#I'm not bothering with typos

[duelpawn]

Just came bsck from my second ER visit in less than a week and they injected me the most painful thing I've ever had in my body. I love having OCD!

[greyias]

Oh look, it seems everyone has been opted into the unfortunate "experiment" now. For everyone who has been blissfully using the old UI up until now, welcome to hell :)

Do you not like hell? Do you want to leave and crawl back up into the sunlight of the old UI? Well, have I got a link for you! A beautiful tumblr user (who is not me) has gone and fixed things beautifully for you already: https://github.com/enchanted-sword/dashboard-unfucker

You will need to have Tampermonkey installed on your browser of choice, and once that's done, just go to the github link above, and peruse the readme to install. And voila! You have your old dash back!

The authors of XKit Rewritten said during the experiments that at the time, since this was an "experiment" they weren't going to implement anything to revert to the old UI (although who knows if they'll do it now). And the dashboard unfucker has worked beautifully enough for me to where I genuinely couldn't tell if they had ended the experiment or not.

[souvenir116]

Charles being sassy for 39 seconds:

all vids are from Clara 🤍

[laser-tripwires]

alright, R3 trailer analysis time. strap in.

y'all thought i was kidding about doing a shot-for-shot breakdown of this thing? i wasn't. let's go.

alright so we open on hardison walking down a hallway, tossing his phone from one hand to another (some things never change), looking up, and unlocking a door. from the jump, this is interesting - hardison is very present in this trailer, but we know from Aldis's recent comments in interviews that he's not going to be in this season a ton. i'll talk more on that later.

he opens the door to find parker hanging upside-down over a display case holding a small golden owl - we see later it's the target of their heist. she tells him not to trigger the floor alarms (once again, some things never change). we cut away before we can see hardison's reaction, but given as Sophie has the owl later on in the trailer we can infer that things went within some measure of fine.

exterior shot now, of what looks like the louvre - the alarm sounds could be hardison setting off the floor sensors but i honestly doubt it and i think we can chalk it down to trailer editing; again, given as we see them attempting an on-foot exit with the owl later on in the trailer, i think what goes wrong isn't the owl stealing but is something else. we'll refer back to this image a good few times as the trailer goes on.

so, what does this tell us so far? a few things. one, they're in paris, which means that so far this is from the pilot episode - parker and hardison are dressed as waiters, put a pin in it. it's very likely that this is right at the beginning of the show, and the trailer is going to stay with this plotline for a while. right now, i'm very much just recapping what's shown on screen here, but that'll change as we start throwing in more elements and stuff to chew on. stay with me, this post is long, and this is just part one.

okay, so, cut to a grey bakery van speeding down the street. which immediately raises some questions - we know from the mastermind job that the team do have brick & basil trucks in paris. this is either a stolen vehicle for a getaway or there's something else going on.

sophie, eliot and parker are inside the truck. sophie's wearing a blue suit and eliot's in a dark checked shirt and black tee - again, put a pin in it, we're gonna be using outfits to pinpoint down some stuff as the episode progresses.

then, eliot says "We gotta find a way out of Paris, now." - which again confirms to me that this is from the pilot episode. i didn't go to electriccon, but i'd bet any amount of money that these outfits are the same as the ones they were wearing in the opening scene of R3x1 shown there.

i think it's really interesting that eliot says they need a way out of paris - not france, not this car chase. he doesn't say they need to lose these guys or that they need to get out of the country; apparently, whoever's chasing them is looking in paris specifically.

cool wing mirror shot of the dudes chasing them - black cars, guns, shooting, bullets bouncing off of the back of the crew's truck. oh boy. dunno about y'all, but these guys do not look like museum security to me. couple more shots of the car chase next, which i ain't posting here because quite frankly tumblr's image limit already wants me dead.

we're on a public road and france has pretty damn strict gun laws - narrows it down to law enforcement (no uniforms, no insignias, so possible but unlikely), organised crime (afaik we've never pissed off anyone in the wider paris area, but it doesn't rule it out) or private security. they're probably private security.

parker swerves, while sophie and eliot get thrown around. once again, some things never change. we get the start of a line from parker in the audio. i'll talk about it in a sec.

it's from here that, for me, this is going to imminiently all stop being straightforward. welcome to the next several thousand words of your life, entitled Lottie Bitches About Trailer Editing.

we get a better look at the guys shooting at them, now. definitely not law enforcement - but those are leather jackets and jeans rather than the nice pressed suits that RiZ and their ilk likes to put guys in. whoever this is, they're either ameteur (unlikely), organised crime (again raises the question of "who") or well trained and trying to blend in (raises questions about the firefight in the middle of a street). the team are in trouble.

but i'll also point something out - we can see from the angle here that these dudes have handguns. to quote everyone's favourite murder encyclopedia: "A handgun is unreliable over the distance from the street."

whoever these guys are, if they're trying to take out the team, they very probably weren't expecting their attempt to escalate to a car chase.

now, we see parker saying the line that started in audio a few seconds back - "This was supposed to be a quick little weekend heist." she's in the same outfit and appears to be in the same truck, so this is from the same episode, but those of you paying attention will have noticed the sudden apperance of a hardison directly behind her, and some white sheet thingies that weren't in the last shot. this isn't in the same immediate continuity as what we've just seen.

given as we see in a few secs that hardison was in the back(?) of the truck during eliot's lil fight scene, i'm imagining this line is from after eliot's done his lil fight. it's a great example of the kinds of trick edits we're about to see a lot of throughout this trailer, and if you weren't paying attention you'd think this would be one continuous scene.

