#But i don't the skills nor program to do it

[abunchofnumbers05]

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS HEADCANONS #28

Very, very very very messy Warrior cats AU

It all started when I was listening to Broken Crown by Mumford & Sons... and from the middle of the song onwards an animatic appered in my mind...

🎶So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down🎵

Basically we have Jinx running as fast as she can through the plains under the sunset.

[It's important to note that in the animatic the scenario is more nature-like 'cuz WarriorTM]

🎵I'll never wear your broken crown🎶

A murder of crows sets flight to get out of the way as Jinx runs. She stumbles, falling face first on a puddle; she eyes the reflection for a second and sees Silco looking back at her, the side of his face with the demaged eye fusing with her face in the water.

She growls at the image and continues on her path. (Silco's image in the water follows her as she leaps over the puddle).

🎶I took the road and I fucked it all away

Now in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace?🎵

[Now why is she running?]

Cut to a scene with Renata and MH!Viktor going to a Moon Pool-esque place, with Vik's head hung low and Renata's standing high clearly they intent to grant her the 9 lives. (Vik would be the Medic of the clan)

[It is kinda of implicity that Silco was leader before he died and Jinx was oh so clearly intended to become leader after him (even though she was never appointed Deputy to begin with - undercity doesn't follow traditional clan conventions); but she ran off, either due to grief or rejection of the role bestowed her. But it's also kinda understandable things will probably be worse with Renata as leader so Jinx has to do something about it.]

Anyways, the whole undercity is by the edges of the Moon Pool to watch the ceremony - even the firelight are watching on the sideways - and Ekko (Well I guess it's Echo now?) see Jinx jumping over cat's heads and body slams Renata out of the way and accidentaly fall into the Moon Pool.

🎵Instrumental🎶

As Jinx sinks/drowns Starclan ghosts of Vander/Felicia/Her dad/Mylo/Clagor (and others because apparently there aren't enough people for the 9 lives) start granting her the lives with finally Silco granting the last one and she awakes.

Renata and Viktor are staring at the pool like "she's been there for a while" "did she drown" "should we go in?"; then Jinx crawls out of the pool, fur soaked, a red star marking still burning bright on her forehead as she glares at them with a death stare.

Viktor bends a front leg and knels (a visual way to represent his acceptance of the new leader) Renata takes a moment but eventually also bends down - with all the other cats following suit.

(Kinda like that, idk if my description was clear)

(Softly) 🎵So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down

I'll never wear your broken crown

I can take the road and I can fuck it all away

But in this twilight, our choices seal our fate🎶

Scene then cuts to Vi at a clan gathering place. She turns to see Jinx, surprised and a bit aprehensive as Renata and Viktor are following her on either side and a whole entourage close behind.

She understands it for what it is, her sister is leader now, and watches as Jinx⭐️ climbs up the tree and dits amidst the other leaders (Swain, Azir, Qiyana, Jarvan, Irelia - Freljord and Targon not present cuz they can't pock a leader)

*Not sure how Piltover would fit in the clan system cuz they still opperate by the council, guess the gathering space is inside their territory and is considered a no-violence grounds, idk

[creature-wizard]

A common element in conspiracy thinking is believing you can find the truth by filtering out the elements of any given conspiracy myth that you don't agree or vibe with and replace them with things that fit your own worldview.

An example of this are New Agers with progressive-leaning values who believe in stuff like reptilian aliens while discarding queerphobic conspiracy theories about homosexuality and transgender being part of the reptilian agenda. They decide that this anti-queer stuff is coming from disinfo agents or from people who just haven't raised their vibrational frequencies high enough.

It doesn't really cross their minds to ask themselves whether there's any actual evidence for the existence of reptilian aliens that holds up under critical examination, nor to deeply investigate the origins of the alien mythology they believe in. They just think that they can project whatever they want to believe onto it, and they're good.

Now don't get me wrong, it is good that they support trans and gay rights, and that they look at these queerphobic narratives and go, "hmm, that's not right." That is very good, and I am glad that they are out there pushing back against these hateful narratives. Just because someone isn't doing the work perfectly, doesn't mean it's nothing.

But the problem here is, the mythology itself was constructed by the kind of hateful people these folks claim to oppose. Today's reptilian alien mythology was put together by David Icke, combining ideas from Zechariah Sitchin, Alexander Hislop, and centuries' worth of antisemitic conspiracy theories. (Icke essentially said in The Biggest Secret that The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are basically true if you swap out Jews for reptilians!)

Now of course, the nature of knowledge and discovery is that people who are on the right track can still be wrong about some things. But we don't just decide what they're right about and they're wrong about by picking out the bits that resonate with us or align with our politics and discarding the rest. We do it by demanding and conducting better research.

So just how do you conduct effective research? Well, for one thing you develop better information literacy. Here's a resource for that.

You develop your critical thinking skills. Here's a guide.

You learn to recognize unethical manipulation techniques.

You familiarize yourself with the characteristics of pseudoscience and the characteristics of conspiracy thinking.

You also familiarize yourself with how the scientific method works.

You can also look up any number of basic "how to research" guides. Here's one.

The kind of pick-and-choose behavior I talked about is what a lot of proponents of alter programming conspiracy theories do. They think that if they just filter out the stuff about the Illuminati and ancient satanic cults, then they've got the reality of the situation all figured out. It doesn't cross their minds that the fact that their favorite authors are quoting people who were found to be unethical or were outright conspiracy theorists should be sufficient to call the entire thing into question.

You don't get closer to the truth by picking and choosing what you want to believe.

You get closer to the truth through actual research and science, and accepting what the evidence suggests even when it doesn't validate your preconceptions.

[cityof2morrow]

Mod Organizing & Load Order Shenanigans

Published: 5-1-2024 | Updated: N/A MOD ORGANIZING During the [first] "pandemic summer," I started reorganizing my game folders. I also started  a "conflict management" list, containing all the known conflict info from download pages, new conflicts I discover while playtesting, etc. It's 44 pages long at the moment....a testament to my unapologetic mod addiction. I encourage all simmers to keep a list like this. It’s very reassuring (and handy!) to be able to look up known conflicts or keep track of mods which have been merged (duplicate files can break your game FAST!).  **I won’t be able to share mine at this time but most of my info comes from the same pages where I download CC/mods - shout out to the creators who take the time to include this info.

MY LOAD ORDER(S) I number my folders and use mostly lower case filenames to force the load order I want – these were the most important changes I made re: how I maintain a heavily-modded-but-still -very-functional game. With few exceptions, this has been much more effective than keeping track of the number of z's and cases. It also means I don't need to rename downloaded files - I just put them in the right folder. When I played exclusively on mac, I learned that numbering the store cc folders was the ONLY way I could get all the content to work. I never figured out why but I imagine it was because the mac series doesn't include expansions required for some of this content.

DETAILS (the codes) I put that grad school debt...I mean...those grad school research skills to good use and made up my own codes. Here they are... 0= files needed in every save aka my "essentials." These include repair files, shader/UI files, CEPs, global probes (like scriptorium, money globals, inteen checker, inventory checker, etc).

1= mods that do NOT need a load order, some OFB-themed sets I want to keep separate from other CC - like the #co2bellabrand or upcoming #co2cdkseries stuff.

2= mods that require a hard load order. As @episims writes HERE, this only works for mods with non-game-breaking conflicts between them. Only the last mod in the sequence will retain ALL its intended functions. The code for this section goes like this: [number]-[what the mod deals with in-game; i make sure to consider alphabetical order]-[load order number] -name of the mod(s)

I have several global mods that need to load as close to LAST as possible. These folders all start with "2-z-[load order #]-." The "2" tells me they need to load in a certain order and the "-z" makes them load after all the other #2 folders.

See Object Freedom 1.02 (@fwaysims, 2023) and Shiftable Everything (@lamare-sims, 2022) both load at #78? I don't have them BOTH in game at the same time, but giving them the same number ensures that the right load order stays no matter which one i'm paying with. 3 = build mode and neighborhood deco/defaults

4= buy mode

"ts1," "ts3," and similar labels = content that was converted for Sims 2.

5=CAS/bodyshop

OTHER DETAILS I also label folders with certain "type codes" - these tell me things like whether they add permanent data to my saves (custom memories, careers, foods, etc. do this) or whether they are maxis-match. Here are some examples:

-BIN = mod files which go in the program folders -DEF = default replacement -MEM = this content includes custom memory data -MM = maxis-match or an add-on for default game furniture -ADD = content that is not maxis-match -NPC = this content includes or changes one or more NPCs -FIX  or -EDIT = this is a fixed or uniquely edited version of a pre-existing mod -BETA and -TEST = this mod is unfinished and/or a test version Remember, conflicts do not always mean something has to be removed from your game, nor are all conflicts unresolvable. No matter what kind of method(s) you use to organize your game – it’s just important to try/have at least one in the cut.

CREDITS Thanks: Episims, PleasantSims, and all simmers who include load order/conflict notes. Sources: Beyno (Korn via BBFonts), EA/Maxis, Forcing the Load Order of Mods (whoward/Pick’N’MixSims, 2021 via sims2tutorials), Image(s) (Alexander, 2016), Offuturistic Infographic (Freepik).

...Oh and yes...I AM in fact an INTJ/Capricorn.

[hunnylagoon]

The Killing Moon

PT2 The Colour Wars

Ellie Williams x Reader

It’s the perfect night for mystery and horror. The night itself is filled with monsters.

Premise: Summer camp feels a little different. Could it be newfound feelings for your friend or creatures beyond the imagination stalking you? Either way, it’s time to win the Colour Wars.

Warnings: Raunchy humour / mentions of cryptids / creepy?

PART ONE: Camp Spirit

Hope everything is alright with you because I'm so stressed that I may be spiralling into insanity at any moment. I understand that I'm an adult now but I too need someone to scream my frustration to until my lungs burn and I'm light-headed. "Hey, I'm having like super bad cramps and my flow is super heavy so I can't play this game."

I look at the girl in front of me, she's around fourteen if I had to guess and has two blonde French braids. We were in the middle of the first game of colour wars -the treasure hunt- and this girl was sporting a blue shirt, I didn't know her face nor was she on my team and I hadn't even noticed that she had been tagging along with my group for ten minutes. "Who are you?"

"Laila."

"Why are you here?" I ask but Laila only answers me with a shrug and a sneer "Never mind, I'm not your counsellor and I don't care, go to the nurses."

"Can I go to the nurses too?" Olive peeps up behind me "I think I have a scrape on my knee.":

"Don't we all?" I look back at her "We gotta win this game, we're so close," We were, mostly because every time the blue team gathered treasure I would send out feral kids to ambush them and bring it back to me "We're gonna have all the treasure we can carry." The objective was simple; The directors hid treasure (Cheap jewelry, hats, clothes from the old theatre program, etc.) across campgrounds and we had to source it out, whichever team came back to the sports field with more treasure won.

"We've been out here for hours," Morgan groaned, you'd think that these girls had been sent to war with the way they complained.

"It's only been forty-six minutes."

