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hematomes · 3 years

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genshin impact: the neverending suffering of artifacts’ farming

hi, don’t forget to drink water, do you daily commissions in genshin and get your daily bonus on the mihoyo lab website thingy

so today, since all... idk, 12 of you seemingly asked for it, i’ll be rambling about genshin’s artifacts and how to boost your character’s performance with them. get ready for broken english and me going on and on about stats (but not too much bc i hate maths). let’s goooo

quick disclaimer before we begin: this is just the opinion of one (1) single player. i just enjoy the strategy a lot and the fact that this forsaken game forces me to think long and hard about stats. at the end of the day, if you’re satisfied with your DMG, you don’t have to listen to me.

finally, if you want personalised help in building a specific characters, i’ve been studying most of them (especially 4* since I have all of them zkzezek) so you can DM me anytime! or even go with the asks if you want to remain anon, i don’t mind. i’m happy to help anyone!!

table of contents

I. data about the different artifacts (stats when maxed out, info)

II. ideal stats for each type of character

1. main DPS

2. sub/burst DPS

3. healers and tanks

III. CRIT rate/DMG and the 1:2 ratio

I. data about the different artifacts

so, first, a little bit of info/data about the artifacts!

you’ll get an added substat at lvl 4, then substats will improve every 4 levels. one random substat improves, so you’ll have to pray and cross your fingers

the substats cannot be the same as the main stat

5* artifacts go up to lvl 20, 4* to lvl 16 and 3* to lvl 12

the percentage bonus is added on your character’s base stats

the flower and the plume’s main stats are always HP flat and ATK flat. focus on their substats to pick the best

added bonus: every set of artifact has extra lore in the archive. for example, eula’s set (pale flame) has incredible lore about the fatui harbingers and has dangerously increased my need to see scaramouche again

and now, the maxed out stats of artifacts. i’ll go over 5*, 4* and 3* for new players!! baby genshin players are literally the best idc.

flower: 3* goes up to 1,893, 4* to 3,571 and 5* to 4,780

plume: 3* goes up to 123, 4* to 232 and 5* to 311

HP%, ATK%, DEF%, elem DMG bonus%: 3* goes up to 23.1%, 4* to 34.8% and 5* to 46.6%

phys DMG bonus%: 3* goes up to 28.8%, 4* to 43.5% and 5* to 58.3%

EM: 3* goes up to 92, 4* to 139 and 5* to 187

ER%: 3* goes up to 25.8%, 4* to 38.7% and 5* to 51.8%

CRIT rate%: 3* goes up to 15.4%, 4* to 23.2% and 5* to 31.1%

CRIT DMG%: 3* goes up to 30.8%, 4* to 46.4% and 5* to 62.2%

healing bonus%: 3* goes up to 17.2%, 4* to 26.8% and 5* to 35.9%

a. sands of eon/timepiece

so the sands of eon aka the timepiece is quite decisive for the type of character you’ll be doing: either a main DPS or a support (tank/healer/sub DPS). as such, it has similar drop rates & maxed out levels on the big 3 stats: HP, ATK and DEF. however, when building a support like a sub DPS or a healer that relies on their ult (like diona for example), you’ll need energy recharge (ER), which is a lot rarer. elemental mastery (EM) isn’t generally recommanded as a main stat, it’s best to find it in sub stats. DEF% is also not a good option unless it’s for specific characters that rely on their defense, like albedo or noelle.

basically, a main DPS will most likely have a ATK% timepiece, while a support would need an ER%. that being said, supports like xiangling must also have a good chunk of elemental mastery because her ult can deal insane amount of damage with elemental reactions. you’ll need to balance both ; for example, a weapon with elemental mastery (like dragonbane) and a ER% timepiece, or good EM/ER substats etc.

b. goblet of eonothem

the goblet is where you’ll typically get your elemental/physical DMG bonus. it’s the only artifact that gives this bonus at all (it’s not found as substats). you can also drop EM, ATK%, HP% and DEF%.

there’re little characters that would need phys DMG. if you’re building a physical DPS, consider their base ATK and the stats of their normal/charged attacks. albedo, for example, would not be your typical phys DPS. the main phys DPS that exists is razor, and now there’s also eula; razor is an especially good physical DPS bc he gets a phys bonus either way so at lvl 80 + a lvl 20 goblet you go up to 105% phys DMG bonus. however, electro DPS is also a nice option! claymores tend to be very good physical DPS because their normal attacks easily go over 100% of their ATK, but i heard that fischl and xiangling are viable as well. all in all, anyone can be a physical DPS, but some of them are better off as elemental DPS. you do you, though!

c. circlet of logos/hat

the hat is crucial, because it’s where you’ll get your main CRIT rate/DMG. CRIT is super important, especially with your DPS; i’ll talk more about the best way to build CRIT in a bit, but just know that the main theory is building the 1:2 ratio: 50% CRIT rate and 100% CRIT DMG.

you might also know that there’s the healing bonus, needed for... healers. like crit rate/dmg, you’ll only find the healing bonus on the hats.

II. ideal stats for each type of character

now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the ideal stats for each type (main DPS, sub/burst DPS, healers, tanks).

1. main DPS

there’re a lot of good main DPS characters in genshin. mine are xiao, yanfei, razor and hu tao, for example. there’s also childe, ganyu, ningguang... and usually you’ll build them the same way (with exceptions). as such, your goal would be at least 1.5k ATK% (unless your DMG depends on something else, like hu tao and how it relies on her HP%), 50% CRIT rate and at least 100% CRIT DMG.

your substats priorities would be: CRIT rate/DMG > ATK% > EM (unless it’s a physical DPS) > ER%. there’s always exceptions, like hu tao once again (i talk a lot about her but im pissed bc i can’t drop a good HP% timepiece).

as such, your timepiece will generally be on ATK%, with CRIT rate/DMG subs. elemental mastery is an added bonus on characters like hu tao, yanfei, etc. DEF% and HP% are generally secondary (except for hu tao because, as i said, her DMG relies on her max HP & her burst on her health bar status), so focus on the big 3. flat stats (no percentage) aren’t very good either, but better than nothing.

your goblet will be either on ATK% or on elemental/phys DMG bonus%. the easiest way when you’re building a set is to leave the goblet as your broken set (aka the 5th piece with no set bonus), since the drop rates on elem/phys goblets are very low.

your hat will be on CRIT rate/DMG, depending on which one you need. ATK% is a viable alternative, but crit is really good. however, if you’re just starting to build, you can use a temporary ATK% hat.

2. sub/burst DPS

support DPS are very interesting characters to build and play. unlike DPS who focus on DMG/ATK/etc, this time you’ll have to balance energy recharge% and elemental mastery. the substats are also very important and should be focusing on ATK%, EM and ER%.

when building a support, you need to keep in mind that they’ll be buffing your main DPS’ damages, so they rely a lot on elemental reactions. which is why your substats priority becomes ER% > EM > ATK%. CRIT is always good but not as important, especially if you have around 200 EM and your main DPS is already past 50% rate/100% DMG.

your timepiece should be on ER%. with a sub DPS that relies on their burst, the ideal ER% is around 150%, especially if they need a lot of energy to build their burst. xingqiu, for example, is better around 170%, but chongyun would be fine at 150%. since the timepiece is the only artifact with the ER% bonus, it’s kinda crucial.

your goblet needs to be either on elemental DMG bonus% (not physical!) or ATK%. EM can be an alternative, especially if it helps you reach +50% on elemental reaction DMG. otherwise, elemental DMG bonus% is the safest option.

your hat should be on EM or ATK%. EM is better because it’s super rare and really helpful for elemental reactions so, if you drop one with good substats go for it.

3. healers and tanks

they are absolutely vital in dungeons like the abyss thingy, because you can’t use food so you’ll need to heal with characters. currently we have qiqi, jean, zhongli if you have his c6 (god), diona, bennett, barbara (free) and noelle (free). there is two type of healers: those who only heal on their ult, like jean, bennett and diona (moreover, bennett only heals 75% but he gives an ATK% bonus so he’s still incredible), and those who heal with their elemental skill like barbara, c6 zhongli, qiqi and noelle. the first type will need a focus on their ER% while the second on HP% (except qiqi, it’s on her ATK%). zhongli in particular needs as much HP% as you can because at c0 he’s a tank & his shield is the best of the game. it relies on his HP%, so aim for around 30k at lvl 80. if you can go higher, even better! and if you want a run-down of my stuff for zhongli i can too, mine is at 49k HP and his shield is at lvl 10, so he can basically shield me from anything. anyway.

healers that rely on their ult

your timepiece will need to be on ER%. aim for at least around 150% energy recharge, maybe more depending on how much energy their ult needs. ideal substats would be HP%, the rest isn’t that important.

your goblet has to be on HP%. if you can get an ER% sub it’s even better.

your hat, in healing bonus%. same thing, if you can get an HP% and/or ER%, even better.

healers that don’t rely on their ult

this time, the focus would be on HP%, but ER% is always important so look for it in substats. same hat.

exceptions: qiqi, noelle

qiqi’s heal is based on ATK. her e is based on her ATK but the ult is based on the character that deals the DMG. meaning if qiqi has ult and the opponent is marked with a talisman, and if your character deals like a 1k DMG, they’ll get 1k HP. so switch your timepiece and goblet to ATK%, and keep your hat on healing bonus%.

noelle, however, relies on her DEF. same thing than qiqi, switch timepiece and goblet to DEF%. noelle as a healer/tank doesn’t have a very useful ult, but if you got lucky and have ATK% ou CRIT rate/DMG% substats, see if you can up her ER%!

III. CRIT rate/DMG and the 1:2 ratio

if you’ve done some research on the ideal crit rate/dmg, you might have heard of something called the 1:2 ratio. it basically means that you need to have half as much CRIT rate% as you have CRIT DMG%. the starter would be 50% rate & 100% DMG but, in my opinion it’s not really enough if you’re around AR 45 or aiming to clear the last stages of the abyss spirals. 50% CRIT rate is enough but if you can up your CRIT DMG% to like 125/150% it’d probably be the best. i got super lucky with my xiao and went up to 200% CRIT DMG, but it’s because he already has a CRIT rate bonus as you level him up so it wasn’t my priority.

anyway, i’ve been playing with around 50% CRIT rate on my DPS (except xiao bc he also has the CRIT rate polearm + his lvl bonus) and frankly it’s been enough for now. dealt a 98k with the hutao & mona ults combo, hu tao around 50% rate & 150% DMG while mona was at 30%/150%. naturally, the higher your CRIT rate, the better, but the 1:2 ratio is just a good start. don’t obsess over it!

conclusion

well, this was fun. now, it’s your turn: if you have questions or you disagree with something i said (very plausible, i might have said a lot of dumb stuff and i could be a terrible player lol), do tell! keep it polite though, i don’t want to start a fight but i’m always interested in other players’ experience. i’ll say it again: drink water. mwah

#genshin #genshin help #genshin impact #genshin impact help #genshin artifacts #genshin impact artifacts #not a quote #genshin farm #genshin impact farm #this is so long i'm sorry

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bunchofstraydogs · 3 years

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You asked for it :> So may I request the rest of BSD playing Genshin? 😘🥰

Darling, since I can't write that many characters in one go, I thought I should give you something special. I present... 💫 women 💫

Women of BSD as Genshin Impact players

tw: you're in bsd fandom, you know all the tw there are by now

Kyouka Izumi- Assasin in the streets, babysitter in the... Genshin Impact

Kyouka is that cute, stubborn kid that overfixates on things. Atsushi is things. Look, we all know Kyo-chan is mad intelligent and talented and it shows in her game play. Right off the bat she got the sense of the gameplay of every type of character and decided what works best for her. She knows what type of team she's going for and knows how to manage her materials wisely.

When she plays alone, Kyouka works towards bettering her characters and pushing through the storyline. Her favourite way to play the game is with Atsushi, whether alone or in co-op with others. Playing with Jinko is a huge win-win situation for her - she helps him beat up whatever he needs to take down and complete puzzles, he gives her praises and gratitude. And materials, but seldom does she take them.

Her main job, though, is to protect Atsushi and his world from the otherworldly evil known as the suicidal maniac, Dazai Osamu. She's fairly successful.

Main Team: MC, Klee, Keqing, Rosaria

Sub Team: MC, Qiqi, Fischl, Hu Tao

Mains MC, both for her flexibility with elements and because she likes being the little sister to Atsushi's male MC.

Yosano Akiko- retired nurse, now a terrorist

Did you really think she'd stay a healer without having the sadistic satisfaction of hurting people in grotesque ways? Nay. She doesn't have a single healer on team. She either has a teammate who's a healer like Haruno, or she wastes abundance of food until she can teleport to a statue of the seven.

Her game play is on crack, basically. She has several energy spurs, sometimes several times a day, where she rages through the game, before losing interest and going shopping. It's very possible with her that days can pass before she feels like playing again. Then she binges the game for hours and repeat.

When i say she acts like on crack i mean it. She has rage in her veins instead of blood. She tanks her characters and goes out looking for fights with worst possible opponents. Hell, she'll under equip her party just to see how many mofos can she take down in weak state. Spoilers, a fair few. She does die quite a bit, and is almost always out of food, but she's just as stubborn as she's crazy. Those two thing correlate probably. Which is why she made Azdaha her bitch. Her party consists either of strong, hot milfs women like herself, or twinks. You won't see someone like Childe disrespecting her vibe.

Main Team: Beido, Venti, Hu Tao, Rozaria

Sub Team: Lisa, Yanfei, Ningguang, Xingqiu

Beido and Lisa main. Bad bitches only.

Naomi Tanizaki- the fangirl player

She basically collects the cutest characters possible.. That's how she chooses her characters, based on cuteness. She went for the hot ones first to pull her brother but she got jealous and changed her tactic. You know she's spending her money on character skins and certain banners. She's insanely lucky tho?? She got Qiqi on the standard banner as her first 5*, pulled Klee on her banner in little over four 10 pulles and got Diona eventually anyway. Baraba and Xiangling were free and she mained Xiangling untill Klee rolled in. She spent some money on Venti and was already in pity when Ganyu came around. She's fully ready to whale for Kokomi though.

Now i know i said she's incredibly lucky, right? Yeahh that luck has to turn against something to keep the balance and well... she's still crying over Chongyun.

She usually co-ops with her brother, it's a daily ritual. Loves co oping with everyone though, mostly Haruno, Atsushi and Kyouka. She made online friends as well. Actually, there is one person she co ops with almost as much as she does with her brother. IchiGawa is her Genshin bestie and they talk about their crushes and infatuations besides the game itself. Her friend is the only secret she keeps from her brother.

Main Team: Klee, Diona, Venti, Barbara

Sub Team: Razor, Xiangling, Xingqiu, Qiqi

A Klee main.

Haruno Kirako- the healer

Literal angel. You need her, i need her, ADA needs her, the president needs her, just... yes. Her whole team consists of support- healers and crowd control characters. She was a f2p at first, but realised she earns her own money and can spend it however she wishes and she chose the monthly cards.

She's a necessity, point blank. She can get intimidated by new foe at first, but when backed up by her friends, she becomes determined and flexible. Pays good attention to her teammates, most importantly, their health bars, and acts accordingly.

The only reason most of them made it as far as they have, being as reckless as they are.

Main Team: Albedo, Barbara, Jean, Venti

Sub Team: Qiqi, Noel, Jean, Xinyan

Mains Albedo and Barbara

Fan fact: She's very fascinated infatuated with Albedo!! He's even her home screen and has posters and key chain of him.

Gin Akutagawa- that cottagecore assassin

You may be wondering what that could even mean. Let me tell you, she brought Animal Crossing to Genshin Impact. Sure she takes care of her characters and they're pretty powerful, but she kicks ass in real life as well. The game is her little getaway, especially since Serenity pot has been introduced. She's been making away her home for her and her brother characters. You can see her chop wood, collect materials, taking pictures with her friends and her brother, sometimes of pretty scenery and cute moments. A very wholesome player.

She's the type to help her friends explore their world and help them find oculi, open chests, shrines, collect flowers, mine... She's very patient, but if she sees her co-op teammates struggle with something, she'll jump in to help do it herself untill told to back off. In which case she will listen and silently give her support, usually with the cheering stickers in the chat.

She's f2p! Sure, she could get the monthly card at least, as Ryunosuke told her, but she really wants to enjoy the game on her own terms and have what she does through her own effort and hard work. It just feels satisfying to her and more personal.

Main Team: Jean, Ayaka, Diluc, Barbara

Sub Team: Doesn't have one! She just changes characters if certain elements are needed.

Jean main!! She admirers the relationship her and Barbara have. While she's the younger of the two, she's taken the mantle of the older sibling, in a way, and is looking after her reckless as heck brother and cares for him like Jean does for Barbara. Jean is also a wonderful person in her eyes and Gin harbours great respect for the blonde.