next is more of the car chase. car chase is car chasing. i'm remembering the S5 and R2 trailers - speeding vehicles make for good television, apparently. makes for fluff for my post, though, and image limit. so. i'll just say that we didn't see roadworks on the last wideshot we got, so confirms that this chase is long and covering some ground. seems like a basic thing to point out, but as we've already seen with that parker line - trailer editing is deceptive. that's why i've been stating the obvious so much; the more baseline reality we can establish, the stronger a foundation we have for when the trick edits get worse later on. i told you this post would be a lot of me bitching about trailer edits.

alright, eliot awesome time now! and our next line: "Drop me off." he's still in the front of the truck right now, provided that bit of webbing we see next to him is the same bit of webbing we can see behind parker and hardison for the 'quick little weekend heist' line. so this probably - probably - comes imminently after the 'we need to get out of paris' bit earlier. i have no idea what he's lifting here - some kind of sack or cardboard box? unclear.

we hear eliot say "This won't take long." it's in VO - but probably continues on from the last line. trucks stops, cars pull up. notable that the dudes leaning out the windows with handguns are now inside the cars, assuming that this comes after that bit of the car chase, which i think it likely does. pretty reasonable to assume that the next bits are all in order.

black screen, punch dude into car door, black screen. fun trailer editing for emphasis! this goon is wearing a beanie and a similar black jacket to the other guys, though his isn't leather. given the door he's stepping out of, it's likely that he was the driver who we couldn't see in the previous shots.

BADASS CAR SLIDE. this dude is one of the ones we saw shooting earlier - and, fun fact, this was the first screen any of us saw for R3. last filmed scene; most of the show was filmed in order with the pilot first, but some of the stunt stuff takes longer so they just gave up and flew everyone out to belgrade for this bit specifically, given as the electric entertainment folks had to be there for filming The Librarians: The Next Chapter anyway. if you go looking i think christian still has a video up on his facebook with the stunt coordinator from when they wrapped this.

another black screen then, because trailer editing. gunshot sound effect but we see that eliot's fine. still on the same dude here but a few seconds later in the fight, eliot slams him into the car. dude falls, fade to black, and then we cut to eliot opening the truck door (presumably just after this fight, given how haggered he looks) and we get what's easily the funniest line in the trailer from hardison: "There's my special little guy. How was your first day at school? Did you make any friends?"

...and a facial expression from eliot that i can only describe as 'dammit hardison'.

cut back to our louvre image, now in red and surrounded by some other pictures (we can see the eiffel tower, a skyscraper that turns up later in the trailer, the nola headquarters and a river i can't quite place yet) - this red and teal blue seems to be the colour scheme for all the promo this season. text sliding of "The Team Is Back" turning into "The Scheme Team Is Back" - first time i saw this i was expecting us to go into a bunch of different team nicknames, but we don't. which makes this interesting, because we haven't ever heard that moniker for the crew. i like it, it's cute!

from here, the trailer changes slightly and we go from an almost-chronological throughplay of the pilot into an avalance of clips from the season as a whole. means my job gets a lot harder. but on the plus side, cool titlecards for everyone! this is actually the most we get to see of random miscellanious episodes, so make the most of it.

first up, sophie! blowing out some kind of insence match thing, wearing a hippie-style denim dress reminiscent of tara's outfit in the future job. doesn't exactly narrow down what the grift is, because this kind of personality will be of great use in many circumstances, but means we're for sure in for a fun ride.

next up is parker and this is where stuff gets complicated.

there's a number of things here. one, parker's sniffing money - obvious, adorable, once again some things never change. two, she's in a blue waistcoat and shirt with a red bowtie, which we'll see her and hardison in multiple times throughout this trailer, making the second distinct plotline we can kinda almost follow.

the question of when in the show this is from is up in the air - but, given as among other things that stack of bills parker's got her nose in appear to be €200 notes, i'm currently guessing it's also the premiere. we'll keep looking back for this as time goes on. with the exception of some scattered clips, there really doesn't appear to be that many episodes mixed in to this trailer. i'm reminded that the s2 of a show called The Ark, an electric entertaiment show that came out last year, mixed up basically only the first three episodes and the finale for it's trailer (with again the exception of some scattered clips). we know hardison is in the premiere, episode two (put a pin in it) and probably the finale. i'm going to keep coming back to this because it's by far the most interesting question in this trailer, and luckily also one that we'll probably get an answer for relatively soon.

nothing unusual in the next few shots.

we've just a grumpy eliot in his natural habitat of punching people in what appears to be a kitchen. like sophie's, this isn't an outfit we see elsewhere in the trailer so we can assume it's from one of the as-of-yet-inscrutable midseason episodes. the apron eliot's wearing has a fleur-de-lis on it, meaning this is either in france or nola and because of the aforementioned non-reccuring of this outfit with the information i currently have i'd say it's just a random shot from some episode down the line.

next is bree, bree, my darling bree. we do not get enough of her and harry in this trailer (explained partly by electriccon peeps telling us that the two of them aren't in at least the opening of the premiere episode). nice to see she's still got the ace sticker on her laptop that she had last season.

then harry, playing what looks to be pool or snooker in a dark room. we see later on in the trailer that the team has installed a red games table, so it's likely that like breanna's titlecard this is at the nola headquarters. i'll be honest, when i saw this i almost reflexively ticked off the "harry does a terrible accent" square of my bingo board.

it was at this point when writing this post that i hit tumblr's image limit for the first time, and realised that that was going to be a problem. last and certainly not least of the title cards come hardison - in the same silly blue waistcoat thing as parker. we're going to come back to this exact shot later with a dialogue line, so i won't say much on it now.

