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angelanimedesaray · 3 years

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Wings in the Dark Chapter 3: Quicksand

AN: Okay, so this admittedly goes a little slow at the very beginning, more snooping and such, but I promise it picks back up about halfway through. And will pick up from here on out.

Characters: Levi, Vampire!Reader, Erwin, numerous BG characters

Pairing: (Eventual) Levi x Vampire!Reader

Warnings: Language, Peril (Temporary)

Word Count: 6940

<----Previous Chapter Masterlist Next Chapter---->

*Levi’s POV*

You could tell a lot about a person from how they treated animals.

For the Scouts, it was the horses especially that mattered, as they were one of the few lifelines out beyond the walls. With how the horses had avoided L/N with everything they had, people in the vicinity would mutter about how she would never go beyond the walls at this rate, or how she had to be a bad person and the horses were sensing it.

That was one theory to go with.

However, as Levi continued to watch her, he never once saw her get angry or frustrated with them. Sometimes there was sadness, or it looked like she was on the edge of admitting defeat, but she continued to approach them with patient understanding, as if she knew exactly what they were afraid of, and was asking them not to be because she couldn’t change it.

Gradually, the dappled grey allowed her to come closer and closer. They started having problems giving someone else the job of cleaning the stables because she was spending so much of her free time in there, and she would clean while there to allow her to spend more time around the horses and give her something else to do besides just sitting there waiting for skittish horses to calm down. She was smart enough to know that she needed more than just one to calm down around her, though she was still putting in the work to form a bond with at least one. In case she was ever in a position where she needed another horse, though, it seemed she wanted the other horses to at least be comfortable with her presence--hence all the time spent in the stables.

If she wasn’t out in the field walking with the mare, then she was inside by the horse’s stall, leaning against the wall or sitting against the door. Then, at long last, she could be seen walking around side by side with her horse, the lead short and fairly loose. And after a few days holding a treat into the stall and waiting for the horse to feel comfortable coming up to her to eat it out of her hand, she finally made it /into/ the stall. Her hard work was paying off, as now she could be found inside the stall, gently brushing the dappled grey mare while she spoke in soft tones to the horse, continuing to build up the trust and bond between the two of them.

As Levi stepped into the stables, he could hear her speaking softly with the mare, her words underlined with each thoughtful brush stroke.

“There we go...that’s a good girl...see, just like I said, nothing to be afraid of. I know I’m scary, you all remind me every time I come in here, but I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone--I’m just here to help. See, that feels much better, doesn’t it? I’m not going to hurt you. I promise as long as I’m around, nothing’s going to hurt you. There we go...Steady...Shh…”

Levi’s head turned slightly at the subject of her rambling, his gaze following down the line until he spotted the stall his horse was in, not far from L/N’s horse.

“You don’t mind all my rambling, do you, Zephyr? It’s nice to talk to someone, even if they’re not going to talk back. I haven’t had anyone to talk to in…” She grew quiet, and even the brushing stopped for a moment. Curious. “...too long,” she finished, her voice hardly above a whisper.

She seemed to quiet down entirely as Levi risked stepping into the stables, and he realized he had been heard, or at the very least she’d become aware she wasn’t by herself. Continuing forward casually, Levi turned his head to look into the stable as he passed, spotting L/N with the brush set off to the side and currently working on undoing any tangles in Zephyr’s mane. Their eyes met for a moment, and Levi paused.

“Will she let you ride her, yet?”

She turned away, the faintest touch of red entering her cheeks at the mention of her trouble with the horses. “Not yet. But I don’t think it will be much longer before she does.”

Levi’s gaze swept over the stable, kept immensely clean with fresh straw, water, and food, and the coat on the horse smooth and lustrous. At this rate, the mare was going to be more of a show horse than a war horse.

“You’re not slacking anywhere else, are you?” Levi asked as his gaze slipped over the pristine stall and back to her. A stall didn’t get that clean without a lot of constant work.

“No, sir. This is where I was lacking the most, so it’s getting more of my attention. But I’m making sure other parts of my training aren’t suffering.”

Well, he’d be the judge of that. With the way she held up in training, any degree of slipping would be easy to spot.

Levi resumed what he was doing, walking deeper into the stables to check on his horse, which he planned to take for a brief ride to stretch his legs. “Don’t make a promise you can’t keep,” he added before L/N left his field of vision. The stable was quiet for a few moments, broken only by the sound of Levi getting his horse ready to go.

So quietly he almost didn’t hear it, Levi got a reply.

“This one I can keep.”

Earlier in the day, Levi had jumped on the chance to get a more personal glimpse at L/N, taking over the cleanliness checks in the barracks, much to everyone else’s dismay. He was well aware that his standards were far above everyone else’s, but today they were just going to have to deal with it, and step it up. On the bright side, as he walked down the lines of beds, he was able to see who was terrible at doing a decent cleaning job and who had potential.

He gave criticisms at every bed--dust, missed spots, trying to hide part of the mess under the beds, half-assed jobs, on and on the list went. When he got to L/N…

Now this was starting to get creepy.

His practiced eye swept over her space as she stood at attention just off to the side, taking in the bed spread smoothed of wrinkles, the dusted and wiped down surfaces, everything tucked away, floor swept and clean in her area--even a little into the surrounding spaces. There wasn’t anything in the way of personal effects, though--not out in the open, anyway.

It was immaculate. Up to his standards practically to a T. It was an unexpected discovery, amongst the many things he thought he’d see. He thought he might see a personal effect here or there that would give him a bit more on her personality, but there was nothing he could see during a cleanliness inspection.

He’d have to come back later.

Shit, I’m starting to sound like a goddamn stalker.

Carefully, Levi ran a hand on the underside of the bed, the nightstand, anywhere there might be dirt left over, and came away with nothing.

She was the only one he walked by without saying anything, because he had no critiques to give. He wondered if she was always this clean, or she’d heard he was doing the inspections and pulled off a miracle.

He went back when there was no one around to do a more thorough search, still believing that she might have something that would tip him off a little more. Frankly, if he continued to find a complete lack of personal effects, that would bolster his suspicions as well, because it signified something to be hidden or something that was trying to be forgotten, or a preparation to run at a moment’s notice.

He didn’t know what he would find, if anything, but if it was another lead, he would take it.

The barracks were currently empty, and he had made sure they’d be empty for a while, choosing the time there was a morning drill going on for the new recruits to sneak in and do some digging.

First he checked the footlocker at the end of her bed, opening it up and carefully shifting through. Mostly it was made up of uniform clothes, a pair of nice plainclothes, a pair of casual plainclothes, a couple more comfortable workout clothes, a plain black cloak--

His hand paused on the cloak. It looked like it could be the one being worn by the person he’d pursued and lost that one night. Not a confirmation, but it was further evidence she was sneaking out at night, even if he hadn’t seen her face.

Finding nothing else suspicious in the footlocker, Levi checked under the bed and found only dress shoes and casual shoes, and then moved onto the nightstand.

Here, he found a book from the library on herbology with a bookmark on custom tea blends, as well as a tin of some of the said tins. There was quite a bit of chamomile and mint from the whiff he was immediately hit with upon checking inside the tin, with a couple other blends--but mostly the chamomile and mint. Inside, he also found a tightly bound bundle of white sage in a cloth covering, blank sheets of paper, more writing utensils than he would have expected, and a leather bound folio. Opening it revealed no official documents missing from her background, no personal letters or intercepted reports.

Inside, it was gorgeous artwork. Sketches of the horses in various poses of rest or activity, of the scenery around Wall Rose, a sketch of one of the few mansions in the district, and--

Levi paused, eyes widening as he stilled, the silence in the room pressing in on him. His mind flashed back to just the other day, when he’d seen Zephyr out in the field away from the other horses, laying down and looking contently about, but not moving. He’d only been able to make out part of L/N through the long grass, leaning against the horse with her knees pulled up, looking lost in something. He’d assumed it was a book from the distance where he was once more leaning against the wall in the shadows of the stables, or that she was writing something.

Amongst the more recent drawings of the horses, there was a portrait of him, leaning against that wall at the stables, arms crossed, head slightly bowed but eyes centered on the observer, or, in this case, the artist. Even the shade was accounted for, making the features a little more difficult to make out, but they were still clear and detailed.

She’d seen him well enough at that distance to make out and sketch his features in this detail? Or had some of it been visualization?

More importantly, it was pretty much confirmation that she knew he was watching her.

Levi closed the folio, putting everything back in its proper place with care, feeling intrusive and out of place now that he’d failed to come up with anything malicious in nature. There were only a couple things that made him uneasy with the implications, never anything that proved to be outright dangerous, as always. And he couldn’t exactly say anything about the sketch of himself without her knowing he’d gone through her belongings.

Levi was gone long before the recruits returned to the barracks from their drill.

She’d slipped away from the main group after the next combat training session, hanging back and going a different direction than the rest of the group. Levi had a brief moment where he thought she might be slipping away to the same place she went at night, and had followed her on the off chance that was the case.

She ended up going to a quiet corner of the Scout headquarters, at a corner of buildings near the forest that no one bothered with. Once there, she kneeled down, tending to a cluster of plants that was lined up in the familiar form of a small garden. It was fairly new, too, from what Levi could see, which told him she probably planted them herself not too long ago. How long had she been working on this little side project?

Just another one of his suspicions turning out to be harmless activity. He was just about ready to write off his uneasy feeling as paranoia.

He could have just walked off and left her alone, but he lingered, waiting until she finished what she was doing and left before he quietly approached the garden to satiate his own curiosity.

Kneeling down, he realized that the tiny garden was made up of plants, mainly herbs, that could be used in tea making. There were brushes of mint, chamomile, and lemongrass as the most notable plants, and near the corner where they would get full sun and could help hide the little herb garden there were even three freshly planted bushes, hibiscus, raspberry, and rose, with the flowering bushes meant to support the raspberry in the middle. The soil was dark and the leaves had beads of water still on them that shined on his thumb after a careful stroke against a leaf to see it healthy and strong, showing that L/N had been by to water them. They were doing fairly well, from what he could see, even though the plants were too young to harvest anything from.

Was she attempting to grow the materials to make her own tea blends so she wouldn’t have to spend much of her salary on tea?

Standing to leave as that pesky feeling of intrusion started to worm its way back into his mind, Levi caught sight of a small collection of white sage, directly out in the sun and recently planted, but noticeably far away from the other plants. It was curious, the way it was planted so that it couldn’t be missed and could be easily avoided. At the same time, though, it could just have been an aggressively growing plant that would take over the other plants if it got too close to them. While he knew it could also be used in teas, it wasn’t as common...and he’d seen a bundle of the sage spikes tightly bound and covered in her nightstand.

What was so special about it? Why did she have it?

Levi shook his head, turning to leave and mentally filing the questions about the white sage under “personal questions” instead of “suspicions.”

His suspicions weren’t entirely gone. While he was getting a stronger sense of her character that caused his doubts about her to waver, he still had some glaring questions he couldn’t ignore that caused his wariness to endure...for now.

ODM gear training--another essential part to life in the Scouts. At this point in time, it was a chance for officers to get a feel for the skills of the cadets first hand instead of just what it said on paper about their Cadet Corps training.

The trees here were thick, allowing perfect cover for their Titan dummies spread sporadically throughout the woods. At the highest points in the trees, the officers stood on platforms to observe quietly, moving from platform to platform as needed while the recruits moved through the trees, watching the cadets zip around the forest looking for Titans.

Levi’s eyes, however, were drawn to the fact that Erwin was out here. He knew for a fact that Erwin had better things to be doing than watching rookies try to hunt down dummies, but for some reason he was always near the same spot Levi was, his gaze fixed complacently in the same area, flickering in disinterest past most of the cadets. If any of the rookies knew he was here, the word would spread like wildfire, and they might shift their attention to trying their damndest to impress the Commander instead of doing the drill properly.

But there was a gleam in Erwin’s eyes. He was here for a reason. Levi just didn’t know what it was, which unsettled him, but didn’t distract him from watching the recruits.

Erwin’s gaze caught Levi’s, and the faintest, unsettling smile appeared on his lips, gone in the next second as his attention was drawn towards an oncoming recruit who was high in the trees, apparently trying the high-ground tactic to spot a Titan before the others. A terrible approach, really, since it allowed more tree cover for the Titans by adding more branches and foliage below the individual.

Levi started to turn away in disinterest, hearing the sound of another fast-approaching recruit coming towards them. While the recruit was still in his peripherals, they disengaged the cables, ready to fire them into another tree to make a sharp turn.

Except the cables didn’t deploy.

The recruit let out a shriek and plummeted towards the ground from a dangerous height, gear malfunctioning and not sending out the cables to catch them on their way down. Levi whipped around, hands flying out to his holstered ODM controls--

--Erwin didn’t look surprised by what was happening--

Someone darted in low and fast. It was one of the recruits, the one that had already been moving in their direction, and as such, was in the best position to react first.

Of all the people it could have been, it was L/N.

She wasn’t using any gas, her falling momentum casing her to come in low and fast to the ground, cables deploying at the last moment to even out her fall and propel her forward, her back running parallel with the ground as she shot towards the falling cadet. When she was close enough, she angled herself back up to intercept the recruit, gas propelling her up into the air instead of her momentum. There was an audible thud and grunt as they collided, L/N’s arm wrapped around the fallen recruit’s midriff as she twisted to fire another cable to bring herself up to safety.

The only problem was that there were two dummies in the direction she was flying, and the training didn’t stop because of a hiccup.

One of the dummies swung down and towards her, on a clear collision course if she didn’t see it and couldn’t react fast enough. At least now it would hurt like a bitch but it wouldn’t be fatal.

L/N let loose a sudden burst of gas to speed up and rolled so she was facing the ground, back upwards and exposed to the falling dummy. For a second, he thought she was going to take the brunt of the blow--which would mean death if this had been real. She pulled herself upright at the last second, sailing right underneath where the dummy titan’s mouth would be, her body twisted out of reach of the dummy, and she kicked off the side of its neck to give herself another boost, cables firing upwards high into the trees and causing her to sore upwards, another brief burst of gas allowing her the momentum to keep her going upwards with the added weight still tucked against her side with one arm.

The second dummy swung out from behind the trees, fast enough to knock someone clean out of the air. Instead of going under like she did the first time, she twisted again, keeping the recruit in her arms safe from impact. She arched over him in an upside U, cables firing up and out to bring them safely onto a tree branch. She set the other recruit down, a hand on their shoulder as she said something to them, checking their gear with them before waving for one of the other officers to come over and get the recruit. Once the recruit who fell was guaranteed to be alright, she kicked off, doubling back to slice through the Titan dummy napes before disappearing back into the forest.

Levi looked back over at Erwin, able to immediately recognize that gleam in his eyes as Erwin looked out in the direction L/N had taken off towards. It was the same look Levi saw in the Underground, back when they met. Ulterior intentions or not, Erwin was going to do his damndest to make sure she was on their side in the end, and speaking from experience, Levi knew it was possible.

Releasing his grip on his ODM controls, Levi’s gaze flickered back over to the recruit that had fallen, that look he’d seen on Erwin’s face moments before it happened flashing through his mind.

I know you can’t guarantee finding the answers to all of your questions in such a short amount of time, but you could at least find out if she will have the back of her fellow scouts on the first expedition.

That had been planned, hadn’t it? He wanted to test if she had her comrades backs in a moment of danger, and she had responded immediately and without hesitation. Levi had to trust that there had been some kind of backup plan to make sure that recruit didn’t end up dead--Erwin wouldn’t have done something like that without having someone waiting in the wings in case L/N acted selfishly.

He was sure everyone was impressed after what she’d just pulled off even with someone under her arm, but part of him...wasn’t really surprised. Then again, Levi was the only one who’d had a first hand taste of how strong she really was. This was a reassurance that her other training had not slipped while she put so much effort into the horses, and was further confirmation at the asset she could be to them as a member of the Scouts.

Let’s hope she could keep that even head when it was Titan jaws snapping at her and not just wooden figures swinging her way.

He felt absolutely drained.

It was the night before the next expedition, and Levi found himself sitting alone in the mess hall, a cup of steaming tea resting on the table in front of him with his fingertips lingering lightly on the rim of the cup. Ever since that first night he’d caught L/N sneaking out, he’d been staying up as much as possible to try and catch her sneaking out again. He was already used to not sleeping much, but even he had his limits. His eyelids were heavy, and his focus kept slipping, even as he tried to get down a cup of tea to help him sleep more soundly tonight so he would be at his best tomorrow.

He would finally get to see L/N in the field. Erwin was still planning on keeping her in the formation where Levi would have her in his sights at all time so he could see how she did when it wasn’t training anymore. Not to mention, he was looking forward to it.

His suspicions had started to die down in the back of his mind, giving way to glowing embers of a curiosity he figured would be satiated with time. Perhaps that uneasiness in his gut had nothing to do with her trustworthiness, and he had simply been caught off guard by her abilities. Perhaps the thought of a rookie already able to go toe to toe with him had unnerved him, and that was where the feeling originated.

The more he pried into her as a person, the less of a reason he found to be doubtful of her intentions. The recruits who’d been in class with her had described her as cold and unsociable, someone up to trouble that was never discovered and far more skilled than she let on. However, when he observed her and came within proximity to her, she was warm, and careful, and considerate, although he still did not miss the hesitation, the way she was ready to pull away at a moment’s notice and increase the distance once more, the way she seemed to always be holding something back…

But that didn’t mean she was a bad person. If anything, he was worried about her because she seemed far more empathetic under the surface than she let on. He’d seen the garden she tended to quietly, seen her artistic hobby, seen how she interacted with her horse Zephyr now that she was able to ride the mare. Even if she didn’t have any close friends in the Scouts, she was close with that horse, spending most of her free time with Zephyr, brushing her, laying with her in the field while she drew or read, simply walking with her.

She seemed...gentle, at heart. Before he knew it, he was softening towards her. How could he see all of that, and not start to let go of his suspicions? It’s why watching her had suddenly felt intrusive, why this final night he had stopped staring out the window watching for a hooded figure and come into the mess hall to seek tea to help him sleep instead of forcing himself to stay up all night again to keep an eye out for her slipping out into the night.

The silence was comforting, his limbs feeling heavy, head tilting downwards, fingers going limp around the empty cup as he slowly...nodded off…

He was so exhausted...

*Reader’s POV*

Your steps down the darkened halls of the Scout Headquarters were silent, your hood still drawn as you made your way deeper into the stone building. While your face was still hidden in shadow, your hand did a careful rub around your mouth to be sure that you didn’t have any trace of your meal lingering on your face.

You hadn’t needed to sneak out for another bite, but considering you were going on an expedition tomorrow, you’d decided to play it safe and sneak out again to make sure you were fully satiated. You needed to be at peak performance, and you needed to make sure your bloodlust was fully satiated in case you found yourself in the middle of a bloodbath.

The last thing you needed was to lose control in front of everyone and feed off of a fellow Scout. All the pleading and rationalizing in the world wasn’t going to save you from a vengeful blade or banishment in that kind of situation.

Once you were sure there wasn’t any blood on your face, you lowered your hood, quietly making your way into the barracks and retrieving one of your bought chamomile tea bags before slipping away to the mess hall. The only sounds in the castle was the faint talking of guards at the entrance, the huffs or snickers of the horses in the stables, and the soft breaths and heartbeats of the sleeping scouts that filled Headquarters.

The closer you got to the mess hall, however, the more you could make out a singular heartbeat and soft breathing, the familiar sound of someone fast asleep.

In the mess hall?

Once you were close enough, you managed to catch the faintest scent that immediately told you who was asleep in the mess hall. That scent had been following you since your sparring match. It had wafted on the wind from the distance as he watched you from beside the stables or across training grounds, had lingered on your personal effects after you came back from a morning drill, had briefly lingered amongst the perfume of herbs and flowery plants in your little garden, and had cut through your senses the last time you’d snuck out for a bite, informing you that you were being followed long before you heard his breaths and heartbeat.

You’d known Captain Levi was watching you closely, and as such, you’d learned to attune yourself to his scent so you would know when he was nearby. He was always clean, with traces of tea and mint lingering despite the strong scent of soap, either from cleaning his surroundings or himself. But there was also the scent of his blood, sometimes unique for people with potent bloodlines, whose blood would be exceptional if you dared to partake.

Of course, Captain Levi, Commander Erwin, any of the Scouts were a hard off limits, so that was never something you were going to give into, never a taste that you would know. But that didn’t mean you would fail to pick up on the rich aroma his blood gave off.

God forbid his blood was ever spilled in front of you. That would be a challenge to resist.

Able to tell that he was asleep, you entered the mess hall quietly but without reservations, determined to make your cup of tea even if there was someone else in the room.

He seemed to have fallen asleep at the table, head slumped over into his chest, one arm still lying limply next to a cup of tea that, due to the scent that still had traces in the air, had been meant to help him sleep. His hair fell carefree into his face, lips parted slightly for his quiet breaths to slip between.

Good. He’d been looking exhausted recently, and you knew it was because he was keeping such a close eye on you. It was almost like you couldn’t go anywhere without Levi one step behind you. The rumors said it was because he was thinking of having you join his squad, but you doubted that was really the reason. Your suspicion was that he’d grown suspicious of you after your spar, and he was trying to figure out what you were hiding. If he’d simply been looking to have you on his squad, he wouldn’t have gone poking around your personal effects or been following you whenever you were by yourself.

You didn’t hate him for it--he was just doing his job, and he had every right to be suspicious. Hell, if his instincts had told him there was something wrong with you, that there was something dangerous about you, they weren’t wrong. He was right to follow them and poke around. It was just for your own sake that you hoped you could dodge him until his suspicions disappeared and he could accept you weren’t here out of malice.

You really were here to help. Your intentions were genuine, even if you had some personal monsters you were trying to keep in the dark. You just weren’t so sure you could convince them that you weren’t a threat if they were to ever find out what you were. You didn't even want to think of what Captain Levi’s reaction would be if he ever found out, especially if he found out while armed and in the same room as you.

There were already those who knew about your species, and considered you to be a far more lethal threat to humanity than Titans, one that needed to be expunged indiscriminately. The fear was always there that if someone discovered you, they would see things that way, that they wouldn’t hesitate to put down a clear threat to humanity.

Shaking the dark thoughts from your mind, you focused on the here and now instead of what ifs that might never come to pass. Instead, you carefully removed your cloak from around your shoulders and approached Levi quietly and carefully, draping the dark cloth around his body to keep him covered up.

