#break to do a couple designs for fun... and to switch it up a bit because for real im going insane i think

[wasyago]

the brainrot won

[foxcantswim]

FNAF Movie / / Vanessa x F!Reader [Safety Latch]

(gif by me)

Vanessa teaches you how to repair Freddy. She's definitely feeling platonic things right now. Contents: Fluff, Angst(ish), First Kiss Warnings: N/A WC: 1,598

(Freddy repair process is based on Help Wanted 1 gameplay)

You nervously circled around Freddy. Even as he sat on the chair he still towered over you. You had only been working at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria for a few months now as the new overnight security guard, you were quite surprised when you got a call telling you to repair the animatronics despite no prior training.

You had thankfully met an officer called Vanessa on the first night on the job, she seemed to know quite a bit about the animatronics.

"Try not to worry too much," Vanessa said as she leaned over to fumble around in some drawers nearby.

"What if I break him?!" you exclaimed, worry in your voice.

Rolling her eyes with a smirk, she looked over at you, "You won't break him. I'm here to teach you the basics."

"I'm surprised you even know how to..."

She shrugged, "There's a lot you don't know about me, Y/N."

Vanessa brought out a small strange looking box and placed it on the desk near Freddy, "What's that?" you pointed towards the box.

"His music has been glitching out a lot lately. That is a music box. I think it's about time he got a replacement, god knows when he last had one," she stood up from her stool which was directly in front of Freddy, she then beckoned you over with her finger, "Sit."

Gulping harshly, you walked over and sat down. Freddy was currently deactivated, yet a slight twinge of fear ran through you. Your eyes landed on a blue bin to your right, there was a couple of different clothing items within it.

Vanessa noticed your curiosity, "That's just in case he has anything inside him that doesn't belong. We always make sure he's thoroughly cleaned out."

You let out a shaky breath with a nod, "Okay... Okay." Vanessa switched on some extra lights to give you more lighting, hoping to help you out a little bit more. Her hand soon landed on your shoulder in comfort. Both of your eyes soon landed on the huge animatronic in front of you.

"Right. Lets get this over and done with." She removed her hand from your shoulder, sadly, and she grabbed a toolkit from a shelf, "Hopefully he doesn't have any irreparable damage," she really did hope it was just the music box that needed switching out.

"Where do we start?" you said, your eyes not daring to leave Freddy.

The blonde put the toolkit onto the desk before moving back to your side, "Okay. First things first we need to get into his chest cavity. I'll walk you through it." She pointed up towards Freddy's chest, "First you need to grab his bowtie and pull it out towards you."

"Wh-What? What if I break it, I-"

"Y/N..." she sighed, "You won't break it. It was designed to do this. You're not scared of this little teddy bear, are you?" she teased as her hand landed on your upper back, pushing you forwards ever so slightly, you shivered under her touch.

A pout had landed on your face at Vanessa's words before you decided to finally raise a shaky hand up towards the bowtie, attempting to face your fears. You had been saying that you were merely afraid of breaking the animatronic... But truthfully you were worried about what this thing was capable of, after all it seemed to be sentient from what you had seen in the past few months.

Finally your hand grasped the bowtie and pulled gently, you didn't expect the chest cavity to fly open so quickly causing you to flinch back.

"There... Good job. That's step one done," her hand moved to your shoulder and squeezed it, "Thankfully there doesn't seem to be anything that doesn't belong in here... Now here comes the fun part," she said through a sigh, sarcasm in her words.

Within the chest cavity you could see some sort of mechanism swinging from side to side, behind it there was a device that seemed to resemble a music box.

"Right, this thing here," she pointed towards the mechanism that was swinging, "Is the safety latch. It causes a shutdown if anything gets in the way. So don't touch it. And don't touch any of his wiring, you can get a nasty shock from it," she eyed the music box in the bottom right of his cavity, "All you need to do is take that out, and then push that red button right there on his endoskeleton to reset his safety latch. Easy?"

You nodded, "Y-Yeah... Sure."

All you had to do was grab the music box without touching the safety latch that was occasionally swinging in front of it. Simple.

"And then you have to reconnect the new music box. Then we are all done. There doesn't seem to be any other damage, so that's all we need to do."

Your already shaky hands seemed to shake even more as you slowly reached towards his chest cavity. You stopped yourself just short of the music box, narrowly avoiding the safety latch.

"Hey... Take it easy. No rush," Vanessa reassured.

A few moments passed and yet your slowly retracted your hand, unsure of what to do. You definitely didn't expect for Vanessa's own hand to slowly lay on top of yours, "Here... I'll help you," her voice was soft, her face flushed a slight red.

You could feel your heart beating rapidly as Vanessa's cool skin smoothed over your warm hand.

"And... Here we go," she slowly guided your hand towards the music box, the safety latch still slowly swinging left and right. Her head was next to yours, her breath tickling the side of your ear. You could feel her chest resting against your back as she leaned over your shoulder, "Just one quick grab, okay?" you flexed your fingers as Vanessa moved your hand closer.

It was over before you knew it, Vanessa had successfully guided your hand to the box and helped you remove it with no complications. You were surprised at how easy the box seemed to detach.

"See. You did it," her voice was quiet as she still kept her head next to yours, "Nice job, Y/N," she removed her hand from yours finally, you had to stop yourself from reaching back out for it, "Lemme get that for you." She expertly pressed the red button whilst dodging the safety latch, the latch then slowly came to a stop.

You placed the damaged music box onto the desk before grabbing a new one. Vanessa stepped aside so you could put the new music box inside the chest cavity. At least the safety latch no longer moved, this was a piece of cake.

"You'll be a natural in no time," Vanessa smirked at you as you finished connecting the music box, "I'm proud of you for not fucking it up at least."

You couldn't help but smile.

Vanessa proceeded to close Freddy's chest cavity and put the bowtie back in place.

You didn't really know what came over you, but you decided to stand up from the stool and walk over towards Vanessa, "I definitely couldn't of done it without you." She turned around to meet your gaze. You could already feel the blush spreading across your cheek as you reached up to kiss her on the cheek, "Thanks, Van."

A shy laugh escaped Vanessa, "No worries, Y/N."

The pair of you still stood face to face, neither daring to move away. You barely caught Vanessa's gaze flickering down to your lips, you felt as if your heart was about to beat out of your chest.

Vanessa took you not moving away as a sign, and she slowly leaned in. Her lips brushed against yours, almost feather light. Your eyes closed shut at the contact. She couldn't stop herself from smiling into the kiss as she decided to deepen it ever so slightly. You were shocked at the sudden kiss, you never even thought about Vanessa having feelings towards you.

You stepped forwards to get closer to her, but Vanessa abruptly pulled away as her back banged into Freddy.

She let out a laugh, "Sorry, Freddy," she pat Freddy's knee. She looked back at you, a soft look in her eyes. You were about to speak but were cut off by Vanessa pecking your lips once again, "We'll have plenty of time to talk about this later, Y/N," she smiled.

"Y-Yeah..." you gulped.

Vanessa's hand cupped your jaw and her thumb rubbed your cheek. You were just about to lean into her touch but she suddenly pulled away. She nodded her head towards the door, "Come on, Y/N. It's about time we go and check up on the others. They're not going to repair themselves." Her hand interlocked with yours to your surprise.

Your breath hitched as you were dragged out the room, she shot a wink your way.

A part of you didn't want to do this anymore, another sense of dread washing over you. But an even bigger part of you would do anything to be that close to Vanessa again. You'd do anything to get her to guide your hand again. In any way she wanted.

Vanessa opened the door.

You simply smiled once you saw Bonnie.

Vanessa x F!Reader - Jealousy (Fluff,Angst,Established Relationship)

Vanessa x F!Reader - Total Insecurity (Angst,Hurt/Comfort)

[raccoonscupoftea]

🎮A Gamers profession

Timeskip!Kenma Kozume X F!Y/n

Summary: Y/n and Kenma are a couple, also living together. While Kenma is streaming and struggling with a game, he soon admitted to need help from you, a professional game breaker.

Warnings: Nerd talk, SFW, possible grammar mistakes, cause english is not my native language.

| MASTERLIST | REQUESTS |

//----//----//----//

You love your job. It's fun, well paying and not so stressful. Kenma, your boyfriend, also likes your job, but sometimes he just wants you to stuff your face with a pillow when he's playing, especially when he's livestreaming.

You often get to know the next top game before everyone else. You get information on a game while it's still in the making and you have to play the game for endless hours before it's officiall release.

You're not designing the game or anything. No, you're here to break the game into pieces, testing limits, testing the code, testing AI. If it breaks, then the developers have more work to do. Or they simply just decide it is going to be a 'feature'. It's their choice. You just deliver the bugs to them.

So, then why does kenma want to shut you up sometimes?

Because of your job, you have developed a very good sense for game mechanics, attack patterns and the more advanced stuff on how a game is build. When Kenma encounteres a boss, he just knows you could beat it in a few minutes. He knows you could rush to an over the top overpowered boss and never get hit once, thou it would take longer to beat it.

It's when Kenma's visibly is frustrated, staring at his screen with an unhealthy posture, you then sometimes get up from your couch and take a look at what he's struggling with. As soon as you got into frame the viewers will start to spam the chat with messages about you.

Mostly just spamming your name but others will write absurd things like "mama's here to help" or "the professional is watching"

You just have to stand behind the chair and kenma starts to tell you to not say anything.

"Don't you dare tell me, I want to find it out myself" he complains and you just put up your hands "I didn't do anything, I'm just watching, but tell me if you need help"

So far he never needed help from you. He of course is an intelligent and very good gamer himself. Never have you doubted him.

___

You're currently on your own pc in a separate Office in your and Kenma's home. With a switch controller in your hands and feet up on a footrest, you happily enjoy playing some animal crossing on the bigger screen of your gaming setup.

Today's quiet cold so you're wearing a wearable blanked with a hoodie combined. It looks like a cat. On your table is a steaming hot tea, waiting to be cooled down a little. You were fishing all around the island in game to get the last fish of the museum collection, but the sporadic waves of tiredness are definitely not doing you a favour when it comes to pressing the right button at the right time. The game definitely knows how to get you so relaxed you could fall asleep right then and there in your gaming chair.

Another wave made you a little more tired than the usual waves. This time you had doze off for a few seconds before jolting back awake and continued your fishing spree. Work definitely was a bit to much with the winter holidays coming up and a lot of new games wanting to be released in early spring. Is also added up to your tiredness.

You glanced over to the time on your Pc and realised it's only 4pm, definitely to early to sleep now. You also know that Kenma was streaming for an hour now, since he always starts at 3pm.

Thou you don't learn from your mistake to play animal crossing while nearly dozing off and just continued, but rather than fishing you instead decided to continue to decorate the island.

It went well for the first hour. You made a plan and checked on the internet if there's the suitable furniture for it. The first decorations had been placed on their right spot, paths has been made but just a few minutes after the first hour, the tiredness has claimed you back.

While you were in the office relaxing every bone to a complete flat line, the person in the other office was nearly about to destroy a keyboard. The boss he was fighting was beating kenma every time to 0 HP. Kenma had stopped yesterday's stream in a near rage quit but today he had to beat it to get further in the game. He hasn't got past the boss and was getting more and more frustrated as well as confused. Sometimes he swears the boss just doesn't take damage and gets a massive attack bonus. Chat is convinced the boss wasn't beatable and was begging to kenma to bring out the game breaker, aka you.