cut to hardison at a briefing saying "We fix things," and a reaction shot of the crew, which we can tell is a straight shot reverse shot because of sophie's shirt. hardison's line continues on in VO with: "We stop bad guys nobody stops." behind him, we can see two headlines, one that's presumably 'lawsuit to be heard in court' and another that's 'activist strikes [...] blow for local [...]'. standard briefing, with the glaring exceptions of the fact that A) hardison is basically begging here - no reason for a big speech like this unless he's asking them something extremely important and B) eliot's in an arm sling. put a pin in it, we'll come back.

the next couple of shots are a blowoff and a seemingly unrelated moment of parker and harry saluting to someone offscreen.

the bad guy getting put in a car by some cops is actually the moment in this trailer i'm the most confident on. poster in the background says rio de janeiro, which is interesting. a while back, john rogers said on social media that they did an episode on water shortages in central/south america; i'm betting that's this dude. in terms of what episode, the premiere has a credit for "rio pedestrian", but given as that seems to be solidly set in paris i don't really know. cool that my stalking of a showrunner's bluesky has for once provided some useful foresight, though.

now for parker and harry here, which seems to be disconnected from our previous shot. harry's in his regular lawyer suit, but - as many people have pointed out - parker's costume here is extremely reminiscent of her MiB look from the first contact job. even the same hair. it's a cool look. she and harry are also saluting, which just raises... so, so, so many questions. i'm open to any theories or ideas people have for this - personally i'm just praying for another top secret government agents con.

alright next up is the most solidly baffling sequence of editing in the entire goddamn trailer, according to me. i'm taking this a little bit out of order so i can explain properly.

so, wideshot, eliot and harry playing pool/snooker (seriously someone tell me how to tell the difference) on the new table. breanna's talking, i'll go into what she says in a sec when i move into talking about the con. we cut from there to harry and sophie and then to bree putting some stuff on the screen (pin. it.) and then to sophie wondering what she's going to wear.

now.

notice anything?

bing bing bing! that's right, the random sophie and harry reaction shot has harry and sophie in completely different outfits than all the surrounding shots. why? fuck you! no idea. i did say that this post would be mostly me bitching about trailer edits. see why i made a whole point about establishing baseline reality? yeah.

right, let's talk now about the stuff breanna throws up on the screen, because it's some of the most interesting shit in the trailer:

"The scum of the scum," huh? we've got location markers on five dudes here - one unknown, one in transit maked over nola, and then guys in paris, montreal and karachi. paris, makes sense. nola, makes lots of sense. montreal and karachi? we've never so much as mentioned either of those cities.

this is clearly a breifing from some episode that we don't have a whole lot of information on. the dude located in paris makes me think it's somehow connected to the pilot episode, but i couldn't tell you how.

next shot, a sign saying mumbai airport, and sophie stepping out of a car in a blue summery dress in front of an airplane hangar. given as mumbai isn't really anywhere near any of the cities the bad guys from a second ago were hanging around, i'm willing to bet that this is an entirely different episode. we do come back to it once or twice throughout the trailer, though, so keep your eyes peeled.

right. the next sequence is A) important and B) fast, so i'm going to tackle it all in one block.

we've got a wideshot of a skyscraper with what looks to be the golden gate bridge in the background (making me think this is san fransisco, though it could just be a generic bridge). from there, we zoom in through the windows to parker dancing through some red lasers before reaching a keypad and pulling her balaclava off with an "I'm in."

now. a few things.

one, we've only seen red lasers once, and we've only seen parker run a solo break-in in a balaclava once. both happened in the inside job - the lasers in archie's flashback, and the balaclava as the episode opens. obviously, those are both aesthetic things, and given as parker's talking on her earbud we know she's probably with the team here. but it for sure pings my 'this is from a parker episode' spidey senses, especially given as - with the singular exception of that very crucial flashback - all the laser tripwires we've seen in the leverage franchise so far have been blue.

(oh and so i don't forget - @independent-fics sent me an ask saying that this scene looked like it was in the nola HQ, but i honestly think that's just them using it as a filming studio. won't be the first or the last time, and the zoom in from the skyscraper sure implied this was an external con. sorry.)

right, so, we've almost reached the bit of this trailer with actual. y'know. themes. i told you we'd come back to that hardison shot i skipped over earlier!

"I don't wanna do this anymore."

"You don't wanna crime anymore?"

and just. wow. yeah. so, we're in those blue waistcoats - meaning once again that i think this is either episode one or the finale, though e2 is still also a possibility (i'll explain why later). that's the same safe parker was standing in front of for her titlecard, so i think this probably takes place a few seconds prior to the liberation of those euros from earlier.

i wish we saw hardison's response to this. we're setting up a proper big arc for parker this season, from the looks of it. the question of retiring is one hardison's answered before - he's gone on record saying he never wants to get married, could never retire. i reckon that those things might both have changed, especially if the electriccon folks are right with the proposal spec. given as we do see parker happily pull that money out not long later, whatever he says can't be that devastating. i guess we'll find out.

but, speaking of devastating...

"I don't like watching someone I care about take punches meant for me."

now. before i dig into the meaning of that - and i will, i'm trying to analyse as well as summarise here - let's just look at the facts of the scene. given the outfits and the fact they're in headquarters, i think this is pretty soon after hardison's breifing that we saw earlier. because it's thus also probably the start of an episode (or possibly the end of the premiere?) that again narrows us down to pilot, e2 (THE PIN IS THERE I WILL GET TO IT I PROMISE) or finale. i'm saying e2 at this point, tentatively. depends on if we see eliot being injured or not.

oki-dokey, time for the analysis. i've had quite lengthy conversations about this with both @ghostlyarchaeologist and @aardvaark (and plagurised said conversations heavily in this section), and we're all kinda coming to the conclusion that... well, yeah. let's look at it from eliot's side: he didn't expect to live this long. no-one expected him to live this long.