Higuchi Ichiyo- IchiGawa 🤡

I love Higuchi so much, but my girl is a mess and a half. Help her, please. No, really, she needs help. She's been over compensating for not being dramatic and eye catching in the battlefield, and has now found a new way to prove herself to her Akutagawa-san. Problem is, as soon as she sees a potentially powerful character, she has to get them and boost them to the havens... yeahh, good thing you can't do loans in the game, otherwise she'd have sharks on her ass for having a bill as dramatic and eye catching as Tsunade's from Naruto. Our girl out there turning heads for wrong reasons. She's definitely spent her pay checks on the game "oh no no, i just buy the monthly subscription, ehe" ehe my ass, you bankrupt bitch. Baal is coming and she's looking to sell a kidney. No, it's not her own and no, it doesn't have anything to do with the game. It's a mission, for God's sake.

But hey, the game is a good investment for her! She even made a friend, one that totally understands her how she feels!! They're very alike as well, ready to do anything for the person they love. The two talk about love a lot and have bonded over it. Higuchi is actually a jealous and a protective type of person, so she hides her friend from Gin and Tachihara like snake hides it's legs. If only they knew 🤡. But it's better this way as they both have a certain sense of normalcy and familiarity they were missing in their daily lives. (Higuchi and Naomi meeting scenario when?)

Main Team: Xiao, Fischl, Xingqiu, Diluc

Sub Team: Baal (soon?), Venti, Ganyu, Zhongli

She mains Xiao because he reminds her of Akutagawa-san and yes, she uses characters from her sub team when playing with others.

Fan Fact: when she was asked why her username is IchiGawa, she said she's like a river 🤡 No, it does absolutely not stand for Ichiyo Akutagawa.

Ozaki Kouyo- the husbando and loli collector

Don't get the wrong idea when i said loli collector. She just needs to adopt them and look after them. She also enjoys watching her precious babies kick ass like her Kyouka. But that's a two way sword, because she gets angry when they die. Savage.

And yeahh, the real reason she's playing the game... Mr Zhongli. She switches often between eng and jpn audios because she can't decide which sounds sexier. Also, Mr Diluc? Yes, she would like to be served one sex on the beach please and thank you! Ah, Mr Kaeya, a perfect window of opportunity, yes.

She has a huge spot for the teenager group as well. Razor, Bennett, Fishl, Xiangling, Xingqiu and Chongyun are also her kids. She just finds them very precious (don't we all?).

Main Team: Zhongli, Kaeya, Bennett, Diluc

Sub Team: Diona, Klee, Qiqi, Sayu

A Zhongli and Diluc main.

Bonus:

Elise- the evil lackadaisical player

Mori found out about the game from Higuchi and Tachihara and introduced it to Elise, telling her she should make a team of sweet little girls like herself and have fun going on adventures around Teyvat. In response, Elise made a team that, not only does it not have a single child in it, but is using it to gaslight and bully Rintarou.

"Why aren't you smart and inventive like Albedo?"

"Why aren't you as passionate and persistent as Sucrose?"

"Look how capable, loved and admired Ningguang is. You could never."

"I wish i had someone as strong, caring, handsome and rich like Childe looking after me. He would treat me like a real princess. "

Mori has been crying rivers ever since.

Thing is, Elise isn't even that interest in the story. Actually, she couldn't care less. Some characters are interesting to her and she likes the graphics, but other than that, she's mostly playing the game to torture the greasy doctor (as she should).

Main Team: Albedo, Sucrose, Ningguang, Childe

Sub Team: doesn't have one

Doesn't have a main either, she plays whoever she feels like playing.

I wanted to add Lucy too, but my mind wasn't cooperating ;-; Sorry about that. I do hope you liked this, Eli 💛

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #kyoka izumi #haruno kirako #higuchi ichiyo #ozaki kouyou #bsd elise #tanizaki naomi

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kazewhara · 2 years

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PSPSPSPS kazuha wanter here!! (who is farming for kazu despite not being guaranteed haha-) anywayss im planning to build kazu as dps, do u think em sands would be better for him or atk sands :0?

i have this running joke with my friend that whenever she goes "pspspsp" i kick down her door, but it's 3 am and i can't stay asleep so i'm gonna politely knock ... anyways my point is that im sorry for how much im finna talk rn

if you're building kazuha as a dps, always go for the atk sands. i actually switched it out for em and tested this a few days ago to see if i could keep the hybrid build i have (since he has an atk circlet too... i gotta fix his crit ratio at some point though, so that may or may not change in the future), but the em sands kinda tanked the big anemo numbers he was doing, so i had to switch it back.

i'm sure you know this, but the main reason is because em is kazuha's specialty; he's designed to be a support, so once you lean into it, it changes the course of his dmg output quite a bit. generally, if you wanna stick to a dps build, use an atk sands, a crit rate circlet, and give him primordial jade cutter (if you have it) or the black sword!

for me, his big numbers for both swirl and anemo are because i did my best to balance em and attack by prioritizing the two in all my artifacts' substats and giving him freedom sworn as a sword (before i had it, i had r2 iron sting but i also gotta fix my other characters to make his swirl better bc their elemental dmg output isn't very high to begin with, but i digress)

i'm really sorry this was lengthy ,,, i gotta keep my kazuha rambling in check and ik you could've googled this, but i hope it helped somehow ;;

#z box #z anon #and this is what zuzu does when he can't sleep: he talks kazu strategy like he knows wtf he's talking about

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yuta-nakamots · 4 years

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Candle Light - l.hc ; Part 1 of 2

Pairing - College!Haechan x Ghost!Reader

Genre - Angst in the beginning, but it’s just fluff from there

Warnings - Character death, supernatural activity (you are literally a ghost)

Summary - As the resident ghost that haunts your old apartment, you take pride in scaring away those who dare move in, not wanting them to ruin your memories. Though your mission changes after a group of boys arrive. These are the four boys you allow into your space and your heart. One of them is the candle that supports you, and you are the fire that burns atop it, his beacon of light.

Word Count - 5.7k

A/N - this series is inspired from a discontinued series that @soleilhyuck originally wrote on her old blog. let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list :)

Tag List - @sunflowerhae @eunsangelical @soleilhyuck @neoyoungho @carefreebubble

You are a ghost, to put things simply. The past three years of your undead life have been spent wandering through your apartment complex, though you mostly stayed to your unit and scared away those who chose to move in, as it is your precious space. It reminds you of your family, the people who had moved away shortly after your accident because they couldn’t stand constantly walking past the place where you took your last breath.

Three years ago, you were in your second year of college and making your way back home from your on-campus job late at night when you were hit by a car as you crossed the street. You had your phone out to finally respond to the messages that were built up and read all the emails waiting in your inbox, you didn’t even see the car speeding down the road. Apparently, it was a classic drunk driving case as the light above you was red, telling them to stop, but they were too inhibited to recognize the traffic signal.

You remember the feeling of getting hit and blacking out, but when you came to, you were a few feet away from the crowd of people in front of the car. When you pushed yourself off the ground and made your way over to them to see what they were making such a big deal about, that’s when you saw it. Your lifeless body was sprawled out on the road, bruised and bloodied from hitting the hard pavement and the impact of the car.

Within the crowd were a few of your coworkers who probably left a little while after you and were making their way back home or to their dorms as well. One of them was your childhood friend who lived a few floors below you. You ran to him and said his name, trying to get his attention, but he didn’t answer. You tried again, eventually yelling and reaching out to shake him by his shoulders but you watched as your hands passed right through his frame.

You were in denial at your current state and you stayed frozen in place as he whipped out his phone and called your mom. It felt as if everything was going all too fast around you, like the Earth was rotating faster than you could keep up with. You saw your parents and little sister running across the street, all of them in their pajamas.

You watched as your mother knelt down and held your head to her chest as she wept, her tears sinking into the fabric of the shirt you were wearing.

You watched as your father spoke to the paramedics when they arrived, telling them that he had just gotten to the scene and he was alerted by your friend who stood behind your mom, looking over you as he shook his head in disbelief.

You watched as your sister, only fifteen years old, struggled to grasp the situation at hand. She had never lived a single second of her life without you. Regardless of all the fights and arguments the two of you got into, at the end of the day, you were her older sister, the person she looked up to most, the best role model she could’ve ever asked for. She stood at the edge of the crowd, too shocked to even move.

You watched as the paramedic team loaded your body onto the stretcher and into the ambulance where they tried to take your vitals, all their efforts in vain. They pronounced you dead on site, silence washing over the group of people who had been witnesses and those who knew you and stayed to offer support.

You don’t know what came over you, but you found yourself walking the path back to your apartment as if nothing had happened. Walking through the lobby, you made your way to the elevator and hit the button out of habit and waited for the familiar rattling as the elevator made its way down. The doors opened and it was empty, as usual for it being this late at night, but you didn’t mind.

When you got off at your floor and trudged through the hallway to your apartment, you reached around to get your keys out of your backpack, and tried to insert it into the doorknob, watching as your hand and key went straight through the door itself and reality came crashing down on you again.

You could only sigh as you shut your eyes willed yourself to take a daring step straight through the door that would’ve definitely stopped you in your tracks hours ago, yet when you opened your eyes, you were met with the familiar sight of the unit you spent almost your entire life in. You were numb by now, you felt tired and drained, You threw your bag on the ground of the room, not even noticing it as it simply disappeared while you flung yourself onto your bed and allowed your eyes to close while you drifted into a state of unconsciousness.

It had been three years since that fateful night, your family moving out not even a month later. You tried your damn hardest to get their attention as they packed the tan boxes, crying out that you were still here, you were still alive. But none of it ever seemed to work, they continued their movements without a single glance at you.

Ever since then, you had remained alone in your apartment, playing with those who chose to move in. Most didn’t last more than a few months, losing their mind to your antics as you closed and opened doors, slammed windows, flipped light switches, and even moved their belongings around the unit. Simple things like these were enough to make tenants terminate their contracts and move out of your home.

Part of you felt the slightest bit of guilt for doing this, but it was your space. Besides, it wasn’t as if you were hurting them. You wouldn’t call yourself a bad ghost, per say, as you were quite peaceful, never going as far as to physically harm anyone. Though you didn’t know how much longer you could stand aimlessly roaming around before you truly lost your mind and went mad.

July 2019

In the sweltering summer heat, which you fortunately could no longer feel, you were broken out of your drifting trance as you heard the front door to your apartment open. You watched from the sofa as four handsome boys walked in, lugging suitcases and boxes behind them. You peeked around the wall separating the main room from the kitchen as you heard them arguing with each other and talking about their classes.

From their conversations, you gathered that they were going to be second year students at your university. They were your age, though you were theoretically older than them, but whenever you were able to manifest the silhouette of your human body, you look just the same as you did back then, three years ago.

You were also able to learn their names as they shouted at each other, trying to figure out whose boxes were whose.

“Jeno, put that one down in the main room.” One of the boys yelled, the black haired one looked up as he found the room in question and yelled back in acknowledgement as he carried one box in his right arm while guiding a bike with the other. He seemed to be the most well built out of all of them, the black tank top he was wearing doing nothing to hide his strong arms from view.

“Hey, Jaemin, go open some windows.” Jeno commanded as he set down the box with a thump and you watched as the grey haired boy split off from the rest of them and went to open the windows next to the door that slid open to the balcony.

“Guys, come look at this view.” Jaemin exclaimed, Jeno and the brown haired boy joining him as he looked through the glass and admired the view of the city.

“Can someone please help me with this.” Said an anxious voice from the front door and you turned along with the rest of the boys, the fourth and smallest of the group as he struggled to make his way through the suitcases left haphazardly in the hallway while carrying an easel that was just as tall as him, if not taller.

“Yeah, sure thing, Renjun.” The tan skinned boy with dark chocolate colored hair walked over and laid down in his tracks, causing the shorter boy to curse in frustration and the other two to let out laughs from across the room.

“Haechan, I will literally step on you if you don’t move.” The aforementioned boy had immediately caught your eye. He was like the physical embodiment of summer itself.

You sat back down on the couch and watched as Jaemin and Renjun claimed your parents' old room since it was the largest and could fit both of them plus Renjun’s easel and other art supplies. Jeno took your younger sister’s room, finding barely space to store his bike alongside one of the walls before venturing into the shared bathroom between his and Haechan’s room. The latter boy took your room, the smallest one with a window offering the same view the balcony did, not minding the cramped environment as he didn’t bring much with him in the first place.

A feeling of annoyance built up in you when Haechan opened the window and stuck his head out the same way you used to do ever since you were younger. You couldn’t deny the fact that he was attractive, heck, all of them were, but that wasn’t enough to quell your irritation at how these boys were in your home.

As Haechan pulled away from the window, you were about to slam it shut right in front of him and begin your plan to get rid of them. But before you could move, Jeno burst into the room, telling Haechan to “come look at the refrigerator this place has, it’s got a screen and everything” with much excitement.

You left your bedroom, following Haechan out as he paused to take another look out from the glass panelling that separated the main room from the balcony, one of your most sacred places as it was where you often enjoyed doing your homework due to the cooling breeze that would occasionally blow by, ruffling your hair as it passed.

August 2019

Halfway through the month, the boys had all started their classes and you were able to learn their majors and educational plans. Renjun was an art major that was just getting his core classes out of the way before transferring to a school with a specialized art program. Jeno majored in biology with hopes to become a physical therapist or veterinarian, he was having a hard time choosing, believe me. Jaemin was a business major and you felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner with all the smooth talking he does and his way of persuading the others to do his share of chores for him. Haechan, the boy that bothered you most out of all of them, was undecided. This didn’t surprise you either as he was always on his computer playing video games, not showing much interest in anything else.

You found it entertaining to listen in on their conversations as they talked about their school activities like when Renjun joined the astrology club or when Jeno had joined the humane society club. Though Jaemin didn’t join any clubs, he had joined many other outside volunteer organizations. He especially loved talking about volunteering at the local orphanage and care homes for the elderly. He even got a job at the new cafe that apparently opened up recently just a block away from the apartment complex. Haechan, unlike the rest of them, didn’t do anything outside of school. He’d come home, do some of his homework, and immediately go to his computer to play Overwatch regardless if he was truly done with his work or not.

By this time, you had already started messing with them by fooling around with their doors and windows. None of them were truly phased though, passing it off as just the wind or the weight of the windows themselves being heavy enough to close on their own. The only one who seemed to have any suspicion of your existence was Renjun

September 2019

Around this month, the boys’ school semester was in full swing and you could truly see what type of students they were. Renjun and Jeno were both very organized and self-disciplined, wanting to finish their work before they allowed themselves to relax. Haechan and Jaemin were the opposite of that, wanting to relax first and recharge their mind before doing any school work. Jaemin always made sure to finish his work though, even pulling a few all-nighters unlike Haechan.

Even though you’ve continued to mess around with them, they were seemingly unbothered by your antics, only blaming themselves when you started misplacing their objects like when you moved Haechan’s keys from the kitchen island to the coffee table in the living room or when you moved Jeno’s notebook from his desk to the bathroom counter. It was quite funny though, when Jaemin came across the notebook after using the toilet, yelling out into the hallway “hey Jeno! Were you reading your biology notes while taking a dump or something? You forgot your notebook in here.”

Jeno came in muttering as Jaemin finished washing his hands, “I could’ve sworn I left it on my desk when I finished taking notes” his voice trailing off at the end as he reached up and scratched the back of his head while taking the notebook from the counter and making his way back to his room.

Again, it was only Renjun who seemed to have any amount of brain cells that were alert of your presence. One evening, you were watching him paint in his shared room and you had accidentally knocked down the cup that was holding his paintbrushes, wincing as it crashed down onto the floor from his desk. “Ah!” He had exclaimed as he whipped around from the canvas, taking in the sight of his brushes scattered on the floor and his cup rolling beneath his chair. He turned around again, peering around his easel, checking to see if the window was shut, “I swear this place must be haunted” was what he said when he realized that the window was indeed securely shut.

October 2019

As fall started to settle in, the leaves changing color and the air growing colder, you were given less opportunities to play around with windows and doors, forcing you to come up with more ideas to get them out. Your next momentous idea came to you on Halloween night as you were spread out on the seemingly unoccupied armchair, watching the horror movie the boys had put on. All four of them were crammed onto the couch because it had the best view of the TV and none of them wanted to sit on the floor or in another chair where they’d have to turn their neck to look at the screen.

You weren’t really a fan of horror movies but it’s not like you could complain. Besides, they were younger than all of the previous tenants and seemed to be active users of Netflix, allowing you to see all the new things that had been added to the streaming service. You found it funny when you noticed that they all had their own profiles on Jaemin’s account seeing as how he was the only one actually making enough money to pay for it.

It was about half an hour into the movie when the first jump scare happened. You laughed as Jeno practically threw the bowl of popcorn that was peacefully resting in his lap into the air, most of the popcorn landing on Haechan who was sitting next to him. “Wait, guys, did you hear that?” Renjun asked as he looked in your direction, pupils searching for the source of your laugh while you sat frozen in shock.

