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#i gush about video game vampires too much
yaksha-lover · 2 years
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You Vamp!Au of TWWL is lovely. Can we introduce some GenZ!Mc in there? U know. For chaos
GenZ!MC + Twst Vampire AU
cw: entirely crack, i tried to make this serious but i can’t, i’m deeply sorry but also i’m gonna have to preface this by saying if the “humour” (it’s not actually funny) is cringe it’s because i am actually a very cringe individual with the sense of humour of a 12 year old. also i’m pretty sure i lost multiple iq points writing this
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“Malleus, I have something to tell you. It’s very hard for me to say but,” you pause to work in a sniffle, “I’ve been diagnosed with Ligma. I don’t know how much time I have left.”
With fake tears and tissues straight out of a youtuber apology video, you begin your torment on poor, innocent Malleus.
He’s silent for a moment. Malleus gets up, straight-faced and pulls you into his arms.
“I’m deeply sorry, child of man. I haven’t heard of this illness before but it matters not. Lilia and I will do everything in our power, scour every corner of the earth until we find a cure,” Malleus says, without breaking eye-contact.
“LIGMA BALLS,” you yell. Malleus’ arms loosen in surprise, and you’re able to run, high-five a hiding Ace who’s face has turned red from laughter, and escape to who knows where.
Malleus feels ten years get taken off his life.
-
You’re sitting on the couch with Rook, legs splayed on his lap. Vil is sitting across from you, as far away as he can presumably get, looking disgusted at Rook for associating with you. You make eye contact and blow him a kiss. Vil swerves it, clearly disturbed.
“Begone thot.”
“I don’t know Vil, that’s not what your mom was saying last night when I-“
Rook clamps a hand down on your mouth. It seems even he’s astonished by your depravity. You make eye contact with him before slowly licking his hand. He doesn’t pull away. Okay, now you’re the scared one.
Vil can feel the stress lines forming on his face. He gets up, presumably to start an extensive skin treatment.
-
Sitting in the living room with Ace, Deuce, Epel, and Jack, playing a game of cards when suddenly your next victim walks in. You put down your winning hand, forgoing your victory for what you know is a good cause, a worthy sacrifice.
“Hey, Trey. Would you mind doing me a favour?” You ask him, tone neutral and inconspicuous.
He stops his path to the kitchen, and turns towards your table.
“Of course, MC, what can I do for you?” Trey smiles in his usual friendly way, unaware of the pain that he’s about to endure, the cringe that will keep him awake at night.
Ace is quite literally dying, Deuce is covering his face with his hands, and Epel is already groaning, knowing your antics far too well. Jack, per usual, is unaffected and keeps playing the game, completely apathetic at this point.
“Well since I’m not allowed to leave the mansion, would you mind picking up something for me in town? There’s this baker Joe told me about who’s apparently amazing,” you gush, watching Trey’s face diligently. You don’t want to miss a single moment of this.
“Joe? Who’s Joe?”
“JOE MAMA BITCH,” you get up and immediately start fortnite dancing on his (figurative) corpse. Trey collapses to his knees. Life has no meaning to him anymore. Ace and Deuce are crying, simultaneously tears of laughter and pain stream down their faces. Epel is curled up in a fetus position on the floor, rocking himself back in forth to try and escape the pure agony. Jack continues playing by himself, now alone at the table.
-
You’ve had mercy on Riddle, thus far, knowing his small body can only contain so much emotion at one time. Alas, the day has come where you can no longer hold yourself back. The day that will be known as ‘the great bofa incident’.
A plan that has been weeks in the making, Riddle has no idea that he’s been perfectly set up to take the bait. With Trey as your accomplice (you told him if he did this for you, you wouldn’t target him again - a lie), Riddle’s been given a recipe that Trey’s assured him needs to be followed exactly, lest the entire dish be ruined.
Together in the kitchen, you sit on the counter while Riddle stands near the stove. He turns to you, holding Trey’s recipe.
“Trey has created quite the intricate dish. Even I haven’t heard of this ingredient. Has Trey provided you with this…bofa? Is that some kind of herb?”
If Riddle had bothered to look up as he spoke, he would see the evil smile forming on your face. Weeks of effort, all culminating into this one moment. Some might call it a waste of time, such a tedious process for such a small moment?
Those who would make such claims are those who have never experienced the pure joy, the rush that comes from a getting someone so unsuspecting with such a fantastic, ingenious even, line.
“Bofa? Yeah I’ve heard of it. HEARD OF PUTTING BOFA DEEZ NUTS IN YOUR MOUTH.”
Riddle is stunned. Flabbergasted, even. You expect some kind of reaction, maybe even anger or an outburst but he gives you nothing. You leave him alone in the kitchen, simply disappointed.
Riddle locks himself in the his room for weeks following the incident. No one knows if he’s dead or alive. He can’t even cry anymore, only capable of sitting in the corner and staring blankly ahead, trapped in an existential crisis and losing his will to keep going a little more each day.
-
Idia has been going on and on to you about his latest experience with an online troll during one of this gaming sessions. Ample opportunity is created for you to strike again, and you cannot resist your true calling.
“Who?” You say to Idia.
“I don’t know their name, it was just a stranger-“
“No, who asked?”
With this sick blow, you’ve completely shattered all of Idia’s already non-existent self-confidence. He deflates, face planting on the floor and not having the will to get up. Idia is reduced to a heap of blue, becoming a stranger to all emotions except for pure cringe. The doctors say he won’t ever recover.
“Gottem,” you say to yourself as you walk out, leaving the carnage you created behind.
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wiccadrosenberg · 5 months
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WiccadRosenberg Intro/Rules:
//Okay babes, here's the sitch: I'm still setting up here. This is a closed circle- if we're tight on my main @wickedlehane then I want to continue playing with you and exploring BTVS + associated crossover relationships with you here. If you're not already my mutual on Wickedlehane/Faith, please take a detour and let's discuss.
This "muse" includes the sub-muses of Vampire Willow and Dark Willow too.
My time is so limited these days I'm prioritizing reliable and engaging folks with whom I've already gushed about BTVS stuff/general writing good vibes.
I only have a handful of icons for Willow and they're circa S4/5. This blog will be 99% iconless, minimal formatting. I simply don't have the time or skill for fancy setups.
I favor plotting/discussion, especially for a more private muse like this. I'm also not gonna get into ship wars/discourse regarding the topic of Willow's sexuality. Attractions will be appropriate to the era being written, predominantly lesbian with a healthy heaping of comphet in the earlier years. However, I am not putting a firm label on it. I do love her love with Oz.
I'm not Jewish nor am I a practicing wiccan/witch. I'm not even gonna try to fake my way through those things. I do have the Grimoire companion book and the BTVS RPG Magic Box handbook so I'll pull a lot of the hocus pocus from those sources as they adhere (mostly) to the in-world logic of magic.
I also find the whole "addicted to magic" subplot a mess. I am not an expert in real-world addictive tendencies. I will take liberties with this- I think of it more as an immature ego trip and desire for the power she didn't have/was denied when she was younger. Repression of the self, now diving into a compensation for insecurity with massive power she finds herself capable of.
TV, Comics, Video Games, Novels, Tie-in RPG- I've read/watched/played so much. I'm down for post-series verses, AUs, weird stuff, OC children (with trust and discussion because several series' do make it work).
On the subject of shipping- I don't hate Kennedy. I don't love her, but we can discuss. Tara, Faith, Buffy, Oz- all good choices. Even Fred, if you've got her. I'd prefer to keep Xander relationships as platonic/comphet yearning, despite their bad choices in S3.
I think that's the meat of it tbh, I'm currently rewatching the series and Willow's always been one of my faves. I love her lots, and want to have fun playing her and hope you have fun writing with her. I'll update y'all if any significant changes occur.
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@awesomeuchuu​ asked:  Among all the DR characters, what made you muse Sonia?
Ask me anything on Munday especially when I get to gush about the best princess in anime and video games - Accepting!
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I’ll put it this way: I did not choose the Danganronpa RPC life, it chose me.
I watched the DR1 anime right after it originally came out and, to be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed: I liked Celestia because who doesn’t want their own castle and to be waited on by hot vampire butlers (that don’t sparkle, thank you very much) and Byakuya was my fave, but I didn’t really connect with much of the cast. I think if I’d seen it as a teenager, I would’ve fallen more easily in love but the edginess of it all, especially where Junko is concerned, didn’t hold the same appeal over me.
Even though I liked the Ultimate Affluent Progeny for recognizing that he’s better than all of them (true facts).
And then, out of curiosity and dating a big video gamer, I realized the DR story didn’t end after the first anime. There was a sequel! On a tropical island! So I mustered up the will to play a video game, knowing full well I’d need a walkthrough and I’d still be swearing at every mini game. And every timed feature. And basically the game in general (I’m not allowed to play too many video games in fear of breaking controllers/consoles or disturbing the peace). 
And then...Sonia.
One, I already loved historical dramas, modern royals, and Disney Princesses.
Two, I was already a big horror movie fan and indulged in plenty of true crime documentaries.
Three, she was foreign. She’s from Europe! If I get Japanese cultural norms incorrect I have an excuse! I watch some anime, but nothing current or terribly popular for the most part: it was easier to keep up with though university but less so in my twenties and thirties.
And four, she was kind. I’ve played a lot of muses in the past, but overall they tend to be: bitchy, flirtatious, evil or married to evil, or the stoic badass (think personality types like Kyoko, Peko, or Maki from Danganronpa). Beyond one other instance, I’d never actually written for a character who was just...nice. Rich but not snobby, refined but not mean, who just wants to watch Jason Voorhees murder a lot of people while riding roller coasters in hell.
It was absolutely no contest compared to other Danganronpa muses. I could take the (very) little I was given and weave in real-life history, fictional royalty and their associated media, Rich People Problems, and have a place to dump in my useless horror movie knowledge all the while befriending pretty much every muse that crosses her path (Except you, Junko. Kazuichi, you’re on thin ice).
I did play Danganronpa V3 but I didn’t really resonate with anyone there (I try not to talk about V3 over here because my opinions will upset some people) and watched a walkthrough of UDG. I still maintain SDR2 is the best game out of all of them and the whole Hope’s Peak Academy story/arc is wonderful.
In short: on this blog we stan one (1) Princess of Novoselic and she is not useless and definitely deserved her fate in the game and I will argue anyone who says otherwise. I still think the game should’ve shown her actually driving a tank, though. At least the DR3 OVA gave us blessed content with the rocket launcher. 
Let Sonia fight you cowards.
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thatndginger · 8 months
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Happy WBW! ♥️ What's the section of worldbuilding that's your favorite? Feel free to gush about it or share something you've created!
Hey Tori! Thanks for the ask <3
Honestly, my favorite part of worldbuilding has always been creature creation for the Shapeshifter world. I'm a giant fucking nerd who loves to research, so anytime I need a new Creature, I throw myself into research.
Like... Shapeshifters, right? Pretty much every culture in the world has stories about shapeshifting beings who inhabit a wide range of appearances and abilities. I started with werewolves - because at the time I thought I was gonna be writing about werewolves lol - and went through every place I could possibly think of to find information about werewolf myths and modern stories across the globe. I looked through historical texts, a few weird sci-fi novels, movies, video games, tv shows, academic essays, some not-so-good-ya-literature - literally anything that had the word werewolf attached. I had this massive document with an entry for each source I found listing the werewolf transformation techniques, werewolf traits and behavior, anything I thought was interesting or pertinent. I highlighted things that were consistent across multiple sources and made a cheat sheet of the most commonly used werewolf traits and origins that could be considered 'universal werewolf building blocks'.
And then, I went through that cheat sheet and picked the things I liked most and frankensteined them together to create my own personal version of a werewolf. I spent a very long time fine-tuning my werewolves and making them something I enjoyed writing about, and something that felt unique. I know it's practically impossible to make a completely unique werewolf these days, but the last thing I want is to feel like I copy-pasted someone else's ideas into my own story.
Granted, the werewolves I made are.... very different from what I now use in the Shapeshifter world, but I have them saved in their own special corner in case I ever find something I can use them in. Lycanthropy as a DNA-altering, symbiotic virus is just too fun of an idea for me to let go of, you know?
This is kind of my standard technique when creating a creature now. Sometimes I have to purposefully narrow my search to a certain region and section of cultures because of just how much information there is to sort through, but it hasn't failed me yet. I keep my original research documents somewhere safe so that if I ever need to come up with a new version of a creature or alter the aspects of an already-made one I have all my notes right there.
I can't get too in-depth about any specific Creature I've made for plot reasons, but so far the human-like shapeshifters and faeries are my favorites, with vampires as a close third ^.^
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prose-for-hire · 3 years
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Face your demon
Pairing: Spike x reader
Request: Could you do A Spike x reader where the reader is in love with him, but doesn't show her emotions (except for getting easily flustered around him), but Spike overhears hears her talking to willow about it and he confronts her, ending in them being together?
Requested by: @wiccanindigo​
Requested tags: @fictionalhoomanofnowhere @artsymaddie​ @shy-ginger-in-the-graveyard​ @cameo-greaves​
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​You were pretty neutral in public. Your face rarely shifted other than to a polite smile or perhaps a confused frown should the moment take you by surprise. Other than this human reaction, you would usually maintain a resting face. One that appeared to most as if you didn’t wish to be in their company. Or anywhere at all really.
You felt a lot. You really cared about your friends, the people you loved. It was just near-impossible to express this. At least, in a way that you were comfortable. It was much easier to hold people at a distance. That way, you didn’t risk rejection. Or painful, bitter emotions that you didn’t enjoy.
So, you tended to hide your emotional side completely. Rather than wrestle with articulating the way you felt. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, just one that you lived with. You struggled expressing your emotions – not only on your face but also verbally. Any way, really. It could be so hard.
Luckily for you though, you had some very caring and empathetic friends. The Scoobies. They understood and gave you the time you needed – between fighting apocalypses of course.
You were sat in the Magic box with all of your friends around you. Buffy, Willow, Xander, Anya, Tara and Giles. You were characteristically just staring into the centre of the room as the usual antics played out around you.
You contributed now and again although not as passionately as the others, it must be said. You tended to bounce off of someone else’s point and repeat it if you agreed with it with a shrug. As if you would rather be anywhere but there.
You weren’t shy. In fact you came across as the complete opposite. Cool, collected. Near apathetic should your friends not understand how deeply you truly did care – you just didn’t express it as much as most. There was no need to gush in your book. You weren’t one to keep your heart on your sleeve and make the entire room look at it.
Well, that was until him.
Spike ran in, slamming the door shut behind him. It slammed so hard the entire store shook and he sauntered in as if it was nothing. It made the corners of your mouth tug into an almost-smile but you looked down to avoid anyone seeing.
There he was, your weakness. The one that could render you speechless. A flustered mess. A heat would rise in your cheeks and your voice would appear weak and just wholly unlike yourself.
You had it bad. He always did this, walking in with that swagger. Those cheekbones. That look…
His eyes were straight on you. As they always were. You were a mystery to him, one he was so desperate to figure out. You had noticed the way he always made his way to you. The way he dropped his voice and made comments about the others in the room in the hopes of you cracking a smile.
You spoke to him as much as you could, but often your words failed you. You didn’t want to give anything away. Couldn’t. You didn’t want him to tease you, reject you in such a painful way.
He was Spike, after all. He could have anyone he wanted you were sure of it.
The point was, though, that he wanted you. And you were too wrapped up in focusing on how to breath properly when he was around that you didn’t notice.