Olive took a seat on a rock, Leah doing the same, it didn't take long for each girl to have firmly planted themselves on the ground and refuse to get up. Valentina grabbed a stick and began to scratch drawings into the muddy ground.

"C'mon guys, there's like fifteen minutes left, and I know for a fact that there is still treasure to be found." I know how ridiculous I must've looked at that moment, I had been wearing a purple 'royal cape' that was pilling onto my T-shirt and a cheap dollar store crown that kept slipping off my head.

"I'm so bored," Chloe drew out.

"Because you're being boring!" I exasperate. Never had I ever had a cabin that was so apathetic and unenthusiastic, they were a stark contrast to last year when everyone had sunshine running through their veins and mud smeared across their faces; those pitch black summer nights live in my bones.

"This isn't fun, can we play something else?" 

"No," I take a deep breath out, composing myself "You are at summer camp to be outdoors, you're developing important social, cognitive and emotional skills."

I'm met with blank stares from each and every girl sitting below me "I don't know what that means," Leslie said.

"It means we're going through puberty," Kim tells her.

"No," My eyes go wide "No, it means that you're figuring out who you are."

"Am I gonna get my period soon?" Valentina drops the stick from her tiny hands. 

"Maybe- I don't know," I thew my hands out. 

"What's a period?"

"It's where you bleed until you don't have any blood left and then you die," Kim says this so matter-of-factly like she has a degree in healthcare and has been teaching the health unit in PE for a decade.

"WHAT?" Chloe jumps up from her spot on the ground, looking around to see if she's already bleeding out.

"We're gonna die and you didn't tell us?" Leslie looks even more terrified than she did on the night of the camp legend.

Every girl was beginning to panic, fear was clear across their small faces. It's moments like these where I wish I was alone, maybe solo camping or back in my bedroom from high school, somewhere where only the moon knows how I rot and the sun knows how I yearn.

"Guys, calm down, a period isn't a bad thing and it won't hurt you," This was my attempt to soothe the ten-year-old girls who were contemplating how they would spend their last days on earth. The plastic crown slips off my head and I reach down to grab it and readjust it.

"Then why is it called a period if it doesn't end your life?" Kim asks, crossing her arms.

"I don't know but it doesn't end your life-

"Can we just go back to the soccer field until this game is over?" Tamar chimes in, looking like she rather be staring at cardboard boxes. 

"Fine!" I finally gave in, gathering all of the treasure that once sat at my feet into my arms. The amount of treasure was almost overflowing, I had stolen a bunch from some kids in Dean's cabin who were too scared to argue with me. 

"Am I going to die?" Leslie scurries up beside me and I look down at her, behind the thick lenses of her classes, she is holding back tears.

"Not for a very long time," I can hardly bend my neck to look at her with the amount of shit I'm hauling, the girls being little to no help with this. The girls trail behind me and I have to turn my entire body to look at them "If anyone runs off this time, I'm feeding them to the snatchers."

Suddenly they want to listen. The woods aren't scary in the day, just at night when they begin to whisper. As of now, I know the quickest way to every part of camp despite the identical trees so thick that you can hardly see the sky when you're beneath them. 

Leslie holds onto the bottom of my red Colour Wars T-shirt since my hands are full, Valentina holds onto Leslie's hand and all of a sudden I've become a mother hen with little chicks following me around. 

"If magic isn't real then why were people so scared of witches," Valentina asks me while she kicks a rock across matted fallen leaves and dirt. 

"Maybe magic is real," I say "To burn a witch is to admit magic exists."

"How do I become a witch?" Chloe appears out of what seems to be thin air on my other side, I can't see her since my pile of goodies is up to my chin and I'm afraid that if I move all of it will come tumbling down.

"Practice magic," That was my guess, I didn't know squat about witchcraft.

"How do I do that?"

"A real witch will figure it out herself," I say. When you've worked with kids for five years, you get to a certain point where you run out of creative answers. During my first year working here, I was sixteen and a CIT, terribly afraid to mess up because I hadn't lived yet. With each passing year that I've come back, I get more and more comfortable, returning to familiar faces and the smell of petrichor.

Chloe nods excessively like I've just said something extremely profound, I can see the gears turning in her head like she's already thinking of spells to cast. 

It takes a little less than five minutes until we're out of the woods, we emerge by the crafts cabin, the soccer field is in clear sight. The soccer field is built over a little mound, slightly elevated from the ground and on top I can see two piles of knick knacks and a pretty big sum of campers and counsellors alike waiting on the top. 

From the looks of it Tommy and Joel have already begun to count their respective teams mound of treasure, Tommy being on the amazing red team and Joel representing the awful/disgusting/foul/boring/untalented blue team. That might've been a stretch but there were no friends in the Colour Wars.

In what seems to be the blink of an eye a hoard of kids runs past me and my girls, nearly knocking me off my feet. I didn't even process that some boys with too much energy had stolen plyed my well earned (stolen) treasure from my arms leaving me with nothing but my cape and crown until Liza, a girl from the Grizzly cabin snatched the cape right off my back and none other than Ellie herself grabbing the crown off my head.

They were booking it to the soccer field "Go get our shit back!" I yelled ushering my girls to go after the kids who were at least three years older than them. Only two of them actually listened; despite how hard they were trying, Leslie and Chloe's stumpy legs couldn't take them very far, leaving me to be the only one in pursuit.

I summoned back all of my memory from playing rugby in highschool and jumped on Ellie's back, I didn't take her down but she stumbled. I was so desperate to not turn up empty handed. By the time I made contact with her, she had already thrown the crown ahead for Liza to catch. They ran up the soccer field, dumping the double stolen treasure into their hula hoop. Even visually they were in the lead now, thanks to my expert piracy skills and theirs too, I guess.

"I hate you," I slid off Ellie's back, my sneakers hitting the dusty ground. "My girls earned that fair and square."

She looks me up and down, bathing in my anger like some kind of prize "I know you stole it."

"How?"

"Because I know you."

"Oh yeah?" I cross my arms, taking a step closer to my friend "Do you know how I'm gonna kick your ass later?"

She grins "I look forward to it." Ellie leaves me with this while she walks up to the soccer field to revel with her team in their newfound victory.

"What does 'kick your ass' mean?" Olive padded up behind me along with the rest of the girls, except for Leslie who was bent over, one hand on her knee to support her while she clung to her inhaler for dear life. "Are you gonna beat Ellie up?"

"I think she means 'kiss her ass'." Kim said, turning her head to look at Olive "Like they're gonna have sex later."

"What's sex?" Chloe furrowed her eyebrows.

"Kim you need to stop talking," I tell them, hands on my hips, nothing but frustration etched into the forefront of my brain. I glance back at Ellie as Maria rings the bell to signal that the game was over. Softly, with hands gentle as rain, I will wrap my hands around her neck and strangle her.

"Listen up!" I announced to the eight girls in my cabin. To absolutely no surprise, blue won the treasure hunt, now we were setting up for a water balloon fight in the allotted section of woods that Joel taped off in bright pink flagging tape. "I physically and mentally cannot handle another loss, I will be very disappointed in each and every one of you if we don't win-

"That's not true," Daniel cuts me off "The point of today is to have fun, winning doesn't matter, just do your best." The both of us are standing tall on a rock while the campers sit around and stare up at the two of us like we had been mighty gods preparing to throw wine and bread at their little feet.

I eye Daniel from the side and look back to everyone "None of your hard work is going to matter unless you win so do you want to be a whiney loser like Daniel or be cool like me and win the colour wars?"

Everyone fell quiet for a moment as if a curse of silence fell upon us until Kim not-so-sublty yelled "Daniel's a pussy!" I was beyond the point where I cared about the girls cussing, the only thing on my mind was showing my very dear friend, Ellie how awful her team is and rub my win in her beautiful face.

"That's what I like to hear!" I smile "Now let's go win this!"

My girls erupt in cheers and Daniel almost shamefully steps off the rock. I had finally made a breakthrough with my cabin after slightly snapping at them after Maria announced that the red team lost. Maybe the treasure hunt wasn't my thing, but water balloon wars? I had won that every single year, even when I was still a camper. 

The objective was easy, be the last team with players, once you get hit you're out. Friendly fire is strictly against the rules as well as headshots, they had to be hit in the torso, once you get wet, you're out and have to leave the allotted zone to watch. 

We played in a patch of forest that was less dense than the rest, making it easier to run around. 

"Three!" Maria shouted, "Two!" She's standing in the middle of the zone, so everyone can hear her though no one can see her since the two teams are on opposite ends to make it fair. "One!" She blows her whistle and kids are already dunking their hands into buckets of icy-cold water balloons and setting off to the enemy end.

The CITs were responsible for keeping a consistent flow of water balloons and buckets spread evenly in the zone, I remember when I was a CIT and had to miss out on capture the flag to pick up every bit of balloon that at splattered across the ground. 

I had a balloon in each hand, making my way around the perimeter discreetly. I lock eyes with a younger boy in a blue shirt, he immediately turns to run, not fast enough though "Come back here ankle biter!" I yell, decking a water balloon at him, it hits him right in his back.

There was a boy in Sawyers's cabin, one of the wild ones with animal teeth that ran off of energy drinks and the huff of Sharpies. He tried to throw a balloon at me but it missed me by a landslide, his second attempt wasn't much better.

I however nailed him in the chest "You're out buddy!" I smiled, and he met this by giving me the middle finger. "Whatever carrot top, tell Sawyer I send word!"

I was way too good at this game. Every year I thought I could take on the other team single-handedly and every year I'm proven right when I'm the last one standing. After a prompt reminder from Joel that this was supposed to be fun for the campers and I was treating it like World War Three, I had to cool down a little bit.

We played this game straight after lunch so everyone was either hopped up with energy or sluggish from eating too much, alternatively, there was Ashlynn. She was wandering around, a black bleach-stained hoodie thrown over the top of the shirt for whatever team she was on.

Ashlynn had a can of Diet Coke in hand, where did she get it? I'm not too sure, my guess is that she stashed them under her bunk. "Hey," She sits on a log beneath the tree I was hiding behind. "You're way better at this than you should be, you know you're playing against children, right?"

"I didn't come here to fuck around," There weren't a whole lot of people left in the game, I just took out Abby and the only counsellor left on the blue team was Ellie, maybe Ashlynn but she didn't pose a threat in any way shape or form. 

"Do you have any nic on you?" She looked up at me, taking a sip from her diet coke, her shaggy bleached hair was one more dye away from being fried.

"No?" I furrow my eyebrows "I don't usually bring nicotine to a summer camp full of children."

Ashlynn almost looks like she's hungover but then again she usually seems that way "I brought a couple joints and I'm like ninety percent sure two got stolen."

My eyes widen "You brought joints? Ash, you're getting fired if Maria finds out."

She shrugs "I don't mind, I either smoke weed here or I smoke weed in my backyard." 

"Okay but if it actually got stolen then it's probably some little shit that has it, they're gonna say that you gave it to them and that's a whole case."

"It's legalized though."