Of course, he denied it at first but after an hour of trying and dying he finally gave up. Without a word he placed down his headphones, pushed his microphone back a little bit and walked out of the frame. His viewers were ecstatic and surprised that he'll need help from you.

As kenma was busting open the door to your office, the loud noise of the door made you jolt up from your chair. Your hair went places and the hoodie blanket went all the way up to your chin, telling kenma without a word that you were sleeping in your chair just now.

"I was definitely not sleeping" You stated in your defense with a sleep drunk voice, but Kenma did not believe you and smiled at how cuddly you looked. With a quick glance at the time you asked the streamer "Quit already? You're usually up till late at night"

Kenma placed his hands in the pocket of the black hoodie he's wearing and sighed, remembering why he's here in the first place "I think the game's bugged. I can't defeat the boss. I tried so many times" He slightly looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed about asking you.

At the word 'bugged' you stood up, placed the switch controller on the desk and walked over to him. You slipped your hands into his hoodie and took his hands in your own. "let's see what I can do"

The two of you went to his streaming room, but before you entered, the hood from your blanket hoodie went over your head to hide this atrocious mess of hair on your head. You quickly checked your appearance in the hallway mirror. As soon as the viewers got a glance at you and what you're wearing, they all typed in chat 'You're looking so cozy rn' 'where did you buy it?' 'looks so fluffy' 'I want to cuddle with you'

You waved at the camera to greed the viewers and kenma gestured you to sit down in his chair. You smiled at your boyfriend and placed your feet also on the chair, making you a cozy fluffy blanket ball.

He then quickly explained to you what he was doing and what was happening. Kenma then also pulled over another chair to sit down and watch you. You first tried your best max out attack and defence with his current equipment, but there wasn't even a slightest chance. You voiced out a small "Huh?" Before trying again.

The viewers could see on your face that something was up. You aren't a streamer and wasn't talking while playing the game and kenma knew to not disturb your concentration, but the viewers still seemed to enjoy watching you trying the best you could. It was the first time you were seriously playing a game with the intention to win and they were all very ecstatic as you tried to not get hit. One could tell how everyone was excited at this moment, the chat also was getting slower.

After half an hour, you had placed down the controller. The boss could hit the hero, because they weren't dodging anymore and the player dies in an instant. The question marks around your head were very visible. Something definitely is not right here. As soon as the game went to its pause menu, the viewers knew something serious it about to happen.

You grabbed the laptop from Kenma, booted it up, put in his password without a fail and went to the internet. The website from your work company appeared after a few clicks and at this moment Kenma realised what was happening.

He looked over to his camera and explained laughing "Guys, I apparently found a bug. Stuffs about to get serious now" The chat was then filled with suprised emojis. It didn't took 5 minutes and a donation came in.

Kenma glanced over to the donation site and read out loud "Thank you catlover51 for the..." He stopped a second as he saw the amount that was donated and was clearly surprised "Thank you for the 100$ and you had written down 'For Y/n, a little compensation gor having to work now' again thank you very much. You really didn't neet to donate so much"

As Kenma read the donation out loud you had began to smile behind the laptop sceen. Others then jumped onto the train as well and donated money from a single dollar to a little lager than 50$. Kenma was slightly overwhelmed my the sheer amount of donations that came in and couldn't stop thanking everyone, nearly shutting down the donation site so no one could waste more money on them. It was then you who calmed them down after finishing your research. You looked back to the camera and placed the laptop to the side "You don't need to pay me for this. It's my job and I love doing it. Also I get paid whenever I work, so I'm currently earning my money. But thank you for your concern" you smiled brightly at them before continuing to try out stuff in the game.

After some time nothing came out of the testing and you sighed. You glance over to your boyfriend, looking like a vet having to tell the owner some bad news. "You can't progress at this point, I'm sorry" His eyes widend "That's a joke right?" You just shook your head "Unfortunately not. You have found a very devastating bug, which stops you from killing the boss. As soon as an attack misses, the supposed damage gets stored and well... When the boss does hit you, then all of that stored damage gets released. That explains the bug with the one shot kill. This bug alone is manageable and already a known issue, but combined with the boss not taking any damage" you smiled at him with a sad face. "I'm sorry"

Kenma sighed and ruffled his hair "It's not your fault" he smiled and ruffled your hair as well. "Guess my save is busted then"

You took his hand in yours and looked him in the eyes. He squeezed your hand a little and looked back at you. There's a little spark in your eyes, telling him that there's something you could do "What are you up to?" He asked directly. Your eyes shift away, making you look innocent, scratching your cheek a little "I could force you out of the situation, by glitching you through a wall"

Usually kenma is against using glitches and exploits in his runs, but this is maybe the first occasion he'll consider it. He first looks at you with squinted eyes but then stood up "I'm going to the bathroom. Whatever you'll do, I'll don't know about it"

You're smile got bigger as he finished talking and went outside. He closed the door and after a little happy dance, you pressed onto respawn and forced the player to another part of the map. The viewers were watching your every step and were happy about you breaking a game infront of them.

As you were finished, you quickly saved the game and stood up, ready to leave.

"In my defence" you started talking into the camera a little bowed down to fit into the frame "I did not test this part of the game. Not my fault" You grabbed the open laptop and blew the viewers a goodbye kiss before you exited the streaming room.

On the way back to your own office, Kenma has finished his bathroom break. He grabbed your wrist before you could vanish into your room. He also grabbed the laptop and placed it on a sideboard. One hand of his wandered over to your waist, so he could pull you a little closer to him. "Thank you" he whisperd and gave you a little kiss on your cheek. "I'll make sure to finish today's stream a little earlier. Can't wait to cuddle you with this fluffy hoodie" he then again kissed your other cheek and headed back over to his room to see an alive character on a giant grassy field.

You on the other hand smiled and had to control your inner fangirl to not just scream and jump around. The viewers for sure could hear you if you were to loud.

You quickly grabbed Kenma's laptop and hid in your room, filling out a formula to get the new bug over to the Developers.

[fineprintedsunsets]

AFTER HOURS

This Is For Haunted Hoedown Day 7! | My Haunted Hoedown Master-List

summer camp au + "i can't stop thinking about how perfect we would be together"

Synopsis: Ari Levinson is a lot better after hours. 

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: (this is definitely a tribute to my childhood) good ol' angst. pool sex. dirty talk. lifeguard!ari levinson x f reader :). use of pet names "mama" etc. brief mentions of injury. unprotected sex. (reader is on the pill although never mentioned, #stayawaypregnancytrope) (wrap it before you tap it, kids) sweet, worried ari.

It’s days like today you find yourself appreciating Lifeguards more. It’s not just about shirtless men baring their pecs for the whole world to see, (although a bonus) It’s more than the praise and hero complex.

It’s about wanting to make a difference, to be a savior, sure, but going to bed at night is just a bit easier knowing you helped a human being breathe again. Ari was a lot like that, you noticed.

His tanned cheeks would lift in a slight smile when anyone congratulated him on his newest rescue. Ari didn’t care about the compliments, or how he was perceived-

“You gonna say hi, or just stare?” Lou’s voice breaks through your head, causing you to stutter, your eyes breaking from where Ari sits on his post, searching the pool for any trouble.

“Staring is good enough.”

Lie.

It wasn’t.

You murmur, continuing to wipe at the Snack Bar counter. The adults were more messy than the kids. Sweat breaks above your brow as the heat fills your veins, wishing you were inside the pool or inside an air-conditioner.

Either one would work.

“Those vultures have been gobbling him up all night, guess your one of them too,” Lou says, her brows lifting in amusement. She takes her yellow rubber gloves off and lays them down on one of the chairs The Snack Bar was designed with sliding windows that face the pool, mostly to receive money and dish out snacks, but you had found a much better use for it.

Oggaling.

Lou wasn’t wrong either, four women well into their 50s had been sitting out tanning all day, not even bothering to watch their kids. Each set of eyes had never left Ari’s body, and although you were just doing the same thing-

“Don’t say it’s different. It’s not.”

You huff, throwing down the rag on the table you were just wiping down, leaving it half-completed.

“Do you have anything better to do, Lou?” You get a glimpse of her ponytail and her small body. Although a pest, Lou was almost like a mother to you. “Summer Mother” that is.

Every year you worked at Camp Constaga’s Snack Bar. Although it meant switching TV for bracelet-making and campfires, it didn’t matter. If anything, you’d prefer the woods over home.

She flashes you her lucky smile, throwing a rag over her shoulder, making the edges of her uniform damp. “You know I don’t!” You shake your head, a smile blooming on your lips.

Lou tosses you a look, clearly seeing the blush on your cheeks. “Go!” Throwing her hand up in mock threat, she disappears into the back of the bar.

Yeah, that’s right, Go prepare the chicken nuggets. It takes you a couple of moments to realize she took your rag, the one you need to finish cleaning the tables.

“Bitch!”

The only sound is the rustling of frozen chicken nugget bags and the echo of Lou chuckling.

👙

“Shut Up And Dance” plays loudly over the pool speakers. It’s the anthem of every summer, and boy does it never get old. Night falls silently on Camp Conastoga’s pool, tonight is a very special night.

It’s glow swim.

It’s a camp tradition, every month they hold a “glow” swim. Kids and adults wear trippy bathing suits and a whole shit ton of glow sticks are thrown in the pool. It’s simple, but fun.

Really Fucking Fun.

“Lou! Where did you put the paint?” You call over the loud splashing of children. The lifeguards are already on duty, and the adult swim doesn't start for another hour or so. You see her signature auburn ponytail exit the bathroom, her bare stomach, thighs, and arms marked with glow-in-the-dark paint.

“Handprints? That simple Louie girl?” You tease, grabbing the paint from her hands. You bought a whole array of colors yesterday, the kids used all of the pool’s supply.

“I’m sorry, shall I draw a pentacle?” She adjusted the strap on her neon green bathing suit, pulling it to snugly fit on her shoulder.

You elicit a chuckle, filling the pool’s backroom with the ungodly sound. “It would fit, you are a demon.”

“Very funny.” Lou rolls her green eyes, sending them back into her head with far more exaggeration than necessary. Holding tight onto the bottle of green paint, you turn around, and walk away from her, heading to your cabin to receive the other colors.

“See you out there-” You choke down a strangled whine, your face colliding with something hard and solid. Pain shoots through your jaw, and the only thing you can hear is labored breathing and music.

Upbeat and happy music.

Not very fit for this situation.

A backless dress and some beat-up sneaks…

My discotheque, Juliet teenage dream…

I felt it in my chest as she looked at me…

And then darkness.

👙

Waking up in the infirmary was not the plan tonight. You blink your eyes, once… twice… You can see a window to the right of you, it’s pitch black outside. You stir, quickly trying to get up, but a hand on your stomach stops you, splaying against your belly and pushing you down.

You whine, squirming against the hand. It’s big and feels as if sparks are being emitted through your body from the fingers. When you open your eyes, you understand why.

“Hey-”

“Shh…- It’s okay, sweet girl.”

All it took was a few words to get you rising, slowly this time as Ari’s hand fell from your stomach, tanned fingers grabbing your elbow to ease you into a sitting position. The pain has reduced to a dull ache, you don’t focus on it, not when Ari is standing above you, lifeguard shorts on, shirt nowhere to be found, and is that…worry in his eyes?

You grab at your head, attempting to find the source of your pain. You must have hit something, now it’s reduced to just a small headache. “What happened?” The words you speak are discombobulated as you try to adjust to the light in the infirmary.

Children can be heard screaming and splashing outside.

So you hadn’t been put in a coma.

You aren’t going to wake up to a zombie apocalypse.