Spike found your resting face beautifully morbid. He found you to be strong-willed and the very little he sensed or heard from you he found himself clinging to. You would be stamped onto his brain for the rest of his un-life, he was sure of it.
He was in so deep. Thought about you constantly. Wanted to know what you were doing, what you were thinking. Imagined himself by your side. Taking you into his bed… oh, and I won’t even start on the dreams. They left him aching. Such deep, unending desire. For you. God, it could only ever be you.
“Alright, pet? Don’t rush to say you missed me, written on your face already” He smouldered in that way he did. Hoping for any kind of reaction.
You looked up at him before immediately looking away. A ghost of a smile on your face as you shifted in your seat. He took this as an invitation to sit beside you and so he did.
“Hi Spike” You just about managed before your voice wavered. You didn’t like the way he rendered you this flustered mess. But, at the same time you couldn’t help but completely love it.
Your usual cool demeanour gone. Lost in those beautiful eyes of his. You could happily live in his eyes for the rest of your life.
You managed to position yourself in your seat in such a way that meant he made up most of you vision, without it looking glaringly obvious to anyone else. He lived in your peripheral vision. At least this way a little part of him was yours.
You became a little brave and moved your eyes to look at him properly, no longer just from the side. He was beautiful. The way that t-shirt clung perfectly to his torso. The way his leather duster managed to land in such a relaxed way on his shoulders. Effortless cool. Or, that’s what you assumed.
You loved him. His looks. His personality. Just everything. You couldn’t escape it.
Something snapped you out of staring. Everyone’s eyes were suddenly on you. Staring.
“Huh?” You asked, feeling a heat rise in your cheeks as he turned to face you properly too. You had apparently managed to miss the entire meeting. Not one scrap of the plan had entered your head. You were consumed by him instead.
“Y/n? You sure that’s okay?”
“We’ll be fine on patrol, right love?” Spike smirked at the rest of the room and raised an eyebrow which made everyone reconsider.
“We can switch if evil dead makes you uncomfortable” Xander offered kindly which made spike glare. He wanted you to himself.
“No that’s good- uh, fine. It’s fine. I’ll patrol with Spike” you rushed out at a completely different pace than anyone was used to hearing you speak.
What you were supposed to be looking for, you didn’t know. You hadn’t been listening just focusing on regulating your breathing. Wiping the sweat from your palms at the proximity. He was sat so close to you. You wanted to just lean against him. Whisper how you felt.
You and Spike walked out into the cool night air. Mostly in silence, although you could almost hear the cogs in his mind whirring to come up with something to say. You didn’t realise but he was trying to impress you. Trying to get you to smile. He loved it when you smiled. Near melted.
He then finally asked something he had so wanted to say to you. For such a long time.
“We could, uh, blow this off, go for a drink?” He let the proposition hang in the air.
You didn’t even begin to consider this had been something more than a teasing joke because he didn’t want to be stuck patrolling anymore. Just wanted to rebel against Buffy’s sudden authority in his life.
“Yeah, because I’ve always thought you’d look great with a redwood through your chest” You spoke, referring to what Buffy would do to him should he leave you or the demon to run through the streets.
“Pet-”
“It’d make a pretty accessory. Bring out your eyes” You deadpanned and he just stared. Why were you like this? Why did your flirting so quickly descend into just being rude?
It was like a disease. You were riddled with it. Any sense that your mouth would spill the contents of your mind and something took over. Possessed you, began to say the very opposite of what you wished to say.
You wanted him to ask you out for a drink. Tell you that you looked nice, that he felt lucky to have someone like you to take out. Have on his arm. Show off. You wanted to loop your arms around him and embrace him. Kiss his lips. Have him in your bed. His body yours and only yours.
But, instead, you had just told him he would look better dead. Or, well, more dead. He had taken this as a firm no, you didn’t want to go out with him. He looked upwards, trying to stop the stinging at the back of his eyes before he nodded firmly and just shrugged.
“Whatever, let’s find this vamp”
Oh, right. It was a vampire. You were supposed to be looking for a vampire. That at least narrowed it down… kind of.
Both of you took turns in glancing at the person beside them. So desperately wishing to touch them. Have some kind of intimacy. It was hard having the one that you loved so close and yet emotionally so far away.
There was a distance. A canyon between you that you both wished to cross. But it was so hard. There would be no turning back.
You never caught up with the vampire you were meant to find and Spike walked you home instead when it got too late. You tried to thank him for the gesture but he had turned and walked away. Licking his wound at the rejection you had inflicted upon him without realising.
Despite the fact you had hurt him though, he had needed to make sure you got in safe. Protecting you from harm meant everything even if you wouldn’t give him the time of day.
It had been a couple of days since this unwitting rejection and you and Willow had arrived early waiting to meet with the others at the Magic Box. Giles had gone to pick up some order sat the back. Which left just you and your friend. Well, that’s what you thought anyway.
She was the only one that knew how you felt for Spike. She had seen you watching him, a new expression unlocked on your face. As if she had won a quest or something in a video game and been allowed to see it.
Conversation had quickly turned to this man that you were so in love with it managed to fluster even you. You near hid your face from your friend at even the implication you liked him. But you were comfortable that Willow was being supportive.
You discussed that you liked him. Truly admitted it out loud for the first time. Not realising that the man himself was stood around the corner listening. He loved to hear your voice and so had stayed back because you seemed to speak less in his company.
Spike’s jaw tensed as he heard you talking about this mystery man though. He had never heard you gush this way before. Stumbling over your words to describe such longing. You usually appeared so calm, collected. He wished to be the one that sent you weak at the knees in the way that this nameless idiot did. He guessed it was probably Xander.
Stupid bloody Xander. Gormless nit.
“Maybe, uh, you should tell him? You can’t know his feelings unless you try” Willow offered.
Spike guiltily hoped that you would have to face rejection so that he could comfort you instead. Spend more time with you, prove to you that you could trust him with your emotions. He so longed to have your attention. Your trust.
“I can’t… I-it’s too hard” You sighed and his spirits lifted, maybe this would be his chance instead. While you tried to build up your courage, he could show you how much you meant to him. How much he wanted you.
Nothing could have prepared him for what came out of your mouth next. There had been only a slight pause while you sifted through your emotions.
“He’s so- he’s… he’s Spike” You had no other description other than this spike-ness was all that you wanted. You near craved it. But also these words explained how hard it was. How trying to speak to him was near impossible. Willow nodded in understanding and patted your shoulder sympathetically.
“It could be good for you, y’know? Facing your, uh, demon…” Willow’s voice dried up. Turned into a little squeak. You looked up, confused.
There he was, as if your longing had been a magnet to the man himself. Your eyes bulged and your mouth opened in shock. The most your face had ever given away.
Willow stumbled over some excuse that neither Spike nor you heard before she left for the exit. Allowing you to both speak.
“I’m the bloke you’ve been harpin’ on about?” He said slowly. He did this only because he wanted to hear it from your mouth again. As if he wasn’t entirely sure if he had dreamed it or not.
“We don’t have to make it into a big deal… I’m sure I’ll, uh, get over it” You tried, avoiding the rejection you could feel coming.
“Don’t” He said quickly, “God, please bloody don’t get over it. You’d break a poor dead man’s heart if you did”
“What?” You asked, frowning in confusion. He couldn’t possibly feel the same way… could he?
“Don’t be daft, love. Asked you for a drink didn’t I? Trailed after you despite you not even pretending to take an interest. Been there just in the nick of time before somethin’ nasty ate you?” He reeled off things he had pretty much done in the last fourty-eight hours. It made you gasp with surprise. How had you missed this? “Tell me I haven’t bent over bloody backwards for even a shred of your affection,”
“Spike…” You looked away, it was so hard. You didn’t even know how to begin to say what you needed to.
“Please, don’t shy away. Can’t stand it when your eyes wander…”
“Spike, I…” He took your hand, nodding subtly to show that he was there. That he liked you, that he needed to hear it. Whatever it may be, “I love you”
Spike pulled you into him immediately, knowing this must have bee hard for you. He was beginning to understand. You were like him, petrified of the rejection. The idea that the one that held such promise and stirred such feeling could ruin everything. You restored his faith in love. Rekindled his affections for the notion as well as confirming that he loved you too.
He crashed his lips to yours, his reply to your words communicated in this way. And you understood completely. Lips moving against yours, a display of affection only for you. he was firm in his love but so very tender. He embraced you close, a hand along the small of your back that made you shiver and lean further into him. Deepening this perfect kiss.
You parted, somewhat reluctantly and just gazed at the other for a moment before he spoke.
“I’m just glad you don’t have eyes for the whelp” Spike grinned and it made your face brighten. A smile. One that he savoured as you rolled your eyes at him being so pleased you liked him more than Xander.
He took your hand in his and sauntered beside you. Chest puffed out and proud to have you by his side. As if you had just gifted him the entire world.
Now you just had to break it to your friends. There was no way you would be hiding this.
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casualmaraudering · 3 years
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Youtuber Sirius AU
yes i’m making a post about a yt au in the year of the lord 2020 get over it
sirius’s channel is pretty varied - he posts with no particular schedule, or theme, he just. posts whatever he wants
there’s gaming videos. there’s just chatting about stuff. song covers - electric guitar, piano, or singing. but he also does a little bit of cinematography sometimes, or live streams where he composes songs
titles including: “why is Mr Darcy the perfect man” (which is 47 minutes long btw), “properly caring for a motorbike engine (tips)”, “beach trip + getting terribly sunburnt (no, i’m not actually a vampire)” “pranking my flatmate pt 39”
james features on his channel quite a lot, usually as a victim of pranks or someone to play games with
he gets famous cause his videos are so chill, and often super funny, not to mention he has a fucking fantastic voice and his covers are some of his most viewed videos on his channel. and welp. he is good looking
known as the eye candy of youtube pretty much 
he’s got a wide fanbase and a huge instagram following, got quite a few interviews on TV and even a magazine cover
he didn’t expect to be famous, especially since he did it just cause he was bored, as a hobby more than anything, but hey, he has a great community and it works out fantastic tbh. the money is a plus, yes, but he already had a very cushy life cause of inheritance, so he donates most -if not all - of his yt income
remus isn’t famous at all. he's a student who works at a bookstore. he’s very much a Normal Person TM
he has the biggest fucking celebrity crush on sirius which is real unfortunate cause sirius has like 30mil subscribers and is pretty much a model on ig. and remus. remus is remus
he stumbled on one of his videos by accident. and sirius was gorgeous and funny and talented. and then he binged his whole channel. and the crush hit so hard 
they get together somehow i don’t know, i didn’t plan out this post too much don’t judge me, but it probably involves remus freaking the fuck out about it a lot
sirius has always been pretty nonchalant about his sexuality but when he finally makes a video about it - titled “yes i really am gay it’s not just for a twitter meme” - it’s actually a rather serious video (aside some jokes) cause he wants to be a good role model for the younger queer boys that might be watching him
when they start dating, he doesn’t mention remus that much, but he does mention A Boyfriend, and his fans pick up on that quick cause hello, that’s new
remus’s guilty pleasure is scrolling through social media and seeing memes/posts about the mystery boyfriend and how whipped sirius seems
at first, remus doesn’t appear in sirius’s videos at all, for like a good couple months
when he does start appearing, at first it’s through comments off camera - it’s also when the people learn his name
cue fanmade videos like “remus bullying sirius for 29 minutes”, “remus being sassy (compliation)” or “sirius being gay for remus part 1/2347823432″
which just get better when remus finally does agree to be on camera
“compilation of remus looking at sirius like he’s the dumbest being on earth” “sirius hearteyes black” “remus being relatable for 12 minutes and 29 seconds”
sirius loves posting photos of them being cute together just because he loves his boyfriend okay? usually they involve remus hiding his face cause he’s insecure, but that’s so adorable sirius can’t be mad
sirius starts posting an awful lot of love song covers
honestly sirius probably reads fics of them for the laughs (and sometimes sends remus the hilariously bad ones so they can laugh together)
sirius saves every fanart he sees of himself and remus or just of remus. he has to
people go badshit when sirius posts an engagement photo and sirius is so fucking happy that he gets to just gush about his fiance on twitter as if he’s a schoolboy
like honestly. sirius’s twitter? remus. so much gushing about remus
their wedding video is the most viewed video of the year, and one of the most viewed videos of all times
remus ends up tweeting like “funny how five years ago i had a celebrity crush on that one hot youtuber and yesterday i married him” he’s living the dream tbh
sirius has fucking field day with domestic videos: “giving my husband cooking instructions except i only speak french (spoiler: it’s a mess)”, “mario kart with my husband” “reacting to memes of me and my husband”
a couple months after they’re married sirius has a chill live stream where all he does is literally just. talk about remus and how fucking happy he is in his life. it’s so gay. and so wholesome
there’s an ongoing meme within the community that everyone likes remus more than sirius. sirius runs with it and loves it cause he loves people raising his baby’s confidence. generally posts about remus? 10/10, reblog/retweet, saves them, sirius is his no.1 stan
there’s people hating on them, of course. people who shipped sirius with james. homophobes. people who are just jealous of remus. at first that hits remus a lot, like, he’s not used to getting hate DMs, so that sucks extra hard. but sirius always tries his best to cheer him up and hey, it doesn’t matter what the people say, cause sirius would drop his career immediately if remus as much as asked
another fandom favourite meme: sirius being a simp for remus. sirius never denies it 
1K notes · View notes
bigfan-fanfic · 3 years
Text
Nerd Cap (Male!Reader x Steve Rogers)
Requested by @itslouielou Steve retiring and finding a nerdy boyfriend (non-endgame compliant) Can it be extra fluffy please??? 🥺
ABSOLUTELY IT CAN!!!
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“Okay. I use... Athletics?”
“Steve, bro.” One of your friends says. She’s taken every chance to call your boyfriend “bro” she possibly can and Steve loves it. “We’re in a ballroom trying to find a vampire. What would you even use it for?”
“Uhhh... to throw something?”
Ever since he retired from hero work after defeating Thanos, Steve has hoped to become a greater part of your life, and find something that brings him enjoyment.
He had no idea what Critical Role was when Peter Parker first recommended it to him, but with a bit of research on the ever-useful Internet, Steve quickly became interested.
Of course, Steve’s definitely more of a tactile person, so when he decided to try out Dungeons and Dragons, he hoped to find a group at a physical table top.
But Bucky preferred solo video games, and Sam wasn’t much into games at all. Peter was heading into college, and none of his other living friends had much interest. And of course he found it hard to go out in public because everybody knew his face.
So, once again, that led him to the ever-useful internet.
Which was where you met him. Under a username, he messaged one of your friends over a message board, asking to join a group. And you offered to take the newbie on as your apprentice, helping him out and explaining anything he needed to know.
BrooklynBud616 was pretty fun to talk with online. He was funny, even a little flirty, and receptive to all your hints. And he was great to play with. You quickly learned his name was Steve, and you two set up a private chat just for you two.
You introduced Steve to some video games, streamers on Twitch, D&D games recorded on YouTube, and gushed with him about fandoms. Slowly you came to trust each other with more personal information. And Steve asked if maybe you two could video chat. 
He’s never told you how much he appreciated how you reacted when his familiar face (a little more stubbly, a little more careworn than in media photos) appeared on your screen. Your eyes widened in surprise, awe, and then understanding as you processed it, and then you nodded. “Nice to see your face, BrooklynBud.”
