and could not really eat much throughout the day including my work lunch time that i usually eat the whole time.

Mahatma Gandhi said "Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny."

I found that fear or doubt attracts what you fear or doubt because I found a new technique while playing pool that I can visualize a tunnel where the white ball will go and the next ball and make the shot everytime if I stay confident, aim

the goal ball first then the white ball with the tunnel but if I doubt I'll make it or fear I'll mess up or get bumped then I can't visualize the tunnel technique so I tried relying on another technique but then I fail.

After

listening to affirmations about world peace then it gave me new perceptions that helped me because i was running on the "be nice" frequency so then i was able to tell

people the right way to do things otherwise i could report them to the FDA for leaving refrigerated food out at room temperature for hours instead of 30 minutes. They would pull out pallets of food about 6 feet tall stacked to fit the most

food on each pallet then say only one person per pallet which took this one guy 3 hours and a half to stock the shelves so now those expiration dates are wrong.

I have tried mantras and subliminals to become more attractive then 6 people flirt with me in one day, everyone was

smiling at me and i got 4 phone numbers from female co-workers because the other 2 flirting was guys but I'm only attracted to females.

Also with Aaron Doughty's help, he refers to Hawkin's scale from "fear to enlightenment" often with examples and his experiences which really helped me out but he still

does not completely know what he is talking about as far as i know but i don't watch most of his videos. I had help from many teachers and i sometimes still look for more

knowledge to improve life for the greater good of all! First

time i heard the detox frequency that is known to eliminate electromagnetic radiation, Viruses, diseases, infections, toxins, bacteria, fungal etc "741 Hz" i heard just about an hour or two then sweat 3 nights in a row so much

during winter that i woke up once each night because the sweat i was soaked in got cold so i dried off and rolled over each night but with constant use i don't notice any sweat

really if i do it daily or weekly. Music tuned to 528Hz gives us more energy daily because it returns our DNA to its perfect form also 528Hz is the frequency at which life is created and when i listen daily then i keep benefits constantly all day.

Other

people's beliefs and our own beliefs and fears influence us subconsciously that influences thoughts, abilities and choices either positive or negative but we can learn what negative and or deconstructive frequencies we operate on by listening to our thoughts and words then reverse the negative and deconstructive ones,

I figured this out because I heard weird beliefs that I didn't believe that effected me in a negative way but now I looped an affirmation video using desktop version for protection from anything negative on my cracked phone it charges slow but it works.

With a world of technology that can brainwash you on a silent frequency displayed on the patent technology website then We must brainwash ourselves for everything good and have a negative and deconstructive frequencies blocker like i listen to daily in my Daily playlist that i try to keep under 6 hours to listen 3 times daily for more effect i add more helpful videos after so i have

something else to listen to while sleeping. We can create new empowering, optimistic, hopeful, loving, gratefulness, forgiving life for all. Always think what is the opposite of the negative, remember to stay and think positive, constructive and always work with science to figure

out what is for the greater good of all and if you ever have questions google or youtube can't answer then ask me, I'd love to help and I've also gained benefits

from meditation, mantras, subliminals, mindful breathing, Orgone Pendant necklace from "wish .com" i believe that the intentions i set in my gemstones to help me

bring world peace, love and happiness to all helped because it does seem easier to teach and twice now after meeting people who told me i was wrong because they

chose one of the 2000 religions which are belief systems from other humans both times christian but my gemstones start shocking my leg when they fill up to much of the negative energy and shock my hand if i touch them, stronger than static shock, like those electric shock pens.

Sungazing the safe way reduces needed food intake gradually to zero by connecting to earth's electromagnetic field I'm at 8 minutes but on your First day the sun should be near touching the horizon and look at

the top of the sun then left, right, bottom and repeat for 10 seconds then only increase 10 seconds once daily until 44 minutes and 40 seconds is completed then the sungazing part is done to get energy just walk on earth slow,

relaxed and barefoot for 45 minutes a day for the average person for enough energy throughout the day but i read many different stories it seems you still can drink and

eat but in the Thomas Jefferson University study they kept track of this man 24/7 for 200 days they monitored all of his bodily functions and they said he didn't eat or drink anything but he did bath and they measured the bath

water and he was healthier than anyone 20 years younger than him and he was about 70 years old.

At another university the same guy was monitored for 411 days but they didn't even believe him about not needing food or drink so i think they said he did accept some buttermilk from them.

I heard one guy rose his frequency and vibration so high that he cured everyone at an insane asylum just by walking in, they told him he could not speak to them but just being near him everyone of them past all the tests to get out within a week.

People with multiple personality disorder sometimes will have cancer in one personality then scan them 2 minutes later in another personality then the cancer is gone. One woman who got cancer i think her name might be Doloris Cannon

but before she went in for her cancer treatment, she forgave everyone in her life then went to the doctor that said after scanning her again that her cancer is gone and that's the only thing she did different in her life and i personally have forgiven everyone for my health without actually telling them and it felt like 100 pounds lifted off my heart.

If you want to know more about the Science just ask or google ~Bruce Lipton~ is a cellular biologist that has proven all the science of beliefs, fears, thoughts and choices creating our reality.

According to RC Henry, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, in a 2005 essay: A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. Pioneering physicist sir James Jeans wrote

"The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter,

we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual."

I had help discovering how the universe works from Bob proctor, Aaron Doughty, YouTube channels YouAreCreators and Universe inside you, Bruce Lipton, The Placebo effect, No Cebo Effect, Mandala effect, butterfly

effect, bystander effect, the documentary on Netflix called "The secret", visual and audio hallucinations, The MasterMind Principle, police report eye witnesses having different stories, experiments, etc and

seems the mandala effect is that whatever current frequencies controlling the majority also change history for example according to thousands of people the bible used to say that sampson's girl cut his hair but now with new

controlling frequencies it now says that she had a slave cut his hair to take his power away. This relates to a recent story i heard where the recent President Trump paid his lawyer take the blame for writing something on Trumps twitter account.

I found Dr. Royal Raymond Rife's frequency list and it is over 437 pages long and the first 8 or so is the University studies and then every health problem we can possibly have and what frequency or frequencies cure that problem.

The cancer section is 3 pages long. I seen AIDS on the list and every body part we have and or metabolism for example the frequency and or frequencies that help them normalize to perfect functionality. Also i do teach for world peace, immortality or whatever else to improve life for anyone because i care for everyone but affirmations, subliminals and frequencies takes some time of listening because

they have to push back opposing frequencies like being under a foot or more of water the deeper you go then the more pressure you feel so this is why certain affirmations, subliminals and frequencies seem to take longer

to come true but please trust me i have no reason to lie, someone said something like frequencies are like seeds that you plant they may not produce fruit right away but if you water that seed then eventually it will produce fruit and they were referring to saying the affirmation long enough to get results.

Before i got benefits from starting this journey i did not even think of the concept of how the universe works but i have really put a lot of thought into explaining anything and everything in the universe to get a better understanding of how all of it works.

I plan on changing my eye color to gold to prove it to for friends, family and anyone else because after teaching hundreds of people i have noticed most are cynical and deny anything based off a belief system they have but belief is only a guide to the truth as i see it now, this is why

i could not trust religion i knew it was not me to try believing in something that seemed so made up. So i searched over 5 years learning from many teachers, hypnosis, scientific explanations and more for a variety of questions i had about life constantly thinking of new questions and eventually started enjoying learning along the way then i learned about how the universe works, so i then

started experimenting with the law of attraction, subliminals, affirmations and frequencies to prove for myself if they have complete control or not and so far every

affirmation, subliminal, frequency etc i listen to enough gives me the results i wanted so now my focus is to teach and get this information out there because i want to help people and bring world peace i already sent it to the governor of nebraska and washington but they obviously didn't bring world peace yet so i will share my message

in this video instead of in comments section of many videos to make a difference in the world. I have already started listening and saying my own world peace affirmations and subliminals to help protect myself for when

I am ready to share the truth. I only teach what i have proven through experimenting with hundreds of frequencies, subliminals and affirmations. I am working on perfecting myself in everything that i do or say with great patience.

I was listening to different frequencies on 11 tabs on YouTube before they made Anthony Sommer add in the evil 440Hz in his music after 6 frequencies like stem cell production, collagen production, etc then I felt the different energy centers in me filling up then I would feel a

Slight discomfort that went away after switching to another frequency then after the 7th frequency I felt it all in more detail, it only creates the weird feeling because I was filling up

smaller chakras/energy centers within 20 minutes then it had to use energy to distribute energy to our energy centers nearby. The 9 solfeggio frequencies fill up our 9 biggest chakras so it gives more time to distribute energy so you won't feel the slight discomfort. Aaron doughty taught

me an affirmation "i am whole and complete," it means that i do not need anyone or anything to fulfill me or to complete me, i simply relax and focus on what i need to focus on then time flys by faster so i set alarms on my phone for certain things like when i need to get things done or when i get off work.

I read and heard many stories of how people can change hair texture and or eye colors to whatever they want with subliminals and affirmations but i simply have not wanted to change my body in those ways besides being invincible, immortal, healthy, wise and or anything else to improve the quality of my life.

At www.spooky2rife.com they have frequencies with proven results from 10 different researchers and they say it is the biggest frequency database in the world. 144.72hz woke me up when i was so tired i couldn't stay awake any longer then i got back to work at full speed, i was about to clock out of work 3 hours early but then found this frequency on that site next to energy and vitality.

I should inform you that the cells in our body can be addicted to anything and that Rockefeller studied how Hitler had control over people and found that fluoride in the water and toothpaste was one way because it calcified the pineal gland, closing up our perception and stifles

Creativity and with 440Hz set as the official standard of tuning for America and Europe. 440Hz is the frequency "Humans are bad and need punishment" so when anyone listen to almost any music then that frequency grows from

inside you like a bubble constantly growing until it meets an opposing frequency because the Mastermind Principle explains how opposing frequencies cannot exist in the same area, so opposing frequencies go to war

until one survives in whatever area, the bubbles probably follow us wherever we go if we created it. So this is why people get so angry because even if they do not listen themselves other people do listen enough that the frequency bubble could be all the way out to Jupiter or Pluto.

So I use Fluoride free toothpaste, aluminum free deodorant, purified drinking water, 24/7 affirmations and the nine Solfeggio Frequencies I also avoid Television or sometimes called "Tell Lie Vision" because it tells you lies. I also avoid listening to music other than the nine Solfeggio Frequencies.

So it is important to learn consciously how to counter balance this problem. The nine solfeggio frequencies, subliminals and affirmations help and also learning to be like water, for example as water flows through life down the river it does not stop before hitting a rock, it simply goes over and or around the rock, practice makes perfect also we need to change the standard of tuning for all music.

I heard once "if you think about nothing then you become nothing." I think that once the affirmation etc becomes permanent then it becomes like your identity so if being immortal is one of your affirmations then it would not matter

if you think about nothing since you are immortal. I've heard of a story I think it only took 4,000 people to meditate on world peace for it to come true all around the world during the meditation but affirmations can do the same!

Please use this knowledge for the greater good of all it helps if you write down affirmations and put it on something you do daily like taping it to the middle of the tv

so you read it daily before watching tv or on a doorknob etc please include "There is peace throughout all time and space now and peace will always be here and everywhere" Please share this message everywhere you can on all social media accounts and in person you can summarize this and or show them this message.

For the disbelievers, not trying to be rude because someone said this to me once I looked up the definition and you should to but they were right so my perspective changed.

You are cynical and you have no right to tell me what you think negatively without doing the work to prove me wrong. I put years into my experimenting with about a hundred affirmations and scientific explanations that's why I

can explain anything and everything in the universe. I'm authentic I can't only believe in anything I hear so I search for proof and then prove it true or not with a variety of ways.

I share the truth. I'm not insulting you but simply informing you of the behavior your displaying. Experience and proof always win rather than thoughts and beliefs.

The frequencies constantly fill up your energy centers but some

are good some are bad like an opera singer break glass with her voice. That energy is probably used for survival first then healing, then perfect health our body knows how

to use the energy then once you have healed up and healthy then the energy fills up faster because it takes less energy to maintain health than to become healthy and then you feel great all the time but you still got to keep listening to the frequencies all day everyday until your

full then I think you can listen to higher frequencies but I haven't got there yet like 10,000 Hz but frequencies research is still happening so make sure whatever you listen

to is beneficial to you and others around you because 10,000 hz hurt my back for months until I realized it was causing the pain probably because I needed to fill up on the nine solfeggio first before upgrading further. Beliefs can make anything reality so anything can be true but I know the highest truth and here I share with you.

I'm giving you the highest truth so now is the time to use this knowledge I offer tested and proven so everyone will be peaceful if I get enough of you to listen, think and or say

these affirmations, "Everyone and everything is immortal, There is peace throughout all time and space, everyone feels unconditional love for everyone and everything, everyone is happy" and more repeat all day everyday for faster

results please, We see life through the lens of our belief so I try to wake people up with a variety of experiments, related famous people quotes, scientific explanations, etc

I'm currently doing 2 more experiments for no sleep affirmations and no food for a month or longer, when I get hungry I simply think, "I don't need food to survive and thrive" about 5-10 times then I'm not hungry again for many

hours then repeat when hungry. If I feel discomfort then I think, "I feel great" about 5-10 times then it becomes true. Beliefs make anything reality, make anything true but belief is harder to control consciously but with affirmations you think or say exactly what you want a few times

then it becomes reality, some things take longer because people around you operate on opposing frequencies. If we have more people think or say the affirmations then the

Faster they come true or possibly might take a few people just to make certain affirmations come true like "everyone is immortal" this affirmation probably has the most people operating on an opposite frequency because even spiritual people believe they are meant to die.

Proof and experience always win rather than thoughts and beliefs. When I first heard about affirmations I didn't believe they would work, I ignored them until I found a video by YouAreCreators called "the secrets of frequency and

vibrations" talking about how the nine solfeggio frequencies cured the worst cancer within 70 days for 16 terminally ill cancer patients which sounded more scientific proven due to me remembering an opera singer breaking glass with her voice so I figured there could be good

and bad frequencies for people to and I was right. YouAreCreators put frequencies with affirmations so I decided I can try both at the same time thinking only frequencies would benefit me but they both gave me many

benefits, every affirmation came true after about 2 and a half weeks listening about 24/7 and I started waking up with

this extremely blissful feeling everyday, super happy, infinite energy, thinking faster, better memory, processing information faster and working like I was on an adrenaline rush all day everyday but before the adrenaline rush only last about 5 minutes a day.

Many experiments feeding rabbits equal amounts of fat makes them 60% fatter except the ones that were getting petted and loved they were healthy. Split a pile of rice in 2 talk negative to one pile then positive to the other overtime positive will look better but negative will be completely black. Or with plants growing, same thing.

How do drugs like marijuana affect my Aura and energies? And how can I recharge or reinvigorate my energies?

This Awareness indicates that this plant, that known as marijuana, is in fact, a teacher plant, that which is known as a plant that can have an effect on one who has ingested it. That this particular plant is seen to create an opening in one’s waking consciousness wherein higher perceptual awareness is activated. Thus, entities may become more psychically and spiritually aware.

That this plant can have the effect upon humans wherein it opens one’s inner consciousness to those higher vibrations and octaves of a divine nature or frequency, often causing one to enter into that cosmic level known as higher self-realization.

This Awareness indicates that entities would benefit greatly in developing a clear understanding of the essence and effects of certain plants, drugs and chemicals. That when the aura is in a weakened state, there is much potential for that which is known as possession or negative thought-form or astral attacks.

That when an entity is in a weakened state, that this is when those attacks mostly occur. Thus, when an entity is ingesting large amounts of that which is known as the teacher plant, that of marijuana, that this particular plant as being that which is least destructive to the entity’s aura.

Wherein, other drugs such as alcohol, may have a more destructive effect on one’s aura, often blasting holes in one’s auric layers, creating even greater weakness and vulnerability to those astral or energetic attacks. That in general, that of alcohol expresses more of a depressant effect whereas, that of marijuana produces that of a more euphoric or positive effect.

This Awareness indicates much of the perceptual effect depends upon each entity’s individual preferences, attitudes, beliefs and purposes in using such plants or drugs. That there are many methods of restoring and to reenergize one’s energies when one chooses to stop using such plants or drugs.

That there is seen the concept of fasting in order to remove such residual chemicals and energies from one’s bodily functions, wherein such herbs as comfrey or chamomile or peppermint are consumed, that this appears to be of a general effect in removing such residual effects. That also lemon juice appears as effective in removing such toxins and poisons.

Technically it's fasting without being hungry if you use Affirmations, I think " I don't need food to survive, I don't need food to thrive, I feel great" between 5-15 times then hunger pains go away, if I repeat more then it lasts longer that I don't need food. I have had no food for 7 days now and I have started noticing that all of my abilities are improving like hearing and feeling better etc.

Hence, the action of fasting is seen wherein one’s cellular structures begin to hunger for that residue, that drug, that plant’s chemical and in that hunger, attempts to open wider and wider in an effort to absorb energy.

Whereby, in that process of yearning and moving towards each other, the old residues remaining within the cells begin to move into the elimination process and out of the bodily functions, creating a cleansing effect. That this can take approximately a few weeks to a few months, depending upon each individual’s personal expressions and habits.

That also there is seen the ingesting of fresh water and the consumption of only proper foods of a healthy nature. That also exercise appears as a form of internal cleansing. That also walking in nature or by large bodies of water may have a beneficial effect upon the entity in need of such cleansing.

This Awareness indicates that another important method of toxin removal is seen as simply restricting one’s intake of this plant and refusing to ingest any amount of it. That this method appears as one of the best methods to removing this plant’s residual waste products from one’s body, this being seen to take an average of 3 weeks to 3 months or longer, depending upon each entity’s daily intake.

That some entities may only need a few weeks of cleansing, while others may need a longer period of time in order to attain that perfect state of health.

I've learned from the best then figured the highest truth out myself through experimenting with all knowledge this world had to offer I literally focused only on self improvement and figuring out all the details piecing all the

pieces together for an all inclusive explanation. Don't act like I couldn't figure out the highest truth just because you didn't discover or experiment like I have. Go big or go home that's my motto. I know 100% what I'm talking about

without a doubt because I was fully dedicated to figuring this out since I barely talk to anyone due to me being shy because my empathic abilities are stronger than most but if you think not then ask some questions I can answer any question with truth.

honestly people worship many things with over 2,000 religions your choice to believe in that caused your experiences from my experience current controlling frequencies change the past and it seems because I was determined to find the highest truth after experimenting then

I found it like that quantum physics picture you sent me explains how I'm right. I experiment to prove what I believe to be true to ensure I have the highest truth, have you read my full message at the top of my facebook page pinned to the top? Not the bio but the top post

We can't rely on anyone to give you all your knowledge or you limit everything about yourself. Use discernment carefully, none have the right to deny the highest truth without putting in the work to prove it true or not using the information from the one who knows the highest truth which is me.

There is ego, basically it's like selfish only cares for what it wants and thinks it's always right because technically it is right because beliefs create reality but knowing beliefs create reality can enlighten you but only if you know it as fact like me. Affirmations make anything reality. Wake up obviously your ego has taken over to be so unknowing about life yet think your truth is the highest truth

Does not matter if they all lie because I have used many methods to prove what I have figured out, have you not read my top pinned facebook post with all my experiments? I only refer to other people, quotes, scientific explanations, etc if it aligns with what I have proven that's why I have insight into things you have never heard of.

I'm a man, we all need to grow our hair out never cutting, trimming or waxing because after 3 years we get all enhanced abilities and they enhance more overtime.

I accidentally grew my hair to long and got all enhanced abilities that's how I figured it out, I was playing soccer every week then one day all my abilities improved double and

it was so cool but I was soaked in sweat had to keep drying my face to protect my eyes using my shirt but then it was soaked and I never ran out of energy it was so cool so that night I was like now I need to cut my hair because it traps heat make me sweaty but then I thought wait maybe

my hair gave me the abilities so I searched google "why should I grow out my hair" and found many experiments by the US army talking about how they were hiring Native American Indian trackers for their unique tracking skills and so the younger ones joined for money but forced to cut

their hair then the army said why did you lose your ability and they said "my dad says we get our power from our hair" so they had 10,000 takes like 10 different types of tests with their hair and they did great on everyone of them.

The army would try sneaking up on them while sleeping and the indians would wake up before danger got close and got away and they did hand to hand combat with the best of the army but due to their faster reaction speed they

beat the army every time and more tests but they got the 2 people with the highest scores to redo every test but one had to cut their hair so they did and after the haircut he scored some of the lowest scores of everyone who took the test and the guy who kept his hair kept his scores really high!

By teaching so many I continue to learn new ways to convince people I'm right except for the stubborn that think they know part or all of the highest truth, if think your

cup is full meaning you think you know the highest truth and don't make room to question your own beliefs then you have accepted a lie blindly.

We have many cups but the cup of knowledge must save room to question everything to find the highest truth

My mom said believe in whatever you want but I have gone to church for a while but I always knew to take religions as a guide yes learn from them but don't be to focused on one religion I've learned from Sevan Bomar who read every religion 3 times but I knew I had to look deeper from all teachers.

My boss once told me I had to stop teaching people while I work so I asked myself later why do I need to teach this anyway (trying to cope with that hard decision) then

right away a voice came in my head and said something like "you need to share the truth for world peace, that's why I created over 330 million species so we can hear all the different healing sounds but now we have separated from nature."

Currently I listen to world peace, immortality, no sleep affirmations in my playlist I made it way shorter to get results faster but I say, "I don't need sleep, water or food" but I still drink some water because I want to mainly focus on no food or sleep due to me sharing my message all day. Also think "I feel great and I am healthy"

It seems we need to focus on only a few affirmations at a time because if you listen to a hundred different affirmations then you only give each a little energy daily which might not be enough to make it true

The difference from being in higher and lower vibrations, some are like I get angry when blah blah but happy when blah so technically they don't operate at the same time so that's how they can both be inside you but in different parts

of the body. This is why we need Aaron Doughty's help to learn how to maintain higher vibrations. That's why I'm no longer angry in times I would get angry, feel peaceful, unconditional love like being able to really trust myself and

the universe it's all good and important because affirmations only work if you say the affirmation like a million times a day instead it's better to learn consciously how to stay on those really high vibrational states of being.

Scientist had a group of people hooked up to machines to measure emotions and had them watch a slide show of random pictures but some were babies or evil related and they found that the brain responded to each picture 8 seconds before they seen it. This shows how the higher self tries to prepare us for the future.