You’d just been outside, so of course you were aware that it wasn’t the warmest night.

You paused just short of lifting your hands, hearing a shift in his heartbeat and breathing that suggested he might wake up. It figured he would be a light sleeper. Maybe you should have just left him alone instead of risking waking him up.

Well, either way, it would be more awkward if he woke to you just standing there next to him--if he did wake up. There was still the chance he would slip back into sleep.

Attempting to stay silent so you wouldn’t disturb him anymore than you already had, you slipped away into the kitchen, going about making your cup of tea as quietly as you could, movements exaggerated with how slow you were going in an attempt not to let the kettle and other dishes rattle. While you made your tea, you could hear the slightest shift of fabric, hear a pause, his heart rate and breathing back to normal waking pace.

Well, shit. It looked like you’d managed to wake him up with your act of kindness now gone wrong. You should have left him alone instead of disturbing his sleep. And now you were going to have to be social when you left the kitchen.

Well...maybe that was a good thing. With all this watching from a distance, maybe it would help to put his mind at ease if he was to simply talk to you, just a little.

Though you could also very likely end up headed towards a conversation you weren’t ready to have, one you couldn’t answer even though they were so simple, like ‘where did you come from’ and anything related to family.

You let out a soft sigh as you poured your tea into your cup, resigning yourself to the incoming late night conversation with Captain Levi.

As you walked back into the eating area of the mess hall where Levi had fallen asleep, you could see him sitting up properly again, your cape folded up neatly and sitting on the tabletop with his hand resting thoughtfully in its center, a small frown on his lips.

He looked up when you entered the room, and something flashed in his eyes, gone as soon as it appeared. It made you uneasy.

Was there blood on your cape? No, you were certain there wasn’t any blood--you knew what you were doing, and you knew how to eat without spilling any blood or making a mess. There wasn’t any blood on your cape. So what was that look for? Was it just from his suspicions? Had he figured you had just come back from sneaking out again?

“What are you doing up?” Levi asked bluntly as you approached, teacup in hand

As much as you wanted to turn the question around on him, the one who had fallen asleep in the mess hall, you knew better. You were trying to stay on his good side, not antagonize him, which was already difficult when the odds were already so stacked against you.

You took a seat, raising the cup slightly as both your hands curled around the hot cup to cradle it in your grasp. “I was feeling restless, so I came down here to get something to calm my nerves,” you told him honestly, taking a slow sip of tea once you’d finished speaking.

“And you felt the need for a cloak on the way from the barracks to the kitchen?” Levi asked skeptically, eyebrow cocked challengingly.

You shrugged, outwardly unfazed by his question. “I tried walking it off first. Didn’t work out like I’d hoped.”

“Are you nervous?”

Your eyes flickered his way, meeting his steady gaze and briefly wondering if he was actually referring to tomorrow, or if that was meant to double as referring to him always watching her, asking if she had a reason to be nervous about it.

“I suppose I should be. Afraid, even. But whenever I start to get worried I tell myself whatever happens, happens. I’ll do what I can, when I can. If I come back, wonderful, if I don’t...I won’t be going out quietly,” you said, grip tightening slightly around the cup as you stared down at the water colored by the chamomile blend. “Maybe subconsciously I am nervous, and that’s why I’m restless tonight.”

Levi was fixing you with a hard look at your rather passive answer, eyes probing, reading every muscle twitch looking for a lie or a deeper meaning. “Aren’t you itching to kill Titans? Or at least shitting yourself at the chance to go outside the walls?”

“Except I didn’t come to kill Titans, specifically. Going outside the walls, seeing what’s out there, that’s a bonus. I came to help. Whether that means killing Titans, guarding carts, playing messenger or lookout, or mucking out stalls. As long as I feel like I’m doing something to help.”

Levi leaned back in his seat. He didn’t look particularly impressed with your attitude. “Why did you join the Scouts?” he asked bluntly. “Why not the MPs or the Garrison?”

Images flashed through your mind. Drunken garrison members stationed in Wall Rose who only sat around gambling, drinking, and ignoring their duties. Your eyes lifted to the raven-haired man in front of you, and you had the faintest memory pass through your mind of a black haired youth pressed into the ground by Military Police, about to beat the kid to a pulp to teach the Underground gutter rat not to steal, even though it was the only way the kid was going to get something to eat. Corruption, complacency, and current uselessness in the fight against the Titans, that’s all you thought when you heard Military Police or Garrison Regiment. You knew it was a harsh viewpoint, and a blanket one that didn’t truly apply to everyone in either branch, but that impression had been made so strongly on you that you couldn’t resolve it, not at this point.

Also, this was a good chance to plant the seed that she really did want to help, that she really was an ally and not an enemy. Just in case she was found out.

“I wanted to go somewhere I could actually do something, where I could put my skills to good use and do something worthwhile. I know that’s not the general public feeling about what the Scouts do, but I knew if I went to the Garrison or the MPs, I’d be wasted there. Complacency isn’t for me. I knew the Scouts was the best place for me to go if I wanted to do something that could actually help.”

You quieted again, taking another sip from the cup. Once more, it was true. If you wanted to use your vampiric abilities to make a difference, the Scouts was the best place for you. You were tired of existing in shadows, of letting days slip by without making any kind of impact on the world around you. No more complacency. You wanted to take action and do something with your abilities other than hunt and eat people. What better way than to go out and fight the Titans? They were still a threat to you, you couldn’t regenerate like a Titan, and decapitation from teeth would kill you just as surely as a stake through the heart. But you had a better chance against the Titans than the average human, and you wanted to use your better chances to give humanity a better opportunity to fight back. That would make your existence feel...worthwhile. Instead of parasitic.

Down at the other end of the table, Levi sighed, pushing himself up onto his feet, likely to head back to his room before he fell asleep in the mess hall again.

*Levi’s POV*

Levi wasn’t too enthused by most of her reasoning for joining the Scouts. He had seen far too many pointless deaths to optimistically say that she wouldn’t die pointlessly in the Scouts. Hell, she had a higher chance of dying needlessly in the Scouts than anywhere else, especially if she had the wrong attitude going out there. A hero complex could get her killed just as easily as complacency. She should be focused on survival, and how casually she spoke about what could happen tomorrow made him uncomfortable. He’d be more at ease if she was displaying a determination to come back, some kind of fire, a spark. Instead, it felt like she thought there was something she needed to prove, and he worried it was the wrong priority.

Hopefully, her attitude would change once she saw the hell of the Titans up close. If not, he wasn’t going to have much hope for her going forward.

Getting to his feet, Levi grabbed his teacup to clean up in his chambers, leaving the cloak folded on the table for her to retrieve when she was finished down here.

“Make sure you come back to tend to those plants. They’ll die if there’s not someone around to take care of them,” he said in a monotone voice before turning to leave. He made it almost to the door before she spoke up again.

“Captain Levi?”

He paused, but he didn’t turn or say anything, waiting to hear what she wanted to say.

“Just because I’m not open with everyone, doesn’t mean I’m a threat. There’s just some parts of myself I would like to keep to myself,” she said softly. His head twitched to the side at the unexpected comment, catching the sight of her forlorn expression as she gazed down at the cup just in front of her lips.

He didn’t say anything, instead continuing down the hall and disappearing from her immediate sight. Once he was within the safety of his chambers, a hard glint flashed in his eyes.

The scent of blood and shit unique to one place within the walls lingered on her cloak.

Next Chapter---->

Levi Tags: @clary-quinn @humanitys-hottestsoldier @whalerus @sunny-flo

Wings in the Dark Tags: @regalillegal @animeluver23 @theshylittleelfgirl @queenthorin1 @dilucs-thighs @sociallyanxiousmouse

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riisinaakka-draws · 3 years

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part 2/6

2nd part of my old Black Sails scraps and doodles from 2016–2021. Not in any particular order.

This time the drawings are short comics that were abandoned for a reason or another, mostly because I lost the interest or felt like there was too much to redraw compared to the satisfaction of finishing something else more interesting. There’s also some talk about rigid mindset and how overthinking can lead to stagnation.

Contains early silverflint moments, specks of dust, rackham's glasses are found, jealous-Billy spying, desk-Flint gets caught, "squint-squint", a quiet moment and its bird dilemma etc.

And please do not steal and repost elsewhere. But if you do get inspired, feel free to make your own interpretations!

Long-ish post under the cut!

“What are you thinking about?”

“Specks of dust.”

“Liar.”

The idea was to show how much they and their relationship had changed. This was around 2016 when the season 3 began and I was still re-learning to draw with a tablet. Another art from the same time period (and idea) is this art: The Dynamic Duet.

And for some reason I was really stuck up thinking that I’d have to first do the sketch, then the clean line art, then planes underneath, then shadows etc. and I have always struggled with that kind of approach! Mainly because I hate doing clean line work, lol. And I was a fool for trying to start with a white canvas! It’s so much harder to find values and plan things, or at least in my opinion..

“Rackham’s glasses are found”

To celebrate their new pirate alliance, they share the four lenses of Rackham’s sunglasses as they were also found at the time (because I wanted it to resurface and they could be made into jewellery you know...). This was right after the episode where Anne fights and hurts her hands (here wearing protecting mittens from Max even though she’s not trusted at the moment). Uh, this doesn’t spark joy interest me much and it’s quite stiff and would recuire a lot of redrawing faces, so - discarded!

I somewhat like the idea still (them having something to share, although it’s on Jack’s detriment). I tried to find a stylished comical easier doodlier? way to draw them and draw clean lines etc, but it just wasn’t for me. Also here too, the background is blank and too bright. Later I started to think things as scenes and draw everything at the same time instead of adding the bg later or trying to show everything (and everyone) at the same time.

Here’s also Billy in the same story:

He’s spying on them and since it’s so bright he’s wearing his diy “sunglasses” and being envious to the others. *cough* uhhh...Idk? Also people were shipping Ben Gunn (and cheese) with Billy, so that bled into this too... Charles’ spirit is riding the “big white bird” that was mentioned in Teach’ story and in this case it’s a pelican.

As you can see, I also wasn’t using the brushes that I use nowadays. A hard (or soft) round brushes with no change in opacity just aren’t for me. For example, in traditional art, I struggle with markers and copics, but really enjoy charcoals and watercolours. I prefer ragged edges, layering and thus blending things into each other (and leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps) instead of having stark or definite things. I also struggle with vector drawings, although I have decided to finally start learning to use them...somedayyyy.

Also, I wasn’t paying attention to anatomy, like, at all LMAO. I was just so happy to be able to put something on the canvas.

This is one of my first ink drawings, but I cannot find the original anymore. Again, I like the idea, but not how things look art-wise. And I was so adamant, that I have to get everything right in the traditional drawing and not fix anything later on on photoshop because then it would be cheating. And thus, I was never able to move on or finish this properly the way I liked it (idiot).

BUT! It was a good practise to just draw and test things on paper and gain confidense on drawing things in overall (as I was still getting back into art). To get over the fear of blank paper you know, and try to find my style whatever it would start to form into.

Oh, yeah, Desk Flint.

Desk Flint was a thing for a while (still is, lol). Another drawing from that time is this Slingshot Pirate (2016). And Desk Flint keeps repeating in many later works too. The point is mainly “Flint sitting behind his desk and people interrupt him and I don’t have to draw him fully”

Well, anyway... moving on.

Here’s a plan that has been stuck for years. It’s name is “Squint-squint.” Left is the sketch (with another sketch underneath because the expressions were clearer in the old one). On the right is the continued piece with colour scheme but I cropped the eyes panel and faces out (it was so ugly for some reason) but if I ever continue/finish this, it will be redrawn there in the middle.)

Left. “On that moment their eyes were literally open(ed).”

Right. “After squinting on the shore for days, they had actually forgotten how pretty the other idiot’s eyes were.”

I still like it, quite a lot, but my perfectionist ass only sees too much “boring” things to draw and get right, so it hasn’t been a priority for a long time and other works have kept me occupied and more interested in them.

--------------------

“Quiet Moment.” 2018 (a wordless comic happening after the events of Charles Town)

I’m going to explain after these pictures, but see how big the difference is when you start to look at references and plan things together (the space, “camera” movement, background etc). I also started to colour with coarser brushes:

I drew this around early 2018. A lot of improvement! Still quite a lot of negative space (empty white backgrounds), but it fits this work. A few things tell where we are (the ship’s cabin and the balcony). Changing distances and how things are cropped/framed make things more moving and focused (and less to draw, lol). Colours and brush strokes are softer, more layered and so on.

But guess why it’s still a wip!

I couldn’t decide what bird is flying over there.

Yeap! At first it was an albatross (doesn’t go to Bahamas?). Then a seagull (but which seagull? there’s so many subspecies! Is the ship at sea or at the harbour? what birds are there on the open water/ close to the shore?? oh noo...) So, yeah, wayyyy too much over-thinking.

At some point I ended up with white-tailed-tropic-bird which was a plus! because it sounds like the bosun’s whistle, but at that point I was so tangled and frustrated and still had so much to finish with this that I left it be. Also Flint’s face looks different in every frame so I would’ve had to change some parts, lol. And then I forgot it for a couple of years! And then I had learned to draw a bit differently and again saw too much things to do, so it’s quite hard to take on this again, especially when there are so many other interesting wips waiting...

But I still really like the feeling of it! And the colour scheme. So I might just limit the things I’m allowed to fix and then post it as it own someday. I mean, it’s 90% finished, but the last reach just feels like miles.

And that’s what usually happens with my wips. They reach a certain point and it suddenly becomes really hard to finish or get back into.

But every time I learn things and then use the information in another work! :D

Final note for this post (altough this has been said hundreds of times): use references and look how things go and try to see the structure and form beneath things. And think where it is happening and how the light and surroundings affects the characters and/or spaces. And maybe think what you’re trying to convey with the art, what idea? what emotions? what purpose? or like, what are you trying to learn with the piece? and so on...

Thanks for checking this out, I hope you had fun <3

#black sails doodle #long post #but not as long as the future ones heh #tag for Block Spoils doodles #<- if you want to black list these

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this-solaris-life · 3 years

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Hello You

Day: 01 - Strangers Rating: G Pairings: M: #Xicheng BG: #Sangyu, #WeiNing 📷 Tags: Modern/NoPowers; First Meetings; Fluff; Mentions of beginning of Online Stalking.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ “Oh we’ve got to try out this store. Wei Wuxian.” Nie Huaisang grinned, pointing to the sleek black building that was a lingerie store. “I know that you’ve looking to spice up your wardrobe!” He snickered, the fan he’d chosen making the sweet smelling perfume he’d chosen to wear today mix more into the air. While it was nice, it wasn’t Jiang Cheng’s taste. He shifted his gaze to the bookstore.

Twin Jades Meets Books

“Cute.” Jiang Cheng murmured under his breath seeing the rolling clouds with two jumping bunnies chasing a book for a logo. The design of the building is that new modern industrial vibe with metal, glass, and wood accents. From the massive large windows he could see there was hanging plants and he wondered if the tree he was seeing was real or fake. His curiosity was piqued though.

“What’s cute?” Wei Wuxian asked, having heard his best friend. His grey eyes followed Jiang Cheng’s line of sight. When he saw that it was the bookstore, he wrapped an arm around his neck pulling him close. “Oh, I see. You’d rather be with your stuffy books then come try on some silk.”

“Yes.” Jiang Cheng told him bluntly. Because to be honest the last time he’d let himself get roped into going into a lingerie store with the two of them. He ended up on the receiving end of a fashion show and hadn’t wanted to know the preferences of their lovers nor see that much of their bodies. “Save that much of yourself for your precious Wen Ning and his, Mo Xuanyu.”

“It’s not like you’ve not seen it before!”

“Yes and I wished I hadn’t, we are best friends not friends with benefits and no A-Sang that isn’t an invitation. Now go to your lingerie store and let me shop in peace at the bookstore.” Jiang Cheng stated, shrugging off Wei Wuxian’s arm. The two of them sputtered before ultimately leaving him to go ahead to check out the store alone.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

The moment he stepped through the door there was a soft chime to let the workers know that someone had entered the store. He was surprised to find that the store didn’t have a heavy book smell but one of tea and the flowers growing inside. And that wasn’t the only thing growing inside. His sight went to the large tree in the center of the store. It wasn’t a fake one but a real living tree with a plexiglass enclosure. He hadn’t understood why till he got closer to find that there were bunnies of different shades that hung out with the tree and their toys.

Cute . He thought again. It made him wonder just what the twin jades were like for having a bookstore like this. He stood there for a few moments longer before heading to look for some books that he’d been wanting to read and review for his youtube channel. His first instinct was to go to thrillers and suspense to look for her but couldn’t find any of the books.

There was a jingling of bracelets that caught his attention. There to his right, amongst the stacks, was possibly the most beautiful man he’d ever seen. He was dressed simply with a long white button down shirt and skinny jeans beneath a pale blue apron. His long obviously dyed silver hair was in a high ponytail exposing his long neck. The earrings he wore were dainty and a delicate silver chandelier style that accentuated it. His white button down had the sleeves rolled up exposing his wrists. On the right hand was the jade bracelet with the matching silver bangles that caused him to look.

Oh, who are you . Jiang Cheng thought. Though he was sure because of the jade bracelet meant he was one of the jades.

He must have felt his gaze because suddenly a set of golden brown eyes met his. Then came the most attractive smile that made butterflies of desire flutter in his gut. Then he’d spoken to him in that soft, smooth timbered voice.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t hear you come in. Do you need help finding anything?” The man asked, putting the book that'd been in the crook of his other arm on the shelf in front of him.

“Yes, I am looking for the Cut and Run series. I went over to thrillers but it wasn’t there?” Jiang Cheng answered, making his own voice softer.

“Oh! That’s because it’s also a romance series. It’s more focused on the murders at the beginning but when the lead’s relationship develops you see more of the romance.” the taller man reasoned “I can take you to them if you like.”

“Yes, please.’ Jiang Cheng answered, following the man to where the books were sitting on a display at the other end of the aisle.

“Here they are and a good choice. I’ve even heard that they might turn her series into a drama.” the man cheerfully added, “But if you like Cut and Run then you’re going to lover her book, Gravedigger’s Brawl. It is such a good one.” His elegant hand running over the cover of said book. “Especially if you’re into the gothic romance.”

“I am. So I’ll take this one too while I am at it.” Jiang Cheng stated, lifting a copy of that book too.

“You won’t be disappointed. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No thank you, Lan Xichen.” Jiang Cheng answered, gaze dropping down to the man’s apron where his name was hand stitched into the top right corner. His grin widened at seeing the man become puzzled for a moment then realized his name was on his apron.

“Oh, right. I can check you out if you want.” Lan Xichen offered, holding his hands out for the books to which Jiang Cheng gladly handed him the books. Together they made their way over to the register. Where Lan Xichen rang him up. Instead of paying for it in cash, he wanted the beautiful man to know his name since he hadn’t asked for it. That didn’t bother him at all though. It appeared the other was shy. There was nothing wrong with being reserved. So he’d handed him his card. Lan Xichen didn’t disappoint him in checking his name on it. It only made those butterflies he’d been feeling swarm.

“Hav-ve a nice day Jiang Wanyin.” Lan Xichen stammered a little in his goodbye as he handed him his paper bag of books. A lovely blush blooming on his cheeks.

“You too, Lan Xichen. ” Jiang Cheng responded, taking his leave. An old ache in his chest and a burn in his gut kept that smile on his face the rest of the day. It’d been too long since he felt like this. See, finding someone that he could instantaneously connect with like that was rare. He just needed to be sure that Lan Xichen was the right fit for his heart. He didn’t want to get hurt again. So he’d do his research. It wasn’t hard to find out about someone in this technological world. follow the series for the event

#XichengClipse #Xicheng #Sangyu #WeiNing #First Meetings #Strangers #mentions of beginning of online stalking #fluff

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phoenotopia · 4 years

Text

2020 May Update

I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during this time of Coronavirus!

We continue towards the finish line, slowly, but surely. Coronavirus did throw a few wrenches in our plans. Our talks with a publisher about a possible sponsored appearance at an upcoming event stalled.

But that was always just a possibility. We have a backup plan. If we didn't win a sponsor, we were just going to pay our own way to a convention. That's what most indies do! Anyway, that's canceled too. It doesn't seem like there'll be any conventions to showcase in the near future...

Nevertheless, we did move forward in other areas. We've got the press materials ready as well as the game's official launch site up. You can view it in its prelaunch state at this link. NOTE, It is in a "prelaunch" state, so some media links are being withheld until reveal time. But there are a bunch of new pictures and artwork you can look at.

You might notice the link reads "phoenotopia.wordpress.com". The plan is to direct "phoenotopia.com" to it in the near future. That means if you wanted to reach this tumblr specifically, you'll have to visit it at its tumblr link, "phoenotopia.tumblr.com" (which, I just noticed doesn't work... huh). Anyway, since this is a dev blog, I'll talk a little bit about the journey of creating the website.

SQUARESPACE vs WIX vs WORDPRESS

I actually tried 3 different services (in the above order), before I settled on wordpress. I did a bunch of researching, and most reviews seemed to point at WIX >= SQUARESPACE >>> WORDPRESS.

I went with Squarespace first, since it was recommended a bunch on some youtube videos I saw (guess marketing works). Even though it didn't win outright in the reviews, my impression of it was "less quantity, but more quality." I tried it and found it serviceable. It was kinda sluggish, with some not so intuitive areas. I had to ask for help a few times for some things that would seem simple ("how do I change the BG and font color and of the music player?", etc).

That was last year, when I *thought* I was near launch and would need a press site soon. One year later (present day), it was time to create a press site again, and since my website with Squarespace expired (I had only signed up for a trial period), it was a good opportunity to try Wix, especially since Pirate had lots of praise for Wix.

My impression of Wix was that it was... too distracting. After I chose a theme, in the editor view I felt bombarded by menus. Everywhere you move the mouse, things kept lighting and popping up. And it was slow. So I guess it was sorta like Squarespace, but maybe even a little worse?