He grinned, unsure exactly why his heart was suddenly fluttering. “Really? I’m hideous, haven’t shaved in too long.”
“Nah, it’s... actually really nice.” you say, blushing, and Steve grins.
Eventually you’re chatting constantly, video calling almost every day. Sometimes he streams a video game and you watch and give commentary, sometimes the other way around. Sometimes you just talk. Sometimes you watch something on Netflix together. Eventually Steve works up the courage to ask you on a date. 
Things progress quickly, and you end up moving in with Steve (and finding out that since your online D&D sessions don’t use the webcam, his preferred attire for your games is in his boxers)
Steve comes with you to fan events, preferring to cosplay in a mask or helmet so he can just be Steve your equally-nerdy boyfriend. One time he brought you to a LARP session where he somehow found a full set of knight armor, putting on a rainbow cape. (He decided to take off his helmet so that everybody could see him like that)
He gets a D20 tattoo on his pectoral, right over his heart, because D&D is what brought him to you.
Your friends are really chill about it, as well as most of the other nerdy folks you come across. Sometimes you and your D&D party hold video sessions where Steve gets to show off the miniatures he made and the sketches he drew.
One of your friends freaks out because Bucky is in the background playing The Witcher 3 (Steve attempts to set them up)
And after a while, Steve is just another part of the group and your doting boyfriend. He enlists the help of your party so that his character proposes to yours in the game, and then all your friends tell you to turn around - and there’s Steve with a ring and a grin.
He just loves you so much. And he loves getting to be nerdy with you.
338 notes · View notes
daemoninwhiteround2 · 3 years
Note
Could I please request some siren!tim or vampire!tim using their mind-control song/powers to ensnare unsuspecting Jay, who really just thought he was loaning another book to a (crush?) friend....
If asked, Jason would say that he and Tim and sort of friends. School friends. Jason doesn’t really think about him outside of school - OK, he’ll occasionally see an ad for some video game or something that Tim’s mentioned and think of him - and outside of lunch and recess, they don’t hang out.
Tim’s OK, Jason guesses. Jason isn’t really sure how much they have in common with one another, but their views align well enough that they can easily help each other with homework, swap tips about dealing with certain teachers and bitch about the school bullies. The one thing that seems to unite both the old money and new money fuckers is that they think Jason is a jumped up Crime Alley bastard that doesn’t deserve his place in Wayne Manor or in Bruce’s will. Tim’s a nerd and open about it, so the bullying he gets is usually along those sorts of lines.
Tim asking for Jason mobile number is ... kind of weird. A little past the boundaries they’ve established with one another. Jason’s fairly certain that Tim isn't setting him up for a Carrie moment, and Tim says he just wants his number so that he can send Jason memes, so Jason shrugs internally and gives it to him. Bruce has been on his case about making new friends anyway, or as on his case as Bruce gets, which basically amounts to him asking Jason if there’s a ‘school buddy’ he’d like to invite over during the weekend and then getting weirdly intense about letting Jason know that it’s totally fine to have someone over, that he doesn’t have to worry about being Robin, and it’s totally possible to have civilian friends as well as superhero friends.
Tim’s texts are normal enough. Jason doesn’t know why he’d been so weird about it. Tim mainly does just send Jason memes, and has good enough taste in them that they usually make Jason laugh even if he doesn’t often have the intertextuality required to get the deeper jokes in them. The first time Jason makes a reference to one during lunch, Tim snorts so hard he chokes on a bite of sandwich.
The first time Tim calls him is a little weird. Tim texts first, says that he has amazing news and he needs to call Jason to share it. Jason says yes, mainly because he thinks saying no would be too rude. Tim calls him barely five seconds after Jason sends the text, and Jason spends the next hour and a half listening to Tim gush excitedly about the gameplay trailer for a video game that just dropped. It’s kind of sweet, especially when Tim hesitantly asks if he can call again next week sometime. Jason agress without a thought.
Tim has an unexpectedly nice voice. Jason never really thought about it - get a bunch of kids, even rich assholes, in one place and they’re gonna be loud, so during their shared lunches, Tim’s voice has to contend with a hundred others. When it’s just the two of them on the phone, and Tim’s going on about something and Jason doesn’t really have to respond, just make appropaite listening noises every so often, Jason kind of zones out and gets lost in Tim’s cadence. Tim never brings it up, so Jason must never say anything weird, but yeah. It’s nice, unexpectedly nice.
Jason thinks that he might invite Tim over, during their next call.
--
The calls are going so well. Jason’s mind spreads itself open for Tim with just a few, carefully chosen words. Tim’s so excited for Jason to invite him around next wekeend - he knows both Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth are going to be gone, so it will just be him and Jason alone in the Manor.
Tim plans to find out if Jason’s legs open up as pretty as his mind does.
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whereisten · 4 years
Text
Creature Feature - Part 3
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Preview | Taeil blurb
Summary: You work at your family’s 9-5 nighttime theater for the supernatural. Your fling with vampire!Taeyong is just that: a fling.
Pairing: Vampire!Taeyong x female reader
Word Count: 4.9k words
Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Smut
Warnings: cursing, attempted suicide mention, death mention, oral sex (male receiving), fingering, penetration, cock warming
Part 3
[8:30 PM]
It was Saturday night. Your parents rewarded you with the weekend off and you caught up on some sleep and did some online shopping. You sat in your apartment in one of the many high rises in Downtown Mystic. You laid on the couch and scrolled through a webtoon on your tablet, kicking your legs like a lovesick schoolgirl. The latest chapter of the webcomic had you gushing. 
Your phone sounded off a text. You didn’t even have to check who it was.
Your parents were back for two weeks now and Yuta’s gifts did not cease. He was sneaky, you had to hand it to him. He somehow always knew when your parents weren’t around to drop things off at your office. It was a good thing he never figured out where you lived.
Day 1 (when your parents came back): The Tiffany necklace
Day 2: a $250 gift card to the Hand and Stone Massage and Facial Spa
Day 3: a Versace safety pin evening dress (he knew your measurements a little too well as it fit you like a glove)
Day 4: Godiva chocolate covered strawberries delivered to you every night before you left for work
…..It made your head spin to even go to Day 14. 
You didn’t use any of Yuta’s gift’s (except for the strawberries because those couldn’t go to waste and you planned to start up a payment plan with him when you kindly rejected him...AGAIN). 
Every time you tried to approach Yuta, though, you were always pulled in another direction by an employee at work. You were everyone’s go-to woman. Their emotional support only daughter. You couldn’t catch a break.
To hell with it, when you got back to work on Monday night, you would ignore everyone for 10 minutes and they would just have to accept it. You would find Yuta when he “stopped by to meet a friend” like he has for the past two weeks. 
Taeyong wasn’t around much either. You met up only a couple of times to French kiss like it was a contact sport but conveniently neither of you had time to be disappointed when you had to part. You both had lives to live. Separately. 
So, there you were, on Saturday night, feeling antsy with nothing to do now that you had to wait for the next chapter of True Beauty to update next week. You weren’t used to being free on a Saturday. It was a weird feeling. To no avail, you called up a couple of friends to see if they were down to go clubbing. You were always the designated driver so you thought they would jump at the chance to avoid paying for a Lyft. 
Alcohol only had a temporary effect on your body: hence, the dream designated driver. 99% human. You wished there was a name for the type of creature you were. Your parents were adamant that you were a human but you knew you stood out from the rest of that population. Your parents were never particularly fond of talking about your family history either so that did wonders for your anxiety.
Age 16
“But mom, how is that I can sense things? The other day at CVS I got change back from the cashier and I knew he wasn’t human. How does that make sense?” I asked.
“You were kissed by an angel, sweetheart. You were blessed with all sorts of quirky gifts. But you are a human: the purest of all of the creatures. Well, below angels. But we’re pretty close.” She replied, winking. I inherited humility from her, apparently.
Now that you were getting older...you were starting to have doubts about this whole “kissed by an angel” business. Why didn’t your mom have any of your abilities? It just didn’t add up. 
You could only hold on to the things you knew: you could understand any creature, you could identify any creature in disguise, your cuts from falls healed very quickly, you could manipulate your dreams, your alcohol tolerance was most impressive, and you had a powerful urge to be with a vampire. 
You missed the feel of Taeyong’s elegant fingers tracing against your thighs and moving dangerously close to your heat. His teasing was torturous but you enjoyed every second of it. You found yourself mimicking his movements to yourself and imagining he was there with you. 
You got off on fantasizing Taeyong on top of you on the couch but the euphoria didn’t last long.
You sighed. You felt really stupid for not sharing your phone number with him. 
 🎥
You thought about going to Target for the hell of it since you never had a chance to go. Your unusual schedule would usually lead you to groggily shop for groceries at 8 in the morning once in a while. You were elated to go at nighttime and kill a couple of hours browsing.
You chose to go makeup free and in an old university tee and yoga pants. It felt good not give a fuck about how you looked for a night. 
You headed over to Target and made a beeline for the Starbucks to get a frappuccino. You haven’t had one of them in months and you were close to the point of tears when you tasted the whipped cream again .
You moaned in happiness. “Yes.”
“I’ve heard that before,” a voice came from behind you. 
You jumped at hearing Taeyong’s voice. “AH!’
Taeyong chuckled when you turned around. “Stop! I could’ve dropped my frap.”
He was in a loose-fitting white tee and black jeans. They looked affordable but you knew that was not the case. He took the straw and drank some of your drink. “I would’ve bought you another one.”
You rolled your eyes. “Very charming. What are you doing here?” 
“It’s nice to see you, too, y/n,” he said, pecking your cheek and caressing it. 
You sighed. “Do you live around here?” This Target was down the street from your place. 
He shook his head. “I’ve been on the lookout for a video game for Doyoung. I’ve been to two Targets already.” Doyoung was one of Taeyong’s vampire pals. 
You frowned. “You should’ve called ahead and asked if they had it in stock.”
Taeyong’s eyes grew. “I did not realize that was an option.”
You laughed. “It’s cool. If you want, we can go to all of the Targets across town until we find Doyoung’s game.”
He smiled. “I’d like that.”
The third time was the charm as Taeyong found Doyoung’s game: Princess Peach & Pals 2. You high fived each other when you checked it out.
Taeyong asked, “I didn’t see you at Sinema yesterday. Are you okay?” 
You took his hand and squeezed it. “Got the weekend off.”
Taeyong looked happier than you did when your parents told you. “I’m glad. You really needed it.” 
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s kind of weird not having any plans or someone knocking at my door asking for help with the claw machine.”
He chuckled because he helped you fix the claw machine a couple of times. “So you’re free, then?”
“Yup. Why? What were you thinking?”
He stepped back and wrapped his arms around you from behind. “Spend the night with me.”
You restrained yourself from yelling yes a hundred times. “Okay.”
Taeyong led you to the parking lot. He approached his motorcycle, a 2018 Suzuki. You stopped. How could you forget that he rode a motorcycle.
“y/n?” Taeyong asked as he pulled out two helmets. 
“You know what, how about I just take a Lyft over to your place? Gives you time to hide your snacks and your blood bags.” You avoided his stare.
He frowned. “Why?”
“I’m...I don’t do motorcycles.” You hugged yourself. 
You were scared, Taeyong realized. He never wanted you to be afraid. He tried his best to see to it that you would feel safe without him. He never wanted to cross a line that you drew. He thought the only way he could scare you was if he bit you. 
He thought wrong. 
“I’ll go slow, I promise,” he said as he hugged you again. 
You mumbled against his chest. “I don’t know…”
“You can trust me. I don’t live that far from here. It’ll be ten minutes, tops.”
You knew your fear was over-the-top but you couldn’t help it. So many maniacs were on the road. You could barely keep it together in your Corolla. But you were curious. You wanted to push the fear aside and be a little reckless. Taeyong wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Regardless of what your parents told you, vampires were strong and they protected their own. Taeyong regarded you as an equal. He’s said it multiple times. You were his friend and he would take care of you.
So what the hell?
“Okay,” you said, steadying your voice. 
He helped you secure your helmet. He did the same for himself. He got onto the bike. He nodded for you to get on. You wrapped your arms tightly around his abdomen. It was rock solid and you could feel his heartbeat accelerate. 
“Hey. Don’t let me distract you,” you teased.
He chuckled. “Even when you’re not around, love.”
You smacked his arm. “You’re so annoying.”
He laughed. “You ready?”
“Let’s go,” you said as you squeezed him tighter.
Taeyong enjoyed this more than you will ever know. He started up the bike and you moved at a decent speed out of the parking lot. Your heart rate was deceiving you and you knew Taeyong could feel it, too. 
You just let yourself feel what you felt and hoped that excitement would take over. And it did. 
When you got onto the main road, you cheered and laughed. You let yourself be free. For all of your life, you liked to think you had some freedom. At the root of it all, you were stuck in a lot of ways: family obligations, your career, and who you could marry, to name a few. But in this moment with Taeyong, you’ve never felt freer. 
🎥
Taeyong purchased one of the properties at a luxurious oceanfront hotel, Hotel La Mar. He lived on the top floor. 
“Make yourself at home,” he said. “I’m going to wash up.”
You marveled at the spacious apartment. The furniture was leather and the floor was a plush carpet. You could envision yourself curling on the floor. That’s how cozy the space felt.
The living room had a plasma screen TV with shelves and shelves of movies: everything you could think of.
Huh, a movie theater employee human hybrid (?) with a cinephile vampire lord. An interesting concept, you thought. You kept exploring and noticed that there weren’t many photographs around the space. There was one of Taeyong posing in front of the Eiffel Tower at night. Bold of him to break the rules overseas, you giggled to yourself. Another frame contained a visibly older photo. It was a picture of Taeyong and who you assumed were his family: his parents and his sister. You wondered when this was taken.
“1985,” Taeyong answered into your ear, causing the hairs on the back of your neck to rise.
You yelped.
He took the photo frame into his hands so you both could admire it. “This is my family. My mom, my dad, and my older sister Chaewon.”
1985? Taeyong looked exactly the same as he did in that picture. That must have been around the time he became a vampire, you thought.
“I turned a year after that,” he said. You noted the hesitance in his voice.
“Oh,” you said.
“When I was a human, I fell in love with a vampire.”
“Oh, so we’re going there...”
Taeyong took you out to the balcony so you could watch the night sky over the ocean.
“We don’t have to talk about it-“ He started.
“Are you kidding me?” You’ve been dying for more intel on this man.
He smiled amusingly at you. You were so curious and open with him. You were precious to him.
“I met Cleo when I was 22...She was older than me. I didn’t realize at the time just how much older. I worked at my father’s dojo over the summer after I graduated from college. I was going to get my master’s in architecture. I had everything going for me. I dated a few girls in college but I didn’t find someone I wanted to settle down with. I was...a bit of a hopeless romantic.”
Still are, you thought to yourself.
“I was closing the dojo one night when a couple of thugs broke in to rob the place. They were in the process of beating me to a pulp when Cleo and her friends came in and...took care of them.”
You understood that to mean they were sucked dry.
“She told me she’d been watching me for a while and didn’t know how to introduce herself. So that night was as good a time as any. I was shocked to see vampires for the first time. Once upon a time, the world you see every day at Sinema was a fairy tale for me.”
You figured as much. Not all vampires were born as vampires.
“But I couldn’t get Cleo out of my mind so soon I fell into that world. Never looking back.”
And that’s when you heard the regret in his voice.