i'm remembering the drop in sophie's face after the big tearful til my dying day thing in long goodbye. she knows eliot's gonna die for them. eliot knows it too. he's okay with that, he's not happy with it but it's as good an ending as he can hope for. and now we're over ten years later and "I'm afraid there's no such thing as a fair fight anymore." no-one can take him out. eliot knows how good he is but the truth is that he's goooood. and he's lucky, and he's smart, and he's surrounded by loved ones. he could grow old. this doesn't have to end on the wrong side of a bullet or a punch or a knife.

but in order for that to happen, he needs to let himself rest. which he won't, because there's always more to do. maria's right - he thinks that as long as there are bad people doing bad things, he doesn't deserve to be happy. maybe that's not how he consciously would explain it, but it's sure the rulset he's been living off for the last while, since we ticked over some imaginary expiration date. and it sucks, even if he's not really wholly in the wrong.

you noticed now that we're briefly cutting back to the first fight scene we saw, with eliot against the goons in paris and an unfun looking punch in the gut. if this brief montage is intending to show causality, then it again implies that this hardison scene is at the end of e1 or sometime in e2, especially given the following scene being our blue waistcoats again, and my current bet that those are premiere outfits. for something more fun, have hardison failing a vulcan nerve pinch:

i love the incredulous look on the guy's face. not how you do it, hardison! we can see parker breaking into a safe in the background here (or possibly breaking out of the room they're in?) and luckily for our overenthusiastic trekkie, eliot swoops in once hardison's down.

note: the arm eliot's using here is the one that doesn't end up in a sling. if my guesses are right about the ordering of all this and this is e1 with hardison's breifing being end of e1 or the beginning of e2, then this makes sense with eliot's arm injured in a preceeding fight. although, again, with nothing solid to tie the blue waistcoat continuity to any other scenes, we can't know for sure.

"Seriously dude, you try the Vulcan Spock thing again?"

"It's gon' work one of these days."

(not if you do it like you just did, it won't.)

and with that, i'm going to finish off part one here - there's a minute left of the trailer but i'm a little bit sick of dodging around tumblr's image limit! we've still got a lot of ground to cover, including a truly ridiculous number of parker awesome moments and a few returns to a lot of stuff we've already covered so far (i promise i will take out all those imaginary pins).

endless thankyous to everyone who chipped in with help and theories and rubber ducking and more than a few sanity checks - @lindseymcdonaldseyelashes also deserves a mention because any time i'm citing electriccon i owe my info to her. part two can be found here. i've been lottie, my main is @the-tomorrow-road, and you can follow me here for endless streams of leverage crazy. the con is on!

[shinobus-left-eye]

(Belated) Happy Valentine's Day, @frogglettes! Sorry for the long wait, I'm your secret valentine for @valensemblestars hehe >:3

ShuNaruMika are out on a dress up date... for their nuis! (Madonee is taking a break)

Oh? But it looks like a certain couple is spying on them too... 👀

[banditblvd]

Tango doodle because I'm in love with drawing him actually and I think I should draw him more

[turtlecleric]

bay!donnie x female reader, angst/hurt/comfort; technically nsfw but this is not a spicy fic

ah fuck. cws: negative thoughts? negative self-image? I... think that's all?

---

Truthfully, you should've seen this coming. Work has been hard lately. You've been feeling a little down and a lot stressed out for a while now. Tired all the time. That negative voice in your head speaking up more frequently, other people's words cutting a little deeper than usual. Amplifying the negative and brushing past the positive, letting things get to you even though you know sometimes your brain is a lying asshole.

So, really. You should've known. You should've said something. Something about how sensitive you're feeling. How normally you love a good mixture of degradation and praise but right now you really, really need him to stick with praise. You should've said something. 

But you didn't. 

The tears come suddenly. The dull ache in your chest sharpens, like a shard of glass, wedging itself between your ribs and pressing in further with every inhale. You feel like you're not getting any oxygen at all, your lungs seizing as your breaths quicken. You can't- you can't breathe. 

Just a stupid fucktoy, Donnie had called you. And normally you love that. Normally that's perfect - you've come to the sound of those words plenty of times before. But now…

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. A stupid fucktoy. That's all you're good for, isn't it? You can't do anything right except be used. But, oh, you can't even do that right, can you? Because now you're crying, and he's stopped using you. He's stopped, and you're truly useless now, and you're so so fucking stupid. 

He calls your name. Takes the gag out of your mouth. Gently wipes at the tears streaming down your cheeks and asks if he's hurt you. If he went too fast, if you weren't fully prepared. If you want him to stop. 

You can't speak, but you shake your head. 

“Dove, what is it? What's wrong?”

Nothing. Everything. You. It's just you, you're what's wrong. You're wrong and useless and stupid, and you can't breathe. 

“Hey, hey, you're okay. It's okay, here, come here, it's okay.” 

He's holding you. Cradling you to his chest as you sob like the pathetic thing that you are. When the soft cuffs that held your hands behind you are released, you can't help but cling to him and bury your face in his neck. The sounds you're making are so ugly, so whiny, and you- you hate yourself. Fuck, you're pathetic. He's murmuring sweet words, brushing a hand up and down your back, trying to soothe you. He’s kind, and gentle, and you…

You don't deserve it. 

Donnie is confused. You can tell he is, and you want to explain but at the same time you don't. It doesn't really matter, though. You wouldn't be able to make yourself speak even if you did want to. Everything is too much right now, and you still can't breathe, and you're starting to feel sick to your stomach. 

Stupid. Why are you so goddamn stupid?

You cry. And cry. And cry. Muscles stiff, face swollen, you're miserable and exhausted and fucking mortified. Donnie was feeling good. He was enjoying himself, and you ruined it with your tears. Ruined it. Stupid girl, you ruin everything. 