Your higher self basically lives a hundred years all instantly every moment using what knowledge you have at the time but due to this you will experience things that you will eventually understand because you learn about it later in life and believe it to be true later in life.

Bruce Lee said to watch words that is why its called spelling

Think, say and or listen to affirmations subliminals frequencies and mantras for, "I have 100,000 dollars" the more

often you repeat then the faster you get the money.

The energy of "I have 100,000 dollars" will expand outward from you every time you repeat "I have 100,000 dollars" literally mind controlling people to give you money I got 6 people trying to send me money now.

I heard of this experiment they volunteer for that gay people have sex with women but either stay gay or become bisexual so I think it proves gay people are meant to be in the world but I only am attracted to women. Also the only thing repeated twice in the bible is "Ye are gods"

Affirmations subliminals frequencies and or mantras work for everyone because they work with energy. If you change something physical with physical things then the problem will manifest in a different way, it works through subconscious fears.

I did some research though in the library of congress they have 15,000 legit research places send results of marijuana experimenting and they concluded that there are

no negative side effects of marijuana use they said if your pregnant though don't smoke because the babies lungs are still forming so I used to smoke but once I reached enlightenment I realized marijuana has a lower vibration

than enlightenment on David R Hawkins scale somewhere from fear many between til enlightenment so I decided to quit the little use I used to do completely and then after about a week then I started feeling great to rise up to the vibrational level that my knowledge is at.

Aaron Doughty on YouTube helped me reach enlightenment, every vibration has an ego difficult to get past without Aaron Doughty

I could listen to music any kind but I always didn't really like most of it and I later found out why, Hitler also used 440Hz to control people and now it is the official standard

of tuning for America and Europe that frequency basically is "Humans are bad and need punishment" this is why violence is in big cities because many people listen to that and get brainwashed without even knowing it

Just like they claim God has spoken us into existence, Affirmations, subliminals, frequencies and mantras make anything reality, for example, "I am happy" will make you happy once said enough times but if you say, "I want to be happy" then you will simply want to be happy. Basically you get what you say, think, believe, etc.

Remember some affirmations come true faster than others because of the Mastermind principle, for example people don't eat all day long but people do believe all day long that they will not live forever so that's why require no food affirmations will come true faster than I am immortal affirmations.

Some affirmations come true faster than others because people emit frequencies while they operate on them

Since we use energy even when the affirmations are true we should continue the affirmations to keep them true or we will use up all the energy then it is no longer true unless you continue the affirmations

when I say affirmations for example "I am Happy" then I create energy to be happy but the affirmation needs to be repeated enough times within a certain amount of time to continue accumulating enough energy to become true

The only bible verse repeated twice is "Ye Are Gods" we can change anything with Affirmations, subliminals mantras and the nine solfeggio frequencies, I have figured

out how to make anything reality and how the universe works after experimenting with hundreds of Affirmations, subliminals, the mantras and the nine solfeggio frequencies.

There is simply energy and energy can be used anyway we choose, I've used subliminals and mantras to become attractive to make people attracted to me that didn't even notice me for a year but that day everyone was smiling at me,

flirting with me, showing off their best achievements and giving me phone numbers, read my top pinned facebook post and all of my comments on it because I've put years of research and hundreds of experimenting into it even after figuring out how to make anything reality and how the universe works

Loop the video by clicking and holding on it while on the desktop version it will say loop click it then if on it then it shows check mark by the loop option then make it full screen then open up wifi settings to get the looped video to go to small screen so you can do other things on your device while you listen to the subliminals

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revasserium · 4 years

Note

13 and oikawa?

hq!!reqs temporarily: closed ; all other reqs: open

send me a number a character and i’ll write you a drabble ;

13. handle with care oikawa ; 1,068 words

alternatively titled: play.

a/n: a volleyball player and a pianist fall in love.

he used to think fragility and vulnerability were unavoidable remnants of the human condition, such unpreventable contaminations of the living and alive, incurable, inescapable. he’d resigned to his fate long before he met you.

and then he does meet you, and suddenly, everything he’s been taught about life gets slapped right back in his face. all the lessons on guarding against heartbreak, on tears as a sign of weakness, and weakness a sign of defeat. and how defeat is just about the worst thing a person can suffer.

it’s nothing like volleyball, he realizes. where he spends his whole life being taught that it’s illegal to hold the ball, to touch it for more than a second, where control is everything. everything.

everything.

you take his hand in yours and kiss the knuckles like reteaching them each the meaning of touch. and for the first time in his life, he wants to break all the rules, wants to reach out and hold you and never let go. he wants to shatter, to see just how many pieces a heart can be divided into before helping you put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

he wants to lose control, to see where this might take him, this thing that happens inside his chest whenever you smile, or whatever his stomach does at the sound of your voice, saying his name. calling out to him. he feels as if his soul were tethered to the palms of your hands and you can play him like an instrument. such a different kind of playing than he’s used to. so much more delicacy, tenderness.

you teach him how to play the piano. press each key like you’re asking them to sing for you and they will. his hands have never felt more clumsy than sat over the black and white keys, but he closes his eyes, takes a breath, and prays.

he plays, too.

and the keys. well, they don’t sing for him nearly as well as they sing for you at first, but eventually, he gets the hang of it. stumbling as he might be, sometimes still hitting the wrong notes, but he can hear it resonating within himself. the music his hands are making. his whole body relearning the meaning of song.

he used to think that each person only got one ticket for love – true love, that is. and he’d spent it on volleyball. it was impossible to imagine that he might ever love anything else with the same heedless passion, the same all-consuming obsession but the first time he hears you play, he thinks he might never have felt love at all until this moment.

“like falling in love all over again, huh?” you ask, smiling as you lift your hands from the keys, pressing your palms to your knees.

he lets out a breath he’d forgotten he’d been holding.

“hm?” he blinks, breaking from his reverie.

funny, isn’t that the name of the piece you’re playing?

you turn towards him, motion for him to come sit by you on the bench, and he does. it’s the first time he’s found himself eager to sit on the bench – but then again, this is as different from volleyball as it can get.

“everytime i listen to this piece, every time i play it,” you say, your elbow bumping against his as you help correct his posture, his wrist always a bit too low, “it feels like falling in love all over again.”

he licks his lips, wants to say no, or kind of, or i couldn’t hear the music because i was too busy falling in love with you.

instead, he just nods, and lets you walk him through the scales again.

“do you like it?”

he turns towards you.

“playing piano, i mean. learning it.”

he nods, smiles.

“of course. it’s… nice. different.” he looks down at his hands, the rough calluses hewn into the skin of his palms from hours and hours of serve practice, his pinky nail still a little crooked from where he’d broken it during middle school that one time.

he’d never thought of the human body as fragile, but sitting next to you, he feels as if his soul might fracture, if you just kissed him the right way, whispered the right words. it doesn’t scare him like it used to, though he wonders if it should. if love has made an idiot of him – with all this ruthless confidence in the face of the vast unknown.

but then he thinks that heartbreak might not be so bad if you were the one to do it. it would still hurt, but. well. it’d be you. and he could never hate you.

“maybe you could teach me sometime,” you say.

oikawa blinks.

“volleyball,” you say, your lips breaking into the most hopeful smile he’d ever seen.

he laughs, nodding, “sure – but i’m not sure i’ll be a great teacher. not as good as you.”

you shake your head, “doesn’t matter. it’ll be fun.”

so long as it’s with you.

he nods again, steeling himself. because why should he be scared? why should it terrify him that you’ll be seeing him at his best, or worst, or most vulnerable moments. you’ve taught him about the strength in weakness, in accepting the inevitability of making mistakes.

in the beauty of fragility.

so he nods, and promises you.

“yeah, i’ll teach you. and then maybe, we can play together.”

“if i ever get good enough,” you say, bumping his shoulder with yours.

he takes your hands, kisses each knuckle like a promise.

“you will.”

you cup his cheeks, bring his lips to yours. and he thinks he can taste the next twenty years of his life just at the tip of your tongue.

you draw back with a smile, turning back to the piano, setting your hands to the keys.

“c’mon,” you say, grinning up at him, “play with me.”

oikawa nods, takes a deep breath, puts his fingers on the keys the best way he knows how. thinks to himself please, sing – for me. for her.

and then, he plays.

#oikawa tooru x reader #oikawa tooru #oikawa x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #oikawa #floofy floof floof #haicuties #inspired by an interesting conversation my pops and i had the other day as he was trying to teach me volleyball #about how i could've never played volleyball and played piano at the same time in school bc my piano teacher would've killed me #for all the damage volleyball does to the hands and wrists lmao

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writemywaytoyourheart · 4 years

Text

BTS Reaction: You Have An Asthma Attack | Maknae Line

Requested: yes! @sweetbtsboys I hope you like this! Sorry it took literally so long.

Genre: fluff

Warnings: none :)

Hyung line coming soon <3

PARK JIMIN:

You stand there in shock as confusion and dread washes through you. You have no idea what to do and all you can focus on is the back of your best friend, the only boy you've ever loved, as he walks away from you dejectedly.

He just took you by complete surprise by confessing to you. You never thought he'd feel that way about you, so you've always pushed your feelings down again and again for years.

"Y/n...I think I'm in love with you. No, no I am in love with you."

"I- what?"

"I mean-...yeah."

He wrings his hands anxiously awaiting your answer, while your head is spinning as you try to find the right words to accept his confession. After a minute of silence Jimin sighs and hangs his head, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I'm such an idiot, gosh I'm so stupid." You look up in shock and shake your head, the words still stuck in your throat. But, Jimin doesn't see your panicked expression as he's staring at the ground in embarrassment.

Then to your horror; Jimin sucks in a shaky breath and moves to turn away. "I'm really sorry, y/n. I shouldn't have said it. I ruined everything didn't I? Just- just pretend this didn't happen...please." Jimin turns away before you can grab him. Why won't the words you want to speak come out? Why can't you call to him and tell him to wait? Tell him you feel the same and have for years.

When the shock finally wears off and your head clears, you shake your it and blink. Then, you see Jimin disappear behind a corner.

No.

No no no.

You spring into action and run after him as fast as you can.

"Jimin! Jimin wait!" You call out to him, but he doesn't hear you. You turn the corner and see a bunch of people walking here and there as you scan the crowd in a panic.

You start to push through people carefully, when you see the back of his brown head going further away as he walks at a brisk pace.

The crowd finally breaks and you sprint for all your worth, not giving your asthma a second thought.

How is he so fast?

You think desperately as you run, your lungs already starting to ache and burn. Then it hits you like a wave; there's a horrible pinching in your chest and you gasp for air, but you can't stop running. You won't.

"Jimin! Park Jimin, stop!" You holler with the last of your breath. He stops suddenly and turns at the sound of your urgent voice.

"Y/n?" He looks at you in confusion, then he hurries toward you when he sees the state you're in. He takes your hands and helps you to a bench.

"Oh my gosh, y/n are you okay? Why were you running?" You mime to him that you can't breathe and he nods, rubbing your back gently.

"You're having an attack, aren't you?" You nod and he bites his lip in worry. "Do you have your inhaler?" He feels guilty that you rn to catch up with him, and panic as he sees you struggling to get a breath in. You shake your head and his heart drops, then he pulls himself together and takes your hands gently.

"Ok then. Just breathe with me, alright?" At your nod of confirmation, he starts to take slow deep breaths, counting and blowing out again and again. Eventually you're able to keep pace with him as you two look at each other and breathe deeply. After a couple minutes you can breathe, but you're still wheezing a bit.

"Are you okay, y/n?"

"You're an idiot, Park Jimin." You choke out and he looks down at the ground.

"I know. I'm sorry, I ruined ev-"

"No. You're an idiot to think I don't feel the same about you."

Jimin's eyes nearly pop out of his head and you try to bite back a smile. "W-what? I don't- you don't-... You don't hate me?" You roll your eyes and surprise both of you when you wrap your arms around him and hold on tightly.

"Of course not. I-...I love you."

Jimin hugs you back and blinks back his tears, not wanting you to know about them.

"We should probably go get your inhaler, love." You blush at what he calls you and nod awkwardly, "Yeah, that's a good idea." Jimin takes your hand and envelopes it in his, helping you stand.

"You shouldn't have run after me like that."

"What was I supposed to do? Let you go thinking I hated you?"

"We have phones you know. You could've called or texted me to come back."

"Oh shut up."

Either way, you can bet he isn't going to let you be running again anytime soon.

KIM TAEHYUNG:

"Jagi, I told you a thousand times. Get off that scale right now." You pout when your husband walks over and lifts you off the little scale in your bathroom, carrying you into the living room and plopping you on the couch. "But, Tae! I gained another pound and a half. I just need to-" Taehyung cuts you off with a look, a very angry look.

"You need to stop this. I'm not kidding around y/n." You can tell he's hurt and you feel ashamed of the way you've been acting. You skipped a few meals and kept checking your weight, making comments about how fat you are. You never considered the fact that maybe it would have an affect on your husband too. He always tells you how beautiful you are and how much he loves you, but you never accept it.

That has to weigh on him a lot.

Suddenly you're crying, out of the guilt you feel for putting him through all that. Taehyung kneels and wipes your tears away softly, "y/n, baby. Please just talk to me." You sniffle and shrug, "I don't know. I just don't feel good in my body. I don't feel healthy." Taehyung nods in understanding, "you mean because of how tired and cruddy you always feel?" You nod and he stands up to pull you to your feet.

"Then, we'll both start eating healthier and we can go on morning jogs. I don't feel my best these days either. Sound like a deal?" You nod excitedly and hug him tightly, "yes! That'll be fun!" Tae laughs as you two go to the room to get some sleep before your first jog the next day.

You're totally hyped up and ready; you've got your tennis shoes on and your headphones ready. You're a little nervous because you have asthma, but it shouldn't act up if you two take it easy.

Apparently that doesn't matter though, because the cold air gets to you about five minutes into the jog. Tae is going like a pro, headphones in his ears and he's not struggling at all. You on the other hand; are struggling to breathe as you stop to catch your breath. You hold your hand up to tell Taehyung to slow the heck down, and he sees you aren't next to him. Tae stops and jogs back to you, "you alright, jagi?" He looks at you knowingly and takes your hand, leading you to a bench. When you both sit down he pats your back gently, "asthma attack?" You nod and he pulls out your inhaler from one of his pockets. You look at him in surprise and he shrugs, "I know you better than you know yourself, baby. This cold air is a bit-"

"Taehyung!" You laugh and he chuckles along with you, smiling sweetly at you as you take a few puffs from your inhaler. After a couple minutes you give him a thumbs up and he nods, "all better?" You shake your head yes and stand up, "I'm okay, let's go now." Before you can start jogging again, Tae grabs your hand and starts to walk slowly with you. You look at him, confused. He smiles and shrugs, "I think maybe we should do daily walks instead, and for the cold weather we'll take shorter ones." You nod in agreement and smile at the warmth his big hand envelopes yours in as you two stroll and watch the sunrise.

JEON JUNGKOOK:

You can't stop the laughs bursting from your lips as you run as fast as you can away from your boyfriend. Jungkook and you decided to have a picnic today, so you packed up some food and came to this big field that's always empty. You two found the field one day and now it's your special place.

"I'm gonna get you, y/n!" You squeal and pump your arms harder than before, your sundress flapping in the wind while Jungkook laughs behind you at your cuteness. As you're running around in circles avoiding his grasp, your chest starts feeling tight and your breaths get shorter. You know an asthma attack is coming on, but you unwisely ignore it. You don't want it to ruin your fun day with Jungkook. Besides, you have your inhaler in your purse and a few puffs will fix it all.

Another minute passes and you start to slow down, grabbing your chest to help the air go in. Your chest has a sharp pain everytime you breathe in.

Jungkook notices your change in behavior and slows to a stop, "y/n? You okay, baby?" You nod and smile while waving him off with a laugh, "I'm fine! Just hungry." Jungkook smiles and points at the basket on the blanket laid out, "Ok then, let's eat! Come here." You walk into his open arms and he kisses your head, wrapping his arms around you. Suddenly, you're coughing uncontrollably and the wheezing has started. You sit on the ground and try to breathe slowly, but it's not helping. You can't get enough air in and the pain in your chest is excruciating. Jungkook plops down next to you with concern written all over his face, "y/n? What's going on? How can I help you, baby?" You never told him about how bad your asthma is; you usually use your inhaler and you don't run a lot, so the poor boy is at a complete loss of what's going on right now.

You point to your chest and manage to wheeze out, "a-asthma..." Jungkook's eyes widen and he scoots closer to you, "what do I do? Baby, tell me how to help you." You point at your purse and mouth 'inhaler' before another coughing fit wracks your body. Jungkook quickly crawls over the blanket to your purse, opening it and pulling out your inhaler, then he rushes back and hands it to you gently. He rubs your back soothingly while you take a puff.

But nothing comes out.

You look down in a panic, it can't be out already!! But it is. The little inhaler has a "0" on it while you stare at the place where the number of puffs is. Jungkook sees your face and looks down at it, "what's the matter? Is it not working?" You shake your head and cough out, "it r-ran out." Jungkook tries not to panic, but his mind is spinning in circles.

Then he takes a deep breath and nods, "ok well, we don't need it. All we need is to stay calm until we get another one, ok?" You nod and he tells you to take as deep breaths as you can, counting with you as he cleans up the picnic. Then he stands up, grabbing the basket and blanket and motioning for you to stand.

Jungkook has you get on his back while he holds the picnic stuff. You climb on and he walks you to the car, counting your breaths the whole way. He even carries you up the stairs to your apartment where you grab your spare inhaler and take a couple puffs.

"Thank you, Kookie." You hug him once your breathing has regulated again, and he kisses you gently.

"Love you, y/n. Make sure you tell me anything else like this, I just want to help you." You nod and he embraces you softly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a/n: I'm sorry this took so long. I hope you guys that requested these things are still here and see them :((

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k-popmakesmyday · 4 years

Note

Hi! Can i request a Chenle fic where the reader is insecure so she starts starving herself then one day Chenle catches her staring at herself in the mirror with only a bra and underwear on and he sees that she's so skinny(like her hip bones are very clearly visible) and he stars crying and he makes sure that she eats three meals per day? Like something inspired by 'Scars to your beautiful' by Alessia Cara. If you can do that, i'd be really happy. Thank you!

I’m awfully sorry that this took so long, my love, I had a massive motivation issue when you requested this so I apologise for that. But I hope this makes for it! -Em💜

Want to request something for NCT/WayV or another group? Click here!

A/n: I know this is a sensitive topic, and I am in no way a professional on how to deal with this but I have dealt with something similar myself, so I tried to use my own experiences to write this. But I really hope you’re okay, angel, and if you’re struggling my asks are always open and feel free to message me, that goes for everyone💜

A/n 2: Happy birthday to our precious Chenle! 💚

Warning: severe mentions of body negativity/eating disorders

[2:15 pm] You sighed as you saw the seemingly perfect bodies of the actors from the drama you were watching. All their clothes hugged their body in all the right places, they made anything look good. They were all perfectly skinny and had gorgeous features, all of which you believed you did not.

Looking at yourself right now, you were slouched on couch surrounded in blankets and snacks full of fats and sugar that were definitely not good for you. You got up from the couch in silence, and nervously wandered to your bedroom to look at yourself in the large, white full-length mirror.

You suddenly felt extremely insecure when you noticed how the shape of your body didn’t match the actors on tv at all. Your stomach stuck out horrendously and your thighs touched, the skin jiggling as your inspected them with a frown on your face.

You watched your eyes become glossy as the first few tears began to fall. You crumpled into a ball in front of the mirror, clutching your knees close to your chest to make yourself as small as possible. You stared at your distraught face in the glass, you didn’t look like the girl from the drama when she cried. When she cried, her eyelashes became more defined and her cheeks flushed to a light pink. You on the other hand had unmissable red eyes and your nose ran immensely. ‘You were disgusting compared to them’, you thought.

You allowed your body to heave and shake with loud sobs and snivels for fifteen minutes or so. Something had to change, it was just then an idea popped into your head. Eating was the perpetrator to your insecurity regarding your body so.. what if you just stopped eating?

It was then that you heard your phone buzz with a notification, you gasped as it brought you out of your head and back to reality. You shakily unlocked your phone and saw a text from your boyfriend, Chenle.

Lele🌸: open your door, I brought dinner! 💝

You shakily got up, hastily dried your eyes and hurriedly threw all your snacks away as you made your way to your front door and painted the biggest smile on your face that you could.

When you opened the door to reveal your effortlessly ecstatic boyfriend you mentally sighed, what was he doing with you? Despite your deprecating thought process, you hugged him back all the same while he spun you around the room

“Y/N~~!” He cheered as he flew you around in circles

“Chenle~” you weakly mimicked his actions but his happy, child-like demeanour made you laugh all the same

“Did you eat yet?” Chenle pulled away, beaming before placing a bag of food on the counter “I brought your favourite!”

“Oh, um.. thank you, Lele” you mumbled trying to think of an excuse “but I’m actually not too hungry”

The light-haired boy pouted before he shrugged, “okay, more for me then~” he shot you a cheeky grin before he dug into the food, but the sight of it made you feel incredibly sick.

You uncomfortably slid into the seat next to Chenle’s while he cheerfully told you about his day, it was that moment that you realised that you were glad that Chenle could make conversation with a wall.

A week had gone by and you had managed to eat three whole meals, the rest you skipped or picked at. No one had really mentioned it to you or asked about your new unusual tendencies, other than Chenle and the dreamies: to whom you claimed you weren’t feeling well or simply weren’t hungry.

The effects has started to kick in though, you were a lot more irratable, you were constantly sleepy and your stomach growled like there was no tomorrow. Despite this you tried your best to plaster a joyous expression onto your features and move on with your day.

The only relief you felt was after a long, exhausting day when you would come home and inhale sharply before stepping on the scale, the numbers were dropping dangerously. You, on the other hand, were delighted, the risk to your health not occurring to you.

Two weeks later you were over at the dreamies dorm with your boyfriend and the other members whom you considered family. When you entered they all greeted you with their routine hugs for everytime they saw you. But they squeezed your, now fragile, form so much that it hurt to breath. Increasingly when Chenle picked you up and spun you around like he always did, the whole room began to fade in and out as you felt alarmingly nauseous.

They all settled down to dinner and began chattering and laughing away like usual, unaware to you strategically moving your food around your plate so it looked like you had eaten more than you actually had.