“Cleo paraded me all over the supernatural parts of the country. She would take me to clubs. Introduce me to her friends. I moved in with her not even a month after we met. The first time she drank my blood...I didn’t expect the emotions to be so strong.”
The alarm bells rang off in your head.
“I was all hers after that, y/n. She bewitched me. I was at her beck and call. Nothing else mattered but how I could please her.”
You could see the pain in his eyes and how he avoided looking at you.
“That’s why...” You started.
Taeyong continued, “I can’t do that to you. It’s not worth the risk. My escorts? Those human women visited witches to give them the resistance from falling under a vampire’s spell. An attraction can grow, sure, but the intense devotion a human feels to a vampire is taboo now. Vampires don’t want to deal with what they would call collateral damage after having one night of unadulterated pleasure.”
You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Your heart hurt for the man before you. It wasn’t his fault that he was under Cleo’s spell. She manipulated him.
“But every now and then, a vampire just won’t care,” he said.
Which means this kind of abuse still went on to this day, you realized.
“After the first bite, I begged Cleo for more. She offered to do me one better and asked for me to join her on her travels around the world: as her vampire prince. Her words. Not mine.”
Taeyong sighed and rolled his eyes. “Looking back on it, it was bullshit. But the human me was...singing from the rooftops. I idolized that woman. She was the key to my happiness. I would follow her to the ends of the earth. And that I did.”
You thought about his family and his life.
“I was a vampire. I couldn’t live my human life anymore. I was devoted to Cleo and that was all that mattered. I gave up on my master’s. I told my parents I was getting married, traveling the world, and didn’t plan on coming back. I was mad at them, y/n. They told me I was a fool for throwing away my future for a woman who sucked me in and would spit me back out. I hated that they doubted me but even more that they doubted Cleo.”
“So you left...”
“I did and it didn’t take long for me to realize that my parents were right. I loved her unconditionally, knowing full well that she was preying on other humans like me, building an empire...well, a harem would be a more accurate term. Soon, I realized I was no longer her favorite and it was eating me up from the inside. I...couldn’t take it so I-“
You felt a sense of dread at what he was about to say next.
”I never even considered the possibility that I could end my addiction to her. I just thought of the quickest way to put me out of my misery. I planned to stab myself in the chest.”
You put your hand to your mouth. “Taeyong...I-“
He squeezed your hand. “It’s okay.”
“It’s a lot...Remembering your darkest days...I don’t want you to feel pressured to tell me everything,” you added as you traced your fingers against his knuckles.
He shook his head. “I want to share this with you.” His brown eyes shifted into bright a shade of blue, suddenly.
“Taeyong, your eyes...”
“They’re blue, aren’t they?”
“Yes but why?”
“I’ll explain. Someone saved me the day I wanted to end it all. Jaejoong. Jaejoong...is like a father to me. He talked me down and helped extract Cleo’s latches off of me. And with that, my memories of her were gone. The witch who helped us with this process was able to conserve pieces of my memories and I only had the nerve to access them recently...After I met you.”
“Taeyong...”
“I wanted to know why I couldn’t let myself bite you. Something inside me was holding me back. I wanted to drink from you so badly but you weren’t an escort. I knew the rules. About the damage that could be caused. But I wanted to understand the nagging feeling at the back of my mind. And accessing those memories again...my eyes turn blue as I reflect on the darkest time in my life.”
“Oh, Taeyong...” You sat curled up against him and held him tightly. “I’m so sorry.”
Taeyong tucked some of your hair back so he can cup your face. “Thank you for listening to me. I thought you would be running for the hills by now.”
“Everyone has their dark past. Granted, mine consists of a crappy ex-boyfriend but my point is that I really appreciate you telling me about yourself. I didn’t expect that.”
Taeyong sighed. “You know, the arrangement we have...”
“Yeah?”
“I like it. But...” He stared out at the sea.
“Go on,” you said as you kissed his neck.
“I don’t want to be just friends with you,” he almost whispered. You were close enough to his lips to hear every syllable clearly.
“I know...”
“You do?” He looked down at you as you played around with the fabric of his tee.
“You told me everything...Basically. I don’t think you did it without an agenda,” you said as you removed yourself off of him and looked into his eyes.
He rubbed his hands against your legs, wishing you’d worn shorts so he can feel your soft skin heat up at his touch. “What do you think?”
You were about to respond when his hands ran up to your butt and he squeezed it. “I...I think we’re ready to move up another level.”
He smiled. “Really?”
Before he went for your butt again, you got yourself up and straddled him. “Really.”
You kissed him deeply, begging his tongue to meet yours. Taeyong quickly reciprocated.
He cupped your face again. “You are so beautiful.”
“I know you mean that,” you said, realizing you looked like a struggling college student in your getup. He really liked you. He wouldn’t avoid your stare. He was happy.
The blue in his eyes vanished and it was back to his warm dreamy brown.
“You okay?” You asked.
“Never better,” he said as you pulled you closer to him. He always embraced you like it was his last time.
He was indeed a hopeless romantic.
“So...” You couldn’t get Cleo out of your mind, though. You wondered what she looked like and how she seduced Taeyong. At one point, Taeyong was in love with her without the enchantment of a vampire. You couldn’t help but wonder if he ever compared you to her. And just how much he remembered after the memory wipe. “Where is Cleo now?”
He cleared his throat. “She’s dead.”
There was a sense of dread again at the pit of your stomach. “How did she die?” You sat beside him again.
“Jaejoong...finished her,” he continued.
“...How?”
“When Cleo found out I had defected to another clan, she was furious,” he said.
“She came after you?” You asked, shocked she would care so much.
“It’s not that she cared,” he answered your thoughts again without realizing it. “It was a matter of pride for her. I was her property. And Jaejoong took it away from her.” That infuriated you.
Taeyong continued, “Jaejoong hid me away from her for a year. So I wouldn’t be tempted to go back to her. Even if her influence escaped me, she could easily lure me in again. I was weak, starved for love. For anything I could get from her after I left everything behind.”
“Taeyong...”
“In 1987, Jaejoong and Cleo faced off. She perished from a wooden bullet shot to the heart.”
You still had so much you wanted to ask. “How do you know she’s gone?” You blurted. You didn’t have a lot of remorse for the death of this woman, you understood.
He met your gaze. “Jaejoong brought me to her body.”
You waited for him to continue.
He said, “And we burned it, making sure no trace of her remained.”
He worried that you would see him differently upon hearing this.
But you understood. She was a monster that preyed upon innocent people and played with them like dispensable toys. You hated that someone could be so vile and tinker with the heart of the man you...
Liked.
“Wow,” you said, meekly.
“I know,” he said, “Jaejoong took in the lost boys of her clan and helped them become independent. Like he did with me. Now we pledge our loyalty to him.”
You wondered if Jaejoong was really as heroic of a man as Taeyong made him out to be.
🎥
You sat with Taeyong in the kitchen. You took some cake mix out from your shopping tote and asked him if you could bake it. “Mind if I use your kitchen?”
“Depends. What flavor is the cake?”
“Red velvet,” you answered.
“Only if I can lick the spoon,” he said as he helped pull out all of the supplies and ingredients.
As you mixed the cake mix with the other ingredients, Taeyong watched you.
You were something else. After telling you some of his darkest memories, you didn’t run off. You didn’t doubt him. You stayed. And for that, he would be eternally thankful.
“You can lick the spoon now,” you sang.
Taeyong creeped up from behind you, dipped his finger into the bowl, scooped some of the batter and ran it across your neck. You stood still.
He moved his finger dangerously slow across your neck and his tongue followed even more slowly behind. You moaned at his delicate touch.
“It tastes pretty good,” he whispered. You could feel his cock grow against your leg.
Taeyong held you from behind as you finished putting the mix into a pan. You laughed at how he clung to you like a koala.
The cake would take about half an hour to bake, which meant...
“Lead the way, Taeyong,” you said.
He scooped you up and he bolted to his bedroom. You laughed.
He tossed you on the plush California king bed and nearly pounced on top of you. You yelled and giggled like you were playing tag.
He kissed you hard as he laid against the bed frame. You pulled his shirt off. He did the same. You surprised him then.
“Where’s your bra?” He asked.
“I took it off when I went to the bathroom. I thought you noticed and that’s why we’re here now.”
“I mean, your nipples looked...”
You pulled him closer. “How do they look?” You lowered your voice.
“Pretty,” he said as he kissed you again. You pulled down his pants and cock greeted you.
Taeyong stood up on the bed as you kneeled down to greet his gorgeous length.
You grasped it hard and Taeyong grunted. “Does it feel good, baby?” You asked.
“Yes, love,” he said as he ran his fingers against your hair.
You took his length into your mouth and moved slowly back and forth, enjoying the taste of precum in your mouth and the sound of Taeyong’s moans. His length tickled the back of your throat. The discomfort was mild but you liked giving him blow jobs. So with practice, the pain became pleasure. You were getting wet at the thought of pleasuring him now.
“Feel me,” you said as you moved your eyes down to your panties. Taeyong put his hands down there and gently placed two fingers inside of you. He moaned again as you sucked faster.
You wanted Taeyong to know that you weren’t there to play with his heart. That was never what you wanted. You wanted to get to know him. And you didn’t want to keep lying to yourself. You were all in. And somehow, you would find a way to make it work.
Taeyong tugged tightly at your hair as he was on the verge of his climax. The thought of his climax aroused you ever further and felt the vibrations deep down in your belly. When he came, you found yourself soaked from him and yourself. You lathered up his cum. You fingered yourself and gave him a taste of your essence. You took all of his cum in and dragged your tongue up to his abdomen and met his lips. You kissed him.
He hugged you and wiped the sweat off of your forehead. “I love you.”
You exhaled like you held your breath for a long time. “I love you, too.”
He laid you down so he could pleasure you. He kissed you again and ran his hands up your thighs and forced them open. You gasped.
He greedily lathered up your cum. “You are exquisite.” He began running his index finger in and out of your clit. You started rocking back and forth.
He tsked. “Stay still, angel. Or I’m going to stop.”
You whined. “Meanie.”
He laughed his deep laugh and just the sound of that made you moan.
His unoccupied hand gripped your thigh tightly, squeezed your ass, and caressed you face. He liked watching you come undone under him. It kept awake sometimes when he was home alone.
He continued to finger you and you mewled when he inserted two fingers. You felt yourself building up again. You couldn’t help but rock back and forth. You wanted to climax.
“Taeyong, please,” you begged.
He smiled as he removed his fingers.
You whined even more. “Evil overlord, please.”
He pecked your lips. “Your wish is my command.”
He quickly inserted his cock and it hit you hard that you cried out. The pain quickly became pleasure as you both moved back and forth.
“Fuck,” he exclaimed. “I fucking love you.”
“I...love...you...” You managed to get out until you both released.
You both went for two more rounds before passing out on the bed. He held you as he covered you under the sheets. The timer went off for the cake.
You were about to get up but Taeyong pulled you back.
“It’ll cool. It’s okay. Just stay with me,” he said as he snuggled up against you.
“You’re so clingy,” you said as you laid your back against his front. He spooned you. His cock was in your ass. You’d wanted to do this with him for a while.
Taeyong was beaming. You were beside him now and neither of you was in a rush to leave. You could take your time and enjoy each other.
He moaned against your neck. “Are you hungry, though?”
You laughed. “I’m good.”
So you laid beside each other as the sun rose and slept for hours.
🎥
You stayed asleep but Taeyong’s phone rang. He slowly got up from bed and covered you with the sheets. You frowned in your sleep like you unconsciously knew he left your side. He laughed quietly as he took his phone off the nightstand.
He walked out of the room so as not to disturb you.
“Hey Jaejoong, how was South Africa?” He asked.
His leader chuckled over the phone. “Beautiful. The great white sharks were incredible. You have to come with me next time.”
“Are you back in the country?” Taeyong asked excitedly. Jaejoong was gone for a while on his travels.
“Yes. I landed today in Mystic.”
Taeyong replied, “That’s great. You have to come over for dinner. I’ll make your favorite chicken parm and you can drop off all of the souvenirs you bought for me.”
Jaejoong laughed. “I hope a keychain won’t disappoint you. How about I come over tonight? There’s something I wanted to talk about with you.” You noticed the shift in his tone.
“Is everything okay?” Taeyong asked.
“Yeah...They’ll be even better soon enough,” Jaejoong said.
To Be Continued in Part 4
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blazehedgehog · 3 years
Note
Whenever you do your review for the full version of Balan Wonderworld, drawing comparisons between both Naka and Ohshima’s prior well-recieved work (Sonic, NiGHTS, etc.) AND their later lukewarm titles post-SEGA/Sonic Team (Naka’s PROPE, Ohshima’s Artoon & Arzest (Pinobee, Blinx, Vampire Rain, FlingSmash, etc.)) would be advisable
With all due respect, I think I’ll write my review from whatever perspective I think feels natural to me.
This isn’t intended to put you on blast or anything, but the way writing works for me, and presumably for everyone, is that you have to have an “angle.” That’s an old school term from the golden age of newspaper reporting, but it applies to all writing, and it basically means “the perspective you’re writing from.”
This is how I can crank out 40+ SAGE reviews. Figure out what you’re looking at, figure out where you’re looking at it from, and write your way from point A to point B. That’s an angle. Once you understand that, the words pretty much fall into place automatically. And, chances are, you’ll have multiple angles to look at it from.
Let’s take my Super Mario Sunshine review and break it down in to its angles.
ANGLE 1: What is my point of reference for Sunshine?
I was very excited for it
I watched an SDA speed run for the game
I ended up getting it for Christmas a few months later
I was deeply disappointed.  
ANGLE 2: Where does Sunshine fall in the timeline of Mario games?
It was from a transitional period
You can draw a line from Mario 64 -> Sunshine -> Galaxy -> 3D Land connecting them along an axis of gameplay linearity
It is the black sheep of the Mario franchise.  
ANGLE 3: What makes Sunshine a bad game?
A greater focus on a paper-thin story, which ruins the pacing
Pointless level design full of lots of wasted space
Art direction feels very same-y and boring.  
ANGLE 4: How do I feel about the game now?
It’s not as bad as I remember.
But I still don’t love it.
When I have trouble writing something, it’s either because I’m having trouble finding my angle, or it’s because I have too many angles and I’m having a hard time keeping them all straight (this second one has been happening with my Sonic Forces video for over a year now).
There is, however, one universal constant I learned from my TSSZ days, and it’s that I want to own my opinion. If there is a game I know I’m going to play for review, I go on total blackout for that game. No previews, no reviews, I try to avoid people talking about it on Twitter, I tune as much of it out as possible, and it’s because of opinion leakage.
I know I’m not the only one who does this, there’s literally whole studies on the function of zeitgeists and hive mentality, but if I read someone else’s review while I’m writing mine, their opinions tend to seep in to my writing. Think of it like an extension of impostor syndrome. You read someone else’s review, say to yourself, “I’m wrong and garbage because they’re correct and perfect” and then suddenly the whole tone of your review changes because you abandon your perspective and leech off of someone else’s good vibes.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but famously, this is what happened with my Grand Theft Auto 4 review. I gushed about how awesome that game was, but the review was mostly just me parroting what EGM and Gametrailers and every other “professional outlet” was saying at the time. The thing is, though, that happened with a couple more reviews, too. I don’t specifically remember which ones, because to me the shining example will always be that GTA4 review, but it happened, and once I realized what was happening, I did everything in my power to distance myself from a scenario where an outside opinion could sway how I truly felt.