(Easy ways to preview the website from phones and tablets was one of wordpress’s neat features)

What prompted me to try Wordpress was one of their slogans "35% of the web uses WordPress". If it's good enough for 35% of websites, it's good enough for me! I ended up liking it most of all. It's definitely less featured, which suited me, since I'm not trying to create something too fancy either. Unlike the other website builders which emphasize free-form, wordpress was more rigid. I couldn't drag and drop an element just anywhere - I found that comforting in a "I can't screw this up" sorta way. The most important thing was that it was fast. Loading the editor view to Wix took 11 seconds vs 4 seconds with Wordpress. And the speed advantage of wordpress extends across every action. Similarly, when Chrome launched 10+ years ago, it was also less featured vs Firefox, but it became my choice browser. I guess speed is something I value highly.

Anyway, my experience is from a drag/drop perspective with minimal coding. This is also NOT a paid advertisement. However, if wordpress would like to send some money my way, I would not be opposed... (call me!)

Achievements, Bugfixes, and Cleanup

Lots of small tasks and polish was done over the past 2 months. I finally fixed the time tracking bug - important because the Speed Run achievement depended on it. I also finally finished implementing all the technical stuff for the achievements. There was a bug where some enemies would stack up too many light sources, causing them to appear too bright and drain system resources. That's now also fixed. Lots of other small ones that don't bear mentioning.

A neat trivia about the game is that there's a final super hard achievement for those seeking to prove their mastery over the game. The player has to beat the game having never picked up a heart or energy upgrade. When playing under this constraint, some enemies can even kill the player in one hit! In the game's most current iteration, even I failed to achieve it, so I'm definitely going to have to go in and tweak things a little more.

Age Ratings

I went and got the game's age rating. I did a little research on this - it's quite fascinating. ESRB would be the age ratings board for the United States (where I'm based). But if you were in Europe, you'd get a PEGI rating. Then there's ACB for Australia and so forth. So if you wanted to launch a game globally, you'd have to deal with this process over and over, and each country rates things a little differently... that's a lot of work!

Enter IARC (International Age Rating Coalition), which aimed to simplify the process by being the one standard that you apply to, and from which you could then get the equivalent rating for all participating countries. IARC is an entirely automated process - probably necessary due to the boom of digital titles across all platforms, particularly mobile.

IARC is great for me, because they relaxed the standards for getting a rating. From my understanding, the process used to be more difficult. And you'd have to pay ESRB a hefty chunk to get a rating, but with IARC, it's totally free! So long as it's for digital and it's used only on licensed sites and store fronts. If I wanted to launch the game physically, I'd have to deal with ESRB on an individual basis again.

Without further ado, here's Phoenotopia's IARC ratings:

Fascinating... Phoenotopia is rated "Mature" in Australia... but for "Horror". Which seems suspect. The horror elements are rare (remember Dreadlands?). But when I was answering their questionnaire, they provided a video example of what they considered "horror", and it was pretty mild. About as mild as my game, so I checked that box. It is what it is...

We also got a "Teen" rating for ESRB for reasons of Fantasy Violence and "Mild Blood". This one is kinda iffy. In the game, if you hit a giant bug, it spits out a few drops of green blood. Does that really count as blood? Ocarina of time skirted by with an E rating 2 decades ago, and it let a dude spit out green blood. However, since IIARC is an automated process, I didn't see any place to dispute. But also, I wouldn't have disputed it anyway. A "T" rating is cooler than an "E" rating!

I'd like to mention this is not a paid advertisement for IARC. However, if IARC would like to send some money my way, I would not be opposed... (call me!)

Submission

I expect to polish the game for about 2 (maybe 3) more weeks. After which, I'll be submitting the game to the console "authority". From my understanding, I'll then have to wait a month while they "inspect" the title. After which, I'm then cleared to have an official launch date - which I'll probably set to be 1 month after getting approval.

So the plan is to have a very short marketing campaign. The reveal trailer will basically drop 1 month before release. And we're going to sprint to the finish line. Some marketing campaigns are 6 months to a couple years. Ours will be one month... Let's hope it works.

Wrench

That's what the plan looks like right now, but there is a possible upcoming wrench in this whole thing. I recently learned that my version of Unity is too old. Games running on old Unity versions are not automatically accepted - so I'll have to apply for an exemption. If the exemption gets rejected, we can't launch without upgrading, which will require *significant* work...

This came as a surprise to me. When I started dabbling in games development a decade ago, the most common advice I found online was "Make Games, not Game Engines." I interpreted this to mean lock in your technologies. There's always going to be a new and shinier bell or whistle, but if you keep chasing it, you're not going to work on the actual content of the game. That's probably what kept me to releasing the original game on Flash. That was a game I was making as a hobby while working a full-time job. By the time I quit my job to go full-time indie dev, Flash had long been a dead technology. But I remembered "do you want to build game engines or games?" And so I pressed forward.

So that mindset could potentially backfire here. If PC was the lead SKU, we wouldn't have these issues since PC is more relaxed as a platform. Consoles, as I'm now learning, have an ever forward shifting window of technologies. If we get rejected for the exemption, there's a couple ways we can play it. One, we go through the pain of upgrading which will take months... Two, we pivot and make PC the lead SKU again, but have to handle porting that plus its specific features, which will also take months...

So why is updating such a big issue? Unity has changed drastically over the years. When I started, it was a lot less 2D friendly. They didn't have an official 2D tilemap solution, so you had to build your own or buy a 3rd party library from their asset store. I used 2DTK for tilemaps - 2DTK is now entirely deprecated. Similarly, I had to search for and purchase a good asset to display crisp text - since you couldn't even do that in Unity back then (heh). That's the story for a lot of old Unity stuff. Think of it as a first mover's "disadvantage".

Hopefully it won't come to that, since I'm pretty spent as a developer. I've been ready for this to be over, and I know many of you feel the same. Hopefully soon! As usual, I'll update in 2 months at the latest (end of June). An update might come earlier if we have some good news to share sooner. Until then!

Fanart and Cosplay

This first picture comes from roccy_chair and shows Gail basked in light. I like how her pose and equipment together form an "X". That's a neat hidden symmetry. The way she floats also kinda reminds me of Crono's "Shining" spell. Perhaps Gail should have the ability to cast spells? Hmmm...

Cody G returns with a new art depicting the 2 Moonstone enthusiasts. I like Fran's starry-eyed expression here. That's true love on display. I also like how the Moonstones are depicted as flat and coin-shaped. Very unique! Also note Gail makes an appearance in the back :D

Thanks to M1shaaa for this cosplay of Gail! There's a lot to like here! The vibrant pink hair. The costume with 3 stitches across the vest. The pose with slingshot, accurate to Gail's depiction in the box art. Amazingly, this might also be the very *first* cosplay of Gail! Will and Pirate both alerted me about it excitedly since they were pretty stoked. We joked that we crossed the final milestone in terms of fandom.

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inventors-fair · 4 years

Text

Weird Commentary: Thanks

I would call this one of our most successful contests. Not every card was a gold standard, not every card made me squeal with glee, but every single one had love, thought, and heart put into them. I’m even more impressed with the fact that over 2/3 of contestants actually made their own art! As a not-artist myself, I understand how challenging that can be sometimes. I’m just having a moment where I’m proud of everyone.

Also, for this commentary, I’m trying something a little different. Tell me if you like it!

@3smuth — Burrow-Wing Amalgam

What I like: Besides the gorgeous art (look at the curve of the moon behind the wing!), the wording is great, and the abilities are well-rounded for an uncommon. I like how the flavor text builds up the “character” of the creature, making it seem more alive, and tying in to the abilities as well. That’s hard to do!

What we can improve: I find that the first ability giving it two mono-black abilities a little jarring. There are only two BG fliers in black-border canon, and that’s not to say that this couldn’t be added to that list, but it’s mildly off-putting; I kept thinking that this could be an Abzan card, maybe with G/W hybrid in the cost? But that’s entirely dependent on the environment. It’s hard to visualize one in which BG has an uncommon pseudo-flying beater, but it’s not to say that it’s impossible — just a hard sell.

Allison — Salheim, The Twisted Storm

What I like: This feels like a fun commander who would also be good in draft. A cheap body means that your spells can be small bodies that return at the start and huge potential bodies later. I like how it limits it to the first spell, so you can’t go infinite for less than ten mana with some other combo pieces. Honestly, this is a fantastic mechanical card.

What we can improve: There are a few grammatical mistakes to clean up, small pieces of Magic wording. “The” in the name should be lowercase, as should “Blue” and “Red” in the text box. “spells” should have a possessive apostrophe, and “it’s” shouldn’t. Don’t forget a period at the end before the quotation mark! I would also shorten the trigger: “...you may pay (X) [symbol], where X is that spell’s converted mana cost.”

@ceta-maelstrom — Camouflage Krasis

What I like: “Cat fish” is an awesome creature combo! Your art brings that across really well. With the new-ish arrival of Cat tribal and the rise in the creature type, I think that this is a welcome addition. I like the hexproof clause. It gives it a flavor of “as long as I’m small, I can’t be seen.”

What we can improve: Metamorph is a little hard to parse. Because of the “if” in the middle breaking up the sentence, I thought “it” referred to the creature entering the battlefield, and that that creature would get two counters. My mistake. Hm, how to reword it... “Whenever another nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, put two +1/+1 counters on this creature if it has no +1/+1 counters on it.” No, that’s a little awkward too... There can be a little more clarity. I think the mechanic is worth playing around with.

@dancepatternalpha — The Rat King

What I like: Simple, easy to understand, cool synergistic potential. I think this would be a fun build-around-me card. You mentioned something about Innistrad not having a rat king; would you believe they had one mechanically, in the form of Dark Imposter? I actually thought it was potential inspiration, different flavor.

What we can improve: Like Dark Imposter, I believe that the “all activated abilities” should be a separate line. When it comes to that, the similarities are a little stark, but I think the King distinguishes itself from the Imposter by its legendary status and the fact that it exiles your own creatures. I’m not getting a strong sense of either “ooze” or “construct,” though. “Ooze,” I would honestly just take off altogether. “Construct,” in Magic history, implies an artifact creature, something built by something else, and I’m not getting a sense of that either. “Noble” might be fun, if a little on the nose.

@dimestoretajic — Cryptizub, Steel Abomination

What I like: It’s certainly a limited beater, something that reminds me of Scuttling Doom Engine from back in the day. It can be incredibly powerful in the late game and can fit into any slot. Oof, give it lifelink? And you’re in good shape.

What we can improve: The first thing I got from this card that’s iffy is the name; it sounds like a legendary creature. “Steel Abomination” would be just fine. For the activated ability, I believe going off of Banshee’s oracle text, that you need to say “~ damage equal to its power to target creature, and damage equal to its power to you.” Not an absolute, but it’s one possibility. Don’t forget to italicize Threshold. The flavor text is a little on the nose. I would either shorten it or just leave it off. The card carries a world by itself as a magic beatstick.

@gollumni — Severed Stone-Seer

What I like: This is a card that would definitely get you a-head of the curve!..... Ahem. I think this card successfully fits into the world of Theros, with a little jank. The flavor text is really great. It’s a powerful card with a big butt. I can imagine this taking over games of limited quite easily.

What we can improve: Five toughness might be too powerful. A 3-mana 2/4 with deathtouch is pretty nasty as-is; at five toughness, stuff becomes a lot harder to remove. As much as I do like what you wrote here, I’m still having trouble fitting “Gorgon Hydra” into my mind as something reasonable, considering that the two have such distinct qualities already. “Gorgon Head” could be fine, maybe even “Hydra Head.” Both have great mythological flavor. Small note that I’m unsure of: would it be “create a token copy of” or “create a token that’s a copy of”?

@grornt — Carnivorous Multitusker

What I like: Yup, that’s a mutant boar hydra all right! It’s big, it’s bad, it’s green, it takes over games, and it’s a great bomb. This feels like a quintessential green creature right here, with the exception of the weird types. Maybe the Simic and the Gruul could come together to make something like this, yeah? I’d love to open this in a pack and/or add it to a starter deck. Wish it was powerful enough for Standard. Maybe it is, who knows? I like how your added aspects of both boars and hydras from Magic’s past.

What we can improve: This is a pedantic point, but I’d like to see “Mutant” at the end rather than the beginning. Aside from that, I think the flavor text, smirk-worthy as it is, doesn’t really add to the card or to the world. I’d rather see something like on Protean Hulk, a little more expanse.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Apex of Evolution

What I like: Wow, you really went all-out with the creature types, huh? I think that you used the mechanics pretty well to get the feeling of “a creature that grows from your experience and also eats other creatures to gain their strength.” It’s a build-around-me card that’s fun if you can beef it up.

What we can improve: Firstly, the flavor text pushes the card from “wordy” into “too much.” I love adding it where needed, but with this much text, and with this strong a mechanical focus, you don’t really need it. I feel that in this instance especially it doesn’t add anything that the card doesn’t already have. For the second ability, it should be a full if-clause: “If a creature dealt damage by ~ would die, exile it instead.” And the game already knows that those cards are imprinted “with it” so you don’t need to add that. For the last ability... That’s way too many clauses. “Apex of Evolution has all abilities of cards exiled with it.” It does add some baggage, yes, but most creatures won’t have those negative effects, and, well, that’s a risk of combat to take. This creature already makes combat complicated.

@ignorantturtlegaming — Fabled Fox

What I like: Cool art, and cool combo! I think that two creature types works well here; it’s a Fox, and it’s a Dragon, and that’s that. This seems like a card that, when it hits, can really get you ahead in a game. I like how the last ability implies a world with Fox tribal; that’s grokable.

What we can improve: There are a few things that this card has that it doesn’t necessarily need. The mana cost has no reason not to be 3WRG; why the doubling-up? I don’t really understand the blue restriction. Is this card a bomb, or a hate-card? I don’t feel that it needs to be both. In the Cycling part, don’t forget to add the cycling cost inside the reminder text and add a colon. I believe the last ability could be — and be mindful of the punctuation — “When you cycle ~, you may search your library for a Fox or Dragon card, reveal that card, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.” See Krosan Tusker. Small note: I believe the way that abilities go, it should be worded “Flying, lifelink, haste” in that order.

@industrialsalad — The Origin of Oddities

What I like: I find it a little hard to take seriously, but you went ham with the types here, and I love reading “Elder Vampire Sponge.” It’s an interesting take on fossils as a concept. I think that with the advent of ability word counters, this card could be a fun little build-around me. I also like how it can steal counters from your opponents’ permanents!

What we can improve: This card does not feel legendary. I understand that it’s “the origin,” but I mean more in terms of how Magic’s other legends feel, what this card brings to that set of established unspoken rules. Maybe some flavor text could have amended that, and it could definitely explain the Vampire type, which feels distinctly out of place, especially for a colorless artifact. Small grammatical notes: “Oddities’s” doesn’t need “’s,” and it should be “fewer than five” spelled out.

@ishouldgetatumbler — Ash, Hydromorph Shaman

What I like: This is a distinct Simic feel! An elf shaman who becomes a hydra, who morphs themself into a mutant. Very nice. This is indeed a powerful card, and I think this is one of those legends that would be great in limited and in the other 99 in a commander deck. Or you could build around putting it into your hand! Fun stuff!

What we could improve: Not a lot to make better here. Firstly, though, this could be a rare in this day and age. It only brings it to hand, and you need to commit a fair amount for it to matter heavily. Small grammar notes: “counters on it” for the first ability, “its power” instead of “its,” and...that’s about it! Save it for a cube!

@jsands84 — Dandylion

What I like: This was really close to being a runner-up. I love the types and how they come together, the use of a powerful hybrid card and the pushing of it to uncommon without it feeling OP, the use of spore counters, the aggressive P/T for limited, and man, there’s flavor in the fact that it doesn’t fog itself. It’s like, Everyone has allergies except for me! It’s super cool. Shoutout to @iguanamouth.

What we can improve: Small notes. I think the name is a little cutesy for Magi, but that’s not a biggie, more of a personal quirk. I feel that “Cat Plant” parses better than “Plant Cat,” and maybe there’s alphabetical justification, idk. “Three” should be spelled out instead of “3.” I’d love to see flavor text here, just a line or so. Other than that, radical cat-ical!

@lyxine — Ahrizhel, the Wanderer

What I like: Now that’s a combo! It’s a bomb in limited to be sure, a great token-maker and legend to be reckoned with. I’ve always been a fan of Lure effects in green, even if they don’t always work out for me. Giving it to any creature you want is pretty neat.

What we can improve: My main concern is green fliers. I know that for dragons it’s an okay bend, but making more fliers as well? I think that’s too much of a bend; Hornet Queen is almost a break as-is, despite the massive cost. And the fact that this one can create 4-5 of them the turn after it hits the battlefield? That by itself is far too powerful. I would unfortunately call this one a break. Wording notes: “deathtouch” shouldn’t be capitalized, and there should be commas after the green mana symbols. The flavor text could use a little pizzaz, some more specific poetic words.

@mistershinyobject — Ludevic’s Familiar

What I like: That is indeed a weird zombie dog. The unique mechanical approach you took here is fascinating and experimental. It’s strange enough to warrant questions if it’s playable in certain formats. Modern Dog Mayhem? Hey, who knows.

What we can improve: This is a weird targeting system, and I don’t know if it’s in the good way. The fact that you can pay BB for a redirect effect is potentially a break, but it makes sense otherwise. (B)(U/R) could have worked, perhaps? I’m not entirely sure why the hybrid was chosen in this way here. It’s probably for the best, honestly, but it’s still a little iffy for me. I like the flavor text in a memetic way, but a) I don’t think I can see Ludevic saying this and b) it really toes the line. I think it would be best not to have it, or to have more wordplay and not a quote. I would also put the types as “Dog Zombie Weird” personally, but there’s probably not precedent for it.

@nine-effing-hells — Chalkyri Resplendent

What I like: Bonus points for having me learn a new word and new creature type. I had no idea the name was an actual thing! It’s useful for getting something like this, I suppose, and you did an amazing job with the art and flavor text. This does indeed seem like an awesome angel serpent thing.

What we can improve: My main concern is giving the permanents hexproof. It works for white, but not RW multicolor, in my opinions. Seems a little too powerful, despite the flavor work-in. I’m 65% sure the wording should be “it’s not your turn” instead of “it isn’t your turn,” but don’t quote me on that. See oracle text on Angry Mob. Aside from that, this is a fine beat-worthy beast.

@real-aspen-hours — Octothreat

What I like: Octopuses and spiders go hand in hand in hand in — etc. This is a huge limited card that reminds me of Pelakka Wurm from Rise of the Eldrazi when it first came out: big beefy boy. I think that it would be an interesting card for sealed, a huge blowout, and a great body. Very powerful card. Oh man, blinking it? Lordy.

What we can improve: Most of what we can improve are minute wording things for presentation. Keep in mind that if you do a text submission, your wording is copied exactly. The types should be capitalized, there doesn’t need to be a period after “Trample,” and there should be a period at the end of “step.” Mechanically, the text should say “up to eight target creatures.”

@shakeszx — Wyrveplasm

What I like: A big oozy boy! This feels appropriately like a drake and appropriately like an ooze. It’s a complicated card that works just as well on its own as it would in a deck centered around it. And I think that mythic is the right choice here, honestly. This thing can run away with games.

What we can improve: ...except for the death loop. If it had no counters on it when it dies, then it creates a 0/0 who dies and creates a 0/0, ad infinitum. Infinite death triggers on a single card, well, that’s a no-no. So how do we fix it? Change the last ability: “When ~ dies, if it had any +1/+1 counters on it, create a token that’s a copy of it, except that token’s base power and toughness are equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on ~ when it died.” ... Okay, it’s not perfect, but the token wording is right and the “base” is there. Modern Magic, woo.

@snugz — Chronocular Bivalve

What I like: Chronocular is a brilliant word. This card was super close to being a runner-up/winner as well. This is a control card for limited to the max. It’s powerful, it’s super complicated, and it exists in a world of theoretical phasing that’s, well — I might not want to play in it, but I know people that would. Super cool.

What we can improve: Not much to improve here. “Non” shouldn’t be capitalized, and I’m not entirely sure what the point of that second ability is, but that’s just about it. Sorry there’s not a lot to say here, but you did a fine job and the card speaks for itself.

@starch255 — Roving Squidtaur

What I like: It’s strong! It’s tentacled! It’s...got nipples? Squipples? Right, before I get any more sexually confused, let’s talk about the card. This is a world of sentient half-squid monstrosities. And I kind of love it. I think that mechanically you did some really neat things with this card. You included all aspects of the colors together, and they make for a three-colored beater that’s just plain good in the formats it would see play in.

What we can improve: I’m super bugged by vigilance in a way I shouldn’t be. Yes, I know it’s green, but it just feels...off?? Like, why is a berserker vigilant? I always got the impression that they would be more tramply, that they wouldn’t be as keen-eyed or direct. But that’s just me being weird. There’s nothing “””wrong””” with it. This one could definitely 10/10 have used some flavor text, though. I want to know more about this roving squid-person!

@tmstage — Bandicooze

What I like: Whoa! Yep, that’s a five-mana 3/3, but it’s a fine limited beater for its cost. Instant counters in the right deck and it’s good to go! I’ve only tangentially been connected with Crash games, but I get exactly how you tied it together nicely. This card just makes me smile.

What we can improve: I might make it a 4/3, or give it trample or haste or something. Aside from that... It’s a meme, and memes get what they deserve: a nice chuckle.

@whuh-oh — Arctic Narwhuck

What I like: The simple two-type “Whale Bird” aspect fits pretty well here. Other people did a diving/burrowing theme, and I think yours works well here. Four mana for a 3/2 flier with potential upside is pretty great in limited for an uncommon!

What we can improve: Islandwalk and landwalk in general hasn’t been in the game for a while, and I don’t know if this card needs that throwback. I get how it works flavorfully, and I like that part a lot. It’s just that modern sensibilities would let it just have hexproof. See Canopy Dragon’s oracle text as well; I think it gains things before it loses things. The flavor text is fine, but very vague, and doesn’t necessarily add to the card.

@woman-of-the-fen — Goldenhump Camelsaurus

What I like: Naya dinosaurs are always welcome! I also like the way you tied camels and deserts together to make a hybrid. The ape and rampage go together, I assume, and you conveyed that well in the art.

What can be improved: Rampage, well, hasn’t been around for a while, just like landwalk, and for good reason. It’s simply not a great mechanic. I can see it working as a one-off in a Horizons set, but it’s still not the aspect I would have chosen. The first ability creates an infinite loop that lasts until the Camelsaurus dies; you fight, get dealt damage, then fight again, etc. Give it indestructible and it’s a boardwipe. Wait, and it creates an infinite loop; if it survives, then it’s forced to target itself. “Enrage — Whenever ~ is dealt damage, you may have it fight target creature you don’t control.” Still doesn’t fix the board-wipe issue. Might need to take this one back to the drawing board. For the flavor text, don’t forget that if you’re quoting someone, their name belongs on a separate line.