Your eyes glided along the six boys sitting at the table, munching away happily while sharing anecdotes and recalling funny stories from practice, like the time Jisung shoved Jeno out of the way to be centre for the last chorus of ‘BOOM’, but ended up toppling back into poor, unknowing Renjun instead.

You couldn’t help but giggle at their shenanigans, you’d clap along with them if you had the strength to life your arms. But you didn’t, couldn’t. You felt trapped in your own skin, you barely had the energy to get up everyday and all your free time was spent sleeping.

Your breathing quickened as you blurted out that you needed to be excused, not meeting the eyes of any of the boys, especially not Chenle.

“Are you okay, Y/n? You’ve been acting kind of off lately” Jaemin asked, his voice undeniably laced with concern despite his efforts to keep his demeanour calm.

“I-I’m fine, promise. I just have to go to the bathroom really quickly, excuse me”

You scurried off to the bathroom and sank against the door, out of breath from using so much energy, rapid-paced breaths didn’t calm down, not helping how weak you felt. 10 minutes passed before you used the little power you had left in you to heave yourself off of the cold, tiled floor and up to the bathroom sink.

You gripped your hands on the edge of the counter and stared at your reflection briefly before ripping your eyes away and exiting the room, unable to bear looking at your depleated expression.

You opened the door stealthily and slowly as you silently crept along the corridor and slipped into Chenle’s shared bedroom, careful not to alert any of the boys who were still cheerfully eating.

The full length mirror was the first item to catch your eye in the room, just like the one you had in your own apartment. You felt like you couldn’t escape yourself no matter how hard you tried to desperately run away, you would always end up back where you started: crying in front of a mirror.

You undressed yourself until you stood in just your underwear, studying the person before you. Choking on a sob you clasped a hand over your mouth, you didn’t even recognise your reflection, it had taken you so long to realise how out of control your obsession had become.

Chenle was worriedly tip-toeing along the corridor in search of you, turning to his room once he saw the empty bathroom, gasping when he opened the door and saw the heart-wrenching sight before him.

It was you.. yet it wasn’t you, he thought. You looked so.. different. Your face appeared grey and mundane as you lost all the colour and brightness in your features. Your adorable chubby cheeks that Chenle loved so dearly had been hollowed into sharp, intense lines and worst of all: it was plain to see the harsh outline of your ribcage on your skin.

“Y-y/n?” He muttered, his voice had a tinge of uncertainty but he also sounded hurt.

Turning to look at him you felt your heart shatter. Your usual cheerful, happy Chenle had been replaced with a frightened child. He looked at you in horror and confusion, like he didn’t recognise you anymore while tears subconsciously escaped down his cheeks.

“I-I’m so sorry” you uttered weakly

Chenle tried to speak, but he just didn’t know what to say to you. He knew this wasn’t a good reaction to have, but he was too shocked and upset to care.

“Why?” Was all he said to you, and you just shook your head and cried uncontrollably, crumbling to the ground.

Chenle was angry with you, he couldn’t deny that, however he couldn’t just watch you cry in a crumpled ball on his bedroom floor. So he rushed to your side, making sure to envelop you in a light embrace. He tried not to sob himself when he hugged you, there was almost nothing to hug, and it broke him.

He rocked you back and forth like a baby, shushing you and kissing your forehead. In the time you were crying Chenle tried to figure out what he would say to you, but he just couldn’t fathom how to even start the conversation, so you did it for him.

“I just didn’t feel good enough, Lele. When I looked at myself all I saw was imperfection compared to other people and I just wanted to fix myself. I wanted to be perfect so you could be proud to be with me. I’m so sorry for doing this to you, I’m a horrible person, Lele, and you didn’t deserve this. I completely understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore..”

“Y/n, no” Chenle shook his head vigorously “I love you for you, I couldn’t care less what you looked like unless it affected your health negatively, like it is now. I love every single thing you call ‘imperfections’. Is this why you haven’t been eating lately?”

“Y-yes but I want to get better, Lele, I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I-it hurts.”

“And you will, my love. I will be there every step of the way with you, I promise. It isn’t you who has to change, its the world. You’re not in the least bit horrible, y/n, you’re a star. You’re my star.”

There’s hope waiting for you in the dark,

You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are,

And you don’t have to change a thing, the world should change it’s heart,

No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful.

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neartheday · 4 years

Text

Weight update

SW: 279 (127 kg)

CW: 205 (93 kg)

Pounds lost: 75 (34 kg)

My last meeting with the nutritionist was the 13th of this month. I really wanted to get under 90 kg, but I’m still weirdly proud of myself. I’m proud but yet a little disappointed, and I know I need to do really well before I see her January the 27th. She is the only one who has weighed me for a whole year now. I’m still too scared to weigh myself. I keep wondering: when will I ever personally weigh myself? I have no idea, my past with the scale has been just horrible. I used to weigh myself and then become disgusted, horrified, sad, angry, upset and then I’d feel dejected and go back to binging constantly. Not weighing myself so far this year has helped so much. Should I even weigh myself at all some day? I can’t keep seeing the nutritionist for the rest of my life.

I’m still eating 1200 calories a day, but not always. I visited family and OF COURSE I ate like a pig, and it was all the worst imaginable crap. I came home and ate 1200 cals every day for 4 days, then I got a prescription for a new medication since I’ve been having side effects from another medication. Whelp, the new medication made me binge on Friday and yesterday. Today I will not take it if I can avoid it, or just one tablet instead of three. I CANNOT let this medication screw up my weight loss. I WILL continue to lose weight. Losing 75 pounds so far this year has been amazing. I want to keep that high going, everytime I see the nutritionist and I see the numbers go down... I don’t know if there’s a feeling in the world that can beat this, honestly. It feels so good, I truly believe I’m addicted.

The nutritionist tells me I can up my calories, up to 1600 or even 1800 but that is just not happening. I trust her expertise about nutritional value, but I am an eating disordered person and it’s just not gonna happen. I think I would binge much more often if I upped the calories that much. Some days, if my hunger is really bad, I might up them to 1300. Other than that, I still follow her instructions of consuming around 60 grams of protein every day.

I will NOT give up on my dream of one day weighing 134 pounds / 60 kg. My nutritionist may say this is an unrealistic goal, but I strongly disagree. I have never in my life been so motivated to lose weight. I do NOT want to reach 30 and still be obese/overweight...

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kmelanin · 5 years

Text

Dealer Minsik | Sik-K | PT. 1

Pairing: SikkXReader Summary: You needed a new weed man and you find one, but he wants you to be more than just a customer.

Stoner Series

Quarter: 7G 8fy: 3.5G

You looked outside, your heart was beating really fast as you watched a black Lexus pull into your driveway. It was around 8 at night, so the sun was setting. You were home alone after hanging out with some friends. You mentioned to them that you needed a weedman that will be able to pull up to your house, only because you didn't have a car yet, so you weren't mobile. They gave you a number and told you a few things. That his name was Kwon Minsik and he will become your weedman if you buy a quarter or more the first time, which wasn't a problem. Earlier you texted him asking him, he said that a quarter were sixty bucks. So you grabbed three twenties and your phone, you walk over and slide some nikes slides on and leave out of the door.

You walk up to the driver side window, and as you were walking up the window rolls down. You didn't even notice that it was sprinkling outside until you felt something hit your face. You hoped this would be fast.

“You can get in on the other side.” A deep voice says behind the window, you couldn't see his face since it was getting darker outside. You nodded and walked around the car and get in. The first thing you noticed was how loud it smelled on the inside, loud meaning weed, but there was cologne as well. You also noticed how the inside was a red leather, so it was easy for you to slide in. The guy sits up and fixes his seat to be higher and he turns on the light on the ceiling. You look up at him, and in that moment you were happy that you didn't take off your makeup and take your hair down. Not like you wore a lot of makeup, just brows and lips and liner with gloss...maybe a little more.

“So a quarter right?” He asks grabbing something from the back. He pulls out two freezer bags of two different types of weed. He looks up at you, “Which one?”

You look at them, one was really purple with some green, and the other was a lighter green with white.

“Umm, I don't know, both?” You ask softly, god you were so nervous. He smiles and laughs softly.

“Okay.” He pulls out a scale and a sandwich baggie. “So you want me to come out here for you? Be your main dealer?” He asks.

“Yes please. I heard you had good weed.” You say.

“Good? Well I heard it's the best since I do supply almost every other dealer out here.” He smiles again and starts putting weed on the scale.

“Oh, so you have the same weed as everyone else?” You blurt out, and after you realize how rude it was. “I'm sor-”

“I supply the dealers a couple of kinds. Let’s say uh, weaker?” He laughs putting the weed in the bag and opening the other.

“So yours is better?” You whisper watching.

“Much better.” he finishes weighing it out and he hands you the sandwich baggie. “Mhmm, I like you, you can pay fifty instead of sixty.” He says looking up at you. You hold out your money and he takes it and exchanges a $10.

“Okay. Hit me up whenever baby girl.” He smiles and you nod getting out of the car and walking back around. When he started to pull out, it hit you that you didn't have any rellos. You run back and catch him before he could leave. You walk up to the window as he rolled it down and you smile.

“Um, I have a dilemma. I don't have any rellos. Can I buy one off of you?” You ask holding the ten back up. You smile big hoping he would take it, and hoping that he even had a one. He looks at you for a second. But then he starts laughing at you.

“Yea sure sure.” He bends down and grabs one out of the glove department. “Here you go. I don't have any money lower than a ten right now, so no charge.” He smiles and winks at you, causing your face to burn hot.

You walk back in the house, everything that just happened replays over in your head. He was fucking beautiful. His hair was longer on top, undercut on the bottom. His nose ring was shining in the light. You could tell that he was asian.

Over the next month you bought from him another seven times. Everytime he comes he got a little more and little more comfortable. But it was around your eighth time when he noticed you were buying less.

“Whats up baby? Why are you buying 8fys. The girl I know buys more than that.” He smiles leaning out of his window, his words had a slight tease to them.

“Mhm, i lost my job so i'm rationing my money. I might have to stop buying all together until I find another job.” You say kind of embarrassed. He just looks at you, kind of like he was paused.

“How did you lose your job?” He asks turning his car off.

“Because I wouldn't fuck my boss. But he wrote that I was always late and never on time.”You roll your eyes. After you said that, you felt kind of weird telling him your somewhat personal life. So you laugh it off. “Yeah, anyways, I'll buy more, but I probably won't hit you up again.” You say pulling another forty to add to your thirty in your hand. You sigh as you hand him the last of your weed money. It was actually money for food. But you could live off top ramen until another job comes.

“You know, I like you YN. I enjoy coming out here and selling to you. And if you want me to be completely honest with you, I've been selling you the shit I smoke. And that don't go to the others, its my personal strain.” He smiles and unbuckles his seat belt and sits up a little. “So, if you want, lets makes a deal.” he smiles. Your eyes widen at his words, and you felt like the first time you met him. Fucking nervous.

“Uh, I don't like owing people money, it stressed me the fuck out.” you say looking into his eyes. He laughs.

“You sound like people who actually do owe me money. But no, you and I hotbox my car, and I’ll give you a quarter for thirty.” He smiles leaning back as if he made you the best deal in the world, which he kinda did.

“You are going to charge me 30 for a quarter if I hotbox your car with you?” You ask, making sure he actually asked that. He nods his head with a soft smile. He pushes a button on the door and you hear the doors unlock.

“Um, well i'm not going to say no. But i'm going to go open my garage door so we can do it in there, because this is kinda illegal.” You smile excitedly. He nods and restarts his car. You walk back inside and you go through the kitchen and push a button on a remote and you hear the garage door open and you see him start to drive forward from out of the window. You close the door and put the remote back in the drawer and you leave out of the side door that lead to the garage. You see him parked and the car was off and all of the windows were open. You take a deep breath and encourage yourself. ‘It's okay YN, you can do this. It's only Minsik, a super hot stoner who sells you weed and wants to smoke with you.’.

You open the door and slide in. You noticed that his car wasn't all the way off, because music was playing softly.

“Do you know how to roll?” He asks pulling out a bag full of weed and a pack of woods.

“Duh.” You smile and you see a pack of Honey Dutches and you grab that. “But i'm smoking these, I don't want to get lung cancer today.” you say cringing at the pack of woods. You could barely stand rellos let alone that. He laughs the hardest you've ever seen him.

“You’re fucking hilarious.” He sighs and grabs a rolling tray from the back seat and sets in the middle and he pours some weed on it. “If you go in the glove department, you will see two silver grinders, grab them.” He instructs. You lean forward and grab them. You close it and hand him one. You open yours and start to put the weed in it and you grind it up. You open the middle part and dump the weed on the tray and repeat. You both do until the pile was completely grinded up.

“Mhmm this bag had a quarter in it. So there might be a little left over.” he says and opens a Berry Dutch and breaks it open and empties it in a cup in the cup holder. Then he starts to fill. You start doing the same.

Eventually you had four thick ass blunts with a smaller pile of about 3 grams left over in now shake.

“Okay, Now I have something special to start off with.” He smiles and pulls out another pack of rellos and hands them to you.

“Can you please open them.” He smiles and then grabs a small container. He pulled out this brown caramel like substance that was thick enough to hold a lopsided blob, it was no bigger than a dime. He starts to roll it around in his fingers. Once you finish and empty it, you hear ‘fill it.’ come from him and you fill it with weed. Once you were done he takes it from you and he lays a now long string of the brown stuff. You realize that it was wax. Oh fuck, you were excited now. Once he finishes rolling it he looks up to you.

“Lets go to the back, it will be a lot more comfortable.” He smiles and puts everything on the rolling tray and gets out, you follow and go to the back seat.

There was a couple of controls for the music in the back, like the volume and to change and pause and play a song. He turns it up a little and he lights the special blunt. You both start smoking.

It was quiet at first, as you both smoke, just enjoying the weed. Your first blunt of the day, you loved when it first hit.

You were stoned out of your mind when the special blunt was gone. He was already lighting the second blunt, one that you rolled and you trying to widen your eyes. But you still took it when he passed it to you.

You both were now on the fourth blunt and when it was gone you called a quits. You wanted to go inside and order food. Then take a shower and crash.

“The car is pretty fucking smokey.” he laughs causing you to smile and look at him. His head was leaned back on the back of the seat. He had a big goofy smile on his face. But he felt your eyes on him and his head snapped up. His eyes were bloodshot and it matched yours. He was beyond gorgeous, and he made you so fucking nervous. You had your fun, but it was now time to leave.

“Well, I gotta go. So here’s your thirty.” You say pulling out your original thirty. Minsik looks at you and moves so his body was facing yours.

“Mhmm, I have another deal.” He says moving the rolling tray on the middle console of his car. Your heart was beating at a millions miles per hours, it felt like.

“What?” you peep. He looks at you, and smiles softly, but then he bites his lower lip.

“You can have a quarter for free--” He pauses, he leans forward just a little and makes sure you were looking right at him. “--if you give me a kiss.”

That made you freeze right up, your eyes are wide and your heart felt like it practically stopped.

“What? A kiss?” You ask. You weren't sure if you heard him right. He nods his head. He raises his hand and he points at his lips.

“I don't think that's a good idea Minsik.” At your words his eyes widen. “Isn't weird? Isn't kind of like prostitution? In a way?” He laughs at you.

“Nah, more like, I'm helping you save your money. You don't have to, I don't force.” He smiles and sits back. But if he only wants a kiss, that shouldn’t hurt.

“Just one?” You ask, biting your lip nervously. He nods his head and leans in a little.

“Just one baby.” He whispers. You nod and scooch a little closer and you lean in, putting one hand on his face. You watch as his eyes close slowly. You lean in more, and your press your lips against his crazy soft ones. You hold it for a couple seconds longer, and then you go to pull away. But a hand holds yours to his face, and another hand grabbed your face, holding you in place where you were. His lips pushed back onto yours making your lips fit perfectly into his. His hands trail to your neck and cheek. Making you get on your knees, his lips follow yours, kissing you harder making the feels intensifies. You pull away needing to breath, not really prepared for a long kiss. He keeps you in the same position, he was now looking up to you.

“There, your kiss.” You mumble feeling stuck, you could look at him forever. The lights from the garage lights shine through the window of his car, on to him. He looked at you with such a look, you weren't sure how to feel.

“One more, one more and then I'll let you go until you need me again.” He whispers rubbing your neck a little wanting you to come closer.

“Mhmm, why are you acting like this Minsik.” You tease, his eyes were dark and he seemed so serious. He doesn't say anything.

“You’re just so damn beautiful, I couldn't control myself today.” He mumbles, releasing you, but you keep yourself in that position. You lean back in taking his lips against yours. Kissing him as hard as you could. Your heart was going crazy when you felt his hands go around your waist, pulling you closer to him, kissing you so roughly, that you knew your lips will be red and broken.

You pull away and sit back down, “There,” You say looking away from him, your face to heated to look at him. After about a minute, a mason jar full of weed was handed to you.

“Here, there should be about a half in here, so have fun. And bring this jar when you need weed next time.” His voice says lowly. You could tell it was tense. You grab it and nod your head.

“Thank you.” You mumble and get out of the car. You made sure to remind yourself to remember not to think so much about what just happened. It meant nothing.

About a week later, you gotten a invite, via text message, to a party. You of course wanted to go, since you liked to stay home in your pajamas all of the time, getting dressed and going out every once in a while was fun.

You rolled a blunt with some weed and kief that built up in your grinder. You already took a shower, so you light the blunt and begin your makeup. You do your brows, and a winged eyeliner with lashes. You do some face makeup and set it all. You put your hair in a cute messy bun and then you go to your closet. You grab a black skirt and a loose fitting white tee. You tuck it into the skirt and you grab you black Docs and a jacket.

It was at a guy named Park Jaebum, or Jay Park. Whichever, it means that Minsik will be there selling. If you seen him you would say hi and that's it.

You leave with your friends, but you make sure you have money for a taxi later. You all walk into a huge house, that was already packed. You all walk around together until you found some alcohol. The more you all drink the more you all separate. You didn't mind actually. You were in the middle of all of the dancing body, you body moving to the beat of the music that was playing. You were drinking a type of jungle juice, so it was hitting you pretty fast.

You jumped at the touch of a hand. It turns you around and you open your eyes and see Jay standing there smiling at you.

“Hey sexy! Wanna go smoke?” He asks, looking at you up and down. He smiled bigger when he sees you nodding. He grabs your hand and pulls you over to the dining room. There was a big table, it could sit three on either side and two at the heads. They were all filled up. The middle six was filled, and so was one of the heads, leaving the other head open. You noticed some of the guys sitting there, Zico, Simon, and some others. Your eyes come in contact with Minsik, sitting at the head.

Jay walked you over to the other seat that was open, and he sits down and moves you to sit in his lap. You felt so many pairs of eyes on you. But you just kept yours on Minsik, as he kept his on you.

Three people were starting to light blunts and joints. Everyone was talking amongst themselves, and others that walked up to the table. Minsik, was keeping convos with the men around him. But his eyes always came back to you.

It rips his nerves seeing you on his friends lap. He hated you there. After that kiss that you both shared, he couldn't get you out of his mind. He had been looking at his phone everyday since, wondering when he was going to get your text, knowing that you had enough weed to last you longer than a week. Now seeing you sit there, he was angry. He wanted you to be his, and he knows if you sit on Jays lap any longer, you were going to be under Jays charm.

He gets up and walks around the table. You knew he stood up but you didn't look, not knowing if he was coming to you or not. But you should’ve known he was, he grabbed you upper arm, pulling you up and pulling you out of the room. You found yourself in the kitchen where no one was at. He blocks you in against the counter.

“Mhm, hey baby.” He smiles looking down to you.

“Um, Hi Minsik.” You mumble. You body was on fire, he was so close to you. He was like magnet, because all you wanted to do is kiss all over his body.

“Now, I'm going to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer honestly. Okay?” He looks down upon you, watching you nod.

“Do you like Jaebum?” He looks at you, not moving. You could tell he was high as fuck, and so were you. So you felt a lot more careless, but you also knew you needed to actually think before you do. But it was so hard since he was so fucking hot.

“Uh, I barely know him Minsik.” You say looking into his eyes. You frown a little, wondering what was going through his mind. “But he is hot as shit.” You couldn't stop the huge smile that went on your face. You even giggled a little, especially when he looks away irritated.

“What do you think about me?” He asks bluntly looking back at you. His eyes were a little lower, making them seem a lot darker. The question stunned you a little, but you wanted to tell him. You felt like now i'm this situation, it was the best. You were high and he was here in your face. His body was close and he was growing impatient.

“I actually think…” You didn't know what to say, he was better, more intense, more beautiful than Jaebum, but you didn’t want to sound crazy. Now you wished you weren’t high so you could actually think straight. Your heart was beating so fast, when you realized how you actually felt. “...I like you. Which is crazy because I barely know you, but i feel so good when I see you. My cheeks hurt when I came back in the house, because I was smiling the whole time...Geez. I know you don't feel the same bu-” you stop, because he cuts you off by bringing both of his hands up and grabs your cheeks. His lips were on yours, kissing you so intensely. He didn't bend down at much, making you go on your toes wanting to kiss him back. You didn't know you missed his lips on yours, until he slowed down a little, and kissed you like the first time.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and he wrapped his around your torso. He picked you up a little helping you on to the counter. That's when he pulled you closer a little making your crotch rub against his. It makes you moan a little, which lets his tongue enter your mouth. He kissed you harder and deeper, explore your warm mouth. He was falling for this feeling. His heart was beating after it being dead for so long. He felt you bodies together, feeling the electricity coming from you to him, leaving his his on his body standing up and goosebumps below.

He breaks away to breath, but he doesn't stop showing you how he felt. He trails his lips down, to you jaw, then below your ear. He kisses all over your neck searching for a certain spot that makes you moan out.

“Minsik…” You moan when his lips land on the spot. Below your jaw. You knew you had another on the area connecting you neck and collarbone, but you didn't know of this one, the one he found. But it shot down to your vagina. Every kiss he did a short gasp comes out. You scootch a little closer and closer, you were practically grinding against his crotch area, as his kisses get sloppy and sloppier. He sucks and sucks on that spot plus around it. He grinds back into you, making you feel so good.

If anyone walked into the kitchen, it would totally look like you were fucking, and that made you freeze up. Opening your eyes, you look around seeing know one. Minsik noticed you freeze up and he stops and pulls away to look at you.

You look back at him, wondering what was next.

He leans down and pecks your lips, then your cheek and then the bruised area he created, over and over again. You pull away and laugh a little at the tingling feeling he’s leaving.