You try to apologize. It comes out garbled, but somehow he understands. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Dove. You've done nothing wrong.” Donnie presses a kiss to your hair, still running a hand up and down your back. Soothing, kind, gentle, he's everything. And you don't deserve him.

Time passes. Sobs turn into sniffles, which start to come farther and farther apart. When you finally go completely quiet, he's still murmuring sweet words into your hair. 

You feel sick. Tense. Nauseous and shaky and gross. Inside and out, you feel wrong. Hollowed out, scraped clean of everything except this ache in your chest that won't go away.

Stupid. So fucking stupid. 

Donnie moves, still cradling you close with one arm as he leans forward and reaches for something. A blanket is draped over you. You hadn't even realized how cold you were, but the relief is instant. Your muscles start to fully relax, and you find yourself melting into his hold even further. 

He presses another kiss into your hair. “What happened, my love?”

You swallow thickly, glad that your face is hidden in his neck. You don't want to tell him. It feels so- so stupid. For you to have reacted like that. For you to be so affected by nothing. You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. Nothing, nothing, that's all you are. Nothing. 

“I'm going to list some things. Just shake your head or nod for me, okay?”

After a moment, you nod against his neck. 

“Did I go too fast?”

You shake your head. 

“Did I hurt you?”

You hesitate for a moment, then shake your head. There's a stretch of silence where you swear you can hear him thinking, analyzing your hesitation.

“Was it what I said?”

You should nod, but you can't make yourself do it. There's a thick, heavy anxiety there, keeping you from confirming even though you're not sure why. Donnie understands anyway, because of course he does. He's perfect, and kind, and smart, and you're just so-

His arms tighten around you. He doesn't say that you should've told him you were feeling down. He doesn't say that you should know better, that you should know that he doesn't mean it and that it was just part of the fantasy. He doesn't say any of that, because he understands. He understands, as he always does, that what you need is for him to keep murmuring kind words into your hair. To keep gently caressing your skin, holding you like you're something precious. To combat the venomous thoughts that are holding you hostage.

He understands. 

It's okay, Dove. You're okay. Everything is alright. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, okay? You're not stupid. You're not whatever mean things your head is saying right now. You're perfect, and I love you so much. I love you so much, Dove. You're perfect just as you are, okay? My pretty girl. Right here with me, where you belong. You're so good, sweetheart, so good. I've got you. 

His words are like a balm on your soul, and you drink them up greedily. Holding onto him like he's a lifeline - because he is. He is. 

The tears come back. You can't help the ugly keens, the way your body shakes. Through it all, he holds you close and soothes you inside and out in the way only he can. 

Not stupid, Dove. Smart. Kind. Brave and capable and good. You're so good, and I love you so much. I love you, I love you, I love you-

You'll never understand how he does this - how he makes that feeling of wrong wrong wrong fade away. But he does. The sharp tangle in your chest is unraveling, and you're finally able to breathe and actually feel like you're getting oxygen. You're so grateful, and you're so fucking lucky, and you love him so much. By the time you start to drift, with his soft voice echoing in your ears, both you and the keratin you're resting against are warm. 

Later, when you wake, fully soothed and capable of speech once again, there will be more to talk about. But for now, Donnie holds you. Soothing you with his voice, his hands, his everything. And you finally, finally let yourself rest. 

[moonchild-in-blue]

The difference in tone between Emergence and the other two singles is so jarring when you listen to them back to back. On one second you're ascending to the 9th realm with Miss Gabi Rose's sax solo, on the other you're clutching your chest on the floor like a wounded animal of prey. Fun stuff.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Splatoon OCs be upon ye!

Alright, beloved mutual reminded me I needed to post my Splatoon OCs a while back before my art improves enough for me to be embarrassed about it. I finally finished the last drawing I needed to do sooooo. . .

Lore under the cut!

(First off, note that I've only actually PLAYED Splatoon 2 and have had to cobble together the plots of the other games from watching challenge runs and fanfics)

Meet my agents! They are fully OCs, because while I occasionally care what canon and marketing materials do with the agents, I also reserve the right to shoot canon whenever I desire!

So in my little Splatoon AU, agents 1-4 are the same. Agent 5 is Sheldon's engineering intern who took over for him after the events of Splatoon 2 but before the events of Octo Expansion. While agent 4 was doing her campaign, agent 3 was exploring the underground facility, and Octo Expansion happened soon afterwards (I think canon has them take place concurrently but this makes more sense in my head, so I don't care <3). Pearl and Marina are agents 6 and 7, agent 8 is agent 8, and neo 3 takes Original 3's callsign after his promotion to Captain.

I have not decided whether Side Order is canon to this AU or not, because I need to watch a playthrough of it. If I do include it, there's a high likelihood of me changing some things so a different agent does that plot, because Eight deserves a break and I will give him one gosh darn it.

I developed these guys while I was playing Splatoon 2 and thinking about what kinds of weapons I like and which personality would suit each one. While I obviously didn't have enough spots in the Squidbeak Splatoon to fill ALL available weapon types, my favorites are all covered here (note the absence of brushes, rollers, and blasters, all of which I hate).

Eight, being the protagonist of Octo Expansion, is an amnesiac former child soldier who does not remember his given name. He got attached to the name Eight after hearing Marina, Pearl, and Cuttlefish call him that through the entire plot, and has decided to just keep it. The rest of the Splatoon teases him relentlessly about it, since they're supposed to have callsigns to keep their identities SECRET.

Sunny and Eight have been roommates since he escaped the underground facility (as is the official explanation for why agent 8 and agent 4 can share gear after beating Octo Expansion). Sunny and Ian have a very sibling-like relationship and bicker constantly to show their love, which drives everybody else up the wall. After Sunny and Eight had already been roommates for quite some time, Ian moved in with them and he and Eight started dating.