This is very good news.

“You slammed into my chest, I’m so sorry, mama.”

Mama? Surely it was just a name lifeguards give to crying little girls, it was a cute, sweet nickname.

Until it came out of Ari Levinson's mouth.

“What time is it?” You shift, still holding your head, expecting the headache to just disappear at your touch.

It doesn't.

“10:00” Lou answers from seemingly nowhere. Did she just watch that interaction go down?

When she steps in front of you, the gleam in her eye tells you all you need to know.

“Adult swim starts soon, I have to put my paint on.”

“Woah, you sure? You did pass out on us, mama.”

God.

Will he shut up and keep talking?

The heat that pools between your thighs isn't normal, and you can’t stand to be close to Ari anymore. If you would… there’s no telling what you might do.

Something you would regret. Ari doesn't even know you.

“It’s just a headache. I’m not dying.” The words have more bite than you wish, but this room is getting crowded, and the heat that encircles you is suffocating. Especially when Ari tilts his chin up, his fingers perching on his hips in confusion.

You didn’t want to be rude, but it seems it may be the only way to get out of this room.

“I gotta go get the paint.” You slid off the table, hearing the paper crinkle beneath your weight. Lou moves out of the way, and when she does, you accidentally clip Ari’s shoulder. You don’t turn around to apologize though. The heat is too much, you need to get that paint and get in the pool.

Even though being away from him has made the heat worse.

👙

Adult swim had started the moment you finished in the pool bathroom. All over your body are neon pink swirls and made-up symbols, matching your pink bikini. Ari sat perched on the very end, his eyes wandering over the kids complaining to their parents.

You were aware of the way your nipples hardened against the thin slice of fabric, how your breath picked up when Ari’s eyes landed on your face. His usual sunglasses were gone, and even from across the people, his blue eyes drilling holes in your body.

You turn away, internally wishing your hips wouldn’t swish as you did so.

They did.

Traitors.

“Hey! Over here!” Lou and Reed call from their positions in the water, the reflective surface bringing the night sky into the pool. Your head still ached, but enough that you could get some swimming in. You wouldn’t miss this night for the world.

You walk to the side of the pool and before Lou or Reed pulls you in, you jump. There’s a moment when you do so, where the rest of the world disappears, it’s only you, the wind, and the water you're about to plunge into.

The glow sticks leave a path to which you follow, feeling your breathing dissipate as you're pulled into the water, swishing your hair around, wetting the fabric of your bathing suit, and crowding you in cool relief.

It’s the polar opposite of Ari’s warm presence.

You come up for air, swimming to the top of the pool. Lou and Reed are already next to you, splashing from every angle. “What are you five!” You yell, despite doing the same, gathering water in the scoop of your palm and tossing it across your best friend's faces.

For the moment, for the night, you would forget about Ari’s eyes burning into your back, watching as you splash your friends, hearing your laughter fill the pool as it gets lost in the night.

This is purgatory and paradise at once.

Being away from him, but relishing in the memories you're creating.

Both hot and cold.

You sink into the water again, allowing it to swallow all your fears, soon they would come back, you were on after-hour duty. With none other than Ari himself.

👙

All of the adults left hours ago, Lou and Reed went back to their shared cabin, and the Camp Children gathered around the campfire deep in the woods. It was just you and Ari, and the simple task of gathering all of the glowsticks.

You let out a breath, your fingers finding the smudge pain on your hips as you stand over the edge of the pool. The sky is deeper than before, the stars shining bright above you. And the waning crescent moon, hidden beneath crowded clouds.

It was a beautiful night indeed.

“You ready?” Ari’s voice breaks through your head-space, before talking yourself out of it, you turn around. It’s hard not to roam Ari’s body, his tanned abs, his long blond hair, and his beard.

No one could ignore that, no one.

You stomp a foot on instinct. “No one could ignore it” was your excuse for “this man turns me on with just his smile.”

“Yeah.” You squeak, watching Ari’s arms form a perfect dive pattern, jumping into the water with ease. The glow sticks make it visible to you, how easy he glides, picking up each stick as his path goes dark.

You do the same, jumping on the opposite end, with less grace than him. Usually one of the other lifeguards would be doing this, but most went to join the campfire. The pool gets darker and darker as you pick up each glowstick, resurfacing every few seconds for breath. You break from your trance when something hard hits the top of your head, the headache rocking through you with a sharp pain. You know it’s Ari, he must have been going for the glow sticks in the middle of the pool.

“Mama.” Ari resurfaces, watching as you do the same, rubbing the top of your head.

“Are you okay? Goddamn me. I don’t mean to keep hurting you, sweet girl.” Ari’s hair is wet, framing his features perfectly. A dozen glow sticks reside in his palm, matching your own.

“Come here.” He leads you to the very edge of the pool, and although you shout at your body to stop moving, your legs ignore your pleas. The heat grows with every second you spend in lifeguards presence.

You both toss your glow sticks into the basket, as you pool yourself up and out of the pool, water splashing as you turn around to sit on the edge, your legs still in the water. Ari stands in front of you, not exactly between your thighs, but very fucking close to them.

“Does it hurt?” He asks, running a hand over his wet hair, looking to the top of your head.

“I’ll be fine.” You utter, looking away from him. This man will be the death of you. They kick up a little bit of water, watching it swirl at your feet.

“Look at me, mama.” Ari pleads, moving through the water, so close to where your knees touch his chest.

“Please.” It’s almost inaudible, but you catch it, you see the desperation in his eyes,

“Fuck, Ari.”

You don’t even try to talk yourself out of it. You jump back into the pool quickly, water droplets spraying everywhere as you grab the back of Ari’s head, pulling him down to your lips.

He’s surprised at first, but when you groan, feeling the heat of his lips, the way they kiss and wrap you in warmth, he kisses back. Moving you to rest your back against the side of the pool, pushing you gently into the smooth tile.

Ari pulls away first, and the way he looks at you, it seems as though he is fighting with himself. “Sweet girl-”

You bring a finger to his puffy lips, silencing him. “No talking, more kissing”

Ari doesn't pretest, because this time it’s him that’s pressing into you, water grabbing at you both, your tongues intertwining in perfect harmony. You both pull away for air, the buzzing sound of crickets overwhelming you.

“Do you want me here, mama?” Your eyebrows quirked up as your hands still rest in his hair, forever tugging him closer.

“I will take you anywhere, Ari.”

It’s all the permission he needs. His fingers come around to your back, reaching for the tie of your pink bathing suit. Your body racks with anticipation as Ari tugs, and the fabric falls away, revealing your nipples to the cool night air.

His breath heaves as he stares down at you, his eyes locking with the point nubs. He groans. “Your perfect, sweet girl.”

“Fucking perfect”

He dives down, taking a peak into his mouth, and swirling it around his tongue. You arch your back away from the pool tiles, pressing into his hardened cock. The water makes it easier for you two to move, as Ari nurses your breasts, you undo the string of his lifeguard shorts.

He removes his mouth from you with a pop, helping you free himself from the restaurants. Your top and his shorts are thrown with the glow sticks, forgotten. His cock is hard against his chest, even in the water it’s not hard to tell.

His tanned fingers find your bottoms, running over your stomach, until they're stationed at their ties. “You ready, perfect girl?”

Your breath fans, your response is merely a rasp as Ari crowds you, his cock pressing against your stomach. “No.”

“Good”.

The ties snap as he tugs at them, water crowds you, between your legs as your slick folds are exposed to the cool sensation. Ari takes your right leg carefully in his rough palm, lifting it to pin the appendage against the pool tile. He pushed further, his cock lining up at your entrance.

He wants this as much as you do.

“Open for me, sweet girl.”

You part your other leg a bit, leaving enough room for Ari to settle comfortably in between your thighs.

“Doing really good for me, this is going to hurt.” You nod, not caring.

The heat is bubbling, threatening to boil over now and the anticipation is getting irritating. Ari places a kiss against your temple, his beard scratching against your skin as he thrust, pushing the tip of his cock against your folds.

You yelp, grabbing at his bare back, feeling the water around you, paired with his cock dipping inside of you was otherworldly.

“That’s it..” Ari smiles, his unoccupied hand coming up to cradle your face, tilting your head down to where your bodies meet.

“Watch as you take me, mama.”

You do, with both pain and pleasure as Ari inches his cock into you slowly. The reflection of the water enhances his every feature, and the wins of his cock are pulsating with pleasure.

“Good girl, just a little more-” His voice is husky with need but still soft and caring.

It turns you on just the more.

“I’m gonna fill you up, Breathe for me alright?” His words are so filthy yet so… soft.

Caring?

Ari watches you, your eyes still on your pussy, watching it take more of his cock in, feeling the pain as he stretches your walls. You take a deep breath as he asks, and scream when he thrust to the hilt.

“Shh…Good girl.” Ari drags out each syllable as he whispers, his cock buried inside you, as his body fully presses into yours, his hand balancing your pinned leg against the wall.

“Can I move, mama?”

Words do not escape your throat, you just tug at Ari’s hair, clenching around his cock a few times, attempting to adjust. You nod as your lips collide, it silences the scream as he deals his first thrust.

Your heavy breaths fixate on the point of completion, each time Ari drags his cock out of you, more water fills its spot, adding stimulation to your clit. Your fingers wrap around the pool's edge, your eyes snapping shut.

“You take me so well, sweetheart.”

“Don’t worry, I’m gonna get you over that edge.”

Ari’s words make you clench harder, a smile passes his lips as he groans, feeling what he does to you, feeling what you do to him every time his cock pulsates at your tightness.

Your breath speeds up with Ari's thrust, your back arching against the pool tiles as he fucks you deeper into the concrete, making sure your head never hits the ground. The words that come out of your mouth are rushed, but nonetheless true.

“I can’t stop thinking about how perfect we would be together.” You say them with urgency with rush, as if they were slipping from your mind. Ari’s thrust doesn't cease, he only groans, melting against you.

“Me too, sweet girl.”

“Me. Fucking. Too.” Your orgasm is so close, it feels like you're drowning in pleasure. Your nails find safety in Ari’s back, holding onto him for support as his fingers dip into the water, finding your clit and begging to rub.

He knows you're close.

“Come for me, mama. Make a mess on my cock.” Ari echos, his cock fighting the force of the waves he’s making, slamming into you each time, his fingers rubbing faster. You whimper, meeting his thrust with your own attempts, chasing the pleasure. You clench down hard, “There you go…doing so good.”

Your orgasm hits you at full force as Ari pumps his cock, his fingers riding you through it. Until he halts, filling you with his release. The warm feeling settles deep into your stomach.

“Mama.” Ari finishes, you can still feel his cock pulsating inside you, his labored breathing slowing to match your own. Despite the cool water, sweat runs down both of your bodies.

“Your-” He starts, you giggle, deciding to cut the sexual tension. Ari’s brows turn up, waiting to hear what you have to say,

“Hot? Beautiful? Fantastic? Best sex you’ve ever had?”

“Mine” Ari whispers against your lips, shutting you up.

His.

[rin-and-jade]

Oops.. I’ve Lost Track.. : A Post about Unintended Time Traveling

Have you ever mistook that today’s thursday and not a wednesday even if you’re so sure? Have you ever wondered why time flies so fast while nothing’s done for the day? Or maybe when those “five more minutes” promises turned into hours until its too late?

Then you might have problems with keeping track, managing, and predicting how long it takes to do something,, this is called time blindness. Which is common among neurodivergent folks.

So it was time travel..?