“It was probably just the neighbors.” Haechan said nonchalantly as he picked pieces of popcorn off his head and shoved them into his mouth.

Renjun shook his head, “no, I swear it sounded like it was in this room.”

“Dude, if you’re that scared of the movie then you don’t have to watch it.” Jeno said, earning a giggle from Jaemin.

“I’m not scared, I just thought I heard something.” Renjun mumbled as he slowly turned his attention back to the movie.

Only a few people could hear you and even fewer could actually see you. You were used to being totally invisible to the wide majority of tenants who moved in, not many of them believing in ghosts until you began your pranks and scared them into realizing that ghosts do indeed exist. The fact that Renjun had heard you was enough to let you know that he was a believer already and you planned on using this to your advantage soon, and by soon you meant within the next hour or so.

Right after the boys witnessed a gruesome death in the movie, you had turned off the TV, pressing the power button on the back of the monitor to match the timing of the characters’ unconscious body dropping to the floor. They initially thought it was part of the movie, that it was a cut to a new scene, but they soon realized this was not the case as the TV screen stays black.

Renjun’s eyes went wide as he frantically searched for the TV remote on the couch and coffee table in front of them, his breath getting stuck in his throat as he saw it sitting atop a stack of magazines, certain that he would’ve noticed if anyone had moved to grab it. “This TV doesn’t have an auto-timer feature does it?” He asked, his voice quivering in fear.

“I-I don’t think so.” Jeno admitted, clearly also quite shaken up.

Jaemin glanced around the room before remarking, “the power is still on though so I don’t know why it would have shut off.”

“This is what I mean when I say this place is haunted,” Renjun burst out, abruptly standing up and letting the blanket they were all sharing fall to the floor, “I’m going to bed before anything else bad can happen.” You smiled at his innocence thinking he could just sleep away your presence. As he passed you on his way to his room, you whispered his name and held back a snicker as he jumped, his head whipping back and forth to find you. “Who’s there?” The other three boys just laughed at him, enjoying the show they thought he was putting on. “Guys, I’m being serious.”

“None of us said anything.” Haechan remarked, obviously thinking that his friend was going insane.

In Renjun’s panic, you had moved to get out of his supposed path to his bedroom, but you weren’t ready when he suddenly made his way back to the boys on the couch, threatening to punch them. He walked straight through your form and froze as the cold air hit his skin, causing the hair on his arms to rise.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” Jaemin teased.

“Did you guys really not feel that gust of air?” Renjun asked, eyes blown wide in disbelief.

Jeno shook his head, “nope,” he stated, popping the ‘p’, “I think you should really get to bed though, you stayed up kinda late last night so maybe you’re just imagining things.”

Renjun stomped his foot angrily before turning on his heel and storming off towards his room, “fine, but don’t come crying to me when this ghost starts messing with you guys too.”

Sure enough, that’s exactly what you did. Later that night, when they were all asleep, you had come up with your own way to mess with each of them, mentally high fiving yourself as you made your way to Haechan’s room, which was actually your room.

You proceeded to open the single window, along with all the doors, even the sliding one for the closet. You took it upon yourself to empty the contents of his pencil case, placing them in the shape of a sun in the middle of the floor, remembering how he called himself ‘full sun’ though admittedly it resembled something more of a summoning circle so you quickly scrapped the idea, opting to simply just scatter them randomly.

Happy with your work, you passed through the shared bathroom, which was surprisingly neat for two boys, your gaze landing on Jeno who was letting out light snores as you entered his room. He was the neatest out of all of them, his desk always cleaned up before going to bed, his outfit for the next day already planned out and resting on his chair. You knew how much he valued his cleanliness and organization, so those were the things you were going to ruin.

You opened all of his desk drawers, taking a few things out and placing them around the room, even into different drawers that they didn’t belong in. You then took apart his stack of books, opening them to random pages and placing them on top of each other in any which way, making your own precarious leaning tower. The finishing touch was when you turned his clothes inside out and laid them on the back of his chair. You looked over at his sleeping body, snoring even louder than before, smiling to yourself as you moved to the last room.

Jaemin didn’t have much on his side of the room for you to play around with but you noticed his hand was hanging off the bed so you decided to try out one of the pranks that you’d learned about from your friends back in high school where if you placed someone’s hand in warm water while sleeping, it would make them pee in their sleep.

You made your way into the kitchen and willed your power to manifest your semi-solid human body, needing it to grab a cup from the drying rack and turn on the sink to fill it with water. As you popped it into the microwave and pressed the buttons to heat it up for 2 minutes, cringing at the obnoxious sound of the beeping, remembering the horrid couple that brought it in with them.

While waiting for the microwave to finish it’s job, you leaned against the counter, eyeing the mountain of dishes in the sink in disgust, wondering just when will these boys actually clean up. They were relatively neat for a bunch of boys but that doesn’t mean they were in an acceptable range of overall cleanliness, barely of them making any use of the washing machine in the hallway. You stopped the microwave just before it went off, and grabbed the warm cup out before making sure to reset the timer and close the door.

You turned around, trying your best to balance the cup and not spill any until you looked up and saw a wide-eyed Renjun standing in the doorway. “W-who are you?”

You dropped the plastic cup out of shock, the warm water spilling all over the floor, not that you could feel it or care about it. “No one” you responded quickly, before forcing your body to revert back to it’s normal invisible state.

“Wait no, come back. You’re the ghost from earlier aren’t you?” Renjun pleaded as you moved slowly to stand behind him, making sure not to cause any gusts of air. “What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking, and why are you here?” He questioned, staring at the place you were previously.

“Get out.”

You watch the hairs on his neck rise as he froze in place and began stuttering “P-p-please don’t hurt me, I just want to help you.”

“If you want to help me then get out” you jeered.

“Don’t you wonder why you’re still here? I can’t just leave you to endlessly haunt this place,” Renjun said, trying to reason with you. You sighed realizing that he was one of those types of believers, and he wouldn’t be leaving as easily as you thought. You left the kitchen, the breeze following you signaling to Renjun that you were moving, “isn’t there any way I can help you?”

You didn’t respond, only heading through the living room to the balcony where you turned around and sat down in a lawn chair one of the boys had set outside, your gaze settling back on Renjun’s in the hallway. You heard him sigh as he walked into the kitchen and then some shuffling around as he was probably cleaning up the water you spilled before he headed back to his room.

November 2019

As the weather grew colder and their workloads grew heavier, you often found the boys exploring new ways to warm themselves up. Jeno took to impromptu workout sessions even when he was fully clothed in a hoodie and sweatpants. Renjun opted to simply drink warm drinks while the funnies of them all was Jaemin who preferred to wrap himself in blankets, keeping himself in his cocoon as he moved throughout the apartment, even when he went to use the bathroom and when he cooked. You didn’t mind those things, the only coping mechanism that really bothered you was the scented candles that Haechan would use.

He’d often go to bed, forgetting to put out the candle and you’d watch as the hot wax melted down, some of it dripping onto the desk it was on, your desk to be specific. You swatted at the flame, effectively extinguishing it as you slammed the window shut, rousing Haechan from his sleep. Seeing as how nothing was out of the ordinary, he fell back asleep within a few seconds making you scoff at his ignorance at possibly burning the whole place down.

This became a regular occurrence as Haechan’s assignments grew in their numbers and intensity, forcing him to stay up later and work through the cold of the nights. You were glad he was making an effort to keep up with his schooling, but not when those obnoxious candles were left ablaze every single night as he drifted off into dreamland.

December 2019

Renjun had finished his midterms the earliest out of all of the boys, meaning that he got to stay in while all the others still went back to campus. You enjoyed being in his room while he painted, liking the ambiance it gave off. You often found yourself drifting in and watching him as his brush ran across the canvas.

Though one day, as you sat on Jaemin’s bed on the other side of the room, he suddenly spoke out. “I know you’re there.” He didn’t stop his motions, only dipping his brush back into the orange paint he was using before returning his attention back to the sunset inspired painting he was creating. “You know so much about me, yet I know nothing about you. Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?” He stated as he turned to grab another brush, dipping it into the royal blue resting on his palette. “If you were going to hurt us, you would’ve done something by now. We’ve been here for nearly five months at this point and you only seem to pull harmless pranks on us.”

You materialized behind him before speaking. “Is it too much to want my own home for myself?” He jumped a little, much to your amusement.

“I’m sorry?” he said, not seeming to understand what you were getting at.

“This is my home, I want you to leave, let me live in peace.”

“I don’t think you understand” he began, “you’re not even alive. Your spirit may be but you have no physical embodiment to live here.”

You bring a hand up to his cheek, his brush stopping in its tracks, “I’m more alive than you think, Renjun.”

“I don’t even know your name, so how am I supposed to believe--”

“Who are you even talking to?” Both of you whip around, not remembering having heard Haechan come through the front door, too immersed in your own conversation.

Renjun suddenly notices your floating blue lit figure next to him, “her! I was talking to her” he exclaims.

“Who?” Haechan asks, clearly confused.

“Don’t you see her?”

“No, Renjun, I do not see her or anyone else in the room for the matter. I think those paints must be toxic for you.” He remarked, walking out of the room.

“Haechan, no, wait-- come back” Renjun pleaded as he scrambled to force Haechan to see what he was seeing, which you knew was impossible since Haechan was a non-believer.

In Renjun’s haste, he kicked one of the legs of his easel, tipping it over. Before it could hit the floor, you grabbed it, causing it looking as if it were hovering in the air. But to Renjun, who could very much see you, it made him that much more certain that you were real and it made him that much more persistent to figure out why you were here.

Barely even a day has passed since then when you learn that Renjun is able to see you even when you weren’t in your misty human form. He could see you as you floated throughout the rooms and wandered through the hallways. You only realized this after watching his eyes follow you as you made your way from the kitchen to the living room, passing in front of the TV that he was currently watching.

“You can see me?” you asked, not believing that he actually could.

He seemed just as surprised as you, his mouth open in surprise. “I-I think so?” A few seconds went by as you both tried to process what was going on. “Why can I see you and hear you but the others can't?” He asked.

“They don’t believe in ghosts, or at least not as much as you do.” You explained, shrugging your shoulders apprehensively.

Renjun leaned back into the couch, his face showing just how shocked he was, the realization of being able to communicate with a ghost only now hitting him. “Can you at least tell me why you’re still here?”

You scoff before responding to him, “I told you, this is my home and I want you and your friends out.”

“I’m sorry, but we’re just a group of broke college students. We don’t have anywhere else to go. I promise that we’ll move out at the end of the school year.” You rolled your eyes at him as you move to sit out on the balcony, ready to figure out a new way to force them out before then.

Two weeks later on new year’s eve, being the ‘broke college students’ they were, the boys had settled down in the living room with the TV on as they watched the ball drop while eating instant ramen and drinking from the two cheap bottles of bourbon they had bought earlier in the week.

Growing up, you had always thought it was fun to play with sparklers and watch the fireworks from the balcony of your unit. But now days you found it stupid, knowing that humans believed it would drive away bad sprits, yet little did they know that it really didn’t do much except irritate them. You would know from your own personal experience.

You and Renjun had gotten used to his ability to see you, this newfound ability causing you to hang around him a little more, though the others were convinced he was going insane. They were just about ready to hand him over to the mental ward for schizophrenia when he turned to you asking “are you okay with all the fireworks going off?” referring to the channel they had the TV set on.

“Yeah, it’s fine. They’re annoying at most but I don’t care.”

Haechan dropped his set of chopsticks, his eyes and mouth agape as he stared at Renjun. “What was that?” he questioned, clearly in shock.

“Oh, you can hear y/n?” Renjun questioned, not at all phased as he finished chewing on the noodles in his mouth.

“Who is ‘y/n?’” Haechan asked, bewildered.

“She’s the ghost that lives here, the one I was telling you guys about since like, Halloween?” He said, looking over at you for confirmation, to which you nodded.

“Yeah, Halloween.” You acknowledged, Haechan’s eyes landing on you as he began to see your faint silhouette sitting next to Renjun.

Jaemin, with an eyebrow raised in concern, is the first to break the sudden silence that fell across the room. “Okay Renjun, we’re taking you to see a psychologist tomorrow.”

“No guys, y/n is real, I swear,” Renjun protested, “Haechan can hear her and I can see her too. Look, y/n hold this.” He said, handing you a napkin. It rested on your hand before floating through you and landing on the floor.

You watched as Jeno’s eyes grew wider and his eyebrows raised as he became the slightest bit skeptical of your existence whilst Jaemin was still unamused, convinced that it was just a trick of the wind. Before they could say anything else, voices could be heard from the TV as the crowd started to count down from 30, effectively distracting the boys from their previous discussion.

You noticed that one of them didn’t return his attention to the TV, however. Haechan’s gaze was still fixed on you as your glowing misty blue figure became clearer and clearer to him.

A/N - this series is inspired from a discontinued series that @hyuckgasm originally wrote on her old blog. let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list for Candle Light :)

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scoutception · 3 years

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Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation review

The original Dragon Quest was an extremely important and influential game that built the foundations to the Japanese role playing game genre, but was an extremely basic game that would end up outclassed by nearly any other RPG on the NES released afterwards that wasn’t completely incompetent, and while Dragon Quest II improved upon the foundation of the original, namely in terms of party progression, it was also a rushed, unbalanced, overly difficult and overall tedious experience. Despite its importance, Dragon Quest’s third installment would have to be a significant step up, and as luck would have it, it was, becoming another of the most legendary and important RPGs ever made, and firmly cementing Dragon Quest as a series that would stay around even to the present day, and how exactly this came to be is what we’ll be looking at today. The version I played was the SNES remake with a fan made English patch, so many of the names in the screenshots won’t match up with official translations. Other options are the Game Boy Color version, which was officially released in English, and even has a bit more exclusive content, namely a very time consuming sidequest and a bonus dungeon related to it, the Ice Cave, and much more recently, the mobile/Switch version, which is also available in English, and is based on the SNES version, minus some of its exclusive content. Be warned, there will be spoilers.

Story: In an unnamed land, geographically similar to the real world, the archfiend Baramos has appeared and unleashed monsters to plague the land, with its people’s woes ranging from groups of bandits robbing kings and kidnapping citizens, to monsters impersonating rulers, to entire towns being wiped out by the forces of Baramos, who ultimately plots to destroy the entire world. A hero from Aliahan, Ortega, once set out on a journey to slay the archfiend, only to fall in combat with a dragon over a volcano. The child of Ortega is thus given the task of slaying Baramos themselves on their 16th birthday, with the help of a group of adventurers recruited from Aliahan’s tavern.

On the surface, it’s still not much more of a plot than the first two games, and for the most part, that is true, but it’s still much more interesting simply because there’s much more going on. Many of the towns you visit are facing some sort of crisis, or have some sort of interesting circumstances around them, such as the immigrant town that slowly changes and expands as the game goes on, making them a lot more fun to discover and explore compared to the towns of the first two games. Additionally, there’s the famous and influential late game twist that strikes after defeating Baramos, namely the reveal of Zoma, Baramos’ superior, and the second world map of Alefgard, the setting of the first Dragon Quest. These two twists are a large part of what made Dragon Quest III so impactful when it came out in 1988, and considering the game presents itself as unrelated to the previous games, and that by the time you defeat Baramos, you’ll have explored the entire world, barring two small locations at most, they hold up fairly well even today. There’s not much more for me to add besides this, however, so it’s time to hop straight to the gameplay.

Gameplay: Dragon Quest III uses the same turn based battle system as the first two games, and besides things like new types of spells and weapons, not too much is changed with the combat itself. The biggest change DQ3 provides is to the party progression system. Instead of the Hero being completely alone like the first game, or gaining two fixed party members in the second, DQ3 allows you to build a party from the ground up, besides the Hero, who’s always required to be in the party, and has the exclusive Hero class, with well balanced stats and unique and useful spells. The party size has been increased to four at a time, and party members can be created and exchanged in Aliahan, with a total of 8 different classes they can be: warriors, slow, yet well equipped physical fighters that act has tanks and heavy hitters, priests, who specialize in healing and support spells and, contrary to most healers in RPGs, actually have decent equipment and offensive options, mages, typical magic attackers with great offensive spells, yet bad physical stats, martial artists, physical attackers with great agility who forgo most equipment and have a higher chance of landing critical hits, merchants, average at best fighters who have supporting abilities like being able to earn extra gold after battle, gadabouts, odd and clownish characters with bad stats besides luck, and a fixed chance to simply goof off and take random actions instead of doing as commanded, thieves, a class exclusive to the remakes, with great agility and several abilities that mainly help with exploration, and sages, who learn nearly every spell in the game, and have a wide selection of equipment options, yet cannot be put in the party to start.