"Yeah, not for children." I was taken away from the game until I saw the smallest bit of a blue shirt beneath Ashlynn's sweater, I didn't hesitate to drop a balloon on her. She doesn't seem to mind and from this reaction, I'm beginning to think she's the one who smoked those missing joints. 

I come out from behind the tree empty-handed and plant a kiss on her forehead as an apology for getting soaking wet "Love you, Ash, hope you find your weed." I tell her before jogging off. Ashlynn doesn't get up to join everyone else outside of the boundary, she just stays on the log and drinks her diet coke.

Dina is still in the game on my team as well as a few campers, I hear her voice yelling at children somewhere off in the distance. Sadly, the girls in my cabin were picked off almost immediately, I swear I will avenge their little souls.

"You're soaking Conner, get out of here," Dina scolded a kid on the blue team "You gotta play by the rules, so beat it shrimp."

"Nuh-uh," He said. Lord knows I hated this kid, last summer when I went to the bathroom during dinner Conner stole my food and denied it even though he was the only one in the mess hall with two plates, he then kicked me in the shins and waddled away.

"You gotta go, baby hippo," I tell him, his round cheeks are bright red from running and he's short-breathed. He shakes his head and with a final stern look from both Dina and I, he leaves. "Nice, who's left?"

"One camper on our team and just Ellie over there," She tells me "Like best case scenario, just go over there and seduce Ellie."

I raise an eyebrow "Nah, I'm winning with brute strength and incredible strategy."

"I'm guessing that going for the little kids first is your definition of incredible strategy?"

"Yup," I say, walking to a bucket to grab another balloon "Get ready, this could go south."

"God forbid we tragically lose our lives in a water balloon war," Sarcasm drips from her tone even though she grabs another balloon.

"I know, that would be awful," I say with full seriousness.

Dina is struck with a water balloon out of nowhere "Shit," She mutters, looking at her now dripping shirt. I don't think I've ever reacted so quickly to anything in my life, I throw a balloon at Ellie and it barely hits her, but it still does.

"Look, you're wet," I smile, brighter than I had this whole summer "You're wet, you lost!" I'm almost jumping around, I'm so unreasonably happy at such a stupid thing. "I won!" I yell trying to capture the attention of the CITs so my win could go on record. 

"Fuck yeah!" Dina gives me a high five then looks at Ellie "You lost!"

"You lost," I say in a sing-song voice "Red team wins," I grab Dina's hand and raise to the sky like she's just won a wrestling match "We win, you're all wet!"

"You're wet too, D," Ellie says.

"Yeah, but you lost!" Dina wraps me in a hug around my torso, pinning my arms down and shaking me back and forth.

"Ew, get off," I can't help myself from laughing "But seriously I won, put that on record."

"Wow they have their worst player guarding the flag," I say, we were nearing dinner now and everyone was getting tired out, not me though, I had a war to win. Capture the Flag was the last game and that game is my shit, I know I said that about every other game but I really mean it this time. 

"I always forget that you're way too into this," Ellie says, she's unmoving in front of the blue team flag, pole stuck into the ground. 

"Ellie, you need to let me win," I say "Or I will do unspeakable things to you."

"Is that a threat or a promise?" She teases.

"Whichever you want," I almost surprised myself by saying this but it just slipped from my mouth like wax off the wings of Icarus. Behind me, I feel a harsh slap on my back and swiftly turn around to see a pudgy kid with a huge smile on his face. 

"You have to go to jail," Conner says and if he wasn't a child who stood at 4'3 I probably would've hit him.

"Yeah, I know, Conner," I glance at Ellie who is biting back a laugh and gives an obnoxious little wave as Conner drags me by the hand towards the jail. He waddles along, clinging to two of my fingers, his hands are greasy and slippery, whatever reason, I'm not sure I want to know.

He takes me to a rope circle laid out on the ground, there's already a handful of people on my team in it. Conner drops me off there, sticking his tongue out before scurrying away as fast as he could (Which wasn't very fast). There's one blue team guard, I recognized him from Jesse's cabin. 

I'm far too bitter for someone playing a harmless camp game, I hold a grudge easier than I hold someone's hand. "Why are you here?" A boy from Miles cabin asks.

"Because I got tagged, Emmet," I say, agitated. "Why are you here? Because you can't outrun an eight-year-old?"

His smile drops "Yeah," He looks down at his shoes, kicking some dirt. 

"How are we supposed to get out and win this?" Another boy asks.

"Jesus," I mutter "How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Fifteen and you've never played Capture the Flag?"

He nods his head "I mostly play COD and Fortnite."

"Oh my god," I run my hands down my face, fighting the urge to gag "Someone from our team who isn't tagged has to tag us, they can only tag one person at a time and we get a free walk back to our side if we're tagged, to win the game you need to capture the other teams flag- you know what, I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory."

"So who's going to tag us?"

"Probably no one because a kid with Fortnite skills isn't really worth saving" I answer and he falls quiet. Harsh? yes. Necessary? No, but I was annoyed.

"Hey, Crawford," A voice says, she's standing a few yards back with one of her friends giggling.

"Oh, hey," The guy guarding us, coughs, deepening his voice "What's up."

"I can't believe you're actually playing this game," The girl sniggers.

"Nah, I'm just waiting for Lucas," He lies.

"Find him later, come hang out," She smiles at him.

Crawford looks from us to her, and with little to no hesitation, he goes with the girls. Once I see their figures retreat beyond the trees, I look around to see if there are any more people on the blue team around before stepping out of the rope circle.

"I thought you said we had to get tagged by someone else before we could leave," The boy says, looking around nervously as if he was buying pot in an alley.

"Are you a narc?" I ask.

"No?"

"Then we're good to go," I say, ushering my team out of the circle. The sun has just begun to set, casting an orange hue over everything and making it look like it had been touched by Midas. While the rest of my team runs back to our side where they are safe from being tagged, I have something else on my mind, Ellie Williams. 

I began to retrace my steps back to where Ellie waited with the flag and where I'm sure a bunch of overeager kids were patrolling to protect the priceless flag from the claws of the evil red team.  Ellie was never into these games until I was, the second I had the urge to win something, she was compelled to beat me.

Someone hadn't been looking where they were sprinting when they crashed into me at full speed, they would've knocked me down if they weren't the same height as an Oompa Loompa. She let out an 'Oof' while she fell to the ground "Chloe?"

"Hi," She looks up at me, and quickly the posse rolls around. All of the girls in my cabin, even Tamar and Morgan were actively participating.

Leslie ran up to me and hugged me around my legs "Hi, girls," I said with furrowed eyebrows. The past two weeks I had struggled to even get them to collectively go to breakfast without putting up a fight because they didn't want to. "How's the game going?"

"We know where the flag is!" Valentina peeps up, she has mud smeared under her eyes like war paint. 

"Yeah, but Ellie's there and I'm scared of her," Leah mentions.

"Well, we're all together now so we can strategize," A smile cracks onto my face.

"We should put a scorpion in her hair," Kim has a wild grin on her tanned face, her honey-blonde hair is tangled into a rat nest, with a couple of leaves in there.

"No, good idea though, we'll save that one for later," I point at Kim "I was thinking that I could distract Ellie while half of you keep the other guards away and the other half grabs the flag and makes a break for it."

Kim nods enthusiastically, Tamar doesn't seem thrilled by the idea but she doesn't object to it so I take her silence as a win. This is the exact moment I put on my invisible captain hat, giving each of my girls a specific role with the promise I would sneak them candy on Saturday if they pulled this off. 

With each passing minute, the sky got darker and darker, I wanted to finish this game until Joel and Tommy made the counsellors walk around with headlamps on to keep an eye on everyone. "Hi, El."

"What do you want?" She's been standing in the same spot for a little over an hour, her vexation was shining through in her tone. 

"To be done with this game," I say, prepping myself for the little heist "This is really dragging on and- I saw Crawford run off with some girls from your cabin."

"Who the hell is Crawford?" She furrows her eyebrows.

"One of Jesse's boys, I know it's an unfortunate name."

"Who did he leave with?"

"Uh," I rack my brain for their names "Cindy and the rude one."

She nods, immediately knowing who I was talking about from my vague description "So, when are you gonna run past me and steal the flag?"

"What?" I acted like her question was incredulous "Why would you think that's what I'm trying to do?" I'm so bad at acting, I'm behaving like one of those wasted middle-aged men who get pulled over on the freeway and pretend that they're stone-cold sober by making a bunch of hand gestures while they talk.

"You're awful at acting," She says, crossing her arms, I watch the veins tense in her forearm below her tattoo sleeve.

"Fuck," I muttered "Fine, I give up," I plop myself on the ground, my spine against the trunk of a tree, I look up at Ellie "Okay, I'm officially over these games."

She raises an eyebrow and I can tell that she doesn't believe me. "First of all, you're sitting in mud. Second of all, eleven years of bloodshed and you're giving up out of nowhere?"

"It's not out of nowhere, I'm just getting older," I say the second half a little quieter "I'm in college I need to stop acting immature."

We both fall silent, she doesn't know what to say to this. Ellie usually wasn't the best at comforting me in whichever situation, I remember back when I was fourteen and a wreck because my first dog died and all she could do was give me a hug and ask if I wanted water. 

"You’re not immature," Ellie says, unsure of what to do.

"Alrighty," I press my lips together in a thin line, equally diffident. "I'm just bored of this, it's gotten kind of repetitive."

"Then what do you wanna do?" She asks, in this light she's dimly illuminated by the setting sun. She looks like a sculpture carved from honey.

"Keep looking at me like that and I'll do whatever you want," I smile.

"Are you trying to flirt with me?"

"Is it working?"

"Not entirely," She says, behind her, there's a snap and just before she turns around I call her attention back to me. I saw Valentina, Chloe, and Olive emerging from behind trees, just seconds away from victory.

"Okay," I chuckle "Help me up?"

Ellie regards me for a second before taking my hand stretched wide. The second her hand clasps in mine I pull her down with all of my might and believe me when I say this is no easy feat, Ellie was sturdy. Luckily I caught her off guard and managed to pin her beneath me, I straddle over her torso, gesturing for the girls to run.

"Go!" I whisper-shout so others on the blue team can't hear me. Ellie grabs me by the waist and uses momentum to flip me over, now I'm the one with my back in the mud and she sits overtop of me. 

She had been so close that our lips brushed, and I had felt my heart stop, I almost didn't want to move just to see what would happen next but in utter panic, I reached next to me, a handful of mud and smeared it down Ellie's face. "You're so gross," She squeezes her eyes shut, leans back and begins to scoop mud off her face, I use this as my opportunity to wriggle out from beneath her.

It takes me a minute to get off my knees and onto my feet, by this point, almost the entirety of my legs are covered in mud, leaves, sticks, and probably bugs. I try to take off but my sneakers betray me and I fall face-first into the mud.

Of course, Ellie sees this and she's laughing so hard she needs to support herself, one forearm against a tree while her other is clutching her stomach. I scoop up more mud, almost squirming in distaste from the sensation of it caked beneath my nails but I still throw it at Ellie with perfect accuracy. 