Surely, but not as fun as how movies convey them. Time blindness can affect people in different ways, such as:

Losing track of days, hours, or to minutes; not being aware how long it has been.

Have a faster/slower sense of internal clock. Meaning, minutes can feel like hours or vice versa.

Problems being on time to appointments, events, and etc; due to faulty predictions on how long it takes for something, such as dressing up or driving to the location.

Trouble remember when was the last time you ate a meal and drank water.

Over-focusing on a specific task/ interest and miss a huge chunk of your routine (compensating or catching up).

And more..

It often affects people with ADHD; but not always limited to autism, depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, bipolar, CDD, and even a byproduct of constant stress itself!

For the plurals out there:

There’s it’s own set of experiences + the addition of the general ones before, such as:

Time looks disoriented due to switching and lost sense of chronological anchor (can’t remember the previous moments to make sense how long time has gone by).

What happened long ago e.g. 1 month, felt like it happened last week. Vice versa.

Alters perceiving sense of time in different, varying speeds.

And, with the addition of CDD’s high comorbidity with other conditions that may worsen time blindness.

Systems can have a harder time due to the existing amnesia barriers that fragments memories, and sometimes this can be super stressful to deal with--but fret not! For whoever needs some tips, i gotchu.

What should i do??

Let's get straight to the point, here's the steps:

Create a routine. If you're prone to missing work or leisure due to it, or need to get things done on time,, having a planned schedule or routine will be the most important part. You can do this in any way preferred, for example, sticking to a 7-day plan that has your school/work/breaks in it already,, or if you're sporadic, you can pre-plan what to do for the day and jot them down as the goal.

Make use of accommodations. Set designated alarms,, maybe for your meals, or hydration reminders, or if you don't want to overshoot that gaming session. Putting clocks that can be visible in your vision also can help keeping you on track. Create checklists to keep track of your chores or whatnot. Maybe write down notes on today's progress, anything with your own creativity!

Break work into smaller steps to ease up. Sometimes procrastination can accompany time blindness, leaving us to do 0 work until its near deadline or the day is almost over, separating the tasks to smaller bits and do them in pieces on your own pace. And sometimes your focus is prone to wander to places if the task is too long or tedious/boring, so this also helps.

Be aware of which activities you're prone to forget time. List or remember them so whenever you wanted to hop back in a special interest, actively remind yourself beforehand and you may make use of number 2.

Lastly, commit to it. This is where all the magic is at, and there will still be days where it tumbles apart and you miss a couple of things.. don't worry, we all are never perfect, there'll always be a day or two where everything's messy and miss that deadline or other stuffs. You haven't failed, keep going.

I hope this could serve you hope that your time blindness is 100% manageable, this post is for every neuro-spicy folks (and systems) out there who's struggling with it,, and i hear your struggles! Feel free to add on your experience or engage with the post if you have any further questions.

(This post is applicable to everyone in need)

- j

[lovelandfrogman]

just saw that you saw the neptune theater production of ragad???? how was it!?!

YESSSSS it was so good!!!! sorry for the late reply, i just wanted to write out something detailed for this but didn't have the time!

id been planning to go for a while and i'm so glad it worked out! it definitely lived up to my hype, it was amazing!! ill give some very un-expert and very rambly impressions i had, but PLS let me know if you have specific questions about any details or scenes or choices :D

also i apologize im not a True fan of these 2 actors and i dont remember their names so ill just call them by their characters DHSJD

first off heres the set and playbill!!

i was kinda surprised because all the promo pictures seemed to show them wearing modern suits so i thought it was gonna be a modern setting, but it was just colorful old timey clothes! (sorry im not very knowledgeable on costumes, my main impression was just "oooo fun clothes")

oh one costume note is that one of them was wearing a green suit with a blue waistcoat, and the other was wearing a blue suit with a green waistcoat!

another unique thing about the production is it was split into 3 acts, like the script does, but most productions just do 2 acts!

i really enjoyed watching this, both ros+guil were super funny and the audience was laughing the whole time, even near the end like when guildenstern's breaking down, which i honestly enjoyed-- even when it's horribly tragic, it's STILL kiiinda funny. also i liked guildenstern's accent

in my opinion the acting was great all around, i kinda enjoyed the hamlet scenes and how they were acted seriously, since i'm always conflicted on if r&gad should make the hamlet parts serious or not! also guildenstern and rosencrantz's serious and emotional bits hit me so harddd (as in both of their monologues about death i guess)

there was a lot more use of obvious lighting and sound design than i feel like is typical for r&gad? but i enjoyed it!! i'll talk a bit more about that laterrrr

they also had some singing from the tragedians, once in their first entrance, and once replacing the ship noises at the beginning of act 3, which was very fun

one big difference was after the final scene w horatio, they blackout and go back to the initial positions and do a single "heads!" which was GREAT, i don't think i've seen anything else make the time loop that explicit??

ok and now just some rambling about interpretations

so part of me before the play started was like "i've watched/read/listened to this play SO many times, i hope it's not just boring and same-y and i don't realize anything new."

AND THEN. near the end of the first scene where ros+guil come across the tragedians. i was like HOLY SHIT and realized an interpretation that i've never thought of before.

(this might be a Super obvious interpretation and i'm just slow but whatever.) it occured to me that the moment that the tragedians are about to put on a play for ros+guil and the scene suddenly shifts to hamlet, it could be interpreted that the rest of the play is just the tragedians putting on one of the classics for ros+guil, and them getting "caught up in the action".

of course this doesn't make sense with Everything in the play, but it's SO fascinating to me and it recontextualizes a lot of stuff, like making it so that ros+guil are just fucking around backstage and onstage trying to figure out their roles the whole time in this play that's suddenly started around them.

also there's a couple choices that i think support this interpretation, like tending to switch to a warm stage-y lighting whenever scenes from hamlet are going on, and switching back to a cool neutral whenever ros+guil are "offstage".

plus, i think this happened a couple times but notably when hamlet is doing his "to be or not to be" speech and rosencrantz is trying to figure out how to interrupt him, there's this super interesting lighting effect where they have a spotlight on the BACK of the stage where hamlet is, and these lights near the bottom of the stage that give the impression of stage lights, making it look like the stage is reversed and hamlet's on the side facing the audience while ros+guil are upstage. IDK if that makes sense but i was like HOLY SHIT when i realized.

PLUS, im fairly sure all the actors playing roles in hamlet are all also tragedians, AND between each act, they had the tragedians doing stuff like moving the set, sweeping, etc, on stage, which was very fun..

ANYYYWAYY those are my thoughts :D not gonna tag this bc im embarrassedddd but feel free to rb and feel free to ask questions

[negative-speedforce]

Eris has offered a combat lesson to each of your OCs - any weapon or fighting technique from throughout history. What fighting styles or weapons do your OCs choose to learn? Are there any who decline the lesson?

Siv: While she's already a fairly experienced fighter, they'd love to refresh on Muay Thai, since Eobard had them take classes in it as a teenager but haven't actually sparred with anyone in years without the intent to kill and/or maim, and they'd like to face off with a potential equal (Siv will probably get her ass kicked).

Hailey: Would love to learn how to fight with a spear or staff, since with her ghostly abilities + a little bit of additional technology to target her powers, she can use some minor cryokinesis and it would be convenient to know how to use that ability to fight with a giant-ass icicle

Jay: Would probably turn down the lesson, since he's not sure if it's accessible for a disabled person like himself. However, if he was absolutely sure, he'd love to learn how to do some kind of martial arts while in a wheelchair.

Cassandra: Would love to brush up on kickboxing (and she'd probably try to figure out how to adapt her fighting style to be able to fight in midair).

Esme: Mostly just wants to learn how to use self-defense in heels, since she's had a couple close calls walking home from clubs and she's tired of having to expose her powers every time someone tries to stalk her.

Gina: Would like to learn Tai Chi, mostly for health reasons but also so she can smack a bitch if they decide to mess with her

Arya: Mostly just looking for an excuse to spar with someone as ancient and experienced as themself, decides to take a lesson in knife fighting for the hell of it

Ember: Also wants to learn how to fight in heels, since most of the time they're dressed in drag anyway.

Cat: Prefers to use her wits and a gun, since she's physically rather small and weak, so she might turn down the lesson.

Kyle: Would love to do some wrestling! He's done it before, for a couple years in high school before he switched to football, and he'd love to pick it up again, since it was a lot of fun for him.

Max: Might turn it down, since he can summon his mech suits with just a press of his earrings and take care of any situation like that.

Eric: Prefers to use magic to fight rather than physical force, but he might take a Taekwondo class just for the fitness benefits.

Jacob: Acompanies Eric to his class, because he knows his husband is going to end up spraining SOMETHING because he has no idea what he's doing. This has happened many times before.

Khalil: Would love to learn boxing! He's always wanted to pick it up, but has always felt unwelcome in most classes because he's a rather feminine man and tends to get treated poorly by his classmates.

Antonio: Because he's literally twelve, he wants to learn Ninjitsu, and fight with a katana. His parents immediately object, but ngl I get the feeling that Eris is going to teach him anyway.

Reggie: Would love to learn how to use a shuriken, just for bragging rights with xer friends.

Ameerah: Immediately declines, she prefers her wits and her powers in order to take care of situations.

Rania: Would probably just want to learn some basic self-defense moves in case some idiot decided to try something on her walk home from work.

Director Hawke: Eris doesn't even get halfway through their offer before Hawke recognizes Eris as a metahuman, and a huge fight breaks out (never mind that metas and witches are almost genetically indistinguishable, she has to have her little group to hate)

Meredith: Would want to learn Kalaripayattu, since it's a lesser known martial art and it focuses both in armed and unarmed combat, both of which it would find useful.

Cory: Since Cory's pretty small, Mok Gar might be right up his alley, since it was designed to help a smaller, weaker person to overpower someone who is bigger and stronger.

Kelsie: Prefers not to get into violent altercations, and only uses her plant-based abilities to get out of situations. However, just for the knowledge, she'd want to learn how to use a trident.

Torryn: Is already highly trained in Jiu-Jitsu, but he'd love to take a class in order to refresh his skills and potentially learn any new moves that he didn't know about before.

Onnie: Is already a pretty skilled martial artist, but at Eobard's urging, she'd ask Eris to teach them Lethwei, since it's one of the most brutal, bloody martial arts in the world.

Pippa: Probably just wants to learn fencing, because she's always wanted to try it but never had the money. Also swords are cool.

Jessi: "Ew, no. This is genuine Balenciaga. Do I look like I want to get all sweaty in this?"

Hyun-Ki: Would probably be interested in learning Kendo, since while he doesn't really have a need to learn martial arts, given that he has bodyguards, swords are cool.

Marie: Would love to learn Okinawan Kobudo, since she's trying to get closer to her heritage after losing part of herself (memories, personality, etc) after her assimilation.

Liah: As a pacifist, she'd probably say 'no' right off the bat, though she might be convinced to learn how to use a shield in a purely defensive manner, in case someone tries to attack her.

Qiara: Is quite literally an all-powerful space god, and does not need to defend herself.

Soraya: Would love to learn Capoeira. While it's not the most useful martial art, Soraya is a former gymnast, and the complicated flips and moves would be right up her alley.

Thalia: Thalia would probably be interested in Hapkido, with its focus on both unarmed and armed combat.

Reyna: Would want to learn how to use nunchucks, purely for the bragging rights. Eris, please don't trust Reyna with any potentially lethal weapons. It's already bad enough with her having a lightsaber.

Laila: Probably turns down the offer, since she prefers to learn on her feet, and challenges Eris to a sparring match.