It was the only way I could guarantee that my words were my own. This is also why, when people would ask me here on Tumblr what I thought of certain “Sonic Youtubers,” I would say I’d never watched them. That’s because I was guarding the purity of my opinions*.
So I’ll be honest with you, Anon. The moment I caught on that your ask here was attempting to dictate the direction my review should go in, I instantly tuned you out. Because my review will go in the direction I feel it should go in. Because it is my review, and I must protect that fact. Nobody comes to me to hear me parrot another person’s talking points. They come to me for my angle. And that’s how it’s going to stay.
(* Nowadays I’m a little smarter about this stuff; for instance, I subscribe to SomeCallMeJohnny now, but I will not be watching his upcoming Balan video until well after my review is done.)
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natusvincere · 3 years
Text
Nightmare Square || Marley and Vic
Who: @detectivedreameater and @natusvincere Where: The Bend When: A few weeks ago What: Marley and Vic find out what dreams are made of... literally. Warnings: Allusions to child abuse, Head Injury Mention
Reports of strange activity down in the Bend had been pouring in, and Marley could no longer stand by and let it be written off. Well, sit by, as it were, as she scratched away at files from her desk. Soon, she had to remind herself, she was going to get back into the field soon. She just needed a bit more time to heal, to get better, to control herself. But soon. Still, soon didn’t ever feel like soon enough when she felt like the only cop in the precinct who understood the supernatural nature of the town. Ally was...getting there, but she had almost drawn a gun on Marley at just the mention of the supernatural, so there was still a way to go in regards to that. The only other officer she knew of who knew was Langley, and there was no way in hell she was ever asking him for help, after what had happened at the escape room. 
And so, she’d gone it alone. Probably not the best idea-- definitely not the best idea-- and Anita and Erin would probably kick her ass if they ever found out, but the solution to that was easy: make sure they never found out. She grabbed the pistol from her car and headed out, following the path that had been laid out by the many reports of suspicious activity. It led her behind a building and towards some of the abandoned buildings in the Bend, but so far, she hadn’t spotted anything. Even with her perfect vision, everything seemed pretty normal. She was about ready to give up when she heard a noise and saw a shadow. Marley stiffened and stood stock still for a moment, before allowing her body to turn invisible, creeping along towards the shadow. Turned the corner and-- “Vic?” Marley groaned, rolling her eyes as she became visible again. “What’re you doing out here?”
 Tips these days were far and few between.  There were phases of time when Vic would be gushing with information on vampire clans, pouring them out to hunters just as quick as she’d pour them a drink.  But lately was not one of those times.  Instead, there was a lull, making her desperate to scope out any lead she even had an inkling about, just to get some action in her life.  Things had been so mundane lately that she was actually considering attempting one of those video games she had been arguing with the internet about.  No, she couldn’t have that. 
The bend was a common location for these types of tips, and it was an area of town she was quite familiar with after doing this sort of work for so long.
She had been wandering around a few alleyways, traipsing in and out to find any sense of the vampires she’d heard the miniscule lead about.  She jumped, just slightly, when she heard her name, whipping around to face the culprit and ready to strike, if necessary.  Instead, she was met with a familiar face, and she let her guard down.  “Marley”, she said, leaning on her hip and pursing her lips.  “I could ask you the same thing.” It was a ridiculous thing to say, of course- it was Marley’s job to be in a place like this- to investigate the very filth that Vic wished to eradicate.  She suddenly realized she could hear music in the background- harp, that sounded strikingly similar to what Lyra used to play her.  It made her stomach turn.  “Since when are they piping music into the bend?”, she wondered, swallowing.
 “I’m a cop, Vic,” Marley answered sarcastically, “thought you knew that already?” She’d known Vic for a while now-- both as an acquaintance and, well, in other more intimate ways-- but she hadn’t seen her recently. It was strange running into her here and now, but this town had thrown stranger things at her. She paused when Vic said she heard music and tried to listen, but all she could hear was the ringing in her ears. She scrunched her nose. “I don’t think the bend has that budget quite yet.” An idea struck her, and her face lit up. “What do you say we go check it out together? Whatever’s there, I’m betting it’ll be a fun time for both of us.” A grin. “Like old times! Not that we ever did anything like this before, but it’s been a minute since I’ve seen you, and we both like dishing out what people have coming to them, right?”
 Vic rolled her eyes at Marley, though the suppression of a smile was harder in the company of someone she was comfortable with than she would like to admit.  She leaned back against the brick wall in an effort to stave off the feeling, crossing her arms in front of her.  Marley clearly  needed to get her hearing checked, and Vic furrowed her eyebrows at her.  “Your ears are failing in your old age”, she accused, leaning her neck around to locate the hidden speaker.  The music was haunting her, distracting and ever present.  Marley’s idea, and excitement, by extension, as amusing as it was surprising, and it was a welcome distraction. Vic stood up straighter at the prospect of someone to scope out the area with. It might be fun to catch up, and scoping out the area  with someone as skilled and experienced as Marley would be a piece of cake.  “Fine”, she said, pushing off the wall at the same time as she pushed another smile away.  “So, where to first, cop?” she asked, emphasizing the last word playfully.
 “Whatever, grandma,” Marley said, though she was aware that Vic had never actually told her her real age. “My ears are fine.” Even though they were ringing right now, she wasn’t about to admit that outloud. Her face lit up, though, when Vic agreed to her terms, and she practically bounced on her toes in excitement. It’d been so long since she’d investigated something with someone, considering she was benched at work. “I knew you’d agree!” she grinned, pulling out her glock and giving a sweeping ‘follow me’ gesture. “Show me where this sound you’re hearing is coming from, miss super hearing, and we’ll go from there, yeah?” She waved her gun slightly, letting her know that she was prepared for whatever was coming. “I came here for an investigation into strange activity, so, you know--” she nodded, “--just in case.”
 Pushing her hands into her back pockets, Vic let out a scoff, but followed along with Marley all the same. “What strange activity?”, she wondered, her eyes trained on the ground in front of them as they walked.  She shook her head, trying to concentrate on the sound to better locate where it was coming from, and grabbed Marley’s wrist to lead her to where she was sure it was coming from.  It didn’t seem to be getting any louder though, so she let out another frustrated scoff and pulled her in another direction, only to find the same problem. “I… I can’t figure this shit out”, she said, the distant harp sounding more hauntingly familiar with each passing moment.  “It’s like… it feels like it’s everywhere, ...I can’t locate a source”.  Behind Marley, a man slowly walking by caught her attention, and the sight of him shocked her.  If she didn’t know any better, she’d be sure it was her father. She looked at Marley, and then back at the man, but he was gone, replaced instead by a simple housecat. “There’s something fucked up going on”, she said, locking eyes with Marley again.  “I think I’m going batshit”.
 Marley let Vic drag her around, searching for her mysterious noise. She watched her closely as they headed around corners and through the back alleys. “Reports of people seeing things, stranger than usual things. Things that shouldn’t be possible, according to laws of physics,” she explained, “hey, you okay?” But before she could get the full sentence out Vic was turning and locking eyes with her-- something Marley hated when it wasn’t on her terms, her eyes were dangerous, even to a vampire-- and cursing about going crazy. “Hey, woah, slow down, what‘re you talking about? No source? It’s gotta have a source, Vic, that’s how sound works. Are you sure your super special vamp hearing isn’t going bad or something?” She watched Vic glance behind her and turned her head to see what she’d been looking at, but only found a cat. However, when she turned back around to face Vic, a familiar, bloody face greeted her and Marley jumped. “I think I’m going batshit,” Roland said and Marley scrambled away, shaking her head and-- it was just Vic again. “What the--” Was she seeing things? No, that wasn’t possible. She was the mara, she was immune to magically induced hallucinations. “Okay, something really weird is going on here and I’m not happy about it.”
 “Sounds like a regular day in the bend to me”, Vic breathed out, now on alert and worried her father might pop up out of the shadows again.  “Don’t people come here looking for trouble?” She shook her head at Marley, annoyed.  She wasn’t listening.  “No!  My fucking cursed hearing isn’t going bad.  It doesn’t work like that. It’s everywhere, Marley.  It’s not getting any louder or quieter, it just is”.  She stared at Marley, tilting her head in confusion at her reaction.  Was she seeing things too, then?  Her eyes glanced up toward the sky above them, and she could hear a faint, familiar giggle on top of the harp.  “This is freaking me out.  I’m getting out of here.  Are you coming, or are you stupid?”  Without waiting for an answer, Vic grabbed Marley by the wrist again pulling her down the alley they were standing in. The alley, which was before no longer than about 10 feet, now seemed to stretch out forever, and no matter how much they walked, it never seemed to end.  She stopped, turning around, only to see the alley endless stretching the other way too.  Dropping Marley’s wrist, she ran toward the end of the alley, pumping her legs with as much force as she could, but to no avail.  “What the fuck”, she said, turning around to Marley with wide eyes.  Somehow, they were still right next to one another.
 Too much was happening again and Marley was having a hard time following Vic’s train of thought. Her head was spinning, as Vic grabbed her wrist and started yanking her down the alley. But it stretched out, forever and ever and Marley felt panic swell inside her chest, her heart plummeting into the pit of her stomach. For a moment, the alley looked like that house. Peeling paint, sludge on the ground, claw marks dragged across the walls. Vic was running, and she’d left Marley alone. “Wait!” she shouted, reaching out for her, but then Vic was gone, and Marley was alone. Shadows danced in and out of her vision and she backed away, holding her gun up. “Show yourself!” she shouted, twisting in circles. “I know what you are! I-I’m not afraid of you anymore!” A noise to her left. Marley twisted, ready to pull the trigger, barrel pointed directly at her assailants face, but-- it was Vic again. Marley jumped. “You left!” she snapped, “you just-- where did you come from? What’s going on?” It was like a bad nightmare, but the only nightmare here was supposed to be Marley. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
 As soon as they appeared next to each other again, Marley was holding a gun out to Vic’s face.  On instinct she flinched back, but just barely.  Her eyes met the barrel of the gun, and starred it down, daring it to go off.  “You’re tweaking out on me, Stryder.”  She took her hand and rested it atop the gun, lowering it down so it was no longer settled between them.  “No shit.  But doing that the conventional way doesn’t seem very likely right now”, she said, indicting to either side of the alley.  The harp music began to ring louder and louder in her ears, as did the taunting giggles. She didn’t want to think about this, about her, about any of that nonsense.  “Jösses, shut up!”,  she screamed at the sky, covering her ears.  The sound from her shout, strangely, took on a visual form, and it shot up toward the sky above them.  Suddenly, and without warning, clouds from up above came toppling down toward them, and something in Vic’s gut just knew they weren’t soft and fluffy.  “Run!” she said, not bothering to look behind her and see if Marley was following.  “What the fuck is going on, Marley?  What kind of backwards ass shit were you investigating out here?”
 Marley didn’t resist as Vic lifted a hand and pushed the gun from her face, but she did keep a firm grip on her firearm. Something was happening here and she wasn’t taking any chances. “I’m not tweaking,” she snapped, but something in the back of her mind made her wonder if maybe she was, maybe it was her mind finally breaking. But that wasn’t possible, because Vic was experiencing it, too, and Marley knew it wasn’t her doing it. For once. “Hey, calm down. Vic--” Marley started, but then Vic was shouting at her to run and taking off. Her shout was tangible and Marley looked, just barely managing to leap out of the way when a chunk of something fell right where they’d been standing. “Vic!” Marley called again, scrambling to stand up. “Wait!” If they just ran wildly, they were going to get lost. Whatever was happening, it was creating a maze for them. She could feel it, as the alleyway turned into the hallway she’d nearly forgotten about. She’d thought she was over that. She wanted to be over that. Her hands shook and she began to sweat. “Vic?” she called out, as darkness enveloped the alleyway, pulling her away from the solace of her companion. She was alone in that house again and the skittering sound that had haunted her for months after echoed around her. “No,” she grunted. “No! I’m not afraid of you anymore!” And without thinking, she lifted her gun and fired.
 It took her longer than Vic would have liked to realize, but Marley was apparently not down with the idea of running away from their problems.  She stopped suddenly and whipped around, ready to scold her for not listening, but she was met with a wall that she was sure hadn’t been there before.  She whipped around again, facing where she had just come from, only to be met with another suddenly appearing wall.  “Fuck!”, she yelled, kicking one of the walls that now surrounded her. Suddenly, the harp like music that she’d been hearing sounded louder than ever, and when she turned around again, she was met with a sight that made her heart rise to her throat.  It was Lyra, sitting there and playing the nyckleharpa, as if it were 1570s Sweden and not present day White Crest.  Tears rose to her eyes, but she suddenly felt like she couldn’t breath, like the 4 walls around them were closing in and there was no way out.  The more Vic looked at Lyra’s face, the less she looked like her- her face morphed from a calm, gentle smile to a sickeningly sinister one, one that threatened to overtake her whole face if it grew any wider.  “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real”, she repeated, turning away from fake Lyra and covering her ears, desperate not to hear anymore.  A loud crash shook her out of her thoughts and she looked behind her, only to find one of the four walls shattering in front of her, Marley’s bullet whipping by her face mere seconds later.  She took a moment to catch her breath, but quickly ran close to Marley again, happy to be rid of dream Lyra. “We need to stick together”, she said, the only hint of an apology that would be leaving her lips.  “To...to find a way out of whatever this is”.
 The sound of glass shattering signaled that Marley had hit something, but it certainly wasn’t a something that she’d expected or been aiming at. Vic was running back towards her, and the fear on her own face made Marley realize that what they were seeing were two different things. Which meant-- “Magic,” she exhaled. “Whatever’s doing this is magic. And, well, by the looks of it, fucking powerful.” She blinked, trying to reset herself. She scrubbed her hand across her eyes, removing her sunglasses all together. If they were going to get through this, then they needed all their concentration. She even holstered her gun, because what good was a gun against magic? “What did it show you?” she asked, then, looking Vic square in the eyes. It might’ve been nighttime, the element both of them thrived in-- but they were left vulnerable here. Even Marley was sure magic could do her in at night. She’d always been warned against magic, especially those powerful enough to manipulate the mind.
 “Fucking bullshit town”, Vic muttered under her breath, disgusted that Marley’s explanation of what was going on seemed just about as viable as any, at this point.  She shook her head at Marley’s question, not willing to divulge what she saw to anyone, ever.  Marley knew she didn’t do feelings, she would do well now to know not to press.  “Something from my past”, was all she offered, shuttering as the image of Lyra with that sickening, wide grin flashed into her mind again.  “What about you?”, she asked.  She looked around them, their surroundings still morphing and warping as time passed, though they seemed to be more obvious about it now that they were aware that something was up.  “None of this makes sense, it’s all so...random and irrational.   Are we at the hands of some fucked up, magic child?”
 Vic was about as forthcoming as Marley assumed she would be. Sighing, she rubbed a hand across her face. “A nightmare,” she mumbled, “and also a...recent thing that happened.” Some people would describe it as a “traumatic experience” but Marley certainly wasn’t going to use those words. At least not with Vic. She gave a hollow chuckle. “Funny,” she said, eyeing their surroundings. “But no. I think it’s...drawing its inspiration from us. Whatever it is. I don’t think it’s a person, though. Probably some sort of...magic pocket or something. They occur around the town quite a bit, but never this, well-- big. Or often.” Or powerful. This pocket felt as if it might swallow Marley whole. She tried to steady her breath. “I think we need to...stop feeding it. If it has nothing to draw from, the illusions might just, go away. Only problem is, I’m not sure how to cease brain function. At least, you know,” she gave a snigger, “for myself.” 