“Go out with me, you can pick anywhere you want. Please?” He whispers into your neck. You felt your cheeks burn like hell. But you nod, because you knew if you said no... well why the fuck would you?

#kpop #krap #ambw #angst #fluff #mature #stoner au #stoner #marijuana #jay park #kwon #kwon minsik #minsik

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dtownsuga · 6 years

Text

BTS 「dating a plus size s/o」

Im sorry i took so long to write your request:(( but here you go! I’ll be posting the other half tomorrow.

note; please, please. love your body. please💞

Seokjin

Jin wouldn’t care that much at first. The fact that you were healthy were way more important for him. But you, yourself, still think that you are less than everybody.

You were having dinner with him in a local restaurant. Three girls were sitting 2 tables next to you, whispering to each other. You thought they were after your boyfriend for the first time, but later you realized that they were eyeing you instead.

If gaze could kill, you’ll be dead by now. You tried to smile to Jin as you didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable, but Jin was not stupid.

“Something on my face, love? You are staring at me.”

“Nah, no, nothing.” while bringing your spoon to your mouth.

“It’s the three girls beside us, right?” you were not shock when he mentioned that, you must have looked so stressed out.

“It’s nothing.” You whispered to him. Seokjin let out a sigh before standing up to approach the three girls. You could hear what they said all this time and you bet Jin did too.

You hold the tip of his shirt and shook your head, indicating that you were okay. Because, what they said, were indeed true.

“Partially, not even partial.” he said to you before heading for the girls.

“Excuse me, but we heard you loud and clear from our table, and if your mothers donot teach you manner, it will be so honorable if I could do it for her. So, please repeat after me, others bodies are none of your business, and please stay away from it.” the girls were quiet while Jin was talking.

“It is true that I am dating her, and that’s the only thing you guessed correctly. You missed all other points. And those you missed are the most important one actually.” The girl walked away before Jin could even continued talking. He came back with a big ass smile on his face.

“Thank you.”

“What for? I’m stating the truth, you are indeed beautiful. Nothing less than other, just beautiful.”

Yoongi

Yoongi has stated several times before that physical appearance didn’t mean anything to him. You knew Yoongi has his own way to show something good in you, even though he kept on denying.

He would of course choose you as his date for the dinner held by the company. You had been choosing the best dress to wear for the past 4 hours.

“Just choose one. Everything looks the same on you.”

“What do you mean, look the same, sir?”

“They all look pretty. That’s what I’m saying, ma’am”

“Smooth, Yoongi, smooth.”

Even though he had left positive criticism on you, you still spent the next one hour choosing the right dress. You eventually came down to two very different dress, one off sleeves and another long sleeves dress.

Yoongi personally liked it more when you wear the off sleeves one, but he decided to say nothing when you came to the conclusion that you’ll wear the other one.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Wait, yoongi. Do you think I look old fashioned with this?”

“Old fashioned?”

“Yes, I mean, I really wanted to wear the off sleeves one but I think it’s not appropriate for me since-“

“Stop there, woman. What do you mean by not appropriate? You can wear anything you like.”

“I know, I know. It’s just-“

“Now go change. If you want it, wear it.”

“Let me finished my sentence.”

“Go change before I left you here.”

“Okay! 5 minutes, Mr. Min.” you waited you in front of the house, eyes set on the sky.

“You are gorgeous, idiot.” little did he know, you heard that.

Hoseok

Hoseok didn’t care about your body. You can be skinny or chubby and he will still love you regardless.

One day, you came home to him crying while he scrolled through his phone. You used to be so self-conscious about your weight, until you met your boyfriend. He would assure you that you are perfect everytime. He would shower you with compliments and praises ever single time.

“Hoseokie, what happen?”

“Why are people so cruel? You are perfect, y/n. You really are.” You know what he was talking about.

You had recently made your relationship public, so far people have given positive response towards it. Several pointed out how you were not compatible enough with hoseok, due to your physical appearance. But of course, these people grew in numbers.

You wouldn’t deny that you have not received one of those hate message, but those dark time has passed, and now, you love your own body. It took you quite long time, but you settled on it.

“It’s okay. I’m okay now.”

“I never doubted you, y/n. I just want you to know, no matter what they say, you are perfect to me.”

“This is the second time for today.”

“What? Saying that you are perfect. Hell, here’s the third. You are perfect, y/n.”

“Stop crying, Hoseok a. Why are you the one crying?”

“Just because.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You are too perfect for this world, y/n. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Now, how long are you going to stand there. Come cuddle me, I’m sad.”

“Such a demanding baby.” you chuckled, before joining him on the couch, spending the whole day tangled to each other under the knitted blanket.

“You are perfect.”

Namjoon

Namjoon loves you as who you are, not what people expect you to become.

He knew something was wrong when you declined all of his dinner date, and didn’t pick up your phone during lunch time when he called you. And he exactly knows what is that something.

He found you stepping on and off the weighing scale one day, and at that moment he decided it’s time to talk.

“Y/n?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to bring this conversation to the table, but I feel like I need to. Are you eating well recently?” he asked bluntly. You felt like there was no point to keep on hiding as this day, sooner or later will come.

“Yes.”

“And may I ask why was that?”

“I am trying to meet the beauty standard.”

“Enlighten me with this so-called beauty standard.”

“In short, it is called being skinny.”

“And why would you want that?”

“Namjoon, dating you, was never easy for me. I mean to a certain point it is, but still people want more.”

“And what does that have anything to do with you or your weight or your body?”

“I am doing this, for you, Namjoon. So you will have a decent enough date, if I need to go somewhere with you one day.”

“Why wouldn’t you go just like this? I mean you look way better than decent.” You sighed, knowing that you won’t win this conversation.

“Come here, y/n.” Namjoon led you to the weighing scale.

“Step up.” You did as he instructed.

“What do you see?”

“My weight.”

“And then?”

“Arrows.”

“And then?”

“Lines.”

“Then?”

“Numbers.”

“That’s it! These are just numbers, y/n. Your value, your body, your existence are more than just these numbers. These numbers didn’t define you, they donot define the y/n I in love with.”

“I know it’s hard, but will you at least try to not think that way?”

“If you say you are trying to be skinny because of me, can you please learn to love your body instead? And do that because of me?”

You gave him a little nod before he hugged you.

“Those are just numbers, those are just numbers.”

#bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts imagines #bts request #bts #bts namjoon #bts yoongi #bts seokjin #bts hoseok #yoongi fluff #namjoon fluff #seokjin fluff #hoseok fluff

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maddermyth · 4 years

Text

RCIJ 2020

Prompt: Not looking for love.

A/N: Hi @joylee56, thank you for your prompt, it has been fun writing to you each week. I’m sorry for the delay, I grossly underestimated the extent of the story and overestimated my time management skills. I must admit this is my first time writing fanfiction and there was no beta (so right now I’m crossing my fingers to even get this posted correctly), but regardless of this I hope you like and enjoy it. Thanks for your patience and for the inspiration amidst these weird times.

Rating: T there’s some imagery some would consider violent but nothing really significant.

------

Unholy Requests

Night

There was a dead body on the floor.

A man, his body in an obviously uncomfortable position, laid on a carpet that had seen better days. By all accounts tall and big, in a bodybuilding kind of way. Belle would bet that to most he must have looked attractive: blue eyes, dark hair, expensive if questionable taste in clothes.

And she had killed him.

If asked how a woman of 5”5 (including heels, and they were quite high) had killed such a man, she wouldn’t know how to answer. To be honest, Belle couldn't remember how it had happened, she just knew it had been her. Guilt more than shock had frozen her at the sight the first time, but after a month of seeing variations of the same tableau everytime she closed her eyes, she was frustrated at the lack imagination of her dreams, or was it her brain’s stubbornness? Luckily it appears there’s no blood in the scene this time. She didn’t recognise the cabin where this always took place, and had never the opportunity to explore it since that first dream, but she was grateful this particular dream didn’t involved cleaning it as well. It had happen once.

“What now, dearie?”

Since the dreams started there were three people in them: herself, the dead body and for a reason she hadn’t figured out, the town’s landlord. Admittedly she had recently moved to Storybrooke and apart from the introductory batch of gossip that welcomed her, and taught her who was who in the small town, there were an alarming number of warnings against the infamous man. That he was a loan shark (not unfeasible since apparently many owed him money), soulless (had a no extension policy on rent, and was to anyone’s opinion a yerk for following it, the rumour about trying to evict the convent was always the main piece of evidence), possibly in the mob (inspired by his choice of clothes and frankly that sounded ridiculous, she quite admired his sense of fashion). However, the man himself seem to feed the rumour mill. From the way he dressed, to turning his pawnshop into his lair, dark and full of treasures people exchanged when desperately needing money. Owning more than half of the town, residential and commercial units, he still make rounds on foot, and on complicated situations he even had a man for muscle Mr Dove.

Belle thought it was some kind of apprehension born out of so many whispers that had made the man feature in the murder scene that repeatedly appeared in her dreams. But it didn’t fit, for all the town talked she couldn’t summon fear or nervousness the times she had cross words with the man. Admittedly, most of them were at the library with in either with family or doing some favour or other for them, it was hard to see the soulless aspect of his being then. As if her brain wanted to challenged her statement on dullness, as the dreams continued the same, the man himself started to transform. The only trace of imagination in her dreams had turned the man into a reptilian humanoid, even his clothes had changed, dressed now in leather and high boots. His eyes darker and larger than any human, scales in his skin sometimes reflection in greenish or golden hues depending on the light, and talons. It could be a shocking image and certainly she could imagine his renters running from him in that look, but the changes had happen so gradually that Belle could only wonder were the inspiration for it had come from.

With a weary sigh, because it was always the same: he would ask a mere formality and to encourage her to move, she wouldn’t wake up until the body was disposed, and the cabin would supply whatever they needed to get the job done, in some manner or other, it didn’t have to be neat and the golden skinned landlord always helped, but all the same, it wasn’t restful. She would wake up the following day tired, with aching arms and back… eyeing the pair of shovels laid behind the door she said, “We could try bury him in the garden this time.”

Morning

It was a mistake. He had been making many of those recently, but this one was a simple one to avoid and yet here he was. For weeks now Neal and Emma had had a rough time balancing work and a small child, so he had offered to take his grandson for a weekend and given them the keys to the cabin in the woods. The boy had a sweet tooth and it was Sunday, a trip to Granny’s had seemed like the perfect idea.

Since his son and now wife moved to town, the image of the impassive Mr.Gold, owner of most property in town, nemesis of the town mayor, loan shark and heartless landlord had taken a mortal wound, especially since four months after that his grandson Henry had been born. But years of people fearing him were working in his favour, even when he had his grandson by his side people still gave him a wide breadth. Today though, Miss Lucas had greeted him with a smirk on her face and a knowing look that had hunted him since he crossed the door. “Unusually early for a Sunday, Gold.”

“If you don’t want customers this early you should reconsider opening hours.” He said with as much indifference as he could, strangely it took him some effort. “And miss my favourite customer? No.” There was that look again. “She is one of the few that rises with the sun regardless of the day, but of course you know that.” Oh. That's what this is about. Since Regina had the magnificent idea that the library was to reopen, he had opposed her. It took no more than the right thing said here and there before any council meeting. She knew of the intricate maze of mines that ran under the town, and knew that it was the safest place to keep his, and even some of hers, more unusual experiments. It’s secrecy and its contents one way or another benefited someone in town. That’s why they had agree to sealed the mines in the first place, with only one access point located in the town clock building, inside the library. However, a Belle French had arrived four months ago in the ship of Mrs. Finn. He didn’t pay attention to her, apparently she was a tourist, as rare the sight was in Storybrooke. But Regina had. And at some point Miss French decided to stay and become the librarian. He had try to put a stop on that but it was to late. He had made the mistake of making everyone aware of how much he loaded the idea. And then, he had meet the young woman, chatted with her whenever his found a solid excuse to into the library. The fight to close the building had since then remained restricted to paperwork. And that was unusual for him. And apparently, someone like the wolf-girl had decided to mock him for it. He must have let his face react because her smile only grew. “The usual? And extra blueberry pancakes for little Henry, after all he’s such an excellent wingman.”

Either it was the implication that he was using his grandson somehow or that even though he enjoyed his time with Henry like nothing else, his reason to be there in the heart of town instead of his home spoiling his grandson was so easy to see, the comment rattled him more than he was ready to admit. And even though he was at the edge of leaving, he reminded himself everytime the over entitled waitress looked at him with the same smirk in her face, that he couldn’t let her win. It was still too early, they could avoid her (yes, it was now a team effort with Henry) and the wolf-girl would be set to right, or she still could come into the dinner and make the mortifying comment worthy.

Five minutes after their order arrived, and with his attention on trying to keep Henry from turning his breakfast into a Pollock piece, his cell phone rang. “Gold.”

“Hi pops!” a little too cheerful voice greeted. “Neal? Is everything alright?”

“Well... a couple of your friends had no idea of our ‘weekend far from the world’ plan and broke into the cabin.” Neal answered with a patient tone. “Something about needing a place to do an experiment?” In the background the distinct noises of Jefferson moving around the kitchenette could be heard. “Emma is trying to keep Jeff from settling in as he now thinks we need breakfast.”

“Just send them to the store. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Meddling fools. After hearing a door close in the other side of the call, his son said “They wanted me to call you, you know?” A sight left him, after noticing the call had distracted him from paying attention to Henry’s anctics.“Their great talent is to pretend to be idiots, I bet they wanted to get through to me in the most effective way. Sorry son.”

“It’s ok, dad. Just keep them busy and happy until tomorrow? Probably give them their own lab, one of those storage units at the edge of the docks, huh? Where they can play and have fun.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Too close to the surface and to drunk sailors, that particular idea was discarded some time ago. “I’ll keep them away. You just send them out and enjoy your day”.

After hanging up and turning his full attention back to the toddler, Gold was glad of his foresight of having a change of clothes for both himself and the boy in the back of the store. “You’re going to help me with those two, right?”

---

“Bluebell!”

Hurrying down main street Belle stopped at the unusual nickname, there was only one person that called her that. Looking at her watch, still not too late Ruby was still on her shift, she headed to the two figures currently shadowing the front of the pawnshop.

“Jefferson, Dr. Whale.” Bear hug from one, and hand shake from the other. “Glad to see you again. How was the trip?”

“Successful if hours exploring are counted.” Answered the young man with a smirk and a wide movement of his hands. “Alas, not so much if the treasure had to be found.”

“It was a waste of time.” While Jefferson had a flare for the dramatics, Whale drifted towards a general disposition of antiphaty. The later did a great job at not rolling his eyes constantly at whatever the first said. It was in itself an entertaining performance.

“That only means we’ll have to go away again and we took plenty of photos.” Said Jefferson with a boyish smile and already taking his phone out. “Want to see?”

“I would love to, but I’ve got to get to the dinner.” She had taken to drop on early Sundays at Granny’s to have breakfast with Ruby. She’ll get worried soon.

“Has my favourite librarian replaced me already?”

“Madder, she is the only one in about a decade.” Belle still could not believe the library had been left abandoned for so long, not that it had been in as good as state considering once she started preparing it for opening.

Jeff did roll his eyes at that, “Still my favourite.”

“Bet you already made friends in town.” the unusual small talk comment from Whale came with a look she couldn’t quite place.

“Since Ariel and you guys abandoned me as soon as we touched shore, I’ve had to look for alternatives.” Deep in her pocket her cell phone beeped. “Speaking of, if I don’t get to the dinner soon Ruby is going to think I’ve dropped dead or something. See you later. I’ll hold you on to it Jeff, to tell me all about this trip of yours.” “You have my word.” He swore with a hand over his heart and a seriousness to his expression, as she started to walk away. “Come for tea soon and I’ll tell you all about the places we visited.” He shouted after her.

Looking back with a smile at the comment, she fail to notice someone was exiting the dinner in time to stop, until a gentle hand held her at the upper arm. Startled, she turned her head back to come face to face with… well, literally the man in her dreams, and until the day before she hadn’t confide in anyone about that. His eyes though beautiful, were not the same, and was it weird that she missed in that moment those he sported at night?

“Oh, I'm so sorry Mr.gold.” Belle had to take a step back, noticing she had been staring. Avoiding the man’s eyes she noticed that he was carrying a very content and covered in food toddler. “Hello Henry, seems like you enjoyed breakfast today. Was Ruby in a good mood?”

“It seemed so.” The gruff tone of the answer had her looking back at the man’s face. No matter that the question was meant for the little boy, it seemed Ruby had been up to something. He seemed to realise then that it wasn’t a real question. “I- I mean like everyone else she looks tired but definitely entertained.” Was he blushing?

“It’s been nice to see you. I really have to leave you I’m already quite late but.. see you around.” She hadn’t meant for that to sound like a question. He nods, though. “Have a nice day Mr.Gold, Henry.”

“Good day, Miss French.”

The tiny bell on the door, signaled her arrival. Quickly catching Ruby’s eye, she came to sit at one of the booths at the back. The dinner had quickly become a welcome sight in her short time in town. By now she could identified all those early visitors, a town routine that was more comforting than dull, perfect for people watching, until Ruby took her break.

At the bar, Leroy seem to still be drunk and happy telling a story animatedly to his brothers, who in turn seem more worried than anything else. A glass unceremoniously put on the table got her attention back to her friend. “Where have you been?” And she looked a little anxious, but it had been right, she look dead on her feet. “I was getting worried something had happened?”

��Good morning to you to Rubes. Got distracted.” Ignoring her friend’s look she explain. “After yesterday’s fiasco I went back to the library, do a little work, clean the back... and guess what?”

“Come on, just spill.” Ruby sat forward in the table, crossing her arms. A determined glint in her eye. “What happened? Did Pongo came to apologise to you in place of its owner?”

Her appointment with Dr. Hopper the day before had been a disaster. She had come to town, both as a break from her home but also because of the reputation of the man. He was known to be an expert at unlocking the human mind. She had been unfair with him, he had been doing his best and she too for months now but nothing had changed. She had decided to stay longer in town, and took on the job of temporarily put the library up and running. Yet,frustration had reached a high point the previous day. After a car accident with her mother, that left her motherless and with no memory of the entire week before, she had gone to more doctors and try even more therapies to remember that tragic day, that was recommended. And though the week had come, that day and the accident had yet to. Dr. Hopper was her last option, and he was failing.

“That’s not- It was my fault too. Archie was just doing his job, but it definitely wasn’t a good day for either of us.” If she was being honest, the man had also been at edge for whatever reason. It had motivated her to confrontation, a desire to fight still burning inside even now. “There was no need for apology delivering dogs. However, I was restless so I got to tamper with the old elevator in the library, and it works! I mean, I only got it to open last night so I went this morning and found a control panel.”

“Isn’t it like too old and dangerous? The library has been abandoned for years now, you remember all the work it took to make it presentable” Oh, she remembered and felt it for days afterwards.

“I know. But that’s why I went back today, inside there are just basic controls to go up and down, everything else is on the outside. And the panel seems functional but it needs a key to work.”

“A job for more than one.” she said nodding, a small frown forming. “And the mayor didn’t gave it to you along the ones for the library?”

“No, it wasn’t either with the ones for the apartment or the library clock. You should come with me when your shift is over, you are great at finding stuff.” Noting the way Ruby was sitting she added, “After you’ve taken a nap. You look like hell.”

“Gee, thanks. Yes, as much as I’d like to wake up Monday morning after trespassing into dangerous basements-”

“It isn’t that dangerous…”

“..I’d think you’ll have other plans for tonight. And in the meantime I get a proper rest.”

“What do you mean?

“There is an older gentleman waiting for you at the lounge, arrived late last night and lucky for him it was me and not granny’s turn on the B&B reception.” Slamming her hands to the table she started to get up. “Alright, take your iced tea and I’ll bring you your breakfast when it’s ready.” Since she was already waving her on, Belle got up from the booth and allowed herself to be guided to the hall between the dinner and the B&B. “Just move along, the man has been waiting long enough.”

The lounge was a small room with two sofas against the wall, facing towards an old looking TV on a small table. There was fruits and biscuits on the centre table. It was mostly empty but for a tall, large man sitting down in the corner of a sofa. He look small, hunched over his knees, but Belle would recognise him anywhere.

“Papa, what- how are you here?”

“Hello princess, not so happy to see your old man?” Looking up to her, she could see he had been having a hard time. He seemed paler, and older. His smile was honest but it didn’t reach far.

“Of course I’m happy, papa.” She said, coming into the lounge and hugging him, hard. After so long, and the nature of her parting, she hadn’t been aware of how much she missed him. Especially after the last couple of days, this was the best of visits. “Just surprised. I wasn’t expecting you here, least of all without notice. I almost imagined you coming back with Ariel in her sailing trip.”

“Oh, that would be dreadful.” Maurice French lost any trace of colour on his face at that. “I’m not a man for the sea.” Guiding him to sit down, he took one of her hands in his. “I should have told you before but the flight messed with my notion of time and then it seemed better to just see you.”

“Are you ok? You look beyond jet-lagged, tell me you had a break before driving up here.”

With a sigh he let go of her hand, taking a sip of his coffee. “I did, petal.” Her father was acting weird, she knew he was stalling whatever he wanted to say. His hands kept turning the cup. “Things have changed.”

“I know…” Losing her mother had affected both, to a scale none of them were prepared to deal with. He retired from the company handing it to Gaston, and went to live in the countryside. That had felt as he had abandoned her, but she admitted she did the same, even before accepting Ariel’s invitation to come to Maine. She had spend weeks, chasing doctors, therapist, new methods, whatever clue to settle her amnesia. She could wait for it to happen naturally, even though many a person told her to have patience. Dr. Hopper was the last name in that list of options, and while her father had changed county, she had changed continent. And she knew there were no bad feelings, both agreed they were trying hard, in their own way to cope.

“Not just that. I was called into the office a couple weeks ago.” Softly he continued. “And I was just so ready to retire.”

“I thought you left Gaston in charge”.

“I did. But my girl, the fate is against us!” The booming voice of her father, startled her. A voice that was either happy in family occasions, or annoyed at work now had the taste of defeat. He looked so tired. “I missed you so much but by now I’m just happy you left. Not that I helped to make the decision a nice one.” It hadn't in any case an easy conversation.

“Don’t worry, papa. I understand why you said what you said. It wasn’t nice but I knew where they were coming from.” I wanted to tell you the same when you moved again, first.

“I hurt you. I forced you into marriage twice and one of those was just to keep you by my side. The thought of you going away, to America nonetheless so soon after your mother left us… As always, you made the right choice.”