@wpandp — Apaprik Muster

What I like: Gosh darnit. Deviled eggs. C’mon man... I do love it, though. I like the concept of an egg filled with demonic creatures, imps and whatnot. It’s a scary thought! I like how you played around with mutate here. I personally don’t like mutate as a mechanic, but it’s not a huge issue. You used it well.

What can be improved: I’m still a little uncertain as to what world this card is inhabiting and what the name is implying. Why are devils and demons mutating? Why is “Muster,” an abstract noun, being used as the naming convention for an egg? Why does it have the food ability? I mean, I know, it’s all part of the play that this card is making, but it doesn’t really make mechanical sense.

Thank you all for your entries! Get ready to make cards for tomorrow.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #contest #entries #commentary #weird creature types #inventor's fair

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chyrstis · 4 years

Text

I won’t ask for much (but just this once, I’d like you) 5/10

Here’s the halfway point, and it’s a bit of a whopper. I think this is probably my favorite chapter out the entire thing, with the first a very close second. The talk by the fire was one of the earliest scenes that gelled for me when planning the entire fic out, and I knew that if I wasn’t able to write much else, I at least wanted to get that part down on paper.

And if things go according to plan, I might have a little something extra to add to this tonight. ;)

Pairing: Sharky Boshaw x John Seed Rating: E (but only for Ch. 10, the rest are a solid T) Word Count: 7.3K

Link to AO3!

Ch. 1 / Ch. 2 / Ch. 3 / Ch. 4 / Ch. 5 / Ch. 6 / Ch. 7 / Ch. 8 / Ch. 9 / Ch. 10

(and there’s a bonus fic to go with this one too)

—

Sharky steals a boat. It just happens to be John’s boat, and when it’s damaged along with his boathouse, John proceeds to lay out a means of having Sharky pay him back. [No Cult AU]

———–

Maybe the work schedule wasn’t as ironclad a thing as it used to be.

John liked routine, sure, and had been real anal about it when Sharky had first started out, but there was a flexibility to it now. It was no longer always about when, so long as it was done, and he could work with that.

So, he took a morning off when he needed it. Took on a few more jobs around town for anyone willing to let him shoulder it, and if there was any overlap, all it took was one message to clear it up. John was willing to work with him now, and that alone was a relief.

...But if some nights lead to more chances to hang with him one-on-one without working, Sharky didn’t complain either. Got more time around John’s plane, and even got to pitch in when it came to working on his car too.

The real shocker for him on days when he did have to work, though, had been the fresh boards and nails set. The signs that someone else had been working down there when he hadn’t.

When he’d asked, John didn’t confirm it. He didn’t deny it either, but after ten minutes of standing around and talking with him, he grabbed a nearby hammer and took a spot right next to him. Went right to work, without even batting an eye, and Sharky couldn’t believe it. Grinned brightly at him as he punched him in the shoulder, and found he wanted John there for once.

This was starting to feel a whole lot like he’d made a friend.

One that was cagey in a whole lot of ways still, and one he couldn’t exactly pop down on the couch with for a weekend of pizza, beer, and porn to sort through, but close. And thinking it over, he didn’t find himself minding the change all too much either.

But some nights John needed to shift things around, and when Sharky woke up that morning nursing a hangover, he had a message waiting for him.

Family, John mentioned, the text sent at an hour that made his head pound harder. Have to reschedule. Sorry.

no bg deal he sent back, fumbling at his phone. hollar if you need me ltr no plns

Then went right back to sleep. With the day open, he spent the morning seeing how long he could go without pants before anyone else dropped by.

All too quiet after that, he’d nearly gone stir crazy when Hurk called, wanting his expertise on a special job. One that was better suited to two heads rather than his one. Or better yet, four hands, each for holding a stick of their brand of high explosive. That’s how they fished, and sure, it stirred up every other critter in the area, but as long as they weren’t ambushed by bears or cougars, it was a risk worth taking.

Mid-throw was when his phone went off. Just a message, not a call, but it made his pipe bomb go wide, and nearly had the two of them go for a dunk themselves.

Change in plans. Come over.

No further clarification, no explanation from John; just those words. Not that he went off on long tangents through text, but it was the quickest turnaround Sharky had seen yet, and he actually pulled out his phone to call him.

Holding a finger to one of his ears to block some of the sound, he waited. Heard the echo of an explosion in one, and ringing in the other only to get nothing but John’s voicemail.

“Hey, I’m going to have to cut out on this.”

“Now?” Hurk asked, with a stick of dynamite in each hand. “Just when I was thinking of getting ol’ Sally out?”

Sharky never held up well in the face of his cousin’s disappointment, especially when he pulled out that tone of voice, but held strong.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s…I’ve got this weird message to check out, and you can never tell if it’s gonna be the good kind or the bad kind until it’s hitting you in the face, and there’s not a whole lot to go on here.”

“Fine, get on out, go, go, go. I’ll be here for a while, but if I catch something cool you’ll be sad you missed out.”

Pulling up to John’s place, Sharky still hadn’t pinned down what the problem was. The boathouse catching fire wasn’t likely. He’d put out any cigarettes over by the picnic table, ‘cause he’d made too much progress there to blow it now.

Ticking off other options on his fingers, he narrowed them down as he made his way to the front, and was still down to two when he hit the doorbell.

The door swung open, but John wasn’t the one waiting on the other side.

It was Jacob Seed.

Ex-military. Private. Rocked the rowdiest set of scars he’d ever seen on a person. At least, judging from the ones he could see on his face. Probably hunted guys in the woods for sport, or at least thought about it, and had the training to do it if he wanted to.

Sharky could count on his fingers the number of times he’d run into the guy outside of the odd job in the mountains, but he knew he wasn’t the kind, friendly, approachable type. No, standing taller than most, Jacob didn’t trade more than a handful of words with anyone outside of Eli Palmer, and maybe the local hunters up north.

And if he thought John was bad, Jacob’s stare was a full-blown weapon. It made Sharky squirm on the spot.

“Uh, yo.”

“Boshaw.”

“How’s it going?” he asked, smiling a little too wide to keep it casual.

Jacob shrugged. “It’s going. You?”

“Kinda. Something’s always going. it’s just not going much right now if you get what I’m-well, what I’m getting at.”

Get what I’m getting at? What the hell was that?

The longer Jacob kept him there, the more he was going to try and fidget his way out of there, and he knew he was being read. Maybe even being messed with at this point, but he didn’t cut and run. Not yet.

“Is John around?”

“You here for something?”

“Yeah it’s…you know about the whole working-with-your-younger-bro thing, right? How I’m down by the river, putting shit up, and trying to make that entire area pretty again? Well, he got a hold of me. Mentioned wanting to work, and thinks he can snap his fingers and I’ll jump or something.”

Jacob’s glance took on an amused bent. “Does he? How high?”

“Uh, I can jump up to three, maybe four feet, but that’s not…it isn’t-”

That was it. That was it in a nutshell, and joking about it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

Groaning, he crossed his arms and didn’t even bother looking Jacob in the eye this time around. “So, is he here, or…?”

Jacob moved his head, motioning behind him, and stepped aside. “He’s upstairs.”

With the path now open, Sharky took it a little faster than needed, not wanting to hang back too much or stay close to Jake. But that left him standing in the middle of John’s ranch house - and seeing the whole thing in full for the first time was a lot to take in at once.

Because when he’d mentioned loving nature shit, this was that on steroids. Like someone had told John this was what a cabin should’ve looked like instead of what one actually was. The antlers, the chandelier, the fucking bear skin rug? All surrounding one giant, roaring fireplace? It wasn’t even cold yet, and John had the whole thing done up to the nines.

That had him chuckling as Jacob took a few steps towards him.

“Something funny?”

Jolting slightly, Sharky shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I, uh…no. Okay, a little. You ever see those Hallmark movies? The ones set at Christmas, or just up in the mountains?”

Jacob craned his head towards him.

“Y’know, the kind where two people are snowed in, having to wait it out and huddle for warmth and shit?”

“No.”

Okay, so maybe he hadn’t seen too many either, but he’d seen the one. Hadn’t even been one of those parody pornos dressed up as one, so he had some genuine experience there.

“Well, uh, the place looks like that. Like, John’s staging it for something along those lines. Just for cuddling, huddling, and uh…yeah. Holiday stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“Stuff and things, yeah.” That actually got a snort out of Jacob, and Sharky gave himself a mental pat on the back. “I’m serious. Like that couch is primed for mistletoe and some uh, ho ho-holy shit, I’ll stop now.”

There was the sound of a door being slammed, and Sharky jumped. Seconds after, he caught John on the upper level as he strode towards the stairs, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Sharky called up to him. “Yo, man. Thought I’d need to-“

That’s when he caught the dark look crossing John’s face for the first time. That, and the actual speed with which he was walking. Asking was a mistake, but it was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Uh, John? You okay, amigo? You want me to come back another-“

John grabbed his arm as he passed by, and dragged Sharky along with him. Right past a concerned Jake, and right past the front door, leading him down towards the dirt road.

“Whoa, hey, wait!”

Nothing clicked, not his words and not the way he tried to pull away. John was a man possessed, focused only on a single point, and that didn’t sit well with him at all.

“Seriously, dude, stop!”

Sharky planted his feet, and yanked his arm out of the grip. That brought John to a stop, and Sharky watched him slowly turn towards him. Breathing harder than he should’ve been, Sharky took off his cap and brushed a hand through his hair.

“What the fuck, man?”

Tense, and with his jaw locked, John didn’t even bother giving him a response. Just a stare that would’ve killed any other person dead if he’d had the ability. Still, he wasn’t chasing him off, or leaving, and that made Sharky keep on trying.

“You wanna talk or something? You really look like…”

“What I want,” John bit out as he walked right up to him, “is to get as far away from that fucking house as possible. I don’t care where as long as it’s not here.”

Sharky sucked in a breath, not prepared for that level of venom or John’s sudden proximity, and let it out. “Uh, okay. Shit, let’s…let’s go then. Not like I was in the mood to work anyway.”

Shuffling around him, Sharky started back towards his car, and waved for John to follow. The heat of his stare wasn’t as bad from this distance, but it didn’t let up until John dropped it to climb into the passenger side of the vehicle. He fired the car up after that, hoping the damn thing wouldn’t stall, and the two sped out of there before anyone could come calling.

“Now I know what works for me whenever shit like that gets me down.”

Sharky turned on the radio only for John to flip it off. Balking at him again, Sharky noted that this time the road was the one having to deal with John glaring at it, and he tried to keep as light a tone as he could manage.

“Anyway, you need an outlet. Something to kick all that negative shit in the balls hard enough to make three family lines regret it. So, you can shrug it off, get up, and go back to living life like you want to. Maybe this won’t be your thing every time, but I think you might like this.”

“…Like what?”

“Well, I’d explain it to you, but this is one of those things where it’s better just to give it a try. Not to spoil any of the surprise as we head on out, but it rhymes with…shit. What rhymes with burn?”

Urn. Turn. Learn. Yearn. That was a good one. Not that he needed it for anything, but it was good to know. Fuck. Did he say burn out loud too?

Swearing under his breath, Sharky shook his head. “Anyway, a little ‘Burn, Baby, Burn’ never hurt anyone. Least, not anyone worth knowing.”

John said nothing, leaving Sharky to listen to the sound of the road as it crunched underneath the car’s tires, but right as he’d started tapping out an uneven rhythm on the steering wheel just to break it up, he heard him sigh.

“Hey, I promise it won’t be lame. Yeah, it’s not for everybody, but…”

He stopped talking when he saw John place his head in his hand. Covering his eyes, Sharky heard the catch in his breathing, and wished like hell he had the right words for him.

Unable to offer anything else, Sharky shifted his eyes back to the road. “Yeah.”

---

“Now I know you’ve seen it once before, and it ain’t fancy,” Sharky said after pulling up to his house, “but I’ve got a place to sleep, a rocking sound system, and when I need it, lots and lots of storage space for…stuff. Like real fun stuff, but not the illegal kind, ‘cause I don’t want you thinking that. Well, not a lot of it, just some of it.”

John was looking around now, taking in the area as he and Sharky got out, and Sharky led him out across the lawn.

“My house is your house, so settle on in and pull up a chair. The show’ll start soon as I can get this all together, and make it one worth waiting for.“

He shoved some wood into the area designated for his bonfires, and patted himself down before heading over to where he kept his propane. Rooting through the items, he picked up the bottle of lighter fluid – he’d start small, no need to have a full blow-out right off the bat – and glanced over his shoulder to see what John was doing.

He had approached the firepit while Sharky was busy; still silent, but looking closely at it.

“You doing good there, amigo?”

John’s head angled towards him. “Well enough.”

That he’d said anything at all was an improvement, but Sharky didn’t believe it for a second. Not with his back towards him, as he walked back to the pit.

John watched closely as Sharky sprayed the wood liberally with the lighter fluid. Then added more after, and when he tipped it over to slap at the bottom of it to get the last few drops out, John finally spoke up.

“You’re not serious.”

“Can’t have a decent barbeque without flames, man.”

“That many?”

The wry look he gave him stopped Sharky in his tracks. Or maybe it was the way the corner of John’s mouth was inching up. In spite of everything, he’d managed that at least, and Sharky felt his mouth go dry.

“Uh, yeah.” He held out a matchbook to him, and hoped he could keep it steady. His voice was a lost cause, but his next few words were better in line. “Kinda disappointing if you light it up only to have it fizzle out. Can’t get any perks out of that.”

“And this was your plan all along?” John’s odd semi-smile stayed in place, and only seemed to grow. “To invite me here to burn it off? Literally?”

He wasn’t wrong, but seeing as this was his usual go-to and yet not, Sharky really didn’t want to get into the nitty-gritty of it all. Not now, at least.

“You wanted out, and no other place in the county’s better prepped for this, so a quick ride to Boshaw Manor made sense. I know when shit’s gone south and there’s no hope of me shaking that feeling, this works, and I try to foster an environment here that’s all about letting loose when you need it. Pants-free preferred and encouraged, but by no means required.”

“Good to know,” John teased.

He hoped like hell John couldn’t clearly see what was happening with his face right now, but at this distance it was impossible not to.

“But you, uh… You seriously looked ready to rip a bear’s fucking head off, and I thought it’d help. So, here. Light it, and after we pop one off, maybe we can get more going. Kinda sad as is right now.”

Waving the matchbook in the air, he grumbled to himself as he dropped his eyes. But he felt John take the matches, and looked up again in time to see him light one.

John watched the flame dance in front of him for a few seconds, shielding it from the breeze with his hand. Leaning over to peek at it, Sharky nearly brushed shoulders with him, and wondered how long he was willing to hold onto it.

Pretty long at this rate, as the flames licked the wood and traveled towards his fingers.

“You gonna drop that?”

“In time.”

“‘Cause that’s going to get you if you let it stick around any longer.”

Not that he hadn’t let himself get distracted by the warmth of the fire before. How it flickered as it moved, wanting it all that much closer as it inched its way down towards him.

“Surely you don’t think I’m not paying attention to it.” Irritation crept into John’s voice, but he still wasn’t dropping the match.

“Seriously, man, I can treat a rowdy-ass burn if I have to, but that shit’s going to bite.“

“Charlemagne, I have it handled-“ John flicked his hand fast as he yelped in pain.

The match went out, leaving the two standing there in front of the neglected pit. Sharky tried not to, but there was no way he could keep the laugh from slipping out. John’s sharp look shut him up a second later, only breaking eye contact to keep on waving his hand.

“Yo, you okay?”

“Fuck,” John muttered, blowing on his fingers. “Everything’s fine.”

Sharky didn’t nudge him with his shoulder, but was tempted to as he watched John continue to try and sooth the burn.

“Sure about that? I can be back in two shakes of a jackrabbit’s tail if you want.”

John didn’t waste time lighting the next match. “I’m fine.”

His hands went up, backing off completely. But at that point he had something else to focus on. The fire was dancing in the wind again, and when John let the match fall into the pit, Sharky didn’t take his eyes off of it for a second.

The warm glow took, then grew. Rising slowly but surely as the fire found its footing, and he let out the breath he was holding. There it was. The feeling that washed over him, one that sank down deep into his bones.

Like coming home, in a way. Every time.

Sighing in contentment, he gave John a quick once-over. His attention was on the fire too, locked onto it as he slowly rubbed his fingers together. No one ever seemed to respond to it like he did, but the focus was there, his eyebrows drawn together as he kept on studying it.

John still kept on rubbing at his fingers, though. He had to bother the singed one, even if he was too stubborn to bring it up again.

Sharky stepped back, and gave John a light tap to the shoulder.

“Be right back. Gotta grab something.”

Jogging over to his house, he pushed open the door and made a beeline straight for his bathroom. Anything he had for first aid was scattered across the property if not left outside, so one minute became two, then became five as he rooted around the place.

Fishing the tube of burn cream out, he sighed in relief.

It had taken the edge off of some of his worst ones - the scars on his sides and back tingling as he subconsciously recalled them. Considering how often he tangoed with fire at all, he’d all but accepted it at this point, and was glad that John wasn’t rocking anything worse than what would be a light blister.

Band-aids were down to slim pickings, however. There were only five left, but he picked the best fit and made his way back out to the pit, taking a short stop by the fridge for beer and one hastily-filled glass of tap water.

Water was the last thing on his mind most nights, but John needed something out there, and Sharky tried not to stress over it too much as he rushed back out.

John started when he handed it over.

“What’s this?” He took the glass, and eyed its contents.

“Water. You know, for drinking?” A sheepish grin inched across Sharky’s face as he made the motion with his hand. “Didn’t want to leave you hanging without anything, and my fridge’s full up with beer, so…”

“Ah. Thank you,” he said, losing the suspicious tone immediately.

He took a light sip of it and Sharky didn’t miss the way he wrinkled his nose. Probably better used to the fancy stuff they’d filter before bottling, but John still held onto it. Doing that instead of spitting it out onto the ground earned him a point or two on the ‘Don’t be an asshole’ scoreboard, but Sharky would never admit it to him.

“And those?” John asked.

“I know you said you were fine, but here.” Sharky handed the items to him, and John set his glass down. “Best stuff for burns around. Slap some of this on, and in a day you won’t even feel it.”

“Are those…dinosaurs?” John held the bandage up, flashing the green tyrannosaurus rex at him.

“Yeah, man. Dinosaurs are badass. I don’t know if Jurassic Park was your thing or not, but I had that on repeat for a good three months after it came out. Solid gold right there, and great for hand-holding or grabbing during any tense shit.” He held his hand up as he leaned in, and waggled his eyebrows. “Guaranteed. Like sixty to seventy-five percent chance of getting some action too.”

John furrowed his brows, and kept the band-aid pinched between his fingers. Both unimpressed and unconvinced, which disappointed Sharky a little, but didn’t surprise him much either.

“Anyway, that was the first one I grabbed, but I think there’s another in there if you’re more of a triceratops fan. Or raptors?”

John slowly shook his head. “I’ve-I don’t have a preference.”

“Well, there you go. And I know you like blue and all, but green’s clearly the superior color here. Just saying.”

He clapped him on the back, and John gave him a withering glance before putting it on.

Dragging over a couple of chairs, Sharky popped them close to the pit - but not close enough to catch any sparks - and settled in. He kicked back and wished he could’ve propped his feet up, but with the other chair in use he had to make do, and leaned as far back as the worn fabric would let him. It strained against the motion, but held, and he knew there was a still a fair chance he’d bust a hole in it, or topple over. Just not now, at least.

“…How did this start?”

Glancing over at John, Sharky sat up when he realized he’d asked him a question. “What?”

“How, or when did you start doing this? The fires? Or, whatever this ritual is.”

“Ritual? This ain’t anything fancy like that.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Sharky let out a long whistle. “But fuck, how many years has it been now?”

Well over twenty. Since that day when he’d had skating on his mind, that and Wendy. He had such high hopes going into the day only to find a whole other thing worth keeping on for.

“Would you believe my first time was at a skating rink? This old place that used to be down by Fall’s End. Neon lights, tricked out wallpapers, and all the oldies you could ask for?”

“Concerning you? Yes.”

John sounded so sure of it. Like he could see the memory just as clearly as Sharky did. That got a warm laugh out of him.

“Imagining that sticky carpet, the flat soda, and those tunes? Real nice, right? It was the highlight of my month. Getting invited out there, pulling off some of my finest moves out on the floor. But I had to set the mood before heading in, and had a roll of quarters ready and everything.”

A grin settled in, almost fond as he recalled the start of it. The promise had been there, all right. He’d finally get a chance to say something. Do something, instead of dreaming about it. Funny how he’d dive into so many other things without thinking, but this? This he’d thought about. Over and over. Wanted it right.

“So?” John’s voice cut through again, shaking him out of it. “What happened?”

“I really wanted to ask this girl Wendy out. Had some good one-liners going, and had watched plenty of movies beforehand that I knew she liked. Wanted to really wow her, and show her what’s what.”

That had been the first pass of the plan. It seemed foolproof. Then he’d reached the rink after he’d crammed one too many quarters in the jukebox. Took one good look at her as he skated up, and…

John’s growing frown mirrored his own. Maybe even too well.

“It, uh-it didn’t go like I wanted. Went with my gut once I saw her, and thought I’d just -my hands started going everywhere.”

Confused, John thought over his words, and Sharky hoped he wouldn’t have to spell it out. “You grabbed her?”

“I…might’ve grabbed something.”

Realization hit John hard. “You groped her?”

“Like I said, it could’ve gone a lot better! Instincts being bad and all.” Dodging his eyes, Sharky held up his hands and faced the fire. “Look, it was a dumbass move, and I got a skate to the balls for it. Still, really wish I’d tried dancing instead. No way she would’ve turned down a date with a dude pulling off a solid moonwalk. On wheels.”

“Surely,” John huffed.

Flipping him off, Sharky sighed before continuing.

“So, I head out back. Figure I could light up a cig or something. Take the edge off that way. Well, I decided I’d light a trash can on fire too. See if I liked it, and soon the whole damn back-alley’s on fire. Like burning high with no hope of stopping. It spread, took half of the place out in the process, and yeah, it sucked. But it sucked a whole lot less after seeing that too.”