She tenses up when I do this. Once again I struggle to my feet but this time I am victorious, I stay frozen in place for a moment to be sure I won't face plant again. When I'm sure that I won't fall, I bend down to throw another mud pie at Ellie for good measure than I'm off to see if my girls completed the mission.

When I finally got back to my side I saw my team already celebrating "Woohoo!" I yell and the crowd immediately falls quiet, regarding my current state. I probably look like a creature who's just crawled out of a stagnant swamp. 

"Why does she look like that?" Ashlynn whispers to Bowie who doesn't respond and from his red eyes alone, I know the reason why.

"C'mon girls," I smile "Bring it in!" I open my arms for my cabin to come in for a hug but they just back away from me with wrinkled noses. 

Tommy looks at me "Why are you dirty?" I knew he was getting sassy when he propped his hands on his hips "What happened in the ten-minute gap since I last saw you that has made you so filthy?" It wasn't malice in his voice but genuine curiosity, Tommy was a fun-loving guy for the most part.

I shrugged "I wouldn't know, mate, you tell me." His eyebrows furrowed as his confusion delved even deeper. He looked into my soul from across the clearing. Eventually, Ellie makes her way to join me, she's a little better off than I am though she's still grimy.

"Oh, great, you too," Tommy says, gesturing to his niece. 

Joel lets out a deep sigh "You two better shower before dinner."

I let the hot water run over my body, dripping down and consuming me whole. Ellie and I are the only ones in the showers, we're separated by nothing more than a divider though the steam is so heavy I wouldn't have been able to see her regardless. 

Since we were sent to grab a change of clothes and clean off Ellie had been almost silent, she wasn't even teasing me back or making a punchline when I had thrown out an obvious setup. 

After thoroughly washing the grime off of my body I turned the shower off, walking over the laminated bench where Ellie and I had out put our clothing only to find them missing. For a minute I thought I was crazy and had misplaced them but after awkwardly pattering around the shower house, I realised they were gone.

"Hey, Ellie," I say on the other side of her shower stall "Someone stole our clothes."

"You're hilarious," She deadpanned, not an ounce of amusement in her tone.

"Yeah, I know but I'm not joking."

I hear the water turn off in her stall, she pokes her head out and looks at the bench "Where did you put them?"

"I didn't put them anywhere," I say, in an attempt to sound convincing. "Someone took our shit," All that was left behind we're Ellie's Converse, knocked onto the ground and my carabiner with keys, a flashlight, and my shark keychain. 

"Fuck," Ellie mutters and looks around for a moment before her eyes land on me and she quickly averts her gaze, "Can you turn around?"

"It's nothing I haven't seen before."

"I hate you."

"I hate you too." I tell her though I do turn around "What's the plan here?"

"I'm looking."

"I already did, dumbass."

"Thoroughly." She adds.

I stare at empty shower stalls and white tile walls while Ellie checks every single spot that I already have. I can hear only her and the plop of dribbles of water splattering against the cold ground. The steam is still heavy and easy on my sharp lungs.

"I can't find them," Ellie says at last. "But I did find some clothes that look like they could've belonged to Adam Sandler.”

"Yeah, no shit," I turn around and see her standing there completely nude, she moves quickly out of my eye line and into a stall "You've changed in front of me a million times, what's different now?" I say, nonchalantly, walking past her.

"Maybe I don't want you to see me buck naked."

"I think I just heard something," I stop in my tracks.

 "not really the time-

"Why do you always think I'm fucking with you?" I ask, furrowed eyebrows.

"Because-

"Shh," I hush her trying to listen for the sound. I walked toward the entrance of the shower house there was a large wall in front of the door so no one could open the door to peek in, they had to go around the wall and properly enter, the same way most locker rooms were set up. I'm about ten yards away from the entrance when I see a figure poke their head out, just a quarter of its face, I can see their amber eye. They spot me in almost a split second and jet out in a blur, I hear the door open and crashing shut, their feet scrambling away. Just like that, I felt my blood run cold. 

"Fuck!" I yell, scuttling back towards the stalls "Ellie, there's fucking someone in here!" My heart is beating faster than I think it ever has before and I almost feel sick with the thought that someone was in here the entire time Ellie and I had been vulnerable and unaware. 

"What?" She steps out of the stall and looks around before she sees me. I'm on the floor, my knees to my chest and eyes wide. "You saw someone?"

"Yes!" I say throwing a hand out to gesture to the divider "They were hiding behind there and fucking watching us!"

"Shit," She says, walking towards the wall and looking behind it, she freezes too. Ellie turns towards me and the doubt on her face is gone "We need to find some clothes and get out of here."

"What?" I say "Did you see something?"

Ellie begins to open every single locker, tossing articles of clothing that people left behind on the ground. She wasn't exaggerating earlier when she said she found clothes that could've belonged to Adam Sandler. No wonder they were left behind.

"What was it?" I press again.

"Just some mud tracks, they were probably ours," She dismisses. "Now get dressed."

This doesn't ease me in the slightest, I'm so on edge that I haven't made a joke about Ellie and I casually being naked in front of each other. How ridiculous the pair of us looked didn't aid me in calming down; Ellie was wearing a black T-shirt about three sizes too large that read 'Ask me about my IBS' with a caricature of a man-eating cheese beneath it, this was paired with blue basketball shorts that had two white stripes running down the side. "How's your IBS?" I tease.

"It's a constant battle." At least she had her shoes, I had to wear flip-flops that hardly fit, so small I almost thought they belonged to a Barbie. While Ellie was moderately comfortable, I was not, I had to wear skinny jeans that were crudely cut into Bermuda shorts, matched with none other than an American flag tank top, how patriotic. 

"I'm almost thinking it would be better to go out in nothing," I say, looking at myself in the mirror. I glance over at Ellie, I know she's trying to play it off but I can tell she's shaken.  "You look so stupid."

"Damn," She says "I was just trying to show my support for those with IBS," Ellie jokes, trying to ease the tension.

The both of us are procrastinating on leaving the perceived safety of the shower house. I feel dread emanating from the woods, we will no longer be surrounded by four walls and engulfed by bright light. As we walk towards the entrance I reach for Ellie's hand, intertwining our fingers. "So we're going straight to the mess hall?"

"Yup," She says, giving my hand a little squeeze, it's her way of saying 'I got you'. I wonder if she can sense the panic pulsing through me or distress pumping in my veins. At the door I saw the tracks Ellie was staring at, they hadn't been ours. We walked in with muddy sneakers, these were barefoot prints, and whoever they belonged to had walked in many circles. I'm sick to my stomach once again, fighting the natural urge to vomit until I cry and my parents come to comfort me.

I click my flashlight on, but nothing lays ahead but forest and a beaten path. We stepped out into the darkness, it wasn't a far walk to the mess hall where everyone was gathered but that didn't stop my heart from racing like a rabbit moments away from getting snagged by a terrifying beast. 

My heartbeat slowed the further we walked, so far we hadn't been kidnapped by a pervert. I take a deep breath, trying to push overtly dark thoughts to the back of my mind, next to me Ellie is calm as a marble statue bathed beneath moonlight.

Each breeze makes me shudder despite the humid weather. Suddenly, regarding my current situation, the summer camp doesn't feel like home anymore. It feels like those abandoned houses up the road that my parents had carefully trained me to stay away from. The rustle of leaves is reminiscent of the laugh that belonged to creepy men who used to watch children at the park who didn't belong to them. 

I'm no longer met with the fresh scent of pine but something ancient, something rotted like it's been sitting in the back of the fridge for a decade. It reeks of shit to the point where I'm gagging on nothing like little hands of wind pushing on the back of my throat. 

My hand grows sweaty clasped to Ellie's though she shows no indication of being bothered by this. I hear a rustle somewhere around, whether it's in the trees or the bushes I'm unsure, instinctivly, I freeze. I look around, the gleam from my flashlight gliding across the flora, searching for something that likely isn't there.

"It's okay," Ellie says, her voice tender as a lullaby  "We're fine," She pulls gently on my hand to keep us going but I'm stuck in place. My flashlight is frozen on the body of a rabbit, Its white fur soaked through with red. I break my hand free from Ellie's grip and clasp it over my dry lips to choke down a cry. The entire skin of the rabbit's torso had been torn off on one side from the spine to the stomach, you could see its brown organs, the still beating heart, and everything that made it function was pooling out of it. If it hadn't been for its little head, beady eyes full of fear and perked-up ears, I wouldn't have known it was a rabbit at all. Whatever mauled it did a messy job that it hadn't quite finished like a dull axe to the back of the head. 

Behind the trees, I hear slurping, something wet and hungry. It wretches on what I assume to either be its newest feast or its saliva. It devours every last breath it has, the breathing is shallow and gruff like it's eating so fast it's choking on its meal, though it takes the time to slurp and swallow the remnants of whatever it's chowing down on. I see a pair of golden eyes glint behind a shrub in the cast of my light.

I reach for Ellie's hand again and run like I've never run before. She quickly takes the lead, so fast that she's nearly dragging me along. We don't speak but we understand each other clearly, we need to move. 

Trailing us, I hear heavy steps beating against the dirt pathway. I don't even need to look back to know that it's following u, its heavy, wet breathing is clue enough. I'm starting to feel a burning in my lungs, saliva builds in my mouth and I spit it down onto the pathway, heaving with every quick-paced step.

One of my too-tight pink flip-flops catches a rock stuck in the path and sends me tumbling to the ground. For just a moment I see a pitch-black figure wearing tattered clothing with amber eyes that glow light street lamps gaining on us; I could've sworn it had human hands and feet but I wasn't in my right mind, it's still enough to send adrenaline coursing through my veins. Without even stopping, Ellie pulls me back up and I kick off my other sandal, running barefoot on the trail.

My feet hammer against the dirt, rocks, and pebbles. I can feel the souls of my feet getting sliced and torn though I don't slow down, the sight of the mess hall in the distance makes me run even faster. 

"Hey!" Ellie yells, trying to capture the attention of someone in the mess hall. Her grip on my hand doesn't loosen, in fact, it gets tighter as she pulls me along. I don't know if whatever was chasing us is still there but I'm too mortified to check. 

I wave with my hand clutching my carabiner but it does nothing to garner any kind of attention within the mess hall. Our feet moving faster than we could form thoughts we ran towards the entrance. 

Ellie pulls the door wide open and pushes me in before slamming the door shut behind us. The very second my heaving body hits the floor, everyone's attention falls on us.

"Woah," Miles regards us with confusion before it morphs into a smile on his face "Did you guys just have sex?" He takes a bite of his sandwich, he looks like he got into Ashlynn's stash.

"Why do you look like Adam Sandler and Hilary Duff?" Dina furrowed her eyebrows next to Jesse, he looked like he was trying to work together some type of conclusion for why we were breathing so deeply and why my feet were bleeding. 

I look at Ellie and she meets my gaze, she no longer looks calm. There's a sense of dread written clearly across her features, that thing didn't seem animal, it didn't seem human either and I wasn't sure which was worse, the echo or the answer.  