Tori was unaware that Sunny existed for a significant majority of the Splatoon 3 campaign (possibly all of it, I haven't quite decided when my little gremlin child crash lands into Splatsville). But once she finally does make an entrance, BOY is it an entrance. She was aware of Eight due to people bringing him up in casual conversation but was not quite prepared for the totality of the person. Tori idolizes Captain 3, 4, and 8, and they all act as her mentor figures, teaching her about lots of different aspects of combat and also just life in general. She's the baby of their little family!

Tori and Honey are very close, as the two outsiders who weren't involved in the previous campaigns. Honey's like her cool older cousin or classmate in the grade above. Honey's very exhausted by the antics of the rest of the Splatoon, but loves the work they get to do and is very protective of them all (which mostly expresses as them being very pedantic about gear checks). They respect Captain 3's authority (despite being older), but they REALLY frequently want to clobber Sunny and Eight for being idiot self sacrificing risk takers (they occasionally feel this way about both agent 3s but 4 and 8 are SO much worse).

Uhhhhh. Ian is bi, Eight is pan, Sunny's aroace, Tori doesn't know or care yet, Honey's agender/panromantic/asexual. Enjoy my little fools, I greatly enjoy hallucinating Scenarios for them. Peace out!

[surelynotshirley]

NOTHING IS HAPPENING and yet the dopamine hit I just got from seeing Eito is unreal

[yingren]

patch is all done since yesterday, i'm going to fill the queue up this weekend and try to send unprompted asks rather than reblog another prompt myself. all dms / ims that have been waiting for me will be responded to tonight though.

[kingslionheart]

QUICK QUESTION if before saying something very private someone asks you if that's a safe space would you connect the words "safe space" to "do not tell this to anyone"

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

Hey-o, back again with another chapter of that other thing! Apparently people actually liked it? I guess Imma have to start drafting an entire story now...Ah well, it's a good way to pass the time. I already finished the third chapter, I gotta type it up and edit it tho.

Anyways, here's the chapter! We get a peek through the boys' perspective this time...

On with the show!

(Ch 1 is here if anyone wants it)

Word Count: 1, 660

_______

Sun’s smile falls quickly into place as he greets the children, matching his persona of the sweet, bubbly animatronic he was designed to be.

He was quite literally made for the stage, which is why no one ever questioned how smoothly the daycare ran. He wrangled children and entertained them, attending to his charges and keeping the place up to date, organizing itineraries and schedules, effectively (running the place) entirely on his own…with Moon’s help, of course.

He made sure everything was perfect-and it was!-without anyone’s help. So he never could understand why management had hired that nuisance that clearly wasn’t wanted.

Ah, the “Daycare Assistant.” He stole a glance at you, smile faltering to a grimace before he corrected himself, watching you interact with the children. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t let them anywhere near you, but rules were rules. 

You apparently felt his eyes on you, because you looked up and gave him a small wave. His eyes narrowed, and he made no move to return it, taking small joy in how you faltered and shrank in on yourself. 

They couldn’t wait until your contract expired and they could finally have the place to themselves. Try as they might, they couldn’t find any loopholes in the document, Fazbear made it airtight. They had tried to scare you off and make you quit, but like the bothersome little imp you were, you refused to yield. They had expected Moon’s scare the first few nights to do the trick, but to their surprise, you just came back the next day. His taunts and tricks got nothing but an eye roll and a shrug. Sun kept pushing, making up rules that didn’t exist to no avail: you just went along with the changes and apologized for not knowing. 

There was that other thing that baffled them, how you kept trying to worm your way into their good graces. You played nice with the kids, you didn’t argue against their wishes, you apologized for your and their mistakes. You followed them around like a puppy, always desperately eager to please. Couldn’t you get the hint and realize that they wanted nothing to do with you, that your tricks wouldn’t work?

He took another glance out of the corner of his eye, noticing your change in wardrobe. At least it hadn’t been like last time, he’d caught you with earbuds in and a shirt that was not up to dresscode. Still, even with your efforts to make yourself scarce, it wasn’t enough. They knew why management had hired you: to keep an eye on them and report everything, the company’s little spy. You had no right to be here, in their daycare, nosing your way into things and writing little notes to management every shift, commenting on things and picking them apart. No one had asked for your opinion, certainly them, and they didn’t know what management saw in you to value yours over theirs.

(They noted begrudgingly that your comments had yet to say anything against them. It was mostly just recommendations for things or supply requests, little notes about how each day went.)

You did your job, but not well enough. You were absentminded, always staring off into space as if there was something more important to be done. You hung back and left them to do all the work, and even when you actually did what you were paid for, it wasn’t done up to standard. You didn’t play with the kids often, usually hanging back and leaving them to do all the work. Sometimes, you didn’t even show up! They could recall last month, when you had missed two weeks, two whole weeks, of work, citing your excuse to management and asking that it be kept private. They hadn’t detected any issues with your health (except for a slight increase in stress levels and lack of sleep, which would be worrying if they could bring themself to be concerned about the likes of you), so whatever excuse you’d given was probably invalid. And you left the daycare during work hours often, despite having the whole hour of naptime off, which you’d never used no matter how much they wished you would.

Speaking of naptime, the lights cut, and Moon comes out, quickly settling the children in. He selects a story from the shelves and spins a tale for them to drift off to. Soon enough, the air fills with soft, whistling snores and wafting lullaby notes in the comfortable silence. 

For a moment, everything is right.

Unfortunately, it’s interrupted by a certain someone.