“That was…not the story I was expecting it to be.”

“Lot of people say that after hearing it. And that’s all of like, three people that even bothered listening to me while I was telling it, but it is what it is. Sucks that it took out that place, though. Seriously, had a great sound system there and everything.”

John raised a hand to his mouth, eyes on the fire instead of on him, and smiled. “Thank you. You didn’t need to share that with me.”

“Eh, it’s nothing. You asked, and I told you what’s what.”

“Not everyone’s as comfortable doing that. And certainly not even half as honest.” John folded his hands on his lap, and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. “It was Joseph. Tonight, back at my ranch. He wanted to talk. This typically isn’t a problem, but he decided to do what all older brothers believe is their right, I suppose.”

“What, like go over some fantasy football stats? Or more like rite-of-passage-type stuff, ‘cept the holy kind. ‘Cause he’s not gonna take you to a cathouse, or nothing.”

“Please never say that again,” John said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Uh, which part? The football, or the...er, the part where he’s trying to help you get laid, except not?”

“That one. You see, he wanted to talk expectations. My role in the family overall, and how he wants me to rise to them.”

“That’s uh, kinda harsh. Assuming he said some pretty rowdy shit to you.”

“Not all of it,” John admitted, “but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Usually when talking about regrets and hopes for the future, not all parties will be on the same page. He was on one, and I the other, and…I didn’t handle it as gracefully as I would’ve liked.”

“But did you think he was right?”

“I don’t know. It’s too soon to say, and I’m still not inclined to agree considering how he presented it to me.”

“But you know why he did that, right?”

John’s eyes were still on the fire, but caught his when he turned away from it. “Do you have any siblings?

Sharky shook his head. “Uh, no. Parents never planned for any of that, and they sure as hell weren’t planning on me. I’m one of those miracle babies. The kind that defy expectation, if you will. They swore up and down they’d used the pill, bagged that shit, and tried damn near everything to keep from throwing a bun in that oven. Still, nine months and some change later I popped out. Was as meant to be as my Grandmama swore I was, and…it’s weird in a way. Knowing that, and still knowing the other end of it too.”

“That you weren’t wanted?”

John was looking at him differently now. Catching something Sharky wasn’t sure even he’d see after checking five times in the mirror for it, and didn’t seem as cagey as before.

“I had someone that did want me. Wasn’t the one that had me to begin with, but that’s alright. Family’s not always blood - not directly. I got Hurk, I got my Auntie. Maybe even Xander, if she plans on keeping him around, but they give a shit about what happens to me. Let me know at least once a week too if they ain’t too busy to stop by, so it’s gotta be nice in some ways. Having brothers. Having that, at least.”

Taking in a deep breath, Sharky didn’t know how to tackle this next part. Knew he was probably going to be like a bull in a china shop, but he’d try. He had to.

“Now I don’t know enough about you all to really say much, so tell me to fuck right off if you need me to, but…they seem like the caring kind. Even though Joe’s got his whole family unit going on - his weird, not-a-cult, but kind-of-a-cult aside. And Jake’ll always give me the creeps, but I feel like you’d also warn me if he was setting me up to head out into the woods and fight me - mano a mano, ‘Most Dangerous Game’ style - so I think we’d be all right.”

“They’re not one, and he’s not about to,” John replied. “And maybe it isn’t your place to say.”

That shut his mouth. “…Sorry.”

“But you’re right.” Shifting his gaze to the ground, John’s next few words were softer, almost too quiet to hear. “Both of my brothers are all I have in this life. The ones that I would do anything for, and for years we truly thought we’d lost each other. There was no finding our way back after being separated and sent to different families. Different homes.”

John flexed his fingers, stretching them out before tightening them into a fist.

“I…was not fortunate in that regard. While I now had many opportunities open to me, I would’ve traded them in a heartbeat. Because there was evil in that house, and it was regularly visited upon me. And to cope, I needed an outlet. A way to take away what I couldn’t fix. What I couldn’t change, or stop, and make it all disappear.

“So, I turned to other sources. Went well out of my way to open myself up to new experiences. Things to excite, to make me feel…something. Anything, and no price was too great. I couldn’t see it for what it was, and was content to let it all eat me from the inside out. Because that was what gave me relief, and if they hadn’t found me when I needed them most…” John shrugged a shoulder. “I would’ve let it.”

“Fuck, I-uh, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I didn’t share that to make you feel sorry for me, or to let it be an excuse. It was a little…honesty given, for honesty gained, if that makes any sense.”

Blowing out a breath, Sharky nodded. “Kinda. Think I get what you mean there.”

“And tonight, you were right. I needed an outlet, and you… You reached out to me without even thinking twice about it.” There was a sincerity there that surprised him. No dancing around it, no downplaying it. “You had no reason to open up your home to me, or do anything at all to help, but you did.”

“No reason not to.”

“Charlemagne. I haven’t given you much reason to do any of this, considering why we’re speaking at all to begin with.”

John had a point. One Sharky wasn’t going to argue, but he’d clearly overlooked a lot of the things he’d done to keep them on speaking terms. Or hell, even get friendly, because they were straddling that line, and had been ever since he’d stuck around to help him with the plane.

“Okay, so you did show up here on my doorstep. Used some strong words to get me to do some shit for you, and generally acted like a mega-dick. Admitting that’s the first step towards fixing it. ‘Cause my guess’s you wanna fix that, right?”

John pursed his lips, but said nothing. Just stared at him while his jaw tensed.

That had Sharky raising his eyebrows. “Dude, you seriously aren’t even gonna pretend to say yes to that? Not even try it?”

Glancing away, John closed his eyes. Took in a deep breath, and held onto it before sighing loudly.

“What the fuck?” Sharky muttered, watching him reach for his back pocket. “There’re like baby steps, and then you come in with this whole twelve step thing you’ve gotta work through, like it’s just that hard not to be a colossal d-”

“Done.”

Sharky paused as he took in what John held up. It was his phone.

Rolling his eyes at his confused look, John handed it over to him and pointed at the screen. “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?” Sharky flipped through the folder John had pulled up, not sure what he was looking for. “Like the porn you knew I was gonna search for after taking this?”

“No, not that,” John replied, grinding his teeth. “The recording.”

“The…” Holy shit. “You got rid of it. Like, no back up, no nothing?”

“That was the only one.”

Gone. That weight - what was left of it - gone.

Sharky laughed. Laughed as relief settled deep into him, and it was the sweetest thing.

Sure, John could’ve been lying to him. Could’ve had three different places where he was stashing the file for a rainy day, but he found he believed him. He wanted to take his word for it, and found he didn’t have to jump through too many hoops for it either.

“That’s-that’s uh, thanks.”

“Thank you. For proving me wrong in a lot of ways.”

Proud motherfucker that he was, that statement nearly bowled Sharky over. But he seemed to mean it too, and he flashed John a bashful grin.

“So, uh going back to before. You need to be cool to others. Treat ‘em nice, especially if you know they’re in the middle of a rough patch, and you count too. You needed something to take the edge off, and with drinking out, there were only two options left. Sex, and burning shit, and seeing as I don’t even know what your type is, I went for the easy one.”

“Easy?” Giving him a curious look, John leaned towards him. “That arson would be the easier option at all’s fascinating to me, because then I have no choice but to ask.”

“…Ask what?”

“What is my type?”

He one-hundred percent felt John’s focus now, and might’ve felt his palms start to sweat. “You want me to guess?”

“I want you to try.”

That was a tougher question than it should’ve been, and all the answers Sharky thought he had promptly left the building.

“Uh…fuck. The ladies in the catalogs. Victoria’s Secret models. Sports Illustrated, but the swimsuit issue. Porn stars. Top dollar escorts,” he said, spit-balling for whatever a rich lawyer might like. Or Bruce Wayne. Same difference. “But the kind with nice shoes, and those big-ass fur coats.”

Or was he going more for what he’d like if he had boatloads of cash to blow? And a music video to make? Maybe. Judging by the look John was giving him, though, he didn’t agree.

“Jesus, I don’t know. You asked! So, I guessed. Thought I’d get something close if I kept on going.”

“Well, you weren’t.”

“Yeah, yeah. And you’re telling me you wouldn’t be dicking down every woman in the valley if they asked?” Sharky took a drink of his beer, and couldn’t help but grumble his next few words into it. “I know I would.”

“You’d what?”

He coughed, beer going right down his windpipe. That was the kind of shit that should’ve slipped out when he was buzzed, and he wasn’t even there yet. And judging from John’s response, wasn’t great to hear out loud either.

“Aw, fuck. Uh, sorry. Didn’t…didn’t mean anything weird by it. Just that you’ve got a lot of women looking - er, wanting - some real one-on-one time with you, that’s all. And if I were you, I’d take them up on it.”

John snorted, “Is that so?”

“I’m serious!” Sharky insisted, flashing an awkward grin. “Not to do any ego-jerking or anything, but you’re a good-looking guy, dude. Who’d blame ‘em for trying?”

He’d meant to look away after that, but John held his stare. Gave him a look that was like a Rubik’s Cube, and the more Sharky tried to pin down exactly what it was, the more he kept on scrambling anything and everything just to match up a single side.

“I see.” John wet his lips, dropping his eyes to his bandaged finger as he rubbed it together with his thumb. “Well, I’d hate to keep them waiting any longer than I already have. Or to disappoint them, but a few may need to wait their turn.”

“Why’d you say that?”

“Because surely their male counterparts deserve a chance as well? Seems only fair.”

John lowered his lashes as he looked over at him this time around, and Sharky must’ve blinked at him fifty times before his words registered.

“Oh. Oh,” he said, watching John nod his head along with him. “Well, it’s uh, I’m a…I don’t think I got anything right there, huh?”

Face burning hot, he crossed his arms and felt like kicking himself. Mostly for the whole conversation leading up to this, but now was a close second.

“Hard to be right about something you didn’t know.”

“Saying weird-ass shit to you’s not cool to begin with. Expecting a pity pass for it’s worse, and then there’s whatever the fuck this is, so I’m sorry. It’s lame as hell, but I’ve gotta get an apology out at least. And it’s probably the last thing you wanna hear or talk about, but you do whatever the hell makes you happy, long as no one’s getting hurt or nothing,” he said, wanting to get the words out, even if they weren’t neat. “And, we uh, we can talk about something else now.”

John laughed; the sound lighter than he expected. “Uncomfortable?”

“No. Kinda. Just…I’m not a talker. If you need someone to head on up, make a speech using all of the right words, making it pretty and all, you don’t go busting down my door. ‘Cause there’s ways of saying things, so it’s all meaningful and nice with no hurt feelings involved, and that ain't it. Shit, you’ve made a whole career out of it.”

Sharky tapped the bottle against his shin, and sighed.

“When I open my mouth, people usually start throwing stuff at me instead of listening. Beer, shoes, lawn ornaments, darts, you name it, I’ve dodged it. Or had someone try to hit me in the junk for it, so thanks for not doing that. And sorry again. Probably say that a couple more times before the night’s out.”

“…Hitting you would be the last thing on my mind. I promise you that.”

Dead serious, he wasn’t sure what to make of John’s tone, or the way he was looking at him.

So, after downing the rest of his beer, Sharky went for the next best thing. Nervous laughter, and more blushing like an idiot. He’d never stop at this rate.

Rubbing his hands together, he hopped up out of his seat after that. John was too intense to stare down for long, and he put some distance between them, set on hunting down the first major firework of the evening.

“Okay, so this one I usually save for the festies,” Sharky began, carrying it over in his hands. “It’s my own personal formula. Ran through it a few times trying to see if I could get the right amount of fizz, bang, and pop that everybody loves without losing a finger, an eye, or most of my hair again.”

“Did you now?” John snorted. “It’s a miracle it grew back.”

“More like both eyebrows, but yeah, ‘cause I need to keep this around,” Sharky replied, framing his jaw with his hand. The wink was extra, but that didn’t stop him. “Chicks dig guys with a little scruff to ‘em. The look’s ‘sexy renegade’, but the kind that’ll still treat you right.”

“No doubt.”

Looking him over, John tilted his head as he considered him. Let his attention focus in on him closely, until Sharky was on the verge of snapping his fingers in front of him to break the spell he’d somehow cast.

“It suits you.”

John could’ve slapped him, and it would’ve been less of a surprise than that. “Say what?”

“It suits you. Keep it to that, though. Any more and I think you’re guaranteed to lose more than an eyebrow the next time any of this backfires.”

In the back of his mind he registered John’s statement – an actual compliment which only confused him more – but didn’t get much further than that. That’s when he caught the smile John was now wearing. This one he’d earned for sure, and didn’t want to risk losing.

Kicking his brain back into gear, Sharky blew out a breath. “So, uh…let’s see. Lighting this up, so we can have one kick-ass party. Just getting right on that shit.”

The red rocket was stabbed into the ground to the left of the pit, and Sharky held out his lighter to John. He still had the matches from earlier, but this way was easier.

When all John did was give him a questioning glance, Sharky flicked his eyes towards the rocket. “Yo, you know this whole thing’s for you, right?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. So, you kick it off. I’ve got a firework in every color, though you might want to aim them all over yonder. Nearly lit the field up straight ahead of here last time, and my PO and I ain’t gonna see eye to eye on this if another starts. Cool?”

Dropping his attention to the lighter, John reached for it. Turned it over in his hands as the corners of his mouth curved up, and eventually aimed some of that glance his way.

“Cool.”

#far cry 5 #sharky boshaw #john seed #jacob seed #john seed/sharky boshaw #I know I ultimately have control over what the characters say and do but I just didn't want to stop them here #and Jacob was a total surprise by the way #b/c I wasn't prepared for how much fun he was going to be to write #fanfiction #FC5 fanfiction #fic: I won't ask for much #fic series: we could make a home out of this

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the-firebird69 · 3 years

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We open a lawsuit on bjA in the class action I'm going to put his name on it my son Christopher akerley, he's been abused by this monster who posed as his brother and really is sick retarded demented sadistic cannibal uncle and now he's the director of the CIA and abusing the crap out of him so we're going to start abusing the crap out of him I'm going to deliver lawsuits to his office class action lawsuits with my son's name on it to his office in the CIA over and over and over we did today it works great guy flips out has a bird calls people we kill them all bring them all in go after his people and take it around nobody keeps suing the a****** for a teeny bit of money and taking just so much money it's about 100 million non-alien non-alien each time and that's the true number if not too small and we take it in the form of gold and platinum and money and anything that is currency stocks Von's businesses he's a complete fool and the problem is what he's been telling us the whole time is I have a problem with this one he's going to sacrifice anything to bother me he's a f****** huge f**** and I want to go on so we're working on it and I'm going to put lawsuits up on him and sue him he doesn't show up we're going to arrest him and we're going to keep doing it everyday just like Gu and Goddess drops the message off cuz he keeps doing it daily. So we're going to do that too we're going to have Bitol and Goddess Wife sue bjA for us and we are Gu and Goddess Wife. A bunch of us are lining up because they see your idea you have a demon Sue you go in there and you just drop the lawsuit in and you have the plaintiff is a demon and we just start ripping him apart cuz they'll say no so you're going to have someone stand in for you and you can do that too and it's going to be illegalese and it's going to be the guy that looks like Satan on TV which is actually bja I guess they're going to see him killing everybody and think it's him little jackass needs to pay it's very very insulting I feel like getting a machete and attacking every single one of them I'm looking assholes and stare at me so I see it's extremely sensitive no he sits and turns you on and pisses people off it's very bad dangerous so going after him and I dropped it on his desk I said you've been served and I hear and I see that you have it took a picture with him with it and said you're being sued as your character it's going in the paper right now so he tried to stop and you couldn't people saw your name and said this is ridiculous these people are suing us because of this a****** so I'll try to get him out of there and they couldn't they notice is a real pain in the ass so when he laughs at is he's very clever he's got him in this position and they trick him and then they switch out things and he gets Williams and he gets killed and he hurts Max because he's incompetent in his level of performance will never match ours and I'll never rash Max and he's always in the way is he just uses threats on families and kids and all sorts of dumb things it's completely useless to their people useless so eventually you might figure out that Dracula has all the stuff but right now he's a complete f**** and he's running around bothering our son to no end and is looking for power and it's not here and he can't understand it it's probably threatening for orkin Dracula and this is what he's doing cuz he's a moron you can't tell him so we're going to sue him and sue him every day and kill off his character until he doesn't come back.

We're opening it up with the Prilosec lawsuit and it makes sense because he is elevarney and he's the one who is hurting Arnold and he's the one who said he treated and had him let go a little and all of a sudden Arnie got very mad and he said we're not into this Brian and who are you grafting onto your body that looks like that and the girls got up and said what are you doing and they said they take care of it and all of a sudden they started to figure out something he's fighting for his life against this piece of s*** and he says this you all are and you don't know it they are complete losers professor Green that I did a study and it turned out to become a book it's called Lord of the flies she was amazed because that's what professor Green said eventually and he said the study turned out to prove this that their w**** can assholes to anybody but they grow and grow because they're like bugs we thought they were bugs and brains are wired similar ways they're just complete jerks then he says well that's not entirely true because he probably was mutated permanently in the womb using certain bugs and other things but a lot of bug juice all of a sudden we suddenly got some idea here he's got to go I mean he's an irate bug that's correct and they're going to bug out about it all the time and that's all they're going to do it's their clothes not their kids the kids are probably more human and they are.

So now you see the problem if this case you ever gained their brains they would be Wicked adversaries and very very permeating so we can't allow anything to go wrong and I can't allow it to go out of control and we need this guy to shut up it's way out of control I'm going to fight as men not realize who might allow this thing to let it get out of control he's worse than there sorry to admit something this is what I'm thinking these people have to get out of the way and there's performing that job well that's supposed to take cuz the truth that's what I found actually doing the job the only thing that's ever saving us is me and Thor sometimes and incrementing incriminating and all the stuff and decimating them based on what he's doing to take his territory in a small group you know what I said and Thor in a small group with him are taking him on like by themselves and his maddening and they're defeating him but it's very difficult and here's why so now tons of people are helping and we have volunteers we're making this group that goes after them huge they destroying them they sound very dumb because they are and he said what is a bug like that's what he's like so no you can control it don't suggest bug juice he laid off the bunches felt a lot better when this room and cried because he's weak even though he felt pretty good I said after a while you realize that having no emotions as a bug it's not good you figured out something someone's having to do that nope.

Listen to cut something from him he wants to have no emotions so I can do his job and cut everybody off so now I'm going to go after him permanently we've had it I went right up the report and the rosary eliminated at all costs destroy him

So he was eleva varney and BG was doing her as his wife and she's constantly screwing him over with stupid stuff you figured it out rip s*** on her him I said who's torso is that he can hit him from the neck here upwards so he started laughing and said I can only hit you right here and sliced his head right off. You find out who's torso it was and he went and reattached and left his head there and somebody came by his wife and put it back on someone really hard part about it was that he kept on trying to get BG's torso and BG's kept explaining I'm the one that shoots you don't come after me I'm going to shoot you I said I don't care I have to go after you did that I wonder if that's what JFK's who said this is your character I don't care it's like okay bang that's kind of funny but you know you have this like social issues and Mac can easily play on you're blaming me I'm going to wipe out half your clan and race if you blame me as a matter of fact I've got to teach you lesson now and how to speak to me probably a lesson f*** you shut the f****** you understand that little turd now you're going to die for what you're doing and you deserve it yes you do

How the idiot reacts does he starts saying stuff that's nasty in the past and our son hits him about 500 times each time sometimes in separate occasions and the guys dying all over the place people see his stuff all sudden the side to bring all these black guys came out of nowhere and started hitting a little s***

So suing Ella varney. They're bringing a suit on bjA for impressing his mother whom he killed and yes representing it in part of the class action and assuming BjA. for impersonating his brother. We're putting a bunch of them in the paper with our son's name on it because we want to be known that he's suing this a****** for that kind of stuff and with suing him for killing Mac Daddy practically in front of him because it's a threat on our son and us and we're bringing that action and we're going to go to the end of the Earth until he pays us out of pocket I'm suing for a lot of money a ton half of his empire if he doesn't pay up I'm going to grab it and he has a time limit it's 20 days from the resolution of the matter if you if he neglects to try and fight it he has to pay meaning if he doesn't show he has to pay and we're going to leave it with the courts yes and we've been doing that we told him we didn't pay and several many occasions and the judge was ordered people to pay and they're going through Brian killing them off in order to get to someone who would

We increased the value of our son's lawsuit to include pain and suffering lost wages lost income from inventions and we're going to have him pay for it all cuz he has enough money to cover and we're going after it now and if he doesn't pay him we're going to kill him until he does it's life or you pay you never pay so we're just going to kill him and take it all and then we're going to leave it with the court to pay our son. We confiscated a lot of our son's money and we have the court get the money to him cuz they want to and they should they should be Justice for this Injustice he's an unholy pain in the ass and they will get it to and they will say that it's your money and to put in the letter and it comes and gets it will make sure it goes well it doesn't over there and BJ will start messing with them this is how it starts because we've had enough he's had enough long time ago but really we've had enough of this bjA guy.

I think you my son for your time this has been a very valuable experience and we're going to go after him hard and we're going to sue him hard I'm going to get a team of Max 2 with lawyers some sick and tired of you getting nothing this a****** weird piece of s*** bother you with all this dumb stuff the guy should shut up everyone should learn from it you'll go around blabbing at people who sit there with a gun say look everybody around me is deadly they want weapons not your dumbass so until he learns we're going to keep killing him cuz he says well he attacks Mac Daddy and doesn't have any drawbacks or whole bags or nothing and nobody really was attacking him not even us that's time for us to attack this piece of crap constantly cuz he's always around he's always bothering me we have to have Force here to stop him every single second of the day or we have delinquency if deficiency need deficiency report written up by each Olympus head so there's a 15 of them cuz I can't write it on security here regards to everybody and write the biggest defender and biggest threat we'll figure out what's going on

He says we have sue the crap out of you BjA

It didn't threatening future of offspring by attacking me in the nuts I've been doing faulty surgery neck criminal negligence purposeful attempted homicide on many occasions sue for everything he has. But I want at least my money and that's going to really hit home with the max because of withhold stuff from people all the time and eventually they may drop this thing that is this part of the plan to get back at everybody because they're sitting there getting back in the Max and their mouth is so rude I can't believe they take it and they had this plan to feed the guy to cage and it doesn't seem to care at all I mean it is just amazing cuz just brazen complete freaking f** there's the monster there it's not your friend see you're getting eaten your head's gone he says

Thor Freya

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the-npc-gallery · 3 years

Text

Sorry that is has been a week. Just changed workplace so there was a bit of an overlap and some extra hours this week. But now I'm back strong with another candidate. "The hopeless" noble girl, or is she?

