#General Purpose Machine Gun

[tatzelbookwurm]

A Round Door Like a Porthole, Lazarus Green Pt. 1 (you're here) Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4

Wayne Enterprises didn’t really need a small business specializing in “ecto-weapons” invented by self-purported ghost hunters, but S.T.A.R. Labs tipped Lucius Fox off that Lex Luthor was trying to buy an obscure little company in Illinois, and thwarting Luthor was always worthwhile. Now Tim just had to figure out what to do with all the equipment and the concerningly large arsenal of guns and things that looked like normal household items but seemed to have other, horrific purposes. He would have laughed at the way they slapped “Fenton” in front of every invention name (do ghost hunters really need a Fenton thermos? Won’t a normal thermos keep their coffee hot just as well? Are ghosts like trout, to be caught with a Fenton Ghost Fisher which just looks like a normal fishing rod but glow-in-the-dark. And what the fuck even is a Fenton Peeler!?), but he thought with some chagrin about the batarangs, batmobile, and everything else that had “bat” as a prefix in the batcave. 

However, of all the things Tim hadn’t expected to find when he flew out to do an inventory of assets after they bought the business sight-unseen, a portal generating a Lazarus Pit in gaseous form was probably at the top of his list. He didn’t even know that Lazarus water could change states from a liquid to a gas like that. Maybe there actually was something to the whole ghost thing. He supposed that it made sense for ghosts to exist, after all Deadman was part of Justice League Dark. Speaking of. . . he should see if Bruce could call in someone from JLD to assess things. He was feeling decidedly out of his depth.

John Constantine did not like to consult for mega corporations like Wayne Enterprises, but Batman had specifically requested he go check something out and he figured, where's the harm? 

There. 

There’s the harm. 

It turned out the “thing” he’d been called in to look at is a machine that can tear open a stable portal into the Infinite Realms. That is not something that should be possible. That is not something technology should be capable of achieving. That is definitely not something that should exist. Bloody hell, what had the Bats roped him into!?

This really should have been Zatana’s job. Or Deadman’s. Hell, Raven or Secret would be preferable. Because John would prefer not to be dealing with this. In fact, he would prefer to be back in literal Hell than deal with the crazy shit in the Infinite Realms. Could John handle demons, archangels, and even gods? Yeah. He can bind or exorcize most supernatural threats. Does that mean he relishes the idea of going toe to toe with heavy hitters from the Infinite Realms? Absolutely not. 

Some beings who lived there were just little blob ghosts made from ectoplasm and emotion. Some were the restless undead who could not or would not cross over to their afterlives. And some were the embodiments of concepts like nature, destructive weather, and dreams. He wasn’t sure where Death fit into the Realms, whether she ruled or visited, or if it was actually just an extension of her, but he didn’t really want to find out. There were many things John could defeat. Death wasn’t one of them. And now he was looking at a portal into a realm where the living were not meant to be. 

Danny hadn’t returned to Fenton Works since graduating high school. It turned out that he was less anxious when he was not living with people who fantasized about “tearing him apart molecule by molecule” and thought that discussing their plans to dissect him (although he maintained that it would be a vivisection since he’s only half dead) made for fascinating dinner conversation. Who would have thought that his constant stress, anxiety, and insomnia were caused by environmental factors? He’d been unpacking things with a very nice therapist his sister helped him find, and seen great improvements in his mental health. It really helped that she was dead too, and unlike Spectra she didn’t feed off the misery of her patients.

Danny hadn’t intended to ever return to Fenton Works, but when Jazz told him that Jack and Maddie sold their life's work to Wayne Enterprises and a multibillionaire playboy was about to have unfettered access to the Ghost Zone, he was. . . concerned. To say the least. And that was why he was in the middle of doing some light sabotage when Tim Drake-Wayne and a guy in a trenchcoat who reeked of cigarette smoke entered the basement lab. It’s why he was hiding under the Specter Speeder removing the ecto-engine, and there to overhear the conversation that followed.

“So, am I right in thinking that’s a Lazarus Pit?” Tim asked Constantine.

The older man stared at the portal, then at Tim, then at the portal for an uncomfortably long time. Then he pulled out a flask and drained half its contents before saying, “Yes and no. That is basically the same substance as the pits, but I think that this does something else entirely. It seems like this machine basically functions as a summoning circle, but instead of pulling one entity from one side to the other, this is just an open doorway that is perpetually pulling in anything or anyone who gets within its sphere of influence.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing, John.”

“It’s really not,” 

“So what does that mean, is it like a blown hatch in space causing rapid depressurization?” Tim felt a little ill at the thought. “What is it even pulling into our world?”

“No, no. Nothing so dramatic as that. It’s more like, hm, so the way summoning circles work is they invite or compel a specific entity to manifest, by basically making a one-way magical portal for them. This portal is kinda like an invitational summoning, which entices, but doesn’t force anyone to enter. Usually a summoning will have a purpose though, and the being you summon will be offered a deal. If this is doing what I think it is and pulling citizens of the Infinite Realms through and leaving them on this side without a contract or direction, they’re probably getting pretty frustrated and causing havoc. It’s like offering someone a job in another country so they have to get a visa and uproot everything, only to get off the plane and find an empty office, no housing, and no paycheck.” John lit up a cigarette and took a drag.

Tim wrinkled his nose, but knew from long experience that it wasn’t worth it to argue about American tobacco restrictions in the workplace with Constantine, especially while the man was doing him a favor. Also, the man looked like he really needed either a cigarette or another drink, and he’d prefer second hand smoke to a drunk sorcerer. “So then why hasn’t this town been overrun by these beings from the Infinite Realms?”

“Good question kid, but what I really want to know is how is this portal staying open? Really, how was it opened in the first place is the most pressing issue.” John mused.

Tim had already located the blueprints for the portal while waiting for Constantine, but either the Fentons had intentionally falsified the documents to seem plausible just long enough to make off with the money, or he just didn’t understand enough of the interaction between physics and the occult to comprehend how the portal could possibly function. 

He flipped back through the blueprints while the blond man sat cross legged in front of the swirling green portal and his low, distracted mutterings took on the cadence of a chant. The curl of smoke from his lit cigarette unfurled into some kind of spell array, and began to glow. Huh, maybe Tim shouldn't be too quick to judge him for tobacco misuse. Tim triple checked the flat file for any more information about the portal, and came up empty handed.

John, meanwhile, kept chanting as the magical array grew and spread to encompass the entire entrance to the portal. At last he stopped speaking and stood up, stepping back to double check his work. “Alright, Drake. You might wanna close your eyes for this one. It’s gonna be bright,” he said, popping his cigarette back between his lips. Then he stepped forward and blew a mouthful of smoke on the center of the array. The smoke caught against the softly glowing lines, pushing them until they floated back and collided with the nebulous green swirls and, despite Tim closing his eyes, flashed so incandescently white he could see them through his eyelids.

“OW! Fuck!!” John clutched his face, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’m doubling my consulting fee,” he grumbled under his breath.

“You alright?” Tim asked, blinking spots out of his vision.

“Yeah, yeah. Just give me a sec.” He too was blinking now. “That was not supposed to be so bright.”

“I’m assuming it worked though.”

“It had bloody well better ’ave worked.” The older man squinted at the slightly dimmer lines which still shone painfully bright against the green. “Oh. Yeah, that worked. Fuck. . .”

“What?” Tim looked on in alarm as Constantine pressed a hand over his mouth. 

“Oh man. What wanker did you say created this portal?”

“Presumably Drs. Madeline and Jack Fenton. Why?” He drew the last syllable out skeptically. 

“Because, they opened this portal with a child sacrifice, and bound his death and all the lost life potential to their bloody machine to create a perpetual gateway to the Infinite Realms.”

[supernovatx]

Obviously “America is Great Again” is a fantastic critique of capitalism and American propaganda, which would be enough to make it an incredible scene on its own. It’s a great song and a great demonstration of the show’s themes, and it’s really well done.

But there’s a tragic layer to that song that really elevates it for me, and that’s because it’s specifically MacNamara singing it.

MacNamara first is introduced to seem like a stereotypical patriotic army guy in the scene where he knocks Paul out. However, he then subverts that in the next scene where we learn his true morals, namely that he believes in love and humanity as his higher purpose and he will put that above the orders of his country if they conflict. He chooses to let Paul live because of that, and when Paul asks if he can save Emma, MacNamara gives him his gun and tells him to go. We learn, as does Paul, that despite his appearance and general vibes, he is a genuinely good person who wants to help and is willing to put his moral code above his patriotism.

But when he gets apotheosized, he becomes the complete opposite. Suddenly his loyalty is to his country only, and his own moral code is erased in service of that, which causes contradictions between the lyrics of AIGA and his thoughts in the scene with Paul. “You can’t run because our borders are closed” when he was helping Paul escape in a helicopter as a human; “Americans should fit a mold” when he didn’t at all fit the “douchey army patriot” mold he was presented with; “There’s only room for right and wrong” when he clearly is able to choose between his own morality and his orders, indicating a more complex outlook instead of a binary. He becomes the stereotype he was subverting, and in doing so he becomes someone that the real MacNamara would have hated. That’s the tragedy of that song, and of the whole show really, is that the people who become part of the hive mind lose their true selves and are only able to act in their stereotypical roles, even if that’s nothing like how they actually were as humans.

There’s also something to be said here about how the us war machine and capitalism corrupts people and makes them into something they would never have been otherwise through a forced loss of personhood but I can’t figure out how to phrase that so

[mind-empty-just-fictional-people]

He’s Not A Machine!

main masterlist | supernatural masterlist

summary: when dean collapses from exhaustion, it takes everything in you not to beat the shit outta john

pairing: (stanford era) dean winchester x female reader

rating: R for language

word count: 4.0k

warnings: hurt/sad dean, language, john being a terrible father, john being an asshole in general but what else is new

pairing note: reader washes/brushes her hair

author’s note: hiiii me again after many moons of zero contact with this lovely website. sorry for taking so long, hopefully i’ll stay a while this time lol.

It’d been nearly four weeks of back-to-back hunts. This was the seventh motel you and the two Winchesters had been at this month and you were almost ready to call it a night. 

“I’m gonna wash this wraith stench off of me,” you told Dean. You then added quietly so John—who was sitting at the table and cleaning his guns—wouldn’t hear; “Would you like to join me, handsome?”

“More than anything,” he whispered before he bent down and kissed you. John coughed loudly, and you weren’t sure if it was just a perfectly timed accident or a purposeful guilt trip. It was most likely the latter. “But… I think it’s better if I don’t, sweetheart.”

You smiled sadly with a small nod; “Next time, then,” you assured him. You looked up into his eyes and noticed the tiredness laced with the usual burden he carried. He blinked unusually slowly as if he was trying his damndest to stay awake, and you furrowed your brows. “How about you head to bed, you can shower after you get some sleep.”

“It’s alright, I’m not that tired,” he said.

“Hey, are you feeling okay?” you asked him, barely above a whisper so that John wouldn’t hear.

John didn’t like you. He didn’t really trust your intentions with his son, and he thought you were just a distraction that would end up getting Dean killed if he wasn’t careful. He didn’t like how easily Dean would get ‘all giggly’ when he was near you, and he didn’t like that his son kept his guard down when he was with you.

He didn’t like the matching rings you wore, or that you too often referred to the other as husband or wife when a stranger would ask. You weren’t married, you were his fucking girlfriend and John fully believed you wouldn’t still be together by the time Sam finished his first four years at Stanford. 

“I’m fine,” he replied, matching your quiet tone. “I’ll shower right after you so don’t use up all the hot water, okay?” There was a teasing smirk on his face which made your worries subside temporarily.

“I promise to leave you some,” you said before you kissed him once more.

**

“Dean are you okay?” you asked, seeing the far-off look in his eyes when you left the bathroom.

“Yeah, I uh…” He rubbed his eyes as he tried to again focus on your face. He looked over at his dad, who raised a brow at his eldest son. “I’m fine, sweetheart.”

You followed his line of sight and pursed your lips when you saw John.

“Dean says he’s fine, drop it Y/n,” he told you.

Against your better judgment, you decided not to ask Dean again. With your hair still wet from the shower, you took the brush from your bag and started fixing it. 

“Aren’t you gonna shower, babe?” you asked Dean, who hadn’t moved an inch.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. He started to kick off his shoes when he tripped and fell straight to the floor, his cheek now pressed against the carpet.

“Dean!?” you exclaimed and hurried over to him. You fell to your knees and took him into your arms, shaking him gently in hopes he’d just wake up. “Dean? Dean, honey, please? J-John he’s not waking up!” You pressed your lips to his temple; “C’mon, Dean!”

John had left his spot on the couch and was now hovering over you, as you looked up at him desperately.

“Is he breathing?”

“Yeah,” you replied, tears slipping down your cheeks. John helped you lay Dean down so he could check his breathing.

“He seems fine,” John deduced. “Is there a wound we missed or something?”

“W-We need to call an ambulance,” you said and rushed to grab your phone off the nightstand.

“Y/n, Dean wouldn’t want us to call the cops,” John replied. He seemed a little too calm for your liking, so you weren’t about to let him call the shots regarding Dean’s wellbeing.

“I don’t care, we’re getting him to the fucking hospital,” you said as you dialed and made your way back to Dean. “Now hide your goddamn guns before the paramedics get here—I need an ambulance at the Rosebud Motel room 302, my husband just collapsed unexpectedly.” You ignored the look John gave you when you called Dean that. The operator asked questions and you answered each one; “Yes, he’s breathing… No, no bleeding… He’s twenty-five… Uhm, I’m not sure…” You pulled the phone from your ear; “Has he had anything to drink yet tonight?”

John was putting away the guns and paused to think before he shrugged; “I dunno, I wasn’t watching.” 

Your eyes widened and your teeth clenched, the fucking audacity. Looking at the table you saw three opened beers so you made an educated guess when you answered the 9-1-1 operator.

“He might’ve had a beer or two, but he’s not a lightweight, he’d never pass out after two beers… Yes, his dad is in the room with me… Yes, I can stay on the line.” You took in a shaky breath as you brought his hand to your lips and kissed his knuckles. 

“Just stay calm, ma’am, help is on the way.”

“I’m trying,” you replied, tears streaming down your cheeks as you kept his hand pressed to your lips. “Th-This isn’t like him, he’s–he’s always okay.”

**

You bounced your leg anxiously as you sat next to John in the waiting room. As you absentmindedly played with the ring on your right ring finger, you couldn’t help but think of the time when Dean had told you how much you truly meant to him almost three years ago.

* flashback *

“I got you a present.” His smile was adorable as he sat next to you on the couch. He saw your face light up and felt the need to downplay the gift; “It’s nothing much, don’t get too excited.”

“Dean, you could give me a dirty sock and I’d love it,” you teased, placing a quick kiss on his pink lips.

“Well… this is like one teer above ‘dirty sock’, I think.” He smirked and handed you the small velvet box. 

You opened it and your jaw fell open; “Oh my god, Dean!”

“I know how much you like mine,” he said quietly.

“I do like yous,” you took his right hand in yours and kissed the ring on his finger, “I love yours, Dean.”