Athena: Athena would probably go for learning Junshi Sanda, so she can turn her already brutally competent fighting skills into a full-on weapon.

Pyrrha: Would love to learn Aikido, since she's already an extremely competent fighter, but she would love to learn some less violent methods of taking down an opponent that don't involve gruesome death.

Samira: Probably would turn down the offer, given that she considers herself far more of the brains than the brawns, and prefers not to get into physical altercations.

Aldrich: Would turn down the offer, since he does NOT want to be in the same room as someone else's blood if there was an injury.

Matt: Probably would say 'no' to Eris's offer, since he's pretty sure he'll fuck up his joints if he tries any crazy new moves.

Sohelia: Would be very interested in learning Eskrima, given its focus on handheld weapons. Even a couple inches more of distance between her and someone else's blood in a fight could mean life or death.

Vanessa: Would love to learn how to use a crossbow, since she's only seen them in movies and it looks like a really cool weapon to use.

Dolores: Since there's very low risk of her losing control and hurting someone, she'd love to learn archery.

Victorie: Would turn down the offer, since she does NOT want to be in the same room as someone else's blood if there was an injury.

Kayla: Took judo when she was younger, would like to take a refresher course so she can remember everything she learned back then.

Dori: Because they are a huge nerd, Dori would love to learn how to use the chakram, given that it's Xena the Warrior Princess's weapon of choice.

Ellis: Given that angels have no need for human martial arts, Ellis would graciously turn down Eris's offer, since they can just go all "Be not afraid" and scare any potential threats shitless.

Gabi: Isn't much of a martial arts kind of gal, but she would love to learn how to use a medieval broadsword, just so she can use one at the Ren Faire.

[tiikerikani]

This is how you write when you're tired

Work is fine I guess. I'm still in a big muddle, tbh. Charging right out of the gate being asked to do the sort of thing that somebody with a lot more experience and a much higher pay grade did at Old Job is... a lot. I've tried out and presented on a couple of different tools and making those presentations was extremely stressful, not because I dislike public speaking, but because I dislike public speaking to persuade on topics that Have Consequences, such as which of those tools to invest in. Both have their pros and cons and I just would like the people to make a decision so I can get on with the actual writing.

Working with the content is the best way to familiarize yourself with it. At Old Job my first assignment was to proofread everything with a fresh set of eyes, and I'm finally getting to do a bit of that now.

Even though I don't need to be at the office every day, the 45-minute commute each way does eat up a lot of hobby time (or more specifically, the transition time that I need to switch between activities). So I'm still struggling to squeeze in the time I want to spend for each thing and end up with decision paralysis and then none of those activities are getting enough time because it's suddenly 4 AM.

4:39 AM Oh shit he's on the front cover of ilta-sanomat today 😳 I read everything else on the cover looking for weather stuff and only noticed after that 😅

[Friend: How were you awake at 4 am? 😳] [Me: Hadn't gone to bed yet]

(the tabloids publish the day's papers to the digital subscription—from which I grab screenshots from the cover thumbnails on the landing page—at around 3 AM.)

So today I am practically asleep standing up. I'd proof/edit like 2 paragraphs and then I'd want to lie down. I tried to at least keep myself at the table by slapping some paint onto models but even that was a struggle. I desperately wanted to just collapse into bed after work but no it just had to be the day I needed to drag myself outside long enough to buy the newspaper.

(I'd love to share the entire cover, but reasons. So this is all you get as proof.)

(Random aside: As of this week, fermented beverages up to 8% ABV can be sold at grocery stores and people are mostly just excited about wine. Wine culture from the continent has been displacing the traditional beer and spirits culture here. Anyway, I don't even drink wine.)

I'm too tired to read the article now (In fact I usually need to be a bit tipsy to read these articles, because the reasons), but I don't expect him to have shared anything new. One wonders if it's the media being fixated on his mental health recovery story (the media sure love a "celebrity breaks down and/or turns their life around" story) or if it's something that he wants.

New keyboard is alive! The coil cable is wholly extra but I sprang for it—pun intended—just because it's fun. The thing is built like a brick and is heavier than the old one. In less space! I even paid less for this than the old gamer keyboard! ("gamer" stuff is pretty overpriced and often overwrought anyway).

When gaming I keep hitting one key over because the old keyboard had a column of macro keys down the side (which I didn't really use anyway). I could rebind all the controls one key over but that would be silly. I'll get used to it. I guess really clicky keys are a gamer thing so I'm also getting used to the significantly lighter touch on these brown switches.

But also, designer keycaps are hecking expensive. And I'd like to get a different set of Swedish/Nordic numbers/letters; the legends on these aren't quite right (it's missing @ on AltGr+2, and * and ' are swapped, among other things).

[lividria]

Funny Story: Bad Video Game Endings (+ a game nobody's heard of before)

Not as in bad endings as in negative outcomes in the story, I mean video game endings that are of poor quality. I have some funny experiences with them. One of them is in a game I could probably convince you was a hoax if I tried hard enough. The other is from a recent Nintendo release. Strap yourself in, this'll be fun.

I'm back from writing this out, and HOLY SHIT, THIS MIGHT BE AS LONG AS THOSE TWO REALLY LONG METROID PRIME 4 POSTS I WROTE OUT. Abandon all hope, ye who enter in.

I Might Be One Of The First Actual People To Document Sparklite On Tumblr

Okay, Sparklite is a pixel-art 2D top-down roguelite that's on a couple consoles and I think Steam, but I played it on my stepdad's Switch (He found it in the eShop, I watched him play and wanted to try it myself). The game is seemingly often compared to 2D Legend of Zelda, but I personally don't really see the comparisons beyond comparisons you can make to dozens of other games and not just LoZ. It took me 2 or 3 days to beat, but if you have enough time and know what you're doing you might be able to beat it in 3 hours. This game has enthralled me ever since I played it like... It might've been months ago now, actually, because it is possibly one of the most obscure games I've ever played, and the way it handled it's plot fascinates me.

I looked on YouTube and only found a couple playthrough videos & specific segment guides and not much else besides the official soundtrack upload (By the way, huge shout out to the game's composer, Dale North, this game's ost is amazing go listen to it right fucking now it has under 2K views but is spectacular and deserves better), I found a Fandom wiki for the game that only has 16 barren pages and the main page was vandalized for some time because it wasn't fucking edit locked, and besides for like 1 or 2 people playing through the game on their own, all of the posts about it on here seem to be either automated reposts from other sites and/or like... Reviews and articles written by game journalists? Which puts me in an interesting spot here.

I just find that entire side tangent really interesting, but I'm now going to spoil the entire plot because it leads up to why this game's ending sucks. If you're playing through this game right now, don't read further but let me know and provide proof because I will not believe you but also really want to know if I am literally the only person who knows about this game.

Sparklite's Story, From Memory at 12:30 AM

You're a mechanic girl named Ada flying an airship with your robot pal Wingnut. You crash atop the continent of Geodia, and have to figure out where to go now. Woohoo.

You go through a weird building called a Founders' Vault that gives you a crossbow then replaces it with a blueprint in your inventory when you leave, and get your ass kicked by a robot that eats Wingnut and has a human piloting it that is uncommunicative and never elaborated on and entirely possible to miss.

You wake up in the Refuge, a fucking sky island base built by the people of Geodia because it is currently experiencing multiple seismic events constantly reshaping the land. Because it's a roguelite. There's this one character I forgot the name of, he's really cool looking and is said to be the one who built the Refuge but hasn't talked since he finished it, he'll come up again a bit, I'll refer to him as Hero because his design at first glance reminded me of a character named Hero from one of my friend's projects, ROYN, which I shall now shamelessly plug, go watch it. I dare you. I don't think the designs are actually comparable in hindsight.

You go down from the Refuge into Geodia, starting in the Vinelands which has a lot less vines than the name implies, and explore a bit, meeting a strange pirate gambler who makes you gamble at his game and resets all of the objects once you leave the room allowing for you to grind breaking plants eternally for infinite money, and eventually find that boss from before and kill him. Wingnut is saved, hooray!

Behind the boss (Because I guess it couldn't get in there but wanted to guard it) is a room leading to a giant chasm underneath Geodia revealing a big crystal. I don't remember if it was named. I'm going to call it the Philosophers' Stone because it's funny and technically a pun. You step on a symbol and a voice from who the fuck knows where speaks to you, telling you things. You're warped back to the Refuge, Hero speaks to you, and the next area is unlocked. This loop repeats for each major world, because that sequence unlocked the next one.

Between the mystery voice and Hero's monologues, you learn the following:

The main fuel source of this world is Sparklite, a usually green crystal that comes in other flavors and contains essentially infinite power. Basically anything drops it, and it's the currency of the game. Despite being set up as a power source, you're arbitrarily given a separate energy meter for the weapons that cost energy.

You can burn Sparklite to get a higher energy output but destroying the Sparklite, which fucks up the environment and turns things into monsters and is what's causing Geodia to fracture, and that's what the main antagonist, the Baron, and his soldiers, the bosses, are doing. Why? I dunno. Hero specifically mentions he was the one who invented burning Sparklite, but this never goes anywhere.

There was this ancient people that either came to this continent or planet and made it alive because they needed a place to stay. I forgot all of their names, but there were 5 important ones, but only 3 were actually important to the plot, and in fact I might be misremembering and only 2 are. one of them made the Philosophers' Stone as essentially the world's heart (It's one giant Sparklite crystal), one of them is Ada's ancestor and passed down the necklace thing you use as a key to get into more Founders' Vaults, and another tried to break the Philosophers' Stone and figured out how burning Sparklite works. No, I don't think this means Hero is thousands of years old, though I wish that was the twist.

I think Ada was prophesized to show up here, but I don't know how or why.

The Baron wants the Philosophers' Stone. You have to activate the seal things at the end of each world to protect the stone and stop him from getting it.

There are these musical creatures called Beats that keep getting lost. This one girl, Harmony, wants you to rescue them all. Saving all of them across the entire map gives you essentially the instant win button, as it's the max upgrade of each major equipable accessory thing I forgot the name of. If you've played Iconoclasts, they're essentially this game's more elaborate version of Tweaks... Iconoclasts is also another obscure indie game I've obsessed over a lot, and I only know one person outside of the game's Discord that knows about it.

Sparklite's Ending Has To Have Been Developed In Under An Hour

Okay, that's a bit of hyperbole, but still.

You're in the final world, Titan's Ridge, listening to one of the coolest tracks in the game, and you enter the final dungeon, seeing that the standard boss room is empty and the door to the Philosophers' Stone chamber is broken open. You walk in, the stone is gone, and the voice tells you you were too late and to go stop the Baron.

You're warped to the top of Titan's Ridge (it's a mountain), where the Baron is staring over the clouds at the Refuge. He has a generic villain monologue about how Ada is annoying and Sparklite is always more powerful when burned, snaps his fingers and the ENTIRE REFUGE CATCHES FIRE AND FALLS OUT OF THE SKY, and the final showdown commences.

You beat him up, and then he just absorbs the entire Philosophers' Stone out of nowhere, transforming into this horrid abomination that takes up almost the entire background as you fall into the stone chamber, and have to fight a swarm of buffed enemies to reactivate all of the seals. Alright, now I can fight him for rea- Wait, what the fuck, the game's over.

I'm not kidding. You have the first phase where you fight him in his normal form, then he turns into a kaiju, and you don't even fucking fight him, just his enemies. He doesn't even have a unique animation for when the seal lazers shoot at him and just... Disintegrate him offscreen, I guess, because the Philosophers' Stone is put back in place and the day is saved.