Meredith Theodosia Belmont

Bard - College of Lore or College of Eloquence

BG: Noble, Courtier (or maybe perhaps Anthropologist)

(pic from https://www.pinterest.dk/pin/318981586112739994/)

You were born into a noble family with a famous last name. With a long line of generals, the men of your family always trained to be the best soldiers so they could rise in rank and continue the family tradition and thereby withholding the noble name and the title, prestige and property that came with it. Because of this you, your mom and any of your sisters were never able to work and earn any money, for noble women to work, it was frowned upon. We could preform, make art, gossip with each other or else be perfectly silence and obediant.

Things suddenly changed once your only brother fell ill, and died of a decease as a small child. Ever since that day your parents kept trying to get yet another boy, so that he could take over the “family business”. But with four sisters, things started to look dire. Since the insecurity with the future with no male heir, your dad hesitated to go to war, because how could he die without the promise of an heir. So, he were paid minimum wages to do a desk job within the military even though he had the rank and expertise for so much more, but those jobs came with insecuritys. So, until mom got pregnant again he was stuck with a low income. The family money running out and no way to even pay a dowry, so that we could marry into money, my family were really scruwed. Rumours started to spread. That maybe a curse was cast upon our family, and we had to do something fast because we didn’t have money to keep up appearances, food on the table, and pay taxes on the house. First one of my sisters were sent to join the church. But mom still didn’t get pregnant and money were really a problem, to the point where we were almost starving, they shipped me of to the closet castle, to be a lady of the court, to personally help the princess in any way she saw fit. Basically, I became a maid for the princess.

So even through my family name is well known throughout history, and I have a great renown, it means nothing for us “low nobles” as long as there are no money and no prospects, because we lack of a male heir, low nobles were no better than poor merchants who couldnt make days meet.

I moved to the castle when I was so small, I almost do not remember my sisters faces. I had to focus my whole life, to keep up appearances, to not shame my family name. Yet I was curious. I followed my princess everywhere, like I was her obedient shadow, whom did everything that she commanded. Because of this I mostly lived in the castle. My whole live trapped behind big stone walls. All I saw of the world was the people whom came to the castle. I silently observed everything they did, I learned and in the little free time I had I studied people, culture, history, customs and religion of they were from. So if we one day would visit I could help my princess. I spent most of my life studing places I never thought I would see. But when my princess came of marriage age. We travelled from one castle to the next to meet the princes and nobles of the realms. I followed along on her quest to find her Romeo and with that I got to see glipses of the world as we passed it by on the way to the next castle.

My whole life was devoted to her. I never thought off anything else. Never dreamed of something bigger, because I could not change my position. I was stuck here so why bother wish for the impossible. I never thought about love. But one day a prince meet us, he was a younger prince and somewhere along the sixth in line for the throne, so basically he could have any girl he wanted, his family wouldn’t care. He was beautiful, and strong, and brave. Yet he was spoiled, he was so use to get what ever he wanted. So, when he meet me, and saw how pretty I was. That I was noble born, and not attracted to him. Not falling head over heels for him, he saw it as a challenge. And he knew that he wanted me, more than anything. I knew I was supposed to like him. To like the prospects of a happy live with him. Yet, all I felt was that marriage would be a trap. That I didn’t want him. I didn’t want to be married to a noble guy who knew nothing about work. So I kept turning him down, until he tried so hard one night, because he was so in love. He got me drunk at a ball, and escorted me for a stroll in the royal garden, to clear my head. On this stroll, we sat down on a bench deep within the maze. So, I could catch my breath, and clear my head away from the loud ballroom. He started kissing me, laying my body down on the bench, with his own body hovering just above my own. I liked it. I did not expect to like it. I had not let myself feel anything for him, or even think like that because I always put everyone and everything before myself. But here, where the starlight made his eyes sparkle, his hair falling down into my face. His sweet smell cover me and filling all of my senses. I can’t say that I didn’t love it. Because I really loved to feel his body heat throw my thin silk dress. The soft touch of his perfect lips. The smell of his perfume that lingered in the air all around him. I wanted him, so bad in that moment that I let go. I forgot all my responsibilities, to keep the honour of my family to stay loyal to my princess. I let the alcohol and the sweet music of the moment control the outcome of the rest of my life.

I became his. His flirt. His mistress. Yet I felt somewhat wrong. To leave the princess and my duty to her. And things never stays perfect. I must be a cursed. Because we only got a few weeks to love one another. 2 weeks of happiness and freedom was all I had. Then the unimaginable happened two of his older brothers were killed by what looked like my princess’ soldiers. War broke out between our two countries. Resulting in my prince leaving me. He couldn’t bring me home with him. Not only was he now just 3rd in line. But with war came new alliances. Meaning he had to marry a princess of a country that could help his own country win. On the other hand, how could he trust me, I could be a spy from the princess, wanting to kill him, just like his brothers.

My princess couldn’t take me back either, because I could be a spy. So, I was left, with nothing. Yet the princess liked me, saw her as here best and only friend at court. She wanted to help me, so she made the rumours settle down. She wrote me off because she was to be married and therefor didn’t need me anymore. Making it look like I walked away and not cast out, like a beggar because of my own shortcomings.

Leaving him broke my heart, and I felt heartless. I saw everything through a thick layer of sorrow and heartack. Envious of lovers. Daydreaming about him. Heartbroken. But I made a choice. Even though all off this happened, I didn’t want to go home. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to bring shame and rumours to the family name. So, I started traveling. Started making my own choices for once. Not following orders, or etiquette for the first time. I followed my curiosity, and my wish to explorer and maybe even help finishing this war. With the faithing glimmer of a hope, that when it was over and the dust settled, that I might be able to go back to my prince. My love. My heart.

I refound my passion for writing everything I observed. For making epic tales. And I joined an adventure group so could write down their story, and help them.

When people first hear your name they might think of some high and mighty noble, whom never seen the poor life of the beggars. Yet, she has worked almost very single day of her live and proberly harder than most. So just because she owns a nice dress or two doesn't change that. She is maybe naïve and an oblivoius girl to somethings like how rogueguilds and the nightlife of streets work, yet she is a very curious down to earth kind of girl, whom love a good story around the bonfire. She is loyal to whom she sees as allies and is a thrustworthy girl.

#dnd 5e #dnd #dndcharacter #character art #non player character #playable characters #female character #bard #roleplay #d&d character #original character

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lottafandoms · 6 years

Photo

READ EVERYTHING BEFORE COMMISSIONING ME PLEASE!!! It will help move things along, and wont cause a misunderstanding later.

When you send a message to commission me, you will receive one of these letters first, depending on what you'd like to commission me for:

Regular art or YCH:

"Hi, I am very glad you want to commission me. But before you do, if you do commission me, you are agreeing to my rules of not being allowed to repost the art you have commissioned me for, nor the previews you receive of the art progress on your profile, nor any other website. You can put it in your favorites, and if you wish it to be on another website that I have an account on, let me know and I can post it there myself. Do you accept these terms?"

Icon, Header, Blog Doll:

"Hi, I am very glad you want to commission me. But before you do, if you do commission me, you are agreeing to my rules of being allowed to repost the Icon/Header/Blog Doll, but ONLY with visible credit somewhere people can see it. Do you accept these terms?"

Please know, this is not meant to be rude or hurtful, this is just for safety reasons. Just because you have paid for the art, and it's your character(s), does not mean you have the rights to repost it. These are my rules, and if you can not respect/accept that, please do not commission me.

You want the art you commissioned me for on another website?

These are the websites I have accounts on:

• Tumblr: lottafandoms

• Twitter: lottafandoms

• Instagram: kawaii5eva

• Furaffinity: kawaii4eva

• Pillowfort: lottafandoms

• Weasyl: lottafandoms

♥BUY ME A KO-FI?♥

COMMISSION QUEUE

!!FOR PEOPLE WHO COULDN'T READ THE TEXT IN THE IMAGES CLICK THE READ MORE!!

Please note that when you're commissioning me, you are agreeing to the statements below. If any are violated, I WILL come after you, and you will no longer be allowed to commission me.

When commissioning me for regular art, you are paying to see something be made, you are NOT paying to use it in any possible way. You're NOT allowed to repost it ANYWHERE. If there's a website you'd like the art to be on, check my social media to see if I have an account there, if I do- ask kindly and I'll post it there for you. If I don't, then oh well.

As for art related to icons, blog dolls, n' such. You're only allowed to use them for their intended use, and there must be visible with proper credit to me somewhere while using it.

As for art related to NSFW, yes, I draw it. But ask me about the fetish first, to make sure if I will draw it or not. Any NSFW of characters MUST BE 18+ YEARS OLD. I draw Anthros, Feral, Human, MLP, OC's, and so on. Any gender, and only slight gore. What I won't do, are Politics, Nazis, Anything Racist, Sexist, Homophobic or Transphobic, no very detailed characters or BG's. And no Smoking,Vaping, or any kind of drugs. Thank you.

RULES:

• I accept USD with PayPal.

• All payments will be made though an invoice or Ko-Fi.

• You will be given 3 days to reply after wanting a commission, and 3 days to

pay for the commission.

• If you're interested in a commission from me, write me a private message/note.

• Tell me which kind of commission you would like, and provide me with a picture of reference for the character(s) along with details on things such as the expression.

• Once the price, and details of your requested commission is settled, I'll ask for your PayPal E-Mail Address, in order to send you a PayPal Invoice. Once you receive it, you can easily pay for it in your mail inbox.

• When I receive the Payment, I will start with the commission. I'll provide you with previews of the commission, such as: (Sketch - Lined Flat Colors - Full Shade), depending on the commission type.

• I will notify you if something comes up, meaning- there might be a delay on your commission. Please understand I have other things in my life to deal with, and so does everyone else. I will always try to complete your commission as soon as possible, and I thank you for you patience.

• YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REPOST THE ART YOU'VE COMMISSIONED ME FOR. The characters may be yours, and you paid for it, but the art is mine. Please understand, I've dealt with too much art theft to let people repost my art anywhere. The only things I WILL allow though are: Icons, Corner Blog dolls, and Headers. All I request for those are visible credit somewhere on your page of the website you use it on.

COMMISSION PRICES AND LABELS

1 Ko-Fi = 3$ USD

HEAD SHOTS:

• Sketch: 1 Ko-fi

• Sketch+Line Art: 2 Ko-fi

• Sketch+Line Art+Flat Color: 3 Ko-fi

• +1 More Character: 1 Ko-fi

(Please know that if

you want a head shot,

inform and talk to me

first before sending the

money through Ko-Fi.)

BUST:

• Sketch – 11$

• Lineart - 16$

• Line+Flat colors - 24$

• Line+Flat color+Shading/Lighting - 27$

• +1 more character – 4$

TORSO:

• Sketch - 16$

• Lineart - 24$

• Line+Flat colors - 30$

• Line+Flat color+Shading/Lighting - 37$

• +1 more character – 6$

FULL BODY:

• Sketch - 23$

• Lineart - 29$

• Line+Flat colors - 39$

• Line+Flat color+Shading/Lighting - 44$

• +1 more character – 9$

CHIBI:

• Sketch - 15$

• Lineart - 19$

• Line+Flat colors - 26$

• Line+Flat color+Shading/Lighting - 31$

• +1 more character – 6$

ICONS:

You will get 2 sizes: 400x400 and 100x100

• Line+Flat colors+Simple BG - 11$

• Line+Flat color+Cel shading+Simple BG - 15$

• +1 more character – 3$

WITH BACKGROUNDS:

• Sketched - 21$

• Colored+Sketched - 36$

• Colored+Sketched+Shading/Lighting - 41$

• Lineart+Colored - 46$

• Line+Flat color+Shading/Lighting - 56$

• Simple BG – 3$

• Transparent,Plain White, or just one solid color - FREE

I'd like to state that I can't really do backgrounds too well, but it's up to you if you really want one.

#lottafandoms #lotta comms

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dark-unimaginably-stupid-kids · 6 years

Text

Color Study

More winging my way through this fandom and wanting to write it’s characters.

Anonymous asked: "If you're still taking requests, maybe some Lancelot with pining Lotor, only Lotor doesn't know what pining is?"

Words: 3k+ Pairing: One sided Lancelot, implied bg Klance

Note: Sorry Anon if you wanted straight up Lancelot, I just couldn’t get away from the whole “We know Lance is going to hate Lotor” bit just yet. But, I like to think this could be spun as a supportive friends!Klance “You almost killed yourself you moron come here.” and the beginning of a vaguely tense slow burn for Lancelot lol...Idk. Anywho I’ll shut up now.

PS- Also, I’m not sure if I really do pining right. I just think of it as that “I can’t have this person but I’m going to think about things constantly” kinda?? Bleh.

....

Set after the season finale of season four, Lotor makes it onto the castle ship and wants to meet the paladin that caught his attention some time ago. The one in blue.

The first time he sees the blue paladin its over surveillance on the mission to steal the teludav. He is simply a white and blue blur with a gun at the time. He deflects a shot meant for one of his companions. He isn’t useless.

Based on his suits colorings, he assumes the blue paladin was, of course, the pilot of the blue lion.

Lotor had initially assumed the pilot of the blue lion was the weaker one. The novice, if their initial meeting on Thayserix was to stand for anything. Though, they had improved fairly quickly, Lotor didn’t forget. At least he clearly understood how to use his bayard, switching it between forms. He wonders how they managed.

He decides he’s going to pay closer attention to the blue lion’s paladin from then on.

So, naturally, when he comes aboard the Altean’s vessel and watches a woman come out of the blue lion Lotor is immediately thrown off.

The Altean princess has a harsh expression when she looks at him, not that Lotor questions it.

“You must be Prince Lotor.” She says, her voice and posture stiff. She isn’t the only one in the room and she is one of many with weapons poised and ready to move at a moments notice should Lotor give them reason.

He opts not to, he even offers out his hands, “I am. You can go ahead and cuff me if you’d like but I assure you that would be a waste of your efforts.”

The princess’s eyes seem to narrow further and the other paladins seem just as judgmental.

And yet no blue.

Or red for that matter.

Isn’t there supposed to be a red paladin for the red lion?

What does Blue fly if not the blue one?

Lotor does not allow his confusion to show on his face and allows himself to be dragged away for the discussion as planned. Allura, as he soon gather is the princess’s name, fights him at every turn. Again, its to be expected.

The black paladin is surprisingly receptive for a survivor of Galran atrocities based on his arm. Lotor does not recall ever seeing the black paladin on the surveillance. Had he not been there? Who had piloted Black onto the Galran base…?

Eventually, agreements are reached, and Lotor is allowed a tentative space in the castle. Unarmed and not unsupervised. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind, but Lotor was a patient man.

He was, however, an inquisitive man.

His first watch was the black paladin. Lotor didn’t enjoy conversation with him, so he mostly idled around.

Second came the large yellow paladin. Hunk, as he was called though Lotor had trouble believing it as his real name, demanded that his watch be done in the kitchen as he had far too many people to cook for to waste time. He made Lotor do food preparation which was extremely odd to him but it allowed him the opportunity to touch a knife and not use it as a weapon which he hoped won him some semblance of good faith.

Also, it gave him the opportunity to speak to someone who didn’t unnerve him as much as the princess or Black did.

“Hunk, If I may,” Lotor began.

Hunk raised a knife and pointed it at him, “You may not.”

Lotor blinked, then continued anyway, “It’s just a quick question. There are two paladins I haven’t seen yet. Where are they?”

Hunk rolled his eyes and continued cooking.

Lotor tried again, “I mean no harm with this line of questioning of course, I’m simply a bit out of sorts over their being a pink paladin. Throws the whole thing off a bit doesn’t it?”

At this Hunk scoffs, “Yeah it does. All the colors are off. It drives Pidge freaking crazy, but what can you do, you know? The lion picks the pilot.” At the end of his last statement, Hunk makes a strange noise and groans at himself before going back to his cooking.

“…The lion picks the pilot?” Lotor repeats, but Hunk is done talking.

The green paladin is far more receptive.

“Have you seen my father?”

“Have you seen the other paladins?”

They get approximately…nowhere.

Finally, the blue paladin presents himself, dressed in his civilian attire no less. And this is the moment Lotor becomes extremely confused.

He’s just as he appeared in the video, tall, dark, bright eyed, an “eager to please” kind of demeanor.

But there’s something… very different about him now.

For one, he looks exhausted, more so than the other paladins had been. He’s wearing a simple shirt and denim pants and Lotor wonders if this is a sign of trust or if he simply couldn’t be bothered to wear his armor any longer. He shivers and Lotor wonders if he is in need of a coat. Everyone else on the ship seems to have one readily available… Perhaps a blanket instead?

“Are you cold, Paladin?” Lotor asks him.

The blue paladin looks surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting Lotor to speak to him. Lotor hopes his face is neutral as the other man scrutinizes him. Lotor realizes his eyes are a quite beautiful shade of blue, unlike his murky ones, and he would quite prefer they not narrow at him like the princess.

They do anyway.

Darn.

“I’m fine. Thanks.” His tone is short and sets up camp by a large circular window where he can watch Lotor and not really have to interact with him.

Well, if Lotor wanted to let him. He did not.

Instead, when the boy shudders even more at his proximity to the window, going so far as to hiss and rub his arms, Lotor throws his blanket at him. It was given to him so he could sleep on one of the couches if he so chose but he wasn’t inclined to sleep right about now. Besides, the human was clearly freezing.

The paladin actually takes the blanket and wraps it around his shoulders before seeming to realize who threw said blanket at him and glaring at him.

“Uhm?”

Lotor raises a single quizzical brow, as if waiting for the paladin to start an argument before he sits down as close to him as he’d dare.

“Again, you looked cold. I’m not. You may use it for the time being.”

The boy scoffs, “Oh? ‘for the time being’ as if this wasn’t ours to begin with.”

Lotor allows himself a chuckle, though he’s fully aware Blue meant this maliciously he decides to try and remain good natured, “Well you certainly have a point. Though I do wonder, don’t you have a coat? I can’t believe you wander around a castle ship in the middle of wide open space shivering like that constantly.”

The boy groans and leans his head back against the wall, his neck long and exposed. Lotor watches his Adam’s apple move curiously. The human has very pretty skin. Blemish free, clearly taken care of.

Lotor briefly considers what it might feel like beneath his finger tips as they trail along his throat, up to his chin…

Huh.

“Keith needs it a little more than I do right now. It’s whatever.”

Lotor leans in curiously, “Keith?” was this the other missing paladin? The red?

…The one who Blue had protected on the surveillance video?

“…Is it customary to share articles of clothing for humans?”

The boy lowers his head and looks straight at Lotor for a solid moment before going, “Dude, who are you?”

Lotor has to blink at this, “I am Prince Lotor, son of Zarkon. Were you not aware? I thought you were here because you were told to guard me.”

The boys lips go slack and he bats his lashes like he’s more confused than he’d just made Lotor. Then he raises a palm to his face and drags it up through his hair, brown locks looking far too much like silk through his fingers. Lotor might allow this to distract him further.

“Por Dios, you’re worse than Keith.”

“I’m sorry?” Lotor offers after a moment of regaining his level head. Not sure why he needed the moment. Not sure where he’d wandered off to.

“It depends on the relationship, I guess. In response to your question about clothes anyway. I mean my coat is actually a hand me down so…” The boy sighs deeply, shoulders sagging beneath the blanket, “And Keith is the red paladin.”

“Ah.”

“Can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

“My knowledge was limited strictly to large colored lions and colored suits. You’re still Blue, by the way. As confusing as that is as you apparently don’t fly the blue lion?” Lotor explains, again trying to keep his neutral composure though he’s feeling surprisingly good about the fact this paladin, the one he’d wanted to meet, was the one who would actually care enough to speak to him.

The boy quirks his lips to the side, smooth, soft looking, a shade off from his skin that Lotor also finds pleasing. He puffs air out through his nose and looks to the side, “I guess that makes sense. The names Lance. I used to fly Blue. I fly Red now.”

Lance.

It…suits him.

Lance.

“You fly Red…?” Lotor mumbles absently, trying to keep the conversation going if for no other reason than to keep Lance’s attention, “Then what does this…Keith fly?”

Lance is facing him again, he opens his mouth to speak but shuts it just as quickly. His eyes dart to the floor then back. Clearly he doesn’t like what his answer is going to be.

“…He doesn’t fly anything anymore. He… he quit I guess.”

Ah.

Lotor doesn’t realize his eyes narrow, “So he abandoned you.”

Lance’s face shifts from complacent to furious in less than a tick, “He didn’t abandon anyone! He left to do other very important things for the cause against your father, against you.”

Lance’s face is just as lovely even when angry. It gives Lotor no reason to reconsider his words as his mind temporarily lingers on Axca. Axca and how she turned her back on him. How he ended up alone running from his own empire.

“Forgive me, see, I was somehow under the impression that when you form a team with trusted individuals tasked with glorious purpose you are supposed to have unwavering faith and stand by each other’s sides are you not?”

Perhaps he was bitter.

Then his mind wanders to Narti and something hollow opens up in his chest. Narti was compromised. He had to cut her down. She was a threat to all of them…!

Lance’s voice does something strange.

It growls.

It pulls Lotor straight out of his thoughts and right back to the floor in front of this man who’s voice was surprisingly…

“You don’t know anything about Keith!” Lance shouted, throwing his hand out of the blanket in a broad gesture, “And I doubt you know anything about comradery, I mean you’re here alone aren’t you!?”

There’s such passion in his voice.

Lotor wants to silence him.

Not because he wants him to be silent, quite the contrary, but because of the way he would do it.

This is… odd.

“Well aren’t you?” Lance repeats.

Lotor is silent. Not because there’s anything to hide, but because for some reason he loathes admitting it.

Lance takes his silence and rolls with it, “Did you have someone stowed away in your ship? Where you a decoy? Are you really a refuge or are you here learning our secrets so you can run home to daddy and give him the keys to the universe! ‘Look Dad I know how to defeat Voltron! Aren’t I such a good evil villain?’ right?”