A shame, really, that you insisted on staying. He was so sure you’d tire of it eventually and just out like every employee had thus far, and yet here you were, back just to spite him. 

No matter. He would find a crack in your facade eventually, and he’d watch you break.

He was content with just bugging you for now, finding the little chinks in your armor and chipping away at them, trivial as they were. You were quite fun to mess with, though he wished you’d give a proper reaction.

He stands up, calling his tether and launching into the air, scanning the daycare in search of you. As usual, you’re at the desk, eyes trained on its surface with a dim look, like you were seeing through it, beyond the dimly lit room. 

Carefully descending from the ceiling so as not to alert you, Moon sets two hands on the chair.

Nothing.

Without warning, he jerks the chair and swivels it harshly to face him, prompting a sharp inhale as you stiffen, tensing at the sight of him. He snickers, and you catch yourself, forcing your shoulders to lower. You give him a questioning look. “Hi, Moon. Need something?”

You sounded bored. That wouldn’t do. He resists the urge to roll his eyes and scoff, instead turning his faceplate slowly with a mocking grin. “Just waiting.”

Predictably, you tilt your head and ask, “For what?”

His grin grows wider, and he quickly snatches your bag and shoots back up to the ceiling, just out of your reach but still clearly visible as he begins to rifle through your belongings. 

You make a little sound of protest but don’t voice your annoyance, just watching him examining its contents with mild irritation, standing up and crossing your arms.

So he tries harder to rile you up and provoke you, taking more things out and messing with them before tossing them onto the floor half-hazardly. 

That seems to do the trick. Your eyes narrow slightly, lips pursed in restraint. You sigh and shoot him a tired glare. “Moon, can I please have my stuff back?”

He only chuckles, rummaging through the bag full of all sorts of things. You always made sure to take particularly good care of your things, which made it all the more easier to get on your nerves. Wire earbuds are pulled apart to an uncomfortable length before being discarded, along with a book he skimmed through. Knowing it was yours made him feel less guilty about stretching out the spine and dog-earing a page or two, especially with the satisfaction of watching you hold back your anger under your well-placed facade when he crumpled a couple.

Still nothing from you outside of your repeated request for your things back. 

He plucked your phone out, dangling it from a dangerous height to scare you before slipping it into his pocket and ‘confiscating’ for the day with the small declaration of “Mine now,” at your indignant look. His eyes landed on a small notebook, and he picked it up, weighing his options of whether he should open it or not, not noticing the way you tensed when he reached for it.

His thoughts were interrupted when you tried to swipe out of his hands, having gathered up the rest of your things. “Come on, Moon, give it back.”

Oh? How interesting…He shook his head with feigned apology, dangling it away from you but not opening it. “Sorry, security protocol gives me authorization to check luggage if I’m detecting suspicious behavior.”

You both knew that it didn’t apply in this situation, but he knew you hated confrontation almost as much as he liked pulling rank. You reluctantly allowed him to continue his unwarranted search (as usual). 

Satisfied with having aggravated you, he took his leave, content with his minor torment. He returned to the children, watching his work pay off.

__________________________

You survey the damage. He’d been relatively tame with it today. You recall the last time he did a search. You’d had to buy new headphones and tape a couple things together, not to mention being locked out of your apartment until he graciously returned the keys he’d ‘borrowed’.

You ran your hand over your book, grimacing at the creases. You’d just bought it, needing something to do during the hour of naptime after having been banned from using your phone, which currently sat in Moon’s pocket.

(You realized you’d need to ask Sun for that afterwards.

Great.)

Technically, you could go on break during naptime, it was the given block of free time management had provided for lunch. The issue with that was leaving your things here, with a certain someone who had a knack for making your stuff disappear. 

So no leaving the daycare, which meant doing absolutely nothing for what felt like an eternity. You’d considered sleeping like the children, but you didn’t trust them not to pull something.

Your stomach growls, crying out for food, and you wince. Right. No break meant no lunch. You’d tried eating in here once, only to be stopped by Moon, who claimed that food with unknown substances wasn’t permitted because of the children’s allergies.You hadn’t had breakfast this morning either, but that’s alright. You’d make up for it afterwards. You just had to survive for three more hours…

Aaand that's a wrap! Hope that was up to standard, I'm still trying to figure out how to make the dialogue more tense, sorry. Moon's teasing here is a lot less drastic than it usually is, but it still annoys MC because it they have a certain order that things need to be in. I did base y/n heavily off of myself, as this was more of a personal thing before I decided to make it a fic. But yeah, the boys are kinda just assholes for now. It'll get better eventually, although I do need to figure out how not to rush the plot too fast...

Third chapter'll be out in a couple days, maybe? I don't like submitting what I have without having something else prepared, so it's gonna be on pause until I start the fourth one. The third is...not to my liking, but we'll see.

Also thanks for reading, I do appreciate the comments :) Criticism and suggestions are also welcome, as I am new to this whole thing.

[theflyingfeeling]

hi yes it's me writing another Olli/Allu shortie, inspired by the tags in @xgiuliawrites' latest fic (which y'all should go read immediately if you haven't), particularly I was intrigued by the tags sauna, masturbation, and accidental voyeurism 😳

~*~

Aleksi had not meant for it to happen, because of course he hadn't. He hadn't planned to let his imagination run quite so wild, too wild, while sitting next to Olli in the sauna just moments ago, trying to look everywhere else but Olli's happy trail, trying hard not to imagine the salty taste if he was to place a hungry kiss there (he blamed Porko's stupid playlist which had Olli humming a song about pouring tequila in one's belly button in between throwing more water on the stones, pushing Aleksi's agony to the brink of his sanity).