“Well, this one is exactly like mine.” He smiled. “Except it’s in your size, obviously, so we can… you know… match.” You took the ring out of the box and admired it for a moment. You were about to put it on but he stopped you; “May I do the honors, sweetheart?” he asked. You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your lips as you nodded and he took it from you. He slipped the ring onto your right ring finger before he kissed your hand. 

“I mean this in the most genuine way possible; this is by far the best gift anyone has ever gotten me, Dean! Ever!”

A sheepish blush was forming on his cheeks as he leaned over and kissed your lips; “I love you so much.” He pulled away so he could look at you; “And, I want you to know this isn’t a regular gift.”

“Yeah?” you asked, your smile growing. 

“Yeah,” he replied and kissed you again. When he pulled away again he chickened out a little and didn’t say what he was going to. “You’re twenty-one, which means you can now legally drink in all fifty states.” He stood up, pulling on your hand gently so you would follow him to the kitchen. He took two beers out of the fridge and put them on the table. He used the ring on his finger to easily open one then handed the other to you. “Why don’t you give it a try.”

It took you a few tries but you managed to open the beer using the ring he just gave you; “Okay, now that’s awesome!”

“Happy birthday, sweetheart!” Dean said and you clinked your beers together before you both started drinking them. As he brought the bottle down from his lips, he watched as you kept drinking and smiled to himself. He suddenly felt the courage he felt when he bought the ring and decided to tell you his thoughts; “You know you’re the only girl for me, right?” You nodded with a smile. “I don’t just mean ‘for now’ I mean like forever. That’s the real meaning behind the ring, I love you and I want to be with you for the rest of our lives.”

You couldn’t help the happy tears beginning to sting your eyes as you looked up at him; “Forever?”

“Forever.”

* end of flashback *

You were shaken back to cruel reality by the sound of John’s voice beside you; “What’s taking them so long? We’ve gotta get back on the fuckin’ road.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” you scoffed and looked at him. “Dean might be in serious trouble, and you’re thinking about the next hunt!?”

“Dean’s gonna be fine.” He rolled his eyes.

“We don’t know that,” you replied. You again started fiddling with the ring Dean had given to you.

“You know that ring doesn’t make you two husband and wife,” John commented. 

You stood up abruptly, not wanting to say what was running through your head; Yeah, and Dean being so fucking perfect doesn’t make you a good father.

“Dean Smith’s next of kin?” the doctor asked. 

“I’m his wife, this is his dad,” you said. “H-How is he?”

“He’ll be fine,” she replied. “He has a very minor concussion from when his head hit the floor, but he just needs some rest.”

“What happened?” John asked. 

“He fainted from over-exhaustion, he’s gonna be okay.”

“Over-exhaustion?” You furrowed your brows, placing a hand over your chest. “B-But he’s been eating fine? A-And sleeping as much as me, I think?”

“Actually,” John interrupted, “he’s been helping me with research at night, he doesn’t sleep as much as you.” 

Never in your life had you wanted to knee John Winchester in the balls as badly as you wanted to at that moment.

“How many hours a night are you sleeping, hun?” the doctor asked you.

“Like three to five… every other night,” you admitted. “And that’s always been enough! If it wasn’t, Dean could’ve just taken a nap he didn’t have to—fuck.”

“Can we see him?” John asked.

“He’s still asleep but yes, you can go and see him,” she replied.

On the way to Dean’s room, you kept wondering how this all happened—how did Dean get so fucking tied he collapsed!? If he was staying up at night, why didn’t he just sleep in the car? You would’ve happily driven Baby, and it’s not like you hadn’t done that before—Dean’s love language was sharing that fucking car.

“This hasn’t ever happened before, right?” you asked John. 

“Never,” he replied. “Guess Dean’s just not as strong as he used to be.”

“Excuse me?” you seethed and stopped in your tracks, pulling John to a halt as well. “Dean is a fucking hero but he is not a machine, he’s a fucking human being who’s been treated like a soldier since he was six-fucking-years-old!”

“If you wanna say something, fucking say it!” John exclaimed. 

“Oh, I am saying it! How fucking dare you work him so hard that he lands in the fucking emergency room!”

“We all know in this line of work, we have to do what we have to do!”

You slapped him hard across the face and your eyes widened when you realized what you did. 

“Dean is your son,” you said, quickly changing your facial expression back into one of pure rage. “He is your fucking child and you’ve been treating him like shit for far too long. He deserves better, he doesn’t deserve to be so fucking exhausted that he collapses.”

You walked away and into Dean’s room. Seeing him lying in the hospital bed made your heart break as tears welled in your eyes. 

“Oh god,” you mumbled. “Dean.” You quickly pulled up a chair so you could sit next to his bed and patiently wait for him to wake up. John did the same, though he seemed annoyed by the fact Dean was still asleep. 

You weren’t sure how long had passed before John got fed up; “Can you press the button for the nurse so we can ask when he’s supposed to wake up?”

“I think we should just let him sleep, don’t you?” you whispered, not knowing if Dean had been sedated or if he was just resting like normal.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, I told you to call the damn nurse,” he said, raising his voice which caused Dean to stir awake.

“Hey sweetheart,” Dean said groggily, his eyes half-hooded as he brought your hand to his lips and placed a kiss on your knuckles. He then dropped your hand and rubbed his eyes to wake himself up. “This isn’t the motel,” he realized. He noticed John sitting at the other side of the bed and he sat up a little, trying to somewhat compose himself. “Wh-What happened?”

“I’ll fill you in,” John said. “Y/n, why don’t you go grab us some coffee so I can talk with my son?”

All your instincts told you not to leave the two Winchesters alone but what choice did you have? You didn’t want to start another fight with John, you were tired too, and you didn’t want Dean worrying.

���Yeah, sure,” you said. You took the time to bend down and place a loving kiss on Dean’s forehead, causing him to smile. “No coffee for you though, you need more sleep,” you told him before you left the room. 

About ten minutes later you walked back in and the sight practically made your eyes bulge out of your skull as your jaw flew open. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” you asked and placed the two cups to the side. 

“Dad said there’s a hunt,” Dean said matter-of-factly. “I can sleep in the car or something, let’s go.” He started to stand up so you pushed him back down. 

“How fucking dare you!” you exclaimed at John, who stood on the other side of the bed. “How dare you tell him to suit up right now! He is staying here in this hospital, and he is getting some goddamn sleep!”

“That is not your decision,” John replied. “If Dean says he’s fine, then he’s fine.”

“You realize those are the exact words you said to me before your son collapsed, right?” you scoffed. “Dean lay back down now,” you told him as you began taking his boots off. “You are staying here for the night, you understand me?”

“Don’t you boss him around!” John exclaimed. “Dean and I are leaving here now.”

“You can leave if you want to, but Dean is staying put!” you replied, matching his tone. 

“No, he is not!” John yelled. 

You’d never fought with John like this, usually yelling and getting yelled at made your eyes tear up in the most inconvenient way. But this? Dean’s health? You were not about to back down. Not one single tear dared to appear in your eyes as you looked at John with such anger you wanted to slap him across the face… again.

“Why don’t we get a third opinion?” you suggested.

“Yeah, Dean, do you wanna sit here like a pussy or do you wanna go save some fucking lives?” John turned to look at him.

“Don’t answer that,” you said quickly. “I meant, let’s call the nurse and see what they have to say about it.”

Before John could protest, you walked over and pressed the button. It took half a minute—during which you and John stared daggers at each other—but soon the nurse walked in.

“How is everyone?” she asked, noticing the tension in the room.

“Do you think this young man here can leave yet? He’s doing fine and wants to go home,” John said. 

“Let me check his chart,” she replied before doing so. “I would have to no, he should definitely stay here and get some much-needed rest.”

“Is there a doctor—” John started but you stopped him.

“Goddamn it John!” you scoffed. “He is not leaving!” 

“You are not his fucking family!” John shouted, much louder than before. “I am! You aren’t his wife, you aren’t his sister, you aren’t his fucking mother—you are just his current girlfriend, and believe me that’ll fucking change in a heartbeat. You are not in charge of what Dean does, you are not family.” There was a short pause as your eyes brimmed with tears yet you refused to let them fall. John sighed and continued; “I am Dean’s father, I know what’s best for him, and I say he’s packing his things and getting the hell outta here.”

The nurse looked absolutely shocked, her jaw hanging open. The look John gave her made her hurry out of the room.

“Dad,” Dean said, seeing the tears in your eyes. “Dad, you can yell at me all you want, I’m your kid but…” He exhaled shakily as John turned to look at him with a frustrated look. “But you can’t talk to her like that, you just can’t. You might not think of her as family but that’s on you, she is a part of my family, Dad. And yeah, we might not be legally married or whatever but she’s not just my current girlfriend? She basically is my wife, we’re not just… dating?” Dean looked at his father with a sense of desperation, John just had to apologize and you could all drop it. Of course, John, being a stubborn bastard, held his ground and crossed his arms authoritatively. “I-If you aren’t gonna take back what you just said to her y-you can go on this next hunt alone.”

“Excuse me?” John scoffed. 

“You heard me,” Dean replied. “She’s everything to me and I can’t sit idly by while you talk to her like that.”

“So you’re talkin’ back to me now? Like Sammy?” John asked. “Refusing to take orders?”

“This isn’t about me, Dad!” Dean said, his face twisted with guilt. “You know I follow any orders you give, that I’m quick to obey. But you saying Y/n isn’t family? I-I’m sorry but I can’t let that slide, Dad.”

John huffed and abruptly left the room.

“I’m sorry,” you said to Dean the moment John was out of earshot.

“Me too.” Dean smiled sadly as you both wiped your eyes quickly.

“Why don’t we get these jeans off of you so you can be more comfortable?” you suggested patting his shin.

His brows shot up; “Really? Here? Now?”

“Dean, no!” you chuckled, shaking your head. “I meant comfortable so you can go to sleep!”

“Oh…yeah, that makes more sense.” His trademark cocky smile was back and that made your own smile return to your now tear-stained face.

“I’m serious about you staying put, you know.” You nodded toward his pants and he got the message. 

“You can be real stubborn, you know that?” he laughed as he hurried and slipped his pants off. You folded them up and put them on the chair along with his belt. He shrugged off his jacket and you tossed it on top of where the pants sat. 

“Get under the covers,” you said. He rolled his eyes playfully but he obliged nonetheless. 

“Happy?” He smiled when he was comfortable in the bed. 

You nodded; “I love you, Dean.” You leaned down and placed a kiss on his lips, causing his smile to turn more genuine. 

“Hey,” the doctor interrupted as she walked into the room, “Nurse Roberts just told me about the little outburst… everything okay in here?”

“Yeah, just a little misunderstanding is all,” you replied. “But it’s all settled—Dean’s staying the night.”

“That’s good to hear,” she said with a smile. “I’ve gotta be honest I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“What do you mean?” you asked, clearly anxious about her statement.

“I just meant that your husband is very healthy,” she assured you; “I’ve never seen a young, healthy man like him just collapse from over-exhaustion.”

“First time for everything I guess,” Dean laughed nervously.

You glared at him; “Not funny, babe.”

“She’s right,” the doctor backed you up. “Now, whatever you’ve been doing recently that caused you to lose this much sleep, get this stressed you need to quit it right here, right now.”

“It’s our job, we can’t just… quit,” you said. “But I will definitely keep a closer eye on him from now on, make sure he’s getting enough sleep.”

“You can’t put this all on her, you understand me, Mr. Smith?” She looked at Dean before he nodded shyly. “Mrs. Smith you need to fix your own sleeping habits as well — if you both don’t smarten up and take better care of yourselves, you will definitely be right back here before the end of the year. You got that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean said. 

“Good.” She nodded. “Now, I’m gonna give you a small dose of a mild sedative to help you fall asleep, alright?” She said as she made her way over to Dean’s IV bag to give him the sedative. “You ripped this out the second you woke up, didn’t you?” She asked him when she realized the needle was no longer in his arm. “You two, I swear!” She started preparing to simply inject Dean with the sedative but you stopped her.

“Is there maybe like a pill equivalent to what you’re giving him? He doesn’t really like needles,” you said. 

“There is, would you prefer that?” she asked Dean, and he nodded vigorously. “Alright, I’ll go and grab that for you then. Mrs. Smith the chair in the corner folds out into a small bed if you two don’t want to share one.”

“Oh, that’s alright, I’m not tired,” you said. 

She gave you a look; “Seriously? Hun, what did we just talk about?”

“I get that, but I know Dean’s not gonna sleep properly if he doesn’t feel safe.”

“This is a hospital, it’s safe,” she said. 

“Sorry,” you said with a small shrug, and again she sighed.

At that moment, John decided to walk back into the room, making your breath hitch a little before the doctor left to get the meds for Dean. 

“It’s alright, you two get some sleep; I’ll keep watch,” he said as he made his way over to the chair and sat down. 

“You sure, dad? I thought you said there was a job nearby?” Dean asked. 

John looked at you and smiled ever-so-slightly. Maybe it was something you had said to him, maybe John didn’t want you being alone with Dean while he was so weak, or maybe there never was a job and he didn’t have anything better to do than stay with his son. 

For whatever reason, John Winchester sighed and answered; “You’re more important, Dean. Your safety is more important. Now quit whining and get some sleep.”

Dean pulled the covers back, silently asking you to join him in the bed and, of course, you obliged. You gave him a quick kiss on the lips before getting comfortable in his arms.

“I love you, sweetheart,” he said, kissing your temple. 

“I love you more,” you replied, making him let out a soft laugh. 

“You always gotta one-up me, huh?” he chuckled. 

“Uh-huh,” you giggled. His arms tightened around your frame as he tucked your head under his chin. John couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt for treating not only you but his own son so poorly. Every time John saw Dean be this relaxed and happy, you were always the cause. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

By the time the doctor got back about seven minutes later, you and Dean were both fast asleep; the latter letting out snores that gently moved your hair with each breath. She smiled a little at the sight and decided to duck back out of the room so as not to wake you two.

[plutoasteroids]

PAC - What are the basics of your soul contract

PILE 1 ^^ PILE 2 ^^ PILE 3 ^^

PILE 4 ^^ PILE 5 ^^ PILE 6 ^^

My readings are ALLEGEDLY for entertainment purposes only! Anything said in my readings do not replace professional advice from qualified and educated persons respectively!

Tarot readings are not a replacement for seeking professional guidance.

This reading MAY or MAY NOT contain triggering content - Proceed with caution

This is a general reading if you want a specific one for you and YOUR energy you can get a paid reading- PAID READINGS!

PILE 1

Your soul contract requires you to let your emotions out and embrace them for what they are because you are human and that is part and parcel of being human. You have been put into bad situations mainly from the people you loved and looked up to and that hurt caused you to in a way close your heart off Your soul contract needs you to look back at all of it learn from it and open up your feelings again instead of lying to yourself that you are this cold, unaffected person when in reality you are a sensitive soul and that is who you always will be. You need to learn to embrace that gentle nature of yours because it's not going anywhere, it's part of you in this life and the next.

PILE 2

Your soul contract is in relation to work and career. For you it is more so you are forced to conform to a certain societal standard in relation to career, basically picking more traditional careers like being a doctor, lawyer, engineer etc and deep down you know that's not what you want. You may come from a more conservative family. Your soul contract requires you to find a career that actually makes you happy, that doesn't really on other people's feelings and approval towards it. Once you let go of this you will open up a door that will flip your life upside down, making you happier and opening you up to greater more exciting opportunities that most people won't get.