Hero's entire arc is never resolved, none of the other characters you meet have literally any relevance to the story, there's no further explanation given from the voices, the Refuge is somehow back to normal again, and the monsters all turn back to normal animals. The credits put you in a white void with nothing to do but pet a dog as the credits roll, and then you're booted to the title screen once the credits and their corresponding song (best track in the game and one of the best credits themes I've ever heard btw) finish.

You can imagine why my immediate reaction was frustrated, confused vocalizations of distress and despair, after having spent approximately 4 or 5 hours trying to beat the final boss (You had to restart at phase 1, and I had to leave to get better equipment twice which meant finding the dungeon in the newly randomized map all over again).

Hero's story never went anywhere and had no relevance to the plot, Baron's character was never explored, you don't even see what happened to him, his minions literally never got dialogue but were clearly people as Hero would talk about them individually each time you cleared a world, a lot of questions about the ancient people are left unanswered, Ada's relation to the ancients and Geodia is never explored, Wingnut is barely even a character if you remember them by the way they don't talk ever again after rescue besides when you get upgrades for them because they're a gameplay gimmick, and I don't know if Ada ever gets her ship back.

I don't know if this was a deadline issue, since the game was already pretty light on content and made by seemingly an indie studio idk I haven't looked into them, or if the devs just... Ran out of ideas on how to wrap the story up and just threw together something just to get it over with. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, you won't be playing the game for the plot, and it was my fault for expecting the game to have one when it was absolutely a gameplay-centered game. But still, as the ending to a narrative, that was dogshit. I still recommend the game, though. I don't even play roguelikes/lites and I still had a great time. I don't remember the price tag, and as you can tell I'm too lazy and tired to be googling things right now, but I'm pretty confident it was less than 30 dollars.

Princess Peach: Showtime, A Paradox Of Game Design

One of my friends didn't even know this game released when I started playing through it. I got it for my birthday, because I thought a modern Princess Peach platformer would be a decent time and I was running out of modern first-party Switch releases I was actually interested in. Like Sparklite, I see nobody talk about it, but obviously due to being a Nintendo game (Though made by some other company, I don't know what Goodfeel is in relation to Nintendo but they're to blame for this) there's much better documentation meanwhile Sparklite doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. I don't know what the standards are for that kind of thing, but you get the idea.

In case anyone missed that this game existed and don't know anything about it, Princess Peach is invited to the Sparkle Theatre, only for Madame Grape and the Sour Bunch to infiltrate and fuck up the plays happening in the Theatre, while locking everyone inside. The theatre's guardian, Stella, this game's stereotypical tiny floating exposition dump partner, asks Peach for help going through all of the plays and saving the day. You go through the plays, resolve the story conflicts the Sour Bunch are causing (Fun fact, they literally commit an act of terrorism in one of the levels), rescue the main actors called Sparklas, yadda yadda.

The game's story is as bland and generic as you can get, so you won't be playing the game for that. You could've swapped Peach out for a unique non-Mario character and nothing would've changed, literally nothing. Especially since most of the character designs don't feel like Mario characters to me. The game's soundtrack, to me, was nothing to write home about. The graphics are alright, but still pretty standard. The gameplay loop, in a vacuum, should be really annoying: You go through a linear level with a couple easy-to-miss side paths or side quests to get collectibles, do a couple minigames, maybe fight a boss every now and then, and if you want to retry literally any part of the level you have to restart the entire thing. At some point, you get a transformation into a costume matching the play, and a new gimmick is introduced, that usually sucks.

The game is easy as shit, unless you're trying to 100% it, then if so the developers hated you. I genuinely don't know why I even finished the game, I should by all accounts not have enjoyed it, but I somehow had fun with it and I still can't really figure out why. It was barely even a platformer. I gave up 100%ing it halfway through when I had to ask myself if constantly retrying a level if I actually cared enough that I wanted to be doing this, because I realized I was just acting on completionist instinct. Once I re-evaluated, I immediately dropped it and just went to finish the game, because I was just not into this game enough.

Princess Peach: Showtime's Ending Is Sonic Adventure 1's Final Boss But Done So Terribly Worse It's Actually Really, Really Funny

I have not, in fact, played Sonic Adventure 1.

I will preface this by saying that even with how lame the game was over all, it was ultimately inoffensive. Sure, it existed only to exist and make Nintendo some more money and nothing more, but you could at least have a good time with it. Up until this ending.

You've beaten every level, and rescued all of the Sparklas. The final boss door is waiting for you, where Madame Grape is waiting behind it. But... Stella can't get it open, even with her magic (By the way, Stella and the Sparklas are powered by Sparkle, Grape uses DARKLE). The cutscene makes it feel like all is lost, because now we can't stop Grape if we can't get to her, and she's just gonna rule the theatre forever.

The Sparklas, previously not in literally any part of the hub world even after being rescued unless I missed them, all surround Peach and offer up their Sparkle, and Peach absorbs it AND GETS A SUPER FORM. Like, literally, through the power of friendship she gets a Super Sonic form.

She floats now, too, and can shoot magic projectiles. So Peach goes through the door, Grape is waiting, somehow three times the size she was in previous cutscenes, and challenges you to a fight, saying she'll create the perfect tragedy by defeating you, her foil. The fight is flying around a ring-shaped arena and shooting projectiles at her around obstacles blocking you from shooting her as you occasionally have to dodge rocks and lazers. That is the ENTIRE FIRST PHASE OF THE FIGHT.

Some of the major bosses of the game actually had interesting gimmicks, like Light Fang was a snake in a clocktower-like environment who you had to avoid being spotted by or else they'd REWIND TIME until you got high enough to hit their fuse and stun them, and Spotlion who would turn the arena to glass and shoot projectiles that now bounce around and you'd have to reflect them back at the boss to stun them. But not the FINAL BOSS.

Peach powers down, and she and Stella go to leave, satisfied Grape is dead as only her mask is left on the floor, only for her to reform and the entire room explodes.

Peach and Stella wake up in the rubble of the Sparkle Theatre, which is now completely destroyed. Grape, now instead of basically being invisible under her clothes besides for a purple smog orb is now whatever this is, and the size of a fucking kaiju.

All seems lost AGAIN, until the residents of the island offer up their Sparkle to Peach, who powers up AGAIN with technically a different form but functionally the same except shooting a beam instead of an orb, and flies off to fight Grape... IT'S THE SAME FIGHT AGAIN, BUT WITH A SMALLER, RECTANGLE ARENA, SHOOTING A BEAM, AND EVEN EASIER TO DODGE ATTACKS.

AND THEN GRAPE IS BLOWN UP AND THROUGH THE POWER OF BULLSHIT THE THEATRE IS RECONSTRUCTED AND PEACH GOES HOME. THAT'S THE ENDING. THAT'S THE FUCKING ENDING. But then, on one of the random credits slides you can see Grape's mask floating in the ocean, implying she might come back in the future. That wasn't a post-credits scene, not one of the last 5 slides of the credits, they put the sequel bait only like 3/4ths into the credits.

I can't be the only one who feels like this is basically just thrift store Perfect Chaos, right? Just when it seems the villain is going to succeed, the main character assumes a floating super form with the help of their friends and goes in for the final showdown. The final boss is the main antagonist which is some esoteric being with shapeshifting capabilities thousands of times bigger, more monstrous, and made of some kind of viscous fluid, and is fought in the remains of the hub world. It even looked like the island was being flooded in that final sequence right before the second phase of the Grape fight.

Obviously, Perfect Chaos is much better than Grape in basically every aspect, especially because that form is actually earned by Chaos meanwhile Grape just... Turns into it.

Oh, also, get this, I didn't look much into the post-game content just because I was so fucking done with the game by this point, but those collectibles you can find in the levels if you hate yourself can actually be spent on something besides unlocking boss doors now. You can decorate the hub world. There's only like 15 decorations, and you can't choose where they go. They're in specific spots. And you can only get one of each. And there's only like 3 per floor.

Don't play this game. You can take the triple A price tag and split the money up to buy like 5 indie games so much more worth your time than this fucking garbage. I beat it a few hours ago and I'm still fuming about how dumb the ending was.

Conclusion

I hope at least one more person buys Sparklite or at least looks into it/listens to it's soundtrack because of this post, and one less person buys Princess Peach: Showtime because of this post.

Also, Bonus Funny Story: Me joking with one of my friends about Grape devolved at breakneck speeds to PP:S 2's antagonist being named Pineapple, having the evil plan of opening a portal to Hell, being fought in the Greed layer of Dante's Inferno except it's basically El Dorado, burnt to death by being dropped into molten gold, replaced by a corrupt businessman as the main antagonist only to come back for the final boss as Golden Pineapple. And then Reality Pineapple.

Would you believe me if I told you all of that was references to the ROYN series I mentioned earlier and the inside jokes we have related to it? Because that's what happened. No, you are not getting an explanation. Unless you watch ROYN. There's a running gag where me and that same friend from the Pineapple joke advertise the series like we're paid shills, and it's really tempting to lean into that right now, but then I'd just actually look like a shill. Especially since I'm friends with the guy making it.

[beniial]

Half Life 2

Woah! I do reviews now. These aren't going to be professional critiques or anything, I just wanted somewhere to dump my thoughts out as I work through games. A lot of these will also be posted over on Backloggd, if you want to see all of them together. Also, don't expect them all to be this long. I just had a lot of thoughts I wanted to get out.

Half Life 2 feels revolutionary. Not in the sense that it blows what I've played before out of the water, but that I can feel how it changed the way games after it were designed and influenced where we are now. I've been meaning to get around to it for a while after playing HL1 on my laptop between classes a couple years back, and after giving it a bit of a try and getting distracted last year I sat down and worked through it over a couple days.

The game's world building is excellent - I think it's its strongest suit. City 17 and its surrounding areas feel like a lived in world, torn apart and scavenged back together in the cracks. The moment to moment story isnt that complicated, often just being enough to point Gordon to the next main location, but I feel like that's ignoring the rest of the story going on. The person waiting at the train station asking if anyone else is getting off, the small resistance armies dotted along the coast, the pinboard in Eli's lab keeping tabs on Breen's rise to power. You see a lot more of the world than just the hallways and canals you're running through, and it feels like spotting these things is a reward itself, even if there are the lambda caches dotted around encouraging you to slow down and comb through the world more as well. It does feel like the game is a bit lacking in the actual environments you're in, though. It matches the setting but a huge chunk of the game is spent in kind of samey urban environments, and when it does switch up the aesthetic you're normally locked into that new look for a while as well, like the coastal cliffs or the inside of Nova Prospekt.

Playing the game, you cant help but feel how excited the Valve designers were about their new engine. Every setpiece or mechanic has a "WOW" factor you can still feel today, with both big dramatic changes in the environment and tiny details among the rubble that only exist to give you more toys to play with. The "pick up that can" moment early on isn't just a tutorial for moving objects, it's the developers showing just how immersive a game can be in the future year of 2004, and giving you the freedom to throw that can at a cop's face and then run away giggling while they chase after you. The game is in wonder of the source engine's technology and wants to show off just how flexible it can be. Unfortunately, part of the game's wonder with its own technology is having Gordon sit down in a vehicle and pilot the physics engine for a while. Yes this deserves its own section. I don't think they're quite as boring as other people have said, there's plenty of side areas to explore and you have to get out on foot often to break up the pace, but they're definitely not as strong as the core gameplay. They feel like a 10 minute setpiece stretched out to an hour for the sake of not wasting all the time it took to make them work. The airboat segment is definitely the better segment out of the two - its looser controls and bigger emphasis on doing cool stunts and darting around make it more fun to use, and it gets incorporated into puzzles and combat more often than the car. I suppose I have to put myself back in the moment for these - back then switching from on-foot to in a vehicle on the fly and having it feel realistic would've been enough to hype you through the entire area. Or maybe not. I wasn't there.