“What happened?”

“Another bloody accident. Gaston crashed, apparently fell asleep while driving. Went into a coma but right before I came here he died. As soon as the crash happened I got called into the office again, there’s no one else prepared enough to handle the company at the moment, it was meant for him.” He looked up into her eyes at that. “You first, and since you refused it, him. It took me a while to get a break and come to tell you about it in person. I know you didn’t have the best relationship especially at the end but…”

“No, we didn’t. Still, that’s awful. And it doesn’t make sense, he was a freak with rules. He wouldn’t drive in that condition. Is someone with him?”

“His personal assistant, the man was half in love with him. And of course the company is going to cover the ceremony and burial. I’ll be in charge of that.”

“Good.” That’s all she could say, she knew she had to ask but she really didn’t want to listen to the answer. It had become easier to say no to her father, but not only had she missed him a lot, but she knew how much like a son he had loved Gaston. “Do you want me to go?”

“I’ve learned my lesson, princess. It’s your choice.”

---

“Our new librarian almost crashes into the dark lord of Storybrooke. Are you alright Gold?” At least he waited until he nearer the store to speak. Jefferson was his most talented hunter, he could find almost anything that he requested and bring objects he hadn’t considered. It was his talent what kept him in the job, but there were times Gold wondered if he was too patient with him.

“I’m perfectly fine.” Gold answered, moving his cane to the hand holding Henry. And unlocking the store’s door with the other. “But since you seem to be in a good mood I take it you found what I requested.”

“No such luck.” Answered Viktor. For the last past year it was the same answer. It was annoying but he couldn’t find it in himself to be truly bothered by now. Gold had resign himself to look for alternatives, yet they will require some time. If they could just locate this text, it all could be over by next month. “There was a trace, someone else that’s been looking for it but we hit a dead end soon enough.”

“Almost literally.” Jefferson said, the little bell at the door marking the comment.

“So you failed and then claimed my attention by using my son, instead of just notifying me.” There was a small cot in the back room where he put Henry while going to find a change of clothes for the boy. “Don’t make me waste my time.”

“Actually, we want to try something different?” offered Viktor.

“We?” He knew what was coming, Dr. Whale and himself disagreed in method most of the time, moments like this led to a bet of sorts in which he currently hold the lead. Magic after all failed less than science.

“I want to try something different.” Oh, did he enjoyed the challenged in the eyes of the blond man.

“Do enlighten me.”

“It’s possible we’ve been looking not in the wrong place but for the wrong thing.”

“Our deal is very specific.” He said with enough ice in his voice to remind the doctor that that wasn’t an option, his back to the man and back to the task of changing his grandson. In the background he could hear Jefferson looking for the scotch. He had the good manner of host, that one.

“Yes, I’ll help Jefferson locate this method Morpheus’ child used to become mortal. And in compensation I can run some tests on you.” Another mistake for the list, thought Gold. “And so far we have assumed is in a text, you said it had to be read aloud to be enacted.” He paused, giving him time to interfere. He has been learning Jefferson’s dramatics, that could be useful sometime. Turning his attention from Henry to the man Gold raised an eyebrow in questioning. “What if it is coded in another way?” the man continued. “Information hidden somewhere not in a physical object. After all, for everything we have learned we still have no clue of what Morpheus’ child was capable of.”

“You have an idea of where to look.” His grandson had grown since he bought the clothes, giving up on the jacket, he tried the sweater.

“More like a first place to tackle. The brain.” Done with Henry he turned his attention to the men, in time for Jefferson to handle him a glass, giving the doctor another. Gold nodded his thanks. “Your type is notoriously antagonistic of science, if the child wanted to hid the formula to turn divinity into humans it probably is where you don’t want to look or only reached by something you’d never use.”

“Dr. Whale are you telling me our next option is to go around opening skulls in search of some brains that do the trick.” Catching Jefferson’s eye he continued. “I never thought I’d lived to meet a zombie.”

“Brain activity while sleeping, not an outlandish idea let me assure you. However, since in the 24 hours I’ve been back, I’ve had people lining up in the street coming at me to help them deal with their insomnia...”

“Welcome to my existence.”

“...I gather my best option, despite the atypical ancestry, are you.”

“As you have pointed out, I don’t particularly follow the same rules as you mortals. If there’s any information hidden in you, it most likely won’t be in me.”

“Do you dream?”

Usually, no. If he was honest with himself, he required less rest than most and when he decided to sleep it was a game of chance to dream something. However, the question gave him pause, because as of the last month he had been sleeping everyday and dreaming every time. It became an appointment, it felt now as its own small ritual. “Yes.”

“Then, what’s the harm in trying? It will be only one night. Although if you know of someone else that unlike the rest of the town can sleep for at least six hours undisturbed, we could try with them.” That’s not something he wanted the doctor to know.

“It’s hardly a request you can make out of thin air to anyone without having to explain something or other though, and those who would understand are affected by magic which by the same logic would affect the result.”

“Why do you think this would work?” Asked Jefferson, taking a seat on the main desk.

“The guy who was chasing after it, he got close and for unfortunate circumstances this type of monitoring took place. I just got lucky to take a peek at the results, unusual definitely not supporting of the diagnosis he was given.”

Give it to the man to be sneaky, any test was payment for his service, but he had promised it to Baelfire. Everything in order to fulfil his son’s only request. He had refused once upon a time, and resulted in decades of no contact. It was Emma and Henry existence that made his son sought him out. It was for them that Neal, as now he insisted to be called, had come back to ask for his help in ridding himself of his longevity, and subsequently the reason he was trying to give him another chance at being involved in his life as his father. And Gold could be honest, he didn’t want to do it, anymore than all those years ago. But Bae’s reasons made more sense now, and he had missed his son terribly. He promised, and if it meant giving into this man’s small victories he would play dumb. “When?”

“As soon as we get access to my lab.” There we go again. Their main lab, or at least the one where common projects was inaccessible at the moment. Since Regina had an unsuspected guard at the door. That left few options, either they involved the mayor and had access to the crypt, or they risked her knowing by going to the hospital, then there was Whale’s… “Your garage?”

“Oh, that place is dreadful.” complained Jefferson. He had to agree.

“Not that one!”

Whatever the doctor had going on in his home lab was a sore topic, everytime the man spoke about it there was emotion on his voice. Gold had made the point of finding out what it was, if only to know if any precautions were needed, or if he had to hide his link to Whale in case whatever he was doing attracted too much attention to all of them. The look Jefferson gave him, told him he wasn’t the only one wary of Whale’s displays of emotion. “The access through the mines hasn’t been possible, Dove estimates at least a month more of work.” Before he could be interrupted he added, “If we don't want to call attention of anything being done there.”

“We can’t wait that long.”

At that Jefferson jumped from the desk, turning his head to look at each in turned he did his best attempt at controlling the mischief when he said, “So… are we sneaking into the library?”

“If I may” said a voice from the courting that divided the back room from the customer area. Archie Hooper, only psychiatrist in to, seem to startle at the intensity with which the three men were looking at him. Clearing his throat he offered, “Your best chance of that, would be tonight.”

“Dr.Hopper.” greeted Whale.

“Jiminy!” said the other man with a little hop.

“Please, Jefferson. Don’t call me that.”

“What happens tonight?”

“Nothing special, I just heard in the dinner that a visitor has arrived and Miss French will be occupied as tourist guide. A better moment than most for you to get to the basement.” At one point Hopper was the man in charge of finding the objects he needed for his collection, a future deal, so satisfy Gold’s need of been the one to have them. He had been good even when his methods tended to be old school. After saving enough, he got into university and came to the town to set his own practice. Since then, cordial and ever offering his new abilities he rejected at every opportunity the possibility of coming back to this particular job. Like no one else in town he was aware of Jefferson’s real job, and Gold’s true nature. For whatever reason he never interfered.

“Huh? I didn't know you still worked with us.” said the young man.

“You worked for Gold?” there was mild surprise in Whale’s voice. If Jefferson was thrifty and technologically and magically savvy, what Archie had going for him was the readiness with which people underestimated him. He felt himself smile at that.

“I did and I’m not.” and unusually cold tone in the psychiatrist voice. “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, Mr Gold. If you have the time.”

“I guess I owe it to you in exchange of the dinner gossip.” The man was obviously taken with Miss Lucas. Had he been there this morning? “You two, meet me here again at eight tonight.”

Understanding the dismissal both men said their goodbyes, Jefferson’s accompanied by a wide arc of his arm and a bow, “Lock the door on your way out.”

Gold offered Hopper a seat and sat down on the cot, keeping a hand close to Henry. The boy seemed sleepy but it was better to be close. At least with the psychiatrist he could lower his stance a bit more than with his employees.“Be brief.”

“Do you realise he won’t work for you for much longer?” said the man with a nod to the door were the others had gone out. “His daughter will be born soon enough.”

“I know.” They had already talked about it, it wasn’t retirement, not completely but Jefferson had made it clear he wouldn’t accept any job that required he'd be away for long. One of the reasons he kept sending them, so they could find this spell either as a ‘text’ sooner rather than later. It had already taking a lot of effort and money to convince him to take the last two trips. “ Are you asking for the job? Is therapy not as profitable as you hoped?”

“No, just curious. Dr. Whale is not the type for the job.”

“Agreed. He is useful though. And a sore loser, and that’s always fun. Not of your concern, but Jones is willing enough. I know you have tried to talk to him about his many issues, but I warn you, don’t talk him out of the job.”

“On the contrary, opposite to Jefferson, he’ll be a better father for his daughter if he finally has a stable job. Which is the reason I’m here.”

“The Jones?” Well, that would be unusual.

“No, the issue of becoming a better father.” Ah, that. “Wait, hear me out.” The man seemed to collect himself, sitting straighter he continued, “Is this library heist and overall insomnia pandemic in town something to do with what we talked about Baelfire? Did you do something? Did you finally make a choice?”

“Do I have one?” There was no use in hiding the bite in the question. “I thought the whole point of what you said last time was that I didn’t have one but give him what he wants.”

“That’s not quite it. Is not about giving him what he wants, is about respecting his choices. And listening to him.”

“Even thought that means condemning him to mortality?” Rising his voice was a bad idea, specially with Henry this close. So he took a deep breath pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I thought he was mortal.”

“Shortening his lifespan then, if you want specifics.”

“You understand why he asked.”

“Yes, and that doesn’t make it easier.” He had just fed and changed the main reason. “As much as he doesn’t want to see the love of his life or his child die, he is asking me to do just that. I am immortal, I don’t have a choice.”

“He does.” said the doctor, not unkindly.

“Did you come here to repeat this conversation?”

“I wanted to know if all this mess is related to that conversation, and if the fact that it has lasted this long is because it is a hard task or you are purposely delaying it.” The man kept his posture rigid, drawing any bravery from it as he effectively berated him. It was … well, new. “If it is the second, I’m in the mind of arguing for the common well-being with you and ask you please to either stop it or finish it. And I know how suicidal it may seem to come and ask you this.”

At that, in any other company he would be right. “I’ll give it to you, therapy has given you the backbone that you so much lacked.” It was that comment that had the man hunching down over his legs “Why would you risk it?”

“I met someone more intimidating than you.”

There was a story behind that statement but the day had already proven itself to be a busy one; on any other day, one of the many in his boring existence he would have give it chase. If only to know this ‘someone’. “And if I told you is neither?”

“Strange phenomenon that affects a whole town? If it is not your doing, you must know what is causing it and how to fix it.”

“It’s not me.” It was the truth, but he could bet his entire fortune that nobody would believe him. The sceptical look that Hopper gave him told him not even the psychiatrist could, but that at least he would try to play along.

“Do you know how to fix it?”

“No idea. It doesn’t seem the work of a curse but it escapes my understanding why would this happen. All of it, including your newest patient.”

“I was hoping it was your fault, specially because of her. If you were messing with her to free the library and give you access again to the famous lab, I could do something. I could help her talking to you.They are not normal dreams, are they?”

“No.”

“And you are actually in them?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know you are real in there?”

“What does she tell you?” Without the fight in him, Hopper had gone back to be a therapist and the look on his face made him feel younger than the centuries on his back could permit. “No, she doesn’t. She says it out loud repeatedly.” “It bothers you.” “She also spends a lot of time complaining about you.”

“You have to tell her, please.” The man was concerned about her. Gold knew from her and her ramblings about Hopper and his methods on her dreams, that she was getting increasingly frustrated. Yet, she still hadn’t shared what she wanted Hopper to help her with. And the psychiatrist wasn’t going to share that, too lawful and professional. He was willing, though, to come all the way to him, berate him, question him, demand of him and now plead to him. It must be draining him too, beyond the sleeplessness. “Make her believe. That way whatever is happening can be fixed. Either the source of the problem it’s she or you, if she has anything to do with it, she won’t be able to do anything about it, if she things it isn’t real.”

“I remind you that I was your employer not the other way around. You can’t come in here and make demands.”

“I can. This is unbearable! Not only I have a permanent headache, every single one of my patients complain of the same over and over again. And it hurts them in different ways. I’ve tried but nothing I do helps. Do you know how frustrating that is? Full moon is coming and… The only ones who sleep are you and Belle, if this dreams are real-”

“They are. It’s another realm, in fact.”

“Another realm then, if you can get there. Please just finish this.” He didn’t care about the town at large, or humans in general. He found himself more often than not, in a situation similar to this, blamed for whatever weird event happened in town. Only on some occasion it was actually his doing. However, Whale had said Neal and Emma looked tired, he had thought it was for the little tyke they had to deal with in a new town, with new jobs, but if this affected them too, it at least had to be checked. He needed to know what was happening if nothing else. And perhaps, the painful direct route of asking the god itself for what he had been looking could end this search he found himself for months now. His son could leave when he got what he came for, but it was Gold who acted like that. His son was better and he deserved a normal life. Hopper was right, he just needed to finish it.

“ Are you certain the library will be empty tonight?”

“You will be able to get to the basement without interruptions, the three of you. I can make sure someone distracts the French for long enough.”

“Go home Hopper, it’ll help.”

Night

This time around had been faster, the soil in the garden was soft and there was no need to remove the grass, the shovels were comfortable in weight and Belle had secretly changed her shoes to trekking boots that made it easier to help her companion. He was unusually quiet tonight, not to say he was always chatty. Only once had he talked until she started to get annoyed, mostly because he profusely disagree with anything she said, just for the fun of arguing. But even though he tended to be mercurial, he could also be funny in a darker acid way, that had her laughing freely at jokes she know would draw looks in the real world. So far the theory was that he reflected her deeper feelings, and today just seemed to prove it. With the news her father had brought and the pending decision to go back to Australia, if just temporary, had put a weight on her shoulders. Sadly, what she needed was a distraction from all that, and her imp was in no mood to help.

“That’s becoming easier” she said, trying to get his attention. “Practice makes perfect.”

“I don’t think it is meant for murder, or body disposal. Gardening though...” The rectangle on the garden was obvious, but it wasn’t meant to be perfect just functional. At least the dream required only practicality to end.

Flattening the raising soil, she realised it was the first time she ever did that. “This is unusual.”

“What is?” Everything in this dream. Today. The way you are behaving!

“Everytime the body is out of sight the dream ends.”

“That’s when it ends for you?” His voice sounded deeper, more his real version than hers.

“Isn’t it the end for both of us? After all I’m dreaming you.”

“Right.” He said leaning heavily into his shovel, and he kept reminding her of the real man. It was a pose familiar to her, she was sure he only allowed himself to look that tired when he thought nobody was looking. Softly he added, “Wonder why me.”

It didn’t sound like a question, he didn’t ask for an answer to that. But she had the same question and hadn’t come to a satisfactory answer while pondering it awake, perhaps here she could answer it through him.“No idea.”

“Really? No theories of why it’s me here every night. Nothing to do with the tales of the beast of Storybrooke.”

“My job are tales among others, it would be impossible to believe wholeheartedly in all of them.”

“Ah, so why do you keep casting me as a murderer?”

“I do not.” If it was about casting, she had cast herself in the lead role. “You are here to help.”

“Oh, so I’m a henchman.” He said with a light in his eyes. “Right… that’s new. Have you met Dove?” The smile in his face was teasing. “He is my henchman and looks like it to.” He turned to look to the freshly made burial, and with a self deprecating tone he continued, “Don’t know how an old, crippled man can be much muscle power”.

“Your limp is not always present here. And, you do realise that for this pit you did most of the work? “

“After a month of this merciless fitness program something had to give. My grandson certainly thanks you.”

“As if, it’d be great if Henry benefited from this, regardless how dubious that makes his grandfather. But, nothing here changes what happens out there?” She knew if was not common to be as conscious as she was within her dreams, and she had taken proper advantage of it. Being able to summon objects and change clothes, and wishing quite adamantly that no animal she was afraid of appeared while in the nightly task, she had thought she could bring her mother here, talk to her one last time. But it never happened. She knew this was its own bubble, never to influence reality not even by giving her hope.

“What if he could?”

“I don’t think writing these dreams for or telling them to a toddler is appropriate. Murder and all included.” she joked only to see the intent look in the eyes of her accomplice. “Ok, let’s go along with it. Let’s say somehow you are Mr Gold, regardless of scaly shining skin, flickering limp, and reptilian eyes.” at that said eyes widen a bit, as if he hadn’t been aware of their appearance. “Oh yes, I’ve noticed. If whatever happens here affects day life. How did you get here?”

“I could always fall asleep in the sofa at my house but unless I want my ankle to kill me the following morning, I just go to bed.”

“Smartass.” He laughed at that. “It’s good to know you didn’t decided to infiltrate my dreams, I’d have to inquire after method and intention in that case.” The mere idea seemed like an invasion of privacy, but then, if this wasn’t her dream. Where were they? She hadn’t recognise the cabin they always appeared at, not the forest that surrounded it, or the lake half a mile out to the north. Looking around her she notice for the first time the beauty of it. Even in the dark of a crescent moon, the vibrant green colour of the leaves and bushes could be seen. “ When does your dream end?”

“At dawn, right at the point you expect the sun to appear in the horizon but not after. When the sky is changing colours some cold some warm all at war.”

“That’s… good.” Why did that sounded good? “It’s always night when I’m here. No light.” A chill ran up her back, noticing that the wind was picking up and they had stood long enough to lose the warm gained while digging. “Should we go back to the cabin? I don’t like to be so close it.” She said glancing towards the fresh grave. “I’ve never had to look at it for too long.”

He nodded, walking just a couple steps ahead enough to get the door first. “Do you believe in dreams?” he said, his hand still on the nob.

“What do you mean by believe?”

She could tell it took him a moment to decide what to say, but the moment he did it was clear, with a faint show of irritation he answered, “Anything other than explaining them as a chemical reaction produced by your brain.”

“Is Mr Gold not a pragmatic man?

“One more than the other.” He opened the door, moving to the side and with a tiny bow of his head. “Ladies first.”

“Before this month I used not to dream. Always wondered after what I read and heard about them, people tend to give them high significance. So, can't say I believe or not yet”

Belle stepped inside the cabin frowning at the darkness and heading to turn the lights on, even though she was certain neither of them turn them off when they headed out earlier. Since this was the first time she had the opportunity to explore she headed towards the farthest door opposite to the entrance. Her companion seemed unsure of what to do pacing slowly around the small living area. Letting him to his exploration she cross the door.

“Belle?" His voice sounded far away. "Miss French!" It was screamed and coming closer. Why was he so far away? There had been a scream, a loud one. Turning around taking in her surroundings Belle can only see forest, and it didn't make sense. nothing did. Feeling tears falling across her face, the image comes back to her. The room had been empty, no more than a couple of meters squared. In it laid another man, injured, dead and pretty familiar to her. And then she was here.

How?

There had been a sense of trepidation since he found himself in that room with Miss French. A simple potion was needed to help him relax enough to sleep once they got in the lab with both Viktor, Jefferson and Henry. The lab and the dungeons well fitted to contain most kinds of experiments, from magic, to science and the mix of both. Due to the nature of it, there were compartments fitted to rest in between trials or in the occasional long process. And even though he could had left Henry with the Nolans, he felt wrong being to far away from the boy. He asked Jefferson to come and the man was as always over enthusiastic, perhaps seeing as a trial run of what it will be his life in a couple of months.

Despite knowing that for once there was a whole crowd keeping an eye on his well being (or at least the state of his body), or perhaps because of it, a restlessness had settled inside of him. Once the woman had claimed today’s dream was not going to plan, he knew to keep his guard up, however he hadn’t expected what happened after. He had noticed earlier the few changes in wardrobe that she sported while digging but this realm had different rules, and she was adamant that this was her dream, she could shape it to her will and he had been too distracted to call it for what it was. After she open that door, her scream send shivers down his back looking in her direction he only caught her silhouette disappearing. He recognised, after all he used it once upon a time before coming to the world ‘without magic’. Looking into the room he found the same man they’ve been dealing with for a month, admittedly in worst shape than most days but nothing that could motivate that reaction. Not now.

If she had the ability to jump between place in this realm, it was likely that she didn’t know to control it. After all, he had been here all this time by her side and she had never done such a thing. Morpheus would be able to easily locate them after her move, e needed to find her. Regardless if the confrontation with the king of dreams was something he’d likely avoid until he held the spell in his hands. Going to their tools, the last object she had been in contact for a considerable amount of time, he cast a spell to figure the general direction she headed. After all, she couldn't have gone too far.

It took him a while trekking in the forest surrounding the cabin to find a small earth path in between the trees, where the roots of the same were easier to see. It lead to a small clearing where she was. “Belle?” He called her name softly to not startled her. Walking to stand next to her he tentatively put a hand over her arm, he felt the strange impulse to comfort her but there wasn’t much he could do at the moment. He could use a little bit of magic now, after all they wouldn’t be alone for long now, so he magicked a jacket and gave it to her. She nodded her thanks. “What happened?”

“Didn’t you see?”

He did, it still didn’t explain her need to get away from it. A need so big she had done something she’d never done before. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” he knew the tone was wrong, and not entirely the one he wanted to use but apart from accepting his presence she kept going inside herself. It was better now that she kept aware of where they were. “At least twice the man has been in a similar state to that before.” He was being honest, at least.

Slowly she raised her eyes to him with confusion, “That’s completely different.”

“How so?”

“Is a different person!”

There it is, she was seeing someone else. “Who was he?”

“Stop this please, you know him because I know him.” She said heading towards the place he came from.