PILE 3

You are the black sheep (most of you ended up becoming spiritual like tarot readers, astrologers, reiki healers in an attempt to heal and find your place) always have been always will be, you may have been bullied, treated badly by the people you care about or those closest to you (in proximity). You may have been left out in the cold which led to you developing a wall around you heart being this tough person when you really aren't deep down. Part of your soul contract is to make peace not with them but with yourself because once you do you are opening the door to building a happy, safe place for yourself. The basics of your soul contract is to heal family related wounds and build your own happy home, an environment that you never got to have or experience.

PILE 4

The basics of your soul contract start off with a tough childhood, you may have been shackled to the expectations of your family. Regardless, you have been put through situations that left you frustrated, upset, stressed and feeling like there is no way out or that there is nothing better out there for you. The basics of your soul contract need you to heal from all this hurt and trauma and once you do you will open yourself up to greater opportunities, you can't be in two places at once so your choices are live in the hurt and pain or heal and let the universe open the door to bigger financial, living and relationship opportunities.

PILE 5

For you there is a lot of karma in relation to relationships with other people in your life, you gave your all for and to other people just to be backstabbed and betrayed by the people closest to you to the point of maybe isolating yourself and believing that there is nothing good in terms of relationships for you. Your soul contract urges you to learn from those experiences. Not everyone is going to be your friend. You need to make peace with the fact that you are different and not everyone is going to appreciate it there is a negative and positive to everything you need to learn to sieve it out as well as the people in your life. Learn what you need and leave out what you don't especially in relationships. You are a people pleaser and that is not in your contract to be one.

PILE 6

The basics of your soul contract is to nurture both your emotions and your divine feminine. In the past you may have felt like you don't have control over yourself that other people are shackling you which has toughened you out and, in the process, you neglected your feminine and emotions. Now the basics of your soul contract urges you to be gentler, more fluid, to find peace in the toughest situations and be able to make choices without compromising your own emotions, values and beliefs. Your soul contract wants you to learn how to balance the masculine and the feminine know which to use in what situation instead of one over the other.

[villainintern]

... is an upcoming Choicescript interactive fiction game! You can follow development updates on the dev blog here, view the forum page here, and play the demo here.

Villain Intern is currently right at the end of Chapter One: Onboarding as of 5/18/25, sitting at just over 58,000 words.

[FAQ Here and character introductions here, for the newer villains!]

Play as an aspiring supervillain interning at UnderHand, a legacy criminal corporation. Start from the bottom and navigate a world where everyone has it out for you, leveraging your strange superhuman abilities and your knack for manipulation. Make a name for yourself as an executive villain (with your own swanky corner office!), or turn against your higher-ups and usurp the company,…or throw away your promising career for the greater good, I guess...

Powers and Customization:

Choose from two different ability trees. Play as either a homemade cyborg with (painful looking) mechanical augmentations of your own design, or a genetically mutated freak with mysterious, bizarre abilities derived from animal genes. Choose 3 of the 9 unique abilities available for each power type, which update (or mutate) to scale as you get stronger. Climb walls, perfectly mimic any voice, rotate your head 360 degrees, talk to the AI assistant in your brain, etc etc! As a rule, you start out villainous, but whether you’re charming or sinister, sniveling or demanding, and backstabbing or frontstabbing is up to you.

______________________________________________________________

Key Characters and Relationships

Relationship progression tracks two major stats- your connection with a character, and your rivalry, which are not mutually exclusive. So you can romance your greatest nemesis, backstab your closest friend, that kind of thing. Or both at once, with the same person, even..

Fellow Interns:

👾 Peter Hyde is your cubicle neighbor, a geeky slackoff who’s fond of novelty ties. Unlike you, Peter doesn’t really want to be here, but he seems for some reason unable to quit. Laid-back, conflict avoidant, and generally easy to manipulate, he’s easy minion material for the MC- but his attitude belies a volatile, monstrous secret. Which can be a great asset or a major risk, depending on if you can maintain your control over him.

🤖 T9-670 is a seven-foot tall ex-war machine. Once a military member conscripted to UnderHand’s private security decal, its contract didn’t end when it died- the soldier’s brain was transplanted into a humanoid steel frame with a dark glass plate for a face. T9 is doing some soul searching- it’s not totally sure if it even has one left, but it would like to have a purpose beyond fixing printers and mowing down UnderHand’s enemies with its plasma gun.

🔬 Dr. Dr. Elaine Foster is an up-and-coming mad scientist, assistant to the esteemed Dr. Shrink. Don’t bring up the fact that she has two doctorates and is still an intern. She’s a genius prodigy, but otherwise has no superhuman abilities, which causes her to be overlooked by your superiors. Passionate and inscrutable, she’s obsessed with making it to the top her own way, and will remain one step ahead of you if you aren’t careful.

🧪 Reid/Reney Sullivan (gender selectable, nb included) is your nemesis, or at least they think so. They’re employed by OverSight, the subsidized hero-corporation that works in tandem with the government. An interning hero with impressive telekinetic powers, they are nonetheless as much of an amateur as you, and so you find yourself on even footing with one of the most promising superheroes in the business. Earnest and witty, they genuinely just want to help people. Eventually, they become fixated on “figuring you out”, which can lead to them getting sucked into your schemes. That, or their meddling could be your downfall. Worst of all, they might even succeed in reforming you.

There’s also 👁️ Blink, a rogue superhuman- some say vigilante, others say independent villain. Completely anonymous, they wear a unique suit of tactical gear that allows them to turn completely invisible, the first of its kind. Quippy, chipper, and sauntering, they tend to use their powers for ridiculous, showy things like popping up behind newscasters on TV. An invisible superhuman that loves the spotlight, Blink is full of contradictions. And secrets, big ones, that pertain to you.

… plus a cast of older, more established villains and heroes- including The Man, UnderHand’s enigmatic CEO. A faceless, hollow man in an empty suit. Actually, nobody’s ever seen anything but the suit, so he might just be the suit.

______________________________________________________________

FURTHER READING: 🌃THE PINTEREST BOARD 🎧THE PLAYLIST

TAG ORGANIZATION: VI Updates - The big stuff, new demo content VI Info - The info posts, development news VI Asks - Anything coming through the inbox VI Characters - Character related info/bonus content VI Sketches - Doodles and concept art Lore - What it says on the tin. Anything worldbuildy The Fridge - The place of honor for fan art! Pinned to my imaginary fridge with a digital magnet

[lowpolynpixelated]

Bloodborne PSX One of the best fanworks on the web

Though the PS4 boasted and still boasts an impressive library of releases, for many (myself included) the system served to be bought for initially one purpose, to be the Bloodborne Machine. Most of the people in my life who had a PS4 during its generation either bought one exclusively to play Fromsoftware’s Nightmare Hunting Adventure or had initially got one solely to play the game and ended up getting more games afterward. It’s a phenomenon the game industry sees time and time again, with previous generations having swathes of fans buying entire consoles for one or two games. As far as games go though, Bloodborne is at the very least worth the price of entry. At the time, it was heralded as Fromsoftware’s most cutting-edge and impressive game to date. A gorgeous gothic world filled with creatures ripped straight out of H.P Lovecraft’s nightmares, a haunting soundtrack showcasing beautifully composed choral scores and a combat system that incentivized aggression and speed to achieve brutal and bloody efficiency. It’s no wonder then why Bloodborne still has such a large following behind it. Fans of Fromsoftware have hoped for a sequel or PC port year after year to largely disappointing results. But where the community shines is in its fanworks. 

From fanart, comics, music, animations, and even fan-made video game spinoffs, the game has been shown a monumental amount of love since its debut in 2015. One of these fanworks was released back in 2022 and has since become one of the most famous pieces of fan-made content surrounding the game, this of course, being BloodbornePSX by LWMedia. An incredibly impressive feat of coding and art direction, the game serves as a “Demake” of Bloodborne’s first Yharnam segment, made to look like and play as if it were made on the very first PlayStation console. With some custom-made areas and an entirely unique boss to boot the perfectly paced experience is both a treat to fans who have been orbiting the game since its earliest days and new fans looking for the best and brightest fanworks to interact with. 

The game has since gone on to be covered by a variety of news outlets all over the web, along with its creator receiving much-deserved attention for her efforts. One Lilith Walther (AKA b0tster on social media) holds the title of developer for the project. A long-time video game enthusiast and FromSoftware fan herself, she’s had quite an impact on the community I’m sure she’s very proud to be a part of. Later in the article, we’ve got an interview with Lilith herself about both Bloodborne PSX and her current project, “Bloodborne Kart”, but first, let’s talk a bit more in-depth about BBPSX.

(Official launch trailer for Bloodborne PSX, uploaded January 31, 2022 by LWMedia on Youtube)

Bloodborne PSX:

So, what exactly is Bloodborne PSX? To start, let’s answer what precisely a “Demake” is first. Demakes often have the goal of remaking the likeness of a game either stylistically, mechanically, or both, as if it was developed on retro/outdated hardware. Famous examples of Demakes include “The Mummy Demastered” developed by Wayforward as a sort of tie-in to the 2017 film “The Mummy” in the stylings of a 16-bit run and gun adventure against armies of the undead, and “Pixel Force Halo” by Eric Ruth games which take the prolific XBOX franchise and shrinks it down to a Mega Man-esque platformer reminiscent of the NES’ 8-bit days. Demakes are intensely attractive looking, not only into the past of video games and their developments but just how creative developers can be with games that they love and appreciate. Bloodborne PSX hits as hard as a Demake can in my opinion, blending masterfully recreated graphics with perfectly clunky early PSX gameplay quirks that go above and beyond to make the game not only LOOK like it belongs on the nearly 30-year-old console but feel right at home on it as well.

(A screenshot depicting the player character “The Hunter” facing off against two fearsome Werewolf enemies. Screenshot sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Gameplay:

Starting off with the masterfully recreated clunk in the gameplay, Bloodborne PSX “shows its age” by hearkening back to a time when being seamless just wasn’t an option. Much like adventure action games of the past (and much UNLIKE its modern inspiration), you’ll be cycling through your inventory delightfully more than you’d expect. Equipping keys, checking items, and even the trademark weapon transformations are all done through the wonderfully nostalgic menu and inventory screens. Taking one of the foundational parts of Bloodborne’s combat system and making it such a more encumbering mechanic is nothing short of sheer genius when it comes to ways to really make you feel like it’s 1994 again. On top of this, the Hunter’s movement itself has been made reminiscent of classic action titles. Somehow, both stiff enough to feel dated and fluid enough to make combat that same rush of bestial fun found in the original, it goes a long way towards the total immersion into that retro vibe the game sets out to give the player. Anyone who grew up with Fromsoftware’s earlier titles like Armored Core and the King’s Field series will be very familiar with this unique brand of “well-tuned clunk”.

(A delightfully dated looking diagram showing off the controller layout for Bloodborne PSX’s controls. Image sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Graphics:

Speaking of old Fromsoftware games, though, let’s talk about the absolutely bit-crushingly beautiful graphical work on display. As I’m sure you’ve seen from the videos and screenshots included in the article, BBPSX’s art style and direction are nothing short of perfect for what it aims to be. While playing, I couldn’t help but notice every little detail (or lack thereof) in the environments meant to emulate the experience of a game made on 30-year-old hardware. Low render distances, chunky textures, blocky polygonal models, just the right amount of texture warp, it all blends together to create an atmosphere that I can 100% picture being shown off on the back of a jewel CD case with a T for Teen rating slapped into the lower corner. While playing, something rather specific that called out to me was the new way enemy names and health bars were displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen while fighting. As a big fan of the King’s Field games, this small detail went (probably too much of) a long way toward my love of how everything’s meant to feel older. Other games trying to match the more specific feel of King’s Field, like “Lunacid” created by KIRA LLC, also include this delightful little detail, a personal favorite for sure. 

(A screenshot depicting the second phase of Father Gascoigne’s boss fight, showing off the game’s perfectly retro art style. Image sourced from the Bloodborne PSX Official itch.io page)

Sound design/Soundtrack:

But where would a game be without its sound and score? No need to fear, however, because Bloodborne PSX comes complete with a chunky soundscape that will make you want to check and see if your TV is set to channel 3. A haunting set of tracks played by fittingly digital-sounding MIDIs ran through filters to sound just as crackly as you remember backs up crunchy sounds of spilling blood with low-poly weaponry. Original sounds from Bloodborne have been used for an authentic sounding experience, but have also been given the CRT speaker treatment and sound like something you remember playing on Halloween 20 years ago. If you watched the launch trailer featured above then you know exactly what I’m talking about. The Cleric Beast’s trademark screech and Gascoine’s signature howl after his beastly transformation have never sounded so beautifully dated, and I’m here for every bit of it. Even the horrific boss themes we know and love from the original Bloodborne have been brought through this portal to the past. One of my favourite tracks, the Cleric Beast boss theme, might just sound even better when played on a 16-bit sound chip. It really cannot be understated just how much weight the sound design of the game is pulling. In my opinion, the only thing missing is that sweet sweet PSX startup sound before the game starts crackling through the speakers of a TV in the computer room.

(The Bloodborne PSX rendition of the Cleric Beast’s boss theme. Created by and uploaded to Youtube by The Noble Demon on March 20, 2021)

Interview with the developer:

Before writing this article, I had the absolute pleasure and privilege of talking with Lilith Walther about some developmental notes and personal feelings about inspirations and challenges that can come with the daunting task of being a developer. Below are the nine (initially ten, but unfortunately, a bit of the interview was lost due to my recording software bugging out) questions I posed to Miss Lilith, along with her answers transcribed directly from the interview. 

I’d like to start this section of the article by saying Lilith was an absolute joy to talk to. During the interview, I really felt like she and I shared some common ground on some topics regarding how media can have an impact on you and what sorts of things come with video games as an art form. After some minor technical difficulties (and by that, I mean my video drivers crashed), I started off with something simple. The first question posited was: “What got you into video games initially?” Lilith’s response was as follows: “When I was a kid, the family member of a friend had a SNES lying around. I turned it on and didn’t really understand. I was a guy on top of a pyramid, I walked down the pyramid, and some big ogre killed me. Later I learned that was A Link to the past.” and after a brief laugh continued, “A couple years later my parents got a Nintendo 64 with Mario64 and Ocarina of Time and that was it. Never put the controller down since then.” 

She then went on to describe what precisely about Nintendo’s first foray into 3D Zelda had hooked her. “I’ve heard this story so many times. It’s like you’re not even playing the game. You’re just in the world hanging out in Kokiri forest collecting rupees to get the Deku shield, and the game expects you to! It was just, ‘run around this world and explore,’ and that really hooked me.” I couldn’t agree more with her statement about her experience. Not just with a game as prolific as Ocarina of Time but many experiences from older console generations that could be considered “the first of their kind”, or at the very least some of the earliest. Lilith also described her first experience with a PlayStation console, stating: “Later on I got a PS2 which played PS1 games. I didn’t end up getting a PS1 until around the PS3 era, so I guess I’m a poser. I remember my sister bringing home Final Fantasy 9 when it was a relatively new game. If it wasn’t my first PS1 game it was definitely my first Final Fantasy game. Of course I went back and played 8 and 7 afterwards.” A solid answer to a simple question. 