The game isn't just about stacking bricks on a seesaw and showing off how cool Havok is, though. The meat and potatoes is still a set of really interesting combat encounters. It felt like all of them had something unique to it, just like the original. Combat is a puzzle, and the solution isn't always to just sprint in and spray whatever gun has the most ammo - I needed to pick out which enemies had to be taken out first, where I could afford to take cover and reload, which I could pick off at a distance or flush out of cover with a grenade. That is until Father Grigori blessed me with the holy 12 gague and let me switch from Gordon Freeman, the MIT scientist plunged into comat, to Gordon, the creature that will sprint up to you at 20mph and blast 12 pellets of 8 damage into your chest before you have time to fire back. I think its a bit of a shame the weapon arsenal is more tame this time around, with the limited use antlion pods not being a substitute for flocks of snarks I have at all times, but they all had a place in combat and I never felt underequipped for what was being thrown at me. Likewise, I prefered the larger range of enemies HL1 had to offer. Combine soldiers are a fun challenge to deal with, but other than headcrabs and zombies in 3 flavours or the occasional swarm of manhacks it felt like I was fighting the same enemies the entire game, just with their health tuned up to match my rising damage output.

The ending cliffhanger worked on me. Episodes 1 and 2 are now installed, and I am ready and eager to be stuck waiting for what comes after them, same as everyone else has for 17 years or so. I dont think it's a perfect sequel to Half Life 1, losing out on its tighter design and variety of content, but it definitely is a perfect introduction to the Source engine, giving the groundwork for other excellent games to work off. Also the gravity gun is cool i guess.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

And finally we'll be all caught up after doing Switch games I've played in the second half of this year and am at least telling myself I'm still working on them:

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes: The character build options are plentiful, and it's nice to be able to play a game with the Three Houses characters that doesn't make me motion sick, but overall it's kinda disappointing and I haven't finished it yet. The balance between busywork in the camp and actual gameplay is weirdly skewed compared to other Nintendo Warriors games, the combat feels less satisfying and less impactful than all of them, and I really don't like the game structure where you have to do multiple playthroughs and can't just have everything unlocked all at once. Yes, I realize most of those things are because they're trying to stay close to how Three Houses handles those things. No, that doesn't make me dislike them any less in this game [since writing this I've played a tiny bit more, and the combat really does not feel good to me compared to the first FEW, or HWDE, or especially not AoC, and I am very disappointed]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: I won't go into too much detail because this one deserves more than a couple sentences and will get its own post later, but the short version is that it's easily my favorite game I've played all year, and it helped me when I wasn't doing great

Little Noah: Kinda forgot I was still working on this one because my Switch is just an XC3 box at the moment [I have continued to forget even though I'm taking an XC3 break], but it's surprisingly fun. It was a semi-impulsive buy (after checking to make sure it's not horribly broken) because it very clearly has the same character designer as Bravely Default and everything is very cute, but the game itself is fun and has a satisfying loop. Framerate is moderately terrible on the Switch though, and I kind of wish I'd gotten it on Steam instead

Hades: Almost definitely the best non-Xenoblade game I've played this year, although I'm not quite done with it yet. I loved everything about Bastion but was kinda disappointed by Transistor and skipped Pyre entirely, so this has been great to finally have a Supergiant game where I like everything about it again. I made it to the final boss and was like two hits from winning on my first try the first time I made it there but got side tracked by other stuff and haven't gone back to actually beat that or unlock more of people's stories after that yet

Axiom Verge: Also not sure whether I'm technically still playing this. I did get along with it better than Hollow Knight in terms of metroidvaniaing I've done this year, and I meant to play more of it, but I've been kind of a mess and there are so many other games [this is probably the closest to being removed from the "still playing" list, like it's fine but it doesn't stand out for me as much as other stuff I'm playing]

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars: Oops almost forgot this one. I stand by everything I said about the demo before, which is also true of the full game so far like half a dozen hours in. It's not quite as interesting as some other JRPGs I've played recently, but it's short and has a good vibe that it does a good job of conveying

[britt-kageryuu]

Afternoon Day 1

First | PREV |

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

💙

Leo was enjoying the switch to Meet and Greet, the fact that he was now just talking to fans, and some random people that spotted him while walking past.

His favorite thing to do is ask April to hand him something, and what happens is he opens a small portal just behind the curtain to pass things through, and he'll make a show of recieving and showing it off.

Though one time Cass just chucked a box of tea through the portal so it would hit him in the head. Many leaned around to find out where the stuff was actually going.

Though the small argument with a guy who was offended by Leo just existing for some reason was hit with, "Well I'm not the one arguing with and yelling at with a anthropomorphic Red Eared Slider on a Fancy TV. Now am I?"

Guy nearly punched the screen until April said 'If you break it, it'll cost you 4k to replace the hardware."

Well other then the occasional fan asking how he and Usagi were doing, some genuinely curious people asking about the VTurtles, and some odd photo requests, it was pretty calm.

Though there was one interesting conversation with a Med Student that go some people just watching a Humanoid Turtle and someone dressed as Jason Todd talk about obscure medical terminology.

❤

Raph was feeling awkward about taking over the Live Stream interviews, but at least he could dress up for it.

Many were kinda caught of guard by this tall dude dressed as an apocalypse survivor (think the Kraang Future Raph but human), with a robot turtle on his shoulder, asking if they want to be interviewed.

He got stopped multiple times for pictures, people wanting to compliment the costume, and he had to check on a few people who collided because they go distracted while walking.

Though he also stopped to take some pictures of different Cosplayers, especially the one person dressed as Red Angel.

Though he did have one interesting moment were he helped someone who got hurt, and helped carry them to a medical office. The person had randomly said 'Marry Me', only for Raph to awkwardly reply with, "I have a girlfriend, sorry."

There was a number of posts about this, with quite a few saying 'wish that were me!'

💜💙

Donnie sadly had to return to the booth to let April and Casey have a break. He regretted letting the Dragons have no obligation to help with the booth other than as tech support when he wasn't their.

Leo was having some fun bantering with Donnie when not chatting with people walking past. The urge to go into Disaster Twins was very tempting, because of how naturally they fell into it.

Though the reminder to call Donnie by a different nickname was a bit hard.

"Just call me Othello, Blue."

"Okay, Tello Tello~"

"O-Thell-O! Get it right you broken neon light!"

Other than that, running the booth solo even for a half hour was a bit tricky, though it was funny hearing people ask Blue what the prices for things were. The most popular things so far were prints, keychains, and plushies.

And according to a small survey done for future merch requests, people wanted to get whatever 'Voice Packs' were. Though the idea of making a mod that would switch out some voice acting with their own wouldn't be a bad idea.

🧡

Mikey was feeling exhausted, but still very happy.

So many people bought so many things from his booth, he had to list a couple of items out of stock for the day. And adding a note to bring the needed restock the next day. Especially loose paper, people really loved the quick sketch thing, and he ran out of paper pretty fast, and had to remove the option from the 'menu board' item lists.

Not to mention some of the pictures he's got (with permission of course) of so many amazing Cosplayers. He also had to make a note of possibility needing to grab another pack of business cards for his alt social. He didn't expect people to want even just the card.

Though it might be the fact he went out of his way to have multiple designs on them, so people were treating them like collectors items on their own... Maybe that should be a gimmick for the next time he does Artist Alley, a 'Golden Ticket' business card... or would that just lead to way more work than he needs.

Mikey took a quick look at his phone, and noticed that there was only an hour until the Halls Closed for the day.

Which thank Pizza Supreme, he was ready to get a quick bite, and sleep!

~▪~▪~▪~▪~▪~▪~

Once the closing of the Dealers Hall and Artist Alley were called, and the last people were ushered out. Then came packing up some small things that they didn't want to leave behind, and shutting off and securing the tech in the booth, before leaving themselves.

The booth teams, Raph, and the Dragons met up outside with Leo who went to grab some pizza and sides from a local place with good reviews. Not forgetting to grab the drones, wouldn't want to leave their robot children behind in that chaos.

They had their Dinner outside while going over how they were going to balance the next day, since someone would need to switch out with Mikey for his shift on M & G, because it would be unfair to leave CJ alone for hours.

They also looked into what was going on during the evening, for those who weren't quite tired yet, maybe a panel, movie or Karaoke room?

Either way they split up, with those who wanted to get to bed going back to the hotel, and the rest setting off to wander to event for a couple more hours before heading back to get some sleep.

They all remembered to queue up some posts to go up during the day tomorrow, just standard 'watching the Live of the con from work when I can', a reminder that Dee and Mandarin were doing meet and greets, maybe a 'Did I see some VTurtles Cosplay!?!' with screenshots from the live.

Meanwhile social media from the event itself was being pretty chaotic on it's own, with many people already putting together compilations of what was going on. And extensively reported on by various Social Media Reporters.

Though many have yet to face April in a battle of journalism just yet.

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

Masterpost

This ended up a bit short, but then again I kinda restricted myself on how I was going to write this out.

Mainly the 'I have given the characters an obligation, and they can't explore very much' thing.

Well, again I am open for criticism, and let me know what you think.

[caramariafilm]

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Sky - Production Design

30th March - FILMING DAY THREE

Continuing on from my last post, here is an update on what the schedule would look like! For today’s filming, myself and Saskia would join for the morning shoot and help set up the flashback scene. Since we were working with a child actor we couldn’t have them on set for more than four hours anyway so this gave us a time limit on this. After the morning was done, Saskia and I would leave to pick up our set design props, then head to the interior location and set up for the entire afternoon and evening if we needed. While this was going on, the crew would go to Braidburn Valley and get the pickup of the titlecard sequence.

There would be no wing shots today, the driver was also unable to do the evening shoot as he was working and there was an issue with scheduling so they agreed to move the skeleton crew to the 1st. Something else, we agreed it made less sense for me to be part of the skeleton crew as this would mean there would be no sound recordist in the car (driver, director, actor, and DOP). So, I instead said I would show the actor the wings on the interior shoots as I’d be bringing them in thenm show him how he can move them around and get comfortable with them, as well as write out a DETAILED document explaining how to care for the wings.

While this wasn’t an indeal scheduling - missing the titlecard sequence and not being able to handle the wings - I understood it was what was best for us all with the time frame we had. 

For the morning shoot, I brought the matching costume for Young Arthur as well as the wire and switch for the rocket! Saskia brought the rocket :)

I also brought options for the love letter that Young Arthur wrote that was going to get taped to the side of the rocket. I had sent the director photos of the different options however thought it would be best for him to see them in person. 

Before the child actor arrived, Saskia and I set up the rocket and did everything we could to prepare for the shoot as we knew we didn’t have much time. The director and DOP mentioned Young Arthur ducking behind some kind of garden object, however in the script it read that Arthur hid behind himself, so Saskia and I were a bit confused.

We realised this prop must’ve come from the storyboarding process and wasn’t communicated with us properly. This was totally fine! These things happen, it just meant Saskia and I had to find something on set that would work. So, we went around the garden and found what we could! This was lots of fun. We found a metal planting structure that actually matched the rocketshape which was great, and then used an upside down plant pot with some wooden planks lent against it to create a shelter like structure. This worked really really well and I’m so happy with it. Although it looks homemade, I feel like it looks like something a small child would make, which is ideal.