“I don’t, in all honesty. All I saw was the same man we buried all these days. It seems this is not true for you.” Her attention was in exploring the edge of the clearing. “So, help me understand, who is the man back there?” he asked trying to get her attention, it would be difficult to find her again if she transported herself.

“Gaston.”

“Boyfriend?” he ventured, the man didn’t look like a brother or other close family plus she had moved recently. It could be him Hopper had been talking about.

“Ex-fiancé.”

“Right.” She looked back at him, and he noticed he spoke aloud. “That’s- That’d be a shock, to see him like that.” It wasn’t only that, whether she believe it or no, the man was real. Had been for as long as both of them kept on coming here. Why were the three of them in this? “I’m sorry.” he added as an afterthought. If their visit to this realm had no end in sight, and there was already a visitor dead, whatever had kill him was likely to come to them eventually, after a month of playing the game was coming to an end. They needed to move to a better place, it wouldn’t do to be hunted and be standing in a small clearing in an unknown forest. “Miss French, we have to move.”

“Is it wrong that I don't want to go back there?” she said.“I don’t want to see him like that.” she added softly, looking into the forest were he had come from. She had found the slight earth path leading into the trees.

“It’s alright. You don’t have to.”

“We can’t leave him like that. I don’t want to but we should.”

“I’m not digging another hole tonight, and he is dangerous.”

“He is dead.” she said flatly.

“Exactly, he is dead and he is here.” And he was still too close for his liking. “That simply does not happen. Many a thing with appetite for human flesh hides in the corners of this place, within minutes we could be surrounded, specially since death reeks in this realm.” Nothing died here, everything just changed shape.

“Realm? It is my dream, no monster will come out that I don’t wish for it.” She moved into the path carefully avoiding the roots jutting out.

“And if t is a nightmare.” Going back was possibly the worst thing they could do, but he needed her to see it. Stopping right inside the line of trees the sound of the wind lowered and other sounds made the forest seem full of live, like never before.

“We are doing right by him, again”. It was said more to encourage herself to move further into the path, but a loud growl froze her.

“No, we won’t. Listen to that, they have smell him.” and they were many, for the first growl kept being answered by smaller ones of different tone, and if the sound could be trusted, from multiple directions. “Humans don’t walk in this land, is dangerous for them.” He grabbed her hand and started to go back to the clearing.

“Then what am I if not human?”

Circling the clearing much like she had done just moments before he looked for a new path. “You are special. Unusual.” Keeping his use of magic low, in case they could follow them like that, was really frustrating.

“If humans can’t be here how do people dream?”

Before he could find any way out, Belle walked ahead of him, pulling him on still holding his hand, leading him towards one of the biggest trees in sight.

“They are… when they are here you could call them ghost-like.” she kept walking straight to the tree with a determination that stilled his tongue on the possible crashing, instead he focussed on explaining further on, “if attacked they can wake up and nothing has changed, they are neither harmed nor do they benefit from the dream.” At the last moment she sidestepped the tree, continuing sideways as if in a narrow passage. He does the same, turning just so to keep in touch with her, if this was a passage it was best to make sure they both went out of it together. “You’ve been digging with me, deny that you woke up tired. Not just tired from restless sleep, tired as in all you’ve been doing here your body is going through it too.”

The uneven ground that so far had characterised the forest was gone. Just after noticing the change, they emerged from the trees still walking sideways into a field walled in rocks. In the horizon started a series of hills. “Whatever these creatures are… when I wake up I’ll see what they’ve done?”

“If you survive them and that’s hard even with my powers, then yes.”

Keeping with the direction they had being walking, they entered the field. “What are you?

“What am I?” he said, making his voice higher giving her a clue of that which wasn’t human about him. “That’s unexpectedly rude from you.”

“Are you human?”

“Partly.”

“Is the other part why you shine?” she asked, it could have been in jest but her eyes held true curiosity, still...“Shine?”

“Your skin…” she said vaguely gesturing with her hand towards his general direction.

“That… is part of a rather old curse.” A story only his son knew, for everyone else he had blamed the imagination on mortals and their inability to report objectively, specially about non-human creatures. Who said fairies looked like in those animated pictures? The doing of a young girl back in the turn of the century had cemented that image in modern imagination. At least before they had been more creative! “True enough the colour has to do with that part, usually scales are darker, and sometimes duller in a cursed human.”

“Can your powers help Gaston?”

“There’s nothing to be done. Nothing you or I can change, the dead do not rise.” The latest attempt he had witness was by Viktor, the man was as obsessed with it as all those that attempted it before him. None had a good ending, and Gold had been there to see each spectacular failure. It was better for everyone if such a feat remain unachievable. “Did you love him?”

“No. I think my father did, the idea of him as his son, and somewhere along the line but before it was too late I realised that that wasn’t reason enough for marrying him.” there was sadness in her voice, she was mourning but what? It didn’t seem she was fond of the engagement, “What other things can you do?” she asked obviously changing the topic.

“I only have to follow three rules, everything else is free land. Depending of course, on the land I find myself in. In this place I can only influence my own being, like getting rid of the limp to dig better, instead of magicking a pit.”

She smiled at that, “That would have saved a lot of time.” It seemed she was ready to drop the conversation, her mind probably going back to the cabin. The growls had muted once they got out of the forest, but Gold couldn’t help the need to turn back and check nothing had found them. After a moment though, her face light up with interest “Ok, listen to this. If all of this is real, how come you limp in the real world?”

Apparently this was turning into an extended inquiry, if he had the heart to shut her out he would have done it. As it was, he clamped down the voice in his head warning him of anyone so curios, and managed a smile that only to the keen eye seemed strained, “I don't like to draw attention, especially of other magical beings. I only use enough magic for the glamour.” sending her way a pointed look he waved over himself, “The skin, the eyes.”

“Is that how you looked before the curse? Did you have magic?”

She was sharp, not that it surprised him. It was one of the aspects he could admire about her, and that he had noticed while she dealt with the townsfolk. It could become a problem if they ever found themselves at odds. Knowing himself, he thought that would eventually happen. “Close enough. Of course I have to keep in mind what is appropriate clothing now. As for the second one, if I did I wasn’t aware of it.” He hadn’t been aware of a great many things back then. The weight of war, man’s capacity for cruelty and for standing pain. He got to know all of that eventually before his own magic and ancestry, but even in the dark he had had a good life, he and his son, a flimsy roof and less than enough food considered.

“Were you already near Maine, back then?”

The ludicrous though surprised a laugh out of him, which he quickly tried to keep quiet. “As far as one possibly can be.” He knew for a fact, it was likely that back then the area was nothing but forest. At edge by the questioning into his past, he took the opportunity to turn the tables, after all, it was evident by now that she was the cause for all this upheaval. Did she know it? “Storybrooke is a good town for new beginnings, and renewing identities. Don’t you agree?”

“It’s welcoming.” the way her hands clench by her side told him his intention had been too clear, but she had avoided an answer to his real question. Belle liked subtlety in her worlds of fiction and frankness in words, another difference between her and the town she had come to live in.

“Why did you come to Storybrooke? Surely, you could have enjoyed and thrived in the city, a small town can become dull after a short time.”

“A relentless friend who lives in town? A break from the city and its problems? All of the above… It was always meant to be temporal.”

“What’s changed?”

“I’m not sure. There’s another reason I moved here and it’s been a failure, and yet today I was… confronted with the idea of going back home.” they had finally reached the hill at the edge of the field and the sounds that filled the forest had yet to appear here. Belle headed towards the top, to look what was beyond. He hoped they still had time before something bad happened. “It felt wrong, the whole idea of going away.”

“It’s not time yet, then.” the pain in his ankle was coming back, as a numbness that made stepping a weird experience. It didn't bode well, to lose his magic so soon. Was it soon? It seemed as if they were being hunted before, now he thought, they might still be, but the hunter was waiting for them to tire.

“Look!” Belle said from the summit looking forward. It sounded like good news. “We should go inside. They might not find us there.” stepping beside her, he noticed she was pointing at a small cottage around fifty meters downhill, there was light coming from its windows. He nodded, and both descended. It was clear it was small but apart from two tiny windows visible from the side they were approaching, nothing more could be said about it, the night still in full bloom made it hard to see much detail.

“Oh, It’s very pretty.” there was a feeling in the back of his head that kept distracting him. Something was familiar about this place and while he took his time going around it, he could here Belle inside talking to him. “It is larger than it looks from outside. There’s two cots, do you think it is possible to sleep within a dream?” for a moment while he stood under the door frame looking at her exploring inside the land left his feet. There was enough light coming from the hearth and a candle in the only table. It was exactly as it had been all those years ago, except for the company. But the warmth that grew inside of him at the sight of the place only grew as the woman carefully and enthusiastically got to the only surviving object of that past. “And there’s even a spinning wheel.” she was looking at him with a small but real smile and his feet seemed to follow it on their own accord, until he was inside the building. “We could wait here, while those things roam outside.” something in his expression or his silence had called her attention, she probably assumed he didn’t agree with her. “There’s plenty of space. Are you alright?”

“This place… How is it here?” So far everything that they had seen was either new or familiar to her. Never to him, suddenly he felt threatened and an uneasy feeling started to crawl up his back, the same that had bother him in the field. They were being hunted.

“Where are we?”

“My home.” He looked her in the eyes, not wanting to put anything in words but he knew he failed at making her understand his fear at the situation.

“I know people love to exaggerate, but I’ve been told you life in a castle-like mansion…” she had been trying to hard to put a positive spin to almost everything they had experienced during this night, but he could hear the strain in her tone.

“I do. A three-storey building can inspire that description. This was before all that.” He allowed himself to come further into the small cottage. “Before the scales. Be careful of gossip though, a small town can become the underworld itse-” loud footfalls could be heard from outside and a young man ran in, closing the door quickly behind him. “Neal?”

---

With his hands still on the closed door and trying to catch his breath, Neal look up to them with a hint of surprise in them, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“How are you here?” asked Gold, who was now in between both of them. Belle tried to listen for whatever it was that had Neal running like that, but there was only silence around them.

“A potion, like the one you used on her.” said the young man looking at her. “After a couple of days of neither of you waking up, I had to come and find out what happened.”

“Excuse me, what potion?” she asked. Did he said days?

“It was for him, but Emma collected it and apparently she shared it with you in one of Miss Lucas outings.” Gold answered walking nearer with a contrite look in his face. “It was a mistake, she’s still not very familiar with that side of my business.”

Apparently there were more than just curses and magical powers in this world of him. “So, you brought me here.”

“Technically yes, but it should have worked only once and never meant to completely bring you here.” A dreaming potion, then.

“It didn’t work out like that.” The first time in her life she dreamed and it was because of an accident with a potion, and she had gotten trapped in it for days on end.

“No.” He echoed softly. He never seemed to enjoy the dreams, admittedly he spend them doing hard work. Which at the beginning had been amusing if only for the contrast with the real man. But if he had been that man, it wouldn’t make sense for him to do any of that on purpose. It had been a mistake, that affected both and he was as sorry for herself as for himself.

“Were you intending on being there in Emma dreams?” The implication annoyed her, it didn’t seem right to accuse the man of that.

“No. Believe me son, I had no intention of visiting this place.” She had wanted to answer to Neal, he was crossing a line and this was his father. He could imagine the relationship was complicated but still. She was expecting something different, the sorrow and pleading tone of the reply shut her up. This man, that in both of his versions looked unreachable most of the time, looked tired, the sadness in his expression difficult to pass as something else.

“You have been lying to me then.” there was no surprise in Neal’s voice when he continued. “You were never going to help me”

“That’s not what I meant. The potion effects shouldn’t have involved me in any way.”

“You always do this, don’t you? You trick people into thinking you are working for them and then you are only working for you. All that business with Morpheus’ child and the spell you promised me, it is all a lie. You never intended to do it. Why are you really here?” Belle knew this wasn’t a conversation in which she should be present. The circumstances though, forced her to remain there and she couldn’t help pay attention to both men, the more loud and angry one became the other one became more pleading and defensive.

“I never planned to come here, this is the last place where the spell would be. There’s no reason for me to be here.”

“And yet you are here with her, thanks to the potion you made. I bet the spell doesn’t do what you said, knowing you it will grant you power in this land, one of the few that is problematic for you.” The intensity in Neal’s eyes was off, a speck of cruelty. He looked young.

“You don’t believe that, please son. You know I’ve listen to you. I’ve been trying to do the right thing, even when it pains me.” If his skin was normal, she’d bet his knuckles would be white from the strength he was closing his fist, as if holding himself long enough to argue a defence. “And that includes giving you a normal lifetime with your family.”

“You want me to be there for you, regardless of the pain it would cause me to see my family die.” That’s when she noticed it, the anger and cruelty mixed at once. Neal was happy with his family, she saw them at the dinner, the way he looked at Emma and little Henry. That Neal had no reasons for this emotion, and he definitely looked older than this man. “You want me to become you and what? By then when I’m all darkness inside, you’ll give me your grand kingdom?”

“Son…” She was sure the man didn’t want to look weak in front of her, it was obvious he was that proud. But it was just as obvious the words had hurt him considerably, perhaps he had thought about it at some point. He closed his eyes, as if seeking focus. It was enough, she didn’t want to be there for more of that.

“Who are you?”

“What do you mean?” It could have been meant for either of them, and it was the young man’s reply that told her she had been right. He wasn’t Neal even though he looked like him.

“You are not Neal.” Gold’s head spun towards her at that, but thankfully he remained silent.

“Why would you say that? Do you believe him?” he said gesturing widely with his arm towards Gold. “He’s not trustworthy, he will stab you in the back before you know it.” His eyes locked on her, and perhaps their cruel light was sharper at that. “After all, legends have been told for generations about him, deals with the devil and prices too high to pay.” Adapting a mocking and higher voice, much alike the first days of her dream version of Gold, he continued. “Let me introduce you to Rumplestiltskin.” A smirk appeared on his face. A face that was starting to look like another’s, similar but by now evidently not Neal’s. “If I were you I’d go far away from him.” Remembering the part he should have been playing he composed himself before adding, “My mistake was coming back.”

“I’ve made mistakes, it’s been a long life. I’d love to life it with you by my side, but not at the price of your soul.” He still couldn’t see it. It seemed a feature of this place, it had taken her according to him a whole month to see Gaston.

“Unbelievable!” The laugh of the young man was too loud for the small space.

“Neal wouldn’t say any of that. You look younger than him too. Who are you?”

“Oh, you are stubborn.” He seemed to consider something and asked, “If I’d ask you to leave, would you do it?” Belle just shook her head. “No? If you insist then the name is Morpheus.” Within a blink the young man, Morpheus, changed clothes, going for a long night dark coat. “And you are both trespassing. I’ll admit it, I’m impressed. For a human like you to summon a whole building from someone else’s memories is quite an achievement.” He was smiling towards her, sharp and friendless. “You even recognised me. But you’ve proved what I wanted to know. As amusing as you two have been. Imp, take it from me, you’ll regret keeping that deal with Baelfire.” With the simple sentence he dismissed the man he had been insulting, and his focus was on her. While he was having fun with Gold, Rumplestiltskin, or whatever his name was, he wasn’t planning on that for her. She raised her head and promised to herself not be intimidated by him. “And you, child. I’ve given you enough time.” The threat startled her companion into action, it took Morpheus a wave of his hand to freeze him in place. “Don’t even think it, spiky ears. Your magic is already too strained.” He looked back at her, “Answer me one thing, child. Was it all you ever hoped?”

“I don’t understand… What was-”

“You don’t understand… right. She said you were clever, brilliant even. I meant your inheritance, your claim for my kingdom.”

“I gave up my inheritance, my father gave it to Gaston.”

“Not that one. Listen! My kingdom’s share. The fool though he was looking for immortality, I admit you did a good job with him. You convinced him to do the dirty work and think it was his idea, it took me a considerable amount of persuasion to finally be convinced he was telling the truth in that regard.” Pointing at the still frozen man he added. “Once he proved useless you got him.”

Apparently Gaston had come face to face with this being’s anger, she couldn’t explain how such a simple man had drawn the attention of a god. But it was definitely the wrong kind of attention to attract. “Gaston was not a good man but whatever you did to him, he didn’t deserve it.”

“Of course you’d say that, that’s why I had you help me. He was awake, didn’t you know? Everytime you buried him or set him in the lake, he became a little more willing to talk.” She felt her face becoming red, of shame or anger she wasn’t sure. This being had her torture a man day after day. The pressure in her ears made it hard for her to listen to the rest. “He was here just like you two. But I think you humans called that a coma, there in your world. It was never a coma, never quite a pause but a long dragging ending.”

She was trying hard not to give into the impulse to lower her head with everything that was running in her head. In the chaos of her thoughts she noticed something and that kept her going. “He never felt asleep driving.”

“It shines through, that cleverness of yours. No. Not by himself anyway.”

“Why did you do it? Why are you doing this?” It was all too much, too much time and effort. Why had them doing that to the man? Why make him suffer so?

“Why? Because even though she left me, she was my child. My only child! And you killed her. The worst thing is that she gave her immortality away for you. You took her away from me twice. That first time, she said she loved you too much to see you die. She could never see that you were too much like them not to be driven by ambition. Did you get curious why she didn’t let you come here? What was she hiding? Did you then find out about this world and decided you wanted it? The ability to shape realities?”

“I’ve never killed anyone. Who are you talking about?”

“Colette was the name she chose. You don’t deserve to know her true name. She wanted you to have a choice, be human and mortal or be part of this realm as my grandchild, and third in line to the throne. But there’s a hunger in your kind, insidious and ravenous. Even though my daughter was a mortal, it was a long wait, wasn’t it? So you thought you could sneak here, and make yourself ruler?”

“How dare you?” Her voice was breaking and she could feel tears falling. Somehow her body had understood the situation before her mind; there was a slowness to the words he just said as she repeat them in her head trying to make sense of them. He was there looking at her, all the anger and cruelty she had seen, directed at her with great sadness mixed in between. He was breathing hard, just like her. It was the sharp emptiness in her chest that awoke her. “How can you suggest, even think, that I had anything to do with my mother’s death. I loved her and I’ve missed her every second since then. I’ve wondered why she couldn’t make it, I was in the car too, she could have survived too. Every moment I’ve asked why her!”

“Liar! You’ll die today. No more humans in my kingdom, they all can thank you for that. You are all wretched creatures. You’ll be the last meal of my pets for a long time.”

“Wait!” Rumplestiltskin said, trying to move in between but whatever glitch in Morpheus’s spell that allowed him to talk hadn’t been enough to allow him to move. “We can prove she’s innocent.”

“I won’t allow you to trick me.”

“That won’t be a problem. You are actually the only one that can acquire this proof, you can’t doubt its validity since it’s your job’s result. If you are convinced by it as I believe you’ll be, let us go back. I know you don’t trust humans, and I understand but as bland, idiotic or cruel they can be not all are the same. Belle is your grandchild and your daughter loved her, if just for that give her a chance to prove her innocence.”

“No tricks Rumplestiltskin, or I make this longer than either your sanity or darkness can stand.”

He turned as much as he could his head towards her a question in his eyes he didn’t make. “You were able to access my memory to bring this place.” With a cold tone he address the god. “I take it then you can do that too.”

“Undoubtedly.”

That’s it! “Can you access memories the owner can not? Like amnesia.” She asked.

“That’s different. This is a copy of Rumplestiltskin's first home and it is based on his memories not on the reality that inspired it. Most of it is similar enough, but the hearth there is from later on in his life, around the time Baelfire was born. You need the other person to remember to access their memories. If they can’t you can’t.”

“And if it wasn’t natural amnesia?” Rumplestiltskin asked, pointedly not looking at her direction. “Can you lock someone else’s memories?”

“It’s unusual but possible. I haven’t done such with her. What does this questioning have to do with anything?” Morpheus replied impatient.

“It was a car crash. It was natural.” She added.

Still not looking at her he explain “Your mother came to talk with him after she gave up her mortality. Never in your life you had access to this realm, not even in the capacity common to humans. It is possible she could do this too.”

“Why?” It made no sense.

“You are her child. If she did this, could you get to the memories of the crash?”

“I would see them but not unlock them.” The young man looked at her, all the feelings still visible in his look, but locked away brewing and not longer in the surface. “If what I see is convincing enough and you live, you still won’t remember until you learn how to undo her work, if she did it. What it’d be? Remember that if you did kill her I could see that too.”

“Are you sure about this?” Belle asked her companion.

“It is our best option. You can do this.”

It didn’t make sense, she wasn’t the one doing anything. And yet turning to face Morpheus, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Do it.”

The headache started at the back and advanced to the ears feeling akin to high pressure, every sound muted at the same time the pain increased and expanded inside her skull. She wanted to not react, she didn’t want this being to see her flinch. So she focussed in his eyes, which obviously looking in her direction were nevertheless lost, not entirely seeing her. The eerie feeling of such a look help her to stand the pain as it finally hit her forehead and lowered to the back of her eyes. She knew she wouldn’t keep awake for much longer, the corners of her sight going dark. And she couldn’t be sure if he had indeed given her a chance to proof her innocence or if this was him killing her. But she was sure she wouldn’t forget the moment he saw her again, and the sadness in those eyes didn’t belong in a face so young.

---

“Gold!”

“Finally!”

The place he awoke in was entirely too familiar, dark and with a faint smell of chemicals, the lab in the dungeons was just the same as the moment we went to sleep. His company was apparently just the same, and he had to admit even just to himself that it was nice to see the pair of eccentrics again.

“Why does it feel like I’m made of stone? What did your machines do Viktor?”

“What did they do? What were you doing?” asked Jefferson with a mix of worry and indignation so balanced in his voice that made Gold certain he had been practicing for the future child of his.

“It’s been… almost 60 hours since you went to sleep.” answered the doctor going back to the machines now that he was awake.

“Henry?”

“He enjoyed the tea party I prepared.” said proudly the jumper. “But his father came the following morning to collect him.”

“Neal has been worried. Specially since you passed the two days mark.” the sound of typing accompanied the comment.

“If it weren’t because Mr French was starting to lose it at the dinner…” said Jefferson with a role of his eyes. “Emma and Neal had been taking turns checking on him, you and Henry.”

“Is she alright?” there was no use in giving details, if he had been asleep for so long so had she, and probably with her father staying in the dinner everyone in town would now who he meant.

“She probably woke up at the same time as you, I’ll call.” offered Viktor.

“Or you can go and wake the town’s own sleepy beauty.” he had to roll his eyes at that, which only made the young man laugh.