Lotor doesn’t have the chance to give Lance a look clarifying how ridiculous that sounds before the boy launches forward, pinning the prince to ground, long tan fingers digging into his shoulders.

“Answer me! What have you planned?!”

Lotor can’t think. Lance is strong, his chest is broad and his hands are surprisingly warm and he is hovering only inches above him, straddling his waist in a way that should be menacing but only manages to be…enticing.

Lotor’s eyes dart to Lance’s lips, to his bared teeth, along his clenched jaw, to the throbbing pulse in his neck.

Lance raises one of his hands and Lotor can see his fingers curl and uncurl, seeming to struggle between forming a fist and reaching for Lotor’s neck, “If you cause anyone else on this ship any more pain I swear I will end you.”

He decides on the neck.

Lotor swallows. He’s not sure if this appears eager or frightened and has absolutely no idea which he’d prefer it to be. Lance’s hand is insanely soft, but his grip is tight and the skin on skin contact is making his brain fuzzy. Lance’s eyes are like lightning and his voice strikes with just as much devastation.

“I assure you, Lance…” Lotor breathes, though his throat is dry, “I mean you and your family no harm. Not anymore.”

He’s almost surprised how much he means that.

Lance’s fingers loosen slightly but he doesn’t rise. Despite how cold he’d been earlier his body is warm on top of Lotor and he doesn’t think he wants him to move.

“How am I supposed to believe you?” Lance grits out.

Lotor is surprised by his ability to continue speaking, “With time and by trusting your instincts… I hear red paladins are good with instinct, aren’t they?”

“Keith is the red paladin.” Lance’s eyes darken.

Lotor sees it then. Realizes.

“He was the red paladin. You fly the red lion. The color on your suit shouldn’t dictate your title when the ‘lion chooses the paladin’ correct?”

Lance sighs, deflating, resigned. His breath is hot and fans against Lotor’s cheeks.

He continues and puts emphasis on the word, testing his theory, “Your Keith passed you his mantle, didn’t he?”

Lance’s hands go limp before he straightens his back. He’s simply sitting on Lotor’s lap now and he doesn’t seem to notice. His face colors for a different reason.

Lotor hasn’t met the red paladin yet. He doesn’t think he wants to. He thinks he already wants him gone; far, far away.

“I suppose I was wrong then.” He isn’t sure why he’s still talking. Probably just to hear Lance respond again. Probably to keep him from noticing how close they are. Probably…

“Your Keith didn’t abandon you, he saw your strength and knew you would carry on in his place better than he could. My apologies for speaking out of turn.”

“Yeah well…” Lance starts awkwardly, “I mean on your list of grievances, talking smack probably isn’t high priority.”

This time Lotor sighs, enjoying how Lance’s personality shifts, how see-through he is, how honest.

“Of course.”

They remain there silently for another moment before Lance shivers again and gets up to pick up his/Lotor’s/the castle ship’s discarded blanket to drape over his shoulders.

Lotor immediately misses the warmth. Immediately misses the proximity. Immediately misses him even though he’s only walked a couple feet further away.

What in the world…

He sits up and pushes the thoughts away.

“And for the record, Lance,” Lotor starts. Still tasting the name on his tongue as if he was unsure he wanted to use it. Maybe he should just go back to calling him Blue. Red perhaps? No, Blue was definitely more his color. Blue was accurate. Blue didn’t link him to another man. Not that it mattered, of course. “There is no secret nefarious plot hatched away with a stowaway from my ship.”

Lance looks at him. Lotor doesn’t realize his voice is lowering, losing that cold demeanor he’s so good at.

“…That is to say, yes, I am alone.”

Lance is studying him, eyeing him like a puzzle to be undone. Lotor gets a front row seat to the micro expressions that cross Lance’s face as he mentally pulls him apart from those words. Possibly tracking back trough their conversation, through his behavior, through their history, through his upbringing. The cogs are working and Lotor is momentarily at a loss.

And then something utterly disgusting happens.

If Lotor thinks about it too much his stomach does awful twists and flops and his chest constricts miserably.

Lance smiles.

“Well,” He sighs, eyes soft and fond as he leans back against the wall again bundled in the blanket, “If you mean what you say, and you actually are an asset to us. Maybe you won’t be for much longer. We have a tendency to take in people who are alone in the world.”

Lotor can’t feel his fingertips. This is witchcraft. Haggar’s doing. Something truly and insanely heinous.

It’s a few moments later when a dark-haired boy wanders into the room. He looks like death, but he is wrapped in a long green coat and when his eyes land on Lance he almost begins to resemble those of the waking world again.

Keith.

He’s followed by another boy, tall like Lance, but otherwise resembling the green paladin.

Keith… smells like Galra. Rather, he smells like shame and tears and sweat. But he certainly feels like a Galra. At least, that’s what Lotor’s instincts tell him as he watches the previous red paladin lead the current away. Matt, the green doppelgänger, Green 2.0, is to keep an eye on him now.

Before he’s gone Lance tosses the blanket back to Lotor. Keith appears vaguely confused but Lance shrugs him off and instead addresses Lotor from the doorway.

“You behave alright? Maybe I’ll make you a milkshake if you’re good.”

Lotor has no idea what a milkshake is.

He decides, as the light chuckle escapes Lance and it almost hallows out his insides, that he hates them.

He also hates the red paladins. Current and Previous. If only because Previous can make Current so at ease he can chuckle like…!

No.

He hates them. It’s decided.

…

And he is going to protect them with everything he has.

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t1dlikeme · 4 years

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Sofie's Story

“When you recognize that failing doesn’t make you a failure, you give yourself permission to try all sorts of things.” ~ Lauren Fleshman, is one of my favorite quotes, and something to remind myself in terms of diabetes management, training, and life!

Diagnosis

As a shy high school multi-sport athlete (track, soccer, and skiing) in Albuquerque, NM, I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at age 16. I went from 2nd in state in the 800 my Sophomore year, to struggling to staying awake in class as a 4.0 student and barely making it through practices and workouts. With no history or knowledge of T1D in my family, we didn’t recognize the symptoms—I had a head-to-toe rash after swimming in waterfalls in Hawaii (may have triggered it) followed by months of losing weight despite eating jars of peanut butter and food each week just to keep energy—which my doctor at first thought “she’s a growing athlete” but we got bloodwork anyways. A week later, after yet another frustrating track meet, I was in the hospital with a blood sugar of 586, and was pumped to finally figure it out (until about 3 hours later when I remember eating a pear and seeing my blood sugar skyrocket, I burst into tears realizing how much of a change it would be!)

Fast Forward…A Few Years

After basically wanting to forget about high school (hiding in the bathroom to take shots, self-conscious and developed anxiety about weight gain post-diagnosis and just wanting to fit in), I needed something different. Although being a perfectionist and being shy / hiding from others gave me time to master my A1C early, it wasn’t sustainable and I internalized it all—until I got to college. 2000 miles from home, I chose Marquette 1) for the biomedical engineering program, and 2) for receiving a D1 Soccer Scholarship as a goalkeeper, but what I didn’t realize, is it would teach me to open up about my diagnosis and become a better athlete and advocate. I confided in my athletic trainer, who helped me with check-ins during practice (which could sometimes go 1-2 hours over the scheduled time!), and realizing we needed about ½ cup of gatorade + water every hour, supplemented with pedialyte during preseason. It was nice having my trainer, since I could get around going straight to the coaches (at first I didn’t want it to be seen as a weakness!) and she could carry around my gear for me, if needed.

While goalkeeping allowed for easier access to management during games, practices, etc. I continued to find myself gravitating towards running, strength, and conditioning. My senior year, I began to go for runs while we were on away trips and started to become hooked—I found new ways to manage my BG’s and low intensity running basically was ‘insulin in my back pocket.! After finishing my collegiate soccer career, I joined the ‘Run with the President’ running group at Marquette with Dr. Michael Lovell (our MU President). It was around this time that another faculty member, John Klika, took me to coffee and was fascinated by my thesis research of designing a lifestyle computer algorithm and model to predict glucose and hormonal levels based on activity, stress, diet, etc. It turns out he was Type 1 himself—and a multi-ironman athlete.

With a newfound confidence and support group, I gradually built my mileage and learned so many things from John about management, who also joined the running group and convinced me to run my first half marathon. It went really well—until, the group said next step: “the marathon.” I was like absolutely no way, I came from sprints up and down the field and have Type 1 Diabetes—I'm not sure I’m ready for that! But, I’m not one to step down from the challenge, and I had the group helping me through the whole way. I remember my first 18-miler—5 miles from the end, I couldn’t run more than 5 steps as I couldn’t keep my blood sugar up, even with having the proper supplies, and I was just defeated. My body wasn’t used to this, having to rely primarily on glucose as fuel, instead of an intensity and fuel mix. But, I kept going—my track workouts got faster, and my next long run, 20 miles, no stopping! (It’s also important to note that I was also doing some triathlon training too, which helped keep a balance).

I was ready and excited. Dexcom in my shorts pocket, 3 gels and gummy bears (of course), and friends cheering every step of the way! It couldn’t have been more perfect—flat line BG’s, fuel every 45 min to steady, the adrenaline rush at the 22-mile mark (the furthest I’d ever run in my life!), all propelling me to a 3rd place finish in 2:52. That was one of the best beers, post-race, I’d ever had in my life. This finish created numerous opportunities for me, including becoming a founding member of Diabetes Sports Project, JDRF Keynote talks, and more training—I wanted to try and qualify for Olympic Marathon Trials (2:45). Unfortunately, along with these positives, came a very long string (~2-3 years) of off and on injuries—I walked 13 miles of the Boston Marathon in 2017 with a tibial stress fracture, the first of a few, and just could not catch a break. These times had a lot of lows, but taught me the resilience of having other outlets, support communities, and managing my diabetes without the ability to exercise all the time (I had started to rely on this as a form of natural ‘insulin’ all through college and into running).

Looking back, these years of ups-and-downs were crucial to my development of outreach and community, my career, and finding the right balance of strength and running to stay healthy (turns out, soccer weight training had a lot to do with my injury free 25 years of my life!). I like to call this time falling not failing, something my therapist came up with (yes, I was seeing one, for anxiety and some low grade depression, which is something I will talk about now, since I think it is incredibly important that if you have any of these feelings, especially as a T1D, you are not alone!). I took a job as a medical device engineer at Dexcom and moved to San Diego, CA, acting as a liaison between clinical, regulatory, quality, design and systems engineers, which was the perfect place for me as a T1D! I started the Dexcom Running Club, and from that, have some of the fondest memories. San Diego is also where I joined Prado Racing Team (PRT), and found my coach, Paul Wellman, who I still work with today. PRT helped me find the love of running again, and I PR’d in every distance while training with them, and having a lot of fun doing so!

My time in San Diego culminated with making an attempt at running an Olympic Trials qualifying time at CIM 2019, which I just missed in 2:49. It was such an incredible experience, however, even with missing my goal—3-minute PR, running with teammates, HEALTHY and injury-free for an entire training period, and friendships. I did have a diabetes learning experience, though, which I will take forward with future races—not all nuun is ‘carb-free’! It was on the course, and I assumed it was the zero-carbs flavor, so I took it at almost every aide station, causing me to sharply rise at about Mile 11 (especially coupled with adrenaline), which unfortunately caused some cramping around Mile 15 and slowed me off my 2:43 pace. Luckily, I was able to power through, and I will be more prepared next time.

Current:

I have recently moved back to Albuquerque, NM, where I grew up. After looking for an opportunity to grow my career and move into management, this was the right move for me, and is now allowing me to explore altitude training and new heights, literally and figuratively! My family is still here, and with COVID, it has been nice to be close (and living with my boyfriend, Steve). While I am not training for any races in particular, I’m making attempts at a sub 5:00 mile (currently at 5:05 at altitude) as a ‘mini’ goal, and just trying to enjoy the simplicities of running! I am getting back into the volunteering scene, particularly with my non-profit, Diabetes Sports Project, and of course, JDRF.

Some Tips, Tricks, and Life Lessons!

Always be prepared—gummy bears in my sports bra are my favorite! I’ve learned many lessons along the way, including one of my first solo long run experiences with a low blood sugar and having to ask gas stations for a Gatorade that I would come back and pay for later (not my finest moment, but turns out, people can be very helpful!). Always carry a card or cash and know your numbers. Plus, some great times of having snacks on hand: my running buddies favorite line is “Hey Sof! How’s your BG?” “Great!! Why?” “Can I have some of your snacks….).” They need it too, and are thankful for it when they bonk!

Train with people who know you at your best and at your worst, and your symptoms—those are the ones that can push you through tough workouts to the end when you don’t think you can run one more rep or mile, or can more importantly, tell you when you need a break and to take a step back. It’s often trial and error in knowing what intensities affect your blood sugar the most, but with a community, you can’t fail—you learn. As unpredictable as it is sometimes, Type 1 actually can give you an athletic edge. You have to know what your blood sugar is at all times, and how your body is feeling. No one else has to do that!

Sofie Schunk

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landofquartzandmelody · 7 years

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ok i finished hiveswap act 1 lmao. i actually liked most of it a lot i think? and there’s a lot to talk about and there’s also a few things which were like.. Incredibly annoying. my overall impression was good tho! i’m going to dump my thoughts under a readmore though so no one accidentally gets spoiled

obvious warning for that !!

the setting is actually incredibly detailed and i occupied myself for a long time clicking on everything in the background? the art was really pretty and the actual gameplay itself was really smooth and not glitchy at all.

the video cutscenes didn’t play for me at all lmao. I had a few tabs of text-only websites open, and join.me, and that was it. i couldn’t easily lower the settings to make it run smoother either? which was really annoying, and i don’t see why the cutscenes were sooo much harder for my computer to get through than the actual gameplay.

the only other glitch i had was a framing glitch in jude’s treehouse i think

i liked most of the puzzles a lot and it all seemed very organic and fun. using items on other items was pretty cool, and i only got stuck like once or twice.

i really did not like the snake game mainly because i had to swap to using my keyboard for that and that alone lmao.

the monster fights were REALLY fun, i thought. they had a really classic homestuck feel.

it was kind of hard to walk up and down the stairs, actually. there wasn’t enough room to click where you needed to go and that was a bit irritating

i really really really loved the harleyclaire mansion!! everything about the first part of the game was REALLY good!!!

there’s so much to get into with jake and joey and jude and anna claire that it’s nuts tbh. but i really liked everything about that. imo it dealt with parental issues in a lot more depth than hs ever did, and surprisingly nuanced parental issues is definitely an hs thing. but joey’s problems with jake are a lot more fleshed out and realistic.

definitely one of the themes is that the adults in joey’s life have never been there for her. her mom isn’t there because she’s dead, roxy isn’t ‘there’ because she’s irresponsible and is already developing drinking problems, and jake isn’t there because he’s always been somewhere else. so there’s something interesting when xefros talks about parents there

i think i was expecting jake to be a decent father so i was definitely really sad when it became obvious that he was kind of.. not? and it’s evident that he’s really screwed joey up, but i think that it’s also very in line with how canon portrays jake. like his biggest flaw was being unwilling to put in the emotional work and commitment that his friends needed.

sometimes he was definitely scared of those, so i can easily conceive of jake taking the easy way out and heading out to trawl the pacific for a meteor baby.

the line about how ‘having a second thing which is sort of like the first thing but somewhere else is exactly the same as having the first thing’

it’s interesting that jade and joey both do the same thing by projecting on their dead guardians. jade’s thinking is a lot more magical than joey’s, but it really shines a light on how everything we assumed about grandpa harley was through the eyes of a girl who never really got to know him.

and like he died well before he could disappoint her, so.

it was REALLY really sad but i don’t think i actually have a problem with it.

part of the reason i don’t have a problem with it is bc it made joey claire’s characterization SO much more compelling

because she’s very angry at her father for doing the things he did, and is openly disparaging about him, and even chooses to use her mother’s last name instead of his? but she’s not angry or hard or bitter

i love my hard trauma girls but it’s really nice that joey just gets kinder and better in the face of a childhood full of neglect- without being pushed to forgive or minimize the damage that was done to her

the detail about joey absolutely refusing to use guns because she doesn’t want to be like her dad, and choosing to love animals and heal them was so good. and how that’s framed as an act of rebellion?

like the idea that kindness can be radical but that =/= forgiveness.

we didn’t see a lot of jude but i loved everything about him so much

like it was pretty subtle so i don’t know if y’all would consider it ‘canon’ but the bit where joey says that ‘when things got bad with my brother, our babysitter took him to see a doctor, and he was better for a while’ seems like it’s saying joey is being treated for a mental illness of some sort?

which seems completely in line with his character! he almost falls into the trap where it’s like ‘we all called this person crazy for seeing all these conspiracies but he was right all along’ but he doesn’t and that’s nice. it’s very subtle and pretty respectful imo. (also, fox mulder)

he and joey are the cutest siblings in the entire universe, and he was so sweet to her. he seems very earnest about wanting to protect her and caring about her.

the part where his birds left him made me SOOOO SAD. it was so sad. i felt so bad for him. I named dammek’s catdeer Frohike to pay my respects even though frohike was the worst gunman.

i’m really worried about him tho. i hope he’ll be okay without joey around

joey claire is such an obvious lesbian

honestly i know a lot of people were nervous because it seemed like it was setting her up to have a relationship with xefros but i absolutely don’t think that’s the case, just because she’s definitely gay.

every time she looked at a picture of a girl in the harleyclaire mansion she had one gay thought or another, and her entire room was plastered completely in images of pretty girls. not ONE guy.

there was also a lot of dialogue which implied she felt guilty or ashamed of how she felt when looking at girls, or like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to, or if people would judge her for having pretty pictures of girls on her walls.

also her password being the name of a boy she has certainly never met or talked to, and who we never saw an image of (despite said guy being an actor? i think) or heard mentioned before

the scene where xefros mentions he is a boy who likes boys and joey is like ‘oh. huh’ seems to me like it’s very obviously from the pov of a lesbian who had absolutely no idea what a lesbian is, or that she is allowed to be one.

i think joey is definitely going to realize she is gay at some point in the future acts

i didn’t expect to like or care about xefros as much as i did?

he was obnoxious at first but basically as soon as we figured out what was up with dammek and that xefros thought he’d been speaking to dammek he became 100% less annoying and i started liking him a lot lmao.

he and joey had a really sweet friendship, actually.

homestuck breezed over a lot of the more horrible things about troll civilization, but hiveswap did a very good job of making it patently obvious how horrible troll civilization is for xefros and other lowbloods, and i think it has a redeeming effect on the Other Stuff.

i like that they made it obvious what’s happening is horrible and needs to like, stop or whatever, and don’t like... condemn the revolutionaries.

his situation isn’t really played for laughs or mocked.

that being said a lot of the writing for dammek was really really annoying and dumb.

people like dammek definitely exist and i think hiveswap does a faaairly decent of not conflating dammek being a shithead with the rest of the movement? the joke about personal property was very very annoying lmao but the movement itself is portrayed as legitimate and necessary. it’s a dumb reactionary type of joke but it doesn’t ruin the game for me

i do think he’s going to Learn To Be A Better Person while he’s hanging out with jude. i don’t think he’s going to get a vriska type arc at all but i do think he’ll learn the error of his ways.

i wish that we’d gotten to see a bit more of his personal motivation for being so intense about revolution.

i ALSO wish they hadn’t used like actual symbols of movements in the bg that was really annoying and crass imo. and if they had to, i wish xefros had had an anarchist flag or whatever.

abuse / neglect are big themes in hs so i’m not really surprised at all that they came back? they definitely shouldn’t have advertised dammek and xefros as being cute moirails though because it’s kind of scummy to do a bait and switch like that.

i don’t think the game’s going to be hetero though. xefros and joey would be incredibly ugly and i doubt it’ll happen

i also think homestuck the original thing is actually pretty on the nose about class stuff, even if it does feel the need to like couch that in Fake Alien Racism? at the very least i’d be surprised if hiveswap tried to pull the You’re The Same As Your Oppressors thing

i’m still annoyed that there was so much promo art of xefros and dammek being cute together when the actual game condemned every interaction they had. i think that it would have been possible to say the same things as they wanted to while also not making dammek a crazy leftist stereotype and grounding him in reality like a real person.

to be fair, we are going to get a sequel game with him, so he’ll probably be fleshed out a LOT better then.

trizza is somehow so much more evil than expected? how evil she is feels a lot more real than like, the condesce, tbh. she feels like a real person

i’m SUPER curious about cridea now and i can’t wait to see what she’ll be like

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talk-time-live · 5 years

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TALKTIMELIVE.COM EXCLUSIVE with YEO: by Daxavier Josiah

37 years game developer Vadim Gilyazetdinov from Moscow, Russia, goes by the name “YEO”, which is a nickname he came up with in his school days while achieving a high score in a racing game. The name also pays homage to his appreciation and fandom for the Japanese culture.

YEO has a passion and ambition to bring his narrative to life in the form of his favorite fandom which is video games. This led YEO (and his team) to create one of the most compelling retro 2D open world games out now for STEAM and recently Nintendo Switch called “The friends of RINGO ISHIKAWA.” which has received much praise by fans and media. I had the opportunity of talking with YEO about the creation of this title and more more.

DAX: Where did your journey begin as a game developer?

YEO: I wanted to be connected with game development since University (I have a master’s degree in chemistry) but I didn’t know how to code and I couldn’t draw (I believed that I was good at writing dialogues though) so I applied to some Russian game development companies for any minor junior role they had but they just ignored me. It was no wonder since I hadn’t any work experience.

I started to work at some government company and in 2006 I was introduced to Game Maker 6.1 by my colleague and close friend with whom we run first Russian Nekketsu fan-site. And I made some beat-em-up action with Kunio-Kun sprites in a week ) And it was like whole new world opened for me )

But I never thought that I could do commercial games. I was just having fun with Nekketsu of Mighty Final Fight sprites. I made some small games with them for my local web friends and for myself and most importantly for the process of doing it. Since I don’t believe in result too much, you could achieve it or not, but the process is what you got anyway, so if it was fun and interesting that’s more than enough.

DAX: How many people did it take to develop this game as well as how long did it take to develop it?