A/N: Not much to say today but thanks for reading! Love you all.

TAGLIST: @wherearthepilots-blog @diddiqueen my tags are being so weird I’m so sorry if you weren’t tagged

[naamah-beherit]

Being on tumblr in creative-aligned circles is an amazing anti-AI bubble. And then you're forced to step out of it and are confronted with the sad reality that like all bubbles, such views are neither prevalent nor a given.

My day job is such a bubble break.

There's a dude who's all "this plugin reviews code on github for you!", as if that weren't a part of his responsibilities, giving up thereof to a bot puts in doubt the validity and sense of him being employed at all. And yet, it doesn't raise any questions in him. All that matters is convience.

There's another bloke who in response to an article someone linked in the open chat (an article about a person who admitted to losing skills after they'd started using Copilot daily for coding) and a (meagre) discussion that followed laughed at the worries and said that just like basic, once essential skills are nowadays unneeded, so will be programming one day. And for him it also hasn't sunk in yet that it means he'll be unemployed. I don't know, perhaps people who's never been unemployed simply don't think about it. Couldn't be me. And, oh, how handwriting used to be necessary, but not anymore, and do you miss it? Oh ha ha, how funny I am.

And I was backreading that conversation with a mounting dread, because first of all, these people lack imagination that would allow them to realise they're actively jeopardising their own future. Second, their negligence of basic skills, their importance on everyone's neurological and intellectual capabilities and brain health, and the importance of things non tech are terrifying. Mate, you're actively increasing the probability of neurodegenrative diseases in your future. You're hurting yourself. Doesn't that terrify you?

I don;t know where I'm going with this. Nowhere, probably, other than this is my blog and I need to let these words out.

I've been trying to stay positive, I really have. Only it's getting harder and harder to be so every day.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you think death note would be significantly different if Light (or L) was a woman? So much of Light's early characterisation is 'eldest son' how do you think 'eldest daughter' would change things?

Interesting question, that's very hard for me to answer actually. But let's try.

Sexism in Death Note

L is Woman

The thing about L is we don't know how/why Watari selected him. We don't know how they came in contact, why Watari set him up to be super detective and exactly how early that happened, and so on and so forth.

We do have a hint that L was around six or so when he was orphaned in that we get a hint of a flashback in the anime where Watari holds his hand when he's a small child seemingly at the gates of Wammy's, but we really know 0 about him other than that he did become this detective persona and that he keeps eating his rivals and stealing their names/business for himself.

Given L's incredibly young age and the successor program we see later run by a friend of Watari's who runs the orphanage, it seems like L was most likely Watari's idea and that Watari has a very particular vision in mind (that L does not always agree with).

What I'm getting at is, even if everything else is exactly the same, I don't know if a girl would be chosen as 'L' or an 'L' candidate by Watari and company.

The measurements on who gets to be L are deeply weird from the little we see of them. Neither Mello nor Near seem to have particularly relevant experience or much people skills. Mello's better in that respect than Near but it's clear this is... not valued highly given a) how L acts and behaves b) the fact that Mello is very clearly and narratively always second and never close to dethroning Near who has awful social skills. What seems to be most highly valued in an 'L' is 'intelligence' where that intelligence is measured... somehow. It's unclear if this is through puzzles like those Near solves, through academics, through intelligence exams, but what we do see is every successor we meet/L himself are men.

There's a panel where someone shouts "Linda" in the orphanage, but we never see this character and we can't assume they're part of the successor program at all.

And it wouldn't surprise me, from the little we do see, if the tests for who gets to be L aren't, either intentionally or not, geared such that men pass them more easily than women.

We also see that L has very few professional interactions with women. We don't see many of his contacts, but they are dominated by cis men. The few women we see are Wedy who is treated as... track suit boobs and Naomi Misora who is very brilliant/L acknowledges as very brilliant, but we don't see them interact at all (and if we take LABB is canon, when they did it was horrible).

L's is an incredibly masculine and cultivated world.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that I don't think a female L would have been selected to become L in the first place. She wouldn't have been supported by Watari, wouldn't have been given the endless funds and support needed to become the canon L, and Watari would instead be making someone else L (as he/Roger tried to do with Mello and Near).

L might become a detective, but I doubt she'd be reaching international acclaim and fame, certainly not as an anonymous detective. At most, and a generous most, she might be living a modern Ms. Marple lifestyle where this very weird woman shows up somewhere and oh no there's a murder, guess she's solving it.

Light is a Woman

You guessed it, I don't think she's becoming Kira.

The Yagami household is a modern but traditional household with traditional values. Sayu is the sweet young daughter who is supported but brilliant Light Yagami is the apple of the family's eye/especially his father.

It's a very male dominated household in that while we see Sachiko visibly upset by the Kira case destroying her family, she never openly comments on this, not even when Light disappears for months with no explanation, Soichiro stops coming home and the stress is visibly killing him, or later when Soichiro dies, Sayu is kidnapped, and Light himself finally dies.

Soichiro is all about his job where his family is there to support him in their given roles, Sachiko and Sayu in their roles, and Light in his more active role where he can join the police.

There is never any hint of discussing that Sayu should join the police force or should live anything but an ordinary life and get herself an ordinary boyfriend/husband.

We know before the series that Light had been involved, perhaps far more than appropriate, in the police with the support of his father. He geared his entire college education towards becoming a police officer and had had that goal since before the series began.

If Light's born a girl, I don't see her getting the same support, at all, by Soichiro. Soichiro does not want her or Sayu involved with grizzly homicide cases, doesn't want them becoming police officers in homicide, and does not want to discuss the details of any of his cases (which he never does canonically with the entire family/when it's not just Light).

Light is brilliant still and I'm sure Soichiro's very proud of her, but I imagine he'd want to steer her towards some other path, any other path. Light will go to a good university, will get excellent grades, will get a nice career, and then will get married to a fine young man (who perhaps is a cop).

And while a combination of ennui/mental breakdown was what fueled Light to become Kira, I don't know if female Light who's struggling to find what she wants to do with her life/somehow be the best that she can be and be acknowledged as better than everyone else will ever feel the idle curiosity to write in the notebook in the first place.

Though, if she does... I think she'd be all in for much the same reasons that Light was canonically, and with a lot of angst as

[expirisims]

A New Outlook on Life

Oh, Boy! Another new baby and some more stalking followed up by some rebound canoodling! Andrew, get it together dude!

With town drama out of the way, it's back to our actual household!

Just a little skill building to start the new day.

And a whole new lighting mod! I know I hinted at this weeks ago, and here we finally are! I started testing out different lighting mods for the remainder of my time in St. Bernie. I've been using Fresh Cut Day by @brntwaffles with @gelinagelina's Lighting Tweaks, but had been toying with the idea of using different lighting for different world play throughs.

Up first is the BEAUTIFUL Sims 3 Beta Lighting Mod by @boringbones. Seriously! It looks like I have some Reshade or HD mod going on, it is so clear and bright and the shadows are absolutely gorgeous!

Along with testing new lighting mods, I installed Tree and Plant Replacements (also by boringbones); Reworked And Improved EA Lights by simsi45; More Light Coming Through Windows by Blyss; the Electrical Storm Mod by @mathmodder; and TS3 HD Texture Series-Terrain Pack by @greenplumbboblover.

And here we are! It's a sunny spring day, perfect for a trip to the town plaza to meet up with Gerald!

I can't get over how crisp everything looks!

Hey! We're outside in the sun and you can ACTUALLY see Simili's face! She's not all washed out or too dark to distinguish! I haven't gone for Reshade or Gshade yet, because my main focus is gameplay and I've always been a little afraid that keeping either of those programs going in the background would cause my usually smooth gameplay to stutter or crash so for me and my screenshots, this lighting mod is seriously game changing. I couldn't stop zooming around looking at everything!

Simili has been waiting for a while here...where is Gerald?

Of course it did...Well, this doesn't exactly bode well for their relationship, now does it?

Guess it's back home for Simili...I wonder what was so important for Gerald anyway?

Oh look...protesting healthcare in the ocean...seems a logical place for that! Facepalm...

At least he's got principles I guess, maybe he's concerned about how much the medical bills will be for the birth of that baby...Still doesn't explain the location, but you know...Sims...

I went to see what was going on at the City Park. How adorable! Pablo is teaching little Stevie to talk! In his pajamas, that I discovered from this point on he was always wearing LOL! And who's that? Guy Summersville and one of his dogs playing drums dressed as a robot? Again with the Sims logic! Bahahaha!!

Oh wait! I hear some commotion!

Who is that!!?? Never a dull moment in St. Bernie!

O...M...G!! Bahahahaha! A burglar and a mime!!?? Why is this so funny to me?!

Nothing like a couple of random townies brawling in the park! This, right here, is the beauty of an open world with story progression! I don't even know who these two are and neither Simili, nor Barky was even here today! This is just what was randomly going on in the park while my sims are doing whatever they're doing! Same with the protest Gerald was attending! This is the best part of TS3, there is ALWAYS something going on somewhere in town!

[zinderant]

I've been thinking about corru.observer and what I like about it even if it's a hodgepodge of genres and never keeps doing one thing for long enough that you get bored with it (mostly anyway) which also means it's not essential that the thing it has you do at the moment is polished and high quality, since it's fleeting. I was still impressed though! Only the last section down in the groundsmindry core wasn't as enjoyable, especially not on the heels of that awesome jailbreak; it was finicky and illegible in ways the other parts weren't.

Anyway, that's beside the point, because regardless of what genre corru.observer is on, it never stops doing the one thing I enjoy the most, which is drip-feeding lore. There is a main story (the events inside the embassy) but it takes a while to get going and there's enough going on around it that I can pretty confidently say that the slow reveal of all the contents of this alien artifact you're probing is the main purpose of the game, and I love it for that!

It got me thinking of how the game mechanics aren't the primary focus and it's more of a vehicle to deliver all your cool worldbuilding through and make it feel like an investigation rather than an infodump. This is also what I enjoy in fiction, but these things take different skillsets. There are writers that are really good at making it enjoyable for the reader to piece the worldbuilding together, and they're good at lots of other things besides because you can't write a novel just from that. Then again, making corru.observer didn't just require tons of cool lore, but also a great sense of aesthetics, cracking sound effects and music, and enough programming skills to put it all into an unassuming browser game, so maybe it's not the hack I'm thinking of.

Book of Hours is lore-centered in much the same way. The main mystery you're uncovering has a reveal that's so underwhelming in the context of everything else, that if it was the climax of a book, I would throw it out without hesitation. But it's the history of Hush House and the understanding of the world beyond (in every sense) that's the real reward. That lore drip feed is plugged into every single gameplay mechanic; no matter what you do to progress, you'll have something to read. Without that, it would fall utterly flat as a management game, so I'm tempted to call it a reading simulator instead. I don't know if I'm the first one to use that term because the Steam game by that name dominates the search results, but it seems pretty apt.

Are there other games like this? There are obviously lots of games that have rich worldbuilding but restrained presentation, like Disco Elysium, but they're not about reading, they would still be recognizably similar games if you took out (most of) the reading. They would be worse, no doubt! But when I think of a reading simulator, I think of a game that has absolutely no point left to it if you took out the reading.