Compared to Final Fantasy I, which had a similar class based party system, and came out only a few months before DQ3, this system actually has quite a few advancements. Most importantly, you’re never simply stuck with the party you start with. As long as you can make it to Aliahan, you can simply make new characters and swap out whoever you’re currently using. Obviously, doing this too much isn’t very practical, considering new members will be behind on EXP, but not being able to permanently lock yourself into an awful party combination is a big improvement alone. Party members who have reached level 20 can also change classes at Alltrades Abbey, resetting their level to 1, and cutting their stats in half, but keeping any learned abilities, meaning, if you were so inclined, you could make a mage with the physical stats of a warrior, a warrior with the speed of a thief, and so forth. Changing classes like this is also the only way to get sages into the party, and even then, only with the use of a Words of Wisdom book, of which only two exist in the game. This lends itself to a lot of creativity, and while I personally didn’t use this mechanic much, only turning my priest into a sage, it’s still an impressive level of complexity for a game this old.

The class balance is also fairly interesting, as beyond the upsides and downsides already listed, classes also level at different rates. Warriors are expensive to equip and very slow, but level the fastest out of the main offensive classes. Martial artists are, by contrast, very cheap, but have the third slowest leveling rate in the game, and the little equipment they do have is usually pretty difficult to get, especially their weapons. Merchants are guaranteed to eventually fall behind if you try to use them, but actually have quite a bit of exclusive, and good, equipment early on, and level the fastest out of everyone. Gadabouts are liabilities, but level second fastest, and can become sages for free once they reach level 20, making them an investment class. Despite how several classes are very obviously inferior in the long run, you actually can get away with some pretty unorthodox party combinations, at least earlier on. Take my party of hero, warrior, martial artist, and priest: very strong physically, but expensive to upkeep, despite the martial artist somewhat balancing it out, and lacking in offensive magic. While switching the priest to sage later on mostly fixed the latter issue, I was still left wishing I had taken a mage with me from the start several times, and yet I was still more than capable of finishing the game. While the difficulty has definitely been lowered compared to the first two games, that’s still a sign of ultimately successful balancing.

For some more combat related changes and improvements, some stats have been added or changed since the first two games. Resilience now determines how many hit points a character can gain when leveling up along with being added to physical defense as before, Wisdom determines a character’s potential magic points, as well as how soon they learn spells, with spells being delayed or expedited by up to three levels, and Luck determines how well a character can avoid debuffs and status ailments inflicted by monsters. Related to these stats, exclusive to the remakes is the personality system, which affects the stat growth of each character, with each party member gaining a personality during character creation or, in the case of the Hero, through a personality quiz given at the start of the game. While this generally doesn’t matter too much for casual play, assuming you aren’t unlucky enough to get the worst personalities on all your party members, it still adds an even greater deal of complexity, either allowing you to try to compensate for a character’s weaknesses, or add to their strengths. You could, for example, give a female warrior the Amazon personality, raising their strength growth, but lowering their agility, wisdom, and luck growth, stats they don’t care about much anyway. You can also change personalities during the course of the game, either temporarily by equipping certain accessories, or permanently by reading certain books scattered throughout the game, which further adds to the depth. It’s a bit overwhelming, but still pretty interesting to see.

Beyond the combat and classes, there’s still a lot of nice things to see. The bag from DQ6, which can hold an unlimited amount of items which can be taken out at any time, has been added, allowing easy inventory management on the spot. The Zoom spell now lets you return to towns of your choice, rather than the last place you saved your game, and while not every town can be warped to, it’s still a massive time saver. There’s a day night cycle, which gradually changes when traversing the world map and affects the state of the towns, and while it isn’t super prominent, there are a few towns pretty heavily affected by it, and you actually get a few ways to manipulate it later on. There’s also a few minigames added, once again exclusive to the remakes, those being the monster arena, where you can bet on computer controlled monster fights for the chance of winning money, and Treasures n' Trapdoors, which is basically a giant board game one of your party members can traverse, with several very valuable prizes available, both from winning and from landing on certain spots on the boards. Despite being very luck based, it’s creative and rewarding enough that the boards are actually a lot of fun to play, and the Switch version lacking this minigame entirely is a big shame. The remakes also added the Cloudsgate Citadel, a bonus dungeon accessible after defeating the final boss, with a superboss, Xenlon, waiting at the end. Defeating Xenlon within a certain number of turns allows you one wish, such as opening up a new Treasures n’ Trapdoors track, or resurrecting a certain character, and thankfully, you don’t actually need to traverse the entire dungeon again to refight Xenlon for more wishes, as a Zoom location is added only a few rooms away.

The biggest improvement DQ3 makes, however, is just how well the game flows. There’s still grinding to be found, yes, but generally, the game goes by much faster. Characters move quickly, the difficulty, as mentioned before, is much lowered, so you don’t need to grind 5 levels just to walk a bit north, and there’s just a lot of variety that keeps the game fresh all the way through, instead of becoming monotonous like DQ2. The dungeons are also much more reasonably designed compared to the giant, nightmarish mazes of DQ2, and while you do get a ship like in DQ2, it comes quite a bit later, keeping the amount of areas now available to explore from being as overwhelming. The obligatory key item fetch quest, this time collecting the six orbs to hatch the phoenix Ramia, is also much more reasonable to complete, with the orbs either being in locations that NPCs directly talk about, or being acquired by fighting bosses. Speaking of which, there’s also many more bosses than in previous games, and while they’re not as frequent as in most RPGs, they still add a nice bit of variety, along with actually being pretty challenging, in a good way. Overall, Dragon Quest III’s gameplay actually holds up very well, and just makes it a lot of fun to play. Even considering this is a remake with a lot of quality of life improvements, I was amazed that this was originally an NES game.

Graphics: DQ3′s visuals are quite nice, as the SNES version was made with DQ6′s engine. To give a comparison, whereas the games using DQ5′s engine were about comparable to the visuals of Final Fantasy IV and V, the visuals here are comparable to Final Fantasy VI, and considering that’s one of the best looking SNES games out there, that’s a pretty big leap. The character designs come out quite well, and many locations have unique looks to them, both towns and dungeons, with the Pyramid and Baramos’ ghastly castle sticking out the most to me. The enemy battle sprites are still great, and are actually animated whenever they attack, adding a lot of life to them.

Sound: As with the rest of the series, DQ3′s soundtrack was done by Koichi Sugiyama, and it’s once again a great soundtrack, even better than the soundtracks of the previous games. From the peaceful Small Shrine, to the iconic Overture, to the peaceful Heavenly Flight, to the world map theme Adventure, to the great final boss theme, Hero’s Challenge, it’s a soundtrack that’s a joy to listen to. It also gives towns different themes for both day and night, which is one of my favorite things to see in games.

Conclusion: Overall, I would give Dragon Quest III a recommended. It’s aged very, very well, and genuinely feels like it could have been on the SNES to start. Between the much deeper, yet ultimately accessible mechanics that give quite a bit of replay value, to much better overall design gameplay, graphical, and sound design, it makes a fantastic entry point for the series, if you have a liking for classic RPGs. Till next time. -Scout

#dragon quest #snes #game review #long post #rpg #square enix #dragon quest iii #jrpg

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flightrules · 3 years

Text

Which Kind Do You Want to Be?

Chapter 7: Last Day

Honoring trust means keeping your promises.

Summary: You’re from a deeply sex-positive culture. He hasn’t gone unarmored in front of another human in... It’s been a very long time.

This is a story about trust and kindness, loneliness and loss, belief and transgression. And two people crossing paths just long enough to find each other.

Final chapter! Want to read the rest? Previous chapters on tumblr here or find the whole story the same username on AO3.

Relationships and characters: Din/female reader (both similar age to Din in canon), Grogu, and a cameo from Peli.

Rating: Mature? Explicit? Anyhow, grown-up sexy stuff. Please be old enough to be reading this kind of thing.

Tags and warnings: Moments of angst, domesticity, kindness, explicit consent, and Din doing his best to be a conscientious parent in the midst of everything. Heads up for descriptions of canon-typical violence, mention of past dubious consent, and a moment of (unintentional) violence between our protagonists. Ending is bittersweet.

When the chrono alarm wakes you, you’re sticky with sweat. Your lips are chapped and your eyes feel stuck shut. The side of your face is pressed against his chest and you’ve got one leg thrown across his thigh, while he’s been holding you close even in sleep.

But now he’s sliding out from under your weight, tucking the blanket back around you, and going to turn off the blaring noise.

When you crack your eyes open again, he’s pulled on a pair of trousers and there’s a little green child standing next to your head, peering at you curiously.

“Hey,” the man says, crouching down to talk to him. “Let’s let her sleep. Can you stay out of trouble while I take a shower?” Those big ears perk up as he speaks. “You know the rules.”

You’re not quite ready to lift your head, but you manage to form some words. “What are the rules?”

“Don’t set the ship on fire,” he says. “Leave the hyperdrive running. Don’t disengage the life support.”

“Has he done that?”

“I turned it back on.”

“I guess I’m glad you laid some rules down.” You feel around for the bundled clothes that form your makeshift pillow. The child wanders away and starts poking at cupboard latches, as if trying to see which ones will open. “He doesn’t understand the rules, does he?”

“No.” He leans down to pick up the pile of neatly folded clothes beside the bedroll, along with the few last pieces that hadn’t gotten folded at all. “Why don’t you go climb into the bunk and get some more sleep?”

You groan into the carrysack. “I’m a mess.”

“You can clean up later. Go sleep.”

You discover quickly that it hurts to move. That vague ache in your back from yesterday has worsened, and your neck is so stiff you can’t turn your head all the way to the left. You end up wrapping the blanket around yourself so you can shuffle over to his sleeping quarters. He stops you on the way to kiss you again, and you can’t help the yelp that comes out of your mouth when, hands on the back of your head, he tips your face up toward him. “Sorry,” you say. “I’m still paying for startling you.”

A moment later he’s picked you up, deposited you carefully on the mattress in his bunk, and is bringing you a cup of that tinny-tasting water. “You should drink.”

The water feels good going down. Your body recognizes how much it needs it. Then you crawl the rest of the way into his bed. The mattress is thin and the blankets are rough, but it’s better than the floor. There’s a faint scent of the stuff he was using to polish the armor. Just two days ago, you were asking if he slept in it.

He rests one warm hand on your ankle, shaking it gently until you acknowledge him showing you how to operate the door. And then you’re dead to the world again.

When you emerge a few hours later, the blanket wrapped around you like a robe, he’s at the table, the child on his lap and several pieces of armor spread out in front of them. You sit for a bit at the edge of the mattress, trying to find the energy to stand.

He’s getting up from his chair. “We’ll go upstairs,” he says, heading for the ladder, and for the first time you’re grateful for his modesty. You’d both been to the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, and you hadn’t thought much of it at all. But right now, you’re not really up for an audience. “There should be water left in the tank, if you want a real shower,” he adds, one foot already on the first rung. “Controls on the left. It’s separate from the galley, so don’t worry if you use it up.”

There’s no such thing as a long shower on a small ship. At least, not a ship like this one. You’ve heard that the big military ships have purifiers, recycling everything back into drinkable water. Supposedly that’s something wealthy people have on board their cruisers, too, but you’ve never seen it. People with that kind of money don’t need to hire people like you.

Still, even the five minutes you get before the water runs out feels like heaven. Your hair feels properly clean for the first time in ages. The place between your legs is tender, fragile skin rubbed raw in spots, and the warm water is soothing. Even your neck and back feel better.

By the time you’ve gotten dressed, fixed yourself a cup of caff, and downed half a protein bar, you’re feeling almost ready to face a new day.

He’s flipping through maps on the vidscreen while the child sits in the jumpseat, poking at a board full of switches and buttons that look just like the ones on the Razor Crest’s control panels.

“He knows they’re not real. He’ll humor me for a while, until he gets bored and goes for the real ones.”

You lean over his shoulder. “Is that Pavotha?”

“Yes. We need to decide if we’re landing at the main shipyard, or the second city.”

“The second city’s a little seedier. More underworld. Better for me,” you admit.

He switches back and forth between the maps, studying the layout of the streets. “All right,” he says. “Probably better for me, too. Did you eat?”

You show him the half-finished protein bar in your hand.

“Good.” He swivels the chair around so he can see your face. “I need to talk to you. Come downstairs?”

It’s the first time you’ve seen the child manage the ladder on his own. You’re already down on the durasteel deck, expecting the man to be right behind you with the child in one arm. But instead, he’s waiting up top while the child scoots along one rung, wraps tiny arms around a side support, and slides his way down to the next rung. The little face is determined as he climbs carefully down, until he gets to the last step. At which point he launches himself to the floor with a happy squeal.

The man slides down the ladder after him, feet hitting the deck with a thump.

“You don’t worry about him falling, do you?”

“I worry about him all the time.” The child toddles over to where your bedroll is now folded up against the wall, tugs at the blanket resting on top, and promptly pulls it onto his head. He peeks back out from under it, ears flattened by the cloth, which he’s now wearing like a hood. “But how else is he going to learn?”

“If we have to talk,” you say, “can I make another cup of caff first?”

Your mug is sitting on the table beside the beskar backplate. He’s got the chest piece in his hands and the helmet sitting by one elbow. He’s examining the breastplate’s circuitry, holding it up to a bright light affixed to the helmet’s side.

How is he awake enough to be focusing on such precise work? His eyes look tired, but his movements are the same as ever, compact and economical.

“This isn’t talking,” you say, after several minutes of silence.

“Beskar will stand up to almost anything,” he says, turning the breastplate to examine it from another angle. “When I took the child from the Imperials, we had twenty or thirty bounty hunters trying to stop us. Without this, I would be dead. The Imperials would be experimenting on him.”

He sets down the piece in his hands and picks up the backplate. “I have to keep finding work, so we can keep moving. This stopped an MK-modified rifle bolt.”

Once, you would have been horrified at the idea that making a living meant getting shot at. “It’s good armor.”

“It is.”

You sip at your caff, the bitterness of it filling your mouth, giving you something to focus on instead of worrying about whatever he’s going to say. “Are you telling me this for a reason?”

“Thank you,” he says. “For last night.”

And now you can’t help smiling at how serious he is. “That's not the sort of thing you need to say thank you for.”

He doesn’t smile back. He looks down at his body, covered only in soft cotton and poly weave. "I said I would protect the child. I said I would find his people. I don't know how to do that, like this.”

He lays his hands out on the table, bare hands that a knife or a blaster burn would easily render useless. “I don't know how to be,” he says, “if I'm not Mandalorian."

You brush your fingertips across his knuckles, across the bruises fading now from blue to yellow. "You did say, there are different ways to be Mandalorian."

He picks up the backplate again, picks up the bright-tipped tool that was laying beside it, and tinkers for a while with the circuits.

You sip at your caff.

He finishes running the polishing rag across the armor plate’s surface, sets them both aside. "There is only one Way that I know."

You already promised you were leaving. You have no intention of breaking your word. It still feels like something is slipping away from you. But you are not the only one in this picture. “Do you want that?”

“I need it,” he says.

“Then,” you say, “what do I do to help you make that happen?”

You understand him well enough, now, to expect that he’ll tell you what he’s thinking. He might just need some time to assemble the words.

He sets to work on a vambrace, testing the seating of each of the tiny missiles arrayed above the wrist.

While he continues, you ask to borrow the datapad he and the child were looking at yesterday. That way you can be nearby, but you won’t be tempted to interrupt. You can leave him room for whatever he needs to think through.

Before long, there are little claws scratching at your leg, and you’ve lifted the child onto your knee. You find a file with pictures of animals from across the galaxy, all arranged by the sounds of their names. A bantha, a bergruutfa, a blistmok, a blurrg. The child knows how to press the button that advances the pictures. He looks up at you now and then, and you discover that if you name the animal you’ll be rewarded with a happy chirp as he moves on to the next one.

The man’s voice, quiet but clear, brings you back to the conversation. “Your people. If you made a mistake, would they have taken you back?”

You can see where he’s going with this, but you’re not sure it holds. “What kind of mistake?”

“You said they were peaceful. If they knew you fought for a living?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you say.

“Why not?”

“There’s no one left to disapprove.”

He looks down at the vambrace, at the intricate mechanism at the wrist, at the tiny explosives made to kill multiple men at one time. “Is that the only reason to believe in something?”

Is it? You’ve been angry and sad for such a long time now. You move through the world the way you do because there’s no one left to care. Your life, even the way you met this man, is deals and trades that hinge on violence.

And yet, here you are, still looking for kindness. Still trying to give it.

The child is tapping at your arm. The datapad shows a bulbous creature with rows of sharp teeth. “That’s a cannock,” you tell him. He pushes the control button. Next up is a tall, four-legged animal with a long, curved jaw. “That’s a cherfer. Don’t make him mad, you’d be just about a mouthful for him.” The child gives a little humph as if to say, that’s enough, you don’t need to editorialize, and switches the image again.

The man is watching you from across the table. You haven’t answered him yet. “Most of your Creed, it’s about the tribe, isn’t it? How you are with other Mandalorians.” You’re thinking about the words as you speak them. “Loyalty to your clan. Helping each other. What if you were the only one left?”