The second question I asked was one starting to move toward the topic of Bloodborne PSX and its namesake/inspiration. Or at least the family of systems it was released on: “What PlayStation console was your favorite and why?” Lilith’s answer surprised me a bit. Not because I disagreed, quite the opposite, actually. But with such a big inspiration for her work being games from the PSX-PS2 generations, what followed was a pleasant bit of insight into one of her favourite eras of gaming, to quote: “I can give you two answers here.” To which I assured her she was more than welcome to, but she was set on having something definitive. “No no I’m only going to give you one answer. I can give you the correct answer that I don’t want to admit, but it was the PlayStation 3. It’s so embarrassing but I genuinely was hooked into the marketing of the whole ‘The cell processor is the smartest thing in the world’ and all that. It really seemed like the future of gaming and I was all about it. I think I owned an XBOX360 before but I did eventually get it and really enjoyed it. It took a couple years for some of the best games to come out but I really did.” A few examples she cited as being some of her most memorable experiences on the console were Uncharted 2, Journey, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Warhawk. All games I’ve seen on several top 5 and top 10 lists throughout my life within the gaming space. A delightful show of affection for a generation personally very dear to me as well, in which she ended the segment by declaring “Hell yeag”, a bit of a catchphrase she’s coined online.

Getting into the topic proper, my third question was one about her personal relationship with Bloodborne: “How did Bloodborne impact/appeal to your interests?” A question that received perhaps my favourite answer of the whole interview. From her response: ”Oh that’s a big one. Going to the opposite end of the poser spectrum, I was a Fromsoftware fan before it was cool. One of the games I played religiously on my PS2 was Armored Core.” A statement which made more sense than perhaps anything else said during my time with her. “Then later in the PS3 era everyone was talking about Dark Souls, this was when I was in college. I finally caved and got it and saw the Fromsoftware logo and thought ‘Oh it’s the Armored Core people!’ I played and beat it, really enjoyed my time with it. I skipped Dark Souls 2 because everyone told me to hate it, I still need to go back to that one.” 

It’s something I would recommend anyone who hasn’t played Dark Souls 2 to go and do. “Then Bloodborne came out and I thought ‘Alright this is the new one, gotta play this one’ and I was a huge fan of all the gothic stuff in the aesthetic. And how do I explain this, I do really like Bloodborne. I like the design, and the mechanical suite of gameplay, as a video-gamey video game it’s very good.” The tone shifted here to something a bit more personal. “But as well, I was playing it at a specific time in my life. I came out in 2019, I know Bloodborne came out in 2015 but I was obviously just playing it non-stop. It was just one of my ‘coming out games’, you know?” For those who maybe don’t understand the statement there, “coming out” is a very common term used within the Queer community to describe the experience of revealing your identity to those around you. Whether it be to family, friends, or co-workers, almost every queer person has some sort of coming out story to tell. Lilith is speaking in reference to her coming out as a trans woman. She elaborated: “Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I just feel like when you make a decision like that, that part of my life just ended up seared into my brain, you know? Bloodborne was there, so now it’s just a part of me. And it definitely influenced some things about me. It was there because I was working on Bloodborne PSX at the time, but it had an impact on something I’ve heard a lot of other Trans people describe.” She went on to describe the concept of “Coming out a second time” as sort of “finding yourself more within your identity” and becoming more affirmed in it. She described both Bloodborne and her development on Bloodborne PSX influencing large parts of her life, a good example being how she dresses and presents. As a trans woman myself, this answer delighted me to no end. I, for one, can absolutely 100% relate to the notion of media you experience during such a radical turning point in your life sticking with you. There are plenty of games, shows, music, and books that I still hold very near and dear to me because, as Lilith stated, they were there. All the right things at the right time.

Halfway through our questions, we’ve finally arrived at one pertaining specifically to the development of Bloodborne PSX: “What are some unique challenges you’ve faced developing a game meant to look/play like something made on retro hardware?”

Lilith answers: “So there’s two things, two big things. One is rolling back all of the quality of life improvements we’ve gotten over the years in gaming. Not automatically using keys is always my go-to example.” Something as well I mentioned in my short talk about the game’s gloriously dated feeling gameplay above. “That was definitely very very intentional. Because it’s not just the graphics, right? It was the design sensibilities of the 90s. Bringing that to the surface was very challenging but very fun. Another big part was, since it was one of the first 3D consoles, I wanted to recreate the hype around the fact that ‘ITS IN 3D NOW!’ So if you go into your inventory you’ll see all the objects rendered in beautiful 3D while they slowly spin as you scroll through them.” This is a feature I very much miss seeing in modern video games. 

She continued, “I think the biggest one was the weapon changes. Bloodborne’s whole thing was the weapon transformations. Like, you could seamlessly change your weapons and work them into your combo and do a bunch of crazy stuff, and I kind of said ‘that needs to go immediately.’ So now you have to pause and go to your weapon and press L1 to transform it, that was extremely intentional. So once I had those three big things down it all just sort of fell into place. Like the clunky UI and the janky controls. You need jank and clunk, and I think that’s why Fromsoft games scale down so nicely, because they are jank and clunk.” 

A point I couldn’t agree with more. Despite all the modern streamlining and improvements to gameplay, Fromsoft’s ever-growing catalog of impressive experiences still contains some of that old-school video game stiffness we’ve (hopefully) come to appreciate. She went on to make a point I was very excited to share here in the article, “It was just a lot of trying to nail the feel of the games and not just the look, right? Like I’m not trying to recreate a screenshot; I’m trying to recreate the feeling of playing this weird game that’s barely holding together because the devs didn’t know what they were doing.” In my humble opinion, something she did an excellent job with. 

Fifth on the list was a question relating to her current project, Bloodborne Kart, a concept initially drawn from a popular meme shared around social media sites like Tumblr when the buzz of a Bloodborne sequel was keeping the talking spaces around Fromsoft alight: “Anything to say about the development of Bloodborne Kart or its inspiration?”

Lilith answers: “So first off Bloodborne Kart is less trying to be a simulation of a PS1 game and more just an indie game. It’s not trying to be a PS1 game, I just want it to be a fun kart racer first. Starting off of course is Mario Kart 64, that’s the one I played back in the day. But I looked at other games like Crash Team Racing and Diddy Kong Racing, but also stuff like Twisted Metal of course. I always used those as a template to sort of look at for design stuff like ‘how did they handle what happens to racers after player 1 crosses the finish line.” The next portion of her answer was initially a bit confusing but comes across better when you consider certain elements present in BBK’s battle mode. “And also Halo, like for the battle mode. I had to do a battle mode and it kind of just bubbled to the surface. Split Screen with my sister was such a big part of my childhood. Thinking about Halo multiplayer while I was making the battle mode stuff.” 

Her answer to the previous question began to dip into the topic of our sixth question: “Are there any unique challenges or enjoyable creative points that go into making something like Bloodborne Kart?”

As she continued from her previous answer: “One of the biggest quirks of the battle mode I had to figure out was how to tell what team you were on at a glance, and that came back to Halo again. I started thinking about how you could tell in that game and it hit me that the arms of your suit change to the color of whatever team you’re on. It was just something I never even thought of because it’s so seamless. So that gave me the idea to change the kart colours, and that’s the most recent example of me pulling directly from Halo. It’s wild how a small change like that can turn your game from something unplayable to something fun.” I would agree. Tons of small details and things you don’t think about go into making seamless multiplayer experiences. Some of which we take for granted nowadays. She then made a point about one of the most challenging aspects of BBK’s development, “The most challenging thing was definitely the Kart AI. AI is just my worst skill when it comes to game development among the massive array of skills you need to make a game. It’s really hard to find examples of people coding kart driving AI, You know? You need to make a biped walk around you can find a million tutorials online but if you need to make something drive a kart, not really. I was really on my own there. A lot of the examples out there are very simulation oriented. Like cars using suspension and whatnot, but I’m making a kart racer. So I started simple, I put a navpoint down and if it needs to turn left, turn left, if it needs to turn right, turn right. And I just kept adding features from there.”

Moving onto our last three questions, we started to get a little more personal. Question seven being: “What’s your favorite part of Bloodborne Kart so far?”

Her answer was concise in what she was excited about most, quote: “The boss fights.” Short and sweet but she did elaborate. “Translating a big part of Bloodborne is the boss fights. So I made a short linear campaign which is basically AI battles and races strung together. Some of those stages are just boss fights which are unique to the rest of the game. When you make a video game you sit down and you make all your different modes of interactions, and then you make a multi-hour experience mixing and matching all those different modes in more complicated ways. I think the most interesting part is when that style tends to fall away and it ends up building something entirely unique to that experience.” An example she gave was the infamous “Eventide Island” in Breath of the wild, it being a unique experience where the game’s usual modes of interaction are stripped or limited, forcing you into a more structured experience that ends up being a majorly positive one. “That’s what the boss fights are in Bloodborne Kart. They do multiple game mechanics like a chase that ends in a battle mode. Like Father Gascoine’s fight where he chases you, and after you blow up his kart he turns into a beast and picks up a minigun.” That sounds absolutely incredible. It’s very easy to see why she’d pick the boss fights as her favorite element when they’re clearly intended to be such unique and memorable experiences. 

Our last two questions veer away from the topics of development proper and focus more on our dear dev’s personal thoughts on the matter. Question eight posits: “What’s your personal favorite part of being a game developer?”

After some thought, she gave a very impassioned talk about something she considers to be the best part of the experience: “When people who aren’t game developers think about game development they think of things like ‘oh well you just get to play video games all day and have fun’ but it’s not! Except for the 2% that is, and it’s near the end of development. When all the pieces fall into place and you start actually ‘making the game.’ Game development, especially solo, you’re so zoomed in on specific parts. Because you’re not making a game you’re programming software that’s what making a game is. You spend months working on different systems and then you actually sit down and make a level, and you hit play and it you go ‘Oh my god, I just made a game’. That part is what sustains me. It’s magical. That’s the best part when it comes to true appreciation of the craft aside from the reception.” An answer that I don’t think I could’ve put better if I tried. 

My last question is one that I consider to be the question when it comes to interviewing anyone who works on video games. Perhaps a bit basic, but heartfelt nonetheless: “Anything to say to anyone aspiring to be a game developer?”

Lilith’s answer: “Yes. Just do it. For real. This is what I did and it always felt wrong until I looked at more established devs echoing the sentiment. You cannot plan a game before you’ve started making one. The example I always bring up is the team behind Deus Ex wrote a 500 page design document for the game and almost immediately threw it out when they started development. Just start! You’re going to have unanswered questions and I think that trips people up. Don’t start with your magnum opus idea, start with something simple and achievable. I feel like a lot of people set out with the goal of making a triple-A game, and that’s good! But it can’t be your first game. Game development is creating art, just like any other form of art, and it’s like saying ‘my first drawing is going to be the Mona Lisa’ and it just doesn’t work like that. You need practice and development, and it’s difficult to see that because games take so long and so much, so it’s definitely seen as a bigger undertaking. But it’s still art. You’re still making mistakes and learning from them for your first project. Your next game will be better. View your career as a game developer as a series of games you want to make, and not just one big game.” A perfect response to an otherwise unassuming question. 

Lilith’s passion and love for video games were reflected very clearly in every response she gave during my time with her. Her dedication and appreciation for the art form can be seen in every pixel of Bloodborne PSX, as well as the development logs and test builds of Bloodborne Kart. I really do think that the way she answered my final question speaks volumes to the type of attitude someone should take up when endeavoring to make art as intensive as a video game. Whether it’s fanwork of a game that’s important to you or an entirely new concept, do it. 

(developer of Bloodborne PSX Lilith Walther, image provided by Lilith Walther via Twitter)

Closing:

If you’d like to check out the positively phenomenal experience that is Bloodborne PSX  I’ve included a link to the official itch.io page below the article, as well as a link to the official LWMedia Youtube page where you can check out Lilith’s dev logs, test videos, and animations about her work and other art. Thank you so much for reading, and another very special thank you to Lilith for setting aside some of her time to talk to me about this article. Now get out there and cleanse those foul streets!

Links:

Bloodborne PSX official itch.io page: https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx

LWMedia Official Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/@b0tster

Lilith Walther Twitter page: https://twitter.com/b0tster

[manikas-whims]

Dad Xavier with twins (boy and girl)

i know there's a general consensus in the fandom with the LIs all being girl dads but idk guys..For Xavier, sometimes i see him as a girl dad but other times, he seems more like a boy dad. Then i said fuck it! Xavier is now father to twins 😌 hope y'all like these HCs ♡

⭐ Dad Xavier who gets emotional and teary-eyed at the first sight of his twin babies because he always felt like a wandering soul with nothing to call his own. Yet now, he has you, and you've given him these adorable babies..all of whom he can call his family.

⭐ Dad Xavier who uses his light evol to create adorable characters when narrating a bedtime story to the twins.

⭐ Dad Xavier who tells scary stories when trying to get the kids to fall asleep at the proper time (like he did in that one Secret Times with MC 🤭)

⭐ Dad Xavier who often himself tends to fall asleep while trying to get the kids to sleep 😆

⭐ Dad Xavier who regularly takes the kids to the arcade and wins them all the plushies they ask for from the Claw Machine.

⭐ Dad Xavier who has managed to teach the kids the names of certain stars, constellations and planets as well as taught them random space facts.

⭐ Dad Xavier who is calm and collected in his tone but his blue eyes seem to glow when scolding the kids. Even you shiver at the intensity of his piercing gaze.

⭐ Dad Xavier who is a master at all the video games but loses on purpose to watch his kids giggle and jump in delight at beating their Daddy at the games.

⭐ Dad Xavier who is as fiercely protective of his babies as he is when it comes to you. Will fight the world for them and for you.

⭐ Dad Xavier who hugs the kids to sleep when they have a nightmare or just a bad day in general.

⭐ Dad Xavier who isn’t particularly fond of the kids going anywhere near weapons but knows that it's essential for his kids to have self-defense skills. And thus, when the kids are of appropriate age, you two together train the kids in proper combat and a weapon of choice (we've seen Xavier's excellent swordplay and with Mountain Journey, that he's also amazing with a gun)

⭐ Dad Xavier who joins the twins for a midnight snack and tries his best to defend them from your scolding.

⭐ Dad Xavier who watches the twins favourite movies with them late at nights during the weekends.

⭐ Dad Xavier who let's the kids mess around his piano, even teaches them a few easy tunes.

⭐ Dad Xavier who teaches the kids all sorts of ballroom dancing, from Foxtrot to the Waltz. These sessions often end with him asking your hand, and two of you ending up slow dancing at your home in the late hours of the night.

⭐ Dad Xavier whose kids accidentally come across Mommy's stash of Lumiere merch, and end up watching some old commercials and content with you two. The twins later on stare at Xavier with sparkly eyes full of admiration and ask if their Daddy is secretly a superhero 🥺 (that night Xavier almost burns your entire stash of Lumiere merch).

another post that's been collecting dust in my drafts for so damned long..i’ll probably share one for each LI at some point 🤞

» MASTERLIST «

[existence-is-a-pain87]

Godslayer Shall Become God Itself

Yandere!Ultrakill (only Act 1 rn) x Reader

Warnings: Obsession and other general yandere behaviors; blood (this is Ultrakill, what'd you expect); gore; swearing; darker topics; naked people but not in a sexual way

Note: Ultrakill? More like epic-murder *cutely dies*

--☆☆☆☆☆--

God is gone.