 Vic eyed Marley suspiciously, though she couldn’t expect her to elaborate, not when Vic was so anti-sharing during their time together.  It was frustrating that she had a sense of concern about whatever might be going on with Marley, and she buried it, for the sake of solving their current problem.  She rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of it all, even though she knew Marley was probably right.  “Are these magic pockets sentient?  Because it seems to know what the fuck it’s doing, and it’s got a sick sense of humor.”  As if on cue, flower petals began to flutter around both of them, dancing in rhythm with each other as they fell from the sky.  She let out a frustrated breath as one landed on the bridge of her nose, and she flicked it away with specific determination and annoyance.  “But if you stir up nightmares, wouldn’t logic say that you can defeat them as well?”, she wondered aloud, doing a bad job at hiding her approving smirk at Marley’s bad joke.  “Okay, so like… a trance?”  That, she could do.  She had an easy enough time clearing her mind when she went into trances during the day, but would Marley be able to do the same?  “I can clear my mind in a fucking snap, but what are we gonna do about you?”
 “I don’t think sentient is the right word, but--” Marley ground her teeth, shrugged, “something like that. It’s at least intelligent or, maybe just playing off our minds. Mental magic is a thing, I’m pretty sure.” She really needed to learn more about magic, didn’t she? The thought dissipated quickly, because they had more important things to focus on. Like getting out of this nightmare. It felt a little like cosmic karma when she thought of it like that. She looked up as the petals began to rain down, catching one in her palm. It felt so real. That was the problem, wasn’t it? This shit was real. It wasn’t just their imagination. It was like the pizza downtown, or the fish raining down. The sticky road in the Bend. Marley crushed the petal in her palm. A smirk grew on her face, wide and joyful. “Scratch that,” she said, turning to look at Vic. She pulled her gun back out and loaded it, then held it out to Vic as she pulled another from her boot. “Think as hard as you can about one thing. I don’t just stir up nightmares, Vic, I manifest them. I make them real because I draw from someone’s memory for them. That’s what this place is doing.” She opened her palm to show her the crushed petal. “It’s making them real, the more we think about them. And if something’s real, well,” she gestured to their weapons, “something can be destroyed.”
 Vic studied Marley’s face, watching a myriad of emotions pass through, each stronger than the last.  Whatever she was thinking about, it seemed to be working out a way to get them out of this mess, and she found herself taking solace in the triumphant smirk presented to her.  But then, there was the gun, which might as well have been shoved into her hands.  She held it like it was some sort of germ, one that she wished to be rid of.  Of course she knew how to fire one, thanks to countless self-defense courses she’d put herself through over the years- but for some reason, she could never bring herself to buy one of her own.  There was something that felt wrong about holding it- it felt too real.  She didn’t do horrible things, she just set it up so that other people could. Deep in her mind, where memories of her past mixed and swelled and begged to come pouring out, she worried that if she allowed herself to own one, maybe she’d be the one doing the horrible things after all.  
She shook her head.  It was a waste of time to dwell on maybes and worries and what-ifs.  Especially now and here.   She licked her lips as she listened to Marley’s advice, and closed her eyes. Think, think think.  Her fiance, Lyra, a tutor, a flash of her mother’s face, Winnie, Morgan, angry with her after they tried to garden, her tiny, paint stained fingers, blurred away by tears as a booming voice bellowed from behind her… nothing was sticking.  Whatever she had to think of, Marley was going to see, and know, and ask bullshit questions about things that didn’t matter anymore.  She shook her head again, lowering her gun and looking at Marley.  “It’ll be enough if you do it, I think.  You destroy your nightmares, and we’ll both be out of here.  I’m not that afraid of anything that it gives me nightmares, so…” Her words were shaky and uneven, and even the dullest stranger could have sensed the insincerity in them.  
 Marley watched Vic’s face closely and understood the feeling she was going through. Debating whether or not to expose the truth about the nightmares that had once plagued her. The truth was that neither of them could dream anymore, let alone have nightmares. But for Vic, that didn’t mean that she didn’t used to have them, however long ago. Marley had experienced nightmares once in her life, she didn’t have much to draw on. Not anymore. She didn’t understand the feelings dreams and nightmares brought with them like other people did. She never could. It was another thing her species had taken from her. How strange, to feed from something you could never truly understand. She furrowed her brow at Vic. “You can’t lie to me,” she said simply, frowning. “Thought you knew that by now.” She looked around them as the world cycled through different iterations of itself. Hallways, closed doors, large rooms. They needed to work fast if they wanted to get out of here. She looked back at Vic with narrower eyes. 
“I’ve never had a nightmare before,” she stated, a simple fact, “whatever this is, is drawing on my subconscious. I can’t control that. But it’s drawing on your nightmares. From when you were human. I know that was like, what, at least a few decades? Maybe a century?” She shifted, facing Vic fully. “But you had them. You can still remember them. So, fucking feed the entity or I’m gonna go invisible and leave you behind.” She couldn’t actually do that, but she figured she got the point across.
 “I’m not ly-”, Vic started, but the look on Marley’s face told her to not even try.  As many times as she had successfully avoided discussing feelings and their past and all that bullshit with Marley, it was becoming abundantly clear that after today, she would no longer be afforded that privacy.  Time to find another fuck buddy.  She let out a low sigh, pressing her lips together and staring Marley down.  This was ridiculous.  She was not about to relive her childhood in front of Marley- not when she had spent years perfecting the art of ignoring them all together.  But then Marley’s threat made her heart skip a bit- there’s no way she could bear being here any longer- especially not alone.  With a frustrated grunt, she closed her eyes, focusing on whatever decided to come up first.
She looked down at her hands, but they weren’t her worn, grown up ones.  No, the ones she saw now were tiny and undamaged...and covered in paint.  So was her pretty dress, but it didn’t look ruined to her.  It stood out, now, bright and blue and splotched all over, in a way that might make people pay attention and tell her how beautiful she looked.  Next to her no longer stood Marley, but her tutor- looking cross and annoyed, like she did most mornings.  But then the door slammed open, causing her to jump back with a start.  And there her father stood- tall and loud and boiling over with disappointment and shame.  Shame that she wasn’t good enough, that she wasn’t a boy, that she was too loud, too messy, too clumsy.  Too Victoria. He bound toward her, his stride and pace matching the monsters she read about in her books late at night.  Though she stared him down, forcing her face to look as dark and angry as his, her breath was quickening and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.  No, no, no.  This was not real.  He died- a long time ago.  She had watched the service for him from afar- covering her face and ignoring the conflicting feelings that fought each other in her chest.  Looking down at her hand, she noticed it was no longer that of a child, but her normal, adult hand again.  She lifted the gun up, studying it, and after a quick glance at Marley (who was suddenly back where she belonged), she held it toward him.  It was the first time she’d seen him stop in his tracks.  Without dwelling on it any longer, she felt her finger pull the trigger, and the man in front of her disappeared into a simple tuft of smoke, dissolving into the atmosphere as if he was never there to begin with. 
Vic shoved the gun back into Marley’s hands, hoping the other woman wouldn’t notice her sweaty palms, or the way her breathing still hadn’t quite settled down.  “Happy now?” she asked angrily, as if Marley had been the one to put them here in the first place.
 Marley watched with fascination as Vic’s nightmare began to unfold in front of her. It was a spectacle, for sure, to see a vampire’s nightmare. Fear gazing never gave the same satisfaction, but this was-- strangely more fulfilling, despite her not even choosing to feed off the fear. The alleyway melted and gave way to a room, with a desk, and some supplies, a chalkboard. Marley didn’t recognize it at first, but it seemed to be some sort of educational room. There was a woman standing beside Vic, who was staring down at her hands in awe. A tutor? A nanny, perhaps? Some sort of caretaker. Stood nearby, a frown on their face. She was angry at Vic. But not as angry as the man who burst into the room. He seemed to appear out of nowhere and Marley watched him with wide eyes. He was...her father, she supposed. She stepped aside as Vic finally worked up the courage to confront the nightmare. She felt the world changing around them. It was already melting away. The scittering in the back of Marley’s mind was dissipating. She turned her gaze back to VIc.
The gunshot echoed in the empty alleyway.
They were back in the real world, the nightmare they’d been stuck in just a tiny shimmer falling to the ground around them like confetti. She took the gun when it was handed to her, staring at Vic. She didn’t quite comprehend what she’d just witnessed. She’d seen many a nightmare, but Marley fed from adults only. Something like this only lived inside her own memories. She blinked them away and holstered the gun after flipping on the safety. “I don't particularly enjoy watching you suffer, no,” was all she said, before grabbing her arm and walking them out of the alleyway. She wasn’t sure there was much else to say. What she’d seen was a part of Vic she was sure she’d never wanted anyone to know. Did Marley care to ask her about it? A year ago, the answer was no. Maybe even a few months ago. But now? “I’m sorry,” she muttered, not looking at her. “That you suffered like that.”
 The fake world flitted away, but Vic still felt it hard to maintain the rapid breathing that was overtaking her lungs.  None of that had been real- not the fake Lyra, the fake music, or her fake Father.  It was weakness, then, that made the sight of them stir so many emotions.  She let herself be pulled out of the alleyway, still staring at the spot they left as if it would all appear again, as if the nightmare weren’t over.  But the longer they were in the real world again, the more secure she felt in it- the sickening dizzy feeling had disappeared with the nightmares. People walked by them as if they had been there the whole time, and noise could be heard from the shops and bars around them.  It was over with. Still, tears filled her eyes, threatening to spill over at any moment.  And with Marley’s apology, a few did.  She wiped them away harshly with the heel of her palm.  “Stop”, she commanded quietly, shaking her head.  “I don’t want your pity. I don’t want-...”  She ducked her head, letting out a breath, “Everybody suffers.  There’s no use in harping on it”.  She rang her fingers together, picking and pulling at them as she looked back to Marley.  Marley, who didn’t have nightmares herself, but seemed to be faced with anxieties of her own in their shared nightmare land.  “It was clear I wasn’t the only one seeing things back there.”  She shouldn’t care about Marley, but still, her questions blurted out.  “Is something going on with you? Are you going to be okay?”
 “It’s not pity,” Marley muttered back, but she knew why Vic said it that way. Recognized the same defensive mechanisms in her that she built in herself and pretended were normal and natural. She hadn’t suffered the way Vic had. The way so many others did. Her suffering was because she’d been born a monster-- Vic had been made one. At least they could relate there. She sighed, furrowing her brow. “Suffering is universal,” Marley recited, as if from a textbook, “our experience of it is not.” She let go of Vic’s arm and shoved her hands in her pockets. “With me? No. That was just--” she gave a half shrug, “some old shit.” And it was, wasn’t it? It had to be. She removed her sunglasses from her pocket and put them back on. There were other people around now. “I’m always fine, anyway.” 
 Vic blinked away the last of the tears and looked away, crossing her arms over her chest.  Marley didn’t want to talk about whatever she had experienced, and she wouldn’t push her on it, despite the dull ache to wonder aloud and learn more about what had scared the unscareable. There was a long moment where neither of them said anything, but then Vic let herself turn back to Marley, her face much harsher than when they first met up.  “Do you want to get out of here?  Go back to my place and… forget, about whatever that was.”  She blinked, always hyper aware of the likelihood of rejection; always determined to stop it before it happened.  “Of course, you could always stay here and play good cop like you do. I’m sure you’re just dying to stop something like that from happening to anyone else”.
Marley couldn’t help but laugh. “If you think I’m the ‘good cop’ in any scenario, then you don’t know me as well as I thought you might.” She holstered her gun and looked around, then let her gaze fall back on Vic. Maybe she should have stayed here, figured out what was going on, but she really didn’t want to. And maybe she should have pressed Vic more about what they’d both just witnessed, but she also didn’t want to do that. No, she wanted to go back to Vic’s place, and get drunk and probably fuck around and hopefully forget about everything that had happened here. Her usual Saturday night. She reached out to brush a bit of dust from Vic’s shoulder, then tapped her chest, leaving her hand there a moment. “Your place it is,” was all she said.
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duhragonball · 3 years
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‘21
Amidst all the popular hype for seeing the end of 2020, it didn’t hit me until about lunchtime what the real highlight is that I’ve been waiting for: For the first time since 1999, the year finally ends in “numberty-number” again.    It low-key irritated me that we had to call it “two thousand three” and I was relieved when “twenty-thirteen” caught on, but it still wasn’t right because it was too short, and now we’re back in the sweet spot, and I should be safely dead by 2100, so that’s one less thing I gotta deal with.
Really, even “numberty hundred” rings true to me.    “Nineteen hundred” sounds like a year.    “Twenty-one-oh-six” sounds like a futur-y year, which is even cooler.   So did “Two thousand five”, until I was actually living in it, and it sounds even worse now that it was a long time ago and adults will talk about their childhood happening in that year.    Daniel Witwicky would be old enough to get married and grow a fancier beard than me.    That’s nuts.    My point is that, honestly, it’s the year 3000-3019 that I have to worry about, so if I ever decide to go vampire, those will be the years I hide in the ocean or force society to reset the calendar, whichever’s easier.  
I spent New Year’s Eve finishing Superliminal, which I bought on Steam after I watched Vegeta play it on YouTube.  It has a similar look and feel to the Stanley Parable, so if you liked one you’d probably enjoy the other, although Superliminal has a different theme.  I kept hoping I’d find some secret passage that I wasn’t supposed to take, and a narrator would scold me for finding the “Chickenbutt Ending”, but it doesn’t work that way.    Superliminal’s all about puzzles and awesome visuals, but it does have the same soothing design aesthetics as TSP.   Honestly, I enjoyed just wandering around in Stanley’s office, and Superliminal does the same thing with a hotel and several other settings.   It’s nice.
This got me thinking about how I kind of did everything there was to do in The Stanley Parable, and I sort of wished they would add new stuff to the game, but I’m not sure there would be much point to that.    I could play the older version, but it presents the same message, just with different assets.   The Boss’s Office would look different, but it’d be the same game.   And this got me thinking about various “secret chapters” in pop culture.  Secrets behind the cut.
I first heard about this idea in the 2000′s, when fans invented this notion that there was a secret chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.    I read a website that tried to explain the concept, and of course it lauded J.K. Rowling with all this gushing praise for working an Easter egg into the book, a literary work of “well, magic.”  
That pretty well sums up my distaste for Harry Potter, by the way.    These days, JKR has thoroughly crapped all over her reputation and legacy, but in the 2000′s it felt like half the planet was in a mad rush to canonize her as a writing goddess, to the point where fans were congratulating her for writing secret chapters that didn’t actually exist.   The idea was based on lore from the books about Neville Longbottom’s parents.    They were patients in a mental hospital, and he’d go to visit them, and they would give him bubble gum wrappers, intended to demonstrate how far remove they’ve become from reality.   The secret chapter lies in those wrappers, which all read “Droobles Best Blowing Gum” or some such.    What if Neville’s parents were only pretending to be mentally ill, so as to throw off their enemies?   Naturally, they would want to stay in contact with their son, so the bubble gum wrappers would have to contain coded messages.    Said code involves unscrambling the letters on the wrappers to make new words, like “goblin” or “sword” or “Muggle” or “Dumbledore”.    The problem is that you can also use it to make other words like “booger” or “drool” or “booobbiess.”   Play with it enough, and you can make the code say anything you want it to say, which means it’s no code at all.   