“I suppose,” he says slowly, “I’d have to rebuild.”

“All by yourself?”

He sets the vambrace down and holds out his arms, palms up, bare of gloves and armor. “I wouldn’t do a very good job, would I?”

He would, though. You’re sure he would. “I think you'd care, and that's what matters."

“Do you think your people would forgive you?”

“I think,” you say, “you need to forgive yourself.”

Sleeping late makes the day slip away that much faster. The maintenance on the armor done, the three of you gather around the table again for a mid-day meal. The gleaming beskar plates have been carefully put away, for now, wrapped in soft fabric and tucked in a cupboard beside the armory.

The lack of sleep is finally starting to show in his movements. He’s slow to get up when the meal is done and actually yawns before reminding the child that it’s naptime. You offer to take care of cleaning cups and ration trays, and when you finish you find him leaning against the wall by the bunk, watching the child sleep.

You’re halfway across the narrow floor, meaning to slip your arms around his waist, when you remember and stop a meter or so away. “Maybe you should have a nap too.”

“Maybe I should,” he says, turning to sink down at the edge of the thin mattress. When he looks back at you, it’s still that full movement of head and upper body, as if he’s looking through a visor. “Will you join me?”

Your own face must show confusion, or maybe it’s that your eyes go to the little hammock, to the child curled up there.

“Just to sleep,” he says.

“You don’t think he’ll be upset?”

“I think he’ll feel safer. I think he likes knowing we’re friends.”

It’s dark in the small space, with just enough room for the two of you to curl up together. He nudges you over onto your side, one arm cushioning your head and the other wrapped around you.

You’re pretty sure he’s already asleep, when he speaks softly against your hair. “You helped me take the armor off,” he says. “Will you help me put it back on?”

You can think of several things you’d rather do instead, none of which are appropriate with a child sleeping in this same room. You find his hand, trace the shape of his wrist, work your hand up under the edge of his sleeve and listen to his breathing change as you run your fingers over his skin. “Of course I will.”

The ship’s chrono tells you there are about eight hours left before planetfall. You’ve had a much less eventful game of tag today, you’ve each fit in a quick workout, he’s checked the hyperdrive controls to make sure the ship’s still on course. The child's long since been tucked in for the night.

You’re dressed in fresh clothes again, hair crackling with static from the sonic shower, and you’re thinking about what you said to him that first night. About celebrating after a fight well won, celebrating being alive.

Only this time the sweat you just washed away was not from battle, but from the past few hours of slow, careful time.

Your brain’s replaying pictures that echo on your skin. His face as he leans down to kiss you. The weight of his body on yours. His hands in your hair.

At one point you let him walk you up against that wall by the galley and hold you there, pinning your body in place while he pushed into you, head bent down and face buried against your neck. When he finally let you go, his eyes were wet and his lips tasted of salt.

You’ve managed not to say the thing your heart keeps wanting. You’re leaving this ship in the morning. You won’t be looking back. The words I love you aren’t going to help anyone here, in any way, at all.

You still haven’t asked for his name.

He’s sitting on a crate in the hold, now, dressed in the flightsuit that underlies the armor. The pieces of his armor are laid out, neatly, on the surfaces of crates nearby.

Start with the boots, he said, and so you do. You wrap one hand around the back of his right calf and slide your palm slowly down the curve of muscle to his ankle where, beneath the cloth, skin lies thinner over fragile-feeling bone. When you go to settle his foot into the right boot, he sits there and lets you control the movement, knee and ankle loose in your hands. You do the same on the left side, then sink back on your heels to look at the metal clasps that hold the boots on.

“Like this?”

He tilts his head down to watch as you click them into place, one by one. “Yes.”

It’s a clever mechanism. You’ve had shoelaces come untied in a fight, and it’s not pretty when that happens.

The greave that holds spare rifle shells clicks into place over the right boot, and then the next piece is the metal guard that sits over his left knee. He shows you how it should fit, how it fastens. You push his hands away, gently, and lift the piece aside to plant a kiss over his kneecap before you settle it back again and click the fastener closed.

You can hear him take a slow, deep breath.

Fitting the thigh guards requires him to stand. You’re still on your knees, and now, before you set this next barrier between your body and his, you circle palms and fingers around his right thigh. The shapes of him are an anatomy lesson, defined hamstrings tapering to the hollow at the back of his knee. Your fingertips press along the muscles at each side of his thigh, thumbs sliding over the wiring embedded in the flightsuit.

His hand settles against the side of your head.

You pick up one of the thigh guards and hold it in your hand, admiring the balance of it, how perfectly the surface shines. You curve your other hand over the place on his leg where that armor plate will sit, feeling the cloth warm from the heat between your palm and his skin.

His fingers tighten in your hair.

When you go to set the thigh guard in place, you can’t recall exactly how the catches work. “You’re going to have to help me.”

He’s slow to move, lifting his hand from your head as though it’s gone heavy.

“Like this,” he says, fingers guiding yours.

It’s beginning to feel like a ritual. You repeat your process on the other leg, pressing your touch into his skin before setting the beskar against his thigh. This time you’re able to fasten the plate yourself. When you look up you see his hands are at his sides now, fingers curled into loose fists. His eyes are closed. He’s breathing slow and measured, like he’s needing to think about it.

You get to your feet, standing close, and place a palm flat against his chest, like you did when all this began. His heart is pounding.

Last chance. You step closer, lining your body against his, ready to move away if this isn't what he wants. As his arms come up to wrap around you, you slip your palm over his ribs and around to the middle of his back. Your other hand goes to the base of his spine. The curves of the armor plates press hard against your own thighs. His hips hit just above yours. You can feel his body responding to the closeness, but you will your own hips to stay still, don't push in against him. If he changes his mind, if he wants you to recognize his arousal, he knows he can lead you there.

The side of your face is pressed into the space where his neck and collarbone meet. You find yourself matching your breathing to his.

Measured, focused, slow.

Five breaths, ten, a dozen, until you're able to get your mouth to form the words against his skin. "What's next?"

Five breaths more until his arms around you loosen.

The next piece is a quilted gambeson, like a short jacket. Foundations for the pauldrons are embedded at the shoulders. There is a flexible plate in front that will protect him from chest to pelvis, below where the beskar chestplate ends. You examine how the plate is integrated with the fabric, a series of soft, flat buckles holding it in place.

“This isn’t beskar.”

“It’s a synthetic,” he says, his voice shaky on the first syllables but smoothing out as he settles into familiar territory. “It has to be able to bend, so I can move. It can take a couple of blaster bolts, as long as it’s not close range.”

You take his hand and fold his fingers around one edge of the quilted fabric. “Hold this for me?”

You shape your hands around his ribs, then, sliding over fabric that hides his skin beneath, then flatten your fingers across abdominal muscles, feeling the shapes and ridges there, taking time for this vulnerable place where there’s no bone to stop a knife. Those muscles move as he breathes, still deep and steady and slow.

You help him slip his arms through the sleeves. The gambeson fastens down one side with hook-and-loop tape, reinforced with a half dozen hook-and-eye closures that hide beneath the seam.

You slide one finger down that seam, closed now and holding the garment snug to his body, and feel him shiver.

The cuirass, front and back plates, is next. It’s attached to its own tightly woven vest, and like the thigh guards, it’s lighter than it looks. You’re able to hold it in one hand while you trace the outline of the breastplate on his chest. The layers of cloth make it harder to feel the shapes of him, but you find the hollow below his collarbone and then the ridge of each rib, continuing down the sides of his chest to the last curve of bone.

You place another kiss, this one against the cloth at the top of his sternum, and his breath catches but he doesn’t move, just lets you continue to touch him before the beskar hides his body away again.

He guides your hands to fit the vest in place and fasten it, so that you’re working together to get the pieces set.

“I’m sorry it’s not different,” you find yourself saying, fingers still touching his. Sorry isn’t really the right word but you don’t have a better one.

“I wish it were,” he says.

He hands you the right pauldon first. You want to press a bite into his shoulder beneath where it will sit, where the top of the muscle connects to bone, but there’s already metal over that spot for the pauldron to attach. Instead, you go up on tiptoe and run your teeth along the bare skin on the left side of his neck, then trace the same line with your tongue, and finally smooth the spot with your fingers as you click the pauldron into place on the opposite side. The sound he makes as you do--somewhere between a gasp and a groan--makes you want to rip the armor back off his body.

You trace one finger over the mudhorn signet. “It’s good that he has you. You’re right to put him first.”

Once the left pauldron is also in place, he reaches silently to the remaining items laid out on the crate beside him. He lifts the thick leather belt that’s studded with sections of metal, with more plates of that synthetic material bolted on and a flat piece of beskar between them. It’s heavy, needing both your hands and most of your attention to lift it into place.

There’s the strap like a bandolier that goes over his left shoulder, then the belt with its sturdy metal buckle. The beskar plate rests at his lower back, and at each side is protection for his hips. You have to think how to build in softness here, to make his body remember kindness with this piece, too. You slip a hand beneath one of the plates, resting light over his hip bone, and feel his weight shift just the slightest bit toward your palm.

The last pieces are vambraces, handplates, gloves. You start with the left side and weave your fingers between his, feeling the strength in his hand as it curls around yours. You’re not sure if the pulse you feel at the base of your fingers is his or your own.

But then, you need both your hands to slide on the leather glove, follow his instructions to fit the vambrace, and clip the flat piece of metal that guards the back of his hand into place.

Once more on the other side, skin to skin, then leather glove, then beskar.

You lower his hand back down to his side and force yourself to let go.

Step back.

“How does it feel?”

He breathes, breastplate rising and falling. “It feels more like me.”

Again, your body echoes his. Deep, slow breaths, and it helps you stay centered, helps your hands stay steady, helps you stay that half-meter away.

“I’ll go upstairs so you can sleep,” you say. “I can bunk down up there. Let you get comfortable again.”

“Thank you,” he says. And then, one hand half-lifted toward you, “Can I still--”

“Of course you can.”

The beskar feels cool through your thin shirt, but his mouth is warm, and his hand at the back of your neck is gentle. You sink your fingers into his hair, hands fisting in those soft curls, letting the sounds he makes vibrate against your skin.

Dawn on Pavotha is muddy-looking, the sky a dull brownish-grey. You’re standing with him in the ship’s entryway, your pack sitting at your feet. Your rifle's in its sling beside it, ready to be clipped on. It's a good system, the result of months of trial and error. You're not as quick as he is with his blaster, but that rifle draws smooth and fast.

He's suited up. The armor plates are secured, electrical connections clicked in and catches locked, rifle across his back and blaster at his right hip. He’s got the helmet in one hand.

The child is tucked into the carry-bag on his other side, contentedly gnawing at a piece of flatbread.

You crouch down to the child's level and rest your weight on one knee, careful of the healing bruise there, so you're face to face to say goodbye.

"It was nice getting to know you, kid." Big eyes look at you over the flatbread. "Take care of your dad, yeah?" The child looks up at the man, gives a cheerful chirp, and turns his attention back to eating. You run a finger along one of the wrinkles in his forehead, feeling the soft fuzz there.

The little head tilts, and then he's offering the bread to you.

"That's ok kiddo. You keep that."

Back on your feet, and now you’re meeting the man’s gaze again.

"You'll be alright out there?" he says.

"Will you?"

He laughs, and you're glad because it was a joke, a strange kind of joke when there's a perfectly fine chance that one or both of you will be patching up wounds by nightfall.

He's still smiling as he reaches out, pausing with his hand a few centimeters from your face to ask, "May I?"

"I told you you could."

His palm rests against your cheek, fingertips at your temple. You're up on tiptoe to meet him as he leans in to kiss you. He tastes like the caff you both had with breakfast.

This is making it hard to leave.

The kiss finally slows, then stops, because you both know you need to be out there in this morning, when the city comes alive. He rests his forehead against yours for what feels like minutes, and it feels like pulling apart magnets when he finally steps back.

He goes to put the helmet on.

"Wait," you say. "Before you do that."

He looks at you, head tilted, curious, and it takes you back to that night on Tatooine. "This," you say, with a gesture back into the ship, back to the past few days and so much in them. "This never happened."

He leans in to kiss you one more time.

"It did."

He straightens up. Settles the helmet in place and he’s a Mandalorian again, anonymous in the armor. He hits the control to lower the ramp.

"Good luck," you tell him, as you step off onto the scuffed duracrete of Pavotha's spaceport.

"Until our paths cross," he says.

"Until our paths cross."

#the mandalorian #fanfic #din djarin x reader #din djarin needs a hug #touch-starved din djarin #reader character also needs a hug

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fbwzoo · 4 years

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My hermit crab mansion (for my 18 hermit crabs) is completed! This is a 125g base tank with two 36x18x18 Exo Terra tanks on top - the ETs had the top screen removed and were turned upside down and velcroed to the base tank with industrial strength velcro. Right side is forest/jungle, and left side is beach. Took a pic of lights off & lights on. The beach side has UVB light, though I need to change the bulb out still. That’s why I moved that light strip up to the top, so they can choose to climb up for exposure if they want it.

(Note: the crabs haven’t been moved into the tank yet, as I’ll have to wait for the humidity to build up to a high enough level to be safe for them.)

Close up pics and tour of the tank below the cut! This is very long, tumblr apparently changed the photo limit for posts, so they’re all on this post. I hope you enjoy! :)

Corner shower basket on the left front of forest tank has a mix of leaves, dried moss, lichens, and bark.

Background is the fake background that came with the Exo Terra, covered in coconut fiber. Cork bark rounds and pieces were siliconed in for hides & climbing on. The corner basket on the right front has damp sphagnum moss in it. There’s a bridge connecting the two shower baskets across the front of the tank. And a strand of fake pothos around the top edges of the background - this is attached to plastic wall corner guards that had holes drilled in them & were siliconed to the walls. Great for hanging things!

Here’s a close up of the hanging climber that I made - it’s a poseable fake jungle vine, wrapped in sisal rope (secured with zipties). I made it into a corkscrew shape and tied another fake pothos vine to it, then hung this from a wall corner guard that’s attached to the ceiling of the topper tank. It hangs down almost to the substrate & is secured to another corner guard at the front of the base tank, to hep support the shape. It can be access from the foraging dish, the second story of pot condos, and up top, from the bridge and one of the cork rounds.

This “shelf” is a pane of glass that’s part of the base aquarium - there’s thick panes on either side of the center support strut. I covered the glass with coconut mat (siliconed to stay) to help protect it from falling crabbies. Fake rock planter has moss in it, soaked to help raise the humidity level right now. You can also see the chunk of driftwood that leads from the top of the pot condos to the shelf, as the other way for the crabs to access the topper.

8″ Comfort Wheel hanging at the front left, I siliconed coconut mat to both the inside and outside of the wheel for better grip. Hanging coconut hide behind that, with moss in it.

You can see most of the pot condos here. I used spray foam to secure the pots for each level together - three for the lower level, two for upper. The two levels are secured to each other with industrial velcro, so they can be separated if needed. I covered the exposed foam with coconut mat siliconed on. I also siliconed pieces of cholla wood in between each of the pots on both levels for easier climbing (you can see one strip in pic below). The pots have a strip of bark leaning against both sides & across the top.

You can also see the foraging dish here, discussed below.

Straight on view of the base tank on the left forest side. The thing with yellow flowers on the right of this picture is their foraging dish - a flower pot stand that has a clay flower pot base in it. I ziptied fake flower and leaf vines to the stand & they like to hide under it. I put a mix of leaves, flowers, bark, mushrooms, seeds, and other things in the dish. This thing has been a favorite of both mine & the crabs’ for a few years now.

Full view of the forest side!

Front view of the middle of the tank. You can just see another coconut hide behind the blue flowers, with moss in it. The big wood piece is a hollow grape wood log.

Beach side now! There’s the other pane of glass “shelf”, covered with coconut mat. Above that is the cholla wall - I put spray foam on a plastic cross stitch mat, then stuck the pieces of cholla wood into it. Siliconed some additional pieces to cover open spots of foam.

First picture of the rock wall - spray foam on a piece of pink insulation foam board. I used pieces of foam board to make the caves & ledges, so I wouldn’t use as much spray foam. Then trimmed down as needed and siliconed black lava rocks to it. This cave turned out the most cave-like, I’m rather pleased with it!

The other cave didn’t turn out quite like I wanted because I ran out of spray foam & called it quits (that stuff is hard as hell to find in store). So the walls are a bit short to really be a cave, but oh well! There’s also a corner shelf to make a nice resting platform.

Hung a sea grass corner mat in the front right, it overlaps a bit with the rock corner shelf, above it. My thought was to try & make it a little harder for the crabs to fall all the way from the top of the topper, with the pools below - if they crack the pools, it’ll be a HUGE problem for them and me, so let’s not, okay crabs!!