---

After almost three days spent sleeping, three days in which her father had drove the Lucasses into a frenzy and almost given himself a heart attack, it had taken weeks for them to find some sense of normalcy. The women had been lovely, taking care of and distracting her father but the three of them had taken to be too protective of her and that had started to drain her. Neal and Emma had been great with her father as well and they had taken to drive him around showing him all the nooks and crannies of town, a knowing look from Emma that told her to take that time for herself.

And she needed it, all that had happened had shattered her vision of what was normal, she had spend more time that was probably good revisiting her childhood and her memories of her mother, to see if anything unusual was there. It took her awhile too, to understand the part of Gaston in all of it, if Morpheus had been right the man had known about her mother and had killed her. Thankfully it didn’t took much effort to convince her father to stay longer, of only for him to miss the burial. He didn’t need to know the man he loved as a son had killed his wife, but she wouldn’t let him go to the ceremony as petty as it made her. Maurice had taken the extension as an opportunity to convince her to come back, even if he claimed he had understood her decision in the past he argued he couldn’t do much from afar if something happened again. The question about leaving was small but had ingrained itself in her mind, she needed something to kill that small doubt. After all she had said to her father to not hope much in that regard.

And yet, amidst all of that she hadn’t seen her friend since the incident. The store had been closed for a week and then she hadn’t had the time to go in. Neal said he was fine when she asked but that was all she knew. The experience hadn’t been good for him either, even if it wasn’t Neal who confronted him, she had seen how much the accusations had hurt him, and how much he believed them.

That day her father was chatting animatedly with Mrs Lucas and with both completely distracted she took the chance to go to the pawnshop.

The bell at the door announced her entrance. The man appeared a couple of minutes later from the backroom. “Hey, Good morning.”

He smiled as soon as he recognised her, “Good morning, Miss French.”

“Are we going back to that?” she raised an eyebrow for emphasis, in her mind the dream had erased the need for that kind of formality. “You can call me Belle if you like.”

“Alright Belle.” he said stepping in front of the counter hands over the head of his cane. “What brings you here today?”

“You haven’t visited the dinner or library in a while, and considering that the dreams are over… I though we might have a chat pending.” she hadn’t been sure what she wanted to talk about but seeing him standing in front of her looking down at his hands, she knew.

“I though it better to give you some time, to process everything that happened. And there was your father…”

“I understand. I needed that time. But I wanted to make a deal with you, Rumplestiltskin, if interested of course.” Better to make sure they were in the same page to treat everything that happen as real, the use of his true name would do it.

“You wanted to talk business.” His smile became smaller, but he looked up to her again. It was easier for him to do so when he close off a little. Did he expect her to agree with Morpheus on his opinion of him? “What deal do you have in mind?”

“I still don’t remember and you are still looking for my mother’s spell.”

“But, you see, a deal is possible when one party has something the other one wants, and we know I can’t give you your memories nor do you know where is the spell.”

“True. Yet, we are each other's best chance at finding what we look for, you can teach me how to control my powers, and I offer you my help in your search. She was my mother, I might have a better chance than your rock band members.” She hoped he understood what she was saying, with a smile she asked, “What do you say Rumple?

A brief war passed through his eyes, and how did he became so infamous when he was so easy to read? “They do look the part, don’t they?” The smile returned to his face, “I’d be glad to continue being your henchman.”

There were too many reasons to stay.

#RCIJ 2020 #Joylee56

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cryamore · 7 years

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS AND DEVELOPMENT UPDATE ROUNDUP

We’ve gotten a number of questions from our Discord members in the past month and it’s time to share them with everyone along with our answers.

See what a handful of our backers have been asking Rob, Aivi, surasshu, and me after the jump.

Kishou asks the following questions:

Can you change Esmy's appearance? Like, with armor sprites?

Sadly, given how Cryamore’s sprites are designed, it’s too taxing to make armor sprites for Esmy as we’d have to make armor sprites for a lot of unique animations, idle, running, hit, ground cast, mid cast, high cast, Vanish animations, Boulder Dash animations, etc. and then multiply that with 3 or 5 directions each.

The most we can offer for visual customization are palette swaps.

Featured above are palettes for default, Braxton, Bliss, “Dewritos”, and Black & Blue

I just want to see Esmy in something revealing like a swimsuit

Rob can probably arrange that in another artwork. I could sprite Esmy in a swimsuit but I don’t think we have any scenarios written down that feature her in one.

Of course, we could always write one in...

I'm not sure if this is asked before but is there a love interest in mind for Esmy?

Esmy’s too focused on her work and studying cryamore to notice anyone that may have feelings for her.

Right?

There's no "right" or "wrong" way to clear the game right? Like, surely some spells solve puzzles but there will be proficiency in not just weapon choices but spells in fighting too?

We’ve done our best to make sure your offensive/defensive ability and weapon loadouts will always be viable so whether you like playing ranged weapons with hard hitting close combat abilities, using mobility enhancing abilities with melee weapons or whatever playstyle tickles your fancy, we’ve spent a lot of time ensuring we got everything balanced and fun enough so there won’t be an absolute god tier and worst tier loadout.

Phosphatide asks:

About story flow: with games now searching for the perfect balance between "linear progression" and "open world freedom" to avoid blatant in-game walls preventing the possibility of sequence-breaking exploration or aimless wandering with no sense of urgency... what was your goal for Cryamore?

Alan: Honestly, I personally wanted full-on freedom to go explore some of the hardest areas of the game and risk the chance of getting wrecked, but we had to corrall things a bit to ensure you stay within the story bounds. Rob being the lead on this has final say on direction.

Rob: I wanted to instill a sense of survival in the game and make sure that the abilities are a big focal point for both puzzles and combat so we were able to block off certain areas of the world the way Metroidvanias would; give you a hint at what might be ahead, but you're blocked by something that needs a new ability

Alan: There's still freedom to be had but you can only go so far before you either hit a roadblock which needs an ability or sometimes story progression (you need clearance to explore south of the island)

So yeah, the goal was to give some freedom but not too much and I'm hoping we managed to achieve it with the world design I've done and with enough usage of the puzzle solving abilities we've made.

Tomar asks:

Curiosity here. Do you guys do art asset sharing through your VC system, or do you use something simpler like dropbox/google drive?

We’ve mostly used Dropbox all throughout to share asset files.

Above are the four folders we have set for Cryamore. Backgrounds has Rob and me contributing to it, Illustrations has Rob, me, and JC and Juby’s contributions, Inspiration Music has Aivi and surasshu’s work (a lot of unheard of to the public music WIP files) and Sprite-Animations has my work.

Once something like music, animation or an environment asset is set, Rob or I transfer it to Unity, apply any settings necessary (import and display settings for 2DToolkit, audio settings for Master Audio, etc.) and then upload it to the SVN so the file and all its settings will exist for anyone on the team with a Unity key and access to the Cryamore SVN.

Do you use freecamp for like kanban/task management stuff?

When we had more people in our team, we used OpenOffice and then switched to Freedcamp to keep track of tasks and bugs. Now that it’s just Rob and me, and Aivi and surasshu on sound and music, we mostly just keep a personal to-do list.

Xaelon asks:

I have no idea if this is possible with how the game is built, but something you could add to promote replay after the base game is completed would be a "randomizer mode" that shuffles various things into different places.

We could probably apply that to enemy spawns and some cryam deposits but the environment layouts though aren't as flexible sadly as we don’t use tilesets and the collision bounds of the environments aren’t generated by object due to a lot of irregular organic shapes.

We definitely have considered implementing a NG+ option though, maybe with levels and certain abilities intact on the next play but with more mobs and other difficulty boosts.

shadowreaper5 asks:

Do skills with timers (like the buff to breathe underwater) have a visual representation of the time left?

To a certain extent, yes. Esmy’s going to have a breath meter over her head while underwater without the Oxy Barrier ability.

We initially wanted to just have a blue fill over Esmy’s status portrait (which changes to her holding her breath) while underwater but so it’s easier to keep track of, she’ll have a meter above her head when she isn’t using Oxy Barrier underwater.

While we do have spells with durations, some of them won’t have a meter and rely on visual cues: a timed magma mine will blink when it's about to explode, time paradox clones should blink when they're about to fade, and shadow cloak should fade back to full visibility upon ending. As it is though, we will mention the duration of spells in their info box at the menu.

Tarquinn2049 asks:

Ok. This question is a bit on the other end amd might make me sound like a jerk due to timing. But does it support 4k? And if so is it by pixel doubling? I can totally play it at 1080p if hardware scaling will ultimately look better.

Our native resolution is 720p which we’ll be upscaling to 1080p. We won’t be able to provide 4K support as working primarily in 2D where our target resolution is 720p would require us to rework the assets in a larger size so as not to lose crispness of lines and pixels on a larger resolution.

Rob: The game looks freaking good on a 50-70 inch, though haha! I for one can't wait to playtest a lot on console (devkit).

DEVELOPMENT UPDATES

Unity editor-wise, Rob has been working on optimizing the code further. The sorting order of the game was archaic and clunky, so Rob decided to squish it down to a simpler and more effective form that relies on Sorting Order that Unity didn’t have early on during our development. We instead relied on Z index which required a lot of fiddling around with when setting objects up.

youtube

You can see in that test room video that the “Order in Layer” is changing value. Back then it would be the Z in the Position attributes and we’d have to manually set the value beforehand to make sure things appeared behind or in front of objects right.

youtube

Rob also implemented full analog movement instead of just the D-pad, this allows for more control, though it’ll need a bit of tweaking as it currently looks like Esmy’s skating along the ground like she’s about to break it down and provide everyone with boosted shields.

There’s been polish going on in multiple fronts on the graphical end as animations and environment assets get fixed.

Above is the fist weapons, we initially were going to go with brass knuckles but decided that it wouldn’t be that noticeable on the sprite unless we made it large but I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t miss the weapons so I designed these gauntlets that shows a bit of the transition from steamtech to cryamtech and also offers a more interesting silhouette while also making a bit more sense as a viable weapon against dangerous monsters.

The fists primary function work as a mashable combo. One press of the attack button does a jab, two presses in quick succession performs a jab and punch, three does a jab, punch, uppercut combo. It’s quick but it doesn’t have that much range or width in its melee attack range.

The second function is the parry which allows you to negate any damage if timed right. Rob’s in charge of securing the timing for all these as he’s the one in Unity and more well-versed with the parrying system this was inspired from (Street Fighter 3) so I trust he’ll make sure it’s balanced. We wanted to make the fists fun to use but even better if you master it and hopefully it’ll show.

The crossbow also underwent an animation rework during its polish phase. The old animation was too focused on being realistic that it didn’t look interesting (i.e. it looked too slow) and the crossbow already has it tough in being interesting when up against the pistols. So far everyone feels it looks much snappier now while still keeping to the timing of the old animation.

What differentiates the crossbow from the pistol is that Esmy can hold her shot and slowly strafe while doing so, only firing when you let go of the attack button. The crossbow also has different types of bolt quivers that you can equip. Currently we’re playing around with piercing properties and stagger/slowing/knockback properties.

We’re also looking into displaying the ammo/bolt count below Esmy everytime she fires so the player can easily keep track of their shots (we’ve been running on infinite ammo all this time just to get a feel of the weapon first before applying a limit).

The rapier’s animations will still need the pixel pass but its roughs are ready.

You’ll notice two phases in the rapier animation. The basic thrust and the secondary backdash. These are the primary and secondary functions of the weapon. One allows you to dash forward with a piercing strike and another for quick evasion, making the rapier a weapon all about mobility (which could be handy for speedrunning too).

The Ghilcrest buildings are undergoing their design polish as well. You’ve all seen the Cryatisium and Esmy’s Home and now the Inventorium and the Cafe are joining them in polished goodness.

The overworld environments have also been undergoing its rework. More unique object assets have been made and its design is now following the Overworld map that I completed.

Worry not about the above image. Though we do have Brax (and some other characters) following you at some points in the game, it’s not a dangerous escort mission where you’ll have to struggle to keep your companion alive, the Berribuns were added on the map just for this screenshot (they ignore Brax and only go for Esmy).

I’ve tried to incorporate hints of the past steamtech throughout areas of Noka Island that the settlers covered, some machines like the one on the screenshot above were retrofitted to use cryam instead of steam (I did receive comments on how the smoke blobs look more like rocks so I’ll probably change it to wispy smoke).

The HUD has also undergone a visual polish to make it look more bronze plated to go with the early post steampunk-ish feel.

I’ll be continuously working on more animations and environment asset polish all throughout while Rob cleans up code, works on other background assets or lays said assets out in the Unity editor.

ART SPOTLIGHT

Every now and then, Rob (and sometimes I) take a breather and make some art (which will all eventually end up in the artbook) so here’s some of the choice pieces as of late.

Rob made something that could be wallpaper material once he cleans it up in a higher res, it’s an array of Bliss in a custom outfit.

Another wallpaper-ish piece from Rob with Deseret, Bliss, and Sorbet looking all tough and showing what I’ll just assume to be Ghilcrest gang signs... despite it being a small community.

Here's a more realistic pin-up style Bliss that Rob also made.

Rob also pays tribute to Atlus’ Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series by rendering Esmy in Shigenori Soejima’s style.

I did the same and tried making a Shigenori Soejima tribute using his soft paint style commonly present in Stella Deus and some Persona art. I chose to represent Team Bliss.

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

We’ve also got a few new submissions of fanart from the community that we’re proud to share with everyone. We’re grateful to have all your support and enjoy seeing everyone’s renditions of the Cryamore cast.

@Cliffist pays tribute to the fab queen, Bliss because clearly, she’s supposed to be the star.

@boss_ruru also decides to rep Team Bliss with this lovely piece of Ms. Barson in one of her many alternate outfits.

But it’s not all Bliss as MellowMarz aka @HeartlessHat provides a pistol toting pixel-art Esmy.

I’ll be working on the pixel art and animation featurette next. I had to hold it off since I needed to prep this first.

It should give an idea of what the update will cover.

I hope you enjoyed this update and all the news! Thanks for taking time to read through these.

- CM Alan

P.S. I also managed to secure one of the previous builds we made and will be preparing a guide to go with it for the backers on Discord.

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eggoreviews · 4 years

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My Top 25 Games Advent Day 7 - Life Is Strange (#19)

“This shit-pit has taken everyone I’ve ever loved. I’d like to drop a bomb on Arcadia Bay and turn it to fucking glass.”

Life is Strange is a bit of a weird one. As yet another episodic adventure game, Life is Strange sees you take control of the hapless, time-bending Max Caulfield, who’s coming home to sleepy Oregon to start her new life in Blackwell Academy, while reuniting with her old friend Chloe. It’s a twisting, turning story filled with unusual characters that drew me in from the very start and didn’t let me go in the long waits between episodes. And on top of that, it has a brilliantly janky, slightly cringey script that could only be written by middle-aged French men.

Life is Strange just has such a unique vibe, blending out-of-touch teen dialogue, overblown sci-fi jargon, slice of life plot elements and more Twin Peaks weirdness than actual Twin Peaks. And somehow, it all just works so well. The story, starting off fairly small, suddenly blows up in scale after the attempted suicide of Kate (which still ows me everytime) and it’s so brilliantly strung together that by the time I reached the end of episode 4, I was foaming at the mouth waiting for the finale. Every character is perfectly developed, showing multiple sides to their personalities until seemingly everyone you come across is a gray area in some way. I absolutely adore how this game showcases its villains motivations and contexts without justifying or forgiving their behaviour. David Madsen, the ex-military step-dad who literaly spies on his family, before absolutely breaking down at the end when he was unable to save her, instead saving Max’s life as penance. Nathan Prescott, the rich bully, whose severe mental health issues made him easy to manipulate by the game’s real villain, fucking Mr. Jefferson. And the fact that he’s the one pulling all the strings is something you will not guess earlier on unless you are paying pinpoint attention to absolutely everything he says throughout the game. The narrative also tackles a whole shit-ton of sensitive issues in a way that doesn’t feel ham-handed or badly executed.

To embellish these amazingly written characters and narrative threads, the setting of Arcadia Bay in Oregon is perfect. The sleeping, rundown town by the beach that seems to be in a constant state of sunset is an amazing setting for the story they’re telling. The game takes on a subtly sort of graphic novel art style, shading in details in the setting in this style and it gives the game its own unique visual flair that I’m really into. The game’s central setpieces; the academy itself, the junkyard, the cafe, they all maintain this distinct style that really makes you feel as if you’ve been whisked away to Oregon’s coast. Alongside this, the soundtrack, both the ambient music and the indie tracks they chose to play during more impactful scenes, is one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in a game. The edgy music-videoesque endings to each of the starting episodes makes my inner 15 year old very happy, the scene of Chloe finding Rachel’s body has a song that tears me up and, last but not least, Spanish Sahara by Foals during that ending. Ow.

But right, this is a game. It does in fact have gameplay. For the most part, the central mechanic of Life is Strange is Max’s inexplicable ability to suddenly rewind time, which makes for an incredibly unique and interesting approach to decision making in the game. When you make a particularly important choice in the game for example, you are allowed to see the outcome of each of your choices in the immediate future before deciding on one with your power. What this ability doesn’t grant you is looking into the long term, leaving up to you to decide which short term reaction is worth the risk and which is going to provide you with the best outcome in the long run. This is much different to any other decision based game I’ve played and it completely changes the core gameplay, as well as your whole thought process when making these choices, some of which are absolutely devastating. However, this leads into my one and only problem with this game, which really must show how much I love it if it still places here. I’ll be the first to admit that the vast majority of your choices impact the story in either completely inconsequential ways or in no way at all. The potential death of Kate, how you treat certain characters, what Max chooses to do basically renders you entirely powerless to stop anything that happens during the game, especially the ending. No matter what, everything comes down to the same choices, the same deaths and the same ending. So that’s why I say this game works better as a linear story rather than a fully fledged ‘decision based’ experience.

Life is Strange pretty much enveloped my whole life at age 15 and, flaws and all, I still love this game. There was a time when I probably would’ve ended up putting this game at number 1, but I’ve since realised that just isn’t true, so here it sits at 19.

Standout Moment Award: The entire tornado section of the last episode is amazing and so atmospheric as the world around you literally falls apart. Big ol’ powerful stuff my dudes.

Standout Character Award: Nathan Prescott. This game knows how to pull off explaining the motivations of despicable characters without excusing them, and Nathan is the most tragic example of this. From all the shit he went through and all the pain he inflicted on others, Jefferson was there, manipulating him through it all. Realising too late what’s been done to him, Nathan sends a desperate voicemail acknowledging he’s going to die and imploring Max to save herself. Ouch.

Tomorrow: No. 18; Tree enthusiasts band together for general jaunt, chaos ensues.

#eggoreviews #best games advent #gaming #life is strange #lis

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hgfstreamchats · 5 years

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Jason Goes to Hell

Come on Kast... Kast, just once. Just. Once. Hello! Remember when we used livestream and the only thing we had to worry about were the many, many problems inherent in livestream? Hello, night human! I remember it fondly. Those were the days. I still have no audio. Hmmm... is there--yeah, me neither Still no audio? Nope. Still none Oh afts. Mmmmaybe you have something muted in kast itself? I cannot hear the terrible dance. Drat. It's very possible. It went through some kind of hideous update. Great. Glorious. Hmmmm. Nothing? Nothing Nothing. I hear it! there it is! GLORIOUS!