Likewise, he had not intented to grow a semi while washing himself, the knowledge that Olli might have been staring at his bare backside the entire time exciting Aleksi as much as intimidating him (he blamed the wonky reflection on the shower tap the revealed Olli's eyes travelling up and down his body as he showered).

Even less so, his intention being to get out of the changing room and in the cold winter air as fast as he could to kill his budding boner before it would become a problem, he most certainly had not forgotten his toiletry bag on the changing room bench on purpose. Yet, there he was now, mouth hanging open at the sight he was witnessing through the tinted glass door of the sauna, the toiletry bag and his plans of cooling down long forgotten (for which he only had himself to blame, let's face it).

With his long lashes resting against his cheekbones, it was clear Olli had not noticed Aleksi's return, otherwise he obviously wouldn't have ended up in this situation. That was why he should've turned back the second he had realised what was happening on the other side of the glass door separating the sauna and the changing room, as that's what a good friend and a decent person would've done, immediately and with no hesitation. However, as the past week had proved, Aleksi was not a good friend; verily, he was a horrible, useless, and immoral friend who had gone and started having sexual fantasies about his hot, funny and super cute bandmate late at night while sleeping next to that very bandmate on their song-writing camp combined with a winter holiday (even if no one could hardly blame Aleksi for it, because who wouldn't start lusting over the divine being that was Olli Matela, especially when one got to lay beside his gorgeous naked body at night).

Indeed, there was no denying Aleksi was no decent person either, not with his eyes nailed to Olli as he pleasured himself in the heat of the sauna.

The soles of Olli's feet were pressed against the foot rail, which was exactly how Aleksi had left him, but while Olli's knees had then been close together with his arms relaxed on them, they were now wide apart to fully expose Olli's cock, pointing towards the ceiling with his hand stroking it at a leisurely pace. The hardness of his erection, standing proudly while Olli's fingers slid up and down the length, was a dead giveaway that Olli had wasted no time since Aleksi had left – either that, or he, too, had felt the strange, steamy tension during their shared sauna moment.

While Olli's right hand was devoted to rubbing his erection, his left one was free to roam all over his sweaty torso, which did nothing to ease the building pressure in Aleksi's pants. Aleksi let out a lustful sigh as he watched Olli's hand caress his own abdomen, fondling the happy trail Aleksi himself had lusted over just a few moments ago. When the hand moved up again to massage Olli's chest and to tease a red, harneded nipple, Aleksi had to sunk his teeth into his bottom lip to stop himself from whining out loud. He craved to replace Olli's hand with his own, to be the one giving Olli such bliss that had his head thump against the sauna panelling and his stomach sinking in a deep, euphoric sigh.

Only then – hearing the thud of Olli's head resting against the wall behind him – Aleksi could bear to leave the sight of Olli's body and look up at his face instead. There, Aleksi found a small smile, only barely visible through the coloured glass door, but it spoke volumes of how much Olli was enjoying himself. Aleksi wished he could've joined Olli in his pleasure, perhaps even be the reason for it, but for now he had to settle for palming himself through his trousers to give his own aching cock some much-needed relief. Shortly after, guilt forced him to remove his hand and dig his nails into his thighs when he felt himself getting close to coming embarrassingly quickly.

He should leave. He should throw himself in the snow and let the blizzard bury him, or whatever it would take to reboot his brain and erase all the images of Olli sitting on the sauna bench with his legs spread and his hand pumping up and down on his long, rock-hard cock, because there was no way he would be able to look his friend in the eye after this, let alone sleep next to him under any circumstances.

Just when Aleksi had convinced himself to make his silent escape and perhaps drown himself in the hole Tommi and Niko had sawed in the ice for some post-sauna ice swimming, as that was the least he deserved for being such a pervert, a low moan from the sauna nailed Aleksi's feet to the floor.

His eyes found Olli's erection again to immediately notice that the earlier calm, almost lazy pace of Olli's hand had now been replaced with a much quicker one, one that was determined to take Olli closer to his release with each long stroke. His left hand had abandoned his nipple and was instead fondling his balls, which seemed to bring Olli a great deal of additional pleasure, if the ecstatic expression on his face was anything to go by.

"Aaahhhh... aaaahhhhhh..." Olli's grunts went straight to Aleksi's cock that was twitching inside his boxers as if to poke at Aleksi for his attention. He didn't dare touch himself again, though, having decided he'd rather freeze his own penis by sticking his hard-on in a bank of snow than walk through the living room with jizz in his pants.

As Olli's moans grew louder and more frequent, Aleksi realised he wouldn't probably even need to grab his cock to come undone in his pants from just looking at Olli, at his hardened bicep, at his hair-covered chest expanding and sinking rapidly, at his glistening cock inside his fist that hastened its movements by the second until streaks of white fell on Olli's stomach with one last moan (more like a whine (more like the sweetest single sound that had ever blessed Aleksi's ears)).

Aleksi ignored the throbbing in his pants as he devoured Olli, who was now relaxing against the wall completely, his fingers but resting on his still hard member instead of gripping it in search for an orgasm.

A satisfied, laid-back smile spread on Olli's lips, and all too late Aleksi understood what for. All too late, Aleksi realised he had missed his cue to cut and run in shame, when Olli opened his eyes to look straight into his.

Olli's smile didn't falter, and there was no sign of shock or embarassement in his dark gaze. If anything, the smile widened, and the already horny look in his eyes grew ever more lewd as it flickered between Aleksi's face and his crotch, Aleksi's hand doing a poor job hiding the tent on the front of this sweatpants.

Olli raised an eyebrow and nodded towards it.

"Need a hand with that?"

[naivesilver]

ngl I stopped being worried about my english writing once I realized most people never bother to learn how to spell pinocchio despite making posts ABOUT pinocchio

[adore-gregor]

i did okay i guess