Two bridges connected to each other to connect the sea grass mat to the cholla wall, and another bridge from the mat to the back of the tank above the rock wall. And one more bridge that goes from the front bridges down to the climbing branches that lead from the base tank up to this topper. The branch here is a Zilla forest branch, it’s ziptied to the fake branch climber below.

Pools! They’re 5g glass aquariums. The back one is fresh water, and the front is salt water. I have small air-powered filters for each, underneath the ramps. The ramps are made of egg crate light diffuser. The water is very murky for both pools right now because I’d just added the water & there’s sand in both pools (live ocean sand for the salt water pool). The ramps are ziptied to each other in one spot to help keep them in place. I’d like to make the area between the pools & rock wall look nicer at some point, but I was just out of energy & supplies (& money) at this point.

This is a resin/plastic wood branch reptile decoration which is their access point to climb up to the beach topper. The forest branch is ziptied to it, which you can just see on the right side.

And front view of the base tank beach side. I’ll be getting a wider container to put shells in next to the pools, as I’d like to have a little more space for shells, and something that will do better at catching water when swimming crabs come out of the pools. But this works for now. These are the larger shells, and I have another container at the back of the base tank in the middle (not visible in any of the pics) with smaller shells. I don’t have a ton of shells in because at this point most of my crabs are pretty comfortable with what they have on & don’t do much shell shopping/swapping, and I plan to switch shells out more often (every week or every other) to save space, help keep them cleaner & so the crabs get to see “different” shells more often instead of all the shells all the time. And the yellow thing in front of the shell dish is a big piece of natural sea sponge. You don’t want sea sponges in the water pools because they’ll collect bacteria. But they’re fine to put in dry & the crabs love to eat them. I haven’t given them sponge before, so I hope they like it.

This concludes the tour of the new crab tank! Please feel free to ask questions if you’re wondering about how I made anything or where I got things from. :) Most things came from Chewy, hardware stores, and New England Herpetoculture, but I got some things from people on my main FB crab group, and some stuff I already had on hand. I’m so relieved this thing is finally done, and I really hope the crabs like it (and don’t destroy it too fast)!

#crablr #inverteblr #petblr #hermit crabs #land hermit crabs #hermit crab tank #hermit crab enclosure #my pets #lord of the crabbies #long post #very long post #crab tank build #crab mansion tour

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capricornus-rex · 4 years

Text

Someone Left to Save (6)

Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by Anon

Summary: The Mantis crew arrives to the capital of Ulfin, in the planet of Pevera, under siege. They meet the local rebel cell spearheaded by the former Republic admiral, Jax Beneb, who seeks to destroy the Empire’s occupation that was aggressively imposed upon while exploiting the planet of its natural resources. A plan is devised to destroy the Imperial’s main base of operations—as well as their influence—in the planet; however, it was a do-or-die mission that you and Cal had gotten yourselves caught in.

A/N: Sorry if I haven’t been uploading as quick as I used to. I’m not in a good place right now mentally. I’ve had random crying episodes that rooted from last night’s breakdown, I’m stuck dealing with overbearing parents who don’t understand and can’t be bothered to take in the time to listen to their kid. I had to look for that from my friends who really know and understand me. It’s really hard. Because what do you do when your boomer, overly-traditional parents misinterpret your artworks and then drag you down for it? But I’m trying my best to fight it off and be better, so I can still give you guys good stories. I’ll get through it, I’ll be better eventually. So, if my posting frequency seems slow, I hope you understand. Thank you for your continuous support! You guys are the greatest. Love, Veron.

Tags: Force-Sensitive! Reader, Inquisitor! Reader, Jedi! Reader, Fake Death, Jedi turned Inquisitor, Seduction to the Dark Side, Turn to the Dark Side, The Dark Side of the Force, Aftermath of Torture, Torture, Psychological Torture, Redemption Arc! Reader, Possible Redemption, Premonitions

Also in AO3

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 | Previous: Part 5 | Next: Part 7 | Masterlist

6 of ?

In the span of three weeks, you and the Second Brother were in constant observation by the medical droids—encoding and then relaying their findings to the doctors who occasionally visited you every other day. A medical droid reports that you might open your eyes perhaps at the end of the week. The same goes for the Second Brother, despite his severe injuries and that tedious surgical operation that he underwent.

When the third and a last week came, you did open your eyes. The Bacta-infused water stung your eyes and you realize you’re submerged—by instinct, you held your breath, unaware that you have a medical breather on until you bit on its silicon mouthpiece, you felt the rather uncomfortable armbands on your pruning skin. Through the glass of the vat you’re encased in, a medical droid hovers in front of you.

In confusion, your heart rate spiked—reflecting on the heart monitor just right next to the tank—but the droid wasn’t alarmed. It deduced it as a natural, conscious bodily response. The medical droid tapped hurriedly on its dapatad; shortly after, a doctor comes rushing into the ward, he approaches the vat to look at you.

Peering again through the glass, you can see through your squinting—and already stinging—eyes that the doctor’s mouth is moving, but the bubbling of the substances shrouded your hearing from any outside noise.

“Prepare to drain the patient’s Bacta vat,”

A loud rumble echoed in the back of your ears, your head jerked up to the source of the sound and saw the water level lowering. As the substance fell to the level of your breasts, you mentally prepare yourself to plant your feet on the floor and your palms to the walls of the tank once you needed to balance and support yourself.

Finally, the tank has been emptied—the remaining liquid gurgled under your feet as it disappeared into the drain. The glass whirred as it retracted into its round, metal frame and then the nurses helped your balance yourself. Their faint whispers of encouragement rang indistinctly in your ears.

“Hello there, can you hear me well?” asked the doctor.

“I… I suppose,” you groaned, hooking your grip on the nurse’s arm. You looked at your surroundings. “Where am I?”

“You’re in a medical facility, in Mons Golotha,”

“Mons Golotha? Where is that?”

“In the Outer Rim. Don’t worry, you’re safe here. We’ve been helping you recover,”

“It looks like you had quite a dangerous brush with death there,” the nurse added.

Still confused, you surveyed the room further—there were more droids manning the computers and the machines. It appears that you’re the only patient in this room. You blinked several times until your eyes adjusted to the light pooling in the dull, gray ward. Something didn’t sit right with you, but your waking up gave you a bit of a hangover that you can’t pinpoint it. Little did you know that the Second Brother is still submerged in his own tank in his own room and that you are in Inquisitor—rather, Imperial—territory.

The Inquisitors were informed in the comfort of their temporary lodges that you’ve finally awakened. The Seventh Sister smirked with satisfaction, as if her work given by Grand Inquisitor is close to its completion. At her mercy, she allowed you until tomorrow to rest, after that you will be sedated and transported to the main fortress; when she finished hearing the report, she resumed her meditation in peace.

You stayed in bed, fed with three square meals, regularly checked for your vitals, temperature, blood pressure and the like—this was your entire routine for a day and half.

The Seventh Sister’s given timetable is due. As a way to not startle you, the doctor was very subtle on your sedation in the guise of a treatment.

“Alright, [Y/N], the vapor that’ll flow out of this mask when you wear it will dissolve the smoke and particles that may have polluted your lungs when you inhaled the smoke from your accident,”

You nodded, “Okay.”

You lied down flat on your back first, then the doctor gingerly placed the transparent mask, then the medical droid switched on the machine at the doctor’s command. It growled and the vapor hissed through the tube up to your nose and mouth; the sound sort of lulled you to boredom, you thought that it was a hypnotizing sound that you slowly let your eyelids drop and lean your head further into the pillow.

“Just a few more milliliters until she’s fully sedated,” the doctor mouthed to himself, watching you lie perfectly still in your bed.

Ten minutes later, the medical droid’s readings indicate that you’re now asleep.

“Vitals are still at a normal and optimum level, she is amenable for transfer,” the medical droid added.

Through his own comlink, the doctor contacted the Seventh Sister.

“Is she really unconscious now?”

“Yes, she won’t be able to recall a single thing before the sedation,”

“Good. Oversee the preparations for the transfer,”

The doctor nodded in compliance and the Seventh Sister switched off the transmission on her end. He immediately did as he was told and then you were transferred from your ward bed to the hovering gurney. It was a warden who escorted you to the main fortress, the apparatus used to administer the sedative is still attached to you as they wheeled you through the corridors.

—–

Eventually, you’ve arrived to the prison block. At the end of it is the torture chamber especially designated for you. The Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother were waiting inside the chamber, they turned to the door when they heard it whir and found you still as a rock in that gurney.

“Put here in,” the Mirialan ordered.

The warden pulled the gurney closer to the torture chair—with its restraints wide open, like an animal’s maw waiting to snap shut once its prey has fallen in—and put you to the machine. The restraints clamped shut when the warden stepped back, the metal clanged so loud that it startled him, making his shoulders jump. The warden was dismissed immediately and left the chamber.

The sedative wore off by the minute, the intensity of the light shone differently than what you recalled, and now you find yourself unable to move—you flinch your wrists and ankles to find polished, silver handcuffs that are three inches thick banding around them. Leaning in front of you is the mechanical limb of the torture chair with panels running with electrical current; you attempt to sink yourself farther into the bed, and the cold metal stung through your bleach-white tunic that the nurses dressed on you. Your heartbeat spiked again, the Inquisitors can sense the fear oozing out of you.

The Seventh Sister stepped out of the shadows, hands tucked behind her back.

“Oh don’t bother fighting it off, it’s not like you have the strength to break out of that,”

Your eyebrows furrowed, struggling to recognize her.

“You’re an Inquisitor, but I… I’ve never seen you before,”

“Who I am to you is not important. You, on the other hand, know something we don’t—and we’d like you to let us in on that,”

“Oh I bet you do,” you spat.

The Seventh Sister liked your snark, she’ll give you that, but she didn’t like other people outclassing her. One flick of her finger and the Stormtrooper operating the machine flipped a switch; the limb with the electrical panels lowered closer to you until only an inch hangs between you and the bright, violet cracks.

In the next second, a jolt courses throughout your entire body. The metal cuffs on your wrists and ankles amplified the voltage and doubled the pain of the shock. You didn’t even get to take a deep breath, you were simply taken by surprise. The limb then retracted, returning to its original distance from you.

“She’s got a kick to it, doesn’t she? You’re gonna have more than just a kick if you don’t tell us what we want to hear,”

“I’ve had worse beatings!” you winced.

“I’ll bet you have, [Y/N],”

It didn’t matter how the Mirialan knew your name. She proceeded with your questions that you retorted with the perfect opposite of it—sarcasm.

“Tell us where the rebels are hiding, and we’ll let you go scot-free. We’ll even give you a headstart so you can warn your friends,”

“The last time someone gave me a bargain like that…” you panted, recovering from the shock. “They found my lightsaber sticking through their ribs.”

The Seventh Sister sighed.

This is gonna be a long day… but I don’t mind. She thought.

Hours dragged on as you kept yourself mum, filling in the blanks of their questions with sarcasm or straight-up refusals. But for every time you decided to keep your mouth shut about the location of the rebels who staged the bombing of their outpost in Ulfin, you were returned with a shock of the torture chair—the voltage became more powerful and lethal than the last.

“Impressive,” the Fifth Brother commented. “Not many can withstand this many hours, let alone that high of a voltage, in the chair.”

“Perhaps, there’s a better way of persuading you,” the Mirialan chided.

From her pocket, she fished out her holodisk. She thumbs the button and out comes a figurine-sized projection of Cal. The faintest, sharpest inhale from you wasn’t spared from the Inquisitor’s keen sense of hearing. She smirked and glanced at you.

“Oh, you know him, don’t you?”

You didn’t answer, but it already feels like the Seventh Sister has seen through your tough-faced façade.

“The longer you stay in this chair, the more likely my troops are capable of finding him. Who knows? I could bag a complete package if he was siding with the rebels the whole time. Definitely likely.”

The rage rooting from the pain and the Seventh Sister’s taunting flared in your body. The Mirialan could almost feel the blaze of that anger pouring out of you. She catches a whiff of it and was intrigued.

Your body impulsively leaned away from the backrest and strained yourself to get at least an inch closer to the Seventh Sister, but you’re nowhere even near six inches in front of her.

“IF YOU DO SO MUCH AS PUT A FINGERNAIL ON HIS HEAD, I’LL MAKE SURE YOU GET TWENTY TIMES THE PAIN YOU’RE GIVING ME NOW!!”

“Oh, there we go. Yes, use that hate, that anger!” the sheer adrenaline rush caused the Seventh Sister to slam her fist against the wall of the operating computer. “TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!!”

“I…” you hissed. “Will never… TELL YOU!!”

The Seventh Sister eased her shoulders.

“So be it,” she jerked her head to the operator. “Again! And don’t stop until I say so!!”

Your shallow, rapid breathing didn’t save your lungs to overcome the pain sent by a thousand to ten thousands volts coursing through your body. Your throat strained as you cry in agony, your fingers twisted and curled as the tendrils of electricity violently pricked the nerves, your body thrashed in all angles trying to alleviate the pain but it’s as though several daggers entered and left your body repeatedly.

Your head jerks back, unable to withstand any more of the gradual pain the longer it dragged on. The only thing that filled your eyes was the lamp that hung overhead and the cracks of compacted lightning from the electrical panels. You don’t know how much your heart can take. At the Seventh Sister’s mercy, she shot her hand up—signaling to stop—the Stormtrooper obeyed; it only was a ten-second breather, and she asked again.

“Where are they hiding?”

“In a Bantha’s arse,” you gasped.

Seventh Sister scoffed, she snapped her fingers and the torture resumed. Your mischievous snickering at your own joke was instantly replaced by a wail of pain. The longer you remained in that torture chair, the more the Inquisitors saw your rage and hate crawling out of you—and they relished each waking minute the darkness seeps out of you.

In the midst of your screams echoing across the entire chamber, the Seventh Sister stepped back into the shadows to join the Fifth Brother. She stood on the tips of her toes to reach his height, close enough for him to hear her, and she whispered.

“She will be a good Inquisitor.”

There was no worded response, but the Fifth Brother smiled in agreement. The violet light of the electrical current flashing and pooling over the surface of their faces as they watched you at the mercy of the torture chair.

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chromium7sky · 4 years

Text

metAMORphosis |a Clone au- Chapter 1

A/n: uhh, yeah another AU, based on theme "year of the Villain" + Clone and you got metAMORphosis. This story rated mature for gore, blood and uh anything associated with mature so I'm going to be a bit crazy in this. You guys can follow this story by #metamorphosis , #damirae or #clone au. Enjoy!

Ever since she was "born" , Lenore can't help but to find a purpose for her to live. They...they always try to find a perfect specimen for them to pursue their plan, their project.

She could feel, from the moment she had her conscious in the tube, she read their thoughts. Their worries, their anxious and their wailing.

She even connect with 'others' whom she feel similar as they be able to connect one way or another and she call them sisters as they passing information like a bee hive mentally.

The sisters where passing the information each other as they listening what 'they' say. 'Increasing nutrition, increasing adrenalin, lowering stress cause and so on.'

Until one time, the sisters heard a scream, their own sisters scream that penetrate to their very soul since they link mentally.

Since after that, they were nervous, they were curious, they feel dreaded about the sudden disappeance of their sisters. What is happening actually.

As years coming by, the sister hives are getting quieter, the connection become less. Lenore were quite curious about what's happening.

On that very day, she open her eyes, revealing glowing red Irises. In hue of sea green liquid, she witness the people with white clothes carrying a body. A girl with horns.

The girl were pale. Lenore try to engage telepathy with her but sadly it bounced away. Somehow it suddenly connected to someone nearby.

It was like a surge of electric hit her head causing stress detector to increase than normal. The guy who she accidentally connected panicked as he seen the status. Quickly he switch on tranquil doses which makes her dizzy.

She slowly dozed off as tranquil flows inside her vein.

****

Something made her awake.

A buzz.

She open her eyes slowly, observing what's happening. It was that guy, who's concentrating on reading paper.

She tried to mentally connect with that researcher and it succeed. Placing one way communication she be able see, hear and reading others memories as the guy roam inside the room.

It's been a while she made that guy who she learn about his name, Dr Billy Caster as her puppet while she, the master stayed inside a confined liquid filled based tank learning, evaluating everyone in the room.

As years goes by, the voice of the sister's hive slowly reduced to herself. The last sister who shared her mental connection died as she watch those white hazmat suit bringing the body bag away passing through the room .

Something sensation hit on her chest. What is this?

A pain?

That pain seems to have pitted at her stomach and her chest.

An elderly woman who's observing Lenore in the tank called the others as she witness Lenore first reaction. They were watch in wonder as Lenore exhibit movement similar to sobbing.

A psychologist who were present in this room says this specimen has exhibit their first psychosocial development which are the same reaction with the baby who's just born.

The white coat people were cheering and applause to themselves as they have achieved to create a perfect human hybrid clone.

Unbeknownst to them, Lenore were glaring with glowing red eyes as she grinding her teeth.