But the idea was that the not-yet-published sixth HP book would reveal all of this gum wrapper nonsense, and Neville would decode the messages and discover all of his parents’ super-cool adventures.   I’m not sure why we needed a secret chapter if Book 6 was going to explain all of this anyway in several not-secret chapters, but that was the whole point.   Fans didn’t have Book 6 yet, and they were so desperate to read it that they started trying to extrapolate what would happen next based on “clues” from the previous five.    That’s like trying to figure out what Majin Buu looks like by watching the Androids Saga.   I guess some wiseguy would have guessed that he’d resemble #19, but that’d just be blind luck.  
And when you get down to it, this whole secret chapter business is really just a conspiracy.   This is literally how Qanon works.   Some anonymous jackass posted vague “hints” on an imageboard, and people went goofy trying to interpret them and figure out what would happen in the future.   They call it “research” because they spend a ton of time on this, but there’s no basis to any of it.    It took me a few minutes to figure out that you can spell “Muggle” with the words in “Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum”, but that’s not research and it doesn’t prove anything.   But all these guys keep looking for “Hilary Clinton goes to jail next week” and lo and behold that’s all they ever find.   
In the same vein, the gum wrapper thing was really a complaint disguised as a conspiracy, disguised as a “magical secret chapter”.   At least a few fans wanted to see more Neville in their Harry Potter books, they wanted Neville’s parents, or someone like them, to have cool spy adventures or whatever else.   The point is, they clearly weren’t getting what they wanted out of the printed works, but they didn’t want to turn against their Dear Beloved Author, so they started casting about for an alternative reality, one where J.K. Rowling wrote a cooler story and hid it in the pages of the one that actually went to press.    So instead of just saying “Hey, Order of the Phoenix was kind of a letdown, I hope there’s more ninjas in the next book,” they said “Rowling is a genius because I wanted ninjas and she’s definitely going to give them to me, I have the gum wrappers to prove it.”
The same thing happened all over again when the BBC Sherlock show took a turn for the nonsensical.    I don’t know from BBC Sherlock, but I watched the fascinating video critique by Hbomberguy, and it sounds like the show did tons of plot twists until it stopped making sense altogether in the fourth season.    If you skip to 1:09:00 in the video, you’ll hear about fan theories that suggested that season four was supposed to be crappy, as part of a secret meta-narrative plan that would be paid off in a secret, unannounced episode that would not only explain everything, but retroactively justify the crappy episodes that came before.    But it’s been a few years and it never came to pass, so I think we can call this myth busted. 
Most recently, I think we’ve all seen a lot of talk about the final season of Supernatural, where I guess Destiel sort of became canon but only one guy does the love confession and the other doesn’t respond.   But I guess he does say “I love you too”  in the Spanish dub, which means the English language version was edited for whatever reason.    It’s not exactly a secret episode, but the implication is that there’s more to this than what made it to the screen.    So the questions turn to what the screenplay said, what the writers and actors wanted to do, etc. etc.    My general impression is that SPN fans are a bit more used to crushing disappointment, so they’re not quite as delusional about this show being unquestionable genius, like Sherlock and Harry Potter.     Maybe this is an Anglophile thing?   Like, if you suck at something with a British accent, people will accept it more unconditionally?   
I had seen something on Twitter about how there should have been a secret Seinfeld episode in the 90′s.    Someone suggested it at the time, they tape a whole episode, then wait until 2020 to air it, because by then it would be worth a fortune.    But they didn’t do it, because it costs a lot of money to make a TV episode, and if you don’t air the show right away, you aren’t making that money back any time soon.    Yeah, you might recoup a fortune someday, but Seinfeld was making a ton of money then.    It exposes the fannish nature of the idea.    A fan would love to discover a cool secret chapter, but a content creator isn’t necessarily keen on making a cool thing and then hiding it where few people would find it.  
I thought about doing this myself recently.   Maybe Supernatural gave me the bug, but I thought “I’m writing this big-ass story, so what if I wrote me a secret chapter for it?   Wouldn’t that be cool?”     But no, it wouldn’t be cool, because it’d be the same work as writing a regular chapter, and the same stress I feel when I hold off on publishing it.    Except I’d just never publish it, I’d put it in some secret hole on the internet and hope that some superfan who might not even exist can decode whatever clues I leave.  
I mean, it’d be awesome if it got discovered and everyone loved it.    “Hey, I found this hidden chapter!   Mike’s done it again!”   And I could bask in the glory.   But what if no one finds it?  Then I just wasted my time, right?   I want people to read my work.   My monkey brain needs the sweet, sweet validation of those kudos and comments, folks.   Once I realized that, I understood why no one else would want to do a secret chapter either.    Easter eggs are one thing, but the bigger bonus features they put on DVDs were pretty easy to find, and with good reason.
I think that’s what made the Stanley Parable so appealing to play, because it teases you with the idea that you can “break” the game and find some extra content that you weren’t supposed to see, but as you go exploring all those hidden areas, it gradually becomes clear that this is just part of the game; you were meant to find all these things, and that’s why they were put here.      It’s hidden, but he secret aspect of it is just pretend.   
I suppose that what I like about games like TSP and Superliminal is the illusion of secrets more than the secrets themselves.    I like roaming through the hallways, having no idea what I might find ahead.    I kind of wish I could open all the doors, and not just the ones the game designers put stuff behind, but the reality is that there’s nothing on the other side.    I used a cheat code once  to explore the unused doors in TSP and it’s just a bright white field on the other side.   Interesting to look at, but not much of a reveal.   Honestly, the doors themselves are more appealing than anything that could lay behind them.  
And that’s probably what makes secrets so fun.   They could be almost anything, but once you open the present, the number of possibilities drops to one.   If they had ever made that Secret BBC Sherlock Episode, I doubt it would have lived up to expectations, but fans could amuse themselves by imagining what could have been in it.    In the end, though, things usually don’t justify the hype.  For every Undertaker debut at Survivor Series 1990, there’s a Gobbledygooker debut at Survivor Series 1990.   It’s impossible to manufacture a secret with a guaranteed payoff.   
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nomadicism · 4 years
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Now that She Ra is over, what are your thoughts on it? What about that Catradora kiss?
Hi Anon! Thank you for the Ask!
ヽ(*⌒∇⌒*)ノ Where to start?
I have so many thoughts on the show, and I’ve had so many thoughts since season 1. I’ve not written much of anything about She-Ra because I keep coming back to this problem of ‘where to start,’ or how to structure my thoughts beyond a +1000 item list. I can’t even pick one or two thoughts to dive into, because they all end up connecting to everything else —> honestly, that’s the mark of a tight narrative, even the big pieces that can fully stand on their own are still leading through to another piece. I fail at every attempt to write something brief.
Section I: Short answer first.
I have a very short and subjective list of media where I not only love (for different reasons) nearly every character (main, secondary, background), but where I also feel that their individual places or moments or arcs concluded in a way that felt right from start to finish. It’s a short list of media where connections and conflict between characters never felt forced, out-of-place, out-of-context, or done for shock value. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power makes that very short and subjective list.
It’s not often that a story hits all the right notes with me, and it’s much more often that a story starts off strong like that, and then turns me off ½-⅔ of the way through. I’ve quit video games during the final boss fight because the story lost me in the lead-up and I wasn’t going to waste 10-20 minutes of my time for something that turned out to be ‘meh’. It ain’t got to be deep, or anything either.
I really loved the voice acting. Everyone is great. A post for another time.
I love the aesthetics, which I wasn’t sure of at first teasers, but won me over in less than 3 minutes of the first episode (season 1) because I love bright pastels, the character designs are fun (can I still gush over variety of body types? YES), so many opportunities to explore stylish takes on the characters, and those Moebius-inspired scenery/background designs are a special interest delight. Season 5 delivered a visual ‘end game’ for the aesthetics in many ways, Section III further down will get into that a bit.
Section II: “What about that Catradora kiss?”
I gotta preface this with, shipping is not my go-to for how I enjoy creative works. It’s not a hobby for me. Sure there’s a few I dig more than others, but I’m otherwise agnostic about ships, unless there is a really bad story-fit (and that’s usually a subjective thing), or involves tropes that are a deal-breaker for me (and those typically relate a lot to the story fit).
With that said, I’m really happy to see Catradora be pulled off so brilliantly, and I think the kiss is a bold and beautiful big deal in a way that might not be obvious when considered in a vacuum. I see it as passionate and heart-felt, but also, it’s achieving(?) a relatable outcome (for me at least) that’s hard to describe. It’s an outcome yielded by a story in which two women—a hero and a villain—are divided and fight bitterly and then reconcile through love, while fighting a purity cult whose founder-prophet-god-king forces subservience through a conversion designed to strip someone of their identity (e.g. names they’ve chosen for themselves), memories-and-motivations, and love for others.
Despite these conversions, love still remains, it can’t just be baptized or therapy-ed away. Controlling puritans and authoritarians wielding religion or peace-panaceas as a weapon have been the villains in the lives of countless women and LGBTQIA people for a very long time. So yeah, I’ve got some feels about that. The last time I felt anything similarly relatable, or as strongly, was the Utena and Anthy relationship in Revolutionary Girl Utena (and really, their kiss during the surreal sequence at the end of the film adaptation).
Section III: Thoughts on Cult Aesthetics and Clones (the rough cut)
(1) In the future scenes at the end, Adora’s white dress with gold tiara and accents have this kind of goddess-like or Pallas Athena feel to it, which is a great mirror of the design choices for the god-like Horde Prime, his Purity Space Cult, mechanics/ship, and flagship interior scenery. Not saying that was the intention, but that’s how it came across to me.
Of course, those colors would be used because She-Ra already wears white and gold with a bit of red accent, which complement how the princesses are bright and colorful (pastels and jewel tones). The bold and bright colors helps signify that Etheria is full of life. Etheria is verdant and magical, and that sets up a contrast to the Fright Zone and the darker colors found in Horde characters (Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Scorpia, Catra, Entrapta, etc).
So the first kind of contrast was with the Fright Zone standing out as a poisoned/toxic against the bright, lively colors of Etheria and the princesses. Season 5 introduces another take on that contrast as Horde Prime is the opposite, or antithesis of Etheria’s colorful life. He’s like anti-life with his shades of light-and-dark grays on white, and only glow-green as an accent. In some cultures and religious traditions, white is associated with purity, and in others it is associated with death.
When Horde Prime ‘purifies’ Hordak for the sins of individuality and emotion (emotion for others, for his own sake), Hordak is drained of the colors he chose for himself during exile. In addition to being a contrast to Horde Prime (and informed by the 80s cartoon design), Hordak’s dark blue (or blue-black) and red color palette reflects the traditional use of red as a color for evil (especially vampirism) from back when diabolism was a stand-in for ‘the Devil’ in many forms of visual media (comics, live-action, animation, etc). In place of diabolic red, Horde Prime has toxic glow-green.
I absolutely love the use of the glow-green accents. Color trends for villains and significations of evil come and go, and I’m glad to see the color green be used again, and used so well. The last time I saw that shade of glow-green used so well was in Sleeping Beauty (re: Maleficent’s magic and the orb on her staff) and as the Loc-Nar in Heavy Metal. In both films, there are connotations of evil as a poisonous and corrupting influence. Green, in the context of evil, almost always signifies poison (and sometimes envy). I also like that the glow-green color is used in ways that aren’t immediately saying ‘this is evil’, such as the green baptismal waters and flames from the purification scene, or the green amniotic protein fluid. The language of piety and trappings of the sacred can cloak a sinister purpose.
I don’t know if any of that was intentional, but Horde Prime feels like the perfect synergy of purity and death (which has additional connotations, but that’s a very personal interpretation).
(2) Horde Prime immediately gave me subtle cult vibes in his first cameo (Season 3), and the follow-through on that was perfect and exactly what I was hoping to see. The background music throughout the scenes aboard the flagship fits well (love the soundtrack), and has the quality of Ecstatic Experience without pulling directly from any specific religion. Horde Prime’s dialogue is a delightful bit of narcissism veiled with the language of piety.
A purity cult comprised of clone-brother-worshippers of the cult’s founder-prophet-god-king reinforces that narcissism and has all the fun-dark feels of shiny-techno-future-dystopias. It is also an interesting use of clones, especially in a story format that usually never has the time to really dive into the complexities of cloning. This is the sort of thing that you’d be more likely to see in a one-off episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, rather than the basis for a greater scope villain, or multi-season nemesis. (and yes, Star Trek: TNG had an interesting clone episode)
Clones in science-fiction tend to fall into just a few tropes, and I generally dislike seeing clones show up in a story because the execution nearly always feels sloppy (in small ways or big ways). I did not get that feeling from She-Ra, where, the clones occupy the “cog in the machine” trope, but it is not their existence as clones that make them that way, it is the Will of Horde Prime that does. They are simultaneously expendable and sacred in their unity. It’s a nice flip on “stronger by working together” that Adora and the others have to learn (and struggle) to do.
It seems like, despite their religious programming, the clones have a little bit of their own personalities until Horde Prime ‘inhabits’ them to exert his Will. I’m trying not to read too much into it, b/c what comes across as ‘inhabits’ to me (especially with the religious/cult context), was probably meant more literal like described in the dialogue as a hive-mind control kind of thing. The first time it happens—to post-wipe/death Hordak—felt to me like a possession scene from The Exorcist, but without the kind of horror visuals that would scare both adults and children. The quick-and-subtle amount of body contortion and sound is still gross and creepy (because it should be), but it also reminds me of Ecstatic Experience in the form of speaking in tongues, or snake handling, or being a medium for a spirit. Again, I’m not saying any of that is intentional, but that’s how I see it.
(3) Finally, there is Entrapta, Hordak, and Wrong Hordak. Clones rarely get to be ‘humanized’ through friendship or romance arcs. I can think of a dozen or more robots that get to be humanized in that way, but can’t recall any clones that have (excluding doomed clones whose friendship/romance only existed for the sake of selling the tragedy of their death). Hordak gets death, renewal, and romance in a way that worked really well, and the totality of it is unique. I was a bit surprised that they could work in another clone—and I love Wrong Hordak—who pulls triple-duty as (1) comedy; (2) relevant to moving various pieces of the story along; and (3) more humanizing of the clones, which, again rarely happens as most stories take the easy low road when it comes to clones.
For Entrapta’s part, she’s never put in the position of giving up who she is (‘weird’ by many standards) for a romance. Her passion for technology is both an amusing double entendre at times, and integral to who she is. A romance for Entrapta does not replace her passion for technology, she can have both. Dating myself but, I came up in a time where most media (for children or adults) would rob a woman of her agency or passions during the resolution of a romance arc. Maybe times have changed, but it’s still nice to see none of that nonsense happening here.
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lunermagick-sims4 · 3 years
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Huntress & Hunter Story Part 1
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  In the new world of the sims where a sim could be walking down the street a zombie could bite or just going out and could be killed for pleasure by a crazed killer. Some sims have taken their homes to a new levels and some try to fake it and tell themselves it not real and go on as normal. Blair and Ragnar know this is not fake and have taken different directions with their homes to survive, they are hunters after all.