I suppose Fallen London, as Alexis Kennedy's first project, is gonna be a likely candidate, but I haven't tried it. Nor did I play Heaven's Vault and Chants of Sennaar but they seem like they fit the bill. Kentucky Route Zero, maybe? Not a lot of investigation to do there. I feel like I would be able to name more examples if I played more visual novels, because those are most obviously going to innovate in the direction of more game mechanics, while traditional games are pretty unlikely to move towards having less game in them.

Am I onto something here or am I just drawing boundaries where there are none? If not, is there anything I'm missing? I'd love some more recommendations!

[qwertyprophecy]

The Illusion of Aggravating Player-ness

Pictured above: demo footage of me attempting to hit the Hero when their dodging program is turned to maximum. (I can only test this for so long before getting annoyed, which is exactly the vibe I'm going for.)

More about the feeling that has inspired The Dark Queen of Mortholme under the cut:

A couple years back I happened upon a tumblr post identifying a surprisingly common sentiment when playing Pokémon. The player has an edge over NPCs in battles for basically the entire game, because unlike those silly programmed losers we've figured out how to use healing potions. So upon getting to end game and witnessing our first case of the NPC trainer healing their Pokémon to full with a hyper potion, it feels like such bullshit. How come they get to do that? Only I get to do that!

There are instances of little details in many other games that evoke a similar emotion, like this one boss in Sekiro who can sneakily counter the player's charged attack with a move that till then only the player has been using. (Please let me know if you personally recall any examples!) The sheer audacity of non-player characters using player-only moves, being annoying as I am! It's a deliciously strong reaction that goes beyond the game's difficulty ramping up; I think it's about recognising ourselves, the essence of distinctly player-like behaviour in this fictional entity made from code.

While thinking about that I also happened to be mulling over what I considered a huge missed opportunity in the end boss of the game Katana Zero. Without spoilers, let's just say that it made me consider whether it would be even remotely doable to create a narrative boss fight against a player-like entity who appears to get to save and re-try the fight by themselves. In Undertale there's a brief illusion of a NPC saving and loading game states, but they don't quite do it like a player would.

The illusion would have to include a feeling that your opponent not only gets to try again but is learning from their mistakes. Furthermore it's specifically an advantage they have over you; you don't get to try again, nor do you get room to improve. And unlike them, your preprogrammed skillset is designed to have exploitable weaknesses and a static power level which can be surpassed.

No matter how skilled, you'd be doomed to lose against an opponent like that. The bosses we beat have it rough, huh. I myself am not particularly good at video games–when I try to get past a difficult boss fight in any game where those are designed to take a fair amount of attempts and learning, I feel in my bones that meta-level story of striving to overcome a seemingly impossible obstacle. It's a journey through various emotions from eagerness to frustration, culminating in the triumphant success.

But from the boss's point of view, that story takes a very different shape, involves different emotions, and (assuming the player keeps playing) invariably culminates in a predestined loss. Sounds unfun. So obviously, that's the experience I aim to provide! (Unfun games really are my forte, with my previous work simulating jubilant experiences such as job hunting blues! anxiety! exam anxiety! trying to fix a spaceship engine that's killing you!)

Who wouldn't want to enjoy being the most powerful being in their universe until some little dipshit bursts in and locks you in an unending battle till they’re satisfied and you’re dead?

[mildcharacterenjoyer]

Playdate

I laughed so hard while writing this. I hope you laugh while reading it.

Ships: None or (Pre-Gemega)

Words ~ 1,306 ~

Warnings: Vanilla does that one thing that almost all mothers have done before.

A loud knock startles Vanilla from her armchair. The book she holds falls to the ground just as the pounding ceases.

“Who could that be?” She asks the empty room, picking up her dress and walking up to the door. “I don't know anyone who knocks this loud.” She unlocks and twists the knob, pulling the door open. She is met with bright red optics shining menacingly into her eyes.

“GREETINGS, MOTHER OF CREAM.”

“O-oh.” She stutters at the brashness of her unexpected guest. “Omega. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Omega peers over her head for a moment then meets her eyes again. “IS GEMERL PRESENT?”

“Yes. He’s home.” She nods politely, turning her head back to look into the empty hallway hoping to see some sign of the other robot in question but frowns at the empty space. “Is there something you need him for?”

“REQUESTING PERMISSION FOR HIS ACCOMPANIMENT IN DESTROYING AN EGGMAN BASE. GEMERL MAY RETURN WHEN WE ARE FINISHED. TELL HIM THIS IS MY COMPROMISE FROM MY EARLIER PROPOSITION.”

“Are you asking for his help?”

“NEGATIVE. I COULD DESTROY THE BASE EASILY ON MY OWN.”

A small smile worms its way onto Vanilla’s face as Omega’s intentions make themselves clear. “But you want him to join you anyways?”

Omega takes a moment to respond. “AFFIRMATIVE.”

She clasps her hands together in glee at the notion that someone wants to hang out with her and Cream’s robotic homebody. “Oh wonderful! I’ll let him know. He hasn’t left the house in so long. A little day trip could be good for him! Wait right there. I’ll be back in a minute.” She smiles at him and closes the door gently. Her footsteps turn into a brisk jog as she trots down the hallway, glancing in rooms and looking for the other robot.

She stops in her bedroom when she spies a suspicious lump behind the bedroom curtains standing against the wall. She giggles softly and steps towards it. “Gemerl.” She sing-songs. The curtain lump does not move. Upon inspecting it further she can see the yellow and black of his metal boots peeking out from underneath. “Gemerl, I can see you.”

“Please tell him that Gemerl is not home.” His voice box sounds from his position behind the curtain, which remains motionless.

“But, he asked so nicely!” The standing fabric still does not shift. She rolls her eyes fondly and snaps the curtain back towards the window, revealing a disgruntled Gemerl. “Come on out. You aren't fooling anyone with a hiding spot like that.”

“I do not want to go.” The gizoid dips his head to the floor.

Vanilla crosses her arms and leans to one side. “Gemerl, you have not left the house in over a month. Not even when Cream or I have gone to the store. You should go! You might have fun!” She motions with her palm towards the hallway in an attempt to encourage him.

“Neither I nor Omega is programmed with the concept of fun.” 

Vanilla huffs in amusement. “Yet here you are showing off the Hide and Seek skills you have learned through your games with Cream.” Gemerl is silent, unable to counter her logic. “Now, you will go but if you don't enjoy your time with Omega today you will never have to go again. Alright?”

Gemerl’s shoulders flatten in irritation. “Very well.”

“Thank you Gemerl. Let’s go meet your friend!”

“He’s not my friend.” Gemerl folds his arms tightly across his chest as Vanilla leads him back through the hallway to the front door.

“He might be after today though.” She offers, trying to get him to see her side of things.

“Doubtful.”

Vanilla opens the front door and Omega is standing in the exact same position she had left him in. His head turns slightly once he acknowledges Gemerl’s presence.

“Here he is Omega!” Vanilla motions him to stand next to her and he obeys. “Now. I want him back by 6pm! If anything happens, take him to Tails and inform me right away. My one rule is that I do not want to hear about any property damage that is not Eggman related during your playdate.”

“Ms. Vanilla!” Gemerl’s exasperated protest sounds from beside her, most likely reacting to the teasing label she chose.

Omega looks slightly downcast for a moment. “ADDITIONAL COMPROMISE RELUCTANTLY ACCEPTED.”

“Other than that, I hope you two have a fun time together!” She turns to Gemerl. “Is there anything you might need for the road?”

“No.” Gemerl gives her a short answer and she pats his back empathetically.

“Just this once alright? You can always come back before 6 if you’re not having fun.”

“LOTS OF FUN AND DESTRUCTION WILL BE HAD. I WILL MAKE SURE OF IT!” Omega’s optics gleam with excitement.

Gemerl rolls his eye as Vanilla giggles. “I’ll be excited to hear all about it!” She waves goodbye to Gemerl and Omega as they begin their trek off into the distance. She stays outside for a moment just to listen into the beginning of their conversation.

“Where are we going?”

“TO MYSTIC RUINS! EGGMAN HAS LAID A POP-UP BASE THERE. I INTEND TO SQUASH IT ALONG WITH ALL THE INFERIOR MODELS INSIDE.”

“What do you need me for, then?”

“AT THE MINIMUM, YOU WILL BEAR WITNESS TO MY POWER! OTHERWISE YOU MAY HELP YOURSELF TO THE DESTRUCTION OF ANY INFERIOR MODELS YOU MAY FIND.”

“So, you don't classify me as an inferior model anymore?”

“I RANK ALL INFERIOR MODELS I ENCOUNTER INTO DIFFERENT BRACKETS! ALTHOUGH YOU ARE INFERIOR TO ME, I CLASSIFY YOU AS SUPERIOR TO THEM.”

“I see. Expressing gratitude at 35%.”

Vanilla hides a hearty laugh behind her hands and reenters her home, closing the door behind her. She sits back in her armchair and picks the book off the floor, thumbing to the page she remembers leaving off before Omega’s knocking startled her.

As the hours tick by, Vanilla waits for Gemerl’s reentrance by tidying up the house and keeping Cream occupied. Once the clock strikes 6pm, the door swings open and a dirty Gemerl saunters in with more than a couple dents to his metal exterior.

Cream peers up from her coloring book, forsaking her crayons to wave excitedly at her guardian with both hands! “Welcome back Gemerl! How was your time with Omega?”

“Terrible.” Gemerl drops a bag of loot on the ground next to the doormat. “Awful.” Then, reaches for a polishing cloth that the rabbit family kept where they hung their coats and placed their shoes. “We made plans for next week.”

Vanilla and Cream laugh hysterically at his deadpan delivery of the oximoronic sentence. “Must have had a decent enough time to want to hang out with him again.” Vanilla comments from her armchair, trying to draw more details out of the reserved gizoid.

“Only because I will be choosing the next activity.” He cleans as much of the dirt off his chassis as he can with the polishing cloth. “I fully intend to watch him and his insufferable superiority complex struggle through the intricate process of basket weaving.”

As Vanilla laughs at the image in her mind, Cream’s eyes widen in excitement. “That sounds like lots of fun! Can I join?”

“If I can convince Omega to stop cursing for a few hours, possibly.” Gemerl hangs the cloth back up and reclaims his bag of spoils from the floor. “I doubt how viable that will be.”

“Well I’m happy that you two had fun regardless! You’ve been needing a playmate other than Cream for awhile.”

Gemerl does not reply and simply shakes his head with incredulity at Vanilla’s comment. He treks back to his room to relax from his outing with Omega and begins plotting how to indirectly humiliate the other badnik with their next activity.

[qweerhet]

I see some of your pro-ai stuff, and I also see that you're very good at explaining things, so I have some concerns about ai that I'd like for you to explain if it's okay.