******

1 year as she counted, based on the display monitor which she has Dr Billy to look at, and they decided to drain her confinement tank which makes her panic. Her body were so weak as soon as the water depleted, and she's end up lying on the floor.

Two hazmat suit came in to tend her which made Lenore scared and she almost choked with that green liquid in her tank as she scream.

As one of the hazmat suit person are about to inject her with tranquil shot, a word comes out from her mouth made the scientist jaw dropped.

"No!!!!!!"

The elderly woman shocked as she heard it. She, at first shake her head, signal the hazmat suit to resume their work.

"Go away!!" Lenore shouted. The chamber start to feel rumble then start to shake violently as she let out an ear piercing sound as she scream.

All of them cover their ears, the glass wall start to shatters.

"Stop!" The elderly woman ordered from the mic and the hazmat suit people retreat from the position. Lenore stop screaming abruptly.

That woman slowly take her pace as she got nearer to the her. "Do not be afraid. We are harmless." She raised her hand to keep situation under control.

Lenore knew that old wam's plan as she read her mind. That white coat lady thought of something wicked, like opening her inside, studying her, testing her just like what happen to her sisters and she will not let it happen.She going to do what they did to them, crack those white coat peeple open like the nutcracker.

By using her mind, she applied high pitch noise that made them winced in agony. The more intense the sound is, the more they writhed in pain.

In a snap, their body exploded.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

Everything is in a mess including herself. It seems Lenore has finally redeemed for her sisters, for their suffering.

"Rest in peace." She muttered for their fallen.

Slowly she raised from the floor but her weak legs failed to support her weight as she slump back to the ground. She sighed and try again.

The slippery floor prevent her to walk any further so she decided to crawl her way out from the room.

As soon as she out of the room, the alley was so white in contrast to her blood stained body.

She stand up and began to drag her legs, leaving blood trail along the way. Her mind try to remember the map which she secretly take from Dr Billy's mind.

At the end of the hallway, she saw a door which she pressume to be elevator. She hurried went in and press ground floor button as she reenact what Dr Billy usually does in his memory.

As the lift took her to the floor she requested, she walked towards the lobby and to the main door.

"Hold it!!"

Lenore stop. she turn herself to where the voice coming from.

The securities, a dozen of them were assembled as they bought their taser baton and tranquilizer dart aiming her.

"No." Lenore muttered , held her hand as she try to use the same trick she does before. Before she engage the high pitch sound , the guard already shoot her with dart which causes her to be mad.

"I WON'T GO BACK!!" She screamed this creating forces field that fled the guards backward hitting the wall.

Lenore sees as opportunity as she tried to escape then, she felt something grab her ankle. As she looked down, that thing clamp her leg as it bit into her flesh.

She tried to walk away but the trap worn her down. She heard chain sound then feel a force pulling her trapped ankle backward.

Lenore shriek in pain as she fell on the floor as a guard pull the chain connected to the trap. She try to crawl towards the door but they pulled her back with that chained bear trap.

The tension on chain suddenly break causes the guard to stumble backward. As she freed from being pulled, she uses her hands to dig the trap, releasing her ankle as she screaming in pain.

After she removed the claw, she realise someone infront of her. With the colossal size she's having trouble to see what did he do the guards but all she sees, blood flows on the floor like puddle.

She heard the scream of agony, dozen of them as that huge person finished them one by one. Lenore shivers, will she be next after them?

As the last guard gone silent following with bone cracking sound, that monstrous build person turn towards her. Lenore held her breath as she stare at his intimidated black colored mask with red eyes.

Tranquilizer start to kick in her system which makes her dizzy. She limping forward towards the door but that colossal person are now in front of her, blocking her way.

She wanted to live, she refused to end up like her sisters, dead on the table, dissected for studies. As her head getting heavy she slump forward only to be caught by that person.

"You shouldn't be awake." His distorted voice heard beneath the mask.

Lenore squirt her eyes as she tried to understand what he says. " What..."

"Make my task harder." He mumbled.

"Task? What task?"

"You." He replied coldly.

"N-n-no." Lenore felt I to deep slumber as tranquilizer start to goes around her system.

------

He caught the girl with mismatched horn protruding from her for head. He was pretty sure that this is what lady Talia wants him to retrieve from the Metanoia Genetics Corps.

Right now with her bare body which stained by blood, he simply puts her over his shoulder and walked out from the ghost facility.

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funkymbtifiction · 4 years

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Fellow 6 ENP here. How did you finally decide between 6w7 and 6w5? It seems like, being a 6 and a Ne-dom makes it hard to figure yourself out. :(

That, it does.

I had toyed with the idea on and off before, but the online information (as usual) messed me up, because there was so much emphasis on 6w7s being the funnier, warmer, and more entertaining of the 6s that I had to identify with that because it is true -- but actually, that is just 6. Especially sp6, who uses warmth and humor to ingratiate itself with other people regardless of the wing. It was, again, focusing on external behaviors and not the fear motivations behind it. Reading Claudio N’s 5 description, I alternated between cussing because I felt ‘nailed’ by it and feeling enormous relief that I am normal after all.

It also helped to know some 7s and see how different our thought processes in addition to our behaviors were. They are far more impulsive than I am, even if they are just a 6w7. Their instant reaction to things is ‘leap into the world’ and mine is to ‘go home and analyze this.’ They over-spend with glee and no guilt; I 5ishly beat myself up for being gluttonous and buying things I don’t need, unless it is for my sp (the sp5, cutely, is the most “my house is my castle” 5; they will quite happily build themselves a comfortable home space, as a cave to hide out from the rest of the world, and make it comfortable to themselves. Which is soo me. My home is my refuge).

Once I realized a lot of the humor and whimsy attached to a w7 is also present in Ne, I could let 7 go and see that “how I screw up my friendships” is ALWAYS through a w5 tendency toward “detaching” the instant I realize this friend is not willing or able to be part of my 6ish support system. If I cannot count on them, there is this part of me that just “hangs up on them,” even if I am still there. I’m there, but not present. Around, but a ghost rather than flesh. Not fully 6ishly invested in them anymore. Furthermore, my own jealous guarding of my resources and unwillingness to share drives my friends nuts. It is not a literal unwillingness to share (you will always find me a thoughtful and generous host), but an emotional unwillingness to share.

Friends have complained I am too distant, too logical, and too cold. They have been angry and frustrated with me, when I could not just ‘drop everything’ and go on an expensive adventure with them. They have been frustrated when I have wanted to consult my day planner instead of just impulsively agreeing to see them in a couple of days (yes, but... I need to know what else is happening this week and if I think I’ll be ‘up’ for seeing them; because no matter how much I like someone, at the end of 3 hours with them, I am TIRED). They have been baffled when I have turned down trips to exciting places after listening to them talk about it (almost all of them, I realize in hindsight, involved massive crowds). I have the limitations of the w5 -- an easily drained inner tank that needs a lot of down time, that hates crowds despite being an extrovert, that likes to know where we are going and why, how long we will be there, what we will do there, and when I plan to leave, since 5s like to plan these things out in advance in order to store up the energy reserves they know they will need. w5 explains why social interaction is so draining / tiring for me, and why I am so exhausted at the end of a afternoon of writing -- my w5 is tiring itself out, getting my elaborate literary fantasies out of my head and onto the page. w5′s low energy level and need of solitude also explains why everyone thinks I’m an introvert who spends time with me in real life and why I have often thought I was one.

So, it’s always a process of being honest with yourself and reading everything -- ignoring the minor things that don’t fit or realizing they are wrong (a lot of the online ‘discussion’ about what 6w5 vs 6w7 is about, is misleading) and especially looking into Beatrice Chestnut’s variants, which she adapted from Claudio’s teachings, because she really does ‘nail’ people with them. Sp6 is extremely me, soc6 is also me; sp5 is a lot like me, and soc5 is also a lot like me (the soc influence on my wing is why I have done all this research about MBTI and Enneagram and am generously sharing it with all of you ;). You can Google and find them. Chestnut, plus the variant you want, plus your number. Sp and soc 7 on the other hand? Sound nothing like me.

Look for evidence. Make it ‘sensory.’ Use your Ne to look backward and fit all the puzzle pieces together about why you did that, when this relationship imploded, what was that? Just as an example, 5s detach to self-protect. I have spent years wondering WHY this or that happened, in a very Ti-ish manner, without ever being Ti, which I now realize was 5 attempting to THINK THINGS OUT, to solve them like a puzzle, to need and want every little piece to fit EXACTLY, rather than actually either feeling the hurt or anguish of what imploded. It’s like I have taught my brain to flip a switch off above “feel” straight into “why the hell did that just happen? what neurosis caused this, you need to figure it out!” to self-protect rather than 7ishly re-framing it (”oh that person was toxic anyway, this was a valuable lesson for me, I need to move on”).

To find their wing, head type intuitives must make their thought process ‘concrete’ by linking it to real events. You won’t realize what an ‘internal’ and ‘lost in your thinking process’ person you are until you actually do that. If your instant response to everything is think-think-think... you are a head type. But what you do next determines your wing. Do you shift into ‘image’ protection because you are a 5w4? Or into 5ish withdrawal to protect inner resources like a 6w5? Or into visceral gut-reactive ‘push-back’ like a 7w8? It takes time, but you need to read the numbers adjacent to your main type completely and not just rely on vague wing descriptions, because they are far more entwined in your every day ‘reactive’ process than you may realize.

I’m off for the weekend. Hope yours is blessed and filled with self-awareness.

- ENFP Mod

#question #enneagram #enneagram 6 #6w7 #6w5

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eds-trashmouth · 5 years

Text

PolyJAMorous

A/N: hi I hate this! But it’s here and it’s not what I intended but I hope you like it regardless. I’ve also decided that people probably don’t care about word count and all that so I’m not going to put it on anymore (unless you guys want me to) Thank you for the support and the next one will be better. I promise ❤️

A road trip was certainly not how the losers thought they would be spending their summer break before they all packed up and headed off to college. Yet, Richie had the bright idea to make the trip from Derry, Maine to Colorado. He’d come up with the idea a week or so into the start of their senior year. Luckily they’d had all school year to plan and save up money.

Richie got a job at the Aladdin, the local theater, taking tickets and cleaning up after the shows. He ended up making decent money and buying a used suv by the middle of the year. He had to cut out smokes but Eddie says it’s better that way. He’d do anything for Eddie so giving up cigarettes was nothing, although on his very stressful days Bev was nice enough to share a cig or two with him.

Eddie on the other hand, wasn’t allowed to get a job. Mrs. K turned down that idea almost immediately, yelling about how any job he would get as a teenager would be flipping burgers and she couldn’t have her precious Eddiebear flipping burgers in a “disgusting” fast food place. So, he decided he would tutor some underclassmen after school. He had put up flyers around campus to try to get some tutoring jobs but ultimately he didn’t get that many. He even tried to back out of the trip because he felt bad for having less than everyone else. Richie was the first to shut that idea down. “You’re going Spaghetti. Even if I have to pay for you myself. It’s a losers trip. Gotta have all seven of us!”

It took Beverly until the middle of the school year to finally find a job. Through no fault of her own, it seems that when the whole town thinks you’re dirty as a child, you don’t find many people who forget that kind of thing. She eventually landed a job with Richie at the theater. She suspected the Trashmouth himself had something to do with that, but she knew he’d never tell.

Now, Mike and Stan had a pretty easy time finding work. They’d been together since Sophomore year and Stan loved helping out on the farm, so Mike asked his grandfather if they could get paid for some of the farm work. It took a little convincing but by the third week of school, Mike and Stan were already getting their first week of pay. Stan definitely enjoyed rubbing it in Richie’s face that he got to see his boyfriend and get paid to do so. Maybe Richie took a quick glance at Eddie when he did so. Maybe he didn’t.

Bill also had a pretty easy time finding work. There was a new YMCA opening up in Derry and Bill already had experience lifeguarding for the past two summers so he applied to work at their pool. Obviously he got it, and he even snuck the losers in a few times for a late night swim.

Ben had been working at the library since sophomore year so he didn’t have to do much worrying. He had the money saved up by December, and a little extra for Eddie just incase. Although, Richie already called dibs on paying for Eddie. Even if Eddie didn’t know it yet.

Today was finally the day. They’d made it through the school year and even stayed for graduation. The losers had all met up at Richie’s to help get ready for the trip. The sun was blazing down upon them as they packed everything into the van. Each loser had a duffle bag and they’d brought a cooler filled with lunchables, sodas, and flavored waters requested by Stan and Eddie. It didn’t take too long to load everything and hit the road.

Richie insisted on taking the first shift driving. The trip was a whole days worth of travel, inevitably they would need to stop for gas, food, and possibly even a hotel but Richie was determined to drive as much as he could before stopping. This trip was his baby, he’d been planning it all year. They hadn’t really set a destination yet, other than Colorado, the whole idea was to just decide to stop somewhere pretty. Of the losers, Richie, Ben, Bill, and Mike were the only ones with a license, they’d done the math and needed to switch every 7 hours or so.

“What are these idiots thinking?!” From the passenger seat, Eddie rolled his eyes. The roads were bustling by mid day, and the cars were just flying by. “Don’t they know the speed limit is only 70? They’re going to cause an accident.”

“Eds, I’m only going 65. They’re probably going like 75 or 80.”

“Well regardless, that’s still over the speed limit Richie! It’s dangerous!” Eddie was talking with his hands, overly exaggerating everything, giving it the emphasis he always seemed to. Richie couldn’t help but glance at the boy beside him. He smiled fondly as Eddie noticed his attention. “Eyes on the road Chee!”

“Would you two lovebirds q-quit bickering? I’m t-trying to nap before it’s my turn to drive.” Richie peeked into his rear view mirror to see Bill with his eyes still closed and his head on Ben’s shoulder in the very back seat. Ben didn’t seem to mind the intrusion, his attention was fully on the game Beverly was playing next to him. Stan and Mike were seated in the middle of the vehicle, a bench seat to share, and wearing one earbud each watching Netflix. Richie would’ve gagged had he not fully intended on doing the same with Eddie once he was done driving.

“Let’s listen to some classic Richie tunes then Spaghetti! Everyone else is doing they’re own thing.” He could see Eddie roll his eyes once more in his peripheral vision before he leaned down to get the aux cord for Richie. He laid his hand out, waiting for Richie’s phone, which he gladly handed over. “Alright, I wanna listen to something good. Let me think.”

“I’m playing something while you decide then.” Eddie already went to work, plugging in the aux and setting up the radio. He opened the phone with his thumb and in seconds was on Richie’s Spotify. Richie couldn’t help but think how much of a routine this was. Just for them. None of the losers had their thumb print on his phone, everyone else had to ask how to work the radio or where his aux was, but not Eddie. His Eddie.

“No Jonas Brothers. That’s my only request.”

“You love them, don’t pretend to be hardcore.” Eddie was already scrolling down his playlist to search. Before long a familiar beat filled the air. A Jonas Brothers song.

“Don’t out me like that, and then play my favorite JB song. You can’t do me like that Eds.”

“Not my name, and this is your punishment for calling Spaghetti as well.” Don’t Throw It Away off their newest album blessed the speakers. Richie couldn’t stop himself and soon began screaming the lyrics at the top of his lungs. His fingers tapped happily to the beat, while he danced in his seat. As the chorus hit and Richie had given into the music, he glanced over to see Eddie recording him.

“I know I’m famous but no pictures please. I’m just trying to live my truth!” Richie’s hand came up to cover the camera while he let out a loud laugh. Eddie was too quick for him though and moved the phone right out of his reach, leaning into the side door.

“Hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. You wouldn’t want us to die before we even get to Colorado would you? And besides, I have to document the trip. This is the last trip that we all get to have together before we move on.”

“I’ll never move on from you Spaghetti.” With his eyes still on the road, Richie tried grabbing for Eddie’s cheek only to get smacked away from the boy himself.

“Ha ha. Very funny Trashmouth. You know what I mean. We all have our own livings waiting for us when we get back. I want to remember this. Remember us Chee.” Out of the corner of his eyes Richie could see the slight flush on the boys face. “The losers that is. All of us.”

“Eddie,” Beverly spoke up from the back. “You know we’ll still be best friends right? Us going to college doesn’t change that. We can still have movie nights and study dates. Sure, it’ll be different because it’ll be through a screen but we will still be together. Once a loser, always a loser.”

The car fell into a comfortable silence after that. Richie’s mind always wondering to Eddie. This trip was really important to him, and Richie didn’t even know it. Eddie hadn’t told him and he hadn’t noticed. What kind of best friend is he? He couldn’t even see how worried Eddie was about the future. The future of the losers club. Of course Richie knew they’d always be together in some way, but he shouldn’t have assumed Eddie was feeling the same.

“Hey Eds,” Richie made sure to talk quietly, a conversation just for them. Eddie turned his attention from the road to Richie with a slight hum. “You know you’re my best friend right? And nothing will ever change that. Not even distance.” Eddie nodded in understanding but turned back to the window. Richie glanced at the time. They’d been driving for about 6 hours at that point, and the gas tank was getting pretty low.