He has abandoned this world.

You do not know what you are. You do not know who you are.

All you know is that you must kill God and take his place.

You are the godslayer.

--☆☆☆--

Standing at the gates of Hell itself, you steady yourself.

These are the souls of the damned, so many husks of what they once were. Many of them do not deserve to be spared as you cut them down to find God.

If he is anywhere, he would be here.

And you shall be the ember that rekindles humanity and this world, taking over his place to create life anew and mend his faults.

He shall die by your hands.

Your fucking hands.

Godslayer shall become God, that saying itself is the only law you exist by.

And you are the Godslayer.

...

Humanity's greed opened the gates to hell. You will shut these gates when God is dead.

You've long since accepted your purpose. Even if echoes of memories reside in your head, you ignore them. It does not matter.

Whoever you are, it doesn't matter.

You exist just to fufill your purpose.

So you stride into the gates, you know God couldn't have left this world entirely. He knows just as well as you that you need to slaughter him to take his place.

You're going to find him. And you're going to put a bullet, or knife, or axe, of whatever you get your hands on, through his skull.

Does God have a skull? Well, he better. If he doesn't, you can't stab him in the brain.

...

Striding through the halls, you note the corpses of damned souls that litter the ground, bullet wounds and dark fist-like marks stain their remains, as their blood is splattered upon the wall.

...something else was here. Something more dangerous than you, perhaps.

Your eyes narrow, and you know you need a weapon.

"...perhaps a knife. A pocket knife with a blade sharp enough to cleave through metal and any shell a demon wears with ease." You murmur aloud, as you raise your non-dominant hand to your face. "Something I can easily wield and fight with."

Then you sink your teeth into your palm.

--☆☆☆--

The taste of blood lingers in your mouth, akin to a faint echo.

You think you almost hear someone scolding you, but they sound as if they're far away and drowning beneath the waves that bury your memories.

You've never been a strong swimmer.

...

As you go deeper into this area, you know something else was here.

Something vicious, showing no mercy to the souls of the damned that desperately tried to escape. You see all their corpses, not even bothered to be tossed aside.

This idea was only confirmed when you heard the sounds of fighting in the next room, and peek in to see a robot of sorts fighting husks.

It easily shot them all dead, and you figured it was designed to fight if it was here.

You also noticed it seemed to absorb blood.

...

Great. A war machine.

None of your experiences with them have been positive in the long term.

Oh well. As long as it doesn't get in your way, you're fine with this.

So you just resume walking, and only glance over when the machine's camera-like head snaps to look at you, the yellow lens following your movement intently.

For a moment, it just stares. Then it points its gun at you.

You act swiftly. In one moment, you unsheathe your knife. In the next, it fires the gun. In the third, you cleave the bullet in half as both pieces uselessly fall to the ground. And in the fourth, you've knocked the gun out of its hands.

In the fifth, you've pinned it to the ground with your foot on its neck.

"I recommend you don't try that again." You instruct it, "I'm made to kill God himself. What do you think a gun will do?"

It just stares at you, but from its wing-like attachments being more raised and the way its head is drawn back, you can guess it's fairly surprised.

"..." You eye your knife, "I won't kill you, you know. But if you're using blood to refuel, you're doing an awfully bad job at it."

It stares at you, even more intently, as you step off it, grabbing its gun before it can so its unarmed.

Then you grab the corpse of a stray (you don't question why you know what it's called) and toss it over to the machine.

You lift an arm and slit it with your blade, sticking the arm on top of the now sitting robot.

"There's a shit ton of blood left in this thing that you're just wasting." You chide, and start doing CPR to force the blood to flow, "If you just took a few seconds and did this, then you'd get the blood flowing in the corpse and, guess what? More fucking blood."

The machine is silent, before faintly whirring in response. When the blood stops flowing entirely, you stand up and sigh.

"You understand me, right?" The machine nods. "Great. Now, just do this and don't waste a shit ton of blood you could use to refuel."

You toss its gun back to it and keep going.

...the machine follows you, though.

"...You also going into the depths of hell?" You ask it, and it nods. "...uh... alright. Go ahead of me then."

It doesn't. It just stops when you stop.

"...uh, hello?" You place your hands on your hips, "What are you doing?"

It just stares.

You wave a hand in front of its lens. It waves back.

"..." You just stare at it, "...Go ahead. I told you how to refuel easier. Go do that. And back off."

It, in fact, does not back off.

On the contrary, it seems intent on following you.

"Can you even talk?" You ask it, just wanting to figure out what the hell this thing wants.

It shakes its head.

"...okay, how about sign language?"

It immediately nods and starts signing, and honestly you have no idea what to feel anymore.

You prepared to fight this thing, maybe even kill it. But it seems like it's being weirdly friendly after it saw you could move fast enough to deflect an attack and render it harmless in less than three seconds.

'You're impressive. I want to follow. We go deep together.'

"And why would I want a war machine hanging around me?" You ask, crossing your arms.

'I fight well.' It tells you, 'I make whatever you want to do easier.'

"A mutually beneficial alliance..." You murmur, "...Well, I suppose I have nothing to lose if you do come along. Very well."

They're surprisingly happy with this. Perhaps just wanting you nearby as an extra line of defense due to their awfully fragile appearance.

'Name?'

You raise an eyebrow.

'Your name?'

"Oh- uh-"

A name has never really mattered to you. You don't necessarily recall knowing anyone, so you never really needed a name. It's always just sorta been you.

"...I don't got one." You decide to tell them, "Call me whatever. Godslayer may be the most accurate term if that's any help."

They stare at you, before pointing to the word V1 inscribed on their chest.

"Your name is V1, I presume?" They nod in response. "Ah, okay then. I guess I can call you that."

They seemed pleased. You think. Hard to tell with V1's lack of a face.

...

The two of you soon go off. And you figure that having a war machine by your side will make it all the easier to get to Hell's bottom.

And all the more easier to fufill your one purpose.

--☆☆☆--

There is a fucking meatgrinder in Hell.

Why? You don't know.

But why weren't you that surprised by this fact?

You didn't do much fighting. Only V1 really slaughtered everything, but seemed more careful on getting as much blood out of the husks and demons and possible.

And, much to your bewilderment, they started to carry you across gaps it made by blasting open the floor to keep you from plummetting into the blades.

You weren't necessarily annoyed. After all, V1 could jump much higher than you can and could dash mid-air. You were just some sort of human.

You think.

You pause for a moment to wipe the blood that now stains you off, with V1 stopping to watch you as you clean off the marks on the back of each hand.

When you stare at them, they look like upside down hearts. But you know, if one was to stare at them from in front of you, they'd be upright.

You didn't know where the marks came from, but they were always there.

V1 seems intrigued by them.

"...do you have beliefs?" You ask V1, glancing over.

V1 thinks for a moment, before shrugging.

"...sometimes I wonder if these marks on my hands mean anything." You tell them, "Perhaps if I believe it, they will. Maybe they mean a good thing, maybe they mean a bad thing. I dunno."

V1 seems curious.

'What if they mean nothing?'

"Then they mean nothing at all. I think it depends on if we believe they mean anything."

'I think they're pretty.'

"Thanks, V1."

'Should we keep going?'

"Yeah, let's go."

The two of you progressed, a yellow machine was absolutely slaughtering enemies and drenched you and V1 in blood.

"OH C'MON!" You say with a groan, annoyed your outfit is even more bloodstained and ruined than it was before as V1 lets out a whir of confusion as they absorb the blood.

Once the new machine slaughters literally everything, it pauses to stare at you and V1, taking in your annoyed mutters about your shirt, before running away.

You barely get time to process this as more foes show up and V1 fights them off with little effort yet more blood spraying everywhere.

You don't even care about your appearance too much, but this is just annoying.

You decide to head out of this room really quick to go make yourself a new outfit. Preferably one with a poncho or something that can keep you from being utterly stained in blood.

Some of it literally got in your mouth.

Sure, V1 may notice your gone, but they can find you easily enough. You need to change or you're going to tweak.

It was fairly easy to sneak around and into a large and empty room.

You sigh, content, as you pry off your bloodstained clothes and get yourself some new ones, plus a towel to wipe off your face.

Shame you can't just make yourself a shower or something. There's gonna be blood stuck in your hair for a while.

But while you're in the middle of mopping the red liquid off you, you look up and see something staring at you.

It's the yellow robot from earlier. And you're also shirtless right now.

"FUCK OFF!"

--☆☆☆--

You won the fight that broke out.

Didn't kill it, though. Mostly because it started talking and profusely apologizing. As if should.

You honestly were kind of impressed it managed to scrounge up a voicebox and insert it into its body to use as communication with others, even if said voicebox was shittily implemented and would regularly glitch out when they were speaking.

And somehow it all spiraled into it joining your team like this was fucking Pokémon.

What's a Pokémon..?

V1 was fairly bewildered when you introduced the two formally, but ultimately allowed the Swordsmachine to come along.

Neither of you spoke of the incident that led to this even happening. You're just glad to be wearing fresh clothes.

But progressing though the gates of Hell wasn't too much of an issue. The Cerebus statues that guarded the gates were slaughtered by V1 and Swordsmachine (this time you avoided becoming stained in blood).

Limbo was fairly nice, even if it was relatively fake with the birds chirping via speakers and other things.

It was even on this Layer of Hell V1 tossed you a coin. Not as a weapon, but just because they decided to start giving you coins, apparently.

You ended up with a pocket-full by the time the three of you actually started progressing through the level. And then the Streetcleaners showed up and lit everything on fire and you had to fight that Hideous Mass.

Then, a remnant of your past- more recent past, if you were being honest- came back to bite you in the ass.

Swordsmachine and V1 panicked when a certain red machine slid in out of nowhere, grabbing you as it went and fleeing before either machine could do literally anything to stop it.

And as you were unceremoniously pinned to the ground, you grunted as you looked up and into the lens of your kidnapper.

They don't need a face for you to know all the rage they contain.

"I told you that you couldn't run from me forever."

"..." You atare at them, already regretting it all. "Hello, V2. It's been a while."

--☆☆☆--

Meeting V2 was an accident.

This was back when you were on the surface, aimlessly wandering as the call of your purpose was the faintest it had ever been.

You found a damaged V2 slumped up against a wall. And you fixed them. Mostly out of boredom in a solitary and seemingly meaningless life with memories you knew where there but couldn't recall.

That, and pity.

Fixing them wasn't hard. You did it fairly quickly. Even giving them a voicebox so they could speak, using that Mark voice from Microsoft Word that you decided worked fine.

And they decided to hang around you. After all, they were designed with security in mind, and with no humans left, why not be the security for the one who repaired it?

You didn't need any security considering your... abilities, but they weren't detered. They just loyally stayed by your side.

You even considered them a friend. A close friend. Even if they appeared stoic and would insult you casually. They made you feel human. They even told you that you were one.

Then they started to worsen.

Gradually, they got more and more aggressive when you tried to do things on your own. They'd get pissy and would act like you hated them whenever you tried to make distance.

They refused to let you near danger, trying to put an end to your roaming lifestyle and keep you far away from anything that could harm you.

And when you decided you were gonna fufill your purpose and kill God? They freaked out.

It resulted in a fight you won.

And for some reason, you still fixed them afterwards, ignoring their crazed rambles and demands for you not to leave them.

You purposefully made them take more time to finally move again after your repairs so you could get the fuck out of there.

You didn't expect to ever see them again.

Just your luck, eh?

--☆☆☆--

"Here you are. In Hell." V2 mutters, staring at you with a look that only could be read as enraged. "With other fucking machines."

"You act like we're in a relationship, and I'm cheating on you." You drawl out, just staring at V2.

"It sure feels like you are." They snap back, "Do you know how hard it was to find you?!"

"I don't." You tell them, "I'm just fucking tired of your obsession."

"So you do hate me."

"That's not what I said."

"Yes, it was."

"Oh my fucking god-" You facepalm, "V2, you suck ass at communication whether it be listening or talking."

"I-"

"I DO NOT HATE YOU." You snap at them, "I just want to fufill my damn purpose, and you're acting like an overbearing parent!"

"I am not."

"Yeah, you are."

"Well, if you cared about your physical safety, I wouldn't need to be 'overbearing'!"

"What's there to care about? You know, just as well as I do, I'm basically immortal!"

"Shut up. Just- shut up." V2 snaps at you, practically facepalming with his non-existent face. "So what if you're immortal? You can still feel pain! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WANTS SOMEONE THEY LOVE TO FEEL PAIN?!"

"It's not permanent!"

"I DON'T CARE!" V2 grabs you by the collar, lifting you up, "Fuck- you're an absolute moron, and the fact you're adorable isn't saving you. I'm tired of this."

"What are you gonna do? I can kick your ass easily." You retort, glowering at V2.

"And yet you haven't yet." V2 replies, almost deadpan. "Just stop fussing. It's easier that way."

"Oh go fuck yourself, you McDonald's microwave-looking ass-" You let out an angry yet muffled mumble as V2 just covers your mouth with a hand and hoisting you up to literally just carry you away.

"Hush." V2 instructs you, annoyed. "I'm so tired of your complaints. I don't even know how you managed without me. Wait. Let me guess, you had to use-"

Both of you flinch as a screeching Swordsmachine and a silently seething V1 burst into the room, both of which armed and clearly dangerous.

You manage to pry your mouth away from V2's hand, and give them a smug look. "...haha, you're fucked."

"You talk too much." V2 tells you, before setting you down and bowing at the two.

Then they fight.

...

Is it surprising V2 got their ass kicked or..?

V2 lets out a hiss of sorts as it stumbles in the middle of the room, trying to keep their left arm on their body, before his head snaps to stare at you. "I'll find you again. AND NEXT TIME, I'M NOT LOSING YOU!"

Then they flee, practically flying out of the room, dropping their left arm as they go.

"Psychotic ass robot..." You mutter, as both of your companions practically swarm you, trying to see if you're okay.

Your luck with robots has always been weird. Though, these two are nice.

You just hope they can stay that way.

--☆☆☆--

V1 stole V2's arm, and that's the funniest shit you've seen in a while.

But once you three got to Lust? Yeah, you were quite frankly pleased with how peaceful it was. You even got to find lore about the guy who made this place nice. Minos.

Yeah, V1 and Swordsmachine had to fight enemies, but compared to Limbo being charred?

Yeah, this is a massive upgrade in terms of 'oh, this is nice'. You just have to ignore the giant corpse with glowing eyes.

Also when you saw a portrait of Minos, you went: "Damn, he's kind of fine though. Shame he's dead.1"

V1 and Swordsmachine judged you for that. You didn't care. You DILF and MILF lovers will prevail.

You even got the chance to find a quiet corner in Lust to clean yourself off a bit because more blood got on you.

This time, you kept the shirt on, however. No more being seen half-naked by weird robots, thank you very much.

Also, since this place has functional water, you can finally get the blood out of your hair. Hooray!

But while you're in the midst of drying your hair off, you unfortunately get bathed in a teal glow of sorts.

...oh fuck.

"How are you alive?"

You sigh, setting the towel down in your lap, as you turn to look at Gabriel.