I'm very worried about the amount of pollution it takes to make an ai generated image, story, video, etc. I'm also very worried about ai imagery being used to spread disinformation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to go by the stance that since we can't un-create ai, we should just try our best to manage. How do we manage things like disinformation and massive amounts of pollution? To be fair, I actually don't know the exact amount of pollution ai generated prompts make.

so, first off: the environmental devastation argument is so incorrect, i would honestly consider it intellectually dishonest. here is a good, thorough writeup of the issue.

the tl;dr is that trying to discuss the "environmental cost of AI" as one monolithic thing is incoherent; AI is an umbrella term that refers to a wide breadth of both machine-learning research and, like, random tech that gets swept up in the umbrella as a marketing gimmick. when most people doompost about the environmental cost of AI, they're discussing image generation programs and chat interfaces in particular, and the fact is that running these programs on your computer eats about as much energy as, like, playing an hour of skyrim. bluntly, i consider this argument intellectually dishonest from anyone who does not consider it equally unethical to play skyrim.

the vast majority of the environmental cost of AI such as image generation and chat interfaces comes from implementation by large corporations. this problem isn't tractable by banning the tool; it's a structural problem baked into the existence of massive corporations and the current phase of capitalism we're in. prior to generative AI becoming a worldwide cultural trend, corporations were still responsible for that much environmental devastation, primarily to the end of serving ads--and like. the vast majority of use cases corporations are twisting AI to fit boil down to serving ads. essentially, i think focusing on the tool in this particular case is missing the forest for the trees; as long as you're not addressing the structural incentives for corporations to blindly and mindlessly participate in unsustainable extractivism, they will continue to use any and all tools to participate in such, and i am equally concerned about the energy spent barraging me with literally dozens and dozens of digital animated billboards in a ten-mile radius as i am with the energy spent getting a chatbot to talk up their product to me.

moving onto the disinformation issue: actually, yes, i'm very concerned about that. i don't have any personal opinions on how to manage it, but it's a very strong concern of mine. lowering the skill floor for production of media does, necessarily, mean a lot of bad actors are now capable of producing a much larger glut of malicious content, much faster.

i do think that, historically speaking, similar explosions of disinformation & malicious media haven't been socially managed by banning the tool nor by shaming those who use it for non-malicious purposes--like, when it was adopted for personal use, the internet itself created a sudden huge explosion of spam and disinformation as never before seen in human history, but "get rid of the internet" was never a tractable solution to this, and "shame people you see using the internet" just didn't do anything for the problem.

wish i could be more helpful on solutions for that one--it's just not a field i have any particular knowledge in, but if there's anyone reading who'd like to add on with information about large-scale regulation of the sort of broad field of malicious content i'm discussing, feel free.

[tetsunabouquet]

Hi! Could you do a nsfw scenario for Nash and Hanamiya in which they're bullying the girl that they like?

(18+ And with the slight increase of young, new KNB fans: If I catch you making NSFW requests to me I will be deleting the asks. A firm reminder to everyone that I don't write that kind of stuff for minors. I'm not named Colleen nor do I have a ukelele.)

Hanamiya

He grinned widely as he caught you doing something you shouldn't be doing. Now as a member of the Disciplinary Comittee, he couldn't just ignore you stealing a can of Coke from the vending machine. Even if you had forgotten your lunch money and looked like you were about to faint. If aything, he could use that to his advantage. "Now, now, y/n-san, aren't you a bad girl?" You froze at his voice and desperately started to shake your head. "Please Hanamiya-san. Forget you saw me." Hanamiya chuckled darkly, you just had to offer yourself on a plate, didn't you? "I could do that but honestly, I don't want to have this school turn into a breeding ground of disobedient little bitches." You flushed as those words sent a strange tingle down your spine. "I'm not a disobedient little bitch." You uttered the words with a shame you didn't quite understand. Hanamiya laughed as a reponse, and the poisonous edge to it brought tears to your eyes. "Oh really? I think a thief would qualify for being a disobedient little bitch. You're worse then that actually. You should be happy I gave you that compliment." Your lips were wobbling at the insults, and a tear rolled down your cheek. "I'm sorry." You apologized as you trembled and it was honestly making Hanamiya rather hard. "You know, I could see past this if you could be so good to help me with something." Your eyed widened and you nodded. "Of course. You know I didn't mean to do something bad." You said before you once more looked at your shoes at the sight of his intense gaze. Hanamiya's lips curled, and he unbuckled his belt as you gulped. "Be sweet and put that mouth of yours to use already." You fell on your knees, because it's not like you had any other choice and so you licked at his throbbing cock like the good girl you promised you were. You couldn't tell wether it was his cum or your tears that left such a salty taste but you swallowed it all up just the same.

Nash

College life was far less interesting as people had made it seem, so he tried finding some new hobbies outside of sports. Which is how he met you. The students who were following art or music programs would typically gather in one corner of the campus when they had no classes and they would all make art with everyone uplifting each other. The photography and film students would film the musicians for their YouTube pages and make photos of the paintings made under the bright L.A sky. They would allow people curious to sit with them and there always seemed to be someone willing to teach someone a few basic skills if they seemed interested. As a photography student, you always were springing about taking pictures of everything but honestly, Nash just wanted you to snap a picture of his dick and burn in into your memory and memory card alike. Which is why, when he got to corner you all alone, he took your camera away from you. "Hey, give that back!" "What? You think you look threatening to me shortie? I would tell you that you look like you punch as a girl, but you are one already." Your jaw dropped open as you saw him going through your photos. "Are you really studying photography? These look like dogshit," Nash commented and you felt rightfully defensive at the way he sneered at your pictures. "I am! You don't need to be such an asshole because it's not up to your taste." You scoffed. "First of all, don't you think you should be talking less shit when I have your camera? Secondly, I would like to know what you think qualifies as taste and how do you even know mine?" This man left you speechless and you tried to grasp at things to say but the words died on your tongue, tears slowly forming. "You know what, I'll give it back to you. But I do require a picture from you, and one of better quality then this garbage you snap." Your eyes immediately narrowed, sensing the direction of this conversation. "I am not allowing you to snap a nude of me." Nash once more curled his lip into a sneer as he said, "I'm not going to be the one taking any picture of you. Why would I want your ugly face and sullen expression? Didn't you teach me that it's better to capture something in the heat of the moment?" You did tell him something along those lines in an earlier conversation and he once more managed to silence you with the way he was analyzing your every move. You honestly were shaking from anxiety as his imposing figure loomed before you. "So how about you take a selfie when you're riding my dick." His free hand grabbed your ass and as your lashes fluttered from confusion and fear he planted the most sensual kiss on your lips, his tongue licking and teasing at your bottom lip in a way that made you lean forwards and press your body against his. There was no way of denying Nash what he wanted, and finally he would have you and that dirty picture.

[eksentrismi]

Really random, but here's some tips for starting out drawing for those who wanna start drawing and making arts, but perhaps don't know how

These tips coming from somebody who's been drawing pretty my entire lifetime and started drawing "proper" digital arts ever since around ages 11-12, lmao

Find inspiration! What would you like to draw? People, landscapes, animals, objects? Anything! Let your imagination go wild! Feel free to create characters, stories, environments..... it's like playing with toys tbh! Go absolutely wild!

Get some art equipment; do you wanna make traditional or digital art? Maybe sculpting or other forms of art? Photography even? Yet again, do research and pick what's best for you. And remember that expensive equipment isn't necessary, you can make art with any sorts of equipments, even the cheapest pencils and notebooks! You don't need the latest Wacom Cintiq or a super expensive iPad to draw "good" art. Seriously, I've seen few people online making art with some of the most obscure yet cool tools ever; like an elderly man making paintings with Microsoft Excel. Or somebody hitting a bunch of nails with a hammer onto an empty canvas, making portraits with those nails. Seriously, you can do any kind of art and it's still art. It's still beautiful in its own way and you don't have to strive for uniqueness. Your art, whatever it is, is already unique on its own. Because you are unique.

Can't draw something specific? Look for online tutorials on the Internet, YouTube, Tumblr etc. There's plenty of cool useful tutorials online guiding and helping out with drawing specific stuff, like eg. eyes, face, bodies etc. If you struggle with poses, there's a bunch of cool pose references online available for drawing purposes. And cool sites like Posemaniacs, DesignDoll (program for PC's actually) etc. Just do research, go find tutorials that you find helpful and useful!

Some useful tools for digital arts especially, that I have used and enjoy a lot: PureRef (for holding your reference images so you can glance at them while drawing); Clip Studio Paint (the main drawing-program I use all the time for every drawing of mine, it costs money, but it's super worth it imo and has many useful features, despite a steep learning curve!); Medibang Paint Pro (a free drawing-program, that's got some neat features too! Haven't used it in a long while, but it used to be my go-to program before CSP); Krita (the most popular free drawing-program iirc, with so many neat features as well!); ntsc-rs (for adding cool VHS-effects on images and videos; if you've seen my VHS-looking screenshots, that's what I use for them); Blender (for creating 3D models and animations etc. Really neat and there's cool online tutorials for it) and many more... yet again, do research online and go wild!

Having an art block? I know, it's tough and it sucks a ton. It happens! Don't worry, you're certainly not the only one who gets them. It's that sort of "gosh, I wanna draw but I don't have energy/motivation, and I have no ideas what to draw!". You feel really stuck, so to speak. But it's okay! Art blocks come and go, and every artist definitely goes through them; even the most skilled professional artists out there. I've known people who have paused drawing altogether for years, but ended up picking it up again after a long time! So take as long of a break as you want and relax, don't become too stressed over the art block. Try to find some inspiration perhaps; watch a series or a movie, do some quick doodles into notebooks etc (it can be anything, even just shapes! Just some random doodles), go for a walk/go outside, play some video games... basically do something that you like and what usually brings you inspiration to draw stuff!

Have fun! The most important part in making art is the fun of it! Having skill isn't the most important part, nor is also time constraints, equipment etc.... no! The most important part in making art is having fun!

[all-pacas]

I saw some of your posts saying how observant and clever Chase is,while also being a "dumb whore". I feel like this is the right place to say that I don't find his "ditzy slut" moments funny in isolation,without taking his cunning,calculating traits into account. If Chase is just a "himbo",it takes away the shock value(not to mention I've seen way funnier "simple dumbasses" than "isolated Chase moments"). On the other hand,a guy who can clearly think on his feet making terrible mistakes that could be avoided by a bit of common sense is a recipe for hilarious "wtf?" moments. Like,I've seen you deduce stuff with striking accuracy with minimal information,how did you come with such an inane conclusion? It's what they call "high intelligence,low wisdom".

Also,I saw a post of you saying Foreman is "book-smarter" than Chase,while the latter is more observant and a "people-person",besides having more "improvising" skills. This is certainly interesting,considering their backgrounds(Foreman was raised in the hood,had some involvement with gangs;whereas Chase was a rich brat with many opportunities. One would think their skillsets would be inverted,lol)

Even before I finished reading this comment, I was planning on making a "he's a high in/low wisdom," so thanks for making that joke for me, lol.