“Alright. We’re stopping, we need some gas and then it’ll be Big Bill’s turn.” There was a chorus of okays as he looked for an exit with a gas station. Luckily the next one was only 10 miles down the road. He pulled off the exit and into a Speedway. “Go pee now! No accidents in my baby please!”

Everyone did their business and Bill paid for this round of gas. Richie checked the cooler to find only four more lunchables and a few flavored waters. He grabbed for the extra soda he’d packed to fill up the cooler again, making a mental note that they all needed a proper meal soon. Everyone piled back into the suv, Bill and Ben in the front, Stan and Mike once again on their middle seat, and Eddie Richie and Bev on the back bench seat. Then they were back on the road.

“Hey Eds, do you wanna watch some Netflix or something? I brought earbuds.” Eddie was in the middle of him and Bev and currently watching Bev play whatever game on her Switch. He’d been watching her since they left the gas station about an hour ago and Richie was jealous. Not of Beverly of course, just that she was getting Eddie’s attention. Richie had already listen to her explain her game to him, twice, and he wanted some Eddie time.

“Maybe later Rich. Bev is just about to beat this level but she only has like four units left. It’s really intense.” He didn’t even glance in Richie’s direction. If he would’ve, he would see the pout on his face and the hurt in his eyes.

“I don’t know what that means. What game are you even playing?” He was still pouting.

“Fire Emblem dude. I’ve already said that like five times since you’ve been back here. The new game came out and I’m obsessed. You get an X amount of fighters, they all have different abilities, and you have to try to kill all the enemies on the board. This game makes you a professor, so you have to train your students. This is a big deal. My class is about to kick ass. Now shush. It’s intense.”

“Sorry.” Eddie barely spoke as he continued watching Bev. Richie simply hung his head and plugged in his earbuds. He knew he was being a little ridiculous but he couldn’t help it. He’d spent 6 hours driving so it’s not like Eddie got much of his attention, and he deserved all of it. That just wasn’t in the cards this trip it seemed. It didn’t take long for Richie to get bored of Netflix, he was just watching old episodes of Criminal Minds anyways. Not even his guilty pleasure show could lift his mood. Looking over at Eddie once more, the other lad was still watching Beverly, but he also had his phone out on Instagram. Beverly had already finished the battle and he wasn’t even fully watching her. Yet, he hadn’t said a word to Richie. He’d be lying if he said that didn’t hurt, but he didn’t blame him. He wouldn’t want to be annoyed for hours either. Unless it was Eddie annoying him of course.

Richie went back to his own little world, turning on his ‘sad boi’ playlist, it felt fitting. He knew it was silly, but he felt like a fool. Of course Eddie would rather do anything else than spend this trip with Richie. This was his last trip with most of their friends, but Richie was going to UCLA with him. Why would he want to spend time with him? He already had to spend at least four more years with his annoying friend who made stupid jokes that weren’t even funny...and was secretly in love with him.

Fuck.

Richie’s mind was jerked to consciousness as the car came to a stop. He didn’t even remember falling asleep. With a yawn, he lifted his head off the arm of the seat. Man, his neck was killing him. As he cracked his neck he wondered how he even fell asleep lying on that in the first place. The doors were slammed open as everyone filed out one by one. Richie being the last to emerge, he caught a glimpse of the Taco Bell beside them and realized he was indeed starving.

“Lets fucking eat!” Beverly exclaimed running toward the restaurant doors. Everyone followed suit and mumbled their agreement. Eddie fell behind with Richie.

“Hey Chee. Did you have a nice sleep?” Richie didn’t even bother lifting his head as he simply shrugged. His mind was still elsewhere. He’d never admitted to himself that the things he was feeling were more than platonic but now it’s the only thing he could think of. The way he enjoyed the other boy’s attention, his eyes, his lips, his whole fucking face. He wasn’t ready to reveal his feelings so he suppressed them, even if it meant ignoring Eddie. He was sure Eddie would be relived anyways.

“Did you wanna watch Netflix after we eat? I’ve been looking forward to that Blake Anderson movie you downloaded.” Richie finally looked at him, honestly in shock that the other still wanted something to do with him. Which was a mistake. He shouldn’t have looked, then he wouldn’t have caught the sun in Eddie’s eyes.

“Nah it’s okay Eds. You can keep watching Bev play, I don’t mind.” Richie waved him off as they stepped inside.

“But I want to! Have you seen the trailer for Game Over Man? It looks fucking hilarious.”

“Oh. Sure, you can watch it. I think I’m just going to drive the rest of the way. I took a nap.” With that, Richie walked to the register to order. The other losers were already sat a table toward the back, waiting for their food. Eddie could pretend to want to spend time with him, but Richie could tell he wasn’t interested in the car. What would change that now? He had accepted it, and just wanted to drive. It helped him get away. Neither boy spoke the entire time they were eating, while the others engaged in casual conversation. If they noticed the two being quiet they didn’t mention it.

“Hey. I’m going to drive. I napped.” Richie grabbed the keys from Bill as he started toward the drivers side. He didn’t wait for a reply as he got in and started the suv. They had around 8 more hours until the reached Colorado and Richie intended on driving the entire way. It seemed like every could sense the tension but was too afraid to say anything. By the 20 hours mark everyone in the back was sleeping soundly while Richie jammed out. Everyone except Eddie. He’d been listening to Richie play half a song then change it, then listen to half another song then change it, and so on, for the past hour and a half. Richie knew he was probably being annoying, but he was more interested in keeping his mind off his own insecurities than noticing. It took another five songs for Eddie to finally snap.

“What the fuck Richard? Why do you keep changing the song?! Let one finish.” Richie didn’t need to look at him to know he was rolling his eyes, and probably pouting as well.

“Eds, did you just meme me? The meme lord.”

“First of all. No one says meme lord anymore. Second of all. We haven’t listened to a full song in hours, and it’s driving me insane.”

“I have multiple favorite songs and I love them equally. What can I say? I’m polyjamorous.”

“Ugh. Just shut up and pick a fucking song already.” Eddie turned his body to look out the window as he went silent and crossed his arms. Richie didn’t say another word, simply choosing a playlist and letting it play. This was going to be the longest five hours of Richie’s life. He hated making Eddie upset, but he didn’t want to open his dumb mouth and make everything worse. He always made everything worse...

“Hey, uh, Eds?” Richie finally broke the silence, Eddie had been staring out the window for two hours now and Richie was starting to worry. “I’m sorry about the music.” Eddie’s attention snapped to him as he turned back to him.

“That’s not why I’m upset idiot. Why are you being like this? We barely talked this entire trip! I was really looking forward to this, but now I’m just thinking it was a mistake.” Richie sneaked a glance in his direction before turning back to the road. He saw Eddie’s hurt expression and suddenly felt like an asshole.

“You made it pretty clear earlier that you weren’t interested in watching anything with me. I was just making it easier for you, by taking myself out of the equation. You can do what you wanna do now.”

“What? What are you talking about? I literally asked if you would watch it with me!”

“I know you only asked because I seemed down. But I’m okay Eds. You could’ve watched Bev play more. I didn’t take it personally don’t worry.” Richie tried to give a smile but it didn’t even meet his eyes.

“No Chee. I am worried. You’re talking non sense. I asked because I wanted to spend time with you. Dumbass. I was only watching Beverly because you needed to sleep! You’d just driven like seven hours in the early morning and I know you don’t sleep at night.” Richie’s eyes widened at Eddie’s words. He was officially speechless. Eddie wanted to spend time with him? He was just worried?...about Richie’s well-being? No way. No way Richie had misread the entire situation. No way.

“Richie. If you don’t say something I’m going to be more upset. Just being honest.” Eddie’s arms were once again crossed.

“I...don’t know what to say. I thought you seemed really disinterested in Netflix...with me.”

“I’d watch anything with you.” Eddie’s voice was so soft, Richie had to lean closer to even hear him.

“But...why?”

“Because I love you. You big dumb idiot.” Richie’s hands gripped the steering wheel as his brain processed what was just said. Platonic Richie. Platonic. He means it platonically....doesn’t he? Of course he does.

“Richie...” Eddie’s voice was soft once again as he leaned over to lay his hand on Richie’s. “When we stop, we should really talk.”

-Taglist

@richietoaster @geckolover001 @pennys-pet-kitty @aesteddie @elhopps @summerxle @mexicanqt @punkrocktozier @richietczicr @tozier-club @kristashae @princesass-theresa @dandeliontozier @doctor-lobster @queennugget3 @halfway-happy353 @reddieafterdark @beep-beep-reddie @hmufinn @stanuterus @not-reddie @curlywheelers @i-is-gazebo @temptedtozier @reddie-to-fight @girasol-eddie @mirandonsky @annoyingtozier @sedanleystanley @richieshawaiianshirts @tyrror @slingingwingingspidey @themarvelousmissmadge @eddiefuckinkaspbrak @constantreaderfool @muffin-berry @eddiekazier @reddie-to-go @did-someone-say-reddie @queen-sock

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged or removed! (Or your name changed or something)

#reddie #kat writes #reddie fanfic #road trip au #im sorry it sucks

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gaminglummo335 · 3 years

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andoqin · 3 years

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K-Dramas of 2020

Well, like the general mood of 2020, the dramas this year were uh, certainly an adventure. I was going to put all the dramas I watched this year here, but uh. This turned out longer than expected so I’ll guess I’ll separate K-dramas at the very least.

Putting this behind a cut because Long.

Completed:

365: Repeat the year: I barely remember this one, but I gave it 8/10 on MDL, maybe I should lower that, because honestly all I remember are the time-travel meet up set and the main actors.

CHIP-IN: A short who-dunnit, which has interesting characters, although the show was very wise to be capped at 8 Episodes, because the “mystery” was pretty predictable and also starting to wear thin. Still, the younger cast was stellar and I hope we get to see them in more.

Diary of a Prosecutor: The cases in this drama were actually legit interesting to me and I found the politicking surprisingly not bad. People were flawed in very human ways, but the drama gave us enough time with our main characters to enjoy getting to know all of them.

Do you like Brahms: Contender for worst drama of the year for me, good lord I hated the way this tanked its story line, its characters and the romance. Is it believable that the main characters might act this way? ... Debatable. Is it entertaining to watch? Hell fucking no. Don’t watch this one, unless you like stupid misunderstandings and non communication.

Extracurricular: Short action-y show on Netflix that makes me hopeful for what Sweet Home might be.

Flower of Evil: Lee Jun Ki gets to suffer prettily. That is All. Okay Moon Chae Won and LJK were great together, but it got almost makjang-y by the end.

Hospital Playlist: Delightful Slice of Life Medical show, that despite its delightfulness never quite got me. Very enjoyable and at 12 episodes it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it didn’t stay with me either.

Hot Stove League: Pretty entertaining and as a drama about sports management seems reasonably accurate? (Not that I’d know of course).

Hyena: Flawed as heck in some aspects (the lawyer-plotting got lulzy and boring at the same time), but oh my god some of the HOTTEST chemistry this way from sunday. Joo Ji Hoon and Kim Hye Soo just crackled anytime they were on screen together and Joo Ji Hoon as the high powered lawyer who falls head over heels in love with KHS’s character who is more reluctant to act on those feelings is just *chefs kiss*. Also didn’t suffer the Dreaded Plot Denuement of 2020 (DPD2020). Sure the latter half wasn’t as tight as the beginning, but it stuck the landing and that’s all that matters.

Into the Ring: Weird camera angles and sometimes overly sharp edited shots aside, this had a solid romance, great characters, great romance and almost made me want to get into community politics lmao.

It’s Okay Not To Be Okay (Psycho But It’s Okay): The first half of this show is just *amazing*, the way the scenes transition is pretty much film-like and the main character trio is stunningly well acted. Sadly the story with the mom is resolved in the weirdest fucking way, but the drama decides to do the smart thing and just forget about it once that’s done and the finale made me cry ;_;.

Itaewon Class: Sadly also suffered the DPD2020. I was really into the first half, loved the way the characters found support in each other, plus: a main trans character! Handled really well! Also iconic OST. I was one of the few people who was into the romance of the main couple, but the way the latter half of the plot developed was just completely nonsensical and felt like the writer was just trying to tie off the lose ends as much as possible.

Kingdom Season 2: The first season was stellar and this continues the trend! Although it doesn’t quite reach the highs of the first season I am still so looking forward to season 3! More Joseon zombies please!

Money Game: I... apparently watched this, and looking at the logo there is some vague feeling of “Yeah this is familiar”. But nothing else...

Mr. Heart: Okay-ish BL drama that has it’s cute moments but nothing that made me go “Ooooh”. I am glad SK is getting in on this trend though!

My Holo Love: So all of those Robot/AI shows that came before that I’ve seen and had the premise of “Oh no, I’ve fallen for a ROBOT” when it either turned out their object of affection was either human or actually a robot, but their human counterpart was so shitty that no sane person would like them worked pretty well for me. This one didn’t. From what I remember the heroine does very much fall for the holographic version of this guy, but the human version is *different* and yet whoops the main couple is still human/human. Granted you can’t really do romantic kiss scenes between a girl and nothing, but the switch-over felt abrupt and the way our main lady just transfers her affections to the dude never sat right to me.

Mystic Pop Up Bar: Quite a few dramas this year went with 12 eps, and were all the better for it. Hwang Jung Eum is incredibly hit or miss with me (mostly it’s miss honestly), but in this one she’s used really well and I liked the way the premise was used!

Private Lives: I recently wrote a longer post about this, but honestly another victim of terrible writing and maybe DPD2020.

Stranger 2: Love! Not as much as Season 1, but man this writer is *so* good at writing smart and interesting plots and looking at things from many different angles!

Tale of the Nine Tailed: Flawed but man do I ever love the OTP. Like really really love it. Plus it stuck the landing for me in a way few dramas did in recent months.

The School Nurse Files: So weird. So fucking weird. And yet, so very entertaining. Thanks to its short length ( I think) some plot threads felt very much unceremoniously dropped, but it has a canon lesbian couple!

The World of the Married: Makjang to the Nth degree, got kind of exhausting by the end, but Kim Hee Ae is so good.

Train: Yoon Shi Yoon gets to suffer prettily!

When the Weather is Fine: Kinda mellow and sweet and I wish I could live like the main character does (just have a bookshop in the middle of nowhere and still no money issues??? The Dream) but for that also not super memorable.

Where Your Eyes Linger: SK’s first major Webdrama I believe? Cute and as a foray into this genre not bad, but I hope this is just a taste of things to come.

Dropped:

Hi Bye, Mama: So many people loved this, I couldn’t get over the basic premise and the way my brain tried to tie the logic in this together made my head hurt. The King: Eternal Monarch: Maybe KES dramas just aren’t for me, I didn’t like the plot or the main couple. Woo Do Hwan and Kim Kyung Nam were amazing though and please please I beg both of you do more stuff.

18 Again: Nope. Lee Do Hyun is pretty, but the setup drove me bonkers and I pretty much liked no one.

Zombie Detective: Yikes no thank you. Complete mismatch of tones I wanted and the drama gave me.

Romantic Teacher Dr. Kim 2: Zzzzzzzzz. I found the first one mildly entertaining at least but this one just made me fall asleep immediately.

Black Dog: Yeah I watched like 2 Episodes of this and lost interest.

Search: I’ve watched like 6 eps and I know there’s zombies, but I couldn’t tell you much more tbh.

Start-Up: I watched 2 episodes in the beginning, didn’t think I’d want to live watch this and then just popcorned the tag until it got insufferable with the ship wars and this dropped out of my watch list pretty immediately.

Record of Youth: Pretty much the same deal as with Start-Up only in this case there wasn’t so much a shipwar as the tag showing me that this drama would *not* be my bag at all.

Still Watching:

Kairos: Hmmmm timey-wimey stuff. The FL is this close to losing me though. The fact I thought it plausible that she would murder someone just based on a TEXT from someone else says it all. (She didn’t, thank god, and seems to have found a few of her lost braincells, but by god she was frustrating).

Birthcare Center: I like what it’s trying to say and the main character and her husband are very cute, but a lot of the side characters don’t really interest me. It’s only an 8 ep drama, so I might finish this.

The Spies Who Loved Me: Honestly I’m this close to dropping it. Only my intense love for Yoo In Na and fondness for Eric are keeping me going. But she might not end up with Eric and I’m gonna be mad. Honestly if they just went OT3 I’d be really cool with this, but despite the small advancements in dramaland, they aint ready for that yet.

Lies of Lies: I watched 2 eps and I might continue (the premise seems hilariously makjang and sometimes I’m into that, but it’s *very* much on the backburner)

The Uncanny Counter: Delightful Webtoon vibe, with some great visuals and actually nice action. I’ve only seen 2 eps so far but at least they don’t want to make me poke my eyes out or make me fall asleep. Let’s hope it avoids the DPD2020 plague.

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