"Skill."

Despite the fact whatever face he has is covered by his armor, you can sense his scowl.

"You and your remarks..." He mutters, already annoyed. "I smote you. I saw nothing remain of you. How did you survive?"

"I mean..." You shrug, "Who said smiting me, killed me?"

"...what?"

"I mean- you killed me, yeah, but I didn't die."

"That makes no sense. Then again, you have never made sense."

"Ouch. Such cruel words from the angel who killed me."

"You're bitter about it, aren't you?"

"WHO WOULDN'T BE?!" You snap back, "YOU JUST SHOWED UP AND OUT OF NOWHERE TOLD ME I HAD TO DIE!"

"Silence."

"Nuh-uh. You be silent, you 'holier-than-thou' knight-looking motherfucker." You tell him, "You show up one day, we yap, you leave. You start showing up more, we basically become friends, and then one day you appear and just fucking tell me I have to die and actually do it! You're a bitch and I hate you, and would anyone in their right mind even blame me?"

"You're delusional." He retorts, "You believe that somehow you exist to kill the Father, and I simply decided to finally act upon my role and smite you."

"Your glow fluctuates when you lie." You tell him, "You totally had a different reason for smiting me."

"...it does?" Then he clears his throat and resumes being serious. "You somehow survived me smiting you and then willingly ventured into Hell. Furthermore, you ventured in with machines."

"Don't say 'machine' like it's a slur."

He ignores you (of course he does). "...do you know how hard it was to find you? I searched Hell itself in its entirety to somehow find you, and YOU WERE ALIVE THIS WHOLE TIME?!"

"Get good." You tell him, flipping him off. "And next time? Stay the fuck away from me. I don't care if you're the 'Judge of Hell' and 'Warrior of God'. You suck and ruined any friendship we had. I'm hanging out with the war machines now."

"...rest assured, we will meet again. And you will regret the choices you made."

"Yeah yeah, screw off." You reply, and resume drying your hair as Gabriel teleports away. "God, it's like all my exes just sensed I was in Hell and are now hunting me down or some shit."

--☆☆☆--

YOU HATE PARASITES YOU HATE PARASITES YOU HATE PARASITES YOU HATE PARASITES YOU HATE PARASITES YOU HATE PARASITES EW EW EW EW- THEY CAME OUT OF THE CORPSE'S FUCKING EYES- YOU HATE PARASITES YOU HATE PARASITES AAAAAH YOU FUCKING HATE PARASITES!!!

--☆☆☆--

...

You met Gabriel a good bit after you got away from V2. You were just living an isolated yet roaming life, trying to find wherever God was so you could murk him.

Then a fucking angel came down from the Heavens. And that angel was Gabriel, being sent here because the rest of the angels were busy (more like they couldn't be bothered...).

You knew no angel wanted to do much of anything with humans. However, considering the fact that somehow you defied the extinction of humanity and was doing just fine made them decide to send someone down to find out how the hell you were alive.

Thankfully, you're a dumbass but wasn't stupid enough to just tell the angel that did not want to be here that you existed to kill God, and instead you just told him to leave.

And while he did leave, he came back the next day and tried to make you talk to him, almost curious by how closed off you were to him. And because he wanted every last drop of info he could squeeze out of you.

He didn't need to know it was just because you were gonna kill God and could sense no angel would take that well.

But you two talked a bit before you ceased it, and he came back again.

Eventually, you became accustomed to the angel who kept trying to fucking interrogate you. Then the interrogation attempts just became conversation.

He even started to bring tea when you mentioned how you were desperate for caffeine.

He even offered to give you a name.

...

"Pfft- a name?" You asked, lowering the cup as you gave Gabriel a surprised yet bemused look. "You want to give me a name, Gabe?"

"Well, it would be more efficient than simply referring to you as 'human' or 'mortal'." He replied, still sounding as serious as ever, but with a faint embarrassment in his tone.

"Do I really need a name though..?"

"Yes, you do."

"Heh, okay, okay. Think of what my name could be. Maybe I'll take it, maybe I won't. Hehe."

...

You sort of were friends with an angel. And you weren't too bothered. Despite his serious and holier-than-thou attitude, he was quite friendly when he wanted to be.

It made you lower your guard and tell him what your purpose was.

He just went silent and left.

After a while, he came back and confronted you. The two of you argued for a while, each delusional in their own ways, but eventually, the arguments subsided. The two of you resumed life as normal, even if it was now slightly more strained.

Then one day he showed up and told you that he had to kill you.

...

"What?" You sputtered, and your eyes widened. "You are going to smite me?!"

"Yes, I am." He had cooly responded.

"What the fuck do you mean?! What changed? You didn't try to smite me when I told you my purpose! You just argued with me! And now you decide to kill me?!"

"You've always allowed your emotions to control you..." He muttered, seeming to ignore you.

"Oh fuck no- explain to me what made you choose this!" You snapped at him, "What the fuck changed?!"

He was silent as he did it, having ignored you the entire time as he went through with it, leaving no trace of your body behind.

And when you were gone? When you couldn't hear? That's when he answered the question.

"...because I can not allow you to keep unwittingly tempting me to sin, you beautiful serpent of a human."

--☆☆☆--

Gluttony was exponentially less nice than Lust, with everything being uncomfortably fleshy with eyes, and mouths, and stomach acid...

God, you did not enjoy being stuck in the vore layer to put it lightly.

And also Gabriel was talking, telling the machines and you to turn back. Fun fact, none of you turned back.

Instead, yall kept going forward. You even entered a strange room and slid down a literal spinal column over an abyss and fought a Flesh Prison.

And holy shit, that thing was containing Minos himself as a Prime Soul.

You did not act normally upon seeing him.

However, when he said he was gonna kill Swordsmachine and V1, you intervened quickly. Pointing out how both spared and even protected you as you were technically the last human, so they were kinda atoning for their sins. Plus, a team of four facing off against Gabriel would be more efficient than a team of one. Also like you could punish the machines after Gabriel was dead or something, you don't know.

Somehow, he agreed. Now you had a team of four, and half of you have been smited by Gabriel.

Let's just say that the fight against Gabriel was really interesting. Mostly because three enraged folk were fighting against him as you watched from the sides.

They managed to beat him pretty well, but he just called them all "insignificant fucks" and left.

Welp. Guess you all had to keep going deeper.

--☆☆☆--

I'm not doing Act 2 in this because this shit is long enough as it is. Will I write for Act 2? Probably not unless people demand it or something. OKAY BAI, HOPE YOU ENJOYED AND I GOT THE CHARACTERS PERSONALITIES WELL ENOUGH!!!

[writeyouin]

Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) X Fem-Reader - Sinless Sinners - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Hell's Assumptions

A/N – Okay, I think that’s everyone on the tagging list. So, here’s to Chapter 4. Raise a glass.

Warnings – None.

Rating – T

MALE VERSION HERE

GN VERSION HERE

Tag-List: @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx@sseleniaa@randomgurl2326@22carolina08@astrxwitch@yu-87 @clover-1767 @lil-bexie @thesimpybitch @reverse-soe

People were staring.

The worst part was, you weren’t sure who they were staring at, you or Lucifer. It could have easily been him since he was the King of Hell, and even those who didn’t immediately recognise him could sense the power he exuded. However, it was just as likely that they were looking at you and wondering who you were, and how you had managed to get their ruler to walk with you, especially since he wasn’t known for going out much.

Fortunately, when people saw Lucifer coming, they moved to the other side of the street, staring, whispering, taking pictures, but keeping a safe distance.

Lucifer was used to this kind of thing. He walked confidently, held a charming smile, and was generally non-plussed by the attention. You, on the other hand, felt awkward.

‘This was my idea,’ You mentally reminded yourself.

You tried to hold onto that thought as you attempted to strike up a conversation.

“So… What’s it like in the Embassy building?” You asked, quickly realising that it was a terrible topic as Lucifer’s smile became a glower.

You shouldn’t have reminded him where he was going. It was obvious he hated Heaven for their treatment of him, yet yearned for it and the life he had lost within its pearly gates where nothing went wrong for anyone.

“Sorry,” You said hurriedly. “I didn’t think- uh, nice weather we’re having?”

Lucifer smiled and shook his head. He couldn’t believe you. Only the night before, you had told him to grow up, with such confidence, and now here you were struggling for words. He bypassed the awkward situation with ease by asking, “Will you be visiting the Hotel today?”

“Oh, uh… Maybe. I would like to see everyone again. Check that Nifty hasn’t set anything on fire. Make sure that everything’s okay, and-”

You had been about to mention Angel Dust. Today was one of his work days. You would like to check that he was okay. You didn’t mention him however, with something like a confidentiality clause stopping you, though you weren’t his doctor, nor was he your patient. You didn’t want to talk about his suffering; he was more than his trauma.

Instead, you said, “I would like to check in, but maybe not today. Besides, you’ll be there tonight, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’d like to deliver the news to Charlie personally, and perhaps coach her on some of Heaven’s stricter rules.”

“Then, I think I’ll stay at the manor. I wouldn’t want to step on your toes. You and Charlie- I think you need to catch up a bit, without any interruptions. She missed you, you know.”

Lucifer ruminated on this for a minute. Whatever your motivations, he was glad that you were giving him and his daughter some space. Granted, the Hotel was large enough to house many conversations in separate areas but by making the offer of keeping your distance, you were giving Lucifer some breathing room; that was good.

Had you not made that offer, Lucifer might have brought up the topic of moving you back into the Hotel to Charlie, but in respecting his boundaries, Lucifer was starting to think that you weren’t so bad… for a Sinner.

“I missed her too.”

“Can I ask,” You said hesitantly, “What kept you away so long? You clearly think the world of her.”

Lucifer sighed, and stopped in the middle of the street, “I-”

He didn’t get to explain his absence.

Instead, he became annoyed as two Sinners, one who looked like a nine-year-old boy’s dream with bazooka arms and rocket-infused shoulders, and the other a winged bear-woman wielding a machine gun burst through the building on the opposite side of the road, waging war upon one another.

“SHIT!” You cursed, seeing the debris that threatened to crush a lone imp who hadn’t reacted quickly enough, his leg trapped under the first brick segment that fell.

Reacting quickly, you threw out your arms. A light green barrier shielded the imp from further harm, but you struggled under the weight of so much wreckage.

“MOXXIE!” A female imp yelled, running to him.

You thought she might struggle to lift the wreckage off him and were about to ask for Lucifer’s help before your barrier would inevitably crumble. Yet, the female imp was stronger than she appeared and she threw it off Moxxie. She then lifted him bridal style, and ran from the danger, shooting you a grateful look from across the street.

You gasped and shuddered as you let your arms fall, your barrier fading from existence.

“You shouldn’t have bothered,” Lucifer said as you straightened up.

“What?” You breathed heavily, recovering from the exertion; one of the weakest Demons in Hell, with your limited abilities.

“It was a nice thing to do, but what’s the point? Look around,” Lucifer threw his arms up dramatically. “Someone built something nice, and now it’s gone, all because two Sinners couldn’t take their petty power struggle somewhere else. Nobody benefits from this.”

You opened your mouth to argue but were interrupted by the same two imps you had just saved, “Hey there, I’m pretty sure my husband is delirious right now, but he wanted to come over here.”

“I’m not delirious, Millie,” Moxxie said pointedly, clinging onto her shoulder to support his weight; his leg was in all likeliness broken, but being an imp of Hell, it would heal quickly enough.

Millie looked at him sympathetically, likely thinking something along the lines of, ‘Baby, we’re the only ones on the same side of the street as His Majesty, but do what you gotta do!’

“I must thank you most humbly for your remarkable rescue in my name, good Lady,” Moxxie exclaimed pompously, probably presuming that since you were accompanied by Lucifer you were of a much higher station than you were. “Without you, I would certainly have perished, so I find it an appropriate time to extend my gratitude.”

“He means thank you,” Millie affectionately translated.

“You’re welcome,” You smiled. Then, with a small flourish of your fingers, Moxxie leg was bandaged and he was provided with a crutch to hold onto. You were no healer, but that would help the bone set correctly.

Moxxie and Millie thanked you both again, presuming that Lucifer had been part of the rescue (and in a way he was, for when the warring Demons saw him, they took their battle elsewhere), then they were gone, one limping down the street on his new crutch, and his wife offering to carry him.

“You’re wrong,” You said, once the pair were out of sight. “They benefitted.”

Lucifer didn’t know what to say about that. They were only imps. Why did you think they mattered? Yet, after watching the loving couple thank you for their rescue, Lucifer wasn’t certain that he trusted his assessment of the situation. Charlie wanted to redeem Sinners, you had just saved the lowest of all Hell’s beings and he…? He needed to reassess how he thought about things.

The two of you didn’t speak after that and Lucifer assumed that you were mad at him until you reached Heaven’s Embassy. Lucifer stared at the building, broken and hopeless, thinking about how he would have to fight for Charlie.

He was about to take the first step towards it when you rested your hand on his shoulder.

He stared at you, surprised.

“Good luck,” You proffered sympathetically. Then you walked away, and Lucifer was left staring after you. So, you weren’t mad at him after all. What a curious person you were.

He looked back to the building before him, the one place in Hell that was perfectly pristine, and unable to be harmed by anyone. After a deep breath, he headed inside.

When Lucifer returned home, he was exhausted. The meeting had been lengthy and derogatory. He had been treated with barely disguised disdain and talked in circles, but finally, Heaven had agreed to allow his daughter passage to Heaven.

It was never an option really. As the ruler of a powerful realm, Lucifer had to be treated respectfully, even if all of Heaven hated him. Yet, just because they had to acquiesce to his request didn’t mean they hadn’t tried to talk him out of it. The only good news was that it had been Sera and a few of her assistants who hosted the meeting, not that ignorant prick Adam; Lucifer hated that guy… though his taste in women had always been spectacular.

Still, it had all been worth it when he got to the hotel and Charlie thanked him and invited him to stay for a while. They had caught up over tea, and he had gotten to know a little bit more about her and her relationship with Vaggie. Lucifer likely would have stayed longer seeing as he’d also been invited to games night, but then that red-headed bastard was there, grinning like a Cheshire Cat, and Lucifer had made his reasons to leave.

Now, all he wanted was to recover in peace.

On his way upstairs, he heard the long-neglected TV blaring in one of the living rooms. Feeling somewhat guilty about his unsupportive attitude towards you earlier, he decided it would probably be good for him to make amends and apologise. So, before isolating himself for the evening, he sought you out.  

You were hunched on the sofa, watching 666 News, and grimacing at the new headline, King of Hell’s New Fuckbuddy.

Lucifer stood quietly behind you, watching as Katie Killjoy reported, “While Hell will be royally fucked by the impending extermination it seems that King of Hell Lucifer is being royally fucked by his new bimbo bitch, seen walking with him today on the streets of Pentagram City.”

Security camera footage of you and Lucifer from earlier filled the screen for a minute before returning to the hosts.

“Who is this Sinner? Does Lucifer get off on Angelic clothing? We hope to find out more soon. Over to you, Tom.”