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Blair’s POV
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  The day was sunny and beautiful it made Blair feel like it was going to be a good day. She figured it would be nice to go for a swim even thought it is winter,  but it was still warm enough to swim here in Sulani. The water was beautiful this morning and there was a few people fishing trying to catch some food for supper later, she figured. Blair had her routine to do after her swim she check the fences around to make sure that  it was all secure at keeping sims & zombies out from her small home. It was a two story house and it was perfect for her. Next she checked her indoor garden to see if anything needed to be watered.   Once her garden was tended to she always sat down and did some writing in her journal, she loved to write and she kept it well hidden under her bed. She had put way to much information that could put her behind bars to keep it out in the open. Blair did not want to be in jail, the thought of being in a small cell with another sim made her feel sick to her stomach. She loved where she was at, her private place out by the ocean, it was calming and peaceful away from other sims!Blair was a greedy sim so it has made her more enemies then friends and she made herself accept, but deep down she was a lover and she did wanted to connect with someone. That person has not come into her life yet. Blair does not mind if it a man or a women she liked both. When her parents found out they kicked her out and she been on her own since. She is proud that of the things she has accomplished on her own like getting through high school and college and how she has managed to survive on her own. All she had was her raven Slayer, she has not found a pet yet she has connected with other then having a fish. Blair was getting bored she did everything she could think of, like play video games, pole danced and went for a swim, she was bored out of her mind.  She did not sleep much because she was a vampire and her energy barely went down much. She fixed her make up, put perfume on and changed into something sexy. Blair loved to wear tight clothes and sometimes very revealing as well. Blair has super speed so it would not take her long to run to the bar.
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After running down hill and through water she came straight to the bar and ordered herself a drink. All she could think of was her favourite wine, von haunt estate meloire she licked her lips thinking of it. The redness of it made her think of blood but it also tasted so good and went down so easy. It was quiet when she got there and she liked that, just the tv going and the bartender doing her thing. Blair asked for a refill and she was starting to feel tipsy, she liked the feeling she was not drunk enough that if she needed to defend herself she could but feeling good enough to have a good time. Once everyone started coming her mood was ruined very quickly and she was hungry. Blair was free with a little alcohol in her and she did not care what people thought and she looked around with her pale brown eye, she needed to be certain who it be. There was a guy who walked in he did not look to be from the area and he smelled yummy. She went up to him fast “Hello there.” She said sweetly. The guy looked her up and down. He smiled thinking he would be getting lucky. She had other plans for him and it was not what he was thinking. “Well hello there cutie.” Blair rolled her eyes and smiled. She beat him around a little to catch him off guard. “You damn bitch.” He yelled. She laughed and he tried to hit her but she was to fast and she shoved her hand into his chest and broke through and grabbed what she wanted. His face was shocked and she smiled a wicked smile. The beating of him heart in her hand was exhilarating being able to feel life and take it away all at the same time, she ripped it from his body and blood gushed all over her. People screamed around her and she ignored them. She took his heart and put it to her mouth the warmth of the blood was so delicious and she felt youthful after she finished eating his hearts it always gave her a rush of life. She loved blood from the neck to but having a heart made her feel powerful and in control. The cops showed up and she cleaned herself up quickly and disguised herself but they still figured her out. She had a women cop chase her but she was to fast and she lost her. Blair laughed she was way to fast for them.
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Ragnar’s POV
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  Ragnar was sitting on the side of the bed in his little cottage up by the volcano in Sulani, he was up late last night supposed to be getting rich. Ragnar gritted his teeth remembering the night. He and a buddy was put on mission to rob a jewelry store and they were getting paid big by the person who hired them but his buddy fucked him. He remembers breaking into the jewelry store and heading to the back to the safe with his buddy once getting everything and he went to turn around and bang something hit him in the head and Ragnar just remembers black till he woke up on the floor of the jewelry store. He heard sirens coming his way. The stuff he had grabbed was gone. When he sat up his head throbbed and his vision was a bit blurry but all he thought of was get out of the store the cops were coming. He remembers walking and walking till he hit beach and finally he saw his home. It was small cottage away from the town. He did not put wired fences around it he felt he did not need too. It was small so he slept by the back door and always kept a ear listening. He wishes he remembers how to fly at that moment. Going up those sandy hills in his condition is going to be hard but he was to disoriented to change into a bat and fly. To be honest after thinking about it he does not even remember walking and coming through the door to the bed. Ragnar usually liked his coffin but “I guess I passed out on the bed, was probably first thing I came to ” he thought. Ragnar pushed his hair back of out his face and signed. He was glade the throbbing stop and his vision was much better but blood was all over the bed. He must of been bleeding more then he thought. Ragnar got up and went over to the sink. He grabbed a glass out of the cupboard and turned on the cold water. He let it run for a bit and put his glass under to fill it up. He brought it to his mouth and drank it down. He not crazy over water but his mouth tasted like dirt. Once he finished his water he put it in the sink and went over to the bed and started taking off the bloody blankets. He found his spare bedding and made it new. He sat down on his couch in the kitchen for a moment then he thought “I am hungry” but did not know what to make. So he just got a bowl out and poured cereal into it with milk. It was satisfying he was a lucky vampire that he could enjoy food. It seem to hit the spot till he could go find blood later from a live host. He always find women to be more tasty and sweet.
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Ragnar was feeling a bit better so he figured he go in to town to the bar it was around six in the evening so it was good time to go for a drink. Sulani was a small town he been hearing some stories of crazy blue haired cat girl ripping people hearts out at the bar. He thought maybe he should go and check the bar out see if he could find this cat girl. She sounded pretty hot. He chuckled to himself. “Any girl crazy with blue hair sounds hot to me and cat ears sound even more cute.” he said to himself out loud. Ragnar killed a few zombies on his way to the bar. His flight as a bat still felt weird so he just decided to walk down least he remembered this trip. He was happy to only see a few zombies tonight and he saved a gentlemen from a zombie but he was starting to get hungry for blood so he took some without permission and the mans body went limp in his arms after deeply drinking. The blood was not usually what he like but it was needed. Ragnar figured he saved this sim life, he thought He better not leave the poor sim out to be lunch so he put him some where he thought he be safe till he woke up. After his swords took a few zombies heads he finally made it to the bar. He wanted a good ale after last night and a few zombie kills. Ragnar thinks is it time to leave the criminal job, he’s bored with it now and he needs something else and after last night how could he trust anymore of who they would partner him with. It was rowdy and loud tonight at the bar, Ragnar shrugged it off he just wanted his drinks and he sat at the bar waiting to see what the night might bring. After a few drink and nothing exciting happened he figured he leave to go home. “I guess she not coming tonight.” He said to himself so he started out till a women came up to him. “Hey there hot stuff.” She was clearly drunk she reeked of booze and Ragnar did not feeling like pleasing anyone tonight. “take a hike.” He growled. The women snorted “What not good enough?” He just kept walking away. “You bastard.” She yelled. Ragnar lost his temper and turned to her they were outside the bar.  “I do not want you. Go” the women was persistent and Ragnar grabbed his swords and sliced her. People started to scream but Ragnar just kept lashing and lashing. Blood flew every where and he laughed with joy. The more he heard screams the more the rush went through him. He sneered down at the dead body and started to walk away. People were running around and that caused near by zombies to hear so he got to kill even more and it made his night complete. He might of not seen the cat girl but this was just as satisfying.
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emptymasks · 4 years
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@gaymelie​ tagged me to share 10 songs I've been listening to recently, thanks for tagging me darling. I’m going to try and not pick more than one song by the same singer/band/cast
1. Dress - BUCK-TICK. A clip from the music video came across my twitter feed and I clicked play because of how beautiful the singer looked with his long hair and make-up and just, honestly, looking like my dream soft goth aesthetic, and the song is so good. It’s from 1993, but sounds like it could be from the 80s, it makes me think of The Cure if they were happier sounding, if that makes sense. 
2. Say So - Doja Cat / Rainych - I had heard the Japense cover by Rainych first because I never look at what’s in the charts so I hadn’t ever heard the song or heard of Doja Cat. I don’t like a lot of modern pop music (idk it’s just not my thing) but sometimes a song comes along that I really get into and again this has an 80s pop feel to it and makes me want to dance and cheers me up and that’s sort of what I need right now
3. Nowhere Fast - Fire Inc. I could have put ‘Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young’ by Fire Inc here as well. It’s from the film Streets of Fire and both of those songs are written by Jim Steinman, Tanz Der Vampire fans, you’ll know who he is. I literally watched this film because part of a Tanz melody is in ‘Nowhere Fast’ and ‘Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young’ is literally ‘Finale zweiter Akt / Der Tanz der Vampire’. The film is sort of cheesy, but if you want an awesome 80s soundtrack, a weird mash-up of 50s and 80s sets and costumes, and a 20 year old Willem Dafoe as the leader of a biker gang who at one point is wearing black, glossy overalls with no shirt on underneath, then this is the film for you.
4. ROKI - Mikito-P ft. Kagamine Rin. Ah yes a Vocaloid song. Despite stopping being up to date with Vocaloid stuff in 2012, I still listen to the songs sometimes because the producers/composers are very talented. Been getting into this because I downloaded a rhythm game that had this song in.
5. Deeper and Deeper - The Fixx. Another song from Streets of Fire. Loved this song and finally got around to listening to other songs from the band a couple days ago and omg, I’ve only listened to their first album but I love it.
6. Omae Wa Mou (Tiny Little Adiantum Remix) -  deadman 死人, Shibayan. Okay, yes, there’s a meme song on here. But like. It’s a really good song, okay. I sent it to my brother and now both of us have been singing it at each other for the past week.
7. Totale Finsternis - Taz Der Vampire. You all know musical songs where going to be on here. Honestly, this is a song I didn’t dislike or anything, it’s just taken me a long time to get into because I’m not a big fan of Totale Eclipse of the Heart of those sorts of pop ballads, but after playing it on piano enough time’s I’ve been enjoying trying to sing it.
8. Quite Life - Japan. My dad played me this after I played him Dress by BUCK-TICK because they reminded him on this band. I liked it and hopefully I remember to listen to more by them.
9. Wenn Ich Tanzen Will - Elisabeth Das Musical. You all don’t need to hear me gush about this musical again, but I was listening to this song again in particular because I found chords for it on Ultimate Guitar Tabs and got too excited. 
10. Epitaph - King Crimson. Listented to this today for the first time in ages because I saw someone saying this is the saddest prog rock song, and I have to agree. It’s also one of my favourite songs of all time.
Oh wow, I didn’t mean to ramble that much. Uhh I’m just real passionate about music. Hmm who to tag, @justthedeadgirl @a-touch-of-darknesss @hungarianator @into-the-stratosphere @beautyofloneliness
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tomco-week · 5 years
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At long last, here it is! Tomco Week 12: Pride and More! A Tomco week themed around Pride Month and the series finale of Star Vs the Forces of Evil! Special thanks to @jess-the-vampire AKA @tacosandtomcos for the banner, and to those on Discord who helped me with ideas.
Like all previous weeks, if you wanna modify any prompts into Stomco, you are more than welcome to and I will absolutely reblog those here too.
So our prompts for this week will be as follows:
Day 1 - 23 Jun - That Can’t Be It
Let’s start the week off with something that I’m sure all of us Tomco shippers are thinking. That everyone who watched the finale thought, I’m sure. Is that seriously it? That can’t be it. And yet, it was. Leaving all personal opinions aside I think we can still all agree the ending of the series was quite messy and rushed. We’re not fully sure what happened or why, but as it is, it seems all the dimensions have merged together. So what do you think is going to happen next? Where’s Tom? Who might have simply gone away due to the magic being destroyed? How do Marco, Tom, and Star all deal with what happened? Let’s explore the inevitable post-show chaos!
Day 2 - 24 Jun - Confessions
So yeah, I guess Star and Marco are a thing now. But this IS a Tomco (and Stomco) blog. How does Tom react to this? Did he possibly have a crush on Marco? Will the three of them try to talk this out? Will he try to win him over, join their relationship, or just move on because he wants him to be happy? Plenty of room for angst, but also for a happy ending for all three of them! Do what you will.
Day 3 - 25 Jun - Happy Pride!
Come on y’all, it’s Pride Month! Let’s show a little Pride. What headcanons do you have for Tom and Marco? If they were to dress up, which flags and icons would they go for? Or perhaps they simply discuss their identities with each other and learn more about each other in the process?
Day 4 - 26 Jun - Pride Events!
How does our favorite pairing celebrate Pride? Do they attend parades or rallys? Go out to eat? Shopping? Or perhaps they just hang out together at home and play games or watch movies? Maybe they don’t really care for celebrating Pride at all, which is totally understandable. I wanna know what you see them doing. :D
Day 5 - 27 Jun - Love Sentence Concert
Tom was freakin’ robbed in Just Friends, like WOW he absolutely deserved to go to that Love Sentence concert with Star, Marco, and Jackie. He and Marco bonded so much over liking the band and he doesn’t even get mentioned? smh. So let’s make up for that! Tom finally gets to go to a Love Sentence concert with Marco! Which songs do they rock out to the most? What souvenirs do they buy? Do they get any autographs?
Day 6 - 28 Jun - Meeting Parents
Honestly, it’s time. Tom and Star’s parents know each other, sure, but Marco’s and Tom’s don’t. But now that everyone’s in the same dimension together, there’s really no better time. How do you see a meeting between Rafael and Angie, and Dave and Wrathemelior, going? Is there tension or do they take to each other immediately? How do they feel about their children dating? And most important... does Wrathmelior just immediately gush over adorable Mariposa and insist on babysitting her?
Day 7 - 29 Jun - Summer Vacation
Well hey, the series ended around summer time, didn’t it? So why not have the final prompt be what you think their first summer vacation in the merged dimension is like! Where do they go, what photos do they take? How have famous landmarks perhaps changed? Is Marco’s favorite taco restaurant still there or is it now merged beautifully (or perhaps disastrously) with a Mewni or Underworld restaurant?? Perhaps they head to the beach and surprise, huge sections of the ocean are inexplicably replaced with lava, lookin like some ridiculous Minecraft map. Gonna get a little weird, gonna get a little wild this summer y’all.
So those are your prompts! I will be reblogging everything relating to it and using the relevant tags for searching later. Now, the rules, which can always be found in the About page!
1. Please use the Tomco tag on everything you post for a week. You may of course use main show tags, such as svtfoe and Star Vs, since they are from the show, but just make sure Tomco is also tagged for blacklisting purposes.
2. You may also want to use ‘Tomco Week’ as a tag as well, just to make it easier for me to find your work. I’ll be reblogging everything on the relevant days.
3. You may post entries early, they just won’t be reblogged here until the relevant day comes up. Feel free to shoot me a message but odds are I’ll like it so I can find it later.
4. If you miss the day, don’t worry. I will reblog them as soon as you get it posted. Again, shoot me a message if I miss it. I’ll be tagging things by day for searching purposes.
5. No explicit works. I don’t tend to reblog them any other time so I’ve decided I won’t share them here. If you want to draw something suggestive, go for it, just make sure it has the appropriate tags on it and I will also tag as ‘suggestive’ for those who want to blacklist that. Put it under a read more if you can. But again, PG-13. No explicit works. ESPECIALLY now that Tumblr implemented a ban against such things. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. If you’re unsure, send me a PM and I’ll let you know how I’d rate it.
I’ll accept fanart, fanfiction, cosplay, videos, heck, songs, whatever you wanna share.
As usual, no ship bashing. Teasing is fine, outright hostility toward other ships is a no. We’re all here to have fun, let’s keep things respectful.
So there’s the week, I’ll reblog this a few times in the weeks leading up to it as a reminder, and I can’t wait to see what y’all come up with! :D Lemme know if you have any questions.
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