And it just cut out And it's back There. There we are. What was the problem? Wonderful! Emulator nonsense, the usual. Ahhh Look at that pumpkin man go. He's certainly got the music in him. What precisely is this? ohhhhh jeez I'm also wondering Either an underrated found footage film or pure garbage. We're watching now so that if it's filth, we still have time to end the month on a high note. I see... "remember that name" Once again, I already care nothing for these characters! This filming format is so obnoxious. I'm sure there's a totally normal reason he's setting up a camera in his RV like that Whichever one did that is now Smokescreen. Somehow I guess it didn't occur to me that haunted houses would run for more than one day The general idea of the thing sounds fun. I'd do it if I were human or capable of fitting into human buildings. There you go! Just make a found footage film starring me! Just stick your head in, it'll be fine "I'm here, you all figure out the rest." There are outdoor haunts. Or haunted corn mazes. You could possibly attend one of those. Yeah! Just drive around in it As I suspect a maze loses some of its charm when you can just step over the walls Don't tempt me. I'll do it and the Autobot pets will whine to the Autobots. I would tempt you just to get the pets to whine about it. I guess you could also see if someone from one of those universes where they can project holoforms further, is willing to share If I do, I demand a copy of the report so I can frame it. This is how to get kicked off a property. ... yikes I hate them all immensely. So, do you think that these terrible people will die, or just annoy us for an hour and a half? So do they die, or what Ugh. Even the Blair Witch humans weren't this obnoxious. These wretches would fit in with the pretentious Book of Shadow humans. Shut up! ?? Them, not either of you. I feel like even if your conceit is "found footage", you can damn well edit it to only the interesting bits But if we don't see the worthless chaff, then how will we know it's "art"? If they don't stop talking, ever, how else can we be expected to care whether they live or die? And you get that same "wait, why were they even filming this in the first place" feeling At this point, I'm solidly on Team Clown. Ah. So they are being stalked by the actors from the first haunt they pissed off. So spooky. I think so? Why did they... let them in For maximum spooky. "okay this isn't so much 'scary' as 'awkward'" What exactly did they do at the first haunt? I, uh, may have gotten up for a minute to get the kettle If anyone has suggestions for real horror movies that would go down nicely after this, do feel free to throw them out, because we're not touching the sequel with a 40 foot pole. And apparently missed Vital Plot Info (tm) They climbed an unattended ladder, and screeched at the waiting line crowd. Ohhhh. Yeah, not cool Do you want a real good horror movie, or a real silly horror movie? Either, any! Well, there is always Jason Goes to Hell. Or Texas Chainsaw 3D OH! Yes! Either is infinitely more fun than this. Jason Goes to Hell it is! OH WHAT A SHAME IT'S THE END AND THEY'RE DYING. HOWEVER DID THIS HAPPEN. WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED Are they actually dying? Hopefully? BUT THEY'VE LOST NONE OF THEIR USUAL CHARM, CLEARLY. Shaun! Damn it, don't make me laugh when I'm about to drink something Oh no! He got vaguely attacked in the dark. And she got red kool-aide on her sweater. She'll never get those stains out! The true tragedy. The frag would this be filmed? Uh oh, is it time for snakes Why does that one get cushions and kool aide doesn't? ...who's filming that She got a snack instead. I don't despise kool aide like I do beard-face. By all means, none of you try to push out while the dirt is pile on soft and shallow. *piled Oh, shut up. Thank you. I think that was as much of that as we needed to see They didn't have the decency to *die* entertaining. This should be much more entertaining. People die in ridiculous ways. Do you know what irritates me most of all? It had such a compelling title. That's what lured me in. I assumed nothing with a title that good could possibly be bad. If it had been a real documentary on the haunted house industry, then I think it would have been good. It would have been! Yeah, that could have been interesting! This is already more interesting. What a necessary scene, I'm sure It is a horror movie. Jason looks...bloated. He's a bit worse for wear. Comes of being in the lake all that time Oh hey So she was the bait Was that an air strike And then he explodes. That should do it. Graphic design is their passion. It just does this the rest of the movie. The longest mid-credit roll of them all. Ha. Just keep poking it. What I'm getting is that there were just a whole bunch of people who wanted prominence in the credits, and sacrifices had to be made The scale numbers changing is a nice touch Uh Ew ...Huh. I feel bad for that guy This is the Friday movie that was made just after New Line purchased the rights. They... did not know how to make a proper Jason movie. Oh boy o oh Hi! is this a youtube poop Hey! It's Jason Goes To Hell Smokescreen! Woojit! What is this? You barely missed the credits! Oooh! I did it! I came just in time! What you missed: a military op killed Jason, then when the coroner was disecting him, his heart started beating and he possessed the coroner. That's just how it is sometimes! Apparently! Oooh, this is like a scraplet horror fantasy novel I read like, vorns ago It is? Like, the body snatching? Oh! ... are they smoking in the cafe??? is that allowed? Used to be. does everyone do that or is he just doing it because Apparently they're all just...like this? That's how it is. ... Can I smoke in here? I would prefer you did not. Oh, good, important information to be imparted later! I'm sure everyone will survive until then Since when do you smoke, Smokescreen? Well, one or two times, Wheeljack gave me something and it wasn't bad! "haha just a joke, only like eighty people have died there" This certainly is how people talk. Uh. Ugh. I mean, I wouldn't want to be in the tent after whatever slag they're getting int-oh "I'll just sleep outside and listen." Like any good friend on an awkward camping trip. Of course. Nothing says "third wheel" like being the one who gets to sleep OUTSIDE the tent, half-naked You'd think they might have brought an extra tent. Sometimes, you just want to frag a tree .....*What?* Not everyone has your love of plant life, Smokescreen. What? NO I didn't mean it like that! Like... Some humans really are tree huggers? Nothing wrong with tree-fraggin! . . . . There was a human in the last film that frags pumpkins. We thought of you. Woojit, I'm gonna find an owl movie just for you. It won't be anywhere near as painful as said last movie. Unless it is a found footage owl movie. "nah, we don't need a condom, we're not surviving the movie anyway" w Primus, was the last movie THAT bad? It was wretched. Just intolerable. From what we saw, it seemed to be about 10 minutes of plot drawn out into an hour and a half of movie With zero (0) likeable characters I have to admit, this wasn't really what I was expecting This movie's just all over the place. Oh dear. It's the worst Friday movie. But still entertaining in a terrible way. No, I don't know why this is happening. That is definitely how reflections work. Magic! Wait, this is a friday movie? Yes. Jason Goes to Hell, part 9. Oh, I thought all Jasons were just like that. ... I saw a Jason movie with a bot not that long ago, huh! So... did he shave him out of like... vanity? he didn't want a moustache? christ The classic 'A body swapped Jason killed that lady' misunderstanding. Agent Scully! Man, how many people do you think were like "jason swapped bodies with me :(" in court ..... is jason the baby No? Oh so that's the asshole bounty hunter or whatever Now I want, no, need Jason to be the baby. I know, right? With a tiny, baby sized knife and hockey mask? What the hell is wrong with this guy Who doesn't enjoy breaking fingers to pay off the exposition dump? Man, I'm pretty sure I would've gotten kicked out the autobots and broken everyone's fingers if I broke someone's fingers everytime I started expositioning It sounds like a Soundwave method more than anything. Yep. Its name is Jason. I hope he didn't just taste that Facebook Oh good, the Necronomicon See, because it had a face in the cover-- How did he manage to steal a body? what the fuck Hopefully HE'LL--yep, guess so! Bleh Well, that takes care of that. She's crying because her shower stream is so weak. Kidnap her. Women love that. I feel like maybe he could have accomplished more by calling her from jail or something Instead of all these shenanigans oh UGH UGH. UGH. Are you not entertained? Uh oh Hah! ...Did that do it? Did the right person kill him? Nope. Ah Jason was more interesting when he only cared about his mother and his lake. I did mention this was worst Friday movie. ...I'm not sure that WAS him I mean, Jason hasn't actually... talked, so far It was a terrible worm thing, this whole time. I didn't think he could downgrade from the spaghetti-gut rotting corpse but here we are. Ohhhh shit There he is! I have to admit, I wasn't expecting that Oh what that pit sure came in handy Not the puppet hands! And there you have it. What a twist, kind of! Well! Still better nonsense than the last one. A marked improvement. And to think I thought this movie was going to be about him going to hell and, I don't know, stabbing demons or something. You're not the only one. I want a toyota beef! That would have been more fun, and that's not allowed. Hehehe. TWO things are wrong in the picture! ... isn't the kid pushing floating The boy is floating! What What. ... Does primus does primus have a good question doesn't he hang out on tumblr? you could ask him next time you see him Oh yes, that sounds like a good idea. That won't go wrong, I'm sure. Technically I didn't say it was a good idea It's an awesome idea! Primus adores me Then go right ahead, Smokescreen. You got it! It'll at least go better than calling Unicron a dilf ...You called Unicron a what a dilf? Why did you do that? To bug him? Oh, well then. One day that may come back to literally bite you in the aft. Well, that's all I've got! Well, once again, thanks for the stream! woojit woojit woojit I've got a horror movie for us for sometime! Thank you for that stream salvaging suggestion, Starscream. Oh, what? *listening face* The Brave Little Toaster? Yes, thanks! You know the sene It was the least I could offer. This was much better than the other thing Absolutely not. I'm not that sadistic. Oh. ... Am I that sadistic Oh my It's, uh, it's a pretty gruesome movie in some ways I'm sure nobody thinks you're sadistic, Smokescreen I think he tries. Oh, he already left. Unless that's Kast being weird again. The Brave Little Toaster is the sadistic one. Well, goodnight! Goodnight, All. Good night, everyone!

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thomasroach · 5 years

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Remnant From the Ashes Developer Interview with Gunfire Games

The post Remnant From the Ashes Developer Interview with Gunfire Games appeared first on Fextralife.

Last week we got to experience Remnant: From the Ashes preview event live from San Francisco with developers Gunfire Games on the upcoming souls-inspired co-op shooter. In a sit down interview we got to ask some significant questions.

Remnant From the Ashes Developer Interview with Gunfire Games

Sitting down with the Principal Designer Ben Cureton, we asked important questions we’d been eager to get answers to about Remnant From the Ashes, which included the differences in terms of difficulty for number of players in co-op, their inspirations behind the deadly bosses and why three players are better than four. We also got a chance to ask about how procedurally generated content plays its role in terms of replayability, and how all this comes under a pretty decent $40 price tag.

FL: Can you explain about the archetypes and flexibility of weapons?

GG Cureton: The archetypes are literally just you’re starting loadout, the moment the game starts, archetype means nothing beyond that’s just the starting gear that we gave you. We gave you a shared pistol, a unique long gun, a unique mod and you have your unique armor. But it isn’t unique to that archetype, it’s only unique to the first however many minutes, how many hours of the game. Every one of those things are attainable by any other, there’s nothing you cannot get.

FL: What is the advantage of choosing that particular archetype?

GG Cureton: The benefit is how you want your initial gameplay experience to play out. Are you someone who likes to go into melee because your more into souls-based [builds]? But yes we also have more ranged characters. Are you someone who likes mid-range or support role, or with the cultist you have the heal. Or are you someone who likes to stay far away, go for head shots, buff damage, kind of like a pseudo glass cannon and we give you those three options.

We didn’t want to go full on souls, with 8-10 starting classes and deprive. We’re going to give you a base loadout, to have fun. It’s like you picking pyro and getting the hand, or picking sorcerer and getting the wand. You can get the wand with anybody, that doesn’t change, but yes the starting points are different.

In souls, there is a more efficient way to build your characters, for example if I want to build this Dex build, I should pick this starting class, in order to not waste any points. In our game you can respec, so it doesn’t matter.

FL: What made you guys go with three players instead of four?

GG Cureton: The main reason is that with four players, we found that the game turned into one of two things. One it turned into a run and game, because it would turn into four times the DPS. If we didn’t have super super tanking mobs, it would not exactly turn into Gears of War, but everyone would rushed forward, wouldn’t need to use mods, they wouldn’t have to play deliberate, wouldn’t have to use cover, you would just run through.

Or it would turn into the super bullet tanky sponge of all time, in order to kill this guy, you would need four times the DPS, and if you’re now alone, you’d need a guy that require three or fours the total damage. It would take four clips just to kill the guy.

We still wanted that co-op experience and we felt with three blended that the best. We definitely wanted more than two, and four was the goal which we had for a while, but it was just so crazy and so frantic. We wanted team damage, and when there is four people and we’re forcing you to stay close, you ended up shooting your team mates in the face. We wanted to space out people a bit more.

FL: How is the difficulty aspect of it? How is it compared to playing solo apposed to a group? Is it easier or does it scale?

GG Cureton: As you know with Souls, when you add another player, the game gets exponentially easier. Adding another player and it gets easier most of the time. We didn’t want that, so we have is a super secret formula to kind of determine with three players the damage needed or the DPS needed to kill these enemies, is probably going to be about this [much]. While not feeling super tanky for one person. For one person, you may feel that you’re in this rough area, by yourself, I got cut off from my friends because of whatever reason, I can still take this guy out but it’s still going to be an obvious challenge. But not like the bullet sponge you would in such games as Destiny 2 will turn into, or something like that.

But also at the same time, if you have three players, you’re not full on mowing them down. You still need to be play strategically, I’m going to hit this guy in the knees, so then the guy’s knocked down. Then someone else can shoot him in the head, so his mask is knocked off, so another guy can snipe him for 5 million damage and get the weak spot. We wanted that kind of interplay, like we said we found three players was the best for that and the way we scale it up, our numbers just happen to work really well with that. Just feels a lot better than trying to do it with four players.

We wanted that kind of interplay, like we said we found three players was the best for that and the way we scale it up, our numbers just happen to work really well with that.

Long story short, it is definitely not overall easier, it’s not harder but we didn’t want that drastic jump where I add one player and the game is super easy, [or] if I add two additional players the game is a joke. It does scale up and specifically to the highest level player within the formula, to make sure it’s still a challenge for those three players. We want those experiences to be very very similar, the main difference is that if you die you can be resurrected.

The next main difference is that you have three times the DPS, Mods that can benefit each other, you have different builds that are now possible because of the interplay between the three characters (team members). It’s definitely not meant to get a lot easier. There are places in the game where it is easier, because there is an extra player. But it’s not made to be a single-player game, where the addition of a player kills it.

FL: We know that everyone will have a different experience playing especially with the procedurally generated levels. But how does that work with the story of the game and is there an actual end-game?

GG Cureton: The story, the campaign obviously is procedurally generated, there is a set of guide lines that it follows. My weird analogy for it is, imagine you’re taking a trip from California to Texas, and I tell you from California to Texas and along the way you’re going to Arizona, New Mexico and then you’re going to hit Texas. Along that path you’re going to go to four gas stations and you’re going to hit two diners. You can go to any four gas stations, or any four gas stations can spawn, or any two diners can spawn. So along the way we’re going to have a very similar, directional path to Texas in my analogy, but there’s still that set of rails that will keep me on track.

FL: So a linear outcome?

GG Cureton: Yes, exactly. When the game starts you expected to explore the hideout, everyone is either going to explore the hideout or they don’t. Then you go forward and you’ll be asked to head to the subway, I don’t know where the subway is, it might mean North West for me and South West for you. Along the way there might be a dungeon that won’t even spawn for you. Or that might be brutal for you, it could be a little bit higher than what you were expecting, whether or not you should do this because you want to be prepared for the next area. But the dungeon may spawn after that area, but you’re still going along that path, you’re still going to the subway, you will then move toward the church. But the path is different everytime, the side dungeons are different everytime.

FL: But there is one ending?

GG Cureton: Yes that’s fair to stay. There is one ending but infinite journeys. One of the things I want to point out is, I want you to stream, for me to stream, and somebody to watch both our streams and go “are they playing this same game? Is this guy further?” You could answer no they have been both been playing for 30 minutes. I want people ask “did you see that weird talking tree?” and for others to say ” I have clue what that is”.

It is mathematically impossible I believe to see more than 50% of the game in one playthrough. It’s just impossible. The way the game works, there is more content than those guidelines I mentioned that generate the world, there is more content than to fit in those areas. Even if there are only two mini bosses in an area, even if there are only two world bosses in an area, you’re only going to see one of each, probably right? Ok say you might see 50% of the game, your next playthrough you’re not guaranteed to see the opposite. You play for the second time you’re like “I remember this guy. What is that affix? What is Hardy, last time he had Skull crack, I don’t know what that is”. You might see a different world boss.

FL: The random buffs the boss gets rights before a fight sounds interesting because, which might give them a random advantage. But will the buffs be greater on a second playthrough, like a New Game+ mode? Will it make this more difficult?

GG Cureton: The way it works is that there is a minimum level for every area you go into the game, if you are below it you need to level up. If you’re above it, the game is also your level. So the idea is, if you go to an area that is say a Level 4, you beat the mini boss and he has Hardy, then you reroll the campaign, and come back at Level 13, he is now 13, if he also has Hardy it’s percentage based. He may also have Skull Cracker. We are talking about increasing that as we go forward, potentially having two buffs or three buffs, so then it gets crazy strong, I can’t say if that 100% going in right now, but it is something we’re talking about.

FL: How about updates? Are you going to add more bosses, levels? What are your throughts?

GG Cureton: The broad answer is yes to everything, but the long term plan is that we want to support this game. That could be through new biomes, it could be increasing what you can get from the current biomes, adding new weapons, adding mods, it could be adding anything. The interesting thing I think for our game, unlike almost every other game that have existed, is that we can easily inject stuff into things you’ve already played. We can create a new tile, a new POI (Point of Interest) in the city. You could have played the city 20 or 30 times, then come back to update where there is a new tile, there’s a new POI, there are new quests, there’s a new boss, there’s new boss affixes, or there’s a new world boss. You will think “wait a minute, this is the city but it’s not exactly how I remember, I’ve never seen this before”.

Of course we can make new biomes, there is nothing stopping us from doing that. That is something we’ve obviously talked about. Then there’s adding more trinkets to make new builds, adding new ways to improve yourself like adding new traits.

FL: The enemies in Remnant look pretty ferocious. Did you get some inspiration from your previous game Darksiders? What other inspirations did you guys pull from?

GG Cureton: The two most obvious inspirations are soulsborne, we wear this on our sleeve with pride because we love those games and Diablo. It’s not Diablo in the sense of I’m getting pair of pants, they’re now +2 and named the same thing or have this or that. Dave Adams the founder (Gunfire Games) said “every element is legendary”, what he means by that is every weapon is unique. If you get a pistol, you will never get that pistol again, there is no reason. You can make the pistol yourself. Getting a gun with a slight recoil difference, that isn’t that exciting to us.

The two most obvious inspirations are souls-borne, we wear this on our sleeve with pride because we love those games and Diablo.

Those are two core inspirations. Diablo you can play that game a million times, and you will feel it’s a little bit different every time. There’s different affixes, there are different bosses, different combinations of creatures and it’s about the challenge. Eventually you beat Diablo and you start playing rifts, in my opinion when Diablo 3 got good is when things like rifts were added. You were like I’m only strong enough to do level 34 I’m going to grind a bit, get my traits up, my paragon points, I got a loadout that I really like or playing with a friend that has a complimentary loadout. Oh we’re stuck at level 37, should we would put our heads together? Should we wait for the new content drops or let’s put our heads together figure out how to get to the next level.

FL: Can you explain a little about the loot in the game? Can you talk about the special types of weapons, legendary weapons whenever you defeat a boss? What about loot sharing when it comes to co-op?

GG Cureton: Loot sharing is really simply, if we’re in a game it doesn’t matter what level I am, or what level you are, if you pick up something say a piece of an equipment or something important that is not a quest item (as quest items are tied to the host’s world), everything is shared. Ammo, gear, guns, everything so you pick up a hunting pistol I’ll get it.

Now the coolest thing in my opinion is, if I already have hunting pistol, my hunting pistol is now +1, or +2 or +3. There is a cap and it doesn’t go all the way to max level. The point being is I don’t want to go in the game with you and say “I don’t want to do Hunter’s Hideout to get this pistol, I already have the pistol, it’s not worth for me to help you, we want people to help each other and have reasons to do so. So you will still get a reward.

If I pick up a ring, since Rings can’t be +1…yet. We’ll give you a monetary value for it. It’s cool because I get 250 scraps because I already have it, you can convert into something else.

Boss weapons, you kill boss, you get a crafting material and you can craft a boss weapon. However, there are bosses in the game where you can defeat in different ways and thus get a different material making a different weapon. Or something that you did during the fight, or something you did before the fight, you get something.

It’s different in Souls because if I cut the tail off so I get the Moonlight Greatsword and I get the soul for defeating the boss. So there’s that, it’s not every boss, and you may not know that [the boss gives that item] unless you go to website like Fextralife wiki. So you could defeat a boss and gain a gun Spitfire, it’s actually a gun that spits fire, makes sense, but [someone else could be say] “I beat the dragon and got smoulder”…you could beat the boss and gain two different things. You can only kill the boss once, and then reroll the world. But interestingly you could reroll the world and not get that boss.

So we want it so it’s worth playing this game not only once but more than twice, it’s not just New Game+. I don’t call it New Game+ I call it New Game Also. The isn’t crazy hard, there isn’t more red eye guys, but you won’t know what the quest is, never seen it before. Or because I have this item, I can do this quest slightly differently…Maybe I shot this guy in the face before and this time I’m going to try talking to him instead.

Long story short, the boss weapons are very interesting and they are all based off our core 10. There are 13 base weapons, and 10 foundational weapons which are similar not in effectiveness, but in functionality. So for example you might get the SMG, you might find that in the game, then you might find a Spitfire which is also an SMG but it’s a root based SMG. It has similar reticle style, function like an SMG but might have a wildly different fire rate…or reload rate and then it’s boss mod which cannot be removed, does some crazy thing that no other mod in the game does. The Spitfire for example, you shoot it, it builds up mod fire, you switch the the Spitfire and just throw flames out.

FL: What about the frame? 60fps or 30fps?

GG Cureton: I know on console the goal is at least 30 fps all of the time. On PC I think the goal is and strong as your PC is, we’d love for it to be 60. That’s what we want ideally minimum we want to at least run at 30.

FL: How long do you expect an average playthrough?

GG Cureton: Greater or less than 15 hours. On average probably 15 hours for one playthrough and again you won’t see 50% of that content. There is almost 0% probably or 1% you’ll magical hit every single side note, you’re going to have to replay and we want you do that. Then the second time you playthrough you’re not guranteed the other 50%, 10% or whatever, it’s random.

We look a stuff like the City is going to take you, probably 2 and half hours. The we run a play test, and people don’t make it to the boss in 2 and half hours. There’s 3 hours to a play test and we cut them off and they haven’t got to the last boss yet, it’s hard to gauge. I don’t want to say the game so random, but it is so random that this dungeon might crush you in 45 minutes. Then someone else might say, we had were fps pros and they just bodied stuff, they had no problem doing it in 2 hours. Everyone that I have watched, I haven’t seen them get to the boss in 3 hours. That’s why we say 15 hours plus or minus.

FL: With the replayability value, what made you decide on a $40 price tag rather than $60?

GG Cureton: I wasn’t actually involved in that decision, I am just a hardcode designer. But, first of we want people to give this game a chance, gaming is competitive, we don’t have the world’s biggest marketing budget, so all we can do is make an awesome game in our minds and do the best job at making this game. We put and say “hey we think people appreciate this value proposition.” It says value game, but I want see any game for $40 where is has almost 140 or even 130 enemy types, 20 bosses, near infinite replayability and part of it is about giving a chance.

You could look at contemporaries, I don’t want to say it plays like Left 4 Dead, but look at games like that were never $60, they were cool.

FL: What would you like to share with the fans of Remnant: From the Ashes?

If there are already fans of Remnant, all I want for them to have an awesome of a time as we had when we played the game…This is a game I wanted to work on because this is a game I can play after it’s done. It’s not like Darksiders when we finished, we completed the game and I knew everything this game had to offer. But because of procedurally generation, because the way people their builds, because of the co-op I will never have to experience everything has to offer by the time it comes out. Even 100 hours in the game after that I won’t.

I hope players will experience the same thing we do which is I’ve never played a game quite like this…

I hope players will experience the same thing we do which is I’ve never played a game quite like this, and that scratches that itch for easy access in terms of attack to melee, aim to shoot, dodge to avoid, and random, as in I don’t know what is going to be around that corner.

That’s what I hope they experience, which is seems like that’s what people are doing and obviously, thanks for supporting us and we’re going to keep supporting this game. I know everyone says that but that is our goal. The game doesn’t stop even when it comes out, we know there are going to be some rough times, there are going to be some issues, so factors we may have to round out some corners, add some quality of life fixes, but we are going to keep supporting this game as we have a long term plan which will be rolled out over time. We talked about Adventure Mode, that’s coming out for free, it’s going to be for players to reroll biomes, but that’s just the start. We already have stuff out beyond that.

We don’t care if you mod the game, you buy the game you do what you want, just don’t ruin it for anyone else.

Remnant: From the Ashes is releasing on August 20th on Steam, Xbox One, Playstation and Arc for $39.99. If you want to get your hands on it early you can gain VIP access on August 16th by pre-ordering.

For more news be sure to read next Remnant: From The Ashes Dark Souls Inspired Shooter Gets New Trailer At PC Gaming Show and Remnant: From The Ashes Cyclops Trailer Released. If you want to know what we thought of Remnant From the Ashes be sure to check out preview.

The post Remnant From the Ashes Developer Interview with Gunfire Games appeared first on Fextralife.

Remnant From the Ashes Developer Interview with Gunfire Games published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/

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