The morning shoot went by really smoothly. It rained for ten minutes or so but it just meant everyone could take breaks.

After Saskia and I were finished setting up, we spoke about the interior plan to make most of the time - we needed to stay til the end of the shoot to reset the handmade structure we made.

When the morning wrapped, we ended up being a bit pushed for time and had to cut a couple shots. This was a shame as it meant there was no time for the children’s love letter I wrote for Young Arthur, as well as the little toggle switch I purchased for the rocket. These things happen though, and the child’s safety is most important.

After this, Saskia and I went our separate ways to get all of our props together. The child wrangler - Cate RIding - is a close friend of mine and offered to help me pick up my props as it was definitely a two person job. I am so grateful for this, I wouldn’t have been able to manage by myself and she is also just so kind and was a lovely energy to have around. 

So we both went back and got all my props and started to bring them to the interior location. We had to take lots of breaks, as everything was super heavy, but once we made it, I was really excited!

Cate and I waited for Saskia before we started moving anything big, and I went around the space and just took lots of photos for resets after the shoot.

When Saskia arrived, we set off on moving around all the big furniture as described by the floor plan the DOP laid out for us. Once this was done, we worked on getting the photos of clouds in the frames and sticking the letters on walls. Smaller details such as items on desk could be figured out the morning of the shoot, while the camera department were setting up. 

Here is what it looked like before…

And here it is after the first day of setting up!

[candy-floss-crazy]

Hole-y Matrimony: Why You Should Do Doughnuts Instead of a Cake

It’s not uncommon nowadays for couples to try and bring a sense of uniqueness to their wedding, whether that be in the dress code, the location or even the colour theme. But cake alternatives are slowly becoming the new wedding “in”, with people switching out the tiers for other sweet treats that can compensate - and this is where doughnuts get the hole in one. Inviting doughnuts into your wedding can help you cut costs and even make your day that bit extra environmentally friendly. In this guide, we’ll show you how to integrate this delicious dessert into your plan, and why it’ll be so much better than your average cake. Cake vs Doughnuts: How Do We Measure Them? Flavours Cake: Talking traditionally, there are 3 opportunities for different flavours, each tier representing a different taste. But keep in mind that with each layer comes a certain uniformity – a limitation that can sometimes dampen the thrill of flavour exploration. The struggle to find flavours that complement each other can be overwhelming, and then there’s always the fear of a half-eaten cake if one of the tiers is preferred. Doughnuts: Doughnuts are the undisputed champions of flavour diversity. They come in a dizzying array that caters to every palate – whether you're a fan of timeless classics or crave adventurous, unexpected combinations. Having a variety of different tangs can mean all your guests will be able to enjoy something that they like, and it can be immense fun choosing all the options you want to have on show. Presentation: Cake: While wedding cakes are often celebrated for their grand presentation, this spectacle can be a double-edged sword. The towering presence of a multi-tiered cake might dominate the aesthetic, potentially overshadowing other elements of your wedding decor.  As well as this, elaborate cake designs can sometimes clash with certain themes or styles, limiting your options for presenting something that truly reflects your vision. Doughnuts: They provide a flexible option for presentations that can effortlessly blend with different wedding styles. Their compact size encourages inventive arrangements that won't overshadow the general aesthetic. Regardless of whether your theme is rustic or modern, doughnuts can be positioned to enhance your selected decor without becoming the focal point. Displayed on multi-level stands, pegboards, or as individual treats, the presentation of doughnuts offers a more balanced and versatile visual appeal. Uniqueness: Wedding Cakes: Wedding cakes are steeped in tradition, often making them feel a bit commonplace with similar designs and concepts frequently seen. The trick is to break the mould while still meeting the expectations of what a wedding cake should be. While striving for true originality can lead us down paths less travelled, it might not be a hit with all guests and could detract from the festive atmosphere. Doughnuts: On the flip side, incorporating doughnuts into your wedding adds a unique and exciting twist to your celebration. Choosing a doughnut display immediately sets your wedding apart from others. With a wide variety of flavours and opportunities for creative displays, you can design an experience that truly pops. Doughnuts offer a fresh, memorable angle that will not only tantalise your guests' taste buds but also create lasting memories. Budget-Friendliness: Wedding Cakes: The charm of a majestic wedding cake often comes with a pretty penny attached. The complexity of the cake design, detailed adornments, and expert craftsmanship needed all play a part in the rising costs. The quest for an eye-catching centrepiece could eat into a significant chunk of your budget, leaving less for other wedding elements. As the expenses pile up, your dream cake might morph into a financial strain that impacts other parts of your celebration. Doughnuts: Doughnuts excel in their cost-effectiveness, offering a budget-friendly alternative without compromising on flavour or aesthetics. Their smaller size naturally means less cost per serving, freeing up your budget for other important aspects like the venue, attire, or entertainment. Doughnut displays can still be a feast for the eyes, and the money saved can help achieve a more balanced allocation of resources throughout your entire wedding. Fact: Did you know that in 2021, the average cost of a wedding in the UK escalated from around £15,171 to £16,000?! Sustainability: Wedding Cakes: As enchanting as they may be, wedding cakes do raise some concerns about sustainability. The intricate decorations often involve materials that aren't environmentally friendly. Plus, transporting these large, multi-tiered cakes can add to your event's carbon footprint. Although you can try to use locally sourced and organic ingredients, the environmental impact of wedding cakes can sometimes overshadow their grand appearance. Doughnuts: Here's where doughnuts can really shine - they're a more sustainable dessert choice. Perfect for eco-friendly couples, their smaller size reduces potential food waste. If sourced from local bakeries that prioritise green practices, doughnuts can help lower your wedding's environmental impact. An added eco-friendly bonus is the variation of flavours in one display, reducing the need for multiple desserts and promoting more efficient, sustainable resource use. So there you have it folks, a breakdown of the battle between wedding cake and doughnuts - and I think it’s clear to see who the winner is! Ultimately, your big day should reflect you and your partner's personalities, and only you two should make the final call on each element. But if you’re looking for a sweet, penny saving substitute that you and your guests will adore,  contact us to see how we can help to make it happen. Read the full article

[luxgalador]

do you play any pc games? if so whats your fav??:)

i ask bc i dont have a switch bUt it seems like you really enjoy splatoon -i love when the lil dudes from the game pop up on my dash thanks to you!! it looks so fun and their designs are sooo cute<3<3

I had about 600 hours in Apex but I haven't played that since last year (I solo'd to Gold back in Season 9)

I played a bit of Valorant (peaked bronze III I'm a gamer) last spring as well

But nothing really currently. I do watch pro Apex and Valorant still!

Splatoon would be my main competitive game but I'm on a break because I found early Splat 3 meta so tilting, but I play at an X rank level when I'm on my grind and have played in a couple tournaments during the winter 2020/21 lockdown

[anime-angel-lover]

How Can I Make The Best Of Speed Dating In NYC?

Dating has always been a popular option, but it’s taken on a whole new level in the 21st century. Now, you don’t have to wait for someone to ask you out; you can go out and find them yourself! This is especially true in New York City, where there are so many dating options available. But which one is right for you? In this blog post, we will explore how you can make the best of speed dating in NYC. From what to wear to how to prepare, read on to learn everything you need to know about this popular dating trend.

What is Speed Dating?

Speed dating is a great way to meet new people. It’s also a great way to assess whether or not you are compatible with someone before you invest too much time and effort into a potential relationship.

The premise of speed dating is that everyone stands up and has a conversation with each person they meet for only five minutes. The goal is to move on to the next person as quickly as possible so that you can get more opportunities to chat with potential partners.

There are a few things that you can do to make the best of your speed date experience in New York City. One important thing is to prepare. Make sure that you have plenty of interesting questions prepared and be ready to switch gears if the conversation veers off course. 

Another key tip is to arrive early and set some ground rules for the evening. Establish who will be talking with whom and make sure that everyone knows what their role is in the event. Finally, have fun! Speed dating can be an enjoyable experience if you approach it with a positive attitude."

How Does Speed Dating Work?

Speed dating is a great way to meet new people, and it can be a fun experience if you know how to make the most of it. The key to a successful speed date is to have fun and be yourself. Here are some tips for making the best of your time at a speed date:

1. Bring something interesting to share. It’s important not to come across as too serious or reserved, so bring something quirky or amusing that you can share with your potential dates. This will help break the ice and create a more comfortable environment.

2. Be prepared for surprises. Speed dating is all about getting to know someone quickly, so don’t be afraid to ask questions that might catch someone by surprise. You never know — maybe they have an interesting story or hobby you wouldn’t expect!

3. Don’t be afraid to take risks. If you feel like you haven’t connected with someone yet, go ahead and step away from the table for a bit and see if you can reconnect later on. At the end of the day, speed dating is all about getting out there and meeting new people — even if it means taking some risks!

What to Expect When Going To A Speed Dating Event

When attending a speed dating event, it is important to remember that it is not just a casual date. This type of event is designed to help you meet potential partners in an informal setting.

There are a few things that you should expect when going to a speed dating event:

1. The event will be crowded. This is normal because speed dating is popular and there are always more people than spots available. It is important to arrive early and make your selection carefully so that you can get the most out of your experience.

2. There will be a lot of conversation. Speed dating events are designed as introductions, not long conversations. This means that everyone participating should try to keep the conversation moving and avoid getting bogged down in one-on-one chats.

3. You should dress casually but stylishly. You do not want to feel too overdressed or underdressed, but also avoid wearing something too formal or uncomfortable. You want to look like you would feel comfortable hanging out with this person for an evening rather than feeling like you are at a job interview or meeting someone new.

Tips for Making The Best Out Of Your Speed Dating Experience In NYC

1. If you're new to speed dating, start by attending a couple of sessions before launching into the full experience. This way, you can get a better sense of what to expect and find matches that are a good fit for you.

2. When approaching potential dates, be respectful and professional. Smile, shake hands, and make an effort to engage in conversation. Avoid coming off as too eager or overbearing - this will only turn people off.

3. Dressing nicely is always a nice touch - it shows that you take your dating experience seriously and that you're looking for something serious. However, don't go overboard; a basic outfit will do just fine!

4. Be patient - it can take a while for things to heat up during Speed Dating sessions in New York City. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't happen right away - there are usually plenty of other eligible matches to choose from!

Conclusion

Speed dating is a great way to meet new people and get dates in NYC. However, like anything else, there are some things you can do to make the experience even better. Here are five tips that will help make your speed dating outing a hit: 1. Dress For Success: When speed dating, it's important to dress appropriately. This means wearing clothes that show you're serious about meeting new people and making connections. Avoid jeans or any other clothing that makes you look too casual. opt for something more formal, like a shirt and tie. 2. Make A Plan: When speed dating, it's important to have a game plan in place. Know what you want from the date and be willing to put in the work necessary to find it. Be clear about what kind of person you're looking for (ease of conversation, level of intellect), so that everyone attending the event knows what they're getting themselves into! 3. Don't Be Afraid To Ask Questions: One of the best ways to learn more about someone is by asking questions! Speed dating is an excellent opportunity to probe beneath the surface and figure out whether this person would be a good match for you or not…. 4….And Most Importantly: Have Fun! Speed dating is all about meeting new people and having a good time, so don't take it too seriously! 5. Be Patient: Just like any other activity, speed dating takes time to get used to. Don't be discouraged if things don't start happening right away. There are usually plenty of eligible matches to choose from!