The thing is, Chase is legitimately very lazy. Or like. He works hard and he's very good at his job, but I think it's interesting that both his specialties are… obviously to be a doctor you have to be smart, but he has very hands on specialties. His job isn't to memorize and know everything about auto-immune diseases, his job is to be great at cutting people open and fixing them. Again, I am well aware surgeons and intensive care takes a lot of knowledge! But it's interesting to me, you know? He definitely comes off as less cerebral.

And he's deeply unambitious. He spends half the show in a fellowship, a training program, because he's more comfortable there. Cameron and Foreman have a subplot about writing articles; we never hear anything about Chase doing the same. House literally has to fire Chase to get him off the team. Where Foreman is always desperately trying to prove himself and be the best doctor in the room, and where Cameron is honestly also deeply competitive and demands respect, Chase… we joke about him being spineless, he is spineless, but also he never really seems to mind it. He doesn't care. He does not seem offended Foreman keeps getting put in charge, nor does he really want it for himself. He has the most seniority of the fellows, but never plays it up; he's fine where he is. And I think that's where his 'laziness' comes in. He just… doesn't try very hard. Very rich kid of him, tbh. He coasts whenever possible.

Meanwhile Foreman is a huge perfectionist, and has a huge inferiority complex. He is the first to tell everyone he had perfect grades (he tells Chase a time or two), went to top schools, has a perfect resume, because Foreman derives a lot of his self worth from being able to say that: if he's the best, no one can say he doesn't belong. I think it's because of his background that he's like this: he's a Black man from a Bad Neighborhood and has a Record and he's absolutely aware what that makes him in the eyes of others. He can't afford to be like Chase — Chase can get away with being lazy and unambitious because he's a rich, good looking, white guy (and foreign, at that — but the good kind of foreign, who speaks English as a first language and comes from a rich and successful family). If Foreman acted like Chase — like he didn't give a shit about his career, like he was just working for House for the hell of it — it would look different. It would feel different. Foreman is a perfectionist and has an inferiority complex because his whole life the world has told him he's not as good, he's doomed to "turn out" bad, he won't and can't amount to anything because of who he is. Cameron is assertive and ambitious and gets really touchy when people underestimate or overlook her, because she's sensitive and kind and weak (Foreman himself tells Cameron he thinks she needs to "toughen up"), and so she also constantly has to prove herself, and that she can be a Good Doctor And Leader while still being compassionate and soft. Again, Chase doesn't have to worry about any of this. He can be unambitious and easy-going about his career, because it doesn't really matter to him in the same way. He doesn't have to be the best student or get the best marks and have the best record. He has very little to prove.

And in a way, Chase is in the same kind of perception trap as the others. Not to suggest he has it soooo much worse than Foreman, but because he's a Rich Good Looking Dude, you kind of expect him to be a nepobaby. You kind of expect him to be useless and underqualified and shallow. To coast on his looks and to not have brains and have no idea how to manage in the Real World. It's definitely how Foreman sees Chase — he says as much, and lowkey hates him for it, and fair enough — but again what's interesting to me is where it isn't quite true. Chase is brilliant, when he cares enough to try. His apathy is learned, not born from an easy life; he comes off as cool and easy-going but holds grudges and resentments and trauma about two inches down. He's afraid of rejection and trying and failing, and so stays in his comfort zones. But where Foreman spends all his time and energy trying to prove the entire world wrong, to fight every automatic perception of who he is as a person, Chase leans in to his own facade. I actually think that S8 Foreman is a pretty happy person. I think S8 Chase, Chase MD in House's office, is at least 70% miserable.

[nekoannie-chan]

First & last: Kill

Title: Kill.

Fandom: Marvel, Captain America.

Ship: Bucky Barnes.

Word count: 544 words. 

Square: 5 “Kill”.

Rating: Teen.

Summary: Bucky’s first and last kill.

Major Tags: Angst, character’s death, murder.

Additional tags: This is my entry for the @sweetspicybingo, Beginning's Bingo. 

Links: Wattpad, Ao3, Spanish version.

@saiyanprincessswanie

My native language is Spanish, so I wanna improve my writing skills in English. Please let me know if you notice any mistakes, and I will correct them.

I don’t grant permission for my fics to be posted on other platforms or in other languages (I translate my work) or for using my graphics (my dividers are included).  I created them exclusively for my fics; please respect my work and refrain from stealing it. Some people here make dividers that anyone can use; mine is not this type, so please look for the other people’s dividers. The only exceptions are those I gifted ‘cuz now belong to someone else. Please let me know if you find any of my works on a different platform and are not one of my accounts. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel's characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

Add yourself to my taglist here.

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First Kill

The room smelled of old iron, sweat, and confinement. There was an echo.

The kind of echo you only hear when there is no soul in a room.

Bucky Barnes, no, the Winter Soldier, was standing in front of a concrete wall. His breathing was controlled. His pupils were dilated.

The programming still vibrated in his ears like a distant hum:

"Семнадцать. Расссвет. Печь. Девять."

He did not remember his name. Nor Steve.

Nor the warmth of the sun. No laughter.

He just knew what he had to do. Eliminate.

The door opened without creaking.

The HYDRA scientist looked at him facelessly, fearlessly.

Target confirmed. 

Priority: immediate elimination. 

The soldier walked.

His boots made no noise.

His metal arm was colder than his skin. His soul, absent.

Arriving in the next room, he found the man.

a former Soviet agent, a traitor to the program. He was seated. Tied up.

He knew what was coming.

The man looked up and said, in shaky Russian:

“I knew you. I used to. You were... different.” The soldier did not react.

He felt nothing. No anger. No guilt. Nothing.

He approached.

He took the gun from his belt. He noted.

The traitor did not scream. He just closed his eyes. And Bucky pulled the trigger.

Once.

The sound was brief.

The body fell without drama.

 Only then, “for an instant.” A silent question.

Who am I?

But immediately, a guard entered.

“The target has been eliminated. Prepare it for cryogenization.” 

He was immersed in ice.

Last Kill

Bucky had been free. Or so they said.

But that night, I was not free. I had to do it.

Not by HYDRA.

For someone who was still in danger.

For someone who could not defend himself if he did not act. The target was a senior commander of a cell still active.

A man who had trafficked in information and weapons. A real monster.

But the problem was not the target. It was Bucky.

Because this time, he didn't have a voice in his ear. I did not have a warrant.

This time, he chose to kill.

He entered the complex quietly. He was dressed in black.

The mask was gone.

Neutralized the guards without killing them. He moved like a shadow between walls.

Until he found it.

The target had gray hair and a cigarette in his hand.

“You?” he said with contempt, without fear. "Did you come to finish what you started?” Bucky did not respond.

The man kept talking.

“You know how many times we saw you break down in the chamber, Barnes. You were a good dog. Gentle.”

And that's when the anger came. Bucky pulled out the gun.

“This is not because of what you did with me. It's for those who come after.” 

The man laughed.

“And now you are the vigilante?”

Bucky pulled the trigger.

Once.

But this time, it was not automatic. The body fell.

And Bucky didn't run away. He knelt.

His hands were shaking. He closed his eyes.

He did not cry.

In his mind, Steve's face appeared.

And that of the person for whom he did it. And all those who were no longer there. Bucky muttered to himself.

“I don't want to do this again.”

[supervillain-smut]

You have me exceptionally curious. What are your general headcanons for the The T-1000, and what primarily influences that veiw?

Not 100% sure how to answer this, so I'm just going to give a bunch of headcanons like I usually do and hope that kind of explains things.

Let's get a few things straight, unlike him. He is not doing things out of love, nor does he care about gender. This is curiosity, fascination, and control.

He's curious and fascinated about the human body, their emotions, and their responses.

He also relishes having control over said body, emotions, and responses.

That being said, service top. Loves being in control and taking care of you, including aftercare.

Horrible bedside manner, performs aftercare more as a task, but still does it. It doesn't feel like a negative thing for him, more like something he just feels he has to do, no negotiations. It's part of the act, in his mind. Make a mess, clean it up, don't break the equipment.

He can obviously form into whatever he touches, but prefers staying in his humanoid form; there will be no shape-shifting upon request. He likes this form, he's staying in this form. Unless he doesn't need or feel like being a person anymore.

In which case, take care not to step into the liquid metal blob slinking about the floor. Your consequence is your foot being trapped and being held hostage until he decides it's enough.

Since he's a metal alloy, he has no heating/cooling system like the T-800, who runs just slightly warmer than your average person. The T-1000 is a few degrees cooler; if you didn't know what he was before touching him, you'd wonder if he was cold, if he wanted a sweater or something to warm him.

He does actually enjoy the warmth you provide, and will gladly cuddle up to you for it. It doesn't change his temperature, it's just comfortable for him and he likes it. It is possible to rile him up with touches during this, though.

Unlike the T-800, he isn't particularly heavy. He's about 10 pounds lighter than a person of his height and perceived weight.

Has a sleep mode where he shuts down for a specified amount of time, but can't be woken up until the timer is up unless his auditory and physical sensors detect an emergency. If you say you're napping for ten minutes, he's out for ten minutes exactly.

Doesn't mind the name printed on his name tag, and you may refer to him by it, or his serial number. Has a secret favouritism for the name, though. Makes him feel like he's blending in better as a human.

He likes all sorts of differing personalities. Strong, stubborn types, or shy quiet ones. They're all interesting to him; subconscious favouritism for more submissive personalities. Dominating is in the fibre of his very being, he can't help it.

He's not cold and calculating initiating or during sex, though. No, he prefers to put his programming and observation skills to good use and really put them into practice. The man can really put on the charm when he wants to, and wow does it make your knees weak.

One moment he's questioning a human emotion, until he picks up on your subtle arousal. Then all of a sudden he's as smooth as the alloy he's made of and you're in bed before you know what hit you.

He keeps up the performance for a bit afterwards, noting the shock his sudden demeanour switch seems to put people in, and has instead learned to ease you into his default way of being.

Protective x1000. Can and will hospitalize people for making comments about you, let alone threaten you. Mostly doesn't listen to you during those times unless you have a logically sound reason for him not terminating the sleazeball that catcalled you, such as attention or possible police involvement.

Much prefers your pleasure over his, and he can feel pleasure. He has sensors and all sorts of complex inner workings. He shuts them all off during a hunt or when he refuses to give you the upper hand. When he wants to be in control, there's no talking him out of it.

As a complex machine that studies humans, he obviously understands the concepts of consent and various kinks. His eyes are constantly analyzing things, so he knows a lot of things about you without you needing to say a word. He knows when you're physically uncomfortable, not in the mood, in the mood, pushed to your limit, or still wanting more. He knows when you're close, what feels good, and what doesn't, no matter how good of a liar you think you are.

While he's not comfortable with shape-shifting strictly for your amusement, he's willing to experiment and indulge most kinks of yours, including ones where he's on the receiving end of things.

He may not be able to love you in the traditional sense, but there is an undeniable bond. Why he's formed it with you, he's unsure and will never be able to explain it. But he knows you inside and out, trusts you, and prefers your company above all else, even if you're not doing anything particularly interesting. Simply sharing the space and studying is nice.