YEO: The Steam made possible for small developers to be introduced to the large audience. And when my fellow developer passed Greenlight and then successfully released a game in 2015 I started to think of doing the same. I had quite good and stable job as a team leader at the Moscow IT Government Department so I could afford to hire an artist at last. I never thought of it before though, that you can just hire somebody.

So, I started to look for an artist. Prototype of the game was ready. All these years I tried different battle mechanics with Nekketsu sprites, and literally honed my skills little by little. You can see how Ringo looked back then:

youtube

I posted some job description on game dev forums and it started (“your game is shit”, “you’re a moron” “you’re paying too low” “you should better be doing some Russian aesthetics”, “it’s a dumb clone”, “nobody could do 60 backgrounds alone”, “you should hire a team”) It really was hard to get by. I read all these insults and recommendations for 2-3 months and then suddenly one man sent me a really beautiful background and I thought “no kidding? It could be a BG for my game?” That’s how we started to work with Artem “Wedmak2” Belov, a man who made my game even possible.

Then I had to recruit a characters artist. And it was another 2 months of hell. And I almost lost hope already. I asked every real live person I knew who could draw a straight line besides web searching and all my friends refused. I even asked my 58 years old father and he opened some image redactor, looked at pixels, closed and said no.

I was walking with my mother one day and she asked about the game, how the things going, and I said “mom, I can’t find an artist, please, talk to dad, he doesn’t work, he has nothing to do, maybe he can try again, it’s not that hard” and she said, “I’ll see what I can do”. I must say that my father is no artist. But he’s very talented in different areas so I believed that he could handle it if he wanted to. And couple of days later I installed him the graphics gale and taught him how to choose colors and place dots. And little by little, step by step, he drew around 1000 frames for Ringo in next 2 years.

I tried to work with musicians also but we couldn’t get along. First musicians wrote 3 tracks that I love though, and they wrote final theme among then (the best track in the game), the band named “indian&fox”, very talented guys, it’s sad that they couldn’t do whole soundtrack. So, in the end, Royalty Free Tracks saved me. It was really months of listening and choosing tracks and it was really time-consuming (I was doing it at night usually when I was too tired to code) but I’m proud of the result. I also don’t care about them been royalty free. Almost any Tarantino’s soundtrack is Royalty Free.

And it was guys who did translations but it could be too long to tell about them. I want to mention Dmitry Ostrozhskiy above all who did English translation. And also Guillaume Veer, and Indienova team for Chinese localization and Misa Sekiguchi Webb, Ueda M. and Chie Koizumi for Japanese. If I started to name one I can’t forget others.

And, I had 2 web friends who discussed with me everything and gave their opinions and insights all these years. I consider them as a team. stray_stoat and Mr.Chelnoque. They were there for me anytime I needed them. And while they didn’t actually write dialogues or code or something like that’s a core of my team. It’s really hard to go such distance on your own. Only some hardcore guys like Eric Barone is capable of that.

So I was doing Ringo and when I was watching some movies like “La-La Land” or “Joy” or any other dream related stuff I couldn’t look in their eyes cause they asked me “all right you had a dream and you found out what you really love and you’re good at it but have you done everything you could? Did you give it all? Did you risk any?” And I couldn’t say “yes” to any of them. But it’s the life without regrets that give you real freedom.

When I said to my wife that I had to quit the job she wasn’t really happy about it. But she said “Do what you gotta do. We’ll manage somehow.” I didn’t have to quit my job to release the game. I could easily release it while still working; I had a lot of free time there. But I was a casino gambler in my youth days so I knew that you need to bet something if you want to win any. And you better risk high if you want a jackpot). So my career was the only thing I could bet actually.

DAX: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a very ambitious and free-thinking experience with no rules and direction. Can you talk about what led to this form of gameplay?

I usually reflect on everything I do so when I reflected on my gaming experience I noticed that I don’t play to win a game. I play to live in a game. I played it like this since ZX Spectrum’s Saboteur for example

I never passed 3 first screens in the game since it was awfully controlled and dogs killed you by touching but you could be a ninja in it. In the first scene a ninja sails on the boat, then he enters some building and then dogs and enemies appear). But I was pretending that I was a wounded ninja who’s going to a suicide mission. And I was sailing in the boat like in a movie. So I was walking fearlessly and dying like a warrior.

And I played almost any game like that. And on NES my favorites was Technos Japan’s Nekketsu series. All of them, but especially Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (River City Ransom) and Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu. You could live there. It was like early GTA game. Free roam/open city, usual daily activities. You couldn’t die also.

And you had all other Nekketsu games as a part of one big Universe. So you could live in DNM, then switch to Ike Ike and play some hockey, then go fighting in NKD. I wished there was one big Nekketsu game where you could live and participate in different activities without changing cartridges. And I was designing one on the paper when I was at University. Just for fun. Just for “what if I could do a game someday”. And I wrote to notebook “You can smoke by pressing a button”. It was 2002 or 2004.

DAX: This has the definite essence of the classic 8-Bit series RIVER CITY RANSOM. Where there any other games that you were inspired by in the making of this title?

Beside Technos games I was heavily inspired by Shenmue of course. That was another game of my dream. Martial Arts, Japan, snow flying right in the face.

Another obvious inspiration is Persona games, especially 3rd one. I didn’t like Tartarus part (though JRPG is my favorite genre) but the school part was perfect.

My personal best (is) Final Fantasy 7. I believe it’s a perfect game and it inspires me every time I even think of it. You won’t see exact influences from it, but it’s there. For example, you could buy a villa later in the game (FF7). And by the time you could buy it you actually don’t need it. But it was something special when you just entered (the) menu and it said “Cloud’s Villa” in location’s name. Or you could hit a heavy bag in the basement. It didn’t do anything. You just could hit it. And that’s all.

DAX: Where there any coming of age/gang related movies, anime, or manga that inspired the creation of this game as well or maybe some past experiences growing up?

YEO: I think that everything you have seen and read and played is inspiring you and forming your sense of style and aesthetics. I was a delinquent myself, and a gambler addict, I used to box and kickbox and I’m still training, actually almost all Ringo movements are redrawn (not rotoscoped) by my father from my photos. So I wanted to share some personal feelings with players and I knew what I was talking about hard way. So I wasn’t look up to any manga or a movie actually. But I read and watched a lot, and I gave homage to some of my favorite works, Ringo can read some of my favorite books in the game.

Between youth gang movies my personal best is Korean “Once upon a time in high school”. That’s a real masterpiece, real masculine movie. I was aiming at this level of quality but I didn’t reach it. This movie is on another level. I hope that Ringo can still be compared to it.

DAX: You are obviously a fan of retro games, what were some of your favorites growing up?

YEO: I’m still playing retro games actually. I don’t really like new games and I hadn’t completed a game in 5 or 6 years. Last game that blew my mind was Way of Samurai 3. It’s a really awesome game. I didn’t like 4th game in the series and didn’t play first ones. But this game is something else. I also played a lot of EA Fight Night series, all of them are good and it’s a pity they abandoned the franchise. That’s my favorite “next-gen” games.

I like many PS one games, mostly JRPG: FF7, FF8, Xenogears, Wild Arms etc. There was some interesting CAPCOM beat'em up on PS2 I can recommend: Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance and Shinobido Imashime of course.

For real retro games, I still play first Streets of Rage from time to time, I beat it 3 or 4 times some weeks ago on Switch. My favorite straight beat'em up is Mighty Final Fight on NES though. I really love this game, it’s a gem. Also, I like Bucky O'Hare, Mitsumi ga Tooru, Double Dragon 2, Duck Tales. That’s my favorite on NES. Beside Nekketsu of course.

DAX: There are multiple ways to play “The friends of Ishikawa.” Is there one true way to play this game or did you have the idea of letting the player go to any direction they want and have different results?

I’m really tired of modern games that take you by the hand. If there’s a mini-map in a game you don’t look at the backgrounds, you play it on the minimap, so any game comes down to some white triangle moves to green circle which activates a cut scene, richly animated and directed, voiced over, cinema-like. Then you gain control over the character again and go to another green circle, sometimes you mash buttons between. I drop games like that in half an hour regardless the quality and graphics and wrinkles on the face when chars do smile.

I also tired of tutorial messages on any action. So I made only the basic ones in my game. So it’s easy to pick up like older games where any tutorials weren’t and there were 2-3 action buttons and you just tried everything. And I think its fun. It’s a kind of exploration. You try different things and see outcome and you investigate and when you discover something you really enjoy it and you feel smart and by doing it you (are) starting to feel connected to a character.

We argued about all this with mr.chelnoque and stray_stoat but I believed in my vision and positive reviews proved my point. I knew that there’d be many players disappointed that the game doesn’t give you any direction and you don’t know what to do etc. But I also knew that some players would love it for the same reason. And that goes for multiple endings as well. I considered different endings of course and at some point, it was even “A friend of Ringo Ishikawa” so you had to generate your character who was Ringo’s best friend from childhood and you could more role-play in the game, it was a date-sim part also. But then I decided to tell this exact story about this exact character with the exact ending. So some things just fell off. It’s not in Ringo’s character to have multiple girlfriends for example, so I gave up on the dating sim. And there were more sacrifices I had to do.

As for the right way to play it, on the contrary, I wanted players to play their own but to stay in a character. That’s why you can’t rob your classmates, for example, and you still have to fight in some scenes cause Ringo is a gang leader, after all, you can’t turn him into a complete nerd.

The whole game came from one final scene and I designed it backwards actually, I wanted players to really feel that very scene. I don’t want to spoil it though for those who didn’t complete the game. So I wanted payers to live in the game and to feel the ending if they care to complete it.

DAX: What’s next for you? Is there any chance we will see a sequel following The Life of RINGO?

YEO: I’d rather not do it and I have some reasons for it.

First of all, I’ve said what I wanted with this game. I also wanted to make a game with a generated character where you could really do what you want and have different endings (like Way of Samurai for example) but if I expand Ringo’s Universe his story could fade. And I don’t want to sacrifice it.

Secondly, it’s really common to make a sequel to a well-received game. And while it’s easy it could turn into creative chains, I want to be free. That’s why I quit my job also. To do what I want to and not what is best for business or others.

That’s why my second game will be quite short also. I understand that some players have great expectations of my games but it also can drain creativity, fear of failure. So again I decided on what to do next just by listening to myself. "What kind of game you want to do now? What inspires you?” And when I captured setting and gameplay it turned out that I can’t do a long game with it. But gameplay is really good and I have one interesting idea also, and some thoughts I want to share. So I decided on what could be good for this idea to be properly told.

I want to try to stay creatively free for as long as I can.

I almost ready with this game, but Artem Belov (who’s in charge of BG again and he’s doing astounding work again, even better than in Ringo), he got married and got an office job so he (has a) lack of time now, and he draws slowly. And while I’m waiting for him I started to work on another project but it’s a secret for now.

Thanks to YEO for taking the time to chat with me on such a great game. Be sure to check out “The friends of RINGO ISHIKAWA” available now on STEAM and Nintendo Switch (and Nintendo E-Shop).

#nintendo #nintendo switch #the friends of ringo ishikawa #ringo ishikawa #yeo #games #video games #retro gaming #game developers #indy games #steam #anime #comics #manga #movies #Vadim Gilyazetdinov

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rvinsounds · 7 years

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— like this in which jess needs a reason to write lots of fluffy things SO ANNUAL SKI TRIP IT IS. WOOHOOOOO.

a/n: this is such a future fic honestly. takes place in like 2019? 2018?? keep in mind i would’ve graduated in 2012 so ara/chanuk/seungyeon would’ve graduated 2013? so mei and sina are married? probably since april of the year? i made a rough timeline but idk LMAO THIS IS AN AU UNIVERSE LEAVE ME ALONE FAM

bg info on the ski lodge tho. basically it’s the same/similar one from this fic (there’s smut if you wanna read, just a head’s up!), it’s somewhere in the states, a ski lodge for wizards and witches, there’s hot springs that run on a magical fault line, plus a bar, and dining room/dinner area? also the mina section is based off of this AY -- BUT YEAH OKAY ON TO THE FIC

it’s a tradition now, since the first time they had done it in 2014 and then again the year after, and once again every year since that. it had been a chain of portkeys up to the ski lodge, as they had all, once again, decided against taking an airplane and then a taxi. mostly, it was the purebloods who were still a bit wary about muggle transportation, especially across an ocean. a chain of portkeys was easier to manage and much quicker.

they arrive in separate groups -- megan and sinhwa and nadine and minseok, the older pairs heading into the lodge first to get all the rooms and keys sorted.

“everyone is paired up right?” megan asks, turning to nadine who’s distracted by minseok, who’s distracted by the blue bubbles floating out of the deer head on the wall. the older girl, by only four days as she constantly reminds everyone, glances over after realizing that she’s being spoken to.

“you and sina, me and minseok, jess and saebom, ara and chanuk? seungyeon and daeun ... euncheol and whoever he’s bringing on this trip? did you hear he and his last girlfriend broke up after the last trip?” nadine scrunches up her nose, shaking her head as her gaze falls on her fiance and sinhwa trying to pop the bubbles. “sucks. i liked her.” she counts on her fingers again, before nodding. “five rooms!”

they pause once they’ve told the witch behind the check in counter, hearing familiar voices and they grin as the rest of the group trickle in. jess is trying to dust snow off of saebom’s jacket whilst simultaneously unwrapping her scarf, chanuk looks extra round with his earmuffs on his head as he rubs arazely’s hands in his own, euncheol is busy brushing snow from out of his girlfriend’s hair and seungyeon rushes over to greet them, waving, his eyes bright.

“sorry, we almost missed the last portkey because it was buried under snow and we couldn’t find it,” he’s breathless, but he’s still smiling widely.

megan just smiles, reaching over to ruffle his hair, like old times. since they had all graduated university and had somewhat gotten real jobs, it was harder to find time to spend all together nowadays. so this was a special time for them all, especially during the busy holiday season, it was nice to get away and catch up with old friends. “help me hand out the room keys?” she asks, smiling as she hands half of them to the (younger) former ravenclaw. seungyeon nods, grinning before he heads out to help her do what she had asked of him.

when all the keys are handed out, megan grins and she glances around at everyone else before clapping her hands together. “okay, let’s meet back up in an hour for dinner? we can unpack and relax for a bit beforehand.”

there’s a loud “woohoo!” from the back corner, and everyone laughs, dispersing either to the dining room to grab snacks or to the elevator or stairs to head up to their respective rooms -- they had booked out a section on the fifth floor so everyone was close but still had their separate rooms -- let their sixth annual ski trip begin!

the first thing they had done when they had reached their room was change into clean clothes. the second thing they had done was fall into bed, the lure of the crisp sheets too much for either of them and that was where they were, still, an hour later. though the entire group doesn’t usually eat dinner together the entire trip, they always do for the first night there.

which is why megan is a bit miffed that nadine and minseok haven’t shown up yet and it’s been almost ten minutes since the time they had set to meet up with everyone. so she does what she does best, and goes to find them. instead of knocking on their door, she literally just apparates into their bedroom -- considering the door is unlocked (probably on accident, probably nadine’s fault) the anti-apparition-into-rooms charm is ineffective and she literally appears with a loud CRACK! at the foot of their bed.

there’s a muffled yell, nadine covering her face with her arms, minseok glancing up at the sound and he has the decency to look sheepish after checking the time. “nadine, babe, we’re late for dinner,” megan hears him murmur, and she can’t help but grin to herself.

(she’s so happy for them.)

but she’s also annoyed at the moment. “guys, the dining room is serving dinner in ten minutes. arazely had to stop chanuk from coming up here to yell at you guys for being late,” she says, her tone all official like the one that she usually uses to read the announcements at her little school, slipping into it automatically though she has to hide a smile, her hand resting gently on her stomach.

“honestly, you guys can cuddle and do all you want but if you miss dinner, don’t come complaining to me that you’re hungry and have to order room service,” she continues, eyeing her friends and megan can’t help but shake her head after. “make sure you lock the door too, by the way, that’s how i apparated in here without you guys having to allow me to,” she adds after another moment, watching the two former gryffindors lowly sit up, begrudgingly, at the truth behind her words.

“also nadine, jess wants to go to the bar after and she refuses to go unless you do because she for some reason needs a wing woman -- i think she said that to make saebom jealous, but that’s besides the point. everyone is waiting downstairs, so please hurry.”

and she smiles, waving and leaving through the door this time, making sure to lock it behind her on the way out.

they manage to, somehow, get a vip lounge to themselves in the connected club that was a part of the ski lodge as well.

(they’re pretty sure it has something to do with saebom and minseok being with them.)

nadine and jess have disappeared for a while now, but no one is too worried -- the two of them tended to disappear to go and dance and flirt with cute boys and return once they were tired and wanted real attention from their real boyfriends. but this time when they returned, they were both grinning almost too happily, cheeks flushed from dancing and from all the alcohol they had taken in.

it’s obvious how drunk they are when both of them literally drape themselves over their boyfriends, though said boys definitely aren’t complaining.

“we just got this for free -- let’s do shots!” jess grins, holding up a three-quarter full bottle of what looks like vodka, nadine producing shot glasses out of nowhere and placing them onto the table between everyone. chanuk shakes his head in amusement, looking like he might protest, but he’s the first to start setting out the shot glasses so someone can pour.

sinhwa, on the other hand, seems to have paled slightly. he’s staring at the bottle in jess’ hand, chewing on his bottom lip, his arm around his wife. megan is laughing, too amused that nadine had completely plopped herself into minseok’s lap and was simultaneously trying to get comfortable while also yelling at chanuk to hurry the fuck up. no one notices the tension until it’s too late, the bottle in jess’ hand shattering with a loud splintering noise and spraying everyone around her with vodka.

it practically rains vodka, or whatever alcohol it is, on saebom and jess, and nadine and minseok who are next to them, and a startled euncheol. who wasn’t paying attention at all, distracted by his girlfriend.

there’s a pause as everyone processes what had happened, sinhwa looking as surprised as everyone feels, before --

“what the flying fuck --”

“that was a 40 dollar bottle of quality vodka --”

“we know you don’t like vodka but the rest of us people would like to enjoy free alcohol, thank you very much.”

“YAH. KANG SINA. I WILL FUCKING END YOU --”

“merlin, stop fighting everyone,” saebom interjects, tugging his girlfriend towards him with an arm around her waist and she flails against his hold before ultimately giving up, huffing to herself as she also settles herself down in his lap. though, that doesn’t do much and she glances up and eyes the male.

“i will still fucking end you,” she says seriously, almost seriously enough that it’s almost believable that she might not be as drunk as she seemed a few moments ago. “but not until the baby is born.”

the silence in the room is deafening -- ignoring the pounding music outside of the room -- everyone between jess and sinhwa as the male splutters in his surprise before megan slaps him on the shoulder. “i told you you were being too obvious!”

the gasp from jess is audible, before she grins and nadine immediately reaches up to high five her. they miss the first one, but the resounding smack of their connecting palms is as satisfying as it is painful.

“i fucking told you!”

“i can’t believe we were right!”

“i can’t believe you didn’t tell us --”

at that last outburst, both megan and sinhwa look sheepish. they exchange a glance before megan shakes her head slightly, her hand going to rest on her stomach, just a further confirmation of what had just been revealed. “we were planning to tell you guys on this trip, honestly, but we all sort of got caught up in everything.”

with the combined glares of half the people in the room, sinhwa apologizes profusely, though he keeps a protective hand around megan’s shoulders the entire time and a bright, proud smile on his face. everyone is quiet for a moment, the only sound the pounding music outside of their private room, until saebom quietly flicks his wand to clean up the mess and dry everyone off.

nadine just sighs, fond, glancing at the row of empty shot glasses on the table, forlornly.

“you’re getting us a new bottle of vodka.”

the ski lodge is well-known for their hot springs, considering these ones are apparently on a magical fault line and have some restorative powers or whatever, and that’s where everyone heads once dinner is finished. it doesn’t take long for everyone to change into their swimwear and trudge down to the large glass doors that lead out to the hot springs, deciding to spend it all together since it’s the last night.

the heat from the hot springs combat nicely with the crisp winter air, and it doesn’t even feel that old to be stepping outside in nothing but their swimsuits.

though, it’s still a relief to slide into the hot water, everyone sidled up to their respective significant others as they take in the hot water and cool night air. “beer?” minseok asks, having brought a charmed cooler along and there’s a cheer that goes up as he starts passing chilled bottles out.

“cheers to our annual ski trip!” jess calls out in the middle of a heated conversation about brooms -- interrupting minseok and saebom as they debate with seungyeon over which was the best out of the newer models -- stealing saebom’s bottle from him to toast it, raising the half finished bottle into the air. there’s a loud chorus of everyone toasting each other, clinking bottles together.

seungyeon toasts the newest model of starsweeper with a sideway glance at saebom and minseok, both of whom just laugh and shake their heads in amusement, never willing to fight with their maknae despite being the professional quidditch players of the group.

chanuk toasts arazely’s heart, thanking her quietly for everything she’s given him in his life, grinning as he ends it with a loud “WOOHOO!” which brings laughter to the group, as all the boys try to out-cheese each other, resulting in jess trying to dunk saebom underwater when he says something, in her words, “utterly disgusting.”

arazely toasts their friendship, giving a short yet heartwarming speech on why everyone was a blessing in their group and reducing half of them to tears. nadine subtly wipes her eyes before she stands, holding out her beer to megan, who’s holding a soda.

“cheers to your future son or daughter meg,” she grins, tilting the bottle slightly before lifting it into the air, and they all cheer again before attempting to chug the whole thing (and failing). “may the next ski trip be a family one!”

they laugh, everyone all too amused at her failed attempt at chugging, once again, as they relax under the stars.

megan glances around at her friends, feeling very, very content with how things have worked out for everyone. she eyes the rest of the couples, glad that everyone had paired up rather successfully even though most of them hadn’t tied the knot yet. it was only a matter of time, she was sure.

“wanna bet nadine and minseok get married next?”

“you wish.”

#!drabble #otp:even the sunlight dims in the presence of you #otp:the path may be a long one but it is sweeter with you #!wc:2198 #bleps this was kinda weird idk #i might add short drabbles to this lter on #I REALLY REALLY LIKE THE IDEA OF AN ANNUAL SKI TRIP THO #OK #SHUSH #IT'S SO CUTE I'M HAPPY #i was too lazy to write actual people skiing so DEAL WITH IT #dsjhvfhsdjfh #otp:heaven must exist because how else could you?#otp:black coffee never tasted so sweet

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