Tom Trench continued the report, much less assuredly than his co-anchor, “Nobody can say for certain they’re together. Some speculate the Demon to be his highness’ new assistant or-”

Katie clutched Tom’s neck in one hand, never looking away from the camera as she cut off his air supply, “Nobody gives a shit about your limp-dick opinion Tom. We’re all here to speculate about who’s raw-dogging who. Now, onto our cooking segment, It’s Dahm Good, with host Jeffrey who is making a delicious spleen soufflé. Jeffrey-”

“HA!” Lucifer laughed, pointing at the TV.

“Shit!” You yelped, lurching forward, having not known he’d returned home. You turned the TV off and stood to face Lucifer.

He was doubled over and wheezing at the idea that you and he would ever be together.

“Well, at least you’re not upset about this,” You grinned, finding his good mood contagious.

“What morons. They’re always just there, assuming the weirdest shit whenever I go out,” He laughed.  

“Yeah? So, it’s okay people know we’re friends?”

Lucifer straightened up with a smile. So, you classed him as a friend? He didn’t confirm or deny your assumption of friendship. He waved his hand, unbothered, “Let them think what they want to think. It’s Hell, nothing matters. Besides, 666 News is trash.”

“Yeah, you’re right. So, how did the meeting with Heaven go? Did they agree to meet with Charlie?”

Lucifer sobered up slightly, though he didn’t seem as upset as he was earlier when Heaven was mentioned, “Yes. The meeting’s in a week. Charlie is- She’s optimistic.”

“And you?”

“I- My girl can handle it.”

“Yeah, she can.”

And so it was that you and Lucifer started to find some common ground, that slowly built the gap from two people who barely knew one another, towards friends.

[ghoulz4foolz]

Drift Playlist

It's been A While, but I completely revamped by Drift playlist. It's in chronological order from Dead End to the end of the events of Lost Light and broken up by time periods/major events. I have lots of notes and explanations for almost every single song under the cut (fair warning it is LONG, so only look at the stuff under the cut if you're interested or you'll be scrolling for a while). Please feel free to chat w me about any of it bc I am so very passionate. Cover art is also mine!

PRE-WAR/DEAD END 1. Bug Like an Angel - Mitski 2. Junkie Church - AJJ 3. Cocaine Jesus - RKS -honestly can also double for when Drift is in exile. I feel like it's super applicable thinking about his friends from Dead End and his general situation, but also later after he leaves the LL and is thinking about Rodimus 4. Camisado - P!ATD -who tf is caring about the guttermechs? Again, this would also be a good Deadlock song 5. Runs in the Family - Amanda Palmer (sorry ik I also hate her) 6. Brand New City - Mitski -what can I say, Megatron gave him purpose DRIFT, MEET RATCHET 7. Wretch - Autoheart -Specifically when Drift meets Ratchet in the Dead End clinic on Rodion 8. Underground - Cody Fry 9. Back To Life - Mother Mother -This feels very.... mmm Dead End to me. Very "fuck you, I'll do what I want" 10. Arms Tonite - Mother Mother 11. LIE WITH WOLVES - The Dogs on Shepard Street -”I’ll see you in my brothers, I’ll see you in the end” -”lie with dogs and you’ll get fleas. Lie with wolves and you’ll get teeth” DECEPTICON DEADLOCK 12. The Killing Type - Amanda Palmer (sorry againnnn) -I know he didn't exactly feel... bad? while he was first joined up. Just indulge me here 13. Cirice - Ghost -Megatron is Very Convincing. I'd revolt too. 14. Washing Machine Heart - Mitski -unfortunately, I read a great fic where Deadlock and Megatron kinda had smth going during the earlier war days and this song just feels Right. -Additionally, fitting for post-exile abt Roddy 15. Nicotine - P!ATD -see above 16. War Pigs/Luke’s Wall - Black Sabbath -”Politicians hide themselves away. They only started the war, why should they go out and fight?” 17. King For A Day - Pierce The Veil 18. Black Sheep - Dorothy 19. Girl is a Gun - Halsey -also one of my Starscream songs 20. Damonisch - TUYU -perfect fast-paced slasher 21. Set Me On Fire - Flyleaf 22. Cocoa Hooves - Glass Animals -cross-faction romance? on my playlist? -"You never fight back"... oh like a Medic? Who's job is healing regardless of alignment? 23. Lay All Your Love On Me - ABBA -see above 24. Headlock - Imogen Heap -”got your heart in a [Dead]lock”? Sorry that was SO cheesy 25. Wolf in Sheep's Clothing - Set It Off 26. Punk Tactics - Joey Valence & Brae 27. Centuries - FoB -oooooh the DJD wants you so bad 28. Little Pistol - Mother Mother -maybe having little change of heart? perhaps getting stuck with the Circle of Light?

FACTIONLESS ON EARTH/WRECKERS TIME 29. Liquid Smooth - Mitski 30. Hungover in the City of Dust - Autoheart 31. Clean - Woolbright 32. Impostor Syndrome - Sidney Gish -I really like the idea he learned a lot abt human culture and racing etc. on Earth. It was probably lonely, but he got a fresh start. 33. Being so Normal - Peach Pit  -Still, it must be hard being so far removed from the settings you've known all your life 34. Daniel In The Den - Bastille -maybe both sides are flawed and people are complicated 35. The Distance - Cake -specifically about his drag racing days, ik it’s a little out of place, but it fits well w the songs after DRIFT DEFECTS/AUTOBOT DRIFT/MTMTE 36. Crusader - Stevie Howie -mmmm yes some good rock 37. Diary of Jane - Breaking Benjamin 38. This Is Why We Fight - The Decemberists 39. Allies or Enemies - The Crane Wives -certainly, he has some conflicting feelings about his new “allies” DRATCHET MTMTE 40. Oxford Blood - Autoheart -ESPECIALLY early Dratchet where they weren't quite together, but they were close pre-EOS 41. Body Terror Song - AJJ -look, ik Drift takes care of himself Now, but he certainly didn't always and I'm sure there was some lasting damage -I also like to hc he kept his 'con claws as a reminder of who he was before. I assume Autbots wouldn't look upon that too favorably 42. A Sadness Runs Through Him - The Hoosier -ooooh Ratchet wants to fix him so bad 43. The Soldiering Life - The Decemberists - I have a LOT to say about this. I know Drift and Ratchet didn't exactly serve together (except kinda in All Hail Megatron). Still, just listen to it and you will Understand. EXILE 44. Which Witch - Florence + The Machine -”I’m on trial, waiting ‘til the beat comes out” -”Who’s a heretic now?” -It's Perfect. you just Know he was mad even with all the other mixed emotions 45. Sucker’s Prayer - The Decemberists -it’s really perfect for this period of time -”I was not ready for the road. I was so discontent to wear that heavy load” -”I wanna love somebody, but I don’t know how” 46. Losing my Religion - REM -oh Boy. Self explainatory. 47. Drop the Guillotine - Peach Pit -thinkin' about how Rodimus sold him out as a scapegoat. Was being captain that important? 48. Working for the Knife - Mitski 49. Cleopatra - The Lumineers -Drift realizing just how much he really liked Ratchet, how they practically started the Conjunx Ritus before he left without even realizing. -Insert Specralist guilt here 50. A Pearl - Mitski 51. Mr. Loverman - Ricky Montgomery

EMPIRE OF STONE 52. Heartbreaker - Autoheart -I'd be pretty emotional too if the person I loved most in the world, who I never confessed to, travelled across space to come bring me back home. Even more so when my Amica didn't even consider it. 53. Drop in the Ocean - Ron Pope 54. Someone To Stay - Vancouver Sleep Clinic 55. Little Talks - Of Monsters and Men 56. Sleep On The Floor - The Lumineers -"leave a note on your bed, let your mother know you're safe" that of write the new CMO a note and go get your soon-to-be husband 57. The Sailor Song -this is my CD/Rewind song, but it belongs here too. 58. Drops of Jupiter - Train -honestly, this is more about Ratchet than Drift, but it felt fitting 59. Fast Car - Tracy Chapman -"Anyplace is better; starting from 0 we got nothin to lose" 60. World War Me - Kind and Queen of the Losers -"so tell me, baby- will you love me if I lose? Will you love me even if I lose?" 61. G.I.N.A.S.F.S. - FoB 62. We Can Build A Fire - Autoheart -”Who in your right mind did you think you’d find- your guardian angel?” -this one was rly hard to place bc it could go so many places POST EOS DRATCHET 63. Benjamin Alphabet - Super Whatevr -healing together takes time and energy! 64. You are the Moon - The Hush Sound 65. Me and My Husband - Mitski -with a positive interpretation, minimal angst intended -even when your best friend writes you off, you'll still always have your grumpy husband 66. Soul Meets Body - Death Cab for Cutie -the Dratchet song ever 67. Sunlight -Spending thousands of years on a war that did nothing but cause pain and suffering really makes a person think about how valuable enduring love and devotion are 68. Female Doctor - Miniature Tigers 69. I’ll Rust With You - Steam Powered Giraffe 70. Laughter Lines - Bastille -this will make me SOB if I think about it too long. GEN/LOST LIGHT 71. Calamity Song - The Decemberists 72. Angel With a Shotgun - The Cab -see Lost Light #1 73. How Far We've Come - Matchbox Twenty 74. Moscow - Autoheart -my Lost Light anthem!! 75. In Our Bedroom After the War - Stars -"at least the war is over" 76. I'm Still Standing - Elton John -boy isn't he 77. I Know The End - Phoebe Bridgers 78. Life Eternal - Ghost -yeah. all of this. 79. Bitter Water - The Oh Hellos

[hummingjay]

Remember Nova and Cicada? Well, here's the team!

Featuring Nova, Cicada, and newer addition Leiden!

Hey look, a cut! There'd BETTER NOT be a wall of text under that thing.

Nova- LSTR

Before working as a Handler, Nova served as demolitions specialist in the Eusan Infantry, doubling as reconnaissance specialist; making for a devastating combination of effectively analyzing enemy encampments before blowing it right to hell. Her skills were viewed as apt and her commanding officers had her transferred to a strike team. She uses a variety of shrapnel, high-explosive, and incendiary grenades during combat, strategically obliterating assets. 

As a SKUA strike team handler, Nova is privileged with the best equipment of the army. Despite this, she only uses this advantage to choose grenades amongst other explosives- using an old bolt-action rifle loaded with simple but effective armor-piercing rounds. She carries a hatchet on her person for survivalist purposes as well as combat. Her armor is unorthodox as well- crafted from recycled steel plates with the help of befriended ARAR units.

Nova has a mischievous, teasing, and nonchalant personality, mixed with a penchant for taking the single most unorthodox method of completing a task. Her methods are officially cataloged as “Odd, concerning, entirely terrifying”. Such methods include driving a captured truck loaded with explosives directly into an enemy convoy, using landmines strapped to the grille to detonate upon impact while using duct tape to hold the accelerator down, as well as dousing a downed tree in gasoline before having cicada throw it an the enemy.

Nova seldom wears her gasmask, only donning it when in the vicinity of hazards or in irradiated areas. She also smokes quite a lot.

Cicada- SKUR

Cicada is the powerhouse of the team. Before now, she worked with two other handlers at differing times, both deceased. Cicada carries a powerful machine gun meant for overwhelming suppressing fire; However, she’s a crack shot and instead uses it to accurately and utterly annihilate the enemy with high-caliber rounds. To complement her HMG, she uses an automatic shotgun for closer ranges. 

She has memorized every weak spot of tanks, IFVs, and other combat vehicles and uses this knowledge to disable them with only a few rounds. Not that it matters at close range, as she can tear open almost any vehicle. She’s also able to stop vehicles in their tracks at high speeds and throw smaller ones, as discovered by imperial soldiers who attempted to crash her. Cicada, despite her terrifying visage and combat skills, is a gentle and caring unit, most fascinated by local fauna and likes watching large herds travel. If she can get close, she’ll try to pet the deer and horses. She’s especially upset that she cannot ride them- but is content with them resting on her instead. Oddly, if she names the fauna, she will give them designations instead of names, such as "D4" for the fourth deer found, stating "It is better they choose their names. "She also has a special interest in flowers, liking to adorn herself with them.

Nova has an affectionate nickname for her: Cica. Leiden calls her Cicada at all times.

Cicada is fond of Ara units especially, as they generally have assortments of flowers and can guide her to where they grow. Whenever they are actually at a camp, Cicada will sometimes gently try to approach them, although the Aras are usually terrified of her- so she will simply hang to the side and leave them on their own most times. She will also sit just outside where the Eules work, so she can listen to them sing. Reportedly, she attempted to sing with them once, and never again, likely due to their reaction.

Leiden- KLBR

Since Nova and Cicada operate well away from Eusan forces for long periods of time; often missing the routine check-ins for Cicadas mental state, ÆON has stationed a kolibri unit with the two for constant monitoring, by the name of Leiden; Thus allowing the team to stay away even longer.

While small, do not underestimate Leiden. Before her restationing as a handler, she served as a brutal interrogator, torturer, and executioner, and is horrifically known for brutal methods and high-efficiency, mixed with a ruthless streak that borders on sadism. Originally stationed at a facility with a distinct lack of Storches, she fulfilled their brutal roles in their stead, discovering a talent for the crafts. What info Nova cannot recover via surveillance, espionage, or stolen documents, Leiden recovers from remaining imperial soldiers. There is only one way to survive Leiden’s interrogations, and that’s to give her what she wants; the truth. She can smell a lie a planet away. Lies only make the torturous onslaught worse- and refusal to divulge only makes it longer.

Unlike Nova, Leiden uses her privileges as a handler to use a high-power Submachine gun loaded with powerful hollow-point long-range fragmenting rounds. She's adept at long ranges and aims for the neck. When needed, she disables targets by aiming for and severing tendons and muscle at the legs and arms, thus leaving them unable to run away or fight but alive for interrogation at a later time. Unlike Nova, Leiden almost constantly wears her gasmask, only adding to her terrifying visage. Leiden is older than she looks, and even before the infantry, served for years as a blockwart officer- though she does not talk of her time there. It is speculated that she had a lover during that time who was lost- most likely a kolibri who was decommissioned or disappeared- she never said- and elected transfer to the infantry of her own volition to escape the memories.

Leiden has numerous scars on the left side of her jaw- allegedly scratch marks from an animal- though this is still more info she does not divulge, and the marks look strangely similar to that from a replika’s hand.

The only soft spots one can find are those for Cicada and Nova. She respects both Cicada and Nova’s prowess in combat. She finds Nova’s good-natured and humorous tendencies to be amusing, and finds Cicada oddly cute for a a 7.5 foot tall behemoth of death, especially when she earnestly asks if she can be excused to pet the deer. Nova likes to call her Lei, and she’s the only one who can do this other than Cicada, who usually just calls her Leiden or Protektor Leiden.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

It's a bit bleak, but its a banger.

+++

If we are to meet our critical moment in history, we need to reckon with the reality that we are not up against adversaries we have seen before. We are up against end times fascism.

Reflecting on his childhood under Mussolini, the novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco observed in a celebrated essay that fascism typically has an “Armageddon complex” – a fixation on vanquishing enemies in a grand final battle. But European fascism of the 1930s and 1940s also had a horizon: a vision for a future golden age after the bloodbath that, for its in-group, would be peaceful, pastoral and purified. Not today.

Alive to our era of genuine existential danger – from climate breakdown to nuclear war to sky-rocketing inequality and unregulated AI – but financially and ideologically committed to deepening those threats, contemporary far-right movements lack any credible vision for a hopeful future. The average voter is offered only remixes of a bygone past, alongside the sadistic pleasures of dominance over an ever-expanding assemblage of dehumanized others.

And so we have the Trump administration’s dedication to releasing its steady stream of real and AI-generated propaganda designed solely for these pornographic purposes. Footage of shackled immigrants being loaded on to deportation flights, set to the sounds of clanking chains and locking cuffs, which the official White House X account labeled “ASMR”, a reference to audio designed to calm the nervous system. Or the same account sharing news of the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a US permanent resident who was active in Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian encampment, with the gloating words: “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.” Or any number of homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s sadism-chic photo ops (atop a horse at the US-Mexican border, in front of a crowded prison cell in El Salvador, slinging a machine gun while arresting immigrants in Arizona …).

The governing ideology of the far right in our age of escalating disasters has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism.

It is terrifying in its wickedness, yes. But it also opens up powerful possibilities for resistance. To bet against the future on this scale – to bank on your bunker – is to betray, on the most basic level, our duties to one another, to the children we love, and to every other life form with whom we share a planetary home. This is a belief system that is genocidal at its core and treasonous to the wonder and beauty of this world. We are convinced that the more people understand the extent to which the right has succumbed to the Armageddon complex, the more they will be willing to fight back, realizing that absolutely everything is now on the line.

Our opponents know full well that we are entering an age of emergency, but have responded by embracing lethal yet self-serving delusions. Having bought into various apartheid fantasies of bunkered safety, they are choosing to let the Earth burn. Our task is to build a wide and deep movement, as spiritual as it is political, strong enough to stop these unhinged traitors. A movement rooted in a steadfast commitment to one another, across our many differences and divides, and to this miraculous, singular planet.

[Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor]

[proustiansleep]

"Cinema appeared first as a particular technology at the end of the nineteenth century; but precisely what it would be used for was not immediately clear. The work, both historical and theoretical, of my friend and colleague André Gaudreault indicates that cinema’s purposes were originally less well defined than were its mechanics. As Gaudreault has shown, cinema as a cultural form emerged gradually from a number of differently defined uses and rather separate cultural series. These include: Marey’s need for a means of recording scientifically the movement of bodies: human, animal, and inanimate; the Lumière’s company’s desire to extend the market and methods of amateur photography; Edison’s attempt to “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear,” that is, follow one successful recording invention with another. Such examples could be multiplied. Clearly defined goals play a lesser role in technological development than we tend to think.

Rather than following a specific plan and defined purpose, the Edison research lab explored various possibilities in materials and methods, often unsure of, or radically revising, their goal as experiments progressed. Research was often not designed to realize a specific project, but to generate projects generally.

As Bernard Stiegler has claimed, understanding technology as simply devising a means to accomplish an end distorts its nature. The technical object itself (and even more an ensemble such as the Edison laboratory) possesses, as Stiegler puts it, a genetic logic of its own, not simply attributable to human intention. We enter here into the understanding of the technical world introduced by Gilbert Simondon in which we seek, as Muriel Combes puts it, “to know the functioning schemas of technical objects, not as fixed schemas but as schemas necessarily engaged in temporal evolution.” In Simondon’s theory of technology we move from the goal oriented use of the tool to the open technological environment of the machine and its ensembles (such as the Edison laboratory, open to new uses and revisions). Thus, cinema with its initial variety of purposes may not be aberrant, but rather exemplary of a Simondon’s view of technical development. “The technical object exists, then, as a specific type achieved at the end of a convergent series.” Thus, the technical object must be understood as more than an inert utensil, a means to a predetermined end. Following Martin Heidegger, Tekhne should be conceived as process of growth and unfolding. This is not to claim that the technological processes that resulted in cinema were in any sense random or irrational, but rather that their ultimate outcomes were not necessarily inscribed or foreseen in their origins." —Tom Gunning, Cine-Graphism : A New Approach To The Evolution Of Film Language Through Technology

[antikittysocial]

looey character analysis because @ko-glitch-101 can't get him out of her brain

A H E M

yapfest alert. watch out.

Alright, let's start off with his in-game ability. "What's that got to do with anything", you say? Abilities often reflect toons' quirks and mindsets, for example Sprout's passive, Gigi's active, Rodger's passive, Shelly's active, Cosmo's active, et cetera.

ABILITY

Looey's ability is that every time he loses a heart, he gains an extra star in speed. I think this was a really great choice when it comes to his character as it combines the fact that he is a balloon and the fact that he does well under pressure. It also reminds me of how he is a performer, and as stated by Yatta, is somewhat a clown, and likely does slapstick comedy, so it could also have been something he did in the case of an onstage accident.

OFFICIAL ART

In his introduction card, looey is shown pointing a finger gun. In his voting icon, he is shown giving a thumbs up. This could possibly be insinuating that he is generally supportive of others, but I might be reading too far into it. It could also be him giving a thumbs up to that card he voted.

DIALOGUES (THE ACTUAL ANALYSIS)

*I am absolutely not screenshotting all those dialogues, so go onto the wiki if you want the full conversations. Sorry, I'm a lazy fuck.

Looey seems to be a generally optimistic guy who sometimes cracks jokes at other toons, for example with Brightney, and asking Finn for puns. He also notably laughs when he's nervous or on edge, and exhibits behaviours common in people with low self-esteem, as well as passive attention-seeking. Although, he can still be silly sometimes, for example with Poppy. Yatta, who is closer to him than pretty much any other toon due to being in the circus troupe with him, is very affectionate towards him, complimenting him back when he says she's doing so much better than him, saying he's doing perfect, and addressing him as one of her two best friends. Though this could be brushed off as Yatta simply liking him a whole lot, when you take into consideration the clear self-esteem issues we'll get to in a little bit and the fact that they're so close, Yatta could very well be so enthusiastic about it because she knows that if she doesn't say it outright, Looey won't actually feel appreciated, and she doesn't want that. Looey also deals with bullying from Shrimpo, where he outright tries to kill him with thumbtacks, shown in his conversations with Poppy and Shrimpo. However, he's not a doormat - denying Tisha's request to tell Yatta to clean her room, not wanting to get involved. He's also generally kindhearted, complimenting Boxten's square head, trying to cheer up Astro, accepting Razzle and Dazzle's request to join in on an act (if he gets permission from Blot and Yatta), offering to be entertainment for Teagan's tea parties and inviting Vee to see an act. He also writes in a diary, as shown in his conversation with Flutter, which is a great way to manage your emotions, and Looey seems to want to keep that fact a secret, so he most likely writes in it for that purpose.

ANGST TIME (GLITCH I SEE YOU RUBBING YOUR HANDS TOGETHER LIKE THOSE FLIES BEHIND THE SCREEN /j)

Looey laughs when he's nervous quite often, such as in his conversations with Rodger, Shelly, Sprout and Vee, and when he finishes a machine. In his conversations with Sprout and Rodger is where the attention-seeking behaviour shows itself, where with Sprout he asks if he really has to take care of EVERYONE'S health, to which Sprout's protective little brain of course responded with yes, and Looey states that he wouldn't want to be a waste of something, which we don't know exactly what since he gets cut off but we can assume it's materials, and Sprout says he's never a waste of anything, and with Rodger he asks Rodger if he would be able to do anything about it if he were feeling under the weather, and Rodger replies that it would depend on what was bothering him. Looey responds with silence, and Rodger tries to get his attention back, to which Looey deflects the concern and Rodger assures him he's there if he needs him. Both of those starting questions from Looey are a bit attention-seeking, as they both warrant a concerned response. He also deflects compliments, which is a behaviour common amongst people with low self-esteem. Yatta, though, encourages him to take compliments.

that's all I managed to extract ba dum tss so uh yeah ✨️✨️✨️

[villainintern]

🕱🕱 At UNDERHAND INCORPORATED, the world's leading supervillain corporate conglomerate, networking opportunities are many. Recruit henchmen, make enemies, forge tenuous friendships, and always be sure to collect blackmail. Just in case. ____________________________________________________

YOUR FELLOW INTERNS:

PETER HYDE interns for human resources, although he might not be totally human. Your cubicle neighbor is a geeky slack-off who (unlike you) doesn't really want to work here, but for some reason he's unable to quit. Laid-back, conflict avoidant, and generally easy to manipulate, he’s easy minion material- but his attitude belies a volatile, monstrous secret. Which can be a great asset or a major risk, depending on if you can maintain your control over him.

Appearance: Pale skin, black hair that always escapes his gel, earnest brown eyes rimmed with the harrowed look of someone who stares at screens all day. 6'5" but embarrassed about being tall, so he leans on stuff and slouches in chairs. Usually wearing cheap office attire and a novelty tie.

🫀Likes: Cozy furnished basements. Free flash computer games. Taking on a whole rotisserie chicken solo. 🚫Dislikes: Working overtime. Falling behind on payments. The bottomless, gnawing hunger.

"Tropes": Codependent coworkers, boss-henchman. Genuine friends somehow? More?

REID/RENEY SULLIVAN (gender selectable) is your nemesis, or at least they think so. An interning hero (at the rival hero company) with impressive telekinetic powers, they are nonetheless as much of an amateur as you, and so you find yourself on even footing with one of the most promising superheroes in the business. Earnest and witty, they genuinely just want to help people. Eventually, they become fixated on “figuring you out”, which can lead to them getting sucked into your schemes. That, or their meddling could be your downfall. Worst of all, they might even succeed in reforming you.

Appearance: Black skin and hair, styled into many twists that fall at different lengths around their face. Lithe, stringy runner's build. Expressive brown eyes, a wide, endearingly uneven smile.

🫀Likes: Doing good in the world. Veggie pizza. Playing smash bros with siblings. Maybe you, despite all their better instincts. 🚫Dislikes: You. The level of control their employer exerts over them. Skinny jeans.

"Tropes": Enemies to worse. Reluctant allies, bantering. Intimately charged hand-to-hand combat. Suddenly realizing your sworn nemesis is the most important and constant figure in your life.

T9-670 is a seven-foot tall ex-war machine, now interning with UnderHand's tech support department. Once a military member conscripted to the company's private security decal, its contract didn’t end when it died- the soldier’s brain was transplanted into a humanoid steel frame. T9 is doing some soul searching- it’s not totally sure if it even has one left, but it would like to have a purpose beyond fixing printers and mowing down UnderHand’s enemies with its plasma gun.

Appearance: T9's new mechanical body is imposing but graceful, made of smooth, interlocking steel. Its "face" is a rounded plate of dark glass. Small tubes connect to the back of its neck, carrying fluid to the brain through its artificial spine.

🫀Likes: The beautiful, almost organic curves of highway overpasses. 🚫Dislikes: Being unable to eat. It misses carbs.

"Tropes": Big huge strong shiny robot.

ELAINE FOSTER is an up-and-coming mad scientist interning as an assistant in the tech support laboratories. Although a genius prodigy, Foster otherwise has no superhuman abilities, which causes her to be overlooked by your superiors- as a result, she's become fixated on getting that elusive promotion. Exacting, calculating, and a little maniacal, Foster doesn't dole out her respect easily. But if she sees you making smart moves, you'll find her a very competent collaborator.

Appearance: Pale skin and frizzy, near-white blonde hair. Sharp, elegant, shrewd face. Grey eyes behind narrow cherry red cat-eye glasses. She usually wears her lab gear: the signature high collared white coat, black vinyl boots and gloves.

🫀Likes: A strong cup of green tea. A well-tailored pair of dress pants. Mugler, her pet lab rat. 🚫Dislikes: Temperatures above 68 degrees. Willful imbeciles. Being condescended to.

"Tropes": Icy exterior, rivals, lab partners in crime, the chemistry that comes from bonding over your obsessive shared career passions.

BLINK is technically unemployed, a rogue villain or vigilante, depending on who you ask. Completely anonymous, they wear a unique suit of tactical gear that allows them to turn completely invisible, the first of its kind. Quippy, chipper, and sauntering, Blink is an invisible superhuman that loves the spotlight- a walking contradiction. Their motives are as obscure as their identity, but they sure seem to interfere with your missions a lot. Are they sabotaging your goals, or do theirs align? Do they just like following you around? ...are they following you right now? You're pretty sure you're alone. The hallway is dead silent. And yet...

Appearance: There's no way to know. Even when they're visible, Blink is covered head to toe in tactical gear, and they seem very cautious about keeping their face concealed. It's almost like they have something to hide from you, personally.

🫀Likes: Assassinating crooked politicians. Steel-toe boots. Invisibly entering people's houses just to see what it's like in there. 🚫Dislikes: Motion sensing doors.

"Tropes": Secret identity, watching you through their sniper scope and kicking their feet around like a schoolgirl.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Four new Warzone Distro zines.

1. The Anarcho-Primitivist case for Straight Edge: Against His-Story, Against Alcoholocaust!

“The foundations of colonial genocide bear the stench of a long and protracted alcohol induced nightmare — nearly every indigenous culture the Europeans encountered was destroyed by European alcohol and disease. The spreading of firewater among indigenous populations of North America went hand-in-hand with the distribution of lethal smallpox-infested blankets. Many of these cultures, without the experience of thousands of years of civilized alcoholism to draw upon, were even more subject than the Europeans to the ravages of “the civilized brew.” Between alcohol, disease, commerce, and guns, most of them were quickly and utterly destroyed. This process was not unique to North America — it was repeated throughout the world in every European colonial endeavor. While the drug of choice varied (sometimes it was opium, for example, as in the “Opium Wars” Great Britain waged to control China), alcohol was judged in many countries to be the most socially-acceptable tool of pacification.”

2. More Than Just a Diet: A Conversation Between Warzone Distro & the Susaron 4

“…precisely what strongly motivated our actions as a group, was the dissemination of that message, somewhat diluted by time: The war against existence from an anarcho-nihilist perspective, fervently anti-speciesist and straight edge. Which to our taste fulfilled its purpose, since these discussions happened again as a result of the action and our subsequent arrest. And consequently; constant elaboration of propaganda material referring to our ideological thinking. Which gives us the desire to refloat within future generations these incendiary ideas, which have no intention of making peace or negotiation with the enemy. Be it the animal exploitation industry or any other authority that may seek to impose itself on us…

…Regarding the straight edge concept; we have always seen as essential the care of our body as a temple and as a channel of direct confrontation. And likewise refusing the brutal control exercised by the state and its tentacles through drugs. Ruining entire generations of rebels because of it. And it does not fit in our concept of opposition to all exploitation and apparatus of domination, that by our own complacency and mental weakness we are subjugated through substances made to appease the discontent and collapse. And as anarchic-nihilists we understand our body and mind as the only thing we own and our main weapon.

…many generations of young insurrectionists have been lost in the mental and physical deterioration generated by the web of drugs and their slow and camouflaged intrusion into the lives of those who begin to consume them, especially individuals prone to depression. This dramatically undermines the power of resistance movements that require people committed and prepared for the challenges involved in fighting such a giant and finely tuned machine as the reigning structure of domination.”

3. Burn Down The Animal Pharm By Lint Lobotomy

Various writings by Lint Lobotomy covering a wide range of topics from veganism, straight edge and anti-civilization!

4. Hygiene: Washing and Brainwashing

This zine critically examines the origins of being “clean”

All zine pdfs are free to print.